union of the whole republic. In which happy firmness, as in the particular above-mentioned, we fhall also far exceed the United Provinces, by having, not as they (to the retarding and distracting ofttimes of their counfels or urgenteft occafions) many fovereignties united in one commonwealth, but many commonwealths under one united and intrufted fovereignty. And when we have our forces by fea and land, either of a faithful army, or a fettled militia, in our own hands, to the firm establishing of a free commonwealth, public accounts under our own infpection, general laws and taxes, with their causes in our own domeftic fuffrages, judicial laws, offices, and ornaments at home in our own ordering and adminif tration, all distinction of lords and commoners, that may any way divide or fever the public intereft, removed; what can a perpetual fenate have then, wherein to grow corrupt, wherein to encroach upon us, or ufurp? or if they do, wherein to be formidable? Yet if all this avail not to remove the fear or envy of a perpetual fitting, it may be easily provided, to change a third part of them yearly, or every two or three years, as was above-mentioned; or that it be at thofe times in the people's choice, whether they will change them, or renew their power, as they fhall find cause.

I have no more to say at prefent: few words will fave us, well confidered; few and eafy things, now feafonably done. But if the people be fo affected as to proftitute religion and liberty to the vain and groundlefs apprehenfion, that nothing but kingship can restore trade, not remembering the frequent plagues and peftilences, that then wafted this city, fuch as through God's mercy we never have felt fince; and that trade flourishes no where more than in the free commonwealths of Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries, before their eyes at this day; yet if trade be grown fo craving and importunate through the profufe living of tradefmen, that nothing can fupport it but the luxurious expenfes of a nation upon trifles or fuperfluities; fo as if the people generally should betake themselves to frugality, it might prove a dangerous matter, left tradesmen should mutiny for want of trading; and that therefore we must forego

and

and fet to fale religion, liberty, honour, fafety, all con cernments divine or human, to keep up trading: if, laftly, after all this light among us, the fame reafon fhall pafs for current, to put our necks again under kingship, as was made ufe of by the Jews to return back to Egypt, and to the worship of their idol queen, because they falfely imagined that they then lived in more plenty and prof perity; our condition is not found but rotten, both in religion and all civil prudence; and will bring us foon, the way we are marching, to thofe calamities, which attend always and unavoidably on luxury, all national judgments under foreign and domeftic flavery: fo far we fhall be from mending our condition by monarchising our government, whatever new conceit now poffeffes us. However, with all hazard I have ventured what I thought my duty to speak in feafon, and to forewarn my country in time; wherein I doubt not but there be many wife men in all places and degrees, but am forry the effects of wifdom are fo little feen among us. Many circumftances and particulars I could have added in those things whereof I have spoken: but a few main matters now put fpeedily in execution, s will fuffice to recover us, and fet all right: and there will want at no time who are good at circumstances; but men who fet their minds on main matters, and fufficiently urge them, in thefe moft difficult times I find not many. What I have spoken, is the language of that which is not called amifs " The good old Caufe:" if it feem ftrange to any, it will not feem more ftrange, I hope, than convincing to backfliders. Thus much I fhould perhaps have faid, though I were fure I fhould have spoken only to trees and ftones; and had none to cry to, but with the prophet, "O earth, earth, earth!" to tell the very foil itself, what her perverfe inhabitants are deaf to. Nay, though what I have spoke should happen (which thou fuffer not, who didft create mankind free! nor thou next, who didt redeem us from being fervants of men!) to be the laft words of our expiring liberty. But I truft I fhall have spoken perfuafion to abundance of fenfible and ingenuous men ; to fome perhaps, whom God may raise to thefe ftones to

become

become children of reviving liberty; and may reclaim, though they feem now choofing them a captain back for Egypt, to bethink themselves a little, and confider whither they are rufhing; to exhort this torrent also of the people, not to be fo impetuous, but to keep their due channel; and at length recovering and uniting their better refolutions, now that they fee already how open and unbounded the infolence and rage is of our common enemies, to ftay thefe ruinous proceedings, juftly and timely fearing to what a precipice of deftruction the de luge of this epidemic madness would hurry us, through the general defection of a mifguided and abused mul titude.

2

BRIEF

NOTE S

UPON A LATE

SERMON

TITLED,

THE FEAR OF GOD AND THE KING;

Preached and fince published,

By MATTHEW GRIFFITH, D. D.

And Chaplain to the late King.

Wherein many notorious Wreftings of Scripture, and other Falfities, are obferved.

Affirmed in the preface of a late difcourfe, intitled, "The ready Way to eftablish a Free Commonwealth, and the Dangers of readmitting Kingfhip in this Nation," that the humour of returning to our old bondage was inftilled of late by fome deceivers; and to make good, that what I then affirmed was not without juft ground, one of those deceivers I prefent here to the people: and if I prove him not fuch, refufe not to be fo accounted in his ftead.

He begins in his epiftle to the general *, and moves cunningly for a licence to be admitted physician both to church and state; then fets out his practice in phyfical terms," a wholefome electuary to be taken every morning next our hearts;" tells of the oppofition which he met with from the college of ftate phyficians, then lays before you his drugs and ingredients; "Strong purgatives in the pulpit, contempered of the myrrh of mortification, the aloes of confeffion and contrition, the rhu

⚫ Monk.

barb

barb of reftitution and fatisfaction;" a pretty fantastic dofe of divinity from a pulpit mountebank, not unlike the fox, that turning pedlar, opened his pack of ware before the kid; though he now would feem, "to perfonate the good Samaritan," undertaking to "defcribe the rife and progrefs of our national malady, and to prefcribe the only remedy;" which how he performs, we fhall quickly fee.

First, he would fuborn St. Luke as his spokesman to the general, prefuming, it seems, " to have had as perfect understanding of things from the very firft," as the evangelift had of his gofpel; that the general, who hath fo eminently born his part in the whole action, " might know the certainty of those things" better from him a partial fequeftered enemy; for fo he prefently appears, though covertly, and like the tempter, commencing his addrefs with an impudent calumny and affront to his excellence, that he would be pleafed " to carry on what he had fo happily begun in the name and caufe" not of God only, which we doubt not, but " of his anointed," meaning the late king's fon; to charge him most audacioufly and falfely with the renouncing of his own public promifes and declarations, both to the parliament and the army, and we truft his actions ere long will deter fuch infinuating flanderers from thus approaching him for the future. But the general may well excufe him; for the comforter himself scapes not his prefumption, avouched as falfely, to have empowered to thofe defigns" him and him only," who hath folemnly declared the contrary. What fanatic, against whom he fo ofiten inveighs, could more prefumptuoufly affirm whom the comforter hath empowered, than this anti-fanatic, as he would be thought?

The Text.

Prov. xxiv, 21, "My fon, fear God and the king, and neddle not with them that be feditious, or defirous of change," &c.

Ietting pafs matters not in controverfy, I come to the maia drift of your fermon, the king; which word here