April ensuing and pleasantly bad him expect the Labourers peny as soon as they that had serv'd him longer But the Bishop of Winchester made a proposition before his Majesty for another employment and both could not consist together that whereas the Arch-Bishop of Spalato a Proselyte much welcom'd at that time was design'd to be present at Cambridge commencement in the next July that he might behold the University in the fairest Trim and hear the disputation the best being ever provided for that appearance that Mr. Williams might be reserv'd unto that time for a double Service to answer publickly in Divinity for the Degree of Doctor the fittest to be the Days-man before that Learned Prelate and likewise give him Hospitality such as a great Guest deserv'd so it was order'd and so it was perform'd Some men are right Learned yet with all that worth steal out of the World unknown because it was their ill hap never to be brought upon a Theatre of manifestation And some are as Valiant as the best and yet are never praised for it because they were never invited into the Field to shew it So Velleius speaks for Seianus that he never Triumph'd nou merito sed materiâ adipiscendi triumphalia defectus est he deserv'd it but the matter of a Triumph never fell in his way There are others whom not only deliberate Advice but every casualty and contingence puts forward to be Aspectabiles it conducts them likely where they may best be viewed and their full Stature seen upon the advantage of a Rising I fall into this contemplation because an Object is before me wherein I may aptly Exemplify Dr. Williams his Title for which he stood in the Act an 1617. cull'd not out gaudy Seasons for vain Glory that cannot be suspected because he took all his Academical degrees in their just year But he above that disposeth all things provided those Co-incidencies of great Resort and Celebrity such as Arch-Bishop Spalato's Presence at this Commencement to make his Worthiness be known the further The Theses which he defended in the Vespers and were imposed upon him by the over-ruling Power of the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of the Consistory it is their Right and Custom were these 1. Supremus Magistratus nou est Excommunicabilis 2. Subductio calicis est mutilatio Sacramenti Sacerdotii It was well for the Doctor that he was a right Stag well breath'd and had a fair Head with all his Rights for I never heard a Respondent better hunted in all my time that I was a Commorant in Cambridge The Opponents were the Princes of their Tribes Men of Renown in their Generation Dr. Richardson the first Dr. Branthwait Dr. Ward Dr. Collins Dr. Alabaster Dr. Goad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who did Honour the University that day to the admiration of Mr. Antonie de Dominis with the utmost of their Learning Every Argument they pressed was a Ramm to throw down the Bulwarks of the Cause and yet it totter'd not neither did the Answerer give ground Such a Disputation was worthy to be heard which was carried with equal Praise of the Assailants and Defendants As Plutarch lib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says of Moral Precepts that they require a good Speaker and a good Hearer with mutual Diligence as a Game at Tennis is well play'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When the Stroke is serv'd well and the Service taken well 39. That I may mix some Profit to the Reader in this Relation I will let him know upon what Rules and Reasons the Respondent proceeded in the first Cause for the Conviction of all Gainsayers both of the Pontifician part and of the heady Consistories of some Reformed Churches The Pontifician Rubbish he removed away as a Dunghil of unsavoury Filth fit to be cast out of the Lord's Vine-yard either because the Popes medled so far beyond their own Bounds attempting to send out Effulminations against Christian Kings in all Countries upon Arrogation of an Universal bishoprick which hath the Plenitude of all Jurisdiction in it self alone to which they have exalted themselves without Christ's Warrant and Seal or because by the Declaratory Sentence of their Excommunications they inflict the highest Temporal Indignities upon Kings that can be imagin'd As inhibiting their Courts of Justice to proceed any further till he that sits in the Throne shall receive Absolution from their Grace Absolving their Subjects from obligation of all Service and Fidelity Deposing them from their Government and exposing their Lives to Assassinate For though they do not say that such Effects should necessarily go along with Excommunication yet they maintain That if the Pope see cause such Tragical Punishments may be annex'd unto it Far wide from the Truth For it is evident that an Excommunicated Person can be deprived of nothing by the Church but that which is enjoyed through the Ministry of the Church and its Priviledges but how can he be dispossess'd of that which he holds by Civil and Natural Right which are not dependant upon Spiritual Relations And as it is expedient to chip away these hard Crusts of Error so neither is the Crum to be digested which likes the Palates of some who are devoted to the Presbyterian Discipline A King is not obnoxious to be interdicted or deprived of the Sacraments by their Aldermen who can shew no more for the Proof of such Officers with whom they Organize a Church then the Pope can for his unlimited Jurisdiction Nor is it to be suffered that they should deny a Christian King to be a Church-Officer properly and by right of his Crown over Christian Subjects as Christians whose Causes can never be separated by their Metaphysical Abstractions before distinct supreme Rulers that are co-ordinate but that there will be endless Jarrs in their several Entrenchments and God is not the God of Confusion Should he that is next under God in all Causes be subject to the Courts of his Liege-People and Homagers He is their common Parent and the only Mandat how to bear our selves to our Father is to Honour him But what can make him more vile before the People then to thrust him out of the Communion of Saints Moreover the greater Excommunication includes in it the Horror of Anathematizing or a Curse but Curse not the King no not in thy thought Eccles 10.20 Neither would God give a constant Power to any which were in vain and could not sting Vanum est quod fine suo destuuitur But it is vain to interdict a King over whom there is no external Power appointed to bring him into order by Violence and Coercion if he will not be Interdicted In every Policy there must be a Supreme that can be Judged of none for else the Process between Party and Party would be Circular or rather Infinite These Aphorisms and abundance more flowed from the Doctor Respondent in the warmth of Disputation Above all his Answer was highly applauded which he gave to Dr.
Wherein the Lord Keeper interceded with the Duke to the incurring a mighty Anger as may be seen by the Letters of Decem. 24. and Jan. 4. Cab. p. 99. If Threatings had been mortal Shot he had Perisht for he never had such a Chiding before but he kept his Ground because he held the fairer side of the Quarrel Dr. Meriton the Dean of York was lately Dead and much Deplor'd For he was an Ornament to the Church My Lord Duke entreated by great ones named a Successor that had no Seasoning or Tast of Matter in him one Dr. Scot But a Doctor Inter Doctores Bullatos for he never stood in the Commencement to approve himself beside too many Faults to be ript up I have known a Scholar in Cambridge so bad a Rider that no Man for Love or Price would furnish him with a Horse I would have thought no Man would have furnisht such a Scholar as this with a Deanery chiefly of York It came about strangely Scot was a Prodigal Gamster and had lost upon the Ticket to a Noble Person far more then he was worth Which Debt his Creditor knew not how to recover but by Thrusting him aided with my Lord Dukes Power into this Rich Preferment The Casuists among all the Species of Simony never Dream'd of this which may be called Simonia Aleatoria when a Gamester is Installed into a goodly Dignity to make him capable to pay the Scores of that which he had lost with a bad Hand And yet the Man Died in the Kings-Bench and was not Solvent The Lord Keeper intending to put of Dr. Scot from this place besought for the remove of those most worthy Divines Dr. White or Dr. Hall or to Collate it upon Dr. Warner the most Charitable and very Prudent Bishop of Rochester But he was so terrified for giving this good Counsel that he writes now he knew his Graces Resolution he would alter his Opinion and would be careful in giving the least Cause of Jealousie in that kind again Yet it is a received Maxime Defuturos eos qui suaderent si suasisse sit periculum Curt. l. 3. Certainly with others this might work to his Esteem but nothing to his Prejudice And I dare confidently avouch what I knowingly speak that I may use the Words of my industrious Friend Mr. T. F. in his Church History That the Solicitation for Dr. Theodore Price about Two Months after was not the first motive of a Breach between the Keeper and the Duke the day-light clears that without dusky conjectures no nor any Process to more unkindness then was before which was indeed grown too high The Case is quickly Unfolded Dr. Price was Country Man Kinsman and great Acquaintance of the Lord Keepers By whose procurement he was sent a Commissioner into Ireland two years before with Mr. Justice Jones Sir T. Crew Sir James Perrot and others to rectifie Grievances in Church and Civil State that were complain'd In Executing which Commission he came of with Praise and with Encouragement from His Majesty that he should not fail of Recompence for his Well-doing Much about the time that the Prince return'd out of Spain the Bishoprick of Asaph soll void the County of Merioneth where Dr. Price was Born being in the Diocess The Lord Keeper attempted to get that Bishoprick for Dr. Price But the Prince since the time that by his Patent he was styled Prince of Wales had Claimed the Bishopricks of that Principality for his own Chaplains So Dr. Melburn and Dr. Carlton were preferr'd to St. Davids and Landaff And Asaph was now Conferr'd upon Dr. Hanmer his Highness's Chaplain that well deserv'd it A little before King James's Death Dr. Hampton Primate of Armach as stout a Prelate and as good a Governor as the See had ever enjoy'd Died in a good old Age. Whereupon the Keeper interposed for Dr. Price to Succeed him But the Eminent Learning of Dr. Usher for who could match him all in all in Europe carried it from his Rival Dr. Price was very Rational and a Divine among those of the first Note according to the small skill of my Perceivance And his Hearers did testifie as much that were present at his Latin Sermon and his Lectures pro gradu in Oxford But because he had never Preach'd so much as one Sermon before the King and had left to do his calling in the Pulpit for many years it would not be admitted that he should Ascend to the Primacy of Armach no nor so much as succeed Dr. Usher in the Bishoprick of Meth. To which Objection his Kinsman that stickled for his Preferment could give no good Answer and drew of with so much ease upon it that the Reverend Dr. Usher had no cause to Regret at the Lord Keeper for an Adversary Neither did Dr. Price ever shew him Love after that day and the Church of England then or sooner lost the Doctors Heart 214. It is certain that all Grants at the Court went with the Current of my Lord Dukes Favour None had Power to oppose it nor the King the Will For he Rul'd all his Majesties Designs I may not say his Affections Yet the L. Keeper declin'd him sometimes in the Dispatches of his Office upon great and just Cause Whereupon the King would say in his pleasant Manners That he was a stout Man that durst do more than himself For since his Highness's return out of Spain if any Offices were procur'd in State of Reversion or any Advouzons of Church Dignities he interpos'd and stopt the Patents as Injurious to the Prince to whose Donation they ought to belong in just time and preserv'd them for him that all such Rewards might come entire and undefloured to his Patronage Wherein his Highness maintain'd his Stiffness for that foresight did procure that his own Beneficence should be unprevented And he carried that Respect to the Dukes Honour nay to his Safety for notice was taken of it that he would not admit his Messages in the Hearing of Causes no not when his chief Servants attended openly in Court to Countenance those Messages to carry him a-wry and to oppress the Poorest and whose Faces he had never seen with the least wrong Judicii tenax suit neque aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit as Capitolinus makes it a good Note of Maximus He would believe his own Judgment and his own Ears what they heard out of Depositions and not the Representation of his best Friends that came from partial Suggestions Such Demands as are too heavy to ascend let them fall down in pieces or they will break him at the last that gives them his Hand to lift them up In this only he would not stoop to his Grace but pleas'd himself that he did displease him And being threatned his best Mitigation was That perhaps it was not safe for him to deny so great a Lord yet it was safest for his Lordship to be Denied It was well return'd For no Arrand was so privily conveyed
foolish in their several Extreams of Years I prostrate at the Feet of your Princely Clemency Which was granted as soon as the Paradox was unridled to pitch upon them Another Gust that blew from the same Cape I mean from the Pulpit began to be so boisterous that it came very cross to his Majesty's Content Our Unity among our selves was troubled in Point of Doctrine which was not wont The Synod of Dort in the Netherlands having lately determined some great Controversies awakned the Opposition of divers Scholars in our Kingdom who lay still before Learned and Unlearned did begin to conflict every Sunday about God's Eternal Election Efficacy of Grace in our Conversion and Perseverance in it with much Noise and little Profit to the People The King who lov'd not to have these Dogmatizers at Variance us'd all speed to take up the Quarrel early that our Variances might not reproach us to them that were without For there was that in him which Pope Leo applauded in Marcian the Emperor Ep. 70. In Christianissimo Principe sacerdotalis affectus He was a mixt Person indeed a King in Civil Power a Bishop in Ecclesiastical Affections After he had struggled with the Contentious Parties a while and interposed like Moses Sirs ye are Brethren Acts 7.26 and that this rebated not the keen Edge of Discord he commanded Silence to both Sides or such a Moderation as was next to Silence First Because of the Sublimity of the Points The most of Men and Women are but Children in Knowledge and strong Meat belongs to them only that are of full Age Hebr. 5.14 St. Austin subscribed to that Prudence Lib. 2. de porsev c. 16. Unile est ut taceatur aliquod verum propter incapaces Secondly Because the ticklish Doctrine of Predestination is frequently marr'd in the handling either by such as press the naked Decree of Election standing alone by it self and do not couple the Means unto it without which Salvation can never be attained or by those that hold out God's peremptory Decrees concerning those whom especially he hath given to Christ and do not as much or more enforce the Truth of Evangelical Promises made to all and to every Man that whosoever believeth in the Son of God shall not be confounded Now let the Reader consider all the Premises and he shall find how the Instructions that follow depend upon them Which in Form and Stile were the Lord Keepers in the Matter his Majesty's Command and were called Directions concerning Preachers 101. Forasmuch as the Abuses and Extravagancies of Preachers in the Pulpit have been in all Ages repressed in this Realm by some Act of Council or State with the Advice and Resolution of Grave and Learned Prelates insomuch as the very Licencing of Preachers had his Beginning by an Order of the Star-Chamber 〈◊〉 July 〈◊〉 Hen. 8. And that at this present young Students by Reading of late Writers and ungrounded Divines do broach Doctrines many times unprofitable unfound Seditious and Dangerous to the Scandal of this Church and Disquieting of the State and present Government His Majesty hath been humbly entreated to settle for the present either by Proclamation Act of Council or Command the several Diocesans of the Kingdom these Limitations and Cautions following untill by a general Convocation or otherwise some more mature Injunctions might be prepared and enacted in that behalf First That no Preacher under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop or Dean of a Cathedral or Collegiate Church do take occasion by the Expounding of any Text of Scripture whatsoever to fall into any Discourse or common Place otherwise than by opening the Coherence and Division of his Text which shall not be comprehended and warranted in Essence Substance Effect or natural Inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562 or in some one of the Homilies set forth by Authority in the Church of England not only for a Help to the Non-preaching but withal for a Pattern and a Boundary as it were for the Preaching Ministers And for their further Instruction for the Performance hereof that they forthwith read over and peruse diligently the said Book of Articles and the two Books of Homilies Secondly That no Parson Vicar Curate or Lecturer shall Preach any Sermon or Collation upon Sundays and Holy Days hereafter in the Afternoon in any Cathedral or Parish Church throughout the Kingdom but upon some Part of the Catechism or some Text taken out of the Ten Commandments or the Lords Prayer Funeral Sermons only excepted And that those Preachers be most encouraged and approved of who spend this Afternoon's Exercise in the Examining of the Children in their Catechisms and in the Expounding the several Heads and Substance of the same which is the most ancient and laudable Custom of Teaching in the Church of England Thirdly That no Preacher of what Title soever under the Degree of a Batchelor of Divinity at the least do henceforth presume to Preach in any Popular Auditory the deep Points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the Universality Efficacy Resistibility or Irresistibility of Gods Grace but leave those Themes to be handled by Learned Men and that moderately and modestly by way of Use and Application rather than by way of positive Docttine as being Points fitter for the Schools and Universitles than for simple Auditories Fourthly That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop shall presume from henceforth in any Auditory within this Kingdom to Declare Limit or bound out by way of positive Doctrine in any Sermon or Lecture the Power Prerogative Jurisdiction Authority or Duty of Sovereign Princes or to meddle with Matters of State and the References between Princes and the People otherwise than as they are Instructed and Precedented in the Homily of Obedience and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion set forth as before is mentioned by Publick Authority but rather confine themselves wholly to those two Heads of Faith and good Life which are all the Subject of the ancient Sermons and Homilies Fifthly That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall causelesly and without any Invitation from the Text fall into any bitter Invectives and undecent raising Speeches or Scoslings against the Persons of either Papists or Puritans but modestly and gravely when they are occasion'd thereunto by the Texts of Scripture free both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England from the Aspersions of either Adversary especially where the Auditory is suspected to be tainted with the one or the other Infection Lastly That the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath just Cause to blame for former Remisness be more wary and choice in Licensing of Preachers and revoke all Grants made to any Chancellor Official or Commissary to pass Licenses in this kind And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom a new Body severed from the ancient
did now Imprison and Execute the Rigour of his Laws against the Roman Catholics I must deal plainly with your Lordship our Viperious Country-men the English Jesuits in France to frustrate those pious endeavours of his Majesty had many Months before this Favour granted retorted that Argument upon us by Writing a most malicious Book which I have seen and read over to the French King Inciting him and the three Estates to put all those Statutes in Execution against the Protestants in those parts which are here Enacted and as they falsly inform'd severely Executed upon the Papists I would therefore see the most subtle State-monger in the World chalk out away for 〈◊〉 Majesty to mediate for Grace and Favour for the Protestants by Executing at this 〈◊〉 the Severity of his Laws upon the Papists And that this Favour should 〈…〉 Toleration is a most dull and yet a most devilish misconstruction A Toleration looks forward to the time to come This favour backward to the Offences past If any Papist now set at Liberty shall offend the Laws again the Justices may Nay must recomm◠him and leave Favour and Mercy to the King to whom they properly belong Nay let those two Writs directed to the Judges be as diligently perused by these rash Censurers as they were by those Grave and Learned Men to whom his Majesty referred the Penning of the same and they shall find that these Papists are not otherwise out of Prison then with their Shackles about their Heels sufficient sureties and good recognizances to present themselves again at the next Assizes As therefore that Lacedaemonian opposed the Oracle of Apollo by asking his Opinion of the Bird which he grasp'd in his hand whether it were alive or dead So it is a matter yet controverted and undecided whether these Papists clos'd up and grasp'd in the Bands of the Law be still in Prison or at Liberty Their own demeanour and the success of his Majesties Negotiations are the Oracles that must decide the same If the Lay-Papists do wax insolent with this Mercy insulting upon the Protestants and Translating this favour from the Person to the cause I am verily of Opinion that his Majesty will remand them to their former State and Condition and renew his Writ no more But if they shall use these Graces modestly by admitting conference with Learned Preachers demeaning of themselves Neighbourly and Peaceably praying for his Majesty and the prosperous success of his Pious Endeavours and Relieving him bountifully which they are as well able to do as any other of his Subjects if he shall be forced and constrained to take his Sword in Hand Then it cannot be denied but our Master is a Prince that hath as one said plus humanitatis poene quam hominis And will at that time leave to be merciful when he leaves to be himself In the the mean while this Argument fetch'd from the Devils Topics which concludes a concreto ad abstractum from a favour done to the English Papists that the King favoureth the Popish Religion is such a Composition of Folly and Malice as is little deserved by that Gracious Prince who by Word Writing Exercise of Religion Acts of Parliament late Directions for Catechising and Preaching and all Professions and Endeavours in the World hath demonstrated himself so Resolved a Protestant God by his Holy Spirit open the Eyes of the People that these Airy Representations of ungrounded Fancies set aside they may clearly discern and see how by the Goodness of God and the Wisdom of their King this Island of all the Countries in Europe is the sole Nest of Peace and True Religion And the Inhabitants thereof unhappy only in this one thing that they never look up up to Heaven to give God Thanks for so great an Happiness Lastly for mine own Letter to the Judges which did only declare not operate the Favour it was either mispenned or much mis-construed It recited four kinds of Recusants only capable of his Majesties Clemency Not so much to include these as to exclude many other Crimes bearing among the Papists the Name of Recusanties as using the Function of a Romish Priest seducing the King's Liege people from the Religion established Scandalizing and Aspersing our King Church State or present Government All which Offences being outward practises and no secret Motions of the Conscience are adjudged by the Laws of England to be meerly Civil and Political and excluded by my Letter from the benefit of those Writs which the bearer was imployed to deliver unto my Lords the Judges And thus I have given your Lordship a plain Accompt of the Carriage of this business and that the more suddenly that your Lordship might perceive it is no Aurea Fabula or prepared Fable but a bare Narration which I have sent unto your Lordship I beseech your Lordship to let his Majesty know that the Letters to the Justices of the Peace concerning those four Heads recommended by his Majesty shall be sent away as fast as they can be exscribed I will not trouble your Lordship more at this time c. Your Lordships I. L. C. S. 105. The Letter as it exceeds in length so it excells in Judgment Yet thrusting into the midst of the Throng to part the Fray he got a knock himself For because he was principally employ'd by his Office to distribute the King's Favours to some of the adverse Sect he was Traduc'd for a Well-willer to the Church of Rome nay so far by a ranting fellow about the Town that he was near to receive a chief promotion from that Court no less than a Cardinals Hat At the first Bruit of this Rumor the Scandal was told him and one Sadler the Author discover'd which he despis'd to prosecute and pass'd it by with this moderation ' That the Reporters saw the Oar under Water and thought it was ' Crooked but he that had it in his hand knew that it was whole and streight An admirable Similitude to reconcile contraries to a good meaning for the Eye were not right if the Oar under Water did not seem broken to it And the Judgment were not right if it had not a contrary Opinion So the people that are upon the Shore judge one way for they look upon things beneath the Water But States-men judge another who work at the Oar or guide the Bark The Error of the former is tolerable the Sense of the other is Magisterial and unquestionable So great were this Lord's disaffections to that corrupt and unfound Church that he watch'd their Ministers more narrowly then any Counsellor when they shot beyond the Mark of his Majesties late indulgences It was ever the unlucky diligence of those that were Proctors to agitate the Recusants Cause to importune his Majesty for those things which they did not hope to obtain but the very offer of them with their Arts and Graceless Carriage would make the Council Table odious contribute much to embitter the Subjects
other Bodies cannot dissolve the Constancy of Gold 108. How faithfully and with what Courage like himself he adventur'd to maintain Orthodox Religion against old Corruptions and new Fanglements will be a Labour to unfold hereafter One thing remains that is purely of Episcopal Discharge which I will salute and so go by it before I look again upon his Forensive or Political Transactions When he was Dean of Westminster he had a Voice in the High Commission Court and so forth when he was in higher Degrees For as Nazianzen commends Athanasius pag. 24. Encom he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 skiiful in all the various Arts of Government He appear'd but once at Lambeth when that Court sat while he was Dean A sign that he had no Maw to it For he would say that the Institution of the Court was good without all Exception That is to Impower the Kings of England and their Successors by Statute to issue out that Authority under the Great Seal which was annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm to assign some as often and to so long time as the King should think fit to be Judges for the Reformation of great Abuses and Enormities But that this Power should be committed from the Kings and Queens of this Realm to any Person or Persons being Natural born Subjects to their Majesties to overlook all Ecclesiastical Causes correct punish deprive whether one or more whether Lay or Clergy whether of the vilest as well as the noblest nay whether Papist as well as Protestant as no harm was to be feared from good Princes albeit they have this Liberty by the Tenure of the Act 1 Eliz. Cap. 1. So if God should give us a King in his Anger who would oppress us till our cry went up like the Smoke out of a Furnace this Statute would enable them to enact Wickedness by a Law This was a Flaw to his seeming in the Corps of the Statute which gave Vigour to the High Commission But in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and her two blessed Successors God be praised we were never the worse for it Better Commissioners than were appointed in their Days need not be wish'd What ail'd this wise Church-man then to be so reserv'd and to give so little Attendance in that Court He was not satisfied in two things Neither in the Multiplicity of Causes that were pluck'd into it nor in the Severity of Censures It is incident to Supream Courts chiefly when Appeals fly unto them to be sick of this Timpany to swell with Causes They defraud the lower Audiences of their Work and Profit which comes home to them with Hatred What a Clamor doth Spalat make Lib. 5. Eccl. Reip. c. 2. ar 28. That the Judicatories at Rome lurch'd all the Bishops under that Supremacy of all Complaints that were promoted to their Consistories Eò lites omnes cò dispensationes trahuntur Fluviorum omnium tractus ad suam derivat molam nobis quod sugamus nihil relinquitur The Affairs of all Ecclesiastical Tribunes were little enough to drive that Mill So the Consistories of all the Suffragans in the Province of Canterbury became in a manner Despicable because the Matters belonging to every Diocess were followed before the High Commission That it might be said to the neglected Praelates at Home Are ye unworthy to Judge the smallest Matters 1 Cor. c. 2. It seems ill Manners increas'd apace For I heard it from one that liv'd by the Practice of that High Court An. 1635 That whereas in the last Year of Arch-Bishop Whitgift eight Causes were left to be discuss'd in Easter-Term there were no less than a Thousand depending at that time This was one of his Exceptions That the High Court drew too much into its Cognizance The other Reason which made him stand a loof from it was That it punish'd too much Arch-Bishop Abbot was rigorously Just which made him shew less Pity to Delinquents Sentences of great Correction or rather of Destruction have their Epocha from his Predominancy in that Court. And after him it mended like sowre Ale in Summer It was not so in his Predecessor Bancroft's Days who would Chide stoutly but Censure mildly He considered that he sate there rather as a Father than a Judge Et pro peccato magno paululum supplicii satis est patris He knew that a Pastoral Staff was made to reduce a wandering Sheep not to knock it down He look'd upon St. Peter in whom the Power of the Keys was given to the Unity of all the Officers of the Church who incurr'd a great Offence in the Hall of the High Priest let the Place be somewhat consider'd but his Action most Ut mitior esset delinquentibus grandis delinquens Saith St. Austin It being the most indubitate Course of that Commission to deprive a Minister of his Spiritual Endowments that is of all he had if Drunkenness or Incontinency were prov'd against him I have heard the Lord Keeper who was no Advocate for Sin but for Grace and Compassion to Offenders dis-relish that way for this Reason That a Rector or Vicar had not only an Office in the Church but a Free-hold for Life by the Common Law in his Benefice If a Gentleman or Citizen had been Convicted upon an Article of Scandal in his Life was it ever heard that he did Confiscate a Mannor or a Tenement Nay What Officer in the Rolls in the Pipe in the Custom-house was ever displac'd for the like Under St Cyprian's Discipline and the Rigor of the Eliberitan Canons the Lay were obnoxious to Censures as much as the Clergy But above all said he there is nothing of Brotherhood nor of Humanity in this when we have cast a Presbyter cut of Doors and left him no Shelter to cover his Head that we make no Provision for him out of his own for Term of Life to keep him from the Extremities of Starving or Begging those Deformed Miseries 109. These Reasons prevailing with him to be no ordinary Frequenter of that Court yet an Occasion was offered which required his Presence Mart. 30. 1622 which will draw on a Story large and memorable M. Amonius de Deminis Arch Bishop of Spalato made an Escape out of Dalmatia an English Gentleman being his Conductor he posted through Germany and came safe into England in the end of the Year 1616. The King gave him Princely Welcome Many of the Religious Peers and Chief Bishops furnished him with Gold that he lack'd for nothing He seem'd then for all this Plenty brought in to be covetous of none of these things but was heard to say That the Provision of an ordinary Minister of our Church would suffice him For in the end of June as he was brought on his Way to the Commencement at Cambridge a Worthy and a Bountiful Divine Dr. John Mountfort receiv'd him for a Night in his Parsonage-House of Ansty Where Spalat noting that Dr. Mountfort had all things about him orderly and handsome like
Prince his Heir and the whole Flower of the Realm with that Infernal Powder-Plot Not reveal it said I Yes more it was hatch'd in their Brain and confirm'd with their Blessing If Clanculary Confession was cast out of the Church of Constantinople for one Mans Lust What just cause have we to gagg it for forty Mens Treason I would have him hang'd for his Wit that should invent a way to discharge a Pistol that might give no Report Now let me forfeit my Credit if wise Men will not say That Conspiracies buzzed into the Ear and imposed never to be detected upon the deepest Obligations of Faith Church-Love Merit c. are far more dangerous than Powder and Shot that kill and crack not Would you in good earnest have us Repeal our Laws of Correction against such dangerous Flambeaux Were not that to break down our Walls and to let in the fatal Horse with his Belly-full of Enemies If they plead that there is no such danger in them now Let them tell it to deaf Men. We know and can demonstrate that the most of Contrivances against our State have been whetted upon the Grind-stone of Confession Our Sages that made the Laws to blow away the Locusts into their own Red-Sea have given us a taste of their Malice in the Preface of the Statute Eliz. 27. That they came into the Land to work the Ruine Desolation and Destruction of the whole Realm Therefore marvel not if some have lost their Lives that have tempted the Rigour of those Laws Neither doth it move us that our Fugitives thereupon have sprinkled their Calenders with new Martyrs What if Jeroboam's Priests had pass'd their own Bounds and come to Jerusalem where it is likely they would have been cut off for Enemies and Rebels should their Names have been crowded into the Catalogue of the good Prophets that were stoned by Tyrants Beshrew your Superiours beyond Seas that Conjure up such Spirits to come into our Circle It grieves us God knows our Hearts to Execute our Laws upon one ot two in Seven Years for a Terror to others But Prudence is a safer Virtue then Pity And it is far better our Adversaries should be obnoxious to our Tribunal then we to theirs by the Thraldom of our Nation which is the drift of those unnatural Emissaries And if the Venetians that are under the Obedience of your Church have banish'd some of that Stamp and irrevocably out of their Territories Nay if your selves in France did sometimes Expel the same Faction accept it favorably from us who will never be under that Obedience if we Banish all 227. Hold out your Great Courtesie my Lord to a few Words more The Answering of an Objection or two will not stay you long And before I conclude I will deal you a good Game to make your Lordship a Saver if you will follow Suit You please your self Sir because you ask no more Liberty for your sacrifical Priests in our Land then the Reformed Ministers enjoy with you in France But the Comparison doth not consist of equal Terms The Protestants receive a benefit of some Toleration in your Realm to stop the mischief of Civil Wars and to settle a firm Peace among your selves It is the Reason which your Wisest and most candid Historian Thuanus doth often give and Mounsieur Bodin before him p. 588. Reip. Ferenda ea Religio est quam sine interitu reip auferre non potest If you did not so you would pull up much of your own Wheat with that which you call Tares But such a Toleration in this Kingdom would not only disturb Peace but with great Probability dissolve it In the next place you urge that such a memorable Favour might be done to gratifie the sweet Madam our intended Princess upon the Marriage O my Lord you are driven by Blind Mariners upon a Rock If this could be Granted by the King which you contend for and wereeffected Sweet Lady she would be brought in the Curses of this Nation and would Repent the day that she drew the Offence of the whole Land upon her Head Let me say on the Husbands Part what your Country-man Ausonius says for the Wife Saepe in conjugiis fit noxia si nimia est dos If the Prince should make a Joynter to his Wife out of the Tears and Sorrows of the People it were the worst bargain that ever he made His Majesties Consort of Happy Memory Queen Ann did not altogether concord with our Church Indeed the Diversity between us and the Lutherans among whom she was bred is as little as between Scarlet and Crimson The Colours are almost of the same Dip. But she carried it so prudently that she gave no notice of any dissention Neither ever did demand to have a Chaplain about her of the Lutheran Ordination This were a Precedent for the most Illustrious Madam to follow rather to procure the love of the generality then of a few Male-contents from whom you your self my Lord will have Cause to draw off when I tell you all They deal not with your Lordship sincerely They thrust your whole hand into the Fire and will not touch a Coal with one of their own Fingers They that incite and stir these Motions behind the Curtain dare not upon pain of their Lives ask it in Parliament where they know the Power Rests and no where beside to ratifie the Grant And when they Solicite your Lordship to obtain these indulgences for them in the Court they know you beat the wrong Bush Upon my Faith the Bird is not there Noli amabo verberare Lapidem ne perdas manum Plaut in Curcul Knock not your Fingers against a Stone to Grate them Perchance my Lord you think I have pinch'd you all this while with a streit Boot which you can neither get on nor off Your Lordship shall not depart from me with little Ease if Truth and plain dealing will purchase me to be called your Friend None can Repeal our Laws but his Majesty with the Votes of the three Estates as you term them the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the people And to dispense with the Execution of a Law absolutely and unrestreinedly is as much as to Repeal it which if the King should assay it were null in Law and in Revenge of it in the next Parliament it would be faster bound and perchance the Rigour of it increased But Favour and Mercy may be shewn Praeter sententiam legis in some exempted Cases and to some particular persons Clemency against the Capital Sentence of the Laws is the Kings Prerogative the Life of his Subject when it is forfeit to him he may choose whether he will take the forfeiture Every Varlet says Seneca may kill a Citizen against the Law but then he turns to the Emperor Servare nemo praeter te c. None but the Supreme Majesty can save a Life against the Law Work upon that my Lord and it were a good days work to
Moriar ego sed me mortuo vigeat ecclesia Let me retire to my little Zoar but let your Gracious Majesty be pleas'd to recommend â—â—â—o my most able and deserving Successor an especial Care of your Church and Church-men To call upon the Judges who God's Name be prais'd are ready enough to hear such Motions to relieve the poor sort of Church-men publickly affronted in their Persons by factious and insolent Justices or judicially wrong'd in their Causes by wilful and partial Jurors Likewise to entertain and countenance their just Plaints in that great Court of Chancery the which of all the rest in Westminster-Hall as not proceeding upon the Verdicts of Lay and Country Juries hath been ever by those of my Coat held most equal and indifferent Also to mingle always some few of the Clergy of best Means and Discretion in the Commission of the Peace who with their very Presence and sitting in that place are a great Countenance to their poor Brethren And withal to keep and preserve poor Ministers from the Oppressions of malicious Informers in that great and chargeable Court of the Star-Chamber Lastly to afford all the Clergy of England that Solace and Relief which his Lordship knoweth well they will expect from your Majesty such a Son of such a Father So may God make your Majesty more victorious than David more wise than Solomon and every way as good a King as your Majesty's blessed Father It shall be the continual Prayer of Your Majesty's poor Subject and Chaplain JO. LINCOLN Foxly Octob 25. This is the Dirge with which that Swan expir'd Being careful of nothing but that his poor Brethren might not be trampled upon over his back especially those that served in Country Cures among bad Pay-masters and narrow-hearted contentious Chuffs So I have done with the ex-authorized Lord-Keeper not fall'n in his worth or in himself though fall'n from a great Place Be it justly ascrib'd to him which Pliny doth to M. Cato lib. 29. c. 1. Cujus autoritati triumphus atque censura minimum conferunt tanto plus in ipso est There was enough in him still to keep him as great as King James had made him 31. The Subject which is now under the Quill is the Bishop of Lincoln A few late Writers who want the Polishing of Humanity and the Meekness of Christianity have done him high reproach in some Occurencies They shall answer for it to God I will only put this little Syrup into the Reader 's Mouth to take away the ill relish of those Defamations that the Fire of Envy would have gone out by this time but that there is a Pile of Vertue left behind to keep it burning Yet even those Men have scarce given him a little scratch or no more anent his Episcopal Administration of his Diocess He made that Office a good Work 1 Tim. 3.1 Neither did he hold any Preheminence of Place without an eminence of Worth and Prudence For four Years after his Consecration he was not in Condition through the great Burthen of other Imployments to appear among his Clergy But it is well known to them that lived under his Charge in those days that both Ministry and Laity were greatly satisfied with his Government For his Encouragements to the Best-deserving were very kind his Dispatches were never intermitted and his Directions strictly look'd after to be observ'd by those that were under him in any part of his Jurisdiction Yet to reach no further than Truth from this time forward his Presence wrought more than his Substitutes in his absence his Light shin'd clearer and the Influence of it was stronger when he was six'd and resident in his own Orb. As Columella commends it wittily to an Owner to live upon his own Ground if he would thrive says he Fimus optimus in agro est Domini vestigium So the Vineyard of Christ in every part of it will prosper best when the Vine-dresser himself doth walk about the Field Or to go higher as Moses said of the promised Land Deut. 11.12 It is a Land which the Lord thy God cares for the Eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the Year to the end So it runs like a Verse set to the same Tune to say that the Eye of God is all the Year long upon that Portion of his Church where the Diocesan is not a Stranger but a Co-habitant or if you will a Companion with his Brethren And the Bishop having now no more to do with civil Distractions bethought him instantly of the Duty of his Pastoral Staff made Provision for an Houshold which attended him in a great Retinue and removed from Barkshire without touching at London to Bugden in Hunting donshire His Privacy at Foxly conceal'd his Double-diligence to make haste to be gone lest more Anger should shower upon him if he tarried Wherein I espy into Salmasius his Note upon Solinus p. 327. That a Lion never runs away fast from his Enemies but when he hath got into a shady Wood and cannot be seen Ubi virgulta sylvasque penetravit acerrimo cursu fertur velut abscondente turpitudinem loco Beside he that felt the Frowns or rather the Despight of the Court by being near to it knew it was wholsome to change Air to be rid of that Disease as well as Hippocrates prescribes it for the worst Symptoms of the Body Aphor. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To go to a new Soil is good to mitigate an old Sickness No question but being lodg'd now in his Episcopal Palace his most proper Watch-Tower he found it best for the best Health that of a quiet Mind and a good Conscience He was in the way to know himself better when he was more alone to himself than in late Years He was at rest to make use of the Verse of a judicious Heathen Tacitum sylvas inter reptare salubres Horat. Curantem quicquid dignum sapiente bonoque est He might now do as well as know the meaning what the Scriptures intend when they say that Rulers go in and out before the People For how can they go out unto them that are never in among them Else they may be out but never in Here this History hath found him and shall recount things most memorable that there concern'd him speaking after the rate of enough and not a jot beyond it This many both Friends and Strangers to him have desired often from the Author of this Piece to be informed in And it is a quaint Rule which fell from Pliny Lib. 35. c. 2. N. H. Nullum majus est felicitatis specimen quà m omnes scire cupere qualis fucrit aliquis He is happy that hath lived so that many desire to know how he lived Into which every one that looks will like this Order to proceed by to rank things praise-worthy on the right-hand as it were by themselves and all things on the other hand which fell upon him by
Script and Memory after the ransacking of his Papers Therefore as Tully writes lib. 3. de Orat. Majus quiddam de Socrate quà m quantum Platonis libri prae se ferunt cogâ—andum That Socrates was a braver man than Plato had made him in his Dialogues So I have not made Dr. Williams so compleat a Bishop as he was he was more than I have describ'd him and would have been far more than himself had attain'd to if the Messenger of Satan had not been sent to busset him in many Troubles and Trials lest he should have been exalted above measure 63. After much that hath been dilated in this Book pleasing for Peace and Honour Praise-worthy for Merit and Vertue I must make room for Grief it will thrust in into every Registry and Chronicle into the remembrance of any man's Life which is continued from the beginning to the end Says â—lato in his Phaedon after his way of a Fable-frame of Philosophy when Jupiter could not make Joy and Sorrow agree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He yoked their Heads together that they could never be parted Therefore those things which God's Providence hath joyn'd inseparably no Pen can put asunder so that the Current of this History hitherto clear must fall into a dead Sea-like Jordan The Good which this famous Bishop did must be continued with the Evil which he suffer'd As Polusiote writes of Jeremias that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most passive the most persecuted of all the Prophets So of all that this Church had preferr'd to the like Dignity except them that resisted to Blood none was wounded with so many Darts of Despight as this man or aviled with so many Censures or stood so long in chase before his Enemies Having delivered up the Great Seal from the first day that he removed to Bugden all Promises were broken which gave him Assurance of Countenance and Safety and the place to which he was bidden to go as to a Sanctuary assorded him no more shelter than an Arbour in the Winter against a Shower of Rain Therefore to keep off Mistakes be it noted as to the time it was the same wherein he lived so like a Bishop and wherein he suffer'd so like a Confessor But Method distinguisheth those Troubles by themselves like Tares gathered from the good Wheat and bound in their own Bundles Some are greater practis'd upon no Subject before nor fit to be done hereafter Some are lesser matters yet not unworthy my Hand When they are disposed Limb by Limb and in order as they were done there will be much of them I would they had been less and be known to be enforced without Shame of the World with so much Wrong and Rancour that an indifferent Reader will depose there needs no Fiction nor Colour to make them worse than they were Those that were outdone in the first place were outgone by them that came after Quid prima querar Quid summa gemam Pariter cuncla deslere juvat Sene. Her Oet What the last and greatest should have been is unknown because they came not to that Birth It was decreed by Men but undecreed by GOD who sent his Judgments upon all and brought both Actors and Sufferers to utter Ruin by that Parliament which held us as long as the issue of Blood held the Woman in the Gospel Twelve years Mat. 9.20 It was no thanks to his Foes to give over then It was strange they would not give over till then when one black day like a Dooms-day blended the whole Hierarchy and with their Lordships Leave the Nobility in one mass of Destruction Those underfatigable Enemies that pursued him knew that he could never fall so low while he was alive but that there was Worth which was like to get up and rise again He had never felt such Sorrow if he had been contemn'd It was his ill luck to be feared because of the great Powers of his Mind whom none had cause to fear since he never fought Revenge Then they saw he would stand upright and never stoop after they had loaded his Back with so many Burthens which made them obstinate to proceed and labour in vain to crush out that which was not Wind but Spirit The Mountainous Country of Wales wherein he was born breeds hardy men but sew his Equals which Courage is no more to be forgotten than the twelve Labours of Hercules Let Xenophon speak for Socrates so must I for this Hero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apolog. in sine Observing the Wisdom and Generosity of the Man I cannot but remember him and when I remember him I cannot but praise him Neither were it useful I will subscribe to it to bring up his Sufferings from the Dead now he is gone unless the People that come after may be made the wiser and the stronger by them if they fall into the like But noble Examples are like the best Porcellan Dishes of China which are made in one Age laid up in the Earth and are brought forth to be used in another That 's the Goal I drive to And those Circuitions which are brought in for those Applications sake will make that which might be shut up in a little swell into a Volume Casaubon gives us this Warning of Polybius in his rare Preface before him Ita narrat ut moneat Personam historici cum assumpsit Polybius non in totum exuit philosophi Folybius was a Philosopher in his History so would I be and more a Teacher of Christ and the Laws of his Church as I am by Ordination 64. For an entrance I take my method from a wise Artist concerning the long and dangerous Adventures of his Aeneas to search into the Cause Quo numine laeso which way it came about since there was no man living whose Harm this Bishop wish'd that he could never find his Peace and Prosperity again when once he had lost them Why principally I cast it upon his Sins What Man is without them And his were not many but those some were great ones a lofty Spirit whose motion tended upward restless to climb to Fower and Honour And not one among an hundred of great Aspirers that live to see quiet days And this was joyn'd with too much Fire in the passion of his Anger in which Mood indeed which is strange he would reason excellently and continue it in the very Euro-clydon of his Choler as the Low Germans are most cunning at a Bargain when they are more than half tippled But in such an evil extasie of the Mind words would fall from him or from any which pleased not Men and were hateful to GOD Let these stand for the Fore-singer that points to the cause of his bitter Encounters Every man 's evil Genius that haunts him is his own Sin which wipes not out any paat of the Good which hath been written of him before The same man appears not the same but another in some miscarriages Polybius lib. 16. commends
Parliament and had stood up to defend him where there was openly such defiance of Enmity between them he had been censur'd by all Judgment for double-mindedness or sawning And as Lanfrank charged one of his Predecessors Remigius Bishop of Lincoln Quod officio emerat Episcopatum So the World would have censur'd this Prelate that he kept his Place by Service Simony as Mr. Fuller calls it And with what Safety and Liberty he could appear let one Passage demonstrate The Duke demanded that the Attorney-General might plead for him in the House of Peers against the Charge transmitted by the Commons which was opposed because the Attorney was one of the King 's Learned Council and sworn to plead in Causes concerning the King and not against them And the King is supposed to be ever present in the noble Senate of the Lords It was rejoyn'd That His Majesty would dispense with the Attorney's Oath It came to be a Case of Conscience and was referr'd to the Bishop's Learning Some of them judged for the Duke that this was not an Assertory-Oath which admits no alteration but a Promissory-Oath from which Promise the King if he pleas'd might release his Learned Counsel Bishop Felton a devout man and one that feared God very learned and a most Apostolical Overseer of the Clergy whom he governed argued That some Promissory-Oaths indeed might be relaxed if great cause did occur yet not without great cause lest the Obligation of so sacred a thing as an Oath should be wantonly slighted And in this Oath which the Attorney had taken it was dangerous to absolve him from it lest bad Example should be given to dispense with any Subject that had sworn faithful Service to the Crown for which plain Honesty he was wounded with a sharp Rebuke And the reverend Author told me this with Tears Yet the Archb. Abbot said as much and went farther for whom Budaeus would stand up a great Scholar and a Statesman De Asse lib. 3. fol. 102. Neque turpe esse credo cos homines observare quibus apud Principem gratiâ slagrare contigit si non cosdem apud populum ordines infamiâ invidiâ slagrare videamus As who would say it is Duty to love a Favourite for the King's sake and it is Duty to desert him when he becomes a publick Scandal For no man will be happy to stick to him who is so unhappy to become a common Hatred All that Parliament was a long Discontent of eighteen weeks and brought forth nothing but a Tympany of swelling Faction and abrupt Dissolution whereby the King saved that great Lord who lost His Majesty in some expeditions Honour abroad and the love of his People at home This was another Fire-brand kindled after the former at Oxford to burn down the Royal House and the most piously composed Church of England For a wife Oratour says it is Isocr Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 243. The cause of an Evil must not be ascribed to things that concur just at the breaking out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to the forerunning Mischiefs which were soaking long to ripen the Distempers Well was it for Lincoln that he had no hand in this Fray for as the Voyagers to Greenland say When the Whale-fishing begins it is better to be on the Shore and look on E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem than to be employed in the Ships to strike them and hale them to Land 71. Say then that he neither did harm nor receive any by being shut out of this turbulent Parliament Yet his Advice had been worth the asking because of the Plunges that His Majesty was put to upon the Dissolution but he heard of no Call to such a purpose For no man looks on a Dyal in a cloudy day when the Sun shines not on it God's Mercy was in it for he sate safer at home than he could have done at the Council-Board at this time where much Wisdom was tryed to help the King's Necessities out of the Peoples Purses by a Commandatory Loan and with the least Scandal that might be for not to run into some Offence was unavoidable Pindar the Poet was call'd out of his House to speak with some Friend in the Street Castor and Pollux says the Tale-teller searce was his Foot over the Threshold when the Building sunk and all that were within perish'd Thus upon a time the least Shelter gave the most Safety as did the lesser Honour procure this man the more Peace But as Camillus in Livy thrust out of Rome and retired to Ardea prayed that they that had cashier'd him might have no need of him so this forlorn Statesman would have been satisfied to have his place at the Council-Table supplied by others if the King's Affairs had not wanted him at this instant when he suddenly slid down from his former value in the love of this People The Bishops most likely it came from them advised His Majesty first to fly to God and to bid a publick Fast first at Court then over all the Land about the fifth of July Bish Laud whose Sermon was printed preach'd before the King upon the 21st Verse of the 17th Chapter of St. Matthew This kind goeth not out but by Prayer and Fasting The Preface of the Book and the Exhortation publish'd to the observing that solemn Fast stirred up all good Christians to entreat God not to take Vengeance on the Murmurings of the People to keep their Spirits in Unity to divert the plague of immoderate Rain like to corrupt the Fruits of the Harvest and chiefly to preserve us from the Bloody Wars that Spain intended against us Intended says the Book for depredation of Merchants Ships was the worst they had done us Let the Reader gather this by the way That a publick Fast had not been indicted before by the Supreme Authority upon the Alarums of our Enemies Preparations In Eighty eight an Order came out call'd A Form of Prayer necessary for the present Time and State to be used on Wednesdays and Fridays that is certain Collects to be added to the Common Prayer Yet no Fast was bidden saving thus far That Preachers in their Sermons and Exhortations should move the People to Abstinence and Moderation in their Dyet to the end they might be more able to relieve the Poor c. The first Form to be used in Common Prayer with an Order of publick Fast for every Wednesday in the week for a time was set out by Queen Elizabeths special Command in Aug. 1563. when the Plague called The Plague of New-haven was rise in London In which Book is a passage to illustrate our Common-Prayer-Book for the first Rubrick prefixt to the Order for the Holy Communion That so many as intend to be Partakers of the Holy Communion should signifie their Names to the Curate over night or else in the morning either before the beginning of Common Prayer or immediately after That immediately after means that in
ten degrees backward upon their Dyal they knew it That Abner gave good Counsel to Asahel not to pursue a valianter man than himself and a Captain of the Host but lay hold on one of the young men and take his Armour 2 Sam. 2.21 they knew it Yet they had shuffled the Cards that they knew they should win somewhat by the Hand for if the Bishop gave no Answer to this Challenger he was baffled and posted upon every Gate about London for a Dastard If he return'd them their own again then pull him to the Stake and worry him in the Star-chamber where he was struggling for Life at this time in which fatal juncture the King must be told that he was an Enemy to the Piety of the Times and the Good Work in hand So that this Spaniel was to put up the Fowl that the Eagle might fall upon the Quarry But it was soon decided for rather than forsake a good Cause and a good Name Lincoln chose to use his Pen to maintain his innocent Letter though malicious Subtlety had made it manifest that nothing could fall so moderately from him in that cause which would not be subject to perverse exposition The Athenians had deserted their old Philosophy Cum imminente periculo major salutis quà m dignitatis cura fuit Justin lib. 5. Therefore a Mind that was not degenerous had rather provide for Dignity than Safety None writes better than Budaeus upon such a case de Asse lib. 1. fol. 10. Tanta fuit vis numinis ad stylum manum urgentis ut periclitari malis quà m rumpi degeneri patientiâ Some divine Spirit did so strongly stir him up to write that he had rather run any hazard than smother such an Injury with cowardly Patience 98. I have cleared the rise of the Controversie which follows That a Letter of the Bishop's was sent to some few persons nine years before to stop a Debate in a private Parish and to make Peace in the place This was published by Dr. Heylin with a Confutation and censur'd for Popular Affectation Disaffection to the Church Sedition and for no better than No Learning And the Plot was as Concurrencies will not let it be denied to pop out this Pamphlet when the Bishop's Cause in Star-chamber was now ripe for hearing And this was the Pack-needle to draw the Whip-cord of the Censure after it But what was this about Take the Substance or rather the Shadow that was contended for out of the Letter in an Abstract The Vicar of Grantham P. T. of his own Head and never consulting the Ordinary had removed the Communion-Table to that upper part of the Chancel which he called the Altar-place where he would officiate when there was a Communion and read that part of Service belonging to the Communion when there was none And when the People shewed much dislike at it because it was impossible as they alledg'd that the 24th part of the Parish should see or hear him if he officiated in that place he persisted in his way and told them he would build an Altar of Stone upon his own cost at the upper end of the Quire and set it with the ends North and South Altar-wise and six it there that it might not be removed upon any occasion A Complaint being made against this by the Alderman and a multitude of the Town the Bishop contented himself at first to send a Message to the Magistrate and the Vicar that they should not presume either the one or the other of them to move or remove that Table any more otherwise than by special direction of him and his Chancellor that in his Journey that way he would view the place and accommodate the matter according to the Rubrick and Canons There being no certain day set when the Bishop would come the Inhabitants of Grantham prevented him and came with open cry to Bugden against the Vicar who was among them at the Hearing Some Heat and sharp Impeachments against each other being over the Bishop did his best to make them Friends and supp'd them together in his great Hall while himself retired to his Study and bade them expect that he would frame somewhat in a thing so indifferent to him to give them content against the Morning So he bestowed that night in writing and made his Papers ready by day As the Panegyrist said to Constantine of such Celerity Quorum igneae immortales mentes mintâ—â—e sentiunt corporis moras p. 303. The Secretary gave a short Letter to the Alderman in which that which concerns the case in hand is this little That his Lordship conceived that the Communion-Table when it is not used should stand in the upper end of the Chancel not Altar-wise but Table-wise But when it is used either in or out of the time of Communion it should continue in the place it took up before or be carried to any other place of Church or Chancel where the Minister might be most audibly heard of the whole Congregation What can a Critick in Ceremonies carp at herein What else but that the end and not the side of the Table should stand toward the Minister when he perform'd his Liturgy Is this all And must a Controversie as big as a Camel be drawn through the Eye of this Needle But more of the same comes after in a larger Script which the Bishop at the same time willed to be delivered to the Divines of the Lecture of Grantham to be examined by them upon their next meeting-day that their Vicar being one of their company might read the Contents and take a Copy for his own use if he would but to divulge it no further Herein the Bishop derives his Conceptions from the Injunctions Articles and Orders of the Queen from the Homilies and Canons from Reports out of the Book of Acts and Monuments and from the Rubricks of the Liturgy and shews out of these that the Utensil on which the Holy Communion is celebrated ought not to be an Altar but a joyned Table that the Name of Table is retained by the Church of England and the other of Altar laid aside that the Table without some new Canon is not to stand Altar-wise in Parish-Churches and the Minister be at the North end thereof but Table-wise and he must officiate at the North side of the same that this Table when holy Duties are not in performing at it must be laid up in the Chancel but in the time of Service to be removed to such a place of Church or Chancel the over-sight of Authority appointing it wherein he that officiates may be most conveniently seen and heard of all They that would peruse the whole Letter are referred to it in Print but the sum of it is already laid before them And the Author was so little over-weening tho' in a frivolous case that he prays the Divines to whom he sent it that if they found mistakings in his Quotations or had met with any Canons
hath given encouragement to the Metropolitan and Bishops and other Ordinaries to require the like in all Churches committed to them The Bishop says He hath left all to the Law to the Communion-book to the Canons and Diocesan p. 59. And which is much they two should agree the Doctor says so too Ant. p. 64. That it is left to the Judgment of the Ordinary for the thing for the time N. B. when and how long he may find cause The Bishop says more That after this Order he had heard of no Bishop that had exacted of his Diocess the placing of the Holy Table Altar-wise p. 69. And in the year following 1634. the Archbishop holding a Metropolitical Visitation keeps him to the ancient form in this Interrogatory Doth the Table stand in a convenient place of Chancel or Church If one Prelate was singular in his Visitation of Norwich Diocess which the Dr. would seem not to speak out but to intimate our Bishop hath a Passage to meet it p. 85. out of Archbishop Whitgift There is no manner of reason that the Orders of the Church should depend upon one or two mens liking or disliking Where now appears I say not the Command but the Encouragement that the Order made for St. Gregory's Church should be observed in all Parishes It will conduce to this Cause to borrow one Quotation out of the Bishop and two out of the Doctor the Bishop's is taken from an Act of Council made for reformation 1 Edw. 6. That the form of a Table shall never move the simple from the superstitious Opinions of the Popish Mass and that this superstitious Opinion is more held in the minds of the simple and ignorant by the form of an Altar than of a Table The Dr. p. 105. out of a Sermon of Bishop Hooper's preach'd before K. Edward It were well it might please the Magistrates to turn the Altars into Tables according to the first Institution of Christ to take away the false Perswasion of the People which they have of Sacrifices to be done upon the Altars for as long as the Altars remain both the ignorant People and the ignorant evil-perswaded Priest will dream always of Sacrifice Then p. 129. Bishop Ridley took down Altars and appointed the form of a right Table to be used in all his Diocess Duo Scipiadae These two Bishops were very learned and very Martyrs A little remains to shut up this Controversie or rather to shut it out For to set the Table under the East Window of the Chancel the ends running North and South is this to set it Altar-wise Verily it is a meer English Phrase or rather an English Error because Altars beyond the Seas are placed promiscuously either at the top or in the midst of the Chancel as the Bishop notes p. 218. and commonly so far from the Wall that the Priests and Deacons might stand round about them As in Cardinal Borromaeo's Reformation a space of eight cubits was to be left between the Altar and the Wall Altare in medio Ecclesiae situm says Baron anno 451. p. 62. Josephus Vicecomes a skilful man in these punctilio's Altaria in medio Ecclesiae allocata fuisse But to fasten it sure I refer it to Marcellus Corcyrensis lib. 3. Sacr. Cerem p. 215. he says The Pope never preacheth but when he celebrates the Mass himself he goes not up into a Pulpit but sits in his Chair Sedet ante altare super faldistorium si altare est apud Parietem Si autem sedes Papae non infra sed supra altare est ut in Ecclesiâ S. Petri similibus tune Papa vertit faciem ad chorum sedens in praedictâ sede Here 's the Altar in the chief Mother-Church of Rome in the midst of the Quire which falls into this conclusion that these local Differences among us about the Holy Table are not in imitation of any Church but forms taken up at home so that upon the final Sentence Maxima de nihilo nascitur historia as Propertius says fitly 106. Here you have the Book of the Holy Table epitomiz'd and you see the Bishop broke not the Peace of the Church but was upon the defence His Adversary tells us lately that it was a Book cried up every where with great applause when it came first to light What would it have been if it had been studied any long time and lick'd over with a second or third examination But one month in the Autumn began it and ended it as not only the Author but the Amanuensis testified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is when one is swift in doing a good thing God and he were joyn'd together But this Praise belongs to the Dr. as well as to him who is a swift Dromedary traversing her ways Jer. 2.23 There are Passages between them with some bitterness on both sides I like it in neither they that spit upon one another are both defiled I cite nothing faln in that kind for every Dunghill smells ill but not till you stir it To excuse such things Non contumelias sed argutias vocamus says Seneca It may be sharpness of Wit but it is bluntness of Wisdom One thing the Criticks noted beside That in some Passages the Holy Table is too light and merry and no Merriment is worse than the Laughter of Anger Subridens mistâ Mezentius irâ Virg. It was not publish'd in the person of a Bishop And to me it seems that a joculary Style was not amiss for a frivolous Cause Nor would the Author seem to be damp'd or troubled but full of sanguine Alacrity for all the Provocation And if Mirth keep decorum it is a good Rule of Theages the Pythagorean Laert. p. 847. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the office of Virtue to act with pleasure and not with sadness Or as Solomon much better A merry heart doth good like a medicine Prov. 17.22 But if any the least thing were amiss he heard of it on both Ears in the Antidotum Lincolniense which I pass over because no Reply was made unto it Not that the Author had won the Field but as Livy said Dec. 1. lib. 3. when the People of Rome retired to the Aventine Mountain for the Injury done to Virginia and the Senators ask'd them what they would have Non defuit quid responderetur defuit qui responsum daret The Bishop I know was making his Notes ready to vindicate his Book and was resolved as the Italian Proverb runs to give his Adversary Cake for Bread for he was like to Bishop Fisher in Erasmus's Character of him Ep. p. 396. Roffensis vir pius cum primis ac eruditus sed eo ingenio ut non facilè desinat ubi semel incaluit in certamine He was prevented by his Cause in Star-chamber which was brought to hearing in the same month that the Antidotum came abroad a Censure pass'd upon him which was executed with that rigour that all that he
same Building Where should we look for kindness but in the Rulers of the Church the noblest part of Christ's Family And kindness is nobleness says St. Chrysostom and mercy is a generous thing The Beraeans were more noble than the Thessalonians Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he It doth not signifie nobleness of blood but gentleness of pity Now for the Book the Stone of Scandal at which his Grace stumbled so much it was known unto him that some things got into practice in the Church under his Government and by his Authority were disrelisht by a considerable part in his Province and they of the best conformity whose averseness he thought would be the stiffer by the contents of that Book His remedy was to bring the Author into question and to crush all that sided with him in his Person as the State Maxim goes Compendium est victoriae devincendorum hostium duces sustulisse Paneg. to Constantine p. 339. But which way shall the Book be brought into Disgrace with bad Interpretations It will do no good Forced Earth in time will fall to its own level First then besides some Answers publisht to decry it he incensed his Majesty with a relation of it in whose Ecclesiastical Rights it was mainly written for what he had collected and offered in a Paper to his Majesty Lincoln got a sight of it by the Duke of Lennox and proved that all the Matters of Fact set down against him were false and not to be found in the Book but that it strongly maintain'd the contrary Positions which when his Majesty saw he seem'd to take it ill from the Informer So these flitting Clouds were blown over before they could pour down the Storm they were big with His Grace sent the Book to the Attorney Generâ— to thrust it into an Information who return'd it back that it would not bear it Here again was Tencer's luck in Homer Il. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He had a good will to hit Hector with an Arrow but he mist him Then in his Speech made against Burton Prin and Bastwick which he printed with a Dedication to the King he fell upon this Book reading out of his Notes that he that gave allowance to thrust it at that time into the Press did countenance thosethâ—ee Libellers and did as much as in him lay to fire the Church and State Now under colour to Censure others to fall upon a man that was neither Plaintiff Defendant nor Witness in their Cause would amount to a Libel in anothers mouth against whom Justice had been open But as Demosthenes says against Aristogiton 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sword is useless if it have not an edg to cut so this bitter flam was but a leaden Dagger and did not wound What remained next but take him Bull-begger fetch him into the High-Commission Court where his Grace was President Judge and might be Advocate Proctor Promotor or what he would And he was so hot upon it that three Letters were written by Secretary Windebank in his Majesties Name to hasten the Cause Whereas honest and learned Dr. Rive the King's Advocate knew not where to act his part upon it Lincoln is now in his Coup in the Tower whither four Bishops and three Doctors of the Civil Laws came to take his Answer to a Book of Articles of four and twenty sheets of Paper on both sides The Defendant refuseth to take an Oath on the Bible claiming the Priviledge of a Peer but his Exception was not admitted He stood upon it that himself was a Commissioner that they had no power over him more than he had over them which did not suffice him Then they come to the Articles whose Proem in usual form was That he must acknowledge and submit to the power of that high Court which he did grant no otherwise than in such things and over such persons as were specified in their Commission The second Article contain'd That all Books licensed by his Grace's Chaplains are presumed to be Orthodox and agreeable to sound and true Religion which he denied and wondred at the Impudency that had put such an Article upon him The third That he had licensed a Book when none but the Archbishops and Bishop of London had such power Nay says Lincoln my self and all Bishops as learned as they have as much power as they not only by the Council of Lateran under Leo the Tenth and the Reformatio Cleri under Cardinal Pool but by Queen Elizabeth ' s Injunctions and a Decree in Star-Chamber The fourth That he named a Book called A Coal from the Altar a Pamphlet The fifth That he said all Flesh in England had corrupted their ways The sixth That in a jear he said he had heard of a Mother Church but never of a Mother Chappel The seventh That again in a scoff he derived the word Chappel from St. Martin 's Hood The eighth That he said the people were not to be lasht by every mans whip The ninth That he maintain'd the people were God's people and the King's people but not the Priest's People The tenth That be flouted at the prety of the Times and the good work in hand The rest of the Cluster were like these and these as sharp as any of the seven and twenty Articles and one and thirty Additionals This was the untemper'd Mortar that crumbled away or as the Vulgar Latin reads it Ezech. 13.10 Liniebant parietem luto absque paleis So here was dirt enough but not so much as a little straw or chaff to make it stick together But such as they were the Bishop had the favour to read them all over once before he was examined a favour indeed not shew'n to every body After the Examination past over he required a Copy of it which the three Civilians voted to be granted but his Grace and Sir J. Lamb would first have him re-examined again upon the same Interrogatories to try the steadiness of his memory and to catch him in a Snare if he did vary An Error that may easily be slipt into by the tediousness of the Matter and the intricate Forms of the Clerk's Pen wherein an aged or illiterate man will scarce avoid the danger of Perjury But the Bishop being of a prodigious memory had every word by heart which he had deposed before against two subsequent Examinations which laid this Cause asleep till God shall awaken it and hear it on both sides at the last day 124. No worse could be lookt for than that their frivolous Articles should go out as they did in a Cracker And less was expected from that which followed whose steam when it came abroad was laught at in good Company but it cost the unfortunate Bishop some thousands in good earnest for Cyphers for Riddles for Quibbles for Nothing It made a third Information in Star-Chamber for like Herulus in Virgil Aen. 8. Ter letho sternendus erat The driver on and the dealer in it was the
would witness against me for my Council-Table Opinion I would say to him as Gallus did to Tyberius Caesar Good Sir speak you first for I may mistake and you may witness against me for it in the next Parliament Some did make Laws with Ropes about their Necks What Must men give their Counsel as it were with Ropes about their Necks Solomon says When thou comest to a rich man's table put a knife to thy Throat But what 's here When we give Judgment as we are able among the Lords of the Council must we put an Ax to our Necks Beware of such Traps pittying the case of human Weakness 145. The fourth Question is thus comprized Whether some Members of the House of Commons may be present at the Examination Judicially they cannot the Judicature is in your Lordships but whether organically and ministerially is the Scruple to be satisfied I will be brief in my Conceptions what is against the claim of the House of Commons and what is for them This is not for them That 50 Edw. 3. one Love was a Witness in Lord John Nevile's Case Love denied what he had confest before two Knights Members of the Lower House The House of Commons send them to the Lords to confront Love which they did and Love was thereupon committed Now their being here was only to confront not to assist the Lords either judicially or ministerially Many things make for them why they may be there ministerially at least First Originally both Houses were together and so the Commons heard all Examinations Considerent inter se Modus ten Pl. and sate so till Anno 6 Edw. 3. by Mr. Elsing's Collections which are not over-authentick Secondly After that time they have all the House of Commons been present when Witnesses were sworn here Anno 5 Hen. IV. Rot. 11. swears his Fealty before the Lords and Commons and two or three days after by the same Oath and before the same persons clears the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of York from a Suspicion of Treason laid to their charge The Commons were by and heard all this The third Reason is Mr. Attorny-General if this Lord were arraigned of Treason as I pray God bless him from deserving it would be by and observe his Defence and such Witnesses as he should produce for himself and would no doubt bring Counter proofs Sur le Champ and upon the sudden against the same if he were able The House of Commons is in this case the King's Attorny who make and maintain the charge So far out of brief Notes for take them to be no other you have a strong Judgment pass'd upon four Questions Says Tully in his Brutus of Caesar's Eloquence Tabulam benè pictam collocat in bono lumine He draws his Picture well and hangs it out to be well seen So here 's a Piece well drawn and placed in the light of Perspicuity His next Argument is very long but of that use to the Reader that he shall not sind so much Learning in any Author on that Theme that I know a Scholar would not want it They that fostered deadly Enmities against E. Strafford laboured to remove the Bishops from the hearing of his Cause This Bishop and his Brethren minding to him all the Pity and Help they could shew him the Opposites began to vote them out of Doors and would not admit them in the Right of Peers in this Cause because it was upon Life and Blood Lincoln maintains that the Lords did them Injury and that Bishops in England may and ought to vote in causâ sanguinis That they were never inhibited by the Law of this Land never by the Peers of the Land before this time That their voluntary forbearance in some Centuries of the Ages before proceeded from their Fears of the Canons of the Court of Rome and by the special Leave of the King and both Houses who were graciously pleased to allow of their Protestations for their Indemnity as Church-men when the King and Parliament might have rejected their Protestations if they had pleas'd And much he insisted upon it that the opponent Lords grounded their Judgment upon the corrupt Canons of the Church of Rome Indeed I find in my own Papers that the Monks of Canterbury complain'd against Hubert their Archbishop to the Pope for sitting upon Tryals of Life and Blood They could not complain that he went against the Laws and Customs of England but their Appeal was to the Pope's Justice and it was more tolerable for Monks to rake in the Rubbish of the Roman Courts than for English Barons And say in sooth must not Divines of the Reformed Church meddle in Cause of Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amph. Would they be laugh'd at for this Hypocrisie or abhorr'd For who more forward to thrust into the Troops of the late War than the Ministers whom they countenanc'd Have I not seen them prance about the Streets in London with Pistols in their Holsters and Swords by their sides And so for Edg-hill and Newberry c. Could they rush into so many Fights and be clear from cause of Blood Nay the Pontisical part make but a Mockery of this Canon for anno 1633 a Book was printed in Paris sill'd with a Catalogue of Cardinals Bishops and Priests who had been brave Warriours most of them Leaders in the Field the Author a Sycophant aimed to please Cardinal Richlieu and a Fig for the Canons Reason Canons Parliamentary Privileges nay Religion are to corrupt men as they like them for their own ends Now hear how this Bishop did wage his Arguments for the affirmative 146. It is to be held for a good Cause against which nothing of moment can be alledg'd such is this concerning the Right of Bishops to vote in causâ sanguinis First It is not prohibitum quia malum not any way evil in it self no more than it is an evil thing in it self to do Justice Secondly It was in use from the Law of Nature when the eldest of the Family was King Priest and Prophet Thirdly It was in use under Moses's Law and so continued in the Priests and Levites down to Annas and Caiaphas and after Christ's death till the Temple was destroyed as appears by the scourging of the Apostles by the stoning of Stephen and commanding St. Paul to be smitten on the Mouth Fourthly It was in use in the persons of the Apostles themselves as in that Judgment given upon Ananias and Saphira in the delivery up to Satan as most of the ancient Fathers expound that Censure to be a corporal Vexation And generally in all the Word of God there is no one Text that literally inhibits Church-men more than Lay-men to use this kind of Judicature For that Precept to be no striker 1 Tim. 3.3 is no more to be appropriated to a Bishop distinct from the rest of Christian men than that which is added not to be given to Wine that is immoderately taken Proceed we
refuse to concurr with the Parliament nay if he took more time to deliberate upon it it would be worse for the Earl and he would come to a more unhappy Death for an Hellish Contrivance was resolved upon just as in St. Paul's case Acts 23.15 the Zealots that had vowed Paul's death laid the Plot with the Priests and Elders to signisie to the Captain to bring him down to enquire somewhat more perfectly concerning him and ere ever he came near they would fall upon him The condemn'd Earl when he heard of this was no longer fond of Lise but sent word to the King that he was well prepared for his End and would not his gracious Majest y should disquiet himself to save a ruin'd Vessel that must sink A valiant Message and sit for so great a Spirit Loginus notes acutely that when Ajax was to combat with Hector he begg'd some things of such Gods as he call'd upon but to escape with life was not in his Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was beneath a Graecian Heroe to desire Life It being therefore to no purpose to dispute what was the best Remedy to save this Lord when there was none at all the House of Lords nominate four Prelates to go to His Majesty to propound how the Tenderness of his Conscience might safely wade through this insuperable dissiculty these were L. Primate Usher with the Bishops Morton Williams Potter There was none of those four but would have gone through Fire and Water as we say to save the Party which being now a thing beyond Wit and Power they state the Question thus to the King sure I am of the Truth because I had it from the three former Whether as His Majesty refers his own Judgment to his Judges in whose Person they act in Court of Oyer Kings-bench Assize and in Cause of Life and Death and it lies on them if an innocent man suffer so why may not His Majesty satisfie his Conscience in the present matter that since competent Judges in Law had awarded that they found Guilt of Treason in the Earl that he may susser that Judgment to stand though in his private mind he was not satisfied that the Lord Strafford was criminous for that juggling and corrupt dealing which he suspected in the Proofs at the Tryal and let the Blame lye upon them who sate upon the Tribunal of Life and Death The four Bishops were all for the ashrmative and the Earl took it so little in ill part that Reverend Armagh pray'd with him preach'd to him gave him his last Viaticum and was with him on the Scassoid as a Ghostly Father till his Head was severed from his Body 154. Indeed His Majesty in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem to represent it as if he did not approve what he received from the four Bishops at that Consultation And I will leave such good men to his Censure rather than contradict any thing in that most pious most ravishing Book which deserves as much as Tully said of Crassus in his Brutus Ipsum melius potuisse scribere alium ut arbitror neminem Perhaps the King could have wrote better but I think no man else in the three Kingdoms What a venomous Spirit is in that Serpent Milton that black-mouth'd Zoilus that blows his Vipers Breath upon those immortal Devotions from the beginning to the end This is he that wrote with all Irreverence against the Fathers of our Church and shew'd as little Duty to his Father that begat him The same that wrote for the Pharisees That it was lawful for a man to put away his Wife for every cause and against Christ for not allowing Divorces The same O horrid that desended the lawfulness of the greatest Crime that ever was committed to put our thrice-excellent King to death A petty School-boy Scribler that durst graple in such a Cause with the Prince of the learned men of his Age Salmasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius says of Ammonius Plutarch's Scholar in Aegypt the Delight the Musick of all Knowledge who would have scorn'd to drop a Pen-full of Ink against so base an Adversary but to maintain the Honour of so good a King whose Merit he adorns with this Praise p. 237. Con. Milt De quo si quis dixerit omnia bona vix pro suis meritis satis illum ornaret Get thee behind me Milton thou savourest not the things that be of Truth and Loyalty but of Pride Bitterness and Falshood There will be a time though such a Shimei a dead Dog in Abishai's Phrase escape for a while yet he and the Enemies of my Lord the King will fall into the Hands of the Avenger of Blood And that Book the Picture of King Charles's innocent Soul which he hath blemish'd with vile Reproaches will be the Vade Mecum of godly persons and be always about them like a Guardian Angel It is no marvel if this Canker-worm Milton is more lavish in his Writings than any man to justifie the beheading of Strafford whom good men pray'd for alive and pitied him dead So did the four Bishops that I may digress no longer who pour'd the best Oyl they could into the King's Conscience to give him Peace within himself when the main Cause was desperate and common Fury would compel him in the end to sacrifice this Earl to the Parliament Things will give better Counsel to men than men to things But a Collector of Notes W. Sa. hath a sling at the Bishop of Lincoln his quill hits him but hurts him no more than if it were a Shuttle-cock with four Feathers Forsooth when those four Bishops were parting from the King he put a Paper into His Majesty's Hand and that could be nothing else but an Inflammatory of Reasons more than were heard in publick left the King should cool and not set his Hand to the fatal Warrant This Author was once in the right p. 154. of his own Book That it becomes an Historian in dubious Relations to admit the most Christian and Charitable Pessumè it is optimè herclè dicitis Plaut in Pen. But this Case needs no Favour The Paper which that Bishop put into the King's Hands as he told me the next morning was an humble Advice to His Majesty why he should not give the Parliament an indesinite time to sit till both Houses consented to their own dissolution Was not this faithful Counsel For what could the King see in them who had been so outragious already to stand out the trial of their wavering Faith Trust should make men true Says Livy lib. 22. Vult sibi quisque credi habita fides ipsam plerumque fidem obligat But a number of these men cared not for moral Principles they were all for the Scriptures and they read them by new Lights The King had too much Faith and they had no Good Works What magnanimous Prince would bow so low to give the Keys of Government to so many Male-contents
be gracious with all As Curtius doth instance in Amyntas lib. 4. Semper 〈◊〉 ancipiti rerum mutatione pendens he would please the Macedonians and not displease the Persians and was distrusted by both And Livy gives us an Example in Servilius lib. 19. He was forward to plead for the Authority of the Senate and not backward to justifie the opposite Liberty of the People Ita medium se gerendo nec plebis odium vitavit nec apud patres iniit gratiam I would not have my L. Bacon ill interpreted in his Essay of Faction whose words appear more crafty than honest Let a man be true to himself with an end to make use of both Factions He speaks not of two Camps in the Field one headed by the King another by Cade or Watt Tyler but of two great parts in the Court that have Clients adhering to them and should'ring one-another out of Favour if they can for he expounds it thus upon that very Contrast Mean men in their risings must adhere to one side but great men that have Strength in themselves were better to maintain themselves neutral and indifferent But he that comes not to quench the Flame when the King's House is set on Fire watching what will be the Fate of the Incendiaries he deserves to undergo a Saxon Ordeal to pass through hot Plow-shares to reveal his Double-deasing Solon's Law in Plutarch hath escap'd no man I think that hath written Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In a publick Seditum be that looks on and will be of no side till the Fray be done is to be branded with Infamy I will degree this noxious Neutrality one Peg higher when a cunning Fox that would save all curried Favour both with King and Rebels lent his Sword to him and his Pistols to them Dubiis Mars errat in armis Georg. 2. Like the god of War that fights on both sides What say you to two Kinsmen what say you to two Brothers shewing their Prowess one against another he for Caesar and he for the Republicans this a Gibelline and that a Guelph that upon the last Revolution of the Quarrel the faithful Brother may merit to compound for the Peace of the false or if God would have it so the false for the faithful This was the Mystery of Iniquity when the same Family had such a reciprocal Interest in our publick Miseries that their Cards were so well packt that they could not be Losers An Example which Sir Robert Dallington hath given for such juggling is worthy to be remembred Aphor. lib. 2. c. 2. The Duke of Ferrara would not enter into League with Charles the Third of France but suffer'd his Son Alsonso to sight under the Duke of Millain as his Lieutenant-General that the Son might make the Father's Peace if the Leagues prevailed and that he might free his Son if the French had the better What Reward should these have But as the Scripture speaks properly Let them be divided in twain and 〈◊〉 their portion with Hypocrites A Syren half Flesh and half Fish is painted with its Eyes always cast upon its Looking-glass because such amphibious and all-part-pleasing Creatures have their Eyes upon nothing but their own Preservation And Theophrastus in his Character of a glavering Sycophant pinns this Knave upon his Back 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He will please his Client and strike in with his Client's Adversary because he would be of that gender which is the common of two and so become unprofitable to both in proper construction I need not be long in this for an ingenuous Pagan how much more a Christian will easily learn this Lesson to be hot or cold the luke-warm Quality that partakes of both is fit to make a Vomit Salmasius writes upon Solinus That Tityrus was a Mungril Beast begotten between a Goat and an Ew But there is no Creature of that composition to be presented at the last day before the Judgment of God They that are at the right Hand must be pure Sheep harmless gentle without any Goatishness in them and surely those Tityri will be found among the worst of the Goats that are rejected to the left Hand 177. After Caterpillars the Locusts succeeded such as you may find Rev. c. 9. v. 2 7. The bottomless Pit that is the endless Parliament was opened and a smoak went out of the pit a Cloud of Ordinances to make War with the King And there came locusts out of the smoak no ordinary ones but such as had stings like scorpions who were like borses prepared to battail and they had as it were crowns like gold for they took the Soveraignty of Kingly Power upon them I do not interpret but allude unto the place They that commanded in the bottomless Pit had Wealth enough to maintain an Army all that London and the Land was worth But to maintain their Cause that is to sight against their Lawful King all their Money could not purchase them so much Scripture Law or Reason as would justifie them with one Argument Their Preachers over-stretch'd their Sinews to defend them and could not but left it to the Sword-men to hold it out at the Arms end Yet they abused so much Divinity as would serve to cover some of the deformity of the Sin with a few torn pieces of Jeroboam's Garment for I am perswaded of some of them that if they had look'd upon their Impious Act without a Disguise they would have run mad at the astonishment of their Guiltiness All this Mischief was their Pulpit-ranters Work The great Sedition rais'd against Moses and Aaron Numb 16. is called the Gainsaying of Core Wherefore should Core carry the Name since Dathan and Abiram great Princes had their Hands in it Because that mucinous 〈◊〉 did more harm by his prating than all the Factious in the Conspitacy beside The 〈◊〉 of this Design gave great Wages to their Chaplains but the Work which they perform'd was not worth the half of it between Knave and Knave The Crime was so black that they could not lay any white upon it to make it colour like Justice and Innocency They dodg'd St. Paul Rom. c. 13. and St. Peter's Text 1 Ep. c. 2. v. 11. with as many turnings as ever old Hare gave to a brace of Grey-hounds but they could find nothing out of the Scriptures to make them look like theirs nor any Quotation out of pure Antiquity in the best Ages of the Church to adjust their execrable Action And must not that Cause be very bad which could not put on a good outside either from the Authority of God or Man Only as they enforced accumulative Misdemeanors against the Earl of Strassord to indict him of Treason so they rak'd up accumulative Misgovernments in Charge against the King to allow themselves the committing of Treason All their Shifts and Shufflings shall be cursorily examin'd though their Persons are in a Sanctuary so are not their Opinions There is
a Writer Gisbert Voetius of Utrecht learned indeed but bitter minded against our King and the old Settlement of our Church this man the Assembly of Divines did easily gain unto them and for their Interest he states a Question Disput tom 2. p. 852. How Subjects may quell their King and pull him down by force of A◠Which is intended for our English Case cut out into as many Exceptions almost as there he words in the Thesis and all the Particulars wrongly applied to our ungodly Distempers His Hammer strikes thus upon the Forge Primo quaestio est an à Proceribus Statibus Ordinibus Magistratibus Superioribus Infericribus qui pro ratione regiminis publicâ auctoritate instructi sunt palea 2. Regi Principi limitato conditionato palea 3. In extremo necessitatis casu palea 4. Post omnia frustra tentata palea 5. Secundum leges pacta fundamentalia principatus palea 6. Defensivè armis resisti palea 7. Ut respub ab interitu conservari possit palea First When had our Peers our Magistrates superiour and inferiour Power to bring His Majesty by Fear or Force into Order Never 2. When was his Empire limited or made conditional otherwise than to charge his Conscience before God to keep his Laws Never 3. Were we brought by ill administration to the brink of extream Necessity No such thing 4. Or were all dutiful means tryed to obtain the King's Consent to honest Demands Widest of all from Truth 5. Or have we Pactions sundamental between the King and People to constrain him to concur with their Proposals 'T is a meer Chimera 6. Did the Parliament wage the defensive part of the War Quite mistaken 7. Was there no other way but by such a rout of Russians to keep our native Country from Ruin Nay was it in the least danger of Ruin Not at all not till these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Club-Lawyers silled the whole Land with Blood and Burning What cutting and carving hath this Dutch Workman made to bring us to worship the Idol of Rebellion And when all is said we know that an Idol is nothing in the World 1 Cor. 3.4 and as it follows there is no other God but one and none but that one God above the King against whose punitive Justice and none beside K. David offended 178. Many things were alledged to commence and continue this fatal War Quae prima querar Quae summa gemam Pariter cuncta deslere juvat Sen. Her Fur. One thing made a loud cry far and wide That His Majesty had left his Parliament and that the Members fate in great danger This was a Scandal taken which did raise such Enemies whom nothing else could have tempted from their Loyalty He lest his Parliament yes but consider it intelligently not till he had granted as much as was abundant for our Liberty Peace and Welfare not till he had yielded up more Branches of his Soveraignty and Revenue than all his Predecessors had granted in 300 years before not till he had trusted them to spend out that Parliament at their own leisure and yet they would trust him with nothing An Affront of deep Indignity Dare they not trust him that never broke with them And I have heard his nearest Servants say That no man could ever challenge him of the least Lye But as Probus said of Epaminondas Adeò veritatis diligens ut ne joco quidem mentiretur Was it square dealing to protest against him that would pay them all due Debt if they would let him I am sure when he left them he left a great many traces of Fame and Glory a great many Benefits of Obligation behind him And this Case will prove the same or much like to the Objection of the Pontificians They say we made a Schism in departing from the Church of Rome We say that the Schism was on their part for they that give the Cause for which it is necessary to abandon Communion they are the Authors of the Schism We continued in the Fellowship of Christ's Church and retreated from the Errors of an incorrigible corrupted part and from the Affrightments and Censures of them that were turned our open Enemies Say over the same to this Parliament and it will be the King's Apology They made the Schism that offer'd him Bills unfit to be pass'd with Clamoring Menacing and undutiful Violence which he must sign or fly far enough Sed qui mali sensu aut metu extorquere assensum velit eo ipso ostendit se argument is diffidere Grot. lib. 6. de Christi Relig. They made the Schism that used his Royal Name with Irreverence a King must not be contented with mediocrity of Respect but their Manners were gross and Plebeian They made the Schism that heard the highest Indignities against his Crown with Patience when Sir Harry Ludlow spake Treason and was not question'd To cut off a great deal they received his ample Concessions with no Thanks and degreed to further Demands and more unreasonable that fill'd the Palace the Hall their Stairs their Doors with such as forbore not to bring in doubt the Safety of his Sacred Person When so many were chased to such a barbarous Boldness what wise man would stand it out and not prevent it What security hath the Earthen Pitcher against an Iron Pot He that fears the worst prevents it soonest 179. The High Court of Parliament one House or both under the Saxon Monarchs or in a few Descents after was created to assist the King to be his great Council When he pleased he call'd it when he pleased he dismiss'd it In succession of days none fate there before he had taken an Oath to bear true Ligance to him and his Heirs and to defend His Majesty against all Perils and Assaults Never was it intended to obtrude upon him with force to compel him to take out his Lesson which they taught him as in a Pedagogy but to propound and advise with due distance and humility Introducta in alicujus utilitatem in ejus laesionem verti non debent if I may believe the Civil Law That which was instituted for the Soveraigns benefit in common sence must not be elevated above him to unthrone him A right Parl. is the Mind of many gathered into one Wisdom this look't rather like the petulancy of many breaking out into one frowardness The form that gives essence to every thing was gone when they that silled the places of Counsellors would transcend and give Law to Majesty If yet they dare criminate him upon Schism tell them that Christ came to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel yet when they took up stones to stone him he went away through the midst of them There is King Charles his Pattern Wherefore then did they hunt after him in warlike Terrour as if they would fetch him in by Proclamation of Rebellion Had he seen the Tyde ebb but an inch I should guess by the
brave Men as ever march't upon English Ground If there were somewhat of the Libertine among them there was nothing but the Hypocrite among the Enemy whose Sacriledges Robberies and Spoils I defer alittle to spread open and the Foxes skin shall never be able to cover all the Lion Few Soldiers in the heat of their Blood in their Hunger and Watchings in their Necessities and revengeful Executions make perfect Saints To have castra simillima regi as Statius hath it was to be wish't more than hoped for As for the Nobles Commanders Knights and Gentry and many Scholars that jeoparded their Lives in that Service I wish their due Honour may be set forth in a long-liv'd History to which I will lend that of Curtius lib. 4. Fatebimur regem talibus ministris illos tanto rege fuisse dignissimos His Majesty's Council the best Peerage of three Nations that could never leave him had more true Piety in their hearts than their Pharisees would dissemble To continue their Allegiance to death had more of Heaven in it than was in all their simpering Preciseness For Religion and Loyalty are like the Wax and Wiek making one Taper between them to shine before God and Man but for all that they would bring the King away from his evil Council and take him to themselves the very Pink of the faithful I must not say but it it is a mannerly Expression if any thing be wrong to remove it from the Soveraign and to charge them with it who did execute the Order David though he knew Saul's bitterness yet is willing to impute his Persecutions to Saul's Servants 1 Sam. 26.19 If they be the children of men that have stirred thee up against me cursed be they of the Lord. There will ever be such Sycophants in a Court that will whisper corrupt talk endeavouring that none should get the start of them in the Royal Favour but must all prudent Senators be cast off and supprest if some Ear-wiggs peradventure had got into credit Let the Shepherd put away his Dogs and the Wolf will ask no more Let the King once forfeit his Friends to an ignoble Trial and he shall never see days of Comfort and Security again Did he ever protect any Servant from the Trial of the Law That would not suffice our Judges in Parliament but he must leave them to the Votes of an Arbitrary Censure Then a wife man had better pay half his Estate for a Fine than be a Privadoe to the King in his nearest Employments And most miserable is he that must not choose those whom he will trust but have his Officers of greatest Dispatches thrust upon him by Compulsion King Richard the Second had Counsellers and Guardians empowered to retrench him in his Government whose Arrogancy when his great Spirit shook off it is known what it cost him Never think to see a King's House so purged of undeserving persons that none of them will creep into that trust they deserve not Budaeus gave over that hope Lib. 5. de Asse p. 110. Ita est reip nostrae status ut clitella generosis equis instrataque speciosa imponantur asinis The best Steeds sometimes shall carry the Panniers and Jades and Asses be covered with the Foot-cloth There was never man so wise that did not love some Simpletons whom you may call Fools Nor never Prince so absolute but did stamp some Honours upon base Mettal Non est nostrum aestimare quem supra caeteros quibus causis extollas says a good States-man in Tacitus And our excellent Camden shifts in this answer for Queen Elizabeths sake whose Affections were so strong to Robert Earl of Leicester that he knew not whether it were a Synastria a Star which reigned at both their Births that made him a Gratioso to so brave a Lady Make any unlikely answer rather than defie a King with an Army to pluck his best betrusted from him Thuamus is an Author to be delighted in whose observation it is Lib. 11. That Maurice of Saxony made his Apology for raising War against Charles the Fifth that he intended no offence to Caesar but to divorce him from Alva and Granval his evil Counsellors A Stale and thread-bear Cheat and yet the Devil to this day cannot find out a better Take away those whom they call Evil Counsellors place as good or better in their room it is not impossible it were a marvel if they did eat a bushel of Salt in Court and not be scowled upon with Envy as much as they that did forego them Let any Tree grow tall in favour and the Shrubs will complain that it drops upon the underwood A great disheartning it is to our Grandees to see so many of worth and clear integrity ruin'd by a publick hatred which made Pausanias pity Demosthenes and the chief Burgesses of Athens in Att. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A great Actor in the Affairs of the Commonwealth feldom goes to his Grave with Honour and Peace I am not of their Spirit then that would remove the King's Counsel from him but some are of my mind that in many great Dispatches they did heartily wish that the King himself had been removed from his Council For he was more happy when he took the way which he spun out of his own Brain than when he alter'd his Opinion to follow the Judgment of his Counsellors But it was his humble temper to like that wisdom in others which was greater in himself 183. It is not too late to unblind some of the People provided they beware of them that spit Holy Water as other Jugglers have a slight to spit fire The Pope's Cruciada drew thousands of Soldiers to adventure into the Holy War and our cunning Popelings made their Muster exceed by carrying the Figure of Religion in their Colours Therefore it is good to take off this great Charm that bewitcht the heedless into Rebellion Which Inchantment was a common cry That Religion lay a bleeding reform the Church either now or never This is the time to pull up Popery and Prelacy and Fortune is an Hand-maid to no Mistress but Occasion Therefore let the faithful live and die together for God's Cause and Christ's Kingdom Pack away Bishops Liturgy Courts Ecclesiastical Canons Crosses Organ Musick Ceremonies Change for every thing for any thing Seraque terrisici cecinerunt omnia vates Aen. 5. Survey all this calmly They that undertake to alter so much at once is it likely they will mend it all at once for the better A better Head-piece than theirs gives them a wiser Principle Synes de provid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Things may admit a general change of a sudden for the worst but not for the better Then to clap Religion into a quarrel is a formal foolery that every Child can look through it Ex cupiditate quisque suorum religionem velut pedissequam habet Leo. Ep. 23. Now look back into King Edward the Sixth's days who those
5. to be wasted over into Italy in his Bark Thus he went on with other flatuous Disparagements One Copy of this and no more came to the Leiger Embassador of the Catholick King of which the Lord Keeper had the Use and would never deliver it again but wrote to my Lord Marquess April 20th to bid the Earl of Bristow to take care either to stifle it if it were not divulg'd or to cause it to be called in if it were published Such Scriblers should be informed against in the Ragguaglia's of Pernassus and amerced to pay for the the Loss of our Time 133. Aste the gaudy Days of the Royal Welcome were past over my Lord of Buckingham obliged the Lord Keeper greatly unto him with a Letter Dated March 26 and came about the Declining of April for the Comfort of the Contents which were these My good Lord HOwsoever I wrote so lately unto you that I have not since received any Letter from your Lordship yet because you shall see that I let slip no Opportunity I do it again by this Conveyance and must again tell you the good News of his Highness's being in perfect Health I cannot doubt but many idle and false Rumors will daily be there spread during the Absence of his Highness which I know your Lordship and the wiser sort will easily contemn and believe only that which you shall find avowedly advertised from hence And here let me thus far prevent with your Lordship any sinister Report that shall be made in the main Point which is the Prince's Religion assuring you that he is no way pressed nor shall be perswaded to change it for so is it clearly and freely professed unto him I hope I shall shortly be able to advertise your Lordship of the Arrival of the Dispensation which will be the Conclusion of our Business And thus wishing your Lordship all Honour and Happiness c. The Pearl which came in this Letter is that Satisfaction purchased of God with the Prayers of all devout Men that the Prince should not be inveigled in Conferences or unquieted with Disputes to strip himself of the Wedding-Garment of that incorrupt Faith in Christ which he had professed from a Child for that Wedding sake which he came to conclude How impudently have some Trash-Writers out-faced this Truth as if the Prince had been beset on all sides to make Shipwrack of his Religion in the Gulph of Rome Ar. Wilson of all others is the most forward Accuser and therefore the Falfest Tast him in these Parcels P. 230 that the Earl of Bristow insinuated it with this crafty Essay to his Highness That none of the King 's of England could do great things that were not of that Religion Yet he interfears in that same Page That Gondamar prest the Earl of Bristow not to hinder so pious a Work assuring him that they had Buckingham's Assistance in it Then belike Gondamar was jealous of Bristow that he was contrary to that which he called a pious Work the Prince's Perversion Certainly he knew Bristow as far as a Friend could know a Friend And as many Bow-shots wide is he from my Lord of Buckingham's Sincority in that Action as a Lyar is from Heaven Is not his Lordship's Hand-writing so solemn'y mention'd an uncontroulable Testimony The same Author slanders Conde d'Olivares and makes him utter that which never came from him That if the Prince would devote himself to their Church it would make him â—th way to the Infanta's Afflictions and if he seared the English would rebel he should be assisted with an Army to reduce them The Conâ—e Duke carried no such threatning Fire in one Hand nor at that time any of his Holy Water in the other For he committed nothing to offend his Highness's Ears in that â—ind till his Passions made him forget himself about three Months after Not contented with this he makes the Prince say that which he never thought as that when the Conde Duke propounded That if his Highness would not admit of a sudden Alteration and that publickly yet he would be so indulgent to litten to the Infanta in Matters of Religion when they both came into England Which the Prince promised to do But what says true hearted Spotswood P. 544. That the Prince was stedfast and would not change his Religion for any worldly Respect nor enter into Conference with any Divines for that purpose Utri credetis Is there any Choice which of these two should rather be believed I am careful to praemonish conscientious Readers against Serpentine Pens least their nibling should ranckle A Serpent you know from the beginning was a Lodging for the Devil Gen. 3. and so is a Slanderer The Manual of Romish Exorcisms says Instruct 2. that it is presumed for a sign that he is possest with a Devil Qui linguam extorquet miris modis eandem exerit ingenti oris hiatu I translate that to the Manners of the Mind which is meant there of the Body And let the Living learn the dead Man whom I speak of can take no Warning it is a divelish thing to loll out the Tongue of Contumely These being fore Times to out-face the Truth and willing to listen to Defamations no marvel if some take the Liberty to Lye and have the Confidence to be believed But that Sectaries that have quite overthrown the Church of England a right and pleasant Vineyard of Jesus Christ that these should be the Men who for the most part have challenged the Prince and the chief Ministers that laboured to effect the Spanish Match for being luke-warm at the best and unfastned from the Religion then profest is very audacious The Accused were Innocent and never gave ground to any pernicious Alteration but themselves the Accusers have trodden down that Religion of which in their deep Hypocrisy they would seem to be Champions The Prince and Buckingham were ever Protestants those their Opposites you know not what to term them unless Detestants of the Romish Idolatry As if all were well so they be not Popified though they have departed from the Church in which they were Baptized and a Church I will not say as sound as it was in its Cradle in the Apostles Times but as pure and Orthodox in Doctrine and Government as far as they were maintained to be of Divine Right and Constitution as it was in its Childhood in the time of their Disciples even that next succeeded them And are these the Declamers for Religion and the Temple of the Lord Ex isto ore Religionis verbum excidere an t clabi potest as Tully said of Clodius Orat. pro domo suâ ad Pontif. and so I give them no better Respect at parting 134. But what will be said when one that is greatly affected to our poor demolish'd Church doth concur with those Snarling Sectaries of his own accord That in the flagrant expectation of that Match some for hope of Favour began to Favour the Catholick
Cause It is the Author of the Observations upon H. L. his History of the Reign of King Charles pag. 137. He hath not bestowed his Name upon his Reader but he hath a Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Homer Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I ought not to put him to the first Question of our Catechism Quo nomine vocaris For good Writers nay Sacred Pen-Men do not always Inscribe their Names upon their Books Scholars do invariably Father the Work and some of them say they have it from the Printer upon one that hath Wrote and Publish'd much favoring of Industry and Learning And they give Reasons which will come into the Sequel though a great while deferr'd why he blotts the good Name of King James Why he grates so often upon the mild Nature and matchless Patience of King Charles And if Fame have taken the right Sow by the Ear it is one that had provok'd the then Bishop of Lincoln in Print with great Acrimony Twenty years ago and that Anger flames out in him now as hot as ever Panthera domari nescia non semper saeuit Yet when that Bishop came out of the Tower and this Adversary sought him for Peace and Love because the Bishop was then able to do him a Displeasure he found him easie to be Reconciled What should move this Man to forget that Pacification so truly observ'd on the Bishops part who was the greater and the offended Party Naturale est odisse quem laeseris And Malice is like one of the Tour Things Prov. 30.15 That never say it is enough 'T is Degenerous for the Living to Trample upon the Dead but very Impious that he that was once a Christian nay a Christian Priest should never cease to be an Enemy The Words with which he wounds the Spanish Match through his side though otherwise he is one that witheth it had succeeded are these That that Bishop being in Power and Place at C◠the time of King James made himself the Head of the Popish Faction because he thought the Match with Spain which was then in Treaty would bring not only a Connivance to that Religion but a Toleration of it And who more like to be in Favour if that Match went on than such as were most zealous in doing Good Offices to the Catholick Cause Here 's a Knot of Catter-Pillars wrapt in a thin Cobweb so easie it will be to sweep them of The accused Person was always free of Conference Let any now living say that heard him often Discourse of the adverse Church if he did not constantly open himself not for a Gainsayer only but for a Stiff Defier of their Corrupt Doctrines although he was ever pitiful for Relaxation of their Penalties And would that Party cleave unto him for their greatest Encourager Encouragement was the least their Head could give them Beside the Thing is a Chimaera I never knew any Head of the Popish Faction in this Kingdom Others and Bishops in Rank above him have been traduced in that Name but who durst own that Office especially in the end of King James his Reign when every year almost was begirt with a Parliament and every Parliament procreated an inquisitive Committee for Matters of Religion What Mist did he walk in that neither Parliament nor Committees did detect him for Head or Patron or Undertaker call it what you will of the Pseudo-Catholick Cause could nothing but the goggle Eye of Malice discover him 135. Perhaps the Contemplation of the Spanish Match might embolden him so this Author would have us think It could not it did not take a little in the highest Topicks to both It could not For as the Anteceding Parliament was much taken with King James's Words That if the Match should not prove a fartherance to our Religion he were not Worthy to be our King so this his Majesties near Counsellor knew his meaning of which he often discours'd that when the Holy-Days of the Great Wedding were over his Majesty would deceive the Jealousies of his Subjects and be a more vigorous Defender of the Cause of the True Faith than ever And Judge the Bishop by his own Words in his Sermon Preach'd at the Funerals of that Good King that his Majesty charg'd his Son though he Married the Person of that Kings Sister never to Marry her Religion I said likewise he did not Look back to the first Letters he dispatch'd into Spain but much more let every Reader enjoy the Feature of his own Piety and Wisdom which he put into the Kings Hand to have his liking while his Majesties Dear Son was in Spain to Cure popular Discontents and sickly Suspicions which had come forth with Authority in October following if the long Treaty had not Set in a Cloud The Original Draught of his Contrivances yet remaining is thus Verbation That when the Marriage was Consummated and the Royal Bride received in England His Majesty should Publish his Gracious Declaration as followeth First To assure his Subjects throughout his three Kingdoms that there is not one word in all the Treaty of the Marriage in prejudice of our own Religion Secondly To Engage himself upon his Kingly Word to do no more for the Roman-Catholics upon the Marriage than already he did sometime voluntarily Grant out of Mercy and Goodness and uncontroulably may do in disposing of his own Mulcts and Penalties Thirdly That our Religion will be much Honoured in the Opinion of the World that the Catholic King is content to match with us nor can he Persecute with Fire and Sword such as profess no other Religion than his Brother-in-Law doth Fourthly That His Majesty shall forthwith advance strict Rules for the Confirmation of our Religion both in Heart and in the outward Profession 1. Common-Prayer to be duly performed in all Churches and Chappels Wednesdays and Fridays and two of every Family required to be present 2. Every Saturday after Common-Prayer Catechising of Children to be constantly observed 3. Confirmation called Bishopping to be carefully executed by the Bishop both in the General Visitations of his Diocese and every Six months in his own House or Palace 4. That Private Prayers shall no Day be omitted in the Family of him that is of the Degree of an Esquire else not to be so named or reputed 5. All Ladies and all Women in general to be Exhorted to bestow two hours at the least every Day in Prayer and Devotion 6. All our Churches to be Repaired and outwardly well Adorned and comely Plate to be bought for the Communion-Table 7. Dispensations for Pluralities of Livings to be granted to none upon any Qualification but Doctors and Batchelors in Divinity at the least and of them to such as are very Learned Men. 8. Bishops to encourage Public Lectures in Market-Towns of such Neighbouring Ministers as be Learned and Conformable 9. A Library of Divinity-Books to be Erected in every Shire-Town for the help of the poorer Ministers and Leave shall be