gion up to politics,
The churches' safety is _suprema lex_:
And so by a new figure of their own,
Their former doctrines all at once disown;
As laws _post facto_ in the parliament,
In urgent cases have attained assent;
But are as dangerous precedents laid by,
Made lawful only by necessity.

The 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 tyran