Episcopacie among them And if we may beleeve what the Papists themselves have writt'n of these Churches which they call Waldenses I find it in a Book writt'n almost four hundred years since and set forth in the Bohemian Historie that those Churches in Piemont have held the same Doctrin and Goverment since the time that Constantine with his mischeivous donations poyson'd Silvester and the whole Church Others affirme they have so continu'd there since the Apostles and Theodorus Belvederensis in his relation of them confesseth that those Heresies as he names them were from the first times of Christianity in that place For the rest I referr me to that famous testimonie of Jerom who upon this very place which he onely roaves at heer the Epistle to Titus declares op'nly that Bishop and Presbyter were one and the same thing till by the instigation of Satan partialities grew up in the Church and that Bishops rather by custom then any ordainment of Christ were exalted above Presbyters whose interpretation we trust shall be receav'd before this intricate stuffe tattl'd heer of Timothy and Titus and I know not whom thir Successors farr beyond Court Element and as farr beneath true edification These are his fair grounds both from Scripture-Canons and Ecclesiastical examples how undivinelike writt'n and how like a worldly Gospeller that understands nothing of these matters posteritie no doubt will be able to judge and will but little regard what he calls Apostolical who in his Letter to the Pope calls Apostolical the Roman Religion Nor let him think to plead that therfore it was not policy of State or obstinacie in him which upheld Episcopacie because the injuries and losses which he sustain'd by so doing were to him more considerable then Episcopacie it self for all this might Pharaoh have had to say in his excuse of detaining the Israelites that his own and his Kingdoms safety so much endanger'd by his denial was to him more deer then all thir building labours could be worth to Aegypt But whom God hard'ns them also he blinds He endeavours to make good Episcopacie not only in Religion but from the nature of all civil Government where parity breeds confusion and faction But of faction and confusion to take no other then his own testimony where hath more bin ever bred then under the imparitie of his own Monarchical Goverment Of which to make at this time longer dispute and from civil constitutions and human conceits to debate and question the convenience of Divine Ordinations is neither wisdom nor sobrietie and to confound Mosaic Preisthood with Evangelic Presbyterie against express institution is as far from warrantable As little to purpose is it that we should stand powling the Reformed Churches whether they equalize in number those of his three Kingdoms of whom so lately the far greater part what they have long desir'd to doe have now quite thrown off Episcopacie Neither may we count it the language or Religion of a Protestant so to vilifie the best Reformed Churches for none of them but Lutherans retain Bishops as to feare more the scandalizing of Papists because more numerous then of our Protestant Brethren because a handful It will not be worth the while to say what Scismatics or Heretics have had no Bishops yet least he should be tak'n for a great Reader he who prompted him if he were a Doctor might have rememberd the foremention'd place in Sozomenus which affirmes that besides the Cyprians and Arabians who were counted Orthodoxal the Novatians also and Montanists in Phrygia had no other Bishops then such as were in every Village and what Presbyter hath a narrower Diocess As for the Aërians we know of no Heretical opinion justly father'd upon them but that they held Bishops Presbyters to be the same Which he in this place not obscurely seems to hold a Heresie in all the Reformed Churches with whom why the Church of England desir'd conformitie he can find no reason with all his charity but the comming in of the Scots Army Such a high esteem he had of the English He tempts the Clergie to return back again to Bishops from the feare of tenuity and contempt and the assurance of better thriving under the favour of Princes against which temptations if the Clergie cannot arm themselves with thir own spiritual armour they are indeed as poor a Carkass as he terms them Of Secular honours and great Revenues added to the dignitie of Prelats since the subject of that question is now remov'd we need not spend time But this perhaps will never bee unseasonable to beare in minde out of Chrysostome that when Ministers came to have Lands Houses Farmes Coaches Horses and the like Lumber then Religion brought forth riches in the Church and the Daughter devour'd the Mother But if his judgement in Episcopacie may be judg'd by the goodly chois he made of Bishops we need not much amuse our selves with the consideration of those evils which by his foretelling will necessarily follow thir pulling down untill he prove that the Apostles having no certain Diocess or appointed place of residence were properly Bishops over those Presbyters whom they ordain'd or Churches they planted wherein ofttimes thir labours were both joint and promiscuous Or that the Apostolic power must necessarily descend to Bishops the use and end of either function being so different And how the Church hath flourisht under Episcopacie let the multitude of thir ancient and gross errors testifie and the words of some learnedest and most zealous Bishops among them Nazianzen in a devout passion wishing Prelaty had never bin Basil terming them the Slaves of Slaves Saint Martin the enemies of Saints and confessing that after he was made a Bishop he found much of that grace decay in him which he had before Concerning his Coronation Oath what it was and how farr it bound him already hath bin spok'n This we may take for certain that he was never sworn to his own particular conscience and reason but to our conditions as a free people which requir'd him to give us such Laws as our selves shall choose This the Scots could bring him to and would not be baffl'd with the pretence of a Coronation Oath after that Episcopacy had for many years bin settl'd there Which concession of his to them and not to us he seeks heer to put off with evasions that are ridiculous And to omit no shifts he alleges that the Presbyterian manners gave him no encouragement to like thir modes of Government If that were so yet certainly those men are in most likelihood neerer to amendment who seek a stricter Church Discipline then that of Episcopacy under which the most of them learnt thir manners If estimation were to be made of Gods Law by their manners who leaving Aegypt receav'd it in the Wilderness it could reap from such an inference as this nothing but rejection and disesteem For the Prayer wherwith he closes it had bin good som safe Liturgie which he so
sacred History and times of Reformation that the Kings of this World have both ever hated and instinctively fear'd the Church of God Whether it be for that thir Doctrin seems much to favour two things to them so dreadful Liberty and Equality or because they are the Children of that Kingdom which as ancient Prophesies have foretold shall in the end break to peeces and dissolve all thir great power and Dominion And those Kings and Potentates who have strove most to ridd themselves of this feare by cutting off or suppressing the true Church have drawn upon themselves the occasion of thir own ruin while they thought with most policy to prevent it Thus Pharaoh when once he began to feare and wax jealous of the Israelites least they should multiply and fight against him and that his feare stirr'd him up to afflict and keep them under as the onely remedy of what he feard soon found that the evil which before slept came suddenly upon him by the preposterous way he took to shun it Passing by examples between not shutting wilfully our eyes we may see the like story brought to pass in our own Land This King more then any before him except perhapps his Father from his first entrance to the Crown harbouring in his mind a strange feare and suspicion of men most religious and thir Doctrin which in his own language he heer acknowledges terming it the seditious exorbitancie of Ministers tongues and doubting least they as he not Christianly expresses it should with the Keys of Heav'n let out Peace and Loyaltie from the peoples hearts though they never preacht or attempted aught that might justly raise in him such apprehensions he could not rest or think himself secure so long as they remain'd in any of his three Kingdoms unrooted out But outwardly professing the same Religion with them he could not presently use violence as Pharaoh did and that course had with others before but ill succeeded He chooses therfore a more mystical way a newer method of Antichristian fraud to the Church more dangerous and like to Balac the Son of Zippor against a Nation of Prophets thinks it best to hire other esteemed Prophets and to undermine and weare out the true Church by a fals Ecclesiastical policy To this drift he found the Goverment of Bishops most serviceable an order in the Church as by men first corrupted so mutually corrupting them who receave it both in judgement and manners He by conferring Bishoprics and great Livings on whom he thought most pliant to his will against the known Canons and universal practice of the ancient Church wherby those elections were the peoples right sought as he confesses to have greatest influence upon Church-men They on the other side finding themselves in a high Dignity neither founded by Scripture nor allow'd by Reformation nor supported by any spiritual gift or grace of thir own knew it thir best cours to have dependence onely upon him and wrought his fansie by degrees to that degenerat and unkingly perswasion of No Bishop no King When as on the contrary all Prelats in thir own suttle sense are of another mind according to that of Pius the fourth rememberd in the Trentine storie that Bishops then grow to be most vigorous and potent when Princes happ'n to be most weak and impotent Thus when both Interests of Tyrannie and Episcopacie were incorporat into each other the King whose principal safety and establishment consisted in the righteous execution of his civil power and not in Bishops and thir wicked counsels fatally driv'n on set himself to the extirpating of those men whose Doctrin and desire of Church Discipline he so fear'd would bee the undoing of his Monarchie And because no temporal Law could touch the innocence of thir lives he begins with the persecution of thir consciences laying scandals before them and makes that the argument to inflict his unjust penalties both on thir bodies and Estates In this Warr against the Church if he hath sped so as other haughty Monarchs whom God heertofore hath hard'nd to the like enterprize we ought to look up with praises and thanksgiving to the Author of our deliverance to whom victorie and power Majestie Honour and Dominion belongs for ever In the mean while from his own words we may perceave easily that the special motives which he had to endeere and deprave his judgement to the favouring and utmost defending of Episcopacie are such as heer wee represent them and how unwillingly and with what mental reservation he condescended against his interest to remove it out of the Peers house hath bin shown alreadie The reasons which he affirmes wrought so much upon his judgement shall be so farr answerd as they be urg'd Scripture he reports but distinctly produces none and next the constant practice of all Christian Churches till of late yeares tumult faction pride and covetousness invented new models under the Title of Christs Goverment Could any Papist have spoke more scandalously against all Reformation Well may the Parlament and best-affected People not now be troubl'd at his calumnies and reproaches since he binds them in the same bundle with all other the reformed Churches who also may now furder see besides thir own bitter experience what a Cordial and well meaning helper they had of him abroad and how true to the Protestant cause As for Histories to prove Bishops the Bible if we mean not to run into errors vanities and uncertainties must be our onely Historie Which informs us that the Apostles were not properly Bishops next that Bishops were not successors of Apostles in the function of Apostleship And that if they were Apostles they could not be preciselie Bishops if Bishops they could not be Apostles this being Universal extraordinarie and immediat from God that being an ordinarie fixt particular charge the continual inspection over a certain Flock And although an ignorance and deviation of the ancient Churches afterward may with as much reason and charity be suppos'd as sudden in point of Prelatie as in other manifest corruptions yet that no example since the first age for 1500 yeares can be produc'd of any setled Church wherin were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishops above them the Ecclesiastical storie to which he appeals for want of Scripture proves cleerly to be a fals and over-confident assertion Sczomenus who wrote above Twelve hundred years agoe in his seventh Book relates from his own knowledge that in the Churches of Cyprus and Arabia places neer to Jerusalem and with the first frequented by Apostles they had Bishops in every Village and what could those be more then Presbyters The like he tells of other Nations and that Episcopal Churches in those daies did not condemn them I add that many Western Churches eminent for thir Faith and good Works and settl'd above four hundred years agoe in France in Piemont and Bohemia have both taught and practis'd the same Doctrin and not admitted of
so oft'n contrary to the commands of God He would perswade the Scots that thir chief Interest consists in thir fidelity to the Crown But true policy will teach them to find a safer interest in the common friendship of England then in the ruins of one ejected Family XIIII Upon the Covnant VPON this Theme his Discours is long his Matter little but repetition and therfore soon answerd First after an abusive and strange apprehension of Covnants as if Men pawn'd thir souls to them with whom they Covnant he digresses to plead for Bishops first from the antiquity of thir possession heer since the first plantation of Christianity in this Iland next from a universal prescription since the Apostles till this last Centurie But what availes the most Primitive Antiquity against the plain sense of Scripture which if the last Centurie have best follow'd it ought in our esteem to be the first And yet it hath bin oft'n prov'd by Learned Men from the Writings and Epistles of most ancient Christians that Episcopacy crept not up into an order above the Presbyters till many years after that the Apostles were deceas'd He next is unsatisfied with the Covnant not onely for some passages in it referring to himself as he supposes with very dubious and dangerous limitations but for binding men by Oath and Covnant to the Reformation of Church Discipline First those limitations were not more dangerous to him then he to our Libertie and Religion next that which was there vow'd to cast out of the Church an Antichristian Hierarchy which God had not planted but ambition and corruption had brought in and fosterd to the Churches great dammage and oppression was no point of controversie to be argu'd without end but a thing of cleer moral necessity to be forthwith don Neither was the Covnant superfluous though former engagements both religious and legal bound us before But was the practice of all Churches heertofore intending Reformation All Israel though bound anough before by the Law of Moses to all necessary duties yet with Asa thir King enter'd into a new Covnant at the beginning of a Reformation And the Jews after Captivity without consent demanded of that King who was thir Maister took solemn Oath to walk in the Command'ments of God All Protestant Churches have don the like notwithstanding former engagements to thir several duties And although his aime were to sow variance between the Protestation and the Covnant to reconcile them is not difficult The Protestation was but one step extending onely to the Doctrin of the Church of England as it was distinct from Church Discipline the Covnant went furder as it pleas'd God to dispense his light and our encouragement by degrees and comprehended Church Goverment Former with latter steps in the progress of well doing need not reconcilement Nevertheless he breaks through to his conclusion That all honest and wise men ever thought themselves sufficently bound by former ties of Religion leaving Asa Ezra and the whole Church of God in sundry Ages to shift for honestie and wisdom from som other then his testimony And although after-contracts absolve not till the former be made void yet he first having don that our duty returns back which to him was neither moral nor eternal but conditional Willing to perswade himself that many good men took the Covnant either unwarily or out of fear he seems to have bestow'd som thoughts how these good men following his advice may keep the the Covnant and not keep it The first evasion is presuming that the chief end of Covnanting in such mens intentions was to preserve Religion in purity and the Kingdoms peace But the Covnant will more truly inform them that purity of Religion and the Kingdoms peace was not then in state to be preservd but to be restor'd and therfore binds them not to a preservation of what was but to a Reformation of what was evil what was Traditional and dangerous whether novelty or antiquity in Church or State To doe this clashes with no former Oath lawfully sworn either to God or the King and rightly understood In general he brands all such confederations by League and Covnant as the common rode us'd in all Factious perturbations of State and Church This kinde of language reflects with the same ignominy upon all the Protestant Reformations that have bin since Luther and so indeed doth his whole Book replenish'd throughout with hardly other words or arguments then Papists and especially Popish Kings have us'd heertofore against thir Protestant Subjects whom he would perswade to be every man his own Pope and to absolve himfelf of those ties by the suggestion of fals or equivocal interpretations too oft repeated to be now answer'd The Parlament he saith made thir Covnant like Manna agreeable to every mans Palat. This is another of his glosses upon the Covnant he is content to let it be Manna but his drift is that men should loath it or at least expound it by thir own relish and latitude of sense wherin least any one of the simpler sort should faile to be his crafts maister he furnishes him with two or three laxative he termes them general clauses which may serve somwhat to releeve them against the Covnant tak'n intimating as if what were lawfull and according to the Word of God were no otherwise so then as every man fansi'd to himself From such learned explications and resolutions as these upon the Covnant what marvel if no Royalist or Malignant refuse to take it as having learnt from these Princely instructions his many Salvo's cautions and reservations how to be a Covnanter and Anticovnanter how at once to be a Scot and an Irish Rebel He returns again to disallow of that Reformation which the Covnant vows as being the partiall advice of a few Divines But matters of this moment as they were not to be decided there by those Divines so neither are they to be determin'd heer by Essays curtal Aphorisms but by solid proofs of Scripture The rest of his discourse he spends highly accusing the Parlament that the main Reformation by them intended was to robb the Church and much applauding himself both for his forwardness to all due Reformation and his aversness from all such kind of Sacrilege All which with his glorious title of the Churches Defender we leave him to make good by Pharaoh's Divinity if he please for to Josephs Pietie it will be a task unsutable As for the parity and poverty of Ministers which he takes to be so sad of consequence the Scripture reck'ns them for two special Legacies left by our Saviour to his Disciples under which two Primitive Nurses for such they were indeed the Church of God more truly flourisht then ever after since the time that imparitie and Church revennue rushing in corrupted and beleper'd all the Clergie with a worse infection then Gehezi's some one of whose Tribe rather then a King I should take to be compiler of that unsalted and
raines down new expressions into our hearts in stead of being fit to use they will be found like reserv'd Manna rather to breed wormes and stink Wee have the same duties upon us and feele the same wants yet not alwayes the same nor at all times alike but with variety of Circumstances which ask varietie of words Wherof God hath giv'n us plenty not to use so copiously upon all other occasions and so niggardly to him alone in our devotions As if Christians were now in a wors famin of words fitt for praier then was of food at the seige of Jerusalem when perhaps the Priests being to remove the shew bread as was accustom'd were compell'd every Sabbath day for want of other Loaves to bring again still the same If the Lords Prayer had bin the warrant or the pattern of set Liturgies as is heer affirm'd why was neither that Prayer nor any other sett forme ever after us'd or so much as mention'd by the Apostles much less commended to our use Why was thir care wanting in a thing so usefull to the Church So full of danger and contention to be left undon by them to other mens Penning of whose autority we could not be so certain Why was this forgott'n by them who declare that they have reveal'd to us the whole Counsel of God who as he left our affections to be guided by his sanctifying spirit so did he likewise our words to be put into us without our premeditation not onely those cautious words to be us'd before Gentiles and Tyrants but much more those filial words of which we have so frequent use in our access with freedom of speech to the Throne of Grace Which to lay aside for other outward dictates of men were to injure him and his perfet Gift who is the spirit and the giver of our abilitie to pray as if his ministration were incomplete and that to whom he gave affections he did not also afford utterance to make his Gift of prayer a perfet Gift to them especially whose office in the Church is to pray publicly And although the gift were onely natural yet voluntary prayers are less subject to formal and superficial tempers then sett formes For in those at least for words matter he who prays must consult first w th his heart which in likelyhood may stirr up his affections in these having both words and matter readie made to his lips which is anough to make up the outward act of prayer his affections grow lazy and com not up easilie at the call of words not thir own the prayer also having less intercours and sympathy with a heart wherin it was not conceav'd saves it self the labour of so long a journey downward and flying up in hast on the specious wings of formalitie if it fall not back again headlong in stead of a prayer which was expected presents God with a sett of stale and empty words No doubt but ostentation and formalitie may taint the best duties we are not therfore to leave duties for no duties and to turne prayer into a kind of Lurrey Cannot unpremeditated babling be rebuk'd and restraind in whom we find they are but the spirit of God must be forbidd'n in all men But it is the custom of bad men and Hypocrits to take advantage at the least abuse of good things that under that covert they may remove the goodness of those things rather then the abuse And how unknowingly how weakly is the using of sett forms attributed here to constancy as if it were constancie in the Cuckoo to be alwaies in the same liturgie Much less can it be lawfull that an Englisht Mass-Book compos'd for ought we know by men neither lerned nor godly should justle out or at any time deprive us the exercise of that Heav'nly gift which God by special promise powrs out daily upon his Church that is to say the spirit of Prayer Wherof to help those many infirmities which he reck'ns up rudeness impertinencie flatness and the like we have a remedy of Gods finding out which is not Liturgie but his own free spirit Though we know not what to pray as we ought yet he with sighs unutterable by any words much less by a stinted Liturgie dwelling in us makes intercession for us according to the mind and will of God both in privat and in the performance of all Ecclesiastical duties For it is his promise also that where two or three gather'd together in his name shall agree to ask him any thing it shall be granted for he is there in the midst of them If then ancient Churches to remedie the infirmities of prayer or rather the infections of Arian and Pelagian Heresies neglecting that ordain'd and promis'd help of the spirit betook them almost four hundred yeares after Christ to Liturgie thir own invention wee are not to imitate them nor to distrust God in the removal of that Truant help to our Devotion which by him never was appointed And what is said of Liturgie is said also of Directory if it be impos'd although to forbidd the Service Book there be much more reason as being of it self superstitious offensive and indeed though Englisht yet still the Mass-Book and public places ought to be provided of such as need not the help of Liturgies or Directories continually but are supported with Ministerial gifts answerable to thir Calling Lastly that the Common-Prayer Book was rejected because it prayd so oft for him he had no reason to Object for what large and laborious Prayers were made for him in the Pulpits if he never heard t is doubtful they were never heard in Heav'n Wee might now have expected that his own following Prayer should add much credit to sett Forms but on the contrary we find the same imperfections in it as in most before which he lays heer upon Extemporal Nor doth he ask of God to be directed whether Liturgies be lawful but presumes and in a manner would perswade him that they be so praying that the Church and he may never want them What could be prayd wors extempore unless he mean by wanting that they may never need them XVII Of the differences in point of Church-Goverment THE Goverment of Church by Bishops hath bin so fully prov'd from the Scriptures to be vitious and usurp'd that whether out of Piety or Policy maintain'd it is not much material For Pietie grounded upon error can no more justifie King Charles then it did Queen Mary in the sight of God or Man This however must not be let pass without a serious observation God having so dispos'd the Author in this Chapter as to confess and discover more of Mysterie and combination between Tyranny and fals Religion then from any other hand would have bin credible Heer we may see the very dark roots of them both turn'd up and how they twine and interweave one another in the Earth though above ground shooting up in two sever'd Branches We may have learnt both from
which made him much the fitter man to raigne But they who suffer as oppressors Tyrants violaters of Law and persecutors of Reformation without appearance of repenting if they once get hold againe of that dignity and power which they had lost are but whetted and inrag'd by what they suffer'd against those whom they look upon as them that caus'd thir sufferings How he hath bin subject to the scepter of Gods word and spirit though acknowledg'd to be the best Goverment and what his dispensation of civil power hath bin with what Justice and what honour to the public peace it is but looking back upon the whole catalogue of his deeds and that will be sufficient to remember us The Cup of Gods physic as he calls it what alteration it wrought in him to a firm healthfulness from any surfet or excess wherof the people generally thought him sick if any man would goe about to prove we have his own testimony following heer that it wrought none at all First he hath the same fix'd opinion and esteem of his old Ephesian Goddess call'd the Church of England as he had ever and charges strictly his Son after him to persevere in that Anti-Papal Scism for it is not much better as that which will be necessary both for his soules and the Kingdoms Peace But if this can be any foundation of the kingdoms peace which was the first cause of our distractions let common sense be Judge It is a rule and principle worthy to be known by Christians that no Scripture no nor so much as any ancient Creed bindes our Faith or our obedience to any Church whatsoever denominated by a particular name farr less if it be distinguisht by a several Goverment from that which is indeed Catholic No man was ever bidd be subject to the Church of Corinth Rome or Asia but to the Church without addition as it held faithfull to the rules of Scripture and the Goverment establisht in all places by the Apostles which at first was universally the same in all Churches and Congregations not differing or distinguisht by the diversity of Countries Territories or civil bounds That Church that from the name of a distinct place takes autority to set up a distinct Faith or Government is a Scism and Faction not a Church It were an injurie to condemn the Papist of absurdity and contradiction for adhering to his Catholic Romish Religion if we for the pleasure of a King and his politic considerations shall adhere to a Catholic English But suppose the Church of England were as it ought to be how is it to us the safer by being so nam'd and establisht when as that very name and establishment by his contriving or approbation serv'd for nothing els but to delude us and amuse us while the Church of England insensibly was almost chang'd and translated into the Church of Rome Which as every Man knows in general to be true so the particular Treaties and Transactions tending to that conclusion are at large discover'd in a Book intitld the English Pope But when the people discerning these abuses began to call for Reformation in order to which the Parlament demanded of the King to unestablish that Prelatical Goverment which without Scripture had usurpt over us strait as Pharaoh accus'd of Idleness the Israelites that sought leave to goe and sacrifice to God he layes faction to thir charge And that we may not hope to have ever any thing reform'd in the Church either by him or his Son he forewarnes him That the Devil of Rebellion doth most commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and sayes anough to make him hate it as he worst of Evils and the bane of his Crown nay he counsels him to let nothing seem little or despicable to him so as not speedily and effcteually to suppress errors and Scisms Wherby we may perceave plainly that our consciences were destin'd to the same servitude and persecution if not wors then before whether under him or if it should so happ'n under his Son who count all Protestant Churches erroneous and scismatical which are not episcopal His next precept is concerning our civil Liberties which by his sole voice and predominant will must be circumscrib'd and not permitted to extend a hands bredth furder then his interpretation of the Laws already settl'd And although all human laws are but the offspring of that frailty that fallibility and imperfection which was in thir Authors wherby many Laws in the change of ignorant and obscure Ages may be found both scandalous and full of greevance to their Posterity that made them and no Law is furder good then mutable upon just occasion yet if the removing of an old Law or the making of a new would save the Kingdom we shall not have it unless his arbitrary voice will so far slack'n the stiff curb of his prerogative as to grant it us who are as free born to make our own law as our fathers were who made these we have Where are then the English Liberties which we boast to have bin left us by our Progenitors To that he answers that Our Liberties consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of our industry and the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented First for the injoyment of those fruits which our industry and labours have made our own upon our own what Privilege is that above what the Turks Jewes and Mores enjoy under the Turkish Monarchy For without that kind of Justice which is also in Argiers among Theevs and Pirates between themselvs no kind of Government no Societie just or unjust could stand no combination or conspiracy could stick together Which he also acknowledges in these words That if the Crown upon his head be so heavy as to oppress the whole body the weakness of inferiour members cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the head but that a necessary debilitation must follow So that this Liberty of the Subject concerns himself and the subsistence of his own regal power in the first place and before the consideration of any right belonging to the Subject VVe expect therfore somthing more that must distinguish free Goverment from slavish But in stead of that this King though ever talking and protesting as smooth as now sufferd it in his own hearing to be Preacht and pleaded without controule or check by them whom he most favourd and upheld that the Subject had no property of his own Goods but that all was the Kings right Next for the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented we never had it under him for not to speak of Laws ill executed when the Parlament and in them the people have consented to divers Laws and according to our ancient Rights demanded them he took upon him to have a negative will as the transcendent and ultimat Law above all our Laws and to rule us forcibly by Laws to which we our selves did not consent