you who had overturned the Government and violated all the Laws of the Land and I wish he had seen them before that he might have escaped those Punishments which made such a noise and turned to so bad an Account in the Kingdom and therefore I shall say no more upon this matter but this That the great mistake the Nation was then in and many are to this very day is that these three Men suffered for pure Religion for being severe Christians in their Lives and Conversations and standing up for the Cause of Christ whereas it appears throughout the whole Story it was for Libelling the Government and putting Indignities and Affronts upon the then Legal Administrators such as no Government that values itsself and its Honour upon the face of the Earth would bear without just Resentments and sutable Punishments Christian Religion teaches Men to be modest and peaceable and with all patience to suffer for well doing and to acknowledge God's Justice when his Rod is laid upon their Backs for evil doing And so much by way of Answer to that part of your Book by which you have endeavoured to blacken the good King's Reign and to run down the Reputation of Bishop Laud and to express your Indignation against me for saying other ways he was a good Man which I still say and have a very good Man to back me namely Judge Whitlock a Man of a clear Credit and sound Judgment who as his Son tells us in his Mem. said of him That he had too much fire but was a just and good Man And truly Sir I think it is more like a Christian to speak well of a Christian Bishop than to call him by such spiteful and reproachful Names as you have done in your scurrilous Book I come now to make some Reflections upon your Scotch Story which you have told with so much Venome and Partiality that you have every ways acted like your malicious and ungodly self and shewn you are a Man so resolved for a Party that rather than not serve it to purpose you will call Darkness Light and Light Darkness You begin with a Relation of Bishop Laud's composing a common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book for them and tell us how the Mutinies and Disturbances in Scotland sprung from thence which truly I am very sorry for for I am sure it had been better for them and the Christian Religion professed amongst them if they had submitted to the Usage of the Book and continued it ever since The Worship of God would have been performed with Order and Decency and in a way suitable to his Divine Nature and Perfections and consequently could not have been exposed to the Contempt and Scorn of Men wickedly and atheistically inclined nor yet have been nauseous to the soberly wise and seriously devout part of that Kingdom as now it is by reason of those rude and undigested Addresses those extempore and unpremeditated Expostulations with God those bold and saucy Applications that for want of a good Book or a well framed Form of Prayer of their own before-hand and committed to Memory are so commonly made use of in their Pulpits too many of the Accounts of which we have lately since the Great Turn in Scotland received from very good Hands and undeniable Testimonies I but this bold-face says This Liturgy was not only composed by Bishop Laud but sent by him to the Pope and Cardinals for their approbation and this Story I must not dare to deny But with your good leave Mr. Modesty I will venture upon the piece of Confidence as to tell you I do not believe it and that because you assert it you whom I have proved already to falsifie and misrepresent every thing that you pretend written Authority for What! Bishop Laud send to the Pope and Cardinals for their Approbation of a Liturgy almost the same with our own Sure Sir you have forgot the hatred the Popes of Rome as well as the Dissenters have to our Church common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book You have forgot the Bull of the Pope in the Tenth of Queen Elizabeth which commands all his pretended Catholick Children not to attend upon the Publick Liturgical Devotions of our Church and that under the severest Censure of the Apostolical Chair and you have also forgot but you have always a bad Memory for any thing that makes either for Monarchy or Episcopacy that the Papists upon that Account and by Virtue of the Authority of that Bull have declined our Publick Service ever since And therefore 't is very likely Bishop Laud should send a Liturgy to Rome for its approbation which hath so long stood condemned by the highest Authority that presides there In short Sir I cannot but conclude from this Story that you have got a Secret or else you would have blushed to have vented such an altogether improbable and yet so designedly a malicious Tale as this is and therefore notwithstanding your Marginal Caution I will say Leave your fooling and think not to abuse the good People of England with such Insinuations as will gain a belief from none but those who are resolved to believe all you boldly assert as Oracle against the clearest and brightest Reasons to the contrary Well Sir you say it was sent into Scotland pray let me ask you one Question In whose Name and by whole Authority was it sent Was it put upon them by a Rump Parliament an usurping Protector or by their lawful and undoubted Soveraign If by their Soveraign pray then Sir why if they did not like it did they not first submissively petition their lawful King and let him know how disgustful the Liturgy was to many of his Subjects in that Kingdom What must nothing serve these pure and refined Reformers but Fire presently called from Heaven must Clubs and Staffs and Old Womens Joynt-stools decide the Controversie betwixt their Soveraign and them Must they presently assault one of the Bishops the Earl of Traquaire the Lord Provost and Council of the City and threw down the Lord Treasurer going to the Council taking from him his Hat Cloak and White Staffe by violent Hands Good God! what dutiful what harmless and peaceable Subjects are these How much do they deserve such an Advocate as our Letter-Writer And what worst of things will not a Seditious Commonwealth's-man plead for when he will vindicate such Barbarities as these are But to go further with you Sir Must these Men of their own heads without any Warrant from the Legal Authority of the Nation enter into a Covenant without the King nay against his Will and Pleasure As they could not but know and that because they had entered into one with King Iames's Consent in 1580 to defend the Purity of Religion and the King's Person and Rights against the Church of Rome What are these two Covenants of one and the same Nature entred into by one and the same Authority a Covenant entred into by King Iames's Consent under his Hand and Seal and a Covenant entred
this I say upon the greatest deliberation of Mind without passion or prejudice to any Party of Men whatsoever and upon this score have I taken upon me the Defence of this Great Man not in the least wishing ill to or desiring the Oppression of any sort of Men who will live quietly and peaceably under Their Majesties happy Government nor any ways envying their Liberty of Conscience as long as they make a modest and thankful use of it My Lords and Gentlemen Desiring your candid Thoughts of this honest and well-designed Vndertaking I take my leave of you by subscribing myself Your humble Servant and Faithful Country-man Richard Hollingworth A REPLY TO THE Author of a Letter CALLED A LETTER from Ludlow to Dr. Hollingworth c. SIR I Have met with your Book without the Civility of your fencing me one but I quickly found reason not to wonder at that for upon reading you over I found Civility none of your Talent and tho' I am so far from being in the least concerned at your ungentile Behaviour and unhandsome Usage of myself that I think it really an Honour to be reflected on by a Person of your Principles and should have the worse Opinion of myself if I had the good word either of you or those of your Party yet Sir when I read over your barbarous dealing with that excellent Prince King Charles I. your dirty and Tinker-like Names by which you call him and those many undeserved Indignities you load his Sacred Memory withal truly Sir it makes my Heart ake and my Flesh tremble to think at this time of the Day and under such a Government there should be found so bold so impudent and so unmannerly a Person in the Kingdom that dares belch forth such leud such dishonourable and false Things against one who was the Lord's Anointed and your own lawful and undoubted Soveraign What Sir do not you know that the greatest part of the Nobility Gentry and Commons of England do to this very Day continue and preserve a great Veneration for the Name and Memory of King Charles the First Have you forgot when the Nation was restored to its Rights and Laws not over-awed by an Insolent and Threatning Army that they chose a Representative that presently expressed the Sence of the Nation as to that Prince and condemned by an Act of State all those who had any hand in his Murther and appointed a Day which you like yourself scornfully call a Madding-day for ever to bewail the Sin and thereby to prevent those Judgments which they thought that Horrid Act might be justly attended withal Cannot you further remember or have you not heard that Their present Majesties had two Sermons preached before them the last Thirtieth of Ianuary that both They and the rest that heard them might the better be engaged to renew their just Sence of as well as deep Sorrow for the detestable Fact And Sir did not the Lords and Commons appoint two Preachers to help their sorrowful Meditations that Day the one the Right Reverend Bishop Kidder and the other the Reverend Dr. Sherlock And have you not read those Sermons for which the two Houses thanked them and ordered them to be Printed for the Good of the Nation that the Memory of that Great Man might be kept alive and the Sence of his Horrid Murther preserved in the Breasts of the People Come Sir if you have not read them I will give you an Account of some Passages in them both and I beseech you for your Soul 's good to mind them for 't is pity any one Body in the Kingdom should not know them that so they may be preserved from the Poyson and Infection of such scurrilous Books as this of yours is Pag. 20 says the good Bishop On this Day it was that our Soveraign of blessed Memory fell by the Hands of Violence and Wickedness then was his Righteous Blood shed and tho' we gave no explicit Consent to this barbarous Murther and perhaps with the Iews have said That if we had been in the Days of our Fore-fathers we would not have been Partakers with them yet all this while we may deceive ourselves and others if we do not confess this Sin with great humility and abandon all propensity to so great a Wickedness And Pag. 22. says this good Man We may learn what cause we have to be humbled for our Fathers Sins and more particularly for the Wickedness committed on this Day then was the Nation stained with the Righteous Blood of an innocent and excellent Prince that Bloud God will require of the principal Criminals and Accessories also of the first Offenders and their Associates and as we would not be charged with it let us humble ourselves before God the Stain can be removed no otherways than by Tears of Repentance and the Blood of Jesus And truly Sir before I cite the next passage let me tell you here is very bad News for you and all your Adherents and therefore instead of vindicating thorough the hardness of your Hearts I pray you humble yourselves before God that so the continuance in this Sin may not be your Ruin Pag. 25. Speaking further of this Murther he says thus It will admit of no extenuation it was an Action foul and deformed barbarous and cruel without excuse or plea he must be lost to the Reason of a Man and the Tenderness of a Christian whom it strikes not with Horrour Pag 26. We are all concerned in this Day 's Work to bewail the Wickedness of Men and improve the amazing Providence of God And once more We have since this Fatal Blow was given suffered severely and what the Iews say of the Calf in the Wilderness That there is something of it in all their Sufferings may with as much Truth be said of the barbarous Murther of this Day Our Sufferings have been the Product of the horrid Sin of this Day for many of them they bear the Mark and Signatures of it And truly Sir let me tell you if the Bishop be in the right as all good Men conclude he is I am sure you are very much in the wrong and ought to repent and give Glory to God by confessing your great Fault in so villanously bespattering such a Man as this Great and Good King was If after this you look into the Sermon preached the same day before the Commons by that great and well-studied Divine Dr. Sherlock you will find pag. 5. these words The Sin we this Day lament I shall make no scruple to call it what you have this Day in your Publick Prayers to Almighty God confessed it to be the barbarous Murther of an excellent Prince And Pag. 10. If we add to this the Character of his Person and those Princely Vertues which adorned his Life such Vertues as are rarely found in meaner Persons nay which would have adorned even an Hermit's Cell it still aggravates the Iniquity of his Murther And at the bottom
of the Page you will find something that truly concerns yourself and upon that score I have transcribed it There is a Spirit of Zeal and Faction the Principles of which if not restrained will ruin the best Princes and overturn the best Government in the World for they make little difference between Princes when they can find Pretence and Power Now Sir I say again have you not read or at least heard of these two Sermons And durst you then venture out into the World thus armed with hellish Revenge and black Malice to stab the Memory of and murther a-fresh a Prince for whom so great so wise a part of the Nation have so unspeakable and withal so just a Value and Veneration Good God! when Men are once hardned in Sin and by living long in it have contracted Habits and Customs what bold and impudent things will they not both say and do God Almighty open your Eyes and shew you the Evil of your ways before it be too late that so you may not perish in and by this your great Iniquity And now Sir I come to Examine your Letter it self The Title page is General Ludlow's Letter to Dr. Hollingworth Pray Sir how durst you assume this Name for we are not so ignorant who you are as it may be you think we are Pray Sir do not you know that Ludlow for the Name of General belongs not to him hath stood condemned for above Thirty Years as an execrable Traytor by Act of Parliament and that when he had the Confidence to come lately to London the Spirit of the Nation rose so up against him that the then Parliament addressed to the King to issue out his Proclamation in order to apprehend him that he might suffer that Death his Treason deserved and the Law had provided upon Notice of which you know he fled Now certainly Sir you are a very bold Man and 't is pity the Government does not take you at your Word and hang you up in his stead for there is a Debt due from Ludlow to the Justice of the Nation and I know no Man fitter to pay it than he that is so fond of the Traytor as to personate him and in his Name to vindicate those Actions for which he stands condemned There is one thing more I cannot but observe in your Title-page and that is your Quotation out of one of Bishop Burnet's Sermons and by which you would seem to justifie your calling the Thirtieth of Ianuary the Madding-day the Words are these which I transcribe on purpose to let the World see what a Cheat you are willing to put upon your Readers and thereby suppose them to be the most silly Persons in Nature I acknowledge it were better if we could have Iob's Wish That this Day should perish and the Shadow of Death should cover it that it should not see the dawning of the Day nor should the Light shine upon it it were better to strike it out of the Calender and make our Ianuary terminate at the 29th and add these remaining Days to February Now I appeal to any Man of Common Sence and Ingenuity whether he can wrest these words to your malicious Design when they appear at first fight only a Rhetorical Flight whereby that Right Reverend Person would express the detestableness and horridness of the Fact which he bewailed that Day a way that all Orators have given themselves the liberty to declaim against any thing that was notoriously bad in its Nature and Consequences and yet so fond are you of these words in hopes by them to impose upon your credulous Reader that you repeat them again pag. 9. and sillily tell me you hope by them to have offered something to cool my red-hot Zeal for the Observation of that day Poor Man how much are you mistaken when these very Words carry so much in them of the Bishop's abhorrence of the Fact that if it was possible to raise my Opinion of the necessity of still keeping that Day they would contribute towards it The next thing that offers in your Book is an Epistle Dedicatory and pray let us see who are the Persons that are thought worthy to Patronize this modest and harmless Book that tells the Truth the Whole Truth and nothing but the Truth sure either the King and Queen or else the Lords of the Council are only fit to have their Names prefixt to a Book that defends the Rights of the Nation their Laws and Liberties against the Encroachments and Usurpations of a proud Nimrod and hardened Pharaoh and in plain English a merciless Tyrant as you are pleased in your wonted mannerly way to stile King Charles the First pag. 68. No no Sir your Common-wealths-Men are always for encreasing their Party and courting the Populace and therefore this famous Tract must be dedicated To all sincere Lovers of Old England inhabiting in the Parish of St. Buttolphs Aldgate London tho' when we come to examine these Words well I believe you will find you have mistaken your Men and will miss of your Aim in this Dedication If indeed you mean Old England as I am sure you ought to do and which really I believe and that upon good grounds you do not namely the Government of England by King Lords and Commons I do then assure you we have and I thank God for it abundance of those in Aldgate Parish who scorn to suffer themselves to be put upon by such insinuations as these are they love their Country and its Laws and Liberties and desire no more to see the Day wherein Ordinances supersede Acts of Parliament and Kings forced by Tumults from their Palaces and Subjects with armed Force assaulting their Natural Prince and Armies turning their Masters out of Doors and the Faithful and Loyal Nobility and Gentry thrown by the Hands of Violence and against all Law out of House and Home and many of them seeking their Bread in strange Countries who desire no more to see the Day when worthy Persons are forced up to London to compound for their Estates at Goldsmiths and Haber-dashers-Halls only for doing their Duties and standing by their Prince according to the Laws of the Land and the Oaths they had taken no more to see the Day wherein their King is Imprisoned denyed the Comfort of his Servants and Chaplains and at last murthered by a vile Brood a Generation of Vipers who neither fear God nor Man Sir If these be the Men you address to you have lost your Aim and your Letter will find no Welcome to my knowledge in the Parish of Aldgate as for others in my Parish and I know but few of them that are Lovers of Old England in your Sence that is Lovers of Old England as it consists of a very few Lords and half a House of Commons in opposition to and in an actual War with their Lawful Soveraign or as it consists of a Rump made up of Forty eight Persons assuming the Confidence to