><o0 The LIFE of the Y.. I B. I. to have openneff in Fame andOpinion, Secret in habit , ',Simulation in fafonable rife ; and a power to feign if there be no remedy,]yEßay6. prig, 31.. Therefore he kept fair with all , faring his open or unreconcileable Enemies. He carried it with filch Diffimulation, that Anabaptins, Independants, and Antinomians did all think that he was one of them : But he never endeavouredto perfwade the 'Presbyteri- ans that he was one of them ; but only that he would do them Janice, and Pre. ferve them, and that hehonoured their Worth and Piety ; for he knew that they were not fò eafily deceived. In a word, he did as our Prelates have done, begin low and rife higher in his Refolutions as his Condition rote , and the Promifes which he made in his lower Condition, he ufed as the interen of his higher fol- lowing Condition did require, and kept up as much Honeny aid Godlinefs in the main, as his Caufe and Intereft would allow, ( but there they left him ) : And his Name ftandeth as a monitory Monument or Pillar to Pofterity to tell them, [The inftability of Man in ftrongTempratiom, if God leave him to himfelf: what great Succe/1 and Vierlorier can do to life up a Mind that once teemed humble: what Pride can do to make Man felffh, and corrupt the Heart with it defignr : what fe f fbneß and ill detignr cando, to bribe the Confcience, and corrupt the Iudgment, and make men jnffifa the greaten Erroars and Sins, and feragain(' the cleareft Truth and Du- ty s what Bloodfhed and great Enormities ofLife, an Erring deluded Judgment may drawMen to, andpatronize; and That when God hash dreadful Judgments to execute, an Erroneous Sebtary, or a proudSelf- feeker, is oftner his Inftrument , than an humble, Lamb -like, innocent Saint]. § rqç. Cromwell being dead, his Son Richard by bra Will and Tenament, and the Army was quietly felled inhis place ; while all Men look'd that they should pre- fendy have fallen intoConfufion and Difcord among themfelves ; the Counties, Cities, and Corporations ofEngland fend up their Congratulations, to own him as Protestor': ( But none of us in Worceflerfhire, fave the Independants, medled in it) He interred his Father with great Pompand Solemnity : He called a Parlia- ment, and . that without any fuch Reffraints as his Father had ufed: TheMembers took the Oath of Fidelity or Allegiance to him at the Door of the Houfe before they entred. And all Men wondred to fee all foquiet, in fo dangerous a Time. Many fober Men that called his Father no better than a Trayterous Hypocrite,did begin to think that they owed him Subjection. They knew that the King was by Birth their Rightful Sovereign and refolved to do their ben while there was hopes to introduce him, and defend him: But they were anonifhed at the marvellous Providences of God , which had been againff that Familyall along , and they thought that there was no rational probabilityof his Re- floration, having feen fo many Armies and Rifings and Defigns overthrown , which were raifed or undertaken for it : They thought that it is not left to our liberty , whether . we will have a Government, or not; but that Govern- ment is of Divine Appointment; and the Family, Perfon or Species is but of a fuhlèrvient, lefsneceffary determination: And that if we cannot have him that we would have, it followeth not that we may bewithout: That twelve years time ( from the Death of the laft King) was longer than the Land could be without a Governour, without the Denru&ion of the Common Good, which is theEnd of Government ! Therefore that theSubjedts, fetingthey are unable to re- (tore the King, mull confent to another : That the Houle of Commons, having fworn Allegiance to him, have a&ually fubjested the Nation tohim : And though his Father Trayteroufly made the Change, yet the Succeffor of a Traytor may by the Peoplesconfent, become a Governour , whom each Individual muff ac- knowledge by Subjection : That the Bithops and Churches both of Falk and Weft, as all Hiflory fheweth, have profeffed their Subjection to Ufurpers, in a far (hott- er time, and upon lighter Reafons : That this Man havingnever had any hand in the War, (but fuppoted to be for the King) nor ever Peeking for the Government, and now Teeming to ownthe Sober Party, was like to beefed in thehealing ofthe Land, &c.] Such Reafonings as theft began to take with the minds of many, to fobjeet themfelves quietly to this Man (though they never did it to his Father) as The ad- now defpairingof the Reftitution of the King : ' And I confefs filch Thoughts mensgreref were fomewhat prevalent withmy felf: But God quickly !hewed us the root of fent cruel our Errour, which was our limiting the Almighty ; as if that were hard to him Maliee,was that was impolliible to us : So that the Reftoration of the King, which we thought only from next impoilib,e, was accomplifhed in a trice: And we faw that twelveor eighteen ofEBooks years is not long enough towaiton God. r a wherein I never jaftified his Ufurpation : But Jodicir oficium eIF ut reo i empora rerum,&c. The e
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=