To Heaven for help and to the Dutch for aid. The Church chimed all her doctrines back again, And pulpit champions did the cause maintain; Flew in the face of all their former zeal, And non-resistance did at once repeal. The Rabbis say it would be too prolix To tie religion up to politics: The Church’s safety is _suprema lex_. And so, by a new figure of their own, Their former doctrines all at once disown; As laws _post facto_ in the Parliament In urgent cases have obtained assent, But are as dangerous precedents laid by, Made lawful only by necessity. The reverend fathers then in arms appear, And men of God become the men of war. The nation, fired by them, to arms apply, Assault their Antichristian monarchy; To their due channel all our laws restore, And made things what they should have been before. But when they came to fill the vacant throne, And the pale priests looked back on what they’d done; How English liberty began to thrive, And Church of England loyalty outlive; How all their persecuting days were done, And their deliverer placed upon the throne: The priests, as priests are wont to do, turned tail; They’re Englishmen, and nature will prevail. Now they deplore the ruins they have made, And murmur for the master they betrayed, Excuse those crimes they could not make him mend, And suffer for the cause they can’t defend. Pretend they’d not have carried things so high, And proto-martyrs make for Popery. Had the prince done as they designed the thing, Have set the clergy up to rule the King, Taken a donative for coming hither, And so have left their King and them together, We had, say they, been now a happy nation. No doubt we had seen a blessed reformation: For wise men say ’tis as dangerous a thing, A ruling priesthood as a priest-rid king; And of all plagues with which mankind are curst, Ecclesiastic tyranny’s the worst. If all our former grievances were feigned, King James has been abused and we trepanned; Bugbeared with Popery and power despotic, Tyrannic government and leagues exotic: The Revolution’s a fanatic plot, William a tyrant, Sunderland a sot: A factious army and a poisoned nation Unjustly forced King James’s abdication. But if he did the subjects’ rights invade, Then he was punished only, not betrayed; And punishing of kings is no such crime, But Englishmen have done it many a time. When kings the sword of justice first lay down, They are no kings, though they possess the crown: Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things: The good of subjects is the end of kings; To guide in war and to protect in peace; Where tyrants once commence the kings do cease; For arbitrary power’s so strange a thing, It makes the tyrant and unmakes the king. If kings by foreign priests and armies reign, And lawless power against their oaths maintain, Then subjects must have reason to complain. If oaths must bind us when our kings do ill, To call in foreign aid is to rebel. By force to circumscribe our lawful prince