THe Kings most Excellent Majesty taking into His Pious and Princely conside­ration, that great and immoderate Rains and Waters have lately fallen in the Land, whereupon it may be feared, scarcity, and famine, and sickness and diseases will ensue, if Almighty God of his great Clemency be not mercifully pleased to avert those Iudgements and Punishments, which our many and manifold sins and provocations have justly deserved: And his Majesty ha­ving assembled His high Court of Parliament (the Representative Body of this Kingdom) which is now sitting, and being thereto moved by the Petiti­on of both the Houses of Lords and Commons in Parliament, and out of His own Religious disposition readily inclined, hath resolved, and hereby doth Command a general and publick Fast to be kept throughout this whole Kingdom, in such man­ner as hereafter is directed and prescribed, that so both Prince and People, even the whole Kingdom, as one man, may send up their Prayers and Supplications to Almighty God, to divert those Iudgements which the sins of this Land have worthily deserved, and to continue the blessed change of wheather now begun, and to offer up to him their hearty and unfained thanks for this, and other abundant mercies formerly vouchsafed unto them, and to beseech his blessing upon that great As­sembly of this Nation, and to prosper their actions and endeavours.

And to the end so Religious an Exercise may be performed with all Decency and Vniformity, His Majesty hath resolved upon a Grave and Religious Form of Solemnizing thereof, which His Royal Pleasure He doth hereby Publish and Declare to all His loving Subjects, And doth Streightly Charge and Command, that on Wednesday next being the Twelfth day of this instant June, this Fast be Religiously and Solemnly observed and celebrated in the Cities of London and Westminster, Burrough of Southwarke, and other Places adjacent, wherein His Majesty in his Royal Person and with His Royal Family and Houshold, will give Example to the rest of His People; And that on Wednesday the Nineteenth day of the same Month of June, the like be kept and duly observed through­out the rest of This whole Realm of England and Dominion of Wales; And for the more Orderly Solemnizing thereof without confusion, His Majesty by the Advice of His Reverend Bishops hath Directed to be Composed, Printed and Published, the Form of such Prayers and Publique Exhor­tations as He thinketh fit to be used in all Churches and places at these Publique Meetings, and He hath given Charge to His Bishops to Disperse the same throughout the whole Kingdom. All which His Majesty both expresly Charge and Command shall be Reverendly and Decently per­formed, by all His loving Subjects, as they tender the favor of Almighty God, and would avoid His just Indignation against this Land, and upon pain of such punishments as His Majesty can justly inflict upon all such as shall contemn or neglect so Religious a Work.

Given at Our Court at Whitehall, the Seventh day of June, in the Thirteenth year of Our Reign, 1661.

GOD SAVE THE KING.