then new divinity at court, where, the publick assemblies once over, the indulgence of secular employment and recreations was thought so little disservice to God, as not only civil affairs were usually debated at the council table, but also representations of masques were rarely on no other than sabbath nights. And all this fomented by both doctrine and practice of men very eminent in the church; which seemed the greater prodigy, that men, who so eagerly cried up their own orders, and revenues, for divine, should so much decry the Lord's day for being such, when they had no other existence, than in relation to this."'

Prophaneness, says another author, too much abounded every where. Luxury in diet, and excess, both in meat and drink, was crept into the kingdom in an high degree, not only in the quantity, but in the wanton curiosity. And, in the abuse of those good creatures which God had bestowed upon this plentiful land, they mixed the vices of divers nations, catching at every thing that was new and foreign. As much pride and excess was in apparel, almost among all degrees of people, in new fangled and various fashioned attire; they not only imi-' tated, but excelled, their foreign patterns, and, in fantastical gestures and behaviours, the petulances of most nations in Europe.

'The clergy, says the same writer, were wholly taken up in admiration of the King's happy government, which they never concealed from himself, as the pulpit gave them access to his ear; and not only there, but at all meetings, they discoursed with joy upon that theme; affirming confidently, that no prince in Europe was so great a friend to the church as King Charles; that religion flourished no where but in England; and no reformed church retained the face and dignity of a church but that. Many of them used to deliver their opinion, that God had therefore severely punished the Palatinate, because their sacrilege had been so great in taking away the endowments of bishopricks. Queen Elisabeth herself, who had reformed religion, was but coldly praised, and all her virtues forgotten, when they remembered how she cut short the bishoprick of Ely. Henry the Eighth was much condemned by them, for seizing upon the abbies, and taking so much out of the several bishopricks. To maintain therefore that splendor of a church, which so much pleased them, was become their highest endeavour, especially after they had gotten, in the year 1633, an archbishop after their own heart, Dr. Laud. Not only the pomp of ceremonies was daily increased, and innovations of great scandal brought into the church; but, in point of doctrine, many fair approaches were made towards Rome; as he, that pleases to search, may find in the books of Bishop Laud, Montague, Heylyn, Pocklington, and the rest. And, as their friendship to Rome increased, so did their scorn'to the reformed churches beyond the seas; whom, instead of sending that relief and succour to them, which God had enabled this rich island to do, they failed in their greatest extremities, and, instead of harbours, became rocks to split them. Archbishop Laud, who was now grown into great favour with the King, made use of it especially to advance the pomp and temporal honours of the clergy, procuring the lord treasurer's place for Doctor

May's History of the Parliament of England, Book I. p. 19.

Book I. p. 22, 23, 24.

Juson, bishop of London; and endeavouring, as the general report went, to fix the greatest temporal preferments upon others of that coat: Inso much as the people merrily, when they saw that treasurer, with the other bishops, riding to Westminster, called it the church triumphant. Doctors, and parsons of parishes, were made every where justices of peace, to the great grievance of the country in civil affairs, and depriving them of their spiritual edification. The archbishop, by the same means which he used to preserve his clergy from contempt, exposed them to envy; and, as the wisest could then prophesy, to a more than probability of losing all: As, we read of some men, who, being foredoomed by an oracle to a bad fortune, have run into it by the same means they used to prevent it. The like unhappy course did the clergy then take to depress puritanism, which was to set up irreligion itself against it, the worst weapon which they could have chosen to beat it down; which appeared especially in point of keeping the Lord's Day; when not only books were written to shake the morality of it, as that of Sunday no Sabbath,' but sports and pastimes of jollity and lightn cs3 permitted to the country people upon that day, by publick authority, and the warrant commanded to be read in churches; which, instead of producing the intended effect, may credibly be thought to have been one motive to a stricter observance of that day; and many men, who had before been loose and careless, began, upon that occasion, to enter into a more serious consideration of it, and were ashamed to be invited, by the authority of churchmen, to that which themselves, at the best, could but have pardoned in themselves, as a thing of infirmity. The example of the court, where plays were usually presented on Sundays, did not so much draw the country to imitation, as reflect, with disadvantage, upon the court itself; and sowre those other court pastimes, and jollities, which would have relished better without that, in the eyes of all the people, as things ever allowed to the delights of great princes. The countenancing of looseness and irreligion was, no doubt, a great preparative to the introducing of another religion: And, the power of godliness being beaten down, popery might more easily by degrees enter. And tho' it were questionable, whether the bishops and great clergy of England aimed at popery, it is too apparent, such was the design of Romish agents; and the English clergy, if they did not their own work, did theirs. A stranger of that religion, a Venetian gentleman, out of his own observations in England, will tell you, how far they were going in this kind. His words are, "The universities, bishops, and divines of England do daily embrace Catholiek opinions, tho' they profess it not with open mouth, for fear of the puritans. For example, they hold that the church of Rome is a true church; that the Pope is superior to all bishops; that to him it appertains to call general councils; that it is lawful to pray for souls departed; that altars ought to be erected: In fine, they believe all that is taught by the church, but not by the court of Rome."

*

By all these it is very evident, that the liberty, and the delight, then taken in plays and opera's, did help sadly to corrupt the minds and

manners of our people, and to let in that looseness and irreligion, which served to suggest the wickedness and villainies, soon after acted in the civil war.

Fifthly, and lastly, 'Dr. Kennet justly* reckons hypocrisy as another lamentable cause of King Charles's murder: for, no doubt, many sincere Christians came in with a good meaning to one side of the unhappy quarrel, as well as to the other. But the prime engines, and the workers of them, on the prevailing side were most of them men of craft, and dreadful dissemblers with God and heaven. What artificial fasts! What procuring prayers! What deluding speeches! What abuse of holy scripture! What a noise of cursing Meroz, of fighting the Lord's battles, of binding Kings in chains, &c.! Nay, and how, at last, was the fatal blow given, by an utmost stretch in hypocrisy, by one † commander putting off another, more tender and loyal, with a sham pretence of seeking God in prayer, while, in the mean time, the royal blood was shed, and the other's plea, to spare it, was then to no purpose.'

All parties allow, that Cromwell was the chief promoter of the King's murder; and that hypocrisy was his characteristical quality, is also acknowledged by all. His whole army, says Sir Philip Warwick, in bis memoirs, was of men who had all either naturally the phanatick humour, or soon imbibed it. A herd of this sort of men, being by him drawn together, he himself, like Miahomet, having transports of fancy, and withal a crafty understanding, knowing, that natural principles, tho' not morally good, will conduce to the attainment of natural and politick ends, made use of the zeal and credulity of these persons, teaching them that they engaged for God, when he led them against the King. And these men habited more to spiritual pride, than carnal riot, or intemperance, so, consequently, having been industrious and active in their former professions, where natural courage wanted, zeal supplied its place; and, at first, they chose rather to die than fly; and custom removed fear of danger; and afterwards finding the sweet of good pay, and of opulent plunder, and of preferment, the lucrative part made gain seem to them a natural member of godliness.

'The bloody independents, says the same § author, drew the curtain, and shewed how tragical their design had been from the beginning. There are no words in the army, but that the King had been a man of blood, and therefore must be presented to blood.

'If the puritans, says the ** French historian, I quoted before, adventured on this blow, it was only in expectation of an occasion to attempt a more decisive one, by extinguishing the royal authority, with which episcopacy should fall. I say the royal authority, not the King's person and dignity for we must do the puritans the justice to own, that they never intended to carry their crime so far; and that they only prepared the victim, which a more bloody sect sacrificed. It is hard ft to

determine when this inhuman design was formed by the sect of the independents, for so they were called, because they pretended to carry the evangelical liberty further than the puritans. These new sectaries were at first no otherwise distinguished from the presbyterians, than, (as, in

See his Sermon, p. 23, 24, 25. + Cromwell.
Father D'Orleans's Revolutions of England, Vol. III. p. 42.

p. 252. ? p. 309.

Lord Fairfax.
++ p. 112. 113.

all religious societies, the zealous and fervent are distinguished from the lukewarm, and the strict from the remiss) by a greater averseness to pompous ceremonies and pre-eminences in church and state; by a greater zeal to reduce the practice of the gospel to its pristine purity; by prayers, conversations, and discourses, which seemed to be the result of enthusiasm and inspiration. Their opinions about independency (for they rejected not only bishops, but even synods) procured them a peculiar appellation, and rendered them suspected to the presbyterians, with whom they had some disputes. But, notwithstanding this opposition, the independents, adding artifice, flattery, promises, and good offices to their affected air of sanctity, made such a progress, that they formed a numerous sect of those that had been imposed upon by their hypocrisy; and a formidable faction of ambitious and mercenary men, whom they gained in all the other sects, by their address and policy. It was one among the latter, who afterwards became the chief of the whole cabal, and who was so already, without being taken notice of. A man born without any natural propensity to evil, or any inclination to virtue; having an equal facility to practise all virtues, and to commit all crimes, according as either suited with his designs. By this stroke, Oliver Cromwell will easily be known. His excellent talent for war, already so fatal to the King's party, having added much lustre to his qualification for business, gained him such ascendant over all those of his faction, that he was become the very soul of it. Modesty and devotion, which, of all the virtues he wanted, were those he could best dissemble, had the more solidly established that superiority, as it gave the least offence to the independency professed by that sect, in a man who seemed not to affect it, but rather to have nothing in view, besides the good of religion and the publick.'

Thus it appears, from all the irrefragable testimonies already cited, That, with plainness of truth, the Reverend Dr. Kennet has enquired into, and marked the most visible causes of the civil war, which ended in the murder of King Charles.

Since, by laying before us the true causes of that unnatural civil war, which terminated in the destruction of the monarchy, and the martyrdom of the monarch, he wisely cautions both those who govern, and those who are governed, carefully to avoid any thing that might tend to break, or hurt, our present happy constitution, which God preserve.

TRUE DESCRIPTION AND DIRECTION

Of what is most worthy to be seen in all Italy,

ORDERLY SET DOWN,

And in sure manner, as that the Traveller may not oversee or neglect any thing that is memorable in those Countries, but may compass that Journey at an easy and reasonable Charge, and in a short Time, signifying how many Miles from one place to another as followeth First, what is to be seen principally in Venice, and from thence to Rome, Naples, Sicily, and until you come to Malta, from thence back again another Way to Genoa, and Milan.

MS.

THE

VENICE.

HE city of Venice hath sixty-two parish churches, and forty-one monasteries of friars and nuns. There are, in Venice, as many channels as streets, over which there are cight-hundred open bridges to pass.

The city of Venice is, in circuit, eight Italian miles; and, although it lies in the sea, yet, nevertheless, it is defended from the raging waves thereof, by a natural bank under the water, compassing the city round about, like unto a constant wall, which repels the storms of the sea, that they cannot assail the city; there are about the city twenty-five islands inhabited by spiritual persons.

When you come to Venice, enquire for the White Lion, or Black Cattle, or else for the Wletta, where (in my time being there) dwelt an host, named Signior Bongratz, which is the chiefest of the three: there you shall have one appointed to go with you, or else take a gondola, and row to the arsenal, or house of artillery.

The House of Artillery.

Before you go to the arsenal, or house of artillery, you must crave licence to see the same, of certain particular gentlemen, deputed to have the custody thereof; and, as then, you must leave your weapons in the porter's lodge, until you come out again.

When you are within, there will be one appointed to go about with you; but my council is, that you provide yourself with single money,