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
visible eev'n to most of those Men who now will see nothing At passing of the former Act he himself conceal'd not his unwillingness and testifying a general dislike of thir actions which they then proceeded in with great approbation of the whole Kingdom he told them with a maisterly Brow that by this Act he had oblig'd them above what they had deserv'd and gave a peece of Justice to the Common wealth six times short of his Predecessors as if he had bin giving som boon or begg'd Office to a sort of his desertless Grooms That he pass'd the latter Act against his will no man in reason can hold it questionable For if the February before he made so dainty and were so loath to bestow a Parlament once in three yeare upon the Nation because this had so oppos'd his courses was it likely that the May following he should bestow willingly on this Parlament an indissoluble sitting when they had offended him much more by cutting short and impeaching of high Treason his chief Favorites It was his feare then not his favor which drew from him that Act lest the Parlament incens'd by his Conspiracies against them about the same time discover'd should with the people have resented too hainously those his doings if to the suspicion of thir danger from him he had also added the denyal of this onely meanes to secure themselves From these Acts therfore in which he glories and wherwith so oft he upbraids the Parlament he cannot justly expect to reape aught but dishonour and dispraise as being both unwillingly granted and the one granting much less then was before allow'd by Statute the other being a testimony of his violent and lawless Custom not onely to break Privileges but whole Parlaments from which enormity they were constrain'd to bind him first of all his Predecessors never any before him having giv'n like causes of distrust and jealousie to his People As for this Parlament how farr he was from being advis'd by them as he ought let his own words express He taxes them with undoing what they found well done and yet knows they undid nothing in the Church but Lord Bishops Liturgies Ceremonies High Commission judg'd worthy by all true Protestants to bee thrown out of the Church They undid nothing in the State but irregular and grinding Courts the maine grievances to be remov'd if these were the things which in his opinion they found well don we may againe from hence be inform'd with what unwillingness he remou'd them and that those gracious Acts wherof so frequently he makes mention may be english'd more properly Acts of feare and dissimulation against his mind and conscience The bill preventing dissolution of this Parlament he calls An unparalell'd Act out of the extreme confidence that his Subjects would not make ill use of it But was it not a greater confidence of the people to put into one mans hand so great a power till he abus'd it as to summon and dissolve Parlaments Hee would be thankt for trusting them and ought to thank them rather for trusting him the trust issuing first from them not from him And that it was a meer trust and not his Prerogative to call and dissolve Parlaments at his pleasure And that Parlaments were not to be dissolv'd till all Petitions were heard all greevances redrest is not onely the assertion of this Parlament but of our ancient Law Books which averr it to be an unwritt'n Law of common Right so ingrav'n in the hearts of our Ancestors and by them so constantly enjoy'd and claim'd as that it needed not enrouling And if the Scots in thir Declaration could charge the King with breach of their Lawes for breaking up that Parlament without their consent while matters of greatest moment were depending it were unreasonable to imagin that the wisdom of England should be so wanting to it self through all Ages as not to provide by som known Law writt'n or unwritt'n against the not calling or the arbitrary dissolving of Parlaments or that they who ordain'd thir summoning twice a yeare or as oft as need requir'd did not tacitly enact also that as necessity of affaires call'd them so the same necessity should keep them undissolv'd till that were fully satisfi'd Were it not for that Parlaments and all the fruit and benefit we receave by having them would turne soon to meer abusion It appeares then that if this Bill of not dissolving were an unparallel'd Act it was a known and common Right which our Ancestors under other Kings enjoyd as firmly as if it had bin grav'n in Marble and that the infringement of this King first brought it into a writt'n Act Who now boasts that as a great favour don us which his own less fidelity then was in former Kings constrain'd us onely of an old undoubted Right to make a new writt'n Act. But what needed writt'n Acts when as anciently it was esteem'd part of his Crown Oath not to dissolve Parlaments till all greevances were consider'd wherupon the old Modi of Parlament calls it flat perjury if he dissolve them before as I find cited in a Booke mention'd at the beginning of this Chapter to which and other Law-tractats I referr the more Lawyerlie mooting of this point which is neither my element nor my proper work heer since the Book which I have to Answer pretends reason not Autoritys and quotations and I hold reason to be the best Arbitrator and the Law of Law it self T is true that good Subjects think it not just that the Kings condition should be worse by bettering theirs But then the King must not be at such a distance from the people in judging what is better and what worse which might have bin agreed had he known for his own words condemn him as well with moderation to use as with earnestness to desire his own advantages A continual Parlament he thought would keep the Common-wealth in tune Judge Common wealth what proofs he gave that this boasted profession was ever in his thought Some saith he gave out that I repented me of that setling Act. His own actions gave it out beyond all supposition For doubtless it repented him to have establish'd that by Law which he went about so soon after to abrogat by the Sword He calls those Acts which he confesses tended to thir good not more Princely then friendly contributions As if to doe his dutie were of curtesie and the discharge of his trust a parcell of his liberality so nigh lost in his esteem was the birthright of our Liberties that to give them back againe upon demand stood at the mercy of his Contribution He doubts not but the affections of his People will compensate his sufferings for those acts of confidence And imputes his sufferings to a contrary cause Not his confidence but his distrust was that which brought him to those sufferings from the time that he forsook his Parlament and trusted them ne're the sooner for what he tells of
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
the same scrupulous demurrs to stop the sentence of death in full and free Senat decreed on Lentulus and Cethegus two of Catilines accomplices which were renew'd and urg'd for Strafford He voutsafes to the Reformation by both Kingdoms intended no better name then Innovation and ruine both in Church and State And what we would have learnt so gladly of him in other passages before to know wherin he tells us now of his own accord The expelling of Bishops cut of the House of Peers this was ruin to the State the removing them root and branch this was ruin to the Church How happy could this Nation be in such a Governour who counted that thir ruin which they thought thir deliverance the ruin both of Church and State which was the recovery and the saving of them both To the passing of those Bills against Bishops how is it likely that the House of Peers gave so hardly thir consent which they gave so easily before to the attaching them of High Treason 12. at once onely for protesting that the Parlament could not act without them Surely if thir rights and privileges were thought so undoubted in that House as is heer maintain'd then was that Protestation being meant and intended in the name of thir whole spiritual Order no Treason and so that House it self will becom liable to a just construction either of Injustice to appeach them for so consenting or of usurpation representing none but themselves to expect that their voting or not voting should obstruct the Commons Who not for five repulses of the Lords no not for fifty were to desist from what in name of the whole Kingdom they demanded so long as those Lords were none of our Lords And for the Bil against root and branch though it pass'd not in both Houses till many of the Lords and some few of the Commons either intic'd away by the King or overaw'd by the sense of thir own Malignācy not prevailing deserted the Parlament and made a fair riddance of themselves that was no warrant for them who remain'd faithfull beeing farr the greater number to lay aside that Bill of root and branch till the returne of thir fugitives a Bill so necessary and so much desir'd by them selves as well as by the People This was the partiality this degrading of the Bishops a thing so wholsom in the State and so Orthodoxal in the Church both ancient and reformed which the King rather then assent to will either hazard both his own and the Kingdomes ruin by our just defence against his force of armes or prostrat our consciences in a blind obedience to himself and those men whose superstition Zealous or unzealous would inforce upon us an Antichristian tyranny in the Church neither Primitive Apostolicall nor more anciently universal then som other manifest corruptions But he was bound besides his judgement by a most strict and undispensable Oath to preserve that Order and the rights of the Church If he mean the Oath of his Coronation and that the letter of that Oath admitt not to be interpreted either by equity reformation or better knowledge then was the King bound by that Oath to grant the clergie all those customs franchises and Canonical privileges granted to them by Edward the Confessor and so might one day under pretence of that Oath and his conscience have brought us all again to popery But had he so well rememberd as he ought the words to which he swore he might have found himself no otherwise oblig'd there then according to the Lawes of God and true profession of the Gospel For if those following words Establish'd in this Kingdome be set there to limit and lay prescription on the Laws of God and truth of the Gospel by mans establishment nothing can be more absurrd or more injurious to Religion So that however the German Emperors or other Kings have levied all those Warrs on thir Protestant Subjects under the colour of a blind and literal observance to an Oath yet this King had least pretence of all both sworn to the Laws of God and Evangelic truth and disclaiming as we heard him before to be bound by any Coronation Oath in a blind and brutish formality Nor is it to be imagin'd if what shall be establish'd come in question but that the Parlament should oversway the King and not he the Parlament And by all Law and Reason that which the Parlament will not is no more establish'd in this Kingdom neither is the King bound by Oath to uphold it as a thing establish'd And that the King who of his Princely grace as he professes hath so oft abolisht things that stood firm by Law as the Star-chamber High Commission ever thought himself bound by Oath to keep them up because establisht he who will beleiv must at the same time condemn him of as many perjuries as he is well known to have abolisht both Laws and Jurisdictions that wanted no establishment Had he gratifi'd he thinks their Antiepiscopal Faction with his consent and sacrific'd the Church government and Revennues to the fury of their covetousness c. an Army had not bin rais'd Whereas it was the fury of his own hatred to the professors of true Religion which first incited him to persecute them with the Sword of Warr when Whipps Pillories Exiles and impris'nments were not thought sufficient To colour which he cannot finde wherwithall but that stale pretence of Charles the fifth and other Popish Kings that the Protestants had onely an intent to lay hands upon Church-revennues a thing never in the thoughts of this Parlament 'till exhausted by his endless Warrupon them thir necessity seis'd on that for the Common wealth which the luxury of Prelats had abus'd before to a common mischeif His consent to the unlording of Bishops for to that he himself consented and at Canterbury the cheif seat of thir pride so God would have it was from his firm perswasion of thir contentedness to suffer a present diminution of thir rights Can any man reading this not discern the pure mockery of a Royalconsent to delude us onely for the present meaning it seems when time should serve to revoke all By this reckning his consents and his denials come all to one pass and we may hence perceav the small wisdom and integrity of those Votes which Voted his Concessions at the I le of Wight for grounds of a lasting Peace This he alleges this controversie about Bishops to be the true state of that difference between him and the Parlament For he held Episcopacy both very Sacred and Divine With this judgement and for this cause he withdrew from the Parlament and confesses that some men knew he was like to bring againe the same judgement which he carried with him A fair and unexpected justification from his own mouth afforded to the Parlament who notwithstanding what they knew of his obstinat mind omitted not to use all those means and that patience to have gain'd him
to the wisdom and pietie of former Parlaments to the ancient and universall practise of Christian Churches As if they who come with full autority to redress public greevances which ofttimes are Laws themselves were to have thir hands bound by Laws in force or the supposition of more pietie and wisdom in thir Ancestors or the practise of Churches heertofore whose Fathers notwithstanding all these pretences made as vast alterations to free themselves from ancient Popery For all antiquity that adds or varies from the Scripture is no more warranted to our safe imitation then what was don the Age before at Trent Nor was there need to have despair'd of what could be establish'd in lieu of what was to be annull'd having before his eyes the Goverment of so many Churches beyond the Seas whose pregnant and solid reasons wrought so with the Parlament as to desire a uniformity rather with all other Protestants then to be a scism divided from them under a conclave of thirty Bishops and a crew of irreligious Priests that gap'd for the same preferment And wheras he blames those propositions for not containing what they ought what did they mention but to vindicate and restore the Rights of Parlament invaded by Cabin councels the Courts of Justice obstructed and the Government of Church innovated and corrupted All these things he might easily have observ'd in them which he affirmes he could not find But found those demanding in Parlament who were look't upon before as factious in the State and scismaticall in the Church and demanding not onely Tolerations for themselves in thir vanity noveltie and confusion but also an extirpation of that Goverment whose Rights they had a mind to invade Was this man ever likely to be advis'd who with such a prejudice and disesteem sets himself against his chos'n and appointed Counselers likely ever to admitt of Reformation who censures all the Goverment of other Protestant Churches as bad as any Papist could have censur'd them And what King had ever his whole Kingdom in such contempt so to wrong and dishonour the free elections of his people as to judge them whom the Nation thought worthiest to sitt with him in Parlament few els but such as were punishable by Lawes yet knowing that time was when to be a Protestant to be a Christian was by Law as punishable as to be a Traitor and that our Saviour himself comming to reform his Church was accus'd of an intent to invade Caesars right as good a right as the prelat Bishops ever had the one being got by force the other by spiritual usurpation and both by force upheld He admires and falls into an extasie that the Parlament should send him such a horrid Proposition as the removal of Episcopacy But expect from him in an extasie no other reasons of his admiration then the dream and tautology of what he hath so oft repeated Law Antiquitie Ancestors prosperity and the like which will be therfore not worth a second answer but may pass with his own comparison Into the common sewer of other Popish arguments Had the two Houses su'd out thir Liverie from the wardship of Tumults he could sooner have beleiv'd them It concernd them first to sue out thir Livery from the unjust wardship of his encroaching Prerogative And had he also redeem'd his overdated minority from a Pupillage under Bishops he would much less have mistrusted his Parlament and never would have set so base a Character upon them as to count them no better then the Vassals of certain nameless men whom he charges to be such as hunt after Faction with their Hounds the Tumults And yet the Bishops could have told him that Nimrod the first that hunted after Faction is reputed by ancient Tradition the first that founded Monarchy whence it appeares that to hunt after Faction is more properly the Kings Game and those Hounds which he calls the Vulgar have bin oft'n hollow'd to from Court of whom the mungrel sort have bin entic'd the rest have not lost thir sent but understood aright that the Parlament had that part to act which he had fail'd in that trust to discharge which he had brok'n that estate and honour to preserve which was farr beyond his the estate and honour of the Common-wealth which he had imbezl'd Yet so farr doth self opinion or fals principles delude and transport him as to think the concurrence of his reason to the Votes of Parlament not onely Political but Natural and as necessary to the begetting or bringing forth of any one compleat act of public wisdom as the Suns influence is necessary to all natures productions So that the Parlament it seems is but a Female and without his procreative reason the Laws which they can produce are but wind-eggs Wisdom it seems to a King is natural to a Parlament not natural but by conjunction with the King Yet he professes to hold his Kingly right by Law and if no Law could be made but by the great Counsel of a Nation which we now term a Parlament then certainly it was a Parlament that first created Kings and not onely made Laws before a King was in being but those Laws especially wherby he holds his Crown He ought then to have so thought of a Parlament if he count it not Male as of his Mother which to civil being created both him and the Royalty he wore And if it hath bin anciently interpreted the presaging signe of a future Tyrant but to dream of copulation with his Mother what can it be less then actual Tyranny to affirme waking that the Parlament which is his Mother can neither conceive or bring forth any autoritative Act without his Masculine coition Nay that his reason is as Celestial and life-giving to the Parlament as the Suns influence is to the Earth What other notions but these or such like could swell up to Caligula to think himself a God But to be ridd of these mortifying Propositions he leaves no Tyrannical evasion unassaid first that they are not the joynt and free desires of both Houses or the major part next that the choise of many Members was carried on by Faction The former of these is already discover'd to be an old device put first in practice by Charles the fifth since Reformation Who when the Protestants of Germany for thir own defense join'd themselves in League in his Declarations Remonstrances laid the fault only upon some few for it was dangerous to take notice of too many Enemies and accus'd them that under colour of Religion they had a purpose to invade his and the Churches right by which policy he deceav'd many of the German Cities and kept them divided from that League untill they saw themselves brought into a snare That other cavil against the peoples chois puts us in mind rather what the Court was wont to doe and how to tamper with Elections neither was there at that time any Faction more potent or more likely to
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
none of these things come upon me All these took the paines both to confess and to repent in thir own words and many of them in thir own tears not in Davids But transported with the vain ostentation of imitating Davids language not his life observe how he brings a curse upon himself and his Fathers house God so disposing it by his usurp'd and ill imitated prayer Let thy anger I beseech thee le against me and my Fathers house as for these Sheep what have they don For if David indeed sind in numbring the people of which fault he in earnest made that confession acquitted the whole people from the guilt of that sin then doth this King using the same words bear witness against himself to be the guilty person and either in his soule and conscience heer acquitts the Parlament and the people or els abuses the words of David and dissembles grossly to the very face of God which is apparent in the next line wherein he accuses eev'n the Church it self to God as if she were the Churches enemie for having overcom his Tyranny by the powerfull and miraculous might of Gods manifest arme For to other strength in the midst of our divisions and disorders who can attribute our Victories Thus had this miserable Man no worse enemies to sollicit and mature his own destruction from the hast'nd sentence of Divine Justice then the obdurat curses which proceeded against himself out of his own mouth Hitherto his Meditations now his Vowes which as the Vowes of hypocrits use to be are most commonly absurd and som wicked Jacob Vow'd that God should be his God if he granted him but what was necessary to perform that Vow life and subsistence but the obedience profferd heer is nothing so cheap He who took so hainously to be offer'd nineteen Propositions from the Parlament capitulates heer with God almost in as many Articles If he will continue that light or rather that darkness of the Gospel which is among his Prelats settle thir luxuries and make them gorgeous Bishops If he will restore the greevances and mische ifs of those obsolete and Popish Laws which the Parlament without his consent hath abrogated and will suffer Justice to be executed according to his sense If he will suppress the many Scisms in Church to contradict himself in that which he hath foretold must and shall come to pass and will remove Reformation as the greatest Scism of all and Factions in State by which he meanes in every leafe the Parlament If he will restore him to his negative voice and the Militia as much to say as arbitrary power which he wrongfully averrs to be the right of his Predecessors If he will turne the hearts of his people to thir old Cathedral and Parochial service in the Liturgie and thir passive obedience to the King If he will quench the Army and withdraw our Forces from withstanding the Piracy of Rupert and the plotted Irish invasion If he will bless him with the freedom of Bishops again in the House of Peers and of fugitive Delinquents in the House of Commons and deliver the honour of Parlament into his hands from the most natural and due protection of the people that entrusted them with the dangerous enterprize of being faithfull to thir Country against the rage and malice of his tyran nous opposition If he will keep him from that great offence of following the counsel of his Parlament and enacting what they advise him to which in all reason and by the known Law and Oath of his Coronation he ought to doe and not to call that Sacrilege which necessity through the continuance of his own civil Warr hath compelld them to necessity which made David eat the Shew-bread made Ezechiah take all the Silver which was found in Gods House and cut off the Gold which overlayd those dores and Pillars and give it to Sennacherib necessity which oft times made the Primitive Church to sell her sacred utensils eev'n to the Communion Chalice If he will restore him to a capacity of glorifying him by doing that both in Church and State which must needs dishonour and pollute his name If he will bring him again with peace honour and safety to his cheife Citty without repenting without satisfying for the blood spilt onely for a few politic concessions which are as good as nothing If he will put again the Sword into his hand to punish those that have deliverd us and to protect Delinquents against the Justice of Parlament Then if it be possible to reconcile contradictions he will praise him by displeasing him and serve him by disserving him His glory in the gaudy Copes and painted Windows Miters Rochets Altars and the chanted Service-Book shall be dearer to him then the establishing his Crowne in righteousness and the spiritual power of Religion He will pardon those that have offended him in particular but there shall want no suttle wayes to be eev'n with them upon another score of thir suppos'd offences against the Common-wealth wherby he may at once affect the glory of a seeming justice and destroy them pleasantly while he faines to forgive them as to his own particular and outwardly bewailes them These are the conditions of his treating with God to whom he bates nothing of what he stood upon with the Parlament as if Commissions of Array could deale with him also But of all these conditions as it is now evident in our eyes God accepted none but that final Petition which he so oft no doubt but by the secret judgement of God importunes against his own head praying God That his mercies might be so toward him as his resolutions of Truth and Peace were toward his People It follows then God having cutt him off without granting any of these mercies that his resolutions were as fained as his Vows were frustrat XXVI Vpon the Armies surprisall of the King at Holmeby TO give account to Royalists what was don with thir vanquisht King yeilded up into our hands is not to be expected from them whom God hath made his Conquerors And for brethren to debate rippe up thir falling out in the eare of a common enemy thereby making him the judge or at least the wel pleas'd auditor of thir disagreement is neither wise nor comely To the King therfore were he living or to his Party yet remaining as to this action there belongs no answer Aemulations all men know are incident among Military men and are if they exceed not pardonable But som of the former Army eminent anough for thir own martial deeds and prevalent in the House of Commons touch'd with envy to be so farr outdon by a new modell which they contemn'd took advantage of Presbyterian and Independent names and the virulence of som Ministers to raise disturbance And the Warr being then ended thought slightly to have discarded them who had faithfully don the work without thir due pay and the reward of thir invincible valour But
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