Sermon of which Preachment the Kings Commissioners complained though to small purpose as appears by the Answers yet I shall willingly quit him from this knowing that neither the Parliament nor their Commissioners would be guided by his pratling and being fully satisfied that the Parliament never really intended a Peace unless they had thereby reduced the King to a Royal slave or worse and have got liberty for themselves to have acted Treason and Tyrannized over the poor Nation cum Privilegio and this was the design of all their counterfeited Treaties Yet I must needs acknowledge that Mr. Love did what in him lay to dissolve the Peace as is palpable from the wicked and malicious assertions and admonitions laid down by him in that Sermon concluding it Whiles our Enemies go on in their wicked practises and whiles we keep our Principles we may assoon make Fire and Water to agree and I had almost said reconcile Heaven and Hell as their spirits and ours either they must grow better or we must grow worse before it is possible for us to agree Words denoting such a malignant principle that I am willing to quit those whom he and the rest of his gang are pleas'd to call so by putting the Saddle on the right Horse and attributing the Epithet to himself I might here also intimate some of his sacrilegious vapours by discoursing upon his extravagant reproaches thrown upon the Church of England which I am confident might lawfully defend herself by force of Arms against the impious actions of her spurious Antagonists if that be true which Mr. Love affirms viz. That it is an hurtful Opinion to imagine that the people might not do so against their Soveraign I shall conclude with our supposed Martyr by asserting that he who had the ignorance blind-zeal and impudence to tearm Episcopacy and the Common-Prayer-Book the two Plague-sores several times in one Preachment had need have set-Forms of Sermons enjoyned him as well as Prayers And the Presbyterian House of Commons who cleared Mr. Love from any slander for pratling such stuff did plainly demonstrate what little desire they had for Peace and thereby intimated their abominable hypocrisie to the whole world since the Sermon pardon the giving it so good a Title seemed more like an Harangue to encourage the People to a bloudy slaughter and it is not unknown how oft he mentioned the necessity of drawing bloud than the imbracement of a happy and setled Peace Having thus sufficiently proved Mr. Love to be no such Martyr as his Fraternity flab out though much more might be enlarged upon this Subject and upon every discourse fly to him as a sufficient Asylum where they think they may handsomly secure a Reputation I shall now say something to another Objection whose main force lyeth upon the credit of the Covenant and so may with its Dam sleep with ignominy rather than be held forth as a badge of honesty In this plea they boast much in their taking the Covenant in which there is one clause for the Preservation of the Kings Person to which League one of their Chieftains brags that above 600. Ministers did subscribe To which I shall answer that if he glory in the number 600. is but a poor Bed-role in respect of 10000. for about so many Ministers are there in England But again the taking of this Covenant is no consequence of a good and loyal Subject but rather the contrary being against the Kings express command But again It is not the taking of an Oath provided it be a lawful one but the keeping of it that may demand commendations And when Subjects break Allegiance at pleasure as they are a trouble to their King and Countrey so are they wicked before God and so merit no commendation no good being entended either to King or Countrey by this knack of Perjury What benefit was it for Ataulphus Sigericus Thurismundus Theudesilus Agila and Luyba those Goths in Spain or for Friola and Sancho Kings of Leon to confide in their people and expect obedience since they were slain by their own Subjects What advantage was it for St. Wenceslaw Jaromirus and Wenceslaw the V. Dukes and Kings of Bohemia or for Gotrick and the three Eric's of Denmark to trust to the obedience which Law and Nature might assure them of since contrary to all fidelity they were murdered by their own People Those of Swedland cannot handsomly boast of their Loyalty by killing Ingevallus Eric Aorsel or Stanchil and Swercherus their Kings Nor could the Queen of the same Countrey expect Commendations by affirming her subjection and love to her King and Husband Ingemarus since she broak both by hanging him in a Gold Chain as Queen Fredegunde did hers by procuring the murder of Chilperic King of France as Fergusius III. and Malvinus Kings of Scotland were thus assassinated by their Queens Will any man quit the Treasons of Zedechias for saying that he was sworn Physitian to the Emperour or pardon Jaques Clement Jean Chastel or Francis Ravaillac if they should say Their Religion obliged them to obedience since the first poysoned Charles le Chauve the second stabbed Henry III. of France Chastel assaulted Henry IV. and the last man murdered him Would it not heighten the wickedness of Dowall the three Donalds and the two Fidlers by pleading that they were Subjects when they were so farr from observing their Allegiance that they impiously murdered their Soveraigns Nothatus Ethodius I. Findocus Fethelmacus Conranus or Goranus and Duffus Kings of Scotland and to these I may add the Assassinators of James I. of the same Nation But to return home passing by the disobedience shewn to some of our own Kings of former ages will it any way diminish the crimes of the Presbyterian Ministry with the rest of the Schismaticks if they should plead that they formerly subscribed the Articles of the Church of England but especially the 36. Canon when they took their Degrees as appears by their own hands in the two Universities a Catalogue of which might be produced to the eternal ignomy and perjury of the Brotherhood since they violently broke all their promises to the destruction of our Church and State Can any quit the long Parliament of Hypocrisie when they affirm that they all took the Protestation for the Kings Preservation and therefore wonder'd that he should think much at their actions though they were in actual rebellion against him Would it not be a pretty plea for the Kings Enemies to say Alas How could we intend any harm against him since we all took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Or can any man give any credit to the wicked Long-Parliament when they affirm that they never rejected the Common-Prayer-Book nor do intend only to alter it When the enmity of those then in the Houses against that Book both before and after is well enough known But truth in those dayes was not used to be spoken within those walls
to have been so abused or had they had ever any reall intentions of peace they would never have permitted these Roysters to have widened the breach by their perpetual prating against Treaties But both of them were well agreed against peace especially the Parliament hated a personal Treaty by all means lest any of them should be convinced of his error as a former Earl of Ormond was He was a Fryer of St. Francis Order call'd Vincent and through mis-information thought our King Henry V to have been the most wicked man in the world and so thought his Warre unjust in France but after a little discourse with the King himself he was so satisfied on the contrary that he thus bespake the Kings Army My Lords and Masters all see ye that ye do to the King your Master diligent and true service as you have till now well done For in your so doing you shall well please God This morning before I came hither I believed that the King your Maister had been the greatest Tyrant among all other Princes Christian but now I perceive the contrary for I assure you He is the most acceptable unto God of all them that be here present this day and his Quarrel is so just and true that undoubtedly God is and shall be his Aide in all these Warres And this is not much unlike the Reply of that great sufferer the Noble Marquesse of Worcester to the Maior of Bala in Merioneth-shire who came to excuse himself and Town for his Lordships bad Lodging Lord what a thing is this misunderstanding I warrant you might but the King and Parliament conserre together as you and I have done there might be as right an understanding as betwixt you and I. Some body hath told the Parliament that the King was an Enemy and their believing of him is such hath wrought all the jealousies which are come to these distractions The Parliament being now in such a case as I my self am in having green Eares over their Heads and false Ground under their Feet Had the Presbyterians been content with the concessions granted them by his Majesty farre above their desert or cause they might have enjoyed peace and liberty and the government to boot but their resolutions to have all was the cause of their losing all by the intervening of the Independents Not unlike the Clown to whom St. Bernard promis'd his Mule whereon he then rode if he could say the Lords Prayer without the interposition of any vain thoughts The fellow very glad of the bargain falls a saying Pater Noster c. but before he had said half there came an idle thought into his head whether St. Bernard would give him the Bridle and Saddle too which making him faulter and confesse the truth he lost all I shall not here trouble my self to rake up all the sedition of that Scotch fire-brand Mr. Robert Bailey but only tell you that he greatly wonders that the Reverend Lord Bishop of London-Derry should deny so grand a Presbyterian Maxime viz. That it is altogether lawfull for the Parliament to take up arms for the defence of the liberties or any other imaginable cause against any party countenanced by the Kings presence against his Laws And of all this who must be judge but themselves But I shall tell you the passages of one or two great men now alive and great Bustlers in London against our true Church Mr. George Cockain of Pancras Soperlane London whence Mr. Eccop was sequestred plundred forced to fly and his Wife and Children turn'd out of doors This Cockain held forth before the Commons and whether or no he did not presse them to murther his Sacred Majesty let any man judge by these his following words Think not to save your selves by an unrighteous saving of them who are the Lords and the peoples known enemies You may not Imagine to obtain the favour of those amongst whom you will not do justice For certainly if you act not like Gods in this particular against men truly obnoxious to justice they will be like Devils against you Observe that place 1 Kings 22. 31. compared with chap. 20. It is said in chap. 20. That the King of Syria came against Israel and by the mighty power of God he and his Army were overthrown and the King was taken Prisoner Now the mind of God was which he then discovered only by that present providence that justice should have been executed upon him but it was not whereupon the Prophet comes with Ashes on his face and waited for the King of Israel in the way where he should return and as the King passed by he cryed unto him thus saith the Lord Because thou hast let go a man whom I appointed for destruction therefore thy life shall go for his Life Now see how the King of Syria after this answers Ahab's love About three years after Israel and Syria engage in a new Warre And the King of Syria gives command unto his Souldiers that they should fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Benhadad's life was once in Ahabs hands and he ventured Gods displeasure to let him go but see how Benhadad rewards him for it Fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Honourable and worthy if God do not lead you to do justice upon those that have been the great Actors in shedding innocent blood never think to gain their love by sparing of them For they will if opportunnity be ever offerd return again upon you and then they will not fight against the poor and mean ones but against those that have been the Fountain of that Authority and Power which have been improved against them Was not this spoke in very good time viz. Just upon the breaking off the Isle of Wight-Treaty and when the Great ones were consulting about the Kings Tryall which may serve for a Comment upon the Author If you shake your head at Cockain I make no question but you will bite your nailes when you hear the plain dealing of one of their Chiefrains his words I shall give you upon the honesty and ingenuity of Mr. Roger L'estrange for I have not the Sermon by me This spruce piece of Rebellion in one of his Preachments before one of Oliver's Parliaments like a zealous Covenanter thus delivered himself Worthy Patriots You that are our Rulers in this Parliament 't is often said we live in times wherein we may be as good as we please Wherein we enjoy in purity and plenty the Ordinances of Jesus Christ Prais'd be God for this even that God who hath delivered as from the imposition of prelatical Innovations Altar-genuflections and cringings with crossings and all that Popish Trash and Trampery And truly I speak no more then what I have often thought and said The removal of these insupportable Burdens countervails for the blood and treasure shed
Heathen yet would he be as much King and have as much right to the Crown and Rule as if he were Presbyterian 'T is not the Religion of the Magistrate but that in me be what it will that I do call Religion or Conscience which obligeth my obedience to him The Roman-Catholick had as much Reason and Law for their Gun-Powder Treason as the Scotch and English Puritans for their many Rebellions and may as to themselves as much rejoyce for their delivery from the Presbyterian Tyranny as they from the others intended cruelty but in this they may both shake hands and cry quits Brother which hath made me smile as often as I hear a Disciplinarian rail against the Romanists for that wicked design since themselves have been as guilty only some difference in the method one putting their confidence in Fire and the other in the Sword The many Rebellions of these People and their resolutions never to lay down their Swords till the King would satisfie them in what they pleas'd is a sufficient manifestation of their Conditional Obedience and that they are not farther Subject to that Authority than the King is obedient to their Wills examples of which are yet fresh in every mans memory At the very beginning of their Rebellion they having declar'd those who adhear'd to the King to be Traytors and He had done the same to the Earl of Essex His Majesty unwilling to have the bloud of his Subjects shed and delighting in Peace sent to the Parliament to call in their Declarations against his Party and he would call in all his against them and their Associates and that both the Armies might be disbanded an Act of Oblivion to be pass'd and a perfect Peace compos'd And What could be more gracious then this yet this they deny Nor will they hearken to any Overtures of a Treaty with him unless he first call in all his Declarations against them Disband his Army yield himself to them and permit those who were with him to be proceeded against and suffer as Delinquents Thus will they have none of him unless he submit to them and permit his best Friends to be ruined And yet these men must think themselves so good Subjects that they deserve his Majesties thanks for their so acting and in so doing think themselves Obedient enough in all Conscience But if this be their duty I wish they would tell me what they think disobedience to be This rejecting their Soveraign is sufficient to stop the mouths of these men from railing against Pope Gregory VII call'd Hildebrand who having excommunicated the Emperour Henry IV. would not absolve him nor receive him into favour till throwing off all his Princely attire he had waited three several dayes in the coldest time of Winter bare-footed at the walls of Vercelli in Piemonte in Italy where the Pope then was to beg audience and forgiveness Phaëton had no reason to question his birth-right unless Phoebus would allow him the command of his flaming Chariot to the ruin of the Youth and a great part of the World And 't is strange Logick and impudence in our Puritans to deny themselves to be Subjects unless they command as Supream A pretty mode to trample upon Authority as if they had set for their pattern Pope Alexander III. who insteed of offering his Toe to be kist by Frederick Barbarossa set his foot upon the Emperours neck If at the beginning of the Warr they were so stubborn as not to receive their King into their favour unless he yield to their mercy and suffer his friends to be distroy'd he must expect stranger Conditions when they are heightned with bloud and villany For then must he ask them Pardon give them satisfaction and carry nothing about him but the bare Title or else he shall be none of their King To which purpose a whole Club of them having sufficiently rail'd against Hâ—m after all their lies scandals and hellish forgeries thus conclude their malice and obedience These are some few of the many reasons Why we cannot repose any more trust in him i. e. King Charles I. and have made those former resolutions yet we shall use our utmost endeavour to settle the present Government as may best stand with the Peace and Happiness of this Kingdom Here they quite renounce any more Obedience to him nay make it by Vote both of their Lords and Commons to be High-Treason for any to make any Application or Address to him And if these be good Subjects without all question 't is Treason to be obedient And what they meant by their utmost endeavours I know not only this I am certain of having thus thrown away the Father they never apply'd themselves to the Son unlesse it were the motion of some of them to proclaim him Traytor and the conclusion of them all was to send the Earl of Warwick to fight him How long before they had been resolved to renounce their King and his Government I know not yet the Earl of Loudoun then Lord Chancellor of Scotland a pretty while before this gave the King notice of their intentions telling him that Some are so afraid others so unwilling to submit themselves to your Majesties Government as they desire not you nor any of your Race longer to raign over them If your Majesty refuse to assent to the Propositions you will lose all your Friends lose the City and all the Country and all England will join against you as one man and when all hope of Reconciliation is past it is to be feard They will processe and depose you and sett up another Government They will charge us to deliver your Majesty to them and to render the Northern Garrisons and to remove our Army out of England And upon your Majesties refusing the Propositions both Kingdomes will be constrain'd to agree and settle Religion and Peace without you which will ruine your Majesty and your Posterity And if your Majesty reject our faithful advice and lose England by your wilfulnesse your Majesty will not be permitted to come and ruine Scotland And at the beginning of the same year when his Majesty from Oxford earnestly desired them that there might be a personal Treaty The Lords and Commons of the English Parliament and the Commissioners of the Scotch Parliament after they had impudently hinted at his Majesty as a most wicked person they expresly deny any such means for peace untill he had given them satisfaction and security And this was still their custome with his Majesty first must he satisfie them before they will hear any thing from him In the same year the Committee of Scotland tell his Majesty at New Castle We hope you come with intentions and full resolutions to give all just satisfaction to the joint-desires of both your Kingdomes And two daies after assure him that If your Majesty shal delay the present performing thereof we shal be necessitated for our own exoneration
Consequence and good Law Treason to warr against him I shall now shew that the Parliament and not himself was the first beginners of these late Confusions the true rise of which I must fetch higher than the Presbyterian Party will give me thanks for And as a leading Card to this Discovery we must observe that a rebellious itching humour of incroaching upon and railing against lawful Authority was the main foundation of our miseries the source of which frantick temper I must draw from Geneva whose Disciples are commonly carryed on with more violence than the furirious Rhosne upon which the City boasts her situation In this City John Calvin confirmed his Presbyterian-Discipline in the same year that Ignatius Loyola the first Founder of the Jesuites was chosen their first General in a solemn manner viz. 1541. And just a hundred years after 1641. was the famous and reverend Church of England over-run and clowded by the Calvinistical Proselytes And as these two Orders of Presbytery and Jesuitism took their rise together so have they gone hand in hand through a blind zeal not only to derogate from but extirpate all Civil Authority not conducible to their Interests And as Calvin's Presbytery at first was begot by Rebellion and Treason they expelling from Geneva their lawful Prince and Magistrate So have their Children following the foot-steps of their Parents as what is in the bone will never out of the flesh made it their business to terrifie the World with this truth that as Schism so Sedition and they are inseparable And in this they have been no way hindred by their Lord and Master John Calvin whose inconsiderate zeal in some things was such that it was so farr from sparing any that it would throw its fury at Kings and Queens Witness his irreverent expression thrown against Queen Mary calling of her Proserpine telling us that she outstrips all the Devils in Hell And in this way of Rhetorick do other of his dear sons follow him as John Knox calls the same Queen wicked Jezabel and Devil and her Rule the monstriferous Empire of a wicked Woman And another Brother viz. Anthony Gilby calls her a Monster and one wanting no will to wickedness And yet this Lady whom they so much abuse and vilifie was as our Authentick Chronicles assure us a Woman truly pious merciful and of most chast and modest behaviour and every way to be prais'd if you consider not her Errour in Religion A charracter so glorious that I fear few of our Disciplinarians dare pretend to But their only railing against Princes doth not shew half their malice for they have found out fine wayes not only to dethrone but murther their Kings by their not only approving of such wickedness but perswading thereto And this power Calvin acknowledgeth to lye in the Parliament consisting of the Three Estates in each Kingdom telling them that they are perfidious and betrayers of their Trust if they do not restrain the Enormities of Kings And with him agrees one of our English Non-conformists Dudlie Fenner and allows the King to be taken away either by Peace or Warr. And what a stiff Enemy he was to our English Church you may imagine by the Education of his two Scholars Tho. Cartwright and Walter Trevers And Robert Rollock one of the Scottish Brethren confirms this way of King-killing under the notion of Tyrants But How furiously doth John Knox his Countrey-man incite the people to Rebellion telling them that Reformation of Religion belongs as well to the Commonalty as Kings and other Magistrates And that the common people may demand of their Kings true Preachers and that others i. e. in his sense Bishops may be expell'd But if the Rulers will not then they may provide themselves which they may defend and maintain against all that shall oppose them And that they may with-hold the fruits and profits from their false Bishops and Clergy And he tells them that their Princes Rulers and Bishops are criminal of Idolatry and Innocent Bloud and Tyranny And that no person whatsoever is exempted from punishment if he can be manifestly convicted to have provoked or led the people to Idolatry And that the punishment of Idolatry Blasphemy and such like doth appertain to the people as well as others And all these incitements are because the Queen was a Roman-Catholick of which he tells the Lords that if they grant Priviledge or Liberty they shall assuredly drink the Cup of Gods Vengeance and shall be reputed before his presence Companions of Thieves and maintainers of Murtherers And that he might make them more willingly throw off all Obedience he perswades them that It is not Birth nor Propinquity of Bloud that makes a King Lawful and plainly tells them that the Rule of a Woman is unlawful And these brave Doctrines he got printed at Geneva 1558. July 14. from whence he sends them into Brittain to move the people into Rebellion From the same place doth Beza afterwards write to Knox then in Scotland to perswade him to extirpate Episcopacy though the being of it might cause Peace and Unity And of this mind was his Patron John Calvin who profest that he could not Exercise the Office of a Minister unless the Presbyterian Government was confirmed and setled in Geneva From this City did Beza write into England to perswade them from all Formalities and Ceremonies used in our Church and from this place sprang all our Troubles about Non-conformity All this which hath been said as the Opinion of private men was publickly concluded on as Orthodox in Scotland if you will give credit to one of their chief Patrons Buchanan one who hath done an irreparable mischief to Princes by his villainous and wretched Book De Jure Regni apud Scotos a poysonous Well from whence the Long-Parliament and our late Common-wealths-men have drawn most of their Pleas and Arguments And is no small demonstration of the Authours Impudence to dedicate it to King James too good a Master for such a wretched Servant Nor was these things any way denyed in the same Nation of late dayes when 1638. August 27. it was ordered That the ablest man in each Parish should be provided to dispute of the King's Power in calling Assemblies and what they meant by this is no hard matter to discern considering that not only they had the moneth before maintained the power of Convocating to lye in themselves but also the same year had actively derided at the King's Authority and the next year bid him Battle And how little many of their Presbyters have since mended their manners may appear by that impudent piece of Non-sense Malice and Treason spoken by one of their Grandees Mr. Robert Duglas at our King's Coronation in Scotland and by him call'd a Sermon but how unbefitting that name as we now take the word to signifie is appropriated let any that dare call
and faithful men Thus might the King and People expect aboundance of Loyalty from this Army composed of Independents Levellers and such like Enthusiasts people of different ends in their private respects but all agreeing in the destruction of his Majesty Notwithstanding to make themselves favorites with the people they can protest that it is their desire that a firm peace in the Kingdome may be setled according to the Declarations by which they were invited and induced to ingage in the late war And that you might see what zealots they were for the honour safety and right of the King You shall have their own words We shall be as ready also to assure unto the King his just rights and authority as any that pretend it never so much All this is very good nor doth that which follows in another of their Papers bear less honesty viz. We desire the same i. e. right and just freedome for the King and others of his party And me do clearly profess we do not see how there can be any peace to this Kingdome firm or lasting without a due consideration of provision for the rights qutet and immunity of his Majesty his Royal Family and his late Partakers And this was subscrib'd to by Cromwell Hamond Ireton Sir Hardr. Waller Fleetwood Lambert Rich Lilborne Okey Hewson Scroop Harrison Barkstead Horton Pride Deane Cobbet Ewers Goffe and several others But how much their hearts differ'd from their mouths and hands may be known both by their former and after actions Thus like the Satyre in the Fable they breath'd as they pleas'd so that advantage came by it and 't is a bad wind bloweth no body any good After this manner in 1647. did they play fast and loose nor was the fashion alter'd in 48. In which two years was more Paper spoil'd betwixt Parliament and Army then hath been amongst the Turks since the first beginning of that Empire So lavish was the first as if they had intended to tear the Nation into rags for their supplies and so frugal the others who take more care for the preservation of Paper then the Parliament or Army did of their Consciences By this time and means these two parties endeavouring to discover one another's nakedness the good people began to perceive the knavery of them both and as with one voice murmur'd against their Tyranny and so indeavour'd what in them poor broken and harrass'd people lay to free themselves from such yoaks of slavery for which purpose the Prentises rise up in London though their Triumph was not long their timerous and self-ended Masters onely looking on though it may be some of them wish'd well Barwick was also surprised by the Loyal and Valiant Sir Mar. Langdale And Carltle by the truly Noble Sir Phil. Musgrave and Sir Tho. Glenham The same moneth the people of Saint Edmonds-bury rise up And those of Kent draw themselves to a considerable body A great part of the Navy revolts And the next week Pontfract Castle in Yorkshire was surprised by Col. Morris who was afterwards unhumanely butcher'd at York as Judge Puliston well remembers And the Scots under Duke Hamilton with a great Army enter England Whilst Argile Casels and other Kirkers in opposition mounts several thousands tatterdemallions upon the Craigs of Lieth near Edinbourgh valiantly to fight Munro waiting for them three miles off on plain ground but alas the Burrow moor where the Gallows stands was betwixt and Argile loved not to turn his face either that way-wards or against an enemy for there were no boats near The Messengers of this bad news one on the neck of another struck terror into the Parliament who perceiving now such an universal clamour for the Restauration of his Majesty that the condition of themselves if the people were not pacified seem'd desperate such an odium had their selvish actions pull'd upon them Whereupon something to please the people by making of them believe that their affections were also high towards his Majesty they null'd their former votes of no more Addresses to the King But this policy of theirs favour'd them not long for the Army having quash'd all these Royal insurrections grew so imperious that they look'd upon the Houses but as a Junta bound to satisfie their desires and accordingly began to act high which the Members perceiving thought it would befriend them more with the Nation to agree with his Majesty then to lye under the lash of every Schismatical though in this something related to themselves Trouper For which purpose they commence a Treaty in the Isle of Wight with his Majesty But this design of theirs was soon broken off by the self-denying for so they would be call'd Army who complain'd that the Houses intended to leave them in the Lurch by making peace with the King without comprehending them in it whereby they might lye under the censure of King and Parliament For which trick they accuse several of the Members and march up to London with an intention to shackle the two Houses which the Parliament perceiving and thereby their own ruin if not speedily prevented Vote the Kings Concessions to their Proposals lawful to make a firm peace upon Hoping by this means that not onely the Royalists but that the Presbyterians also would assist them against this Independent Army Though 't is no thanks to them upon such a pinch and their owne interest to make peace with his Majesty for if they had not been utter enemies to him they might have done it sooner and then their courtesie or rather Royalty had been double But now cry you mercy horse they would treat with the King not to save him but themselves So that for all the boasts of these Braggadocio's of their endeavours to preserve the King's person I shall easily be perswaded to believe that their intentions were as real and to as smal purpose as the Statue of Henry the great to defend the Parisians from robbing upon Pont Neuf Nor could any more be expected from them a true Royalist being as rare amongst them as a Virgin at sixteen in Marolle a village in France But now 't is too late for the Parliament to comply with the King the Army being resolved not to be govern'd by either of them considering what they might suffer as May himself confesseth if he should come to Raign again and for this jealousie the Nation may thank Cromwell and Ireton And the Army thus resolved the next day seise upon the major part of the Members whom they imprison suffering none to Vote but those who would dance after their Pipe Thus may some men better steal a horse then others look on Hasterig and Tate Knights for Leicestershire may without any fear disobey the Parliament in not returning when they sent for him But if the King deny them any thing then shall you hear a great clamour of the breaking of Priviledges of Parliament and nothing
a God-Mother And thus did they also baptise a Pig and were so farre from repenting at these villanies that they boasted they had done the same in many other places This unheard of impiety would make Martinus de Olave dumb with astonishment when many years ago he bitterly exclaimed against those who turn'd out the Reverend Divines and kept the Church only to be stables for horses and such like Beasts Nor did Westminster under the very nose of the Parliament escape scot-free The souldiers breaking down the Organs pawning the pipes of them for Ale eating drinking smoaking Tobacco at the Communion Table and easing themselves in most parts of the Church Nor was this all but keeping their whores in the Church and lying with them upon the very Altar it self if you will believe the learned Author of Mercurius rusticus who will inform you more at large concerning some of the fore-mentioned passages And here I shall not speak of the wicked selling of Church-lands by the Parliament who had no authority to do so And this is the happy Reformation begun and intended by the wicked long-Parliament a pack of such impious Varlets that they were forced to call themselves Saints because their neighbours could not Yet for all their Saint-ship several of their Members were not only instigators but high Actors of this Sacriledge who though not here named yet I suppose are as conscious to themselves as a great Lord was when the word Sectary was spoken by Arch-Bishop Land Nor were the Members altogether devested of Sacriledge when they acted and voted so furiously against the King Church and good of the Nation in their house which was formerly St. Stephens Chappel And how well many of them have feather'd their nests in Bishops lands is not unknown But goods thus got as the Proverb saith will never prosper Of which none of the least examples is King Henry the eighth who although besides the vast summe of Abby Lands and the 5100000 l. left him by his father in ready mony received more from his Subjects by loans taxes and subsidies then all the Kings of England had in 500 years before yet what King was ever prest with so much poverty all things considered as he was who about the 36 year of his raign as one observes of all the Kings of England was forced to coyn not only base Tinne and Copper but leather monies And it is observed as the same Author saith since the accession of Abbies and Impropriations to the Crown even the Crown-lands which formerly have been thought sufficient to support the ordinary charge of the Crown are since so wasted though I hope the Loyalty of our Parliaments will augment them that they will scarce defray the ordinary charge of the Kings houshold Nor hath it happened otherwise with our wicked long-Long-Parliament and their sacrilegious adherents who could never keep their accounts straight for though in the heat of the warre they demanded not much above 50000 l. a month to carry on their designes yet in time of peace they could not observe just scores though they had 90000 l. 100000 l. per mensem and sold all the Kings and Bishops and such like lands which amounted to a vast summe besides taxes excise customes and such like commings in Nor was this all but they had the composition moneys of those they call'd Delinquents which consisted of many thousand Loyal Subjects and to what a vast summe this came to may somewhat be collected from this If ten thousand men at two hundred pounds per annum pay two years for Composition for so the ordinance appointed which amounts to two Millions to what an incredible summe will it amount when several of the Compounders estates were 2 4 6 8 10. and some above thousand pounds a year But if this summe was great what was the Decimation Sequestration and such like knacks of procuring monyes And yet poverty still pleaded so that their Armies and Navies could not be paid till our Gracious Majesty did it for them who though they hoorded up much monies and lands to themselves yet the ever blessed divine Providence hath now brought them to give an account to the Loyall Royall and Rightful owners And such or a worse Exit let there alwaies fall upon all sacrilegious persons To whom as man hath appointed severe judgments so will not the all seeing and ever-just Almighty be backward in requiting such prefidious and sacrilegious villains according to their iniquity who I hope will swallow down the Ophiusian herb as fast as the Church patrimony that the dread or terrour of their consciences shall either force them to restore the unjustly detain'd Lands and riches or Hoyl-like to swing their own requiem for the better example and terror of posterity CHAP. VI. That some through ignorance and a credulous disposition prompting them to embrace their specious Pretences might be charmed to side with the Parliament though really they designed no damage either to the King's Person nor Authority TO vindicate Rebellion as hath been the unhappy mode of late is the worst office that can be done to a Nation yet to make all it's partakers of equal guilt will be a token of no great share of charity I am apt to believe that hitherto there hath never been any war but some men as well of honest intentions as others knavishly-designed have been of both sides It is not all men that rightly understand the frame by which they are govern'd either the Prerogative of the Supream or their own Priviledges and it is but few can see into the contriving hearts of their neighbours A harmless woman may be deceived into the reality of the Actors at the Hostel de Bourgogue in Paris or an English Play-house and 't is no difficult thing under the specious vail of Religion and Common good to make many people believe that actions which are really the most wicked tend to the best like the Physician in the Fable who made his Patient think that every Temper he was in was still for his health By these insinuations increaseth the number of Hereticks and Rebels many being rather misled then acting out of design being not so much used for any benefit to themselves as ignorant instruments to promote their flattering Grandees to the desired Haven of Supremacy and this once obtain'd are either thrown by as Day-labourers when the work is done as needless and impertinent or as ingratefully rewarded as Trebellius King of Bulgaria was by the most unfortunate Emperour Justinian the second As I shew'd before that the pretended squeamish stomacks of the Non-conformists were as Peter the Hermit the first Trumpet to sound Alarum to this supposed holy war setting the Lecturers up to teach Non-conformity schism and disobedience the forerunners of Rebellion so were the tongues and pens of this Novel Covenanting fraternity the main instruments that infused disloyalty into the peoples hearts which the Parliament did not
onely approve of but also protect thereby gaining infinite Proselytes as the Devil in the Northern Coasts doth his subjects by making them invulnerable And these they feed up and nourish with strange fears more fantastical then Lazarellos when he thought the dead man would be carried to his Master's house strongly fomented and agitated by unheard of Plots set a foot to destroy Religion and Nation like the Roterdam-ship which would kill the English under water and all this upon worsegrounds and reasons then the influence of a Talisman Though nothing was more false and impudent then these pretended dangers yet what by the authority and countenance of those Grandees who patronized such rumours and what by the power which the Tubthumping boute-feus had over the peoples inclinations and judgments whereby the Pulpit became the worst thing in the Nation many had not onely a bad opinion of the King but thought very well of the Parliament who in all their actions were far more sedulous then his Majesty but most of all as a hindg upon which themselves and designs hung in sending forth their papers to abuse the people by making the King's actions odious and their own for the best And of this they took special care not onely by appointing a Committee to consider of the most convenient way to disperse them and to give an allowance to their Messengers but also by taking care by Order that every Petty Constable or Tythingman throughout England shall have one of every one of their Orders Declarations c. and to read them publickly to their neighbours And how these flattering papers might work in the Country where they commonly believe all that is in Print is easily to be imagined considering that most of them heard but the reasons of one Party the Parliament taking a special care by Declaration that nothing which came from the King should be received or permitted to be read Whilst the Parliamentarian-papers flew plentiful about the Nation swoln with big praises of their worships the better to captivate the ignoranâ— people to their Lure who are naturally of themselves apt to gape after any novelty or change especially when any gain is like to be had by it as there was in this undertaking they knowing that Plundering would be permitted them and the Parliament assuring them that if they received any damage it should be repai'd them out of the estates of their enemies By these ways the Country was droled into an high conceit of the Parliament and nothing stuck with those of the more wise and honest sort but the word Treason which they knew they should incur by assisting the Parliament against the King But this doubt was presently wipt away in the opinion of many by the Parliaments distinction betwixt the Person and Office of a King as also by their daily protestations at the beginning of the Wars That they fought not against the King but against his wicked Council Of which Protestations in 1642. I shall give you a tast whereby you may the better distinguish between their tongues and hearts And first we shall give you the Vote by which the Army was first order'd to be rais'd which was thus Resolved upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised King's Person defence of both houses of Parliament and those who have obey'd their Orders and Commands and preserving of the true Religion the Laws Liberty and Peace of the Kingdome And to confirm the people in their intentions for the preservation of the King they thus profess and protest House of Commons your Loyal Subjects who are ready to lay down their lives and fortunes and spend the last drop of their bloud to maintain your Crown and Royal Person and greatness and glory And they pray your Majesty to rest assured that they will always be tender of your Honour and Reputation with your good Subjects We seek nothing but your Majesties Honour and Peace and the Prosperity of your Kingdomes Their earnest intentions and endeavours to advance your Majesties Service Honour and Contentment c. Do resolve to preserve and govern the Kingdome by the Counsel and Advice of the Parliament for your Majesty and your Posterity according to our Allegiance and the Law of the Land As if there could be a greater care in them the King's friends at York of his Majesties Royal Person then in his Parliament The services which we have been desirous to perform to our Soveraign Lord the King and to his Church and State in proceeding for the publick peace and prosperity of his Majesty and all his Realmes Within the presence of the same all-seeing Diety we Protest to have been and still to be the enely end of all our counsels and endeavours wherein we have Resolved to continue freed and enlarged from all private aimes personal respects or passion whatsoever Who in all their Counsels and Actions have proposed no other end unto themselves but the care of the Kingdomes and the performance of all Duty and Loyalty to his Person Your Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having nothing in their thoughts and desires more precious and of higher esteem next to the honour and immediate service of God then the just and faithful performance of their duty to your Majesty and this Kingdome We the Lords and Commons are resolved to expose our lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of true Religion the King's Person Honour and Estate Will really endeavour to make both his Majesty and Posterity as great rich and potent as much beloved at home and feared abroad as any Prince that ever sway'd this Scepter which is their firm and constant Resolution And you shall declare unto all men that it hath been and still shall be the care and endeavour of both Houses of Parliament to provide for his Majesties safety Concerning the Allegations that the Army rais'd by the Parliament is to Murther and depose the King we hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that profest but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a scandal especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every Member of both Houses whereby they promise in the Presence of Almighty God to defend his Majesties Person The Promise and Protestation made by the Members of both Houses upon the nomination of the Earl of Essex to be General and to live and dye with him wherein is exprest that the Army was rais'd for the Defence of the King's Person And we have always desired from our hearts and souls manifested in our Actions and in many humble Petitions and Remonstrances to his Majesty profest our Loyalty and Obedience to his Crown readiness and resolution to defend his person and support his Estate with our lives and fortunes to the uttermost of our power We
call God to witness that though our quarrel be against the Malignant party for his Majesties sake yet not in that sense as is here affirmed but out of our Loyalty and affection to his Majesty Shall not the frequent protestations of both Houses of Parliament for his Majesties security to the utmost power that the Law can give to them or they unto the Law be sufficient to take away the pretence of danger to his Majesties Person To think they i. e. the Militia or Army would have followed us in any Act of dis-loyalty against his Majesty if we should have been so wicked as to have had them to do it Thus you see what glorious protestatious are here for the preservation of the King which I dare boldly say did ingage many honest men to joyn with the Parliament really dreaming that those men who have thus so solemnly vow'd before the Almighty to preserve the King and Laws must be men of publick honest spirits and not to be drawn though by chains of gold the wealth of Peru or East-Indies to the magnifying of their own Interest and the relinquishing of that publick Good to which they have tyed themselves by so many oaths And after the same manner did the City of London declare themselves by Petition Yet let their Promises Vows or Protestations be never so many a French Poet sings not amiss S'il promen s'il rit de sa promesse faile C'est qu'il en jure en Amant ou qu'il parle en Poëte He that doth swear and ne're means to do it Swears like a Lover or sings like a Poet. And really if experience may be a rule 't is more then probable that many of the Members had learn'd the Jesuit's rule by them call'd The Direction of the Intention whereby you may do any wickness if you propose to your self a good intent And after this manner hath our former Rebels blanch'd over their designs Wat Tyler and his Companions pretended onely to act against King Richards the seconds evil Counsel but if they had once got to have been Masters their intentions were to have kill'd the King and Nobility Jack Cade and his rabble under the colour of holy and good intents rais'd a Rebellion against King Henry the sixth and what iniquities such rubbish of humanity would have acted if they had been Masters is not known The Cornish rusticks under the notion to deliver King Henry the seventh from evil Council rais'd a Rebellion And the subtile Fox in Chaucer profest he onely came to hear the Cock sing but when by that craft he had once got hold of him the case and story was alter'd And after this deceitful manner acted the Parliament if you will give any credit to one of the King 's greatest enemies who thus informs us So powerful perswasive and contentful were their first Engagements Papers and Remonstances so fraught with self-denying doctrines tender regard to the peace of the Nation and satisfaction to all Interests as even lull'd all peaceable people into a sound sleep of security casting all the care upon the General Council of the Army as upon a people they thought could never have the face to decline either these principles or to neglect the performance of so many Engagements Promises and Protestations made as in the presence of the All-seeing God frequently calling upon him the searcher of all hearts to bear witness to their integrity and sincerity therein Insomuch that we who always with some wissness observed them many times denied our own understandings rather then we would draw hasty conclusions from evident testimonies of their defection And this principle of believing but especially their publick multiplyed affections for the preservation of the King were the motions which led Major General Massey to joyn himself to the Parliament as himself declareth and that they led many others is more then probable We see by experience that Religion is rooted into some men not so much by good and true reason as by birth and education the which if after they change is as oft for the worse as the contrary 'T is custome and fashion that over-powers or rather overthrows the rationality of all men The Indian women of Tiembas have always torn and bloody faces by which lacerating they judge themselves most beautiful The Goths gloried in a tall corpulent King on the contrary the Saracens liked none unless he were little and lean Custome hath made it as natural to a Brittish Presbyterian as it is to all Schismaticks to babble up sedition as to the Spaniard to court gravity whilst their neighbouring French affect an active airyness The Teneriff or Pico shall sooner shrink to Mole-hills the name of the Escurial be forgot and the great Tun at Heidleburgh fill'd with Renish-wine but a mornings draught to a Pigmie then a Non-conformist cease from being disobedient or our Disciplinarians as if they had been stuft with a Biscayners ignorance and spirit from hating and persecuing our lawful government of Bishops and how sedulous and crafty they have been to inveagle themselves into other mens affections is not unknown Many who take exception at Government can produce no other reason for their dissent but because others do so too so that to sin with company is thought by them rather a glory then shame If a great man take distast at Majesty he is confident to have most of his Relations and Servants of his opinion being apt to run as blindly into their Master's quarrel as their own ruin Nor is it a difficult thing among such variety of humours to entise some into the greatest wickedness some mens malice so far overclouding their reason that like Le Faucheur and Chauvinus they destroy those spectacles which should give them a sight and knowledge of truth and reality of the business by the malignity and wicked humours of their eyes and spirits Other men though their Grandeur of estate or affection with the people may after espouse them to be ring-leaders of the rabble yet at first were rather entised themselves then they the instruments of others wickedness Juam de Padilla's fault was that he was young good natur'd and so easily wrought upon by his haughty wife Donna Maria Pacheco to rebel against Charles the fifth And many others have been led the same way 'T is observed that Dod Pedro Lasso's sweet disposition love to justice and publick good engaged him in the same quarrel being noted for one clearly without malice but by the Inhabitants of Toledo hug'd into Treason and what influence great Cities have upon the people London knoweth too too well Many men through the hatred of some other person by way of Revenge and what more sweet and inticing may be drawn into Factions and so to espouse a bad quarrel to work their malice upon private enemies as the Venavides and Caravajales two noble familes in Castile or the Feuds antiently in
Army and all this forsooth against the Cause of God the souls of his true Saints the peace of the Directory and the happiness of the Elect the true children of Grace the poor people gaping all the while really believing no Devils to be in the World but Cavaliers not a word proceeding from the lying Throats of these Pulpiteers but fill'd the soft-brain'd Auditors with more indignation against the King and his Cause than our Women are against Popery at the sight of a flaming Picture in the Book of Martyrs All their prittle-prattle was to shew the goodness of their Cause and I wish some of the Presbyterian Churches beyond-Seas were not too much complying in this the abominable wickedness of the Kings Party and to perswade their friends never to make peace with such Malignants Of which I shall afford you two or three Instances Mr. Herbert Palmer of Ashwell in Hertfordshire made a long-winded tittle-tattle stuft with Rebellion and Sedition before the House of Commons at the latter end of which he finds out a pretty device to have all the Cavaliers throats cut and all this to be justified by Inspiration from God Almighty I humbly entreat you to ask Gods Consent first whether he will spare such or such or pardon them and if he will not you must not Probably this Politician was very well acquainted with the subtle Robber of old time who made the Countrey-Parson pray for Riches and upon that account took all his Gold from him Or it may be Oliver used this Art to murder his Majesty for we are told that he said he pray'd to know Gods mind in that case and he took the Answer Affirmatively Thus our Red-Coats of Wallingford-House after they had concluded upon any mischief would for a blind to the People appoint a Day of Humiliation to enquire of God what should be done though they were before resolved that all the Prayers in the World should not alter their fore-going Determination Whence it came to be a vulgar and true Observation That whensoever those Saints had a Fast they were then broaching some mischief or other To be short the greatest wickedness in the World may be perpetrated by this Rule of Palmer's and so Religion prove but a piece of Policy yet was it very fitting for the Parliaments actions which I suppose was the cause that they ordered Sir Oliver Luke to give him thanks for his Seditious Preachment and to desire him to print it the better to infect the People Another of these Bawlers seldom thought of a Bishop or the Kings Party but with Indignation and this must be Mr. Thomas Coleman formerly of Blyton in Lincolnshire but since by the Schismaticks was put into St. Peters Cornhill London from which they had not only wickedly Sequestred Dr. Fairfax but Plunder'd and Imprison'd him in Ely-House and in the Ships and turn'd his Wife and Children out of doors But to return to Coleman who in one of his Sermons thus rants against the Church of England and violently perswades the Parliament to execute severe justice upon her Children Our Cathedrals in great part of late become the Nest of Idle Drones and the roosting place of Superstitious Formallists Our Formallists and Government in the whole Hierarchy is become a fretting Gangrene a spreading Leprosie an unsupportable Tyranny Up with it up with it to the bottom Root and Branch Hip and Thigh Destroy these Amalekites and let their place be no more found Throw away the Rubs out with the Lords Enemies and the Lands Vex the Midianites abolish the Amalekites or else they will vex you with their wiles as they have done heretofore Let Popery find no favour because it is Treasonable Prelacy as little because it is Tyrannical This was rare stuff for the Blades at Westminster and pleas'd admirable well and therefore they strait order Sir Edward Aiscough and Sir John Wray to give the Zealot hearty thanks for his good directions and to desire him by all means to print it which accordingly he did and in requital of thanks Dedicates his fury to their Worships where he fals to his old Trade again very pretily by his Art of Rhetorick calling the Kings Army Partakers with Atheists Infidels Papists c. That it hath Popish Masses superstitious Worships cold Forms in the Service of God That it is stored with Popish Priests That it Persecutes Godly Ministers painful Preachers That it doth harbour all our drunken debauched Clergy our Idle Non-Preaching dumb Ministry our Ambitious Tyrannical Prelacy and the sinck and dregs of the Times the receptacle of the filth of the present and former Ages our spiritual-Courts-men This mans rayling pleas'd the Commons so well that they could think no man fitter to prate when their wicked League and Covenant was taken than He which accordingly he did to the purpose tickling their filthy Ears with the same strains of malice Impudently affirming That none but an Atheist Papist Oppressour Rebel or the guilty desperate Cavaliers and light and empty men can refuse the Covenant and so concludes with a reflection upon the Kings Party as Idolaters And for this stuff Colonel Long must be Ordered to give him thanks from the House Another of these Parliamentary Furies Mr. Arth. Salwey of Severnstoak in Worcestershire thus desires them to destroy the Kings friends Follow God I beseech you in the speedy and impartial Execution of Justice The hearts of your true Friends are grieved that so many Delinquents are in Prison and yet but very few of them brought to their Tryal When Elijah had done execution upon Baals Priests there was rain enough 1 King 18. 40 41. Who knows how soon the Lord may bless us with an holy Peace and blessed Reformation if Justice were more fully executed And this man must have thanks sent him too from the Parliament by Mr. Rouse Another of their Thumpers viz. Mr. George Walker of St. John Evangelists London thus stirs up execution against Malignants Cut them down with the Sword of Justice Root them out and consume them as with fire that no root may spring again let their mischief fall upon their own Heads that the land may be eas'd which hath a long time and doth still groan under them as an heavy curse And was not this a fit Sermon to be preacht just the day before the Treaty at Uxbridge and then to be printed too by the Presbyterian Authority Could these men desire peace that thus countenanced men to rail against their betters with whom they were to Treat But this is short of Mr. Love's malice let one of their witts sing out his Commendations as he pleaseth he at the very day of the Treaty must needs thunder it at the place it self perswading the people by all means not to treat with the Royalists as I have in part before insisted on but besides that which I told you then he could thus also animate his friends
the rest to follow and what effect it took is not ignorant to any who remember the Glorious and almost Almighty profane Titles thrown upon him by such Proselytes Thus have I heard and read of a Great man who made Books in his own Fame and Vindication in these late Wars and put them forth in other mens names as some suppose Annius threw his Labours upon Chaldaick Authors And somewhat to this a Writer prompts us to this Quaere Whether the Petition of July 1659. was penn'd by the Parliament and address'd to the Parliament and so the Parliament gave the Parliament thanks However this is more than probable That those who delivered the Hartfordshire Petition at the beginning of these Wars abused all the simple Subscribers the Petition that was deliver'd taking notice of several things done in Parliament the very night before its delivery in which time it was impossible to get so many Thousand hands and then travel to London on that Errand of which abuses the King himself took special notice unless their Messengers had been as swift as the Spirit Orthon-Mercury to Corasse and the Count de Foix or those who carryed the Noble Lombard from Egypt to Pavia in one night III. But because a meer Exercising of their Religion was not sufficient unless they might have Publick places for such duties they earnestly desire and Petition that they might have but one Church or two allotted them for such Publick Duties thereby to appear as the face of a Congregation All things at first have but a small beginning Those who endeavour the hopes of their Towring Expectations at the first on-set may like Phaeton bring a ruin to themselves and designs which the Independents knew well enough and so desired as the case then stood rather to grow up by degrees than by too hasty swelling to burst with the Toad to their own Confusion What Petitions have been pressed to the Parliament by self-ended Schismaticks to have places allotted them for Preachments is troublesome to remember at this time yet Mr. Edwards informs us of divers drawn up twenty years ago for a Toleration of some Congregations to enjoy an Independent Government and to be exempted from that which should be establisht by Law And some two years after this 1643. the Independents in their Apologetical Narrative presented to the Parliament shew'd themselves so humble that they might thereby gain Pity and Toleration that they concluded that they pursued no other Interest or Design but a Subsistence be it the poorest and meanest in their own Land c. But how well this self-denying desire agreed with their after usurping Incroachments is known well enough Phil. Nye and Tom. Goodwin the main contrivers of this Petition stealing to themselves the best Preferments in the Nation and the richest Indowments both in University and Countrey being divided amongst the rest so that the Proverb was now verified Give an Inch and take an Ell. IV. The Calvinists having now got liberty to exercise their faculty in Preaching and that publickly so that that they seem'd to keep equal pace with the Lutherans an Edict as if only for quietness sake was publisht that neither Party should cast aspersions upon one another Which at length proved no small lift to throw the Lutherans first out of favour and then their places for then they durst not contradict the Calvinists who were now Favourites and by consequence might with some liberty throw dirt in their Antagonists faces Besides this degrading of the Lutherans was a sufficient disgrace to them amongst the Vulgar who are commonly so politick as to side with the strongest party so they rest secure as experience hath told us at home King James in his Directions concerning Preachers strictly prohibited them from using any bitter invectives or undecent railing speeches But this was not long observed in King Charles his raign for what could not handsomly be acted in the Pulpit was in the Press though at last the former was not a little abused by scolding Burton and such like hot-headed Cushion-thumpers and Paper grew scant with the swarms of Invective Pamphlets against both Church and State Than which scandalous Libels nothing brings more detriment to a Nation as a French States-man observeth They drawing like Orpheus the brutish Vulgar a thing most capable of Sedition to dance after whatsoever they are tuned to especially if skrew'd up to the hopes of high preferment A design most wicked as being composed of horrid juggling really intending one way though they seem to carry fair for another the pretence pointing at the Reformation of when the effect brings destruction to the Kingdom By this means the Parliament and Presbyterian got applause from the people who are apt to believe and remember falshood more than truth whereby the number and confidence of their Proselytes increast to such an height that they were able to maintain and vindicate their Pamphleteers with a strong hand though not by Reason and Law So that it was more than a common danger to write any thing though truth against the Parliament but to vilifie the King was no small hopes of preferment and credit as appears by the multitude of Pamphlets and the licensed Gazets weekly flying about in 1648. where Tyranny Hypocrisie Perfidiousness were commonly attributed to his Majesty When as the Ingenuous Mr. Walker must end his dayes in the Tower for telling true tales abroad But when a great part of the Parliament it self must be look'd upon as rotten Members for adhering to the King and the rest of them shackled for demanding their priviledges and freedom 1648. which they had so long pretended to fight for What punishment might poor people expect for presuming to pry into such Great-mens Errors If a whole Army will undertake to vindicate the words and wishes of Symbal Wade and White whereby the Murther of his Majesty was desired that man can expect no great incouragement who endeavours lay to open the Villanies of such Sectaries V. Then as if to give some content a Disputation was held but a Calvinist appointed Moderator who was afterwards made Professor 'T is nothing here to my purpose to discourse whether these Polemical Exercises upon a publick account brought either Satisfaction to the Auditors or Tranquillity to the Nation and few are like that betwixt the two Reynolds's where both conquer'd both turn'd and yielded I shall therefore let that rest since the thing self as yet is sub judice The subtile Calvinists in Germany will make themselves Moderators in their own Cause and their Brethren in England must either be Umpire betwixt the King and themselves or else all the fat is in the fire and God knows what unheard of Priviledges lost When the King at their desire upon hopes of Peace yields to call in all his Proclamations against them and Essex as Traytors if they would take off Malignancy from his followers they would not yield to Overtures
of Reconciliation upon that Condition taking themselves to be Supream forsooth and so the King obliged to pardon them but not they him or his If the King and Countrey have any desire of Peace his Propositions are neglected he being tyed either to hearken and consent to their malapert Proposals or trust to the misery of War or utterly thrown by as unworthy any more Addresses Must the Reverend and Ancient Church-government be violently pluckt down though the Bill with that concerning the Militia several times rejected by the Peers and some other up-start Invention plodded out to instruct Boyes in the mode of pratling then where must we hunt for this pretty young thing but in Scotland And who must be the Masters of the Game but a crew of domineering Zealots thrust up into a Rebellious Authority And for a small piece of Formality was jumbled up a pack of stiff Presbyterians under the Title of an Assembly dapled here and there with Independency and Anabaptism and a little to allay the censures of some people two or three were added to them of good Learning and Principles though quickly jugled out thence and other preferments as the Reverend Dr. Featly to make way for some sweet-soul'd Myrmidon And what these praepossest-Teachers constitute concerning a praejudged Government must be confirm'd by their Task-Masters the Parliament as if perform'd by a grave and learned Convocation of Divines Must his Majesty or any of his true Subjects be tryed for their lives and martyred None must be their Judges but those who are his and their mortal Enemies and bring with them a Sentence resolved upon long before the Tryal nor are the Prisoners permitted to question any of them though the Laws grant liberty to the errantest Rogue in England to except against 35. Jury-men without shewing any reason why If the Royal Family of the Stuarts be exstirpated Kingship Voted and Enacted unnecessary burthensom and dangerous and an ancient flourishing Monarchy sprouted into a many-headed Common-wealth None more fit to be the contrivers of this Confusion than those who acted not for a publick Benefit but a private Interest having run so far into Rebellion that self-preservation prompted them to be Judges as was a party in our domestick broyls it being not solid reason but because they were Moderators which changed the frame And if the Reverend Clergy must be outed their Livings then none must be their Tryers or Examiners but those Juglers of Peter's and Nye's Fraternity a sort of frantick people sworn Enemies to all Learning and Church-government and therefore the more fit to pass judgement against the other as Antagonists Thus like the Calvinists must we be Judges in our own Cause and that in things against all Law and then we are certain to remain Conquerers VI. When the People of Hildelberg who were neither satisfied with these new Teachers or Plots did Petition that the Lutheran Preachers might be setled and restored again amongst them no notice is taken of any such thing by the Superiours and so no satisfactory Answer hapned to their desires But rather on the contrary those Ministers in whose favour the people petitioned were frowned upon and censured as too hasty furious and heady Answerable to the Palatinate hath the affairs in England been carryed on all our Petitions working small effect unless scribled according to Parliamentary Interest The several Petitions from the two Universities and most Counties of the Nation at the beginning of these Wars in the behalf of Episcopacy Liturgy Church-Revenues and suppression of Schismaticks prevailed nothing with the Parliament though subscribed by the chief Nobility and Gentry in the Kingdom Nor had that of Worcestershire about 10. years after in the behalf of an able Ministry and the Universities any better luck only obtaining the formality of thanks from the Speakers mouth and after this fashion hath been the exit of others And yet with what alacrity and cheerfulness did the same men receive that Impudent Petition taken notice of by the King of a company of beggarly Rascals in London who desired that the Lords and Commons might be jumbled into one House that they might subdue the pride of the King of all which if they had not a speedy remedy they would take the cure into their own hands and destroy the disturbers of the Peace These frantick demands were pleasant to the Commons because agreeable to their desires if not set on foot by themselves the which is something probable because they owned it so farr as to present it to the Lords However it must be granted some favour that the People are permitted to present their desires though the Army themselves profest that it was the undoubted right of the People to Petition as in truth it is yet afterwards they denyed the same liberty to the London Prentises knowing their desires to be more for the Publick benefit than the Armies satisfaction so that Mr. Wharton sung not amiss when thus Petitioning the Birth-right of the Saints VII After all these Revolutions nothing appearing to harbour any signs of Tumult the people perceiving no harm done to themselves little regarded the concerns of the Church though it and the State should suffer reciprocally the Lutherans were outed of their Parochial Churches and Benefices all being delivered to the Calvinists The traceing of this Observation is not unknown to any that hath heard of a Persecution How many famous Divines were sequestred and thrust from their Livings in these unnatural Wars London should lament the expulsion of so many learned men from her and the supplying of their Places by a Band of hot-braind long-winded and Schismatical Presbyterians And as if this were not enough Oliver must add to their afflictions by one Order forbidding them to Preach or Teach School as if like the Italian he gloryed not only to kill their Bodies but Souls also And all this done because prompted by their stedfast and sure Consciences they would not swallow like our Temporizers Contradictory Oaths Whereby I may well raise this Quaere Whether those who after they have with much consideration once made a lawful Vow will keep it or those who as the Tyde serves will swear point-blanck one Oath against another rather than be kept from the shoar of Preferment or thrown from that which they have unlawfully got are most godly and honest To all these who have been put out of their Places by shew of Publick Command I might add these who were kept back by the sear'd Consciences of their ignorant and malicious Examiners a sort of people not so much fearing God and hating Covetousness if Mr. Sadler may have credit whither I referr you for satisfaction VIII The Scholars of the University who were Lutherans if they would not turn Calvinists were turned out and the Calvinists put into their places The Parallel of this is too palpable to discourse much of Oxford will never forget the Lord Pembroke's Visitation nor Cambridge that
Long-Parliament I. Whether or no if the King and two Estates can extirpate the third then the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal cannot turn out the Commons as well as the King Lords Temporal and Commons exclude the Bishops II. Whether or no when the King and two Estates have turn'd out the third the King with another Estate cannot also turn out the second And lastly when only the King and one Estate remains the King as Supream cannot seclude that also III. And if these things will bear a good Consequence Whether the Presbyterians whose chiefest confidence was in the Long-Parliament but esecially the Commons have not brought their Hoggs to a fair Market But these People did not only overthrow Episcopacy but struck also at the root of Monarchy it self by their pleadings against the King's Supremacy making themselves not only equal to but above him And this not only when assembled in Parliament but when they are so far from having any Authority there there being no such thing then sitting that they are separately so many private Subjects obliged only to follow their own occasions for in this capacity I suppose they make themselves when they alledge for a Rule Rex est major singules minor Vniversis considering they place this in their Remonstrance as distinct from Parliaments But how weak this Position is let Parliaments themselves be our Judges And I do not love to reason against Authentick Records When God tells us expresly that Whoredom is a grievous sin 't was blasphemy in John de Casa to write in the vindication of Sodomy When Ignatius Irenaeus and other ancient and authentick Authors assure us that Presbytery was subordinate to Episcopacy in the first Century 't is folly in our late Schismaticks to dream of or introduce a Parity When Parliaments acknowledge themselves Subjects to his Majesty for any to conclude thence their Supremacy are in my judgement no less guilty of ignorance than that simpleton of Athens who fancied all the ships and other things to be his when he had no more interest in them then I have relation to the Crown of Castile The Lords and Commons tell us plainly what little signs they have of Superiority in these words Where by divers sundry old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and exprest that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governed by one Supream Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people and divided in tearms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporally been bounden and ought to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience c. And in many other Statutes do they acknowledge themselves the King 's most humble faithful and obedient Subjects But more especially in those two of Supremacy and Allegiance in which they acknowledge the King the Supream under God both of Civil and Ecclesiastical affairs and so swear Allegiance to him each Parliament-man before he sit taking both the Oaths as all other Subjects do Whereby they clearly renounce not only Priority but Parity by which all their Cavils bring nothing upon themselves but Perjury Against this Supremacy of our Kings though it be under God and Christ John Calvin rants in his usual hot-spurr'd zeal calling them Blasphemers and Fools who durst first presume to give such a title to a King And in obedience to this Supream Head of Geneva and Presbytery doth his dear Subject and Disciple Anthony Gilby and others of that Fraternity shoot their Wild-fire against the same Statutes of England by which they shew their Schism and Madness more than Christian Prudence Besides all this our Laws make it Treason to compass or imagin the death of the King Queen or his eldest Son to leavy Warr against the King or any way adhere to or assist his Enemies But for any to commit Treason against the Parliament especially for those who have the King on their side I see little reason because I have express Law to the contrary which tells us that any one who shall attend upon the King in his Wars and for his Defence shall in no ways be convict or attaint of High Treason ne of other offences for that cause by Act of Parliament or otherwayes by any process of Law whereby he or any of them shall loose or forfeit Life Lands Tenements Rents Possessions Hereditaments Goods Chattels or any other things but to be for that deed and service utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss And if any Act or Acts or other process of the Law here after thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this Ordinance that then that Act or Acts or other process of the Law whatsoever they shall be stand and be utterly void How this Act hath been since violated Compounders Sequestrators and Decimators will best inform you And what a pitiful ridiculous and extorted Comment the Noddles of the Long-Parliament made upon this Act may be seen in their Declarations by which you may view both their ignorance and their malice These are Presidents enough to satisfie any man in the Parliaments subjection to the King it being in his power to constitute them not they him in him being the only Authority to call and dissolve them not any such being in themselves He can pardon Malefactors not they without his consent The death of the King dissolves the Parliament though their breaking up reflects nothing upon him He can call them where he pleaseth but they not remove his Court They Petition him by way of Subjects not he them The King of England can do no wrong and never dyeth being alwayes of full age the breath of the former being no sooner expired but the next Heir is de facto King without the Ceremony of Proclamation or Coronation And whether a Parliament can do no wrong or no I leave to many men now in England to judge The Kings power hath been such that he hath call'd a Parliament with what limitations he pleas'd as King Henry the fourth's Parliament at Coventry in which no Lawyer was to sit And whether too many Lawyers in a Parliament doth more good or bad hath been oft discours'd of in late times And 't is the King hath the power of the Sword not the Parliament as their own Laws tell us for in the year 1271. Octob. 30. We find this Statute To us i. e. the King it belongeth and our part is through our Royal Seignory straitly to defend i. e. to prohibit or stop force of Armour and all other force against our Peace at all times when it shall please us and to punish them who shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of our Realm And hereunto they are bound to aid us as their Soveraign Lord at all seasons when need shall be And the meaning
of this Statute hath several times since been made good by practise on the part of the Commons For in King Edward the third's dayes a Parliament was summoned to consult about the security of the Marches of Scotland and the Seas and the advice of the Commons was desired about these things But they humbly declined it submissively desiring that they might not be put to consult of those things whereof they had no cognisance And in the same King's reign when their advice was asked touching a Prosecution of a Warr with France after four dayes consultation they returned their Answer by Justice Thorpe That their humble desire to the King was that he would be advised therein by the Lords being of more experience then themselves in such affairs And in the sixt year of King Richard the second a Parliament was call'd to consult Whether the King should go himself to rescue Gaunt or send an Army The Commons humbly answered by their Speaker Sir Thomas Puckering That the Council of Warr did more belong to the King and his Lords And the next year their advice being asked concerning the Articles of Peace with France they modestly excused themselves as too weak to counsel in so weighty matters and being more earnestly prest to shew their own opinions they humbly advised rather for Peace than Warr. For in those dayes the Knights and Burgesses made it their only care to study the well-fare of and complain of the grievances which afflicted those places for which they served Those of Lin would consult the advancement of the Trade of Fishing those of Norwich the making of Stuffs he of Teverston of Kersies those of Suffolk what conduced to the benefit of Clothing those of Cornwal for their Stanneries and never pry into those things which were farr above many of their Intellectuals Many of them being but of inferiour Trades and so almost as unfit to apprehend the Intrigues of State and manage such grand Concerns as Caligula's Horse to Officiate in Divine Service though made a Priest by the said Emperour or those Priests a hundred years ago to compile a Body of Divinity or a Church-History whose ignorance was such as to think that the New-Testament was composed by Martin Luther Such was the modesty and discretion of former Parliaments And if these of later date have any more Priviledges than the ancient 't is so farr unknown to me that I despair of ever finding them Of this I need say no more but that as a Parliament in Queen Mary's dayes supplicated That the Pope's Supremacy over them might be restored greatly repenting them of their former Schism by which means they got their absolution from Cardinal Pool So had it been well for many of our late Members to have acknowledged the King's Authority and reduced themselves betimes to his Obedience Much more might be said in the behalf of the Prerogative Royal. But this shall suffice since it hath been so well done formerly by the learned and constant true-hearted Judge Jenkins the Ingenious Mr. Diggs and others CHAP. VI. The Priviledges of Parliament and that in some Cases they are Null and Void THough these things afore specified might satisfie a Rational Subject yet as a cloud to obscure this Regal Supremacy the Commons have found out a way to cry Priviledge of Parliament And with this clamorous plea they have lately thought to save their Bacon in the multitude of their bewitched Proselytes be their Actions never so notorious And these Priviledges they are gloriously pleas'd to call Their ancient and undoubted Rights and Inheritance But King James a Prince too wise and learned to submit to or wink at a popular fury informed them plainly and truly that he should rather desire them to say That their Priviledges were but derived from the grace and permission of their Kings most of them growing but from Presidents which shews rather a Toleration than Inheritance And therefore could not endure Subjects to use such Anti-Monarchical words unless subjoyned with acknowledgement of grace and favour What their Priviledges are they have been very unwilling to shew in a particular way But be they what they will these two following they have most made use of and imbraced viz. 1. Liberty of Speech 2. Freedom from Arrest and Imprisonment As for the first 't is true that Sir Arnold Savage 1404 Speaker to the Commons humbly desired King Henry the fourth that they might freely make complaint of any thing amiss in the Government And that the King by the sinister Information of any person would not take it offensive The which the King was royally pleased to grant And after this Sir Thomas More their Speaker 1523 prayed King Henry the Eighth That If in Communication and Reasoning any man in the Common-House should speak more largely then of duty they ought to do that all such offences might be pardoned the which the King was pleased to grant And the same favour was also yielded to Thomas Moyle Esq their Speaker some twenty years after And Queen Elizabeth at the entrance of her reign was graciously pleas'd to allow the same to the Speaker Sir Thomas Gargrave before which mans time 't was very seldom asked and therefore not granted The Speakers commonly only desiring liberty for themselves not including the rest of the Members though since Gargrave's time it hath alwayes been humbly desired and also favourably granted But what of all this the King permits them Liberty of speech or rather winks at some slips which in heat of discourse or debates they may through unadvisedness let fall Therefore they may speak Treason revile Authority intrench upon Prerogative and what not But if this be a Logical Consequence then is a Kings condition as miserable as uncertain And this is something like the Long-Parliaments plea for a perpetual Session The King agrees that they shall not be dissolved without their own consent therefore they would sit till call'd to Judgement by the last Trumpet though their Treasonable Actions against the King did not only by the Law dissolve them but left them capable of severe punishments But how weak this pretended Consequence is may appear by a continued practise The Bishop of Carlile for his bold Speech in Parliament was imprisoned by King Henry the Fourth And Queen Elizabeth who was as great a favourite and darling in the eyes of her Subjects as any since the Creation tells her first Parliament at a publick meeting at White-Hall where they desired her to marry that if they had limitted her either to place or person she would then have thought it in you a great presumption being unfitting and altogether unmeet for you to require them that command or those to appoint whose parts are to desire or such to bind and limit whose duties are to obey or to take upon you to draw my love to your likings or to frame my will to your fantasie How severely did she check
denyes their Judicatory not being call'd by the Kings consent but for all this they judge him fit to be Excommunicated yet none would pronounce the Sentence against him till at last many of them being departed a young fellow named Andrew Hunter said that he was warned by the Spirit to pronounce the sentence and so ascending the chair read the same out of a Book This boyling humour of the Ministers troubled King James not a little which greatly augmented when they insolently refused to pray for the Queen his Mother then near herend though he had earnestly commanded them But the greatest of all was the execution in England how handsomly I know not though he greatly endeavoured to stop it But the King thinking to put an end to all tumults thought fit to reconcile the Nobility which at last he did Feasting them all at Haly-rud-house thence causing them to walk hand in hand two and two to the Market Cross at Edinburg where they sealed their Concord by drinking one to another The same peace he thought to have made with the Ministers but this not fadging all fell to nothing After this Huntley Bothwell Crawford Montross and Athol agitated by the Jesuits rebell but upon thier submission were pardoned Yet though the King was so easie to shew favour so was not the Presbytery who deprive the Bishop of Saint Andrews of all spiritual function for marrying the King's Cozen the Duke of Lenox his Sister to the Earl of Huntly though he did it by the King 's express Command yet was the King forced to dissemble his dislike of their insolency knowing their power and stubborness and having another thing in hand viz. his marriage with Ann the King of Denmark's Daughter whom to to fetch he presently took ship and married her in Upslo in Norway thence through part of Swedeland and Denmark he returned with her into Scotland where she was crowned though the accustomary unction was much opposed by the Ministry calling it a Jewish Rite abolished at Christs coming and introduced by the Pope After this Bothwell and some others conspire against the King endeavouring to seize upon his person at Haly-rood-house and Faulkland but without success and so was glad to fly into England The Presbyterie taking advantage against the King in these troubles Petition that the Acts made 1584. to restrain the insolencies of these hot heads should be abrogated which the King was constrained fearing lest they should also rebell against him upon a denyal in some sort to consent to Though the next year he assures them that he would not suffer the Priviledges of his Crown to be lessen'd nor Assemblies to meet without his Order but this they slightly answer by telling him that they will keep to the benefit allowed them the year before Nor shall they hold their tongue in the Pulpit upon just and necessary causes Such small esteem had they for their Soveraign though they would humble themselves to inferiour people in greater matters For when they had with the consent of the Council of Edinburgh made an Act that the Munday Market in that City should be alter'd to Tuesday The Shoomakers whom it most concerned gathered together before the Ministers doors threatning to chase them out of Town if they harp'd upon that string any more which was the reason of this Saying there Rascals and Sowters can obtain from the Ministers what the King could not in matters more reasonable Bothwell as aforesaid having fled to England for Treason returns again and being assisted with other Nobles and by the cunning of the Lady Atholl seizeth upon the King at Haly-rood-house where he constrains the King to pardon all and that several persons of quality should be turned from the King's service But the King getting to Sterling the Estates there decreed Bothwels actions to be Treasonable and the King not obliged to performance because forced whereupon Bothwell falling to open Rebellion is pronounced Rebell If the King's Authority could do this the Kirk thought they had as much power to excommunicate the Catholick Lords which the King the Lord offering themselves to Tryal endeavoured to stop telling them that they had nothing to do in such affairs but this denial so troubled and vext the Assembly that they order all of their fraternity to be in Arms For this insolency the King checking them they replyed That it was the Cause of God and in the defence thereof they could not be deficient Hereupon the King puts forth a Proclamation prohibiting all meetings yet for all this they kept on their Course so that the King was forced to yield Yet this procured him no peace though the birth of Prince Henry rejoyced him For Bothwell falls again into Rebellion assisted by Argile Arrol c. Nay the Presbyterie were so active in this Treason as to carry on his designs they give him the monies collected for the relief of their then distressed Brethren at Geneva By this means having got some forces together he fights the King's Party in which though he was not beaten yet shifts for himself dissolving his Souldiers Yet after this having joyned himself with some Catholick Lords to surprize the King again but being discovered flyes to open Rebellion and having with nine hundred men under the Command of Huntly beat Argile who had above 10000. upon Composition are pardoned but banished And Bothwell gets himself to France thence to Naples where he dyed miserably poor about the year 1624. The King for peace-sake and good policy had a mind to pardon and call home the banished Lords to which at last Mr. Robert Bruce the Minister consents provided that Huntly should not return but the King reasoning with him for Huntly too he imperiously answered I see Sir that your resolution is to take Huntly into favour which if you do I will oppose and you shall choose whether you will lose Huntly or Me for us both you cannot keep This is that Bruce whose popularity outvyed the King's who seeing one time what a multitude conducted him into Edinburgh said By my sale Bruce puts me down in his Attendants And this is he who had preached many years without Ordination nor would he be ordained which was the occasion of some disputes 1598. Yet for all this self-conceited pratler the Lords return which mads the Ministry who meet about it proclaim a Fast order inquiry to be made into their Favourites against whom they proceed with Censures and clamour as if the Kirk had been singing her Requiem The King troubled at these turbulent actions under his very nose by Proclamation dissolves them Whereupon they Petition him not to incroach upon the Limits of Christs Kingdom And these hubbubs were the more heightned by the Sermon of Mr. David Blake in which he ranted against the King Queen and Lords and call'd Queen Elizabeth an Atheist and a Woman of no Religion of which the English Ambassador complain'd and demanded satisfaction Upon
this Blake is summon'd before the Council which so incensed Andrew Melvill that he labour'd to make it a Publick Cause and did so much That they declare it would be ill to question Ministers and boldly told King James who asked them if they had seen the Conditions of Huntly's Pardon That both he and the rest should either satisfie the Church in every point or be pursued with all extremity so as they should have no reason to complain of the over-sight of Papists And as for Blake they gave him a Declinator affirming it was the Cause of God whereunto it concerned them to stand at all hazzard and this Declinator was sent to all the Presbyteries in the Kingdom who were desired not only to subscribe it but to commend the Cause in their private and publick Prayers to God by which means they fancyed themselves so strong that they deny the King to have power to judge a man for speaking in Pulpit and that the King in what he had already done had so wronged Christs Kingdom that the death of many men could not be so grievous to them And therefore they ordain a Fast for averting the Judgements then threatning the Kirk This action so vext his Majesty that he forbad all Convocatings and Meetings but they little cared for him or his Orders for Mr. Walter Balcanquall did not only forthwith rail against the Court naming several of the chief Courtiers but desired all the well-affected to meet in the Little Church to assist the Ministry who did accordingly and Petition the King in behalf of the Kirk But the King asking them who they were that durst convene against his Proclamation was worshipfully replyed by the Lord Lindesey That they durst do no more then so and that they would not suffer Religion to be over-thrown Multitudes unmannerly thronging into the room the King departed and they went to the little Church again where Lindesey told them No course but one let us stay together that are here and promise to take one part and advertise our friends and the favourers of Religion to come unto us for it shall be either theirs or ours Upon which great clamours shoutings and lifting up of hands followed some crying to Arms others to bring out Haman for whilst the Lords were with the King being sent as above-said from the Little-Church Mr. Cranstone read to the People that story others cryed out The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon and so great were the Peoples fury rais'd on a sodain That if the Provost by fair words and others by threats had not tamed them they had done some violence These actions of the Kirkers makes the King leave the Town go to Linlithgow whereupon they resolve for Warr the Ministers agitating them Amongst the rest one John Welsh in his Sermon rail'd pitifully against the King saying He was possest with a Devil and compared him to a Madd-man and affirmed That Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hand In this fiery zeal they write a Letter to the Lord Hamilton desiring him to be their General telling him in it That the People animated by the Word and Motion of Gods Spirit had gone to Arms. But all came to nothing Hamilton refusing such rebellious honour carryeth the Letter to the King who orders the guilty Ministers to be apprehended who escape by flying into England and the Magistrates of Edenburgh are pardoned The overthrow of this one business strengthened the Kings Authority mightily which was also confirmed by the Assembly at Perth now better known by the name of St. John's Town The Ministry being now pretty quiet Ruthen Earl of Gowry conspired to kill the King but to his own ruin His Majesty for this Preservation orders that Thanks should solemnly be render'd to God but in this he found the Presbyters cross-grain'd denying to do any such thing for such a deliverance whereupon they were silenced yet afterwards shewing their willingness were restored In this year was King James his third son his second viz. Robert dying young Charles born afterwards King of England The next year was kept an Assembly at Burnt-Island whither Mr. John Davidson wrote a rayling Letter checking them for their cowardise in not opposing the ungodly telling them that the King was not sound and that Warr was more commendable than a wicked Peace But the graver sort rather pittyed and smiled at the mans madd zeal then troubled themselves to vex at him And now Queen Elizabeth dying King James the undoubted next Heir to the English Crown is at London Proclaimed accordingly whither he went to receive his Crown having thus happily united the two Kingdoms And here I shall leave off from prosecuting the Presbyterian Story in Scotland any further though I might tell you of their calling against the Kings consent an Assembly at Aberdeen to rant against Episcopal Government nor would they dissolve at the Kings command till they were proclaimed Traytors and yet did some of them scorn to acknowledge their Error and were by some of their Brethren vindicated to King James face in England the next year And many more instances of their Waspish humour in denying the Kings Authority might be shewn out of their own Historians who abound in such examples but if Symmetry will tell us the stature of the man by the proportion of his foot these may serve so much at this time to satisfie that I fear they will rather nauseate And really those who thought it a hard case that Mr. Blake should be punished for affirming in a Sermon 1596. That all Kings were the Devils Barns that the Kings heart was treacherous and that the Devil was in the Court and the guiders of it That the Queen of England was an Atheist and a wicked Woman That the Nobility and Lords were miscreants bribers degenerated godless dissemblers and Enemies to the Church That the Council were Holliglasses Cormorants and men of no Religion And in his Prayer for Queen Anne he said We must pray for her for the fashion but we have no cause she will never do us good Nor did he word it only but also rais'd Arms both Horse and Foot against the Kings consent These men I say who thought it unjust to have him questioned for such rebellious actions may also for ought I know think it strange with Buchanan that our Laws do not provide ample and honourable rewards for those who can boldly murder their Prince And yet must this Buchanan and Knox be cryed up as valiant noble bold and publick-spirited men and this present world scorned because we have no such fire-brands And whether this title is rashly thrown upon them let any ingenious man judge not only by their fore-mentioned tenets and actions against their Kings but by the answerable nurturing up of their Disciples who at the University of St. Andrews instead of Divinity Lectures had these Political or rather a ruine to
fall upon the Grievances of the Subject in which having spent some time they drew up a Remonstrance though they not only knew that the things therein contain'd would be highly displeasing to his Majesty but also that the King had expresly forbad them to meddle with any such Concerns And in this Paper they greatly brag'd what their Priviledges were and how they were their undoubted Right and Inheritance These actions the King who above all things loved Peace did a little resent and gave them a small check in a Letter upon which the discontented part of the Members grumble and having plotted a thin House and a late hour six a clock at night in December not a third part of the number being there drew up a Protestation in behalf of their Liberty Priviledges and Jurisdiction as they pretended and recorded it in their Journal Book 19. Decemb. 1621. thereby declaring their supposed valour to Posterity Nor can we imagine but that such Presidents as these inflamed our late rebellious Spirits with presumption The King thus perceiving that the longer they satt the prouder they grew dissolved them by Proclamation so unwilling were these men to satisfie the King with any reasonable supply and this is somewhat hinted at by a Non-conformist himself by observing out of Sir Cotton's History that Henry the third was so pester'd with Parliaments that he would rather pawn his Crown-Jewels give over his House and feed himself with the benevolence of Monks than be beholden to his People and this he tells us was thought to be a Parallel for King James his time This wise and peaceful King by dear-bought Experience will farther tell you in his Excellent Book to Prince Henry how pernicious the Puritans were to good Government and what small trust is to be had in them KING CHARLES succeeded his Father King James who dyed at Theobalds 27. March 1625. and was as much or rather more tormented by his Presbyterian Subjects as his Father for this Non-conforming humour once advanced into a Parliament never left working till they had barbarously brought their King upon the Scaffold and delivered him over to his Independent Executioners These Politick Whirl-winds having begun the Storm and presumed to bluster against the Father resolve never to cease the Tempest till they had blown up the Children and Church-Government Root and Branch And to leave off from what they had begun they thought would bespeak them Cowards Let the Honour and Title of good Subjects be attributed to those who want Courage and Conscience to be bold Villains In a Parliament in the first year of this Kings Raign instead of Supplyes desired by the King for the guarding of the Seas defending our Coasts and molesting our Enemies many of the Members fly very high in opposition and that with unseemly language Mr Clement Coke son to Sir Edward affirming That it is better to dye by a forraign Enemy then be destroyed at home and Turner a Doctor of Physick seconded him by more then ordinary reflections upon the Kings Government and though the King complain'd of them yet the House rather hug'd then reproved such actions In the next Parliament the King had great hopes that all things would work for the good of the Nation and be carryed on without any discontents But in this he found himself greatly deceived 'T is true at the beginning they freely Vote the King five Subsidies whereof he being informed by Secretary Cook and that the House was so unanimous therein that they made but one voyce the King is said by some to have wept for joy hoping now he had a Parliament free from any turbulent humours but this was but a bitter Pill covered over with Gold For never was there any man more deceived since the first temptation then He They no sooner had given this Supply but frame the Petition of Right and desire the Kings consent to it for know they never gave the King any thing but they receive as good from him a new way of Merchandize the which because they had publickly questioned whether they might trust his Royal word he solemnly confirms the Houses thereat testifying their joy with a mighty shout and other people by ringing of Bels and Bon-fires Yet scarce had the King graciously granted this but they not yet content drew up a Remonstrance ranting against the Innovation and Alteration in Religion against the Arminians and some of our Bishops and other things which was highly disliked by the King which so much incensed the Commons that they over Boots over Shooes fell to draw up another against Tonnage and Poundage but the King not liking them to meddle after this manner prorogued the Parliament But being returned again they fall very heavy upon the Customers from which severity the King endeavouring to perswade them work'd such a contrary effect upon them that in a high passion and distaste they adjourned themselves for some days as if their sitting there would be to no purpose seeing they could not command the King His Majesty being informed that they had adjourned themselves thought fitting to allow them some more play-dayes and so Adjourns them to the 2. of March and then again for 8 dayes longer But they met the second day and fell a ranting against the mis-government whereupon their Speaker Sir John Finch informed them of the Kings Order to adjourn them till the tenth at this the House storms affirming the Speaker had nothing to do to deliver such messages and that Adjournment properly belonged to them and so they took fire and fell presently into an hubbub whether without fighting I know not though a Member was afterwards accused for striking The Speaker according to his Majesties command endeavours to leave the House but is violently held in his Chair by Mr. Denzil Hollis and Mr. Benjamin Valentine and after watching his opportunity having got a little out of his Chair was by them two thrust back again and there held the first of the couple as an Authour tells us swearing a deep Oath that he should sit still as long as they pleas'd And to make all cock-sure Sir Miles Hobart locks the door and puts the Key in his pocket which afterwards was call'd an Imprisonment of the Parliament These Figgaries continued so long that the King heard of them and sends for the Serjeant of the Mace Grimston but he was not suffered to go upon which contempt he sends Maxwell Usher of the Black-Rod but they so little regarded such Summons that they neither admitted him nor his message which refusals so much incensed his Majesty that he sent for the Captain of the Pensioners and the Guard resolving rather to force an entrance than be thus out-braved by his Subjects But the Members perceiving what danger their passion had brought upon them nimbly quitted the House though before their departure they had noys'd out a Protestation against Tonnage and Poundage Arminianism Popery and Church-Innovations And this
denyed and put in a large Declinator and Protestation against their proceedings By these and other cross-grain'd humours of the Presbyterie the Duke perceiving the longer they sat the wider the breaches would grow dissolved the Assembly they opposing the King in all things though he had granted them all convenient requests To the dissolving of this Assembly all the Council consented and subscribed but the Earl of Argtle who ever after proved an instrument of mischief to both Kingdoms Against this dissolution the Covenanters protest and act accordingly but especially against Bishops whom they afterwards by their goodly Authority deposed and alienate their Lands no great matter God wot the Rents of all the Bishops in Scotland not amounting to seven thousand pounds sterling per Annum as a Native informs us And yet this small pittance amongst so many grave and hospitable Bishops was a great eye-sore to the Covenanters though several private Presbyterians might be nominated whose estate surmount this And not content with these actions they began to gird themselves to their Arms. Against whom the King marcheth and both Armies draw up near Barwick where a peace was concluded by which means Aberdeen escaped a scouring the Earl of Montross then misled a General of the Covenanters marching then against it with a Commission to burn it This peace lasted not long the Covenanters not sticking close to the Articles of agreement and which was more a great part of the walls of Edinburgh-Castle falling one night down and the King ordering the Governour and others to see it rebuilt the Covenanters would not suffer it by forbidding any materials to be carryed to its reparation And which was most of all they perceiving the King incens'd at their actions and therefore fearing some checks address themselves to their old Ally the King of France from whom they desired aid and assistance an action so strange for subjects to appeal from their own King to Forrainers and that against their King too that it will easily silence the old story of the King 's German horse Yet whether their Letter and Messenger was sent or no it matters not that it was drawn up and subscribed to be sent is certain which is as much By these affronts the King being sufficiently provoked raiseth an Army and marcheth against the Scotch Covenanters who with a great force had entred England and that with cheerfulness having more friends than the King they having some twenty eight Lords and Earls Whereas the King had not above twenty besides they had the good wishes of the English Prebyterians who by their Sermons Discourses and Pamphlets had made the King's actions and friends so odious to the people that many of the Royal Army marched unwillingly against the Scots wishing them victorious hoping by that means to work their malice upon our Bishops and other persons of quality And accordingly it fell out a part of the English being routed the Scots possess all Northumberland and the Bishoprick of Durham with Newcastle This Prosperity of the Covenanters cheers up our Nonconformists who in this joyning themselves with the Scots presently get the King assaulted for a Parliament which was granted and to sit Novemb. 3. at London and a cessation between the two Armies was made and orders taken for a further Treaty In the mean time the Scots Army miserably tormenting the Northern Counties of Cumberland Westmorland Northamberland and the Bishoprick of Durham from which they raised a Contribution of 850. li. per diem for their assistance a thing by many thought very strange that an enemies Army should thus by compact be maintained by those who wisht them farther off This Covenanting Army kept correspondency with the Parliament having a safe convoy granted by the King for their Letters by which means many an odd design was probably nurst up the Parliament giving them thanks and monies to boot for their good service But must the Scotch Covenanters be only guilty in affronting their King No that would derogate much from the zeal and forwardness of our English Presbyterians who had so far countenanced their Caledonian brethren as to have beseeched them into a native conspiracy and then beckoned them to a Southern march And therefore to shew their answerable forwardness they bestirr'd themselves to the purpose to get non-conforming Members chosen which accordingly answered their expectation in the short Covenant sympathizing Parliament whose refractory humours occasioned their sudden dissolution Our English Presbyterians perceiving now what a great stroak they had in choosing members thought it fitting to see what mettal their Proselytes were made of to which purpose several were instigated to murther that great Prop of Learning the Arch-bishop of Canterbury then the main eye-sore to our factious splrits and to carry on this design more unanimously a Paper was posted upon the Old Exchange May 9. exhorting all Prentices to rise and sack his house at Lambeth the Munday following supposing they had as much authority to tumultuate against the Reverend Bishops as the Covenanters had Of this plot the Archbishop having intelligence prepared for his defence and well was it that he did so for accordingly on the following Munday in the dead time of the night above 500. men well armed for the purpose assaulted his Palace endeavouring by all the strength and force they had to break open his Gates thereby to come to his person but he had so well provided for his security that all their attempts only shewed their devilish malice and murtherous intentions which was also demonstrated by their railing and cursing tongues The next day several of them were apprehended and imprisoned in the White-Lion prison who were violently released within three days by some of their wicked complices by breaking open the prison so unanimous were some of the Anti-episcopal men to intolerable villainy Nevertheless one of their Chief-tains was re-taken and for this rebellious riot was condemned and for example-sake hang'd and quartered which so terrified the rest of the Non-conforming brethren that a kind of a peace was outwardly kept for a while And as no small incendiaries to these intolerable practices were the wicked Pamphlets spred abroad to delude the vulgar by divers seditious persons but especially by Prynn Burton Bastwick and John Lilburn people of such implacable spirits that no government could satisfie them And were so hot-headedly led by their erronious and spightful Principles that as they took a pride in their own deserved sufferings so nothing could satisfie them but the Confusion of others Yet these men afterwards took such opposite interests that they became utter enemies endeavouring what in them lay not only to vilifie but ruine one another though Prynn still held up his head above the rest Thus were these Presbyterians the authors of our after-miseries that I may well sob with a time serving Poet Eheu Turba rapax primique miserrima belli Perfida gens Auctrix Alas the first promoters of our stirs Were
passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many ages Yet for all these good turns done them by the King do they Print though the King earnestly desired the contrary and sedulously spread abroad this Remonstrance thereby to make him odious and themselves as Patrons to the people a fair requital for such large benefits and sufficiently to shew their ingratitude and What more wicked then that amongst our vertuous Ancestours The Heathen Heraclians were more noble to their Athenian Enemies and the savage Lions for their thankfulness to Mentor Helpius and Androdus will be a reproach upon record to these Puritanical Members And Alexander was more ingenuous to his Horse than these to their King Yet never was there any who desired Peace and the Subjects good more than He for the obtaining of which he consented to them in such things that he parted with many Jewels from his Crown as Queen Elizabeth used to call such Priviledges granting them Triennial Parliaments abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Writs for Ship-Money Bishops-Votes in Parliament Temporal power of the Clergy slip'd away Tunnage Poundage and gave the Parliament leave to sit as long as they pleas'd and that they might see he privately acted nothing against them he admitted into his Privy-Council several Lords which were great Favourites and Correspondents with the Parliamentary Party and in many other things besides these hath this King valed his Crown as a Learned Doctor phraseth it Yet could not all this please some men being like the Sea insatiable Though a moderate Member of the Parliament asked what they could desire more of the King seeing he had granted them so much he was answered by Mr. Hambden as a late Historian tells us To part with his Power and trust it to us And that some of them had higher thoughts than the Loyalty of a Subject or the trust of Parliament could dispense withal I could easily be perswaded to and those especially who by their former actions in Parliaments had drawn some displeasure upon themselves and knew well enough that the more Prerogative and Power the King lost the more they gain'd which at last would more then preserve them But this Faction as the King tells us was only of a few ambitious discontented and seditious persons who under strange pretences had entered into a Combination to alter the Government both of Church and State And so that this might be done they did not care after what manner nor who perisht so their own heads were but held up that me-thinks I hear them threat and encourage like Tasso's Tyrant Aladin Purche'l Reo non si salvi il guisto pera El'innocente Sù sù fideli mei sù via prendete Le flamme e'l ferro ardete uccidete So I Obtain my wish let just with wicked dye Come come rouse up my faithful friends and shew How bravely you can burn and murther too And what courses they steered to arrive at their hoped for Authority may in part be seen in these following Observations One of their first steps was to make the Court and Church odious amongst the Vulgar under the Title of Popish and Arminians a wickedness quite contrary to the Laws of our Land which make special provision against the publishers of such rumours whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may arise between the King and his People or the Nobility or Bishops yet neither Law nor Gospel can have any any sway with these men who had used this knack of reviling in several former Parliaments and may be seen in the multitude of their long-winded Speeches and printed too forsooth the better to spread the Infection about the Nation yet you may take all the Reason amongst them and never grow madd with too much Learning though the multitude of words are enough to choak the largest Leviathan nor could much be expected many of the Members being so ignorant that I dare boldly say that they did not know what the five Controverted Points signified and I believe would have taken and voted too Jacob van Harmine and the Remonstrants for Calvinists though have damn'd Arminius for a wicked Heathen Thus the Priests in Spain told the people to make them hate the Reformed Religion that Protestants were not like other men had heads like Dogs and such like Beasts They also restored into favour all those who had opposed the Peace of the Nation as Prynne Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburn and such like who were stiff men to raise their Interests as farr as Pen Ink or Brawling could do and that their Interest might be the more strengthened in the Countrey they put into Offices and Imployments of trust all those whom they either found or were by them made discontented against the Court and Religion by which trick they twisted their Obligations so close together that they made good use of this afterwards And to make their Cause more favourable to the People and to blast the Reputation of their Enemies they promoted abundance of bawling Lecturers most of them of no great Learning or Conscience but as furious as Orlando and with throats O heavenly wide who could scold excellently against Bishops and Government and vomit out a Lesson with as much ease as a Matron of Billingsgate both being compos'd of the same materials and to the same purpose viz. strife and for their dexterity and quickness they out-did a Mountebank being alwayes as ready for the Pulpit as a Knight-Errant for combate never out of his way let the Text be what it will like the Sompners Fryer in Chaucer but nothing related to the honest Parson in the same Poet that it is beyond admiration how they can conjure such an Olla Podrida of Sermon-Notes from such good Texts and that of so little coherence that their extraction seems as miraculous as the generation of the Cadmian armed Souldiers from Serpents teeth To raise up Rebellion and Sedition there cannot be a better Trumpet in the World then the mouths of such Hirelings as hath been proved by long experience Wat Tyler and Straw's Rebellion could not want incouraging Sermons as long as John Ball lasted who cheer'd up that Levelling Army at Black-heath with a long Preachment beginning with this Proverb When Adam dolve and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman And 't is observed by Mr. Howell that the Preaching Fryers and Monks were the chief Incendiaries of the Catalonians to their late Revolt And we have it from Authentcik Authority how that Hernando de Avalos and Juan de Padilla in the Spanish Civil Wars against the Emperour Charles V. in the first place imploy'd some Fryers to rail against the Government in their Pulpit and so to incite the people to Warr which according to expectation took fire in Toledo these men being the first thunderers of Seditions into the Castillians and to this purpose the famous Spanish
ma ruine These rabble factious Tumults never mend A Nation but its ruine doth portend The Neapolitans will never forget the miseries brought upon them by a sordid Fisherman Thomas Anello And Munster and other parts of Germany do yet remember with sadness their Anabaptistical tumults The great Turk no sooner hears of the Seditious Rabble but he fears his own neck And Tyler with his rustick Clowns made King Richard submit to their unbounded impudence Nor can it be denyed but that the Londoners and others set up the first post of the Kings Scaffold when by these out-ragious Tumults they began the wicked Warr. The Tumults of which his Sacred Majesty gives the best character in his incomparable Book favour'd the Parliament with a twofold courtesie one was they forced him from London there being no safety for his Royal Person whilst such unbelieving miscreants did domineer The other was they having learn'd the knack to cry Thief first horribly exclaim'd that themselves were thereby only in danger and therefore desired not only a Guard to defend their Worships though they punish'd those appointed to protect them but very modestly to have the disposal of the whole Militia in England And this claim rather then desire of theirs they call just and necessary and for the ease benefit safety and security of the people and that his Majesty could neither in Honour Justice or Conscience deny he having it not legally before And this small request is but to command the Militia Thus the Wolf only desired the Dogs to be divided from the Sheep Thus Alexander would but command the whole World Thus would Calvin only have his Countrey-men and Creatures mingled with the Geneva Senate Thus did Nero desire that Rome might have but one neck And thus the crafty Fryer in the Sumpners tale desired to his dinner only the liver of a Capon and a roasted Pigs-head knowing full well that if he got those he should not want his part of the Pigg and Capon too And thus the Parliament only desired the Militia that they might only command the King and all England All small requests which might have been augmented if the modest Supplicants had had more confidence But an old Scotch Poet would have taught them better manners and discretion if their wicked policy would have given them leisure to have consulted either Morality or Divinity but what is in the Covenant Thou art ane gret fuil soune said he Thyng to desyre quhilk may nocht be This of the Militia though the King deny yet they seize upon it not only in London but in all England and Wales some Countries being so forward at the Parliaments beck that they had begun their Militia assoon as Petitioned for and this before the Queen imbarqued for Holland And what little account they made of the King is visible by their Ordinance for the Militia in which the People are commanded to act nothing but as the Parliament would and that if they did they should be tryed by none but the Parliament and that this should be as long and no longer then the Parliament pleas'd These actions the King might well wonder at which astonishment may be increast when they tell him they can endure no longer his denyals And the same day vindicate those who had armed themselves though contrary to the Kings express Command and Order the day before But the Kings Authority is of no force with these men who proceeded farther by Voting That all Commissions granted under the Great Seal and by the Kings Consent to the Lieutenants in several Counties are illegal and void and that those who act by them shall be disturbers of the Peace But yet that all such persons as shall be nominated by the Parliament shall be cock-sure in their Authority And that their former Ordinance by some Law or other doth oblige the People This the King the same day forbids to be obey'd because against his consent and this command of his the Parliament Votes to be a high breach of the Priviledges of Parliament Thus went or rather ran the sturdy members in opposition to the King as if their malice had exceld Hamilcar's the Carthagenian against the Romans And by this fury they engaged themselves so farre that they thought it not safe to retreat and so brought it to the tryal of the Bloud-thirsty Sword by which was miserably acted The Civil Wars tumultuous Broyls And bloudy Factions of a mighty Land Whose People haughty proud with forraign spoils Upon themselves turn back their conquering hand Whilst Kin their Kin Brother the Brother foils Like-Ensigns all against like-Ensigns Band Bows against Bows against the Crown Whilst all pretending right all Rights fall down Yet for all these and many more miseries of Warr the Parliament could not doubt of many partakers since the Commons had made themselves such a Bug-bear and Terror to the Nation that the power of the King was even shrunk into a Duke of Venice Nor were the Authority and Priviledge of the Peers regarded with any more favourable Aspect being now rather become an other House then a House of Lords If the Peers think it not convenient that the Protestation should be taken all England over the Commons will not only judge the contrary but command it to be done If the Lords Order the Common-Prayer and other Ceremonies confirm'd by act of Parliament to be us'd and read in all Churches in this the Commons will oppose both King and Lords and order the quite contrary and punish those who do not obey them If the Peers refuse to joyn with them to Petition the King for a Guard against the Tumults knowing them to be the fomenters of them They will Petition themselves and think much if the King do deny them though he knew If he gave them an Inch they would take an Ell. If the Lords at first refuse to join with them to obtain the Militia yet will the Commons not only demand it but threaten the dissenting Nobility one of them desiring that a Catalogue might be taken of their names who consented not to them that so they might be known to the Commons Goodly goodly hath not the Peers brought themselves unto a fine pass But I believe they know best whom they may thank for 't Certainly the dapper Commons thought they might as well spurn at King and Lords as the old Gyants fight against Jupiter for I believe from Ovid they took a Scheme of many of their mutations But these men wrought by action as well as words and thoughts which was a high token of the Commons strength who had so much influence amongst the Sectaries a word good enough for him Lord or Clown that takes exception at it and power over the Lords that they gott 9 of the Peers voted never to sit again in Parliament because they were obedient to his Majesty so that Mr. Pym's Item to the Earl of Dover one of
the 9 Lords was not unsignificant viz. That if he look'd for any preferment he must comply with them in their waies and not hope to have it by serving the King Words of such a Mandrake-sound that they would have astonished a Roman ear whose generosity and vertue made them raise a Temple to Fidelity But all bonds of obedience and loyalty were hurld off by these sons of contradiction and Majesty it self so farr disrepected that Martin could with confidence wipe his lips with the whore in the Proverb and think he had done no wrong when he affirmd that the Kings Office is forfeitable and that the happiness of this Kingdome doth not depend upon him or any of the Royall branches of that stock and this was seconded by that worshipful Champion Sir Henry Ludlow who peremptorily said that he was not worthie to be King of England Nor are these words unbefitting the Father of such a known Son as Edmud Ludlow one of the Kings noted Tryers and an immortal Enemy to all goodnesse Church-government and literature Nor did the whole Parliament speak little lesse then the former when they affirmed he had no negative vote call'd all his Actions illegall and his Letters Declarations and Proclamations scandalous and false forbidding people to be obedient to him upon pain of displeasure declaring all such as did to be Traitors Taxing him with an intention towards Popery O implacable Malice foisted into the world by these his back-friends and spread abroad with abundance of impudence and malice by their zealous Myrmidon and Journy-work-jobber Prynne one that if he had lived amongst the Malabars in the East-Indies where long eares is a Token of honour comlinesse and bravery would have been held a man of no great credit But the best on 't is Pryn's scandalous pamphlet call'd the Popish Royall Favourite i. e. the King was many years ago learnedly and industriously answer'd to the Honour of his Majesty honesty of the undertaker and discredit and confusion of the Mercury-admiring accuser And therefore Mr. Baxter was somewhat to blame to cull such false trifles out of Prynne to prove the King reconcileable to Rome though he believes he was no Papist and this ten years after the Kings Beheading But to return to the Parliament who will yeild to none in bitterness against his Majesty who protest to him when no nearer York then New-Market That they would make use of that power which they had for their security and professing in the same paper that it was not words that could secure them And what their intention was in this may be gathered by voting some few daies before That the Nation should be put into a posture of Defence and only by Authority of Parliament And all those Extravagancies were acted by the Parliament in opposition and discredit to the King before his Majesty had so much as one man either in offensive or defensive Armes in a publick way So that he might well admire at those who charg'd him to be the first beginner and raiser of this Warre Thus the Kings mildnesse gave encouragement to those furious spirits who never left plotting till they had fill'd England with more villanies then Rome is in the vacancy of her Popedome or Tacitus could reckon up in the front of his History and this by their unjust dealings with him by warre and such like wickednesses though they might have consulted the Apothegm of that great Goth Athanaricus being good Divinity Law and Reason that A King is a earthly God and whosoever rebels against him is guiltie of his own death Nor doth the great Father of the Church intimate to us lesse obedience to our Kings then the former But these men cared little for reason or authority in any but themselves as appears by those impudent and irrational Propositions sent to the King at New Castle when they were Masters and had him in hold whereby he would be but a King of clouts and the Nobility and Gentry of his party bound to hop headlesse Articles so palpably wicked that an Italian through his Majesty looks upon them as distructive both to Church and State Nor could lesse be expected from these men in the height of their Pride and prosperity when at the beginning of these wicked Warres long before the stroak at Edghill The good King weeping as it were over the approaching ruine of his Subjects earnestly endeavours to perswade the Parliament to a Reconciliation in the lamentable breathings of Tancredi to the violent Rinaldo Dimmi che pensi far vorrai le mani Del civil sangue tu dunque bruttarte E con le piaghe ind egnede ' Christiani Trafiger Cristo ond'ei son membra e perte c. Ah non per Dio vinci te stesso Tell me what mean you now Will you yet stain Your hands in your friends bloud by Civill Warre And by your killing Christians now again Pierce Christ his side of whom we members are c. Ah no for Gods sake conquer your passion Desiring that they might both lay down their Armes and recall all their papers against each other upon an appointed day and so enter into a Treaty But they being carryed along with a Spirit of contradiction like the Scotch Presbyter who railing against King Church and Government and being commanded by King James to speak either sense or come down replyed like himself I say man I 'se nowther speak sense nor come down They I say resolved to run counter absolutely declare that they will not think of peace till the King have taken down his Standard left his Armies repair'd to the Parliament that so justice might be done upon those who had adhear'd to them and how by this his Majesty himself could escape they having some few daies before taxed him with most mischievous Tyranny I know not And in the same paper the lands of all those who were of the Kings party were forfeited and I think it is not unknown how they were disposed on afterwards Nor need we doubt but those men who without Blushing could Vote the Queen a Traitor would not care to draw up some blood into their faces soe they might have their revenge on his Majesty And whether this clause For the preservation of his Majesties person was voted to be left out in the New modled Commission the Commons and my Lord Fairfaz know best and what the meaning of such a seclusion was the revolution of a few years did fully import Thus did the English use the King as the Scots did their James the third who hated him as Mr. Drummond informes us because he got the love of his people by Piety and Justice and having taken up armes against him would not hearken to any termes of reconciliation unlesse he freely resigned the title of his Crown and Realm in favour of his Son then in theirs Hands and voluntarily deposed himself
leaving the Government of all to the Lords of his Parliament Which impudence of theirs hurryed them on so farre that they never left fighting till their King was murder'd but how uncertain Thus are the best men violently opposed by the wicked though the vertue and patience of the former might in reason mollifie the latter to obedience How wishedly will some pitty the case of Argalus and Parthenia the patience of Gryseld in Chaucer the misery and troublesome adventures of the Phanatick Lovers in Cleopatra Cassandra Amadis de Gaul Sidney and such like Yet all these as meer Romantick as Rablaise his Garagantua And yet with an unmoved apprehension can peruse the lamentable murder of Edward the Second of England and James the first and Milcolumb the first of Scotland the cutting off the head of good King Alpinus the poisoning of Fergusius the third by his own Queen and her stabbing her self the strangling of Malvinus by his own Queen and the throat-cutting of King Fethelmachus by a Fidler and besides these the martyrdome of old Queen Ketaban in Persia The stabbing of Henry the fourth in France The sacrilegious poisoning of the Emp. Henry the seventh in Italy The miserable death of Mauricius the Emp. with his Wife and five Children by the wicked Phocas And can read the fatall stories recorded by Boccace with lesse grief then the deplorable narrative of Arnalte's love to Lucenda And the patience of the good King Henry the sixth who being grievously struck by a murthering Varlet only made this Reply Forsooth and forsooth being his words for most earnest expression never using an oath ye do fouly to smite a King anointed so May be farre out-rivall'd by some with the misfortunes and hardship of some inchaunted Lover in Ariosto Parismus the two Palmerins or Mirrour of Knighthood And for the horrid murther of his late Majesty experience tells us that many have been so farre from contracting grief that they have so much triumphantly rejoiced at it that they have thought an action of so much wickednesse to have been honourable to them and their posterity for ever Thus have we come short to our Ancestors in fidelity and Loyalty by studying all occasions to rebell against our King They rather then undergo the ignominions title of Nithing i. e. a knave or a night-filcher swarme to the Service of their King we on the contrary rather then not be branded with the wicked name of a Traytor will court all occasions by our Rebellion to make our selves meritorious to a pair of Gallows And so to conclude this assertion I shall tell you that the Parliament wanted all the qualifications to make a warre really espousable No warre being lawful unlesse it be commanded by the Supream Authority the which the Parliament was not but the King if the Laws of our Land be an authentick Standerd And secondly the occasion of the Warre must be just which was wanting on the Parliaments side all their specious pretences being false and ridiculons their reasons suggested to the people to beget a Warre being to as small purpose as the Duke of Burgundy to quarrell for a cart-load of Sheep-skins or the two Brethren neer Padua about the disposal of the Starrs and Firmament And suppose their jealousies had been true yet it was Treason in them to warre against the Supream Authority the King according to the Laws of our Land and damnable according to the word of God Let Buchanan and such as he by supposing the Apostles and the Spirit to deal with us like Hypocrites evince to the contrary For if the Apostle Paul commandeth the Christians to be obedient to their Heathen and Tyrannical Kings who made it their sport to persecute Christians and that for Conscience-sake telling them that their power was of God certainly we are bound to obey a Christian Prince whose authority can be no lesse If we perceive our selves grieved resist we cannot but by Prayers and Obedience To which purpose the ancient Chaucer instructs us who certainly in this sung according to the rule of his time and therein neither false Law nor Gospel Lordes hestes may not be fayned They may wel be wayled and complained But men must nedes unto her lustre obey And so wol I there nis no more to sey The primitive Christians when collected into great Armies were honoured for their obedience never rebelling against but fighting or quietly living under their Heathen Kings as Tertullian will satisfie more at large But now we are so farre from being peaceable in a Christian Government that if occasion of rebellion cannot handsomly be pluckt by the fore-top yet we can create reason to our selves though upon a serious reflection we acknowledge such endeavours to be unjust Thus the Army when in obedience to the Parliament it had conquer'd and ruin'd the King and Kingdome and by the assistance of the sword and Satan had made themselves Lords and Masters over their Betters then I say when they were at the top of their prosperity they do seriously professe that the Parliament did justifie many extraordinary strange and doubtlesse in respect of the letter of the Law very illegal actions viz. Their taking up Armes raising and forming Armies against the King fighting against his person imprisoning impeaching arraigning trying and executing him cutting off his Head banishing his Children abolishing Bishops Deans and Chapters took away Kingly Government and the House of Lords broke the Crowns sold the Jewels Plate Goods Houses and Lands belonging unto the Kings of this Nation erected extraordinary High Courts of Justice and therein impeached arraigned condemned and executed many notorious enemies to the publick peace when the Laws in being and the ordinary Courts of Justice could not reach them These were strange and unknown practises in this Nation and not at all justifiable as is conceived by any known Laws and Statutes Thus have you the judgment of a ruling Army against their Masters and themselves though this their repentance was but to vindicate another infidelity But here after all this it may be objected that though some factious spirits of the Parliament have been too incroaching upon the King and the chief Incendiaries of these Warres yet why should I lay all this upon the Presbyterian account To which there needs no tedious reply if we do but consider that these factious people were all Non-conformists from whom if examples may be held for proofs as Schismaticks a self-conceited giddy hot-headed zeal and by consequence Rebellion is as inseparable as pride from Menecrates or Children when gallanted up in new cloathes For my part I am apt to believe that the Bloud of many thousand Christians shed in these warrs and before cryeth loud against Presbytery as the people only guilty of the first occasion of quarrel And that they have been the chief occasion of other slaughters may be credited not only from forraign stories but the authentick judgment of the ever great
Grotius one born and bred amongst them yet so farr satisfied or rather nauseated with their manners that he looks upon them as factious turbulent and rebellious spirits and so not fit for Subjects And this character it may be hath been the occasion of their gnashing their teeth so much against him CHAP. II. The Abominable Hypocrisie and Jugling of the Parliament and Army till the Murther of his Majesty AMongst the Ancients Proteus was look'd upon as a pretty fellow that could vary his shape according to his own pleasure And with what equal respect we have lately favour'd those who have hugg'd themselves for their same knack of jugling is not nor never will be worn out of memory The smooth-tongued St. Martins Quacksalvers at Venice have delt honestly and open-handed in respect of our Modern State-Mountebancks who were so farr Pharisees that they blab'd their zeal at the corner of every street yet kept their Intentions more secret than the Boy did who dyed by the devouring Fox hid under his coat Our Politicians like Eutrapelus in the Poet were grown to the true pitch of callidity to charm their Neighbours to the changing of their Opinions with their Habits and all this industry as Bythius did the Roman Cannius meerly to cheat those who deal with them I must confess I am apt to smile though I do not approve when I read or hear a neat piece of small cousenage But for those who through private Interests by their plots and devices endeavour to over-throw whole Kingdoms no man of honesty but must abominate That man which through judgement though erronious sticks to his Principles shall be more in my favour than those who outwardly offend less yet are so peccant through design which makes me have a better opinion of many misled German-Boors at Munster then some of our late English Grandees who for their own profit have not only sided with all Parties but run counter to their former Oaths Declarations Principles if they have had any firm to make a private advantage How many have we had who have confidently given out themselves the only men of honesty and sanctity yet such as against all Morarality who have fill'd the World with strange Declarations and Vows by calling Heaven and Earth to witness that their intentions were so and so whereas if that be true of the Poet Exitus acta probat Actions do show If they intended really or no. Then may we justly conclude that they intended nothing less then that which they most engaged to perform And of this I shall give some few hints whereby infallibly may be collected the knavery of the Presbyterian and great Anti-Royalist which may serve as a warning-piece to keep us from any more Rebellion and prompt us to keep close to our true and ancient Government Monarchy and Episcopacy I have shewed before how that the King did not only not begin the Warr but that the Presbyterian Parliament by their plots and devices forced him to the endeavour of opposing strength by strength And I shall shortly demonstrate from their own deceitful lips how that they and their Party did not only protest to have no bad Intentions against the King but also to defend and maintain him and his Royal Progeny and make them more glorious and famous then ever But this I may say was done when they were either too weak or to gain more friends for when they were Conquerers and had him in their disposal nothing could satisfie their well tutor'd Army and many of themselves but the taking away his innocent life that with Thieves and Robbers after the murther they might possess all so that I may sing of them with the well known Colletet Voyez vous ce saincte Nitouche Ce juge à quo cet homme froit Il presche tous jours pour le droit Et ne l'a jamais qu ' en la bouche Which may thus be rendred O! Self-time-serving Knaves who still profess You 're for the Right when you think nothing less Thus did these men steer their Intentions according as the wind sat for most benefit Thus Aeneas Sylvius wrote many things before he was Pope which when he had once obtain'd the Triple-Crown he censured as dangerous Hence came the saying That Pius condemn'd what Aeneas thought good This jugling amongst us may allow me to affirm with a great Presbyterian I am perswaded there never was a more hypocritical false dissembling cunning Generation in England then many of the Grandees of our Sectaries Thus the Parliament for all their former Protestation to defend and preserve the King and his Posterity as if they had been double-tongued like those Islanders mentioned by Diodorus Siculus or that Boy recorded by Borel not long afterwards Voted the Queen a Traytor because she acted nothing but what became her tending to the preservation of the King her Husband and the People And within a fourth-night after this took that treasonable being against the Kings consent and the Laws of the Land and therefore abominable Vow and Covenant wherein how much their hearts agreed with their tongues to preserve the King may be deduced from their actions but the next year after wherein the Commons Voted that this clause For Preservation of his Majesties Person should be left out in Sir Thomas Fairfax his Commission So that we may well suppose these men to have taken example from the ancient Spartans whom neither Religion Contract nor Oath could bind with which variable temper the Graecians were generally inured And for their Politicks without all question they agreed so farr with their good friend Machiavil as to imbrace that good and plausible humour of the Parthians who acknowledged no Honesty nor Religion but what was for their own private Interests How did our Grandees now and then sweeten the people into good liking of them by amusing them with the joyful hopes of Peace by Treaties when in truth the thoughts of composition was as farr from their Intentions as Joab's when he slew Amasa with a kiss of seeming friendship or rather as Mr. Love who at Uxbridge Treaty instead of friendship vomitted out nothing but threatning and vilifying-contradictions to the Peace-makers yet nothing unbecoming one of his Faction in Religion When some honest meaning Sea-men drew up a Petition for an Agreement and Peace other Sea-men were procured to protest against this Petition the honest Petitioners commanded to repair home again with this instruction for the future that they need not trouble themselves about the Peace the Parliament intending to take care about it And what great care they took though the King dayly plyed them with Messages about it is not unknown to the World What imperious and wicked Propositions sent they continually to him upon such debates as at the beginning of the Wars after that to New-castle and after that to him at Carisbrook-Castle to which when he
the Church in Sudly Castle at the beginning of these Wars profaned Not only the Monuments of the Chandoises spoil'd but one part of the Church converted to a Stable whilst the other was little better than a Shambles the Pulpit being made the chief stall where the meat was hung up and the communion-table served for a board to joynt upon The Inhabitants of Weden-Pinkney in Northamptonshire cannot yet forget how Mr. Losse their Minister was abused whilest he was officiating by the souldiers who rid into the Church and wounded the Minister because he would not go along with them they refusing to tell him by what authority they commanded him An action so wicked that the very heathens will rise up in judgment against them And those of Chelmsford in Essex need no remembrancer how their Church-windows having the History of Christ and the Scutchions of Bene factors painted in them were batter'd down by the instigated rabble who not content with this layd violent hands on Dr. Michelson their Parson and rent the Common Prayer Book with a great deal of joy This reformed town as my Author saith was govern'd by a Tinker two Coblers two Taylors and two Pedlers How miserably was the ancient Cathedral Church at Winchester dealt withall the famous Monuments of the Dead utterly defaced the bones of Kings Bishops c. thrown about the Church the two famous Brazen Statues of King James and King Charles erected at the entrance into the Quire pulled down the Communion-Plate books hangings cushions c. seis'd upon and made away the Church-vestments put on by the heathenish soldiers riding in that posture in derision about the streets some scornfully singing pieces of the Common-prayer whilst others tooted upon the broken pieces of Organs The stories of the old and new Testament curiously beautified with colours and cut out in carved work they utterly destroy'd against which wickednesse the Prophet David of old complained Nor did the famous Organs escape their fury being pull'd to pieces and imployed to private uses As one in York something advanced his houses if my memory fail me not with Organ and Church-wood which if he had turn'd into Looms and Shuttles had been more proper for his trade And of the brasse torn from violated Monuments might have been built a house as strong as the brazen Towers in some old Romances And after this manner was the Cathedral of Exceter served where the Commandements were defaced the Common-Prayer Book burnt the glasse-windows monuments statues and organs broke and the name of Jesus over the Communion table blotted out as superstitious Nor can some honest people of London yet forget the intolerable actions of the saint-like soldiers at St. Peter's Pauls-wharf sunday 9 Sept. 1649 who rode into the said Church with swords drawn and pistols spann'd crying out Knock the Rogues on the head shoot them kill them which was accordingly done an old woman being shot into the head and above 40 more grievously wounded and the Minister Mr. Williams hurried Prisoner to White-Hall And all this because the Common prayer establisht by the true Laws of the Land was read whence my Author observes that these Hereticks though they loudly cry up Liberty of Conscience yet will allow none to others but take all to themselves the better to cloak their villanies with pretended Religion and reformation The Cathedral of Chichester was sufficiently violated being robb'd of all her vestments and plate and not so much as a Cushion left in the pulpit the Organs and ten Commandements broke down and spoil'd the Pictures of the Kings of England and Bishops of that See defaced with the monuments seats stalls and painted walls And after the same manner was the Cathedral of Peterborough used and how Lichfield escaped is not unknown And their fury being once begun no man can expect that the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury could escape where Coll. Sandys soldidiers barbarously overthrew the Communion-Table tearing the velvet cloth from before it defacing the goodly Screen violating the monuments of the dead spoiling the organs breaking down the ancient rails and seats with the brazen Eagle which supported the Bible tearing the surplices gowns bibles and Arras hanging in the Quire representing the whole story of our Saviour wherein observing divers figures of Christ one said that here is Christ and swore that he would stab him another said here is Christ and swore that he would rip up his Bowels which they did accordingly so farre as the figures were capable and not content with this finding another Statue of our Saviour in the Frontispiece of the south-gate shot about forty shots at it tryumphing much when they had hit the head or face The ancient Cathedral of Durham can yet shew her ruines and can tell with what unspeakable tyranny the Kings poor friends were used in it And that of Carlisle deplores the want of a part of its body being ruined to be imployed in wicked Warre whilest it was intended a house of prayer and peace Nor is it unknown how sacrilegiously that excellent structure of St. Pauls in London was abused making of it an Exchange where things may be bought and sould not only contrary to the Laws of God but also of man and that not only of our own but forraign Churches as may appear by several Canons against such violations The laws of our Nation expresly forbidding any Fair or market to be held in Church-yards and by consequence not in the Church it self so that a late writer said not amisse that one might well be amazed at the genius of this age that suffered this goodly and venerable fabrick to be built about and converted into rascally ware-houses and so sordidly abused and defaced that an Argument of greater avarice malice meanesse and deformity of mind cannot possibly be exprest England is the sole spot in all the world where amongst Christians their Churches are made jakes and stables markets and tipling houses and where there were more need of Scorpions than Thongs to drive out the Publicans and Money changers And that St. Pauls by the wicked reformers was converted into a stable is not unknown to it's Neighbours which iniquities and such like occasioned the Saying That we had now a thorough Reformation in England since our horses also went to Church Yet some not content to have their horses in the Church unlesse some other villanie were done witnesse the damnable wickednesse of one Captain Beamont who at Yakesly in Huntingtonshire Anno. 1644. having pist in the Font fetched his bold horse from Mr. Finnemores stable and in derision of Baptism sprinkled it on the horse calling of him Ball Esau because he was hairy and in scorn to the Church of England crost him on the forehead and to make their villany compleat one Robert Rayner Corporal acted the part of the Minister and would also have God-Fathers one Bartly Ward but nick-named Widdow Shropshire acting the part of
neither out of them by the Zealots then in Possession Our late Grandees made many hundred Protestations that all their actions were only for the Preservation of the Kings Person yet they most wickedly murthered him because he was a Defender of the true Faith as the ancient Sweeds martyr'd their good King Eric Stenchil because he intended to bring the Christian Religion amongst them And our Presbyterians swore in the Covenant to preserve the King yet never did in the least assist him but fought what they could against him as appears by the series of the whole Warr. When the Parliament threw by their King and Oaths in the Votes for Non-Address the Nation saw that they were then contriving his ruine And the Royalists knew that their Soveraign must be saved then or never for which purpose in 1648. they seize upon Carlisle Barwick and Pontefrait in the North whilst those of Kent grow numerous in the South Thus the Kings Party though devested of Arms and Strength bestirr themselves like faithful Subjects But what did the Brethren do Alas they acted very high too though the clean contrary way The Parliament cursing the Royal design with Bell Book and Candle contriving night and day how to bring them to distruction whilst their Associates in the Countrey and Army furiously opposed and at last as the Devil was permitted to triumph over Job proved victorious to the ruine of the Kings best friends Yet had these Zealots according to their Oaths taken up their Weapons probably the Kings murder and other following mischiefs had been stopt But God would not suffer such wicked perjured Wretches to be Authors of so much good It being miraculous which are now ceased that the madd Bulls of Spain should be so favourable to the Corps of St. James And that the Devil that delighter in mischief should wait upon a good Knight so faithfully and be so beneficial to Christianity as to pay for a Bell that the people might with more facility be drawn to Church Thus did these people for all their gude Covenant suffer their King to be murdred before their faces without moving one hand for a rescue unless you will allow the Petitioning of a few when it was too late to do any good by soft words though it was more than could be expected from those who had done him all the mischief that Sword Gun or Malice could do which puts me in mind of a passage in a Paper printed for Robert White before the decollation of his Majesty The well-known Gilb. Mabbot being Imprimatur It 's conceived absurd and hypocritical to swear the Preservation of the Kings Person as a man when at the same time a Warr is ingaged against him and he known to be in the Field subject to death by the Bullet and Sword And it is well known that some of the Souldiers said that they would kill the King asson as another man Though I do not say that the Presbyterians were the men that did actually murder him yet we know that the Rump was not free from some of that Faction and so whether any of that party consented to the stroak or no yet I am confident that most if not all of that gang brought him to the Scaffold concerning which I shall borrow a Story from an Ingenious Knight for I do not love like some of late to steal whole pages and attribute their product to mine own Brain and this may very well reflect upon the whole Presbyterian Party Some Robbers on Shooters-Hill assault an honest Gentleman yet the Thieves among themselves are divided some inclining only to bind him and leave him helpless in the adjacent Woods But others for their greater security from pursuit determin rather to murther him out-right Now I suppose an honest Jury will find both Parties guilty of and agreed in the main Design viz. Robbery The Application is so true and plain that any man will judge the Presbyterians as well guilty of High-Treason For 1. Fighting against their King 2. Voting all his Assisters to be Traytors contrary to the Law 3. Hanging and Beheading many gallant Gentlemen only for their Loyalty 4. Sequestrating the Orthodox and ruining the Church both against Law and King 5. Calling his Majesty through his Declarations scandalous impious false wicked tyrannical and what not 6. Voting the Queen a Traytor for assisting the King her Husband against Rebels 7. Ordering such abominable Propositions that a Peace could not be agitated unless the Kings best Friends were delivered up to hop headless 8. Forcing Oaths upon the People contrary to the Kings Command and the Law of the Land 9. Confining his Majesty 10. Pinding him up to such intolerable Rules and Covenants or else they will have none of him 11. Throwing him by or rather disowning him to be their King by their Votes for Non-Address 12. Voting and Fighting against those who in 1648. endeavoured to release him from his Imprisonment and save him from the Block With several other such like mad pranks as these which if not singly as most of them will yet I am confident will make Accumulative Treason which will either hang them according to their own deeds or else they murdered the Earl of Strafford and murther is death both by the Laws of God and Man I say an Indifferent Jury need never go from the Barr to consider but at the first hearing would freely find the Presbyterian Subjects as well guilty of Treason against their Soveraign as those who would not add sin to sin by Hypocrisie but impiously declared their dislike to Monarchy by a wicked Decollation Another refuge and that the last that the Brethren have is in the action of Sir George Booth That some of them were well-wishers to it I cannot because my knowledge is not Omnipotent deny but what assistance and upon what conditions they afforded to that design I shall leave for them to demonstrate I being unwilling to say what Lords utter Enemies to Episcopacy would not so much as Interest themselves in it if reports be true or at least so cowardly that they only advantaged the Kings Enemies But enough of this it being farr from my humour to be so malepert with some Nobles as the Presbyterians are impudent with his Majesty Though I am really of Opinion that had that Design taken effect we should have had our old warre renew'd again the Puritans having been once armed and imbodyed would have fought down our legal Episcopal Government and chained up his Majesty to some New-Castle or Isle of Wight-like conditions or if they had proved Maisters sent the King beyond Sea again or secured him if not yielded him up also to the Independants for what wickednesse have they not undertaken to bring about their ends whether it be true or noe that the Devils have had several conventions for the extirpating of the Franciscan Order it matters not though I am confident the Brethren seldome consult but
might be said as Platina said of the same Pope Thus expired these Bonte-feus who rather endeavour'd to make themselves a terror to Kings Magistrates then study the increase and propagation of true Religion However if after all this we should grant though I see small reason for so doing that the Presbyterians did contribute something to his Majestie 's restauration yet will the credit if rightly considered be so little that they have aboundance of confidence who can boast of it It being done supposing that they were assisters rather for their own ends then any real love which they bore towards his Majesty And what will not these men do for their own advantage We need not tell here of some Patrons of that Faction who first subscribed to Episcopacy then took the Covenant against it then took the Engagement against Kingship and since have embraced both King and Episcopal Government And certainly most ignorant must that man be who supposeth that those who thus vary do it really by perswasion of the excellent goodness of that thing they then engage for rather then a time-serving humour for a private benefit And what little thanks much lesse reward the Puritans merit by their assistance supposing that they were advantagious may be hinted at by these following parallel stories At that famous Siege of Ostend a Frenchman by disobeying his Serjeant caus'd a Tumult for which he was condemned by a Councel of War to be Shot to Death Yet at the intercession of the French Captain that renowned General Sir Francis Vere granted him life upon condition he asked the Serjeant forgiveness This he scorned however had eight days allow'd him to consider at the end of which he seeming still obstinate was Ordered to Execution and accordingly was tyed to a Stake But no sooner did the Monsieur see the Harquebusiers ready to discharge but the fear of death falling upon him he desired to be unbound and so asked the Serjeant forgiveness Our Brittish Presbyterians by disobedience to their King caused a most wicked war to the ruin of many Noble families and the King himself The merciful King for the preservation of his Subjects bloud sent to the Malefactors Post after Post a full pardon provided there might be a sure peace and a perfect Amnesty To these propositions they scorn to hearken and by their Covenant swear to ruin all the King's friends and in this manner being confident in their own strength they run on in obstinacy and in this stubborn fashion did they continue many years thinking themselves secure But at last to their amazement they beheld the Independent ready to cut their throats this fear of a sudden destruction brought such a terrour upon these zealots that they were even at their wits ends they look round about for relief cast out many a sigh to obtain favour but they perceive no safety unless they would acknowledge themselves Subjects to their King This they thought a hard lesson and contradictory to their Christian Liberty but taking it for a good rule that of two Evils the lesse is to be chosen they with a low voyce not willing to be heard mumble out that Charles II. is their King and so through his Majesties mercy were relieved from their bondage though innocent souls they scorned to ask pardon for their former villanies in which they came short of the French mans ingenuity But to bring the Simile somewhat more pat in respect of the relation betwixt a Soveraign and a Subject Above 300. years past the Danes banished their King Christophorus II. and Imprisoned his eldest son Eric in the strong Castle of Hadersleben in the Dukedome of Schleswick These dissentions having weakened the Nation those of Holstein endeavour'd to get Denmark under their subjection which the Danes perceiving were glad to re-call their King and set free his Son This story will unfold it self in the application of the following Narrative which is exactly to the business and hath formerly been used by an Ingenious Gentleman in a speech at Nottngham though in the relating I shall not only somewhat differ from him but also inlarge my self out of the Chronicles themselves James I. King of Scotland when but Prince and young going into France was taken Prisoner by the English 7. Henry IV. 1406. where he was detain'd some 18. years In the mean time the Government of Scotland was usurped by Robert Steward Duke of Albany and Earl of Fyfe after whose death his Son Mordack or Murdo got the command never endeavouring the resettlement of his King but lorded it over the Nation wasting and alientating the King's Revenue and the Churches Patrimony turning all things upside down according to his Tyrannical humour In the mean while Mordac had three sons Walter Alexander and James though André de Chesne through brevity taketh no notice of the latter who grew very unruly and imperious obedient to no laws but their own wills presumptiously destroying what their Father most delighted in to his great grief and discontent And not being able to endure their sawciness he resolved to free himself from their Tyrannical yoak to which purpose he told his eldest son Walter who had just then snatch'd a Faulcon from his fathers hand and wrong off her neck that since he would not be obedient to his government and pleasure he would procure one who should rule them both After which time all his Counsels were for the restauration of King James resolving rather to be a Subject to a lawful King then a slave to his own Children For which purpose he gets a Parliament call'd at Saint Johnstown where all being weary of the present Government and Tyranny it was unanimously concluded to send for their own King home again which accordingly was done 1424. and he presently restoreth both the Crown and Church Revenues And in a Parliament held at Sterling Mordacus with his two sons were condemn'd as Traytors and beheaded his youngest son flying into Ireland where he dyed The Application of this Story is obvious Our present King when also but a young Prince by the malignancy of self-ended Traytors being secluded from his own for the space also of eighteen years The Government of the Nation was seised upon by the furious Presbyterians who Tyrannize to the purpose over the distracted Country getting the King's Lands selling his Woods loading the Nation with Excise and Taxes ruining the Church imprisoning and murthering the Bishops and others of the Chief Gentry whose estates they also put into their pockets imposing wicked oaths upon the people vilifying their King murthering his Subjects and in a word violating all Laws After this fashion did old Father Presbytery Tyrannize for some years But at last Independency Anabaptism and the Fifth-Monarchy-men the three ungracious sons of Presbytery began to perk up grow headstrong and so malepert as to contemn scorn and deride their Father spitting in his face and throwing all reproaches they could upon him
mad-caps of the Long-Parliament declared the legality and necessity of the Warr against their King Nor how they they voted all his Loyal Subjects Traytors because obedient to him these things be as well known as their Prosperity they driving all before them being thrust on with a mischief as if they had the command of Dame Fortune as Ericus Ventosi Pilei King of Sweadland had of the Windes by the turning of his Cap. And whatsoever they did their white-eyed Pulpiteers vindicated and whined it out to their affected people with abundance of Ha's Oh's and O's to be agreeable to Gods Secret Will for alas every puny of these Saints understood his Revealed too well to be Catechized in such things How pitifully these Schismatical Cushion-Thumpers abused the simple multitude into Rebellion you may in part perceive by one instance out of their own Historian After the Battel of Edge-Hill the Earl of Essex with several of his Regiments went to London Novemb. 1642. The Sabbath-day after their arrival to London the Godly and well-affected Ministers throughout the City preached and prais'd the Lord publickly for their so joyful and safe return home to their Parents Masters and Friends Exhorting those young Souldiers of Christs Army-Royal still to retain and be forward and ready to show their Courage and Zeal to the defence of Gods Cause and their Countreys Well-fare Shewing them the Plots of their Adversaries to have Introduced Popery and Tyranny into the Kingdom and assuring them that this Warr on their parts was waged and managed by Papists An Army of Papists being raising by the Kings Command contrary to his Vows and Protestations and deep Asseverations to the contrary And were not these sweet-souls to preach Peace and Repentance Just as some forraign Priests by hearing Confession instead of a rebuke perswade the simple women to act the same sin over again with themselves Nay so farr had our rebellious Thunderers proceeded as to make the People believe that those who sided with the King were in a manner past hopes of any happiness in the World to come concerning which I shall tell you a Story upon the credit of honest Jack Taylor One Francis Beal dwelling in the Axe-Yard in Kings-street Westminster with his Wife were throrow-paced for the Parliamentary-Cause yet had a Son who like an honest Subject faithfully served the King in the Wars which so troubled his zealous Mother that she caus'd a Bill to be written to have him pray'd for in the Church which Bill was delivered in Martins Church near Chearing-Cross to the well-known Mr. Case the Lecturer there on Thursdays the form of the Bill was as followeth These are to desire you to take into your Christian Considerations the grief and sorrow of one Mistris Beal of Westminster whose son Francis Beal is faln away from Grace and serves the King in his Wars Wherefore she most humbly beseecheth the Prayers of this Congregation that He may Return and be Converted Is not this abominable Hypocrisie as bad as the poor ignorant Irish who when they went a stealing pray'd to God for good Fortune and if accordingly they got a good Booty used to render God thanks for his assisting their Villany and so lookt upon it as the gift of God Oh what will men not dare if thus they dare Be impudent to Heaven and play with Prayer Play with that Fear with that Religious awe Which keeps men free and yet is mans great Law What can they but the worst of Atheists be Who while they word it ' gainst Impietie Affront the Throne of God with their false deeds Alas this wonder in the Atheist breeds Are these the men that would the Age reform That down with Superstition cry and swarm This painted Glass that Sculpture to deface But worship Pride and Avarice in the place Religion they bawl out yet know not what Religion is unless it be to prate Meekness they preach but study to Controul Money they 'd have when they cry out the Soul And angry will not have Our Father said ' Cause it prays not enough for dayly bread They meet in private and cry Persecution When Faction is their end and State-confusion These are the men that plague and over-run Like Goths and Vandals all Religion Vain foolish People how are you deceived How many several sorts have you received Of things call'd Truths upon your backs laid on Like Saddles for themselves to ride upon They ridd amain and Hell and Satan drove While every Priest for his own profit strove They close with God seem to obey his Laws They cry aloud for him and for his Cause But while they do their strict Injunctions preach Deny in actions what their words do teach O what will men not dare if thus they dare Be Impudent with Heaven and play with Prayer Besides the many wicked Declarations of the Juncto of the Lords and Commons and the seditious Pulpit-Talkativeness of their puny Muffti's many Pamphlets were sent abroad to incite the people to Rebellion and this by Authority too a sight of which I suppose their zealous Journey-man Sam. Gellibrand would not deny a friend Nay they were gon so farr as to think the Rebellion so laudable and necessary that they perswaded the people that it was not lawful to suffer patiently and with-draw themselves from its calamities contrary to the express command of our Saviour who bids us fly from City to City rather than resist to which purpose one of their Beloved Mr. S. T. put forth a small Treatise in which he tells the World That when a Parliamentary-State is ingaged for the repressing of Injuries and maintenance of publick Liberties and mens Estates this calls in all private thoughts of escape to contribute them to the publick defence and then furiously exasperates them against the King and his Loyal Subjects by infusing into them strange things of the dangerous distemper spread over all our Body the discord in our own Bowels an Abominable Army Idolatrous Ensignes the Romish Banner And therefore Things stand now in such posture that God requires our deep Engagement and that we should banish all thoughts of declining In this great hazard that Liberty Laws and Religion run to leave our ground were to leave Popery Mastery of the Field And at last concludes What comfort can this be if we run away from a good Cause as if we were afraid to own or afraid to assist it and unwilling to suffer and be lost with it And who must be the promoter of Printing this Seditious Pamphlet but Mr. Edm. Calamy the famous hinter of Aldermanbury London But it was not only Printing which they made use of to vindicate Rebellion but also and that a main one too Pulpit-prating for I dare not call such babling Preaching where nothing was yell'd out but Persecution Persecution O the cruelty and knavery of the King O the Idolatry of the Queen O the wickedness of the Malignant Antichristian
against peace 'T is the sword not disputes nor Treaties that must end this Controversie Wherefore turn your plow-shares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears to fight the Lords battels to avenge the blood of Saints which hath been spilt It must be avenged either by us or upon us I have sometimes feard alwaies praid that too much mercy and pitty in our State Physitians i. e. the Parliament might not retard the healing of this land Men who have deserted their trust falsified their Covenants how soon are they received into favour enjoy their Estates as if they were never enemies Oh! how are Neutralists and Malignants spared I have often thought that too much mercy towards Malignants hath made more Delinquents than ever justice hath punish'd mercy should not weigh down justice in God they are both equall why should it not be so in man Pitty to the bad hath proved cruelty to the good the sparing of Offenders hath made many worse few or none better To them that have shewd no mercy let judgment be shewd without mercy Guilt hath been contracted much innocent blood hath been spilt which must either be aveng'd on us or by us Oh there are many Malignant humours to be purged out of many of the Nobles and Gentry in this Kingdome before we can be healed The Lord heals a Land by cutting off these distemper'd members that endangers the health of the Land 'T was the Lord troubled Achan and cut him off because he troubled Israel O that in this our State-physitians i. e. the Parliament would resemble God to cut off those from the Land who have distemper'd it Melius est ut pereat unus quám unitas Men who lye under the guilt of much innocent blood are not meet persons to be at peace with till all the guilt of blood be expiated and avenged either by the sword of the Law or Law of the sword else a peace can never be safe nor just And then at the last tells you that the Parliaments cause and men are so good but the Malignants so abominably wicked that Heaven and Hell may almost as soon meet as these two make a peace I might also tell you how he hints upon the perfidiousnesse of Princes upon the deaths of King James and Prince Henry upon the losse of Rochell and the Irish Rebellion but I shall leave such false dirty slanders to be swallowed down by those Puritans who first spewed them forth yet did Ja Cranford think this houre of Rebellion very worth printing the better to perswade the people to embrace such wickednesse Which calls to my memory one expression then utter'd by Love That it was a very hurtful opinion that people must not defend themselves by force of Arms against their King What wickednesse this rebellious barrangue boaded I shall not say only desire you to observe that his Sacred Majesty was murther'd the same day four years that this blood-thirsty doctrine was vomited out by Love and the same day that Love dyed on was also honourd with the death of that bloody Tyrant Richard III. What do you think of another of these Champions viz. Mr. Samuel Rutherford No lesse man then Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews who thus yell'd out his malice against the Kings friends Bloody men who defend a cursed cause O enemies of the Gospel O Malignants and haters of the Lord and his Saints Malignants are but drawing blood of Christs heele in these bloody Warres He God suffereth Malignants to ride over his people that he may perfume the work of Hell in the enemies who are as it were skullions to purge the vessels of mercy and to humble them Malignants plow the Church and sow blood in the three Kingdomes The wicked of these Kingdomes malignants bloody-Irish rotten-hearted men such back-sliders and perjured Apostates as are in Scotland delivered to Satan and Excommunicated And after this speaking concerning the reasons of Gods judgments upon the Nation he thus delivers himself Others say Rebellion against the King is the cause but rather the not timous rising to help the Lord and his oppressed people against the mighty is the cause The defection of both Kingdomes to Altar-worship Imagery Idolatry Popish and Arminian doctrine c. And a little after this throws more dirt upon the King and his party than half his enemies had done before Yet was all this very pleasing to the Lords house then at Westminster who like true English Barons who should neither suffer their King nor their Peers to be abused the next day having consulted with their Pillows like themselves Order thanks to be given to Rutherfurd with desires also that he print his gudly geere I could also tell you how Samuel Anneley L. L. D. and Preacher at Cliffe in Kent very manfully perswaded the Parliament to do justice upon the King and not to treat with him any more yet highly extols and affirms the obligation of the Covenant so that some can cut off the Kings head by authority of the Covenant for which pretty salvo it may be the Commons ordered Mr. Boys to give the Dr. thanks where also they desire him to print this Queer come off I would also tell you of Mr. Matthew Barker formerly of James Garlick hithe London whence Mr. Freeman was wrongfully sequestred and plundred and his Curate Mr. Anthony turn'd out then of Mortlake in Surrey who earnestly in the pulpit perswaded the Parliament to continue in the wicked ways they had begun And that they do by all means execute justice And not to have any more Treaties and this man must have their thanks too from the mouth of Collonel Harvy I would also tell you how Mr. Tho. Brooks of Thomas Apostles whence Mr. Cooper was sequestred plundred and sent Prisoner to Leeds Castle in Kent furiously stirr'd up the Rumpers to do justice but because this was after the seclusion I shall neither speak of him or his being thankd by Sir John Bourchier The plain truth is should I give you a Bead-role of all the Treasonable rebellious and seditious expressions only utter'd from the Pulpit before the Parliament it self from the beginning of these warres till the Kings murther as I could soon do did I think it worth the while a Stranger might well suppose our English Pulpits not to be unlike that dreadful passage in Sir John Mandevile where so many Devills cunningly acted their parts to intise passengers to their perpetual ruine and well might he judge every Presbyterian black coat a Cataline whose only businesse is to promote Rebellion and Bloodshed yet was none of them ever checkt by but had the hearty thanks from the Parliament for so doing which shall stand as a perpetual in famy to the Presbyterians in the house whether secluded or a Rumper For had they any respect to his Majesty they would never have suffered him
they are all Saints thereby inticing the Countrey to choose them for their future Representees that under their protection the Non-conformists might have more work to do or else by having a good opinion of them may stick close to them upon all occasions and pitty that the Cause these good men undertook had no better success but the discredit and ignominy of the Contrivers not forgetting the large sums of Money and Lands they cheated the King Church and State of If Rebellion Murther Sacriledge Schism Perjury Knavery and such like sins can make a man wicked and 't is well known where all these and many more vices were met together the Epithet will keep its ground secure against the fume and range of all the Schismaticks in England or Scotland Yet even since the King came in have they had many good wishes not unknown to the whole Nation and therefore I shall give you but one Instance and that of one old enough to know what they were but that he spake through a Covenanting Interest and these commendations of them are as they were 1644. when all those who were Loyal and good had left the House and followed his Majesty his Encomium is this A House full and free and these the best that ever England had for Piety towards God and Loyalty to their Soveraign A Parliament of Lords and Commons so pious so prudent so loyal and faithful to God and their King These Commendations are but like Libanius the Sophister's applauding and praising Julian the Apostate who amongst the many moral vertues that there are might possibly have a tincture of some What goodness these people had I know not yet can I guess at a large portion of their mischief Only one shall be mine instance viz. That they were the first Contrivers of these Wars they consulted the Rebellion they broach'd it and gave it life by their Votes and Declarations whereby they cunningly inveagled others into their sin yet being degrees in wickedness the worst of their Souldiers was not the tenth part so bad as these Members the first being knavishly inticed to act the others Command they contriv'd and plotted the Rebellion and drol'd on the Countrey to be obedient to their Orders under the specious shew of Reformation and Religion knowing the consequence of the old Rule never fails Quoties vis fallere Plebem Finge Deum They cannot be good Subjects to King Charles I. that commend his Enemies and they deserve no thanks from King Charles II. who praise those who did and voted and declared it lawful to fight against his Father thereby proclaiming to the World the legality of acting the same if they could get occasion against the Son 'T is needless to tell you how they violently made it their business to clip and pare the Kings Prerogative and Authority and amongst many other frivolously plucking away the Militia allowing the King through civility to carry a Sword by his side because he 's a Gentleman but not upon any occasion whatsoever to draw it that being forsooth the office and priviledge of their hands by which hanging a lock at his hilt but they keeping the Keys using him as they used their children giving them Gold in a Box which they must not finger only please themselves with its ratling by which means they will make themselves a Negative Vote in Peace and Warr. And after this fashion did their Covenanting Brethren of Scotland abuse their King taking all power of Arms into their own hands their reason being because The Kings Castles and Strengths are the Keys of the Realm and they knew no reason to the contrary but that they might keep their own Keys Thus would they make their King meerly Titular and a perfect Slave and Captive to their Wills Not unlike Sancho Panco who for sport-sake was made Governour of the Islands but had no Authority nay scarce liberty to eat his Victuals The rustick Biscayners cry up their priviledges so much that the King of Spain dare not go amongst them but well armed and guarded And good reason for they think their King to have so small Authority over them that he must bare one of his legs when he cometh upon the Frontiers of their Countrey and though they meet him as their King with what bravery they can and proffer him some few Maravidi's small brass-pieces each of them about the value of a Scotch Turner or Bodel somewhat less than our English farthing in a Leathern Bag hung at the end of a Lance yet for all this shew of great kindness they fairly tell him that he must not take them This Nation hath long enough felt the smart of crying Priviledges and Majesty it self hath been dar'd by that specious pretence Though they give him the Name of King yet they take all its Attributes to themselves though they call themselves Subjects yet like the Scots they do not Petition but with their Swords in their hands at the first denyal sounding an Alarum and at the second run themselves so farr into Rebellion that if something be not granted them they will destroy all As if they had swallowed up their Obedience with that ravenous Whirl-pool in Pentland Frith in the North of Scotland with which if either Ship or Boat shall happen to encroach they must quickly either throw over something into it as a Barrel a piece of Timber and such like or that fatal Euripus shall then suddenly become their swallowing Sepulcher Thus the Presbyterians make their Obedience a Bargain and if Interest out-bid the King He need not trouble himself by being a customer to these men who allow him no power but what they suppose he derived from them and which they can take to themselves again when they see occasion or please CHAP. IV. That the Presbyterians are but Conditional Subjects no longer obedient to their King or acknowledging Him than he serves their turn and is subservient to their fancies A Conditional Subject is the worst Animal in a Kingdom being the first Creature that shrinks from Government and always ready to destroy the Peace of the Nation for which and other things he will never want a reason grateful to the Rabble as long as he can cry out that his Subjection is but Conditional and the Magistrate having broke his part he 's no more oblig'd to his duty And this the people believing to be each mans case will make themselves Judges by which means the Authority of a single Person will ever be out-voted or over-worded That the King of England is Supream is certain That the greatest wickedness in the World cannot un-King him is as true The Law of the Land obligeth us to submit and makes it Treason to resist and the Scriptures bids us Obey but never Rebel for Conscience sake Every man is born with the Oath of Allegiance and is as much obliged to its observance before as after his taking it Though the Prince were Turk or
any of your Protestations and seeming kindnesses may thank himself for his own distruction not a man of you but like Pope Sixtus IV. if the Poet hit right Fraudisque dolique Magister Et sola tantum proditione potens A Master of frauds and deceits And only powerful in Treacherous feats So stubborn and perverse are these People in their Iniquities that the King Church must either submit to their whimsies or else neither shall have Peace For if ever the Common-Prayer-Book be imposed again against the Authority ofthese seditious Caterpillers they plainly tell the present King that there will inevitably follow sad Divisions and widening of the Breaches which your Majesty is endeavouring to heal And in their second Paper to his Majesty they thus swagger Should we lose the opportunity of our desired Reconciliation and Union It astonisheth us to fore-see what doleful effects our Divisions should produce which we will not so much as mention in particular lest we should be mis-understood And in another place they threaten the King with what great Calamities will fall upon the People in his Raign if Episcopacy be fully setled And in another of their Pamphlets talks of the Worlds running into Confusion yet a little after assures the Bishops how patiently they will undergo this Persecution for such is Obedience in the Opinion of these men But how improbable it is that these men should continue in this Resolution shall be left to experience though any man may imagine that their words were farr from their intentions when they shall hear the same People tell the very same Bishops that they must make loud complaint of their Persecutions in their Sermons Prayers and other Discourses To which purpose thus take their own words It is easie to fore-see how those expressions in mens Sermons or Prayers or familiar Conference which seem to any mis-understanding or suspicious or malicious Hearers to Intimate any sense of Sufferings will be carryed to the Ears of Rulers and represented as a Crime And Nature have planted in all men an Unwillingness to suffer and deny'd to all men a love of Calamity and necessitated men to feel when they are hurt and made the Tongue and Countenance the Index of our Sense These Effects will be unavoidable while such Impositions are continued And while a fear of sinning will not suffer men to swallow and digest them These are the expressions not of private but the publick and chief persons of their Faction not singly neither for not a word of these past but with the approbation and consent of their wisest Grandees which may be for ought I know a Representative of their whole Body Yet here you see the Foundations of another Warr laid if their desires be not satisfied and if this do not signifie their Obedience to be no longer than the King and Bishops comply with their humours I will submit to be chain'd for a punishment to Jenkin's or Calamy's Pulpit for a twelve-month to learn the meaning of the Covenanters Gibbridge When they expresly declare that unless the King satisfie their desires there shall be Divisions Breaches aoleful Effects great Calamities Confusions and that they for their parts shall not hold their peace I must take it for granted that they are willing nay resolv'd if they can get opportunity again to renew their Rebellion and all this wickedness to retrive that hellish Imp their Covenant burnt by the Hang-mans hand by publick Authority And those who will thus out-face King Church Law and Authority must be as farr from being good Subjects as Ravaillac was when he stab'd his Soveraign CHAP. V. I. The wicked Reproaches the Presbyterians cast upon the present Episcopal Church II. What small reason they have to desire Toleration from the King and Episcopal Party since they deny the same to them with their scandals upon the Church as Popish which are wiped off III. Their slanders upon the late King and his vindication from his own Enemies IV. Their endeavours to begger the Episcopal Church V. Their stories of Gods judgments retorted THere is a Tale of Bajazet the first that he had an Ethiope born in India about him and having upon a march one day his Tent pitch'd near an high Tree He call'd the Ethiope and said Dre Areb if thou lov'st me go up to the top of that Tree The Indian scambled up presently so the Emperour sent presently for some to hew down the Tree the poor Ethiop begging his life all the while and that his Counsellors would intercede for him but nothing prevailing the Ethiop pull'd down his Breeches and with his Excrements and Urine did so bewray the hewers that they gave over work and in the interim the Ethiop gets down telling the Turks Counsellors Would all such privy Counsellors as you were so bewray'd whose Counsell cannot do as much good as mine Excrements There is nothing in this story that I do entend to be applicatory but to one piece of policy of the Presbyterians who at this time when all means else fail them make it one of their best Asylum's and last refuge to bespatter and vilifie those whom they take for their enemies And in this art they are so dexterous as to charme the simple people into a belief of their words each of their Lecturers being as active for England as the spirit Rigilde in Scudery's Master-piece was for to perswade the Spaniards into Tumults and Uproars And they are not ignorant how credulous the vulgar are A poor German was easily perswaded that a fellow was burnt at Auspurg for a Cheat by placing snow before an hot furnace and there to remain till it was hardened with the heat and then to have sold it for salt A priest once made some people so firmly believe that the Storks were men of a farre Country but only in winter Transfigured That they did all seriously profess for the future to have a greater respect and honour for those Birds If many men of good literature are apt to credit the stories in Gononus Metaphrastes Surius Dauroultius Nider Marulus Cantipratanus Lippeloo Caesarius and such like Sacred Romancies we may well suppose the Faith of the unlearned to be more easily wrought upon This makes them at this time throw about their dirt to the purpose perswading the people that nothing but wickedness and Sathan rules and over-spreads the whole Land To which purpose thus they send their Mercuries about and old Hall of Kings-Norton rants bravely I do verily believe there hath been a greater flood of open profanesse in ten weeks past than in ten years before Which is a pretty information to the people of what mischief the Kings return hath brought upon the Kingdome And to this purpose also Crofton when he tells us of the Suppressing pious painful Preachers thrust out and prophane drunken deboist canonical Common-Prayer-Book men forced in wheresoever a Bishops power can reach And this
excommunicated that took not the Covenant and then any man might lawfully kill him who would put himself to so much trouble as to do it But we need not trouble our selves much by a recital of their words since their actions all along in that Kingdom were furiously hurryed on against Episcopacy or the Toleration of any thing that did thwart their Covenant And after this manner have we in England proceeded the Brethren thinking it impossible for any thing to thrive unless Episcopacy be pluck'd up root and branch of which take the words of Crofton I 'le stand by it It i. e. Episcopacy must be extirpated if King and Kingdom or Peace and Glory must be preserved from Gods angry extirpation It it not unknown to any that is conversant in their Writings and Sermons How for many years together they thundred before their Parliament the ruine of Episcopal Government pronouncing sad woes and judgements if any such things were tolerated which highly stir'd up the people of both Houses to act so fiercely against all Law and Reason for the maintenance of their wicked Covenant and Presbytery allowing no more mercy to the Orthodox Clergy than a Jew who sometimes might breathe amongst them but not do any thing in satisfaction of their Consciences These men being then Supream being against neutrality in Religion as well as Warr concerning which thus their Chieftains of both Kingdoms declare We give now publick warning to such Persons to rest no longer upon their Neutrality or to please themselves with the naughty and slothful pretext of Indifferency But that they address themselves speedily to take the Covenant and joyn with all their power in the defence of this Cause against the common Enemy and by their zeal and forwardness hereafter to make up what hath been wanting through their luke-warmness This they shall finde to be their greatest wisdom and safety Otherwise we do declare them to be publick Enemies to the Religion and Countrey and that they are to be censured and punished as profess'd Adversaries and Malignants Nor had they only the Solemn League but another Covenant as full of Treason and Wickedness as ever was invented by Satan and the refusers of this and none could take it but such wretches as themselves they Ordered to be dealt withall as Conspirators and Enemies and their Estates disposed of accordingly And besides this their Lords and Commons put forth another Oath stuft with non-sense for the preservation of themselves and their City with the power granted to seize upon the persons of all such as refused the said Oath Thus had these Puritans several gins laid to ruine the Orthodox and Loyal Subjects I might here tell of their giving Sir William Brereton and his Cheshire Associates Authority to turn out all the Ministers and School-Masters of that County who were for the King I might tell how they order'd every man upon his peril to submit to the destruction of Fonts Surplisses Organs painted Glass-windows c. I can also tell you how their Lords and Commons Ordain'd That if any Person or Persons shall use or caus'd to be used the Common-Prayer-Book That then every such person so offending therein shall for the first offence forfeit and pay the sum of five pounds For the second offence the sum of ten pound and for the third offence shall suffer one whole years Imprisonment without Bail or Main-prize And it is further Ordain'd That every Minister which shall not hence-forth pursue and observe the Directory for publick Worship according to the true intent and meaning thereof in all Exercises of the Publick Worship of God shall for every time that he shall so offend lose and forfeit the sum of forty shillings And that what person soever shall with intent to bring the said Directory into contempt and neglect or to raise opposition against it Preach Write Print or cause to be written or printed any thing in the derogation or depraving of the said Book or any thing therein contain'd or any part thereof shall lose and forfeit for every such offence such a sum of Money as shall at the time of his Conviction be thought fit to be imposed upon him by those before whom he shall have his Tryal provided that it be not less than five pounds nor exceeding the sum of fifty pounds I could also tell you how they turn'd out the learned and loyal Clergy and put into their places a company of Rebellious Schismatical Tub-thumpers such people being most advantagious for their turns and how they Order'd that if any of the Loyal Clergy endeavour'd to get their own again they should with all their friends and assisters be Imprisoned whereby many of them were forced to beg for their livings And many such like actions as these might be shewn whereby their malice appear'd visibly against the Episcopal Party and against the Toleration of any thing but their Rebellious Covenant and Schismatical Presbytery One of them tells us that This very Toleration hath been the principal cause of all our late Innovations Dislocations and Conflagrations And That no Orthodox sincere Christian can or dare cordially Ingage or bid God speed to the proceedings of Supream Power so long as they intend to allow a General Toleration of Errors and false Opinions How many Petitions were there yearly put up in behalf of the Covenant and that nothing should be allow'd but according to that League endeavouring what in them lay to raze out the very thoughts of Episcopacy And yet these men are now angry that they have not publick allowance for their sins If the Episcopal Clergy desire that they may have priviledge of Conscience according to the Laws of the Land Baxter blesseth himself and wonders they can have the confidence to ask such a favour and tells them that this denyal is so farr from being a Persecution that it is rather done for their greatest honour and accommodation For if you of the Episcopal Clergy should have liberty it would be the greatest blow that ever was given to your Government and the reason is because You would have a small Clergy and none of the best and the People in most Parishes that are most ignorant drunken profane unruly For the cause of their love to Episcopacy is because it was a shadow if not a shelter to the profane heretofore so that a Prelatical Church would in the common account be near kin to an Alehouse or Tavern to say no worse where some honest men may be and yet it is taken for the note of an honest sober man to be as little in them as may be 'T was the fashion of Andreas Ordogna that famous Painter of Florence to paint all his Enemies in Hell And what less malice Baxter and his Associates have against the Episcopal Clergy may in part be seen by their actions and railing and what reason they have now besides their Impudence to expect and demand a
those Athenians who thought to gain great store of gold by conquering the Emmets of Hymettus For nothing can be gain'd by their Writings unless Malice and Ignorance may go for precious Jewels To be short Those who pretend to be such Zealots for the Reformed Church should not endeavour its discredit by asserting her novelty If that be true which the most learned of the Protestants have maintain'd viz. that that which we call the Popish Religion had no firm foundation by a publick acknowledgement till about six hundred years after our Saviour's birth Then were the Ceremonies now of the Church of England used and generally receiv'd long before Papistry had its being as is palpable from Church-History and the Fathers So that we might as well call Churches Bells Pulpits Hower-Glasses written-Sermons c. Popish as well as Forms of Prayer Ministerial habits and such like And I am apt to believe that if our Church should bring in the Wafer as there is neither harm in form nor matter that many of our Zealots would refuse the Communion though they are in use at Geneva yet the grand Disciple and adorer of that City and Government doth call it The Round clipped God which shews that the Masters and Scholars cannot alwayes agree in all things Nay these men are so farr from agreement amongst themselves that for ought that I know their mindes may alter with the Times and Seasons of which amongst many take but this one example One of their chief Generals viz. Master Baxter a little before the King came in doth publickly declare That a stinted Liturgy is in it self lawful nay in some things necessary And that if the Magistrate should impose and he could not otherwise be dispensed withall the Surplice though it were made a teaching sign the whiteness of it being to signifie Purity or should he also appoint kneeling at the Sacrament he would observe both And as for the Ring in Marriage the name and form of an Altar and Organs or other Instruments of Musick were they so enjoyn'd he should find no reason to scruple them Nor would he be wanting to the observation of our Church Holy-dayes Nor dare he peremptorily say that it is unlawful to use the Crosse in Baptism Nor will he condemn the Ancients and Moderns that use it nor will he make any disturbance in the Church about it Clinias and Demetas in Sydney protested to fight like Hectors and gave out as terrible Bravado's against each other as the stoutest Champion in the world each confiding in the cowardice of his Adversary like Sir Ambros de la Foole and Sir John in the Play And after this manner doth Baxter shew himself When there was no sign of Episcopall Government and he hoped that neither King Law nor It would ever be in force and authority again Then who but Baxter O how conformable would he be if the Ceremonies were but setled What great things would he do if these things were but up again But words are meer winde though they signifie something with an honest man Now that the King 's come over and the Church resetled none more against it than Baxter none more opposeth the peace of the Church than he none more violent against Authority not is there any man opposeth Decency more than this Proteus yet is this like the rest of his Faction who swear Allegiance and think they satisfie and fulfill their Oath by Rebellion As for these mens desire of Toleration I shall propose some Quaeries to them I. Whether supposing them to be Supreme they would allow the same Priviledge to the Episcopal Party If not Then II. With what face they can desire or demand it from the Superiours now in being to whom they will not grant the like favours If they say they would Then III. Why did they in 1642 1643 c. preach against oppose and deny such liberty to be given to the Episcopal and Royall Clergy If they say That they are since satisfy'd in the Contrary and that their opinions are grown more moderate Then IV. What reason have we to believe their Moderation to be reall since they all stand stifly for the Obligation of their Covenant in which they swear to extirpate Episcopacy which Opinion is still maintain'd by Crofton and others of that gang The truth is give once liberty to a Presbyterian and give it also to the Independent Anabaptist Quaker and the rest of the Sectaries for ought that I know one being as good English Christian as the other and this Liberty once granted in a few years 't will be an hard case to tell which is the Church of England neither party being subordinate to one another only here will be the difference The Episcopal party will be bound to be obedient to the Law and Canon but the other above both by which Supremacy the Authority of the Loyal Clergy will be null'd whilest the other by their Power and Liberty will have the best advantage to gain Proselytes and then 't is easily imagin'd what brave Elections there will be for Future Parliaments through the whole Kingdom But I suppose his Majesty having been sufficiently plagu'd by a Presbyterian Parliament will desire no more such Representatives which is impossible to be hinder'd if a Toleration once be granted for if from a very small beginning these sedulous Non-Conformists grew so head-strong numerous and powerful in a few years as not only to have a great party but even a Majority in Parliament in Queen Elizabeth's dayes we must needs expect their Faction and Authority now daily to encrease if Tolerated being already so numerous and having setled themselves in the Affections Families Churches and Interests not only in multitude of Gentry and other people of the Nation but of the Great ones too who have not only Power and Riches but it may be Will too to do mischief by propagating a Presbyterian Interest which in time may act as wickedly against the Son as in part they have already as they did formerly against his Royall Father 'T is not unknown how these Slanderers scandalize the Church of England with high Popery which for ought that I know they may by the by throw upon his Majesty too as a Favorite for thus 't is well known they abus'd his Royal Father of which at this time take but one example and this from the Heads both of the Laity and Ministry of this Gang. The Assembly of Divines for so were they call'd at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Kirk of Scotland drew up a Letter which was sent by Order of their Commons to the Belgick French Helvetian and other Reformed Churches beyond sea in which they do assure them brave that Subjects should complain to strangers of their King and nothing but slanders too that the King made it his sole business to root out the Protestant Religion and us'd all means possibly to reduce the whole Nation to Popery c.
upon the wicked CHAP. VI. Some short Observations upon their Covenant AN understanding Gentleman assures us that A league amongst Subjects giveth law to a King breaks all bonds of Soveraignty and invites a people to seek for a New Maister And this dear-bought experience hath prov'd true to both Nations yet were the events of these Agreements more mischievous they would be courted by the seditious thinking such pieces of Perjury to be the best works of their Holy-days Since the reformation this mode of swearing against Authority hath been commonly practis'd in Scotland In their first Covenant 3 Decemb 1557. An Earl of Argile was the first subscriber and chief promoter and how active an Earl of Argile hath been in our days about such wickednesse need not here be related but I hope as the other was the first so this shall be the last Yet in this way hath the English been as faulty as the worst of them though I believe at first drol'd in by their Neighbours For when at the beginning of the Warres the English Commissioners went from the Parliament into Scotland to desire their assistance against the King and having addres'd themselvs to the Scotch Assembly delivering them a letter subscribed by some Presbyterian Ministers in which they complaind that their blood was shed like water upon the grouud for defence of the Protestant Religion they receiv'd a negative answer The Assembly telling them amongst other things That you cannot say you fight for the Reform'd Religion since you have not begun to reform your Church ye had thriven better if you had don as we did Begun at the Church and thereafter striven to have gotten the civil sanction to what ye had don in the Church A few days after Sir W. Ermin Mr. Hamden and the rest of the Commissioners were invited by some of their friends to make a new Address to the Assembly which they did the second time desiring a gracious Answer Upon this request the Assembly propounded to them this Will ye join in Covenant with us to reform Doctrine and Discipline conform to this of Scotland and ye shall have a better Answer Sir W. Ermin and the rest answered that they had not that in their Instructions but thank'd the Assembly and said they would represent it to the Parliament of England The Assembly replyd that there would be much time loosed ere they could go to the Parliament for their resolutions and thereafter to return to Scotland to draw up a Solemn League and COVENANT The danger was great and they were not able to resist the King But we shall draw up the Covenant here and send up with you some Noble men Gentlemen and Ministers that shall see it subscrib'd which accordingly was don only two or three words altered Thus was this spurious Wretch illegally begotten and brought forth by unlawful Parents by the Scots worship'd and ador'd as the only Idol fit to bless their undertakings and by their Brothers in mischief the English Long Parliament embraced who peremptorily enjoyn all people to swear Allegiance to it as their only supream Law and authentick Shibuleth to distinguish Treason from Loyalty Though what authority they had to impose such an Oath being against the Command both of King and Law must be left for Mr. Prynne to discover in some Terra incognita since we have no such custome amongst us Yet for all this Mr. Simeon Ash had the confidence in the Pulpit to wonder that any man should think that the Covenant was made here only to bring in the Scots when the Presbyterian Parliament and party was low in England Having thus seen the Birth of this Monster it might quickly be desected and the poison and mischief lodg'd in it might evidently be manifested to the whole world but that it hath formerly been don by more able pens However it cannot but seem strange to any that these men should swear to extirpate the Government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops c. which have been confirmd by 32 Acts of Parliament And they could never yet tell who made them Rulers over Israel and gave them power to such actions quite contrary to Magna Charta the laws of the Land and the Kings express command The first two are known to any one who hath heard any thing of the laws of the land and the latter is as true Yet because I have heard some deny and others question its truth I shall give you his Majesties own Proclamation against it 1643. By the KING His Majesties Proclamation forbidding the Tendering or taking of a late Covenant called a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation c. WHEREAS there is a Printed paper intituled a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religin The honour and happinesse of the King and the peace and safety of the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be Ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the twenty first day of September last to be Printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in Truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against us and against the Established Religion and Laws of this Kingdome in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and endeavour to bring in Forraign Force to invade this Kingdome We do therefore straightly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects of what Degree of Quality soever Upon their Allegiance That they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby Forbid and Inhibit all Our Subjects to Impose Administer or Tender the said Covenant as they and every one of them will answer to the Contrary at their Utmost and Extremest Perils Given at our Court at Oxford this Ninth day of October in the Nineteenth year of our Raign GOD SAVE THE KING Than this what could be more plain and authentick yet a furious Presbyterian is pleas'd to tearm this action of the King Satanical slander and abuse a most impious and audacious Paper Atheistical boldness Impious and Platonical pleasure c. Besides the unlawfulness of its making and Imposition the qualities and conditions of the Brat were so impious that an honest man could never take it for several reasons amongst many other take these two or three 1. § They swear to extirpate Popery without respect of persons In which they might be ask'd What they would do with the Queen If they forced her Religion 't was Treason If they did not they are perjur'd 2. § This Oath makes them to be but Conditional Subjects swearing to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom before the King or his Authority few of the takers understanding any of these things by which means they swore they knew not what And that this Oath obligeth them to be but conditional Subjects is plain they swearing To preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority
and the Switzers for a Cart-load of Sheeps-skins And if the Antipathy betwixt the French and Spaniards began upon so slight occasion if you believe mine Authours as because the French were not so gloriously clad as the other at an Interview betwixt Lewis XI and the King of Castile If all this trouble and bloudshed for such trifles why may they not stand stoutly to their Covenant But if they be so stiff for that Oath against all Laws and honesty why may not the Orthodox stick to their King Laws and Church-government by Bishops since the swarving from these things is High-Treason and Schism But enough of this perjur'd and condemn'd Traytor since the judicious Reasons of the famous University of Oxford and that miracle of Learning too untimely snatch'd away the Reverend Dr. Langbaine have put it and its part-takers to a perpetual confusion against whom though I think none of them ever yet durst undertake the Doctor nor could the other be answer'd but with Treason of which enquire more of Mr. Crofton their scribling will not be unlike the Pigmies fighting against Hercules and their crying Victoria to as little purpose as Falstaf's vapouring of his own valour at Gads-Hill Yet since they stand so stifly to the literal sense of this Brat I shall leave one or two Quaeries to their consideration I. Whether those who took the Covenant and there sware to extirpate all Schism do not thereby engage to be like Hoyle their own Executioners II. Whether when they sware to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority and not to diminish his just power and greatness they did keep their Oaths by Voting no more Address to him the Scots by selling him the English by buying him hurrying him from Prison to Prison Imposing upon him strange Conditions contrary to his Prerogative taking from him the Militia acting all without and against his Commands c. If they say they did according to the Covenant Then III. Whether such a wicked Oath is to be allow'd in a Kingdom which permitteth nay I may say commandeth such affronts to be done to Majesty contrary to all the Laws of the Land And if these Actions were against the Covenant then are they perjur'd But it may be I have gone too farr against these People who in their Scotch Assembly at Glasgow by Act forbad any to write or speak against their Covenant And the same did the English Leaguers and what danger it may be to write against their Laws since our own cannot be in force I know not And since a man must not speak ill of the dead whose flaming exspiration was a Type of the Reward befitting to the Imposers This I retort upon that Presbyterian who would have all May-Pole dancers hang'd I shall leave this wicked Covenant only tell them that the Lord Ravenstein under pretence of the binding of his Oath ran into a great Rebellion against his Masters the Emperour Frederick and Maximilian as our Zealots have against their King To conclude the words of James II. King of Scotland are worth your reading Could there be any greater surety for you than to rely on the Laws of the Common-wealth and Countrey especially in a Countrey where Laws and not Faction rule and where a man 's own goodness is able to preserve him But such men as you are raise these Factions to the subversion of all Laws and Authority And for Subjects to make an Offensive and Defensive League against all Persons is to disclaim all Government and do what they please without controlement commit Treason in the highest degree and make your own Swords and Power justifie your proceedings which though you first use against mean persons and conceal the progress of your Actions for there are degrees in evil and wicked men begin at that which seems the least of evils or not an evil at all at the first your last aim is likely to be the Robbing upon the Crown Consider you are born under a Monarchy which admitteth of no Soveraignty but it self and it is natural to Princes to hold it in highest esteem and in no case to suffer it to be shaken by their Subjects Take your Prince for your best protection and an Innocent life Renounce that Union and League and let it not be heard any longer that ever such an unjust Confederation was and so wonted Clemency shall be prefer'd before deserved Justice But 't was the wickedness of this action which made the Zealots love it and therefore order'd that in the Prayers after every Sermon the Minister should give God thanks for the Covenant like John Becold a Taylor of Leyden better known by the Name of John of Leyden who having cruelly cut off the head of one of his Wives made others with himself prayse God and rejoyce for such wickedness The Brethren having thus laid their ground-work for a further Rebellion earnestly exhorts the people to stick close to their former seditious Principles and to be resolute in them Then they advise their Associates in the Parliament to be valiant for their Cause and to endeavour what in them lyeth to oppose and overthrow any thing whatsoever Sacred or Civil which thwarts their Principles And for the better carrying on this Rebellion they engage their Ministry to use what Interest they can with their Parishioners for the affecting of their designs concerning which you shall hear Mr. Crofton himself speak If private men and individual persons who have sworn the Covenant will make Conscience of the Oath of God upon them there can be no probability of a Return and Re-establishment within the compasse of this age of the evils we have sworn to extirpate They being lock'd under a moral impossibility of re-admission or continuance by that publick Parliamentary capacity into which many who have sworn the Covenant are at this time resolved and in which they cannot but know themselves bonnd to endeavour in their places and callings with all sincerity and reality and constancy to extirpate the same and for that others and those not a few as Ministers of the Gospel are bound to the same in their Capacity I am sure the Ministerial rebukes and confutations of the one and publick Parliamentary Debates of the other will lay a very great Remora unto their return Here we have a Peter the Hermit blowing a Trumpet to his Holy-warre And that in such an hasty and resolute fashion that our Presbytery seem to stand upon the very brink of Rabicon only wanting some ill spirit or other to head them and lead them over into a Warr against their own King and Countrymen so prone are they to distruction as if they were again turnd to Heathenism and worship'd the spears those primitive Instruments of Warre as their only God And the Reverend Church of England hath little reason to expect peace at these mens hands now that they cannot obtain their ends when they protest that if they had