An Apologie for the Royal Party; and A Panegyric to Charles the Second | Page 8

together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her winge, and ye would not? Behold, your House is left unto you desolate._--For do not think it impossible, that we should become the most abandon'd, and barbarous of all the nations under heaven. You know who has said it: _He turneth a fruitfull land into a Wildernesse, for the iniquity of them that inhabit therein._ And truly, he that shall seriously consider the sad Catastrophe of the Eastern Empire, so flourishing in piety, policy, knowledg, literature, and all the excellencies of a happy and blessed people; would almost think it impossible, that in so few years, and a midst so glorious a light of learning and Religion, so suddain, and palpable a darknesse, so strange and horrid a barbarity should over-spread them, as now we behold in all that goodly tract of the Turkish dominions: And what was the cause of all this, but the giddinesse of a wanton people, the Schisms and the Heresies in the church, and the prosperous successes of a rebellious Impostor, whose steps we have pursued in so many pregnant instances; giving countenance to those unheard of impieties, and delusions, as if God be not infinitely merciful, must needs involve us under the same disasters? For, whilst there is no order in the Church, no body of Religion agreed upon, no government established, and that every man is abandoned to his own deceitfull heart: whilst learning is decried, and honesty discountenanc'd, rapine defended, and vertue finds no advocate; what can we in reason expect, but the most direfull expressions of the wrath of God, a universall desolation, when by the industry of Sathan and his crafty Emissaries, some desperate enthusiasme, compounded (like that of Mohomet,) of Arian, Socinian, Jew, Anabaptist, and the impurer Gnostick, something I say made up of all these heresies, shall diffuse it self over the Nation, in a universall contagion, and nothing lesse appear then the Christian which we have ingratefully renounced?
_For this plague is already beginning amongst us, and there is none to take the Censer, and to stand between the living and the dead, that we be not consumed as in a moment; for there is wrath gone out from the Lord._ Let us then depart from the tents of these wicked men (who have brought all this upon us) _and touch nothing of theirs, lest we be consumed in all their sins_.
But you will say, the King is not to be trusted: judg not of others by your selves; did ever any man observe the least inclination of revenge in his breast? has he not betides the innate propensity of his own nature to gentlenesse, the strict injunctions of a dying father and a Martyr, to forgive even greater offenders then you are? Yes, I dare pronounce it with confidence, and avouch it whith all assurance, that there is not an individuall amongst you, whose crimes are the most crimson, whom he will not be most ready to pardon, and graciously receive upon their repentance; nor any thing that can be desired of him, to which he would not cheerfully accommode, for the stopping of that torrent of blood, and extream confusion, which has hitherto run, and is yet imminent over us. Do but reason a little with your self, and confider sadly, whether a young Prince, mortified by so many afflictions, disciplin'd by much experience, and instructed by the miscarriages of others, be not the most excellently qualified to govern and reduce a people, who have so succeslesly tried so many governments, of old, impious and crafty Foxes, that have exercised upon us the most intollerable Tyrannies that were ever heard of?
But you object further, that he has lived amongst Papists, is vitiously inclin'd, and has wicked men about him: What can be said more unjustly, what more malitious? And can you have the foreheads to tell us he has lived amongst Papists to his prejudice, who have proscrib'd him from Protestants, persecuted him from place to place, _as a Patridg on the Mountains? You may remember who once went to Achich the King of Gath and changed his behaviour before them, and fain'd himself mad in their hands_; had many great infirmities, and was yet a man after Gods own heart; Whilst the Catholick King was your Allie, you had nothing to do with Papists, it was then no crime: _God is not mocked, away with this respect of persons: But where is it you would have him to be? The Hollander_ dares not afford him harbour, lest you refuse them yours: The French may not give him bread for fear of offending you; and unless he should go to the Indies, or the Turk (where yet your malice would undoubtedly reach him) where can he