as an unnatural vomit occasioned by her poyson the ill effect thereof is to be found upon the minds of most professing men though Protestants at this day notwithstanding Pope and King and Lords Bishops are said to be departed hence being kickt out and spurned at with a furious heel the minds and understandings of most will yet shews us that they have been here for it is hardly distinguishable in most whether that which they profess for truth be setled upon them by the spiritual arm of Christ in light and evidence or by the arm of fleshly power and forcing example of men I say as before that the Magistrates pretended legall cognizance and determination of the errors of the mind in Religion is only by the Statute Law since the great confederacy betwixt Rome and England or of the Civil and Church Interest for the ancient Laws and Customs of this Nation look a little better then to manifest such a rage in Conscience-Tyranny And when I mention Romes confederacy with us let no man puff at this and say that is broken long ago I must confess like wrangling lovers they have quarrelled much and often yet have they loved the same bed of lust and lordliness still though sometimes they lie not there together and it is no hard matter to shew the Beast and false Prophet alive Rev. 19. after the flames have taken hold upon Romes glory and have burnt her down to ashes and if this be so let England look about her for she is not yet delivered as will be made appear ere long This may be applyed to later times then of King Hen the Eight could we but trace the footsteps of this mystery as it hath travelled through the Saxon Dane and Norman times and observe the many mazing turnings it hath made to secure it self as in a laborinth and to put its pursuers to a loss we should finde the pavement of the way to be stained with blood and their proceedings to be full of oppressive cruelty yea the deep Impressions that their feet have made upon our English Nations fundamental liberties by trampling on them and by treading them down do yet stand full of blood uncovered and not dryed up unto this day to the shame of the present Generation which notwithstanding all the claimes they have made and pretences had to righteousness and judgement have not found in their hearts though the present day doth loudly call for it to expiate and cleanse the Land from Ezekiel 29. The Children of Israel were directed by the Spirit of Prophesie to burn all the Instruments of Gog and to bury all the bones of his slain and to appoint men of a continual imployment that they may cleanse the Land yea every passenger that past through the Land if he saw a mans bone Ver. 15. he was to set up a sign at it that the men of continual imployment might observe and bury it So careful was the spirit that the Land might be cleansed of strange flesh and bones Brethren the Rights and Liberties of this Common-wealth have been invaded and overspread by cruel oppressive and insinuating Principles of Tyrannie and State-Engines which like Gog for I shall but allude not interpret have broken down our ancient bounds and so polluted and extreamly disfigured the comely feature and surpassing beauty of our Nations Rights and Laws that an English man can hardly discern their native excellencie and lustre they are hid in so many clouds and made to walk under so many masks of will and selfish humour that the poor Nation cannot see one glimps of what they should in an age when t is our right to enjoy them all with open face continually we do pretend and God hath been willing I am confident to bring it to more then an empty pretence in this age that the heart of this invading Gog is broken and the Arm of his power so shiveld that every man may believe the whole body is dead yet t is not buried the dead Carkass lies in the streets and fields of England and whether there be men appointed for continual imployment to bury the body or no I shall not now dispute I fear there are not yet pardon me if in my creeple-travels I set up a stick by a bone that lies unburied this stincking carrion persecution that if any shall at length undertake the publike Sextons charge they may know they shall not want imployment And there be more remainders of that Tyrant-Host then this that may teach men that have their sense to put the branch to the nose for the sents contagious not fit to be sufferd among Christian people But I proceed 'Thas been enough confest and concluded That this Nation is a free people The meaning is that their fundamentall Laws are such as do declare and keep them free from all arbitrary power and that they cannot be inslaved but by their own consent in their great Parliament or Council so that a subject of England that by Law is not exempted from the Law is free-born How then came we to be under the yoke of bondage and slavery Here is the question indeed the answer and unravelling of which hath cost so much ink treasure and blood to little purpose It was said before that the King and Prelates were long since in their great conjunction from which have proceeded those malignant influences that have so wrought upon the Nations freedome whereby it hath been made to labour for life it being so desperately afflicted in its vitals The Kings power and prerogative have been as a fretting moth and eating Rust that hath been gnawing at the heart of liberty untill they have consumed it And the Prelates rage their Dragon-rage and subtilty hath inspired this boundless Image of the King with so much of their own lust and will that these have ruled the Rost as they say all along and by these means have the pure freedoms of the land been ravisht from it and the minds of men so vitiated and defild that it requires the labour of an Hercules or one beyond him much in strength and glory to cleanse us from those foul Abominations that are committed now by pretext of Law so that this way departed liberty and righteousness for the power of the King and Lords so over-ruled the poor Commons or courted them into a compliance by their subtilty that the Commons durst not or else will not speak or act too much in vindication of the peoples Antient Rights for fear of raising such a storm that might sweep them away like a devouring hail our bulwarks thus shattered and subverted gave a free and easie passage and entrance for those wilde beasts to make a prey of us when they listed to satiate their greedy mindes with our treasure or our blood From hence have issued forth Patents Commissions c. for the erecting of Spiritual Courts and investing of Prelates with power to inthral men in things of Religion against the
what were propounded The famous Monks of Bangor reported much for Industry and holiness were principally eyed it is like in this Assembly The head of their fraternity refusing still to subject themselves by such Courses receive the interminating prophesie of this great Prelate or rather the promulging of his pollicy Pag. 106. Cum aliis locis Si pacem cum fratribus accipere nolent bellum ad Hostibus forent accepturi if they would not entertain peace with their Brethren they should have war from their enemies And not long after it fell out accordingly for Austine now was great with Ethelbert this King in Austines Cause provokes the King of Northumberland to fall upon the Brittains he enters Leicester willing to please the King of Kent and there findes a number of these poor praying Bangorites and slaughters 1200. of them with cruel butchery Austine is doubted in this business by Mr. Speed and others to have wrought more by pride and bloody pollicy then by the spirit of prophesie The action is so much unlike that spirit which once lived in men The Answer of these harmless Monkes was good and very fair without a merit of such wages as was after payed them Pag. 108. And for the piety thereof I shall transcribe it here from Sir Henry Spelman to such as have him not by them Be it known and without doubt to you that we all are obedient subjects to the Church of God and to the Pope of Rome and to every godly Christian a practise now grown absolute with most to love every one in his degree in perfect Charity and to help every one of them by word and deed to be the children of God and other obedience saith the Abbot in the person of the rest I do not know due to him whom you name to be POPE Nor to be the father of fathers to be claimed or to be demanded And this obedience we are ready to pay to him and to every Christian continually Besides we are under the Government of the Bishop of Caerleon upon Uske who is to oversee under God over us to cause us to keep the the way spiritual This was their answer that we are yet it seems unaccustomed to any bruitish impositions and one would think it not deserving so heavy a censure from the Romish Monk nor so bloody an execution by his Abbettors but thus they perisht And thus commonly it goes with them that make the sword the Ruler and the Judge over men in Cases spirituall that do relate to conscience And here it is to be noted by the way as it may be guest at by the answer that these faing Brittains make no mention of any humane statute or Parliament decree that did contain the parts and points of their Religion by which they were to be guided under pain of life or liberty for had there been any such thing in being and had these Monks and Brittains known it as they must needs if there had been such a thing it would without question have been urged upon this great division and remembered to us as well as other things But I will hasten on You may by this perceive Romans Praelates and their power to have set their Iron feet of cruelty upon the neck of Brittish Christians and their Christian liberty Twelve hundred slain in cold blood in the midst of their devotions found unarmed saith the story too because they would not bow their knees to Romes great power and decrees and all occasioned by the whorish compliance of the Civil power and with its listening to those religious Incendiaries and also that the Kings of this fair famous Island began to sip betimes at the whores cup of fornication she was willing to ride and the powers of the earth must help her up or else she cannot and that they may the better do it they must be drunken since which time they have swilled themselves with full draughts of her poysonous liquor and all Nations have been thereby astonished befooled and made to live upon the senseless laws and notions of the beast and false Prophet proceeding from them in this plunged estate for they have lain down together in the wanton bed of worldly lust and glory and thence have been conceived and born those hellish-hideous monsters that have devoured and swallowed up the bodies and the souls of men in Christendome Brittain with a witness The spirit saith that the Ten Kings shall give up their power to the Beast this of England is concluded to be one To give their power to the Beast is to serve its lust and execute its laws according to pleasure and command since the aforesaid Austine displayed the colours of the Romish power in the field of this Nation it is wonderfull to consider how the secular and the Ecclesiastick interest hath combined together and grown up in mutuall claspings and imbraces They have been so mysterially twined and interwoven that it is feared their separation will not be effected the work is so tender and difficult until he come in power and spirit whose the Kingdome is The former persecutions we may call violent Irruptions or breakings in of power upon liberty without the form of Law now the scale is turning and the practise assumes another garb to appear under the Prelates mount the chair of state and are taken in to consult the affairs of the Commonwealth now they have liberty indeed to plot their own designe and to get their wills and sanctions stamped with the Images of law and authority they sit in Parliament and have a considerable stroke with the Laick Nobles and Gentlemen so that they can easily serve their own interest and obtain their desire upon all If there arise any principle of light and truth like to do their Kingdome wrong and to discover the darkness thereof they are at hand to quash them presently by bowing or breaking the fomenters thereof they 'le make them stoop or stagger to the grave and they can do it easily either by laying open the Jus Divinum of their holy Church whose Canons are so sacred they must not be touched or by insinuating into the Magistrates breast Clavis Apocalyp pag. 98. which hath been commonly open enough to entertain that inthralling Maxime of the reason of state and then present a subject to imploy it upon as the keeping up of our interest abroad with forraign Princes or the like from this unhappy marriage of these two fair Interests that we have mentioned have proceeded all those statute Laws by which they have taken cognizance of and undertaken to determine what is heresie and error with the severall Punishments for such as shall thereby be made or found guilty Herein they have but served the designe of the great mysterie Babylon The Mother of Harlots and abominations of the earth for the rules were framed within her whorish heart they did but creep out at the mouths of our English Kings and Parliaments
liberty of the Subject But I would not cast a blot upon any of our English wâ—thies in Parliament that have from time to time asserted what they could against Incroachments and put forth themselves as much as the times respectively would bear against these great and potent Innovators They have done much upon occasions yet never did they do so much as to stile the Nation free thereby such are to be remembred by us with their Honors and their deserved commendation Neither would or durst I say that all our English Kings and Bishops must be wholly judged the Nations bane since the aforesaid great conjunction No we have had Kings that have been wise and valiant to a wonder and have loved the people well and acted for them but still they have dont with the remembrance and retaining of their great Prerogative that it must be thought an Act of Grace free Grace in them to give the People their due Rights which could not be in Law or Equity detained from them yet let such have this honor That they did no worse And I believe England can boast as much of Bishops some Bishops for their Learning and their Piety as any Nation under Heaven since the Apostacy yea and such as withstood the Roman Court in its foul dress unto the death in the vindication and defence of what they saw yet their light led them not to renounce their call from Rome or to stick at the root of those Proceedings nearer home by which they with many others were violently carried to the stake to breath forth their souls in the fiery flames And there was a worldly arm which others pious t is like and learned too did lean to for supporting of their Hierarchy and in their Excommunications for the doing of that which was the proper office of the Spirit with and in the Church Sir Edw. Cook 3. part of the Inst cap. of Heresie they would by their Spiritual power Excommunicate and the Civil Power must play the part of Satan for them a strange Innovation and most dangerous in the New Testament Ministery But yet I say t is meet that all deserving Predecessors should be remembred by us with their due respects This by the way The cruel Proceedings of these Joynt-powers and how heavy their loins were upon the Subject and with what Scorpions they did exercise the people are as to fact recorded by the peinful labors of an English man M. Foxes Acts and Monuments What hath it been the honor or rather the dishonor of the English Nation to make Martyrs A dishonor and a shame indeed that will never be wash't off till the world be no more although I could and do with my soul desire and say with our learned Lawyer in another case Sir Ed. Cook 4 part of Inst pag. 37. Auferat oblivio si potest ut cunque silentium tegat let it die and be buried in forgetfulnesse or however let it not be remembred to our disadvantage or disgrace 'T is our honor that Brittains Womb hath been so fertile to bring forth so many ripe for Martyrdom if need should be but it may be of very lamentable and sad regreet upon our memory and thoughts that ever her heart should be so butcherous cruel as to act that bloody inhumane part upon her Sons with her own hands that yet seem red with blood and more then seem if some mistake not yea and to do it with so much deliberation and advisement as a legal process doth bespeak which way she hath appeared in to be most cruel If France or Spain or Rome or Infidel barbarous Nation in the world had by their mighty and prevailing Forreigne Force bereft us thus of life and liberty it had been the more tolerable we could expect but little better from such hands But it was thou O England the Land of our Nativity and you O English powers our pretended Friends and Familiars born to a right in the same Laws with us and sworn to defend and keep those Laws inviolable this this cutteth to the quick and pierceth to the very heart and soul of every true English man Yet this hath been our case whereof we have just reason to complain no poor Christian durst lift up his head above the palpable darkness of the times nor professe he saw a little more or a little otherwise in Spirituals then the formal setled Prelates did but it must be upon his utmost peril Bonds and death attend him presently Stand to our Rules say they and pin your Faith upon our sleeves and think as we would have you or you die for it What abominations have the Children of England committed in the dark every one in the Chamber of his Imagery What Names have they invented and imposed on such that would not bow down and worship the Image that they 〈…〉 Names of contempt and odium like the Skins put on the primitive Saints that the mindes of Beast-like people might be the more enraged and the easier inclined to kindle the fire for their sufferings if they would not own the Beast even in that gross appearance that he was then in besides the distinguishing Names derived upon them in scorn from some principal leader in that profession they must be bruited a brood to be seditious disturbers of the Peace Subverters of the Laws and Governments Disobedient to Powers c. although they were the most simple and plain hearted and quiet souls in the world men that were willing to serve and worship their God according to the dictates of their Conscience in the Light they had of Scripture I refer the Reader for this to S. ED. COOK in the third Part of his Jnstitutes pag. 41. in Chap. of Heresie where there is the form of an Indictment for Heresie and Lollardy so the opposite Judgement to Popery was long time called containing general Accusations of Disturbing of the Peace c. And though it were adjudged insufficient in Law as well it might yet this way the Prelates went as might be shewed by a Cloud of Testimonies yet shall this go for all And because I am so near it let me here remember one Evil well observed by that great man occasioned by coercive and restraining courses in matters of Conscience ibid. pag. 40. 't will be sufficient to repeat his words There was a Statute supposed to be made in 5 R. 2. That Commissions should be by the Lord Chancellor made and directed to Sheriffs and others to Arrest such as should be certified into the Chancery by the Bishops and Prelates Mrs. of Divinity to be Preachers of Heresies and notorious Errors their Fautors Maintainers and Abettors and to hold them in strong Prison until they will justifie themselves to the Law of Holy-Church by colour of this supposed Act Certain persons that held that Images were not to be worshipped c. were holden in strong Prison until they to redeem their vexation miserably yeilded before
to convince them or at least weaken their own cause 4. Whether the Common-wealth hath not been bereft of many honest able and faithful Subjects by this means 5. Whether this kinde of Persecution which came in with Papacie ought not in all reason to have taken its leave and gone with it Or whether persecution with colour of Law be not a toleration of Popery and Prelacy in some part at least Lastly whether such a coercive power in such cases be consistent with a right administration of law and the Nations liberty I am not willing to obtrude my private fancies or opinions on any onely it is my desire that all might see and make use of what is reason And I could wish the case were indifferently debated and decided by some able Lawyers that are uninteressed and uncorrupted without any awing hand of force over them by such I say I wish it determined whose honest and judicious hearts have not suffered shipwrack by the strange blasts and storms of these various and dangerous times And yet howsoever I suppose that liberty of Conscience hath more to plead for it self then that in a Nation under a Magistracy that makes profession of the Christian faith But let us turn our faces again Whiles the condition of our English State stood thus and the darkness of the times was witnessed against through sufferings by the providence of the All-seeing Jehovah things at last are brought about so that a Parliament is called settled Anno 1640. Now the glory and the Tyranny of Prelacy begins to be ecclipsed The pains of the Nation begin to come upon her and she is travelling sorely to be delivered of the man-child of law and liberty that should make the mother to rejoyce many were the Attempts to encrease her throes and to render her abortive or at least that she should bring forth nothing but winde All the policy of the Court and Prelates is called in and imployed to this purpose but it must not prosper for the day of their Judgement is dawned upon them and it cometh up with cloudes and darkness their bloody and outragious cruelty exercised upon those three with others mentioned even now is but like the roaring of a man subject to the epilepsy the faling-sickness before his fall The Parliament thus called recalls the prisoners home and entertains them with respect and honour They search into their own priviledges the subjects liberty and assert them with courage and resolution for they are in their virgin purity and masculine strength and nothing can brow-beat them The Courtiers and Bishops hear of them and are affraid of their righteous eye and oppression-revenging arm The Bishops with their High-Commission fall The Star-Chamber is struck up by the roots and all encroachments upon the peoples rights declared against in general Who sees not but there was an Item given by this to all true English groaning hearts to lift up themselves because the day of their redemption drew neer such a motion surely was made and it was with joy accepted by the most rational and ingenuous people of the Nation witness the fair and honest Petitions presented to the Parliament from time to time witnesse also those gallant Declarations too many to be mentioned here wherein the good old Laws of England were asserted and contended for with the subjects liberty in all just things which are of little better publique use at present then to be a Testimony of the Nations great Apostacy or declination from the grounds of the war unto which all honest meaning people were upon deep conjuring terms engaged either in affection in opening of the purse or personall action It is evident and easie to be remembred as it falls out in all civil wars that the Nation ran up into two general heads or factions The one relating to the regal interest and prerogative The other to the Interest of Parliament and the Common-wealth The actings of the former notorious enough I shall wave now as being exploded and excentrical to the present Intendment It is the latter that I shall observe a little in its motion although my observation be but general and their work be too lately done to be yet forgotten The sum and substance of the Parliaments Declarations as to the careful Reader doth appear amounts to this That it was their sole designe and endeavor as they hop'd to be assisted and justified by the God of Heaven to maintain the Laws of the Land which they say were trampled upon by the King and his Party through their high and arbitrary courses and to preserve the Subjects Liberty as to Person and Estate with this Standart they proceeded extirpated Episcopacie root and branch took up Arms against the King and his party and t is to be thought that at that time they or at least the major part of them really and unfeignedly intended what they then profest and so solemnly declared Thus things went on though through much strugling and difficulty till they had obtained their desired ends upon that Malignant Party I cannot say that there were no sufferers for conscience in these times of the Kingdoms Travels it may be judged there were no legal sufferers but only what was without Law carried on by a strong hand for the Bishops who might and had the power to convict of Heresie are gone Third part of his Institut pag. 40. see what Sir EDWARD COOK saith That at this day no person can be indicted or impeached of Heresie before any temporal Judge or other that hath temporal Jurisdiction as upon the perusual of the Statutes quoted by him he concludeth But there was a Synod or Assembly of Divines calld or held by Authority of Parliament that laboured as a travelling woman to get their Doctrine and their Discipline establisht by a Law Many of these had been under the Prelates yoak and had been somewhat galled thereby yet when their wounds were healed they forgot Smectymnuus and his cryes they bestir themselves most busily to get their dear Presbyterie into the chair that it may Lord and sway the Scepter over their Brethren for to be pinched of other mens consciences is almost an Epidemick Itch. The dissenting Brethren then especially those of the Independent-way looking on themselves as such as were like to lie under the Altar at the mercy of the new raised Presbyter Rev 6. begin to send forth their preventing groans and to endeavour the vindication of Just Freedom by uncovering the land-marks of Liberty of Conscience which some have done to purpose none daring to remove them but by a fleshly arm too weak and too disproportionate for such a work But so loud were the thunders of the rigid Presbyterians in their Pulpits and their writings flashing forth so much lightning of Vengeance upon Heresie Sectarism and all its fautors that the Parliament it self was almost conjured to be of their Opinion and to write and act the voices of the present
with courage But this proceeds from them and it is laid principally by some to the Scottish-rigid-Presbyterian-Clamors with whom the English then had much to do as the Father of it although some neerer home might be affraid t was theirs This childe thus born into the world Gen. 12.16 may be likened well to Ishmael the son of Hagar of whom the Angel said He will be a wilde man his hand will be against every man and every mans hand against him but I must except and hope hee will not long dwell in the presence of the Brethren to offend them The Bishops and that Prelatical Party living in those days who were pretendedly cast out for their oppression might laught to see their former cause so gratified by those that cast them down and they might now believe that their fair houses and their lands made them more guilty then their tyrannie For what Prelacie in England for these fourscore years could have desired more for them to act upon against Dissenters in Religion then this Ordinance Nay I am confident by this through their great subtility they might have made had they been up to act their little fingers now heavier then their loyns were but a little before so easie is this Ordinance like to sit upon the neck of English Christians T is very likely that this new-born-Law would have manifested it self in its true colours presently for those were not wanting that could open it if the affairs of tste Kingdome would have permitted But things were not yet come up to that maturity and fulnesse that some desired and were posting to the Nation was but in a tottering state not yet setled and secured from common enemies both abroad and at home therefore for the better effecting of the work the Heterodox whose hand had been much in the businesse of the war and pretended reformation are in a manner courted still and still retained to plead against the publike Adversary All this while that Ordinance lay Dormant in the Cradle or if it wak't a little it quickly fell asleep again and if it had been strangled there it had been a work not worthy of repentance Passe we from this unto the tryal and the great Catastrophe of King Charls the Bishops and their Jnrisdiction were extinct before the King now follows them being condemn'd as a Prince not fit to rule any longer Who would not imagine now but all usurpations tyrannies over mens persons and consciences subversion of Laws and whatsoever else may be called State-sinnes I say who would not have thought all those to be excluded and damned up for ever except it must be said that the Agents herein slew the persons to inherit their souls their sins and impieties and so become sevenfold more the sons of oppression and arbitrary lust and power then all before them As to the present case of Liberty of Conscience I will here insert one passage more from Mr. John Cook Barrister the Advocate of the Commonwealth against the King Brook King Charls his Case in page 42 speaking concerning the Court of Justice This high Court saith he hath cut off the head of a Tyrant and in so doing they have pronounced sentence not onely against one tyrant but tyrannie it self therefore if any of them shall turn tyrants or consent to set up any kinde of tyrannie by a Law let this be heeded or suffer any unmercifull domineering over the consciences persons and estates of the free people of this Land they have pronounced sentence against themselves Loe here 's the sense of one concerning Liberty who speaks not now in his own behalf but as the Attorney-General of the honest and well-affected in the whole Nation and the Armies servant who were the great Zealots for taking off the Kings head he in this capacity sends all kind of tyrannie in word at seast away with Charles Stuart he could not be ignorant of the aforesaid Ordinance but may be supoosed to believe that the Parliament to whom so great a purge as they cald it was administred by the Army or part of it had those peccant humors corrected wherewith they did abound in passing of that Ordinance and were rendred more healthy and better disposed unto the Nations service in clearing of their Rights and Laws if so good an end could be effected by so bad a means These things past over and gone that long Parliament after its many strange turns fell into an absolute dislike by the Grandees of the Army and having had a part too long t is thought upon the Stage it is dismist and Exit But such acclamations and such ecchoings of joy were made and heard throughout most of the gathered Churches in England as if they meant to sound the Trumpet to some great Jubilee and as if the day of the Nations deliverance from their long servitude and captivity were come such sudden hopes were generally conceived upon the rooting up of that long Parliament that had been pruned much by the Armies sword before but was not likely to bring forth that fruit which some expected whatsoe're it was yet alas poor souls who did not see this to be the foundation to another thraldome Their resoundings upon this occasion were no sooner past but they are seconded by another greater in conceit then the former occasioned now by that strange summons given for a new Parliament which for distinction-sake shall be called the Extraordinary Parliament or to use their own phrase in their Declaration of July 12. 1653. Then called in an extraordinary manner who do there declare themselves the Parliament of the Common-wealth of England and so may I and twenty more do if wee have a minde to 't and all to little purpose and we may chance to hear more on it too another day But the Churches look't on 't as an extraordinary blessing indeed that they should hove the sole or at least the chiefest power to elect a Parliament a thing never so much as dreamt on in our English Law-books or Antiquities These Gentlemen thus summoned might have done the Commonwealth better service had they staid at home and endeavor red to engage the honest and well-affected of the Nation to remonstrate the case of the Common-wealth and how far they did assent unto the proceedings of the Army in their actings towards the former Parliament and boldly to have asserted what they did and might justly expect to have done in the present overture of Providence that seemed now at last to call for Righteousnesse once more and common Justice yea seeing now upon the fall of the remainder of that long Parliament the Power and Supreme Trust returned into the hands of the people as the Army men themselves say or conclude it would and ought upon the dissolution of the Parliament in that notable stratagem of theirs their Remonstrance printed in Novemb. 1648. and presented to the Commons they might have done well to have called in question The Agrement of the People in
answer of the question then First That those Articles concerning Religion mean a Liberty to all Dissenters as before is clear and very plain if it be compared with the minde of that Draught of Agreement out of which it seems to be taken I say it seems to be takenby the indentity of voice they both speak onely the Instrument omits some few passages which are mentioned in the Agreement Now the Agreement endeavours manifestly to take all Power compulsive out of the Magistrates hand yea out of the hand of the Parliament it self as being inconsistent with publike Settlement and the Nations peace and 't is to be noted that therein they do but declare the Indibutable Rights of the people grounded on the Law of Nature and right Reason for this kinde of Freedom of which we now speak is a little elder then our new Government But secondly The very repetition of the Articles about Liberty is enough to answer the Question to any unprejudic'd man in the world the plainness whereof will be a witnesse against all false Glossaries read Art the 36 37. That to the publike profession what is that the Christian Religion saith the 35. Article held forth None shall be compell'd by any external force whatsoever to be of the Christian Religion because the Christian Religion is able to gain through the Power of Jesus Disciples to its self without any such poor and beggarly Argument as the Sword of man is compared with the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God but that endeavors be used to win them those that are not of the Christian Religion publikely held forth by sound Doctrine and the example of a good Conversation from from which later clause it appeareth That in order to the finding out of Error and Heresie and its rational confutation there must be a free way open for the Dissenters from the approved Religion to professe publish their Opinions which being published shal contract no other evil to the Publishers then an advantage thereby to be taken for their better instruction not for their Destruction Imprisonment Banishment or what censures else the Civil Power pleaseth to impose For this Article provides that such Erroneous yea Infidels so far it goes shall be dealt withal only by Doctrine and good example I do verily believe that this sense is not forcâ—t but that every ingenuous man will see as much in the Text. Yet because the civil peace and common safety and Liberty of the good people of England have been disturbed and taken from them by a Sect and Interest of men for such a transition I conceive there is between this 36. and the following Article then therefore the 37. Article doth limit and therein expound the former thus That such as profess faith in God by Jesus â—hrist though differing in judgement from the Doctrine note that still Worship or Discipline publikely held forth shall not be restrained from but shall be protected in the Profession of their faith and exercise of their Religion so as they abuse not this Liberty to the civil injury of others observe the word civil only the civil injury of others is therby provided against and to the actual disturbance of the publike Peace upon their parts provided that this Liberty bee not extended to Popery or Prelacy nor to such as under the profession of Christ hold forth and practise licentiousnesse The 38. Article appeales all Laws Statutes and Ordinances c. to the contrary of this Liberty Suppose now for instance that I maintained and profest that there is no resurrection of the dead which Doctrine my soul abhors a position which I hope will be contrary to the Doctrine held forth publikely yet I say suppose I did professe that thing I conceive and that from apparent ground in these Articles that I am not to be compelled to be of another minde or else to dye or be abridged of my Liberty by the hand of man but to be preserv'd and protected unto the Reformation of my mind and the confutation of my Error by sound Doctrine which by this Law ought to be notwithstanding that that Ordinance May 2.1648 expresly saith That if any one shall maintain and publish that the bodies of men shall not rise again after they are dead it shall be adjudged Felony and why judge I that my protection lies in this Government but because all Ordinances made contrary to the Liberty given are hereby repealed and made void and this amongst the rest as being one of those all Again here is an exception of or provision made against Popery and Prelacy and Professors of licentiousnesse which provision I humbly conceive was made because if it had not Popery and Prelacy might be adjudged to drink their portion of this declar'd Liberty which that it might not do this exception seems in reason to be put in Nay and I believe thus far we may go too as to say That all the Doctrines and Opinions that Papists and Prelates hold are not by this excepted and provided against for in many things the present publike Profession and the aforesaid Interests do kisse each other in a friendly compliance but such Opinions of theirs are hereby excluded that do give them the denomination of Papists and Prelates respectively Now then its clear seeing that only is excepted which otherwise is comprehended under the general term That no man professing faith in God by Jesus Christ shall be restrained in the Profession of his Faith however differing except they professe Popery or Prelacy or licentiousnesse so that as to the case in hand by which as I have said the Government is tryed Mr. Biddle ought not to be restrained from his Profession That Jesus Christ is not the Most High God but to be protected therein in order to the confutation of his Heresie by sound Doctrine and Argument which is able to pierce deeper by a thousand degrees into the heart of Error and the Devil then the point of the Magistrates sword can though driven by all the strength in the world united into one Arm neither am I singular in this Interpretation I believe and hope I speak the sense of all moderate and serious Christians in England upon this point of Liberty of Conscience I am sure I have the Attestation or rather the Opinion of many hundred honest and professing Christians in the Nation concurring with me in the same Judgement as it doth most evidently appear by that Petition-signed by them occasioned by this Tryal some of whom and I mention it to their honor have had the happinesse to keep constant and close to their Principles therein whiles others have played fast and loose and 't is to be feared have made shipwrack of Faith and a good Conscience endeavouring to satisfie their own lusts in serving other mens wills and the humors of the Times Thus much for the finding out of the minde of the Government and the sense of the supream Administrators thereof as to