then the latter they thought as it fell out accordingly afterwards would fall to their obedience with the more ease To bring this great thing about all their art was imployed But the chief of all was their old true friend and souldier Calumny by this to make the orthodox episcopal party odious to the people a way which Contzenus the Jesuite looks upon as so excellent that it is very fitting it should be endeavour'd And in this trade of vilifying our Nonconformists were so expert and sedulous that in a short while they had innumerable lying pamphlets and reports spread about the Nation that in the first year or two of this Long Parliament the hearers and believers with the relatours of these slaunders were so many and all performed with that care and celerity that Dame Report in England out-vapour'd Queen Fame in Chaucer who Had also fele up standing eares And tonges as on beest ben heares And on her fete woxen sawe I Partriche wynges redily Yet are these fictions against our reverend Church-government quite contrary to the sound and true Law of our land which will thus tell us For as much as divers questions by overmuch boldnesse of speech and talk amongst many of the common sort of people being unlearned have lately grown upon the making and consecrating of Archbishops and Bishops within this Realm whether the same were and be orderly done according to the Law or not which is much tending to the slaunder of all the state of the Clergy being one of the greatest states of this Realm c. Yet let the Laws say what they will these men will oppose and that in Ritaing waies rather then not get their end above 2000. of this faction making a tumult in London crying out they would have no Bishop nor no high Commission a bad omen to the peace of the Kingdom but a great incouragement to the Long Parliament who first sat within a fortnight after this hurry And had presently a sympathizing Petition brought them by Alderman Pennington loaden with the scrawling hands of 15000 Londoners and this forsooth against Archbishops Bishops and our Church-ceremonies though I believe if none had been subscribers but those who understood what they set their hands to that neither the Alderman nor 15000 of the rest had listed their faith and themselves in that paper which the Lord Digby call'd very well contemptible irrational and presumptious Yet did the Presbyterian faction in Parliament joy themselves thus to have brought that great City to the subjection and reverence of their new found Disciplinarian slavery and perceiving themselves thus back'd by such riches and so many men went boldly on to pull down our Reverend Church and set up their golden calves in its stead And all this pains hurly-burly alarums and warre must only be like Caligula's Army to fight for empty cochle-shels in respect of the truth glory and sincerity swaying in the English Church The first imployment of note against the Church that the Commons put themselves upon was against the Convocation contemporary with the short Parliament which they condemned as seditious dangerous against King Law Subject though the King acknowledged no such thing and one of their main reasons against this Convocation was because the clergy therein assembled perceiving how the Scots did covenant and swear against our Church-government and that our English Non-conformists were grown strong and not only corresponded with the Scots but tended the same way which would ruine our Church at last as experience proved did frame an Oath for the maintaining of our Church-Government against all Popery and its Superstition And this was called the Oath c. though the words following this c. to wit as it stands now established makes not the Oath so contemptible as our Presbytery clamoured Against this Oath the Cornmons ranted affirming the Clergy though assembled by the King's command had no power to make an Oath the which whether they had or no I shall not now dispute Only I shall have leave to think that every one thinks the best of themselves And so I suppose did the Commons when they framed the Protestation and ordered all in their own House to take it and did also recommend it to be taken all England over though the King did never consent to it nor as then had the Lords and whether the Commons by themselves have power to impose an Oath I shall not determine though report speaks the Negative And as for the Protestation it self 't is composed of such uncertain jugling materials considering the Presbyterian Notion which imposed it that a true understanding Conscience would never embrace it for these following rational Doubts waving the dispute of the Imposers authority I promise vow and protest to maintain with my life the true reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England against all Popery and Popish Innovations within this Realm Dub. 1. What the Presbyterian Imposers and Framers here mean by the Doctrine of the Church of England If the Thirty nine Articles why do they not subscribe them if any thing else why do they not mention it that men might know what they swear Dub. 2. What they mean by Popery If their Articles in what sense they meant the Points held against the Calvinists by some learned men of our Church and Holland Dub. 3. What they meant by Popish Innovations within this Realm for their Writings affirm our Church-government by Bishops and Innocent Ceremonies to be so The which if they meant then none but Schismaticks would take it if otherwise why did they not explain themselves that people might not swear ignorantly As also the power and priviledges of Parliament The lawful Rights and Liberty of Subject and shall never relinquish this Promise Vow and Protestation Dub. 4. What are the power priviledges of Parliament and Rights and Liberty of Subject As for the Parliamentary priviledges they themselves never yet undertook to declare what they are And for men to swear to defend they know not what is not unlike that Messenger who swore to observe his Masters Instructions in his sealed Commission which when he had opened he found no command but to hang himself Dub. 5. Whether it is lawful to swear never to relinquish this Protestation though the King and State should afterwards have some reasons to revoke or alter all or any clause in the said Protestation as none can question their Authority in such things And then eight dayes after was a piece of paper as if dropping from its Posteriors joyned to the rump of this Protestation wherein was declared that nothing in this Oath was to be extended to the maintaining of any form of worship discipline or government nor of any rites or ceremonies of the said Church of England By which the Hauntghost of Presbyterie is easily perceived to be there domineering and 't is the humour of these men to love
those Athenians who thought to gain great store of gold by conquering the Emmets of Hymettus For nothing can be gain'd by their Writings unless Malice and Ignorance may go for precious Jewels To be short Those who pretend to be such Zealots for the Reformed Church should not endeavour its discredit by asserting her novelty If that be true which the most learned of the Protestants have maintain'd viz. that that which we call the Popish Religion had no firm foundation by a publick acknowledgement till about six hundred years after our Saviour's birth Then were the Ceremonies now of the Church of England used and generally receiv'd long before Papistry had its being as is palpable from Church-History and the Fathers So that we might as well call Churches Bells Pulpits Hower-Glasses written-Sermons c. Popish as well as Forms of Prayer Ministerial habits and such like And I am apt to believe that if our Church should bring in the Wafer as there is neither harm in form nor matter that many of our Zealots would refuse the Communion though they are in use at Geneva yet the grand Disciple and adorer of that City and Government doth call it The Round clipped God which shews that the Masters and Scholars cannot alwayes agree in all things Nay these men are so farr from agreement amongst themselves that for ought that I know their mindes may alter with the Times and Seasons of which amongst many take but this one example One of their chief Generals viz. Master Baxter a little before the King came in doth publickly declare That a stinted Liturgy is in it self lawful nay in some things necessary And that if the Magistrate should impose and he could not otherwise be dispensed withall the Surplice though it were made a teaching sign the whiteness of it being to signifie Purity or should he also appoint kneeling at the Sacrament he would observe both And as for the Ring in Marriage the name and form of an Altar and Organs or other Instruments of Musick were they so enjoyn'd he should find no reason to scruple them Nor would he be wanting to the observation of our Church Holy-dayes Nor dare he peremptorily say that it is unlawful to use the Crosse in Baptism Nor will he condemn the Ancients and Moderns that use it nor will he make any disturbance in the Church about it Clinias and Demetas in Sydney protested to fight like Hectors and gave out as terrible Bravado's against each other as the stoutest Champion in the world each confiding in the cowardice of his Adversary like Sir Ambros de la Foole and Sir John in the Play And after this manner doth Baxter shew himself When there was no sign of Episcopall Government and he hoped that neither King Law nor It would ever be in force and authority again Then who but Baxter O how conformable would he be if the Ceremonies were but setled What great things would he do if these things were but up again But words are meer winde though they signifie something with an honest man Now that the King 's come over and the Church resetled none more against it than Baxter none more opposeth the peace of the Church than he none more violent against Authority not is there any man opposeth Decency more than this Proteus yet is this like the rest of his Faction who swear Allegiance and think they satisfie and fulfill their Oath by Rebellion As for these mens desire of Toleration I shall propose some Quaeries to them I. Whether supposing them to be Supreme they would allow the same Priviledge to the Episcopal Party If not Then II. With what face they can desire or demand it from the Superiours now in being to whom they will not grant the like favours If they say they would Then III. Why did they in 1642 1643 c. preach against oppose and deny such liberty to be given to the Episcopal and Royall Clergy If they say That they are since satisfy'd in the Contrary and that their opinions are grown more moderate Then IV. What reason have we to believe their Moderation to be reall since they all stand stifly for the Obligation of their Covenant in which they swear to extirpate Episcopacy which Opinion is still maintain'd by Crofton and others of that gang The truth is give once liberty to a Presbyterian and give it also to the Independent Anabaptist Quaker and the rest of the Sectaries for ought that I know one being as good English Christian as the other and this Liberty once granted in a few years 't will be an hard case to tell which is the Church of England neither party being subordinate to one another only here will be the difference The Episcopal party will be bound to be obedient to the Law and Canon but the other above both by which Supremacy the Authority of the Loyal Clergy will be null'd whilest the other by their Power and Liberty will have the best advantage to gain Proselytes and then 't is easily imagin'd what brave Elections there will be for Future Parliaments through the whole Kingdom But I suppose his Majesty having been sufficiently plagu'd by a Presbyterian Parliament will desire no more such Representatives which is impossible to be hinder'd if a Toleration once be granted for if from a very small beginning these sedulous Non-Conformists grew so head-strong numerous and powerful in a few years as not only to have a great party but even a Majority in Parliament in Queen Elizabeth's dayes we must needs expect their Faction and Authority now daily to encrease if Tolerated being already so numerous and having setled themselves in the Affections Families Churches and Interests not only in multitude of Gentry and other people of the Nation but of the Great ones too who have not only Power and Riches but it may be Will too to do mischief by propagating a Presbyterian Interest which in time may act as wickedly against the Son as in part they have already as they did formerly against his Royall Father 'T is not unknown how these Slanderers scandalize the Church of England with high Popery which for ought that I know they may by the by throw upon his Majesty too as a Favorite for thus 't is well known they abus'd his Royal Father of which at this time take but one example and this from the Heads both of the Laity and Ministry of this Gang. The Assembly of Divines for so were they call'd at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Kirk of Scotland drew up a Letter which was sent by Order of their Commons to the Belgick French Helvetian and other Reformed Churches beyond sea in which they do assure them brave that Subjects should complain to strangers of their King and nothing but slanders too that the King made it his sole business to root out the Protestant Religion and us'd all means possibly to reduce the whole Nation to Popery c.
Casuists cannot be ignorant how they annihilate and jeast with sin by their sociable Doctrine of Probable Opinion of Directing the Intention and such like as you may see more at large in the Mystery of Jesuitism of which the last Edition with its Additionals will yield you more satisfaction With these things I should be very unwilling to charge them did I not know that the Agitators of these Political evasions from Sin were the chief Casuists amongst them and their Books printed and reprinted by the consent of their Superiours For those men are very much to blame who scandalize a General Religion with the fancies and extravagancies of some private Writers for by this means might Rebelling-Presbyterianism King-killing Independentism deluded Quakerism and other Heresies be thrown upon the famous Church of England and several absurdities upon the Romanists which cannot be found in the Tridentine Council How obsequious this Order is to their Superiours Commands may be seen in many stories related by Hasenmullerus and others Ignatius himself being willing to throw away his life rather than disobey an ignorant Physitian Nor had it been handsom in him to have been refractory who was the Author of this obedient Constitution and wrote a long Letter from Rome to those of his Order in Portugal to perswade them to it which is yet extant What other Articles they have I need not relate these three being a sufficient taste and the rest of their Order may be had either in Italian or Latin To give a true Character of the Jesuite at large would be too tedious since one of themselves viz. Alexander Haius hath performed it well enough in few words viz. Jesuita est omnis homo one as fit to act any thing as he is able to comply with every condition meerly Tales quales as themselves were pleas'd to term it more publickly at Paris They are generally a sort of people more skilful in the causes and motions of the Body Politick than the Philosopher in the Natural being Richelieu's for plotting as quick-sighted as Lynceus as restless as the Bird of Paradice as insinuating and flattering as Clisophus or Charisophus more cruel than the ill-natur'd Barbarian and like the old woman Ptolomais never in their own Trade but when stirring up mischief and the best Actors on the Political Stage fit to undertake and finish any wickedness for which they have formerly been reproachfully banish'd France Bohemia Hungaria Moravia Turky and Venice though since with much ado restored Several of them have suffered in China England Scotland and other places for their villainies nor hath Germany suffered them to go unpunished nor could they expect more favour from many in that Countrey since the misery of it And the loss of the Palatinate if you believe Sir Simond D'ewes had its source from their Brains And one of this Society who suffer'd at Strasburg confest that he was one of the thirty Jesuits who were imploy'd to be Agents for the Roman Cause in the late German Wars and that their Orders were to poyson and make away the chiefest Officers or others who opposed the Emperour as my Author assures us And Teimurases Prince of the Georgeans a people lying upon the Caspian Sea will have none of them in his Territories whence they were forced to fly for that notorious Imposture of theirs concerning the head of that Martyred Queen Ketaban a story so commonly known that I do not a little admire at de S. Lazare for passing by the fraud and jugling of the Jesuites with silence and untruths Mendoza hot-headed Gret-serus and others of the same Society are as parties bound to commend the Honesty and Religion of this Order But the Ingenious Thuanus Pasquier who affords you Pleadings and Reasons against them and others though Roman-Catholicks think it not fit to attribute any goodness to the Jesuite knowing that he is a Subject too dangerous to live in Liberty in any well setled State Spain excepted these two reciprocally maintaining each other more through politick ends than true love of Religion I am confident Great Brittain and Ireland have felt the force of their active brains as the Raign of Queeen Elizabeth and the dangerous beginning of King James can testifie Nor were they any more beneficial to King Charles doing what they could to foment our Dissentions as the Long Parliament could not deny As appears by their Articles against Father Philips one of which was this The damnable Doctrine which he and other Jesuites have taught to destroy and depose Kings hath been the cause of the Civil Warrs like to befal these Kingdoms if God in his mercy did not prevent it And his Seditiousness is somewhat apparent by his Letter sent to Mr. Mountague in France and produced to the House of Commons June 25 in which was this expression Can the wise Cardinal endure England and Scotland to unite and not be able to discern In the end it is like they will joyn together and turn head against France And how vigilant the Cardinal was to keep the two Nations from uniting is visible from the presence and great endeavours of Mr. Thomas Chamberlain a Scotch-man Chaplain and Almoner to Richelieu amongst the Scots who play'd likewise his Cards well in England before our late Rebellion with Order not to depart from Scotland till things succeeding as the Cardinal wish'd he might return into France with good news of a perfect dissention betwixt England and Scotland And to this may be added the Industry of the Cardinal's Secretary in the said Nation where he carryed himself so cunningly that he was taken into Consultation with the Heads of the Covenanters And what good counsel could spring from such a Fountain cannot be ignorant to any who either understood the experience or knew the political biass of the said Cardinal which might well move him to say concerning our late Troubles That 't was easie for one with half an eye to have foreseen them Whereby it seems strange to me that he would never imploy a Jesuite if we may credit Mr. Howell though it may be that he supposed them too much linked to the Interest of Spain to doe him or France any good Nor is the multitudes of them in England any small probability of their bad Intentions being unwilling to hazard their lives as here they do unless upon some grand Design Jarrigius one of their own Society affirmeth that fifty of them clad in several habits kept Council in London whence they deputed a General Agent to Rome And Oliver Cromwell profest that he could prove by witness that they had a Consistory and Council that rul'd all the affairs in England as he could prove by the Particular Instrument then in his power And how formerly they swarm'd in England Mr. Gee will at large inform you And King James could never forget the miseries he suffered whilst King of
Consequence and good Law Treason to warr against him I shall now shew that the Parliament and not himself was the first beginners of these late Confusions the true rise of which I must fetch higher than the Presbyterian Party will give me thanks for And as a leading Card to this Discovery we must observe that a rebellious itching humour of incroaching upon and railing against lawful Authority was the main foundation of our miseries the source of which frantick temper I must draw from Geneva whose Disciples are commonly carryed on with more violence than the furirious Rhosne upon which the City boasts her situation In this City John Calvin confirmed his Presbyterian-Discipline in the same year that Ignatius Loyola the first Founder of the Jesuites was chosen their first General in a solemn manner viz. 1541. And just a hundred years after 1641. was the famous and reverend Church of England over-run and clowded by the Calvinistical Proselytes And as these two Orders of Presbytery and Jesuitism took their rise together so have they gone hand in hand through a blind zeal not only to derogate from but extirpate all Civil Authority not conducible to their Interests And as Calvin's Presbytery at first was begot by Rebellion and Treason they expelling from Geneva their lawful Prince and Magistrate So have their Children following the foot-steps of their Parents as what is in the bone will never out of the flesh made it their business to terrifie the World with this truth that as Schism so Sedition and they are inseparable And in this they have been no way hindred by their Lord and Master John Calvin whose inconsiderate zeal in some things was such that it was so farr from sparing any that it would throw its fury at Kings and Queens Witness his irreverent expression thrown against Queen Mary calling of her Proserpine telling us that she outstrips all the Devils in Hell And in this way of Rhetorick do other of his dear sons follow him as John Knox calls the same Queen wicked Jezabel and Devil and her Rule the monstriferous Empire of a wicked Woman And another Brother viz. Anthony Gilby calls her a Monster and one wanting no will to wickedness And yet this Lady whom they so much abuse and vilifie was as our Authentick Chronicles assure us a Woman truly pious merciful and of most chast and modest behaviour and every way to be prais'd if you consider not her Errour in Religion A charracter so glorious that I fear few of our Disciplinarians dare pretend to But their only railing against Princes doth not shew half their malice for they have found out fine wayes not only to dethrone but murther their Kings by their not only approving of such wickedness but perswading thereto And this power Calvin acknowledgeth to lye in the Parliament consisting of the Three Estates in each Kingdom telling them that they are perfidious and betrayers of their Trust if they do not restrain the Enormities of Kings And with him agrees one of our English Non-conformists Dudlie Fenner and allows the King to be taken away either by Peace or Warr. And what a stiff Enemy he was to our English Church you may imagine by the Education of his two Scholars Tho. Cartwright and Walter Trevers And Robert Rollock one of the Scottish Brethren confirms this way of King-killing under the notion of Tyrants But How furiously doth John Knox his Countrey-man incite the people to Rebellion telling them that Reformation of Religion belongs as well to the Commonalty as Kings and other Magistrates And that the common people may demand of their Kings true Preachers and that others i. e. in his sense Bishops may be expell'd But if the Rulers will not then they may provide themselves which they may defend and maintain against all that shall oppose them And that they may with-hold the fruits and profits from their false Bishops and Clergy And he tells them that their Princes Rulers and Bishops are criminal of Idolatry and Innocent Bloud and Tyranny And that no person whatsoever is exempted from punishment if he can be manifestly convicted to have provoked or led the people to Idolatry And that the punishment of Idolatry Blasphemy and such like doth appertain to the people as well as others And all these incitements are because the Queen was a Roman-Catholick of which he tells the Lords that if they grant Priviledge or Liberty they shall assuredly drink the Cup of Gods Vengeance and shall be reputed before his presence Companions of Thieves and maintainers of Murtherers And that he might make them more willingly throw off all Obedience he perswades them that It is not Birth nor Propinquity of Bloud that makes a King Lawful and plainly tells them that the Rule of a Woman is unlawful And these brave Doctrines he got printed at Geneva 1558. July 14. from whence he sends them into Brittain to move the people into Rebellion From the same place doth Beza afterwards write to Knox then in Scotland to perswade him to extirpate Episcopacy though the being of it might cause Peace and Unity And of this mind was his Patron John Calvin who profest that he could not Exercise the Office of a Minister unless the Presbyterian Government was confirmed and setled in Geneva From this City did Beza write into England to perswade them from all Formalities and Ceremonies used in our Church and from this place sprang all our Troubles about Non-conformity All this which hath been said as the Opinion of private men was publickly concluded on as Orthodox in Scotland if you will give credit to one of their chief Patrons Buchanan one who hath done an irreparable mischief to Princes by his villainous and wretched Book De Jure Regni apud Scotos a poysonous Well from whence the Long-Parliament and our late Common-wealths-men have drawn most of their Pleas and Arguments And is no small demonstration of the Authours Impudence to dedicate it to King James too good a Master for such a wretched Servant Nor was these things any way denyed in the same Nation of late dayes when 1638. August 27. it was ordered That the ablest man in each Parish should be provided to dispute of the King's Power in calling Assemblies and what they meant by this is no hard matter to discern considering that not only they had the moneth before maintained the power of Convocating to lye in themselves but also the same year had actively derided at the King's Authority and the next year bid him Battle And how little many of their Presbyters have since mended their manners may appear by that impudent piece of Non-sense Malice and Treason spoken by one of their Grandees Mr. Robert Duglas at our King's Coronation in Scotland and by him call'd a Sermon but how unbefitting that name as we now take the word to signifie is appropriated let any that dare call
their inspirations and commands from Geneva thought fit for example sake and fear to let the Law so much by them violated take her course whereby Copping and Thacker were hang'd at Saint Edmondsbury in Suffolk Barrow and Greenwood were executed at Tyburn Coppinger dyed in Prison and Hacket was hang'd by the Cross in Cheapside the two last were more extravagant then the rest falling to open blasphemy Nor did John Penry a Welshman escape this was the man who made those scurrilous Pamphlets against our Church under the title of Martin Mar Prelate a man so much guilty of his own villanies that with Cain he feared death from every mans hand and therefore was forced to sculk and ramble amongst his brethren for protection so that his Antagonist was not amisse when he sang of him thus Qui tantum constans in knavitate sua est He was taken at Stepney and condemned for felony and hang'd at Saint Thomas Waterings Upon whose death an honest Northern Rimer made these Couplets The Welshman is hanged Who at our Kirke flanged And at our state banged And brened are his buks. And though he be hanged Yet he is not wranged The De'ul has him fanged In his kruked kluks Besides these Udal Billot Studley and Bouler were condemned yet through the Queens mercy were reprieved and Cartwright and some others were imprisoned These round dealings did a little terrifie the rest of them and gave a check to the furiousnesse of the wiser sort But yet having some of the Nobility their Patrons whether for Conscience or Policy let others judge as Leicester Lord North Burleigh Shrewsbury Warwick Walsingham Sir Francis Knollys Mr. Beal Clerk of the Council and others they took heart again and proceeded in their Consultations and Actions as formerly Nor was Arch-bishop Grindal thought to be so vigilant as his place required for which he got the Queens displeasure Yet formerly had they kept meetings of some of their Ministers to carry on their intended innovations but privately for fear of discovery The first known to be kept in England was at Wandsworth in Surry 1572. Novemb. 20. Another they had at Cockfield in Suffolk where threescore of their Ministers met 1582. May 8. where they consulted concerning our Common-Prayer-book Canonical Apparel and other Ceremonies of the Church though they had no call but their own presumption And because they resolved to be vigilant they had another Synod passing by one also the same year at Cambridge where was drawn up a form of Discipline scorning to submit to Ours or Anthority by which they were to be guided of which thus a painful and learned Antiquary will inform us Inventing out of their own corky brains a new certain no-form of Liturgy to themselves thereby to bring into the Church all disorder and confusion And in the same Assembly they made a Collection for their Scottish brethren who fled into England for their guilt of high Treason and what loyalty can be expected from such traiterous Assistants let moderate men judge though I am apt to give some credit to one of our old English Versifyers Nor Queen in her Kingdom can or ought to sit fast If Knox or Goodman's books blow any true blast After this another Synod was held at Coventry 1588. June 10. where they imperiously condemned the reading of Homilies Crosse in Baptism that Bishops ordination by them and their autherity are all unlawful and that a Bishop is neither Doctor Elder nor Deacon And besides all this they decree that occasions are to be sought to bring the people in liking to their Discipline and that those of deeper apprehensions shall be drawn to it by all private allurements possibly And these positions with others were carried cunningly abroad to be subscribed by all to make their faction more unanimous And many other Meetings and Assemblies they had at London Oxford Cambridge and other places to carry on their designs as appears by the confession of Mr. Thomas Stone and the Collections of the Right Reverend Bancroft And so powerful were they grown amongst some of the Nobility and Gentry that at the Parliament at Westminster 1585. they were so vigilant by their whispering with the Members day and night that if the Queen had not interposed her authority they might have given the Bishops a scurvy lift by the assistance of their Schismatical Brethren by them voted into the House To this Parliament the Non-conformists having framed another Book by them called A Book of the Form of Common Prayers c. in which was contained the substance of their pretended Discipline To this Representative I say in them having great hopes they presented this book With this Petition May it therefore please your Majesty that it may be Enacted that the Book hereunto annexed Intituled A Book of the Form of Common-prayers Administratien of Sacraments and every thing therein contained may be from henceforth authorized put in ure and practised throughout all your Majesties Dominions By this they shewed themselves no enemies to set Forms of Prayer but only that they not others should have the honour of making it Like the Cardinal who confess 't that Reformation was necessary but was vext that Luther should undertake it And at the Dissolution of this Parliament Queen Elizabeth takes special notice of our Innovators for finding fault with our orderly Church-government the which humour she not unfitly terms New fanglednesse I might here tell you of many more bold actions in this Queen's time used by these Renegadoes as a very serious and learned Gentleman calleth them But only one shall instance for an hundred to shew you how partial they were in all their dealings as to make the Proverb true that Kissing goeth by favour and this shall be of one of their grand Masters viz. Mr. Snape and thus it was in brief Mr. John Nelson of Northampton one of their Elders or Deacons had his Worship's daughter classically got with child by his serving-man nor durst the Elders maid associate with the same species that the Mistris doth For this Snape brings the poor man to publick repentance and ignominy amongst his neighbours nor do I blame him if he had used the Gentlewoman so too and impowred to do it but she O she was the Daughter of a rich Brother and Sectaries were of old observed to gain most by pleasuring simple women and colloguing with those who had full coffers She therefore good soul was esteemed to run counter to the Primitive Fall there the woman but here the man or rather poverty is judged the tempter But because the Country had both eyes and ears therefore a marriage was thought most plausible to vindicate the Brethren the which was accordingly performed by a lame Souldier of Barwick by the appointment of Snape by whose order the same Souldier had married many others at the same place And it may be Barebone's Parliament drew their new model of coupling
from this Swashbuckler These and many other innovating and cross grain'd actions you may find storied down by their almost-own Fuller for so may I well take the boldnesse to call him since they could never desire a more complyable Historian And therefore these may carry the more probability with the Reader let his education be either sound or rotten KING JAMES succeeding upon the death of Queen Elizabeth the Non-conformists thought to gain ground apace having to deal with a Prince as they thought bred up in their own way and a stranger not only to England but as they hoped to her government also 'T is true He had been nurst up in the Presbyterian way in Scotland but their insolencies and incroachments to get all the power into their own hands as a stiff Presbyterian under the fained name of Wilson doth confesse gave him so much experience as not only to allow of no alteration or that very small in the Church of England but also publickly to testifie his happinesse in ruling over and amongst people so sweetly united in such a Church-government whereas in Scotland He was a a King without State without Honour without Order where beardlesse boyes would brave him to his face As himself did word it Yet to satisfie their clamours He gave them a conference at Hampior-Court where their Objections seemed so trivial that Self will and an erronious Conscience was thought to be more predominant then Reason Upon which the King put forth a Proclamation for Uniformity to which all the Ministers in England and they are above nine thousand submitted except forty nine such a noise will a few disturbers cause in any society when tolerated Nor need this seem strange to those who know that in the first year of Queen Elizabeth the number of our Clergy-men who refused the Oath of Supremacy did not amount to 200. though they had all not only been bred up in the Romish Religion but also for some few years before had violently asserted the Pope's authority in England And we now see those who have been the Chief-tains of the Non-conformists to turn tail and acknowledge Episcopal government the which I hope they do more for Conscience then Covetousnesse Yet for all this though King Law and all things else were against the Disciplinarian Interest they grow resolute and as one saith starkmaa and send to their Brethren in Scotland informing them of all which had hapned and that they in Scotland must expect to conform too and then God wot would follow the utter destruction of Sion Upon which some of them take an Alarum and meet at Aberdeen in spight of the King and his Authority intending to declare against and root out all the foot-steps and memory of Episcopacy for which some of them afterwards were forced to acknowledge their fault And Andrew Melvil for writing Libels against our English Church he then being at London was called before the Council where behaving himself insolently and like a mad man he was committed to the Tower By these actions our Non-conformists easily perceived that they could gain nothing but their own shame and destruction whilst they acted only as private men whereupon they resolve under-hand to blow up the Parliaments against Prerogative to which purpose by their industry they never wanted a good party in the House who carried themselves so resolutely and cunningly that for the future Westminster only rung with the clamours of Grievancies liberty of Subject and Priviledge of Parliament A Parliament never sitting but some Member or other throwing dirt in his Majesties face and this conscionably done by freedom of speech never or very seldom satisfying the King in what he conveniently required for when his pleasure for any reasonable thing was any time made known to them then they grumble and reply that God must be served before man and then for a moneth or two nothing is done in the House but the uttering of long-winded speeches against Arminianism and Popery And this to as little purpose as Cardinal Rapacciolus his prayer that the Devils fins and transgressions might be forgiven him that so he might receive some comfort and be of good cheer For any thing or reason besides bitter Invectives is as difficult to be found amongst them as Coach horses at Venice or a Gondola in Themes as is obvious to any who have seen the Speeches in the two last Kings raigns 'T is true all were not carryed on with the same Spirit for the House was still composed of two different tempers Like Orense a Town in Gallaecia of Spain one side of which in Winter is covered with Snow and num'd by the fury of frozen blasts whilest the other side doth not only want these white Robes but is favoured with a continual warmth arising from the adjacent medicinal hot Baths yet the more wicked party obliged by being so to be more industrious will commonly gain advantages whilst the good People trusting in their honesty act altogether too supinely I shall not now trace the Extravagancies of private men but shew you some of their hot-headed prancks in Parliament because they have now made that the Stage on which they intended to act for the future and in this I shall study brevity and pass by many notorious insolencies In the first Parliament of King James which was drawn out into several Sessions one of the Members bid the rest take heed lest they gave too much to the King lest they endanger their own throats cutting when they went home Others bob'd his Majesty in his teeth for rewarding some of his own Countreymen affirming that their silver and gold abounded at Edenburgh And one Piggot after he had spoken disgracefully of the Scots added withall That it would never be well with England till a Sicilian Vesper was made of the Scotish Nation as if he had not known what Countrey-man the King was Words of such high nature that Queen Elizabeth would have shewn her Prerogative But having now to deal with a King whom they thought might have been trampled upon here as well as beyond the Tweed they left nothing unturn'd whereby they might strengthen their own Faction And this spirit of Contradiction and Contention ruling amongst them is pointed at by one of their own Brethren though clad in more favourable words these bickerings and the Members unrestless humour forced the King to dissolve the Parliament having sat long enough in all Conscience to do any good if they intended any Afterwards another Parliament being call'd and consisting of the same Temperature was presently dissolved In the next Parliament the King desires some Moneys having not had any assistance from his People for several years so that he was constrained to lessen his Houshold This necessary request the Parliament hears but never intend to grant And the better to lay it aside they first begin with the spacious and specious subject of Complaints and with a high hand
trouble of a journy thither yet not without some notable observators No sooner he being departed but our Parliament ordering some members to go also into Scotland in notion of a Committee to inform them of all passages in Scotland Yet when the King went into Scotland the Parliament adjourn'd though appointed a Committee of the Commons consisting of 50 of and over which Mr. Pym was the chief Lord and Maister of mis-rule and him I find nominated at the very beginning of this Parliament with the Emphasis of the great parliament man And the truth of it is that he was so farre the dominus fac totum in this juncto that his words were laws all things being acted according to his desire Here many things of Church matters were by these Gentlemen purely innovated and then prosecuted with such violence that the Episcopal clergy durst not gainsay him as Dr. Fuller Mr. Hutton Mr. Fletcher and others of St. Giles Cripplegate Mr. Booth the Minister of St. Botolphs Aldersgate Dr. Heywood of St. Giles the Ministers of St. George Southwark of Margarets new Fish-street c. could very well testifie by experience Although the house of Lords would not consent in these things to join with the Commons yet did they so farre supinely wink at the others actions that their Authority was now so much intrench'd upon by the Commons that their priviledges slipt from them unperceived though without all question the presbyterian party both understood and smiled at such proceedings About this time there was a great deal of noise and clamour about a Letter forsooth against Mr. Pym with I know not what plaister in it and written God wot when and delivered by no body knows whom but a Gentleman forsooth in a gray-coat on horseback and great searching and inquiring for this man in the moon was made but all to as little purpose as the Northwest passage or the philosophers stone And many times hath it been printed and spread abroad to let the good people see the wickedness forsooth of Malignants and with such chaffe as this have many of our old fools been taken Yet when that impudent Libel stuft with as much malice as either this letter or hell could afford was vented against that great prop of learning the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Laud no notice was in the least wise taken of it nor did he himself any thing regard it though it thus threatned his destruction Laud look to thy self be assured thy life is sought as thou art the fountain of wickedness Repent of thy monstrous sins before thou be taken out of the World c. And assure thy self neither God nor the world can endure such a vile Councellor or Whisperer to live Than this what more implacable destructive and abominable considering his nearness to the Kings person his trust and beneficial endeavours for the publick good Yet had he been better or if I may say here the best and the designes against him more devilish yet would our Non-conformists have hug'd and blest themselves at this opposition had it been as after malicious experience proved to his ruine and all this because he was an absolute opposer of the Presbyterian innovations who though but of a very little body yet had a soul more large and vast for the good of Church and Literature then a whole Parliament of Disciplinarians But let us now think of his Majesties return from Scotland in whose absence some of the Parliament had rais'd large reports of strange and terrible plots and designs against John an Oaks and John a Stiles by which means many people were endeavour'd to be whisper'd into dissatisfaction of the King and such a jealousie was grown by the noise of this Chimaera that many did according as they were bid think that things were not then well carryed and this was cunningly aimed at the King and his Favourites by those who had their Coy-ducks in such obedience that their Commands was not unlike that of Madam Fame to Aeolus in our ingenious Chaucer Bring eke his other claviown That hight Sclaunder in every Towne With which he wont is to diffame Hem that me lyst and do * hem shame But these Alarums served the Parliaments turn being a Cloak under which they might deceive the People in their pretences for raising a Guard the which they did and it may be to defend them from a Pedicularie disease of which possibly they saw some symptoms then in the House Of these Romantick Jealousies Frights Alarums and unheard of Plots and Designs his Majesty tells the Parliament and of the evil consequences of such slanders in his first Speech to them after his return from Scotland And in his next earnestly desires them to prosecute the Irish affairs and perceiving them considering about pressing of Souldiers with a check at his Prerogative He desires that the bounds of his ancient and undoubted Authority might not then fall into debate however that it may pass with a Salvo jure he is willing rather then such disputes should take up time in such an hour of extreamity for whilest the Grass groweth the Horse may sterve Upon this they clamour against his Majesties dealings professing the Priviledges of Parliament were broken by these his Exceptions for which they demand satisfaction and earnestly desire his Majesty not only to declare the names of but also to deliver up to punishment those persons who had given such counsel Nor was this mode of dealing one of their least Plots upon all occasions desiring the King to betray his faithful Counsellors by that means not only to leave him naked but to the discretion of the Houses But these things carryed no great shew of unhandsomness though like the Apples of Sodem beautiful without yet stuft with filthiness in respect of their after Thunder-claps which like Brutus shew'd their malice in their fronts For the next day after their Petition they welcome him home with a Remonstrance as they call it in which maliciously they endeavour to rip up all the faults and none is good but God of his Majesties Raign and that in as civil a way as their zeal could allow them as you may see in the Paper it self for in it through his actions they tax him with Cruelty Injustice Oppression Violence and what not They out-braid him for putting forth untrue scandalous false and impudent Declarations in it they highly commend the Schismatical Non-conformists blaming the King for punishing them Nor is this all but the Scotch Invasion of England too is extoll'd and defended and the King scandalized as if he endeavoured to root out the true Religion and bring in Popery nor are they silent against the Bishops and their Orthodox Divines by which it is plain the Presbyterian ruled the Parliament nor must the Innocent Ceremonies and forsooth Superstition escape a scouring And yet in this very same mogende-Paper they confess they must acknowledge that his Majesty hath
that in themselves what they hated in others Witness their accusing the Bishops of Treason for putting in their protestation against the others proceedings seeing they were kept out by violence and tumults And yet when it was after the Commons case the Army expelling them they also put in their Protestation to the same purpose Thus are men oft paid in their own coin But to return to the Convocation which I suppose had as much lawful Power as a Presbyterian Assembly and I am confident have used it with more discretion In what little esteem the Kirkers of Scotland had the civil Authority their own Histories will tell you and in the Scotch troubles before our late Wars it appears by their own Commissioners as if it were the Kirk's right to determine all Ecclesiastical affairs by their Assemblies And it is the opinion of our English Non-conformists declared in their Book of Discipline in Queen Elizabeth's dayes That their Presbyterian Synods are to handle and decide both Doctrine Discipline and Ceremonies of the Church and accordingly were all their actions steered The House of Commons having thus voted against the Convocation made it a Coy-duck to draw in the rest of their designs And in the first place they fall heavy upon the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as a promoter of the former Canons and so accuse him of high-Treason though as then they had laid no Articles against him but promised to do it to the Lords upon which he was secured and the third day after was fined five hundred pounds which he was forced to borrow and to sell plate to repay it such a liberal Benefactor was he to the advancement of Learning that he left himself nothing and if the severe stroke of injustice had not untimely sequestrated and cut him off Saint Paul's Cathedral had silenced the fame of the ancient wonders our English Clergy had been the glory of the World the Bodleian in Oxford had daily more and more out-stript the Vatican and his publick Structures had ore'topt the Escurial and all this by his own munificence in which he so far excelled his neighbours that he was not unlike the good Emperor Titus Vespasian whose liberal soul made him think that he had lost that day in which he had not given something The next day that they accused the Arch-bishop they also accused Bishop Wren of the same crime And a little after voted highly against the Learned and Reverend as the French Churches beyond sea can testifie Dr. Cousins and the next day receive Petitions against Dr. Duck and Sir John Lamb. And a week after received a Remonstrance pretended to be loaden with seven hundred Ministers hands against Bishops the which if true yet that number bears no proportion with above nine thousand which were the number of our English Clergy and however it was Mr. Selden himself did declare that very day that the House of Comons had nothing to do with Church-affairs in that nature And reason tels us that it is not only hard but unjust that men should be accused for acting according to the known Laws of the Land they not being as then repealed But what care the Commons for this seeing they are resolved come what will of it to have Sir Jack Presbyter to bear the sway and therefore they fall heavy upon Episcopal government and after a whole day's debate the Majority against both Law and Reason did agree to take away Lordly Prelacy their medling with temporal affairs their jurisdictions and Courts and a great part of their Means and Estates and afterwards inlarged upon these things And that the Country might not be ignorant also of their enmity to Church government they therefore appoint Commissioners to go into all places of the Kingdom and there remove all Altars Images and Rayls about the Communion-table and sell them and punish those who shall endeavour to set them up again Nor was this all but they also question Sir John Lamb and Sir Nathaniel Brent for getting Organs repair'd and setting up some new Organs in Churches Though I do not know against what Law these two Gentlemen had offended though I know against what the latter did afterwards And having gon thus far away they in a fury hurry Arch bishop Laud to the Tower whither he was followed and rail'd at by the then significant rabble of the Anti-church-government Puppies And some few dayes after they appointed a forsooth Committee for Religion of ten Earls ten Bishops and ten Barons by which means the Lay-votes were not only double to the Clergy but in fine none of the latter left they knowing now their own intentions and power so far that they were more then confident to have the Clergy-men in short time to be but as Ciphers To obtain which they endeavoured all ways that malice or industry could propose to them And as a means to encourage others to oppose Bishops and Church-government they not only released the scribling fire-brands of the Nation as Burton Prynn Leighton Lilburn c. but also as a reward for their good service voted them many thousand pounds a piece And the next week fined the Members of the Convocation house two hundred thousand pounds And afterwards voted that not only the Bishops but all other Clergy-men that did either send their Proxies or execute the said Canons were guilty But if the Lords have a Religious Committee the Commons must have one too or else they think themselves out-vapoured And so they jumble up a Company of Ministers together giving them authority to consult the Canons and Liturgy and also to draw up a plat-form or model for Reformation to be setled in the Kingdom and by what rule these men were to work is no difficult business to collect from the Commons Votes some few dayes after that it was necessary to have an Uniformity of Religion with Scotland as also from their kindness to the Armed Covenanters not long before by Voting for them 300000 pounds with the goodly title of Brethren And all this because they march'd into England with a numerous Army protesting swearing and fighting against Episcopal Government for that was the thing now also aimed at in England so that Mr. Pym speaks the hearts of others as well as his own when he reproved one of the Lords saying That it was not enough to be against the Persons of the Bishops if he were not against the Function And according to this Maxim the Commons by their former Votes having made the way more facile boldly Vote the Government of the Church of England by Archbishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Archdeacons c. to be prejudicial to both Church and State and the next day Voted also that from that time there should be no such things as Archbishops Bishops c. in England Nor was this all but presently after they also expunged all Deans
and Chapters Prebendaries c. So that in four dayes time the hasty Commons over-throw as much as in them lay the Reverend Church of England which had continued many hundreds of years a flourishing glory to the Nation The Commons for their parts having thus pull'd down the pale of our Church fastned and strengthened by so many Authentick and Fundamental Laws as old again as the House of Commons will not leave Religion without some Government No good souls they were more kind-hearted And therefore in the first place they Vote that all the Lands and Means belonging to Deans and Chapters Chancellors or Commissaries Archdeacons Deans Prebendaries Chapter Canon c. shall be taken away and disposed of to the advancement of Learning and Piety That is if their after-actions may be taken for Expositors to maintain Rebellion Heresie Sacriledge and ruine Universities for these mens promises like Hebrew must still be read backwards and after this rule did they send a request to the King by Secretary Vain That he would give them leave to look into his Revenues and Expences and they would make him the richest King in Christendom But the Parliament will not spend their time only in selling Lands but something must be considered of a Church-Government too and therefore they Vote that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction fit to be exercised in England shall be committed to such a number of persons and in such a manner as their Worships shall think fit Nor were they long without making the Nation happy with the discovery of their Intellectuals which was That six of the Clergy and six of the Laity should be appointed in every County for the setling of Church-Government But this was a little shaken by an after conclusion viz. That nine of the Laity and three of the Clergy in every Diocess should have power to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as shall be ordered by Parliament and to have their Monethly meetings for that purpose And the next day to make this hotch-potch Model more compleat they Vote That there shall be several select Committees of the Clergy appointed for the Ordination of Clergy-men into the Ministry But yet this Presbyterian Brat would not come to perfection And therefore to give more encouragement to the Covenanting-admirers they conclude That all Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Jurisdiction shall be exercised in this Kingdom by the Commissioners as there was by Bishops And the same day read the Bill for the using of Lectures taking away Cross in Baptism Surplis bowing at the Name of Jesus standing up at the Gospel Gloria Patri Pictures in Churches c. and conclude the day with the appointing of a Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel And the next day they give further power to their nine Commissioners to wit That after the first of August any five of them shall be a Quorum and have full power to try all Ecclesiastical Causes and to appoint Deputies under them in several places And after this they further agreed That if any of the nine Commissioners should dye that five or more of them are to choose another presently and so if any of them resign and that if any came to take Orders that these Commissioners shall appoint five Clergy men to grant Ordinations And for the more speedy putting of this medly in practise the Knights and Burgesses of every Shire are commanded to bring in the Names of the nine Commissioners for their several Counties to be appointed and that no Clergy-man be of the Commission Thus farr had the Commons thrown I cannot say built up this their confused Babylon when on a sodain an unexpected Remora was joyned to their further proceedings by some fallings out betwixt the Lords and them about the Protestation For the Commons having ordered that it should be taken all over the Kingdom were in this opposed by the Peers who threw it out of their House which so incensed the Commons that they presently Vote That what person soever shall not take the Protestation is unfit to bear Office in Church or Common-wealth And thinking that the Bishops were the reason of the Lords dissent appoint a Committee for impeaching them about the late Canons who accordingly Voted thirteen Bishops to be Delinquents whom the Lords also suspended their house till a further hearing And so violently were these good men persecuted by the Presbyters that they never left plotting till they had got them Voted Traytors and sent to the Tower Nor could they have any outward content any where considering the reproaches threats and curses daily thrown against them by the wicked the danger of their lives by Tumults and their Lands Voted from them long before by their and Religions Enemies the Non-conforming Commons though they agreed to allow them a liberal allowance during life and how unhandsomly the Parliament in this neglected this promise the Reverend Bishop Hall will satisfie you The Commons now having as they thought bridled the Bishops and their Party are resolved to root out the Common-Prayer Book too to which purpose some of them desire that it might be altered and some thing added to it the which after some speeches being put to the Vote it appear'd that there were then but 55. Disciplinarians in the House no more voting for Alterations so that the Book came off with credit the Orthodox Party knowing well enough that if that House once fell to alter it it rather belonging to able and lawful Divines they would equal the Tinker who made two holes for mending one The Anti-Episcopalians being thus baffled fall to it again getting it to be moved again in the House the next week where they came off with the like success And the next day being a Thanks-giving day for the Peace between the two Nations to shew their malice to Church-Government and countenance the Schismaticks the Commons would not go to St. Margarets Westminster as was by them appointed because the Bishop of Lincoln had caus'd a set Form of Prayer for that occasion to be printed and used in the Church the news of which so started their Worships that they turn'd tail and went to the preachment at Lincolns Inne But if the Commons were troubled at this they were after out of their wits and all stark-madd against the Lords Because they had put forth an Order and sent it all over the Nation strictly injoyning the reading of the Common-Prayer against which and many other Church-affairs the Commons the same day put forth a Declaration ordering it to be printed and sent over the Kingdom and with them they also got the nine dissenting Lords to protest against the Order made by the House of Peers This cross-graind action of the Commons so incensed the Lords that they left off sitting for a while causing the Hangings of their House to be taken down Nor did this any way vex the Commons
who neither cared for them nor their sitting nor any else that would not dance after them and Geneva For they are resolved for Jack Presbyter and therefore being informed that the Lords Order for the Common-Prayer had been read in Churches and not their Declaration they drew up an Order and sent it to be printed enjoyning that their aforesaid Declaration should be read in all Churches And so severe were they in this point that they put Dr. Haywood of St. Giles to some trouble for not permitting their Order to be read though he had not only his own Conscience and the Lords Order but the Law of the Land to testifie his justness And what more ridiculous then to astonish the people into discontents and sidings by reading to them at the same time two contrary Orders and that of the Commons being quite against the Laws of the Land Thus did the Commons batter down Religion as Captain Jones in the Poet did the Jesuites more by strong hand then reason yet had they left one thing undone which was the extirpation of Episcopacy root and branch to bring which villany about they Voted them to have no place in the House of Lords nor to meddle with any secular affairs But here before they went any further they were somewhat troubled at the King because he being then in Scotland had sent Mr. Warwick Orders to draw up five Congé d'Eslire's for five new Bishops there being then so many Sees vacant but in this strait Mr. Stroud thinks it fitting to Petition the King to stop these five till they had dispacht the charge against the other Bishops Yet what need they care whether the King make Bishops or no since they are resolved never to acknowledge them to be so for they can with the same ease cut off all as one Therefore seeing the King for Bishops they bend themselves more resolutely against them and so prepare their charge against those formerly accused and for the Champions to mannage this Combate Pymme and St Johns by the commendations of one another are chosen The death of the first is noys'd by report and the honesty of the latter is not unknown to any The Parliament was something stopt in their proceedings against Bishops by the Irish Rebellion yet having taken some breath they sent a message to the Lords desiring that the 13. Bishops might speedily come to answer And not long after as an incouragement to the factious they released Simmonds a Printer who had been in custody for printing a Book against the Common-Prayer yet the very same day was Walker the Iremonger imprisoned only for Printing a Book concerning Mr. Prynne though the first deserved as much hanging as the latter Imprisonment and from these men the Bishops might well expect good justice But still they sit and Vote in the House of Lords which vext the Sectaries to the guts because they could not tell how to get them out handsomly for they had no great confidence in their Articles of Canons and Constitutions and whilest they Voted there the Orthodox Party would still exceed At last some ill spirit or other put it into the noddles of Isaac Pennington Captain Ven and such combustible humours to raise such tumults against the Reverend Fathers the fear whereof should either keep them from the House or bring some ruine sacrilegiously to be acted upon them And accordingly up cometh the Rabble of London to the Parliament House crying out No Bishops no Bishops And at last got the Bishop of Lincoln then going to the House with the Earl of Dover into the midst of them where they had like to have squeez'd him to death And having thus begun many hundreds of them come again the same day with Swords and Staves causing great uproars both in Westminster and London not only to the affrightment of the Bishops but the King and Queen and the next day also assaulted Westminster Abby These Tumults obtain'd the end of their Contrivers keeping the Bishops from the House pelting of them with stones as they endeavoured to go By which they drew up a Petition to the King how that the Tumults kept them out and therefore protested against all things that should be done in the House of Peers in time of their thus violent seclusion Which did trouble the Parliament so much that one Mr. Weston of the Commons House thought he had spoke bravely when he moved that the Bishops might be sent to Bedlam But Glyn and others were cleerly for High Treason which accordingly was done and ten of them sent to the Tower and two to the Black Rod. And thus their businesse being don the great tumults ceas'd the Presbyterians sang Victoria whilst the reverend Church of England lay in the dust miserably trod upon by a Schismatical zeal yet had they they nothing to accuse the Bishops of and so were forced to release them all but two against one of which they could say nothing for if they could they would and whether the cry of the others bloud be yet stopt I know not How were the Country cheated with swarms of Petitions against this Ecclesiastical Order yet in this none more ridiculous then the Londoners One troup of Tradesmen petition against Bishops and their reason was because their being was the decay of trading and in the clause of all gave a notable lash at the House of Lords Nor is this all but the very Porters 15000 said to be in number Petition too and affirm that they cannot indure the weight of Episcopacy any longer and therefore must have redress Nay the very women by the pushing on of their hot-headed associates thought themselves so much concerned in these Church-affairs that they must petition too And these as fit persons to apprehend Chuch-government as the simple Cockney country-businesse who thought a bush hung about with black moles skins to be a black pudding tree yet these sort of Fanaticks are apt to have abominable discretions for thus the Scots some years before in their Petition against the Common Prayer Book begun it thus We Men Women and Children and Servants having considered c. Most miraculous Children Born like Adam at the top of understanding O the happiness to spring from the loins of a Covenanter who as it was said of the Lady Margaret can bring forth men instead of children Certainly these children were akin to that boy of Cracovia in Poland which had not only teeth but spake the first day of its birth but when he received Christianity lost that faculty And probably had these covenanting Children women and such like known more of Christianity then these did they had never acted so violently against Church-government Or it may be they were somewhat related to that other child born in the same City which spoke distinctly at half a year old yet nothing but mischief was by it uttered distruction to all Poland and that
Middlesex who by Order had commanded those men to keep watch but sent one of them viz. Justice Long to the Tower This favour of the Commons so animated the people that they thought sedition was then lawful and those tumults a glory to the City because they shewed its strength And therefore many thousands of them run crowding to Westminster crying out No Bishops no Bishops and having thus ranted it in the morning they come again in the afternoon armed with swords and staves and other weapons and then they domineer to the purpose running up and down Westminster inquiring for the Bishops protesting they would pull them in pieces whereupon they were desired by the Marquess of Hertford to stay in the house all night the people vowing to watch their going out and to search every Coach with Torches it being then dark that they might not escape And when the Lords sent down to the Commons that an order might be taken with the tumult and care of the Bishops lives they would do nothing in the business laughing in their sleeves that they had thus brought that great City to worship them and Villainy Yet were the Bishops some way or other cunningly stoln out of the house to the great grief of the blood thirsty Rebels that they had thus lost their sacralegiously intended sacrifice Yet what they mist then they hoped to obtain the next day and therefore away they hurry again to Westminster having Sir Richard Wisman for their Captain And being thus spurr'd on they assault the Abby where the Archbishop of York was then but the doors being strongly lock'd and barr'd and good opposition made they gain'd nothing to boast of and Sir Richard's head was so broke with a tyle thrown from the Leads that he dyed of it nor did John Lilbourn one well known depart without the loss of some rebellious bloud being with some others pelted with stones to the purpose This repulse did something discourage them yet the next day they were coming again but at White-Hall were stopt by the Train-Band and forced to return back some of them being well cudgell'd which action was highly resented by the Parliament who therefore ordered that those who stopt the Londoners coming to Parliament should be found out and examined before a Committee which Order was a good New-years-gift to the seditious Schismaticks Such is the malice of Presbytery against Bishops as if they were all inspired with the same spirit of venome and hatred that he had who long ago cryed out Short red God red shea we the Byshop And accordingly was the Bishop with a hundred men murthered And not inferiour to the former was he in London when the Tumult was railing against the Reverend and Learned Bishop Morton some crying Pull him out of his Coach others acting so violently that the Bishop believed he should never have escaped alive if a leading man amongst the rabble had not cryed out Let him go and hang himself words wicked enough and vomitted with as much malice though by Providence they saved the good Bishop's life The chief men tamper'd withal by some of the factious Members to stirr up these Tumults were Alderman Pennington and Venne two King-Tryers and Manwaring nominated one of the Kings Judges and other such like Instruments they could not want Venne pleading to the people That the worser Party was like to have the better of the good Party and used to imploy his Wife as a Mercury to run about and stir up the people And it is an old Note that Sectaries used in the first place to tamper with such soft-hearted Creatures The truth on 't is the audaciousness of these men was intolerable being like one of their Predecessors Constantinus who is branded for a lover of Tumults and then confidently to glory in such villanies Yet had his Majesty but stript himself of so much mercy as to have eas'd the Nation of the Ring-leaders of these disorders by some meritorious exemplary punishment it may be the rest of the rabble would have learn'd better manners by the Precedent of such an execution But the Kings tenderness made them more audacious so that they never left murmuring and tumultuating till they had terrified the King from White-Hall where he could neither stay with safety nor honour having his power so much scorned that when he went into London the Rabble rung nothing in his ears but Priviledges of Parliament Priviledges of Parliament Alderman Fowke one that went under the notion of one of the Kings Judges as long as the Times were accordingly but they no sooner change but then he denyes and publickly clears himself this man made a worshipful Speech to the King taking upon him to vindicate the accused Members and to give his Majesty advice concerning Fears and Jealousies Nor was this all but that City also protects the accused Members and brings them again to the Parliament-House in the greatest triumph that their wit could imagine with Guns Trumpets flying colours and such like bravado's which was not only an absolute defying but contempt of his Majesty So that Hugh Peters that scandal to the Pulpit spake no false Doctrine when he affirm'd in Alhallows Church in Lumbardstreet That If ever this Kingdom was brought into slavery this City would be the cause of it These Tumults though confest by the Common-Council of London to be the great trouble and affrightment of his Majesties good Subjects and experience also proved it yet must they not be supprest though the Lords earnestly perswaded the Commons to it because as they affirm'd They must not discourage their Friends this being a time they must make use of their Friends Mr. Pym saying God forbid that the House of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten people to obtain their just desires in such a way The favourablest construction of which words must be by Petition and yet this way was not then acted without Tumults it being then grown to a custom as their own Historian confesseth for a Petition to be backt by great multitudes to Westminster or White-Hall As that was from Kent which was brought to Westminster by about 5000. all a Horse-back and all this noyse was to thank the Lords for their acting so bravely against Bishops And with such like Presbyterian trash were most of their Papers stuft and in so plentiful a manner that if Visions had been then in frequent use that as the Priests formerly saw St. Peters Church in Rome full of Serpents so might England but London especially have been view'd cramb'd full of Devils But where the Albertus Magnus would be I know not And yet the simple people are easily drawn to fancy that Tumults are the only way to make a Nation happy though the ingenuous Tasso will assure them in the contrary Quando sia poi di sì gran moti il fine Non fabriche di Regni
and this also the Protestation and Covenant bound them to keep But how these were observed and that by the Parliament itself every Member therein having taken the two Oaths is not unknown And if these allow'd them to fight against the King or at least to kill him I shall lament my Baptism and put no more trust in my Creed When the Rump had perjured themselves by beheading their King they frame an Engagement obliging all to take it or else to have no benefit of an English-man the words of which were these I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Common-wealth of England as it is now established without a King or House of Lords This was taken by all the Officers and Souldiers of the Armies who return'd their Subscriptions in Parchment-Rolles to make the work more sure and lasting and besides them many others took it But the Army kept not long to this their Solemn Engagement for they not only rooted out the Rump but alter'd the Government again to a single Person by making Oliver Cromwell Protector whose Council by Order of his Parliament was to swear Fidelity and Allegiance to him and every Member of Parliament both then and for the future did and was to swear Failty to him thus I A. B. Do in the presence and by the Name of God Almighty promise and swear That I will be true and faithful to the Lord Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominios and Territories thereunto belonging as Chief Magistrate thereof and shall not contrive design or attempt any thing against the Person or lawful Authority of the Lord Protector This Oath in behalf of Protectorship and a single Person lasted not long for the Army having overthrown Richard and again restored the Rump another Oath was ordered to be taken in these words You shall swear That you will be true faithful and constant to this Common-wealth without a single Person Kingship or House of Lords And after all this as if one Oath signified nothing some of them took a new-found-out Oath of Abjuration against Kingship though poor Souls only to their own shame and confusion And this was the pretty invention of the hot-headed Knight Don Haslerigo one of Burges's Principles to abominate and hate all Bishops but to imbrace and love their Lands dearly but this fault is not only incident to them it being the main reason that there is such a skip-jack as an English Presbytery Such horrid Perjury as this and such abominable Villanies committed by our late Parliaments made them not a little guilty of the highest Sacriledge The Parliament-House where the Commons now sit being formerly St. Steven's Chappel built by King Steven The consideration of which might have moved honest men to have acted more religiously though these men only sate there to ruine both it and the Church It being a knack amongst our new Saints to pull down Churches for the Propagation of Religion an action of more malice than reason being as ridiculous as the wise-men of Gotham to put Saltfish into a Pond to multiply or to hedge in the Cookow and as simple as Maestro Nun̄o Divinity Professor in Valladolid who made a great deal of clutter to borrow Boots and Spurs because he was to ride in a Coach But of this no more only if those men be not perjured who swallowed these contradictory Oaths I shall allow my self not only irrational but bemoan my condition because not born one of the old Aegyptian Heathens whose Religion punish'd such sins with severe death CHAP. V. The wicked Sacriledge of the Parliament and Army THe Schoolmen and others make a threefold Sacriledge viz. either by taking away from or violating in a holy place a holy thing or secondly an holy thing from or in a place not holy or fanctified or lastly a thing not holy in or from a holy place And that there are some places and things holy I suppose few but those who are wickedly interested in Church-Lands will plead ignorance For though this or that originally be not really holy of it self yet the Dedication and Consecration of them by the Church to holy uses makes them holy to the Lord. For saith God devoted things that a man shall devote unto the Lord. every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. And these things once offer'd unto the Lord are not to be profaned And if any through ignorance sin against this He shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing Belshazzar's sin was not so much for being drunk with Wine but his sacrilegious drinking out of the Vessels of the Temple Those who rob God of his Tithes and Offerings are severely curst and an express command against exchanging or alienating those things which are holy to the Lord as the Lands of his Church How highly did God punish those who regarded not his Temple every man running unto his own House and what little impression hath this made upon England where most forsook the Church drawing themselves to illegal Conventicles and such private Houses never intended for such publick duties 'T is noted as a great aggravation of King Ahaz iniquities for destroying the holy Vessels and shutting up the doors of the Temple though amongst our late rebellious Reformers such actions were esteem'd a true token of holiness Jehoash King of Judah took all the treasure and holy things out of the Temple and sent them to Hazael King of Syria for a bribe and was recompenced by being slain by his Servants But our Innocent King was murdered by those who had fed their Brethern with Monies impiously rent from Church-Lands whereby their Villanies were doubled to make them more serviceable to their cloven-footed Master who set them on work The wisest man that ever was assureth us That it is a snare to a man who devoureth that which is holy and after vows to make enquiry Out of which words a learned Writer observes That he is guilty of death who sins against God either by alienating taking away or keeping back those things which are holy or consecrated to the Lord. Ananias and Saphiras act is held by Divines as a true pattern of Sacriledge for which they suffer'd death by a special judgement of God as Achan in the old time was stoned to death St. Paul admires that any man should be so wicked as to commit Sacriledge and our late Sectaries wonder that any should stand in aw of it Our Saviours whipping the buyers and sellers and such like out of the Temple is no small sign what respect should be held to our Churches not to be turn'd into Exchanges as is well known the once famous Cathedral of St. Pauls was For Confirmation of this many heavy examples of Gods judgements against those who have either violated his Church or alienated his Messengers Lands might be drawn
out of the Macchabees Sir Henry Spelman and other Historians but that the certainty of such punishments are unquestionable Nor did the Reverend Fathers of the Primitive Church led by the example of Gods severe threatnings and chastisements of such horrid wickedness wink at such faults as this A Reverend Asserter of the truth positively assures us that he who commits Sacriledge by taking or stealing any thing from the Church may be placed beside Judas who betray'd our Saviour And not much disconsonant from this is the opinion of the Ancient Popes Anacletus and Lucius who affirm that those who rob and abuse the Church are sacrilegious and as much guilty as if they had slain a man How lamentably do the two old Fathers Gregory Nazianzen and Theodoret complain of the violation of Churches and Church-plate and Treasure How earnestly doth Boniface dehort King Aethelbold from acting Sacriledge And How plainly doth Innocent the third tell us that he commits that sin who layeth violent hands on a Bishop Then miserable were those tumultuous wretches at Westminster by their wicked assaults but farr more those who destroy'd the Reveren'd Arch-bishop Laud one of more Integrity and Religion than Prynne Gage Burton Hornius and the rest of his railing Enemies Nor are the single Fathers only testifying the hainousness of this sin but also the whole Church And he that neglects to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen-man and a Publican represented by their Council have after much seeking God solemnly curst those who perpetrate this Iniquity In one of them it was concluded upon That if any one teach that the House of God or those who meet in it are to be despised let him be accursed And with this doth another Council also agree affirming That the sin was so intolerable that they should not only be excommunicated but that they should dye accursed And with these agree several other forraign Councils too tedious here to be related being all to the same purpose which are enough to demonstrate how the Fathers and props of the Primitive Innocent Church did look upon this sin as most abominable which might easily perswade any that dare pretend to honest principles to keep themselves from such Iniquity But because some may look upon these instances as only extranious or forraign and so not binding to the people of England Though the Laws of our Land affirm the contrary allowing and receiving as proper all such Canons Constitutions c. which are not repugnant to our Laws and the Kings Prerogative I shall shew you with as much brevity as I can what care hath been had by the State of England over the Church and her priviledges for many hundred years past King Edgar about an hundred years before the Conquest ordain'd That Churches should be imploy'd to no other use then Divine Service and that with all honour and respect every thing to be done in all decency all babling and such vain discourses to be banish'd thence with all manner of bousing and tipling Nay that a Dog shall not be permitted to enter the Church-yard or a Swine if they can possibly be kept out And many other Canons commanding reverence and respect to the Clergy and Church may be seen in the same place Besides these there is another ancient Order of the Church of England wherein it is strictly forbidden to imploy the Vessels belonging to the Church to any other use whatsoever then Divine Worship In which Canon is also set before their eyes as a warning-piece Gods judgement upon Belshazzar for carousing in the Vessels dedicated to God and the Church And formerly the Kings of England were so careful of these things that they have put heavy fines upon those who either rob'd God or his Church as may appear by the Decrees of King Aethelbert above a thousand years ago and several other English Councils as the industrious and learned Sir Henry Spelman will inform you Nor have these Sacrilegious Verlets only escapt with a fine but have been loaded with the severe and just Curse and Excommunication of the Church Of which form for example take this following pronounced by Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury assisted with other Bishops in their Pontificals against all Church-spoilers and breakers of Church-liberties By the Authority of Almighty God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost we Excommunicate Accurse and from the benefits of our holy Mother the Church we sequester all those who hereafter willingly and maliciously deprave or spoil the Church of her right And all those that by any craft or wiliness do violate break diminish or change the Church-Liberties and free Customs contain'd in the Charters of the Common Liberties c. And besides this many other instances might be given of the heavy Imprecations laid upon the sacrilegious person by authority of the Church For few there are which have been Founders or Benefactors but in their deed of gift some heavy curse or other is denounced against those who shall either alienate or take away their charity and liberality Nor hath this Sacrilegious Villany been only fined curst or excommunicated but as a reward for their wickedness have suffer'd death by Law amongst others our Chronicles assure us of five who suffer'd at one time three of them being hang'd and burnt and the other two prest to death And to them may I add the hanging of William Mandevil Baily of Abington who under pretence of holiness had rais'd a Tumult but especially against the Priests whose heads he vow'd to make as cheap as Sheep-heads which were then as some say ten a peny And how any man could think to escape without severe punishment for alienating the Church-Lands I know nor Since former Parliaments how wicked soever the latter have been have been so careful of the Priviledges and Maintenance of the Clergy that they have confirm'd them by many Statutes But these men care no more for what the Laws of the Land say then Oliver who used to call Magna Charta Magna Farta For if they had they then had never so Sacrilegiously and Trayterously violated the Statutes both of God and Man yet for all this hath this wickedness been perpetrated by those who pretended the greatest ostentation and shew of holiness as if to vilifie Gods House were the only way to do him most service It is not I suppose unknown to any in Warwick how sacrilegiously the Parliamentarians behaved themselves in St. Marie's Church and the Chappel adjoyning to the Quire beating down and defacing the ancient and curious Monuments of the Beauchamps Nor can Colchester forget how inhumanly they used the Corps of Lady Lucas and Lady Kelligrew dismembring and disjoynting their Trunks and wearing their hair in their Hats by way of Triumph Never dreaming for all their Saint-ships how God doth punish the violaters of the Dead How was
the Church in Sudly Castle at the beginning of these Wars profaned Not only the Monuments of the Chandoises spoil'd but one part of the Church converted to a Stable whilst the other was little better than a Shambles the Pulpit being made the chief stall where the meat was hung up and the communion-table served for a board to joynt upon The Inhabitants of Weden-Pinkney in Northamptonshire cannot yet forget how Mr. Losse their Minister was abused whilest he was officiating by the souldiers who rid into the Church and wounded the Minister because he would not go along with them they refusing to tell him by what authority they commanded him An action so wicked that the very heathens will rise up in judgment against them And those of Chelmsford in Essex need no remembrancer how their Church-windows having the History of Christ and the Scutchions of Bene factors painted in them were batter'd down by the instigated rabble who not content with this layd violent hands on Dr. Michelson their Parson and rent the Common Prayer Book with a great deal of joy This reformed town as my Author saith was govern'd by a Tinker two Coblers two Taylors and two Pedlers How miserably was the ancient Cathedral Church at Winchester dealt withall the famous Monuments of the Dead utterly defaced the bones of Kings Bishops c. thrown about the Church the two famous Brazen Statues of King James and King Charles erected at the entrance into the Quire pulled down the Communion-Plate books hangings cushions c. seis'd upon and made away the Church-vestments put on by the heathenish soldiers riding in that posture in derision about the streets some scornfully singing pieces of the Common-prayer whilst others tooted upon the broken pieces of Organs The stories of the old and new Testament curiously beautified with colours and cut out in carved work they utterly destroy'd against which wickednesse the Prophet David of old complained Nor did the famous Organs escape their fury being pull'd to pieces and imployed to private uses As one in York something advanced his houses if my memory fail me not with Organ and Church-wood which if he had turn'd into Looms and Shuttles had been more proper for his trade And of the brasse torn from violated Monuments might have been built a house as strong as the brazen Towers in some old Romances And after this manner was the Cathedral of Exceter served where the Commandements were defaced the Common-Prayer Book burnt the glasse-windows monuments statues and organs broke and the name of Jesus over the Communion table blotted out as superstitious Nor can some honest people of London yet forget the intolerable actions of the saint-like soldiers at St. Peter's Pauls-wharf sunday 9 Sept. 1649 who rode into the said Church with swords drawn and pistols spann'd crying out Knock the Rogues on the head shoot them kill them which was accordingly done an old woman being shot into the head and above 40 more grievously wounded and the Minister Mr. Williams hurried Prisoner to White-Hall And all this because the Common prayer establisht by the true Laws of the Land was read whence my Author observes that these Hereticks though they loudly cry up Liberty of Conscience yet will allow none to others but take all to themselves the better to cloak their villanies with pretended Religion and reformation The Cathedral of Chichester was sufficiently violated being robb'd of all her vestments and plate and not so much as a Cushion left in the pulpit the Organs and ten Commandements broke down and spoil'd the Pictures of the Kings of England and Bishops of that See defaced with the monuments seats stalls and painted walls And after the same manner was the Cathedral of Peterborough used and how Lichfield escaped is not unknown And their fury being once begun no man can expect that the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury could escape where Coll. Sandys soldidiers barbarously overthrew the Communion-Table tearing the velvet cloth from before it defacing the goodly Screen violating the monuments of the dead spoiling the organs breaking down the ancient rails and seats with the brazen Eagle which supported the Bible tearing the surplices gowns bibles and Arras hanging in the Quire representing the whole story of our Saviour wherein observing divers figures of Christ one said that here is Christ and swore that he would stab him another said here is Christ and swore that he would rip up his Bowels which they did accordingly so farre as the figures were capable and not content with this finding another Statue of our Saviour in the Frontispiece of the south-gate shot about forty shots at it tryumphing much when they had hit the head or face The ancient Cathedral of Durham can yet shew her ruines and can tell with what unspeakable tyranny the Kings poor friends were used in it And that of Carlisle deplores the want of a part of its body being ruined to be imployed in wicked Warre whilest it was intended a house of prayer and peace Nor is it unknown how sacrilegiously that excellent structure of St. Pauls in London was abused making of it an Exchange where things may be bought and sould not only contrary to the Laws of God but also of man and that not only of our own but forraign Churches as may appear by several Canons against such violations The laws of our Nation expresly forbidding any Fair or market to be held in Church-yards and by consequence not in the Church it self so that a late writer said not amisse that one might well be amazed at the genius of this age that suffered this goodly and venerable fabrick to be built about and converted into rascally ware-houses and so sordidly abused and defaced that an Argument of greater avarice malice meanesse and deformity of mind cannot possibly be exprest England is the sole spot in all the world where amongst Christians their Churches are made jakes and stables markets and tipling houses and where there were more need of Scorpions than Thongs to drive out the Publicans and Money changers And that St. Pauls by the wicked reformers was converted into a stable is not unknown to it's Neighbours which iniquities and such like occasioned the Saying That we had now a thorough Reformation in England since our horses also went to Church Yet some not content to have their horses in the Church unlesse some other villanie were done witnesse the damnable wickednesse of one Captain Beamont who at Yakesly in Huntingtonshire Anno. 1644. having pist in the Font fetched his bold horse from Mr. Finnemores stable and in derision of Baptism sprinkled it on the horse calling of him Ball Esau because he was hairy and in scorn to the Church of England crost him on the forehead and to make their villany compleat one Robert Rayner Corporal acted the part of the Minister and would also have God-Fathers one Bartly Ward but nick-named Widdow Shropshire acting the part of
Sermon of which Preachment the Kings Commissioners complained though to small purpose as appears by the Answers yet I shall willingly quit him from this knowing that neither the Parliament nor their Commissioners would be guided by his pratling and being fully satisfied that the Parliament never really intended a Peace unless they had thereby reduced the King to a Royal slave or worse and have got liberty for themselves to have acted Treason and Tyrannized over the poor Nation cum Privilegio and this was the design of all their counterfeited Treaties Yet I must needs acknowledge that Mr. Love did what in him lay to dissolve the Peace as is palpable from the wicked and malicious assertions and admonitions laid down by him in that Sermon concluding it Whiles our Enemies go on in their wicked practises and whiles we keep our Principles we may assoon make Fire and Water to agree and I had almost said reconcile Heaven and Hell as their spirits and ours either they must grow better or we must grow worse before it is possible for us to agree Words denoting such a malignant principle that I am willing to quit those whom he and the rest of his gang are pleas'd to call so by putting the Saddle on the right Horse and attributing the Epithet to himself I might here also intimate some of his sacrilegious vapours by discoursing upon his extravagant reproaches thrown upon the Church of England which I am confident might lawfully defend herself by force of Arms against the impious actions of her spurious Antagonists if that be true which Mr. Love affirms viz. That it is an hurtful Opinion to imagine that the people might not do so against their Soveraign I shall conclude with our supposed Martyr by asserting that he who had the ignorance blind-zeal and impudence to tearm Episcopacy and the Common-Prayer-Book the two Plague-sores several times in one Preachment had need have set-Forms of Sermons enjoyned him as well as Prayers And the Presbyterian House of Commons who cleared Mr. Love from any slander for pratling such stuff did plainly demonstrate what little desire they had for Peace and thereby intimated their abominable hypocrisie to the whole world since the Sermon pardon the giving it so good a Title seemed more like an Harangue to encourage the People to a bloudy slaughter and it is not unknown how oft he mentioned the necessity of drawing bloud than the imbracement of a happy and setled Peace Having thus sufficiently proved Mr. Love to be no such Martyr as his Fraternity flab out though much more might be enlarged upon this Subject and upon every discourse fly to him as a sufficient Asylum where they think they may handsomly secure a Reputation I shall now say something to another Objection whose main force lyeth upon the credit of the Covenant and so may with its Dam sleep with ignominy rather than be held forth as a badge of honesty In this plea they boast much in their taking the Covenant in which there is one clause for the Preservation of the Kings Person to which League one of their Chieftains brags that above 600. Ministers did subscribe To which I shall answer that if he glory in the number 600. is but a poor Bed-role in respect of 10000. for about so many Ministers are there in England But again the taking of this Covenant is no consequence of a good and loyal Subject but rather the contrary being against the Kings express command But again It is not the taking of an Oath provided it be a lawful one but the keeping of it that may demand commendations And when Subjects break Allegiance at pleasure as they are a trouble to their King and Countrey so are they wicked before God and so merit no commendation no good being entended either to King or Countrey by this knack of Perjury What benefit was it for Ataulphus Sigericus Thurismundus Theudesilus Agila and Luyba those Goths in Spain or for Friola and Sancho Kings of Leon to confide in their people and expect obedience since they were slain by their own Subjects What advantage was it for St. Wenceslaw Jaromirus and Wenceslaw the V. Dukes and Kings of Bohemia or for Gotrick and the three Eric's of Denmark to trust to the obedience which Law and Nature might assure them of since contrary to all fidelity they were murdered by their own People Those of Swedland cannot handsomly boast of their Loyalty by killing Ingevallus Eric Aorsel or Stanchil and Swercherus their Kings Nor could the Queen of the same Countrey expect Commendations by affirming her subjection and love to her King and Husband Ingemarus since she broak both by hanging him in a Gold Chain as Queen Fredegunde did hers by procuring the murder of Chilperic King of France as Fergusius III. and Malvinus Kings of Scotland were thus assassinated by their Queens Will any man quit the Treasons of Zedechias for saying that he was sworn Physitian to the Emperour or pardon Jaques Clement Jean Chastel or Francis Ravaillac if they should say Their Religion obliged them to obedience since the first poysoned Charles le Chauve the second stabbed Henry III. of France Chastel assaulted Henry IV. and the last man murdered him Would it not heighten the wickedness of Dowall the three Donalds and the two Fidlers by pleading that they were Subjects when they were so farr from observing their Allegiance that they impiously murdered their Soveraigns Nothatus Ethodius I. Findocus Fethelmacus Conranus or Goranus and Duffus Kings of Scotland and to these I may add the Assassinators of James I. of the same Nation But to return home passing by the disobedience shewn to some of our own Kings of former ages will it any way diminish the crimes of the Presbyterian Ministry with the rest of the Schismaticks if they should plead that they formerly subscribed the Articles of the Church of England but especially the 36. Canon when they took their Degrees as appears by their own hands in the two Universities a Catalogue of which might be produced to the eternal ignomy and perjury of the Brotherhood since they violently broke all their promises to the destruction of our Church and State Can any quit the long Parliament of Hypocrisie when they affirm that they all took the Protestation for the Kings Preservation and therefore wonder'd that he should think much at their actions though they were in actual rebellion against him Would it not be a pretty plea for the Kings Enemies to say Alas How could we intend any harm against him since we all took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Or can any man give any credit to the wicked Long-Parliament when they affirm that they never rejected the Common-Prayer-Book nor do intend only to alter it When the enmity of those then in the Houses against that Book both before and after is well enough known But truth in those dayes was not used to be spoken within those walls
for the distruction of our Church But if 8000 Fiends could no way endamage seven poor Fryers I hope nor they nor Presbytery will ever be able to do any mischief to the Church of England Yet as a descant upon the Objection of those who plead their activity in Sir George Booth's businesse I shall propose one Query Whether if the Presbyterians had supposed that our present King would have been so opposite to their Interests as his glorious Father was They would any way have bestirr'd themselves for his Restauration Here I would not be understood of those who at the beginning of these troubles had the misfortune to be of that Faction yet since turn'd to the true Church with an acknowledgment of their former errours and this through conscience not preferment the once-flourishing Church being then in a persecution But I intend those whose frantick zeal yet binds them up to Schism as well as those who are stuft with Presbytery in Sr. George's rising and since of whom I believe repentance is not yet impossible because I read that the Devill himself hath humbly acknowledged and confessed his offences But to the Query if they would not have endeavour'd his restorement being so qualified then must they needs have a large stock of confidence to demand thanks where none is due but rather an halter for their assistance in the businesse But if they did desire the King again and so qualyfied then must they either declare that they have been wicked Villains and Traytors against the late King or that this present King was help'd in by them more through their goodness to him than his own desert For my part I am apt to give credit to the negative really thinking that if they had had as bad thoughts of this King as of his Father who yet was better than the best of his enemies they would have made it their businesse to have kept him out though under favour 't is as much Treason to depose a Tyrant as a good King And I am drawn to be of this perswasion by these following Motives That they looked upon his Fathers non-complyance with their peevish humours as a monstrous wickednesse is a truth not hitherto denyed Wherefore else should Mr. Love pray that God would redeem him i. e. Charles II. from the iniquity of his Fathers house And not half an houre before his own death to be so farre out of Charity with the oppressed and Martyr'd King as to bluster out For my part I have opposed the Tyranny of a King And with this Love great in the eyes of the Presbyterians doth the grand Patron of that Sect in Scotland Mr. Robert Dowglas agree who had the impudence pardon that low expression for language cannot reach the wickednesse of his pretended Sermon to tell the King to his face several times of the sins of his Father and Family Of which I shall give you some taste and that in his own words It is earnestly wished that our Kings heart may be tender and be truly humbled before the Lord for the sins of his Fathers house And for the many evils that are upon that Family Again Our late King did build much mischief to Religion all the days of his Life And again Sir there is too much iniquity upon the throne of your predecessors who framed mischief by a Law such Laws as have been destructive to Religion and grievous to the Lords people And again I may say freely that a chief cause of the judgment upon the Kings house hath been the Grand-fathers breach of Covenant with God and the Fathers following his steps in opposing the work of God and the Kirk within this Realm And since he holds the King to be so wicked what must be done with him himself doth intimate in these following words This may serve to justifie the proceedings of this Kingdome against the late King who in an hostile way set himself to overthrow Religion Parliament Laws and Liberties If Elisha call'd judgment from Heaven upon little Children for calling of him bald-head What punishment do these Boute-feus deserve for throwing such false and wicked slanders and reproaches upon a just and good King If the Romans according to their custome broak the legs of the wicked accuser of Apollonius because he could not prove his words what tortures do those merit who so falsly revile their innocent Ruler And if Nerva would have servants slain as ungrateful wretches who presumed to accuse their Masters What death would he inflict upon those who had the impudence thus to vilifie their Soveraign But it was not Dowglas alone who thought the late Rebellion against the King to be lawful and commendable but others of them and those the chief too nor indeed do I remember that any Presbyterian denyed it Amongst its chief assertors thus doth Love declare himself I did it is true oppose in my place and calling the forces of the late King and were he alive again and should I live longer the cause being as then it was I should oppose him longer And of the same Rebellious humour is the much talked of Baxter who several times professeth that if he had not been on the Parliaments party he had been guilty of High Treason against the Higher power which his hasty zeal took to be the Parliament But I shall leave him to the meditation of the Rebels plea which if he do but seriously consider I am confident he may have a sight of his sins against which conversion I believe the Brethren pray daily And of this opinion concerning the lawfulnesse of the Warre was old Hall of Kings-Norton canting and recanting Jenkins of London mad-pated Crofton railing Vicars with the rest of the covenanting Diegoes It being one Article in their League and Creed that all Malignants that divided the King from his people c. contrary to the League and Covenant be brought to publick Tryal and receive condigne punishment and by whom this is meant needs no Oedipus to unriddle So that if the King offer to protect these eye-sores of theirs they think themselves obliged by their Oath to take Armes to punish the Kings best subjects according to their pretty oath And yet must these mens actions be held ever for the best as if they had taken infallibility from the Papall Chair Which puts me in mind of a Quaker who not long since through ignorance led a friend of mine above 4 miles out of his way going to Oxford and when he perceived his error greatly cryed up the good providence of God which had brought them that way because as he said for ought he knew they might have been rob'd had they gone the right road And how many of the Puritans have hug'd themselves because they have been in a wrong way against King and Church may appear by many of their Thanks-giving Sermons and speeches And whether these men can be call'd good
and at last fairly took the Old Knave by the beard giving him a swing from the seat of Correction to the utter discredit and defilement of his short Lecturing Coat and Sister-visiting black and white Caps for Two Caps he had and turns up that within You 'd think he wore a black Pot tip't with Tin These three younkers being now on Cock-horse so tryumph'd over their old wicked Parent that he durst scarce say his soul was his own not allowing him his will in any thing and by a just judgment of God paying him home in his own coyn as the learned and judicious Patron of our Church observeth For as this old jugler had impudently quiped the Reverend Church of England with what command or example have you for kneeling at the Communion for wearing a Surplice c for Lord Bishops for a penned Liturgy for keeping Holy-days c. So these three Mad-caps thus retort upon their amazed Father where are your Lay-Presbyters your Classes c. to be found in Scripture where your Steeple-houses your National-Church your Tithes and Mortuaries your Infant-sprinklings nay where your Meeter-Psalms your two Sacraments your observing a weekly Sabbath Shew us say they a Command or Example for them in Scripture Thus did these three hopefalls retort tearming all the old Knaves actions selvish worldly wicked and onely of humany institution which proceeding from his own Brats so perplext old Father Schism that being naturally of a cholerick temper he could no longer endure the injuries and ingratefulness of these three Hot-spurs who received life and nourishment under the shadow of his fiery zeal but that which touch'd his heart most was their plucking from him all Rule and Authority so that his credit could scarce obtain a beast to trott it to the next Lecture These affronts sufficient to make the Father run horn-mad and the multitude of Conventicles may allow some Presbyterian Cockolds or else what would the Sister-hood do prompts him to a resolution to free himself from the lash of these his three boys who out strip'd him in new inlighten'd zeal and being thus grown mad with dispair and willing to submit to any thing so he might be freed from this yoak and having consulted his pillow with aboundance of time and leasure he saw no way to quel these his insulting Children but the restauration of his Majesty And because a late repentance is better then none he hoped by thus working his own benefit to obtain his own pardon knowing the King's mercy to be as great as the Presbyterian wickedness Thus for his own advantage to obtain the return of his Majesty he procured a Parliament which to the joy of the Nation recall'd the King yet not according to the Presbyterian hopes who expected not a free but conditional return The truth of this Application must be left to the understanding Reader who shall be minded of the Spanish Proverb Hagase el milagro y hagalo Mahoma Let us but have our desires though the Devil or Turk be our instruments or Assistants And with this I am pretty confident the Brethren did not disagree is appearing by their long compliance yet hatred to be kept under that they did not care so be that they were but relieved from the Independent slavery though it were done by him whom they always hated and was the son of him who they always held for the Common enemy and whose friends they had solemnly sworn to punish and ruin What good wishes these people had for the King was meerly for their own ends as I am apt to credit when I consider their high complying with Richard one of their Chieftains viz. Master Baxter applying himself several times to him by way of a faithful subject and advising him how to behave himself the better to perpetuate his usurp'd authority and seem'd very discontented at his deposing And though many of them disliked Oliver yet if you do but inquire of Doctor Manton for so he is now for which he may thank the negligence of the Proposer I suppose he can inform you who it was that when Oliver was re-made Protectour 1657. pray'd so heartily for him in Westminster Hall And for the Saints of the Committee of Safety you would bless your self to see how the Brotherhood of Leicestershire accosted them humbling themselves under the protection of those Lords of Wallingford house declaring their utter dislike to the intentions of those who in Sir George Booths business stir'd for the King Nay should I say that some of this faction were a part of the very Rump it self I supposed the Brethren would be puzzel'd to prove the Contrary Thus like Diogenes's Archer do they hit every where but the right mark and this through an innated spirit of wickedness and inconstancy which puts me in mind of a story Robert King of Naples having desired Giotto then famous in Italy to paint him out his Kingdome drew an Asse with a Saddle on his back and smelling to another new Saddle and upon each Saddle a Crown and a Scepter the King demanding what he meant thereby he replyed Such is your Kingdome and Subjects for they desire new Lords daily I am confident that the best Hieroglyphick of a Time-server would be a fat-beneficed Presbyterian yet did that Faction but once grow powerful they would be like Giotto's Asse still smelling after new Governments and Neapolitan Courser in Boccalini always ready to cast his Rider So that if one should ask many of them Where was the binding force of their Covenant in Oliver's Richard's the Rump's and the Committee of Safety 's time there would be but a shuffling Answer return'd Thus I suppose the Query is sufficiently satisfied information being particularly given of their Opinions and Actions all running cross-grain'd to the King and his Interest and therefore I suppose little beneficial to his restauration A tast of which you may see in these few instances I. The late war against the King was lawful and commendable II. It is lawful for Subjects to fight against their King and so the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy of small validity III. The King is not above the two Houses of Parliament and so they not subject to him IV. They are bound to oppose all Arch-bishops Bishops Deans Prebends c. having exactly sworn against them in the Covenant and so against Church-government appointed by the King and the Laws V. They are by the same Oath obliged to bring to condign Punishment all Malignants that is all those who assisted the King and were sufferers with him here or beyond-sea so that had these men been such a main stake in the King's restauration they would according to their Oaths and Cruelty either have stopt the King's friends as the Scots did from returning with him or have proceeded against them as Malefactors and Malignants and so have butcher'd them out of this world as they formerly did with the Arch-bishop of Canterbury Sir
Army and all this forsooth against the Cause of God the souls of his true Saints the peace of the Directory and the happiness of the Elect the true children of Grace the poor people gaping all the while really believing no Devils to be in the World but Cavaliers not a word proceeding from the lying Throats of these Pulpiteers but fill'd the soft-brain'd Auditors with more indignation against the King and his Cause than our Women are against Popery at the sight of a flaming Picture in the Book of Martyrs All their prittle-prattle was to shew the goodness of their Cause and I wish some of the Presbyterian Churches beyond-Seas were not too much complying in this the abominable wickedness of the Kings Party and to perswade their friends never to make peace with such Malignants Of which I shall afford you two or three Instances Mr. Herbert Palmer of Ashwell in Hertfordshire made a long-winded tittle-tattle stuft with Rebellion and Sedition before the House of Commons at the latter end of which he finds out a pretty device to have all the Cavaliers throats cut and all this to be justified by Inspiration from God Almighty I humbly entreat you to ask Gods Consent first whether he will spare such or such or pardon them and if he will not you must not Probably this Politician was very well acquainted with the subtle Robber of old time who made the Countrey-Parson pray for Riches and upon that account took all his Gold from him Or it may be Oliver used this Art to murder his Majesty for we are told that he said he pray'd to know Gods mind in that case and he took the Answer Affirmatively Thus our Red-Coats of Wallingford-House after they had concluded upon any mischief would for a blind to the People appoint a Day of Humiliation to enquire of God what should be done though they were before resolved that all the Prayers in the World should not alter their fore-going Determination Whence it came to be a vulgar and true Observation That whensoever those Saints had a Fast they were then broaching some mischief or other To be short the greatest wickedness in the World may be perpetrated by this Rule of Palmer's and so Religion prove but a piece of Policy yet was it very fitting for the Parliaments actions which I suppose was the cause that they ordered Sir Oliver Luke to give him thanks for his Seditious Preachment and to desire him to print it the better to infect the People Another of these Bawlers seldom thought of a Bishop or the Kings Party but with Indignation and this must be Mr. Thomas Coleman formerly of Blyton in Lincolnshire but since by the Schismaticks was put into St. Peters Cornhill London from which they had not only wickedly Sequestred Dr. Fairfax but Plunder'd and Imprison'd him in Ely-House and in the Ships and turn'd his Wife and Children out of doors But to return to Coleman who in one of his Sermons thus rants against the Church of England and violently perswades the Parliament to execute severe justice upon her Children Our Cathedrals in great part of late become the Nest of Idle Drones and the roosting place of Superstitious Formallists Our Formallists and Government in the whole Hierarchy is become a fretting Gangrene a spreading Leprosie an unsupportable Tyranny Up with it up with it to the bottom Root and Branch Hip and Thigh Destroy these Amalekites and let their place be no more found Throw away the Rubs out with the Lords Enemies and the Lands Vex the Midianites abolish the Amalekites or else they will vex you with their wiles as they have done heretofore Let Popery find no favour because it is Treasonable Prelacy as little because it is Tyrannical This was rare stuff for the Blades at Westminster and pleas'd admirable well and therefore they strait order Sir Edward Aiscough and Sir John Wray to give the Zealot hearty thanks for his good directions and to desire him by all means to print it which accordingly he did and in requital of thanks Dedicates his fury to their Worships where he fals to his old Trade again very pretily by his Art of Rhetorick calling the Kings Army Partakers with Atheists Infidels Papists c. That it hath Popish Masses superstitious Worships cold Forms in the Service of God That it is stored with Popish Priests That it Persecutes Godly Ministers painful Preachers That it doth harbour all our drunken debauched Clergy our Idle Non-Preaching dumb Ministry our Ambitious Tyrannical Prelacy and the sinck and dregs of the Times the receptacle of the filth of the present and former Ages our spiritual-Courts-men This mans rayling pleas'd the Commons so well that they could think no man fitter to prate when their wicked League and Covenant was taken than He which accordingly he did to the purpose tickling their filthy Ears with the same strains of malice Impudently affirming That none but an Atheist Papist Oppressour Rebel or the guilty desperate Cavaliers and light and empty men can refuse the Covenant and so concludes with a reflection upon the Kings Party as Idolaters And for this stuff Colonel Long must be Ordered to give him thanks from the House Another of these Parliamentary Furies Mr. Arth. Salwey of Severnstoak in Worcestershire thus desires them to destroy the Kings friends Follow God I beseech you in the speedy and impartial Execution of Justice The hearts of your true Friends are grieved that so many Delinquents are in Prison and yet but very few of them brought to their Tryal When Elijah had done execution upon Baals Priests there was rain enough 1 King 18. 40 41. Who knows how soon the Lord may bless us with an holy Peace and blessed Reformation if Justice were more fully executed And this man must have thanks sent him too from the Parliament by Mr. Rouse Another of their Thumpers viz. Mr. George Walker of St. John Evangelists London thus stirs up execution against Malignants Cut them down with the Sword of Justice Root them out and consume them as with fire that no root may spring again let their mischief fall upon their own Heads that the land may be eas'd which hath a long time and doth still groan under them as an heavy curse And was not this a fit Sermon to be preacht just the day before the Treaty at Uxbridge and then to be printed too by the Presbyterian Authority Could these men desire peace that thus countenanced men to rail against their betters with whom they were to Treat But this is short of Mr. Love's malice let one of their witts sing out his Commendations as he pleaseth he at the very day of the Treaty must needs thunder it at the place it self perswading the people by all means not to treat with the Royalists as I have in part before insisted on but besides that which I told you then he could thus also animate his friends
summoned to the effect aforesaid presume to take in hand to decline the judgement of his Highness his Heirs and Successors or their Council in the Premises under the pain of Treason To make this way of Appealing more plausible to the People they are very willing to make a separation betwixt the two words Sacred and Majesty sticking close to Calvin who calls it blasphemy to yield the King a Supremacy in the Church under God and Christ to which purpose thus the Zealot Henderson delivered himself to his Majesty Such an Headship as the Kings of England have claimed and such a Supremacy as the Houses of Parliament crave with Appeals from the Supream Ecclesiastical Judicature to them as set over the Church in the same line of subordination I do utterly disclaim upon such reasons as give my self satisfaction And to this purpose against the Kings Supremacy in Church affairs he ranted before the House of Lords the year before Yet when he was Moderator of the Assembly of Glasgow in one of his Speeches there he attributed very much to the Kings Power in Ecclesiastical Causes and Assemblies and at last affirm'd That the King was Universal Bishop over all his Kingdom A Copy of this Speech his Majesties Commissioner James then Marquess of Hamilton used means to obtain but could not get it presently because those expressions had offended the Covenanters yet at last a Copy was sent him but with all those Expressions left out which were spoak in favour of the Kings Power in Ecclesiastical businesses by which one may guess at their jugling Another of these Brethren is very furious against the giving these Titles to the King and must call it Blasphemy too But this man is not only against this but also against the attributing any such Epithets as Vertuous Pious or Religious to our Superiours as if he had borrowed his breeding from Buchanan who rants against those who give the Titles of Majesty Lordship Illustrious c. And these two also agree very well together in slaundering those who will not fight against their Kings since they say Dame Nature knows no such distinction And this is agreeable to our Long-Parliament-Worthies who gravely declared it a fit Foundation for all Tyranny and a most distructive Maxim or Principle for the King to avow That He oweth an account of his Actions to none but God alone And that the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any Law And this power over the King Henderson doth not only give to the Representatives but also to the People over both them and the King especially in Reforming and so by consequence must make them also judges too and then shall we have a mad world my Masters If the Prince or Supreme Magistrate be unwilling then may the Inferiour Magistrate and the People being before rightly inform'd in the grounds of Religion lawfully reform within their own sphere and if the light shine upon all or the major part they may after all other means assayed make a publick Reformation And a few lines after thus to the same purpose It is not to be deny'd but the prime Reforming Power is in Kings and Princes quibus deficientibus it comes to the Inferior Magistrate quibus deficientibus it descends to the body of the People And this you must suppose to be a pretty Rule to make the People believe that no Religion can be true but the Presbyterians and the Covenanters and so a necessity of Reforming to their Directory For if not how will they answer the common Quaere How came they then or how durst they alter the Church Government against his Majesties express command Well necessity or no necessity the English Presbyterians will swear that they have power to Reforme and in that the King signifyeth but a Cypher For Could not they null Episcopacy against the Kings command Could not they devide their Lands amongst themselves against the Kings command Could not they Ruine the Common-Prayer-Book against the Kings command Could not they call a Pye-bald Assembly against his command Could they not swear a wicked Covenant against his command Could they not set up the Directory against his command Could they not set up Classical Provincial and National Assemblies against his command Could they not Murther and begger an Archbishop and others of the Orthodox and Loyal Clergy against his command Could they not destroy Cathedrals against his command Could they not make Perjury lawful against his command Could they not commit Sacriledge against his command Could they not turn the Kings Loyal Subjects out of both the Universities against his command Could they not make Schismatical Presbyterian Ordinations against his command Could they not make what they pleased to be Idolatry and Superstition against his command Could they not make Treason a Rule of Christianity against his command Nay could they not do any thing but make a man a woman and a woman a man according to Pembrokes oath and judgement For those who vote Loyalty Treason and cloak Rebellion with high Commendations and Religion will fancy a Legal Power into themselves obliging them to oppose their Prince And puft on with this perswasion a Puritanical Committee of our long Parliament order this to be Printed and Dispers'd in behalf of their Associates They have only used that Legal Power which was in them for the punishment of Delinquents and for the prevention and restraint of the Power of Tyranny of all which they are the legal Judges and all the Subjects of this Kingdom are bound by the Laws to obey them herein And this Opinion might be the reason why Prinne and his Fellows were so angry against that Murther'd Archbishop Laud for not suffering such seditious expressions as these to be used to the people in their Sermons It is lawful for the Inferior and subordinate Magistrates to defend the Church and Common-wealth when the Supreme Magistrate degenerates and falleth into Tyranny or Idolatry for Kings are subject to their Common-wealths And that Subjects may lawfully take up Armes against their Kings command and in their Sermons revile the Kings Court with Pride Avarice Idleness Flattery Folly Wickedness and such like Yet had a man in London but hinted half so much against the Parliament he had been claw'd for it to the purpose But it is not the English Puritans alone that would thus trample upon their Kings Nay the Scots too will be as wicked as them or else they could not handsomely call one another Brethren And this is especially practised by their zealous Hinters who deny the King to have no more to do in or with their Assemblies than the meanest Cobler amongst them whilst they thus Impudently told his Majesties Commissioner That if the King himself were amongst them he should have but one voice and that not Negative neither nor more affirmative than any one Member of their Assembly had Nor
they are all Saints thereby inticing the Countrey to choose them for their future Representees that under their protection the Non-conformists might have more work to do or else by having a good opinion of them may stick close to them upon all occasions and pitty that the Cause these good men undertook had no better success but the discredit and ignominy of the Contrivers not forgetting the large sums of Money and Lands they cheated the King Church and State of If Rebellion Murther Sacriledge Schism Perjury Knavery and such like sins can make a man wicked and 't is well known where all these and many more vices were met together the Epithet will keep its ground secure against the fume and range of all the Schismaticks in England or Scotland Yet even since the King came in have they had many good wishes not unknown to the whole Nation and therefore I shall give you but one Instance and that of one old enough to know what they were but that he spake through a Covenanting Interest and these commendations of them are as they were 1644. when all those who were Loyal and good had left the House and followed his Majesty his Encomium is this A House full and free and these the best that ever England had for Piety towards God and Loyalty to their Soveraign A Parliament of Lords and Commons so pious so prudent so loyal and faithful to God and their King These Commendations are but like Libanius the Sophister's applauding and praising Julian the Apostate who amongst the many moral vertues that there are might possibly have a tincture of some What goodness these people had I know not yet can I guess at a large portion of their mischief Only one shall be mine instance viz. That they were the first Contrivers of these Wars they consulted the Rebellion they broach'd it and gave it life by their Votes and Declarations whereby they cunningly inveagled others into their sin yet being degrees in wickedness the worst of their Souldiers was not the tenth part so bad as these Members the first being knavishly inticed to act the others Command they contriv'd and plotted the Rebellion and drol'd on the Countrey to be obedient to their Orders under the specious shew of Reformation and Religion knowing the consequence of the old Rule never fails Quoties vis fallere Plebem Finge Deum They cannot be good Subjects to King Charles I. that commend his Enemies and they deserve no thanks from King Charles II. who praise those who did and voted and declared it lawful to fight against his Father thereby proclaiming to the World the legality of acting the same if they could get occasion against the Son 'T is needless to tell you how they violently made it their business to clip and pare the Kings Prerogative and Authority and amongst many other frivolously plucking away the Militia allowing the King through civility to carry a Sword by his side because he 's a Gentleman but not upon any occasion whatsoever to draw it that being forsooth the office and priviledge of their hands by which hanging a lock at his hilt but they keeping the Keys using him as they used their children giving them Gold in a Box which they must not finger only please themselves with its ratling by which means they will make themselves a Negative Vote in Peace and Warr. And after this fashion did their Covenanting Brethren of Scotland abuse their King taking all power of Arms into their own hands their reason being because The Kings Castles and Strengths are the Keys of the Realm and they knew no reason to the contrary but that they might keep their own Keys Thus would they make their King meerly Titular and a perfect Slave and Captive to their Wills Not unlike Sancho Panco who for sport-sake was made Governour of the Islands but had no Authority nay scarce liberty to eat his Victuals The rustick Biscayners cry up their priviledges so much that the King of Spain dare not go amongst them but well armed and guarded And good reason for they think their King to have so small Authority over them that he must bare one of his legs when he cometh upon the Frontiers of their Countrey and though they meet him as their King with what bravery they can and proffer him some few Maravidi's small brass-pieces each of them about the value of a Scotch Turner or Bodel somewhat less than our English farthing in a Leathern Bag hung at the end of a Lance yet for all this shew of great kindness they fairly tell him that he must not take them This Nation hath long enough felt the smart of crying Priviledges and Majesty it self hath been dar'd by that specious pretence Though they give him the Name of King yet they take all its Attributes to themselves though they call themselves Subjects yet like the Scots they do not Petition but with their Swords in their hands at the first denyal sounding an Alarum and at the second run themselves so farr into Rebellion that if something be not granted them they will destroy all As if they had swallowed up their Obedience with that ravenous Whirl-pool in Pentland Frith in the North of Scotland with which if either Ship or Boat shall happen to encroach they must quickly either throw over something into it as a Barrel a piece of Timber and such like or that fatal Euripus shall then suddenly become their swallowing Sepulcher Thus the Presbyterians make their Obedience a Bargain and if Interest out-bid the King He need not trouble himself by being a customer to these men who allow him no power but what they suppose he derived from them and which they can take to themselves again when they see occasion or please CHAP. IV. That the Presbyterians are but Conditional Subjects no longer obedient to their King or acknowledging Him than he serves their turn and is subservient to their fancies A Conditional Subject is the worst Animal in a Kingdom being the first Creature that shrinks from Government and always ready to destroy the Peace of the Nation for which and other things he will never want a reason grateful to the Rabble as long as he can cry out that his Subjection is but Conditional and the Magistrate having broke his part he 's no more oblig'd to his duty And this the people believing to be each mans case will make themselves Judges by which means the Authority of a single Person will ever be out-voted or over-worded That the King of England is Supream is certain That the greatest wickedness in the World cannot un-King him is as true The Law of the Land obligeth us to submit and makes it Treason to resist and the Scriptures bids us Obey but never Rebel for Conscience sake Every man is born with the Oath of Allegiance and is as much obliged to its observance before as after his taking it Though the Prince were Turk or
O the height of Puritanical Malice were I a Caesar Vaninus I would call Presbytery the Father of Lies His enemies the Independents are farr more Civil in this than these Brethren of which I shall give you one or two Instances enough to cleer his Majesty from this Presbyterian slander John Cook then of Grays-Inn Barrister his Immortal foe when it was his purpose to cast all the filth that he could upon the King with an intention to make him odious to Eternity yet even then doth cleer him of this I do not think that the King was a Papist or that he design'd to introduce the Popes Supremacy in spiritual things into this Kingdome Nor that I think he did believe Transubstantiation God forbid I should wrong the dead And another of his profest Enemies viz. Will. Lilly thus vindicates the King He was no Papist or favour'd any of their Tenents And because an Enemies Commendation is held Authentick you shall see what a good King he was according to their own Opinions Of him thus saith the aforesaid Cook who yet demanded Justice against him for which Treason he since felt the Law He was well known to be a great student in his younger dayes He had more learning and dexterity in State affairs undoubtedly then all the Kings in Christendome And thus farther saith Lilly He was an excellent Horsman would shoot well at a Mark had singular skill in Limming and Pictures A good Mathematitian not unskilful in Musick well read in Divinity excellently in History and no lesse in the Laws and Statutes of this Nation He had a quick and sharp Conception would write his mind singularly well and in good language and style only he loved long Parentheses He would apprehend a matter in Difference betwixt party and party with great readiness and methodize a long matter and Contract it in few lines Insomuch that I have heard Sir Robert Holdorne oft say He had a quicker Conception and would sooner understand a Case in Law or with more sharpness drive the matter unto a head than any of his Privy Council Insomuch that when the King was not at the Council Table Sir Robert never car'd to be there He had also amongst others his special gifts the gift of patience Insomuch that if any offer'd him a long Discourse or Speech he would with much Patience and without any Interruption or Distaste hear their Story or Speech out at length He did not much court the Ladies He had exquisite judgement by the Eye and Physiognomy to discover the virtuous from the wanton he honour'd the virtuous He was nothing at all given to Luxury was extreme sober both in his Food and Apparel He could argue Logically and frame his Arguments Artificially If these qualities confest by an enemy do not make a good man Jack Presbyter can have small hopes to be so who hated him because he was too vertuous for them as the Devill envies honesty Amongst all the Plots and Designes these men have to overthrow the Church of England 't is none of the least to ruine its Glory by making it contemptible by Poverty For which purpose they endeavour to get all the Bishops Lands alienated or sold Dr. Burgess being their Champion and they will never question Law as long as Prynne hath any malice who toils and writes what he can to get the Lands confirm'd as they were sold by his Associates those Sacrilegious of the wicked long Parliament who impiously sold the Church Revenues to maintain their Rebellion against God and their King Had they been the Doners they might have had a more plausible Plea for their Alienation but since these Lands were given by other Pious and Noble Benefactors it shews their Devillish Avarice and Malice to meddle with or pocket up that which they had no claime to nor power over being but a Rump of two Houses actually in Rebellion against their King and so had no more Authority to conclude and act in such an high Concern without and against the consent of the King than the Pope hath to give away this or that Kingdom upon his form of Excommunication to any of his Favorites that can win it and wear it or poor Simnell had to the Crown in King Henry VII time Yet to have this wickedness confirm'd Burges and his Associats will offer severall hundred thousand pounds to his Majesty by way of gift thereby to hook him in to be pertakers of their sins a Presbyterian being like a Common Drunkard who is not satisfy'd with his own Excess but makes it his business that all his Neighbours too should be partners with him in his wickedness and debauchery But his Majesty is too Sacred and good to be toll'd away by such Miscreants it shews their abominable Impudence to imagine to perswade the Son to be an Enemy to the Church whose Father was a Glorious Martyr for it as if they would shew him a better way and Rule than the Example and Footsteps of his holy Parent To me it seems a strange piece of malicious Ignorance in them who will allow some knavish Lawyers to get by their prating some ignorant Physitians by distruction some cousening Trades-men by false dealing and some murthering Souldiers by plundring for some such there are in all faculties though their callings be lawfull and commendable two three or four Thousand pounds a year and yet think it an hard case or unlawful for a Reverend Bishop or Clergy-man who hath spent many years and all his own means in hard study and is held the most honourable preferment as much as the Soul excels the Body to possess that which other good charitable men have freely given him since such a deed of gift is so farr from endamaging our Presbyterian Grumblers that it is a main encouragement for their studies and preferment If they say as I have heard that these Benefactorships were given not to the men but the Diocesses by this retort they malepertly reflect upon the Kings discretion whose wisdom thinks such men fit for and capable of such Places But by this they may as well reason against Colledge and Hospital Lands and the Commons belonging to Corporations and when they have once taken these away they will eat up one another through avarice But enough of this only there was some ground for the observation that the only way to preferment was to be a busling Non-conformist Besides these and others they have another way to shake the foundation of Episcopacy and the peace of the Nation They know full well that nothing seems more formidable to the vulgar then a story of Gods strange judgments upon this or that And if they question the verball Narrative shew it them in print and 't is sufficient they having not confidence enough to deny that which cometh from the Press The story of a Spirit will fright these people out of their little witts and the relation of such a terrible
and the Switzers for a Cart-load of Sheeps-skins And if the Antipathy betwixt the French and Spaniards began upon so slight occasion if you believe mine Authours as because the French were not so gloriously clad as the other at an Interview betwixt Lewis XI and the King of Castile If all this trouble and bloudshed for such trifles why may they not stand stoutly to their Covenant But if they be so stiff for that Oath against all Laws and honesty why may not the Orthodox stick to their King Laws and Church-government by Bishops since the swarving from these things is High-Treason and Schism But enough of this perjur'd and condemn'd Traytor since the judicious Reasons of the famous University of Oxford and that miracle of Learning too untimely snatch'd away the Reverend Dr. Langbaine have put it and its part-takers to a perpetual confusion against whom though I think none of them ever yet durst undertake the Doctor nor could the other be answer'd but with Treason of which enquire more of Mr. Crofton their scribling will not be unlike the Pigmies fighting against Hercules and their crying Victoria to as little purpose as Falstaf's vapouring of his own valour at Gads-Hill Yet since they stand so stifly to the literal sense of this Brat I shall leave one or two Quaeries to their consideration I. Whether those who took the Covenant and there sware to extirpate all Schism do not thereby engage to be like Hoyle their own Executioners II. Whether when they sware to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority and not to diminish his just power and greatness they did keep their Oaths by Voting no more Address to him the Scots by selling him the English by buying him hurrying him from Prison to Prison Imposing upon him strange Conditions contrary to his Prerogative taking from him the Militia acting all without and against his Commands c. If they say they did according to the Covenant Then III. Whether such a wicked Oath is to be allow'd in a Kingdom which permitteth nay I may say commandeth such affronts to be done to Majesty contrary to all the Laws of the Land And if these Actions were against the Covenant then are they perjur'd But it may be I have gone too farr against these People who in their Scotch Assembly at Glasgow by Act forbad any to write or speak against their Covenant And the same did the English Leaguers and what danger it may be to write against their Laws since our own cannot be in force I know not And since a man must not speak ill of the dead whose flaming exspiration was a Type of the Reward befitting to the Imposers This I retort upon that Presbyterian who would have all May-Pole dancers hang'd I shall leave this wicked Covenant only tell them that the Lord Ravenstein under pretence of the binding of his Oath ran into a great Rebellion against his Masters the Emperour Frederick and Maximilian as our Zealots have against their King To conclude the words of James II. King of Scotland are worth your reading Could there be any greater surety for you than to rely on the Laws of the Common-wealth and Countrey especially in a Countrey where Laws and not Faction rule and where a man 's own goodness is able to preserve him But such men as you are raise these Factions to the subversion of all Laws and Authority And for Subjects to make an Offensive and Defensive League against all Persons is to disclaim all Government and do what they please without controlement commit Treason in the highest degree and make your own Swords and Power justifie your proceedings which though you first use against mean persons and conceal the progress of your Actions for there are degrees in evil and wicked men begin at that which seems the least of evils or not an evil at all at the first your last aim is likely to be the Robbing upon the Crown Consider you are born under a Monarchy which admitteth of no Soveraignty but it self and it is natural to Princes to hold it in highest esteem and in no case to suffer it to be shaken by their Subjects Take your Prince for your best protection and an Innocent life Renounce that Union and League and let it not be heard any longer that ever such an unjust Confederation was and so wonted Clemency shall be prefer'd before deserved Justice But 't was the wickedness of this action which made the Zealots love it and therefore order'd that in the Prayers after every Sermon the Minister should give God thanks for the Covenant like John Becold a Taylor of Leyden better known by the Name of John of Leyden who having cruelly cut off the head of one of his Wives made others with himself prayse God and rejoyce for such wickedness The Brethren having thus laid their ground-work for a further Rebellion earnestly exhorts the people to stick close to their former seditious Principles and to be resolute in them Then they advise their Associates in the Parliament to be valiant for their Cause and to endeavour what in them lyeth to oppose and overthrow any thing whatsoever Sacred or Civil which thwarts their Principles And for the better carrying on this Rebellion they engage their Ministry to use what Interest they can with their Parishioners for the affecting of their designs concerning which you shall hear Mr. Crofton himself speak If private men and individual persons who have sworn the Covenant will make Conscience of the Oath of God upon them there can be no probability of a Return and Re-establishment within the compasse of this age of the evils we have sworn to extirpate They being lock'd under a moral impossibility of re-admission or continuance by that publick Parliamentary capacity into which many who have sworn the Covenant are at this time resolved and in which they cannot but know themselves bonnd to endeavour in their places and callings with all sincerity and reality and constancy to extirpate the same and for that others and those not a few as Ministers of the Gospel are bound to the same in their Capacity I am sure the Ministerial rebukes and confutations of the one and publick Parliamentary Debates of the other will lay a very great Remora unto their return Here we have a Peter the Hermit blowing a Trumpet to his Holy-warre And that in such an hasty and resolute fashion that our Presbytery seem to stand upon the very brink of Rabicon only wanting some ill spirit or other to head them and lead them over into a Warr against their own King and Countrymen so prone are they to distruction as if they were again turnd to Heathenism and worship'd the spears those primitive Instruments of Warre as their only God And the Reverend Church of England hath little reason to expect peace at these mens hands now that they cannot obtain their ends when they protest that if they had