Page:Hudibras - Volume 2 (Butler, Nash, Bohn; 1859).djvu/205

And yet, for all this Gospel-union,
And outward show of church-communion,
They'd ne'er admit us to our shares 775
Of ruling church or state affairs,
Nor give us leave t' absolve, or sentence
T' our own conditions of repentance:
But shar'd our dividend o' th' crown,
We had so painfully preach'd down; 780
And forc'd us, though against the grain,
T' have Calls to teach it up again.^[1]
For 'twas but justice to restore
The wrongs we had receiv'd before;
And when 'twas held forth in our way 785
We'd been ungrateful not to pay:
Who for the right we 've done the nation,
Have earn'd our temporal salvation,
And put our vessels in a way
Once more to come again in play: 790
For if the turning of us out
Has brought this providence about
And that our only suffering
Is able to bring in the king,^[2]
What would our actions not have done, 795
Had we been suffer'd to go on?
And therefore may pretend t' a share,
At least, in Carrying on th' affair:
But whether that be so or not,
We 've done enough to have it thought, 800

the Presbyterians that they could not coalesce, and therefore concealed them till they were strong enough to declare them.

1. The Presbyterians entered into several plots to restore the king. For it was but justice, said they, to repair the injuries we had received from the Independents; and when monarchy was offered to be restored in our own sense, and with all the limitations we desired, it had been ungrateful not to consent. Nash.
2. Many of the Presbyterians, says Lord Clarendon, when ousted from their preferment, or excluded from the House of Commons by the Independents, pretended to make a merit of it, in respect of their loyalty. And some of them had the confidence to present themselves to King Charles the Second, both before and after his Restoration, as sufferers for the crown; this behaviour is ridiculed in many parts of this canto.