not to destroy the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them and themselves by their false Expositions and new invented traditions were the innovators and corrupters both of the Law and Prophets and more particularly 1. For the Sabbath he sheweth that themselves are herein too nice and superstitious and he no prophaner thereof because the Sabbath was made for man i.e. for the good of man both for his soul and body of his soul by serving God and of his body by those necessary actions and recreations that may conduce for the continuance of his health on that day 2. For the reverence to be observed in the Temple or Church of God 2 Objection answered Esay 56.7 he sheweth that he was not too strict in driving the buyers and sellers and all other prophaners thereof out of the same because God himself saith even of this material Temple or Church of stones My house shall be called an house of prayer for all people for the Gentiles as well as for the Jewes but they had prophaned the same by making it a house of Merchandize and so a den of thieves as they do that make it a stable for their horses or a receptacle for their plundered and stolne goods And in both these points our Puritans now are just as the Jewes were then too much given to prophane the Church and too superstitious to observe the Sabbath But 3. For abridging the liberty of divorces 3 Objection answered Matth. 5.32 he tells them that he teacheth no otherwise then what was from the beginning that whosoever putteth away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery but you by forsaking the good old way and following the traditions of your latter Rabbines your Assembly of new Divines have made the Commandements of God of none effect and teach for Doctrine the Commandements of men Chap. 15.6 just as they do now forsake the good old government of the Church that hath been from the beginning from Christ his time and follow the new invented Government that is forced from the false and wrested Expositions of our upstart Rabbines that never yet saw the age of a man since the death of Calvin and Beza the first Fathers that begat it 2. As they did thus unjustly taxe their King for Innovation 2 The destruction of the people And this madded the people against King Charles John 11.48 and the alteration of their established Religion so they have another bait whereby they do as cunningly catch the people and set them like wild men to joyn with them yea to out-goe them in their desires to destroy their King and that is Salus populi the safety and liberty of the people which they said would be utterly lost if they did let Him goe and this madded the people against their King though there was no truth in the charge nor ground to believe it but the feares and jealousies of the people raised only by the malice of their wicked leaders for how could it be that either the safety or the liberty of the people should be any wayes impaired by that King that came to fulfill the Law and to root out all the false glosses thereof and was contented to lose not his Kingdom only but also his own life for the safety and liberty of his people as themselves confesse that he must die for the people i. e. for their Lawes and Liberties and so become the Martyr of the Law and the Saviour of his people So you see the pretended charge against this King Jo. 11 48. that he was a tyrant by indevouring to destroy their Lawes and to alter their Religion and a Traytor to the State by forbidding Tribute unto the Conqueror whom now they were resolved to honour for their onely King lest they should lose their place and their Nation 2. 2 The true causes that moved the murderers to kill their Kings The true reall causes that moved these murderers to kill their King were very many but especially four 1. Envie to him 2. Despaire in themselves 3. Fear to lose 4. Ambition to be great For 1. 1 Envie Joh. 7.47 Mar. 7.37 They perceived that for his admirable worth and his divine endowments when as never man spake as he did and that he did all things well the people loved him followed him and adhered to him then As the glorious rayes of the Sun upon any putrified matter causeth a stench so his excellent vertues begat the poysonouâ—brats of envie and malice in these wicked miscreants and so Pilate perceived that for envie they had delivered or rather as the word signifieth betrayed him to death 2. 2 Despair of pardon When they had by their Declarations and Remonstrances their calumnies slanders and false accusations sought with all art to render him odious unto his people and had in all things opposed him to the uttermost of their might Gen. 4.13 then as Cain cried out my sin is greater then can be forgiven So the guilt of their malice and the remembrance of their fore-past wickednesse against him were of so deep a stain they they conceived all the water in the Sea could not wash it away and all the mercie of man could not remit their sin such is the conscience of all unconscionable sinners therefore though this good King could would and did forgive his enemies and pray for his persecutors yet because their hate and sins were so great that they could not believe it they thought themselves no wayes secured unlesse he were killed 3. 3 Fear to lose what they had gotten The men were now got into great power they had the liberty to be of what Sect and profession they pleased Scribes Pharises or Sadduces or what you will and to do what they would so long as they pleased the Conqueror no man could contradict them but if the right King continue King they saw he would not and could not endure such an Anarchie of Government and a Hodge podge to remain amongst them therefore Caiaphas the second man in power tells them it is expedient that he die for fear of the losse of their places and this their great power and liberty 4. 4 Ambition to be great men Matth. 21.23 Mâ—â— 12.7 Luk. 20.9 This King himself in the parable of the Vineyard which is faithfully recorded by three Evangelists sets down as I conceive it the main cause fundamental ground of his death that is their ambition desire to be great and to hold all power and authority in their own hands for so the wicked husband-men say This is the heir Venite come let us kill him and then retinebimus haereditatem ejus we shall hold his inheritance His it is we confesse yet then We shall hold it because as S. Mark saith then certainly erit nostra it will be ours and no man can keep us from it and indeed this desire of bearing rule And
malicious treacherous and murderous ill properties for great Courtiers that ought to be as well good as great else are they but a great shame among men and a great staine unto all their posterity 10. 10 The common people for the most part had a hand in his death by a three fold imployment As salus populi the good of the people and the liberty of the subjects was one main pretended cause why these murderers kild their King ne gens pereat lest if he lived the Nation should be destroyed so the people upon all occasion must be ready at hand to serve their turn and to do the services wherein these their grand Masters shall imploy them and this imployment we find to be three fold 1. Mar. 14.43 When their King is to be taken they must be sent armed with swords and staves to apprehend him 2. They must draw petitions for some base and unworthy thing as they did Math. 27.20 when they petitioned that Barabbas a thief and a murderer might be released and their King crucified 3. They must come to the Judgment-Hall or place of Judicature and for fear the King should find some favour from him that knew him innocent they must with loud voices cry for justice and double their desires for execution and all this saith the Evangelist was done by the multitude Math. 27.20 Hosi-anna as they were perswaded by the Priests and Presbyters Ah silly people that even now cry Hosanna serva quaeso Save Lord and now presently Crucifige that loved their King as his enemies confess and yet joyn with his enemies to kill their King and never ask What hath he done but this we will do to please them that set us on the work Who then but a mad man would repose trust in a multitude of men and relie upon a broken reed a reed that wavers with every winde And not only so but to shew the baseness of these base people for I know not how to say their envy or their malice that they should maligne their King who had done them good every way and no harm to any of them when Pilate a heathen Judge and a stranger to the Jews shall profess him to be a just person Math. 27.24 and therefore wash his hands from the blood of the innocent man this giddy multitude of rude people the generation of vipers that gnaw out the bowels of their own dams the brethren of Cain and the children of their father the Devil Joh. 8.44 that hath been a murderer from the beginning do cry out as vengeance doth require Math. 27.25 His blood be upon us and upon our children What Nefandum scelus a most fearfull thing when the blood of our own just King unjustly murdered by so many sorts of men that had their hands imbrued with his blood shall like Abels blood cry to God for vengeance against us and our children for ever O let us rather repent and desire of God that the blood of this lamb Jesus Christ may wash away these our bloody sins And thus I have shewed you the chiefest Actors in this bloody Tragedy all the whole Kingdom of Jury rebelling against their King and most Traiterously betraying him to an Ignominious death save only some few followers of Christ of whom this King foretold what should betide them some of them should be killed and some persecuted from City to City for Math. 23.34 as S. Basil said of Herod 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his meat was the flesh and his drink was the blood of men so these Regicides will never leave a follower of this King untill like the Whore in the Revelations Revel 7.6 they be drunk with the blood of the Saints and thereby shew themselves as they are 1. Vnsatiable because they never leave till they be drunk 2. Vnmercifull because they will be drunk with blood and 3. Vnjust because no blood will serve them but the blood of the Saints and servants of this King the witnesses of Gods truth And therefore let all the lovers of this King look to themselves because the branches must needs wither when the root is plucked up And besides these followers of Christ that loved him we find some others that had no hand in killing him and those were the Samaritans a people as much hated by the Jews as Papists are by the Puritans and though this King confer'd upon the Jews beneficia nimis copiosa multa magna and did nothing at all for these Samaritans save only to pitty them and hinder the fiery Zâ—lots the two sons of Zebedee to destroy them by calling for fire out of Heaven to consume them as Elias did the two Captains and their fifties yet we do not read that either they hated the person or sought the life of this King no more do I find that any Papist joyned with the Parliament of England and the Conquerors of our King to put King Charles to death which I believe will be sufficient witnesses to rise in judgment to condemn them that have condemned the King at the last day Thus I have passed over all or most of the acts and scenes of this Tragedy and I might here end but that as the Prophet saith abyssus abyssum invocat and one Tragedy requires another and the destruction of this King and his followers cals for destruction upon the destroyers that like Damocles's sword hangs by a feeble thread ready to fall upon their necks for the Prophet David demands the question Shall they escape for their wickedness And he doth immediatly answer The Lord shall destroy both the blood-thirsty and deceitfull men and all these men that I have shewed being most deceitfull and very much thirsting after blood and that blood not of the basest people but of the best of men their Prophets their Preachers and their own most just and pious King it must needs pull destruction upon their heads Therefore Christ in the parable of the Vineyard saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Matth. 21.41 The Lord will miserably destroy them that is 1. Them that plotted to take away his inheritance 2. Them that consulted to take away his life 3. Them that so unjustly put him to death 4. Them that abused and wronged his servants that sought to defend his right And 5. I feare me them that might have helped to protect both their King and his servants and did not for if any where then surely here that axiome must hold good Qui non vetat peccare quum potest ipse peccat and that too-ill-applied Sentence so protect rebels assist murderers by our seducing brethren in the 5. of Judges where Debora saith Curse ye Meros curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they came not to the help of the Lord against the mighty must needs be applied to them that had ability to defend their King and to relieve his oppressed servants and yet suffered them to be destroyed by
of death for the King then to be perswaded for what pretense of good soever and by whomsoever were it an Angel out of Heaven to consent unto his death is to become guilty of a great fault and to say that he was perswaded thereunto by the Bishops whose fault was therefore greater then his Majestie 's can no more excuse him then for the man of God to say that he was seduced by the old Prophet And therefore this might be a just cause with God to suffer him that to satisfie sinful men would offend his good God by giving way to them to take away the life of an innocent man to have his own life taken from him even by those men to whom he had yielded to take away the life of another man which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a conformity of our punishment to our offence and is nothing else but lex talionis an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth and death for death which was the first Law that God published after the Deluge saying Whosoever sheddeth man's blood that is either per se as Cain did Abel or per alium as David did Vriah's and Ahab Naboth by Act or it may be by consent by man shall his blood be shed Secondly touching the Bishops my self knoweth that he loved them all and honoured their Calling very much being fully satisfied of the truth of their Divine and Apostolical Institution as appeareth by that learned and exquisite defence that himself most graciously made against the Presbyterians of the Episcopal Order and he was indeed a right Constantine to all the Bishops rather hiding their infirmities if he spyed any fault in them with the Lap of his Garment then any ways multiplying or publishing the same unto the People And this was a most Christian course in him for I may justly say Victima sacra Deo res est succurrere Cleris And as our Saviour saith of them He that receiveth you receiveth me And the Bishops of all other his Subjects were his most loyal Servants and most faithful Oratours never thwarting their King nor crossing any of his just Designs but ever cleaving unto his Cause and voting on his side so far as truth and right and a good Conscience would give them leave contrary to which his Majesty never desired any thing And therefore when the King saw the malice of most wicked men qui oderunt eos gratis and did bear an intestine hatred against these true Servants of God and did strive manibus pedibúsque with all their might against all justice to thrust them out of their undoubted Right by the favour we confess of our most pious Princes for him as we conceive against his own mind and to his own prejudice to please and satisfie the implacable hatred of his and their enemies to pass an Act to exclude the Bishops out of his Great Council the Parliament when above thirty Acts of Parliament had confirmed their right Interest therein since the confirmation of Magna Charta was an errour as I conceive not salvable and a fault that cannot be justly excused by his best Friends and therefore God might justly suffer all his Counsels to fail and his Counsellours to become perfidi familiares his familiar Traytours such as the Poet speaks of Saepe sub agnina latet hirtus pelle Lycaon Subque Catone pio perfidus ille Nero. And though I do not nor dare not say it was so yet I may say that for this God might so give way to his Enemies to prevail against him and to thrust him out of his Kingdom when he gave way to thrust his Embassadours out of his house which is but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and even as Solomon divided God's Service betwixt God and the Idols of Zidon Moab and Ammon 1 Reg. 11. c. 12. so God divided his Kingdom betwixt his Son Rehoboam and his Servant Jeroboam so might he deal with King Charles when he yielded to expel the Bishops that were his true Friends and God's Servants out of his Council to suffer his Enemies to exclude him out of his Kingdom and not unjustly or without cause neither as the same proceeds from God whose ways are always just for who could better declare the right and truth of things unto the King then the Expounders of the Book of Truth Who could advise and direct him to make better and juster Laws then the Teachers of the Law of God and who fitter to judge of right and to require Justice to be enjoyned and practised by all People then they whose Calling is continually to call upon all men to live godly and soberly and justly in this present World Why then should they be excluded from the Seat of Justice either in the making of Laws or to see those Laws executed unless it were that the Lay-Justices might do what they would without shame and what they pleased without controul when as heretofore the reverend Presence of the Bishops and grave Divines and their sage Counsel did oftentimes stop the Current of Injustice and made some ashamed of some gross dealings that in their absence they were not ashamed to have effected and therefore I suppose I may justly say that as it was said of the Emperour Justinian when he caused Aetius his brave General to be cut off he had cut off his right Arm with his left Hand so did King Charles when he pâ—ssed that Act that prejudiced himself more then the Bishops Thirdly touching the Parliament we must understand that Parliaments were first instiâ—uted by the Kings of this Nation to inform them of the Abuses Dangers and Defects which the Lords and Peers and the wiser sort of their Subjects which each Countrey had elected and the chief Cities had chosen for that purpose had observed and to advise and consult with their King de arduis rebus Regni of these and all other difficult and great Affairs of the Kingdom as the Writs that call them together do declare and then to consider by what good means the Dangers of the Kingdom might be prevented by what Laws ' the abuses might be redressed and which ways the peace of the People might be preserved and the happiness of all his Subjects continued and enlarged and if they understood of any sorreign dangers invasions or injuries to consult how the same might be prevented and rectified And when the King understood what his Lords and Commons conceived fitting to be done He with the Advice of His Council ratified what he approved and rejected what he disliked with the usual phrase in that kind But in process of time the Parliament-men as I heard wise men say began to incroach more and more upon the Rights of Majesty upon the Power and Authority of the King especially of those Kings that either had no Right or at the best but doubtful Titles unto the Crown or those that were of less Abilities or of an easie and facile disposition and would soon be perswaded
fall that would not help him to stand which agonized strived and sweated to keep them up And yet I will shew you greater abomination for Thirdly The greatest fault of the Bishops When the Parliament thirsted after the blood and so eagerly sought to take away the life of that good and wise Earl of Strafford and the King like a just and a Christian King would not against his Conscience consent unto his death to shed the blood of him whom he conceived if not innocent yet not worthy of death nor guilty of the crimes laid to his charge they chose some Bishops to perswade the King and to rectific his Conscience as they pretended wherein he erred and they were the heads of the people the heads of the Clergy and the chiefest amongst the Bishops two Arch-Bishops and two of the prime Bishops that I can name and these all but one * The Bishop of London which I am sure herein was the honester the wiser and the more Christian advised the King and I pray God the Earl's blood be not laid to their charge howsoever after they had been with the King the King was induced to subscribe unto his death though still with some reluctancy of his own Conscience as himself confessed which makes me to conceive it was for none other cause then as Pilate delivered Christ to be crucified for fear of some evil if he denied it or as Herod committed St. Peter unto the Goal to please the people that would needs have it so so did the Bishops so did the King though unwillingly commit this great evil to satisfie the desire of the long Parliament but O Lord I hope and am sure thy mercy is such that thou hast not laid this to the charge of him that was deceived by those guides that with Balaam had their eyes open Numbers 24.15 and yet did set a stumbling-block before the blinde and therefore are the more inexcusable who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not onely joyn with the Parliament themselves though not in that sentence yet in approving by not disproving the sentence of his death but also be the means at leastwise ut causa sine qua non to draw the King to deliver him into the hands of his Executioners Who then but such as with the Sodomites do grope for the wall in the clear day can not see the judgment of God to be most just against us and far less then we deserve to suffer the Parliament to thrust us out of their Society when we would be companions with them in this Iniquity and to put all the Bishops out of their Honourable calling when the chiefest of them would have any Finger with the Parliament to put such an honourable person out of his life a person The just commendation of the Earl of Strafford for a true Friend of the Church that I dare say it upon my knowledg did more favour and more good to the Church and Church-men then any man except the King in these three Kingdomes for as men that saile in a Ship when a Storme cometh must all both good and bad endure the same loss so the Bishops sayling with the same winde must all perish with their heads in the same Boat And as their sufferings and the judgment of God was most justly inflicted upon them all in general as we may conceive for these master-faults and the general corruption that was amongst them not much inferior if true to those wherewith Corn. Agrippa taxeth the Roman Prelates so I could descend to everie particular man and shew you how the violent death of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the sudden death of the Arch-Bishop of York and the Childishness of the Arch-Bishop of Armath and whatsoever disaster befell to any other of them they have for some offence or other more then most justly deserved the same But I love not to rake in the dunghil of their shame and dishonour wherein I have no other pleasure but to amplifie the Declaration of the just Judgments of God even upon these otherwise most worthy men and the faithfull witnesses of Jesus Christ and upon the sight hereof to teach every one of them and every like of them to say with Job I do abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes and to proclaim it with Saint Paule to all the World Let God be true and just and every man a lyar and every one of them to have more cause to rejoyce and to praise God that he hath so favourably spared them then either to complain and murmur or to grieve that he hath too severely dealt with them and to warn all men to consider 1 Pettr 4.17 that if these things be done in the green trees what shall be done in the drie and if judgment thus begins in the house of God and upon his own faithfull Witnesses for their delinquences what shall be end of them that obey not the Gospel of Christ Secondly 2 The Insetior Clergy For the other Clergy the Priests that have suffered and felt the rod of Gods anger within these few years wherein the Wars raged amongst us I may distribute them into these two Ranks that is either 1. Presbyterians or 2. Episcopalls or First Revel xiii 11. The Presbyterians are the false Prophets and the Beast that rose out of the Earth and they were duces omnium malorum the Fountaine from whence sprang all the mischief they hated both the King and the Bishops and therefore contrary to their oathes taken many times both of their Faith and allegiance to the King and of their submission and canonical obedience to their Diocessans have rebelled against their King and railed against their Bishops and became the incendiaries and the bellows to blow and to inflame that fierie zeal of some of our blinde zelots and the infernal malice of some others both of the Parliament Citties and Countries to dethrone the King and to degrade the Bishops And truly The causes of the differences and distast betwixt the Bishops and presbyterians 1 On the Bishops part though I have deligently searched into the cause of this mischief yet I could never fide it to be any other then First too much austerity superciliousness and neglect if not contempt of these men in some of the Bishops for which they cannot be excused when of all others they should be curteous and affable like Pompey of whom it is Recorded that no Petitioner departed from him discontented because he either granted his request or he gave such reasons with that curtesie and affability that the Petitioner could not be offended and as Titus the Son of Vespatian was wont to say non oportet quemquam a Caesaris colloquio tristem discedere so should a Bishop especially endeavour to let none of his coat and calling to depart from him in discontent Sueton. in vita Titi. if reasons and faire speeches could do the same Multum quippe placent
the Priests but also to root out Presbyterium Our late persecution worse then Julians persecution the very Priesthood of Jesus Christ and so to extinguish the Christian religion out of the world for these men imitating him sought to supress not the then Bishops that perhaps might be found to have offended though that was never proved but Episcopacie it self and the discentive succession thereof which we received by prayers and the imposition of hands even from the Apostles time from those that are yet unborn and have I am sure done neither good nor evill and yet have received this evill from these men to have the Calling that they were to enjoy supprest their honours buried and their undubitable Rights and Means alienated from them Prohscelus nefandum quod magnum est mirum a most wonderfull thing that wickednesse should have no bounds no stop no reason nor moderation in its progression but like a stone tumbling down a hill never leave tumbling till it comes to the bottome or like a right Apollyon and a blind smiter that will slay the righteous with the wicked or rather destroy the righteous because they will not be wicked And yet this is not all we are not yet come to the height of these persecutors wickednesse Ezek. k. 13 15. or to the depth of their abomination but as the Lord saith unto the Prophet Ezechiel turn thee yet again and thou shalt see greater abominations so from the Lord I will shew to you greater abomination and the greatest that ever was committed here on earth For 3. The 〈…〉 the beâ—â—â—ving and murderring of the first King Touching which three 〈◊〉 are â—â—â—â—trable They have not only persecuted the Prophets and slain the Preachers and foreshewers of the coming of Jesus Christ but they have also saith our Martyr betrayed and murdered that just one For the fuller and more perfect understanding of which point I shall desire you to observe these three things 1. What they are and how they are styled by the holy Ghost that did this deed Traytors and Murderers 2. Of whom they are the Traytors and Murderers which is here exprest by that Just One and we shall find him to be 1. None of the Plebeians or common sort of men but a King the highest and the chiefest man in all the Kingdom 2. Not an alien as were Caesar and Herod but their own King originally and lineally descended from the Jews 3. Not an Vsurper as was Jeroboam and many others of the Kings of Israel and Athalia among the Jewes and Rich. the third and the late Cromwell amongst us but he was their own lawfull King without question lawfully descended from the Royall line 4. Not an unjust or tyrannical King as were Pharaoh Dionysius and Nero nor yet a lascivious King as were Sardanapalus Belshazzar and Heliogabalus but a most just perfect and pious King No better King under heaven 3. Who they were that the holy Martyr meaneth by these Traytors and Murderers of their King and we shall find them to be the Lords and Commons the People the Elders the Scribes and Pharisees and the whole Council of the Jewes 1. Part. 1. Their style and denomination which is twofold â— Traytorss They that have put this just King to death are here styled and shall ever be justly termed Traytors and Murderers 1. Traytors that is to their King for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Holy Ghost useth in this place and is derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies prodo or trado from whence the word Traitor cometh doth properly and most usually signifie both in prophane Authours and in the Ecclesiasticall and Civil writers the illegal and undutiful demeanour and the rebellious behaviour of Subjects toward and against their King and as the most curious criticks and best searchers of the Scriptures do observe this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Traytor is never applyed to any King for any act be it never so illegall so foul so barbarous or so bloudy that the King commits agains his Subjects when as we find not one text in all the book of God the holy Bible that speaks of many wicked idolatrous and tyrannical bloudy Kings where any one of those Princes or Kings is signified by this word or called by this name of Traytor And therefore this word Traytors that the Martyr useth doth sufficiently shew that he meaneth thereby to prove Christ to be King and the Traytors that killed him to be his Subjects as I shall further declare unto you hereafter 2. 2 Murders They are murderers because he was unlawfully put to death for otherwise a lawful Judge may lawfully put a malefactor to death and be no murderer because God commandeth Idolaters and sorcerers and others the like malefactors to be put to death and they that legally put such men to death are never termed murderers but when the party executed is innocent and the Judge condemning him not vested with lawful authority the man so put to death is truly said to be murdered and his executioners murderers And such was the death of Christ because he was most innocent And so was the death of King Charles and the Judge had neither lawful authority nor a just cause to condemn him and therefore they that crucified Christ and put him to death are rightly termed murderers and because Christ was a King as I shewed you from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 traytors they were no ordinary murderers of plebeians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the common sort of men but that which is the highest and the worst of all murders they were the murderers of their King and therefore the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the Martyr useth to expresse the death of the fore-shewers of the coming of Christ and the words of the Husbandmen which they said together of the King's Son Marc. 12.7 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Occido used here to signifie the death of this King ought properly to be translated either by killing or slaying or murdering as our last Translation renders the Martyr's words most rightly that they were his murderers But here it may be the Jews will object and say That Man or that King cannot justly be said to be murdered which is brought to a publick Trial and hath 1. His Charge given him to answer Three things seeming topalliat and to disprove the murdering of this King discussed 2. The Witnesses ready to prove the Charge 3. A Lawful Judge to pronounce sentence against him And all this was used against Christ the King of the Jews and against Charles the King of England saith the long Parliament therefore neither the one nor the other can justly and properly be said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be murdered but they are unjustly taxed and
Crucifie him 5. When to so milde a King that said none otherwise to his servant Math. 26 6â— So they beheaded King Charles where they used the baiting of Bears and other beasts in the common-way that arch-traytor which betrayed him but Friend wherefore art thou come they shall scornfully say to him The Prisoner or this fellow 6. When they carry him out to Golgotha a place fitter to bait beasts than to execute Kings there in a common high-way to lose his life 7. When as they go to Golgotha they cause him that was whipped and scourged and wearied in posting of him from place to place to carry his own heavy cross upon his shoulders 8. When they not only numbred him among the wicked but also crucified him betwixt two thieves in the midst of the wicked as if he had been the chiefest of all wicked men When the Colonel that brought him to his execution commanded his Souldiers to shoot any one that pâ—lled off his hâ—â— or shewed any reverence or spake any word for the honour of the King 3 How he was spit upon Joh. 19.29 And thus they bespitted King Charles with all kind of calumnies that had none but the wicked on every side of him 9. When as now disrobed of all Royalties and fastned to an accursed cross where he was induring intolerable pains not one that loved him durst speak a word but his enemies flouted him and wagged their heads at him and when he thirsted for our salvation they filled his mouth with sharp Vinegar as they did his ears with shameless taunts 10. When after he was dead they would not afford him a place of burial but he must be laid in another mans Sepulcher And were not all these and much more that might be collected most spightful usages of an innocent man and a glorious King Yet the Evangelist adds one thing more that I must not omit that they would spit upon him a note of the thing that we do most abominate as it seems their King was the chiefest thing that they did most hate and abhor But a man may be said to be spit upon figuratively when his enemies spit out their venome against him even bitter words And so Christ their King was most shamefully spit upon when by their Declarations and Remonstrances and other scurrilous Pamplets they proclaimed him to the World to be a Deceiver of the trust reposed in him and a Traytor because he perverted the people and drew them on to their destruction So they called him a Samaritane a Drunkard a Demoniak an upholder of Sinners a breaker of the Sabbath a Conjurer and what not Their tongues were swords that killed his Honour before they crucified his Person and they were the poyson of Aspes that spat out all these slanderous calumnies upon their King And this was bad enough and too much indignitie for a King Yet the Souldiers did not only thus Rhetorically spit upon him but Grammatically disgorged the scum of their ulcerous lungs in his glorious face and it is reported that a Souldier going under the name of a Christian did the like to a most Christian King which if true let him repent lest God should spue him out of his mouth And though it be the rule of the very Heathens De mortuis nil nisi bene We ought to speak nothing but good of the dead because as the Poet saith Livor post fata quiescit Yet these beasts like devils Saeva sed in manes manibus arma dabant degenerating from mankind are not content to kill their King but will murder him again and again after that he is both dead and buried and that not only in his Lovers and Followers whom they are resolved not to extenuate but to extirpate but especially in his fame his glory and his honour which is to all good men as the savour of the sweetest perfume that is made by the art of the Apothecarie and which they like stinking flies endeavour by all means to corrupt and defame and to destroy all those that truly preach or publish any truth redounding to his honour as you may plainly see it in the acts of his Apostles whom they threatned and terrified for speaking any good of him Though as the Poet saith Tu ne cede malis sed contrà audentior ito So the more these murderers sought to hinder it the more the glory and goodness of this King was spread abroad to their indelible shame throughout all the World when as the vertues of every just and pious man are as the palme-trees the more forcibly they are suppressed the more gloriously they will be exalted So you see how spightfully and how trayterously and bloodily and basely these miscreant Jews have used and abused killed and murdered their own King Now 2. 2 How causelessely they condâ—mned him John 10.32 You are to consider how causelessely and how unjustly they did all this unto him for the Prophet in the person of this King saith Oderunt me gratis They hated me indeed but without a cause and himself saith unto the Jews Many good works have I shewed you from my father For which of them do you now go about to kill me So in truth there was great cause to love and honour this good King that had done so much good unto them but no cause why they should either hate or abuse much lesse to kill or murder this their own King Yet we find several causes set down by the Evangelists that moved these Jews to kill their King and they are of two sorts 1. Pretended to the people 2. Real to themselves And 1. 1 The pretended causes to murder their King Their pretended cause is specially twofold 1. Cultus Dei 2. Salus populi the usual pretences of all Traytors and if they were true there could not be better And therefore this fair colour deceives the buyers of this bad cloth and these pretences made the people to commit on Christ this execrable Fact to hate and crucifie the son of God their own King But to proceed to examine these fair colours 1. As generally the raisers of any people to rebellion 1 Innovation of Religion taxe their Governours with innovation or destruction of Religion because all men even the superstitious and licentious and prophane worlding would fain seem to embrace the true Religion so these perswade the silly vulgar that this their King closely and cunningly laboureth to alter and innovate the true service of God as 1. That he was too loose in observing the Sabbath 2. Too strict in the reverence to be shewed in the material Temple Mark 2.24 Matth. 21.12 c 19. The very same things were objected against King Charles Matth. 5.17 1. Objection answered Mark 2.27 3. Too severe in abridging them the liberty of divorces and the like But to this our King answereth first in generall that they do wrong him by this their unjust charge and accusation because he came
I would fain know if these four things were not the very causes that made the Rebels to being King Charles unto death this covetousnesse to get what is none of our own hath been the death of many Kings of many men for what made Caracalla slay his brother Geta in his mothers lap and between her armes but this inordinate desire to raign What made Phraharers son of Horodes King of Parthia kill his own Father and 29. of his brethren but the like desire to raign And what made Abimelech the bastard son of Gedeon slay 70. of his brethren in one day and Jehn to slay his Master even as Zimri had done the like before him and Absolon attempt to do so to his own Father but only this ambitious desire of bearing rule And if you look into the 8. c. of the 5. Book of Camerarius Camerar l. 5. c. 8. his historical meditations you shall find a Catalogue of such wicked murderers that have bin the death of many Kings that they might raign as kings themselves and therefore let the pretences of these murderers of their King be what you will change of Religion Arbitrary Government great Tyranny or loss of liberty yet all these are but forged and fained to blind the World and to deceave the people and the true Cause indeed is this Haereditas erit nostra This Profit is the point that doth the deed And as the desire to raign makes the regicides Cant. 2. so this inheritance of the Church which is signified by the Vineyard brought the doctrine of killing deposing and depriving into the Church of Christ and it is as truly Esay 5. as wittily said by one that Quid vultis mihi dare is the Jews question in this case Omnia haec tabi dabo is the Devil's answer to the Church-robber And such a dialogue betwixt the Devil and the Jew for the inheritance of the Church is powerfull enough to bring any King even Christ himself the King of Kings unto his death so I do assure my self and all the World may be assured of it it is not the calling or the office of the Bishops or of Deans Prebends which neither they nor their grand Master was ever able to disprove to be Divine that they so much detest but it is their Lands and inheritance that they so greedily gape for and as this made Naboth to lose his life so this makes our calling detestable and this was the cause the cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that brought Charles our King and one speciall cause that brought Christ the King of kings unto their deaths because they would not betray the trust that God reposed in them nor surrender up this their rightfull Inheritance unto the greedy Usurpers but shewed themselves faithfull shepherds that were ready to lay down their lives for their sheep rather then to betray the laws and liberties of the people and the happiness that God had determined for their subjects and for this as we owe to our Saviour Christ our selves our souls and our bodies to honor him and serve him to praise him and to magnify him for ever as our only Saviour and preserver from everlasting death and destruction so this good King this just magnanimous King King Charles that rather suffered an ignominious death then to give away the inheritance of the Church or annull the highest calling in the same the Calling of the Reverend Bishops deserves to be everlastingly Loved indelibly Chronicled and universally Published like Mary Magdalen for a faithfull Martyr a true Protector and a nursing Father unto the Church of Christ which here I vow for mine part ever to do whensoever opportunity offers it self to do it But as I said before they had their King in their hands Ob. they had him their Prisoner so they had his Kingdom in their power and possession already what needed they therefore to kill him that they might have that which they had For if Ahab had had the Vineyard questionless Naboth had not died Saint Mark answereth fully that they kild the Heire Sol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might hold it and continue in it An answer specially to be observed for covetousness is a sin of Retention and never thinks of Restitution and the sin of forcible entrance can not endure to be put out of Possession thereforelest if he lived he might use some means to Regain it there is no surer way for them to hold in Peace what they unjustly got by the sword but by the death of the Just Owner And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I conceive signifieth not only that we may hold what we have but also that we may have more then we hold as if they should have said Some-what we have while we have him our prisoner and in our hands but more we shall get when we get him dead for then we shall have all as much as we can or will desire Therefore seeing ambition is like the daughters of the Horseleëch that still crieth more and more these murderers are like the Whore in the Apocalyps that having tasted the blood of the Saints will never give over till she be drunk with blood so will they never be satisfied with any less than the blood of their King Apoc 17. the death of the right Heir that they may hold what they have and have whatsoever they desire So you see the true Causes why these wicked murderers have put their King to death Now 3. 3 The patient and silent demeanor of this King Esay 53. Act. 8.32 When his adversaries most maliciously illegally and falsly accused him and laid many things to his charge contrary to all truth yet he answered not unto their charge but this good King being reviled reviled not again and being smitten smote not again but as a Lamb before his shearer is dumb so opened he not his mouth The Reason The Reason of not answering to their charge four fold why he answered not is not expressed by the Holy Evangelists therefore we may not curiously prie into that which is concealed nor Positively conclude the Reason that is not revealed unto us Yet with Modesty it may be conjectured that he would not answer 1. Reason 1 Lest his wise and satisfactory Answer might convince Pilate that was a rational man and seemed to bear no malice against him and being satisfied to let him go freed from the accusation of his enemies and so the Counsell of God which he knew and came to fulfill it touching the Redemption of mankind by his death might thereby be frustrated So far did he prefer our good before his own life A most gratious King 2. Reason 2 He answered them not lest his answering might have ministred an occasion to these malicious miscreants to suborn more perjurers to bear false witness against him so carefull was this good King of the good of his enemies that they should not heap
King 21.8 false Prophets at her own Table and she vowed to be the death of Elias 1 King 18.4 and made a wicked King to become far more wicked by her continuall instigation of him to wickedness and therefore she was a very wicked woman vers 19 and the more inabled to be wicked because she was so Noble and so Witty when as there is no wickedness so great and so unavoydable as armed wickedness which is invented by Subtilty perpetrated by Power and defended by Authority for And how inabled to be wicked as Non nisi ex magnis ingeniis magni errores Great Heresies never spring from mean Schollers and great oppressions could never be acted by petty Landlords or mean Gentlemen so Jezabel could never have gotten Naboth's Vineyard if she had not had the wit to device this plot and the learning to write these letters for so the Text saith 1 King 21.8 That she wrote letters in Ahabs name and the power as being King Ahabs wife to seal them with his seal and send them as from him to the Nobles and Elders to execute her wicked will neither could she have maintained 400. false Prophets at her own Table if she had not had the wealth and power for to do it and so if Irene had not been an Empress she had never perswaded a whole Council to set up the worshipping of Images And therefore great Schollers ought earnestly to beg and to pray to God for grace to sanctify their learning that they may be retained within the sphere of truth and not to start aside like Arius Eutyches Nestorius and the like learned Hereticks that thought so well of themselves that they disdained to walk in the troden paths of Orthodoxall Divinity and therefore invented most wicked Heresies and so as the Lord saith of proud Babylon their Wisdom and their knowledge caused them to fall which hath been the practice of our Presbyterians and Jesuits in these very daies And in like manner Kings and Princes Magistrates and Judges Landlords and Great men ought to be very carefull of their actions and more carefull then any other men that are of a lower station because they are more inabled to do more wickedness For if a mean man wrong me I may perchance be able to right my self but if a Judge decree against me or a mighty man oppress me I must with patience be resolved to bear it or by strugling in all likelihood to be much more damnified And the Devill laboureth more to get a subtile Scotus or a learned Origen to become an Heretick a powerfull Nero to become a Tyrant and an Assembly of Senators and a choise Parliament to become Rebels and to bandy against their King as the Senators of Rome conspired the death of Caesar and the Jewish Sanhedrim the death of Christ and the grave Judges to become such Judasses as to sell the Truth or like the Judges of Susanna to condemn the Innocent and the rich Landlords to turn miserable Oppressors I say the Devill laboureth more and rejoyceth more to have one such than twenty other poor Snakes that want the abilities of Wit Learning Power and Authority to become his Instruments of wickedness And therefore I say to all such men of good parts and great power as the Prophet saith Psal 2â— for the same cause Be wise now therefore O ye Kings be Learned all ye that are the Judges of the Earth And do you follow the known common troden path of truth all you that are good Schollers And so much for the speaker Jezabel that was a noble witty and wicked woman 2. For the Speech of this wicked-wicked woman 2 The speech of Jezabel it is a most Excellent Speech worthy to be set in Letters of Gold inter dicta sapientum among the Aphorisms or Parables of the wise As I shall make it manifest unto you when I come to explain the same In the interim you may observe How that many wicked men and wicked women Hereticks and Tyrants have had many times some Excellent sayings and sometimes most worthy Acts have proceeded from them As the Papists and Presbyterians have made many good Sermons and written many Excellent Books and Treatises of Divinity full of Learning and great Piety and who better then Bellarmine his Meditations upon his Gemitus columbae How many wicked men have said and done many things well Soliloquies De ascensione animi in coelum per scalas rerum creatarum Septem verba Christi in cruce And his Comments upon the Psalms and the like And so Ferus Granatensis Drexelius and many more have done the like and we find divers others that have been great Hereticks to have done so likewise And in like manner we do read that many wicked men have done some speciall Acts of Virtue and Piety As Herod that sought the Life of Christ yet did he as Josephus relates it most Magnificently re-edify and beautify the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and the other Herod the husband of Herodias hearkened to John Baptist in many things and Pilate that condemned Christ to death did many things exceeding well as in the strict examination of Christ his Cause and justifying his Innocency when he delivered him to be Crucified and Claudius Lisâ—as though he would not release S. Paul from his bands yet he preserved his Life and delivered him out of the hands of his enemies and the unrighteous Judge that as our Saviour saith Luk. 18.5 feared not God neither regarded man yet did he once justice to the importunate Widow and Am. Marcellinus tels us that even fulian the Apostate and the bitterest persecutor of the Christians was adorned with many singular properties as being an Excellent Schollar bred in Athens at the same time with Greg. Nazian and writing many Epistles Orations and Morall sayings and behaving himself most mildly and courteously towards all men but the Christians and so we read that Vespasian Titus Nerva Trajan Antoninus Pius Marcus Aurelius and many others of the Roman Emperors had many good parts in them and did many singular acts of Virtue though they were no Christians but some of them very Evill men and great persecutors of the Christians And I could instance in many Tyrants and other great Oppressors of Gods people and wicked men even in our own Kingdom that have done some Acts of Virtue and Piety And I could name you the men that have been very Turbulent in Gods Church and mis-led abundance of the people and yet have made some good Sermons and written some good Treatises of Divinity And what then Shall we therefore adore them and follow them in their factions and evill waies because they do or have done some good By no means For as thou shouldest not drink the Wine that is mingled with some Poâ—son though the Wine be never so good so it is not safe for thee to hear that Sermon that leads thee to Sedition though
for judgement against the Bishops that were the Authours of these evils and so as all the Mariners were tossed for Jonas his sin so all the Bishops must suffer for the offence of few And though as Eusebius saith all the malice of the world and all the persecution of Tyrants and all the Stratagems of that old Serpent could not darken the glory of Christ his Church while the Bishops and the rest of the Priests and Preachers of God's word held together and kept the Unity of Faith in the Bond of Peace yet when the Bishops fell together by the ears and dissented in their opinions the one from the other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that held the faith of one Substance which is the right Catholick faith from them that maintained the faith of the like Substance which was and is the Arrian Heresy and when the Priests banded against the Bishops and the Bishops did therefore seek to suppress those Priests then the Lord darkened the glory of the daughter of Sion and the Church that formerly triumphed sate then as a Sparrow that is alone mourning upon the House-top even so now in our days when they that ought and had promised and vowed most solemnly when they were admitted to Holy Orders to reverence their Bishops and to be advised by them and obedient to them began to spurn with their heels to spit in their faces and to bark against them in their Pulpits our Saviour's words must hold true that A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand and much less the Hierarchy when the Priests and Bishops are at such ods and so contrary to themselves And this division of Reuben with the aforesaid distempers was a great presage of their present fall yet I believe not all the cause that moved God to permit the Devil to stir up Enemies to throw them down but the true cause was greater sins if I judge right then either of these for the former might be the aspersions of Enemies and but onely the allegation of ill-willers without any sound ground for their Justification or if true but the Acts of some few of the inferiour Bishops and the Divisions of the Clergy might lessen our repute and weaken our Authority but not utterly to overthrow our Hierarchy as all the contentions of the Primitive Church never did And therefore the true causes of our ruine must needs be of an higher nature and they might be besides the forenamed and some others that we know not of these three main faults that can neither be denied nor excused 1. The misguiding of the good King before the Long Parliament The three great saults of the Bishops 2. The neglecting of him in the Parliament 3. The evil Counsel they gave him with the Parliament First The King having a reverend opinion of the Bishops Fault was perswaded to second and to set forward the Designs of the Bishop of Canterbury in many things that brought him the ill opinion and so diminished the love of the people as in the matter of Saint Gregory's by Saint Paul's and especially in sending the newly amended Liturgy unto the Scotish Church and the Prosecution of that business so eagerly to the great prejudice of the King which was to speak what I conceive to be truth without flattery such an Episcopal offence as cannot be expiated with words nor could be defended with the power of the King as the Scots alleadged Non omnibus unum est Quod placet hic spinas colligit ille rosas and which I conceive to be the Original and the Seed of all the King's troubles and misfortunes and the Bishop's overthrow mittere falcem in alienam messem to busie themselves out of their own Diocess especially among the Scots that were bewitched with the love of the Presbytery and hated all forms of Liturgies but such as was without form or beauty like Christ at his Passion that was then as the Prophet saith without form or beauty for had they rested quiet without raising up those Northern blasts and those Spirits that they could not lay down they might no doubt in my Judgement have remained quiet to this very day but they throwing these stones into the Air they fell into their own fore-heads and they verified the old Proverb Qui striut insidias aliis sibi damna dat ipse he that diggeth a pit for another shall fall into it himself for by troubling the Scots with the new service they pull'd an old house upon their own heads and an unspeakable trouble upon the King and this Kingdom as they soon felt it afterwards and all the people smarted for it Secondly Great fault of the Bishops When they had troubled these unsavory waters and raised up these foul Spirits that they could not binde and had engaged the good King in this bad cause they neither justified the King with their pens nor assisted him with their purses near so much as so good a Patron both of them and of their Churches had deserved but as men stupified with that storm that the Parliament had raised they were tongue-tied in his Cause and hand-bound for any great help or assistance they afforded him against his and their own enemies And what a neglect was this of so good a King by wise men to save their Wealth and to lose both their King and themselves I would they had remembred Ausonius his Epigram 55. Effigiem Ausonius Epigt 55. Rex Croese tuam ditissime regum Vidit apud manes Diogenes Cynicus Constitit utque procul stetit majore cachinno Concussus dixit Quid tibi divitiae Nunc prosunt regum Rex O ditissime cumsis Sicut ego solus me quoque pauperior Nam quaecunque habui mecum fero cum nihil ipse Ex tantis tecum Croese feras opibus But they skulked to escape the storm I could name the men that had and let abundance of Wealth and ready Coin behind them and yet did nothing to relieve the King and suffered their King to suffer Ship-wrack a fault not unworthy to be punished by the Judges and an unthankfulness yea and such unthankfulness as exceeded all their former defects and faults to do so little for him that did so much for them and was contented to lose his life as he did rather then he would consent that they should lose their honour and be degraded of that Calling to which Christ had called them I am sure it is our duty and we ow it unto our King as I have fully shewed in my Book Of the Right of Kings to hazard our lives for our King and to spend all that we have in the defence of our King and I think this King well deserved if ever any King deserved at the Bishops hands that they should hazard their lives and expose all that they had in the just defence of so just a King and therefore God dealt most justly with us to suffer all our Bishops to
SEVEN TREATISES Very necessary to be observed in these very bad Days To prevent the Seven last Vials of God's Wrath that the Seven Angels are to pour down upon the Earth Revel xvi I. The Monstrous Murder of the most righteous King Paralel'd to the Murder of King CHARLES the First Act. vii 52. II. The Tragedy of Zimri that slew his King that was his Master 2. Reg. ix 31. III. God's War with the wicked Rebels Murderers c. Esay lvii 21. IV. The lively Picture of these lewd times Jeremy xiv 10. V. The four Chiefest Duties of every Christian Man 1. Peter ii 17. VI. The true Properties and Prerogatives of the true Saints John x. 27. VII The Chiefest Cause why we should love God 1. John iv 19. Whereunto is annexed The DECLARATION of the just Judgment of GOD 1. Upon our late King's Friends that neglected him 2. Upon the King's Enemies that rebelled and warred against him I. The perfideous Scots II. The bloody Irish III. The Anti-Christian Presbyterians and Parliament that killed the two Witnesses of Jesus Christ Moses and Aaron Magistrates and Ministers 1. In general upon all the Long Parliament and especially upon the Rump-Parliament so termed 2. In particular upon many of the most wicked Limbs of the great Anti-Christ and the Members of that Parliament AND The superabundant Grace and great Mercy of God shewed towards this good King CHARLES the First I. In his Life II. In his Death III. After his Death 1. In his Honour 2. In his Children and Posterity 3. In all his Friends and loyal Subjects By Gr. Williams Ld. Bishop of Ossory LONDON Printed for the Authour 1661. The Resolution of the Authour By the Grace of God and the assistance of his blessed Spirit I will flatter no man I do fear none nor any danger but God I desire nothing of any man but Love I covet no Preferment but to keep what the blessed King and my most gracious Master at the Motion of my ever Honoured Lord the Earl of Pembroke hath given me And He gave me all that I have and to lose all for his sake that gave me all I never cared I can have no long time to live being now full Seventy and four years old I will speak nothing to my knowledge but truth and if I perish I perish as Qu. Hester said Let God's will be done Jehovae Liberatori GR. OSSORY TO THE KINGS Most Excellent MAJESTIE And to the now-Convened PARLIAMENT and all Posterity The Humble Remonstrance of Gruffith Williams Lord Bishop of Ossorie Sheweth THAT he is most strictly obliged and indispensably bound as he is sent a messenger from God to instruct his people and called by His late Majesty his most gracious Master and now most Glorious Martyr Charles the first of ever blessed memory to be the Bishop of Ossorie to declare and make Remonstrance unto Your Majesty to the now-Convened Parliament and to all Posterity these few Subsequent things As First that ever since 1625. I lived with my ever-honoured Lord and Master the Earl of Pembroke and Mountgomery for the most part in His Majestie 's house at the Cock-Pit about the space of eighteen years together and about seven years of that time in His Majestie 's service and in that respect I had fitter opportunity to observe His Majestie and to understand the affairs and Trans-actions of the Court better then most others of His Majestie 's Chaplains that waited only their accustomed Moneth and then returned to their residence And mine Obligations to His late Majestie are so many and so great that I cannot with the best of mine endeavours discharge the Dimidium of those duties that low to the blessed memory of that King for he gave me all that I had and all that I have and had not the late Arch Bishop of Canterbury provided and commended to His Majestie a far better and abler man every way then my self His Majestie intended to make me the Teacher and Tutour to Your Majestie as I heard it from His own mouth when my ever Honoured Lord and Master the Earl of Pembroke and Mountgomery brought me to examine His Son and my Scholar the Lord Charles Herbert before His Majestie And therefore I conceive that I am more obliged and bound in Conscience to declare what I do infallibly know to be truth to perpetuate the understanding thereof unto Posterities and to undeceive the Ignorant and Simplest sort of people that know not things aright but in hearing the lying reports of most Malicious men do swallow down the same for truths then many others of His late Majestie 's Chaplains And I call the great God of Heaven and the Searcher of all hearts to be my witness that what I do is neither out of Envie Hatred or Malice to any particular man or to Flatter and to Insinuate my self into the favour of any one the greatest man living or for the hope and expectation of any benefit or Preferment in the World whereas I never did nor ever intended to desire any thing of Your Majestie or of any other but onely to retain and to enjoy what our late Pious King and my most gracious Master hath given me because that although I was Plundered in England and Plundered in Wales and Sequestred of all my Means both in England and Wales and had not left me one peny of any Ecclesiastical Means nor twenty Pound per annum in all the World to maintain my self and my Servants of any Temporal Estate so that I was forced for these twelve last years and more to live upon a little Tenement for which I payed fifty shillings rent to Sir Gr. Williams and four Pound land by the year of mine own poorer then poor Curates with Oaten-Bread and Barly-Bread and a little Butter-Milk or Glas-Door and sometimes Water being not able to keep any drop of Ale or Beer in my house for these two lustra's of years and more as all my Neighbours know and to go attired in very mean Country Cloaths and to do many servile works my self about my House Garden and Cattel for want of means to hire labourers yet for all this my sad condition lest I should be ensnared and hindred to discharge my duty and my tongue entangled with such Bird-lime I resolved to accept of no means benevolence or maintenance from the Usurpers Rebels and the Robbers of the Church of Christ and of their brethren whatsoever they should offer unto me and how great soever my wants should be as being contented with the Apostle with any state or condition whatsoever and hoping that as the Poet said of Pompey Non me videre superbum Prospera fatorum so Nec fractum adversa videbunt But what I say herein I do it onely to demonstrate the truth of things not to those that knew His Majestie which were needless but to those that knew Him not and upon mis-apprehension of His Majesties action's related by Malicious Adversaries misunderstood the same
herein and that is that all and every one that had any hand or finger in that good King's Death or in the death of any of those His good Subjects that were unjustly and illegally sentenced to death I do not speak of them that were killed in the War because as the Poet Lucan saith Pharsal lib. 1. Victrix causa Diis placuit sed victa Catoni And as the Prophet David saith The Sword devoureth the one as well as the other but of those that in cold blood by usu ping Judges under the Colour of Law were contrary to the Laws both of God and of the Land most unjustly condemned unto death should for that their unjust Proceedings be justly questioned and legally tryed for their former Offence the same being of so high a Nature as I shewed to you before But you will say many of them as blinde Bartimaeus might easily see that acted very highly against the last King and as it is conceived had their hands deep in his death were as active as any others and most special Instruments to bring His now Sacred Majesty unto His Right whereby they have fully expiated their foul offence and deserve rather to be well rewarded and honoured as some say they are then any ways questioned as their Adversaries would have them to be I answer that His Majesty is wise as the Angel of God and knoweth best what he should best do and the Policy of State is far beyond the Sphere of mine Intelligence and their doings therein ought highly to be commended and deserve not meanly to be rewarded though as Will. Sommers told King Henry the Eight that such a Gentleman threatned to kill him and the King answered that if he killed him he would have him hanged for it Will. Sommers replied Nay good King let him be hanged before he kills me or else his death will not preserve my life and his hanging will do me no good so I heard some say that they would have had the Enemies of the last King first punished for their Rebellion and the Murder of Him and then rewarded for their good Service to His now gracious Majesty or else reward them well for their good Service done to our now gracious King and then question them and punish them answerable to their Deserts for their Disloyalty and Treachery to our late King as I read it in the Turkish History and in some other Historians of some very wise Kings that did so to the like Offenders because we may believe it for a truth that they which have proved false to their own true just and lawful Prince will scarce ever prove faithful to any Prince nor seem to be but either for hope still to reap the fruit of their Subtlety to turn when the Winde turns or for fear to be dash'd in Pieces if they turn not their Sayls to escape those Rocks which they cannot otherwise avoid and no thanks to such men for any good they do when they do it perforce and therefore should be trusted perchance And it may be many of the very Murderers both of the good King and of his loyal Subjects have robbed and spoyled not the Aegyptians of their Jewels but the Israelites their Brethren of their Goods Lands and Possessions which they have gotten into their own hands and thereby became exceeding rich and enabled themselves to match their Sons and their Daughters to great Families and to bestow large Gifts that do blind the eyes of the wise on others to make to themselves Friends of their unrig hteous Mammon to preserve them from ther just deserts and to pull down the Wrath and Vengeance of God on others for this their obstructing of the straight rule of Justice that teacheth us to do otherwise Or if it were not so many men do wonder how so many men as were conceived to have been active and most of them to have their hands embrued in the good King's Blood and were likewise guilty of the death of His innocent Subjects should escape uncensured and so few of them sentenced to expiate and appease the Wrath of God for such horrible unparallebd and transcendent Murthers for I knew eight persons executed at Dublin for the Murther of one ordinary Traveller and is it not strange that we see no more brought to their Trial for such a Sâ—aughter as was done upon our good King and His innocent Subjects so judicially and yet so illegally and altogether unjustly sentenced to death or shall we think that no more were guilty then were condemned or not rather that the guilty Murtherers by their Wealth Subtlety and Friends made many others guilty of God's anger and the pulling down of God's vengeance upon many more for their excusing covering and clearing such abominable Transgressours for I would have all men to consider duly how destructive Murther is to mankinde and how odious and hatefull it is to God above all other sins whatsoever especially when an innocent man is judicially and illegally Murthered as you may rightly finde the truth hereof fully proved in the fifth Chapter of the first Book of The Great Anti-Christ revealed and in these Sermons following And I would the Protectours of the King's Murtherers would rightly weigh what the people sayd to King David that His life was worth ten thousand of the lives of the common people and how the Lord punished the whole house and posterity of Saul and all the Kingdom of Israel until his wrath was satisfied for the innocent death of the Gibeonites that were but a poor contemptible people but killed without cause 2. Sam. xxi and especially that there be not any more but two sins that I can finde in the whole Book of God that the Lord saith cannot be pardoned and obliterated without their due punishment and they are 1. The high Abuse of God's Messengers and Publishers of his Will 2. The unjust shedding of innocent Blood For Of the First the Spirit of God saith that when the Lord God sent his Messengers unto the Children of Israel and they mocked the Messengers of God and despised his words and misused his Prophets the wrath of the Lord arose against his People until there was no Remedy as if he had said For other sins of these Israelites some ways and remedies might have been found out as Moses and Aaron by their prayers and censers appeased the wrath of God to turn away the Punishment of them and David and Ezra did the like from the Jews but when they mocked his Messengers despised his Word and misused his Prophets which were the onely Sâ—â—ve or Medicine that could heal their sickned Souls when they refused and cast away these Remedies from them then there was no Remedy in the World for them to preserve them from their just deserved Punishment and therefore saith the Text The Lord brought upon them the King of the Chaldees who slew their young men with the Sword in thâ— House of their Sanctuary and had no Compassion
this heavy Crime of murdering them is not justly laid upon them that brought these Kings to their just deserved deaths Therefore to justifie their deaths to be murders and to clear St. Stephen from this unjust taxation laid upon him by the Jews we are to examine the three foresaid particulars how far they can justifie the Jews or any others in the like case from being murderers 1 The Charge unjust and first for the Charge that was laid against him we find the same pretended to be twofold and as I conceive very like the Charge that was laid against King Charles So King Charles was charged with the same Crimes 1. The abridging of their Liberty and betraying the same unto the Romans for so they say If we let this man alone all the World will run after him and the Romans will come and take away our Dominion from us 2. The corrupting of their Religion by abolishing their old Rites and Traditions of the Elders and teaching new Points of Doctrine to prophane the Sabbath to communicate with Sinners to justifie their slovenly eating with unwashen hands and the like loosness and liberties that the precise Pharisees could not endure he allowed unto his Disciples and follower in the service of God This was the pretended Charge that they laid against their King and against S. Stephen as you may see Acts 6.13 14. and that his adversaries laid against our good King But this pretended Charge was most false whenas he neither abridged their Liberty nor corrupted their Religion but most divinely cleared the same The Jew◠murdered Christ because he was their King Luc. 23 2◠and purged it from the false glosses of the Scribes and Pharises But the true cause indeed whatsoever they pretended why they killed him was because he was their King for S. Luke saith that when they led him to Pilate they began to accuse him saying We found this fellow perverting the Nation and forbidding to give tribute unto Caesar saying that he himself is Christ a King and when Pilate asked them Shall I crucifie your King a thing that was never known among the Heathen that Subjects should desire to crucifie their King and especially that they should so solemnly and judicially condemn him to death they answered him flatly So K. Charles was murdered by his adverfaries because he was their King and would have ruled them as their King when as they desired to be Kings themselves and to rule as they did after they had killed him We have no King but Caesar whom notwithstanding they loved no better than they loved Christ but hated him in their hearts as their often rebellions against him do sufficiently testifie And when Pilate the Judge and therefore knew best the Charge laid against him wrote his Title and fixed it upon his Crosse as shewing unto all that saw him the very cause why they put him to death which was Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews They came presently unto Pilate and desired him to alter the Superscription and not to say He was their King but that he said He was their King But Pilate herein like a resolute Judge that knew the truth and their dissembling answered them stoutly according to the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What I have written I have written And therefore this Charge being so unjust to kill him because he is their King whose life they are obliged to defend with the hazard of their own death S. Stephen may justly call them murderers 2. 2 The witnesset are false Math. 26.59 60. For the witnesses it is plainly said that they sought many yet found they none but at last there came two they could get no more and of them two it is said 1. That they were false witnesses and that is apparent when they add unto his words and change his meaning for he said no more but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Destroy this temple John 2.19 v. 21. and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in three dayes I will raise it up and he spake this of the temple of his body as the Evangelist testifieth but their witnesses avouch that they heard him saying Marc. 14.58 59. I will destroy this Temple that is made with hands and within three dayes I will build another made without hands that is another material and magnificent Temple which Christ never meant and never spake of it nor of the temple of his body as they testifie for he said not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will destroy this Temple but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do you destroy this temple and I will raise it up You shall do the evil and bring destruction as you use to do and I will do the good and bring resurrection to them that are fallen 2. Marc. 14.59 It is said that these false witnesses which did both add unto his words and change his meaning did not agree together for the one said he heard him saying I will destroy this temple that is made with hands and within three dayes Cap. 14.58 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Math. 26.61 I will build another made without hands yet the other could not testifie that he said so but that he said I am able to destroy the temple of God and build it in three dayes and there is a great deal of difference betwixt I will destroy thee and I am able to destroy thee when I am able to do many things that I will not do Even as God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham but will not raise them And therefore seeing these two witnesses cannot agree together they destroy one another and must needs be invalid to condemn an innocent man and much less to condemn their King that was more innocent than any man But they were resolved to have done it whether they had witnesses or no witnesses for they said among themselves What need have we of witnesses Then all of them Math. 26.65 Marc. 14.63 64 So K. Charles was condemned without witnesses Joh. 18.31 Math. 26.4 Marc. 14.1 And was not K. Charles by craft and subtilty brought to his death as they had formerly resolved did presently vote him guilty of death not as it seems for the testimony of the witnesses but because their malice thought him worthy of death Yet they confess 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not lawful for us that is they had no lawful authority to put any man to death and for all that S. Mathew tells us they consulted how they might take him by subtilty and kill him and S. Mark testifieth as much that they sought how they might take him by craft and put him to death And therefore when Traytors have conspired and resolved to kill their King witnesses are but shadows and the formalities of their proceedings are but cloaks to palliat and cover their wickedness and to blind the eyes of the vulgar people whom they would perswade to believe that they do all things
right when they do the greatest wrongs and do commit such horrid murders as to murder their own King 3. For the Judge our Saviour seemeth tacitly to yield 3 The Judge was corrupt that by the permission of God not his Commission Pilate through the power of the sword and according to the Laws of the Conquerors had power and authority granted unto him to be the Judge both of life and death but according to the Laws of the Romans that had then subdued the Jews and committed this power unto Pilate none were to be condemned to death except he were proved guilty of the Crimes that should be laid to his charge And this Judge ingenuously and openly confesseth that although like a good Judge herein he had examined the matter throughly John 18.38 and sifted him and his cause ad amussim to the uttermost yet he could find no fault in him worthy of death and therefore being desirous to free him whom he found so innocent by a fair excuse and to quit himself from pronouncing so unjust a sentence against a just man he advised his adversaries to take their King and to judge him according to their Law that is if they had any Law to crucifie their King that was so just and had offended no Law because the Romans thought such proceedings of Subjects against their King very strange and therefore had no such Law neither in their 12. Tables nor in any of the Acts and Decrees of their Senate whereby he might justly condemn him and justly answer it if he were questioned for it And herein also this Judge by this fine device shewed himself witty and his counsel honest as it aimed at a good end that is to free the party accused but afterwards becoming the Judge of Christ not by the Roman Law which as himself confessed gave him no authority to condemn any innocent person but by the importunity of the rebellious Subjects and malicious enemies against their King that thirsted after his blood he forgets his duty and contrary to his own conscience So was King Charles condemned to death to satisfie the Parliament and the people that still cryed Justice Justice Mar. 15 15. Luke 23.24 and contrary to the Roman Law and to all other Laws he doth most unjustly condemn that Just King to death And both the Evangelists S. Mark and S. Luke tell us He did it to content the people and to satisfie the High Priests and the Elders that had over-perswaded him to become his Judge and over-ruled him to adjudge him unto death And therefore the Charge laid against this King being unjust the witnesses being both false and disagreeing and his Judge thus corrupted and compelled and so as it were newly made by the clamor of the people condemning him contrary to the Roman Law which was then the Law of their Land to please the people it is apparent to all the World as I conceive that both the Judge and Witnesses and all the Complotters and Contrivers of this Kings death and all the whole Parliament and Council of the Jews that approved and rejoyced at his death yea and all the people that cryed to have him put to death are justly meant by S. Stephen and by him here rightly termed murderers because as I take it the Law saith that in murder there can be no accessary but all and every one that hath any hand in it are deemed principalls And how far murderers are to be pardoned I leave it to him that pardoneth all sins to be determined But if God will pardon murderers I wish he would not prefer them to places of Trust and Authority lest the Woolf lett-go still continue a Woolf to vex the Lambs And as it is said of the Devil Daemon languebat monachus tunc esse volebat Daemon convaluit mansit ut ante fuit 2. 2 Of whom these Tâ—â—ytors were murderers Having spoken of the style and denomination of these Persecutors of the Prophets that they were traytors and murderers we are now to confider of whom they were the traytors and murderers and the Martyr tells us it was of that Just One and I told you that we find him to be 1. 1 Of a King proved 1. By his Birth A King and so proved to be divers wayes as 1. At his birth when the Wise men that came from the East worshipped him as King while he was in his swadling clouts and they are by the constant course and order of the Church annually on the twelfth day after the day of his birth commemorated and commended for it 2. 2 By the ministration of his Office In the ministration of his kingly office when he entred Jerusalem as Kings use to do in a Royall and a pompous manner and his disciples and a great multitude of his followers did him obeysance and gave him royall honour as to their King by cutting down the boughs and spreading their garments under his feet and crying Blâ—ssed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord Luke 19.38 Matth. 21.15 and the childrens crying Hosanna as we use to do God save the King and when the chief Priests and Scribes were displeased at this acceptation of him for their King and bad him to rebuke his disciples for this attempt Christ told them plainly that if these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out that is to proclaim him King and to do him all Royal homage 3. 3 At his arraignment At his arraignment when he was to lay down his soul to be a ransome for our sins he avouched himself to be a King for Pilate demands the question Art thou a King and Pilate understood not any kingdome in this question but of a temporal kingdome when as in his conception to speak of a Spiritual King or kingdome was but a vain fancie and a meer Chimaera and therefore ad mentem interrogantis to satisfie the demand of Pilate Christ answereth without dissimulation aequivocation or mental reservavation Mark 15.2 that he was a King Matth. 27.11 or if he did not so he made no answer unto Pilate which as the Evangelist saith he did 4. 4 At his death At his death he had it written upon his Crosse who he was Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews so that when they took away his life they could not deprive him of his right unto his kingdome 5. 5 At his burial At his burial he had his grave sealed as a King 2. 2 â—hey were the murderers of their own King We find this just one whereof this Martyr speaketh to be not only a King but also the King of these Jews that murdered him for he was not a King of Egypt that oppressed them nor the king of Syria that sought to subdue them but their own King the King of the Jews for so the wise men testifie Where is he that is born king of the Jews And so Pilate the
good fruit and to cast it into the fire And it is the duty of every faithfull Steward to give to every one his own portion in due season that is mercy to whom mercy belongeth and judgment to whom judgment appertaineth and not to give that which is holy unto dogs or to proclaime peace and pardon to them to whom the Lord professeth there is no peace but saith peremptorily He will not pardon them And therefore I hope your honorable patience will bear with me that as the Prophet David saith My song shall not be of mercy alone nor of judgment alone but of mercy and judgment together especially upon Zimri and all such that like Zimri will slay both their King and their Master which is the first thing mentioned in this Text that is Zimri's Murder And For murder you may observe that the same may be committed three manner of waies 1. With the heart 2. With the tongue 3. With the hand 1. The heart killeth a man four speciall waies 1. By desire 2. By anger 3. By envy 4. By hatred For 1. The Prophet saith Psal 5.6 The Lord abborreth the blood-thirsty and the deceitfull man i. e. him which desireth and longeth for my death as he that is thirsty desireth drink 2. Our Saviour saith Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause Math. 5.22 he shall be in danger of judgment 3. The Apostle speaking of the wickedness of the Gentiles saith Rom. 1.29 They were full of envy murder debate And the wise man saith Alius alium per invidiam occidit One man slayeth another through envy Sap. 14.4 as Cain through envy slew his brother Abel and the Jews our Saviour Christ Qui igitur periêre quia maluerunt invidere quà m credere who therefore perished because they had rather to envy him then to believe in him Cypr. in Ser. de livore saith Saint Cyprian 4. Saint John saith that Whosoever hateth his brother is a man slayer 1 Joh 3.15 Lev. 19.17 and therefore the Lord saith Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart for as he that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery in his heart so he that hateth his brother hath killed him in his heart 2. The tongue killeth many men yea Plures linguâ quà m gladio periêre Jam. 3 6 7. The tongue hath slain more then the sword for the tongue is a fire and a world of wickedness it is an unruly evill full of deadly poyson And the son of Syrach saith It hath destroyed many that were at peace Eccl. 28.13 And the tongue killeth two waies 1. By flattery 2. By detraction 1. Saint Augustine saith that Plus nocet lingua adulatoris quà m gladius persecutoris And Antisthenes was wont to say It was better for a man to fall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among ravens then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among flatterers 2. The Prophet saith Ezech. 22.8 Viri detractores fuerunt in te ad effundendum sanguinem In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood and Job saying unto his friends that slandered his integrity Why do you persecute me as God and are not satisfied with my flesh doth intimate thereby that detractors are like cruell Canibals that eat mens flesh and drink their blood Nam qui aliena detractione pascitur proculdubiò alienis carnibus saturatur for without doubt whosoever feeds himself with detraction doth satisfy himself with mans flesh saith S. Gregory And I doubt not but this Zimri and all other the like Zimries that killed their Masters had killed Elah in all these waies before he slew him with his hands because all these murders of the heart and of the tongue are but steps stairs and progesses to the murder of the hand For first we begin to distast and to dislike a man then we grow angry with him for some things that displease us and if he hath any virtue in him or any honorable place or preferment or any love or good opinion from the people we will presently envy him and then hate him and so hate him more and more and then the tongue will begin to play his part and though in presence it will flatter him whom the heart detesteth yet in his absence it will lay loads of scandalous imputations upon his person and upon his actions Camerar l. 6. c. 2. even as Absolon did upon the government of King David and the forecited example of Maion against William King of Sicily and abundance of such Varlets that I could relate unto you And when they have proceeded thus far to envy his happiness and to hate his person as Cain hated his brother Abel and the way is thus made by scandalous aspersions there wants nothing but the stroke of the hand to effect the tragicall murder of the man whom they desire to destroy So Zimri did when he found his opportunity slay his Master Elah so the servants of King Amon slew their Master So Phocas did slay his Emperor and his Master Mauritius So Artabanus Captain of the guard killed his own King and his Master Xerxes Diodorus l. 11. after he had retired out of Greece So Brutus and Cassius with their associates murdered Julius Caesar And so you know who murdered their Master and King Charles the First And this is the greatest mischief that one man can do unto another to take away his life with bloody hands for though he take away my goods yet I may get more as Job did after all was taken from him if he cast me into prison yet at last with Joseph I may be set at liberty and if I be banished my Country yet with the Israelits I may live to return out of Captivity as Henry Bullingbrook Duke of Lancaster did but when he hath taken away my life and killed me there is an end of all hope and that is an evill that can expect no remedy and a wound that cannot be cured nor any waies paralleled by any other mischief And therefore Num 35.33 seeing as the Lord saith that blood defileth the Land and the land can not be cleansed of the blood that is thus shed but by the blood of him or them that have shed it I will here to perswade the blood-thirsty men to quench that thirst and the Magistrates by no means to neglect to punish that sin and especially to induce those Magistrates and all those that transcend the power of the Magistrates that have like Zimri slain their King and their Master or defiled themselves with the blood of their brethren to a sad and serious repentance set down eight speciall things that do shew unto us the horrible odiousness and haynousness of this sinne of murder and you may find them all set down in lib. 3. cap. 2. of the true Church p. 385. and in the Great Antichrist revealed l. 1. p. 81. 1. It is a sin against nature because every creature loves
the manner of them to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him so it may be Zimri will shew some good reason why he kill'd his Master And I doubt not but he had learnt Absolons lesson that it was for the ill government of Elah propter bonum Reipublicae for the good of the people that they might be better governed and much eased of many burthens and relieved of their grievances To which I say that you must understand all Traytors and wicked actors to be just like unto Watermen that row one way and look another way so they pretend one thing and intend another thing Thus Zimri pretended to amend the Government to ease the people to reform the Laws and rectifie their Religion but his intention and his chiefest ayme was to make himself great to get his Masters place and to become a King himself which was first in his intention though last in the execution otherwise if his principal ayme had been as he pretended the publike good he would have turned and changed the Kingdom of Israel into a Common-wealth or else he would have made either Omri or Tibni whom the people loved and not himself whom they hated to be their King sed menrita est iniquitas sibi but wickedesse though not always yet sometimes bewrayeth it self as the action of Zimri to make himself a King discovered his prime intention and the chiefest occasion that moved him to slay his Master to be his Ambition and desire of bearing rule And indeed this Ambition and desire of bearing rule hath so strangely bewitched the minds of many men Camer l. 5. c. 8. that as Camerarius saith it is almost incredible to believe and most strange to consider what inordinate desire men have to raign and to rule as Kings what villanies they have committed to become Kings What horrible things have been done by those that were ambitious of bearing rule what execrable things they have done to continue Kings for Amurath the third caused five of his younger brethren to be strangled in his presence Ismael the second son to Teâ—mas King of Persia did put to death so many of his brethren as he could lay hold on and all the Princes that he suspected to have any desire to his Kingdom that so they might raign and rule without fear And Solyman mistrusting his own son Mustapha when he returned victorious from the Persian war and was received with such generall applause caused him presently to be strangled and a Proclamation to be made throughout all the Army that there must be but one God in heaven and one Emperour i.e. Himself here on earth and Camerarius saith that this is a perpetuall custom in the race of the Ottomans and among the Turkish Souldans to put all that pretend succession unto death Neither is it only a Turkish custom but it is also the practice of all such as are bewitched with such inordinate desire to rule as Kings to do the like For Plutarch writeth that Diotarus having many sons and desirous that only one of them should reign slew all the rest with his own hands and Justin saith that Horodes King of the Parthians killed his own Father and after that massacred all his brethren that he might reign and rule alone and the sacred story sheweth that the very people of God the sons of Israel were not free but pestered with this disease Judges 9. as Abimeleck the son of Gedeon slew seventy of his brethren in one day and played many other tragicall parts that he might make himself a King 2 Sam. 15.16 And the furious ambition of young Absolon did set him on fire to seek to end his Fathers dayes and to play the Parracide that he might reign in his Fathers place and so Zimri when he began to reign as soon as he sate on his throne he delayed not the time but presently slew all the house of Baasha 2 King 16.11 as Baasha had formerly done to all the posterity of Jeroboam he left him not one that pisseth against a wall neither of his kinsfolks nor of his friends And not to go from home for Examples Did not Henry the fourth put by Richard the second his own King and Cosen-German that he himself might be the King and did not Richard the 3d. cause the true King his brothers chidren his own Nephews the sons of Edward the fourth that were but children and never offended him to be done to death that he might wear the Crown himselfe And my papers would fail me if I should set down all the examples that I could produce of this nature for there is not any thing so sacred which the great men of this world that desire to be made greater will not dare to violate and spare neither King father brether nor friend to bring themselves to their desired advancement to be the rulers of the people and to have the power both of our lives and goods in their own hands as the proof is plainly seen in the foresaid examples and especially in Antoninus Caracalla who when he had most unnaturally and barbarously slain his own brother Geta even in his mothers lap and between her arms and being counselled by some friends to Canonize him among the Heroes and to place him with the Deastri to mitigate the thought of so execrable a fact answered like a vile Caitiffe Sit divus modò non sit vivus Let him be a god among the dead so he be not alive among men So great an enemy is the inordinate desire of raigning and ruling to all piety and right saith Camerarius l. 5. c. 8. And for Zimri's pretence to rectify the government to ease the people to establish the true service of God which King Elah and his Father Baasha had permitted to be continued as Jeroboam had corrupted it and to fulfill the Words of the Lord which he spake by Jehu the son of Hanani 1 King 16.2 I say these things were least in his thoughts and were but meer pretences and shadows to hide and cover his malice unto his King and his ambitious desire of bearing rule for he being a subject and a servant unto King Elah what warrant had he or what command from God to kill his King Jeroboam was the master piece of Idolatry and the ring-leader of them that made Israel to sin and yet I would fain know where God gives leave to his subjects to kill him for this intolerable impiety But when God setteth up Kings if they prove wicked to corrupt his service and to destroy his servants he can raise other Kings to punish them as he did Pharaoh King of Egypt and Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon to chastise and to remove the evill Kings of Judah or he can take them away by death or by twenty other waies that we know not of without making their own
subjects to become perjurers and rebels against their King but ambition and impatience are the two hands that pull down Kings out of their Thrones 1. Impatience in the subjects that can not tarry Gods leasure to relieve them 2. Ambition in those that desire the Crown and are bewitched with the inordinate desire of bearing rule Other things are but pretences these only are the causes that move subjects and servants to kill their Kings whom they think do misgovern them or Tyrannize over them 2. Having seen the hatred and malice of Zimri towards Elah The second thing ment oned which is Peace his Treason against his King his ingratitude to his Master and his most horrible sin of Murder in slaying his King and his Master We are now come to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the second thing mentioned in this speech of Jezabel and that is Peace Had Zimri peace which is a question what reward he had or rather what punishment he suffered for that tragicall exploit to kill his Master Had he peace for his pains And peace as I told you is the best and the most excellent of all earthly blessings and it is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth quiet sweet gracious and by the Latins pax quasi pacata i.e. calm gentle courteous for so the Apostle meaneth when he saith that Rahab received the Spies with peace that is courteously Heb. 11.31 But you must understand that this blessed peace is two fold 1. Perfect And Peace two fold 2. Imperfect And 1. The perfect peace is not here to be found on earth 1 Perfect but among the blessed Saints in Heaven where is pax super pacem Perm Serm. 23. de verb. Psal pax quae exsuperat omnem sensum Peace upon peace and peace which passeth all understanding peace that shall have no end but will put an end to all our labours And this peace was not meant here by Jezabel she knew not what belongs to this peace 2. The other peace which Jezabol meaneth 2 Imperfect and this is threefold is that which may be obtained here on earth and that peace is three fold 1. With God 2. With our selves 3. With our neighbours The first peace is with God for our Forefather sinning against God 1 With God and eating the sower grapes hath set all our teeth on edge Esay 1.24 and made us all enemies unto God as the Apostle sheweth and God saith He will be avenged of his enemies and therefore there is no way for us to be delivered out of his hands unless we be reconciled to be at peace with him And at peace with God we cannot be but by faith in Jesus Christ who became peace to them that were a far off Eph. 2.17 and to them that were neer i. e. both to the Jews and to the Gentiles as S. Jerom expoundeth it The second peace is with our selves 2 With our selves for after we became enemies unto God posuit nos nobis ipsis graves God did not only arm all his creatures against us but he hath set enmity within our selves and raiseth such rebellions wars and troubles in our own thoughts and consciences that we can never be at rest untill we find our selves at peace with God but when we believe that our peace is made with God through Jesus Christ our Lord who hath paid our debts and satisfied God for our fins then our minds are quieted and our consciences are at peace and as our Saviour saith let not your hearts be troubled neither fear for I have overcome the world so nothing in the world troubles them that believe they are at peace with God The third peace is with men 3 With our neighbors that are without us and are our neighbours for sin hath set all the world together by the ears Non hospes ab hospite tutus But they that are at peace with God do obey the precepts and counsell of God to follow peace with all men and to do good to all men and these be the three kinds of peace that are had in this life and are the greatest blessings in this world And this last kind of peace i. e. peace and concord among men which is the more generall and the more sensible then the other kinds of peace was ever esteemed both of the Jews and Gentiles to be the greatest happiness that men can enjoy under heaven Et quia contraria juxta so posita magis elucescunt As the horror of the night commends the brightness of the day so the miseries of war do shew the benefits of this peace I will make this point plain unto you And war is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of the abundance of blood that is shed in war and by Divines it is termed flagellum Dei the scourge of God and God hath many scourges as poverty sickness imprisonment but especially these three Grand Scourges 1. Three speciall scourges of God Famine 2. Pestilence 3. Sword Whereof war is the worst of all comprehends them all and brings them all upon us and therefore Homer saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He is an unsociable and a most wicked man that will bring war which is the most deadly thing unto the people for then as Virgil saith Non ullus aratro Dignus honor There is no regard of husbandy Sed multae scelerum facies Et curvaerigidum falces conflantur in ensem And as Tibullus saith The plow Shares are turned to Swords Tunc caedes hominum generi tunc praelia natae Tunc breviter dirae mortis aperta via est And you see how in the time of war the poor infants that never offended do perish upon their mothers brests and many times in the womb before they see the light the goodly houses the stately Palaces the pleasant gardens that are like paradises the fruitfull trees that have been some hundreds of years before they came to this perfection are all burnt destroyed and demolished in a moment the poore are starved in the streets the fruitfull land is become a wilderness and as Learned Vives writing to King Henry the eighth saith No Common-wealth is more unstable then that which is most exercised with war as we see how often the Athenians came to their last gasp when as à Persis exustae à Lacedemoniis oppressae à Philippo fractae ab altero Philippo afflictae à Mithridate occisae à Sylla propedum deletae And warlike Rome was taken by Tatius besieged by Porsenna burnt by the Gaules terrified by Pyrrhus shaken by Hanniball and at last torn in pieces by her own weapons And the like lamentable events have hapned to this our own Kingdom in the time of the Barons war and that civill dissention betwixt the two houses of York and Lancaster wherein
sed hoc solo contentus quia praecipitur he that is truly obedient to him whom God commanded us to obey never regardeth what it is that is commanded so it be not simply and apertly evill but he considereth and is therewith satisfied that it is commanded and therefore doth it because as S Aug. saith The command of the Superiour is a sufficient excuse for the inferiour Mandatum imperantis tollit peccatum obedientis i.e. in all things not apparantly forbidden And therefore as Julians Christian-Souldiers would not sacrifice unto the Idols which was an apparent evil at his command Sed timendo potestatem contemnebant potestatem but in fearing the power of God regarded not the wrath of man yet when he led them against his enemies they never questioned who they were that they went against nor examined the cause of his war but they went freely with him Et subditi erant propter Dominum aeternum etiam Domino temporali and in all such civill commands they obeyed this wicked King for his sake that was the King of kings and it may be fought against their own brethren So did the Jews that followed Saul against David and yet we never read that ever they were blamed for it And so should we do the like if we would do what God commandeth us For it is not in the subject's choice against whom he will fight but he must be obedient to his King if he will be obedient unto God for so the Lord saith I have made the earth the man and the beast Jerem. 27.5 6. that are upon the ground by my great power therefore certainly none should deny his Right to dispose of it and now I have given all these Lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my servant and yet he was both a Heathen and Idolater and a mighty Tyrant and all nations shall serve him and his son and his sons son and it shall come to passe that the nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nâ—buchadnezzar the King of Babylon and that will not put their necks under the oke of the King of Babylon that nation will I punish saith the Lord with the sword and with the famine and with the pestilence until I have consumed them by his hands Therefore hearken not ye unto your Prophets nor to your Divines which speak unto you saying Ye shall not serve the King of Babylon for they prophesie a lye unto you which he repeateth again and again they prophesie a lye unto you that you should perish Which very words I may take up against the Rebels of England Ireland and Scotland God gave these Kingdoms unto King Charles and they cannot deny this nor deny him to be a good man and a most religious King and He hath commanded us to obey him and they that will not serve him he will destroy them by his hand Therefore believe not your false Teachers whether they be the Priests and Jesuits of Ireland or the Brownists and Anabaptists of England for God hath not sent them though they multiply their lyes in his name because God hath so straightly commanded us to obey our King in all civil causes and in all things wherein he giveth not a special charge to do the contrary And therefore that which is most worthy to be observed though God himself for the sin of Solomon declared by his Prophet that he had decreed to cut off ten parts of the Kingdom from Rehoboam yet because the people revolted not to satisfie Gods justiâ—e for the sins of Solomon but out of their own discontents that he would not ease them of their burdens for this revolt from a foolish and an oppressing Prince they are termed Rebels 1 Kings 12.19 and as the Thief to prevent his discovery will commit murder scelus scelere regitur and one great mischief will shelter it self under a greater so their Rebellion corrupted their Religion and made them fall away from God to worship Idols as they had done from their King to serve a Traytor which soon brought them to confusion Because this revolt as it proceeded from them was most abominable unto God And therefore though they were not reduced to Rehoboam because that may pretend some cause as oppression yet this after a plenary disquisition can admit of none excuse and therefore being abominable above measure it cannot expect the least favour from God but they were most severely punished by God because they transgressed his will by thus rebelling against their King contrary to his Commandment 2. The other Caution is That if the King commandeth what the Lord forbiddeth or the contrary then I may disobey but I must not resist for this is the will of God that where my active obedience cannot take place my passive obedience must supply it And though our Kings were as Idolatrous as Manasses as Tyrannical as Nero as wicked as Ahab and as prophane as Julian yet we may not resist we must not Rebel which would overthrow the very order of nature Arnis de autâ—rit princ c. 3. pag. 68. as Arnisaeus proveth by many examples and takes away the glory of martyrdom and makes all the Precepts of the Gospel of none effect And therefore when the Christians in Tertullians time were more in number and of greater strength than their enemies yet being compelled to Idolatry they rather suffered any persecution than admitted of any Rebellion against the most wicked of their persecutors And Juâ—tinian faith Q is est tantae authoritatis ut nolentem principem possit coarctare Who hath so much power as to restrain an unwilling Prince And yet it is very strange to consider what new Divinity hath been taught ex cathedra pestilentiae out of the chair of our new Assembly to raise Rebellion against our King and that which is worse than Rebellion to refuse the grace of Remission The Scribes and Pharisees were most wicked hypocrites and they sate in Moses chair but they never durst teach such tenets as now are published and practised in these Kingdoms And therefore our Saviour saith Math. 23.3 All that they bid you observe that observe and do Indeed there were some Hereticks among them that in the dayes of Theudas and Judas Galilaeus taught That the Jews were not to pray for the life of the Emperour because he was but extraneous an Vsurper and none of their lawful Kings for which errour Pilate mingled their blood with their sacrifice but these never durst avouch they should not pray for their own lawful King much lesse that they might rebel and take up arms against him Joseph Antiq. though he were never so wicked For they knew that the holiest men that ever were among the Hebrews called Essaei or Esseni that is the true Practisers of the Law of God maintained that Soveraign Princes whatsoever they were ought to be inviolable to their subjects as they were in most places among the most
barbarous Heathens And therefore no doubt but these Jews and these Gentiles shall rise in judgement and condemn our most wicked and rebellious generation But you will say What if my King seek to kill me for so now the Rebels have ascended to that height of impiety that they are not ashamed thus slanderovsly to taxe him and most falsely to accuse him Doth not nature it self teach me that common principle vim vi pellere and rather kill him than suffer my self to be killed To resolve this Question I demand of thee What if thy father seek to kill thee Mayest thou rather kill him than be killed First thou must know That the father next under God is the cause of the very Being 2 The sons obligation to his father is more than ever he can do to requite it and the giver of the life of his son so is not the son of the father 2. The father as I proved upon the 5th Commandment had under the Law of Nature and for many years after Moses potestatem vitae necis the power of life and death over all his children and the children unlesse they grew very ungracious and more than unnatural never durst resist them otherwise when God commanded Abraham Gen. 22.2 to offer up Isaac for a burnt-offering he might have answered First that he had no right to do it Secondly that he was old and feeble and the Lad was young and lusty as you see he was better able to carry the wood upon his shoulders than his father and therefore he might fear his son would be his death if he went about to sacrifice him But Abraham knew that his son was better taught and that nature shewed him The child should not with cursed Cham despise his father no not in his sin much lesse to resist him in his right And yet the King to whom the Paternal-right is transferred is more than any private Father for he is the publique Father of us all under whom we we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all godlinesse and honesty 1 Tim. 2.2 as the Apostle speaketh and without whom we can have neither our Estates enjoyed nor our Persons secured from the violence of the strongest but that every one shall be exposed to the will of him that can master him which was the case of the Jewes when there was no King in Israel and will be little better with us if God doth not preserve our King And therefore men though they may flee with David to preserve their lives yet ought not to offer violence unto their King though he should prove as wicked as Saul was to David without cause to seek to take away their lives then certainly most wicked are those men that rebell and fight against a good King that expendeth his own fortunes and exposeth his own life to preserve the Estates and Lives of all his loyall subjects but to proceed 3. The last branch of that honour which I said was due unto our King 3 To assist our King is aid and assistance in all his urgent necessities which aid we all confesse to be due and yet few of us will believe or can endure scarce to hear the truth how far this aid is to be extended How far the aid that we owe unto our King extendeth I must tell you what the Scripture saith that it comprehendeth 1. Our Estates For 2. Our Persons For 1. He that bids us render unto God what is Gods 1 To the uttermost of our abilities bids us also render unto Caesar what is Caesars and S. Paul tells you that this tribute is due unto him Indeed when there is no urgent necessity it is a great deal seemlier for the Majesty of a King as Artax said to give then to take by pulling from his subjects and it is a golden Apothegm of King James unto his Son where he saith Enrich not your self with exactions from your Subjects but think the riches of your Subjects your best treasure And so it is generally conceived that whosoever in the time of peace overchargeth his subjects with taxations either for his own Luxury or to enrich his Favourites is very unwise because he that ruleth over men must be just 2 Sam. 23.3 ruling in the fear of God and Justice tells us he must take nothing from any man but when necessity requireth And then the ordinary glosse and Mr. Calvin also saith Neque nostrum est vel principibus praescribere quantum in res singulas impendant vel eos ad calculum vocare It is neither our part to prescribe how much they shall expend nor to call them to an account for their expences that account must be given to a higher Judge But we read that when Saul was annointed to be King over Israel Samuel told him he should come to the Plain of Tabor and there should meet him three men going up to God to Bethel one carrying three kids another carrying three loaves of bread and another carrying a bottle of wine and they should salute him and give him two loaves of bread which he should receive of their hands which thing wanted not a mystery but was an embleme as Divines make it of the right of Kings in their necessities The mystery of the gift of the men that met Saul unfolded two parts of three which was a very great proportion and yet we find that divers of the heathens went much further when after the coronation of their Kings most of his subjects especially the Nobility and those of any Fortunes presented unto him a Purse with a key hanging thereat by which Hierogly phick they shewed that all their treasure was submitted to his necessities he might unlock their Store-horse and put into his Purse What the heathens did give unto their Kings whatever pleased him because they conceived it right that he which protected all should have the use of any part of all when his necessity did require it and seeing they were bound to expose their persons for him they saw no reason they should detain their estates from him because my life should be dearer unto me then all my wealth And if our King had such subjects as these Heathens I think he needed not to have wanted to supply his necessities But our Kings are not like Augustus that taxed all the world as much as he pleased nor like Charles the fifth Qui immania tributa populis imperavit as Oscrius writeth nor like the Eastern Kings that impose upon their subjects what they will but of their speciall grace and favour have granted such priviledges and made such concessions limitations and pactions with their subjects as cannot be discussed or expressed within my limited time to set down how far and to shew how well or ill they were concluded and therefore all that I shall say herein is this that we ought to consider how far God requireth us to assist our King and take heed
her will No force can prevail against the will and actual sins have so much dependency upon the hearts approbation as that the same alone can either vitiate or excuse the action and no outward force hath any power over mine inward mind unless my self do give it him as all the power of the Kingdome cannot force my heart to hate my King or to love his enemies they may tear this poor body all to pieces but they can never force the mind to do but what it will And yet such is the deceit of our own flesh that if the devil should be absent from us our own frailties would be his tempting deputies and when we have none other foe we will become the greatest foes unto our selves as Apollodorus the Tyrant dreamd that he was flead by the Scythians and that his heart thrown into a boyling caldron should say unto him That it was the cause of all his miseries and so every man that is undone hath indeed undone himself for Perditio tua exte thy destruction is from thy self saith the Prophet yea the very best men Hos 13.9 by whomsoever wronged yet wrong themselves as now it is with our gracious King for as Valentine the Emperour when he cut off his best Commander and demanding of his best Counselour what he thought of it had this answer given him That he had cut off his own right arm with his left hand so when the good King seduced and over-perswaded gave way though against his will to make an Everlasting Parliament he then gave away the Sword out his own hand So I could tell you of a very good man that is brought to very great exigency by parting with his owne strength and giving his sword out of his own hand and when he excluded the Bishops out of the House of Peers he parted with so much of his own strength and brought himself thereby to be weaker then he was before and so it will be with every one of us and it may be in a higher misprision then with our King if we look not well unto our selves and take heed lest in seeking to preserve our bodies we destroy our own souls or to save our estates we make shipwrack of our faith or especially to uphold an earthly Rule or Kingdome we expose to ruine the spiritual Kingdome of Christ which is the Church of God as you know how the Parliament do it at this day And therefore the Spaniards prayer is very good Dios mi guarda mi de mi O my God defend me from my self that I do not destroy my self and Saint Augustine upon the words of the Psalmist Deliver me from the wicked man demanding who was that wicked man Answ it was a seipso and so the wisest Philosophers have given us many Precepts to beware of our selves And he that can do so Latius regnat avidum domando Spiritum Horatius quam si lybiam remotis Gadibus jungat uterque paenus Serviat uni doth more and ruleth better then he that reigneth from the Southern Lybia to the Northern Pole so hard it is for man under all the cope of Heaven to find any one that truly loves him But God is Verax veritas true and the truth it self and as Hugo saith Veritas est sine fallacia faelicitas sine miseria he is Truth without Deceit that neither can deceive not be deceived and as this our Apostle saith God is love and the Fountain of all true love and he is sweet he is wise and he is strong 1 John 4.8 How God loveth us and how sweet and gracious his love is therefore S. Bern. saith that he loveth sweetly wisely and strongly Dulciter quia carnem induit sapienter quia culpam cavit fortiter quia mortem sustinuit sweetly because he was made man to have a fellow-feeling of our miseries wisely because he did avoid sin that he might be able to help us and strongly because his love was as strong as death when rather then he would lessen his love unto us he would lose his life for us And therefore of all that pretend to love us God alone is the onely pure and truly perfect lover 2. For the affection it is love for God loved us and love 2 The affection Love comprehendeth three things as it is in the creatures is a passion better perceived by the lover then it can be expressed by any other and it comprehendeth three things 1. A liking to the thing beloved 2. A desire to enjoy it And 3. A contentment in it as when the Father saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 derived of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or as others think of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth to be fully and perfectly satisfied in the thing loved as Phavorinus testifieth And so though the affection of love is not the same in God as it is in us because he is a Spirit most simple without passion and we are often-times transported and swallowed up of this affection yet in the love of God we finde these three things most perfectly contained 3 Things contained in the love of God 1. An Eternal benevolence or purpose to do good unto his creatures 2. An Actual beneficence and performance of that good unto them 3. A Delightful complacency or contented delight in the things beloved as the Lord loveth him that followeth after righteousness that is he taketh delight and pleasure in all righteous livers and as he hateth the ungodly so he loveth the righteous and taketh delight in them and in their just and righteous dealing But because love is an inward affection that can hardly be discerned without some outward demonstration of the same and that as S. Gregory saith Probatio dilectionis exhibitio est operis the trial of our love is seen by our actions which testifie our love far better then our words How God imanifesteth his love many wayes when we see too too many that profess to love us when they labour to destroy us as the rebels pray for the King when they fight against him so finely can the Devil deceive us therefore God manifested his love by many manifold arguments As 1. Way 1 By screating things of nothing and making them so perfectly good that when himself had considered them all he saw that they were all exceeding good 2. Way 2 By preserving all things that they return not to nothing Quia fundavit Deus mundum supranihilum ut mundus fundaret se supra Deum because God laid the foundations of the world upon nothing that the world might wholly rely upon God who is the basis that beareth up all things with his mighty word and more particularly in preserving not onely the righteous but even the wicked also from many evils both of Sin and Punishment for did not God withhold and restrain the very reprobates even
Homer saith Iliad Ï€. but as God useth to do in the like case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Annuit hoc illi Divum pater abnuit illud that is to give them what he thought fit for them and to deny them what he conceived them unworthy of Yet because that was not satisfactory to their expectation when they beheld as Ovid saith Fertilior seges alienis semper in agris better Corn and a more plentiful Harvest in the Bishops Fields then in their own they taught their Proselytes to invent new Oaths and Covenants to call new Synods and they made Seditious and Schismatical Sermons and defended Perjuries Forgeries Treacheries Equivocations Rebellions and the like and they altered the whole frame of the Government of the Church and of the Service of our God And so as Solomon ascended to the Throne of Majesty per sex gradus by six steps so these men descended to the depth of their Iniquity by these six ugly sins And though as Reusner saith Formicae grata est formica cicada cicadae Et doctus doctis gaudet Apollo choris one Ant Disscidia inter aequales â—ut fratres pâ—ssima and one Grashopper loves another and as Plinie saith Serpens Serpentem non laedit one Serpent will not bite nor hurt another and as our Saviour saith If Satan cast out Satan his kingdom cannot stand yet these men worse then Serpents and foolisher then Flies do that which Satan will not do destroy them of their own Profession their fellow-Servants and those worrhy men that made them the Ministers of Christ Proud envy so their virtues doth deface And makes these foes to them they should embrace And therefore as their Pride Covetousness and Ambition either through ignorance or else which is worse against their Consciences if they were not ignorant have made them to envy the Bishops and to hate the King and thereupon omnem movere lapidem to use all their best wit and to imploy their whole strength like the brood of Vipers to gnaw out the bowels of their Mother-Church and like cursed Cham to discover and to deride their Fathers supposed nakedness and to spur on the Parliament never to give over to prosecute their design to degrade the Bishops to put down the Hierarchy Root and Branch so the just God whose Judgements are true and righteous altogether Psal 19.5 to recompense this their wickedness to their bosom suffered the Devil to stir up as spiteful and as malicious a generation of Vipers as themselves a brood of Independents that sprang from among themselves and that became as outragious against them as they had been injurious against the Bishops and these were not afraid to jear Jack Presbyter as they termed him to his face to set out his last Will and Testament and to proclaim it to the World that these Presbyterians were far more insolent more intolerable more inconsistent with Monarchy and their Government every way more unjustifiable and further from the Apostolical Rule then the Government of the Prelates and if the Presbytery should be established whereas before we had but twenty six Bishops in all England So many Popes in England as there be Parishes we should then have not a Bishop but a Pope in every Parish throughout this Kingdom and a Pope more arrogant and presumptuous and more tyrannical and injurious to the people of God then ever any Bishop or Pope attempted to be for whereas neither Pope nor Bishop excommunicated any Christian but either for contempt of his Court or upon sufficient proof upon the Oath of good Witnesses to make good the Allegation alledged against him every Presbyter upon his own dislike and his own supposal that such an one is unworthy and a scandalous liver will presently excommunicate the same person and cut him off from the Body of Christ heu scelus nefandum an offence beyond expression And so by these and the like bold attempts And another saith Hic jacet in cineres quem deflent hae mulieres Presbyter Andreas qui vitiavit eas Cujus luxuriae meretrix non sufficit omnis Cujus â—varitiae totus non sufficit orbis and constant Allegations of the Independents the dissembling and Hypocritical Assembly of Presbyterians were disliked divers of them imprisonned some of them executed others fled and all of them discarded and discharged from their new devised Presbyterial Tyranny and one that best knew them makes this Epitaph of them Presbyter hic jacet jam dedecus urbis orbis Qui nostrae aetatis magna ruina fuit Hic est si nescis qui nobis certe paravit Excidium pestem funera bella famem Contemptor sacrum blasphemus publicus hostis Perfidus ingratus raptor iniquus atrox Ex ista tandem migravit urbe Tyrannus Quo pejor pestis nullus in orbe fuit And as there were under the Law four great Prophets Esay Jeremiah Ezechiel and Daniel and in the time of the Gospel four Evangelists St. Matthew St. Mark St. Luke and St. John and in the Primitive Church four famous Greek Fathers St. Athanasius St. Basil St. Gregory Nazianzene St. Chrysostome and the like four in the Latine Church St. Hierome St. Ambrose St. Augustine and St. Gregory and in the Popish Church four great Schole-Doctors Aquinas Scotus Antoninus and Bonaventur So these Independents have nominated four Arch-Presbyters Marshall Case Calamy and Edwards to be the four Bearers of the Presbyterial Assembly to his Grave and appointed Sibbalds to teach their Funeral-Sermon upon that Text in Psal 89.44 The days of my youth hast thou shortned and covered me with dishonour and Burges and Sedgewick were to be the close Mourners then Gouge to throw it like an Ass into the pit with these few words Ashes to ashes dust to dust And rise thou when others must And thus their own Proselytes have jeared the Presbytery out of his life The whole Tryal of Mr. Love pag. 68. And that which is more worthy your observation Mr. Christopher Love who confesseth that he was the first Scholar that he knew of or ever heard of in Oxford that did publickly refuse in the Congregation-House to subscribe unto those Impositions or Canons imposed by the Arch-Bishop touching the Prelates and Common-Prayer for which he was expelled the Congregation-House never to sit amongst his Brethren so he was the first of the Presbyters that suffered death for the defence of the Covenant and the Presbyterian Cause And this was as I conceive some part of the inchoative Judgement of God upon them in this life what more shall be imposed on them either here or hereafter it is not for me to imagine but leave it to him that is the Judge of all the World But hereby we may all see How justly God hath dealt and dealeth with the Presbyterians how just is God in all this to throw them down that sought to raise themselves by throwing their Fathers down And who then considering these just Judgements of Almighty God and his
memory but also special and late obligations of Favours having gratified the active spirits among them so far that I seemed to many to prefer the desires of that party before mine own interest and honour And Cicero tells us that ingratitudine nihil mali non inest there is no evill that is not residing in an unthankful Wretch and Ausonius saith that ingrato homine terra pejus nil procreat The earth never brought forth a viler thing or worser wood then an unthankful man and could there be found besides the Jews a more unthankful people on earth then the Scots have been to this their own lawful loving King and bountiful Benefactour How unthankful the Scots are Witness that monster of men whom the King made Lieutenant of the Tower the chiefest Fort of all England and he made himself the King 's mortal enemy and besides him witness a thousand more whom the King raised from the dunghil to make them companions of Princes and they to requite him combined with the Parliament fought against their King to subdue him and to bring him to nothing hoc magnum est hoc mirum and may not this be wondered at that the earth should bring forth such creatures as are unworthy to live upon the earth for have they not like mortal Enemies in a most hostile manner invaded the King's Territories and warred against him with as perfect fury as ever Hannibal did against the Romanes and we all know or should know that no causes are warrantable for the undertaking of a war if justice be not the ground thereof Lipsius polit lib. 5. Justum autem non est quod tria haec non habet justa autorem causam finem and just it cannot be saith Justus Lipsius if it hath not these three just things A just Author a just Cause and a just End And Titus Livius saith Tit. Livius lib. 9. Justum bellum quibus necessarium pia arma quibus nulla nisi in armis relinquitur spes that war is just to whom it is necessary and they do rightly fall to take Arms And no War in no time for no cause can be just that is made by Subjects against their King which have no help nor hope but in their Arms. In eum autem qui juste agere satisfacere paratus est nefas est bellum sumere saith Thucidides but it is an heinous offence to make war against him that if you be wronged is ready to do you right and to make you satisfaction and wherein I pray you could the Scots shew themselves justly grieved and King Charles did not most willingly and beyond expectation give them and offer them full satisfaction And what cause then could they pretend for this Invasion surely none at all but onely covetousness and a desire to be enriched either with Spoils and Plunderings or with very fair Compositions as they were by the means of their Confederates in England with the Sum as was said of three hundred thousand pounds a fair Sum for such a foul Fact and therefore these doings must needs be odious both to God and to all good men And yet I will shew you greater Abomination of these abominable rebellious Creatures for they had as the Parliament of England had done likewise taken their Oaths of Allegiance and Fidelity to his Majesty and how have they kept their Faith and observed their Oathes did they not being Scholars remember what the Poet saith Non bove mactato caelestia Numina gaudent Ovid Epist 18. Sed quae prestanda est sine teste fides id est That God delighteth more in observing Faith and performing Promises then in sacrificing whole Oxen to him Nam fidem qui perdidit nihil ultra potest for he that hath lost his faith How heinous a thing it is to break our faith and to falâ—ifie our Oaths hath lost all that he hath worth any thing and is unworthy to live among men And would these men violate their solemn Oaths think you surely men will hardly believe it if they did not see it for a perfidious Violation of an Oath and Covenant is as damnable as Athiesm if not worse because this wittingly and willingly abuseth and scorneth that Deity which it necessarily though unwillingly acknowledgeth and therefore the Heathen man could advise us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by no means to forswear our selves for fear of punishment from God and shame among men because as I said before out of Menander 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though we may deceive men as Perjurers do many times yet we must not think that our Perjuries and Falsities can be hid from God whose peircing eyes do behold every secret thought and will not suffer the Perjurers and Deceivers to go unpunished as it may appear by this one example The Story of Perfidiousness of Hatâ—o Bishop of Mentz which I have picked out of many that might be produced to the same purpose of Hatto Bishop of Meutz for Abbas Vrsbergensis writeth that Adelbert Count Palatine of Franconia being charged to have slain the Emperours Son and upon that suspition being straitly besieged by the Emperor but the Castle of Adelbert being very strong both by nature and by art the Siege did no whit promise either the taking of it or the yielding up thereof therefore Hatto being a near Kinsman to Adelbert and desireous to curry favour with the Emperor employed himself by cheating means to draw his Cosen into the Emperour's hands perswading Adelbert to go with him unto the Emperour and that he might boldly go without any fear of danger he made a solemn Oath unto him that as he came safe out of his Castle so if they could not well agree by a good Treaty he would bring him safe again unto his Castle whereupon Adelbert consented to go with him and went a prety way from his Castle but Hatto looking upon the Sun said the Morning was well spent and there was a long way to the Emperours Camp and therefore he thought it was their best Course to return to the Castle and to break their Fast and then they might go the better and with more ease and Adelbert suspecting no ill in so fair a Motion yeilded to return to break their Fast and he courteously entertained his Cosen and after Break-fast they rid both to the Emperours Camp where presently the Emperour adjudged Adelbert to dy whereupon he calleth for Hatto and accused him of Treason and Perjury except he performed his Promise to bring him back safe again into his Castle whereto the Bishop answered that he was acquitted of his Oath in that he carryed him to his Castle when they returned to break their Fast and upon this perfideous trick the credulous Earl lost his life and the Emperour seised upon all his Seigniories but for this wicked part Hatto could never blot out his reproach but was ever afterwards called by the Germans Hatto the Traytor and as you may finde it in the Chronological
Discovery of Mysteries and the Revelation of the great Anti-Christ And for which doings the Lord God hath if not sufficiently yet apparently shewed his just Wrath and Indignation against them many ways First In the discovery of their secret Hypocritical and hidden under-ground Mysteries of their Iniquitie which could not otherwise be sifted out and manifested but by the omniscient Spirit of the all-seeing-God Secondly In raysing so many godly men though to many with the hazard and to some with the loss of their lives and fortunes to oppose them and with a courage raysed by the divine Spirit to withstand their wicked ways and to uphold the true service of the living God Thirdly In the reducing of their chiefest Plots and Devices to nothing though out of his patience and long-sufferings he suffered them for a while to prosper and to walk on still and to proceed in their wickedness for they intended like those Gyants that built the Tower of Babel to erect such a frame of Government in these Kingdomes that they only and their Posterity and Successours should sit at the Stern to turn and guide the same as the thirty Tyrants did for a while in Athens so long as the Sun and Moon endureth and to that end they destroyed their King they suppressed the Bishops they excluded the Lords and then framed such an Engagement as might infringebly oblige and tie all the inhabitants of these dominions to adore them for their good Masters and Governours for ever But lo he that dwelleth in Heaven laughed them to scorne Psal ii 4. and the Lord had them in derision for as the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel and upon Barak and Gedeon to destroy the Aramites Canaanites and Midianites and as the Lord stired up Sampson and David to destroy the Philistines so the same Spirit stirred up one even the Lord General Cromwel a Philistine from among these Philistines and a grand Rebel out of these Rebel's that did first so wisely disannul their brazen Engin the Engagement and then seeing his opportunity and finding how acceptable it would be to God and beneficial to all good men he did with an Heroical courage dissolve that knot and scatter those Parliament-men as the Lord scattered the Jews that were the murderers of his Son and their own King over all the parts of this Kingdom And thus by the just Judgment of God the whol Mass of that long Parliament that thought to remaine as Kings for ever became like the chaff which the winde scattereth away from the face of the earth And therefore Secondly The just Judgment of God upon the dismembred members of the long Paâ—liament I must now proceed to shew you the just Judgments of God upon the dismembred parts of this great body as I finde them driven by the winde of God's wrath here and there throughout all the parts of these Dominions But I must confess that for the particular persons of that Parliament and their adherrents that have in a great measure already felt the heavy hand of God's wrath for their Transgressions in that confederacie it is a work beyond mans reach either to set them down or to shew their punishments and therefore I will confine my self and as the Lord shewed unto Moses the land of Canaan from the top of Mount Nebo afar of which sight must needs be therefore but very partial and imperfect so will I give you a tast and a glimmering light of some judgments of God and the justness thereof upon some particular men and the more noted Members of that Parliament and I will begin with him that was the beginning of our trouble the first disturber of our peace and the General of the late unhappy War the Earl of Essex First It was said as I remember of Dionysius King of Sicily Of the Earl of Essex that he was a Tyrant begot of Tyrants then which a worser Character could not be given and a baser description could not be made of him saith Plutarch But I will not say of this noble Lord who in deed had a great deal of Honour in him and carried himself for ought that ever I heard like a man of Honour and pius inimicus a noble Adversary unto the King that he was a Traytor begot a of Traytor yet I must say that his Father was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth and was arraigned and beheaded for Treason à ainst the Queen whether justly for his deserts or unjustly by the malice of his enemies I will not determine and though her Royal Majesty did Royally and most Graciously restore this man both to his Fathers Lands and Honours and King James confirmed the same and King Charles more then that made him one of his Privy Council and Lord Chamberlain of his House-hold which was for Honour one of the best Offices as I take it in the Court and for profit a place worth viis modis near about 2000. pounds per annum as I heard and conferred many other favours upon him and for all this this Lord as is conceived out of no other cause then ambition of popular praise which greedy desire of popularity hath undone many a noble minde or as others think out of a secret grudg which he bare to this good King and to King James his linage for giving way to his Lady and Wife to be divorced from him onely propter frigiditatem naturae which all Divines and Canonists do not consent to be a sufficient cause of divorce presently and willingly accepted the motion of the House of Commons Plinius lâ—b 8. cap. 23. and commission of the Parliament to become the General of all their Forces against the King wherein as Pliny writeth of the Aspick saying Conjunga ferè vagantur nec nisi cum compare vita est itaque alterutra intercepta incredibilis alteri ultionis curá persequitur interfectorem unúmque eum in quantolibet populi agmine notitia quadam infestat perrupit omnes difficultates ut perdat eum qui comparem perdiderat that he pursueth him which hath hurt or killed his Mate and knows him among a multitude of men and therefore hunteth him still and layeth for him breaking throughout all difficulties to come at him so it may be this Lord was such as Seneca speaks of qui tantùm ut noceat cupit esse potens that accepted of his office that he might be revenged for his disgrace when notwithstanding King Charles was not the Author of his dishonour nor did any wayes further that divorce and therefore should not have been maligned for anothers fault Or if it was not for this cause as I heard some confidently say it was yet for what cause soever this or any other and with what minde soever this Lord accepted that office as being loth to stain his Honour and Ambitious to retain the Fame of an honourable Soldier I never heard the King nor any other of the Nobility accusing him for any base ignoble and perfidious act
that he did against his Majesty other then a fair enemy and a pious Adversary useth to do this I must need say of him that I never heard any man speak otherwise of him But how did the just God like of these his doings how fairly soever carried you may conceive by the success so far as man can judg of things for he was worsted at Edg-Hill the first Field that he fought where he was fain to hide his head in the day of Battel and the next day to retire not without some Dishonour to Warwick-Castle and afterwards in Cornwal he was forced to abandon and leave his whole army and glad to take the Sea to carry him back to the rebellious City for which and for such other the like disasters that the Parliament conceived they that so solemny swore a little before that they would live and dy with him do now Vote a dispensation of that Oath and discard this unfortunate though not unhonourable head and choose another in his room and his Lordship not without some disgrace is disrobed of his Excellency and least this potion might in time through discontent work some bitter effect against them that gave it him as the like hath done to many other rejected and degraded Officers that are most sensible of disgraces their jealousy produced a double passion of Fear and Hate and these cause the Patient to think that all remedies are too weak for the Danger and do force them to apply more violent Phyfick then either the quallity of the Disease or the Constitution of the diseased can sustain and therefore it is generally reported and of most of the King's Friends believed they gave him a Spanish-fig The Earl of Essex suspected to have been poysoned some Aconites that wrought too strongly upon his Body that it soon brought his head into the Grave And thus was he rewarded for his good service unto the Parliament and the ill offices he did against his King God in justice suffering the People Sir John Hotham and his Son that magnified him to destroy him which is the Common fruit of Popularity Secondly The next persons that I shall instance are Sir John Hotham and his Son with him whom I shall put both together because both were in the same fault of disloyalty to the King and both tasted of the same sauce and suffered the like punishment This man was the first that so unjustly and so insolently durst presume to enter into Hull the King 's own proper Town and there to seize upon the King's Magazine and his own peculiar goods and when the King came in his own person to require admission into the same he very undutifully and uncivilly to say no worse refused to receive him in but kept him out with unseemly terms of denial and as they say with a great deal of Scorn and Contempt And how did the just God approve of these unjust doings You may guess by the subsequent punishment which both the Father and his Son have undergone And truly I cannot think of their punishment but I must remember the Story that you may finde in Herodotus touching Hermotimus and Pamicetius Herodot lib. 8. for Hermotimus taken Prisoner in War was sold unto Pamonus that was a base Merchant and which made a Trade of very dishonest gain for The Story of Hemotimus and Pamonius seeing that gelded Youths were much more set by for all manner of services among the Barbarians then those that were ungelded as Xenophon alledgeth Cyrus to have therefore committed the keeping of his body rather to Eunuchs then to others this base Merchant bought all the fair Boys that he could get for money in all Ports and Faires where he went to buy them and then gelding them The great price of Eunuchs he went to Sardis or Ephesus and sold them again almost for their weight in gold therefore he used Hermotimus after the same manner and they sold him to one that among other gifts presented him to King Xerxes with whom in success of time he grew into greater credit then all the other Eunuchs and Xerxes making War upon the Graecians took Hermotimus with him who was sent upon some business to the Isle of Chios where finding his old friend Pamonius he took acquaintance with him and recounted unto him the great happiness and the great benefits he enjoyed by his adventure and the good that Pamonius had done him and therefore promised that if he and all his Family would remove to Sardis he would enrich him with much wealth and advance him to great honour which offer the Covetous and Ambitious Merchant willingly accepted and soon transported himself with his Wife and Children and all his whole family thither to whom Hermotimus when he had him within his power said O thou the most Wicked of all men that usest the vilest and most detestable Traffick that can possibly be devised what hurt or displeasure didst thou ever receive at my hands or through my means that of a man am now made of thee to be neither Man nor Woman Didst thou think that the Gods were Ignorant of thy Practise and doest thou not now see how that they doing right The just Judgment of God upon Pamonius and justice unto all have most justly delivered thee as a most wicked Wretch into mine hacds that thou mayest finde the just punishment which thy wickedness hath deserved so he caused his four Sons to be presently brought into his presence and compelled the miserable Father to geld them all with his own hands and then he forced the distressed Children to geld their own Father So when Sir Hotham and his Son had most disloyally played their part in the House of Commons against the King and then more egregiously by seizing upon Hull and with very undecent usage and reviling terms denying the King entrance into his own Town as I said before had shewed themselves to be as they were arrant rebels and stiff Traytors the Parliament within awhile after finding that these false fellowes had played foul with them likewise and repenting them of their former Wickedness or rather as I conceive corrupted with the greedy desire of some great reward promised by some of the King's Friends that knew how to catch ambitious Worldings had resolved to comply with his Majesty and to deliver his Town and Magazine unto him they like Hermotimus having most cunningly gotten them into their hands wrought the Son in hope to get pardon for himself to accuse and to betray his Father and then with the like Subtlety and for the like hope they brought the Father to accuse his Son and so being both found guilty and condemned they chopped of both their Heads as the just reward of their former Wickedness God now rendring unto them what they had before so well deserved and suffering them willingly and wickedly to do that to each other which Pamonius and his Sons did most unwillingly to be the Authors and instruments of each others
Israel and Judah yet both of them transgressed the one in shewing his Treasures to the Embassadors of the King of Babylon and the other in his confederacy with a wicked King and God justly punished every one of them Moses that he should not so much as enter into the Land of Canaan David with the loss of threescore and ten thousand of his people Ezechias to have all that he shewed transported into Babylon and Josias even with death in the Valley of Megiado so King Charles though a very good man and a most just and pious Prince and a faithful Servant of Jesus Christ and a strenuous defender of the true Faith yet because that when God for his tryal tempted him as he tempted Abraham Job and many others temptatione probationis non deceptionis to see how far he would stand unmoveable in the right way he either through fear and frailty or rather as I conceive by the deceitful perswasions of some whom he supposed to be his faithful Counsellors but were indeed seducing friends yielded and perhaps with some reluctancy against his own minde consented to the desires of some evill men to do those things that offended God therefore as he did though deceived what he should not do like the man of God in 1 King so his good God that did most truly love him did notwithstanding most justly suffer his Counsellors to become his enemies to warr against him and to punish him for what himself and his friends knew and most others conceived and do believe he never did for it is just with God to punish our sins and offences when and where and how and by whom he pleaseth as I shall declare unto you by this plain Story which may illustrate this point unto you A certain poor man had a Pick-axe wherewith he got his living and there was a certain rich man his Neighbour that coveted the same and finding it on a time left where the poor man wrought stole it from him so that the poor Labourer was fain to provide another and after many years and the memory of the Pick-axe quite forgotten the rich man driving some of his Cattel to the Market a lusty fellow that had stollen a couple of Oxen drove them among the rich mans Beasts and after a while fearing to be apprehended by the search and cry that he perceived to come after him he prayed the rich man to drive his Oxen a little way while he went a Furlong or two to deliver a Letter to such a Gentleman and the rich man suspecting no evil did so but not long after the searchers for the Oxen found them with the rich man driven towards the Fair amongst his own Beasts and apprehending him prosecuted him so eagerly and the rather because he was a rich man that he was condemned to die for stealing of those Oxen and being upon the Ladder complaining of this injustice and professing his innocency herein he spieth a Kite flying up and down over his head and crying as he conceived for the Pick-axe for the Pick-axe whereupon his Conscience accusing him he cryed out that God was just and his judgement right for though he was innocent from the Oxen yet he long agone had stolen a poor mans Pick-axe for which God now brought him to this end so no doubt many a Thief and murtherer may escape for the robbery and murders committed by them and yet may suffer for that which they never knew which is most just with God though unjustly done by men And so God might justly though most mercifully too suffer the enemies of this good King to condemn him for what he never did because he might offend God in some other things for which he was never blamed by his enemies nor accused by the Parliament And let no man wonder nor blame me for saying that the King though never so good a King and so pious a man should notwithstanding fail and offend God in some things when the Apostle tells us plainly that in many things we offend all For as there is no condition of life be it never so happy but it hath his cross to shew unto us that perfect felicity is to be expected elsewhere so there is no Prince nor any man living be he never so wise but he sometimes erreth and be he never so virtuous but he will sometimes offend else should he prove himself to be more then man because as Plutarch saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is more then is in the power of man to offend nothing in great matters such as are the Affairs of Kings and Princes But what were those things wherein this good King hath failed and offended God and for which he might justly suffer his enemies to warr and to prevail against him can any man tell what they be I answer that the wisest of the Kings friends conceive them to be not those things for which his enemies warred against him and condemned him most unjustly but might be those things wherein contrary to his own free desires he yielded to the desires of his enemies and those you may finde in the Bishop of Ossory his Discovery of Mysteries to be those three principal mistakes and not denied to be so by the King himself when Secretary Falkland would for those things have suppressed that Book but the good King told him they were true and so suffered the Book to be published 1. The threefold errours of the King To yield his assent to put the Earl of Strafford to death 2. To pass the Act that excluded the Bishops from the House of Peers and the other Clergy from Civil Affairs 3. To make the Parliament perpetual and so by himself indissoluble till they consented to dissolve it These things pleased the Parliament but might displease God and might without doubt most justly move God to be offended with his Majesty and to suffer his enemies most unjustly and causelesly to rage against him for that First Touching the Earl of Strafford the King we all know loved his person and admired his worth and took indefatigable pains at his Trial to be fully certified and informed of those things whereof the Earl was accused and as the Poet saith Regia And this the King confessed at his death saying God for bid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that God's Judgements are just upon me when many times he doth inflict Justice by an unjust Sentence this is ordinary I will onely say that an unjust Sentence that I suffered to take effect is punished now by an unjust Sentence upon my self crede mihi res est succurrere lapsis inquirere verum This was a most royal part in him and which Moses commanded to be observed before any Idolater should be condemned but after he had so religiously and diligently searched into the depth of their malice that accused the Earl and found out the truth of his cause and his Conscience informing him that he was no ways worthy