heinous Sins in the World even the Silencing faithful Ministers causlesly and famishing many Thousand Souls and laying them in Goals that have Charity to relieve them Saith he Doth not the Reader blush for Mr. B. to read such arrogant Censures of a dying Man concerning his Betters Ans Were I not a dying Man the World might more powerfully have tempted me to be like you and to call Evil Good and Good Evil and to regard as little the Interest of Souls and of serious Godliness And are my Betters better than he that bid us pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth more Labourers and that said of such as offend one of his Little Ones it had been better for them that a Mill-stone had been hanged about their Necks and they cast into the Sea Were they better than he that told James and John that they knew not what manner of Spirit they were of when they shewed their natural Inclination to that Prelacy which is now your Glory 1. By desiring to be greatest and to sit at his Right Hand and Left 2. By silencing a Man that used Christ's Name against Devils because he followed not with them 3. By desiring a fiery Punishment upon those that received not Christ and them Are my Betters better than Peter and the Apostles that were for obeying God before Men Or than Paul that charged Timothy so dreadfully as before God and Christ to preach the Word and be instant in Season and out of Season c. Are my Betters so good at Alchimy that they can transform the most heinous Crimes into sacred Vertues and the greatest Duties into odious Sins Reader Oh Who governeth that part of the World where the greater the Sin is the more heinous is his Crime that blameth it And where Repentance and Persuading Men to repent goeth for the most intolerable Evil Were it not that fleshly and worldly Interest were against it I should fear that at last Murderers Thieves Traytors Adulterers Perjured and all such should accuse all those that either accuse them or dissent from them and demand against them the same Punishment for calling them faulty that their own Crimes deserve But though those that have died in Goals for Preaching nothing but the Gospel are out of the reach of these that would kill them again if they did but say You killed us yet One that is better than these persecuting Betters will say In as much as you did it to one of these you did it to me And to accuse us as the Priests and Sadduces did the Apostles You would bring this Man's Blood in us will not transferr the Guilt or Punishment from the Blood-guilty to the Reprover § 114. Accus XCVI Because I say that ancient Christians disobeyed lawful Magistrates in Preaching and Worship he saith As if Christian Magistrates were to be reputed as Heathen Persecuters Ans I. And indeed Were not only Constantius and Valens but also Theodosius II. Arcadius Zeno Basiliscus Anastasius and many such Heathen Persecutors And did not the Bishops of Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem Rome Constantinople and many hundred other Bishops disobey them and many by Arms resist them And is it not as bad to resist Christian Emperors as Heathens I think it was not well done What Historical Proof can convince this sort of Men 2. But see what their Obedience amounteth to Who is to be Judge whether their Rulers be so bad as that the Bishops and People may disobey them Must the Rulers themselves be Judges or every Subject for himself They dare not answer it without Fraud and Confusion But he saith If one read the Preamble to the late Acts you may see that the Cause of making them was not only the late dreadful Experience that the Nation had of the Confusions caused by the preaching of such Men but their present Endeavours to reduce us to the like again Ans 1. He doth not tell you how fully I have answered this in the Apology which he accuseth And every Boy and Woman cannot disprove him 2. Who is to be Judge who the Preachers were that caused our Confusions The old Parliament said it was such as Laud Sibthâ—rp Mainwaring and those that drew the King from his Parliament If I knew this Man to be wiser or greater than the Parliament I might prefer his Judgment and prefer the Hundreds cast out for Scandal before those that are imprisoned for preaching 3. Why would they never grant our frequent Petitions to silence only those that never medled with War or had no Accusation against them for any such Confusions and spare not those that had been guilty Were all the Thousands guilty of the Wars that were Children or School-boys 4. Why were not the Eight Thousand that after conformed guilty of those Confusions as much as the rest Yea many of them had been in Arms against the King's Army 5. Was Declaring Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed in your Books a Means to prevent Wars or Confusions when such Impositions caused them Is silencing ruining and keeping in Goals all that own not so much of your Infallibility the Means to avoid Confusions 6. What were the present Endeavours to reduce you to the like Was it the Presbyterians bringing home the King who they doubted not would set up the revengeful Clergy Why were they not accused for false or seditious Doctrine if they were guilty or forbidden only to preach such but forbidden to preach at all and accused meerly for preaching His long Invective to pag. 148. is partly a false Report of my Words and partly a Justification of all their Persecutions and an Outcry against a Persuasive to Repentance Let the Reader but peruse the Books accused and I desire him but to judge as he seeth cause § 115. Accus XCVII If the Reader will himself read my Treatise of Episcopacy which he accuseth I will make no other Defence of it than what it maketh for it self But his Words convince me not that Reproving Persecutors is worse than Persecuting § 116. Accus XCVIII He maketh it my Pride to print Mr. Glanvile ' s Letter to me though I disowned harshly his excessive Praise while Dr. Stillingfleet had called me to it by printing Foreigners Letters against us And I must be yet more proud for telling Bishop Morley and Gunning that I offered them a Way if Christian Concord more sure and harmless than that which they had tried because it was more divine being only to unite in what Christ hath instituted Ans 1. It is no pride to say that Christ is greater and wiser than those Bishops and that to unite in his own instituted Terms of Union issurer than the Terms of their Canons or Act of Uniformity Is it pride in all the Protestants that to the Papists prefer Scripture-sufficiency to their Canons § 117. Accus XCIX He falsly alledgeth the reason of my unsatisfiedness with Dr. Stillingfleet ' s Concessions One of the chief was that he
ways delayed their Relief Though he offered to go over himself the Parliament fearing he would go to Head the Irish 24. The King had before assaulted the Parliament-House in Person with Armed Men to have surprized Five Members and the Lord Kimbolton whom he accused And after frustration confest it a Breach of their Privileges 25. The Money sent Dolbier to buy German Horses and other actions and the Confessions of Sir Jacob Astley Sir John Conniers Sir Fulke Haukes my Mother-in-laws Brother Chidley and the other Commanders of the English Army that were to have been drawn up to London together with the King 's putting a Guarding Regiment on them did put me past all doubt that they were devoted to violence had they not defended themselves And no vain Talk to the contrary can make me doubt of it to this day So that though I think they had done more prudently to avoid War had they spared Strafford and Laud to please the King yet I am fully satisfied that afterward they were necessitated to save themselves from designed Force 26. I am certain that two things filled the Parliaments Armies And both of grand Importance 1. That all over the Kingdom save here and there a sober Gentleman and a formal Clergyman the Religious Party and all that loved them were generally for the Parliament alienated from the Persecutors and Silencers And the Profane Party in all Countries Debaucht Gentlemen Malignant Haters of Piety the Rabble of Drunkards Blasphemers were generally against the Parliament And religious People were loth to herd with such And could hardly believe that in so great a Cause God would reveal the Truth to all his Enemies the sensual Rabble and hide it from the generality of them that fear him And especially that in most Countries the Malignants forced away the Religious and either rose against them themselves or set the King's Soldiers to Plunder and Destroy them My own Father living 18 Miles from me was Plundered by the King's Soldiers though he never scrupled Conformity nor ever medled against the King and was thrice laid in Prison and had still lain there had not Sir Fulke Haukes his Brother in Law been by Prince Rupert made Governour of Shrewsbury and this for nothing And after laid in again till the Town was taken This last was only because when they made him Collector for the King he refused to distrein of those that paid not fearing lest he should be put to repay it And almost all the Religious People of Kederminster were forced to fly and leave their Houses and Trades to their undoing to save their Lives though they had never medled with Wars And the men that had no maintenance of their own were forced to become Garison-Soldiers in Coventry to avoid Famine The second thing and the main that drove men to the Parliament Garisons and Armies was the Irish Murders with the Papists Power with the King They thought that it must be an unusual War that should Kill Two hundred Thousand As dreadful as it was I do believe that all the Wars of England Kill'd not Fifty thousand nor near it And though Fear which is a Tyrant overcame partly their Discretion yet this joyned with the Experience of that which forced them from home was too strong a tryal for most to overcome And it confirmed their Suspition when the Queen brought in a Popish Army under General King and the Earl of Newcastle's Army had so great a number of Papists and after the Earl of Glamorgan was authorized to have brought over an Army of Irish Papists and the English Regiments that fought there against them had been called hither to fight against the Parliament and were routed at Nantwich No wonder if men thought that England would have been made too like to Ireland whether the King would or not had such Armies Conquered 27. The Parliament Protested to be for the King and not against his Person or Legal Power or Prerogative but only against his Illegal Will to defend themselves and the Kingdom from an unlawful Army and to bring Delinquents to Legal Tryal and Punishment And they accordingly gave out all their Commissions till the Cause was changed by fairfax's Commission that left out the King And the Soldiers of the Garison where I was commonly believed this to be their Obligation and the true Case of the War viz. Offensive against armed Delinquents as the Sheriff may raise the Posse Comitatus and Defensive against the Kings illegal Will and Way 28. I did believe that if the King by such an Army as he had should Conquer the Parliament the Legal and all Probable Security of the Nation for Life Property Liberty and Religion was in all likelihood gone If it should lye on the King's Will only thereby it were gone For what then were our Constitution or Parliaments for and what differ we from Slaves And were he willing and those with him that meant well he would not be able to Master such an Army 29. I did believe that if the Parliament were certainly more faulty than they were the Kingdoms Security was not therefore to be forsaken by the Subjects nor all Parliaments and Government to be left to the Will of the King who had for so many years interrupted Parliaments and dissolved them still in Displeasure and had raised Taxes called Ship-money by himself without them and on the same account might command all the rest Therefore I owned not any of the discerned Miscarriages of the Parliament but only thought I was bound to defend the common Good and Safety as it was the End of Government My judgment yet is That if the King of England wrongfully begin a War against France the Subjects ought by Arms to help him not owning his wrong Cause but to save the Kingdom which would be lost and enslaved if he were Conquered So the fault of the Parliament could not disoblige the People from labouring to secure the Constitution of the Kingdom and therein their Posterities Properties Liberties and Safety And the bare Promise of a King is no such Security 30. I did believe that if there were a Controversie in these Cases the Supream Council and Judicature of the Kingdom had the most satisfying Power of Determination to particular Persons As the Judgment of a General Council is preferable to any lower Judges and the Judgment of the College of Physicions is more authoritative than of a single Dr. And the Judgment of the University is more than of the Vice-Chancellors or one Man And tho yet it may fall out that the Dissenter may be in the right the unlearned that cannot confidently judge are more excuseable for not resisting the higher Judges 31. Obj. By this Rule whatever wrong a Parliament shall do to the King we must all take their part against him And if they betray their Trust we must bear them out in their Treachery Ans 1. Distinguish between a wrong to the King and the betraying of the
War stated by the Parliament Commissions for the King and Parliament I was in it and for it Because 1. He that is for the Highest Power in a Civil War is of the righter side caeteris paribus than he that is against it but they that were for King and Parliament were for the Highest Power in our Civil War Proved They that were for them that have the Legislative Power were for them that had the Highest Power as Morley confesseth and almost all others But they that were for King and Parliament were for them that had the Legislative Power Ergo c. Obj. What Hypocrisie is it to shoot at the King and say you fight for him Ans 1. The King protested to be for the Parilament as his Shrewsbury Half Crowns shew while he fought against their Armies and Persons Ergo the Parliament might more clearly be for the King while they fought against his Army and not his Person though in the Field 2. They knew that the King had discretion enough to keep his Person out of the reach of Danger And so he did At Edgehill he stood on the Hill as I heard and look'd down on the Fight in the Field At Naseby where he was nearest he was safe but that was after the first Cause and War I never heard else that he came near 3. Else any Traytor that could possess the Kings Person and carry him about as they did Henry VI. should be for the King and all against him that would rescue him Obj. He was willingly with his Army Ans He may fight for the King that doth it against his Will while he doth it not to hurt his Person Prerogative or Rights We Sware not to be for all the Will of the King If in a Passion he would kill Himself his Son his Lords his Parliament yea or would but Ravish a Woman he may be held and resisted Arg. 2. They that were to bring King and Parliament again to Union fought for the King and Kingdom and the Highest Power for it is the Constitution But the first Wars Commissions were to bring the King and Parliament to Unity Ergo c. Arg. 3. They that were really for the Common Safety and Salus Populi and the very Constituted Form of Government in a case of notorious danger and only against an Army of Subjects that fled from the Justice of the Supream Judicature were righter than those that were against their Wars But c. Ergo c. Arg. 4. They that were for a Defensive War according to Law and Constitution were righter than they that raised War against them contrary to Law and Constitution But c. Ergo c. The Parliament to the last were against all violence to the Person of the King and were cast out by Cromwell for Voting to receive him As it was easie for Bradshaw and â—ook to Charge all the Bloodshed on the King so is it fo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accuser to Charge it according to his Judgment But all of us must be willing of Conviction and deep Repentance so far as we shall be proved guilty Arg 5. The present King and Parliament have by Practice and by Law declared the right of more than Arming and Resisting a King in several Cases Arg. 6. In a doubtful Case under God there is no Judge that hath a deciding power above the Supream Judicature § 50. Accus XXXVII He next accuseth me as falsly Charging the peaceable Reign of King Charles the First with Persecution wherein there was no such thing but Peace save against the Seditious And he appealeth to the Canons Ans 1. See the Preface to my Book called Cain and Abel for an answer to this 2. We appeal to the Canons too and to the Bishops Visitation Articles and to the experience of all England that delight not in the Destruction of the true Servants of Christ 3. But alas how far are Leeches from feeling the smart of the Persons whose Blood they feast upon The Papists say none were punished in Queen Mary's days but the Hereticks and Seditious So saith the King of France And so said the Irish when they Murdered 200000. 4. Q. 1. Was there nothing but Amiable Peace when Laud and others wrote for a Forreign Jurisdiction under the Name of our obeying the Pretorian Power of Forreign Councils Q. 2. Was it Sedition not to Read the Book for Sunday Sports and Dancing which exempted Children and Servants from the Government of their Parents and Masters For which many Ministers suffered Q. 3. Was it Sedition for Religious people to go hear a Conformable Preacher at the next Parish when they had no Preaching at Home Q. 4. Was it Sedition for Religious people to pray with their Sick Friends and Fast and Humble themselves to God without Travelling to the Bishop for a License Q. 5. Was it Sedition for a Man Vowed to the Ministry by Episcopal Ordination to Preach or Expound any matter in the Church or elsewhere without a new License from the Bishop Q. 6. Was it Sedition for any Man Noble or Ignoble to affirm that any thing was repugnant to the Word of God in the Ceremonies Liturgy Ordinations or the Et caetera Government of the Church Q. 7. Was it Sedition to refuse the false Et caetera Oath of 1640 Q. 8. Was it Sedition to say that other Societies in England were true Churches besides the Episcopal Churches At least the French and Dutch Q. 9 Was it for Sedition that Men were punished for not Receiving the Sacrament when the Conscience of their ignorance and unfitness deterred them Q. 10. Were the many thousand Families that were put to fly the Land to Holland and America punished for nothing but Sedition Were New England and Barmudas planted without any Persecution Or was it no punishment to be driven from House Land Goods Kindred and Native Countrey into an unplanted Wilderness among VVoods and wild Men and Beasts Q. 11. Was it no Persecution to be Excommunicate ipso facto by Canons 6 7 8 c. without being admonished or heard Q. 12. Was it nothing but Amiable Peace that laid all the Ten sorts of the Excommunicate named in the Statute in the common Goal during Life depriving them there of their Estates unless they Lied by a feigned Repentance Q. 13. Yea was it only harmless that made Seriousness in Religion such a common Scorn as the word Puritane then signified if Mr. Robert Bolton Bishop Abbot Bishop Downame and other Conformists may be believed But say these Accusers All this was but justice and was well done But the casting out of two hundred accused on Oath for gross scandal and utter insufficiency by the Parliament was Persecution and was not well done § 51. Accus XXXVIII Next I am accused because other Men exploded the Lords Prayer Ans 1. And what is that to me that constantly used it 2. And who may not see that the use of it was prescribed in the Directory 3. And the Presbyterian
tearing the Church and extirpating serious Piety is against them So do the Papists accuse them that blame their Murders and Inquisitions § 41. Accus XXVIII Because I said The War was begun in our Streets by the ungodly drunken Rabble seeking our Lives he saith In plain English Mr. B. with other Reformers put themselves into Arms seizing on the Kings Forts and making them Garrisons against the King and this before King or Parliament had any Armies Ans In plain English this Lie is shameless Unless a poor hired Chamber was the Kings Fort I seized on none The first time the drunken Rabble rose up against me was for preaching Original Sin They said that I slandered their Children The next was for Reading the Parliaments Order to deface the Pictures of the Trinity The third was by bringing in Souldiers that drove me away And it was long after this ere I had a private Lodging in Coventry § 42. Accus XXIX Page 26. He maketh the repetition of his Forgery a proof that I was guilty of Perjury 1. Because I was prejudiced against the Bishops at Nineteen and yet at Ordination took the Oath to obey my Ordinary in Licitis Honestis Ans 1. I did not Swear an approbation of Persecution I was not then prejudiced against Episcopacy but against the sin of Bishops May not a Man disown such shameless Liars as some Ministers are without disowning the Ministry 2. I was prejudiced against Bishop Morton at Fourteen Ans Utterly false I honoured him to his death But when I came to better understanding I disliked turning Confirmation to a meer Ceremony For the right use of which I have written a Treatise agreeing to Dr. Hammond 3. He nameth my omitting the Cross and Surplice Ans I never Sware nor Promised to use them being in no station that obliged me to it And was under an Ordinary that required it not And I have confest my sin in rath subscribing to their lawfulness § 43. Accus XXX Page 27. He tragically reciteth the reasons I alledged why I was for the Parliament But his confutation is only by an Exclamation how bad I was as worse than Cook and Bradshaw as if I had been for the death of the King When he knoweth that the Parliament was broken up by Cromwell for being for the Kings Restoration and their Union And that a Faction called the Rump did this as Cromwell's Confederates I believe I did more against that Faction than many such as he § 44. Accus XXXI Page 27 28. With what Heart could he be an Eye-witness of the Inhumane Butcheries that had been made in almost every Fight from the beginning of the Wars Ans A Lie so gross that it feigneth me to see far off where I never was I have answered it before I was an Eye-witness of many of Gods provident disposals and an Ear-witness of more I saw the Field where they fought near Worcester and Edgehill and Nantwich and I saw many Garrisons Wem Leicester Shrewsbury Exeter Sherburne Bristol Winchester that had been taken But I saw not the Fights at any one of these But that at Langport that ended the Field War I saw afar off but saw none kill'd for they fled I think before a Man was kill'd § 45. Accus XXXII I repent not of saying that I was rescued from many dangers Nor that I had many tedious Nights and Days in that Army which after Naseby Fight I hazarded my Life and spent my Labour to have undeceived and had many doleful sights and tidings I saw the Graves and some of the Corps in Ditches near Edgehill of the Parliaments Souldiers there kill'd and many that lay unburied When after I lived in peace at Coventry how oft were Souldiers of that Garrison brought home Mortally wounded and many slain Few Weeks past in which we heard not of Fights in Fields or Garrisons Which I thought it lawful to call doleful tidings § 46. Accus XXXIII Because I named the doleful Fights at Worcester Edgehill Newberry Nantwich Montgomery Horncastle Naseby York Langport c. he addeth It seems he was present in these Fights Ans Not at any one of them save Langport I said My Eyes shalt no more see the Earth covered with the Carkasses of the slain Which was at Edgehill the next day after where I had no more to do than any other that would see the place § 47. Accus XXXIV He had travelled over the most of England to pursue the War Ans It was much and not most and it was to have prevented the Change of Government and not to pursue the War that I went § 48. Accus XXXV Page 29. He feigneth me accordingly to see many Noble Lords and Gentry perish in their integrity some perhaps by his own Hand Ans All meer Forgery I never saw any such hurt nor ever hurt any But at Coventrey I did encourage the Garrison and at Wem § 49. Accus XXXVI His next is a common Accusation of me by his Party that I speak of Brook Prin Hambden and White as of Men in Heaven Ans I think so still Prin and White were never Souldiers Our Creed containeth not any Article that decideth Controversies about the various forms of Government Christ never told us how much of the Supremacy was in Caesar and how much in the Senate and People and which of them had the Legislative Power Nor whether England be an Absolute or a Limited Monarchy nor whether the Parliament have part of the Legislative and Self-defending Power And those that best knew these Men especially Hambden and White took them for Men in all other respects of Great Wisdom Piety and Honesty If among the old Romans all the Civil Wars between the Senate and the Emperors and one Emperor and another when of Forty scarce Ten died a Natural Death but were Murdered had inferred the Destruction and Damnation of all that were against the Censuring side how few would have escaped When setting up Emperors and killing them was so common that Souldiers set the Crown to Sale I never heard that Brutus or Cato or Cicero or Seneca or Lucan and such others might not have their Virtues praised and that above their Enemies though they died as esteemed Rebels I am sure these Men that reproach me for this Charity have a Law to turn me and all Nonconformists out of the Ministry if we were to bury such a Man and would not profess our Hope of his Salvation For they bind us to do it of every individual person buried in the Land except the Unbaptized Excommunicate and Self-Murderers And exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis And because the Sum of his Accusations is the War the War I will once more give him a Summary Answer If he mean the War before the new modelled Army and new Commission which left out for the King after Naseby Fight I did more against that new Cause and War than he and perhaps many such as he If he mean the first