_Easie_ then it is in the general to vindicate the _Honour_ and _Justice_ of celebrating this _Day_; but ’tis as _difficult_ to determine in what particular Manner it may best be done. To attempt an _Historical Account_, wou’d be to trespass upon this judicious _Audience_, so well acquainted with the known _Matter of Fact_: To aim at an _Elegant_ Representation, wou’d be only to fall short of those many Excellent _Pens_ which have set the _Fifth of November_ in the best _Light_ it can bear. For ’tis well known, that this _Festival_ fixes not more Calumny upon the Romish _Clergy_, than it has serv’d to shew the _Oratory_, and advance the Credit of _our Own_: And those Designs which rais’d _Horrour_ in the _Enterprize_, have since produced much _Beauty_ in the _Description_. To these _Admirable Discourses_ upon the _Subject_, I do pleasingly remit You; And shall presume only to offer a few plain _Reflections_ upon the following Words, _If it had not been_, &c. The main Observation directly _flowing_ from the _Text_, and _properly_ suiting the _Solemnity_ is This: _viz._ That the _Defeat_ of such desperate _Enterprizes_ as proceed from a devilish _Intention_, and are not by any Humane Means to be prevented in the _Execution_, argues the unquestionable Interposal of Divine _Providence_. The Observation, I think, is _self-evident_; and shines by its own Light: For if we own the Existence of a _Good Being_ who loves and preserves Us, and of an _Evil One_, who hates and would destroy Us, where should the One declare his _Providence_, but where the Other discovers his _Malice_? And in what _Cases_ can devilish _Malice_ be more visibly discover’d, than in _Those_, where the General Ruin of great Numbers of People is design’d, without any _Provocation_, and beyond all _Prevention_? Or where can Divine _Providence_ more worthily appear, than in baffling those black and barbarous _Attempts_, which at once overcome _Force_, and escapes _Foresight_. Here, if ever, is an important Necessity of _having the Lord on our side_, when an _Insurrection_ is so cruel as not to be resisted, and _Destruction_ swallows so quick as not to be remedied: Two ugly _Characters_ these, which sit close upon the design’d _Tragedy_ of this Day: Insomuch that ’tis hard to say whether the _Intention_ of it was more inhuman, or the _Execution_ in all Appearance more unavoidable.