in Publick throughout the whole Kingdom and they are not a little punished that neglect it and whatsoever Message Answer Declaration or Proclamation cometh from the King to inform his Subjects of the Truth of things and to undeceive his much seduced people they streightly forbid those to be Printed and imprison if they can catch them all that publish them as they did many worthy Ministers in the City of London and in many other places of this Kingdom 6. They have publickly voted in their House 6. Wrong and accordingly indeavoured by Messages to perswade our brethren of Scotland to joyn in their assistance with these grand Rebels to rebel against their Soveraign but I perswade my self as I said before that the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland are more Religious in themselves more Loyal to their liege Lord and indeed wiser in all their actions then while they may live quietly at home in a happy peace to undertake upon the perswasions of Rebellious Subjects such an unhappy war abroad 7. It is remonstrated and related publickly that 7. Wrong as if they had shaken off all subjection and were become already a State Independent they have Treated by their agents with forraign States and do still proceed in that course which if true is such an usurpation upon Soveraignty as was never before attempted in this Kingdom and such a Presumption as few men know the secret mischiefs that may lurk therein 8. They suffer and licence their Pamphleters Pryn Goodwin Burges 8. Wrong Marshal Sedgwick and other emissaries of wickedness to publish such Treasons and Blasphemies and abominable Aphorisms As that the negative vote of the King is no more then the dissent of one man the Affirmative vote of the King makes not a Law ergo the Negative cannot destroy it and the like absurd and sensless things that are in those Aphorisms and in Prins book of the Soveraign power of Parliament whereby they would deny the Kings power to hinder any Act that both the Houses shall conclude and so taking away those just prerogatives from him that are as Hereditary to him as his Kingdom compell him to assent to their conclusions for which things our Histories tell us that other Parliaments have banished and upon their returns they were hanged both the Spencers the Father and the Son for the like presumption Why the two Spencers died as among other Articles Per asperte vid. Elismere post-nati p. 99. for denying this Prerogative unto their King and affirming that if he neglected his duty and would not do what he ought for the good of the Kingdom he might be compelled by force to perform it which very thing divesteth the King of all Soveraignty overthroweth Monarchy and maketh our government a meer Aristocracy contrary to the constitution of our first Kings and the judgment of all ages for we know full well Pag. 48. from the Practise of all former Parliaments that seeing the three States are subordinate unto the King in making Laws wherein the chiefest power consisteth they may propound and consent but it is still in the Kings power to refuse or ratify and I never read that any Parliament man till now did ever say the contrary but that if there be no concurrence of the King in whom formally the power of making of any Law resideth ut in subjecto to make the Law the two Houses whose consent is but a requisite condition to compleat the Kings power are but a liveless convention like two Cyphers without a figure that of themselves are of no value or power but joyned unto their figures have the full strength of their places which is confirmed by the Viewer of the Observations out of 11. Pag. 19 20 21. Hen. 7.23 per Davers Polydore 185. Cowel inter verbo Praerog Sir Thomas Smyth de republ Angl. l. 2. c. 3. Bodin l. 1. c. 8. For if the Kings consent were not necessary for the perfecting of every Act The Letter to a Gentleman in Gloucestershire p. 3. then certainly as another saith all those Bils that heretofore have passed both Houses and for want of the Royal assent have slept and been buried all this while would now rise up as so many Laws and Statutes and would make as great confusion as these new orders and ordinances have done And as the Lawyers tell us that the necessity of the assent of all three States in Parliament is such as without any one of them the rest do but lose their labour Lamberts Archeion 271. Vid. the Viewer p. 21. so Le Roy est assentus ceo faict un Act de Parliament and as another saith Nihil ratum habetur nisi quod Rex comprobarit Nothing is perfected but what the King confirmeth But here in the naming of the three States I must tell you that I find in most of our Writers about this new-born question of the Kings power a very great omission that they are not particularly set down that the whole Kingdom might know which is every one of them and upon this omission I conceive as great mistake in them that say the three States are Which be the three States of England 1. The King 2. The House of Peers 3. The House of Commons For I am informed by no mean Lawyer that you may find it upon the Rowls of Henry the fifth Speed l. 9. c. 19. p. 712. Anno. 1 Ric. 3. as I remember and I am sure you may find it in the first year of Richard the third where the three States are particularly named and the King is none of them For it is said That at the request and by the assent of the three Estates of this Realm that is to say the Lords Spiritual the Lords Temporal and Commons of the Land Assembled it is declared that our said Soveraign Lord the King is the very undoubted King of this Realm Wherein you may plainly see the King that is acknowledged their Soveraign by all three can be none of the three but is the head of all three as the Dean is none of the Chapter but is Caput capituli and as in France and Spain so in England I conceive the three Estates to be 1. The Lords Spiritual that are if not representing yet in loco in the behalf of all the Clergy of England that till these Anabaptistical tares have almost choaked all the Wheat in Gods field were thought so considerable a party as might deserve as well a representation in Parliament as old Sarum or the like Borough of scarce twenty Houses 2. The Lords Temporal in the right of their Honor and their Posterity And to make the World believe how justly and sufficiently legal they could do this they made another Ordinance for the inhabitants of the Counties of Northampton Rutland Derby c. to pay the twentieth part and to be assessed by the Assessors that they name in imitation of the Statute lately made for the four hundred
of it in this place If these Counsellours Magistrates Parliament call them what you will have any power and authority it must be either subordinate coordinate or supreme 1 Subordinate officers can have no power over their superiors 1. If subordinate I told you before they can have no power over their superiour because all inferiour Magistrates are Magistrates onely in respect of those that are under their jurisdiction because to them they represent the King and supply the office of the King but in reference to the King they are but private persons and Subjects that can challenge no jurisdiction over him 2. that neither Peers not Parliament can have the supremacy None above the king at any time 2. If they be supreme then Saint Peter is much mistaken to say the King is supreme and they do ill to disclaime this supremacy when in all their Petitions not disjunctively but as they are an united body they say Your Majesties humble Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament and besides they are perjur'd that deny it after they have taken the Oath of supremacy where every one saith I A. B. do utterly testifie and declare in my conscience that the Kings Highness is the onely supreme Governour of this Realme c. But this is further and so fully proved out of Bracton the nature of all the Subjects tenures and the constitution of this government by the Authour of The unlawfulness of Subjects taking up armes against their Soveraigne that more needs not be spoken to any rational man Yet because this point is of such great concernment and the chiefest argument they have out of Bracton is that he saith Rex habet superiorem The Sectaries chiefest argument out of Bracton fully answered legem curiam suam comites Barones quia comites dicuntur quasi socii Regis qui habet socium habet magistrum ideò si Rex fuerit sine frano id est sine lege debent ei fraenum ponere nisi ipsimet fuerint cum rege sine fraeno and all this makes just nothing in the World for them if they had the honesty or the learning to understand it right for what is above the King the Law and the Court of Earles and Barons but how are they above him as the Preacher is above the King when he preacheth unto him or the Physician when he gives him Physick or the Pilot when he sayleth by Sea that is quoad rationem consulendi How the Law and the Court of Barons is above the King non cogendi they have superioritatem directivam non coactivam for so the teacher is above him that is taught and the Counsellor above him that is counselled that is by way-of advice but not by way of command and to shew you that this is Bractons true meaning I pray you consider his words Comites dicuntur quasi socii they are as his fellows or Peeres not simply but quasi and if they were simply so yet they are but socii not superiours and what can socii do not command for par in parem non habet potestatem that is praecipiendi otherwise you must confesse habet potestatem consulendi therefore Bracton addes qui habet socium habet magistrum that is a teacher not a commander and to make this yet moâ—e plain he addes Si Rex fuerit sine fraeno id est lege if the King be without a bridle that is saith he lest you should mistake what he meanes by the bridle and thinke he meanes force and armes the Law they ought to put this bridle unto him that is to presse him with this Law and still to shew him his duty even as we do both to King and people saying this is the Law this should bridle you but here is not a word of commanding much lesse of forcing the King not a word of superiority nor yet simply of equality and therefore I must say hoc argumentum nihil ad rhombum these do abuse every author 3 That neither Peers nor Parliament are co-ordinate with the King If their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I speak not of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their natural strength and power but of their right and authority be coordinate and equal with the Kings authority then whether given by God which they cannot prove or by the people there must be duo summa imperia two supreme powers which the Philosophers say cannot be nam quod summum est unum est Ommesque Philosoph jurisconsulti ponunt summum in eo rerum genere quod dividi non possit Lactant. l. 1. c. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Marc. 3.14 from whence they prove the unity of the God-head that there can be but one God and if this supreme power be divided betwixt King and Parliament you know what the Poet saith Omnisque potestas Impatiens consortis erit Or you may remember what our Saviour saith If a Kingdome be divided against it selfe it cannot stand and therefore when Tiberius out of his wonted subtilty desired the Senate to appoint a colleague and partner with him for the better administration of the Empire Asinius Gallus that was desirous enough of their Pristine liberty yet understanding well with what minde the subtle fox spake onely to descry his ill willers after some jests answered seriously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that government must not be divided because you can never have any happiness where the power is equally divided in two parts when according to the well known axiome to every one Par in parem non habet potestatem But to make the matter cleare The Case of our Affaires p. 19.20 The Lawes of our Land acknowledge all Soveraignty in the King and to shew that the Soveraignty is inseperably inherent in the person of His Majesty we have the whole current of our very Acts of Parliament acknowledging it in these very termes Our Soveraigne Lord the King and the Parliament 25. Hen. 8. saith This your Graces Realme recognizing no superiour under God but your Grace c. And the Parliament 16. Rich. 2.5 affirmeth the Crown of England to have been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately to God in all things touching the regality of the said Crown and to none other and in the 25. of Hen. 5. the Parliament declareth that it belongeth to the Kings regality to grant or deny what Petitions in Parliament he pleaseth and so indeed whatsoever authority is in the constant practice of the Kingdom or in the known and published Laws and Statutes it concludeth the Soveraignty to be fixed in the King and all the Subjects virtually united in the representative body of the Parliament to be obliged in obedience allegeance to the individual person of the King and I doubt not but our learned Lawyers can finde much more proofe then I do out of their Law to this purpose And therefore seeing divers supreme
Benefices and Tythes to lay persons as the Council of Lateran held under Pope Alexander the 3d decreed That Qui decimas laico Câ—ncil Lateran part 26. c. 8. Causa 16. q. 7. c. 3. Greg. 7. Causa 19 q 7. c. 1. Periculum animae in seculo manenti concesserit deponendus est The Priest which shall passe away the Tythes to any secular lay man is to be deposed And the Canon Si quia à modo Episcopus c. saith That if any Bishop hereafter do passe away the Tythes and Oblations to lay men let them be numbred amongst the greatest Hereticks And the lay men that receive the Tythes as to be their own proper inheritance either from the Bishops or Kings do run into the danger of their souls saith another Canon Yet as if all these were but tela aranea a Spider's web nothing would avail with the Pope to make him to desist his wicked practice of making these impropriations to whom he pleased Therefore the wrath of God being exceedingly kindled against the abominations of these wicked houses that were thus maintained with the Revenues of the Church and upheld in their wickedness by the usurped power of the Pope the good God that could bring light out of darknesse could likewise punish and destroy wickedness by wicked men As he did prophane Saul by the uncircumcised Philistines and Idolatrous Manasses by the idolatrous Babylonians So now he stirreth up a King bad enough Henry the Eighth to be as Nebuchadnezzar was unto the Jews the Rod of his fury to whip and scourge these idle loose and lewd wantons for when the King began to be weary of the same dish and to satisfie his palate desired licence of the Pope to change meat and to be divorced from his old Wife and the Pope rather for fear of offending the King of Spain than any true fear of God as some conceive knew not how to yield to his unlawful lust the King to be revenged deviseth to overthrow the Pope's former wickedness by a greater wickedness even as Physitians sometimes do allay poyson with a stronger poyson And because wickedness can never want Counsellors and Abettors the King had a Cromwell at his elbow a name as fatal unto the Church as Tarquin was to Rome and many others to please their Master gave their Vote to the same purpose That the only way to be throughly revenged was not to stand triffling about small matters that might soon have an end but to give such a perpetual wound as might not be cured and that was utterly to destroy the delights of the Pope by taking away and rooting out all the Abbies Monasteries Nunries and Religious houses within his Dominions so far as he could possibly reach and it is strange If the Lord himself had not been on our side that the Cathedrals and Bishops had not been destroyed likewise And lest the Pope by the perswasions slights and eloquence of his Emissaries and Clergy should gain them to be reduced and restored either to these Houses or to the Church again the only sure way to keep out the Popes fingers from them is to bestow both their Lands and all these impropriations upon his Nobility and Gentry and so he shall not only perpetually be revenged upon the Pope but he shall also most infinitely oblige his friends and his servants who will be tenacious enough to detain them and keep them ad Graecas calendas from returning unto their proper sphere any more and this Counsel pleased the King and his Master and though Arch-Bishop Craumer did what ever he could to get these impropriations restored unto the Church The Holy Table name and thing pag. 148. by his manifold perswasions unto the King and especially by a message purposely sent to Mr. John Calvin by one Mr. Nicholas to intreat Mr. Calvin likewise most earnestly to write to King Henry the 8th and to perswade him by all means to restore these impropriations unto the Church of God And so Mr. Bucer and all the godly Protestants of that time did their best to perswade him to restore them yet all could not prevaile to have them restored For that now 3. Covetousness and the greedy desire of wealth and love unto this present World hath seized upon the hearts and filled the souls of those Lords Knights and Gentlemen and the posterity of them likewise which had taken hold of these impropriations that they cannot endure to part with them any more But as Kites and Cormorants do seize upon a Carrion so do they engross unto themselves the portion of their God and the inheritance of the Church of Christ and such a sweet savour and pleasant taste of Tythes and Church goods hath been taken ever since the birth of this monstrous Sacriledge as that now many Noble men and almost every Knight and Gentleman of any note hath got to themselves the Tythes or some part of the Tythes of an impropriate Church for the inlarging of their Larder-house And that you need not doubt of this I must here set down what you may find in Mr. Crashaws Epistle to Mr. Perkins second Treatise of the Duties of the Ministry that in one County of the Kingdom of England the East riding of the County of York there are contained one hundred and five Parishes whereof nigh an hundred or the full number of an hundred are of this hateful name and bastardly title of Impropriations and some of them are of yearly value of four hundred pounds others worth three hundred pounds per annum others two hundred pounds and almost all worth one hundred pound a year and yet the Minister's part is ten pound stipend yea some have but eight pounds and some but six pounds and some but four pounds to live upon for the whole year and out of the Great Benefice of four hundred pounds a year the Minister had but eight pound per annum Dr. Gardiner in his Scourge of Sacriledge until of late with much labour ten pounds yearly for a Preacher And saith mine Author the most of the Churches in the properest Market-Towns of this Kingdom are thus held and retained by our Nobility and Gentry And so I found it in my Diocess of Ossory in the Kingdom of Ireland that the Impropriations had so swallowed up the Tythes and the Revenues of the Churches that as I shewed it in my Remonstrance to his Majesty six or seven Vicaridges united together will scarce make twenty pound a year for the Preacher Et durus est hic sermo for hereby the people perish and as the Prophet saith The poor Children cry for Bread and for want of means to maintain the Ministers there is none that is able to give it them I know King Henry the 8th that could cause his Parliaments as I ever understood from the old Parliament men of those times to make what Laws and to conclude what Acts of Parliament he pleased got many Laws to be made
of the Priests for his Service so he takes the Gifts and Donations and Oblations of the people unto himself saying Thou shalt give them me Exod. 22.30 So he calls the Church his House Matth. 21.13 and the Tythes his Tythes saying Will a man rob his God yet you have robbed me in Tythes and Offerings And for lands he saith You shall offer unto the Lord an holy portion Ezech. 45. 1. And the same Law S. Paul presseth under the Gospel as you may see in 1 Cor. 9.13 14. and 1 Tim. 5.17 18. For though we have some differences in the manner of God's Worship when as the Sacrifices and several Ceremonies are abolished yet there is the same substance for the Guides in God's Worship which is the reason of the Law as the Prophet Esay in the Name of the Lord hath foretold us when as prophesying of the state of Christ his Church and the Ministers thereof he saith And I will also take of them for Priests and Levites Esay 66.21 saith the Lord and not lay-men And therefore these things may not be sold away or alienated and impropriated from the Priests because that now God hath the best Interest therein and though before they were devoted given to him you might have told them alienated them or put them to what use you would yet now being God's proper goods even by your own Donation you may not without God's consent impropriate them from God and from his Service For As in the case of Marriage before the Marriage both the man and the woman are free to do what they please to marry or not to marry consensus partium and both their consents publickly attested by the Priest makes up the Marriage but after they are Marryed let them both consent as they will and as often as they will yet there desire and consent cannot dis-joyn them and dissolve the Marriage because that now God had a hand in the Marriage and whom God hath joyned together neither they themselves nor any man else may put assunder Even so it is in the case of devoted and consecrated things lands houses or what you will offered up as a Free-will-offering unto God Before you make your Oblation of them you may do with them what you please give them or not give them as the man might marry this woman or not marry her but when once they are offered and given unto God you must not make a mock of God and alienate or impropriate them from Him and his Service or if you do Solomon will tell you It is destruction and a snare to the man Prov. 20.25 which devoureth that which is sanctified or given to God and after vows to make inquiry and search for wayes to deprive God of them as now our men of War and many others do But if men gave 5 pound or 10 pound or other sum Obj. unto the Church for the furtherance of God's Service and to secure the same appointed lands worth 50 pound or a 100 pound to pay it unto the Bishop or other Ministers of the Church Will you have the lands and not rather still accept of the money that was to be paid out of those lands and was the true meaning of the Donor I answer God forbid that any man in such a case Sol. should desire to have any more than what was given and intended to be given for God accepteth of no unjust acquisitions and a just man requireth no unjust thing But when the whole is given to God no Bishop for love either to his wife or children or for any other gain should lett and lease that for 5 pound which is worth 50 pound or the like as I have shewed to you before But I know what our sacrilegious persons Obj. that take the Tythes of impropriations and the lands houses and possessions of the Church into their possessions will further object and say for themselves and against me That our Laws do allow them to do what they do and our Bishops that knew God's will as well or better than my self have formerly lett out the lands and houses belonging to the Church in fee-ferme and for a very small rent unto their Tenants and Fee-fermers and they do still lett out long leases of them unto their children and friends and therefore they are not to be blamed but if there be any fault herein it is in our selves and in our Predecessors To which Objection I shall answer but as I did before Sol. That tyrannical fierce and wilful Kings and Princes and wicked Governours See what I say in the Grand Rebellion c. 7. when they have once got power and authority into their hands as was King Henry the Eighth and the late Rebel and Usurper Crumwell will make what laws and force the people in their Parliament to give their consent to what Acts and â—â—tutes soever they please And do you think that such Laws can excuâ—â—â—ou for the breach of the Law of God And for our Bishops that do of have done such things to the prejudice of the Church and the great dishonour of our God I confess majus peccatum habent our sin is more than yours for we are but God's Stewards intrusted with the implements of his House and the revenues of his Church to be used and imployed not wastefully upon our selves in pride or upon our children to make them Knights or Lords and Ladies but for the best advantage and furtherance of God's Service and the honour of Jesus Christ as he hath commanded us to dispose of them and you know we must render an account of our Stewardship and how soon I know not and if we waste our Masters goods or take all or more than is due unto our selâ—â—â— â—hen we should dispose of it to other uses for the Service of our Masâ—â—r I know not how we shall answer it But I know that our greater sin in imbezelling and alienating our Masters goods and the Revenues of his Church will not quit and excuse you for your lesser sin in being copartners with us in this Sacriledge for as the receiver of any stollen goods is liable to the Law as well as the stealer of his neighbours goods so is the lessee as well as the lessor the detainer as well as the maker away of these unlawful Fee-ferms and long Leases of the Church-Revenues liable to the just judgement of God And therefore in this respect that the Donations and Free-will-offerings of religious and holy men were given not to men but to God and for the Honour and Service of God and the good of his Church the worthiest Bishops and best Prelates and Servants of Christ would rather suffer the greatest indignities and the heaviest wrath of the most powerful Commanders than they would yield to satisfie their desires that sought to take away or alienate the goods of God that were dedicated to him for the service of his Church For when at the instigation and
and strongest fort that although all others should want sufficient right to crosse the commands and resist the violence of an unjust and tyrannical Prince yet the Parliament that is the representative body of all his Kingdom and are intrusted with the goods estates and lives of all his people may lawfully resist and when necessity requireth take arms and subdue their most lawful King and this they labour to confirm by many arguments I answer that for the Parliament of England it is beyond my sphere and I being a transmarine member of this Parliament of Ireland And whatsoever I â—pâ—ak of Parliaments in all this Discourse I mean of Parliaments disjâ—yned from their King and understand only the prevalent faction that ingrosseth and captivateth the Votes of many of the plain honest minded party which hath been often seen both in general Councels and the greatest Parl aments I will only direct my speech to that whereof I am a Peer and I hope I may the more boldly speak my mind to them whereof I am a member and I dare maintain it that it shall be a benefit and no prejudice both to King and Kingdome that the Spiritual Lords have their Votes in this our Parliament For besides the equity of our sitting in Parliament and our indubitable right to vote therein and his Majesty as I conceive under favour be it spoken is obliged by the very first act in Magna Charta to preserve that right unto us when as in the Summons of Edw. 1. it is inserted in the Writ that * Claus 7. m. 3. dors Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbari or tractari debet whatsoever affair is of publique concernment ought to receive publique approbation and therefore with what equity can so considerable a party of this Kingdom as are the Clergy who certainly cannot deserve to forfeit the priviledge of the meanest subjects and of Common men because they are more immediately the servants of the living God be denied the benefit of that which in all mens judgements is so reasonable a law and they onely be excluded from that interest which is common unto all I cannot see yet I say that besides this our right while we sit in Parliament this fruit shall alwayes follow that our knowledge and conscience shall never suffer us to vote such things against the truth as to allow that power or priviledge to our Parliament as to make Orders and Ordinances without the consent and contrary to the will of our King much lesse to leavie moneys and raise armes against our King Priviledges of Parliament what they are for I conceive the Priviledges of Parliament to be Privatae leges Parliamenti a proceeding according to certain rules and private customes and lawes of Parliament which no member of the Houses ought to transcend whereas the other is Privatio legum a proceeding without Law contrary to all rules as if our Parliament had an omnipotent power and were more infallible than the Pope to make all their Votes just and their sayings truth I but to make this assertion good that the Parliament in some cases may justly take arms and make warre upon their justest King if they conceive him to be unjust it is alledged that although the King be Singulis major greater then any one yet he is Vniversis minor lesse then all therefore all may oppose him if he refuse to consent unto them I answer that the weaknesse of this argument Pag. 11. 38 39 40. is singularly well shewed in the Answer to the Observations upon some of his Majesties late Answers and Expresses and I will briefly contract the Answer to say the King is better than any one doth not prove him to be better then two and if his Supremacy be no more then many others may challenge as much for the Prince is Singulis major a Lord above all Knights and a Knight above all Esquires he is singulis major though universis minor And if the King be universis minor then the people have placed a King not over but under them And Saint Peter doth much mistake in calling the King Supreme 2 Pet. 2.13 and they do ill to petition when they might command and I am confident that no records except of such Parliaments as have most unjustly deposed their Kings can shew us one example that the Parliament should have a power As Edw. Carnarvan and Richard the second which must of necessity over-rule the King or make their Votes Law without and against the will of the King for if their Votes be Law without his consent what need they seek and sollicit his consent But the clause in the Law made 2. Hen 5. cited by his Majesty that it is of the Kings regality to grant or deny such of their Petitions as pleaseth himself That the King is universis major greater then all proved and the power which the Law gives the King to dissolve the Parliament and especially the words in the Preface of cap. 12. Vices to Hen. 8. where the Kings Supremacy not over single persons but over all the body politique is clearly delivered doth sufficiently shew the simplicity of this Sophistry God having given and the people having yielded their power to th it King they can never challenge any power but what they have derived from their king 2. Reason Sol. and prove that the King being invested with all the powâ—â— of the people which is due to him as their King he is the onely fountain of all power and justice so that now they can justly claim no power but what is derived from him and therefore it is the more intolerable that any man should usurp the power of the King to destroy the King 2. They will say that Salus populi est suprema a lex The good of the people is the chiefest thing that is aymed at in all government and the Parliament is the representative body of all the people therefore if any thing be intended contrary to the good of the people they may and ought lawfully to resist the same I answer and confesse that there is no wise King but will carefully provide for the safety of his people because his honour is included therein and his ruine is involved in their destruction but it is certain that this principle hath been used as one of our Irish mantles to hide the rebellion of many Traytors and so abused to the confusion of many Nations for there is not scarce any thing more facile 2 Sam. 15.4 then to perswade a people that they are not well governed as you may see in the example of Absolon who by abusing this very Axiome hath stollen away the hearts of many of his fathers subj cts How easie it is to perswade the people to rebell for as Lipsius saith Proprium est aegri nihil diu pati It is incident to sick men and so to distempered minds to indure nothing long but foolishly to
think every change to be a remedy therefore the people that are soon perswaded to believe the lightest burthen to be too heavie are easily led away by every seducing Absolon who promise them deliverance from all their evils so they may have their assistance to effect their ends and then the people swelled up with hopes cry up those men as the reformers of the State and so the craft and subtilty of the one prevailing over the weaknesse and simplicity of the other every Peer and Officer that they like not must with Teramines be condemned and themselves must have all preferments or the King and Kingdom must be lyable to be ruined Repl. But you will say the whole Parliament cannot be thought to be thus envious against the Officers of State or thus carelesse of the common good as for any sinister end to destroy the happinesse of the whole Sol. I answer that Parliaments are not alwayes guided by an unerring spirit but as Generall Councels so whole Parliaments have been repealed and declared null by succeeding Parliaments How a Faction many times prevaileth to sway whole Councels and Parliaments as 21. Rich. 2. c. 12. all the Statutes made 11 Rich. 2. are disanulled and this in the 21 Rich. 2. is totally repealed in 1 Hen. 4. c. 3. And 39 Hen. 6. we find a total repeal of a Parliament held at Coventry the year before and the like and the reason is because many times by the hypocritical craft of some Faction working upon the weaknesse of some and the discontent of others the worse part procuring most unto their party prevaileth against the better The original of Parliaments why they were at first ordained Besides all this I conceive the Original of Parliaments was as it is expressed in the Kings Writ to consult with the King De quibusdam arduis urgentibus negotiis regni they being collected from all the parts of the Kingdom can best inform His Majesty what grievances are sprung and what reparations may be made and what other things may be concluded for the good of His Subjects in every part and His Majesty to inform them of his occasions and necessities which by their free and voluntary Subsidies they are to supply both for his honour and their own defence In all this they have no power to command their King See Jo. Bodin de repub l. 1. c. 8. pag 95. in English and the place is worth the noting no power to make Lawes without their King no right to meet without his Writ no liberty to stay any longer then he gives leave how then can you meet as you do now in my Episcopal See at Kilkenny and continue your Parliament there to make warre against your lawful King What colour of reason have you to do the same you cannot pretend to be above your King you have with lyes and falshoods most wickedly seduced the whole Kingdom and involved the same in a most unnatural civil warre you are the actives the King is passive you make the offensive He the defensive warre for you began and when He like a Gracious King still cryed for peace you still made ready for battel And I doubt not but your selves know all this to be true for you know that all Parliament men must have their elections warranted by the Kings especial Writ You will say that so you were well The letter sent from a Gentleman to his friend and you were chosen but by subjects and intrusted by them to represent the affections and to act the duties of subjects and subjects cannot impose a rule upon their Soveraign nor make any ordinance against their King and therefore if the representative body of subjects transcend the limits of their trust and do in the name of the subjects that which all subjects cannot do and assume that power which the subjects neither have nor can conferre upon them I see no reason that any subject in the world should any wayes approve of their actions For how can your priviledge of being Parliament men That men intrusted should not go beyond their trust priviledge you from being Murderers Thieves or Traytors if you do those things that the Law adjudgeth to be murders thefts and treasons Your elections cannot quit you and your places cannot excuse you because he that is intrusted cannot do more then all they that do intrust him and therefore all subjects should desert them that exceed the conditions and falsifie the trust which their fellow-subjects have reposed in them Besides The King must needs be a part of every Parliament you know the King must needs be reputed part of every Parliament when as the selected company of Knights and Burgesses together with the Spiritual and Temporal Peers are the representative body and the King is the real head of the whole Kingdom and therefore if the body separates it self from the head it can be but an uselesse trunk that can produce no act which pertaineth to the good of the body because the spirits that gave life and motion to the whole body are all derived from the head as the Philosopher teacheth And further you do all know that as the King hath a power to call The power of dissolving the Parliament greater then the power of denying any thing so he hath a power to dissolve all Parliaments and having a power of dissolving it when he will he must needs have a power of denying what he please because the other is farre greater then this And therefore all these premises well considered it is apparent that your sitting in Kilkenny without your King or his Lievtenant which is to the same purpose and your Votes without his assent are all invalid to exact obedience from any subject and for my part I deem them fooles that will obey them and rebels that will take arms against their King at your commands and if you persist in this your rebellious obstinacy I wish your judgements may light onely upon your own heads and that those which like the followers of Absolon are simply led by you may have the mist taken from their eyes that they may be able to discern the duty they owe unto their King that they be not involved and so perish in your sin For though you be never so many and think that all the Kingdom Towns and Cities be for you Psal 21.11 yet take heed lest you imagine such a mischievous device which you are not able to perform for the involving of well-meaning men into your bad businesses 1 Reg. 22.29 as Jehosaphat was misâ—led to war against Ramoth Gilead doth not only bring a punishment upon them that are seduced but a far greater plague upon you that do seduce them and God who hath at all times so exceeding graciously defended His Majesty and contrary to your hopes and expectation from almost nothing in the beginning of this rebellion hath increased his power to I hope an invincible
Army will be a rock of defence unto his annointed because it is well known to all the world For what causes the King suffereth that whatsoever this good King hath suffered at the hands of his subjects it is for the preservation of the true Protestant Religion of the established Lawes of his Kingdomes and of those Reverend Bishops Grave Doctors and all the rest of the Learned and Religious Clergy that have ever maintained and will to the spilling of the last drop of their blood defend this truth against all Papists and other Anabaptistical Brownists and Sectaries whatsoever What a shame it is to use the power we have received against him that gave it us And therefore if you that are his Parliament should like unthankeful vapours that cloud the Sun which raised them or like the Moon in her interposition that obscures the glorious lamp which enlightens her in the least manner imploy that strength which you have received from his Majesty when he called you together against His Majesty it will be an ugly spot and a foul blemish both for your selves and all your pâ—sterities And if not suddenly prevented you may raise such spirits that your selves cannot lay down and sow such seeds of discord and disconteâ—t between the King and his people as may derive through the whole Race of all succeeding Kings such a disaffection to Parliaments as may prove a plague and poyson to the whole Kingdom For if the King out of his favour and grace call you together and intrust you with a power either of continuing concluding or enacting such things as may be for the good of the Common wealth and you abuse that power against him that gave it you I must needs confesse that I am of his mind That it is lawful to recall a power given when it is abused who saith That the King were freed before God and man from all blame though he should use all possible lawful means to withdraw that power into his own hands which being but lent them hath been so misapplyed against him for if my servant desireth to hold my sword and when I intrust him with it he seeks to thrust the same into my breast Will not every man judge it lawful for me to gain my sword if it be possible out of his hand and with that sword to cut off his head that would have thrust it into my heart or as one saith If I convey my estate in trust to any friend to the use of me and mine and the person intrusted falsifie the faith reposed in him by conveying the profits of my estate to other ends to the prejudice of me and mine no man will think it unlawful for me to annihilate if I can possibly do it such a deed of trust And therefore Noble Peers and Gentlemen of this ancient Kingdom of Ireland that your Parliament may prove successeful to the benefit of the Common-wealth let me that have some interest and charge over all the Inhabitants and Sojourners of Kilkenny perswade you to think your selves no Parliament without your King and that your Votes and Ordinances carrying with them the power though not the name of Acts of Parliament to oblige both King and Subjects to obey them are the most absolute subversion of our Fundamental Lawes the destructive invasion of our rightful Liberties And that by an usurped power of an arbitrary rule to dispose of our estates or any part thereof as you please to make us Delinquents when you will and to punish us as Malignants at your pleasure and through your discontent to dispossesse your rightful King though it were to set the Crown upon the head of your greatest One al is such a priviledg that never any Parliament hath yet claimed Or if you still go on for the inlargement of your own usurped power under the title of the priviledge of Parliament to Vote diminution of the Kings just Prerogative that your Progenitors never denied to any of his Ancestors to exclude us Bishops out of your Assemblies without whom your determinations can never be so well concluded in the fear of God and to invade the Liberties of your fellow-subjects under the pretences of religion and the publique good I will say no more but turn my self to God and put it in my Liturgie From Parasites Puritanes Popes and such Parliaments Good Lord deliver us CHAP. IX Sheweth the unanimous consent and testimonies of many famous learned men and Martyrs both ancient and modern that have confirmed and justified the truth of the former Doctrine ANd so you see that as for no cause so for no kind or degree of men be they what you will Peers Magistrates Heads of Families Darlings of the people or any other Patriots whom the Commons shall elect it is lawfull to rebell against or any wayes to resist our chief Princes and soveraign Governours This point is as clear as the Sunne and yet to make it still more clear unto them that will not believe that truth which they like not but as Tertullian saith Credunt Scripturis ut credant adversus Scripturas Testimonies of famous men do alledge Scriptures to justifie their own wilful opinions against all Scripture I will here adde a few testimonies of most famous men to confirm the same Henry de Bracton Lord chief Justice of the Kings Bench under Hen. 3. L. Elismer in orat habita in Camera Fiscali anno 1609. pag. 108. saith as he is quoted by the Lord Elismer That under the King there are free men and servants and every man is under him and he is under none but onely God If any thing be demanded of the King seeing no Writ can issue forth against the King there is a place for Petition that he would correct and amend his fact and if he shall refuse to do it he shall have punishment enough when the Lord shall come to be his revenger for otherwise touching the Charters and deeds of Kings neither private persons nor Justitiaries ought to dispute This was the Law of that time what new Lawes our young Lawyers have found since I know not I am not so good a Lawyer The Civil Lawyers do farre surpasse the Common Law herein for Corsetus Sic. tract de potestat reg part 5. num 66. Corsetus Siculus saith Rex in suo regno potest omnia imò de plenitudine potestatis And Marginista saith Qui disputat de potestate Principis utrum benè fecerit est infamis Hostiensis saith Princeps solutus est legibus id est quoad vim coactivam non quoad vim directivam Thom. 1. 2 ae q. 96. ar 5. ad 3. quia nulli subest nec ab aliis judicatur And to omit all the rest Marginista in Angelum Perusinum c. l. 9. tit 29. De crimine sacrilegii l. 2 Hostiens Sum. l 1. rubr 32. de effic legati Barclaius contra Monarchomach l. 3â— c. 14. Gulielmus Barclaius out of Bartolus Baldus Castrensis
water which accompanied the persons accused to Westminster the next day after His Majesties departure as if they had passed in a Roman Triumph conceived the danger to be so great that I call Heaven to witness they blessed God that so graciously put it in the Kings heart rather to passe away over-night though very late than hazard the danger that might have ensued the day following The meaning therefore of both Houses may be That there was nothing done which they confessed to be a tumult And no marvel Because they received incouragement as we believed from their defence and no reproof that we found was made for this indignity offered unto the King But if I be constrained and in danger it is not enough for me that I am voted free and safe For if that which looks as like a tumult as that did or as the representation of my face in the truest Glasse is like my face doth come against me and incompasse me about though I may be perhaps in more safety yet I shall think my self in great fear and in no more security than His Majesty was at Edge-hill 3. Because as the viewer of the Observat hath very well exprest it Reason 3 p. 7. No Act of Parliament can prevail to deprive the King of His Right and Authority as an Attainder by Parliament could not bar the Title to the Crown from descending on King Hen. 7. Nor was an Act of Parliament disabling King Hen. 6. to re-assume the Government of his people of any force but without any repeal in it self frustrate and void 7. Rep. 14. Calvins case an Act of Parliament cannot take away the protection or the Subjects service which is due by the Law of Nature 11. rep Sur de la Wares case William de la Ware although disabled by Act of Parliament was neverthelesse called by Queen Elizabeth to sit as a Peer in Parliament for that it seems the Queen could not be barred of the service and counsel of any of Her Subjects 2. H. 7. 6. a Statute that the King by no non obstante shall dispence with it is void because it would take a necessary part of Government out of the Kings hand And therefore I see not how this Act can deprive the King of the service and counsel of all his Bishops and Clergy but that it is void of it self and needeth no repeal or if otherwise yet seeing that besides all this 13. of the Bishops were shut in prison when this Act passed and their protestation was made long before this time and it was so unduly framed so illegally prosecuted and with such compulsive threats and terrours procured to be passed I hope the wisdom of the next Parliament together with their love and respect to the Church and Church-men will nullifie the same CHAP. VI. Sheweth the Plots of the Faction to gain unto themselves the friendship and assistance of the Scots And to what end they framed their new Protestation How they provoked the Irish to rebell and what other things they gained thereby ANd thus the Sectaries of this Kingdom and the Faction in this Parliament have by their craft and subtilty prevailed to have all the chiefest impediments of their Design to be removed So now the hedge is broken down and all the Boars of the Forrest may now come into the vineyard to destroy the vine and to undermine the City of God But into their counsels let not my soul come 2. When they had taken away these stops and hinderances of their projects 2. The furtherances of their Design were five they were to recollect and make up the furtherances that might help to advance their Cause for the founding of their new Church and the establishing of their famous Democratical Government and popular Common-wealth And these I find to be principally five 1. The gaining of their Brethren of Scotland to become their fast and faithful friends 2. The framing of a Protestation to frighten the Papists and to insnare the simple to be led as they listed to prosecute their Design 3. The condemning of our late Canons as abominable in their judgement and inconsistent with their Religion 4. The appointing of a new Synod the like whereof was never heard in the Church since Adam to compose such Articles as they liked and to frame such Discipline as should be most agreeable to their own dispositions 5. The setling of a Militia a word that the vulgar knew not what it was for to secure the Kingdom as they pretended from those dangers that they feared that is from those Jacks of Lent and men of Clouts which themselves set up as deadly enemies unto the Church and State but indeed insensibly to get all the strength of the Realm into their own hands and their Confederates that so they might like the Ephori bridle the King and bring him as they pleased to abolish and establish what Laws and Government they should propose whereby perhaps he might continue King in Name but they in Deed. These were the things they aimed at and they effected the first three before they could be discryed and their Plots discovered but in the other two they were prevented when God said unto them as he doth unto the Sea Hitherto shalt thou go and no further here shalt thou stay thy proud waves And therefore I am confident and I wish all good Christians were so that their purposes shall never succeed nor themselves prosper therein while the World lasteth because God hath so mercifully revealed so much so graciously assisted our King and so miraculously not only delivered him from them but also strengthened him against them contrary to all appearing likely-hood to this very day which is a sufficient argument to secure our faith that we shall by the help of our God escape all the rest of their destructive Designs But to display their Banners to discover their Projects and to let the World see what they are and how closely and yet cunningly they went about to effect their work I will in a plain manner set down what I know and what I have collected from other Writings and from men that are fide digâ—i for one mans eyes cannot see all things nor infallibly perceive the Mysteries of all particulars for to confirm the faithful Subjects in their due obedience both to God and their King and to undeceive the poor seduced people that they perish not in the contradiction of Corah 1. It is believed not without cause 1 The indeering of themselves unto the Scots Our Sectaries the inviters of the Scots to England with far greater probabilities than a bare suspicion that our own Anabaptistical Sectaries and this Faction were the first inviters of those angry spirits that conceived some cause to be discontented and were glad of secret entertainers to enter into the bosom of this Kingdom Whatsoever those our Brethren of Scotland did I will bury it according to their Act in oblivion neither approving nor
sole power of ordering and disposing all the Castles Forts and strong Holds and all the Ports Havens and all other parts of the Militia of this kingdom or otherwise it would follow that the king had power to proclaime war but not to be able to maintain it and that he is bound to defend his subjects but is denied the meanes to protect them which is such an absurdity as cannot be answered by all the House of Commons 6. The kings of Israel were unto their people their honour their Soveraigns their life and the very breath of their nostrils as themselves acknowledge and so the kings of England are the life the head and the authority of all things that be done in the Realm of England supremam potestatem merum imperium apud nos habentes Smith de Repub l. 2. Cambden Britan p. 132. nec in Imperii clientela sunt nec investituram ab alio accipientes nec praeter Deum superiorem agnoscentes and their Subjects are bound by Oath to maintain the kings Soveraignty in all causes and over all persons as well Ecclesiastical as Civil and that not onely as they are singularly considered but overall collectively represented in the body politick for by sundry divers old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the world In the Preface to a Stat. 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12 governed by one supream head and king having the dignity and royal estate of the Imperial Crown of the same unto whom a body politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of spiritualty and temporalty have been bounden and owen to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience Respect 3 3. As the duty of every one of the kings of Israel was to be custos utriusque tabulae to keep the Law of God and to have a special care of his Religion and then to do justice and judgment according to the Law of nature and to observe all the judicial Laws of that kingdom so are the kings of England obliged to discharge the same duties The duty of the kings of England 1. To have the chiefest care to defend the faith of Christ and to preserve the honour of Gods Church as I shewed before 2. To maintain common right according to the rules and dictates of Nature And. 3. To see the particular Laws and Statutes of his own kingdom well observed amongst his people To all which the king is bound not onely virtute officii in respect of his office but also vinculo juramenti in respect of his Oath which enjoyneth him to guide his actions not according to the desires of an unbridled will but according to the tyes of these estabâ—ished Laws neither do our Divines give any further liberty to any king but if he failes in these he doth offend in his duty Respect 4 4. As the kings of Israel were accountable for their actions unto none but onely unto God Psal 51.4 and therefore king David after he had committed both murder and adultery saith unto God Tibi soli peccavi as if he had said none can call me to any account for what I have done but thou alone and we never read that either the people did call or the Prophets perswaded them to call any of their most idolatrous The kings of England accountable for their actions only to God tyrannical or wicked kings to any account for their idolatry tyranny or wickedness even so the kings of England are accountable to none but to God Reason 1 1. Because they have their Crown immediately from God who first gave it to the Conquerour through his sword and since to the succeeding kings by the ordinary means of hereditary succession Smith de repub l. 1. c. 9. Reason 2 2. Because the Oath which he takes at his Coronation binds him onely before God who alone can both judge him and punish him if he forgets it Reason 3 3. Because there is neither condition promise or limitation either in that Oath or in any other Covenant or compact that the king makes with the people either at his Coronation or at any other time that he should be accomptable or that they should question and censure him for any thing that he should do Reason 4 4. Because the Testimony of many famous Lawyers justify the same truth for Bracton saith if the king refuse to do what is just satis erit ei ad poenam quòd Dominum expectet ultorem The Lord will be his avenger which will be punishment enough for him but of the kings grants and actions nec privatae personae nec justiciarii debent disputare And Walsingham maketh mention of a Letter written from the Parliament to the Bishop of Rome wherein they say Bracton fol. 34. 2. b. apud Lincol anno 1301. that certum directum Dominium à prima institutione regni Angliae ad Regem pertinuit the certain and direct Dominion of this Kingdom from the very first institution thereof hath belonged unto the King who by reason of the arbitrary or free preeminence of the royal dignity and custome observed in all ages ought not to answer before any Judge either Ecclesiastical or Secular Ex libera praeeminentia Ergo neither before the Pope nor Parliament nor Presbytery Reason 5 5. Because the constant custome and practice of this kingdom was ever such that no Parliament at any time sought to censure their king and either to depose him or to punish him for any of all his actions save onely those that were called in the troublesome and irregular times of our unfortunate Princes No legitimate and just Parliment did ever question the kings of England for their actions and were swayed by those that were the heads of the most powerful Faction to conclude most horrid and unjustifiable Acts to the very shame of their Judicial authorities as those factious Parliaments in the times of Hen. 3. king John Rich. 2. and Hen. 4. and others whose acts in the judgment of all good authors are not to be drawn into examples when as they deposed their king for those pretended faults whereof not the worst of them but is fairly answered and all thirty three of them proved to be no way sufficient to depose him Heningus c. 4. p. 93. by that excellent Civilian Heningus Arnisaeus And therefore seeing the Institution of our kings is not onely by Gods Law but also by our own Laws Customs and practice thus agreeable to the Scripture kings they ought to be as sacred and as inviolable to us as the kings of Israel were to the Jews and as reverently honoured and obeyed by us as both the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul advise us to honour and obey the king CHAP. V. Sheweth how the Heathens honoured their Kings how Christ exhibited all due honour unto
decaying State when Moses chaire should be set in the Parliament House and the Doctours of the Church should never sit thereon therefore I wish that the Ark may be brought back from the Philistines and restored to the Priests to be placed in Shilo where it should be and that the care of the Ark which king David undertook may not be taken out of his hands by his people but that he may have the honour of that service which God hath imposed upon him For Opinion 3 3. As nothing is dearer to understanding righteous and religious Kings then the encrease and maintenance of true religion Of the Orthodox Quia religio est ex potioribus reipublicae partibus ut ait Aristot Polit. l. 7. c. 8. ipsa sola custodit hominum inter se societates ut ait Lactant. de ira Dei cap. 12. Peritura Troja perdidit primùm Deos. Therefore the Tyrians chayned their gods lest if they fled they should be destroyed and the inlargement of the Church of Christ throughout all their Dominions so they have at all times imployed their studies to this end because it is an infallible maxime even among the Politicians that the prosperity of any Kingdome flourisheth for no longer time then the care of Religion and the prosperity of the Church is maintained by them among their people as we see Troy was soon lost when they lost their Palladium so it is the truest sign of a declining and a decaying State to see the Clergy despised and religion disgraced and therefore the provision for the safety of the Church the publick injoying of the word of God the form of Service the manner of Government and the honour and maintenance of the Clergy are all the duties of a most Christian King which the King of Heaven hath imposed upon him for the happiness and prosperity of his Kingdom and whosoever derive the authority of this charge either in a blinde obedience to the See of Rome as the Jesuites do or out of their too much zeal and affection to a new Consistory as the late Presbyterians did or to a Lay Parliament as our upstart Anabaptists aad Brownists do are most unjust usurpers of the Kings Right which is not onely ascribed unto him and warranted by the Word of God but is also confirmed to the Princes of this Land by several Acts of Parliament to have the supremacy in all causes and over all persons as well in the Ecclesiastical as in the Civil government which being so they are exempted thereby from all inforcement of any domestical or forraign power and freed from the penalties of all those Laws both Ecclesiastical and civil whereunto all their Subjects Clergy and Laity Q. Curtius de rebus Alexand. Joh. Beda p. 22 23. and all inferiour persons and the superiour Nobility within their Kingdomes are obliged by our Laws and Statutes as hereafter I shall more fully declare Therefore it behoveth all Kings and especially our King at this time seriously to consider what prejudice they shall create unto themselves and their just authority if they should yeild themselves inferiour to their Subjects aggregativè or repraesentativè or how you will or liable to the penal Laws for so they may be soon dethroned by the unstable affection and weak judgment of discontented people or subject to the jurisdiction of Lay Elders and the excommunication of a tyrannous Consistory who denouncing him Matth. 18.17 tanquam Ethnicum may soon add Deut. 17.15 a stranger shall not raign over thee and so depose him from all government For seeing all attempts are most violent that have their beginning and strength from zeal unto Religion be the same true or false and from the false most of all and those are ever the most dangerous whose ringleaders are most base as the servile War under Spartacus was most pernicious unto the Romans there can be nothing of greater use How necessary it is for Kings to retain their just rights in their hands or more profitable either for the safety of the King the peace of the Church and the quiet state of the Kingdome then for the Prince the King to retain the Militia and to keep that power and authority which the Laws of God and of our Land have granted to and intailed upon him in his own hands unclipped and unshaken for when the multitude shall be unbridled and the rights of the Kings are brandished in their hands we shall assuredly taste and I fear in too great a measure as experience now sheweth of those miserable evils which uncontrouled ignorance furious zeal false hypocricy and the merciless cruelty of the giddy-headed people and discontented Peeres shall bring upon us and our Prince But to make it manifest unto the World what power and authority God hath granted unto Kings for the government of the Church and the preservation of his true Religion we finde them the worst men at all times and in all places that mislike their Government and reject their authority and we see those Churches most happy The Kings that maintain true religion make their Kingdoms happy and those Kingdoms most flourishing which God hath blessed with religious Kings as the State of the Church of Judaea makes it plain when David Ezechias Josias and the other virtuous Kings restored the Religion and purified that Service which the idolatry of others their predecessours had corrupted and we know that as Moses * Exod. 14 31 Num. 12.7 8 Deut. 34.5 Josh 1.1 2. so kings are called the servants of God in a more special manner then all others are that is not onely because they serve the Lord in the Government of the Common wealth but especially because he vouchsafeth to use their service for the advancement of his Church and the honour of his Son Christ here on earth or to distribute their duties more particularly we know the Lord exspecteth and so requireth a double service from every Christian king 1. The one common with all others to serve him as they are his creatures and Christians The double service of all Christian kings and therefore to serve him as all other Christians are bound to do 2. The other proper and peculiar to them alone to serve him as they are Kings and Princes 1. As they are Christians In the first respect they are no more priviledged to offend then other men but they are tyed to the same obedience of Gods Laws and are obliged to performe as many virtuous actions and to abstain from all vices as well as any other of their Subjects and if they fail in either point they shall be called to the same account and shall be judged with the same severity as the meanest of their people and therefore Be wise O ye Kings be learned ye that are Judges of the earth Psal 2.10 Serve the Lord in fear and rejoyce unto him with reverence for with God there is no respect of persons but
of our Parliaments but as a man that yeildeth himself to be bound by some others hath the use of his strength taken from him but none of his naturall strength it self is lessened and much lesse is any part of it transferred to them that bound him but that whensoever his bonds are loosened he can work again by vertue of his own naturall strength and not by any received strength from his loosers so the naturall right and interest of the Soveraignty being solely in the King and the Peeres and Commons by the Kings voluntary concession being onely interessed in the office of restraining his power for the more regular working of the true legitimate Soveraignty it cannot be denyed but in whatsoever the Peeres and Commons do remit the restraint by yeilding their consent to the point proposed the King worketh and acteth therein absolutely by the power of his own inherent Soveraignty and all acts and lawes so passing doe virtually proceed from the King How the same acts may be said to be the acts of the King and of the Parliament as from the true and proper efficient author thereof and may notwithstanding be said to be the acts of the whole Court because the three estates contribute their power of remitting the restraint and yeilding their assent as well as the King useth his unrestrained power And therefore Suarez saith that as condere legem unus est ex pracipuis actibus gubernationis reipublicae ita praecipuam superiorem requirit potestatem to make Lawes is one of the chiefest acts of the government of a Common-wealth Suarez l. 1. c 8 n. 8. so it requireth the cheifest and supremest power and authority quae quidem potestas legislativa primariò in Deo est which legislative power is primarily in God and is communicated unto Kings saith he per quandam participationem according to the saying of the wise man Heare O ye Kings because power is given unto you of the Lord. Sap. 6. And Saint Augustine calleth Jura humana jura imperatorum quia ipsa jura humana per imperatores Aug. in Joan tract 6. all humane lawes are the lawes of Emperors or Kings because they are made by them and the Holy Ghost speaking of the Kings of Judah saith The Scepter shall not depart from Judah nor a Lawgiver from between his feet to teach us Gen. 49.10 that whosoever swayeth the Scepter hath the right to be the Law-maker which is one of the prime prerogatives of Soveraignty 2. Jus nobilitandi the right of appointing the principall Officers of State 2. Ius nobilitandi to cry up any of all his Subjects whom the King will honour as Pharaoh did Joseph and Ahasuerus did Haman and Mordecai and to give them titles of honour per codicillos honorarios aut per diplomata sua as to make Dukes Marquesses Barons Knights c. doth belong onely unto the King that hath onely the supreme Majesty But if the Dukes Earles and Barons be so plyable to the Puritan faction It is the Doctrine of the Anabaptists and Puritans that there should be no Degrees of Schooles nor titles of honour among men to put down the spiritual Lords I doubt that e're long the King shall have but few Nobility when not onely the Mechanicks and Rusticks will all cry out against this Lordlinesse and say as they did in the rebellion of Jack Cade and Wat Tyler When Adam delv'd and Eve span Who was then the Gentleman And why should we now indure so many titles of vanity and so many vain honours to vapour it over us but the Puritan Clergy also seeing themselves deprived of their due honour and made all equall all as base as Jeroboams Priests will be apt enough to blow up this conceit and to put it into the Creed of all the vulgar that God made us all equall and to be Lords is but to be tyrants over their Brethren and the Presbytery whose pride could not obey the authority of their Bishops will not abide the superiority of any Lords but if they cannot Lord it themselves will be sure to take away the Lordship from all others And therefore if the Nobility be not wiser then to lay our honours in the dust as I see some about his Majesty that would faine be the Priests to bury it which meere policy though they wanted piety should prohibit they shall find that Virgil. Aeneid l. 1. Jam tua res agitur paries cùm proximus ardet When our Cottages are burnt their next Palaces shall not escape the fire but through our sides their Honours shall be killed and buried without honour 3. Jus legitimandi 3. Jus legitimandi the right of legitimation belongs unto the King without which legitimation the Lawyers tell us that as the world now standeth a mighty emolument would happen unto the Crown if the King granted not this grace to them that want it 4. Ius appellationes recipiendi Act. 25.11 4. Jus appellationes recipiendi the right of taking notice of causes and of judging the same by the last appeale definitively doth alwayes belong to the supreme Majesty because that as Saint Paul appealed unto Caesar so the last appeale is to the highest Soveraigne from whom there lyeth none appeale but onely to him that shall judge all the Judges of the earth 5. Honores restituendi 5. Jus restituendi in integrum the right to restore men attainted or banished or condemned to death unto their Country wealth and honour is likewise a part of the royall right Osorius de rebus Imman p. 6. So Osorius saith that Immanuel King of Portugall restored James son of Fernandus and his brother Dionysius and others unto their forfeited honours and so not onely the Scripture sheweth how David pardoned Absolon and Shimei 1 Reg. 2.26 two wicked Rebels and Solomon pardoned Abiathar that were all worthy of death Ventam crimiuosis indulgere but also Saint Augustine speaking of other Kings and Emperours saith judicibus statuendum est ne liceat in reum datam sententiam revocare the Judges may not pardon a man condemned to death numquid ipse Imperator sub hac lege erit but shall not the Emperour or King pardon him are they likewise under this Law of restraint by no meanes Nam ipsi soli licet revocare sententiam reum mortis absolvere ipsi ignoscere for he and he alone that is the Emperour or King may revoke the sentence and absolve him that is guilty of death And so our King according to this his undenyable right Our kings unparallel'd clemency and piety towards the Rebels hath most graciously and not seldome offered his pardon unto these intolerable Rebels a pardon not to be parallel'd in any History nor to be beleived unlesse we had seen it that a man could be so far inclined to clemency and mercy as to remit such transcendent impiety which will render
grace 2. By fraud 3. Through fear For 1. The King that hath his full right either by conquest or succession over his people 1. All grants of grace ought to be observed to govern them as a most absolute Monarch and out of his meer grace and favour to sweeten the subjection of his people and to binde them with the greater love and affection to his obedience doth minuere sua jura restrain his absolute right bestow liberties upon his people and take his oath for their security that he will observe them is bound in all conscience to perform them and can never be freed from injustice before God and man if he transgresse them The true Law of free Monarchs p. 203. Quia volenti fit non injuria because they do him no injury when he doth voluntarily either totally resign or in some particularity diminish his own right but after he hath thus firmely done it he can never iustly go from it and therefore King James saith that a King which governeth not by his Lawes can neither be accountable to God for his administration nor have a happy and established Raign because it cannot be but that the people seeing their King failing of his duty will be always murmuring and defective in their fidelity And Yet the King's breach of oath doth neither forfeit his right nor warrant their distoyalty because another mans sin doth no way lessen mine offence and neither God nor the King granted this priviledge unto Subjects to rebel and take Armes against their Soveraign when they pretend he hath broken his promise 2. Grants obtained through fraud which to be observed 2. When the King through the subtile perswasions of his people that pretend one thing and intend another shall be seduced to grant those things that are full of inconveniencies as our King was over-reached and no better then meerly cheated by the faction of this Parliament to grant the continuance of it till it should be dissolved with the consent of both Houses and the like Lawes that are procured by meer fraud that soonest over-reacheth the best meaning Kings I answer with the old Proverb Caveat emptor he ought to have been as wise to prevent them as they were subtile to circumvent him and therefore as Joshua being deceived by the Gibeonites could not alter his promise Josh 9.20 nor break his league with them lest wrath should fall upon him so no more should any other King break promise in the like case But you must observe that the Psalmist saith Psal 15.5 The good man which shall dwell in the Tabernacle of the Lord is he that sweareth unto his neighbour and disappointeth him not though it were to his own hinderance mark Quicquid fit dolo malo annullat factum imponit poenam summa Angel though it were to his own hinderance never so much he must perform it but what if he hath promised and sworn that which will be to the great dishonour of God to the hinderance of thousands of others and it may be to the ruine of a whole Kingdom which is a great deal more then his own hinderance is a King bound or is any man else obliged to perform such a promise or to keep such an oath to tell you mine own judgement I think he ought not to perform it and our own Law tels us what grants soever are obtained from the King under the broad Seal by fraud and deceit those grants are void in Law therefore seeing the Act for the perpetuity of this Parliament was obtained dolo pessimo to the great dishonour of God and the ruine both of Church and State when their pretence was very good though the goodness of his Majesty in the tenderness of his conscience was still loath to allow himself the liberty to dissolve it until he had other justeâ— and more clear causes to pronounce it no Parliament as the abusing of his grant to the raising of an Army and the upholding of a Rebellion against their Soveraign yet I believe he might safely have done it long agone without the least violation of God's Law when their evil intentions were openly discovered by those Armies which they raised For I doubt not to affirm it with the Authour of The sacred Prerogative of Christian Kings p. 144. if any good Prince or his royal Ancestors have been cheated out of their sacred right by fraud oâ— force he may at the fittest opportunity when God in his wise providence offereth the occasion resume it especially when the Subjects do abuse the King's concessions to the dammage of Soveraignty so that it redounds also to the prejudice either of the Church or Common-wealth 3. When the King through fear not such as the Parliaments fear is 3. Grants gotten by force not to be observed who were afraid where no fear was and were frighted with dreames and causelesse jealousies but that fear which is real and not little but such as may fall in fortem constantem virum doth passe any Law especially that is prejudicial to the Church and injurious to many of his Subjects I say that when he shall be freed from that fear he is not onely freed from the obligation of that Law but he is also obliged to do his uttermost endeavour to annul the same it is true that his fear may justly free him from all blame at the passing of it as the fear of the thief may clear me from all fault in delivering my purse unto him because these are no voluntary acts and all acts are adjudged good or evil according to the disposition of the will the same being like the golden bridle that Minerva was said to put upon Pegasus to guide him and to turn him as she pleased but when his fear is past The will must never consent to forced acts that are unlawful His Majesties answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons 16. Julii p. 8. and God hath delivered him from the insurrection of wicked doers if his will gives consent to what before he did unwilling who can free the greatest Monarch from this fault Therefore His Majesty confessing which we that saw the whole proceedings of those tumultuous routs that affrighted all the good Protestants and the Loyal Subjects do know that it could not be otherwise that he was driven out of London for fear of his life I conclude that the act of excluding the Bishops out of Parliament being past after his flight out of London can be no free nor just nor lawful act and the King when he is more fully informed of many particulars about this act that is so prejudicial to the Church of Christ and so injurious to all his servants the Clergy whose rights and priviledges the King promised and sware at His Coronation to maintain cannot continue it in my judgement and be innocent But this is answered by the answerer to Doctour Ferne Ob. Pag. 31. that he is no more bound
were many times swayed by the heads of the most powerfull faction The case of our affairs p. 17. How powerfull factions have procured Parliaments to doe most unjust things Turba tremens sequitur fortunam ut semper odit damnatos Juven Satyra 10. When Kings were most powerfull they could get the Parliaments to yeeld to what Statutes they thought best when the Lords or faction were most powerful they forced their Kings to make what Statutes they liked best which are instances rather of their unsteady weaknesse then of their just power when forsaking the guidance of their lawfull head they suffered themselves to be led by popular pretenders as when Canutus prevailed by his armes he could have a Parliament to resolve that his title to the Crown was the best when Hen. 4. had an army of 60000 men he could have a Parliament to depose Rich. 2. and confer the Crown upon himself when Edw. Duke of Yorke grew powerfull he could have a Parliament to determine the reigne of Hen. 6. and leave him only the name of king for his life but give the very Kingdome unto the Duke under the names of Protector and Regent and then he could procure the Parliament to declare that Hen. 4. Hen. 5. and Hen. 6 were but kings de facto non de jure so Rich. the 3. as meere an Usurper as any could notwithstanding procure a Parliament to declare him a lawfull king and Hen. 7. could procure the forementioned acts that were made in favour of Edw. 4. and Rich. 3. to be annulled and Hen. 8. could have a Parliament to justifie and authorize his divorces and Queen Elizab. could have a Parliament to make it high treason for any man to say that the Queen could not by Act of Parliament bind and dispose the rights and titles which any person whatsoever might have unto the Crown when as we know it was adjudged in Hen. 7. that no Act of Parliament nor yet an Attainder by Parliament can disable the right heire to the Crown because the descent of the Crown upon him purges all disabilityes whatsoever and makes him every way capable thereof Thus as the Parliaments when they were most prevalent caused their kings unwillingly to yeeld many things against right so the kings growing most powerfull prevailed to work the Parliament to consent to very unjust conclusions and therefore it is inconsequent to say this exclusion must be just because it is past by an Act of Parliament The case of our affaires p. 20. And therefore as in the 15 yeare of Edw. 3. the king being unwillingly drawn to consent to certain Articles prejudiciall to the Crown and to promise to seale the Statute thereupon made lest otherwise his affairs in hand might have been ruinated which we conceive to be just in like manner now the king very unwillingly drawn to passe this Act for the exclusion of the Clergy which is most prejudiciall both to the Crown and the Church and a mighty dishonour unto God himself lest otherwise more mischiefe might have followed when he hoped that this would have appeased the fury of that prevalent faction which now the kingdome seeth it did not Another Statute was made the same year reciting the former matter Statutes unwillingly procured from the king repealed that was enacted in these words It seemed to the said Earls Barons and otherwise men that since the Statute did not of our free will proceed the same to be void and ought not to have the name nor strength of a Statute and therefore by their counsell and assent we have decreed the said Statute to be void c. So I hope our Earles and Baron and the rest will be so wise and so just both to the king and to the Church that seeing this Statute proceeded not of the kings free will as I beleeve their own conscience knoweth and do presume His Majesty will acknowledge they likewise will consent that the king may make it void again §. Certaine Quaeres discussed but not resolved the end for which God ordained Kings the prayse of a just rule Kings ought to be more just then all others in three respects and what should most especially move them to rule their people justly AND here I must further craue leave to be resolved in certain Quaeres and doubts wherein I would very gladly be satisfied for seeing as I told you before there are some rights of royalty which are inseperabilia à majestate which the king ought not and which indeed he cannot grant away as there be some things which he may forgoe though he need not I demand Quaere 1 1. Whether any positive Act Statute or Law that is either ex diametro or ex obliquo either directly or by consequent or any other way contradictory or transgressive to the Law of God ought to be kept and observed wherein I beleive and constantly maintain that it ought not and I say further that by the Word of God not any Lay men be they never so noble never so learned and never so many but the Clergy be they never so poore and never so much dis-esteemed ought to be the resolvers of this point what is repugnant and what consonant to the Law of God Malach. 2.7 because the Priests lips must preserve knowledge and the people must seek the Law at his month therefore it may be conceived no Statute can be rightly made that is not assented to and approved as all our former Statutes were by the Bishops that are the chiefest of the Clergy to be no wayes contrary to the Law of God Quaere 2 2. Whether the king that is an absolute Monarch to whom God hath committed the charge and government of his people can without offence to God change this forme of government from a Monarchicall to an Aristocraticall or a Democraticall forme of government which may be beleived he cannot because though as I shewed out of Saint Augustine the worser forme invented by man may lawfully be changed into a better yet the best which is onely and primarily ordained by God cannot be changed into a worser without offence Quaere 3 3. Whether the king can passe away that power authority and right which God hath given him and without which he cannot govern and protect his people that God hath committed under his charge wherein it may be conceived he cannot because God must discharge him from the charge that he imposed upon him before he can be freed and excused from it but as the Bishop on whom the Lord hath laid the charge of soules cannot lay aside this charge when he pleaseth so no more can the King lay aside the charge of the Government nor paâ—t with that power and right * Otherwise then by substitution Rege absente durante beneplacito or quamdiu se benè gesserint substituti whereby he is inabled to govern them and without which he cannot governe them untill God that laid this charge
upon him and gave him full power and authority to do it by some undeniable dispensation gives him his Writ of ease to discha ge him Quaere 4 4. Whether such an Act or Statute which disinableth any King to dissolve his Dyet Councill Assembly or Parliament and inableth some subtle faction of his Subjects in some sort to countermand their King be not derogatory to the inseperable right of Majesty destructive to the power of government and prejudicial to all the loyall Subjects and therefore void of it selfe and not to be observed because such an act ought not to have been concluded The Act for the indissolubility of any Parliament beleived by many to be of it selfe void wherein I leave the resolution to be dete mined by the Judges and Bishops of this Land and I will onely crave leave to set down what may be thought herein viz. that such an Act or Statute is clearly and absolutely void Reason 1 1. Because that hereby the King may be said after a sort and in some kinde to change the fundamentall constitution and Government of his Kingdome from an absolute Monarchy to another species and forme of Government either Aristocraticall or Democraticall or some other forme emergent out of all these such as we know not how to terme it and such as was never known from the beginning of the world a mixture indeed which I told you before no absolute King can be thought to do without offence unless he can prove his licence from God to do the same Reason 2 2. Because that hereby he may be said to denude himselfe of his Right and by depriving himselfe of this power to disinable himselfe to discharge that duty which God doth necessarily require at his hands that is to govern his people by protecting the innocent and punishing the wrong doer and when God shall call the King to an account why he did not thus governe his people and defend those poore Subjects that were loyal and faithful both to God and their King according to the charge that he laid upon him and the right and power which he gave him to discharge it It may be feared it will be no sufficient answer for any King to say but I have so laid away that power and parted with that right unto my Lords and Commons that I could not do it for it may be asked where doth God require him or when did he authorize him to devest himselfe of that authority wherewith he indued him how then can he do it to the undoing of many people without an assured leave from God therefore as that Act which was made unrepealable was adjudged no Act but immediately void because it was destructive to the very power of Parliament * Which may repeale their owne Acts but not destroy their just power not themselves as it seemes the Act of excluding the Bishops doth and takes away as it were the soule of the Parliament and if any act should be made to destroy common right or to hinder the publique service of God or to disinable the right heire to injoy the Crowne or the like those Acts are void of themselves so any Statute that disinableth the Kings Government must needs be void ipso facto as I have partly shewed in my Discovery of Mysteries p. 32. Reason 3 3. Because it may be beleived no King would ever grant such an act unless he were either subtilly deceived and seduced or forcibly compelled thereunto for feare of some inavoidable extremity which according to all outward appearance could not otherwise be prevented without the concessions of such unspeakable disadvantages as a man gives away his sword when he seeth his life in danger if he deliver it not Therefore the premises considered Quaere 5 5. The Quaere is whether any King should be bound and obliged to observe such grants and make good such Acts In all these Quaeries I conclude nothing whatsoever I beleive as are thus fraudulently obtained or forcibly wrested from him and are thus contradictory to Gods will thus prejudiciall to the power of Government and thus destructive to his Subjects which for the fore said reasons is by many men beleived he is not but that this right was unduly procured from him so when God inableth him he may justly acquire it and re-assume it without any offence to God or the least reluctancy to his own conscience And if this Act that hath passed in our Parliament makes it immediately to be no Parliament * As I know not whether it doth or not neither will I determine it as being now another forme of government which the Divines hold ought not to be effected then certainly all Acts that passed since are no Acts but are void and invalid of themselves Or be it granted that the Act for the perpetuity of Parliament doth not annul the Parliament yet it is doubted by many whether the Parliament may not themselves without the kings pronouncing it void or dissolved make it no Parliament Quid prodest tibi nomen usurpare alienum vocari quod non es when of Counsellors for the King they become Traytors unto the King and of Patriots that should protect the Common-wealth they become Parricides and Catilines unto the same because these duties being as the soul the life and the end of Parliaments when these are changed to be the bane and death of King and Kingdome it is doubted how it can be a Parliament any more then a dead carkase that is deprived of his soul can be said to be a man for the circumstances and ceremonies of times places and the like are not essentialia Parliamenti but as accidentia quae possunt adesse abesse sine interita subjecti and may be ad benè esse but are as Punctilio's in respect of the end and essence of a Parliament And therefore as God promiseth infallibly to do a thing for example that He will not fail David Psal 89.34 1 Sam. 2.30 his seed shall endure for ever and of Eli he said indeed that his house and the house of his father should walke before him for ever yet this unchangeable God when the change is wrought in David or his seed or in Eli his house David doth immediately say Thou hast abhorred and forsaken thine Anointed Psal 89.37 1 Sam. 2.30 and art displeased at him and of his promise to Eli God saith in the same place now be it far from me so it may be conceived that when any Parliament changeth its nature I should never acknowledge Judas after he betrayed his master and resolved to persist in his wickednesse to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ no more then I should take the Temple of Jerusalem to be the house of God so long as it continued the den of theeves faileth in its very being and of a preservative becomes a poyson both to the King and Kingdome the King and Kingdome may then without any
Magistrate and so many other restrictions were made as Rules against such as could not otherwise well rule themselves and observe the just rules of Reason and moderation And thereupon the Church it self and those godly Bishops that desired no mans wealth but what made for the glory of God and the furtherance of the Gospel of Christ made Canons and cautions against such catching Covetousness as would too greedily incroach upon their neighbours estates Decret part 2. Caus 12. q. 2. Can 49. and too unreasonably hedge it in unto the Church as that Canon which beginneth Ecclesia rapacitatis ardore The Church with too much greediness must not snatch and pluck unto her self the Lands and Possessions of her Children The Reason of those Statutes and Canons two fold And the Reason of these Inhibitions and Statute of Mortmain and Canons of the Church seems to be two fold 1. Because as I said before the zeal of those Christians was so fervent Reason 1 and their desire to promote the service of God was so eager and vehement that they cared not how much they gave but thought all that they gave too little for that service So great was the difference betwixt their mind and the minds of our Souldiers and others Gentlemen of no mean rank and some generated and degenerated from the Church whose Covetousness and greedy hearts desire nothing more then to pull down our Cathedrals and other Churches and as it were Romana lege agraria by an Irresragable Law to pluck away their Lands and Possessions until they be left as bare as in the day wherein they were first brought forth into the World 2. Because that whatsoever Lands Houses or Possessions were once Reason 2 dedicated and offered unto God and for Gods service could not without committing the horrible sin of Sacriledge be taken away by any man or by any pretence from God or indeed because the Lands and Houses that were given unto the Church were freed in those times of Popery from all Taxes and Escheats so that neither the King nor Common-Wealth could have any help or assistance from them towards the defraying of the publick and most necessary charges of the State And therefore Henry the third and Edward the first his son and Richard the second seeing how many men not out of any love to Religion or zeale to Gods service but craftily to couzen the King and other chief Lords and the Common-Wealth did thus fraudulently convey their Lands unto the Church and then took Leases of them again from the Church meerly to be freed from the Publick Taxes made those Statutes Cap 36. against the giving of their Lands in Mort-main or in a dead hand that is the Church and it is enacted in the great Charter that it should not be lawful to any man from thence-forth to give his Lands to any Religious House and then to take the same again from the same H use the which thing being a meer Collusion and an apparent wrong to the King to the chief Lord of the Fee and the Common-Wealth no Bishop ever justified the same or held it lawful for the Church to hold such Lands as were so given contrary to those Acts of Parliament and those Canons that were made against such deceitful dealings But for those Lands and Houses that were truly Religiously and without any manner of deceit or wrong to any man given to the Church for the service of God and to promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ I think them so sacred and so properly Gods right that as the Author of the Church Lands not to be sold hath Truly Religiously and most Learnedly proved so I assure my self that none but the Limbs of the Great Anti-Christ will think otherwise For Before these holy men have made the Donations of their lands or houses unto God and to his Church it was in their own power and they might without offence either give them unto the Lord or retain them still unto themselves and their posterity for so S. Peter tells Ananiâ— Whiles it remained that is un-sold was it not thine own And after it was sold was it not in thine own power that is either to offer it and give it to God and his Service Acts 5.4 or not to give it But now after thou hast sold it and dedicated the whole price of thy land for Gods Service To keep back some part of the price which formerly thou hadst given to God's Church is such a Sacriledge and so transcendent a sin as to lye unto the Holy Ghost and to rob God of that which now doth most properly belong to God and is no wayes in thy power to dispose of it And so it is in any other mans case Before thou givest thy land house or utensil unto the Church and for the Service of God it is thine own and thou mayst lawfully do what thou wilt with thine own either give it unto God or not give it but after thou hast once given it and consecrated it for God's Service it is none of thine and neither thou nor any man else can make an alienation or impropriation thereof without lying unto the Holy Ghost and a robbing of God of his right For so the Law saith Jastinian lib. 2. Tit. 1 Nullius sunt res Sacrae nam quod Divini juris est nullius in bonis est The Sacred and Dedicated things that are of Divine property are of no private mans right but God being the sole owner of them none but such as are his servants and assignes can have any thing to do with them So Charles the Great that was as good as he was great saith Bona Ecclesiae Deo sacrata sunt Capit. Car. l. 6. c. 28. Whatsoever we give unto the Church we offer and dedicate unto the Lord our God And so the style of all the Graunts in our Magna Charta runneth Magna Charta c. 1. We have given such and such lands or things unto God both for us and for our heires for ever And again the same Magna Chartae saith Privilegium Ecclesiae debet esse immune And so the Law of God saith The field when it goeth out in the year of Jubile shall be holy unto the Lord as a field devoted the possession thereof shall be the Priests because Levit. 27.21 28. as the Lord saith verse 28. No devoted thing that a man shall devote or give unto the Lord of all that he hath both of man and beast and of the field of his possession shall be sold or redeemed because every devoted dedicated or consecrated thing is most holy unto the Lord and the Lord hath given the same unto the Priests verse 21. And so the ancient Style of all Grants and Charters for these matters was Domino Deo nostro offâ—rimus dicamus cetera We give such and such things unto our Lord God And under the Law as God instituted the Tythes and lands
all kings Ang. de Civit. Dei l. 4. c 33. illius jussu reges constituuntur And by whose command men are born by his command Kings are made And S. Augustine more plainly and more fully saith God alone is the giver of all earthly Kingdomes which he giveth both to the good and to the bad neither doth he the same rashly and as it were by chance because he is God but as he seeth good Pro rerum ordine ac tempore in respect of the order of things and times which are hid from us but best known unto himself and whosoever looketh back to the original of all governments he shall find that God was the immediate authour of the Regal power God the immediate authour of Monarchy and but the allower and confirmer of the Aristocratical and all other forms of government which the people erected and the Lord permitted lest the execution of judgement should become a transgression of justice for as Homer saith Hom. Odyss α. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Aristotle tells us Aristot Polit. l. 1. c. 8. that the Regal power belonged to the father of the family who in the infancy of the world was so grandevous and long-liv'd that he begat such a numerous posterity as might well people a whole Nation as Cain for his own Colony built a City and was as well the King as the father of all the Inhabitants and therefore Justin saith very well that Principio rerum Justin l. 1. Gentium nationúmque imperium penes reges erat The rule of Nations was in the hands of Kings from the beginning and the Kingly right pertaining to the father of the family the people had no more possibility in right to choose their Kings then to choose their Fathers and to make it appear unto all Nations that not onely the Kings of Israel but all other Heathen Kings are acknowledged by God himself to be of divine institution Jerem. 43.10 Esay 45.1 he calleth Nebuchadnezzar his servant and Cyrus his annointed And therefore though I do not wonder that ignorant fellows should be so impudent Jo. Goodwin in his Pamphlet of Anti-Cavalierism p. 5. as to affirm The King or kingly government to be the Ordinance or Creation or creature of man and to say that the Apostle supposeth the same because he saith Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be unto the King c. whereas he might well understand that the same act is oftentimes ascribed aswel to the mediate as to the immediate agent as Samuel's annointing of Saul and David Kings denieth not but that God was the immediate giver of their Kingdomes and the Authour of that regal power 1 Sam. 10. for God annointed Saul Captain over his inheritance and by the mouth of Nathan he telleth David that he annointed him King over Israel 2 Sam. 12. and Solomon acknowledgeth that the Lord had set him on the Seat of his Father David 1 Reg. 2. and Abijah in the person of God saith unto Jeroboam 1 Reg. 11. I will give the Kingdome unto thee 1 Sam. 11.15 and yet it is said that all the people went to Gilgal and made Saul King before the Lord and the men of Juda annointed David King of Juda 2 Sam. 5. and Zadock the Priest and Nathan the Prophet annointed Solomon King that is God annointed them as Master of the substance and gave unto them regal power in whom is all power primariò per se and the Prophets annointed them as Masters of the Ceremony and declared that God had given them that power And therefore the power and authority of Kings is originally Constituere regem est facere ut regiam potestatem exerceret Pinedas de reb Solom c. 2. and primarily as Saint Paul saith the Ordinance of God and secondarily or demonstratively it is as Saint Peter calleth it the ordinance of man when the people whose power is onely derivatively makes them Kings not by giving unto them the right of their Kingdomes but by receiving them into the possession of their right and admitting them to exercise their royal authority over them which is given them of God and therefore ought not to be withstood by any man And this Anti-Cavalier might further see that Saint Peter meaneth not that the King is the creature of man or his Office of mans Creation but that the Lawes and Commands of Kings though they be but the Commands and Ordinances of man yet are we to obey the same for the Lords sake because the Lord commandeth that Every soul should be subject to the higher powers Or if this will not satisfie him because the Greeks word is not so plain for this as the English yet let him look into Pareus that was no friend to Monarchy and he shall find that he doth by seven speciall reasons prove Pareus in Rom. c. 13. p. 13. 27. that the authority of Kings is primarily the Ordinance of God and he quoteth these places of Scripture to confirm it Proverbs 8.15 2 Chron. 19.6 Psalm 81.6 Joh. 10.34 Genes 9.6 1 Sam. 15. 1 Kings 12. 2 Kings 9. Dan. 2.21 Job 34.30 Eccles 10.8 And to this very objection he answereth that the Apostle calleth the Magistrate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an humane Ordination or Creation not causally because it is invented by man and brought up onely by the will of men but subjectively because it is born and executed by men and objectively because it is used about the government of humane society and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in respect of the end because it is ordained of God for the good and conservation of humane kind and he saith further that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 appellatio the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad Deum primum autorem nos revocat sheweth plainly that God is the first author of it for though the Magistrate in some sense as I shewed may be said to be created that is ordained by men yet God alone is the first Creatour of them as Aaron though he was ordained the high-Priest by Moses yet the Apostle tells us None taketh this office upon him but he that is called of God as Aaron was Yet I do admire that Buchanan or any other man of learning to satisfie the people or his own peevish opinion will so absurdly deny so divine and so well known a verity and say that any Kings have their Kingdomes and not from God so flatly contrary to all Scripture CHAP. VII Sheweth the Reasons and Examples that are alledged to justifie Rebellion and a full answer to each of them God the immediate Authour of Monarchy Inferiour Magistrates have no power but what is derived from the superiour And the ill successe of all rebellious Resisting of our Kings The allegation to justifie Rebellion BUt to prove their absurdities they still alledge that the inferiour Magistrates as the Peers and Counsellours of Kings
Example answered it is most impertinently alledged for Ezechias was the lawful King of Juda and the King of Assyria had no right at all in his Dominions An impertinent example but being greedily desirous to enlarge his territories he incroached upon the others right and for his injustice was overcome by the sword in a just battell and therefore to conclude from hence that because the King of Juda refused to obey the King of Assyria therefore the inferiour Magistrates or Peers of any Kingdome may resist and remove their lawful Prince for his tyranny or impiety surely this deserves rather fustibus retundi quà m rationibus refelli to be beaten with rods then confuted with reasons as Saint Bernard speaketh of the like Argument And whereas they reply that it skilleth not whether the Tyrant be forreign as Eglon and the King of Assyria were or domestique as Saul Achab and Manasses were The ubsurdity of their replication because the domestique is worse then the forreign and therefore the rather to be suppressed I will shew you the validity of this argument by the like The seditious Preachers are the generation of vipers nay farre worse then vipers because they hurt but the body onely and these are pernicious both to body and soul therefore as a man may lawfully kill a viper so he may more lawfully kill any seditious Preacher Quia Dare absurdum non est solvere argumentum But to omit their absurdity let us look into the comparison betwixt domestique and extranean Tyrants and we shall find that domestique Tyrants are lawfully placed over us by God who commandeth us to obey them and forbiddeth us to resist them in every place for the Scripture makes no distinction betwixt a good Prince and a Tyrant in respect of the honour reverence and obedience that we owe unto our superiours as you see the Lord doth not say Touch not a good King and Obey righteous Princes but as God saith Honour thy father and thy mother be they good or bad so he saith Touch not the King resist not your Governours speak not evil of the Rulers be they good or be they bad and therefore Saint Paul when he was strict y charged for reviling the wicked high-Priest answered wisely I wist not brethren that he was Gods High-Priest for if I had known him to be the true High-Priest I would not have spoken what I did because I know the Law of God obligeth me to be obedient to him that God hath placed over me Bad kings to be obeyed as well as the good be he good or bad for it is Gods institution and not the Governours condition that tyeth me to mine obedience So you see the mind of the Apostle he knew the Priest-hood was abolished and that he was not the lawful High-Priest therefore he saith God shall smite thee thou whited wall But if he had known and believed him to be the true and lawful High-Priest which God had placed over him he would never have said so had the Priest been never so wicked because the Law saith Thou shalt not revile thy Ruler But for private robbers or forreign Tyrants God hath not placed them over us nor commanded us to obey them neither have they any right by any Law but the Law of strength to exact any thing from us and therefore we are obliged by no law to yield obedience unto them neither are we hindred by any necessity either of rule or subjection but that we may lawfully repell all the injuries that they offer unto us Example answered 3 3. For the peoples hindring of King Saul to put his son Jonathan to death I say that they freed him from his fathers vow non armis sed precibus not with their weapons Saul was contented to be perswaded to spare his son but by their prayers when they appealed unto himself and his own conscience before the living God and perswaded him that setting aside his rash vow he would have regard unto justice and consider whether it was right that he should suffer the least damage who following God had wrought so great a deliverance unto the peohle as Tremelius and Junius in their Annotations do observe Gregor in 1 Reg. 4. And Saint Gregory saith The people freed Jonathan that he should not die when the King overcome by the instance of the people spared his life which no doubt he was not very earnest to take away from so good a son Example answered 4 4. Touching Ahikam that was a prime Magistrate under King Jehoiakim I say that he defended the Prophet not from the Tyranny of the King but from the fury of the people for so the Text saith The hand of Ahikam Jerem. 26.24 that is saith Tremelius the authority and the help of Ahikam was with Jeremy that They that is his enemies should not give him into the hands of the people which sought his life to put him to death because Ahikam had been a long while Counsellour unto the King and was therefore very powerful in credit and authority with him The act of Ahikam no colour for Rebellion And you know there is a great deal of difference betwixt the refraining of a tumultuous people by the authority of the King and a tumultuous insurrection against the King That was the part of a good man and a faithful Magistrate as Ahâ—kam did this of an enemy and a false Traytor as the opposer of Kings use to do 5. For the defection and revolting of the ten Tribes from Rehoboam Example answered 5 their own natural lawful King unto a fugitive and a man of a servile condition and for the Edomites Lybnites and others that revolted against King Joram 2 Chron. 21. 2 Reg. 14.19 and that Conspiracy which was made in Jerusalem against Amazia I answer briefly That the Scriptures do herein as they do in many other places set down rei gestae veritatem non facti aequitem the truth of things how they were done not the equity of the things that they were rightly done and therefore Actions commanded to be done are not to be imitated by us unl sse we be suâ—e of the like commandement Non ideò quia factum legimus faciendum credamus ne violemus praeceptum dum sectamur exemplum We must not believe it ought to be done because we read that it was done lest we violate the Commandement of God by following the example of men as Saint Augustine speaketh for though Joseph sware by the life of Pharaoh the Midwives lyed unto the King and the Israelites robbed the Aegyptians and sinned not therein yet we have no warrant without sinne to follow their examples Besides God himself had foretold the defection of the ten Tribes for the sinne of Solomon and he being Lord proprietary of all his donation transferreth a full right to him God is the right owner of all things and therefore may justly dispose any Kingdom on
the exaction of our goods or the vexation of our bodies and in these kinds of injuries Brentius in respon ad artic rusticorum the subject ought rather then in the former to be obedient to his Magistrate for if he steps forth to arms God hath pronounced of such men He that smiteth with the sword shall perish with the sword Cranmer Arch Bishop of Canterbury together with the rest of the Bishops and most famous Divines of this Kingdom saith If Princes shall do any thing contrary to their duties God hath not appointed any superiour Judge over them in this world but they are to render their account to God which hath reserved their judgement to himself alone and therefore it is not lawful for any subjects Cranmer in lib. de Châ—istiani hominis institutis how wicked soever their Princes shall be to take arms or raise sedition against them but they are to powre forth their prayers to God in whose hand Kings hearts are that he would inlighten them with his spirit whereby they might rightly to the glory of God use that sword which he hath delivered unto them Gulielmus Tindal a godly Martyr of Christ when Cardinal Lanio's sonne did lead the Lambs of Christ by troops unto the slaughter doth then describe the duty of subjects according to the strait rule of the Gospel saying David spared Saul and if he had killed him he had sinned against God for in every Kingdom the King which hath no superiour judgeth of all things and therefore he that indeavoureth or intendeth any mischief or calamity against the Prince that is a Tyrant or a Persecutor or whosoever with a froward hand doth but touch the Lords annointed he is a rebel against God and resisteth the ordinance of God as often as a private man sinneth he is held obnoxious to his King that can punish him for his offence but when the King offendeth he ought to be reserved to the divine examination and vengeance of God Tindal l. de Christiani hominis obedient and as it is not lawful upon any pretence to resist the King so it is not lawful to rise up against the Kings Officer or Magistrate that is sent by the King for the execution of those things which are commanded by the King for as our Saviour saith He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me And as he saith unto Saul when he persecuted the servants of Christ Saul Acts 9.4 Saul why persecutest thou me when as he was then in Heaven farre above the reach of Saul yet because there is such a mystical union betwixt Christ and his Church the head and members as is betwixt man and wife no man can be said to injure the one but he must wrong the other so whosoever resisteth the Kings Lievtenant Deputy or any other Magistrate or Officer that he sendeth with Commission to execute his commands resisteth the King himself and all the indignities that are offered to the Kings Embassadour or servant that he thus sendeth are deemed as indignities offered to the King himself as we see the base usage of David's servants by King Hanun 2 Sam 10. David revenged as an abuse offered unto himself because the Kings person cannot be in all places where justice and judgement and many other offices and actions are necessarily to be done throughout the latitude of his Dominions but his power and his authority Whatsoever is done to any Messenger is deemed as done to him that sent him deputed to those his servants and officers that he sendeth are as the lively representatives of the King in every part of his Kingdome and whatsoever favour payment neglect or abuse is shewed unto any of them the same in all Nations is accounted and therefore punished or rewarded as a service done unto the King himself as our Saviour when but the Tole gatherer came for the Tribute-mony saith Give unto Caesar what belongeth unto Caesar And therefore it is but an idle simple most foolish and frivolous distinction of men to deceive children and fools to say They love and honour their King and they fight not against their King but against such and such whom notwithstanding they know to be the Kings chiefest officers and to be sent with the Kings Power Commission and Authority to do those things that they do This is such a foppery that I know not what to say to undeceive those that are so desirous to be deceived when the Devill * Saint Paul saith God sâ—ndeth them strong delusions 2 Thess 2.11 But what God sendeth justly as the punisher of their sin the Devil sendeth maliciously as the guider of them to Hell Ba nesius in Tract de humanis Constitut which knoweth how near their destruction hangeth over their heads sends them strong delusions that they should so easily and so sillily believe su h palpable lyes as to make them think they love him dearly whom they murder most barbarously Barnesius a very godly and learned man treating of the same Argument saith in a manner the same thing That the servants of Christ rather then either commit any evil or resist any Magistrate ought patiently to suffer the losse of their goods and the tearing of their members nay the Christian after the example of his Master Christ ought to suffer the bitterest death for truth and righteousnesse sake and therefore saith he whosoever shall rebell under pretence of Religion aeternae damnationis reus erit he shall be found guilty of eternall damnation Master Dod upon the Commandements Master Dod saith that where the Prince commandeth a lawful act the subjects must obey and if he injoynes unlawful commands we must not rebell but we must be content to bear any punishment that shall be laid upon us even unto death it self and we should suffer our punishment without grudging even in heart and this he presseth by the example of the Three Children and of Daniel that was a mighty man and of very great power in Babylon yet never went about to gather any power against his King though it were in his own defence Master Byfield upon 1 Pet. 2.13 Master Byfield expounding the words of Saint Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to the Supreme saith This should confirm every good subject to acknowledge and maintain the Kings Supremacy and willingly to bind himself thereto by oath for the Oath of Supremacy is the bond of this subjection and this oath men must take without equivocation mentall evasion or secret reservation yea it should bind in them the same resolution that was in Saint Bernard who saith If all the world should conspire against me to make me complot any thing against the Kings Majesty yet I would fear God and not dare to offend the King ordained of God Serenissimus Rex Jacobus de vera lege liberae Monarchiae I might fill a Volume if I
Because the malice of men bewitcheth them and hath no end till it makes an end of its hated foe therefore those men that hated and maligned the Earl like the Jews that because their tongues could make no reply to the just defence of the holy Martyr gnashed upon him with their teeth and stopping their ears Acts 7.51 ran upon him with one accord all at once because they had no Law nor learning to make those Articles Treason they say with the Poet Hac non successit aliâ aggrediemur viâ Seeing we failed herein we will attempt another way And to that end they frame a Bill of Attainder against him and this if it passe by the major part of both Houses and have the Royal assent will bring him to his just deserved death And herein I will not say they shewed themselves worse than the Jews because that when their malice was at the highest pitch against Christ they said We have a Law and by our Law he ought to die and these haters of the Earl seeing they had no Law will have a Law to be made that shall bring him unto his death because the House might have reasons which my sense cannot conceive Yet some of his friends have said that after a former prosecution according to Law to make a new Law where there was none before to take away a mans life is almost as bad as the Romancy-Law that I read of The rubs of the Bill how taken away to hang him first and then judge him afterward to which I assent not and not many lesse than 60. worthy Members of the House of Commons would never yield to passe that Bill and it had a greater rub among the Lords where it is thought not upon any slight conjectures it had never passed but that this rub must be taken away by a new device for that the Faction judging some of them might be more timorous than malicious and remembring that primus in orbe deos fecit timor Fear is a powerful passion that produceth many strange effects the Apprentices and Porters Water-men and Car-men and all the rascal rout of the ragged Regiment were gathered together by some Chedorlaomer and came as they did against Christ with swords and staves without order with great impudency to awe them and to cry for Justice against him and this was done and done again and again until the business that they came for was done A course not prevented that may undo all Justice and bring us all to be undone And yet all this will not do this deed until the King passeth His assent for as yet the new Law of Orders and Ordinances without the King The Kings great pains to search out the truth was not hatched And the good King having so graciously so indefatigably taken such care and such pains in his own Person every day to hear and see all that could be laid unto his charge and how he had answered each particular was so just and of such tender and religious conscience that he was not satisfied as men conceived with the weight of those reasons that were produced to passe the same Therefore here I find another Stratagem used such as Hannibal could not invent to effect this hard task What To perswade mildness to become severe or to cause a just and most clement Prince so full of mercy so proue to pardon where there is a fault and so loth to punish but where he must by the Law of Justice the greatest fault to yield to put him to death that was in many things so excellent in his life The task was to procure his assent to passe this Bill and how shall this be done As the Man of God could not be perswaded by any man but by a Man of God a Prophet by a Prophet so now the Bishops that were good men men of conscience and set apart by God to resolve and satisfie weak and tender consciences are thought fit to be sent unto this good King to perswade him as men supposed that to prevent a greater mischief he might justly passe this Bill and either 6. or 4. of the prime Prelates are requested by the Lords to go unto the King to assay how far they can prevail with him herein And so they went and how they dealt with His Majesty I do not fully understand but am informed by some that went that they assured Him he ought to satisfie himself in point of Law by his Judges and of State by his Council And how they did any otherwise in any other thing rectifie his Conscience in point of Divinity which belonged unto themselves I cannot tell But though I think no man can justly lay the least tittle of blame upon the just King no not the Earl himself as himself professed for yielding to such and so earnest perswasions of I know not how many reverend Bishops wise Counsellours grave Judges and the flower of all his people to passe that Bill whatsoever it was The Bishops right to vote in any cause Yet to say what I conceive with their favour of my Brethren the Bishops in the prosecution of this cause I am perswaded that they had no reason to withdraw themselves from the House and to desert their own Right when the Bill or the Judgement was to passe against the Earl upon this slight pretence alledged against them by the haters of the Earl and no lovers of the Bishops That a Clergy-man ought not to have any Vote or to be present at the handling of the cause of blood or death for they might know full well when my Lords grace of York did most cleerly manifest this truth that the first inhibition of the Clergy to be present and assistant in causa sanguinis or judicio mortis in the Canon of Innocent the third as I remember for I am driven to fly without my Books was most unjust only to tie the Bishops to his blind obedience to the apparent prejudice of all Christian Princes by denying this their service unto them and it is no wayes obligatory to bind us that are by the Laws of our Land not only freed but also injoyned to abandon all the unjust Canons that are repugnant to our Laws and derogatory to our Kings and to renounce all the usurped authority of the Pope For I would fain know what Scripture or what reason Pope Innocent can alleadge to exclude them from doing that good service both to God and their King which in all reason they can or should be better able to do than most others And I am sure that neither in the old nor in the new Testament nor yet in the Primitive Church until these subtile Popes began thus to incroach upon the Rights of Princes to take away the Prerogatives of Kings and to domineer over the consciences of men this exclusion of them from the highest act of Justice was never found For The Prophets and Apostles judged in the case of life
any otherwise then they said or looked any further then they shewed Him He never dream'd that they intended to have an everlasting Parliament and so perfidiously to over-reach both the King and the Kingdom But though our gracious King being not so much versed with the dissembling subtilty and serpentine windings of wicked hypocrites that are to be removed from the King and expelled out of his House supposed all them to mean sincerely and to deal fairly as they seemed to do yet I do admire that the wisdom of the Kings Counsel but that they which as the Apostle saith are not ignorant of the devices of Satan are not permitted by these men to be of His Councel could not espy what mischief might lurk under this fair shade or what might be the Consequences of such a Parliament that is inconsistent with a Monarchy and therefore must in a convenient time be ended or else will make an end of all Monarchical Government Why then might not a year or two or three or more so the years were limited suffice to determine all businesses but that the life of this Parliament should be endless and the continuance thereof undetermined This is beyond the age of the Counsel of Trent What the faction could be contented with Complaint p. 19. that they say lasted above forty years for I presume if some of the contrivers of this Design might have their desires the youngest of us should hardly see the Dissolution of this Parliament Til the earthly Houses of our Tabernacles be dissolved for it is likely they could be well contented as one saith to make an Ordinance that both Houses should be a Corporation to take our Lands and Goods to themselves and their successours and when any of that Corporation dieth toties quoties the surviver and none else should choose a successour to perpetuity so they should be Masters of our Estates and disposers of all we have as they are now for ever And therefore this was a Plot beyond the Powder-plot and beyond the device of Semiramis The plot of Semiramis that with a lovely face desired her husband she might rule but three daies to see how well she could mannage the State and obtaining her request in the first thereof she removed all the Kings Officers in the second she placed her own minions in all the places of Power and Authority as now the saction would do such as they confide in in all places of strength and in the third day she cut off the Kings head and assumed the Government of all the Kings Dominions into her own hands for not three daies nor three years will serve their turn for fear they shall not have ability in so short a space to finish all their strange intended projects and therefore that they might not be hindered their request is unlimited that the Parliament should not be dissolved till both Houses gave consent which they were contented should be ad Graecas Calendas Yet God that knew best what punishments were due to be inflicted for their former Actions and for all the subtle Devices of their hard hearts gave way for this also that this third Impediment of their projects might be removed that so at last their sins like the sins of the Amorites by little and little growing unto the full might undergo the fulness of Gods vengeance which as yet I fear was not fully come to pass for till the Parliament was made perpetual the things that they have done since were absolutely unimaginable How the faction hath strengthened it self because that while it was a dissolvable body they durst not so palpably invade the known rights either of King or Subjects whereas now their Body being made indissoluble they need not have the same apprehension of either having strengthened themselves by a Bill against the one and by an Army against the other and therefore all the dissolutions of Parliaments from the beginning of them to this time have not done half that mischief as the continuance of this one hath done hitherto and God only knowes what is to succeed hereafter But seeing themselves have publickly acknowledged in their Declarations that they were too blame if they undertook any thing now which they would not undertake if it were in His Majesties power to dissolve them the next day and they have since used this means which was given them to disburthen the Common-Wealth of that debt which was thought insupportable What many wise men do say to plunge it irrevocably into a far greater debt to the ruine of the whole Kingdom to change the whole frame of our Government and subjecting us to so unlimited an arbitrary power that no man knows at the sitting of the House what he shall be worth at the rising or whether he shall have his liberty the next day or imprisonment Many wise men do say they see no Reason that this trust being forfeited and the faith reposed in them betrayed the King may not immediatly re-assume that power of dissolving them into his own hands again and both our unjustly abused King and our much injured people declare this Act to be voyd when as contrary to their own Faith and the trust of the King they abuse it to overthrow the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom though I could heartily wish that because it still carrieth the Countenance of a Law the faction would be so Wise to yield it to be presently dissolved by a Law CHAP. IV. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops the threefold practice of the Faction to exclude them out of the House of Peers and all the Clergy out of all Civil Judicature The fourth impediment of their design 4. THere was one stop more that might hinder or at least hardly suffer their plots to succeed according to their hearts desire and that is the Bishops Votes in the Vpper House nay they cannot endure to call it so but in the House of the Lords for they rightly considered therein these two special things 1. Their Number 2. Their Abilities Which are two main things to stop and hinder many evils For 1. They had Twenty six Voyces which was a very considerable number and might stop a great gap and stay the stream or at least moderate the violence of any unjust prosecution 2. They were men of great Learning men of Profound knowledge both in Divine and Humane Affairs and men well educated à cunabulis that spent all their time in Books and were Conversant with the dead that feared not to speak the truth and have wearied themselves in reading Histories The abilities of the Bishops comparing Laws and considering the Affairs of all Common-wealths and so were able if their modesty did not silence them to discourse de quolibet ente to untie every knot and to explain every riddle and being the immediate servants of the living God set apart as the Apostle speaketh to offer Sacrifice and to administer the Sacraments of God to prepare
Champions to enlarge his Kingdom would fain have our Souls to remain among Lions and all the means or defence to be taken from us our enemies to be our Judges and our selves to be murdered with our own weapons In the time of Popery there were many Laws de immunitate Clericorum whereby we were so protected that the greatest Prince could not oppress us as you may find in the Reign of King John and almost in all our Histories and when we renounced the Pope God made Kings our nursing Fathers and Queens our nursing Mothers and we putting our selves under their protection have been hitherto most graciously protected but now by this Act we are left naked of all defence and set under the very sword of our Adversaries and as the Psalmist saith They that hated us are made Lords over us to call us to assess us to undo us 3. Debarred of that right that none else are 3. Hereby they are made more slavish than the meanest Subject and deprived of that benefit and priviledge which the poorest Shoomaker Tailer or any other Tradesman or yeoman hath most justly left unto him for to be excluded debarred and altogether made uncapable of any benefit is such an insupportable burden that it is set upon no mans shoulders but upon the Clergy alone as if they alone were either unworthy to receive or unable to do any good 4. Made more contemptible than all others 4. Hereby they are made the unparalleled spectacle of all neglect and scorn to all forraign people for I can hardly believe the like Precedent can be shewed in any Age or any other Nation of the World no not among the very Infidels or Indians for in former times the Bishops and Clergy-men were thought the fittest instruments to be imployed in the best places of greatest truth and highest importance in the Common-Wealth and Kings made them their Embassadours as the Emperour Valentinian did Saint Ambrose And our own Chronicles relate how former times respected the Clergy and how our Kings made them both their Counsellours and their Treasurers Chancellours Keepers of the Great Seal and the like Officers of the chiefest concernment as Ethelbert in the year of Christ 605. Vt refert in tractatu suo de Episcopatu p. 61 62. M. Theyer Sir Henry Spelman p. 118. Idem p. 403. Idem p. 219. saith I Ethelbert King of Kent with the consent of the Reverend Arch Bishop Augustine and of my Princes do give and grant c. And the said Ethelbert with the Queen and his Son Eadbald and the most Reverend Prelate Augustine and with the rest of the Nobility of the Land solemnly kept his Christmass at Canterbury and there assembled a Common Councel tam cleri quà m populi as well of the Clergy as of the People And King Adelstan saith I Adelstan the King do signify unto all the Officers in my Kingdom that by the advice of Wolfelm my Arch-Bishop and of all my Bishops c. In the great Councel of King Ina An. 712. The Edicts were Enacted by the Common Councel and consent omnium Episcoporum Principum Procorum Câ—mitum omnium sapientum seniorum populorum totius regni per praeceptum regis Inae And in the second Charter of King Edward the Confessour How former times respected the Clergy granted to the Church of Saint Peter in Westminster it is said to be Cum concilio decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Comitum aliorumque suorum Optimatum With the Counsel and Decree of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls and other Potentates And so not only the Saxon Kings but the Norman also ever since the Conquest had the Bishops in the like or greater esteem that they never held Parliament or Councel without them And surely these Princes were no Babes that made this choice of them neither was the Common-Wealth neglected nor justice prejudiced by these Governours And whosoever shall read Mores gentium or the pilgrimage of Master Purchas Livy Plutarch Appian and the rest of the Greek and Latin Histories I dare assure him he shall find greater honour given and far less contempt cast upon the Priests and Flamins the Prophets of the Sybils than we find of this Faction left to the Servants of the Living God who are now dâ—it withall worse than Pharaoh dealt with the Israelites that took away their straw and yet required their full tale of Bricks For these men would rob us of all our means and take away all our Lands and all our Rights and yet require not only the full tale of Sermons and Services as was used by our Predecessours but to double our files to multiply our pains How the Clergy are now used and to treble the Sermons and Services that they used to have of our forefathers more than ever was done in any Age since the first Plantation of the Gospel And when we have done with John Baptist the utmost of our endeavours like a shining and a burning lamp that doth waste and consume it self to nothing while it giveth light to others they only deal with us as Carriers use to do with their pack-horses hang bels at their ears to make a melodious noise but with little provender lay heavy loads upon their backs and when they can bear no more burdens take away their Bells withdraw their praises call them Jades exclaim against their laziness and then at last turn them out to feed upon the Commons and to die in a ditch And thus we have now made the Ministers of Christ to be the Emblems of all misery and in pretending to make them more glorious in the sight of God we have made them most base in the eyes of all men And therefore the consequence of this Act is like to prove most lamentable when the people considering how that hereby we are left naked of all comfort and subject to all kind of scorn and distresse and how that this being effected is but the Praeludium of a far greater mischief they will rather with no great cost make their children of some good Trade and their children will chuse so to be than with such great cost and more care and yet little hope to bring them up to worse condition than the meanest of all Trades or the lowest degree of all rusticks When as they can challenge and it shall not be denied them to have the priviledges of the Law The Clergy alone are deprived of Magna Charta and a property in their goods which without their own consent yielded in their persons or their representours cannot be taken from them And the Clergy only of all the people in this Kingdom shall be deprived of the right and benefit of our great Charter which so many famous Kings and pious Princes have confirmed unto us and when we have laboured all the dayes of our lives with great pains and more diligence to instruct our people and to attain to some competency of means to maintain
our selves and our families we shall be in the power of these men at their pleasure under the pretence of Religion contrary to all justice to be deprived of any part of our freehold when we shall have not one man of our own Calling to speak a word in our behalf on no Seat of Justice throughout the whole Kingdom O terque quaterque beati Queis ante or a patrum contigit oppetere O most miserable and lamentable condition of Gods Ministers I must needs speak it though I should die for it and if some did not speak it I think the stones would cry against it and proclaim it Better for the Clergy were their hope only in this world never to have been born or at least never to have seen a Book then to fall into the hands and to be put under the censure of these men that do thus love Christ by hating his Ministers This Act more prejudiciall to the future times than now who as I said before by this one Act are made liable to undergo all kind of evils which shall not only fall upon the present Clergy for were it so our patience should teach us to be silent but also to the increase of all prejudices to the Gospel more than my fore-sight can expresse in all succeeding Ages And therefore I may well say with Jeremy Jer. 5.9 29. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this And we need not wonder that such plagues calamities and distresses have so much increased in this Kingdom ever since the passing of this Act and yet the anger of the Lord is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still and I fear his wrath will not be appeased till we have blotted this and wiped away all other our great sins and transgressions with the truest tears of unfained repentance These are like to be the consequences of this Act And yet our good King who we know loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue and was as I assure my self most unwilling to passe it was notwithstanding over-perswaded considering where thirteen of the Bishops were even in prison and in what condition all the rest of them stood in question whether all they should stand or be cut down root and branch to yield His assent unto the Act though if the case in truth were rightly weighed not much lesse prejudicial to his Majesty than injurious to us to be thus deprived of our right and exposed to all miseries by excluding us from all Civil Judicature And I would to God the King and all the Kingdom did continually consider how his Majesty was used ever since the confirmation of this Act How the King hath been used ever since this Act passed for they no sooner had excluded the Bishops and Clergy out of their right but presently they proceeded and prosecuted the Design ever since to thrust out the King from all those just Rights and Prerogatives which God and Nature and the Laws of our Land have put into his hands for the Government of this Kingdom neither was it likely to succeed any otherwise as I have fully shewed and I would all Kings would read it in the Grand Rebellion That the Act should be annulled But I see no reason why it may not and why it should not be retracted and annulled when the Houses shall be purged of that Anabaptistical and Rebellious Faction that contrived and procured the same to Passe for these three special Reasons Reason 1 1. Because that contrary to all former Precedents that Bill for their exclusion was as it is reported at the first refused and after a full hearing among the Lords it was by most Votes by more than a dozen voices rejected And yet to shew unto the World that the Faction's malice against the Bishops had no end and their rage was still implacable at the same Session and which is very considerable immediately assoon as ever they understood it was rejected the House of Commons revived it and so pressed it unto the Lords that if I may have leave to speak the truth contrary to all right * For I conceive this to be an approved Maxim That no Right not proved forfited by some offence can be taken away without wrong it must be again received and while the Bishops were in prison it was with what honour I know not strangely confirmed 2. Because this Bill had the Royall assent after that a most riotous tumult and many thousands of men with all sorts of Warlike weapons both on land and water most disloyally had driven His Majesty to flie from London that most Rebellious City not without fear for his own safety even for the safety of his life as himself professeth And when they had so cunningly Reason 2 contrived their Plot as to get some of the Kings servants and friends that were about him In his Majesties answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons 16. of July p. 8. and imployed in the Queens affairs to perswade Her Majesty to use all her power with the King for the passing of this Bill or else Her journey should be stayed as formerly they had altered Her resolution for the Spaw and at Rochester she should understand the sense of the House to stop Her passage unto Holland whereas the passing of this Bill might make way for Her passage over And many other such frights and fears they put both upon the King and Queen to inforce Him full sore against his will as we believe to passe this harsh Bill for the exclusion of the spiritual Lords out of the House of Peers and of all the Clergy from all Secular Judicature But Master Pym will tell us as he did that it was the opinion of both Houses There was no occasion given by any tumults that might justly cause His Majesties departure To whom I answer with the words of Alderman Garraway Ald. Gar. speech at Guild-hall If the Houses had declared that it had been lawful to beat the King out of Town I must have sate still with wonder though I should never believe it but when they declare matters of Fact which is equally within our own knowledge and wherein we cannot be deceived as in the things we have seen with our eyes if they dissent from truth they must give me leave to differ from them As if they should declare They have paid all the money that they owe unto the City or that there * For now I understand it is pulled down was no Crosse standing in Cheapside we shall hardly believe them And therefore seeing we all remember when the Alarm was given that there was an attempt from Whitehall upon the City how hardly it was appeased and how no Babies thought the Design of those subtile heads that gave that false Alarm was no lesse than to have caused Whitehall to be pulled down and they that loved the King and saw the Army both by land and
all these points are taught by every one of their Teachers but that all these and many more are taught and maintained by some one or other of them as I could easily expresse it if it were not too tedious for my Reader but the bulk of my Book swells too big and their fancies are but Dreams fit for laughter and I brought these onely as Vinegar to be tasted and then to be spit out again CHAP. X. Sheweth the great Bug-bears that affrighted this Faction the four speciall means they used to secure themselves the manifold lyes they raised against the King and the two speciall Questions that are discussed about Papists 5. The setling of the Militia 5. FOr the setling of the Militia and putting the whole Kingdom in a posture of Defence as they termed it 1. They dreamed of a desperate Disease 2. They devised an Emperical way to cure it and 1. The disease 1. The Disease was a monstrous fear of Popery and the re-establishment of abolished superstitions in our Church to invade their consciences and of the Papists with fire and sword to waste their estates and to take away their lives and liberties and through that groundlesse fear they looked on the innocent Ceremonies that were established in the Church as dangerous Innovations and introductions to Idolatry And in the State they feared the practised wayes and endeavours to produce an arbitrary government by our advancing of a boundlesse Prerogative even to the dispoyling of the Subject of his property and robbing him of the benefit of the laws these were their fears And the grounds of these fears were lying fictions and most scandalous detractions and defamations for their invented Letters that should come from Holland and from Denmark and some other places beyond the Seas where we were better believe them then go try whether they were true which informed them sometimes of a Fleet of Danes sometimes of another Nation that should come to assist the King for the setting up of Popery and the securing of himself in a tyrannical and arbitrary government over them What terrible things frighted them and every day almost produced a discovery of new treacheries against the Parliament what terrible things frighted them as the stable of Horses under ground for indeed they were invisible Horses such as Elisha's servant saw terrifying their guilty consciences and that of the Taylors in Moor-fields and the like horrid machinations that were to come against them I know not from whom and God knowes from whence which things how false they were time which is the mother of truth hath long agone made manifest and ridiculous to any man that is not bewitched with these lying fancies therefore lest these dreams of their distempered brains should be too soon descryed and so prove defective to produce their intended project they alledge The Queen is a Papist and I would to God they were so truly religious and void of hypocrisie in their profession as she most gracious Queen is in her religion then they say The Bishops are all Papists Deans and Prebends are of the same stamp and all the Kings Chapleins that were preferred by the Arch-Bishop were either close Papists or profest Arminians which are but Cosen-germans unto the other Arminianism being but a Bridge to passe over unto Popery And with these and the like false slanders against the King Queen and Clergy they so bewitched most of their well meaning brethren of the same house and amazed all the simpler sort of people of this Kingdom with these fears and filled them with such jealousies with those Pamphlets that they caused to be printed and dispersed every where that they were at their wits end for fear of this lamentable alteration of their religion and deprivation of their liberties 2. The disease being thus spread like a Gangrene 2. The Cure over all the parts of the body of this Kingdom they like skilful Physitians devise the cure and that is the preparation of a Militia and this Militia they would have put into such hands as they pleased such as they might confide in and I wish the whole Kingdom knew who those men were and who they are that they do confide in for I know 1. Some of them are poor men of most desperate fortunes if Bank-rupters may be termed such 2. Others to be most factious and schismatical men addicted to Anabaptism and Brownism and other worser Sects as amongst the London Commanders Ven Manwaring Fowke Nâ—rington Bradly Best and the rest whereof there are twice as many schismatical and as it is conceived beggarly Sectaries as are right honest men among them and if we looked among their Lords and all the rest of their nomination throughout the Kingdom I doubt we shall find some of them to be just of the same condition And because the King to whose care and trust God had committed all the people of this Kingdom and not to them that are called by the King and chosen onely by men and that onely for this time and of whom he will require an account of the laws and religion whereof he made him keeper and defender and not of them thought most rightly that this Militia should be committed rather to such men as he might confide in as it was in the raign of Queen Elizabeth and His Father of ever blessed memory rather than to any that they should name which was to dis-robe himself of all his regal power of the chiefest garland of his royal Prerogatives without which he could hold his Crown by no better a tenure then durante beneplacito and to put the sword out of his own hand into the hands of them that could not love him because they could not trust him as they alledged and what reason had he to trust them that were causelesly so distrustful of him they startled at this deniall And because the King of heaven had by this time opened the Kings eys God openeth the Kings eyes to let him see what hitherto he could hardly imagine that these men to whom he had granted for the good of his kingdom so many Acts of grace and favour as never any King of England did before and had very graciously offered to commit to the hands of their own choosing so large a share of the Militia as might have rendred the whole kingdom most secure if security in a just and legall way had been all that they sought for had their intentions far otherwise then they pretended and that not onely the government of the Church was intended to be altered and the Governours thereof destroyed but himself also was hereby dis-robed of those rights which God and the Lawes of the Land had put into his hands and the Kingdom brought either into a base Tyranny or confused Anarchy when all things shall be done according to the arbitrary power of these factious and schismatical men therefore he utterly refused to grant their desires and most wisely withstood their
design How they strengthened themselves to make their orders fi m without the King Whereupon these men put their heads together to consult how they might strengthen themselves and make their ordinances firm and binding without the King and to that purpose having by their former doings gotten too great an interest as well in the faith as in the affections of the people in confidence of their own strength they came roundly to the businesse and what they knew was not their right as their former Petitions can sufficiently witnesse they resolve to effect the same by force but as insensibly as they can devise as 1. To seize upon the Kings Navie to secure the Seas 2. To lay hold upon all the Kings Magazine Forts Towns and Castles 3. To with-hold his moneys and revenues and all other means from the King 4. To withdraw the affections and to poyson the loyalty of all his Majesties Subjects from him And hereby they thought and it must have been so indeed except the Lord had been on his side they had made their hill so strong that it could not be moved and the King so weak and destitute of all means that he could no wayes subsist or relieve himself as a member of their own House did tell me for 1. Earl of Warwick made Vice-Admiral 1. They get the Earl of Warwick to be appointed Vice-Admiral of the Sea and to commit all the Kings Navie into his hand and to take away that charge from Sir John Pennington whom most men believed to be far the better Sea-man but more faithful to his King and the other purer to the Parliament 2. Sir John Hotham put into Hull for the Magazine 2. They send Sir John Hotham a most insolent man that most uncivilly contemned the King to his face to seize upon the Kings Magazine that he bought with his own money when they might as well take away my horse that I paid for and to keep the King out of Hull which was his own proper Town and therefore might as well have kept him out of White-Hall and was an Act so full of injustice as that I scarce know a greater 3. They detained the Kings moneys Esay 1.23 3. Because moneys are great means to effect any worldly affaire and the sinews of every warre when as men and arms and all other necessaries may be had for money some of them and their followers shew themselves to be just as the Peers of Israel companions of thieves meer robbers which forcibly take away a mans mony from him they take all the Kings treasure they intercept detain and convert all the Kings revenues and customes to strengthen themselves against the King 4. They labour to render the King odious by lyes 4. Because their former Remonstrances framed by this faction of the ill government of this kingdom though in some things true which the King ingenuously acknowledgeth and most graciously promiseth to redresse them yet in all things full of gall and bitternesse against the King could not so fully poyson the love and loyalty of the Kings Subjects as they desired especially the love of those that knew his Majesty who the better they knew him did the more affectionately love him and the more faithfully serve him they thought to do it another and a surer way with apparent lyes palpable slanders and abominable accusations invented printed and scattered over all the parts of this kingdom by their Trencher Chaplains and parasitical Preachers and other Pamphleters some busie Lawyers and Pettifoggers to bring the King into an odium disliked and deserted of all his loving Subjects And what created power under heaven was able to dissolve that wickednesse which subtilty and malice had thus treacherously combined to bring to passe Hereupon after many threatning votes 1. Lye that he intended to war against the Parliament and actual hostility exercised against his Royall person the King is forced to raise a guard for the defence of himself and those his good Subjects that attended him then presently that small guard that consisted but of the chief gentry of the Countrey was declared to be an Army raised for the subversion of the Parliament and the destruction of our native liberties an invincible Army is voted to be raised the Earl of Essex is chosen to be their Generall with whom they promise both to live and die the Earl of Bedford General of the Horse moneys are provided and all things are prepared to fetch the King and all delinquents or to be the death of all withstanders and that nothing might hinder this design though the King in many gracious Messages attested by the subscription of many noble Lords that were upon the place assured them he never intended any warre against his Parliament yet they proceed with all eagernesse and declare all those that shall assist the King either with Horse money or men to be malignants and enemies unto the King and Kingdome and such delinquents as shall be sure to receive condigne punishment by the Parliament Hoc mirum est hoc magnum And among the rest of their impudent slanders this was their Master-piece which they ever harped upon that he countenanced Papists and intended to bring Popery into this Kingdgm and to that end had an Army of Papists to assist him But to satisfie any sensible man in this point I would crave the resolution of these two Questions 1. Whether every Papist that is subject to his Majesty Two questions to be resolved is not bound to assist and defend his King in all his dangers 2. Whether the King should not protect his Subjects that are Papists in all their dangers so far as by the Law he ought to do it and accept of their service when he himself is invironed with dangers For first 1. All Papists bound to assist their King I believe there is no Law that inhibiteth a Papist to serve his King against a Rebellion or to ride Post to tell the King of a Design to murder Him or any other intended Treason against Him or being present to take away a weapon from that man that attempted to kill the King because his not coming to Church doth not exempt him from his Allegiance or discharge him of his duty and service unto the King and therefore if a Fleet from France or Spain or any other forreign part should invade us or any Rebellion at home should rise against his Soveraign and seek to destroy those Lawes and Liberties whereof himself and his Posterity hath as good an interest to as any other Subject I say he is bound by all Laws to assist his King and to do his best endeavour both with his purse and in his person not only to oppose that external Invasion but also to subdue as well that home-bred Rebellion as the forreign Invasion 2. If a Papist should be injured his estate seized upon 2. The King bound to protect dutiful Papists his house
the whole Kingdome in an unnatural civill War and to maintain the same against the will and contrary to the desires both of the King and Kingdom and it is almost incredible what wicked courses and how unjust and insufferable Orders and Ordinances you shall find recorded that they have made 1. Against the King 2. Against the Subjects 3. Against the Law Which are all said to be exceedingly abused by them for 1. Against the King it is registred to Posterity that they have proceeded besides many other things in all these particulars 1. They possesse all the Kings Houses Towns and Castles 1. Their proceedings against the King 1. Wrong Matth. 8 20. but what he gets by the strength of his sword and detain them from him so that we may say with our Saviour The Foxes have holes and the fowles of the air have nests but the King of England hath not an house allowed him by the Houses of Parliament wherein to put his head and they take not onely his Houses but also his rents and revenues and as I understood when I was in Oxford his very clothes and provision for his Table that seeing they could not take away his life by the sword they might murder him with cold or famin when he should not have the subsistence if they could hinder him to maintain life and soul together which is the shame of all shame and able to make any other men odious to all the world The complaint to the House of Commons Pag. 19. thus maliciously and barbarously to deal with their own most gracious King neither doth their malice here end but they with-hold the Rents of the Queen and seize upon the Revenues of our Prince which I assure them my Countrey-men takes in great scorn and I believe will right it with their lives or this Parliament-Faction shall redeem their errours with no small repentance when as we find no Prince of Wales was ever suffered by his Subjects to have such indignities offered him by the greatest Peers of England And here I cannot omit what Alderman Garraway saith of the reproach of Master Pym touching the maintaining of the Kings other Children which he professeth made his heart to rise and hoped it did so to many more Alderman Garraway his Speech Is our good King fallen so low that his Children must be kept for him It is worth our inquiry Who brought him to that condition We hear him complain that all his own Revenue is seized and taken from him Is not his Exchequer Court of Wards and Mint here his Customes too are worth somewhat and are his Children kept upon Alms How shall We and our Children prosper if this be not remedied And I pray God these things rise not up in judgement against them and this Nation but hereby they intended to verifie that disloyal Speech which One of them uttered in a Tavern and God will avert it from his Servant Sober Sadnesse pag. 22. 2. Wrong That they would make the King as poor as Job unlesse he did comply with them 2. If any man which they like not attends the Kings Person though he be his sworn servant or assist him in his just defence which he is bound to do by the Law of God and man yet he is presently voted and condemned for a Malignant Popish dis-affected evill Counsellour and an enemy to the State and that is enough if he be catched to have him spoyled and imprisoned at their pleasure nay my self was told by some of that Faction that because I went to see the King I should be plundered and imprisoned if I were taken 3 Wrong 3. Though they do solemnly professe that his Majesties personal safety and his royal honour and greatnesse are much dearer unto them then their own lives and fortunes The Petition to his Majesty the 16. of July 1642. which they do most heartily dedicate and shall most willingly imploy for the support and maintenance thereof yet for all this hearty Protestation they had at that very time as the King most accurately observeth in his Answer directed the Earl of Warwick to assist Sir John Hotham against him Non turpe est ab eo vinci quem vincere est nefas neque ei inhonestè aliquem submitti quem Deus super omnes extulit Dictum Armenii Pompeii appointed their Generals and as Alderman Garraway testifieth raised ten thousand armed men out of London and the Neighbour-Countries before the King had seven hundred and afterwards though the King sent from Nottingham a gracious Message and sollicitation for Peace yet they supposing this proceeded from a diffidence of his own strength or being too confident of their own force sleighted the Kings Grace and most barbarously proceeded in the most hostile manner waged warre and gave battail against the Kings Army where they knew he was in his own Person and as one of their Preachers taught the Sunday before the Battail that they might with a good conscience as well kill the King horresco dicere as any other man so according to Captain Blagues directions as Judas taught the High-Priests servants we know what Troops and Regiments were most aimed at whereas they do most ridiculously say they have for the defence of his person sent many a Cannon-bullet about his eares which he did with that Kingly courage and Heroick magnanimity yea and that Christian resolution and dependance on Gods assistance pass through that it shall be recorded to his everlasting honour and their indelible shame and reproach so long as the world endureth 4. 4 Wrong They have most Disloyally and Traiterously spoken both privately and publickly such things against his Majesty as would make the very Heathens tear them in pieces that should say the like of their Tyrannous Kings and such as I could not believe they proceeded from the mouth of a Christian against so Christian a King but that I find most of them were publickly uttered made known unto his Majesty and related by himself and those that were Ear-witnesses thereof Sober sadness p. 3. The Viewer p. 4. His Majesties Declaration Trussel in the supplement to Daniels History as Horresco referens that he was not worthy to be our King not fit to live that he was The Traitor that the Prince would govern better and that they dealt fairly with him they did not depose him as their fore-fathers had deposed Richard the second whom all the World knoweth to be most Traiterously Murdered and the whole progress of that Act whereby he was deposed is nothing else but the Scandal of that Parliament and an horrid treason upon the fairest relation of any Chronicle and the good Bishop of Carlile was not then affraid in open house to tell the Lords so to their faces and I would our Parliament men would read his Speech 5. They command their own Orders Ordinances 5. Wrong and Declarations to be Printed Cum privilegio and to be published
incline and conspire with this Faction to confirm those Positions which they proposed to themselves to overthrow the Church and State and to uphold their usurped Government and tyrannical Ordinances they will pretend twenty excuses as The great Affairs of the State The multiplicity of their businesses The necessity of procuring monies The shortnesse of their time though they sate almost three years already that they have no leisure to determine these questions which in truth they do purposely put off lest they should leese such a friend unto their party but when any other which dissenteth from their humours doth but any thing contrary to the straitest Rules of the House they do presently notwithstanding all their greatest affairs call that matter into question The L Digby in his Apolog. and it must be examined and followed with that eagernesse as in my Lord Digby's case that he must be forthwith condemned and excluded for we say This cannot be any just Priuiledge but an unjust proceeding of this Parliament 8. The delegating of their power to particular men 8. When they delegate their power to some men to do some things of themselves without the rest as it seems they did unto Master Pym when an Order passed under his sole test for taking away the Rails from the Communion Table for this is a course we never heard of in former time 9. The multiplying of their Priviledges 9. When their Priviledges are so infinitely grown and inlarged more than ever they were in former Parliaments and so swelled that they have now swallowed up almost all the Priviledges of other men so that they alone must do what they please and where they will in all Cities and in all Courts because they have the Priviledge of Parliament 10. When according to the great liberty of language 10. Their speaking and sitting in other Courts which we deny them not within their own wall they take the Priviledge to speak what they list in other places and to govern other Courts as they please where as they did in Dublin and do commonly in London they sit as Assistants with them that are priviledged by their Charters to be freed from such Controllers 11. When above all that hath been or can be spoken 11. Their close Committee they have made a close Committee of Safety as they call it which in the apprehension of all wise and honest men is not only a course most absurd and illegall but also most destructive to all true Priviledges and contrary to the equitable practice of all publick meetings that any one should be excluded from that which concerneth him as well as any of the rest And this Committee only which consisteth of a very few of the most pragmatical Members of their House must have all intelligences and privy counsels received and reserved among themselves and what they conclude upon must be reported to the House which must take all that they deliver upon trust and with an implicite Roman faith believe all that they say and assent to all that they do only because these forsooth are men to be confided in upon their bare word The greatnesse of this abuse when their House hath no power to administer an Oath unto any man in the greatest affairs happiness or destruction of the whole Kingdom for this is in a manner to make these men Kings more than the Roman Consuls and so as great a breach of Priviledge and abuse of Parliament as derogatory to his Majesty that called them to consult together and as injurious to all the people as can be named or imagined CHAP. XIV Sheweth how they have transgressed the publike Laws of the Land three wayes and of four miserable Consequences of their wicked doings 2. FOr those publike written and better known Laws of this Land 2. Against the publick laws of the Land they have no lesse violated and transgressed the same than the other and that as well in their execution and exposition as in their composition For 1. When they had caused the Archbishop of Canterbury to be committed to the Tower Judge Berkeley to the Sheriff of London 1. In the execution of the old Laws Sir George Ratcliffe to the Gate-house for no lesse crimes than high Treason and many other men to some other prisons for some other faults yet all the World seeth how long most of them have been kept in prison some a year some two some almost three and God only knoweth when these men intend to bring them to their legal tryal which delay of justice is not only an intolerable abuse to the present Subjects of this Kingdom to be so long deprived of their liberty upon a bare surmise but also a far greater injury to all posterity when this President shall be produced to be imitated by the succeeding Parliaments and to justifie the delayes of all inferiour Judges 2. Whereas we believe what Judge Bracton saith and Judge Britton likewise which lived in the time of Edward the first 2. In expounding the Laws Si disputatio oriatur justiciarii non possunt eam interpretari sed in dubiis obscuris Domini regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas Citatur à Domino Elism in post-nati p. 108. cùm ejus sit interpretari cujus est condere If any Dispute doth arise the Judges canot interpret the same but in all obscure and doubtful questions the interpretation and the will of the King is to be expected when as he that makes the Law is to be the expounder and interpreter of the Law Yet they have challenged and assumed to themselves such a power that their bare Vote without any Act of Parliament may expound or alter a known Law which if it were so they might make the Law as Pighius saith of the Scripture hke a nose of wax that may be fashioned and bended as they pleased but we do constantly maintain That the House of Commons hath no power to adjudge of any point or matter but to inform the Lords what they conceive and the House of Peers hath the power of Judicature which they are bound to do according to the Rules of the known established Laws and to that end they have the Judges to inform them of those cases and to explain those Laws wherein themselves are not so well experienced though now they sit in the House for cyphers even as some Clergy did many times in the Convocation and if any former Statute be so intricate and obscure that the Judges cannot well agree upon the right interpretation thereof then as in explaining Poynings Act and the like either in England or Ireland the makers of the Act that is the King and the major part of both Houses must explain the same 3. In composeing and setting forth new laws 3. Whereas we never knew that the House had any power to make Orders and Ordinances to bind any besides their own Members to observe them as Laws
devised here and damnation hereafter yet these men contrary to all Laws do injoyn us and compell us as much against our Consciences as if they should compell us with the Pagan Tyrants to offer sacrifice unto Idols to war against our most gracious Soveraign whom we from our hearts do both love and honour and they proscribe us as malignants and as enemies to the Common-Wealth Ps 50.22 Augu. contra Faust l. 22. c. 75. 76. if we contribute not Money Horse and Arms to maintain this ungodly War and so become deadly enemies unto our own souls O consider this yee that forget God lest for tearing us He tear you in pieces while there is none to help you for considering what the Apostle saith Rom. 13.1 2. and what Saint Augustine saith Ordo naturalis mortalium paci accommodatus hoc poscit ut suscipiendi belli Autoritas atque consilium penes principem sit and lest men should think they ought by force of Armes to resist their King for Religion he answereth that objection by the example of the Apostles Isti non resistendo interfecti sunt ut potiorem esse docerent victoriam pro fide veritatis occidi We conceive this to be so execrable an Act and so odious to God and man that we are made thus miserable and abused beyond measure to have our Religion which is most glorious our Laws The miserable consequences of their wicked doings that in their own nature are most excellent and our Liberties that make us as free as any Subjects in the World under false pretences and the shadows of Religion Laws and Liberties to be eradicated and fundamentally destroyed whereby Mischief 1 1. We are made a spectacle of scorn and the object of derision to our neighbour-Nations that formerly have envied at our happiness and we are become the Subject of all pitty and lamentation to all them that love us Mischief 2 2. As in the Roman Civil-Wars in the time of Metellus the Son did kill his own Father so now by the subtilty of this faction we are cast into such a War as is 1. A most unnatural War the Son against the Father and the Father against the Son The Earl of Warwick fighteth for the Parliament and my Lord Rich his Son with the King The Earl of Dover is with the King and my Lord Rochford his Son with the Parliament So one brother against another as the Earl of Northumberland with the Parliament and his brother with the King The Earl of Bedford with the Parliament and his brother with the King Master Perpoint with the Parliament and the Earl of Newark with the King Devoreux Farmer with the Parliament and his bâ—other Richard Farmer together with his brother in law my Lord Cokain with the King and the like and of Cosens without number the one part with the King and the other with the Parliament And if they do this in subtilty to preserve their Estates I say it is a wicked policy to undo the Kingdom which all wise men should consider 2. A most irreligious War when one Christian of the same professed Religion shall bathe his Sword and wash his Hands in the blood of his fellow Christian and his fellow Protestant that shall be coheir with him of the same Kingdom 3. A most unnatural irreligious and barbarous War when the Subject shall take Arms to destroy or unthrone their own Liege a Religious and most gracious King 3. The Service of God in most Churches is neglected when almost all Mischief 3 the ablest gravest and most Orthodox Divines and Preachers are persecuted plundered imprisoned and driven to flie as in the time of the Arian or Donatist which was worse than the Heathen perfection from City to City and to wander in Desarts from place to place to save themselves from the hands of these Rebels against the King and Persecuters of Gods Church which is a most grievous and a most cruel persecution far more general than that of the Anabaptists in Germany or of Queen Mary here in England The Lord of Heaven make us constant and give us patience to indure it 4. The whole Kingdom is and shall be yet more by the continuance Mischief 4 hereof unspeakably impoverished and plunged into all kind of miseries when the travailer cannot pass without fear nec hospes ab hospite tutus the Carrier cannot transport his commodity but it shall be intercepted the Husbandman cannot till his ground but his Horses as my self saw it shall be taken from the Plough and his Corn shall be destroyed when it is ready for the Sickle which must be the fore-runner of a Famine that is ever the Usher to introduce the Plague and Pestilence and all other kind of grievous diseases and these things put together do set wide our Gates and open our Ports to bring forraign foes into our Coasts to possess that good Land whereof we are unworthy because with the Israelites we loathed Manna we were weary of our peace and happiness we would buy Arms and be Voluntiers and every Town being too wanton would needs train and put themselves into a posture of defence as they termed it to be secured from their own shadows and though the King told them often there was no cause of their Jealousies and therefore forbade these disloyalties yet just like the Jews they were willing to be deceived by this miserable faction that contrived that Act whereby they have perfidiously over-reached both our good King and the rest of our wel-meaning brethren either to perfect their Design or else to make themselves perpetual Dictators and to betray the felicity of all our people under the name of Parliament which though as I said before I honour and love as much as any of the truest Patriots of either House both in the institution and the right prosecution thereof that is as it was constituted to be the great Council of the Kingdom graciously called by his Majesties-writ confidently to present the grievances of the people and humbly to offer their advice and counsels for their Reformation yet I do abhor those men that would abuse the word Parliament only as a Stalking-Horse to destroy all Acts of Parliament and I hate to see men calling the Fanatick actions of a few desperate seditious persons the proceedings of Parliament and others making an Idol of it as if their power were omnipotent or unlimitted and more than any Regal Power their judgment infallible their Orders irreprehensible and themselves unaccountable for their proceedings to be so besotted with the name of it that this bare shadow without the substance for it is no Parliament without the King and the Major part of both Houses is either banished or imprisoned or compelled to reside with his Majesty should so bewitch us as Master Smyth blushed not to say Nothing could free us from our dangers but the Divinity of a Parliament out of our own happiness to become more miserable Ingeniosus ad
her everlasting praise to assist her most dear and Royal Husband their own Liege Lord and Soveraign King in his greatest extremities against a virulent mighty Faction of most malicious Traytors The strangest Treason that ever the World heard of 2. They made an Ordinance for the composing and convocating of such a Synod whereof I said somewhat before of Lay-men ignorant men factious men trayterous men and such concretion of heterogeneall parts like Nebuchadnezzars Image Gold Brass and Clay all mixed together and all so ordered limited and bridled as it is expressed in the 5. and 6. page of their Ordinance by the power of both Houses where there are such abundance of Schismaticall and seditious Members that I should scarce put the worst sensitive soul to professe that erratical faith or any brute beast to be guided by that Ecclesiastical Discipline that such factious Traytors as some of them are like to be proved should compose or cause to be composed 3. They composed a form of a sacred Vow or Covenant as they term it or as it is indeed the Covenant of Hell a Covenant against God to overthrow the Gospel of Christ under the name of Christ which Covenant is the oil that swimmeth uppermost upon the waters that is the oil of Scorpions or as Moses saith The poison of Dragons so lately wringed and diffused far and near to defile and destroy millions of souls when forgetting their faith to God and the oathes of their allegeance so often and so solemnly taken by many or most of them to be faithful unto their King they shall be compelled which is one degree worse than the vow of them that bound themselves with a curse neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul so hypocritically so perjuredly so rebelliously so horribly and so bloodily to make such a fearful Vow and such an abominable Covenant so wickedly contrived that without great and serious repentance spitteth forth nothing but fire and brimstone and can produce nothing else but Hell and Damnation to all that take it especially to them that will compell men to be thus transcendently wicked as if they would send them with Corah quick to Hell All which triplicity of evil I shall leave to some abler and more eloquent Pen to be set forth more fully in the right colours that being sufficiently displayed they may be throughly detested of all good men Amen O Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep thy Laws THE CONTENTS Of the severall Chapters in the Plots of the Parliament Chap. I. SHeweth the Introduction the greatness of this Rebellion the originall thereof the secret plots of the Brownisticall Faction and the two cheifest things they aimed at to effect their plot Page 251. Chap. II. Sheweth the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earl of Strafford's head How he answered for himself The Bishops right of voting in his cause His excellent virtues and his death p. 254. Chap. III. Sheweth how they stopped the free judgement of the Judges procured the perpetuity of the Parliament the consequences thereof And the subtile device of Semiramis p. 259. Chap. IV. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops the threefold practice of the Faction to exclude them out of the House of Peers and all the Clergy out of all Civil Judicature p. 262. Chap. V. Sheweth the evil consequences of this Act How former times respected the Clergy How the King hath been used ever since this Act passed and how for three speciall Reasons it ought to be annulled p. 265. Chap. VI. Sheweth the plots of the Faction to gain unto themselves the friendship and assistance of the Scots To what end they framed their new Protestation How they provoked the Irish to rebell And what other things they gained thereby p. 270. Chap. VII Sheweth how the Faction was inraged against our last Canons What manner of men they chose in their new Synod And of six speciall Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ which under false pretences they have already done p. 274. Chap. VIII Sheweth what Discipline or Church-government our factious Schismaticks like best Twelve Principal points of their Doctrines which they hold as 12. Articles of their faith and we must all believe the same or suffer if this Faction should prevail p. 270. Chap. IX Sheweth three other speciall points of Doctrine which the Brownists and Anabaptists of this Kingdom do teach p. 274 Chap. X. Sheweth the great Bug-bears that affrighted this Faction The four speciall means they used to secure themselves The manifold lyes they raised against the King And the two special Questions that are discussed about Papists p. 278. Chap. XI Sheweth the unjust proceedings of these factious Sectaries against the King Eight special wrongs and injuries that they have offered him Which are the three States And that our Kings are not Kings by Election or Covenants with the people p. 283. Chap. XII Sheweth the unjust proceedings of this Faction against their fellow Subjects set down in four particular things p. 289. Chap. XIII Sheweth the proceedings of this Faction against the Laws of the Land The Priviledges of Parliament transgressed eleven special wayes p. 292. Chap. XIV Sheweth how they have transgressed the publike Laws of the Land three wayes and of four miserable Consequences of their wicked doings p. 295. Chap. XV. Sheweth a particular recapitulation of the Reasons whereby their Design to alter the Government both of Church and State is evinced And a pathetical disswasion from Rebellion p. 301. TO THE KING'S most Excellent MAJESTY Most gracious Soveraign WITH no smal paines and the more for want of my books and of any setled place being multum terris jactatus alto frighted out of mine house and tost betwixt two distracted Kingdoms I have collected out of the sacred Scripture explained by the ancient Fathers and the best Writers of God's Church these few Rights out of many that God and Nature and Nations and the Lawes of this Land have fully and undeniably granted unto our Soveraign Kings My witness is in Heaven that as my conscience directed me without any squint aspect so I have with all sincerity and freely traced and expressed the truth as I shall answer to the contrary at the dreadful judgement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 therefore with all fervency I humbly supplicate the divine Majesty still to assist Your Highness that as in Your lowest ebb You have put on Righteousness as a breast plate and with an heroick Resolution withstood the proudest waves of the raging Seas and the violent Attempts of so many imaginary Kings so now in Your acquired strength You may still ride on with Your honour and for the glory of God the preservation of Christ his Church and the happiness of this Kingdom not for the greatest storm that can be threatned suffer these Rights to be snatched away nor Your Crown to be thrown to the dust nor the Sword that God hath given
tyrannicall King 2. The same Spirit saith Thou shalt not revile the Gods that is 2. To say no ill of the King Exod. 22.28 Act 23.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. To do no hurt to the King Psal 10â— 15 1 Sam. 24 4 5. the Judges of the Land nor curse that is in Saint Pauls phrase speak evill of the Ruler of the people and what can be more evill then to bely his Religion to traduce his Government and to make so faithfull a Christian King as faithless as a Cretan which is commonly broached by the Rebels and Preached by their seditious Teachers 3. The great Jehovah gives this peremptory charge to all Subjects saying Touch not mine Anointed which is the least indignity that may be and therefore Davids heart smote him when he did but cut off the lap of Sauls garment What then can be said for them that draw their swords and shoot their Cannons to take away the life of Gods Anointed which is the greatest mischiefe they can do I beleive no distinction can blinde the judgment of Almighty God but his revengefull hand will finde them out 2. What we should do to honour the King Eccles 8.2 1. To observe the kings commands that so maliâ—iously transgress his precepts and think by their subtilty to escape his punishments 2. The Scriptures do positively and plainly command us to shew all honour unto our King For 1. Solomon saith I counsell thee to keep the Kings commandment or as the phrase imports to observe the mouth of the King that is not onely his written law but also his verball commands and that in regard of the oath of God that is in respect of thy Religion or the solemne vow which thou madest at thine initiation and incorporation into Gods Church to obey all the precepts of God Et si religio tollitur nulla no bis cum coelo ratio est Lactant Iust l. 3. c. 10. whereof this is one to honour and obey the King or else that oath of allegiance and fidelity which thou hast sworn unto thy King in the presence and with the approbation of thy God which certainly will plague all perjurers and take revenge on them that take his name in vain which is the infallible and therefore most miserable condition of all the perjured Rebels of this Kingdom For if moral honesty teacheth us to keep our promises yea though it were to our own hindrance then much more should Christianity teach us to observe our deliberate and solemn oathes whose violation can bear none other fruit then the heavy censure of God's fearful indignation But when the prevalent faction took a solemn Oath and Protestation to defend all the Privileges of Parliament and the Rights of the Subjects and then presently forgetting their oath and forsaking their faith by throwing the Bishops out of the House of Peers which all men knew to be a singular Priviledge How the prevalent Faction of the Parliament forswore themselves 2. To obey the kings commandements Josh 1.18 and the House of Lords acknowledged to be the indubitable right of the Bishops and their doctrine being to dispence with all oaths for the furtherance of the cause it is no wonder they falsifie all oaths that they have made unto the King 2. The people said unto Joshua Whosoever rebelleth against thy commandment and will not hearken to the words of thy mouth in all that thou commandest he shall be put to death surely this was an absolute government and though martial yet most excellent to keep the people within the bounds of their obedience for they knew that where rebellion is permitted there can be no good performance of any duty and it may be a good lesson for all the higher powers not to be too clement which is the incouragement of Rebels to most obstinate trayterous and rebellious Subjects who daring not to stir under rigid Tyrants do kick with their heeles against the most pious Princes and therefore my soul wisheth not out of any desire of bloud but from my love to peace that this rule were well observed Whosoever rebelleth against thy commandment he shall be put to death * Quia in talibus non obedientes mortaliter peccant nisi foret illud quod praecipitur contra praeceptum Dei vel in salutis dispendiâ—m Angel summa verb. obedientia 3 To give the king no just cause of anger Prov. 2.2 The Rebels have given him cause enough to be provoked 4. To speak reverently to the king and of the king Eccles 8.4 3. The wisest of all Kings but the King of Kings saith The fear of a King is as the roaring of a Lion who so provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul And I believe that the taking up of Armes by the Subjects against their own King that never wronged them and the seeking to take away his life and the life of his most faithful servants is cause enough to provoke any King to anger if he be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too Stoically given to abandon all passions and that anger should be like the roaring of a Lion to them that would pull out the Lions eyes and take away the Lions life 4. The King of Heaven saith of these earthly Kings That where the word of a King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou And Elihu demands Is it fit to say to a King thou art wicked or to Princes you are ungodly Truely if Elihu were now here he might hear many unfitter things said to our King by his own people and which is more strange by some Preachers for some of them have said but most maliciously and more falsely that he is a Papist he is the Traytor unworthy to reign unfit to live good God! do these men think God saith truth Where the word of a King is there is power that is to blast the conspiracies and to confound the spirits of all Rebels who shall one day finde it because the wrath of God at last will be awaked against their treachery Jerem. 27.8 and to revenge their perjury by inabling the King to accomplish the same upon all that resist him as he promised to doe in the like case 5. To pray for the king Ezra 6.10 1 Tim. 2.1 2. 5. The Israelites being in captivity under the King of Babylon were commanded to pray for the life of that Heathen King and for the life of his sons And Saint Paul exhorteth Timothy to make supplications prayers intercessions and giving of thanks for Kings and for all that are in authority and how do our men pray for our King in many Pulpits not at all and in some places for his overthrow for the shortning of his life and the finishing of his dayes nullum sit in omine pondus and they give thanks indeed not for his good but for their own supposed good success against him thus they praevaricate and pervert the words of the
though approved by God for the welfare of the Common-wealth 1 Sam. 8 4 20. but as the Israelites desired a King to judge them like all the Nations that is such a King as Aristotle describeth such as the Nations had intrusted with an absolute and full regal power as Sigonius sheweth so the Kings of the Nations if they be not like the Spartan Kings were and are like the Kings of Israel both in respect of their ordination from God by whom all Kings as wel of other Nations as of Israel do reign and of their full power and inviolable authority over the people which have no more dispensation to resist their Kings then the Jews had to resist theirs And therefore Valentinian though an elected Emperour yet when he was requested by his Electours to admit of an associate Sozom. histor l 6. c. 6. Niceph hist l. 11. c 1. answered it was in your power to chuse me to be an Emperour but now after you have chosen me what you require is in my power not in you Vòbis tanquam subditis competit parere mihi verò quae facienda sunt cogitare it becomes you to obey as Subjects and I am to consider what is fittest to be done And when the wife takes an husband there is a compact agreement and a solemn vow past in the presence of God that he shall love cherish and maintain her The wife may not forsake her husband though he break his vow and neglect his duty yet if he breaks this vow and neglects both to love and to cherish her she cannot renounce him she must not forsake him she may not follow after another and there is a greater marriage betwixt the King and his people therefore though as a wife they might have power to chuse him and in their choice to tye him to some conditions yet though he breaks them they have no more power to abdicate their King then the wife hath to renounce her husband nor so much because she may complain and call her husband before a competent Judge and produce witnesses against him whereas there can be no Judge betwixt the King and his people but onely God and no witnesses can be found on earth because it is against all Lawes and against all Reason that they which rise against their king should be both the witnesses against him and the Judges to condemn him or were it so that all other Kings have not the like constitution which the Scripture setteth down for the Kings of Israel yet I say that excepting some circumstantial Ceremonies in all real points the Laws of our Land are so far as men could make them in all things agreeable to the Scriptures in the constituting of our Kings according to the livelyest pattern of the Kings of Israel as it is well observed by the Authour of the Appeal to thy conscience An Appeal to thy conscience pag 30. Our Kings of the like Institution to the kings of Israel in these four special respects 1. In his Right to the Crown 2. In his Power and Authority 3. In his Charge and Duty 4. In the rendring of his Account For 1. As the Kings of Israel were hereditary by succession and not elective Respect 1 unless there were an extraordinary and divine designation as in David Kings of England are kings by birth Proved Salomon Jehu so do the Kings of England obtain their Kingdoms by birth or hereditary succession as it appeareth 1. By the Oath of Allegiance used in every Leete that you shall be true Reason 1 and faithful to our Soveraign Lord King Charles and to his Heires 2. Because we owe our legeance to the King in his natural capacity that is Reason 2 as he is Charles the Son and Heir apparent of King James when as homage cannot be done to any King in his politique capacity Coke l. 7. Calvin's case the body of the King being invisible in that sence 3. Because in that case it is expresly affirmed that the King holds the Kingdom Reason 3 of England by birth-right inherent by descent from the bloud-royal therefore to shew how inseperable this right is from the next in bloud Hen. the 4. though he was of the bloud-royal being first cozen unto the King and had the Crown resigned unto him by Rich. the 2. and confirmed unto him by Act of Parliament yet upon his death-bed confessed he had no right thereunto Speed l. 9. c. 16. as Speed writeth 4. Because it was determined by all the Judges at the Arraignment of Watson Reason 4 and Clerke 1. Jacobi that immediately by descent his Majesty was compleatly and absolutely King without the Ceremony of Coronation which was but a Royal Ornament and outward Solemnization of the descent And it is illustrated by Hen. 6. that was not crowned till the ninth year of his Reign Speed l. 9. c. 16. and yet divers were attainted of High Treason before that time which could not have been done had he not been King And we know that upon the death of any of our Kings The right heir to the Kingdom is King before he is crowned Why the peoples consent is asked his Successor is immediately proclaimed King to shew that he hath his Kingdom by descent and not by the people at his Coronation whose consent is then asked not because they have any power to deny their consent or refuse him for their King but that the King having their assent may with greater security and confidence rely upon their loyalty 2 As the Kings of Israel had full power and authority to make war and Respect 2 conclude peace to call the greatest Assemblies as Moses Joshua David Jehosaphat and the rest of the Kings did to place and displace the greatest Officers of State as Solomon placed Abiathar in Sadoc's room and Jehosaphat appointed Amariah and Zebaediah rulers of the greatest Affaires 2 Chron. 19.11 The absolute authority of the kings of England Coke 7 rep fol. 25. 6. Polyd. Virgil. lib 11. Speed Stow c. and had all the Militia of the Kingdom in their hands so the Kings of England have the like for 1. He onely can lawfully proclaim war as I shewed before and he onely can conclude peace 2. There is no Assembly that can lawfully meet but by his Authority and as the Parliament was first devised and instituted by the king as all our Historians write in the life of Henry the first so they cannot meet but by the king's Writ 3. All Laws Customs and Franchises are granted and confirmed unto the people by the King Rot. Claus 1. R. 2. n. 44. 4. All the Officers of the Realm whether Spiritual or Temporal Smith de repub Angl. l. 2. c. 4. c. 5. are chosen and established by him as the highest immediately by himself and the inferiour by an authority derived from him The absurdiâ—ies of them that deny the Militia to the King 5. He hath the
asked if they should not command fire to consume them as Elias did that is if they should not use their best endeavours and be confident of Gods assistance to destroy those prophane rejecters of Christ and refusers of his religion Our Saviour though ever meeke yet now moved at this their unchristian thought rebuked them with that sharpness as he did Saint Peter when he committed the like â—â—rour and said You know not what manner of spirit you are of as if he had said Matth. 16.23 you understand not the difference betwixt the profession of Elias and my religion for he was such a Zelot that jure zelotarum and the extraordinary instinct of Gods spirit that was in him might at that time when the Jews were governed by a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Josephus saith and God presiding as it were their King amongst them and interposing rules by his Oracles and other particular directions that should oblige and warrant them as well as their standing Law do this or the like act though not authorized by any ordinary Law and those actions thus performed are as just and as legal as any other that proceed from the authority of the supreame Magistrate but that dispensation of the Prophets is now ended and the profession of my Disciples must be far otherwise for I do not authorize my servants to pretend to the spirit of Elias or to do as Phineas and others extraordinary men among the Jews have done but they must learn of me to be meeke and lowly in heart and rather to suffer wrong of others then to offer the least injury unto their meanest neighbour Matth. 11.29 much less to resist their supreame Magistrate And when Christ was apprehended not by any legal power of the supreme Magistrate but by the rude servants of the High Priests and Saint Peter How Christ carried himself before Pilate and the High-Priests as zealous for his Master as our Zealots are for their Religion drew his sword and smote off Malchus ear a most justifiable and commendable act a man would think to defend Christ and in him all Christianity our Saviour bids him put up his sword and he adds a reason most considerable to all Christians for all they that take the sword shall perish by the sword that is all they that without lawful authority take the sword to defend me and my religion with the sword they deserve to suffer by the sword and it is very well observed by the Author of resisting the lawful Magistrate upon colour of religion that the two parallel places quoted in the margent of our Bibles are very pertinent to this purpose Pag. 6. for that Law concerning the effusion of bloud Gen. 9.6 being not any prohibition to the legal cutting off of Malefactors is notwithstanding urged against S. Peter to shew that his shedding of bloud in defence of religion was altogether illegal and prohibited by that Law and the other place where immediately after these words He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword Revel 13.10 the Holy Ghost adjoyneth here is the patience and the faith of the Saints doth most clearly shew that all forcible resistance is inconsistent with the religion of the Saints because their faith must be ever accompanied with their patience and it is contrary to their profession to save themselves by any violent opposition of them that have the lawful authority But that example which is unparallel'd is the suffering of Christ under Pontius Pilate for the whole course of their proceeding gainst Christ was illegal when as no Law can be found to justifie the delivering up of an innocent person to the will of his accusers as Pilate did our Saviour Christ and our Saviour had ability and strength enough to have defended himself John 19.16 for he might have commanded more then twelve Legions of Angels to assist him yet our Saviour acknowledging the legal power of Pilate to proceed against him John 19.12 that it was given him from above makes no resistance either to maintain his doctrine or to preserve his life but in all things submits himself to their illegal proceedings and gives unto the Magistrates all the honour that was due unto their places and you know the rule Omnis Christi actio debet esse nostra instrictio we ought to follow his example And therefore not onely Christ but also all good Christians have imitated him in this point for the Apostles prayed for their persecuting Tyrants exhorted all their followers to honour even the Pagan Kings and most shâ—rply reproved all that spake evill of Authority much more would they say against them that commit evill and proceed in all wickedness against Authority And Tertullian speaking of the behaviour of the Primitive Christians towards the Heathen Emperours How the Primitive Christians hehaved themselves towards their Heathen persecutors and their cruell persecutors saith that because they knew them to be appointed by God they did love and reverence them and wish them safe with all the Romane Empire yea they honoured the Emperour and worshipped him as a man second from God solo Deo minorem and inferiour onely unto God and in his Apologetico he saith Deus est soâ—us in cuâ—us solius potestate sunt reges à quo sunt secundi post quem primi super omnes homines ante omnes Deos God alone is he by whose power Kings are preserved which are second from him first after him above all men and before all gods that is all other Magistrates that the Scripture calleth Gods So Justin Martyr Minut us Felix Nazianzen which also wrote against the vices of Julian S. Augustine and others of the prime Fathers of the Church have set down how the Primitive Christians and godly Martyrs that suffered all k nde of most barbarous cruelty at the hands of their Heathen Magistrates did notwithstanding pray for them and honour them and neither derogated from their authority Beda p. 15. nor any wayes resisted their insolencie And Johannes Beda Advocate in the Court of Parliament of Paris saith that the Protestants of France in the midst of torments have blessed their King by whom they were so severely intreated and in the midst of fires and massacres have published their confession in these words Artic. 39 40 confess eccles Gal. refor For thâ— cause he that is God put the sword into the Magistrates hand that he may repress the sins committed not onely against the second Table of Gods Commandments but also against the first We must therefore for his sake not onely endure that Superiours rule over us but also honour and esteem of them with all reverence holding them for his Lieutenants and Officers to whom he hath given in commission to execute a lawfull and a holy function We therefore hold that we must obey their Lawes and Statutes pay Tributes Imposts and other duties and bear the yoke of
directors in all Church causes as it appeareth out of all the fore-cited Authors and all the Histories that do write thereof and Justinian published this Law that when any Ecclesiastical cause or matter was moved his Lay officers should not intermeddle with it but should suffer the Bishops to end the same according to the Canons the words are Si Ecclesiasticum negotium sit nullam communionem habento civiles magistratus cum ea disceptatione sed religiosâ—ssimi Episcopi secundum sacros canones negotio finem imp nunto For the good Emperour knew full well that the Lay Senate neither understood what to determine in the points of faith and the government of Christ's Church nor was ever willing to do any great good or any special favour unto the Shepherds of Christ's flock and the teachers of the true religion because the Son of God had fore-told it that the world should hate us that secular men and Lay Senatours should commonly oppose John 15.19 cross and shew all the spite they can unto the Clergy Matth. 10.16 of whom our Saviour saith Behold I send you forth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as sheep in the midst of wolves Whence this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great distance between their dispositions being observed it grew into a Proverb that Laici semper infesti sunt Clericis And Doctour Meriton In a Sermon before King James How the Laity love the Clergy A very memorable act Anno. â—9 Eliz. cap. 4. observed this as one of the good favours the Clergie of England found from our Parliaments since the reformation when many men first began to be translated from the seat of the scornefull to sit in Moses chaire and to prescribe Lawes for Christ his Spouse to make an Act that all wandering beggars after their correction by the Constable should be brought to the Minister of the Parish to have their names registred in a Book and the Constable used to give to the Minister 2d for his paines for every one so registred but if he refused or neglected to do it the Statute saith he should be punished five shillings for every one that should be so omitted where besides the honourable office I will not say to make the Minister of Christ a Bedle of the Beggars but a Register of the vagrants you see the punishment of one neglect amounteth to the reward of thirty labours therefore all the Christian Emperours and the wisest Kings considering this great charge that God had laid upon them to make wholesome Lawes and Constitutions for the government of his Church and seeing the inclinations of the Laity would never permit any of these Lay Elders and the Citizens of the world to usurp this authority to be the composers contrivers or assistants in concluding of any Ecclesiastical Law until the fences of God's vineyard were pulled down That the Laity should have no interest in making Laws for the Church and the wilde Boar out of the forrest the audacious presumption of the unruly Commonalty ventured either to govern the Church or to subdue their Prince since which incroachment upon the rights of Kings it hath never succeeded well with the Church of Christ and I dare boldly say it fidenter quia fideliter and the more boldly because most truly the more authority they shall gain herein the less glory shall Christ have from the service of his Church and therefore Be wise ô ye Kings And consider how any new Canons are to be made by our Statute 25 Hen. 8. Ob. But then it may be demanded if this be so Ob. that the Laity hath no right in making Lawes and Decrees for the government of God's Church but that it belongs wholly unto the King to do it with the advice of his Bishops and the rest of his Clergy then how came the Parliament to annul those Canons that were so made by the King and Clergy because they had no vote nor consent in confirming of them Sol. Truely I cannot answer to this Objection Sol. unless I should tell you what the Poet saith Dum furor incursu currenti cede furori Dâ—fficiles aditus impetus omnis habet They weâ—e furiously bent against them and you know furor arma ministrat dum regnant arma si lent leges all Lawes must sleep while Armes prevaile besides you may finde those Canons as if they had been prophetically made fore-saw the increasing strength of Anabaptisme Brownisme Puritanisme most likely to subvert true Protestantisme and therefore were as equally directed against these Sectaries of the left hand as against the Papists on the right hand and I think the whole Kingdom now findes and feels the strength of that virulent Faction and therefore what wonder that they should seek to break all those Canons to pieces and batter them down with their mighty Ordinances for seeking to subdue their invincible errours or else because as they say the Ecclesiastical State is not an independent society but a member of the whole the Parliament was not so to be excluded as that their advice and approbation should not be required to make them obligatory to the rest of the Subjects of the whole Kingdom which claim this priviledge to be tyed to the observation of no humane Lawes that themselves by their representatives have not consented unto 2. As the King is intrusted by God to make Lawes for the government of the Church of Christ so it is a rule without question 2. To grant dispensations of his own Lawes that ejus est dispensare absolvere cujus est condere he hath the like power to dispense with whom he pleaseth and to absolve him that transgresseth as he hath to oblige them therefore our Church being for reformation the most famous throughout all the parts of the Christian world and our King having so just an authority to do the same it is a most impudent scandal full of all malice and ignorance not to be endured by any well-affected Christian that the new brood of the old Anabaptists do lay upon our Church and State that they did very unreasonably and unconscionably by their Lawes grant Dispensations both for Pluralities and Non-residency The scandals of the malicious ignorants against the worthier clergy onely to further the corrupt desires of some few to the infinite wrong of the whole Clergy besides the hazard of many thousands of souls the intolerable dishonour of Gods truth and the exceeding disadvantage of Christ his Church for seeing God hath principally committed and primarily commended the care of his Church and service unto Kings who are therefore to make Laws and Orders for the well governing of the same iâ— shall make it most evident that they may as they have ever done most lawfully and more beneficially both for Gods Church and also for the Common-wealth do these three things Three special points handled 1. To grant that grace and favour unto their Bishops and other Ecclesiastical persons as to
them the more odious both to God and man and their names the more infamous to all posterity that after they had filled themselves with all kind of wickednesse with incredible transgressions they should be sound contemners of so favourable a pardon But though it be the Kings right to pardon faults and to restore offenders yet herein all Princes should take great heed especially when they have power to take revenge 2. Sam. 3.39 for sometimes the sinners may be like the sons of Zervia too strong for David how they pardon those great crimes that are committed to the dishonour of God and do so far provoke him to anger as to plague both the doers and the sufferers of them because that although they be soluti legibus suis not bound to their own Lawes Arnisaeus l. 1. c. 3. pag. 69. yet they are not soluti ratione praeceptis divinis but they are bound to observe Gods Lawes and to punish the transgressors of his Commandments or if they do not when they can do it they shall render a strict account to God for all their omissions as they may see it in the example of King Saul 1 Sam. 15.9 6. Jus convocandi Synodos Parliamenta c. 6. Jus convecandi the right of calling Synods Parliaments Dyets and the like were the rights of the kings of Israel and are the just Prerogatives of the kings of England howsoever this faction of the Parliament hath sought to wrest it as they do all other rights out of the kings hands by their presumption to call their Schismaticall Synod to which they have no more colour of right then to call a Parliament 7. Jus mone tas excudendi Matth. 22.20 7. Jus excudendi the right of coyning mony to give it value to stampe his armes or his image upon it as our Saviour saith Whose Image and superscription is this and they say to him Caesars is the proper right of Caesar the prerogative of the king The second sort of the King 's right is circa Magistratus 2. About the Magistrates and containeth jurisdiction rule creation of officers appointing of circuits provinces judgements censures institution of Scholes and Colledges collation of dignities receiving of sidelities and abundance more whereof I intend not to speak at this time but refer my Reader to Arnisaeus de jure Majestatis if he desires to be informed of these particulars Arn s l. 2. c. 2. And as these and the like are jura Regalia the rights of Majesty in the time of peace so when peace cannot continue it doth properly belong unto the King and to none else but to him that hath the Sovereignty whose right it is alone to make war either to succour his allyes or to revenge great injuries or for any the like just causes and as he seeth cause to conclude Peace to send Ambassadours to negotiate with foreign States and the like are the rights of Kings and the indeleble Characters of Soveraignty which whosoever violateth and endeavoureth to purloin them from the King doth with Prometheus steal fire from Heaven which the Gods would not suffer as the Poëts feign to go unrevenged And these things so far as I can finde the King never parted with them unto his Subjects and therefore whosoever pretendeth to an inderived power to do any of these and exempteth himself from the King 's right herein resisteth the ordinance of God and is guilty of High-Treason Ioh. Beda 26. what pretext soever he brings saith the Advocate of Paris And there be some things which our Kings have granted unto their Subjects Ita itiam Reges Aegypti quibus voluntas pro lege est legum tamen instituta in cogendis pecuniis quotidianoque victu sequebantur Aubanus What things Kings have granted and restrained themselves from their full right as the use of that power which makes new Lawes or repeals the old or layeth any tax or sums of monies upon his Subjects without the consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament and it may be some other particulars which the Lawyers know better then I. And all these Priviledges of the Subjects are but limitations and restrictions of the King 's right made by themselves unto their people and therefore where the Law cannot be produced to confirm such and such Liberties and Priviledges granted unto them I say there the King's power is absolute and the Subject ought not in such cases to determine any thing to the disadvantage of the King because all these Liberties that we have are injoyed by vertue of the King's grant as you may see in the ratification of Magna Charta where the King saith We have granted and given all these Liberties But I could never see it produced 9 Hen. 3. where the King granted unto his Subjects that they might force him and compel him with a strong hand by an Army of Souldiers to do what they will or else to take away either his Crown or his Life this Priviledge was never granted because this deprives the King of his supremacy and puts him in the condition of a Subject and would ever prove an occasion of rebellion when the people upon every discontent would take Arms against their King And therefore this present resistance is a meer usurpation of the King 's right a rebellion against his Lawes an High Treason against his Person and a resistance of the ordinance of God which heap of deadly sins can bring none other fruit then damnation saith the Apostle CHAP. XIV Sheweth the Kings grants unto his people to be of three sorts Which ought to be observed the Act of excluding the Bishops out of Parliament discussed the King's Oath at his Coronation how it obligeth him and how Statutes have been procured and repealed 2. The Kings obligation to observe his grants Peter de la Primandas saith Laws annexed to the Crown the Prince cannot so abrogate them but his Successor may disannul whatsoever he hath done in prejudice of them p. 597. 2. WE are to consider how far the King is obliged to observe his promise and to make good these Liberties and Priviledges unto his Subjects where I speak not how far the father's grant may oblige the son or the predecessor his successor who cannot be deprived of his right dominion by any act of his predecessors but for the rights of his dominion how far precedent grants and the custom of their continuance with the desuetude and non-claim of his right may strengthen them unto the Subject and oblige the successors to observe them I leave it unto the Lawyers and Civilians to dispute but I am here to discusse how far the King that hath promised and taken his oath to observe his Lawes and make good all priviledges granted to his Subjects is bound in conscience to keep and observe them Touching which you must understand that these grants of immunities and favours are of three special kindes 1. Of
preserved Licia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 through justice and fortitude whereupon the old Scholiast citeth the words of Aeschilus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that virtue and justice are ever coupled together and Dio. Chrysost saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is the best of men that is the most valiant and most just Orat. 2. and Herodian saith of Pertinax Plut. in vit Cicero 2. orat in Anton. Ovid. Met. 6. Suet. de act c. 2 that he was both loved and feared of the Barbarians as well for the remembrance of his virtues in former battels as also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because that wittingly or willingly he never did injustice to any man at any time Plutarch ascribeth these virtues to Lucullus and to Paulus Aemilius Cicero saith the like of Pompey Ovid. of Erictheus Suetonius of Octavius Augustus his father Virgil of Aeneas Krantius of Fronto king of the Danes and of our late king James of famous and ever blessed memory we may truly say Cui pudor justitiae soror Incorrupta fides nudáque veritas Quando ullum invenient parem Horat. lib. 1. Od. 26. Neither need I blush to apply the same to our present King So you see how Justice exalteth a Nation commends the doers of it and crownes them with all honour and as the Poet saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that worketh justly shall have God himself for his Co-adjutor But here you must observe that which indeed is most true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is not a just man that doeth no hurt Who rightly termed just but he that is able to do hurt and will not do it that can be unjust and will not be for it is no great matter to see a poore man that hath no ability to do no wrong but it is hard to use power right even in the meanest office and therefore this is that that is to be urged to be then most just when we have most power to offend which most properly doth belong to all kings and Princes to put them in minde of their duties to what end God hath made them kings for they are but base statterers Tacit. annal l. 3. Plut. in Apotheg Eustath ad Iliad ss Salust in Orat. Cas cont Catil quibus omnia principum honesta atque inhonesta laudare mos est that will commend all the doing of Princes be they good or bad and which say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all things are honest and just that kings do as that flattering sycophant said to Antigonus or like those Chirodicai 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who thinke justice lyeth not in the Lawes but in their hands because as Caesar saith in maxima fortuna minima licentia est the higher their places are the more righteous they ought to be and the lesse liberty of sinning is left unto them and that in respect 1 of God 2. of others 3. of themselves Kings ought to be more just then all others in 3 respects 1. Where God hath conferred much honour there he exspecteth much equity and the more goodnesse where he bestowed the more grace ideò deteriores estis quia meliores esse debetis and will men therefore be the more sinfull Luke 12.48 Salvian de Pro. vid. l. 4. because they ought to be the more righteous 2. All mens eyes are upon the Prince and as Seneca saith of the royall Pallace Perlucet omne regiae vitium domûs the houses of Kings are like glasses and every man may look through them so their actions can no more be hid then the City that is placed upon an hill but their least and lightest acts are soon seen 3. Their places are as slippery as they are lofty Seneca in Agamemn 2.1 when as one saith height itself maketh mens braines to swimme nunquam solido stetit superba foelicitas and proud insolency never stood sure for any certain space for as God hath made them Gods so he can unmake them at his pleasure and as S. Augustine saith Quod contulit immerentibus tollit malè merentibus Aug. ho. 14. quod illo donante fit nostrum nobis superbientibus fit alienum what God haâ—h freely bestowed upon you without desert he may justly take away from you for your evill deserts and what is ours through Gods gift may be made another mans through our own pride and not onely so but as he hath heaped honours upon their heads that they might honour him so if they neglect him Job 12.21 Job 30.1 he can powre contempt upon Princes and cast dirt in their faces and make them a very scorne to those that formerly they thought unworthy to eate with the dogs of their flock and then Quanto gradus altior tanto casus gravior the higher they were exalted the more will be their greif when they are dejected as it was with those Kings that being wont to be carryed in their royall Charets were forced like horses to draw Sesostris Coach Quia miserrimum est fuisse felicem because it is a most wretched thing to have been happy and not to be or as the Poët saith Qui cadit in plano vix hoc tamen evenit unquam Ovidius Trist l. 3. Eleg. 4. Sic cadit ut tacta surgere possit humo At miser Elpenor tecto dilapsus ab alto Occurrit regi flebilis umbra suo And therefore all Kings should be ever mindfull of the words of King David He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the feare of God 2 Sam. 23.3 and all these things that I have set down should move all Kings and Princes to set their mindes upon righteousnesse to judge the thing that is right and to live Psal 58.1 What should move all kings to rule justly according to Lawes to reigne and rule according to the straight rule of the Law that so carrying them justly and worthily in their places the poore people may truly say of them Certè Deus est in illis they may well be called Gods because God is in them and if these things will not nor cannot move them to be as mindfull of their duty as well as they are mindfull of their excellency then let them remember what the Psalmist saith Psal 149.8 He will bind Kings with fetters and their Nobles with linkes of Iron and let them meditate upon the words of King Solomon where he saith unto them all Heare O ye Kings and understand learne ye that be Judges of the ends of the earth give eare you that rule the people and glory in the multitude of Nations for power is given you of the Lord and soveraignty from the Highest who shall try your works and search out your counsels because being Ministers of his Kingdomes you have not judged aright nor kept the Law nor walked after the counsell of God horribly and speedily shall he come upon you Sap. 6. usque ad vers 9. for a sharpe judgment
shall be to them that are in high places for mercy will soon pardon the meanest but mighty men shall be mightily tormented for he that is Lord over all shall feare no mans person neither shall he stand in awe of any mans greatnesse for he hath made the small and the great and careth for all alike but a sore tryall shall come upon the mighty And the Apostle saith It is a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10 31. which things should make their eares to tingle and their hearts to tremble whensoever they step aside out of Gods Commandments And thus we set down the charge of Kings and the strict account that they must tender unto God how they have discharged the same whereby you see we flatter them not in their greatnesse but tell them as well what they should be as what they are and presse nor onely obedience unto the people but also equity and justice unto the Prince that both doing their dutie both may be happy CHAP. XV. Sheweth the honour due to the King 1. Feare 2. An high esteem of our King how highly the Heathens esteemed of their Kings the Marriage of obedience and authority the Rebellion of the Nobility how haynous 3. Obedience fourefold diverse kinds of Monarchs and how an absolute Monarch may limit himself 2. The honour that is due to the King 2 I Have shewed you the person that we are commanded to honour the King I am now to shew you the honour that is due unto him not only by the customes of all Nations but also by the Commandment of God himself Where first of all you must observe that the Apostle useth the same word here to expresse our duty to our King as the Holy Ghost doth to expresse our duty to our father and mother for there it is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and here S. Peter saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shew indeed that the King urbi pater est urbÃque maritus The same that is due to our Father and Mother is the common Father of us all and therefore is to have the same honour that is due to our Father and Mother and I have fully shewed the particulars of that honour upon that fifth Commandment I will insist upon some few points in this place and as the ascent to Solomons throne was per sex gradus by six speciall steps so I will set you down six main branches of this honour that are typified in the six ensignes or emblems of Royall Majesty for Six speciall branches of the honour due to the King 1 The Sword exacteth feare and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth as much 2 The Crown importeth honour because it is of pure gold 3 The Scepter requireth obedience because that ruleth us 4 The Throne deserves Tribute that his Royalty may be maintained 5 His Person meriteth defence because he is the Defender of us all 6 His charge calleth for our Prayers that he may be inabled to discharge it 1. Feare 1. Kings are called Gods and all the Royal Ensigns and Acts of Kings are ascribed to God as their Crown is of God whereupon they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 crowned of God Psal 21.3 Psal 18.39 Judg 7.17 Exod. 4.20.17.9 1 Chron. 19 21. 2 Chron. 19.6 Sap. 17.21 their sword is of God whereupon the Psalmist saith thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle their Scepter is the Scepter of God for so Moses rod which signifieth a Scepter as well as a rod is called the rod of God their throne is the throne of God and their judgment is the judgment of God and you know how often we are commanded in the Scripture to feare God and the Poet saith primus in orbe Deos fecit timor and where theâ—e is no feare of God there is no beleife that there is a God for feare is the betraying of the succours which reason offereth and when we have no reason to expect succour our reason tells us that we should feare that is the punishment which we deserved for those evils which deprived us of our su cours The want of feare the cause of all mischiefe and therefore this feare of the punishment doth often times keep us from those evils even as the Scripture saith timor Domini expellit peccatum and the want of this feare is the cause of all mischief as the Prophet David sheweth when after he enumerated the most horrible sins of the wicked Rom. 3.13 that their throat was an open sepulcher the poyson of aspes under their lips their mouth full of cursing and bitternesse and their feet swift to shed blood he addeth this as the cause of all P. 14. V. 7. that there was no feare of God before their eyes And truly this is the cause of all our calamities that we feare not our King for if we feared him we durst not Rebell and revile him as we do But what is the reason that we do so little fear either God or the king Why men do so little fear God and the King Eccles 5.6 the son of Sirach sheweth it is their great mercy and clemency this which worketh love in all good natures produceth boldnesse impudency and Rebellion in all froward dispositions who therefore sin because God is merciful and will Rebel against their king because they know he is pitiful and milde and will grant them pardon as they beleive if they cannot prevaile which is nothing else but like spideâ—s to suck poyson out of those sweet flowers from whence the bees do gather hony but let them not deceive themselves for debet amor laesus irasci love too much provoked will wax most angry laesa patientia fit furor and therefore the son of Syrach saith Eccles 55 6. concerning propitiation be not without fear and say not his mercy is great for mercy and wrath come from him and his indignation resteth upon sinners so though our king be as the kings of Israel a merciful minded man most mild and clement yet now when he seeth how these Rebels have abused his goodnesse and his patience to the great sufferance of his best Subjects he can draw his sword and make it drunk in the bloud of the ungodly that have so transcendently abused both the mercies of God and the goodnesse of the King When diverse people had Rebelled against Tarquin and his son had surprised many of their chief leaders he sent unto his father to know what he should do with them the King being in his field paused a while and then summa Papavera carpsit with his staffe chopt off the heads of diverse weeds and thistles and gave the messenger none other answer but go and tell my son what I am doing and his Son understanding his meaning What Tarquin did to Rebels did with them as Tarquin did with the Poppies so many Kings would have done with
the commandment of God that we should obey them Whitaker contra Camp p. 258. and this saith he doth binde the conscience when as the Apostle saith he is to be obeyed for conscience sake But you will say what if the King forbids me to do what God commandeth Ob. as the high Priest did to the Apostles or commandeth me to do what God forbiddeth as Julian did unto the Christians and Nebuchadnezzar to the three children We have often answered that in such a case it is better to obey God then man Sol. Act. 5.25 for it is sometimes lawfull not to obey but it is never lawfull to resist What if he compells us by force and violence to do what God forbids us to do if he playes the Tyrant violates our Laws Ob. and corrupts the true Religion with dolatry and superstition may we not then as our fore-fathers did heretofore unto Chilperick King of France and to Richard the second of this Kingdome and others bridle them and depose them too if they will not be ruled by their Great Counsell the Parliament I answer first Non spectandum quid factum sit sed quid fieri debuerit Sol. Heningus Arnisaeus de author princi in Pop. we are not so much to regard what hath been done as what ought to have been done as Arnisaeus proveth at large and sheweth most excellently with a full answer to all the Articles that were alleadged against those Kings how unjustly they were handled and deposed contrary to all right and I wish that book were translated into English 2. I say 2. Of our passive bedience that when our active obedience cannot be yeilded our passive obedience must be used for were our King as Tyrannicall as Nero as Idolatrous as Manasses as wicked as Achab and as prophane as Julian yet we may not resist when as Arnisaeus proveth by many examples Idem cap. 3. p. 68. that the Rebellion of Subjects against their King doth overthrow the order of nature and Justinian saith quis est tantae autoritatis ut nolentem principem possit coactare but in such a case we must do as all the Saints did before us not as the Heathens which thought them worthy of divine honour Cicero pro Milone which did kill a Tyrant and said with Seneca victima haud ulla amplior Potest Seneca in Hercul sur magisque opima mactari Jovi Quà m Rex iniquus But as Christ himselfe suffered under Pontius Pilate a most wicked Magistrate Christ and his Apostles suffered but never resisted the lawfull Magistrate and registred in the breviary of our Faith that we might never forget our duty rather to suffer then to resist the authority that is from Heaven and as Saint Ambrose answered the Emperour that would have his Church delivered to the Arians I shall never be willing to leave it coactus repugnare non novi if I be compelled I have not learned to resist I can grieve and weep and sigh and against the Armes and Gotish Souldiers my teares are my weapons for those are the Bulwarkes of the Priest who in any other manner neither can neither ought he to resist so must all Christians rather by suffering death then by resisting our King to enter into the Kingdome of Heaven But 't is objected by our Sectaries that His Majesty confesseth Ob. The Author of the Treatise of Monarchy p. 31. there is a power Legally placed in the two houses more then sufficient to prevent and restrain the power of Tyranny Sol. The law provides that the king should not be circumvented and â—â—ronged I answer first when it pleased the King of His grace to restrain His own power of making Laws to the consent of Peeres and Commons that by this Regulating of the same it might be purged from all destructive exorbitanâ—es the very Law it self being tender of the legitimate rights of the King and considering the Person of the Soveraign to be single and his power counterpoysed by the opposite wisdome of the two Houses allowed him to swear unto himself a body of Council of State and Counsellors at Law and the Judges also to advise him and informe him so that as he should not do any wrong by reason of the restrayning Votes of the Houses so he might not receive any wrong by the incroachment of the Parliament upon his right The Kings concessions very large and the King being driven away from his learned Counsel and forced to make the defence of his rights by writing it is no wonder if his concessions and promises as well in this point as in other things especially in that concerning the Act of excluding the Clergy were more then was due to them or then he needed to grant or then he ought to observe being to the dishonour of God and the prejudice of his Church when as nothing in Parliament where the wrong may be perpetual should be extracted from him but what he should well consider of with the advice of his Counsel and what he should freely grant and whatsoever is otherwise done is ill done to the great disadvantage of the King and his Posterity and the unjust inlarging of their power more then is due unto them yet 2. I say if these words of His Majesties be rightly weighed they give no colour of resisting Tyranny by any forcible armes but aâ— Doctor Ferne saith most truly of a Legal D Ferne in his reply to sever treat p. 32. Moral and Parliamentary restraint for the woâ—ds are there is a power legally placed in the Houses that is the Law hath placed a power in them but you shall never find any Law that any King hath granted whereby himself might be resisted and subdued by open force and violence for as Roffensis saith Roffensis de potest Papae 291. Eâ—phanta Pythag l. De Regno apud Stobaeum fol. 335. Reges suo solius judicio reservavit Deus qui stans in Synagoga deorum dijudicat eos God hath reserved Kings to his own judgement and the Heathen man could say as Stobaeus testifieth primùm Dei deinde Regis est ut nulli subriciatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 first it is the priviledge of God next of the King to be subject unto none because the Regal power properly is unaccountable to any man as Suidas saith and Josephus saith that the holiest men that ever were among the Hebrews called essaei or esseni that is the true practisers of the Law of God maintained that soveraigne Princes whatsoever they were ought to be inviolable to their Subjects A principle tenet of the Essaei And some think that the Common-wealth is happier under a Tyrant that will keep them in awe then under too mild a Prince upon whose clemency they will presume to Rebel Jer. 27.5 6. A memorable place against resisting Tyrants for they saw there was scarce any thing more usual in holy Scripture then the prohibition of resistance
whom the choice of inferiour Magistrates belongeth the power of the subordinate officers neither Peeres nor Parliament can have Supremacy the Sectaries chiefest argument out of Bracton answered our Lawes prove all Soveraignty to be in the King Pag. 70 § The two chiefest parts of the Regall Government the foure properties of a just war and how the Parliamentary Faction transgress in every property Pag. 74 CHAP. XIII Sheweth how the first Gouernment of Kings was arbitrary the places of Moses Deut. 17. and of Samuel 1 Sam. 8. discussed whether Ahab offended in desiring Naboths Vineyard and wherein why absolute power was granted unto Kings and how the diversities of Gouernment came up Pag. 78 § The extent of the grants of Kings what they may and what they may not grant what our Kings have not granted in seven speciall prerogatives and what they have granted unto their people Pag. 83 CHAP. XIV Sheweth the Kings grants unto His People to be of three sorts Which ought to be observed the Act of excluding the Bishops out of Parliament discussed the Kings Oath at His Coronation how it obligeth him and how Statutes have been procured and repealed Pag. 88 § Certain quaeries discussed but not resolved the end for which God ordained Kings the praise of a just rule Kings ought to be more just then all others in three respects and what should most especially move them to rule their people justly Pag. 92 CHAP. XV. Sheweth the honour due to the king 1. Feare 2. An high esteem of our king how highly the Heathens esteemed of their kings the Marriage of obedience and authority the Rebellion of the Nobility how haynous 3. Obedience foure-fold divers kindes of Monarchs and how an absolute Monarch may limit himselfe Pag. 98 CHAP. XVI Sheweth the answer to some objections against the obeying of our Soveraigne Magistrate all actions of three kindes how our consciences may be reformed of our passive obedience to the Magistrates and of the kings concessions how to be taken CHAP. XVII Sheweth how tribute is due to the king for six speciall reasons to be paid the condition of a lawfull tribute that we should not be niggards to assist the king that we should defend the Kings Person the wealth and pride of London the cause of all the miseries of this Kingdome and how we ought to pray for our king Pag. 116 CHAP. XVIII The persons that ought to honour the king and the recapitulation of 21 wickednesses of the Rebells and the faction of the pretended Parliament Pag. 121 CHAP. XIX Sheweth how the Rebellious faction have transgressed all the ten Commandments of the Law and the new Commandement of the Gospell how they have committed the seaven deadly sins and the foure crying sins and the three most destructive sins to the soul of man and how their Ordinances are made against all Lawes equity and conscience Pag. 213 CHAP. XX. Sheweth how the rebellious Faction forswore themselves what trust is to be given to them how we may recover our peace and prosperity how they have un-king'd the Lords Annointed and for whom they have exchanged him and the conclusion of the whole Pag. 127 PSAL. 39.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Verily every man living or in his best estate is altogether Vanity Sela. OUR Blessed Lord and Saviour saith the night cometh John 9.4 when no man can work therefore I must work the Works of him that sent me whilst it is day and S. Paul tels us the time will come when men will not endure sound Doctrine but after their own lusts they shall heap to themselves Teachers that is 2 Tim. 4.3 Teachers enough in every place and every time so the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth but what kind of Teachers shall they heap unto themselves the Apostle tels you they shall be teachers after their own lusts that is such Tub-teachers of the new Order as will study rather to satisfie their lusts and to preach what they please best than to edifie their soules And I believe all wise men see that time is now and not till now fully come therefore it behoves all the true Teachers to bestir themselves to work the works of him that sent them while it is day while they have any time and while there is any true Light yet remaining before the sad night and darksom clouds of Errours and Heresies be grown so far and to prevail so much against the Truth that you shall scarce find any place or person where or by whom the new lights may be confronted and the old Truth confirmed unto us So it behoveth me and it is my duty to employ my Talent to the uttermost of my power against these false Prophets of the Great Antichrist that is now come into the world and by these heaps of his Emissaries laboureth quite to overthrow the Church of Christ And as Clement recordeth that when Barnabas came to Rome to preach the Gospel of Christ and divers rejected it he briefly said In vestra potestate est vel recipere quae annuntiamus vel speruere It is in your choice either to receive what we teach or to reject it but we may not be silent and not speak quod vobis expedire novimus what we know to be expedient and necessary for you quia nobis si taceamus damnum est vobis quae dicimus si non recipiatis pernicies est Ciem Recog l. 1. p. 6. so say I. And therefore that you may be somthing and so happy I beseech you listen to these words that testifie that in your selves you are nothing but Vanity For verily every man And the nearest way to exchange this Vanity for Eternity and so to make us happy that are in misery is to know our own vanity and to understand our own misery For Knowledge saith Hugo Card. is the way to God and understanding saith the Prophet David Psal 49.12 20. is that which distinguisheth and differenceth man from beast for man though he be never so great in honour never so powerful in place and never so rich in wealth yet if he hath no understanding he is compared to the beasts that perish And the two chiefest parts which are like the Body and Soul of all the Knowledge that makes us happy are these two Precepts so much commended and so often urged unto us even by the Heathens themselves that yet notwithstanding were destitute of all true Knowledge that could make them happy because they knew rightly neither of those two things that they so much commended which were 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know God 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know thy self For John 17.3.1 to know God the only way to make us happy 1. Our Saviour tels us this is eternal Life to know God i.e. to know the Father to be the only true God and whom he hath sent Jesus Christ For the Heathens knew that God alone is the summum bonum and the only true
yet blameing them for any thing But for any Subject of England to enterchange Messages and to keep private intelligence with any that seem to be in Arms against their King and the invaders of his Dominions to animate them to come and advance forward to refuse their Soveraigns Service and the Oath of their fidelity which was tendered unto them and to hinder the Kings Souldiers to do their duties either by denying to go with him or refusing to fight for him when they went which if some men were brought to their Legal tryal I believe would be more than sufficiently proved against them can be no lesse than heynous Crimes perhaps within the compasse of high Treason Or were these things but our jealousies and fears which do wear the garments of Truth yet their proceedings in Parliament do add more fuell unto the fire of our suspicion as for our men whom we have chosen to plead for us and to treat with them to respect them more than us to enrich them by impoverishing us How they behaved themselves towards the Scots giving them no lesse than 300000. l. who had entered into our Land and brought upon us such fears of I know not how many mischiefs that might succeed and not only so but also to shew what love they bare to them and how little regard they had of us their Native Brethren that put such trust and confidence in their fidelity as to commit all our fortunes and liberties into their hands paying weekly such a Pension for their provision besides the maintenance of our own Army which were forced to carry them their monies when themselves were unpaid as in a short time was able to exhaust all the wealth of this Kingdom and yet for all his Majesties continual calling upon them to dispatch their discharge and to finish the Treaty for the good of both Kingdoms keeping them here so exceeding long and making so very much of them which in truth we envyed not but admired what it meant when we saw with what continual feastings they were entertained in London and their lodgings frequented as the Kings Court till all the people began to murmur and to wax weary of so great a charge and such a burden as they knew must at last light upon their shoulders which must needs be matters worthy of our best examinations But as yet the common people that seeth no further than the present tense Why they detained them here so long and the outside of things did little know what many wise men did then foresee that these men aimed further than they seemed to do and delayed the businesse purposely till they had attained many of their desires and had fully endeared themselves into the affections of the Scots that if need required that they could not effect all the residue of their design as they intended which now could not so suddenly be brought unto perfection they might recall them here again to assist them to do that by force which by their craft and subtilty they should fail to do as now by their sending for them going unto them and alleadging the Act of Pacification for their assistance to withstand their King and to overthrow our Church it is apparent to all the World how perfidiously they dealt with God and man and how treacherous their thoughts were from the beginning both to the King and Kingdom Yet As we found our Brethren of Scotland howsoever these men behaved themselves in their secret intentions to have carried themselves none otherwise than as wise rational and religious men in all the Treaty So I assure my self they will hereafter still continue both faithful unto God and loyal unto their King and as they perceived not their intentions at the first so they will not now joyn with them in any Association of Rebellion to withstand their own Liege Lord and to change the established Laws and Religion of our Kingdom but will rather live in peace and happiness in their own Land than by forsaking their enjoyed quietness to involve themselves in the unhappiness of a desperate War in another Country 2. The compelling of all people to take their new framed Protestation 2. After they had thus endeared themselves unto their Brethren of Scotland they framed a Protestation to maintain and defend as far as lawfully they might with their lives powers and estates the True Reformed Protestant Religion his Majesties Royal Person Honour and Estate the power and priviledge of Parliament the lawful Rights and Liberties of the Subjects and every person that should make the Protestation in whatsoever he should do in the lawful pursuance of the same and to their power and as far as lawfully they might to oppose and by all good means endeavour to bring to condign punishment all such as shall either by force practice counsels plots conspiracies or otherwise * Which word is like the c. in the Canonical Oath do any thing to the contrary of any thing in the said Protestation contained and neither for fear hope nor other respect to relinquish this Promise Vow and Protestation In which Protestation though no man can espy the least shadow of ill prima facie at the first reading thereof yet if you look further and search narrowly into the intentions of the composers the frame of the Protestation and the practice of these Protestors ever since the framing of it you shall find that Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè these men are no Changelings but as like themselves as ever they were For 1. To terrifie the Papists to raise a Rebellion in Ireland 1. As it was intended so it succeeded it terrified the Papists and made them so desperate as almost to despair of their very Being as concerning the place where or the manner how they should live Which thing together with many other harsh and hard proceedings against many of them and the small countenance which they shewed unto a very moderate Petition that the Papists exhibited unto them hath driven abundance of them into Ireland whom I saw my self and there consulting with the Irish which were then also threatened by the Agents of this Faction there that ere long they should be severely handled and brought to the Church whether they would or no or pay such a Mulct as should make them poor what course they should take in such a desperate condition wherein they were all like to be ruined or to be rooted out of all the Kings Dominions they concluded what they would do To defend themselves by a plain Rebellion So this course against them hath been the leading-card as some of them confessed of that great Rebellion which being kindled as some Sectaries in England expected they thought they would so much the more weaken the King by how much the more combustion should be raised in each one of his Dominions And therefore notwithstanding all the Kings gracious Messages and wishes unto the House of
Commons which I wish all men would remember how affectionately he desired it to hasten to relieve that bleeding Kingdom yet still they protracted and neglected their redresse and at last passed such Votes made such Orders and procured such Acts as rather respected themselves and their posterity to get all the land and goods of the Rebels to themselves that were the Adventurers than the relieving of us that were distressed and would as I told some of the House of Commons rather increase the Rebellion than any wayes quench that destroying flame And this was as it succeeded and as you see hereby most likely intended a most detestable Plot for the kindling of that Rebellion and continuing of that bloody War in Ireland without which they knew this Rebellion in England could never have gained so much strength as it hath 2. By their large expression of what Religion they protested to defend 2. To gain all Sectaries to their side not the Protestant Religion as it is established by Law and expressed in the 39. Articles of the Church of England but as it is repugnant to Popery and taught perhaps by Burton Burges Goodwin Burrows or the like Amsterdamian Schismaticks they opened the gap so wide and made Heaven-gate so broad that all Brownists Anabaptists Socinians Familists Adamites and all other New-England-brood and Out-landish Sectaries whatsoever that opposed Popery might return home and joyn with them as they have done since to overthrow our established Church and State And this Plot to increase their own strength was as craftily done and is as Detestable as the other which to weaken the King in England caused a Rebellion in Ireland 3. By their illegall compelling 3. To descry their own strength and forcible inducing of all the people in the Kingdom to take the same or to be adjudged ill-affected and popish and after the Lords had rejected the imposing of it they by their Declaration which shewed That what person soever would not take it was unfit to bear Office either in Church or Common-wealth prevailed in this Plot so that they descryed the number of their own Party they understood their own strength and they perceived thereby many things which they knew not before for now they had with David numbred Israel and so far as the wit and policy of the Devil had instructed them they had searched into the secrets of all hearts 4. Having compelled the people to take it 4. To insnare all the simpler sort to adhere unto them they have hereby insnared all the simpler sort and tender consciences to stick unto them when they tell them and presse it upon their souls That they have made a Protestation to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the Subject and therefore they are bound to adhere to the Parliament to the uttermost of their power and so by this equivocall Protestati n they have seduced thousands into their Rebellion and led them blindfold unto destruction But to let you see not the sincerity of their hearts The mystery of their iniquity but the mystery of their iniquity by this their Protestation you shall never find them urge it unto others or remembring it themselves For the defence of the Kings Person Crown or Dignity or for the liberty of any Subject but only such Subjects as will be Rebels with them For how can they be said to defend any of these when they do their very best to destroy His Person and deprive him of all his Royal Dignities and to plunder and imprison all true Subjects for being true Subjects unto their King Whereby you see how these Rebels are likewise perjured and have weaved this Protestation like a Spiders web That the rebels are all perjured through which themselves might passe when they pleased and like Vulcans Net to catch the simpler sort to adhere most eagerly to their Designs and so it is but a circle of all subtilties and not unwittily questioned An protestatio Parliamentaria deterior sit juramento cum c. For if there be any thing injoyned to be done by that Protestation which was unlawful to be done before the Protestation was taken it is no more to be justified by that Act than any other unlawful thing is by a rash and wicked vow and it ought not to be urged to do mischief and if there be nothing to be injoyned thereby but what was every mans duty before there was but small need to draw any argument from any Protestation but if they intended to draw men from the duty of alleageance to which they were legally sworn all men understood to do somewhat which the ignorant did not understand then such a voluntary Protestation might do the deed for they have protested to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament And yet the wisest of us now may justly protest we cannot tell what those Priviledges are or how far they should extend in the judgement of the House of Commons for they are multiplied like the Rats of Egypt And as Pharaohs lean Kine did eat up all his fat Cows Priviledges of Parl. multiplyed and are like Pharaohs kine so these meager Priviledges have eaten up all our goodly Laws And therefore the unlimited universality of these Priviledges in the Protestation extending it self as far as the caetera in the Canonical Oath was but a mischievous plot in the Contrivers to catch the simple to adhere unto them And it is a madness in any man that hath legally sworn to defend the King's Person Crown and Dignity which he knoweth and hath irregularly protested to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament which he knoweth not immediately to draw his sword against his known Soveraign or to Rebel against his well-known lawful Authority in the behalf of some thing he knoweth not what but is told by these men It is a Priviledge of Parliament O ye unwise among the people When will you understand Who hath bewitched you that you should not believe the truth CHAP. VII Sheweth how the Faction was inraged against our last Canons What manner of men they chose in their new Synod And of six special Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ which under false pretences they have already done 3. The condemning of our last Canons 3. FOr the Canons that were last made I must confess my self and many others of my Brethren were very averse unto our sitting to make any at that time yet many Reasons were shewed us that we might sit and we had the Judges of the Common-Laws opinion under their hands shewed us for the legality of our sitting and conclude such Canons as might be for the glory of God and the good of his Church but of those that are made though I assure my self the worst of them is not so ill as they alleadge nor near so bad as most I might say the best of their illegall Orders yet there were many of us that never gave our votes
their actions are able to justifie the proceedings of these Princes in their assistance which perhaps they did not so much simply in respect of their Religion as of some other State Policy which we that are so far from the helme have no reason to prie unto Besides you may know that neither King Charles nor Queen Elizabeth were Subjects to the other Kings but were every way their equall if not more and independent Princes And to bring the actions of such absolute Monarchs How wickedly they deceive the simple the one against the other to justifie the actions of Subjects against their Soveraigne is such Logick as the other example was Divinity Queen Elizabeth did so against the King of Spain ergo any Subject may do so against his king or rather Queen Elizabeth did that which for ought we know was most lawfull to be done against the king of Spain ergo the Earl of Essex may do that which we do know to be most unlawfull against King Charles This is the doctrine that they teach their Proselytes but that they give this poyson in a golden cup and hide their falsehood under a shew of truth but I hope ere long you shall have these things more fully manifested unto you CHAP. XX. Sheweth how the Rebellious Faction forswore themselves what trust is to be given to them how we may recover our peace and prosperity how they have unking'd the Lords anointed and for whom they have exchanged him and the conclusion of the whole AND now having committed all these things and much more wickednesse then I though I had the tongue of Angels can expresse I am perswaded many of them seeing the miraculous mercies of our God in protecting and assisting His Majesty far beyond their thoughts and imaginations do begin to think on peace and accommodation which they presuming on the Kings lenity made sure to themselves whensoever they pleased and indeed dulce nomen pacis Esay 52.7 and the feet of them that bring tydings of peace are more specious then the fairest countenance of Aurora then the sweet face of Helen Psal 85.10 Rom. 1.7 1 Cor. 3. 2 Cor. 2. c. But seeing righteousnesse and peace have kissed each other and the Apostle joyneth grace and peace alwayes together as two deare friends saith S. Aug. so deare that si amicam pacis non amaveris neque te amabit pax ipsa and these men are filled with all unrighteousnesse and have trampled the grace of God and their King under feet and having sworne and forsworne themselves over and over as at their baptisme that they would keep Gods Commandments whereof this is one Rom. 13.1 1 Pet. 2.13 How the Rebels swore and forswore themselves to be obedient unto our Kings at their admittance to any office to beare faith and true alleagiance to His Majesty at the beginning of this last Parliament to maintain the Kings just rights and all the priviledges of Parliament together with the liberty and property of the Subjects and yet immediately to forget their faith to break all these oathes and to make ship-wrack of their conscience to drive the Bishops out of their House which is one of the first and most fundamentall priviledges of the Parliament they being the first of the three Estates of this Kingdome to take away not some but all the Kings rights out of his hands and to make him no King indeed to take away all our goods our liberties and our lives at their pleasure Holland and Bedford shew'd what trust is to be given them and then to assure the Divel they would be faithfull unto him which were thus faithlesse unto God to sweare again and make a solemne Covenant with Hell they would never repent them of their wickednesse but continue constant in his service till they have rooted out whom they deemed to be Malignants though the King who is wise as the Angel of God that hath the Kings heart in his hand Proverb 21. and turneth it like the Rivers of waters where he pleaseth knoweth best what to do as God directeth him yet for mine own part either in Peace or War No trust to be given to lyars and perjurers 2 Sam. 20.20.16 I I would never trust such faithlesse perjured creatures for a straw and seeing that to spare transcendent wickedness is to encrease wickednesse and to incourage others to the like Rebellion upon the like hope of pardon if they failed of their intention if our great Metropolis of London partake not rather of the wise spirit of the men of Abel then of the obstinacy of the men of Gibeah and delivered not unto the King the chiefe of those Rebells that rose up against him I feare that Gods wrath will not be turned away but his hand will be stretched out still Judg. 20. until he hath fullfilled his determined visitation upon this Land and consummated all with their deplorable destruction even as he did those obstinate men of Gibeah and Benjamin How the King desired the good of the Rebels for though the King beyond the clemency of a man and the expectation of any Rebell hath most Christianly laboured that they would accept of their pardon and save themselves and their posterity yet their wickednesse being so exceedingly great beyond all that I can finde in any history Rebellion it selfe being like the sin of witchcraft the Rebellion of Christians far worse and a Rebellion against a most Christian pious Prince worst of all and such a Rebellion ingendered by pride fostered by lyes augmented by perjury continued by cruelty The unspeakable greatness of their sins refusing all clemency despisâ—â—g all piety and contemning God their Saviour when they make him with reverence be it spoken which is so irreverently done by them the very pack-horse to beare all their wickedness being a degree beyond all degrees of comparison hath so provoked the wrath of God against this Nation that I feare his justice will not suffer their hearts that can not repent accept and imbrace their own happiness till they be purged with the floods of repentant teares or destroyed with the steames of Gods fearefull vengeance which I heartily beseech Almighty God may by the grace of Christ working true repentance in them for themselves and reducing them to the right way be averted from them And the best way that I conceive to avert it to appease Gods wrath and to turne away his judgements from us is to returne back the same way as we proceeded hitherto to make up the breaches of the Church How we may recover the peace and prosperity of this Land to restore the Liturgie and the service of our God to its former purity to repeale that Act which is made to the prejudice of the Bishops and Servants of God that they may be reduced to their pristine dignity to recall all Ordinances that are made contrary to Law and derogatory to the Kings right and to
be heartily sorry that these unjust Acts and Ordinances were ever done and more sorry that they were not sooner undone and then God will turne his face towards us he will heale the bleeding wounds of our Land and he will powre down his benefits upon us but till we do these things I do assure my selfe and I beleive you shall finde it that his wrath shall not be turned away but his hand will be stretched out still and still untill we either do these things or be destroyed for not doing them King James his speech made true by the Rebells Thus it is manifest to all the World that as it was often spoken by our sharpe and eagle-sighted Soveraigne King James of ever blessed memory no Bishop no King so now I hope the dull-ey'd owle that lodgeth in the desart seeth it verifyed by this Parliament for they had no sooner got out the Bishops but presently they laid violent hands upon the Crowne seized upon the Kings Castles How the Rebells have unking'd our King shut him out of all his Townes dispossest him of his owne houses took away all his sâ—ips detained all his revenues vilified all his Declarations nullified his Proclamations hindered his Commissions imprisoned his faithfull Subjects killed his servants and at Edge-hill and Newbury did all that ever they could to take away his life and now by their last great ordinance for their counterfeit Seale they pronounce all honours pardons grants commissions and whatsoever else His Majesty passeth under his Seale to be invalid void and of none effect and if this be not to make King Charles no King I know not what it is to be a King Hos 8.4 so they have unking'd him sine strepitu and as the Prophet saith they have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not What kings they would have to rule us but whom have they made Kings even themselves who in one word do and have now exercised all or most of the regall power and their Ordinances shall be as firm as any Statutes and what are they that have thus dis-robed King Charles and exalted themselves like the Pope as if they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Antichrist above all that are called Gods truly none other then king Pym king Say king Faction or to say the truth most truly and to call a spade a spade king perjurers king murderers king traytors * Whâ—ch S. Peter never bade us honour The Rebells brave exchange Psal 146.20 and I am sorry that I should joyne so high an office so sacred a thing as King to such wicked persons as I have shewed them to be And what a royal exchange would the Rebels of this Kingdome make just such as the Israelites made when they turned their glory into the similitude of a Calfe that cateth hay and said these be thy Gods Psal 146.20 O Israel which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt for now after they have changed their lawful King for unlawful Tyrants and taken Jothams bramble for the cedar of Lebanon the Devils instruments for Gods Anointed Judg. 9.15 they may justly say these be thy Kings O Londoners O Rebels that brought thee out of a Land that flowed with milke and hony out of those houses that were filled with all manner of store into a land of misery into houses of sorrow that are filled with wailings lamentations and woes when we see the faithful City is become an harlot our gold drosse and our happinesse turned to continual heavinesse But as the Rutilians considering what fruit they should reape by that miserable war wherein they were so far ingaged cried out at last Virgil Aeneid l. 12. Scilicet ut Turno contingat regiae conjux Nos animae viles inhumata infletáque turba Sternamur campis We undo our selves our wives and our children to gain a wife for Turnus so our seduced men may say we ingage our selves to dye like doggs that these rebels may live like Kings who themselves sit at ease while others endure all woes and do grow rich by making all the Kingdome poore and therefore O England quae tanta est licentia ferri lugebit patria multos when as the Apostle saith evill men and seducers wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived for God is not mocked but whatsoever a man soweth 2 Tim. 3.13 Gal. 6.7 that shall he also reape for though we for our sins may justly suffer these and many other more miseries we do confesse it yet the whole world may be assured that these Rebels the generation of vipers being but the Rod of Gods fury The Rebels sure to be destroyed Contemptrix superûm sevaeque avidissima caedis violenta fuit scires è sanguine natam 2 Sam. 7.1 to correct the offences of his children such seeds of wickedness as they sow can produce none other harvest then ruine and destruction to all these usurping Kings and Traytors who thinke to please God by doing good service unto the Devil and to go to Heaven for their good intention after they are carried into Hell for their horrid Rebellion God Almighty grant them more grace and our King more care to beware of them and when God doth grant him rest with David on every side round about him to restore his Bishops and Clergy to their pristine station that when these bramble rods are burnt and these rebels fallen the King and the Bishops may still stand like Moses and Aaron to guide and gouerne Gods people committed to their charge And thus I have shewed thee O man some of the sacred rights of royal Majesty granted by God in his holy Scriptures practised by Kings from the beginning of the world yeilded by all nations that had none other guide but the light of nature to direct them I have also shewed thee how the people greedy of liberty and licentiousnesse have like the true children of old Adam that could not long endure the sweet yoke of his Creator strived and strugled to withdraw their necks from that subjection which their condition required and their frowardnesse necessitated to be imposed upon them and thereby have either graciously gained such love and fauour from many pious and most clement Princes as for the sweetning of their well merited subjection to grant them many immunities and priviledges or have most rebelliously incroached upon these rights of Kings wresting many liberties out of the hands of Government and forcibly retaining them to their own advantage sometimes to the overthrow of the royal government as Junius Brutus and his associates did the Kings of Rome sometimes to the diminution of the dimidium if not more then halfe his right as the Ephori did to the kings of Lacedemon but alwayes to the great prejudice of the king and the greater mischief to the Common-wealth because both reason and experience hath found it alwayes true that the regal