rev’rend fathers then in arms appear,And men of God became the men of war:
The nation, fired by them, to arms apply,
Assault their antichristian monarchy;
To their due channel all our laws restore,
And made things what they should have been before.
But when they came to fill the vacant throne,
And the pale priests look’d back on what they’d done,
How England liberty began to thrive,
And Church of England loyality outlive;
How all their persecuting days were done,
And their deliv’rer placed upon the throne:
The priests, as priests are wont to do, turn’d tail,
They’re Englishmen, and nature will prevail;
Now they deplore their ruins they have made,
And murmur for the master they betray’d;
Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend,
And suffer for the cause they can’t defend;
Pretend they’d not have carried things so high,
And proto-martyrs make for popery.
Had the prince done as they design’d the thing,
High set the clergy up to rule the king:
Taken a donative for coming hither,
And so have left their king and them together;
We had, say they, been now a happy nation;
No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation:
For wise men say ’tis as dangerous a thing,
A ruling priesthood, as a priest-rid king;
And of all plagues with which mankind are curst,
Ecclesiastic tyranny’s the worst.
If all our former grievances were feign’d,
King James has been abused, and we trepann’d;
Bugbear’d with popery and power despotic,
Tyrannic government, and leagues exotic;
The revolution’s a fanatic plot,
William’s a tyrant, King James was not;
A factious army and a poison’d nation,
Unjustly forced King James’s abdication.
But if he did the subjects’ rights invade,
Then he was punish’d only, not betrayed;
And punishing of kings is no such crime,
But Englishmen have done it many a time.
When kings the sword of justice first lay down,
They are no kings, though they possess the crown.
Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things,
The good of subjects is the end of kings;
To guide in war, and to protect in peace,
Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease;
For arbitrary power’s so strange a thing,
It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king:
If kings by foreign priests and armies reign,
And lawless power against their oaths maintain,
Then subjects must have reason to complain:
If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill,
To call in foreign aid is to rebel:
By force to circumscribe our lawful prince,
Is wilful treason in the largest sense:
And they who once rebel, must certainly
Their God, and king, and former oaths defy;
If ye allow no mal-administration
Could cancel the allegiance of the nation,
Let all our learned sons of Levi try,
This ecclesiastic riddle to untie;
How they could make a step to call the prince,
And yet pretend the oath and innocence.
By th’ first address they made beyond the seas,
They’re perjur’d in the most intense degrees;
And without scruple for the time to come,
May swear to all the kings in Christendom:
Nay, truly did our kings consider all,
They’d never let the clergy swear at all,
Their politic allegiance they’d refuse,
For whores and priests do never want excuse.
But if the mutual contract was dissolved,
The doubt’s explain’d, the difficulty solved;
That kings, when they descend to tyranny,
Dissolve the bond, and leave the subject free;
The government’s ungirt when justice dies,
And constitutions are nonentities.
The nation’s all a mob, there’s no such thing,
As lords, or commons, parliament, or king;
A great promiscuous crowd the Hydra lies,
Till laws revive and mutual contract ties;
A chaos free to choose for their own share,
What case of government they please to wear;
If to a king they do the reins commit,
All men are bound in conscience to submit;
But then the king must by his oath assent,
To Postulata’s of the government; Which if he breaks he cuts off the entail, And power retreats to its original.
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