shall we convince these men We will cite them to a new Topick whose authority and evidence they shall never be able to dispute Their own principles Their own protestations Their own first pretences If they have renounced their own principles If they have broken their own protestations If they have confuted their own pretences how can it be but men of such tender consciences finding themselves self condemned should think it necessary to repent of those actions which they cannot justifie and seeing they must needs take shame to themselves blush rather at their exorbitances then their Sobriety I shall not further rake up those actions which the Kings mercy and our charity have buried then is necessary to discover the several changes of that Insect cause whose generation we are thence to conclude equivocall that we may observe the truth of that saying of Cicero clearly verified Qui semel modestiae fines transilierit opportet ut sit gnaviter impudens The confluence of so great a number of Godly men in the great Councel of the Kingdome promised us a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness But behold the sons of Zerviah are too hard for the King and hinder his concurrence with his great Councel Who is he now that hath any Zeal for God and will not do his best for removing such obstructions by taking away the wicked from before the King though against his will That the lawfulness of the means may answer the goodnesse of the end We must make a distinction yea a separation yea an opposition between the power and the person of the King that so the godly party may disobey him in duty and fight against him in his defence under an Engagement for King and Parliament And because this distinction might perhaps appear too nice for grosser understandings the law of God and the Land must for once to promote so good a cause give way to the law of Nature which alloweth self defence in case of imminent danger and that again must allow a little straining our fears and jealousies may justifie that for a defensive war which is made to prevent a foreseen danger which that it may appear real a protestation is injoyned to defend the much endangered take heed King Parliament Laws and protestant Religion established By this chain of fair pretences are a multitude of well meaning men perswaded to Hebron Gods cause inviting them but not to the least disobedience against the King whose power and person they protest to defend But how quickly is the Scene changed they who just now protested to defend the Religion established now fight for the Subversion of a great part of it under the specious name of Reformation They who took up arms only in their necessary defence will not grant the King peace unless he purchase it with delivering up his Sword the power of the Militia acknowledged by themselves to be his undoubted right And is not this now a most manifest rebellion not only against the Laws of God and the Land but against their own protestation and their publick remonstrances But the godly party being once ingaged must needs go on and are unawares grown to be Fresbyterians They go on and after forty messages from the King importuning them for peace partly slighted partly denyed partly yielded too but upon unreasonable terms at last they gain a complete victory and make the Kings most secret papers their Prisoners It might be expected from such faithful Subjects as they profess themselves that they shew him as much civility as Pompey did to his enemy Sertorius whose Letters he hurnt or as the Emp. shewed his enemy the Queen of Bohemia whose intercepted Letters he conveyed according to direction No these Letters discover so many horrid plots against our Kingdome and Religion that they should be very unfaithful to the cause if they should conceal them They are published and what do they discover but this that the Kings intentions were most righteous his desires of peace most ardent his wisdome most eminent his affections to his people most tender and all their own pretences most false What invention could have devised a way more convincingly to justifie the King and to condemn themselves They had declared the King a good but an easie Prince led away by evil councellors and needing the guardianship of the Parliament this they confute by publishing those letters which demonstrate his excellent wisdome and care They had declared the war on their own parts to be meerly defensive and now they publish those letters which make it apparent that the King is most desirous of peace They had declared that the King intended to bring in Popery and now they publish those letters wherein his firmness to the Protestant Religion is most apparent They had declared his intentions to be foul and confute themselves by publishing the secretest intentions of his very heart to be fair and innocent Was not this to give their cause a greater rout then they had given the Kings forces Yet the Presbyterians are Godly men but being so far ingaged they must go on though Absalon be never so impudent The cause is grown so strong as to defend it self not only against the Laws of God and man but against all its own pretences and all appearance of modesty For now all fairer pretences are laid aside and Providence shall bear them out even against their own principles They will do whatever shall seem most advantagious and no law nor religion shall withold them for Providence leads them That is they have gotten power and as long as they prosper their sword shall justifie what the ballance condemns The distressed King no longer able to defend himself applieth himself to the natives of his person and his troubles upon their engagement to assist him and his party with their Armies and Forces and accordingly at first they publish a glorious manifesto declaring it an odious basenesse if they should deliver him up to those Commissioners who were sent for him But having thus inhanced the price they plainly make sale of him for a sum of money with a proviso notwithstanding for his honour and safety in pursuance doubtlesse of their National covenant sir reverence which taught them to suborder the Kings defence to the defence of Religion which they the Gospels life guard could no longer serve without pay What proviso for the safety and honour of the King is no other way made good but by a fair imprisonment and a perpetual refusall of his repeated importunities for a Personal treaty And is not this a plain giving themselves the Lye who pretended to fight only to bring the King to his Parliament and now will not suffer him to come Yet the Presbyterians are godly men but being ingaged are now carried on by Providence to higher actions then at first appeared lawfull and they must be excused if they change their principles with their condition Providence thus calling them to it At last
persecuting them with the same slanders as their enemies did impudently outfacing the apologies of their fathers and justifying the calumnies of their enemies by pretending that they used those tame weapons prayers and tears only for want of the military Sword and Spear Miscreant persecutors of Crowns will you depose the very Martyrs too from those Crowns which they purchased as much by their meekness as their faith Was not this the onely controversie beetween them and their persecutors that the one believed them inclined to propagate their religion by force the other protested that they would not so defend their lives And do not you joyn with their persecutors do not you persecute them afresh and put them to an open shame Would not they have resisted their bloody Tyrants and do you persecute your own King the best of your Kings Is it thus you rejoyce in persecutions by inflicting not by undergoing them by inflicting them upon the Defendor of the Faith How basely have you confuted the Apologies of Tertullian and other defendors of the Christian faith How unchristianly have you justified the bloody persecutors thereof How heathenishly have you strengthened those slanders wherewith they persecuted it no lesse bitterly and unjustly then with the Sword Where shall we hide this shame How shall we reskue our holy Religion and innocent Martyrs from this disgrace poured upon them not so much by their persecutors as their professors Nay how shall we ever hope to propagate our Religion for the future What black Indian of the East or West what wilde African or American will change that Divel Worship which their fathers have practiced without any such guilt for the Christian Religion whose professors call it Godlinesse to be inhumane Tell it not in Quinsay publish it not in the hoords of the Nomades lest those Miscreants triumph in the greater purity of their infidelity What Turk or Jew will ever be brought to a tollerable charity towards that Religion whose professors call the horridest Treasons the cause of God Tell it not in Constantinople publish it not in the Streets of Bagdat lest those circumcised Infidels triumph in the greater piety of their own profession Is this the propagation of the Gospel Is this the advancement of the Kingdome of Jesus Christ Ah! must the Christian the Christian Religion which was first planted and alway watered and alway thrived with the Blood of her defendors and professors shed by their persecutors now wither by the blood of her defendors shed by her own Children Is the patience and meeknesse and peaceablenesse so much recommended by the great Author of our faith not onely by his Sermons but his sufferings and alwayes practised by his disciples Is that sweet beauty of our Religion which won so great a part of the world to her imbraces now disfigured with such a gastly deformity that she must for ever despair of gaining any more Lovers and that not by the witherings of age but by the manglings of her unnatural children But these perhaps are remote considerations and our zeal against our neighbor Babylon may excuse the inconvenience of that Scandal which probably may never reach the more distant Heathen And is it thus we hope to root out Popery what by strengthening their most plausible pretences Is not this the great clamor of their popular declamations That we no sooner forsake unity with the Catholick Church but we are wildered by the unsteadinesse of our own rambling fancies or abused by the craft of such other seducers as our unhappiness or our curiosity may expose us to That there is nothing in doctrine so absur'd in practice impious which a smooth toung and a zealous look may not prefer to an easie and credulous belief as a holy truth That there is no security from the most horrid impieties and blasphemies but in the bosome of the mother Church the onely determiner of controversies Witness those swarms of ridiculous Sects witness those horrible confusions in Church and State Witness the execrable massacre of the defender of your faith Whence came these horrible plagues but from your separation from us and how can you ever be secure from further crumblings till you are again united with us Tell it not in Rome publish it not in the covents of their Friers and Colledges of their Jesuits lest the conclave rejoyce lest their priests triumph in the ruine of the strongest pillar of our Religion and the strengthening of their own pretences Yet all this and other their plausiblest harangues are fully answered by this Royal defender of the Faith who thus armeth the heir of his Kingdomes The scandal of the late troubles which some may object and urge to you against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them or your own thoughts in this that scarce any one who hath been a beginner or an active prosecutor of this late War against the Church the Laws and Meâ— either was or is a true lover imbracer or practicer of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither giveth such rules nor ever before set such examples The Protestant Religion giveth no such rules but doth not the Romish Is not Rebellion a doctrine as properly Popish and more pernicious then Purgatory indulgences or any other Who first taught it lawful to resist Kings was it not the Pope Who first taught it not only lawfull but pious to depose Kings if they be Hereticks was it not the Pope Who first taught that the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are dispenced with by the interest of Religion was it not the Pope Doth not the Solemn League and Covenant of the English Schismaticks with their Scottish brethren bear the lively image of the holy Ligue between the French Jesuites and their brethren of Spain The Protestant Religion never before set such examples but how often hath that Anti-christian See armed not only Subjects against their Soveraigns but Sons against their Royal Fathers adding unnaturalnesse to Rebellion How came it to it 's present grandure but by vexing their Soveraigns the Empp. with holy Rebellions How many Henn and Fread and other Empp. and K K. have their Saints butchered What Nation hath not heard the roaring of their Bulls absolving Subjects from their Allegiance Who hath not heard of the Holy Ligue of France the Guelphs and Gibellines of Italy Let this execrable regicide committed upon those principles which you maintain and we detest make another Item in the goodly Inventory of your holy Rebellions and Regicides For no true lover of the Protestant Religion established in England was an active prosecutor of this war against the Church the Laws and the King But what multitudes of your Priests and Jesuites under the vizors of gifted brethren and Independent Souldiers envenoming the Army and inflaming the Rebellion were these Volunteers in such an important service No their absolute obedience to their superiors is too well known to leave any probability of their undertaking such designes
sanctity Match if you can our Charles among your Laity and our Hammond among your Clergy If you cannot then cast in so many thousands of your most eminent Saints as may outweigh those two And when you have done so we will so stifle you with a multiude of Halls Brownrigs Oldsworths Mortons and others wherof some are yet alive and many are fallen asleep that you shall be glad to shrink out of the presse and impudence it self shall blush to pretend that the Episcopal party are onely a pack of unsanctified men Yet what if they were was not David's troop a rabble of Bankrupts and Malevolo's yet himself and his cause holy in the sight of God If you will convince the Church of England to be accessary to the prophanenesse of any of her children you must indict some of her authentick constitutions her Doctrine Discipline Government or Worship Convince any of these as accessary to prophanenesse we will cast that Sheba's head over the wall But if our doctrines be as holy our Discipline as severe our Government as judicious our Worship as devout and all our establishments as pious as any in the world is it not now as great a cruelty as injustice to indeavour to shame us with that prophanenesse which doth sufficiently grieve us already How irrational is that consequence which argueth from accidental events to necessary causes yea from non-causes to causes Such wilde extravagances ill become the gravity of sober reasonings though they may sure well enough with the intemperate ravings of transporting passions which furiously flye upon every thing they meet with bearing the least aspect though without the least influence upon their grief Thus Job fell a cursing the day of his birth Thus our Psalmist flyeth out into curses upon the innocent Mountains of Gilboa for this poor reason because there the shield of Saul was vilely cast away as though he had not been anointed with oyle Poor reason but rich poetry which then personateth a raging passion most lively when it stormeth most irrationally against every thing that cometh in its way And therefore though we cannot pardon the loosenesse of such reasonings as conclude from the persons to the cause yet we need not condemn such a picture of grief as falleth into those wilde irrationall ravings which are the usual Symptoms of an unruly passion such is The third strayn of this Bow expressed in the 21. Verse Ye Mountains of Gilboa let there be no dew c. How shall we exercise this passion What shall we curse The place God forbid who hath blessed it with the presence of the royal heir The men God forbid who gave the injured King himself such grace as to blesse them with his prayers that repentance might be their only punishment What then shall we curse We will curse those doctrines that taught some men to shake hands with allegiance under pretence of taking faster hold on Religion You unchristian you Antichristian you inhumane doctrines Let no honest Christian be ever deluded again by you let no Christian Prince or people ever tolerate you let every one that pretendeth to any thing of conscience or humanity for ever loath you For by you the best the wisest the meekest the holiest of Kings was vilely cast away as though he had not been anointed with oyle And may this execration blast not only Belzabub the Prince of divelish doctrines which teacheth to kill Kings but every legionary divel that may be but suspected to contribute the lest incouragement to any kind of disobedience that doth but scatter ambiguos de principe sermones quaque alia turbamenta vulgi O wretched daughter of Babel happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the Stones That no root of bitternesse springing up trouble us any more whereby many have been defiled and many ruined and many destroyed and among others that blessed King who alone was more then many Did not this root of bitternesse first peep up with a smooth and tender head and then by insensible progression grow up to such a bulk and roughness as to overdrop the royal cedar Give me a standing and I will move the whole earth said Archimedes and Geometry demonstrateth it faisible So saith Rebellion too Give me footing I will turn the world upside down Archimedes probably designed the Skrew for his engine to whose insensible but forcible motions our martyred Prince most appositely compareth the creeping insinuations of Rebellion which Skreweth men on from questioning the lawful commands of superiours to disliking them thence to disobeying then to resisting then to assalting and at last to destroying the Prince Do we not perceive do we not this day lament the truth of Machiavel's Maxime Whoever draweth his Sword against the Prince must throw away the Scabbard for he must not think of sheathing it otherwise then in the Bowels of that provoked Prince Which our learned Cook thus translateth to an Oracle of Law in the case of the E. of Essex arraigned for seeking the Queens life and appealing to the Queen her self as Judge of his zeal for her safety The Law saith he interpreteth it as a seeking the Princes life when any one seeketh to force the Prince because such an one will never think himself safe otherwise then by the Princes death Oh what a tentation it is to be engaged How easily are they drawn to follow Absalon in the blackest villanies who at first thought of nothing but a vow to Hebron I must be more particular I am confident as the good King was that the far greatest part of the Presbyterians are men of very tender consciences and pious affections and if that must have been their option twenty years since they would rather have delivered themselves up to the fire then to that factious disobedience which is now called the power of Godlinesse Yet being once ingaged have been skrewed on by their insinuating Leaders to such a height of unnatural Rebellion as themselves upon clearer thoughts would have abhorred with the most vehement detestation Nor can any such second and cooler thoughts as so long a time of dismal confusion might have begotten in them unmussell them from those black errors which brought them first into disobedience and thence into hideous confusions How shall we undeceive these good men Shall we urge the frequent and earnest importunity of Scripture injoyning obedience They read it with coloured and broken Spectacles and a multitude of distinctions and a new question Who are the higher powers and how far do their commands oblige Shall we appeal for this to the Laws of the Land There are hidden fundamental Laws which must first be heard notwithstanding a clear Statute making it Treason so to oppose fundamental against known Laws Shall we vindicate the innocency of those particular injunctions which they scruple to obey They believe it sinful to obey all Ecclesiastical Injunctions which bring no positive particular Warrant from the Word of God How