ries punished, the chief author, above pardon, though after utmost refiftance, vanquished; not to give, but to receive laws; yet befought, treated with, and to be thanked for his gracious conceflions, to be honoured, worthipped, glorified. If this we fwore to do, with what righteousness in the fight of God, with what affurance that we bring not by fuch an oath, the whole fea of bloodguiltinefs upon our heads? If on the other fide we prefer a free government, though for the prefent not obtained, yet all thofe fuggefted fears and difficulties, as the event will prove, easily overcome, we remain finally fecure from the exafperated regal power, and out of fnares; fhall retain the best part of our liberty, which is our religion, and the civil part will be from these who defer us, much more easily recovered, being neither fo fubtle nor fo awful as a king reinthroned. Nor were their actions lefs both at home and abroad, than might become the hopes of a glorious rifing commonwealth: nor were the expreffions both of army and people, whether in their public declarations, or feveral writings, other than fuch as teftified a fpirit in this nation, no lefs noble and well fitted to the liberty of a commonwealth, than in the ancient Greeks or Romans. Nor was the heroic caufe unfuccefsfully defended to all Chriftendom, against the tongue of a famous and thought invincible adverfary; nor the conftancy and fortitude, that fo nobly vindicated our liberty, our victory at once against two the moft prevailing ufurpers over mankind, fuperftition and tyranny, unpraised or uncelebrated in a written monument, likely to outlive detraction, as it hath hitherto convinced or filenced not a few of our detractors, efpecially in parts abroad. After our liberty and religion thus profperoufly fought for, gained, and many years poffeffed, except in those unhappy interruptions, which God hath removed; now that nothing remains, but in all reason the certain hopes of a speedy and immediate fettlement for ever in a firm and free commonwealth, for this extolled and magnified nation, regardlefs both of honour won, or deliverances vouchfafed from Heaven, to fall back, or rather to creep back fo poorly, as it feems the multitude

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multitude would, to their once abjured and detefted thraldom of kingship, to be ourselves the flanderers of our own juft and religious deeds, though done by fome to covetous and ambitious ends, yet not therefore to be ftained with their infamy, or they to afperfe the integrity of others; and yet these now by revolting from the confcience of deeds well done, both in church and ftate, to throw away and forfake, or rather to betray a just and noble caufe for the mixture of bad men who have ill-managed and abufed it, (which had our fathers done heretofore, and on the fame pretence deserted true religion, what had long ere this become of our gospel and all proteftant reformation fo much intermixed with the avarice and ambition of fome reformers?) and by thus relapfing, to verify all the bitter predictions of our triumphing enemies, who will now think they wifely difcerned and juftly cenfured both us and all our actions as rafh, rebellious, hypocritical, and impious; not only argues a ftrange degenerate contagion fuddenly fpread among us, fitted and prepared for new flavery, but will render us a fcorn and derifion to all our neighbours. And what will they at beft fay of us, and of the whole English name, but fcoffingly, as of that foolish builder mentioned by our Saviour, who began to build a tower, and was not able to finish it? Where is this goodly tower of a commonwealth, which the English boafted they would build to overthadow kings, and be another Rome in the weft? The foundation indeed they lay gallantly, but fell into a worfe confufion not of tongues, but of factions, than thofe at the tower of Babel; and have left no memorial of their work behind them remaining, but in the common laughter of Europe! Which muft needs redound the more to our fhame, if we but look on our neighbours the United Provinces, to us inferiour in all outward advantages; who notwithstanding, in the midst of greater difficulties, courageoufly, wifely, conftantly went through with the fame work, and are fettled in all the happy enjoyments of a potent and flourishing republic to this day.

Befides this, if we return to kingfhip, and foon repent, (as undoubtedly we fhall, when we begin to find the old encroachments

encroachments coming on by little and little upon our confciences which muft neceffarily proceed from king and bishop united infeparably in one intereft,) we may be forced perhaps to fight over again all that we have fought, and spend over again all that we have spent, but are never like to attain thus far as we are now advanced to the recovery of our freedom, never to havè it in poffeffion as we now have it, never to be vouchfafed hereafter the like mercies and fignal affiftances from Heaven in our caufe, if by our ingrateful backfliding we make these fruitless; flying now to regal conceflions from his divine condefcenfions, and gracious anfwers to our once importuning prayers against the tyranny which we then groaned under; making vain and viler than dirt the blood of fo many thoufand faithful and valiant Englishmen, who left us in this liberty, bought with their lives; lofing by a ftrange aftergame of folly all the battles we have won, together with all Scotland as to our conqueft, hereby loft, which never any of our kings could conquer, all the treasure we have spent, not that corruptible treasure only, but that far more precious of all our late miraculous deliverances; treading back again with loft labour all our happy steps in the progrefs of reformation, and moit pitifully depriving ourfelves the inftant fruition of that free government, which we have fo dearly purchased, a free commonwealth, not only held by wifeft men in all ages the nobleft, the manlieft, the equalleft, the justest government, the most agreeable to all due liberty and proportioned equality, both human, civil, and chriftian, most cherishing to virtue and true religion, but alfo (I may say it with greatest probability) plainly commended, or rather enjoined by our Saviour himself, to all christians, not without remarkable difallowance, and the brand of Gentilifm upon kingfhip. God in much displeasure gave a king to the Ifraelites, and imputed it a fin to them that they fought one: but Chrift ap parently forbids his difciples, to admit of any fuch heathenish government; "The kings of the Gentiles," faith he, "exercise lordship over them ;" and they that "exercise authority upon them are called benefactors:

but ye shall not be fo; but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that ferveth." The occafion of these his words was the ambitious defire of Zebedee's two fons, to be exalted above their brethren in his kingdom, which they thought was to be ere long upon earth. That he speaks of civil government, is manifeft by the former part of the comparison, which infers the other part to be always in the fame kind. And what government comes nearer to this precept of Chrift, than a free commonwealth; wherein they who are the greatest, are perpetual fervants and drudges to the public at their own coft and charges, neglect their own affairs, yet are not elevated above their brethren; live foberly in their families, walk the street as other men, may be spoken to freely, familiarly, friendly, without adoration? Whereas a king must be adored like a demigod, with a diffolute and haughty court about him, of vast expense and luxury, masks and revels, to the debauching of our prime gentry both male and female; not in their paftimes only, but in earnest, by the loofe employments of court-fervice, which will be then thought honourable. There will be a queen of no lefs charge; in most likelihood outlandish and a papift, befides a queen mother fuch already; together with both their courts and numerous train: then a royal iffue, and ere long severally their fumptuous courts; to the multiplying of a fervile crew, not of fervants only, but of nobility and gentry, bred up then to the hopes not of public, but of courtoffices, to be ftewards, chamberlains, uthers, grooms, even of the closestool; and the lower their minds debased with court-opinions, contrary to all virtue and reformation, the haughtier will be their pride and profuseness. We may well remember this not long fince at home; nor need but look at prefent into the French court, where enticements and preferments daily draw away and pervert the proteftant nobility. As to the burden of expenfe, to our coft we shall foon know it; for any good to us deferving to be termed no better than the vaft and lavish price of our fubjection, and their debauchery, which we are now fo greedily cheap

ening, and would fo fain be paying moft inconfiderately to a single perfon; who for any thing wherein the public really needs him, will have little elfe to do, but to beftow the eating and drinking of exceffive dainties, to fet a pompous face upon the fuperficial actings of ftate, to pageant himself up and down in progrefs among the perpetual bowings and cringings of an abject people, on either fide deifying and adoring him for nothing done that can deferve it. For what can he more than another man? who, even in the expreffion of a late courtpoet, fits only like a great cipher fet to no purpose before a long row of other fignificant figures. Nay, it is well and happy for the people, if their king be but a cipher, being ofttimes a mischief, a peft, a fcourge of the nation, and which is worfe, not to be removed, not to be controlled, much lefs accufed or brought to punishment, without the danger of a common ruin, without the fhaking and almoft fubverfion of the whole land: whereas in a free commonwealth, any governor or chief counsellor offending may be removed and punished, without the leaft commotion. Certainly then that people must needs be mad, or strangely infatuated, that build the chief hope of their common happinefs or fafety on a single perfon; who, if he happen to be good, can do no more than another man; if to be bad, hath in his hands to do more evil without check, than millions of other men. The happinefs of a nation muft needs be firmeft and certaineft in full and free council of their own electing, where no fingle perfon, but reason only fways. And what madnefs is it for them who might manage nobly their own affairs themfelves, fluggishly and weakly to devolve all on a fingle perfon; and more like boys under age than men, to commit all to his patronage and difpofal, who neither can perform what he undertakes, and yet for undertaking it, though royally paid, will not be their fervant, but their lord? How unmanly muft it needs be, to count fuch a one the breath of our noftrils, to hang all our felicity on him, all our fafety, our well-being, for which if we were aught elfe but fluggards or babies, we need depend on none but God and our own counfels, our own active virtue and industry?