necessity of a Soveraign Power over the affairs of Religion from their concernment in the Peace and Government of the world I thence proceeded to enquire where and in whom it ought to reside and having shewn the inconsistency of erecting two Supreme Secular Powers one over Civil and the other over Ecclesiastical Causes I concluded that the Supreme Government of every Common-wealth must of necessity be Universal Absolute and Uncontroulable in that it must extend its Jurisdiction as well to affairs of Religion as to affairs of State because they are so strongly influential upon the Interests of Mankind and the Ends of Government And now is this to make the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Civil Magistrate absolutely Paramount without regard to any other Jurisdiction of what nature soever when I only maintain it in defiance to the claims of any other humane Power For this was the only subject of that enquiry And when I asserted the Soveraign Power to be Absolute and Uncontroulable 't is apparent nothing else could be intended than that it is not to be controuled by any distinct Power whether of the Pope or the Presbytery for they are the only Rivals of the Princes of Christendome And when I asserted it to be Universal and Absolute no man unless he would give his mind to misunderstanding could understand it in any other sense than that it was not confined to matters purely Civil but extended its Jurisdiction to matters of an Ecclesiastical Importance upon which account alone I determin'd it to be Absolute Universal and Uncontroulable This is the main and the fundamental Article of the Reformation and that which distinguishes the truly Orthodox and Catholick Protestant both from Popish and Presbyterian Recusants and is the only fence to secure the Thrones of Princes against the dangerous encroachments of those bold and daring Sects and therefore from so plain and avowed a Truth to charge me for ascribing in general terms an Absolute Universal and Uncontroulable power to the Civil Magistrate over the Consciences of men in matters of Religion argues more boldness than wit and discretion and gives us ground to suspect that these men are not less forsaken of shame and modesty than they are of Providence for it must needs be a very bold face and a very hard forehead that could ever venture to obtrude such palpable and disingenuous Abuses upon the world This I think was answer enough for him and is I am sure too much for you But when beside this I have drawn up a brief and plain account of the parts the coherence and the design of my first Treatise to prevent you from abusing the People for the future with such rude mistakes and pervertings for you to repeat the very same Leasing is if any thing is false Heraldry 't is brass upon brass And when I have there so stated the Controversy as to provide with equal care and caution against the Inconveniences of both extremes an unlimited Power on the one hand and an unbounded Licence on the other when the bounds I have proposed are so very easie to be observed and so unnecessary to be transgress'd by all Partys concern'd viz. that Governours only take care not to impose things certainly and apparently evil and that subjects be not allowed to plead Conscience for disobedience in any other case and when I have so carefully avoided all kind of severity more than is absolutely necessary to the preservation of Government and the peace of Mankind with many other things so easie and so obvious that there is scarce any thing to excuse me from Impertinency in taking so much pains to prove them but their Manifest Necessity After all this I beseech you by the tyes of ancient Friendship deal clearly and candidly with me and tell me upon what other principles I could have discoursed more safely or more innocently upon this Argument though it is possible I might have done it more wittily by the help of your friend Bays who supposing two Kings of Brentford one for example a Secular the other an Ecclesiastical King remarks upon it that the People having the same Relations to both the same Affections the same Duty the same Obedience and all that would be divided among themselves in point of devoir and interest how to behave themselves equally between them these Kings differing sometimes in particular though in the main they agree And therefore what if they should agree to divide their Empire and one be King of the Land-men and the other of the Water-men or one to rule by night and the other by day or take their turns of Government by weeks or months but this device would not do for where there are two supreme Powers in the same Common-wealth there can be no avoiding civil jars and bloody-noses So that for this reason had I been a Senator of Brentford I should have humbly proposed that either King Phys or vice versâ King Ush might be vested with the absolute and uncontroulable Power of the Empire i. e. with both kinds of jurisdiction because otherwise as he proceeds shrewdly the People being embarrast by their equal Tyes to both and the Sovereign's concern'd in a reciprocal regard to their own Interest as to the good of the People may make a certain kind of a you understand me upon which there does arise several disputes turmoils heart-burnings and all that Ay this is pregnant and demonstrative and does not sob us off as you always do with empty tittle tattle without any colour or pretence of reason And had it come to hand time enough I might have been as much beholden to it for sence as you have been for wit for so you will have it that I have pilfer'd all my best or in your own Poetick phrase rapping flowers out of Play-books and several choice ones you have in spite of Almanacks and Chronology discover'd in my first Book that were by all means filch'd out of this very Play though as fortune would have it this was not made any way publick till above two years after that But waving the advantage of Bays his Assistance and every body else and relying upon my own single strength and presumption after all my care and pains to way-lay Calumny could I ever suspect any thing in the shape of a man so desperately fallen from all sense of Conscience or Modesty as to upbraid me with ascribing an infinite jurisdiction to Princes without any regard to the Divine Laws Well! I now see what it is for a man to live in his study and be unacquainted with the world for my part I could never have supposed it possible that Mankind could ever by Travel and Conversation emprove it self to such an height of Confidence Especially when there is not any one Writer extant either ancient or modern that I know of that has so vehemently and industriously asserted the hoopableness of all humane Authority as I have done And when in particular I have spent two
all my Writings to name but one good Quality that you possess that I have not granted you or one bad one that you disclaim and I have unjustly charged upon you and I will be content to suffer all the Engines of Clergy mens Cruelty the Pillorie the Whipping posts the Galleys the Rods the Axes and the Rhinolabides nay what is a more desperate Penance than all this I have stipulated to write a Panegyrick in praise of the Good Nature of the Presbyterians and the Sincerity of the Independants and I think it would puzzle the Wit of Mankind to invent a severer Penalty unless it were to write another in Commendation of your Wit and Learning But whilst you continue this out-cry against me only in general Terms without being able to produce particular Articles to vouch and justifie it you prove nothing but your want of breeding and better Arguments and the Calumny when you cannot drive it home recoils upon your own Heads He that charges another of an uncivil Crime when he cannot make it good indites himself And yet perhaps in spite of my Integrity I may have been too zealous for my King and Countrey Plain-dealing is too rough a Vertue for this false and self-designing Age. But be that as it will and as for the decency of the manner of my treating you when I have said all I can and I have said too much already I must leave it to the Judgment of the World I am now only concern'd to vindicate the matter of my discourses against you and here I have laid open your jugling so plainly that 't is a Reproach to Mankind that you should still persevere so immodestly in the same Impostures This is no bragging no man that had any consisistency in his Skull could have perform'd less in so plain and palpable a Case For what can be more notorious than that 1. When you exempt your Consciences from the jurisdiction of your Prince you exempt your selves both in that a man and his Conscience are one and the same thing and in that he is not capable of any obligation of Laws but purely by vertue of his Conscience 2. When you exempt matters of Religion from the same Power you in effect exempt all things there being nothing of any considerable weight or concernment in humane affairs that is not matter of Religion and much more so than those things that you contend about and this dashes in pieces all your general pleas But then 3. As for your particular pleas of Scandal and an unsatisfied Conscience and unscriptural Ceremonies c. what can be more evident than 1. That they are precarious and depend purely upon your own humours 2. That they are unavoidable in all Churches and all Constitutions in the world 3. That they are so unreasonable as that they may be adapted or applyed to subvert all Government in the Church as well as ours even your own And if after all this you will not learn to be quiet and peaceable you will first or last thank your selves for something that must follow and then your being big with conscience will not serve to reprieve you You are ferreted out of all your subterfuges and they are laid open to the view and scorn of all men And you have now nothing left to shelter your selves but only by slandering your Adversaries and perswading the people for you presume strangely upon their ignorance and stupidity that whilst we assert His Majesties Ecclesiastical Supremacy we invest him with an unhoopable Jurisdiction which being so bold and rank a forgery it is to all intelligent men i. e. all such as can either read or understand an ample demonstration of a desperate and baffled Cause But by the way how is this consistent with what you as often suggest that my design was to write against the Power of the King and to animate the People against the exercise of his Ecclesiastical Supremacy Are you not sufficiently furnished with informations against any man that can in the same indictment charge him for plotting and attempting at the same time to assert the unlimited Power of Kings and yet to allow them none at all certainly between two such wide extremes a man can never want for materials to make out an impeachment But how have I animated the People against the exercise of His Majesties Supremacy How have I not written expresly against his Indulgence to tender Consciences Not one syllable you know well enough I have only beat down and witnessed against your demands of Indulgence when you challenge it from the King by vertue of your Natural and Religious Rights and charge him as a Tyrant towards his Subjects and a Rebel against God if he presume to claim or pretend to any Jurisdiction over your Consciences or Religious Pretences the insolence of this kind of talk was not to be endured and therefore it was that I set my self to clear and defend His Majesties Supremacy against such plain and yet to the Rout plausible Principles of Anarchy and Confusion But I was no where so presumptuous as to censure or condemn the measures he has taken of his Government pardon me Sir for that we of the Bran of the Church of England have modesty enough to submit to the wisdome of our Superiours when ever they are pleased to declare their will and pleasure And whatever may be my own private Opinion neither I nor any other good Subject shall ever go about to confront it to the publique Declarations of the State so that as long as the Government shall think good to grant you Indulgence assure your self whatever you simply surmise I shall never trouble them with Remonstrances They understand the turns and junctures of their own affairs and are the most competent Judges what methods are fittest to procure both their own and our quiet And though they should at any time mistake yet if there were no other tye of duty it is more eligible they should be complyed with than that their Government should be affronted and the Common-wealth disturbed by every man that thinks himself wiser than his Governours But Sir though we are so dutiful to His Majesty as to submit to his granting Indulgence if he apprehends it seasonable for his present Affairs and as for his power of dispensing with Laws by vertue of his Prerogative we have nothing to do with it by vertue of our Office it is a matter forreign to our Judicature and therefore it is not only manners but duty in us to leave it to our Governours to adjust such disputes among themselves But yet though we are so entirely submissive to our Prince yet assure your selves we shall never be so civil to you as to suffer you to challenge a right to it in spite of his Power and to extort it from him as he would not stand charged before God of Tyranny and Usurpation You see now the vast difference between opposing the Kings Power to give Indulgence
Covenauters Cause were too good to be fought for as little Logick as I understand I understand so much that then the Kings was too bad to be fought for and that is enough for one Conclusion But whatever was the occasion of the War whether the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the Vicar of Brackley as you will have it or Ignoramus and Mr. Selden as a second concludes or the School-men and the Universities as a third observes whether I say any or all of these accidents might contribute to it I am not concern'd because occasions of mischief are unaccountable for their being so in that men that have a mind to it may make any thing an Occasion and yet still the occasion shall be as innocent as I believe the Children of Edinburgh were But if instead of the Occasion you desire to be satisfied in the cause of the War seeing you have been at so much pains in transcribing an huge Gazet to give me satisfaction I think my self at least a little obliged to give you my opinion and if that be not sufficient to satisfie you I shall only advise you to take heed of being too inquisitive for assure your self your Party will have but little reason to con you any thanks for demanding any farther satisfaction Inprimis then it hapned in this War as it does in all others that there were some general Causes that were set on work by some particular Circumstances As 1. The unusual ignorance of the Common People concerning their Duty and Obligation to the Government every man supposing himself as much Master of his own Estate as if he had lived out of all Society and expecting that the King should be able to maintain the Common Safety without his particular Contribution and this you may easily imagine makes them apt to murmur and tumultuate in all such straits and necessities of the State as require Money and Taxes 2. The seditiousness of Persons of broken and shatter'd fortunes and as there are great numbers of such at all times so are they alwayes with the formost to promote Disturbances in all States because it is very possible they may make their Condition better but impossible they should ever make it worse 3. The great numbers of well-meaning men that are usually carried down with the stream so that though possibly they were never disobliged at Court nor infected with Seditious Principles against the State nor addicted to Fanatique Factions against the Church yet are easily over-born with the noise of a whole Kingdom to joyn with that Party that pretends with most confidence to zeal for the publique good These with many others are the Materials and common Principles of all Rebellion but they never or very rarely come into action unless they are put upon it by some other particular and emergent Causes And these were plainly The Insolence and Seditiousness of the Presbyteran Preachers for it seems the Clergy of all Parties as well as all Ages can be mischievous enough because those that can do most good may for the same reason do most harm and therefore it is as ordinary for some to obstruct the Clemency of Subjects as it is for others to obstruct the Clemency of Kings Now it is certain these men had gain'd a mighty esteem and reverence with the People partly by the confidence of their pretences stiling themselves Gods Ambassadours and chalenging as much submission to their Doctrines as if they had wrought Miracles or produced written Credentials from Heaven partly by the vehemence of their tone and gesture and the particular manner of acting their Sermons but chiefly by the subject matter of their popular discourses in which they were alwayes very sparing of their reproofs against the gainful vices of tradesmen such as fraud cozening and covetousness and on the contrary very prodigal of their declamations and suggestions against such miscarriages as were proper to the Government And by inveighing perpetually against oppression they seem'd to take part with the People against their Superiours But that which gave them more Authority than all this over their minds was a certain way they had got of raising unreasonable and unavoidable troubles of Conscience by which means they continually kept great multitudes of well-meaning persons in perfect slavery and subjection to their own good-pleasure Now by the advantage of all these Artifices it was easie for them to infuse any poyson into the minds of their Proselytes And what Principles they taught them in reference to the establish'd Government they are so vulgarly known and so sufficiently recorded that I suppose it is now very superfluous to inform the world It is enough that there is not one Aphorism of miscief and rebellion that they did not impose upon the People under the obligation of a Christian duty as it is largely and distinctly proved out of their own words in the Book of dangerous Positions and Proceedings that is an exact Collection of all the Treason in the world Do but read it over and then tell me what peaceable and orderly Subjects they are like to prove whose Consciences are acted by such lewd and desperate Principles But though the Puritan Preachers from their very beginning never spared themselves nor their lungs against their Governours yet under the late Kings Reign by reason of the remiss Government of Arch-bishop Abbot they became more bold and boysterous than ever and especially when they perceived his Majesty so sincerely addicted to the Church of England and so resolutely bent to reduce all Factious Dissenters to order and obedience they began to think the cause brought to its last gasp if he proceeded without check to his designs and therefore they bestir themselves and thrash the Pulpits to exasperate the People against the Government of the Church and inveigh in the coarsest and most bitter expressions against that of the State And thus by the zeal and madness of these men were the People at length preach'd out of all sense of their Duty and Allegiance and by the perpetual roarings and bellowings of these Geneva Bulls were perfectly amazed into Rebellion And that indeed was their powerful preaching to raise Armies and beat up the Alarm to a Civil War If any man shall be at leisure to peruse those Humiliation-Sermons that were contrived to sanctisie the Cause he shall meet with such wretched and horrible abuses of Religion as the wickedness of all former Ages is not able to parallel What horrid work did they make with the Word of God How shamelesly did they urge the Prophesies of the Old Testament in defiance to the Precepts of the New And with what intolerable presumption did they load his Majesty with every burthen they could pick up against Moab or Babylon Their impertinence was almost as bold as their impiety And the People were rarely taught any thing beside Treason and Blasphemy And thus were they preach'd into Arms and converted into Rebellion they press'd Horse and Foot out of every
former Times and the present transactions to regulate himself by in every Circumstance Though yet here methinks you shew more kindness to the Prerogative of School-masters than to that of Kings in that you address your advice of Peace and Condescension as well to the Subject as the Sovereign whereas in your former Admonitions you applied your self and your sage discourses of Moderation to the Government alone without the least intimation of advice to Subjects to beware of peevishness and incivility to their Superiours However it is to be hoped that Schoolmasters will hereafter lay aside their Rods and their Ferula's to avoid these implacable Grudges of juvenile Petulancy and learn by the Example of their brother Kings to condescend to their Boys for peace sake and the quiet of Boykind and upon all occasions to give them good words and humour them like Children and from all these fatal consequences of whipping which can only serve as sea marks unto wise Schoolmasters to avoid the causes And never hereafter to brandish their Rods against Truants Loiterers and Rob-orehards remembring the implacable Ballads of Tom Triplet the stabbing of the Roman Emperor the Tai-Ior-Parliament of Poland the danger of Alexander the King of Spain's progress into Biscai the Resignation of the Queen of Sweden the Revolts of Switzerland and the Low-countreys and an hundred more that I could tell you but idle stories and yet Kings and Schoolmasters can tell how to make use of them for where there is so great a resemblance in the Effects there must be some parallel in the Causes You have put Tacitus his nose out of joint for sententious Politicks But above all it concerns them to consider that God has instated them in the Government of their Subjects with that incumbrance of Reason and that incumbrance upon reason of Conscience as if Conscience were an incumbrance upon Reason and Reason upon Government Men therefore are to be dealt with reasonably and consciencious men by conscience And then that the Body is in the power of the Mind so that corporal Punishments do never reach the Offender but the innocent suffers for the guilty And the mind is in the hand of God and cannot correct those perswasions which upon the best of its natural Capacity it has collected and therefore to punish that is to violate the divine Majesty To what purpose is it to scourge the outward Boy your corporal punishments never reach the Offender but the innocent suffers for the guilty it is the mind that is the truant and the dunce and if that will not con its Lesson is it justice that the poor innocent Backside should do penance for anothers sloth and idleness It is only for implacable Divines to be thus cruel and sanguinary And then as for the Mind that is in the hand of God and cannot correct those false Concords and unlucky Tricks which upon the best of its natural Capacity it has collected so that to punish that is to violate the divine Majesty And now lay by your Rods my Masters break your Ferula's burn your Grammars tear in pieces your Dictionaries and your construing Books mure up your School-doors leave your declining of Nouns and Verbs construe no more Greek and Latin break up School and keep an universal Play-day throughout the whole Nation for Truants must not be whipt and if you attempt to take down their Breeches you offer plain violence to the Laws of Nature and of God For he has put their Bodies into the Power of their Minds and their minds he keeps in his own hands and therefore if you scourge them you do not only punish the Innocent for the Guilty which no sort of men are so brutish to do beside the Clergy but the disgrace and the blame of all lights at last upon the divine Majesty in that the Mind is wholly in his hands and all its Actions whatsoever must be entitled to his Providence A blessed Account of Government this but yet such as is absolutely necessary to the exemption of Conscience from the Commands of Authority by ascribing all the Extravagancies of Mankind to the Will of God that has put upon them a fatal Necessity to do whatever they do And then 't is in vain for the Civil Magistrate to think of forcing his Subjects to Obedience by Penalties when they are over-ruled to the contrary by an almighty and irresistible Power This is a fit Cover for so foul a Cause But now if you had come to me I could have told you an hundred more idle stories that you and Kings and School-masters would know how to make use of that would better have filled up your Politick Lectures and done more advantage both to your cause and your self than all that you have rak'd together I will recommend but one to you in which I am sure the King and Parliament the three Kingdoms with the Isles adjacent together with all the Plantations that lie out of hearing are more nearly concerned than in any of your Politick Tales not excepting the Queens own Broad-seal and to make you expect no longer it is the famous story of Massanello And if ever you come to be a Parliament-man because you may be modest at first and fearful of speaking I care not if I lend you a Speech before I conclude And thus you must manage it and your self First you must rise up and take out you Gold-watch if it be not at pawn for the Picquet disaster and though it do not go or be down yet look on 't in the first place however not transiently but stay your Eye upon it till you cannot longer do it handsomly without too apparent Prostitution of your design than combing your Wigg shake it with a Grace make up your Mouth betwixt a smile and a simper look upon the Presence with some Pity but more scorn And then begin Mr. Speaker and there pause again for it becomes you to seem modest at first and so after a frown or two more with your mouth and as many smiles with your Forehead procede in good earnest without any more faces and prefaces to be wail the evil the fatal the sad Consequences the mischiefs many and great that threaten the Kingdom 's ruine and turning it to a Common-wealth again by the Apple-mongers and old Women in the Strand Charing-cross and all along by White-hall as far as Westminster in the Face of the Street and all By-standers selling and exposing to sale from day to day whole baskets full of Pippins Paremains Russettings and old Apple Johns Whereas one sturdy Swiss for I am sure he will run in your head and here you must beg Mr. Speakers pardon and correct your self and say you meant one sturdy Fisher-boy and that you must observe for a certain Rule though you are out never so much yet for all that still to go on I say Mr. Speaker one sturdy Fisher-boy by that fatal occasion of over-turning an Apple-womans basket over-turn'd all
or not is now too late to enquire but having written so I began Though I am none of the most zealous Patrons of the Press How say you the Press it is a Villainous Engine Why What is the matter did it ever cheat you at Picquet that the very mention of it should put you into such a Fit of Lycanthropy and set you like the Island of Fayol on fire in threescore and ten places But why Villainous Engine fie fie does this Language become a Gentleman that has clear'd himself of Froth and Groans You learn'd it at Charing-Cross or in Lincolns-Inn-fields But however the Engine may have offended or disobliged you it concerns not my grand Thesis and as little my self having profess'd to be none of its Patrons And it is of Age and parts sufficient to manage its own quarrel for it is as old as the Reformation and yet still as talkative as ever and therefore I shall not interest my self in the leaft in it no more than if John a Nokes were railed at by John a Stiles Otherwise I have already inform'd you that you have more reason than you dreamt of to rail at its Villany It has Traytour as it is after all its pretended Zeal to the cause betrayed all your secrets and produced your own hand-writings against your selves There is scarce a crime to be named or thought of for which it has not an information ready at any time to prefer against you notwithstanding the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity And therefore I would wish the Non-conformists as little as you think I love them to be always upon their Guard lest it first Trepan and then Peach and then hang them I am sure it is much more likely and able to do it than my self I cannot see how it can ever expiate all the mischief it has done your Cause already unless it would print the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus But be it as perfidious as you please it is not half so wicked as that villanous Game of Picquet that has done more harm to the Church of England than all the Brawny Printers and Schismatical Preachers of Germany and Geneva Not excepting the Assigns of John Calvin and Theodore Beza that live in Chancery Lane on the South side of the Lake Lemane as the matter is mended in the second Edition of your Geography And thus having treated the Press with as much rudeness and malice as if you had taken it for a Clergyman The next thing you chop upon is the matter of close and comfortable Importance And here never did Countrey Whitefoot stiffen and leer more eagerly upon three legs at any thing in a tuft of Fern than you do at the meaning of these words But the leering and the Ecstasie somewhat abated they must be reduced to one of these three either Salvation or a Benefice or a Female now for the Jests sake it must be neither of the former and therefore for the same jests sake it must of necessity be the latter But from hence men of observation will be forward to conclude that you move far above the troubles of this World as to Honour and Coin and Estate and all other trifles of humane Life else you would have found something else to be important beside a Benefice or a Female though it were but a Game at Picquet You have I thank you bestowed upon me a Prebend a Sine-cure and a Rectorship now why might I not at the time of writing that Preface be busied in attending the Seals for my Sine-cure and in taking order for the repairs of my Parsonage Barns and in providing Goods and Furniture for my Prebend-house These I take to be close and comfortable things as well as a female Importance And what if beside all this I had newly sold my little inheritance and engaged in a purchase elsewhere that lay better for my own convenience and what if at that very nick of Affairs a stop were put to the payments of the Exchequer and my Money in the Bankers hands do you think it did not closely concern me to disengage it from their keeping and whether it would not have been some comfort to have effected it But it seems there is nothing so far from the thoughts of you Gamesters as purchasing of Lands However you see how short your induction is from taking in all particular matters of close and comfortable Importance Beside either the meaning you have pitch'd upon was mine or it was not if it were I would fain be satisfied where the wit of it lies for you to understand the right meaning of my words if it were not I would then be satisfied where the wit of it lies for you to obtrude a wrong one upon them But I know your advantage though thus publickly to betray the mirth and freedome of private conversation is but Clownishly done and like a Jack-Gentleman you know the meaning of the story better than I do yours of Pork and I hope all ingenuous men will take warning by my example to avoid your company for the time to come that can make such a rude and spiteful use of an innocent piece of mirth And if the Remarque be of any value there is nothing of it beside the malice and incivility that is your own But after all suppose for the Jest sake it be a Female what have you made of it You are such a stubble-Goose-wit that you are not able to raise your dull fancy by the advantage of another mans conceit One would have expected some handsome mirth and raillery upon so pleasant a Theme but you have emproved it so Clownishly and so phlegmatically as shews you equally void of all capacity both of wit and manners For who beside your self would upon such an innocent occasion have vented the most spiteful and immodest reflections upon the whole order of the Clergy It is the highest Pinacle of Ecclesiastical Felicity to asswage their concupiscence and wreck their malice Though you were not restrain'd by any fear of the day of Judgement you had reasons enough to have baulkt such impudence as this that is so far from being a good jest that it is a publique affront to good manners And ill manners pass no where for wit but at Charing-Cross or in Lincolns-Inn-fields Go your way for a smutty Lubber that can make no other improvement of so fair an advantage than to spit your malice and ribaldry these are the top of your wit if they are not the pinacle of your felicity Certainly had the jest been ten times more elevating than it is any civil or witty man especially one that has so many to spare would have baulkt it for modesty though not for Conscience or the day of Judgement And so you may go and consider whether you had not only leisure enough but cause too much to have cool'd your thoughts and corrected your indecencies But turn over the leaf and there you will find that giving the Reader an account
Friend and Foe and eating up All Men Women and Children He that came off with Honour in threescore and seventeen Duels before he was one and twenty and in forty years more by Land and Sea fought as many pitcht Battels could not have made a more war-like sound Certainly you go as I have read of one in the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus for why should not I read your Fathers as well as you read mine always hung like a Justice of Peace's Hall with Pikes Halberts Peitronels Callivers and Muskets And if you could but victual your self for half a year in your Breeches it is not to be doubted but you would be able to over-run whole Countries Hungary Transylvania Bohemia and all the other territories of modern Orthodoxy The first Argument I made use of to remove all popular suspicions of Popery from the Government was the manifest inconvenience to the State that must arise from any alteration in the Church and this I proved from those impregnable principles of Loyalty that are peculiar to our Communion from all other Dissenters so that all design of Change being so manifestly imprudent and impolitick I thought it too wild a surmise for the Wisdome of the Government unless it were not only trinkled but bewitch'd to expose it self and therefore that there could be no other probable ground of danger but from the restlesness and seditious practices of the Fanatique Party that might possibly some time or other make way for the return of Popery by making disturbances in Church and State And to this purpose I gave a large Character of the peculiar Genius and the distinguishing principles of the Church of England from the Gibelline Faction But it seems you do not like my Characters and what is that to me am I obliged to justifie them because such Jack-Gentlemen as you do not approve them If you have any thing to except you know the Law and the Press is open but your bare dislike will no where pass for a confutation And to tell us that you find on either side only the natural effect of such Hyberbole's and Oratory that is not to be believed is in a great many words only to say I lye It may be so but yet that satisfies no body And yet tell me can you deny the Loyalty of the Church of England both in its principles and practices if you cannot whatever I have said in her commendation is undeniably true and then it is you that lease Can you deny that the regular Clergy are the most zealous Assertours of the Rights of Princes and that they and only they teach subjection to be an indispensable duty of Religion without false reserves and limitations Can you deny that those Subjects that stuck to the Communion of the Church of England ever stuck to hazard Lives and Fortunes out of devotion to their Prince Can you prove that every any forsook the Royal Cause in its greatest distress that did not first forsake the Church of England Can you deny that the main Article that distinguishes ours from all other Communions is that we vest the Crown in an Ecclesiastical Supremacy which is one half of the Sovereign Power whilst they challenge it either to themselves or some foreign Jurisdiction that has no more ground of Claim beside bare confidence to exercise any Authority in the Kings Dominions than the King has in his These are the Elogies I gave to the Church of England If they are such Hyperboles as are not to be believed that is to say if they are lyes make it good or else confess your impudence to call them so not only without proof or evidence but against Experience and Demonstration And so for my contrary Character of the Fanatiques that too is all a lye or such an Hyperbole as is not to be believed and so I am answer'd but if that be all you have to say I am very well satisfied too You had done them some kindness if you had undertaken to prove either that the Preachers never taught the people Aphorisms of Disloyalty and Rebellion or that they were never engaged in actual War against their lawful Prince by their Instigation or that any of them have renounced their old Principles though they could never be prevail'd with so much as to acknowledge their Crime either to God or the King These are plain Cases of Conscience so that till they have done this if they were ever guilty they are so still And therefore when you only tell us that I have dress'd them all up in Sambenita 's painted with all the Flames and Devils in Hell All the service you do your brethren is to inform the World that whoever will draw a Fanatique to the life must get the Devil to sit for his picture and if a man cannot describe them without dressing them up in Sambenita's I cannot help that this I am sure of that I have not made one false stroke or ill feature that I cannot justifie to any Artist I am not concern'd how ugly the piece is so it be but like and yet you your self have not been able to tell me one fault that I have committed I am only sorry that they are so very deformed as you have represented them for I never suspected before you informed me either that they were so bad or the Devil so good But I know what it is that so much girds you though your guilty Conscience dares not touch it viz. that I have there proved that nothing but the Good Old Cause lyes at the bottom of all your present Schism and that the most zealous Patriots of Conventicles are such as have given the World but very little ground to suspect them from their profess'd Principles or open Practices of the least tenderness of Religion and kindness to Monarchy so that nothing better can ever be expected from them than factions and republican Designs I know this twinges to the quick it is so observable all the Kingdome over that as you cannot endure to hear it so you dare not deny it And now your appearance has amply verified the truth of the Observation When at the same time that you come forth to vindicate the Innocence and Peaceableness of the Non-conformists and pass your word to the King that they shall never lift up disloyal thought against him you cannot forbear to let us see how warmly you are concern'd to justifie the late Rebellion In that the King had turn'd his whole Kingdome into a Prison that many thousands of his Subjects were constrained to seek habitations abroad every Countrey even though it were among Savages and Canibals appear'd more hospitable to them than their own that his whole Reign was deformed with Sibthorpianism i. e. with his affecting an absolute and arbitrary Government that himself and his party were the cause of the War that the Parliament took up Arms in defence both of their Liberty and Religion and that their Cause against the King was like
that of Christianity only too good to be fought for c. And now when you ensure us that the Fanatiques shall never rebel it is for this reason only because there neither is nor can be any such thing as Rebellion for if the last War were none you are safe for ever forfeiting your Loyalty and if that cause were too good to be fought for it will be hard to find one too bad It is well you have declared that if you can do the Non-conformists no good you are resolved you will do them no harm and desire that they should lye under no imputation on your account I am confident you intended honestly but they are more endebted to your good will than your discretion When your very Apology in their behalf brings them under the greatest imputation For this not only makes good my suggestion which you would lay by your Caveat that they are acted by men of Democratical Spirits but withal it is a stronger evidence of their continuing constant and stubborn to their old Principles because as they would never be brought to disclaim them so now it seems they are resolved to justifie them and lay the whole guilt of the Rebellion upon the King himself I know you are a wise and wary man and design'd when you set pen to paper to take upon you the Person that is Personam induere of a Royallist and not to betray the least kindness to or concern for the Good Old Cause But you are a Gamester and know what vast odds a man may lay on Natures side And thus have I more than enough vindicated every page and period of my Preface and yet the main of your business is still behind for that was the least of your design to confute me your Plot was to take occasion to fly out into invectives against the Clergy of all Ages in general and of the Church of England in particular first as the cause of the late War and secondly as the hindrance of our present settlement and then having barr'd them from trinkling with State Affairs and wheadled the King against hearkning to their Counsels though you do it so grosly and with such an impudent malice that it is like stalking by the side of a Butter-fly with a face as broad as a Brass-Copper you advise Princes to a more moderate course of Government and teach them from many sad examples to behave themselves dutifully to their Subjects upon peril of their displeasure or worse I shall as briefly as I can consider your performance in all these particulars and so leave you to the shame of your own Meditations First then having with mighty exultation of Spirit and words much too good for your heart congratulated His Majesties most Happy Restauration just as Malefactors cry God save the King because they have escaped the Gallows and so do you magnifie his Clemency Mercy and Goodness for carrying the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity through But this serenity is suddainly over-cast and you knit your brows and depress your Superciliums and at length with much fleering and more reluctancy for you are mighty sorry to speak it yet because it is a sad truth tell it him you must that the Ecclesiastical Part would not accomplish his Felicity and no wonder when the Animosities and Obstinacy of some of the Clergy have in all Ages been the greatest obstacle to the Clemency Prudence and good intentions of Princes and the establishment of their affairs Which is to say that the Clergy has not only in all Ages nay and places too been the bane of Government but more particularly the Clergy of England murther'd His Royal Father and are more accomptable for His Majesties and the Kingdoms sufferings than either the Rebels that took his Crown off of his head or those that afterwards took his head off of his shoulders But they shall answer for themselves anon we must first traverse your first Bill against the Clergy in general But who are you that are thus acquainted with the Clergy of all Ages time out of mind sure you can be no less a man than one of the Patriarchs or a fifth from Methusalem or at least Andrew de Temporibus John's elder Brother you have so general an acquaintance with the Clergy of all Ages As for the Clergy of the Ages before Noahs flood I will not contend for for any thing that I know there might be Bishops of Munster and Cullen and Strasburg in those times and I cannot disprove it but that King Nimrod's Chaplains were his Hunts-men but in all Ages since I cannot find that they have been more cruel than other men Aaron I am sure was remarkable for his meekness and mercy for though the Grand Remonstrance of Corah were intended against himself and his Bran for trinkling Moses and the Members of the Sanhedrin yet did he bestir himself to attone the Rebellion and procure pardon for the Offenders Though I must confess his Grand-child Phinehas was an arrant Jewish Zealot that is as your modern Orthodox Rabbies inform you a notorious Rogue and Cut-throat And as for the Heathen Priests though they were very famous Trinklers I do not find that they were any great Men-eaters In my Roman Empire I do not read that they were fiercer Canibals of the Race of Man or Capon-kind than the Laity nor I believe can you prove out of your 5 Ep. to Marcellinus that the Clergy were the Authours of Julian's Persecution But the bottom of all this is that the Priests have in all Ages and in all Kingdomes been advanced to places of greatest Authority next to the Sovereign Power it self The Druids of Britany the Magi of Persia the Priests of AEgypt Judaea Assyria AEthiopia are a sufficient Indication that however fanciful men may fool themselves and their Countrey with other Philosophical Models and Theories of Policy yet Religion and the Ministers of Religion will have the greatest share in the Government and the reason is as evident as the experiment is Catholique in that nothing can so truly and effectually awe the greatest part of mankind as the dread of the world to come and therefore they whose peculiar Office it is to guide and instruct men in their future concerns must and will in spite of all the witty States-men in the world have the greatest reverence power and interest with the generality of the People And thus though the Authority of the Clergy of England be at this time by reason of some malignant effects of the late war at as low an ebb as perhaps the power of the Priests ever was under any Monarchy yet it is manifest that for all their disadvantages all of the Loyal Party Nobility Gentry and Commonalty that are sober and serious in the belief and profession of their Religion cannot but have a veneration to their Persons and a deference to their Judgements How else think you could they be so easily trinkled And as for all the several
with the Most high You know that he never intended Church-men for Ministers of State You know what he intends away you wretch if you have any spark of Modesty unextinguish'd retire into your Closet and lament and pine away for these desperate Blasphemies The Ruac Hakodesh dwell in such a distemper'd and polluted mind as yours it may as soon unite it self to a Swine Fatuos hujus terrae filios quod attinet says a Jewish Zealot non magis nostro judicio prophetare possunt quà m asinus rana Asses and Tod-poles may as soon expect the Impressions of the divine Spirit as such dunces and sots as you And yet you do not think it enough to pretend acquaintance with the present thoughts and intentions of the Almighty but you must be betraying his future designs and blabbing what shall be hereafter Thus you dare divine augurate and presage mutual felicity to his Majesty and the Kingdome from his gracious Declaration of Indulgence and that what ever humane Accident may happen they will they can never have cause to repent this action or its Consequences Amen! I wish you a true Prophet with all my soul nothing recreates me so much as to hear of the prosperity of my King and Countrey But if you should ever live to see this Declaration repented of would it not be a sad rebuke to your confidence I am sure if it were my case I should never be able to lift up my head after it And though we have no Laws against counterfeit Prophets because it is rare for any man in these Northern Climates to arrive to that degree of Impudence and Vanity yet among the Jewish Zealots they were punish'd more severely than notorious Rogues and Cut-throats And if you do not pretend to some particular ensurance from Heaven you add rashness to your impudence to be thus confident in your predictions of future Contingencies For you your own self know how uncertain the success of the best Contrivances may be for after all things may be laid with all the depth of humane Policy there happens lightly some uggly little contrary Accident from some quarter or other of Heaven that frustrates and renders all ridiculous I should have been so modest as to say successess for wise Counsels are not rendred foolish by disappointment Now was it not possible that some of these little ugly Accidents that might or might not be fore-seen might spoil all the success of so wise and so well-laid an Action And therefore I say it again it was not discreetly done to ensure success so boldly to so contingent an Event There are thousands of little and great Accidents that it is not possible for humane Wisdome to prevent that might frustrate all its good consequences and there are some that my slender judgment could easily have foreseen and fore-told It was possible that the Non-conformists might have made ill use of his Majesties goodness and condescention to embolden their Party to more sawcy and insolent demands This I say is possible for all the King has so obliged them by his late mercy that if there were any such Knave there can be no such fool among them that would ever lift up an ill thought against him I know as well as you that there is not in the World a more grateful and good natur'd Generation of men in all other cases but the case of Loyalty and of the Race of Capons So that still I say it is possible they may forget his kindness and their own Duty and that they will not I think your word is no competent security For you have pass'd it but once before and that with your hand upon your heart and that was when you protested upon your Honour and Integrity your own reading of the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus Beside as it is possible for the Non-conformists to be unmindful of their Duty and their Obligation to the King so is it you know possible too for the Members of Parliament to be some time or other so trinkled that nothing shall put them in good humour but cancelling this Declaration or any other Act of Indulgence to the Non-conformists And then that though no other sinister Accident should intervene may for all your Prophecie prove an occasion of some Repentance You know how much I might here insult over your baffled Impudence but this is enough to let you see how unadvised a thing it is to be too positive in Predictions And now to return to the Clergy have you not made an admirable speech to have them thrust out from all Offices in the State because they are unqualified for them by their Education and that because by their Education they have peculiar advantages to make the best Ministers of State were it not that God that has prepared and qualified them above all other men for that employment will not bless them in it because he never intended them for it For a lucky hand at Contradictions you are the man And had you not thus demonstratively baffled your own malice I might have confuted your rash censures of all Ages by the experience and opinion of most Ages and shewn that as none are better qualified for State-Affairs than Church-men so none have acquitted themselves with greater Art or Success and that things have rarely miscarried but when their Counsels have not been effectually followed as I shall shew anon in the Cases of Cardinal Granvile and Arch-Bishop Laud though when all is done you know the wisdome of a design is not to be measured by its success But your insolence is not worth so much Correction Only look upon our next Neighbours o're-sea and tell me to whose conduct that King and Kingdom owe their present flourishing condition Who were they that brought it back from the very point of dissolution to that Settlement and Grandeur it now enjoys Were they not Church-men and did they not do it by such Counsels as you think perhaps as the case stood were precipitate and sanguinary viz. when the Nation was divided into two powerful Factions by resolving to break one to pieces for ever that so they might not be embroil'd in Civil Wars upon every slight occasion whenever the People grew wanton or any Great Man hapned to be out of favour whereas the former Statesmen that were for the trinkling Policy entail'd an hereditary Civil War upon the Kingdom from Generation to Generation even as I remember J. O. sayes the Lord had sworn a great while ago to destroy the Amalekites and the Kerns But having taken upon your self the Office of Vicar General to the Clergy of all Ages and all Nations Hungary Transylvania Bohemia c. you are not content to turn them all out of publique employment in the State but you would wheedle them out of all the comforts and advantages of life and perswade them to strip themselves of all the secular conveniencies wherewith the wisdome and the bounty of former Ages have
by the known Laws of the Land Yet here we see a man disseized of his Rents and Lands spoiled of his Goods deprived of his Jurisdiction devested of his Right of Patronage and all this done when he was so far from being convicted by the Laws of the Land that no particular charge was so much as thought of It is a fundamental Law of the English Liberty that no man shall be condemned or put to death but by the Lawful Judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land that is in the ordinary way of Legal Tryal and sure an Ordinance of both Houses without the Royal Assent is no part of the Law of England nor held an ordinary way of Tryal for the English Subject or ever reckoned to be such in former times And finally it is a Fundamental Law in the English Government That if any other Cause than those recited in the Statute of King Edward III. which is supposed to be Treason do happen before any of his Majesties Justices the Justices shall tarry without giving Judgment till the Cause be shewn and declared before the King and his Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason or not Yet here we have a new-found Treason never known before nor declared such by any of his Majesties Justices nor ever brought to be consider'd of by the King and his Parliament but only Voted to be such without Precedent or Example by some of those Members which sat at West-minster who were resolved to have it so for their private ends c. Is not this right Presbyterian Ingenuity to rebel against the King only for the defence and maintenance of the fundamental Laws and yet in all their proceedings violate not only all the fundamental Laws they pretended to fight for but all the more fundamental Laws of nature and humanity The Arch-Bishop was to be murther'd to please the Kirk and with his blood was the Covenant to be seal'd but then to prosecute him with so much violence to load him with so much accusation to tire him out with all the affronts and indignities of spite and zeal to rake into his whole Life up to his very Child-hood to gather materials for an Impeachment and yet after all this when they were convinced of the innocence of his actions and the inhumanity of their own proceedings to condemn him as a Traytor and an Execrable Person without nay against a Legal Tryal and then put him to death against all the Laws of the Realm and all the Rules of Natural Justice is such a prodigious piece of impudence as sufficiently discovers what kind of Creatures they were that were the contrivers and authours of his Murther It is true Presbyterian impudence But now are not you a right good natured Wretch to charge a man so learned so wise so pious and so studious of doing God and His Majesty good service of deforming the whole Reign of the best Prince that ever wielded the English Scepter when the very men that murther'd him have left such an irrefragable testimony of his Innocence and Integrity in that though they had the confidence to overwhelm him with Accusations yet they had not the confidence to withstand his Defence And what more ample testimony could they have left to Posterity than when they had taken so much pains to murther him with some shew of Law and Justice they should at last be forced to betake themselves to such illegal and violent proceedings as were never put in practice before or after Is this your additional Civility wherewith you consecrate the ashes of the deceased Are these your Elogies of a man so learned so pious so wise so studious both of the Service of God and the King that he deformed both What accusatory spirit could desire better play against him than you have given in his Vindication But however you recreate your self with believing that your simple judgement cannot beyond your intention it seems when you print Books you intend no body should read or regard them beside your self abate any thing of his just value with others And thus you never oyl your hoan neither but to whet your razor and cut the mans throat whom you would seem to flatter and fawn upon These leering and mannerly abuses that are suggested under pretence of friendship are much more impudent and malicious than down-right railing Neither is there any hypocrisie so ridiculous as to shrink back and protest all the tenderness in the world to a mans reputation and yet at the same time of your own accord and without any asking go about to blast it for ever with the most spiteful and venemous suggestions and then think to wipe your mouth and by a counterfeit smile or two make amends for all this treachery And when you have stab'd a man to the heart excuse all your officious virulence by crying whilst you are giving the mortal stroak Sir I beg your pardon I intend no harm and however I may in publique make bold to traduce your memory yet still I recreate my self with believing that my simple judgement cannot beyond my intention abate any thing of your just value with others So that it seems when you publish any thing to a mans disparagement you do not intend to be believed It is a Dove-like Serpent that never stings but when it kisses too but yet it is time for shame to give over this out-worn cheat it is now too impudent and palpable to impose upon any mans credulity it did you service thirty years since when you dethroned his late Majesty under pretence of making him the most Glorious King that ever weilded the English Scepter but you must not after so long an experience of your hypocrisie and leasings presume so rudely upon the silliness of mankind as to think at this time of day of cheating and abusing them with such ridiculous contradictions And now when you remark it as the great weakness of the late King that he trusted his exquisite understanding to the Clergies keeping it is plain you mean Arch-bishop Laud and I pray with whom could he better trust it than a man so learned so pious so wise and that studied to do both God and his Majesty good service Here are all the Qualifications of an able and an honest Statesman so that though the Clergy were not ordinarily so well fitted by education as others for Political Affairs yet it is evident Arch-bishop Laud was being both wise and learned and pious and this is as great a character as can be given of any Favourite in any age So that whereas you object it as the great over-sight and infirmity of his late Majesty that he committed his exquisite understanding to the Arch-bishops keeping you could not have given a greater proof of his wisdom than to make choice of a man so admirably qualified to do him service neither can you blame him for being ignorant that God would not bless a Church-man in Affairs of
length approved and publish'd special care being taken I still relye upon the Kings word that the small alterations of it in which it differs from the English Liturgy should be such as might best comply with the minds and dispositions of the Scots and prevent all grounds of fear or jealousie and chiefly to avoid all misconstruction that some Factious Spirits would have put upon it as a badge of that Churches dependance upon the Church of England if it had been the same with the English Service-Book totidem verbis And this was the Liturgy that no doubt might be an occasion of exasperating the Bramble-Faction that were already ripe for Rebellion and resolved to improve all disgusts whether just or unjust real or pretended to authorize their disloyal resolutions But to let you into the main Mystery the circumstance that gave life and vigour to their designs was the Act of Revocation that it seems hapned to be set on foot not long before by which the King intended the Revocation of those Lands of the Church that in the minority of King James the Great Men had to the prejudice of the Crown seized on and shared among themselves to which the Occupants having no other Title beside impudent Sacriledge and Usurpation the King thought he might justly challenge them for his own Use at least from the present Possessours A course warranted as himself still tells me both by the Laws of that Kingdom and the frequent examples of his Royal Progenitors And this you may believe was provocation enough to put them into an uproar and the People were perswaded as I am informed by a good Authour from the mouth of a Noble Lord that the intendment of the Act was to revoke all former Laws for suppressing of Popery and setling the Reformed Religion in the Kirk of Scotland and this raised such Tumults that the King was forced to desist from the prosecution of the Act under that Title and to carry it on though with much opposition under another Name of a Commission of Surrendries a thing so offensive to the stomachs of the Lords of the Erection as the Lay Impropriators were there call'd that they could never digest it but first according to the usual method vented their choler in Libels and then in Rebellion For though they were satisfied for their Tythes to the utmost farthing according to the Rates of purchasing in that Kingdom yet this fretted them that they saw themselves rob'd of the dependence of the Clergy and Laity upon their Power and of that Sovereign Command and Superiority which they had by the tye of Tythes exercised over them several wayes as the King will inform you And this was the reason of State beside the ease of his Subjects that moved his Majesty to issue out this Commission For before the greatest part of the Laity were Vassals by Tenure and all the Clergy slaves by custom to the Nobility And therefore they immediately set themselves to work the People to a disaffection to his Majesties Government and to perswade them that these were the contrivances of the Bishops and that under them there were dangerous innovations design'd upon their Religion So that 't is plain as the King observes that before either the Service-Book or Book of Canons so tragically now exclaimed against were thought on the seeds of Sedition and discontent were sowen by the Contrivers of the Covenant first upon the occasion of the Revocation next upon occasion of the Commission of Surrenders and lastly upon occasion of his denying honours to some of them at his last being in that Kingdom of which he has there given a large and particular account and this brought forth first private traducing his Government and then publique Libels And now by this time Sedition was grown so ripe and ready to seed that it wanted nothing to thrust it out and make it shoot forth into an open Rebellion but some fair and specious pretence They could not yet compass the Cloak of Religion whereby to siel the eyes and muffle the face of the Multitude for by none of the three former Occasions could they so much as pretend that Religion was endanger'd or impeach'd But so soon as they got but the least hint of any thing which they thought might admit a misconstruction that way they lost no time but took Occasion by the fore-lock knowing that either that or nothing would first facilitate and then perfect their designs Now the occasion they took of fetching Religion within the reach of their Pretences was the new Liturgy And this produced I still relye upon the Kings Authority the late wicked Covenant or pretended Holy League Though following the pattern of all other Seditions they did pretend Religion yet nothing was less intended by them For when they had sayes the Royal Understanding received from us full satisfaction to all their desires expressed in any of their Petitions Remonstrances or Declarations their persisting for all that in their tumultuous and rebellious Courses doth demonstrate to the world their weariness of being govern'd by us and our Laws by our Council and other Officers put in Authority by and under us and an itching humour of having that our Kingdom governed by a Table of their own devising consisting of Persons of their own choosing A Plot of which they are very fond being an abortion of their own brain but which indeed is such a monstrous birth as the like has not yet been born or bred in any Kingdom Jewish Christian or Pagan Of which he afterwards describes a particular Plat-form as it was put in practice at Edinburgh And thus observe it you shall still find a Common-wealth and Sacriledge at the bottom of all Rebellion that appears under the mask and pretence of Religion And it was these men that raised the Tumults and trinkled the Rabble into all those disorderly courses that by degrees brought forth the Covenant and the War And it is pretty observable that the first Remonstrance at Edinburgh was made in the name of the Men Women Children and Servants who being urged with the Book of Service and having consider'd the same the Children as well as the rest humbly shew c. These were followed by the Burghours and the Burghours by the Gentry and Nobility And so at length did the Scotch-war break out in which the Liturgy was no more concern'd than the Children of Edinburgh whose tender Consciences it seems were offended at it though in truth they deserved to be soundly whipt for beginning a War for the Cause when the Cause was too good to be fought for And now consider whether you had not been better advised to let this business of the War alone when you can no other way bring your Clients off with reputation unless the King will be content to suffer Himself his Royal Father and his Loyal Subjects to be impeach'd of their Rebellion For the blame of it must light somewhere and therefore if the
Engagement in defence of the Parliament and Army meaning as they did that as the King was virtually in the Parliament so was the Parliament virtually in the Army And thus was their silly and sensless Distinction of the King 's personal and politick Capacity turn'd upon themselves And the same Articles and Demands that the Parliament sent to the King they sent to the Parliament and baffled all their Excuses by Precedents from their own Principles and Proceedings v. g. Their Charge against the eleven Presbyterian-members by the Example of the Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford when they pleaded that they could not legally procede against them till the particulars of their Crime were specified and so they acted over all the same Knavery again till they at length proceded to crown all their wickedness with the Kings murther But the fraud and malice the injustice and folly the impudence and hypocrisie of these men is so notorious that it need not be reported and yet so unconceivably horrid that it would scarce be credited They committed all the boldest impieties in the world not only under the greatest shews of Religion but by Authority of divine Impulse they still sought the Lord for all their wickedness and they were directed to all their Murthers and Perjuries by his deep and hidden discoveries of himself to his secret Ones They made no more of an Oath than other men do of a Complement they would swear an hundred times backward and forward to follow the Revolutions of Providence and the Rump when they had murthered the King absolv'd themselves by their own Vote from Perjury it was but voting the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to be null and void and they were as innocent as if they had never taken them But to say all in one word their Rebellion was not only against the King but against Monarchy it self that is to say against all Kings And I remember I have seen an humble Testimony for God in this perillous time by a few who have been bewailing their own and others Abominations and would not be comforted until their Redeemer who is holy be exalted in Righteousness and his Name which has been so much blasphemed be sanctified in the sight of the Nations subscribed by J. O. and some other secret ones In which having witnessed against all the Backslidings and Abominations of many from the Publick Good Old Cause and bemoaned the Rebuke that was poured forth upon the Rump and Barebones Parliament they procede to witness in all humility and fear against the setting up or introducing any Person whatsoever as King or chief Magistrate or an House of Lords or any other thing of like Import under what name or title soever or any other Power arising from the Nation as a Nation upon the old corrupt and almost ruinated Constitution apprehending that the great Work of taking the Kingdom from man and giving it to Christ hath had its beginning in the Revolutions we have been under And then positively they do witness for andhumbly assert that the Right of making and giving Laws unto Men is originally in God who hath given this Power as well as the Execution thereof unto Christ as he is the Son of Man and therein made universal Lord and Sovereign over the whole World and under Christ as his Ministers a certain number of men qualified and limited according to his Word ought to be set apart to the Office of chief Rule Government over these Nations as part of Christ's universal Kingdom So that you see J. O. is a profest enemy to the present Government of the State upon the same Principles that he is a Non-conformist to the present Establishment of the Church He is bound in Conscience to abhorr and oppose Monarchy in pure Obedience to the Institutions of Christ as King of Saints and Nations having appointed in his Word a certain number of Men to be set apart for the Office of chief Rule and Government over these and all other Nations in the World Now I think it is convenient that men who have openly witnessed such Principles as these should at least be bound to unwitness them before they are too confidently trusted by the present Government J. O. was absolutely for the divine Right of a Common-wealth but a very little before his Majesties Restitution for this Declaration was publish'd after the Cheshire Insurrection upon occasion whereof he threatens to witness with full evidence to the Conviction of all Upright ones against the abominable Malignity Treachery and Enmity of many in eminent Power and in the publick Ministry and then I dare appeal to your self whether it would not become him to recant such a positive Principle of Rebellion as this before he can with any modesty boast his own and his Parties Allegiance to the present Government At least if he refuse this when he is upbraided to it that is an undoubted evidence of his Constancy to his old Principles and then judge you whether it is fit for such a man to claim a Liberty of publick talking in any Common-wealth when he is under a tye of Conscience to subvert it And yet it was upon this occasion that I fell to preaching Repentance and calling for signal Marks and Acknowledgments c. when with all the scorn and indignation in the World he spit at my bare suspicions of their Loyalty in that as he has the confidence to affirm they give all the security for it that mankind can desire from their profest duty principle faith and doctrine And this Impudence I must confess provoked me to deal somewhat more roundly with him and to let him see how great and how many obligations himself and his party lay under to a publick Repentance Of all which you have taken no notice but only to wonder at my Insolence and that signifies nothing but only to shew your own The grounds and motives that I have laid before you to exhort you to this duty are plain and undeniable they are too many to be here repeated you may if you please find them in my Reply to J. O. from p. 629. to p. 641. If you can quit your selves of them as I am sure you never can I will give you as many more but till the old Scores are discounted there is no need of a new Reckoning and as you love your selves be advised never to call for any And now you see upon what reason I demanded signal Marks it was none of my own Motion but his Challenge though without that it had been pertinent and ingenuous enough unless they would learn more sober Principles However I had never taken any notice of his former Blasphemies had I not been driven to it by his own Impudence I was not so disingenuous as to object his or any mans personal Miscarriages to the disparagement of a publick Cause though you have raked up the faults as you suppose them of several particular Members of the Church of
Misdemeanours notwithstanding the Act of Indemnity and therefore if Ceremonies and Sibthorpianism were the Cause of the War the guilt of all that blood that was spilt in it must lie upon their heads and the King may bring them to Trial for all the Miseries they brought upon his Kingdoms for the Murther of his Father and the loss of an hundred thousand Subjects and all for Sibthorpianism and Laud. Is this your Gentleman's memory to remind his Majesty of things too old for an Act of Oblivion so old that if you would let them alone they would be forgotten of themselves without it And though you would oblige him as he is a Gentleman to forget that ever the Presbyterians rebelled against his Father and took away his Crown and Sovereignty to forget that ever the Independents beside that took away his Life to forget that they and all the other Sectaries join'd forces to expel himself out of his own Kingdoms and keep him in banishment for ever and that he was restored in spite of all their zeal and malice and lastly to forget that since the time of his Restauration none of them ever had the Grace to ask Forgiveness for their former Leasings or to give him any Assurance of their future Allegiance A man had need learn the Art of Gentlemans Memory to forget all these things that are so fresh in the minds of men but yet notwithstanding all this you your self do and would have him remember some old Gentlemen of those times that are still alive that were the cause of all our miseries that deserve to be brought to condign punishment and that his Majesty may at any time do it any thing in the Act of Oblivion and Indempnity notwithstanding And now upon review of all these stories that I have told you of former times you would as I take it have done much more wisely if you had altogether let them alone and minded your own business And thus far have I vindicated the wisdom and the honesty of the Clergy of all Ages from Noah's flood through all the four Empires quite down to the late Rebellion the fatal consequences whereof a wise man would have thought might have served as sea-marks to direct them to avoid the Rocks but the former Civil War it seems cannot make them wise nor his Majesties happy Return good-natured but they are still for running things up unto the same extremes So that by their behaviour ever since his Restauration they have given him no encouragement to steer by their Compass with a great many more sad stories that represent them as such fierce and cruel Beasts of prey such inhumane and hungry Canibals that one would expect to hear how they every where eat up their Parishoners Children as fast as the Presbyterians do the Race of Capons But these are no more than general words that any man may throw out against any man I against you or you against me or a third against us both and a fourth against him and so on eternally eternally in infinitum and therefore they signifie no more than all the rest and as little need as they deserve any Answer But beside these you have given us in some of their particular misdemeanours and them I shall a little consider and because it is time to have done run them off with all possible speed and brevity First then it has been observed that whensoever his Majesty hath had the most urgent occasions for Supply they have made it their business to trinkle with the Members of Parliament for obstructing it unless the King would buy it with a new Law against the Fanatiques And hence it is that the wisdom of his Majesty and the Parliament must be exposed to after Ages for such a superfetation of Acts c. But this concerns not me let the King and Parliament answer it as they will clear themselves from the imputation of folly and if they have no more wit than to be over-reached by being trinkled yet certainly they have more than to suffer you to call them fools for it for they tell me that none but fools expose their wisdom But pray how do they trinkle the King and the Members Do the Bishops play with him at Picquet in the Parliament House and give the sign to each other If they do they do it among themselves and then neither you nor I are privy to their under-hand dealings and their false play and so can give no competent account of the course of the Game At least I think it better becomes us both to leave these things to the Gamesters themselves and I am sure it is not done like a Gentleman that has had his breeding in the Ordinaries when he is no more than a By-stander and has not so much as a Bett at stake to raise quarrels among the Gamesters by throwing in his own impertinent jealousies and suspicions of foul play Had you gon but half a Crown with King and Parliament and then have given the sign when you spied the Bishops trinkling you might have done very honestly but yet very ungentily But when you were quite blown up long since by the Dignitary and have now nothing left to be cheated of and cannot have the least concern how the Game goes unless it be now and then to pick up a Barato or so for such an one as you I say to meddle is an insufferable piece of impudence and ill-breeding and had you done the same ill office between Gentlemen at an Ordinary as you have between the King Parliament and Bishops you would have been kick'd out of doors But as for my part I dare not touch any thing that is done within those walls though as for their behaviour out of the house I could never perceive but that they are very honest and wel-bred Gentlemen and you have nothing to object to the contrary but that they are a little uncivil to the Non-conformists in that they will not allow them the liberty of having their own Wills though they know how much their nature and constitution requires it Especially when they demand nothing that you know of but what is so far from doing us any harm that it would only make us better You know what they demand If you do you know more than themselves or at least more than they would ever yet declare This is but an idle thing still to give us your peremptory opinion of things in general without abetting it with some particular proof or instance If you had undertaken to tell us what alterations they do demand and then shewn that they would be so far from doing us any harm that they would only make us better you had done something to some purpose but otherwise you have only declared your own opinion as any confident man might have done as well as you and if he had he might as well have held his tongue too But now by the leave of your Insolence though
that was stab'd of Alexander the Great that had almost lost all of the Queen of Sweden that was forced to resign of the sturdy Swiss that would not conform and all the other idle stories that they know how to make use of if Kings will not But I beseech you what grounds have you for these fears and jealousies of Incivility Did his Majesty ever turn his Kingdom into a Prison Did he ever weary out his Subjects so at home as to constrain them to seek a more hospitable habitation among Salvages and Canibals abroad This was the incivility that deformed his Fathers Reign and the Rock upon which we all ruined but the King observes his Sea-marks and has learnt more manners and is not so uncivil as Alexander the Great and his Royal Father were as to force them to rebel by forcing them to conform And though I have not the honour to be so intimately acquainted with his Majesty as to give him a Testimonial of the unblameableness of his Life and Conversation as you have very obligingly done yet thus much I dare say for him that he is as civil and good-natured a Prince as ever wielded the English Sceptre so that you need not doubt but that he will upon all occasions give his Subjects good-words though they give him bad ones and humour them like Children though they are never so froward and deserve to be scourged And therefore during his Reign you have no more ground to fear any danger of Incivility than I have of Popery so unnecessary and unseasonable are your Lectures of good manners at this time when his Majesty God be praised is as well provided of a Royal Nature as a Gentlemans Memory Thus far have you instructed him how to govern his Island by way of Precept but now we procede to the more instructive Topick of Example and here you have strung up as Sancho did his Proverbs an hundred idle stories of the fatal Catastrophe of ill-bred and uncivil Kings to fright him into meekness and good manners to which you might in my opinion have added one more how the Subjects of Great Britain because their King would not humour them like Children when they had a mind to play with his Crown nip'd his Prerogative suck'd his Blood subverted his Government and set up a glorious Regiment of their own I verily believe to have trumpeted this in his Majesty's ears as much as I am out of your Books for it would have been a more pertinent story for the use of Princes than Alexander the Great that had almost lost all the Roman Emperor that was stabb'd the sturdy Swiss that would not conform and the frolicksom Queen that gave the blank Town seal of which there came no harm But yet from these you threaten Kings with as much Effrontery as if you had them standing before you upon the Stool of Repentance whilst you lecture to them with the state of King Gill Scotch modern Orthodoxy with politick-Notes and Observations upon Emperors Roman and Grecian Kings and Queens School-boys and Schoolmasters I shall as briefly as I can examine them to prove you as very a Rat-historian as I have proved you a Rat-divine Your first Tale is of a Roman Emperour who when his Captain of the Life-guard came for the word by giving it unhandsomly receiv'd a dagger I suppose you mean Caligula who as Suetonius relates was stabb'd by Sabinus whilst he gave the word not as you will have it for giving it unhandsomly the murther having been plotted aforehand and though Josephus you know had a peculiar grudge against that Emperour as a most implacable enemy to the Jewish Nation and therefore to disgrace him as much as he can affirms that he was stabb'd immediately upon giving for the Word the name of a lewd woman though in Suetonius the Word is Jupiter the most sacred Word in their Religion yet will you there find that it was the execution of a premeditated Conspiracy and that the main cause of it was his frequent railing upon this Captains cowardize This is a Caveat to Kings not to presume too much upon their own Wit and their Subjects good nature and if they will be drolling upon them they may thank themselves if they receive a Dagger for a Repartee I have heard of another Roman Emperour who gave the Sword to the Captain of his Guard requiring him to use it for his defence if he govern'd well but if not to turn the point of it against himself As also of a Prince of Brabant who granted to his Subjects if himself or any of his Successours should ever attempt to violate their Ancient Priviledges a full Power of proceeding to the Election of a New Governour what disturbances ensued hereupon and how Kings approve the example I know not but this I do know that it was very weakly done to submit their Actions so entirely to the judgement of their Subjects and put it within the power of any Malecontent either to murther or depose them But being got into the Roman Empire I am you know in my own kingdom and therefore when you ask me whether had I lived in the dayes of Augustus I should not have made an excellent Privy Counsellour to him for his Father too was murther'd I would have been Privy Counsellour to Augustus with all my soul were it not that he reign'd so long ago so that had I ever been of His Privy Council I must either have been dead fifteen hundred years since or at least have been so very old that by this time I should have been altogether unfit for any publique employment though I had descended of your family of the de Temporibus otherwise I know not any Emperour of them all of whose acquaintance I should have been more ambitious He was a Prince admirable for the wisdom and magnanimity of his mind for the sweetness and facility of his manners he was one that delighted in nothing more than the entertainments of wit and ingenuity Virgil and Horace and Varius were admitted into his retired and cabinet Conversation as well as Agrippa and Mecaenas they were not only his Domesticks but his Familiars and his Confidents they conversed and laughed together as friends and companions And now who would not take it kindly to be honour'd with the favour and familiarity of so great a Prince a Prince of so good and so sweet a disposition a Prince so free from froth and groans a Prince so much to be admired for that Majesty which sat upon the forehead of his Masculine Truth and generous Honesty But had I been of his Privy Council I am confident I should never have given him my Advice to sacrifice three hundred of the Nobles and Citizens of the best Quality to the Ghost of his murther'd Father because his Natural Father old Octavius was not murther'd but being a Civil Gentleman of private condition and breeding and never having suffer'd any of his Tenants to be
represented them would not have been very forward to approve or follow the Example because Royal Sense can never be much delighted with sitting upon the cold Snow The next is a Queen too and she almost as bold a Virago as the former whoever she was and it is the Queen of Sweden who said Io non voglio governar le bestie but afterwards resign'd But I don't believe she understood one word of Italian before she went to Rome or if she did it is certain the People of Sweden did not so that though she did speak to her People that displeasing word Bestie I do not see how that could cause her Resignation But the true and manifest Reasons of it were on her Subjects part their natural fierceness and inclination to wars that made them loath to be bestrid by a Petticoat and therefore they lean'd to her Kinsman the General and her declared Successour and on her own part a capricious desire of foreign Travel and Conversation with more refined wits But however from hence let Princes be instructed to flatter the meanest of the People lest if they speak contemptibly of them they depose them for their moroseness and want of breeding The next Novel is of the Revolt of Switzerland from the Emperour and its turning Common-wealth only upon occasion of imposing a civil Ceremony by a capricious Governour who set up a Pole in the high-way with a Cap upon the top of it to which he would have all passengers to be uncover'd and do obeysance But one sturdy Swiss that would not conform thereupon over-turn'd the Government as it is at large in history One sturdy Swiss that would not conform this is your Modern Orthodox Language that would not conform so Alexander the Great had almost lost all because he would force his Subjects to conform But to what would he not conform not to a Civil Ceremony a Civil Ceremony how much less to a Religious Ceremony that is no less than an as-it-were-a-Sacrament But however to give you the short of the story it runs thus The Switzers were declared a Free People some hundreds of years before for their good service against the Saracens and at the time you speak of they had no desire to renounce their dependence upon the Empire but upon the House of Austria as an Hereditary Fee And their casting off their Obedience to the Prefect sent by the Emperour Albert of that Family was contrived long enough before the Hat was set upon the Pole and this not by a Rout and Tumult but by the direction of the Chief Magistrate the Baron of Altinghuse But the Prefect knowing of the design to make short work of it set up the Cap and Pole as a tryal and discovery of the Malecontents So that this was no more the cause of their revolt than the Kings setting up the Royal Standard at Nottingham was of the long-Parliaments Rebellion who had before in several cases challenged and as far as they were able seised on his Power and by consequence deposed him from his Sovereignty From hence let wise Princes beware of forcing their Subjects to be uncover'd unseasonably i. e. whenever they have got a cold or are out of humour and it is good advice to the Parliament to have a special care that they injoyn not the Quakers nor others to put off their Hats whether in Courts of Judicature the Parliament House or Chambers of Presence nor injoyn them a Leg or a Cringe or a Bow as they love the Kingdom for one sturdy Swiss that woul'd not conform c. And that which is more material good Sir Pol. you may hence infer that they had need make a Law and Enact that no Wagg by any trick wile or stratagem in earnest or jest use any endeavours to make men put off their Hats as they pass by the three Poles at Tyburn for fear of turning the Kingdom into a Common-wealth again if they will be wise see the consequences and observe the Sea-marks for one sturdy Swiss that would not conform This is right Modern Orthodoxy and you had done well to have added the judgement of a Professour of it in the Corporation of Losarne scituate on the Lake of Lemane on what point of the Compass you Travellers are so critical I dare not determine though this I dare that it is not far from the Town of Geneva Viz. That it was well done of the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of that House had exercised more than ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Countrey as David might lawfully have kill'd Saul though he did forbear to do it lest he should give an example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by Ambition might be like enough to imitate against himself and his Royal Posterity The King of Spains losing Flanders is the last piece of News that makes up this Gazet and this hapned according to the information of your Correspondent by setting up the Inquisition But this story is so like that of Alexander the Great that I need only deny it and say that as Alexander dyed seised of all his Acquists and Conquests so neither has the King of Spain lost Flanders by the Inquisition because it is in force there to this day as you may see and feel too if you will but take a voyage to Ostend with an English Bible in your hand and talk there as freely of the Clergy of the Church of Rome as you have here of the Clergy of the Church of England And as for the United Provinces it is evident that he was stript of them by the Fate of War and whatever was the cause of the War was the occasion of his loss And that as it usually happens in the like cases was set on foot by divers concurrent accidents as bringing in Spanish and Italian Forces by Charles the fifth in his Wars against France a grievance unknown to the Flemmings in the Reign of former Princes and it was against these foreign Troops that the States made the first Remonstrance The natural Insolence of the Spaniards that could not but exasperate the peoples hatred against their pride and oppression The peculiar haughtiness of Philip the second that made him neglect and disoblige the Natives and confer all Offices of Trust and Honour upon Strangers His absence from the Provinces and leaving them to the Government of a subordinate Minister whereas they had always shared in the residence of all former Princes And if you will consult the Prince of Oranges Declaration in the head of his Army you will find the main grievance to be this that the States of the Provinces were forcibly restrain'd from holding according to custom their general Assemblies But besides all this the Netherlands were the very Sanctuary and Rendevouz of all the Calvinists from England France and Germany and the Anabaptists from Westphalia and other parts