better habitation And thus we see that to argue from success is but a weak kind of Arguing nay these very men that now use the same in their own behalf were wont to say heretofore when others have prevailed against their faction The mâ—re Knaue the better luck I know no reason but that Proverb is stil as tâ—â—e as ever â— But I shal now shew in the next place that the worst men have always â—in wont to plead this Argument Two or three examples amongst many shal be alleaged to this purpose The Scripture tels of â—â—bsakeh when he moved the people of Jerusalem as these men do us to make a general revolt from Hezekiah he pretended that God had set him on work and had said Go up against this land and destroy it and his main Argument was his Masters extraordinary great successe to which purpose he reckoned up as our enemies do a great many Cities Towns and Castles which he had taken as Hâ—nah and Arâ—â—â—d Sepharvaim Henah and Ivaâ— And so the Turke argue at this day against the Christians that their Religion excels ours because they have prospered better and prevailed more then we have done And in like sort the Independent faction may urge the same thing against the Presbyterians here amongst â—s for they have been the most succesful and if the Argument be good then down must go the Presbytery as wel as Episcopacy râ—â—t and branch and the Parliament have erred in Voting for it yea and the Covenant taken to conform the Government of this Church to that of Scotland becomes frustrate and of none effect But to proceed As Raâ—sâ—akeh and the Turks so the Popish Bishops in Qu. Maries time did insist much upon this Argument as Master Fox witnesseth they would urge upon the Martyrs their extraordinary successe which they and their cause had by King Edwards death and Queen Maries coming to the Crown against such great endevours to the contrary these very men who now use the same Argument in their own behalf wil not allow that it was sufficiently good then in the behalf of the Papists I â—il mention but one example more and that is of Pope Alexander the third who as story speaks him was none of the best men when he had prevailed against the good Emperour Frederick the second his Liege-Lord as these have done against their King by getting a great victory against him wherein most unfortunately his son was taken prisoner for redemption of whom the Emperour was forced to prostrate himself upon the ground and yeild his neck to be troden on and to acknowledge Alexander to be rightful Pope which by reason of a schisme was before denied and to restore what ever had been taken during the war on his part when I say the Pope had brought him to all this and to such like things would these men now bring their Sâ—veraigâ— as is evident by the Doctrine of their Preachers who tel the people that God wil bring the necks of Kings under the feet of his Saints that is as they interpret under the feet of their faction then did He the said Pope insult and glory as these already begin to do in his Extraordinary great success and made it his Argument to perswade the foolish world after these mens fashion that his cause was Gods and that God had favoured his quarrel as the most just and lawful Henry King of England and Lewis King of France were both in the Seduction in token whereof being both on foot they held the Bridle of the Horse on which the Pope rode the one with the right hand and the other with the left And thus also we see that the worst men have bin wont to use this kind of Arguing which our Adversaries now think to be so good and do stand so much upon But from this consideration we for our parts shal beware of being swayed by it or of judging Gods love or hatred from outward Accidents fools only build upon such foundations Evil is the touch-stone of Good and often gets the better of it to try goodnesse Constancy The Arke was taken Prisoner by the Philistines it doth not follow thereupon that God did hate the same no more doth it now follow that he hates the King because he lets his Enemies for the present prevaile against him For Israels sin God suffered the Arke of his glory to be obscured for a season so for our sins it is that our Soveraign is afflicted And let not these Insulters perswade themselves that our Allegeance is so weakly knit that it can be looâ—ened with this Argument we are not of them that draw back nor yet of them that blush not to affirm that so long as the King is able to protect them they are bound to serve him but no longer these waters of affliction that have so plentifully showred down upon his Head are not able in the least degree to quench the heat of our love they are as oyle rather to inlarge the flames of our affections the Enemies success against him and ill usage of him doth but make him appear in our eys more like our Saviour and so locks our hearts the faster to him And let these King-Tormentors know that God hath an hook for their Noses and a Bridle for their lips and the things that are coming upon them make hast Nulla sors lâ—nga est the weather-cock may turn alieno in lâ—co haud stabile regnum est there is no constant sitting in anothers seat ima permutat brevis Hora summis who knows what a year a month or a day may bring forth quos foelices Cyntâ—ia vidit vidit miseres abitura dies Great and wise Agamemnon professed that he had learned by his victories 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that great things are overturned in a monent Troya nos tumidos fecit nimium feroces saith he Troyes Conquest hath made us proud and cruel fierce and haughty Et Stamus nos Danai loco unde illa cecidit we the Conquerours are in the same condition from whence she fel Hodie mihi cras tibi is the Motto of all Mortals our portion of sorrow we have to day they shal have theirs to morrow the times may so alter that Affliction may chance to stand again for a mark of Gods Children even in their Calender res Deus nostras celeri citatas turbine versat And so I have done with this particular and come to that which these Libellers adde in their next words Having minded us of their late extraordinary successe in the field they proceed and say Yet stil this Clandestine proceedings against us here condemning all that are in any degree Protestants at Oxford as also granting a Tolleration of Idolatry to Papists indemnity to the Murderous Irish in a close trading way for meer particular advantage cannot be defended by any but by the falsest of men Papists and by the falsest of Papists Jesuites SECT XVII
the Scripture which these Dreamers have alleadged out of S. Jude it being the sole and onely one produced for their own Justification in these their Commentaries upon the Kings letters we must give them their due praise and yeeld it was very sutable for the purpose They goe on and tell us of something to be seen also saying They may see here in these his private letters what Affection the King beares to his people what Language and Titles he bestowes upon his great Councell SECT III. 1. The Kings great and true affection to his people Evidenced 2. How far divers of them that call themselves His Great Councell are from proving themselves his good Councellors The ten Rules or Precepts whereby they have proceeded 3. Of the Language and Titles which they complain of and how truly the name Rebell belongs unto them 4. The true cause of that great grief and sorrow so often mentioned An impudent Charge against the King propounded by the Libellers THe unlearned saith S. Peter do pervert many things in S. Pauls Epistles to their own destruction through the ignorance that is in them and if so then much rather may the malicious make perverse constructions upon the Kings Letters to the hurt of others through the bitterness that is in them Truly we do imagine that our subtile and suspected Brethren have even so done and malum being sui diffusivum they would fain season us with the same liquor which infecteth them to which end they would have us look with such Eyes as they doe and to judge with such hearts for thereby in time we may perhaps be brought to speak with such tongues and to act with such hands too And peradventure if we cannot read with their Spectacles or relish their interpretations they wil conclude us to be stark blinde and strongly Seduced But if they do we are of S. Pauls minde and passe not much to be judged by them our Judge is Christ whose Gospell hath taught us to interpret better These Letters we acknowledge have been read and as proceeding from their hands too together with their corrupt glosse upon them and we wish from our soules we had seen no more disloyalty in the one then we doe disaffection in the other no worse language in their notes against the best of Kings then we doe in his letters against the worst of Subjects we see his tender care to preserve in being his Protestant people in the Kingdome of Ireland he being made unable at the present to restore them to their former wel-being Pap. 16 and 17. we see also how desirous he is to settle a peace among his unkinde and unnaturall people of this Kingdome though with the diminution of his own undoubted rights and the lending away to his own great losse and prejudice his most just Prerogative Pap. 25. we see moreover how his spirit is grieved in him at the Stubbornnesse and perversnesse of the English Rebells that they hindred his hopes of an Accomodation by way of Treaty Pap. 6. which in the judgement of all that love their Country would be the best for the people of this land as the case now standeth we see in his Letters what resolution he hath to adhere to his Clergy the Messengers and Servants of the great God who were wont to be reckoned among the better sort of his people though now with these new and vile Reformers they are the most contemptible Pap. 1. Indeed his private directions for his Commissioners at Uxbridge do alone speake sufficiently his fatherly and Pious Affection to his people His words as his very Enemies record them are these Paper 25. I cannot yeeld to the change of the Government by Bishops not onely as I fully concur with the most Generall opinion of Christians in all Ages as being the best But likewise I hold my self particularly bound by the Oath I took at my Coronation not to alter the Government of this Church from what I found it And as for the Churches Patirmony I cannot suffer any diminution or alienation of it being without peradventure Sacriledge and likewise contrary to my Coronation Oath But whatever shall be offered for rectifying of abuses if any have crept in or for the ease of tender Consciences so as it endamage not the foundation I am content to heare and will be content to give a gratious answer thereunto Had any of the Kings Predecessours but offered thus much half thus much to the strictest non-Conformists in former times they would have cryed it up for a token of the greatest affection that ever King did shew unto his people But the men of our times unlesse their Soveraigne will commit perjury and break his Oath to God as they have done theirs both to God and him to please their Humours unless he will commit Sacriledge as they do destroy his own Conscience and damne his own soul to satisfie their lusts they are resolved to raile upon him for one that beares no Affections to his people But in these his Instructions to the same Commissioners we may and do observe more of his Affection yet to his own dammage and wrong unto his people his words are these by the testimony also of his own deadly enemies The Militia is certainly the fittest subject for a Kings quarrell for without it the Kingly power is but a shadow who can deny this and therefore upon no meanes to be acquitted but maintained according to the Ancient known lawes of the Land no otherwise doth the King desire to have it defended and upheld Yet because to attain to this so much wished peace by all good men it is in a manner necessary Scil. in regard of the guilty Consciences of the Rebells that a sufficient and reall security be given even to them to take away if possible their suspition for the performance of what shall be agreed upon I permit you either by leaving strong Towns or other Military forces in the Rebells possession untill Articles be performed to give such assurance for performance of conditions as you shall judge necessary to conclude a firm Peace Provided alwayes that you take as great a care by sufficient security that Conditions be performed to me good reason and to make sure that the peace once settled all things shall return to their ancient Channell Now behold and wonder O all ye Nations of the word and judge I beseech you betwixt this King and his Accusers Could any Christian deny himself more Did ever Prince deny himselfe so much Can the desires of any man be more equal and just then these are Doe you perceive in these his secret instructions that he covets any more power or Prerogative then is allowed or approved by the Ancient and known Lawes of the Land Can any innocent disposition upon the earth possibly give more satisfaction to a perverse froward and guilty Enemy then is here offered to these men by a most Gracious and Honest King onely to procure
And hence also it is that they have balked the triall of men by established Law and conceiving themselves above it have shunned to punish for those faults which the Law condemneth and to shew the Omnipotency of their power have passed sentence of death where the Law condemneth not though Scripture teacheth that where is no Law there is no Transgression the giving way to which very thing was and is a trouble to the Kings Conscience and the cause of His first dislike of their Courses witnesse their owne words which are to this purpose The King adjudged Strafford worthy of death yet not for Treason as it was Charged upon him but not being able to save his life without using force and finding force very dangerous He left him to the block against Conscience as is now alleadged That the King adjudged Strafford worthy of death for any thing is more then we heard before nor have we any reason to beleeve the same now upon the bare report of these men yet to doe them a courtesie we may suppose it to be as they say for the present and then it followes as all may see that they doe not Charge the King for desiring to save Straffords life absolutely for they say the King himself judged him worthy of death but for being against his suffering for Treason So that in brief the Kings sinne only was according to the Testimony of His most deadly Enemies He would that Strafford should have suffered death only for his faults and not for that whereof he was not guilty As became a righteous Judge the King would have had His Great Councell to have done Justa Juste Righteous things in a Righteous manner as conceiving that way of proceeding to be most acceptable unto God and most likely to continuate his blessings upon the Kingdome but being not able by faire meanes to perswade them to that and considering that to use force might be a remedy worse then the disease the bloud of many innocent persons might be spilt to save one and yet perhaps the power and the malice of the Adversary being so High that one not saved neither He was constrained against His Conscience to leave him to the block and for His being so tender Conscienced in this case He is thought worthy of Scorne by these men His most Religious Obedient and loving Subjects He left him to the Block against Conscience say they as is now alleadged But indeed they have sufficiently by these their words acquitted the King to the whole world of having a voluntary hand in the spilling of Straffords innocent Bloud for so it may be called because he was innocent of that for which he suffered though in some other respects if it were true as they say he might be adjudged guilty and like them that cried his bloud be upon us and upon our Children they take the matter wholly upon themselves for which we thank them and for which we beleeve that God in his due time will remember them By those their words they have also well hinted to our understandings how farre and in what sort the King hath walked in the Councells of the ungodly to the ruine as they say almost of three Kingdomes To which purpose they proceed further in the same place and say Canterbury remaines in the same case and now remorse of Conscience or rather the old Project of altering Law Suggests to the King that if no restraint be used Straffords President will cast Canterbury and Canterburies all the rest of the Conspiratours and so the people will make good their Ancient freedome still Had these men remembred where all the old Projectors and Monopolizers now sit and on which side they doe Militare or had they bethought themselves how unable they are to instance in any one good Law which the King did ever alter they would certainely have omitted their malicious Parenthesis But by their putting it in they give us to see that they will not forget their old Project of casting their owne faults upon the Innocent But what doth the Old project of altering Law suggest to the King Why say they that Straffords President would cast Canterbury But had not they provided a remedy against that suggestion by ordering that Straffords President should be no President to cast others by in after times If there be any vertue in their owne Order or rather Honesty in them that made it we cannot see how Straffords President could be any prejudice to Canterbury For who shall urge it against him but onely themselves that made it uncapable of being urged We cannot possibly suppose that were the King such an alterer of Law as they would have it beleeved that he should desire an alteration of that Ordinance to the dammage of Canterbury nor is there any other Law capable of alteration as we conceive whereby Straffords President might hurt him But when that Ordinance was made the Authors of it had respect only unto themselves for intending then to go in those wayes for which they had condemned Strafford they did wisely provide that his President should not be in force in after-times against themselves Nor indeed did they then know they should need to make any use of Straffords President against Canterb or against any other of the Conspirators which they talk of the mens heads were full of businesse they could not fore-see or fore-think of all things at once nor did they remember things past when this particular passage was written and authorized to be published but it makes for my purpose and helps me well to evidence to the world what good Hearts they beare unto their Soveraigne And what strong Arguments they have to prove him to be an Alterer of Law But the main thing we learn from those their words is this though Hatred will not let them speak it in modest termes when the King perceived by their proceedings with Strafford what the Course was which they would take with Cauterbury and the rest whom malice and faction would make Delinquents and observed their designe to have him to concurre with themselves in condemning the Righteous which he found his Conscience would never digest for it being of a more Divine and tender temper then theirs was smitten with sad remorse for what was already done though sore against his will and fearing if he walked any longer though by enforcement in those their Councells Gods wrath might fall down more heavily yet upon him and his three Kingdomes He therefore removed himself from their Assembly this is the thing which they intimate unto us And here let us with Reverence and admiration observe the hand of the Almighty God over-ruling the tongues and pens of these men they had formerly taxed the King for leaving and abborring as they were pleased to speake his seat in Parliament which they suggested he did on purpose to speake destruction to his people but here unawares it seemes unto themselves God makes them declare
to that purpose A serious expostulation with them about the same and of their maintaining a base fellow to deride and scoffe at their Soveraigne in his affliction pag. I. Sect. II. Of the pretended end of publishing the Libell the true end thereof hinted Their blasphemy against God noted How these Letters of the King might have been made use of as Evidences of truth and Loyaltie Of what stock and lineage the Authors of the Libell discovered themselves to be Of their subtilty and of that spirit and meeknesse which they boast of How aptly for themselves they alleadge the Example mentioned by S. Jude pag. II. Sect. III. The Kings great and true affection to his people Evidenced How farre divers of them that call themselves His Great Councell are from proving themselves his good Counsellors The ten Rules or Precepts whereby they have proceeded Of the Language and Titles which they complaine of and how truly the name Rebell belongs unto them The true cause of their great grief and sorrow so often mentioned An impudent Charge against the King propounded by the Libellers pag. 23. Sect. IV. The Nature of their Charge opened Their villanous and bloudy Scope therein clearly Evidenced and proved How perfectly in their Tenents they hold with the Jesuites in the points of King-killing and King-deposing fully declared pag. 34. Sect. V. The falsity and injustice of the said Charge against the King manifested in all the particulars Who they are that sit in the Scorners Chair The Enemies reasons and ends of Charging the King with their own Conditions pag. 49. Sect. VI. Of the Kings Errour in following evill Councellours and who they were His Majesty scorned at by the Libellers for his tendernesse of Conscience and hopes in Gods Justice The folly and falshood of the Libellers Charge against Strafford and Canterbury The Enemies acquit the King of having a voluntary hand in Straffords death They hint the right Reason of his withdrawing from Westminster pag. 56. Sect. VII What that Liberty is which the pretended Parliament doe maintaine And what that Religion may be which they are about to set up Reasons to prove it may be the Popish Reasons to shew it may be the Turkish Six Arguments to prove it cannot be the Christian Protestant pag. 67. Sect. VIII Of the feigned Combination against the Parliament Our Judgement of the Papists and of their assisting the King Our abhorment of the Cruelties of the Irish. How they are out-gone by the English Rebels our Opinion of the Court-faction of what Flock we professe our selves to be How the Libellers and their side call themselves the more beleeving sort of people pag. 77. Sect. IX The slander laied upon us to be Enemies to Parliaments and Reformation Confuted Of pretended Miracles Revelations and new Lights The taking the Kings Cabinet in Battaile no Miracle The Libellers Argument to prove an impossibility of forgery in their Parliament pag. 85. Sect. X. Of that perspecuity and Modesty which the Libellers boast to be in their owne Annotations Their pretty confident way of perswading all men to be of their Opinions Their Reasons why they did not Publish all they had against the King pag. 94. Sect. XI Censuring Superiours unlawfull Why the Enemies must continue to slander the King How easie a thing it is for wicked men to deprave the best writings Of the Kings integrity and goodnesse And of Englands happinesse under him The maine Particulars of offence under his Government nominated No just matter of blame from them can now be objected to His Majesty pag. 102. Sect. XII The Adversaries industry to finde things unbeseeming the King in his Letters The Letters freed from any such thing Certaine Christian considerations propounded to the Readers to Evidence the same Of the Rebels pertinacy in their Rebellious way their endeavours that the Kings promises might neither be beleeved nor performed pag. 111. Sect. XIII Of their 3. Propositions at Uxbridge 4. Pretences for their Abolition of Episcopacy 4. True Reasons of that their impious requests pag. 123. Sect. XIV Their unreasonablenesse in desiring the Militia to be in their sole disposall 4. Vain pretences for it 4. True grounds of this their demand How sinfull and dangerous it might be for the King to grant it pag. 135. Sect. XV. Of their Vindicating the Irish Rebels how fully they have done it already in one sence and how glad we should be if themselves would go and do it in the other their true intent in that demand opened pag 157. Sect. XVI Of the Enemies late sufferings of their strange patience of their extraordinary great successe the true grounds thereof Successe no argument of a good cause The wicked have been alway wont to use that argument pag. 156. Sect. XVII Another charge against the King confuted of clandestine proceedings The Kings condemning all that be Protestants at Oxford a most impudent and malicious slander His Toleration of Idolatry another The occasion of the Kings promising liberty of conscience to Papists The reasonablenesse of that promise at that time and upon that occasion The objection of the Kings former resolution to the contrary answered as also his promise not to abolish the laws against them pag. 174. Sect. XVIII The King granting indemnity to the murderous Irish another slander The necessity reasons of making peace with the Irish at that time The conditions upon which that peace was to be made this Act not contradictive to any of his former expressions against their detestable doings The vanity of their charge against the King for going in a close trading way Two sufficient evidences of his Majesties sincere and constant affection to the Protestant Religion The whole charge against the King most truely retorted upon the objecters pag. 185. Sect. XIX Of the enemies malicious devises to scandalize the King with favouring the Irish Rebellion detected confuted The Kings requiring secresie of the Queen and Ormond in the matters writ to them justified The Rebels blasphemy against Gods Providence and in asking Gods blessing upon their Libell noted pag. 193. Sect. XX. What good use might have been made of the Kings letters Of the faults laid to the Queens charge specially in loving her Husband pag. 198. Sect. XXI Of the Kings fault for loving his wife The manifest and mâ—â—cious falsifications and perversions of divers of the Kings eâ—pressioâ—s to his Queen noted pag. 207. Sect. XXII Of the Kings fault in labouring or indevouring to uphold Monarchy His Majesties soliciting the King of Denmarke to this purpose no whit contradictive to his former resolutions of not calling in forraigne aide pag. 214. Sect. XXIII The Libellers Cavils at the word Mongrill Parliament at the Commissioners at the Treaty at Uxbridge and at the Kings pawning his Jewels answered His Majesties affection and goodnesse to his subjects for want of other matters objected as a fault against him by these Libellers pag. 220. Sect. XXIV The story of the Rebels unchristian behaviour towards
words Times are not now as they have been Many of the Presbyterian faction in whom the spirit of cruelty is most naturall and who ruled the Rost when most of these villanies were acted which your Book reproveth are either runne away or turned the other way for the Militia now most in the others hands hath proved a stronger Argument with their Consciences then their Covenant therefore there is no cause to fear persecution for a discharge of duty And besides these are times wherein every one may speak and practice as himself pleaseth nor can any be imagined so vile as to permit all that will to write against that King whom God hath commanded to Honour and that Church which baptized and taught us all the knowledge of God we have and be offended onely at those that write in their behalf Shall we think that men have leave in these Reforming times to be any thing but true Protestants and to do any thing but their duties away away with all Panick fears To this I Answer 1. There is a Leaven of that proud and sower Faction yet remaining 2. There is a Generation of Apostate Priests too much in favour with men of Power and these are mischievous men who having themselves betrayed the Truth cannot abide that any should appear for it they have hitherto been the chief movers to persecution for those Greater persons would never doubtlesse have defiled themselves with such actions as casting Gods Ministers out of their Possessions if some of these little Satans had not stood at their right hands to tempt them provoke them Now these persons specially those of mine old acquaintance do cry nothing but hanging hanging against me for I believe their sight of me puts them in mind of their own Apostacy from that way of Christ wherein formerly they walked with me they have confidently said it that the Parliament would hang me And why Because I was one among many others that had proved this unnaturall Warre to be unlawfull by Gods Word and had Vindicated sacred Scripture from those false and perverse glosses which for ill purposes were put upon it And these Prophets that in this particular at least themselves may appear true will do their best I beleeve with the Members of both Houses to make good the word which they have spoken for those Lords and Gentlemen whom they relate unto if they can prevaile with them shall be all conditioned like Dionisius the Tirant of Siracuse who sent Philoxenus to the gallows because he would not flatter him But as the Prophet said so say I As for me behold I am in their hands let them do with me as seemeth meet good unto them c. It hath been mine endeavour this seaven years day and my usuall Prayer that I may be able to conclude as M. Bradford the Martyr did concerning those that had power over him viz. If they shall imprison me I le thanke them If they shall burn me I le thank them If they shall banish me I le thanke them but if they shall give me leave to preach the Gospell I le thank them more and I promise them withall by Gods grace to be a daily Petitioner for their Conversion and for the pardon of their sins And for my kind Brethren I will in requitall remember them of their destiny they may reade it themselves in Isay 9. 15. The Prophet that teacheth lies is the tail So in Mal. 2. 8. 9. The Lord speaking to some of their stamp saith Because ye have departed out of the way and caused my people to stumble therefore I le make you the most vile base contemptible among them Yea I doubt not e'relong but by most men they 'l be so reputed however of late they have been honoured and justly indeed do they merit to be the tail of the people for making themselves to be the tayl of the Dragon which they have manifestly done by their casting down the Stars from Heaven the Orthodox Ministers out of Christs Church But when this their day of contempt is come and they are assaulted as that Popish Doctor Bourn was in Queen Maries dayes even in the Pulpit from whence they have vented their lies and blasphemies as to this it will come I hope if I live to see it I shall have grace to approve my selfe to them as Master Bradford did to him and help to conduct them away in safety from vulgar rage perswade the people to rest quiet for thus it becomes the true Gospel No disaffection have I now as God knows unto their persons though I professe my selfe a perfect enemy to their courses But now good Readers to leave them there remains onely two requests which I make to you The first is this That you would not think amisse of the most High and Honourable Court of Parliament for those evils that are done in these daies under its name and if any suggest that such or such passages in this my Book are against the same believe them not for I professe unto you I neither do nor dare think the supreme Court of Justice in this Kingdome to be all one with sinne or that Oppression Sacriledge Rebellion Popery and those other Evils which I inveigh against are the Actions of that when God shall please to restore unto us a true Parliament you shall see all these things amended and the Authours of them severely punished Have still therefore a Reverend esteem of Parliaments Secondly I desire that you would not conceive any bitternesse in me or in my Book against the persons of those men that now are called the Parliament as perhaps some may fancy because my usage hath not been good for I professe here also unto you that I do not apprehend my self in respect of my self to have any true cause of hate towards them I thank God I can say to them as the Apostle to his Galathians You have not hurt me at all Nay rather I hope they have been the means to make me in some sort a better Christian. The Causes of my sufferings as I learned at first from some of themselves were these foure I hinted them indeed to the world before in my Loyall Subjects Belief and referre them now to your judgements whether they may not occasion comfort and rejoycing in me yea and love too towards them rather then hatred or ill affections The first was as I was then told because I was an honest man and thereby did more hurt to their Cause being opposite to it in the Country where I was known then an hundred knaves what greater Honour could they do me then by affording this Testimony of me This reason I confesse from their mouths was apprehended by me as a timely intimation and call from God to doe their cause from thence forth what hurt I could which by his power I have since endeavoured and by his grace shall continue so to doe unto my lives end The second
low an ebbe as to suffer Him with silence to be blasphemed He is in His Agony ought we therefore to sleep upon his Crosse should we therefore leave him True love alwayes shareth with its Object and appeareth most in a storme Josephs of Aremathea did so Christ shewed his love to us when we had yet no strength so the Apostle Ought not we therefore to shew ours to our King when His strength is gone How else shall we approve our selves Christs members It was the speech of one to his Prince at the dawning of the Gospels light from the mists of Popery Tu me gladio ego te calamo and shall we that have seen the bright day be able to say no more surely it becomes us rather to say in this manner Although You Deare Soveraigne are not able with Your Sword to defend us yet we must and will with our pens to the danger of our lives defend You we should be ready to lay downe our lives for our Brethren as Saint John tels us much more then to hazard them for the sake of our Publike Father Let this serve to justifie my selfe in this my performance of duty against such as think in regard of my meannesse that I take too much upon me and also to Answer such Politique friends as are apt to disswade loyall affections from discovering themselves this way till the King be again in a rising condition Now if any in their reading this my Vindication shall conceive me too sharp sometimes and plain in my speaking of those against whom I write I desire such before they censure to remember That t is the dignity of the Highest and most Sacred Person under Heaven that I defend And is there not a cause to be zealous against them who have defamed and reviled him Wherefore should such dead dogs dead in trespasses and sins curse my Lord the King and I even contemptible I not be moved with the same A Polititian may haply speak from his braine about the Honour and Duty belonging to a King without any touch or sense of heart but I am a plaine man and cannot write coldly or without affection about things I hold deare and precious Againe I desire such before they judge to consider also the condition of that faction against whom I write they are a generation of people that have done more disgrace and wrong to Christs Gospel then ever was offered since Christs time Never did any in so short a space ascend to that Zenith of villany as they have done or pretend more godlinesse with the practice of so much wickednesse The Papists in 3. or 400. yeeres were never able to reach that superlative pitch of dissimulation hypocrisie pride and cruelty as these have done in 3. or 4. These are the men that were wont to brag that Never any Puritan was knowne to be in any Treason but Bishops alwayes so Layton affirms if we will beleeve him in his Sions Plea But were it so the Scene we are sure is now quite altered by themselves for the grandest Treason and Rebellion that ever was is now in action upon the Stage of the world wherein are acting all the Puritans and no Bishops He then and the Smectymnists since and Prin after them took great pains with much spleen to reckon up many severall actions in severall Ages wherein Prelates had been molestfull to the Princes of our Land and the world supposing they did the same in dislike and hatred of Rebellion did commend their zeale in so doing but now it appeares from what hath followed upon the same that they did it rather to another end namely to set forth the better their owne dexterity in a thing of like nature to shew that their owne faction when they set to it could doe more in one Act and Age then all those others had done in many Wherefore if their Gall then against Bishops was accounted Godlinesse I desire that my tartnesse now against themselves for going deeper in the same condemned paths may not be accounted bitternesse God knows my soule is grieved at those very thoughts which arise in me sometime against many of these men once my deare and intimate acquaintance and were I not forced in this manner to disclose their unchristian wares from meere necessity in defence of impugned truth and to warne the world to avoid the contagion of seducement I should not take that course in describing them which I confesse is rather more excusable where it cannot then commonly where it can be spared Furthermore if any shall conceive that my expressions are not so respective as they think is meet towards those now above-board called the Parliament who are the Heads of this disloyall Faction I desire such to observe me well that I speak not against any as they are Parliament men or as Honourable in this world but onely as they are Rebels to the King and Enemies to Christs Gospel Nor doe I apprehend as appeares upon grounds in my discourse that they who are guilty of these grand enormities are any true Members however they reckon themselves of that high Court which I honour with my truest affections as the very Palladium of the Kingdome But those whom I vent my zeale against I beleeve to be persons designed of God for the publique abhorment and scorn of all men even because they have by this wicked Libel exposed the Lords Anointed to be as Christ was Ludibrium hominum opprobrium populi for whoever will doe the Jews work must look to be paid with the Jews wages and therefore I hold that without offence to God I may yea and I ought to speak and think of them as I doe nor must I be a respecter of any in my opposing sin but if I look to dwell on Gods holy Hill I must despise the vile how great soever Besides the example of Christ is my warrant in this case for he as a Preacher did speak against such like conditioned men with as much severity of expression as I have done He call'd them vipers and children of the Devil though they were of great esteeme both with themselves and others And t is well knowne what manner of language Elias used to the worshippers of Baal and in what method and words among other godly men Lurther in Germany Savanarola in Italy Philip Morney in France Cyprian Valera in Spaine and John Fox in England did tax and discover the corruptions of the Papacie Yea as in the Preface to the Book of Martyrs is shewne God in all Ages hath stirred up some to lay open freely to the abused world the hypocrisie and villany of those wolvish people that bore sway in their severall generations Nor will God suffer them in these dayes to goe long unmasked under false shewes He will stir up spirits who in love to his holy truth and hatred of sin shal describe them at large in their proper colours yea and transmit
they should not Effect to vex him to death or some way or other to bring him to his grave all their labour would be in vain and to little purpose and how can they consider of this without great grief and sorrow of heart But these good men our subtile Brethren doe here pretend that their sorrow is because their Prince is Seduced out of his proper spheare yet verily we on the other side do consider of this with more true Sorrow I dare say then they do for we confess never was Prince so far seduced out of his proper sphear as he was when He took them who now call themselves his great Counsell to be Honest men when He gave so much credit to their promises and protestations as to be perswaded by them to signe the Bill for the Continuation of that unhappy Parliament then O then be was seduced indeed from his proper spheare wherein his Father set and left him with this caution Alwaies to be suspicious of the Puritanicall faction and never to trust them above all people in the world as being for ingratitude lyes and perjuries surpassing the High-land theeves and Borderers His Seduction from this Paternal advise was the root and cause of all our Miseries and therefore with sorrow of heart we his Loyall Subjects cannot but thinke upon it But to do these men right they mention their sorrow here for the Kings Seduction to another purpose namely as a Preface to that which follows M. Dike in his book of the deceitfulness of mans heart sets down not for imitation as these take it but for discovery the method of a cunning Hypocrite in his venting a slander First saies he to gain Credit with the hearers he pretends great affection to the party against whom he is minded to speak professing that with great grief and sorrow of heart he doth think of him hoping yet that he is onely missed and seduced and so makes a long Preamble to this purpose as if the fault he intends to mention were as grievous to him as a blow with a Cudgell and then at last out comes the slander which his viperous tongue layes on with as much spight as malice is able these I remember are M. Dikes words Now after this very manner and in the same Method do these our subtile Brethren speake to us concerning their Soveraigne whom they are about to slander and defame First they tell us in some obscure and generall terms of strange Titles which the King bestowes upon his great Councell which say they we return not again but consider with sorrow that it comes from a Prince not so Naturally inclined as we hope for we would fain think better of him but Seduced from his proper spheare misled by ill Councell And so much for the Preface Now to the main businesse and let all Christian people observe it well how these good Sorrowfull men that promised even now to give no opprobrious Language will describe their Soveraigne He is say they One that hath left that seat in which he ought and hath bound himself to fit to sit as the Psalmist saies in the Chaire of the scornfull and to the ruine almost of three Kingdomes hath walked in the Councells of the ungodly Now 't is out and it conteines in our apprehensions these 6 Articles against the King 1. That the King hath not only neglected to perform his Office but voluntarily and upon no occasion moving hath left and forsaken his proper place and duty 2. That in the roome thereof he hath made choice of the Scorners Chaire which is the highest seat or throne of wickedness 3. That he hath even bound himself Prentice as it were by oath and Covenant to that trade of scorning 4. That he hath resolved to follow that profession so long as he lives for he hath bound himself to sit yea to sit scil for ever in the Chaire of the scornfull 5. That his aymes and endeavours only are and have been to ruine three whole Kingdomes which even almost he had effected 6. That to this very end and for no other reason as must be supposed he hath abandoned the Society of most Holy and good men and linked himself by a indissolvable tye to the Society of the wicked whose ungodly counsell he alwaies walketh in These are the particulars in this their first charge against the King but my purpose being to uncase these Hypocritical and blasphemous men I shall first lay open to the world the full meaning of their hearts in a true Paraphrase upon their words and then I shall shew how false and scandalous they be in every respect against his Majesty unto whom they naturally owe and solemnely have sworne obedience But first let me beg pardon of my Lord and Soveraigne and crave of all Loyall hearts that it be not imputed for an indecorum or want of Reverence in me to Kingly Honour if some of my words concerning His Sacred person do sound unseemly and unbecomming Let it be considered that I speak not my self but other men whose Hellish intentions toward their Prince are so black that 't is impossible to expresse them in a language meetly Reverend He that openeth rotten sepulchers may though unwillingly be offensive Secondly I desire of all men that I may not be thought by my manner of speaking to intend the working of any contempt in peoples hearts against the High Court of Parliament which being called in the Kings name by his Writ and acting under the obedience of just and regall power are with all Honour and Reverence to be thought upon and spoken of Yea and God knowes my heart abhors to be an instrument of working disesteem against any persons of this present Assembly who have pious and loyall affections in them as I beleeve there be divers even in this very Body that do truly detest the present proceedings of some of their fellow-members I do here profess to all the world though I use the name of Parliament and Great Councell in answer to these Libellers yet I meane onely the present swaying and prevailing faction in the two Houses who are and have been the Countenancers of all these abuses against their Soveraigne and the causers of all our sorrowes and who they in particular are I doubt not but in due time God the Supreame Judge will Evidence to this whole Kingdome This with all Humility premised and implored I proceed as followeth SECT IV. 1. The Nature of their Charge opened 2. Their vilanous and bloudy Scope therein clearely Evidenced and proved 3. How perfectly in their Tenents they hold with the Jesuites in the points of King-killing and King-deposing fully declared THe Charge or Bill of Attainder against the King together with the Reason why 't is thus published to us and to the people by these His most dutifull and loving Subjects who take upon them to be His Accusers according to their own full and clear meaning may be rendred more at
upon you Moses and Aaron cryed those Grand Rebells when themselves onely did so And one who had sold himselfe to work wickednesse layed it to the charge of good Elias that he troubled Israel because his guilty Conscience told him that the Prophet and all other honest men beside had cause to accuse him for so doing and this is the very case of these men who as we see have done nothing in this particular without President and example though we confesse in respect of the Circumstances these men are more bitterly scornfull then ever any were that we read of in Scripture or elsewhere It was bitterly done of the Philistimes when they had weakned Sampson and brought him into an afflicted condition to mock and scorne at him in his misery yet they did not in those their mocks charge him with scorning them And the Persecutors of our Saviour did deal bitterly with him when in derision they Crown'd him with Thornes put a Reed into his hand in stead of a Scepter called him King bowed the knee to Him and then advanced him upon a Crosse instead of a Throne yet they did not at that time in their scoffing and flouting expressions say that His Crosse was the Chair of the Scornfull and that he being fastened to that did sit in the Scorners seat and scorne at them But these men are pleased even thus to deale with their King and Soveraigne as all the world may see by their Language so that the King hath cause to complain in the words of the Psalme Our soule is exceedingly filled with the scornings of them that be at ease and with the contempt of the proud And we his Subjects will pray in his behalfe as the Psalmist in another place Let the lying lips be put to silence O Lord which thus cruelly thus disdainfully and thus despightfully speake against the Righteous And we are confident as the Wiseman sayes that the High and Holy God scorneth at these scorners and hath prepared heavy judgements for them SECT VI. First of the Kings Errour in following evill Councellours and who they were His Majesty scorn'd at by the Libellers for his tendernesse of Conscience and hopes in Gods Justice 2. The folly and falshood of the Libellers Charge against Strafford and Canterbury 3. The Enemies acquit the King of having a voluntary hand in Straffords death 4. They hint the right Reason of his withdrawing from Westminster THe next particular which these honest and good men as they would be accounted doe charge their King withall is that He hath walked in the Councells of the ungodly to the ruine almost of three Kingdomes Indeed it cannot be denyed the King hath been exceeding unhappy in his Councellours and himselfe doth intimate that his walking after their advise hath been a main cause of Gods judgment upon this Kingdome His words to this purpose are these Paper 22. Nothing can be more Evident then that Straffords Innocent bloud hath been one of the great causes of Gods Judgement upon this Nation by a furious Civill Warre both sides being hitherto almost equally punished as being in a manner equally guilty but now this last crying bloud being totally theirs I beleeve it is no presumption hereafter to hope that his hand of Justice must be heavier upon them and lighter upon us looking now upon our Cause having passed by our faults This Christian and pious ackowledgement of the King these men scoff at in their Notes upon it and deride at that remorse of Conscience which his Majesty discovers for his permitting the shedding of Straffords bloud He left him say they to the Block against Conscience as is now alleadged and again Remorse of Conscience suggesteth to the King c. Yea and they doe seem to glory in what themselves did do to the spilling of it and to rejoyce that none but themselves had a hand in the death of Canterbury Yea and further how slightfully if not scoffingly doe they speak of the Kings mentioning Gods Hand of Justice in the businesse Their words are these Pag. 49. The King in his Letter of Jan. 14. takes it as evident that Straffords innocent bloud has brought the Judgement of this Civill warre equally upon both sides both being equally guilty thereof His meaning is that he and his side was as guilty in permitting as the Parliament was in prosecuting But now for Canterburies bloud that being totally put upon the Parliaments score he doubts not but the Hand of Justice will from henceforth totally lay the weight of this guilt upon the Parliaments side Yet the Kings words are I beleeve it is no presumption hereafter to hope that his hand of Justice must be heavier upon them Considering the time when this their scornfull Comment upon the Kings expressions came forth viz. immediately after their Victory at Nazeby field by their Victorious Sir Thomas Fairfax for so they call him we understand their sence to be this The King talks of Gods Hand of Justice and doubts not but the same will from the time of Canterburies death lay the weight of the guilt of bloud totally upon our side Victorious Sir Thomas Fairfax hath answered him sufficiently in that particular and declared to the world what his hopes in Gods Justice are come to well let him please himselfe still in those fancies so long as we have the â—â—nd of Victorius Sir Thomas Fairfax on our side we will give him leave to flatter himself in that Hand of Justice he speaks of c. And yet let these scoffers of these last times that say Where is the promise of his comming for since the father fell a sleepe all things continue as succesfull as they did before let them I say know that Gods Justice may awaken soon enough to their Confusion Quod defertur non aufertur the longer the blow is in comming the heavier will its fall be Fortuna belli semper ancipiti in loco est the day of the Lord will come suddenly upon them as a thief in the night Quos dies vidit veniens superbos hos dies vidit fugiens jacentes But they go on in that place and inform us who those ungodly ones were whose Councell in this other place they say the King has followed to the ruine almost of three Kingdomes Their words are these The truth is Strafford and Canterbury were the chief firebrands of this war the two ill Councellours that chiefly incensed the King against the Scots and endeavoured to subject all the three Kingdomes to a new Arbitrary Government and are now justly executed for attempting the subversion of that Law which the King has perfected since Because dead folkes cannot speak for themselves and because it is so Voted therefore Strafford and Canterbury were the chief fire-brands of this war and so for truth it must be taken though one of them was quite extinct a year before this war begun and the other kept by his
the true reason of his departure thence to be that he might not speake destruction to his people but safety and Honour still if possible that he might not imbrew his hands in the bloud of innocent and Loyall Subjects against Law and Conscience yea surely lest the rest of that guilt of bloud which he saw was likely to be spilt should be charged upon the Head of him and his posterity He withdrew himselfe from their society and did for the present even abhorre to be amongst them When God pleaseth we see he can make men speak truth whether they will or no. And truly let any man who hath Conscience judge in the matter whether the King did not do prudently and conscientiously in his forsaking them when he perceived their purpose and resolution was to have him sit there amongst them onely with a Reed or Pen in his Hand to signe and own as his Act and Deed whatever they alone should vouchsafe to do that so they might cast the blame and Odium of all their Injustice afterwards upon him which is most apparent they would have done if he had stayed for being by his departure frustrate of such their intentions they seem to cast it all upon the people by those words if no resistance be used Straffords President will cast Canterbury and Canterburies all the rest of the Conspiratours and so the people will make good their ancient freedome still As if the people of their own accords without being requested thereunto or sollicited by others for the upholding and making good some Ancient Priviledge which they formerly had enjoyed and now if the King were able to make resistance were in danger to be deprived of Had desired that those men Strafford and Canterbury should be put to death onely by their Votes and not by Law Indeed I read that in Heathen Rome the People had such a Custome to voice men to death and such men they should commonly be as had done the Common-wealth best service and from the Custome perhaps it was that Pilat a Romane Magistrate did permit the people of the Jewes against all Law and right to voice Christ to be crucified But I never heard that the people of England were wont to do so in any age till this new Arbritrary Government was set up And we beleeve it will be easier for these Libellers to make the people as the world now goes with many of them Pagans and Jewes in such desires then to prove that any such Custome did ever yet hitherto belong unto them nor will it availe much to the peoples comforts at the great day or to their own securities in the mean while if now they should purchase any such Priviledge But I leave the People to consider of this matter themselves and returne to these King-accusers who have themselves well answered their own accusation against their Soveraigne and declared the true Reason of his leaving his Seat at Westminster to which they might have added another viz. Gods calling him from thence both by his Word and Providence 1. By his Word which a King as well as another man is bound to observe and give heed unto My Sonne if sinners entice thee consent thou not if they say let us lay wait for bloud let us lurke privily for the innocent without cause c. My sonne walke not thou in the way with them refraine thy foot from their path for their feet run to evill and make haste to shed bloud 2. By his Providence in his permitting the tumultuous people to rise against him and to force him from thence Consule providentiam Dei cum verbo Dei sayes one and when with the Word Providence concurs there is doubtless a speciall call from heaven But the King having these grounds of withdrawing himselfe some may wonder why in that former place they so heavily charge him to have walked to the ruine of his three Kingdomes by abhorring his Seat and Councell as if his leaving that were the sole cause of all our woe I answer in a word Their reason I conceive is because the King being of a soft and tender conscience is unwilling to beare the guilt therefore he shall whether he will or no if they can help him to it beare all the blame being unchargeable of reall evils he shall be burdened with imaginary the Devill and his Members desire no greater advantage against those they hate then to see them meekly scrupulous nor doe they please themselves better in any thing then in loading with slanders and tormenting the righteous when they see them to be in an afflicted condition Shimei cursed his Soveraigne and falsly called him A bloudy man and the destroyer of Sauls house because â—e saw him in a low condition So these men fancie they may say any evill against their King because he is in an afflicted condition they may speak to his farther griefe because he is already grieved But as David in that place sayes so say we It may be the Lord will look upon the affliction of his Anointed and will requite good the sooner to him even for these their accursed and false scandals of him And O our God our eyes are towards thee we will waite for thy salvation And thus I hope I have now made it apparent that there is as little of Verity as there is of Piety in that reproachfull Charge which these ill disposed Libellers these Martin Mar-kings have cast upon their Soveraigne now we shall observe how they proceed They address their speech to the Reader in generall whom they suppose to be either a Friend or an Enemy to their cause and say If thou art well affected to the Cause of Liberty and Religion which the two Parliaments of England and Scotland now maintain against a Combination of all the Papists in Europe almost especially the bloudy Tigres of Ireland and some of the Prelaticall Court Faction in England thou wilt be abundantly satisfied with these Letters here Printed and take notice how the Court hath been Cajold by the Papists and we the more beleeving Protestants by the Court SECT VII 1. What that Liberty is which the pretended Parliament doe maintaine 2. And what that Religion may be which they are about to set up Reasons to shew it may haply be the Popish or peradventure the Turkish 3. Six Arguments to prove it cannot be the Christian Protestant THe Reader may be well affected to that Reformed Religion which Gods holy and pure Word teacheth which the Church of England this fourscore yeares last past hath pulikly professed and to that Liberty which Christianity alloweth which the Subjects of this Land above any other in the World most happily have enjoyed under their Soveraigne Princes and which the Parliaments of this Kingdome before this have concurred in the establishing of and yet no way affected to that cause of Liberty and Religion which these men speake of Nay if the Reader may judge of Liberty and Religion by its
also noted the same that this was the course which Julian the Apostate took in his dayes He having a purpose as these have to ruine the profession of Christianity Used not the sword as Dioclesian did though these indeed to make the work more speedy doe act Dioclesian too but he took away the means of the Clergies subsistance knowing full well that if maintenance once failed the number of Preachers would not long continue The said Julian also would tell the Bishops and Pastors when he stripped them of all they had that in so doing He had a speciall care of their soules health because the Gospell commended Poverty unto them Such like flowts at the Doctrine of Christ doth often fall from lips of the Apostates of these days 5. By their pulling downe all Christian order and formes of publicke Worship and Service tending to decency and edification by casting down defiling and defaming the Houses of God turning many of them into Stables Slaughter-houses Prisons and Jakes they have made close-stooles of Fonts and Pulpits and done as bad to Communion Tables they have rent the holy Bible in pieces scorned at the Sacraments Baptized Horses robbed Churches of Sacramentall Utensils as Plate Linnen calling it Idolatrous and Superstitious because it had been only used in Christs service nay the poore innocent Bells because they have been the meanes of calling people together to Worship God and to adore the Saviour of the World must be pulled down and turned into Guns that they may be another while Instruments of destruction to the Members of Jesus this indeed as I read was the manner of the Turkes when they tooke Constantinople they melted the Bells into Ordnances In a word what ever evill or impiety the Enemies were wont to slander our Church withall these men have acted or suffered to be done by those whom they maintaine insomuch that now the Priests of Rome shall not speak only lyes as heretofore when they tell the people That in England they abolish Church Sacraments the meanes of Salvation they either raze or rob Churches wheresoever they come and make Stables of them that they will neither have Temples nor forme of Religion nor doe they serve God any way yea the English Nation is growne so barbarous that they are very Canniballs and devoure one another God knowes my Soul abhorres to thinke much more to name those things that are acted done amongst as nor should my pen be fouled with the mention of them were they not visible to so many eyes and did not necessity of defending impugned Truth and an abused Church restraine me But I would have all the Papists understand for to that end do I thus speak that we who are of the true Protestant Christian Religion do abhor and loath these practices as much as any and are persecuted to death by them that do them for our dislike of them 6. By their suppression and demolition of all Monuments of Christianity that there might be seen no more tokens of it in the Kingdome as if they intended that no man should be able hereafter to say this Land was once Christian The very festivall times when the Birth Death Resurrection Ascension of our Saviour is commemorated which next to the Preaching of Gods Word and Administration of the Sacraments have been the most speciall means to confirme mens faith in the History of Christ these they have inhibited and forbidden as if they hated his very remembrance Gods wisdome appointed the Feast of Passeover to be kept as an Ordinance for ever among the Jewes to minde them of their deliverance from Aegypt and to be a mean to assure their Children in after-Ages of the truth of that great mercy And the Church conceiving that our deliverance from sinne and Satan by the Birth Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ to be as a great a deliverance as that other and to deserve as well to be remembred did also apprehend that way or mean to be the best to convey the notice of it to Posterity which Gods owne Wisdome devised and that was by celebrating Annuall Festivalls in memoriall thereof but these men it seemes have resolved to the contrary for they will not have the same kept any longer in remembrance Nay that miraculous Thorne at Glassenbury which was wont to celebrate the Festivall of Christs Nativity by putting forth its leaves and flowers was cut in pieces by these Militia men that it might no longer Preach unto men the Birth day of their Saviour But what doe I speake of dayes and times and teaching Trees the very Doctrine it selfe which Christ himselfe taught and practised viz. the Doctrine of Peace Patience and passive obedience unto Princes is reckoned obsolete and uselesse by these men it was publickly maintained by a certaine worthlesse Member at a great Committee in the Checquer Chamber that such Doctrines were out of date in these dayes and had been onely proper to former times when the Church was in a low Condition and under the Persecution of Heathen Emperours Nay these men would not that any true Christian Protestant should have leave to live to relate unto posterity the Doctrine of his Saviour as seemeth by their doings their thirst for Protestant Bloud appeareth to be such as if they desired that all of that Profession in the world had but one Head that so they might cut it off at one blow for they have shed already more of it within these foure yeares then ever was shed in Great Brittaine since the world began and that for no other cause that we yet know for they never durst come to dispute it with us then for holding to the Doctrine of Christs Gospell because we will not contrary to that lift up our hands with them against our Soveraigne By these particulars and many others which I might alleadge it is evident what ever they pretend to the contrary that their endeavours are to destroy the Christian Protestant Religion Our Saviour doth warrant us to judge of men by their fruits wherefore t is no marvaile if the Reader being a true Protestant Christian be not well affected to that cause of Liberty and Religion which the two Parliaments of England and Scotland do seeme to maintaine SECT VIII 1. Of the feigned Combination against the Parliament 2. Our judgement of the Papists and of their assisting the King 3. Our abhorment of the Cruelties of the Irish and how they are out-gone by the English Rebells 4. Our Opinion of the Court Faction of what flock we are 5. How the Libellers call themselves the more beleeving sort of people BUt the Reason insinuated by our Subtile Brethren why men should be affected to that their cause is taken from the Consideration of the Persons against whom as they say t is maintained viz. against a combination of all the Papists of Europe almost especially the bloudy Tigres of Ireland and some of the Prelaticall and Court Faction in England That
thereof but more of this hereafter 2. Concerning the Bloudy Tigres of Ireland we doe abhorre their Cruelties and beleeve that their damnation sleepeth not but shall in Gods due time over-take and over-whelme them But we must adde farther that the Tigres of England even many of those whom they call the Parliament side have been full as Bloudy nay more Bloudy and base then those of Ireland who have persecuted with fire and sword from among them those only that were of a differing Religion and Nation unto themselves but these here have handled them of their own Country and Religion after the same manner never any Tygres so thirsted after the Bloud of their nearest kindred and best friends as these in England have done nor can any villany be named that was acted by them in that Kingdome which hath not been done and out-done by those in this these also have raised a Rebellion against their Soveraigne and in pursuance thereof have killed slaine and destroyed men women and children in some places where they have come these also have stripped people of both Sexes naked and then shut them up in Churches together or other places and afterward have come and in a barbarous and beastly maner have whipped and scourged them these also have rosted Christians at the fire and burnt them by piece-meales their toes from their feet and their fingers from their hands striking up halfe a dozen Drums in the meane time that the shreeks and cryes of the tormented might not be heard to move pitty in any towards them which was the custome of them in old time that Sacrificed Children unto Moloske was it ever heard that the Tigres of Ireland or the Spaniards in the Indies did ever act any such Cruelties upon them of their owne Faith and Nation Indeed modesty restraines from expressing all their doings and did I delight to make men odious as well as sinne I could name the Persons by whose Command and Authority some of these things have been Acted and the places where they have been done And confident I am if Master Fox were now alive to search into all the places where these Parliament Tigres have come and to write their doings the volume would be three times as big as his former and repleat with as Savage Actions as ever yet were recorded by the Pen of Man Onely this I must say further I have not heard that the Tigres of Ireland have shewn so much immediate spight against God and Christ in demolishing all markes of Christianity in destroying polluting and defiling the Temples of Gods Worship as these of England have done t is true we hear that since they have got our Churches into their possessions they have in their superstitious way consecrated them anew And truely had our Tigres of England been there and used the Churches of that Kingdome as they have done them in this there had been great need of a new Consecration Wherefore concluding this particular I will only speak to these men who have thus mentioned the Tigres of Ireland as our Saviour in the Gospell did to some of like Conditions You Hypocrites can you see Tigrely doings in your Brethren of Ireland And can you not discern these more Tigrely and bloudy Actions which are committed by your selves Amend first for shame your own doings and then you may speak with more credit against the Evills of others 3. Concerning the third sort viz. those some of the Prelaticall and Court Faction in England which these men cry out also upon to be of the Combination we doe confesse there hath been and perhaps still are some about the Court or that have too near a relation to it whom we doe dislike as much and more too then these men doe and we have reason for it they are such as neither serve God nor the King so faithfully as they ought to doe but are either secret pensioners unto his enemies pursuing their ends notwithstanding their pretendings and engagements to His Majesty or else they are slaves to their owne proper lusts making provisions only for their owne Flesh and Belly notwithstanding Gods wrath upon the Kingdome and from these is the speciall cause that the Kings affaires goe on so badly as they doe these be the men who by their Power and Authority have countenanced and advanced the vile even to abuse spoile and dishearten the good lest the Lustre of inferiours merits should discover the worthlesnesse of those that are in place above them and give too happy a progresse to His Majesties businesse Of which sort are they who when by their Treacheries Indiscretions Negligences or ill Governed behaviours Townes and Countrys are lost good undertakings nulled or made frustrate can very unreverendly and undutifully lay the fault upon the Kings ill fortune yea and tax His Majesty of this or that so making his Candour the Napkin as it were to wipe the filth from their own Noses These men we would that all the world should know we do dislike and perfectly abhorre for such their workes sake even as we doe the Irish Tigres or the Men of Westminster themselves But we do beleeve and know that besides these the King hath a Company belonging to him both of the Nobility of the Gentry and of the Clergy our subtile Brethren may call them a faction if they will or even what else they please that are both truly Religious and truly Loyall that have sacrificed their fortunes and are every one ready to sacrifice their lives too in defence of their holy Protestant Religion and of their King and Country that do truly mourn for the miseries of this Church and State yea many of them stand like Mary and John as being able perhaps to do little else looking with watery eyes upon their innocent and righteous Soveraigne whom they behold in their Saviours Condition Crucified between Theeves on both sides And of this flock we do professe our selves to be and to it we resolve by Gods Grace to adhere for ever although we should see every of them to be in the Kings very case and Condition wronged every way and abused by both their parties even as he no we will not leave to be on their side in this cause though we beleeve them to be the men whom together with the King the Heads of the Association made at London have vowed to destroy We know that the Lord whom we serve is able to deliver us from their cruell hands but if not let all the People know that we will never fall down before that many-Headed Idoll which they have set up or rather which hath advanced it selfe to be adored by the People And this is our Answer to these subtile men who by a tale of strange Combination did think as it seemes to perswade us to forsake the King and to adhere to his Enemies But they tell the Reader further Thou say they wilt be abundantly satisfied with these Letters here Printed and take
of them being sent by the rest into the Country to pick their neighbours purses whilest they have been perswading the poor Country-man to new Loanes and Charges for the maintenance of this unchristian and unnatural War Providence as must be pretended did usually at the very instant time send some Letter or other wherein was related with thanks to the people for their former assistance what a great Victory by the help of God and them the Parliament had lately obtained against the Kings Forces with little or no loss to themselves so that now the work was in a manner quite done one Contribution more would finish the Business These Letters were suspected even by the abused people themselves to be but meer forgeries devised on purpose to cozen them of their Monies when afterward they understood there had been no such Victories at that time verily those that dare belie Gods Providence and forge Letters from that may be suspected wil be as bold with the King in pursuance of their own designs against him But say they if the Parliament were guilty of any such forgery the King in his Letters which have been intercepted would have objected the same The word intercepted might have been omitted for if in any of the Kings Letters which have by Accident come into their Hands any such thing were objected yea and sufficiently proved yet we are confident of their wisdome so far that we dare say for them they would never have divulged the same nor suffered the world to know of it if they themselves could help But for their whole Argument 't is only negative and therefore weak and fallible The King hath not accused them of forgery Ergo they are not guilty thereof is no necessary consequent There is many a Malefactor in the Kingdom that deserves hanging yet was never brought to his trial is he therefore innocent As it doth not follow that they are most faulty that are most ill spoken of no more doth it on the contrary that they are most free from blame that are least taxed But if the King hath not objected forgery unto them the more is his goodness and wisdome he that desires peace with his Adversary is sparing even in his just objections that no obstruction be cast in by him as a bar to union whereas they that love strife though themselves have already offered most wrong yet are stil most ful of clamours and when they can find no faults to object they 'l invent some to keep the fire burning doubtless if the New great Seal be remembred it must be acknowledged by all men that the King hath had more cause to accuse them of forgery then ever they had yet to Accuse him of Perjury but by their own Confession we see the King hath been more careful of their credit then they have been of his Honour or of their own Souls But being conscious of the weakness of their Argument they hope to strengthen it with a second which is nihil ad nos as the other was nihil ad rem 't is their appeal to the Kings own Conscience who say they cannot disavow his own handwriting this may indeed be aliquid ad regem but what is it to the Reader Would they have every one in these Kingdoms and beyond the Seas to whom they have dispersed these Copies make a journy to ask the King whether these Letters were of His own Hand-writing And to this second they adde a third which is even like the former they tel the Reader that all the Ciphers Letters all the Circumstances of time and fact and the very hand by which they are Signed so generally known and now exposed to the view of all will aver for them that no such forgery could â—e possible And yet the Reader all the while sees nothing but only that which comes from the hand of the Printer or did he see the very Cyphers or original Letters they speak of were the hand wherewith they were Signed exposed generally to the view of all could all men know it to be the Kings or swear it were nto forged I suppose not unless He had first submitted his faith and judgment to believe only as the Parliament Voteth In a word I conceive that not withstanding all they say to the contrary they who forged the Kings Seal may possibly forge Letters under the Kings Name I do not Accuse any to have so done only I speak thus to shew that their Arguments are not so convincing as themselves think Forgery in this case might be possible But they come to the second objection which they believe may be made against their Notes upon these Letters and say As to our Comments and Annotations if there be not perspicuity and modesty in them there is no common Justice nor place for credit left among mankind SECT X. 1. Of that perspicuity and Modesty which the Libellers boast to be in their own Annotations 2. Their pretty confident way of perswading all men to be of their Opinions 3. Their Reasons why they did not publish all they had against the King IF any shal dislike these Comments and Annotations upon the Kings Letters He is confuted in these words very substantially for the Authors of them say that they are all very good and we know men can best judge of their own works they can give the fairest interpretation of their own doings the Crow can see beauty in her own bird though none else can so these men can see perspicuity and modesty in their own Notes yea so confident they are that their sight is good their judgment true that they dare boldly conclude there is no Common Justice or faith left amongst men if all mankind be not of their Opinion in this particular Was not this stoutly spoken Are not these valiant men We see they are resolved to hold their own though all mankind say to the contrary Truly upon this their commendation their Notes have been read over again and again and I profess I can see no perspicuity at all in them unless of spight and malice which indeed I find set forth with the Highest and most transcendent impudency against Soveraign Majesty as I believe ever Mankind saw Nay I dare affirm it that never any Protestant Christian Subjects did discover the like under Countenance of such an Authority as these pretend And I require these boasters to shew but one word or expression savouring of true modesty and Christian reverence to their King in all their Annotations and I promise them it shal excuse with me a multitude of their other errours Nay let their own Consciences speak concerning this perspicuity which they talk of whether they did not on purpose transpose these Letters in this their publication of them inverting the Order wherein they were written setting some that were first last and some that were last first that so their dependance upon each other being broken they might be lesse perspicuous to the Reader
of the Kingdome more frequently taught or better fed did they ever in any Nation under the Sun injoy more Peace and Happiness then they did all the time of His Reigne untill this unhappy Parliament turned all things up-side down and so made us of all Christians in the world well-nigh the most miserable and disconsolate Certainly though the Parliament Ministers are pleased to cry out in their Rethorick O the Affliction the Misery the Wormwood and the Gall of those times Yet Posterity in after Ages will acknowledge that the Nobility Gentry Clergy Citizens and Common-people of this Nation in the General did all arrive at the height of earthly happiness in King Charles his time whilest he alone did sway the English Scepter It is true there were Particular grievances from particular men both in Church and Common-wealth and can it be expected otherwise while we live in this world and some good men haply did suffer some hard usage at the hands of evill but did the King ever stop His eares at any Petition Did He ever deny Justice to any that did require it Or did He ever harden His Heart from shewing mercy where ere it was needful There was perhaps much whispering abroad and murmuring in Corners but was there alwayes a cause Mans Nature is apt some time to complaine for nothing even when there is more reason to be thankfull I will name the main particulars of offence and let the world judge what matter of blame did truly arise from them unto the King 1. The Bishops were cryed out upon to be too Rigorous but hath not the carriages of that faction which the Bishops did oppose since they have gotten Head largely acquitted them of that imputation in the judgement of all wise men surely they forefaw the mischief which we all now feel and did labour as became them in their places to prevent the same Perhaps every of them did not go the best way to work nor did use such apt Instruments as the case and time required I justifie no man in all particulars and perhaps too some of us who are now imprisoned banished and divested of all we have by this Reforming Parliament did in those dayes suffer more molestation from some of their unworthy Officers then many of those did who since that time have been most revengefull Three factious fellows had their ears clipt by the sentence of the Lords in the Star-Chamber and were set in the Pillory and this was exclaimed upon for great cruelty in the Bishops because they having been abused by them did not beg their pardon but how truly their necks also deserved the Hâ—lter hath well appeared by the late temper of their spirits and the little good use they have made of that their too small and gentle chastisement 2. The Star-Chamber and high Commission were two great Eye-sores for many great and heavy fines were layd on men for their sins sake in those Courts by the Kings Nobles and Judges some of whom are now great men with His greatest Enemies But how many of those fines did His Majesty in His tendernesse and goodnesse afterwards remit or cause to be mitigated and since the people would so have it He hath now given way even before the Act of continuing the Parliament that those Courts should be suppressed and so be no more offensive 3. Many people of the Kingdome voluntarily departed hence to New-England and this was pretended persecution from some who differed in opinion from them whom they called their Antichristian Enemies but now t is plainly apparent by that spirit which stayed behind in some of their fellowes that the true cause of their departure was only pride In themselves Cesar-like they could allow of no superiour either in Church or State no Bishop no King perhaps some of them might have tender Consciences through weaknesse or mis-information and some of the plainer sort might be honest men and went for company with the rest they knew not whither in the simplicity of their Spirits But t is well known they had all the countenance of the King and Councell to further them in the voyage and Plantation they carryed their Wealth and Goods with them and had supply of relief sent them continually from this Kingdome afterward untill this Warre caused the returne of many of them to help forward the destruction of their native soile and Country Indeed some are of opinion that they went to New-England only to learn and inure themselves to shed mans bloud we hear of few of the Heathens converted by them but of many masacred and by accustoming themselves to slaughter Infidells they have learned without scruple to murder Christians are better proficients then the Spaniards themselves in destroying those of their own Nation and Religion But as was said when they went first from hence they were suffered to carry their wealth with them they were not used as they and their faction use us who now suffer at their hands for our Conscience and the Gospell sake They take away all our goods make us beggars and then afterward if they do not murder us or starve us in prison they banish us into strange and desolate places with scarce cloaths on our backs to seek our fortunes 4. Great Complaints also there was of monopolies people payed an halfpenny more for a thousand of Pins then they were wont to doe and almost half a farding more for a pound of Sope and Starch then in former times when money was not so plentifull and such like heavy grievances did mightily oppresse them and made them weary of the Kings Government because He did permit of such things And yet the Excize upon bread and beer and flesh and cloathes and such like things as are sold in the market for mans use or spent in families was not then set up the Monopolizers durst not be so detrimental to the poor Subjects of this Kingdom while the King had the sole power in His Hands But since they got to be Members and Favourites of the Parliament they with their fellowes have Epimetheus-like opened this Pandorâ—'s Box and let loose amongst us all those Dutch miseries and they say the people are content to have it so though perhaps when they have been pilled or milked a few yeares longger by these new-State men it will be confessed that the Old Government viz. that of the King was far the better and the more easie 5. But the greatest complaint of all was Ship-money Ship-mony O that was a grievous burden indeed not to be stood under for a twentieth Part a fift Part weekly Contributions billetting of Souldiers seizing on Rents plundring of houses cutting of throats ravishing of women deflowring of Virgins and such like matters were not yet in fashion nor yet felt or known by the people of the Kingdome and therefore Ship-mony that was the great grievance But was not Ship-mony disputed and judged Legall before His Majesty did require it And when
not the King fight with his Enemies at their own weapons and oppose strangers to strangers Papists to Papists Is it so great a sin in him to use such men and are they no whit to be blamed for the same thing may not he with as much dependance upon God do in his necessity what they do in the midst of plenty may they imploy forrein aid to thrust him out of his inheritance and may not he with as good leave make use of the like to keep the possession of what God hath given him surely upon this consideration if the King for his part be worthy of censure they also deserve a portion of the same Condemnation no honest man but is of this judgment This is that advice which I propound to the indifferent Readers and which I conceive to be most agreeable to Christs Gospel if they now please to follow it they may through Gods blessing not only be kept out of a sinful path but also have better satisfaction in the matter discoursed upon then they are likely to receive from these Annotators whom I write against for these High-boys say plainly that all such who are not of their opinion are perfect Malignants and not worthy of any reply or satisfaction at all in this point viz. at their hands And they further proceed saying Our Cause is stil the same as it was when the King first took Arms and as it was when the King made most of these Oaths and Professions Our three Propositions concerning the Abolition of Episcopacy the Setling the Militia of the three Kingdoms in good hands by the advise of Parliament the Vindication of the Irish Rebels being all our main demands at the Treaty in February last and no other then the Propositions sent in June 1642. before any stroak struck wil bear us witness that we rather have straitned then enlarged our Complaints But were our case altered as it is not or were we worse Rebels then formerly c. These words are added to evidence their former And the Argument in them stands thus If our Cause be stil the same as at the Beginning and our selves as bad Rebels as we were at first then the King is such a one as we do repute him or would have him believed to be and those that think better of him are perfect Malignants and as unworthy of future satisfaction as we judge them But our Cause is stil the same as it was at the first and we are as bad Rebels as at the beginning Ergo. The Minor in this syllogisme we shal easily grant But did we not understand how unworthy we are in their account of any reply we should be bold to deny the Major For we conceive not how either the unalterableness of their Cause or their persistency in maintaining it can prove the King who opposeth both it and them to be as they report him Indeed if their reports of him were of a clean contrary nature to what they are the Argument might wel stand for the longer he perseveres to resist Rebellion and rebellious men the more fully doth he approve himself according to his Title and Profession The Defender of the true Faith and a tender Father of his Country for the continuance of their cause and of them in their way speaks a continuance if not an increase of their strength and this must needs infer a decrease of the Kings Power because what they have is taken from him and the Kings weakness affords an opportunity of shewing his own true worth He being debarred of outward assistance and supportments is separated from that which makes disfigured Monsters look handsomly Patience is a more substantial virtue then temperance and he that endures famishing without alteration hath more virtue then he that comes from a feast without a surfeit But I wil not spend words to them that list not to reply wherfore desiring all men to observe the simpleness and insufficiency of their Argument for the proof of what they would have it I shal shew the reason why their Cause is stil the same as at the beginning when the King first took up Arms in his own defence It is in a word because themselves are stil the same Traitâ—rs Heady High-minded lovers of themselves of their own lusts and wils more then of God their King and Country nor indeed can men ever love where they have cause to fear they must stil mistrust without all hope of reconciling whom they have injured beyond all remedy of amends Injuriam qui tulit oblivisci potest qui fecit nunquam though the King in his goodness may forgive yet they in their guiltiness cannot believe and therfore they are stil the same men and their Cause is stil the same Besides they have entangâ—ed themselves in such a labyrinth of mischiefs as in their own apprehensions they have no place left of acknowledging their error without a total ruine both of their Estates and Persons therfore also having learned the wisdome of Spes quisque sibi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are stil the same men and their cause is stil the same And moreover too should they deny themselves in the least particular or retract an hairs breadth from their first position what a Jealousie might it breed in peoples heads of their infallibility how easily might those whom they have led all this while on the blind side suspect them also erronious in other matters and so might they come to be despised in those minds wherin hitherto they have been enshrined with all devotions Peoples love is commonly according to their hope it grows and fades with it therfore should their hopes in these new State-men begin to fail their love towards them might fail too yea and perhaps be turned into hatred of them and so people returning to their former Loyalty might force those grand Imposters that have seduced them to yeild up the Militia to its right owner and betake themselves to the due order of their predecessours in former Parliaments which to do as yet they have no intention and therfore are stil the same men and their Cause is stil the same as at the first when they forced their Soveraign in his own defence to make use of those few Arms his friends brought him even to maintaine that breath which God had given him At which time to disswade if possible from this un natural War which he saw they did intend and foresaw would be destructive to his poor Subjects the King endevoured to heal their ulcered minds with all Princely favours and true shews of trust to which purpose he made many of those promises which they reckon up in a reproachful way as not performed by him at the end of their notes and wanting other means to manifest further the reality of his heart in those his professions they having robbed him of all his power he did for their very sakes that they might have the more assured confidence confirm his
promises with an Oath but they being otherwise resolved as now appears would themselves believe neither nor would they so much as in them lay suffer any others to credit any thing which the King did say or swear How many loyally disposed Ministers did they imprison and take their livings from only for endevouring to make their Soveraigns honest mind known unto his Subjects by publishing his Declarations upon his Command to that purpose And how many times also did themselves set forth perverse notes and contradictory glosses upon the Kings Books that so the people might learn from them to misconstrue his sincere and good intentions Indeed because they were but new State-men many of us thought it rather an ignorance in them of wars miseries then any resolved purpose of acting Nero in destroying their own Mother Church and Nation which caused them at first to take up Arms for though an easie Capacity might foresee that they could do nothing by such an enterprise but increase their own sins and the sins of the Kingdom yet we were willing to lend what charity we could to the worst handed undertaking but their persistency in their savage course makes us now fear that even Ahab-like they strook at first of all a Covenant with Hel it self and sold themselves to work wickedness But alas alas besides their losse of Christ and God what wil they purchase hereby to themselves not the Titles of Fathers of their Country as they might have done had they behaved themselves accordingly and believed their Soveraign But Masters of a slaughtery wil they be called because they delight so much in the slaughtery of mankind Posterity wil judge them to have bin Satans darlings in their generation the fore-men of his shop whom he imployed to act his most glorious Stratagems his generosa scelera his choicest villanies his divina mysteria iniquitatis his divine mysteries of iniquity Indeed they have Manasseh-like filled the Nation with innocent bloud and made the whole Land a very Acheldama or field therof And oh that it would please the Judge of all the world to deal with them as he did with that Manasseh bring them into Bonds and Chains that so if possible they might be humbled as he was before they go hence and be no more but I return to them It is yeilded as they see that 't was the truth they spake when they said their Cause was stil the same as when the King first took Arms and as when he made most of his Oaths and professions And so in like sort is our God the same stil as when the King was first at Nottingham and there set up his Standerd But they tel us further to their former purpose that their demands at the Treaty in February were no other then those sent in June 1642. before any stroke struck Which Argument they repeat over the second time in the 53. Page of their notes to the same end also our demands say they at Uxbridge in February 1644. were the very same as they were in June 1642. indeed they are as bold as high as unreasonable to the full Ergo say they The King hath no reason to look upon us now any otherwise then as he did then All this is very true who denyes it these men sure love to dispute with their own shadows The King had cause to look upon them then as he doth now though now he hath cause to express himself further against them then he did then It is the course which God himself takes when people Rebell against him He endeauours at first to reduce them by promises and allurements unto obedience but if they slight and contemn these and oppose him the more for his lenity and goodness he then useth to express himself with more wrath and severity against them and hath reason for it we doe not apprehend that the King can transgress whatever these wise men say so long as he walks in the way of God though he did not call them by their proper name at first yet now he may But for this their Argument which they seeme by their often use of it to be so proud of had they any true touch or tast of Christianity in them they would blush to use it The Propositions are the same now as they were two or three years agoe scilâ—ful as high full as unreasonable and is this to their commendation Is it to their praise that the shedding of so much Christian bloud hath wrought no Remorse at all in them no obedience at all to Gods word which commands if possible to live peaceably with all men no submission to their King who hath so often wooed them with the tenders of mercy and pardon to be quiet No Humanity no Piety to their poor native Countrey that lyes a bleeding to destruction is this a matter to be gloryed in now that they are still as stiffe as ever as far from practicing the first lesson in Christs Schoole the point of self-denyall as if they had never heard one word of Christianity surely this their glory will one day be their shame and God grant it may so be before the great day that then if possible they may find mercy Truely this their impenitency and hardnesse of heart may afford us great matter of Admiration that neither all the bloud that is shed nor Gods protection of the Kings person among so many treasons and dangers from their malice and against such multitudes of men who both by secret treacheryes open Hostilityes foul mouthes black pens and bloudy hands have endeavoured his ruine Nor yet those remarkable judgements upon Brook Hampden and Hotham three of the first instruments of motion in this Rebellion together with many other Notable Accidents of Gods providence upon many other of their Associates I say it may well be matter of amazement to us that none of these things have been able to worke any touch of Conscience or alteration unto good in them pray God therefore they be not given up to a Reprobate sense and that the seal of damnation be not set upon them Indeed they say they have rather straitned then enlarged their Complaint of which this their libellous and defamatory book is a sufficient witnesse their propositions also they have straitned from 19 to 3. but it is proportione Arithmeticâ non Geometricâ for these three containe in them fully as much as those 19 and more if possible Well but what be these 3. Propositions which they now stick so close unto themselves say they are these in their order The first concernes the Abolition of Episcopacy or pulling down of the Church The second concerns the settling the Militia of the Kingdome in good hands by the advice of the Parliament or the pulling down of the Kingdome or Kingly state The third concernes the Vindication of the Irish Rebells or the full completion of a perfect Babell Indeed the method is rightly suted for the restauration of a
Chaos First down with a well governed Church then with a wel ordered State and then a Butcherly confusion follows presently not onely in one but in all places But I shall take the boldness to make a few queres about the particulars SECT XIII 1. Of their Propositions at Uxbridge Foure Pretences for their Abolition of Episcopacy 2. Four true Reasons of that their sinfull request 1. WHy the Abolition of Episcopacy Was not their pretence and promise at first to make the Church Glorious and according to the Pattern of Primitive times and was not the Church then Governed by Bishops Was not the Doctrine and Discipline of this particular Church settled here in King Edwards dayes by Bishops who sealed the same afterward with their bloud and hath ever any particular Nationall Church so flourished as this hath here done under that Government did the first establishers of any other Ecclesiasticall Discipline ever give so reall and substanciall a Testimony of confirmation as these did to what they had in this kind done Or was their work ever approved with a like measure of Gods blessing Hath ever any one Church since the Ascension of our Saviour brought forth in four-score years space so many learned men defenders of verity and oppugners of Antichristianity So many able Preachers and expounders of holy Writ so many knowing Christians and well gifted people of all sorts as the Church of England hath done under the Government of Episcopacy And must it now be abolished in all haste For what causes I pray Pretences they have which we will first consider on and their true reasons afterward 1. They say because t is Impious Unlawfull and Antichristian Were then those Martyr Bishops Cranmer Ridly Hooper Latimer Farrer all Antichristian Were Jewell Downam Andrews Abbot King and many others of that Order that writ against Antichrist all themselves Antichristian Must Gods Wisdome now receive a check for suffering his Church to flourish thus long under a Government Antichristian Will this new Generation undertake to teach the Almighty also to rule his Flock and Family better then He hath hitherto done by their Abolition of Episcopacy Indeed some of them have taught that Hierarchie it self was Antichrist though Scripture speaking of Antichrist calls him a man of sin not a sinful Order if Hierarchy were any such thing but no marvail that those who think they can teach God himself do take upon them to contradict the Scripture O but say they the Romish Religion is Antichristian and the Government of that Church is by Episcopacy And yet this Government is more Ancient then that Religion as now professed and therefore that Religion cannot make it Antichristian Nor is that Church Antichristian because of that Government but rather because the precepts of men there like our Ordinances of Parliament here are preferred before the Word of God The Bishops there are called Antichristian because like our men of Westminster they are such abrogators of and such dispensers with Gods Lawes and such tyrannous exactors and importuners of their owne Because like them they are or have been at least some of them so treacherous in their pretences so barbarous in their executions so contrary in their doings to the meek and milde Doctrine of Christs Gospell breathing forth cruelty fire and sword against those that are not of their own opinion though no otherwise offending them then in their desiring to amend them Because they are in their conditions so like unto those that would from amongst us abolish Episcopacy therefore are the Bishops in the Romish Church called Antichristian and for no other reason Their Second Argument or pretence why Episcopacy must be Abolished is because say they all other Reformed Churches have abolished Bishops and till we have abolished them too Reformation will not be perfect in this Nation This Reason is false Or were it true yet the conclusion from it is most untrue The Churches in Denmark Swevia and Poland do retaine Episcopacy after the manner of the Greek and Russian Churches and those of Africk and the Easterne Countries And for those particular Churches that have abolished that Government it is first to be enquired before there be a conformity to their practice whether therein they have done well or no and whether since that time they have thrived better without it then we have done that have enjoyed it If it be remembred what is recorded to be said at the meeting at Dort to our English Divines by some of them that were sent thither from those other reformed Churches concerning their own unhappiness in respect of the want of such an Episcopal Government as ours was and concerning our Churches felicity in its enjoyment therof perhaps it would be concluded that this similitude aymed at with other Churches is only in misery and imperfections and that those other so admired Churches come short of ours in perfection of Reformation and not ours of them and of this opinion doubtless were those wise and learned Divines of the Religion as they are called in France who petitioned the Cardinal Richlieu as I have heard credibly reported that they might be permitted to have Bishops over their Congregations But he answered No for then you would have at least the face of a Church among you That learned Gentleman Sir Edwin Sands tels us in his Europae Speculum that the Papists are more awed with the Reformation of Religion in England then with that in any other Country and have bin says he more busie in their attempts against our Church as conceiving it to be most perfect of any other in regard of that peaceable and orderly alteration introduced therein which was not says he in a tumultuous headlong way as was that in other Churches but by the general consent of the Prince and Realm representatively assembled in solemn Parliament as also in regard of the continuation of the Government by Bishops and vocation of Ministers which the inconsiderate weakness of other Churches did not retain or rather the violent wickedness of profane men coveting the Churches possessions would not suffer Thus he But now we have amongst our selves some above-board who it seemes are resolved though with the destruction of Church and Kingdome to free the Papists from their Ancient dread they will have all things here as they are and have been in other Churches that former orderly Reformation which did so awe the Adversary shall be over-done and made perfect by an heady tumultuous innovation our Government by Bishops shall be quite abolished even root and branch and all the Churches Revenues shall be imployed to prophane uses that so we may be fully conformable to other Reformed Churches this is the issue of their second Argument Their 3. Pretence to the same purpose is this Bishops must be abolished because they have been specially of late such enemies unto and Persecutors of Gods People viz. those of their Faction For as if they were all Kings of China they
that truth and Loyalty which themselves also once professed and we stil maintain truly we have had such an ample experience already of their goodness in our preservation that we publickly profess to all the world we daily find in England what our poor captive Brethren do feel at Argier that there is no such cruel Turk as the Renegado Christian. When the sole power of the Sword or Militia was in the Kings Hand the poor Country-men as wel as the rich and Noble lived in peace slept securely under his own roof and without any fear did eat his bread with gladness he could say that what he had bought and payed for was his own and if any did injure or oppress him the Law was open to do him right But since these new Preservatours as they call themselves are risen up those Golden days are vanished and Iron times are come upon us Judgment is turned away backward and Justice standeth a far off Truth is fallen in the street and equity cannot enter Yea truth faileth and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey Esay 59. 14. 15. Our Nobles and Gentry are debased our Rich-men are beggered and many thousands of all sorts are killed or starved the whole Commonalty of the Kingdom in the General are in the same Condition with the Asses of France thought fit for nothing but blows and burdens no man can now command the use of his proper goods or the service of his own Children we hear daily of rapes and robberies burning of houses depopulation of Towns violence and oppression reigns in all places and confusion is poured out in ful measure among us insomuch that our wel-ordered Common-wealth that was is translated into a very Conjuration of Tyrannies by the means of these men whose aims and endevours are only to keep us in perpetual slavery Militari Jure by the Militia which yet forsooth they desire may be setled in their good hands for the peoples security and preservation 'T is true the people at first chose them and now they feel them and have cause to know them and to confess of them that they are very Scorpions to them and that their little finger is ten times heavier then the Kings Loynes The people chose them to be Arbytratours on their side against their King to comprimize as it were on their behalf some matter between the King and them for under that notion do the people commonly chuse their Parliament men and such shal only be carried on their shoulders whom they apprehend wil be most stiffe against their Soveraign as if he were the only great Enemy to their welfare and prosperity But by this time the greatest part of them we believe are otherwise instructed and as some of them have confessed their apprehensions of the King and Parliament as they stand now in the tearms contradistinct and opposite is like that which the Heathens have of God and the Devil as those adore the Devil with gifts and sacrifices for fear of mischief from him so do these the Parliament but God say the Heathens is good and wil do us no harm so say these is the King and therfore they neglect to do him service And doubtless might people have but liberty now to speak their minds freely they would utterly renounce the preservation of those their Arbitratours and desire again the Kings protection after the manner of former times And wheras these new Governours desire to have the Militia of three Kingdoms setled in their own hands for our greater security we must needs apprehend from the proof they have given us of what they promised us that this their pretence is but one of those bitter flouts which in scorn at our simplicities for thinking them to be honest men they cast upon us Sed Deus vindex God shal one day sit in judgment on them 4. They have said It would be to the Kings great glory to let them have the whole and perpetual managing of the Militia for then they should be fully able to make him the most glorious Prince in Christendome which thing they have a long time promised purposed and endevoured and all this fighting must be belâ—eved to be to that very end for had the King but tamely at first delivered up into their hands what God committed into his trusted them for ever with that Power and Authority wherwith God hath trusted him Had he but for their sakes denied God to be the only Ruler of Princes and acknowledged them his Governours and Guardians Had he but resigned unto them what King John his Predecessour once did unto the Pope they would have made the Pope their President in this as wel as they do in many other things and have returned it back again to him as he did to King John and so the King holding his Kingdom from thenceforth immediately of them they would have done more for him I that they would then ever his old Land-lord God Almighty either did or meant to do For wheras God made him King but only of England Scotland and Ireland they would have given him moreover all the Kingdoms of the World and the glory of them so that had not the King stood in his own light they had Conquered for him long ere this the Kingdoms of France and Spain and the Empire of Germany yea and the last year they had pulled out old Antichrist by the ears and burnt the whore Babylon with fire together with all of her Trinkets and at this very instant they had bin stepping over unto Constantinople for to ding down the great Turk and in the next half year the Mogull of Persia had bin taught to submit himself and then also the King of China had bin summoned to an account for his usurping the Title of Filius Coeli which is proper to no man living but only to those of their faction and by that time the Grand Chams of Tartary would have learned so much wit as to forbear calling themselves Domini Dominantium and to leave that stile wholly unto these superlative Abamocchoes And now who wil not say it had bin a Glorious thing to the King for the world to take notice that so great a brood of such mighty Alexanders should like that Cadmeyan Progeny start up on the sodain at one time in his Kingdom But it seems the King wanted faith and thought such great Acts might be sooner purposed then performed or else was jealous of these his Worthies that in their subduing of these Kingdoms they would not have dealt with him as Joab did with David at the taking of Rabbah and yeilded to him the glory of the Conquest Now whether the King were too blame or no in so thinking let wise men judge But let me reason a little with these men about this their reason Suppose the King should settle as they would have him the Militia of the Kingdom in their hands and then they should chance to Vote Bonum est
which they pretend they would inflict upon the Irish Rebells for that Protestant bloud shed by them would but the King give them leave so to do Truly if they would go themselves and fight it out with those Rebels in Ireland we dare affirm they shal have not only free leave but thanks too yea and moreover they shal have not only the usual boon of such Malefactors as act the executioners part upon their fellows viz. the grant of their own lives but by our consent they shal also be the very great Oes of Ireland and they shal hold this Dignity by their dearly affected Irish Law of Tanistry which is That he who is best able by force and violence to wrest unto himself the estates of others shal be the Chief Commander among them We perceive by their doings that they would set up that Law here in England in stead of all others which they have put out of date or use But we conceive it is not so suteable for this Nation where men have bin wont to enjoy their own and to leave their inheritance to their own Children and therfore we suppose it wil be an hard matter for them to introduce and settle the same here But in Ireland it is a custome established to their hand Yea and further yet upon Condition that they wil go thither and so we in this land may be rid of their Companies we wil all supplicate the King for a further favour in their behalf viz. that every great O amongst them may have the Honour to give the Earl of Tyrones own Arms which is a bloudy Hand for their own proper and most deserved Cognizance and that they may also be all Barons of that Strong Iland which Tyrone fortified and called Fough-na-Gaul the Hate of English-men For in very deed no man living did ever better merit that Title then they have done But alas we have read that Ireland harbours no venimous Vipers therfore we are confident the great Oes of Westminster wil never adventure thither in their own persons But if they can get the Militia of the Kingdom setled by the King wholly in their Hands that so they may fear no rising here against themselves they wil therwith force and press all the English people who wil not take their unlawful and ungodly Covenant which is in effect to renounce the Doctrine of Christs Gospel and their obedience to the King for ever and send them thither where they wil expose them to be starved or slaughtered as many thousands have bin already and therfore let all the Countries that have stood out longest in their Loyalty and at last accepted of these New Lords expect to be thus punished for their tardiness in Apostacy And for those lusty Club-men in the Counties of Wilts Somerset and Devon and the like let them look for this reward at the hands of their Militia-Masters for taking part with them against the Kings men Such fellows as wil gather together and make head against those that wrong and abuse them wil be dangerous to live in a New State They that did thus against the Cavaliers may do as much against the Round-heads when they are but a while as wel acquainted with their Conditions They that wil be forced from their Duty to their Soveraign and natural Liege-Lord by such wrongs and oppressions as in these troublesome times are offered to them by the unruly Soldiers wil be easily driven upon a like sensible occasion to make resistance against tyrannical usurpers those Beasts that wil decline from their Allegiance to the Kingly Lyon wil never long rest contented under the obedience of Cat-a-Mountains therfore a timely course must be taken with such persons they shal all be sent into Ireland out of hand and be hampered there for Ireland must be the continual Spain or Carthage to our New Rome to rid her of all such mutinous and tumultuous persons and then shal these Saints these Bloudy Butcherly Saints have free Elbow-room to inherit this land and having neither truth nor King nor Enemy left for to disease them they shal be at leisure if Pride and faction wil give them leave to live at peace together And thus have we seen the scope of the third demand also which concerneth Ireland Now from what hath been said concerning these matters let any man judge whether these men have not reasons to pursue their desires without giving back an hairs bredth from their first proposals and whether the King hath reason or no to consent unto them Nay whether the Subjects of England have cause to wish the Kings complyance with them in all these things for my part I profess sincerely in the sight of God I apprehend their demands to be the most unreasonable that were ever made and therfore do hope that God wil ere long awaken in the Kings behalf for such hath bin his wont formerly in cases of like nature When Nahash the Ammonite required of the men of Jabesh Gilead to purchase a quiet bondage under him that he might pul out their right Eys So when Benhadad required of the king of Israel his Strength Treasures Houses Wives Children and what ever was dear and pleasing unto him when Senacherib required of the people of Jerusalem to forsake their own natural King and to submit their necks under his yoak to yeild up themselves into his hands to be carried from their own good Land they knew not whither We find that God did continually awake in the behalf of each of these distressed and most severely punished every of these unreasonable demanders and doubtless he did so for the very unreasonableness of those their requests And shal not we believe that he wil awake now also when all these unreasonable demands proceed together at once and from the same men who first require the Abolition of Episcopacy there is Nahash request to pluck out our right Eies Secondly they require the Militia of the three Kingdoms that is Benhadads request for all that the King and his friends have Thirdly under the title of Vindicating the Irish Rebels they require that the people of this Kingdom should be at their disposal to translate from their own Native Country and never to see it any more there is Senacheribs request Therfore Awake Awake as in times of old O Lord our strength arise for our succour at this present and redeem us for thy mercies sake Behold O God our shield and Look upon the face of thine Anointed as thou art the Judge of all the Earth and helpest them to right that suffer wrong Amen Amen I now proceed to Answer these men who in their Libell go on and say But were our cause altered as it is not or were we worse Rebels then formerly as none can affirm that takes notice of our late sufferings and our strange patience even now after the discovery of these Papers and our late extraordinary success in the field Yet stil this
some others beside themselves as for example in a certain Dragon Rev. 12. 15. who when he had persecuted a woman there mentioned whom some interpret to be the Church of Christ and driven her into a wilderness i. e. into a low and desperate condition his patience provoked him to cast out of his mouth after her waters as a flood which as Expositors say were multitudes of slanders reproachful speeches scandalous reports and lies hoping therby to drown her honour and reputation for ever for they would be more easily believed of her in her affliction and to carry her away so far that she should never appear in any credible or comfortable condition more Nor did his patience end here but the Text tels us vers 17. that he went farther in the heat therof to make war with the remnant of her seed that keep the Commandment of God and have the testimony of Jesus We are sure this was such a patience which these men are seasoned withal and which they have shewn since their discovery of these Papers and do stil exercise towards their Soveraign and all that remain faithful and loyal to him Nay and farther too we must tel these men that this humour which they call patience in themselves though the name which they give it be somthing new yet for the nature of it 't is no whit strange or singular for many men before these times have bin infected with it Cain was when he kill'd his brother because his own works were evil and his brothers good and so was Nimrod that mighty Hunter before the Lord and oppressour of his neighbours Saul in the Old Testament was ful of this patience when the Evil Spirit was upon him and made him throw his Javelin against David at one time and against Jonathan at another and so was that Saul in the new Testament too at such time as he went panting up and down like a bloud-hound breathing forth threatnings against the People of God Shimei also was brim-ful to the very mouth of it when with his revilings and execrations he saluted David in the depth of his affliction and Achitophel did overflow therwith when in all haste he would have pursued his Soveraign while he was faint and weary This Patience was in Haman too when to be revenged for Mordecai's stifness he endevoured the ruine of the whole Jewish Nation it was in Nebuchadnezâ—ar also and made the form of his visage change against Sedrach Mesach and Abednego when in scruple of Conscience they refused to submit to an Ordinance of his almost as damnable as the Parliament Covenant And in the Scribes and Pharisees it was most plentifully abounding as appears by all their dealings with Christ and his Apostles Thus I say this condition which these men commend in themselves for the matter of it is not so new and strange though I confess the Name by which they call it seems so to be for it was wont to be tearmed Rage Cruelty Wrath and Fury and not Patience Yet I remember Master Fox tels us that Bishop Bonner and those of his bloudy Consistory in Queen Maries days who having with as much rage and passion as can be imagined handled and oppressed the Martyrs when they came to read the definitive sentence and to give them up to the secular power to be put to death were wont to make proclamation as these men here do to the whole world of their great meeknesse and strange Patience which they had used towards those obstinate Hereticks as they called them So that we see this Patience here mentioned is not only by Bishop Bonners Authority a strange Patience but also such a Patience as Master Fox himself doth make mention of in the Book of Martyrs But the poor Church of Christ hath felt enough and too much of this their Patience therefore at this time I wil speak no more of it onely I conclude in the words of the Prophet Micha The best of them is as a Bryer the most upright of them is sharper then the thorne Hedge The next thing they mention wherein they Triumph indeed and glory is their late extraordinary success in the field some perhaps may wonder how these three can accord together great sufferings strange Patience and extraordinary good success and all of late but they must remember that their Sufferings and Patience being of that kind as was shewed before may wel stand with extraordinary good success yea in such men as they are such sufferings and such patience are the natural fruits and dependants of prosperity and Extraordinary good Successe But by the way take notice of their end in yoaking these three together Prosperity and good successe which of old went currant onely among the Papists for a Note of the true Church is now admitted also by these men to be a speciall marke of the goodnesse of their cause but in regard our Religion hath hitherto taught that sufferings and patience were rather the marks of Christs true flock then extraordinary successe in the world therefore Euphoniae gratia for sound sake the name of sufferings and patience are still retained and joyned together here with extraordinary good successe Alteratio non fit in instanti if the Change from one extreame unto another should not be by degrees it would be too grosse and palpable but by that time the three Propositions be granted to them Extraordinary good successe will be able to stan alone and to go currant among all their Proselites for an unquestionable note of the true Church or cause it will not need the countenance of these two names of Suffering and Patience which shall from thenceforth be rejected and wholly disclaimed as infallible marks of Loyalty and Malignancy Indeed successe is the best Argument they have to win and hold people to themselves and to their Cause wherefore t is requisite that for further discovery I shew the invalidity and weaknesse of this their Argument But first for our better progresse therein we shall consider what this extraordinary successe is which they so brag and boast of and what are the true grounds and causes of it Their Successe I confesse to narrow Capacities and low braines may seeme as they call it extraordinary but to those that consider the causes of things together with the meanes and manner of their proceedings it appeareth nothing so T is well known how by fraud and policy they seized at unawares upon the Kings Militia and Navy How they ingrossed into their hands most of his Townes Castles Rents Revenues and all he had leaving him nothing of his owne to subsist on How they rooked to themselves all the Plate and Money of the Kingdome and how by the service of false Teachers they poysoned the hearts of his Subjects drew them from their Allegeance and armed them against him And having done all this they were able to get a Victory against him at Nazeby-field after they had taken
ill spoken of the same reason may be given for the enemies prevailing of late against the Kings men Though I doe not say that all on the Enemies side are free from this hellish sinne or so respectfull of Christ and God as the Turkes are in this particular for there are with them even with them also most horrid swearers and most execrable blasphemers but their evills hurt not us as our owne doe nor are so mis-becoming their Cause as ours are to that which we maintaine And indeed never any good undertaking had so many unworthy attendants such horrid blasphemers and wicked wretches as ours hath had I quake to think much more to speak what mine eares have heard from some of their lips but to discover them is not my present business a day may come when the world may see that we who adhere to the King for Conscience sake what ever is said of us to the contrary have as truly hated the prophanesse and vilenesse of our own men as we have done the disloyalty and Rebellion of the Enemy For indeed the truth is betwixt them both as betwixt two mil-stones the King his Cause and our selves too are ground in pieces and were the matter well opened it would appear that both those and these have had but one and the same end even to satisfie their owne lusts and enrich themselves with the ruines of their King and Country But without all question neglect of Religion and want of Discipline hath weakned and undone the Kings Armies O had His Sacred Majesties Commands and Orders for the exercise of both been put in Execution the Enemy had never been able to have stood before us 3. Popular Fury which is like the rushing of mighty waters comes also in to the making up of this Land-floud which gives the Adversary such occasion of glorying the Addition of the many though it can adde no true credit to their Cause yet it makes the successe appear extraordinary The People sayes Jeremy are foolish and know not Gods way and our Saviour sayes the Multitude walke in the broad way they are led much by mouth and noise and incline alwayes to the strongest their delights are to lift up those that are already up and to throw downe lower the already downe with them the winner hath alwayes praise let a man get power or prosperity how he can he shall not want vertue in their opinions A notable Testimony of this we have in that propheticall vision Rev. 13. wherein is foreshewn what shall fall out in these latter times we are there told of a certain Beast with many Heads whom all the world wonder after in regard of his Power and Authority which notwithstanding was not lawfull or rightly come by as the Text infers For the Dragon or Devill did give it to him and not God yet such was the blindness and fury of the People that they did worship and adore him for it And by the way let us here note that Satan is sometime said to give power by Gods permission as well as God and as that power which is gotten by honest and lawfull meanes is Gods gift of which kinde was that of Pilat though abused by him it was conferred upon him by the voluntary designement of Caesar the Supream Magistrate and therefore our Saviour saies it was of God or from above So that strength and Authority on the other side which is obtained by unlawfull courses is the gift of Satan and such was that of the many-headed Monster forementioned He is said to have received power from the Dragon because by fraud violence and unjust wayes he had gryped a great strength of the Militia into his hands whereby for a season he was succesefull in many designes Yea sayes the spirit vers 7. He made Warre with the Saints and overcame them He prevailed over men of all sorts small and great rich and poore free and bond and compelled them to receive a Marke or to take a Covenant and no man might live and trade buy or sell in all his Quarters that scrupled at it And in regard of this his great Power and success together all that dwelt upon the earth or in the Countries where he had to doe those onely excepted sayes the Text whose names were written in the booke of Life did worship the Beast wondered after him and admired him saying who is like unto the Beast who is able to make Warre with him And no doubt but the Beast did admire himselfe too for such his greatness and success among the People whose foolish and froward access indeed did make the same so extraordinary These I conceive are the chief causes of that prosperity which the enemy so much glories in what invisible reasons there be in Gods secret Councell for his permitting this I cannot tell but sure I am though the Adversaries may have received their power as that beast did to doe as they have done yet Gods Hand it selfe is in the Judgement as 't is a punishment And indeed we have sinned one with another and therefore are justly punished one by another we had made this happy and rich Kingdom the stage of our wickedness and therefore it is become unto us an Acheldama or field of blood and should God make it an Hell also for ever to torment us in it would be but our due merit and his true Justice Let us give God his due glory He is righteous in all his doings The Judgement indeed hath falne hitherto most heavy upon the Kings Family and Party and this I beleeve is of Gods speciall permission too but whether because Judgement doth usually begin at Gods own house or because we on that side are in the generall so sinfull and the best of us so little affected with these nationall miseries and so little humbled under our own I cannot tell Gods Councells are a great deep But let this be confessed to our shame of which I wish we could take more unto our selves for this is a time and season to do it in I thinke since the world began there was never so great a Judgement lesse laid to heart wherein so many are concerned then this is by us Alas Alas Who amongst us yet speaketh aright Who repenteth him of his wickedness Who lamenteth for his sin Who smites himselfe and sayes What have I done Every one in a manner still goes on â—in his old course and runs desperately upon his owne ruine even as the Horse that wanteth understanding rusheth into the battle We have those that seeme to hate Religion as much as the Rebells doe Loyalty yea that make Religion a mark of Rebellion even as they on the other side do make Rebellion a mark of Religion Nay I would they did not hate both Loyalty and Religion too sure they use those worst that are to both these best affected we must needs think that God hath an high indignation against such persons and disdaines sure
1. Another Charge against the King Confuted of Clandestine proceedings 2. The Kings condemning all that be Protestants at Oxford a most impudent and malicious slander 3. His toleration of Idolatry another The Occasion of the Kings promising to take away the Penall Lawes concerning Papists 4. The Reasonablenesse of that promise at that time and upon that occasion 5. The Objection of the Kings former resolution to the contrary answered As also of his promise not to Abolish the Laws against them HEre is a new Charge upon the King consisting of many particulars 1. Clandestine proceedings against them at Westminster 2. Condemning all that are in any degree Protestants at Oxford 3. Granting a Toleration of Idolatry to Papists 4. Indemnity to the murderous Irish And all these are aggravated by three main Circumstances one from the time inferred in the word yet stil another from the manner of working in a close truding way and the third from the end for meer particular advantage all which put together make the King in their judgements uncapable of all defence unlesse by the falsest of men living who as they say are in general Papists in special Jesuites These men surely having read in the 9. of John the Pharisees trick of affrighting people from professing Christ do here make an experiment of it hoping for a like effect that as none durst speak in Christs behalf for fear of exclusion from the Synagogue and of being accounted as an Heathen or a Publican So none wil dare to contradict what they have said or to speak a word in the Kings defence for fear of exclusion from their approbation and of being reckoned the very worst of men a Papist nay a Jesuite and used accordingly But perhaps here in they are not so wise as they would be taken nitimur in vetitum we love in these daies to look narrowly into things forbidden this bridle they would put upon us makes us believe that they seek to smother those beams of wisdome and to suppresse those sparks of truth which if layed to view in these Letters would quickly fâ—ie into their faces and give the Lie to their observations If they be able to Justifie what they say why should they bar any man Liberty of opposing truth fears no stirring nor do honest men fear sifting we are commanded to prove all things to the end we may hold fast only that which is good Wherefore notwithstanding the danger layed before me I shal obey God in doing my duty to the truth and to my Soveraign I wil examine the accusation as it lies and begin with their yet stil or first Circumstance Yet stil must needs according to Grammar have reference to what precedes as wel as to that which follows that which precedes is their late extraordinary successe in the field scil when these Papers were surprised that which follows is the relation of diverse crimes which as must be supposed they have found in these Papers now yet stil is uttered as an aggravation of the said crimes as if after their extraordinary successe which must be believed spake Gods approbation of their cause the King had been guilty of that which they lay to his Charge out of the said Papers and had written all that is found amisse in them after they were surprized So that yet stil imports thus much Notwithstanding Gods manifestation of himself against the King by the late extraordinary successe in the field which the holy and blessed Parliament had against him He contrary to this conviction hath used clandestine proceedings against them at Westminster hath condemned all that were in any degree Protestants at Oxford hath granted a Toleration of Idolatry to Papists and indemnity to the Murderous Irish and what ever beside is liable to blame according to their fenses in these Letters But this pretty Aggravation of theirs is but a bare circumstance and therefore I passe it over only with this little notice The Charge it self follows which consists of an huge heap of hainous words resembling a man of straw that at first blush carries some proportion to our seeming but being felt and poized is discovered to be a meer vanity serving onely to fray Crowes 1. They cry out of Clandestine proceedings scil against them at Westminster for by us here none else can be intended these it seems they would have in the first place to be marked with a Noli me tangere and great reason for it many fields in England have bin watered with humane bloud to keep them from being touched they have deserved so abundantly well of their Country and Nation in keeping safe the Religion Peace and Wealth thereof without any the least Schism breach or diminution that it were a mortal sin but to think amisse of them Wherefore the King must needs be much too blame for using any clandestine proceedings against them at Westminster and the rather because they were never guilty of any clandestine proceedings against him They went openly to work in all that ever they did told him at first when he called them together what he should look for at their hands yea and when they sued unto him to sign their Bil for continuing the Parliament they plainly declared how they would serve him that they would seize first upon his Magazines and Navy and then raise a bloudy War against him that they would separate his Wife from him and hunt his Person up and down the Kingdom rob him of all his Wealth and the Hearts of his people they foretold him of all nor had they ever any private Conventicles before hand to plot their businesse nor since their meeting did they ever make use of a close Committee They never had any Clandestine packing with those of Scotland nor with any other of any other Nation but have done all things clearly and in the face of the Sun If ought hath befel the King to his dislike or distaste he may thank himself only for it for he knew their minds before hand they hid nothing from him and therefore it must needs be granted that the King doth very ill to use any Clandestine proceedings against such honest plain-dealing men as those be that sit at Westminster But by the way what are these Clandestine proceedings trow ye why we must look into these his Letters for them wherin we shall finde him plotting with his Queen about bringing the Treaty at Uxbridge on foot againe and to make her the Instrument thereof could there be but a pre-assurance that the Rebells would submit to reason Thou saies he art the fittest Person to be the meanes of so happy and glorious a worke as is the peace of this Kingdome Pap. 2. was not here Clandestine proceedings now and a dangerous conspiracy against them at Westminster who are resolved to have no peace till all be destroyed Againe he doth advise his Queen being in France to enquire whether Lenthall the Speaker according to his own brag doth keep a strict
intelligence with the Cardinall Mazarine Though I will not swear saies he that Lenthall says true yet I am sure 't is fit for thee to know Pap. 1. Here was another Clandestine businesse And further he doth consult with her about supplies of Men Monies and Powder for defence of his life against them of Westminster Pap. 3. and gives her direction for the conveyance of it in some other Papers a businesse Clandestine and shrewd too And in Paper 6. he assures her in private that Hertogen the Irish Agent was an arrant Knave a particular which might concerne the men of Westminster and touch them more close then perhaps every body will yet beleeve Besides in most of these Letters we shall finde the King and his Queen comforting and supporting each other under their heavy burdens with mutuall intimation of perfect love and patheticall expressions of conjugall affection All which are notable proceedings indeed against them at Westminster and great obstructions to their endevours which are to breake the Hearts of both and sinke them to their graves presently And thus we see the nature and danger of the first particular in the Charge concerning Clandestine proceedings which are so evident that we can say nothing against it The 2. followes the proof whereof is more and obscure and that is condemning all that are in any degree Protestants in Oxford by which they would have it beleeved that the King is so great an Enemy to Protestant Religion that his very friends at Oxford who have forsaken all they had for his sake are hated by him for their Religion sake so many of them as are Protestants in any degree But how this is manifest in these his Papers we are to seek for though these men have forehead enough to affirme it yet their fortune is not good enough to prove it Indeed we find the King in his Letters to Ormond Paper 16. and in his Directions to his Commissioners at Uxbridge taking great care and giving strict Charge for the preservation of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland but in no place can we see so much as a sillable tending to the condemnation of Protestant Religion But these men cannot leave their old trade of Taxing the King with their own Conditions Heaven and Earth can witnesse that never was there in England greater enemies to Protestant Religion then themselves have been never was there so much Protestant Bloud spilt in this Nation since the beginning of the world as hath been by their meanes within these foure years Never was London so full of Prisons never the Prisons so full of Protestant Divines Protestant Nobles Gentry and Christians of all sorts as they have been since these good men kept Court at Westminster Besides how they have Countenanced and brought into the Church all kinde of Sects and Heresies to the ruine of Protestantisme which the King for the Honour and Health thereof was alwayes carefull to suppresse and keep out How have they maintained and preached Doctrines of Devills scil of strife murder of Brethren Rebellion against Princes oppression of neighbours and practised the same which are all directly opposite to the Religion of the Protestants How have they abolished the Book of Common-Prayer established by Parliament to be the Protestants publick forme of Worshiping and serving God in this Kingdome Had the King done but any one of these things or were he not himselfe a most constant and zealous Professour of Protestant Religion in his daily practice these men might happily have had some Colour for this their confident Charge against him and so to have created suspitions of him But seeing all things are so cleare contrary we learne onely thus much from this particular on their charge that they are men whose hearts are not overspiced with honesty They passe not what they say nor with what face so they say no truth The third particular which they load their King withall is Tolleration of Idolatry to Papists which they speak as if Idolatry sub eo nomine were already allowed and set up by the Kings Authority in contempt of God and true Religion and so doubtlesse they would have it apprehended Reasonable men will yeild that there is a difference betwixt Idolatry and the Penalty thereof the penalty may be suspended altered or taken away for the time and yet the sinne it selfe not tollerated or allowed These doubty Champions will not yeild that their Parlia have granted a tolleration to Adultery though they have abrogated the penal Lawes against that sin and so taken away the meanes to punish it Nor can they prove that the King hath promised any more to Papists then the Parliament hath already granted to fornicatours In their after-notes where they make repetition of this matter they referre the Reader to Paper the 8. for their ground of it In which we finde the King relating to His Queen how the English Rebells had transmitted the Commands of Ireland from the Crowne of England to the Scots an expression worthy by the way to be observed by all Englishmen that regard the honour of their Nation considering that the King Himself is a Scot and that the men of Westminster intend if they cannot kill Him to thrust Him and His Children as some of their Hang-bies have whispered to His Ancient Inheritance in Scotland when they have made use of His People of that Nation to help to destroy His Kingly Power here not one Scot of them all shall have any footing or any more to doe in this Kingdome I say considering this every true Englishman hath cause most highly to reverence the King for His Justice unto and His care of the dignity of the English Crown But to proceed the King tells His Queen that by that Act that base and ignoble act He found Reformation of the Church not to be as they pretended the end of this Rebellion and concludes it would be no piety but presumption rather in Himselfe not to use all lawfull meanes to maintaine His righteous Cause And as one mean to that purpose not thought of before He gives His Queen leave to promise in His Name that all penall Lawes in England against Roman Catholicks shall be taken away as soone sayes He as God shall inable me to doe it upon this Conditiion so as by their meanes I may have so powerfull assistance as may deserve so great a favour and inable me to doe it Now how truly from these words that accusation is collected let the Readers Judge Here they see is no absolute grant or tolleration of Idolatry as they pretend but only a conditionary promise of withdrawing the penall Statutes against the Papists His Subjects if by their meanes He may be delivered from this bloudy raging and malicious persecution of the Puritans and settled in His power and throne again And well may the Papists expect as much favour from the King for such a service as Adulterers have had already from the Parliament gratis Nor perhaps
will the King appear so aboundantly culpable in this case as these men would have Him if these 3. following particulars be well considered upon 1. The lawfulnesse of using the ayde of Papists specially being His own Subjects in case of life and extremity of which I have spoaken somewhat before to which I referre the Reader All that the Enemy can object is the Kings Resolution to the contrary at the beginning of this Rebellion His words to this purpose they faile not to alleadge in the end of their observations Pag. 55. where also they tell us that the King made a strict Proclamation for the punishing those of that Religion that should presume to list themselves under Him and that a way by Oath was prescribed for discrimination of them and instructions granted to the Commissioners of Array in all places to dis-arme them All which doth but speak His Majesties full purpose of keeping his Resolution for the King doubtlesse did verily beleeve till experience taught the contrary that Protestant Religion had such a power in the hearts of those that pretended so much unto it that they would never suffer Him their Soveraigne and protectour to stand in need of the help of Papists to defend Him And these men in the same place confesse that at the battle of Edge-hill the Papists were taken into the Kings Army of meere necessity and they alleadge in scorne the excuse as they call it which the King gave for the same namely that by law they were prohibited Armes in time of peace and not in time of Warre which distinction say these bore date long after the Warre begun but that was want of invention only perhaps so for who could have beleeved that men of their pretendings should prove so highly vile and base as they have done in driving their King to such exigents or that the People of our Religion should prove so ingratefull as to leave their Soveraigne and protector so desolate as that contrary to His own Resolution He must be forced in defence of His life to use those of another Religion and be put to excuse Himself by that distinction This makes me remember that in Seneca when Hercules familie was abused Ingrata tellus nemo ad Herculeae Domus auxilia venit vidit hoc tantum nefas defensus Orbis 2. The time when this Letter unto the Queen was writ wherein this promise was made and the occasion moving thereunto The time His accusers confesse was March 5. 1644. immediately after the breaking up of the Treaty at Uxbridge when all hopes of peace by way of an accommodation were frustrate and dissolved when the Kings affaires were very low and the enemy high having newly taken the Town of Shrewsbury one of His Majesties best Garrisons And the particular moving him at that time to think of this meane of procuring assistance from his Subjects of that Religion was as appeares in the Letter His discovery that the English Rebels had so much as in them lay transmitted the command of Ireland from him to the Scots Which might easily perswade him that their purpose was to take that of England unto themselves and so his whole Authority in all his Dominions being totally rent from him and divided amongst them he was like to be but a Sans terrae or a Cipher signifying just nothing in his three Kingdomes which also spake plainly to his Conscience that it was nothing lesse then Reformation of Religion what ever was pretended that the Puritane Rebels aymed at upon which considerations he concluded with himselfe as the Letter infers That it would be no Piety at all but plain Presumption in him to neglect any lawfull meane for defence of himselfe and that authority which God had entrusted him withall or still to stand upon scruples which word the malitious Observatours Pag. 45. would have the people take speciall notice of and truly what is it but a Scruple a needlesse Scruple for any to question whether a Protestant Prince should use the helpe of Papists in case of necessity to defend himself in his naturall rights and Royalties it being not onely lawfull but according to his Office and duty to preserve his Crown and Dignity by the help of his Subjects of what Religion soever they being by the providence of God lotted under his Government as the proper meanes and Instruments for that very purpose Wherefore now at length though the King had not hitherto as himself saies though of this meane scil with intent to use it yet upon this occasion and consideration I give thee leave says he to promise in my name that I will take away c. 3. The thing promised which is the taking away the penall Statutes against the Papists provided that in this his necessity they afford him that powerfull assistance as shall inable him to do it And truely if extraordinary successe be such a full proof of a good cause as these Libellers would now have it and the King by the assistance of his Popish Subjects should obtaine the same against his Puritan Rebells then their cause and Religion must for another while be concluded the best and this Argument being fore-swallowed much wrong should they have in the worlds deeme if at least He whom they have enabled should not suffer them to enjoy the free use of it under his protection And besides if we do but consider the Carriages of the Rebells themselves what allowance they have given and what promises they have made to men of all Sects and Religions for to purchase their assistance in taking from the King his inheritance and Authority What advantages they have made of the Kings fore-mentioned purpose and promise not to use the ayd of Papists How they have sued for that assistance which he resolved against and have entertained many of that Religion into their Armies and what proffers they have made to those whom they could not prevaile with to help them only to sit still and not help him I say if we consider of these things this promise which the King made will not appeare so unreasonable to men of understanding as these would have it But they Accuse the King afterward for offering this to the Queen in behalf of the Papists without either her or their request It may be easily beleeved that they have sued for it heretofore Besides if it be but considered what the fashion of the world is now come to be since the Puritans pricked up their ears Namely to Capitulate and bargain with their King for what they shall have and what he will grant before any duty or service shall be afforded to him and then too if it be remembred what large and unreasonable demands the Kings worst deserving subjects do require at His hands onely for the purchase of life and peace to himselfe and his people No man will wonder if the King do think the Papists will look at least for Liberty of Conscience and Religion under him when by their
his Word in cases of this Nature But I returne again to these men Who would have us by these their words of His Maj. soliciting the King of Denmark and in him all other Princes to take notice that he calls in forraign Aide which fault they amplifie over and over in other places for though themselves may without offence or sinne call in another Nation and hire them with I know not how many 1000. Pounds a moneth to help them cut the throats of their Country-men yea and may make use of any forreiners in the world of what Nation Religion or Spirit soever they be to help them to destroy and pull down Monarchy yet the King may not without exclamation desire the aide of a Protestant Prince no not of his neerest Kinsman the King of Denmark to uphold the same But what is the reason that the King must be confined to this restraint themselves walk so much at Liberty Why they tell us at the end of their notes that the King had made resolutions and promises that he would never bring in forreine forces Which themselues indeed never did nor ever intended for doubtlesse they resolved at first to bring their defignes to passe by any meanes and rather then faile to get assistance Flectere si superos nequeunt Acheroâ—â—a movere and therefore themselves are free and do as they please whereas the King is entangled in his own promises They say Pag. 58. As to the bringing in of forrain forces The King Mar. 9. 1641. in his Declaration from Newmarket saith Whatsoever you are advertised from Rome Venice Paris of the Popes Nuncios soliciting Spain and France for forrain â—ydes We are confident no sober honest man can beleeve Us so desperate or senselesse to entertain such designes as would not onely bury this Our Kingdome in soddain destruction and ruine but Our Name and Posterity in perpetuall scorn and infamy Also they tell us of other words which the King spoke some three weeks after to the same purpose which indeed as I take it do expresse the inward ground and Motive that caused him to speak the former viz. We have neither so ill an opinion of Our own Merits or the Affections of Our Subjects as to think Our self in need of forraigne force Also August the 4. in his speech to the Gentry of York-shire the King acknowledgeth say they that He is wholly cast upon the Affections of his people having no hope but in God His just cause and the love of his Subjects Now these observators having quoted these three expressions of the King do conclude saying What distinction can now satisfie us that neither Irish French Lorraiâ—ers Dutch Danes are forreiners To which I answer First for the Irish they are no more forreiners then the Scots are nor in some respect so much for Ireland hath been a dependant unto the Crown of England many hundred yeers before Scotland was and then for French Lorraiâ—ers Dutch and Danes I shall answer concerning them when they are landed for the Kings assistance and in the meane time it would be but just that they should satisfie us that neither the Irish Scots French Burgâ—ndiâ—â—â— Dutch Wallâ—ns Italiâ—ns that are already in their Armies are neither Papists nor Forreiners as I said before the time and place is known to many where neere 30. of their men being taken were examined and found to be of six severall Nations all forreiners and all Papists But these words of the King alleadged by these men against Him do plainly discover to every honest eye that His Majesties designe was never to use any but His own Subjects nor did He think it possible and the rather in regard of His own good merits that people so long instructed in Protestant Religion should ever prove so ungratefull as to force Him their Prince to stand in need of forreigne assistance and therefore the Heads of the faction having in their malicious policy to work feares and jealousies against Him told the people that the Popes Nuncio that great Bulbegger was soliciting both in Spain and France the Kings businesse for forreigne aides and of this they said they were advertized from Venis and Paris yea and from Rome it self with which it seems they held intelligence even from the very beginning Now to remove this foolish vanity and to retaine a clearnesse in His peoples hearts the King expressed himself in that sort unto them assuring them that they were all forgeries against Him and that he did wholly cast Himself upon the Affections of His people and was confident that no sober man could beleeve Him so senselesse as to entertaine such a designe which would have been so detrimentall both to Himself and His Kindom and in very deed if before he had tryed his own people he had called in such Armies of Forreiners as they reported it must needs have been confessed a desperate part in him a mean to have brought a suddain Destruction upon his Kingdome and a perpetuall Infamy upon His Name But if after three yeares as long as was allowed to the fig-tree in the Gospell the King finding his Subjects unfaithfull and cold in their affections towards him Nay more perceiving by so long experience that their endeavours were to take from him both his Life and his Inheritance yea and his Honour too and that they abused his good opinion of them by mis-interpreting his professions unto them and conceiving him tyed thereby from using others help for defence of himselfe and Monarchy I beleeve if he had or should alter his Resolution and call in any Prince in Christendome to his assistance in the maintenance of Regall Authority which God hath intrusted him withall and of that Government which as the most absolute God established among his own people and hath alway blessed this Nation under He being utterly disabled to do it otherwise it should be reckoned by the Almighty at the great day if any fault at all but among his infirmisies Yea and if destruction thereby should fortune to come to the whole Kingdome the whole infamy and guilt thereof should be charged upon the Heads of these his most perverse and injurious people even as that of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian is laid upon the seditious that were therein even unto this day But my humble prayer to the Almighty is that he would yet please to spare us and to bestow his grace at length upon the people of this land that they might cease provoking his Divine Majestie to punish that way this so Horrid a sin and so High abuses to his own Annointed And thus I have done also with this particular SECT XXIII 1. The Libellers Cavills at the word Mongrill Parliament At the Commissioners for the Treaty at Uxbridge At the Kings pawning His Jewels answered 2. His Majesties Affection and Goodnesse to His Subjects for want of other matters objected as a fault against Him by these Libellers IN the third place they accuse the
of the maine Pillars of this rank faction where in like sort were present some of their Chaplaines and amongst them there was one Scholler who I think truly was an honest man at that present and verily I beleeve doth stil so continue he being like that Disciple which was known to the High Priest well acquainted with the Company and therefore might speak more freely to them and amongst them then another man could be suffered to doe and indeed so did He moved them to this purpose while they were at Supper or sitting at Table Gentlemen you have begun a Civill Warre in this Kingdome and you are come bere into the Country to draw us further to your assistance by requiring us to Associate with you You shall doe well to declare what it is that you doe bottome your Warre upon and what is the cause of this your undertaking that Seeing your Grounds to be lawfull and good we may with the better Conscience concur with you for though we take you to be wise and honest men yet it doth not become us to yeild you our blind obedience in a matter of so High concernment as this is Say therefore I pray for what cause doe you wage this Warre Is it for Religion Can you complaine of any restraint in that Are not the Temples open Have we not Liberty to Preach and professe the whole Truth of God Is true Religion so freely exercised in any Nation under Heaven as here Is not the King himselfe a Protestant â— Hath he not granted you a power to devise for its continuance and a promise of his concurrence with you to establish and settle it as strongly as you please What can you hope to get more by Warre concerning this thing then you may have nay then is offered to you in a way of Peace Wherefore declare I beseech you whether it be for Religion that you fight and if so what Particular in Religion it is that you would have us joyne with you to maintaine and defend One of the Members that thought himselfe the best speaker undertooke to Answer the Schollar for the Chaplaines poor soules were posed they sat stil and said nothing though some of them had been as far as Edge Hill And at length did after some shuffling fairly confesse being thus urged that in very deed it was not Religion they fought for the Doctor asks Why do you then pretend it to be so unto the people His answer was we shall never else win the people to us Well but what is it then replyed the Doctor Is it the Abolition of Episcopacy that you so contest about You know God hath sufficiently manifested his approbation of this Government by his so abundant blessing of this Church and Nation under it none in the world hath thrived better nor so well under any as ours hath done under this you know also that the King hath given you leave to punish or to see punished in a regular way all persons that have miscarried themselves in the execution of that Government without exception of any He hath given you power to see that all abuses in Discipline be removed yea and what ever is liable to exception in our Canons and Lyturgie to be altered for the ease and satisfaction of tender Consciences yea He hath yeilded to you for prevention of injustice afterward the taking away the High Commission and hath left it to you to purge all Ecclesiasticall Courts beside and as a pledge of Assurance against all growing Corruptions he hath enacted a Trienniall Parliament for the calling of ill officers and faulty Church Governours to an examination every three yeares before your selves Now do you think that notwithstanding all these particular Considerations that the Abolition of Episcopacy is a thing of that grand necessity as to imbroile this whole Nation and Kingdome in its own Bloud The Member being convinced also by these Reasons of this particular answered Truely it was not but as the former so this pretence also was to be used to winne and hold the people Why then sayes the Doctor will you tell us what is the cause why you fight The Wiseman answered to bring Delinquents to punishment and so for ought I know the disputation ended for this is all that I heard of it But I would have any of them all to name six Delinquents if they can that were so declared to be when they raised their first Forces some 3. or 4. persons perhaps fled the Kingdome but must the whole Nation bleed for that reason 'T is true indeed they fell afterward to make Delinquents apace and all that would not renounce the Doctrine of Christs Gospell which is a Doctrin of Loyalty and obedience and which they had alwayes been instructed in all that would not abjure their Oath of Allegeance break that Protestation lately imposed by these very men which was to maintaine defend the Kings Person Honour and Estate are looked upon as Delinquents and persecuted as such with fire and sword yea divers of the Members of both Houses who had to speak in these mens owne phrase so much Conscience and goodnesse in them as not to desert their trust in Parliament to their King and Country by giving up themselves to their wills are all become Delinquents too upon the suddaine and to bring all these to punish nent that Justice of Parliament may passe unto them are these Warres said to be undertaken and pursued and when they have by their Votes put all them to death whom they have done wrong unto perhaps they will sit still and be quiet but not before Well fare the good King yet He named six notorious Delinquents whereas these men never named any and when he saw he could not have the Justice of Law against them rather then make any further disturbance he declined their prosecution indeed he is blamed for his so doing by these men as was noted before but O that they had had the grace to have been guilty of such an errour And thus much by way of digression in the case of Delinquency I now return to their Story They tell us that the Answer returned to the foresaid Propositions was That if these things were granted the King should remain but the out-side but the picture but the sign of a King which very Answer they say was the Trumpet of War and the sound of defiance scil in their ears who had a great lust to quarrel now they had got weapons but their misery was the King stil crosses them for He would not permit it to be so owned Stil say they He saies He intends not to fix any disloyal design upon both or either House of Parliament He is rather most confident of the Loyalty good Affections and integrity of that great Bodies good intentions but the malignity of the design He saies hath proceeded from the subtile informations mischievous practices and evil Counsels of ambitious turbulent Spirits not without a
strong influence upon the very Actions of both Houses Thus they of the King And the Result which they make of this their whole relation is two-fold 1. To justifie themselves which they would do from the Kings expressions of them He did not give them such ill language as they gave him Ergo they would conclude themselves to be as Innocent as they make him Faulty to his words last alleaged they adde this was the utmost Charge that could be then brought against the Parl. they argue a non velle ad non posse He did not or would not Ergo He could not Let the Reader judge of this Argument 2. To cast further blame upon the King scil for having a worse opinion of them now then by these expressions he seemed to have had then when he returned that answer to their 19. Propositions Our Propositions say they at Uxbridge in Feb. 1644 being no other in effect then those of June 1642. This inference may be truly made that the King hath no cause to look upon us now otherwise then as he did then and if he have varied since from those Vows and Asseverations which He made then the blame wil not remain on this side but on His so that the bare calling to mind what hath been said by the King is now sufficient for our purpose These be their direct words But how ill a consequent they make and how false an inference this is how truly little to the purpose I have shewn already and to what is there said I refer the Reader They then fall to reckon up the Vows and Affeverations made by the King which they would have apprehended to be broken by him which I have opened the nature of and answered already also yea and manifested evidently that if the King hath swerved any thing from his primitive purposes it hath been full sore against his will and only by their inforcement I adde but this we find in the 11 Paper these words of the King to his Queen The breach of my Word is that I hate above all things and we remember that the publishers of these Letters have told us that what we find in them are Evidences of truth and therefore we are abundantly satisfied concerning the Kings truth in his promises what ever can be said by them to the contrary Indeed we do believe that as Gods promise to the sons of Aaron did not bind him to the sons of Belial no more doth the Kings promises to his Great Councel tie him to his Grand Enemies I said indeed saies the Lord to Eli that thy house should walk before me scil in the Priests office for ever But now I say they that Honour we wil I Honour and they that despise me shal be lightly esteemed If holy Priests turn filthy Adulterers or if good Subjects turn impudent Traitors neither doth God nor the King swerve from their former selves if they break with them Hophni and Phineas might with as much justice have taxed God as these men do their King But there remains yet one particular and only one not replied unto which I shal also now do and so conclude They accuse the King of making War against his Parliament Having not only spoke so well of them as before but renounced all intentions of War to which purpose they alleage chiefly his Declaration at York June 16. 1642. wherein they say are these words We assure the World in the presence of Almighty God our Maker and Redeemer We have no more thought of making War against Our Parliament then against our Children yea and again in July the same year after the date of Essex his Commission from them to War against him He desires say they no longer the protection and blessing of Almighty God upon himself and his Posterity then He and they shal solemnly observe the Laws in defence of Parliaments Also in August 12. He acknowledgeth that the King and Parliament are like the Twins of Hypocrates which must laugh and cry live and die together These were the Kings words say these men It is true indeed say they afterwards He was driven by their making Wars upon him to save himself by distinctions saying He had not disclaimed all War in General but all invasive War all War but what was in order to his own defence which distinction they scorn at and say it was not thought of or fore-seen before perhaps so for it was beyond the imagination or fore-sight of man that any Subjects pretending as they did being so dealt withall as they were should bring their Soveraigâ— to such a strait or drive Him ever to use any Distinction at all Then they deride Him also for another which they did put him upon scil That the King may defend himself against a Parliament but not fight against it or He may assail a Malignant party in Parliament and yet not touch the Parliament it self And surely so He may For as there may be a Malignant party in a Church or family that may be assailed and corrected and yet the Church or family it self be no way damnified or hurt thereby but bettered rather So also in a Parliament for as the whole Church of God consisting of Head and Members is said not to Erre in matters of God though there be many wicked men in the Militant part thereof so in matters of State a compleat and whole Parliament consisting of Head and Members may be said not to Erre though there be many wicked ones amongst them that deserve punishment And they are not ashamed to say that the distinction which they deride the King for is good when themselves use it but not when the King useth it it wil hold say they on our side but not on His. All things are lawful to them but unto the King nothing is allowable But say they by what distinction wil the King put a period to this pertual Parliament without violence Or how can He deny it the name of a Parliament without hostility As if they had said more fully out thus We are sure we have posed him in one thing and put him to a non-plus We had him on the hip when by feigning our selves honest men we got Him to sign the Bil of continuation of the Parliament which we resolve shall be perpetuall and last for ever in despight of him All his distinctions shal not serve his turn to put a period to that He must do it by open force and violence if he do it at all but we by that fine Christian Policy of ours in getting him to passe that Act have got possession of so much strength and power that we are able to keep it in being for all the violence that he can use to the contrary we have fastned him now upon the Crosse wherefore if he be the Anointed of God and would be so accounted let him loosen himself if he can and come down but let him be sure he shal never do it without
vindicating my Lord the King from the aspersion of these men whereby they endeavoured to besmeare his Honour in their malicious Notes upon his Letters they aymed to make him as the Philistims did Sampson an object of contempt and scorne but their pillars being false and therefore weak whereon their building stood the same is fallen most heavie downe upon their own heads they hoped to portray him forth according to the Image of him in their owne minds by wresting his expressions to the highest pitch of misconstruction and charging upon him their own conditions but through Gods help those filthy Garments they arrayed him with are taken off and sent home to their proper owners And what â—s to be done now having uncloath'd the King shall I so leave him as many false friends have done that would not be so comely wherefore I will present him once againe as habited in another mantle more truly his then that other was though put upon him for the most part by the same men in opposition of that Act of theirs which I have undone I will set him forth in Christs Robes as cloathed with sorrowes and shew what a perfect similitude there hath been and is between our Saviour and our Soveraign in the foure last years of both their sufferings Such entertainment as Christ had such usage as he met withall from such conditioned enemies and such friends such temptations as he was assaulted with such wrongs and for such things such causes of sorrow and of complaint in all particulars even in specie hath our King had in the like manner observe I pray you and mark it well O all you Loyall English Scottish and Irish and you will say that never Prince had a more perfect fellowship with the Son of God in this worlds miseries then yours hath never was Christs yoke better fitted for any never did any beare a greater measure of his burden And if nearenesse in condition here fore-speaks a nearnesse of conformity in the life to come as the Apostle teacheth then think with your selves from what you observe how superlatively glorious above other Kings will yours be at Christs appearing First of all was Christ rejected of his owne people so the Text sayes He came to his owne and his owne received him not nay so farre were they from so doing that they denyed the Holy and Just one and desired a Murtherer to be granted to them This hath been directly the Kings case He hath been rejected by his owne people who have refused to own him for their King denying the Supreme power to reside in him which they have laboured to take from him yea with open mouth they have cryed out we will not have this man to reigne over us we are none of his Disciples we are for the Parliament they have preferred Murderers and Robbers before him chusing rather to live under the bloudy and iron yoak of such then to submit themselves to his most just gentle and easie Government 2. Did Christ complain that the foxes had holes and the birds of the aire had nests but himselfe had not where to hide his head and may not the King take up the same words all that was his is taken from him craftie Foxes and ambitious Kites have seized as a prey upon his Houses and Habitations when his Majesty at the beginning of these Troubles had travelled from Shrewsbury to Wrexham in Denbighshire and being to returne the same night he dismissed the Gentry desiring his stay with these words Gentlemen Goe you and take your rests for you have Homes and Houses to go unto and beds of your owne to lodge in and God grant you may long enjoy them but I am deprived of those Comforts I must intend my present affaires and return this night to the place from whence I came 3. Was Christ tempted in his necessity to distrust God to turne stones into bread for his present sustenance and hath not the King been tempted so to doe sure little else have they allowed him to live upon Was our Saviour moved to take desperate courses to cast himselfe down yea to humble himselfe unto his Creature and was he offered to be made a glorious Prince if he would so doe to have the Kingdoms of the world bestowed upon him by one that had no right to give them All men know that such assaults and such motions with such like profers by such persons have been made and put and tendered to our Soveraigne 4. Was not Christ accounted a deceiver of the people called a fellow an impostor a Malignant one that had a Devill and railed upon in all places whispered out of credit where ere he came by a Pharisaicall brood who sought only to themselves mens praises and hath not the King been so called intitled esteemed and used by a like selfe-seeking generation Indeed Christ and the King have like conditioned Enemies great pretenders to Religion and in that regard of great repute among the people were and are the the chiefe opposers both of the one and of the other the great Sanedrim or Counsell at Jerusalem were the Heads of the Faction against Christ and plotted all his miseries they made Decrees against him and his Followers and molested those that did confesse him they stirred up the people to cry out upon him and countenanced all men in speaking evilly of him they hired the Souldiers and men of warre to go out with swords and staves against him and as if he were a thiefe to apprehend him And hath not the Sanedrim or great Counsell at Westminster been the Authors of all such things against the King as Scripture affirms the one so alas doth experience confirm the other 5. As Christ was opposed by men of severall Sects and Factions as by Pharisees and Sadduces who were at odds enough between themselves yet banded together against him So is the King assaulted by men of severall Religions and Opinions as by Presbyterians and Independents who are divided sufficiently inter se yet both united in their oppositions against him nay as the prophane Herodians were admitted Associates with the precise Jews in their conspiracies against Christ so the most vile cursers and prophane swearers being apprehended likely by their greatnesse wealth or friends to further the designe have been admitted by these pure conceited fellows into their combination against the King and advantages taken from their private discontentments to hook them into their Association 6. As Christ was watched in all he did and perverted in all he said if any thing that proceeded from him could be wrested to a wrong sence it should be surely done but no notice at all would be taken of his Vertues or his Miracles yea he was oft accused for his eating and drinking with Publicans and sinners even by these men that would allow him no other Company for they had thrust him out from among themselves because he disliked and
and who should be the greatest among them which doubtlesse was no small molestation to his heavenly Spirit nor was this all he met with many unkindnesses from them too he was wounded in the house of his friends forsaken of his Disciples when the times grew black and cloudy yea and afterward his very Appstles themselves fled from him one forswore him and another betrayed him And even in this also hath the King been like unto him there hath been strange divisions and strivings among his Followers for place and preferment to his Majesties great griefe and damage He hath had wounds given him by his friends and deep ones too they have enlarged his sorrowes they that had dependence on him have forsaken him because his afflictions were great upon him His servants have renounced their relation to him yea those whom he trusted have betrayed him they that eat of his bread have lift up the heele against him onely Christ had but one Judas whereas the King hath had many but Christ indeed knew what is in man and therefore did not commit himselfe unto them in which knowledge the King hath been defective and so hath been deceived 12. Christ expected that his three speciall Apostles whom he chose out of all the rest for that purpose should watch and pray with him and for him in his greatest Agony but they even they â—lumbred and slept and left him in that great and sad houre to tread the Wine-presse himselfe alone Even so the best of us from whom his Majestie may expect most speciall services of this nature in his agonies and sorrowes for that we are ordained on purpose in regard of our office and calling to watch and pray Alas we sleep we faile in such our duties for him we have left him in a manner quite desolate that he may take up to himselfe that word of Christ and say of my people there was none with me And as our Saviour notwithstanding that failing in dutie towards him in his necessitie did excuse the weaknesse of his Disciples the spirit sayes he is willing but the flesh is weake so hath our King done even excused the failings of his Subjects towards him How oft hath he been heard to say of many they are willing to help me but are not able and when he heard related the weaknesse of one who Peter-like had saved his life by a recantation the man sayes he I thinke is honest and loves me well only he is affraid to die 13. But to draw to a conclusion as Christ deserved none of this hard measure which he found at the hands of those that offered the same he alwayes merited their greatest respect and loving affections many good workes saith he have I done for which of them doth you stone me Many Sermons had he preached many good Prayers had he made many Diseases had he cured manie Miracles had he wrought yet all was forgotten malice and spight did raze out the remembrance of all So the King hath deserved nothing but good from the hands and hearts of his Subjects He may also say manie good Acts of Grace have I passed for your benefit O my people manie blessings have you enjoyed under my Government manie yeares of peace and plenty under my protection for which of them do you thus hunt me thus persecute and molest me Indeed Christs enemies sinned against their own Consciences in all they did against him as appeares by that their saying if we let this man alone all will believe in him as if they had said he is so holy in his life so true in his sayings so gracious and good in his conversation so mild so sweet and affable in his whole carriage that we are like to lose all our credit with the people unlesse we ruine him and therefore on purpose they belyed and beslandred him yea by all means laboured to engage the people with themselves against him yea they made them their instruments to doe him all the mischiefe and perswaded them that in their so doing they did God good service Thus the Kings enemies also have gone against their owne Consciences in all their doings against him and for the very same reason they know him to be so full of grace and goodnesse that if people were but let alone they would quickly all adhere unto him and so themselves of all men should become the most odious to prevent which they have bedaubed him with lies and slanders and engaged the people to be their instruments to persecute and abuse him yea and made them to think that they serve God in so doing 14. Last of all the Pharisees pretended salutem populi in all these their doings against Christ and that they did all for the good of the Common-Wealth better one man die sayes the chiefe of them then all the people perish yet Pilate easily perceived that all was out of meer envy and malice and therefore askes them what particular accusation they could bring against him but they could alledge none only they tell him in generall termes if he were not a Malefactor we would not have brought him before thee He must take their words and contrary to his own sence believe that they were too holy to harbour envy or to doe any thing against any man without cause indeed afterward they inferred plainly that the reason why they sought to take away his life was because he was their King He makes himselfe a King say they and therefore is not Caesars friend S. Matthew sayes that this was his very accusation which Pilate set over his head on the Crosse Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jewes which was in effect thus much This Jesus was accused and thus crucified as you here see only because he was King of the Jewes The Pharisees indeed would have had him altered the words and set down because he said he was the King of the Jewes but sayes Pilate quod scripsi scripsi what I have written is the truth and so it shall stand in Hebrew Greeke and Latine that all the world may know your Jewish basenesse Thus were their dealings with our Saviour and thus also have our English Jewes in all respects dealt with their Soveraign they have pretended salutem populi the preservation of the Common-Wealth as if that were like to perish if he did not yet one that hath but a Pilates eye a meer naturall eye if not coloured with Rebellion may plainly see that the root of all is meer envy and malice let any body aske the chiefe among them what personall evill or accusation they can bring against the King there can be nothing answered but in generall termes if there were not a cause if he were not a malefactor His great Councell would not doe as they have done against him But what that cause is or wherein he is so faulty cannot be made manifest only their words must be taken
against all sence and reason nay they have plainly inferred as hath been observed that they seek his ruine because he is a King and would maintaine Monarchy He that makes himselfe a Monarch or a King is no friend to the Parliament Well when he is dead as I think no wise man expects otherwise but that they will murder him openly or secretly shorten his dayes if they can get him and God doe not in a miraculous manner againe deliver him for as nothing but Christs Crucifixion would please the Jewes of old so nothing but the Kings extinction will satisfie the malice of some in this Age but I say when he is dead we shall in this one thing imitate Pilate and publish to all the world his accusation and cause of his death This shall be his Title Carolus Gratiosus Rex Angliae CHARLES the Gratious King of England was put to death by the Pharisaicall Puritans of his Kingdome only because he was their King and in many respects so like unto Jesus Christ the Worlds Saviour I wish with my soule and I pray with my heart that they may yet at length prevent us in this by their unfeigned Humiliation for the wrongs they have done him and by their right acceptance of him and obedience to him Thus have I shown in many particulars how fitly the Kings sufferings doe parallel with those of Christ I might instance in more but I hope the well disposed from this which hath been said will of themselves make observation of the rest I might here also evidence on the other side How his Majesties Enemies doe resemble him whom themselves call Anti-christ in their conditions yea I could by comparing their doings in this their generation with the worst Acts of the worst of Popes in severall Ages demonstrate to the world that these men of all men are most like them but mine aymes are not so much to decypher them as to offer a true presentment of the King unto his people to declare his vertues and wrongs which they labour to conceale is rather my work then to proclaim their ungodlinesse which indeed speaks it selfe loud enough without my discovery And truly had it been possible for me to have healed the wounds made by them upon my Soveraignes Honour without laying open their corruptions I should not have mentioned them so much as I have done for my delights are not to be stirring in such obscene and stinking puddles But all men know that he who takes upon him to justifie the Righteous must of necessity condemne the wicked the goodnesse of the one cannot be vindicated unlesse the vilenesse of the other be detected specially when they thus stand in competition wherefore omitting what might be spoken of them to this purpose I shall rather as Christs Minister apply my selfe to speake unto them after I have uttered a few words to those well-meaning Common people who have been seduced by them whom in the first place I desire to listen to mee SECT XXVII A serious and Brotherly Discourse to the seduced and oppressed Commons of this Nation their dangerous condition related divers and necessary considerations propounded to their thoughts to disswade them from persisting in their present way Their Objection of keeping their late Oath and Covenant Answered COuntrey-men and fellow-Subjects you see I have dealt with you as Pilate did with these people of the Jewes whom the subtill Pharisees had prevailed with to be their instruments in seeking Christs ruine for the desiring to divert them from further proceeding in so evill a way against so just a Person brought him forth before their eyes crowned with Thorns and arrayed with sorrowes and bad them Behold the man supposing that the sight of his griefs already suffered by the wrongs and abuses already offered would make them desist from offering more So I desiring with my soule as God is my witnesse to stop you in this your ungodly way which the craftie Pharisees of these times have thrust you into and to stay you from furtheir endeavouring your Kings destruction have set him before your eyes in the same sad and afflicted condition that Christ was in and whereinto your selves alas have helped to bring him Now I beseech you all Behold the man consider how much you have wronged his innocence already and abused his goodnesse and whether you have not shewne unkindnesse enough unto him who hath been unto you the Author of so much good so many yeares together You will say had we lived in the dayes of Christ we would not have joyned with the Pharisees in persecuting and abusing him and his Disciples and yet you are partakers in the like evills will you disallow of such things against your Saviour and yet act them against your Soveraigne Have you any other evidence against the King then those people had against Christ the bare testimony and report of his deadly enemies or have you any better warrant from Gods Word to rise up and cry out against the one then those had to do so against the other surely you have not O foolish people therefore and unwise who hath bewitched you who hath perverted you I know you 'l say even they whom we thought we were bound to follow scil our Teachers and our Leaders true and God shall require your bloud at their hands but in the meane time if you die in this way you will die in your sin for as Esay sayes the Leaders of this people cause them to erre and they that are led by them are destroyed that is are in the undoubted way unto destruction and what will you doe at the end thereof Perhaps your consciences are yet asleep so was Judasse's till his worke was quite done his Master murthered and himselfe received his wages but then it began to open indeed and so to roare within him that it debarred him quite from all contentment in his money for he brings that back to them who had employed him and makes his moan unto them and perhaps expects comfort from theâ—â— but they having served their turnes of him left him in the bryers whereinto they had brought him and rejected his complaint with a quid hoc ad nos what is it unto us see you to it their owne consciences did not yet stirre nor had they any respect at all to the troubles of his spirit Now truly friends this will be the condition of many of you when you have damn'd your soules in serving the lusts of these men and think to enjoy comfort in that wages of iniquity the Estates of other men which you gape after and is promised unto you as the price of bloud then will the doores of your consciences be unlocked the sence of your guilt will make you as sick as he was both of your rewards and lives and then if you lament and cry we have sinned in spilling innocent bloud the bloud of our Soveraigne or the bloud of our Countrey-men that never
it be to breake it But this I shall make good and thus I argue That which is ungodly and unlawfull both in respect of matter and form is abhominable and accursed But such is that Oath and Covenant which you have taken therefore you ought to breake it and in no hand unlesse you will run upon your owne damnation to keep the same This I shall evidence in both particulars that 't is ungodly in respect of matter and unlawfull in respect of form First An Oath is ungodly in respect of matter and so by consequent unlawfull when it is to performe ungodly and unlawfull things viz. things forbidden of God and formerly disavowed by us But of this nature is this Oath and Covenant For 1. 'T is to oppose the King and Forces raised by Him whom God hath forbidden you to resist and commanded you to fear honour and obey and whom you have sworne Allegeance unto and Protested to defend in his Estate and Dignity against all Opposers with your lives and fortunes 2. 'T is to kill slay and destroy your Countrey-men and Brethren which as a work of the Devil you renounced in your Baptism and is directly opposite to the sixth Commandement viz. Thou shalt not kill which then also you vowed and promised to keep and observe 3. 'T is never to lay downe Armes or to be quiet so long as there is any left on the Kings side for you to oppose whereas strife and contention are works of the flesh disclaimed also in Baptism and forbidden in Gods word which commands you to live peaceably with all men to study to be quiet to love your Enemies and to conquer them by patience and well-doing and not by killing of them or fighting against them Now Therefore this your Oath and Covenant being of this nature 't is utterly ungodly and so unlawfull in respect of the matter of it 't is of the same kind with that which the fourtie men entred into neither to eat nor drinke till they had killed Paul which none of you will grant had been fit to be kept nay rather 't is of a farre worse kind then that was for 't is a Vow or Covenant not only to breake Gods Commandements and to kill your Brethren but also to slight your Promise in Baptism and to renounce all your Oathes and Protestations of Loyaltie and Obedience formerly taken yea and to persist in so doing think I beseech you how you will answer this at Gods Tribunall Secondly An Oath as I apprehend is unlawfull in respect of the form and so by consequence ungodly too when it is not expressed administred and taken in such verie words as by Law are prescribed or when it is not enacted by full and compleat Authoritie But of this nature is this Oath or Covenant which you stick upon Ergo 't is unlawfull and by consequence ungodly for confirmation of this let it be remembred how before this unhappie Parliament begun at a meeting in Yorkshire about the first coming in of the Scots the King tendred an Oath of Loyaltie to the Lord Say and some others who refused the same upon this ground It was not lawfull in respect of form for the words method or frame thereof had not been agreed upon settled or established by Act of Parliament viz. by the King and the two Houses And so the alledged reasons why those Oaths tendred by Bishops and Archdeacons at their Visitations were condemned by this verie Parliament for unlawfull was in respect of their formes they were not administred in the precise termes and direct words which by the King and whole Parliament were prescribed and Authorized Now if this be so then this verie Oath and Covenant which you have taken being as you all know defective this way cannot be legall the King and whole Parliament never enacted it as a Law for you to take and observe But onlie that corrupt Faction in Parliament who having themselves deviated from the wayes of God and Lawes of the Land have imposed and forced the same upon you to the end that with your lives and fortunes you might stand in the face of dangers for their sakes and be as a strong wall to hedge and defend them in their wickednesse and well they will requite you for this service And for your Preachers who perswaded you at first to take this Covenant and now to keep it they being in the same condition with them that imposed it no marvell if they labour to hold you still under the bondage of it But why doe not those your Preachers answer those Books which have been written against it wherein the impietie and unlawfulnesse of it is fully evidenced foure severall Bookes have been written against the same and not one of them yet answered which very thing if well considered discovers their resolution in evill they perswade you to take and keep a Covenant which themselves are not able to maintaine to be lawfull by Divinity or Reason or anie other Argument but onely Club-Law Nay one thing more let me mind you of do but think with your selves how God hath manifested himselfe against this Covenant in breaking asunder manie of those that were knit together by it How are they divided How bitterly the Presbyterians and Independents write and speak against each other a rotten Covenant it must needs be that cannot hold the spirits of the Takers one three yeares together doth not God hereby plainly manifest his dislike of it hath he not visibly made good his word against it by this breach among them Es. 8. 9. Associate your selves O ye people and ye shall be broken in pieces give eare also you of a farre Countrey you Scottish Covenanters gird your selves altogether yet shall ye be broken in pieces gird your selves and ye shall be broken in pieces 'T is worth the marking how the words are doubled in the Text which according to the interpretation of Joseph in whom the Spirit of God dwelt is to shew the certaintie of the thing that God hath established it and will shortly and surely bring it to passe One place more let me remember you of 't is Hos. 5. 12. and I pray consider whether the same may not fitly be applyed unto you Ephraim is oppressed and broken in Judgement there is his present misery the cause of it followes because he willingly walked after the Commandement scil of Jeroboam and his Rebellious Faction who by some new Ordinance of their own devising had tendred some Oath or Covenant to the people against their King whom they opposed and against the right and old way of worshipping God at Jerusalem this it seems the people at first had consented willingly unto and for the same were soundly oppressed by their new Masters that had imposed it on them Now oppression makes even wise men mad especially when it falls unexpected and hence it comes to passe that they were broken in judgment they became even like distracted men because
corruption in our nature and practice and for mine owne Name sake saith the Lord I will defer mine anger and for my praise will I refraine from thee that I cut thee not off and againe the second and third time for mine owne sake even for mine owne sake will I doe it and in another place not for your sakes be it knowne unto you will I doe this but for mine owne holy Name sake this Name of God is that strong hold which Zachariah the Prophet directs unto in times of danger and that Tower whereunto the righteous flie and are safe as Solomon tells us But then though our selves indeed be as nothing in this case yet our miseries which are great upon us may be said to have an influence upon Gods pitie to stirre him towards us for the oppression of the poore and sighing of the needy I will arise saith the Lord and will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him And againe because they have called thee an out-cast I will restore health unto thee and heale thy wound thus have they called us thus have they made us and that for Gods name sake which makes the more for us yea and yet they give God thanks for their successe against us as if he approved of their injuries to us and this is further also to our advantage as the Spirit tels us in the Prophet Your Brethren that hated you and cast you out for my name sake said let the Lord be glorified but he shall appear to your joy and they shall be ashamed as if he had said the sooner for that And to assure us of this we have a further argument yet scil the engagement of his Gospel with us which is as deeply interessed in our sufferings as we our selves are and doth as equally need deliverance yea that is likely to abide under disgrace and obloquy if the cause we are persecuted for be not supported nay if our enemies meet not with Confusion in their way Christ's whole life and carriage as well as his Doctrine will fall under suspition and condemnation by their prevailing 't is well known that his name is pretended in all their proud rebellious butcherly opinions and proceedings as if he had given some precept or example for such doctrines and doings and had discountenanced that low way of humilitie obedience meeknesse and love to Brethren yea to enemies which we maintain and suffer for But Christ's Gospel is his glory 't is his word which he is resolved to magnifie above all things and to vindicate the Honour of that his Father to whom he cannot be unfaithfull hath committed all Authoritie and power into his hand wherefore we need not feare though we are now down we shall rise again though we sit in darknesse yet the Lord shall be a light unto us he will plead our cause he shall execute Judgement for us Yea and that for his Justice sake also for Christ is King still for all this and Judge of all the earth and his office is to help them to right that suffer wrong to punish ill doers yea his delights are to confound the crafty and to throw down the proud and lofty Bloud guiltinesse he hareth how was Cain branded for it and cursed How were Simeon and Levi in their posterity scattered but for one bloudy act in heat and anger they had not yet arrived at studied or reiterated murther Rebellion he abhorreth and rather then that shall goe unpunished God will create a new thing the earth shall open her mouth and swallow up Corah and his Companions if Moses cannot master them and rather then Absalom and Achitophel shall scape their due demerits the one shall hang himselfe and his haire the other let David doe his best to save his sonnes life he shall not have his will for God is King above him and hath decreed that Justice shall be done upon all Traitours Treachery and falshood his soule loatheth and therefore hath ordained it shall cut its own throat rather then want an Executioner and be the cause of its own ruine in deed what was never true in it selfe cannot be long true unto it selfe Ephraim and Manasseh may be both against Judah but before they have done they will be as much against each other nay rather then faile Egyptian shall be against Egyptian falshood will find enemies amongst those of its own House and herd there may be a Conspiracy in it but no true concord for 't is only righteousnesse and peace that can kisse each other The strongest fire-brands in ill are like the fire-brands of Sampsons Foxes knit but in the tailes not heads nor hearts how sure in the end are they to burn their own knots asunder No Confederacy sayes God nor Association without me shall stand take Councell together it shall come to nought and gird your selves as strongly as you can you shall without faile be broken in pieces the zeal and justice of the Lord of Hosts will bring this to passe for us He hath done the like for his people in times past and he will not leave his ancient custome which may bring to our thoughts another Argument of assurance It hath been Gods wont when he hath beat his child to burn the rod Babilon the Hammer of the whole earth was at length broken Ashurs glory and greatnesse though some years in growing was consumed in a moment the rod of Gods anger is also the object of his indignation the instruments of his judgement scape not his fury the dreggs of the cup fall out to be their portion I will take the dreggs of the cup of my fury out of thy hand saith the Lord to his people with whom he had begun and will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee and have said to thy soule bow down that we may go over The rod of the wicked may be upon the back of the righteous but it shall not rest there namely for ever But perhaps you 'l say when will God doe this How long How long shall we stay before we have experience of it Himselfe sayes after a little while mine indignation shall cease towards thee and mine anger shall end in their destruction God doth all things in due time he gives rain to the earth food to man and fury to his enemies and all in due serson to me belongeth vengeance and recompence saith the Lord their foot shall slide in due time for the day of their calamity is at hand and the things that shall come upon them make hast every thing is most beautifull in its season and a worke of this nature is then in season and most beautifull when Gods hand is so clearly seen in it that all men may confesse and say verily it was his doing But what are the signes of that season I 'le name four and so
our Saviour did with praiers in our mouths for them which it may be through Gods working may have a like effect after our death as Christs had to the conversion of some of them the conversion of those 3000. Act. 2. is held to be a fruit of Christs prayer upon the Crosse and Sauls conversion of Stephens prayer at his death so who knowes but our meeknesse our patience and our prayers at such a time may be effectuall to a like purpose even to draw some of our persecuting Countreymen from their bloudy and rebellious way into the paths of Christ and of his Gospel yea whether we live or die if we can do Christ and the King service no other way let us resolve and endeavour to pray down their and our enemies by praying for them And by all meanes while breath is in us let 's have a care so to live as we may still credit our righteous cause and as becometh those that are designed to slaughter for Jesus sake and for the Doctrine which he left us Holy bloud believe it will prove of harder digestion to them then prophane that they had killed the holy and the just one was that which afterward pierced the hearts of these mens elder Brethren when time was I say no more But the Lord strengthen and guide us all in our Christian and Loyall way by his grace and spirit that though we be a people robbed spoiled snared in holes hid in prison-houses driven to banishment and exposed for a prey yet we may walk before our God in all humilitie and well-pleasing to the restauration of his Gospells honour the inward comfort of our own spirits in the midst of miseries and to the conviction and shame of our unnaturall Countrey-men who seeke to take away our lives also from us Soli Deo Gloria Amen Amen May 26. 1646. A POST-SCRIPT to the READER THis Book was prepared as now you have it and might have seen the light within lesse then the compasse of that year wherein the Libell which it Answers was first published had there been at hand the convenience of a Presse and strength to bring forth But 't is no small advantage which the enemies have against Truth and the King that with them is both liberty and ability to vent what they please whereas with us is neither Had we but halfe the like helps encouragements and powers which they have had the world should see that the King hath Subjects and the Truth Defenders There hath been a further alteration of Affaires to the worse on the Kings side since this Book was written as may be collected from many passages therein and divers particulars concerning the enemies deportment here expressed have so fallen out as foreshewn for indeed 't is no difficult matter for any man acquainted with their spirits to fore-speak their doings Had there appeared any change in them to the better nay had their growth but promised a probability of more Christianity and duty in their future then hath been in their past Actions or then was here prognosticated of them this publication perhaps having been thus delayed had been still suspended though in very deed there is no reason why for such a cause it should have been quite stifled seeing that their Libell which it confuteth is divulged printed reprinted and still sold to the Kings darkening and defamation Besides many other scandalous and vile Pamphlets have been and are daily sent forth on purpose to damp his Lustre and to staine his Glory yea and translated too they are into other Languages that he might appear deform'd and spotted to the eye of Forraign Nations which because they have not been Answered with a like industry on our parts Strangers have thought yea and affirmed that nothing could be said for him because nothing was scil to their capacitie we have say they read in our owne languages many Bookes against him but none in his behealfe it must be acknowledged in very deed that this way the enemies have been more diligent in defaming then we have been in defending the King though in our own tongue there hath been abundance written in his justification and to their detection The Protestants of other Countryes unto whom the Kings bosome was alwayes open in their distresse towards whom his bowels alwayes yerned and for whose reliefe his commands went often forth to all Churches in his Kingdomes to make Collections how have they at least too many of them by meanes of those industrious Lies and Libels opened their mouthes and stretch'd forth their tongues against him And how are we that suffer with him and for him or rather for the Truth maintained by him esteemed of in our banishment amongst them are we any other but objects of scorn and taunting to them 't was our delight but 't was our duty and our work is with the Lord to obey God and him in contributing to their necessities in the day of their visitation but they take pleasure in this of ours to wound our very wounds and to enlarge our sorrows yea every way to help forward our affliction at what a distance have they looked upon us because the hand of God is out against us what bitter words have they darted at us and which is to our great griefe against the Sacred Person of our Soveraign with what violence and confidence doe they ignorantly undertake to justifie the false reports of his enemies against him Nay how is our Church it selfe the late glory of Christendome and of the whole Earth despised and slighted by them in this time of our persecution The Papists on the one side scoffingly ask us where is now your God where is your Church become you may now freely boast of its Invisibility if you please you have a ground for it c. And our Brethren on the other side that outwardly professe the same Faith with us and from whom we expected better they act Edoms part as reproachfully upon us crying out against our Church and the Government thereof down with it down with it even to the ground For they the Protestants of France in speciall are willingly perswaded by those Letters and Pamphlets sent them out of England that the Professours of the true Religion here before this Parliament begun were kept in a like underly condition as themselves are in their own Country though those French Congregations allowed in England might in their gratitude to our King have given them a better and more true information had they so pleased But upon this conceit they in France apprehend this Warre here against the King to be undertaken only to recover Liberty to worship God in the right manner that is to say after the French Mode or Discipline as they think at least and are made to believe and most people loving their own wayes and fashions best though lesse perfect then their neighbours cannot but wish good luck to all such as are stooping towards them and rejoyce for
oppose God whose Vice-gerent the King is and indeavour in vaine to doe a great work without him I desire the English Protestant Nation to think seriously of this 1. Sam. 11. 2. 2 King 20. 2 King 18. 29 30. Libell §. 1. 2. Gen. 4. Gen. 10. 1 Sam. 19. 2â— Act. 9. 1. 2 Sam. 16. Mic. 7. 4. §. 3. * And I hope through Gods mercy to them in Gods time they may to their own eternall comfort honour the recovery of the Kingdoms lost glory Nemo parere gnarus nemo imperare Strenui lingua multi ignavifere omnes opera Denique in duribus ipsis non consilium non fides Lips 2. 3. Jer. 5. 4. Rev. 13. John 19. 11. 1 Pet. 4. 17. Jer. 8. 6. Isay 26. 11. §. 4. Psal. 73. Jeremy 12. Jer. 5. 26 27. Hab. 1. 13. 15 16. Rev. 12. 14. Rev. 13. 13 7. Dan. 11. 36. c. Esay 53. 4. Luke 24. Act. 28. 3 4. Luâ—e 13. 2 3. §. 5. Isai. 36. 10 19. Fox Martyâ—ed â—ypr dâ— Valer. in his Book called The lives of Popes Stulius ab eventu sacta notanda pâ—â—at â— Sam. 4. Heb. 10. 39. Libell §. 1. 1 Thes. 5. 21. §. 3. * Pag. 80. 1 Sam. 26. 19. 1 King 2. §. 2. §. 3. Libell §. 1. Rom. 13. 4. * Yea all the bloud that hath been shed by them and by their meanes in this unnaturall war which themselves for no cause have raised not only against the Kings will but also against his person and his friends must and is by them laid to the Kings Charge their Militia successe perswade them to it Libell Fox Martyr Libell §. 1. Libell * This particular digression was inserted from my own observance of her Majesties goodnesse in France * This was written when the Duke of Yorke was either in Oxford or supposed to be there * It was generally believed when this was inserted that the Kings trusting the Scots with his Person could not possibly but make them ashamed to prove unfaithful but their late Act hath given all men to understand that though Judas for the love of money may keep touch with the Pharisees yet he is no fit or safe man to be of the Guard unto his Master * At Perin in Cornwal when the King defeated Essex and his Army * My selfe did heare in Avignion a Gentlemen belonging to the Cardinall Barbarine mention by name one of their Agents at Rome and how many thousand pounds a yeare he beleeved he did there spend in his Negotiation for them * Had His Great Councel shewn but half that zeal in their Master the Kings behalf as of late they have done in their owne concerning a like tumultuous businesse He had not departed from them * Luke 4. 30. John 18. 16. * Let the people observe by this how they have beene cheated 2 Sam. 2. 30. Rom. 9. 6. John 8. This was inserted be reason of the late Accident Lev. 19. 17. 2 Tim. 2. 25. Heb. 4. 15. Heb. 2. 10. Rom. 8. 17 Phil. 3. 10 Mat. 9. 3. 4 John 10. 33. Mat. 10. 36 10. 24 25. Luke 17. 1 2. Col. 1. 24 Heb. 12. 1. Luk 10. 32 1 Pet. 4. 13 Preface to Accomplishment of Prophecies Mâ—t 7. 1 2. Job 12. 7 8. In the Pref. at the beginning of the Book p. 5. l. 15. for commonly r. commendable and p. 6. l. 20. r. masked Joh. 1. 11. Act. 3. 14. Luk. 19. 14. Mat. 8. 20. Mat. 4. 3. Mat. 4. 68. Joh. 7. 12. Joh. 9. 29. Joh. 8. 48. 52. 10. 20. Mar. 3. 6. Mar. 12. 13. Mar. 2. 16. Luk. 15. 4. Joh. 8. 59. 10. 31. Joh. 11. 56. * Experience since this was written hath given a full confirmation to this particular Luk. 22. 67. Joh. 10. 20. Joh. 7. 48. Luk. 22. 67. Joh. 1â— 10 11. Joh. 13. 19. Joh. 18. 8. Joh. 11. 57. Mark 15. 28. Luk 23. 39. Mar. 9. 34. Zach. 139. Joh. 6. 66. Joh. 2. 24. 25. Mat 26. 40. Es. 63. 3. Isai. 63. 3. Mat. â—6 41. Joh. 10. 32. Jo. 11. 48. Joh. 11. 4â— Joh. 18. 29. 30. Joh. 19. 13. Mat. 27. 3â— Joh. 19. 29. * It is one of their Tenents that evill may be done to further a publick good and that only is what they so declare yea and some of them have vented their intentions to this purpose even since he hath been in their power in such black expressions as I tremble to â—ehearse Joh. 19. â— Esay 9. 16 â—at 27. 4. Joh. 16. 2 3. Esa. 6. 10 11. Act. 2. 40. Prov. 1. 10 c. Rom. 13. 7. Math. 17. 27. Math. â—2 21 * In the Charge against the Earl of Strafford Gen. 2533. Gen. 27. 19. c. 1 King 21. Fox Martirâ—logy 2 Pet. 1. 19. Esay 8. 20. Gal. 1. 8. * Yet that omission and change was by the Kings own selfe dictated and not by any Bishop and the Kings reason was because he judged that old phrase at that time the more improper he having then no children * See Mr Goodwins Book called Calumny arraâ—gned and cast about pag. 12. 13. 2 Tim. 3. 2 3. 2 Pet. 2. 10. Es. 39. 3. 7. Vers. 5. 2 Cor. 11. 13. 14. Es. 58. Jer. 7. 9. 10. Dan. 11. 38. Esai 66. 5. Joh. 18. 26. Act. 23. 21. * Besides the Oxford Reasons lately published which all the Assembly of Divines are never able to confute Gen. 41. 32. * Indeed this day this Scripture is fulfilled in our eyes Es. 8. 12. Heb. 13. 17. 2 Cor. 11. 13 Mat. 16. 2â— 2 Cor. 11. Act. 9. 1. Rom. 10. 1. 2. Esa 58. 1. Fox Martiâ—ol 1 Sam. 15. Gen. 39. 8. 9 Gen. 41. 40. * Consulere patâ—iae parcere afflictis fera caede abstinere tempus atque irae dare orbi quietem seculo pacem suo Prov. 30. 21. 22 Jam. 3. 17 Prov. 30. 28. Job 8. 14. * It begins to work already as evidently appeares by that free and broad language which in all places is uttered against you * People begin to see this now for they say the 80000l a moneth lately layed upon the Kingdom is to maintain a War against the kingdom the people must give so much to keep an Army on foot onely to awe and undo themselves Psalm 12. 8 See for all this and that which followeth Burtons Vindication of Independent Churches against Prynne his Brother * Calumny arraign'd pag. 33 2. 3. * I wish all his brethren of that Church were but men of his temper and spirit 2 Tim. 3. 4 5. 1 King 12. 25 c. * And for the peoples willing obedience to the same it was that they were so oppressed broken in judgement and had Gods curse like a moth or rottennesse seizing upon them witnesse the Prophet Hos. 5. 11. 12. * As the Remists among the Papists did set out a false and corrupt Translation of Scripture with Notes of their own upon it to make it speake for them so some here as is said are in hand with a like worke in the behalfe of their Faction Act. 8. 22. Jer. 18. 7. 8. Ezek. 22 30. Esa. 48. 9. 11. Ezek. 36. 12. Zach. 9. 12. Prov. 18. â—0 Psal. 12. 5 Jer. 30. 17. * God calleth himselfe the gatherer of the out-casts Esay 56. 8. Esay 66. 5. Mat. 28. 18. Mich. 7. 8. c. Gen. 4. 11. c. Gen 49. 6. Num. 16. 30. 31. 2 Sam. 17. 23. 2 Sam. 18. 9 Esa. 9. 21 Esa. 19. 2. Judg. 15. 4. Esa. 8. 9. 10. c. Jer. 50. 23. Esa 13. 14. c. Esay 10. 5. Esay 51. 22 23. Psal. 125. 3. Es. 10. 25. Deut. 32. 35. Deut. 32. 36. Esay 50. 10. 1 Sam. 30. 6. Esay 26. 11. 13. Psal. 119. 126. Dan. 5. 3. 5. Es. 36. 37. ca. 1 Sam. 17. 1 Thess. 5. 2. Es. 10. 6. 12. Esay 5. 21. 23 Gen. 50. 15. Act. 2. 3. cap. Zach. 1. 14. Obad. 12. Esay 16. 3. Jer. 48. 27. Read Esa. 16. and Jer. 48. Lev. 19. 17. Eccles. 11. 6. 2 Tim. 2. 26. 2 Cor. 12. 10. 1 Cor. 1. 27. 2 Thes. 2. 10. Esay 59. 8. Jam. 4. 7. Psal. 15. 4. Psal. 83. 16. Eccles. 3. 1. Math. 16. 22. 1 Cor. 6. 19. 1 Chro. 22. 16. Isal. 37. 1. 7. Vers. 2. Prov. 23. 17. Pro. 24. 19 c. Rev. 22. 20 21.