authority to change it which must needs have reference to the Laws of God according to the subsequent words of the Bishops where he explaines his meaning by judiciously asserting That Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and rules os Christian piety and polity too of which the whole Church in its primitive example is the best interpreter and so his position in short is this That they have no lawful authority by the Laws of God and rules of Christian piety and polity to change Episcopal Government which is a cleer evident truth to me for I consider with my self that those Laws and Rules will admit at no hand of any schism ataxy confusion or division in the Church which are contrary to true Christianity for the abounding whereof amongst the Corinthians they were so often taxed of their too much carnality and that Bishops were set up by the Apostles themselves in remedium Schismatis for the preventing of schismes and divisions and that none of those errors and heresies were so prevalent or apparent to humane eyes in the Bishops times as since their Julian extirpation for the setting up of Prsbyterian practical-jesuitism was the ground of a day of fasting and humiliation amongst the Godly rebels and a Sermon thereupon preached by our unsacred Covenanter What shall we say to those things that men should show so much pretence of goodness in appointing a day to humble themselves for the errors and heresies of the times the true proper effects of their arrogant ways of Rebellion in setting up Presbytery as a distinct Government by it self without Episcopacy in direct opposition to the practise of the Catholick Church as well as to the King and his Laws which is and hath bin the head and fountain from whence the unclean muddy streames of heresies and blasphemies have had their rise and product And yet forsooth must have the means still kept for the production of the same ends of disorder and confusion Vpon the consideration of the whole I cannot but subscribe to the great truth of the Bishops words That as no legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in either Heresie Error Superstition Schisme Faction or Confusion so neither have the King Lords and Commons any prudent moral religious or lawful Authority by those Laws or those of this English Nation and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity to change the Ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical so far worse and unsuitable to England every way If one part of the sentence be true which by Croftons silence is absolutely concluded No man need fear to affirm the other without any derogation to the legal rightful Supremacy of the King That which speakes against Schisme and faction confusion and disorder will not surely give me any lawful power to extirpate Bishops the main preventers of it by being the constant promoters of love and unity § 27. Thus I have examined the words as I found them imperfectly quoted in Croftons Discourse without that additional clause which I have set down in my true Citation of them which he most unworthily and basely had left out that so he might have some what to fill up his rambling discourse with for a true Citation would have fo confounded his understanding as immediately to have commanded him into a becoming silence and ingenuous conviction of the Bishops truths but rather then he would depart from his cavilling art and shiftings he 'l mangle the words of an Antagonist to make his own way the smoother for credulous poor mortals to set their steps in which hath brought to my remembrance the answer of a most Reverend person to the Miltonian Justifier of Regicide and Rebellion depraver of verity and breaker of the Kings Image That he p See the Image unbroken p. 153. broke sentences and truths lest he should breake for want of matter And the words of the Bishops with that additional clause in it is so cleer a truth as can no waies be darkned by a Presbyters Argumentations which was seen evident enough by Crofton himself and so very craftily left it out and therefore needs no other defence but the bare words themselves which carry truth in their forehead to the convincing of any opposer which I have no sooner done but I took a resolution to follow the mans pattern for once and turn Quaerist too Where 's the Premunire that the Bishop hath stept into now Is speaking of a known Truth confronting of King and Parliaments Suppose the Bishop had lived in Queen Maries days and had said That neither Queen nor Parliament had any lawful power by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity either to change the King Edward-Reformation or to set up and establish Popery in the kingdom Was it fit for any mans mouth but a cursed Jesuits to charge him with sedition and treason against the Queen in confronting her and her Parliaments by saying black is black and white is white by asserting a known truth Blessed be God we live under a Prince that desires not to have His Supremacy stretcht so as to make it an Instrument of Justification of the Lawfulness of His Actings either against God or his Truth or the Defenders of true Christianity that desires to have His Supremacy carryed on and maintain'd for no other ends and purposes then those for which it was first established To make Clergy-men as well as Lay know that he is their onely Supream Governor and in case of offence that His Power will reach to the punishment of both that they shall not be exempted from the Civil Magistrates sword of Justice either by the wicked pretence of a foreign Papal superior Jurisdiction or Antimonarchical Sentence or Determination of the traiterous seditious Consistorians if they do that which is not justifiable either by the Laws of God or this Land Where 's the Bishops sedition I wonder Where 's his treason that he needs to fear to be made less by the head for as this Leaguer cants it Why he saith in affirming the defect of the Kings and Parliaments prudent moral religious and lawful power to change Episcopacy to one that is worse and far unsuitable to England every way for that is it which the Bishop saith which our unsacred Covenanter hath dared to contradict with his shabbed pratling Ay but saith Crofton The Statutes of the Kings declare against the Pope That Holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own donation power and authority and so by the same way changeable Ergo What That they have any prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change it to a worse After what rate doth this wily Covenanter argue Can they that swear to govern a people well and according to the Laws of the Land have any of that quaternary Power to change one Government for a worse Will the people in such a case think or can
Anti-Baal-Berith JUSTIFIED AND ZECH. CROFTON Tryed and Cast in his Appearance before the so called PRELATE-JVSTICE of PEACE In an Answer To his seditious Pamphlet Entituled BERITH-ANTI-BAAL Wherein his Anti-monarchical Principles are made manifest and apparent to deserve his Just Imprisonment Together with an Answer and Animadversions upon The Holy-Prophane League and Covenant Wherein according to their own words and ways of Arguing it s proved to be null and invalid and its notorious contrariety to former Legal Oathes is in several particulars plainly demonstrated Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee Luke 19. 22. Circumferamus oculos per omnem Historiam quod unquam saeculum tot vidit subditorum in Principes bella sub Religionis Titulo horum Concitores ubique Reperiantur Ministri Evangelij ut quidem se vocant Grot. de Antichristo p. 71 By ROBERT CRESSENER 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Licensed and entred according to Order London Printed by Tho. Johnson and are to be sold by Fr. Kirkman and Hen. Marsh at the Princes Arms in Chancery-lane 1662. A Paraenesis to the Reader THe Guisian Leaguers in France having sworn their Associations and Leagues which they blasphemously termed The Confraternities of the Holy Ghost and in 1588. having tormented and vexed the Dukedom of Bovillon with their troublesom Military Suitors The principal of the Pack assembled at Nancy in Lorrain where there was great consultation held how they might advance themselves and overthrow the King There they agreed to present certain Articles to the King which they would have him agree to and those were such as tended to the utter destruction of the King and the Ancient Nobility of France and the safety of themselves First They requested the King to joyn more nearly with the League 2. To establish the Spanish Inquisition 3. To put such Castles and strong Townes into their hands as they should name unto him The King considering how wonderfully they did derogate from his Crown and Dignity and that they tended directly to the weakning of himself and strengthning of the League would by no means be induced to condescend unto them And as the Leaguers sought by such devices to weaken the King so they would not be quiet till the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde were both dispatcht out of the way the latter whereof they murthered but the first for the time escaped Guise the principal Head of those Monsters had in the mean time caused such infamous rumors to be raised of the Kings Actions and by secret practises had so disgrac'd him among his subjects that he was almost grown into contempt with the Commonalty and was counted no body in comparison of Guise who knowing that he had stollen away the peoples hearts from the King away postes he to Paris and notwithstanding the King had truly mistrusted his mischievous designs against his person and therefore commanded him not to come upon pain of his displeasure and being lookt upon as a Traitor and the Author of all those miseries wherewith the Land was so incumbred at that instant yet he not regarding the Message followed the Messenger close at his heels and was almost at Paris as soon as he and not long after went very confidently to see the King and with all humble reverence with his knee to the ground saluted him but the King being displeased with his coming frowned on him He seeing that stays not long at Court but into the City runs he and by his and his Companies instigations the City rose up in Armes and down they went to the Louvre to take the King either alive or dead which he seeing and having not forces to resist such a rabble determined to leave the Louvre at the perswasions of sundry his most faithful Councellors who advised him to give place to that desperate Rebellion and to seek his safety some other where and so incontinently he went from Paris Hereupon Guise conceiving that the King would seek to be revenged of so great an indignity offered to his person forthwith seized upon the Arsenal and his Treasure removed Perrense the Provost of the Merchants there from his Office and the rest of the chiefest Officers which he knew to be affectionate to the King and placed such as were the most factious and seditious Leaguers in their rooms wrote sundry Letters to his friends abroad and to the principal Towns requiring them to joyn with him and be in a readiness when he should have need When he had taken this course for himself and his friends he wrote Letters to the King to disguise all his Actions and to perswade him that he had no evil meaning against his Majesty but had always been and still remained his most dutiful Subject and therefore besought the King to be his Gracious Lord and to accept of him as his most faithful and loyal Subject whose damnable hypocrisie and villanous practises had their just reward given them soon after by some of the Kings servants in their setting upon and slaying him But yet having left others of his Leaguing Conspirators behinde him men of the same trayterous Regicidian Principles with himself they never left contriving and hatching of mischief till their murthering ends were accomplished in James Clement the See the mutability of France Dominican Fryer his stabbing of their King with a poisoned knife He that shall well mark this Breviate of the Leaguing Story and consider with me of the actions of those whom some are pleased to call The long Parliament how after they were once got into their Den and the King had unfortunately Enacted their Continuance they began to present their Nineteen destructive Propositions to His Majesty utterly derogatory to His Crown and Dignity That all such as they were pleased to miscall Delinquents and disliked should be put out of their Offices That the Militia that ancient Flower of the Crown should be pluckt off thence and put into the hands of such persons as their seditious humors should agree with That they murthered Strafford and took away the life of the Archbishop of Canterbury How by infamous Rumors of the Kings actions they thereby lessened His Subjects affections to him and made Him so contemptible in the eyes of the people that some had the audacity to throw seditious Pamphlets into Witness that To thytents O Israel His Coach as He passed along the streets how by their own instigations they caused the Citizens of London to come down to Whitehall in tumultuou◠Companies saying No Bishops no Bishops no Popish Lords and so audaciously too that they set a Bill upon Whitehall-gate to give the people notice that it was to be let that the King was thereupon perswaded to leave the place and give way to that popular Commotion and did leave it accordingly How after his departure they raised an Army to send against Him seized upon his Treasury as well as Militia and ordered it which way they pleased themselves How they removed Sir
Richard Gourney then Lord Major of London from his Office and put in a fiery persecutor of the Loyal Clergy whose name as one saith should more properly Isaac Pennington have been Julian in his place as well as others who they knew or suspected to be affectionate to the King and his Legal Cause and placed others of the most factious and seditious Covenanting Extirpaters in their rooms How they wrote their Letters to the French Protestants abroad and sent their Agents into all parts of the Nation at home desiring the one and requiring the other to joyn with and assist them How they set up a Disciplinarian Inquisition among us that cast out more Ministers in three or four years then all the Bishops had done in fourscore years before How before and after all this they wrote their Letters and sent their printed demonstrating declaratory Knacks to the King to disguise their actions That they had no ill meaning against His Majesty but had been and still remained his dutiful and loyal Subjects How yet by their leaguing together and prospering in their wickedness they came at last to a peerless act of Regicide of murthering their Sovereign before His own Palace windows Shall quickly and easily perceive that they were sworn Leaguers together in one and the same Cause of Extirpating Reformation and Covenanted Rebellion and yet both hypocritically pretending their Loyalty and Allegiance which manifests the Serpents art in beguiling people into the snares of wickedness and into the ways of impiety and profaneness and then showing his servants the way to delude others to disguise their Villanies with the shew of Godliness and their seditious actions with the vizard of faithful Obedience and Subjection for there is no more difference between our Covenanters here and their Deer Leaguing Brethren of France as to the main end and scope of their Leaguing Designs then there is between Guy Faux with his Myne and dark Lanthorn and Bradshaw and his execrable Confederates in Westminster-Hall both whose intentions we know well enough was clearly the Murther of Kings though upon different grounds The first endeavoring to blow up the Father for being too much an Enemy to the Popish Ribaldry and Massing Trinckets The latter actually cutting off the Son because they thought him in their cauterized consciences to be a Popish Tyrant but murther we see was the aim of both The world saith a See his Survey of the pretended holy discipline p. 7. Archbishop Bancroft now adays is set all upon Liberty Everyman almost is of their humour which thought scorn that any should be lifted up above the Congregation Numb 16 1. Crofton at least hath wedded himself to their murmuring fancy for Ecclesiastical parlty and is very well pleased with his confused thoughts of it or else we should certainly have never found him affronting his Episcopal Antagonist with his Jangling Discourse of Falshood and Sedition more particularly asserting this palpable whimsie against the general current of Venerable Antiquity viz. That b See p. 25. of his book that which was charged upon Aerius by Epiphanius for Heresie was an undeniable universal truth Knowing man Excellent Disputant that can daub over his own errors with the untempered morter of confidence and falshood There 's no meddling with such kind of people who with the men of China conceit two eyes to themselves and that leave all the rest of the world in arrant blindness No hopes of ever prevailing with fanciful creatures who will for no other reason but because they wil be in the right order and way and have voted all their Antagonists to lie and stick fast in a muddy ditch of error It s very strange to me I must needs say that an Ecclesiastical Historian should not know what he wrote at the same time he wrote it better then one of his Juniors at many hundred years distance that should at that time point blanck affirm That what he said was false but when men are resolved once to have their wills no Truth nor History must dare to controul them for fear of being taxed of speaking untruths But seeing its an Affirmation without proof 't is but answering No to his Ay and then where is he He hath a wish behinde still a request to the Bishop to ease him of his unprofitable unlucky pains which is this that follows I would Dr. Gauden would own Dr. Saunderson as his Dictator in the nature of an Oath he should not then so much need the Dictates of little Master Crofton It s Page 45. no marvel indeed Mr. Croftons Dictates are of such profound depth that the Dr. should want them to enlighten his understanding It s the unhappiest man one of them that ever I met with to bring Dictators to overthrow his own dictates I wonder what he can get by his Citation of such a Reverend Prelates Works What profit or advantage is there in those learned Writings for the upholding of his Covenanting Spell The Reasons of the University of Oxford declares him to be a person of admirable parts and himself to be a grand Antagonist against their sacred Covenant The Reverend Prelate cited by that faithful Royalist Mr. Roger L'estrange in his Holy Cheat tell us That no man can binde himself Page 35. in things wherein he is subject without leave of his Superior And again The Oath of one who is under the power of another without the others consent is neither firm nor valid Now unless our Presbyter can prove that a son or servant can do any thing without the Father or Masters consent That a part of the Two Houses who themselves were but part of a Parliament can lawfully i. e. by the Laws of God or this Land order and change the Affairs of the Church and thrust out and put in what and whom they please without the Kings consent the learned Dictates of that excellent Bishop clearly proves the nullity of the Covenant and the rottenness and weakness of Mr. Crofton's Dictates how imperiously soever they are ushered in with his I deny and I averr and such like examples of his brother the Scotch Confuter of the Learned Cardinal Bellarmin Dr. Gauden having affirmed He took no Oathes but those appointed by Law Crofton tells him c Page 63. He might reckon the Covenant to be of this nature And why so Pray Reader do but observe his pitiful reason for the Authority of Parliament is by the Petition of Right the legal appointment of an Oath And what then I cannot but laugh methinks at his folly and wonder how he keeps his proselytes in his nose how he leads them by the nose to believe his fooleries to be unanswerable The Petition of Right desired no Oath might be imposed upon the people of this Land but by Act of Parliament Ergo The Covenant imposed by an illegal Ordinance made by a part of a part of a Parliament is appointed by Law What a Non sequitur is here
the times of Popish Egyptian darkness shall any pretending to true Protestantism which severely declaims all such perfidious Antichristian courses be found to be so far approvers of such infamous actions as to commend them for examples to others to tread in the same steps Can Subjects combining and swearing together to extirpate the legal established Church-Government of a Nation as Bishops were and are still here though the leg exercise of their Coercive power in the Star-Chamber and High Commission Courts was taken away by the Act in 1641. to prevent the subsequent Rebellion and Jesuitical-Combinations of Leaguing Presbyters and vowing to assist one another in their Covenanted Rebellion with their lives and fortunes against the express command of the supream Governor for the attaining of their Leaguing ends be called and stiled Commendable by any one pretending some affinity to Loyalty or Christianity which are inseparable and the constant attendants upon a true fearer of the Lord It 's a brave time with Rebels when their Treason and disloyalty are enrolled amongst the Records of Fame and Honour and their obedient opposites to the commands of their lawful Prince are in the very act of Loyalty tearmed and Recorded for terrible Delinquents against the thing which Nick-named it self so often A Parliament Halcyon daies for Sacrilegious Schismaticks when that which is condemned by the word of God nothing more shall be garnished forth with an Epethite of Commendable though what the Prophet by God's express command said so long ago that do I say now unto these strangers to Truth and Loyalty b Isaiah 5. 20. Wo unto them that call evil good and good evil § 2. They tell us too It was according to the practice of Gods people in other Nations Aha! What Gods people and Covenanting Rebels too What Reformers and swearing Extirpaters of the Episcopal promoters of the Reformation Saints and yet Schismaticks Christians and yet Traytors Surely our Covenanters were put to extream hard straits to make lies their refuge for their carrying on of their extirpating Reformation No other way to catch people into the black Road with them but by blinding their eyes with Errors and Contradictions A sad geneneration of Merozians It s true indeed the Guisian Leaguers in France went directly in the same impious courses before them unless they be their Gods people I know none for they alone were the Monsters that our Leaguers could properly say they were imitators of because they went to their hellish work with an Oath like ours and yet Guise himself like ours too had the face to tell his Prince That he was his faithful subject for all that Who as the Translator of a Parisians Work tells us living under c See the right of Kings and duty of subjects Pref. a milde and peaceable Prince slandered their King that he was an enemy to the Roman Catholick Religion as our Covenanters did the late Carolian Martyr to be an enemy to the Protestant and under the fair pretence of Religion screwed themselves into the favour of the Common people who are usually deceived by such pretences raising a strong party against the King by the name of the holy League which caused much confusion in that kingdom as by too sad and lamentable experience we have found to be the effects of our English Leaguers in this And now I appeal to the conscience of any man living whether they that can first Rebel against their d For so they swore the King was only Supream Governour and then have the confidence to tell us of a thing which never was like that of the man in the Moon and set it down with such a positive Asseveration as making it a pattern for their illegal traitorous undertakings and stile that Commendable which if any such thing had ever been ought to be abhorred as much as hell by him that desires the Rules of Christianity I say I appeal to the Conscience of any man living who desires not to be ensnared and kept so with the e See Mr. Reynell's Panegyrik intituled The unfortunate Change Caledonian Boar which was the cause of our distempers whether they that speak these lies and juglings these palpable falshoods and deceits could possibly have according to their assertion Before their eyes the glory of God and the advancement of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ whose f See Mr. Quarrel 's Loyal Convert P. 5. glory will not be vindicated by such unlawful means and unwarrantable proceedings and whose kingdom is endeavoured to be pulled down by such a peerless Covenant But what 's it they swear that must have a juggling Preface to set it forth Why they tell us in their first Article That they will sincerely really and constantly through the grace of God as though that would ever square with such proceedings endeavour in their severall places and callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches § 3. What have I to do with the reglement of Foreign Churches * See his Fair warning P. 1 said the Reverend Primate and so say I too What had English men to do to swear to preserve the Doctrine and Discipline of another Countrey Let them stand or fall to their own Master Ay but here was the Mystery We have an earnest longing desire to have Bishops extirpated and we having followed the pattern of our dear Scottish Brethren in rising up in arms against our King for that purpose and being not well able and sufficient of our selves to carry on our design against them we must call in the other to our aid and they will not come to us unless we will swear to set up their Church-way amongst us and therefore rather then Bishops shall stand we will do it For as the late Martyr said upon the Covenant nothing will induce them to engage till those that called them in have pawned thier souls to them by a solemn League and Covenant I am verily perswaded that there was not one amongst a hundred that swore that League to preserve the Scottish Discipline that knew no more what their Discipline was then a horse and so they swore with a blinde implicite faith to preserve they knew not what themselves Pure good swearing is it not Was this sworn in Truth Judgement and Righteousness as the Prophet saith an Oath should Jer. 4. 2. If not as it was not Is not therefore such mens swearing unlawful and so to be renounced and repented of Is it not an abominable wickedness in any one to swear to preserve the Scottish Discipline or when sworn to keep such a wicked Oath when the Reverend Primate hath made it appear by such cogent and undeniable Arguments of truth and sound Divinity beyond the reach and power of a Crofton or any Presbyterian adversary to answer without palpable
and shameless Semaiah a h Pag. 49. Runegado an Apostate Presbyter a i Pag. 51. man of Fancy k Pag. 61. An envious Runegado and Apostate l Pag. 63. A shifting Runegado and a m Pag. 67. subtile Sophister and yet behold and wonder this is the man that cries The Lord deliver him from rendring Railing for Railing The Bishop having said in his Anti-Baal-Berith Page 191. That the late Primate of Armaghs Reduction of Episcopacy was propounded not in order to binde the hands of or limit Bishops in England and Scotland but as a condescension and expedient to disarm and binde the hands of Presbyters and People Crofton in answer thereunto thus profoundly Quaeres * Pag. 13. Sir Who told you that this was the politick stratagem of that pious Bishop Did not Bishop Wren It would make a man mad and t' would make a man laugh to see such pitiful arguings used in a rejoynder to an Antagonist and yet to be believed as excellent and invincible by some people to hugge themselves up in their delusions Just as if a man should make such a like Quaere to him Who told people that it was little Mr. Croftons Politick stratagem not onely to whipp his maid behinde but before too Did not the Church-Wardens and several other of the Parishioners of that Parish where that noble Ministerial act was done to administer somewhat to the maids necessities So again The Bishop having said That the League which Joshua and the Rulers of the people made with the Trappanning Gibeonites was to the damage of no honest men but themselves Crofton cries out †Pag. 48. Was the Oath of the Gibeonites no way to the injury of honest men Was it no injury to Israel to loose four Cities out of their inheritance given them by the Lord Whereas the Bishop had said It was to the injury of no honest men but themselves which two last words Crofton very cunningly leaves out to make his Readers believe the convincing force of his Arguments But alas he knew to set down the whole Proposition was not for his turn of disputing but would have broke the neck of his cause and design and made it evident to every one that he was a meer shifting caviller one that was minded more to quarrel with an Antagonist then to answer him by good Reasons and Arguments which practise of his brings to my remembrance the like cavilling tricks and shiftings of the most learned Bishop Mountagues Puritanical Informers in the very self-same case who thereupon told them that the setting down of his whole passage and Proposition f See his Appeal to Cesar p. 145. Stood not with their prime purpose of calumniating directly it gave check to their detraction in chief and so they passed it slightly over § 20. So again The Bishop having said That g See his Anti-Baal-Berith p. 146. a King though never so Supream and Free yet may not Vow and Covenant to the diminution of his own just Sovereignty and Authority and Power which is his by Law Crofton thinks fit to give no other answer but this †Pag. 32. Which all people of the world must and will contradict and leaving out like a wrangling Sophister the principal Clause and Hinge of the Bishops Sentence on which hangs the force of the preceding words which is this And necessary for his high calling to protect the Church and State himself and his good Subjects And doth he or any one in his wits think that any Prince may Vow to diminish that whereby his Subjects are defended to extenuate and give away that Power he hath given him by God to Preserve and Protect those people over whom by the same God he is set as Ruler and Supream To cast his Subjects in a maner out of his Protection and give leave to others to Domineer and Tyrannize over them and do them what rapine and mischief they will and he himself sit still as a Cipher Certainly those people that are in such a case may well cry out of an Egyptian slavery and sadly proclaim to their great grief and sorrow both of heart and minde That every man doth that which seems right in his own eyes as though there were no King at all in Israel That a Prince may vow the diminution of his own just Sovereginty and power which is too hard for his Subjects to bear and when such diminution tends to their ease and benefit no body indeed in the world I think will deny but that is nothing at all to what the Bishop saith But that a Prince may not Covenant the diminution of his own just Soveraignty and Power necessary for his high calling to protect his Subjects which and which alone is what the Bishop says is a truth as cleer as the Sun and in that case our Presbyters all people in the world that must and will contradict it must beyond dispute be such people as belong to the world in the Moon § 21. Again the Bishop having set down p. 149. That the two Houses alone no nor the King alone or with them have any Legislative power to decree or execute what is unrighteous against God or man The Shifter answers with a * p. 32. So that the Legislation is founded in the piety and justice of the decree and rebellion against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command not at all caring to consider that what the Bishop saith in those words must needs have reference to the Law of God and his meaning thus that by that Law neither King nor two Houses joyntly or severally have any lawful power to decree or execute what is unrighteous for its impossible that that Reverend Prelate should ever forget what he hath read in the Scriptures of wickedness established by a Law and the possibility of Governors Legislative power to execute †Isa 10. 1 unrighteous decrees by the Woe that by God himself is pronounced unto them that decree such Nay the very language of the Bishop in that assertion of his doth convince me cleerly that he was wholly guided by this very Scripture in what he said which Crofton so much carps at and so as I just now said must needs have reference to the lawfulness of such power for such ends and purposes by the Law of God which expresly hath prohibited it and pronounced a woe against the Actors of it But hark what the man makes a matter of complaint of why that Rebellion by the Bishops saying oh how loyal he is all of a sudden and fearful of maintaining any Rebellious principles not above eight lines before he hath point blanck affirmed nay and as though it were a convincing truth too what I shall prove before I have done with him not onely to be sedition and rebellion but an open denial of the Supremacy Power and Authority of His Most Sacred Majesty but le ts hear what he can say for himself
why sentence of condemnation should not be passed against him for a wrangler he saith that by the Bishops assertion it follows that Rebellion against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command Pray Mr. Caviller tell me whether an impious decree must be done or performed at the Command of any Prince whatsoever by any one that hath the fear of the King of Kings before his eyes Is not rebellion in that case against man loyalty and true Allegiance towards God and so by Sacred Rules Justifiable and acquitted What think you of that Antichristian * Acts. 5 27 28 29. strait command and decree that the Jewish high Priest and Councel once gave unto the Apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus And of their stout noble Christian answer we ought to obey God rather then men Was not their Rebellion if it must needs be so called here against the Jewish Governors justifiable and acquitted by their loyalty towards God in performing of that which he had commanded them to do miraculously inspired them with his holy spirit for that end Certainly the man is either out of his wits in this complaint or else an evident Rebel against his Savior as his party if not his own self have bin formerly against their Prince for where the Laws of God and man run counter and come in competition one with another I conceive it s no Rebellion at all to observe the former in what he commands not at all the latter and he that shall make it a matter of complaint of a mans Christian refusing in such a case and terming it by the odious name of Rebellion he must certainly be an Atheist one that regards not the injunctions of the †1 Tim. 6. 15. blessed onely Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords I remember an observable saying of one of His Majesties Loyal Subjects to this purpose though he tels us that h See the right Rebel p. 28. It appeares that that which sometimes is esteemed and termed Rebellion by men may be and is in truth and in Gods accompt not onely lawful but necessary also and so not rebellion indeed but duty As when saith he the commands of inferiors in authority are disobeyed in obedience unto the lawful commands of those that in authority are their Superiors So the Sovereignty of God being absolutely Supream as himself is the most high over all if men though the highest upon earth command that which is forbidden by God or forbid that which is commanded by him it is not unlawful but necessary Rebellion if it may be so called to obey him though they thereby be disobeyed § 22. Again The Bishop having said page 146. That the King may not Covenant to diminish or destroy any honest subjects in any of their just Rights much less to extirpate or expel out of his Dominions any Rank Order and Degree of men that are useful and in some sense necessary for the being and well being of his people Nay neither Prince or any party of the People may Vow to extirpate the meanest Calling which serves the body Policick any more then men may Vow to cut off their feet or toes for I love to set down the words as I find them in the clear Fountain and not as they run in the unclean muddy Streams of the Wranglers giddy brains The Shifter contents himself with one of his merry whimsies to laugh out his Reverend Antagonist rather then to give out a solid answer to the Bishops Assertion and saies behold Reader the profound quality of his Argument * Pag. 32. Tinkers and Pedlers and men of the like Order will certainly cleave close to this Conservator of their Liberty where the man wants ability to answer there he he affords his Readers one of the marks of his Crazy Brain as conceiving that his Proselites †See his Preface doting on the bare say-so of an holy Leaguer will the sooner perswade them to believe the strength of his cavilling Objections when he wants wherewith to convince an Opponent he thinks its enough if he can but give him a Jeer and afford him matter of laughter which in a wise mans judgement redounds to the discredit and shame of none but the pittiful gasping Asserter who being destitute of sound Reasonings for the supporting of his Sandy Building and the holding up of his tottering Cause thinks it sufficient if he can but get so much breath as may enable him to sling a Jeer at his Antagonist before he and his Covenant do joyntly breath their last He resolved it seems to say somthing rather then be thought to want wherewith to gainsay and therefore laid down the preceding Position to sooth up his Proselites with a belief of his Abilities when if they are no better then that I have hitherto taken notice of they may well be compared to those of fools the upshot of whose wisedom is to be wise in their own conceits and were he any more then * See p. 8. of his book The shadow of a Disputant we should never have seen such shallow answers made to convince his Reverend Antagonist of his supposed Error about the Holy League but such Pittiful evasions in Argumentations well becomes indeed the men of his stamp in the defence of their peerless Oath which as it ingaged men in Acts of High Treason can certainly be maintained by no other means then either by such sneaking cavilling tricks as these or by †Pag. 40. Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition yea Rebellion § 23. Again the Reverend Prelate having according to the tenor of those words in Numb 30. shaken the force and validity of the Covenant as to its binding force upon the takers of it because of our Onely Superiours Prohibition of it Crofton very cunningly to show the excellent skill he hath in the Art of cavilling and running away from the question in debate that he might be thought to be some body in the eyes of his Classical Admirers is pleased to set down what he would have in this maner i Page 34. Will Doctor Gauden please to frame his Argument a Pari for little Mr. Croftons rescue he conceives it must run thus Numb 32. directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter Wife or other Inferior made without the knowledge of Father Husband or Superiour should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed or made void Ergo No Scandalous Disgraceful Dishonorable Oath may be taken if taken must not be kept if kept it must be well interpreted No Mr. shifter your Ergo is rotten and invalid and serves for nothing but to stir up peoples laughter and admiration of your cunning Sophistry for if you had acted the part of a Scholar and a sound Disputant we should have found your Ergo according to the Bishops Arguings to have been thus expressed Numb 30. Directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter Wife or
other inferior made without the knowledge of Father Husband or Superior should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed or made void Ergo this unsacred Covenant being taken without the consent or knowledge of our Regal Superior or as the Bishop alledges by the †See the 144 page of his book Subjects of England who were by Law and Oaths inferior to and dependents on the King obliged to duty and allegiance by his open Proclamation against it according to that Scripture is frustrate void and of none effect but ingenuons Arguings would have quite and clean spoiled the design of such a * Page 232 Sophistical Caviller and therefore he craftily forbore the pursuit of true Disputations not quarrellings and envious cavillings with his Reverend Adversary lest thereby his k 2 Tim. 3. 9. See p. 10. of Croftons book folly should have been made manifest to all men yea even to his Presbyterian proselytes who are pleased with a sound against the Bishops book and consider not the certainty of it and are ready jurare in verba Presbyteri be they never so groundless with whom the Say-so of a godly Presbyter is esteemed a sufficient reason of their Faith And yet the man thinking how bravely he had drawn the Bishops Arguings to serve the base ends of his own vain talking he presently begins to crow and vapour and cries out of a Syllogism Currens quatuor pedibus running of four feet and tells his Readers a Tale of a tub a story of his godly Brethren the Jesuits Conference at Ratisbone who just like his own Argument here against the Bishop set down thus their profound Determinations of the Articles of their Faith Qui negat articulum fidei est hereticus sed hereticus est qui negat Tobiam habuisse Canem Ergo just like our matchless Disputer sequitur articulum esse fidei quod Tobias canem habuerit He that denies an Article of Faith is an heretick But he is an heretick that denies Tobit had a dog Therefore it follows that it is an Article of Faith that Tobit had a dog Not considering that in his Parallel he fights with nothing but his own shadow that he utters his minde for the disgracing and vanquishing of no body but his own dear self not at all of the Bishop who hath no such rotten Arguments in all his Book And that we may perfectly see the mans design in Writing even to fill up his Book with cavilling he tells us in his Preface side 3. of the Bishops writing Mr. Grafton as if he should answer Dr. Gaudie when as one that could not reade he takes no notice of what the Bishop had set down at the latter end of his book to read Crofton for Grafton through the whole Discourse If his eyes were so dim he could not see it he should have said so and then I should have done my best to have got a clear pair of Spectacles for him that he might by that means have read what the Doctor had said for him to correct as well as others seeing he was one of his Readers but alas he wanted somewhat to say to fill up his Preface and therefore sets down this for a part of it to make appear his invincible ways of disputing His quotations of the Bishops words are such that besides those imperfect un-scholar-like ones I have already set down there are no less then fifteen or sixteen several other quotations which are either imperfect like the former or else absolute false ones as upon a true examination I have found them and such as leads his Readers into a wilderness for to see the truth of them but I consider his cavilling Discourse was made in a great deal of haste and his mad-brain'd tricks have made his Book good for nothing but to be the subject of some mens laughter and indignation for my part Mr. Crofton I * See the 8. page of his book will excuse you for your wrong imperfect false quotations though not for your Antimonarchical seditious Principles and Assertions up and down your Book if your very friends do not with blame to you say You are come a great deal too soon and have verified the old proverb upon your self The more haste the worst speed And truly I am afraid it had been better for your outward and inward safety both that your Book had been like the Bishops which you madly profess and say contrary to the judgements of many sober understanding men l Page 5. whosoever in his right mind doth but read will finde it a Rudis indigestaque moles a meer Chaos of Confusion where by the way whosoever is not of the same judgement therein with you is censured to be out of his wits like your self whose Wits run a wool-gathering rather then that which you are pleased to stile methodical exceptions which denies the onely Supremacy of the King It s but a sad merriment to play with edge-tools to laugh at your Adversary with Rebellion in your mouth and if the mercy of our most Gracious Sovereign prevent not which I know no reason in the world for you will finde it so to your cost before you are let loose from the reins of your Just deserved Imprisonment § 24. Again the Bishop said pag. 196. That he peremptorily determines that the King Lords and Commons have no prudent moral religious and lawful power to change an ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops To any that is AS new and Schismatical SO far worse and unsutable to England every way Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity too of which the whole Church in its Primitive example and constant custom is the best interpreter As no Legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in Heresie and Error and Superstition so nor Schism Faction or Confusion by causelesly nuding or taking from the Essentials of sound Doctrine or Christian Communion ever owned and maintained in the Church of Christ Here 's the Docters whole sentence word for word as I took it out of his own Book and not as its mangled by our Presbyters paultry delusive false quotation where he makes the words run thus Doctor Gauden peremptorily determineth That Parliaments Kings Lords and Commons have no Prudent Moral Religious and lawful Authority to change the Ancient Universal and excellent Government by Bishops for Christian Kings and Parliaments are obliged c. leaving out those words of the Doctors which made his learned Assertion unanswerable and true beyond any sound contradiction which are these To any that is AS new and Schismatical SO far worse and unsutable to England every way that so his own arguings might thereby appear the better and sound more pleasingly to the ears of his factious brethren a practise somewhat like unto one that pictures a man with the greatest deformity of body he can for no other end but to make his
own naturally deformed one appear the neater and beautifuller But I consider otherwise he could not hide his folly from being palpable and open to every person that is not possessed of a Bedlamers understanding nor his Book from being thrown into the fire by ingenuous persons rather then they would vex themselves so much as to read his lies and juglings his cavillings and sedititon his false quotations and confident language both of the judicious Assertions and person of that Learned Reverend Prelate whom this Holy Leaguer may well put to silence after the usual Presbyterian ways of Disputing for indeed it will soon make any wise man leave off medling with such notorious Salamanders who loves to live in peace and quietness and endeavour to advance the Unity of the Church and delights not to live in contention with them to kindle the fire of Combustion and Sedition both in Church and State But we will see however what the man conceived fit in his Scotized noddle to say for himself and make it the matter of his Answer to the words of the Bishop as he had filthily mangled them in his false quotation of them and that I finde upon search to be this learned one that follows with a m P. 25. of his Book But Sir have you not stretch'd too far and stept into a Premunire Little Mr. Crofton should fear to be made less by the head as guilty of Treason Sedition at the least should be thus confront King and Parliaments in what all their Statutes declare to be their own creature and constitution changeable at their pleasure even from the Statutes of Carlisle and 25. of Edward the 3. Declaring against the Pope That holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own Donation Power and Authority and so by the same way changeable Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative why not Supremacy Would not that word have choak'd you over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical What is become of your oath of Supremacy Can you make this peremptory determination as your self calls it consist with it any more with your Covenant Hath a gracious King lately advanced you to debase nay dethrone him and his Parliament too And then tells his Readers a story How it hath been observed to be the fatall chance of the Bishops of England to run themselves into a Premunire The man would fain make people believe that Bishops are Seditious persons and in particular his Reverend Antagonist and therefore the best course will first be to consider what the Bishop hath said and then see whether it amount to the Sedition supposed by the Leaguing Rhodomantado and in order thereunto I shall begin with the first particle of the Bishops words That Kings Lords and Commons have no prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change an ancient universal Church-Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical So far worse and unsuitable to England every way and see whether they may be found to be either contrary to truth or a derogation to His Majesties legal Supremacy and therefore first that they have no prudential authority to change Episcopal Government much less swear to extirpate them root and branch is evident not onely by the desperate excommunicating antimonarchical brasen tricks and practises of the Godly partie forsooth in Scotland against the excellent King James in walking direct contrary to his Royal Commands and stirring up the people in Rebellion against him because he did not submit himself to their traiterous imperious humours and making him for his own safety to flie out of his own capital City of Edinburgh but also by that Kings famous Motto No Bishop no King and by the sad woful experience of the truth thereof by the late never to be forgotten Rebellion in 1642 and the Regicidian genuine issues and effects of it knowest thou not Sir John Presbyter the undeniable truth of that Assertion of the noble L'estrange which he put forth to the view of the world That m See his Interest mistaken or The holy Cheat pag. 88. by those very Troops that cryed down Bishops was the King murthered Knowest thou not Sir John what the wise King James said to Dr. Reynolds's desire at the conference at Hampton Court for the rearing up a domineering Tyrannical Presbytery within this Kingdom if not then I shall for once declare it unto your Honor the Royal Answer ran thus n See the Conference at Hampton Court p. 81. Stay I pray you for one seven years before you demand that of me and if then you finde me pursey and fat and my wind-pipes stuffed I will perhaps harken to you for let that government be once up I am sure I shall be kept in breath then shall we all of us have work enough both our hands full but Dr. Reynolds till you finde that I grow lazie let that alone If Kings and Parliaments have a mind never to be quiet and to be alwaies in a combustion I know no better advice can be given them then for to set and rear up this Presbytery but if they desire to keep themselves in rest peace and unity they 'l find I am confident no prudential authority to extirpate Episcopacy by a Baal-Berith and bring an headless currish Presbytery in its room but will abandon the Covenant that o See Mr. L'estrange his Interest mistaken p. 35. popular Sacrament of Religious disobedience as the very poison of hell and the secret underminer of the Regal Authority and Supremacy but then § 25. Again secondly that they have no religious authority for as for moral authority that is an authority secundum morem according to former custom their authority is so altogether in the negative there that its in vain to blot any paper with an answer but I say that they have no religious authority to change Episcopal government is evident too in regard of the Apostolicalness and primitive use thereof by the Apostles while they lived in commanding obedience and controuling the subordinate governors and their disorders as well as the peoples in the several Churches they planted and enjoyning the same to be done by his Episcopal deputies at Ephesus and Creet and in them all their successors in the Episcopal office in those several Churches over whom they had their jurisdiction Certainly he that tells me that p 1 Tim. 3. 1. he that desires the office of a Bishop desires a good work gives me no religious nor lawful authority to vow and swear with an Anti-regal Oath to extirpate it and make an exchange for one of the plagues of Egypt to overwhelm us instead of that That the Apostle said the one and that therefore for that very reason Kings and Parliaments have no religious authority to do the other None but a Crofton and his crafty companions would ever have had the confidence to deny it which makes me proceed to the next thing and that is § 26. That they have no lawful
they that they are well governed or that their Prince mind their peace and safety If I may be so bold with the world as to tell them my simple judgement of those words of the Kings I humbly conceive with submission to those that are wiser That those Statutes were made meerly to cut off the spring of the Popes universal Supremacy and as much as in them lay to cast out his bold unwarrantable antichristian Encroachment upon the English Liberties and to give acheck to his Lordly domineering over them that the Kings as now might have their due rightful Supremacy over all persons in all causes within their dominuous Over Clergymen who were humble servants to the principles and injunctions of the Papal Vsurper as well as over Common people who were led by the nose by them In all causes Ecclesiastical to reform Abuses in the Church and punish Clergy-men for their Errors Heresies and Seditious principles aswel as Civil To execute wrath upon those that do evil either by Rebellion or Treason or Speaking or bellowing out from Press or Pulpit their damnable positions against their Persons Crowns Dignities or Governments upon any accompt with any person or persons joynt or seperate whatsoever This I understand to be the grounds of that Royal saying That holy Church was founded in prelacy by their own donation power and authority and not for any intentions of theirs to extirpate Episcopal Government or the manifestation of the lawfulness of their power by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity for the doing of it § 28. But the man hath not done yet but hath some more questions such as they are to be answered still and therefore I le hasten to the consideration of them and what should they be but these paultry impertinent ones that follow which are as proper Queries for the Bishops true position as if he should have put his pen in 's tail and held them both up to the Sun to look at Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical What is become of your Oath of Supremacy Can you make this peremptory determination as your self calls it consist with it any more then with your Covenant Weighty questions indeed but such as are more worthy of laughter at his folly then of any answer to his proud boasting Quaeries but seeing the Scotized Presbyters aim therein if I hit him right if not let him or any of the gang inform me how I shot amiss is to make the learned Bishop by his saying to savour of the guiltiness of perjury by his pretended contradictory assertion to the noble Oath of Supremacy which he like a true Christian and faithful Subject had sworn its high time to look about us and stand up in defence of this vilely slander'd Prelate against this Covenanting Goliath of the City of London and make answer to his sorry though insolent Quaeries which though they seem to be of a ternary quality yet in sum the three amount but to one and first he asks Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all Causes Ecclesiastical Good lack what a great Upholder of the Regal Supremacy you are become Mr. Caviller What Sir do you turn Quaerist after it Do Presbytery begin to shake hands with the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty Doth the devil plead for God and Baal for the worshipping of Christ Certainly then there needs no great fear of danger from the Apostatical Calvinian Hierarchy or of Letters of horning from the Scotized Presbytery But good now Sir Presbyter Why Prerogative Why not Supremacy Was that word like a Bishops Lawn Sleeves to your party that it would have choaked you to have named it In all my little reading did I never meet with that word Prerogative joyned with that sentence before put in in stead of the rightful word Supremacy which makes me think of a tacit denial of the thing at that very time he saucily corrects the Bishop for his seeming contradictory Position to it as giving a back-blow to the Kings Supremacy in his seeming paultry defence of it else surely he would have made use of the usual word Supremacy and not impotently ask Where is the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical Come come Mr. Zechary you are a cunning companion and lie altogether upon the catch to see how you can take away a Prelates credit from him but all wont do you are horribly deceived if you think to meet with any unbyassed persons to trap them into your cheating Snare with you for there 's none that compares one Book with the other as I have done but will see your cunning Sophistry and infamous ways of arguing and thereby learn to detest the Leaguing Author of the one and honor the reverend Writer of the other If he that saith That the King hath no prudent moral religious and lawful Authority by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity to change Episcopal Government unto any one else that is AS new and schismatical SO far worse and unsuitable to England every way and so not to bring in Schism or Heresie denies the Supremacy of the King certainly the great and invincible maintainers of it against the joynt encroachments of Papist and his brother Presbyter will be quickly found to be against it and so indeed every one else that understands Christianity sense or reason Take the Supremacy in that notion for which it was first established and this Assertion of the Prelates may very well consist with the Oath but if this Calvinian prater for a little cavilling sport for it s for no other end be be sure for he is either no Presbyter or if he be he is no more a friend to or pleader for the Kings lawful Supremacy according to the true intent and meaning of the Framers of the Oath then the rigidest Jesuit at Rome will take it to reach to every thing that he that denies the Kings lawful power to do that which is unrighteous by the Laws of God is presently against His legal Supremacy Then not onely the reverend Prelates and Episcopal Divines the onely constant Assertors of it all along against the several wilde fancies of Jesuits and Scotized Presbyters but the Kings Sacred Majesty himself wil be found to be vehement opposers of it I 'm confident His Highness desires no such thing but that His Supremacy might onely reach so far as he may lawfully exercise it without breach of the Laws of God § 29. But this is not all for there is one Question still behinde a shrewd one indeed which follows immediately upon the back of the former and that 's this Hath a Gracious King lately advanced you to debase nay dethrone Him and His Parliament too What a huge careful man this Presbyter would fain make himself appear to be of his Princes honor so far as to question a learned Prelate for his seeming sedition and
irreverence How now Mr. Zechary Whereabouts are you What will you never leave fighting with the Sun never leave striving and presenting the people of this Nation with * See p. 18 of his book the foggy fancies of your own giddy brain and run away with them by your fluid and gliding tongue or discourse as if the state of your question were granted by understanding persons for the truth you crake hugely methinks but I doubt I shall marr your sport with what follows and to that end let me intreat this favour of your Kirkifi'd Holiness as to speak the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to these few questions I have subjoyned here for an answer either from your self or godly partakers Doth the Bishop go about to debase and dethrone his Sovereign as to follow your religious pattern so far as to say any where in his learned Writings which you so much snarl at that * See his Preface to the Considerator consider'd The Common-Prayer Book was expelled by a lawful Authority which if it be not Treason as the Noble L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat Scot and Peters were no Traytors Doth the Bishop talk any where of a See p. 51. of his book The Two Houses Supream Legislative power without His Majesty and so give the lie to the Oath of Supremacy and Laws of the Land which ascertains it to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King Or doth he in any of his Writings like you b Page 31. averr That neither the place of His Majesties retirement nor reason of his absence doth adde or abstract to the authority of Parliament Or fourthly Doth the Bishop any where bid His Majesty keep that damnable traiterous and seditious Oath called The Solemn League and Covenant and tell him He shall be delivered from that distress which Page 42. may too late engage His Majesty to send to you for sooth his faithful Monitor to pray for him Oh Mr. Crofton you are a notable fellow at feminine scourges feminine do I say I am a little too short there for male and female are both alike to you nay and not every ordinary one neither for the King himself must not be exempted from the distress you threaten him with for not performing of a bloody treacherous Oath but the best on 't is Curst Cows have short horns and its very fit you should be so short kept lest being left to your self you should be apt to stray out of the pathes of loyalty and obedience and get into the by-pathes of religious Rebellion and playing the devil for Gods sake pushing and goring at every one nay at your own Sovereign himself if he will not fulfil your whimsical humours It s like you would be good enough if you were but once throughly cleansed from the Kirkish leaven of Hypocrisie and Treason Sedition and Rebellion but till then they that trust to you and your party for exact loyalty and obedience will soon finde upon any opportunity for Tumults and Sedition that they have trusted to a broken reed to their own fancies and chimaeraes The Bishop might well fear I must needs confess and that most justly too to be made less by the head as guilty both of Treason and Sedition should he so confront his Prince and his Supremacy as to set down such treasonable seditious Affirmations as you have done but you Presbyters have been so always constant as Mr. L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat to the rule and method of doing your own business in the Kings Name that you can plead your being His Majesties true Subjects at that very time when you your selves are debasing and disallowing of His legal Supremacy and so setting a fair step for the dethroning of him when your desired opportunities of doing mischief shall unhappily fall out for the performance of your Antimonarchical Consultations And now to conclude this particular I shall put his own question to him and all the godly Generation of Scribes and Pharisees Hath a gracious and I wish he be not in the mean while too merciful a King out of His own Princely Goodness passed an Act of Indempnity by which He pardons the long continued Rebellion begun by a Club of Running Lecturers as Mr. L'estrange calls them and their Adherents in 1642. against His Royal Father for the doing whereof He might by the Statute have cut off the heads as well as seized on the estates of hundreds of those primary Rebels who yet by the mercy of a Princely Patron of Episcopacy enjoy both the one and t'other I say hath a Gracious King out of His own sweet Christian Nature done this for you and your party to debase nay and dethrone him by your denial of His Supremacy and setting on foot the doctrine of the devil who was a Rebel and a Murtherer from the beginning § 30. Ay but saith Crofton * Page 29 30. Dr. Gauden being well considered will be found to be no less erronious in his Politicks then in his Ecclesiasticks So then who ever concludes for the truth of the Doctors Assertions in his Book he is by your heady suppositions adjudged to be one that hath not well considered them But we 'l see your reason for 't first before we believe you good Mr. Zechary and that is I perceive the Bishops true saying that The Hierarchy or Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England which you you say have in your Analepsis Analephthe denied At this rate its in vain to meddle with you That a mans expressions shall be true or false according to what they seem to be in your giddy brains That your Ipse dixit onely shall be proof enough to overthrow the arguments of your Reverend Antagonist But such things as these Mr. Zechary must not be allowed of and therefore the examination of your Denial will in this case be somewhat needful You say You deny that Episcopacy is established by the Law The more shameless man you to deny that which is so apparent For what think you of the very first Article of the Great Charter which is not onely declared to be the Common Law of the Land as I have already said but is confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament which runs thus Salvae sint Episcopis omnes Libertates suae Let the Bishops have all their whole Rights inviolable What think you now Mr. Presbyter Is the Great Charter no Law or are Bishops and their Liberties expresly named in the very first Article and yet Episcopacy not established by the Laws of England What a grand Cheater is this high-flown Presbyter that shall have the face to condemn his Superiors and give them the Lie for speaking such a notorious truth as this That Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England § 31. But he 'l Print Errors and give a Reason for it when he hath done I do averr saith he like an arch Presbyter That the English laws finding Episcopacy conversant
about the Church doth restrain its exorbitances and direct its administrations but neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish it and in terminis declare and authorize it to be the Government of the Church of England That neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish Episcopacy is notoriously false by your good leave Mr. Shifter And that neither do in terminis declare it to be the Government of the Church of England is clearly beside the purpose T is not your I averr nor mine neither will weigh any thing in the way of Argumentation but good solid Grounds and Reasons raised upon a Foundation of Truth must be the way and Method for the satisfaction as well as conviction of an opponent and I am sure there is none at all in this and mine I am sure is as good a proof of the truth of my expression as your I averr is of yours but are both of the same mettal both a kin to the Scotchmans confutation of Bellarmine Bellarmine saith thus but I say the contrary where is he now You say That neither Canon nor Common Law do in terminis declare and authorize Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England Well What of that Because neither do in express tearms name Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England to say presently it s not established by the Law notwithstanding the express mention of Bishops and their Liberties in the very first Article of Magna Charta signifies little to me but onely the shallowness of the Authors brains and yet his proud confidence too to strive with a Father of the Church with an ipse dixit who avers nothing but his own folly mixed with a Turbulent and Seditious spirit I had not read much further beyond these last words but I meet with a Trayterous expression of his in his venemous Answer to the Reverend Bishop which makes as clear as the Sun what a Factious Seditious spirit a Sacred Covenanter is composed of even such That if the Law makes once a strict enquiry will send his head to accompany his Brethren in Iniquity upon London Bridge and to that end observe the words of this factious Pulpiteer § 32. The Bishop having said That the Parliament he means the the two Houses can Act Vote Determine and Execute nothing under the Kings withdrawing from them into any part of his own Countrey Who may yet saith a Pag. 31. Crofton do all things in his infancy or while in a Forreign Countrey As if the place ☞ of his Retirement or reason of his Absence did add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament A right Rebellious Covenanter One ready for the work of Treason Perfectly opinionated of the Sovereign power of the two Houses over the King and ready prepared for a Second Rebellion upon the old false thredbare grounds of Loyalty and Religion He offers first as an argument against the Legislative power of his Sovereign for that feigned suppositious one of the two Houses That they may do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey Either the man is very short sighted and simply versed in the Royal English Laws and yet before we finde him pretending to it or else he is a wilful Sophisticator If he is not knowing in our Laws Why is he so arrogant and presumptuous as to offer his shallow Arguments against the Bishops undeniable Assertion and to stand to contradict him in that wherein he hath no skill If he doth know the Laws he is the blindest of all Beetles by being wilfully blinde and speaking contrary to his knowledge I do not mean contrary to his desire or his Trayterous Seditious spirit for its a thing too well known and evident to be denied by any whose face is not perfect mettal and free from all the sparks of Modesty That in the infancy of a King there is a Protector appointed in the Princes Supream Legislative place of Calling Proroguing and Dissolving of Parliaments of setting the Stamp of the Regal Sanction upon the Writings and requests of the Two Houses for the making of them Laws for without the Royal consent no Law and Repealing of old Laws if it be thought convenient and this that I say is confirmed by that learned and Reverend Judge Jenkins who tells us That b Lex terrae p. 52. the Protector assisted by the Counsel of the King at Law his twelve Judges the Counsel of State his Attorney Sollicitor and two Serjeants at Law his twelve Masters of the Chancery hath in the Kings behalf and ever had a Negative voice And whilest the Prince is in a Forreign Countrey there are certain Noble men Commissioned under the great Seal of England to supply his place while he comes himself as the Histories of our Kings whilest in Forreign parts do attest as well as the practises of our present Prince whom God long preserve out of the juggling murdering Clutches of Presbyterian Judasses in relation to Scotland and Ireland by appointing a Lord Commissioner in the one and a Lord Lieutenant in the other to supply the place of Majesty in both Kingdoms So that his may yet do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey without either Protector at the one time or Deputed Nobles at the other is nothing else but a meer fiction a delusive Cheat the effects of his Crazy brain endeavoured to be put into peoples belief and therefore I 'le trouble my self no further with it § 33. But behold the spirit of the man That neither the place of his Majesties Retirement nor reason of his Absence doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament Is the issue and fruits of his wilde seditious humor He without whom there can be neither Parliament nor Law is concluded by this hair-braind Presbyter to be but as a Cypher and that the two Houses are a compleat Parliament of themselves alone without his Sacred Majesty their Only Supream head and Founder By what Warrant were they at first called together Was it not by vertue of his Majesties Writ And was not the tenor of that Writ the Treating and Advising with the King And did they perform the ends for which they were summoned together when they raised Tumults against their Prince and forced him away from them and at last had the confidence to declare by their Votes of non-Addresses that they would neither Treat nor Advise with him If not then t is clear they sate to no purpose in the world but ingraved the name of Rebels upon their foreheads and made themselves to be no Parliament by destroying the ends for which they were called together But because Crofton is so arrogant in denying the Kings Presence or Absence to be of any force or validity in adding or diminishing the Authority of a Parliament I shall make bold to present him with this one Example Queen Elizabeth summoned 3. Eliz. Dyer 203. her first Parliament to be held the
contrary to above 30 Acts of Parliameat The King himself protesting against it as far as Oxford by his publick Proclamation as engaging the takers in Acts of high Treason Doth our Leaguer think that when 290 Voices are taken away out of 600 that the remaining part hath as great a power as when they were all together Or doth he think that the Kings silence or his Protestation doth not adde or diminish the authority of the thing sworn But I must needs say indeed l See Croftons Berith-Anti-Baal p. 51 Suppositions are sufficient supports to a man of fancy who all along this Discourse plays at Bo-peep begging what must never be granted while his Nose is between his eyes which I leave him to see at large his ignorance and folly his seditious and treasonable Principles against His Gracious Sovereign § 37. Crofton citing out of his Analepsis p. 12. That the two Houses of Parliament are Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England and the Bishop asking p. 148. What and can they legally exercise this power without yea against the Kings consent being out of his nonage and not out of his wits This furious offspring of Smec cries out p. â—9 That they may do it without the Kings consent none do or can deny it common practice with the peoples constant obedience doth plainly manifest it as also the Protestation of May 1641. never doubted as to the validity of Authority which you say was precarious but Resolves of the House declare to have been Authoritative The Votes Resolves Orders and Ordinances of one or both Houses do proclaim it And the Priviledges of Parliament That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted ordered or acted by them until it be by themselves formally presented unto His Majesty And the very nature of Co-ordinate power if the Doctor understands it with their Actings in case of his absence by minority or otherwise doth determine it As to the exercise of it against the Kings consent I shall conclude nothing but commend Mr. Prynn's Sovereign Power of Parliaments to your serious study And the Legislative power of their Votes Debates Resolves Orders or Ordinances were never gainsaid by His Majesty O Lump of wickedness and sedition What do or can none deny that the Two Houses may exercise that Vtopian Fiction their fancied imaginary Legislative power without the Kings consent Why is your lawless Assertion so true think you that it is past all contradiction Alas poor Presbyter why do you hug up your self so in your own delusions It s pity you should go on uncontroul'd in your wild positions and therefore I le try for once what I can say against it Are the Two Houses any better then the Kings Subjects If you say otherwise the Law affixes the deserved name of Traytor upon your forehead Can they convene and assemble together in the House without the Regal Summons Are they any more then the Kings own creature Can they stay one minute there when met together to debate or consult of any thing without His Majesties free leave Can the creature do any thing what he please without the Creators consent Suppose they should as your Long-Parliamentidol did reproach their Sovereign maintain five trayterous Antimonarchists in their treason and villany hatch a Conspiracy and bring forth Rebellion cannot the Creator have so much power over his forlorn creatures as with the breath of his mouth immediately to command their speedy departure by a dissolution Oh Crofton Crofton beware of the perjurious consequence and stop your mouth left the Ax for your treason make no difference between your own and those heads of your fellow-rebels on London-bridge But this is a Scotized Assertion an opinion of m See Bish Garden 's Anti-Baal-Berith p. 151. Seminary Presbyters who have been the Protoplasticks of a rebellious generation both in Church and State agreeable to their all along rebellious practises by vertue of their legislative power which our profound Lawyer saith they have and which they may he averrs exercise without the Kings consent and so by consequence they may rebel against their Head kill and murther His loyal Subjects imprison and impoverish others take away His Imperial Dignities and Pre-eminences from Him seize upon His Forts Ports Magazines and Towns and plague and oppress their fellow-English-men by seizing on their goods and estates how and in what proportion and maner they please send armed men through perjury to fight against their lawful Sovereign leave out the defence of his person out of their Commissions impose what cursed Leagues and Covenants they please all actions of high treason by the known Laws of this Land without His Majesties consent sell and imprison Him until He agree to their imperious humors and demands and Christen their Actions too like a pack of dissembling false hypocrites with the title of Reformation Loyalty Advancing the Glory and promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ yea play the devil for Gods sake and all this they claim a right and lawful authority to do by force and vertue of their Idoliz'd Diana their new Goddess lately come down from Jupiter their phanatick frenzical whimsie of Legislative power And because these things have been done and justified with impudence beyond example by n See Presbytery Popish not Episcopacy p. 6. a Tumultuary Rabble that pretended to be a Parliament and their graceless adherents therefore this Leaguer concludes the Lawfulness of the Act done and the Justifiableness of re-acting the same again But A facto ad jus non valet argumentum is an old and a true Position To argue from the Action done the lawfulness thereof becomes a subtile Sophister a Trappanner and Cheater more then a sound Scholar or a Disputant As for the Two Houses Legislative power so called or their Co-ordinacy therein with their by them sworn ONELY Supream Governour I have said so much already concerning that grand delusive Cheat and Fiction that a question will now be enough against it How can the two Houses be affirmed by any having regard to the Rules and Customes of the Realm to have the whole or a Co-ordinacy or share in that which the very Prologues to the Acts and Statutes denies them to have any right or claim to either in Possession or Reversion As for the Protestation I told you before Silence gives consent and his Majesties suffering such a thing to be done by them under his nose without a Prohibition argues plainly his Tacit fiat to it but yet proves not at all their supposed Legislative power or Coordinacy in the same with their Head nor the legality of their exercise of it without the Kings consent It 's true the Bishop tells you It was precarious and personal upon this just Ground and Foundation o P. 278. That the two Houses had not power to make or take or impose any Oath contrary to the Laws of England which they were trusted to observe
from rendring rayling for rayling and yet rayl your self for several times in several pages against that very person whom you so strangely exclaim against for the very same thing which clearly manifests an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a notorious self-condemnation and brings you within the reach and lash of the Apostles sentence which in his Epistle to the Romans he pronounces with a Therefore thou art inexcusable O man who ever thou Rom. 2. 1. art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest dost the same things § 39. But Crofton hath not done yet but continues belching forth his own wickedness and folly against the Reverend Prelate with a z Page 51. Thus he supposeth the Two Houses into a non-entity as to their Supream Legislative power by the temper they were a Page 52 then in and the absence of the King though they were animated by an express Statute Law which some upon good grounds and reasons beyond the reach of Dr. Gauden or little Mr. Crofton to resolve have openly averred to continue them yet in being And thus he profoundly supposeth a Parliament swearing qua Parliament in the fullest formality and profession of their National capacity was a personal Covenanting Bless me what doth this Presbyter prattle thus for of things he lets us know by his fanciful jabbering he hath no more skill or knowledge in then his neer acquaintance the Ass The man is out of his element sure he is got into a wrong way and fancies to himself that he 's going the direct right way on to his journeys end and therefore I le do what lies in my power to manifest his error and mistake unto him And therefore first Doth the Doctor suppose such a thing Doth he suppose nothing to be nothing that to be a non-entity which never had a being A terrible cause indeed of a Presbyters exclamation for we finde that the Supream Legislative Bauble of the Two Houses is the very very Loadstone that draws up a sanctified Puritans zeal and affection to them to shew us a Presbyters inclinations more to fictions and whimsies then to those which are visible undoubted Truths Supream What Gimcrack or New-nothing have we got here That the Body should be affirmed to be above the Head The Legs Arms and Trunk of the Body indeed as Judge Jenkins b See his Lex Terrae p. 49. saith are greater then the Head and yet not above nor with life without it Certainly the man hath a mind to show the profound depth of his skill in Corah's art of murmuring and rebellion against the Supremacy of the Prince and Priest He tells us of an Observation in his Book That it hath been the fatal chance of the Bishops of England Page 25. to run themselves into a premunire If he speak of any since the Reformation I defie him to show me one example of any Protestant Bishop that ever since then proved disloyal either in words or actions to either King or Queen except Bishop Williams when he began in his old age to dote and lean too much on that rotten prop of Presbytery which taught him to fortifie his House against his Gracious Sovereign I do not mean those pretended premunire's for which the incomparable Laud was so infamously murthered nor by which sundry others of the Royal Adherents were the very same way dealt withal as Traytors against His Majesty and the Bauble which they call'd The Parliament for assisting him by that Black Cabale that Assembly of Treacherous Men before in and after the year 1644. But certainly there 's none but can observe the Presbyters Loyalty is good enough when they are deficient in power that is to say when they cannot help it for it is as clear as noon-day that a Puritan never wants a will to rebel if he hath at any time any power and opportunity and that the Magistrate refuse to set up the Consistorian Slavery which made the Learned Dr. Pierce cry out c See his Self-Revenger exemplified p. 100. Blessed and happy is that Nation where such mens Loyalty consisteth in their want of power or opportunity to make resistance In good earnest Mr. Crofton I le for once make answer by a retortion and ask you your own questions you so weakly and impertinently to say no worse propounded Page 25. to the Bishop Sir have you not stretcht too far and stept into a premunire I should fear to be made less by the head as guilty of Treason Sedition at the least should I thus confront the King and Loyal Parliaments in what all their Statutes and an Oath of Supremacy declare to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King And that they do so need no further demonstration then that which follows even the words of the Lord Chief Baron now Lord Chief Justice Bridgeman in his Speech to the Grand Jury at the Regicides Tryal where we thus finde his learned Language Gentlemen Let me tell you what our Law-books say for there 's the ground out of which and the Statutes together we must draw all our conclusions for matter of Government How do they stile the King They call him The Lieutenant of God and many other expressions in the Book of Primo Henrici Septimi Says that Book there The King is immediate from God and hath no Superior The Statute says That the Crown of England is immediately subject to God and to no other power The KING say our Books He is not onely Caput Populi the Head of the People but Caput Reipublicae the Head of the Commonwealth the Three Estates And truly thus our Statutes speak very fully common experience tells you when we speak of the KING and so the Statutes of Edward the Third we call the King Our Sovereign Lord the King Sovereign That is Supream And when the Lords and Commons in Parliament apply themselves to the King they use this expression Your Lords and Commons your faithful subjects humbly beseech I do not speak any words of mine own but the words of the Laws Stat. 24. Hen. 8 cap. 12. Whereas by divers sundry old authentique Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and expressed That this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the world governed by one Supream Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same c. 25 Hen. 8. cap. 21. There it is the people speaking of themselves That they do Recognize no Superior under God but the Kings Grace Thus that learned Person To the Judge let me add Mr. Duncomb who telling us d See his Royal buckler or a Lecture to Traytors p. 108. That the Law of Nature shall perish and the heavens and earth shall pass away before Lex Terrae the Law of the Land shall deny this Oracle Omnis sub Rege ipse sub nullo nisi tantum sub Deo All men are under the King and
Parliament was to raise Credit for three purposes That those ends were ended take away the end and the means thereto are to no purpose and therefore the three ends of the Act being determined it agreeth with Law and Reason the Act should end the Law rejecting things unprofitable and useless That the Writ of Summons was the Basis and Foundation of the Parliament that those men would be called a Parliament having abated quashed and made nothing of the Writ whereby they were Summoned and Assembled that if the Writ be made void the Process is void also That that house must needs fall where the Foundation is overthrown that Sublato Fundamento opus cadit the Foundation being taken away the work falls is both a Maxime in Law and Reason And let him but seriously meditate on the Arguments used by the learned Author of the Royalists defence to prove that The persons at Westminster who call themselves the Parliament of England are not the two Houses nor so much as Members of the Parliament and then tell me whether he is of Drakes minde still That the Long-Oppressive Tyrants are yet in continuance and not legally dissolved by their cursed Regicide Nay Mr. Prynne himself whom he stiles by an Emphasis That Profound Lawyer is clearly against him and Drake too not onely holding with Judge Jenkins their Legal dissolution by the Kings Martyrdom but also tells us That the Kings Personal absence from his Parliament heretofore and of late was reputed very prejudicial to it and his calling away some Lords great Officers and other Members from it in his life time a high way to its present Dissolution which also gives a Bastinado and word of Correction to Croftons frantick denial of the Kings Presence or his absence to add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament Mr. Prynne Lawyer-like tells us also in another place That the Act for the continuance of the Long-Perjured Treasonable Plotters and Contrivers of Murther Sacriledge Treason and Rebellion was made by the King as their Sovereign Lord Declaring and Enacting mark that and the Lords and Commons as joyntly assenting thereunto which absolutely confounds Croftons other Whimsie of the two Houses Supream Legislative power See his True and perfect Narrative Page 27 37. Buzze Buzze Mr. Crofton Where are you Do you honour a person so far as to adorne him with the Epethite of Profound and yet not believe him but go on in your simplicity breathing forth deceit the folly of fools when he hath done you the honour of a Profound Confutation Surely you minde so much his Sovereign power of Parliaments which he wrote in the time that his Zeal without knowledge had overpowred him because pleasant and delectable reading for your Seditious minde that you care not for considering his subsequent Treatises which be sent forth into the world when the Puritanical zeal began to leave him And thus Mr. Crofton supposeth the two Houses into a Non-Entitie as to their damnable Treasons and Enormous Practises by the temper they were then in by their being Parliament men and having some certain Priviledges which were not time after time answered by the Royal Grant to learn them Absaloms Trepan of Rebellion against their King with a Sacred Covenant betwixt their teeth nor yet to teach them to be unparellel'd Seditious Corah's under a visard and masque of Sanctity And thus he supposeth the two Houses into an Entitie as to their yet Legal continuance by vertue of their being animated by an express Statute Law which one openly averring to continue them yet in being was immediately sought after and caught and by an Order of the whole Body of the two Houses was Voted Seditious and his openly averring to be burnt by the New-turn'd Presbyter Doctor Dunne But Crofton hath another dart to shoot at the Bishops but it s so pittiful blunt and dull that let him aim never so well at his mark yet there 's no great fear of hurt to be received by it and what should it be but this And thus he i. e. the Bishop profoundly supposeth a Parliament swearing qua Parliament in the fullest formality and profession of their National Capacity was a personal Covenanting Say ye so The Bishop did but as you say plainly suppose the former but you tell us he doth profoundly suppose this latter And why pray now is it such a profound supposition Because the Bishop affirmes the swearing of the Absolonian Tribe the factious part of the Two bloody Houses without and against the consent of Majesty to be but a personal Covenanting for that the true English of the Bishops undeniable assertion T is a profound cavil indeed of yours I must confess Certainly the Bishop might well suppose your black Cabale into a non-entity by that one Law The Petition of Right as to their legal swearing without his Majesties consent as easily and truly as assert this irrefrageable proposition that the Body cannot act without the Head But because the prattles of a Parliament swearing qua Parliament as if he would out face the Sun with his mistakes and juglings I shall bring this subsequent counter-poyson as an Antidote against the venom infused by an ungodly seditious pack of Puritanical knaves into the peoples minds to keep them fast to themselves against their Prince with Treasonable delusive principles and that is first The Two Houses when every one met together and assembled in the House much less your remaining half of them are not a Parliament but onely a part thereof without the Kings presence or concurrence And secondly That this Belials brat the Covenant was sworn and taken by but a part of them too when the rest were like Loyal Subjects gone out of their bloody denns to the service of their Master and so the meaning of his words bears but this diminutive conclusion That the Covenant was taken and sworn but by a sad part of a part of a Legal Parliament which verifies the words of the learned Judge Jenkins That by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament you and your cross grain party have miserably deceived the people That the Bishop supposeth the swearing of the rotten putrified members the stinking part of a part of a rightful Parliament who were tainted above measure with Treason and Rebellion without the consent and concurrence therein of the Onely Supream Legislator to be but a personal Covenanting and what can we term a Covenant sworn without and against authority but personal and with the due Epethite Rebellious annexed unto it I am ready enough to grant you k See p. 51. of Crofton Book But that the Bishop doth any where affirm a Parliament swearing qua Parlialiament that is the King and all the Lords and Commons to be but a personal Covenanting Is the Sophistical groundless inference of him who knoweth the Bishop doth not so much as mention it but give a Presbyter an inch and he will be sure to take an ell If the King gives
him but Liberty of Conscience in the wearing or not wearing of a Surplice in all Churches and places throughout the Nation excepting his own Royal Chappel Cathedrals and both the Vniversities they must have the Customary Rigor suspended and Liberty of Conscience allowed them there too or else all the fat 's in the fire their queazy stomachs cannot bear it and their Consciences poor harmless lambs they think wil be thereby over burdened and oppressed but let truth come somewhat might them for once which hath bin such a stranger to them and tell them to their faces That they have possessed themselves of Cauterized Consciences that are oppressed with ☜ the sight of a garment and eased with the practice of sedition which stumble at strawes and swallow a Camel that cannot away with a piece of Holland and yet make no bones of Rebellion who can by no meanes endure to bow at the name of Jesus and yet fall down and worship their own Inventions And thus Mr. Crofton profoundly supposeth That a bloody faction of the Two Houses swearing an Oath without and against the concurrence of their Princely Head had a Parliamentary Authority to make their Oath legal and themselves that took it to be no Rebellious Covenanters § 40. Errors saith Squire l See his History of K. Charls p. 268. Saunderson grow fastest in hot brains and the most reverend Archb. Bancroft in his excellent Survey of the pretended holy discipline hath also told us of Beza's m Pag. 53. applying himself altogether to strengthen and incourage his factious old acquaintance i. e. The Disciplinarian Canker-wormes then here in England in their froward and perverse obstinacy The first is made evident by the frightful language of this Hot-brain'd Sheba The second is also proved by the open averring of one of the near Allies of those Puritanes and rash Heady Preachers that King James of blessed memory hath well informed us of who think it their honor to contend with Kings and to perturb whole kingdomes And to what end can any man think was the See his preface to his Basilicon Doron wicked errors of his ways made publick by a press but to encourage his factious proselites and Holy-prophane Leaguing brethren to persist in their froward and perverse obstinacy in their old crooked pathes of Schism and Sacriledge of blood and confusion And all this under a colour and pretence to advance the power of Godliness too But what said one once Men saith n See the Subjects sorrow or lamentations upon the death of Britains Josiah K. Charles p. 40. he profess they know God yet in their works they deny him using the name of God and Religion as Conjurers in their incantations to perpetrate those things which are most contrary unto God and destructive unto Religion for as the devil never doth more hurt then when he appears in the likeness of an Angel of Light so are men never so mischievous as when they drive on wicked Designs under the shew of Godliness And thus have we found this Covenanting Corah first praying to be delivered from rendring railing for railing and yet rake in that puddle himself for several times together after he had told us he did not delight to rake in it Mangling and Clipping the words of his Reverend Antagonist so long till he made his own way the more easie to catch others in to make his Puritanical Gang to believe him to be some rare kinde of Phenix at the very time when a faithful Monitor will sooner compare him to a Pratling Cuckoe for his idle repititions and leaving out like a perverse Disputer the Principal Verb the chief words of the Bishops Sentences o See King James his Preface for speeds sake putting in the one half of the purpose and leaving out the other not unlike the man that alleadged that part of the Psalm Non est Deus but left out the preceding words Dixit insipiens in Corde suo Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition and Rebellion for the Honour and Happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity That the Common-Prayer-Book was expelled by a lawful Authority That neither the place of his Majesties retirement nor reason of his absence doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament That the two Houses are not only Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England and may exercise it without the Kings consent but also have the Supream Legislative power directly contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Nation and to the Oath of Supremacy which by the Particle Onely cuts off and excludes all Rivals and Sharers therein and which by an express Statue Law is made High Treason for a Subject to deny to take and this affirmed by him That the world may bear witness that he hath no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness Threatening distress and that so sudden too for not keeping of the Covenant as may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him and no less then twice affirming with an If the yet legal continuance of those long Athenian Tyrants at Westminster notwithstanding their undoubted Dissolution by their unparellel'd Murther of their Prince That the world may bear witness also with his Conscience of his Loyalty This this is the person that would bewitch the world with the Bishops premunires and Sedition against their Sovereign Princes But Quis tulerit Gracchos de Seditione Quaerentes Who can with patience endure to hear the devil correcting sin Traytors seditious persons exclaiming against the fictitious Sedition of others Sacrilegious Rebels against the Sacriledge of others I say Quis tulerit Who can without indignation entertain any thoughts of a Covenanters speaking against Sedition Sacriledge Treason King-Deposing and Rebellion For p See the Bishop of Canterburies Speech at the censure of Burton c. p. 5. t is most apparent to any man that will not wink That the intention of these Fiery Turbulent Presbyterians and their Factious abetters was ever and is still to raise a Sedition being as great Incendiaries in the State where they get power as they have ever been in the Church The thoughts of whose Seditious Principles and Anti-Monarchical Practises made one in 1574. cry out q See The defence of the Ecclesiastical Regiment p. 40. God of his mercy abridge their power and continue the shortness of their horns or else grant them greater measure of his grace and moved another to commend to his Readers consideration this one Caution r See the Post-script to the Right Rebel p. 164. That as ever they desire intend and expect to escape they withdraw themselves from the Society of Rebellious persons and take heed they give no entertainment unto any Rebellious Opinions or Principles whatsoever extraction they be of whether Popish Presbyterian or Popular if it be not more proper to refer them all to one Original the Mystery of Iniquity as their Common Mother For I make account saith he That Popery Presbytery and Popularity rightly understood with respect to their rebellious Principles are but as so many several Dialects in the language of that Beast which * Rev. 13. 11. had two horns like a Lamb and spake as a Dragon And this likewise was the reason of that Conclusion of the most Reverend Primate of Armagh to his excellent Fair warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline which shall also put a period to this discourse I would to God saith he we might be so happy as to see a general Council of Christians at least a General Synod of all Protestants and that the first Act might be to denounce an Anathema Maranatha against all broachers and maintainers of Seditious Principles to take away the scandal that lies upon Christian Religion and to shew that in the search of Piety we have not lost the principles of Humanity In the mean time let all Christian Magistrates who are principally concerned beware how they suffer this Cockatrice Egge to be hatched in their Dominions much more how they plead for Baal or Baal-Berith the Baalims of the Covenant It were worth the enquiring whether the marks of Antichrist do not agree as eminently to the Assembly General of Scotland as either to the Pope or to the Turk This we see plainly That they spring out of the Ruines of the Civil Magistrate They sit upon the Temple of God and they advance themselves above those whom the holy Scripture calleth Gods Vivat in eternum Rex Carolus Secundus quem Deus nunc in secula seculorum defendat oro Lectoribus Doctis Indoctis INdocti non damnent quod ipsi nesciunt Docti non invideant quod ipsi novum putant ab utrisque peto si alicubi Erratum sit illud Castigent non Culpent si quid ab illis merui ut Deo non mihi gratias rependerent Apud Aditus ad Logicam Page 57. l. 40. for Covenant r. Court p. 80. l. 3. for the r. he l. 40. for might r. nigh FINIS