King according to man's unjust reproaches but according to the iunocency of his hands in his sight 32. If a King have desired or delighted in the wofull day of his Kingdomes calamities If he have not earnestly studied and faithfully endeavoured the preventing and composing of the bloudy distractions in his Kingdome It is just that God's hand be against him and his fathers house 33. A King that hath enemies enough of men if his Conscience do witness his integrity may conditionally dare to imprecate God's curse upon him and his to gain the World's opinion of his innocency which God himself knowes right well provided that he trust not to his own merit but Gods mercies 34. When the troubles of a King's Soul are enlarged it is the Lord that must bring him out of his distress 35. Pious simpliciy is the best policy in a King 36. They who have too much of the Serpents subtilty forget the Doves innocency 37. Though hand joyn in hand a King by Gods assistance should never let them prevail against his Soul to the betraying of his Conscience and Honour 38. God having turn'd the hearts of the men of Judah and Israel they restored David with as much loyal zeal as they did with inconstancy and eargerness pursue him 39. A depressed King in whom God preserves the love of his truth and uprightness need not despair of his Subjects affections returning towards him 40. God can soon cause the overflowing Seas to ebbe and retire back again to the bounds which he has appointed for them 41. He can as soon make them ashamed who trangress without a cause and turn them back that persecute the Soul of their King 42. Integrity and uprightness will preserve a King in distress that waits upon the Lord. 43. From just moral and indispensable bonds which God's Word in the Lawes of a Kingdom have laid upon the Consciences of men no pretensions of Piety and Reformation are sufficient to absolve them or engage them to any contrary practises 44. Nothing violent and injurious can be religious 45. God allowes no mans committing Sacriledg under the zeal of abhorring Idols 46. Sacrilegious designs have sometimes the countenance of religious ties 47. The wisest of Kings hath taught all his Successours That it is a snare to take things that are holy and after vowes to make enquiry 48. A King ought never to consent to perjurious and sacriligious rapines which set upon him the brand and curse to all posterity of robbing God and his Church of what his divine bounty had given and his clemency had accepted wherewith to encourage Learning and Religion 49. Though a King's Treasures be exhausted his Revenues diminished and his debts increased yet should he never be tempted to use prophane Reparations least a coal from God's Altar set such a fire on his Throne and Conscience as will be hardly quenched 50. Though the State recover by God's blessing of peace yet the Church is not likely in times where the Charity of most men is grown cold and their Religion illiberal 51. When God continues to those that serve him and his Church all those incouragements which by the will of pious Donors and the justice of the Lawes are due unto them they ought to deserve and use them aright to God's glory and the relief of the poor That his Priests may be cloathed with righteousness and the poor may be satisfied with bread 52. Rather than holy things should be given to Swine or the Church's bread to Dogs Let them go about the City grin like a Dog and grudg that they are not satisfied 53. Let those sacred morsels which some men have by violence devoured neither digest with them nor theirs Let them be as Naboth's Vineyard to Ahab gall in their mouths rottenness to their names a moth to their Families and a sting to their Consciences 54. Break in sunder ô Lord all violent and sacrilegious Confederations to do wickedly and injuriously 55. Divide their hearts and tongues who have bandyed together against the Church and State that the folly of such may be manifest to all men and proceed no farther 56. A King whose righteous dealing is favoured by God in the mercies of the most High never shall miscary 57. A King who is made the object of popular reproach has his soul among Lions among them that are set on fire even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrowes and their tongue a sharp sword 58. Those sons of men that turn their Kings glory into shame love vanity and seek after lies 59. When wicked men on every side are set to reproach their King if God hold his peace the Kings Enemies will prevail against him and lay his honour in the dust 60. God shall destroy them that speak lies against their King and will abhor both the bloud-thirsty and deceitfull men 61. God can make the Kings righteousness appear as the light and his innocency to shine forth as the Sun at noon-day 62. A good King should pray that God would not suffer his silence to betray his innocence nor his displeasure his patience but that after his Saviour's example being reviled he may not revile again and being cursed by his enemies he may bless them 63. God would not suffer Shemei's tongue to go unpunished whose judgments on David might seem to justifie his disdainfull reproaches 64. Hot burning coals of eternal fire should be the reward of false and lying tongues against their King 65. A King's prayer and patience should be as water to cool and quench their tongues who are set on fire with the fire of Hell and tormented with those malicious flames 66. The King is happy that can refute and put to silence mens evil speaking by well-doing praying that they may not enjoy the fruit of their lips but of his prayer for their repentance and God's pardon 67. A King ought to learn David's patience and Hezekia's devotion that he may look to God's mercy through mens malice and see his justice in their sin 68. Even Sheba's seditious speeches Rabshekah's railing and Shemei's cursing may provoke as a King 's humble prayer to God so God's renewed blessing toward him 69. Though men curse God may bless and the afflicted King shall be blessed and made a blessing to his people and so the stone which some builders refuse may become the head-stone of the corner 70. If God look not down from heaven and save the reproach of some men would swallow up their King 71. God can hide the King in the secret of his Presence from the pride of men and keep him from the strife of tongues 72. God's mercies are full of variety and yet of constancy 73. God denieth us not a new and fresh sense of our old and daily wants nor despiseth renewed affections joined to constant expressions 74. The matters of our prayers ought to be agreeable to God's Will which is alwayes the same and the fervency of our spirits to the motions
some reparations for their former defects 41. As the quality of a King sets him beyond a Duel with any Subject so the Nobleness of his mind must raise him above the meditating any revenge or executing his anger upon the many 42. The more conscious a King shall be to his own merits upon his people the more prone he will be to expect all love and loyalty from them and to inflict no punishment upon them for former miscariages 43. An injur'd King will have more inward complacency in pardoning one than in punishing a thousand 44. We cannot merit of God but by his own mercy 45. Counterfeit and disorderly zeal ought not to abate a King's value and esteem of true piety both of them are to be known by their fruits 46. The sweetness of the Vine and Figtree is not to be despised though the Brambles and Thornes should pretend to bear Figs and Grapes thereby to rule over the Trees 47. The publick interest consists in the mutual and common good both of Prince and People 48. We must not sterve our selves because some men have surfeited of wholsom food 49. God sometimes punisheth Rebellious Subjects with continuance in their sin and suffers them to be deluded with the prosperity of their wickedness 53. Gods grace may teach and enable an injur'd King to want as well as to wear a Crown which is not worth taking up or enjoying upon sordid dishonourable and irreligious termes 51. Let a King keep himself to true principles of piety vertue and honour He shall never want a Kingdom 52. It is a principal point of honour in a yong King to deferre all respect love and pretection to the Queen Dowager his mother especially if with magnanimity and patience she hath sufferr'd for and with his Royal Father and himself 53. A Captive King in the midst of Rebellious Subjects may be wrapt up and fortified in his own innocency and God's grace 54. The bloud of a King destroy'd by Rebels will cry aloud for vengeance to Heaven and they who shed it will have inward horrour for their first Tormenter and not escape exemplary judgments 55. They that repent of any defects in their duty toward the Royal Father may be found truly zealous to repay with interest the loyalty and love which was due to him unto their King his son 56. The mask of Religion on the face of Rebellion will not long serve to hide the men's deformities that use it 57. Mislead Subjects may learn by their miseries That Religion to their God and Loyalty to their King cannot be parted without both their sin and their infelicity 58. God may honour a King not only with the Scepter and government of Realms but also with the suffering many indignities and an untimely death for them while he studies to preserve the rights of the Church the power of his Lawes the honour of his Crown the priviledges of Parliaments the liberties of his People and his own Conscience which is dearer to him than a thousand Kingdoms 59. A Captive King hath as much cause as leisure to meditate upon and prepare for his death there being but few steps between the Prisons and Graves of Princes 60. It is Gods indulgence which gives him the space but mans cruelty that gives him the sad occasions for those thoughts 61. A King in the hands of Rebels besides the common burthen of mortality which lies upon him as a man bears the heavy load of other mens ambitions fears jealousies and cruel passions whose envy or enmity against him makes their own lives seem deadly to them while he enjoyes any part of his 62. A Kings prosperity should not make him a stranger to the contemplations of mortality 63. The thoughts of death are never unseasonable since prosperity alwayes is uncertain 64. Death is an Eclipse which oft hapneth as well in clear as clowdy dayes 65. A King by long and sharp adversity may have so reconciled within himself those natural Antipathies between Life and Death which are in all men that the common terrours of the later may be dispelled and the special horrour of it much allayed 66. A King to whom a violent death approaching is represented by the policy of cruel and implacable enemies with all terrible aggravations may look upon those things as unpoysonous though sharp since his Redeemer hath either pulled them out or given him the antidote of his death against them which as to the immaturity unjustice shame scorn and cruelty of it exceeded whatever a threatned King can fear 67. A pious King never finds so much the life of Religion the feast of a good Conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious integrity and constancy as when he comes to a close conflict with the thoughts of Death 68. Though a King be not so old as to be weary of life it is happy for him if he be not so bad as to be either afraid to dye or asham'd to live 69. It is the greatest glory of a Christians life to dye dayly in conquering by a lively faith and patient hope of a better life those partial and quotidian deaths which kill by piece-meals and make men over-live their own fates while we are deprived of health honour liberty power credit safety or estate and those other comforts of dearest relations which are as the life of our lives 70. A King lives in nothing temporal so much as in the love and good will of his people 71. A King should not think that life too long or tedious wherein God gives him any opportunities if not to do yet to suffer with such Christian patience and magnanimity in a good cause as are the greatest honour of his life and the best improvement of his death 72. In point of true Christian valour it argues pusillanimity to desire to dye out of weariness of life and a want of that heroike greatness of spirit which becomes a Christian in the patient and generous sustaining those afflictions which as shadowes necessarily attend us while we are in this body and which are less'ned or enlarged as the Sun of our prosperity moves higher or lower whose total absence is best recompensed with the Dew of Heaven 73. The assaults of affliction may be terrible like Sampson's Lyon but they yield much sweetness to those that dare encounter and overcome them who know how to over-live the witherings of their Gourds without discontent or peevishness while they may yet converse with God 74. The life of a pious King is the Object of the Devils and wicked mens malice but yet under God's sole custody and disposal 75. We must not by seeming prepared to dye think to flatter God for longer life 76. Triumphing Enemies who are solemnely cruel adde as those did who crucified Christ the mockery of justice to the cruelty of malice 77. That a King may be destroyed as with greater pomp and artifice so with less pity it is but a necessary policy to make his death appear
do nor the least evill they prevent 18. The King against whom all advantages will be taken by persons disaffected to Him should take heed where He comes that no eminent disorder or damage befall any Man by any person of his Train or under his protection 19. Where a Party of People have shewed themselves eminently loyal to their King the fullest testimony of his affection to them and to the peace of their County may be this to pass over the considerations of Honour and Reproach and not permit a provocation to provoke Him to make that place be the seat of his War 20. No honest man can imagine that his King will ever sit down under a bold and unexcusable Treason 21. A King wholly cast upon the affections of his People having no hope but in the blessing and assistance of God the justness of his Cause and the love of his Subjects to recover what is taken from Him and Them may expect a good issue the rather in that they are equal losers with Him 22. When a King desires nothing of his People but what is necessary to be done for the preservation of God's true Religion the Lawes of the Land the Liberty of the Subject and the very being of his Kingdom He has reason to look for a speedy and effectual compliance with his demands 23. A King has no reason to suspect the Courage and Resolution of those his Subjects whose Conscience and Loyalty have brought them to Him to fight for their Religion their King and the Lawes of their Land especially when they are to meet with no Enemies but Traytors Schismaticks and Atheïsts such as desire to destroy both Church and State and who have before condemned them to ruine for being loyal to their King 24. It gives courage to the Soldier when his King satisfies Him that the cause is just wherein He means to make use of his valour 25. If the time of War and the great necessity and straits a King is driven to beget any violation of those Lawes to which He hath consented He may hope it shall be imputed by God and Man to the Authors of the War and not to Him if so He hath earnestly laboured for the preservation of the Peace of his Kingdom 26. The Residence of an Army is not usually pleasant to any place and that of a distressed King caries more fear with it who it may be thought must only live upon the aid and relief of his people 27. It is not prudence in loyal Subjects to suffer a good Cause to be lost for want of supplying their King with that which will be taken from them by those who pursue Him with violence 28. Whilst ill men sacrifice their Money Plate and utmost Industry to destroy the Commonwealth good men should be no less liberal to preserve it 29. When it hath pleased God to bless a King with success in a War He should remember the Assistance every particular man gave Him to his advantage 30. However a King succeeds in his Wars it will be honour and comfort to his loyal Subjects that with some charge and trouble to themselves they did their part to support their King and preserve the Kingdom 31. The People that have been awed by a Rebellious Army will be more prone to express their affections to their King with that courage which becomes them when his Residence shall be so near that his Power shall have an influence upon the Country for their protection 32. No man should have more power to fright People from their Loyalty than their King have to restore them to it 33. Loyal Subjects in assisting their King defend themselves who may be sure the Sword which is drawn against Him will destroy them if He defend them not 34. It will be a shame for People to venture nothing for their King who ventures his life for them 35. In a Civil War whatsoever good People shall be willing freely to contribute their King should take kindly from them and whatsoever they lend Him he should having passed the word of a King see justly repayed to them 36. A King should take especial notice of such who are backward to contribute in a time of visible necessity 37. When a King considers the publick interests and concernments of his Parliament in the happiness and honour of the Nation and their particular sufferings in a Rebellion for their affection and Loyalty unto Him He must look upon them as the most competent Considerers and Counsellours how to manage and improve the condition all are in his and their condition being so equall that the same violence hath oppress'd them all 38. It will be in vain for them who have informed the World by divers set Battels against their King to boast how tender they have been for the safety of his Person 39. It will be hard for a King who is to struggle with many defects and necessities to keep a strict discipline among his Soldiers 40. Guilt and Despair make Rebels sometimes more wicked than they at first intended to be 41. A King should have no greater sadness for those who are his ill Subjects than He hath joy and comfort in their affections and fidelities who are his good 42. License and Disorder in an Army will discredit and may destroy the best cause 43. Subjects ought to remember That moneys are the nerves of War and accordingly expedite supplies to their King when He needs them 44. There is no profession a King hath made for the defence and maintenance of right Religion Lawes and Liberties which He should not inviolably observe 45. A King's Opinion wherein He differs from his Subjects in Parliament should not be like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians unalterable being not infallible 46. Nothing should so much afflict a King as the sense-and feeling He has of the sufferings of his Subjects and the miseries that hang over his Kingdoms when drawn upon them by those who upon pretenses of good violently pursue their own interests and ends 47. Such men may be supposed most apt and likely to maintain their power by blood and rapine who have only got it by Oppression and Injustice 48. Civil Dissentions that are desperate may encourage and invite a foreign Enemy to make a prey of the whole Nation where they are 49. Plague Pestilence and Famine will be the inevitable attendants of unnatural Contentions between a King and his People 50. A Kingdom being infested with Civil War so general a habit of uncharitableness and cruelty is contracted throughout that even Peace it self will not restore the Peace to their old temper and security 51. In the time of a Civil War the King should be so deeply sensible of the miseries and calamities of his Kingdom and the grievous sufferings of his Subjects as most earnestly to desire that some expedient may be found out which by the blessing of God may prevent the further effusion of blood and restore the Nation to Peace
subject to the will of others 69 No man can think it other then the badge and method of slavery by savage rudenesse and importunate obtrusions of violence to have the mist of his error and passion dispelled which is a shadow of reason and must serve those that are destitute of the substance 70 That man cannot be blamable to God or man who seriously endeavours to see the best reason of things and faithfully followes what he takes for reason 71 The uprightness of intentions will excuse the possible fallings of understanding 72 If a Pilot at sea cannot see the Pole-Star it can be no fault in him to steere his Course by such Starres as do best appeare to him 73 It argues those men to be concious of their defects of reason and convincing arguments who call in the assistance of meer force to carry on the weakness of their counsels and proposals 74 Nothing should please a King more then when his judgment so concurres with that of his prudent subjects as he may with a good conscience consent unto them 75 Where no absolute and moral necessity of reason but temporary convenience in point of honour is to be considered a King may chuse rather to deny himself then his Councel as preferring that which they think necessary for his People before what he sees but convenient for himselfe 76 A King should permit no man to gain his consent to that wherein his heart gives his tongue or hand the lie 77 A King should rather chuse to wear a crown of thorns with his saviour then to exchange that of Gold for one of lead whose embased flexibleness shall be forced to bend and complie to the various and oft contrary dictates of any factions 78. No resolution more worthy a Christian King then to preferre his Conscience before his Kingdomes 79. The meits of a deserving Lady wil be her better protection from the barbaritie of Savage Indians then from the subtiltie of some malicious Christians 80. All justice so well as affection commands a King to study the securitie of his vertuous Queen who is onely in danger for his sake 81. A King can perish but halfe if his Queen be preserved 82. A King in his Queenes memory and their hopefull posterity may survive the malice of his enemies should be satiated with his bloud 83 As God is able to punish the faults of Princes so no less severely to revenge the injuries done to them by those who ought to have made good that safety which the Lawes chiefly provide for them 84 Common civility is in vain expected from those that dispute their loyalty 85 It cannot be safe to a King to tarry among them who are shaking hands with their allegeance under pretence of laying faster hold on their religion 86 'T is pity the noble and peaceful foul of a Queen should see much more suffer the rudenesse of those who must make up their want of justice with inhumanity and impudence 87 The sympathy of a Queen in the afflictions of her King will make her vertues shine with greater lustre as Starres in the darkest nights and assure the envious World that she loves him not his fortunes 88 Kings need not much to blame the unkindness of the generality and vulgar when those who have eaten of their bread been enriched with their bounty have scornfully lift up themselvs against them and those of their own houshold are become their enemies 89 Some think to satisfie all obligations to duty by their Corban of Religion and can less endure to see then to sin against their benefactors as wel as their Soveraigns 90 No malice can banish a beloved Queen from her Kings heart 91 A Kings enemies may envy but they can never deprive him of the enjoiment of her vertues while he enjoyes himself 92 It is among the wicked maximes of bold and disloyal undertakers that bad actions must alwayes be seconded by worse rather not be begun then not carried on for they think the retreat more dangerous then the assault and hate repentance more then perseverance in the fault 93 It is the best policie with patience to bear what one cannot remedy 94 To be transported with no disdaine or emotion of passion in greatest injuries is the temper that best becomes a Christian as coming nearest to the great example of Christ 95 Better for a Monarch to remember he is a Christian then a King 96 What the height of a King tempteth to revenge the humility of a Christian teacheth to forgive 97 What the Majesty of a King might justly abhor the charity of a Christian is willing to forbear 98 The excess of impotent passions injures a man more then his greatest enemies can 99 Apostacy unto Loyalty some men account the most unpardonable sin 100 The superstitious sowrness which some men pretend to in matters of Religion so darkens their judgment that they cannot see any thing of sinne and rebellion in the meanes they use with intents to reform The Second Century 1 SOme men think all is gold of piety which doth but glister with a shew of zeale and fervencie 2 Down-right temptations of ambition have no cloak or cheat of religion to impose upon themselves or other 3 Clemency is a debt which Kings ought to pay to those that crave it when they have cause to believe they wil not after abuse it 4 God suffers us not to pay any thing for his mercy but only prayrs and promises 5 The rude demeanor of a subject toward his Soveraign carries alwaies its own vengeance as an unseparable shadow with it 6 Those oft prove the most fatal and implacable executioners of vengeance who were the first imployers in Rebellion 7 No punishment so stains a mans honor as wilful perpetrations of unworthy actions 8 Posterity not engaged in the sactions of present times have the most impartial reflections on the actions 9 A rebellious Army is but tumults listed and enrolled to a better order but as bad an end 10 A Kings recess from tumultuous subjects gives them considence that he may be conquered 11 A King having a soul invincible is sure through Gods grace to become conqueror when constant to fear him more than man 12. They will oppose by force who have not reason to convince 13. They confess their own weakness as to truth and justice who chuse rather to contend by Armies then by Arguments 14 A King may be made glorious if no other way by his sufferings 15 It is a hard and disputable choice for a King that loves his people and desires their love either to kill his own Subjects or to be killed by them 16 The hazards and miseries of civil War are but sad fruits for a King to reap after a long just peaceable plenteous and religious reign 17 The hazards of War are equal nor doth the cannon know any respect of persons 18 A Kings person is in vaine excepted by a parenthesis of words when many hands are
may soon prove violent Oppositions if once they gain to be necessary Impositions upon the Regal Authority 65. No man seeks to limit and confine his King in reason who hath not a secret aim to share with him or usurpe upon him in Power and Dominion 66. Nature Law Reason and Religion bind a King in the first place to preserve himself without which 't is impossible to preserve his people according to his place 67. Factions in the State and Schismes in the Church get confidence by vulgar Clamours and assistance to demand not only Tolerations of themselves but also abolition of the lawes against them and a total extirpation of that Government whose Rights they made 68. Some moderate Propositions are by cunning Demanders used like waste paper wherein their unreasonable ones are wrapped up to present them somewhat more handsomely 69. There is nothing so monstrous which some fancies are not prone to long for 70. They abuse themselves who believe all good which is guilded with shews of Zeal and Reformation 71. Popular Clamours and Tumults serve to give life and strength to the infinite activity of those men who study with all diligence and policy to improve present distractions to their innovating designs 72. Armies of propositions having little of Judgment Reason Justice and Religion taking their rise from Tumult and Faction must be backt and seconded with Armies of Souldiers 73. A King is to weigh the reason and justice not regard the number and power of contesting Subjects 74. Tumults can be no other then the hounds that attend the cry and hollow of those men who hunt after factions and private designs to the ruine of the Church and State 75. If the straitness of a Kings Conscience will not give him leave to swallow down such camels as others do of Sacriledg and Jnjustice both to God and man they have no more cause to quarrel with him then for this that his throat is not so wide as theirs 76. Nothing of passion or peevishness or list to contradict or vanity to shew a negative power should have any byas upon the judgment of a King to make him gratifie his will by denying any thing which his Reason and Conscience commands him not 77. A King should not consent to more than Reason Justice Honour and Religion perswade him to be for Gods glory the Church's good his Peoples welfare and his own peace 78. Although many mens Loyalty and Prudence be terrified from giving their King that true and faithfull Councell which they are able and willing to impart and he may want yet none can hinder him from craving the Councel of that mighty Councellor who can both suggest what is best and incline his heart stedfastly to follow it 79. It is no news for some Subjects to fight not only without their Kings Commission but against his Command and Person too yet all the while to pretend they fight by his Authority and for his safety 80. Rebels do alwayes this honour to their King to think moderate Injuries not proportionate to him nor competent Tryals either of his Patience under them or his Pardon of them 81. Some with exquisite malice mix the gall and vinegar of falsity and contempt with the Cup of their Kings affliction charging him not only with untruths but such as wherein he hath the greatest share of loss and dishonour by what is committed 82. That King is a Cyclopick monster whom nothing will serve to eat and drink but the flesh and bloud of his own Subjects 83. Some think they cannot do well but in evil times nor so cunningly as in laying the Odium of those sad events on others wherewith themselves are most pleased and whereof they have been not the least occasion 84. Preposterous rigour and unreasonable severity may be not the least incentive that kindles and blowes up into horrid slames the sparks of discontent which want not predisposed fewel for Rebellion where dispair being added to former discontents and the fear of utter extirpation to wonted oppressions it is easie to provoke to an open Rebellion a people prone to break out to all exorbitant violence by some principles of their Religion and the natural desires of liberty 85. Some men of covetous zeal and uncharitable fury think it a great argument of the truth of their Religion to endure no other but their own 86. It is preposterous and unevangelical zeal to chuse rather to use all extremities which may drive men to desperate obstinacy than to apply moderate remedies 87. Some kind of zeal counts all mercifull moderation lukewarmness and had rather be cruel than counted cold and is not seldome more greedy to kill the Bear for his skin than for any harm he hath done 88. The confiscation of mens Estates pleaseth some better as being more beneficial than the charity of saving their lives or reforming their errours 89. Some men have better skill to let bloud than to stanch it 90. Men prepared to misconstrue the actions of their Soveraign have more credulity to what is false and evill than love or charity to what is true and good 91. A King hath no judge but God above him 92. God doth not therefore deny a Kings innocence because he is pleased so farre to try his patience as he did his servant Jobs 93. Swarms of reproaches issue out of some mens mouths and hearts as easily as smoke or sparks do out of a furnace 94. Men conscious of their own depth of wickedness are loath to believe any man not to be as bad as themselves 95. It is kingly to do well and hear ill 96. A King ought to look upon the effusion of his Subjects bloud as exhausted out of his own veins 97. Royal bounty emboldens some men to ask and act beyond all bounds of modesty and gratitude 98. A King should not let any mans ingratitude or inconstancy make him repent of what he granted for the Publick good 99. Where violence is used for innovation in Religion many feel the misery of the means before they reap the benefit of the end 100. It can not but seem either passion or some self-seeking more than true zeal and pious discresion for any forraign State or Church to prescribe such medicine only to others which themselves have used rather successfully than commendably The Third Century 1 THe same Physick in different Constitutions will have different opperations That may kill one which doth but cure another 2. It is not so proper to hew out religious Reformations by the Sword as to polish them by fair and equal disputations among those that are most concern'd in the differences whom not force but reason ought to convince 3. Mens Consciences can receive little satisfaction in those points which are maintained rather by Souldiers fighting in the field than Scholars disputing in free and learned Synods 4. In matters of Religion those truths gain most on mens judgments and consciences which are least urged with secular violence 5.
Secular violence weakens truth which prejudices and is unreasonable to be used till such means of rational conviction hath been applied as leaving no excuse for ignorance condemns mens obstinacy to deserved penalties 6. There is too much of Man to have much of Christ when his pretended institutions are caried on or begun with the temptations of Covetousness or Ambition 7. Wise and Learned men think that nothing hath more marks of Schisme and Sectarisme than the Presbyterian way 8. A King is not to repeal the Laws constitutions of the Church till he sees more rational and Religious motives than Soldiers use to carry in their knapsacks 9. A King ought to esteem the Church above the State the glory of Christ above his own and the salvation of mens Souls above the preservation of their Bodies and Estates 10. No men may without sin and presumption forcibly endeavour to cast the Churches under their Kings care and tuition into the moulds they have fancied and fashioned to their designs till they have first gained his consent and resolved both his and other mens consciences by the strength of their reasons 11. Violent motions which are neither Manly Christian nor Loyall should neither â—â—ake nor settle the Religion of King or Subject who knowes what Religion means 12. The proper engine of Faction is Force 13. Force is the Arbitratour of Beasts not of reasonable Men much less of humble Christians and Loyal Subjects in matter of Religion 14. Men are prone to have such high conceits of themselves that they care not what cost they lay out upon their opinions especially those that have some temptation of gain to recompence their losses and hazards 15. Men jealous of the justifiableness of their doings and designs before God never think they have humane strength enough to carry their work on seem it never so plausible to the people 16. What can not be justified in Law or Religion had need be fortified with power 17. Such is the inconstancy that attends all minds engaged in violent motion that whom some of them one while earnestly invite to come into their assistance others of them soon after are weary of and with nauseating cast them out 18. Much of Gods Justice and mans folly will at length be discovered through all the filmes and pretensions of Religion in which Politicians wrap up their designs 19. In vain do men hope to build their Piety on the ruins of Loyalty 20. Neither those considerations nor disigns can be durable when Subjects make bankrupt of their Allegeance under pretence of setting up a quicker trade for Religion 21. All Reason and Policy will teach That the chief interest of Subjects consist's in their fidelity to the Crown not in their serviceableness to any Party of the People to the neglect and betraying of their Kings safety and honour for their own advantages 22. The less cause a King hath to trust men the more should he apply himself to God 23. It is hard for men to be engaged by no less than swearing for or against those things which are of no clear morall necessity but very disputable 24. In points disputable the application of oaths can hardly be made and enjoined with that judgment and certainty in one's self or that charity and candour to others of different opinion as Religion requires 25. Religion never refuses fair and aequable deliberations yea and dissentions too in matters only probable 26. The enjoining of Oaths upon People must needs in things doubtfull be dangerous as in things unlawfull damnable and no less superfluous where former religious and legal Engagements bound men sufficiently to all necessary duties 27. Ambitious minds never think they have laid snares and ginnes enough to catch and hold the vulgar credulity 28. By politick and seemingly pious stratagems of oaths ambitious minds think to keep the populacy fast to their party under the terrour of perjury 29. After-contracts devised and imposed by a few men in a declared Party without the Kings consent without power or precedent from God's or man's Lawes can never be thought by judicious men sufficient either to absolve or slacken the moral and eternal bonds of duty which lye upon all Subjects Consciences both to God and their King 30. Ambiguous dangerous and authorized novelties are not to be preferred before known and sworn duties which are dispensable both to God and King 31. Later Vowes Oaths or Leagues can never blot out the former gravings and characters which by just and lawfull Oaths have been made upon the souls of men 32. Considerations by way of Solemn Leagues and Covenants are the common roads used in all factious and powerfull perturbations of State or Church 33. Formalities of extraordinary zeal and piety are never more studied ond elaborate than when Politicians most agitate desperate designs against all that is setled or sacred in Religion and Lawes 34. Religion and Lawes with the scrues of cunning Politicians are wrested by secret steps and less sensible degrees from their known rule and wonted practise to comply with the humors of those men who aim to subdue all to their own will and power under the disguises of holy combinations 35. The cords and wit hs of Solemn Leagues and Covenants framed more out of Policy than Piety will hold mens consciences no longer than force attends and twists them 36. Every man soon growes his own Pope and easily absolves himself of those ties which not the Commands of God's Word or the Lawes of the Land but only the subtilty and terrour of a Party casts upon him 37. Illegall wayes of Covenanting seldom or never intend the engaging men more to Duties but to Parties 38. It is not regarded how men keep Covenants in point of Piety pretended provided they adhaere firmly to the Party and design intended 39. Imposers of politick Covenants make them like Manna agreable to every mans palate and rellish who will but swallow them 40. Naboth's Vineyard made him the only Blasphemer of his City and fit to dye 41. While the breath of Religion fills the Sails Profit is the Compass by which factious men steer their course in all seditious commotions 42. Church-Lands and Revenues issuing chiefly from the Crown are held of it and legally can revert only to the Crown with the Kings consent 43. No necessity should drive a King to invade or sell the Priests Lands which both Pharaohs Divinity and Josephs true Piety abhorr'd to do 44. It is unjust both in the eye of Reason and Religion to deprive the most sacred employment of all due incouragements and like hard-harted Pharaâ—h to withdraw the straw and increase the task 45. Some pursue the oppressed Church to the red Sea of a Civil War where nothing but a miracle can save it 46. A Christian King ought to esteem it his greatest title to be call'd and his chiefest glory to be The Defender of the Church both in its true Faith and its just fruitions equally abhorring Sacriledge
and Apostacy 47. A King ought rather to live on the Churches almes than violently to take the bread out of Bishops and Ministers mouths 48. They are but golden Calves that must be serv'd when Jeroboam consecrates the meanest of the people to be Priests 49. A King can not so much as pray God to prevent the sad consequences which will inevitably follow the Parity and Poverty of Ministers both in Church and State Because 50. It is no less than a moâ—â—ing and tempting of God to desire him to hinder those mischiefs whose occasions and remedies are in our own power 51. There are wayes enough to repair the breaches of the State without the ruins of the Church 52. As a King should be a Restorer of the State so not an Opressour of the Church under the pretence of publick debts 53. If a good King had not his own Innocency and God's Protection it were hard for him to stand out against those stratagems and conflicts of malice which by falsities seek to oppress the Truth and by jealousies to supply the defect of real causes which might seem to justifie unjust Engagements against him 54. The worst effects or open hostility come short of what is in disloyal close designs 55. A King should more willingly lose his Crown than his credit nor should his Kingdom be so dear to him as his reputation and honour 56. A good name is the embalming of Princes and a sweet consecrating of them to an eternity of love and gratitude among Posterity 57. Foul and false aspersions are secret engins employed against peoples love of their King that undermining their opinion and value of him his enemies and theirs may at once blow up their affections and batter down their Loyalty 58. The detriment of a Kings honor by calumnies should not be so afflictive to him as the sin and danger of his peoples souls 59. Peoples eyes once blinded with mists of suspitions are soon misled into the most desperate precipices of actions wherein they do not only not consider their sin and danger but glory in their zealous adventures 60. Mislead people imagine they then fear God most when they least honour their King and are most ambitious to merit the name of his destroyers 61. A King's pity ought to be above his anger 62. A King's passions should never prevail against himself as to exclude his most compassionate prayers for them whom devout errours more than their own malice have betrayed to a most religious Rebellion 63. It is a generous charity in a King to interpret that his Subjects in armes fight against his supposed errours not his person intending to mend him not to end him 64. It is somewhat above humanity in a King not more willingly to forgive the seductions in his Subjects which occasioned their Loyal injuries then to be ambitious by all Princely merits to redeem them from their just suspicions and reward them for their good intentions 65. A King should be too conscious to his own affections toward the generality of his People to suspect theirs to him 66. A King should never gratifie the spightfulness of a few with any sinister thoughts of their allegeance whom pious frauds have seduced 67. A King should never be perswaded to make so bad interpretatations of most of his Subjects actions as to judge otherwise than that possibly they may be erroneous but not haeretical in point of Loyalty 68. A King should have as sharp a sense of the injuries done to his Subjects as those done to himself their well fares being inseparable 69. Seduced Subjects in this suffer more than their King that they are animated to injure at once both themselves and him 70. A King sometimes hath such enemies among his Subjects as to whose malice it is not enough that he is afflicted unless by those whose prosperity he earnestly desires and whose seduction he heartily deplores 71. A King for restoring tranquility unto his people might willingly be the Jonah if he foresees not evidently that by the divided interest of theirs and his enemies as by contrary winds the storm of their miseries would be rather increased than allayed 72. A King should rather prevent his Peoples ruine than rule over them 73. A King should not be so ambitious of that Dominion which is but his right as of his peoples happiness if it could but expiate or countervail such a way of obtaining it by the highest injuries of Subjects committed against their Soveraign 74. A King should rather suffer all the miseries of life and dye many deaths than shamefully to desert or dishonourably to betray his own just Rights and Soveraignty thereby to gratifie the ambition or justifie the malice of his Enemies 75. A King ought to put as great a difference between the malice of his enemies and other mens mistakes as between an ordinary Ague and the Plague or the Itch of Novelty and the Leprosie of Disloyalty 76. As liars need have good memories so malicious persons need good inventions that their calumnies may fit every man's fancy and what their reproaches want of truth they may make up with number and shew 77. A King should have more patience to bear and charity to forgive than leisure to answer the many false aspersions which men may cast upon him 78. It gives mens malice too much pleasure for a King to take notice or remember what they say or object 79. When a King confutes calumnies it should be more for his Subjects satisfaction than his own vindication 80. Mens evil maners and seared consciences will soon enough confute and revenge the black and false scandals which they cast upon their King 81. Rebels credit and reputation may be blasted by the breath of that same furnace of popular obliquy and detraction which they study to heat and inflame to the highest degree of infamy and therein seek to cast and consume their King's name and honour 82. They are misperswaded who think these two utterly inconsistent to be at once loyal to their King and truly religious toward God 83. Some popular Preachers think it no sin to lye for God and what they call Gods Cause cursing all that will not curse with them 84. Such men look so much at and cry up the goodness of the end propounded that they consider not the lawfulness of the means used nor the depth of that mischief chiefly plotted and intended 85. The weakness of these mens judgments must be made up by their clamours and activity 86. It is a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize their King and his thinking theirs cannot be true if they cry not down his as false 87. A King fights not against his own Religion who imployes Subjects of different perswasions to maintain it 88. Differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Duty Allegeance and Subjection 79. When a King confutes calumnies it should be more for his Subjects satisfaction than
his own vindication 80. Mens evil maners and seared consciences will soon enough confute and revenge the black and false scandals which they cast upon their King 81. Rebels credit and reputation may be blasted by the breath of that same furnace of popular obliquy and detraction which they study to heat and inflame to the highest degree of infamy and therein seek to cast and consume their King's name and honour 82. They are misperswaded who think these two utterly inconsistent to be at once loyal to their King and truly religious toward God 83. Some popular Preachers think it no sin to lye for God and what they call Gods Cause cursing all that will not curse with them 84. Such men look so much at and cry up the goodness of the end propounded that they consider not the lawfulness of the means used nor the depth of that mischâ—ef chiefly plotted and intended 85. The weakness of these mens judgments must be made up by their clamours and activity 86. It is a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize their King and his thinking theirs cannot be true if they cry not down his as false 87. A King ights not against his own Religion who imployes Subjects of different perswasions to maintain it 88. Differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Duty Allegeance and Subjection 89. Different professions in point of Religion cannot take away the community of Relations either to Parents or to Princes 90. It is lawfull for a King in exigents to use the aid of any his Subjects of what perswasion soever 91. It were a very impertinent and unseasonable scruple in a King then to dispute the points of different beliefs in his Subjects when he is disputed with by swords points and when he needs the help of his Subjects as men no less than their prayers as Christians 92. The noise of a Kings evil Counsellers is a usefull device for those who are impatient any mens councels but their own should be followed in Church or State 93. Bold Subjects give counsels more like a drench that must be forced down than a draught which might be fairly and leisurely dranâ—â— if their King liked it 94. Moderate men are sorry to see their King prone to injure himself out of a zeal to relieve his Subjects 95. Truly humble Christians will so highly prize the reward of persecutions as rather not to be relieved than be revenged so as to be bereaved of that Crown of Christian patience which attends humble and injur'd sufferers 96. Men are not more prone to desire liberty than unapt to bear it in the popular sence which is to do what every man liketh best 97. The divinest liberty is to will what men should and to do what they so will according to Reason Lawes and Religion 98. Good men count the bounds of the Lawes their Ornament and Protection others their Manacles â—â— Oppression 99. It is not just that any man should expect the reward and benefit of the law who despiseth its rule and direction 100. He that seeks an unreasonable liberty justly loseth his safety The Fourth Century 1. THose men are the best preservers of their true liberty who allow themselves the least licentiousness against or beyond the Lawes 2. It is impossible chose men should be really tender of their fellow-subjects liberties who have the hardiness to use their King with severe restraints 3. A resolv'd King restrain'd by Subjects will rather perish thaâ— complain to those who want nothing to compleat their mirth and triumph but such musick 4. Conscientious tenderness attended with proud and arrogant activity seeks to hatch every egge of different opinion to a faction or schisme 5. Lawes and Scepters of Monarchs should not intrench on God's Soveraignty which is the only King of mens Consciences 6. God gives no men liberty to break the Law established further than with meekness and patience they are content to suffer the penalties annexed rather than perturb the publick peace 7. some men in the necessities of their fortunes distrust Gods providence as well as their own merits 8. Never were any Princes more glorious than those whom God hath suffer'd to be tried in the fornace of afflictions by their injurious Subjects 9. Some men speak against their King rather what they wish than what they believe or know 10. Rude and scandalous Pamphlets like fire in great conflagrations fly up and down to set all places on like flames 11. It is no wonder if men not fearing God should not honour their King 12. God hath graven such Characters of divine Authority and sacred Power upon Kings as none may without sin seek to blot them out 13. From God alone are all traditions of true Glory and Majesty that is in Kings 14. No news to have all Innovations ushered in with the name of Reformations in Church and State 15. The pride of those that study novelties can hardly allow any share or degree of wisdom or godliness to former times 16. For set and prescribed forms of publick prayer there is no doubt but that wholsome words being known and fitted to mens understandings are soonest received into their hearts and aptest to excite and carry along with them judicious and fervent affections 17. Constant forms of Prayers are not more likely to slat and hinder the Spirit of Prayer and Devotion than unpraemeditated and confused variety to distract and lose it 18. Slight and easie Legerdemain will serve to delude the Vulgar 19. No men are prone to be greater Tyrants and more rigorous exactors upon others to conform to their illegal novelties than such whose pride was formerly least disposed to the obedience of lawfull Constitutions and whose licentious humours most pretended Conscientious liberties 21. It is impossible for a Prince to preserve the State in quiet unless he hath such an influence upon Churchmen and they such a dependance on him as may best restrain the seditious exorbitancies of Ministers tongues who with the keyes of Heaven have so far the keyes of the Peoples hearts as they prevail much by the Oratory to let in or shut out both Peace and Loyalty 21. The want of Government is that which the Church can no more dispence with in point of well-being than the want of the Word and Sacrament in point of being 22. Scripture is the best rule and the Church's universal practise the best Commentary of Religion 23. No frame of Church-government is more agreable both to Reason and Religion than that which is Paternal not Magisterial 24. Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts are prone to arise among equals in power and function 25. Inconstancy is a great prejudice against Novelty 26. The stream of times and the prevalency of parties overpowreth the judgements of some men 27. Ministers may find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as Plants do between being watered
by hand or by the sweet and liberal dews of heaven 28. The tenuity and contempt of Clergy-men will soon let them see what a poor carcass they are when parted from the influence of that Head to whose Supremacy they have been sworn 29. A little moderation may prevent great mischiefs 30. Discretion without Passion might easily reform whatever the rust of times or indulgence of lawes or corruption of manners may have brought upon the government of the Church 31. It is a gross vulgar errour to impute or revenge upon functions the faults of times or persons 32. Respect and observance even in peacefull times is hardly paid to any Governors by the measure of their vertues so much as by that of their Estates 33. Poverty and meanness expose men in Authority to the contempt of licentious minds and manners 34. There is an innate principle of vicious oppression in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them 34. No design or passion is to be gratified with the least perverting of truth 36. Devout minds restore to God in giving to his Church and Prophets through whose hands he graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation to himself 37. That oath may be with judgment broken which erroneously was taken 38. What a King thinks in his judgment best he may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times 39. It is far better to hold to Primitive and uniform Antiquity than to comply with divided Novelty 40. The way of Treaties is as a retiring from fighting like Beasts to arguing like men whose strength should be more in their understandings than in their limbs 41. A King may have greater confidence of his Reason than his Sword 42. It is no diminution of a King to prevent arming Subjects with expresses of his desires and importunities to Treat 43. It is an office not only of Humanity rather to use Reason than Force but also of Christianity to seek peace and ensue it 44. The events of all War by the Sword are very dubious and of a Civil War uncomfortable the end hardly recompensing and late repairing the mischief of the means 45. A Monarch cannot part with his honour as a King nor with his Conscience as a Christian 46. Jealousies are not so easily allayed as they are raised 47. Some men are more afraid to retreat from violent engagements than to engage 48. What is wanting in equity must be made up in pertinacy 49. Such as have little to enjoy in peace or to lose in war if ill-disposed study to render the very name of peace odious and suspected 50. In Church affairs a King having so many strict ties of Conscience upon him hath least liberty of prudence 51. It argues much softness and infirmity of mind in a King rather to part with Gods Truth than man's Peace and rather to lose the Church's honour than cross some mens factious humours 52. Some men have that height as to interpret all fair condescendings as arguments of feebleness and glory most in an unflexible stifness when they see others most supple and inclinable to them 53. It is a grand Maxime with some men alwayes to ask their King something which in reason and honour must be denied that they may have some colour to refuse all that is in other things granted setting Peace at as high a rate as the worst effects of War 54. Some men endeavour first to make their King destroy himself by dishonourable Concessions that so they may have the less to do 55. The highest tide of success should not set a King above a Treaty with his Subjects nor the lowest ebbe below a fight 56. It is no sign of true valour to be prodigal of mens lives rather than be drawn to produce our own Reasons or subscribe to other mens 57. What Kings cannot get by their Treaties they may gain by their prayers 58. The various successes of Civil War should afford a King variety of good meditations 59. A Kings sins sometimes prevail against the justice of his cause 60. Rebels may be punished by the prosperity which hardens them to continue that injustice by open hostility which was begun by riotous tumults 61. Personal and private sins may oftimes over-ballance the justice of publick engagements 62. God accounts not every gallant man in the Worlds esteem a fit instrument to assert in the way of War a righteous cause 63. The more men are prone to arrogate to their own skil valour and strength the less doth God ordinarily work by them for his own glory 64. Event of success can never state the justice of any cause nor the peace of mens consciences nor the eternal fate of their souls 65. The ties of Subjects to God the Church and their King lye upon their Souls both for obedience to and just assistance of their Soveraign 66. They who lose their lives in a just cause have the destruction of their bodies sanctified as a means to save their Souls 67. Rebels are more afraid to encounter the many pregnant Reasons which conflict with and accuse them in their own thoughts than they oft are in a desperate bravery to fight against the forces given by God to their King 68. It is far more honourable and comfortable to suffer for good Lawes than to prosper in their ruine and subversion 69. The defects of piety may blast the endeavours of Loyalty when men are not as faithfull to God and their own Souls as to their King 70. A good King in a Civil War should never have any victory on his Subjects without his sorrow nor when he suffers a defeat despair of Gods mercy and defence 71. A King should never desire such victories as may seem to conquer but only restore the Lawes and Liberties of his People 72. A King should wish no greater advantages by a Civil War than to bring his enemies to moderation and his friends to peace 73. A King should be afraid of the temptation of an absolute conquest and never pray more for victory over his Subjects than over himself 74. The different events of a Civil War are but the methods of divine justice by contrary winds to winnow us That by punishing our sins he might purge them from us and by deferring peace he might prepare us more to prize and better to use so great a blessing 75. A Kings conscience of his Innocence may forbid him to fear a War but the love of his Kingdomes command him if possible to avoid it 76. A King may commit an errour in giving advantages to some men by confirming their power which they know not to use with that modesty and gratitude as becomes their loyalty and his confidence 77. A King sometimes by yielding less may be opposed less and by denying more be more obeyed 78. When we conquer Gods patience by our sins we are condemn'd by mutual conquerings to destroy one another in a Civil War where the most prosperous
of Aegypt break under the hand of him that leans on them yet the Rock of Israel will be an everlasting stay and defence 26. When a King retires to God he most enjoyes himself which he loseth while he lets out his hopes to others 27. Solitude and Captivity gives a King leisure enough to study the Worlds vanity and inconstancy 28. A King need not care much to be reckoned among the unfortunate if he be not in the black List of irreligious and sacrilegious Princes 29. No restraint should ensnare a Kings soul in sin nor gain that of him which may make his Enemies more insolent his friends ashamed or his name accursed 30. They have no great cause to triumph that have got a King's person into their power whose soul remains his own 31. Should a King grant what unreasonable men desire he should be such as they wish him not more a King and far less both man and Christian 32. Restraint ought not to obtain that of a King which Tumults and Armes could not wherein though there be little safety yet it hath not more of danger 33. The fear of men should never be a Kings snare nor should the love of any liberty entangle his Soul 34. Better others betray a King than himself and that the price of his liberty should be his Conscience 35. The greatest injuries a King's enemies seek to inflict upon him cannot be without his own consent 36. While a King can deny with Reason he shall defeat the greatest impressions of Rebels malice who neither know how to use worthily what is already granted nor what to require more of him but this That he would seem willing to help then to destroy himself and his 37. Although Rebels should destroy a King yet let him give them no cause to despise him 38. Neither Liberty nor Life are so dear to a King as the peace of his Conscience the honour of his Crownes and the welfare of his People 39. A King's word may more injure his People than a War while he gratifies a few to oppress all 40. Lawes may by God's blessing revive with the Loyalty of Subjects if a distressed King bury them not by his consent and cover them not in the grave of dishonour and injustice which some mens violence may have digged for them 41. If Captivity or Death must be the price of the Lawes redemption a King should not grudge to pay it 42. No condition can make a King miserable which carieth not with it his Souls his Peoples and Posterities thraldom 43. A Monarch should rather hazard the ruine of one King than confirm many Tyrants over his people 44 A distressed King may by the learning piety and prayers of his Chaplains be either better enabled to sustain the want of all other enjoyments or better sitted for the recovery and use of them in God's good time 45. A King may reap by the pious help of his Chaplains a spiritual harvest of grace amidst the thornes and after the plowings of temporal crosses 46. When Rebels confine their King to solitude they adde a Wilderness of Temptations especialy if they obtrude company upon him more sad than solitude it self 47. The evil policy of men forbids all just restitution lest they should confess an injurous usurpation 48. Though the justice of the Law deprive Prisoners of worldly comforts yet the mercy of Religion allowes them the benefit of their Clergy as not aiming at once to destroy their Bodies and to damn their Souls 49. To deny a King the Ghostly comfort of his Chaplains seems a greater rigour and barbarity than is used to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors 50. A Kings agony may be relieved by the presence of one good Angel such as is a learned godly and discreet Divine 51. Rebels that envy the being a King will encline to lothe his being a Christian and while they seek to deprive him of all things else will be afraid he should save his Soul 52. Some remedies are worse than the disease and some comforters more miserable than misery it self when like Jobs friends they seek not to fortifie one's mind with patience but perswade a man by betraying his own Innocency to despair of God's mercy and by justifying their injuries to strengthen the hands and harden the hearts of insolent Enemies 53. A King looking upon Clergy-men as Orphans and under the sacrilegious eyes of many cruel and rapacious Reformers ought in duty to appear as a Father and a Patron of them and the Church 54. It is better to seem undevout and to hear no mens prayers than to be forced or seem to comply with those petitions to which the heart cannot consent nor the tongue say Amen without contradicting a man's own understanding or belying his own Soul 55. In publick devotions a King should countenance neither prophane boldness nor pious non-sense but such an humble and judicious gravity as shewes the speaker to be at once consideate both of God's Majesty the Church's honor and his own vileness both knowing what things God allowes him to ask and in what maner it becomes a Sinner to supplicate the divine mercy for himself and others 56. A King should equally be scandaliz'd with all prayers that sound either imperiously or rudely and passionately as either wanting humility to God or charity to men or respect to the duty 57. A King should better be pleased as with studied and premeditated Sermons so with such publick forms of Prayer as are fitted to the Church's and every Christian's daily and common necessities because he is better assured what he may joyn his heart unto than he can be of any man's extemporary sufficiency 58. Extemporary sufficiency as it need not wholely be excluded from publick occasions so is it to be allow'd its just liberty and use in private and devout retirements where neither the solemnity of the duty nor the modest regard to others do require so great exactness as to the outward maner of performance 59. The light of understanding and the fervency of affection are the main and most necessary requisites both in constant and occasional solitary and social devotions 60. A great part of some mens piety hangs upon the popular pin of railing against and contemning the Liturgy of a Church 61. A King should rather be condemned to the woe of Vae soli than to that of Vae vobis Hypocritis by seeming to pray what he does not approve 62. It is infinitely more glorious to convert Souls to Gods Church by the Word than to conquer men to a subjection by the Sword 63. The gifts and prayers of the Clergy are to be look't upon as more praevalent than a King 's or other men's by how much they flow from minds more enlightned and affections less distracted than those which are encombred with secular affairs 64. A greater blessing and acceptableness attends those duties which are rightly perform'd as proper to and within the limits of that calling to which
God and the Church have especially designed and consecrated some men 65. Confusion in Religion will as certainly follow every man's turning Priest or Preacher as it will in the State where every man affects to rule as King 66. A King may bear with more grief and impatience the want of his Chaplains than of any other his servants and next if not beyond in some things to the being sequestred from his Wife and Children since from these indeed more of humane and temporary affections but from those more of heavenly and eternal improvements may be expected 67. In the inforced not neglected want of ordinary means God is wont to afford extraordinary supplies of his gifts and graces 68. A King that in solitude has Gods Spirit to teach him and help his infirmities in prayer reading and meditation will need no other either Oratour or Instructer 69. Some little practise wil serve that man who only seeks to represent a part of honesty and honour 70. A King cannot be so low but He is considerable adding weight to that Party where he appears 71. When the excentrique and irregular motion of the Times cannot well be resisted nor quieted Better swim down such a stream than in vain to strive against it 72. Impossible it is for lines to be drawn from the center and not to divide from each other so much the wider by how much they go farther from the point of union 73. Professed Patrons for the Peoples Liberties cannot be utterly against the Liberty of their King what they demand for their own Conscience they cannot in reason deny to his 74. Novel Injunctions cannot well be stamped with the authority of Lawes without the Kings consent 75. Men are hardly content with one sin but adde sin to sin til the later punish the former 76. Power is above all Rule Order and Law where men look more to present Advantages than their Consciences and the unchangeable rules of Justice while they are Judges of others they are forced to condemn themselves 77. Vengeance oft pursues and overtakes them that thought to have escaped and fortified themselves most impregnably against it both by their multitude and compliance 78. Whom the Lawes cannot God will punish by their own crimes and hands 79. Fatal blindness frequently attends and punisheth wilfullness so that men shall not be able at least to prevent their sorrowes who would not timely repent of their sins nor shall they be suffered to enjoy the comforts who securely neglect the counsels belonging to their peace 80. Brethren in Iniquity are not far from becoming insolent enemies there being nothing harder than to keep ill men long in one mind 81. It is not possible to gain a â—air period for those motions which go rather in a round and circle of fancy than in a right line of reason tending to the Law the only center of publick consistency 82. Men are much more happy when subject to known Lawes than to the various wills of any men seem they never so plausible at first 83. Vulgar compliance with any illegal and extravagant wayes like violent motions in nature soon growes weary of it self and ends in a refractory fullenness 84. Peoples rebounds are oft in their faces who first put them upon those violent strokes 85. A King may so far esteem the valour and gallantry some time shewed by an Army which hath fought against him as to concur toward a just satisfying their demands of pay and indemnity and to wish he may never want such men to maintain himself his Lawes and Kingdome in such a peace as wherein they may enjoy their share and proportion so much as any men 86. It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of a Kings long restraint when he finds his leisure and solitude have produced something worthy of himself and usefull to his Successour 87. In Civil Warres a Kings cause is not to be measured by the success nor his judgment of things by his misfortunes 88. It is an advantage of wisdom to a young Prince to have begun spent some years of discretion in the experience of troubles and exercise of patience 89. In troubles Piety and all Virtues both Moral and Political are commonly better planted to a thriving as Trees set in winter than in the warmth and serenity of times 90. The delights which usually attend Princes Courts in time of Peace and Plenty are prone either to root up all Plants of true Virtue and Honor or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them 91. Princes should alwayes remember they are born and by Providence designed to the publick good 92. Flatteries are as unseparable from prosperous Princes as Flies ate from fruit in Summer whom adversity like cold weather drives away 93. Charles le Bon a more glorious name for a Prince than le Grand Better for him and his people he be good than great 94. The early exercise of Gods graces and gifts bestowed upon Princes may best weed out all vicious inclinations and dispose them to such Princely endowments and imployments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God may place them 95. A Prince ought to begin and end with God who is King of Kings the Soveraign disposer of the Kingdomes of the World 96. The best Government and highest Soveraignty a Prince can attain to is to be subject to God that the Scepter of his Word and Spirit may rule in his heart 97. The true glory of Princes consists in advancing Gods Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Church's good Also in the dispensation of civil Power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace 98. Piety will make a Prince prosperous at least it will keep him from being miserable 99. He is not much a loser that loseth all yet saveth his own soul at last 100. A Kings affliction is Gods Physick having that in healthfulness which it wants in pleasure The Sixth Century 1. A Prince at mature age ought if satisfied in his own Judgment and Reason seal to that sacred bond which education hath written that it may be judiciously his own Religion and not other mens custom or tradition which he professeth 2. A Princes fixation in matters of Religion is not more necessary for his souls than his Kingdoms peace 3. The Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretent new lights 4. When some mens Consciences accuse them for sedition and faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion When Piety pleads for peace and patience they cry out zeal 5. Unless a King in point of Religion be well setled he shall never want temptations to destroy him and his under pretensions of Reforming 6. Reforming matters of Religion seems even to the worst men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst desfgns 7. Some Reformers of Religion hope
as an Act of Justice done by Subjects upon their Soveraign who know that no Law of God or Man invests them with any power of Judicature without him much less against him and who being sworn and bound by all that is sacred before God and man to endeavour his preservation must pretend justice to cover their perjury 78. It is a sad fate for any man to have his enemies to be Accusers Parties and Judges but most desperate when this is acted by the insolence of Subjects against their Soveraign wherein those who have had the chiefest hand and are most guilty of contriving the publick Troubles must by shedding his bloud seem to wash their own hands of that innocent bloud whereof they are most evidently guilty before God and Man if not in their own Consciences too while they carry on unreasonable demands first by Tumults after by Armies 79. Nothing makes mean spirits more cowardly cruel in managing their usurped power against their lawfull Superiours than the guilt of their unjust usurpation 80. Specious and popular pretensions of Justice against Delinquents are applyed only to disguize at first the monstrousness of their designs who despair of possessing the power and profits of the Vineyard till the heir whose right it is be cast out and slain 81. It may be accounted by Rebels a Kings greatest fault that he will not either destroy himself with the Church and State by his word or not suffer them to do in unresisted by the sword whose covetous Ambition no Concessions of his can either satisfie or abate 82. Some men think that Kingdom of brambles which they seek to erect not likely to thrive till watered with the Royal bloud of those whose right the Kingdom is 83. A King's Innocency will find him both his Protector and his Advocate who is his only Judg. 84. The greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on earth are exposed to as many dangers as there be either Men or Devils which love confusion 85. God will not suffer men long to prosper in their Babel who build it with the bones and cement it with the bloud of their Kings 86. A King destin'd to death by Rebels may be confident they will find avengers of it among themselves and that the injuries he hath sustained from them shall be first punished by them who agreed in nothing so much as in opposing him 87. The impatience of Rebels to bear the loud cry of their Kings bloud will make them think no way better to expiate it than by shedding theirs who with them most thirsted after his 88. God will not suffer them to go unpunished whose confoederacy in sin was their only security 89. A King 's greatest conquest of Death is from the power of the love of Christ who hath swallowed up Death in the Victory of his Resurrection and the Glory of his Ascension 90. Royal Charity is the noblest revenge upon and victory over a King's Destroyers 91. The will of Rebels and Regicides seems to be their only rule their power the measure and their success the Exactor of what they please to call Justice while they flatter themselves with the fancy of their own safety by the Kings danger and the security of their lives-designs by his death forgetting that the greatest temptations to sin are wrapped up in seeming prosperities so the severest vengeances of God are then most accomplished when men are suffered to complete their wicked purposes 92. When the will of God hath confined and concluded that of a devoted King he shall have the pleasure of dying without any pleasure of desired vengeance 93. The glory attending the death of a King sacrificed to the will of his revolted Subjects surpasseth all he could enjoy or conceive in life 94. The sharp and necessary Tyrany of King-destroyers sufficiently confute the calumnies of Tyranny against him 95. Subjects ought to know how to excuse their Soveraign's failings as a man and yet to retain and pay their duty to him as their King there being no religious necessity binding any Subjects by pretending to punish infinitely to exceed the faults and errours of their Princes 96. Rebels may often see the proportions of their evil dealings against their King in the measure of Gods retaliations upon them who cannot hope long to enjoy their own thumbs and toâ—s having under pretense of paring his nails been so cruel as to cut off his chiefest strength 97. The punishment of the more insolent and obstinate Rebels may be like Korah and his Complices at once mutining against both Prince and Priest in such a method of divine Justice as is not ordinary the earth of the lowest and meanest people opening upon them and swallowing them up in a just disdain of their ill-gotten and worse-used Authority upon whose support and strength they chiefly depended for their building and establishing their designs against their King the Church and State 98. It is a fallacy in them who from worldly success rather like Sophisters than sound Christians draw those popular conclusions for Gods approbation of their actions whose wise prudence oft permits many events which his revealed Word the only clear safe and fixed rule of good actions and good conveniences in no sort approves 99. A good King may be confident that the justice of his Cause and clearness of his Conscience before God and toward his people will carry him as much above Rebels in Gods decision as their successes may have lifted them above him in the Vulgar opinion 100. Many times those undertakings of men are lifted up to Heaven in the prosperity and applause of the World whose rise is from Hell as to the injuriousness and oppression of the design The Seventh Century 1. THe prosperous winds which oft fill the Sails of Pirates doth not justifie their piracy and rapine 2. The prayers and patience of a King's friends and loving Subjects coutribute much to the sweetning of that bitter cup given him by them whose hands are unjustly and barbarously lifted up against him 3. As to the last event a murther'd King may seem to owe more to his Enemies than his Friends while those put a period to the sins and sorrows attending this miserable life wherewith these desire he might still contend 4. If a good King suffer's a violent death with his Saviour it is but Mortality crowned with Martyrdom where the debt of death which he owes for sin to Nature shall be raised as a gift of faith and patience offered to God 5. The Trophees of a King's charity will be more glorious and durable over Rebels than their ill-managed victories over him 6. They whose sin is prosperous had need be penitent that they may be pardoned 7. We are to look upon the temporal destruction of the greatest King as farre less deprecable than the eternal damnation of the meanest Subject 8. It is very strange that Mariners can find no other means to appease the storm themselves have raised but by drowning their
Pilate 9. They who themselves seem and teach others to despair of their King's Salvation only discover this that they do not much desire it 10. Uncharitable and cruel Restraints of a King from spiritual assistance of Chaplains may rather enlarge than any way obstruct his access to the Throne of Heaven 11. When large pretenses prove but the shadows of weak performances then the greatest labours produce the smallest effects 12. When a period is put to a work of great concernment all mens ears do as it were hunger till they are satisfied in their expectations 13. No grants give satisfaction to them that pursue their own ambitious ends more than the welfare of a miserable Land 14. It is an unutterable misery for him that hath ruled like a King to be ruled like a Slave 15. A King knowes not what to grant when after his concessions to Subjects that have required all they know not what to ask 16. They who pretend zeal when their thoughts are filled with bloud are but Wolves in Sheeps clothing 17. Rebels that endeavour to rule by the Sword shall at last fall by it for Faction is the Mother of Ruine 18. They that are of such a Weather-cock-like disposition love nothing but mutabilities 19. Much variety doth confound the senses and makes them still hate one folly and fall in love with another 20. Time is the best cure for Faction for it will at length like a spreading leprosie infect the whole body of the Kingdom and make it so odious that at last they will hate themselves for love of that and like a fish for love of the bait be catch'd with the hook 21. It is not expedient for an Army to contradict the votes of a Kingdom endeavouâ—ing by pretending for Lawes and Liberties to subvert both 22. The time will come when the very Clouds shall drop down vengeance upon the heads of those that barrocado themselves against the proceedings of peace 23. A resolute King in captivity is arm'd against the fury of Rebellious Subjects having a breast to receive the arrowes of their envy and a heart possest with patience to sustain them 24. To God nothing is so great that it may resist nor so small that it is contemned 25. A King may rather desire his faults should be corrected by the hand of God than that his ununjust enemies should be the Ministers of God's justice 26. Let Calamity be the exercise but not the overthrow of a Kings Virtue 27. The permitting a wrong way of God's worship to be set up to the injury of the right before establish'd and practis'd will bring shame and grief to a King by his own confession that he therein followed the perswasions of Worldly wisdom forsaking the Dictates of a right informed Conscience 28. They who have been false to their King to those that gave them power and in likelihood to their own souls may be forgiven by him but never trusted 29. It is an humor becoming an impartial King to be still partial for that side which he imagines suffer for the weakness of those that maintain it 30. A King should suffer a Divine who would rectifie his supposed errour no less than a Physician to take his own way of cuâ—e 31. As to the profession of Religion the King is happy who condemns not himself in that thing which he allowes 32. He that changeth for the better ought to be sure it be better before he change 33. Inconstancy in Religion without cause and colour is both sin and shame 34. There is much difference between permission and approbation 35. If the practise of the Primitive Church and the universal consent of the Fathers be not a convincing argument when the interpretation of the Scripture is douâ—â—full nothing is 36. The Interpretation of private Spirits is the Mother of all sects and will bring where permitted Kingdoms to confusion 37. Another mans will is as weak a ground for a King to build his faith on as his own education 38. When a General Counceâ— cannot be had several Kingdomes may reform themselves 39. Rebels never wanted Wrâ—ters to maintain their unjust actions 40. All popular Reformation is little better than Rebellion 41. No Authority is lawfull but that which is either directly given or at least approved by God 42. The Church having any Discipline not conformed to the Civil Policy can neither flourisâ— nor be happy 43. Church-Ambition doth not at all terminate in seeking to be Pope it being no point of humility to endeavour to be independent of Kings 44. Papacy in a multitude may be as dangerous as in one 45. Many things may be avowable upon necessity which otherwayes are unlawfull 46. In points not fit to be discussed instances as well as comparisons are odious 47. Reason epitomised weighs as much with wise men as at large 48. One may lean on anothers arm who leans more on his judgment 49. The soundness of Religion is not to be tried by dint of Sword nor must we judg of her Truths by the prosperity of events 50. When men sit down to discourse or argue Reason should take her seat with them and though she be no Judg have her place if not above their Faith in their arguments 51. The envious mans seeds are tares although the husbandman knowes not when they were sown 52. The child is not to be pour tractured greater than the Nurse nor the Bishops power made to outreach the King 's who is the Nursing Father of the Church 53. Unity may consist in this when many sheaves lye in one mans field that belong to him or be caried into his barn though they be not bundled up in a rick with one cock-sheave above the rest 54. A sum divided into several parcels is not broke while the owner hath all in his possession 55. Whilst Arguments do multiply Time lessens 56. The seed of the Word wherein is Gods holy Spirit being sowen in the heart inlivened by the heat of Faith and watered with the tears of Repentance soon fructifies without any further circumstance 57. It is no strange thing to see Errour triumph in Antiquity and flourish fair Ensigns in the face of Truth 58. It will do no good to keep possession of the keyes when the lock is changed 59. Though the Catholick Church is the white in that Butt of earth at which we all must aim yet the Scripture is the heart centre or peg in the midst of that white that holds it up from whence we must measure 60. That which must determine Truth must not be fallible 61. When a King fears affairs of Councel will meet with sâ—me passion and prejudice in other men it is best for him to resolve they shall find least of them in himself 62. Mens well-meaning â—eal must be guided by such rules of moderation as are best both to preserve and restore the health of States and Kingdoms 63. A King should intend not only to oblige his friends but his enemies also
King should be very foolish indeed and unfaithfull in his trust to put the reigns of both Reason and Government wholly out of his own into their hands whose driving is too much like Jehu's and whose forwardness to ascend the throne of Supremacy pretends more of Phaethon than of Phoebus 56. If Subjects will take the liberty of sending Propositions unto their Soveraign they ought to be such as these 1. That any good Lawes antiquated by the course of times or overlay'd by the corruption of maners may be restored to their vigour and due execution 2. That any evil customes praeter-legal and abuses personal may be removed 3. That if any injuries have been done by the King and others to the Commonweal they may be repaired 4. Such equable offertures should be tendred to him wherein the advantages of his Crown being considered by them he may fairly be induced to condescend to what tends to his Subjects good without any great diminution of himself 5. Such moderate desires of due Reformation of what is indeed amiss in Church and State as may still preserve the foundation and essentials of Government in both not shake and quite overthrow either of them without any regard to the Lawes in force the wisdom and piety of their Ancestors the ancient and universal practice of Christian Churches the rights and priviledges of particular men 6. Some considerable thing should be offered in lieu or in the room of what they would have destroyed which may at once reach the good end of the others institution and also supply its pretended defects reformits abuses and satisfie sober and wise men not with soft and specious words pretending zeal and special piety but with pregnant and solid reasons both divine and humane which may justifie the abruptness and necessity of vast alterations 57. A King cannot be well counsell'd by his Parliament if in the Members of it there be not so much Learning Reason Religion and just Moderation as to know how to sever betweem the use and the abuse of things the institution and the corruption the government and the misgovernment the Primitive Patterns and the alterations or blottings of after-Copies 58. Though Armies of Souldiers may prevail against a King's Person yet Armies of unreasonable Propositions which they would enforce should never overcome him further than he sees cause it behoving him not to look at their number and power so much as to weigh their reason and justicâ— 59. It is hard at first either to discern the rise or apply the remedy to a precipitant Rebellion 60. In Civil Wars and Massacres the Sea of bloud cruelly and barbarously shed is enough to drown any man in eteâ—nal both infamy and misery whom God finds the malicious Authour or Instigatour of its effusion 61. It is a most unhappy advantage to some mens malice against their King that when they bave impudence enough to lay any thing to his charge any bloudy opportunity should be offer'd them with which he must be aspersed although nothing can be more abhorred to him than what is full of sin against God disloyalty to himself and destructive to his Subjects 62. The blame of bloudy and Rebellious Protestants must needs he greater than that of Papists by how much their Principles are more for obedience to Princes 63. The goodness of mens intentions will not excuse the scandal and contagion of their Examples 64. The King's interest ties as much in the common welfare of his Subjects as some mens doth in their perturbations 65. Although a King can with Truth wash his hands in Innocency as to any guilt in a Commotion objected to him yet he should wash them in his Tears at the sad apprehensions he ought to have to see it spread so far and make such waste 66. Distractions and Jealousies at home make most men who are better Politicians than Christians rather intent to their own safety or to the designs they are driving than to the relief of their fellow Subjects abroad though every day inhumanly butchered and massacred whose tears and bloud might if nothing else quench or at least for a time repress and smother any sparks of Civil dissensions and jealousies which some men industriously scatter in the Kingdom where they are 67. They who themselves have rebellious intentions or inclinations are unwilling to part with their King upon any hazardous expedition though to the suppressing that force which opposeth their interest being either afraid he should have any one Kingdom quieted or being loth to shoot at any mark less than him or that any should have the glory of his destruction but themselves 68. Next to the sin of those who begin a Rebellion theirs must needs be who either hinder the speedy suppressing of it by Domestick dissentions or divert the Aids or exasperate the Rebbels to the most desperate resolutions and actions by threatning all extremities not only to the known heads and chief Incendiaries but even to the whole community of a Nation Resolving to destroy root and branch men women and children without any regard to those usual pleas for mercy which Conquerours not wholly barbarous are wont to hear from their own breasts in behalf of those whose opressive faces rather than their malice engaged them or whose imbecillity for sex and age was such as they could neither lift up a â—and against them nor distinguish between their right hand and their left 69. Preposterous and unevangelical was that zeal of the rebuked Disciples who would go no lower in their revenge than to call for fire from Heaven upon whole Cities for the repulse or neglect of a few As was that of Jacobs sons whom the Father both blamed and cursed for it And so is theirs who are for utter extirpation of all and more than all that have opposed them that will extinguish a Nation for the misdemeanours and injuries of a provoked and incensed Party 70. Even in the case of Rebellion moderate remedies are rather to be applied than extreme severity such as may punish some with exemplary justice yet disarm others with tenders of mercy upon their submission and the King's protection of them from furious and factious persons though met in Parliament who would soon drown them if they refused to swim down the popular stream with them 71. A King hath enough to do to look to his own conscience and the faithfull discharge of his Trust He has no leisure to make prolix Apologies against injurious calumnies and reproaches 72. A King that can hear with patience as bad as his worst enemies can falsly say may hope still to do better than they deserve or desire he should 73. By great effusions of Subjects bloud in Civil Wars no man is so much weakened as their King 74. Which King may hope though mens unsatiable cruelty never will yet the mercy of God will at length say to his justice It is enough 75. When God's mercifull justice intends not the utter confusion but the cure
the abatement of mens sins not the desolating of Nations he will command the Sword of Civil Wars to sheath it self 76. A King of divers Nations may incurre the the censure or misconstruction of one while he gratifies the active spirits among them of the other so far as that he seems to many to prefer the desires of that party before his own interest and honour 77. Religion and Liberty are common and vulgar flourishes to disguise an other errand of that Army which invades their own Kings territories to make him and his Church to write after them and theirs though it were in bloudy characters 78. Presbytery seeks to suppress and render odious under the names of Sects Schisms or Heresies several Parties which if they can get but numbers strength and opportunity may according to Presbyteries opinion and pattern set up their wayes by the like methods of violence representing a wonderful necessity thereof to avoid the further miseries of War which they may first begin and engage themselves to continue until they obtain their end 79. When God hath first taken us off from the folly of our opinions and fury of our passion he hath many wayes to teach us those rules of true Reason and peaceable Wisdome which is from above tending most to his glory and his Church's good 80. They that have any true touches of Conscience will not endeavour to carry on the best designs much less such as are and will be daily more apparently factious and ambitious by any unlawfull means under the title of a Covenant 81. Ties by Leagues and Covenants are either superfluous and vain when men were sufficiently tied before or fraudulent and injurious if by such after-ligaments they find the Imposers really ayming to dissolve or suspend their former just and necessary obligations 82. Factious men to whom it is enough if they get but the reputation of a seeming encrease to their Party little romember That God is not mocked 83. Against the Church the King or the Publick Peace no mans lawfull Calling can engage him 84. The soâ—â— and servile temper of some Divines dispose them in alterations of Religion and Government to sudden acting and compliance contrary to their former judgments profession and practise 85. No man should be more forward than a King himself to carry on all due Reformation with mature judgment and a good Conscience in what things he shall after impartial advice be by God's Word and right reason convinced to be amiss 86. Crowns and Kingdoms have a period with the life of their King but Reputation and Honour may survive to a glorious kind of Immortality when he is dead and gone 87. A King should never permit the malice of his enemies to deprive him of that comfort which his confidence in the generality of his people gives him 88. What a King may bear from foreign enemies he cannot so well from his own Subjects who next his children are dear unto him 89. Nothing could give a King more cause to suspect and search his own Innocency than when he observes many who made great professions of singular piety forward to engage against him 90. When many Professours of singular Piety engage with persons that take arms against their King it gives to vulgar minds so bad a reflection upon Him and his Cause as if it had been impossible to adhere to Him and not with all part from God to think or speak well of Him and not to blaspheme God 91. Truly Learned and Religious men will endeavour to be so well satisfied in the Cause of their injur'd King's sufferings as that they may chose rather to suffer with Him than forsake Him 92. When Popular Preachers though but in hypocrisie and falshood urge Religious pretensions against their King it is not strange that the same to many well-minded men should be a great temptation to oppose Him 93. When a King useth the assistance of Subjects of a different profession from Him they are most ready to interpret it a sighting against Religion who least of all men care whom they imploy or what they say and do so they may prevail 94. So eager are some men in giving their Soveraign better counsel than what they pretend he hath before heark'ned to that they will not give Him leave to take it with freedom as a Man nor honour as a King 95. No men should be more willing to complain than the King be to redress what he sees in Reason to have been either done or advis'd amiss 96. They who of pretended Sufferers become zealous Actors in persecution deprive themselves of the comfort and reward whatsoever they before expected 97. The noise and ostentation of Liberty is the design and artifice some men use to withdraw the peoples affections from their King 98. A good King should be so far from desiring to oppress as not to envy his Subjects that liberty which is all he ought desire to enjoy himself viz. To will nothing but according to Reason Lawes and Religion 99. Lords and Gentlemen which assist their King in a Civil War would not be so prodigal of their Liberties if they suspected he would infringe them as with their Lives and Fortunes to help on the inslaving of themseves and their Posterities 100. As to civil Importunities none but such as desire to drive on their ambitious and covetous design over the ruines of Church and State Prince Peers and People will ever desire greater Freedom than good Lawes allow The ninth Century 1. SUch men as thirst after Novelties or despair to relieve the necessities of their fortunes or satisfie their Ambition in peaceable times become principal impulsives to popular Commotions 2. Rebels will blast the best Government of the best King with all the odious reproaches which impotent malice can invent and expose Him to all those contempts which may most diminish the Majesty of a King and encrease the ungratefull insolencies of his People 3. A King who is well assured that his Innocency is clear before God in point of any calumnies rebellious Subjects do object may prophesie That his reputation shall like the Sun after Owles and Bats have had their freedom in the night and darker times rise and recover it self to such a degree of spendour as those feral birds shall be grieved to behold and unable to bear 4. A King cannot so much suffer in point of honour by rude and scandalous pamphlets as those men do who having power and pretending to so much piety are so forgetfull of their duty to God and him as not to vindicate the Majesty of their King against any of those who contrary to the precept of God and precedents of Angels speak evil of dignities and bring railing accusations against those who are honoured with the name of Gods 5. They will easily contemn such shadows of God as Kings are who reverence not that Supreme and adorable Majesty in comparison of whom all the glory of Men and Angels is but
and for their fidelity may have cause to love 7. As a King never needs so He should never desire more the service and assistance of Clergy-men judiciously pious and soberly devout than when by misfortune sequesterd from civil comforts and secular attendants 8. A distressed King cannot think some Divines though He respects them for that worth and piety which may be in them proper to be his present Comforters and Physicions who have had a great influence in occasioning the publick calamities in his Kingdoms and inflicting the wounds He hath upon Himself 9. The spirits of those Divines whose judgments stand at a distance from their King or in jealousie of Him or in opposition against Him cannot so harmoniously accord with his or his with theirs either in Prayer or other holy duties as is meet and most comfortable whose golden rule and bond of perfection consists in that of mutual Love and Charity 10. The King who is much a friend to all Church-men that have any thing in them beseeming that sacred function will if there be cause hazard his own interest upon Conscience and Constancy to maintain their Rights 11. Such Clergy-men who so unhandsomely requite their King as to desert Him in his calamity when their Loyalty and Constancy is most required may live to repent no less for his sufferings than their own ungratefull errours and that injurious contempt and meanness which they bring upon their calling and persons 12. An afflicted King though he pities all Clergy-men that desert Him and despiseth none of a different opinion from his yet sure He may take leave to make choise of some for his special Attendants who are best approved in his judgment and most sutable to his affection 13. A King imprisoned by his Subjects to whom they will not permit the attendance of his Chaplains can make no more charitable construction of their denial than that they esteem Him sufficient Himself to discharge his duty to God as a Priest though not to Men as a Prince 14. I think both Offices Regal and Sacerdotal might well become the same Person as anciently they were under one name and the united rights of primogeniture 15. A King cannot follow better presidents if He be able than those two eminent David and Solemon not more famous for their Scepter and Crowns than one was for devout Psalms and Prayers the other for his divine Parables and Preaching whence the one merited and assumed the name of a Prophet the other a Preacher Titles of greater honour where rightly placed than any of those the Roman Emperours affected from the Nations they subdued But 16. Since the order of God's Wisdome and Providence hath for the most part alwayes distinguished the gifts and offices of Kings and Priests of Princes and Preachers both in the Jewish and Christian Churches an imprisoned King may be sorry to find Himself reduced to the necessity of being both or injoying neither 17. As a Soveraign owes his Clergy the protection of a Christian King so He should desire to enjoy from them the benefit of their gifts and prayers 18. However as the spiritual Government by which the devout Soul is subject to Christ and through his merits daily offers it self and its services to God every private believer is a King and Priest invested with the honour of a Royal Priesthood yet he is not thereby constituted Priest or Preacher as to the outward polity of the Church 19. A King's consciousness to his spiritual defects may make him more prize and desire those pious assistances which especially in any his exigencies holy and good Ministers either Bishops or Presbyters may afford him 20. The King is reduced to great extremities to whom by God's pleasure and permission to his Subjects nothing is left but his life for them to take from Him and nothing more to desire of them which might little seem to provoke their jealousies and offence to deny Him as some have done than this of having some means afforded Him for his souls comfort and support 21. When a King reduced to extremity by his Subjects makes choice of Chaplains to assist Him that are men no way scandalous and every way eminent for their learning and piety no less than for their Loyalty no exceptions imaginable can be made against them but only this That they may seem too able and too well affected toward him and his service 22. A King should count his misfortunes the greater by far when they light also upon the young Prince his son and any others whom he may have cause to love so well as Himself and of whose unmerited sufferings He should have a greater sense than of his own 23. The different education of Princes hath different success when they come to exercise their Government the evidence of which Holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of David and Rehoboam The one prepared by many afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom The other softned by the unparallel'd prosperity of Solomon's Court and so by flatteries corrupted to the great diminution both of Peace Honour and Kingdom 24. A distressed King may trust that God will graciously direct all the black lines of Affliction which he pleaseth to draw on him to the Centre of true happiness if by them he be drawn neerer of God 25. When a yong Prince shall attain the Crown whereof his Father was injuriously devested He ought first to do justice to God his own Soul and his Church in the profession and prosecution both of truth and unity in Religion the next main hinge on which his prosperity will depend and move being that of Civil Justice He is to administer to his People 26. When a good King is persecuted by his own Subjects for the preservation of a right Religion and just Lawes established he may without vanity turn the reproach of his Sufferings as to the World's censure into the honour of a kind of Martyrdome as to the testimony of his own Conscience 27. Since a distressed King knowes not how God will deal with Him as to a removal of the pressures and indignities which his justice even by the very unjust hands of some of his own Subjects may have been pleased to lay upon Him He should not be much solicitous what wrong He suffers from man while He retains in his soul what He believes is right before God 28. In civil dissentions between King and Subjects though He offer all for Reformation and safely that in Reason Honour and Conscience He can yet he must reserve whatsoever He cannot consent unto without an irreparable injury to his own Soul the Chruch and his People and the next undoubted Heir of his Kingdoms 29. No difficulties are insuperable to divine Providence 30. When a yong Prince after his Fathers decease comes to the government of Kingdoms which Tumults and Civil Wars had put into disorder He ought seriously to consider the former real or objected miscariages which might occasion his troubles that so he
may avoid his own 31. By the Sun-shine of God's mercy and the splendour of a Princes virtues whole mountains of congealed factions may be thawed and dissipated 32. Acts of Indempnity and Oblivion should by an indulgent King be offered to so great a latitude as may include all that can but suspect themselves to be any way obnoxious to the Lawes and which may serve to exclude all future jealousies and insecurities 33. If God see fit to restore an injur'd King to the enjoyment of his Kingdoms He ought then to let the Prince his son fully understand the things that belong to God's glory his own honour and the Kingdoms peace 34. A charitable King though injur'd by his Subjects for the future peace of his Kingdoms should encourage the Prince his Successour to be as confident as Himself That the most part of all sides who have done amiss have done so not out of malice but misinformation or misapprehension of things 35. Whatsoever good the Royal Father intended to Church or State in times uncapable of it should be performed by the Prince his Son when possessed of his Kingdom and Power 36. It is a prayer and benediction worthy of an afflicted King That God would after his decease so bless the Prince his Son and Successour as to establish his Kingdoms in Righteousness his Soul in true Religion and his Honour in the love of God and his People 37. Though God permit Disloyalty to be perfected by the destruction of a King yet He may make his memory and name live ever in his Son as of his Father that lov'd Him and a King under whom his Kingdoms flourished for a time 38. A King in affliction should believe God's power and have hope of his will to restore Him to his Rights despairing neither of his mercy nor of his peoples love and pity 39. Although a King 's domestick Enemies use all the the poyson of falsity and violence of hostility to destroy first the love and Loyalty which is in his Subjects and then all that content of life in him which from these He chiefly enjoyed yet they may fail of their end and after the many deaths the King suffers for the good will of his People He may not be wholly dead till their further malice and cruelty take that little of life too the husk and shell as it were which they had only left Him 40. Although that a King must die as a man is certain That He may die a King by the hands of his own Subjects a violent sodain barbarous death in the strength of his years in the midst of his Kingdoms his friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectatours his Enemies insolent Revilers and Triumphers over Him living dying and dead may sometimes be probable in humane reason nought else being to be hoped for as to mans cruelty yet He is not to despair of God's infinite mercy 41. It is not easie for a depressed King to contend with those many horrours of Death wherewith God may suffer Him to be tempted which may be equally horrid either in the suddenness of a barbarous Assasination or in the solemn cruelty of an unjust sentence and publick execution 42. A King under such a sad apprehension must humbly desire to depend upon God and to submit to his will both in life and death in what order soever he is pleased to lay them out to him 43. All Soveraigns are obliged to own God as King of Kings not only for the eminency of his power and Majesty above them but also for that singular care and protection which he hath over them in the many dangers they are expos'd unto 44. God many times so pleads the cause of that King which he permits to be in the power of disloyal and bloudy-minded Subjects that he shewes him the sad confusions following his destruction presaged and confirmed to Him by those he lives to see in his troubles and God gives his Enemies cause to fear that he will both further divide and by mutual vengeance afterward destroy them 45. It may be the King's comfort who is wronged and dethroned by his Subjects that God gives him not only the honour to imitate Christ's example in suffering for Righteousness sake though obscured by the foulest charges of Tyranny and Injustice but the charity both to forgive them and pray for them that God would not impute his bloud to them further than to convince them what need they have of Christ's bloud to wash their souls from the guilt of shedding his 46. The unfortunate King that sees himself destin'd to be murther'd by his cruel Subjects may bless God if he has the heart to pray not so much that the bitter cup of a violent death may pass from Him as that of his wrath may pass from all those whose hands by deserting him are sprinkled or by acting and consenting to his death are embrued with his bloud 47. Rebellious Subjects cannot deprive a King of more than He may be content to lose when God sees fit by their hands to take it from Him whose mercy he is to believe will more than iufinitely recompence what ever by mans injustice He is pleased to deprive him of 48. A miserable King shall not want the heavy and envied Crowns of this world when God hath mercifully Crowned and Consummated his graces with Glory and exchanged the shadowes of his earthly Kingdoms among men for the substance of that Heavenly Kingdom with himself 49. A good King overpower'd by Rebbels may notwithstanding be perswaded within himself that he is happy in the judicious love of the ablest and best of his Subjects who may not only pity and pray for him but may be content even to dy with him or for him 50. No Subjects that pretend to punish can reasonably therein exceed the errours of their Princes especially where more than sufficient satisfaction hath been made to the publick the enjoyment of which private ambitions may have frustrated 51. An injur'd King's chiefest comfort in death consists in his peace made with God before whose exact Tribunal he need not fear to appear as to any cause long-disputed by the Sword between Him and his causeless Enemies 52. A good King may look upon it with infinite more content and quiet of Soul to have been worsted in his enforced contestation for and vindication of the just Lawes of his Land the freedom and honour of his Parliaments the rights of his Crown the just liberty of his Subjects and the true Christian Religion in its Doctrines Government and due encouragements than if He had with the greatest advantages of success evercome them all 53. The King that suffers for Christ as he is the Authour of Truth Order and Peace being forced to contend against Errour Faction and Confusion shall through Christ enabling Him be more than Conquerour in the end 54. Although any violent death of an unfortunate King be the wages of his own sin as from God and the
from the earnest and constant endeavouring of which as no discouragement given Him on the contrary part should make Him cease so no success on his own should ever divert Him 52. All men who pretend to goodness must desire peace and all men know Treaties to be the best and most Christian way to procure it 53. A King can never condescend unto what is absolutely destructive to that just power which by the Lawes of God and the Land He is born unto 54. As a King should make no other demands but such as He believes confidently to be just and much conducing to the tranquillity of the People so should He be most willing to condescend to them in whatsoever shall be really for their good and happiness 55. Except a King and People have reciprocal care each of other neither can be happy 56. A King should never dissemble nor hide his Conscience when his consent is desired to the alteration of Religion wherewith He is unsatisfied 57. In times of Distraction and Division between King and People if the King be so unfortunate as to sall into their hands it is â—it for Him to be attended by some of his Chaplains whose opinions as Clergy-men he ought to esteem and reverence not only for the exercise of his Conscience but also for clearing of his judgment concerning the emergent differences in Religion 58. A restrained King cannot as He ought take in consideration the alterations in Religion that may be offered Him without the help of his Chaplains or Divines because He can never judge rightly of or be altered in any thing of his opinion so long as any ordinary way of finding out the Truth is denied Him but when that is granted Him He should not strive for victory in Argument but seek and submit to Truth according to that judgment which God hath given Him alwayes holding it his best and greatest conquest to give contentment to his People in all things which He conceives not to be against his Conscience or Honour 59. A King under such restraint as he is not master of those ordinary actions which are the undoubted rights of any free-born man is not in case fit to make Concessions for give Answers to his revolted Subjects 60. A King under what restraint soever should not give his consent to any Propositions made to Him by his revolted Subjects that require the disclaiming that reason which God hath given Him to judge by for the good of Him and his People and the putting a great violence upon his Conscience 61. It were easie for a distressed King who intended to wind Himself out of Troubles by indirect means readily to consent to whatsoever is proposed to Him and afterward choose his time to break all alledging that forced concessions are not to be kept for which He would not incur a hard censure from indifferent men 62. Maximes of fallacy are not to be the guides of a King's Actions in extremity 63. It is held by some unlawfull for any man and most base in a King to recede from his promises for having been obtained by force or he under restraint Note According as the promises may be which if unjust and injurious are not to be adher'd to 64. A general Act of Oblivion is the best bond of peace 65. The Wisdom of several Kingdoms hath usually and happily in all ages granted general Pardons whereby the numerous discontentments of many persons and families otherwise exposed to ruine might not become fuel to new disorders or seeds to future troubles 66. Perpetual dishonour must cleve to that King who to obtain liberty or other advantage to Himself shall abandon those persons of Condition and Fortune that out of a sense of duty have engaged themselves with and for Him in his Civil Wars 67. Liberty being that which in all times hath been the common theme and desire of all men common Reason shewes That Kings less than any should endure Captivity 68. A King may with patience endure a tedious restraint so long as He has any hope that that sort of his suffering may conduce to the peace of his Kingdoms or the hindering of more effusion of blood 69. A King under restraint finding by too certain proofs that his continued patience would not only turn to his personal ruine but likewise be of much more prejudice than furtherance to the publick good is bound as well by natural as political obligations to seek his safety by retiring Himself if He can for some time from the publick view both of his Friends and Enemies 70. No indifferent man can judg but a King has just cause to free Himself from the hands of those who change their principles with their condition and who are not ashamed openly to intend the destruction of his Nobility and with whom the Levellers doctrine is rather countenanced than punished 71. No reasonable man can think that God will bless those who refuse to hear their own King when they have him under restraint 72. Although a King may withdraw Himself from the ill usage of such his Subjects as keep Him under restraint and are deaf to the importunities of his reasonable desires yet when He may be heard with Freedom Honour and Safety He should instantly break forth through the cloud of his retirement and shew Himself really to be Pater Patriae 73. When a King is willing to give ease to the Consciences of others there is no reason why He alone and those of his judgment should be pressed to a violation of theirs 74. It is the definition not names of things which make them rightly known 75. Without means to perform no Propsition can take effect 76. A King to whom Honour Freedom and Safety is not allowed can no more treat with his Subjects that have usurped his power than a blind man judge of colours or one run a race who hath both his feet tied together 77. A King of two different Nations should yield to none in either Kingdom for being truly and zealously affected for the good and honour of both and his resolution should be never to be partial for either to the prejudice of the other 78. Mercy is as inherent and inseparable to a King as Justice 79. A King should never abuse the love of his loyal Subjects by any power wherewith God shall enable Him to the least violation of the least of their liberties or the diminution of those immunities which He before had granted them though they be beyond the Acts of his Predecessours 80. In time of Civil War whosoever behaves not Himself like a good Subject to his King in his Kingdom should not if the King can help it receive the benefit and advantage of being his Subject in any other but all foreign Princes should know that as such a person hath parted with his loyalty to his King so he must not hope for any security by Him that some example may be made how easie it is for a King to punish
their disloyalty abroad who for a time may avoid their own King's justice at home 81. In time of Civil War such who have by weakness and misunderstanding or through fear and apprehension of danger been so far transported as to contribute and consent to horrid intestine dissentions should by their free and liberal assistance of their King express That their former errours proceeded from weakness not from malice 82. The experience Subjects have of their King's Religion Justice and Love of his People should not suffer them to believe any horrid scandals laid upon Him And their Affection Loyalty and Jealousie of his Honour should disdain to be made instruments to oppress their Native Soveraign by assisting an odious Rebellion 83. A King's obligation is both in Conscience and Honour neither to abandon God's Cause injure his Successours nor forsake his Friends 84. A King so distressed in Civil Wars as He cannot flatter Himself with expectation of good success may rest satisfied in this to end his dayes with Honour and a good Conscience which obligeth Him to continue his endeavours in not despairing that God may in due time avenge his own Cause 85. A King in extremity is not to be deserted by his friends though He that stayes with Him must expect and resolve either to dye for a good cause or which is worse to live as miserable in maintaining it as the violence of insulting Rebels can make him 86. As the best foundation of Loyalty is Christianity so true Christianity teaches perfect Loyalty for without this reciprocation neither is truly what they pretend to be 87. A King should chuse such Commissioners for any Treaty with Rebels as will neither be threatned nor disputed from the grounds He hath given them 88. Wherein Rebels strain to justifie their breaking off Treaties with their King bare asseverations without proofs cannot I am sure satisfie any judicious Reader 89. The Penners of seditious Pamphlets to justifie the cause of Rebels seek more to take the ears of the ignorant multitude with big words and bold Assertions than to satisfie rational men with real proofs or true arguments 90. Bare Asseverations which bold Rebels often make even against what they see will not get credit with any but such who abandon their judgments to an implicit Faith 91. The determinations of all the Parliaments in the World cannot make a thing just or necessary if it be not so of it self 92. When the reasons upon which the laying by of a King's authority is grounded are not particularly mentioned for the Worlds satisfaction if possible but involved in general big words it seems that it is their force of armes who do it more than that of Reason which they trust to for procuring of obedience to their determinations or belief to what they say 93. It is evident that the demands of bold Rebels have alwayes increased with their good fortune 94. A King must in no extremity howsoever pressed to it by Rebels resolve to live in quiet without honour and to give his people peace without safety by abandoning them to an arbitrary unlimited power 95. Reason will hardly maintain those who are afraid of her 96. Indifferent men may often judge of a King's innocency by their way of accusation who rebel against Him For those who lay such high crimes to his charge as the breach of Oathes Vowes Protestations and Imprecations would not spare to bring their proofs if they had any 97. It is a wrong to a King's Innocency to seek to clear Him of such slanders for which there are no proofs alledged for Malice being once detected is best answered with neglect and silence 98. Although Affection should not so blind one as to say that his King never erred yet as when a just debt is paid Bonds ought to be cancelled so Grievances be they never so just being once redressed ought no more to be objected as Errours And it is no Paradox to affirm That Truths this way told are no better than slanders 99. It is most certain by experience That they who make no conscience of Rebelling will make less of Lying when it is for their advantage 100. It is the artifice of Rebels not only to endeavour to make Fables pass for currant coin but likewise to seek to blind mens judgements with false inferences upon some truths The Twelfth Century 1. IT cannot be warranted by Justice that any man should be slandred yet denyed the sight thereof and so far from being permitted to answer that if he have erred there should be no way left him to acknowledg or mend it 2. It cannot be made appear that our Saviour and the Apostles did so leave the Church at liberty as they might totally alter or change the Church Government at their pleasure 3. Mens conjectures can breed but a humane faith 4. The Post-scripts of St. Paul's Epistles though we lay no great weight upon them yet they are to be held of great antiquity and therefore such as in question of fact where there appears no strong evidence to weaken their belief ought not to be lightly rejected 5. Although Faith as it is an assent unto Truth supernatural or of Divine Revelation reacheth no further than the Scriptures yet in matters of fact humane testimonies may beget a Faith though humane yet certain and infallible 6. It is not to be conceived that the accessions or additions granted by the favour of Princes for the enlarging of the power or priviledges of Bishops have made or indeed can make the Government really and substantially to differ from what formerly it was no more than the addition of Armes or Ornaments can make a body really and substantially to differ from it self naked or divested of the same nor can it be thought either necessary or yet expedient that the elections of the Bishops and some other circumstantials touching their Persons or Office should be in all respects the same under Christian Princes as it was when Christians lived among Pagans and under persecution 7. It is well worthy the studies and endeavours of Divines of both opinions laying aside emulation and private interests to reduce Episcopacy and Presbytery into such a well proportioned form of superiority and subordination as may best resemble the Apostolical and Primitive times so far forth as the different condition of the times and the exigents of all considerable circumstances will admit so as the power of Church-Government in the particular of Ordination which is meerly spiritual may remain authoritative in the Bishop but that power not to be exercised without the concurrence or assistance of the Presbytery 8. Other powers of Government which belong to jurisdiction though they are in the Bishops yet the outward exercise of them may be ordered and disposed or limited by the Soveraign power to which by the lawes of the place and the acknowledgment of the Clergy they are subordinate 9. The Succession of Bishops is the best clue the most certain and ready way
by which to find out their Original 10. It hath been often sound that mutual returns of long answers and replies have rather multiplied disputes by starting new questions than informed the Conscience by removing former scruples 11. In former times under Pagan Princes the Church was a distinct Body of it self divided from the Common-wealth and so was to be governed by its own rules and Rulers The Bishops therefore of those times though they had no outward coercive power over mens persons or estates yet in as much as every Christian man when he became a Member of the Church did ipso facto and by that his own voluntary act put himself under their government they exercised a very large power of jurisdictionâ— in spiritualibus in making Ecclesiastical Canons receiving accusations conventing the accused examining of witnesses judging of crimes excluding such as they found guilty of scandalous offences from the Lord's Supper enjoyning penances upon them casting them out of the Church receiving them again upon their repentance c. And all this they exercised as well over Presbyters as others but after that the Church under Christian Princes began to be incorporated into the Common-wealth whereupon there must of necessity follow a complication of the Civil and Ecclesiastical powers the jurisdiction of Bishops in the outward exercise of it was subordinate unto and limited by the Supreme Civil power 12. Although there be no cause to dislike their opinion who derive the Episcopal power originally from Christ himself without whose warrant the Apostles would not either have exercised it themselvs or derived it to others yet for that the practise in them is so clear and evident and the warrant from him expressed but in general terms As my Father sent me so send I you and the like we may chuse rather to fix the claim of the power upon that practise as the more evidential way than upon the warrant which by reason of the generality of expression would bear more dispute 13. Arguments drawn from Names and Words and conjectural Expositions of Scripture are subject to such frailties as in debate will give little satisfaction to his judgment and conscience that requites it 14. The testimonies of so many writers ancient and modern as have been produced for the Scripture-Original of Bishops may be conceived of so great importance in a question of this nature that we are bound both in charity and reason to believe That so many men of such quality would not have asserted the same with so much confidence but upon very good ground 15. One witness for the affirmative ought to be of more value than ten for the negative and the testimony of one person that is not interessed than of an hundred that are 16. A Prince to shew the greatness of his mind is rather to conquer his enemies by pardoning than by punishing 17. A King may expect not to be ceusur'd for having parted with too much of his right when the price and commodity is so great such as security to Himself and peace to his People 18. A prudent Parliament ought to remember how usefull a King's power is to a Peoples liberty 19. A Prince is never to affect more greatness or prerogative than what is really and intrinsecally for the good of his Subjects not satisfaction of Favourites 20. A Prince that so useth his Prerogative will never want means to be a Father to all and a bountifull Prince to any he would be extraordinarily gracious unto 21. All men trust their treasure where it returns them interest 22. If Princes like the Sea receive and repay all the fresh streams and rivers trust them with they will not grudge but pride themselves to make them up an Ocean 23. Subjects who have learnt that Victories over their Princes are but triumphs over themselves will be more unwilling to hearken to changes afterward 24. A distressed King may best learn to own Himself by retiring into Himself and therefore can the better digest what befalls Him not doubting but God can restrain his Enemies malice and turn their fierceness unto his praise 25. If God give an injur'd King success against Rebels He ought to use it humbly and far from revenge 26. If God restore an exil'd King to his right upon hard conditions whatsoever He promiseth He ought to keep 27. Those men who have forced Lawes which they were bound to observe will find their triumphs full of troubles 28. A Prince is not to think any thing in this world worth obtaining by foul and unjust means 29. No Earthly power can justly call a King in question as a Delinquent 30. A good King will not without shewing a reason seek to impose a belief upon his Subjects 31. There is no proceeding just against any man but what is warranted either by God's Lawes or the municipal Lawes of the Country where he lives 32. The true Liberty of Subjects consists not in the power of Government but in living under such Lawes such a Government as may give themselves the best assurance of their lives and propriety of their goods 33. The King who has a Trust committed to Him by God by old and lawfull descent must not betray it to answer to a new unlawfull Authority 34. It is a great sin for Subjects to withstand lawfull Authority as it is to submit to an Authority Tyrannical or any other wayes unlawfull 35. A hasty sentence once past may be sooner repented than recalled 36. It is in vain for a King to be a Sceptick by denying the power Rebels have when greater than He can resist 37. A hasty Judgment passed upon the Life of a King may bring on that trouble and perpetual inconveniency to a Kingdom that the child which is then unborn may repent it 38. God many times does pay Justice by an unjust Sentence 39. Conquest is never just except there be a good just cause either for matter of wrong of just Title and then they that go beyond it the first quarrel that they have to it is it that makes unjust at the end what was just at first 40. Sole matter of Conquest is a great Robbery 41. Those Magistrates or Officers will never be right nor will God ever prosper them who give not God his due their King his due and the People their due 42. The regulating a Church rightly according to Holy Scripture is To give God his due A National Synod freely called freely debating among themselves must settle the Church if out of order when that every Opinion is freely and clearly heard 43. A Subject and a Soveraign are clean different things and a share in Government is nothing pertaining to the People FINIS To the Reader Friend THis Century may be complete and others added when more of His Sacred Majesty's Writings shall be Published Which advertisement I pray take with you as you proceed to the other Titles under which you may apprehend the like defect at the end Icon Animae Basilicae
ground and to lay his honour in the dust 19. God that sees not as man sees lookes beyond all popular appearances searches the heart and tryes the reins and brings to light things hidden in the dark 20. A Kings afflictions cannot be esteemed by wise and godly men any argument of his sin in shedding bloud he would have saved more than their impunity among good men is any sure token of their innocency that forc't him to it 21. A King may expect God's Protection from the privy conspiracies and open violence of bloudy and unreasonable men according to the uprightness of his heart and the innocency of his hands in the matter of bloud or destruction of his Subjects 22. In time of civil dissensions a King may most safely flie to God as his refuge and defence who rules the raging of the Sea and the madness of the People 23. A King should look upon his own sins and the sins of his People which are the tumults of their Souls against God as the just cause of popular inundations permitted by God to over-bear all the banks of Loyalty Modesty Lawes Justice and Religion 24. God can rebuke the rebellious beasts of the People and deliver his King from the rudeness and strivings of the multitude 25. It becomes King and People as Men and Christians unpassionately to see the light of Reason and Religion and with all due order and gravity to follow it 26. A Charitable King will wish his rebellious People a timely sense and sorrow that shame here and not suffering hereafter may be the punishment of their Sin 27. When God shall set bounds to our Passions by Reason to our Errours by Truth to our Seditions by Lawes duly executed and to our Schismes by Charity then we may be as Jerusalem a City at unity in it self 28. A King in distress should still appeal to his God whose all-discerning Justice sees through all the disguises of mens pretensions and deceitfull darknesses of their hearts 29. A King to whom God gave a heart to grant much to his Subjects may need a heart fitted to suffer much from them 30. Gods Grace may teach a King wisely to enjoy as well the frustratings as the fullfillings of his best hopes and most specious desires 31. A King sometimes while he thinks to allay others fears may raise his own and by setling them unsettle himself 32. Evil for good is a bad requital and hatred for the good will of a King to his People 33. A King needs God for his Pilot in such a dark and dangerous storm as neither admits his return to the Port whence he set out nor his making any other with that safety and honour which he designed 34. It is easie for God to keep a King safe in the love and confidence of his people 35. A King needs God for his Guardian amidst the unjust hatred and jealousies of them whom he suffers so far to prevail as to pervert and abuse his acts of greatest Indulgence to and assurance of them 36. A penitent King ought to know no favours of his can make others more guilty than himself may be in abusing those many and great ones which God had conferred upon him 37. A King in time of publick calamity by civil dissensions should ask of God such Repentance for himself and his people as he will accept and such Grace as they may not abuse 38. The King is happy who can make a right use of others abuses and by their failings of him reflect with a reforming displeasure upon his own offemces against God 39. Although a King for his own sins be by other mens sins deprived of temporal blessings yet he may be happy to enjoy the comfort of God's mercies which often raise the greatest sufferers to be the most glorious Saints 40. It is God's will a King should preserve a Native Rational and Religious freedom 41. God requires of Kings to submit their understandings and wills unto his whose wisdom and goodness can neither erre nor misguide them 42. God requires of Kings so far to deny their carnal reason in order to his sacred Mysteries and Commands that they should believe and obey rather than dispute them 43. God expects from Kings only such a reasonable service of him as not to do any thing for him against their Consciences 44. As to the desires of men God enjoins Kings to try all things by the touch-stone of Reason and Lawes which are the rules of civil Justice and to declare their consents to that only which their judgments approve 45. Kings should be very unwilling to desert that place in which God hath set them and whereto the affairs of their Kingdoms do call them 46. A King may be content for his Peoples good to deny himself in what God hath subjected to his disposal 47. The unthankfull importunities and tumultuary violence of some mens immoderate demands should never betray a King to that dangerous and unmanly slavery as to make him strengthen them by his consent in those things which he thinks in his Conscience to be against God's glory the good of his Subjects and the discharge of his own duty to Reason and Justice 48. A King should be willing to suffer the greatest indignities and injuries Rebellious people press upon him rather than commit the least sin against his Conscience 49. The just liberties of People may well be preserved in fair and equal wayes without the slavery of their King's Soul 50. He whom God hath invested by his favours in the power of a Christian King should not subject his Reason to other mens Passions and Designs which seem unreasonable unjust and irreligious unto him 51. The way of Truth and Justice will bring a distressed King at last to peace and happiness with God though for them he hath much trouble among men 52. A King and Queen scattered on earth by their despightfull and deadly enemies may be prepared by their sufferings for God's presence 53. Though a King's difference from his Queen in some things as to Religion may be his greatest temporal infelicity yet the sincerity of their affections which desire to seek find and to embrace every Truth given by God may be acceptable unto him 54. It is happy for King and Queen different in Religion when either ignorance of what is necessary to be known or unbelief or disobedience to what they know becomes their misery or their wilfull default 55. The great scandal of Subjects professing the same true Religion with their King may be an hinderance to the dissenting Queen in the love of some Truth God would have her to learn or may harden her in some errour he would have cleared to her 56. A King 's own and his Parties constancy is the best antidote against the poyson of their example that gave such scandal 57. The Truth of that Religion the King propfesseth represented with all the beauties of Humility Loyalty Charity and Peaceableness as the proper fruits and
ornaments thereof may prevail much upon the judgment of his dissenting Queen as the odious disguises of Levity Schism Heresie Novelty Cruelty and Disloyalty which any men's practises put upon it may intend her aversion from it 58. God's sacred and saving Truths cleared from all rust and dross of humane mixtures gain belief love and obedience to them as his 59. God beheld in the glass of his Truth in those mercies which he hath offered unto us in his only Son and our Saviour inviteth us to serve him in all those holy duties which most agree with his holy doctrine and most imitable example 60. The experience a King and Queen separated by Rebels have of the vanity and uncertainty of all humane glory and greatness in their scatterings and Eclipses should make them both so much the more ambitious to be invested in those durable honours and perfections which are only to be found in God and obtained through Christ 61. A King ought not to gratifie his passion by any secret pleasure in his death or destruction who hath thereby satisfied the injury he did him lest he make divine vengeance his and consider the affront against himself more than the sin against God 62. God often pleads the cause of Kings before the sons of men by making without their desire and endeavours the mischief of Rebels return on their own heads and their violent dealing come down on their own pates 63. An injur'd King in charity should pray that God's justice prevent not the objects and opportunities of his mercy but that they who have most offended him may live and be forgiven by him in that their offenses bear a proportion with his trespasses for which he hopes forgiveness from God 64. A King should pray for his Rebellious Subjects that God lay not their sins to their charge for condemnation but to their Conscience for amendment 65. God's exemplary vengeance shew'd in the destruction of any eminent Rebel is as the lighting of a thunderbolt which by so severe a punishment of one should be a terrour to all 66. It may be wish'd that they who know not they have done amiss might have their sin discover'd to them and that they who sin of malicious wickedness might be scared 67. They who prevent Gods judgments by their true repentance shall escape the strokes of his eternal vengeance 68. Mercy and Truth met together are the best supporters of a Royal Throne as Righteousness and Peace kissing each other the chief Ornaments of a floâ—rishing Crown 69. God sees clearly through all the cloudings of humane affairs and judges without prejudice his unerrable judgment having eternally his omniscience for its guide 70. It is time for a King to call upon God when the proud rise against him and the Assemblies of violent men seek after his Soul who have not set God before their eyes 71. A King should have no passion nor design to embroyl his Kingdome in a Civil War to which he has the least temptation as knowing he must adventure more than any and gain least of any by it 72. A King ought to deplore and study to divert the necessity of a Civil War unless he will be thought so prodigally thirsty of his Subjects bloud as to venture his own life which were better spent to save than to destroy his People 73. A King in time of Rebellion needs much of Gods grace with patience to bear the afflictions but much more to sustain the reproaches of men especially if they make the War his which they have raised themselves 74. The confidence of some mens false tongues is such that they would make a King almost suspect his own Innocence 75. A King whose innocency is known unto God may be content at least by his silence to take upon him the imputed guilt before men if by that he can allay the malice of his Enemies and redeem his people from the miseries of War 76. God will find out bloudy and deceitfull men many of whom live not half their dayes in which they promised themselves the enjoyment of the fruits of their violent and wicked Counsels 77. God will save a King that 's his servant and in due time scatter the people that delight in War 78. It is time for God to arise and lift up himself when the King's enemies rage and increase conceiving mischief travailing with iniquity and bringing forth falshood 79. The design of a Civil War is either to destroy the King's person or force his judgment and to make him renege his Conscience and Gods Truth 80. A King may be driven to cross David's choice and desire rather to fall into the hands of Men by denying them though their mercies be cruel than into the hands of God by sinning against his Conscience and in that against him who is a consuming fire It being better they destroy him than God damn him 81. If nothing but a King's bloud will satisfie his Enemies or quench the flames of his Kingdom or God's temporal Justice he should be content if it be Gods Will that it be shed by the hands of his Subjects 82. When the bloud of a King though a sinner is wash'd with the bloud of his innocent and peace-maing Redeemer Gods justice will therein find not only a temporary expiation but an eternal plenary satisfaction both for the King's sins and his Peoples 83. A King that hath God on his side has more with him than can be against him 84. None in Heaven or Earth is desireable by a King in comparison of God who in the loss of all may be more than all to him 85. When people are encouraged to fight against their King under the pretense of sighting for him he may cast his eyes up to Heaven he has no other power to oppose them 86. God needs no help nor the King having his if not to conquer at least to suffer 87. If God delights not in a King's safety and prosperity he ought to render himself up to be reduced to what God will have him whose judgments oft begin with his own Children 88. A King should be content to be nothing that God may be all 89. God who teacheth That no King can be saved by the multitude of an Host can yet save him by the multitude of his mercies being Lord of Hosts and the Father of Mercies 90. A King distressed on every side having God on his side need not fear what man can do unto him 91. A King ought to give God's Justice the glory of his distress 92. Gods mercy must have the glory of a King's deliverance from them that persecute his Soul 93. Any King that hath fought against God whose Subject he is by his sins and robbed him of his glory God may justly strip of his strength by his own Subjects and eclipse his glory likewise 94. The King whose hope and only refuge fails him shall to his grief hear his Enemies soon say There is no help for him in his God
95. The King's footsteps will slip whose goings God holds not up in his paths 96. A King favoured by God is kept as the apple of his eye and hid under the shadow of his wings 97. God has marveilous loving kindness to shew and a right hand by which to save a King that puts his trust in him from those that rise up against him from the wicked that oppress him from his deadly enemies that compass him about 98. The path of life leads to God's presence where is fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures for evermore 99. God is the first and eternal Reason whose wisdom is fortified with omnipotency 100. God's method of Grace to a King his servant is first to furnish him with clear discoveries of Truth Reason and Justice in his Understanding then so to confirm his will and resolution to adhere to them that no terrours injuries or oppressions of his Enemies may ever inforce him against those rules which God by them hath planted in his Conscience The Second Century 1. GOd never made a King that should be less than a Man and not dare to say Yea or Nay as he sees cause which freedom is not denied to the meanest creature that hath the use of reason and liberty of speech 2. That cannot be blameable in a King which is commendable veracity and constancy in others 3. It is open partiality and injustice for seditious Subjects to deny that freedom to their King which God hath given to all men and which themselves pertinaciously challenge to themselves 4. God can guide a distressed King by an unerring rule through the perplexed Lubyrinths of his own thoughts and other mens proposals which he may have some cause to suspect are purposely cast as snares that by his granting or denying them he might be more entangled in those difficulties wherewith they lye in wait to afflict him 5. A Kings own sinfull passions may cloud or divert Gods sacred suggestions 6. A King should propund to himself Gods Glory for his end Gods Word for his rule and then resign himself to Gods Will. 7. A King can hardly please all he need not care to please some men If he may be happy to please God he need not fear whom he displeaseth 8. God maketh the wisdom of the World foolishness and taketh in their own devises such as are wise in their own conceits 9. A King made wise by God's Truth for God's honour his Kingdoms general good and his own Souls salvation need not much regard the Worlds opinion or diminution of him 10. The less wisdom ill-affected Subjects are willing to impute to their King the more they shall be convinced of God's wisdom directing him while he denies nothing sit to be granted out of crossness or humor nor grants any thing which is to be denied out of any fear or flattery of men 11. A King ought to take care he become not guilty or unhappy by willing or inconsiderate advancing any mens designs which are injurious to the publick good while he confirms them by his consent Nor must he be any occasion to hinder or defraud the publick of what is best by any morose or perverse dissentings 12. A King ought to be so humbly charitable as to follow their advice when it appears to be for the publick good of whose affections to him he may have but few evidences to assure him 13. God can as well bless honest errours as blast fraudulent counsels 14. Since Kings themselves must give an account of every evil and idle word in private at God's Tribunal they ought to be much more caresull of those solemn Declarations of their mind which are like to have the greatest influence upon the Publick either for woe or weal. 15. The less unreasonable Subjects consider what they ask the more solicitous should a King be what he answers 16. In time of Civil War though a King 's own and his People's pressures are grievous and peace would be very pleasing yet should he not avoid the one nor purchase the other with the least expence or wast of his Conscience whereof God alone is deservedly more Master than himself 17. So much cruelty among Christians is acted under the colour of Religion as if we could not be Christians unless we crucifie one another 18. If a King and his People love not God's Truth as they ought and practise it in charity God may justly suffer a Spirit of errour and bitterness of mutual and mortal hatred to rise among them 19. God who forgives wherein we sin may sanctifie what we suffer 20. Repentance must be our recovery by God's mercy when our great sins have been our ruine 21. The miseries a King and his Kingdom have suffered being great they may desire God so to account them but withal that their sins may appear to then Consciences as they are represented in the glass of God's judgments for God never punisheth small failings with severe afflictions 22. They should farther desire that their sins may be ever more grievous to them than God's judgments and be more willing to repent than to be relieved first asking of God the peace of penitent Consciences and then the tranquillity of united Kingdoms 23. God can drown the sins of a King and People at Civil Wars in the Sea of our Saviours bloud and through the Red Sea of their own bloud bring them at last to a State of Piety Peace and Plenty 24. A King 's publick relations to all make him share in all his Subjects sufferings of which he ought to have such a pious sense as becomes a Christian King and a loving Father of his People 25. God can make the scandalous and unjust reproaches cast upon a good King be as a breath more to kindle his compassion and give him grace to heap charitable coles of fire upon their heads to melt them whose malice or cruel zeal hath kindled or hindred the quenching of those flames which may have much wasted his Kingdomes 26. Ignorance or Errour may sill men with rebellious and destructive Principles which they act under an opinion That they do God good service For these a King ought to pray God to lead them in the wayes of his saving Truths 27. A King may pray for the hand of God's justice to be against those who maliciously and despightfully have raised or fomented cruel and desperate Wars against him 28. God is far from destroying the innocent with the guilty and erronious with the malicious 29. God that had pity on Nineveh for the many children that were therein will not easily give over the whole stock of a populous and seduced Nation to the wrath of those whose covetousness makes them cruel nor to their anger which is too fierce and therefore justly cursed 30. God many times is pleased in the midst of the furnace of his severe justice to preserve a Posterity which may praise him for his mercy 31. God will not deal with his
Providence shall entrust with so great good and necessary a work as is a Christian and Charitable Reformation ought to use such methods as wherein nothing of ambition revenge covetousness or sacriledg may have any influence upon their Counsels 13. Inward Piety may best teach King and people how to use the blessing of outward Peace 14. God whose wise and all-disposing Providence ordereth the greatest contingencies of humane affairs may make a King see the constancy of his mercies to him in the greatest advantages God seems to give the malice of a King's enemies against him 15. As God did blast the Counsel of Achitophel turning it to David's good and his own ruine so can he defeat their design who intend by publishing ought they intercept of their King 's nothing else but to render him more odious and contemptible to his people 16. God can make the evil men imagine and displeasure they intend against their King so to return on their own heads that they may be ashamed and covered with their own confusion as with a cloak 17. When the King's enemies use all means to cloud his honour to pervert his purposes and to slander the footsteps of God's Anointed God can give the King an heart content to be dishonoured for his sake and his Church's good 18. When a King hath a fixed purpose to honour God then God will honour him either by restoring to him the enjoyment of that power and Majesty which he had suffered some men to seek to deprive him of or by bestowing on him that Crown of Christian Patience which knowes how to serve him in honour or dishonour in good report or evil 19. If God who is the fountain of goodness and honour cloathed with excellent Majesty make the King to partake of his Excellency for Wisdome Justice and Mercy he shall not want that degree of Honour and Majesty which becomes the Place in which God hath set him who is the lifter up of his head and his salvation 20. When a King knowes not what to do his eyes must be toward God who is the Soveraign of our Souls and the only Commander of our Consciences to the protection of whose mercy he must still commend himself 21. God who hath preserved a King in the day of Battel can afterward shew his strength in his weakness 22. God will be to a good King in his darkest night a pillar of fire to enlighten and direct him in the day of his hottest affliction a pillar of cloud to overshadow and protect him he will be to him both a Sun and a Shield 23. A King must not by any perversness of will but through just perswasions of Honour Reason and Religion hazard his Person Peace and Safety against those that by force seek to wrest them from him 24. A King's resolutions should not abate with his outward Forces having a good Conscience to accompany him in his solitude and desertions 25. A King must not betray the powers of Reason and that fortress of his Soul which he is intrusted to keep for God 26. The King whom God leads in the paths of his righteousness he will shew his salvation 27. Whâ—n a Kings wayes please God God will make his enemies to be at peace with him 28. When God who is infinitely good and great is with the King his presence is better than life and his service is perfect freedom 29. The Soveraign whom God ownes for his servant shall never have cause to complain for want of that liberty which becometh a Man a Christian and a King 30. A Soveraign should desire to be blessed by God with Reason as a Man with Religion as a Christian and with constancy in justice as a King 31. Though God suffer a King to be stript of all outward ornaments yet he may preserve him ever in those enjoyments wherein he may enjoy himself and which cannot be taken from him against his will 32. No fire of affliction should boyl over a King's passion to any impatience or sordid fears 33. Though many say of an afflicted King There is no help for him yet if God lift up the light of his Countenance upon him he shall neither want safety liberty nor Majesty 34. When a King's strength is scattered his expectation from men defeated his person restrained if God be not far from him his enemies shall not prevail too much against him 35. When a King is become a wonder and a scorn to many God may be his Helper and Defender 36. When God shewes any token upon an injur'd King for good then they that hate him are ashamed because the Lord hath holpen and comforted him 37. When God establisheth a King with his free Spirit he may do and suffer God's Will as he would have him 38. God will be mercifull to that King whose Soul trusteth in him and who makes his refuge in the shadow of God's wings until all calamities be overpast 39. A good King though God kill him will trust in his mercy and his Saviours merits 40. So long as an afflicted King knoweth that his Redeemer liveth though God lead him through the vail and shadow of death yet shall he fear no ill 41. When a Captive King is restrained to solitary prayers what he wants of his Chaplains help God can supply with the more immediate assistances of his Spirit which alone will both enlighten his darkness and quicken his dulness 42. God who is the Sun of Righteousness the sacred fountain of heavenly light and heat can at once clear and warm the King's heart both by instructing of him and interceding for him 43. God is all fullness From God is all-sufficiency By God is all acceptance God is company enough and comfort enough God is King of the King God can be also his Prophet and his Priest Rule him teach him pray in him for him and be ever with him 44. The single wrestlings of Jacob prevailed with God in that sacred Duel when he had none to second him but God himself who did assist Jacob with power to overcome him and by a welcome violence to wrest a blessing from him The same assistance and success can God give as he pleaseth to the solitary prayers and devout contentions of a Captive King 45. The joint and sociated Devotions of others is a blessing unto a King their fervency inflaming the coldness of his affections towards God when they go up to or meet in God's House with the voice of joy and gladness worshiping God in the Unity of Spirits and with the Bond of Peace 46. A King ought to ask God forgiveness if guilty of neglect and not improving the happy opportunities he had to meet Priest and People in God's Church 47. A King sequester'd from the opportunities of publick worship and private assâ—stance of his Chaplains is as a Pelican in the Wilderness a Sparrow on the House top and as a coal scattered from all those pious glowings and devout reflections which might best
kindle preserve and encrease the holy fire of divine graces on the Altar of his heart whence the sacrifice of prayers and incense of prayses might be duly offered up to God 48. God that breaketh not the bruised Reed nor quâ—ncheth the smoking Flax will not despise the weakness of a King's prayers nor the smotherings of his Soul in an uncomfortable loneness to which he is constrained by some mens uncharitable denials of those helps which he may much want and no less desire 49. The hardness of Rebels hearts should occasion the softnings of a Captive King 's to God and for them Their hatred should kindle his love Their unreasonable denials of his Religious desires should the more excite his prayers unto God Their inexorable deafness may encline God's ear to him who is a God easie to be entreated 50. God's ear is not heavy that it cannot nor his heart hard that it will not hear nor his hand shortned that it cannot help a King his Suppliant in a desolate condition 51. Though God permit men to deprive a King of those outward means which he hath appointed in his Church yet they cannot debar him from the communion of that inward grace which God alone breaths into humble hearts 52. When God hath once made a King humble he will teach him he will hear him he will help him for The broken and contrite heart God will not despise 53. God can make a King in solitude at once his Temple his Priest his Sacrifice and his Altar while from an humble heart he alone daily offers up in holy meditations fervent prayers and unfeigned tears to God who prepareth him for himself dwelleth in him and accepteth of him 54. God who did cause by secret supplies and miraculous infusions that the handfull of meat in the vessel should not spend nor the little oyle in the cruise fail the Widow during the time of drought and dearth will look on a good King's Soul when as a Widow it is desolate and forsaken will not permit those saving Truths he had formerly learned then to fail his memory nor the sweet effusions of his Spirit which he had sometime felt then to be wanting to his heart in the famine of ordinary and wholsome food for the refreshing of his Soul 55. A Captive King in solitude may rather chuse to want the memory of the saving Truths he had learned or the sense of Spiritual comforts he had formerly felt than to feed from those hands who mingle his bread with ashes and his wine with gall rather tormenting than teaching him whose mouths are proner to bitter reproaches of him then to hearty prayers for him 56. They who wrest the holy Scriptures to their Kings destruction which are clear for their Subjection and his preservation hazard their Souls damnation 57. Some men under the colour of long prayers have sought to devour the houses of their Brethren their King and their God 58. A distressed King may pray against their wickedness whose very balms break his head and their cordials oppress his heart That he may be delivered from the poyson under their tongues from the snares of their lips from the fire and the swords of their words and all those Loyal and Religious hearts who desire and delight in the prosperity of his Soul and who seek by their prayers to relieve the sadness and solitude of their King 59. Though a distressed King may chance to say in his hast That he is cast out of the sight of God's eyes nevertheless God may hear the voice of his supplication when he cries unto him 60. If the Lord would be extreme to mark what is done amiss who could abide it But there is mercy with him that he may be feared and therefore it is that sinners flie unto him 61. A King in the acknowledgment of his sins before God should reflect upon the aggravation of his condition the eminency of his place adding weight to his offences 62. A King ought to beseech God to forgive as his Personal so his Peoples sins which are so far his as he hath not improved the power that God gave him to his glory and his Subjects good 63. God may justly as to his over-ruling hand bring a Soveraign who in many things has rebelled against him from the glory and freedom of a King to be a Prisoner to his own Subjects 64. Though God may permit a King's Person to be restrained yet he may enlarge his heart to himself and his grace toward him 65. God may give the comforts and the sure mercies of David to the King who comes far short of David's piety yet equals David in afflictions 66. God may make the penitent sense a King has of his sins become an evidence to him that he hath pardoned them 67. The evils which at any time a King and his Kingdom hath suffered should not seem little to him though God punisheth them not according to their sins 68. When the sorrowes of a King's heart are enlarged in the importunity of his prayers if God bring him not out of his troubles he may expostulate with him as having forgotten to be gracious and to have shut up his loving kindness in displeasure 69. An Afflicted King may utterly faint if he believe not to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living 70. The sins of our prosperity many times deprive us of the benefit of our afflictions 71. It is happy for us if the fiery tryal of affliction consume the dross which in long peace and plenty we have contracted 72. Though God continue our miseries yet if he withdraw not his grace what is wanting of prosperity may be made up in patience and repentance 73. An afflicted King from whom God's anger is not yet to be turn'd away but his hand of justice must be stretched out still in the exuberance of charity and self-condemnation will beseech God it may be against him and his fathers house pleading the innocence of his People and asking What those sheep have done 74. Though the sufferings of a King satiate not the malice of his and the Church's enemies yet should their cruelty never exceed the measure of his charity 75. An injur'd King should ask grace to banish all thoughts of revenge that he may not lose the reward nor God the glory of his patience 76. A King to whom God hath given a heart to forgive such as have rebelled against him should beseech God to forgive them what they have done against both God and King 77. An afflicted King whom God in mercy remembers and his Kingdomes 1. In continuing the light of his Gospel and setling his true Religion among them 2. In restoring to them the benefit of the Lawes and the due execution of justice 3. In suppressing the many Schismes in Church and Factions in State 4. In restoring him and his to the Ancient Rights and glory of his Predecessours 5. In turning the hearts of the People to God in
Piety to the King in loyalty and to one another in charity 6. In quenching the flames and withdrawing the fewel of Civil Wars 7. In blessing King and People with the freedom of Publick Councels and delivering the Honour of Parliament from the insolency of the vulgar 8. In keeping the King from the great offence of exacting any thing against his Conscience and especially from consenting to sacrilegious rapines and spoilings of God's Church 9. In restoring him to a capacity to glorifie God in doing good both to the Church and State 10. In bringing him again with peace safety and honour to his chiefest City and Parliament if chased from them 11. In putting again the sword of Justice into his hand to punish and protect 1. The Soul of the said King ought to praise God and magnifie his name before his People 2. To hold God's glory dearer to him than his Crowns 3. To make the advancement of true Religion both in purity and power to be his chiefest care 4. To rule his People with justice and his Kingdoms with equity 5. To own ever to God's more immediate hand as the rightfull succession so the mercifull restauration of his Kingdoms and the glory of them 6. To make all the World see this and his very Enemies enjoy the benefit hereof 78. A restored King as he should freely pardon for Christ's sake those that have offended him in any kind so his hand should never be against any man to revenge what is past in regard of any particular injury done to him 79. When a King and People have been mutually punished in their unnatural divisions the King should for God's sake and for the love of his Redeemer purpose this in his heart That he will use all means in the wayes of amnesty and indempnity which may most fully remove all fears and bury all jealousies in forgetfullness 80. As a King's resolutions of Truth and Peace are toward his People so may he expect God's mercies to be toward him and his 81. God will hear the King's prayer which goeth not out of feigned lips 82. If a King commit the way of his Soul to the Lord and trust in him he shall bring his desire to pass 83. A King ought not to charge God foolishly who will not restore him and his but to bless his Name who hath given and taken away praying to God that his People and the Church may be happy if not by him yet without him 84. God who is perfect Unity in a Sacred Trinity will in mercy behold King and People whom his Justice may have divided 85. They who at any time have agreed to fight against their King may as much need his prayers and pity as he deliverance from their strivings when ready to fight against one another to the continuance of the distractions of his Kingdoms 86. The wayes of Peace consist not in the divided wills of Parties but in the point and due observation of the Lawes 87. A King should be willing to go whither God will lead him by his Providence desiring God to be ever with him that he may see God's constancy in the Worlds variety and changes 88. The King whom God makes such as he would have him may at last enjoy the safety and tranquillity which God alone can give him 89. God's heavy wrath hangs justly over those populous Cities whose plenty addes fewel to their luxury whose wealth makes them wanton whose multitudes tempt them to security and their security exposeth them to unexpected miseries 90. To whom God gives not eyes to see hearts to consider nor wills to embrace and courage to act those things which belong to his glory and the publick Peace their calamity comes upon them as an armed man 91. Rebellious Cities and Pâ—â—â—â— cannot want enemies who abâ—â—â—â— in sin nor shall they be long undisarmed and undestroyed who with a high hand persisting to fight against God and the clear convictions of their own Consciences fight more against themselves than ever they did against thier King their sins exposing them to Gods Justice their riches to others injuries their number to Tumults and their Tumults to Confusion 92. A depressed King should have so much charity as to pray That his fall be not their ruine who have with much forwardness helped to destroy him 93. An injur'd King should not so much consider either what Rebellious People have done or he hath suffered as to forget to imitate his crucified Redeemer to plead their ignorance for their pardon and in his dying extremities to pray to God his father to forgive them who know not what they did 94. They who have denied tears to their King in his saddest condition may need his prayers for God's grace to bestow them upon themselves who the less they weep for him the more cause they have to weep for themselves 95. A King should pray that his bloud may not be upon them and their children whom the fraud and faction of some not the malice of all have excited to crucifie him 96. God can and will both exalt and perfect a good King by his sufferings which have more in them of God's mercy than of man's cruelty or God's own justice 97. God that is King of Kings who filleth Heaven and Earth who is the fountain of eternal life in whom is no shadow of death is both the just afflicter of death upon us and the mercifull Saviour of us in it and from it 98. It is better for us to be dead to our selves and live in God than by living in our selves to be deprived of God 99. God can make the many bitter aggravations of a Soveraign's violent death as a Man and a King the opportunities and advantages of his special graces and comforts in his Soul as a Christian 100. If God will be with the King he shall neither fear nor feel any evil though he walk through the valley of the shadow of death The Fourth Century 1. TO contend with Death is the work of a weak and mortal man to overcome it is the grace of him alone who is the Almighty and immortal God 2. Our Saviour who knowes what it is to dye with a King as a Man can make the King to know what it is to pass through death to life with him his God 3. Let a distressed King say Though I dye yet I know that thou my Redeemer livest for ever though thou slayest me yet thou hast encouraged me to trust in thee for eternal life 4. God's favour is better to a distressed King than life 5. As God's Omniscience discovers so his Omnipotence can defeat the designs of those who have or shall conspire the destruction of their King 6. God can shew an injur'd King the goodness of his will through the wickedness of theirs that would destroy him 7. God gives a distrâ—ssed King leave as a man to pray that the cup of death may pass from him but he has taught him as a Christian by
armed against him with swords 19. Unnatural motions are often the productions of a surfeit of peace wantonness of minds or private discontents 20. Ambition and Faction easily find or make causes of quarrell 21. What seems just to one man may not seem so to another 22. There is an instinct in all creatures to preserve themselves 23. It hath been esteem'd delinquency in some prudent men not to be over-aw'd with Tumu'ts and their Patrons nor compell'd to abâ—â— by their suffrages or presence the designs of those men who agitate innovations and ruine both in Church and State 24 The least hath more evil in it then the greatest affliction 25. What is Religious Apostolical so very sacred Divine is not to be dispensed with or destroyed when what is only of Civil favour and priviledg of honor granted to men of holy Order may with their consent who are concerned in it be annulled 26 The noise and shew of piety and heat for Reformation and Religion may easily so fil men with prejudice that all equality and clearnesse of judgement may be obstructed 27 A Kings innocency and unpreparedness to assert his rights and honours makes him the more guilty in the esteem of disloyal subjects 28 Prayers and tears the chiefest armies of the ancient Christians may setve a good mans turn if not to conquer as a Souldier yet to suffer as a Martyr 29 He that made the greedy Ravens to be Elias Caterers may also make Rebells surprisall of outward force and defence an opportunity to shew their King the speciall support of his power and protection 30 What a pious King wants in the hands of force and power he hath in the wings of faith and prayer 31 The surfeit of too much power which some men greedily seize on may make a Commonwealth sick both of it and them when they cannot well digest it 32 Soveraigne power in subjects seldom agrees with the stomachs of fellow-subjects 33 A King having the sole actual disposing of the Militia can not protect his people further then they protect him and themselves 34 The use of the Militia is mutuall betweene King and People 35. Such is the violence and fraud of some men that being conscious to their own evill merits and designes they will needs perswade the World that none but Wolves are fit to be trusted with the custody of the Shepheard and his flock 36. It can be secure neither for King nor Subject if both be not in such a way as the law hath entrusted the publick safety and wellfare 37. All Law is at last resolved to the just and necessary rights of the Crown in point of Power while thereby it is best protected 38. The honour and justice due to a Kings successours forbid him to yeild to an alienation of power from them 39. Although a King may be content to eclipse his own beames to satisfie their feares who think they must needs be scorched or blinded if he should shine in the full lustre of Kingly power yet he ought never to consent to put out the Sun of Soveraignty to all posterity and succeeding Kings 40. The many-headed Hydra of Government as it makes a shew to the people to have more eyes to foresee so they will find it hath more mouths too which must be satisfied 41. In a right Monarchy counsell may be in many as the senses but the supreme power can be but in one as the head 42. Those men are guilty of enforced perjury who compell their King to take a new and strange way of discharging his trust by seeming to desert it of protecting his Subjects by exposing himselfe to danger or dishonour for their safety and quiet 43. The Sword and Militia are but weake defenses against the stroakes of divine vengeance which will overtake or of mens own consciences which alwaies attend injurious perpetrations 44. God is able by his being with a King abundantly to compensate to him as he did to Job what ever honour power or liberty the Caldeans the Sabeans or the devil himselfe can deprive him of 45 The hearts of Subjects are the greatest Treasure and best ammunition of a King 46 Rebels that disarme their King and study to rob him of his Subjects love cannot deprive him of his innocence or Gods mercy nor obstruct his way to heaven 47 A King cannot buy his own safety and his peoples peace at too deare a rate unlesse by parting with Conscience and Honour 48 A King rather than part with his Conscience and Honour ought to chuse to be as miserable and inglorious as his enemies can make or wish him 49. Whatsoever Subjects propund unto their King ought not to be obtruded with the point of the Sword nor urged with the injuries of War 50. When a King declares unto his Subjects he cannot yield to them without violating his Conscience there may be some better method of Peace than by making War upon his Soul 51. When Subjects require any thing of their King they ought to offer somewhat by way of gratefull exchange of honour or requital of those favours he hath or may yet grant them 52. It is more Princely and Divine to be on the giving part 53. The Jewel of Conscience is incommunicable whose loss nothing can repair or requite 54. A Kings yielding too much makes Subjects over-confident he will deny nothing 55. The love of truth and inward tranquillity ought to have more influence upon a King than the love he hath of his Peoples peace 56. Inward quiet of Conscience ought to be dearer to a King then his Kingdome 57. Some things which a King might approve yet in honour and policy are at some time to be denied to some men least he should seem not to daâ—e to deny any thing and give too much encouragement to unreasonable demands or importunities 58. For a King to bind himself to a general and implicite consent to whatever Subjects shall desire or propound were a latitude of blind obedience never expected of any freeman not fit to be required of any man much less of a King 59. A King may possibly exceed any of his own Subjects as much in wisdome as he doth in place and power 60. For a King to yield implicite consent to all were as if Sampson should have consented not only to bind his own hands and cut off his hair but to put out his own eyes that the Philistines might with the more safety mock and abuse him 61. To exclude all power of denial seems an arrogancy ill-becoming them that pretend addresses by petition 62. It were very foolish and absurd to ask what another having not liberty to deny neither hath power to grant 63. It can be no other then extreme injury to confine a Kings reason to a necessity of granting all Subjects have a mind to ask whose minds may be different from the Soverain's both in Reason and Honour as may be their aims and are their qualities 64. Subjects Propositions
letters if taken by his Subjects in arms against Him should be discovered to the World though without any those dresses or popular captations which some of them use in their speeches and expressions 82. Unquiet Subjects many times take Armes against a just prudent and innocent King into whose most retired thoughts if they could by any means have a clear sight they might discover how they are divided between the love and care He hath not more to preserve his own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and an extreme grief to see them both deceived and destroyed 83. No man can blame a King that by all fair and just correspondencies endeavours to avoid the pressures of his Enemies though his own Subjects 84. Some mens design like Absoloms is by enormous actions to widen differences between a King and his Subjects and exasperate all sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate 85. A King under the misfortune of having his letters taken by Subjects in Armes against Him hath much quiet and satisfaction within Himself when the integrity of his intentions is not jealous of any injury his Expressions can do them For 86. Although the confidence of privacy may admit of greater freedom in writing letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet it is best for a King when the Innocence of his chief purposes cannot be so stained or misinterpreted by his Enemies as not to let all men see That He wisheth nothing more than a happy composure of differences with Justice and Honour not more to his own than his Peoples content who have any sparks of love or loyalty left in them 87. It repaireth somewhat a King's misfortune that his private letters being taken by his Subjects in armes against Him cannot gratifie their malice further than to let them see his constancy to his Wife the Lawes and right Religion he professeth as likewise to convince them that He can both mind and act his own and his Kingdoms affairs so as becomes a Prince especially if his Enemies have before been very loath it should be believed of Him as if He were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the names of Evil Counsellours 88. It is the policy of Rebels to seek by all means to smother and extinguish all sparkes of Love Respect and Loyalty of the People to their King that they may never kindle again so as to recover His the Lawes and the Kingdoms Liberties which they seek to overthrow 89. God's unerring and impartial Justice can and will over-rule the most perverse wills and designs of men He is able and will turn even the worst of an innocent King's Enemies thoughts and actions to his good 90. Civility and Humanity most become such as pretend to Religion which they ought to pay to all men beside that respect and honour they owe to their King 91. They who do but remember how God blest the modest respect and filial tenderness which Noah's sons bare to their Father can never expect the divine approbation of any their undecent actions toward their King 92. Their malicious intentions can never be either excusable or prosperous who think by any unhandsome means to expose their King to the highest reproach and contempt of his People forgetting that duty of modest concealment which they owe to the Father of their Countrey in case they should discover any real uncomeliness 93. They who by publishing their King 's private letters think to render Him as a vile Person not fit to be trusted or considered under any Notion of Majesty will see themselves mistaken when God makes him as he did David more respected in the hearts of many who become better satisfied by knowing what He writ than by learning what they maliciously interpret and report 94. Although God gives Kingdoms yet sometimes his Providence permits that the King hath not any place left in them where he may with safety and honour rest his head Shewing him that Himself is the safest Refuge and the strongest Tower of defence in which he may put his Trust 95. A King in extremities should look not to man so much as to God who will have it so that he may wholly cast himself and his distressed affairs upon God's mercy who hath both hearts and hands of all men in his dispose 96. Necessity may sometimes command a King to withdraw from his chiefest strength and adventure upon their Loyalty who first began his Troubles whom God happily may make a means honourably to compose them 97. When Necessity constrains a King to cast Himself upon them who though they besiege Him in his Garrison and encounter Him in the field yet profess They fight not against Him but for Him He puts Himself to resolve the riddle of their Loyalty and gives them opportunity to let the World see they mean not what they do but what they say 98. God sees it sometimes not enough to desert a King of all Military power to defend himself but to put him upon using their power who seem to fight against him yet ought in duty to defend him 99. When a King finds it necessary to leave those that have adhered to Him He may hope such a method of Peace may be more prosperous than that of War both to stop the effusion of blood and the wounds that were made before 100. A King should never trust any nation of his Subjects further than to men that if they betray Him He may justifie to all the World they have not deceiv'd Him and if they sell Him at any dear rate He should be only sorry that his price should be so much above his Saviours The Tenth Century 1. GOD sometimes sees t is fit to deprive a King of Wife Children Army Friends and Freedom that He may be wholy his who alone is all 2. A King should never permit them who have got his person to gain his consent against his conscience 3. A King's denial of unjust demands made by Subjects in armes against Him which they call obstinacy He may know God acounts honest constancy which Reason and Religion as well a Honour forbid Him to recede 4. It is evident sometimes that Subjects who pretend to fight against evil Counsellours with their King fight indeed against a good Conscience within Him And whatsoever they may say of course intend not to bring Him to his Parliament till they have brought his mind to their obedience 5. After-times may see what the blindness of that Age will not wherein is both practis'd and countenanced Subjects fighting against their Soveraign whom if they have a good King God may at length shew that he chuseth rather to suffer for them than with them 6. When Providence is pleased to deprive a King of all other civil comforts and secular attendants the absence of them all may best be supplied by the attendance of such his Chaplains whom for their functions He reverenceth