ing for.) But ſtill it may be ſaid, that Cromwell and his adherents were not, properly ſpeaking, guilty of rebellion; becauſe he, whom they beheaded was not, properly ſpeaking, their king; but a lawleſs tyrant.—much leſs, are the whole body of the nation at that time to be charged with rebellion on that account; for it was no national act; it was not done by a free parliament. And much leſs ſtill, is the nation at preſent, to be charged with the great ſin of rebellion, for what their anceſtors did, (or rather did NOT) a century ago.
But how came the anniverſary of king Charles's death, to be ſolemnized as a day of faſting and humiliation? The true anſwer in brief, to which inquiry, is, that this faſt was inſtituted by way of court and complement to king Charles II, upon the reſtoration. All were deſirous of making their court to him: of ingratiating themſelves; and of making him forget what had been done in oppoſition to his father, ſo as not to revenge it. To effect this, they ran into the moſt extravagant profeſſions of affection and loyalty to him, inſomuch that he himſelf ſaid, that it was a mad and hair brain'd loyalty which they profeſſed. And amongſt other ſtrange things, which his firſt parliament did, they ordered the Thirtieth of January (the day on which his father was beheaded) to be kept as a day of ſolemn humiliation, to deprecate the judgments of heaven for the rebellion which the nation had been guilty of, in that which was no national thing; and which was not rebellion in them that did it—Thus they ſoothed and flattered their new king, at the expence
