the longer in cuting as having none of those humors spent which by distemper gave sovent and force to the approaching Malady So in Politick bodies when civill warre once seizeth upon a Country rich in the plenty of a long peace and full with the surfeits of a continuall ease it never leaves purging those superfluities till all be wasted and consumed quae alia res civiles furores peperit quam miniâ—a faelicitas the Sinnes of our Peace brought upon us the miseries of man and now we are denied the Blessing of Peace If a man disingaged and in his right wits shall seriously ponder the printed passages between King and Parlament and those hostile Proceedings and Plunderings Rapins and Ruines Distractions Destructions on both sides and then demand unde haec dementia his Genius cannot readily prompt him to find it out unlesse by a Divine Scrutiny for it is not to be found in this Embleme as some perhaps do dreame of a mad conceipt of some of old that a huge Gyant beares up the Earth with his Shoulders which he changeth every 30. yeares for ease And that such Removall causes Earthquakes which they also observeÌ„ for an Embleme of Kings because the burthen of the whole world lies on the Shouldiers of Soveraigne Authority And then we marvalle if they cannot say with King David Ego sustinco calumnas ejas that we have such Earthquakes in their change as turnes our braines into this Universalem dementiam for some in this turning of their braines began to think in their fiâ—s that because by the Law of the land it is unlawfull for a King to give a way his Kingdom from his lawfull Heire so that for a King to give power to hold not for a year two or three but a perpetuall Parlament a power inseperably incident to his Crown had been inconsistent with Monarchy And albeit that suprema potestas seipsum dissolvere yet ligari non potest like as it is in the power of a man to kill a man but not in his power to make him alive and yet to restaine him from breathing But this new conceipt I hold as mad as that before mentioned O hers would have it in this that the Soveraigne was too blame too give and the Subject too bold to ask the perpetuall Custody of that key which shuts and opens the Cabinet of State wherein all the parts of the Republick are lockt up from the making too neer approches upon Royalty Solomon say they upon a jealousie far more forraigne could deny the suite of his own Mother for when Bathsheba desired a small petition of him although he answered he could not say her nay yet when she said Let Abisha the Shunamite be given to Adoniaâ— his Brother to Wife he could not reply why dost thou ask Abisha the Shunamite for Adoniah ask for him the Kingdom also And our Saviour Christs answer to the Mother of Zebedees Children might say they have taught the King to have satisfied such a demand of his Subjects for she with her Sons coming to Christ and desiring a certain thing of him which was to grant that those her two Sons might sit the one at his right hand and the other at his left in his Kingdom they received this answer ye know not what ye a k. And it is observable that even in this Kingdom as the Soveraign hath seldome prospered that trampled down the subjects just liberties so the subjects as seldome prospered that climbed up to lop off the Kings just Prerogative for in Truth God so disposeth in Justice both of King and Subject that as that of the subjects liberties doth in his own hands breed a comfort to support him in his allegiance and loyalty to his King yet doth the same in the hands of the King breed a Canker to eat him out of the love and affection of his subjects So that if the Kings prerogative which in his own hands becomes a Scepter to protect us from ruine yet doth the same in the hands of a Subject become a Spade to Grave us to death The truth is that the best Princes being ever the least jealous have sometimes for a just satisfaction to their People been drawn to part with some of their Royal power to them and the People no doubt demanded the same of their Prince without any evil intent at first which nevertheless being once obtained through some after-error either in the end or in the means in the motion or in the moderation thereof have proved unto them little better then the stollen flesh from the Altar which by the 〈◊〉 that stuck unto it consumed both her self and the yong ones with the Nest it self We need not travel into aliena Republica being not without Eâ—samples here at home of this kinde but now unseasonable either for recital or application We know that God gave unto the Israelites Quailes and Manna Angels food when they lusted in the Wildernesse yet withal sent leannesse into their souls and it came out again at their nostrils and was sowre unto some of them for they murmured against Moses their Prince And it was not to be doubted but that this Act for the continuance of the Parliament was by both Houses at the first generally intended for the soveraign antidote to cure all diseases of the Kingdom Yet observe its Omen in their Remonstrance of December 15. 1641. It is acknowledged that there seems to be in that Act some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it so then the power shall remain onely the exercise of it is taken away though some may object that Vdna est illa potentia qua nunquam venit in actum And it is also in that Remonstrance said that without that Act they must have lest the then both Armies to disorder and confusion and the whole Kingdom to Blood and Rapine whereas the event hath wofully shewed that upon confidence of that Act for without it they had never been are raised many more Armies which hath already brought to disorder and confusion to blood and rapine almost the whole Kingdom So that this Act intended to avoid civil war hath proved the ready means so to kindle it as that the flames thereof are like to consume us all taâ—â—â— est haec universalis dementia This Royall Slip or Root of Monarchy became no sooner to be transplanted into a Popular soyl but from them have in a short time sprung forth all the feares and jealousies all the disturbances and tumults raised by factious and seditious spirits The dividing of the King from the two Houses of the Lords from the Lords and of the Commons from the Commons Remonstrances Declarations Protestations and Covenants on either part seizing on the Kings Forts Revenues Customes Ammunition and Navy the Tenth part Taxes Seisures Sequestrations Plunderings Excises raising of great Armies of Souldiers Milites Armati Milites
ENGLANDS UNIVERSAL DISTRACTION In the Years 1643 1644 1645. Left to the VVorld by a judicious and conscientious Author for the use of his Friends Children and Grand-Children when they come to years of discretion And may be very useful for all men to read and practise in these distracted times Printed in the Year of our Lord MDCLIX ENGLAND'S Universal Distractions in the years 1643 1644 1645. I Confesse I am one of Queen Elizabeths Protestants being above my full age in her time and now grown an old man and in all my time we ever believed notwithstanding the bold and desperate Treatises of some few enemies to Kings and Kingly power to the contrary that the Jura Regalia of Kings are holden of Heaven and cannot for any cause escheate to their Subject nor they for any cause make any positive or active forcible resistance against them but that we ought to yield to them passive obedience by suffering the punishment even though their commands are against the Law of God and in such case Arma nostra sunt Preces nostrae nec debemus aliter resistere for who can lift up his hands against the Lords anointed and be guiltless so that in all my time it was conceived that the Jesuists and some Papists onely believed that the Pope had authority to depose and destroy Kings But now some amongst our selves who having the jaundies see all things yellow have their eyes so dazled by looking after Reformation which yet they know not cither what it is or will be through those crackt and broken spectacles of Innovation and ambition of singularity and faction that they think themselves should become stark blind it they should but cast one good look upon the peace of the Kingdom and not trample under foot Monarchy and Magistracy and by flouds of popularity drown us in confusion and Anarchy as if Imperium in Imperio quaerendum esset this being the onely difference between those Papists and them the former by Gun powder seeking to destroy both King and Parliament together and the latter first the King by Parliament and then next both Parliament and Kingdom by the People For can it be doubted but time when Appeals are made to the People and they imployed and set on work about publick actions which ought hot to have been done but by the hand of Authority they will too soon learn their own strength that summa potestas radicatur in voluptatibus hominum and that then Popularis potentia optimorum potentiam superat The Senate of Rome seared it upon a lesse occasion when they recall'd their Edict that Slaves should weare a certain Mark to discover them from Freemen lest by comparing the multitude of the one by the paucity of the other some like great danger might ensue to their Senate and Republick And in truth some fear that this Mysterie countenanced under the Title King and Parliament worketh by such hidden and secret influences and insinuations that Solons decree that every man that in a general commotion was of neither party should be adjudged infamous would be now amongst us too severe and penal for certainly there be some conscientious men who albeit in respect of their allegiance and love to their King on the one side and the honour and reverence they owe to Parliaments on the other side they may seem to other to stand at gaze in this via bivia conceiving it to be via nivea yet are they nevertheless in truth of the number of those in Amos Chap 5. Vers 13. The prudent shall keep silence at that time for it is an evil time And howsoever there be divers others of better resolutions as men both informed and perswaded yet are there many more of a third sort of an Ostrich digestion that are perswaded before they arc informed and now will not be informed because they will not be perswaded By this confusion became my thoughts distracted and my self incountred with such and so many difficulties in my way which my apprehensions are too narrow to apprehend or my knowledge to resolve and the more I strive to melt my brains into an invention of this allay the more I find them like the Jewels of the Israelites turn'd into a Calf meer foolishness and therefore so repute and accept them as from a distracted man of a distracted subject in a distracted time wherein we all now live and labour sub universali quadam dementia of which to examine the causes besides our sins of this Nation would far exceed the slender capacity of a mean Subject and is become a question too deep and dangerous sithence the same already have long been and yet are urged with more violent arguments and sharper Syllogismes then by the weak weapons of Instruments made with paper and with more forces and distinctions then can proceed from any legall or logicall Engine It is thou O God that hast moved the Land and divided it and hast shewed thy people heavy things and hast given them a drink of Deadly Wine lettest them to be eaten up like sheep makest them to be rebuked of their Neighbours to be laughed to scorn and had in dirision of them that are round about them the dead bodies of thy servants are given to be meate to the fowles of the Aire and the flesh of thy Saints unto the beasts of the land and those that remaine thou hast smitten in the place of Dragons and covered them with the Shadow of Death Our Fathers slaine by their own Sons they by their own Brothers they by their own Kindred and Allies they by their Friends and neer Neighbours and those by their own Nation of their own House of their own Faith of their own Religion Tacitus reports that in the civill wars between Vitillius and Vespatian it happened that a Souldier had killed his own Father which was of the Enemies Army which thing was no sooner published but every man begins to Abhor Condemn and Execrate that War the cause of such an unnaturall fact though there might have been said quare fremuerunt Gentes infidiles Romae yet here it shall be said quare fremuerunt Gentis Christiani Angliae It is become a crime amongst us to say Nulla salus bello pacem te poscimus omnes When even all on either part or Inrolled Proclaimed or Declared either for Rebells Delinquents or Malignants though many of them I am confident fight with no other weapons but precibus lachrimis on their bended knees to their offended and revenging God incessantly praying for the peace of the Nation One that Numa's Temple dedicated to Janus might not be still kept open that the Dice of this civill uncivill war may not still be running which ever runs hazard on both sides and drawes the heart blood as well of the innocent as nocent It is made an Aphorisme or Generall Rule in Physick that in the naturall bodies the longer they are in health the more dangerous is the Disease when it cometh and
Literarii Milites Clerici the whole Army marching in their several postures First the Milites Literarii with their distinctions between Monarchy absolute and limited limited and mixed between a Power Radically limited and not onely in the use and exercise of it between a Moral Power to resist and an authoritative and civil power between resistance of the King himself and of his Agents and Officers between Resistance positive and active negative and passive between Jus Regiminis Usurpationis according to Gods Law and Mans Law Also the resistance in such case is not a resistance of Power but of his Will not fighting against the Magistrate but against the Man And the King not performing his duty the Subjects are released from theirs with many more ejusdem farinae which they interpret is to fear God and honour the King Nexâ— to them do march Milites Clerici many of them armed with Fâ—rebrands Tongues of Sedition having their very Pulpits made chaires of Juglers entertaining the people with shameless Pasquils and Discourses grounded upon the malice of the time and stuft with Schismes Heresies and Tyrannie and they also becoming Trumpets to sound forth Quaerelas ambiguâ—s de Principe Sermones quaeque alia turbamenta vulgi having weekly to follow them that no excrement be lost that may averse and bring in odium Majesty and Government the mendatious Mercuries and Pamphlets of the time And in the last rank do march the Milites armati who as the Sabeans and Chaldaeans did with Iob have taken away our Oxen plowing and Asses and Camells feeding and have slain our Servants with the edge of the sword And as the Prophet complains have spoyled our Houses ravished our Wives Burned our Cities Desolated our Countrey and scattered abroad the inhabitants thereof and still continue their battels with confused noise and garments rowled in blood non est haec universalis Dementia But thou O God be merciful unto us under the shadow of thy wings shall be our refuge untill this tyrannie be over-past and before the morning they are not this is the portion of those that rob us But let no man think that the Parliament hath caused all these things no surely for I am confident the not being of Parliaments might perhaps bring the Monarch more power but less glory more Lords but few Nobles more slaves but fewer subjects and might perhaps make his Signiories more ample but less royal and himself in all of them less prosperous and happy whereas on the contrary it cannot be denied by any honest English heart that Englands Parliaments are unto her her Philosophers stone which turneth all it toucheth into gold with which it cureth not onely the Disease of the Kings-evil but also all other diseases as well in Church as State it cures Schismes Heresies Exhorbitances of Prelacie and maintains the true and Orthodox Doctrine and wholsom Discipline in the Church It cures Tyrannie and Oppression and maintains Uunity and Strength in the Monarchy it cures Factions and Divisions and maintains just Liberty and Respect of the common good in the Democracy Our Parliaments are the Hercules pillars to every one of our Herculesses and Princes and the ne plus amplius both to Aristocracy and Democracy And in all either their Excesses or Defects reduceth them to their Golden Moderation and just Temper and such was this present Parliament in its first beginning Nay the President of all former Parliaments fall much short of what this then brought forth for the Soveraign in point of Grace and Favour to his people to whom he denied nothing which they challenge by Law But it is thought by some that some former Parliaments having been unfortunately blasted that thereupon the Crown had invaded both upon the Subjects liberty and property and that albeit they had then a little before obtained a Triennial Parliament and other Acts to redresse all their grievances so to prevent the like pressures in the time to come yet that they finding that the King to be then under a cloud with the people they the better to pay the debts of the Kingdom and to discharge the then Armies before the Parliament should be either prorogued or dissolved pressed for the Act of Continuance by which as a Member of the Assembly of Divines in his Sermon Martii 27. 1644. imprinted by their order and intituled A Prospective-Glass for England 's Case tells and assures them they are become fastened as Nail in a sure place But yet hath it not wrought so kindly as both Parliament and People did expect and as by the fruits before mentioned which it so plentifully and suddenly produced appeareth for then as if some few new Statists or reserved Polititians who Honores quos quieta Republica desperant perturbata consequise posse arbritrantur and who are not alwayes the best servants either to King or Kingdom but are in Novandis quam in Gerendis rebus aptiores had designed this perpetual Parliament to bear the name of that which wrought wonders in King Richard the second 's time And in case that failed then to bear the name of the mad Parliament as a King Henry the thirds time and to that end had introduced certain new Ordinances and strains of Law pretended Parliamentary not understood of the people in this Age and in truth Lex nostra Parliamenti est ab omnibus quaerenda à multis Ignorantia à paucis Cognita And yet some conceive it had been much better for those Statists and Engineers if any such be Nescire Centrum quam non tenere Circulum and thus to run in Meanders and Mazes into this universalem dementiam whereby as some think they have sought to make the cause of the King and who sai h Iob will say unto the King thou art wicked And as Ecclesiasticus Who shall say unto him what dost thou And as Solomon He that provoketh him to anger sinneth against his own soul To moralize with that of the lion who having lost his power and strength then the Wolf pincheth him and the Bull goar 's him and the very Asse kicks at him Nam Principis nomen habere non est esse Princeps and whereby some also think they have made the cause of the people whose disease was thought to have been a consumption of their properties and liberties First for care of properties to let them blood and purge them of their estates And next for cure of their liberties to open another vein either by imprisonment or banishment of their persons from their Wives and Children and their own habitations to let out a certain Malignant blood still remaining in them for that they will not pay more then they are able and so impossibilities in this reforming generation non est haec universlis dementia But admit this perpetuity of Parliaments hath wrought any such change or excesses yet it is for Reformation in case of Religion Et summa est Ratio qua pro Religione facit
Besides it is a Rule that the policy of Statebean-not admit any Law or priviledge whatsoever ut in some particular or other especially for Reformation in Religion is necessarily broken But hath it no other ends what meaneth then the bleating of the sheep in mine Eare and the lowing of Oxen I heare and what meaneth th s that they have taken and possessed to themselves and given to others severall Officer and places of honour preferment and profit in the Common-wealth which none but the King himself could lawfully give or dispose of But grant it were for Reformation yet do we not know that Reformation is a work of Medicine and Healing and not of destruction and desolation That Divine zeal is a benigne flame giving light as well as heat But an Erroneous zeal all Heate and no Light The Reformation wrought by the former is Reformatio bellicosa effected per Gladium oris the latter is Reformatio bellicosa done per os Gladii And certainly true Religion is rather a Setler then Stickler in Policy and rather confirmes men in obedience to the Government established then incites them to the erecting of a new which they neither do nor can know till it be discovered and declared wherein our present Religion is Erroneous And whether in Doctrine or Discipline if it be not in Doctrine but Discipline and matter of Ceremony onely of the Essence of our Religion then whether wâ—ll the Reformation of it deserve the expence of so much Christian blood and whether without the shedding of any blood at all hath it not been gratiously offered that no indifferent and unnecessary Ceremonie should be pressed upon weak and tender consciences and that both in that and other d fferences in the Church and Synod of Orthodox and Learned Divines should be chosen and consulted with Those Statists have done well to pull down Images not so to set up Imaginations and then make the Kings people to kill and murther one another to uphold them before they can either know or approve them non est haec universalis dementia But yet those Statists have another Rule that to yield to peace before a Victory were again to trust in whom they cannot confide Whereunto I answer that we are to confide in whom the Law hath confided and if we place Gaurdians over him then whom shall we place over those Gaurdians And for Victory should we have it and have with it also what Lawes our selves please though it be true that Leges a victoribus dicuntur accipientur a victis yet for how long for can we think but that Lawes which have too much force in the making do many times prove to have too little in the binding Doth all binding of a King upon the advantage of necessities make the breach it self lawfull No peace made by the water of Stix can be longer held inviolable till that River be dryed up And shall we then keep that River running by drawing out all the blood of the Kingdom Nay think we that Victories on either part will amend the matter would they not be like those Victories of Pyrrhus against the Romanes in the first they might Gloriari non Gandere and in the second he himself said if we overcome once more we a e undone Besides let us consider he was a wise man that said the Battaile is not of the strongest nor yet the bread for the wise nor Riches to men of understanding nor favour to Men of knowledg No King or Parlament can be saved by the multitude of an bâ—ast neither is any mighty Man delivered by much strength why then will we prefer Force before Peace shall we not see order till disorder shewes it nor learn to do but by undoing non est haec universalis dementia It is said that when King Alexander the Great wrote to the Senate of Rome ut se Deum facerent and they denying it one stood up and told them videndum est ne dum Coelum nimis custodirent terram amitterent Which caveat made them for the peace and safety of themselves and their Country to decree quonian Alexander Deus esse vult Deus esto But our Carolus desites not utse Deum facerent but ut se Restituerent and that to no other Deity but that which both the Law of God of Nature and of our Nation hath bestowed upon him Yet it seemes also to be denyed him unlesse he will admit some to be partners with him or Gaurdians over him But certainly if Valentian the Emperour so chosen by the Souldiers could say unto them when they would have joyned another with him no said he it was indeed in your power to give me the Empâ—e whilst I had it not but now I have it it is not in your power to give me a partner Much more may our Emperour for Rex est Imperator in regno suo not as he by Election of the Souldiers but by the strongest Title of Succession after more then twenty descents demand that there be no sharers with him in the dispensation of his Regall power but that we do trust him whom God hath trusted with it the Bed and the Throne can abide no Rivalls Non bene cum sociis regna venusque manent but how then shall those Statists and Men so active in this great work stand in the displeasure of their King and dread Soveraign why who reades unless with blood-shot eyes the severall Expresses and Declarations published to the world offering both the setling of our Religion just Liberties of the Subjects Priviledges of Parlament and also the suppressing of Popery and preventing of Tyranny but hath not his Soul been amazed at the continuance of these distractions Or that can have a thought that the head cannot think to live where the body is in this great Consumption but he will rather yield to the feet when they are grieved for they lying in fetters the head cannot be free If the hand offend the eye or the tooth the tongue in such case to punish would not the head find that the revenge would make all the Members of the body to become felo's dese and then what kind of head will remain without a body certainly Consiliarius nemo melior est quam tempus which do now if ever Councill Majesty rather safetie then force and rather pardon then prescription for Nullum stabile regnum nisi benevolentia munitum No King can long Raigne who is not Walled and Gaurded about with the love of his Subjects And it is a Rule infallible for a King of England to greaten himself there is no way so assured as by the love of the People And for the Honorable City of London the Kings Chamber who can doubt but they shall remaine honoured both with all the Immunities Charters and Priviledges and still with more be more and more honoured I am perswaded that they even most desire to forget their glorious Rule by Ordinances and Committees and will