remember what Agesilaus answered a Cittizen of Sparta who desired an alteration of Government that that kind of Government which a man would disdaine in his own house were very unfit to govern great Regions by and who is not of his mind that said he had rather live under one wiseman though cruell then under the barbarous cruelty of the multitude And for those in Parlament are not all they all those new Statists accepted so Just and Honorable and the rest so Honest and Loyall that they will never habour in their Breasts such monstrous and unnaturall thoughts against their Kâ—ng and Country howbeit some doe think that there are many of them of both Houses which are used but as Codicils to a Testament or as small Boates to great Ships to which they be fastned and from which they are let loose at the pleasure of the Testator in the one case and of the Pilot in the other but the Masse of the Estaâ—e is disposed of by the Testament and the tall Masts broad Sailes Tackle and Furniture born by the greatest Ships which having so fastned their Boates unto them would enforce them as some think to adventure a Voyage to the Red Sea rather then faile of their prizes which those great Ships these new Statists so much labour for though they even also as in Charity I am bound to think if when the Act for perpetuating this Parlament was to have been passed they could have been informed as Hazaell was by an Elisha how thereby it would come to passe that the strong holds of the Kingdom should be set on fire and their young men slain with the Sword and so many thousand of soules perish by Blood and Rapine they would not then have answered with Hazaell what are are we dogs that we should do this great thing Howbeit since they making no medium inter praecipitia summa seem to take delight in that which before they had prosest to detest and abhor non est h ec universalis dementia But thou O Lord stillest the raging of the Sea and the noise of the Waves and the madnesse of the people thou makest warrs to cease in all the world thou breakest the Bow and snappest the Spear in sunder and burnest the Chariots in the fire But yeâ— it is safest trusting when we take from the King all means of breaking we have our brethren the Scots with a great Army to assist us And that Member in the Assembly of Divines in his Sermon 27 Martii 1644 before-mentioned assures us that the cause is invincible and that God had smitten the generality of the Land with Madnesse Blindnesse and Astonishment of Heart and that it may be feared lest the Spanish or Irish or other Forraigners may beg the whole Land of the King and obtain it alledging that the Nation is not Compos Mentis And that this Work in hand is a Mysterie a Parad x a Riddle a Secret that doth require a Revelatiâ—n and that shallow headed narrow hearted Carnalists are pusled in it But yet I say there is a God that frustrateth the tokens of the lyers and maketh Dâ—ines mad that turneth wise men backwa d and m keth their knowledge foolish Isaiah 24.2 Thâ—ugh Balaam was hired to curse yet he was â—nâ—orced to say that the shout of a King is amongst them Numb 23.21 And it is true that God by the assistance of our brethren hath made us prevalent and that hath also put into the Kings heart to trust him with his person when we proclaimed it Treason to those here that should harbor or conceal him And that hath also moved the Kings heart to do and consent unto whatsoever the Parliament shall in reason require for the good of his people And do we yet hesitate It seems that we having done we know not what we now know not what to do and is not this Universalis Dementia Oh my soul come not thou into their secret into their Assemblie mine honour be not thou united for in their anger they slew a man and in their self-will they digged down a wall Cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it was cruel But for those Worthies and the rest of the Parliament blesse God for their brethren who he hath made the happy instruments for our happy peace so neer at hand if not hindered by those before mentioned However I will rest assured that if this fail that neverthelesse deliverance shall arise to our King from another place and at another time I confesse that with God Dies hora momentum in evertendis omnibus sufficit quae adamantinis radicibiu videntur esse fundata and that Englands sins deserve these plagues It is God that changeth the times and the seasons and removeth Kings and setteth up Kings it is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good But yet in this if they should prevail the best that shall be said of it concerning themselves will be that for some short time prosperum scelus vocatur virtus but afterwards the rods themselves shall be cast into the fire in the mean this of the Poet may chance to be verified Committat eadem diverse Crimina fato Ille Crucem sceleris praetium tulit hic Diadema But these sad and melancholy considerations hath brought me so far into this Universalem Dementiam that if I conclude not quickly I must be committed to Bedlam into Bethlehem yet who but a Nero can sit and sing when Rome burns and who but a Faux mourns not at the destruction or his Countrey for the transgression of the land Many are the Princes thereof by a man of understanding and knewledge the state thereof shall be prolonged My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change for their calamity shall arise suddenly It is high time that in this great prease we hasten to come with the Woman in the Gospel and touch the garment of our Saviour and so have the fountain of blood dried up for which we have suffered many things of many Physitians and have spent all that we had and are nothing better but rather grow worse And if this land enjoy either a setled peace or a lasting prosperity untill this perpetual Parliament be either ended or limited then have I not erected my Figure aright but my Star hath misâ—led me It wâ—uld be too too vain for me to go about by guesses and surmises to say who are the Impostors new Statists or the evil Councellors that have continued this Tragedy to be acted in our Nation S. John who was a burning and shining light did bear record of him who wrought our salvation and the same light will also in due time bear record of those who have wrought our destruction onely my prayer for the whole Parliament to Almighty God is that they may be reconciled to the King and his royal heart to it that so these flames may be quenched that do so much threaten ruine to them both and to the whole Church and State And thus having told you my thoughts if the time present or future shewes any thing herein serious account it then to be done in my Lucida intervalla and till then both that and the rest to be done in my fits of this Vniversalis Dementia therefore fi st read them and silence them Onely let my Friends Children and Grandchildren know in what faith I died and in what fear I lived and so vale in haec ab haec universali dementia FINIS THere is a very useful book for these times lately printed Intituled A Legacy left to the World by that able Lawyer Richard Creswel Serjeant at Law late one of the Judges of the Court of Common-Pleas Addressed in his life time to his four Sons in Law and are to be sold by any un-biassed Stationers any where Wherein is handled the Matters of Government which hath so much distracted these three Kingdomes so long and resolves the right out of Gods Law and Mans for the satisfying of all indifferent men
ENGLANDS UNIVERSAL DISTRACTION In the Years 1643 1644 1645. Left to the VVorld by a judicious and conscientious Author for the use of his Friends Children and Grand-Children when they come to years of discretion And may be very useful for all men to read and practise in these distracted times Printed in the Year of our Lord MDCLIX ENGLAND'S Universal Distractions in the years 1643 1644 1645. I Confesse I am one of Queen Elizabeths Protestants being above my full age in her time and now grown an old man and in all my time we ever believed notwithstanding the bold and desperate Treatises of some few enemies to Kings and Kingly power to the contrary that the Jura Regalia of Kings are holden of Heaven and cannot for any cause escheate to their Subject nor they for any cause make any positive or active forcible resistance against them but that we ought to yield to them passive obedience by suffering the punishment even though their commands are against the Law of God and in such case Arma nostra sunt Preces nostrae nec debemus aliter resistere for who can lift up his hands against the Lords anointed and be guiltless so that in all my time it was conceived that the Jesuists and some Papists onely believed that the Pope had authority to depose and destroy Kings But now some amongst our selves who having the jaundies see all things yellow have their eyes so dazled by looking after Reformation which yet they know not cither what it is or will be through those crackt and broken spectacles of Innovation and ambition of singularity and faction that they think themselves should become stark blind it they should but cast one good look upon the peace of the Kingdom and not trample under foot Monarchy and Magistracy and by flouds of popularity drown us in confusion and Anarchy as if Imperium in Imperio quaerendum esset this being the onely difference between those Papists and them the former by Gun powder seeking to destroy both King and Parliament together and the latter first the King by Parliament and then next both Parliament and Kingdom by the People For can it be doubted but time when Appeals are made to the People and they imployed and set on work about publick actions which ought hot to have been done but by the hand of Authority they will too soon learn their own strength that summa potestas radicatur in voluptatibus hominum and that then Popularis potentia optimorum potentiam superat The Senate of Rome seared it upon a lesse occasion when they recall'd their Edict that Slaves should weare a certain Mark to discover them from Freemen lest by comparing the multitude of the one by the paucity of the other some like great danger might ensue to their Senate and Republick And in truth some fear that this Mysterie countenanced under the Title King and Parliament worketh by such hidden and secret influences and insinuations that Solons decree that every man that in a general commotion was of neither party should be adjudged infamous would be now amongst us too severe and penal for certainly there be some conscientious men who albeit in respect of their allegiance and love to their King on the one side and the honour and reverence they owe to Parliaments on the other side they may seem to other to stand at gaze in this via bivia conceiving it to be via nivea yet are they nevertheless in truth of the number of those in Amos Chap 5. Vers 13. The prudent shall keep silence at that time for it is an evil time And howsoever there be divers others of better resolutions as men both informed and perswaded yet are there many more of a third sort of an Ostrich digestion that are perswaded before they arc informed and now will not be informed because they will not be perswaded By this confusion became my thoughts distracted and my self incountred with such and so many difficulties in my way which my apprehensions are too narrow to apprehend or my knowledge to resolve and the more I strive to melt my brains into an invention of this allay the more I find them like the Jewels of the Israelites turn'd into a Calf meer foolishness and therefore so repute and accept them as from a distracted man of a distracted subject in a distracted time wherein we all now live and labour sub universali quadam dementia of which to examine the causes besides our sins of this Nation would far exceed the slender capacity of a mean Subject and is become a question too deep and dangerous sithence the same already have long been and yet are urged with more violent arguments and sharper Syllogismes then by the weak weapons of Instruments made with paper and with more forces and distinctions then can proceed from any legall or logicall Engine It is thou O God that hast moved the Land and divided it and hast shewed thy people heavy things and hast given them a drink of Deadly Wine lettest them to be eaten up like sheep makest them to be rebuked of their Neighbours to be laughed to scorn and had in dirision of them that are round about them the dead bodies of thy servants are given to be meate to the fowles of the Aire and the flesh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the land and those that remaine thou hast smitten in the place of Dragons and covered them with the Shadow of Death Our Fathers slaine by their own Sons they by their own Brothers they by their own Kindred and Allies they by their Friends and neer Neighbours and those by their own Nation of their own House of their own Faith of their own Religion Tacitus reports that in the civill wars between Vitillius and Vespatian it happened that a Souldier had killed his own Father which was of the Enemies Army which thing was no sooner published but every man begins to Abhor Condemn and Execrate that War the cause of such an unnaturall fact though there might have been said quare fremuerunt Gentes infidiles Romae yet here it shall be said quare fremuerunt Gentis Christiani Angliae It is become a crime amongst us to say Nulla salus bello pacem te poscimus omnes When even all on either part or Inrolled Proclaimed or Declared either for Rebells Delinquents or Malignants though many of them I am confident fight with no other weapons but precibus lachrimis on their bended knees to their offended and revenging God incessantly praying for the peace of the Nation One that Numa's Temple dedicated to Janus might not be still kept open that the Dice of this civill uncivill war may not still be running which ever runs hazard on both sides and drawes the heart blood as well of the innocent as nocent It is made an Aphorisme or Generall Rule in Physick that in the naturall bodies the longer they are in health the more dangerous is the Disease when it cometh and
the longer in cuting as having none of those humors spent which by distemper gave sovent and force to the approaching Malady So in Politick bodies when civill warre once seizeth upon a Country rich in the plenty of a long peace and full with the surfeits of a continuall ease it never leaves purging those superfluities till all be wasted and consumed quae alia res civiles furores peperit quam miniâ—a faelicitas the Sinnes of our Peace brought upon us the miseries of man and now we are denied the Blessing of Peace If a man disingaged and in his right wits shall seriously ponder the printed passages between King and Parlament and those hostile Proceedings and Plunderings Rapins and Ruines Distractions Destructions on both sides and then demand unde haec dementia his Genius cannot readily prompt him to find it out unlesse by a Divine Scrutiny for it is not to be found in this Embleme as some perhaps do dreame of a mad conceipt of some of old that a huge Gyant beares up the Earth with his Shoulders which he changeth every 30. yeares for ease And that such Removall causes Earthquakes which they also observeÌ„ for an Embleme of Kings because the burthen of the whole world lies on the Shouldiers of Soveraigne Authority And then we marvalle if they cannot say with King David Ego sustinco calumnas ejas that we have such Earthquakes in their change as turnes our braines into this Universalem dementiam for some in this turning of their braines began to think in their fiâ—s that because by the Law of the land it is unlawfull for a King to give a way his Kingdom from his lawfull Heire so that for a King to give power to hold not for a year two or three but a perpetuall Parlament a power inseperably incident to his Crown had been inconsistent with Monarchy And albeit that suprema potestas seipsum dissolvere yet ligari non potest like as it is in the power of a man to kill a man but not in his power to make him alive and yet to restaine him from breathing But this new conceipt I hold as mad as that before mentioned O hers would have it in this that the Soveraigne was too blame too give and the Subject too bold to ask the perpetuall Custody of that key which shuts and opens the Cabinet of State wherein all the parts of the Republick are lockt up from the making too neer approches upon Royalty Solomon say they upon a jealousie far more forraigne could deny the suite of his own Mother for when Bathsheba desired a small petition of him although he answered he could not say her nay yet when she said Let Abisha the Shunamite be given to Adoniaâ— his Brother to Wife he could not reply why dost thou ask Abisha the Shunamite for Adoniah ask for him the Kingdom also And our Saviour Christs answer to the Mother of Zebedees Children might say they have taught the King to have satisfied such a demand of his Subjects for she with her Sons coming to Christ and desiring a certain thing of him which was to grant that those her two Sons might sit the one at his right hand and the other at his left in his Kingdom they received this answer ye know not what ye a k. And it is observable that even in this Kingdom as the Soveraign hath seldome prospered that trampled down the subjects just liberties so the subjects as seldome prospered that climbed up to lop off the Kings just Prerogative for in Truth God so disposeth in Justice both of King and Subject that as that of the subjects liberties doth in his own hands breed a comfort to support him in his allegiance and loyalty to his King yet doth the same in the hands of the King breed a Canker to eat him out of the love and affection of his subjects So that if the Kings prerogative which in his own hands becomes a Scepter to protect us from ruine yet doth the same in the hands of a Subject become a Spade to Grave us to death The truth is that the best Princes being ever the least jealous have sometimes for a just satisfaction to their People been drawn to part with some of their Royal power to them and the People no doubt demanded the same of their Prince without any evil intent at first which nevertheless being once obtained through some after-error either in the end or in the means in the motion or in the moderation thereof have proved unto them little better then the stollen flesh from the Altar which by the 〈◊〉 that stuck unto it consumed both her self and the yong ones with the Nest it self We need not travel into aliena Republica being not without Eâ—samples here at home of this kinde but now unseasonable either for recital or application We know that God gave unto the Israelites Quailes and Manna Angels food when they lusted in the Wildernesse yet withal sent leannesse into their souls and it came out again at their nostrils and was sowre unto some of them for they murmured against Moses their Prince And it was not to be doubted but that this Act for the continuance of the Parliament was by both Houses at the first generally intended for the soveraign antidote to cure all diseases of the Kingdom Yet observe its Omen in their Remonstrance of December 15. 1641. It is acknowledged that there seems to be in that Act some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it so then the power shall remain onely the exercise of it is taken away though some may object that Vdna est illa potentia qua nunquam venit in actum And it is also in that Remonstrance said that without that Act they must have lest the then both Armies to disorder and confusion and the whole Kingdom to Blood and Rapine whereas the event hath wofully shewed that upon confidence of that Act for without it they had never been are raised many more Armies which hath already brought to disorder and confusion to blood and rapine almost the whole Kingdom So that this Act intended to avoid civil war hath proved the ready means so to kindle it as that the flames thereof are like to consume us all taâ—â—â— est haec universalis dementia This Royall Slip or Root of Monarchy became no sooner to be transplanted into a Popular soyl but from them have in a short time sprung forth all the feares and jealousies all the disturbances and tumults raised by factious and seditious spirits The dividing of the King from the two Houses of the Lords from the Lords and of the Commons from the Commons Remonstrances Declarations Protestations and Covenants on either part seizing on the Kings Forts Revenues Customes Ammunition and Navy the Tenth part Taxes Seisures Sequestrations Plunderings Excises raising of great Armies of Souldiers Milites Armati Milites
Literarii Milites Clerici the whole Army marching in their several postures First the Milites Literarii with their distinctions between Monarchy absolute and limited limited and mixed between a Power Radically limited and not onely in the use and exercise of it between a Moral Power to resist and an authoritative and civil power between resistance of the King himself and of his Agents and Officers between Resistance positive and active negative and passive between Jus Regiminis Usurpationis according to Gods Law and Mans Law Also the resistance in such case is not a resistance of Power but of his Will not fighting against the Magistrate but against the Man And the King not performing his duty the Subjects are released from theirs with many more ejusdem farinae which they interpret is to fear God and honour the King Nexâ— to them do march Milites Clerici many of them armed with Fâ—rebrands Tongues of Sedition having their very Pulpits made chaires of Juglers entertaining the people with shameless Pasquils and Discourses grounded upon the malice of the time and stuft with Schismes Heresies and Tyrannie and they also becoming Trumpets to sound forth Quaerelas ambiguâ—s de Principe Sermones quaeque alia turbamenta vulgi having weekly to follow them that no excrement be lost that may averse and bring in odium Majesty and Government the mendatious Mercuries and Pamphlets of the time And in the last rank do march the Milites armati who as the Sabeans and Chaldaeans did with Iob have taken away our Oxen plowing and Asses and Camells feeding and have slain our Servants with the edge of the sword And as the Prophet complains have spoyled our Houses ravished our Wives Burned our Cities Desolated our Countrey and scattered abroad the inhabitants thereof and still continue their battels with confused noise and garments rowled in blood non est haec universalis Dementia But thou O God be merciful unto us under the shadow of thy wings shall be our refuge untill this tyrannie be over-past and before the morning they are not this is the portion of those that rob us But let no man think that the Parliament hath caused all these things no surely for I am confident the not being of Parliaments might perhaps bring the Monarch more power but less glory more Lords but few Nobles more slaves but fewer subjects and might perhaps make his Signiories more ample but less royal and himself in all of them less prosperous and happy whereas on the contrary it cannot be denied by any honest English heart that Englands Parliaments are unto her her Philosophers stone which turneth all it toucheth into gold with which it cureth not onely the Disease of the Kings-evil but also all other diseases as well in Church as State it cures Schismes Heresies Exhorbitances of Prelacie and maintains the true and Orthodox Doctrine and wholsom Discipline in the Church It cures Tyrannie and Oppression and maintains Uunity and Strength in the Monarchy it cures Factions and Divisions and maintains just Liberty and Respect of the common good in the Democracy Our Parliaments are the Hercules pillars to every one of our Herculesses and Princes and the ne plus amplius both to Aristocracy and Democracy And in all either their Excesses or Defects reduceth them to their Golden Moderation and just Temper and such was this present Parliament in its first beginning Nay the President of all former Parliaments fall much short of what this then brought forth for the Soveraign in point of Grace and Favour to his people to whom he denied nothing which they challenge by Law But it is thought by some that some former Parliaments having been unfortunately blasted that thereupon the Crown had invaded both upon the Subjects liberty and property and that albeit they had then a little before obtained a Triennial Parliament and other Acts to redresse all their grievances so to prevent the like pressures in the time to come yet that they finding that the King to be then under a cloud with the people they the better to pay the debts of the Kingdom and to discharge the then Armies before the Parliament should be either prorogued or dissolved pressed for the Act of Continuance by which as a Member of the Assembly of Divines in his Sermon Martii 27. 1644. imprinted by their order and intituled A Prospective-Glass for England 's Case tells and assures them they are become fastened as Nail in a sure place But yet hath it not wrought so kindly as both Parliament and People did expect and as by the fruits before mentioned which it so plentifully and suddenly produced appeareth for then as if some few new Statists or reserved Polititians who Honores quos quieta Republica desperant perturbata consequise posse arbritrantur and who are not alwayes the best servants either to King or Kingdom but are in Novandis quam in Gerendis rebus aptiores had designed this perpetual Parliament to bear the name of that which wrought wonders in King Richard the second 's time And in case that failed then to bear the name of the mad Parliament as a King Henry the thirds time and to that end had introduced certain new Ordinances and strains of Law pretended Parliamentary not understood of the people in this Age and in truth Lex nostra Parliamenti est ab omnibus quaerenda à multis Ignorantia à paucis Cognita And yet some conceive it had been much better for those Statists and Engineers if any such be Nescire Centrum quam non tenere Circulum and thus to run in Meanders and Mazes into this universalem dementiam whereby as some think they have sought to make the cause of the King and who sai h Iob will say unto the King thou art wicked And as Ecclesiasticus Who shall say unto him what dost thou And as Solomon He that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul To moralize with that of the lion who having lost his power and strength then the Wolf pincheth him and the Bull goar 's him and the very Asse kicks at him Nam Principis nomen habere non est esse Princeps and whereby some also think they have made the cause of the people whose disease was thought to have been a consumption of their properties and liberties First for care of properties to let them blood and purge them of their estates And next for cure of their liberties to open another vein either by imprisonment or banishment of their persons from their Wives and Children and their own habitations to let out a certain Malignant blood still remaining in them for that they will not pay more then they are able and so impossibilities in this reforming generation non est haec universlis dementia But admit this perpetuity of Parliaments hath wrought any such change or excesses yet it is for Reformation in case of Religion Et summa est Ratio qua pro Religione facit