For what reaſon the reſiſtance to king Charles the Firſt was made?
By whom it was made?
Whether this reſiſtance was REBELLION,[1] or not?
How the Anniverſary of king Charles's death came at firſt to be ſolemnized as a day of faſting and humiliation?
And laſtly,
Why thoſe of the epiſcopal clergy who are very high in the principles of eccleſiaſtical authority, continue to ſpeak of this unhappy man, as a great SAINT and a MARTYR?
For what reaſon, then, was the reſiſtance to king Charles, made? The general anſwer to this inquiry is, that it was on account of the tyranny and oppreſſion of his reign. Not a great while after his acceſſion to the throne, he married a French Catholic; and with her ſeemed to have wedded the politics, if not the religion of France, alſo. For afterwards, during a reign, or rather a tyranny of many years, he governed in a perfectly wild and arbitrary manner, paying no regard to the conſtitution and the laws of the kingdom, by which the power of the crown was limited; or to the ſolemn oath which he had taken at his coronation. It would be endleſs, as well as needleſs, to give a particular account of all the illegal and deſpotic meaſures which he took in his adminiſtration;—partly from his own natural luſt of power, and partly from the influence of wicked councellors and
- ↑ N.B. I ſpeak of rebellion, treaſon, ſaintſhip, martyrdom, &c. throughout this diſcourſe, only in the ſcriptural and theological ſenſe. I know not how the law defines them; the ſtudy of that not being my employment.
