Fifthly: The children of the murdered Prince were forced to fly, for the safety of their lives, to foreign countries; where one of them at least, I mean King James II., was seduced to Popery; which ended in the loss of his kingdoms, the misery and desolation of this country, and a long and expensive war abroad.  Our deliverance was owing to the valour and conduct of the late King; and, therefore, we ought to remember him with gratitude, but not mingled with blasphemy or idolatry.  It was happy that his interests and ours were the same:  And God gave him greater success than our sins deserved.  But, as a house thrown down by a storm, is seldom rebuilt without some change in the foundation; so it hath happened, that, since the late Revolution, men have sat much looser in the true fundamentals both of religion and government, and factions have been more violent, treacherous, and malicious than ever, men running naturally from one extreme into another; and, for private ends, taking up those very opinions professed by the leaders in that rebellion, which carried the blessed Martyr to the scaffold.

Sixthly: Another consequence of this horrid rebellion and murder was the destroying or defacing of such vast number of God’s houses.  “In their self-will they digged down a wall.”  If a stranger should now travel in England, and observe the churches in his way, he could not otherwise conclude, than that some vast army of Turks or heathens had been sent on purpose to ruin and blot out all marks of Christianity.  They spared neither the statues of saints, nor ancient prelates, nor kings, nor benefactors; broke down the tombs and monuments of men famous in their generations, seized the vessels of silver set apart for the holiest use, tore down the most innocent ornaments both within and without, made the houses of prayer dens of thieves, or stables for cattle.  These were the mildest effects of Puritan zeal, and devotion for Christ; and this was what themselves affected to call a thorough reformation.  In this kingdom those ravages were not so easily seen; for the people here being too poor to raise such noble temples, the mean ones we had were not defaced, but totally destroyed.

Upon the whole, it is certain, that although God might have found out many other ways to have punished a sinful people, without permitting this rebellion and murder, yet as the course of the world hath run ever since, we need seek for no other causes, of all the public evils we have hitherto suffered, or may suffer for the future, by the misconduct of princes, or wickedness of the people.

I go on now upon the third head, to shew you to what good uses this solemn day of humiliation may be applied.