Inquisition such as most heretically shall not captivate and subdue their understanding and reason under so strong a faith as to beleeve that these chief ones who ought to be most eminent of all in practising the said principles of renouncing the world humility mortification c. which they recommend command and enjoyn as Leaders and Captains for all that should follow them on so difficult services can yet practice and pursue I say so ardently so desperately the clean contrary so as if they would have others quit the world onely that themselves might seise it and yet thus by their deeds drawing into suspition doubt misptision with multitudes of men nay even confuting their Doctrine not be a maine cause of the miseries and calamities of the world whilest deluges of sinne and wickednesse and pernicious consequences breake in at this so great an overture of the faith thus discountenanced and discredited and even called in question will not many incline rather to beleeve that this practice this doctrine so destructive one to the other is sowing their feilds with mingled seed wearing a garment mingled with woollen and linnen so forbidden in the Mosaike Law That such a ridiculous unsuitablenes between such profession doctrine such practise and deeds is rather a mockery of the world Will they not like one Cicero speaks of wonder cur aruspex videns risum teneret Though the Mahumetan sect be grosse and carnall and the Mahumetans themselves exceeding devout in their kinds and superstitious having their Church-men in great reverence diverse of them rich and profuse otherwise in works they conceive any way pious and charitable and though otherwise the Nation very covetous yet I thinke it will not be easie to shew that their chiefe Church men in generall in any temporall greatnesse or riches doe not much rather resemble the mendicant Orders among the Papists did they hold themselves to their Rules then the Papisticall or our Prelates and chiefe Clergy-men who yet professe themselves Leaders in so spirituall so heavenly and sublime so world-renouncing a way faith and doctrine It is true the Turkish Muphty or chiefe Priest is by the grand Turke partly to please the people in shew and shadow greatly honoured not perhaps without a competency in revenue but I take it hereabouts their devotion of any note this way ends As for any temporall greatnesse and riches the Mosaicall Clergie might have wee are taught these were rather grosse and sensible Types then any thing else of the spirituall eminency graces endowments and power that ought to shine in the sublime and heavenly Antitype whence their true authoritie with the people and reverence and even veneration to their doctrine places and persons must flow conserved encreased by ever constant and invincible rejections of the least not necessary temporall matter if pressed on them as an high dishonour or affront offered to discredit them a bribe to corrupt them in the execution of their Embassage a baite to entrap them and frustrate the service they are sent about a temptation of pernicious consequence nay of what the State may adjudge and assigne the Clergie as necessary if it might be a voluntary and absolute declining of part even of that for I doubt not but the State would appoint such a proportion as might to duely mortified and spirituall men afford matter for the honour of such a refusall would undoubtedly adde such authoritie and reverent regard to them and their doctrine that men seeing they seek them not theirs nor will admit more of the world then what is meerely necessary for them for the discharge of their places you shall discover a new world Men by such courses which will bring on doctrine proportionable will be so moved that cutting off each in his proportion greatly even their own superfluous vanities much more their sins what our spirituall men may so have refused with infinite more by others thus cut off may be distributed among the poore besides the benefit of such examples and doctrine extending even to these and so universall charitie reducing all to a blessed kinde if not of paritie yet of proportion leaving the least in a tolerable mediocritie a golden age or primitive times may rise againe in the world But the way to this heaven is first to goe by the gates of hell as through the Parliament the Kingdome is made at by the true malignants so through or under colour of a pretended malignant partie that seduceth or ruleth the Parliament the Parliament or authoritie and dignitie thereof is attaqued but sure this is propounded as an article of saith and to weake reason past comprehension how it can well be but how ever they are misbeleevers and hereticks that pertinaciously reject an article of faith and with force to be proceeded against yet force being found oft none of the best wayes to extinguish heresie but rather the canker spreaded and exasperated by rude handling many have not and will not be deterred from advancing such as these plaine or stronger oppositions if any of this malignant partie propound any thing as in all great assemblies some must breake the matter and begin and the house consent to the proposition it is now the act of the whole house if any propound or speake things that seeme to others offensive or to deserve animadversion and yet the house or major part punish it not they by such connivence for these men may be allowed to question still principles that the Parliament would doe dishonorably and yet come short of their malicious intents make it also this way their owne and so not these censors or any els but the Parliament as above appeared is to judge of the Parliament but such censors themselves are to be condemned by the Parliament for thus presuming or assuming to themselves the supreame power to judge besides particular charges and articles against such were to be offered to the House the accusers and witnesses to be produced and forth-comming that if they make not good their charges the parties unjustly molested and accused might have condigne reparations upon them and the House it selfe satisfaction the publique service thus causelesly interrupted and the integritie of the House called in question and the like appertaining to cases of this nature Such charges have been promised long since should suddenly appeare against the accused Members of the Parliament and by them as Justice earnestly required but appeare not all this while not so much as to the people abroad though this were not the right way which they so strive to incense against the Parliament but rather warre in stead of them and seeing so many of the very Members of the Houses of Parliament are their enemies falling off from them unjustly if none such still remaine among them were things appearing unjustifiable there said or done if it might stand with the libertie and power of Parliament not to have libertie of speech it might easily be made appeare in particular to
conscience and the people without humane remedy if he exorbitate for they ought not to presume but to prove strongly if they could this which were for the disadvantage of the people so mainely for whose good all was intended at the first institution of the Monarchy and the peoples happines ought to be rather favoured and preferred in the interpretation of a doubtfull matter were this such as assuredly according with the first institutors intention and I thinke it is not so apparent if it be apparent at all that the King is so left to God onely as it is that the safetie and happines of the people is Lex suprema and the end of all which is out of doubt and therefore by this tye of an oath and all other fitting ties power and meanes also intended to be procured and secured and all oft little enough though such power is unlesse upon necessitie not onely not to be exercised but also to be kept as secret as may be that the Princes authoritie in as much as it may make for the good of the people may be kept up And perhaps the oath the people hath taken to the King especially as the people is represented in Parliament may respecting at this time this reason onely inferre as well on the peoples side that it is left to God onely thereupon and so supreame in point of judgement and power but allowing or rather understanding truly such power to be in the people and from it in the Parliament as hereafter may further appeare wee are to doe is not this way the peoples libertie rights happines safer and better assured together with the Kings just power or prerogative since the Parliament is not capable could it be willing to usurpe upon either as after may be shewed then imagining such supreame power to be invested in the King either the peoples right or the Kings just power it selfe can be seeing no man will deny but Kings are subjects capable of arbitrary or tyrannicall power oft times willing and giving the attempt and sometimes actually prevailing So if the framers of this Monarchy had intended such paramount power should be still in the King and that in such extraordinary emergents as now appeare in England they had been more solicitous of and provided better far for one meanes of diverse ordeined to an end then for the very end it selfe the peoples happines which they had left still depending dangerously on one mans conscience or will as it should at any time happen to change when so sure and safe a provision offered it selfe else-where as before is partly touched and had preferred the meanes before the end and so doe all the desperate malignants and the disorderers of our times State which is retrograde to reason others may better ensorce this point touching the intent of the first institution and adde expresse authorities perhaps out of the Lawes to this end or the practise of Parliaments in such times if such have ever before been or otherwise proceed by analogie and good consequences of reason If it be said that by such a provision of remedie for the people in danger as abovesaid a dangerous president of disobeying and weakning the Kings authority is introduced which may worke even danger of dissolution of the Monarchy Admitting but not granting that upon such a president once made upon an extraordinarie cause and that by an orderly way and which once done may well prevent all suture need of making any more such presidents admit such a danger even to the Monarchy followed thereupon which yet will not be made good in our present case as after will appear then here now is the point Among divers forms of government whereby a people may be governed that it may be happie which is the end and ayme of every such form this Nation chose one particular one which it judged fittest to compasse that end as indeed Monarchy duely tempered is the best but distempered by tyranny the worst the advantage of union or unitive power which it hath above other forms strengthening to evill when it degenerates as it did to good whilest it stood incorrupt but if this objection were of weight it would follow that it were more rationall that the peoples felicity which is the supreme end to which all good forms of government are ordained and tend should rather suffer then a particular form or fashion of government of which there are choice and any of which are but one meanes or way to compasse that end if it continue incorrupt but if corrupted to destroy the end and so one meanes to the end nay in our case a meanes if not rectified wholly to frustrate the end should be preferred before the end it self which it ought onely to serve nor can it be said the remedie were worse then the disease for what remedie can be so ill as that disease a free a glorious a noble Nation to fall to servitude spirituall and temporall from a long enjoyed Liberty in both kinds and our selves the instruments though to go on in such a case the remedie might not prove so ill or difficult if men would pay obedience duely there where reason tells them they owe it And should there be no such remedie for the people or for conservation of the frame of the government the constitution of this Monarchy which the King declareth he admireth so much were most deficient in the most principall point of all namely the defending and preserving it selfe the very foundation and ground-work as the end of all otherwise provisions orders Laws without which what were they but folly and phantasie Nay were not the folly of the first institution rather to be as much admited as raising an instrument utterly unfit for the purpose it was meant for had it left the maine end of all that is the peoples safetie libertie happinesse in such a case as ours without all possible nay without any provision expresse or imployed by common intendment or analogie of reason or rule of Law though the true the naturall the best or the onely provision or remedie to keep Prince and people in their due temper were so at hand so facile so offering it self and if not before usuall yet used possibly at the very time of such an institution and for that very purpole namely a Parliament or other meeting of the like nature without provision I say against the greatest publick mischief of all that ultimum malum Reipublicae as divine Plato termes it arbitrary power or tyranny and that a mischief so likely to happen more so oft attempted nay actually happening But he that implores force not now to speak of what is pretended herein by words and that though but to resist the orders of that power whose part alone it is to remedie the people in our case doth in fact deny that this Monarchy hath made such provision or hath that power so necessary to help and desend it self or that the people in
the State And it may be the Kings forces running lately with so strong bias so eagerly at Banbury Warwicke Coventry c. esteemed most opposite indeed to the Papist though perhaps not otherwise direct to the first or maine mark for the present of these Malignants may judicate and argue without any sophistry a present complication of the disease and the duplicity of the designe and danger or if not a present essence of a double disease yet a dangerous maladie now in being alreadie but breaking out into a symptome more to be taken heed of then the very disease and depending on it But they object our Religion is on the other hand more indangered by Brownisme Anabaptisme c. suppose this true and that these should get strength nay prevail with the Parliament which it is charged to promote upon as likely as strong and even the same grounds as it is to affect the change of the Monarchy yet as we said of we know not what new form of government supposing ridiculously the Parliament did introduce it it were easily dissolvible so obscure Brownisme or Anabaptisme were much more easily mastered and redressed then most politick potent all over bearing Papistry likely to be backed with forreigne force which I think none will say is to be feared from those other scarce known weak poore Sects whose obscurity and paucity hides rather and exempts from animadversion and would the Parliament attempt this though we might justly refuse to dispute with those that denie principles in this kingdoms policie calling still in question the wisdom Justice and honour of Parliaments could it ever effect it without the peoples concurring Papistry so increased at home so countenanced might if it doth not already with their good friends help in Ireland and elsewhere hope to force entrance How foolish then is it for the people to fear that which can never take effect unlesse it self will have it so I fall unawares upon the same answer here used before touching the supposed change of the State because the false grounds they would seem to go on here and there seeming the same and if the whole kingdom or people will have it so there is no opposing But hath not the Parliament taken a voluntarie Oath besides so many publique Protestations and other obligations to us the Scots and the States of the Low Countreys for the maintenance of the Protestant Religion which they are too wise and just needlesly to have done and so should they do otherwise to incurre most justly universall falling of or rather falling on them had they had any intent ever to have done as these would seeme to fear to direct us here also from looking at the true fear and danger nay to draw us with our own hands to pull it on us we may superadde that the voluntary oaths of such a multitude as the Parliament on whom no suspition at all can fasten of inclining to that religion which takes upon it to dispence with oaths and equivocations and thereby with the Law of God Nature and Nations which intended to advance it will by Gods justice advance the ruine of it are better security then our Malignants have or can give us on the other side the Antithesis in each part inquired into duely as the subject well deserves But these men would here also take benefit of their own wrong according to their usuall method it may appear what correspondence or good intelligence the maine dangers of our Religion and State still hold mutually or how they resemble Necessity of the State nay of the very preservation of it self whereof these Objectors are manifestly the authors may justly and too evidently doth compell the Parliament to the letling of Religion though the end of policy and however first in esteeme and intention yet not so in the time of execution alwayes after the ordering of politick affairs and in such desperate times as these not to do this were but a sacrifice without salt a foolish superstition like that of the Jews who would rather sit still and so suffer themselves to be cut in pieces by the capitall enemies of their State and Religion contrary to David who in necessitie spared not the very Shewbread who maliciously invaded them purposely at such a time then arme or fight upon such necessitie on their Sabbath Which they complain the Parliament will not now do which should it now one ruine might involve both Church and State both at once yet hath it not altogether even such times notwithstanding left it self without some testimony of their good intentions herein as particular Acts or Orders of theirs do shew to the world but the attempts and facts of the Malignants evident to all men apologize too well for the Parliament in this point without any words from any man if we weigh the desperate estate of publicke affaires well in these times caused by the malice of these Monsters which times forcing us for a while to content our selves with an implicite or generall faith as touching the ordering reforming or setling of other particulars concerning Religion which cannot for the said necessarie reasons and the like be yet effected yet we have besides many other inducements obvious enough to confirm such implicite faith this also that of such ordering and setling these matters as is to be wished there is farre greater hope and presumption caeteris paribus from those Divines that preach and cry down the temporall greatnesse pride riches avarice c. of the Clergy and so all their own hopes and pretensions that way and consequently from the Parliament which we see countenanceth such men then from the contrary side that professing likewise in a speciall manner and degree mortification contempt and renouncing of the world and of the glory greatnesse and pomp of it humility and the like as minding heavenly matters and things above as principles of the Doctrine and Religion they presse upon us yet are not ashamed to appear to the world invested through various mysteries of iniquitie with so great a share of whatsoever the most worldly men whose highest contemplations ascend not to the Moon compose their Trinity of as may enable these men thus crucified and dead to the world by their own earthly power greatnesse authoritie not to insist on that kind which they have in our times attempted to render in some points or cases at least independent of the crown and absolute and which earthly greatnesse rather then the Parliament shall question or regulate they will question and condemne the Parliament and advance a Civill Warre or forreigne invasion to the evident danger of a generall ruine and abomination of desolation of their Countrey nay Church it self which these hypocrites would seem to stand for as may enable them I say by their own temporall potency which in the hand of such men becomes more dreadfull then any spirituall power they exercise sufficiently to keep in awfull silence if not to bring into a kind of
it no other way usefull then to have the glory and thanks of relinquishing it voluntarily least otherwise the peoples good and safetie for a puntiglios sake or satisfying a phantasie or an humour of one man should depend on the turne or change of one mans will whensoever it may happen and more then this great and noble minded men though no Christians have more then once done when having in their hands absolute power over their Countrey not unjustly gotten they have freely and of their owne accord given it up absolutely judging it so best for their Countreys good leaving it even in full libertie and so living themselves in or rather under it but much higher in true glory and honour then ever But though such power is not here in his Majestie he is yet not without meanes in his hands and a faire opportunitie to lay a tye not altogether unlike on his people and to exhibit freely great and publique munificence all at once by a faire and voluntary relinquishing all contestation about it whilest yet a malignant faction preferring their passions before reason and conscience before his honour and safetie instigate and assist him as much as they can or rather would make him their instrument to compasse it by an unnaturall pernicious civill warre on whom the blame may justly be laid as they alone would have gone away with the benefit By these and the like passages had beene and even yet so it be betimes taken may be the way to the true arbitrary power indeed the peoples hearts where God begins with man as at the right end this is the divine Method which draw all the rest sweetly which the pretended false bastard arbitrary power could never by unjust violence effect and thus by fairely quitting the pursuite of the false the true may be gained a magnanimous Prince that confides in his owne vertue will put himselfe boldly and securely on the free wills of his Subjects It is in manner a divine Charecter Scire velle liberis hominibus imperare to know how to temper and governe free men Gentlemen Princes and in such a condition God made man to serve his glory best and is it not a more glorious thing when a Prince shall by his great proportionate and heroike vertues render them at his devotion and make them his voluntary slaves being otherwise free and noble then if he found them made slaves by the practise and vices of others or so made them such himselfe Thus a free people is a strong motive and occasion to a Prince to render them wholly his by extraordinary vertue the fall of this emulous Carthage would shake Rome though in opposition with it and therefore the noblest of the Romans best and most wifely loving Rome for Romes good advised Carthage should stand But reason evinceth that persisting as he doth he remaines sequestered from all just power and authoritie as touching the matters in question between him and his Parliament on the justice and wisdome whereof he may safely put himselfe secure that they will not not can devest him of any thing that justly belongs to him onely reason and right require that it be left to the Parliament to be the Judge thereof without which power the people and Kingdome cannot be safe as stands deduced Monarchy thus tempered by libertie and prerogative as it is remote from intrinsicke causes of dissolution so from externall If a Prince governing at discretion invade it the partie in the goodly arbitrary government excluded by the distemper of such a State from the benefits of libertie the partie I say for be a Prince never so absolute yet his Mamaluks his Militia by whose conspiracy or tyranny he awes and enslaves the rest not onely equall for the most part in point of libertie the Subjects of a free State but exceeding them far in all licentiousnes and tyrannizing and enslaving upon the matter the Prince himselfe as well as others justly lay on his owne shoulders by Gods judgement that which he makes or useth these as instruments to lay unjustly on the neeks of his other Subjects whom he ought to have protected Instances are requent of the Pretorian Cohorts or Legions tyranny on the Roman Emperours of the Janisaries on the great Turke of the Mamaluks on the Aegyptian Soldans and reason shews this danger is most to be feared where a Prince hath assumed the peoples libertie by publique oppression I say if the absolute Monarch invade the justly tempered the oppressed partie is not to be trusted but to be kept under by part of those he will trust he can trust none safely as certaine enemies at home so the power which he must trust doubly lessened the partie used goeth faintly on the free Nation for at best by bringing their free neighbours whence was the chiefe hope of assistance for the recovering their owne libertie into servitude they should but confirme and render remediles their owne slavery encreasing the strength of the oppressor and likewise on the same reason resist lesse if invaded Onely if the Prince will make accompt or can be content or cannot avoid to be himselfe an equall a companion with his Mamaluks Facinus quos in quinat aequat or rather to be tyrannized by them and his honour authoritie name person to be made their instrument against his people he may translate the said faintnes from them on himselfe though when all is done they are unsafely trusted who have before broken the great tye that to their Countrey else he must fly to forreigne helpe But on the other side the free Subjects duely interessed in the State loving it living like men defend invade the other nobly couragiously as in heart and men of honour and as oft for the good of the conquered with greater power as universally to be trusted Not to insist on riches the nerves of Warre infimtly increased by industry so encouraged by industry lost by servitude but what needs more or indeed so much if any thing in a matter so apparent Wee now have beene rapt sufficiently into the goodly imaginary heaven and the glory of it but with an hell of inextricable miseries to the Prince and people which these Gods of the infinite prerogative pretended are raising for themselves through a government at will but by such meanes and in such manner as shews they beleeve or hope for no other heaven hereafter These things being thus it must follow that those that oppose the Parliament and in it the kingdom in whom is the supreame power as reason hath evinced since contestation hapning as now between King and people the people must carry it oppose their Countrey reason right and the truth moved by defect of judgement or worse principles converting themselves and their power received from their Countrey to enable them to serve and defend it to the ruine of it and of all that is precious to men of honour and consequently that they are guiltie of their owne bloud and of