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

Principles, to withdraw your self from these
Seducers, to repent of what you have done, _and save your self from
this untoward Generation_: There is yet a door of Repentance open, do
not provoke the Majesty of the great God any longer, which yet tenders
a Reconciliation to you. Remember what was once said over the
perishing Jerusalem. _How often would I have gathered you 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: