the injunction of his all-ruling error He alleges the uprightness of his intentions to excuse his possible failings a position fals both in Law and Divinity Yea contrary to his own better principles who affirmes in the twelfth Chapter that The goodness of a mans intention will not excuse the scandall and contagion of his example His not knowing through the corruption of flattery and Court Principles what he ought to have known will not excuse his not doing what he ought to have don no more then the small skill of him who undertakes to be a Pilot will excuse him to be misledd by any wandring Starr mistak'n for the Pole But let his intentions be never so upright what is that to us What answer for the reason and the National Rights which God hath giv'n us if having Parlaments and Laws and the power of making more to avoid mischeif wee suffer one mans blind intentions to lead us all with our eyes op'n to manifest destruction And if Arguments prevaile not with such a one force is well us'd not to carry on the weakness of our Counsels or to convince his error as he surmises but to acquitt and rescue our own reason our own consciences from the force and prohibition laid by his usurping error upon our Liberties understandings Never thing pleas'd him more then when his judgement concurr'd with theirs That was to the applause of his own judgement and would as well have pleas'd any selfconceited man Yea in many things he chose rather to deny himself then them That is to say in trifles For of his own Interests and Personal Rights he conceavs himself Maister To part with if he please not to contest for against the Kingdom which is greater then he whose Rights are all subordinat to the Kingdoms good And in what concernes truth Justice the right of Church or his Crown no man shall gaine his consent against his mind What can be left then for a Parlament but to sit like Images while he still thus either with incomparable arrogance assumes to himself the best abilitie of judging for other men what is Truth Justice Goodness what his own or the Churches Right or with unsufferable Tyranny restraines all men from the enjoyment of any good which his judgement though erroneous thinks not fit to grant them notwithstanding that the Law and his Coronal Oath requires his undeniable assent to what Laws the Parlament agree upon He had rather wear a Crown of Thorns with our Saviour Many would be all one with our Saviour whom our Saviour will not know They who govern ill those Kingdoms which they had a right to have to our Saviours Crown of Thornes no right at all Thornes they may find anow of thir own gathering and thir own twisting for Thornes and Snares saith Solomon are in the way of the froward but to weare them as our Saviour wore them is not giv'n to them that suffer by thir own demerits Nor is a Crown of Gold his due who cannot first wear a Crown of Lead not onely for the weight of that great Office but for the compliance which it ought to have with them who are to counsel him which heer he termes in scorne An imbased flexibleness to the various and oft contrary dictates of any Factions meaning his Parlament for the question hath bin all this while between them two And to his Parlament though a numerous and chois Assembly of whom the Land thought wisest he imputes rather then to himself want of reason neglect of the Public interest of parties and particularitie of private will and passion but with what modesty or likelihood of truth it will be wearisom to repeat so oft'n He concludes with a sentence faire in seeming but fallacious For if the conscience be ill edifi'd the resolution may more befitt a foolish then a Christian King to preferr a self-will'd conscience before a Kingdoms good especially in the deniall of that which Law and his Regal Office by Oath bids him grant to his Parlament and whole Kingdom rightfully demanding For we may observe him throughout the discours to assert his Negative power against the whole Kingdom now under the specious Plea of his conscience and his reason but heertofore in a lowder note Without us or against our consent the Votes of either or of both Houses together must not cannot shall not Declar. May 4. 1642. With these and the like deceavable Doctrines he levens also his Prayer VII Vpon the Queens departure TO this Argument we shall soon have said for what concerns it us to hear a Husband divulâ—… his Houshold privacies extolling to others the verâ—…tues of his Wife an infirmity not seldom incident to those who have least cause But how good shee was a Wife was to himself and be it left to his own fancy how bad a Subject is not much disputed And being such it need be made no wonder though shee left a Protestant Kingdom with as little honour as her Mother left a Popish That this Is the first example of any Protestant Subjects that haue tak'n up Armes against thir King a Protestant can be to Protestants no dishonour when it shal be heard that he first levied Warr on them and to the interest of Papists more then of Protestants He might have giv'n yet the precedence of making warr upon him to the subjects of his own Nation who had twice oppos'd him in the op'n Feild long ere the English found it necessary to doe the like And how groundless how dissembl'd is that feare least shee who for so many yeares had bin averse from the Religion of her Husband and every yeare more and more before these disturbances broke out should for them be now the more alienated from that to which we never heard shee was inclin'd But if the feare of her Delinquency and that Justice which the Protestants demanded on her was any cause of heralienating the more to have gain'd her by indirect means had bin no advantage to Religion much less then was the detriment to loose her furder off It had bin happy if his own actions had not giv'n cause of more scandal to the Protestants then what they did against her could justly scandalize any Papist Them who accus'd her well anough known to be the Parlament he censures for Men yet to seeke thir Religion whether Doctrine Discipline or good manners the rest he soothes with the name of true English Protestants a meer scismatical name yet he so great an enemy of Scism He ascribes Rudeness and barbarity worse then Indian to the English Parlament and all vertue to his Wife in straines that come almost to Sonnetting How fitt to govern men undervaluing and aspersing the great Counsel of his Kingdom in comparison of one Woman Examples are not farr to seek how great mischeif and dishonour hath befall'n to Nations under the Government of effeminate and Uxorious Magistrates Who being themselves govern'd and overswaid at home under a Feminine usurpation
evil will then not feare to disswade or to disobey him not onely in respect of themselves and thir own lives which for his sake they would not seem to value but in respect of that danger which the King himself may incurr whom they would seem to love and serve with greatest fidelitie On all these grounds therfore of the covnant it self whether religious or political it appeares likeliest that both the English Parlament and the Scotch Commissioners thus interpreting the Covnant as indeed at that time they were the best and most authentical interpreters joyn'd together answered the King unanimously in thir Letters dated Jan. 13 th 1645. that till securitie and satisfaction first giv'n to both Kingdoms for the blood spilt for the Irish Rebels brought over and for the Warr in Ireland by him fomented they could in no wise yeild thir consent to his returne Here was satisfaction full two yeares and upward after the Covnant tak'n demanded of the King by both Nations in Parlament for crimes at least Capital wherwith they charg'd him And what satisfaction could be giv'n for so much blood but Justice upon him that spilt it Till which don they neither took themselves bound to grant him the exercise of his regal Office by any meaning of the Coynant which they then declar'd though other meanings have bin since contriv'd nor so much regarded the safety of his person as to admitt of his return among them from the midst of those whom they declar'd to be his greatest enemies nay from himself as from an actual enemy not as from a king they demanded security But if the covnant all this not with standing swore otherwise to preserv him then in the preservation of true religion our liberties against which he fought if not in armes yet in resolution to his dying day and now after death still fights against in this his book the covnant was better brok'n thē he sav'd And god hath testifi'd by all propitious the most evident signes whereby in these latter times he is wont to testifie what pleases him that such a solemn and for many Ages unexampl'd act of due punishment was no mockery of Justice but a most gratefull and well-pleasing Sacrifice Neither was it to cover their perjury as he accuses but to uncover his perjury to the Oath of his Coronation The rest of his discours quite forgets the Title and turns his Meditations upon death into obloquie and bitter vehemence against his Judges and accussers imitating therin not our Saviour but his Grand-mother Mary Queen of Scots as also in the most of his other scruples exceptions and evasions and from whom he seems to have learnt as it were by heart or els by kind that which is thought by his admirers to be the most vertuous most manly most Christian and most Martyr-like both of his words and speeches heer and of his answers and behaviour at his Tryall It is a sad fate he saith to have his Enemies both accusers Parties and Judges Sad indeed but no sufficient Plea to acquitt him from being so judg'd For what Malefactor might not somtimes plead the like If his own crimes have made all men his Enemies who els can judge him They of the Powder-plot against his Father might as well have pleaded the same Nay at the Resurrection it may as well be pleaded that the Saints who then shall judge the World are both Enemies Judges Parties and Accusers So much he thinks to abound in his own defence that he undertakes an unmeasurable task to bespeak the singular care and protection of God over all Kings as being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth But what Patrons they be God in the Scripture oft anough hath exprest and the earth it self hath too long groan'd under the burd'n of thir injustice disorder and irreligion Therfore To bind thir Kings in Chaines and thir Nobles with links of Iron is an honour belonging to his Saints not to build Babel which was Nimrods work the first King and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel but to destroy it especially that spiritual Babel and first to overcome those European Kings which receive thir power not from God but from the beast and are counted no better then his ten hornes These shall hate the great Whore and yet shall give thir Kingdoms to the Beast that carries her they shall committ Fornication with her and yet shall burn her with fire and yet shall lament the fall of Babylon where they fornicated with her Rev. 17. 18. chapt Thus shall they be too and fro doubtfull and ambiguous in all thir doings untill at last joyning thir Armies with the Beast whose power first rais'd them they shall perish with him by the King of Kings against whom they have rebell'd and the Foules shall eat thir flesh This is thir doom writt'n Rev. 19. and the utmost that we find concerning them in these latter days which we have much more cause to beleeve then his unwarranted Revelation here prophecying what shall follow after his death with the spirit of Enmity not of Saint John He would fain bring us out of conceit with the good success which God hath voutsaf'd us Wee measure not our Cause by our success but our success by our cause Yet certainly in a good Cause success is a good confirmation for God hath promis'd it to good men almost in every leafe of Scripture If it argue not for us we are sure it argues not against us but as much or more for us then ill success argues for them for to the wicked God hath denounc'd ill success in all that they take in hand He hopes much of those softer tempers as he calls them and less advantag'd by his ruin that thir consciences doe already gripe them T is true there be a sort of moodie hot-brain'd and alwayes unedify'd consciences apt to engage thir Leaders into great and dangerous affaires past retirement and then upon a sudden qualm and swimming of thir conscience to betray them basely in the midst of what was chiefly undertak'n for their sakes Let such men never meet with any faithfull Parlament to hazzard for them never with any noble spirit to conduct and lead them out but let them live and die in servil condition and thir scrupulous queasiness if no instruction will confirme them Others there be in whose consciences the loss of gaine and those advantages they hop'd for hath sprung a sudden leake These are they that cry out the Covnant brok'n and to keep it better slide back into neutrality or joyn actually with Incendiaries and Malignants But God hath eminently begun to punish those first in Scotland then in Ulster who have provok'd him with the most hatefull kind of mockery to break his Covnant under pretence of strictest keeping it and hath subjected them to those Malignants with whom they scrupl'd not to be associats In God therfore we shall not feare what their fals fraternity can doe against us He seeks againe with cunning words to turn our success into our sin But might call to mind that the Scripture speakes of those also who when God slew them then sought him yet did but flatter him with thir mouth and ly'd to him with thir tongues for thir heart was not right with him And there was one who in the time of his affliction trespass'd more against God This was that King Abaz He glories much in the forgivness of his Enemies so did his Grandmother at her death Wise men would sooner have beleev'd him had he not so oft'n told us so But he hopes to erect the Trophies of his charity over us And Trophies of Charity no doubt will be as glorious as Trumpets before the almes of Hypocrites and more especially the Trophies of such an aspiring charitie as offers in his Prayer to share Victory with Gods compassion which is over all his works Such Prayers as these may happly catch the People as was intended but how they please God is to be much doubted though pray'd in secret much less writt'n to be divulg'd Which perhaps may gaine him after death a short contemptible and soon fading reward not what he aims at to stirr the constancie and solid firmness of any wise Man or to unsettle the conscience of any knowing Christian if he could ever aime at a thing so hopeless and above the genius of his Cleric elocution but to catch the worthles approbation of an inconstant irrational and Image-doting rabble that like a credulous and hapless herd begott'n to servility and inchanted with these popular institutes of Tyranny subscrib'd with a new device of the Kings Picture at his praiers hold out both thir eares with such delight and ravishment to be stigmatiz'd and board through in witness of thir own voluntary and beloved baseness The rest whom perhaps ignorance without malice or some error less then fatal hath for the time misledd on this side Sorcery or obduration may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves and recover THE END
for his high misgoverment nay fought against him with display'd banners in the field now applaud him and extoll him for the wisest and most religious Prince that liv'd By so strange a method amongst the mad multitude is a sudden reputation won of wisdom by wilfulness and suttle shifts of goodness by multiplying evil of piety by endeavouring to root out true religion But it is evident that the chief of his adherents never lov'd him never honour'd either him or his cause but as they took him to set a face upon thir own malignant designes nor bemoan his loss at all but the loss of thir own aspiring hopes Like those captive women whom the Poet notes in his Iliad to have bewaild the death of Patroclus in outward show but indeed thir own condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Iliad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it needs must be ridiculous to any judgement uninthrall'd that they who in other matters express so little fear either of God or man should in this one particular outstripp all precisianism with thir scruples and cases and fill mens ears continually with the noise of thir conscientious Loyaltie and Allegeance to the King Rebels in the mean while to God in all thir actions beside much less that they whose profess'd Loyalty and Allegeance led them to direct Arms against the Kings Person and thought him nothing violated by the Sword of Hostility drawn by them against him should now in earnest think him violated by the unsparing Sword of Justice which undoubtedly so much the less in vain she bears among Men by how much greater and in highest place the offender Els Justice whether moral or political were not Justice but a fals counterfet of that impartial and Godlike vertue The onely grief is that the head was not strook off to the best advantage and commodity of them that held it by the hair an ingratefull and pervers generation who having first cry'd to God to be deliver'd from thir King now murmur against God that heard thir praiers and cry as loud for thir King against those that deliver'd them But as to the Author of these Soliloquies whether it were undoubtedly the late King as is vulgarly beleev'd or any secret Coadjutor and some stick not to name him it can add nothing nor shall take from the weight if any be of reason which he brings But allegations not reasons are the main contents of this Book and need no more then other contrary allegations to lay the question before all men in an eev'n ballance though it were suppos'd that the testimony of one man in his own cause affirming could be of any moment to bring in doubt the autority of a Parlament denying But if these his fair spok'n words shall be heer fairly confronted and laid parallel to his own farr differing deeds manifest and visible to the whole Nation then surely we may look on them who notwithstanding shall persist to give to bare words more credit then to op'n deeds as men whose judgement was not rationally evinc'd and perswaded but fatally stupifi'd and bewitch'd into such a blinde and obstinate beleef For whose cure it may be doubted not whether any charm though never so wisely murmur'd but whether any prayer can be available This however would be remember'd and wel noted that while the K. instead of that repentance which was in reason and in conscience to be expected from him without which we could not lawfully re-admitt him persists heer to maintain and justifie the most apparent of his evil doings and washes over with a Court-fucus the worst and foulest of his actions disables and uncreates the Parlament it self with all our laws and Native liberties that ask not his leave dishonours and attaints all Protestant Churches not Prelaticall and what they piously reform'd with the slander of rebellion sacrilege and hypocrisie they who seem'd of late to stand up hottest for the Cov'nant can now sit mute and much pleas'd to hear all these opprobrious things utter'd against thir faith thir freedom and themselves in thir own doings made traitors to boot The Divines also thir wizzards can be so braz'n as to cry Hosanna to this his book which cries louder against them for no disciples of Christ but of Iscariot and to seem now convinc'd with these wither'd arguments and reasons heer the same which in som other writings of that party and in his own former Declarations and expresses they have so oft'n heertofore endeavour'd to confute and to explode none appearing all this while to vindicate Church or State from these calumnies and reproaches but a small handfull of men whom they defame and spit at with all the odious names of Schism and Sectarism I never knew that time in England when men of truest Religion were not counted Sectaries but wisdom now valor justice constancy prudence united and imbodied to defend Religion and our Liberties both by word and deed against tyranny is counted Schism and faction Thus in a graceless age things of highest praise and imitation under a right name to make them infamous and hatefull to the people are miscall'd Certainly if ignorance and perversness will needs be national and universal then they who adhere to wisdom and to truth are not therfore to be blam'd for beeing so few as to seem a sect or faction But in my opinion it goes not ill with that people where these vertues grow so numerous and well joyn'd together as to resist and make head against the rage and torrent of that boistrous folly and superstition that possesses and hurries on the vulgar sort This therefore we may conclude to be a high honour don us from God and a speciall mark of his favor whom he hath selected as the sole remainder after all these changes and commotions to stand upright and stedfast in his cause dignify'd with the defence of truth and public libertie while others who aspir'd to be the topp of Zelots and had almost brought Religion to a kinde of trading monopoly have not onely by thir late silence and neutrality bely'd thir profession but founder'd themselves and thir consciences to comply with enemies in that wicked cause and interest which they have too oft'n curs'd in others to prosper now in the same themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I. Upon the Kings calling this last Parlament THat which the King layes down heer as his first foundation and as it were the head stone of his whole Structure that He call'd this last Parlament not more by others advice and the necessity of his affaires then by his own chois and inclination is to all knowing men so apparently not true that a more unlucky and inauspicious sentence and more betok'ning the downfall of his whole Fabric hardly could have come into his minde For who knows not that the inclination of a Prince is best known either by those next about him and most in favor with him or by the current of his own actions Those neerest to
the Kings designe both to the Parlament and City of London The Parlament moreover had intelligence and the people could not but discern that there was a bitter malignant party grown up now to such a boldness as to give out insolent and threatning speeches against the Parlament it self Besides this the Rebellion in Ireland was now broke out and a conspiracy in Scotland had bin made while the King was there against some chief Members of that Parlament great numbers heer of unknown and suspicious persons resorted to the City the King being return'd from Scotland presently dismisses that Guard which the Parlament thought necessary in the midst of so many dangers to have about them and puts another Guard in thir place contrary to the Privilege of that high Court and by such a one commanded as made them no less doubtfull of the Guard it self Which they therfore upon som ill effects thereof first found discharge deeming it more safe to sitt free though without a Guard in op'n danger then inclos'd with a suspected safety The people therfore lest thir worthiest and most faithfull Patriots who had expos'd themselves for the public and whom they saw now left naked should want aide or be deserted in the midst of these dangers came in multitudes though unarm'd to witness thir fidelitie and readiness in case of any violence offer'd to the Parlament The King both envying to see the Peoples love thus devolv'd on another object and doubting lest it might utterly disable him to doe with Parlaments as he was wont sent a message into the City forbidding such resorts The Parlament also both by what was discover'd to them and what they saw in a Malignant Party some of which had already drawn blood in a Fray or two at the Court Gate and eev'n at thir own Gate in Westminster Hall conceaving themselves to be still in danger where they sat sent a most reasonable and just Petition to the King that a Guard might be allow'd them out of the City wherof the Kings own Chamberlaine the Earl of Essex might have command it being the right of inferiour Courts to make chois of thir own Guard This the King refus'd to doe and why he refus'd the very next day made manifest For on that day it was that he sallied out from White Hall with those trusty Myrmidons to block up or give assault to the House of Commons He had besides all this begun to fortifie his Court and entertaind armed Men not a few who standing at his Palace Gate revil'd and with drawn Swords wounded many of the People as they went by unarm'd and in a peaceable manner whereof some dy'd The passing by of a multitude though neither to Saint Georges Feast nor to a Tilting certainly of it self was no Tumult the expression of thir Loyalty and stedfastness to the Parlament whose lives and safeties by more then slight rumours they doubted to be in danger was no Tumult If it grew to be so the cause was in the King himself and his injurious retinue who both by Hostile preparations in the Court and by actual assailing of the People gave them just cause to defend themselves Surely those unarmed and Petitioning People needed not have bin so formidable to any but to such whose consciences misgave them how ill they had deserv'd of the People and first began to injure them because they justly fear'd it from them and then ascribe that to popular Tumult which was occasion'd by thir own provoking And that the King was so emphatical and elaborat on this Theam against Tumults and express'd with such a vehemence his hatred of them will redound less perhaps then he was aware to the commendation of his Goverment For besides that in good Goverments they happ'n seldomèst and rise not without cause if they prove extreme and pernicious they were never counted so to Monarchy but to Monarchical Tyranny and extremes one with another are at most Antipathy If then the King so extremely stood in fear of Tumults the inference will endanger him to be the other extreme Thus farr the occasion of this discours against Tumults now to the discours it self voluble anough and full of sentence but that for the most part either specious rather then solid or to his cause nothing pertinent He never thought any thing more to presage the mischiefes that ensu'd then those Tumults Then was his foresight but short and much mistak'n Those Tumults were but the milde effects of an evil and injurious raigne not signes of mischeifs to come but seeking releef for mischeifs past those signes were to be read more apparent in his rage and purpos'd revenge of those free expostulations and clamours of the People against his lawless Goverment Not any thing saith he portends more Gods displeasure against a Nation then when he suffers the clamours of the Vulgar to pass all bounds of Law reverence to Authority It portends rather his dispeasure against a Tyrannous King whose proud Throne he intends to overturn by that contemptible Vulgar the sad cries and oppressions of whom his Royaltie regarded not As for that supplicating People they did no hurt either to Law or Autority but stood for it rather in the Parlament against whom they fear'd would violate it That they invaded the Honour and Freedome of the two Houses is his own officious accusation not seconded by the Parlament who had they seen cause were themselves best able to complain And if they shook menac'd any they were such as had more relation to the Court then to the Common wealth enemies not patrons of the People But if thir petitioning unarm'd were an invasion of both Houses what was his entrance into the House of Commons besetting it with armed men in what condition then was the honour and freedom of that House They forbore not rude deportments contemptuous words and actions to himself and his Court. It was more wonder having heard what treacherous hostility he had design'd against the City and his whole Kingdome that they forbore to handle him as people in thir rage have handl'd Tyrants heertofore for less offences They were not a short ague but a fierce quotidian feaver He indeed may best say it who most felt it for the shaking was within him and it shook him by his own description worse then a storme worse then an earthquake Belshazzars Palsie Had not worse feares terrors and envies made within him that commotion how could a multitude of his Subjects arm'd with no other weapon then Petitions have shak'n all his joynts with such a terrible ague Yet that the Parlament should entertaine the least feare of bad intentions from him or his Party he endures not but would perswade us that men scare themselves and others without cause for he thought feare would be to them a kind of armor and his designe was if it were possible to disarme all especially of a wise feare and suspicion for that he knew would find weapons He
visible eev'n to most of those Men who now will see nothing At passing of the former Act he himself conceal'd not his unwillingness and testifying a general dislike of thir actions which they then proceeded in with great approbation of the whole Kingdom he told them with a maisterly Brow that by this Act he had oblig'd them above what they had deserv'd and gave a peece of Justice to the Common wealth six times short of his Predecessors as if he had bin giving som boon or begg'd Office to a sort of his desertless Grooms That he pass'd the latter Act against his will no man in reason can hold it questionable For if the February before he made so dainty and were so loath to bestow a Parlament once in three yeare upon the Nation because this had so oppos'd his courses was it likely that the May following he should bestow willingly on this Parlament an indissoluble sitting when they had offended him much more by cutting short and impeaching of high Treason his chief Favorites It was his feare then not his favor which drew from him that Act lest the Parlament incens'd by his Conspiracies against them about the same time discover'd should with the people have resented too hainously those his doings if to the suspicion of thir danger from him he had also added the denyal of this onely meanes to secure themselves From these Acts therfore in which he glories and wherwith so oft he upbraids the Parlament he cannot justly expect to reape aught but dishonour and dispraise as being both unwillingly granted and the one granting much less then was before allow'd by Statute the other being a testimony of his violent and lawless Custom not onely to break Privileges but whole Parlaments from which enormity they were constrain'd to bind him first of all his Predecessors never any before him having giv'n like causes of distrust and jealousie to his People As for this Parlament how farr he was from being advis'd by them as he ought let his own words express He taxes them with undoing what they found well done and yet knows they undid nothing in the Church but Lord Bishops Liturgies Ceremonies High Commission judg'd worthy by all true Protestants to bee thrown out of the Church They undid nothing in the State but irregular and grinding Courts the maine grievances to be remov'd if these were the things which in his opinion they found well don we may againe from hence be inform'd with what unwillingness he remou'd them and that those gracious Acts wherof so frequently he makes mention may be english'd more properly Acts of feare and dissimulation against his mind and conscience The bill preventing dissolution of this Parlament he calls An unparalell'd Act out of the extreme confidence that his Subjects would not make ill use of it But was it not a greater confidence of the people to put into one mans hand so great a power till he abus'd it as to summon and dissolve Parlaments Hee would be thankt for trusting them and ought to thank them rather for trusting him the trust issuing first from them not from him And that it was a meer trust and not his Prerogative to call and dissolve Parlaments at his pleasure And that Parlaments were not to be dissolv'd till all Petitions were heard all greevances redrest is not onely the assertion of this Parlament but of our ancient Law Books which averr it to be an unwritt'n Law of common Right so ingrav'n in the hearts of our Ancestors and by them so constantly enjoy'd and claim'd as that it needed not enrouling And if the Scots in thir Declaration could charge the King with breach of their Lawes for breaking up that Parlament without their consent while matters of greatest moment were depending it were unreasonable to imagin that the wisdom of England should be so wanting to it self through all Ages as not to provide by som known Law writt'n or unwritt'n against the not calling or the arbitrary dissolving of Parlaments or that they who ordain'd thir summoning twice a yeare or as oft as need requir'd did not tacitly enact also that as necessity of affaires call'd them so the same necessity should keep them undissolv'd till that were fully satisfi'd Were it not for that Parlaments and all the fruit and benefit we receave by having them would turne soon to meer abusion It appeares then that if this Bill of not dissolving were an unparallel'd Act it was a known and common Right which our Ancestors under other Kings enjoyd as firmly as if it had bin grav'n in Marble and that the infringement of this King first brought it into a writt'n Act Who now boasts that as a great favour don us which his own less fidelity then was in former Kings constrain'd us onely of an old undoubted Right to make a new writt'n Act. But what needed writt'n Acts when as anciently it was esteem'd part of his Crown Oath not to dissolve Parlaments till all greevances were consider'd wherupon the old Modi of Parlament calls it flat perjury if he dissolve them before as I find cited in a Booke mention'd at the beginning of this Chapter to which and other Law-tractats I referr the more Lawyerlie mooting of this point which is neither my element nor my proper work heer since the Book which I have to Answer pretends reason not Autoritys and quotations and I hold reason to be the best Arbitrator and the Law of Law it self T is true that good Subjects think it not just that the Kings condition should be worse by bettering theirs But then the King must not be at such a distance from the people in judging what is better and what worse which might have bin agreed had he known for his own words condemn him as well with moderation to use as with earnestness to desire his own advantages A continual Parlament he thought would keep the Common-wealth in tune Judge Common wealth what proofs he gave that this boasted profession was ever in his thought Some saith he gave out that I repented me of that setling Act. His own actions gave it out beyond all supposition For doubtless it repented him to have establish'd that by Law which he went about so soon after to abrogat by the Sword He calls those Acts which he confesses tended to thir good not more Princely then friendly contributions As if to doe his dutie were of curtesie and the discharge of his trust a parcell of his liberality so nigh lost in his esteem was the birthright of our Liberties that to give them back againe upon demand stood at the mercy of his Contribution He doubts not but the affections of his People will compensate his sufferings for those acts of confidence And imputes his sufferings to a contrary cause Not his confidence but his distrust was that which brought him to those sufferings from the time that he forsook his Parlament and trusted them ne're the sooner for what he tells of
thir pietie and religious strictness but rather hated them as Puritans whom he always sought to extirpat He would have it beleev'd that to bind his hands by these Acts argu'd a very short foresight of things and extreme fatuity of mind in him if he had meant a Warr. If we should conclude so that were not the onely Argument Neither did it argue that he meant peace knowing that what he granted for the present out of feare he might as soon repeale by force watching his time and deprive them the fruit of those Acts if his own designes wherin he put his trust took effect Yet he complaines That the tumults threatn'd to abuse all acts of grace and turne them into wantonness I would they had turn'd his wantonness into the grace of not abusing Scripture Was this becomming such a Saint as they would make him to adulterat those Sacred words from the grace of God to the acts of his own grace Herod was eat'n up os Wormes for suffering others to compare his voice to the voice of God but the Borrower of this phrase gives much more cause of jealousie that he lik'n'd his own acts of grace to the acts of Gods grace From profaneness he scars comes off with perfet sense I was not then in a capacity to make Warr therfore I intended not I was not in a capacity therfore I could not have giv'n my Enemies greater advantage then by so unprincely inconstancy to have scatter'd them by Armes whom but lately I had settl'd by Parlament What place could there be for his inconstancy in that thing wherto he was in no capacity Otherwise his inconstancy was not so un wonted or so nice but that it would have easily found pretences to scatter those in revenge whom he settl'd in feare It had bin a course full of sin as well as of hazzard and dishonour True but if those considerations withheld him not from other actions of like nature how can we beleeve they were of strength sufficient to withhold him from this And that they withheld him not the event soon taught us His letting some men goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple was a temptation to them to cast him down headlong In this Simily we have himself compar'd to Christ the Parlament to the Devill and his giving them that Act of settling to his letting them goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple A tottring and giddy Act rather then a settling This was goodly use made of Scripture in his Solitudes But it was no Pinnacle of the Temple it was a Pinnacle of Nebuchadnezzars Palace from whence hee and Monarchy fell headlong together He would have others see that All the Kingdomes of the World are not worth gaining by the wayes of sin which hazzard the Soule and hath himself left nothing unhazzarded to keep three He concludes with sentences that rightly scannd make not so much for him as against him and confesses that The Act of settling was no sin of his will and wee easily beleeve him for it hath bin clearly prov'd a sin of his unwillingness With his Orisons I meddle not for he appeals to a high Audit This yet may be noted that at his Prayers he had before him the sad presage of his ill success As of a dark and dangerous Storme which never admitted his returne to the Port from whence he set out Yet his Prayer-Book no sooner shut but other hopes flatter'd him and thir flattering was his destruction VI. Upon his Retirement from Westminster THe Simily wher with he begins I was about to have found fault with as in a garb somwhat more Poetical then for a Statist but meeting with many straines of like dress in other of his Essaies and hearing him reported a more diligent reader of Poets then of Politicians I begun to think that the whole Book might perhaps be intended a peece of Poetrie The words are good the fiction smooth and cleanly there wanted onely Rime and that they say is bestow'd upon it lately But to the Argument I stai'd at White Hall till I was driven away by shame more then feare I retract not what I thought of the fiction yet heer I must confess it lies too op'n In his Messages and Declarations nay in the whole Chapter next but one before this he affirmes that The danger wherin his Wife his Children and his own Person were by those Tumults was the maine cause that drove him from White Hall and appeales to God as witness he affirmes heer that it was shame more then feare And Digby who knew his mind as well as any tells his new-listed Guard That the principal cause of his Majesties going thence was to save them from being trodd in the dirt From whence we may discerne what false and frivolous excuses are avow'd sor truth either in those Declarations or in this Penitential Book Our forefathers were of that courage and severity of zeale to Justice and thir native Liberty against the proud contempt and misrule of thir Kings that when Richard the Second departed but from a Committie of Lords who sat preparing matter for the Parlament not yet assembl'd to the removal of his evil Counselors they first vanquish'd and put to flight Robert de Vere his chief Favorite and then comming up to London with a huge Army requir'd the King then withdrawn for feare but no furder off then the Tower to come to Westminster Which he refusing they told him flatly that unless he came they would choose another So high a crime it was accounted then for Kings to absent themselves not from a Parlament which none ever durst but from any meeting of his Peeres and Counselors which did but tend towards a Parlament Much less would they have suffer'd that a King for such trivial and various pretences one while for feare of tumults another while for shame to see them should leav his Regal Station and the whole Kingdom bleeding to death of those wounds which his own unskilful and pervers Goverment had inflicted Shame then it was that drove him from the Parlament but the shame of what Was it the shame of his manifold errours and misdeeds and to see how weakly he had plaid the King No But to see the barbarous rudeness of those Tumults to demand any thing We have started heer another and I beleeve the truest cause of his deserting the Parlament The worst and strangest of that Any thing which the people then demanded was but the unlording of Bishops and expelling them the House and the reducing of Church Discipline to a conformity with other Protestant Churches this was the Barbarism of those Tumults and that he might avoid the granting of those honest and pious demands as well demanded by the Parlament as the People for this very cause more then for feare by his own confession heer he left the City and in a most tempestuous season forsook the Helme and steerage of the Common-wealth This was that terrible Any thing
the same scrupulous demurrs to stop the sentence of death in full and free Senat decreed on Lentulus and Cethegus two of Catilines accomplices which were renew'd and urg'd for Strafford He voutsafes to the Reformation by both Kingdoms intended no better name then Innovation and ruine both in Church and State And what we would have learnt so gladly of him in other passages before to know wherin he tells us now of his own accord The expelling of Bishops cut of the House of Peers this was ruin to the State the removing them root and branch this was ruin to the Church How happy could this Nation be in such a Governour who counted that thir ruin which they thought thir deliverance the ruin both of Church and State which was the recovery and the saving of them both To the passing of those Bills against Bishops how is it likely that the House of Peers gave so hardly thir consent which they gave so easily before to the attaching them of High Treason 12. at once onely for protesting that the Parlament could not act without them Surely if thir rights and privileges were thought so undoubted in that House as is heer maintain'd then was that Protestation being meant and intended in the name of thir whole spiritual Order no Treason and so that House it self will becom liable to a just construction either of Injustice to appeach them for so consenting or of usurpation representing none but themselves to expect that their voting or not voting should obstruct the Commons Who not for five repulses of the Lords no not for fifty were to desist from what in name of the whole Kingdom they demanded so long as those Lords were none of our Lords And for the Bil against root and branch though it pass'd not in both Houses till many of the Lords and some few of the Commons either intic'd away by the King or overaw'd by the sense of thir own Malignācy not prevailing deserted the Parlament and made a fair riddance of themselves that was no warrant for them who remain'd faithfull beeing farr the greater number to lay aside that Bill of root and branch till the returne of thir fugitives a Bill so necessary and so much desir'd by them selves as well as by the People This was the partiality this degrading of the Bishops a thing so wholsom in the State and so Orthodoxal in the Church both ancient and reformed which the King rather then assent to will either hazard both his own and the Kingdomes ruin by our just defence against his force of armes or prostrat our consciences in a blind obedience to himself and those men whose superstition Zealous or unzealous would inforce upon us an Antichristian tyranny in the Church neither Primitive Apostolicall nor more anciently universal then som other manifest corruptions But he was bound besides his judgement by a most strict and undispensable Oath to preserve that Order and the rights of the Church If he mean the Oath of his Coronation and that the letter of that Oath admitt not to be interpreted either by equity reformation or better knowledge then was the King bound by that Oath to grant the clergie all those customs franchises and Canonical privileges granted to them by Edward the Confessor and so might one day under pretence of that Oath and his conscience have brought us all again to popery But had he so well rememberd as he ought the words to which he swore he might have found himself no otherwise oblig'd there then according to the Lawes of God and true profession of the Gospel For if those following words Establish'd in this Kingdome be set there to limit and lay prescription on the Laws of God and truth of the Gospel by mans establishment nothing can be more absurrd or more injurious to Religion So that however the German Emperors or other Kings have levied all those Warrs on thir Protestant Subjects under the colour of a blind and literal observance to an Oath yet this King had least pretence of all both sworn to the Laws of God and Evangelic truth and disclaiming as we heard him before to be bound by any Coronation Oath in a blind and brutish formality Nor is it to be imagin'd if what shall be establish'd come in question but that the Parlament should oversway the King and not he the Parlament And by all Law and Reason that which the Parlament will not is no more establish'd in this Kingdom neither is the King bound by Oath to uphold it as a thing establish'd And that the King who of his Princely grace as he professes hath so oft abolisht things that stood firm by Law as the Star-chamber High Commission ever thought himself bound by Oath to keep them up because establisht he who will beleiv must at the same time condemn him of as many perjuries as he is well known to have abolisht both Laws and Jurisdictions that wanted no establishment Had he gratifi'd he thinks their Antiepiscopal Faction with his consent and sacrific'd the Church government and Revennues to the fury of their covetousness c. an Army had not bin rais'd Whereas it was the fury of his own hatred to the professors of true Religion which first incited him to persecute them with the Sword of Warr when Whipps Pillories Exiles and impris'nments were not thought sufficient To colour which he cannot finde wherwithall but that stale pretence of Charles the fifth and other Popish Kings that the Protestants had onely an intent to lay hands upon Church-revennues a thing never in the thoughts of this Parlament 'till exhausted by his endless Warrupon them thir necessity seis'd on that for the Common wealth which the luxury of Prelats had abus'd before to a common mischeif His consent to the unlording of Bishops for to that he himself consented and at Canterbury the cheif seat of thir pride so God would have it was from his firm perswasion of thir contentedness to suffer a present diminution of thir rights Can any man reading this not discern the pure mockery of a Royalconsent to delude us onely for the present meaning it seems when time should serve to revoke all By this reckning his consents and his denials come all to one pass and we may hence perceav the small wisdom and integrity of those Votes which Voted his Concessions at the I le of Wight for grounds of a lasting Peace This he alleges this controversie about Bishops to be the true state of that difference between him and the Parlament For he held Episcopacy both very Sacred and Divine With this judgement and for this cause he withdrew from the Parlament and confesses that some men knew he was like to bring againe the same judgement which he carried with him A fair and unexpected justification from his own mouth afforded to the Parlament who notwithstanding what they knew of his obstinat mind omitted not to use all those means and that patience to have gain'd him
all of them agree in one song with this heer that they are sorry to see so little regard had to Laws establisht and the Religion settl'd Popular compliance dissolution of all order and goverment in the Church Scisms Opinions Undecencies Confusions Sacrilegious invasions contempt of the Clergie and thir Liturgie Diminution of Princes all these complaints are to be read in the Messages and Speeches almost of every Legat from the Pope to those States and Citties which began Reformation From whence he either learnt the same pretences or had them naturally in him from the same spirit Neither was there ever so sincere a Reformation that hath escap'd these clamours He offer'd a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen So offerd all those Popish Kings heertofore a cours the most unsatisfactory as matters have been long carried and found by experience in the Church liable to the greatest fraud and packing no solution or redress of evil but an increase rather detested therfore by Nazianzen and som other of the Fathers And let it bee produc'd what good hath bin don by Synods from the first times of Reformation Not to justifie what enormities the Vulgar may committ in the rudeness of thir zeal we need but onely instance how he bemoanes the pulling down of Crosses and other superstitious Monuments as the effect of a popular and deceitful Reformation How little this savours of a Protestant is too easily perceav'd What he charges in defect of Piety Charity and Morality hath bin also charg'd by Papists upon the best reformed Churches not as if they the accusers were not tenfold more to be accus'd but out of thir Malignity to all endeavour of amendment as we know who accus'd to God the sincerity of Job an accusation of all others the most easie when as there livs not any mortal man so excellent who in these things is not alwaies deficient But the infirmities of best men and the scandals of mixt Hypocrits in all times of reforming whose bold intrusion covets to bee ever seen in things most sacred as they are most specious can lay no just blemish upon the integritie of others much less upon the purpose of Reformation it self Neither can the evil doings of som be the excuse of our delaying or deserting that duty to the Church which for no respect of times or carnal policies can be at any time unseasonable He tells with great shew of piety what kinde of persons public Reformers ought to be and what they ought to doe T is strange that in above twenty years the Church growing still wors and wors under him he could neither be as he bids others be nor doe as he pretends heer so well to know nay which is worst of all after the greatest part of his Raign spent in neither knowing nor doing aught toward a Reformation either in Church or State should spend the residue in hindring those by a seven years Warr whom it concernd with his consent or without it to doe thir parts in that great performance T is true that the method of reforming may well subsist without perturbation of the State but that it falls out otherwise for the most part is the plaine Text of Scripture And if by his own rule hee had allow'd us to feare God first and the King in due order our Allegeance might have still follow'd our Religion in a fit subordination But if Christs Kingdom be tak'n for the true Discipline of the Church and by his Kingdom be meant the violence he us'd against it and to uphold an Antichristian Hierarchie then sure anough it is that Christs Kingdom could not be sett up without pulling down his And they were best Christians who were least subject to him Christs Goverment out of question meaning it Prelatical hee thought would confirm his and this was that which overthrew it He professes to own his Kingdom from Christ and to desire to rule for his glory and the Churches good The Pope and the King of Spain profess every where as much and both his practice and all his reasonings all his enmitie against the true Church we see hath bin the same with theirs since the time that in his Letter to the Pope he assur'd them both of his full compliance But evil beginnings never bring forth good conclusions they are his own words and he ratifi'd them by his own ending To the Pope he ingag'd himself to hazard life and estate for the Roman Religion whether in complement he did it or in earnest and God who stood neerer then he for complementing minded writ down those words that according to his resolution so it should come to pass He praies against his hypocrisie and Pharisaical washings a Prayer to him most pertinent but choaks it straight with other words which pray him deeper into his old errors and delusions XXI Vpon His Letters tak'n and divulg'd THE Kings Letters taken at the Battell of Naesby being of greatest importance to let the people see what Faith there was in all his promises and solemn Protestations were transmitted to public view by special Order of the Parlament They discover'd his good affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the straight intelligence he held the pernitious dishonorable peace he made with them not solicited but rather soliciting w ch by all invocations that were holy he had in public abjur'd They reveal'd his endeavours to bring in forren Forces Irish French Dutch Lorrainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon us besides his suttleties and mysterious arts in treating to summ up all they shewd him govern'd by a Woman All which though suspected vehemently before and from good grounds beleev'd yet by him and his adherents peremptorily deny'd were by the op'ning of that Cabinet visible to all men under his own hand The Parlament therfore to cleer themselves of aspersing him without cause and that the people might no longer be abus'd and cajol'd as they call it by falsities and Court impudence in matters of so high concernment to let them know on what termes thir duty stood and the Kingdoms peace conceavd it most expedient and necessary that those Letters should be made public This the King affirmes was by them don without honour and civilitie words which if they contain not in them as in the language of a Courtier most commonly they do not more of substance and realitie then complement Ceremony Court fauning and dissembling enter not I suppose furder then the eare into any wise mans consideration Matters were not then between the Parlament and a King thir enemie in that state of trifling as to observ those superficial vanities But if honour and civilitie mean as they did of old discretion honesty prudence and plaine truth it will be then maintain'd against any Sect of those Cabalists that the Parlament in doing what they did with those Letters could suffer in thir honour and civilitie no diminution The reasons are already heard And that it is with none more familiar then with Kings
which made him much the fitter man to raigne But they who suffer as oppressors Tyrants violaters of Law and persecutors of Reformation without appearance of repenting if they once get hold againe of that dignity and power which they had lost are but whetted and inrag'd by what they suffer'd against those whom they look upon as them that caus'd thir sufferings How he hath bin subject to the scepter of Gods word and spirit though acknowledg'd to be the best Goverment and what his dispensation of civil power hath bin with what Justice and what honour to the public peace it is but looking back upon the whole catalogue of his deeds and that will be sufficient to remember us The Cup of Gods physic as he calls it what alteration it wrought in him to a firm healthfulness from any surfet or excess wherof the people generally thought him sick if any man would goe about to prove we have his own testimony following heer that it wrought none at all First he hath the same fix'd opinion and esteem of his old Ephesian Goddess call'd the Church of England as he had ever and charges strictly his Son after him to persevere in that Anti-Papal Scism for it is not much better as that which will be necessary both for his soules and the Kingdoms Peace But if this can be any foundation of the kingdoms peace which was the first cause of our distractions let common sense be Judge It is a rule and principle worthy to be known by Christians that no Scripture no nor so much as any ancient Creed bindes our Faith or our obedience to any Church whatsoever denominated by a particular name farr less if it be distinguisht by a several Goverment from that which is indeed Catholic No man was ever bidd be subject to the Church of Corinth Rome or Asia but to the Church without addition as it held faithfull to the rules of Scripture and the Goverment establisht in all places by the Apostles which at first was universally the same in all Churches and Congregations not differing or distinguisht by the diversity of Countries Territories or civil bounds That Church that from the name of a distinct place takes autority to set up a distinct Faith or Government is a Scism and Faction not a Church It were an injurie to condemn the Papist of absurdity and contradiction for adhering to his Catholic Romish Religion if we for the pleasure of a King and his politic considerations shall adhere to a Catholic English But suppose the Church of England were as it ought to be how is it to us the safer by being so nam'd and establisht when as that very name and establishment by his contriving or approbation serv'd for nothing els but to delude us and amuse us while the Church of England insensibly was almost chang'd and translated into the Church of Rome Which as every Man knows in general to be true so the particular Treaties and Transactions tending to that conclusion are at large discover'd in a Book intitld the English Pope But when the people discerning these abuses began to call for Reformation in order to which the Parlament demanded of the King to unestablish that Prelatical Goverment which without Scripture had usurpt over us strait as Pharaoh accus'd of Idleness the Israelites that sought leave to goe and sacrifice to God he layes faction to thir charge And that we may not hope to have ever any thing reform'd in the Church either by him or his Son he forewarnes him That the Devil of Rebellion doth most commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and sayes anough to make him hate it as he worst of Evils and the bane of his Crown nay he counsels him to let nothing seem little or despicable to him so as not speedily and effcteually to suppress errors and Scisms Wherby we may perceave plainly that our consciences were destin'd to the same servitude and persecution if not wors then before whether under him or if it should so happ'n under his Son who count all Protestant Churches erroneous and scismatical which are not episcopal His next precept is concerning our civil Liberties which by his sole voice and predominant will must be circumscrib'd and not permitted to extend a hands bredth furder then his interpretation of the Laws already settl'd And although all human laws are but the offspring of that frailty that fallibility and imperfection which was in thir Authors wherby many Laws in the change of ignorant and obscure Ages may be found both scandalous and full of greevance to their Posterity that made them and no Law is furder good then mutable upon just occasion yet if the removing of an old Law or the making of a new would save the Kingdom we shall not have it unless his arbitrary voice will so far slack'n the stiff curb of his prerogative as to grant it us who are as free born to make our own law as our fathers were who made these we have Where are then the English Liberties which we boast to have bin left us by our Progenitors To that he answers that Our Liberties consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of our industry and the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented First for the injoyment of those fruits which our industry and labours have made our own upon our own what Privilege is that above what the Turks Jewes and Mores enjoy under the Turkish Monarchy For without that kind of Justice which is also in Argiers among Theevs and Pirates between themselvs no kind of Government no Societie just or unjust could stand no combination or conspiracy could stick together Which he also acknowledges in these words That if the Crown upon his head be so heavy as to oppress the whole body the weakness of inferiour members cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the head but that a necessary debilitation must follow So that this Liberty of the Subject concerns himself and the subsistence of his own regal power in the first place and before the consideration of any right belonging to the Subject VVe expect therfore somthing more that must distinguish free Goverment from slavish But in stead of that this King though ever talking and protesting as smooth as now sufferd it in his own hearing to be Preacht and pleaded without controule or check by them whom he most favourd and upheld that the Subject had no property of his own Goods but that all was the Kings right Next for the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented we never had it under him for not to speak of Laws ill executed when the Parlament and in them the people have consented to divers Laws and according to our ancient Rights demanded them he took upon him to have a negative will as the transcendent and ultimat Law above all our Laws and to rule us forcibly by Laws to which we our selves did not consent