or its leaders,
with one single action or design, which (if we may judge by their former
practices) they will not openly profess, be proud of, and score up for
merit, when they come again to the head of affairs? I said, they were
insolent to the Qu[een]; will they not value themselves upon that, as an
argument to prove them bold assertors of the people's liberty? I affirmed
they were against a peace; will they be angry with me for setting forth
the refinements of their politics, in pursuing the _only_ method left to
preserve them in power? I said, they had involved the nation in debts,
and engrossed much of its money; they go beyond me, and boast they have
got it all, and the credit too. I have urged the probability of their
intending great alterations in religion and government: if they destroy
both at their next coming, will they not reckon my foretelling it, rather
as a panegyric than an affront? I said,[3] they had formerly a design
against Mr. H[arle]y's life: if they were now in power, would they not
immediately cut off his head, and thank me for justifying the sincerity
of their intentions? In short, there is nothing I ever said of those
worthy patriots, which may not be as well excused; therefore, as soon as
they resume their places, I positively design to put in my claim; and, I
think, may do it with much better grace, than many of that party who
now make their court to the present m[inist]ry. I know two or three great
men, at whose levees you may daily observe a score of the most forward
faces, which every body is ashamed of, except those that wear them. But I
conceive my pretensions will be upon a very different foot: Let me offer
a parallel case. Suppose, King Charles the First had entirely subdued the
rebels at Naseby, and reduced the kingdom to his obedience: whoever had
gone about to reason, from the former conduct of those _saints_, that if
the victory had fallen on their side, they would have murdered their
prince, destroyed monarchy and the Church and made the king's party
compound for their estates as delinquents; would have been called a
false, uncharitable libeller, by those very persons who afterwards
gloried in all this, and called it the "work of the Lord," when they
happened to succeed. I remember there was a person fined and imprisoned
for _scandalum magnatum_, because he said the Duke of York was a Papist;
but when that prince came to be king, and made open profession of his
religion, he had th