Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/82

74 martyr's son was restored, were such who had drunk too deep of the bad principles then prevailing.

Fifthly, The children of the murdered prince were forced to fly, for the safety of their lives, to foreign countries; where one of them at least, I mean king James II, was seduced to popery; which ended in the loss of his kingdoms, the misery and desolation of this country, and a long and expensive war abroad. Our deliverance was owing to the valour and conduct of the late king; and therefore, we ought to remember him with gratitude, but not mingled with blasphemy or idolatry. It was happy that his interests and ours were the same: and God gave him greater success than our sins deserved. But, as a house thrown down by a storm, is seldom rebuilt without some change in the foundation; so it hath happened, that since the late revolution, men have sate much looser in the true fundamentals both of religion and government, and factions have been more violent, treacherous, and malicious than ever; men running naturally from one extreme into another; and for private ends, taking up those very opinions professed by the leaders in that rebellion, which carried the blessed martyr to the scaffold.

Sixthly, Another consequence of this horrid rebellion and murder was, the destroying or defacing of such vast number of God's houses. "In their self will they digged down a wall." If a stranger should now travel in England, and observe the churches in his way, he could not otherwise conclude, than that some vast army of Turks or heathens had been sent on purpose to ruin and blot out all marks of Christianity. They spared neither the statues of saints, nor ancient prelates; nor kings, nor benefactors; broke down the tombs