thir pietie and religious strictness but rather hated them as Puritans whom he always sought to extirpat He would have it beleev'd that to bind his hands by these Acts argu'd a very short foresight of things and extreme fatuity of mind in him if he had meant a Warr. If we should conclude so that were not the onely Argument Neither did it argue that he meant peace knowing that what he granted for the present out of feare he might as soon repeale by force watching his time and deprive them the fruit of those Acts if his own designes wherin he put his trust took effect Yet he complaines That the tumults threatn'd to abuse all acts of grace and turne them into wantonness I would they had turn'd his wantonness into the grace of not abusing Scripture Was this becomming such a Saint as they would make him to adulterat those Sacred words from the grace of God to the acts of his own grace Herod was eat'n up os Wormes for suffering others to compare his voice to the voice of God but the Borrower of this phrase gives much more cause of jealousie that he lik'n'd his own acts of grace to the acts of Gods grace From profaneness he scars comes off with perfet sense I was not then in a capacity to make Warr therfore I intended not I was not in a capacity therfore I could not have giv'n my Enemies greater advantage then by so unprincely inconstancy to have scatter'd them by Armes whom but lately I had settl'd by Parlament What place could there be for his inconstancy in that thing wherto he was in no capacity Otherwise his inconstancy was not so un wonted or so nice but that it would have easily found pretences to scatter those in revenge whom he settl'd in feare It had bin a course full of sin as well as of hazzard and dishonour True but if those considerations withheld him not from other actions of like nature how can we beleeve they were of strength sufficient to withhold him from this And that they withheld him not the event soon taught us His letting some men goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple was a temptation to them to cast him down headlong In this Simily we have himself compar'd to Christ the Parlament to the Devill and his giving them that Act of settling to his letting them goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple A tottring and giddy Act rather then a settling This was goodly use made of Scripture in his Solitudes But it was no Pinnacle of the Temple it was a Pinnacle of Nebuchadnezzars Palace from whence hee and Monarchy fell headlong together He would have others see that All the Kingdomes of the World are not worth gaining by the wayes of sin which hazzard the Soule and hath himself left nothing unhazzarded to keep three He concludes with sentences that rightly scannd make not so much for him as against him and confesses that The Act of settling was no sin of his will and wee easily beleeve him for it hath bin clearly prov'd a sin of his unwillingness With his Orisons I meddle not for he appeals to a high Audit This yet may be noted that at his Prayers he had before him the sad presage of his ill success As of a dark and dangerous Storme which never admitted his returne to the Port from whence he set out Yet his Prayer-Book no sooner shut but other hopes flatter'd him and thir flattering was his destruction VI. Upon his Retirement from Westminster THe Simily wher with he begins I was about to have found fault with as in a garb somwhat more Poetical then for a Statist but meeting with many straines of like dress in other of his Essaies and hearing him reported a more diligent reader of Poets then of Politicians I begun to think that the whole Book might perhaps be intended a peece of Poetrie The words are good the fiction smooth and cleanly there wanted onely Rime and that they say is bestow'd upon it lately But to the Argument I stai'd at White Hall till I was driven away by shame more then feare I retract not what I thought of the fiction yet heer I must confess it lies too op'n In his Messages and Declarations nay in the whole Chapter next but one before this he affirmes that The danger wherin his Wife his Children and his own Person were by those Tumults was the maine cause that drove him from White Hall and appeales to God as witness he affirmes heer that it was shame more then feare And Digby who knew his mind as well as any tells his new-listed Guard That the principal cause of his Majesties going thence was to save them from being trodd in the dirt From whence we may discerne what false and frivolous excuses are avow'd sor truth either in those Declarations or in this Penitential Book Our forefathers were of that courage and severity of zeale to Justice and thir native Liberty against the proud contempt and misrule of thir Kings that when Richard the Second departed but from a Committie of Lords who sat preparing matter for the Parlament not yet assembl'd to the removal of his evil Counselors they first vanquish'd and put to flight Robert de Vere his chief Favorite and then comming up to London with a huge Army requir'd the King then withdrawn for feare but no furder off then the Tower to come to Westminster Which he refusing they told him flatly that unless he came they would choose another So high a crime it was accounted then for Kings to absent themselves not from a Parlament which none ever durst but from any meeting of his Peeres and Counselors which did but tend towards a Parlament Much less would they have suffer'd that a King for such trivial and various pretences one while for feare of tumults another while for shame to see them should leav his Regal Station and the whole Kingdom bleeding to death of those wounds which his own unskilful and pervers Goverment had inflicted Shame then it was that drove him from the Parlament but the shame of what Was it the shame of his manifold errours and misdeeds and to see how weakly he had plaid the King No But to see the barbarous rudeness of those Tumults to demand any thing We have started heer another and I beleeve the truest cause of his deserting the Parlament The worst and strangest of that Any thing which the people then demanded was but the unlording of Bishops and expelling them the House and the reducing of Church Discipline to a conformity with other Protestant Churches this was the Barbarism of those Tumults and that he might avoid the granting of those honest and pious demands as well demanded by the Parlament as the People for this very cause more then for feare by his own confession heer he left the City and in a most tempestuous season forsook the Helme and steerage of the Common-wealth This was that terrible Any thing
gleaning out of Books writt'n purposely to help Devotion And if in likelyhood he have borrowd much more out of Prayer-books then out of Pastorals then are these painted Feathers that set him off so gay among the people to be thought few or none of them his own But if from his Divines he have borrow'd nothing nothing out of all the Magazin and the rheume of thir Mellifluous prayers and meditations let them who now mourn for him as for Tamuz them who howle in thir Pulpits and by thir howling declare themselvs right Wolves remember and consider in the midst of thir hideous faces when they doe onely not cutt thir flesh for him like those ruefull Preists whom Eliah mock'd that he who was once thir Ahab now thir Josiah though faining outwardly to reverence Churchmen yet heer hath so extremely set at nought both them and thir praying faculty that being at a loss himself what to pray in Captivity he consulted neither with the Liturgie nor with the Directory but neglecting the huge fardell of all thir honycomb devotions went directly where he doubted not to find better praying to his mind with Pammela in the Countesses Arcadia What greater argument of disgrace ignominy could have bin thrown with cunning upon the whole Clergy then that the King among all his Preistery and all those numberles volumes of thir theological distillations not meeting with one man or book of that coate that could befreind him with a prayer in Captivity was forc'd to robb Sr. Philip and his Captive Shepherdess of thir Heathen orisons to supply in any fashion his miserable indigence not of bread but of a single prayer to God I say therfore not of bread for that want may befall a good man and yet not make him totally miserable but he who wants a prayer to beseech God in his necessity t is unexpressible how poor he is farr poorer within himself then all his enemies can make him And the unfitness the undecency of that pittifull supply which he sought expresses yet furder the deepness of his poverty Thus much be said in generall to his prayers and in special to that Arcadian prayer us'd in his Captivity anough to undeceave us what esteeme wee are to set upon the rest For he certainly whose mind could serve him to seek a Christian prayer out of a Pagan Legend and assume it for his own might gather up the rest God knows from whence one perhaps out of the French Astraea another out of the Spanish Diana Amadis and Palmerin could hardly scape him Such a person we may be sure had it not in him to make a prayer of his own or at least would excuse himself the paines and cost of his invention so long as such sweet rapsodies of Heathenism and Knighterrantry could yeild him prayers How dishonourable then and how unworthy of a Christian King were these ignoble shifts to seem holy and to get a Saintship among the ignorant and wretched people to draw them by this deception worse then all his former injuries to go a whooring after him And how unhappy how forsook of grace and unbelovd of God that people who resolv to know no more of piety or of goodnes then to account him thir cheif Saint and Martyr whose bankrupt devotion came not honestly by his very prayers but having sharkd them from the mouth of a Heathen worshipper detestable to teach him prayers sould them to those that stood and honourd him next to the Messiah as his own heav'nly compositions in adversity for hopes no less vain and presumptuous and death at that time so imminent upon him then by these goodly reliques to be held a Saint and Martyr in opinion with the People And thus farr in the whole Chapter we have seen and consider'd and it cannot but be cleer to all men how and for what ends what concernments and necessities the late King was no way induc'd but every way constrain'd to call this last Parlament yet heer in his first prayer he trembles not to avouch as in the eares of God That he did it with an upright intention to his glory and his peoples good Of which dreadfull attestation how sincerely meant God to whom it was avow'd can onely judge and he hath judg'd already and hath writt'n his impartial Sentence in Characters legible to all Christ'ndom and besides hath taught us that there be som whom he hath giv'n over to delusion whose very mind and conscience is defil'd of whom Saint Paul to Titus makes mention II. Upon the Earle of Straffords Death THis next Chapter is a penitent confession of the King and the strangest if it be well weigh'd that ever was Auricular For hee repents heer of giving his consent though most unwillingly to the most seasonable and solemn peece of Justice that had bin don of many yeares in the Land But his sole conscience thought the contrary And thus was the welfare the safety and within a little the unanimous demand of three populous Nations to have attended stil on the singularity of one mans opi nionated conscience if men had bin always so tame and spiritless and had not unexpectedly found the grace to understand that if his conscience were so narrow and peculiar to it selfe it was not fitt his Authority should be so ample and Universall over others For certainly a privat conscience sorts not with a public Calling but declares that Person rather meant by nature for a private fortune And this also we may take for truth that hee whose conscience thinks it sin to put to death a capital Offendor will as oft think it meritorious to kill a righteous Person But let us heare what the sin was that lay so sore upon him and as one of his Prayers giv'n to Dr. Juxton testifies to the very day of his death it was his signing the Bill of Straffords execution a man whom all men look'd upon as one of the boldest and most impetuous instruments that the King had to advance any violent or illegal designe He had rul'd Ireland and som parts of England in an Arbitrary manner had indeavour'd to subvert Fnndamental Lawes to subvert Parlaments and to incense the King against them he had also endeavor'd to make Hostility between England and Scotland He had counceld the King to call over that Irish Army of Papists which he had cunningly rais'd to reduce England as appear'd by good Testimony then present at the Consultation For which and many other crimes alledg'd and prov'd against him in 28 Articles he was condemnd of high Treason by the Parlament The Commons by farr the greater number cast him the Lords after they had bin satisfi'd in a full discours by the Kings Sollicitor and the opinions of many Judges deliver'd in thir House agreed likewise to the Sentence of Treason The People universally cri'd out for Justice None were his Friends but Coutiers and Clergimen the worst at that time and most corrupted sort of men and Court Ladies not
though briefly in regard so much on this Subject hath been Writt'n lately It happn'd once as we find in Esdras and Josephus Authors not less beleiv'd then any under sacred to be a great and solemn debate in the Court of Darius what thing was to be counted strongest of all other He that could resolve this in reward of his excelling wisdom should be clad in Purple drink in Gold sleep on a Bed of Gold and sitt next Darius None but they doubtless who were reputed wise had the Question propounded to them Who after som respit giv'n them by the King to consider in full Assembly of all his Lords and gravest Counselors returnd severally what they thought The first held that Wine was strongest another that the King was strongest But Zorobabel Prince of the Captive Jewes and Heire to the Crown of Judah being one of them proov'd Women to be stronger then the King for that he himself had seen a Concubin take his Crown from off his head to set it upon her own And others besides him have lately seen the like Feat don and not in jest Yet he proov'd on and it was so yeilded by the King himself all his sages that neither Wine nor Women nor the King but Truth of all other things was the strongest For me though neither ask'd nor in a Nation that gives such rewards to wisdom I shall pronounce my sentence somwhat different from Zorobabel and shall defend that either Truth and Justice are all one for Truth is but Justice in our knowledge and Justice is but Truth in our practice and he indeed so explaines himself in saying that with Truth is no accepting of Persons which is the property of Justice or els if there be any odds that Justice though not stronger then truth yet by her office is to put forth and exhibit more strength in the affaires of mankind For Truth is properly no more then Contemplation and her utmost efficiency is but teaching but Justice in her very essence is all strength and activity and hath a Sword put into her hand to use against all violence and oppression on the earth Shee it is most truely who accepts no Person and exempts none from the severity of her stroke Shee never suffers injury to prevaile but when fashood first prevailes over Truth and that also is a kind of Justice don on them who are so deluded Though wicked Kings and Tyrants counterfet her Sword as som did that Buckler fabl'd to fall from Heav'n into the Capitol yet shee communicates her power to none but such as like her self are just or at least will do Justice For it were extreme partialitie and injustice the flat denyall and overthrow of her self to put her own authentic Sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked Man or so farr to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals that he alone shall have the punishing of all other men transgressing and not receive like punishment from men when he himself shall be found the highest transgressor We may conclude therfore that Justice above all other things is and ought to be the strongest Shee is the strength the Kingdom the power and majestie of all Ages Truth her self would subscribe to this though Darius and all the Monarchs of the World should deny And if by sentence thus writt'n it were my happiness to set free the minds of English men from longing to returne poorly under that Captivity of Kings from which the strength and supreme Sword of Justice hath deliverd them I shall have don a work not much inferior to that of Zorobabel who by well praising and extolling the force of Truth in that contemplative strength conquer'd Darius and freed his Countrey and the people of God from the Captivity of Babylon Which I shall yet not despaire to doe if they in this Land whose minds are yet Captive be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the strength and supremacie of Justice as that heathen king was to confess the strength of truth or let them but as he did grant that and they will soon perceave that Truth resignes all her outward strength to Justice Justice therfore must needs be strongest both in her own and in the strength of Truth But if a King may doe among men whatsoever is his will and pleasure and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men then contrary to this magnifi'd wisdom of Zorobabel neither Truth nor Justice but the King is strongest of all other things which that Persian Monarch himself in the midst of all his pride and glory durst not assume Let us see therfore what this King hath to affirm why the sentence of Justice and the weight of that Sword which shee delivers into the hands of men should be more partial to him offending then to all others of human race First he pleades that No Law of God or man gives to subjects any power of judicature without or against him Which assertion shall be prov'd in every part to be most untrue The first express Law of God giv'n to mankind was that to Noah as a Law in general to all the Sons of men And by that most ancient and universal Law whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed we find heer no exception If a king therfore doe this to a King and that by men also the same shall be don This in the Law of Moses which came next several times is repeated and in one place remarkably Numb 35. Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer but he shall surely be put to death the Land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shedd therein but by the blood of him that shed it This is so spok'n as that which concern'd all Israel not one man alone to see perform'd and if no satisfaction were to be tak'n then certainly no exception Nay the King when they should set up any was to observe the whole Law and not onely to see it don but to do it that his heart might not be lifted up above his Brethren to dreame of vain and reasonless prerogatives or exemptions wherby the Law it self must needs be founded in unrighteousness And were that true which is most fals that all Kings are the Lords Anointed it were yet absurd to think that the Anointment of God should be as it were a charme against Law and give them privilege who punish others to sin themselves unpunishably The high Preist was the Lords anointed as well as any King and with the same consecrated oile yet Salomon had put to death Abiathar had it not bin for other respects then that anointment If God himself say to Kings Touch not mine anointed meaning his chos'n people as is evident in that Psalme yet no man will argue thence that he protects them from Civil Laws if they offend then certainly though David as a privat man and in his own cause feard to lift his hand against the Lords Anointed much less can this
forbidd the Law or disarm justice from having legal power against any King No other supreme Magistrate in what kind of Government soever laies claim to any such enormous Privilege wherfore then should any King who is but one kind of Magistrat and set over the people for no other end then they Next in order of time to the Laws of Moses are those of Christ who declares professedly his judicature to be spiritual abstract from Civil managements and therfore leaves all Nations to thir own particular Lawes and way of Government Yet because the Church hath a kind of Jurisdiction within her own bounds and that also though in process of time much corrupted and plainly turn'd into a corporal judicature yet much approv'd by this King it will be firm anough and valid against him if subjects by the Laws of Church also be invested with a power of judicature both without and against thir King though pretending and by them acknowledg'd next and immediatly under Christ supreme head and Governour Theodosius one of the best Christian Emperours having made a slaughter of the Thessalonians for sedition but too cruelly was excommunicated to his face by Saint Ambrose who was his subject and excommunion is the utmost of Ecclesiastical Judicature a spiritual putting to death But this yee will say was onely an example Read then the Story and it will appeare both that Ambrose avouch'd it for the Law of God and Theodosius confess'd it of his own accord to be so and that the Law of God was not to be made voyd in him for any reverence to his Imperial power From hence not to be tedious I shall pass into our own Land of Britain and shew that Subjects heer have exercis'd the utmost of spirituall Judicature and more then spirituall against thir Kings his Predecessors Vortiger for committing incest with his daughter was by Saint German at that time his subject cursd and condemnd in a Brittish Counsel about the yeare 448 and thereupon soon after was depos'd Mauricus a King in Wales for breach of Oath and the murder of Cynetus was excomunicated and curst with all his offspring by Oudoceus Bishop of Landaff in full Synod about the yeare 560 and not restor'd till he had repented Morcant another King in Wales having slain Frioc his Uncle was faine to come in Person and receave judgement from the same Bishop and his Clergie who upon his penitence acquitted him for no other cause then lest the Kingdom should be destitute of a Successour in the Royal Line These examples are of the Primitive Brittish and Episcopal Church long ere they had any commerce or communion with the Church of Rome What power afterward of deposing Kings and so consequently of putting them to death was assum'd and practis'd by the Canon Law I omitt as a thing generally known Certainly if whole Councels of the Romish Church have in the midst of their dimness discern'd so much of Truth as to decree at Constance and at Basil and many of them to avouch at Trent also that a Councel is above the Pope and may judge him though by them not deni'd to be the Vicar of Christ we in our clearer light may be asham'd not to discern furder that a Parlament is by all equity and right above a King and may judge him whose reasons and pretensions to hold of God onely as his immediat Vicegerent we know how farr fetch'd they are and insufficient As for the Laws of man it would ask a Volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all Antiquity In Greece Orestes the Son of Agamemnon and by succession King of Argos was in that Countrey judg'd and condemn'd to death for killing his Mother whence escaping he was judg'd againe though a Stranger before the great Counsel of Areopagus in Athens And this memorable act of Judicature was the first that brought the Justice of that grave Senat into fame and high estimation over all Greece for many ages after And in the same Citty Tyrants were to undergoe Legal sentence by the Laws of Solon The Kings of Sparta though descended lineally from Hercules esteem'd a God among them were oft'n judg'd and somtimes put to death by the most just and renowned Laws of Lycurgus who though a King thought it most unequal to bind his Subjects by any Law to which he bound not himself In Rome the Laws made by Valerius Publicola soon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race expell'd without a writt'n Law the Law beeing afterward writt'n and what the Senat decreed against Nero that he should be judg'd and punish'd according to the Laws of thir Ancestors and what in like manner was decreed against other Emperours is vulgarly known as it was known to those heathen and found just by nature ere any Law mentiond it And that the Christian Civil Law warrants like power of Judicature to Subjects against Tyrants is writt'n clearly by the best and famousest Civilians For if it was decreed by Theodosius and stands yet firme in the Code of Justinian that the Law is above the Emperour then certainly the Emperour being under Law the Law may judge him and if judge him may punish him proving tyrannous how els is the Law above him or to what purpose These are necessary deductions and therafter hath bin don in all Ages and Kingdoms oftner then to be heer recited But what need we any furder search after the Law of other Lands for that which is so fully and so plainly set down lawfull in our own Where ancient Books tell us Bracton Fleta and others that the King is under Law and inferiour to his Court of Parlament that although his place to doe Justice be highest yet that he stands as liable to receave Justice as the meanest of his Kingdom Nay Alfred the most worthy King and by som accounted first abolute Monarch of the Saxons heer so ordain'd as is cited out of an ancient Law Book call'd the Mirror in Rights of the Kingdom p. 31. where it is complain'd on As the sovran abuse of all that the King should be deem'd above the Law whereas he ought be subject to it by his Oath Of which Oath anciently it was the last clause that the King should be as liable and obedient to suffer right as others of his people And indeed it were but fond and sensless that the King should be accountable to every petty suit in lesser Courts as we all know he was and not be subject to the Judicature of Parlament in the main matters of our common safety or destruction that he should be answerable in the ordinary cours of Law for any wrong don to a privat Person and not answerable in Court of Parlament for destroying the whole Kingdom By all this and much more that might be added as in an argument overcopious rather then barren we see it manifest that all Laws both of God and Man are made without exemption of any person