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England's Alarm
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Genre
Petition Pamphlet
Date
1679
Full Title
England's Alarm, or, A most Humble declaration, Address and fervent Petition To his Most Excellent Majesty, Charles the Second, King of Great Britain and Ireland, and To his most Honourable and Grand Council The parliament of England, as also To the city of London, and The whole nation in general. concerning The great Overtures, Catastrophe's and grand Occurrences about to inundate and pour in upon us as the Judgments of Almighty God upon Antichrist and his Adherents, and the Pride, Nauseancy and Errour of Professors, in the years 1680 and 1681. Written by a true Lover of the true Protestant Religion, and of his Tottering poor Native Country of England. Johannes Philanglus
Source
Wing E2939
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Sample 1
The original format is folio.
The original contains new paragraphas are introduced by indentation,first paragraphas are introduced by decorated initial,contains elements such as italics,
England’s Alarm.
TO THE KING.
Most Excellent and Dread Soveraign, THE meanest Creatures have access and admittance
to the Throne of the King of kings, by the
Bloud of Jesus; may I, the meanest of your
Subjects, have admittance to your Temporal
Throne, by the Dreads and horrible Fears of the
secret Effusion of your own and our Bloud, by the unprevented
Conspiracy of Bloud-thirsty Papists. The meanest Star,
as it hath dependance on, and influence from the Sun, hath
liberty to dart forth its Nocturnal Beams, when great Phœbus,
the Titan of the World, submerses his refulgent Rays on the
Neptune-waves; and now your glorious and Princely Rays
are feared dayly to set continually, in the Horizon and Neptunian-Sea
of Popish and Jesuitical Subtilty, and bloudy Cruelty.
Shall faithful Subjects be afraid of a Frown, when
Church, State, and Crown are, by Papal Violence, Tumbling
down? – Inter majora sydera minora lucerent. The poorest
Subject in the Primitive Raigns of the glorious Kings of
Israel, have been permitted to cry, in times of extremity,
Help, O King! 2 Sam. 14. 4. And though your magnificent
Majesty be ambiently attended with so many Stars of the
first magnitude, yet a poor Micaiah may prophecy to the
King, and have a clearer prospect of the Cœlestial Councels
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upon the heavenly Throne, than the Zedekiah’s with theiriron horns, 1 Kings 22. 11. 24. though he be fed with Bread
and Water till these Euroclydons be blown over. So, most
excellent and glorious Prince, I beg Pardon as prostrate at
your most Soveraign feet, for this act of seeming-presumption,
while I acknowledge my self nothing; yet in the hand of
God, things that are not, may instruct things that are. Beside,
the present Necessity, the horrid and trembling sounds of
the Plot and Plotters Alarming my Ears, my obsequious duty
to my King, and love to my Native Country, is the Womb
that hath conceived and brought forth this Trembling Babe:
Which, although in its Infancy, may, to the future admiration
of the securest Lethargists in this Nation, be credited as a Child
of Truth, by that time bright Phœbus hath twice mounted the
twelve Herculean Pillars.
I remember, it was asserted by that Reverend Bishop James
Usher, Bishop of Armagh, sometimes in Ireland, That those
Predictions that fell from him most of which are fulfilled already
were imprinted and engraven on his Spirit: even so are
these things that now I write to my Soveraign Lord the King
and Country. And moreover, if it be true, or like to be true,
that is reported to us by the Speech of the Dead, in Nocturnal
Visions, as is famously reported by antient Philosophers,
as Artemidorus, and the famous Remembrances of Julius Cæsar
his Warning before his Death and fatal Stab in the Roman
Senate, cum multis aliis; then have I reason to fear the Impression
of these things on my Spirit, and these scaring Visions
of the Night, which for some years past I have sustained,
concerning the Person and Crown of your Sacred Majesty;
and also of him and them who have raised the Thunder and
Tempest in this our Horizon. As also the just fears we may
have of the sudden Fall of your Life and Crown, by the hand
or hands of Papists. And that except your Majesty be miraculously
defended by supream Providence, and the timely Remissions
by his mighty hand; as also your Royal Adherence,
and just and methodical Conjunction to your great Council
the Parliament, and so joyntly removing the Nations Grievances,
and those things offending the King of Kings, and
timely and speedily executing Justice upon the notorous Offenders
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of your Majesties Crown and State, and of the Church of Christ; it cannot be, but that before either your Majesty or
we are well aware, they you now by your boundless Clemency
indulge beyond Necessity, will give the fatal stroak to your
sacred Life, and in yours, to all your Subjects, who have the
Breast-plate of Christs Righteousness upon them, and the marks
of the Whore of Babylon cashiered from you to the Conformists
and Nonconformists; and that I trembling fear in the 1680th
year. O! would your Majesty please speedily to extirpate
out of your Royal Territories, and this City of London, all
those Amalekites that trouble Israel, I mean the French
that devour and eat the bread out of your Subjects mouths;
and may you ever remember, that King Saul for neglecting
the Word of the Lord, and not totally destroying Amalek, had
his life dishonourably taken from him by a Chip of that block,
1 Sam. 15. compared with 2 Sam 1. 13. Antiquity tells us,
our English nation was never more blessed with Peace and
Prosperity, than when the French Nation were conquered by
us; as by Henry the fifth of famous memory, and Henry the
sixth, who was crowned in Paris, and planted the Flower-de-luce
in Englands garden: But now it is to be feared that the
French King will be crowned not in the French, but our English
Paris London except the providence of the King of
kings divert present occurrences, and the prudence of your
most Excellent Majesty, in happy Conjunction with your
prudent Parliament, prevent it; which that you may, the
God of Heaven grant.
'Tis a Curse in Gods Word, to be governed or counselled
by the Spirit of Jezabel, or by a wicked woman, Isai. 3. 12.
15, 16. Hence hath arose monstrous Pride, and intolerable
Oppression, the very bane of Church and State. Who knows
but by the hands of such, your Majesty may sustain a Stab
or fatal Stroak! And nothing would more draw the hearts
of your Subjects up to the height of true joy, than if it may
please your Majesty to abandon such morning-clouds from
the Mountain of your Throne: O how glorious would the
day shine! It is expressly said by God, the King of kings,
Deut. 17. 17. The King shall not multiply wives to himself, that
his heart turn not away. And though Solomons Throne was
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established by God himself, yet it was strange women madehis Crown to totter, and his Kingdom to rend asunder.
'Tis the greatest interest to Kings and Princes, to treat the
Lords people kindly, who are still by the Papists and Popish
affected, called, in scorn and derision, Hereticks: for he reproved
Kings for their sakes, Psal. 105. 14,15. 'Twas the
Prodromus to the destruction of Ireland formerly as says
Dr. Usher to adhere to the Principles and Patterns of Papists;
nothing being true they hold, as said the Martyr, but the
Doctrine of the Trinity: for Free will, and general Redemption,
now embraced by too many, is the Foundation of the
Popish Kingdom, first brought into Rome in the fifth Century
by Pelagius. 'Twas the hastening the destruction of Ahaz
King of Israel, 2 Kings 16. in that he joyned himself to the
King of Assyria, vers. 7. Nothing can more suddenly ruine
King and Kingdom, than joyning Affinity with Popish Princes,
because God hath determined to cast that Mountain as a Millstone
into the depths of the Sea, Rev. 18. Jer. 50, & 51. and
they that will not come out of her when her hour comes, shall
perish with her without all peradventure. Besides this, Ahaz
goes to Damascus, vers. 10. and takes a fashion of the Altar
and the Worship, and sends to Urijah the Priest for to take
a pattern thereof; which, Isai. 8. caused the Lord to hasten
his Judgments, under the figure of Maher-shalal-hash-baz,
make haste to spoil, and to the prey make speed. So verily will
God make haste to ruine that Kingdom that shall patternize
their Worship, from the grand Idolatry of so impudent an
Harlot, Rev. 17. as the Church of Rome is. Alas, our Sun is
darkened with Popish Principles, our Moon turned into Bloud,
our Stars fallen and falling from Heaven, the true Protestant
Profession and Principles; both Universities and Pulpits filled
with the Roman Trash that the Martyrs and Fathers of our
Protestant Religion truely abhorred, and Gods word is silent
in: while those few Stars that remain in their Primitive Lustre,
are scossingly called Calvinists and Solifidians, as if Christ and
his Apostles were not the Patrons of the same Doctrine.
May your Majesty be directed by the good Angels of God,
to do what may preserve your Life, prevent our Fears, establish
your Throne, comfort the Protestant Churches of Christ,
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and glad the hearts of all your Subjects. Your Majestyknows that the designe of Monarchy is to preserve your Country
in it self, not to betray it. For though those things
that God will not set up, be attempted in the breast of Majesty
it self, yet it may not prosper, but will tumble down as
Babel. In medio Consistit Virtus. The way to make your Kingdom
everlasting, and your Crown immovable, is to consult
Gods Word and Will, and execute his Commands, cherish
his Church, his Doctrine and Truths; banish and subdue his
Enemies; and make it the policy of the State, to aim at Gods
Glory, the Nations Prosperity, and the Churches Comfort:
by permitting the various Interests and Priviledges of King
and People to glide sweetly in their proper Channels, as Law,
Reason, and Equity hath provided, from the Constitutions of
Antiquity. Vivat Rex, & Veritas.