the Parlament and Citty finding no compliance answerable to his hope from the Protestant Armies betakes himself last to the Irish who had in readiness an Army of eight thousand Papists which he had refus'd so oft'n to disband and a Committy heer of the same Religion With them who thought the time now come which to bring about they had bin many yeares before not wishing only but with much industrie complotting to do som eminent service for the Church of Rome thir own perfidious natures against a Puritan Parlmt the hated English thir Masters he agrees concludes that so soon as both Armies in England were disbanded the Irish should appeare in Arms maister all the Protestants and help the King against his Parlament And we need not doubt that those five Counties were giv'n to the Irish for other reason then the four Northern Counties had bin a little before offerd to the Scots The King in August takes a journey into Scotland and overtaking the Scotch Army then on thir way home attempts the second time to pervert them but without success No sooner comm into Scotland but he laies a plot so saith the Scotch Author to remove out of the way such of the Nobility there as were most likely to withstand or not to furder his designes This being discover'd he sends from his side one Dillon a Papist Lord soon after a cheif Rebell with Letters into Ireland and dispatches a Commission under the great Seale of Scotland at that time in his own custody commanding that they should forthwith as had bin formerly agreed cause all the Irish to rise in Armes Who no sooner had receiv'd such command but obey'd and began in Massacher for they knew no other way to make sure the Protestants which was commanded them expressly and the way it seems left to thir discretion He who hath a mind to read the Commission it self and sound reason added why it was not likely to be forg'd besides the attestation of so many Irish themselves may have recourse to a Book intitl'd The Mysterie of Iniquity Besides what the Parlament it self in the Declaration of no more addresses hath affirm'd that they have one copy of that Commission in thir own hands attested by the Oathes of some that were ey-witnesses and had seen it under the Seale Others of the principal Rebels have confess'd that this Commission was the summer before promis'd at London to the Irish Commissioners to whom the King then discoverd in plain words his great desire to be reveng'd on the Parlament of England After the Rebellion brok'n out which in words onely he detested but under hand favour'd and promoted by all the offices of freindship correspondence and what possible aide he could afford them the particulars wherof are too many to be inserted heer I suppose no understanding Man could longer doubt who was Author or Instigator of that Rebellion If there be who yet doubt I referr them especially to that Declaration of July 1643. with that of no addresses 1647. and another full volum of examinations to be sett out speedily concerning this matter Against all which testimonies likelyhoods evidences and apparent actions of his own being so abundant his bare deniall though with imprecation can no way countervaile and least of all in his own cause As for the Commission granted them he thinkes to evade that by retorting that some in England fight against him and yet pretend his authority But though a Parlament by the known Laws may affirme justly to have the Kings authority inseparable from that Court though divided from his Person it is not credible that the Irish Rebels who so much tenderd his Person above his Autoritie and were by him so well receavd at Oxford would be so farr from all humanitie as to slander him with a particular Commission sign'd and sent them by his own hand And of his good affection to the Rebels this Chapter it self is not without witness He holds them less in fault then the Scots as from whom they might allege to have fetch'd thir imitation making no difference between men that rose necessarily to defend themselves which no Protestant Doctrin ever disallow'd against them who threatn'd Warr and those who began a voluntary and causeless Rebellion with the Massacher of so many thousands who never meant them harme He falls next to flashes and a multitude of words in all which is contain'd no more then what might be the Plea of any guiltiest Offender He was not the Author because he hath the greatest share of loss and dishonour by what is committed Who is there that offends God or his Neighbour on whom the greatest share of loss and dishonour lights not in the end But in the act of doing evil men use not to consider the event of thir evil doing or if they doe have then no power to curb the sway of thir own wickedness So that the greatest share of loss and dishonour to happ'n upon themselves is no argument that they were not guilty This other is as weake that a Kings interest above that of any other man lies chiefly in the common welfare of his Subjects therfore no King will do aught against the Common welfare For by this evasion any tyrant might as well purge himself from the guilt of raising troubles or commotions among the people because undoubtedly his chief Interest lies in thir sitting still I said but now that eev'n this Chapter if nothing els might suffice to discover his good affection to the Rebels which in this that follows too notoriously appeares imputing this insurrection to the preposterous rigor and unreasonable severitie the covetous zeale and uncharitable fury of some men these some men by his continual paraphrase are meant the Parlament and lastly to the feare of utter extirpation If the whole Irishry of Rebells had fee'd som advocate to speak partially and sophistically in thir defence he could have hardly dazl'd better Yet never the less would have prov'd himself no other then a plausible deceiver And perhaps nay more then perhaps for it is affirm'd extant under good evidence that those fained terrors and jealousies were either by the King himself or the Popish Preists w ch were sent by him put into the head of that inquisitive people on set purpose to engage them For who had power to oppress them or to releive them being opprest but the King or his immediat Deputy This rather should have made them rise against the King then against the Parlament Who threat'nd or ever thought of thir extirpation till they themselves had begun it to the English As for preposterous riger covetous zeale and uncharitable fury they had more reason to suspect those evils first from his own commands whom they saw using daily no greater argument to prove the truth of his Religion then by enduring no other but his owne Prelatical and to force it upon others made Episcopal Ceremonial and common-Prayer-Book Warrs But the Papists
new disguise He layes down his Armes but not his Wiles nor all his Armes for in obstinacy he comes no less arm'd then ever Cap a pè And what were they but wiles continually to move for Treaties and yet to persist the same man and to fortifie his mind before hand still purposing to grant no more then what seem'd good to that violent and lawless Triumvirate within him under the falsifi'd names of his Reason Honour and Conscience the old circulating dance of his shifts and evasions The words of a King as they are full of power in the autority and strength of Law so like Sampson without the strength of that Nazarites lock they have no more power in them then the words of another man He adores Reason as Domitian did Minerva and calls her the Divinest power thereby to intimate as if at reasoning as at his own weapon no man were so able as himself Might we be so happy as to know where these monuments of his Reason may be seen for in his actions his writing they appeare as thinly as could be expected from the meanest parts bredd up in the midst of so many wayes extraordinary to know somthing He who reads his talk would think he had left Oxford not without mature deliberation Yet his Prayer confesses that he knew not what to doe Thus is verifi'd that Psalme He powreth contempt upon Princes and causeth them to wander in the Wilderness where there is no way Psal. 107. XXIII Vpon the Scots delivering the King to the English THat the Scots in England should sell thir King as he himself here affirmes and for a price so much above that which the covetousness of Judas was contented with to sell our Saviour is so foule an infamy and dishonour cast upon them as befitts none to vindicate but themselves And it were but friendly Counsel to wish them beware the Son who comes among them with a firme beleif that they sould his Father The rest of this Chapter he Sacrifices to the Echo of his Conscience out-babling Creeds and Ave's glorying in his resolute obstinacy and as it were triumphing how evident it is now that not evill Counselors but he himself hath been the Author of all our troubles Herein onely we shall disagree to the worlds end while he who sought so manifestly to have annihilated all our Laws and Liberties hath the confidence to perswade us that he hath fought and suffer'd all this while in thir defence But he who neither by his own Letters and Commissions under hand and Seale nor by his own actions held as in a Mirror before his face will be convinc'd to see his faults can much less be won upon by any force of words neither he nor any that take after him who in that respect are no more to be disputed with then they who deny Principles No question then but the Parlament did wisely in thir decree at last to make no more addresses For how unalterable his will was that would have bin our Lord how utterly averse from the Parlament and Reformation during his confinement we may behold in this Chapter But to be ever answering fruitless Repetitions I should become liable to answer for the same my self He borrows Davids Psalmes as he charges the Assembly of Divines in his twentith Discourse To have set forth old Catechisms and confessions of faith new drest Had he borrow'd Davids heart it had bin much the holier theft For such kind of borrowing as this if it be not better'd by the borrower among good Authors is accounted Plagiarie However this was more tolerable then Pammela's Praier stol'n out of Sir Philip. XXIV Vpon the denying him the attendance of his Chaplains A CHAPLAIN is a thing so diminutive and inconsiderable that how he should come heer among matters of so great concernment to take such room up in the Discourses of a Prince if it be not wonderd is to be fmil'd at Certainly by me so mean an argument shall not be writt'n but I shall huddle him as he does Prayers The Scripture ownes no such order no such function in the Church and the Church not owning them they are left for ought I know to such a furder examining as the Sons of Sceva the Jew met with Bishops or Presbyters we know and Deacons we know but what are Chaplains In State perhaps they may be listed among the upper Servingmen of som great houshold and be admitted to som such place as may stile them the Sewers or the Yeomen-Ushers of Devotion where the Maister is too restie or too rich to say his own prayers or to bless his own Table Wherfore should the Parlament then take such implements of the Court Cupbord into thir consideration They knew them to have bin the main corrupters at the kings elbow they knew the king to have bin always thir most attentive Scholar Imitator of a child to have suckt from them thir closet work all his impotent principles of tyranny superstition While therfore they had any hope left of his reclaiming these sowers of Malignant Tares they kept asunder from him and sent to him such of the Ministers and other zealous persons as they thought were best able to instruct him and to convert him What could religion her self have don more to the saving of a soule But when they found him past cure that he to himself was grown the most evil Counseler of all they deny'd him not his Chaplains as many as were fitting and som of them attended him or els were at his call to the very last Yet heer he makes more Lamentationfor the want of his Chaplains then superstitious Micah did to the Danites who had tak'n away his houshold Priest Yee have tak'n away my Gods which I made and the Priest and what have I more And perhaps the whole Story of Micah might square not unfitly to this Argument Now know I saith he that the Lord will doe me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Micah had as great a care that his Priest should be Mosaical as the King had that his should be Apostolical yet both in an error touching thir Priests Houshold and privat Orisons were not to be officiated by Priests for neither did public Prayer appertain onely to their Office Kings heertofore David Salomon and Jehosaphat who might not touch the Priesthood yet might pray in public yea in the Temple while the Priests themselves stood and heard VVhat aild this King then that he could not chew his own Mattins without the Priests Oretenus Yet is it like he could not pray at home who can heer publish a whole Prayer-book of his own and signifies in some part of this Chapter almost as good a mind to be a Priest himself as Micah had to let his Son be There was doubtless therfore some other matter in it which made him so desirous to have his Chaplaines about him who were not onely the contrivers but very oft the
goes on therfore with vehemence to repeat the mischeifs don by these Tumults They first Petition'd then protected dictate next and lastly overaw the Parlament They remov'd obstructions they purg'd the Houses cast out rott'n members If there were a man of iron such as Talus by our Poet Spencer is fain'd to be the page of Justice who with his iron flaile could doe all this and expeditiously without those deceitfull formes and circumstances of Law worse then ceremonies in Religion I say God send it don whether by one Talus or by a thousand But they subdu'd the men of conscience in Parlament back'd and abetted all seditious and schismatical Proposals against government ecclesiastical and civil Now wee may perceave the root of his hatred whence it springs It was not the Kings grace or princely goodness but this iron flaile the People that drove the Bishops out of thir Baronies out of thir Cathedrals out of the Lords House out of thir Copes and Surplices and all those Papistical innovations threw down the High Commission and Star-chamber gave us a Triennial Parlament and what we most desir'd in revenge whereof he now so bitterly enveighs against them these are those seditious and scismatical Proposals then by him condescended to as acts of grace now of another name which declares him touching matters of Church and State to have bin no other man in the deepest of his solitude then he was before at the highest of his Sovrantie But this was not the worst of these Tumults they plaid the hasty midwives and would not stay the ripening but went streight to ripping up and forcibly cut out abortive Votes They would not stay perhaps the Spanish demurring and putting off such wholsome acts and counsels as the Politic Cabin at WhiteHall had no mind to But all this is complain'd heer as don to the Parlament and yet we heard not the Parlament at that time complaine of any violence from the people but from him Wherfore intrudes he to plead the cause of Parlament against the People while the Parlament was pleading thir own cause against him and against him were forc'd to seek refuge of the people 'T is plaine then that those confluxes and resorts interrupted not the Parlament nor by them were thought Tumultuous but by him onely and his Court Faction But what good Man had not rather want any thing he most desir'd for the public good then attain it by such unlawfull and irreligious meanes as much as to say Had not rather sit still and let his Country be Tyranniz'd then that the people finding no other remedie should stand up like Men and demand thir Rights and Liberties This is the artificialest peece of fineness to perswade men into slavery that the wit of Court could have invented But heare how much betterthe Moral of this Lesson would befitt the Teacher What good man had not rather want a boundless and arbitrary power and those fine Flowers of the Crown call'd Prerogatives then for them to use force and perpetual vexation to his faithfull Subjects nay to wade for them through blood and civil warr So that this and the whole bundle of those following sentences may be apply'd better to the convincement of his own violent courses then of those pretended Tumults Who were the chiefe Demagogues to send for those Tumults some alive are not ignorant Setting aside the affrightment of this Goblin word for the King by his leave cannot coine English as he could Money to be current and t is beleev'd this wording was above his known stile and Orthographie and accuses the whole composure to be conscious of som other Author yet if the people were sent for emboldn'd and directed by those Demagogues who saving his Greek were good Patriots and by his own confession Men of some repute for parts and pietie it helps well to assure us there was both urgent cause and the less danger of thir comming Complaints were made yet no redress could be obtain'd The Parlament also complain'd of what danger they sate in from another party and demanded of him a Guard but it was not granted What marvel then if it chear'd them to see some store of thir Friends and in the Roman not the pettifogging sense thir Clients so neer about them a defence due by nature both from whom it was offer'd and to whom as due as to thir Parents though the Court storm'd and fretted to see such honour giv'n to them who were then best Fathers of the Common-wealth And both the Parlament and people complain'd and demanded Justice for those assaults if not murders don at his own dores by that crew of Rufflers but he in stead of doing Justice on them justifi'd and abetted them in what they did as in his public Answer to a Petition from the City may be read Neither is it slightly to be pass'd over that in the very place where blood was first drawn in this cause as the beginning of all that follow'd there was his own blood shed by the Executioner According to that sentence of Divine justice In the place where Dogs lick'd the blood of Naboth shall Dogs lick thy blood eev'n thine From hence he takes occasion to excuse that improvident and fatal error of his absenting from the Parlament When he found that no Declaration of the Bishops could take place against those Tumults Was that worth his considering that foolish and self-undoing Declaration of twelve Cypher Bishops who were immediatly appeacht of Treason for that audacious Declaring The Bishops peradventure were now and then pulld by the Rochers and deserv'd another kind of pulling but what amounted this to the feare of his own person in the streets Did he not the very next day after his irruption into the House of Commons then which nothing had more exasperated the people goe in his Coach unguarded into the City did hee receave the least affront much less violence in any of the Streets but rather humble demeanours and supplications Hence may be gather'd that however in his own guiltiness hee might have justly fear'd yet that hee knew the people so full of aw and reverence to his Person as to dare commit himself single among the thickest of them at a time when he had most provok'd them Besides in Scot-Land they had handl'd the Bishops in a more robustious manner Edinburrow had bin full of Tumults two Armies from thence had enterd England against him yet after all this he was not fearfull but very forward to take so long a journey to Edinburrow which argues first as did also his rendition afterward to the Scotch Army that to England he continu'd still as he was indeed a stranger and full of diffidence to the Scots onely a native King in his confidence though not in his dealing towards them It shews us next beyond doubting that all this his feare of Tumults was but a meer colour and occasion tak'n of his resolved absence from the Parlament for some other end not
to transgress the bounds of all honour and civility there should not want examples good store if brevity would permitt In poynt of Letters this one shall suffice The Duchess of Burgundie and heire of Duke Charles had promis'd to her Subjects that shee intended no otherwise to Govern then by advise of the three Estates but to Lewis the French King had writt'n Letters that shee had resolv'd to committ wholly the managing of her affaires to foure Persons whom shee nam'd The three Estates not doubting the sincerity of her Princely word send Embassadors to Lewis who then beseig'd Arras belonging to the Duke of Burgondy The King taking hold of this occasion to set them at division among themselves question'd thir Credence which when they offerd to produce with thir instructions he not only shewes them the privat Letter of thir Duchess but gives it them to carry home wherwith to affront her which they did shee denying it stoutly till they spredding it before her face in a full assembly convicted her of an op'n Iye Which although Commines the historian much blames as a deed too harsh and dishonourable in them who were Subjects and not at Warr with thir Princess yet to his Maister Lewis who first divulg'd those Letters to the op'n shaming of that young Governess he imputes no incivilitie or dishonour at all although betraying a certaine confidence repos'd by that Letter in his royal secrecie With much more reason then may letters not intercepted only but won in battell from an enemie be made public to the best advantages of them that win them to the discovery of such important truth or falshood Was it not more dishonourable in himself to faine suspicions and jealousies which we first found among those Letters touching the chastitie of his Mother thereby to gaine assistance from the King of Denmark as in vindication of his Sister The Damsell of Burgundie at sight of her own letter was soon blank and more ingenuous then to stand out-facing but this man whom nothing will convince thinks by talking world without end to make good his integrity and faire dealing contradicted by his own hand and seale They who can pick nothing out of them but phrases shall be counted Bees they that discern furder both there and here that constancy to his Wife is set in place before Laws and Religion are in his naturalities no better then Spiders He would work the people to a perswasion that if he be miserable they cannot be happy VVhat should hinder them VVere they all born Twins of Hippocrates with him and his fortune one birth one burial It were a Nation miserable indeed not worth the name of a Nation but a race of Idiots whose happiness and welfare depended upon one Man The happiness of a Nation consists in true Religion Piety Justice Prudence Temperance Fortitude and the contempt of Avarice and Ambition They in whomsoever these vertues dwell eminently need not Kings to make them happy but are the architects of thir own happiness and whether to themselves or others are not less then Kings But in him which of these vertues were to be found that might extend to the making happy or the well-governing of somuch as his own houshold which was the most tious and ill govern'd in the whole Land But the op'ning of his Letters was design'd by the Parlament to make all reconciliation desperate Are the lives of so many good and faithfull men that dy'd for the freedom of thir Country to be so slighted as to be forgott'n in a stupid reconcilement without Justice don them VVhat he feares not by VVarr and slaughter should we feare to make desperate by op'ning his Letters VVhich fact he would parallell with Chams revealing of his Fathers nakedness VVhen he at that time could be no way esteem'd the Father of his Countrey but the destroyer nor had he ever before merited that former title He thanks God he cannot onely beare this with patience but with charity forgive the doers Is not this meer mockery to thank God for what he can doe but will not For is it patience to impute Barbarism and inhumanity to the op'ning of an Enemies Letter or is it Charity to cloth them with curses in his Prayer whom he hath forgiv'n in his Discours In which Prayer to shew how readily he can return good for evil to the Parlament and that if they take away his Coat he can let them have his Cloak also for the dismantling of his Letters he wishes They may be cover'd with the Cloak of confusion VVhich I suppose they do resigne with much willingness both Livery Badge and Cognizance to them who chose rather to be the Slaves and Vassals of his will then to stand against him as men by nature free born and created with a better title to thir freedom then any King hath to his Crown XXII Vpon His going to the Scots THe Kings comming in whether to the Scots or English deserv'd no thanks for necessitie was his Counselor and that he hated them both alike his expressions every where manifest Som say his purpose was to have come to London till hearing how strictly it was proclaim'd that no man should conceal him he diverted his course But that had bin a frivolous excuse and besides he himself rehearsing the consultations had before he took his journey shewes us cleerly that he was determin'd to adventure upon their Loyalty who first began his troubles And that the Scots had notice of it before hath bin long since brought to light What prudence there could be in it noman can imagin Malice there might be by raising new jealousies to divide Freinds For besides his diffidence of the English it was no small dishonour that he put upon them when rather then yeild himself to the Parlament of England he yeelded to an hireling Army of Scots in England payd for thir Service heer not in Scotch coyn but in English Silver nay who from the first beginning of these troubles what with brotherly assistance and what with mounthly pay have defended thir own Liberty and consciences at our charge However it was a hazardous and rash journey taken to resolve riddles in mens Loyaltie who had more reason to mistrust the Riddle of such a disguised yeelding and to put himself in their hands whose Loyalty was a Riddle to him was not the cours to be resolv'd of it but to tempt it What providence deny'd to force he thought it might grant to fraud which he stiles Prudence But Providence was not couzen'd with disguises neither outward nor inward To have known his greatest danger in his supposed safety and his greatest safety in his supposed danger was to him a fatal Riddle never yet resolv'd wherin rather to have imployd his main skill had bin much more to his preservation Had he known when the Game was lost it might have sav'd much contest but the way to give over fairely was not to slip out of op'n Warr into a
which made him much the fitter man to raigne But they who suffer as oppressors Tyrants violaters of Law and persecutors of Reformation without appearance of repenting if they once get hold againe of that dignity and power which they had lost are but whetted and inrag'd by what they suffer'd against those whom they look upon as them that caus'd thir sufferings How he hath bin subject to the scepter of Gods word and spirit though acknowledg'd to be the best Goverment and what his dispensation of civil power hath bin with what Justice and what honour to the public peace it is but looking back upon the whole catalogue of his deeds and that will be sufficient to remember us The Cup of Gods physic as he calls it what alteration it wrought in him to a firm healthfulness from any surfet or excess wherof the people generally thought him sick if any man would goe about to prove we have his own testimony following heer that it wrought none at all First he hath the same fix'd opinion and esteem of his old Ephesian Goddess call'd the Church of England as he had ever and charges strictly his Son after him to persevere in that Anti-Papal Scism for it is not much better as that which will be necessary both for his soules and the Kingdoms Peace But if this can be any foundation of the kingdoms peace which was the first cause of our distractions let common sense be Judge It is a rule and principle worthy to be known by Christians that no Scripture no nor so much as any ancient Creed bindes our Faith or our obedience to any Church whatsoever denominated by a particular name farr less if it be distinguisht by a several Goverment from that which is indeed Catholic No man was ever bidd be subject to the Church of Corinth Rome or Asia but to the Church without addition as it held faithfull to the rules of Scripture and the Goverment establisht in all places by the Apostles which at first was universally the same in all Churches and Congregations not differing or distinguisht by the diversity of Countries Territories or civil bounds That Church that from the name of a distinct place takes autority to set up a distinct Faith or Government is a Scism and Faction not a Church It were an injurie to condemn the Papist of absurdity and contradiction for adhering to his Catholic Romish Religion if we for the pleasure of a King and his politic considerations shall adhere to a Catholic English But suppose the Church of England were as it ought to be how is it to us the safer by being so nam'd and establisht when as that very name and establishment by his contriving or approbation serv'd for nothing els but to delude us and amuse us while the Church of England insensibly was almost chang'd and translated into the Church of Rome Which as every Man knows in general to be true so the particular Treaties and Transactions tending to that conclusion are at large discover'd in a Book intitld the English Pope But when the people discerning these abuses began to call for Reformation in order to which the Parlament demanded of the King to unestablish that Prelatical Goverment which without Scripture had usurpt over us strait as Pharaoh accus'd of Idleness the Israelites that sought leave to goe and sacrifice to God he layes faction to thir charge And that we may not hope to have ever any thing reform'd in the Church either by him or his Son he forewarnes him That the Devil of Rebellion doth most commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and sayes anough to make him hate it as he worst of Evils and the bane of his Crown nay he counsels him to let nothing seem little or despicable to him so as not speedily and effcteually to suppress errors and Scisms Wherby we may perceave plainly that our consciences were destin'd to the same servitude and persecution if not wors then before whether under him or if it should so happ'n under his Son who count all Protestant Churches erroneous and scismatical which are not episcopal His next precept is concerning our civil Liberties which by his sole voice and predominant will must be circumscrib'd and not permitted to extend a hands bredth furder then his interpretation of the Laws already settl'd And although all human laws are but the offspring of that frailty that fallibility and imperfection which was in thir Authors wherby many Laws in the change of ignorant and obscure Ages may be found both scandalous and full of greevance to their Posterity that made them and no Law is furder good then mutable upon just occasion yet if the removing of an old Law or the making of a new would save the Kingdom we shall not have it unless his arbitrary voice will so far slack'n the stiff curb of his prerogative as to grant it us who are as free born to make our own law as our fathers were who made these we have Where are then the English Liberties which we boast to have bin left us by our Progenitors To that he answers that Our Liberties consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of our industry and the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented First for the injoyment of those fruits which our industry and labours have made our own upon our own what Privilege is that above what the Turks Jewes and Mores enjoy under the Turkish Monarchy For without that kind of Justice which is also in Argiers among Theevs and Pirates between themselvs no kind of Government no Societie just or unjust could stand no combination or conspiracy could stick together Which he also acknowledges in these words That if the Crown upon his head be so heavy as to oppress the whole body the weakness of inferiour members cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the head but that a necessary debilitation must follow So that this Liberty of the Subject concerns himself and the subsistence of his own regal power in the first place and before the consideration of any right belonging to the Subject VVe expect therfore somthing more that must distinguish free Goverment from slavish But in stead of that this King though ever talking and protesting as smooth as now sufferd it in his own hearing to be Preacht and pleaded without controule or check by them whom he most favourd and upheld that the Subject had no property of his own Goods but that all was the Kings right Next for the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented we never had it under him for not to speak of Laws ill executed when the Parlament and in them the people have consented to divers Laws and according to our ancient Rights demanded them he took upon him to have a negative will as the transcendent and ultimat Law above all our Laws and to rule us forcibly by Laws to which we our selves did not consent
What remaines then He appeales to God and is cast lik'ning his punishments to Jobs trials before he saw them to have Jobs ending But how could Charity her self beleive ther was at all in him any Religion so much as but to fear ther is a God when as by what is noted in the Declaration of no more addresses he vowd solemnly to the Parlament with imprecations upon himself and his Posterity if ever he consented to the abolishing of those Lawes which were in force against Papists and at the same time as appeard plainly by the very date of his own Letters to the Queen and Ormond consented to the abolishing of all Penal Lawes against them both in Ireland and England If these were acts of a Religious Prince what memory of man writt'nor unwritt'n can tell us newes of any Prince that ever was irreligious He cannot stand to make prolix Apologies Then surely those long Pamphlets set out for Declarations and Protestations in his Name were none of his and how they should be his indeed being so repugnant to the whole cours of his actions augments the difficulty But he usurps a common saying That it is Kingly to doe well and heare ill That may be sometimes true but farr more frequently to doe ill and heare well so great is the multitude of Flatterers and them that deifie the name of King Yet not content with these neighbours we have him still a perpetual preacher of his own vertues and of that especially which who knows not to bee Patience perforce He beleives it will at last appeare that they who first began to embroyle his other kingdoms are also guilty of the blood of Ireland And wee beleive so too for now the Cessation is become a Peace by publishd Articles and Commission to bring them over against England first only ten thousand by the Earl of Glamorgan next all of them if possible under Ormond which was the last of all his transactions don as a public Person And no wonder for he lookt upon the blood spilt whether of Subjects or of Rebels with an indifferent eye as exhausted out of his own veines without distinguishing as he ought which was good blood and which corrup the not letting-out wherof endangers the whole body And what the Doctrin is ye may perceave also by the Prayer which after a short ejaculation for the poore Protestants prayes at large for the Irish Rebels that God would not give them over or thir Children to the covetousness cruelty fierce and cursed anger of the Parlament He finishes with a deliberat and solemn curse upon himself and his Fathers House Which how farr God hath alreadie brought to pass is to the end that men by so eminent an example should learn to tremble at his judgements and not play with Imprecations XIII Upon the calling in of the Scots and thir comming IT must needs seem strange where Men accustom themselves to ponder and contemplat things in thir first original and institution that Kings who as all other Officers of the Public were at first chos'n and install'd onely by consent and suffrage of the People to govern them as Freemen by Laws of thir own framing and to be in consideration of that dignity and riches bestow'd upon them the entrusted Servants of the Common-wealth should notwithstanding grow up to that dishonest encroachment as to esteem themselves Maisters both of that great trust which they serve and of the People that betrusted them counting what they ought to doe both in discharge of thir public duty and for the great reward of honour and revennue which they receave as don all of meer grace and favour as if thir power over us were by nature and from themselves or that God had sould us into thir hands Indeed if the race of Kings were eminently the best of men as the breed at 〈◊〉 is of â—…orse it would in some reason then be their part onely to command ours always to obey But Kings by generation no way excelling others and most commonly not being the wisest or the worthiest by far of whom they claime to have the governing that we should yeild them subjection to our own ruin or hold of them the right of our common safety and our natural freedom by meer gift as when the Conduit pisses Wine at Coronations from the superfluity of thir royal grace and beneficence we may be sure was never the intent of God whose ways are just and equal never the intent of Nature whose works are also regular never of any People not wholly barbarous whom prudence or no more but human sense would have better guided when they first created Kings then so to nullifie and tread to durt the rest of mankind by exalting one person and his Linage without other merit lookt after but the meer contingencie of a begetting into an absolute and unaccountable dominion over them and thir posterity Yet this ignorant or wilfull mistake of the whole matter had tak'n so deep root in the imagination of this King that whether to the English or to the Scot mentioning what acts of his Regal Office though God knows how un willingly he had pass'd he calls them as in other places Acts of grace and bounty so heer special obligations favours to gratifie active spirits and the desires of that party Words not onely sounding pride and Lordly usurpation but Injustice Partiality and Corruption For to the Irish he so farr condiscended as first to tolerate in privat then to covnant op'nly the tolerating of Popery So farr to the Scot as to remove Bishops establish Presbytery and the Militia in thir own hands preferring as some thought the desires of Scotland before his own interest and Honour But being once on this side Tweed his reason his conscience and his honour became so streitn'd with a kind of fals Virginity that to the English neither one nor other of the same demands could be granted wherwith the Scots were gratifi'd as if our aire and climat on a sudden had chang'd the property and the nature both of Conscience Honour and Reason or that he found none so fit as English to be the subjects of his arbitrary power Ireland was as Ephraim the strength of his head Scotland as Iudah was his Law-giver but over England as over Edom he meant to cast his Shoo and yet so many sober Englishmen not sufficiently awake to consider this like men inchanted with the Circaean cup of servitude will not be held back from running thir own heads into the Yoke of Bondage The summ of his discours is against setling of Religion by violent meanes which whether it were the Scots designe upon England they are best able to cleare themselves But this of all may seem strangest that the King who while it was permitted him never did thing more eagerly then to molest and persecute the consciences of most Religious men he who had made a Warr and lost all rather then not uphold a Hierarchie of persecuting
Episcopacie among them And if we may beleeve what the Papists themselves have writt'n of these Churches which they call Waldenses I find it in a Book writt'n almost four hundred years since and set forth in the Bohemian Historie that those Churches in Piemont have held the same Doctrin and Goverment since the time that Constantine with his mischeivous donations poyson'd Silvester and the whole Church Others affirme they have so continu'd there since the Apostles and Theodorus Belvederensis in his relation of them confesseth that those Heresies as he names them were from the first times of Christianity in that place For the rest I referr me to that famous testimonie of Jerom who upon this very place which he onely roaves at heer the Epistle to Titus declares op'nly that Bishop and Presbyter were one and the same thing till by the instigation of Satan partialities grew up in the Church and that Bishops rather by custom then any ordainment of Christ were exalted above Presbyters whose interpretation we trust shall be receav'd before this intricate stuffe tattl'd heer of Timothy and Titus and I know not whom thir Successors farr beyond Court Element and as farr beneath true edification These are his fair grounds both from Scripture-Canons and Ecclesiastical examples how undivinelike writt'n and how like a worldly Gospeller that understands nothing of these matters posteritie no doubt will be able to judge and will but little regard what he calls Apostolical who in his Letter to the Pope calls Apostolical the Roman Religion Nor let him think to plead that therfore it was not policy of State or obstinacie in him which upheld Episcopacie because the injuries and losses which he sustain'd by so doing were to him more considerable then Episcopacie it self for all this might Pharaoh have had to say in his excuse of detaining the Israelites that his own and his Kingdoms safety so much endanger'd by his denial was to him more deer then all thir building labours could be worth to Aegypt But whom God hard'ns them also he blinds He endeavours to make good Episcopacie not only in Religion but from the nature of all civil Government where parity breeds confusion and faction But of faction and confusion to take no other then his own testimony where hath more bin ever bred then under the imparitie of his own Monarchical Goverment Of which to make at this time longer dispute and from civil constitutions and human conceits to debate and question the convenience of Divine Ordinations is neither wisdom nor sobrietie and to confound Mosaic Preisthood with Evangelic Presbyterie against express institution is as far from warrantable As little to purpose is it that we should stand powling the Reformed Churches whether they equalize in number those of his three Kingdoms of whom so lately the far greater part what they have long desir'd to doe have now quite thrown off Episcopacie Neither may we count it the language or Religion of a Protestant so to vilifie the best Reformed Churches for none of them but Lutherans retain Bishops as to feare more the scandalizing of Papists because more numerous then of our Protestant Brethren because a handful It will not be worth the while to say what Scismatics or Heretics have had no Bishops yet least he should be tak'n for a great Reader he who prompted him if he were a Doctor might have rememberd the foremention'd place in Sozomenus which affirmes that besides the Cyprians and Arabians who were counted Orthodoxal the Novatians also and Montanists in Phrygia had no other Bishops then such as were in every Village and what Presbyter hath a narrower Diocess As for the Aërians we know of no Heretical opinion justly father'd upon them but that they held Bishops Presbyters to be the same Which he in this place not obscurely seems to hold a Heresie in all the Reformed Churches with whom why the Church of England desir'd conformitie he can find no reason with all his charity but the comming in of the Scots Army Such a high esteem he had of the English He tempts the Clergie to return back again to Bishops from the feare of tenuity and contempt and the assurance of better thriving under the favour of Princes against which temptations if the Clergie cannot arm themselves with thir own spiritual armour they are indeed as poor a Carkass as he terms them Of Secular honours and great Revenues added to the dignitie of Prelats since the subject of that question is now remov'd we need not spend time But this perhaps will never bee unseasonable to beare in minde out of Chrysostome that when Ministers came to have Lands Houses Farmes Coaches Horses and the like Lumber then Religion brought forth riches in the Church and the Daughter devour'd the Mother But if his judgement in Episcopacie may be judg'd by the goodly chois he made of Bishops we need not much amuse our selves with the consideration of those evils which by his foretelling will necessarily follow thir pulling down untill he prove that the Apostles having no certain Diocess or appointed place of residence were properly Bishops over those Presbyters whom they ordain'd or Churches they planted wherein ofttimes thir labours were both joint and promiscuous Or that the Apostolic power must necessarily descend to Bishops the use and end of either function being so different And how the Church hath flourisht under Episcopacie let the multitude of thir ancient and gross errors testifie and the words of some learnedest and most zealous Bishops among them Nazianzen in a devout passion wishing Prelaty had never bin Basil terming them the Slaves of Slaves Saint Martin the enemies of Saints and confessing that after he was made a Bishop he found much of that grace decay in him which he had before Concerning his Coronation Oath what it was and how farr it bound him already hath bin spok'n This we may take for certain that he was never sworn to his own particular conscience and reason but to our conditions as a free people which requir'd him to give us such Laws as our selves shall choose This the Scots could bring him to and would not be baffl'd with the pretence of a Coronation Oath after that Episcopacy had for many years bin settl'd there Which concession of his to them and not to us he seeks heer to put off with evasions that are ridiculous And to omit no shifts he alleges that the Presbyterian manners gave him no encouragement to like thir modes of Government If that were so yet certainly those men are in most likelihood neerer to amendment who seek a stricter Church Discipline then that of Episcopacy under which the most of them learnt thir manners If estimation were to be made of Gods Law by their manners who leaving Aegypt receav'd it in the Wilderness it could reap from such an inference as this nothing but rejection and disesteem For the Prayer wherwith he closes it had bin good som safe Liturgie which he so