there was for a War with so condescending and gracious a Prince and how little the Nation was beholden to those pretended Patriots who commenced a War which hath proved so destructive and fatal to the Nation the Effects of which not only we but our Posterity will feel also I fear for many Generations And now Sir I am ready to take my leave of you but before we part I must needs reckon with you upon the score of a Reflection you have made upon my self You are pleased to say You understand before I came to my Dotage I was a Presbyterian Minister in Essex which Words as often as I have read in the midst of my Sorrows for your scurrilous usage of King Charles have almost forced me to a smile and I cannot but believe that some crafty Knave finding you ready to pick up any Story whereby you might serve your Cause had a mind to put a trick upon you and to expose the Truth of the rest of your Books by this one so well known a Falshood And Sir let me tell you because since the late Persecution in Scotland by that Party of Men it is a greater Scandal to be called a Presbyterian than it was before and because I find abundance of Men have run away with such a Belief of me I will therefore give the World a true Account of myself I was betwixt four and five Years of Age when the Covenant was taken and Twenty one when the King was restored at which time I was a Student in Cambridge in 62 after I had taken time to consider the Nature and Terms of Conformity which by my former Education I was wholly a Stranger to I was Ordained by the Sacred Hands of Bishop Sanderson in the same Church in which I was baptized in 63 I was Licensed by the Bishop of London Dr. Sheldon to a Lecture in London upon the Personal Recommendation of the late Arch-bishop of York Dr. Dolben in which City I continued till 71 when I was presented by King Charles the Second to the Vicarage of Westham in Essex where how I acted like a Presbyterian let the four Tracts I writ and all in the Defence of the Church of England testifie from this place I was removed by Letters Pattents under the Broad Seal of England from King King Charles the Second to the Chaplain-ship of Aldgate which is so called in the Original Deed upon Record in the Rolls and for the Service of which the King has reserved out of the Impropriation an Annual Stipend where how I have lived and discharged my Duty in some sort I leave to the whole Parish to declare It is true Sir I have always been kind to Dissenters and have conversed with all sorts of Men with an equal Freedom and when the great Storm Eight and Nine Years ago fell upon the Dissenters in City and Country I preserved my own Parish from Charge and Trouble to the great endangering of myself which many of them have a grateful Sence of to this day tho' some others have quite forgot it but that is because they are too like your dear self for I never found Gratitude together with many other necessary Vertues amongst Men of your Kidney 't is no part of your Religion And now Sir what satisfaction will you make me for this scandalous Reflection Why truly all I expect is nothing but further Calumnies and Reproaches Backbiting and Slandering of me for that is the proper Trade and Employment of Antimonarchial Men but however Sir let me beg of you but to let the Memory of King Charles the First alone and then I will pardon as well as patiently bear all you can say against me and the more willingly because I think it an Honour to be abused by such Persons as you are Sir I am just upon concluding only spare me one word or two more Whereas you call me in your Epistle An hungry Levite I would have you know I scorn it and here tell you That the Goodness of the Cause I am engaged in carries me above the hopes of adding to what I have and above the fears of losing it all and whereas you say Mr. Love lost his Head upon Tower-hill which you are confident I will never do for any Cause Sir I tell you that by the Grace and Assistance of God had I a thousand Lives I would lose them all at Tower-hill or at another place which you have so long deserved before I would either compose or publish such an infamous Libel against the Piety the Honour and Memory of King Charles the First a Libel which I cannot think you could have writ unless you had been acted by Seven Devils worse than yourself and then I am sure they are Devils indeed And so Sir I take my leave of you praying the God of Heaven if he has not given you over for your past Sins and Provocations to a Reprobate Sence that he would open your Eyes and soften your Heart and cause you to see the evil of your ways that so you may return to him with weeping and fasting and more particularly if you live so long upon the next Thirtieth of Ianuary And hoping this Prayer will not be in vain I subscribe myself Your Soul's Well-wisher Richard Hollingworth Postscript READER WHen thou meetest with any Expressions or Reflections that look too sharp and severe in this Reply I must beg of thee to consider who it is I write against one that has behaved himself thoroughout his whole Libel rather like a Beast of Prey or an infernal Fiend than either a Man or a Christian And what Man can avoid Indignation and suitable Resentments when he accounts with a Monster who is so lost both to Truth and Good Manners as to call that Excellent and Pious Prince and Martyr a proud Nimrod an hardened Pharaoh and a merciless Tyrant READER There is an excellent Book called Vindicae Carolinae an Answer to Milton's scurrilous Book against K. Charles which came out the last Year worthy to be in every good and true English-man's hand And withal there is another Book called A Vindication of King Charles Printed in 48 by that true and steady Divine Mr. Edward Symmonds to whom the King committed the Correcting and Publishing his Incomperable Book which deserves a new Edition and which if no Man's Property for there is none mentioned in the Title-page I will take care to see it Re-printed in which Book there is an admirable Defence of the King and Queens Letters taken at Naseby from p. 174 to p. 185 which I will take care if the Executor of Mr. Royston or any other who has the Right to the King's Works will give me leave to Print some of the King's Declarations to Print with them And Reader I hope I shall have the Assistance of some better Pens than my own for this Cause must not be starved for I am sure upon it depends the Being and Well-being of King and Queen Church and State and every thing else that belongs to a true Lover of Old England indeed FINIS The Armies Petition Ibid. p. 563.
into by a faction against the Consent of King Charles a Covenant to defend themselves and their Religion against all the Usurpations of Rome and the other solemnly nay rather tumultuously and riotously taken against compliance with the Church of England the greatest Bulwark against Rome and all its Encroachments upon the true Government of Christ the Head which I think the Zeal Learning and Divinity of the Members of the Church of England did sufficiently demonstrate the last Reign Away Sir with such stuff as this is and do not fancy the whole Race of Mankind to be so blind as to be lead into such Ditches as such blind and malicious Guides as you are endeavour to seduce them Come Sir the Story is too long for my designed brevity in this Answer and therefore I will give you in short the Sence and Judgment of Mr. Whitlock upon it an Author I suppose none of you will disallow and then leave it to the Candid Reader to think whether this Scotch Rebellion deserves to be extolled and magnified at that rate you have done it He tells you pag. 26. Memor That the King studying tho highly offended at these Asfronts how to compose the Discontents sends Marquess Hamilton his High Commissioner for setling the Peace who when he came thither and asked them what they expected in satisfaction for their Grievances they answered after pretences of Loyalty as all Rebels ever have done till they got Power in their hands that they would sooner renounce their Baptism than their Covenant An admirable sign of their knowledge of the difference of Covenants And pag. 27. he tells you in the King's Name the Marquess proposed moderate and healing things for so I must call them which he contracted into two Proposals which you may read there he afterwards upon a further Consultation with the King to whom he posted came back with a Declaration of the Kings wherein he ordered the service-Service-Book to be nulled together with the Book of Canons and the High Commission with a great many other things mightily gracious and condescending in particular a General Assembly to be held at Glasgow Nov. the 8th and a Parliament at Edenburgh May 5th wherein all by-gone Offences should be pardoned and a General Fast indicted Yet all this would not satisfie these new and blessed Reformers but as the King grants so they lay their Heads together and resolve to make further Demands and that they may encrease their Party Pag. 28. we find their Seditious Remonstrances Declarations and Pamphlets were dispersed and their Emissaries and Agents insinuated into the Company of all those who were any ways discontented or galled at the Proceedings of the State of England And withal he tells us particularly pag. 29. That the Gentlemen who were imprisoned for the Loan disrained for the Ship-money or otherwise disobliged had Applications made to them from the Covenanters and secretly favoured and assisted their Designs so did many others especially those inclined to the Presbyterian Government or whom the Publick Proceedings had any ways disgusted And afterwards when the King had justly raised an Army to suppress these notorious Disorders yet for all that he consents to a Treaty such was his inclinations to do good to his undeserving Subjects and Commissioners are appointed on both sides and they come to a conclusion agreeing upon Seven Articles which the Reader may find pag. 29 which were signed by the Scots Commissioners and a present performance on their part promised and expected though immediately notwithstanding the King as he tells us justly performed the Articles on his side The Scots publish a Paper very seditious and against the Treaty which as it deserved was burnt by the common Hangman and not with standing the first Article agreed upon was To Disband the Forces of Scotland within Twenty four hours after the first Agreement yet these perfidious Persons he tells us kept part of their Forces in a Body and all their Officers in Pay and kept up their Fortifications at Leith And now let the Reader judge by this how deserving these Men are such Commendations as this pestilent and bold Letter-Writer gives them And whereas this scandalizing Person has the Confidence to assert That the king when he came home burnt by the common Hangman the Pacification he had made I must tell him he talks as he hath done all along throughout his Letter falsely and against his own Reading and Knowledge And for this I appeal to Bishop Burnet in his Memoirs of the two Hamiltons where pag. 782. he acquaints us That the Scots published a false and scandalous Paper entituled Some of His Majesties Treaties with his Subjects of Scotland so untrue and seditious that it was burnt by the Hands of the common Hangman And are not you a base Person then to obtrude such a Lye upon the World as you have done but it is no wonder the Father whose Cause you have served in this rude and seditious Libel is the Father of Lies Well Sir after various Rudenesses and Assaults of the Peace and honour of His Majesties Government the Scotch Covenanters sent new Commissioners to the King who pag. 31. had great resort to them and many secret Councils held with them by the discontented English especially those who favoured Presbytery and were no Friends to Bishops I and those who inclined to a Republick had much correspondence with them and they courted all and fomented every Discontent and made large Religious Promises of future happy Days and after all these steady and zealous Enemies to Rome as you esteem them he tells you proclaimed their Discontents and implored Aid from the French King by a Letter under the Hands of many of their principal Actors which they the less doubted upon Confidence of Cardinal Richelieu Con the Pope's Nuncio which I think is much worse than sending a Civil Letter to the Pope as the King when Prince of Wales did and which considering in whose Country he was he could not safely avoid and which is more than you can charge the Memory of Bishop Laud withal but you know Some Men can better steal a Horse then others look on And it has been the Custom of your Party always to sanctifie the vilest of Actions Nay he tells you further that it was said they were encouraged to take up Arms from this Cardinal Richelieu by his Chaplain Chamberlaine whom he sent to them and by a Letter which Hepburn Page to his Eminency brought to divers both here and in Scotland And now Sir I appeal to all the ingenuous and considering to all the wise and unprejudiced part of this Age who read over this Story who were in fault the King or the Covenanters And whether His Majesty had not just reason after such Discoveries as these were to clap up some of them in Prison and whether he had been to blame if for such traiterous Correspondencies with a Popish Prince and a Popish Favourite he had chopt off some of
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
stile themselves The Commons of England and raising Money at Will and Pleasure upon their Fellow-Subjects contrary to the Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom as for such as these you may take them to yourself and make much of them for I assure you they are in no Credit with us who are true Lovers of Old England indeed You begin your Epistle with a prophane Piece of Wit such as Men of your loose and irreligious Temper are always fond of the Subject of namely the Church and the Clergy but the best of it is but borrowed and truly I being so dull as you report me to be shall not undertake to reply to it for fear I should run into the same wicked folly both you and the Author of it have always been apt to be guilty of And besides Sir your hideous and base Reflections upon King Charles the First have made me too melancholly to indulge the gayety of my Fancy if I was naturally given that way I do not cast my eye upon any part of your Book without horrour and consternation of Mind to think there is yet in the World a grey haired Man with one Foot in the Grave provoking God by shooting out his bitter and poysonous Arrows into the Sides of a Person whose Memory is so precious to so vast a Number of the devout and serious part of the Nation and therefore I shall betake myself with all the brevity I can to consider your various Charges you so impudently draw up against the King and Queens Grandfather both in your Epistle and in the Book it self which is more than I am concerned to do because I only undertook to defend the last Eight Years of his Life and acknowledged Mistakes in his Government before which I proved he not only offered but actually rectified and therefore I thought we ought all to imitate God who pardons a Sinner and calls his Errors no more to a remembrance when he testifies his Repentance by a thorough Reformation But God Sir it appears by your Spirit and Actions is none of your Pattern but rather then you will not gratifie your Lusts against this Great King you will look into every part of his Life and arraign him for every particular Error nay will pick up every ill-natured Lye and false Suggestion that his sworn Enemies endeavoured to blast his Credit amongst his Subjects withal and in the mean time not shew so much good Nature or common Christianity as to speak of one of his Vertues tho' so many were conspicuous in him thorough his whole Reign No Sir that would not serve your Ends nor answer the Design of your Party which the wise Men of the Nation are sufficiently aware of and I hope will take Care to prevent In your Epistle you tell us of a Letter which the Prince wrote to the Pope which from the beginning to the end savours of Popery and you mention four Particulars to prove it First You tell us That he prosesses nothing could affect him so much as Alliance with a Prince that had the same Apprehensions of True Religion with himself For God's sake Sir read over the Letter again and tell me where there is such a word or any thing like it I have the Letter now before me as it is in Rushworth and I assure you upon reading it again and again I find nothing like it and I hope I am not so dull but I understand Common Sence and if it was not for the unmannerliness of the expression I would I am justly provoked to say Leave your L Secondly What Sir You say That he calls Popery the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion all others Novelty and Faction In what part of the Letter find you this Sir I tell you it is false there is not one Syllable of this nature throughout the whole and I challenge the whole World of Malice to shew me any thing like it in the Letter And now again Sir who ought to leave there L Thirdly You say That he protested he did not esteem it a matter of greater Honour to be descended from great Princes than to imitate them in the Zeal of their Piety who had often exposed their Estates and Lives in the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. And pray where is the fault in this I hope any Man that knows what the Holy Cross means in its proper sence which is nothing else but the Christian Religion purchased upon the Cross by the Blood of Jesus will say that this Protestation is so far from blackning this Great Prince that it redounds to his Credit and Honour And truly Sir he that considers his Life and Death will say He made this good to a tittle for he lost both not only for his standing up for the Laws of his Country but for the Defence of the best constituted Christian Church in the World Fourthly You say That he solemnly engaged to the Pope to spare nothing in the World even to the hazarding of his Life and Estate to settle a thing so pleasing to God as Unity with Rome Surely Sir you are past all manner of shame and a Man would think you was possess'd for there is not one word of this in the Letter and none but a Person who cares not what Falsities he obtrudes upon the World in order to deceive the silly and credulous part of Mankind would have so boldly Printed such a notorious Falshood as this is and who ought to leave his L Sir And as for his Reply to the Pope's Nuncio which you mention after these Falshoods pray tell me in what Authentick Author I may find it for I assure you you have put so many false things together before that you have so much lost your Credit with me that I will believe nothing of your bare assertion and I do not doubt but every Body that reads us both will be of my mind Come come Sir had you done like an honest Man that was resolved to serve Truth and not a Faction you would have told the World that when the Great Spanish Favourite at his first coming to Madrid began to talk of his changing his Religion he answered He came for a Wife and not for a Religion you would have told us what Mr. Rushworth does pag. 83. That when they used so many various Arts to allure him to Popery that he remained steadfast to his Religion neither did he express any shew of change further you would have told what Mr. Iohnson the Scotch-man in his Latin History of those times acquaints us withal namely that when the Romish Divines came about him and pressed him to profess the Romish Religion and desired that he would hearken to those Reasons they would give him against those who had disturbed their Ancient Religion he positively denied it and let them know He was so setled in his Religion that he would not be pluckt from it you would have further have told When they found all their Attempts upon him in
vain they inveighed against Gondomar because he had informed the King and State that the Prince had a Disposition easie to be wrought upon to be made a Catholick Caba p. 329. But Sir these are real Truths and therefore not fit for the Pen of such a designing Demigogue as you are your business is by degrees to destroy the Monarchy and hope the wounding of this Great and Good Man's Reputation will contribute toward it and therefore no wonder we hear of none of his Vertues and in particular that of his constancy to the Religious Perswasions of his Mind It may be now you expect I should give myself the trouble to answer your first Letter but I will spare my self the labour because I understand it is recommended to a better Hand who understands the Records and Transactions of those times thoroughly and who I do not doubt in time will do you and your leud Book Justice for so I will still call it because it was leudly designed and had as leud an effect for it was the occasion of most of those unmannerly and undutiful Reflections that have been lately made against this excellent Prince both in City and Country which indeed was the only thing that provoked me to the Defence of that King and therefore Sir you that unprovoked began the Quarrel and stirred the Coles are the Makebate and not I who honestly defended a wronged and injured Person which is the Duty of every good Christian Man and will have the Answer of a good Conscience let such as you are rage and foam at Mouth never so much at it The next thing I shall take Notice of is the punishment of Doctor Leighton by representing of which in the blackest Colours you would beget in your Readers bad Thoughts of this excellent Prince and his Reign Sir It may be I am something of your mind that he met with hard Fate and such as if I had been in the World and one of his Judges with my present sence of things I should not have consented to But after all this Sir let me tell you Dr. Leighton was a great Transgressor and deserved a severe Punishment if it be true what Mr. Whitlock writes as I do not in the least question but it is for Mem. p. 14. he tells you his Crimes in these words Dr. Leighton a Scotchman for his Book entituled Sion's Plea dedicated to the last Parliament counselling them to kill all the Bishops by smiting them under the Fifth Rib and railing against the Queen calling her a Canaanite and Idolatress had the Sentence of the Star-Chamber Good Sir must it be Persecution to call such a foul-mouthed Person to an Account and to punish him Why truly then Laws and Governments are very silly and precarious things and Men may say and do what they lift which will certainly make a blessed World and the King's Reign must be bloody that secures itself against the Violence and Railing of the worst of Malefactors Sir Had any Man said or writ at this rate against your beloved Rump I know what Fate he must have met withal and you yourself would have called it Justice and not Persecution And now Sir before I come to your Scotch Affair a few words with you about Pryn Bastwick and Burton whose Story you recite at large in your Book and all with a design to blacken this Prince Sir I have looked into the Story of these three Men with some care and here if you please I will make you my Confessor And I must tell you it is no Credit to you for if I was to choose one for Modesty and Honesty I would as soon pitch upon a Jesuit as your self I do upon a full Consideration of the whole wish from my Heart that their Punishment had been some other way I do not think if it be lawful for a private Person as I am to pass a Judgment upon the Publick Actions of a then Legal Court that the way of punishing those Persons was not at all politick or prudent because not for the Interest as things then stood either of the King or the Church it gave too great an occasion for the designing Men of that Age to open their mouths and thereby to alienate the Hearts of the Common People from the Government and consequently prepared them to joyn with them in any Action of Revenge when time and opportunity should serve and if Bishop Laud had kept in his Study at that time and not appeared at all either to hear the Tryal or assist in the Sentence it had been better both for him and those Designs of Uniformity he had so much set his Heart upon Yet Sir for all that I do not think these three Men were wholly to be passed by because of their several Characters and Professions or that the Justice of the Nation ought to have been afraid of accounting with such bold Men as they shewed themselves Pray let any Man read over their several Writings which were the occasion of those severe Censures and if he be an unprejudiced and undesigning Person and yet commend them I will forfeit a great deal more than I am willing to lose Certainly more violent rude and unbecoming Reflections were never uttered such Sarcasms and Invectives such bare-faced Abuses as if they had got a Pattent from the Powers below to speak evil of Dignities Mr. Burton speaking of the Bishops instead of Pillars calls them Catterpillars instead of Fathers Step-Fathers with abundance of other Aspersions that truly are not fit to be named Dr. Bastwick breathes nothing but Fire and Brimstone and throws down his Thunderbolts upon the Heads of the Bishops as if he was the great Commander of the Clouds And I beg the Reader to take a taste of all the rest from one particular passage which I find in Mr. Whitlock Mem. p. 25. in his Answer to the Information against him in the Star-Chamber you have these words That the Prelates are Invaders of the King's Prerogative Contemners and Despisers of the Holy Scripture Advancers of Popery and Superstition Idolatry and Prophaneness also they abuse the King's Authority to the Oppression of his Loyal Subjects and therein exercise great Cruelty Tyranny and Injustice and in execution of those impious Performances they shew neither Wit Honesty nor Temperance nor are they either Servants of God or the King but of the Devil being Enemies to God and of every living thing that is good Which the said Dr. Bastwick is ready to maintain and Mr. Whitlock adds immediately to shew the wilfulness of the Man That none of his Friends could prevail with him to expunge this and other-like passages out of his Answer Now Sir pray tell me who can plead for such a Spirit as this is or what Government can suffer such Indignities and Provocations as these are As for Mr. Pryn he lived to see and rectifie a great many of his Errors and to be a Thorn in the sides of such Men as
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-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