the watchword to open and let out those dreadful locusts and
scorpions to reinvolve us in that pitchy cloud of infernal
darkness, where we shall never more see the sun of Thy truth
again, never hope for the cheerful dawn, never more hear the bird
of morning sing. Be moved with pity at the afflicted state of this
our shaken monarchy, that now lies labouring under her throes, and
struggling against the grudges of more dreaded calamities.

"O Thou, that, after the impetuous rage of five bloody
inundations, and the succeeding sword of intestine war, soaking
the land in her own gore, didst pity the sad and ceaseless
revolution of our swift and thick-coming sorrows; when we were
quite breathless of Thy free grace didst motion peace and terms of
covenant with us; and, having first well-nigh freed us from
anti-Christian thraldom, didst build up this Britannic Empire to a
glorious and enviable height, with all her daughter-islands about
her; stay us in this felicity, let not the obstinacy of our
half-obedience and will-worship bring forth that viper of
sedition, that for these fourscore years hath been breeding to eat
through the entrails of our peace; but let her cast her abortive
spawn without the danger of this travailing and throbbing kingdom:
that we may still remember in our solemn thanksgivings, how, for
us, the northern ocean, even to the frozen Thule, was scattered
with the proud shipwrecks of the Spanish Armada, and the very maw
of Hell ransacked, and made to give up her concealed destruction,
ere she could vent it in that horrible and damned blast.

"O how much more glorious will those former deliverances appear,
when we shall know them not only to have saved us from greatest
miseries past, but to have reserved us for greatest happiness to