thir pietie and religious strictness but rather hated them as Puritans whom he always sought to extirpat He would have it beleev'd that to bind his hands by these Acts argu'd a very short foresight of things and extreme fatuity of mind in him if he had meant a Warr. If we should conclude so that were not the onely Argument Neither did it argue that he meant peace knowing that what he granted for the present out of feare he might as soon repeale by force watching his time and deprive them the fruit of those Acts if his own designes wherin he put his trust took effect Yet he complaines That the tumults threatn'd to abuse all acts of grace and turne them into wantonness I would they had turn'd his wantonness into the grace of not abusing Scripture Was this becomming such a Saint as they would make him to adulterat those Sacred words from the grace of God to the acts of his own grace Herod was eat'n up os Wormes for suffering others to compare his voice to the voice of God but the Borrower of this phrase gives much more cause of jealousie that he lik'n'd his own acts of grace to the acts of Gods grace From profaneness he scars comes off with perfet sense I was not then in a capacity to make Warr therfore I intended not I was not in a capacity therfore I could not have giv'n my Enemies greater advantage then by so unprincely inconstancy to have scatter'd them by Armes whom but lately I had settl'd by Parlament What place could there be for his inconstancy in that thing wherto he was in no capacity Otherwise his inconstancy was not so un wonted or so nice but that it would have easily found pretences to scatter those in revenge whom he settl'd in feare It had bin a course full of sin as well as of hazzard and dishonour True but if those considerations withheld him not from other actions of like nature how can we beleeve they were of strength sufficient to withhold him from this And that they withheld him not the event soon taught us His letting some men goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple was a temptation to them to cast him down headlong In this Simily we have himself compar'd to Christ the Parlament to the Devill and his giving them that Act of settling to his letting them goe up to the Pinnacle of the Temple A tottring and giddy Act rather then a settling This was goodly use made of Scripture in his Solitudes But it was no Pinnacle of the Temple it was a Pinnacle of Nebuchadnezzars Palace from whence hee and Monarchy fell headlong together He would have others see that All the Kingdomes of the World are not worth gaining by the wayes of sin which hazzard the Soule and hath himself left nothing unhazzarded to keep three He concludes with sentences that rightly scannd make not so much for him as against him and confesses that The Act of settling was no sin of his will and wee easily beleeve him for it hath bin clearly prov'd a sin of his unwillingness With his Orisons I meddle not for he appeals to a high Audit This yet may be noted that at his Prayers he had before him the sad presage of his ill success As of a dark and dangerous Storme which never admitted his returne to the Port from whence he set out Yet his Prayer-Book no sooner shut but other hopes flatter'd him and thir flattering was his destruction VI. Upon his Retirement from Westminster THe Simily wher with he begins I was about to have found fault with as in a garb somwhat more Poetical then for a Statist but meeting with many straines of like dress in other of his Essaies and hearing him reported a more diligent reader of Poets then of Politicians I begun to think that the whole Book might perhaps be intended a peece of Poetrie The words are good the fiction smooth and cleanly there wanted onely Rime and that they say is bestow'd upon it lately But to the Argument I stai'd at White Hall till I was driven away by shame more then feare I retract not what I thought of the fiction yet heer I must confess it lies too op'n In his Messages and Declarations nay in the whole Chapter next but one before this he affirmes that The danger wherin his Wife his Children and his own Person were by those Tumults was the maine cause that drove him from White Hall and appeales to God as witness he affirmes heer that it was shame more then feare And Digby who knew his mind as well as any tells his new-listed Guard That the principal cause of his Majesties going thence was to save them from being trodd in the dirt From whence we may discerne what false and frivolous excuses are avow'd sor truth either in those Declarations or in this Penitential Book Our forefathers were of that courage and severity of zeale to Justice and thir native Liberty against the proud contempt and misrule of thir Kings that when Richard the Second departed but from a Committie of Lords who sat preparing matter for the Parlament not yet assembl'd to the removal of his evil Counselors they first vanquish'd and put to flight Robert de Vere his chief Favorite and then comming up to London with a huge Army requir'd the King then withdrawn for feare but no furder off then the Tower to come to Westminster Which he refusing they told him flatly that unless he came they would choose another So high a crime it was accounted then for Kings to absent themselves not from a Parlament which none ever durst but from any meeting of his Peeres and Counselors which did but tend towards a Parlament Much less would they have suffer'd that a King for such trivial and various pretences one while for feare of tumults another while for shame to see them should leav his Regal Station and the whole Kingdom bleeding to death of those wounds which his own unskilful and pervers Goverment had inflicted Shame then it was that drove him from the Parlament but the shame of what Was it the shame of his manifold errours and misdeeds and to see how weakly he had plaid the King No But to see the barbarous rudeness of those Tumults to demand any thing We have started heer another and I beleeve the truest cause of his deserting the Parlament The worst and strangest of that Any thing which the people then demanded was but the unlording of Bishops and expelling them the House and the reducing of Church Discipline to a conformity with other Protestant Churches this was the Barbarism of those Tumults and that he might avoid the granting of those honest and pious demands as well demanded by the Parlament as the People for this very cause more then for feare by his own confession heer he left the City and in a most tempestuous season forsook the Helme and steerage of the Common-wealth This was that terrible Any thing
the same scrupulous demurrs to stop the sentence of death in full and free Senat decreed on Lentulus and Cethegus two of Catilines accomplices which were renew'd and urg'd for Strafford He voutsafes to the Reformation by both Kingdoms intended no better name then Innovation and ruine both in Church and State And what we would have learnt so gladly of him in other passages before to know wherin he tells us now of his own accord The expelling of Bishops cut of the House of Peers this was ruin to the State the removing them root and branch this was ruin to the Church How happy could this Nation be in such a Governour who counted that thir ruin which they thought thir deliverance the ruin both of Church and State which was the recovery and the saving of them both To the passing of those Bills against Bishops how is it likely that the House of Peers gave so hardly thir consent which they gave so easily before to the attaching them of High Treason 12. at once onely for protesting that the Parlament could not act without them Surely if thir rights and privileges were thought so undoubted in that House as is heer maintain'd then was that Protestation being meant and intended in the name of thir whole spiritual Order no Treason and so that House it self will becom liable to a just construction either of Injustice to appeach them for so consenting or of usurpation representing none but themselves to expect that their voting or not voting should obstruct the Commons Who not for five repulses of the Lords no not for fifty were to desist from what in name of the whole Kingdom they demanded so long as those Lords were none of our Lords And for the Bil against root and branch though it pass'd not in both Houses till many of the Lords and some few of the Commons either intic'd away by the King or overaw'd by the sense of thir own Malignācy not prevailing deserted the Parlament and made a fair riddance of themselves that was no warrant for them who remain'd faithfull beeing farr the greater number to lay aside that Bill of root and branch till the returne of thir fugitives a Bill so necessary and so much desir'd by them selves as well as by the People This was the partiality this degrading of the Bishops a thing so wholsom in the State and so Orthodoxal in the Church both ancient and reformed which the King rather then assent to will either hazard both his own and the Kingdomes ruin by our just defence against his force of armes or prostrat our consciences in a blind obedience to himself and those men whose superstition Zealous or unzealous would inforce upon us an Antichristian tyranny in the Church neither Primitive Apostolicall nor more anciently universal then som other manifest corruptions But he was bound besides his judgement by a most strict and undispensable Oath to preserve that Order and the rights of the Church If he mean the Oath of his Coronation and that the letter of that Oath admitt not to be interpreted either by equity reformation or better knowledge then was the King bound by that Oath to grant the clergie all those customs franchises and Canonical privileges granted to them by Edward the Confessor and so might one day under pretence of that Oath and his conscience have brought us all again to popery But had he so well rememberd as he ought the words to which he swore he might have found himself no otherwise oblig'd there then according to the Lawes of God and true profession of the Gospel For if those following words Establish'd in this Kingdome be set there to limit and lay prescription on the Laws of God and truth of the Gospel by mans establishment nothing can be more absurrd or more injurious to Religion So that however the German Emperors or other Kings have levied all those Warrs on thir Protestant Subjects under the colour of a blind and literal observance to an Oath yet this King had least pretence of all both sworn to the Laws of God and Evangelic truth and disclaiming as we heard him before to be bound by any Coronation Oath in a blind and brutish formality Nor is it to be imagin'd if what shall be establish'd come in question but that the Parlament should oversway the King and not he the Parlament And by all Law and Reason that which the Parlament will not is no more establish'd in this Kingdom neither is the King bound by Oath to uphold it as a thing establish'd And that the King who of his Princely grace as he professes hath so oft abolisht things that stood firm by Law as the Star-chamber High Commission ever thought himself bound by Oath to keep them up because establisht he who will beleiv must at the same time condemn him of as many perjuries as he is well known to have abolisht both Laws and Jurisdictions that wanted no establishment Had he gratifi'd he thinks their Antiepiscopal Faction with his consent and sacrific'd the Church government and Revennues to the fury of their covetousness c. an Army had not bin rais'd Whereas it was the fury of his own hatred to the professors of true Religion which first incited him to persecute them with the Sword of Warr when Whipps Pillories Exiles and impris'nments were not thought sufficient To colour which he cannot finde wherwithall but that stale pretence of Charles the fifth and other Popish Kings that the Protestants had onely an intent to lay hands upon Church-revennues a thing never in the thoughts of this Parlament 'till exhausted by his endless Warrupon them thir necessity seis'd on that for the Common wealth which the luxury of Prelats had abus'd before to a common mischeif His consent to the unlording of Bishops for to that he himself consented and at Canterbury the cheif seat of thir pride so God would have it was from his firm perswasion of thir contentedness to suffer a present diminution of thir rights Can any man reading this not discern the pure mockery of a Royalconsent to delude us onely for the present meaning it seems when time should serve to revoke all By this reckning his consents and his denials come all to one pass and we may hence perceav the small wisdom and integrity of those Votes which Voted his Concessions at the I le of Wight for grounds of a lasting Peace This he alleges this controversie about Bishops to be the true state of that difference between him and the Parlament For he held Episcopacy both very Sacred and Divine With this judgement and for this cause he withdrew from the Parlament and confesses that some men knew he was like to bring againe the same judgement which he carried with him A fair and unexpected justification from his own mouth afforded to the Parlament who notwithstanding what they knew of his obstinat mind omitted not to use all those means and that patience to have gain'd him
difficult to be guess'd And those instances wherein valour is not to be question'd for not scuffling with the Sea or an undisciplind Rabble are but subservient to carry on the solemn jest of his fearing Tumults if they discover not withall the true reason why he departed onely to turne his slashing at the Court Gate to slaughtering in the Field his disorderly bickering to an orderly invading which was nothing els but a more orderly disorder Some suspected and affirm'd that he meditated a Warr when he went first from White Hall And they were not the worst heads that did so nor did any of his former acts weak'n him to that as he alleges for himself or if they had they cleere him onely for the time of passing them not for what ever thoughts might come after into his mind Former actions of improvidence or fear not with him unusual cannot absolve him of all after meditations He goes on protesting his no intention to have left White Hall had these horrid Tumults giv'n him but Faire Quarter as if he himself his Wife and Children had bin in peril But to this anough hath bin answer'd Had this Parlament as it was in its first Election Namely with the Lord and Baron Bishops sate full and free he doubts not but all had gon well What warrant this of his to us Whose not doubting was all good mens greatest doubt He was resolv'd to heare reason and to consent so farr as he could comprehend A hopefull resolution what if his reason were found by oft experience to comprehend nothing beyond his own advantages was this a reason fit to be intrusted with the common good of three Nations But saith he as Swine are to gardens so are Tumults to Parlaments This the Parlament had they found it so could best have told us In the meane while who knows not that one great Hogg may doe as much mischief in a Garden as many little Swine He was sometimes prone to think that had he call'd this last Parlament to any other place in England the sad consequences might have bin prevented But change of ayr changes not the mind Was not his first Parlament at Oxford dissolv'd after two Subsidies giv'n him and no Justice receav'd Was not his last in the same place where they sat with as much freedom as much quiet from Tumults as they could desire a Parlament both in his account and thir own consisting of all his Friends that fled after him and suffer'd for him and yet by him nicknam'd and casheer'd for a Mungrill Parlament that vext his Queen with thir base and mutinous motions as his Cabinet letter tells us Wherby the World may see plainly that no shifting of place no sifting of members to his own mind no number no paucity no freedom from tumults could ever bring his arbitrary wilfulness and tyrannical Designes to brook the lest shape or similitude the lest counterfet of a Parlament Finally instead of praying for his people as a good King should doe hee prayes to be deliver'd from them as from wild Beasts Inundations and raging Seas that had overborn all Loyalty Modesty Laws Justice and Religion God save the people from such Intercessors V. Upon the Bill for Trienniall Parlaments And for setling this c. THe Bill for a Triennial Parlament was but the third part of one good step toward that which in times past was our annual right The other Bill for setling this Parlament was new indeed but at that time very necessary and in the Kings own Words no more then what the World was fully confirm'd hee might in Justice Reason Honour and Conscience grant them for to that end he affirms to have don it But wheras he attributes the passing of them to his own act of grace and willingness as his manner is to make vertues of his necessities and giving to himself all the praise heaps ingratitude upon the Parlament a little memory will sett the cleane contrary before us that for those Beneficial acts we ow what wee ow to the Parlament but to his granting them neither praise nor thanks The first Bill granted much less then two former Statutes yet in force by Edward the third that a Parlament should be call'd every yeare or ofter if need were nay from a farr ancienter Law Book call'd the Mirror it is affirm'd in a late Treatise call'd Rights of the Kingdom that Parlaments by our old Laws ought twice a year to be at London From twice in one year to once in three year it may be soon cast up how great a loss we fell into of our ancient liberty by that act which in the ignorant and Slavish mindes we then were was thought a great purchase Wisest men perhaps were contented for the present at least by this act to have recoverd Parlaments w ch were then upon the brink of danger to be forever lost And this is that which the King preaches heer for a special tok'n of his Princely favour to have abridg'd over reach'd the people five parts in six of what thir due was both by ancient Statute and originally And thus the taking from us all but a Triennial remnant of that English Freedom which our Fathers left us double in a fair annuity enrowl'd is set out and sould to us heer for the gracious and over liberal giving of a new enfranchisment How little may we think did he ever give us who in the Bill of his pretended givings writes down Imprimis that benefit or privilege once in three year giv'n us which by so giving he more then twice every year illegally took from us Such givers as give single to take away sixfold be to our Enemies For certainly this Common-wealth if the Statutes of our Ancestors be worth ought would have found it hard and hazardous to thrive under the dammage of such a guilefull liberatie The other act was so necessary that nothing in the power of Man more seem'd to be the stay support of all things from that steep ruin to which he had nigh brought them then that Act obtain'd He had by his ill Stewardship and to say no worse the needless raising of two Armies intended for a civil War begger'd both himself and the Public and besides had left us upon the score of his needy Enemies for what it cost them in thir own defence against him To disingage him and the Kingdom great sums were to be borrow'd which would never have bin lent nor could ever be repaid had the King chanc'd to dissolve this Parlament as heertofore The errors also of his Goverment had brought the Kingdom to such extremes as were incapable of all recovery without the absolute continuance of a Parlament It had bin els in vaine to goe about the setling of so great distempers if hee who first caus'd the malady might when he pleas'd reject the remedy Notwithstanding all which that he granted both these Acts unwillingly and as a meer passive Instrument was then
from which his Conscience and his Reason chose to run rather then not deny To be importun'd the removing of evil Counselors and other greevances in Church and State was to him an intollerable oppression If the peoples demanding were so burd'nsome to him what was his denial and delay of Justice to them But as the demands of his people were to him a burd'n and oppression so was the advice of his Parlament esteem'd a bondage Whose agreeing Votes as he affirmes Were not by any Law or reason conclusive to his judgement For the Law it ordaines a Parlament to advise him in his great affaires but if it ordaine also that the single judgement of a King shall out-ballance all the wisdom of his Parlament it ordaines that which frustrats the end of its own ordaining For where the Kings judgement may dissent to the destruction as it may happ'n both of himself and the Kingdom there advice and no furder is a most insufficient and frustraneous meanes to be provided by Law in case of so high concernment And where the main principal Law of common preservation against tyranny is left so fruitless and infirm there it must needs follow that all lesser Laws are to thir severall ends and purposes much more weak and uneffectual For that Nation would deserv to be renownd and Chronicl'd for folly stupidity that should by Law provide force against privat and petty wrongs advice only against tyranny and public ruin It being therfore most unlike a Law to ordain a remedy so slender and unlawlike to be the utmost meanes of all our safety or prevention as advice is which may at any time be rejected by the sole judgement of one man the King and so unlike the Law of England which Lawyers say is the quintessence of reason and mature wisdom wee may conclude that the Kings negative voice was never any Law but an absurd and reasonless Custom begott'n and grown up either from the flattery of basest times or the usurpation of immoderat Princes Thus much to the Law of it by a better evidence then Rowles and Records Reason But is it possible he should pretend also to reason that the judgement of one man not as a wise or good man but as a King and oft times a wilfull proud and wicked King should outweigh the prudence and all the vertue of an elected Parlament What an abusive thing were it then to summon Parlaments that by the Major part of voices greatest matters may be there debated and resolv'd when as one single voice after that shalldash all thir Resolutions He attempts to give a reason why it should Because the whole Parlament represents not him in any kind But mark how little he advances for if the Parlament represent the whole Kingdom as is sure anough they doe then doth the King represent onely himself and if a King without his Kingdom be in a civil sense nothing then without or against the Representative of his whole Kingdom he himself represents nothing and by consequence his judgement and his negative is as good as nothing and though we should allow him to be something yet not equivalent or comparable to the whole Kingdom and so neither to them who represent it much less that one syllable of his breath putt into the scales should be more ponderous then the joynt voice and efficacy of a whole Parlament assembl'd by election and indu'd with the plenipotence of a free Nation to make Laws not to be deny'd Laws and with no more but No a sleevless reason in the most pressing times of danger and disturbance to be sent home frustrat and remediless Yet heer he maintains To be no furder bound to agree with the Votes of both Houses then he sees them to agree with the will of God with his just Rights as a King and the generall good of his People As to the freedom of his agreeing or not agreeing limited with due bounds no man reprehends it this is the Question heer or the Miracle rather why his onely not agreeing should lay a negative barr and inhibition upon that which is agreed to by a whole Parlament though never so conducing to the Public good or safety To know the will of God better then his whole Kingdom whence should he have it Certainly Court-breeding and his perpetual conversation with Flatterers was but a bad Schoole To judge of his own Rights could not belong to him who had no right by Law in any Court to judge of so much as Fellony or Treason being held a party in both these Cases much more in this and his Rights however should give place to the general good for which end all his Rights were giv'n him Lastly to suppose a clearer insight and discerning of the general good allotted to his own singular judgement then to the Parlament and all the People and from that self-opinion of discerning to deny them that good which they being all Freemen seek earnestly and call for is an arrogance and iniquity beyond imagination rude and unreasonable they undoubtedly having most autoritie to judge of the public good who for that purpose are chos'n out and sent by the People to advise him And if it may be in him to see oft the major part of them not in the right had it not bin more his modestie to have doubted their seeing him more oft'n in the wrong Hee passes to another reason of his denials Because of some mens hydropic unsatiableness and thirst of asking the more they drank whom no fountaine of regall bountie was able to overcome A comparison more properly bestow'd on those that came to guzzle in his Wine-cellar then on a freeborn People that came to claime in Parlament thir Rights and Liberties which a King ought therfore to grant because of right demanded not to deny them for feare his bounty should be exhaust which in these demands to continue the same Metaphor was not so much as Broach'd it being his duty not his bounty to grant these things He who thus refuses to give us Law in that refusal gives us another Law which is his will another name also and another condition of Freemen to become his vassals Putting off the Courtier he now puts on the Philosopher and sententiously disputes to this effect that reason ought to be vs'd to men force and terror to Beasts that he deserves to be a slave who captivates the rationall soverantie of his soule and liberty of his will to compulsion that he would not forfeit that freedome which cannot be deni'd him as a King because it belongs to him as a Man and a Christian thoughto preserve his Kingdom but rather dye injoying the Empire of his soule then live in such a vassalage as not to use his reason and conscience to like or dislike as a King Which words of themselves as farr as they are sense good and Philosophical yet in the mouth of him who to engross this common libertie to himself would tred
down all other men into the condition of Slaves and beasts they quite loose thir commendation He confesses a rational sovrantie of soule and freedom of will in every man and yet with an implicit repugnancy would have his reason the sovran ofthat sovranty and would captivate and make useless that natural freedom of will in all other men but himself But them that yeeld him this obedience he so well rewards as to pronounce them worthy to be Slaves They who have lost all to be his Subjects may stoop and take up the reward What that freedom is which cannot be deni'd him as a King because it belongs to him as a Man and a Christian I understand not If it be his negative voice it concludes all men who have not such a negative as his against a whole Parlament to be neither Men nor Christians and what was he himself then all this while that we deni'd it him as a King Will hee say that hee enjoy'd within himself the less freedom for that Might not he both as a Man and as a Christian have raignd within himself in full sovranty of soule no man repining but that his outward and imperious will must invade the civil Liberties of a Nation Did wee therfore not permit him to use his reason or his conscience not permitting him to bereave us the use of ours And might not he have enjoy'd both as a King governing us as Free men by what Laws we our selves would be govern'd It was not the inward use of his reason and of his conscience that would content him but to use them both as a Law over all his Subjects in whatever he declar'd as a King to like or dislike Which use of reason most reasonless and unconseionable is the utmost that any Tyrant ever pretended over his Vassals In all wise Nations the Legislative power and the judicial execution of that power have bin most commonly distinct and in several hands but yet the former supreme the other subordinat If then the King be only set up to execute the Law which is indeed the highest of his office he ought no more to make or forbidd the making of any law agreed upon in Parlament then other inferior Judges who are his Deputies Neither can he more reject a Law offerd him by the Commons then he can new make a Law which they reject And yet the more to credit and uphold his cause he would seeme to have Philosophie on his side straining her wise dictates to unphilosophical purposes But when Kings come so low as to fawn upon Philosophie which before they neither valu'd nor understood t is a signe that failes not they are then put to thir last Trump And Philosophie as well requites them by not suffering her gold'n sayings either to become their lipps or to be us'd as masks and colours of injurious and violent deeds So that what they presume to borrow from her sage and vertuous rules like the Riddle of Sphinx not understood breaks the neck of thir own cause But now againe to Politics He cannot think the Majestie of the Crowne of England to be bound by any Coronation Oath in a blind and brutish formalitie to consent to whatever its Subjects in Parlament shall require What Tyrant could presume to say more when he meant to kick down all Law Goverment and bond of Oath But why he so desires to absolve himself the Oath of his Coronation would be worth the knowing It cannot but be yeelded that the Oath which bindes him to performance of his trust ought in reason to contain the summ of what his chief trust and Office is But if it neither doe enjoyn nor mention to him as a part of his duty the making or the marring of any Law or scrap of Law but requires only his assent to to those Laws which the people have already chos'n or shall choose for so both the Latin of that Oath and the old English and all Reason admits that the People should not lose under a new King what freedom they had before then that negative voice so contended for to deny the passing of any Law which the Commons choose is both against the Oath of his Coronation and his Kingly Office And if the King may deny to pass what the Parlament hath chos'n to be a Law then doth the King make himself Superiour to his whole Kingdom which not onely the general Maxims of Policy gainsay but eev'n our own standing Laws as hath bin cited to him in Remonstrances heertosore that The King hath two Superiours the Law and his Court of Parlament But this he counts to be a blind and brutish formality whether it be Law or Oath or his duty and thinks to turn itoff with wholsom words and phrases which he then first learnt of the honest People when they were so oft'n compell'd to use them against those more truely blind and brutish formalities thrust upon us by his own command not in civil matters onely but in Spiritual And if his Oath to perform what the People require when they Crown him be in his esteem a brutish formality then doubtless those other Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy tak'n absolute on our part may most justly appear to us in all respects as brutish and as formal and so by his own sentence no more binding to us then his Oath to him As for his instance in case He and the House of Peers attempted to enjoyne the House of Commons it beares no equalitie for hee and the Peers represent but themselves the Commons are the whole Kingdom Thus he concludes his Oath to be fully discharg'd in Governing by Laws already made as being not bound to pass any new if his Reason bids him deny And so may infinite mischeifs grow and he with a pernicious negative may deny us all things good or just or safe wherof our ancestors in times much differing from ours had either no fore sight or no occasion to foresee while our general good and safety shall depend upo the privat and overweening Reason of one obstinat Man who against all the Kingdom if he list will interpret both the Law and his Oath of Coronation by the tenor of his own will Which he himself confesses to be an arbitrary power yet doubts not in his Argument to imply as if he thought it more fit the Parlament should be subject to his will then he to their advice a man neither by nature nor by nurture wise How is it possible that he in whom such Principles as these were so deep rooted could ever though restor'd again have raign'd otherwise then Tyrannically He objects That force was but a slavish method to dispell his error But how oft'n shall it be answer'd him that no force was us'd to dispell the error out of his head but to drive it from off our necks for his error was imperious and would command all other men to ronounce thir own reason and understanding till they perish'd under
the injunction of his all-ruling error He alleges the uprightness of his intentions to excuse his possible failings a position fals both in Law and Divinity Yea contrary to his own better principles who affirmes in the twelfth Chapter that The goodness of a mans intention will not excuse the scandall and contagion of his example His not knowing through the corruption of flattery and Court Principles what he ought to have known will not excuse his not doing what he ought to have don no more then the small skill of him who undertakes to be a Pilot will excuse him to be misledd by any wandring Starr mistak'n for the Pole But let his intentions be never so upright what is that to us What answer for the reason and the National Rights which God hath giv'n us if having Parlaments and Laws and the power of making more to avoid mischeif wee suffer one mans blind intentions to lead us all with our eyes op'n to manifest destruction And if Arguments prevaile not with such a one force is well us'd not to carry on the weakness of our Counsels or to convince his error as he surmises but to acquitt and rescue our own reason our own consciences from the force and prohibition laid by his usurping error upon our Liberties understandings Never thing pleas'd him more then when his judgement concurr'd with theirs That was to the applause of his own judgement and would as well have pleas'd any selfconceited man Yea in many things he chose rather to deny himself then them That is to say in trifles For of his own Interests and Personal Rights he conceavs himself Maister To part with if he please not to contest for against the Kingdom which is greater then he whose Rights are all subordinat to the Kingdoms good And in what concernes truth Justice the right of Church or his Crown no man shall gaine his consent against his mind What can be left then for a Parlament but to sit like Images while he still thus either with incomparable arrogance assumes to himself the best abilitie of judging for other men what is Truth Justice Goodness what his own or the Churches Right or with unsufferable Tyranny restraines all men from the enjoyment of any good which his judgement though erroneous thinks not fit to grant them notwithstanding that the Law and his Coronal Oath requires his undeniable assent to what Laws the Parlament agree upon He had rather wear a Crown of Thorns with our Saviour Many would be all one with our Saviour whom our Saviour will not know They who govern ill those Kingdoms which they had a right to have to our Saviours Crown of Thornes no right at all Thornes they may find anow of thir own gathering and thir own twisting for Thornes and Snares saith Solomon are in the way of the froward but to weare them as our Saviour wore them is not giv'n to them that suffer by thir own demerits Nor is a Crown of Gold his due who cannot first wear a Crown of Lead not onely for the weight of that great Office but for the compliance which it ought to have with them who are to counsel him which heer he termes in scorne An imbased flexibleness to the various and oft contrary dictates of any Factions meaning his Parlament for the question hath bin all this while between them two And to his Parlament though a numerous and chois Assembly of whom the Land thought wisest he imputes rather then to himself want of reason neglect of the Public interest of parties and particularitie of private will and passion but with what modesty or likelihood of truth it will be wearisom to repeat so oft'n He concludes with a sentence faire in seeming but fallacious For if the conscience be ill edifi'd the resolution may more befitt a foolish then a Christian King to preferr a self-will'd conscience before a Kingdoms good especially in the deniall of that which Law and his Regal Office by Oath bids him grant to his Parlament and whole Kingdom rightfully demanding For we may observe him throughout the discours to assert his Negative power against the whole Kingdom now under the specious Plea of his conscience and his reason but heertofore in a lowder note Without us or against our consent the Votes of either or of both Houses together must not cannot shall not Declar. May 4. 1642. With these and the like deceavable Doctrines he levens also his Prayer VII Vpon the Queens departure TO this Argument we shall soon have said for what concerns it us to hear a Husband divulâ—… his Houshold privacies extolling to others the verâ—…tues of his Wife an infirmity not seldom incident to those who have least cause But how good shee was a Wife was to himself and be it left to his own fancy how bad a Subject is not much disputed And being such it need be made no wonder though shee left a Protestant Kingdom with as little honour as her Mother left a Popish That this Is the first example of any Protestant Subjects that haue tak'n up Armes against thir King a Protestant can be to Protestants no dishonour when it shal be heard that he first levied Warr on them and to the interest of Papists more then of Protestants He might have giv'n yet the precedence of making warr upon him to the subjects of his own Nation who had twice oppos'd him in the op'n Feild long ere the English found it necessary to doe the like And how groundless how dissembl'd is that feare least shee who for so many yeares had bin averse from the Religion of her Husband and every yeare more and more before these disturbances broke out should for them be now the more alienated from that to which we never heard shee was inclin'd But if the feare of her Delinquency and that Justice which the Protestants demanded on her was any cause of heralienating the more to have gain'd her by indirect means had bin no advantage to Religion much less then was the detriment to loose her furder off It had bin happy if his own actions had not giv'n cause of more scandal to the Protestants then what they did against her could justly scandalize any Papist Them who accus'd her well anough known to be the Parlament he censures for Men yet to seeke thir Religion whether Doctrine Discipline or good manners the rest he soothes with the name of true English Protestants a meer scismatical name yet he so great an enemy of Scism He ascribes Rudeness and barbarity worse then Indian to the English Parlament and all vertue to his Wife in straines that come almost to Sonnetting How fitt to govern men undervaluing and aspersing the great Counsel of his Kingdom in comparison of one Woman Examples are not farr to seek how great mischeif and dishonour hath befall'n to Nations under the Government of effeminate and Uxorious Magistrates Who being themselves govern'd and overswaid at home under a Feminine usurpation
Propositions were obtruded on him with the point of the Sword till he first with the point of the Sword thrust from him both the Propositions and the Propounders He never reck'ns those violent and merciless obtrusions which for almost twenty years he had bin forcing upon tender consciences by all sorts of Persecution till through the multitude of them that were to suffer it could no more be call'd a Persecution but a plain VVarr From which when first the Scots then the English were constrain'd to defend themselves this thir just defence is that which he cals heer Thir making Warr upon his soul. He grudges that So many things are requir'd of him and nothing offerd him in requital of those favours which he had granted What could satiate the desires of this man who being king of England and Maister of almost two millions yearly what by hook or crook was still in want and those acts of Justice which he was to doe in duty counts don as favours and such favors as were not don without the avaritious hope of other rewards besides supreme honour and the constant Revennue of his place This honour he saith they did him to put him on the giving part And spake truer then he intended it beeing meerly for honours sake that they did so not that it belong'd to him of right For what can he give to a Parlament who receaves all he hath from the People and for the Peoples good Yet now he brings his own conditional rights to contest and be preferr'd before the Peoples good and yet unless it be in order to their good he hath no rights at all raigning by the Laws of the Land not by his own which Laws are in the hands of Parlament to change or abrogate as they shall see best for the Common-wealth eev'n to the taking away of King-ship it self when it grows too Maisterfull and Burd'nsome For every Common-wealth is in general defin'd a societie sufficient of it self in all things conducible to well being and commodious life Any of which requisit things if it cannot have without the gift and favour of a single person or without leave of his privat reason or his conscience it cannot be thought sufficient of it self and by consequence no Common-wealth nor free but a multitude of Vassalls in the Possession and domaine of one absolute Lord and wholly obnoxious to his will If the King have power to give or deny any thing to his Parlament he must doe it either as a Person several from them or as one greater neither of which will be allow'd him not to be consider'd severally from them for as the King of England can doe no wrong so neither can he doe right but in his Courts and by his Courts and what is legally don in them shall be deem'd the Kings assent though he as a several Person shall judge or endeavour the contrary So that indeed without his Courts or against them he is no King If therefore he obtrude upon us any public mischeif or withhold from us any general good which is wrong in the highest degree he must doe it as a Tyrant not as a King of England by the known Maxims of our Law Neither can he as one greater give aught to the Parlament which is not in thir own power but he must be greater also then the Kingdom which they represent So that to honour him with the giving part was a meer civility and may be well term'd the courtesie of England not the Kings due But the incommunicable Jewell of his conscience he will not give but reserve to himself It seemes that his conscience was none of the Crown Jewels for those we know were in Holland not incommunicable to buy Armes against his Subjects Being therfore but a privat Jewel he could not have don a greater pleasure to the Kingdom then by reserving it to himself But he contrary to what is heer profess'd would have his conscience not an incommunicable but a universal conscience the whole Kingdoms conscience Thus what he seemes to feare least we should ravish from him is our chief complaint that he obtruded upon us we never forc'd him to part with his conscience but it was he that would have forc'd us to part with ours Som things he taxes them to have offer'd him which while he had the maistery of his Reason he would never consent to Very likely but had his reason maisterd him as it ought and not bin maisterd long agoe by his sense and humour as the breeding of most Kings hath bin ever sensual and most humour'd perhaps he would have made no difficulty Mean while at what a fine pass is the Kingdom that must depend in greatest exigencies vpon the fantasie of a Kings reason be he wise or foole who arrogantly shall answer all the wisdom of the Land that what they offer seemes to him unreasonable He preferrs his love of Truth before his love of the People His love of Truth would have ledd him to the search of Truth and have taught him not to lean so much upon his own understanding He met at first with Doctrines of unaccountable Prerogative in them he rested because they pleas'd him they therfore pleas'd him because they gave him all and this he calls his love of Truth and preferrs it before the love of his peoples peace Som things they propos'd which would have wounded the inward peace of his conscience The more our evil happ that three Kingdoms should be thus pesterd with one Conscience who chiefly scrupl'd to grant us that which the parlament advis'd him to as the chief meanes of our public welfare and Reformation These scruples to many perhaps will seem pretended to others upon as good grounds may seem real and that it was the just judgement of God that he who was so cruel and so remorseless to other mens consciences should have a conscience within him as cruel to himself constraining him as he constrain'd others and insnaring him in such waies and counsels as were certain to be his destruction Other things though he could approve yet in honour and policy he thought fit to deny lest he should seem to dare aeny nothing By this meanes he will be sure what with reason conscience honour policy or puntilios to be found never unfurnisht of a denyal Whether it were his envy not to be over bounteous or that the submissness of our asking stirr'd up in him a certain pleasure of denying Good Princes have thought it thir chief happiness to be alwayes granting if good things for the things sake if things indifferent for the peoples sake while this man sits calculating varietie of excuses how he may grant least as if his whole strength and royaltie were plac'd in a meer negative Of one Proposition especially he laments him much that they would bind him to a generall and implicit consent for what ever they desir'd Which though I find not among the nineteene yet undoubtedly the Oath of his coronation
binds him to no less neither is he at all by his Office to interpose against a Parlament in the making or not making of any Law but to take that for just and good legally which is there decreed and to see it executed accordingly Nor was he set over us to vie wisdom with his Parlament but to be guided by them any of whome possibly may as farr excell him in the gift of wisdom as he them in place and dignitie But much neerer is it to impossibilitie that any King alone should be wiser then all his councel sure anough it was not he though no King ever before him so much contended to have it thought so And if the Parlament so thought not but desir'd him to follow their advice and deliberation in things of public concernment he accounts it the same proposition as if Sampson had bin mov'd to the putting out his eyes that the Philistims might abuse him And thus out of an unwise or pretended feare least others should make a scorn of him for yeilding to his Parlament he regards not to give cause of worse suspicion that he made a scorn of his regal Oath But to exclude him from all power of deniall seemes an arrogance in the Parlament he means what in him then to deny against the Parlament None at all by what he argues For by Petitioning they confess thir inferioritie and that obliges them to rest if not satisfi'd yet quieted with such an Answer as the will and reason of their Superior thinks sit to give First Petitioning in better English is no more then requesting or requiring and men require not favours onely but thir due and that not onely from Superiors but from Equals and Inferiors also The noblest Romans when they stood for that which was a kind of Regal honour the Consulship were wont in a submissive manner to goe about and begg that highest Dignity of the meanest Plebeians naming them man by man which in their tongue was call'd Petitio consulatus And the Parlament of England Petition'd the King not because all of them were inferior to him but because he was superior to any one of them which they did of civil custom and for fashions sake more then of duty for by plaine Law cited before the Parlament is his Superiour But what law in any trial or dispute enjoynes a free man to rest quieted though not satisfi'd with the will and reason of his Superior It were a mad law that would subject reason to superioritie of place And if our highest consultations and purpos'd lawes must be terminated by the Kings will then is the will of one man our Law and no suttletie of dispute can redeem the Parlament and Nation from being Slaves neither can any Tyrant require more then that his will or reason though not satisfying should yet be rested in and determin all things We may conclude therfore that when the Parlament petition'd the King it was but meerly forme let it be as foolish and absurd as he pleases It cannot certainly be so absurd as what he requires that the Parlament should confine thir own and all the Kingdoms reason to the will of one man because it was his hap to succeed his Father For neither God nor the Lawes have subjected us to his will nor sett his reason to be our sovran above Law which must needs be if he can strangle it in the birth but sett his person over us in the sovran execution of such Laws as the Parlament establish The Parlament therfore without any usurpation hath had it alwaies in thir power to limit and confine the exorbitancie of Kings whether they call it thir will thir reason or thir conscience But this above all was never expected nor is to be endur'd that a King who is bound by law and Oath to follow the advice of his Parlament should be permitted to except against them as young Statesmen and proudly to suspend his following thir advice untill his seven yeares experience had shewn him how well they could govern themselves Doubtless the Law never suppos'd so great an arrogance could be in one man that he whose seventeen yeares unexperience had almost ruin'd all should sit another seven yeares Schoolmaster to tutor those who were sent by the whole Realme to be his Counselers and teachers And with what modesty can he pretend to be a Statesman himself who with his Fathers Kingcraft and his own did never that of his own accord which was not directly opposit to his professed Interest both at home and abroad discontenting and alienating his Subjects at home weakning and deserting his Confederats abroad and with them the Common cause of Religion So that the whole course of his raign by an example of his own furnishing hath resembl'd Phaeton more then Phoebus and forc'd the Parlament to drive like Jehu which Omen tak'n from his own mouth God hath not diverted And he on the other side might have rememberd that the Parlament sit in that body not as his Subjects but as his Superiors call'd not by him but by the Law not onely twice every yeare but as oft as great affaires require to be his Counselers and Dictators though he stomac it nor to be dissolv'd at his pleasure but when all greevances be first remov'd all Petitions heard and answer'd This is not onely Reason but the known Law of the Land When he heard that Propositions would be sent him he satt conjecturing what they would propound and because they propounded what he expected not he takes that to be a warrant for his denying them But what did he expect he expected that the Parlament would reinforce some old Laws But if those Laws were not a sufficient remedy to all greevances nay were found to be greevances themselves when did we loose that other part of our freedom to establish new He thought some injuries done by himself and others to the Common wealth were to be repair'd But how could that be while he the chief offender took upon him to be sole Judge both of the injury and the reparation He staid till the advantages of his Crown consider'd might induce him to condiscend to the Peoples good Whenas the Crown it self with all those advantages were therfore giv'n him that the peoples good should be first consider'd not bargain'd for and bought by inches with the bribe of more offertures and advantages to his Crown He look'd for moderate desires of due Reformation as if any such desires could be immoderate He lookd for such a Reformation both in Church and State as might preserve the roots of every greevance and abuse in both still growing which he calls The foundation and essentials and would have onely the excrescencies of evil prun'd away for the present as was plotted before that they might grow fast anough between Triennial Parlaments to hinder them by worke anough besides from ever striking at the root He alleges They should have had regard to the Laws in force
commends had rather bin in his way it would perhaps in som measure have perform'd the end for which they say Liturgie was first invented and have hinder'd him both heer and at other times from turning his notorious errors into his Praiers XVIII Upon the Uxbridge Treaty c. IF the way of Treaties be look'd upon in general as a retiring from bestial force to human reason his first Aphorism heer is in part deceav'd For men may Treat like Beasts as well as fight If som fighting were not mar-like then either fortitude were no vertue or no fortitude in fighting And as Politicians ofttimes through dilatory purposes and emulations handle the matter there hath bin no where found more bestialitie then in treating which hath no more commendation in it then from fighting to come to undermining from violence to craft and when they can no longer doe as Lions to doe as Foxes The sincerest end of Treating after War once Proclaim'd is either to part with more or to demand less then was at first fought for rather then to hazzard more lives or wors mischiefs What the Parlament in that point were willing to have don when first after the Warr begun they Petition'd him at Colebrook to voutsafe a treaty is unknown For after he had tak'n God to witness of his continual readiness to Treat or to offer Treaties to the avoiding of bloodshed had nam'd Windsor the place of Treaty and pass'd his royal word not to advance furder till Commissioners by such a time were speeded towards him taking the advantage of a thick Mist which fell that evening weather that soon invited him to a designe no less treacherous and obscure he follows at the heels those Me engers of Peace with a traine of covert Warr and with a bloody surprise falls on our secure Forces which lay quartering at Brentford in the thoughts and expectation of a Treaty And although in them who make a Trade of Warr and against a natural Enemy such an onset might in the rigor of Military Law have bin excus'd while Armes were not yet by agreement suspended yet by a King who seem'd so heartily to accept of treating with his subjects and professes heer He never wanted either desire or disposition to it professes to have greater confidence in his Reason then in his Sword and as a Christian to seek Peace and ensue it such bloody and deceitful advantages would have bin forborn one day at least if not much longer in whom there had not bin a thirst rather then a detestation of civil Warr and blood and a desire to subdue rather then to treat In the midst of a second Treaty not long after fought by the Parlament and after much adoe obtain'd with him at Oxford what suttle and unpeaceable designes he then had in chace his own Letters discover'd What attempts of treacherous hostility successful and unsuccessful he made against Bristow Scarborow and other places the proceedings of that Treaty will soon put us in mind and how he was so far from granting more of reason after so much of blood that he deny'd then to grant what before he had offerd making no other use of Treaties pretending Peace then to gaine advantages that might enable him to continue Warr. What marvel then if he thought it no diminution of himself as oft as he saw his time to be importunate for Treaties when hee sought them onely as by the upshot appeard to get opportunities and once to a most cruel purpose if we remember May 1643. and that Messenger of Peace from Oxford whose secret Message and Commission had it bin effected would have drownd the innocence of our Treating in the blood of a designed Massacher Nay when treaties from the Parlament sought out him no less then seven times oft anough to testifie the willingness of thir obedience and too oft for the Majesty of a Parlament to court thir Subjection he in the confidence of his own strength or of our divisions returnd us nothing back but denials or delaies to thir most necessary demands and being at lowest kept up still and sustain'd his almost famishd hopes with the howrly expectation of raising up himself the higher by the greater heap which he sate promising himself of our sudden ruin through dissention But he inferrs as if the Parlament would have compell'd him to part with somthing of his honour as a King What honour could he have or call his joyn'd not onely with the offence or disturbance but with the bondage and destruction of three Nations wherof though he be careless and improvident yet the Parlament by our Laws and freedom ought to judge and use prevention our Laws els were but cobweb Laws And what were all his most rightful honours but the peoples gift and the investment of that lustre Majesty and honour which for the public good no otherwise redounds from a whole Nation into one person So far is any honour from being his to a common mischeif and calamity Yet still he talks on equal termes with the grand Representative of that people for whose sake he was a King as if the general welfare and his subservient Rights were of equal moment or consideration His aime indeed hath ever bin to magnifie and exalt his borrowd Rights and Prerogatives above the Parlament and Kingdom of whom he holds them But when a King setts himself to bandy against the highest Court and residence of all his Regal power he then in the single person of a Man fights against his own Majesty and Kingship and then indeed sets the first hand to his own deposing The Treaty at Uxbridge he saith gave the fairest hopes of a happy composure fairest indeed if his instructions to bribe our Commissioners with the promise of Security rewards and places were faire What other hopes it gave no man can tell There being but three maine heads whereon to be treated Ireland Episcopacy and the Militia the first was anticipated and forestall'd by a Peace at any rate to be hast'nd with the Irish Rebels ere the Treaty could begin that he might pretend his word and honour past against the specious and popular arguments he calls them no better which the Parlament would urge upon him for the continuance of that just Warr. Episcopacy he bids the Queen be confident he will never quitt which informes us by what Patronage it stood and the Sword he resolves to clutch as fast as if God with his own hand had put it into his This was the moderation which he brought this was as farr as Reason Honour Conscience and the Queen who was his Regent in all these would give him leave Lastly for composure in stead of happy how miserable it was more likely to have bin wise men could then judge when the English during Treaty were call'd Rebels the Irish good and Catholic Subjects and the Parlament before hand though for fashions sake call'd a Parlament yet by a Jesuitical slight not acknowledg'd though call'd
forbidd the Law or disarm justice from having legal power against any King No other supreme Magistrate in what kind of Government soever laies claim to any such enormous Privilege wherfore then should any King who is but one kind of Magistrat and set over the people for no other end then they Next in order of time to the Laws of Moses are those of Christ who declares professedly his judicature to be spiritual abstract from Civil managements and therfore leaves all Nations to thir own particular Lawes and way of Government Yet because the Church hath a kind of Jurisdiction within her own bounds and that also though in process of time much corrupted and plainly turn'd into a corporal judicature yet much approv'd by this King it will be firm anough and valid against him if subjects by the Laws of Church also be invested with a power of judicature both without and against thir King though pretending and by them acknowledg'd next and immediatly under Christ supreme head and Governour Theodosius one of the best Christian Emperours having made a slaughter of the Thessalonians for sedition but too cruelly was excommunicated to his face by Saint Ambrose who was his subject and excommunion is the utmost of Ecclesiastical Judicature a spiritual putting to death But this yee will say was onely an example Read then the Story and it will appeare both that Ambrose avouch'd it for the Law of God and Theodosius confess'd it of his own accord to be so and that the Law of God was not to be made voyd in him for any reverence to his Imperial power From hence not to be tedious I shall pass into our own Land of Britain and shew that Subjects heer have exercis'd the utmost of spirituall Judicature and more then spirituall against thir Kings his Predecessors Vortiger for committing incest with his daughter was by Saint German at that time his subject cursd and condemnd in a Brittish Counsel about the yeare 448 and thereupon soon after was depos'd Mauricus a King in Wales for breach of Oath and the murder of Cynetus was excomunicated and curst with all his offspring by Oudoceus Bishop of Landaff in full Synod about the yeare 560 and not restor'd till he had repented Morcant another King in Wales having slain Frioc his Uncle was faine to come in Person and receave judgement from the same Bishop and his Clergie who upon his penitence acquitted him for no other cause then lest the Kingdom should be destitute of a Successour in the Royal Line These examples are of the Primitive Brittish and Episcopal Church long ere they had any commerce or communion with the Church of Rome What power afterward of deposing Kings and so consequently of putting them to death was assum'd and practis'd by the Canon Law I omitt as a thing generally known Certainly if whole Councels of the Romish Church have in the midst of their dimness discern'd so much of Truth as to decree at Constance and at Basil and many of them to avouch at Trent also that a Councel is above the Pope and may judge him though by them not deni'd to be the Vicar of Christ we in our clearer light may be asham'd not to discern furder that a Parlament is by all equity and right above a King and may judge him whose reasons and pretensions to hold of God onely as his immediat Vicegerent we know how farr fetch'd they are and insufficient As for the Laws of man it would ask a Volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all Antiquity In Greece Orestes the Son of Agamemnon and by succession King of Argos was in that Countrey judg'd and condemn'd to death for killing his Mother whence escaping he was judg'd againe though a Stranger before the great Counsel of Areopagus in Athens And this memorable act of Judicature was the first that brought the Justice of that grave Senat into fame and high estimation over all Greece for many ages after And in the same Citty Tyrants were to undergoe Legal sentence by the Laws of Solon The Kings of Sparta though descended lineally from Hercules esteem'd a God among them were oft'n judg'd and somtimes put to death by the most just and renowned Laws of Lycurgus who though a King thought it most unequal to bind his Subjects by any Law to which he bound not himself In Rome the Laws made by Valerius Publicola soon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race expell'd without a writt'n Law the Law beeing afterward writt'n and what the Senat decreed against Nero that he should be judg'd and punish'd according to the Laws of thir Ancestors and what in like manner was decreed against other Emperours is vulgarly known as it was known to those heathen and found just by nature ere any Law mentiond it And that the Christian Civil Law warrants like power of Judicature to Subjects against Tyrants is writt'n clearly by the best and famousest Civilians For if it was decreed by Theodosius and stands yet firme in the Code of Justinian that the Law is above the Emperour then certainly the Emperour being under Law the Law may judge him and if judge him may punish him proving tyrannous how els is the Law above him or to what purpose These are necessary deductions and therafter hath bin don in all Ages and Kingdoms oftner then to be heer recited But what need we any furder search after the Law of other Lands for that which is so fully and so plainly set down lawfull in our own Where ancient Books tell us Bracton Fleta and others that the King is under Law and inferiour to his Court of Parlament that although his place to doe Justice be highest yet that he stands as liable to receave Justice as the meanest of his Kingdom Nay Alfred the most worthy King and by som accounted first abolute Monarch of the Saxons heer so ordain'd as is cited out of an ancient Law Book call'd the Mirror in Rights of the Kingdom p. 31. where it is complain'd on As the sovran abuse of all that the King should be deem'd above the Law whereas he ought be subject to it by his Oath Of which Oath anciently it was the last clause that the King should be as liable and obedient to suffer right as others of his people And indeed it were but fond and sensless that the King should be accountable to every petty suit in lesser Courts as we all know he was and not be subject to the Judicature of Parlament in the main matters of our common safety or destruction that he should be answerable in the ordinary cours of Law for any wrong don to a privat Person and not answerable in Court of Parlament for destroying the whole Kingdom By all this and much more that might be added as in an argument overcopious rather then barren we see it manifest that all Laws both of God and Man are made without exemption of any person
whomsoever and that if Kings presume to overtopp the Law by which they raigne for the public good they are by Law to be reduc'd into order and that can no way be more justly then by those who exalted them to that high place For who should better understand thir own Laws and when they are transgrest then they who are govern'd by them and whose consent first made them and who can have more right to take knowledge of things don within a free Nation then they within themselves Those objected Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy we swore not to his Person but as it was invested with his Autority and his autority was by the People first giv'n him conditionally in Law and under Law and under Oath also for the Kingdoms good and not otherwise the Oathes then were interchang'd and mutual stood and fell together he swore fidelity to his trust not as a deluding ceremony but as a real condition of thir admitting him for King and the Conqueror himself swore it ofter then at his Crowning they swore Homage and Fealty to his Person in that trust There was no reason why the Kingdom should be furder bound by Oaths to him then he by his Coronation Oath to us which he hath every way brok'n and having brok'n the ancient Crown-Oath of Alfred above mention'd conceales not his penalty As for the Covnant if that be meant certainly no discreet Person can imagin it should bind us to him in any stricter sense then those Oaths formerly The acts of Hostility which we receav'd from him were no such dear obligements that we should ow him more fealty and defence for being our Enemy then we could before when we took him onely for a King They were accus'd by him and his Party to pretend Liberty and Reformation but to have no other end then to make themselves great and to destroy the Kings Person and autority For which reason they added that third Article testifying to the World that as they were resolvd to endeavor first a Reformation in the Church to extirpat Prelacy to preserve the Rights of Parlament and the Liberties of the Kingdom so they intended so farr as it might consist with the preservation and defence of these to preserve the Kings Person and Autority but not otherwise As farr as this comes to they Covnant and Swear in the sixth Article to preserve and defend the persons and autority of one another and all those that enter into that League so that this Covnant gives no unlimitable exemption to the Kings Person but gives to all as much defence and preservation as to him and to him as much as to thir own Persons and no more that is to say in order and subordination to those maine ends for which we live and are a Nation of men joynd in society either Christian or at least human But if the Covnant were made absolute to preserve and defend any one whomsoever without respect had either to the true Religion or those other Superiour things to be defended and preserv'd however it cannot then be doubted but that the Covnant was rather a most foolish hasty and unlawfull Vow then a deliberate and well-waighd Covnant swearing us into labyrinths and repugnances no way to be solv'd or reconcil'd and therfore no way to be kept as first offending against the Law of God to Vow the absolute preservation defence and maintaining of one Man though in his sins and offences never so great and hainous against God or his Neighbour and to except a Person from Justice wheras his Law excepts none Secondly it offends against the Law of this Nation wherein as hath bin prov'd Kings in receiving Justice undergoing due tryal are not differenc'd from the meanest Subject Lastly it contradicts and offends against the Covnant it self which Vows in the fourth Article to bring to op'n trial and condign punishment all those that shall be found guilty of such crimes and Delinqnencies wherof the King by his own Letters and other undeniable testimonies not brought to light till afterward was found and convicted to be chief actor in what they thought him at the time of taking that Covnant to be overrul'd onely by evil Counselers And those or whomsoever they should discover to be principal they vow'd to try either by thir own supreme Judicatories for so eev'n then they call'd them or by others having power from them to that effect So that to have brought the King to condign punishment hath not broke the Covnant but it would have broke the Covnant to have sav'd him from those Judicatories which both Nations declar'd in that Covnant to be Supreme against any person whatsoever And besides all this to sweare in covnant the bringing of his evil counselers and accomplices to condign punishment and not onely to leave unpunisht and untoucht the grand offender but to receive him back againe from the accomplishment of so many violences and mischeifs dipt from head to foot and staind over with the blood of thousands that were his faithfull subjects forc'd to thir own defence against a civil Warr by him first rais'd upon them and to receive him thus in this goarie pickle to all his dignities and honours covering the ignominious and horrid purple-robe of innocent blood that sate so close about him with the glorious purple of Royaltie and Supreme Rule the reward of highest excellence and vertue here on earth were not only to sweare and covnant the performance of an unjust Vow the strangest and most impious to the face of God but were the most unwise and unprudential act as to civil goverment For so long as a King shall find by experience that doe the worst he can his Subjects overaw'd by the Religion of thir own Covnant will only prosecute his evil instruments not dare to touch his Person and that whatever hath bin on his part offended or transgress'd he shall come off at last with the same reverence to his Person and the same honour as for well doing he will not faile to finde them worke seeking farr and neere and inviting to his Court all the concours of evil counselers or agents that may be found who tempted with preferments and his promise to uphold them will hazard easily thir own heads and the chance of ten to one but they shall prevaile at last over men so quell'd and fitted to be slaves by the fals conceit of a Religious Covnant And they in that Superstition neither wholly yeilding nor to the utmost resisting at the upshot of all thir foolish Warr and expence will finde to have don no more but fetchd a compass only of thir miseries ending at the same point of slavery and in the same distractions wherin they first begun But when Kings themselves are made as liable to punishment as thir evil counselers it will be both as dangerous from the King himself as from his Parlament to those that evilcounsel him and they who else would be his readiest Agents in
evil will then not feare to disswade or to disobey him not onely in respect of themselves and thir own lives which for his sake they would not seem to value but in respect of that danger which the King himself may incurr whom they would seem to love and serve with greatest fidelitie On all these grounds therfore of the covnant it self whether religious or political it appeares likeliest that both the English Parlament and the Scotch Commissioners thus interpreting the Covnant as indeed at that time they were the best and most authentical interpreters joyn'd together answered the King unanimously in thir Letters dated Jan. 13 th 1645. that till securitie and satisfaction first giv'n to both Kingdoms for the blood spilt for the Irish Rebels brought over and for the Warr in Ireland by him fomented they could in no wise yeild thir consent to his returne Here was satisfaction full two yeares and upward after the Covnant tak'n demanded of the King by both Nations in Parlament for crimes at least Capital wherwith they charg'd him And what satisfaction could be giv'n for so much blood but Justice upon him that spilt it Till which don they neither took themselves bound to grant him the exercise of his regal Office by any meaning of the Coynant which they then declar'd though other meanings have bin since contriv'd nor so much regarded the safety of his person as to admitt of his return among them from the midst of those whom they declar'd to be his greatest enemies nay from himself as from an actual enemy not as from a king they demanded security But if the covnant all this not with standing swore otherwise to preserv him then in the preservation of true religion our liberties against which he fought if not in armes yet in resolution to his dying day and now after death still fights against in this his book the covnant was better brok'n thē he sav'd And god hath testifi'd by all propitious the most evident signes whereby in these latter times he is wont to testifie what pleases him that such a solemn and for many Ages unexampl'd act of due punishment was no mockery of Justice but a most gratefull and well-pleasing Sacrifice Neither was it to cover their perjury as he accuses but to uncover his perjury to the Oath of his Coronation The rest of his discours quite forgets the Title and turns his Meditations upon death into obloquie and bitter vehemence against his Judges and accussers imitating therin not our Saviour but his Grand-mother Mary Queen of Scots as also in the most of his other scruples exceptions and evasions and from whom he seems to have learnt as it were by heart or els by kind that which is thought by his admirers to be the most vertuous most manly most Christian and most Martyr-like both of his words and speeches heer and of his answers and behaviour at his Tryall It is a sad fate he saith to have his Enemies both accusers Parties and Judges Sad indeed but no sufficient Plea to acquitt him from being so judg'd For what Malefactor might not somtimes plead the like If his own crimes have made all men his Enemies who els can judge him They of the Powder-plot against his Father might as well have pleaded the same Nay at the Resurrection it may as well be pleaded that the Saints who then shall judge the World are both Enemies Judges Parties and Accusers So much he thinks to abound in his own defence that he undertakes an unmeasurable task to bespeak the singular care and protection of God over all Kings as being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth But what Patrons they be God in the Scripture oft anough hath exprest and the earth it self hath too long groan'd under the burd'n of thir injustice disorder and irreligion Therfore To bind thir Kings in Chaines and thir Nobles with links of Iron is an honour belonging to his Saints not to build Babel which was Nimrods work the first King and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel but to destroy it especially that spiritual Babel and first to overcome those European Kings which receive thir power not from God but from the beast and are counted no better then his ten hornes These shall hate the great Whore and yet shall give thir Kingdoms to the Beast that carries her they shall committ Fornication with her and yet shall burn her with fire and yet shall lament the fall of Babylon where they fornicated with her Rev. 17. 18. chapt Thus shall they be too and fro doubtfull and ambiguous in all thir doings untill at last joyning thir Armies with the Beast whose power first rais'd them they shall perish with him by the King of Kings against whom they have rebell'd and the Foules shall eat thir flesh This is thir doom writt'n Rev. 19. and the utmost that we find concerning them in these latter days which we have much more cause to beleeve then his unwarranted Revelation here prophecying what shall follow after his death with the spirit of Enmity not of Saint John He would fain bring us out of conceit with the good success which God hath voutsaf'd us Wee measure not our Cause by our success but our success by our cause Yet certainly in a good Cause success is a good confirmation for God hath promis'd it to good men almost in every leafe of Scripture If it argue not for us we are sure it argues not against us but as much or more for us then ill success argues for them for to the wicked God hath denounc'd ill success in all that they take in hand He hopes much of those softer tempers as he calls them and less advantag'd by his ruin that thir consciences doe already gripe them T is true there be a sort of moodie hot-brain'd and alwayes unedify'd consciences apt to engage thir Leaders into great and dangerous affaires past retirement and then upon a sudden qualm and swimming of thir conscience to betray them basely in the midst of what was chiefly undertak'n for their sakes Let such men never meet with any faithfull Parlament to hazzard for them never with any noble spirit to conduct and lead them out but let them live and die in servil condition and thir scrupulous queasiness if no instruction will confirme them Others there be in whose consciences the loss of gaine and those advantages they hop'd for hath sprung a sudden leake These are they that cry out the Covnant brok'n and to keep it better slide back into neutrality or joyn actually with Incendiaries and Malignants But God hath eminently begun to punish those first in Scotland then in Ulster who have provok'd him with the most hatefull kind of mockery to break his Covnant under pretence of strictest keeping it and hath subjected them to those Malignants with whom they scrupl'd not to be associats In God therfore we shall not feare what their fals fraternity can doe against us He seeks againe with cunning words to turn our success into our sin But might call to mind that the Scripture speakes of those also who when God slew them then sought him yet did but flatter him with thir mouth and ly'd to him with thir tongues for thir heart was not right with him And there was one who in the time of his affliction trespass'd more against God This was that King Abaz He glories much in the forgivness of his Enemies so did his Grandmother at her death Wise men would sooner have beleev'd him had he not so oft'n told us so But he hopes to erect the Trophies of his charity over us And Trophies of Charity no doubt will be as glorious as Trumpets before the almes of Hypocrites and more especially the Trophies of such an aspiring charitie as offers in his Prayer to share Victory with Gods compassion which is over all his works Such Prayers as these may happly catch the People as was intended but how they please God is to be much doubted though pray'd in secret much less writt'n to be divulg'd Which perhaps may gaine him after death a short contemptible and soon fading reward not what he aims at to stirr the constancie and solid firmness of any wise Man or to unsettle the conscience of any knowing Christian if he could ever aime at a thing so hopeless and above the genius of his Cleric elocution but to catch the worthles approbation of an inconstant irrational and Image-doting rabble that like a credulous and hapless herd begott'n to servility and inchanted with these popular institutes of Tyranny subscrib'd with a new device of the Kings Picture at his praiers hold out both thir eares with such delight and ravishment to be stigmatiz'd and board through in witness of thir own voluntary and beloved baseness The rest whom perhaps ignorance without malice or some error less then fatal hath for the time misledd on this side Sorcery or obduration may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves and recover THE END
to the wisdom and pietie of former Parlaments to the ancient and universall practise of Christian Churches As if they who come with full autority to redress public greevances which ofttimes are Laws themselves were to have thir hands bound by Laws in force or the supposition of more pietie and wisdom in thir Ancestors or the practise of Churches heertofore whose Fathers notwithstanding all these pretences made as vast alterations to free themselves from ancient Popery For all antiquity that adds or varies from the Scripture is no more warranted to our safe imitation then what was don the Age before at Trent Nor was there need to have despair'd of what could be establish'd in lieu of what was to be annull'd having before his eyes the Goverment of so many Churches beyond the Seas whose pregnant and solid reasons wrought so with the Parlament as to desire a uniformity rather with all other Protestants then to be a scism divided from them under a conclave of thirty Bishops and a crew of irreligious Priests that gap'd for the same preferment And wheras he blames those propositions for not containing what they ought what did they mention but to vindicate and restore the Rights of Parlament invaded by Cabin councels the Courts of Justice obstructed and the Government of Church innovated and corrupted All these things he might easily have observ'd in them which he affirmes he could not find But found those demanding in Parlament who were look't upon before as factious in the State and scismaticall in the Church and demanding not onely Tolerations for themselves in thir vanity noveltie and confusion but also an extirpation of that Goverment whose Rights they had a mind to invade Was this man ever likely to be advis'd who with such a prejudice and disesteem sets himself against his chos'n and appointed Counselers likely ever to admitt of Reformation who censures all the Goverment of other Protestant Churches as bad as any Papist could have censur'd them And what King had ever his whole Kingdom in such contempt so to wrong and dishonour the free elections of his people as to judge them whom the Nation thought worthiest to sitt with him in Parlament few els but such as were punishable by Lawes yet knowing that time was when to be a Protestant to be a Christian was by Law as punishable as to be a Traitor and that our Saviour himself comming to reform his Church was accus'd of an intent to invade Caesars right as good a right as the prelat Bishops ever had the one being got by force the other by spiritual usurpation and both by force upheld He admires and falls into an extasie that the Parlament should send him such a horrid Proposition as the removal of Episcopacy But expect from him in an extasie no other reasons of his admiration then the dream and tautology of what he hath so oft repeated Law Antiquitie Ancestors prosperity and the like which will be therfore not worth a second answer but may pass with his own comparison Into the common sewer of other Popish arguments Had the two Houses su'd out thir Liverie from the wardship of Tumults he could sooner have beleiv'd them It concernd them first to sue out thir Livery from the unjust wardship of his encroaching Prerogative And had he also redeem'd his overdated minority from a Pupillage under Bishops he would much less have mistrusted his Parlament and never would have set so base a Character upon them as to count them no better then the Vassals of certain nameless men whom he charges to be such as hunt after Faction with their Hounds the Tumults And yet the Bishops could have told him that Nimrod the first that hunted after Faction is reputed by ancient Tradition the first that founded Monarchy whence it appeares that to hunt after Faction is more properly the Kings Game and those Hounds which he calls the Vulgar have bin oft'n hollow'd to from Court of whom the mungrel sort have bin entic'd the rest have not lost thir sent but understood aright that the Parlament had that part to act which he had fail'd in that trust to discharge which he had brok'n that estate and honour to preserve which was farr beyond his the estate and honour of the Common-wealth which he had imbezl'd Yet so farr doth self opinion or fals principles delude and transport him as to think the concurrence of his reason to the Votes of Parlament not onely Political but Natural and as necessary to the begetting or bringing forth of any one compleat act of public wisdom as the Suns influence is necessary to all natures productions So that the Parlament it seems is but a Female and without his procreative reason the Laws which they can produce are but wind-eggs Wisdom it seems to a King is natural to a Parlament not natural but by conjunction with the King Yet he professes to hold his Kingly right by Law and if no Law could be made but by the great Counsel of a Nation which we now term a Parlament then certainly it was a Parlament that first created Kings and not onely made Laws before a King was in being but those Laws especially wherby he holds his Crown He ought then to have so thought of a Parlament if he count it not Male as of his Mother which to civil being created both him and the Royalty he wore And if it hath bin anciently interpreted the presaging signe of a future Tyrant but to dream of copulation with his Mother what can it be less then actual Tyranny to affirme waking that the Parlament which is his Mother can neither conceive or bring forth any autoritative Act without his Masculine coition Nay that his reason is as Celestial and life-giving to the Parlament as the Suns influence is to the Earth What other notions but these or such like could swell up to Caligula to think himself a God But to be ridd of these mortifying Propositions he leaves no Tyrannical evasion unassaid first that they are not the joynt and free desires of both Houses or the major part next that the choise of many Members was carried on by Faction The former of these is already discover'd to be an old device put first in practice by Charles the fifth since Reformation Who when the Protestants of Germany for thir own defense join'd themselves in League in his Declarations Remonstrances laid the fault only upon some few for it was dangerous to take notice of too many Enemies and accus'd them that under colour of Religion they had a purpose to invade his and the Churches right by which policy he deceav'd many of the German Cities and kept them divided from that League untill they saw themselves brought into a snare That other cavil against the peoples chois puts us in mind rather what the Court was wont to doe and how to tamper with Elections neither was there at that time any Faction more potent or more likely to
What remaines then He appeales to God and is cast lik'ning his punishments to Jobs trials before he saw them to have Jobs ending But how could Charity her self beleive ther was at all in him any Religion so much as but to fear ther is a God when as by what is noted in the Declaration of no more addresses he vowd solemnly to the Parlament with imprecations upon himself and his Posterity if ever he consented to the abolishing of those Lawes which were in force against Papists and at the same time as appeard plainly by the very date of his own Letters to the Queen and Ormond consented to the abolishing of all Penal Lawes against them both in Ireland and England If these were acts of a Religious Prince what memory of man writt'nor unwritt'n can tell us newes of any Prince that ever was irreligious He cannot stand to make prolix Apologies Then surely those long Pamphlets set out for Declarations and Protestations in his Name were none of his and how they should be his indeed being so repugnant to the whole cours of his actions augments the difficulty But he usurps a common saying That it is Kingly to doe well and heare ill That may be sometimes true but farr more frequently to doe ill and heare well so great is the multitude of Flatterers and them that deifie the name of King Yet not content with these neighbours we have him still a perpetual preacher of his own vertues and of that especially which who knows not to bee Patience perforce He beleives it will at last appeare that they who first began to embroyle his other kingdoms are also guilty of the blood of Ireland And wee beleive so too for now the Cessation is become a Peace by publishd Articles and Commission to bring them over against England first only ten thousand by the Earl of Glamorgan next all of them if possible under Ormond which was the last of all his transactions don as a public Person And no wonder for he lookt upon the blood spilt whether of Subjects or of Rebels with an indifferent eye as exhausted out of his own veines without distinguishing as he ought which was good blood and which corrup the not letting-out wherof endangers the whole body And what the Doctrin is ye may perceave also by the Prayer which after a short ejaculation for the poore Protestants prayes at large for the Irish Rebels that God would not give them over or thir Children to the covetousness cruelty fierce and cursed anger of the Parlament He finishes with a deliberat and solemn curse upon himself and his Fathers House Which how farr God hath alreadie brought to pass is to the end that men by so eminent an example should learn to tremble at his judgements and not play with Imprecations XIII Upon the calling in of the Scots and thir comming IT must needs seem strange where Men accustom themselves to ponder and contemplat things in thir first original and institution that Kings who as all other Officers of the Public were at first chos'n and install'd onely by consent and suffrage of the People to govern them as Freemen by Laws of thir own framing and to be in consideration of that dignity and riches bestow'd upon them the entrusted Servants of the Common-wealth should notwithstanding grow up to that dishonest encroachment as to esteem themselves Maisters both of that great trust which they serve and of the People that betrusted them counting what they ought to doe both in discharge of thir public duty and for the great reward of honour and revennue which they receave as don all of meer grace and favour as if thir power over us were by nature and from themselves or that God had sould us into thir hands Indeed if the race of Kings were eminently the best of men as the breed at 〈◊〉 is of â—…orse it would in some reason then be their part onely to command ours always to obey But Kings by generation no way excelling others and most commonly not being the wisest or the worthiest by far of whom they claime to have the governing that we should yeild them subjection to our own ruin or hold of them the right of our common safety and our natural freedom by meer gift as when the Conduit pisses Wine at Coronations from the superfluity of thir royal grace and beneficence we may be sure was never the intent of God whose ways are just and equal never the intent of Nature whose works are also regular never of any People not wholly barbarous whom prudence or no more but human sense would have better guided when they first created Kings then so to nullifie and tread to durt the rest of mankind by exalting one person and his Linage without other merit lookt after but the meer contingencie of a begetting into an absolute and unaccountable dominion over them and thir posterity Yet this ignorant or wilfull mistake of the whole matter had tak'n so deep root in the imagination of this King that whether to the English or to the Scot mentioning what acts of his Regal Office though God knows how un willingly he had pass'd he calls them as in other places Acts of grace and bounty so heer special obligations favours to gratifie active spirits and the desires of that party Words not onely sounding pride and Lordly usurpation but Injustice Partiality and Corruption For to the Irish he so farr condiscended as first to tolerate in privat then to covnant op'nly the tolerating of Popery So farr to the Scot as to remove Bishops establish Presbytery and the Militia in thir own hands preferring as some thought the desires of Scotland before his own interest and Honour But being once on this side Tweed his reason his conscience and his honour became so streitn'd with a kind of fals Virginity that to the English neither one nor other of the same demands could be granted wherwith the Scots were gratifi'd as if our aire and climat on a sudden had chang'd the property and the nature both of Conscience Honour and Reason or that he found none so fit as English to be the subjects of his arbitrary power Ireland was as Ephraim the strength of his head Scotland as Iudah was his Law-giver but over England as over Edom he meant to cast his Shoo and yet so many sober Englishmen not sufficiently awake to consider this like men inchanted with the Circaean cup of servitude will not be held back from running thir own heads into the Yoke of Bondage The summ of his discours is against setling of Religion by violent meanes which whether it were the Scots designe upon England they are best able to cleare themselves But this of all may seem strangest that the King who while it was permitted him never did thing more eagerly then to molest and persecute the consciences of most Religious men he who had made a Warr and lost all rather then not uphold a Hierarchie of persecuting
sacred History and times of Reformation that the Kings of this World have both ever hated and instinctively fear'd the Church of God Whether it be for that thir Doctrin seems much to favour two things to them so dreadful Liberty and Equality or because they are the Children of that Kingdom which as ancient Prophesies have foretold shall in the end break to peeces and dissolve all thir great power and Dominion And those Kings and Potentates who have strove most to ridd themselves of this feare by cutting off or suppressing the true Church have drawn upon themselves the occasion of thir own ruin while they thought with most policy to prevent it Thus Pharaoh when once he began to feare and wax jealous of the Israelites least they should multiply and fight against him and that his feare stirr'd him up to afflict and keep them under as the onely remedy of what he feard soon found that the evil which before slept came suddenly upon him by the preposterous way he took to shun it Passing by examples between not shutting wilfully our eyes we may see the like story brought to pass in our own Land This King more then any before him except perhapps his Father from his first entrance to the Crown harbouring in his mind a strange feare and suspicion of men most religious and thir Doctrin which in his own language he heer acknowledges terming it the seditious exorbitancie of Ministers tongues and doubting least they as he not Christianly expresses it should with the Keys of Heav'n let out Peace and Loyaltie from the peoples hearts though they never preacht or attempted aught that might justly raise in him such apprehensions he could not rest or think himself secure so long as they remain'd in any of his three Kingdoms unrooted out But outwardly professing the same Religion with them he could not presently use violence as Pharaoh did and that course had with others before but ill succeeded He chooses therfore a more mystical way a newer method of Antichristian fraud to the Church more dangerous and like to Balac the Son of Zippor against a Nation of Prophets thinks it best to hire other esteemed Prophets and to undermine and weare out the true Church by a fals Ecclesiastical policy To this drift he found the Goverment of Bishops most serviceable an order in the Church as by men first corrupted so mutually corrupting them who receave it both in judgement and manners He by conferring Bishoprics and great Livings on whom he thought most pliant to his will against the known Canons and universal practice of the ancient Church wherby those elections were the peoples right sought as he confesses to have greatest influence upon Church-men They on the other side finding themselves in a high Dignity neither founded by Scripture nor allow'd by Reformation nor supported by any spiritual gift or grace of thir own knew it thir best cours to have dependence onely upon him and wrought his fansie by degrees to that degenerat and unkingly perswasion of No Bishop no King When as on the contrary all Prelats in thir own suttle sense are of another mind according to that of Pius the fourth rememberd in the Trentine storie that Bishops then grow to be most vigorous and potent when Princes happ'n to be most weak and impotent Thus when both Interests of Tyrannie and Episcopacie were incorporat into each other the King whose principal safety and establishment consisted in the righteous execution of his civil power and not in Bishops and thir wicked counsels fatally driv'n on set himself to the extirpating of those men whose Doctrin and desire of Church Discipline he so fear'd would bee the undoing of his Monarchie And because no temporal Law could touch the innocence of thir lives he begins with the persecution of thir consciences laying scandals before them and makes that the argument to inflict his unjust penalties both on thir bodies and Estates In this Warr against the Church if he hath sped so as other haughty Monarchs whom God heertofore hath hard'nd to the like enterprize we ought to look up with praises and thanksgiving to the Author of our deliverance to whom victorie and power Majestie Honour and Dominion belongs for ever In the mean while from his own words we may perceave easily that the special motives which he had to endeere and deprave his judgement to the favouring and utmost defending of Episcopacie are such as heer wee represent them and how unwillingly and with what mental reservation he condescended against his interest to remove it out of the Peers house hath bin shown alreadie The reasons which he affirmes wrought so much upon his judgement shall be so farr answerd as they be urg'd Scripture he reports but distinctly produces none and next the constant practice of all Christian Churches till of late yeares tumult faction pride and covetousness invented new models under the Title of Christs Goverment Could any Papist have spoke more scandalously against all Reformation Well may the Parlament and best-affected People not now be troubl'd at his calumnies and reproaches since he binds them in the same bundle with all other the reformed Churches who also may now furder see besides thir own bitter experience what a Cordial and well meaning helper they had of him abroad and how true to the Protestant cause As for Histories to prove Bishops the Bible if we mean not to run into errors vanities and uncertainties must be our onely Historie Which informs us that the Apostles were not properly Bishops next that Bishops were not successors of Apostles in the function of Apostleship And that if they were Apostles they could not be preciselie Bishops if Bishops they could not be Apostles this being Universal extraordinarie and immediat from God that being an ordinarie fixt particular charge the continual inspection over a certain Flock And although an ignorance and deviation of the ancient Churches afterward may with as much reason and charity be suppos'd as sudden in point of Prelatie as in other manifest corruptions yet that no example since the first age for 1500 yeares can be produc'd of any setled Church wherin were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishops above them the Ecclesiastical storie to which he appeals for want of Scripture proves cleerly to be a fals and over-confident assertion Sczomenus who wrote above Twelve hundred years agoe in his seventh Book relates from his own knowledge that in the Churches of Cyprus and Arabia places neer to Jerusalem and with the first frequented by Apostles they had Bishops in every Village and what could those be more then Presbyters The like he tells of other Nations and that Episcopal Churches in those daies did not condemn them I add that many Western Churches eminent for thir Faith and good Works and settl'd above four hundred years agoe in France in Piemont and Bohemia have both taught and practis'd the same Doctrin and not admitted of
all of them agree in one song with this heer that they are sorry to see so little regard had to Laws establisht and the Religion settl'd Popular compliance dissolution of all order and goverment in the Church Scisms Opinions Undecencies Confusions Sacrilegious invasions contempt of the Clergie and thir Liturgie Diminution of Princes all these complaints are to be read in the Messages and Speeches almost of every Legat from the Pope to those States and Citties which began Reformation From whence he either learnt the same pretences or had them naturally in him from the same spirit Neither was there ever so sincere a Reformation that hath escap'd these clamours He offer'd a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen So offerd all those Popish Kings heertofore a cours the most unsatisfactory as matters have been long carried and found by experience in the Church liable to the greatest fraud and packing no solution or redress of evil but an increase rather detested therfore by Nazianzen and som other of the Fathers And let it bee produc'd what good hath bin don by Synods from the first times of Reformation Not to justifie what enormities the Vulgar may committ in the rudeness of thir zeal we need but onely instance how he bemoanes the pulling down of Crosses and other superstitious Monuments as the effect of a popular and deceitful Reformation How little this savours of a Protestant is too easily perceav'd What he charges in defect of Piety Charity and Morality hath bin also charg'd by Papists upon the best reformed Churches not as if they the accusers were not tenfold more to be accus'd but out of thir Malignity to all endeavour of amendment as we know who accus'd to God the sincerity of Job an accusation of all others the most easie when as there livs not any mortal man so excellent who in these things is not alwaies deficient But the infirmities of best men and the scandals of mixt Hypocrits in all times of reforming whose bold intrusion covets to bee ever seen in things most sacred as they are most specious can lay no just blemish upon the integritie of others much less upon the purpose of Reformation it self Neither can the evil doings of som be the excuse of our delaying or deserting that duty to the Church which for no respect of times or carnal policies can be at any time unseasonable He tells with great shew of piety what kinde of persons public Reformers ought to be and what they ought to doe T is strange that in above twenty years the Church growing still wors and wors under him he could neither be as he bids others be nor doe as he pretends heer so well to know nay which is worst of all after the greatest part of his Raign spent in neither knowing nor doing aught toward a Reformation either in Church or State should spend the residue in hindring those by a seven years Warr whom it concernd with his consent or without it to doe thir parts in that great performance T is true that the method of reforming may well subsist without perturbation of the State but that it falls out otherwise for the most part is the plaine Text of Scripture And if by his own rule hee had allow'd us to feare God first and the King in due order our Allegeance might have still follow'd our Religion in a fit subordination But if Christs Kingdom be tak'n for the true Discipline of the Church and by his Kingdom be meant the violence he us'd against it and to uphold an Antichristian Hierarchie then sure anough it is that Christs Kingdom could not be sett up without pulling down his And they were best Christians who were least subject to him Christs Goverment out of question meaning it Prelatical hee thought would confirm his and this was that which overthrew it He professes to own his Kingdom from Christ and to desire to rule for his glory and the Churches good The Pope and the King of Spain profess every where as much and both his practice and all his reasonings all his enmitie against the true Church we see hath bin the same with theirs since the time that in his Letter to the Pope he assur'd them both of his full compliance But evil beginnings never bring forth good conclusions they are his own words and he ratifi'd them by his own ending To the Pope he ingag'd himself to hazard life and estate for the Roman Religion whether in complement he did it or in earnest and God who stood neerer then he for complementing minded writ down those words that according to his resolution so it should come to pass He praies against his hypocrisie and Pharisaical washings a Prayer to him most pertinent but choaks it straight with other words which pray him deeper into his old errors and delusions XXI Vpon His Letters tak'n and divulg'd THE Kings Letters taken at the Battell of Naesby being of greatest importance to let the people see what Faith there was in all his promises and solemn Protestations were transmitted to public view by special Order of the Parlament They discover'd his good affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the straight intelligence he held the pernitious dishonorable peace he made with them not solicited but rather soliciting w ch by all invocations that were holy he had in public abjur'd They reveal'd his endeavours to bring in forren Forces Irish French Dutch Lorrainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon us besides his suttleties and mysterious arts in treating to summ up all they shewd him govern'd by a Woman All which though suspected vehemently before and from good grounds beleev'd yet by him and his adherents peremptorily deny'd were by the op'ning of that Cabinet visible to all men under his own hand The Parlament therfore to cleer themselves of aspersing him without cause and that the people might no longer be abus'd and cajol'd as they call it by falsities and Court impudence in matters of so high concernment to let them know on what termes thir duty stood and the Kingdoms peace conceavd it most expedient and necessary that those Letters should be made public This the King affirmes was by them don without honour and civilitie words which if they contain not in them as in the language of a Courtier most commonly they do not more of substance and realitie then complement Ceremony Court fauning and dissembling enter not I suppose furder then the eare into any wise mans consideration Matters were not then between the Parlament and a King thir enemie in that state of trifling as to observ those superficial vanities But if honour and civilitie mean as they did of old discretion honesty prudence and plaine truth it will be then maintain'd against any Sect of those Cabalists that the Parlament in doing what they did with those Letters could suffer in thir honour and civilitie no diminution The reasons are already heard And that it is with none more familiar then with Kings