cannot but be farr short of spirit and autority without dores to govern a whole Nation Her tarrying heer he could not think safe among them who were shaking hands with Allegiance to lay faster hold on Religion and taxes them of a duty rather then a crime it being just to obey God rather then Man and impossible to serve two Maisters I would they had quite shak'n off what they stood shaking hands with the fault was in thir courage not in thir cause In his Prayer he prayes that The disloyaltie of his Protestant Subjects may not be a hindrance to her love of the true Religion and never prays that the dissoluteness of his Court the scandals of his Clergy the unsoundness of his own judgement the lukewarmness of his life his Letter of compliance to the Pope his permitting Agents at Rome the Popes Nuntio and her Jesuited Mother here may not be found in the sight of God farr greater hindrances to her conversion But this had bin a suttle Prayer indeed and well pray'd though as duely as a Pater-noster if it could have charm'd us to sit still and have Religion and our Liberties one by one snatch'd from us for fear least rising to defend our selves wee should fright the Queen a stiff Papist from turning Protestant As if the way to make his Queen a Protestant had bin to make his Subjects more then half way Papists He prays next That his constancy may be an antidote against the poyson of other mens example His constancy in what Not in Religion for it is op'nly known that her Religion wrought more upon him then his Religion upon her and his op'n favouring of Papists and his hatred of them call'd Puritants the ministers also that prayd in Churches for her Conversion being checkt from Court made most men suspect she had quite perverted him But what is it that the blindness of hypocrisy dares not doe It dares pray and thinks to hide that from the eyes of God which it cannot hide from the op'n view of man VIII Upon His repulse at Hull and the fate of the Hothams Hull a town of great strength and opportunitie both to sea and land affaires was at that time the Magazin of all those armes which the King had bought with mony most illegally extorted from his subjects of England to use in a causless and most unjust civil warr against his Subjects of Scotland The King in high discontent and anger had left the Parlament and was gon toward the North the Queen into Holland where she pawn'd and set to sale the Crown-Jewels a crime heretofore counted treasonable in Kings and to what intent these summs were rais'd the Parlament was not ignorant His going northward in so high a chafe they doubted was to possess himself of that strength which the storehouse and situation of Hull might add suddenly to his malignant party Having first therefore in many Petitions earnestly pray'd him to dispose and settle with consent of both Houses the military power in trusty hands and he as oft refusing they were necessitated by the turbulence and danger of those times to put the Kingdom by thir own autority into a posture ofdefence and very timely sent sir John Hotham a member of the House and Knight of that county to take Hull into his custody and some of the Train'd bands to his assistance For besides the General danger they had before the Kings going to York notice giv'n them of his privat Commissions to the Earl of Newcastle and to Colonel Legg one of those imploid to bring the Army up against the ParParlament who had already made som attempts the latter of them under a disguise to surprise that place for the Kings party And letters of the Lord Digby were intercepted wherin was wisht that the K. would declare himself and retire to some safe place other information came from abroad that Hull was the place design'd for some new enterprise And accordingly Digby himself not long after with many other Commanders and much forrain Ammunition landed in those parts But these attempts not succeeding and that Town being now in custody of the Parlament he sends a message to them that he had firmely resolv'd to go in person into Ireland to chastise those wicked Rebels for these and wors words he then gave them and that toward this work he intended forthwith to raise by his commissions in the Counties neere Westchester a guard for his own person consisting of 2000. foot and 200. horse that should be arm'd from his Magazin at Hull On the other side the Parlament forseeing the Kings drift about the same time send him a Petition that they might have leave for necessary causes to remoove the magazin of Hull to the Towre of London to which the King returnes his denial and soon after going to Hull attended with about 400. Horse requires the Governour to deliver him up the Town wherof the Governour besought humbly to be excus'd till he could send notice to the Parlament who had intrusted him wherat the King much incens'd proclaims him Traitor before the Town Walls and gives immediat order to stop all passages between him and the Parlament Yet he himself dispatches post after post to demand justice as upon a Traitor using a strange iniquitie to require justice upon him whom he then way layd and debari'd from his appearance The Parlament no sooner understood what had pass'd but they declare that Sir John Hotham had don no more then was his duty and was therfore no Traitor This relation being most true proves that which is affirm'd heer to be most fals seeing the Parlament whom he accounts his greatest Enemies had more confidence to abett and own what Sir John Hotham had don then the King had confidence to let him answer in his own behalf To speake of his patience and in that solemn manner he might better have forborne God knows saith he it affected me more with sorrow for others then with anger for my self nor did the affront trouble me so much as their sin This is read I doubt not and beleev'd and as there is some use of every thing so is there of this Book were it but to shew us what a miserable credulous deluded thing that creature is which is call'd the Vulgar who notwithstanding what they might know will beleeve such vain-glories as these Did not that choleric and vengefull act of proclaiming him Traitor before due process of Law having bin convinc'd so late before of his illegallity with the five Members declare his anger to be incens'd doth not his own relation confess as much and his second Message left him fuming three dayes after and in plaine words testifies bis impatience of delay till Hotham be severely punish'd for that which he there termes an insupportable affront Surely if his sorrow for Sir John Hothams sin were greater then his anger for the affront it was an exceeding great sorrow indeed and wondrous charitable But if it
thir pietie and religious strictness but rather hated them as Puritans whom he always sought to extirpat He would have it beleev'd that to bind his hands by these Acts argu'd a very short foresight of things and extreme fatuity of mind in him if he had meant a Warr. If we should conclude so that were not the onely Argument Neither did it argue that he meant peace knowing that what he granted for the present out of feare he might as soon repeale by force watching his time and deprive them the fruit of those Acts if his own designes wherin he put his trust took effect Yet he complaines That the tumults threatn'd to abuse all acts of grace and turne them into wantonness I would they had turn'd his wantonness into the grace of not abusing Scripture Was this becomming such a Saint as they would make him to adulterat those Sacred words from the grace of God to the acts of his own grace Herod was eat'n up os Wormes for suffering others to compare his voice to the voice of God but the Borrower of this phrase gives much more cause of jealousie that he lik'n'd his own acts of grace to the acts of Gods grace From profaneness he scars comes off with perfet sense I was not then in a capacity to make Warr therfore I intended not I was not in a capacity therfore I could not have giv'n my Enemies greater advantage then by so unprincely inconstancy to have scatter'd them by Armes whom but lately I had settl'd by Parlament What place could there be for his inconstancy in that thing wherto he was in no capacity Otherwise his inconstancy was not so un wonted or so nice but that it would have easily found pretences to scatter those in revenge whom he settl'd in feare It had bin a course full of sin as well as of hazzard and dishonour True but if those considerations withheld him not from other actions of like nature how can we beleeve they were of strength sufficient to withhold him from this And that they withheld him not the event soon taught us His letting some men goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple was a temptation to them to cast him down headlong In this Simily we have himself compar'd to Christ the Parlament to the Devill and his giving them that Act of settling to his letting them goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple A tottring and giddy Act rather then a settling This was goodly use made of Scripture in his Solitudes But it was no Pinnacle of the Temple it was a Pinnacle of Nebuchadnezzars Palace from whence hee and Monarchy fell headlong together He would have others see that All the Kingdomes of the World are not worth gaining by the wayes of sin which hazzard the Soule and hath himself left nothing unhazzarded to keep three He concludes with sentences that rightly scannd make not so much for him as against him and confesses that The Act of settling was no sin of his will and wee easily beleeve him for it hath bin clearly prov'd a sin of his unwillingness With his Orisons I meddle not for he appeals to a high Audit This yet may be noted that at his Prayers he had before him the sad presage of his ill success As of a dark and dangerous Storme which never admitted his returne to the Port from whence he set out Yet his Prayer-Book no sooner shut but other hopes flatter'd him and thir flattering was his destruction VI. Upon his Retirement from Westminster THe Simily wher with he begins I was about to have found fault with as in a garb somwhat more Poetical then for a Statist but meeting with many straines of like dress in other of his Essaies and hearing him reported a more diligent reader of Poets then of Politicians I begun to think that the whole Book might perhaps be intended a peece of Poetrie The words are good the fiction smooth and cleanly there wanted onely Rime and that they say is bestow'd upon it lately But to the Argument I stai'd at White Hall till I was driven away by shame more then feare I retract not what I thought of the fiction yet heer I must confess it lies too op'n In his Messages and Declarations nay in the whole Chapter next but one before this he affirmes that The danger wherin his Wife his Children and his own Person were by those Tumults was the maine cause that drove him from White Hall and appeales to God as witness he affirmes heer that it was shame more then feare And Digby who knew his mind as well as any tells his new-listed Guard That the principal cause of his Majesties going thence was to save them from being trodd in the dirt From whence we may discerne what false and frivolous excuses are avow'd sor truth either in those Declarations or in this Penitential Book Our forefathers were of that courage and severity of zeale to Justice and thir native Liberty against the proud contempt and misrule of thir Kings that when Richard the Second departed but from a Committie of Lords who sat preparing matter for the Parlament not yet assembl'd to the removal of his evil Counselors they first vanquish'd and put to flight Robert de Vere his chief Favorite and then comming up to London with a huge Army requir'd the King then withdrawn for feare but no furder off then the Tower to come to Westminster Which he refusing they told him flatly that unless he came they would choose another So high a crime it was accounted then for Kings to absent themselves not from a Parlament which none ever durst but from any meeting of his Peeres and Counselors which did but tend towards a Parlament Much less would they have suffer'd that a King for such trivial and various pretences one while for feare of tumults another while for shame to see them should leav his Regal Station and the whole Kingdom bleeding to death of those wounds which his own unskilful and pervers Goverment had inflicted Shame then it was that drove him from the Parlament but the shame of what Was it the shame of his manifold errours and misdeeds and to see how weakly he had plaid the King No But to see the barbarous rudeness of those Tumults to demand any thing We have started heer another and I beleeve the truest cause of his deserting the Parlament The worst and strangest of that Any thing which the people then demanded was but the unlording of Bishops and expelling them the House and the reducing of Church Discipline to a conformity with other Protestant Churches this was the Barbarism of those Tumults and that he might avoid the granting of those honest and pious demands as well demanded by the Parlament as the People for this very cause more then for feare by his own confession heer he left the City and in a most tempestuous season forsook the Helme and steerage of the Common-wealth This was that terrible Any thing
they who had the Sword yet in thir hands disdaining to be made the first objects of ingratitude and oppression after all that expens of thir blood for Justice and the common Liberty seiz'd upon the King thir pris'ner whom nothing but their matchles deeds had brought so low as to surrender up his Person though he to stirr up new discord chose rather to give up himself a captive to his own Countrymen who less had won him This in likelihood might have grown to som hight of mischeif partly through the strife which was kindling between our elder and our younger Warriors but chiefly through the seditious tongues of som fals Ministers more zealous against Scisms then against thir own Simony and Pluralities or watchfull of the common enemy whose suttle insinuations had got so farr in among them as with all diligence to blow the coles But it pleas'd God not to embroile and put to confusion his whole people for the perversness of a few The growth of our dissention was either prevented or soon quieted the Enemy soon deceav'd of his rejoycing and the King especially disappointed of not the meanest morsel that his hope presented him to ruin us by our division And being now so nigh the end we may the better be at leasure to stay a while and hear him commenting upon his own Captivity He saith of his surprisal that it was a motion eccentric and irregular What then his own allusion from the Celestial bodies puts us in minde that irregular motions may be necessary on earth somtimes as well as constantly in Heav'n That is not always best which is most regular to writt'n Law Great Worthies heertofore by disobeying Law oft-times have sav'd the Common-wealth and the Law afterward by firme Decree hath approv'd that planetary motion that unblamable exorbitancy in them He meanes no good to either Independent or Presbyterian and yet his parable like that of Balaam is overul'd to portend them good farr beside his inintention Those twins that strove enclos'd in the womb of Rebeccah were the seed of Abraham the younger undoubtedly gain'd the heav'nly birthright the elder though supplanted in his Similie shall yet no question find a better portion then Esau found and farr above his uncircumcis'd Prelats He censures and in censuring seems to hope it will be an ill Omen that they who build Jerusalem divide thir tongues and hands But his hope fail'd him with his example for that there were divisions both of tongues and hands at the building of Jerusalem the Story would have certifi'd him and yet the work prosper'd and if God will so may this notwithstanding all the craft and malignant wiles of Sanballat and Tobiah adding what fuell they can to our dissentions or the indignity of his comparison that lik'ns us to those seditious Zelots whose intestine fury brought destruction to the last Jerusalem It being now no more in his hand to be reveng'd on his opposers he seeks to satiat his fansie with the imagination of som revenge upon them from above and like one who in a drowth observes the Skie he sits and watches when any thing will dropp that might solace him with the likeness of a punishment from Heavn upon us which he strait expounds how he pleases No evil can befall the Parlament or Citty but he positively interprets it a judgement upon them for his sake as if the very manuscript of Gods judgements had bin deliverd to his custody and exposition But his reading declares it well to be a fals copy which he uses dispensing oft'n to his own bad deeds and successes the testimony of Divine favour and to the good deeds and successes of other men Divine wrath and vengeance But to counterfet the hand of God is the boldest of all Forgery And he who without warrant but his own fantastic surmise takes upon him perpetually to unfold the secret and unsearchable Mysteries of high Providence is likely for the most part to mistake and slander them and approaches to the madness of those reprobate thoughts that would wrest the Sword of Justice out of Gods hand and imploy it more justly in thir own conceit It was a small thing to contend with the Parlament about sole power of the Militia when we see him doing little less then laying hands on the weapons of God himself which are his judgements to weild and manage them by the sway and bent of his own fraile cogitations Therfore they that by Tumults first occasion'd the raising of Armies in his doome must needs be chastn'd by thir own Army for new Tumults First note heer his confession that those Tumults were the first occasion of raising Armies and by consequence that he himself rais'd them first against those supposed Tumults But who occasion'd those Tumults or who made them so being at first nothing more then the unarmed and peaceable concours of people hath bin discust already And that those pretended Tumults were chastiz'd by thir own Army for new Tumults is not prov'd by a Game at Tictack with words Tumults and Armies Armies and Tumults but seemes more like the method of a Justice irrational then Divine If the Citty were chast'nd by the Army for new Tumults the reason is by himself set down evident and immediat thir new Tumults With what sense can it be referrd then to another far-fetchd and imaginary cause that happ'nd so many years before and in his supposition only as a cause Manlius defended the Capitol and the Romans from thir enemies the Gauls Manlius for sedition afterward was by the Roman throwns headlong from the Capitol therfore Manlius was punisht by Divine Justice for defending the Capitol because in that place punishd for sedition and by those whom he defended This is his Logic upon Divine Justice and was the same before upon the death of Sir John Hotham And heer again Such as were content to see him driv'n away by unsuppressed Tumults are now forc'd to fly to an Army Was this a judgement was it not a mercy rather that they had a noble and victorious Army so neer at hand to fly to From Gods Justice he comes down to Mans Justice Those few of both Houses who at first with-drew with him from the vain pretence of Tumults were counted Desertors therfore those many must be also Desertors who with-drew afterwards from real Tumults as if it were the place that made a Parlament and not the end and cause Because it is deny'd that those were Tumults from which the King made shew of being driv'n is it therefore of necessity impli'd that there could be never any Tumults for the future If some men fly in craft may not other men have cause to fly in earnest But mark the difference between their flight and his they soon return'd in safety to thir places he not till after many years and then a Captive to receive his punishment So that their flying whether the cause be consider'd or the event or both neither justifi'd
too unreasonable that he because dead should have the liberty in his Book to speak all evil of the Parlament and they because living should be expected to have less freedom or any for them to speak home the plain truth of a full and pertinent reply As he to acquitt himself hath not spar'd his Adversaries to load them with all sorts of blame and accusation so to him as in his Book alive there will be us'd no more Courtship then he uses but what is properly his own guilt not imputed any more to his evil Counsellors a Cerèmony us'd longer by the Parlament then he himself desir'd shall be laid heer without circumlocutions at his own dore That they who from the first beginning or but now of late by what unhappines I know not are so much affatuated not with his person onely but with his palpable faults and dote upon his deformities may have none to blame but thir own folly if they live and dye in such a strook'n blindness as next to that of Sodom hath not happ'nd to any sort of men more gross or more misleading Yet neither let his enemies expect to finde recorded heer all that hath been whisper'd in the Court or alleg'd op'nly of the Kings bad actions it being the proper scope of this work in hand not to ripp up and relate the misdoings of his whole life but to answer only and refute the missayings of his book First then that some men whether this were by him intended or by his Friends have by policy accomplish'd after death that revenge upon thir Enemies which in life they were not able hath been oft related And among other examples we finde that the last will of Caesar being read to the people and what bounteous Legacies hee had bequeath'd them wrought more in that Vulgar audience to the avenging of his death then all the art he could ever use to win thir favor in his life-time And how much their intent who publish'd these overlate Apologies and Meditations of the dead King drives to the same end of stirring up the people to bring him that honour that affection and by consequence that revenge to his dead Corps which hee himself living could never gain to his Person it appears both by the conceited portraiture before his Book drawn out to the full measure of a Masking Scene and sett there to catch fools and silly gazers and by those Latin words after the end Vota dabunt qua Bella negarunt intimating That what hee could not compass by Warr he should atchieve by his Meditations For in words which admitt of various sense the libertie is ours to choose that interpretation which may best minde us of what our restless enemies endeavor and what wee are timely to prevent And heer may be well observ'd the loose and negligent curiosity of those who took upon them to adorn the setting out of this Book for though the Picture sett in Front would Martyr him and Saint him to befool the people yet the Latin Motto in the end which they understand not leaves him as it were a politic contriver to bring about that interest by faire and plausible words which the force of Armes deny'd him But quaint Emblems and devices begg'd from the old Pageantry of some Twelf-nights entertainment at Whitehall will doe but ill to make a Saint or Martyr and if the People resolve to take him Sainted at the rate of such a Canonizing I shall suspect thir Calendar more then the Gregorian In one thing I must commend his op'nness who gave the title to this Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say The Kings Image and by the Shrine he dresses out for him certainly would have the people come and worship him For which reason this answer also is intitl'd Iconoclastes the famous Surname of many Greek Emperors who in thir zeal to the command of God after long tradition of Idolatry in the Church took courage and broke all superstitious Images to peeces But the People exorbitant and excessive in all thir motions are prone ofttimes not to a religious onely but to a civil kinde of Idolatry in idolizing thir Kings though never more mistak'n in the object of thir worship heretofore being wont to repute for Saints those faithful and courageous Barons who lost thir lives in the Field making glorious Warr against Tyrants for the common Liberty as Simon de Momfort Earl of Leicester against Henry the third Thomas Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster against Edward the second But now with a besotted and degenerate baseness of spirit except some few who yet retain in them the old English fortitude and love of Freedom and have testifi'd it by thir matchless deeds the rest imbastardiz'd from the ancient nobleness of thir Ancestors are ready to fall flatt and give adoration to the Image and Memory of this Man who hath offer'd at more cunning fetches to undermine our Liberties and putt Tyranny into an Art then any British King before him Which low dejection and debasement of mind in the people I must confess I cannot willingly ascribe to the natural disposition of an English-man but rather to two other causes First to the Prelats and thir fellow-teachers though of another Name and Sect whose Pulpit stuff both first and last hath bin the Doctrin and perpetual infusion of servility and wretchedness to all thir hearers whose lives the type of worldliness and hypocrisie without the least tiue pattern of vertue righteousness or self-denial in thir whole practice I attribute it next to the factious inclination of most men divided from the public by several ends and humors of thir own At first no man less belov'd no man more generally condemn'd then was the King from the time that it became his custom to break Parlaments at home and either wilfully or weakly to betray Protestants abroad to the beginning of these Combustions All men inveigh'd against him all men except Courtvassals oppos'd him and his tyrannical proceedings the cry was universal and this full Parlament was at first unanimous in thir dislike and Protestation against his evil Goverment But when they who sought themselves and not the Public began to doubt that all of them could not by one and the same way attain to thir ambitious purposes then was the King or his Name at least as a fit property first made use of his doings made the best of and by degrees justifi'd Which begott him such a party as after many wiles and struglings with his in ward fears imbold'n'd him at length to sett up his Standard against the Parlament Whenas before that time all his adherents consisting most of dissolute Sword-men and Suburb-roysters hardly amounted to the making up of one ragged regiment strong anough to assault the unarmed house of Commons After which attempt seconded by a tedious and bloody warr on his subjects wherein he hath so farr exceeded those his arbitrary violences in time of Peace they who before hated him
in any Kings heart And thus his pregnant motives are at last prov'd nothing but a Tympany or a Queen Maries Cushion For in any Kings heart as Kings goe now what shadowie conceit or groundless toy will not create a jealousie That he had design'd to assault the House of Commons taking God to witness he utterly denies yet in his Answer to the City maintaines that any course of violence had bin very justifiable And we may then guess how farr it was from his designe However it discover'd in him an excessive eagerness to be aveng'd on them that cross'd him and that to have his will he stood not to doe things never so much below him What a becomming sight it was to see the King of England one while in the House of Commons by and by in the Guild-Hall among the Liveries and Manufactures prosecuting so greedily the track of five or six fled Subjects himself not the Sollicitor onely but the Pursivant and the Apparitor of his own partial cause And although in his Answers to the Parlament hee hath confess'd first that his manner of prosecution was illegal next that as hee once conceiv'd hec had ground anough to accuse them so at length that hee found as good cause to desert any prosecution of them yet heer he seems to reverse all and against promise takes up his old deserted accusation that he might have something to excuse himself instead of giving due reparation which he always refus'd to give them whom he had so dishonor'd That I went saith he of his going to the House of Commons attended with some Gentlemen Gentlemen indeed the ragged Infantrie of Stewes and Brothels the spawn and shiprack of Taverns and Dicing Houses and then he pleads it was no unwonted thing for the Majesty and safety of a King to be so attended especially in discontented times An illustrious Majestie no doubt so attended a becomming safety for the King of England plac'd in the fidelity of such Guards and Champions Happy times when Braves and Hacksters the onely contented Members of his Goverment were thought the fittest and the faithfullest to defend his Person against the discontents of a Parlament and all good Men. Were those the chos'n ones to preserve reverence to him while he enterd unassur'd and full of suspicions into his great and faithfull Councel Let God then and the World judge whether the cause were not in his own guilty and unwarrantable doings The House of Commons upon several examinations of this business declar'd it sufficiently prov'd that the comming of those soldiers Papists and others with the King was to take away some of thir Members and in case of opposition or denyal to have fal'n upon the House in a hostile manner This the King heer denies adding a fearful imprecation against his own life If he purposed any violence or oppression against the Innocent then saith he let the Enemie persecute my soule and tred my life to the ground and lay my honor in the dust What need then more disputing He appeal'd to Gods Tribunal and behold God hath judg'd and don to him in the sight of all men according to the verdict of his own mouth To be a warning to all Kings hereafter how they use presumptuously the words and protestations of David without the spirit and conscience of David And the Kings admirers may heer see thir madness to mistake this Book for a monument of his worth and wisdom when as indeed it is his Doomsday Booke not like that of William the Norman his Predecessor but the record and memorial of his condemnation and discovers whatever hath befal'n him to have bin hast'nd on from Divine Justice by the rash and inconsiderat appeal of his own lipps But what evasions what pretences though never so unjust and emptie will he refuse in matters more unknown and more involv'd in the mists and intricacies of State who rather then not justifie himself in a thing so generally odious can flatter his integritie with such frivolous excuses against the manifest dissent of all men whether Enemies Neuters or Friends But God and his judgements have not bin mock'd and good men may well perceive what a distance there was ever like to be between him and his Parlament and perhaps between him and all amendment who for one good deed though but consented to askes God forgiveness and from his worst deeds don takes occasion to insist upon his rightecusness IV. Vpon the Insolency of the Tumults WEE have heer I must confess a neat and well-couch'd invective against Tumults expressing a true feare of them in the Author but yet so handsomly compos'd and withall so feelingly that to make a Royal comparison I beleeve Rehoboam the Son of Solomon could not have compos'd it better Yet Rehoboam had more cause to inveigh against them for they had ston'd his Tribute-gatherer and perhaps had as little spar'd his own Person had hee not with all speed betak'n him to his Charret But this King hath stood the worst of them in his own House without danger when his Coach and Horses in a Panic fear have bin to seek which argues that the Tumults at Whitehall were nothing so dangerous as those at Sechem But the matter heer considerable is not whether the King or his Houshold Rhetorician have made a pithy declamation against Tumults but first whether these were Tumults or not next if they were whether the King himself did not cause them Let us examin therfore how things at that time stood The King as before hath bin prov'd having both call'd this Parlament unwillingly and as unwillingly from time to time condescended to thir several acts carrying on a disjoynt and privat interest of his own and not enduring to be so cross'd and overswaid especially in the executing of his chief bold est Instrument the Deputy of Ireland first tempts the English Army with no less reward then the spoil of London to come up and destroy the Parlament That being discover'd by some of the Officers who though bad anough yet abhorr'd so foul a deed the K. hard'nd in his purpose tempts them the 2d time at Burrow Bridge promises to pawn his Jewels for them that they should be mett assisted would they but march on w th a gross body of hors under the E. of Newcastle He tempts them yet the third time though after discovery his own abjuration to have ever tempted them as is affirmd in the Declaration of no more addresses Neither this succeeding he turnes him next to the Scotch Army by his own credential Letters giv'n to Oneal and Sr John Hinderson baites his temptation with a richer reward not only to have the sacking of London but four Northern Counties to be made Scottish w th Jewels of great value to be giv'n in pawn thewhile But neither would the Scots for any promise of reward be bought to such an execrable and odious treachery but with much honesty gave notice of
the Kings designe both to the Parlament and City of London The Parlament moreover had intelligence and the people could not but discern that there was a bitter malignant party grown up now to such a boldness as to give out insolent and threatning speeches against the Parlament it self Besides this the Rebellion in Ireland was now broke out and a conspiracy in Scotland had bin made while the King was there against some chief Members of that Parlament great numbers heer of unknown and suspicious persons resorted to the City the King being return'd from Scotland presently dismisses that Guard which the Parlament thought necessary in the midst of so many dangers to have about them and puts another Guard in thir place contrary to the Privilege of that high Court and by such a one commanded as made them no less doubtfull of the Guard it self Which they therfore upon som ill effects thereof first found discharge deeming it more safe to sitt free though without a Guard in op'n danger then inclos'd with a suspected safety The people therfore lest thir worthiest and most faithfull Patriots who had expos'd themselves for the public and whom they saw now left naked should want aide or be deserted in the midst of these dangers came in multitudes though unarm'd to witness thir fidelitie and readiness in case of any violence offer'd to the Parlament The King both envying to see the Peoples love thus devolv'd on another object and doubting lest it might utterly disable him to doe with Parlaments as he was wont sent a message into the City forbidding such resorts The Parlament also both by what was discover'd to them and what they saw in a Malignant Party some of which had already drawn blood in a Fray or two at the Court Gate and eev'n at thir own Gate in Westminster Hall conceaving themselves to be still in danger where they sat sent a most reasonable and just Petition to the King that a Guard might be allow'd them out of the City wherof the Kings own Chamberlaine the Earl of Essex might have command it being the right of inferiour Courts to make chois of thir own Guard This the King refus'd to doe and why he refus'd the very next day made manifest For on that day it was that he sallied out from White Hall with those trusty Myrmidons to block up or give assault to the House of Commons He had besides all this begun to fortifie his Court and entertaind armed Men not a few who standing at his Palace Gate revil'd and with drawn Swords wounded many of the People as they went by unarm'd and in a peaceable manner whereof some dy'd The passing by of a multitude though neither to Saint Georges Feast nor to a Tilting certainly of it self was no Tumult the expression of thir Loyalty and stedfastness to the Parlament whose lives and safeties by more then slight rumours they doubted to be in danger was no Tumult If it grew to be so the cause was in the King himself and his injurious retinue who both by Hostile preparations in the Court and by actual assailing of the People gave them just cause to defend themselves Surely those unarmed and Petitioning People needed not have bin so formidable to any but to such whose consciences misgave them how ill they had deserv'd of the People and first began to injure them because they justly fear'd it from them and then ascribe that to popular Tumult which was occasion'd by thir own provoking And that the King was so emphatical and elaborat on this Theam against Tumults and express'd with such a vehemence his hatred of them will redound less perhaps then he was aware to the commendation of his Goverment For besides that in good Goverments they happ'n seldomèst and rise not without cause if they prove extreme and pernicious they were never counted so to Monarchy but to Monarchical Tyranny and extremes one with another are at most Antipathy If then the King so extremely stood in fear of Tumults the inference will endanger him to be the other extreme Thus farr the occasion of this discours against Tumults now to the discours it self voluble anough and full of sentence but that for the most part either specious rather then solid or to his cause nothing pertinent He never thought any thing more to presage the mischiefes that ensu'd then those Tumults Then was his foresight but short and much mistak'n Those Tumults were but the milde effects of an evil and injurious raigne not signes of mischeifs to come but seeking releef for mischeifs past those signes were to be read more apparent in his rage and purpos'd revenge of those free expostulations and clamours of the People against his lawless Goverment Not any thing saith he portends more Gods displeasure against a Nation then when he suffers the clamours of the Vulgar to pass all bounds of Law reverence to Authority It portends rather his dispeasure against a Tyrannous King whose proud Throne he intends to overturn by that contemptible Vulgar the sad cries and oppressions of whom his Royaltie regarded not As for that supplicating People they did no hurt either to Law or Autority but stood for it rather in the Parlament against whom they fear'd would violate it That they invaded the Honour and Freedome of the two Houses is his own officious accusation not seconded by the Parlament who had they seen cause were themselves best able to complain And if they shook menac'd any they were such as had more relation to the Court then to the Common wealth enemies not patrons of the People But if thir petitioning unarm'd were an invasion of both Houses what was his entrance into the House of Commons besetting it with armed men in what condition then was the honour and freedom of that House They forbore not rude deportments contemptuous words and actions to himself and his Court. It was more wonder having heard what treacherous hostility he had design'd against the City and his whole Kingdome that they forbore to handle him as people in thir rage have handl'd Tyrants heertofore for less offences They were not a short ague but a fierce quotidian feaver He indeed may best say it who most felt it for the shaking was within him and it shook him by his own description worse then a storme worse then an earthquake Belshazzars Palsie Had not worse feares terrors and envies made within him that commotion how could a multitude of his Subjects arm'd with no other weapon then Petitions have shak'n all his joynts with such a terrible ague Yet that the Parlament should entertaine the least feare of bad intentions from him or his Party he endures not but would perswade us that men scare themselves and others without cause for he thought feare would be to them a kind of armor and his designe was if it were possible to disarme all especially of a wise feare and suspicion for that he knew would find weapons He
stirr'd him so vehemently to have Sir John Hotham punisht and not at all that we heare to have him repent it had a strange operation to be call'd a sorrow for his sin Hee who would perswade us of his sorrow for the sins of other men as they are sins not as they are sin'd against himself must give us first some testimony of a sorrow for his own sins and next for such sins of other men as cannot be suppos'd a direct injury to himself But such compunction in the King no man hath yet observ'd and till then his sorrow for Sir John Hothams sin will be call'd no other then the resentment of his repulse and his labour to have the sinner onely punish'd will be call'd by a right name his revenge And the hand of that cloud which cast all soon after into darkness and disorder was his own hand For assembling the Inhabitants of York-shire and other Counties Horse and Foot first under colour of a new Guard to his Person soon after being suppli'd with ammunition from Holland bought with the Crown Jewels he begins an op'n Warr by laying Seige to Hull Which Town was not his own but the Kingdoms and the Armes there public Armes bought with the public Mony or not his own Yet had they bin his own by as good right as the privat House and Armes of any man are his own to use either of them in a way not privat but suspicious to the Common-wealth no Law permitts But the King had no proprietie at all either in Hull or in the Magazin So that the following Maxims which he cites of bold and disloyall undertakers may belong more justly to whom he least meant them After this he againe relapses into the praise of his patience at Hull and by his overtalking of it seems to doubt either his own conscience or the hardness of other mens beleif To me the more he praises it in himself the more he seems to suspect that in very deed it was not in him and that the lookers on so likewise thought Thus much of what he suffer'd by Hotham and with what patience now of what Hotham suffer'd as he judges for opposing him He could not but observe how God not long after pleaded and aveng'd his cause Most men are too apt and commonly the worst of men so to interpret and expound the judgements of God and all other events of providence or chance as makes most to the justifying of thir own cause though never so evill and at tribute all to the particular favour of God towards them Thus when Saul heard that David was in Keilah God saith he hath deliver'd him into my hands for he is shut in But how farr that King was deceav'd in his thought that God was favouring to his cause that story unfolds and how little reason this King had to impute the death of Hotham to Gods avengement of his repuls at Hull may easily be seen For while Hotham continu'd faithfull to his trust no man more safe more successfull more in reputation then hee But from the time he first sought to make his peace with the King and to betray into his hands that Town into which before he had deny'd him entrance nothing prosper'd with him Certainly had God purpos'd him such an end for his opposition to the King he would not have deferr'd to punish him till then when of an Enemy he was chang'd to be the Kings Friend nor have made his repentance and amendment the occasion of his ruin How much more likely is it since he fell into the act of disloyalty to his charge that the judgement of God concurr'd with the punishment of man and justly cut him off for revolting to the King To give the World an example that glorious deeds don to ambitious ends find reward answerable not to thir outward seeming but to thir inward ambition In the mean while what thanks he had from the King for revolting to his cause and what good opinion for dying in his service they who have ventur'd like him or intend may heer take notice Hee proceeds to declare not onely in general wherfore Gods judgement was upon Hotham but undertakes by fansies and allusions to give a criticism upon every particular That his head was divided from his body because his heart was divided from the King two heads cut off in one family for affronting the head of the Common-wealth the eldest son being infected with the sin of his Father against the Father of his Countrie These petty glosses and conceits on the high and secret judgements of God besides the boldness of unwarrantable commenting are so weake and shallow and so like the quibbl's of a Court Sermon that we may safely reck'n them either fetcht from such a pattern or that the hand of some houshold preist foisted them in least the World should forget how much he was a Disciple of those Cymbal Doctors But that argument by which the Author would commend them to us discredits them the more For if they be so obvious to every fancy the more likely to be erroneous and to misconceive the mind of those high secrecies wherof they presume to determin For God judges not by human fansy But however God judg'd Hotham yet he had the Kings pitty but marke the reason how preposterous so farr he had his pitty as he thought he at first acted more against the light of his conscience then many other men in the same cause Questionless they who act against conscience whether at the barr of human or Divine Justice are pittied least of all These are the common grounds and verdicts of Nature wherof when he who hath the judging of a Whole Nation is found destitute under such a Governour that Nation must needs be miserable By the way he jerkes at some mens reforming to models of Religion and that they think all is gold of pietie that doth but glister with a shew of Zeale We know his meaning and apprehend how little hope there could be of him from such language as this But are sure that the pietie of his prelatic modell glister'd more upon the posts and pillars which thir Zeale and fervencie guilded over then in the true workes of spiritual edification He is sorry that Hotham felt the Justice of others and fell not rather into the hands of his mercy But to cleare that he should have shewn us what mercy he had ever vs'd to such as fell into his hands before rather then what mercy he intended to such as never could come to aske it VVhatever mercy one man might have expected t is too well known the whole Nation found none though they besought it oft'n and so humbly but had bin swallow'd up in blood and ruin to set his privat will above the Parlament had not his strength faild him Yet ctemenoy he counts a debt which he ought to pay to those that crave it since we pay not any thing to God for his mercy but
Plenty and Religion as all Nations either admir'd or envi'd For the Justice we had let the Counsel-Table Starr-Chamber High Commission speak the praise of it not forgetting the unprincely usage and as farr as might be the abolishing of Parlaments the displacing of honest Judges the sale of Offices Bribery and Exaction not found out to be punish'd but to be shar'd in with impunity for the time to come Who can number the extortions the oppressions the public robberies and rapines committed on the Subject both by Sea and Land under various pretences Thir possessions also tak'n from them one while as Forrest Land another while as Crown-Land nor were thir Goods exempted no not the Bullion in the Mint Piracy was become a project own'd and authoriz'd against the Subject For the peace we had what peace was that which drew out the English to a needless and disshonourable voyage against the Spaniard at Cales Or that which lent our shipping to a treacherous and Antichristian Warr against the poore Protestants of Rochell our suppliants What peace was that which fell to rob the French by Sea to the imbarring of all our Merchants in that Kingdom which brought forth that unblest expedition to the I le of Rhee doubtfull whether more calamitous in the success or in the designe betraying all the flowre of our military youth and best Commanders to a shamefull surprisal and execution This was the peace we had and the peace we gave whether to freinds or to foes abroad And if at home any peace were intended us what meant those Irish billeted Souldiers in all parts of the Kingdom and the designe of German Horse to fubdue us in our peacefull Houses For our Religion where was there a more ignorant profane and vitious Clergy learned in nothing but the antiquitie of thir pride thir covetousnes and superstition whose unsincere and levenous Doctrine corrupting the people first taught them loosness then bondage loosning them from all sound knowledge and strictness of life the more to fit them for the bondage of Tyranny and superstition So that what was left us for other Nations not to pitty rather then admire or envy all those seaventeen yeares no wise man could see For wealth and plenty in a land where Justice raignes not is no argument of a flourishing State but of a neerness rather to ruin or commotion These were not some miscariages onely of Goverment which might escape but a universal distemper and reducement of law to arbitrary power not through the evil counsels of some men but through the constant cours practise of al that were in highest favour whose worst actions frequently avowing he took upon himself and what faults did not yet seem in public to be originally his such care he took by professing and proclaiming op'nly as made them all at length his own adopted sins The persons also when he could no longer protect he esteem'd and favour'd to the end but never otherwise then by constraint yeilded any of them to due punishment thereby manifesting that what they did was by his own Autority and approbation Yet heer he asks whose innocent blood he hath shed What widdows or Orphans teares can witness against him After the suspected Poysoning of his Father not inquir'd into but smother'd up and him protected and advanc'd to the very half of his Kingdom who was accus'd in Parlament to be Author of the fact with much more evidence then Duke Dudley that fals Protector is accus'd upon record to have poison'd Edward the sixt after all his rage and persecution after so many Yeares of cruel Warr on his People in three Kingdoms Whence the Author of Truths manifest a Scotchman not unacquainted with affaires positively affirmes That there hath bin more Christian blood shed by the Commission approbation and connivance of King Charles and his Father James in the latter end of thir raigne then in the Ten Roman Persecutions Not to speake of those many whippings Pillories and other corporal inflictions wherwith his raign also before this Warr was not unbloodie some have dy'd in Prison under cruel restraint others in Banishment whose lives were shortn'd through the rigour of that persecution wherwith so many yeares he infested the true Church And those six Members all men judg'd to have escap'd no less then capital danger whom he so greedily pursuing into the House of Commons had not there the forbearance to conceal how much it troubl'd him That the Birds were flowne If som Vultur in the Mountains could have op'nd his beak intelligibly and spoke what fitter words could he have utter'd at the loss of his prey The Tyrant Nero though not yet deserving that name sett his hand so unwillingly to the execution of a condemned Person as to wish He had not known letters Certainly for a King himself to charge his Subjects with high treason and so vehemently to prosecute them in his own cause as to doe the Office of a Searcher argu'd in him no great aversation from shedding blood were it but to satisfie his anger and that revenge was no unpleasing morsel to him wherof he himself thought not much to be so diligently his own Caterer But we insist rather upon what was actual then what was probable He now falls to examin the causes of this Warr as a difficulty which he had long studied to find out It was not saith he my withdrawing from White Hall for no account in reason could be giv'n of those Tumults where an orderly Guard was granted But if it be a most certain truth that the Parlament could never yet obtain of him any Guard fit to be confided in then by his own confession some account of those pretended Tumults may in reason be giv'n and both concerning them and the Guards anough hath bin said alreadie Whom did he protect against the Justice of Parlament Whom did he not to his utmost power Endeavouring to have rescu'd Strafford from thir Justice though with the destruction of them and the City to that end expressly commanding the admittance of new Soldiers into the Tower rais'd by Suckling and other Conspirators under pretence for the Portugall though that Embassador beeing sent to utterly deny'd to know of any such Commission from his Maister And yet that listing continu'd Not to repeat his other Plot of bringing up the two Armies But what can be disputed with such a King in whose mouth and opinion the Parlament it self was never but a Faction and thir Justice no Justice but The dictates and overswaying insolence of Tumults and Rabbles and under that excuse avouches himself op'nly the generall Patron of most notorious Delinquents and approves their flight out of the Land whose crimes were such as that the justest and the fairest tryal would have soonest condemn'd them to death But did not Catiline plead in like manner against the Roman Senat and the injustice of thir trial and the justice of his flight from Rome Coesar also then hatching Tyranny injected
disposing he would defend those whom he calls His good Subjects from those mens violence and fraud who would perswade the World that none but Wolves are fitt to be trusted with the custody of the Shepheard and his Flock Surely if we may guess whom he meanes heer by knowing whom he hath ever most oppos'd in this controversie we may then assure our selves that by violence and fraud he meanes that which the Parlament hath don in settling the Militia and those the Wolves into whose hands it was by them intrusted which drawes a cleer confession from his own mouth that if the Parlament had left him sole power of the Militia he would have us'd it to the destruction of them and thir Freinds As for sole power of the Militia which he claimes as a Right no less undoubted then the Crown it hath bin oft anough told him that he hath no more authority over the Sword then over the Law over the Law he hath none either to establish or to abrogate to interpret or to execute but onely by his Courts and in his Courts wherof the Parlament is highest no more therfore hath he power of the Militia which is the Sword either to use or to dispose but with consent of Parlament give him but that and as good give him in a lump all our Laws and Liberties For if the power of the Sword were any where separate and undepending from the power of Law which is originally seated in the highest Court then would that power of the Sword be soon maister of the law being at one mans disposal might when he pleas'd controule the Law and in derifion of our Magna Charta which were but weak resistance against an armed Tyrant might absolutely enslave us And not to have in our selves though vanting to be free-born the power of our own freedom and the public safety is a degree lower then not to have the property of our own goods For liberty of person and the right of selfpreservation is much neerer much more natural and more worth to all men then the propriety of thir goods and wealth Yet such power as all this did the King in op'n termes challenge to have over us and brought thousands to help him win it so much more good at fighting then at understanding as to perswade themselves that they fought then for the Subjects Libertie He is contented because he knows no other remedy to resigne this power for his owne time but not for his successors So diligent and carefull he is that we should be slaves if not to him yet to his Posterity and faine would leave us the legacy of another warr about it But the Parlament have don well to remove that question whom as his manner is to dignify with some good name or other he calls now a many headed hydra of Goverment full of factious distractions and not more eyes then mouthes Yet surely not more Mouthes or not so wide as the dissolute rabble of all his Courtiers had both hee s and shee s if there were any Males among them He would prove that to govern by Parlament hath a monstrositie rather then perfection and grouuds his argument upon two or three eminent absurdities First by placing Counsel in the senses next by turning the senses out of the head and in lieu therof placing power supreme above sense reason which be now the greater Monstrosities Furder to dispute what kind of Government is best would be a long debate it sufficeth that his reasons heer for Monarchy are found weake and inconsiderable He bodes much horror and bad influence after his ecclips He speakes his wishes But they who by weighing prudently things past foresee things to come the best Divination may hope rather all good success and happiness by removing that darkness which the mistie cloud of his prerogative made between us and a peacefull Reformation which is our true Sun light and not he though he would be tak'n for our sun it self And wherfore should we not hope to be Govern'd more happily without a King when as all our miserie and trouble hath bin either by a King or by our necessary vindication and defence against him He would be thought inforc'd to perjurie by having granted the Militia by which his Oath bound him to protect the People If he can be perjur'd in granting that why doth he refuse for no other cause the abolishing of Episcopacy But never was any Oath so blind as to sweare him to protect Delinquents a-against Justice but to protect all the people in that order and by those hands which the Parlament should advise him to and the protected conside in not under the shew of protection to hold a violent and incommunicable Sword over us as readie to be let fall upon our own necks as upon our Enemies nor to make our own hands and weapons fight against our own Liberties By his parting with the Militia he takes to himself much praise of his assurance in Gods protection to the Parlament imputes the fear of not daring to adventure the injustice of their actions upon any other way of safety But wherfore came not this assurance of Gods protection to him till the Militia was wrung out of his hands It should seem by his holding it so fast that his own actions and intentions had no less of injustice in them then what he charges upon others whom he terms Chaldeans Sabeans and the Devill himself But Job us'd no such Militia against those enemies nor such a Magazin as was at Hull which this King so contended for and made VVarr upon us that he might have wherewithall to make warr against us He concludes that Although they take all from him yet can they not obstruct his way to Heaven It was no handsom occasion by faining obstructions where they are not to tell us whither he was going he should have shut the dore and pray'd in secret not heer in the High Street Privat praiers in publick ask something of whom they ask not and that shall be thir reward XI Upon the Nineteen Propositions c. OF the Nineteen Propositions he names none in particular neither shall the Answer But he insists upon the old Plea of his Conscience honour and Reason using the plausibility of large and indefinite words to defend himself at such a distance as may hinder the eye of common judgement from all distinct view examination of his reasoning He would buy the peace of his People at any rate save onely the parting with his Conscience and Honour Yet shews not how it can happ'n that the peace of a People if otherwise to be bought at any rate should be inconsistent or at variance with the Conscience and Honour of a King Till then we may receave it for a better sentence that nothing should be more agreeable to the Conscience and Honour of a King then to preserve his Subjects in peace especially from civil Warr. And which of the
Simonical praier annex'd Although the Praier it self strongly prays against them For never such holy things as he means were giv'n to more Swine nor the Churches Bread more to Dogs then when it fed ambitious irreligious and dumb Prelats XV. Upon the many Jealousies c. TO wipe off jealousies and scandals the best way had bin by clear Actions or till Actions could be clear'd by evident reasons but meer words we are too well acquainted with Had his honour and reputation bin dearer to him then the lust of Raigning how could the Parlament of either Nation have laid so oft'n at his dore the breach of words promises acts Oaths and execrations as they doe avowedly in many of thir Petitions and addresses to him thether I remitt the Reader And who can beleive that whole Parlaments elected by the People from all parts of the Land should meet in one mind and resolution not to advise him but to conspire against him in a wors powder plot then Catesbies to blow up as he termes it the peoples affection towards him and batter down thir loyalty by the Engins of foule aspersions Water works rather then Engines to batter with yet thosé aspersions were rais'd from the foulness of his own actions Whereof to purge himself he uses no other argument then a general and so oft'n iterated commendation of himself and thinks that Court holy water hath the vertue of expiation at least with the silly people To whom he familiarly imputes sin where none is to seem liberal of his forgiveness where none is ask'd or needed What wayes he hath tak'n toward the prosperitie of his people which he would seem so earnestly to desire if we doe but once call to mind it will be anough to teach us looking on the smooth insinuations heer that Tyrants are not more flatterd by thir Slaves then forc'd to flatter others whom they feare For the peoples tranquilitie he would willingly be the Jonah but least he should be tak'n at his word pretends to foresee within Kenn two imaginarie windes never heard of in the Compass which threaten if he be cast overboard to increase the storm but that controversy divine lot hath ended He had rather not rule then that his people should be ruin'd and yet above these twenty yeres hath bin ruining the people about the niceties of his ruling He is accurate to put a difference between the plague of malice the ague of mistakes the itch of noveltie and the leprosie of disloyaltie But had he as wel known how to distinguish between the venerable gray haires of ancient Religion and the old scurffe of Superstition between the wholsome heat of well Governing and the fevorous rage of Tyrannizing his judgement in Statephysic had bin of more autoritie Much he Prophesies that the credit of those men who have cast black scandals on him shal ere long be quite blasted by the same furnace of popular obloquie wherin they sought to cast his name and honour I beleive not that a Romish guilded Portrature gives better Oracle then a Babylonish gold'n Image could doe to tell us truely who heated that Furnace of obloquy or who deserves to be thrown in Nebuchadnezzar or the three Kingdoms It gave him great cause to suspect his own innocence that he was oppos'd by so many who profest singular pietie But this qualm was soon over and he concluded rather to suspect their Religion then his own innocence affirming that many with him were both learned and Religious above the ordinary size But if his great Seal without the Parlament were not sufficient to create Lords his Parole must needs be farr more unable to create learned and religious men and who shall authorize his unlerned judgement to point them out He guesses that many well minded men were by popular Preachers urg'd to oppose him But the opposition undoubtedly proceeded and continues from heads farr wiser and spirits of a nobler straine those Priest-led Herodians with thir blind guides are in the Ditch already travailing as they thought to Sion but moor'd in the I le of Wight He thanks God for his constancy to the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home Abroad his Letter to the Pope at home his Innovations in the Church will speak his constancy in Religion what it was without furder credit to this vain boast His using the assistance of some Papists as the cause might be could not hurt his Religion but in the setling of Protestantism thir aid was both unseemly suspicious inferr'd that the greatest part of Protestants were against him his obtruded settlement But this is strange indeed that he should appear now teaching the Parlament what no man till this was read thought ever he had lernt that difference of perswasion in religious matters may fall out where ther is the samenes of allegeance subjection If he thought so from the beginning wherfore was there such compulsion us'd to the puritans of England the whole realm of Scotl. about conforming to a liturgie Wherfore no Bishop no king Wherfore episcopacie more agreeable to monarchie if different perswasions in religion may agree in one duty allegeance Thus do court maxims like court Minions rise or fall as the king pleases Not to tax him for want of Elegance as a courtier in writing Oglio for Olla the Spanish word it might be wel affirm'd that there was a greater Medley disproportioning of religions to mix Papists with Protestants in a Religious cause then to entertaine all those diversifi'd Sects who yet were all Protestants one Religion though many Opinions Neither was it any shame to Protestants that he a declar'd Papist if his own letter to the Pope not yet renowne'd bely him not found so few protestants of his religion as enforc'd him to call in both the counsel the aid of papists to help establish protestancy who were led on not by the sense of thir Allegeance but by the hope of his Apostacy to Rome from disputing to warring his own voluntary and first appeale His hearkning to evil Counselers charg'd upon him so oft'n by the Parlament he puts off as a device of those men who were so eager to give him better counsell That those men were the Parlament that he ought to have us'd the counsel of none but those as a King is already known What their civility laid upon evil Counselers he himself most commonly own'd but the event of those evil counsels the enormities the confusions the miseries he transferrs from the guilt of his own civil broiles to the just resistance made by Parlament imputes what miscarriages of his they could not yet remove for his opposing as if they were some new misdemeanors of their bringing in and not the inveterat diseases of his own bad Goverment which with a disease as bad he falls again to magnifie and commend and may all those who would be govern'd by his Retractions and concessions rather then by Laws of
Parlament admire his self Encomiums and be flatter'd with that Crown of patience to which he cunningly exhorted them that his Monarchical foot might have the setting it upon thir heads That trust which the Parlament faithfully discharg'd in the asserting of our Liberties he calls another artifice to withdraw the people from him to their designes What piece of Justice could they have demanded for the people which the jealousie of a King might not have miscall'd a designe to disparage his Goverment and to ingratiat themselves To be more just religious wise or magnanimous then the common sort stirrs up in a Tyrant both feare and envy and streight he cries out popularitie which in his account is little less then Treason The summ is they thought to limit or take away the Remora of his negative voice which like to that little pest at Sea took upon it to arrest and stopp the Common-wealth stearing under full saile to a Reformation they thought to share with him in the Militia both or either of which he could not possibly hold without consent of the people and not be absolutely a Tyrant He professes to desire no other liberty then what he envies not his Subjects according to Law yet fought with might and maine against his Subjects to have a sole power over them in his hand both against and beyond Law As for the Philosophical Libertie which in vaine he talks of we may conclude him very ill train'd up in those free notions who to civil Libertie was so injurious He calls the conscience Gods sovrantie why then doth he contest with God about that supreme title Why did he lay restraints and force enlargements upon our consciences in things for which we were to answer God onely and the Church God bids us Be subject for conscience sake that is as to a Magistrat and in the Laws not usurping over spiritual things as Lucifer beyond his sphere And the same Precept bids him likewise for conscience sake be subject to the Parlament both his natural and his legal superior Finally having layd the fault of these Commotions not upon his own mis-goverment but upon the ambition of others the necessity of some mens fortune and thirst after noveltie he bodes himself much honour and reputation that like the Sun shall rise and recover it self to such a Splendour as Owles Batts and such fatal Birds shall be unable to beare Poets indeed use to vapor much after this manner But to bad Kings who without cause expect future glory from thir actions it happ'ns as to bad Poets who sit and starve themselves with a delusive hope to win immortality by thir bad lines For though men ought not to speak evil of Dignities which are just yet nothing hinders us to speak evil as oft as it is the truth of those who in thir Dignities doe evil thus did our Saviour himself John the Baptist and Steev'n the Martyr And those black vailes of his own misdeeds he might be sure would ever keep his face from shining til he could refute evil speaking with wel doing which grace he seems heer to pray for and his prayer doubtless as it was prayd so it was heard But eev'n his prayer is so ambitious of Prerogative that it dares ask away the Prerogative of Christ himself To become the head soone of the Corner XVI Vpon the Ordinance against the Common-Prayer Book VVHAT to think of Liturgies both the sense of Scripture and Apostolicall practice would have taught him better then his human reasonings and conjectures Nevertheless what weight they have let us consider If it be no newes to have all innovations usherd in with the name of Reformation sure it is less news to have all reformation censur'd and oppos'd under the name of innovation by those who beeing exalted in high place above thir merit fear all change though of things never so ill or so unwisely settl'd So hardly can the dotage of those that dwell upon Antiquitie allow present times any share of godliness or wisdom The removing of Liturgie he traduces to be don onely as a thing plausible to the People whose rejection of it he lik'ns with small reverence to the crucifying of our Saviour next that it was don to please those men who gloried in their extemporary vein meaning the Ministers For whom it will be best to answer as was answer'd for the man born blind They are of age let them speak for themselves not how they came blind but whether it were Liturgie that held them tongue-ti'd For the matter contain'd in that Book we need no better witness then King Edward the sixth who to the Cornish Rebels confesses it was no other then the old Mass-Book don into English all but some few words that were expung'd And by this argument which King Edward so promptly had to use against that irreligious Rabble we may be assur'd it was the carnal fear of those Divines and Polititians that model'd the Liturgie no furder off from the old Mass least by too great an alteration they should incense the people and be destitute of the same shifts to fly to which they had taught the young King For the manner of using sett formes there is no doubt but that wholesom matter and good desires rightly conceav'd in the heart wholesom words will follow of themselves Neither can any true Christian find a reason why Liturgie should be at all admitted a prescription not impos'd or practis'd by those first Founders of the Church who alone had that autority Without whose precept or example how constantly the Priest puts on his Gown and Surplice so constantly doth his praier put on a servile yoak of Liturgie This is evident that they who use no set formes of prayer have words from thir affections while others are to seek affections fit and proportionable to a certain doss of prepar'd words which as they are not rigorously forbidd to any mans privat infirmity so to imprison and confine by force into a Pinfold of sett words those two most unimprisonable things our Prayers that Divine Spirit of utterance that moves thē is a tyranny that would have longer hands then those Giants who threatn'd bondage to Heav'n What we may doe in the same forme of words is not so much the question as whether Liturgie may be forc'd as he forc'd it It is true that we pray to the same God must we therfore always use the same words Let us then use but one word because we pray to one God We profess the same truths but the Liturgie comprehends not all truths wee read the same Scriptures but never read that all those Sacred expressions all benefit and use of Scripture as to public prayer should be deny'd us except what was barreld up in a Common-praier Book with many mixtures of thir own and which is worse without salt But suppose them savoury words and unmix'd suppose them Manna it self yet if they shall be hoarded up and enjoynd us while God every morning
but complain'd of Thus these two heads wherein the utmost of his allowance heer will give our Liberties leave to consist the one of them shall be so farr onely made good to us as may support his own interest and Crown from ruin or debilitation and so farr Turkish Vassals enjoy as much liberty under Mahomet and the Grand Signor the other we neither yet have enjoyd under him nor were ever like to doe under the Tyranny of a negative voice which he claimes above the unanimous consent and power of a whole Nation virtually in the Parlament In which negative voice to have bin cast by the doom of Warr and put to death by those who vanquisht him in thir own defence he reck'ns to himself more then a negative Martyrdom But Martyrs bear witness to the truth not to themselves If I beare witness of my self saith Christ my witness is not true He who writes himself Martyr by his own inscription is like an ill Painter who by writing on the shapeless Picture which he hath drawn is fain to tell passengers what shape it is which els no man could imagin no more then how a Martyrdom can belong to him who therfore dyes for his Religion because it is establisht Certainly if Agrippa had turn'd Christian as he was once turning and had put to death Scribes and Pharisees for observing the Law of Moses and refusing Christianitie they had di'd a truer Martyrdom For those Laws were establisht by God and Moses these by no warrantable authors of Religion whose Laws in all other best reformed Churches are rejected And if to die for an establshment of Religion be Martyrdom then Romish Priests executed for that which had so many hundred yeares bin establisht in this Land are no wors Martyrs then he Lastly if to die for the testimony of his own conscience be anough to make him Martyr what Heretic dying for direct blasphemie as som have don constantly may not boast a Martyrdom As for the constitution or repeale of civil Laws that power lying onely in the Parlament which he by the verry law of his coronation was to grant them not to debarr them nor to preserve a lesser Law with the contempt and violation of a greater it will conclude him not so much as in a civil and metaphoricall sense to have di'd a Martyr of our Laws but a plaine transgressor of them And should the Parlament endu'd with Legislative power make our Laws and be after to dispute them peece meale with the reson conscience humour passion fansie folly obstinacy or other ends of one man whose sole word and will shall baffle and unmake what all the wisdom of a Parlament hath bin deliberatly framing what a ridiculous and contemptible thing a Parlament would soon be and what a base unworthy Nation we who boast our freedom and send them with the manifest peril of thir lives to preserve it they who are not mark'd by destiny for Slaves may apprehend In this servil condition to have kept us still under hatches he both resolves heer to the last and so instructs his Son As to those offerd condescensions of Charitable connivence or toleration if we consider what went before and what follows they moulder into nothing For what with not suffering ever so little to seem a despicable scism without effectual suppression as he warn'd him before and what with no opposition of Law Goverment or establisht Religion to be permitted which is his following proviso and wholly within his own construction what a miserable and suspected toleration under Spies and haunting Promooters we should enjoy is apparent Besides that it is so farr beneath the honour of a Parlament and free Nation to begg and supplicat the Godship of one fraile Man for the bare and simple toleration of what they all consent to be both just pious and best pleasing to God while that which is erroneous unjust and mischeivous in the church or State shall by him alone against them all be kept up and establisht and they censur'd the while for a covetous ambitious sacrilegious faction Another bait to allure the people is the charge he laies upon his Son to be tender of them Which if we should beleeve in part because they are his Heard his Cattell the Stock upon his ground as he accounts them whom to wast and destroy would undoe himself yet the inducement which he brings to move him renders the motion it self somthing suspicious For if Princes need no Palliations as he tells his Son wherfore is it that he himself hath so oft'n us'd them Princes of all other men have not more change of Rayment in thir Wardrobes then variety of Shifts and palliations in thir solemn actingsand pretences to the People To try next if he can insnare the prime Men of those who have oppos'd him whom more truly then his meaning was he calls the Patrons and Vindicators of the People he gives out Indemnity and offers Acts of Oblivion But they who with a good conscience and upright heart did thir civil duties in the sight of God and in thir several places to resist Tyranny and the violence of Superstition banded both against them he may be sure will never seek to be forgiv'n that which may be justly attributed to thir immortal praise nor will assent ever to the guilty blotting out of those actions before men by which thir Faith assures them they chiefly stand approv'd and are had in remembrance before the throne of God He exhorts his son not tostudy revenge But how far he or at least they about him intend to follow that exhortation was seen lately at the Hague now lateliest at Madrid where to execute in the basest manner though but the smallest part of that savage barbarous revenge which they doe no thing elsbut study contemplate they car'd not to let the world know them for profess'd Traitors assassinatersof all Law both Divine and human eev'n of that last and most extensive Law kept inviolable to public persons among all fair enemies in the midst of uttermost defiance and hostility How implacable therefore they would be after any termes of closure or admittance for the future or any like opportunity giv'n them heerafter it will be wisdom our safety to beleeve rather and prevent then to make triall And it will concerne the multitude though courted heer to take heed how they seek to hide or colour thir own fickleness and instability with a bad repentance of thir well-doing and thir fidelity to the better cause to which at first so cherfully and conscientiously they joyn'd themselves He returnes againe to extoll the Church of England and againe requires his Son by the joynt autority of a Father and a King not to let his heart receive the least check or disaffection against it And not without cause for by that meanes having sole influence upon the Clergy and they upon the people after long search and many disputes he could not
though briefly in regard so much on this Subject hath been Writt'n lately It happn'd once as we find in Esdras and Josephus Authors not less beleiv'd then any under sacred to be a great and solemn debate in the Court of Darius what thing was to be counted strongest of all other He that could resolve this in reward of his excelling wisdom should be clad in Purple drink in Gold sleep on a Bed of Gold and sitt next Darius None but they doubtless who were reputed wise had the Question propounded to them Who after som respit giv'n them by the King to consider in full Assembly of all his Lords and gravest Counselors returnd severally what they thought The first held that Wine was strongest another that the King was strongest But Zorobabel Prince of the Captive Jewes and Heire to the Crown of Judah being one of them proov'd Women to be stronger then the King for that he himself had seen a Concubin take his Crown from off his head to set it upon her own And others besides him have lately seen the like Feat don and not in jest Yet he proov'd on and it was so yeilded by the King himself all his sages that neither Wine nor Women nor the King but Truth of all other things was the strongest For me though neither ask'd nor in a Nation that gives such rewards to wisdom I shall pronounce my sentence somwhat different from Zorobabel and shall defend that either Truth and Justice are all one for Truth is but Justice in our knowledge and Justice is but Truth in our practice and he indeed so explaines himself in saying that with Truth is no accepting of Persons which is the property of Justice or els if there be any odds that Justice though not stronger then truth yet by her office is to put forth and exhibit more strength in the affaires of mankind For Truth is properly no more then Contemplation and her utmost efficiency is but teaching but Justice in her very essence is all strength and activity and hath a Sword put into her hand to use against all violence and oppression on the earth Shee it is most truely who accepts no Person and exempts none from the severity of her stroke Shee never suffers injury to prevaile but when fashood first prevailes over Truth and that also is a kind of Justice don on them who are so deluded Though wicked Kings and Tyrants counterfet her Sword as som did that Buckler fabl'd to fall from Heav'n into the Capitol yet shee communicates her power to none but such as like her self are just or at least will do Justice For it were extreme partialitie and injustice the flat denyall and overthrow of her self to put her own authentic Sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked Man or so farr to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals that he alone shall have the punishing of all other men transgressing and not receive like punishment from men when he himself shall be found the highest transgressor We may conclude therfore that Justice above all other things is and ought to be the strongest Shee is the strength the Kingdom the power and majestie of all Ages Truth her self would subscribe to this though Darius and all the Monarchs of the World should deny And if by sentence thus writt'n it were my happiness to set free the minds of English men from longing to returne poorly under that Captivity of Kings from which the strength and supreme Sword of Justice hath deliverd them I shall have don a work not much inferior to that of Zorobabel who by well praising and extolling the force of Truth in that contemplative strength conquer'd Darius and freed his Countrey and the people of God from the Captivity of Babylon Which I shall yet not despaire to doe if they in this Land whose minds are yet Captive be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the strength and supremacie of Justice as that heathen king was to confess the strength of truth or let them but as he did grant that and they will soon perceave that Truth resignes all her outward strength to Justice Justice therfore must needs be strongest both in her own and in the strength of Truth But if a King may doe among men whatsoever is his will and pleasure and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men then contrary to this magnifi'd wisdom of Zorobabel neither Truth nor Justice but the King is strongest of all other things which that Persian Monarch himself in the midst of all his pride and glory durst not assume Let us see therfore what this King hath to affirm why the sentence of Justice and the weight of that Sword which shee delivers into the hands of men should be more partial to him offending then to all others of human race First he pleades that No Law of God or man gives to subjects any power of judicature without or against him Which assertion shall be prov'd in every part to be most untrue The first express Law of God giv'n to mankind was that to Noah as a Law in general to all the Sons of men And by that most ancient and universal Law whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed we find heer no exception If a king therfore doe this to a King and that by men also the same shall be don This in the Law of Moses which came next several times is repeated and in one place remarkably Numb 35. Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer but he shall surely be put to death the Land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shedd therein but by the blood of him that shed it This is so spok'n as that which concern'd all Israel not one man alone to see perform'd and if no satisfaction were to be tak'n then certainly no exception Nay the King when they should set up any was to observe the whole Law and not onely to see it don but to do it that his heart might not be lifted up above his Brethren to dreame of vain and reasonless prerogatives or exemptions wherby the Law it self must needs be founded in unrighteousness And were that true which is most fals that all Kings are the Lords Anointed it were yet absurd to think that the Anointment of God should be as it were a charme against Law and give them privilege who punish others to sin themselves unpunishably The high Preist was the Lords anointed as well as any King and with the same consecrated oile yet Salomon had put to death Abiathar had it not bin for other respects then that anointment If God himself say to Kings Touch not mine anointed meaning his chos'n people as is evident in that Psalme yet no man will argue thence that he protects them from Civil Laws if they offend then certainly though David as a privat man and in his own cause feard to lift his hand against the Lords Anointed much less can this
forbidd the Law or disarm justice from having legal power against any King No other supreme Magistrate in what kind of Government soever laies claim to any such enormous Privilege wherfore then should any King who is but one kind of Magistrat and set over the people for no other end then they Next in order of time to the Laws of Moses are those of Christ who declares professedly his judicature to be spiritual abstract from Civil managements and therfore leaves all Nations to thir own particular Lawes and way of Government Yet because the Church hath a kind of Jurisdiction within her own bounds and that also though in process of time much corrupted and plainly turn'd into a corporal judicature yet much approv'd by this King it will be firm anough and valid against him if subjects by the Laws of Church also be invested with a power of judicature both without and against thir King though pretending and by them acknowledg'd next and immediatly under Christ supreme head and Governour Theodosius one of the best Christian Emperours having made a slaughter of the Thessalonians for sedition but too cruelly was excommunicated to his face by Saint Ambrose who was his subject and excommunion is the utmost of Ecclesiastical Judicature a spiritual putting to death But this yee will say was onely an example Read then the Story and it will appeare both that Ambrose avouch'd it for the Law of God and Theodosius confess'd it of his own accord to be so and that the Law of God was not to be made voyd in him for any reverence to his Imperial power From hence not to be tedious I shall pass into our own Land of Britain and shew that Subjects heer have exercis'd the utmost of spirituall Judicature and more then spirituall against thir Kings his Predecessors Vortiger for committing incest with his daughter was by Saint German at that time his subject cursd and condemnd in a Brittish Counsel about the yeare 448 and thereupon soon after was depos'd Mauricus a King in Wales for breach of Oath and the murder of Cynetus was excomunicated and curst with all his offspring by Oudoceus Bishop of Landaff in full Synod about the yeare 560 and not restor'd till he had repented Morcant another King in Wales having slain Frioc his Uncle was faine to come in Person and receave judgement from the same Bishop and his Clergie who upon his penitence acquitted him for no other cause then lest the Kingdom should be destitute of a Successour in the Royal Line These examples are of the Primitive Brittish and Episcopal Church long ere they had any commerce or communion with the Church of Rome What power afterward of deposing Kings and so consequently of putting them to death was assum'd and practis'd by the Canon Law I omitt as a thing generally known Certainly if whole Councels of the Romish Church have in the midst of their dimness discern'd so much of Truth as to decree at Constance and at Basil and many of them to avouch at Trent also that a Councel is above the Pope and may judge him though by them not deni'd to be the Vicar of Christ we in our clearer light may be asham'd not to discern furder that a Parlament is by all equity and right above a King and may judge him whose reasons and pretensions to hold of God onely as his immediat Vicegerent we know how farr fetch'd they are and insufficient As for the Laws of man it would ask a Volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all Antiquity In Greece Orestes the Son of Agamemnon and by succession King of Argos was in that Countrey judg'd and condemn'd to death for killing his Mother whence escaping he was judg'd againe though a Stranger before the great Counsel of Areopagus in Athens And this memorable act of Judicature was the first that brought the Justice of that grave Senat into fame and high estimation over all Greece for many ages after And in the same Citty Tyrants were to undergoe Legal sentence by the Laws of Solon The Kings of Sparta though descended lineally from Hercules esteem'd a God among them were oft'n judg'd and somtimes put to death by the most just and renowned Laws of Lycurgus who though a King thought it most unequal to bind his Subjects by any Law to which he bound not himself In Rome the Laws made by Valerius Publicola soon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race expell'd without a writt'n Law the Law beeing afterward writt'n and what the Senat decreed against Nero that he should be judg'd and punish'd according to the Laws of thir Ancestors and what in like manner was decreed against other Emperours is vulgarly known as it was known to those heathen and found just by nature ere any Law mentiond it And that the Christian Civil Law warrants like power of Judicature to Subjects against Tyrants is writt'n clearly by the best and famousest Civilians For if it was decreed by Theodosius and stands yet firme in the Code of Justinian that the Law is above the Emperour then certainly the Emperour being under Law the Law may judge him and if judge him may punish him proving tyrannous how els is the Law above him or to what purpose These are necessary deductions and therafter hath bin don in all Ages and Kingdoms oftner then to be heer recited But what need we any furder search after the Law of other Lands for that which is so fully and so plainly set down lawfull in our own Where ancient Books tell us Bracton Fleta and others that the King is under Law and inferiour to his Court of Parlament that although his place to doe Justice be highest yet that he stands as liable to receave Justice as the meanest of his Kingdom Nay Alfred the most worthy King and by som accounted first abolute Monarch of the Saxons heer so ordain'd as is cited out of an ancient Law Book call'd the Mirror in Rights of the Kingdom p. 31. where it is complain'd on As the sovran abuse of all that the King should be deem'd above the Law whereas he ought be subject to it by his Oath Of which Oath anciently it was the last clause that the King should be as liable and obedient to suffer right as others of his people And indeed it were but fond and sensless that the King should be accountable to every petty suit in lesser Courts as we all know he was and not be subject to the Judicature of Parlament in the main matters of our common safety or destruction that he should be answerable in the ordinary cours of Law for any wrong don to a privat Person and not answerable in Court of Parlament for destroying the whole Kingdom By all this and much more that might be added as in an argument overcopious rather then barren we see it manifest that all Laws both of God and Man are made without exemption of any person
evil will then not feare to disswade or to disobey him not onely in respect of themselves and thir own lives which for his sake they would not seem to value but in respect of that danger which the King himself may incurr whom they would seem to love and serve with greatest fidelitie On all these grounds therfore of the covnant it self whether religious or political it appeares likeliest that both the English Parlament and the Scotch Commissioners thus interpreting the Covnant as indeed at that time they were the best and most authentical interpreters joyn'd together answered the King unanimously in thir Letters dated Jan. 13 th 1645. that till securitie and satisfaction first giv'n to both Kingdoms for the blood spilt for the Irish Rebels brought over and for the Warr in Ireland by him fomented they could in no wise yeild thir consent to his returne Here was satisfaction full two yeares and upward after the Covnant tak'n demanded of the King by both Nations in Parlament for crimes at least Capital wherwith they charg'd him And what satisfaction could be giv'n for so much blood but Justice upon him that spilt it Till which don they neither took themselves bound to grant him the exercise of his regal Office by any meaning of the Coynant which they then declar'd though other meanings have bin since contriv'd nor so much regarded the safety of his person as to admitt of his return among them from the midst of those whom they declar'd to be his greatest enemies nay from himself as from an actual enemy not as from a king they demanded security But if the covnant all this not with standing swore otherwise to preserv him then in the preservation of true religion our liberties against which he fought if not in armes yet in resolution to his dying day and now after death still fights against in this his book the covnant was better brok'n thē he sav'd And god hath testifi'd by all propitious the most evident signes whereby in these latter times he is wont to testifie what pleases him that such a solemn and for many Ages unexampl'd act of due punishment was no mockery of Justice but a most gratefull and well-pleasing Sacrifice Neither was it to cover their perjury as he accuses but to uncover his perjury to the Oath of his Coronation The rest of his discours quite forgets the Title and turns his Meditations upon death into obloquie and bitter vehemence against his Judges and accussers imitating therin not our Saviour but his Grand-mother Mary Queen of Scots as also in the most of his other scruples exceptions and evasions and from whom he seems to have learnt as it were by heart or els by kind that which is thought by his admirers to be the most vertuous most manly most Christian and most Martyr-like both of his words and speeches heer and of his answers and behaviour at his Tryall It is a sad fate he saith to have his Enemies both accusers Parties and Judges Sad indeed but no sufficient Plea to acquitt him from being so judg'd For what Malefactor might not somtimes plead the like If his own crimes have made all men his Enemies who els can judge him They of the Powder-plot against his Father might as well have pleaded the same Nay at the Resurrection it may as well be pleaded that the Saints who then shall judge the World are both Enemies Judges Parties and Accusers So much he thinks to abound in his own defence that he undertakes an unmeasurable task to bespeak the singular care and protection of God over all Kings as being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth But what Patrons they be God in the Scripture oft anough hath exprest and the earth it self hath too long groan'd under the burd'n of thir injustice disorder and irreligion Therfore To bind thir Kings in Chaines and thir Nobles with links of Iron is an honour belonging to his Saints not to build Babel which was Nimrods work the first King and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel but to destroy it especially that spiritual Babel and first to overcome those European Kings which receive thir power not from God but from the beast and are counted no better then his ten hornes These shall hate the great Whore and yet shall give thir Kingdoms to the Beast that carries her they shall committ Fornication with her and yet shall burn her with fire and yet shall lament the fall of Babylon where they fornicated with her Rev. 17. 18. chapt Thus shall they be too and fro doubtfull and ambiguous in all thir doings untill at last joyning thir Armies with the Beast whose power first rais'd them they shall perish with him by the King of Kings against whom they have rebell'd and the Foules shall eat thir flesh This is thir doom writt'n Rev. 19. and the utmost that we find concerning them in these latter days which we have much more cause to beleeve then his unwarranted Revelation here prophecying what shall follow after his death with the spirit of Enmity not of Saint John He would fain bring us out of conceit with the good success which God hath voutsaf'd us Wee measure not our Cause by our success but our success by our cause Yet certainly in a good Cause success is a good confirmation for God hath promis'd it to good men almost in every leafe of Scripture If it argue not for us we are sure it argues not against us but as much or more for us then ill success argues for them for to the wicked God hath denounc'd ill success in all that they take in hand He hopes much of those softer tempers as he calls them and less advantag'd by his ruin that thir consciences doe already gripe them T is true there be a sort of moodie hot-brain'd and alwayes unedify'd consciences apt to engage thir Leaders into great and dangerous affaires past retirement and then upon a sudden qualm and swimming of thir conscience to betray them basely in the midst of what was chiefly undertak'n for their sakes Let such men never meet with any faithfull Parlament to hazzard for them never with any noble spirit to conduct and lead them out but let them live and die in servil condition and thir scrupulous queasiness if no instruction will confirme them Others there be in whose consciences the loss of gaine and those advantages they hop'd for hath sprung a sudden leake These are they that cry out the Covnant brok'n and to keep it better slide back into neutrality or joyn actually with Incendiaries and Malignants But God hath eminently begun to punish those first in Scotland then in Ulster who have provok'd him with the most hatefull kind of mockery to break his Covnant under pretence of strictest keeping it and hath subjected them to those Malignants with whom they scrupl'd not to be associats In God therfore we shall not feare what their fals fraternity can doe against us He seeks againe with cunning words to turn our success into our sin But might call to mind that the Scripture speakes of those also who when God slew them then sought him yet did but flatter him with thir mouth and ly'd to him with thir tongues for thir heart was not right with him And there was one who in the time of his affliction trespass'd more against God This was that King Abaz He glories much in the forgivness of his Enemies so did his Grandmother at her death Wise men would sooner have beleev'd him had he not so oft'n told us so But he hopes to erect the Trophies of his charity over us And Trophies of Charity no doubt will be as glorious as Trumpets before the almes of Hypocrites and more especially the Trophies of such an aspiring charitie as offers in his Prayer to share Victory with Gods compassion which is over all his works Such Prayers as these may happly catch the People as was intended but how they please God is to be much doubted though pray'd in secret much less writt'n to be divulg'd Which perhaps may gaine him after death a short contemptible and soon fading reward not what he aims at to stirr the constancie and solid firmness of any wise Man or to unsettle the conscience of any knowing Christian if he could ever aime at a thing so hopeless and above the genius of his Cleric elocution but to catch the worthles approbation of an inconstant irrational and Image-doting rabble that like a credulous and hapless herd begott'n to servility and inchanted with these popular institutes of Tyranny subscrib'd with a new device of the Kings Picture at his praiers hold out both thir eares with such delight and ravishment to be stigmatiz'd and board through in witness of thir own voluntary and beloved baseness The rest whom perhaps ignorance without malice or some error less then fatal hath for the time misledd on this side Sorcery or obduration may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves and recover THE END