they could to raise Horse and Foot to form an Army equal to their Usurpation which was not difficult for them to do for they being Masters of London whose Multitudes desirous of Novelty were easily amassed for any enterprise especially when the entring into this Warfare might make the Servant freer than his Master for such was the Licence was indulged to those Youths that would serve the Cause 20000 were sooner gathered than the King could get 500. The City also could afford them more Ordnance than the King could promise to Himself common Muskets and to pay their Souldiers besides the vast summs that were gathered for Ireland which though they by their own Act had decreed should not be used for any other enterprise yet now dispence with their Faith and imploy it to make England as miserable as that Island and the Contributions of the deluded souls for this War they seised also upon the Revenues of the King Queen Prince and Bishops and plunder the Houses of those Lords and Gentlemen whom they suspected to be Favourers of the King's Cause And in contemplation of these advantages they promised their credulous party an undoubted Victory and to lead Majesty Captive in Triumph through London within a Month by the Conduct of the Earl of Essex whom they appointed General Thus did they drive that Just and Gracious Prince to seek His Safety by necessary Arms since nothing worse could befall Him after a stout though unhappy Resistance than He was to hope for in a tame Submission to their Violence Therefore though He perfectly abhorred those Sins which are the Consequences of War yet He wanted not Courage to attempt at Victory notwithstanding it seemed almost impossible against so well-appointed an Enemy Therefore with an incredible diligence moving from place to place from York to Nottingham from thence to Shrewsbury and the Confines of Wales by discovering those Abilities with which His Soul was richly fraught unto His deluded Subjects He appeared not only worthy of their Reverence but of their Lives and Fortunes for His Defence and in all places incouraging the Good with His Commendations exciting the Fearful by His Example dissembling the Imperfections of His Friends but alwayes praising their Vertues He so prevailed upon those who were not men of many Times nor by a former Guilt debauch'd to Inhumanity that He had quickly contracted an Army greater than His Enemies expected and which was every day increased by those Lords and Gentlemen who refused to be polluted any longer with the practices of the Faction by sitting among them and being Persons of large Fortunes had raised their Friends and Tenants to succour that Majesty that now laboured under an Eclipse Most men being moved with Pity and Shame to see their Prince whose former Reign had made them wanton in Plenty to be driven from His own Palaces and concluded under a want of Bread to be necessitated to implore their aid for the preservation of His and their Rights So that notwithstanding all the Impostures of the Faction and the Corruptions of the Age there were many great Examples of Loyalty and Vertue Many Noble Persons did almost impoverish themselves to supply the King with Men and Money Some Private men made their way through numerous dangers to joyn with and fight under His Colours Many great Ladies and Vertuous Matrons parted with the Ornaments of their Sex to relieve His wants and some bravely defended their Houses in His Cause when their Lords were otherwhere seeking Honour in His Service Both the Universities freely devoted their Plate to succour their Prince the Supreme Patron and Incourager of all Learning and the Queen pawned Her Jewels to provide necessaries for the Safety of Her Husband Which Duty of Hers though it deserved the Honour of all Ages was branded by the Demagogues with the imputation of Treason This sudden and unexpected growth of the Strength of the King after so many years of Slanders and such industrious Plots to make Him odious and Contemptible raised the admiration of all men and the fears of that credulous Party who had given up their Faith to the Faction when they represented the King guilty of so much Folly and Vice and some corrupted Citizens had represented Him as a Prodigie of both in a Scene at Guild-Hall in London an Art used by Jesuites to impress more deeply a Calumny that they could not imagine any person of Prudence or Conscience would appear in His Service and they expected every day when deserted by all as a Monster He should in Chains deliver Himself up to the Commands of the Parliament Some attributed this strange increase in power to the natural Affection of the English to their Lawfull Sovereign from whom though the Arts and Impulses of Seditious Demagogues may a while estrange and divorce their minds yet their Genius will irresistibly at last force them to their first Love and therefore they urged the saying of that Observing States-man that if the Crown of England were placed but on an Hedge-stake he would be on that side where the Crown was Others referred it to the full evidence of the wickedness of His Adversaries for their Counsels were now discovered and their Ends manifest not to maintain the Common Liberty which was equally hatefull to them as Tyranny when it was not in their hands but to acquire a Grandeur and Power that might secure and administer to their Lusts and it was now every where published what Mr. Hambden Answered to one who inquired What they did expect from the King he replyed That He should commit Himself and all that is His to our Care Others ascribed it to the fears of ruine to those numerous Families and Myriads of people which the change of Government designed by the Parliament must necessarily effect But this though it argued that Cause exceeding bad by which so great a part of a Community is utterly destroyed without any absolute necessity for preserving the whole yet made but an inconsiderable Addition to the King whose greatest Power was built upon Persons of the Noblest Extract and the fairest Estates in England of which they could not easily suspect to be devested without an absolute overthrow of all the Laws of Right and Wrong which nevertheless was to be feared by their invasions on the King's most undoubted Rights For when Majesty it self is assaulted there can be no security for private Fortunes and those that decline upon design from the paths of Equity will never rest till they come to the Extremity of Injustice as these afterwards did Besides those that imputed the speedy amassing of these Forces to the Equity of the King's Cause His most Powerful Eloquence Indefatigable Industry and most Obliging Converse there were another sort that suspending their Judgements till all the Scenes of War were passed resolved all into the Providence of God Who though He were pleased to single Him out of all the Kings of the Earth as the sittest Champion to wrestle
Unanimously even the Democratick Lords not dissenting did reject the Bill as Dangerous and Illegal This so highly provoked the Fury of the Faction that they meditated a severe revenge and for the present blotted out those Peers whose Names they had before put into their Ordinance to make their Court more splendid After this they did also rase out the names of the Judges of the Land for they being privately Consulted concerning these Proceedings against the King although they had been all raised to that Dignity and Trust by the Faction yet answered that It was contrary to the known Laws and Customs of England that the King should be brought to Tryal To heal these two wounds which the Lords and Judges had branded their Cause with they use two other Artifices to keep up the Spirits and Concurrence of their Party First they bring from Hert ford shire a Woman some say a Witch who said that God by a Revelation to her did approve of the Army's Proceedings Which Message from Heaven was well accepted of with Thanks as being very seasonable and coming from an humble Spirit A second was the Agreement of the People which was a Module of a Democratical Politie wherein those whose abject Condition had set them at a great distance from Government had their hopes raised to a share of it if they conspired to remove the great Obstruction which was the Person and Life of the King This was presented to the House of Commons by Sir Hardress Waller and sixteen other Officers as a temporary remedy for when they had perpetrated their Impiety they discountenanced and fiercely prosecuted those that endeavoured it In considence of these their Arts and their present Power notwithstanding all these Publick Abhorrencies and detestations by all Persons of Honour and Knowledge they Enacted their Bill And for President of this Court they chose one of the Number John Bradshaw A person of an equal Infamy with his new employment A Monster of Impudence and a most fierce Prosecuter of evil purposes Of no repute among those of his own Robe for any Knowledge in the Law but of so virulent and petulant a Language that he knew no measure of modesty in Speaking and was therefore more often bribed to be silent than fee'd to maintain a Client's Cause His Vices had made him penurious and those with his penury had seasoned him for any execrable undertaking They also had a Sollicitor of the same Metal John Cooke A needy man who by various Arts and many Crimes had sought for a necessary Subsistence yet still so poor that he was forced to seek the shelter of obscure and sordid corners to avoid the Prison So that vexed with a tedious Poverty he was prevailed upon through the hopes of some splendid booties to venture on this employment which at the first mention he did profess to abhor These were their Chief Agents other inferiour Ministers they had equally qualified with these their prime Instruments as Dorislaus a German Bandito who was to draw up the Charge Steele another of their Counsel under pretence of sickness covered his fear of the Event though he did not abhor the wickedness of the Enterprise having before used his Tongue in a cause very unjust and relating to this the Murther of Captain Burleigh The Serjeants Clerks and Cryer were so obscure that the world had never taken notice of them but by their subserviency to this Impiety These were the Publick Preparations In private they continually met to contrive the Form of their Proceedings and the Matter of their Accusation Concerning the first they were divided in Opinions Some would have the King first formally degraded and devested of all His Royal habiliments and Ensignes of Majesty and then as a private person exposed to Justice But this seemed to require a longer space of time than would comport with their project which as all horrid acts was to be done in a present fury lest good Counsels might gather strength by their Delay Others rejected this course as too evidently conforming with the Popish procedure against Sovereign Princes and they feared to confirm that common Suspicion that they followed Jesuitical Counsels whose Society it is reported upon the King's offering to give all possible Security against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome at a Council of theirs did decree to use their whole Interest and Power with the Faction to hasten the King's death Which sober Protestants had reason enough to believe because all or most of the Arguments which were used by the Assertors of this Violence on His Majesty were but gleanings from Popish Writers These Considerations cast the Determination on their side who designing a Tyrannical Oligarchy whereby they themselves might have a share in the Government would have the King proceeded against as King that by so shedding His Blood they might extinguish Majesty and with Him murther Monarchy For several of them did confess that indeed He was guilty of no Crime more than that He was their King and because the Excellency of His Parts and Eminent Vertues together with the Rights of His Birth would not suffer Him to be a private Person In their second Debate about the Matter of Accusation all willingly embraced the Advice of Harrison who was emulous of the Power of Cromwell and though now his Creature yet afterwards became the Firebrand and Whirlwind of the following Times to blacken Him as much as they could yet found they not wherewith to pollute His Name For their old Scandals which they had amassed in their Declaration for no more Addresses to the King had been so publickly refuted that they could afford no colour for His Murther Therefore they formed their Accusation from that War to which they had necessitated Him And their Charge was that He had levied War against the Parliament that He had appeared in Arms in several places and did there proclaim War and executed it by killing several of the Good People for which they impeached Him as a Tyrant Traitor Murderer and an implacable Common Enemy This Charge in the Judgement of Considering men argued a greater guilt in those that prosecuted it than in Him against whom it was formed for they seemed less sensible of the instability and infirmities of humane Nature than those that had none but her light to make them generous for such never reproached their conquered Enemies with their Victory but these men would murther their own Prince against whom they had nothing more to object than the unhappy issues of a War which leaves the Conquered the only Criminal while the names of Justice and Goodness are the spoils of the Conquerour How false those Imputations of Tyranny Treason and Murther were was sufficiently understood by those who considered the peaceful part of the King's Reign wherein it was judged that if in any thing He had declined from the safest Arts of Empire it was in the neglect of a just Severity on Seditious persons whom the Laws
Arts of the Irish Rebels who to dishearten the English from any resistance bragged that the Queen was with their Army That the King would come amongst them with Auxiliary Forces That they did but maintain His Cause against the Puritans That they had the Kings Commission for what they did shewing indeed a Patent that themselves had drawn but thereto was affixed an Old broad Seal that had been taken from an obsolete Patent out of Farnham Abby by one Plunckett in the presence of many of their Lords and Priests as was afterwards attested by the Confession of many That the Scots were in confederacy with them to beget a faith of which they abstained from the lives and fortunes of those of that Nation among them On the other side to encourage the Natives of their own party they produce fictitious Letters wherein they were informed from England that the Parliament had passed an Act that all the Irish should be compelled to the Protestant Worship that for the first offence they should forfeit all their Goods for the second their Estates and for the third their Lives Besides they present them with the hopes of Liberty That the English Yoke should be shaken off that they would have a King of their own Nation and that the Goods and Estates of the English should be divided among the Natives And with these hopes of Spoil and Liberty the Irish were driven to such a Fury that they committed so many horrid and barbarous acts as scarce ever any Age or People were guilty of In the mean while nothing was done for the relief of the poor English there but only some Votes passed against the Rebels till the King returned to London which was about the end of November where He with the Queen and the Prince were magnificently feasted by the Citizens and the Chief of them afterwards by Him at Hampton-Court For he never neglected any honest Arts to gain His Peoples love to which they were naturally prone enough had not His Enemies methods and impulses depraved their Genius But this much troubled the Faction who envied that Reverence to Majesty in others which was not in themselves and they endeavoured to make these loves short and unhappy for they discountenanced the prime advancers of this Honour to the King and were more eager to render Him odious For having gotten a Guard about them they likewise insinuated into the people dangerous apprehensions as the cause of that Guard and every day grew more nice and jealous of their Priviledges and Power The King's advices to more tenderness of His Prerogative or His Advertisements of the scandalous Speeches that were uttered in their House they interpret as encroachments upon their Grandeur and upbraided the King for them in their Petitions to Him But their greatest effort upon Majesty was the Remonstrance after which they took all occasions to magnifie the apprehensions of those Fears which they had falsly pretended to in it This the Faction had before formed and now brought into the House of Commons where it found a strong opposition by those wise men that were tender of the publick Peace and Common Good though those who preferred their Private to the General Interest and every one that was short-sighted and improvident for the future were so fierce for it that the Debates were continued all night till ten a clock the next morning so that many of the more aged and persons of best fortunes not accustomed to such watchings were wearied out and many others not daring to provoke the Faction in this their grand Design left the House so that at last they carried it yet but by eleven Votes Which they presented with a Petition to take away the Votes of Bishops in the House of Lords and the Ceremonies in the Church and to remove those Persons from His Trust which they could not confide in yet named none but only accused all under the name of a Malignant Popish Party Which they had no sooner delivered than they caused it to be published in Print To which the King answers in another publick Declaration but so much to the discontent of the Demagogues to find their Methods of Ruine so fully discovered as they were in His Majesties Answer that they had recourse to their former sovereign Remedy which sober men accounted a crime and an indignity to Government the Tumults of the Rabble Who in great numbers and much confusion came up to Westminster some crying out against Bishops others belching their fury against the Liturgy and a third party roaring that the Power of the Militia should be taken out of the King's hands To their Clamours they added rude Affronts to those Lords whom their Leaders had taught them to hate and especially to the Bishops at their going in or coming out of the House and afterwards drawing up to White-Hall they appeared so insolent as it was evident they wanted only some to begin for there were enough to prosecute an Assault upon the King in His own Palace The Bishops thus rudely excluded from their Right and Liberty of coming to the Parliament Twelve of them afterwards protest against the Proceedings of it during their so violent Exclusion Which Protestation the Commons presently accused of High Treason and caused their Commitment to the Tower where they continued them till the Bill against their Votes in the Lords House was past that they might not produce their Reasons for their Rights and against the Injustice offered unto them and then afterwards released them The King also saw it necessary to take a Guard of such Gentlemen as offered their Service for His Safety and to prevent the prophaning of Majesty by the rude fury of the People who used to make their Addresses acceptable at Westminster by offering in their passage some base Affronts at White-Hall But when the terrour of this Guard had reduced them to some less degree of Impudency they then instructed by their Heads laboured to make it more unsafe to the King by seeking to raise the Rage and Jealousie of the whole City against Him For at midnight there were cries out in the Street that all People should arise to their defence for the King with His Papists were coming to fire the City and cut their throats in their beds Than which though nothing was more false yet it found the effects of truth and the People by such Alarms being terrified from sleep the impressions of those nightly fears lay long upon their Spirits in the day and filled them almost with Madness The King therefore not alwaies to incourage these Violences with Patience but at last by a course of Justice to take off those whom He had found to be the Authors of these destructive Counsels the grand Movers of these Seditious practices and which was more the Inviters of a Foreign Force the Scotch Army into this Nation commands His Atturney General to accuse Five Members of the House of Commous and one of the Lords upon Articles of
in contracting a new guilt Those whom the fury of War had left gasping in the Field and fainting under their wounds He commends in His Warrants as in that to the Major of Newbury to the care of the Neighbourhood either tenderly to recover or decently bury and His Commands were as well for those that sought to murther Him as those that were wounded in His Defence This made the Impudence and Falshood of Bradshaw more portentous when in his Speech of the Assassination he belch'd out those Comparisons of Caligula and Nero the first would kill numbers of Senators to make himself Sport and the last thought it just enough that Paetus Thraseas should die because he look'd like a School-master But this Prince's Anger was without Danger to any His Admonitions were frequent Corrections seldom but Revenge never He grieved when His Pity had not Power or Skill to save Offenders and then He punished the bad but yet gave them space to repent and make their Execution as near as He could like a natural Death to translate them from hence to a place where they could not Sin He had nothing of the Beast in Him which Machiavel requires in such Princes as make Success the only end of their Counsels and consult a prosperous Grandeur more than an unspotted Conscience He scorned to abuse the Character of God upon Him by turning a Fox to dissemble and abhorred to think that He whom Heaven had made above other men should degenerate to the Cruelty of a Lion He sooner parted with Mortality than Mercy for He ended His dayes with a Prayer for His Enemies and laboured to make His Clemency immortal by commanding the practice of it to His Son None of His Vertues were in the Confines of Vice and therefore this Admirable Clemency proceeded not from a defect of Spirit as His Detractors imputed it His Fortitude and the Vulgar who mistake Cruelty for Valour imagined but like the Bowels of the Supremest Mercy which are incircled with an Infinite Power so this Pity to guilty and frail men was attended with an Incomparable Fortitude For this Vertue consisting in despising Dangers and Enemies in those Causes that render Death comely and glorious the King gave several Evidences of a Contempt of all Power beneath that of Heaven When the Lord Rey first acquainted Him with the Conspiracy of Ramsey and Hamilton He was upon a Remove to Theobalds where the Marquess was to wait upon Him as Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber who having some notice given him of the Discovery besought His Majesty to spare his attendance till he could clear his innocence and return the Treason upon the Accuser The King answered that He would therefore make him wait to let him see He did as little fear his strength as distrust his Loyalty for He knew he durst not attempt His Life because He was resolved to sell it so dear And to make good His Confidence He made him ride alone with Him in His Coach to Theobalds and lie in His Chamber that Night while the sollicitous Court admired and even censured His Magnanimity for it went beyond His pattern and did more than that Emperour who was styled the Delight of Mankind who being informed of a Conspiracy against him invited the two Chiefs of it to accompany him to the Spectacula and caused them both to sit next on each side to him in the Theatre and to give them more advantage for their design put the swords of the Gladiators under colour of enquiring their judgements concerning their sharpness into their hands to shew how little dread he had of their fury But the British Prince's Magnanimity exceeded that of the Excellent Roman's as much as the privacies of a Bed-chamber and the darkness of Night make up a fitter Scene for the Assassination of a beloved Soveraign than a publick Theatre As He never provoked War so He never feared it and when the miserable Necessity lay upon Him to take up Arms to preserve Himself from an unjust Violence He shewed as much if not more Valour than those can boast of that with equal force finished Wars with Conquest in the success of these Fortune the Vanity of an Enemy and the assistances of Friends may challenge a part of the Praise but in that none but His own brave Soul had the Glory For to attempt at Victory against an Enemy that had almost more Forts and Garrisons than He had Families to joyn with Him that with Cannon out-vied the Number of His Muskets that had gotten from Him a Navy which His Care had made the most formidable in the World and not left Him the command of a Cock-boat that were prodigal with the Treasure of a Nation and His Revenues when He begged for a subsistence was such a Courage that would have made that Senate of Gallant Persons who were the most competent Judges of Valour and never censured Vertue by the Success but thanked their Imprudent Consul for not despairing of the Commonwealth when he gathered up those broken Legions which his Rashness had obtruded to an Overthrow to have decreed a Triumph for CHARLES had His life been an Honour to that Age or could those Generations have reckoned Him among their great Examples Most men indeed thought the King's side most glorious yet they concluded the other more terrible those that minded their Duty were in the Royal Camp but such as cared for Safety took part with the Faction or at least did not oppose them As He first entred the War so did He continue in it His Moderation alwayes moved Him to desire Peace and His Fortitude made them sometimes sue for it His Adversaries never prevailed upon His Fears but upon the Treachery and Covetousness of some of His Party who could not endure an Honourable Want and on such their Gold was stronger than their Iron on Him and He was rather Betrayed than Overcome His Greatness of Mind forsook Him not with His Fortune Arms and Liberty it being Natural and not built upon them this made Him tenacious of Majesty when His Power was gone For when Whaley that had the Command of the Guards upon Him while He was in the Army insolently intruded into His Presence to hear His Discourse with a Foreign Minister of State and being bold in his Power and Office refused to obey the Command for a greater Distance the King caned him to an Observance When the Parricides sent their party of Soldiers to force Him from the Isle of Wight to the Slaughter Cobbet that commanded them thrust himself into the Coach with Him but the King sensible that the nearness of such a Villain was like a Contagion to Majesty with His Hand forced him away to herd among his bloody fellows His Spirit alwayes kept above the barbarous Malice of His Enemies and of their rudest Injuries would seem unsensible He told a faithfull Servant of His that the Conspirators had kept Him for two Moneths under a want of Linen and
assistance For though they pretended so highly to God's Cause as if they had the certainty of some Divine Revelation yet they would not trust Him for their Preservation notwithstanding their pretences to his Cause had furnished them with so vast a Treasure and so mighty a Strength but would invite others to the Violation of most sacred Oaths to sin against all Laws and every Rule of Justice that themselves might be secure in their Usurpations And that Perfidious Party that then ruled in Scotland hoping for as great advantages as their former Wickedness had yielded contrary to all Obligations which the King's Goodness had laid on them and their free and Voluntary Execrations as was that of Alexander Lesley who lifting up his arms and hands to Heaven wished they might rot to his body before he died if ever he should heave them up hereafter or draw his sword against so gude a King drew that People once more into Rebellion against their Prince and to make them more eager and think the Enterprise easie they first raised a report that the King was deserted by most of His Nobility The Parliament at Oxford having by a Letter moved the Earl of Essex to endeavour Peace did also declare against this Invasion of the Scots by another Letter sent to them in which also they acquaint them with the falsness of their officious Lie and shew how inconsiderable a Number of Lords were with those that invited them in The King Himself writes also to put them in mind of their several Ingagements to be Quiet But with an Insolencie fit for most perjured Souls they Commanded the Letters to be burned by the hand of the Hangman A more secret falshood He also found in the Marquess Hamilton whose Treasons now came to be more suspected For His Majesty having written to him to use all his Power and Interest to keep his Country-men at home which had not been difficult for one of his Grandeur in that unquiet Nation he by some secret Arts doth more inflame them and to cover his Perfidiousness flies from Scotland to Oxford as seeking a shelter for his Loyalty but indeed to be a Spy in the King's Counsels But his Treasons had out-stripp'd him and his Brother the Earl of Lanerick who came with him therefore they were both forbidden the Court. Lanerick not willing to tarry till a further Discovery gets out of Oxford flies to those at London and by them was imployed in the Scotch Army which made Hamilton's Treachery more evident and he was sent Prisoner to Pendennis Castle But the dishonour of that Nation was in a great measure repaired by the Gallantry and Faithfulness of the Marquess Montross who being commission'd by the King with an incredible Industry by small numbers of men won many Battels and overthrew well-formed Armies and had not the Fate of his Master which was to be betrayed by those He trusted been likewise common to him he had forced that Nation to Justice and Quiet But e're Montross could get his Commission the Scots were entred England whose coming that it might be less odious to the People who now grew cold in their zeal to the Cause and saw themselves deluded into so continued dangers the Faction make use of such frauds as should make the People either think them necessary assistances or might divert their thoughts from apprehending the Miseries they brought with them to this Nation therefore they invent new Slanders of the King and His Party That His Majesty did intend to translate Monarchy into a Tyranny that He would seise upon all their Estates who had any way opposed Him and make their persons Slaves that there was no hope of Pardon from Him who was so merciless that He would take away all their Liberties and Privileges as forfeited destroy the Protestant Religion and introduce Popery which at Oxford He did practise Himself and that all men must be forced to go to Mass As for His Party they set them out to be such Monsters that the lower sort of People doubted whether the Cavaliers had the shapes of men For sad Relations were printed and published of their inhumanity and barbarous murders that they did feast upon the Flesh of Men and that they fed their Dogs and their Horses with the same Diet to make them more fierce for the blood of the Godly Party that no mans house was so poor and mean that a Cavalier would think beneath his rapine Thus they wrought upon the melancholy spirits of some by fear For those of a morose and cholerick temper they had proper divertisements they permitted to them a tumultuary Reformation to pull down the Pictures and Images of Christ the Virgin Mary and the Saints which with great Solemnity they committed to the flames that they might suffer as it were another Martyrdom All Crosses though set up for Ornament and Use in the Streets of London and other places they pulled down they invade the Churches and there deface what their Humour or Rapine would call Superstition pull down the Organs tear the Surplices and all this was suffered to please the Rabble who delight in violences and such ostentations of their fury and to make them in something or other guilty that they might despair of Pardon For others who were to be wrought upon by Religion they entertain them with Fasts publick Thanksgivings for slight Victories and solemn Spiritual meetings as they called them where whatsoever the Faction dictated was commended by the Speakers to their unwary hearers as the Oracles of Heaven and being thus wrapp'd up in those true delights which accompany the Worship of God they were securely swallowed by them as Poison when it is offered in a Sacramental Chalice To please their Ministers whom hitherto they had used as their Properties and Instruments of their Arts Presbytery is set up that they also might have an Imaginary Empire but it was not intended they should exercise it For the pretensions of that to a Divine Right did so terrifie them who were resolved against all Government that was not subject unto or dependent on theirs that they presently raised all the other Sects Independents Erastians who for the most part were Lawyers that could not endure to hear of any Thunderbolts of Excommunication but what was heated in their own forges Anabaptists Seekers and Atheists of which there were many sprung up who seeing how Religion was abused to carnal and unjust Ends began first to despise that and afterwards to deny God to write and declaim against this new Politie as the most severe and absolute Tyranny under the Sun and the tenth Persecution But this seeming modesty of admitting a Church-Government served their ends for the present till they could acquire a greater strength in confidence of which they might slight the Terrours of the Law and the Anathema's of the Church The Liturgy also was abolished under pretence of a Spiritual Liberty for it was accused of putting a restraint upon the Spirit