Empire and for such hath been known in the world governed by one Soveraign Head having the dignity and Royal greatness of the Emperial Crown to which there is a Body Politick joyned composed of all sorts and degrees of people as well Spiritual as Temporal who are bound next to God to render unto him Natural Obedience If the Body Politick be naturally subjected to him as to its Head it 's contrary to Nature that it should be subjected to the Body Politick and his maxime Râ—x est universis minor is condemned as false by the Parliament they knew not in those daies what it was to make the Body of the State march with its head downward and feet upward but they were careful to maintain the Head in that eminent place where God had set it and hither also tend the words following That the chief Soveraign is instituted and furnished by the goodness and permission of Almighty God with full and entire Power Preheminence Authority Prerogative and Jurisdiction to execute Justice and put a final determination in all Cases to all sorts of his Subjects within this Kingdome and that many Laws and Ordinances had been made in preceding Parliaments for the full and sure conserving of the prerogative and preheminence of this Crown These good Subjects could not find words enough nor consult of means sufficient according to their mind to defend the Authority of their King esteeming and well they might that the happiness and liberty of the Subjects lay in the inviolable power of their Soveraign that the greatness of the State consisted in that of the Prince and that there is no other way to crown the Body but to place the Crown upon the Head This stile is very far from that of the nineteen Propositions presented to the King by the Two Houses in the beginning of the War which required that all matters of State should be treated of only in Parliament or if the King would treat of any Affairs in his Councel this Councel should be limited to a certain number and the old Councellors cashiered unless such whom it pleased the Two Houses to retain and that none hereafter should be admitted without their approbation that the King should have no power in the Education and Marriage of his children without their advice that all great Officers of the Crown and the principal Judges should alwayes be chosen by the approbation of the Two Houses or by a Councel authorized by them the same also in Governours of places and in the Creation of Peers which hath since been denied to the King in effect And as for the Militia they would have the King wholly put it into their hands that is to say he should take his Sword from his side and give it them which he could not do without giving them the Crown for the Crown and the Royal Sword are both of one piece so also for the point of Religion these propositions take from him all Authority and liberty of judgement yea even the liberty of Conscience for they require that his Majesty consent to such a Reformation as the Two Houses should conclude upon without telling him what this Reformation is Let all the world here judge if these men speak like Subjects they had reason to present these Articles with their swords in their hands but the King had more reason to draw his to return them an answer All these propositions are founded upon one only proposition which passeth amongst them for a Fundamental Law That the King is bound to grant to the People all their Demands but this is a Fundamental in the Ayr and made void by the practise of all Ages since Eng. was a Monarchy and by that Authentical Judgement of the States assembled under Henry the Fift That it belongs to the Supremacy of the King to grant or refuse according to his pleasure the Demands that are made to him in Parliament And in stead of the House of Commons being as it is now the Soveraign Court a thing never heard of until this present Age The House supplicated Henry the Fourth not to employ himself in any Judgement in Parliament but in such cases as in effect appertained to him because it belonged to the King alone to judge except in cases specified by the Statutes The same House under Edward the Third acknowledged that it did not belong to them to take Cognisance of such matters as the keeping of the Seas or the Marshes of the Kingdome yea even during the sitting of Parliaments the Kings have alwayes disposed of the Militia and Admiralty of the Forts and Garrisons the Two Houses never interposing or pretending any right thereunto they declared ingeniously to Edw. the First that to him belonged to make express Command against all Force of Arms and to that end they were bound to assist him as their Soveraign Lord. They declared also to King Henry the Seventh that every Subject by the duty of his subjection was bound to serve and assist his Prince and Soveraign Lord upon all occasions by which they signified that it was not for them to meddle with the Militia but that their duty as Subjects bound them to be aiding and assisting to him The Learned in the Laws tell us that to raise Troops of Horse or Foot without Commission of the King or to lend Aid is esteemed and called by the Law of England to levy war against the King our Soveraign Lord his Crown and Dignity In this point all that is done without him is done against him and this is conformable to the general Right of all Nations As for the Royal Estate saith Bodin I believe there is no person that doubts that all the Power both of making Peace and War belongs to the King since none dare in the least manner do any thing in this matter without the Command of the King unless he will forfeit and endanger his Head If the Two Houses were priviledged to the contrary by any Statute we should have heard them speak it but for what they have done we see no other Authority then their practice Therefore none ought to wonder if this their new practice hath less Authority with persons of a sound judgement then these practises of all ages past and if we cannot perswade our selves that without the Authority of the King they cannot abolish those of Parliaments Authorized by the King let them not then make such a loud noise with the Authority of Parliament 'T is in obedience to that Supreme Court of Parliament that we so earnestly strive to preserve the Princes Rights those Acts of Parliament are in full force which have provided with great care to defend the Royal Prerogatives judging aright that the Soveraignty is the Pillar of the publick safety and that it cannot be divided without being weakned and without shaking the State that rests upon it But we leave the reasons of the form of this Estate to them who formed it contenting our selves
in Parliament that takes not their Oaths at his entrance neither is it in their power to overthrow without and against the King that which is established by the King sitting in Parliament Also this is a thing that never entred into the spirits of the English before the times of this epidemical phrensie that the Kings Writs which makes the Estates to assemble and the deputation of the people that sends them should exempt their Deputies or Parliament men from the duty of Subjects and absolve them of their Oath of Allegiance and St. Pauls Command The Text of St. Paul according to the Greek requires that every Soul should be subjects If so be then that their Deputies or Parliament men have no souls they are not bound to give obedience to the King When we reason thus our adversaries are extraordinarily moved and would take this matter out of the hands of the Clergy saying that the Lawyers not the Divines are to decide where the Supream Power of the State rests whether it be in the person of the King or the people and with what limitations the King ought to be obeyed and that the Apostle requiring an obedience to supream Powers intends an obedience according to the Laws and the Laws are every where different and that one and the same Rule of Scripture cannot serve for all Kingdoms that the Kingdom of England not being formed as the Kingdom of Israel or the Roman Empire the Commands of the Old and New Testament alledged toucheth not the present Quarrel Now are they not ashamed to forbid our Clergy to discourse of Political affairs whilst the Gentlemen of the Bar take upon them to teach Divinity to the Clergy and by infinite Booâ—s as processes stir up the people to Rebellion by Reasons of Religion and to uphold staggering Consciences in the duty of Obedience and Christian Concord and to defend the Truth of God by our sufferances as we have endeavoured to do It 's not to meddle in the affairs of State but to discharge our Consciences and to keep that good thing which God hath committed unto us We cannot be accused to intrude our selves into the Civil Government as their Ministers who serve as Agents and Factors in publick affairs It s henceforth the duty of Divines to handle this point of State for the Lawyers and States-men of the Covenant who having lately built their New Policy upon a New Divinity of their fashion have forced the Divines to become Polititians at leaâ—â—o far as to defend true Divinity from the crime of Disobedience since they press us for Conscience to joyn with them to resist the King they must satisfie our Consciences that the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom require us so to do But if they would that Divines rest themselves upon the faith of the Lawyers in the point of resistance upon which there is no less penalty than damnation it is to press an implicit Faith and blind obedience upon those that preach the contrary Without exceeding then the limits of our vocation we do acknowledg that the Apostle requires an obedience according to the Laws of the State not only of the State of Rome but of every other form of Government and we deny that there may not be found in Scripture a Rule of Obedience which serves for all sorts of Estates for such is that of the present Text That every Soul should be subject to the Higher Powers and that he that resisteth the Powers resisteth the Ordinance of God and thereby shall receive to himself damnation the reason inserted between these two sentences do manifestly regard all forms of States that there are no powers but they be of God and the powers that are are ordained of God therefore the Command that goes before and after appertains to all sorts of Government Let every one be subject to the power and let none resist the power and threatnings also which is the terriblest of all threatnings that those that resist the Powers shall receive to themselves damnation Saint Peter wills us to be subject to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake that is we are to subject our selves to every form of Government lawfully established and to perswade our selves that that Ordinance is of God Generally the Scriptures before alledged oblige all persons of all Estates to yield Obedience to him and those in whom the Supream Power resides and there cannot 〈◊〉 brought any valuable reason why it is more lawful to resist the Supream Power in England than in Israel or in Rome Indeed if they could produce a fundamental Law of the Kingdom that did permit the people of England in certain cases to take up Arms against the King they had some reason then to say that Saint Paul did not forbid the English to resist their Prince beyond the nature of their Laws as the Princes of Germany when they took up Arms against the Emperor produced the Golden Bull of Charles the fourth and the Emperial Capitulation for by it they were expresly permitted to make war against him if he attempted any thing against their ancient composition although I account that this Capitulation could not be made without contradicting the Command of the Apostle for Histories mention that the Emperour was reduced to it by the threatnings and Menaces of the Pope but now by long prescription the Empire is not that it was and it 's a point disputable what is the Supream Power in divers States of Germany 'T is that which but of late hath been put to the Question in England and was never disputed before the year 1642. where the Supream Power of the Kingdom resides unless when the Crown was in dispute between two Princes The Kings enemies employed all their forces to prove that the Soveraign Authority appertained to the people to evade the Text of Saint Paul and other Texts of Scripture which did marvellously incommode their affairs imitating those that alter the Lock of their doors when the Key is in possession of their Adversary for beholding to their great regret that the Scripture is wholly ours commanding obedience and strictly forbidding resistance to Soveraigns yea under pain of damnation they labour with all their might to change the nature of the State that thereby the rules of subjection contained in the Scripture might be of no use One of their Authors of whom they make great account affirms boldly that the passages in Scripture against resisting the Supream Power are of no force but in simple and absolute Monarchies as that of the Jews and Romans and do no waies touch ours This is a clean shaver who cuts the knot that he cannot untie wherein he imitates the ingenuity of Buchanan who having taught Subjects to punish their King and feeling himself pressed by Conscience which suggested to him that the Scripture was wholly contrary to it prevents the Objection that might be made by maintaining that it 's ill inferred to say that the thing
is unlawful because there is no such thing or the like found in Scripture These their Confessions are very remarkable and indeed most strange coming from Christians who should rather frame their policy to Scripture than reject the Scripture because it contradicts the policy they would establish They have found out an invention to cast off the yoke of their King which is to cast off that of the Word of God After this so open a profession it 's against all equity they should make use of Scripture for their cause either in their Writings or Sermons They alledg nothing but examples but there is no reason that the examples should be made use of by them who reject the Commands but after they have turned themselves into as many postures as a Fencer to defend themselves against the invincible Text of the Apostle in the end hither they are driven to refuse wholly to debate the difference touching their duty to their King by the Commands of Scripture The last Figure of Proteus is the Natural and after all their tricks of Lying and Hypocrisie at last their Nature shews it self In fine when all is said this is the only answer on which they rest that the Commands of Scripture cannot determine the point of their resistance and that we must have recourse to the Lawyers This speech is commonly in the mouths of all the wisest of their party and let all Christian Churches take notice of this their most shameful Evasion The Covenanters of England who pretend to establish the Kingdom of Christ according to the Word of God refuse to be judged by the Commands of Scripture touching the War made against their Soveraign CHAP. V. What Constitution of State the Covenanters forge and how they refuse the Judgment of the Laws of the Kingdom TO elude the strength of humane Laws as well as divine they forge a primitive and fundamental Constitution of this Estate destitute of all authority both of God or man And here we must distinguish between their doctrine they taught in the beginning of their Covenant and that which they taught afterwards for then when they were to fight with the King in the field and were not yet capable oâ— so high hopes as afterwards they effected they forged a form of State suitable to their possibility then which was to constrain the King by the Terror of their Arms to accord to all that should please them and wholly to put the Government into their hands notwithstanding their Principles then led them to those Conclusions which since followed for they supposed that the Soveraign Power was inherent in the People that the People elected the King and had committed to him the Authority that he exercised reserving to themselves the Power to assume it again when the State should judge it most convenient and to take away the sword of Justice and the Militia to make use of it against him if there were need That the King had not the Supream Power but by Paction which being once broke by him the Subjects were exempted from their Obedience That he was onely Depository of the Supremacy but when the Estates were assembled the Supremacy was joyntly possessed by him and the two Houses so that the King had but the thirds and that but very hardly for they held that the States had a Negative voice and the King could do nothing without their consent and whether the King had the Negative Voice of right they were not agâ—eed but all accorded to take it away from him in effect that is to say after their account That the People might refuse the King what displeased them but if the King denyed what the People propounded to him they esteemed that the two Houses might and ought to do it without him and force him to it by Arms and this Doctrine hath been confirmed by their practise or to speak the truth this their practise hath occasioned this Doctrine Now since God through his secret and incomprehensible Judgments hath suffered the wickedness of this Age to have success above their desires they built upon these principles this Conclusion that the People may judge and execute their King dissolve the Monarchie for ever and turn it into an Aristocracy or Popular Government for yet they cannot agree to which they should hold themselves since then they would perswade us that the Constitution of the English Government exempts us from these two great dangers Disobedience to God and damning our Souls in resisting the King and since they would oblige us for Conscience sake to oppose the King in obedience to God and the higher Powers and that our Clergie are commanded to exhort the people that God hath commanded them to draw their Swords against their Soveraign there is a necessity to satisfie our Reason and resolve our Consciences hereupon to enquire whether the Nature of the State be such as they have painted it out to us And for this we have not referred our selves to those of the Royal party but have consulted with the most Judicious Writers of the Covenanters who pass amongst them as Oracles of the State expecting that for proof of this form of Government they would have produced the old Records of the Kingdom which are now in their Custodie the ancient Statutes of Parliaments and the Testimony of their old Historians but they alledge no such things though much pressed thereunto by their Adversaries onely they make a Discourse in the Air upon the Law of Nature that hath given to every person and by consequent to every Estate a power for his preservation troubling the Ignorant Readers brains with barbarous terms and thorny distinctions and extracting the Quintessence of the State into an invisible substance They tell us that the Parliament was coordinate and not subordinate to the King That the three Estates of Parliament whereof the King made one being fundamental admitted not of the difference of Higher or Lower That the power of the King in Parliament was not Royal but Political That this Fundamental Law of the kingdom was not written for if it were it should be superstructive and therefore Mutable and not Fundamental That the mixture of the three Estates in Government was not Personal but Incorporate Those that understand not these Mystical sentences ought to be nevertheless content it being not reasonable that they should understand them better then the Authors themselves An affected obscurity amongst Ideots passeth for knowledge and ye shall find that the Discourses that have least reason in them are most difficult like Olive stones which are very hard because there is nothing in them Now is it not requisite to subtilize upon the virtuality and actuality of the Peoples power for to inform the Conscience of the Subject touching the Justice of his Arms against his King but for that there is indeed need both of Divine and Humane Authority and such as is easie and to be understood of all But the observation of Mr. du Moulin
is very true that ordinarily Lying arms its weaknesse with thorns like Lizards who save themselves by running into Bushes Above all in a point where the Question of Right is founded upon that of Fact as this Question now whether it be lawful for the English to take up Arms against their Prince here to go about to satisfie Reason and Conscience with political and metaphisical Contemplations is not to purpose they should besides Divine Authority which should ever march before enquire whether the Laws and Constitutions of the Country authorize this War The Question being not to dispute which is the best Form of Government but to preserve the Form to which God hath subjected us and to observe the Laws of the Kingdom and after many Moral and Political Discourses for our Adversaries pay us with no other those that have any Honesty or Understanding come always to this that they would shew us by what Law of England it is permitted the Subjects to take up Arms without the Kings permission and against him When did the people ever make this Election Where is it that they have reserved the liberty to resume the Supreme Authority when they shall please Is there any Statute made during the Ages that this Monarchy hath continued that prefers or equals the two Houses to the King or doth authorize them to ratifie any thing without him Where is the Articles of that Capitulation which in some certain cases dissolves the Subjects Oath of Allegiance Is there any Case in the Law in which it should be lawful for Subjects to take from their King or Supreme Magistrate his Forts Navies and Magazines and to take into their hands the sole Administration of Justice and the Militia to confer the great Offices of the Crown to receive Ambassadors to treat with Forreign Nations and to dispose of the Goods and Lives of the Kings Subjects To these so important Questions for the duty and happiness of all the members of an Estate and the eternal salvation of their Souls and Bodies to answer with Platonick considerations and in stead of producing the Laws of the Kingdom to Philosophy upon the Law of Nature and form an appeal from Authentical and known Laws to a Word not written made at pleasure This is to mock God and men this is to insult upon the Brutality of the people and to take a wicked advantage from the wine of Astonishment or Senselessness which God in his just wrath hath poured forth upon this miserable Nation for if they did beleeve there remained any common sense in this blind and mad people durst they so boldly return so ridiculous an Answer to those that demand where are those Fundamental Laws written that now make all other Laws bow to them namely that the Fundamental Laws are not written and that if they were they should be superstructive and not fundamental after this account the command to love God with all our heart and our Neighbour as our self is not fundamental because it is written it were to profane Reason to imploy it to refute a reasoning so unreasonable it must needs be that these people know they have to do with Persons of great credulity since they dare give them for a Fundamental Law a Fantasie which they never heard before spoken of and whereof no Writings nor Histories make mention and this is to fight against their King overthrow the State lose their goods hazard their Lives and Consciences But what should I say There is no reason but is perswasive when the Conclusions are taken and there is strength to maintain them Christendome which have now their eyes upon our Broils will take notice of the open confession of the Troubles of this State That for the War against the King and for the form of Government which they establish in the kingdome a Superiour power that abolisheth the Royal they have no Fundamental Law written Is not this then marvellously to abuse the Justice of God and the patience of reasonable creatures made after his Image and indued with knowledge to constrain them to prostitute their Consciences and Lives in a Quarrel for which they openly confess there is not any Law written and for which there is not the least footing of Approbation in all that hath been established or left authentically written since England hath been a Nation We have let you see before how they decline the Defences of Scripture against the resistance of Soveraigns behold now they confess there is no fundamental Law written for to justifie their Arms and the superiority of the people above the King which they would introduce with the sword and thus they acknowledge they have no authority neither divine nor humane for what they do as Cardinal Perron having maintained the power of the Pope over the Temporal of Kings before the Estates of France in conclusion affirmed that it was an Article which was not decided neither by the Scriptures nor the Ancient Church so that the Pope and our Mutineers agree together to usurp an authority upon Kings without any ground or warrant in the Word of God and contradicted by all humane Constitutions that is to say that hoth God and man are contrary unto them CHAP. VI. What Examples in the Histories of England the Covenanters make use of to authorize their Actions BUt do we not much wrong them to say that there is nothing makes for them in all the ancient Writings and Histories of this Kingdom Do they not alledg the two Parliaments that deposed Edward the second and Richard the second yea truly and to their great shame as the wisest of their party do acknowledg affirming that those Acts of Parliament against Richard the second were not properly the Acts of the two Houses but of Henry the fourth and his victorious Army in which they say true for the Duke of Lancaster who after caused himself to be called Henry the fourth having prevailed with the people to rise against their lawful King assembled a Parliament which he made to do whatsoever he would and having deposed and imprisoned this poor King soon after caused him to be put to death though this action were as just as it is execrable yet it would make nothing to the purpose where the Question is of that which the two Houses may do separate from the King for the deposing of King Richard was by another King sitting in Parliament for until these last States the two Houses never thought that they were able to conclude any thing without the Royal Consent and since the Parliaments held under the House of York declared Henry the fourth Usurper of the Crown and therefore condemned the Parliament which had confirmed his usurpation The other example is no better than this the deposing of Edward the second by the Conspiracy of his Wife and the Favourites of this Queen who served themselves of a Parliament to execute this wickedness and having deposed the King and crowned his Son who
was under age caused the Father to be most cruelly put to death in prison yet the authority of the young K. must be made use of to make the resolution of the Parliament pass into an Act for without the King the Parliament can no more act than a Body without a Head But when the young King came to age he caused the Authors and Complices of his Fathers death to be executed and caused all the Acts of this Parliament to be broken by another And less than these to the purpose is which they alledg concerning the accord the Barons extorted from King John by which this unhappy and imprudent King being reduced to a straight promised to put himself into the power of twenty five of his Barons and submitted himself to divers other dishonorable Conditions and this accord was not made in Parliament but in the field by force of Arms there being no Parliament then sitting and therefore was of no force nor was ever kept These Articles of the Barons were much like those the two Houses sent the King to Beverly Oxford and New-Castle the Covenanters imitate these Barons in their affectation of Piety for they called their General the Marshal of the Lords Army and of his holy Church and these perswaded their Chiefs that they led the Battels of the Lord of Hoasts but these transferred not the Crown to another Prince as the Barons did but have taken away both his Crown and Life having long before declared by writing to their King that they dealt very favourably with him if they did not depose him and that if they did they should not exceed the Limits of Modesty nor of their Duty This Judgment was pronounced in the House of Commons without contradiction that The King might fall from his Office that the happiness of the Kingdom did not depend upon him nor the Royal Branches of his House and that he did not deserve to be King of England The Authors of these Opinions are declared in a Declaration of his Majesties In one point the Barons and Covenanters are very different for the Lords that remained with the Covenanters were without power all places of Honour and Trust being taken out of their hands by their Inferiours and at last their House abolished by the Commons so that in stead of producing this War of the Barons the Covenanters should rather have alledged the Seditions and Commotions of Watt Tyler and Jack Straw poor Artisans and followed with people of the same rank for these persons and the Cause of the Covenanters are far more alike Behold here with what authorities the Margins of their Books are stuffed Behold the Examples which the polititians of the times present to the Gentlemen of the Parliament for to teach them what they ought to do those infamous actions which were abhorred by the ages following them are become the supporters of ours and despair which makes men snatch up any sorts of weapons forceth our enemies to justifie their actions by the examples of Rebels and Paricides 't is not for nothing then that these Histories are so often alledged though nothing to the purpose and it 's not without cause that they print them apart for not being able to justifie their actions they have declared their intentions and made the King to see what he sholud trust to if he fell into their hands Certainly if there had not been a design laid to come to that both to prepare the people and intimidate the King those incendiaries who by these horrible examples and their Maximes of State grounded thereupon teaching the deposing of Kings should have been hanged long since with their Books about their necks For so many men which are studied in the Laws of the Kingdom and are at the helm of affairs cannot be ignorant of that which King James of happy and glorious memory marks in his Book of the Right of Kings that in the time of Edward the Third there was an Act of Parliament made which declared all them Traytors who imagined it's the word of the Law or conspired the death of the King â—on which Act the Judges grounding themselves have alwaies judged them for Traytors who dared but to speak of deposing the King because they believed that they could not take away the Crown from off the Kings Head without taking away his Life It was heretofore a crime worthy of death to speak yea to think evil against the King and moreover the Word of God which is to be obeyed forbids us to speak evil of the King no not in our thought but now it 's the exercise of devout Souls to write Meditations upon the deposing of their King CHAP. VII Declaring wherein the Legislative Powers of Parliament consists HAving no better Authorities in all the Examples of the Ages past they establish a New one which by the unlimited largeness supplies what it wants of length of time for when we require to be governed by the Laws they answer us that the Parliament is the Oracle of the Laws that it is for that great Court to declare what is Law and what is not to interpret the Laws to dispense with them or to make new ones That themselves are the Parliament excluding all others and that since they have declared that this War is according to Law and that such Maximes as they give us are fundamental Laws of the Kingdom we must remit our selves to them and receive for Law what they ordain But because strangers may read who have no knowledge of the Government of England for to examine this Imperious reason we are obliged to declare here what we know touching the present affairs We have learned to acknowledg the Parliament 〈◊〉 England for the Supream Court of the Kingdom that can make and unmake Laws and from whose Judgment there is no appeal But of this Court the King is the principal part and it 's he that renders it soveraign the two Houses in all their Legislative Acts acknowledg him their true and sole Soveraign the House of Lords only can evert the Judgment of the Courts of Justice but not their own without the consent of the King and the House of Commons the House of Commons is not a Judicial Court having not power to administer an Oath inflict a Fine or imprison any but those of theâ—r own House and these two neither apart nor together cannot make a Law but when they would enact any thing they both together present a Writing to the King in form of a request if the King approves of them the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal answers for the King in these French words Le Roy le veult and then it is made an Act but if the King refuseth it he returns answer Le Roy S'avisera and the business passeth no further Before the consent of the King the proposition of the two Houses contained in the Writing is like unto that which the Romans called Rogatio but when the King grants it
they may then give it the name of Lex and in effect it is but a request before the pleasure of the King makes it pass into a Law and was never other before this present Parliament Therefore the English Lawyers call the King the life of the Law for though the King in Parliament cannot make any Law without the concurrence of the two Houses yet nevertheless it 's his Authority only that gives it the strength and Name of a Law and they are so far from having any Legal Authority in their Commands without the consent of the King that the customary right gives them not so much as a Name neither takes any Cognisance of them To say then that the Parliament hath declared this War lawful and that the Orders of Parliament are Laws is by an ambiguous term to abuse the ignorance of the people for by the Parliament they understand somtimes one House somtimes both and somtimes the King and both Houses together it 's thus that men understand them when they speak of the Supream Court of Parliament and of Acts of Parliament for the King was ever accounted the first of the three Estate without whom the two other had not power to conclude any thing lawfully for all their Authority is derived from him not only for a time but by a continual Influence which being interrupted the power of necessity ceaseâ—h These three togeâ—her have power to interpret the Laws to revoke them and to make others therein properly lies the Oracle of the Laws A Judicious Writer of the Royal party calls the union of the three Estates the Sacred Tripos from whence the Oracles of the Law are pronounced When any one of these three are separate from other the other two stagger and are lame nor cannot serve for a firm foundation for the safety of the State and satisfaction of the Subjects Conscience But let us assume the business higher you cannot more vex our Enemies than to tell them this Truth that the Monarchy which is at this day began by Conquest this is that which by no means they will endure to hear of but would perswade men that it began by an Election and Covenant which indeed had never any being but in their own Fancies If they would be believed for this they should then produce some Records For the bold conjecturers are less credible than all the Histories which assures us of three Conquests in this Kingdom since the Romans and Picts Namely that of the Saxons Danes and Normans Moreover those that would abolish this Office and Dignity destroy that of their own Laws for all the Lands of the Kingdom are held of the King by right of the Sword as appears by the nature of Homages and Services that the Lords of Fiefes owe to the King when William the Conqueror took possession of the Kingdome strengthening the Right of his Conquest by the last Will and Testament of Edward the Confessor he declared himself Master of all the Land and disposed of it according to his pleasure His Son Henry the first eased the People somwhat of the severe and unlimited Government of his Father and confirmed to the English their ancient priviledges which since after long and bloudy wars were anew confirmed and the Quarrel determined by that wise King Edward the first who having as much valour as wisdom in condescending to the Rights of his Subjects knew well how thereby to preserve his own for after all the Soveraignty of Kings remained inviolable and those prerogaâ—ives were preserved which were only proper to him who is not subject but to God alone Such also is the Court of Wards by which a great many Orphans of the Kingdom are in Wardship to the King and almost all the Lands appertaining to him until they be of Age. In this thing the Kings of England exceed all other Christian Princes This being such an essential mark of absolute Soveraignty that there cannot be a greater Certainly if this Monarchy had begun either by Election or Covenant the Subjects would never have given the King so vast a power over their Estates and Families Amongst the priviledges of the English these three are the principal That the King cannot make a Law without the consent of his Estates That no Law made in Parliament can be revoked but in Parliament and that the King can levy no moneys of his Subjects beâ—â—des his ordinary Revenues without the concurrence of the Two Houses in the intervals of Parliaments the King according to his Supream Power may make Edicts seem burdensom to the Subjects or to impair their Laws and Priviledges they humbly present them in the next Parliament the K. when the complaint appears just unâ—o him easeth them for to make their requests pass for Acts without the pleasure of the K. they cannot neither can the K. make new Acts in Parl. without their consent In the mean while the King makes not them partakers of his Authority but assembling them in Parliament he renders them capable to limit his Authority in Cases that appertain to their cognisance for there are many cases wherein they are not to meddle at all in the point of the Militia and for fear they should forget that even this power they have to limit the King comes from the Authority of the King and he can take it away from them when he pleaseth for when he breaks up the Parliament he retires to himself the Authority that he gave them to limit his and moreover if they stretch their priviledges beyond the pleasure of the King he hath power to dissolve the Parliament and after the word of the King is passed which dischargeth them and sends them away they have not power to sit or consult a minute Whence Bodinus well versed in the nature of the States of Christendome concludes the King of England to have Soveraign Authority The Estates of England saith he cannot be assembled nor dissolved but by the Edict of the Prince no more then in France and Spain which proves sufficiently that the Assemblies have no power of themselves to command or forbid a thing and he laughs at the ignorance of Bellaga who affirm the States of Arragon to be above their King and yet nevertheless confesseth the States cannot assemble nor separate without him Illud Novum planè absurdum That saith he is New and altogether a most absurd Doctrine And therefore it was that which occasioned them who had a design to overthrow Church and State to labour to draw a promise from his Majesty that the late long Parliament should not be dissolved without the consent of both Houses well knowing that without that granted the King when he pleased might have overturned their designs which they having obtained shewed by their Actions that they thought themselves then priviledged to do what they would without his Authority and thus it is with us at this day Yet so it is that they themselves do confess that this grant did
to obey the Laws until the same Authority that made them alters and changes them This Authority being that of the Prince sitting in Parliament we hold not our selves bound by that which passeth in any House or Councel without him and against him accounting that where the Princes Authority shines not their power is eclips'd above all since the Houses at Westminster were reduced to the fourth part of their number and the lesser part the major part being frighted away and filled their vacant places with persons of their own judgement without the Kings Authority if the Houses had ever any Power without him it was like the light of the Moon without the Sun Exiguum malignum Lumen as the Astrologers call it it was a little light which did nought but hurt Our great Lawyer Fortescue speaks well that as a Natural Body when the Head is cut off is not called a Body but a Trunck so in the Body Politick the Commonalty without a Head cannot any way incorporate or make a Body CHAP. VIII How the Covenanters will be Judges in their own Cause BUt was there ever any thing more unreasonable then this proceeding They would that the judgement of the Lesser part of the Two Houses without the King and against all former Parliaments should be received yea in their own Quarrel and that in the Controversie whether the King hath Authority above this Assembly or it above him this Assembly will be judge 't is for them they tell us to declare what is Law and to make the Law Now that Assembly declares that their Authority is above the King that their Arms are just and the Kings unjust and that the Representative Body of the State cannot erre in Law and that it 's your duty to stand to their judgement These people would be ashamed to confess where they have learned thus to reason Is it not of him who said Dic Ecclesiae hoc est tibi ipsi Tell it to the Church that is to say to thy self and truly to confute them we will do them the shame to employ the same words we make use of against him changing only the persons In the present Quarrel one of the Controversies is Whether the Two Houses at Westminster without the King are the Soveraign Judges in point of Law In this Controversie should the Two Houses be Judges they should then be Judges in their own Cause and should be assured to gain their process Item if it be disputed whether they can erre in this Controversie also they would judge they could not erre Should they be Infallible Judges of their Infallibility Who beholds not in this an evident contradiction That it must be that he that disputes whether the Two Houses can erre must address himself to the Two Houses as to Judges that cannot erre to judge this Question so likewise in the Question whether the Authority of the Two Houses be above the King it 's certain that the Two Houses cannot be Judges since by this same Question their Authority to Judge is called into doubt the one pretends that the difference hath been decided and judged by the Authority of a Soveraign and infallible Judge it 's certain that hereby he renders the wound incurable the quarrel eternal and beyond all terms of reconciliation It matters not to say that between two parties that pretend to the Soveraignty there can be no Judge but that the strongest must carry it for if the two parties desire peace they may choose Arbiters The King or Supreme being the Natural Soveraign of his Enemies and he who gives vigor to the Laws hath desired notwithstanding that the difference should be determined by the Laws he pretends not to infallibility He hath also often chosen his Neighbours for Arbiters and hath fully satisfied them by reasonable offers and such as are worthy of him witness the Report that the extraordinary Ambassadors of the States Generals made to their Lords for which the Parliament of London declared their great discontent in writings The King being to render account of his Actions to none but God alone submitted himself notwithstanding to Reason and Piety remitting himself wholly to the Ancient Laws and Constitutions of his Kingdome He hath often protested and oft-times published and in this difference taken all Christendome for Arbiters but what in the Question whether his Subjects can make a Law against him and whether they have right to make war on him and would also that he should remit himself to their Ordinances yea even those which they have made without him against his will and against himself and that he should acknowledge them for Supreme Judges in their own cause without other Arbiters then their will Now they have had their wills wholly and have been Judges and parties both together a priviledge that belongs to God alone to whose Supreme Court we appeal CHAP. IX That the most Noble and best part of the Parliament retired to the King being driven away by the worser THat which doth strongly perswade us to believe that the Priviledges of Parliament which they would extend even in infinitum have an ill foundation is because we have seen them opposed by the better part of the Parliament both in Quality and Dignity For besides the King an hundred seventy five of the House of Commons and the best qualified withdrew themselves from amongst them and of the Lords eighty three so that scarcely the third part remained at Westm Almost all the Gentry wholly followed the King and when we consider the persons the Condition and Revenues of those that withdrew themselves we cannot see that they had any need to fish in troubled waters or to warm themselves at the Great Fire that began to slame as those had that remained Without doubt that great Body of Lords and Gentlemen of the Kingdome loved their Liberty and would never have assisted the King to have obtained an unlimited power break their Priviledges and impose a perpetual yoak of slavery upon them and their posterity When need was these Members of Parliament assembled themselves and the King deferred to their Councels as much as their Priviledges required Whereupon those of the Parliament of London were extraordinarily vexed maintaining that the Name and Power of Parliament was from that time fastened to the place where they sate which is a point that we will not dispute how strange soever it be but we would have them remember that they have had their sitting in other places and have not for all that thought they had left their Authority at Westminster and we dare answer for them that if the Lords and Commons which held with the King had driven them away and taken their place they would soon have changed their Opinion Besides this strong consideration of numbers and persons all those who know that the King is the Fountain of Authority and that without him there is no more lawful Power then day without the sun would never make
power by certain humane means introduced by custome which notwithstanding hinders not but their power may be founded in the Word of God when they are once established for as we said before the Question is not of the means by which a Prince comes to the Kingdome but what Obedience is due to him after he is once instaled And therefore Saint Peter after he had called this Ordinance an humane Ordinance commands us to subject our selves for the Lords sake and to obey his command Whosoever makes the Authority of Kings depend upon the institution of men and not upon the Ordinance of God lessens their Majesty more then three quarters and takes from them that which secures their lives and Crowns more then their Guards or mighty Armies which plants in the Subjects hearts Fear instead of Love and Reverence Then the fidelity and obedience of Subjects will be firm and lasting when it shall be incorporated with piety and accounted a part of Religion and of the service we owe to God This foundation being over-turned that the Authority of Kings is but an humane Ordinance that which they build upon it must necessarily fall for to reason thus that the people may take away their Authority from the King because they gave it him is to prove one absurdity by another as if one should prove the Moon might be burnt because it s made of wood For to say the people gave the power to the King is to imagine that which never was no not in Kingdomes which are Elective The People give not the King his Authority for they cannot give that they have not but he defers his obedience to Henry or Charles But this Prince being elected receives his Authority from God as the beginning and source from whence all power flowes By me Kings Raign Pro. 8.15 And there is no Power but of God Rom. 13.1 None ought therefore to take this Power which God hath given him Thus the Wife choseth her Husband and gives him a promise of obedience in marriage but it is not she that gives him his Authority that comes from above And there is as great an absurdity to say that the People may depose the King because they chuse him as to affirm that the Woman may put away her Husband or subject him to her when she shall judge expedient because that she made choice of him For the woman loseth the liberty of her choice by the bond of marriage and the People likewise lose the liberty to revoke their choice when the Prince Elected is declared King 'T is a strange consequence to say that the people may take away the Kings Authority because they have sworn obedience to him the Election is no other thing And it 's a reason that overthrows it self to say that the people may take from the King his Authority because they gave it him For put the case that it were true that the people gave Authority to the King whom they Elect since then the people have given away their Authority 't is no more in them This maxime being once admitted that it is lawful for every one to take back again what he hath given it would break the Laws of Society and fill the world with injustice and confusion But let our enemies know that although the Authority of the King had not begun before the Oath of Allegiance which this Parliament took in a Body at the beginning of their sitting yet the Body of the State made thereby an irrevocable gift of their obedience to the King and from this Oath we draw a better consequence then theirs namely that they cannot dispose of their obedience since they have given it to the King So that were their reasons good they would be of no force but in Kingdomes which were Elective and make nothing against King Charles for neither he nor any of the Kings his Ancestors in all ages past ever came to the Crown by Election It 's not to purpose to alledge the Oath the King took at his Coronation as an agreement and paction made with his people equivalent to an Election for the King receives not his Kingdome at his Coronation he is King before his Crown is put on and therefore Watson and Clark who conspired against King James of glorious memory were justly condemned as guilty of High Treason although they alledged that the King was not then Crowned and it was judged by the Court that the Crowning was but a ceremony for to make the King known to his people It 's the like also in France I judge saith Bodin that no man doubts but the King enjoyes before his Anointing the possession and propriety of his Kingdome Before this ceremony the King enjoyes as fully all his Rights as after and according to the Laws of France and England the King never dies whilst there remains any of the Royal Blood for in the same hour that the King expires the lawful Heir is totally invested of the Kingdome Wherefore the Eldest Sonne of Edward the Fourth who was murthered by his Uncle Richard is by general consent numbered amongst the Kings and named Edward the Fifth although he never wore the Crown nor took any Oath nor exercised any Authority Henry the Sixth was not Crowned but in the ninth year of his Reign and yet before his Coronation many were attainted of High Treason which could not have been done if he had not been acknowledged King In the Oaths of the Kings of France and England at their Coronation there is no image of stipulation covenant or agreement betwixt them and their subjects They receive not their Crowns upon any condition and their people owe their obedience whether they perform or violate their promises This Oath is a laudible custome profitable to bear up the Authority of the Prince by the love of his Subjects and to give to the people this satisfaction that the King whom God hath given them hath an intention to govern them with Justice and Clemency and to preserve their Rights and Liberties If the King by his Oath should bind himself to fall from the Right to his Kingdome when he should violate his Promises he would then be lesser after his Oath then before and surely if the Kings did believe they should diminish their propriety by their Oath they would never take it and to shew that their Authority depends not of their Oath but their Oath of their Authority the Kings of England form it at their pleasure Very hardly shall you find three that have taken the same Oath without changing some things That which was presented to Henry the Eighth which is to be seen in the Rolls was corrected by his own hand and interlined And moreover the Oath is made to God and not to the People and binds the Conscience of the Prince but doth not limit his Soveraignty if the intention of this solemnity were to make a stipulation or agreement with the people the people at the same time should also
suit or cause might come unto me and I would do him justice 2 Sam. 15.4 In publick grievances good Subjects are wont to cast the blame upon the Ministers of State and rest satisfied in seeing some of them punished accounting it their principal interest to preserve the honour of their Soveraign and good Princes when they are informed that the Ministers of State have abused their Authority to the damage of their Subjects which is theirs are wont to examine them and judge them according to the Laws And in this the King did as much as possible they could require of him having submitted the persons of those whom the Covenanters complained against to be judged and tried by lawful and ordinary waies But whilst they tread under foot the Royal Authority the Power of Parliament and the Majesty of the Laws and that they were in open war against him what reason had he to submit his Servants and Ministers to the judgment of his enemies Being certain that whilst the War continued they would aim most at them who served him best Then when the Parliament was whole and entire there passed a Vote worthy the gravity of that great Court That the King could do no wrong and that his Officers and not he were guilty of the evil which was done in the publick Government But since those who loved the King departed and withdrew themselves to him those which remained at Westminster followed a way quite contrary for they cast upon the King all the faults of his Servants and made use of them against him whom they ought should have punished for having ill served him Then when they took in hand to examine the Ministers of State in stead of punishing them which were guilty they received them into favour yea after their â—aults proved against them and turned all the discontent of the people upon the King What a great noise was there in the House of Commons against the forgers of Monopolies One would have thought that hardly any should have escaped with their lives but there happened altogether the contrary For because the Monopolists and other accused persons made a considerable number in Parliament they made use of their faults to make a strong faction against the King terrifying and making them understand there was no way left to preserve them from utter ruine but to joyn with the new party which was forming and hereupon they were promised impunity for what evils they had done on condition they should do greater Some of these were sent to the King to Newmarket in the behalf of their companions to whom his Majesty said these words capable to convert them or to make their Indiâ—emenâ— at the day of Judgment Gentlemen lay your hands upon your Consciences Who are they which invented those Taxes by which you have so provoked my people against me For whose advantage and profit were those Imposts â—â—â—ied Were my Revenues encreased by them It was you that induced and moved me 〈◊〉 them for your own particular profit and now you return me a worthy recompence Other Parliament men guilty of many crimes were kept in the Parliament in hope of impuâ—ity the holy Covenant 〈◊〉 a Garment which covered a multitude of sins even to the violating of a great Lady and abusing her by own of their Members almost in the sight of the Parliament Behold these the Reformers of Church and State Others which were not of the Parliament but under censure for having been Councellours or Instruments in the Imposts and Taxes of the people were released by them and employed for the same business as persons who well understood the Trade who pillaged then with a good Conscience for the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Those whose infamous life was the shame of the Royal Court were the honour of the Court at Westminster and the Pillars of the Covenant Likewise the Judges accused of corruption and the Ministers of a scandalous life in taking the Covenant obtained a plenary indulgence of all their sins for after that there was no more to say to them for those who washed themselves in this water returned as white as if they had been washed with Ink or with the second Baptism the Anabaptists use at this day But now let us look upon the Armies Our enemies cry aloud that the King made use of those of the Church of Rome to serve him in his Wars Upon which an excellent Writer makes this gentle Question to them How many were in their Armies or how many they would have had For if the common report do not much wrong them they employed divers persons of that Religion there were persons of Honour and Quality who assured us that they Prisoners of the same Religion served the Covenanters We refer our selves to their own Consciences if they gave not a Commission to my Lord Aston to levy Forces The Relation in notable the King being at York this gallant man accounted the most experienced and best Commander of War of his time came to present his Service to his Majesty the King gave him thanks and withal told him he was resolved to employ none of his Religion in his Army Well saith he I will go then to those who will employ me and indeed went presently to Westminster where he was received with open Arms and a Commission given him written and signed which he carried to the King Ye cannot wonder then that the King made use of him and others of his Religion whom before he was resolv'd not to employ although he had to take away all shadow of occasion from his enemies who sought somthing whereat to quarrel with him made a Proclamation that none professing the Religion of the Church of Rome should come neer his Court. After this the Covenanters used all their power to make them draw to the Kings Party well considering their party being so small would bring more hatred than help to the King and for this effect they treated them with great inhumanity forcing them to forsake their Houses and Lands and run and hide themselves under the Kings Protection and this the King could not refuse them for as they owed him their Subjection the King owed them his Protection so long as they governed themselves according to the Laws and accomplished the Conditions whereby they were permitted by Act of Parliament to live in the Kingdom By this reason of Reciprocal duty the King protecting them as his Subjects they were bound to defend him as their King and ye shall not find in all the Statutes which concern them that they are exempted to serve the King in his Armies neither is it reasonable that they only should be free from the perils of war whilst thâ—ir fellow Subjects venture their lives and are shedding their bloud for the defence of their Country The Covenanters made it appear sufficiently to the world that they judged that Religion ought not to exclude any from bearing Arms in the publick danger for
did very ill to address themselves to you since they hold a method quite contrary for they dishonour and massacre their King under a colour of devotion to God and undertake to set up the Kingdome of Jesus Christ by the ruine of the Kingdome of their Soveraign which is as if they would build the Temple of God with Cannon shot and defend Religion in violating it The truth of the Gospel was never advanced by these wayes but the patience and even the sufferings of the Christians was it which propagated the Christian Religion and rendered the Church mighty and glorious Those who suffered under the Pagan and Arian Emperours conquered both the Empire and Emperours and the Champions of truth purchased a Kingdome to Jesus Christ not in shedding the blood of their Soveraigns but in pouring forth their own for righteousness by a voluntary submission to their judgement He who cannot frame himself to this Doctrine doth not so much as God requires of him if he makes profession of Christianity for Christ tells us in calling us that whosoever taketh not up his Cross and cometh not after me cannot be my Disciple and commands him who would imbrace the Gospel to set down before and calculate the expence as if he were about to build Certainly he that cannot resolve to subject himself to his Soveraign for the love of God and never draw his sword against him to whom God hath committed it made an ill calculation before he dedicated himself to Jesus Christ for he ought not to take upon him Christianity if he were not able to go through with it and was not resolved rather to suffer then resist and to spend his goods and life to preserve himself in that subjection commanded by the Word of God For maintaining this holy Doctrine we have been banished and pursued with Armes and after we had defended our Soveraign with more fidelity then success we have been constrained to forsake our dear Country driven from our houses and spoiled of our revenues but yet we praise God for giving them since he hath done us the honour that we should lose them for his service and we ought this to our King of whom our lands held to abandon them for love of him For to enter into a Covenant against him peaceably to enjoy his and the Kings his Predecessors bounty and to betray the truth and our consciences to save our moneys we could never resolve Now since those who have done the evil began first to cry out and have spread their unjust clamours through all the Reformed Churches we 'll make the same journey with our just complaints and after the example of the abased Levite by the Sonnes of Jemini we send this recital of our grievances through all the quarters of Israel Judg. 19.30 Consider of it take advice and speak your minds The injury which doth touch us nearest is not our Exile nor the loss of our goods nor theirs of our nearest Relations but the extreme wrong done to the Gospel and the Reformed Churches to whom these new Reformers falsly impute their Maximes of Rebellion and hereby render our most holy profession suspected and hateful to Princes of a contrary Religion This Gentlemen toucheth you very near considering your condition and the Summons the Assembly at Westminster made to you to covenant with them or to make a covenant like theirs The Epistle was addressed to the Church of Paris in the name of all the Reformed Churches of France and with the Epistle they sent the Oath of their Covenant which concludes with an Exhortation in form of a prayer to God That it would please him to stir up by their example other Churches who live under the Tyranny of Antichrist to swear this Covenant or one like it This same Epistle together with the Oath being sent to the Ministers of the Church of Genevah stirred up in them a holy jealousie and drew from that excellent person Monsieur Diodati who is now in glory an answer worthy of him in the name of all the Church Repell this horrible scandal which so extremely wrongs Christianity in general wash and cleanse this filthy attempt of the blackest oppression which above all is imputed to the most pure profession of the Gospel as if the Gospel opposed and affronted by a kind of antipathy and secret hatred all Royal Power of Soveraign Authority Pacifie the exasperated spirit and too much provoked of your King and drive him not upon Pinacles and Precipices Blessed be God who touched the heart of this great person whose memory shall be for ever precious for rendring so open a testimony to the truth And because he have not suffered himself to be flâ—ered and perswaded by the complements of these enemies to his a Mjesty to applaud them in their evil actions such are these Refiners of Reformation as not content by their factious zeal to set their own country on fire but they labour also to cast the fire into their neighbours and to blow Rebellion through all Europe And of late the most enormous actions of the English drew from Master Salmasius Prince of Letters and the Honour of France a defence of the Right of Kings God was so pleased to raise up the Learnedst pen of these times to defend the best cause of the world in which this great person hath highly honoured his country But to speak right he more honoured himself and the Church wherein he was educated For if hereafter these malefactors dare be so bold as to say the Reformed Churches approved their actions they shall produce this book which condemns them and defends the Royal cause with such wisdome and efficacy of spirit suitable to the dignity of the subject and shall require them to produce if they can any one of the Reformed Churches who have in the least manner written in favour of their proceedings It should have been a strange and shameful thing if there were none found amongst the Reformed Churches who should not disown their wicked Doctrines and cause all Princes and people of the world to know that the Reformed Churches are very far from following their counsels and abhor their seductions to disloyalty from what part soever they come Heretofore indeed it was accounted the duty of charity and prudence to cover the faults of this faction and if corruption enter into Israel not to publish it in Gath but when the Doctrine of Rebellion disputed in corners ascends the Pulpit hold assizes in open Court sends forth Ambassadors invites the Reformed Churches to their party and imploy the Gospel Piety zeal of Gods Glory to raise subjects against their Soveraigns now 't is time or never to pluck off their mask of hypocrisie and shew where the evil lies and discover the wickedness of a party 〈◊〉 preserve from shame and disgrace the general and the rather since the Aphorismes of Rebellion and seducing people to sedition are reproached to the Protestants and imployed by the enemies of our
Reformation they were constrained to provide for the safety of their own lives After this there was no more speech of the Agreement in Religion for that would utterly have spoiled their work for it had never been possible to have raised the people against the King if the conclusion of this conference had been made known to the world that the King the Court and the Bishops made profession of the sincere reformed Religion Now because all the Lies and Subtilties of the Devil were not capable to impute unto them another Confession of Faith but that which they maintain which was Holy and Orthodox known every where and confirmed by the Confessions of all the reformed Churches of Europe the Factious perswaded the people both by their Sermons and seditious Libels that the degree of Bishops was an essential Branch and Mark of Antichrist and that to pull them down was to do the work of the Lord and to ruine Antichrist and that if the King would maintain them he would be destroyed with them as being one of those Kings who gave his power to the Beast And besides the destruction of Bishops they openly demanded the Abolition of the Divine Service received in the Church of England condemning the use of all other prayers yea even of the Lords Prayer quarrelling with the Apostles Creed denied the necessity of the Sacraments boasted of a new Light that had appeared to them from Heaven to draw them out of Popish Darkness and all that was not compatible with their extravagant Illuminations they called Popery and the Ministers that disobeyed them Baal's Priests and the supporters of Antichrist By such kind of people were the great multitudes stirred who came crying at the Gates of the King and Parliament for Reformation threatning with fire and sword all those that should oppose it Of these Assemblies we may speak what is spoken of the uproar at Ephesus Acts 19.32 The Assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together for those that called for Reformation understood not one another and their opinions were different in Religion as appears at this day agreeing only in this to pull down the Ecclesiastical Government and what New Government they will build upon the Ruines of the Old we shall know when the sword hath decided the controversie but whilst the Mariners strive the Ship sinks The Lord behold his poor Church in compassion We have great hope now beholding the diversity of Opinions and Inclinations that these evil ingredients will together make a good Temperature and that the disorder yea even the Licentiousness it self will inforce order as commonly evil Manners beget good Laws but to attain this it 's required in this general confusion that those of clear and sound judgments who see the bottom of the evil and know the Remedy of it But having considered them that walk before in the design of Reformation we find that they are such that neither know the Remedy nor the Evil. As for the Evil in stead of having their eyes upon the errors of particulars against the principal points of Faith and Confession of the English Church they grew obstinate against certain small and indifferent Ceremonies which the King had many times offered to change by a Synod lawfully assembled and cast all the Fire of their passion upon the Episcopall preheminence a Surpliss a Festival Forms of Prayer Painted windows and condemning many good things amongst â—he evil And as for the Remedy we have here whereat to admire that striking at so small and light evils they would employ such extream Remedies nothing being able to serve but general destruction as if to heal the pain of the Teeth they would cut off the Head in stead of proceeding by an amiable conference appointing a deputation of the Clergy of the Kingdom to assemble in a Synod to calm the fiery spirits and to keep the people in obedience to their Soveraign and to fasten the building that shaked by the Ciment of Charity they made open profession that the Reformation could not be effected but by blood that they would have no peace with the Bishops and their Clergy that they must destroy before they build raze Babylon as they called our Discipline even to the very foundations overthrow the Altars of Baal and sacrifice all his Priests that now the time was come that the Israel of God ought to pillage the Egyptians And that now the just should wash their footsteps in the blood of the ungodly for such they accounted us and thus they did us the honour to plunder and kill us in Scripture Language And with this Divinity the Pulpits sounded aloud and the people publickly exhorted to take up Arms against the King and to destroy all Ministers both of Church and State that should joyn with him and for this effect these following Texts of Scripture were pressed by their zealous Preachers Luke 19.27 Those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me Judg. 5.23 Curse ye Meroz curse ye bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because they came not to the help of the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Jer. 48.10 Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from bloud and these they appropriated to their war against their King and Clergy of England and all that adhered unto them there being no way of Reformation in these mens accounts but to kill us for the Love of God and the Advancement of his Kingdom Now being exceedingly astonished how men of Learning could possibly be so bewitched with a furious and foolish zeal we found at length having sounded the depth of their opinions that their Brains were troubled with Prophesies and Revelations that their principal reading was in Commentaries upon the Revelation which they interpreted according to their fancies and that they had studied more what God would do hereafter than what their Duty was to do for the present that they made no Conscience to transgress the declared Will of God in his Commands to accomplish the secret will of his Decree That they were Millenariâ—s expecting a Temporal Kingdom of Jesus Christ believing that the time of that Kingdom was now come and to establish that Kingdom they were to pluck down that of Antichrist as they understood the ancient Ecclesiastical Order and to dispossess Kings drive away the wicked dash the children of Babel against the stones tread the winepress of the wrath of God till the Blood rose to their Bridle reins that thereby Christ alone may reign in the world and the meek inherit the earth We have since enough tasted of the fruits of their meekness All this is drawn from the model of the Common-wealth of John a Leyden and the Prophets of Munster But if any of the Covenanters shall disavow these opinions they cannot deny but they were preached publickly and ordinarily neither can they
of Jerusalem who resisted Uzziah the King when he would have exercised the Priests Office 2 Chron. 26.18 The example of Elisha who caused the door to be shut when Joram the King of Israel sent a messenger to cut off his head 2 Kings 6.13 And also the malediction that Deborah gave to the Inhabitants of Meroz because they came not to the help of the Lord when Barak fought against Siserae Iudges 5.23 Likewise the malediction pronounced by Jeremy against him that should do the work of the Lord deceitfully and that should keep his sword from shedding the blood of the Moabites Jer. 48.10 The Idols of Laban and the Genealogies of the Patriarchs might also have been brought to this purpose it must needs be that the Spirit of Error and of Lies have a great power upon the understanding of these people for to perswade them by such reasons to hazard their Goods and Lives and Consciences in an open War against their Soveraign All these passages of Scripture are Examples and particular Cases and all except one far from the point in controversie but in a matter of such importance as the resisting of the King which is so expresly forbidden and under pain of damnation there is need of a formal command or of a permission expressed that exempts Christians at least in some certain cases for the crime of resisting the higher powers which is to resist God and from the punishment of eternal damnation without this all the Examples of Subjects rising up against their Princes from the very Creation of the World cannot nor is able to put Conscience into a quiet condition He hath but small knowledge that knows not that Examples prove nothing but that such a thing hath been done and is possible not that it ought to be done or that it is lawful to be done if there be not a Law built upon the Example and a Soveraign Authority given to it that it may be a pattern for the future and then it s not the Example but the Law that we are bound to follow which cannot be said of the Examples before alledged which beside the general insufficiency of Examples in matter of proof touch not the point of Resistance in question except the first which is wholly contrary to it Which is the Example of David who being persecuted by Saul took six hundred men for his Guard this might suffice for Answer That this action is not recommended by the Word of God nor proposed as an example for us to follow Christian piety and prudence may imitate many actions of holy persons which are not formally recommended in the word of God but the question being to exempt us from a prohibition and a formal threatning Rom. 13.2 one of the most considerable and penal in all the Scripture we may receive no example to the contrary if it be not expresly recommended and turned into a command and besides the last command ought to have the advantage and to be obeyed before the first Moreover extraordinary Cases in Scripture wherein there is a Miraculous and Prophetick Conduct cannot serve for a pattern in ordinary cases David was Anointed King over Israel by a special command of God and in all the List of the Kings of Judah there were none but Saul and David called to the Kingdom in this manner And this holy Unction gave them priviledges in Israel which were onely proper to them and which the Gentlemen of the Covenant have not in England for ordinary cases there are perpetual and inviolable precepts and these precepts are wholly contrary to the resisting of Soveraigns by Arms. Our Enemies nevertheless challenge a particular Interest in this example of David because they account themselves the anointed of the Lord but deny this Title to their King if he be not one of the Elect of God but let them learn that that which renders Kings the anointed of the Lord is not true Faith nor the Gifts of the Spirit but that Soveraign power which they have from on high And therefore Cyrus a Pagan King is called by God himself his anointed and his Shepherd Isai 45.1 If then Kings are the anointed of the Lord without consideration of their Religion or vertue it follows then that they lose not their unction neither by their Errors nor their Vices and that falling from the grace of God yet they fall not from that power which they held of him This is spoken of by the way against the Heresie of most part of the Covenanters who deny the divine Unction of Kings and fasten it to their fâ—ntasies in Religion And we have cause to give thanks to these men who alledge to us the example of David there being nothing in all the Scripture more contrary to them for in stead of that they pursued the King with weapons in their hands and gave him Battel David fled continually from place to place and never struck one stroke nor drew his Sword against his King Twice he let him escape when he had him in his power and having taken away his spear restored it to him again and having but cut off the Lap of his garment his heart smote him for it and when one counselled him to dispatch him then when he was in his hands he said The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord 1 Sam. 24.6 And when his servants would have slain him he saith Destroy him not for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless 1 Sam. 26.9 This Divine Title bound his hands and possessed his spirit with fear and astonishment And since our Enemies make him to say that he would not stretch forth his hand against the King if he descended not in Battel against him let them well read the Text but especially in the Original and they shall find no such thing David doth rather put Saul wholly into the hands of God Vers 10. The Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into the battel and perish The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lords Anointed He doth not say that he will not stretch forth his hand against him unless that the Lord smite him for if God smite him what need had David to smite him He doth not say he would descend into Battel against him for then his Actions would have contradicted his Words for he always fled from him the Event proved that his words were Prophetical and that hâ— waited whilest Saul should be slain in a strange War and that the hand of the Lord should be upon him And if David never gave him Battel we cannot impute it to his weakness for he might as well have defeated the Army of Saul as that of the Philistines before Keilah with his small number if God who guided him in all his ways had
King whom they ought to defend and maintain against a stranger usurping and that had murthered the Royal Family and here the Maxime is valid That against a publike enemy every one hath right to take up Arms But what conclude they from these two last examples they would have been ashamed to have named them before the death of their King but since they have explained themselves God defend the holiness of his Word and confound this Divelish Divinity Those that follow are not much better they alledge the example of the Priests who resisted King Uzziah when he would have exercised the Priests Office so ought the Ministers of the Gospel to resist the King if he would administer the Sacraments but this resistance ought to be done by humble admonitions and as refusing to serve him in his design not by way of Arms In the matter of 〈…〉 the Priests used not any violence it is said 〈…〉 caused him to go out of the Temple because Go◠〈…〉 him with the Leprosie but that 〈…〉 force for the Text saith vers 20. he 〈…〉 â—ed to go out because the Lord had 〈…〉 his serves nothing for their Subject they have no other reason to alledge this but because having quarrelled against all Kings they take delight to blast their Dignity The like is the example of Elisha who commanded the door to be shut against the messenger that was sent from Ioram to cut off his head 2 Kings 2.32 If Elisha had sent a Messenger to cut off the Kings Head the example had been to the purpose for this is our case at this day but to shut the door against an Officer of the Kings to save his life being condemned to die wrongfully and without force of Justice is very far from attempting either against the Person or Authority of the King The English Law in many Caseâ— gives to every one his house for a place of safety neither is there any Law either Divine or Humane that forbids us to defend a blow from what part soever it comes if the Covenanters had done no other thing there never had been a War but they proceeded further then defence Was there ever a more important Action upon so small a foundation to persecute their King by Sea and Land destroy his Estate plant their Cannon against his Person imprison him and at last cut off his head because Elisha caused the door to be shut against the Messenger of Joram But in recompence behold here two proofs wherein there is as much piety as reason Judg. 5.23 Deborah cursed the Inhabitants of Meroz because they came not forth to help the Lord against Jabin and Sisera and Jer. 48.10 Jeremy cursed them that kept their sword from shedding the blood of the Moabites Ergo Cursed are all they that came not to help the Covenanters against the King For these rare consequences they deserve a bundle of Thistles such as Asses feed on and to be driven from the society of men as being deprived both of Reason and Humanity who hath given them power to stretch to the King either by words or actions the judgements pronounced against the enemies of God and which are restrained to certain Nations and Persons The King was he a Moabite Was he a Pagan or an Usurper of a Kingdom as Jabin Are you Prophets as Deborah and Jeremy to curse with Authority If ye be not Prophets ye are Sacrilegious for cursing is a Fire that appertains only to God to cast forth they who are so bold to take it into their hands without Authority burn them and hurt none but themselves but oftentimes doth good to them whom they would hurt for this Rashness moves God to jealousie and provokes him to do the contrary according to the Psalmist Psal 109. Let them curse but do thou bless we have great hopes that our enemies shall be the Occasion of the blessing of God upon us since they take such pains to curse us it is the constant Argument of their Sermons and publike Prayers to it they employ the vehemency of their Eloquence and fervour of their Devotion Let us then say with David 2 Sam. 16.12 It may be the Lord will look upon our affliction and that the Lord will requite good for their cursing but let us bless them that persecute us and despitefully use us O our God! turn their Hearts and bless their persons and as our Lord Jesus by his Prayer on the Cross saved them which crucified him save we beseech thee all those that crucifie him in his Members and those who killing us think they do God service CHAP. III. Express Texts of Scripture which Commands Obedience and forbids Resistance to Soveraigns FOr to draw them from Examples and particular Cases which is their retreat to general Precepts we beseech them as they love God and their own salvation to review their proofs and consider that in all the Scripture there is neither Precepts nor Permission that authorizeth the taking up of Arms against their Soveraign but there are very many formal Commands to the contrary The first Commandment Honour thy Father and thy Mother binds us to honour the King for in the beginning Soveraignty appertained to Fathers and is derived of the paternal power Deut. 13.6 c. Now it is impossible to honour the King and draw your sword against him upon which we observe that in case of Idolatry the Father was commanded by the King to accuse his Son and Daughter and the Husband his Wife and to stretch forth first his hand against them to slay them but neither the Son nor the Daughter ought to accuse the Father nor the Wife the Husband much less to put forth their hand against them Whence we learn that neither Children nor Subjects ought to rise up against their Fathers or their Kings which have in them the Paternal Character no not for the service of God and that their Persons ought to be inviolable those who confess this Truth and yet in the mean while separate the Authority of the King from his Person deny that which they have confessed and expose the Person of the King to violence for it is the Authority that renders the Persons of Kings unviolable Therefore among so many Reprehensions and Judgments against Idolatrous Kings whereof the holy History is full ye shall in no place nor part find that the people are reproved for not depressing or deposing their King ordinarily the punishment that God sent upon them came immediatly from himself or out of the Kingdome not by their own Subjects Before God would employ Jehu who was a Subject to destroy the Kings of Israel and Judah he anointed him King and besides gave him a special and extraordinary Command We say the like of Jeroboam whose Example is very ill alledged to defend Rebellion for Jeroboam was sent of God to take the Kingdom from Rehoboam and was authorized by a formal donation The sentence of David before mentioned 1 Sam. â—6 9 is of
Gospel was to subject themselves wholly to their Soveraigns and without any reservation but to suffer for righteousnesse sake rather than disobey God for hereby the principal hinderance was removed namely that shadow which the enemies of the Gospel made the Emperors to apprehend that this Doctrine which spread so fast would bring along with it an alteration in their Estates and that the Christians waâ—ted but the coming of a King that would break in pieces all other Kings and have for his possession the ends of the earth it 's that which Saint Peter had regard unto where he exhorteth Believers 1 Pet. 2 13 15. To submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake that in all well-doing ye may put to silence the Ignorance of foolish men By this manner of subjection whole States were converted and in the end patience overcame For the Christians of the first Ages have made appear by their piety and moderation that the Kingdom whither they aspired was not of this world neither did in any thing diminish the rights of Monarchs but rather strengthened their authority binding their Subjects anew by Conscience yea so far as to make whole Armies of valiant mâ—n that had power in their hands to lay down their necks rather than to draw their swords against their Emperor so did the Christian Souldiers under Maximinian who would have constrained them to sacrifice to his Idols The Armies of the English and Scottish Covenanters are not capable of this Doctrine these Northern people are impatient Libertines and haughty they will form a Gospel according to the Ayr of their â—â—â—mate Their other crafty Evasion is not much better that Saint Paul forbids to disobey the power of the King but not to his person but the Text is formally against this for the Apostle by Power doth not understand a Quality without a Subject but fastens it to the Person saying in vers 6. That the Prince is the Minister of God and that he bears not the sword in vain and that they are ordained of God to do Justice And he speaks vers 6. of Princes in the plural number they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing 'T is the style of Saint Paul to call the Angels who excel in power Principalities and Powers When he speaks Eph. 3.10 That the manifold wisdom of God might be known to Principalities and Powers in heavenly places It appears that he speaks not of Accidents but of Persons for they are the Persons and not the Titles that are capable of knowledge Now I would fain know of these men what this Person is that it is lawful to resist If it be the person of the King or supream Magistrate whilst it is joyned to his power they resist the power in the person and if it be the person separated from the power they must needs before resist either the one or the other for to mâ—ke this violent separation And seeing that the Covenanters maintain that the authority of the King resides in their Chief those that draw the sword against them may return the same answer and say that they resist not their authority but their Persons but the Oath of Allegiance and that of supremacy which are imposed by Act of Parliament cause all these subtilties to vanish for men take these Oaths to the person of the King and not to his power or to his supremacy separated from him Moreover this distinction is contradicted by another which hath been frequent a long time in their mouths that they resisted not the King but his Armies which signifies in effect that they resisted not the person or King but his power for his power laid in his Armies and as it is the nature of a lie to enter far these people who say they are licensed by Saint Paul to oppose the person of the King and not his power were marvellously impatient when they were told they fought against the King and affirmed that they fought for him and defended his person which doubtless seems to be spoken to move laughter and indignation but God cannot be mocked nor Conscience wholly blinded by their impatience hereupon they testifie that their Conscience makes their process and dictates to them within that to bear Arms against the King is to sin against God and Nature It 's a notable Symptome of a desperate sick State where the reason of a people is smitten with astonishment whereof we have a most lamentable example for was there ever such a capricious madness to accuse the Royal Majesty of Treason to make Edicts by the King against the King to swear a Covenant for defence of the King which nevertheless obligeth them to make war against him and the King being alive to forge a Platonick Idea of the same King residing fifty miles from himself that so they might fight against the Person of the King There is no Cymera nor fantastical humour like this Behold the work of the Spirit that now works efficaciously in the children of disobedience Behold another Evasion The Apostle say they doth not teach us who is the Superiour Power but that it is the Superiour Power that we must obey and therefore they strive to form in the Kingdom a Superiour Power above the King a thing contrary to the Constitution of this Monarchy as I hope to make appear It 's easie to gather which is the Superiour Power which Saint Paul understands for he expresses it himself It s the Power which bears the Sword ver 3. And he to whom Tribute is paid Psal 7. Rights that appertain to the King alone and which were actually possessed by the Emperor where Saint Paul wrote this Epistle That which they alledge against this that the Emperor then was more absolute than the Kings at present is false but he was much more limited Suetonius that lived under Trajan puts amongst the enormities of Caligula to have been very near changing the form of Government which was a Principality into a Kingdom and to place the Diadem upon his head And the Learned called not the power of these Emperors Regnum but Principatus and were this allegation true yet it would be far from the purpose for be it that the Emperor should be more or less absolute than our Kings the command of Saint Paul is alwaies the same That we must not resist him that bears the Sword and to whom Custome is due because his Authority is of God This other starting hole is of the same stuffe they say that the defence not to resist Supream Powers obligeth only Particulars and not the States of a Kingdom this is to make another Gospel for the General than for the Particulars as if they should say the Commandments of God are directed to every one but not to all which is to overthrow common Sense since the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are imposed upon all the States of England whereby they are bound also in General none sit
not alter the Nature of the two Houses and the Gentlemen of the Parliament have often protested that they would not make use of this Act of Grace to the disadvantage of his Majesty so then if there were no Soveraignty resident in the two Houses before this grant there is no more after and the pretended Fundamental Laws not written that parts Soveraignty between the King and his Subjects yea that transport it wholly to the people are much to be suspected of falsity since they never appear but since the promise they obtained of the King both to his and their great damage to perpetuate this Parliament as long as they pleased and since they have begun to exercise the Soveraignty by force of Arms. Thus the new Nobility after they had obtained the Firss by right or wrong produce Coats of Arms and Titles which were heretofore unknown They maintain this their New Soveraignty by a Maxime of Stephanus Junius Brutus Rex est singulis Major universis Minor That is to say as they expound it That the King is the Soveraign of Particulars but the Representative body of the State is greater then he and have Soveraignty over him and all their Writers and amongst others the Observator on the Kings Answers attribute Majestie to the Commonalty and not to the King or Supreme if this be true it 's very strange how this Representative Body of the State the Parliament have left it so long time to the Kings the Court of Wards and many other Rights of Soveraignty which they have enjoyed without Contradiction until that present Parliament This vile Maxime then being destitute of all proofs from the Laws and Customes of the State ought to be despised but moreover it is also void of all reason for if the English be subject to their King in Retail are they not in Gross if in pieces not in the whole being born Subjects have they power to give the Soveraignty to their Deputies or Parliament men and make them Chief that is to say can they give them that which they have not And seeing also that they cannot assemble in Parliament without the King or Supreme Magistrates Writ this Writ of the Kings doth it render them forthwith Soveraigns above the King The stile of the Writ calls them ad Consul andum de quibusdam arduis to consult with him about some difficult affairs and not to master him and to dispose of his Authority And since they call this great Court the Body Representative of Subjects they must needs then be Subjects otherwise they should not represent them who sent them and that which the King accords to should be granted to Soveraigns but his Subjects should receive no benefit thereby He who will well examine this Proposition That the Soveraignty over the Soveraign rests in the Representative body of Subjects shall find it full of contradictions and to destroy it self They cannot bring any probable reason saith Bodin that the Subjects ought to command their Prince and that the Assembly of Estates ought to have any power unless when the Prince is under age or distracted or captive then the Estates may depute him a Regent or Lieutenant Otherwise if Princes were subâ—ect to the Laws of the States and Commands of the people their Power were nothing and the Title of a King would be a Name without the thing moreover under such a Prince the Common-wealth should not be governed by the people but by some few persons equal in their Suffrages who who would make Laws and Edicts not by the Authority of the Prince but by their own who for all that come and present him humbly with requests every one apart by himself and all in a body making shew of Faithfulness and Obedience these things are as ridiculous as can be imagined thus saith Bodin Behold here the Form of State of our Covenanters in their beginning so drawn to the life by this learned Person that one would say he took the very Copie from them In effect when under a Monarchy a Faction in an Assembly of States shall take upon them the Soveraignty the State change not into an Aristocracy nor Democracy but into a pure Obligarchy which is the worst of all Forms of State and but the corruption of others The Royal Power being once usurped 't is not then the greatest nor the best nor the most who govern the affairs but some few unquiet and ambitious persons who love contention and know how to fish in troubled waters and as these men deceive the King with a false Idea of Soveraignty so they deceive their companions perswading them that the have part in their Authority because they have voices in the House for in such Assemblies where the choice of persons is more by hap then Judgment the Suffrage is to all but the Power is in a few The same Author numbring the Soveraign and absolute Monarchies of Christendom places England and Scotland amongst them and saith That without all Question their Kings have all the rights of Majesty and that it is not lawful for their Subjects neither apart nor in a Body to attempt any thing against the Life Reputation or Goods of their Soveraign be it either by ways of Force or Justice although he were guilty of all the crimes a man could imagine in a Tyrant For the Subjection that the Parliament owe to their King we can have no better witness then the Parliament it self for that disloyal maxime that the body of the State is above the King is contradicted by the ordinary stile of their papers presented to the King by this Body The Two Houses most humbly beseech their Soveraign Lord the King and they qualifie themselves the most humble and loyal subjects of his Majesty 'T is the Presentative Body of the Kingdome who speaks and nothing by way of Complement but Duty This Preface hath an excellent Grace in the beginning of a Declaration of the Two Houses to their King wherein they tell him that they deal favourably with him if they do not depose him and that they may do it without exceeding the limits of their Duty and Modesty This discourse is like the Locusts of the bottomless pit Revelations 9. which had the faces of men but the tails of Scorpions and therefore to avoid this disproportion in their Articles presented to the King at New-Castle they left out the Qualification of Subjects The ordinary Preface of Statutes do lively express the Nature of the three Estates The King by the Advice and Consent of the Prelates Earls and Barons and at the instance and request of the Commonalty hath ordained c. For it 's the King alone properly that ordains the Peers as Councellors advise and Consent the Commons as Suppliants require and solicite The Parliament held in the twenty fourth year of Henry the Eight speaks thus By divers ancient and authentical Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared that this Kingdome of England is an
condition they would commit new ones But when the honest and most understanding of the City came in a good number to petition the two Houses to hearken to peace and satisfie the King they were severely rebuked as seditious and these Gentlemen let them know that they loved no noise but of their own making Behold here the waies whereby the Parliament of London obtained their absolute power Behold the Foundations they laid for a most holy Reformation Posterity will be ashamed of the Actions of their Fathers all Forreign Nations will abhor these proceedings remorse and sorrow may in the end enter into the hearts of the Londoners when they shall behold themselves the sole object of publick Execrations and curses Those of Gaunt and Paris have only reason to pardon them when they shall remember their Baracado's and the estate of the Nobles during the holy League CHAP. X. A Parallel of the Covenant with the holy League of France under Henry the 3d. WHo so shall compare the holy League of France with the English Covenant shall find that they are sisters daughters of the same Father and that the younger is to the life after the Image of the Elder in both you shall find an Oath of mutual assistance to extirpate Heresie without the Authority of the King and which at last is turned against the King himself A Jealousie without ground of the Religion of their Soveraign and a War of Religion against a King of the same Religion which they would make the world believe was a Heretick A League with strangers and Armies raised in the Kingdom against their natural Prince who gave them no other occasion of the War but his too much Gentleness A King submitting himself to reason offering himself to remedy all the grievances of his Subjects and a people refusing to admit him to bring a remedy and resolved to give order without him the King driven from his chief City which he had honoured by his ordinary presence The fire of civil war blown about by seditious preachers The superstitious people tributary to the ambition of some particulars weak Conscience instructed to cut the throat of their King for the love of God and to gain Paradise fastings frequent Devotions doubled Prophetical Inspirations Examples of Angelical Holiness and all this to perswade the superstitious people that God favoured their Seditions as his cause and that their Leaders took Counsel of none but the Holy Ghost and had no other aim but the setting up of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Writers under pay to write scandalous libels against their King the people fed with lies to drain money out of their purses one while amazing them with fears where there was none another while flattering them with false hopes and with forged news A Parliament in the principal City but in it a smal number who wanting the Royal assistance support themselves by granting liberty to an inveagled people and by power of rich and foolish Citizens Nobility scorned Artificers and Banquerouts bearing the sway all Order Divine and Humane overturned the ancient Laws and Customes broken and new fundamental Laws never heard of before in their places In brief it appears at this day that the Devil marches abroad and walks in the same paths he did about fifty years since CHAP. XI The Doctrine of the English Covenanters parallel'd with the Doctrine of the Jesuits SInce the League of France and the English Covenant were both made upon pretence of Religion it 's not unworthy our paines to consider the conformity of the Doctrines they employed to maintain both the one and the other and how the Jesuits Maximes were the chief support of the Covenant Both in the League and Covenant the people were encouraged to take up Arms against their King by this opinion of Car. Bellar. who teacheth that in the Kingdoms of men the power of the K comes from the people because it 's the people that makes the King and that the people do never so transfer their power over to the King but they retain it in habitu and so that in certain cases they may in effect re-assume it again which was also the judgment of Navarrus whom the Cardinal highly extois And thus also the Author of the Observations upon the Kings Declarations who is the Master of the Sentences with the Covenanters teacheth us That originally the power is in the people who are the fountain and efficient cause and that the Authority is not in the Prince but secondarily and derivatively All these State Philosophers are full of School terms but little reason and he adds That this Authority founded by the people cannot be dissolved but by that power which gave it constitution Which is as much as to say That the people may take away the Kings power and authority when they please Another of the Sect but more antient tells us That Princes and Governours have their authority from the people who when they find it convenient may resume and take it from them again as every man may revoke when he please his own procuration or warrant but this reason shall by and by be examined and refuted The Cardinal explains himself more clearly in that which before he had written in covert Terms saying That a King such as he there describes may yea ought by the consent of all to be deprived of his Authority and Goodman is of his opinion That evil Princes ought to be deposed and that this alone belongs to the inferiour Magistrates to put in execution We learn from Doctor Charron that the French Leaguers eluded the strength of S. Pauls Texts which forbids the opposing of Soveraigns in saying That the commands had regard and respect only to the State of the Christians of those times because they were not then strong enough to make resistance I have before shewed how Bellarmine Buchanan and the Champions of Covenant make use of the same reason and exposition But to clear the way and make it smooth to come to deposing of Soveraign Princes These two parties are wont to absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Emanuel Sa the Jesuite saith That the people may depose their Prince even after they have sworn perpetual obedience to him And Mr. Knox saith That if Princes prove Tyrants against God and his Truth their Subjects are free from their Oaths of Allegiance c. To the excommunication and deposing of the Prince ordinarily there follows execution according to the Authentick Bull That it s not Homicide to kill an excommunicated person The French League produced two examples in the persons of their Kings and this accords with the Doctrine of Buchanan That Ministers may excommunicate Princes and that a King after he is cast into Hell by Excommunication is unworthy to live or to enjoy life upon earth But observe in passing the Reformed Churches do not teach that the Excommunicatio Major do cast any person into Hell but onely excludes
them from the outward communion of the visible Church and in this as in other things Buchanan hath shewed himself to be less skilled in Divinity then in Poetry The best excuse which can be alledged in his Defence is that which Mr. Du Moulin lends him which may also serve for Mr. Knox That if he hath written any thing which passeth moderation we must 〈◊〉 attribute it to his Religion but nature for its most certain both these were hot headed men and had a great Antipathy against Monarchy As for the doctrine of King killing which is a familiar doctrine amongst the Jesuits and is oft their shame and reproach they to render us as odious as themselves and by way of exchange alledge and quote in their writings the passages of Buchanan Knox and Goodman who together with them teach the same Doctrine That cunning Jesuite Petra Sancta is very curious in searching into their writings whom that excellent person Mr River answers and tels him that none amongst us approve or allow those wicked Maximes and imputes the cause to their supposed persecution which had exasperated their spirits and to the hot heads of the Nations of this Iland After this so wise and charitable a reprehension coming from a person of such eminency men of learning amongst them ought at least to have learned modesty since they refused to learn obedience of their Parliaments which condemned these Doctrines of Knox and Buchanan by their publike Acts or by the determinations of their principal Divines who have learnedly refuted them and also by considering what great pains Mr. Bloudil Mr. Valade and other judicious and learned men of Forraign Churches have taken to wash off the filth of their doctrines and behaviours which have exceedingly scandalized the Evangelical profession after so many Iterated saving advertisements one would have thought they should have preserved themselves from falling into the same offences and from giving new occasions of rejoycing to their enemies and of shame to their brethren but behold of late worse then ever their hot heads have produced such new effects of violence as gives a challenge of defiance to the very Jesuits themselves The Author of Sions Plea animates the people to war and to pull down the Bishops speaking thus Smite neither small nor great but the troublers of Israel wound that Hazael in the fifth Rib Yea if your father and mother stand in your way to prevent you dispatch them suddenly pull down the ensign of the Dragon set up the standard of Jesus Christ What If the father of the State stand in your way now when ye are busie in this holy cause must he be dispatched no doubt but they would tread upon him to make way and would serve the Son as they had done the Father 't is a point resolved on by the same Author They must strike the Basilike vein none but that can heal the Pluresie of State which is as much as to say in good English that they must cut the throat of the King for the publike good This Author were a good Scholler of the two Jesuites Guignard and Scribanius had he not too grossly borrowed their Terms for say they France was sick and they must cut the Basilike vein to heal her and Scribanius that they committed a great error on S. Bartholomews even that they cut not that vein That is that those of the Guisian Faction spared the lives of the King of Navar and the Prince of Condie Oh rare Flowers of Diabolical Rhetorick Oh the shame of Christian Religion Is this the simplicity and meekness of the Gospel Is this the way to guide Conscience into the way of peace and to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ or Christ on his Throne If S. Paul were alive doubtless these men would even maintain to his face that he understood not the nature of the spiritual Kingdome when he said Rom. 14.7 That the Kingdome of God is righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And when he read this lesson to the Christians Let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which peace ye are called in one body They would have taught him that the Kingdome of Jesus Christ ought to be set up by the murthering of Kings the destruction of the people and the oâ—erthrow of States and would have sent him to their Catechise to be instructed That the Parliament Souldiers at the present ought not to consider us as their Fellow-Citizens or their Parents or their companions in Religion but as Enemies of God upholders of Anti-Christ and therefore their eye should not pity us nor their sword spare us These are the words of that abominable Catechism published by Authority for the use of the Covenanters Army Oh behold the principles of Faith wherewith these dull souls are instructed Behold the Bread of Life wherewith their Divines feed the consciences of the poor people Jer. 23.4 I have seen in the Prophets of Hierusalem an horrible thing they commit adultery and walk in lies they strengthen also the hands of evil doers Israel the daies of thy visitation are come thy Prophets are fools and thy men of Revelations are mad To these prodigious Doctrines we will joyn that Aphorism in the book entituled Altare Damascenum That all Kings have a natural hatred against Christ If ye would believe this man every one that loves Christ must bear an irreconcileable hatred to all Kings was there ever a more seditious and execrable Maxime after such a Doctrine pronounced by an Author of such account should we ask who hath put weapons into the hands of this superstitious people against their Soveraign for these poor miserable people hate the King for the love of God yea many account him an Enemy of Jesus Christ even because he is a King That we may the better discover by what spirit this man is led observe how he deals with his natural Prince he calls King James of most happy and glorious memory Infestissimus Ecclesia Hostes the most mortal enemy of the Church without doubt these who read this will question what Religion this man is of who so qualifies the incomparable Defender of the Faith who hath so vigorously and sincerely maintained the truth that if there were a Christian in the world who knew not thar great Prince neither by his admirable writings nor by the Renown of his Piety and Wisdome and should hear him call'd the most spiteful and mortal Enemy of the Church he might well imagine that King James had turned Turk and changed the Churches of his Kingdome into Mosques and sold his Christian Subjects for slaves to the Moors It were to do wrong to the testimony that himself hath given by the Immortal Monuments of his Religious Wisdome and by his truly Christian and Fatherly Government to undertake here to defend him against so unequal an Adversary wherein the injuries spoken of this excellent King turns to the ruine and perdition of
him that spake them like unto the bitings of the weasel who consumes his teeth by gnawing of steel Certainly when the Divines of France defend in their writings the Confession of Faith of his Majesty against the Doctors of the contrary Religion they account not that King a most mortal enemy of the Church That most holy Confession confirmed by the practice of that great Prince will serve as a bright shining light in the Church in after Ages and cover the memory of them who injured and reproached him with perpetual shame But for the present thâ—se rare Adages which curse the best of Kings and Royalty in general are gather'd as choice and golden sentences Witnesse this other which comes from the Authority of his Companion as great a liar as himself who hath this passage He erres not much who saith that there is in all Kings a mortal hatred against the Gospel they will not suffer willingly the King of Kings to govern in their Kingdomes yet God hath some amongst the Kings who pertain to him but very few it may be one in an hundred But since he is upon the number instead of counting a hundred Kings one after another let him account only a hundred years without going out of England and we intreat this good man to consider what Kings have raigned over this Kingdome within this hundred years and let him in good earnest tell us which of them he would leave to God and which he would give to the Devil let them consider the piety of him whom God hath made a Saint and they a Martyr let them find if they can in all his Kingdome a man more just and meek more temperate and religious and let envy and rebellion who finding nothing to bite at in the life of this Monarch burst asunder at his feet and hide themselves in their own confusion Let us say the same to the Observator upon his Majesties Declarations who speaking of all Kings now raigning but with a particular application to his Soveraign saith That to be the delight of mankind as Titus Vespasian is now a sordid thing amongst Princes but to be tormentors and executioners of the Publique to plot and contrive the ruine of their subjects which they ought naturally to protect is now accounted a work worthy of Caesar If reviling and speaking reproachful words against the King were blasphemy according to the stile of the civil Laws of Israel 1 King 21 10. then this impious person is a Blasphemer in the highest degree against the sacred Majesty of Kings and moreover exceeding ridiculous as well as wicked to appropriate this description to his King whose known piety justice and clemency deserved rather the title of the delights of mankind then that Emperour upon whom the love of the people conferred it The like I may speak of the Kings of France within these fifty years all the Lists of the French Kings furnisheth not such excellent Princes wherefore Aphorismes of Rebellion could never have been pronounced in an age more proper to give the Authors the lye The Lord rebuke these black souls who curse God in the person of his Anointed their sentence is written and their qualities painted out to the life by St. Peter 2 Pet. 2.10 11 12. who despise Dominions presumptuous self-willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities whereas Angels which are greater in power bring not railing accusations against them before the Lord but these are natural bruit beasts made to be taken and destroy'd speak evil of things which they understand not and shall utterly perish in their own corruption I might heap up many more passages of our enemies which teach murther rebellion and hatred of Kings in which they seem to dispute with the very Jesuites themselves this description of their devotion A seditious piety a factious Religion which would be Judge of the consciences of Princes who abhor their Religion because they hate their Government who make good subjects and good Christians to be things incompatible Whosoever would weary his patience and behold how ingenious the Covenanters have been even to exercise the patience of God and insult over the persons and authority of Kings let them read their Sermons which were daily printed by authority after they had preached them before the House of Commons wherein the filthy Torrent of seditious Eloquence and the fantasticalness of a Bastard Devotion were imploy'd to tear apieces the King to disfigure him in odious colours and stir up the people to all cruel and bloody courses against him out of which books we might collect thousands of Modern Authorities in favour of the wickedness of these times which passed from them as Doctrines of Religion but we esteem our selves worthy of a better imployment then to be poring on Carrion and stirring in sinks and puddles That which we have cited out of known Authors shall suffice to let the world see with whom we have to do and that we are call'd to the condition of S. Paul to fight with beasts CHAP. XII How the Covenanters wrong the Reformed Churches in inviting them to joyn with them with an answer for the Churches of France AS 't is the vice of those who are strucken with the Leprosie to endeavour to infect others so the Covenanters like to them labour by all means possible to spread abroad the poyson of their impiety Those who have preached and published their most infamous Doctrines which renders Christianity hateful both to Turks and Pagans were so bold as to address their publike Declarations to the Reformed Churches of France the Low Countryes and Switzerland as if they made profession of the same Doctrines they had the impudence to invite these so pure Churches to have society with them and to pray them to esteem the Cause of the Covenant that of all the Churches In this the Assembly of Divines at London were imployed by their Masters That which makes this Temptation less dangerous is That the Letter they wrote upon this subject to their Neighbours could very hardly be understood This Venerable Company of Divines of Consummate Knowledge and the Flower of Eloquence of that Party writ a Latine Letter to the French Flemens and Switzers wherein there wants nothing in the Outward but Language and Common sense a most worthy Cover for the Inward for so evil a drogue there needed not a Better Box. This Epistle amongst a ridiculous affectation of Criticismes Greek and Poetical phrases and many Rhetorical Figures is here and there fill'd with Solecismes Barbarismes and the like Grammar Elegancies like a foundred horse that goes up and down and it 's pity to behold hâ—w their Eloquence stumbles in Capriolinge This piece of Latine was much admired and many praises heaped upon the Authors and publick thanks by special command given to them by the House of Commons so much is knowledge valued in this Reformed party It 's likely many hands contributed to the composing of it for
Europe And yet we are herein to praise God that in this their astonishment he hath given them a little interval that they came to their senses to make this acknowledgement They needed not to specifie to us in what they were forgetful of their Duty their comportments justifie their words that they had wholly forgotten it It appears also that they had forgot their duty to God their King their Countrey and to the Church from which they received their Ministry and to which they had sworn Obedience and towards them also to whom they write For if they had born any Brotherly affection they would not have been so forgetful as to write to them and in such a stile and by a publick Declaration They would have taken heed to render them odious and suspected without cause and to draw upon them persecution from which there could proceed no other fruit unlesse to make them Companions in their miseries for to render us Companions in their crimes we hope they shall never obtain But these Divines and their Masters who employ them shall find themselves deceived in their design to induce the Reformed Churches of France to shake off the yoke of their King under colour of shaking off the yoke of Antichrist The fidelity and peaceable conversation of these Churches doth take away even the shadow of such things from their Superiours whose justice is such that they will not condemn the Subjects of their King for the offences of strangers but will be more careful to protect the innocent then their ill neighbours are active to render them blame-worthy and unhappy The King and his Councel need not fear the French of the Reformed Religion will take the Oath of the Covenant to which they are invited with so much earnestness and craft For to speak of them in the terms of one of their beloved Pastors They take no Oaths to others but to their Soveraign Princes they cast not their eyes on a stranger they hold that it is not for a Subject to find occasion of disobedience in the Religion of his Prince making Religion a Match to give fire to Rebellion they are ready to expose their lives for the preservation of their King against whomsoever it be were it one of their own Religion whosoever should do otherwise should not defend Religion but serve his ambition and should draw a great scandal upon the truth of the Gospel This is the Doctrine wherein they are instructed this is the Profession in which all good Frenchmen of the Reformed Religion will live and die But if strangers whose heads run round with the wine of astonishment will force the Churches of France to drink of their Cup they will use the French freedome refuse to pledge them and behold their zeal to press them to do as they do with despite and compassion Let them not think it strange that they run not with them into the same excess of riot they do not offend them for whilst they have this strong wine in their heads they keep their sobriety and are filled beseeching God to shew mercy upon those who would seduce them Now as it is the custome of drunken persons who would draw others into the same excess with themselves and to drink according to their pleasure to make them believe that they have seen them themselves in that condition so the English Covenanters to defend their actions and augment their Party alledge very often to the French Churches their wars for Religion the remembrance whereof is very sad and to use this Argument to seduce them is no other thing then to counsel them to be miserable because they have been so and to go with their eyes shut and run the remains of their broken vessel against the rock where they were shipwrackt Moreover it s very unjust in them to impute to the whole body the actions of a party for in the late wars all the Churches on this side the River Loyre continued in their obedience and very neer the half of the other Churches The people were carefully preserved in their duties by their faithful Pastors This holy Doctrine which condemns the resisting of higher powers and commands to wait patiently deliverance from God and to suffer for righteousness sake was most pressed and urged in their Churches and whilst some of the Religion were in Arms during the minority of the King they preached at Paris Their strength was to sit still Isai 30.7 There fell lately into my hands an Epistle well penn'd which was sent to the State-Assembly of Rochel in the beginning of their sitting to encline them to peace and the obedience of his Majesty Behold here a passage of it I think it very profitable for you to be informed the truth what the opinions and dispositions of our Churches are by persons that have a particular knowledge of them You are now debating Gentlemen of the separation of your Assembly for to obey his Majesty or of its subsistence and to give order to your affairs I am bound to tell you that the general desire of our Churches is that it would please God to continue peace unto us under the obedience of his Majesty and that seeing the King is resolved to employ his Armies to make you obey they promise themselves so much of you that you will do what possibly you can to avoid this tempest and yield rather to necessity then enter into a war wherein the ruine of a great part of our Churches are certain and into a trouble wherein we may behold the entrance but cannot see the issue and that ye will take away the pretext from them who drive on the King to fall upon us Those that fear God desire that if we must be persecuted it should be in bearing the Cross of Christ and for the profession of the Gospel In brief I assure you that the greatest and best part of our people desire you to decline this unjust enterprise Here is not the Authority of a Single Person 't is the testimony of the greatest and best part of the Churches of France 't is a general Declaration of the Churches and of those amongst them who feared God that the duty of Christians persecuted is to bear the Crosse not Arms. It 's then very falsly and injuriously done that the example of the French Churches should be so often and importunately alledged by the Covenanters to justifie the Subjects resisting their Sovereign since that ever in the time of war the greatest and best part were against it A French Divine who loved both his Religion and King found himself so prick'd by this reproach made to the generality of his Party that he prayed us to insert here this expression of his judgement and of the soundest part of the Churches of France The war for Religion in this Kingdome is a wound yet fresh and ye can hardly touch it but ye will hurt it and make it smart and it s very sore against my will that I
must touch it But I am constrained to it by the frequent Declarations of the Covenanters who have nothing so strong nor so frequent for to move the people to take up Arms against their King as to propose to them the example of the French Churches as a pattern which they ought and are bound to follow Would to God that in leaving us there they would have given us liberty to hold our peace but since they will not give over publishing abroad and making all places ring with our calamities the remembrance whereof we rather desire should be for ever buried since they impute the actions of some few to the generality of our Churches and even to Religion it self and since that they alledge our errors for to exhort us to return to them again and since they change the subject of our repentance and sorrow into rules for their imitation and into precepts of the Gospel Is it not now high time to speak and prefer the Interest of Gods Glory and of the Truth of his Word above the credit of men whatsoever they be yea and of our own too Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3.4 Confess thy fault and give glory to the Lord God of Israel Jo. 7.19 Mr. Rivet was not ashamed to call these our stirrings culpam nostrorum the fault of his Country-men and this was spoken as a Champion of the truth to confess it so freely that it was both to our sin and dammage wherein as he himself declares he agrees with Monsieur du Moulin who in his second Epistle to Monsieur Balzak makes the same confession in equivalent terms Such was the Piety and ingenuity of these godly and learned persons that all their care and pains was to defend the Truth only and not their persons It would be a great honor for the Churches of France with one consent publikely to declare that they judge all wars of Subjects against their Soveraign unlawful and to exhort their Brethren of England to Obedience and fidelity to their Prince then for to preserve the credit of some of their party and suffer their actions to serve as snares to the weak consciences of their Neighbours and of pretext to those who labour to corrupt the Doctrine of the Gospel My self being a member of the Reformed Church of France doubt not but I shall be owned and approved to give an Answer for them to the Summons of a strange Covenant It s a very great affliction to us to behold the famous Churches of Great Britain to destroy themselves for controversies without necessity and which might have been easily composed And that which toucheth us most is the danger of the Truth which is much weakned by these divisions for it s to be feared that in your contending and striving one with another you over-turn not the Candlestick of the Gospel and that God being provoked takes not away his saving Light which was not given to lighten you one to fight against another We will not enter into the causes of your quarrels and could wish that you had left out the remembrance of ours and had not imployed the unforâ—unate actions of your poor Neighbours which anguish and terrour produced to serve as example to your people to take up Arms against their King They were but the lesser part of our Churches that were involved in that party The signal testimonies of our fidelity to the Crown ever since the reducing of Rochel and other places which were moved in our hands do efface the memory of the troubles moved in their behalf and the cause of these motions being equitably considered by sober and moderate spirits would beget pity rather then hatred For if just fear could justifie Arms against their lawful Soveraign those of our Religion who bare Arms in this occasion could represent to you that when the King demanded back again the places that he had granted them for their security they had great occasion to fear that with these places they should lose the security of their consciences and lives in which they were happily deceived For the late King who was as gentle in making use of a victory as valiant in gaining one ever laboured more to comfort than to punish and compassion stifling his anger made them know that the strongest place for the security of Subjects is the Clemency and Justice of their Soveraign Oh these Royal Vertues were eminently manifest in him whom God had given you for your King Who being the Defender of the Reformed Christian Faith and publishing his most holy Profession with such protestations which gave us full satisfaction we cannot see how you can alledge the example of our taking up of Arms should they be the most just of the world having not the same subjects of fear The security of your consciences and lives were without question But you are not the first whom ease and long prosperity hath carried to the same impatience to which others have been driven by affliction And since then ye address your selves to us to give you advice We beseech you consider that to take counsel of your Friends it must not be when their swords are in their hands and their enemies before them but when they are quiet and at peace 'T is not from our Souldiers but our Divines that you should enquire whether you should draw your swords against your Prince if you refer your selves to them they will all conclude for the Negative For whilst our Wars continued whereof you have too good a memory not one of all our Divines maintained those dangerous Maximes which is now defended by your Sermons and Writings They that say most for their Party excuse it and lay it upon necessity 'T is not from any of our Books that ye have drawn these vile Maximes That the Authority of the Sovereign Magistrate is of Humane Right That the people is above their King That the people gave the power to the Prince and may take it away when they please That Kings are not the anointed of the Lord That if the King fail in performing the Oath at his Coronation the Subjects are absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance That if the Prince falls from the Grace of God the people are loosed from their subjection That for to establish a Discipline which they account to be the only Kingdom of Jesus Christ Subjects may take up Arms against their Prince That Kings are to be judged before their Subjects That the Civil Government ought to be formed according to the pattern of the Ecclesiastical which is not Monarchical This Maxime tends to the abolition of Royalty in all States In all the Writings of our Divines ye find no such matters but such as teach Subjects Loyalty Humility Obedience and Patience All agree together with the ancient Christians and say that prayers and tears are the weapons of the Church We never spake of deposing our Kings and do not believe that any man living
us these scourges for our sins by this our impatience will be bridled by Humility Moreover le ts remember that it is not for us to remedy these evils and that all that we have to do is to beg help of God in whose hands the hearts of Kings and motions in Kingdoms are He said a little before That the Word of God bound us not only to be subject to Princes that are worthy of our duty but to all Princes whatsoever and howsoever they came to the Soveraignty and although they do nothing less then perform the duties of good Soveraigns In his Commentary upon Daniel Let us learn saith he by the example of the Prophet to beseech God for Tirants if it shall please him to subject us to their inordinate pleasure for what though they be unworthy of all Offices of Humanity yet neverthelesse because it is by the will of God that he commands it s our duty to bear the yoke patiently not only because of wrath as Saint Paul admonisheth but also for Conscience sake otherwise we are not only Rebels against them but against God This Lesson is of the same Authors Let this be ever in our memory that the same Divine Authority that gives Authority to Kings establisheth also the most wicked Kings Oh let never these seditious thoughts enter into our spirits that we should deal with the King as he deserves and that it is not reasonable to yield the duty of Subjects to him who will not perform the duty of King to us Which is notwithstanding the arguing of the Covenanters Peter Martyr an Italian but a Minister in those Churches our enemies invite to associate with them is not less contrary to them Expounding that place of the Proverbs By me Kings reign saith That under the name of Kings the Text understands also Tyrants Whence he collects this consequence Therefore learning hence that thy K. is established by God beware thou never conspirest any seditious thing in the State all that thou must do when thou art oppressed is to appeal to the Tribunal of God there being no other superiour power to whom a Tyrant ought to obey He saith also very pertinently worthy our best observation That then when God Would chastise the Kings of Judah for their sins he did not do it by the Jews but by the Babylonians Assyrians and Egyptians shewing by the conduct of his justice and providence that it is not for subjects to take knowledge of the faults of their soveraigns but that they ought to leave them wholly to God who hath other means in his hand to punish them and reduce them to their duty Surely if Calvin and Martyr had lived in these days and were benificed in England they would eject them out of their benefices for this troublesom doctrine which hinders the progress of the holy Covenant and fils their consciences full of scruples whom they instruct to rebel against their Soveraign for the Lords sake And above all Monsieur Deodatâ— would be very ill dealt with by them for being Author of that excellent Epistle sent from the Church of Genevah to the Ecclesiastical Assembly at London in which your good King is highly prais'd for the justice and clemency of his proceedings in this present quarrel the popular tumults condemned which forced him to retire from his Parliament and these Gentlemen earnestly entreated to dispossess their spirits of all factious inclinations and to wash off this foul spot by which they have and do defame the pure profession of the Gospel giving occasion for the world to believe that the reformed Religion hath a secret hatred and antipathy against the Majesty of Kings and soveraign authority against this Epistle our enemies vomited out many outragious words in their books maintaining that it was supposititious and invented by some prophane Atheist Behold here the thanks that this great and learned person and the reverend Ministers his brethren received for their charitable and truly Christian counsel And this is further to be observed that the Assembly at London having sent their Epistle and Oath of their Covenant to seventeen forraign Churches whereof the Churches of France made but one they make no noise of the Answers they received which doth evidently testifie they did not satisfie them and that they durst not produce them for fear of making it appear that the generality of the reformed Churches were ashamed of their actions and condemned the insurrections of Subjects against their Soveraign under pretence of reformation This Divinity of Rebellion being founded upon one only Maxime that the power of Kings is of humane and not divine right and that their right to the Kingdom is but a paction between them and the people It s much to purpose to produce here what the Churches of France hold hereupon and how they refuse the reasons of the Jesuits which are the same with the Covenanters Behold the last Chapter of the Buckler of Faith which is a garment so fit for the size of both parties that after the one hath made use of it the other may put it on they need change nothing but the persons Thomas the Prince of the School Divines saith that the power of Princes and Lords is but of humane institution and comes not from God to whom we may joyn Cardinal Bellarmine in his Book against Barkley and Monsieur Arnoux who upon the second Article of our confession cals the power of the Magistrate a humane law conformable to the Apothegme of reverend Father Binet the Jesuit who told Mr. Casaubon that it were better all Kings were killed than a confession should be revealed because the power of Kings is but an humane right but confession is of Divine right The Reasons they bring for this opinion are 1. That the first King that was raised in the world namely Nimrod was raised by violence and not by the ordinance of God 2. That the most part of the Empires and Kingdoms that ever have been came by conquest one Nation overcoming the other or by some Prince whose ambition moved him to pick an unjust quarrel with his Neighbour 3. That Emperors and Kings are established by humane ways whether they come to the Crown by hereditary succession or by election since there is no extraordinary revelation nor no rule in the Word of God that a Nation are bound to follow rather Succession which is hereditary than that which is by Election 4. That there is no express command of God to obey Henry rather than Lewis or to acknowledge this man rather than that for King 5. That for these considerations the Apostle St. Peter calls our obedience to Kings an Ordinance of man saying Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supream or unto Governours c. 1 Pet. 2.15 These are the ordinary reasons of the Covenanters if they should disavow them their Books would witness
against them for they are full of them But I would they could get them out of the Schools of the Jesuits and come and learn the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches which speak thus Wee on the contrary maintain that Obedience to Kings and Magistrates is of Divine right and founded upon an Ordinance of God for which purpose those passages serve which commands obedience to Kings and the higher Powers as to Persons whom God hath set up and whom we cannot resist without resisting God There is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God Rom. 13.1 2. Item We must be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake V. 5 7. And Saint Peter in that place they object against us wills that we yield our selves Subjects to Kings for the Lords sake So that although Nebuchadnezzar was a wicked King and a Rod in the hand of God to destroy the Nations notwithstanding God speaks thus to him by his Prophet Daniel Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom power strength and glory Dan. 2.37 Moses the first Prince Lawgiver of Israel was established by an Ordinance of God and Joshua after him Num. 27.18 Saul the first King of Israel and David his Successor were anointed by Samuel and consecrated to be Kings according to the Ordinance of God 2 Kings 9. God sent to Jehu a Prophet for to anoint him King of Israel It s God that girdeth the loins of Kings with a girdle Job 12.18 God is he that governs or as our Translation read it God is the Judge he pulleth down one and setteth up another Psal 75.7 The Lord raiseth the poor out of the dust and lifteth the needy out of the dunghil that he may set him with Princes Psal 113.7 8. Certainly if the providence of God extends it self even to the feeding of Fowls and giving food to the young Ravens when they cry unto him Psal 147. Yea as to number the very hairs on your head so that not one of them falls without his Providence who believes that when God will establish or set up a man on the top of mankind and make him Head of Millions of people the counsel of God doth not intervene and that he leaves not all things to go at adventure and by chance The reasons they alledge against so evident and apparent a truth are lame and interfere 1. They say that Nimrod the first King in the World was raised by violence But that is false that before Nimrod there was no Soveraign Prince in the World Before Nimrod the Fathers and Heads of Families were Kings and Priests and Soveraign Princes of their Families For after the Flood men lived five or six hundred years So that it was easie for one man to behold five hundred yea a thousand persons of his Posterity over whom he exercised a paternal power and by consequence a Soveraignty for there was no other form of Royalty in the earth whose children servants being joyned together one Family could make a great Commonweal And even in the time of Abraham then when the life of man was shorter we read how Abraham was called by the Children of Heath a Prince of God Gen. 23.6 that is to say a mighty Prince and of his own Family he drew out three hundred and eighteen Souldiers to whom if we joyn the Maid-servants and those servants who were not fit to bear arms in war ye cannot but confess that although he had no children yet his own Family were capable to fill a good Town 2. They object to us also that the most part of the Empires and Kingdomes have had their beginning by Conquest and violence and therefore not by the Ordinance of God And that if the Conqueror had invaded the Country of another by the Ordinance of God the Inhabitants of the Country had offended God in opposing and resisting him Upon which I say that those Inhabitants in a Country whom a strange Prince will invade do well to oppose and resist him and if in this defensive war the Usurper is slain he is justly punished But if he become Master of them and if all the ancient Possessors of the Kingdome are extinguished and the States of the Country assembled contrive a new form of State and all the Officers throughout the Kingdome give to the new King an Oath of Fidelity then we must believe that God hath established such a Prince in the Kingdome then I say the people ought to submit to the Will of God who for the sins of Kings and People transfers Kingdomes and disposeth of the events of Battels according to his good pleasure 3. It matters not to say that Princes who enter Kingdomes by Hereditary Succession or by Election come in by wayes introduced by Custome and not by the Ordinance of God For the Question is not by what wayes or means a Prince comes to the Kingdome but whether if being once established by the Ordinance of God we are bound to obey him Our Adversaries indeed would have the Power of Parliament of Divine Right although the Members of Parliament enter by Election and oft-times by close and under-hand dealing and by some crafty Caballe Let them hold that the Parliament is by Divine Right it appears by their authentique Catechisme that they teach us this Doctrine Page 5. It 's a gross error to say that the King is the Supreme Power but that power appertains to the Soveraign Court of Parliament which not to obey is to resist the Ordinance of God But let us hearken to a better Author 4. That if there be no Command in the Word of God to obey Henry rather then Lewis c. It 's sufficient that there is a command for to obey the King and a command to keep our Oath and Fidelity we have sworn and by consequence to be faithful to the King to whom we have taken the Oath of Allegiance There is no more command of God found to injoyn us particularly to obey the Parliament that began November the third 1640 to which nevertheless our adversaries accounted themselves to be subject by Divine Right So that if this consideration should take place it would follow that none of them that are now in the world are obliged by Divine Right to fear God or to believe in Jesus Christ because the Scripture hath not particularly appointed Thibalt Antony or William that they should fear God and believe in Jesus Christ It sufficeth that the Word of God contains Rules which bind particulars without naming them S. Peter truly in the place before cited calls the obedience we owe to Kings a humane Ordinance and that either because Kings command many things which in their nature are not of Divine Right as their commands which forbid wearing of gold or silver or the like things on their apparrel or because they attain this
change made in the outward skin of Religion make not the substance distasted for the most part mens spirits penetrates not much further than the superficies as indeed no further did theirs who came to reform us with the sword It s a very dangerous thing to overthrow an Order wherein the Devotion of the people hath taken root For besides the disorder that follows commonly in the Church and State they shall find that in transplanting Devotion into a new soil they cause it to die some being prophane others desperate and atheistical For an exemplary conduct of Christian prudence in this great point of publick Reformation all after ages will admire the English Reformers under the Reign of Edward the Sixth who intrapt the people as Saint Paul beguiled the Corinthians who confessed that being subtile he caught them by guile for to establish the Doctrine so as it is contained in the Confession of Faith in English Church and agrees with that of other reformed Churches they kept themselves from going openly and suddenly against the inclination of the people above all in the exteriour which although it is of less importance hath notwithstanding a very strong influence upon the common people After the Reformation was concluded upon by the Prelates and Nobles Mattins were said in the Cathedral Churches at their accustomed hours with the same Garments they were wont to wear and the same ordinary singing but the Hymns and Psalms they read in English and their Scriptures were not read in pieces but by whole Chapters and Prayers were put to God only in the Name of Jesus Christ and in a known tongue a thing which did much content the people and much edifie them and being accustomed to these things they passed by the Mass Sermons became more frequent simply instructing the people in the Truth and Holiness without any bitterness or contest whereby they gained the spirits of the people by charity which is the only method for to decide controversies and in a short time that which Superstition had drawn over the Service of God was insensibly abolished and there was a general conversion of the Kingdom wrought without any noise This prudent way wrought better effects than all the combats of Religion whether fought by Armies or Letters which have been since above these hundred years Their enemies of the Church of Rome would much rather the Reformers had disputed concerning the Doctrine and Discipline and that they had set upon them with their utmost strength Our melancholy and peevish Zelots would have done no great good upon them by the waies they now take if this task had fallen into their hands for such a great work there was need of better notions of piety and prudence than the fundamental Maximes of the reformation at present That the purest Religion is that which hath least conformity with the Church of Rome That for to do well they must do quite contrary to that which the Church of Rome doth and hereby they make all that remains of the Institution of the Apostles to become Antichristian because the Papist hath practised them Maximes which are only proper for poor seditious Spirits whose nature is like the Crab-fishes who know not how to go but backward Religion consists not in negation the saving Truths are affirmative and it would be a dangerous rule to believe altogether contrary to that which the Devil believes which would oblige us to deny the Divinity For so high an enterprise which is equally as necessary as dangerous there is required clear seeing judgments firm stable ready charitable who are able to penetrate and dive into the inside of Religion and discern the meat from the shell who without bending the Truth to the times know how to accomodate their work to the nature of men and affairs and who have the discretion recommended by Saint Paul Prove all things hold fast that which is good wisely distinguishing betwixt the Apostolical Institution and the rust that is grown on it through length of time These excellent persons manifest to the world that they well understood this secret that the matter of Religion is a thing rather adored than known by the people but the Form and Ceremony is that their eyes are fixed upon and which fills their spirits and he that pleaseth them in the exteriour shall easily prevail with them for the inward of Doctrine Now it appears that Superstition is alwayes of the same Nature although she changeth her object for the Fanaticall zeal of the people of the Covenant being fleshed and egged on to destroy the exteriour Order perceived not in the mean while that they undermined the foundations of Faith For we find amongst our enemies many different Sects Some denying the Trinity the Incarnation of the Son of God and his Divinity who neverthelesse agree altogether to hate abolish our Lyturgie with the sword without contending amongst themselves for these essential differences neither are they moved for these monstrous errors which directly oppose the glory of God and salvation of men so much are men for the most part children yea brutish in matters of Piety fastening themselves upon appearances and not upon things considering more the garment then the body of Religion The vulgar being every where of this disposition God shewed great favour to the ignorant people in times of our Fathers to put them into so good hands who knew how to lead them mildly to the Truth without exasperating them for the Discipline For to provoke and irritate them was not the means to instruct them Let all the world judge if the Reformers at present follow this example and whether they search to instruct or to provoke the people for after we have made the best and soundest party amongst them to confess that the Doctrine of the Church of England was good and holy and they be demanded hereupon why they persecute the King and his people with such rage They pay us with this miserable reason that the people are affectionate to certain things as necessary which are not necessary and they would wean them from this opinion And must they for this drown three famous Kingdoms in bloud and snatch the Crown from off the Head and the Sword out of the hand of a good King We may well tell them that they undertake an impossible thing for there is no Religion no Nation nor almost person who is not lodged there but they themselves are they not more superstitious in this point than those whom they would correct For what greater superstition for to make a necessity to contradict and oppose things where there is no necessity yea to account the abolishing of things not necessary so necessary that for it they will massacre the King and bathe themselves in the blood of the Church and State Can there be in the world a more pernicious superstition No verily if they consider that this superstition kils the soul as well as the body For those
in the Assembly We could wish also that the power of their Consistories and Synods were a little more limitted for these Assemblies being Courts of Conscience which takes cognisance of all the offences of the Church they may enclose in their Jurisdiction all criminal and civil causes of the Kingdom there being no cause which hath not in it a point of Conscience And so hereby it may come that the sentences of Judges may be controuled in the Consistory and the Officers of the Crown questioned about their managing of publick affairs and so the Government of the State become purely arbitrary And the power of the Ecclesiastical Councel being such the most unquiet and ambitious will be ever pressing to be of it whereupon sidings and factions will abound revenge and particular interest will turn the ballance There they will form factions in the State and parties against the King for what is there that they dare not enterprise who have so vast a power which have no other limits than the extent of the flitting and moveable conscience of particulars which give account to none who pretend to have their authority only of Divine right and therefore are not subject to be controuled These are not conjectures nor suppositions but observations of long experience certainly that personal citation which was sent by the National Synod of Scotland to their King when he was in the midst of his Armies in England Feb. 1645. filled Forreign Churches with amazement and scandal And no less is the Authority they exercise even over their Parliaments which having demanded advice of the Synod concerning what they were to do with their King the Ministers concluded that they should not bring the King into Scotland and that the Kingdom of Scotland ought not to espouse his quarrel for to maintain his Rites in England and their advice passed for an Ordinance after this they cannot reprove the Bishops for being Councellours of State Monarchy which can endure neither Master nor Companion can hardly comply with this Court of Conscience which gives Laws but receives none unless themselves make them and limit the King but refuse to be limited by him but the Magistrates of an Aristocratick or popular Common-wealth will shift better with them for this Court pretending an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction purely Soveraign and Divine yet nevertheless admit lay men to the participation of this power The Lords never fail to be Members of this consistory and to govern there And thus the question touching the Ecclesiastical authority is Eluded Now although above all we desire to enjoy an Apostolical and Episcopal Discipline where the Bishop assisted with the Councel of his Clergy governs the Church and admits other Pastors according to their degree and quality to the participation of the power of ths Keies yet nevertheless if the revolution of the State brings in another Discipline our Ministers submit themselves to it not to be Actors there remembring themselves of their duties and promise made at their reception of Orders but to surfer themselves to be governed remembring that they are call'd to preach the Gospel and whether there be a good or an evil Order in the Church or even none at all the vocation binds them to feed the Flock and to maintain the holy Doctrine But indeed its great pity to be reduced to expect a Discipline of those that have none and yet make the Kingdom of Christ to consist in it for which they made such clamours in their licentiousness and overthrow of all Order and lawful Vocation in the Church The Reformed Churches of France who employ all their Zeal and Industry to maintain the purity of the Gospel without contending with any about the outward Discipline look upon with contempt and compassion the impetuous weakness of our enemies who overthrow the holy Doctrine and ruine Church and State for points of Discipline which is to lose the end for the accessaries yea although these accessaries are not good in this regard there being but two things to reprove in the Covenanters their end and the meanâ— which they employ to attain that end CHAP. XIX That the Covenanters ruine the Ministers of the Gospel under colour of Reformation ONE of the points of Reformation for which they laboured so much with Cannon shot was to abase and pull down the Clergy which is a work already done without proceeding further As for their greatness the only thing wherein it consisted was taken from them in the year 1645. Which was the Bishops sitting and having power to vote in the Lords House the rest is a smal thing As for their Revenues they are confiscated and sequestred and even the Revenues of the Bishops were such as might cause rather pitty then envy except four or five Bishopricks the rest were so poor that for to help them to uphold their Degree and pay their dues to the King Tenths and first Fruits his Majesty ever out of compassion gave them some other Benefices otherwise very few would have hazzarded the taking of them the Bishopricks of England being like the ruined Monasteries in some Countries which have nothing remaining but the wals with nothing in them The children of those parents who had formerly fâ—tted themselves by the Bishopricks have now swallowed the rest and yet labour to begger the inferior Clergy This is that they call Reformation and in truth 't is the Reformation of Scotland where the Tenths of the Clergy are possessed by the Ruling Elders above all by the Lords some of them having the Tenths of whole Provinces Therefore ye need not wonder they fight with such Zeal for a Reformation which is so profitable In England ordinarily the great Towns and rich Parishes are impropriated and in the hands of Lay persons the rest of the Benefices have but to provide in a Mediocrity for Students in Divinity Those who Reform the Clergy are those who possess the Goods of the Church and besides the Tithes that are alienated many of them even make use of the Tithes of the Clergy with which they are lawfully invested terrifyâ—g their poor Ministers with Sequestration too weak to contend against them and force them to injurious and damageable contracts How many Patrons are there who sell their Benefices to them who will give most And by the infamous Simony of these Gentlemen who make a noise of Reformation the door of the Church is shut to the Clergy unless they have a golden key to open it and thus they prefer profit before conscience 'T is well done of them to mend that which they have marred and they of all other have reason to take in hand the Reformation of Ministers because themselves have done what possibly they can to corrupt them Of all Liberal Professions Divinity is the poorest and have most Thorns in her way and therefore Parents find it more profitable to put their children to a Trade than bring them up in the Study of Divinity and yet after all this their very poverty
to fear God the next following is to honour the King I make no doubt but the Kingdome of Christ may be established without pulling down mine and in a time free from partialities its impossible any should pass for a good Christian who shews not himself a good Subject The Government of Christ serves to confirm mine and not to overthrow it for as I acknowledge I hold my power of him so I desire to exercise it for his glory and the good of his Church If any one had sincerely proposed the Government of Christ or understood in their heart what it required they would never have been so ill governed in their words and actions as well towards me as one towards another As the good ends cannot justifie the evil wayes so also the evil beginnings cannot produce good conclusions unless God by a miracle of mercy make Light to spring out of Darkness Order out of our Confusion and Peace from our unruly Passions This is spoken as a King as a Phylosopher and as a good Christian Our enemies to blind the eyes of their Neighbours made them believe a long time that they desired such a reformation as theirs but the hypocrisie of this profession appeared then when the King offered to assemble a National Synod and to invite the Neighbour Churches to it whom these people would seem to imitate And this the good King would never have named had he not an intention to defer much to their Judgement But of this his Majesty could never obtain an answer for it was that which the Independents feared above all and we see not that the Presbyterians did any way favour this proposition the actions both of the one and the other were such that it was the surest course for them to palliate them with Declarations sent a far off rather then to have them brought to light here at home in a Synod and they were very well content to receive their Neighbours to their Society but not to admit them to their Counsel They have hereby made it appear that it was not reformation but the revenues of the Church they pursued otherwise they would have imbraced the proposition of his Majesty and the request of the Clergy who desired nothing more then to be heard in a lawful Synod and to reform willingly that which was displeasing to some But this had untwisted the designs of their enemies who then should have had no pretext to ruine the Clergy and enrich themselves with their spoils and take from Monarchy the support of the Church if the Ecclesiasticks had been reformed Then let the rage and invective malice of our enemies greaten our faults in quality and number as much as they can let them make small spots imposthumes Let them paint us out in false colours and disfigure us like devils to the eyes of all the world All that the severest Justice can require of us is to amend and freely to submit our selves to the censure of a lawful Assembly and then when a great King who is subject to none but God shall come to them and offer to change that which hath been practised or tolerated and to lend his ear to receive better information O this was a grace capable to molifie hearts of stone and to turn the complaints of his subjects into acclamations of joy and praises But they will neither the grace of the King nor our amendment To these offers of the King so sincere and frequent they answered not but by complaints and blowes and they consulted not of means to correct us but to destroy us they will not take the pains to cleanse the Church they will cut it up by the root root and branch 'T is the Watch-word of the seditious whereby they pretend to know those that are of the godly party and they have also put an unnatural maxime in the mouth of the furious and blind people that the reformation must be made in blood This they call to renew or revive the Church but it 's as the Daughters of Pelias undertook to make their Father young again who to that end cut his throat to let his old blood pass out of his body but after it was not in their power to put in new God keep us from them who come to reform the Church their Mother with a Sword and that would cut our throats to make us young again Certainly beholding Chyrurgeons coming to let us blood with a Sword in both hands we have reason to withdraw into some safe quarter and to fear a healing which will not take away the evil but in taking away our life We dare say for our Clergy that if it should cost them their lives to redeem the peace of their King and State they would account them well imployed and willingly consent to be cast over-board with Jonas that their loss might appease the tempest This is of greatest anguish and affliction to see Murther pass for Piety then to suffer in their persons and they cheerfully wish that a potion of their blood could quench the heat of their bloody zeal This zeal appeared in the title of Sions Plea and in the book called Christ on his Throne The first pleads for the Presbyterian the other for the Independent Both of these books have this Text in the Frontispice Bring those mine enemies that would not that I should raign over them and slay them before me By enemies they understand those who will not imbrace their Discipline And their actions now have and do make a bloudy commentary upon the Text. That if our Lord Jesus Christ who poured forth his most precious bloud to spare ours put not a stop to this flux of bloud these Zealots will reform England as the Anabaptists reformed Munster and as the Spaniards converted the West-Indies Let all Christian Churches of the World then know that the English Church confesseth humbly before God her infirmities and acknowledgeth her self the defaults which peace and the length of time is wont to bring to the best established order and hath done her duty to reform submitting her self to a general Synod and the States of the Kingdome under the Authority and conduct of her good King and that a sacrilegious and murthering faction drunken with the bloud of their Soveraign and the goods of the Church Having oppressed the liberty of the Assembly of States snatched this holy work out of her hands and would hear of no other reformation but her total destruction introducing in the place of ancient and lawful order a Chaos of prophane and licentious Heresies destructive to Religion and State CHAP. XXI An Answer to the Objection That the King made War against the Parliament IT 'S the ordinary complaint of the Covenanters that the King made War against his Parliament a phrase which seems tacitly to imply that the King rebelled against his Superiours and indeed there are many that understood it so in good earnest conceiving the Parliament to be above the King And hereupon
it was declared by the House of Commons at Westminster That the Kings coming to their House was Treason as if the Majesty resided in the Commons but how ridiculous and false this is hath heretofore been shewed and yet they could in no other sense call the Houses at Westminster his Parliament since they had taken up Arms against his Majesty doubtless those of both Houses who adhered to the King at Oxford without comparison the more considerable in quality were rather his Parliament for these were for him and the other against him Moreover by this frequent expression they would frequently signifie that the King was the Aggresseur and he that first assaulted them a thing which they have much laboured to perswade the world although it be notoriously known that his enemies had seized upon his Forts Towns Magaziens Ships Revenues and Levied Souldiers before ever the King had so much as one single company of Horse or Foot When he first came to York he had not so much as his ordinary guards whereas his enemies had all the strength of the Kingdom they wanted only God on their side and this great power encouraged the seditious in all countries where he passed to entertain him with the same courtesie the Gergasites received Christ Jesus beseeching him to depart out of their quarters and the good King had then this conformity with his Saviour that he had not where to lay his head He was then in a condition to suffer but his enemies in a posture to oppose When he would in a peaceable manner without Arms enter into his Town of Hull he found the gates shut and the walls garnished with Souldiers presenting their Muskets against him upon this his Majesty levied fix companies of Foot and two Cornets of Horse for the Guard of his Person but set not up his Standard until four moneths after this prodigious act of hostility and rebellion having often before endeavoured to reduce his Subjects to their obedience by all reasonable and Christian offers witness a number of most excellent Declarations composed and written by himself wherein the world beheld the sincerity of his actions with the piety and candor of his spirit worthy so great a Prince The Covenanters considering that they could not perswade them who had any remembrance or common sense that the King began the War laboured to prove that although they began yet their Armies were but defensive affirming that a War undertaken upon a just fear was defensive yea although they struck the first blow and that they seized upon the Forts Magaziens and Revenues of the King because they feared he would make War upon them That is to say that they made War upon him least he should make War upon them A reason much like that of Count Gondomore Ambassador of Spain in England who by his cunning and subtilty had wrought so far as to have a gallant English Knight to be condemned and put to death being demanded what evil he had done that he so persecuted him Answered That it was not for any evil he had done but for that evil which he might do But the Court that did it had just reasons far from the Spanish interests but in these mens dealings with the King were he even a Subject the injustice is both without reason and without example For was there ever any Court of Justice which condemned a man to lose both his goods and his life not because he had done any evil but for fear he should That which would be most unjust against the meanest Subject can it possibly be thought and reputed a work of Piety and Justice against their lawful Soveraign But leaving these persons who from the beginning had this Diabolical design which since they have inhumanely executed we will believe of many of the Covenanters that the intent of their Army was not to punish the King for the pretended exorbitancies of his past Government although they laboured by all means to perpetuate the memory and to stifle those eminent and signal acts of grace by which the King had merited the love of his people beyond all his Predecessors We are willing also to believe that some amongst them condemn the Doctrine of Goodman turned since into sad practice That Judges ought to summon Princes before them for their offences and proceed against them as against other Criminals and Malefactors If it were not then for the punishing of what was passed it was for fear of the future they took up Arms which indeed is the only reason left them For after the King had promised to give content to his people in all their reasonable requests represented to him and they had taken the power out of his hands then when he would have accomplished his promises all the reason they give for so violent a proceeding is That they durst not trust the King Which verily is a most frivolous and injurious excuse Which is as if one had a Neighbour that dwelt by him more mighty then himself and whose displeasure he feared it should be permitted him to watch his opportunity to surprize his house seize upon his revenues and drive from his possessions to free and deliver him from fear But such an action as this from Subjects towards their Prince is beyond all comparison more unjust The Question between the King and his Subjects being not Whether they may with confidence leave the Sword in the Kings hand but whether God hath committed the Sword to the King to be born by him Now in this their dealings with the King they give him an evil example for by the same reason he may take from his subjects the propriety they have in their estates because he dares not trust them and finds by sad experience they use it for his destruction And he should have much more reason to do it since the Subjects hold their Lands of the King but the King holds not his power of the people Prudence ought not to seize upon Justice The care of a mans self cannot give him a right to the goods of another The duty of a Christian is not to fortifie himself against his fears but to obey the Commandments of God But if his fear and forecast carries him beyond his duty he should above all fear him that can cast both body and soul into hell Yea I say unto you fear him Luke 12.5 Taking then that which themselves accord that the Subjects took up Arms to secure themselves against their fears Had not the King as much reason to take up Arms after their example to provide against his If he had been their equal this reason had been sufficient enough how much more then being their Soveraign for the sword that they had drawn against him was his own those Forts Towns Ships Arms and Revenues which they imployed against him were his therefore he had a double reason to take up Arms one to defend himself and another to recover his own rights By all Laws Divine and
they committed an execrable Murther 1 Sam. 11.12 And every Penny they levied upon them they committed Rapine employing their Robberies to maintain Murther and Rebellion If the Names of these crimes offend their ears the crimes themselves should much more afflict their Consciences these terms proceed not from passion but flow from the necessary consequence of this Truth That the war of the Covenanters is destitute of all Authority lawful and divine Oh that every Christian who hath drawn his sword in this sinful cause would seriously consider how he should answer it before God and man and that he may have horrour and dread in him for the evil he hath deserved and yet much more for that which he hath committed CHAP. XXII Of the Depraved and Evil Faith of the Covenanters BUT we cannot so slightly let them pass with their fore-alledged excuse for the War that they durst not trust the King The cause is evident which is because they had taken from him all the ground of reason that might be that he should trust them nothing being more to be distrusted than a Depraved and Ill Faith The King permitted them to perpetuate the Parliament as long as they pleased he committed himself wholly over to their Faith Affection and Conscience if any thing obligeth a man to be faithful it is to repose an entire and free confidence in him and there is nothing more odious and unworthy the name of man than to employ that assurance and confidence they have freely committed to us to deceive and ruine them They themselves after this signal favour without example often declared to the world that if they should abuse so great a trust to the dammage and detriment of his Majesty they should be unworthy to live upon the earth but this was before the Loyal Subjects had separated themselves from their company They are then condemned by their own confession for that most signal Act of Trust such as never King gave to his Subjects they returned him the most infamous and perfidious Acts and base ingratitude that ever Subjects rendred to their King He that said Fidelem si putaveris facies the means to make men faithful was to think them so was never known to these men In Conscience can ye believe that when the King committed to them this great power that he understood it thus That when he should refuse to do any thing they requested him he gave them liberty to force him to do it or to do it without him to take from him his Children to seize upon his Revenues to turn his Armies Navies and Forts against him to make a broad Seal and to break his to dispose of all the Offices of the Crown to levy Forreign Souldiers and bring them into his Kingdom to deprive his Subjects of their Goods and possessions to drive the Ministers of the Gospel from their flocks to rob the Church of her Revenues to overthrow the ancient Laws of the Land and to make a Religion all new After all this can any man wonder if they durst not trust the King For where is the Criminal or Malefactor that dares commit himself to or trust the Judge and where is the Cozener and Deceiver who being discovered dares trust him whom he hath cozened and deceived If by these vile actions they have violated the trust the King reposed in them and if by the Act for the continuance of the Parliament the King gave them a power to deal thus with him we refer our selves to the better part of the Parliament who withdrew themselves to the King abhorring such a prodigious violation of the publick faith and of the duty of Subjects and Christians unfaithfulness they committed the like to the people who deputed and committed to them the publick safety For doubtless in their choice it never enter'd into the Spirits of them who sent them to invest them with an absolute power over their goods and persons much less over their King for they could not give that which they had not nevertheless they have executed this power casting their fellow-Citizens out of their houses and possessions and gather'd together great treasure out of the rents of the King and his Subjects manifesting themselves very liberal of the goods of others But they defend these actions by a new Maxime of State invented upon this occasion Some of the principal Citizens of London being oppressed by their great and often Taxes came to the House and represented to them that it was their duties to maintain the Subjects in the propriety of their goods and beseeched them not to fall themselves into that inconvenience which they were bound to remedy The Gentlemen of the House of Commons answered them that in truth the Subjects might plead the propriety of their goods against the King but not against the Parliament to whom it appertained to dispose of all the goods of the Kingdom but to perswade the people to believe this is a very hard task who rather judged that the Parliament whom they had chosen had violated the publick faith and the trust committed to them and had taken that into their disposing which was never committed them Let these Gentlemen never hereafter speak so loud of their publick faith since they have lost it nor ever attempt to borrow more money upon so sorry a caution There were none in either Houses who had not often taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy by which they acknowledge the King their Soveraign depending of none and had sworn to him loyalty and obedience They moreover took the protestation made in the beginning of the Parliament and imposed upon the whole Kingdome wherein also they swear the same thing The Oath of the Covenant which was taken after renew'd the same promise and there they swore to defend the Person and Authority of the King and cause the world to behold their fidelity and that they would not in the least thing diminish his just power and greatnesse Consider here good Reader Oaths enough to binde them to perform and keep their promise But this multitude of oaths is a kind of proof of their ill faith for they that swear often manifest thereby that they think themselves unworthy to be believed and distrust that every one mistrusts them It had been better for them to have been faithful to their King without swearing for as in the Grammar Latine two Negatives make an Affirmative these on the contrary in stead thereof would seem to make two Affirmatives to make one Negative and that many oaths to be faithful to their Soveraign bound them to do the contrary for in effect these last oaths were solely imployed to ruine the antient Oath of Allegiance for if their intentions had been simply to be faithful to their Soveraign they needed have taken no other oath then the first Therefore after these two new oaths came the third which they called the Negative Oath in which they caused men to swear That they should neither
it was they made the people believe a long time that the occasion of their taking up Arms was to bring the King to his Parliament but the hypocrisie of protestation is now clearly manifested for when the King offered to return to his Parliament they utterly refused to receive him telling him plainly if he came he should come at his peril Forbidding all persons whatsoever under pain of death to receive or entertain him in their houses Let all good subjects who have taken this Oath open now at last their eyes and acknowledge that the intentions of their Guides was quite contrary to their professions The Sixth Article required every person to swear That this cause touched the Glory of God the happiness of the three Kingdomes and the Dignity of the King Indeed this cause touched the Glory of God with such fowl hands as have defiled it as much as possible men could and it touched the happiness of the three Kingdomes with such malignant claws as have torn them to pieces But if they will that we take them in their sense namely that their cause defends and advanceth the Glory of God the happiness of the Kingdomes and the Dignity of the King we behold and feel the contrary But grant that this should be true 't is not a thing for which we must swear Oaths are of two sorts the one sort are to affirm the truth of a thing present or past the other for to promise and oblige our will for the future these two sorts of Oaths cannot be taken together The Oath of the Covenant is of the latter and therefore it is very ill done of them to confound it with the first which is altogether of another nature and usage and in a promise for the future to thrust in an affirmation of a thing present yea of a thing false or at least doubtful and whereof they of their party are not accorded But suppose that this Oath were of the first sort the things which we should affirm upon Oath are such as require the testimony of the person who swears Such are all questions of fact But as for questions of right they ought not neither can they be decided by Oath and it is to want common sense to make his neighbour judge to know which is the true Religion and to judge whether the Cause of the Parliament is better then the Kings There the Oath loseth his use for it s made to perswade and give Authority to the thing by the witness of the person If the Cause of the Covenant be the Cause of God there is no need to swear it but to justifie it by reason and practice And although we should even believe that it searcheth and advanceth the Glory of God the happiness of the Kingdome and dignity of the King it were unjust and ridiculous to press us to swear it for moral truths and even also Theological ought to be believed not sworn Civil things only and those amongst them which are matters of fact ought only to be affirmed by oath we have a very firm belief of the truth of many points of Religion and of the honesty of divers persons and yet nevertheless for all the world we would not swear to them all who have any ingenuity or good sense acknowledge that to force us to affirm the goodness of the Covenant by Oath is an extreme tyranny and full of ignorance and absurdities And also seeing we are very ill satisfied of the goodness thereof it s another tyranny to make us swear to defend it and a most barbarous cruelty to confiscate our possessions and sequester our Ministers of their benefices because they refuse to take so unreasonable an Oath and yet all this was practised during the Presbyterian Reign The Articles of the Covenant were assisted with a Religious Prologue and Epilogue full of protestations of zeal and repentance and therefore it was almost impossible but the most part of them that took it should be perjured considering the generality of the people are evil And this should have prevented the Gentlemen to impose the Covenant indifferently upon all under such great penalties For as they will not suffer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to be administred to the people for fear to encrease their condemnation They should have by the same reason according to their principles have withheld to administer these protestations of zeal and repentance to their consciences whose disposition they were ignorant of Now a great evidence of their depraved and evil Faith consists in their protestations of sanctity and superlative expressions of zeal in which the Independent party who rejected the Covenant without comparison fly higher then their Predecessors All their Ordinances and Declarations yea even their Letters of News were sallies of zeal All their murthers and robberies were to establish the purity of the Gospel to conquer a Kingdome for Jesus Christ and that godliness might reign and flourish If they speak of the abominable parricide committed against their Soveraign they say that God made bare the Arm of his Holiness that the Lord is on their right hand that he hath smote Kings in the day of his wrath and that they may wash their feet in the blood of the ungodly Thus they made their horrible crimes march disguised in terms of Scripture and the devil borrowed the language of the Spirit of God Whosoever shall well consider the use they made of the Scripture and whereto they imployed their great shew of holiness shall find an Answer to the Question in the 50 Psal 16. But to the wicked God saith what hast thou to do to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth Behold here the work of the Covenanters they declare the Statutes of God and take his Covenant into their mouths to put on rebellion the mask of Religion and to invest themselves without trouble of the Authority and Revenues of the Crown the goods of the Church and without suspition to grope the purses of the people for the outward shew of devotion doth much amuse the assistants and gain their belief for who can fear any evil from those who so piously invite them to repentance and the advancement of the Glory of God who would not confide and trust in them that declare the Statutes of God and take his Covenant in their mouth Satan in all forms is dangerous but he is never so pernicious as when he clothes himself as an Angel of Light and it is ill going Procession when the Devil carries the Cross Moreover by their fruits ye shall know them How often abused they the credulity of the people when they conjured them to help to fetch the King from his evil Councellors and to bring him gloriously to his great and faithful Councel that is to say to themselves but their faithfulness appeared then when he departed from them whom they called his evil Councellors to yeeld himself up to them for then their terrible
which was the way as he thought most proper for the designs of his ambition then privately to make him away but he durst not proceed thus far whilst the King was so neer the gates of London and in the heart of his Kingdome the hearts whereof he possessed I will not undertake to sound the mysteries of iniquity of this Agent of Satan but shew you a piece of his perfidiousness and profound hypocrisie The night before the King stole from Hampton Court Cromwell came to visit him causing all persons to withdraw out of the Chamber except Major Huntington in whom he only confided and taking the King aside had a long discourse with him which Huntington could not hear but could well behold his passionate gesture which witnessed a singular freedome and affection Cromwell at his departure cast himself upon his knees and took the King by the hand kissing it many times wetting it with his tears and at length lifting up his voice said to him Sir so God bless me and my children as I am resolved to endeavour to place you and your children in your rights and dignities after this approaching to Huntington Major saith he tarry with the King and 〈◊〉 there happen any thing now this night take a good horse and come with all speed and acquaint me This night then the King passed secretly the Thames and taking post cast himself into the trap they had laid for him in that retired place So soon as Huntington knew of the departure of the King and whether he was gone he went in all hast to give advice to Cromwell that the King had escaped into the Isle of Wight who beholding him astonished and amazed at this sudden change laughed at him telling him That the King was there where he desired and that there wanted nothing now to the satisfying of his desires but that all his children were there with him This history is attested by Huntington himself a person of credit and repute whose eyes this action and the like hath opened and turned his heart towards the King his Soveraign Now the King being confined into this little Island where all the avenues might easily be kept by the Creatures of Cromwell and the other Gentlemen of the Covenant the Mask was presently taken off at Westminster and in the Army and all their oaths and protestations to maintain the person and authority of the King were changed into loud cries in calling for Justice against him to which the Gentlemen at Westminster easily condescended and for this effect declared him incapable to govern charged him with all the crimes malice could devise forbidding all persons to make any more addresses to him But in this fair way they had some disturbance by those Parties that in the year 1648. rose for the King but God justly provoked against this sinful Nation suffered injustice to triumph through the disloyaly of persons who having until that time born Arms against the King took part with him expresly to betray and ruine him And thus from the beginning to the end of this Tragedy falshood hath plaid his part and at length this just Prince lost his life by the hand of those his Subjects who had called Heaven and Earth to witness their Loyalty and Affection and this is very admirable and memorable to all ages how the Conscience and constancy of the King took a way altogether contrary to that of the Covenanters for whilst the Covenanters swore themselves to destroy him he would do neither the one nor the other to save his life or Crown for its manifest that there was a time wherein if the King would have promised that which he was resolved not to have kept he had in a short time been put into such a condition according to all humane appearances as would have put him out of the power of all the discontented to constrain him to have kept his promise I cannot pass the last Act of this hideous Treason without letting the world behold another piece of the damnable Hipocrisie of Oliver Cromwel The day assigned for the Execution of the King being come the Councel of War sate which was then the Great Councel of the Kingdom A Letter without Name was addressed to this Councel to represeâ—t to them by Reasons of Conscience and Prudence the formidable consequences of so strange and hateful an Execution Cromwel seemed to be much touched at it which caused some suspicions as though he himself underhand had procured it and proposed it to the consideration of the Councel part of this company began to yeeld to the force of Justice and their duty and to lean towards compassion Cromwel beholding this made a turn to the door and sent one of his confidence to those to whom the Execution was committed to command them to dispatch the business Then returning to the Councel Table made a long Discourse shewing the inconvenience of this execution and advised them so to secure the person of the King for the time to come that he might neither do nor receive hurt This Discouse was seconded by others and then again re-assumed by himself with a great many words to lengthen the Consultation until that one briskly entring into the Chamber told them Gentlemen You may cease to consult the work is done the King is executed Upon this Cromwel suddenly fell upon his knees with signs of great devotion crying out That this was the work of God and a true stroak of heaven the Councel being disposed to save his life but the Divine justice would not suffer so much innocent blood shed by this Tyrant to pass unpunished and hereupon made an eloquent Prayer to give glory to God and acknowledge his providence And from this History I leave the Reader to draw a Character of this Person whose perpetual method was to make his Impostures to pass for miraculous and divine managements When he would make his Inventions pass into publike resolutions he would suborn a Prophet or Prophetess who should come and find him in full Councel or in the head of his Army for to enjoyn him on the behalf of God that which before he had resolved he caused all the Councels he proposed to pass for motions of the blessed Spirit therefore if his Councels and Actions did ill accord with his preceding professions his inspirations from above excused all and he laid all the fault upon God when any minded him of his Protestations made to preserve the person of the King and restore him to his Dignities He would Answer That it was indeed his Intention but that when he sought God to open him a way for the performance God had silenced him and shewed that it would not be acceptable to him His partie seriously give him this commendation That he was so affected with the glory of God that if he had promised any thing with the most solemn and holy adjurations and that afterward God should put it into his spirit That the contrary to what he
in their Armies they made use of all Religions yea that of the Church of Rome as we shall shew hereafter If it were lawful for them to make use of those who denied the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and of others that denied his Divinity and those who were re-baptized and denied Baptism to Infants and the Blessed Sacrament of the whole Church it were not less lawful for the King to make use of Souldiers of the Roman Religion and if those whom they now call Reformed embrace the Doctrine of the Jesuits touching the deposing and murdering of Kings and that persons of the Roman Religion reject this and joyn themselves with the Reformed Church in this point the King had reason to serve himself of the Last as well as of the First Moreover the King had but two Religions in his Armies which were too many And although the Roman is not tolerated by the Laws yet the Statutes give protection to the persons which make profession of it but the Covenanters Motly Army consisted of many Religions there can be no certain number of them for they multiplied and subdivided daily and these Religions had no tolleration by the Laws nor the persons which made profession of them But put the case that the Covenanters were a party Reformed uniform and illuminated since they have destroyed their King what Law Divine or Humane doth hinder him for using all means that God gives him to defend himself And if amongst his Loyal Subjects there be some who are blinded in matter of Religion why should he not make use of those who are blind to repress those who are illuminated and maintain his Life and Crown 'T is then a ridiculous Question which they demand of the King whether he will defend the reformed Religion with Souldiers of the Roman Religion for he makes not use of them to defend his Religion but his Person and Scepter which those whom they call Reformed would wickedly pluck out of his hands 'T is foolishly and unjustly done of them to complain that the King made them to kill the Protestants a name which they make a great noise with when they have lost the thing they were not Protestants but Rebels whom the King killed in his just defence The King was not to enquire of what Religion they were that made War upon him the true Religion gives not license to Malefactors to do evil and to binde the hands of the Judge that he should not punish them chiefly when the Malefactor fights against the Judge and he to whom God hath committed the sword to execute vengeance in wrath is constrained to make use of it to defend his life and authority the Malefactor who is instructed in a holy Religion is doubly guilty he is the evil servant in the Gospel who knows his Masters will but does it not and therefore he shall be beaten with many stripes This above written serves as an Answer to the eâ—clamations of our enemies That the King caused an Armie of Irish Papists to come over to kill the Protestants in England for it matters not what Religion the English be of if they be Rebels and who can blame him for employing Rebels converted against Rebels obstinate but onely those that perish by them But that which gives occasion of laughter in this Objection is that there were none and the Irish have not yet sent over their Army into England according to their promise to help the King We grant that the English are far more considerable to the King then the Irish suppose the difference be as great as betwixt a Son and a servant but if the Son prove unnatural and draws his sword against his Father who can blame the Father if he arms his servant were he a Barbary slave to defend his life 'T is not to purpose then for them so often to object to us that the Irish were the Executioners to cut the throats of a multitude of Protestants in Ireland and that it 's a horrible thing to bring them over into England to do as much here for at the worst they were but Executioners of Rebels Certainly civil War is a horrible thing where one destruction draws on another Abyssus abyssum advocat but since the enraged and implacable obstinacy of the Covenanters brought the King to this extremity that he could not quench the fire that they had kindled in his Kingdom but by ruine like those who would quench a Town all in flames with Cannon-shot what could we do other then call in the Irish to his succours having rebellions then on all sides Was it not wisely done of him to make an agreement with the most tractable and pliant and to serve himself with their Forces to make head against the others If the English would not have had the King made peace with the Irish why did they then refuse the peace and pardon which the King so often and so graciously rendred them And did he enter into Treaty with his Irish Subjects before he had a long time in vain sollicited his English to their duty Should he rather willingly have lost two Kingdoms to help his enemies to render themselves Masters of the third But say they the Irish shed abundance of Protestants blood in Ireland which should have been revenged in stead of granting them peace It s true they committed many fearful and strange cruelties but this blood hath been sufficiently revenged For for one which they put to death five of theirs have been killed since the beginning of the War And moreover this reason sounds ill in the mouthes of Christians who ought to leave vengeance to God We could not expect that the Covenanters would ever commend this peace which might have been so disadvantagious to them and might have supplied the King with many Souldiers if the Irish had kept their word The principal reason of their complaint was because the Londoners lost much hereby for they had advanced great sums of monies to the two Houses for which they were to have had the Irish Rebels Lands after they were extirpated which was to buy the Bears skin before he was killed and this partly was the cause of breaking up of the Treaty at Uxbridge for the Citizens of London would by no means hear of Peace unless the King would break his faith with the Irish and root them out for the quarrel that the English Covenanters had with them was not for their Religion or Rebellion but because they would not suffer themselves to be killed in a peaceable and quiet manner that thereby the Merchant Adventurers of London might have their Bargain And thus the Covenanters as much as in them lay justified the unjust arms of the Irish since they would by no means have peace with them And after all the King hath the sole power of Peace and War and if he will receive into grace and pardon his Subjects who have offended him he is to give account to none Yet nevertheless that it may appear
to all the Reformed Churches how much our good King departed loved his Religion he would not grant peace to his Irish Subjects on the conditions they demanded advantagious to their Religion which if he had accorded he might have had Legions in stead of Regiments and not wanted neither the help of his Subjects nor their neighbours but rather then he would buy their assistance at that price he chose to sink and fall under the oppression of the Covenanters after this piety or humanity ought to have converted the enemies of the King if he had had to do with persons who had either the one or the other But if the Gentlemen at London lost their monies which they advanced upon the Irish affairs they have cause to complain of the Gentlemen at Westminster who made use of this money not to reconquer Ireland but to make war upon the King who had a great desire to terminate that business and would have gone in Person but not to serve the avaritious and barbarous intentions of these Merchants of blood but to recover his Rights and to restore a number of his exiled Subjects to their possessions Those ruined and remaining Families of the general Massacre cried aloud in the ears of the King and Parliament For to help them there was a generall Collection through the Kingdom and the Ministers by Order of Parliament were to excite the charity of the people to a liberal contribution which was done and great sums of money were raised for the Irish War But to what was the charity of many pious souls imployed to make War against the King The Armies which the cries of the poor exiled Irish had raised and were ready at their Port to be shipped were called back and conducted against his sacred Majesty and although many in those Troops had their Interests in Ireland they were constrained to forsake them for unknown Interests and an open Hostillity against their Soveraign 'T is no wonder then if part of those Troops at the battel of Keinton turned to the King and took a bloody revenge of so great injustice For what a most horrible tyranny was this to make them fight against their King in England whilest the throats of their wives and children were cutting in Ireland We earnestly beseech the Covenanters that whensoever they curse the Irish Rebellion they would remember these two things the one that the Scots shewed them the way having before made a Covenant for Religion and levied Arms to maintain it and obtained by this way all that they desired The Irish seeing this was the way to obtain the liberty of their Religion presently followed the example of their Neighbours and as a judicious Writer saith pleasantly That if the Scots had not piped the Irish had never danced Let them remember also that the Irish as wicked as they were had without comparison more reason for their rising then either the English or Scotch for it 's most certain that the Irish were held in with a bridle which had a ruder bit then the other Subjects of the King Many of the Irish for their former Rebellions were dispossessed of their Lands and although the sentence was just the loss nevertheless was sensible moreover they had not the free exercise nor liberty of their Religion the English nor Scotch cannot alledge any thing like these Hardly shall you find in any History a raign of fifteen years more flourishing peaceable and mild then the fifteen first years of the Reign of the late King notwithstanding all the grievances the Covenanters reckon up to his disadvantage There never shined more happy days upon England and Scotland In effect they were Nations sick of too much ease When Subjects undertake to criticise upon mysteries of State and come to quarrel amongst themselves for subtilties of Religion or points of Discipline it s a symptome of an easie yoke and of excess of ease and prosperity Moreover the Irish fought against men of another Religion and of another Nation they fought not against the Person of their King cut not the throats of their Brethren nor ruined those of their profession imposed not necessity of Conscience upon others but only demanded publick Liberty of Conscience for themselves although many amongst them contented themselves with lesse for by the Articles of peace in Septemb. 1646. the King gave them no Toleration for the publike exercise of their Religion Certainly therefore as those of Niniveh shall rise up in judgment against the Scribes and Pharisees so shall the Irish against the English and Scotch Covenanters Further our enemies are very unjust to complain that the King assailed to bring over Irish Armies into England since they in effect a year and half before had brought Armies of Scotch into England to serve them If they take the boldness to entertain the Armies of strangers within the Kingdome of their Soveraign shall it not be lawful for the King to defend his person and Kingdom with his own Subjects which in this quality are not strangers in respect of him but the Scotch are strangers in regard of the English Histories furnish nought parallel to this crime to have brought the Scots into England and to move them to come gave them part of the Kingdom of Ireland but its easie for them to give that which was none of theirs with the same right the Devil offered to Jesus Christ all the Kingdoms of the world for they can produce their Authority no other where This Nation abounding in men living in a barren Countrey will be easily induced to plant Colonies in a more fertile soil and who will believe that having their weapons in their hands and being in England backed with their forces from Scotland they will govern themselves at the devotion of those that sent for them and go no further then they are comanded there is danger least it happen as to the fountain of Lucian which a student in Magick with certain words he had learn'd of his Master sent to fetch water to which the fountain obeyed but the poor apprentise knew not the words to make it stay which in the mean while went and fetched water without ceasing till it filled the house up to the windows Certainly our Mutineers had the wit to make the Scotch come to their help and there needed no great charm to perswade a people which had nothing and had nothing to do to come and fish in troubled waters in their neighbours pond But I have great fear that those which caused them to enter upon their March were ignorant of the charm to stay them that they should go no further and that the Scotch will not have done when the English have done with them It was not then an action of judgment to cause the Scots to enter England without having power to make them return and to hinder their coming again much less an action of piety for God needs not the wickedness of men to advance his Kingdom it was an
this sole Religion with so many Asseverations in the head of Our Armies and the publick Attestation of our Barons with the circumspection used in the education of our Royal Off spring besides divers other undeniable Arguments onely demonstrate this but also that happy Alliance of Marriage We contracted twixt Our eldest Daughter and the Illustrious Prince of Orenge most clearly confirms the reallity of Our intentions herein by which Nuptial ingagement it appears further that Our endeavours are not only to make a bare profession thereof in Our own Dominions but to inlarge and corroborate it abroad as much as lieth in our Power This most holy Religion of the Anglican Church ordained by so many Convocations of learned Divines confirmed by so many Acts of National Parliaments and strengthened by so many Royal Proclamations together with the Ecclesiastick Discipline and Liturgy thereunto appertaining which Liturgy and Discipline the most eminent of Protestant Authors as well Germans as French as well Danes as Swedes and Switzeâ—s as well Belgians as Bohemians do with many Elogies and not without a kind of Envy approve and applaud in their publick Writings particularly in the transactions of the Synod of Dort wherein besides other of Our Divines who afterwards were Prelates one of Our Bishops assisted to whose dignity all due respects and precedency was given This Religion We say which Our Royal Father of blessed memory doth publickly assert in that His famous Confession address'd as we also do this our Protestation to all Christian Princes This this most holy Religion with the Hierarchy and Liturgy therof We solemnly protest that by the help of Almighty God we will endeavour to our utmost power and last period of our life to keep intire and inviolable and will be careful according to our duty to Heaven and the tenor of the foresaid most sacred Oath at Our Coronation that all our Ecclesiasticks in their several degrees and Incumbences shall preach and practise the same Wherefore we enjoyn and command all our Ministers of State beyond the Seas as well Ambassadors as Residents Agents and Messengers And We desire all the rest of Our loving Subjects that sojourn either for curiosity or commerce in any forraign Parts to communicate uphold and assert this Our solemn and sincere Protestation when opportunity of time and place shall be offered This Royal Declaration or Manifesto was committed to the management and care of James Howel Esq Clerk of His Majesties Privie Council who though then Prisoner in the Fleet performed the business very worthily and like himself CHARLES par la Providence de Dieu Roy de la grand ' Bretagne de France d' Irlande Defenseur de la Foy c. A tous ceux qui ceste presente Declaration verront particulierement a Ceux de la Religion Reformâ—e de quelque Nation degreou condition qu'ils soient Salut AYant receu advis de bonne main que plusieurs faux rapports lettres sont esparses parmi les Eglisses Reformees de là la mer par la politique ou plustost la pernicieuse industrie de personnes mal affectionnes a nostre governement que nous auons dessein a receder de celle Religion que Nous auons professè pratiquè tout le temps de nostre vie iusques a present de vouloir intro duire la papautè derechef en nos Dominions Laquelle conjecture ou calumnie plustost appuyee sur nul fundement imaginable a suscitè ces horribles tumultes allumè le feu d'une tres sâ—nglante guerre en tous les quatre coins de ceste fleurissante Monarchie soubs pretexte d'une chymerique Reformation la quelle seroit incompatible avec le governement les loix fondementales de ce Royaume Nous Desirons quil soit notoire a tout le monde que la moindre pensee de ce faire n'a pas entree en nostre imagination de departir ancunement de cell'Orthodoxe Religion qu'auec la Couronne le sceptre de ce Royaume Nous sommes tenus par un serment solennel sacramentaire a proteger defendre Ce qu'appert non seulement par nostre quotidienne presence es Exercies de la dite Religion avec tant d'asseverations a la teste de nos Armees la publicque Attestation de nos Barons avec le soin que nous tenons en la nourrituredes Princes Princesses nos enfans Mais le tres-heureux mariage que nous avons conclu entre la nostre plus aisnee le tres illustrie Prince d' Orenge en est encore un tres-evident tesmoignage par la quell'alliance il appert aussy que nostre desir est de n'en faire pas vne nue profession seulement dicelle mais de la vouloir estendre corroberer autant qu'il nous est possible Cest'Orthodoxe Religion de leglise Anglicane Ordonnee par tant de Conventione de Teologues confirmee par tant de arrests d'Parlement fortifie par tant d'Edicts royaux auec la discipline la Lyturgie a elle appartenant laquelle discipline Lyturgie les plus celebres Autheurs Protestants tant Francois qu' Allemands tant Seudois que Suisses tant Belgiens que Bohemiens approuent entierement non sans quelqu envie en leur escrits particulierement en la Synode de Dort ou un de nos Euesques assistoit la Reverence precedence deue a sa dignite Ecclesiastique luy fut exactement rendue Ceste tres sainte Religion que nostre feu pere de tres-heureuse memoire aduoue en sa celebre Confession de la Foy addressee come nous faisons ceste Declaration atous Princes Chrestiens Nous Protestons que moyennant la grace de Dieu nous tascherone de conseruer ceste Religion inviolable en son entier selon la mesure de puissance que Dieu amis entre nos mains Et nous requerons commandons a tous nos ministres d'estat tant Ambassadeurs que Residens Agens ou messagers a tous autres nos subjects qui font leur seiour es pays estrangers de communiquer maintenir aduouer ceste nostre solennelle Protestation toutes fois quantes que l'occasion se presentera TO THE MINISTERS OF THE REFORMED CHURCH AT PARIS Gentlemen HAving to contend with them who invite you to uphold their disloyalty by your example nothing can be more to our purpose then to prefix your example in the front of this work to teach them Loyalty During the Agitations of the State your Church as the Needle in the Marriners Compass kept steady upon the point of rest which is God and the King And your obedience served as an Ensign on a hill to France to guide the people to their duty Whereby you have justified the holiness of your profession making the world know the Religion you teach binds you to be good subjects and that you honour the King because ye fear God Therefore the English Covenanters
mennaces against him and all those who should dare to receive him forced this poor Prince to travel disguised in great danger of his life through their Armies which besieged Oxford and to go and cast himself into the arms of the Scots as a chased Boar casts himself into the toils He found by sad experience in this his miserable refuge that the Covenanters were of the same Genius in other Nations and of the same evil Faith It imports not much whether it be true or false which was said of the Scots that they had secretly invited him and promised to expose both their goods and lives for his defence and safety but how ever it was they were bound by their natural duty to do so But instead of rendring him the duties of faithful subjects as crafty Merchants they made their profit of him for after they had kept him captive some moneths at length they drew two great benefits by him the one upon their promise to imploy their Armies for his service they made use of his Authority to make that Miracle of Valour and Fidelity the Marquess of Mentrâ—sse the Kings Lieutenant in their Country and the terrour of the Rebels to disband and lay down his Armes the other in making sale of his Majesty to the Gentlemen at Westminster for two hundred thousand pounds sterling in ready money obliging them to pay the like summe more two years after Upon which this most wise Prince being demanded whether he had rather continue with his Scottish Subjects or go to his Subjects in England answered with an excellent grace and serenity Without question I must be with those who have bought me and not with those who have sold me And in his meditation upon this subject Since I am thus sold by them I am only afflicted for the evil they have done and to behold my self valued at a higher price then my Saviour These words proceeding from a quick and well governed Spirit a King of his passions and so conforming himself to the passion and obedience of the Sonne of God cannot be heard nor read by good Christians with the same moderation they were pronounced but this magnanimous patience should produce in every pious soul a most just execration of this the most base and barbarous treachery that hath been committed since that of Judas and which in iniquity yields only to the abominable paracide to whom he was deliver'd by this infamous sale It matters not much what is said hereupon that the Scots in delivering up the person of the K. to the Gent. at Westmin drew from them a promise to treat him with safety liberty and honor for they ought not impose upon other then themselves this duty which was natural to them Neither could they expect that the English should render him that safety liberty and honor which themselves refused him or that the buyers should not as well search to make their profit by him as the sellers and to reimburse themselves with usury by his ruine But for their care they took of the K. when they deliver'd him let us do them the favour to pass by their perfidiousness and behold how the Gent. at Westm performed their promise to treat the K. with safety liberty and honor Behold how they led him captive to Holmby house where they set a guard of souldiers his enemies upon him denied him his Revenues Rights liberty children servants and that which with greatest earnestness he desired his Chaplins and the free exercise of his conscience extremely misusing him with insolent threatnings and injurious demands And for all this the Scots never seemed to be moved or troubled whilst the K. was in the Presbyterian parties custody But when the Independents had seised vpon his person although his captivity was a little sweetned over it was before the Scotch began to demand aloud the accomplishment of their promises for his liberty whereupon the Gent. at West made a Declaration to break and null all their former promises of loyalty and respect made to his Majesty by this Parl. Telling the Scots that these promises were formed published and imploid according as the state of affairs then stood but they might now be altered and yet nevertheless these promises to preserve the person and authority of the K. had been made with the solemnest and sublimest protestations we protest say they in the presence of Almighty God which is the strongest bond of a Christian and the publick faith the most solemn that any State can give that neither adversity nor success shall ever cause us to change our resolutions Now at this day it sadly appears how much they respect the presence of Almighty God and how much they find themselves obliged by the strongest obligation of a Christian and the Publick Faith the most solemn that the body of an estate can give It is to be doubted whether they believe there is a God or that he is Almighty or so just as to call them before him in Judgment for the prophanation of his most Holy Name Before these Gentlemen did openly manifest that they would not grant the King neither liberty honour nor safety they set awork their hypocrisie and treachery The Independent Army having taken away the person of the King from the Presbyterians began to use him more Honorably but not out of love to him but in hatred to his former Goalers and to flatter and lull asleep the Royal Party and for this effect this Army made some Declarations in favour of his Majesty See here some of their expressions Forasmuch as a scandalous information hath been presented to the two Houses importing that his Majesty is kept prisoner amongst us and uncivilly and barbarously dealt with we judge our selves bound to declare that this suggestion and all other of the same nature are most false and absolutely contrary not only to our requests but also to our principles And a little after we profess openly that we see not how there can be any firm or durable peace in the Kingdome without a due consideration and provision for the rights repose and immunities of his Majesty and his Royal Family And in another place they promise that until such time as there be made a settlement his Majesty shall find amongst them all civil and personal respect with all reasonable Freedome But let us next see how they performed this promise after they found this great Prince inflexible to all their unjust and dishonourable propositions and especially to those which concerned the ruine of the Church they restrained his liberty and set over him more insolent guards in his house at Hampton Court at which nevertheless Oliver Cromwell who was then in effect chief of the league seemed to be much troubled and very careful of the life of his Majesty and therefore perswaded him to escape by night and to save himself out of such wicked hands into the Isle of Wight for being resolved to charge the King with a criminal process
lawful for them to employ the Sword of Justice against him all their Philosophy cannot divide these two Powers which have the same foundation both in Scripture and reason and which have been equally violated in beheading him and making war against him Therefore the Presbyterians who now cry so loud that the Person of the King was inviolable and not subject to the sword of Justice condemns by this all their past actions for if it were an execrable paracide to cut off his Head upon a Scaffold it could not be the action of a good Subject to take off his Head by a Cannon Bullet in the field as they many times assayed And in employing the Militia against the King they gave the Independants the Sword of Justice who unhappily massacred him After they took from him his Sword his Crown his Revenues his Servants his Children the Liberty of his Person and which is much more of his Conscience they left the Independants but a step to go further which was to take away his life And all wherein these last surpass them was that they gave the last blow to the King the Presbyterians laid his head on the Block and the Independants cut it off The name Independant was hardly known then when his Majesty complained in one of his Declarations that divers persons to the number of seventeen had been accused to have said they would kill the King and how the Accusers could obtain no Justice against them if the Members of Parliament who now abhor this murder had then had any care of the safety of his sacred person they would never have stayed the course of Justice against these crimes They had not entertained in pay Mercurius Britannicus and such Rascals by horrible Libels to defame his Majesty and enflame the rage of a foolish and seditious people against him If the quarrel had been only against his evil Counsellours which is the old and super-annuated pretext of all Rebels they would never have cashiered the Army of the Earl of Essex for to employ a and a medly of pestilent Anabaptists whom they knew to be mortal and sworn enemies to the King and Monarchy Certainly we have so much Charity as to believe they had not an intention to put him to death when they began the war against him no not even when they imprisoned him as Judas according to all appearance had no intention to cause his Master to be crucified when he sold him to the Council of the Jews and never thought that the Priests would proceed so far for when he heard they had condemned him to dy this unexpected blow so surprized him and moved him in such a manner that he presently brought back again the reward of iniquity and rendred witness to the Truth and to his Conscience before the Council I have sinned in betraying innocent blood 'T is more than the Presbyterians have declared beholding their K. condemned and beheaded by their practises although it was beyond their intention neither have they been so smitten with remorse of conscience to bring back again that which they have got by sacriledge and rebellion and yet notwithstanding Jesus saith of Judas much more penitent then some of them That it had been better for him he had never been born In speaking thus we have no design to lead them to despair but to repentance to which the mercy of God is ever open since we speak of the party and not of particulars many whereof detest their Councels and past actions and we do not doubt but that of such the King shall yet receive most signal services It s that whereof his wise and glorious Father assured him in his last instructions Be assured saith he as I am that the most part of those who have injured me have done it not through malice but through misinformation and a sinister apprehension of the affairs None will be more loyal and faithful both to me and you then those subjects who being sensible of their errors and of the wrongs we have received shall feel in their souls most vehement stirrings to repentance and ardent desires to do us some reparation for their past offences Without question there are many that yet serve the Covenanters especially those in civil imployments and even some in the Parliament who groan under the yoke of impiety and sigh after Religion peace their King and their duty But alas 't is but to think of liberty when they are in chains although so afflicted as we are we have great compassion on them and esteem their condition worse then ours It s a great misery to be obliged to evil because they have done evil and to do the work of the devil and to know it and cannot retire Behold the fruits of affranchising themselves in the beginning to do evil to the end that good might come of it flattering themselves with a good intention which pretext cannot be wanting to any injustice and with a vain hope to return to their duty when they should see it expedient and to amend when they would what they had marred they offended God with gladness of heart but now they find themselves fettred in a cruel necessity continually to offend him or to cast themselves into our condition they were better to come and keep us company and generously to be ruined for the love of God then to be perpetual Actors in the ruine of their King their Country their Church and their Conscience and by their hardness and impenitent heart treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and the declaration of the righteous judgement of God who will render to every one according to his works CHAP. XXV Of the cruelty of the Covenanters towards the good Subjects of the King FRom the oppression of the King let us cast our eyes upon that of his subjects to begin this discourse is to enter into a gulf without bottom of misery and impiety for the Covenant is the den of Cyclops paved with blood hung with spoils 't is the Cave of Radamanth where is heard the noise of whips the clattering of chains the menaces of furies and the pitiful shrieks of those whom the Vultures tear a pieces and who are fleâ—d alive there you shall behold thousands massacred stretched upon the ground the Flower of the Church and State cut off the grandure of the Kingdome reduced into a heap of ruines upon which set some petit Gentlemen enriched by the general wrack and fatted by the blood and bowels of their miserable country there you shall behold the Grandees of the Kingdome a foot begging the favour of their inferiours a horseback and beholding their offices and revenues distributed among common persons and their enemies Against them and all the Nobility is the great quarrel the Covenanters hate them because they are persons of honour and acknowledged the King for the Fountain of Honor and as such for the most part they have followed and served him thus almost all the rich and
wealthy families of the Kingdome were wholly ruined not by the insolent souldiers pillaging in hot blood but by the extorsion of a new Committee and robbery which was done upon the carpet and in cool blood Of these grand revenues they accommodated themselves in the first place and then those who have served them assigning for a recompence to their instruments persons of no worth and newly raised from the dust the antient rights and revenues of Lords and Gentlemen they wanting nothing to be such but blood and generosity The Covenanters party often celebrate the feasts of Saturn where the servants sit at the upper end of the table and are served by the Masters and this fanatick insolence proceeded so far that these spoilers esteemed themselves as lawfully invested in the inheritances of their superiours and country-men as the Israelites were of the lands of the Amorites There is but this difference the Israelites took possession by the command of God these against his command Now by the special favour of the Gentlemen at Westminster it was ordered that the fifth part of the revenues should be for provision for the wives and children of Delinquents such they call them who so little respected the Majesty of the House of Commons that they were faithful to their Soveraign Thus their wives sometimes were admitted to be Farmers of their husbands estates and reserving themselves the fifth part paid the rest to the State But at last even the Delinquents were admitted to compound for their estates those who were best dealt with paid two years value of their rents others this double if such be their compassions what is their severity Is not this for them to comment upon the saying of Solomon which saith The mercies of the wicked are cruel But moreover these favours were not granted to all there being many who were never admitted to farm their estates no neither to redeem them by composition and whose wives and children have scarce bread nevertheless the confiscation of their estates their perpetual banishment the sentence of death pronounced against them are honorable marks of their great and loyal services to their Soveraign Of all those who suffered in this quarrel the Ministers of the Gospel were the most barbarously dealt with and for the least cause very few amongst them who ingaged themselves in the war The Bishops whom the Laws gave the precedency in the House of Lords have wholly lost their places through the violence of the House of Commons assisted with the seditious multitude their Houses and Ecclesiastical revenues have been sold and are torn from the Church for ever their persons a long time imprisoned and the most eminent of them had his head cut off upon a Scaffold This cruelty executed upon the heads descended upon the members all the revenues of the Dean and Chapiters through the Kingdome are become the prey of sacriledge and of lazy bellies which cram and fill themselves with the patrimony of the Church the lawful possessors without any distinction good or bad were dispossessed whereby the gentlemen of the Covenant clearly shew that it was not the amendment of the Clergy but their own enriching with the spoils of the Church was the mark and scope of this Reformation In the ninety seven Parishes within the walls of London there were found upon account that there were fourscore and five Ministers driven by violence from their Churches and houses and to number the Suburbs and Parishes adjoyning to London the number of the Ministers were a hundred and fifteen without comprising those of S. Pauls and Westminster where the Deans and Prebends ran the same fortune of this number twenty were imprisoned and of those who are dead by distress and anguish in divers prisons in the holds of ships and banishment they reckoned five years since twenty two but this number is almost doubled since and the others dispersed and fled into strange countries or otherwise oppressed and ruined are left to meditate upon this of the Psalmist The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance he shall maintain me for any other of the Church it s denied them In the other parts of the Kingdom many faithful Ministers to the King had the like usage especially those who possessed the fairest and best benefices for this was an unpardonable crime and some of them were massacred by the furious Anabaptists as a Sacrifice well pleasing to God Now whereas some other Delinquents have liberty to dwell in their houses to farm their rents and to compound for the principal to the Clergy nothing like this is accorded but they are turned out in their shirts condemned to a total ruine without resource There is indeed an Ordinance of Parliament that the wives and children of ejected Ministers should have the fifth part of the revenues of their benefices but it is very ill observed for the new incumbents into these benefices carry themselves with such pride and inhumanity to these poor women refusing to obey the Ordinance constraining them to plead before Judges their adversaries who instead of speedily relieving them delay them with length of time and make them consume in Suits that which they borrowed to plead their Cause So that these poor desolate persons through the greatness of the expence and tediousness of delays are constrained to desist their prosecution and many being ejected out of small benefices dare not present their petitions for the fifths because the expences will amount higher then the principal Certainly if there were any charity or sincerity in the Authors of this Ordinance they would cause it to be strictly observed they would not permit that the poor wives and children whom they have ruined should be shufflled off with litigious and crafty tricks and oppressed with charges when they come to demand that small alms which is granted them out of their husbands estates they should not deny them that in retail which they have accorded them in gross Moreover you must know that this pretended gratuity is but for the wives and children but as for the Ministers who have neither the one nor the other they are accounted unworthy to live and not any part of their Estates is given to them and thus they have rendered the Ministers of the Gospel conformable to their Master who had not where to lay his head and Jesus Christ is yet persecuted in his servants But the persecution staid not at those whom they Ejected Behold a new invention to â—oot out at one stroak all those who remained loyal or Orthodox in the Church and State It was ordered that all who had any office either in Church or State should subscribe to be faithful to the present constitution of Government by the House of Commons without King or Lords but the principal aim was to pick a quarrel with the Ministers of the Gospel upon their refusing and to abolish the Ministry for which they had already prepared the people having appointed a Committee to displace