Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 10.djvu/85

Rh in a publick manner, those principles upon which their predecessors acted; and it will be more prudent in them to do so, because those very puritans, of whom ours are followers, found, by experience, that after they had overturned the church and state, murdered their king, and were projecting what they called a kingdom of the saints, they were cheated of the power and possessions they only panted after, by an upstart sect of religion that grew out of their own bowels, who subjected them to one tyrant, while they were endeavouring to set up a thousand.

Fourthly, those who profess to be followers of our church established, and yet presume in discourse to justify or excuse that rebellion and murder of the king, ought to consider how utterly contrary all such opinions are to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles, as well as to the articles of our church, and to the preaching and practice of its true professors for above a hundred years. Of late times indeed, and I speak it with grief of heart, we have heard even sermons of a strange nature: although reason would make one think it a very unaccountable way of procuring favour under a monarchy, by palliating and lessening the guilt of those who murdered the best of kings in cold blood, and, for a time, destroyed the very monarchy itself. Pray God, we may never more hear such doctrine fiom the pulpit, nor have it scattered about in print, to poison the people!

Fifthly, Some general knowledge of this horrid rebellion and murder, with the consequences they had upon the nations, may be a warning to our people, not to believe a lie, and to mistrust those deluding spirits, who, under pretence of a purer and more reformed religion, would lead them from their duty to