An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) by John Evelyn
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page 9 of 61 (14%)
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why should my Charity be prejudged, if hoping to convert you from the
errour of your way, I despair not of rendring you the Person for whose preservation there will be nothing too dear for me to expose? I might with reason beleeve that the first election of the Party wherein you stood engaged, proceeded from inexperience and the mistake of your zeal; not to say from your compliance to the passions of others; because I both knew your education, and how obsequious you have alwayes shewed your self to those who had then the direction of you: But, when after the example of their conversion, upon discovery of the Impostures which perverted them; and the signal indignation of God, upon the several periods which your eyes have lately beheld, of the bloudiest Tyrannies, and most prodigious oppressors that ever any age of the world produc'd, I see you still persist in your course, and that you have turn'd about with every revolution which has hapned: when I consider, what contradictions you have swallowed, how deeply you have ingaged, how servilely you have flatter'd, and the base and mean submissions by which you have dishonour'd your self, and stained your noble Family; not to mention the least refinement of your religion or morality (besides that you have still preserved a civility for me, who am ready to acknowledge it, and never merited other from you) I say, when I seriously reflect upon all this; I cannot but suspect the integrity of your procedure, deplore the sadness of your condition, and resolve to attempt the discovery of it to you; by all the instances, which an affection perfectly touch't with a zeal for your eternall interest can produce. And who can tell, but it may please Almighty God, to affect _you_ yet by a weak instrument, who have resisted so many powerfull indications of his displeasure at your proceedings, by the event of things? For, since you are apt to recriminate, and after you have boasted of the |
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