in any Kings heart And thus his pregnant motives are at last prov'd nothing but a Tympany or a Queen Maries Cushion For in any Kings heart as Kings goe now what shadowie conceit or groundless toy will not create a jealousie That he had design'd to assault the House of Commons taking God to witness he utterly denies yet in his Answer to the City maintaines that any course of violence had bin very justifiable And we may then guess how farr it was from his designe However it discover'd in him an excessive eagerness to be aveng'd on them that cross'd him and that to have his will he stood not to doe things never so much below him What a becomming sight it was to see the King of England one while in the House of Commons by and by in the Guild-Hall among the Liveries and Manufactures prosecuting so greedily the track of five or six fled Subjects himself not the Sollicitor onely but the Pursivant and the Apparitor of his own partial cause And although in his Answers to the Parlament hee hath confess'd first that his manner of prosecution was illegal next that as hee once conceiv'd hec had ground anough to accuse them so at length that hee found as good cause to desert any prosecution of them yet heer he seems to reverse all and against promise takes up his old deserted accusation that he might have something to excuse himself instead of giving due reparation which he always refus'd to give them whom he had so dishonor'd That I went saith he of his going to the House of Commons attended with some Gentlemen Gentlemen indeed the ragged Infantrie of Stewes and Brothels the spawn and shiprack of Taverns and Dicing Houses and then he pleads it was no unwonted thing for the Majesty and safety of a King to be so attended especially in discontented times An illustrious Majestie no doubt so attended a becomming safety for the King of England plac'd in the fidelity of such Guards and Champions Happy times when Braves and Hacksters the onely contented Members of his Goverment were thought the fittest and the faithfullest to defend his Person against the discontents of a Parlament and all good Men. Were those the chos'n ones to preserve reverence to him while he enterd unassur'd and full of suspicions into his great and faithfull Councel Let God then and the World judge whether the cause were not in his own guilty and unwarrantable doings The House of Commons upon several examinations of this business declar'd it sufficiently prov'd that the comming of those soldiers Papists and others with the King was to take away some of thir Members and in case of opposition or denyal to have fal'n upon the House in a hostile manner This the King heer denies adding a fearful imprecation against his own life If he purposed any violence or oppression against the Innocent then saith he let the Enemie persecute my soule and tred my life to the ground and lay my honor in the dust What need then more disputing He appeal'd to Gods Tribunal and behold God hath judg'd and don to him in the sight of all men according to the verdict of his own mouth To be a warning to all Kings hereafter how they use presumptuously the words and protestations of David without the spirit and conscience of David And the Kings admirers may heer see thir madness to mistake this Book for a monument of his worth and wisdom when as indeed it is his Doomsday Booke not like that of William the Norman his Predecessor but the record and memorial of his condemnation and discovers whatever hath befal'n him to have bin hast'nd on from Divine Justice by the rash and inconsiderat appeal of his own lipps But what evasions what pretences though never so unjust and emptie will he refuse in matters more unknown and more involv'd in the mists and intricacies of State who rather then not justifie himself in a thing so generally odious can flatter his integritie with such frivolous excuses against the manifest dissent of all men whether Enemies Neuters or Friends But God and his judgements have not bin mock'd and good men may well perceive what a distance there was ever like to be between him and his Parlament and perhaps between him and all amendment who for one good deed though but consented to askes God forgiveness and from his worst deeds don takes occasion to insist upon his rightecusness IV. Vpon the Insolency of the Tumults WEE have heer I must confess a neat and well-couch'd invective against Tumults expressing a true feare of them in the Author but yet so handsomly compos'd and withall so feelingly that to make a Royal comparison I beleeve Rehoboam the Son of Solomon could not have compos'd it better Yet Rehoboam had more cause to inveigh against them for they had ston'd his Tribute-gatherer and perhaps had as little spar'd his own Person had hee not with all speed betak'n him to his Charret But this King hath stood the worst of them in his own House without danger when his Coach and Horses in a Panic fear have bin to seek which argues that the Tumults at Whitehall were nothing so dangerous as those at Sechem But the matter heer considerable is not whether the King or his Houshold Rhetorician have made a pithy declamation against Tumults but first whether these were Tumults or not next if they were whether the King himself did not cause them Let us examin therfore how things at that time stood The King as before hath bin prov'd having both call'd this Parlament unwillingly and as unwillingly from time to time condescended to thir several acts carrying on a disjoynt and privat interest of his own and not enduring to be so cross'd and overswaid especially in the executing of his chief bold est Instrument the Deputy of Ireland first tempts the English Army with no less reward then the spoil of London to come up and destroy the Parlament That being discover'd by some of the Officers who though bad anough yet abhorr'd so foul a deed the K. hard'nd in his purpose tempts them the 2d time at Burrow Bridge promises to pawn his Jewels for them that they should be mett assisted would they but march on w th a gross body of hors under the E. of Newcastle He tempts them yet the third time though after discovery his own abjuration to have ever tempted them as is affirmd in the Declaration of no more addresses Neither this succeeding he turnes him next to the Scotch Army by his own credential Letters giv'n to Oneal and Sr John Hinderson baites his temptation with a richer reward not only to have the sacking of London but four Northern Counties to be made Scottish w th Jewels of great value to be giv'n in pawn thewhile But neither would the Scots for any promise of reward be bought to such an execrable and odious treachery but with much honesty gave notice of
into Heav'n he them in his Book they him in the Portrature before his Book but as was said before Stage-work will not doe it much less the justness of thir Cause wherin most frequently they dy'd in a brutish fierceness with Oaths and other damning words in thir mouths as if such had bin all the Oaths they fought for which undoubtedly sent them full Sail on another Voyage then to Heav'n In the mean while they to whom God gave Victory never brought to the King at Oxford the state of thir consciences that he should presume without confession more then a Pope presumes to tell abroad what conflicts and accusations men whom he never spoke with have in thir own thoughts We never read of any English King but one that was a Confessor and his name was Edward yet sure it pass'd his skill to know thoughts as this King takes upon him But they who will not stick to slander mens inward consciences which they can neither see nor know much less will care to slander outward actions which they pretend to see though with senses never so vitiated To judge of his conditions conquerd and the manner of dying on that side by the sober men that chose it would be his small advantage it being most notorious that they who were hottest in his Cause the most of them were men oftner drunk then by thir good will sober and very many of them so fought and so dy'd And that the conscience of any man should grow suspicious or be now convicted by any pretentions in the Parlament which are now prov'd fals and unintended there can be no just cause For neither did they ever pretend to establish his Throne without our Liberty and Religion nor Religion without the Word of God nor to judge of Laws by thir being establisht but to establish them by thir being good and necessary He tells the World He oft'n prayd that all on his side might be as faithfull to God and thir own souls as to him But Kings above all other men have in thir hands not to pray onely but to doe To make that prayer effectual he should have govern'd as well as pray'd To pray and not to govern is For a Monk and not a King Till then he might be well assur'd they were more faithfull to thir lust and rapine then to him In the wonted predication of his own vertues he goes on to tell us that to Conquer he never desir'd but onely to restore the Laws and Liberties of his people It had bin happy then he had known at last that by force to restore Laws abrogated by the Legislative Parlament is to conquer absolutely both them and Law it self And for our Liberties none ever oppress'd them more both in Peace and Warr first like a maister by his arbitrary power next as an enemy by hostile invasion And if his best freinds fear'd him and he himself in the temptation of an absolute Conquest it was not only pious but freindly in the Parlament both to fear him and resist him since their not yeelding was the onely meanes to keep him out of that temptation wherin he doubted his own strength He takes himself to be guilty in this Warr of nothing els but of confirming the power of some Men Thus all along he signifies the Parlament whom to have settl'd by an Act he counts to be his onely guiltiness So well he knew that to continue a Parlament was to raise a War against himself what were his actions then and his Government the while For never was it heard in all our Story that Parlaments made Warr on thir Kings but on thir Tyrants whose modesty and gratitude was more wanting to the Parlament then theirs to any of such Kings What he yeelded was his feare what he deny'd was his obstinacy had he yeelded more fear might perchance have sav'd him had he granted less his obstinacy had perhaps the sooner deliverd us To review the occasions of this Warr will be to them never too late who would be warn'd by his example from the like evils but to wish onely a happy conclusion will never expiate the fault of his unhappy beginnings T is true on our side the sins of our lives not seldom fought against us but on their side besides those the grand sin of thir Cause How can it be otherwise when he desires heer most unreasonably and indeed sacrilegiously that we should be subject to him though not furder yet as farr as all of us may be subject to God to whom this expression leaves no precedency Hee who desires from men as much obedience and subjection as we may all pay to God desires not less then to be a God a sacrilege farr wors then medling with the Bishops Lands as he esteems it His Praier is a good Praier and a glorious but glorying is not good if it know not that a little leven levens the whole lump It should have purg'd out the leven of untruth in telling God that the blood of his Subjects by him shedd was in his just and necessary defence Yet this is remarkable God hath heer so orderd his Prayer that as his own lipps acquitted the Parlament not long before his death of all the blood spilt in this Warr so now his prayer unwittingly drawes it upon himself For God imputes not to any man the blood he spills in a just cause and no man ever begg'd his not imputing of that which he in his justice could not impute So that now whether purposely or unaware he hath confess'd both to God and Man the bloodguiltiness of all this Warr to lie upon his own head XX. Upon the Reformation of the times THis Chapter cannot punctually be answer'd without more repetitions then now can be excusable Which perhaps have already bin more humour'd then was needfull As it presents us with nothing new so with his exceptions against Reformation pittifully old and tatter'd with continual using not onely in his Book but in the words and Writings of every Papist and Popish King On the Scene he thrusts out first an Antimasque of two bugbeares Noveltie and Perturbation that the ill looks and noise of those two may as long as possible drive off all endeavours of a Reformation Thus sought Pope Adrian by representing the like vain terrors to divert and dissipate the zeal of those reforming Princes of the age before in Germany And if we credit Latimers Sermons our Papists heer in England pleaded the same dangers and inconveniencies against that which was reform'd by Edward the sixth Whereas if those fears had bin available Christianity it self had never bin receav'd Which Christ foretold us would not be admitted without the censure of noveltie and many great commotions These therfore are not to deterr us He grants Reformation to be a good work and confesses What the indulgence of times and corruption of manners might have deprav'd So did the foremention'd Pope and our Gransire Papists in this Realm Yet
ΕΙΚΟÎΟΚΛΑΣΤΗΣ IN ANSWER To a Book Intitl'd ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ THE Portrature of his sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings The AUTHOR J. M PROV 28. 15 16 17. 15. As a roaring Lyon and a ranging Beare so is a wicked Ruler over the poor people 16. The Prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor but he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his dayes 17. A man that doth violence to the blood of any person shall fly to the pit let no man stay him 〈◊〉 Conjurat Catilin Regiam imperium quod initio conservandae libertatis atque augendae reipub causâ fuerat in superbiam dominationemque se convertit Regibus boni quam mali suspectiores sunt semperque his aliena virtus formidolosa est Impunè quaelibet facere id est regem esse Idem Bell. Jugurth Publish'd now the second time and much enlarg'd London Printed by T. N. and are to be sold by Tho. Brewster and G. Moule at the three Bibles in Pauls Church-Yard near the West-end 1650. The PREFACE TO descant on the misfortunes of a person fall'n from so high a dignity who hath also payd his final debt both to Nature and his Faults is neither of it self a thing commendable nor the intention of this discours Neither was it fond ambition or the vanity to get a Name present or with Posterity by writing against a King I never was so thirsty after Fame nor so destitute of other hopes and means better and more certaine to attaine it For Kings have gain'd glorious Titles from thir Fovourers by writing against privat men as Henry the 8 th did against Luther but no man ever gain'd much honour by writing against a King as not usually meeting with that force of Argument in such Courtly Antagonists which to convince might add to his reputation Kings most commonly though strong in Legions are but weak at Arguments as they who ever have accustom'd from the Cradle to use thir will onely as thir right hand thir reason alwayes as thir left Whence unexpectedly constrain'd to that kind of combat they prove but weak and puny Adversaries Nevertheless for their sakes who through custom simplicitie or want of better teaching have not more seriously considerd Kings then in the gaudy name of Majesty and admire them and thir doings as if they breath'd not the same breath with other mortal men I shall make no scruple to take up for it seems to be the challenge both of him and all his party to take up this Gauntlet though a Kings in the behalf of Libertie and the Common-wealth And furder since it appears manifestly the cunning drift of a factious and defeated Party to make the same advantage of his Book which they did before of his Regal Name and Authority and intend it not so much the defence of his former actions as the promoting of thir own future designes making thereby the Book thir own rather then the Kings as the benefit now must be thir own more then his now the third time to corrupt and disorder the mindes of weaker men by new suggestions and narrations either falsly or fallaciously representing the state of things to the dishonour of this present Goverment and the retarding of a generall peace so needfull to this afflicted Nation and so nigh obtain'd I suppose it no injurie to the dead but a good deed rather to the living if by better information giv'n them or which is anough by onely remembring them the truth of what they themselves know to be heer misaffirm'd they may be kept from entring the third time unadvisedly into Warr and bloodshed For as to any moment of solidity in the Book it self save only that a King is said to be the Author a name then which there needs no more among the blockish vulgar to make it wise and excellent and admir'd nay to set it next the Bible though otherwise containing little els but the common grounds of tyranny and popery drest up the better to deceiv in a new Protestant guise and trimmly garnish'd over or as to any need of answering in respect of staid and well-principl'd men I take it on me as a work assign'd rather then by me chos'n or affected Which was the cause both of beginning it so late and finishing it so leasurely in the midst of other imployments and diversions And though well it might have seem'd in vaine to write at all considering the envy and almost infinite prejudice likely to be stirr'd up among the Common sort against what ever can be writt'n or gainsaid to the Kings book so advantageous to a book it is only to be a Kings and though it be an irksom labour to write with industrie and judicious paines that which neither waigh'd nor well read shall be judg'd without industry or the paines of well judging by faction and the easy literature of custom and opinion it shall be ventur'd yet and the truth not smother'd but sent abroad in the native confidence of her single self to earn how she can her entertainment in the world and to finde out her own readers few perhaps but those few such of value and substantial worth as truth and wisdom not respecting numbers and bigg names have bin ever wont in all ages to be contented with And if the late King had thought sufficient those Answers and Defences made for him in his life time they who on the other side accus'd his evil Goverment judging that on their behalf anough also hath been reply'd the heat of this controversie was in likelyhood drawing to an end and the furder mention of his deeds not so much unfortunat as faulty had in tenderness to his late sufferings bin willingly forborn and perhaps for the present age might have slept with him unrepeated while his adversaries calm'd and asswag'd with the success of thir cause had bin the less unfavorable to his memory But since he himself making new appeale to Truth and the World hath left behind him this Book as the best advocat and interpreter of his own actions and that his Friends by publishing dispersing commending and almost adoring it seem to place therein the chiefe strength and nerves of thir cause it would argue doubtless in the other party great deficience and distrust of themselves not to meet the force of his reason in any field whatsoever the force and equipage of whose Armes they have so oft'n met victoriously And he who at the Barr stood excepting against the form and manner of his Judicature and complain'd that he was not heard neither he nor his Friends shall have that cause now to find fault being mett and debated with in this op'n and monumental Court of his own erecting and not onely heard uttering his whole mind at large but answer'd Which to doe effectually if it be necessary that to his Book nothing the more respect be had for being his they of his own Party can have no just reason to exclaime For it were
the Kings designe both to the Parlament and City of London The Parlament moreover had intelligence and the people could not but discern that there was a bitter malignant party grown up now to such a boldness as to give out insolent and threatning speeches against the Parlament it self Besides this the Rebellion in Ireland was now broke out and a conspiracy in Scotland had bin made while the King was there against some chief Members of that Parlament great numbers heer of unknown and suspicious persons resorted to the City the King being return'd from Scotland presently dismisses that Guard which the Parlament thought necessary in the midst of so many dangers to have about them and puts another Guard in thir place contrary to the Privilege of that high Court and by such a one commanded as made them no less doubtfull of the Guard it self Which they therfore upon som ill effects thereof first found discharge deeming it more safe to sitt free though without a Guard in op'n danger then inclos'd with a suspected safety The people therfore lest thir worthiest and most faithfull Patriots who had expos'd themselves for the public and whom they saw now left naked should want aide or be deserted in the midst of these dangers came in multitudes though unarm'd to witness thir fidelitie and readiness in case of any violence offer'd to the Parlament The King both envying to see the Peoples love thus devolv'd on another object and doubting lest it might utterly disable him to doe with Parlaments as he was wont sent a message into the City forbidding such resorts The Parlament also both by what was discover'd to them and what they saw in a Malignant Party some of which had already drawn blood in a Fray or two at the Court Gate and eev'n at thir own Gate in Westminster Hall conceaving themselves to be still in danger where they sat sent a most reasonable and just Petition to the King that a Guard might be allow'd them out of the City wherof the Kings own Chamberlaine the Earl of Essex might have command it being the right of inferiour Courts to make chois of thir own Guard This the King refus'd to doe and why he refus'd the very next day made manifest For on that day it was that he sallied out from White Hall with those trusty Myrmidons to block up or give assault to the House of Commons He had besides all this begun to fortifie his Court and entertaind armed Men not a few who standing at his Palace Gate revil'd and with drawn Swords wounded many of the People as they went by unarm'd and in a peaceable manner whereof some dy'd The passing by of a multitude though neither to Saint Georges Feast nor to a Tilting certainly of it self was no Tumult the expression of thir Loyalty and stedfastness to the Parlament whose lives and safeties by more then slight rumours they doubted to be in danger was no Tumult If it grew to be so the cause was in the King himself and his injurious retinue who both by Hostile preparations in the Court and by actual assailing of the People gave them just cause to defend themselves Surely those unarmed and Petitioning People needed not have bin so formidable to any but to such whose consciences misgave them how ill they had deserv'd of the People and first began to injure them because they justly fear'd it from them and then ascribe that to popular Tumult which was occasion'd by thir own provoking And that the King was so emphatical and elaborat on this Theam against Tumults and express'd with such a vehemence his hatred of them will redound less perhaps then he was aware to the commendation of his Goverment For besides that in good Goverments they happ'n seldomèst and rise not without cause if they prove extreme and pernicious they were never counted so to Monarchy but to Monarchical Tyranny and extremes one with another are at most Antipathy If then the King so extremely stood in fear of Tumults the inference will endanger him to be the other extreme Thus farr the occasion of this discours against Tumults now to the discours it self voluble anough and full of sentence but that for the most part either specious rather then solid or to his cause nothing pertinent He never thought any thing more to presage the mischiefes that ensu'd then those Tumults Then was his foresight but short and much mistak'n Those Tumults were but the milde effects of an evil and injurious raigne not signes of mischeifs to come but seeking releef for mischeifs past those signes were to be read more apparent in his rage and purpos'd revenge of those free expostulations and clamours of the People against his lawless Goverment Not any thing saith he portends more Gods displeasure against a Nation then when he suffers the clamours of the Vulgar to pass all bounds of Law reverence to Authority It portends rather his dispeasure against a Tyrannous King whose proud Throne he intends to overturn by that contemptible Vulgar the sad cries and oppressions of whom his Royaltie regarded not As for that supplicating People they did no hurt either to Law or Autority but stood for it rather in the Parlament against whom they fear'd would violate it That they invaded the Honour and Freedome of the two Houses is his own officious accusation not seconded by the Parlament who had they seen cause were themselves best able to complain And if they shook menac'd any they were such as had more relation to the Court then to the Common wealth enemies not patrons of the People But if thir petitioning unarm'd were an invasion of both Houses what was his entrance into the House of Commons besetting it with armed men in what condition then was the honour and freedom of that House They forbore not rude deportments contemptuous words and actions to himself and his Court. It was more wonder having heard what treacherous hostility he had design'd against the City and his whole Kingdome that they forbore to handle him as people in thir rage have handl'd Tyrants heertofore for less offences They were not a short ague but a fierce quotidian feaver He indeed may best say it who most felt it for the shaking was within him and it shook him by his own description worse then a storme worse then an earthquake Belshazzars Palsie Had not worse feares terrors and envies made within him that commotion how could a multitude of his Subjects arm'd with no other weapon then Petitions have shak'n all his joynts with such a terrible ague Yet that the Parlament should entertaine the least feare of bad intentions from him or his Party he endures not but would perswade us that men scare themselves and others without cause for he thought feare would be to them a kind of armor and his designe was if it were possible to disarme all especially of a wise feare and suspicion for that he knew would find weapons He
goes on therfore with vehemence to repeat the mischeifs don by these Tumults They first Petition'd then protected dictate next and lastly overaw the Parlament They remov'd obstructions they purg'd the Houses cast out rott'n members If there were a man of iron such as Talus by our Poet Spencer is fain'd to be the page of Justice who with his iron flaile could doe all this and expeditiously without those deceitfull formes and circumstances of Law worse then ceremonies in Religion I say God send it don whether by one Talus or by a thousand But they subdu'd the men of conscience in Parlament back'd and abetted all seditious and schismatical Proposals against government ecclesiastical and civil Now wee may perceave the root of his hatred whence it springs It was not the Kings grace or princely goodness but this iron flaile the People that drove the Bishops out of thir Baronies out of thir Cathedrals out of the Lords House out of thir Copes and Surplices and all those Papistical innovations threw down the High Commission and Star-chamber gave us a Triennial Parlament and what we most desir'd in revenge whereof he now so bitterly enveighs against them these are those seditious and scismatical Proposals then by him condescended to as acts of grace now of another name which declares him touching matters of Church and State to have bin no other man in the deepest of his solitude then he was before at the highest of his Sovrantie But this was not the worst of these Tumults they plaid the hasty midwives and would not stay the ripening but went streight to ripping up and forcibly cut out abortive Votes They would not stay perhaps the Spanish demurring and putting off such wholsome acts and counsels as the Politic Cabin at WhiteHall had no mind to But all this is complain'd heer as don to the Parlament and yet we heard not the Parlament at that time complaine of any violence from the people but from him Wherfore intrudes he to plead the cause of Parlament against the People while the Parlament was pleading thir own cause against him and against him were forc'd to seek refuge of the people 'T is plaine then that those confluxes and resorts interrupted not the Parlament nor by them were thought Tumultuous but by him onely and his Court Faction But what good Man had not rather want any thing he most desir'd for the public good then attain it by such unlawfull and irreligious meanes as much as to say Had not rather sit still and let his Country be Tyranniz'd then that the people finding no other remedie should stand up like Men and demand thir Rights and Liberties This is the artificialest peece of fineness to perswade men into slavery that the wit of Court could have invented But heare how much betterthe Moral of this Lesson would befitt the Teacher What good man had not rather want a boundless and arbitrary power and those fine Flowers of the Crown call'd Prerogatives then for them to use force and perpetual vexation to his faithfull Subjects nay to wade for them through blood and civil warr So that this and the whole bundle of those following sentences may be apply'd better to the convincement of his own violent courses then of those pretended Tumults Who were the chiefe Demagogues to send for those Tumults some alive are not ignorant Setting aside the affrightment of this Goblin word for the King by his leave cannot coine English as he could Money to be current and t is beleev'd this wording was above his known stile and Orthographie and accuses the whole composure to be conscious of som other Author yet if the people were sent for emboldn'd and directed by those Demagogues who saving his Greek were good Patriots and by his own confession Men of some repute for parts and pietie it helps well to assure us there was both urgent cause and the less danger of thir comming Complaints were made yet no redress could be obtain'd The Parlament also complain'd of what danger they sate in from another party and demanded of him a Guard but it was not granted What marvel then if it chear'd them to see some store of thir Friends and in the Roman not the pettifogging sense thir Clients so neer about them a defence due by nature both from whom it was offer'd and to whom as due as to thir Parents though the Court storm'd and fretted to see such honour giv'n to them who were then best Fathers of the Common-wealth And both the Parlament and people complain'd and demanded Justice for those assaults if not murders don at his own dores by that crew of Rufflers but he in stead of doing Justice on them justifi'd and abetted them in what they did as in his public Answer to a Petition from the City may be read Neither is it slightly to be pass'd over that in the very place where blood was first drawn in this cause as the beginning of all that follow'd there was his own blood shed by the Executioner According to that sentence of Divine justice In the place where Dogs lick'd the blood of Naboth shall Dogs lick thy blood eev'n thine From hence he takes occasion to excuse that improvident and fatal error of his absenting from the Parlament When he found that no Declaration of the Bishops could take place against those Tumults Was that worth his considering that foolish and self-undoing Declaration of twelve Cypher Bishops who were immediatly appeacht of Treason for that audacious Declaring The Bishops peradventure were now and then pulld by the Rochers and deserv'd another kind of pulling but what amounted this to the feare of his own person in the streets Did he not the very next day after his irruption into the House of Commons then which nothing had more exasperated the people goe in his Coach unguarded into the City did hee receave the least affront much less violence in any of the Streets but rather humble demeanours and supplications Hence may be gather'd that however in his own guiltiness hee might have justly fear'd yet that hee knew the people so full of aw and reverence to his Person as to dare commit himself single among the thickest of them at a time when he had most provok'd them Besides in Scot-Land they had handl'd the Bishops in a more robustious manner Edinburrow had bin full of Tumults two Armies from thence had enterd England against him yet after all this he was not fearfull but very forward to take so long a journey to Edinburrow which argues first as did also his rendition afterward to the Scotch Army that to England he continu'd still as he was indeed a stranger and full of diffidence to the Scots onely a native King in his confidence though not in his dealing towards them It shews us next beyond doubting that all this his feare of Tumults was but a meer colour and occasion tak'n of his resolved absence from the Parlament for some other end not
Bishops should have the confidence heer to profess himself so much an Enemie of those that force the conscience For was it not he who upon the English obtruded new Ceremonies upon the Scots a new Liturgie with his Sword went about to score a bloody Rubric on thir backs Did he not forbidd and hinder all effectual search of Truth nay like a beseiging Enemy stopd all her passages both by Word and Writing Yet heer can talk of faire and equall disputations Where notwithstanding if all submit not to his judgement as not being rationally convicted they must submitt and he conceales it not to his penaltie as counted obstinate But what if he himself and those his learned Churchmen were the convicted or the ostinate part long agoe should Reformation suffer them to sit Lording over the Church in thir fatt Bishoprics and Pluralities like the great Whore that sitteth upon many Waters till they would voutsafe to be disputed out Or should we sit disputitg while they sate plotting and persecuting Those Clergimen were not to be driv'n into the fold like Sheep as his Simily runs but to be driv'n out of the Fold like Wolves or Theeves where they sat Fleecing those Flocks which they never fed He beleeves that Presbytery though prov'd to be the onely Institution of Iesus Christ were not by the Sword to be set up without his consent which is contrary both to the Doctrin and the known practice of all Protestant Churches if his Sword threat'n those who of thir own accord imbrace it And although Christ and his Apostles being to civil affairs but privat men contended not with Magistrats yet when Magistrats themselves and especially Parlaments who have greatest right to dispose of the civil Sword come to know Religion they ought in conscience to defend all those who receave it willingly against the violence of any King or Tyrant whatsoever Neither is it therefore true That Christianity is planted or watred with Christian blood for there is a large difference between forcing men by the Sword to turne Presbyterians and defending those who willingly are so from a r fiousfu inroad o bloody Bishops arm'd with the Militia of a King thir Pupill And if covetousness and ambition be an argument that Presbytery hath not much of Christ it argues more strongly against Episcopacy which from the time of her first mounting to an order above the Presbyters had no other Parents then Covetousness Ambition And those Sects Scisms and Heresies which he speaks of if they get but strength and numbers need no other pattern then Episcopacie and himself to set up their ways by the like method of violence Nor is ther any thing that hath more marks of Scism and Sectarism then English Episcopacy whether we look at Apostolic times or at reformed Churches for the universall way of Church goverment before may as soon lead us into gross error as thir universally corrupted Doctrin And Goverment by reason of ambition was likeliest to be corrupted much the sooner of the two However nothing can be to us Catholic or universal in Religion but what the Scripture teaches whatsoever without Scripture pleads to be universal in the Church in being universal is but the more Scismatical Much less can particular Laws and Constitutions impart to the Church of England any power of consistory or tribunal above other Churches to be the sole Judge of what is Sect or Scism as with much rigor and without Scripture they took upon them Yet these the King resolves heer to defend and maintain to his last pretending after all those conferences offer'd or had with him not to see more rationall and religious motives then Soldiers carry in thir Knapsacks with one thus resolv'd it was but folly to stand disputing He imagins his own judicious zeal to be most concernd in his tuition of the Church So thought Saul when he presum'd to offer Sacrifice for which he lost his Kingdom So thought Uzziah when he went into the Temple but was thrust out with a Leprosie for his opinion'd zeal which he thought judicious It is not the part of a King because he ought to defend the Church therfore to set himself supreme Head over the Church or to meddle with Ecclesial Goverment or to defend the Church otherwise then the Church would be defended for such defence is bondage nor to defend abuses and stop all Reformation under the name of New moulds fanct'd and fashion'd to privat designes The holy things of Church are in the power of other keys then were deliverd to his keeping Christian libertie purchas'd with the death of our Redeemer and establish'd by the sending of his free Spirit to inhabit in us is not now to depend upon the doubtful consent of any earthly Monarch nor to be again fetter'd with a presumptuous negative voice tyrannical to the Parlament but much more tyrannical to the Church of God which was compell'd to implore the aid of Parlament to remove his force and heavy hands frō off our consciēces who therfore complains now of that most just defensive force because onely it remov'd his violence and persecution If this be a violation to his conscience that it was hinderd by the Parlament from violating the more tender consciences of so many thousand good Christians let the usurping conscience of all Tyrants be ever so violated He wonders Fox wonder how we could so much distrust Gods assistance as to call in the Protestant aid of our Brethren in Scotland why then did he if his trust were in God and the justice of his Cause not scruple to sollicit and invite earnestly the assistance both of Papists and of Irish Rebels If the Scots were by us at length sent home they were not call'd to stay heer always neither was it for the peoples ease to feed so many Legions longer then thir help was needfull The Goverment of thir Kirk we despis'd not but thir imposing of that Goverment upon us not Presbytery but Arch-Presbytery Classical Provincial and Diocesan Prebytery claiming to it self a Lordly power and Superintendency both over Flocks and Pastors over Persons and Congregations no way thir own But these debates in his judgement would have bin ended better by the best Divines in Christ'ndom in a full and free Synod A most improbable way and such as never yet was us'd at least with good success by any Protestant Kingdom or State since the Reformation Every true Church having wherewithall from Heav'n and the assisting Spirit of Christ implor'd to be complete and perfet within it self And the whole Nation is not easily to be thought so raw and so perpetually a novice after all this light as to need the help and direction of other Nations more then what they write in public of thir opinion in a matter so familiar as Church Goverment In fine he accuses Piety with the want of Loyalty and Religion with the breach of Allegeance as if God and he were one Maister whose commands were
so but privatly in the Counsel Books inroull'd no Parlament that if accommodation had succeeded upon what termes soever such a devilish fraud was prepar'd that the King in his own esteem had bin absolv'd from all performance as having treated with Rebels and no Parlament and they on the other side in stead of an expected happines had bin brought under the Hatchet Then no doubt Warr had ended that Massacher and Tyranny might begin These jealousies however rais'd let all men see whether they be diminish'd or allay'd by the Letters of his own Cabinet open'd And yet the breach of this Treaty is lay'd all upon the Parlament and thir Commissioners with odious Names of Pertinacy hatred of Peace Faction and Covetousness nay his own Bratt Superstition is layd to their charge not withstanding his heer profess'd resolution to continue both the Order Maintenance and Authority of Prelats as a truth of God And who were most to blame in the unsuccessfullness of that Treaty his appeale is to Gods decision beleeving to be very excusable at that Tribunal But if ever man gloried in an unflexible stifness he came not behind any and that grand Maxim always to put somthing into his Treaties which might give colour to refuse all that was in other things granted and to make them signifie nothing was his own Principal Maxim and particular instructions to his Commissioners Yet all by his own verdit must be consterd Reason in the King and depraved temper in the Parlament That the highest Tide of success with these principles and designes set him not above a Treaty no great wonder And yet if that be spok'n to his praise the Parlament therin surpass'd him who when he was thir vanquish'd and thir captive his forces utterly brok'n and disbanded yet offerd him three several times no wors proposals or demands then when he stood fair to be thir Conqueror But that imprudent surmise that his lowest Ebb could not set him below a Fight was a presumption that ruin'd him He presag'd the future unsuccessfulness of Treaties by the unwillingness of som men to treat and could not see what was present that thir unwillingness had good cause to proceed from the continual experience of his own obstinacy and breach of word His prayer therfore of forgiveness to the guilty of that treaties breaking he had good reason to say heartily over as including no man in that guilt sooner then himself As for that Protestation following in his Prayer How oft have I entreated for peace but when I speak therof they make them ready to Warr unless he thought himself still in that perfidious mist between Colebrook and Houndslow and thought that mist could hide him from the eye of Heav'n as well as of Man after such a bloody recompence giv'n to our first offers of Peace how could this in the sight of Heav'n without horrours of conscience be utter'd XIX Vpon the various events of the Warr. IT is no new or unwonted thing for bad men to claim as much part in God as his best servants to usurp and imitate thir words and appropriate to themselves those properties which belong onely to the good and righteous This not onely in Scripis familiarly to be found but heer also in this Chapter of Apocrypha He tells us much why it pleas'd God to send him Victory or Loss although what in so doing was the intent of God he might be much mistak'n as to his own particular but we are yet to learn what real good use he made therof in his practice Those numbers which he grew to from small beginnings were not such as out of love came to protect him for none approv'd his actions as a King except Courtiers and Prelats but were such as fled to be protected by him from the fear of that Reformation which the pravity of thir lives would not bear Such a Snowball he might easily gather by rowling through those cold and dark provinces of ignorance and leudness where on a sudden he became so numerous He imputes that to Gods protection which to them who persist in a bad cause is either his long-suffering or his hard'ning and that to wholesom chastisement which were the gradual beginnings of a severe punishment For if neither God nor nature put civil power in the hands of any whomsoever but to a lawfull end and commands our obedience to the autority of Law onely not to the Tyrannical force of any person and if the Laws of our Land have plac'd the Sword in no mans single hand so much as to unsheath against a forren enemie much less upon the native people but have plac'd it in that elective body of the Parlament to whom the making repealing judging and interpreting of Law it self was also committed as was fittest so long as wee intended to bee a free Nation and not the Slaves of one mans will then was the King himself disobedient and rebellious to that Law by which he raign'd and by autority of Parlament to raise armes against him in defence of Law and Libertie we doe not onely think but beleeve and know was justifiable both by the Word of God the Laws of the Land and all lawfull Oaths and they who sided with him fought against all these The same Allegations which he uses for himself and his Party may as well fitt any Tyrant in the world for let the Parlament bee call'd a Faction when the King pleases and that no Law must bee made or chang'd either civil or religious because no Law will content all sides then must be made or chang'd no Law at all but what a Tyrant be he Protestant or Papist thinks fitt Which tyrannous assertion forc'd upon us by the Sword he who fights against and dyes fighting if his other sins overweigh not dyes a Martyr undoubtedly both of the Faith and of the Common-wealth and I hold it not as the opinion but as the full beleef and persuasion of farr holier and wiser men then Parasitie Preachers Who without their dinner-Doctrin know that neither King Law civil Oaths or Religion was ever establish'd without the Parlament and thir power is the same to abrogate as to establish neither is any thing to bee thought establish'd which that House declares to be abolisht Where the Parlament sitts there inseparably sitts the King there the Laws there our Oaths and whatsoever can be civil in Religion They who fought for the Parlament in the truest sense fought for all these who fought for the King divided from his Parlament fought for the shadow of a King against all these and for things that were not as if they were establisht It were a thing monstrously absurd and contradictory to give the Parlament a Legislative power and then to upbraid them for transgressing old Establishments But the King and his Party having lost in this Quarrel thir Heav'n upon Earth beginn to make great reckning of Eternal Life and at an easie rate in forma Pauperis Canonize one another
all of them agree in one song with this heer that they are sorry to see so little regard had to Laws establisht and the Religion settl'd Popular compliance dissolution of all order and goverment in the Church Scisms Opinions Undecencies Confusions Sacrilegious invasions contempt of the Clergie and thir Liturgie Diminution of Princes all these complaints are to be read in the Messages and Speeches almost of every Legat from the Pope to those States and Citties which began Reformation From whence he either learnt the same pretences or had them naturally in him from the same spirit Neither was there ever so sincere a Reformation that hath escap'd these clamours He offer'd a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen So offerd all those Popish Kings heertofore a cours the most unsatisfactory as matters have been long carried and found by experience in the Church liable to the greatest fraud and packing no solution or redress of evil but an increase rather detested therfore by Nazianzen and som other of the Fathers And let it bee produc'd what good hath bin don by Synods from the first times of Reformation Not to justifie what enormities the Vulgar may committ in the rudeness of thir zeal we need but onely instance how he bemoanes the pulling down of Crosses and other superstitious Monuments as the effect of a popular and deceitful Reformation How little this savours of a Protestant is too easily perceav'd What he charges in defect of Piety Charity and Morality hath bin also charg'd by Papists upon the best reformed Churches not as if they the accusers were not tenfold more to be accus'd but out of thir Malignity to all endeavour of amendment as we know who accus'd to God the sincerity of Job an accusation of all others the most easie when as there livs not any mortal man so excellent who in these things is not alwaies deficient But the infirmities of best men and the scandals of mixt Hypocrits in all times of reforming whose bold intrusion covets to bee ever seen in things most sacred as they are most specious can lay no just blemish upon the integritie of others much less upon the purpose of Reformation it self Neither can the evil doings of som be the excuse of our delaying or deserting that duty to the Church which for no respect of times or carnal policies can be at any time unseasonable He tells with great shew of piety what kinde of persons public Reformers ought to be and what they ought to doe T is strange that in above twenty years the Church growing still wors and wors under him he could neither be as he bids others be nor doe as he pretends heer so well to know nay which is worst of all after the greatest part of his Raign spent in neither knowing nor doing aught toward a Reformation either in Church or State should spend the residue in hindring those by a seven years Warr whom it concernd with his consent or without it to doe thir parts in that great performance T is true that the method of reforming may well subsist without perturbation of the State but that it falls out otherwise for the most part is the plaine Text of Scripture And if by his own rule hee had allow'd us to feare God first and the King in due order our Allegeance might have still follow'd our Religion in a fit subordination But if Christs Kingdom be tak'n for the true Discipline of the Church and by his Kingdom be meant the violence he us'd against it and to uphold an Antichristian Hierarchie then sure anough it is that Christs Kingdom could not be sett up without pulling down his And they were best Christians who were least subject to him Christs Goverment out of question meaning it Prelatical hee thought would confirm his and this was that which overthrew it He professes to own his Kingdom from Christ and to desire to rule for his glory and the Churches good The Pope and the King of Spain profess every where as much and both his practice and all his reasonings all his enmitie against the true Church we see hath bin the same with theirs since the time that in his Letter to the Pope he assur'd them both of his full compliance But evil beginnings never bring forth good conclusions they are his own words and he ratifi'd them by his own ending To the Pope he ingag'd himself to hazard life and estate for the Roman Religion whether in complement he did it or in earnest and God who stood neerer then he for complementing minded writ down those words that according to his resolution so it should come to pass He praies against his hypocrisie and Pharisaical washings a Prayer to him most pertinent but choaks it straight with other words which pray him deeper into his old errors and delusions XXI Vpon His Letters tak'n and divulg'd THE Kings Letters taken at the Battell of Naesby being of greatest importance to let the people see what Faith there was in all his promises and solemn Protestations were transmitted to public view by special Order of the Parlament They discover'd his good affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the straight intelligence he held the pernitious dishonorable peace he made with them not solicited but rather soliciting w ch by all invocations that were holy he had in public abjur'd They reveal'd his endeavours to bring in forren Forces Irish French Dutch Lorrainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon us besides his suttleties and mysterious arts in treating to summ up all they shewd him govern'd by a Woman All which though suspected vehemently before and from good grounds beleev'd yet by him and his adherents peremptorily deny'd were by the op'ning of that Cabinet visible to all men under his own hand The Parlament therfore to cleer themselves of aspersing him without cause and that the people might no longer be abus'd and cajol'd as they call it by falsities and Court impudence in matters of so high concernment to let them know on what termes thir duty stood and the Kingdoms peace conceavd it most expedient and necessary that those Letters should be made public This the King affirmes was by them don without honour and civilitie words which if they contain not in them as in the language of a Courtier most commonly they do not more of substance and realitie then complement Ceremony Court fauning and dissembling enter not I suppose furder then the eare into any wise mans consideration Matters were not then between the Parlament and a King thir enemie in that state of trifling as to observ those superficial vanities But if honour and civilitie mean as they did of old discretion honesty prudence and plaine truth it will be then maintain'd against any Sect of those Cabalists that the Parlament in doing what they did with those Letters could suffer in thir honour and civilitie no diminution The reasons are already heard And that it is with none more familiar then with Kings
him nor condemn'd themselves But he will needs have vengeance to pursue and overtake them though to bring it in it cost him an inconvenient and obnoxious comparison As the Mice and Ratts overtook a German Bishop I would our Mice and Ratts had bin as Orthodoxal heer and had so pursu'd all his Bishops out of England then vermin had ridd away vermin which now hath lost the lives of too many thousand honest men to doe He cannot but observe this Divine Justice yet with sorrow and pitty But sorrow and pitty in a weak and over-maister'd enemy is lookt upon no otherwise then as the ashes of his revenge burnt out upon it self or as the damp of a coold fury when we say it gives But in this manner to sit spelling and observing divine justice upon every accident slight disturbance that may happ'n humanly to the affaires of men is but another fragment of his brok'n revenge yet the shrewdest the cunningest obloquy that can be thrown upon thir actions For if he can perswade men that the Parlament and thir cause is pursu'd with Divine vengeance he hath attain'd his end to make all men forsake them and think the worst that can be thought of them Nor is he onely content to suborn Divine Justice in his censure of what is past but he assumes the person of Christ himself to prognosticate over us what he wishes would come So little is any thing or person sacred from him no not in Heav'n which he will not use and put on if it may serve him plausibly to wreck his spleen or ease his mind upon the Parlament Although if ever fatal blindness did both attend and punish wilfulness if ever any enjoy'd not comforts for neglecting counsel belonging to thir peace it was in none more conspicuously brought to pass then in himself and his predictions against the Parlament and thir adherents have for the most part bin verify'd upon his own head and upon his chief Counselors He concludes with high praises of the Army But praises in an enemy are superfluous or smell of craft and the Army shall not need his praises nor the Parlament fare worse for his accusing prayers that follow Wherin as his Charity can be no way comparable to that of Christ so neither can his assurance that they whom he seems to pray for in doing what they did against him knew not what they did It was but arrogance therfore and not charity to lay such ignorance to others in the sight of God till he himself had bin infallible like him whose peculiar words he overweeningly assumes XXVII Intitil'd to the Prince of Wales VVHat the King wrote to his Son as a Father concerns not us what he wrote to him as a King of England concerns not him God and the Parlament having now otherwise dispos'd of England But because I see it don with some artifice and labour to possess the people that they might amend thir present condition by his or by his Sons restorement I shall shew point by point that although the King had bin reinstall'd to his desire or that his Son admitted should observe exactly all his Fathers precepts yet that this would be so farr from conducing to our happiness either as a remedy to the present distempers or a prevention of the like to come that it would inevitably throw us back again into all our past and fulfill'd miseries would force us to fight over again all our tedious Warrs and put us to another fatal struggling for Libertie and life more dubious then the former In which as our success hath bin no other then our cause so it will be evident to all posteritie that his misfortunes were the meer consequence of his perverse judgement First he argues from the experience of those troubles which both he and his Son have had to the improvement of thir pietie and patience and by the way beares witness in his own words that the corrupt education of his youth which was but glanc'd at onely in some former passages of this answer was a thing neither of mean consideration nor untruly charg'd upon him or his Son himself confessing heer that Court delights are prone either to root up all true vertue and honour or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them without any reall fruits tending to the public good Which presents him still in his own words another Rehoboam soft'nd by a farr wors Court then Salomons and so corrupted by flatteries which he affirmes to be unseparable to the overturning of all peace and the loss of his own honour and Kingdoms That he came therfore thus bredd up and nurtur'd to the Throne farr wors then Rehoboam unless he be of those who equaliz'd his Father to King Salomon we have heer his own confession And how voluptuously how idlely raigning in the hands of other men he either tyranniz'd or trifl'd away those seventeen yeares of peace without care or thought as if to be a King had bin nothing els in his apprehension but to eat and drink and have his will and take his pleasure though there be who can relate his domestic life to the exactness of a diary there shall be heer no mention made This yet we might have then foreseen that he who spent his leisure so remissly and so corruptly to his own pleasing would one day or other be wors busied and imployd to our sorrow And that he acted in good earnest what Rehoboam did but threat'n to make his little finger heavier then his Fathers loynes and to whip us with his two twisted Scorpions both temporal and spiritual Tyranny all his Kingdoms have felt What good use he made afterward of his adversitie both his impenitence and obstinacy to the end for he was no Manasseh and the sequel of these his meditated resolutions abundantly express retaining commending teaching to his Son all those putrid and pernicious documents both of State and of Religion instill'd by wicked Doctors and receav'd by him as in a Vessel nothing better seasond which were the first occasion both of his own and all our miseries And if he in the best maturity of his yeares and understanding made no better use to himself or others of his so long and manifold afflictions either looking up to God or looking down upon the reason of his own affaires there can be no probability that his son bred up not in the soft effeminacies of Court onely but in the rugged and more boistrous licence of undisciplin'd Camps and Garrisons for yeares unable to reflect with judgement upon his own condition and thus ill instructed by his Father should give his mind to walk by any other rules then these bequeath'd him as on his Fathers death-bed as the choisest of all that experience w ch his most serious observation and retirement in good or evil dayes had taught him David indeed by suffering without just cause learnt that meekness and that wisdom by adversity
evil will then not feare to disswade or to disobey him not onely in respect of themselves and thir own lives which for his sake they would not seem to value but in respect of that danger which the King himself may incurr whom they would seem to love and serve with greatest fidelitie On all these grounds therfore of the covnant it self whether religious or political it appeares likeliest that both the English Parlament and the Scotch Commissioners thus interpreting the Covnant as indeed at that time they were the best and most authentical interpreters joyn'd together answered the King unanimously in thir Letters dated Jan. 13 th 1645. that till securitie and satisfaction first giv'n to both Kingdoms for the blood spilt for the Irish Rebels brought over and for the Warr in Ireland by him fomented they could in no wise yeild thir consent to his returne Here was satisfaction full two yeares and upward after the Covnant tak'n demanded of the King by both Nations in Parlament for crimes at least Capital wherwith they charg'd him And what satisfaction could be giv'n for so much blood but Justice upon him that spilt it Till which don they neither took themselves bound to grant him the exercise of his regal Office by any meaning of the Coynant which they then declar'd though other meanings have bin since contriv'd nor so much regarded the safety of his person as to admitt of his return among them from the midst of those whom they declar'd to be his greatest enemies nay from himself as from an actual enemy not as from a king they demanded security But if the covnant all this not with standing swore otherwise to preserv him then in the preservation of true religion our liberties against which he fought if not in armes yet in resolution to his dying day and now after death still fights against in this his book the covnant was better brok'n thē he sav'd And god hath testifi'd by all propitious the most evident signes whereby in these latter times he is wont to testifie what pleases him that such a solemn and for many Ages unexampl'd act of due punishment was no mockery of Justice but a most gratefull and well-pleasing Sacrifice Neither was it to cover their perjury as he accuses but to uncover his perjury to the Oath of his Coronation The rest of his discours quite forgets the Title and turns his Meditations upon death into obloquie and bitter vehemence against his Judges and accussers imitating therin not our Saviour but his Grand-mother Mary Queen of Scots as also in the most of his other scruples exceptions and evasions and from whom he seems to have learnt as it were by heart or els by kind that which is thought by his admirers to be the most vertuous most manly most Christian and most Martyr-like both of his words and speeches heer and of his answers and behaviour at his Tryall It is a sad fate he saith to have his Enemies both accusers Parties and Judges Sad indeed but no sufficient Plea to acquitt him from being so judg'd For what Malefactor might not somtimes plead the like If his own crimes have made all men his Enemies who els can judge him They of the Powder-plot against his Father might as well have pleaded the same Nay at the Resurrection it may as well be pleaded that the Saints who then shall judge the World are both Enemies Judges Parties and Accusers So much he thinks to abound in his own defence that he undertakes an unmeasurable task to bespeak the singular care and protection of God over all Kings as being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth But what Patrons they be God in the Scripture oft anough hath exprest and the earth it self hath too long groan'd under the burd'n of thir injustice disorder and irreligion Therfore To bind thir Kings in Chaines and thir Nobles with links of Iron is an honour belonging to his Saints not to build Babel which was Nimrods work the first King and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel but to destroy it especially that spiritual Babel and first to overcome those European Kings which receive thir power not from God but from the beast and are counted no better then his ten hornes These shall hate the great Whore and yet shall give thir Kingdoms to the Beast that carries her they shall committ Fornication with her and yet shall burn her with fire and yet shall lament the fall of Babylon where they fornicated with her Rev. 17. 18. chapt Thus shall they be too and fro doubtfull and ambiguous in all thir doings untill at last joyning thir Armies with the Beast whose power first rais'd them they shall perish with him by the King of Kings against whom they have rebell'd and the Foules shall eat thir flesh This is thir doom writt'n Rev. 19. and the utmost that we find concerning them in these latter days which we have much more cause to beleeve then his unwarranted Revelation here prophecying what shall follow after his death with the spirit of Enmity not of Saint John He would fain bring us out of conceit with the good success which God hath voutsaf'd us Wee measure not our Cause by our success but our success by our cause Yet certainly in a good Cause success is a good confirmation for God hath promis'd it to good men almost in every leafe of Scripture If it argue not for us we are sure it argues not against us but as much or more for us then ill success argues for them for to the wicked God hath denounc'd ill success in all that they take in hand He hopes much of those softer tempers as he calls them and less advantag'd by his ruin that thir consciences doe already gripe them T is true there be a sort of moodie hot-brain'd and alwayes unedify'd consciences apt to engage thir Leaders into great and dangerous affaires past retirement and then upon a sudden qualm and swimming of thir conscience to betray them basely in the midst of what was chiefly undertak'n for their sakes Let such men never meet with any faithfull Parlament to hazzard for them never with any noble spirit to conduct and lead them out but let them live and die in servil condition and thir scrupulous queasiness if no instruction will confirme them Others there be in whose consciences the loss of gaine and those advantages they hop'd for hath sprung a sudden leake These are they that cry out the Covnant brok'n and to keep it better slide back into neutrality or joyn actually with Incendiaries and Malignants But God hath eminently begun to punish those first in Scotland then in Ulster who have provok'd him with the most hatefull kind of mockery to break his Covnant under pretence of strictest keeping it and hath subjected them to those Malignants with whom they scrupl'd not to be associats In God therfore we shall not feare what their fals fraternity can doe against us He seeks againe with cunning words to turn our success into our sin But might call to mind that the Scripture speakes of those also who when God slew them then sought him yet did but flatter him with thir mouth and ly'd to him with thir tongues for thir heart was not right with him And there was one who in the time of his affliction trespass'd more against God This was that King Abaz He glories much in the forgivness of his Enemies so did his Grandmother at her death Wise men would sooner have beleev'd him had he not so oft'n told us so But he hopes to erect the Trophies of his charity over us And Trophies of Charity no doubt will be as glorious as Trumpets before the almes of Hypocrites and more especially the Trophies of such an aspiring charitie as offers in his Prayer to share Victory with Gods compassion which is over all his works Such Prayers as these may happly catch the People as was intended but how they please God is to be much doubted though pray'd in secret much less writt'n to be divulg'd Which perhaps may gaine him after death a short contemptible and soon fading reward not what he aims at to stirr the constancie and solid firmness of any wise Man or to unsettle the conscience of any knowing Christian if he could ever aime at a thing so hopeless and above the genius of his Cleric elocution but to catch the worthles approbation of an inconstant irrational and Image-doting rabble that like a credulous and hapless herd begott'n to servility and inchanted with these popular institutes of Tyranny subscrib'd with a new device of the Kings Picture at his praiers hold out both thir eares with such delight and ravishment to be stigmatiz'd and board through in witness of thir own voluntary and beloved baseness The rest whom perhaps ignorance without malice or some error less then fatal hath for the time misledd on this side Sorcery or obduration may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves and recover THE END