and charge him too severely Ald. How Sir You were as good say that I am unjust Do you think I would offer to scandalize a man or to blame him that were not blame worthy Vic. Nay Sir I humbly beg your Worships pardon if my words have been rash or unadvised Ald. You do well to own your subjection to us and to submit with modesty where your words shall seem to carry any imputation or disrespect Vic. Sir If I could not mortifie and deny my self I were unfit to be a Minister in this Town And yet I hope you will pardon me if for my further information that I may be the better able to limit and bound mine own Actions I am a little inquisitive into the deportment of my Predecessour I suppose that when according to his duty he did not stay beyond the Canonical hour when the greater occasions of the Corporation would not permit them to be at Church so soon as usually he presumed your Worships would not come that time or else that the Congregation would attend no longer Ald. No Sometimes when we have chid him for not having more regard to the Authority of the Place and punished him with the loss of his Sundaies Dinner he has performed his Duty for all that Nay and when we have enjoyned him with the gravest Aspect and the most frowning Countenance Mr. Mayor could make and what is worse on pain of losing all our Gratuities Nay when some Chapmen expected us at home or some Parish Business was to be done in the Church or some Rents to be divided at the Town Hall and he has been commanded to cut off but half the Prayers this audacious and rebellious Person notwithstanding Mr. Mayors Order read all his Prayers and Preached too and conjectured in his ungodly and wicked heart that the Rules and Canons of the Church so called were to be observed notwithstanding Mr. Mayors not only discountenance but commands to the contrary Vic. Truly Mr. Alderman with humble leave first begg'd of your good Worship I conceive the Canons of the Church are to be obeyed non obstante Mr. Mayors counter Order both because they are established by Act of Parliament and the Duty of Obedience to the King and Church perswades us and lastly because we are sworn to their strict observation Ald. But Mr. Mayor represents the King and therefore may dispense with Penal Laws Vic. Although the King may dispense with Penal Laws and may suspend the inflictions due to Offendors it being his great Prerogative derived fom Heaven that makes him more properly a God on Earth to be able to pardon faults and the Executive Power of the Law being in him he may withdraw what he cannot abrogate Yet pardon me if I say that Mr. Mayor is not in this the Kings Representative unless he could exchange his Mace for a Scepter quit his Gown for a Robe of State turn Calve-skins into Ermins and bartar his Sattin Coife for a Crown Ald. Sir You are now grown a little too bold I shall be angry if you thus speak against Mr. Mayors Prerogative Vic. I hope you would nor have M. Mayor accounted a King and Majesty added to his Worship you have for several years made him Right Worshipful and been as I am told outragious with your Minister if he has not informed God Almighty of it once or twice every Sunday Ald. I hope your passion will not make you peremptory too and cause you to forget with whom you are discoursing Vic. I humbly beg your good Worships pardon 't was only zeal for his Majesties Prerogative that thus transported me I must still beseech your excuse if I conjecture a possibility of mistake in you to think that Mr. Mayor can dispense with Law as the Kings Representative Ald. Now you seem to relent for the misdemeanour of your words I can more willingly hearken to your Discourse especially when your Language is so placed that it does not affront but acknowledge Superiority Pray tell me why Mr. Mayor as the Kings Lieutenant and Representative cannot dispense with Law Vic. You know Law is not my Profession but yet I can exhibite Reason enough against such strange and if it might be pardoned I would say uncouth Positions Ald. Come then let us hear yours and the rest I shall enquire of the Town-Clerk Vic. First Because the King himself does not pretend to dispense with Law and therefore his Court of Chancery as I have heard does not judge contrary unto Law but either mitigate and abate its rigour or give relief where Common Law gives none that not the least oppression may be heard in our Streets And secondly supposing the King did dispense with Law yet Mr. Mayor has only so much power as is committed to him in a certain Charter which indeed gives the Corporation power to make by-By-Laws for the benefit of the Town but by no means liberty by themselves to violate Acts of Parliament or to permit the breach of them in others But as to what we are at present making our enquiry into viz. the Laws of the Church these are without the verge of the Corporations Power and they can neither protect us from the Penalties and Punishments due for such wilful Disobedience nor absolve us from the guilt by the default contracted Ald. Well but admitting then that Acts of Parliament are to be obeyed I would fain know how your second reason becomes argumentative and evinces your Obedience due to the Church notwithstanding our Injunctions to the contrary Vic. If your Worship please to suspend your censure of my discourse for a bold presumption I shall give you an account of that too Ald. I would not have you to think me so critical or captious but that I can hear Reason and Argument in any dress especially when you are so civil as to beg leave for the familiarity of your discourse Vic. I thank your Worship for your candour and condescension and shall give you to understand that I ought to be obedient to the Church not only as I am a Member or a Minister by vertue of which relations I am more especially obliged But as all Government does suppose Obedience and Submission due and we therefore combine in a Common Body for the preservation of Propriety as well as Society so the defect of sense of such an Obligation violates all the bonds of Authority breaks down the Pale by which Government and Rule is fenced and laies it open to every bold Usurper and Intruder Thus not only Empires and Kingdoms have been laid waste and made pastures only for Birds and Beasts of Prey but by this means the Wall both of separation and defense being once assaulted and in an hostile manner scaled and battered the Temple of God is not only left without its Bulwarks but invaded and shot at by its Adversaries until the structure becomes demolished and there is scarce one stone left upon another The Church you know is compared to
carnal I could easily from this demonstrate that they must offer violence to their own Faculties when ever they attempt an alteration or change Ald. Pray do it then for my use for it is no absurdity for the greatest Politician to hear advice though perhaps at last he will make use of his own that so I may not joyn with them again to the prejudice of my Faculties too Vic. You know Sir that your Worship who has been so good to me may command any thing from me again and therefore I shall not at all refuse to remember you of what it would be arrogance to pretend an information That whosoever attempts the alteration of any Government it is upon assurance or at least presumption that the constituting of another becomes his particular Interest and that it will be better with him under that Authority he endeavours to introduce than it is at present under that which has the immediate sway But now these persons that we are discoursing of cannot place themselves in those Circumstances wherein they shall be freer from trouble or enjoy themselves or their Estates with less noise or burden than in that Condition in which they now are and therefore it must needs be an unreasonable attempt for this Party to endeavour an alteration of Affairs Ald. I understand the general drift of your Argument and you know the old Saying A word to a wise man is enough But methought I heard you offering at something but now to prove to me that those three Oaths mentioned by you and taken by me and my Brethren do not oblige and I the rather mind you of this promise because Oaths are such burdensome things that though I shall not so far depart from my Religion as with the Anabaptist and Quaker to deny the taking of any Oaths I would be eased of the performance of them Vic. I guess that by your Worships actions and therefore shall by Gods Grace set your Worship at liberty from those three but perhaps that may make way for the Obligation of others Ald. Well Sir I am willing to adventure that though to tell truth I liked those three better than some that I have taken since Vic. I am sorry your Worship has yet any kindness for Bell and the Dragon which besides that they are now generally looked upon as Apocryphal have devoured the substance of three Kingdoms and than which I think there were never more impious and unlawful Impositions Ald. But how do they appear to be such deformed and affrighting Monsters Vic. To float in generals were to adventure your Worship in a broad and dangerous Sea in a little Boat without Sails or Oars and might argue me what I never was a cunning Sophister rather than a rational and fair Discourser I must therefore first single mine Adversaries that so encountering them I may with the greater facility prove a Conquerour Ald. If you perform what you promise truly you shall have my vote for a better living not only because the sight of you will alwaies put me in mind of my Guilt and so detract from the pleasure of my life but also for your own advantage that a contracted maintenance may no longer hinder the enlargement of your knowledge Vic. I thank your Worship for your respects both to your self and me and shall with your good leave immediately draw up an Indictment against the Covenant Ald. Pray Sir be as brief as you can or otherwise our Dinner may give an Interruption to your discourse Vic. I shall not then take it asunder although there is in almost every bush a Thief and under every hedge an Ambuscado but shall endeavour to rout the main body and then the smaller Parties will separate of themselves The Covenant then is not only to be renounced but abhorred by all the peaceable Professors of Christianity First Because it is quite opposite to our natural Allegeance to our King by vertue of which we are obliged to preserve his Royal Person against not only Private Insurrections at home but Publick Enemies abroad and not to make our selves Judges of his Actions so far as with limitation and condition only to defend and preserve his Royal Person and Authority so far as his shall conserve and defend the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms as in the third Article of the Solemn League For if this Latitude be given to the Subjects of any Prince his Religion and Actions must of necessity be arraigned at the private Bars of those Subjects that are most inferiour as well as those that attend more immediately upon the Throne and every particular must plead a lawful and sufficient excuse for withdrawing from the preservation of his Prince if he shall either through Ignorance or Interest conjecture that the King does not preserve the true Religion or the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom which what they are is sti11 left to the rashness or indiscretion of every ignorant and illiterate head This sets the Subject above his Prince and loosens and overthrows the very Foundations Nature it self and that Subjection which reason without the Obligation of an Oath sufficiently enforces must needs teach us the bold impieties of such an Oath that will banish Order out of the World and lay open Gods Anointed whom he has consecrated his Delegate to every bold usurping Traytor that will at any time adventure to drench a Crown in its own gore Ald. I easily see your first Pass made at the Covenant which seems to have given it some wound Let us see also your second assault Vic. I am glad to see your Worship so chearful at the wound of such a Friend I was afraid you would have wept for it now since I know you shed drops of bloud for it formerly Ald. That was in my younger years when bleeding was as necessary as my Victuals I did only a some are wont to do at the Universities when you have a great Creation of Graduates or when a multitude of Knights are Dubbed on a day set apart on purpose run in among the Herd But pray Mr. Vicar you promised some more reasons Vic. I thank you Sir for your recalling of a wandring thought The second Argument I have learned against the Covenant is That it is contrary to the Prerogative of Kings not only appropriate to them under the Old Testament but also as soon as they became Christian under the New that is to have the power of reforming Religion in their own hands and this was sufficiently expressed in the Oath of Supremacy which I question not but that you had before taken where the King's Majesty is acknowledged and under the most Sacred Obligation owned the Supreme Ruler and Moderator of the Kingdom governing all Persons and Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil And not only so but you added an Oath to confirm and make your promise Sacred and Inviolable to defend and preserve as much as in you lay his Jurisdictions Priviledges Praeeminencies and Authorities
that we were before engage to perform to his Majesty Vic. That your Worship may with great facility discern when you shall consider that you were before obliged to preserve and defend not only his Majesties Person but also all his Praeeminencies and Prerogative part of which is notoriosly known to be Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Government and consequently the power of reforming Religion and therefore the offering at an Alteration without him attempts the destruction of that blessed mixture that Lawyers inform us is in his Person and violates his Royal Prerogative besides the diminution of his Revenue by abolishing of the Hierarchy from whose First-fruits and Tenths he reaps no small advantage nay finally it makes part of a Parliament contradict and abrogate what the whole had before by several Acts and Statutes established fixing Prelacy by Laws that cannot justly be repealed by a power less than what at first established it Ald. Truly I did not think so much could have been said against what carried such specious or pretenses but it seems there lodged a Snake in the midst of those sweet herbs Pray Sir proceed to your reflections upon those other Articles that remain unconsidered Vic. I would not have your Worship to conjecture that my discourse will be so much as a Breviate and Epitome of what many persons have writ in Folio For there have scarce been more hunters of the Beast in the Revelation whose exact number a melancholly person once found out in the words of the Covenant than there has been of this Scotch Monster however that we may see also how great friends they are to his Majesty we need travel no further than the third Article which engages us to preserve the Kings Person only in the conservation of true Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdom which laies him open as I hinted before to every Traytor or Enthusiast that has either malice or madness enough to conclude him an enemy to both or either But what may be worth your observation in the same Article in which the preservation of the King 's naked Person stripped of all his Royal Prerogative is limited care is taken that the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the People be strictly maintained without an interpretation or restriction at all which loudly proclaimes to the whole World what friendship this League designed for his Majesty Ald. Methinks I begin to withdraw my affection from that which I had once a kindness for and I fear this wound to his Sacred Majesty was but a kind of Prologue to that Tragedy that succeeded it Vic. Although I cannot but very much rejoyce to see your Worship confirming that Act with your Judgment which the Penalty of a Law then only seemed to extort to wit the renunciation of the Covenant Yet I shall further I hope enhance your abhorrency of this strange Beast no less than confirm your last consequence and deduction when I shall remember you that the next Article besides that it assumes a most Absolute Tyrannical and Arbitrary Power in bringing men to what we know not who shall deem condign punishment does countenance and encourage and not only so but bind men by the Solemnity of an Oath to Parricide Regicide and any the greatest Villanies in the World How easie was it by vertue of that for Husbands to ease themselves of unpleasant Wives or Wives to divorce themselves from those Husbands that they found their affections either out of wantonness or curiosity to decline from How easie a way was this for the Son to enquire into his Fathers years before nature gave period to his life that so he might be the present Possessour of what he was only heir to before Nay for the Subjects to arraign and condemn their Prince since it was without respect of persons could they but once affix the Title of Incendiary Malignant or obstructer of the Reformed Religion upon him The definition of each particular of which was left in their own breasts to inspire Ald. These Inferences cannot methinks but startle all us that have swallowed down such poyson the regret that is in my Conscience makes me sit very uneasie Vic. I could willingly allow my self as well as you a breathing time were it not for fear that what I have all this time pursued would be too long at rest and recover strength Ald. Nay I would not have you by any means give an interruption to your discourse for I have already given order that they should not expect us at Dinner but provide some repast for us against the Evening Vic. I thank your good Worship not only for your patient condescention in admitting so much familiarity all this while but for your great care both of your self and me though indeed I should not alwaies be so bold an Intruder Ald. He never intrudes that is invited Bagpipes you know will not go at all if they are quite empty Vic. I thank you Sir for that Metaphor for nothing but that could so well have reminded me of the Covenant We have already dispatched half the Articles and condemned one more to make them even and the fifth is nothing but talking of Peace in the midst of War and boasting of strange effects of reconcilement when all know there was no such thing and therefore here the failing of the Saints was superadded to the Perjury of the Sinner And finally as to the Sixth Article it only supposes in general terms what we have already refuted in particular that the cause of this Covenant was the defence of Religion together with the Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms that the whole tended to the glory of God the Publick Advantage and the Kings Honour and therefore the Jurors here swore to remain constant in the pursuit of the Design against all opposition throughout the whole course of their lives Thus did it not only ensnare a Nation with good words to dig out their own Bowels to rage against Nature it self and sheath their Swords in their nearest Relations to pull down and ruine the most glorious Church in the whole World and force it to be truly Militant but what may supperadd the Complement to all it s deformed dashes it made the King a Slave to his Subjects divested him of all his Royal Robes and made him sacrifice his Head to preserve his Crown which it would also have deprived him of but that his Martyrdom eternized it Ald. Why do you think then that the Covenant murdered the late King of ever blessed memory Vic. No Sir I should be strangely uncivil if I should draw such Conclusions for in that your Worship would be concerned but this I shall be bold to say That the threefold Cord tied him to the Block and left him there for another Party to cut off his head But I expected your Worship should after all this digression have required me to discover the strengeh of the Argument by reducing the whole to some short Form Ald. Truly
I cannot but return very many thanks to you Mr. Vicar for all your large and pertinent discourses which I must confess have fully convinced me not only of the danger of discontented persons if permitted any longer to meet thus in great numbers to the disturbance of our peace both in Church and State but also of the Obligation of mine Oath as a Justice of the Peace to put in execution the Laws against them And I pray God enable me to deny mine interest rather than so great and solemn an Obligation as an Oath is Vic. Trust God Almighty Sir with your Estate he will never bless you the less for the performance of your duty For if you be willing and obedient you shall eat the good of the Land but if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be devoured with the Sword for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it Isa 1.19 20. Trust Sir in God and do good and you need not doubt of being sufficiently fed Not only the welfare of the Church which is as glorious as it is great depends upon your activity courage and diligence but even the King's honour and the Kingdoms prosperity For if Laws that have received their Sanction are not put in execution it must be for one of these three Reasons either because they are imprudent and unjust in themselves and this will subvert the Legislators wisdom Or secondly because he that is to put them in execution has not power enough to accomplish the design and then his force being contemptible fear and dread will be withdrawn from the Subject Or lastly because there is a defect in his will for the accomplishment of what his Power is ready to assist him in and the Justice of the cause enforces the Obligation of the duty and either of these Reasons being granted and believed amongst the multitude will immediately lay a Kingdom waste and reduce Empires into heaps of Ruines For a Prince being thought to want wisdom brings his Person in contempt want of power in time raises his Adversaries and defect of will to resist and withstand them encourages them to proceed to victory and conquest Ald. I have nothing with which I can withstand your conviction God pardon my past neglects and I will be more sedulous for the time to come But methinks it should something abate our rigour to consider that they would tolerate us Vic. I see did not your Oath goad you the welfare of the Church and peace of the Kingdom would scarce prevail Shake off for once all your fear and do not love the honour more than the duty and burden of of your Office And then I will tell you that never any Party yet would plead for Toleration but whilst themselves were under restraint they had another note when the Sun shined different from what they have in a shower To my knowledge Toleration was accursed in their mouths who now thank God for a gracious indulgence The late times will afford you testimonies enough of their tyranny when they wore the Sword of Power and Force and we shall assuredly find their actions contrary to their specious pretensions should Rebellion ever be rampant to a victory Do but read over the Books I lent you and tell me then what hopes you have of an indulgence from them unless you once more turn to their Principles and Opinions But that I may use a Reason that must of necessity silence this Plea shall we suffer our selves to become the conquered Party only that we may experience the civility of our Adversary Will any man in his right senses make over his Lordship and Possessions to another that he may receive a Pension from it We can expect none other than the greatest violence from persons of their Principles and malice and therefore let him that standeth take heed lest he fall Ald. But if they should chance to have their designs accomplished and should either by strength or treachery gain a victory over us and so we should lose the day they would presently fall to pieces again and thrust their Swords in one anothers bowels Vic. This Sir will be readily consented to But as by their former Methods you collect this so by their present attempts you may without the help of Stars Prognosticate their barbarous designs of ruine to our Church And it cannot but be a strange piece of Policy for a Prince to permit the invasion of his Territories and sacrifice both himself and Possessions to the Avarice and Malice of his cruel Adversaries that they wanting an Enemy to encounter may sheath their Swords in one anothers bowels To be sure they will not disagree as long as they have a Common Adversary left alive and it will be strange pleasure for a dead Enemy that his Adversaries rage against each other I hope Sir your Arguments are all now spent for the Vessel I perceive is out by the dregs and Lees that run from it Let me now with all humility beseech your double care for the execution of what has been to our sorrow too long neglected and let a true repentance for your Omissions be evidenced both to God Almighty and the World by your future vigour and Activity The Night has now blotted out the Day and calls for a period to our Discourse The Laws will prove your best Director and your Oath and Duty the greatest Motive Let the gaping wounds of a bleeding Church beg your Charity to bind up the sores and the devastation and misery of former Wars and almost total subversion of Christianity amongst us beseech your endeavour to support that Church which a warm Sun would soon revive and a sovereign Balsam quickly cure That your duty to God may be faithfully discharged and the breach of Oaths may not burden your Conscience That you may prove both an obedient and loyal Subject unto him who gives you your Honour and Authority by your Office a faithful Assertor of his Majesties Power and Supreme Prerogative a stout Champion for the Church's Priviledges a just Fence to Propriety and Enclosures and a charitable Repairer of those breaches that Schism and Sedition have too long made upon us So shall you be a true Fence to the Fold of Christ preserving the enclosed from the mouths of Wolves and be a means of reducing those wandring sheep that through giddiness or wantonness have strayed out of their appointed Pastures amongst the wild beasts of the Forest And God Almighty direct all your undertakings and crown your Pious and Christian endeavours with success that your courageous resolutions and sacred Promises may never terminate or be envalidated through the subtilty of the Adversary or allurements of the World 'till your unwearied Performance publickly testifies that your Promise was not rash nor your Oath in vain Ald. Now Sir that you have answered my scruples and invalidated my reasonings I should be beneath the worth of mankind if I should not thankefully receive my conviction And I hope whatever liberty