but fire and sword must redress it When the King accused but five Members of High-treason and in a civil way went to demand them of the House the Parliament call'd it an Illegal Seditions and Traiterous act though I cannot vindicate them for it and this was one of the main occasions why the people joyn'd with the Parliament though in so doing they had no more reason then the roaring Blaces in the Counter-scuffle or Quixot's fighting with red-wine or wind-mills And certainly the King hath more right and law in each particle of his body then the whole Army could in reason pretend to And this possibly may be one reason why the Army presently acknowledg'd their secluding the Members to be a course in it self irregular and not justifiable And if the Parliament did so much dis-relish the King 's how might they abominate this of their hired Cossacks But I must confess they were paid with their own coyn the Souldiers sticking as close to their promises to fight for priviledges of Parliament as the Parliament to their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Vows and Protestations to maintain the King's person and Prerogative so that Neither barrel better Herring The Members being now reduced to a small number and the Lord 's flown away none being suffered to fit but those who had their Consciences like Fortunatus his purse full of gold and self-ends were from a name of several syllables like those of Brasil circumcised for Christians no man can now call them under the short title of RUMP and fagge-end of a Parliament with corrupt Maggots in it as Mr. Walker terms it And the truth of it is considering the many Members that went to the King with those Eleven forced away by the Army and this last Seclusion and then the Remaining will onely be the Rump of a Rump of a Rump of a Parliament That the Rumpers and the Army did comply together is palpable but whether they perswaded the Army to turn out the other members I know not though the Army did a little dash it in their teeth afterwards The Rump being thus fixt and back'd by an inconsiderable Army if either the Kingdome or London to give it no other Epithet durst know their strength compos'd of more Heresies then Rosse or Pratealus could imagin the Rump I say and the Army thus twisting their interests together go as boldly on to the distruction of others as Lazarellos blind Master leap'd to his own And first vote no more addresses to be made to the King and order themselves the supream Authority of the Nation And then two days after by the inspiration of some pretty Demon or other make an Ordinance of their supream Rebell-ships for the Tryal of his Sacred Majesty And having dapperly proceeded thus farre they in the next place conclude that Writts shall no longer run in the Kings name and at last bring the King to tryall for his Life where his declared and manifest enemies were his Judges under the title of a High Court of Justice A thing which the Army highly complain'd of several times the year before when it was their own case 'twixt them and the Parliament calling of it contrary to the law of nature that they should be judge in their own cause But now the case is alter'd quoth Ploydon the Army thinking it very fitting thut any be judges against the King so they do but make sure work of him And to bring this great thing about for all their protestations in favour of his Majesty all stones were turn'd that could be Several of the Sectaries like Hugh Peters were set up to prattle out the necessity of a Reformation in Government so that the people might take the change more peaceably Then were their several villaines imployd to vilifie his Majesty in print running through all the misfortunes of his Raign still implying that his own sins were the occasion of them all stuffing their pamphlets with abominable lyes set down with an infinite deal of malice and all applyed to the ignorant people with an aboundance of smooth-faced jugling most of them making perjury Hypocrisie and such like villanies as inseparable from his Majesty as the Devill from themselves Though if ones living writings and death do shew any thing of a man then there is no such thing as Belief if the world be not satisfied of his Majesties Vertues and Holinesse Besides these Pamphlets several people were instigated to Petition the Commons and General that speedy justice might be executed upon his Majesty and this as soon as the Army had conquered Hamilton and the rest of the Royalists Ponifract excepted For being now Maisters in the field they scorned to be bafled by an imprisoned King or a few talkers at VVestminster for both which they had laid rods in pisse Yet as a small cheat something to gull the world as if their actions were not so much their own as the desires and request of the whole Kingdome Petitions from several parts of the Nation must come thick and threefold clamoring for justice against the King One of the leading cards of this cheating game was thrown from London Westminster Southwark and Hamlets to the house of Commons and then another from Oxfordshire to the same house and the same purpose and a letter made up of the same ingredients from the Garrison of New-Castle and Tinmouth was not Sir Arthur Hazlerig then Governour to the Lord Fairfax And having thus begun they never leave off till they had petitioned the King to the block For the next month another Petition comes posting from Leicester-shire and 't is well known who were their Knights to the Commons desireing his Majesties speedy Tryall for all the passages hapned in his raign and this is back'd by another from the Maior Aldermen c. of New-Castle upon Tyne to the Commons and this hotly pursued by another from Yorkshire And to conclude this month a confident one was presented to the Generall from Iretons Regiment which was farre from complementing but struck home to the purpose In the next month Coll. Inglosbys Regiment solicits Fairfax to the same purpose which is seconded by Fleetwoods Whaleys Barksteads Overtons and blind Hewsons nor were the soldiers of New Castle Tinmouth Hartlepool and Holy Isle satisfied with their former paper but they also fall on again and clamour for justice and now also cometh the Petition of Coll. Hortons Regiment and on the last day of the month another from Sr. Hardresse Wallers tatter-demallions as also from Devonshire and Cornwall And in the next Month the General is stifly solicited for the Kings tryal by the rabble of Bristol Boston Glamorganshire Denbighshire Dover and Kent with the Cinque-ports and Canterbury in whose proposals are these words to the General First that you prosecute the execution of justice upon the person of the King Words strange to proceed from such a County as Kent who have oft
they are delivered to us by Adam Contzenus a deep observing Jesuite which our late English Law-choppers have observed to a hair as is obvious by the sequent Rules I. The Intent of the Calvinists in altering Religion in the Palatinate by extirpating the Lutherans was conceal'd lest the vulgar having knowledge of it should tumultuate After this manner were the Orthodox Divines in England weakened The Presbyterians at their Initiation into this Kingdom not going openly like honest men but skulking up and down to private Conventicles which they call'd Synods or Assemblies according to the directions of their great Mustaphi's such as Cartwright Snape Gibby Travers Gillebrand Whittington Goodman c. But having once increast the number of their Disciples into a formidable body took the impudence to affront King Queen Laws and all their Superiours Nor of all these many Opinions we have had two pregnant and powerful amongst us few were observed how they took root till like Cadmus his Souldiers they shew'd themselves so potent that they might scorn a resistance Nor could we dream of any intentions lurking in the breasts of our pretended Potentates tending any way to the introducing of a motley-Babylonick Herd of Religions since Prelacy was murdered out by a drove of Villains seeing they so solemnly protested against any such endeavour as you may see by these following words And we do here declare that it is farr from our purpose or desire to let loose the Golden Reyns of Discipline and Government in the Church to leave private persons or particular Congregations to take up what Form of Divine Service they please For we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realm a conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyn according to the Word of God This Protestation is something serious But alas it may be they looking upon themselves as our Lords and Masters Dissimulation is a thing permitted them by a French States-man though I believe in equality they are more our Neighbours and so could not demand the same priviledge granted by de Marnix to Kings What they meant by the Laws of the Land I know not but it is certain they favour'd Episcopacy more than any other Government And it is as true what the old Poet sung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whilst we are rul'd by wilful power and might Laws cannot do so much as do us right And what validity can we expect in a Declaration from those who can swallow down Oaths with more content and celerity than Lazarello de Tormes could a Saucidge or a little Sack Who look upon Allegiance to others as a nicety of State yet make it Treason if not observed to themselves But if our own Laws cannot be in force I wish the Aegyptians might who held perjury a double offence against God and Man and so rewarded the guilty with death II. Some more craftily suborned humbly to petition the Prince though he earnestly long'd for the change himself and so possibly might prompt them to it that the Exercise of their Religion might be granted None can be ignorant of the same manner of Jugling in England for these many years last past in so much that we have had scarce any Petition concerning Religion or the Change of Government but what trucking collogueing and running about to get peoples hands to it most of them being either Servants or such mean Handy-craft-men that want brains to apprehend either the advantage or damage of any Publick concern but are driven on with such hasty fury that nothing can satisfie them but a present performance though with as much ignorance and envy as those who rail'd against the Innocent Aristides because he was too just and honest to live amongst such wretches Of this manner of cheating up Petitions the famous Dr. Hammond takes special notice And that great Prop of Learning the late Arch-bishop of Canterbury gave a large hint in his Speech upon the Scaffold in these words Here hath been of late a fashion taken up to gather hands and then to go to the great Court of this Kingdom the Parliament and clamour for Justice as if that great and wise Court before whom the causes come which are unknown to the many could not or would not do justice but at their appointment A way which may endanger many an Innocent man and pluck his bloud upon their own heads and perhaps upon the Cities also And this hath been lately practised against my self the Magistrates standing still and suffering them openly to proceed from Parish without check many well-meaning people are caught by it Of this clandestine way of Jugling up Petitions several Counties did publickly complain about the beginning of these Wars to the Parliament in their Petitions for Episcopacy but to small purpose the Members resolving to break the Laws did not like that which would confirm them This way of begging was used above a dozen years ago by some Privado's in the County of Buckingham Essex Oxford and Barks to decide and lessen the Parliament and promote an Independent Army and Faction against them And thus as it was thought did the well-known Committee of Derby-house imploy Col. Rainsborough to go up and down and solicit the common sort of Marriners to subscribe and present the House of Commons with a Petition against a Personal Treaty with the King which other places Petitioned for And to make them more complying gave 12 d. a piece to those who would subscribe it And this way of hudling up requests was used by those Bloud-thirsty Canabals for the bringing of his Majesty and others to the Block In this Art of State-craft Oliver Cromwell was excellently well seen and made it one of his main blinds to deceive an easie believing multitude which he thought both lawful and commendable in himself but when once raised to a Protector thought it little less then Treason in others greatly complaining of such actions to his mock-Parliament Thus the Priest forgets that ever he was Clerk every man thinking himself in the right and so did the three poor Nuns of Mergate when they drew up their Innocent Petition as here followeth by the By though now converted to a wrong sense We thre poor Nuns of Mergate Piteously compleineth to your gud Estate Of one Sir Johnne of Whipesuade Who hath stopped our Water-gate With two Stons and a Stake Help us Lord for Cryst hys sake These poor women through their simplicity dream'd of nothing but what was honest desired nothing but what was just a reparation of their wrongs being the only thing they aimed at not like our self-ended Time-servers who from the Noddles of three or four like a Multiplying-Glass can produce you many thousands Thus five or six in Decemb 1653. when Oliver was scarce warm in his Protectorship to make his footing the more sure drew up an Address to him and sent it through the three Kingdoms as a pattern for
of Reconciliation upon that Condition taking themselves to be Supream forsooth and so the King obliged to pardon them but not they him or his If the King and Countrey have any desire of Peace his Propositions are neglected he being tyed either to hearken and consent to their malapert Proposals or trust to the misery of War or utterly thrown by as unworthy any more Addresses Must the Reverend and Ancient Church-government be violently pluckt down though the Bill with that concerning the Militia several times rejected by the Peers and some other up-start Invention plodded out to instruct Boyes in the mode of pratling then where must we hunt for this pretty young thing but in Scotland And who must be the Masters of the Game but a crew of domineering Zealots thrust up into a Rebellious Authority And for a small piece of Formality was jumbled up a pack of stiff Presbyterians under the Title of an Assembly dapled here and there with Independency and Anabaptism and a little to allay the censures of some people two or three were added to them of good Learning and Principles though quickly jugled out thence and other preferments as the Reverend Dr. Featly to make way for some sweet-soul'd Myrmidon And what these praepossest-Teachers constitute concerning a praejudged Government must be confirm'd by their Task-Masters the Parliament as if perform'd by a grave and learned Convocation of Divines Must his Majesty or any of his true Subjects be tryed for their lives and martyred None must be their Judges but those who are his and their mortal Enemies and bring with them a Sentence resolved upon long before the Tryal nor are the Prisoners permitted to question any of them though the Laws grant liberty to the errantest Rogue in England to except against 35. Jury-men without shewing any reason why If the Royal Family of the Stuarts be exstirpated Kingship Voted and Enacted unnecessary burthensom and dangerous and an ancient flourishing Monarchy sprouted into a many-headed Common-wealth None more fit to be the contrivers of this Confusion than those who acted not for a publick Benefit but a private Interest having run so far into Rebellion that self-preservation prompted them to be Judges as was a party in our domestick broyls it being not solid reason but because they were Moderators which changed the frame And if the Reverend Clergy must be outed their Livings then none must be their Tryers or Examiners but those Juglers of Peter's and Nye's Fraternity a sort of frantick people sworn Enemies to all Learning and Church-government and therefore the more fit to pass judgement against the other as Antagonists Thus like the Calvinists must we be Judges in our own Cause and that in things against all Law and then we are certain to remain Conquerers VI. When the People of Hildelberg who were neither satisfied with these new Teachers or Plots did Petition that the Lutheran Preachers might be setled and restored again amongst them no notice is taken of any such thing by the Superiours and so no satisfactory Answer hapned to their desires But rather on the contrary those Ministers in whose favour the people petitioned were frowned upon and censured as too hasty furious and heady Answerable to the Palatinate hath the affairs in England been carryed on all our Petitions working small effect unless scribled according to Parliamentary Interest The several Petitions from the two Universities and most Counties of the Nation at the beginning of these Wars in the behalf of Episcopacy Liturgy Church-Revenues and suppression of Schismaticks prevailed nothing with the Parliament though subscribed by the chief Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdom Nor had that of Worcestershire about 10. years after in the behalf of an able Ministry and the Universities any better luck only obtaining the formality of thanks from the Speakers mouth and after this fashion hath been the exit of others And yet with what alacrity and cheerfulness did the same men receive that Impudent Petition taken notice of by the King of a company of beggarly Rascals in London who desired that the Lords and Commons might be jumbled into one House that they might subdue the pride of the King of all which if they had not a speedy remedy they would take the cure into their own hands and destroy the disturbers of the Peace These frantick demands were pleasant to the Commons because agreeable to their desires if not set on foot by themselves the which is something probable because they owned it so farr as to present it to the Lords However it must be granted some favour that the People are permitted to present their desires though the Army themselves profest that it was the undoubted right of the People to Petition as in truth it is yet afterwards they denyed the same liberty to the London Prentises knowing their desires to be more for the Publick benefit than the Armies satisfaction so that Mr. Wharton sung not amiss when thus Petitioning the Birth-right of the Saints VII After all these Revolutions nothing appearing to harbour any signs of Tumult the people perceiving no harm done to themselves little regarded the concerns of the Church though it and the State should suffer reciprocally the Lutherans were outed of their Parochial Churches and Benefices all being delivered to the Calvinists The traceing of this Observation is not unknown to any that hath heard of a Persecution How many famous Divines were sequestred and thrust from their Livings in these unnatural Wars London should lament the expulsion of so many learned men from her and the supplying of their Places by a Band of hot-braind long-winded and Schismatical Presbyterians And as if this were not enough Oliver must add to their afflictions by one Order forbidding them to Preach or Teach School as if like the Italian he gloryed not only to kill their Bodies but Souls also And all this done because prompted by their stedfast and sure Consciences they would not swallow like our Temporizers Contradictory Oaths Whereby I may well raise this Quaere Whether those who after they have with much consideration once made a lawful Vow will keep it or those who as the Tyde serves will swear point-blanck one Oath against another rather than be kept from the shoar of Preferment or thrown from that which they have unlawfully got are most godly and honest To all these who have been put out of their Places by shew of Publick Command I might add these who were kept back by the sear'd Consciences of their ignorant and malicious Examiners a sort of people not so much fearing God and hating Covetousness if Mr. Sadler may have credit whither I referr you for satisfaction VIII The Scholars of the University who were Lutherans if they would not turn Calvinists were turned out and the Calvinists put into their places The Parallel of this is too palpable to discourse much of Oxford will never forget the Lord Pembroke's Visitation nor Cambridge that
Long-Parliament I. Whether or no if the King and two Estates can extirpate the third then the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal cannot turn out the Commons as well as the King Lords Temporal and Commons exclude the Bishops II. Whether or no when the King and two Estates have turn'd out the third the King with another Estate cannot also turn out the second And lastly when only the King and one Estate remains the King as Supream cannot seclude that also III. And if these things will bear a good Consequence Whether the Presbyterians whose chiefest confidence was in the Long-Parliament but esecially the Commons have not brought their Hoggs to a fair Market But these People did not only overthrow Episcopacy but struck also at the root of Monarchy it self by their pleadings against the King's Supremacy making themselves not only equal to but above him And this not only when assembled in Parliament but when they are so far from having any Authority there there being no such thing then sitting that they are separately so many private Subjects obliged only to follow their own occasions for in this capacity I suppose they make themselves when they alledge for a Rule Rex est major singules minor Vniversis considering they place this in their Remonstrance as distinct from Parliaments But how weak this Position is let Parliaments themselves be our Judges And I do not love to reason against Authentick Records When God tells us expresly that Whoredom is a grievous sin 't was blasphemy in John de Casa to write in the vindication of Sodomy When Ignatius Irenaeus and other ancient and authentick Authors assure us that Presbytery was subordinate to Episcopacy in the first Century 't is folly in our late Schismaticks to dream of or introduce a Parity When Parliaments acknowledge themselves Subjects to his Majesty for any to conclude thence their Supremacy are in my judgement no less guilty of ignorance than that simpleton of Athens who fancied all the ships and other things to be his when he had no more interest in them then I have relation to the Crown of Castile The Lords and Commons tell us plainly what little signs they have of Superiority in these words Where by divers sundry old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and exprest that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governed by one Supream Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people and divided in tearms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporally been bounden and ought to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience c. And in many other Statutes do they acknowledge themselves the King 's most humble faithful and obedient Subjects But more especially in those two of Supremacy and Allegiance in which they acknowledge the King the Supream under God both of Civil and Ecclesiastical affairs and so swear Allegiance to him each Parliament-man before he sit taking both the Oaths as all other Subjects do Whereby they clearly renounce not only Priority but Parity by which all their Cavils bring nothing upon themselves but Perjury Against this Supremacy of our Kings though it be under God and Christ John Calvin rants in his usual hot-spurr'd zeal calling them Blasphemers and Fools who durst first presume to give such a title to a King And in obedience to this Supream Head of Geneva and Presbytery doth his dear Subject and Disciple Anthony Gilby and others of that Fraternity shoot their Wild-fire against the same Statutes of England by which they shew their Schism and Madness more than Christian Prudence Besides all this our Laws make it Treason to compass or imagin the death of the King Queen or his eldest Son to leavy Warr against the King or any way adhere to or assist his Enemies But for any to commit Treason against the Parliament especially for those who have the King on their side I see little reason because I have express Law to the contrary which tells us that any one who shall attend upon the King in his Wars and for his Defence shall in no ways be convict or attaint of High Treason ne of other offences for that cause by Act of Parliament or otherwayes by any process of Law whereby he or any of them shall loose or forfeit Life Lands Tenements Rents Possessions Hereditaments Goods Chattels or any other things but to be for that deed and service utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss And if any Act or Acts or other process of the Law here after thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this Ordinance that then that Act or Acts or other process of the Law whatsoever they shall be stand and be utterly void How this Act hath been since violated Compounders Sequestrators and Decimators will best inform you And what a pitiful ridiculous and extorted Comment the Noddles of the Long-Parliament made upon this Act may be seen in their Declarations by which you may view both their ignorance and their malice These are Presidents enough to satisfie any man in the Parliaments subjection to the King it being in his power to constitute them not they him in him being the only Authority to call and dissolve them not any such being in themselves He can pardon Malefactors not they without his consent The death of the King dissolves the Parliament though their breaking up reflects nothing upon him He can call them where he pleaseth but they not remove his Court They Petition him by way of Subjects not he them The King of England can do no wrong and never dyeth being alwayes of full age the breath of the former being no sooner expired but the next Heir is de facto King without the Ceremony of Proclamation or Coronation And whether a Parliament can do no wrong or no I leave to many men now in England to judge The Kings power hath been such that he hath call'd a Parliament with what limitations he pleas'd as King Henry the fourth's Parliament at Coventry in which no Lawyer was to sit And whether too many Lawyers in a Parliament doth more good or bad hath been oft discours'd of in late times And 't is the King hath the power of the Sword not the Parliament as their own Laws tell us for in the year 1271. Octob. 30. We find this Statute To us i. e. the King it belongeth and our part is through our Royal Seignory straitly to defend i. e. to prohibit or stop force of Armour and all other force against our Peace at all times when it shall please us and to punish them who shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of our Realm And hereunto they are bound to aid us as their Soveraign Lord at all seasons when need shall be And the meaning
passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many ages Yet for all these good turns done them by the King do they Print though the King earnestly desired the contrary and sedulously spread abroad this Remonstrance thereby to make him odious and themselves as Patrons to the people a fair requital for such large benefits and sufficiently to shew their ingratitude and What more wicked then that amongst our vertuous Ancestours The Heathen Heraclians were more noble to their Athenian Enemies and the savage Lions for their thankfulness to Mentor Helpius and Androdus will be a reproach upon record to these Puritanical Members And Alexander was more ingenuous to his Horse than these to their King Yet never was there any who desired Peace and the Subjects good more than He for the obtaining of which he consented to them in such things that he parted with many Jewels from his Crown as Queen Elizabeth used to call such Priviledges granting them Triennial Parliaments abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Writs for Ship-Money Bishops-Votes in Parliament Temporal power of the Clergy slip'd away Tunnage Poundage and gave the Parliament leave to sit as long as they pleas'd and that they might see he privately acted nothing against them he admitted into his Privy-Council several Lords which were great Favourites and Correspondents with the Parliamentary Party and in many other things besides these hath this King valed his Crown as a Learned Doctor phraseth it Yet could not all this please some men being like the Sea insatiable Though a moderate Member of the Parliament asked what they could desire more of the King seeing he had granted them so much he was answered by Mr. Hambden as a late Historian tells us To part with his Power and trust it to us And that some of them had higher thoughts than the Loyalty of a Subject or the trust of Parliament could dispense withal I could easily be perswaded to and those especially who by their former actions in Parliaments had drawn some displeasure upon themselves and knew well enough that the more Prerogative and Power the King lost the more they gain'd which at last would more then preserve them But this Faction as the King tells us was only of a few ambitious discontented and seditious persons who under strange pretences had entered into a Combination to alter the Government both of Church and State And so that this might be done they did not care after what manner nor who perisht so their own heads were but held up that me-thinks I hear them threat and encourage like Tasso's Tyrant Aladin Purche'l Reo non si salvi il guisto pera El'innocente Sù sù fideli mei sù via prendete Le flamme e'l ferro ardete uccidete So I Obtain my wish let just with wicked dye Come come rouse up my faithful friends and shew How bravely you can burn and murther too And what courses they steered to arrive at their hoped for Authority may in part be seen in these following Observations One of their first steps was to make the Court and Church odious amongst the Vulgar under the Title of Popish and Arminians a wickedness quite contrary to the Laws of our Land which make special provision against the publishers of such rumours whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may arise between the King and his People or the Nobility or Bishops yet neither Law nor Gospel can have any any sway with these men who had used this knack of reviling in several former Parliaments and may be seen in the multitude of their long-winded Speeches and printed too forsooth the better to spread the Infection about the Nation yet you may take all the Reason amongst them and never grow madd with too much Learning though the multitude of words are enough to choak the largest Leviathan nor could much be expected many of the Members being so ignorant that I dare boldly say that they did not know what the five Controverted Points signified and I believe would have taken and voted too Jacob van Harmine and the Remonstrants for Calvinists though have damn'd Arminius for a wicked Heathen Thus the Priests in Spain told the people to make them hate the Reformed Religion that Protestants were not like other men had heads like Dogs and such like Beasts They also restored into favour all those who had opposed the Peace of the Nation as Prynne Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburn and such like who were stiff men to raise their Interests as farr as Pen Ink or Brawling could do and that their Interest might be the more strengthened in the Countrey they put into Offices and Imployments of trust all those whom they either found or were by them made discontented against the Court and Religion by which trick they twisted their Obligations so close together that they made good use of this afterwards And to make their Cause more favourable to the People and to blast the Reputation of their Enemies they promoted abundance of bawling Lecturers most of them of no great Learning or Conscience but as furious as Orlando and with throats O heavenly wide who could scold excellently against Bishops and Government and vomit out a Lesson with as much ease as a Matron of Billingsgate both being compos'd of the same materials and to the same purpose viz. strife and for their dexterity and quickness they out-did a Mountebank being alwayes as ready for the Pulpit as a Knight-Errant for combate never out of his way let the Text be what it will like the Sompners Fryer in Chaucer but nothing related to the honest Parson in the same Poet that it is beyond admiration how they can conjure such an Olla Podrida of Sermon-Notes from such good Texts and that of so little coherence that their extraction seems as miraculous as the generation of the Cadmian armed Souldiers from Serpents teeth To raise up Rebellion and Sedition there cannot be a better Trumpet in the World then the mouths of such Hirelings as hath been proved by long experience Wat Tyler and Straw's Rebellion could not want incouraging Sermons as long as John Ball lasted who cheer'd up that Levelling Army at Black-heath with a long Preachment beginning with this Proverb When Adam dolve and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman And 't is observed by Mr. Howell that the Preaching Fryers and Monks were the chief Incendiaries of the Catalonians to their late Revolt And we have it from Authentcik Authority how that Hernando de Avalos and Juan de Padilla in the Spanish Civil Wars against the Emperour Charles V. in the first place imploy'd some Fryers to rail against the Government in their Pulpit and so to incite the people to Warr which according to expectation took fire in Toledo these men being the first thunderers of Seditions into the Castillians and to this purpose the famous Spanish
commenced thinking by the terror of these Forces to reduce those in Scotland having had formeely good luck there to his Obedience But in this he ruined himself for London more then could be expected from that Monster of Wood and Stone considering their former proneness to and complyance with intolerable mischief and when many of them will really be honest and dutiful to the Laws considering the multitude of their Schismatical Presbyterian-Pulpitiers I know not this City I say opposing the Committee of Safety in the City and the Rumpers playing their Cards well at Portsmouth and other places and General Monk politickly droling Lambert to delays Fleetwood and the rest of his seeming sanctified Associates fell to durt By which means the indefatigable Rump was restored again and with a seeming joy received by the Time-serving Army their former stiff Enemies now protesting themselves their especial friends Nor need this Hypocrisie appear any strange matter from such like Hirelings as they were who are Masters of their own tongues and humours and can commend and vilifie according as their own Interest leads of which their actions towards this very Rump will testifie sufficiently For when they dissolved them 1653. 20. April they then call'd them a corrupt Party having an aversion to things conducible to the good of the Common-wealth and opposition to the people of God And that through the corruption of some and jealousie of others the non-attendance and negligence of many would never answer those ends which God his People and the whole Nation expected from them This is an Indictment black enough to make any man odious to all the World yet few years after the Scene was altered and those aspersions quite forgot For when their Interest ingaged them to restore the Rump again Good God! how they Stroak them on the head Call them good Boys and buy them Ginger-bread Then they look upon them as people faln from Heaven and think nothing can be too good for such white Boys professing That the want of them is one cause of the Lords with-drawing his wonted presence for they were eminent Asserters of the Good Cause and had a special presence of God with them and were signally blest in that work And with this same Legerdemain was the poor Rump gull'd the third time For but some six dayes before they were again cast out by these Souldiers the very Army call themselves several times the Parliaments Army and humble and faithful Servants protesting through the help of God that they would be found notwithstanding all endeavours to the contrary faithful to them But Experience proved that this their Protestation lasted no longer then that the Rump acknowledged them or rather five or six Chieftains in Authority so that I may say of the Army as was formerly sung of the Pope by one of our own Poets Nulla non concessa potestas Illius Imperium fasque nefasque facit Dat rapit exarmat ditat depauperat ornat Foedera rescindit bella cruenta ciet Cuncta tamen licitè quoniam generale Imperium nil nisi jure facit These have all power and by their Swords can cause Things to be good or bad though ' gainst all Laws Can make us poor or rich can give or take Raise cruel Wars and all Agreements break Yet all these things are legal cause their might So frames their Rule that what they do is right By which means we seem'd to be return'd to the first Chaos of Government where people were ruled by no Laws but the will and lust of their Chieftains as Justin informs us And probably that people under no Laws live more happy than those whose Laws and Government are so apt to change that they know not what to trust to next day The Rump being thus restored thought nothing but that all would fall down and worship them But in this they quickly found that they reckon'd without their Hoast For General Monke perceiving the inconsistency of these self-ended erroneous popular Governments with the good of the Nations resolved to crush the proceedings of any more such like wickedness For which purpose with his small Army he moved towards London by any easie and tedious motion by which means he sounded the hearts of all the Nation by their Address to him where he found all the clamour for a Free-Parliament and through it the Restauration of their desired King And to bring this about after some complements with the Rump who now fear'd him for a blind and fashion sake he restored the long-banish'd Secluded Members A piece of a Parliament being now drawn together by the addition of the Secluded Members to the Rump the good Nobility and Gentry of the Nation began to be valiant once more and to utter some thoughts of Kingship Knowing that the animosity of the two parties in the House against each other would be the Rump's destruction and the occasion of a New-representative for which they nominated a Council of State consisting of thirty Members and the next Moneth Dissolved themselves from being a Parliament leaving the Government of the Nation to the aforesaid Council till the New-representative met The New-Parliament being met according to their Writs received his Majesties Gratious Letters to them by Sir John Greenvill and unanimously acknowledge him for their King and Soveraign with desires of his return to receive his Crown And having prepar'd all things for his reception he accordingly return'd to England where long may he raign to the unspeakable joy and benefit of the good and Loyal people and the confusion of Rebellion and Schism Thus in the space of eleven years have we run the Gant-lope through the series of seventeen Governments of which take this following scheme 1. King Charles the first 2. Rump 3. Oliver and his Officers 20. April 1653. 4. Council of State 30. April 5. Barebones Parliament 4. July 6. Oliver and his Officers 12. Decemb. 7. O. Cromwell Protectour 16. Decemb. 8. Richard Protectour 3. Septem 1658. 9. Rump the second time 6. May 1659. 10. Wallingford-house Junto with Lambert and Fleetwood 13. Octob. 11. Council of ten men 19. Octob. 12. Committee of Safety 26. Octob. 13. Rump the third time 26. Decemb. 14. Secluded Members and Rump 21. Feb. 1659 60. 15. Council of State 16. March 16. Parliament 25. Apr. 1660. 17. King Charles the second And what miseries the Nation underwent in these chopping and changing of Models is not yet forgot This thing was to day High-treason which to morrow was good law and the seduced people swore to maintain that the contrary to which the next week they were constrain'd to defend So that old Chaucer's complaint may well be here revived O sterne people unsad and untrewe Aye undiscrete and chaungying as a fane Delyting ever in rumur that is new For like the Moon ever waxe ye and wane Ever full of clappying dere enough a iane Your dome is false your
constaunce evel preveth A full great fool is he that on you leveth And all this by the power of a faithless rebellious schismatical and heretical Army compos'd of people betwixt whose hearts and tongues was a certain Antipathy so that it had been more credit to them had they been framed like the people of Quinbaia not unlike those Wywaypanamyans and other parts of Peru with their heads in their brests for then their tongues had been so near their hearts that they could not have given their tongues the lye But these were agreeable to the wicked man complained on by David who did not onely break his Covenants but was also full of deceit But this wickedness of theirs they indeavour to wipe out by affirming they did but follow the steps of the Parliament who swore to maintain the King yet cut off his head though 't is no excuse to save a thief from the gallows to plead that the knack of stealing was invented before his time This jugling is odious in any man but especially for a Souldier whose profession like our Knight errants is to right all people punish the wicked and relieve the opprest And thus taken no man can but honour his calling knowing that in a good cause none deserves his wages or pay better ventring life limbs and all that is dear to him for his Countries benefit But for your Souldiers of fortune who censure the goodness of their cause by the greatness of their pay and booty who venture their lives onely for their own private interests and fight meerly because they hate peace or because their former villanies in time of tranquillity would be brought to question who know no Conscience and acknowledge no Law but that call'd Martial the which though the severest yet so seldome put in practise or at least runs by partiallity witness the condemning and quitting the same once great man about the same falt that like the Rack in England 't is rather talk'd of then known As for these Banditi or rather wild Canables they are so much the Pest of a Nation that they were not unlike that antient plague call'd by the Northern-people the Grace of God yet for all it 's good name the effects of it was destructive And as they pray'd against the graces of God meaning that sickness so might we against our Army said to be composed of Saints though their actions and intentions were altogether wicked being constant to nothing but Gain whereby the Poets observation may more especially be appropriated to this Army Nulla fides pietásque viris qui castra sequuntur Venalésque manus ibi fas ubi maxima merces Nor faith nor piety these hirelings sway Thinking there is most right where is most pay These men were more fit to fight under the Banner of the one eyed Arimaspi who formerly used to wage war against the Gryffens meerly for the greediness of gold or the aviritious Syrians who like these men will perpitrate any thing for money then to list themselves amongst Christians who should first know the reason of the war before they enter into it and then act wholly for the publick good Not fighting pro and con according as their Officers prompted by private opens please to lead them on as if like Bull-rushes they ought to be obedient to every blast of their rotten-hearted Commanders And if cowardice a thing not to be separate from all honest men let the Philosopher think the contrary have been thought by the best Souldiers worthy of death what punishment is fit for these Needhamites who have no end or reason for their supposed valour but the destruction of those who are better then themselves as if like Envy in the Poet they repined at the flourishing of good things So that truly it may be said of them as the Long-Parliament usher'd on by their own confidence was pleas'd to affirm of the King That notwithstanding all the Vows and Protestations to govern by Laws which have been disperst throughout the Kingdom to blind and decieve the people the most mischievous principles of Tyranny are practised that ever were invented For if Le Sieur Colletet doth give us a true discription of Tyranny and he was both learn'd and ingenious enough to understand it we may easily conceive that it was never more practised then in these late times in England Ravir la paix le repos Accabler la France d'impos Rire du peuple qui soûpire Sons le joug d'un cruel Empire Remplir d'infames Garnisons Jousque au foger de nos maisons Vouloir qu' en nos propres familles Le soldat caresse nos filles Forcer en tout temps en tout lieu Les Loix de l'Estat de Dieu Sage Conrart c'est la manie De la nouuelle Tyrannie To over-cloud our peace and rest The Land with Taxes to infest To ' Abuse the people who do groan Under a Curst bloud-shedding Throne To cumber mankind with a Croud Of Garrisons base-born yet proud To let the Souldiers 'fore our eyes Abuse our Daughters as their prise Always to violate and withstand The laws of God and of the Land Is Sir if I can right define Of Tyranny the onely sign And this description agrees with those villanies to make up a Tyrant mentioned by the learned and amongst the rest that ever famous Saravia the Mauller of Beza And really the arrogancy of every beggerly Red-coat and intolerable pride and insolency of every upstart dung-hill-bred Commander many of their extractions being little better was such that we had cause to think as was formerly said of the days of King Stephen that there were in England as many Tyrants as Governours of Towns and Castles And I fear nor doth my doubt argue want of charity that many of them by their arrogant wickedness have not crost the Proverb Set a Begger on horse back and he will ride to the Devil For we know that such upstarts are naturally most proud which hath been held above an ordinary sin and what sign of repentance they have yet shewn I am altogether ignorant How our Nation was reformed after so much fighting for it's pretended happiness when our Kings Nobility Clergy and Gentry were thrown by as useless and Coblers Draymen and such Mechanicks set up in authority to domineer over us will make posterity blush to consider as it hath done Forraigners rather to abuse then pity us And will remain as a sign to posterity of the Armie 's abominable hypocrisie and falshood When they had the confidence to assert their first cause the just rights and liberties of all honest and good men in their peaceable and quiet living and not at all indulged either themselves or others in the troubling suppressing or abridging any though keen and froward against the Army in the free use and enjoyment of their just rights and liberties and all this and much more with simplicity impartiallity
to have been so abused or had they had ever any reall intentions of peace they would never have permitted these Roysters to have widened the breach by their perpetual prating against Treaties But both of them were well agreed against peace especially the Parliament hated a personal Treaty by all means lest any of them should be convinced of his error as a former Earl of Ormond was He was a Fryer of St. Francis Order call'd Vincent and through mis-information thought our King Henry V to have been the most wicked man in the world and so thought his Warre unjust in France but after a little discourse with the King himself he was so satisfied on the contrary that he thus bespake the Kings Army My Lords and Masters all see ye that ye do to the King your Master diligent and true service as you have till now well done For in your so doing you shall well please God This morning before I came hither I believed that the King your Maister had been the greatest Tyrant among all other Princes Christian but now I perceive the contrary for I assure you He is the most acceptable unto God of all them that be here present this day and his Quarrel is so just and true that undoubtedly God is and shall be his Aide in all these Warres And this is not much unlike the Reply of that great sufferer the Noble Marquesse of Worcester to the Maior of Bala in Merioneth-shire who came to excuse himself and Town for his Lordships bad Lodging Lord what a thing is this misunderstanding I warrant you might but the King and Parliament conserre together as you and I have done there might be as right an understanding as betwixt you and I. Some body hath told the Parliament that the King was an Enemy and their believing of him is such hath wrought all the jealousies which are come to these distractions The Parliament being now in such a case as I my self am in having green Eares over their Heads and false Ground under their Feet Had the Presbyterians been content with the concessions granted them by his Majesty farre above their desert or cause they might have enjoyed peace and liberty and the government to boot but their resolutions to have all was the cause of their losing all by the intervening of the Independents Not unlike the Clown to whom St. Bernard promis'd his Mule whereon he then rode if he could say the Lords Prayer without the interposition of any vain thoughts The fellow very glad of the bargain falls a saying Pater Noster c. but before he had said half there came an idle thought into his head whether St. Bernard would give him the Bridle and Saddle too which making him faulter and confesse the truth he lost all I shall not here trouble my self to rake up all the sedition of that Scotch fire-brand Mr. Robert Bailey but only tell you that he greatly wonders that the Reverend Lord Bishop of London-Derry should deny so grand a Presbyterian Maxime viz. That it is altogether lawfull for the Parliament to take up arms for the defence of the liberties or any other imaginable cause against any party countenanced by the Kings presence against his Laws And of all this who must be judge but themselves But I shall tell you the passages of one or two great men now alive and great Bustlers in London against our true Church Mr. George Cockain of Pancras Soperlane London whence Mr. Eccop was sequestred plundred forced to fly and his Wife and Children turn'd out of doors This Cockain held forth before the Commons and whether or no he did not presse them to murther his Sacred Majesty let any man judge by these his following words Think not to save your selves by an unrighteous saving of them who are the Lords and the peoples known enemies You may not Imagine to obtain the favour of those amongst whom you will not do justice For certainly if you act not like Gods in this particular against men truly obnoxious to justice they will be like Devils against you Observe that place 1 Kings 22. 31. compared with chap. 20. It is said in chap. 20. That the King of Syria came against Israel and by the mighty power of God he and his Army were overthrown and the King was taken Prisoner Now the mind of God was which he then discovered only by that present providence that justice should have been executed upon him but it was not whereupon the Prophet comes with Ashes on his face and waited for the King of Israel in the way where he should return and as the King passed by he cryed unto him thus saith the Lord Because thou hast let go a man whom I appointed for destruction therefore thy life shall go for his Life Now see how the King of Syria after this answers Ahab's love About three years after Israel and Syria engage in a new Warre And the King of Syria gives command unto his Souldiers that they should fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Benhadad's life was once in Ahabs hands and he ventured Gods displeasure to let him go but see how Benhadad rewards him for it Fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Honourable and worthy if God do not lead you to do justice upon those that have been the great Actors in shedding innocent blood never think to gain their love by sparing of them For they will if opportunnity be ever offerd return again upon you and then they will not fight against the poor and mean ones but against those that have been the Fountain of that Authority and Power which have been improved against them Was not this spoke in very good time viz. Just upon the breaking off the Isle of Wight-Treaty and when the Great ones were consulting about the Kings Tryall which may serve for a Comment upon the Author If you shake your head at Cockain I make no question but you will bite your nailes when you hear the plain dealing of one of their Chiefrains his words I shall give you upon the honesty and ingenuity of Mr. Roger L'estrange for I have not the Sermon by me This spruce piece of Rebellion in one of his Preachments before one of Oliver's Parliaments like a zealous Covenanter thus delivered himself Worthy Patriots You that are our Rulers in this Parliament 't is often said we live in times wherein we may be as good as we please Wherein we enjoy in purity and plenty the Ordinances of Jesus Christ Prais'd be God for this even that God who hath delivered as from the imposition of prelatical Innovations Altar-genuflections and cringings with crossings and all that Popish Trash and Trampery And truly I speak no more then what I have often thought and said The removal of these insupportable Burdens countervails for the blood and treasure shed
they will also tell the people that they are obliged to right themselves which is the only way to set up the Stage that the Tragedy may be acted over again But I hope the Lecturers and Pamphleters will forget their Parts and then the People will be more unwilling and unfit for Action CHAP. III. The small or rather no Authority or Power that the Presbyterians allow the King to have over them TO lessen Authority is the only way to null it and 't is as true that those who desire and act the first do it meerly to make it subservient to the latter People will not declare their designs at first a plausible pretence being half a Conquest which may be spoil'd by too much haste For A'voli troppo alti e repentini Sogliono i precipitii esser vicini Those men who too too high and hasty go Do take the course to their own over-throw The Turks will shew you friendship but thereby to make you embrace their Faith Zopirus made a fair Relation to the Babylonians but quite different from his Intentions Warr is in vain if not maintain'd by stratagems as well as force Towns have been taken by shew of Friendship as many men with Darius have been ruin'd by those who promis'd to be their defence Our Parliament at first declar'd their Intentions were only to relieve the King from his wicked Council But having once done that as they supposed they not only afforded him no better but took away his Authority clapt him up in Prison and there kept him secure till his Cut-throats convey'd him to the Scaffold And which was an augmentation to their wickednes they did not do this only to make themselves Supream but looking upon themselves as the highest Authority they thought they might thereby lawfully do this and farr more fancying the King to be as subject to their wills as a Gally-slave to his Captain For proof of which 't is in vain to quote practice or the multitude of their Declarations each of them pen'd to prove the legality of their actions Only it will not be amiss to give you the opinion concerning this point of a noted Presbyterian Writer yet making a noyse in his Fetters who would gladly perswade the people that they are bound to obey the Parliament and their Orders though against the Kings express command The Parliament ever retain'd a Jurisdiction in themselves over both Church and Crown Of which in another place he speaks more plain thus The Votes Orders and Ordinances of the Lords and Commons in Parliament even without or against the Kings Personal Command is to be obey'd and observed But it is not only the Parliament but the People too forsooth that must be hail fellow well mett with or rather above the King And they know that this familiarity with Majesty is the only way to bring it into contempt which Crofton thinks a good Card for him to play and therefore he thus very pertly be-speaks the People Is not the meanest Subject interested in the Kings Oath and capacitated humbly to demand performance Do not Royal Acts fall under the consideration of Casuists resolving Conscience Are not Kings Objects of Ministerial admonition How bold soever it may seem none but a proud Pashur and shameless Semaiah could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King Keep the Oath and thou shalt be delivered from that distress which may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to Pray For Him Doth not the last clause speak little Crofton a pert blade who with Calvin Knox and others of that gang would make brave Modlers for a New Utopia by making the Parliament as bounders and controllers over the King and allow the People over the Parliament and then should we have a brave World the King and Three Estates lying at the mercy of the People and the bold Presbyterian Tub-tatler allow'd to infuse into the Rabble what Principles are most agreeable to the sense of their Classes but I hope this Plot is too visible to take effect Yet thus did the Scots with King Charls I. by appealing from him and his Council to a General Assembly in these words And because we did in our former Protestation Appeal from the Lords of his Majesties Council so do we now by these renew our solemn Appeal with all Solemnities requisite unto the next Free General Assembly and Parliament as the only Supream National Judicatories competent to judge of National causes and proceedings Which way of Appealing is High-Treason by the Law of Scotland as they knew very well by a good Token For when their Ministers held an Assembly at Aberdene after it was Prorogued by King James they were cited to appear before the Lords of the Council to answer that high contempt but they denying the Authority and appealing to a General Assembly were therefore arraigned and found guilty of High-Treason and had received the sentence accordingly if King James out of his mercy had not reprieved them before sentence and only inflicted upon them perpetual banishment which they under-went But that they may know themselves the better for the future I shall transcribe them a Copy of the Scotch Statute that they may learn how to avoid Treason The eighth Parliament current holden at Edenburgh the 22. of May in the year of God 1584. by the Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Prince James the sixt by the Grace of God King of Scots and Three Estates of this Realm An Act for Confirming the Kings Majesties Royal Power over all Estates and Subjects within this Realm FOR AS MUCH as some persons being lately call'd before the Kings Majesty and his Secret Council to answer upon certain Points to have been enquired of them concerning some Treasonable Seditions and Contumelious Speeches uttered by them in Pulpits Schools and other wayes to the disdain and reproach of His Highness his Progenitors and present Council contemptuously declined the judgement of his Highness and his said Council in that behalf to the evil example of others to do the like if timely remedy be not provided Therefore our Soveraign Lord and his Three Estates assembled in this present Parliament ratifieth and approveth and perpetually confirmeth the Royal Power and Authority over all Estates as well Spiritual as Temporal within this Realm in the Person of the Kings Majesty our Soveraign Lord his Heirs and Successors And also statuteth and ordaineth That his Highness his Heirs and Successors by themselves and their Councils are and in time to come shall be Judges competent to all persons his Highness Subjects of what Estate Degree Function or Condition soever they be of Spiritual or Temporal in all matters wherein they or any of them shall be apprehended summoned or charged to answer to such things as shall be enquired of them by our said Soveraign Lord and his Council And that none of them which shall happen to be apprehended called or
accident though false will force the poor souls to a blessing of themselves from such people against whom God hath such an enmity Thus at the beginning of the Warres John Vicars afrighted many of the weaker sort from having any agreement with the Kings party by fobbing into their heads strange stories of Gods wrath against Cavaliers And thus they now set themselves awork again by abusing the vulgar with such fopperies What strange judgments do they threaten to these Nations if Episcopacy and Common-prayer book be not taken away And what sad Revolutions do they denounce if they be not remov'd To which purpose Mr. Ed. Bagshaw one now well known amongst the Brethren hath lately put forth a Sermon enough to make a whole Country distracted And to carry on this great work the dropping Anabaptist and Millenary make a great noise in which Throng H. Jessey holding up his ridiculous Pamphlet The Lords loud Call to England which is seconded by another forging zealot under the title of Mirabilis Annus both which are as free from truth as Tom. Scot from chastity here you may be as long finding a true story as Diogenes an honest man in Athens In both which books to my own knowledge and eye-sight are some most abominable lies and forgeries that were but St. Quintin now alive to pull them by their Noses those parts would soon fall off and leave the Sectaries mark'd for lyers Not unlike one Harris a Gold-smith who in the straits of Magellan going to blow his Nose instead of the snot threw the nose into the fire so violent was the cold and so Antony Knivet drew his benumm'd toes off with his frozen stockens But I hope Jessey and the rest of his Sectarian Associates will have no more influence upon the people than He Knolls and others of his Club had over the old blind woman neer Algate in London who by their anointing with oil thought to restore her to sight But alas these Dreamers can do no miracles unlesse like the two Priests of Orleance by deceipt and cunning But of these things I could pay them in their own coin if I thought it worth the while I could tell them of a great Lord a mortall enemy to Bishops and Cathedrals who March 1640. told some other Lords I hope one of us shall live to see no one stone left upon another of that Building meaning St. Pauls And after going to storm Lichfield-Close being all compleatly armed was in March 1643. shot in the left eye by a Gent. that was both dumb and deaf and which is also observeable he was thus slain upon St. Ceddes day who is the Patron of that Cathedral I could also tell them of Col. Hambdens being slain in that very place where he first took up Arms against the King I could also tell them of Mr. Tho. Hoyle Alderman of York and a Parliament man who hang'd himself in his own House at Westminster upon the same day and hour twelve-month that the King was murdered I could also tell them the rumours of Essex's death the storys of Pyms eating-disease and how the Lord Gray welterd in his own blood I could tell them of Mr. Hall of St. Needs in Huntingtonshire who hang'd himself of Sr. Tho. Martin of Cambridg-shire who said that he had rather wash his hands in the blood of the young King of Scots then in the Deer then slain and the same day brake his skull and shoulders of which he died I could tell them of one adventuring to climb up to pull down Cheap-side Cross slipt his hold and falling with his ribbs upon the Iron pikes wounded himself to death I could tell of another that endeavouring to tear down the Organs at Worcester fell down upon the Pavement broke his bones and dyed I could tell of another who had his hand shiver'd to pieces by the breaking and splitting of his gun as he endeavour'd to shoot at the similitude of Christ over All-souls Coll. gate in Oxford and of another who thinking to do the same at Martin Colledge had one of his eies blown out and the other little better I could tell the Anabaptists of one Anne Martin and another woman who got their deaths by the new mode of dipping And I could tell the Quaker how Lieutenant Thomas lately poyson'd himself and of a woman of his Tribe endeavouring to do miracles fell presently mad And as for the Presbyterians I could tell them a story of a great Preacher of their Faction viz. Mr. Barker of Pitchley in Northamptonshire and was by them held a godly man who was publickly hang'd for incest and murder who defil'd his Niece and had the child murdred which he had by her And let them consider the temperature of Dr. Cheynell But 't is a mark upon all this Fraternity to be hot-headed which doth make good the Description of a Puritan made long since by Dr. Butler of Cambridge viz. A Puritan is a Protestant frayd out of his witts I shall say nothing of Mary Gadbury a great Follower of Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Case then of Goodwin and Jessey nor what pretty pranks she plaid to prove her self to be the Virgin Mary nor of Mr. Woodward Minister and his Wife great actors in that story yet it will not be amisse if I tell you one Covenanting passage On the same day that Mr. Joseph Caryll preach'd to exhort the people to the taking of the Covenant This following Bill was given to him to be read and praid for One that through much passion oftentimes grievously offends the Majesty of God by cursing and swearing And that since his late TAKING THE COVENANT desires the Prayers of this Congregation that his Offence may be pardoned and that he may be enabled to overcome that temptation from hence forwards Let Mr. Caryl make what interpretation he pleaseth the Reader must have as much power to judge as he Should I be as impertinent as these men I could give them story for story as long as they would and yet it may be scarce a true judgment of either side though highly fancyed so to be by the people Like the Country fellow who thought that the Astronomer taking the height of something with his Jacobs staffe had shot down the starre which by chance then fell as we usually say Tom Coryat tells a story of a fellow that mending a Clock in Venice and being very busie about the Bell at the same time one of the great men of Brasse that us'd to strike the Quarters of the hours with his great brazen hammer gave him such a violent blow that he knock'd him dead on the place should I tell the Brethren that this man was a Roman Catholick they would cry out a great judgment of God upon a Member of Anti-christ But 't is ridiculous to make every accident a judgment and 't is unchristian to question that God doth not sometimes manifestly revenge himself and cause
upon the wicked CHAP. VI. Some short Observations upon their Covenant AN understanding Gentleman assures us that A league amongst Subjects giveth law to a King breaks all bonds of Soveraignty and invites a people to seek for a New Maister And this dear-bought experience hath prov'd true to both Nations yet were the events of these Agreements more mischievous they would be courted by the seditious thinking such pieces of Perjury to be the best works of their Holy-days Since the reformation this mode of swearing against Authority hath been commonly practis'd in Scotland In their first Covenant 3 Decemb 1557. An Earl of Argile was the first subscriber and chief promoter and how active an Earl of Argile hath been in our days about such wickednesse need not here be related but I hope as the other was the first so this shall be the last Yet in this way hath the English been as faulty as the worst of them though I believe at first drol'd in by their Neighbours For when at the beginning of the Warres the English Commissioners went from the Parliament into Scotland to desire their assistance against the King and having addres'd themselvs to the Scotch Assembly delivering them a letter subscribed by some Presbyterian Ministers in which they complaind that their blood was shed like water upon the grouud for defence of the Protestant Religion they receiv'd a negative answer The Assembly telling them amongst other things That you cannot say you fight for the Reform'd Religion since you have not begun to reform your Church ye had thriven better if you had don as we did Begun at the Church and thereafter striven to have gotten the civil sanction to what ye had don in the Church A few days after Sir W. Ermin Mr. Hamden and the rest of the Commissioners were invited by some of their friends to make a new Address to the Assembly which they did the second time desiring a gracious Answer Upon this request the Assembly propounded to them this Will ye join in Covenant with us to reform Doctrine and Discipline conform to this of Scotland and ye shall have a better Answer Sir W. Ermin and the rest answered that they had not that in their Instructions but thank'd the Assembly and said they would represent it to the Parliament of England The Assembly replyd that there would be much time loosed ere they could go to the Parliament for their resolutions and thereafter to return to Scotland to draw up a Solemn League and COVENANT The danger was great and they were not able to resist the King But we shall draw up the Covenant here and send up with you some Noble men Gentlemen and Ministers that shall see it subscrib'd which accordingly was don only two or three words altered Thus was this spurious Wretch illegally begotten and brought forth by unlawful Parents by the Scots worship'd and ador'd as the only Idol fit to bless their undertakings and by their Brothers in mischief the English Long Parliament embraced who peremptorily enjoyn all people to swear Allegiance to it as their only supream Law and authentick Shibuleth to distinguish Treason from Loyalty Though what authority they had to impose such an Oath being against the Command both of King and Law must be left for Mr. Prynne to discover in some Terra incognita since we have no such custome amongst us Yet for all this Mr. Simeon Ash had the confidence in the Pulpit to wonder that any man should think that the Covenant was made here only to bring in the Scots when the Presbyterian Parliament and party was low in England Having thus seen the Birth of this Monster it might quickly be desected and the poison and mischief lodg'd in it might evidently be manifested to the whole world but that it hath formerly been don by more able pens However it cannot but seem strange to any that these men should swear to extirpate the Government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops c. which have been confirmd by 32 Acts of Parliament And they could never yet tell who made them Rulers over Israel and gave them power to such actions quite contrary to Magna Charta the laws of the Land and the Kings express command The first two are known to any one who hath heard any thing of the laws of the land and the latter is as true Yet because I have heard some deny and others question its truth I shall give you his Majesties own Proclamation against it 1643. By the KING His Majesties Proclamation forbidding the Tendering or taking of a late Covenant called a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation c. WHEREAS there is a Printed paper intituled a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religin The honour and happinesse of the King and the peace and safety of the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be Ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the twenty first day of September last to be Printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in Truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against us and against the Established Religion and Laws of this Kingdome in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and endeavour to bring in Forraign Force to invade this Kingdome We do therefore straightly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects of what Degree of Quality soever Upon their Allegiance That they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby Forbid and Inhibit all Our Subjects to Impose Administer or Tender the said Covenant as they and every one of them will answer to the Contrary at their Utmost and Extremest Perils Given at our Court at Oxford this Ninth day of October in the Nineteenth year of our Raign GOD SAVE THE KING Than this what could be more plain and authentick yet a furious Presbyterian is pleas'd to tearm this action of the King Satanical slander and abuse a most impious and audacious Paper Atheistical boldness Impious and Platonical pleasure c. Besides the unlawfulness of its making and Imposition the qualities and conditions of the Brat were so impious that an honest man could never take it for several reasons amongst many other take these two or three 1. § They swear to extirpate Popery without respect of persons In which they might be ask'd What they would do with the Queen If they forced her Religion 't was Treason If they did not they are perjur'd 2. § This Oath makes them to be but Conditional Subjects swearing to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom before the King or his Authority few of the takers understanding any of these things by which means they swore they knew not what And that this Oath obligeth them to be but conditional Subjects is plain they swearing To preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority