Page:Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission.djvu/65

 of their liberties:—And were ready to yield up freely to Charles II, all that enormous power, which they had jutly reited Charles I, for uurping to himelf.

lat query mentioned, was, Why thoe of the Epicopal clergy who are very high in the principles of eccleiatical authority, continue to peak of this unhappy prince as a great Saint and a Martyr? This, we know, is what they contantly do, epecially upon the 30th of January;—a day acred to the extolling of him, and to the reproaching of thoe who are not of the etablihed church. Out of the ame mouth on this day, proceedeth bleing and curing; there with bles they their God, even Charles, and therewith cure they the dienters: And their tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poion. King Charles is, upon this olemnity, frequently compared to our Lord Jeus Chrit, both in repect of the holines of his life, and the greatnes and injutice of his ufferings; and it is a wonder they do not add omething concerning the merits of his death alo—But bleed Saint and royal martyr, are as humble titles as any that are thought worthy of him.

this may, at firt view, well appear to be a very trange phenomenon. For king Charles was really a man black with guilt and laden with iniquity, as appears by his crimes before mentioned. He lived a tyrant; and it was the oppreion and violence of his reign, that brought him to his untimely and violent end at lat. Now what of ainthip or martyrdom is there in all this!