Neither do I blame them for bestowing a generous and liberal Part of their own upon themselves I should rebuke the contrary Nonne est manifest a phrenesis Ut locuples moriaris egentis vivere fato But let them be thankful for their Store and not attempt by Murmerings and Outcries to make the Goverment odious under which they prosper as if the Chief Shepherd of the People had not shorn a Lock of Wooll from their Backs but devoured them But what if they had been diminished to a visible Share of their Substance No worse Man than a Pope Gregory the First hath given us that Counsel Lib. 3. Ep. 26. To Januarius Bishop of Calaris in Sardinia Si quis rusticus tantae fucrit perfidiae obstinationis inventus ut ad Dominum venire minimè consentiat tanto pensionis onere gravandus est ut ipsà exactionis sure poená compellatur ad reclitudinem festinare But we are guilty of none of Gregories Exactions And let not your Friends my Lord think they walk in a Mist as if the King and his Ministers of State did not know what Sums they effund by dangerous Conduit-Pipes both to the Impoverishing of their own Substance and the exhausting of the Kingdom First The Priests that jog about from Shire to Shire from House to House are great Grinders I know how costly they are to their Disciples who are like those in a facetious Author Hâ—minâ—â—s câ—itellarii magni sunt oneris quicquid impâ—niâ— vehunt Plautus Mâ—stella I know they pay the Charges of the Priests Journey to and fro to the utmost Penny their Fraught by Ship hither their Horses and Convoys by Land their Entertainment cut deep Obits Dirges Masses are not said for nothing Then in every Family where they are received they disperse Books for Meditations and Holy Exercises for which they are paid hee sold more than the Value And above all those indefinite Sums imposed for Satisfaction by the Will of the Confessor are the strongest Purgation My Lord the Priest's little Finger is thicker than the King's Loins What they pay by Virtue of our Laws so remiâ—sly exacted is but like an honorary Present to a Lord in Chief but what they pay to their Ghostly Fathers by their own Canonical Customs is above a Rent of Vassalage And all this while the over-flowing Tide of their Expences is but coming in I am not but now at the high Water-Mark King Philip the Second of Spain founded two Colledges for Jesuits of this Nation at Sevil and Valledolid and he gave a Competency to their maintainance but their Well-wishers in England reach forth such Liberality to them as makes them flourish above their Foundation Who but the same Benefactors supply the Seminaries of their Country-men in Artois and Flanders Gregory the Thirteenth gave little more than bare Walls to the English Colledge at Rome Yet they are able to keep Festival Days with Bounty and relieve Strangers wit Hospitality so long as their Treasurers receive plump Contributions from England let them be once stopt and their Kitchin Fire will go out And now be Judge your self Sir if these Men as you supposed were cut so low with the Sickle that their Lives were irksome and that they had scarce Stabble to maintain them 222. Hitherto I have proved that we have been just in our Duties towards Men as Men and as we are accountable to the second Table of the Law Your Pontificians though esloigned from us in the Way of God's Worship yet their Persons are our Neighbours therefore we do not forget them in the Debentures of our Love I grant it before a Challenge be made that I have performed little unless I can justifie our Piety in the Survey of the first Table And to make it perspicuous and intelligible I will fall into your Lordship's Method according to my best Remembrance Consider Sir that the Compâ—ainants for whose Sakes this Ball of Contention is tost to and fro are they that live among us yet profess Obedience to another Church This we reckon to be a Disease and a sore one The Care of their Souls belongs to the Supream Magistrate who is to provide for all that are under his Allegiance that they may lead Godly as well as quiet Lives He would cure the Ill Affected by his own Physicians The Patients very confident that they can choose best for themselvs will listen to none but such as the Magistrate no less strong in Confidence than they foredooms that by their Applications both such as are unsound will be past Hope of Recovery and some that are sound will fall away by Contagion Both of these being fixed upon the respective Perswasions of their Minds Which of them should yield with least Offence and most Reason I speak as to external Compliance Surely a publick Conscience ought to be more scrupulous than a private The Supream Ruler is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he permits that which his Heart condems his Sin is compleatly voluntary If the Inferior and the Subjected yearns for Instructions and Helps in Religion which under great Forfeiture are prohibited to them they cast their Burden upon Necessity and he is very rigorous that will not say they are excusable The loudest Bell of the Petitioners Grievances and that which is furthest hard is that they are Men in Danger of Shipwrack for want of Pâ—ots their own Priests to whose Oversight they commit the Care of their Souls are kept from them and cannot with Comfort and Confidence light their Knowledge from any other Lamps Conscience reclaims it and if they are blind yet blind Men must not be iâ— entreated for their Blindness but be led by the Hand My Noble Lord Villoclare This Complaint above all that can be said beside is apt to work upon Affections to compassionate the Breathings of a Soul which protests it languisheth for want of due Means to know God and to worship him But Affections and the most tender of them which is piâ—y have no Taste in them till they be seasoned with the Salt of Prudence The Simple believeth every Word but the Prudent looketh well to his going Prov. 14.15 Conscience is offered and set out as it were for a Lan horn upon the Pharos of this Motion But your Lordship so excellent a States-man knows none better that the greatest Cheats that are put upon the World are in the good Names of Love and Conscience Who hath the Power to hurt so soon as he that would be believed that he loves and doth not And who so dangerous to overthrow Peace as he that pleads that Conscience is the only Cause of his Discontents and Disobedience He that baits his Hook with Niceness of Conscience may catch What my Lord Gudgions but not a Salmon for the Delusion is stale I must enter further into the Closet of this Objection What Out-cries are these that if their own Priests be restrained from them their Souls shall perish for lack of Knowledge They
as for the Praise of this Man of God He was as free as Water that runs from a public Conduit to lay open his Knowledge to all that would listen to his Discourse If I must give Precedency to this Charity to any before him it shall be only to that Glorious Servant of God the Marrow of Learned Communication the Lord Primate of Armach But to our present Matter thus he would say as my self and many others have heard it come often from him That his Contemporaries in Cambridge delivered to him by Tradition which was given to them in the name of Dr. Whitaker's Resolved Rule By Proviso first of all sift the Chaff from the Wheat mark whom Valla Erasmus and others have bored in the Ear for Counterfeit Pieces and for the rest acquaint your selves with the choicest and least corrupted Editions The Protestants to their great Commendation had given no cause to suspect them in either kind They that had notoriously more than all others vented false Wares were Italian Huckiters for beâ—de those good Authors Coins Medals Monumental Inseriptions in Stone and Brass nay nothing of Archaique Value had escaped their false Fingers Having separated the Viâ—e from the Precious expect that all the Leaven of the Fathers is hid as the Gospel speaks in three Measures of Meal They are very witty and exuberant in Allegories which are the Windows of the House they serve well for Light but not a jot for Strength Another share of their Works is taken up in maintaining Ecclesiastical Decrees grounded upon Canons and prudent Orders for Decency and Discipline And a good Moiety of their Writings presseth only such Matters as are settled by no more then Canonical or Humane Authority No wonder if now adays we hold such Obligations but in a slip Knot Variableness of Customs alternation of Manners sundry new Products in new Ages gives power to dispense so we abuse not our Liberty to a scornful Licence But it is approveable in Musick to set new Tunes if we keep the old Gammut The 34th Article of the Church of England decides it gravely That every particular or National Church hath Authority to Ordain Change and Abolish Ceremonies and Rites of the Church Ordained only by Man's Authority so that all Things be done to Edifying Now these Canonical and Human Decretals are Butteresses to the House of God they are raised up without the Walls but all that is within is the stronger for their Supportance The third Part of the Heavenly Extraction of the Fathers the Pearl growing between the two Shells premised is Dogmatical their Doctrine of Faith and Works necessary to Selvation In any of which when many of them consent we may well presume that the Spirit of Christ breathed in them For the Martyrdom of soms the Humility Self-denial and Sanctity of them all will attest that they intended the Truth and one Point of Success that those who gainsaid them never took Root or prosper'd will perswade you that they found the Truth Neither is there any Reverence towards them diminish'd by this distinction that what they sowed in the Field of God saving here a little and there a little was sound Wheat but all that they mowed down were Weeds or Heresies without exception Thus far He or rather Dr. Whitaker whose Antagonist Duraeus would seem to ascribe more to the Fathers indeed it is but a seeming Says he We assent to all the Doctrine of the Holy Fathers to all of it without exception A mighty Concession but his Hand slacks immediately Nâ—que patres censentur cum suum aliquid quod ab Ecclesiâ non accepâ—â—â— vel seribunt vel docent For if they write or teach any thing which they have not received of the Church they are not to be esteemed Fathers As like to Plato's Sophister as one drop of Water to another who would prove that no Shoe-maker did ever make a bad Shoe for he that made a bad Shoe was not Master of his Crast he was not a Shoe-maker 22. I will invite the Reader but to the notice of one Thing more upon this Title This Man was the least Distasted so far as I have known Men among all of his Profession with a Scholar that was divers from him in a Theological Debate And this he said he learn'd from the moderation of the Fathers who were zealous Upholders of the Glory of the Blessed Trinity of Christ and of his Mâ—diatorship and of the Covenant of Grace for the Redemption of Penitent â—ners but for differences of Questions which were not so prime and substantial they caused no angry Contract about them much less a Separation of Churches St. Cyprian is praised for this Candor by St. Austin De Bap. con Donat. lib. 3. c. 3. in this wise Cyprian was not to be removed from a darling Opinion of his own too much his own about Re-baptizing of those that had been Baptized by Heretics yet so as Nominem judicantes nee à jure communioâ—s aliquem si diversum senserâ— amovâ—ntes I like this Concordance says Austin with two Explanations 1. In iis quaestionibus quae nondum eliquatissimâ perspectione discussae sunt 2. Exceptis iis quae jam sunt dâ—sinita in totâ Ecclesiâ First Not to think the worse of any much less to make a Rupture for maintaining Opinions which were not discuss'd so far to be convincing and conspicuous Secondly To be the bolder with them if they were the Tenets of some Men only and not the Definitions of the Church Univeral O that many living Stones now scattered from one another were cemented together with this Mortar O that such as are rigidly addicted to their own Fancies would desine less and leave more charitable Allowance to their weak or at least dissenting Brethren O that there were less Inclosure and more common Pasturage in the Church for poor Cottagers And I wish again that it were wisely considered that a good Conscience may continue in our Brother though he be not so found in some lesser Truths Then you would not deny him your Love because he submits not his Wit and Reason to all your Perswasions Many hot Opiniators of our Age are little better then the Sâ—maritans as describ'd by Epiphanius Haeres 61. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They thought it piaculous to touch a Man that did not Dogmatize as they did Therefore how many Slanders must they put up quietly who were of Mr. Williams his Equanimity sociable with them that are at point blank contradiction in some Quarrels of Polemical Divinity nâ—y as ready to prefer the one side as the other how sure is this to be called by our Fâ—riâ—sâ—'s lukewarm and undigested Christianity I have seen the Life 〈◊〉 Renowned Frier Padre Pâ—â—lo of Venice written in Italian by his 〈…〉 and 〈◊〉 tersely and faithfully into English by that Gentleman 〈◊〉 great and elegant Parts Mr. 〈…〉 Secretary to this Heâ—oical Prelate of whom I write when he was Lord-keepeâ— Out of that Piece I
Richardson's Argument taken from the Excommunication or Abstension which St. Ambrose exercised by his Episcopal Power over the Emperor Theodosius for commanding a great Slaughter to be made upon the People of Thessalonica in an hasty distemper of Anger before their Cause was heard To which Dr. Williams said That what St. Ambrose said was neither Juridical Abstension nor Excommunication It was a private Act of St. Ambrose's directed by the motion of his proper Piety and not a Censure issuing from a Court or Authority Ecclesiastical And if at the same time another bishop is of Rome Aquileia or Ravenna had communicated with the Emperor and received him to Prayers and the Holy Sacrament he might have done it without the violation of any Canon A particular Presbyter may do the like at this day and with a good Conscience withdraw himself from doing Sacred Offices if a King after often and humble Admonition continue Impenitent in great Sins which the Day light hath detected Therefore this was no Precedent for the Excommunication of the Supreme Magistrate which was but a particular forbearance of St. Ambrose's in Sacred Duties not to impact them for his share to so great an Offender whom he left at liberty to all the World beside to partake with him But he that is justly Excommunicated from one Congregation in â—rict Discipline is excluded from all This Answer was it which afforded most Matter of Discourse and spread far even to King James's Ear who heard of it and approved it Much was not said to the Second Question a Bush that had been often beaten Yet there was some grappling about the new Clause That the Subduction or Denial of the Cup to the People maimed the very Priesthood But the Doctor maintain'd it thus That the Order of Priesthood is a Sacrament in the Roman Church the Matter of which Sacrament by a wretched shift some of their Controversial Writers say is the Bible laid upon the Neck of the Ordain'd to furnish him to teach Christ's Mystical Body together with the Paten and the Chalice put into his hand to authorize him to make Christ's Natural Body If a Priest so Ordain'd were consin'd to Pray and not to Preach to the People it were a Mutilation of his Office So if he be stinted to distribute the Consecrated Bread and not the Cup it is a cutting of one half of his Priesthood This was the God-speed and the Good-speed of his Disputation It were no Sin to forget the Feasts he made at this Solemnity They were bounteous nay excessive after the usual Trespass of the superfluity of our Nation Such as Plutarch says Lucullus made in his Dining-Room which he calls Apollo One thing deserves a Smile That the Doctor was at no little Cost to send to the Italian Ordinaries at London and to ransack the Merchants Stores for such Viands as might please Arch-Bishop Spalato out of his own Country To which accates he was observ'd that he never put his Hand towards them but lik'd our Venison and English Dishes a great deal better he Thank'd him But enough of this for many do not love the smell of a Kitchin 40. Presently after he had shewn himself such a Man in this Field of Honour Veianius armis Herculis ad postem fixis latet abditus agro Horat. Ep. 1. He never went more chearful to any place then to his private Home the Rectory of Walgrave as if then he had been call'd from the Custom-house of the World to follow Christ or as if he had been one of David's Mariners landed at a quiet Shore Psal 107.30 Then they are glad because they be at rest so he bringeth to the Haven of their desire His Cost was over before he came thither For there he had built and garden'd and planted and made it a Dwelling sit for all the changeable Seasons of the Year as much when Warmth as when Pleasure was intended Here he became his own Master for a while here he could solace himself in private Retirements here he was attended by Mutes like the Monarchs of the East by so many Volumes of a well replenish'd Library As Vatia said in Seneca when he went out of Rome to live in his little Villa three Year before he died Fuit Vatia multos annos vixit tantùra tres So this Doctor might have written that in three Years or not fully four that he kept for the most part in this Bower of Tranquility he lived the Comforts of twenty The harmless Country Cottages bred more Saints who are only seen unto the Eyes of God then would fill a thousand Calenders Why may not the Speech of Christ to his Church look this way Cant. 7.11 Come my Beloved let us go forth into the Field let us lodge in the Villageâ— To track him a little in this shady Life He hazarded to lose his Health by excessive Study at all the Hours of the Clock but preserv'd it by Temperance For though he were greatly Hospital the Cloth that cover'd his Table being always cover'd with Dishes yet with Carving and Discoursing he gave his own Appetite but a short Bait. Velleius says that great Caesar discern'd that none but a temperate Man could do mighty things Qui somno cibo in vitam non in voluptatem uteretur Through Temperance he had strength to be Industrious and gave a good Example to the Divines his Neighbours who had need to have such prick'd in here and there among them For a Country Minister hath master'd a great Tentation that hath overcome Sloth a Mischief that will fear upon the Soul with too much craft and sweetness Idleness is commonly the English Gentleman's Disease and the Rural Curate's Scandal Let the first learn from as good a Gentleman as the best of them Marc. Antoninus the Emperor lib. 9. who writes thus Rise early leave the Bed of Sluggishness to them that are sick in Body or Mind And being up it were as good you were laid down again as not to be guilty of so much Reason to know you rose to do the Work of a Man which is not to waste all the day in sporting with Beasts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is Why should I be loth to be put to the Employment of some Work for I was made for that use and I came for that end into the World Let others learn from a greater then Antoninus that Labour and Watching Pureness and Knowledge are the Gifts that commend them to be the Ministers of God 2 Cor. 6.4 They are Master-Builders and must not loiter who should set all to work Or to pass a sharper Sentence It is certain that the worst of Superstition is an Idol and the worst of Idols is an Idle Shepheard that is Who hath a Mouth and speaks not Zech. 11.17 This Doctor that walk'd as a burning Light before his Brethren did the whole Office that belong'd unto him as Reading the Liturgy of Divine Service Wednnesdays and Fridays before such as
For confirmation of it I will anticipate how he was breath'd till he was almost out of breath with a violent but short Sickness upon the end of the first Term that he appeared in Chancery It was the Term of Michaelmas and in the November of it the Parliament sate again in which he attended in the Office of Speaker in the Lords House With these concur'd a spiny and difficult Treaty between our Merchants and the Agents of the United-Provinces for the most savage Insolencies committed at Amboyna a Treaty wherein he was the Chief Commissioner and the sharpest against those Thieves and Murderers Which Treaty took up three Afternoons constantly in every week while it continued to hear that Cause In the Court of Chancery beside the ordinary Work several Causes and of a reaching number were referred in the preceding Session of Parliament to the succeeding Lord Keeper to review the Orders of the Predecessor displaced Into this vast Sea of Business he launch'd forth all at once Hereupon my self and half an hundred more have seen his Industry that he was compel'd to sit by Candle-light in the Court two hours before day and there to remain till between eight and nine that the Prince being come to the Lords House sent for him to take his Place there to Propound and Report the Questions of that Honourable House till past twelve every day not seldom till past one After a short Repast at home he returned to hear the Causes in Chancery which he could not dispatch in the morning Or if he did attend at Council in Whitehall he came back toward evening and followed his Employment in Chancery till eight at night and later Then on the neck of this when he came home he perused such Papers as were brought to him by his Secretaries And after that though far in the night prepared himself for so much as concerned him to have in readiness for the Lords House in the morning In this overwhelming hurry of Troubles of such divers sorts and compositions what time come could he borrow for necessary Refreshment or the Repose of his wearied Body night or day And as the good King pick'd him out for this Task because He foresaw that none would outdo him in Diligence so He prefer'd him to be Great in Place because He knew he was great in Courage The Supporters on the Steps of Salomon's Throne were not Sheep but Lions The way to be Just is to be Inflexible the way to be Inflexible is to be Stout casting all thoughts of Fears and Favours under feet No man by natural complexion could be better engrained for it I will take it up from one that had no mind to say the best of him Mr. Art Wil. p. 196. He was of a comely and stately Presence and that animated with a great Mind made him appear very proud to the vulgar Eye Quaedam videntur non sunt So far was his Heart from Pride that he never thought himself the finer for the Trappings of Fortune Yet so far from baseness that he knew the Bench he sate upon and would not be made despicable in the Eyes of the World much less be brought about to serve great Men's turns and stretch the Causes of the Court according to the Contents of their Letters and Messages which were no better in a rude Phrase then to be a Pandar to their Lust to let them deflower Justice Therefore in the same Leaf says Ar. Wil. again The height of his Spirit made him odious to them that raised him happily because they could not attain to those Ends by him which they required of him The height of his Spirit made him speak freely and counsel faithfully and decree justly though that Lord to whom he had espoused his greatest Devotion were concerned in the Opposition Which was rectitude and magnitude of Mind as Tully in his Brutus makes Atticus decipher Caesar Splendidam miniméque veteratoriam dicendi rationem tenet voce motu formâ etiam magnifieâ generosâ quodammodò His Person his Gesture his Eloquence were magnificent and generous whose wont it was to reduce his chief Friends to Reason not craftily and timidly but with a noble and sublime Sincerity 65. Among the Qualities of a good Judge there is one remaining and fit to bring up the Rear which the King look'd upon as verily to be presaged in his new Officer an Hand clean from corruption and taking Gifts which blind the Eyes of the Wise and pervert the Words of the Righteous Deut. 16.19 'T was loudly exclaimed and the King was ashamed to have so far mistaken the Persons that there were sucking Horse-Leeches in great places Things not to be valued at Money were saleable and what could not Gold procure As Meander writes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is Friends and Judges and Witnesses you may have them for a Price nay such as sit in the place of God will serve you for such Wages The wise King having little prevailed by Monitions and Menaces against this fordid Filthiness cast his Liking upon a Man whom He might least suspect for Gripleness and Bribery The likeliest indeed of all others to shake this Viper from his hand and to be armed with a Breast-plate of Integrity against the Mammon of Iniquity for he was far more ready to give then to take to oblige then to be beholding Magis illud laborare ut illi quamplurimi debeant as Salust of Jugurtha He was well descended of a fortunate and ancient Lineage and had made his progress to Advancements by Steps of Credit a good Bridle against base Deviations What then made an an unsavoury Historian call him Country Pedant A Reproach with which H. L. doth flirt at him in his History of King Charles a scornful Untruth So I shake off this Bar and return to the Reverend Dean who was in a Function of Holy Calling next to God Among them I know all have not been incorrupt the Sons of Samuel turned aside after Lucre and took Bribes and perverted Judgment 1 Sam. 8.3 But commonly I trust they do not forget what a Scandal it is if God's Stewards turn the Devils Rent-Gatherers He was also unmarried and so unconcerned in the natural Impulsion of Avarice to provide for Wife and Children Our old moral Men touched often upon this String that Justice is a Virgin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Hesiod and therefore fit to be committed to the trust of a Virgin Magistrate He was never fullied with Suspicion that he loved Presents no not so much as Gratuidad di Guantes as the Spaniards Phrase is but to go higher they are living that know what Sums of Value have been brought to his Secretaries such as might have swayed a man that was not Impregnable and with how much Solicitousness they have been requested to throw them at his Feet for Favours already received which no man durst undertake as knowing assuredly it would displace the Broker and be his Ruine And
it was happy for him when five years after Lime-Hounds were laid close to his foot-steps to hunt him and every corner searched to find a little of that Dust behind his door Eut it proved a dry scent to the Inquisitors for to his Glory and the Shame of his Enemies it could never appear that the least Bird-lime of Corruption did stick to his Fingers And now I have shewn what was the rich Portion which he brought when he was wedded to the Office of the Great-Seal these are convictive and day-light Evidences To one or two Writers of late that have gone another way I have nothing to answer because in those things wherein they calumniate they address not themselves to prove any thing Enough to give them up to the censure of that Infamy which they merit Qui notitiam viri non ex bonis gestis dictisque sed ex minus probabilibus fieri volunt quo quid nequius says the Author called Zeno of Verona When such candid Authors as Sir T. Moore Sir J. Hayward S. Daniel and Renowned Camden wrote the Lives of Princes they drew the Characters of Men by their Actions and Speeches not out of Obloquies and Suspicions the Brats of rotten Fame that have no Father But in Sick or rather Pestilentious Times when no Wares are set forth so much as Untruths and Malice too many are not more bold to Lie then confident to be Believed Never with no People under the Sun did Veracity suffer so much as by the Pen of Sir A. Wel. whose Pamphlet is Perpetuus Rhotacismus one snarling Dogs-Letter all over which I condemn therefore as Philoxenus the Poet censured Dionysius the Syracusan's Tragedy A fronte ad calcem unâ liturâ circumduxit Correct it with one Scratch or Score from the beginning to the end 66. Such as he are not in my way why then should I loiter one Line to jostle them out Yet since discreet Persons and they that extol'd the Dean and confess'd that his Soul carried a great freight of Worth did think their Exceptions weighty against his undergoing that great Office I will not dissemble as if I were a Stranger to them The Words of the Wise are as Nails fastned by the Masters of Assemblies Eccles 12.11 Yet some Nails are not so fast in but they may be wrench'd out Many alledged that he had Dedicated himself to the Church in an holy Calling Why should he take his hand from his own Plow to preside in Secular Affairs Indeed when the Harvest was great and the Labourers few it was the Summum bonum of a Labourer to ply that Harvest for nothing could be better then to Plant the Gospel among those that had not believed But where an whole Nation is gained so far as to believe in Christ and the Message of Salvation known to all that Church is preserved unto Christ by other means beside Preaching They that attend their Charge in Prayer Exhortation and dispensing the Sacraments in all Quarters of the Land had need to have some of their own Coat in Places of Power and Dignity to preserve their Maintenance from Sacrilege and their Persons from being trodden down with dirty Feet Such as God hath bless'd to go in Rank with the Chiefest to help their Brethren whether in public Office or in Attendance on their Sovereign in his Chappel Closet Eleemosynary Trust or the like they are as much in the Harvest as they that labour in the Pulpit St. Ambrose in his sundry Embassages for his Lord the Emperor the Father of Gr. Nazianzen a Bishop of whom his Son says in his Epitaph that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 employed in Pre-eminency and Honour and Government Euseb de vit Constanti l. 4. c. 27. Sozom. l. 1. c. 9. mention the Rescript of Constantine to Ablavius the Praetorian Praefect Ut pro Sanctis semper venerabilibus habeatur quicquid Episcoporum fuerit sententiâ terminatum idque in cansis omnibus quae vel Praetorio vel civili jure tractantur Which large Concession of Constanstine was restrained indeed by Gratian and Valentiman an 376 Ad causas quae ad Religionis observantiam pertinebant All the Prelates to whom the Emp. Constantine the Great referred the Hearing of Causes by Appeals which they discharged to the gaining of great Love and Praise these were not out of their Sphere but served the Church when they did that which ingratiated the Church and made the Christian Name to be venerable Some never speak of Secular Policy but as of a Prophane thing whereas a worthy Man may manage a Civil Tribunal with that maintenance of Virtue with that galling of Vice and evil Manners so as many good Pulpit-Orators put together might give God thanks if their Success were equal Councils it is true may be produced as to be brief the Quin-Sext in Trullo can 11 which forbids Priests and Deacons it names not Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to handle worldly Principalities I am struck with Reverence to the Council but not Convicted by its Reason which is fetch'd out of one Scripture that no Man can serve two Masters Tell this to the Ecclesiastics of Rome who are wholly buried in Things not only different but contrary to the Ministry Instituted by Christ Opposite Masters cannot be served by one faithful Servant subordinate may for we may love both and hate neither The King's Service in a Righteous way is not opposite to Christ's Evangelical Administrations but co-incident And a Supreme Governor doth not lose his Right in a Subject that is made a Priest or Bishop but may employ him under him as he pleaseth since the compacture of the whole Commonwealth together is but one Christian Oeconomy ABP Spotswood p. 299. In the Articles proponed to the Parliament at Sterling by Mr. Andrew Melvin an 1578. this is the 17th of the 11th Cap. We deny not that Ministers may and should assist their Princes when they are required in all things agreeable to the Word of God whether it be in Council or Parliament or out of Council providing always that they neither neglect their own Charges nor through flattery of Princes hurt the public State of the Church A Caution that their own Charges be not neglected is most Pious otherwise the Indulgence is very indefinite Many Zealots are as kind to themselves in England to serve their own turn I never saw any of our Ministry more abstracted from their Studies continually progging at the Parliament-Door and in Westminster-Hall for many years together having no Calling but that of an Evil Spirit to raise Sedition then those that were most offended at a Bishop for bestowing some part of his Time in a Secular Place And yet a considerate Judge will not say that the Lord-Keepership is an Employment merely Secular To mitigate the strict Cases of the Law with the Conscience of the King in whose Place he sits is it not as fully Ecclesiastical as a Consistory of teaching and ruling Elders
Ulpian did not stick to say of all the grave Senators that sate upon the Bench to decide Right from Wrong Nos meritò juris sacerdotes à quòdam dicti sumus siquidem sanctissima res est civilis sapientia This Heathen was pleased to have them styled Priests of the Law because the Wisdom of Civil Judicature was an holy Thing Much more it agrees in a Chancellor who directs that part which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle says Eth. 5. the mitigating of public Justice when it breaths Intemperate Rigour Happy are the People who are governed by full and exact Laws which make them liable as little as may be to the Errors and Passions of Arbitrary Moderation Yet because a Law is a General Rule and that it is not possible that a General Rule should provide sufficiently to satisfie all particular Cases therefore as the same Philosopher said again Polit. 3. Let the Laws have the chief Power yet sometimes let one or more Judges have the Power of the Laws which in effect is the merciful Voice of God to mollifie the Strictness and Inconveniencies of the Voice of Man And we living in a Christian State how can that be incongruous nay any way unseemly in his Person that is an Ambassador of Christ 67. It was said also that he was illiterate in the knowledge of the Laws being bred up in other Studies and very unprepared to discharge this Function But it was quickly unsaid as soon as the Court had trial of his Abilities There have been others besides Peter Gallaudes that have been capacious of all Sciences and Learning of whom Turnebus Advers l. 2. c. 1. Omnium rerum capax natura quam it a facile regebat versabat ut quicquid ageret unum illud curae habere tractaréque putaretur So this man had a mind of such a Glebe by the felicity of Nature and so manured that it could bring forth a plentiful Crop whatsoever Seed or Grain was cast into it and whatsoever he addicted himself to convey into the Store-house of his Brain he was never long at suck but had it with much more speed then other men Though he was never a Practitioner in the course of the Law yet he had been an hard Student in the Tenures Reports and other Compilements of that Profession But no marvel if others were diffident of him for he was very diffident of himself Therefore he humbly besought the King he might be a Temporary Lord-Keeper nay a Probationer and no more as it is divulged in the Cabal p. 56. and of the rest of that in a sitter place Nay he besought that His Majesties free and unlook'd-for Election might bear the blame of his Infirmities as Gregory the Great wrote to Mauritius the Emperor when he did in a manner enforce Gregory to be Bishop of Rome Lib. 1. Ep. 5. Necesse est ut omnes culpas meas negligentias non mihi sed tuae pietati populus deputet qui virtutis Ministerium infirmo commisit The Chancellorship of England is not a Chariot for every Scholar to get up and ride in it Saving this one perhaps it would take a long day to find another Our Laws are the Wisdom of many Ages consisting of a world of Customs Maxims intricate Decisions which are Responsa prudentum Tully could never have boasted if he had lived among us Si mihi vehementer occupato stomachum moverint triduo me jurisconsultum profitebor Orat. pro Mar. If the Advocates of Rome anger'd him though he were full of business he would pass for a Lawyer in 3 days He is altogether deceived that thinks he is fit for the Exercise of our Judicature because he is a great Rabbi in some Academical Authors for this hath little or no Copulation with our Encyclopaidy of Arts and Sciences Quintilian might judge right upon the Branches of Oratory and Philosophy Omnes Disciplinas inter se conjunctionem rerum communionem habere But our Law is a Plant that grows alone and is not entwined into the Hedge of other Professions yet the small insight that some have into deep Matters cause them to think that it is no insuperable Task for an unexpert man to be the chief Arbiter in a Court of Equity Bring Reason and Conscience with you the good stock of Nature and the thing is done Aequitas optimo cuique notissima est is a trivial Saying A very good man cannot be ignorant of Equity And who knows not that extreme Right is extream Injury But they that look no further then so are short-sighted For there is no strein of Wisdom more sublime then upon all Complaints to measure the just distance between Law and Equity because in this high Place it is not Equity at Lust and Pleasure that is moved for but Equity according to Decrees and Precedents foregoing as the Dew-beaters have trod the way for those that come after them What was more Absolute then the Power of the Pretorian Courts in Rome Yet they were confined by the Cornelian Law to give Sentence Ex edictis perpetuis to come as near as might be to the Perpetual Edicts of former Pretors And wherefore Of that Budaeus informs us Ne juris dicendi ratio arburaria praetoribus esset pro eorum libidine subinde mutabilis In Pandec p. 205. To keep Justice to certâ—in and stable Rules for every man will more readily know how to find his own when he trusts to that Light which burns constantly in one Socket This is to keep the Keeper from Extravagancies of his own Fancies and Affections and to hold him really to Conscience and Conscience as it is in Queen Elizabeth's Motto is Semper eadâ—m It is ever the same No all this doth adorn and amplisie the great Wisdom of the Dean that being made the Pilot in the chief Ship of the Political Navy a Pilot that had never been a Mariner in any Service of that Vessel before yet in all Causes that ever he heard he never made an improsperous Voyage For from his first setting forth to his last Expedition the most Envious did never upbraid him with Weakness or scantiness of Knowledge Neither King James King Charles nor any Parliament which gave due Hearing to the frowardness of some Complaints did ever appoint that any of his Orders should be retexed Which is not a Pillar of Honour but a Pyramid Fulgentius hath Recorded the like upon the Wonder of his Age Father Paul of Venice that being Provincial of his Order and hearing many Causes none of the Judgments that he gave which were innumerable were ever Repealed upon Instance made to higher Judgment Neither do I find that any of his Fraternity did maunder that the Frier was a Strippling but 28 years old and therefore but a Novice to make a Provincial who is a Judge and a Ruler over his Fellows He had better Luck in that then our Dean who was 39 years old when he atchieved this
His Majesty for a Pension to support them in their sequestred Sadness where they might spend their Days in Fasting and Prayer It was vehemently considered that our Hierarchy was much quarrel'd with and opposed by our own Fugitives to the Church of Rome who would fasten upon this Scandal and upon it pretend against our constant Succession hitherto undemolish'd with all the Malice that Wit could excogitate And indeed they began already For the Fact was much discoursed of in Foreign Universities who were nothing concerned especially our Neighbours the Sorbonists at Paris ' 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 4.15 over-busie to have an Oar in our Boat Disputing it three several times in their Schools and concluded the Accident to amount to a full Irregularity which is an Incapacity to exercise any Ecclesiastical Act of Order or Jurisdiction His Majesty upon the eruption of these Scruples was called up to think seriously that his Sweetness and Compassion did not leave a Slur upon this Church which himself under Christ had made so Glorious It belonged to the four Bishops Elect to be most Circumspect in this matter expecting their Consecration shortly and to be informed whether they should acknowledge that the Power of an Arch-Bishop was Integral and Unblemish'd in a casual Homicide and submit to have his Hands laid upon their Heads Dr. Davenant shewed Reason That it behoved him not to be seen in the Opposition because the Arch-Bishop had Presented him to the rich Parsonage of Cotnam not far from Cambridge It was well taken for among honest Pagans a Benesiciary would not contend against his Patron Howsoever such as knew not the wherefore were the more benevolous to the Arch-Bishop's misfortune because so great a Clerk stood off and meddled not The Rhodian's Answer in Plutarch was not forgotten who was baited by his Accusers all the while that the Judge said nothing I am not the worse for their Clamours says the Defendant but my Cause is the better that the Judge holds his peace Non refert quid illi loquantur sed quid ille taceat The other three without Davenant stirred in it the most they could to decline this Metropolitan's Consecreation not out of Enmity or Superstition but to be wary that they might not be attainted with the Contagion of his Scandal and Uncanonical Condition The Lord-Keeper appearing for the rest writes thus to the Lord Marquess as it is extant Cabal p. 55. MY Lord's Grace upon this Accident is by the Common-Law of England to forfeit all his Estate to His Majesty and by the Canon-Law which is in force with us irregular Ipso facto and so suspended from all Ecclesiastical Function until he be again restored by his Superior which I take it is the King's Majesty in this Rank and Order of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction I wish with all my heart His Majesty would be as Merciful as ever He was in all his Life But yet I hold it my Duty to let His Majesty know by your Lordship that His Majesty is fallen upon a Matter of great Advice and Deliberation To add Affliction to the Afflicted as no doubt he is in Mind is against the King's Nature To leave a Man of Blood Primate and Patriarch of all his Churches is a thing that sounds very harsh in the old Councils and Canons of the Church The Papists will not spare to descent upon the one and the other Heave the Knot to His Majesties deep Wisdom to Advise and Resolve upon A gentler Hand could not touch a Sore yet I think of his Judgment in this Point as Sealiger did of the sine Poet Fracostorius Ab suâ ipse magnitudine descendisse credi potest aliquando He flew lower at this Game then the pitch of his wonted Wisdom For the Question did hang yet upon this Pin Whether there were a Sore to be cured His Lordship had look'd attentively into the Canonists whom he could cite by rote with his happy Memory Their Decretals and Extravagants Un-bishop a Man that kill'd a Man and meant a Beast nay further if the Bishop's Horse did cast the Groom that water'd him into a Pond and drown'd him But if we Appeal from them to higher and better Learning their Rigour will prove Ridiculous The Fact is here confess'd But is Sin in the Fact or in the Mind of the Facient Omne peccatum in tantum est peccatum in quantum est voluntarium This is the Maxim of the Schools upon actual Sins and a true one A guilty Mind makes a guilty Action An unfortunate Hand concurs often with an innocent Heart Quis nomen unquam sccleris errori indidit Put the Case that these Writers are very inclinable to have Absolution granted incontinently to such Contingencies but to keep a bustle whether Absolution is to be given or not when there is no fault is to abuse the Power of the Keys Irregularities in that Superstitious Latin Church are above Number what have we to do with them That we did cut them off we did not name it indeed in our Reformation under Edward the Sixth c. for they were thrown out with Scorn as not to be mention'd among ejected Rubbish For we perceived they were never meant to bind but to open I mean the Purse He that is Suspended may entangle himself from the Censure with a Bribe The Canonists are good Bone-letters for a Bone that was never broken their Rubrics are filled with Punctilio's not for Consciences but for Consciuncles Haberdashers of small Faults and palpable Brokers for Fees and Mercinary Dispensations Therefore those plain-dealing and blunt People among the Helvetians otherwise Clients of the Roman Party serv'd them very well as Simler hath Page 64. of his History Cum Papa Rom acceptà pecuniâ Matrimonium contra canones concesserat populus recognitâ statuit Si divitious pecunià numeratâ hoc licitum sit etiam pauperibus absque pecunid fas essc And a little before Pag. 135. when those poor Cantoners could not enjoy their own in quiet for the Rent-gatherers of the Court of Rome they bid them keep off at their own peril with this popular Edict Si pergant nundinatores bullarum jus urgere in vincula conjiciontur ni huic renuntient aquis submorgantur scilicet ut ita bullae bullis eluantur Such resolute Men as these were too rude to be cozen'd So Irregularities should be used which are invented for the Prosit of Dispensative Graces having nothing in them to Unsanctisie the Order of a Bishop by Divine Law or the Law of Nature because they can be wiped away with a Feather if it be a Silver Wing and the Feathers of Gold But because these double Doctors of Canon and Civil Laws will pretend to some Reason in their greatest Folly it is not amiss to repeat the best Objection with which they stiffen their Opinion Thus they divide the Hoof That if one by chance-medly kills a Man being then employed in nothing that is evil
to that Treatise as follow Let the World take notice if it may concern any your Honour is be unto whom next unto His most Sacred Majesty my most Gracious Sovereign and Master I owe more then to all the World beside Professing unseignedly in the word of a Priest Fâ—cisti ut vivam moriar ingratus 81. The Lord-Keeper being so great a Dealer in the Golden Trade of Mercy and so successful he followed his Fortune and tried the King and the Lord Marquess further in the behalf of some whom their dear Friends had given over in Despair to the Destiny of Restraint And those were of the Nobles For he carried a great regard to their Birth and Honour and knew it was good for his own safety to deserve well of those high-born Families The East of Nerthumberland had been a Prisoner in the Tewer above 15 years His Confidents had not Considence and a good Heart I say not to Petition but to dispute with the King how ripe the Earl was for Clemency and Liberty 〈◊〉 Majesty was very merciful but must be rubb'd with a Fomentation of hi◠〈◊〉 Oyl to make him more supple This dextrous Statesman infuseth into 〈…〉 how to compass the Design with what Insinuations and Argum◠〈…〉 were improved with the Earl's demulcing and well-languag'd Phrases And when it came to strong Debate the Lord-Keeper got the better of the King in Reason So the Physic wrought as well as could be wish'd and on the 18th of July the Earl of Northumberland came out of the Tower the Great Ordnance going off to give him a joyful Valediction Who turned his Thoughts to consider the Work of God that a Stranger had wrought 〈◊〉 Comfort for him in his old Age whose Face he had ne 〈…〉 never purchased by any Benefit nor courted so much as by the meâ—age of a Salutation Which his Lordship compared to St. Peter's Deliverance by the Angel of God Acts 12. when Peter knew not who it was that came to help him Though not in order of Time yet in likeness of Condition the Earl of Oxford's Case is to be ranked in the same File It was in April in the year following that he was sent to the Tower betrayed by a false Brother for rash Words which heat of Wine cast up at a merry meeting His Lordship's Enemies were great and many whom he had provoked yet after he had acquainted the Lord-Keeper with the long Sadness of his Restraint in a large Letter which is preserved he wrought the Earl's Peace and Releasment conducted him to the King's Chamber to spend an hour in Conference with His Majesty from whence a good Liking was begot on both sides Whom thereupon that Earl took for his trusty and wisest Friend using his Counsel principally how to Husband his Estate and how to employ his Person in some Honourable Service at Sea that the Dissoluteness of his Hangers-on in the City might not sink him at Land The Lord-Keeper did as much for the Earl of Somerset in Christmas-time before bringing him by his mediation out of the House of Sorrow wherein he had continued above five years that he might take fresh Air and enjoy the comfort of a free Life which was affected by him to gratisie the splendid and spreading Family of the Howards And they were all well pleased with him as were the greatest part of the Grandees except the Earl of Arundel for a Distast taken of which the Lord-Keeper need not be ashamed 82. Within Six Weeks after he was settled in that Office the Earls Secretary brought two Patents to be Sealed the one to bestow a Pension of 2000 l. per annum upon his Lord out of the Exchequer which was low mow'n and not sit to bear such a Crop beside the Parliament which was to meet again in the Winter could not choose but take Notice what over-bountiful Issues were made out of the Royal Revenue to a Lord that was the best Landed of all his Peers Yet the Seal was put to with a dry assent because there was no stopping of a Free River With this Patent came another to confer the Honour of the Great Marshal of England upon the same Noble Personage The Contents of it had scarce any Limits of Power much exceeding the streit Boundaries of Law and Custom The Lord Keeper searching into the Precedents of former Patents when the same Honour was conser'd found a great inequality and doubted for good Cause that this was a device to lay his unfitness for his great place Naked to the World if he swallowed this Pill But nothing tended more to the praise of his great Judgment with His Majesty He writes to my Lord of Buckingham to acquaint the King that he thought His Majesty intended to give to greater Power than the Lords Commissioners had who dispatch'd Affairs belonging to that Office joyntly before him and that all Patents refer to the Copy of the immediate Predecessors who were the Earls of Essex Shrewsbury and Duke of Somerset but my Lord leap'd them over and claim'd as much as the Howards and Mowbries Dukes of Norfolk did hold which will enlarge his Authority beyond the former by many Dimensions There is much more than this in the Cabal of Letters p. 63. And much more than I meet there in his own private Papers The King was much satisfied with the Prudence and Courage of the Man that he had rather display these Errors than commit them for fear of a mighty Frown so the Earls Counsel were appointed to attend the Lord Keeper who joyning their hands together examin'd the Obliquities of the Patent and alter'd them What would have follow'd if it had pass'd entire in the first Draught For being so much corrected and Castrated yet the proceedings of the Court of Honour were a Grievance to the People not to be supported The Decrees of it were most uncertain most Arbitrary most Imperious Nor was there any Seat of Judgment in the Land wherein Justice was brought a bed with such hard Labour Now I invite the Reader if he please to turn to the 139 pag. of Sir An. Wel. Pamphlet and let him score a Mark for his Remembrance at these Lines That Williams was brought in for this Design to clap the Great Seal through his Ignorance in the Laws to such things that none that understood the danger by knowing the Laws would venter upon This Knight when he is in a Course of Malice is never out of his Way but like an egregious Bugiard here he is quite out of the Truth For the New Lord Keeper walk'd so Circumspectly that he seem'd to fear an Ambush from every Grant that was to pass for the use of encroaching Courtiers if any thing were Ambiguous or Dangerous he was not asham'd to call for Counsel If any thing were prest against Rule he was inexorable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eth. He kept constant to Justice in its Flat Square I could be Luxuriant in instances nothing is
qualifying of themselves for Civil Employments And another sort of Gentlemen termed Forenses who were Pleaders at the Bar and Trained up in real Causes he makes the former more Innocent and Harmless a great deal then the latter and yields hereof the principal Reason Nos enim qui in foro verisque litibus terimur multum malitiae quamvis nolimus addiscimus For we saith he That are bred in Real Quirkes and personal Contentions cannot but Reserve some Tang thereof whether we will or no. These Reasons though they please some Men yet God be Praised if we do but Right to this Noble Profession they are in our Common-Wealth no way concluding or Demonstrative For I make no question but there are many Scores which profess our Laws who beside their Skill and Practice in this kind are so Richly enabled in all Moral and Intellectual Endowments Ut omnia tanquam singula persiciant that there is no Court of Equity in the World but might be most safely committed unto them I leave therefore the Reason of this Alteration as a Reason of State not to be Fathom'd by any Reason of mine and will say no more of my Calling in the General 85. Now when I reflect upon myself in particular Quis sum ego aut quis Filius Ishai What am I or what can there be in me in Regard of Knowledg Gravity or Experience that should afford me the least Qualification in the world for so weighty a Place Surely if a Sincere Upright and well-meaning Heart doth not cover Thousands of other Imperfections I am the unfittest Man in the Kingdom to supply the Place And therefore must say of my Creation as the Poet said of the Creation of the World Materiam noli quaerere nulla fuit Trouble not your Heads to find out the Cause I confess there was none at all It was without the least Inclination or thought of mine own the immediate work of God and the King And their Aâ—ions are no ordinary Effects but extraordinary Miracles What then Should I beyond the Limits and Duty of Obedience despond and refuse to make some few years Tryal in this place Nor Tuâ—s O Jacobe quod optas Explorare labor mihi jussa capessere fas est I will therefore conclude this Point with the Excuse of that Poet whom the Emperor Gratian would needs enforce to set out his Poem whether he would or no. Non habeo ingenium Caefar sed jussit habebo Cur me posse negem posse quod ille putet I am no way fit for this great Place but because God and the King will have it so I will endeavour as much as I can to make my self fit and put my whole confidence in his Grace and Mercy Qui neminem dignum Eligit sed eligendo dignum facit as St. Austin speaks And so much of my Calling now I come unto my Carriage in this Place 86 It is an Observation which Tully makes In causis dicendis effugere solebat Antonius ne succederet Crasso Antonius was ever afraid to come after Crassus a most Eloquent and Powerful Orator And the greatest discouragement I find in this Place is that I am to come after after indeed nec passibus aequis my two immediate Predecessors the one of 〈◊〉 Excellent in most things the other in all things But both of them so bred in this Course of Life Ut illis plurimarum reruni agitatio frequens nihil esse ignotum patiobatur as Pliny speaks of the Pleaders of his time It were too much to expect at my bands a Man bred in other Studies that readiness or quickness of dispatch which was effected by them Lords both of them brought up in the King's Courts and not in the King's Chappel My Comfort is this That Arriving here as a Stranger I may say as Archimedes did when he found these Geometrical Lines and Angles drawn every where in the Sands of AEgypt Video vestigia humana I see in this Court the Footsteps of Wise Men many Excellent Rules and Orders for the managing the same the which though I might want Learning and Knowledg to invent if they were not thus offer'd to my hands yet I hope I shall not want the Honesty to Act and put in Execution These Rules I will precisely follow without the least deslexion at all until Experience shall Teach me better Every thing by the Course of Nature hath a certain and regular motion The Air and Fire move still upward the Earth and Water fall downward The Celestial Bodies whirl about in one and the self same Course and Circularity and so should every Court of Justice Otherwise it grows presently to be had in Jealousie and Suspicion For as Vel. Paterculus Observes very well In iis homines extraordinaria reformidant qui modum in voluntate habent Men ever suspect the worst of those Rules which vary with the Judges Will and Pleasure I will descend to some few particulars 87. First I will never make any Decree That shall Cross the Grounds of the Common or Statute Laws for I hold by my Place the Custody not of mine own but of the King's Conscience and it were most absurd to let the King's Conscience be at Enmity and Opposition with his Laws and Statutes This Court as I conceive it may be often occasion'd to open and confirm but never to thwart and oppose the Grounds of the Laws I will therefore omit no Pains of mine own nor Conference with the Learned Judges to furnish my self with competency of Knowledg to keep my Resolution in this Point Firm and Inviolable Secondly I shall never give a willing Ear to any Motion made at this Bar which shall not apparently tend to further and hasten the bearing of the Cause The very word Motion derived a movendo to move doth teach us that the hearing is Finis perfectio terminus ad quem the End Perfection and proper Home as it were of the matter propounded If a Counsellor therefore will needs endeavour as Velleius Writes of the Gracchi Optimo ingenio pessime uti to make that bad Use of a good Wit as to justle a Cause out of the King's High-way which I hold in this Court to be Bill Answer Replication Rejoynder Examination and Hearing I will ever Regard it as a Wild Goose Chase and not a Learned Motion The further a Man Runs out of his Way the further he is from home the End of his Journy as Seneca speaks so the more a Man Tattles beside these Points the further it is from the Nature of a Motion Such a Motion is a Motion Per Antiphrasin ut mons a non movendo It tends to nothing but certamen ingenii a Combat of Wit which is Infinite and Endless For when it once comes to that pass some will sooner a great deal loose the Cause then the last Word Thirdly I would have no Man to conceive that I come to this Place to overthrow without special Motives the Orders
were cut off too soon that delay would bring them to a more considerate Ripeness Sic vero dificiente crimine laidem ipsam in vituperium vertit invidia says Tully but he is sufficiently prais'd who is disprais'd for nothing but his Vertues Dispatch was a Vertue in him And all his Sails were fill'd with a good Wind to make riddance in his Voyage He was no Lingerer by Nature and kindly warmth is quick in digestion Our time is but a Span long but he that doth much in a short Life products his Mortality To this he had such a Velocity of mind that out of a few Words discreetly spoken he could apprehend the Strength and Sirrup of that which would follow This is that Ingeny which is so much commended 4. Tuseul Multarum rerum brevi tempore percussio such a Wit is ever upon an Hill and fees the Champain round about him And it was most contrary to his incorruptness to prolong an hearing as Felix did Act. 24.26 Till Mony purchas'd a convenient Season He never was Accus'd of it Quod nemo novit poene non fit as Apuleius says 10. Metam 'T was never known therefore 't was never done is a Moral and a Charitable inference Guess his great Spirit from this Essay and how he Coveted no Man's Silver or Gold that when he was in his lowest Want and Misery in the Tower Sequestred of all he had yet he Refus'd the offers of his Friends with this Reason that he knew not how to take from any but a King There is another Rub in the way sometimes Court Messages and Potentates Letters for alass in many Causes there are great Betters that are no Gamesters But he had a Spell against that Inchantment an invincible Courage against Enmity and Envy I will truly Translate Mamertinus his Qualities upon him of which he boasted in the Panegyric for his Consulship Animi magm adversus pecuniam liberi adversus offensas constantis adversus invidiam Those Magnificoes that were Undertakers for perdue Causes gave him over quickly for a stubborn Man that would go his own Pace and make no Halt for their sakes that sate in the Gallery of great ones above him As Cicarella says of Sixtus Quintus in his Addition to Platina In ore omnium erat nunc tempus Sixti est it is not as it was these are Pope Sixtus's days No Man now can work a Reprieve for a Malefactor So this Magistrate was passive to many Solicitations but strenuously Resolv'd to be Active for none for whatsoever Cause was brought before him he could instantly discern the true Face from the Vizard and whether the Counsel did not endeavour rather to shut it up then to open it It askt him a little time to Learn as it were the use of the Compass how to Sail into the Vast Ocean ef Pleadings and not to creep always by the Shore To follow the Pleaders in their own method and to speak to them in their own Dialect nay to reduce them from starting out and to Rectifie every Sprain and Dislocation See what a Globe of Light there is in natural Reason which is the same in every Man but when it takes well and riseth to perfection it is call'd Wisdom in a few 90. The Terms of the Common Law as in all other Professions and Sciences seem Barbarous to the Vulgar Ear and had need to be familiariz'd with pre-acquaintance which being the Primar of that Rational Learning he had inur'd himself to it long before and was nothing to seek in it Yet one of the Bar thought to put a Trick upon his Fresh-man-ship and trouled out a Motion crammed like a Granada with obsolete Words Coins of far fetch'd Antiquity which had been long disus'd worse then Sir Thomas Mores Averia de Wethernham among the Masters of Paris In these misty and recondit Phrases he thought to leave the New Judge feeling after him in the Dark and to make him blush that he could not Answer to such mystical Terms as he had Conjur'd up But he dealt with a Wit that was never entangl'd in a Bramble Bush for with a serious Face he Answer'd him in a cluster of most crabbed Notions pick'd up out of Metaphysics and Logic as Categorematical and Syncategorematical and a deal of such drumming stuff that the Motioner being Foil'd at his own Weapon and well Laugh'd at in the Court went home with this New Lesson That he that Tempts a Wise man in Jest shall make himself a Fool in Earnest Among many Gown-men at the Bar this was but one and that one proved a solid Pleader and sound at the hands of a more reconcileable man more than common Favour who procur'd him Knighthood and did send him his help in another Capacity Ten Years after to advance his Fortunes To proceed his Judgment could not be dazzled with Dark and Exotic Words they were proper to the matters in Hand The difficulty that he did most contend with was against Intrigues and immethodical Pleadings so that he had much to do to force the Councel to gather up their Discourses more closely and to hold them to the Point in Hand checking Excursions and impertinent Ramblings with the Rebuke of Authority though it seem'd a little Brackish to some Palates With a little Experience he gather'd up such Ripeness of Judgment and so sharp-sighted a knowledg that upon the opening of a Bill he could readily direct the Pleaders to that which was the Issue between the Plaintiff and Defendant and constrein them to speak to nothing but the very Weight of the Cause from the Resolution whereof the whole business did attend it's dispatch So true it is which Nepos delivers in the Life of Atticus Facile existimari potest Prudentiam esse quandam Divinati nem Prudence is a kind of Divination let it Tast a little and it can guess at all It needs not to have all the Windows opened when it can see Light enough through a Chink On the Judges part it is not Patience but Weakness not to abridge Prolixity of Words that he may come the sooner to the Truth And on the Advocates part 't is Affectation to seem more careful of his cause then he is when he speaks more then he needs Thus the Lord Keeper behav'd himself constantly and indifferently towards every Bill and Answer using the same method the same diligence the same Application of his great Gifts to all Causes following the Council which Q. Cicero gave to his Brother de Petiti Consul It a paratus ad dicendum venito quasi in singulis caulis Judicium de omni ingenio futurum sit so he carried himself as if he his whole sufficiency were to be Tried upon every Decree he made I shall say much I think enough to his Approbation that in the Tryal of two Terms the Councei at the Bar were greatly contented with him The Primipili or Vantguard of them were such as fil'd up their place with great Glory in
Captain Hostes inciderunt in nâ— the Enemy is fallen among us and into our Power So to such as talk timorously We shall fall into the Mis-perswasions of a Catholick Lady and her Houshold It may well be answered Be not distrustful of a good Cause they are fallen among us and if God love them they will joyn with us 93. The other thing in debate seem'd very harsh and boisterous to his Majesty that sundry Leaders in the House of Commons would provoke him to proclaim open War with Spain To which he replied in a long Letter to the Speaker That he had sent some Forces to keep the strong Towns of his Son-in-Law from the Imperialists That he had sent 30000 l. to those Princes of Germany that promised to assist him in Jealousie of their own Territories and had they done their Part that handful of Men which he sent had sufficiently done theirs He told them that he treated sedulously at that time for Peace but it would be a very Contradiction at the same Instant to be a Party in an open War And he gravely minded them that he rather expected Thanks for a long Peace the great Blessing of God than to stir him up to one of the greatest Plagues which the Lord threatens to a sinful Kingdom That many of his Subjects wanton with Ease and Plenty and pamper'd with Rest desired a Change though they knew not what they would have But did these Words so wise and melting compose the Humors of the Passionate No The Stoicks said well that from all Words and Actions there were two Handles to be catch'd hold of a Good and a Bad. The Virtuous interpret all to the best and lay hold on the Good The Quarrelsome apply all to the worst and lay hold of the Bad. Some that were Christianly Principled and were desirous to contrive every way how to spare the Effusion of so much Humane Blood admir'd the Lenity and Moderation of the King and look'd up to God that he would bring this Work to pass by other Means than unruly and unsatiate Armies But some cry'd out in Ar. W. Language That the King's Heart was not advanc'd to glorious Atchievements P. 172. Or as another of the same Tribe That howsoever the World did believe that he was unwilling to fight it out from a Religious Ground yet it was no other but a cowardly Disposition that durst not adventure Others would find a Knot in a Rush and laid the Blame upon his Learning that did intenerate his Heart too much and make him a Dastard These belike were not acquainted with the Exploits of the Graecian Xenophon the Roman Caesar the English Sidney Montjoy and Raleigh Gentlemen that were renowned both in Arms and Letters Yet such as were transported with Warmth to be a sighting prevail'd in Number before the Pacificous Well hath Pliny noted Epist Lib. 2. In publico concilio nihil est tam inaequale quà m aequali as ipsa nam cum sit impar prudentia par omnium jus est 'T is the Inequality of that equal Right which all have in publick Councils that every Puny hath a decisive Voice as much as Nestor But for all the Sword-men were so forward the King's Head was in Travel with Hopes of Peace He considered that even just Wars could not be prosperous unless they were begun with Unwillingness for they are the first Felicity of bad Men and the last Necessity of good Men. Macrobius observes in Bacchus the great Invader of India That he carried his Spear with a Trail of Ivy twin'd about it Lib. 1 â— 17 Quod vinculo patientiae obligandi sunt impetui Belle Because the Fierceness of Fighting should be rained in with the Bridle of Patience Lofty Spirits more Heathenish than Evangelical account one Victory worth ten thousand Lives But he that looks for the true Life above is sure that Mercy and Tenderness of Heart are better than a thousand Victories Eâ—saws indeed was not the Soldiers Friend but thus far he may be heard in this Cause Epist Aute August Hist Idem omnes pariter adnitantur ne Bellum sit poâ—iùs quà m ut bello vincant 'T is glorious before Men to fight well 't is blessed before God not to sight at all Warlike Motions are a Tryal of Gallantry for a time but all the Pages of Horror Calamity and Desolation attend them upon the Place where the Camp continues And why may not that continue till an Infant come to gray Hairs 'T is easie to set the Day when Wars shall begin but none can tell the Year nor the Age when they will end Metellus had been brought up in such Service none could tell Bacchus better than himself Salush Jug Bellum sumi facilè ceterum aegerimè dirimi non in ejusdem potestate initium ejus sinem esse And if War last long Who can feed that Cormorant with so much as it will devour What Millions and Millions of Coin have been exhausted to maintain this great Curse of God in our Land 't is thrice as chargeable to transport an Army If great Contributions be exacted Year by Year What Outcries will the People make And if we be not shorn to the Quick nay if we be not flay'd to advance Payments What Out-cries will the Soldiers make 'T is remarkable that the Commons in this Parliament voted to give one entire Subsidie to the King to begin the War They were not ignorant that five times that Money was not enough to Rig a Navy and to receive a good Army in it at the Sea-Side What a poor Stock was this to set up such a Trade a Sign they were neither able nor willing to maintain a War but at the Tongues end Finally The King having deliberated upon this Hurry to Battle opened the very Oracle of his Heart in this manner to some that were near him That a King of England had no reason but to seek always to decline a War though he carried his Forces abroad for the Array or Sword was in his Hand and the Purse in the Peoples His Sword could not fight without their Purse to maintain it Suppose a Supply were levied to begin the Fray What Certainty could He have that He should not want enough to make an honorable End If he call'd for Subsidies and did not obtain he must retreat ingloriously to the Wounding of his own Honour and the Nations If he were instant to have Succour and were resolved never to give over till he had it after he had craved it as if he had beg'd an Alms he must take it with such Conditions as would break the Heart of Majesty through Capitulations that some Members would make who desire to improve the Reputation of their Wisdom by retrenching the Dignity of the Crown in Popular Declamations For 't was likely they would ask the Change of the Church of the Laws of the Court Royal the Displacing of his Officers the Casheiring of his Servants Either at
did now Imprison and Execute the Rigour of his Laws against the Roman Catholics I must deal plainly with your Lordship our Viperious Country-men the English Jesuits in France to frustrate those pious endeavours of his Majesty had many Months before this Favour granted retorted that Argument upon us by Writing a most malicious Book which I have seen and read over to the French King Inciting him and the three Estates to put all those Statutes in Execution against the Protestants in those parts which are here Enacted and as they falsly inform'd severely Executed upon the Papists I would therefore see the most subtle State-monger in the World chalk out away for 〈◊〉 Majesty to mediate for Grace and Favour for the Protestants by Executing at this 〈◊〉 the Severity of his Laws upon the Papists And that this Favour should 〈…〉 Toleration is a most dull and yet a most devilish misconstruction A Toleration looks forward to the time to come This favour backward to the Offences past If any Papist now set at Liberty shall offend the Laws again the Justices may Nay must recomm◠him and leave Favour and Mercy to the King to whom they properly belong Nay let those two Writs directed to the Judges be as diligently perused by these rash Censurers as they were by those Grave and Learned Men to whom his Majesty referred the Penning of the same and they shall find that these Papists are not otherwise out of Prison then with their Shackles about their Heels sufficient sureties and good recognizances to present themselves again at the next Assizes As therefore that Lacedaemonian opposed the Oracle of Apollo by asking his Opinion of the Bird which he grasp'd in his hand whether it were alive or dead So it is a matter yet controverted and undecided whether these Papists clos'd up and grasp'd in the Bands of the Law be still in Prison or at Liberty Their own demeanour and the success of his Majesties Negotiations are the Oracles that must decide the same If the Lay-Papists do wax insolent with this Mercy insulting upon the Protestants and Translating this favour from the Person to the cause I am verily of Opinion that his Majesty will remand them to their former State and Condition and renew his Writ no more But if they shall use these Graces modestly by admitting conference with Learned Preachers demeaning of themselves Neighbourly and Peaceably praying for his Majesty and the prosperous success of his Pious Endeavours and Relieving him bountifully which they are as well able to do as any other of his Subjects if he shall be forced and constrained to take his Sword in Hand Then it cannot be denied but our Master is a Prince that hath as one said plus humanitatis poene quam hominis And will at that time leave to be merciful when he leaves to be himself In the the mean while this Argument fetch'd from the Devils Topics which concludes a concreto ad abstractum from a favour done to the English Papists that the King favoureth the Popish Religion is such a Composition of Folly and Malice as is little deserved by that Gracious Prince who by Word Writing Exercise of Religion Acts of Parliament late Directions for Catechising and Preaching and all Professions and Endeavours in the World hath demonstrated himself so Resolved a Protestant God by his Holy Spirit open the Eyes of the People that these Airy Representations of ungrounded Fancies set aside they may clearly discern and see how by the Goodness of God and the Wisdom of their King this Island of all the Countries in Europe is the sole Nest of Peace and True Religion And the Inhabitants thereof unhappy only in this one thing that they never look up up to Heaven to give God Thanks for so great an Happiness Lastly for mine own Letter to the Judges which did only declare not operate the Favour it was either mispenned or much mis-construed It recited four kinds of Recusants only capable of his Majesties Clemency Not so much to include these as to exclude many other Crimes bearing among the Papists the Name of Recusanties as using the Function of a Romish Priest seducing the King's Liege people from the Religion established Scandalizing and Aspersing our King Church State or present Government All which Offences being outward practises and no secret Motions of the Conscience are adjudged by the Laws of England to be meerly Civil and Political and excluded by my Letter from the benefit of those Writs which the bearer was imployed to deliver unto my Lords the Judges And thus I have given your Lordship a plain Accompt of the Carriage of this business and that the more suddenly that your Lordship might perceive it is no Aurea Fabula or prepared Fable but a bare Narration which I have sent unto your Lordship I beseech your Lordship to let his Majesty know that the Letters to the Justices of the Peace concerning those four Heads recommended by his Majesty shall be sent away as fast as they can be exscribed I will not trouble your Lordship more at this time c. Your Lordships I. L. C. S. 105. The Letter as it exceeds in length so it excells in Judgment Yet thrusting into the midst of the Throng to part the Fray he got a knock himself For because he was principally employ'd by his Office to distribute the King's Favours to some of the adverse Sect he was Traduc'd for a Well-willer to the Church of Rome nay so far by a ranting fellow about the Town that he was near to receive a chief promotion from that Court no less than a Cardinals Hat At the first Bruit of this Rumor the Scandal was told him and one Sadler the Author discover'd which he despis'd to prosecute and pass'd it by with this moderation ' That the Reporters saw the Oar under Water and thought it was ' Crooked but he that had it in his hand knew that it was whole and streight An admirable Similitude to reconcile contraries to a good meaning for the Eye were not right if the Oar under Water did not seem broken to it And the Judgment were not right if it had not a contrary Opinion So the people that are upon the Shore judge one way for they look upon things beneath the Water But States-men judge another who work at the Oar or guide the Bark The Error of the former is tolerable the Sense of the other is Magisterial and unquestionable So great were this Lord's disaffections to that corrupt and unfound Church that he watch'd their Ministers more narrowly then any Counsellor when they shot beyond the Mark of his Majesties late indulgences It was ever the unlucky diligence of those that were Proctors to agitate the Recusants Cause to importune his Majesty for those things which they did not hope to obtain but the very offer of them with their Arts and Graceless Carriage would make the Council Table odious contribute much to embitter the Subjects
other Bodies cannot dissolve the Constancy of Gold 108. How faithfully and with what Courage like himself he adventur'd to maintain Orthodox Religion against old Corruptions and new Fanglements will be a Labour to unfold hereafter One thing remains that is purely of Episcopal Discharge which I will salute and so go by it before I look again upon his Forensive or Political Transactions When he was Dean of Westminster he had a Voice in the High Commission Court and so forth when he was in higher Degrees For as Nazianzen commends Athanasius pag. 24. Encom he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 skiiful in all the various Arts of Government He appear'd but once at Lambeth when that Court sat while he was Dean A sign that he had no Maw to it For he would say that the Institution of the Court was good without all Exception That is to Impower the Kings of England and their Successors by Statute to issue out that Authority under the Great Seal which was annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm to assign some as often and to so long time as the King should think fit to be Judges for the Reformation of great Abuses and Enormities But that this Power should be committed from the Kings and Queens of this Realm to any Person or Persons being Natural born Subjects to their Majesties to overlook all Ecclesiastical Causes correct punish deprive whether one or more whether Lay or Clergy whether of the vilest as well as the noblest nay whether Papist as well as Protestant as no harm was to be feared from good Princes albeit they have this Liberty by the Tenure of the Act 1 Eliz. Cap. 1. So if God should give us a King in his Anger who would oppress us till our cry went up like the Smoke out of a Furnace this Statute would enable them to enact Wickedness by a Law This was a Flaw to his seeming in the Corps of the Statute which gave Vigour to the High Commission But in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and her two blessed Successors God be praised we were never the worse for it Better Commissioners than were appointed in their Days need not be wish'd What ail'd this wise Church-man then to be so reserv'd and to give so little Attendance in that Court He was not satisfied in two things Neither in the Multiplicity of Causes that were pluck'd into it nor in the Severity of Censures It is incident to Supream Courts chiefly when Appeals fly unto them to be sick of this Timpany to swell with Causes They defraud the lower Audiences of their Work and Profit which comes home to them with Hatred What a Clamor doth Spalat make Lib. 5. Eccl. Reip. c. 2. ar 28. That the Judicatories at Rome lurch'd all the Bishops under that Supremacy of all Complaints that were promoted to their Consistories Eò lites omnes cò dispensationes trahuntur Fluviorum omnium tractus ad suam derivat molam nobis quod sugamus nihil relinquitur The Affairs of all Ecclesiastical Tribunes were little enough to drive that Mill So the Consistories of all the Suffragans in the Province of Canterbury became in a manner Despicable because the Matters belonging to every Diocess were followed before the High Commission That it might be said to the neglected Praelates at Home Are ye unworthy to Judge the smallest Matters 1 Cor. c. 2. It seems ill Manners increas'd apace For I heard it from one that liv'd by the Practice of that High Court An. 1635 That whereas in the last Year of Arch-Bishop Whitgift eight Causes were left to be discuss'd in Easter-Term there were no less than a Thousand depending at that time This was one of his Exceptions That the High Court drew too much into its Cognizance The other Reason which made him stand a loof from it was That it punish'd too much Arch-Bishop Abbot was rigorously Just which made him shew less Pity to Delinquents Sentences of great Correction or rather of Destruction have their Epocha from his Predominancy in that Court. And after him it mended like sowre Ale in Summer It was not so in his Predecessor Bancroft's Days who would Chide stoutly but Censure mildly He considered that he sate there rather as a Father than a Judge Et pro peccato magno paululum supplicii satis est patris He knew that a Pastoral Staff was made to reduce a wandering Sheep not to knock it down He look'd upon St. Peter in whom the Power of the Keys was given to the Unity of all the Officers of the Church who incurr'd a great Offence in the Hall of the High Priest let the Place be somewhat consider'd but his Action most Ut mitior esset delinquentibus grandis delinquens Saith St. Austin It being the most indubitate Course of that Commission to deprive a Minister of his Spiritual Endowments that is of all he had if Drunkenness or Incontinency were prov'd against him I have heard the Lord Keeper who was no Advocate for Sin but for Grace and Compassion to Offenders dis-relish that way for this Reason That a Rector or Vicar had not only an Office in the Church but a Free-hold for Life by the Common Law in his Benefice If a Gentleman or Citizen had been Convicted upon an Article of Scandal in his Life was it ever heard that he did Confiscate a Mannor or a Tenement Nay What Officer in the Rolls in the Pipe in the Custom-house was ever displac'd for the like Under St Cyprian's Discipline and the Rigor of the Eliberitan Canons the Lay were obnoxious to Censures as much as the Clergy But above all said he there is nothing of Brotherhood nor of Humanity in this when we have cast a Presbyter cut of Doors and left him no Shelter to cover his Head that we make no Provision for him out of his own for Term of Life to keep him from the Extremities of Starving or Begging those Deformed Miseries 109. These Reasons prevailing with him to be no ordinary Frequenter of that Court yet an Occasion was offered which required his Presence Mart. 30. 1622 which will draw on a Story large and memorable M. Amonius de Deminis Arch Bishop of Spalato made an Escape out of Dalmatia an English Gentleman being his Conductor he posted through Germany and came safe into England in the end of the Year 1616. The King gave him Princely Welcome Many of the Religious Peers and Chief Bishops furnished him with Gold that he lack'd for nothing He seem'd then for all this Plenty brought in to be covetous of none of these things but was heard to say That the Provision of an ordinary Minister of our Church would suffice him For in the end of June as he was brought on his Way to the Commencement at Cambridge a Worthy and a Bountiful Divine Dr. John Mountfort receiv'd him for a Night in his Parsonage-House of Ansty Where Spalat noting that Dr. Mountfort had all things about him orderly and handsome like
he had dazled the World with that false Light he never pleas'd his Judges that had secretly tried the Constitution of his Conscience Sir Edward Sackvile who shortly succeeded his Brother Richard in the Earldom of Dorset was at Rome Ann. 1624. and had Welcom given him with much Civility in the English College so far that he presum'd to ask rather out of Curiosity than Love to see this Prisoner de Dominis Mr. T. Fitz-herbert the Rector did him the Observance to go with him to the Jayl He found him shut up in a Ground-Chamber narrow and dark for it look'd upon a great Wall which was as near unto it as the breadth of three spaces Some slight forms being pass'd over which use to be in all Visits says Sir Edward My Lord of Spalato you have a dark Lodging It was not so with you in England There you had at Windsor as good a Prospect by Land as was in all the Country And at the Savoy you had the best Prospect upon the Water that was in all the City I have forgot those things says the Bishop here I can best Contemplate the Kingdom of Heav'n Sir Edward taking Mr. Fitz-Herbert aside into the next Room Sir says he tell me honestly Do you think this Man is employ'd in the Contemplation of Heav'n Says the Father Rector I think nothing less for he was a Male-content Knave when he fled from us a Railing Knave while he liv'd with you and a Motley parti-colour'd Knave now he is come again This is the Relation which that Honourable Person made Ann. 1625. which I heard him utter in the hearing of no mean Ones 113. But by this time Spalat was dead either by his fair Death or by private strangling Gallo-Belgicus that first sent the News abroad knew not whither But he knew what became of his Body that it was burnt at the same place in Rome where Hereticks do end their Pain It is a Process of Justice which is usual with their Inquisition to shew such abhorrence to Hereticks that were so in their sense to call them to account though they be dead and rotten First They are so Histrionical in their Ceremonies as if they made a Sport of Barbarousness that they cite the dead Men three several Days to appear or any that will answer for them but happy they if they do not appear then their Carkasses or Bones are brought forth and burnt in the common Market with a Ban of Execration The latest that were used so among us were Reverend Bucer and Fagius at Cambridge Anno 1556. And Dr. Scot Bishop of Chester one of Cardinal Pole's Visitors defended it before the University Haud mirum videri debeat si in mortem quoque ista inquisitis extendatur Bucer Scrip. Angl. p. 925. Sic postulare sacros Canones p. 923. This is their Soverity from which the Dead are not free Now by the Blaze of that Bonfire in which De Dominis his Trunk was consum'd we may read an Heretick in Fiery Characters I mean as he was entred into the black Book of the Roman Slaughter-House He lived and died with General Councils in his Pate with Wind-Mills of Union to concord Rome and England England and Rome Germany with them both and all other Sister-Churches with the rest without asking leave of the Tridentine Council This was his Piaculary Heresie For as Aâ—orius writes Tom. 1. Moral Lib. 8. Cap. 9. Not only he that denies an Article of the Roman Creed but he that doubts of any such Article is an Heretick and so to be presented to Criminal Judgment Si quem in foro exteriori l gitime allegata proâ—ata probaverint in rebus Fidci scienter voluntarie dubitasse arbitrer cum ut v re propriè haeretiâ—um puniendum Therefore if Spalat had return'd a Penitent in their Construction and imbodied himself into that Church as only true and Apostolical he could not have suffered in his Offals and Carkass as an Heretick So the same Azorius confesseth Lib. 8. Cap. 14. And Alphonsus à Castro is angry with Bernard of Lutzenburg for holding the contrary Lib. 1. Cap. 9. Quis unquam docuit eum esse dicendum haereticum qui errorem sic tenuit ut monitus conviclus non crubuerit palinodiam cantare This was the success of the variable Behaviour of M. Antonius de Dominis De Domims in the plural says Dr. Crakanthorp for he could serve two Masters or twenty if they would all pay him Wages He had an Hearing as it is mention'd before in our High Commission To countenance the Audience of so great a Cause the Lord Keeper gave attendance at it I began at that end of his Troubles and having footed all the Maze am come out at the other 114. Johosaphat distinguisheth between the Lord's Matters and the King's Affairs 2 Chron. 19.12 So do I in the Subject before me I have given some Says of his Church-Wisdom in the former Paragraph I go on to set the Sublimity of his State-Wisdom in the latter I must look back to a small Service which he did perform in Michaelmas-Term 1621. for as much as the Conjunction of some things which rais'd a Dust in the Year following are sit to go together Upon the solemn Day when the Lord Cranfield then Master of the Wards and immediately created Earl of Middlesex took his Place as Lord Treasurer in the Exchequer-Chamber the Lord Keeper gave him his Oath and saluted his Admission with a short Speech following My Lord You are called to serve his Majesty in the Place of a Lord Treasurer by the most Honourable and most Ancient Call in this Realm the delivery of a Staff to let you know that you are now become one of the surest Staffs or Stays that our great Master relies upon in all this Kingdom And these Staffs Princes must lean upon being such Gods as die like Mon and such Masters as are neither omni-sufficient nor independent For St. Austin writing upon that place of the Psalm I have said unto the Lord Thou art my God my Goâ—ds are nothing unto thee observes that God only is the Master that needs no reference to his Servant All other Masters and Servants are proper Relatives and have a mutual Reciprocation and Dependence Eges tu Domino tuo ut det panem Eget te Dominus tuus ut adjuves labore As the Servant wants a Master to maintain him so the Master wants a Servant to assist him For the present supplying of this want in his Majesty I will say as the Historian did of the Election of Tiberius Non quaerendus quem eligeret sed eligendus qui emineret The King was not now to think of one whom he should choose but to choose one who was most eminent For as Claudian said of Ruffinus Taciti suffragia vulgi Vel jam contulerant quicquid mox addidit Aula You were stated in this Place by the Votes of the People before you understood the Pleasure
Iron 115. Among the Exceptions with which the Lord Cranfeild did exagitate him one may require a larger Answer than he thought him worthy of in that Humour He replies to him very briefly in the Laconcick Form because such brittle Ware would break with a Touch. The Treasurer was misinform'd or coin'd it out of his own Head That the Keeper dispatch'd great Numbers of Causes by hearing Petitions in his Chamber and that he did usually reverse Decrees upon Petitions That Forty Thousand Pounds had been taken in one Year among his Servants by such spurious and illegitimate Justice Yet Sir An. IV. all whose Ink makes blots could not imagine how such a Man should be raised out of that Practise but that it was Calculated to be worth to him and his Servants Three Thousand Pounds per Annum A great fall and the less charge I do not say that either of them did learn to suspect by their own practise Let God judge it But I knew this Man so well that he would as soon have taken a share out of Courtesans Sins as the Pope doth as out of his Servants Purses But state the Case thus That he did much Work by Petitions and trebble as much in the first Year as in those that succeeded 't is confest First The Hindrances had been so great which the Court sustein'd before he began to rectifie them that unless he had allow'd poor Men some Furtherance by Motions in Petitions they had been undone for want of timely Favour Even Absalom won the Hearts of those whom he seem'd to pity that were in that condition 2 Sam. 13.3 A Plaintiff makes great moan for redress of Wrongs but a delaying Judge is his greatest Oppressor Secondly All high Potentates and Magistrates under them have ever employ'd some at their Hand to give Answers to Supplicants that made Requests unto them Papinian serv'd in that Office under Severus Pertinax So did Ulpian under Alexander Mammaeus Many more may be produc'd who were greatly honour'd for that Imployment All the Praefecti Libellorum and Magistri Scriniorum who are mention'd of old were of this Constitution Every Proconful caâ—ried such a Scribe with him into his Province and heard the Oppressions of the People by Petition and redress'd them Not that main Causes were not pleaded in the open Face of the Praetorian Court as it is in the Pandects Ubi decretum necessarium est per Libellum id expedire Proconsul non potest But an Exception strengthens a Rule as Cicero says pro Corn. Balbo Quod si exceptio facit ne liceat Ibi necesse est licere ubi non est exceptum And where Decrees were not necessary a Subscription to a Supplication was a common way to relieve those who needed not the Ceremony to be undone with longer Obstruction Thirdly What if I should grant without Derogation to the Lord Keeper's admired Sufficiency that when he took that litigious Work of Chancery first in hand if some crabbed Difficulties were mine'd small into a Petition he could the better swallow them Every man may judge better of that which he reads than that which he hears chiefly he that is initiated into a Profession Allow him Cork that learns to Swim to keep him from Sinking he saves himself and hurts no man Therefore it was a most certain way to overcome some part of the Tediousness of Business by Petitions and it was no less incorrupt innocent legal expedite to do good to the People Some that practis'd at the Bar repin'd that they might not have a Glut of Motions Of whose covetous Discontents this Lord was aware as Pliny says of Apelles Lib. 31. Post tabulam latens vitia quae notarentur auscultabat He was at the back of the Frame which he set forth and heard what Errors the Passengers noted in his Picture So this Man's Ears were open and his Eyes waking groundless Repining never took him winking Therefore to straiten his Course against all Presumption of Errors he directed two Remonstrances the first to the Lord Marquess September the 8th the other to his Majesty October the 5th 1622 which follow as he penn'd them My most noble Lord 116. I Am half asham'd of my self that any Man durst be so shameless as to lay upon me the least Suspicion of Corruption in that Frugality of Life Poverty of Estate and Retiredness from all Acquaintance or Dependencies wherein I live But I have learnt one Rule in the Law that Knaves ever complain of Generalities And I long to be Charg'd with any Particular Petitions are things that never brought to any Man in my Place either Profit or Honour but infinite Trouble and Molestation Three Parts of four of them are poor Mens and bring not a Peny to my Secretaries The last part are so slighted and dis-respected by my Orders that they cannot be to my Secretaries whom I take to be honest men and well provided for worth their Trouble or Attendance All Petitions that I answer are of these Kinds 1. For ordinary Writs to be sign'd with my Hand 2. For Motions to be made in Court 3. For to be plac'd in the Paper of Peremptories 4. For License to beg 5. For referring of insufficient Answers 6. For a day to dispatch References recommended from the King 7. For Reigling Commissions to be dispatch'd in the Country 8. For my Letter to the next Justices to compound Brables 9. For Commissions of Bankrupts Certiorari especial Stay off an Extent till Counsel be heard c. Let any Man that understands himself be question'd by your Lordship whether any of these poor things can raise a Bribe or a Fee worth the speaking of I protest I am fain to allow twenty Pounds a year to a Youth in my Chamber to take care of the poor Mens Petitions the Secretaries do so neglect them In a while after Thus to the King May it please Your most Excellent Majesty TO pardon the first Boldness of this kind of interrupting Your Majesty Although I do find by search those particular Charges of Chamber-Orders shew'd unto me by my most Noble Lord the Lord Admiral to be falsly laid and wilfully mistaken as being either binding Decrees or solemn Orders pronounced in open Court and pursued only to Processes of Execution by these private Directions Yet do I find withal that I have advisedly and with mature Deliberation upon my entring into this Office made many Dispatches upon the Petitions of the Subjects to mine own exceeding great Trouble and to the Ease of their Purses many thousand Pounds in the Compass of this Year For that Motion which upon a Petition will cost the Party nothing if it be deny'd nor above Five Shillings to the Secretaries unless the Party play the Fool and wilfully exceed that expected Fee when it is granted being put into the Mouth of a Lawyer will cost the Client whether granted or deny'd one Piece at the least and for the most part Five Ten or Twenty Pieces as is
of great Tentation Tuta me mediâ vehat vita decurrens viâ Sence in Ad. 118. I have touch'd upon the very Thread where the Lord Marquesâ—s Friendship began to unravel I have shewn how blameless the Lord Keeper was and that the Offence on his Part was undeclinable Yet I will not smother with partiality what I have heard the Countess Mother say upon it That the Lord Keeper had great Cause sometimes to recede from those Courses which her Son propounded that she never heard him different but that his Counsels were wise and well-grounded ever tending to the Marquess's Honour Safety and Prosperity but that he stirr'd her Son to Offence with Reprehensions that were too bold and vehement I heed this the more because it was usual with the Lord Keeper to be very angry with his best Friends when they would not hearken to their own Good Pardon him that Fault and it will be hard to find another in him as Onuphrius says of P. Pius the Fifth for his Cholerick Moods Hoc uno excepto vitio non erat in illo quod quisquam possit reprehendere And if the Testimony of that Lady be true it is but one and a most domestick Witness I do not shuffle it over as if his Meanor to the Lord Marquess were not a little culpable It was not enough to have Justice of his Side without Discretion Good Counsel is Friendly but it must be mannerly St. Châ—ysostom though a Free and a very hot man himself preach'd thus at Antioch Hom. 27. That some Inflammation will not be touch'd no not with a soft Finger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Words as soft as Lint must be us'd to some Ears who disdain to be dealt withal as Equals Let me joyn Ric. Victor to him enforcing the like from David's Playing on the Harp when Saul was moved When stubborn Opposition will vex some great Men into Fury Dignum est ut elocutionis nostrae tranquilitate quasi citharae dulcedine ad salutem revocentur Use them tenderly and play as it were a Lesson upon the Harp to flatter them into Attention and Tranquility This is enough to reprehend a few stout Words but the Lord Keeper for all the Frown of the Lord Marquess staid upon him carry'd as true a Heart toward him and all his Allies as exuberant in Gratitude as ever liv'd in Fâ—esh He never wrote to him no not when he was quite forsaken but he refresh'd the Benefits he had receiv'd from him in his Memory He never commanded him but he obeyed in all which was to be justified No Danger impending over his Lordship but he was ready to run an honest Hazard with him even to the laying down of his Life In his Absence when a Friend is best tried when his Lordship was in Spain far from the King and giving no little Distast there by his Bearing then he smooth'd his Errors to his Majesty and kept him from Precipitation knowing that he had threatned to bring about his own Ruine Yet in strict Justice a Founder loseth his Right of Interest that would destroy or debauch his Foundation As Amber and Pearl are turned to mean Druggs and Dust when the Chymists hath drawn their Elixir out of them At this stop I can resolve one Question which many have ask'd me whence the Occasion sprung which transformed Bishop Laud from a Person so much obliged Eighteen Months before to the Lord Keeper to the sharpest Enemy As soon as ever the Bishop saw his Advancer was under the Anger of the Lord Marquess he would never acknowledge him more but shunn'd him as the old Romans in their Superstition walk'd a loof from that Soil which was blasted with Thunder It was an Opportunity snatch'd to pluck him back that was got so far before him Hold him down that he might not rise and then he promised himself the best Preeminence in the Church for he saw no other Rival As Velleius says of Pompey That he was very quiet till he suspected some Senator that thrust up to be his Equal Civis in tagá nisi ubi ' vereretur ne quem haberet parem modestissimus But will a good Christian say did so much Hatred grow up from no other Seed From no other that ever appear'd and look upon the World and marvel not at it for it is frequently seen that those Enemies which are most causless are most implacable which our Divines draw out of this that no Reason is express'd by Moses why the Devil tempted our first Parents and sought their Fall The like was noted by the gravest Counsellor of our Kingdom the Lord Burleigh who condoled when he heard the Condemnation of Sir John Perrot with these Words Odium quo injustius eò acrius Ill Will is most vehement when it is most unjust Cambden Eliz. An. 1592. But when himself was not harm'd a jot would he be so unkind to his Benefactor Phoed. Act. 1. Se. 3. What says a long Tongu'd Fellow In Plautus mortuus est qui suit qui vivus est He that was was lost He dreamt his Benefactor was defunct there was Life in my Lord of Buckingham and it was good Cunning to jog along with his Motions I am confident to give this Satisfaction to the Question above For the Lord Keeper did often protest upon his Hope in Christ that he knew no other Reason of their Parting Reader say nothing to it but hear what Solomon says Proverbs 18. ver â— according to the Septuagint and the Vulgar Latin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Occasiones querit qui vult recedere ab amico omni tempore erit exprobrabilis 119. These Enmies were blowing at the Forge three years well nigh before the Ingeneers could frame a Bar to lift him off the Hinges of his Dignity for he was fast lock'd and bolted into the Royal Favour He bore up with that Authority that he could not be check'd with Violence and Occasions grew fast upon his Majesty to use his Sufficiency and Fidelity For though he was a King of profound Art yet he was not so fortunate in that Advice which he took to send his dear Son the Prince with the Lord Marquess into Spain Feb. 17 1022. So soon as those Travellers had left the King with his little Court at New-Market the King found himself at more Leisure and Freedom in the Absence of the Lord Marquess to study the Calling of a Comfortable and Concordious Parliament wherein the Subject might reap Justice and the Crown Honour And Occasion concluded for it that since the Prince like a Resolute and Noble Wooer had trusted himself to the King of Spain's Faith in the Court of Madrid whether his Adventure sped or not sped he must be welcomed Home with a Parliament The King prepared for the Conception of that Publick Meeting that it might fall to its proper Work without Diversions He conceiv'd there was no Error more fatal to good Dispatch than that some Members took
of the Gravest and Greatest Pleaders who were ripe for Dignity And a Call of Serjeants was splendidly solemnized for Number Thirteen for Quality of the best Reputation May 6 1623 Who on that Day made their Appearance before Lord Keeper sitting in the High Court of Chancery who congratulated their Adoption unto that Title of Serjeancy with this Oration AS upon many other Occasions so likewise upon this present in hand I could wish there sate in this Place a man of more Gravity and Experience than can be expected from me to deliver unto you those Counsels and Directions which all your Predecessors have successively received at this Bar. Yet among many Wants I find one singular Comfort that as I am of the least Ability to give so you are of the least Need to receive Instructions of all the Calls of Serjeants that any Man now alive can bring to his Remembrance You are either all or the far greater Number of you most Learned most Honest and well accomplish'd Gentlemen Lest therefore my Modesty or your Integrity might suffer therein I will not be tedious in this kind of Exhortation but like those Mercuries or High-way-Statues in Greece I will only point out those fair Ways which my self I confess have never trodden In the beginning for my Preface be assured that your Thankfulness shall be recommended to his Majesty who hath honoured you with this high Degree making your Learning only and your Integrity His Praevenient and all other Respects whatsoever but subsequent and following Causes of his Gracious Pleasure towards you Turning my Speech next to your selves I will observe mine own common Exordium which hitherto I have used to all those whom I have saluted with a few words when they were Installed in their Dignities and I have it from the manner of the old Romans Meminisse oportet Ossicii Tâ—lum Remember the Title of your Degree and it will afford you sufficient Matter of Admonition You are call'd Servientes ad Legem Sergeants at the Law Verba bractrata Words very malleable and extensive and such as contein more Lessons than they do Syllables 122. The word Sergeant no doubt is Originally a Stranger born though now for many Years denizon'd among us It came over at the first from France and is handled as a French word by Stephen Pasquier in his Eighth Book of Recherches and the Nineteenth Chapter They that are too luxuriant in Etymologies are sometimes barren in Judgment as I will shew upon the Conjectures of this Name For they are not call'd Sergeants quasi Caesariens some of Caesars Officers as the great Guiacius thinks Nor Sergents qu isi Serregens because they laid hold on Men as inferiour Ministers But Sergiens in the old French is as much as Serviens saith Pasquier a Servant or an Attendant As Sergens de Dicu the Servants of God in the old History of St. Dennis Sergens Disciples de la Sanchitè Servants or Disciples of his Holiness the Pope in the Life of St. Begue And Sergens d'Amour Servants of Love in the Romance of the Rose a Book well known in our Country because of the Translator thereof Geoffry Chaucer And therefore as Pasquier thinks that those inferiour Officers are called Sergeans that is Servants because at the first Bailiffs or Stewards employ'd their own Servants in such Summons So this more honourable Appellation of Sergeant at Law hath received it Denomination because at the first when the Laws were no more than a few plain Customs When as the Year-Books had not yet swelled When the Cases were not so diversified When so many Distinctions were not Coined and Minted When the Volumes of the Laws through our Misdeeds and Wiliness were not so multiplied Men employ'd their own Servants to tender their Complaints unto the Judges and to bring them home again a plain and present Remedy But afterward Multitude of Shifts begetting Multitudes of Laws and Multitudes of Laws Difficulties of Interpretations especially where the Sword had engraven them in strange Languages as those induced by the Saxons Danes and Normans into this Island the State was enforced to design and select some learned Men to prepare the Causes of the Client for the Sentence of the Judge and the Sentence of the Judge for the Causes of the Client who though never so Enobled by their Birth and Education yet because they succeeded in those places of Servants were also call'd Servientes Sergeants or Servants Great Titles have grown up from small Originals as Dux Comes Baro and others and so hath this which is Enobled by the affix unto it a Sergeant at Law 123. Though you are not the Rulers of Causes and Masters upon the Bench yet it is your Pre-eminence that you are the chief Servants at the Bar In the Houshold of our Dread Sovereign the Chief in every Office who Commands the lower Ministers is advanced to be called the Sergeant of his Place as Sergeants of the Counting-House Carriages Wine-Cellar Larder with many others In like manner your Name is a Name of Reverence though you are styled Servants For you are the Principal of all that practise in the Courts of Law Servants that is Officers preferr'd above all Ranks of Pleaders For every thing must be Ruled by a Gradual Subordination You are next in the Train to my Lords the Judges And some of your File not seldom employ'd to be Judges Itinerant But you are all constantly promoted to be Contubernales Commensales You have your Lodgings in the same Houses and keep your Table and Diet with those Pillars of the Law who therefore call you and love you as their Brethren Fortescue in his sixth Book De laudibus Legum Angliae Cap. 50. compares your Dignities with the chief Degrees of the Academies And there is no Argument that proves the Nobleness of the one but it is as strong and militant for the other I will touch upon the Reasons as they are set down in Junius his Book De Academiâ and apply them in order to this purpose First This Degree is as a Caveat to the whole State and Commonwealth that by it they may know whom to employ and whom not to employ in their weighty Causes and Consultations And so doth Fortescue appropriate Omnia Realia Placiata all the Real Actions and Pleadings of his time to the Sergeants only Secondly As St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Epistola nostra vos estis You are our Letter or Epistle So may we the Judges in our several Places say unto the Sergeants Epistela nostra vos estis You are by reason of your Degrees our Letters of Recommendation unto the Kings Majesty for his Choice and Election for the Judges of the Kingdom Because as Fortescue also truly observes no Man though never so Learned can be chosen into that eminent Place Nisi statu gradu Servientis ad Legem fuerit insignitus Thirdly and lastly This Degree of Honour is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of
Cause It is the Author of the Observations upon H. L. his History of the Reign of King Charles pag. 137. He hath not bestowed his Name upon his Reader but he hath a Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Homer Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I ought not to put him to the first Question of our Catechism Quo nomine vocaris For good Writers nay Sacred Pen-Men do not always Inscribe their Names upon their Books Scholars do invariably Father the Work and some of them say they have it from the Printer upon one that hath Wrote and Publish'd much favoring of Industry and Learning And they give Reasons which will come into the Sequel though a great while deferr'd why he blotts the good Name of King James Why he grates so often upon the mild Nature and matchless Patience of King Charles And if Fame have taken the right Sow by the Ear it is one that had provok'd the then Bishop of Lincoln in Print with great Acrimony Twenty years ago and that Anger flames out in him now as hot as ever Panthera domari nescia non semper saeuit Yet when that Bishop came out of the Tower and this Adversary sought him for Peace and Love because the Bishop was then able to do him a Displeasure he found him easie to be Reconciled What should move this Man to forget that Pacification so truly observ'd on the Bishops part who was the greater and the offended Party Naturale est odisse quem laeseris And Malice is like one of the Tour Things Prov. 30.15 That never say it is enough 'T is Degenerous for the Living to Trample upon the Dead but very Impious that he that was once a Christian nay a Christian Priest should never cease to be an Enemy The Words with which he wounds the Spanish Match through his side though otherwise he is one that witheth it had succeeded are these That that Bishop being in Power and Place at C◠the time of King James made himself the Head of the Popish Faction because he thought the Match with Spain which was then in Treaty would bring not only a Connivance to that Religion but a Toleration of it And who more like to be in Favour if that Match went on than such as were most zealous in doing Good Offices to the Catholick Cause Here 's a Knot of Catter-Pillars wrapt in a thin Cobweb so easie it will be to sweep them of The accused Person was always free of Conference Let any now living say that heard him often Discourse of the adverse Church if he did not constantly open himself not for a Gainsayer only but for a Stiff Defier of their Corrupt Doctrines although he was ever pitiful for Relaxation of their Penalties And would that Party cleave unto him for their greatest Encourager Encouragement was the least their Head could give them Beside the Thing is a Chimaera I never knew any Head of the Popish Faction in this Kingdom Others and Bishops in Rank above him have been traduced in that Name but who durst own that Office especially in the end of King James his Reign when every year almost was begirt with a Parliament and every Parliament procreated an inquisitive Committee for Matters of Religion What Mist did he walk in that neither Parliament nor Committees did detect him for Head or Patron or Undertaker call it what you will of the Pseudo-Catholick Cause could nothing but the goggle Eye of Malice discover him 135. Perhaps the Contemplation of the Spanish Match might embolden him so this Author would have us think It could not it did not take a little in the highest Topicks to both It could not For as the Anteceding Parliament was much taken with King James's Words That if the Match should not prove a fartherance to our Religion he were not Worthy to be our King so this his Majesties near Counsellor knew his meaning of which he often discours'd that when the Holy-Days of the Great Wedding were over his Majesty would deceive the Jealousies of his Subjects and be a more vigorous Defender of the Cause of the True Faith than ever And Judge the Bishop by his own Words in his Sermon Preach'd at the Funerals of that Good King that his Majesty charg'd his Son though he Married the Person of that Kings Sister never to Marry her Religion I said likewise he did not Look back to the first Letters he dispatch'd into Spain but much more let every Reader enjoy the Feature of his own Piety and Wisdom which he put into the Kings Hand to have his liking while his Majesties Dear Son was in Spain to Cure popular Discontents and sickly Suspicions which had come forth with Authority in October following if the long Treaty had not Set in a Cloud The Original Draught of his Contrivances yet remaining is thus Verbation That when the Marriage was Consummated and the Royal Bride received in England His Majesty should Publish his Gracious Declaration as followeth First To assure his Subjects throughout his three Kingdoms that there is not one word in all the Treaty of the Marriage in prejudice of our own Religion Secondly To Engage himself upon his Kingly Word to do no more for the Roman-Catholics upon the Marriage than already he did sometime voluntarily Grant out of Mercy and Goodness and uncontroulably may do in disposing of his own Mulcts and Penalties Thirdly That our Religion will be much Honoured in the Opinion of the World that the Catholic King is content to match with us nor can he Persecute with Fire and Sword such as profess no other Religion than his Brother-in-Law doth Fourthly That His Majesty shall forthwith advance strict Rules for the Confirmation of our Religion both in Heart and in the outward Profession 1. Common-Prayer to be duly performed in all Churches and Chappels Wednesdays and Fridays and two of every Family required to be present 2. Every Saturday after Common-Prayer Catechising of Children to be constantly observed 3. Confirmation called Bishopping to be carefully executed by the Bishop both in the General Visitations of his Diocese and every Six months in his own House or Palace 4. That Private Prayers shall no Day be omitted in the Family of him that is of the Degree of an Esquire else not to be so named or reputed 5. All Ladies and all Women in general to be Exhorted to bestow two hours at the least every Day in Prayer and Devotion 6. All our Churches to be Repaired and outwardly well Adorned and comely Plate to be bought for the Communion-Table 7. Dispensations for Pluralities of Livings to be granted to none upon any Qualification but Doctors and Batchelors in Divinity at the least and of them to such as are very Learned Men. 8. Bishops to encourage Public Lectures in Market-Towns of such Neighbouring Ministers as be Learned and Conformable 9. A Library of Divinity-Books to be Erected in every Shire-Town for the help of the poorer Ministers and Leave shall be
came in place of it was most Happy in a thrice Noble Progeny All beside was Flat and Unfortunate Not an Inch of the Palatinate the better for us and we the worse for our Wars in all Countries I say no more but as Q. Curtius doth Optime Miserias forunt qui abscondunt They that hide their Miseries bear them best The Observator upon H. L. I will abet him writes no more then many have Whisper'd That the Ruin of P. Charles by the Spanish Match might have been prevented the Spaniard being for the most part a more steady Friend then the wavering French I am not skilful in them to make Comparisons thus far I will adventure positively The French are as brave a people as be under the Sun Yet for my part I think we might better want them then the Spaniard The Spanish Ladies Married to the Royal Seed among us have been Vertuous Mild Thrifty beloved of all Not such a one as Harry the Sixth had from the other Nation of whom Mr. Fuller says well in his Eccles History That the King's parts seemed the lower being overtop'd by such a High Spirited Queen The Spaniards are for the most generously bountiful where Service hath deserv'd it the best Neighbours in the World for Trades Increase A Friend to his Friend with his Treasure and with his Sword But withal Refractory in his own Religion and a Hater of ours and very False where he can take occasion to enlarge his Dominions wherein we had no Cause to fear him But if the Daughter of Spain had landed upon our Shore I believe we should have had more Cause to love him 172. Which was not to be look'd for after the Prince put off from the Coast of Biscay From whence he made such haste home as the Wind would suffer and he had it in Poop till he came to the Islands of Silly the remotest Ground of the British Dominion in the West whether some Delinquents were deported of old by the Roman Emperors Here the Navy was compelled to rest because the Winds were contrary From thence the Courtiers brought home a Discourse about an old Miller who was with long Experience Weather-Wise to Admiration For he told them exactly how long they should continue there and named the Hour when after one day and a half the North-West would blow and serve their turn The Seamen who had resorted thither before knew him so well and how his Prognosticks came to pass that they prepared to Launch against that opportunity which fail'd not and attain'd Portsmouth on the Fifth of October 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odduss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though our Noble Traveller left the Lady behind that should have been his Penelope yet he came well home to his own Ithaca and to the Wise Laertes his Father His Highness left Portsmouth and came to York-House at Charing-Cross an Hour after Midnight early in the Morning Octob. 6. Praises were given to God for him in divers Churches at Morning Prayer The Lord Keeper composed an excellent Prayer for that Occasion which was used in the Chappel of Henry the VII and in the Collegiate Church at the accustomed Hours in that Place Bells and Bonfires began early and continued till Night Alms and all kind of Comfort were dispensed bountifully to the Poor and many poor Prisoners their Debts being discharg'd were Released But too often as St. Austin complain'd Publicum gaudium celebratur per publicum dedecus So Bacchanals of Drunken Riot were kept too much in London and Westminster which offended many that the Thanks due only to God should be paid to the Devil The Prince after a little rest took Coach with the Duke for Royston to attend the King his Father where the Joy at the enterview was such as surpasseth the Relation His Majesty in a short while retir'd and shut all out but his Son and the Duke with whom he held Conference till it was four Hours in the Night They that attended at the Door sometime heard a still Voice and then a loud sometime they Laught and sometime they Chased and noted such variety as they could not guess what the close might prove But it broke out at Supper that the King appear'd to take all well that no more was effected in the Voyage because the Profters for the Restitution of his Son-in-Law were no better stated by the Spanish And then that Sentence fell from him which is in Memory to this Hour That He lik'd not to Marry His Son with a Portion of His Daughters Tears His Majesty saw there was no Remedy in this Case but to go Hand in Hand with the Prince and his now prepotent Favorite Ducunt volentem fata nolentem trabuns Sen. Trag. It is easier to be led then drawn Presently it was obtain'd that is Octob. 8. That his Majesty should send an Express to the Earl of Bristol with his High Command to defer the Procuration entrusted with him and to make no use of it till Christmas whereas indeed the Power of it expired at Christmas for so it was limited in the Instrument which his Highness Signed at St. Lorenzo And by the next Post the Duke acquaints Sir W. Aston That the King himself had dictated the Letter then wrote unto him Cab. p. 36. which contain'd That His Majesty desir'd to be assur'd of the Restitution of the Palatinate before the Deposorium was made seeing he would be sorry to welcome home one Daughter with a Smiling Cheer and have his own only Daughter at the same time Weeping and Disconsolate My Lord of Buckingham had his Advisers about him yet he need not now be set on to prevent with all his Wit that the Prince might never have a Wife out of Spain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As soon should a Wolf Wed a Lamb. Aristoph Com. de pace But the King had such Esteem of the Spanish Wisdom that he did verily look that his Letters I mean these last sent to his Ambassador Resident there would quicken them to a short and real Satisfaction for the Prince Palatine's Distress and that the Treaty would sprout again which was wither'd with that obstacle 173. Our Dispatches at Court went all together that way so he that is diligent may Trace them to the end of January Some of the Letters of Mr. Secretary Conway at least somewhat out of them are useful to be produced which will also confirm the good course that the Lord Keeper took with the Spanish Ambassadors that he reserv d the Pardon and Dispensation from them to the end against all Contests of Importunity Nor suffered the Letters to the Lord Bishops and Judges to go abroad for the Suspension of some Penal Statutes whereupon the Fat of the Project of the Papists dript insensibly away at a slow Fire After the Prince had rested at Roiston but one Night his Majesty caused Directions to be sent to the Lord Keeper for the Enlargement of the Roman Priests
Choler in his Complexion Yet that it could not appear but that the Marriage on King Philip's part was very sincerely meant in all the Treaty most clearly when his Highness took his Farewell most openly since his Departure Wherein the Earl of Bristol had much wronged that great Monarch giving him a Bastle insupportable For when the Power of Revocation or rather Repression of the Proxy was peremptorily in his Lordship's hand he did not acquaint the King of Spain to stop him from erecting a Gallery turned by the Earl's Negligence into a Gullery in the open Streets covered with the richest Tapestry and set forth with all other Circumstances of Wealth and State to conduct the Infanta in open View and with most magnificent Solemnity to the Deposorios when by the Instruments and Commissions the Earl had lately received he knew these augustious Preparations would be ridiculously disappointed which was a Despight that a Gentleman not to say an Embassador should have prevented For the Disgrace was so far blown abroad with Derision that it was the News of Gazette's over all Europe The Intention of that Nation to give the Infanta in Marriage to the Prince being not controverted Yet his Highness protesting on his part that he was free unless the Palatinate were surrendred they were all satisfy'd with it his Word was Justice to them and that which was in his own Breast must alone direct him how to use his Freedom This Question dispatched was upon a blown Rose the next was upon a Bramble The Lord Duke was so zealous say it was for the Palsgrave's Sake that he voted the King of Spain to be desied with open War till amends were made to the illustrious Prince Elector for the Wrongs he sustained The Lords appointed for the Conference that apprehended it otherwise were the Keeper Treasurer Duke of Richmond Marquess Hamilton Earl of Arundâ—l Lord Carow Lord Belfast who could not say that the King of Spain had done the part of a Friend for the Recovery of the Palatinate as he had profess'd nor yet could they find that he had acted the Part of an Enemy declaredly as was objected Their Judgment was the Girts of Peace were slack but not broken This is couched in the Admonitions of an Ignote unto King James Cab. p. 278. The Conference or Treaty about the Palatinate was taken from the Council of State a Society of most prudent Men only for this Cause that almost every one of them had with one Consent approved the Propositions of the most Catholick King and did not find in it any Cause of dissolving the Treaty And a little beneath The Duke fled from the Council of State and disclaimed it for a Parliament by way of an Appeal Most true that scarce any in all the Consulto did vote to my Lord Duke's Satissaction which made him rise up and chase against them from Room to Room as a Hen that hath lost her Brood and clucks up and down when she hath none to follow her The next time he saw the Lord Belfast he asked him with Disdain Are you turned too and so flung from him Cab. p. 243. To which the Lord Belfast answered honestly in a short Letter That he would conform himself in all things to the Will and good Pleasure of the King his Master The greatest Grudge was against the Lord Keeper who seldom spake but all Opinions ran into his one as they did at this time and the Duke presumed that his Sentence should never vary from his own Mind An hard Injunction and all the Favour on Earth is too dear to be bought at such a Price But he declared that he saw no Expediency for War upon the Grounds communicated For upon whom should we fall says he either upon the Emperor or the King of Spain The Emperor had in a fort offered our King his Son-in-Law's Country again for a great Sum in Recompence of Disbursments but where was the Money to be had Yet it might be cheaper bought than conquered before a War were ended For the King of Spain he saw no Cause to assault him with Arms He had held us indeed in a long Treaty to our Loss but he held nothing from us and was more likely to continue the State of things in a possibility of Accommodation because he disliked the Duke of Bavaria's Ambition and had rather stop the Enlargement of his Territories The King was glad that some maintained his Judgment and would not consent wantonly to raise him from the Down Bed of his long admired Peace Neither did he refrain to speak very hardly of that Servant whom he loved best that agitated to compel him to draw the Sword one of the great Plagues of God His Censure upon him was bitter Cab. P. 92. but fit to be cast over-board in silence 176. A King of Peace is not only sittest to build Temples but is the Temple of God Such a one doth foresee how long how far how dangerously the Fire of War will burn before he put a Torch to kindle it And as every Bishop ought to have a care of the Universal Church so every King ought to have a care of all Humane Society It is not such a thing to raise War in these Days as it was in Abraham's Muster his Servants in one Day and rescue Lot from his Enemies the next Nor such as it was with the old Romans make a Summers Laâ—rt in Vit. before he laid down his Office The Charge in our Age which usually for many Years doth oppress the People will hardly countervail if GOD should send it the Gladness of a Victory Nor is all fear over when a War is ended But as Solon says Lacrt. in Vit. Great Commanders when they have done their Work abroad and are return'd with Honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do more Mischief by their Factions to their Country than they did against their Enemies And whosever scape well the poor Church is like to suffer two ways First as Camden says Eliz. Ann. 1583. Schismatica pravitas semper bello ardente maxime luxuriat Schismatical Pravity will grow up under the Licentiousness of War Some profane Buff-Coats will Authorize such Incendiaries Secondly For some Hundreds of Years by-past in Christendom I cannot find but where Wars have been protracted the Churchman's Revenue hath been in danger to pay the Soldiers If this affect not those that will not think that there is such a Sin as Sacrilege yet all acknowledge that there is such a Virtue as Humane Compassion Then they that would awake drouzy Peace as they call it with the Noise of the Drum and the prancing of Horses in the Street let them before they design their War describe before their Consciences the heaps of slaughter'd Carkasses which will come after That the Land which is before tâ—en shaâ—I look like the Garden of the Lord and that which is behind them like Burning and Brimstone For all this will they tempt God and be the Foes of
their Clutches that by Arms or cunning Treaties do Usurp it But the way and Manner in Discovering the Couchant Enemy in preserving that handful of our Friends in laying down some Course of Diversion and the like you do most wisely and modestly refer to the proper Oracle His Majesties Wisdom and Deep Counsel Yea but I must tell you Mr. Speaker Vinci in amore turpissimum the King cannot endure to be outvyed by his People in Love and Courtesies What you in Duty do refer to him his Majesty in Confidence of your Wisdom and Loving Assections returns upon You. You say you would have the King betake him to sound Counsel You are his Counsel Consilium magnum his Main and Principal Counsel It is very true That since the begining of Harry the 8th the Kings of England have reserved those Matters to their own Conisance and Resolution But it is as true that from Harry the First until that Harry the Last our Kings have in every one of those Questions Repaired to and received Advice of their Parliaments Id verum quod primum Our Master means to follow the former Precedents His Majesty Commands me to yield unto you Hearty Thanks for your just Resentments of his Sufferings in this Cause and to tell you withall that because the main of the Expedition is to be born by the Persons and Purses of the People whom you do represent He is pleased to accept of the Advice of the House of Commons concerning the finding out of this secret Enemy the re-inforcing of our remaining Friends and by what kind of Diversion we shall begin the Enterprize And God the Holy Ghost be present with you in all your Consultations 184. In the Ninth Place That Well of Wood our Navy Royal wherewith you well observed this whole Island to be most strongly fortified we must all attribute the well Rigging and good Condition of it to the great Cost Care and Providence of his Sacred Majesty Hic tot sustinuit hic tanta negotia solus And yet as that Carver that beautified the Temple of Diana although he wrought upon other Mens Charges was suffered notwithstanding to engrave his own Name in some eminent Places of the Building So surely can it be denied by Envy it self but that most Noble Lord who is now a compleat Master in his Art and hath spent his seven years Studies in the Beautifying of the Navy should have a glorious Name enstamped thereupon though in a sitting Distance from his Lord and Master whose Princely Majesty A longe sequitur vestigia semper adorans Lastly For the Reformation of Ireland this I am bidden to deliver Pliny commending the Emperor Trajan to the utmost reach of Eloquence says That the most laudable and most remarkable Point in all his happy Government was That his Care was not consined to Italy alone but Instar solis like the Beams and Influence of the Sun it shed it self to many other Countries Surely his Majesty's Providence is of a large Extent for where the Sun scarce darteth his Beams his Majesty hath shined most gloriously by the Execution of wholsome Laws engrafting Civility and Planting true Religion And let this be our Soveraign's Comfort that though this poor Kingdom though never so reformed shall add very little to his Crown of Temporal Majesty here on Earth it will be an Occasion of an immense Access to his Crown of Glory hereafter in Heaven And now for your four Petitions Mr. Speaker his Majesty grants them all in one Word What Priviledge Liberty Access or fair Interpretation was ever yielded to the Members of that House his Majesty grants them to the Knights and Burgesses now assembled fully and freely without the least Jealousie Qualification or Suspicion I will only add a Memorandum out of Valerius Maximus to cut an even Thred between King and People Quid Cato sine Libertate Quid libertas sine Catone What is Wisdom without Liberty to shew it And what is Liberty without Wisdom to use it 185. Hitherto the King spake to the People by the Lord Keeper's Mouth and then the House rose All rejoyced that such gracious Concessions were returned to Mr. Speaker's Motions which were the Beam that held up the insequent Counsels till the Roof was covered with Agreement And it took the more that it was inlaid with such Mosaick Work not to the Eye but to the Ear by a perfect Orator It was the greatest and the knowingest Auditory that this Kingdom or perhaps the World afforded whose general Applause he carried away to as much as Modesty could desire Isocrates extolling the famous Acts of Evagoras before the full Celebrity of the Athenians exulted that Evagoras was approved by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose good Opinion was more honorable to him than all the Earths beside It was a happy sight at that time to see the Patriots of both Houses depart with Hands held up to God and with Smiles in their Looks that you might think they said one to another as the Princes of the Congregation and the Heads of the Thousands of Israel said to the Children of Reuben and Gad c. This day we perceive that the Lord is among us Jos 22.31 The Lord Keeper was summoned in three days after to a fresh Business and a larger Task than the former So fine a Tongue was sure not to want Work The Lords and Commons were brought into the Banqueting-House at White-Hall Feb. 24. where the Duke of Buckingham spake unto them leading them into the Maeanders of the Spanish Treatise and lead them out of them by the Clew of his own Diligence as he spared not to give himself the Honour of it For this time he was the Alcibiades that pleased the Common-wealth His Zeal and unremovable Pertinacy not to cope with the Spaniard in any Proposition unless the Prince Elector might be brought into his own Land again with an honorable Post liminium did enter inwardly and into the Marrow of all pitiful Affections But when he unfolded how strong the Prince was to the Principles of the right Faith and how attendant and dutious himself was to see that no Emissaries should poyson his Highness's Heart the general Suffrage was that the Prince had march'd valiantly like a Captain of Holy Truth and that the Duke deserved a great Name as a Lieutenant that maintained the Cause of God under him For it was ever easie to strike the good People of England half blind with the Dazling of Religion So much did the Parliament thirst for the Report of this Narration that it was imposed on the Lord Keeper to make it the next day All that might be done was that he took him to his Memory and to his Pen and drew up three Sheets of Paper upon it in a fast and scarce legible Hand He must proceed by the Pattern My Lord Duke's Oration was the only part of Speech he must follow and like a wise Man whatsoever he thought he must make
That if his Majesty should receive any intelligence that he was deteined in that State as a Prisoner he would be pleased for his sake never to think of him more as a Son but to reflect with all his Royal Thoughts upon the good of his Sister and upon the safety of his own Kingdoms Sic omnes unus amores vicit amor patriae And so far to the Supplements I must now explicate their Lordships Opinion who having by the Command of his Majesty taken into their Mature Considerations the whole Narration made by the Prince his Highness and my Lord Duke to both Houses in this place and all the Letters and Dispatches read unto them to corroborate the same And Lastly these Supplements and Additions recited before are of opinion upon the whole Bulk of the matter that his Majesty cannot rely upon or maintain any longer either of both these Treaties concerning the Match with Spain or the Restitution of the Palatinate with the safety of his Religion his Honour his Estate or the Weal and Estate of his Grand-Children And his Highness together with their Lordships are desirous to know whether you Gentlemen the Knights Burgesses and Citizens of the House of Commons do concur with their Lordships in this their Opinion which they ever referred to this further Conference with your Honourable House 192. As Plutarch said of the Laconick Apothegms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were Clean and Sound Timber with the Bark taken off So the Reader may observe in these Reports that the Matter is Heart of Oak the Style clear from Obscurity and disbark'd quite from superduity But regarding the Auditors and their Affections at that Season nothing could be more proper for he spake to their Content as if he had been within them with Sweet and Piercing Expressions resembled in the Harp and the Quiver of Arrows with which the Heathen Trimm'd up Apollo their Deity of Graceful Speech They that detract from such Worth would be glad it were their own as says our compleat Poet upon the like A good Man 's Envied by such as would For all their Spight be like him if they could But this beginning presaged good Luck to the ensuing Counsels debated in that Session This is called to this day the Blessed Parliament and so Posterity will take it from us Says Tully very well 3. Philip. Magna vis est magnum numen unum idem consentient is senatus A full Senate Head and Members consenting in one carries a Majestick and Oraculous Authority with it This is the Confirmation of it when the people brought before the King the Fruits of their Wisdom which they had Studied And the King did ratifie him chearfully with the Wisdom of his Power They opened their Purse to him and which was more beneficial to them then if they had spared a little Mony he let fall some Flowers off his Crown that they might gather them up which indeed was no more then desluvium pennarum the Molting of some Feathers after which the Eagle would Fly the better He opened his Ear to them in all their Petitions and they listned as much to him and gave their Ear-Rings to Jacob Gen. 35.4 So the King and the Subject became perfect Unisons And as God doth knit his own Glory and the Salvation of mankind together so the King did imitate God and Married his Honour with the welfare of the Kingdom Who is it that reads the Statutes 21 Jacobi and doth not admire them The Peers took it to be their greatest Nobility to look well to the Publick And the other House did light upon the True Companion of Wisdom Sâ—data Tranquillitas a Calm Tranquility as Rivers are deepest where they Foam least And all the Land had cause of rejoycing that the House of Commons was never better Replenish'd in Man's Memory with Knights and Burgesses of rare Parts and Tempers especially the Gown-men of the Inns of Courts who were extoli'd for Knowledge and political Prudence as no Age had afforded a better Pack And I give the Lord Keeper his Right and no more knowing his Traces perfectly at that time that he labour'd as for Life to keep an Harmony between the King and this Parliament to suck out his Majesties assent to all their Proceedings that he might shew himself as good as he was great Which I think was the greatest certainly the happiest part of Honour that ever the Lord Keeper Merited How he mitigated Discontents and softned refractoriness how he obliged the leading Voices with benefits how he kept the Prerogative of the Supreme Power and the Extravagancies of pretended Liberty on the other side from Encroachments the Wise only knew but they that knew it not were the better for it and that he was chiefly us'd in Consultation for compiling those wholesom Laws which had their double Resining and Clarifying from Lords and Commons In all likelihood prosperous success might be expected from this Parliament because it was Pious and Pious because it was a strict preserver of the Holy Patrimony Allotted to God Quae 〈…〉 erunt quam quibus Deus praestitit auxilium says Ansonius to the Emperor 〈◊〉 What Counsels are more compleat then those that are help'd by God Nay What Councels can be more compleat then theirs that defend the Right of God As worser times would let the Clergy keep nothing so those times by their good Will would let them part with nothing Let the Trial be observ'd as the Case follows 193. The Duke of Buckingham lack'd a dwelling according to the Port of his Title and to receive a very populous Family It must be near to Whitehal and it must be spacious None could be found so fit as the Arch-Bishop of York his House It was nigh to Charing-Cross and he came little to it The Duke us'd the Lord Keeper to move Arch-Bishop Mathew for his Consent and to make the Bargain between them causing him to make prosser of such Lands in the County of York as should be equivalent or better then the House Garden and Tenements belonging to the Arch-Bishop's Place For nothing was intended but Exchange with considerable Advantage to him and his Successors And that was sure as touch because the House was to be past by Act of Parliament to the Kings Majesty So the Duke had made it his humble Request and drew on the King hardly to make a Chop with those Demeasnes to which the Name of God and his Christ were made the Feoffees in the first Donation for the use of that Tribe which peculiarly serves him in Sacred Offices Yet with instance and much Suit the King was wrought to it for the Duke's sake As M. Antony said to his Confident Septimius Quod Concupiscas tu videris quod concupieris certè habebis Tul. 5. Philip. So this Beloved Minion should be Wise to see what he ask'd for his Master had no Power to say him nay His Majesty was most Nice and Cautious to make the Composition
Considerations of Delay aside I humbly desire your Grace that no Universal Alteration may be made of the Tenure of the Crown Lands And First Because the Money got thereby will not be much and will instantly be gone Secondly The Infamy in Chronicles will be eternal upon our most gracious Master Thirdly The Prince cannot cordially assent thereunto or if he do it is impossible his Wisdom considered but that hereafter he should repent him and much abhor the Authors and Actors of this Counsel Lastly If the Prince should be of the same Mind with his Father yet their Successors will have good Pretences to prosecute everlastingly the Names and Posterities of all such Advisers In this It may be seen that it is common with Projectors to Angle for Wit and catch Folly to spread their Nets for a Draught and to drag up nothing but Weeds and Mud. What Brokerly Bargain was here about to be made How unsuiting to the King of Great Britain fitter for a poor Merchant that was sunk to sell all he had and fly his Country What! depart with all to make two or three merry Years of it Is it not like the Man that burnt his House in a cold Winter which should shelter his Head for ever to warm his Hands Would those Vermine that did eat up the Wealth of the Court expose their Master to that Tyranny to have him live wholly upon the Common Spoils when he had made away his own Substance and was driven to that Necessity And were they not worthy to be thought upon that should live in the next Generation Our Fore-Fathers were good Stewards and treasured up for their Children and shall we undo Posterity before they are born and spend their Part as well as our own as if we wish'd the World might die with us One good Heathen was worthy twenty such Christians in Zeal to the eternal flourishing of a Common-wealth Says Tully in the Mouth of his Laelius Non minori mihi curae est qualis post mortem Respub futura sit quà m qualis est hodie Those that were not publick Spirits but contrary to the succeeding Glory of this Monarchy the Lord Keeper could not brook but as he had got Honour by being Wise and Faithful so he was resolved to be Wise and Faithful though he lost his Honour 209. The next Design made this sick Man hasten to come out of his Chamber a Letter would not suffice to oppose it There is no Script of it remaining in the Cabal nor in any other Pamphlet that I have read It was a Mischief not better prevented than concealed from the World that it was prevented But the Relation of the Lord Keeper to him that heard it of him when it was fresh and in motion hath been preserved in the Desk and comes forth now to publick Knowledge Rem tibi auctorem dabo as Plautus says whereby the Men of these times may see how the Sale of Church-Lands was plotted before they were swept away with an Ordinance and that Earnest was offered for them long ago Dr. Preston the Master of Emanuel Colledge entred far into such a Proposition a shrewd wise Man a very Learned and of esteemed Piety but zealous for a new Discipline and given to Change When I see good Parts not always well used or a worthy Scholar not well affected to the Church that begat him in Christ and nursed him up I cannot but remember a Tale in Baronius Ann. 513. com 27. thoug I care not for believing it That Theodorus Bishop of Seleucia was much in love with the strict Life and Piety of a Monk a Syrian by Nation that cared not for the Communion of the Church at which Theodorus was scandalized that so vertuous a Man should incline to be a Schismatick till God satisfied him in a Vision for says he Vidi columbam super caput ejus stantem fuliginosam squalidam he saw the Holy Ghost come upon him but in the Shape of a rusty sooty coloured Dove But before the Artifice of Dr. Preston be display'd Judgment must pass how the great Duke was prepared to be wrought upon When all men talkt jocundly upon the next Session of Parliament appointed for April they that were watchful for the Duke's Safety saw Cause to fear least the Predestination of that Session might turn to be his Grace's Reprobation The King his Master was too Politick to seem weary of him now become the most affected of his Son but half an Eye might discern he was not fond of him The Earl of Bristol who had seen much Abroad and knew much at Home was charged in his Absence from his Mouth with great Errors that he had deluded the King with Hopes of a Marriage from Spain never intended and with Crimes that he had if not Counselled the Prince to alter his Religion yet to temporize as if he held it in a slip Knot and could pass it easily from him if his Highness might win the Garland he came for The Earl in his Replication defied the Duke and vowed to charge upon his Head that in his Expedition to Spain he had done the worst Service and the highest Wrongs that a Subject could do to a Soveraign His Majesty umpir'd between both with that fatal Indifferency that he would hear Buckingham against Bristol and Bristol against Buckingham before the two houses in due time And his manner of Justice was not unknown that he would shelter no man against the General and Concluded Sentence of a Parliament Antoninus was a wise Emperor that never stood out against the Common Vote of the Senate and never varied from that Saying says Capitolinus Aequum est ut ego tot ac talium amicorum consilium sequar quà m ut tot tales amici mei unius voluntatem sequantur And if the King should shrink from him the Peers and Commons were like to receive him unkindly His Greatness though it wained with the Father it increased with the Son and was like to flourish ever by this latter Spring but the more it grew the worse it was lik'd He was the Top-sail of the Nobility and in Power and Trust of Offices far above all the Nobility Whither the Lords maligned this because they did not share or whither they conceived it dangerous to the State their own Hearts knew best One thing is sure that many of them did not palliate their Dis-relish but girded at it upon all Occasions It was come to pass that he only turned the Key to all that were let in to the King or Prince And his multiformous Places compell'd such a swarm of Suitors to hum about him that the Train that continually jogged after him look'd like the Stream of a Blazing Star fatal and ominous Therefore it was studied by the wisest of those that were upheld by his Grace and resorted most unto him that either his Lordship must hope in a War and that speedily and be flush of Money to be prodigal among the
Wherein the Lord Keeper interceded with the Duke to the incurring a mighty Anger as may be seen by the Letters of Decem. 24. and Jan. 4. Cab. p. 99. If Threatings had been mortal Shot he had Perisht for he never had such a Chiding before but he kept his Ground because he held the fairer side of the Quarrel Dr. Meriton the Dean of York was lately Dead and much Deplor'd For he was an Ornament to the Church My Lord Duke entreated by great ones named a Successor that had no Seasoning or Tast of Matter in him one Dr. Scot But a Doctor Inter Doctores Bullatos for he never stood in the Commencement to approve himself beside too many Faults to be ript up I have known a Scholar in Cambridge so bad a Rider that no Man for Love or Price would furnish him with a Horse I would have thought no Man would have furnisht such a Scholar as this with a Deanery chiefly of York It came about strangely Scot was a Prodigal Gamster and had lost upon the Ticket to a Noble Person far more then he was worth Which Debt his Creditor knew not how to recover but by Thrusting him aided with my Lord Dukes Power into this Rich Preferment The Casuists among all the Species of Simony never Dream'd of this which may be called Simonia Aleatoria when a Gamester is Installed into a goodly Dignity to make him capable to pay the Scores of that which he had lost with a bad Hand And yet the Man Died in the Kings-Bench and was not Solvent The Lord Keeper intending to put of Dr. Scot from this place besought for the remove of those most worthy Divines Dr. White or Dr. Hall or to Collate it upon Dr. Warner the most Charitable and very Prudent Bishop of Rochester But he was so terrified for giving this good Counsel that he writes now he knew his Graces Resolution he would alter his Opinion and would be careful in giving the least Cause of Jealousie in that kind again Yet it is a received Maxime Defuturos eos qui suaderent si suasisse sit periculum Curt. l. 3. Certainly with others this might work to his Esteem but nothing to his Prejudice And I dare confidently avouch what I knowingly speak that I may use the Words of my industrious Friend Mr. T. F. in his Church History That the Solicitation for Dr. Theodore Price about Two Months after was not the first motive of a Breach between the Keeper and the Duke the day-light clears that without dusky conjectures no nor any Process to more unkindness then was before which was indeed grown too high The Case is quickly Unfolded Dr. Price was Country Man Kinsman and great Acquaintance of the Lord Keepers By whose procurement he was sent a Commissioner into Ireland two years before with Mr. Justice Jones Sir T. Crew Sir James Perrot and others to rectifie Grievances in Church and Civil State that were complain'd In Executing which Commission he came of with Praise and with Encouragement from His Majesty that he should not fail of Recompence for his Well-doing Much about the time that the Prince return'd out of Spain the Bishoprick of Asaph soll void the County of Merioneth where Dr. Price was Born being in the Diocess The Lord Keeper attempted to get that Bishoprick for Dr. Price But the Prince since the time that by his Patent he was styled Prince of Wales had Claimed the Bishopricks of that Principality for his own Chaplains So Dr. Melburn and Dr. Carlton were preferr'd to St. Davids and Landaff And Asaph was now Conferr'd upon Dr. Hanmer his Highness's Chaplain that well deserv'd it A little before King James's Death Dr. Hampton Primate of Armach as stout a Prelate and as good a Governor as the See had ever enjoy'd Died in a good old Age. Whereupon the Keeper interposed for Dr. Price to Succeed him But the Eminent Learning of Dr. Usher for who could match him all in all in Europe carried it from his Rival Dr. Price was very Rational and a Divine among those of the first Note according to the small skill of my Perceivance And his Hearers did testifie as much that were present at his Latin Sermon and his Lectures pro gradu in Oxford But because he had never Preach'd so much as one Sermon before the King and had left to do his calling in the Pulpit for many years it would not be admitted that he should Ascend to the Primacy of Armach no nor so much as succeed Dr. Usher in the Bishoprick of Meth. To which Objection his Kinsman that stickled for his Preferment could give no good Answer and drew of with so much ease upon it that the Reverend Dr. Usher had no cause to Regret at the Lord Keeper for an Adversary Neither did Dr. Price ever shew him Love after that day and the Church of England then or sooner lost the Doctors Heart 214. It is certain that all Grants at the Court went with the Current of my Lord Dukes Favour None had Power to oppose it nor the King the Will For he Rul'd all his Majesties Designs I may not say his Affections Yet the L. Keeper declin'd him sometimes in the Dispatches of his Office upon great and just Cause Whereupon the King would say in his pleasant Manners That he was a stout Man that durst do more than himself For since his Highness's return out of Spain if any Offices were procur'd in State of Reversion or any Advouzons of Church Dignities he interpos'd and stopt the Patents as Injurious to the Prince to whose Donation they ought to belong in just time and preserv'd them for him that all such Rewards might come entire and undefloured to his Patronage Wherein his Highness maintain'd his Stiffness for that foresight did procure that his own Beneficence should be unprevented And he carried that Respect to the Dukes Honour nay to his Safety for notice was taken of it that he would not admit his Messages in the Hearing of Causes no not when his chief Servants attended openly in Court to Countenance those Messages to carry him a-wry and to oppress the Poorest and whose Faces he had never seen with the least wrong Judicii tenax suit neque aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit as Capitolinus makes it a good Note of Maximus He would believe his own Judgment and his own Ears what they heard out of Depositions and not the Representation of his best Friends that came from partial Suggestions Such Demands as are too heavy to ascend let them fall down in pieces or they will break him at the last that gives them his Hand to lift them up In this only he would not stoop to his Grace but pleas'd himself that he did displease him And being threatned his best Mitigation was That perhaps it was not safe for him to deny so great a Lord yet it was safest for his Lordship to be Denied It was well return'd For no Arrand was so privily conveyed
Carriage of my Petitions and speedy return of an Answer and assur'd his Lordship it was as much Favour from him as I could expect or desire Then I took occasion to kneel afterward and thank'd his Majesty for his gracious Message sent by my Lord who presently told my Lord Conway of it and my Lord told me of it again And that the King left it to me when between this and Allhallowtide to deliver the Seal which he desir'd for the manner to be done most to my Content and Reputation and to have some time to send for him that was to succeed I answer'd I was ready whenever his Majesty would send his Warrant Which my Lord desir'd I would draw up and so we parted 26. I sent upon Tuesday the 18th of October to desire leave to speak with the King and Mr. Tho. Cary sent me word his Majesty would speak with me the next Morning But after Sermon the King told my Lord Conway what I had done and was in a long and serious Discourse with him Then my Lord Conway the King being gone to dinner followed me into the Cloyster and told me what the King had told him And that he conceiv'd his Majesty was afraid that I would press him to yield Reasons of those two Acts of his the removing me from the Seal and my abstaining from the Board That his Lordship found the King much troubled thereat and as a Friend nay as a Christian man he advised me by way of Counsel not to do so because it would much perplex the King and do me no good I answer'd That I should falsifie my Word to his Lordship if I should speak unto his Majesty upon any other Points than those of my Reputation and Means And should not come near those forbidden Rocks unless it were in one Point which I did intend to move but with his Lordship's Approbation and that was to preserve as much the Honoar of the King as mine own that for the manner of wishing my forbearance for a time from the Council-Board his Majesty laying nothing to my Charge would not be pleas'd to lay it as a Command by his Secretary but leave it to my Discretion who would be sure to use the matter as to give his Majesty no Offence That the rest of the Points were matters of means which I repeated to my Lord Conway one by one And his Lordship said He thought verily the King would grant them every one And his Lordship telling me again of his fear of the King's Offence if I should endeavour to unsettle his Resolution and that the King might fall sharp upon me I answer'd That his Lordship knew I had neglected the time to wrangle with the King which should have been done upon the first message Against which I had two unanswerable Objections The first that the King that dead is released me of the Restraint to three Years in my Office and continued me in the Place four Years The second that the King my Master delivered me the Seal as absolutely as his Predecessors did to other Keepers and Chancellors without reviving or mentioning any such Condition But that I had waved of all Objections and submitted at the first word to relinquish my Place And for sharpness or the like word which passed from his Lordship on Sunday last or that the King wisht my absence from the Board lest Matters might be further question'd his Lordship said he remembred it not I said Nec timeo nec opto it was a thing I did neither fear like a guilty Man nor rashly desire like a vain-glorious Man But my wishes were to retire to the Country as without a Charge by the King 's own Confession so as near as may be without any punishment which concern'd the King in Honour I thought as much as it did me For God never destroys his Creature but for some Sin And if his Majesty did think the losing of my Place did disquiet me to give him satisfaction I vowed and protested it did not which my Lord-Duke also had under my hand And that with his Majesty's leave and favour and some consideration had of my Fortunes I was willing to leave the Seal Only I expected I should remain a Councellor tho' lest to my discretion when to attend and be respected by the Lords from time time as a Member of the Board My Lord said He conceiv'd it no otherwise and that I might promise my self all respect from that Table and his Majesty in that kind Then said I my Lord There remains no more but that I shew a Letter to your Lordship written to his Majesty if you like it which shall speak all my mind because I will be utterly silent when I come at Evening before his Majesty save in preferring my Petitions in which your Lordship did encourage me Which Letter in the Copy his Lordship read over and carried the Authentick with him And so we parted 27. After Dinner his Majesty took the Letter and read that which followeth Most gracious Sovereign HAving done your blessed Father the best Service I was able while he lived I am sure such as was acceptable to him and some good Service at his Death and being now fitted with a great deal of Industry to do some Service to your Majesty in your great Affairs yet it is your Royal Pleasure to displace me not for any Crime or Unserviceableness but to satisfie the Importunity of a great Lord. But I am ready with all Submission to bow myself to the Pleasure of God and my King It is in your Majesty's Power to say to me your Vassal as a Greek Emperor did to an Arch-bishop Ego te Furne condidi ego te destruam I cast my self down at your Majesty's Feet and do render your Majesty my unexpressible Thanks that it hath pleased your Majesty to discharge me of this great Place without giving me any cause at all to use an Apology Yet being still haunted with the old Aspersions in Court the which were they true in any part would fret and tear my Soul in pieces give me leave dread Sovereign to make this last protestation in the sight of that God who must judge you and my Accusers if any such there be another day that in all my Carriage in the last Parliament I am not guilty in Thought Word or Deed of any one Act Advice Speech or Counsel disserviceable to your Majesty or any way diverting that end which your Majesty proposed unto us concerning that Assembly Upon the same protestation I likewise avow before God and your Majesty that I am not conscious of the least Unfaithfulness against my Lord-Duke by way of insinuating encouraging or abetting any one Clamour or Aspersion against his Grace or by omitting any one friendly Word or Action upon any opportunity I found to do him Service Your Majesty can tell how I put my Life into his Hand and Power above a Year since in the Business of the Spanish Embassadors
of an evil Life mention'd in the 109 Canon Wherein the Bishop did not commend the Proceedings of his deputed Judges Though it might be said in favour of them that Humane Laws are strictest against them that act contrary to publick Peace Or that Crimes are punishable by Statutes and are fitter for Tryal at a Quarter Sessions Some spied into another Reason that Proctors and Registers wanted not those Scandals themselves for which in the Eye of the World they were fit to be presented Yet when all is said it were more laudable in Courts Christian to be more severe against Evils which the Light of Nature had made Evils than against Evils which were made Evils by the Laws of Holy Church Both were to be corrected but rather Works of Commission against known Light than Trespasses of Omission for want of Light of Understanding The hardest Task which the Bishop had was to perswade his Officers to live by honest Gains to moderate their Fees to wash their Hands from bribes and filthy Lucre the only way to live in clear Fame that Men might speak well of them and of their Authority Covetousness is not a Branch but a Root of Evil says St. Paul all that grows may be seen in a Plant but not the Root Whose Example is more fit to shew it than Tribonius who digested the Code of the Civil Law of whom Suidas says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was most subtle to shadow and cover the Disease of Covetousness From thence proceed the Delays that consume the Substance of Appellant and Defendant and make them curse such expectative Proceedings Whose Clamors incited the Bishop to Passion sometimes and to call upon them instantly for dispatch For how long will an Horse-leach suck if it be not pull'd off A little is taken to enter a Cause but the Price increaseth at every turn when it is brought to Examination Like German Toss-pots that drink small Cups at first and quaff down great Bowls when they are drunk Similer says of the Cantons where he liv'd that the People lik'd Expedition in their Causes as much as Justice Quod si in judiciis nostris error aliquis committitur in causis implicicis obscuris nequaquam tantum damni inde datur quantum ex litium diuturna prorogatione accipitur Res â—â—el p. 140. 46. If a Curse were of moment as when a whole Parish were in a Broil about it the bishop appointed a Consistory to rule it with his own Presence and Judgment He trusted not his Chancellor and Commissaries upon old Experience but like a wise Governour he look'd upon them with a new Probation in every great Cause as if he had never known them What greater Praise could Symmachus have given to Theodosius in point of using his Counsellors than this Solenne est ei singulos ut novos semper expendere nec consuetudini condonare judicium Ep. p. 124. A Magistrate that will not research his Deputies but leaves them to their Work with an indefinite Confidence in their Honesties doth as absurdly as Tanner the Jesuite spake absurdly in the Colloquy at Reinsberg That the Pope might err unless he did use all due and ordinary means but without all doubt and question he did ever use those means The Bishop had a deeper insight into Man and never fail'd to be Rector Chori in Causes that requir'd a more special Audience Wherein he spared himself so little and gave so much ease to the People that he did often ride to the parts of his Diocess remotest from his ordinary home as Leicester Buckinghamshire Wellen in Hartfordshire c. and kept his Courts where all the Complainants were at hand to attend them A way of great content and much neglected Yet the 125 Canon provides That all Officials should appoint meet places for the keeping of their Courts as should be expedient for entertainment of those that made their appearance and most indifferent for their Travail and that they may return homewards in as due season as may be But these Courts which kept Peace among the Sons of the Church and super-intended over Delinquents are quite ex-authorized taken in pieces as musty Vessels wherein nothing kept sweet that was put into them The Fault was in the Demolishers that had no better Scent they had Noses and smelt not For whereas the Grievance pretended was that they had too much Power the Truth is on the contrary that they could not do their work as they ought to satisfie the People and to beat down Sin because they had too little Take their highest and in a manner their only censure Excommunication terrible in it self What doth a profane Person care for it Prosecute them with Writs de Excommunicatis capiendis and all the Grist that came to their Mill would not pay the cost of it What a Coil hath been made to set up Consistories of Ministers and ruling Elders that should proceed against Scandals with rebukes suspension from the Sacrament open penance and lastly as they expound it let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican Make the Sinner liable to Imprisonment to destraining to a Forfeiture to some loss in his profit and he will be sure to feel it and sly from the occasion Confess the Truth will not many look better to outward Honesty if you discipline them in their Purse Bucer fell upon this in an Epistle to Luther Scrip. Anglic. p. 657. Excommunicationis loco egregiam in multis civitatibus disciplinam poenas sceleribus dignas sancitas esse And Erastus writes like a wise Man that noted other ways than Presbyterian Censures to rectifie the common Disorders of Christians as to straiten them in Priviledges of Reputation and Matters of Gain which none should communicate in but the obedient Simler says Helv. Hist p. 148. There was not a Minister admitted into the Consistory of Scaphuse but the most Judicious of the Laity exercis'd that Authority because their Punishments did chiefly extend against the Body or the Fortunes of the Peccant What little good hath the Stool of Repentance wrought among the fierce natur'd Scots They have sat so long upon it that they know not how to blush at it We should be shame-fac'd Nay which is better we should be innocent but we are neither Plato says in his Protagoras that lest Men should fall into the Confusion of all Sin God had given them two Blessings to restrain them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shame and Justice But since we have lost Shame Justice must take another course and let us blood in that Vein which may most probably cure us Ploratur lacrymis amissa pecunia veris Juven Sat. 13. Set a Fine upon their Heads that deserve it and it will vex their Hearts But no more of Jurisdiction dissolv'd Rosa hyeme non est rosa It was yet to be remembred for his sake that was the Honour of it whilst it stood 47. For it was murmur'd a good while before the
and known to Thousands Nam lux altissima fati-occultum nihil essesinit Claud. Paneg. 4. Honor. What Spight is this to be silent in that which was certainly so and to engrave with a Pen of Steel that which was ignominous uncertain nay a falsity which hath travelled hither out of the Mountains 200 Miles So Jos Scaliger revealed his Disdain against some Criticks in his Notes upon Manil. p. 175. Ubi reprehendendi sumus tunc nominis nostri frequens mentio alià s mirum silentium I need no Pardon that I could not hold in to leave this Admonition behind at the last Stage of his Episcopal Work his general Visitation which was applauded much by all except two sorts of men Some that had not done their Duty and were mulcted Quid tristes querimoniae si non supplicio culpa reciditur Horat. Od. 24. lib. 3. such could not escape Censure who suffer'd with moderation by one that appeared in his temperate Judicature rather to be above the Faults than above the Men. Two others and of the Ministry were sullen because they did not speed in their Presentments according to their mind the reason was the Complainants were found to be rugged and contentious not giving good Example of Yielding and Peace 62. Let me cast in a small handful of other things fit to be remark'd In adject is mensura non quaeritur The Bishop of Lincoln is a Visitor of some Colleges by their local Statutes in both Universities This Bishop visited Kings-College in Cambridge upon the Petition of the Fellows thereof anno 1628. when he shew'd himself to be a great Civilian and Canonist before those learned Hearers but the Cause went for the right worthy Provost Dr. Collins in whose Government the Bishop could perceive neither Carelesness nor Covetousness The most that appeared was That the Doctor had pelted some of the active Fellows with Slings of Wit At which the Visitor laugh'd heartily and past them by knowing that the Provost's Tongue could never be worm'd to spare his Jests who was the readiest alive to gird whom he would with innocent and facetious Urbanity The Provost of Orial-College in Oxford Dr. Tâ—lson with others of his Society visited the Bishop at his Palace of Bugdâ— with a Signification to the Bishop that they might eject one of the Members of their Foundation Mr. Tailour The Bishop saw there was small reason to raise such a Dust out of a few indiscreet words yet he satisfied Dr. Tolâ—on that Mr. Taâ—our should depart so it were with a farewel of Credit and he liked Mr. Tadour so well that he took him into his own House till he had provided the Living of Hempsted for him As 〈◊〉 said of his own Brother in Erasm Epist p. 417. Illius mores tales sunt ut omnibus possint congruere A benevolent Nature will agree with all men and please the Adversaries of both sides Those of young and tender years were much in his Care as appeared that he seldom travelled but Notice being given before he staid at some Town or Village to confirm such as were but even past children to lay his Hands on them and to bless them and did it ostener than the 60 Canon requires An ancient and an admirable Order when such were presented as were before made ready by being exactly catechized And for Childrens sakes he listen'd much what good Schoolmasters he had in his Diocess that bare the irksome and tedious Burden to rear up a good Seminary for Church and State such he valued and thought their Place was better than is usually given them in the World They are the tertia that make up a happy Corporation as Charles the Fifth thought who entring into any Imperial City or Burough was wont to ask the Recorder that did congraturate him Have you a good Magistrate Have you a good Pastor Have you a good Schoolmaster If he said Yes Then all must be well among you said the Emperor Our Bishop had the opportunity to consecrate Churches new re-edisied and Chappels erected which he perform'd with much Magnificence and Ceremony that the Houses of God his Houses of Prayer might be had in a venerable regard Nothing was more observ'd in that Performance than that at the hallowing of a Chappel belonging to the Mansion-place of Sir Gostwick in Bedfordshire the Knight's Son and Heir being born deaf and dumb and continuing in that defect no sooner did the Bishop alight and come into the House but the young Gentleman kneeled down and made signs to the Bishop that he craved his Blessing and had it with a passionate Embrace of Love A sweet Creature he was and is of rare Perspicacity of Nature rather of rare Illumination from God whose Behaviour Gestures and zealous Signs have procur'd and allow'd him admittance to Sermons to Prayers to the Lord's Supper and to the Marriage of a Lady of a great and prudent Family his Understanding speaking as much in all his motions as if his Tongue could articulately deliver his Mind Nor was any of the Prelacy of England more frequented than this Lord for two things First by such as made Suit unto him to compound their Differences that they might not come to the chargeable and irksome attendance of the Courts of Law Aversos solitus componere amicos Horat. Serm. 5. And so many Causes were referred to him and by no mean ones that he continued like a petty Chancellor to arbitrate Contentions Secondly Sundry did appeal to his Judgment for Resolution of Cases of Consciences and most in Matrimonial Scruples and of intricate Points of Faith as about Justisication and Predestination in which when he thought the doubting Person would not be contented with Discourse he gave them his Resolutions very long and laborious in Writing which gathered together and as I have seen them digested would have made an handsome Tractate but the worst Visitor that ever came to a Bishop's House seized on them and never restored them This was Kilvert a vexatious Prosecutor of many in the Court of Star-chamber for the King whose Lineaments are drawn out in the Ninth Book of Apul. Metam Omnia prorsus ut in quandam comorum latrinam in ejus animum vitia consluxerunt Every Beast hath some ill Property this Beastly Fellow had all He stands too near so good a Subject as is in hand for this is the lively Image of a renowned Bishop the Image but of one though the good Parts of many may be concentred in this one as the Agrigentine Painter made Juno by the Pattern of five well-favour'd Virgins All that I have drawn up of his Pastoral Behaviour was seen in the Day-light therefore as St. Paul said of the Corinthians whom he had commended so I may with Modesty apply it to my Subject If I have boasted any thing of him to you I am not ashamed 2 Cor. 7.14 Nor is this all of him in that Holy Charge not by a great deal but so much as is preserved in
Script and Memory after the ransacking of his Papers Therefore as Tully writes lib. 3. de Orat. Majus quiddam de Socrate quà m quantum Platonis libri prae se ferunt cogâ—andum That Socrates was a braver man than Plato had made him in his Dialogues So I have not made Dr. Williams so compleat a Bishop as he was he was more than I have describ'd him and would have been far more than himself had attain'd to if the Messenger of Satan had not been sent to busset him in many Troubles and Trials lest he should have been exalted above measure 63. After much that hath been dilated in this Book pleasing for Peace and Honour Praise-worthy for Merit and Vertue I must make room for Grief it will thrust in into every Registry and Chronicle into the remembrance of any man's Life which is continued from the beginning to the end Says â—lato in his Phaedon after his way of a Fable-frame of Philosophy when Jupiter could not make Joy and Sorrow agree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He yoked their Heads together that they could never be parted Therefore those things which God's Providence hath joyn'd inseparably no Pen can put asunder so that the Current of this History hitherto clear must fall into a dead Sea-like Jordan The Good which this famous Bishop did must be continued with the Evil which he suffer'd As Polusiote writes of Jeremias that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most passive the most persecuted of all the Prophets So of all that this Church had preferr'd to the like Dignity except them that resisted to Blood none was wounded with so many Darts of Despight as this man or aviled with so many Censures or stood so long in chase before his Enemies Having delivered up the Great Seal from the first day that he removed to Bugden all Promises were broken which gave him Assurance of Countenance and Safety and the place to which he was bidden to go as to a Sanctuary assorded him no more shelter than an Arbour in the Winter against a Shower of Rain Therefore to keep off Mistakes be it noted as to the time it was the same wherein he lived so like a Bishop and wherein he suffer'd so like a Confessor But Method distinguisheth those Troubles by themselves like Tares gathered from the good Wheat and bound in their own Bundles Some are greater practis'd upon no Subject before nor fit to be done hereafter Some are lesser matters yet not unworthy my Hand When they are disposed Limb by Limb and in order as they were done there will be much of them I would they had been less and be known to be enforced without Shame of the World with so much Wrong and Rancour that an indifferent Reader will depose there needs no Fiction nor Colour to make them worse than they were Those that were outdone in the first place were outgone by them that came after Quid prima querar Quid summa gemam Pariter cuncla deslere juvat Sene. Her Oet What the last and greatest should have been is unknown because they came not to that Birth It was decreed by Men but undecreed by GOD who sent his Judgments upon all and brought both Actors and Sufferers to utter Ruin by that Parliament which held us as long as the issue of Blood held the Woman in the Gospel Twelve years Mat. 9.20 It was no thanks to his Foes to give over then It was strange they would not give over till then when one black day like a Dooms-day blended the whole Hierarchy and with their Lordships Leave the Nobility in one mass of Destruction Those underfatigable Enemies that pursued him knew that he could never fall so low while he was alive but that there was Worth which was like to get up and rise again He had never felt such Sorrow if he had been contemn'd It was his ill luck to be feared because of the great Powers of his Mind whom none had cause to fear since he never fought Revenge Then they saw he would stand upright and never stoop after they had loaded his Back with so many Burthens which made them obstinate to proceed and labour in vain to crush out that which was not Wind but Spirit The Mountainous Country of Wales wherein he was born breeds hardy men but sew his Equals which Courage is no more to be forgotten than the twelve Labours of Hercules Let Xenophon speak for Socrates so must I for this Hero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apolog. in sine Observing the Wisdom and Generosity of the Man I cannot but remember him and when I remember him I cannot but praise him Neither were it useful I will subscribe to it to bring up his Sufferings from the Dead now he is gone unless the People that come after may be made the wiser and the stronger by them if they fall into the like But noble Examples are like the best Porcellan Dishes of China which are made in one Age laid up in the Earth and are brought forth to be used in another That 's the Goal I drive to And those Circuitions which are brought in for those Applications sake will make that which might be shut up in a little swell into a Volume Casaubon gives us this Warning of Polybius in his rare Preface before him Ita narrat ut moneat Personam historici cum assumpsit Polybius non in totum exuit philosophi Folybius was a Philosopher in his History so would I be and more a Teacher of Christ and the Laws of his Church as I am by Ordination 64. For an entrance I take my method from a wise Artist concerning the long and dangerous Adventures of his Aeneas to search into the Cause Quo numine laeso which way it came about since there was no man living whose Harm this Bishop wish'd that he could never find his Peace and Prosperity again when once he had lost them Why principally I cast it upon his Sins What Man is without them And his were not many but those some were great ones a lofty Spirit whose motion tended upward restless to climb to Fower and Honour And not one among an hundred of great Aspirers that live to see quiet days And this was joyn'd with too much Fire in the passion of his Anger in which Mood indeed which is strange he would reason excellently and continue it in the very Euro-clydon of his Choler as the Low Germans are most cunning at a Bargain when they are more than half tippled But in such an evil extasie of the Mind words would fall from him or from any which pleased not Men and were hateful to GOD Let these stand for the Fore-singer that points to the cause of his bitter Encounters Every man 's evil Genius that haunts him is his own Sin which wipes not out any paat of the Good which hath been written of him before The same man appears not the same but another in some miscarriages Polybius lib. 16. commends
Parliament and had stood up to defend him where there was openly such defiance of Enmity between them he had been censur'd by all Judgment for double-mindedness or sawning And as Lanfrank charged one of his Predecessors Remigius Bishop of Lincoln Quod officio emerat Episcopatum So the World would have censur'd this Prelate that he kept his Place by Service Simony as Mr. Fuller calls it And with what Safety and Liberty he could appear let one Passage demonstrate The Duke demanded that the Attorney-General might plead for him in the House of Peers against the Charge transmitted by the Commons which was opposed because the Attorney was one of the King 's Learned Council and sworn to plead in Causes concerning the King and not against them And the King is supposed to be ever present in the noble Senate of the Lords It was rejoyn'd That His Majesty would dispense with the Attorney's Oath It came to be a Case of Conscience and was referr'd to the Bishop's Learning Some of them judged for the Duke that this was not an Assertory-Oath which admits no alteration but a Promissory-Oath from which Promise the King if he pleas'd might release his Learned Counsel Bishop Felton a devout man and one that feared God very learned and a most Apostolical Overseer of the Clergy whom he governed argued That some Promissory-Oaths indeed might be relaxed if great cause did occur yet not without great cause lest the Obligation of so sacred a thing as an Oath should be wantonly slighted And in this Oath which the Attorney had taken it was dangerous to absolve him from it lest bad Example should be given to dispense with any Subject that had sworn faithful Service to the Crown for which plain Honesty he was wounded with a sharp Rebuke And the reverend Author told me this with Tears Yet the Archb. Abbot said as much and went farther for whom Budaeus would stand up a great Scholar and a Statesman De Asse lib. 3. fol. 102. Neque turpe esse credo cos homines observare quibus apud Principem gratiâ slagrare contigit si non cosdem apud populum ordines infamiâ invidiâ slagrare videamus As who would say it is Duty to love a Favourite for the King's sake and it is Duty to desert him when he becomes a publick Scandal For no man will be happy to stick to him who is so unhappy to become a common Hatred All that Parliament was a long Discontent of eighteen weeks and brought forth nothing but a Tympany of swelling Faction and abrupt Dissolution whereby the King saved that great Lord who lost His Majesty in some expeditions Honour abroad and the love of his People at home This was another Fire-brand kindled after the former at Oxford to burn down the Royal House and the most piously composed Church of England For a wife Oratour says it is Isocr Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 243. The cause of an Evil must not be ascribed to things that concur just at the breaking out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to the forerunning Mischiefs which were soaking long to ripen the Distempers Well was it for Lincoln that he had no hand in this Fray for as the Voyagers to Greenland say When the Whale-fishing begins it is better to be on the Shore and look on E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem than to be employed in the Ships to strike them and hale them to Land 71. Say then that he neither did harm nor receive any by being shut out of this turbulent Parliament Yet his Advice had been worth the asking because of the Plunges that His Majesty was put to upon the Dissolution but he heard of no Call to such a purpose For no man looks on a Dyal in a cloudy day when the Sun shines not on it God's Mercy was in it for he sate safer at home than he could have done at the Council-Board at this time where much Wisdom was tryed to help the King's Necessities out of the Peoples Purses by a Commandatory Loan and with the least Scandal that might be for not to run into some Offence was unavoidable Pindar the Poet was call'd out of his House to speak with some Friend in the Street Castor and Pollux says the Tale-teller searce was his Foot over the Threshold when the Building sunk and all that were within perish'd Thus upon a time the least Shelter gave the most Safety as did the lesser Honour procure this man the more Peace But as Camillus in Livy thrust out of Rome and retired to Ardea prayed that they that had cashier'd him might have no need of him so this forlorn Statesman would have been satisfied to have his place at the Council-Table supplied by others if the King's Affairs had not wanted him at this instant when he suddenly slid down from his former value in the love of this People The Bishops most likely it came from them advised His Majesty first to fly to God and to bid a publick Fast first at Court then over all the Land about the fifth of July Bish Laud whose Sermon was printed preach'd before the King upon the 21st Verse of the 17th Chapter of St. Matthew This kind goeth not out but by Prayer and Fasting The Preface of the Book and the Exhortation publish'd to the observing that solemn Fast stirred up all good Christians to entreat God not to take Vengeance on the Murmurings of the People to keep their Spirits in Unity to divert the plague of immoderate Rain like to corrupt the Fruits of the Harvest and chiefly to preserve us from the Bloody Wars that Spain intended against us Intended says the Book for depredation of Merchants Ships was the worst they had done us Let the Reader gather this by the way That a publick Fast had not been indicted before by the Supreme Authority upon the Alarums of our Enemies Preparations In Eighty eight an Order came out call'd A Form of Prayer necessary for the present Time and State to be used on Wednesdays and Fridays that is certain Collects to be added to the Common Prayer Yet no Fast was bidden saving thus far That Preachers in their Sermons and Exhortations should move the People to Abstinence and Moderation in their Dyet to the end they might be more able to relieve the Poor c. The first Form to be used in Common Prayer with an Order of publick Fast for every Wednesday in the week for a time was set out by Queen Elizabeths special Command in Aug. 1563. when the Plague called The Plague of New-haven was rise in London In which Book is a passage to illustrate our Common-Prayer-Book for the first Rubrick prefixt to the Order for the Holy Communion That so many as intend to be Partakers of the Holy Communion should signifie their Names to the Curate over night or else in the morning either before the beginning of Common Prayer or immediately after That immediately after means that in
of God and because all that he is and hath is God's cannot render what he owes unto God in equality of Justice And all that he speaks of a Father in regard of his Children between whom Justice in one Acception doth not intercede he borrows out of Suarez Suarez out of Cajetan Cajetan out of Aquinas 2 vol. qu. 57. art 4. not art 8. as he misquotes him But he adds The King out of his own Brain who is but a metaphorical Father Benevolentiâ animo pater est naturâ rex pater non est says Saravia lib. 2. c. 12. without the Authority of his Authors nay flatly contrary to Aquinas in that place for he allows that Justice and Law may be stated between Father and Son Says he As the Son is somewhat of the Father and the Servant of the Master Justum non est inter illos per commensurationem ad Alterum sed in quantum uterque est homo aliquo modo est inter eos justitia He goes on That beside Father and Son Master and Servant there are other degrees and diversities of Persons to be sound in an Estate as Priests Citizens Souldiers c. that have an immediate relation to the Common-wealth and Prince thereof and therefore towards these Justum est secundum perfectam rationem justitiae So Suarez lib. 5. de leg c. 18. Some will say that Tribute is not due by way of Justice but by way of Obedience Hoc planè falsum est contra omnes Doctores qui satentur hanc obligationem solvendi tributa ubi intervenit esse justuiám And which is more than the Judgment of meer Man it is St. Paul's Rom. 13.7 For this cause pay your tribute render therefore to every man that which is his due Redditio sui cuique is the very definition of Justice And he makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justice to intercede between Fathers and their Children Ephes 6.1 Children obey your Parents in the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this is just This is the first Observation how he falsifieth his Learning The next is this That his end to bring us to the case of Creatures and Children towards the King is to take away all Propriety as it appears clearly by what he must draw out of his own Authors Suarez ubi supra Man cannot render to God his due by way of Justice Quia quicquid est vel habet totum est Dei Apply it with Dr. Maynwaring to the King Whatsoever the Subject is or hath is all the King 's by way of Property Aquinas in the place before Quod est filii est patris ideo non est propriè justitia patris ad filium Apply it to the King Justice doth not interceed between the King and his People because what is the Peoples is the King 's This is the Venom of this new Doctrine that by making us the King's Creatures and in the state of Minors or Children to take away all our Propriety Which would leave us nothing of our own and lead us but that God hath given us just and gracious Princes into Slavery As when the Jews were under a meer Vassalage their Levites their Churchmen complain to God The Kings of Assyria have dominion over our bodies and over our cattel at their pleasure Nehem. 9.37 Thus far the Bishop making very even parts between all that were concern'd in the Question And because the Chaplain's Doctrine had drawn up a Flood-gate through which a Deluge of Anger and Mischief gush'd out His Majesty left him to the Censure of his Judges No Wonder if one of the best of Kings did that Honour to his Senate which one of the worst of Emperors did to that at Rome Magistratibus liberam jurisdictionem sine interpellatione concessit says Suetonius of Caligula Neither had it been Wisdom to save one Delinquent with the loss of a Parliament Lurentius Medices gave better Counsel than so to his Son Peter Magis universitatis quà m seorsùm cujusque rationem habeto Polit. lib. 4. Ep. p. 162. Yet Dr. Maynwaring lost nothing at this lift his Liberty was presently granted him by the King his Fine remitted the Income of one Benefice sequestred for three years put all into his own Purse and was received in all his ordinary attendance again at Court with the Preferments of the Deanry of Worcester and after of the Bishoprick of St. Davids so willing was the King to forget that Clause in his Sentence past by the Lords which did forbid it 76. No man else suffering for so common a Grievance it made a glad Court at Whitehall The Parliament used their best Counsels and Discretions at the same time to secure their Lives Livelihoods and Liberties from such arbitrary Thraldom thereafter Nunquam fida est potentia ubi nimia est We must live under the Powers which God hath set over us but are loth that any man should have too much Power Sir Ed. Coke made the motion which will keep his noble Memory alive to sue to the King by Petition the most ancient and humble Address of Parliaments that His Majesty would give his People Assurance of their Rights by Assent in Parliament as he useth to pass other Acts viz. That none should be compell'd to any charge of Tax or Benevolence without agreement of Lords and Commons nor any Freeman be imprison'd but by the Law of the Land with some such other-like which are enter'd into many Authors The Duke of Buck. was forward to stop this Petition in the House where he sate for which the Commons having not yet meddled with him resolved to give him an ill Farewel before their parting Neither did he recover his old Lustre nor carry any great sway among the Peers since his dishonourable Expedition to Rhe for evil Successes are not easily forgotten though prosperous ones vanish in the warmth of their Fruition And not only that Duke and the Lord Privy-Seal with other great and able Officers did repulse this motion with all main but the King 's learned Council were admitted to plead their Exceptions against it Six weeks were spent in these Delays and Hope deserred made their hearts sick Prov. 13.12 and their Heads jealous who follow'd the cause that there was no good meaning to relieve their Oppressions At last the difficulty was overcome the Petitioners had one Answer from the King and look'd for a fuller and had it in the end So much sooner had been so much better as our Poet Johnson writes to Sir E. Sackvile of some mens Good-turns They are so long a coming and so hard When any Deed is forc'd the Grace is marr'd The Subjects ask'd for nothing now which was not their own but for Assurance to keep their own which had it been done with a Smile benignly and cheerfully and without any casting about to evade it it had been done Princely It is not impossible to find an honest Rule in Matchiavel for this is his Beneficia
makes of his Master's Court. That it was a Divine Priviledge of the Kings of France that they had the gift of healing and could cure the Stromosi by the touch of their hand Si dedisset providentia ut consilia publica auspicatò inirentur and if they could thrust away flattery and false clamours with their hand it would be the happiest Government in Europe Lib. 2. Pandec fol. 36. This Commission sitting the Bishop of Lincoln's Adversaries thought they had him sure and had found his Laire presuming they could ripen some Trespasses of his in that kind for a Sentence in the Star-Chamber Jungant ur tum gryphes equis c. that had been strange to catch him in an over-sight about the Mammon of Iniquity For the Elogy which Grotius gives Lib. 1. Hist Belg. to William of Nassau was as much this Bishop's as it was that great Prince's Crudelitas avaritia nullo ab ingenio longiùs abfuere But what cannot great Men bring about when there are no Parliaments to overlook them As Tully says of Brutus Philip. 12. Multis in rebus ipse sibi Senatus suit All must be as Brutus will if Brutus will be as absolute as if himself were a Parliament Who but Mr. Ratcliff the King's Attorney for York and we know the Orestes to whom this Pylades was so dear was instructed to prepare a Bill to be put into the Star-Chamber against the Bishop who had laid his ear to the ground to hark after the digging of the Mine and knew the Substance of it before the Draught was fully penn'd Such as are so fortunate in their Discoveries and have intelligence of all Practices against them are the Moral of those fabulous People that are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek Tongue some of a strange plantation that could cover all their body with their Ears The charges upon which mr Ratcliff was devising an Information were two the one about the Fees of the Clerk of the Hamper which is according to Sir H. Spelman's Glossary Sport a grandior cui inferuntur pecuniae è sigillatione diplomatum brevium chartarum regiarum proveniâ—ntes which were as good as fixt before he came to be Lord Keeper The other was about Fees in the Episcopal Registry at Lincoln presented for undue in the persons of some Officers but without reflection on the Bishop whom one thing puzzled for he knew not whether there were a Mystery or Madness in it A Prelate or twain were consulted about this Bill of extorted Fees and they bid it good speed which was no less than to pull an old House upon their own heads for the Sums according to the Tables of their own Registries were the same or greater Did they think he would not plead it Communis culpae cur reus unus agor Proper l. 2. el. 10. Did they conceive but he would declare his Cause was theirs and theirs was his Or would they blow up themselves upon their own Deck to blow up him As Justin shews how desperate the Boeotians were in their malice against the Phocians lib. 8. Baeotii tanto odio Phocensium ardentes ut perire ipsi quà m non perdere eos praeoptarent Better had it been for the Reverend Fathers of Holy Orders rather to strengthen than to weaken one another for the Kite might come O holy Lord he came to soon who would make but one Morsel of them altogether 92. But before any Suit could begin the Bishop represented the Case in a Letter to the King May it please your most excellent Majesty BEing much wounded by a pinching and uneven Report drawn up by some Officer of your Majesties Commissioners for the Fees and presented unto your Majesty Jul. 1630. though but very lately come to my knowledge without any touch of the full and satisfying Answer which I had given some three weeks before unto the Lords Commissioners and to others in that behalf Although I am content as Men of My Calling ought to be to pass with the rest of the World through good report and bad yet I am not able to endure that impression which the said Relation may peradventure have wrought in your Majesties breast against me a Bishop that hath serv'd your Father in so near a place while be lived and closed his Eyes when he died and remains still in the number of your poor Chaplains free from the least suspicion of such sordid Avarice as might cause him to spot his Rocheâ— with the exaction of so mean a Sum as 20 l. a year which is the utmost of that pretended Extorsion The Charges prest upon me with many Words but no Matter at all are two The first concerning an Order for Increasing the Clerk of the Hamper's Fees 19 Jac. The second about Fees for Institutions and Resignations taken by the Bishop of Lincoln My Answer for the Clerk of the Hampers Fees consists of these Heads 1. That the King may justly and legally increase the Fees of all Offices in his own immediate donation not limited by Act of Parliament and hath ever been done so which was granted by all the Lords 2. His late Majesty before my coming to the Seal had referr'd the suggestions of the Clerk of the Hamper for this increase of Fees unto those four great Lords who had the Seal in their custody and that their Lordships by their report did allow the same and returned a Certificate unto his Majesty of all the Species wherein the Fees were to be increased which was confessed by two of their Lordships then present 3. This Certificate was recommended to me both by word of mouth from his Majesty and by direction upon a Petition subscribed to my Remembrance by the Secretary of State which Petition the Commissioners might call for from the Clerk of the Hamper who had it for the instructing of his Council and fortifying his Evidence 4. Upon my doubting of the form how this might be done by Law and President the King's Council learned to wit the Attorny and Sergeant did not in the Clerk of the Hanpers only but in the King's behalf satisfie the Court fully in both those particulars which is express in the Order 5. That thereupon the Court being assisted with one or two Judges without examining the Suggestions which the Court supposed to be sufficiently done by the former Referrees the Order was made which Order for the ease of the Subjects doth retrench and cut short very much of the Fees allowed by the former Certificate 6. For Orders made in the High Court of Chancery the Judge for that time being doth not conceive that he is responsable to any Power under Heaven beside the King himself And this was the effect of my Answer concerning that Order for encreasing the Fees of the Clerk of the Hanper My Answer concerning the Fees in the Diocess of Lincolnis wholly omitted in the Report as though I had been only called before the Commissioners but for form and it was to this effect
1. That the Certificate from the Country layeth nothing to my charge 2. That I never gave Direction for receiving of any Fees but took those only which were deliver'd to me by the Register 3. That I conceived the Fees of Lincoln Diocess to be much lower than of any other in England which the L. Wentworth seemed to confess to be so 4. That if the Register did receive 23 s. 4 d. of every Clerk instituted for the Bishop's Fee it was no more than the Table allow'd 5. That the Fees question'd were received by my four immediate Predecessors Bishops Mountain Neale Barlow Chaderton Which four Bishops take up a space of time which extends beyond the Table of Fees And the L. Wentworth said he believed as much and promised to report it 6. My L. of Winchester is able to assure as much that these are the ancient Fees of the Diocess and that I believe my â—â— of London who was beneficed and dignified in this Diocess and hath twice or thrice paid the said Fees in his own person can and I doubt not will be ready to testifie as much 7. That for mine own part and mine own time I was ready to lay all my Fees being God wot a most contemptible Sum at your Majesties Feet to be disposed of as your Majesty pleased Nor had I ever in my Life toucht one Penny of the same but given it away from time to time to mend my Servants Entertainment 8. That the 135 th Canon mentioned by the Commissioners refers the examination of all Fees in question not settled by Acts of Parliament to the Archbishop only and the Cognizance ecclesiastical who is the only proper Judge of these Questions Therefore I humbly beseech your Majesty that I may not be drawn to contest with my Soveraign in a Suit of Law of so mean and miserable a Charge as this is but rather if those two reverend Prelates shall not be able to satisfie your Majesty you will be pleased to hear me your self or transmit the Cause to the Lords of the Council or where it is only proper to be heard to the Archbishop of the Province and that Mr. Attorny-General may stay the Prosecution elsewhere which I shall embrace with all humble Duty and Thankfulness c. Which reference to the Archbishop was granted who did authorize the receiving of those Fees for the present De benè esse only And after Sir H. Martin and others had examin'd the Tables Registries and Witnesses of Credit and Experience for the Antiquity of the same upon their Report the several Fees were ascertain'd by his Grace's Subscription for the time to come So true is that of Euripides in Supplic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that was low in Favour got the better of him that was great in Power in a good Cause 93. Remember that in this petitionary Letter the Bishop calls himself the King's Chaplain but not his Counsellor for about a year by-gone the King had commanded that his Name should be expunged and not remain in the Catalogue of those honourable persons And who is so faithful among all thy servants as David 1 Sam. 22.24 Yet so it was decreed he must not challenge the Privilege nor keep the Ceremony of the Name and more he had not in four years before No worse an Author than Sir E. Coke tells us in Jurisd of Courts p. 54. By force of his Oath and Custom of the Realm he that is a Privy Councillor is still so without any Patent or Grant during the life of the King that made choice of him But before whom can this be tryed And who shall decide it It will scarce come within the Law and when a King will hold the Conclusion he will be too hard for any man in Logick Let the Masters of the Republick contend about it whose Counsellors have changed as fast as the quarters of the year Surely His Majesty shewed himself much offended in this action yet it is better for a King not to give than to take away which Xenophon put into Cyrus's Mouth lib. 7. C. Paid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It imprints more Offence in a man's Mind to be deprived of that he had than to be pretermitted in some Kindness which he never had Since it was no better the Bishop thought he might ask a noble Friend in Good-manners it was the Earl of Holland what had kindled the King's Anger that he would not allow him the empty Title of a Counsellor The Earl answer'd him home and ingenuously That he must expect worse than this because he was such a Champion for the Petition of Right and that there was no room at the Table for those that would abide it Which was like the Fortune oâ— Poplicola Honoris sui culmen insregit ut libertatem civitatis crigeret Symma p. 3. He forfeited his Honour to maintain the Laws which being not maintained the People are not only Losers but a Kingdom will look like a Tabernacle taken down whose Pins are unfastened and the Cords of it broken To gall our Bishop with assiduous recurrent Umbrages for Pismires wear out Flints with passing to and fro upon them the Christening of Prince Charles being celebrated in the Chappel of St. James's House Jun. 27. 1630. and all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal about London being invited thither to make the Splendour eminent the Bishop of Lincoln only was left out and not admitted to joyn in Prayer and Joy with that Noble Congregation The more sharp Diseases suffer not the lesser to be perceived yet this Omission light as it might seem did twinge him even to outward demonstrance of Dejectedness that in so good a day wherein the Clemency of the King should have run at waste to all men that then he should be separated from his Countenance and this Solemnity But says he in one respect it was well for I would not have said Amen to Bishop Laud 's Prayer which he conceived for the Royal Infant and was commended to all Parish-Churches in that passage Double his Father's Graces O Lord upon him if it be possible No Supplication could be better than to crave encrease of Grace for that Noble Branch for when a Prince is very good God is a Guest in a human Body But to put in a Supposal whether the Holy Ghost could double those Gifts to the Child which he had given to his Father and to confine the Goodness and Almightiness of the Lord it was three-piled Flattery and loathsome Divinity Let Cartwright and all his Part shew such an Exception against any line in our Common-Prayer and I will confess they have some Excuse for their Non-subscription To carry on mine own Work When it was known what small esteem His Majesty had of this Bishop it raised him up the more Adversaries who catcht at every thing that was next and turn'd it to a Weapon to strike him of which Sir Robert Osborn High-Sheriff of Huntingtonshire
or Constitutions differing from the alledg'd or did vary in their Judgment that they would send their Reasons and they should be kindly and thankfully accepted How could a Prelate carry himself with more Moderation or a Scholar write with more Modesty or a Variance be more suddenly composed as it was with more Indifferency Did this Letter deserve to be ript up nine years after and torn into Raggs by an angry Censure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss w. It will be a dishonour to the Times that Posterity should hear of it I see if the Dr. had been in the place of the Bishop he would have led the Parish of Grantham another Dance to their cost and vexation Many that are in low condition are best where they are As Livy says lib. 1. dec 5. Quidnam illi Consules Dictatoresve facturi erant qui proconsularem imaginem tam trucem saevÃmque fecerint If such had been the Consuls and Dictators of the Church what would they have done who flew so high when they had no Authority 99. Scan this now both for the Form and Matter before equal Judges in some Moral and Prudential Rules The Letter or private Monition as he calls it that drew it up Hol. Tab. p. 82. was written nine years before and in all that time had gained this Praise that it savour'd of Fatherly Sweetness to satisfie the Scrupulous by Learning in matter of Ceremony rather than to strike the case dead with Will and Command The Contents of it had been quoted in a Parliament with well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful in a little A Divinity-Professor in his Chair Dr. Pr. had spoken reverendly of it by the relation of many it was punctually read or opened fully to the King at the hearing of the Cause of St. Gregory's Church Ho. Tab. p. 58. and no Counsellor did inform that it was disparaged A Litter of blind Whelps will see by that time they are nine days old and was the Answerer blind that could not see the reputation this Paper had got by that time it was nine years old Let a Presbyter for me dispute the truth with him that is of the greatest Order in the Church yet what Canons will suffer him to taunt and revile a Bishop whose whole Book was but a Libel against a Diocesan p. 58. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Const lib. 2. c. 31. Which Canon will not allow a Clerk of a lower degree to raise an evil Murmur against a Bishop Much of the like is an Antiquity from Ignatius downward Their supereminent Order is not to be exposed to petulant Scoffings by their own Tribe Sed servanda est uniuscujusque Episcopi reverentia says Gregory Ep. 65. Ind. 2. since the Age grew learned and Knowledge puffed men up Ministers are more malapart among us and in every state with the Fathers of the Church but from the beginning it was not so If the like to this had been done upon the Person of another Bishop he would have been taught better Manners that had presum'd it The Example is the same wheresoever it lighted and might have taught them that where Reverence is forgotten to any of the chief Order that he that abuseth one doth threaten many It is a sad Presage to my Heart to apply that of Baronius to them that did not maintain the Honour of their Brother Quod Praesides ecclesiarum alter alterius vires infringebant Deus tranquilla tempora in persecutiones convertebat an 312. p. 6. These Annals prevent me not to forget that for a better colour to make licentious Invectives the Respondent takes no notice that a Bishop wrote the Letter For why not rather some Minorite among the Clergy Indeed it had not the Name but the Style tells him all the way that it could come from none but the Diocesan of Grantham Therefore I will give him his Match out of Baronius anno 520. p. 22. Maxentius contra epistolam Hormisdae scripsit sed ut liberam sibi dicendi compararet facultatem Hormisdae esse negavit sed ab adversariis ejus nomine scriptam esse affirmans This is a stale Trick to bait a Pope or a Prelate in the name of one that was much beneath them Sternitur infoelix alieno vulnere Aen. lib. 10. but he that wilfully makes these mistakes I take him for what he is I pass to the main Question What did this Letter prescribe that it should be torn with the Thorns of the Wilderness It pared away no Ceremony enjoyned O none further from it but it moderated a doubtful case upon the Mode and Practice of a Ceremony how the Communion-Board should stand and how the Vicar in that Church should pray and read at it for best edification of his Flock He must give me time to study upon it that would demand me to start him a Question belonging to God's Service of less moment Had the Gensdarmery of our great Writers no other Enemy to fight with Nothing to grind in their Brain-mill but Orts This the Colleges of Rome would have to see us warm in petty Wranglings and remiss in great Causes as Laertius says of one Xenophon of the Privy-Purse to Alexander the Great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 632 He would quiver for cold in the hot Sun and sweat in the Shade It was a Task most laudably perform'd by Whitgift Bridges Hooker Morton Burgess to maintain the use of innocent Ceremonies with whom Bishop Williams did ever jump and as Fulgentius says in P. Paulo's Life would defend and observe all Ordinances the least considerable and no whit essential But this was a great deal below it to litigate not about the continuance but about the placing of a Ceremony an evil beginning to distract Conformists who were at unity before and to make them sight like Cocks which are all of a Feather and yet never at peace with themselves Wo be to the Authors of such Cadmaean Wars Quibus semper praelia clade pari Propertius A most unnecessary Gap made in the Vine yard through which both the wild Boar our foreign Enemy and the little Foxes at home may enter in to spoil the Grapes Plutarch lib. de Is Osyr tells me of a Contention between the Oxyndrites and Cynopolites who went to War for the killing of a Fish which one of the Factions accounted to be a sacred Creature and when they were weaken'd with slaughter on both sides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sine the Romans over-run them and made them their Slaves Let the Story be to them that hates us and the Interpretation fall upon our Enemies 100. Yet will some of the stiffer Faction say it was time to clip the Wings of this Letter or if it could be done to make it odious abroad for the Mctropolitan intending one common decency in all Churches of his Province about the Table of Christ's Holy Supper this Paper six years older than his translation to the See of Canterbury
mediate for him And was it not likely he would think who had procured him his first Rochet well fringed with good Commendums But what Suspicion to find a thankful Man did bring Lincoln into this Error 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Pindar Old kindness is fast asleep and Men are forgetful This Hand return'd him nothing from his Majesty but Denials and Despairs as if he had lighted upon one of the Genethliaci or Figure-Casters that never portend a good Horoscope to any or as I may better set it down in Gassendus's Complaint De Pareliis p. 309. Ita praeposteri sumus ut nunquam captemus bona omina A good word from so gracious an Agent would have cleared any man who made Lincoln's Fidelity more suspected to his Royal Master Bishop Laud knew him how strong he was in his Intellectuals how fit to manage Civil and Church Affairs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Tully translates it out of Aratus Huic non una modo caput ornans stella relucet He thought it a disparagement to have a Parage with any of his Rank and out of Emulation did dry his Substance that it might not flow so fast into Charitable Works Therefore as the Oratour wrote to Atticus Qui mihi pennas inciderunt nolunt easdem renasci so he kept the Feathers of the other short that they might not grow again to fly before him Lincoln took it not a whit to heart because he foresaw it I have heard him say Though I did as much for him as I could when he wanted me yet I knew he would fail if ever I wanted him What remedy but the Cause which had rotted three years in the Dung must now be made ripe a Mischief which had lyen like a Match kindled to give fire to a Train of Powder long after So it came to be sifted by the great Abilities of Mr. William Noy Attorney General a Man of Cynical behaviour but of an honest heart to his Friends and Clients and both together did become him This famous Lawyer profest a great averseness from dealing in this Cause for he wanted a Ground to plead upon The Defendant maintains that he had opened no Counsels of the Kings but what he spake to Lamb and Sibthorp was Parliamentary Communication Let the Peers and Commons look to it it concerns them all that their Priviledges be maintain'd to be unquestionable for those things which past from one to another at that season who by the Writ that Summons them do meet as Counsellors for great Affairs concerning the Church and Commonwealth And by this very Demurrer Mr. Selden about two years before had quash't a Bill which was preferr'd in the Star-Chamber against him in a like Accusation Neither contemn the Inconvenience because the storm fell upon one Bishop and no more The whole Tree was as good as unfastned when one Bough was shaken It is a good Caution in Arist 5. Polit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is all assumed to say The Danger is not great that lights upon one or two Particulars when by that Entrance it will break in upon the whole Kind Be it known therefore that this Bill was kept under Hatches and never came to hearing For which way could the Council stir to plead upon it As great a Pleader as ever lived Demosthenes gives us this Rule Olynth .. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As the Foundation of an House and the Keel of a Ship must be laid strong and firm so should the Foundations of all Actions But in this charge let Wit and Learning turn it self every way there was no Bottom to build upon Therefore Mr. Noy after two years grew weary of it and slackned the Prosecution He died untimely for our Bishop's good who acknowledgeth it under his Hand That he dealt fairly with him not reckoning by his Maundings and rough Language which came from him to please the supervising Prelate But Lincoln never felt harm from him whose Finger he cut but with the back of his Knife Therefore I pronounce him innocent of this Man's ruin upon the reason that Ulysses spared Terpiades Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He sung such Songs as the riotous Suitors of Penelope would have him by constraint and necessity 112. Who have we next to play this Game but notorious Kilvert and for the same reason that God gave why Phocas was made Emperour of the World because there was not a worse Hem Si quid rectè curatum velis huic mandes oportet A Man branded long before in a Parliament for Perjury a Knight of the Post as we call it A Name which some learned Scholar gave at first to such Catives For Casaubon in his Theophrastus shews out of Pausanias in his Atticks that perjur'd Men were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that usually stood about the Panathenaick Race-posts called Adrettum to be hired to give a Testimony whether it were right or wrong Here 's one that wore that Badge and our Bishop writes more and Truth in all That in scorn of Justice for many years he lived from his own Wife a vertuous and well-born Gentlewoman whom he had stol'n away from her Parents and lived in open Adultery with another Man's Wife one Mr. Bines hard by White-hall and begot divers Bastards upon her Body besides his other Debaucheries and Infamies of all kinds This Man as himself avouched was found out and employed by Archbishop Laud by this time he is in that Throne by Secretary Windebank and Sir J. Lamb to prosecute the Cause against the Bishop without entring him as a Prosecutor upon Record as he ought to have done and was assured he should advance his Fortunes thereby which was truly perform'd This Fellow interloping into the Prosecution of the Cause disturb'd it in every point of the due Proceeding left not one Rule or Practice of the Court unbroken menacing and intimidating Witnesses Clerks Registers Examiners Judges and the Lord keeper himself One that would undertake any Office to serve Greatness and would preserve their Favour that kept him upon any Conditions who lack't not such Wisdom as St. James abhors c. 3. v. 15. which is earthly sensual devillish whose Description I cut off with that which Cutzen the Jesuit said of Illyricus from his own Opinion about Original Sin Cujus vel substantia peccatum est a vitiated Leper in his whole Substance O evil World that the Vices of such a Creature should make free way for him to be gracious instead of Vertues how much do Powers and Dominions dishonour themselves when it is not close but openly seen that such Instruments have their Countenance nay their Recompence Budaeus lib. 1. de As f. 15. spared not a great one in France for that Error Immemor personae quam gerebat quod virtuti debebatur illiberali obsequio dandum esse censuit While Kilvert ranted it and bore down all Justice before him there was not an honest Man either that acted in this matter or only look't
First That it was utterly against the Practice of the Court from the Foundation of it to fall upon a new Charge started out of a former before the first had been heard 2. That advantage was taken to undo any man living to gather new Impeachments out of the Books after the publication of the precedent Cause 3. That for all that was offer'd to the Court complaint had been openly made by Counsel and not disproved That it rose from the Prosecutors mis-leading and menacing of Witnesses whom Terrour and Imprisonment would not suffer to be constant to themselves Like as Eusebius reports lib. 6. Praepar Ervang c. 1. that when one importun'd the Oracle for an Answer and threatned if he staid any longer the Oracle told him Retine vim istam falsa enim dicam si coges Use no violence for I must tell a lye if you do Lastly The Bishop pleaded with Animosity quid enim loqueretur Achilles Ovid. Met. 13. that their Lordships ought to take such a Charge into Cognisance for Tampering had never been noted for Criminal Action before any Judgment in the Land which is not a Colour but a Maxime of Law which appears by that which is since publish 't by the Lord Cook in Jurisdiction of Courts c. 5. How that Court dealeth not with any offence which is not Malum in se against the Common Law or Malum prohibitum against some Statute And that Novelties without warrant of Praesidents are not to be allowed Assume now out of the Premises that no Example could be found that the censorious magnificence of the Star-Chamber had ever tamper'd with such a peccatulum as tampering Alteration in the forms of a Court beget the Corruption of the Substance Who ever read that a Bench of Honourable Judges came into hatred so long as it kept close to the ways of their wise and venerable Predecessors But says Symmachus in Ep. p. 14. Si adjiciantur insolita forsan consueta cessabunt When the People are over-lay'd with new Discipline perhaps the old Seats of Justice may crack in pieces The Lord Keeper knew Justice and loved it and did not obscurely signifie that he thought the Demur was reasonable which had almost removed him And he found by one occurrence that the Bishop's Case was to be severed from other mens For whereas a Proclamation came forth in October 1636. that because a Plague was begun in London and Westminster therefore all Pleas and Suits in Law should be suspended till Hillary Term was opened and the Bishop claimed the Priviledge that all things might be respited about his Cause branched out into ten Heads till that season The Proclamation indeed is full and clear on your side says the Lord Keeper but I have special directions that you shall have no benefit thereof And I tell you as a Friend if you rely upon the Proclamation your imprisonment is aimed at As if there were one Rule of Justice for all the Subjects in the Land and another for this Bishop who took his qu. from this Caveat to attend his Business and he did it with the more confidence that in seven years his Adversaries had got no ground of him as Grotius writes of the Spaniards siege at Haâ—rlem being seven months about it Annal. Belg. p. 42. Visi sunt vinci posse qui tam lentè vicerant 118. Of which none that look't into the Cause despair'd till the Scale was overturn'd by the weight of a most rigorous Censure The Charge in debate without any favour to the Defendant is thus comprised Anno 1634. when Kilvert wanted Water to turn his Mill Sir John Mounson and Dr. Farmery Chancellour of Lincoln offer'd themselves to debauch the Credit of Pregion the Bishop's Witness who both expected to have gained and did gain almost as much as Kilvert by the Avenues of the Cause To bring their Contrivance about a Bastard is laid to Pregion to be begotten of the Body of Elizabeth Hodgson and that he bribed her to lay it upon another Father The Bishop was to defend the Credit of his Witness and had to do with Matters and Persons in this Point wherein himself was altogether a Stranger He suspected ill dealing from Sir J. Mounson the great Stickler because he knew he hated Pregion for casting a Scandal upon his Lady as vertuous a Gentlewoman as the Country had in which Cause the Bishop had caused Pregion to give Satisfaction long before Then he had more assurance of Pregions Innocency because he was clear'd of this Bastard in a Sessions held at Lincoln in May Car. 9. and whereas it came again into debate at the Sessions 3 Octob. following and it was given out that an Order was past to find Pregion guilty the Bishop was certified that the Order was not drawn up in open Court and that it was inserted in many places with Farmeries hand And Thomas Lund being present at the Sessions asserted That it was not consented to by the Justices but drawn out of Sir J. Mounson's pocket He had Letters from Knights of far greater Estates than Sir John who likewise testified the same and from Mr. Richardson the Clerk of the Peace who refused to enter that Order and that it was excepted against in open Sessions by Mr. Sanderson a Counsellor of the Laws and by the greater part of the Bench as utterly illegal So that afterward being tried at the King's Bench for the illegality of it it was damned by all the four Judges Yet more to detect the Corruption of that Order at the next Sessions held in May the Justices discharged Pregion and laid the base Child upon one Booth a Recusant a Kinsman of Sir J. Mounson's which Judgment was so inerrable that it was proved by three Witnesses That upon the very day that the Bishop was sentenced Booth himself confest in the hearing of those Witnesses that Pregion had nothing to do with that baggage Woman but that he the said Booth at such a time and place did get her with Child and that Kilvert whom he cursed bitterly had promised him half the Fine to charge the Child upon Pregion and had not performed it and did vainly brag that Kilvert had brought him to kiss the King's hand This was detected when the sad day was over Et instaurant dolorem sera solatia Sym. p. 86. But the Objection lay not only upon the getting of the Child but how that Pregion or rather the Bishop had carried themselves to entangle the Witnesses that had sworn against Pregion which was the main Charge of the Information and the colour for the heavy Sentence The Bishop being authorized from the Star-Chamber to uphold the Credit of his Witness he found the Depositions of Lund Wetheral Alice Smith and Anne Tubb to press upon Pregion Grande doloris Ingenium est miserisque venit solertia rebus Metam lib. 6. So he did light upon a course which was inoffensive to extricate Pregion for his own safety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
to decline that Extremity the most of the Lords who endeavour'd to do all the Favour that they durst shew concluded upon a Fine of 10000 l. Imprisonment in the Tower during Pleasure which had been but short as they were assured before if the King had been but left to his own gracious Gentleness and to be suspended during Pleasure in the High-Commission-Court from all his Jurisdiction Which Suspension pass'd in that Commission July 23. And it would not be pass'd over that Sir Ed. Littleton then L. Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas Anno 1640. in the Month of July brought Lincoln to Lambeth face to face with the L. of Canterbury when Lincoln told his Grace That the Commission under the Great Seal had not a word in it to enable him to suspend either Bishop or Priest by direction from a Sentence of Star-chamber but only for Offences specified in the Commission and that the Fact which His Grace had done had brought him and the Commissioners into a Praemunire To which the Archbishop answered That he had never read the Commission A learned Satisfaction Was it not when he had censur'd so many by the Power of that Commission which he confest he had never read But consider now as Isocrates pleaded it well ad Plat. p. 456. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whether it be right to inflict such unjust and grievous Penalties upon such petty pretended Misdemeanors Or did not the Latin Orator provide better against it Cic. 1. de Off. Cavendum ne major poena quà m culpa sit ne iisdem de causis alii plectantur alii ne appellentur quidem And let those who meet with this Narration be acquainted that albeit the Compact was in the Inner Chamber that the Lords should speak all the same in their Judgment yet a little Vanity slipt from some few to ease their Stomach The L. Finch said That if it had liked others he would have laid some Ignominy on the Bishop's person Promptum ad asperura ingenium Tac. An. lib. 1. So this Lord look'd on the Bishop's Cause not only with a blear'd but with a blood-shotten Eye for it was conceived he meant the cutting off his Ears who had never sate a Judge in all likelihood if this Bishop being then L. Keeper had not prevented him from leaving his Calling and travelling beyond Seas from which courses he kept him by fair Promises to provide for him and he made them good I will name the time and place Aug. 1621 and the Earl of Exeter's House in St. John's Close Mr. Secretary Winnebanke said It was his desire if it might have seemed good to others to have the Bishop degraded Hold Sir Francis and learn the Canons of the Church it is not in the Power of Laymen to degrade Bishops at their discretion and as little can a Knight depose a Peer of the upper House of Parliament for he that can thrust a Bishop out of that House why not as well an Earl or a Duke But Sir Francis shewed his Good will as the Athenians did to Philip the Son of Demetrius in Livy Additum est decreto ut si quid postea quod ad noxam ignominiamque Philippi pertineret adderetur id omne populum Atheniensium jussurum Dec. 4. lib. 1. Then comes in the Archbishop with a Trick to hoise up the Bishop with some Praise that it might push him in pieces with a greater Censure That when he thought upon this Delinquent's Learning Wisdom Agility in Dispatch Memory and Experience that accompanied him with all these Endowments he wondred at his Follies and Sins in this Cause O Sins by all means for by dioptrical Glasses some find Blemishes in the Sun Telescopia fabri facimus ut in sole maculas quaeramus says Alex. More in his Preface to Strangius's learned Book So upon this matter his Grace took up no less than a full Hour to declaim against the horrid Sin of Perjury and in this Cause he might as well have spoken against the horrid Sin of Piracy So he lays all his Censure upon that Charge Spirat inexhaustum flagranti pectore sulphur as Claudian of Enceladus The Auditors thought he would never have made an end till at last he pleaded for more Right to be done Sir J. Mounson The Lords let me say it freely and truly had overshot themselves to fine the Bishop to pay Sir John a Thousand Marks for saying that his Charge against Pregion was a Pocket-Order It is confess'd the Bishop said so and said the Truth But beside the Bishop pleaded that he heard it of T. Lund Lund stands to it that he told it the Bishop yet the Bishop is censur'd and Lund that took it upon himself is not question'd But the L. of Canterbury who did ever mount highest in all Censures said He was sorry the Fine was not a Thousand pounds 120. This is the shutting up of the Censure grievous to the Bishop's Purse and Liberty but not a whit to his Honour and Good Name which was so esteem'd by almost all that heard the actings of that day and shook their Heads at them As Cicero says in pro Plancio Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Ro. non judicium putandum est I that write this was chosen to bring the relation of this Censure to the Bishop then hard at his Study which he received with no change at all of his Countenance or Voice but only said Now the Work is over my Heart is at rest so is not many of theirs that have censured me And here began the way to Episcopal Disgrace and Declension It was his turn now it was Canterbury's not long after Howl Fir-tree for the Cedar is fallen Zech. 11.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Salmasius of the Elephant and Dragon in Solinum p. 307. The Vanquish'd was cast down and the Conqueror fell likewise When such a Pillar of the Church was demolish'd with Prosecutions so uncover'd to every Eye so transparent that you might see the Blush of Injustice quite through them how ominous was it to the higher and lower Dignities of the Clergy As Mr. Morice says in his Coena 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 354. Perhaps it may be with them as with Staddels in a Wood which scarce ever prosper when their fellows are cut down and themselves left naked And what became in three years or little more of that Honourable Court of Star-chamber of which the L. Coke says That in the right institution and the ancient Orders of it being observ'd it keeps all England in quiet But in some late Causes it grew distasteful even to wonder as in that of the Soap-boilers and that of London Derry that of Mr. Osbolston nay in that of Prynn Bastwick and Burton men not to be favour'd in the matter of their seditious Writings but for their Qualities and Places sake to be pitied for the Indignity done to their Persons which I receive from a wise Hand Bodin de Rep. l. 6. c. 6. Legibus
Parliament and in that Parliament to which he appealed he sits a Member and Peer and sees all Papers of Record against him torn and burnt to Ashes Ut advertas feliciter faclum reum quem sic videas absolutum Sym. Ep. 87. Be the Conclusion those words of Ezek. c. 17. v. 24. All the trees of the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree have exalted the low true have dried up the green tree and have made the dry tree to flourish Which the great Poet had rather ascribe to a blind Goddess in his Poetical License Aen. 12. Multos alterna revisens Lusit in solidum rursus fortuna locavit 131. A Prisoner whose Liberty I much long'd for is released but out of Limbo into Hell Can the worst word be had enough for those fatal days Now being come with him as far as the Door of the Parliament into which he entred upon the Call of the Lords I turned away for no little time and interrupted my self for above two years from writing any more not out of Sloth but Disdain To part with him till his last day was against my purpose and to keep him company in those boisterous times wherein a Senate of rigid men was dangerous I was at such a stay as Alexander in the dry Country of the Susitans Pigebat consistere progredi Curt. lib. 7. It was contrary to the Project of my Work to stop and as contrary to my Mind to go forward in the Hurricane of an intemperate Rebellion But it is resolved to look over somewhat of one of the most bloody Tragedies that ever was performed on the Earth rather than omit his part who was so loyal in his Actings and so magnanimous in his Sufferings And this may be done with the less unwillingness from one Passage that will recreate the Writer and the Reader that the chief Engineers that wrought the Thunderbolts at the Forge and laid the foundation of all ensuing Mischief lived to see themselves thrust out of their Den by a Brewers Drayman with his tatter'd Regiment a Passage to be kept for ever upon the Engravings of Memory and would not be pleasant but burdensome to know it and not to publish it As Archytas of Tarentum said If a man were lifted up among the Stars to know their order and motion the knowledge of it so admirable would be ingrate unto him unless he met with some to whom he might relate it So I am full of this to tell it to Posterity That the pittiful handful of Lords Temporal and now Temporary that adhered not to the King and cashiered the Lords Spiritual out of their Society for their immovable Fidelity were dismounted for ever from their own Privilege and Honour and might pawn their Parliament-Robes if they pleased And the remainder of the Commons after Pride's Purge was so despicable that every Tongue was so audacious to give them the nick-name of the Posteriors of a Beast and they put it up lest angry Wits should paste a greater Scorn upon them As Cas Severus satisfied himself with the Downfal of his Adversary Vivo quo vivere libeat Asprenatem reum video Quintil. lib. II. So this one Scene hath a good Catastrophe in the cruel Interlude That the small but most spightful part of this continuing Parliament held up their Tail though not their Hand at the Bar and went out it self in such a stink in the Snuff that all cry sie at it that have their Nostrils opened So my Mind is collected again and my Heart at some Peace in it self to see the Honour of Heavenly Justice settled so far 132. And to Preface no more and no less could be said A Parliament was sitting when our Bishop had his Liberty which held in its Fragments twelve years and six months Nay when the stub of the Members were baffled and spurn'd out of the House by the Russian Cromwell these Bankrupts opened their Shop once again and by a post limintum recover'd their places so that we reckon nineteen years from their first Call to their last Suppression Umbra serotina A shadow is longest at Evening when the Sun is ready to set And our Sun went down quickly when this shadow was so far extended But there is a better similitude for it in Pliny Nat. Hist lib. 2. cap. 14. A Serpent was taken at the River Bagrada of 120 foot long and the skin says he was hung up in the Capitol as long as such stuff could endure Mark this a Serpent the longest that ever was heard of the skin kept when it was mortified and preserved in the Senate-house Who can miss to apply it A Serpentine brood of Men none ever lasting so long in that High Court withered away to a skin or Skeleton all were right if they had been hung up in the Capitol This Serpent was young and the worst it could do was to hiss when Lincoln was brought in to sit with his fellow Bishops He had not been many hours there when he was amazed to see divers composed of new and strong Passions instigated to boldness by Scotch Confederacy heightned up by the Petitions and Mutinies of City and Country and preach't into disorder by Presbyterian Divines For a muffled Zeal for Religion hath a finger in all Combustions And as one says Multitudo vana superstitione capta meliùs vatibus quà m ducibus suis paret Curt. lib. 3. Church-men are the most dangerous Instruments to turn Male-contents into Sword-men who being prepossest with an ill opinion of the Times will quickly humble their Judgment under the Conscience of their Ministers But what Credit can it be to our Bishop for such Peers to take him into their number by their peremptory Vote None if he had answer'd their expectation Yet his chief Friends were as faithful and noble-hearted as ever sate upon the Benches of the House And it is no good thrist to cast out Gold-filings with the dust as if all were dust These must be sever'd from the rest to their immortal praise It is as true that he was sought for by some of the rest who had only an eye to the North-Star of their own Anti-monarchical Interest For he that was ordinarily read in man might know this able Prelate was to be left out that had so general an insight into all Affairs and Motions of State As Zeno prais'd Ismenias his Musick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he could play well upon all Instruments But when the disloyal Part hoped that a Man of a great Spirit and so much injur'd would revenge himself upon the Causes of his Troubles and Pipe after their Tune they were overshot to imagine it Though he is bound to be most true that is most trusted yet no man was bound to be true to them whom his Majesty as appears by his Writ trusted with his most concerning and weighty Counsels and were false to him that gave them Capacity to treat upon them
and give ear to nothing So you have the first and the last part of the Presbyterians Actings with the other Divines whom the Lords appointed for a Sub-committee There may well be a Suspicion when their Deeds do make a Confession that they would prevail by Force when they could not by Argument And thus began the downfal of Episcopacy which was never heard never suffer'd to plead at the Bar of the Parliament in its own Cause but as one says pertinently It was smother'd in a Crowd 141. Anatomists observe that the thinnest Membrane is that which covers the Brain that no weight might stop it from production of Notions and Phancies Certainly it was so in our Bishop's Head-piece who was consulted every day in weighty Affairs and had a Task at this time concurrent with all that went before to look to the Case of the noble but unfortunate Earl of Strafford A Charge of great Crimes was hastily drawn up against him that he had been a Tyrant in Ireland and stirred up His Majesty to raise an Army to oppress his Subjects in England and Scotland Haec passim Dea soeda virum diffudit in ora AEn 4. These were the Fictions of Fame and no more but made the People cast about distrustful and disloyal Doubts The Earl a man of great Wit and Courage knew not whether the King and all his Friends could save him In a rebellious nation wrath is set on fire Ecclus 16.6 And to the shame of Subjects bewitch'd with the new Spirit of that Bedlam rage neither the King nor his Justice could protect any man Too well do I remember that of Justin lib. 30. Nec quisquam in regno suo minùs quà m rex ipse poterat Some say of the French luke-warm in Religion that they kneel but with one Knee at Mass a great number in our rigid Parliament would not do so much the locking Joynt of their Knee was too stiff to bend at all Rebellion is a foul word yet they blush'd not at the deed who were ashamed of the Title Then the Scots were resolved not to disband till this brave Lord was headless Who hath seen a Hedge hog rouled up into a Ball The whole lump is Prickles do but touch it and you hurt your Hand Convolvuntur in modum pilae ne quid possit comprehendt praeter aculeos Plin l. 8. c. 37. So Lessly and his Tykes were bloody and imperious fastned with much confidence in one body Who could remove them Nay who could touch them or go about to mollitie them and get no harm Then the Tumults of Sectaries Corner-creepers and debauch'd Hang-by's that beset the dutiful Lord and Commons with Poniards and Clubbs were worse than an Army far off These call'd for Justice that is for the Life of the Earl What had they to do with Justice which if it might have fate upon the Bench and tryed them every Mothers Son of them had been condemned to the Gallows But it was safer to sit still with Prudence than to rush on with Courage Plus animi est inferenti periculum quà m propulsanti Liv. lib. 38. The Affailant that comes to do a Mischief puts on desperately and is fiercer than the Defendant And there is no equal temperature or counterpoise of Power against the strong Ingredient of a Multitude I will not say but many of this Scum invited themselves unbidden to do a Mischief but there was a Leader a Presbyter Pulpiteer that bespoke them into the Uproar from Shop to Shop Lucius Sergius signifer seditionis concitator tabernariorum Cic. pro dom ad Pont. I need not a Lime-hound to draw after him that was the chief Burgess of the Burrough who gathered this vain People to a head that had no Head Silly Mechanicks Horum simplicitas miserabilis his furor ipse Dat veniam Juven Sat. 2. But what will he answer that knew his Master's Will and ran headlong against it Now here 's the Streight of the Earl of Strafford expos'd to the greatest popular Rage that ever was known All that his good Angel could whisper into him in Prison was to trust to God and a righteous Defence But whereon should he bottom his Defence He could not upon the known Law which is the Merastone to limit and define all Causes for Life Limb Liberty or Living He must stand to a Tryal whether parcels of petty Offences will make an accumulative Felony and be arraigned upon a notion of Treason which could be wrested out of no Statute nor be parallel'd with any President The Treason was rather in them that call'd such things Treason to which no English Subject was liable by his Birth-right In populo scelus est abundant cuncta furore Man lib. 2. The Law was too much his Friend to bring him before the face of it Anocent man fears the Law an innocent man fears Malice and Envy O vitae tuta facultas Pauperis angustique laris O munera nondum Intellecla Luc. lib. 5. O the security and sound sleeps of a private Life If this Earl had not climb'd as high as the Weather-cock of Honours Spire he had not known the Horror of a Precipice Isocrates would never meddle with a publick Office says the Author of his Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Athenians were so spightful at their Magistrates that he would not trust them Demasthenes was employed in great Places and died untimely by a Poyson which he had confected for an evil time Says Pausan upon it in Atti. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is entrusted to govern the people when he hath serv'd their turn seldom dyes fortunately But this is the man whose Troubles gave the Bishop occasion to shew his Abilities in two points First About the circumstance of the examination of the Cause Secondly About the Judges of the Cause that is Whether Bishops might be such in causâ sanguinis There is much of it I confess but the Learning will recompence the length And I shall not blemish his Reputation to say of him what the Orator said of L. Aquilius Orat. pro Caecinnâ Cujus tantum est ingenium ita prompta fides ut quicquid haurias purum liquidúmque haurire censeas 142. Before I draw up to the Bishop's Reports there is more to be premised as That there was much ado to score out the Hearing of Strafford with a straight Line and a Form to give some satisfaction as a Child is often set upon its Legs before it can go His Adversaries toss'd it about many ways and manag'd it chiefly by two persons Mr. St. John the King's Sollicitor one that did very bad Service to the King his Master and the Church his Mother yet of able parts therefore I will write the Inscription of his Tomb-stone on the wrong side and turn it downward to the Earth The other was John Pym Homo ex argillâ luto factus Epicuraeo as Tully said of Piso that is in Christian English a painted Sepulchre
in the Records of the Tower can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and voting in Causes of Blood Sometimes by the great Favour of the King Lords and Commons not otherwise they were permitted to absent themselves never before now commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause that was agitated in Parliament So our Law Books say That the Prelates by the Canon-Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be tryed Which is enough to shew their Right thereunto This is to be seen 10 Edw. IV. f. 6. placit 17. And That it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford Pleas of the Crown f. 59. And saith Stamford the Canon-Law is a distinct and separated notion and not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common-Law or the Law of the Land 152. Coming now to an end it moves me little what some object That many worthy Fathers of this Church-reformed and Bishop Andrews among the rest did forbear to vote in Causes of Blood and voluntarily retired out of the House if such things came in question nor did offer to enter any Protestation I do not doubt but they had pious Affections in it though they did not fully ponder what they did I have heard that a main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. II. That it is the honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood Now the French word Honesty signifies Decency and Comeliness As though it were a butcherly and a loathsom matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an imaginary Decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Tradition in the dark Foggs and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a shaven Crown to depend on the Pope to plead Exemptions and to resuse to answer for Felonies in the King's Courts All these were esteemed in those days the Honesty of the Clergy And such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. II to absent themselves when they listed from the Aslembly of the Estate contrary to the King's Command in the Writ of Summons and to the Duties of their places as Peers of Parliament Yet they had more insight into what they did than some of our Bishops for they never offer'd to retire themselves in those days before their Protestation was benignly received and suffer'd to be enter'd upon the Parliament-Roll by the King the Lords and the House of Commons I know those excellent men that are with God proposed other Scruples to themselves they doubted not of the Legality or Comeliness for an Ecclesiastical Peer of the Kingdom of England to vote in a Judgment of Blood they did it continually in passing all Appeals and Attainders in Parliament but it startled them because it is not the practice of Prelates in other parts of the Christian Church so to do and thought it better to avoid Scandal and the Talk of other Nations That there being in the High Court of Parliament and Star-chamber Judges enough beside them they might without any prejudice to their King and Country forbear voting in those Judicatures somewhat the rather because all our Bishops in England are Divines and Preachers of the Gospel and consequently to be employ'd in Mercy rather than in Judgment who never touch upon the sharpness of the Law unless it be to prepare mens Hearts to relish and receive the comfort of the Gospel Let the Piety then and the Good-meaning of those grave Fathers be praised but I say they forgot their Duty to the Writ of the King's Summons and the use and weight of their Place And now to close I protest without vaunting I cannot perceive how this can be answer'd which I have digested together And if so many Bishops cannot obtain their Right which is so clear on their side God send the Earl of Strafford better Justice who is but a single Peer 153. Blame not my Book that there is so much of this Argument I hope the Ignorant will not read it at all but let a knowing man read it again and when he hath better observ'd it he will think it short Some History-spoilers have detracted from our Bishop that though he pleaded much in Parliament to his own Peril in the behalf of E. Strafford yet he wrought upon the King to consent to give way to his beheading Says our Arch-Poet Spencer lib. 3. Can. 1. st 10. Great hazard were it and Adventure fond To lose long-gotten Honour with one evil Hand But he shall lose no Honour in this for first as Nazian Or. 27 rejects them that had raised an ill Report of him whom he praised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can you prove that they were sound in their mind that said so if any will believe it from such authors a good man hath lost his thanks Ego quod bené fec◠malè feci quia amor mutavit locum Plautus That which was well done is ill done because it is not lovingly requited Hear all and judge equally Both the Houses of Lords and Commons by most Voices found the Earl guilty of Treason they made the greater Quire but those few that absolved him sung better The King interceded by himself by the Prince his Son to save him craved it with Cap in Hand Being founder'd in his Power he could go no further the Subjects denied their Soveraign the Life of one Man so Strafford must be cast away Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Rom. non judicium fuit Cic. pro Plancio Whose Calamity is the shame of English Justice His Majesty for divers days could not find in his Heart to set his Hand to the Warrant for Execution for Conscience dresseth it self by its own light And I would he had been as constant to his own Judgment in other things that we might remember it to his Honour as Capitolinus testifies for Maximus Non aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit The fate of it was that the Parliament would not grant Mercy to the Earl and would have Justice from the King according to their Sentence whether he would or no They threaten and were as good as their Word to sit idle and do nothing for publick Safety and Settlement the whole Realm being in distraction till the Stroke was struck All the Palace-Yard and Hall were daily full of Mutineers and Outcries His Majesty's Person was in danger the roguy Off-scum in the Streets of Westminster talk'd so loud that there was cause to dread it Though there is nothing more formidable than to fear any thing more than God yet the most eminent Lords of the Council perswaded His Majesty to make no longer resistance Placeat quodcunque necesse est Lucan lib. 4. Not he but Necessity should be guilty of it If he did
refuse to concurr with the Parliament nay if he took more time to deliberate upon it it would be worse for the Earl and he would come to a more unhappy Death for an Hellish Contrivance was resolved upon just as in St. Paul's case Acts 23.15 the Zealots that had vowed Paul's death laid the Plot with the Priests and Elders to signisie to the Captain to bring him down to enquire somewhat more perfectly concerning him and ere ever he came near they would fall upon him The condemn'd Earl when he heard of this was no longer fond of Lise but sent word to the King that he was well prepared for his End and would not his gracious Majest y should disquiet himself to save a ruin'd Vessel that must sink A valiant Message and sit for so great a Spirit Loginus notes acutely that when Ajax was to combat with Hector he begg'd some things of such Gods as he call'd upon but to escape with life was not in his Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was beneath a Graecian Heroe to desire Life It being therefore to no purpose to dispute what was the best Remedy to save this Lord when there was none at all the House of Lords nominate four Prelates to go to His Majesty to propound how the Tenderness of his Conscience might safely wade through this insuperable dissiculty these were L. Primate Usher with the Bishops Morton Williams Potter There was none of those four but would have gone through Fire and Water as we say to save the Party which being now a thing beyond Wit and Power they state the Question thus to the King sure I am of the Truth because I had it from the three former Whether as His Majesty refers his own Judgment to his Judges in whose Person they act in Court of Oyer Kings-bench Assize and in Cause of Life and Death and it lies on them if an innocent man suffer so why may not His Majesty satisfie his Conscience in the present matter that since competent Judges in Law had awarded that they found Guilt of Treason in the Earl that he may susser that Judgment to stand though in his private mind he was not satisfied that the Lord Strafford was criminous for that juggling and corrupt dealing which he suspected in the Proofs at the Tryal and let the Blame lye upon them who sate upon the Tribunal of Life and Death The four Bishops were all for the ashrmative and the Earl took it so little in ill part that Reverend Armagh pray'd with him preach'd to him gave him his last Viaticum and was with him on the Scassoid as a Ghostly Father till his Head was severed from his Body 154. Indeed His Majesty in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem to represent it as if he did not approve what he received from the four Bishops at that Consultation And I will leave such good men to his Censure rather than contradict any thing in that most pious most ravishing Book which deserves as much as Tully said of Crassus in his Brutus Ipsum melius potuisse scribere alium ut arbitror neminem Perhaps the King could have wrote better but I think no man else in the three Kingdoms What a venomous Spirit is in that Serpent Milton that black-mouth'd Zoilus that blows his Vipers Breath upon those immortal Devotions from the beginning to the end This is he that wrote with all Irreverence against the Fathers of our Church and shew'd as little Duty to his Father that begat him The same that wrote for the Pharisees That it was lawful for a man to put away his Wife for every cause and against Christ for not allowing Divorces The same O horrid that desended the lawfulness of the greatest Crime that ever was committed to put our thrice-excellent King to death A petty School-boy Scribler that durst graple in such a Cause with the Prince of the learned men of his Age Salmasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius says of Ammonius Plutarch's Scholar in Aegypt the Delight the Musick of all Knowledge who would have scorn'd to drop a Pen-full of Ink against so base an Adversary but to maintain the Honour of so good a King whose Merit he adorns with this Praise p. 237. Con. Milt De quo si quis dixerit omnia bona vix pro suis meritis satis illum ornaret Get thee behind me Milton thou savourest not the things that be of Truth and Loyalty but of Pride Bitterness and Falshood There will be a time though such a Shimei a dead Dog in Abishai's Phrase escape for a while yet he and the Enemies of my Lord the King will fall into the Hands of the Avenger of Blood And that Book the Picture of King Charles's innocent Soul which he hath blemish'd with vile Reproaches will be the Vade Mecum of godly persons and be always about them like a Guardian Angel It is no marvel if this Canker-worm Milton is more lavish in his Writings than any man to justifie the beheading of Strafford whom good men pray'd for alive and pitied him dead So did the four Bishops that I may digress no longer who pour'd the best Oyl they could into the King's Conscience to give him Peace within himself when the main Cause was desperate and common Fury would compel him in the end to sacrifice this Earl to the Parliament Things will give better Counsel to men than men to things But a Collector of Notes W. Sa. hath a sling at the Bishop of Lincoln his quill hits him but hurts him no more than if it were a Shuttle-cock with four Feathers Forsooth when those four Bishops were parting from the King he put a Paper into His Majesty's Hand and that could be nothing else but an Inflammatory of Reasons more than were heard in publick left the King should cool and not set his Hand to the fatal Warrant This Author was once in the right p. 154. of his own Book That it becomes an Historian in dubious Relations to admit the most Christian and Charitable Pessumè it is optimè herclè dicitis Plaut in Pen. But this Case needs no Favour The Paper which that Bishop put into the King's Hands as he told me the next morning was an humble Advice to His Majesty why he should not give the Parliament an indesinite time to sit till both Houses consented to their own dissolution Was not this faithful Counsel For what could the King see in them who had been so outragious already to stand out the trial of their wavering Faith Trust should make men true Says Livy lib. 22. Vult sibi quisque credi habita fides ipsam plerumque fidem obligat But a number of these men cared not for moral Principles they were all for the Scriptures and they read them by new Lights The King had too much Faith and they had no Good Works What magnanimous Prince would bow so low to give the Keys of Government to so many Male-contents
by inch somewhat may be gotten out of small pieces of business nothing out of supervacaneous And Sir says he I would it were not true that I shall tell you Some of the Commons are preparing a Declaration to make the Actions of your Government odious if you gallop to Scotland they will post as fast to draw up this biting Remonstrance Stir not till you have mitigated the grand Contrivers with some Preferments But is this credible says the King Judge you of that Sir says the Bishop when a Servant of Pymm 's in whose Master 's House all this is moulded came to me to know of me in what terms I was contented to have mine own Case in Star-chamber exhibited among other Irregularities And I had much ado to keep my Name and what concerns me out of these Quotations but I obtain'd that of the fellow and a Promise to do me more Service to know all they have in contrivance with a few Sweetbreads that I gave him out of my Purse What is there in all that the Bishop said especially in the last touch that look'd not like sober Warning Yet nothing was heeded The King saw Scotland and I know not what he brought thence unless it were matter to charge the five Members of Treason who were priviledg'd from it with a Mischief His Majesty being returned to London Nov. 26. That which the Commons called The Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom came forth by their Vote Decemb. 15. to besoil His Majesly's Reign with studied bitterness And this was a Night-work and held the Members Debate all Wednesday night and till three of the Clock in the Thursday morning Synesius spake his worst of Trypho's Tribunal Lib. de Prov. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did not administer justice in the day-time but in the night a time more proper for thieves to go to work and for the beasts of the forrest to come out of their dens and get their prey if the loyal part had staid it out who appeared the greater number in the beginning of the question they had cast it out for a vile desamation but the one half of that part had slunk away and were gone to bed as st Peter stood to his Master stoutly till midnight but railed him by the second crowing of the Cock If these had kept the wise Rules of the Roman Senate the one part had been frustrate in all they obtained in the dead of the night and long after Says Budaeus Senatus consultum ante exortum post occasum solis nullum fait lib. 1. in Pand. p. 231. And the other part had been fined for departing away Senatori qui non aderit aut causa aut culpa esto Cic. de Leg. But their Apology is That those were no Juridical hours either for a Roman or an English Senate Birds of Day keep not time with Screetch-owls But these Libertines had leave to sit as long as they would by night or day Magna sumendo majora praesumimus Sym. Ep. p. 9. Great Concessions are the cause of greater Presumptions 156. During some part of the time that the King was in the North Miseries came trooping all at once upon the Church The Reverend Fathers every day libelled and defamed in the Press durst not come in to help The Times did make it appear what Blood was about mens Hearts They that feared to diversifie from the received Doctrine and Discipline of the Church before dreading Ecclesiastical Consistories and the High-Commission Court encreased into so many Sects almost as there were Parishes in England And as Aventine said lib. 8. Annal. of the Schoolmen newly sprung up in his days Singulae sectae judicio multarum sectarum stultitiae cowvincuntur But what were we the better when every Spark kindled another to make a general Combustion Our Case in God's House was as bad as that of the Gauls in Caesar's time lib. 6. Bel. Gal. Non solùm in omnibus civitatibus atque in omnibus pag is partibusque sed in singulis domibus factiones sunt The Parliament which saw the Body of Christ wounded look'd on and passed by on the other side Luke 10.32 as if they did but smile at the variety of Throngs and Dispositions I think they durst net pour in Wine or Oyl to heal the Wounds of Religion for that reason which Dr. Owen gives Praef. to Vind. p. 36. For by adhering to one Sect professedly they should engage all the rest against them Only Lincoln for all this universal Contempt of Episcopacy visited his great Diocess in October not by his Chancellor but in his own person Naequid expectes amicos quod tute agere possies so cited out of Ennius Trust not to your Friends when you can do your Work your self A Bishop is lazy that doth his Duty by a Proxy Pontificium significat potestatem officium says a Critick Heral in Arnob. p. 115. The Etymology of a Pontificate imports Power and Office They are both Yoke-fellows Says another Critick and a good Judge indeed Salmas in Solin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Age of Christian Emperors were Visitors that went from Church to Church like Paul and Barnabas to set things in order who long before that were Physicians that were sent from Village to Village to cure the Sick This Labour our Bishop undertook personally to heal the Maladies of Brain-sick Distempers at Boston Lester Huntington Bedford Hitchin the last Visitation that was held in either Province to this day And God grant he might not say as Synesius did of his Diocess of Ptolomais when he and all the Bishops of Aegypt were ejected by a conquering Party 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O my Ptolomais am I the last Bishop that ever thou shalt have But I hope better things Hope is the common Revenue of the Distressed they have much of that who have nothing else I go on with our Bishop who so long as he was in Place and for a while that his Words were remembred brought those Counties to a handsom state of quietness Cocus magnum abenum quando fervet paulâ confutat truâ When a Cauldron of hot Liquor boils and is ready to run over a Cook stays it by casting in a Ladle of cold Water No man could comprize his Exhortations in better Harmony than this Oratour and set several Instruments in tune one to another and the Voice to them all Eloquium tot lumina clausit Meta. l. as Mercury lull'd Argos asleep with all his Eyes for says he much to this meaning Countrymen and Neighbors whither do you wander Here are your lawful Ministers present to whom of late you do not refort I hear but to Tub-preachers in Conventicles There is a Penalty for this and no Power can protect you against the Statutes in force which are not yet repealed but you are bound in Conscience to keep those Laws which are not Fetters upon your Hands but Bracelets they are the
and Representation of the Clergy a third estate if we may speak either with Sir Edw. Coke or the ancient Acts of Parliament have been in possession hereof these Thousand years and upward The Princes of the Norman Race indeed for their own ends and to strengthen themselves with Men and Money erected the Bishopricks soon after the Conquest into Baronies and left them to sit in the House with their double Capacities about them the latter invented for the profit of the Prince not excluding the former remaining always from the beginning for the profit and concernment of the poor Clergy and the State Ecclesiastical which appears not only by the Saxon Laws set forth by Mr. Lambert and Sir H. Spelman but also by the Bishops Writs and Summons to Parliament in use to this very day We have many President upon the Rolls that in vacancy of Episcopal Sees the Guardian of the Spirituals though but a simple Priest hath been called to fit in this Honourable House by reason of the former Representation and such an Officer I was my self over that See whereof I am Bishop some 25 years ago and might then have been summoned by Writ to this Honourable House at that very time by reason of keeping the Spirituality of that Diocess which then as a simple Priest I did by vertue of the aforesaid Office represent And therefore most noble Lords look upon the Ark of God's Representative that at this time floats in great danger in this Deluge of Waters If there be any Cham or unclean Creature therein out with him and let every man bear his own Burden but save the Ark for God and Christ Jesus sake who hath built it in this Kingdom for saving of People And your Lordships are too wise to conceive that the Word and Sacraments the means of our Salvation will be ever effectually received from those Ministers whose Persons shall be so vilified and dejected as to be made no Parcels or Fragments of this Common-wealth No faith Gregory the last Trick the Devil had in this World was this that when he could not bring the Word and Sacraments into disgrace by Errors and Heretical Opintens he invented this Project and much applauded his Wit therein to cast Slight and Contempt upon the Preachers and Ministers And my noble Lords you are too wise to believe what the common people talk that we have a Vote in the election of Knights and Burgesses and consequently some Figure and Representation in the noble House of Commons They of the Ministry have no Vote in these Elections they have no Representation in that Honourable House and the contrary Assertions are so slight and groundless as I will not offer to give them any answer And therefore R. Hon. Lords have a special care of the Church of England your Mother in this point And as God hath made you the most noble of all the Peers of the Christian World so do not you give way that our Nobility shall be taught henceforth as the Romans were in the time of the first and second Punick Wars by their Slaves and Bond-men only and that the Church of God in this Island may come to be served by the most ignoble Ministers that have ever been seen in the Christian Church since the Passion of our Saviour And so much for the first thing which this Bill intends of sever from Persons in Holy Orders viz. Votes and Representations in Parliament The next thing to be severed from them by this Bill is of a meaner Mettal and Alloy sittings in Star-Chamber sittings at Council-Table sitting in the Commissions of Peace and other Commissions of Secular Affairs which are such Favours and Graces of Christian Princes as the Church may have a being and subsistence without them The Fartunes of our Greece do not depend upon these Spangles and the Soveraign Prince hath imparted and withdrawn these kind of Favours without the envy or regret of any wise Ecclesiaâ—ical Persons But my noble Lords this is the Case our King hath by the Statute restored unto him the Headship of the Church of England and by the Word of God he is Custos utriusque tabulae And will your Lordships allow this Ecclesiastical Head no Ecclesiastical Senses at all No Ecclesiastical Person to be consulted withal not in any circumstance of Time and Place If Cranmer had been thus dealt withal in the minority of our young King Josias King Edward the Sixth of pious memory what had become of the great Work of our Reformation in this flourishing Church of England But I know before whom I speak I do not mean to Dine your Lordships with Coleworts the harsh Consequents of this Point your Lordships do understand as well as I. The last Robe that some Persons in Holy Orders are to be stript of hath a kind of Mixture of Freehold and Favour of the proper Right and Graces of the King which are certain old Charters that some few Bishops and many Ancient and Cathedral Churches have purchased and procured from the ancient Kings before and since the Conquest to inable them to live quiet in their own Precincts and close as they call it under a Justice or two of their own Body without being abandoned upon every slight occasion to the Injuries and Vexations of Mechanical Tradesmen of which your Lordships best know those Country Incorporations do most consist Now whether these sew Charters have their Foundation by Favour or by Right I should conceive under your Lordships savour it is neither Favour nor Right to take them away without some just Crime objected and proved For if they be abused in any particular Mr. Attorney-General can find an ordinary Remedy to repair the same by a Writ of Ad quod damnum without troubling the two Houses of Parliament And this is all I shall speak to this Point 165. And now I am come to the fourth part of this Bill which is the manner of Inhibition heavy every way heavy in the Penalty heavier a great deal in the Incapacity For the weighing of the Penalty will you consider I beseech you the small Wyres that is poor Causes that are to induce the same and then the heavy Lead that hangs upon those Wyres It is thus If a natural Subject of England interessed in the Magna Charta and Petition of Right as well as any other yet being a Person in Holy Orders shall happen unfortunately to Vote in Parliament to obey his Prince by way of Counsel or by way of a Commissioner be required thereunto then he is presently to lose and forfeit for his first offence all his means and livelyhood for one year and for the second to forfeit his Freehold in that kind for ever and ever And I do not believe that your Lordships ever saw such an heavy weight of Censure hang upon such thin Wyres of Reason in an Act of Parliament made heretofore This peradventure may move others most but it does not me It is not the Penalty
but the Incapacity and as the Philosopher would call it the Natural Impotency imposed by this Bill on Men in Holy Orders to serve the King or the State in this kind be they never so able never so willing never so vertuous Which makes me draw a kind of Timanthes vail over this Point and leave it without any amplification at all unto your Lordships wise and inward thoughts and considerations The fifth Point is the Salvo made for the two Universities to have Justices of Peace among them of their own Heads of Houses which I confess to be done upon mature and just consideration For otherwise the Scholars must have gone for Justice to those Parties to whom they send for Mustard and Vineger But yet under favour the Reasons and Inducements cannot be stronger than may be found out for other Ecclesiastical Persons as the Bishop of Durham who was ever since the days of K. John suffered by the Princes and Parliaments of England to exercise Justice upon the Parties in those Parts as being in truth the King's Subjects but the Bishops Tenants and therefore not likely to have their Causes more duly weighed than when the Balance is left in the hand of their own proper Landlord The Case of the Bishop of Ely for some parts of that Isle is not much different But if a little Partiality doth not herein cast some little Mist before mine eyes the Case of the Dean and City of Westminster wherein this Parliament is now sitting is far more considerable both in the Antiquity extent of Jurisdiction and the Warrants whereupon it is grounded than any one of those places before mentioned For there is a clear Statute made 27 Eliz. for the drawing all Westminster St. Clement and St. Martins le Grand London into a Corporation to be reigled by a Dean a Steward twelve Burgesses and twelve Assistants And if some Salve or Plaister shall not be applied to Westminster in this Point all that Government and Corporation is at an end But this I perceive since is taken into consideration by the Honourable House of Commons themselves I come now to the last Point and the second Salvo of this Bill which is for Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons or Peers of this Kingdom which is a Clause that looks with a kind of contrary glance upon Persons in Holy Orders it seems to favour some but so that thereby and in that very act it casts an aspersion of baseness and ignobility upon all the rest of that Holy Profession For if no Persons in Holy Orders ought to intermeddle in Secular Affairs how come those Nobles to be excepted out of the Universal Negative Is it because they are nobly born Then surely it must be granted that the rest must be excluded as being made of a worser and rougher piece of Clay For the second part of this Reason in the beginning of the Bill can never bear out this Salvo That the Office of the Ministry is of so great importance that it will take up the whole Man and all his best Endeavours Surely the Office of the Ministry is of no greater importance in a poor man than in a noble man nor doth it take up the whole Man in the one and but a piece of him in the other I cannot give you many Instances herein out of Scripture because you know that in those days Not many mighty not many noble were called 1 Cor. 1.26 But when any Noble were called I do not find but that they did put more of the whole Man and their best Endeavours upon the Ministry than other Men in Holy Orders are at the least in Holy Scripture noted to have done I puâ— your Lordships in mind of those Noble men of Beraea compared with thâ—se of Thessalonica Acts 17.11 So that this Salvo for the Nobility must needs be under your Lordships favour a secret wound unto the rest of the Ministry unless your Lordships by your great Wisdom will be willing to change it into a Panacaea or common Plaister both to the one and to the other And under your Lordships Favour I conceive it may be done under a very foâ—ing Argument The Office of the Ministry is of equal importance and takes up the whâ— Man and all his best Endeavours in the Noble born as well as in the mean born Bishop But it is lawful all this notwithstanding for the noble born Minister to intermeddle in Secular Affairs and therefore it is likewise lawful for the mean born so to do And so in may Conscience I speak it in the presence of God and great Noblemen it is most lawful for them to intermeddle with Secular Affairs so as they be not intangled as the Apostle calls it with this intermedling as to slight and neglect the Office of their Calling which no Minister noble or ignoble can do without grievously sinning against God and his own conscience It is lawful for Persons in Holy Orders to intermeddle it is without question or else they could not make provision of Meat and Drink as Beza interprets the place It is not lawful for them to be thus intangled and bound up with Secular Affairs which I humbly beseech your Lordships to consider not as a Distinction invented by me but clearly expressed by the Apostle himself 166. And thus my noble Lords I shall without any further molestation and with humble thanks for this great patience leave this great Cause of the Church to your Lordships wise and gracious consideration Here is my Mars-hill and further I shall never appeal for Justice Some assurance I have from the late solemn Vow and Protestation of both Houses for the maintaining and defending the Power and Priviledges of Parliament that if this Bill were now to be framed in the one House it would never be offered without much qualification and I perswade my self it will not be approved in the other Parliaments are indeed Omnipotent but no more Omnipotent than God himself who for all that cannot do every thing God cannot but perform what he hath promised A Parliament under favour cannot un-swear what it hath already vowed This is an old Maxim which I have learned of the Sages of the Law A Parliament cannot be Felo de se it cannot destroy or undo it self An Act of Parliament as that in the eleventh and another in the one and twentieth of Richard the Second made to be unrepealable in any subsequent Parliament was ipso facto void in the constitution Why because it took away the Power and Priviledges that is not the Plumes and Feathers the remote Accidents but the very specisial Form Essence and Being of a Parliament So if an Act should be made to take away the Votes of all the Commons or all the Lords it were absolutely a void Act. I will conclude with the first Ep. to the Corinthians c. 12. v. 15. If the soot shall say because I am not the hand I am not of the body is it therefore not of
the body v. 20. but now are they many Members yet but one Body v. 21. And the eye cannot say unto the hand I have no need of thee nor again the head unto the feet I have no need of you So far our brave Speaker and all this is exscribed faithfully out of his own Copy Let another take his room and let him that is wisest perform it better The Success was that he laid the Bill asleep for five months for I confess that by over-sight I have not kept the just order of time for it should have been referred to the middle of May before the King went into Scotland and was in a trance by the charm of this Eloquence till November after which shews how like he was to Athanasius Nazian in Orat. pro codem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanasius was an Adamant not to be broken with violent blows and a Load-stone to draw them to him that were of a contrary Opinion Now mark the Partiality upon which the Speaker much insisted That the Lords would grant Interest to noble Persons in Holy Orders to act in Secular Affairs but to none beside As Grotius fits it with a passage Annal. p. 5. Castellani quantumcunque usurpent ipsi libertatem in aliis non serunt The Castilians are great encroachers upon liberty for themselves but will not tollerate it in any beside To the main Cause I yield that that was easie to be defended on the Clergies part as learned Saravia shews de Christian Obed. p. 169. not only from Moses's Law but from the Custom general of the most orderly among the Heathen Gaulish Druids Persian Magi Egyptian Heirophants and so forth by induction from all places to make it amount even to a natural Law that Priests were no where excluded from honourable Imployments in Secular Affairs I will appose two Quotations for it and very remarkable The first from the Judgment of the Scottish Presbytery R. Spotswood Hist p. 299. 449. That they contended for that Priviledge that some Ministers should give Voice in Parliament in the behalf of the Church And some to assist the King in Parliament in Council and out of Council Doth the Wind blow so from the North The other taken from Ludo. Molin Paraen c 4. And he no well-willer to our Hierarchy in that Book least of all to their Consistories Deus Pastori Evangelico non detrahit jus potestatem Magistraturae nec magistratum prohibet ministerio si ad utrumque factus comparatus est But this Bill that went no further when it was first set on foot in May began to enlarge its strides and mend its Pace in the end of Autumn Either because this fiery Parliament saw that Confusion begun must be carried on with acting greater or because the King was suspected that he tamper'd with the Scots and they framed an Injury from his Neglect to leave them so long or how it was that their thoughts were whiâ—'d about with the Wheel of swift Perswasions themselves knew best but their Spleen began to shew it self with stronger fits than ever against the Clergy who were never safe so long as the Bill we have heard of was not cancell'd For the Spanish Proverb tells us That Apple is in great danger that sticks upon the prickles of an Hedge-hogg But if the Sum of the Bill had been right cast the now most noble Marquess of Dorchester and more noble because most learned told his Peers May 21. Which of your Lordships can say he shall continue a Member of this House when at one blow six and twenty are cut off This was sooth nay Sooth-saying and Prophesying but it was not attended 167. When all ways had been tried to pass this Bill of Dishonour upon the Clergy chiefly the Bishops and it hung in the House of the Lords the event methinks is like that which we read I Kings 22. v. 21. There came forth a Spirit and stood before the Lord and said I will perswade them And the Lord said Wherewith And he said I will go forth and I will be a Spirit of clamour and tumult in the mouth of all the People And the Lord said Thou shalt perswade them and prevail also Go forth and do so There had been an unruly and obsteperous concourse of the People in the Earl of Strafford's Case But a Sedition broke forth about Christmas that was ten times more mad Ludum jocumque dices fuisse illum alterum prout hujus rabies quae dabit Terent. Eunuch which took heat upon this occasion The King came to the House of Commons to demand five of their Members to Justice upon impeachment of Treason His Majesty it seems was too forward to threaten such persons with the Sword of Justice when he wanted the Buckler of Safety How far those five were guilty I have nothing to say because plain Force would not let them come to a Tryal But if they were innocent why did they not suffer their Practices to see the Light It had been more to their Honour to be cleared by the Law than to be protected against the Law And that Cause must needs be suspected which could not put on a good outside I am sure the King suffer'd extreamly for their sakes All Sectaries and desperate Varlets in City and Suburbs flock'd by thousands to the Parliament Diogenes was ask'd What was to be seen at the Olympick Sports where he had been Says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laert. in Vit. Much People but few Men. But here were no Men but all Beasts who promised one another Impunity by their full body of Rebels and where there is no fear of Revenge there is little Conscience of Offence Quicquid multis peccatur inultum est Lucan The Rake-hells were chaffed to so high a degree of Acrimony that they pressed through the Court-gates and their Tongues were so lavish that they talk'd Treason so loud that the King and Queen did hear them Let the five Members be as honest as they would make them I am certain these were Traytors that begirt the King's House where his Person was with Hostility by Land and Water He that speaks of them without detestation allows them and makes way for the like Sometimes they called out for Religion sometimes for Justice Ex isto ore religionis verbum excidere aut clabi potest as Tully of Clodius pro Dom. Was the sacred term of Religion sit to come out of their Mouths Did it become them to speak of Justice Sarah cried out to Abraham The Lord judge between me and thee when her self was in the fault Gen. 16.5 Every Tinker and Tapster call'd for Justice and would let the King have none who is the Fountain of it What did the great Parliament in the mean while Give Freedom to their Rage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their Friends in their ragged rows were too many to be childden they were more afraid of them than of the
a Writer Gisbert Voetius of Utrecht learned indeed but bitter minded against our King and the old Settlement of our Church this man the Assembly of Divines did easily gain unto them and for their Interest he states a Question Disput tom 2. p. 852. How Subjects may quell their King and pull him down by force of A◠Which is intended for our English Case cut out into as many Exceptions almost as there he words in the Thesis and all the Particulars wrongly applied to our ungodly Distempers His Hammer strikes thus upon the Forge Primo quaestio est an à Proceribus Statibus Ordinibus Magistratibus Superioribus Infericribus qui pro ratione regiminis publicâ auctoritate instructi sunt palea 2. Regi Principi limitato conditionato palea 3. In extremo necessitatis casu palea 4. Post omnia frustra tentata palea 5. Secundum leges pacta fundamentalia principatus palea 6. Defensivè armis resisti palea 7. Ut respub ab interitu conservari possit palea First When had our Peers our Magistrates superiour and inferiour Power to bring His Majesty by Fear or Force into Order Never 2. When was his Empire limited or made conditional otherwise than to charge his Conscience before God to keep his Laws Never 3. Were we brought by ill administration to the brink of extream Necessity No such thing 4. Or were all dutiful means tryed to obtain the King's Consent to honest Demands Widest of all from Truth 5. Or have we Pactions sundamental between the King and People to constrain him to concur with their Proposals 'T is a meer Chimera 6. Did the Parliament wage the defensive part of the War Quite mistaken 7. Was there no other way but by such a rout of Russians to keep our native Country from Ruin Nay was it in the least danger of Ruin Not at all not till these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Club-Lawyers silled the whole Land with Blood and Burning What cutting and carving hath this Dutch Workman made to bring us to worship the Idol of Rebellion And when all is said we know that an Idol is nothing in the World 1 Cor. 3.4 and as it follows there is no other God but one and none but that one God above the King against whose punitive Justice and none beside K. David offended 178. Many things were alledged to commence and continue this fatal War Quae prima querar Quae summa gemam Pariter cuncta deslere juvat Sen. Her Fur. One thing made a loud cry far and wide That His Majesty had left his Parliament and that the Members fate in great danger This was a Scandal taken which did raise such Enemies whom nothing else could have tempted from their Loyalty He lest his Parliament yes but consider it intelligently not till he had granted as much as was abundant for our Liberty Peace and Welfare not till he had yielded up more Branches of his Soveraignty and Revenue than all his Predecessors had granted in 300 years before not till he had trusted them to spend out that Parliament at their own leisure and yet they would trust him with nothing An Affront of deep Indignity Dare they not trust him that never broke with them And I have heard his nearest Servants say That no man could ever challenge him of the least Lye But as Probus said of Epaminondas Adeò veritatis diligens ut ne joco quidem mentiretur Was it square dealing to protest against him that would pay them all due Debt if they would let him I am sure when he left them he left a great many traces of Fame and Glory a great many Benefits of Obligation behind him And this Case will prove the same or much like to the Objection of the Pontificians They say we made a Schism in departing from the Church of Rome We say that the Schism was on their part for they that give the Cause for which it is necessary to abandon Communion they are the Authors of the Schism We continued in the Fellowship of Christ's Church and retreated from the Errors of an incorrigible corrupted part and from the Affrightments and Censures of them that were turned our open Enemies Say over the same to this Parliament and it will be the King's Apology They made the Schism that offer'd him Bills unfit to be pass'd with Clamoring Menacing and undutiful Violence which he must sign or fly far enough Sed qui mali sensu aut metu extorquere assensum velit eo ipso ostendit se argument is diffidere Grot. lib. 6. de Christi Relig. They made the Schism that used his Royal Name with Irreverence a King must not be contented with mediocrity of Respect but their Manners were gross and Plebeian They made the Schism that heard the highest Indignities against his Crown with Patience when Sir Harry Ludlow spake Treason and was not question'd To cut off a great deal they received his ample Concessions with no Thanks and degreed to further Demands and more unreasonable that fill'd the Palace the Hall their Stairs their Doors with such as forbore not to bring in doubt the Safety of his Sacred Person When so many were chased to such a barbarous Boldness what wise man would stand it out and not prevent it What security hath the Earthen Pitcher against an Iron Pot He that fears the worst prevents it soonest 179. The High Court of Parliament one House or both under the Saxon Monarchs or in a few Descents after was created to assist the King to be his great Council When he pleased he call'd it when he pleased he dismiss'd it In succession of days none fate there before he had taken an Oath to bear true Ligance to him and his Heirs and to defend His Majesty against all Perils and Assaults Never was it intended to obtrude upon him with force to compel him to take out his Lesson which they taught him as in a Pedagogy but to propound and advise with due distance and humility Introducta in alicujus utilitatem in ejus laesionem verti non debent if I may believe the Civil Law That which was instituted for the Soveraigns benefit in common sence must not be elevated above him to unthrone him A right Parl. is the Mind of many gathered into one Wisdom this look't rather like the petulancy of many breaking out into one frowardness The form that gives essence to every thing was gone when they that silled the places of Counsellors would transcend and give Law to Majesty If yet they dare criminate him upon Schism tell them that Christ came to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel yet when they took up stones to stone him he went away through the midst of them There is King Charles his Pattern Wherefore then did they hunt after him in warlike Terrour as if they would fetch him in by Proclamation of Rebellion Had he seen the Tyde ebb but an inch I should guess by the