to the Parlament, touching the happy Deliverance of His
Highness from the late bloody Attempt designed upon His
Highness person, for which the Parlament was now come to
congratulate with His Highness.
He considered the greatness of the Mercy in it self, and as
it was heightned in its circumstances.
1. He considered it as a Busines that the welfare and safety
not only of the people of this Nation, but of all the Reformed
Churches was involved in.
2. That it was carried on by few hands, and so the more
dangerous, because less subject to discovery.
3. He observed the cruelty in the intents of the Actors, in
the intended manner of the Execution.
4. The Extensiveness of the wicked Design, That it was
not laid in one place only, but in many, and if opportunity
served not in one place, then to have attempted the Execution
in another.
So that take it in all its Circumstances (he said) no oratory
could be sufficient to set it forth, and that if Cicero were alive
his Eloquence would fall short upon the subject.
And therefore that the great thing to be looked unto upon
the present occasion, was the returning of Praise to God; and
to say with the Psalmist, Cantemus Canticum novum, Let us sing
a new Song. New mercies require new returns; new deliverances,
new Thanksgivings. And here he desired to put a Question,
not a new one but an old one, which was put by the best
of Kings, David, Ps. 116. What shall I Render to the Lord for all
his mercies To which (he said) he needed not make an Answer,
for that David himself had done it long before. We will take
the Cup of Salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.
He observed moreover, that this deliverance was matter of
great rejoycing, not only to these Nations, but to the whole
Body of Protestants throughout the world; for, though the designe
was particularly against his Highness, yet in his person
against them all. That in the preservation of his Highness person
theirs doth consist, and in his destruction the destruction
of Them.