THE Reformer racked: AND HIS CONFESSION.  
OR, Some Observations upon the keeping the Thirtieth of January, and Twenty Ninth of May, considered: In a brief reflection on the Principles of his Party in general, with some digressive Touches upon the Author's Notion of those anniverssaries.  
To which is added, A New Discovery of Old England: Written and privately Printed in the Time of Oliver's Usurpation.  
Did I not more consider my subjects Satisfaction than mine own Vindication, I should never have given the Malice of some Men that pleasure, as to see me take notice of, or remember what they say, or object. I would leave the Authors to be punished by their own evil Manners, and seared Consciences.  {αβγδ}. p. 118. 
LONDON: Printed, and are to be sold by Randal tailor near Stationers-Hall, 1694.   

THE Reformer racked: AND HIS CONFESSION.  
THE strained weaknesses and fulsome unbecomingnesses of Codrus's Verse, must heighten the true Poet's Indignation; the very recital of them must whet his Noble Anger, and set a steeling Edge on the bluntest Ingenuity: So the slavering Wit of a Novice, a Bavius or Maevius, hath been treated with nothing but Sarcasm and satire, Scorn and Proverb. As the Fooleries of Love, and the womanish Flatteries of Poetasters, have been always unsuccessful and contemptible, and ridiculous in an undegenerate Age of masculine virtue; so the Smatterers in controversy, and the unmanly poornesses of trifling Malice, or Presbyterian Cant, are not like to have better Fate, or hope to escape the Lash and Baffle of a Church-of-England-Pen. How often the Non-con's have been encountered by our irrefragable Clergy, in Debates of this Nature, viz. Whether our Church-Ceremonies were superstitious relics of Popery, absurd, and not to be endured? p. 2, 3. Whether Ecclesiastical Laws and Ordinances be Obligatory, or mere Human Invention, inconsistent with Christian Liberty, and are pure Will-Worship? p. 30, 32, 33. Whether the setting apart some Days for holier Use and Service, is a Branch of Heathenism or Popish Idolatry? And appointing anniverssaries, Festivals and Fasts upon any Man's Account be Blasphemous, and derogatory to the Authority of the Lord of Sabbath? p. 27, 28, 29. themselves may remember who always came off with the Foil; and methinks they might have learned from the Wraftling of Lincolns-Inn-fields, or from shane, to have desisted, and flung off the Belt: But here's a doughty Antagonist hath a mind to Dispute it again, though he be sure to be worsted for his pains, and thrown out in the struggle: It is the Nature of a Fool-hardy Fellow, and more becoming Dick the Butcher than one of the Sober-Party, to run the risk of a dozen broken Heads before he will lay down the Cudgel. I may relate, but never hope to Decide or Quell their refractory Animosities; and truly to recite all their Bear-Garden-Adventures against our Church, and their snarling Cavils against her Holy Sanctions and Wise Constitutions, would show the Reader how great a mind they have to make Schism but a more sanctified Sport, and to remove the Royal Diversions of Bull-Baiting and Bear-Baiting into the House of God. Those who Foster up Lion's Whelps and Foxes Cubs of Division within the Grates of their own Breasts, can as easily with the favour of the State and Press, turn the Temple of the Lord into an Amphitheatre of wild Divinity and savage Christianity, as transmography St. Paul's into a Stable, and make it a Den of Filthiness and Horse-dung. The Levitical Augaeus was resolved to make Superstition stink, though his own practise smelled strong of Bestiality for't; and surely he cannot call this a sweet Revenge upon Rome, when he must necessary hold his Nose for the Ho-go and Brutishness of his own Actions, and only Snivel out his hateful, hoggish, and nasty Reformation. Well then; Vexatus toties with Geneva-rant or Aetnean Eruptions and Distractions at home, I must now break out into Juvenal's nunquamne reponam? Justice and Charity let the Author of those reproachful Observations upon the Martyrdom and Restauration, expect from an injured Loyalist and a disturbed Privado. He deserves to be answered with the Severity of Truth and Law; his Billingsgate Scold and raillery against our Pious Solemnization of a Fast and a Thanksgiving; the former upon a most dreadful and doleful, the latter upon a most joyful Account, requires the deepest Stab from a poyniarding Scurrility: He is troubled with that Distemper, the Choler of a passionate Folly, and Spleen of Malice, which Lenitives cannot Cure, and no Remedy can be worse than his Disease. If there be any secular Care of the sceptre, if any pious regard for the Mitre, if there be any Security of their present Majesties, if any just yearly Tribute of streaming Tears be payable to the Blessed Memory of Massacred Charles, if any Anniversary Mean for a Cannibal-barbarity, and the most Capital and Unpardonable Offence to Majesty above our Terrestrial Turf, if any sincere Lamentation be due to the Funeral of a Martyr, if Oblivion must not shade his Hearse, if we must not Rhodomontade Heaven with our Innocence and Impunity in the matter, if we must not think to Trick and Bilk God's waking Vengeance, as a Cullied Coachman is sometimes served: If our Hymns and Songs of ecstasied Joy for those eminent Mercies and Blessings of God conferred on us in returning us King Charles II. again to the fade of a flourishing Usurpation, must not cease in our Choires: Then my Author's leaf● may Commence a Sacrifice e're long to Love and Loyalty, Honour and Honesty, Courage and Constancy in Palace-yard. Himself may save his Bacon, but the flamme perhaps will sing and smoke him a little, and J. G. G. will smell of Rank Faction and antimonarchical Burnings: It was a bold Stroke of some disaffected Poet or other to Acumen his Epigram thus upon the Pastoral Letter: Proh pia pompa rogi! proh gloria funeris! author Non meruit fato Nobiliore mori. That was too hard upon the Fanaticks, and the Sting is too sharp for my Author's thin skinned Conscience. The Waggish Jacks were at that time mightily taken with the Pun, Burn-it, Burn-it, in Rythm to its Author, and thought I'll warrant ye, it hit Oliver a notable Box on the Ear for his Magna Charta, Magna Farta: But his Dissentership hath not been the subject of one Oxford Jest or Laughter yet, nor of a Parliamentary Curiosity and Criticism; to his chief Credit and Repute be it spoken. Revenge and Tears must burst hence from a compassionate and vexed Soul: The one to stop his foul Mouth against our Church appointment, and the Dead, which common Civility to a departed Soul might have done; and the Gag of licencing one would have thought, might have silenced the notoriousest untruth, and disingenuousness to both: The other to quench a flagrant combustion and glowing discontent, which no doubt the Incendiary thinks he hath sufficiently fired under the Mitre; our Guy may fancy he hath kindled Powder enough to Blow up a Thousand Churches that stand in his way of leveling, or give a Rub to his Confusion-stratagem, and to make King Charles the First's Sacred Ashes to Caper in the Air, to blacken his embalmed Memory, or to Snuff a Stink of it into the Nostrils of Mungril-Loyalists, as much as Hellish Aspersions can Nauseate. His intentions surely Dance after Jack-Presbyter's merry Bagpipe, to the Tune of Beheading, Demolishing, Sacrificing, and all the ings and twangs of Clashing Destruction in the established Church and State. No question but this new fiddling Modeller hath promised himself to Screw up his Humanity and Christian Goodness to a higher Pin, to a loftier Cut-throat Elah; and if times would serve his turn, to change this Fast into a Festival: If his Dissenting Discord and Schismatical Squeak would take, and tickle the Asses Ear to his Auditory, 'tis across and Pile whether the sweet Tantony-Pig-Israelite, would not leave his Whining Raptures, and Braying in Predestinarian Ecstasies, and then Sing us a joyful elevated Venite, Exultemus, instead of a sobbing Air, sad Obit, or mournful Ditty( as p. 22. he hints, our Psalms and Matins upon this occasion, are no Holier than Balladingstuff, or Bell-man's Anthem) for the horrid, barbarous, and deplorable murder of our most Gracious, Learned, Pious KING. This is he that would Hallelujah his God for the most execrable villainy on the Thirtieth of January; and Veil White-Hall with a Mourning and Sable Hue, Weep, and bewail with a disconsolate Humiliation, the happy and peaceable Restoration on the Twenty Ninth of May. This is he that would have adorned the temples of that Head which the Predecessors of his Jack-Catch-Kidney cut off with bays, and have traped King Charles the seconds Equipage with Cypress, Owling with the hideous Screeches of Grief, that he should survive the Fate of a Martyr, or return in the Triumph of an Unanimous Joy, State, and loud Huzzahs of his Welcoming Subjects. His whole Drift centers, either totally to subvert our Ecclesiastical Government, or at least to invert the Decent Order and Religious Administration of it; and I cannot solve this Knot or Dilemma, whether he would throw the Church out at the Windows, or turn her admirable, not( as in his good natured Reveries and Enthusiastick Convulsion) superstitious Constitutions topsy turvy, like Passus's Picture of the Horse in Lucian, with its Heels up-bank; for he is very Angry that the People should be so much Priest-ridden, p. 9. It is a monstrous Imagination, or wonderful Fancy of his, to represent the Vicar and his Parishioners as one great incorporated Centaur. 'tis storied that Vannini had a wicked Design of insinuating that there was no God, by his weak proving that there was One; and of propagating as well as confirming Atheism, and a disbelief of a Deity, by his slender Arguments alleged for its Being and Existence: Our Pamphleteer is much in the same Predicament with this sly Pernicioso, though with a different Design perhaps; for he hath done his good Old Cause infinitely more hurt than good by his impertinent Ramble, and Cobweb-reasoning, which may Catch Flies, some silly bigoted Zealots; but a Hornet must presently break through it, and the People of stronger Sense and abler Learning it can never hold or ensnare: He hath taken a World of pains to Spin out the thread of a senseless as well as breathless Discourse to inodiate our Reformation; but I must add to no greater purpose than to show us in effect, what Weak Hinges the Bosom-principles of their beloved dissension, Singularity, and Peevishness do turn. My Author's dissembling Innuendo's of his Charity, in acknowledging that the Fact was an Horrid murder, Execrable, as Black as Words can make it, p. 1. can be no Blind of his Obloquy and Calumny to the Eye of the unprejudiced World, after I have unmasked his Countenancing of it, set his traducing indignities against the solemn Commemoration of it bare-faced, unclothed the Wolf, and shown his true Complexion; for I protest, he is an ugly-squinting-wide-mouth'd Fellow, as ever I met with in all my Pamphleteering Travels. Herein he deals with the Martyr like schoolboys; first he strokes his grave Beard, Memory, and future Glories, declaring p. 3. That he believes God shewed him Mercy; that the taking away his Life was an ill thing; and that the loud and crying sin of Blood-guiltiness defiles a Land: He might have said, defiled this Land. But afterwards he is a Rogue and a Rascal, Arraigned by him as a Malefactor, and Justice was executed upon the Guilty: Just so they Flauche and Cully their School-Fellows for a piece of Apple, or a play-thing: He's very apt, and hath his Accedence at his Fingers-ends; and in the unsuccessful Event, they tell him he's a Jackanapes, and a Blockhead. How much Dust was beat out of the Cushion at St. Mary le Bow the last Thirtieth of January to sully the Face of the Martyr's Government, some of the August Assembly may be Conscious, if the Chair be Oblivious. With what a deal of irreverend Dirt was his fallen Crown bespattered; such usage a disaffected Gentleman, or perjured Villain, may meet with from the Hands of the tenderhearted Mob; and it is merciful enough if the latter does not pay the Excise of his Ears too: But would one have thought such Kennel-indignities and Reproach, the very Ammunition of the Streets could be spewed up from the Mouth of a Man of God, on a sovereign, whose Fall and Dissolution was Violent, inhuman, Unnatural: His Sermon's foul, and false Aspersions sound more like the Accents of Rotten Eggs than the rhetoric of a Divine's Compassion, or the humbling Oratory of a Pulpit for a Sin that is not yet Dumb, but still groans out, and pronounces Wo unto us Achitophel's, that we have sinned, and us Shimei's, that without remorse we still Curse the King. Let me Query with him in his own phrase; Did that Prince hazard his Crown, not out of Charity to relieve his Country, but from a desire to oppress it, and so died the Martyr of his own Folly? p. 2. Was his decollation a judgement brought upon him by his own Sins? p. 2. Was his practise, or Course of Justice like Jehoiakim's, which brought Ruin upon his own House, Misery upon his Kingdom, and Infamy upon his Name; insomuch that we ought by God's own Example, to forbid any Lamentation for his Death, or decent Burial to be bestowed on his Body? p. 9. Were Flatterers and Parasites his favourites; or did he Crumble his People into Factions? Did that good and peaceable Josiah whet the Anger of Judah against Benjamin, or Benjamin against Judah? Was Sycophantry or Tumultuary Broils his Delight, or those Sins which were the Natural and specific Causes of that respective Punishment; or if I do not wrest his Sense, Was he a Monarch easily gullified, and ought to have had his Head in his Hand for being so? p. 4.17. Did he aspire to an Arbitrary or despotic Tyranny, which began those Complaints, Heats, and Tumults in the Hearts of his Subjects; or was that Spark innocently and excusably kindled, which set the Nation on Fire, and which nothing but the Blood of their King could Extinguish? p. 22. This Point in former controversy, hath been so clearly given and determined against Mr. St— n's Sentiments, that Ben Johnson's Inigo Lanthorn's, squeaking it is not so, in a Dispute with his Puppet in a Bartholomew-Fair, may be a very satisfactory and decisive Answer here. My Application of his hints is proper and natural, else he flourishes up a Discourse into ideas of Scripture, and to apply them to any other times than those Chronicled of Josiah, is to Wiredraw them; and then the Anniversary Occasion is merely Notional and Chimerical, meaning no more of King Charles's Death, than of Sancha Pancha's being tossed in a Blanket: Therefore whether he had rather be censured for impertinency and shuffling off the solemn occasion, and the Injunction of Holy Church; or Calumniating and maligning that princes Actions, I leave him to choose: To play fast and loose with his Function, perhaps may be his interest, and interest his Oracle. His Living may be his Delphos, and Pluralities his Tripos, which the powerful rhetoric of Satan staggers the Conscience to preserve, as the Devil acted in defence of his Oratory, when he raised a Tempest of Sand, and choked those Persians therewith who were sent to drawn the Temple of Jupiter Ammon, Ra. Hist. p. 384. What a noise of late, Pulpit-thumping hath made on Holidays, set times of Festivity, Fasts, and all solemn Occasions, to deafen us that we should not hear the Sobs, Shrieks, and Sighs of a languishing and sinful Nation? What Odiums and Disparagement have been Pamphleted from the Press upon that King's Prudent Administration of Affairs, which had winded up both Church and State to an Eternal Settlement, if Matchivilian Statesmen, and new Projectors of a Hydra-headed Government had not unraveled the whole Clue, to conduct themselves through the Labyrinth of their own crooked Fancies and Novelties, to King the Mobile or Multitude, and Crown their sovereign Lord the People? And all this is harangued to depreciate the guilt of imbruing our Hands in the Blood of God's Vicegerent, by vilifying his Reason and Honour as a Man, his Religion and Virtues as a Christian, and his Goodwill and Justice to his Subjects as a King: For verily to retort Mr. St— n's own Words, with a little variation upon himself: He, while he seems to bewail the Wound, seems also to justify the Hand that Struck and gave it; or at least, not to be over-passionately concerned for his Death.  
This Digression is pardonable in all the Rules of Complaisance; for now I have shook Hands with my Author's Cousin German, and( may it please his Eldership) would it not have been Rude not to have passed a compliment on so near a Relation of his by the way?  
However, let me avoid the wonted Fatigue and Prolixity of the Brothers of the Cloak, and the Cheveril-lung'd Tediousness of the Brawlers of the Amsterdam-Cut and Querpo, while I study Brevity; and I must Preface thus much to my Reader, that my intended Aim is as much to tread Antipodes to their long-windedness, as to their mischievous politics; though to Counter-policy their plotting Policies, to Countermine their undermining Wheedle, Juggle, and Dark-Lanthorn-Contrivances against Kingly, as well as Church-Power, was a Task worthy a Man of Letters and Piety, a Province worthy Dr. Nalson. The obscure Stratagems of Tub-arians I hate, since GOD hath said Fiat Lux. How they have maliced us, and tricked us, one while Acting Comedians in Religion, and Frothing Jack-Puddings Banter upon us; another while acting in good earnest Tragedians in Justice, dear-bought Experience hath taught us; and whereas not only the freedom and quiet, but the advancement of Presbytery to a topping Pitch, is the Mark which their Consciences, bent to the highest, shoot at, it will be no rash Confidence, or shrewd Conjecture in me to assign their Charity, Justice, and Truth no other Being, like the Philosophers Hircocervus, or first matter, but in Terms.  
I am amazed at the Negligence or Supineness of our most Orthodox Clergy at this Juncture; certainly they are not wrapped up in Gown and Cassock for Sleep and Repose: Were they the greatest Lurdans, methinks the Bawl of unlearned Opinions, and Scandalous both to the Palace and See, lately broached on the Thirtieth of January, might have awakened them into a Militant Vigilance before May, and roused the Levitical Slug from Ease and Idleness, to have defeated the illiterate Force of a few Presbyterian scribblers, before they should Form a more Numerous and Formidable Rapparism; if their Mobility once get a Head, it will be hard to disperse them: If an Enemy is suffered to come in upon us, he may easily wrestle us into his Mercy, and the Melancholy Stander-by, may see us thrown at their Will and Pleasure into Socinianism, Arianism, Anabaptism, Calvinism, Common-wealthism, or any other Heretical-ism, to the utter Abolition of our Communion, or downfall, ruin, and Rubbish of the Fundamentals as well as Ceremonies of our Religion and Devotion. With Joy and Congratulation I allow the great Daniel B— s,( his God's mighty intimate and Chrony, or Election-Huckster to his Cullied Disciples, for having made them Cry with the hard words of Hell and Damnation, he Spices their Tears with softer Language, and Sugar-plumbs the Whimpering Elect into Patience) the Liberty of Conscience; but let our Bishops and Pastors look to it, whether he, or some of the same Herd with that Bell-wether of Schism, makes Conscience of that Liberty. I do not deny those Spirits of Faction, the gracious and pacificatory Favour of the State; for that Power can only exorcize, or lay the Legion thus: But then let their Preachments move within their own Orb, and the Sweet-Singer-of Israel Humm and buzz within his own Sphere, and Sternhold it no further; for when an ambitious Genius, and a hot, aspiring, and flaming persuasion is emboldened, or hurried aside into an eccentric Motion, it is dangerous, and must, with Partridges leave, presage a Civil Combustion; and by the courteous Condescension of a State-Prophet, or Chimney-Augur, must foretell a smoking disaster, and doleful Eclipse of the Radiant Meridian Lustre of the Gospel that shines now among us only with refracted Beams in England. Must we give ground to these Onsets though they be Frivolous? What a little scar or flaw in the Face hath turned to a Canker, so that Incisions, Amputations, and all the Skill of Chirurgery could not work the Cure? Must we give way to the Accomplishment of these deplorable gulfs or Chasms, and not retard the great Ends of little sly Designs? Trivial and Pigmy-means have executed the vastest and most Giant-intentions: And the most insignificant Creature a Pismire, could vent it's Spleen upon the Eagle's Eggs, even in Jupiter's Lap; we have the Moral here. Must we finally retreat into Silence? I hope it is but to Rally with powerfuller stress of Argument and Confutation; insomuch, that our Faithful Clergy in a total Rout of the Achilles, and all his Myrmidon's or Emmets of Presbytery, may be crwoned with the Trophies of Unity, Amity, Uniformity, and the Blessing of Peace; or, if this be too Hostile an Alarm, may they give 'em a more amicable battle, and Accept the Dissenters, those Banditi, Moss-Troopers, and Rapparees of Religion, their Overtures or Capitulations for surrendering themselves honourably to our Conquering Communion and Winning Liturgy. Then may Whig and Tory Kiss each other, and Righteousness and Peace will flourish in our Land. My greatest Utinam is, that I were able to Book that Glorious Pacificatorium, or happy Eirenicon in these distracted times, which might universally reconcile our differences, and heal our Breaches beyond Festering or Relapse.  
Upon these Considerations, I could not hold from wagging my Finger in this Quarrel; I have only played the Scout, I confess, and  told the Army of our Church of the approach of an Enemy: surprise is half a Victory. Though it be not the Province of a Lay-Man, yet may it Excite and Fan some Nobler Soul in our Hierarchy, to Breath out a warmer Discourse upon this topic. What other Character can be given of the Capricio's, Ignorance, Self-conceit and Love, Presumption and Bigotry of our Dissenting Brethren, but that they shufflle and pack all Religion and secular Rule up into singular chimeras, subtle Maggoticism, zealous frenzies or Whimsies, and have Cynical-Gnostical ideas of Temporal and Spiritual Regimen. They are industriously busied Tooth and Nail, Pen and Tongue-concerned for a regulated Employment, and a just or holy Exercise of Gown and Sword; but then all is huddled together, Omnium gatherum, into Confusion and Barbarism; and all our Chronicles can aver, how at last they were fain to leave the Reformed hodge-podge they had made of Church and State in an indigested and chaos'd humblejumble.  
It is not long ago since our Nation was uncrowned, unmanned, and I may say, unchristianed too, and in a manner dis-elemented by those Brick-layers of Babel: The wisest of our Forefathers foresaw clearly then( and pray what should Infatuate or Blind their Progeny?) that it was too weighty a Work for a Hub-bub of Massanello's, or Mob of mechanics, to New-vamp Monarchy and Episcopacy better. They aimed at something, but the Lord knows what; for we had like to have disappeared, and Vanished into the Old Nothing and Disorder; yet at long-run, nothing but the Restoration of Majesty in Misery and Exile, or a joint Monarchical and Episcopal Fiat could reduce the City and Countrey's Tolly-Polly, hoite cum toite-management of Affairs, exotic and domestic Commerce, Protection, Subjection, Liberty, and Property, to pristine Beauty and Form: And He being Dead, yet speaketh, and most truly divined, That GOD would not suffer those long to prosper in their Babel, who Builded it with the Bones, and Cemented it with the Blood of their Kings, p. 241. {αβγδ}. Now what would these Mole-workers be at throwing up Dust and Mould in their Gracious Majesties Vineyard, to put out the Eyes of Justice in their Courts,( which for another reason, the Smart whereof such Eye-sores deserve to feel, is painted Blind) and of Religion, Conscience, and Prerogative in their Cathedrals? How unable are the Arts and Abilities of Handicraft, the sagacities of the Fraternity of the sanctified Awl or Louse-stabbing-launce, the Qualifications of Religious Button-makers, and the Wits of the Company of inspired Manufacturers, to New-model this Illustrious Government to compleater Perfection, or Consummation of Glory and Renown? In short, we are pestered with a Crowd of busy-bodies, who are minded to Sow all the Tares they can in the Kingdom, and put us to the trouble of Weeding: Or, like monkeys, that steal away when they have broken those Glasses they cannot mend again, they do all the Mischief and havoc in the power of a hurly burly, fomenting Jealousies, pikes, and Murmurings, and at last slingingly Sneak into an Auger-hole, Coblers-stall, or Loom-shop.  
'tis true of the urgers of Tub and Table-end Controversies what was otherwise applied, that they are the Phaetons of Mankind, who Fire that Nation which they would seem by their spiritful Emotions and Haranguing Heats but to Warm. And sincerely I cannot esteem them the best affencted People to this present Government, since, when their Republican Zeal is inflamed into Revenge, what can quench it, but the Blood of an Archbishop, and their King too: If their privileges, enclosures, communities, immunities, or Libertinism be entrenched upon; if their Copyhold is touched never so slightly, like Tinder they take, and some of them have owned with abundance of Scotch-Eloquence, what Incentives have been ingled to them. Vid. Scot. Presb. Eloq. No Bishop, no King, is a Maxim might be written in indelible Purple, or never to be forgotten Characters of Gore in the politic Diary of every British sovereign. There are a sort of Antish Men always Piquing at the Bishops; They must not be the King's Creatures, p. 17. The Royal Ear must be Deaf to all humble Addresses, but their own Clamorous, Treacherous, and Judas-salutes or compliments; whereas I never knew them Minions or Tools of Government, but Episcopacy Nodded, and Monarchy was Crushed with its Fall, and Crumbled into a Democracy, or Committee of the least Safety and Preservation of public Good.  
It is by these steps that Old Arts advance and picqueer to our Dementation and Overthrow; when Envy and Haughtiness seek innovations by Faction, and publish their inward frettings and gallish Commotions against the Annual Commemoration of the Notorious Murder of a Prince, have a care of dis-robing Majesty again, and bringing it in Presbyterian Pomp to the Block: An English Monarch should by a kind of Royal Sympathy, Tremble, Shrink, and Spurn; and his Crown Totter at the approach of a Regicide: And if Ludlow tread near upon the Heels of Regal Power or Presence, it is pity but he had his Teeth or Brains dashed out of his Head for his murdering Audacity. Such Villains have Scaffolds erected in their Breasts, and if Colour and Occasion offer themselves fairly, they are presently screwed up before Whitehall-gate too: Some of the same 48-Coyn-Impostors, and Rebellious Traytors, could with Heart and Hand Prologue to the like Bloody Tragedy anew, under the gulling Pretence of reforming Religion and Policy, and God knows in what King's Reign we might sing the Epilogue or Chorus the Exit. I much question whether the Axe be yet laid aside since my Author would have us to forget and forgive that fatal Blow before time hath rusted the Weapon that gave it, and made us all truckle to Cruelty and a State of Force, as if the Loyal Cavaliers had all had but one Neck, and Nero had executed his Wish: And does he crotchet that five and forty Years are sufficient to staunch the Issue or Sea of that Royal Blood? My Veins tell me without Lunacy, it still flows upon this Nation, and threatens it with a deluge of Destruction; and what can keep it at an Ebb, or divert the Menaces of Calamity from inundating upon us, but Fasting and Prayer? What can stem it but the exorated Mercy of an Almighty? Does he think Christianity, and the memory of his Decollation ought to have expired with the King on the Theatre of his Death, or that the Sin crying for Vengeance, and no sooner committed, but recorded in the Rolls of an Omnipotent Fury, should be staged over only in show, and no better than a Play-house-reality? Ought GOD's Anger and his Princely Innocence to have been butted together in the Grave of an ignoble Oblivion? How should we wipe off that slain of so deep a die, when the Abettors of that Murder lewdly touch his sacred Tomb, and their guilt of inhumanity makes him bleed afresh? How should we assuage that Sin's deep-mouth'd roar for Punishment and Epidemical Penalties, when Fanatical Billows do but Swell the Tide and Rage of it higher? Is Beheading a King no Barbarity, killing him a malignant, no Murder? From such Principles Libera nos Domine; and he that denies this Litany, is not to be confuted without a Rope, or convinced till he comes to a Tyburn-confession; and how should he have the benefit of Old Necksaving-Legit for such an Offence, when at the same time he denies Scripture, and renounces his Faith with God and his King? But our Author Opinionates, that Trespasses of the first magnitude might be forgotten as well as Petit Injuries forgiven? Is a King a Mushroom that grows up in a Night, and must be pickled in his own Blood the next Morning? Or if you bid him Good Morrow, must he be lopped off in the down of his Youth? Is he like an Insect of some few Warm and Calm Days duration, but a Storm comes, and then he no sooner Dies, but he must be Rotten too, and the Memory of him ought to be but an {αβγδ}, forgotten, and amnihilated as soon as he is dissolved and interred?  
At this Period my Author may think I should recover myself with one of his lusty Humphs; and give him leave to turn the Hour-glass of his Life, and Lownry once again: And so I do, Good-fellow, as often as he pleases. But I must now descend to Particulars, and consider his Observations more concisely and a propós. Every Thirtieth of January doth renew his thoughts yearly upon the occasion of that day; and surely puts him all in a pother: He is almost out of Breath at first Start, and Salutes the World puffing and Blowing with two Cardinal Winds of Doctrine. The thing, says he, hath two several Aspects. He always Things the Martyrdom, just as Men do that in Conversation which they hate to Name. However well spied, Janus; this is the Luck of having two Faces: hypocrisy is Cat-eyed, and sees nine ways at once. For either it looks upon the Act of some Men against the living, or upon what others have done, and still do for the Dead: The former is unlawful, and the latter contrary to true Religion.  
First, Why Unlawful? It vexes his Righteous Soul, and exasperates his Spirits to an Inveteracy against, and hatred of the Pulpit, to be  told from it of the Failings and Cruelties of his Party, as much as a Sermon against High-Commoding and Top-Knotting, stomacks my Lady-all-pride: It touches him in the most sensible part, and Wounds him in an Old Sore; it makes the gull in his Ears overflow; and do you think Christianity can Brutifie him into the harmlessness of a Dove, or that he is as mauped as a stoic or Apathist, not to be incensed if you disgorge his loathsome Actions, and Spit the Filth of his own Principles in his Face? He hath a Magazine of Blocks, Halters and Gibbets for such Consecrated Affronts, or Church-bred Rudenesses; and the person may red a Wish in his Physs, that he could Hang him with his Looks. Do we imagine he should esteem himself a welcome Guest, or that a Hospitable Roof under which his National Crimes are always tauntingly thrown in his Dish, and he is uncharitably asked, what his Cannibal-Appetite says forsooth, to a King's Head for the last Course? Alas for the mischievous adage! Senes bis pueri, and the gray-headed-Child, or hoary Elder-sprig is bug-beared away from our Church with Raw-Head and Bloody bones. Is not all this unlawful? Are not such harsh and unpleasant Practices to be revenged of with Schism and Faction? Are not those Pulpit-Panegyricks on King CHARLES's memorable virtues and Invectives against the Regicide, enough to unsheathe the Civil Sword, and set the whole Kingdom at Daggers-drawing? Well, since he despairs of Reforming our Oratories from such nettling Harangues, his resolve is to be no longer an any-thing-Arian, but a thorow-pac'd Dissenter; Such a Revenge I remember a certain Town-fool hath always in his Mouth, if any of his Allowance-masters or Almoners vexeth him, he will not come to his Doors for a Week afterwards; He'll fit him there. But hark, our Master of Reason! It were better to forget those things than to renew the Memory of them, which continues Divisions. Is this Christian logic; were it better to wrap up our Gospel-talents in an idle Napkin of Silence and Oblivion, than to Preach and Evangelize the Jews out of the Pale of the Christian Church? The Sequel is, we must never hope to Proselyte them by Reproof, or telling them of their Sins. Unity in Religion sounds much of Heaven, its Harmonious Hierarchy, and the Bliss of Souls-separate; it Images GOD to us on Earth, and our Church might have shown as fair a Stamp of that triumphant Glory and Celestial Amity as any in Christendom, if the irreconcilable Vagaries, gross-carnal Novelties, and intestine Contrasto's of such Whimsical Religionaries, as he, had not mangled and Scarr'd the Beauty of her Holiness, had not Split her into Divisions and Subdivisions, to the Wreck of the precious Cargo of her Unity and Purity, and made her altogether Militant with the Fry of Sectaries. The Division he imputes to the keeping an Anniversary, is an Idol of his own making and continuance, and he merely slaves himself with Bandying about his own Principle. Novelty is the Dalilah he Hugs and Embraces till he's betrayed into Division and Weakness, and then the Sampson's strongest Efforts cannot shoulder down our Church.  
He Cries out against Divisions and giving Offences, as the Impudentest Crack about Town usually Exclaims, Lord! The Impudence of some Women! When no Brothel-House-Pander is able to Match Pimping and Prostitution with her. It is the Bawd's own jealousy that makes her cry Whore first. What Divisions can this Day of Humiliation enlarge or continue, but those the Espousers whereof dethroned and vanquished Majesty to a Grave, sacrificed it to Popular Fury, and left the Sin of their Victory unsubdued, and their Rebellious Error unrecanted by some of their Posterity to this day? Would they revoke that signal Wickedness, and demonstrate their Repentance with an Equal Popularity, they should Confederate their Prayers with us, to deprecate the respective Punishment and Vengeance of it. 'tis true, the most Languishing Devotions and Ejaculatory Sighs cannot restore to Life, or remedy what is past; the weeping of a Jesus could only give poor Lazarus a Glorious and Extraordinary Resurrection on Earth: But our Tears somewhat sincerer than the Crocodile's, may perhaps Avert the judgement which hath not yet discharged its self in Plague or Fire upon the present Fautors of that Rebellion, the Witchcraft and very primum mobile of our Divisions: Witchcraft, I say; and the belief of a Wrath impending, like Democles's Sword, must be the chief Spell against our further Incantation.  
His Head was severed from his Body, and not with Peleus's Hasta that could Wound and Heal; I wonder at my Author's Plain dealing here among all the Salvo's of Commonwealth-Laws, that he does not play the Sorcerer with us, or give us a touch of his Medea's Skill, and say he was only killed like Aeson, to renew his declining Youth and Regal Vigour.  
But after Acts of Oblivion for such things are passed, the memory thereof ought to be forgotten, p. 2. Is he assured that that Act is engrossed in the Book of Life, or that an Omniscient Mercy hath Recorded our Indemnity? By what Angel, and to whom below was the Bill Winged down, and our Pardon delivered? How neatly would he pled Prescription to God's Justice at the highest Tribunal, against the Penalty of a Sin, or in an Arrest of judgement, and to stay its infliction? What a Westminster-madness is this to pretend an Injunction against the Proceedings of an Invisible and Incontroulable Judicature? Must we presumptuously fobb a forgetfulness upon the Mercy-seat above? Such an impenitent Presumption or Demurrer is most likely to hasten the Execution of GOD's Wrath and Justice. What! Are Five and Forty Years, or a Thousand,( which are to him but as one, and the shortest day in thy almanac) time out of Memory with Heaven and its Omniscience? Certainly National Punishments are Relative to, and entailed upon National Sins; and what should cut off that entail from our otherwise forlorn Posterities, but a solemn Anniversary Repentance, and a repeated Renunciation of those Religious Divisions which tinctured and embrued the Hands of their peccant Fore-elders in the Sanguine Laver of Cruelty? The River Lethe cannot take out the Stains of their Honour and persuasion. A penitent Revocation of their mistaken politics, must un-negro and dealbate their grim actions, and nothing else can blanche o'er the blots in the Escutcheon of their Convert-Assemblies. No; how fain would the Pilate wash his Hands of Innocent Blood, and forget the dictates of his own Conscience to please a party? Is the Sin expiated; is the Crime atoned for? or that Butchery of the Prince of our Worldly Peace and darling of our Church's militant success and temporal Felicity( who had no more Justice than the Shambles allow a Calf, or the Slaughter-House an ox) forgiven? Must we now let him lie butted with the Burial of an Ass, and not echo his Obsequies down to coming Loyalty? Must lying Infamy, and some Men's foulest obloquys deface his best Features, deform the most Beautiful of his Actions, or Contempt and Forgetfulness stick upon his Blessed Memory? Must future Ages have no Nobler Tradition of his goodness and justice, than what the bitter Sarcasm or old taunt of Execution can convey to them, or immortalize,— Satia te sanguine, Cyrequem fitisti? Hitherto my Author hath been making his Pastime, or a Game of King Charles's Death, and the upshot is, that its enough once for all really and hearty to have done: His Tongue-ty'd Malice would not let him speak out to have celebrated the Martyrdom with a Devotional remembrance; after that it degenerates into Formality and Foppery. This is the {αβγδ} of our mighty-regenerate, and a would-be-Puritan: If he once makes us Formalists in Divinity, we are his Lads of Wax, and our next Impression shall be Presbytery.  
Here he prescribes the Performance for our Dead sovereign; and makes no more of his Government, Actions, Suspiria Regalia in Troubles, Tragical Sufferings on the Stage of his Life, or Memory of all this than of a Play or Noisy Farce, which never took in the Pit or Gallery of the World, and being once damned is never to be acted over again. But why once for all, why so precise and punctual to Unite? The most effectual method he can take to make us leave swallowing Formalities, Superstitions, and drinking those Dregs of Popery( as he mis-calls our Ceremonial Worship) will be the same way the Grocer's Boy is Cured of his Eating Plumbs, when we have had our Belly full of them: Let him take Selden's probatum for't. As for him, we never hope to see his Covenant-maw cloyed with Seditious Doctrines, He digest Novelties so fast, and loves Varieties so well.  
I wonder his persuasion like his Palate, should not Relish any thing Twice which he grants to be wholesome and Innocent once, but Extempore Repetitions, and fulsome Tautologies, wherewith their whole Service is stuffed like Beef, and larded like Bacon; the same thing over and over through the whole Piece.  
Secondly, It is contrary to true Religion to keep the Thirtieth of January: This is the Scare-crow that keeps the Rook our of our Vineyard. First our Church's Appointments and Solemnities widen the Breach of Christian Union, and then we run quiter counter to the whole tenor of true and sound Religion; just as a Nurse cries to the Child, pah, pah, when she would not have it touch a thing it hath a mind to Eat; so he frights his Infant-Converts, telling 'em they must not go to the Church, there's no good Food for their Souls; whereas perhaps neither of them could study or prescribe a more suitable and salutary Repast for either Constitution. This grand Charge he groundlessly advances to bring us down to his Lure; and does he think we hover in an Airy Religion, and are to be inveigled and captivated, like a Company of silly giddy Larks? Are we turned like Weather-cocks, with an empty Puff of doctrine? Is our Faith as unstable as Rushes, not to abide the weakest Shock and Gale of a Discourse unshaken? Surely himself could have no good Opinion of such easy Proselytes. Fly Irreligion and Idolatry; this Call sounds sweetly, like the Hyaena's Voice if it were not counterfeited, to 'allure us out of the Church and the Grotto of our Peace, to the Destruction of Ecclesiastical Power and tranquillity; if her ravishing enticements call forth the Shepherd, she devours him in the Decoy, and then the Orphaned Flock must go astray.  
King Charles, with a judicious Foresight, hath given a brave Counter-Cuffe to our round-head-Disputant in his Meditation upon the Ordinance against the Common-Prayer-Book. Here's a Rowland for his Oliver: It is no News to have all Innovations ushered in with the Name of Reformation in Church and State by those who seeking to gain Reputation with the vulgar for their extraordinary Parts and Piety, must needs undo whatever was formerly settled never so well and wisely. And the Words of a King, a Scholar, and an Orator, upon the specious Reformations of those Times, must pierce him to the Bowels of his religious and hypocritical Pretensions. What Dissolutions of all Order and Government in the Church; what Novelties of Schisms; what Undecencies and Confusions in sacred Administrations; what sacrilegious Invasions upon the Rights and Revenues of the Church; what Contempt and Oppressions of the Clergy; what injurious Diminutions and Persecutions of me have followed( as Showers do warm Gleams) the Talk of Reformation, all sober Men are Witnesses, and with myself, sad Spectators hitherto? And do you know Hercules by his Foot again, or a Lion by his Paw? He hath sent his Book abroad as a Jackall, and only wants to grasp his Prey: If we will become his dearly beloved, he will preach Mince-Pies and Custards to his Babes of infallible Grace, and hug us; but then; just as the Monkey does her young ones, squeeze us to Death and Reprobation at last. How should we pin our Faith upon his Sleeve, or hang it upon that Cloak, and hope to scale the Battlements of Heaven, when burr— ss tells us it is so easily unbuttoned, and then we drop the Lord knows whither, not into a Saw-pit, but a bottonles Hell? Then we must take an eternal Swing of falling, undergo a worse Agony, and have harder Language, or a terribler Bruit than we had in Daniel's Den. His Party rails against our Church-Power as my Tippling Hostess does against Caudles and Burnt-Claret that comes a Day after the gossiping Fare, and can get none of it; for I am of the Lord Lauder dal's Opinion, That we might stop any of their mouths with a bishopric. Himself talks as much of Religion and our Differences, as the Cowardly Bully does of Roaring, Hectoring, and Fighting, and much to the same Humour; for neither of them do ever lend a Hand to decide a Quarrel, or endeavour a Pacification, so long as they carry off the Spoil; and accommodating the Matter is the least to their Interest, or Booty of Pick-Pocketting and Sharping: Yet this I must say for the Champion of dissension, that he is no Coward or Faint-Heart; for seeing our Church-men together by the Ears about Stating the controversy of Schism and Allegiance, our Adversary fairly and courageously steps up between 'em, and hits 'em both a Box on the Ear, and is resolute in the Scramble to carry away the Bone; and he may call them Mastiffs of Law and Divinity, if he please, I am afraid e're long they'll both be upon the Bear. I would fain know how his Conventicle-Religion comes to be the best, purest, and most Evangelical. Is it so fine because it hath stood his own Apostolical Test or Refining, and is of his own frantic Brain's Coining? I had like to have said Clipping too; for he Dutchifies it, and lops off all Ceremonies as superfluous Branches, or Prunes it of all sapless Decencies; but I think he hates Circumcision, and such Ceremonial Trumperies of the Old Law. I could never yet believe the Herald to be the best Gentleman, because he makes his own Pedigree: And the curiousest Blazonry of his Coat shall not convince me of his Extraction's being the most Illustrious; I always suspect this Bravo's Escutcheon and Gentility of Descent, and that Man's Geneva-Bounce or Comment upon the Excellency of his own Profession.  
To prove the Antiquity of their Presbytery, they misinterpret the word Presbyter in the Fathers, and wrest their Sense to make their Profession venerable for its Oldness; so he that delights in optics would persuade us, that when Julius Caesar came into England, he had Perspective-Glasses, because it is said, Positis Speculis: Whereas nothing was meant but his Watch or Sentinel that discovered how the Land lay: We are apt to strain any thing to the most incredible Sense that makes for our Opinions, though the intrinsic Truth of it be most incompatible with our Inventions and Practices; which is the very Fountain-head of Vulgar persuasions and Errors: Quote the word( {αβγδ}) out of the most fictitious History, and it sufficiently grounds our Belief of the fabulous Generation of Castor and Helena out of an Egg, whereas the Word among the lacedæmonians had the Signification of an upper Room only, where they were born and brought up. So let us suppose, for example, the Word ( Egg) in a Text of Scripture, the Presbyterian would interpret it an Hen-Egg or Goose-Egg, o● to be sure such an Egg as most 〈◇〉 the ●elish of his persuasion, Novelty, or Spirit and Pleasure of contradicting another human Gloss. As for the divine Right and Institution of their modern Presbytery, Mr. Selden facetiously and comically table-talks him thus. When the Quenies were sent to the Assembly concerning the Jus Divinum of presbytery; their asking Time to answer them was a satire upon themselves: For if it were to be seen in the Text, they might quickly turn to the Place and show us it. Their delaying to answer, makes us think there's no such thing there. They do just as you have seen a Fellow do at a Tavern-reckoning, when he should come to pay his Reckoning, he puts his Hands into his Pockets, and keeps a grabling and a fumbling, and shaking, at last tells you he has left his Money at home; when all the Company knew at first, he had no Money there, for every Man can quickly find his own Money. He and I have both our Religion no doubt; and like a Fashion, he wears his Doublet Plain, I mine Fringed: We have both a Doublet, that's plain; we differ about Trimming. It is strange, that we should Rend and Tear our Saviour's Garment into so many Scraps and Pieces as are Cabaged from a New svit of clothes, and all upon the Account of the Figure and Mode of Professing it seemless, and unjustly partend. Is it Taylor's work to take Measure of our Souls, or alter and decide our Religion, because we are utterly at odds about the Shape of it? Surely nothing can sit well or handsomely upon such monstrous, jarring, and un-symmetrous Members.  
Will they still persevere in ignorant Obstinacy, and differ from us in Religion and Unity of Performance with the same Singularity as they do in their Habits; and with less Reason too? Will not this suffice, that it is not A-la-mode du Paree, except it be of a Geneva-Starchtness, and as stiff from Bowing to the Altar, and Complying with our Ceremonies, as the Inflexible Old Sultan in Tapestry-Stature? None of us believe the Altar to be God, or a Wooden Deity, any more than he believes the Carnal Anthropomorphitry of him. He can Duck and Bow, and make his Honours, as well as any Master of Ceremony among us, to secular Grandeur and Quality; and why not to the God of his Worship in any Place, or at any Time, in Reverence to his Omnipresence? Yes; but the People of England, like those of Athens in St. Paul's days, in this thing of the Martyrdom are too Superstitious; and he gives us the Rhetorical Height of an aggravated Reason for't: In that Service we pray to God he will be pleased to give us the Grace to follow that Man's Charity and Patience; surely in this we are too Superstitious. Now time, place and service being appointed, next thing for us to do will be to Pray to him. How gladly would he malice us into Popery? human Literature always honoured Good Men, and Noble Heroes, with an Apotheosis after their Departure; but the Man of Letters tells us, Poetry is Popery: Surely he judges by the Ear, and it is a good one that never mistakes the Jangling of a pair of Tongs, for the Mufical Sound of the Harp-sicles. His Organ is mightily indisposed, and his Perception is false; he talks without Book, as the Blind-Fidler plays Tunes. Every word Montross wrote with his Swords point on the Monument of King Charles, was Popery. Why so? He Trumpets the King's Praise and Eulogy to the World, and sounds an Alarm in the Ears of our Preacher of the Gospel of Peace; and would not this even make a Cur Whine, and shake his Head? This is it provokes him to grin and bark out Popery, Popery. We cannot talk of him by way of Eminence and Excellence of a crwoned Dignity; but we forthwith Canonize him, and Calendar him for a Saint, and that's Popery with a Witness: After this rate, a Ladies Beauties must not be commended, lest he twit us with Romish Adoration for our Encomium's, whereas no question but the flattering Letcher could smuggle up a Buxom Sister with his Holy Kisses, and Vow his closer Embraces and Debauch as Consecrated as any Priest of 'em all; so his Crape in a Corner be not Babylonish: That's the Whore he would have Carted. But anon we shall Pray to Saint CHARLES: Yes, to be sure when he draws up the Form. Shall we not have Image-Worship too? We have a great many Joynt-Stools in our Churches. In a short time a Yull-Clog or a Cart-Wheel shall not lie by us, but in his mendacious Construction we must pay our Devotions to it.  
The countryman in Spain would not Pray to St. Nicholas's Image, because he knew it was made of his own Plumb-Tree; and can his Scholarship believe our Clergy ignoranter than that Rusticity, to Pray to and Adore a mouldering carcase, or the curiousest Statue? He may as well report to the World that we Leg, and Knee St. GEORGE upon Horse-back at every Sign-post, or that we Kneel down at Charing-Cross, or stock-market, drop a Bead there, and mutter an have for the whole Lump of Brass. If he can pre-engage a transmarine Credulity, he may out-do Lucian's Historia Vera with his prolifick Invention of Figment against our Worship, and never fear to come to his ingenuous Confession of {αβγδ}, as long as his single Authority can make it pass for current Truth.  
This were a lye, and an Abuse within the Verge of the Court; and those who insinuate such clam-Romance, would scandalise our Prelacy, and inodiate it to the Lowns of the Kirk and Covenant: This Charge is just as unreasonable and foolish as heretofore Images were called Mammets, and Adoration of 'em Mammetry;( Contractions for Mahomet and Mahometry) odious Names indeed, and scandalous; when all learneder Heads knew the Turks were forbidden Images as much as Wine by their Alcoran: So the Laws of our Church severely prohibit Idolatry and Superstition and Blasphemy; and notwithstanding he says we are all the three, Idolaters. Superstitionists, Blasphemers: Who will believe him then? Is he lunatic, and must we every January-Moon be carressed with his Palmerine-Relations, and madly misrepresented with his Bedlam-Observations? We shall not chat, writ from the Press, or preach from the Pulpit; but he'll be proclaiming War against us for Popery, and Canonading our Church with all the raillery and Artillery of Presbytery. No, we shall not walk the Streets e're long, but we shall vent Popery at the other End too, and this Fellow will be crying out upon the Stink, when the sweet Savour is all the while under his own Cloak, just as you see one beat a Dog out of the room for what is in his Breeches. If we eat Plumb-Pudding and roast-Beef in a Cooks shoop, he'll perhaps call it a Papistical Ordinary; and, if the Fit of Enthusiasm take him, he'll not spare to stay our Stomachs with telling us we feast and gormondize on our Saviour: And, Sacrament, we hold Transubstantiation in the Sir-Loin. But to leave such Hoghen-Errantry and Vagaries; a Voider for his Non-sense or Foolery: It is time to take it away. Is it an irreligious Petition we put up to Heaven for Grace to follow King Charle's Exemplary Charity and Patience? Mark his Charity in his Heavenly Soliloquies: I bless God, I pray not so much that this bitter Cup of a violent Death may pass from me as 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 embrued with my Blood. The Will of God hath confined and concluded mine; I shall have the Pleasure of dying without any Pleasure of desired Vengeance. This, I think, becomes a Christian towards his Enemies, and a King towards his Subjects. And he breaths a seraphic Love to his Adversaries elsewhere. The Trophies of my Charity will be more glorious and durable over them, than their religious Rebellion and ill managed Victories over me. Mark his admirable Patience in seeing his Court made a Calvary. O my Soul! Think not that Life too long and tedious, wherein God gives thee any Opportunities, if not to do, yet to suffer with such Christian Patience and Magnanimity in a good Cause, as are the greatest Honour of our Lives, and the best Improvements of our Deaths. Farther, in the Language of his own Soul in Solitude, his Christian Courage and Patience sound in a sweet Consort. The Assaults of Afflictions may be terrible, like Sampson's Lion, but they yield much Sweetness to those that dare to encounter and overcome them; who know how to over-live the Witherings of their Gourds without Discontent or Peevishness, while they may yet converse with God. All his Languishment was incomparable, and the King of terrors could not pains-taking him of Meekness and virtue: His Charity was as unparalleled as his Case was to die; his heroic Spirit and Greatness of Mind in forgiving a prosperous Injustice was as unimitable, as it could be none but the Result of his own Goodness. Now the Devil's raised, here's the Spirit of Contradiction: What a Stir is here with an {αβγδ}? A Brat which King Charles must Father( forsooth) because it looks like him. What Noise with this great Diana of Kingly Wisdom and Innocence upon the Stage of Infidelity? He hath an {αβγδ} to mob upon that, and its very likely Milton's Ghost conjured him to a disbelief of its supposed Princely Authority. The Book must be Dr. Gauden's, and the truest portraiture of his Majesty was really drawn upon the Scaffold.  
One would have thought the Vindiciae Carolinae written by a Person of Primitive Learning and Integrity, might have disabused him, and undeceived him of the Bubble, satisfactorily proving it to have been the genuine product of that Royal Brain; and he must be an otherguise Man than Dr. Walker, who now Controverts the Legitimacy, or so much as surmises the Spuriousness of its Birth. King CHARLES lives dimidiate in his rare Book, as poor Ovid was parte superstes, by leaving his Tristia, as well as Family to the City from which he was banished; and those who do not Creed Him to be the Author of it after so manifest Conviction, it is but reasonable to suppose, are grieved that he should yet Breath so lively after his last Farewell, and pled his Cause so learnedly after his direful Execution indicta causa.  
My Author could hearty doom it to an Archive of Heretical Legends, or Catalogue it in Brown's Bibliotheca Abscondita, and wish it no where to be found but with Homer's Batrochomyomachia, or the Homerican battle between Frogs and Mice, neatly described upon the Chizel-bone of a large Pike's Jaw. It is the mirror of that gang-a, for whom there was most justly neither Rythm, nor no more Ben. Johnson's Reason, than Swing-a Swang-a; and I would to God it did not only Reflect the ugliness of their Principles, but make him also( according to the Story of the Cock and the Glass) fall out with his own Picture. Can I believe the Martyrdom engraven so deep on the Adamantine Hearts of those implacable and impenitent Adversaries to Monarchy and present Majesty, as that the Teeth of Five and Forty Years-time hath not eaten out the Characters, and smoothed it like the Philosopher's Tabula rasa, to inscribe another Rebellious Usurpation upon, since this Miscreant would gag up the remembrance of it, and have us like Turkish Mutes, to secret that Sin? In this he follows the Footsteps of the Blood-Hound Hewson, promoted from cobbling to Colonelling, who, upon an Hosannah of a shout raised by the Loyal Party at his Trial and no Trial, Blessed be your Majesty, God grant you to Reign long over us; God bring your Enemies under your Feet; presently drew up his armed Crew, and bad them give Fire upon the Naked Innocents, if any more they prayed for the King, p. 8. Paraphrase upon those Royal Legacies in his Majesties most Christian and Dying Speech. This was the Funeral Scene; Ambitious Desires and Blood-thirstiness produced mortal Enmities; and Pride in Triumph lead Humility in Obedience to Martyrdom: The Horns of Covetous Men's designs pushed off the Crown, and it tumbled into a Protector's Lap; and let this feral Presbyter chew the Cud upon this, that though they put an immature Period to his Life, and brought his Body to the sad Catastrophe of being interred with an ignoble Hic jacet, whose living Bravery and virtues, and Applause, the whole World was not able to contain: Yet his Name and Honour must survive those Exits in our Churches Commemoration to a Glorious Kind of Immortality; and the Czar of Muscovy's resenting his Rigid and Cruel Fate with a Christian-like Frown, and Contempt on all the English Traffickers there, induces me to believe, that his famed is eternised, and celebrated with a sort of Ubiquity. If the Report of his English Treatment could startle an Infidel or amaze a Pagan, methinks it should make a hardhearted fanatic boggle, or scar him out of his puritanick Wits.  
As for King Charles the Second, his Restoration, I shall be as short and touchy upon it as my Author.  
First then; Room for the Lord of Mis-rule: Make way for the Grand Master of the Order of Disorder and Non-conformity. Who dare justle Presbytery in its Pomp and Parade, or confront the Multitudinarian Insolence of santastick Anarchy in the Lobby? The Upstart Candidate for Sovereignty must let the Parliament know what Westminster-Hall enacted in King Charles the Second his Time, to detract from his unspotted Profession is aniented in the Courts of Heaven: The Act for the Attainder of several Persons, guilty of the horrid murder of his Royal Father, 12. Car. II. c. 30. is repealed and reversed to his whole Intent and Purpose above, or in B— ss's Meeting-House, and how comes it a few musty Records do still attaint and stick that Venial Crime on their Progeny, or a Proclamation did follow and pursue Ludlow at the Heels to a kind shore, whence an auspicious Blast wafted him out of the Reach of Prosecution; and Providence hoiseing the Sails, and sitting at the Helm, at once steered him to a Sanctuary, and convinced our Statists that he was predestinated neither to be drowned nor hanged? A severe Old Saying has it otherwise with a Gallows to him: However, when one is got out of the Clutches of the Law, it is pleasant pleading a divine or eternal Decree for an Exemption, tacking about, and calling the House of Commons all the Malignants under the Sun. As the Surly Rogue that has been licked for a Fault, no sooner escapes the Correction, but turns about, and says, Son of a Bitch, what do ye lick me for? Did I do such a thing, or such a thing? The King of Kings hath passed a perpetual Indemnity to the Offspring it is probable, for the wicked Perpetrations of their Caitif-Ancestors with a non obstante to our past, present, and future Proceedings, and disannulled all our Allegations against their good old Principles of beheading and banishing: This is the peerless Importunity and the very would-be-at of my Author in decrying our keeping a Day of Humiliation with profaner Flouts and Scoffs than Aerius ridiculed the Christian Severities. He is of an Aerian Kidney, and stresseth us with the same Strain of Humour and Libertinism: It is Jewish thus to keep Days of fasting by a Law; it is an roving yourselves to a Yoke of Bondage: If I would determine to fast at all, I would fast what Day I pleased at mine own Liberty. But Epiphanius does equally reprimand them both, as he is quoted in the Rationale on the Common-Prayer. Who are the more Fools; Aerius, a silly Fellow of Yesterday, still living with us, or we who observe this severe Discipline which our Fathers delivered us, which they received from their Fathers, and they from theirs; and so from the Apostles the Sanctity and Usage of Fasting must be derived as from the original Sources of primitive Christianity and pure Devotion?  
Secondly, He scoundrels the Thanksgiving-Day with no demurer or decenter Scurrility, abominating it as well as the other, and branding it as a Day of Revengefulness appointed after revolutionary Heats and incensed disquiets. The Thoughts of a Restoration glad me, and flutter my Soul; and indeed Fancy and Indignation must flag, or their biting Heights be loured when the Mind is overjoyed, the last Canto of Butler's Hudibras confirms as much: But let me ask him, was King Charles big with spiteful Venom? Did he labour with Revenge? He is the first Broacher of that Accusation, and the first that brought any slander upon his Mercy and Clemency, into the World; I guess he hath an excellent Knack of midwifery, and can as easily deliver a King of some tiresome piece of Ill-nature, as a Fro is of her mis-shapen Sooterkin; I rather Opine himself conceives, and he would lay the Bastard-quality on the King.  
He Libels him at Random, and Raves any thing to Blemish and Smut his Reputation, Mercifulness, Serenity, and Mildness: The blackest Scandals of my Author, are but so many Set-offs to the Beauty and rare Embellishments of his Mind, and make his Peaceable Will and Affections, appear with greater dazzle, and more diffusive Lustre, inasmuch as such Calumniators as he, I am apt to presume, never felt the Rigour of his Justice, or the greatest Fine of his Displeasure for the Offence. It is notoriously true, and verified by the Restoration, that the success of the roundheads their Enterprizes, never Authenticated their Cause, nor did their short-lived Prosperity justify their Gallantry in unlawfulness; but their gracious Impunity, and the letting others go scotfree, was not rigorous, and the Kings Establishing them a Right and Property to, or an undisturbed Enjoyment of their Plunder, Sequestration-Fruits, and filching Acquests was not unmerciful I hope; ay, but at his Return from a forced Extermination into Foreign Parts, he caused to be Sung in Churches an {αβγδ} over their most traitorous Conspiracies, the armed Power of Usurping Tyrants, and their execrable Perfidy and Inhumanity in the Effusion of his Fathers Blood, and stubborn Opposition to his Enjoying his own again, The undoubted Hereditary sovereignty and Regal Authority over them: This was a Predominant and Vindictive Incivility. It forced them to Hypocrite their Actions, and Dissimulate a Joy; they seemingly could rejoice and laugh home the Exile; but it was as if they had Eaten of the Sardinick-Herb to their Grief and Sorrow, and all their Counterfeit Jollity at re-instating him, was to out-noise their Shrieks for the last Gasp of a dying Usurpation: For how could their Hearts and Hands go together in receiving him, or cordially Congratulating his Majesty's Arrival and Investiture in the Throne, whom they had resisted with the strength of Arm, dint of council, and the keenest Sword of Injustice? How could they give any sincere demonstration of a joyful Allegiance or Subjection, and Obedience Active or Passive to that Prince whom they had kept at as great a distance as their Pikes could Push or Awe to, and whose Wills perhaps committed Treason when their Hands were Innocent. It was harder then for them to Personate Loyalty or Feign Conversion, than to extenuate their former Lapses, and Vizard their belligerant Ambitions: Their Posterity are still Skinning over, Extenuating, and Palliating those Old Sores: While the Gangrene of Rebellion is not to be Cured but with Cutting off; else the State-Chyrurgeon knows it will break out again, and Ulcerate afresh, threatening Mortality like an Infection, to all about it: It had been no Cruelty in the King to have probed it deeper, for every Candid Judge is well satisfied how disproportionable their Punishments were to their Deserts, and their sins not half-salved to an unrelapsing, or un-apostatizing heal of Repentance, when the Royal Physician was restored to his Diseased Kingdom: And yet he must be called an unmerciful Tyrant, and a Subject-Oppressor; He might declaim against Toleration with as severe turns as he does against his Mildness, Favour and Grace to Offenders; but Majesty must be Cavil'd at fas vé nefas vé; and( as the Learned Author of Matchiavel's and Borgia's Policies says) 'tis the fashion of Fortunate Rebels to Feed the People with Shells and empty Names, as if their bare Assertion could demonstrate to us( against all Experience) that it is Freedom to be Slaves to Quondam Peasants, and Slavery to be Subjects to a True and Natural Prince, and that the Scorpions of Anarchy, Aristocracy, or a free State, are far more tolerable than the single Rod of Loyalty: And therefore if the Prince be severe, he gives them Nero's Brand, a Man kneaded up of Dirt and blood; if he be of Parts and Contrivance, he calls it pernicious Ingenuity: If he be mildred and favourable to tender Consciences, he declaims against his Cunning and Trepanning Toleration. If he urge Uniformity and Decency in Divine Service, he Rails at his Superstition. And because there is no such Aequilibrious virtue, but has some Flexure to one of the extremes, he is very careful to publish the extreme alone, and to silence the virtue. Every one knows whose politics those are which Indict a King for miscarriages Living, but to Arraign him of awkward qualities, and pestiferous, slaving, lewd, or wicked endowments Dead, is much like the Barbarick Cambyses's Cruelties and Indignities used to Amasis King of egypt, who untombed his very carcase, and commanded it to be burned, contrary to the Custom of the egyptians and Persians as well as Humanity. The Persians feared to Feed their God with Carrion; and let not us Christians give Drink Offering of Blood to ours any more. De mortuis nile nisi bonum, and if I add principibus too, it ought to be no impracticable, or immoral Apothegm for Christians. My Author's Tongue is no Slander, and it would degrade a Majesty to take notice of his ignominies, or to reckon them Scandalum Magnatum. It is a debauched Loyalty that speaks King CHARLES II. a Debauchee, whom I cannot but Honour in the Dust, and Sing of in the Poet's Strain upon another hearse; 
" Cujus in Laudibus  
" Pacis, Justitiae, Clementiae  
" publicae celebrandis  
" Nec fama loquax, nec ipsa mendax  
" poterit esse Epitaphium.  'tis true, a King's a Man, and as Mortal as Horace could Ode him or Pale-face him, and some Actions must voluntarily come, through Inadvertency fall, or be extorted from him, which confess frail Humanity, and require a favourable Censure, or an ingenious Interpretation; and I conclude with the unprejudiced Statist. Iniqua in omni re accusandâ, praetermissis bonis, malorum Enumeratio, Vitiorumque selectio; nam ne ullus quidem isto modo Magistratus vituperabilis non erit. 'tis an unjust Way of accusing to omit the good Offices of a Prince, and so to select and publish only his bad, for by this means, no Magistrate shall be innocent. His Birth, as a Man, and I may say as a Prince too, on the twenty ninth of May, was a lucky Omen: His Nativity and Return on the same Day, like the Conjunction of two good Planets, presaged to our Land a lasting Peace, Plenty, Prosperity, and a continued or undisturbed Succession of the Royal Line, and my Author may tell me if he will, that such Bodings are sometimes deceived, and fair Promises are not always performed: But our Exaltation then was but reasonable and moderate to jo Poean the signal Deliverance of his Majesty and faithful People from deplorable Oppressions, Devastations, Divisions, and Popular Furies. Why is our Religion in this Point of common Gratitude for providential Kindnesses, Courtliness, Flattery, Popery, Pageantry? For no other reason but because the Tub's turned, the King goes to chapel, and Presbytery was very near being rump'd or lectured out of the Kingdom. Here he lays on with the old Drum-stick, Popery, and trumps that Knave upon us again; He would gladly have us to march after his Beats. How can we volunteer it when he presses us so hard? We red indeed the Name of Christ in the Van of his rebellious Spirit, but the Devil brings up the rear; and let him take this Motto for his Colours: Ecclesiae nomine armamini& contra Ecclesiam dimicatis; as I find St. Augustine quoted. We shall still follow what Bishop Sparrow hath observed to us, and believe That the Sanctification or setting apart of Festivals, is consonant to the Purity of primitive practise, as being a Token of that Thankfulness, and a Part of that public Honour which we owe to God for his admirable Benefits; for those Feasts of Joy, and holy Revels are( as the learned and judicious Hooker says) the Splendour and outward Dignity of our Religion, whose Lustre, and redundant Light of Gospel-shine our Owl-ey'd Author cannot endure, else I may esteem him one of those none-so-blind, that will not see.  
It is a lethargic Soul which neither God's Mercy can 'allure, nor impending Menace awake to pious and solemn Emanations of extoling the one, and imploring his Aversion of the other: Acts of Wonder next to Prodigy and Miracle on these two Grand-Days should make Stories in our Church as well as Annals, as longliv'd as the World, and lasting as the Moon, which wains only to an Increase, and appears in a splendider Full again. Our hardened Impenitence for the highest, and therefore the most inglorious Sins, and our Unthankfulness for the Blessings of our Deliverances both by Sea and Land are as circular and endless as the redeeming Bounty itself: But they are scarce content those Straits should bound their Presumptions, and their swollen Grandeur must have a larger Circumference; the narrow Limits of an iceland pinch them in Scope: The Usurper's Pomeria's must be enlarged without Restitution or Repentance; our Impieties must be transplanted, and the State-Sinner launches out, careering it to herculeses Pillars, but knows none but a Death-Bed's ne plus ultra: Then Five or Six Foot of dishonoured Earth will contain the magnifico, and stop the blustering Jehu-driven Hector.  
J. G. G's Observations upon the Martyrdom and Restoration, are especial Instances and Proofs of what I assert concerning our unmindfulness of Deliverances, and our whiffling unconcernedness for such National Crimes as King-Hunting, Deposing, Scaffolding. Hunting, I mention; for had not Providence made the pack of Pursuers run Counter of the Game, or cast too far over the Loss, they had made no less Sport of seizing the Prince in the Royal-Oak, than of unearthing the Fox, or uncasing the Carrion with a Tantivee Who-o-o-up. His apprehension 'tis Ten to One, had pitched him at the height of their Scorn and Pinnacle of Injustice in their High-Court, one degree from a Martyr as he was from a Defender of the Faith. Thus our Humorist, and his singularity, would out-face Religion, would have had our Church-History of the Restoration, written only in the same Element through which King Charles the First sailed to his Hereditary Haven, full fraught with our Deliverance, where no tract of the Story could be Legible in Water-Characters; would have had the Grave of the Martyr like Pompey's, without any Inscription to distinguish the Dust of his Glorious Body from his ignoble Executioner's,( if he be yet Dead, for let B. know it is queried) or to show, Here lies murdered Charles. Hos volvit nescire dies, as Lucan sings: These are malicious Dog-days with him, and so across or clouding to his persuasion, that he would Curse them out of the Ephemerides if he could, not allow them any difference from others in our Memory or Esteem, in our Joy or Sorrow, and its probable Excommunicate them( for they use to Reprobate whatever we Elect in any Sense) from all Society with the Year, as Job did his Birth-day: Let the day perish to all memory, let darkness, and the shadow of Death slain it, and let forgetfulness like a Cloud, dwell upon it, Job 3.3, 5. But when all this is said, that our rubric to dignify those above the Common Heap of Days piled up in the almanac is Superstitious, and our Service on them Popery, the Fool's boult is not half shot. He offers Violence to the two King's good-names with his Slanders and Calumnies; He gives us a Martyrium famae, a Martyrdom of the famed of both, as well as of the Life of One. Reputation is the preciousest Jewel about us all, King or Peasant, and as Rich and Dear as any in the Diadem to the meanest, so that he's the Notoriousest Thief that Robs us of it. What Key of Reserve can a Monarch put in the inside against the black-art-devices of such pick-locks of his Credit, Goodness, or Justice? It is the sole Apology and Refuge of exquisite Impostors, to present or raree-show those Kings for Spectacles of Scorn and Infamy after their Deaths, whom they made theaters of Misery in their Lives: And I affirm, that my Author's Imputations, Scandalous as False, in saying the Martyr was Guilty, and that Justice was Executed on him, wound him as deep, as what killed his Body, in that which is next in value to the Soul, His Good Name. To such a palpable untruth, such a mendacium fenestratum, which hath so many wide Windows for any to behold it, this unglost Answer will be most convincing and suitable, Petilianus dicit, ego n●go: which is rhetoric enough to Confute a Thousand bold-fac'd Liars, 
— Nam quis iniqui  
Tam patience hoins, tam ferreus ut teneat se?  Juv. Sat. 1.  

THE Postscript-Advertisement.  
I Have omitted a scholastic Discussion of my Author's Notions with submission to our Learneder Divines, confining my Thoughts to a bare remark upon his Arguments, which I hope is enough to unhood some Persons more Hawk-sighted in Divinity than myself, to Fly at him with an abler Quill, and a stronger Wing of the Church.  
Hereunto I have added a Dormant Piece, Printed about 1650. the awaking whereof in a New Edition does even Present, or {αβγδ}, times past, and pourtrays the ghastly Shapes of Presbyterian Policies against our Church and Monarchical State, with none of the insipidest Touches: It is Ingenious, laconic, and hath abundance of Salt in it. I did not snatch it out of the devouring Jaws of Moths and Worms, that it might live a Malefactor, or malcontent in these Times; for it is so far from Tottering their present Majesties Crown, or detracting from their Government or Settlement, that it rather Consults how to Rivet them in the Throne, and Fix them against the Shock and Assaults of such Furious Assailants or assassins, as the Presbyterians can Attempt.    

A NEW DISCOVERY OF Old England, IN Certain Contemplative Observations upon the present Condition of this distracted Kingdom.  
POlicy and Allegiance makes a happy Prince in a discreet Subject; but Policy linked to Disloyalty makes an unhappy Kingdom: The sad Truth is too apparent in our present Mischiefs whom Obedience confines to the Prison, and Rebellion settles in the Chair. Episcopacy, like noble Uriah in the Front of the battle, first struck at, by the Receipt of a mortal Wound, stained the Hands of the Infant Difference; since whose Fall the adulterated Church of England hath been the Prostitute of a Synod, too too ignorant to recompense her Vitiation, by contracting her to Truth and Form: The fair one had some Spots i● her Face to cleanse, but those in a Laver o● Blood have clouded the Glory of her Countenance. This unexplated Sin gave the Kingdom into the Hands of Men, whose Actions may well vie Destruction with Israel's Pestilence. The laborious Assembly, like their Forerunner Hacker( with Fan in Hand) sitting in judgement upon the Scriptures, are as tedious in their Products as a teaming Elephant, disburdening themselves once in three Years of some new Classis or Catechism, using their Mother( the Church) as pious Medea dealt with old Eson, killed him to renew his Youth, taking special Care that Popery may be wholly extirpated, by picking out of the Ark all rotten and worm-eaten Ceremonies, placing new and sound Doctrines of their own in the room, till in the end the Vessel( like that of Sir Francis Bacon) shall retain its former Name, though there be not a Stick of the first Composure in it. When it is thus rigged, enter and set sail for Heaven, which, if we reach in such a Bottom, a Lapland Witch sailing in a sieve, is not so great a Miracle, though the same wicked Pilot steer both. Our industrious Re-edifiers of the Temple must work with one Hand and fight with the other, if they will raise the fabric in the new Model; a Piece in the Roundness altogether differing from wise Solomon's squarer Contrivements. I rather believe they are repeating the babylonish Task, and that is the most probable by their Variety of Languages, one speaks Brownism, another speaks Barrowism, a third Anabaptism; one differs in Matter, another in Form, a third in both, from both the former; so that it is to be suspected their Misunderstandings will increase to so passionate a Height, that after a confused Banding of Opinions( their prime Materials) those who understand one another( though understood by none but themselves) will sever and depart to Amsterdam, Geneva, and New England, their several colonies.  
The second Act in this Tragedy of Peace, speaks injured Priam, the Safety of whose Troy, and self, was the lost Palladium; while the Tabernacle of the Lord, carried upon the Shoulders of the Priests, went before us, what Opposition of Schism could affront our host? but now discess●it ex Arca, and profaner Hands have been too busy with our sacred Security. Our noble King( while Christian Loyalty was the constant Doctrine of that divine Oracle, Church Government) seemed walled with Brass, and covered by the Veil of the Altar, from the poisonous Eyes of curious Malignancy, but now his naked and unprotected Side lies open to the Attempts of impious Liberty, nothing wanting( in reference to their Inflictions) that may give a Complexion to his Sufferings, only his Alacrity in entertaining what their Hate can impose, shows him so far above their Malice, that he seems able to undergo more than their mischievous Studies can obtrude; while he poor Prince of a Mole-hill( tho' Master of a Heart great as Pelion upon Ossa) like the King of true Beasts, entangled in the Toil( by some slight Improvidence of his own) scorns to fill the Ears of the World with Complaints and Roaring, but with Majesty repining to beg even Liberty itself, with Patience expects the Event of his Bondage: Thus caesar threw his Garment over his Face and died perpetual dictatory. See what an undisturbed Mildness his Face and Actions express, as if this Eagle were a Dove and had no gull, no single Mischief thunders upon his Soul, the Injuries of a dear Wife, and a loved Issue come to crown his Patience, a Shock worthy the Resistance of so confirmed a Prince: Their own Eyes who have been Instruments in this must pay due Tribute to so sad a Contemplation, and weep that only this way is left 'em to their supposed Security: What does he suffer? Even that which would make Death in all its Horror to be courted by a carnal Apprehension. Dejected Job, in the Depth of Misery had triple Comfort, and though he choose the dunghill for Repose was unconfined: Here 'tis Treason for the Son to beg his Father's Blessing, too much Liberty for the Father to be shut up from the Sight of the Children, and utterly impossible for the Council of Friends to reach his Ears, who being in himself so admirable a President, is to them the prime Object and Motive of Imitation and Perseverance.  
Who are his Enemies? Those( O the Unhappiness of Success in Treason) whose whole Help is Despair; since they are conscious they have sinned beyond Reconciliation, they are now resolved to make themselves clearly incapable of Mercy, Una salus miseris nullam sperare salutem: And Ills of this Nature cannot be safe without committing greater, therefore, like State-Fencers with the Sword of Reformation threatening to strike off petty Abuses at the Foot of the Commonwealth, they falsify and have a care of your Head. The Design is not yet ripe for Action, the squinting Commonalty sees something, and a Northern Plea put in a Demur: However, to strike sure, the Affections of the Subject must be indirectly sounded: First remove his Throne out of the Peoples Hearts, and then one Man may do the rest. Nothing so effectual to this purpose as Detraction, and something must be spoken in Prologue to the intended Tragedy: Let it concern the Protestant Religion, and the Country questions it no further: The King hindered the Relief of Rochel, and their King reduced them to due Obedience, dangerous and exemplary: This relates to themselves, whom it behoves to oblige all they may to countenance Rebellion, guessing e're long they may want Patrons. Next something monstrous enough to busy the Eyes of the World must be pretended, lest the Depth of their own projected Mischief should be leisurably enquired into. The Kid must be seethed in the Dam's Milk, the Father died to leave the Son a Kingdom, the Son must not inherit because his Father's dead; who but such Artificers could have invented such an Engine? here Matchiavel does Homage. Did the King consent to violate his Father's Age? He is as far above their Question, as they are beneath their own Justification; endeavouring, like impious Sons, to do no less to the Father of their Kingdom: Who, thus oppressed, is happy in his true Miseries, while they are miserable in their seeming Happiness, having from his princely Essence, Nobleness enough to create Fortitude, while they retain from their ambitious Attempts Uncertainty of Event, the Parent of Doubt and Fear. Should their Intentions move to his ruin, their own Mischief would halt, till their Intention gave it Feet to overtake themselves: This cannot be unperceived, since already to avoid the easy Yoke of single Monarchy, they have subjugated themselves to the confused burden of as many Dictates, as the divided Army hath Brigades. A Body, whose Success was enough( had they been as ingenuous as fortunate) to have enriched them with a Repute durable as their now inseparable Infamy is like to prove; who, like the untamed Elements in the moderated Nature of Servants, were of use to their Employers; but their careless Masters have so long connived, that they may now change Names, being only formally what the other essentially are; to speak in a marshal Phrase, a Lieutenant Parliament to their General, Sir Thomas Fairfax, poor Pigmalions, Slaves to an Image of their own making: The Counsel of War begets those Orders in private which the Country must Father in public, though they entertain them with the Countenance of a Constable when he finds a Wenche's Maiden-head lap'd up in swaddling Clouts in his Entry. spite of all Contradiction, a Match must be struck between Reformation and Independency, I fear while the Nuptials are celebrating, their Brother Presbyterians( as very Centaurs as themselves) will endeavour a Rape. And then, like Cadmus's Earth-born Enemies, those Twin-Prodigies will by mutual Execution open a Passage through their own Bowels for injured Majesty to re-ascend the Throne. True virtue is irrelative to either extreme, and there is Hopes the House may stand while two contrary Winds strive to overthrow it. The Independent craftily cedes to the Presbyterian, and while he seems, by easy Compliance, to give ground, destroys his Pursuer: Thus a flying Parthian shoots backward. The Presbyterian, secure in his Flight, exposes his Breast to the unexpected Arrow, by the careless and open management of his Designs, when both are fled or dead, the Kingdom will be without an Army. If the Presbyterian take the Cure in hand, one Poison may expel another, something must succeed to cure the Remedy, else the Mist that makes Independency vanish may make us wander: He that drowns in a Sea or a River, meets with an equal ruin. The Crown we all know is at stake, for which the Souldiers and the States are casting Lots, it must fall to one of their Shares to rule; and let Aesop's Frogs beware of the Stork: Yet, who so gains it shall find it like Nessus's Shirt, when stripped over his Ears his Head and Quarters will follow it.  
The country in the mean time, like pretty schoolboys, puff themselves out of Breath to mount those round Bubbles; whom, while they follow with their Eye and Admiration, if their unguided Feet stumble not to a further Mischief, their best Reward shall be the Loss of their expenses, and the Sight of nothing: This they begin to guess at, and would now be contented to be loyal, but that the Danger out-weighs their honest Desires, 
The Vulgar most to caesar bends,  
Yet with their Love their Fear contends.   
I could laugh to see them drink the King's Health by Signs, to the Encouragement of whose ruin, so many Thousands of their petitionary Hands have signed: A handsome Recantation, much like that Secret of Nature in Albertus Magnus, where by spitting in that Fist with which you struck, the Pain of the inflicted Blow shall immediately cease.  
Well, let the Houses proceed, but this by the way, should the Train take Fire, and blow up the King, Power, and Person, look upon the Series of his Progeny, and this is no Security to the Machinators, but the expected Sun, instead of shining with Serenity upon the Kingdom, will become a Blazing comet, threatening Fire and Sword. I hope better, and believe the wisest of them, like expert Generals, keep their Ground until their Carriages march off: Some petty Voters that pin their Resolve upon unpremeditated Event; have not perhaps the Discretion to perceive their own Danger or the Conveyances of their wiser Fellows. Let them consider their Condition, and find themselves miserable, since their whole Safety lives in the Opinion of an hired Army; especially when they know themselves so loathe to pay the Hire of their own Security: If the King may be mewed up, the soldier fooled, and the Scots blandish'd till the Houses are finished at Amsterdam, and the designed Angels flown to rest on the Bank beyond the Water, then all that can will skip to scape the Collar. 'tis thought this Summer will ripen the Fruit, and those glorious apple of Sodom drop from the three: If Heaven restore the gardener of the Kingdom to his Charge and Care, there will be lopping and throwing into the Fire; if not, the Soil will prove too rank for a settled Peace to flourish in. From their own Sins and Differences; we derive some Hopes from the Justice of our Cause, we second those and the Indisposition of the Country towards their Injunctions, gives a further Confirmation: Who, though they enjoy some Immunity in their Silence; yet, as in their own Curs their not barking is not an Argument of their want of Teeth, happily they are in a Pinfold, and the hovering Army( though more like Wolves than Shepherds, awe them with a Whistle, but the Nature of those Flocks are like that of an immured Torrent, which having once found the least Rimula of Emission, pursues it to a perfect Enlargement. Should the North summon their Guards to an Employment, some bold Dux Gregis or other, would led the way, and then Ruit Vulgus.  
And now Vengeance, with a Motion swift as Injury can wish( through all the Foils and Doubles of Pretence) prosecutes the guilty Game in open View: Whose faint Evasions promise to Justice a sudden Attach of her expected Prey. Our State-Actaeons being( by looking with too familiar an Eye upon Divine Majesty) transformed into a Chase for their own Scotch Beagles, who know not their once Masters in their newly assumed Independent Shape. The Cavalier has been long at a Fault, but hearing the Cry renew, joins Throats with the Covenant, a deep mouthed Bloodhound in a loud Pursuit: If the Blandishment of a Dominum cognoscite vestrum, in the late Declaration cannot prevail to a Regard, the last Act must be like the Fall of an Eremanthean Boar to attempt Security by a desperate Use of the Tusk and Sword; the only mischievous Means to crown the unnatural Process with a Brutish Period. If the Scot be not too covetous to be honest, the next Scene is shifting, but give me leave to doubt the Reason of their Distance to proceed from the Taste of those Sweets, which the unwearied Vigilancy of our Collector's Industry here hath so often made them Fellow-Sharers in; I doubt they have the Discretion of making their Hire an Inheritance, and can, like those, Qui noverant secreta domus atque ind timeri; fright the Parliament when they please into a Compliance, by the Bug-bear of advancing; their League with France, and the Sense of that Honor which they exposed in delivering up his Majesty, who fled to them for Protection, may somewhat incline them to Motion: It would be as strange as grateful, should those Northern Blasts( which have hitherto breathed nothing but Barrenness and Sterility upon England) come hand in hand with our hopeful Spring.  
He that rides upon the Wings of the Wind, can( if he please) make this Boreas a Zephire, to them a Storm that hate the King, to those a Calmy Fanning Refreshment that love him and the Peace of his Government.  
FINIS.