ample of greater mischiefs; when they continually behold both your Majesty and themselves exposed to dangers; the church, the government, the succession, still threatened; ingratitude, so far from being converted by gentle means, that it is turned at last into the nature of the damned, desirous of revenge, and hardened in impenitence,-it is time, at length, for self-preservation to cry out for justice, and to lay by mildness, when it ceases to be a virtue. Almighty God has hitherto miraculously preserved you; but who knows how long the miracle will continue? His ordinary operations are by second causes; and then reason will conclude, that to be preserved, we ought to use the lawful means of preservation. If, on the other side, it be thus argued, that, of many attempts, one may possibly take place, if preventing justice be not employed against offenders; what remains, but that we implore the divine assistance to avert that judgment; which is no more than to desire of God to work another and another, and, in conclusion, a whole series of miracles. This, Sir, is the general voice of all true Englishmen; I might call it the loyal address of three nations infinitely solicitous of your safety, which includes their own prosperity. It is, indeed, an high presumption for a man so inconsiderable as I am to present it; but zeal and dutiful affection, in an affair of this importance, will make every good subject a counsellor. It is, in my opinion, the test of loyalty; and, to be either a friend or foe to the government needs no other distinction, than to declare at this time either for remissness or justice. I said at this time, because I look not on the storm as overblown. It is still a gusty kind of weather: there is a kind of sickness in the air; it seems, indeed, to be cleared up for some few hours; but the wind still blowing from the same corner, and when new matter is gathered into a body, it will not fail to bring it round, and pour upon us a second tempest. I shall be glad to be found a false prophet; but he was certainly inspired, who, when he saw a little cloud arising from the sea, and that no bigger than a hand, gave immediate notice to the king, that he might mount the chariot, before he was overtaken by the storm. If so much care was taken of an idolatrous king, an usurper, a persecutor, and a tyrant, how much more vigilant ought we to be in the conceruments of a lawful prince, a father of his country, and a defender of the faith, who stands exposed by his too much mercy to the unwearied and endless conspiracies of parricides? He was a better prince than the former whom I mentioned out of the sacred history, and the allusion comes yet more close, who stopped his hand after the third arrow: Three victories were indeed obtained; but the effect of often shooting had been the total destruction of his enemies. ↑ To come yet nearer: Henry the Fourth, • “And Elijah said unto Ahab, Get thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. "So Ahab went up to eat and to drink; and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel, and cast himself down upon the earth, and put his head between his knees; "And said to his servant, Go up now, look toward the sea; and he went up and looked, and said there is nothing; and he said, Go again seven times. "And it came to pass at the seventh time, that he said, Behold there comes a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand: And he said, Go, say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not. And "And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind; and there was a great rain. Ahab rode and went to Jezreel."-1 Kings, xviii. 41–46. + Joash king of Israel, having visited the prophet Elisha while on his death-bed, was desired, by the dying seer, to take a bow, your royal grandfather, whose victories, and the subversion of the League, are the main argument of this history, was a prince most clement in his nature he forgave his rebels, and received them all into mercy, and some of them into favour, but it was not till he had fully vanquished them they were sensible of their impiety; they submitted, and his clemency was not extorted from him; it was his free gift, and it was seasonably given. I wish the case were here the same: I confess it was not much unlike it at your Majesty's happy restoration; yet so much of the parallel was then wanting, that the amnesty you gave produced not all the desired effects. For our sects are of a more obstinate nature than were those leaguing Catholics, who were always for a king, and, yet more, the major part of them would have him of the royal stem; but our associators and sectaries are men of commonwealth principles; and though their first stroke was only aimed at the immediate succession, it was most manifest that it would not there have ended, for at "And he and shoot an arrow towards the east, and he shot. said, the arrow of the Lord's deliverance, and the arrow of deli verance from Syria; for thou shalt smite the Syrians in Aphek till thou have consumed them. "And he said, Take the arrows, and he took them. And he said unto the king of Israel, Smite upon the ground, and he smote thrice and stayed. "And the man of God was wroth with him, and said, Thou shouldst have smitten five and six times, then hadst thou smitten Syria till thou hadst consumed it, whereas now thou shalt smite Syria but thrice."-2 Kings, xiii. 14---20. Our readers need hardly be reminded, that the League was a confederacy formed under pretence of maintaining the Catholic religion, and excluding Henry of Navarre, afterwards Henry IV., from the throne, on account of his being a Huguenot. It was only dispersed and subdued after the long and bloody war which was terminated by his ascending the throne in 1594. the same time they were hewing at your royal prerogatives. So that the next successor, if there had been any, must have been a precarious prince, and depended on them for the necessaries of life. But of these and more outrageous proceedings, your Majesty has already shewn yourself justly sensible in your declaration, after the dissolution of the last Parliament, which put an end to the arbitrary encroachments of a popular faction. Since which time it has pleased Almighty God so to prosper your affairs, that, without searching into the secrets of Divine Providence, it is evident your magnanimity and resolution, next under Him, have been the immediate cause of your safety and our present happiness. By weathering of which storm, may I presume to say it without flattery, you have performed a greater and more glorious work than all the conquests of your neighbours. For it is not difficult for a great monarchy, well united, and making use of advantages, to extend its limits; but to be pressed with wants, surrounded with dangers, your authority undermined in popular assemblies, your sacred life attempted by a conspiracy, your royal brother forced from your arms; in one word, to govern a kingdom, which was either possessed or turned into a bedlam, and yet in the midst of ruin to stand firm, undaunted, and resolved, and at last to break through all these difficulties and dis pel them, this is indeed an action which is worthy the grandson of Henry the Great. During all this violence of your enemies, your Majesty has contended with your natural clemency to make some examples of your justice; and they themselves will acknowledge, that you have not urged the law against them, but have been pressed and constrained by it to infliet punishments in your own defence, and in the mean time to watch every opportunity of shewing mercy, when there was the least probability of repentance: so that they, who have suffered, may be truly said to have forced the sword of justice out of your hand, and to have done execution on themselves. But by how much the more you have been willing to spare them, by so much has their impudence increased; and if by this mildness they recover from the great frost, which has almost blasted them to the roots, if these venomous plants shoot out again, it will be a sad comfort to say they have been ungrateful, when it is evident to mankind that ingratitude is their nature. That sort of pity which is proper for them, and may be of use to their conversion, is to make them sensible of their errors; and this your Majesty, out of your fatherly indulgence, amongst other experiments which you have made, is pleased to allow them in this book, which you have commanded to be translated for the public benefit; that at least all such as are not wilfully blind may view in it, as in a glass, their own deformities: for never was there a plainer parallel than of the troubles of France and of Great Britain; of their leagues, covenants, associations, and ours; of their Calvinists and our Presbyterians: they are all of the same family; and Titian's famous table of the Altar-piece, with the pictures of Venetian senators from great-grandfather to greatgrandson, shews not more the resemblance of a race than this: for as there, so here, the features are alike in all; there is nothing but the age that makes the difference; otherwise the old man of an hundred, and the babe in swaddling clouts, that is to say, 1584 and 1684, have but a century and a sea betwixt them, to be the same. But I have presumed too much upon your Majesty's time already, and this is not the place to shew that resemblance, which is but too manifest in the whole history. It |