at the Governours House Col. John Barker where I was offered to be Chaplain to the Garrison Regiment which I refused but undertook to preach once a Week to the Soldiers but without pay In which place God shewed me for about two years so great Mercy as I can never be sufficiently thankful for In a quiet and safe Habitation in the midst of a Kingdom torn by War and in pious converse with a great number of Excellent Learned Ministers that retired thither for safety from the rage of Soldiers and the Company of as pious understanding Gentlemen of the Committee as I knew living Sir Rich. Sheffington Mr. George Abbot Godfrey Bossevile and many more But because it was here that I declared my self for the Parliament I am here put to open the Case as it stood with me in order to my request to them that think I sinned yet better to help me by their Counsel and Prayers that God would convince me if I erred and pardon my known and unknown Sin SECTION 3. 1. I Did and do believe that the Legislative Power is the chief Flower of the summa potestas or true Soveraignty In this Bishop Morley himself fully confirmeth me 2. I did believe that the Legislative Power was by the Constitution of this Kingdom in the King and Parliament and not in the King alone This I believed because the words of the Laws say that they are made by the Consent and Authority of the Parliament And the King granted it in his Answer to the 19 Propositions in sence And not only Hooker and Bilson but all the old Bishops and the old Parliaments Judges and Lawyers commonly held it And I was not wiser in Law than all they I know few but Bishop Morley that deny that the Parliament have part in the power of Legislation And even he granteth that they are Authors of the matter to which the King puts the form And so he makes the Controversie like that of Aristotle and Galen about Generation whether the form be only à semine maâ—is vel utriusque As if the very Matter cum dispositione receptiva were not an Essential constitutive part But now King and Parliament have by a Law of the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects determined the Case 3. I did and do believe that it is commonly agreed that Parliaments have five Eminent Relations 1. They are part of the I egislative power by the Constitution of the Kingdoms 2. They are the Kings Supream Council 3. They are the Kings Supream Court of Judicature by the Lords 4. They Represent the Nation as subject to the King 5. They are the Nations Representatives so far as they are Free For had they not Liberties and Properties they were meer Slaves 1. As Subjects they are to obey 2. As Supream Council they are to be the chief Advisers 3. As the Supream Court the King is finally to exercise Judicature by them 4. As they represent the people as far as they are Freemen and not Slaves they are to secure their reserved and natural Liberties and Properties in their Lives Limbs Wives Children and Acquisitions which are not to be taken from them but by Consent or Forseiture 5. Their Legislative power they have not as Hooker and many others think by Nature but by that Fundamental Contract which made the form of Government For though Government be of God in the Genus and as empowered and obliged primarily to promote obedience to Gods own Laws yet it is of Man by Contract that the Persons or Families or Number and Order of Rulers be constituted and restraint put on the Invasion of Propriety 4. I did and do believe Grotius Lawson and other Writers of Politicks who agree that the bare Title of Supream given to a King is no proof that the whole Soveraignty summa potestas or Legislation in particular is in him alone and not at all in the Senate or Parliament for it is for Unity sake Honourary not excluding but implying the Parliaments part and also that he is to exercise his Judicatures by the Legal way of his Courts Judges and Magistrates 5. I did and do believe that the King is singulis universis subditis major quoad Fus regendi and that the people quâ talis have no power of publick Government but that he is not Universis melior And that meliority maketh the final Cause And that salus populi or bonum publicum is the Essentiating End or terminus of Humane Government And it is no Government save equivocally which is destructive of this End 6. I believe that the same God that Instituted Political Government did also make 1. Self-Government 2. Paternal Government 3. Marital Government 4. And Pastoral Church Government And that no King hath any Right to null any of these or alter them in Essentials or Integrals but only to over rule them 7. I believe that all Power is of God and no King hath any but what God hath given him And that God hath given none against himself or any of his own Laws And all Laws are nullities that are against them And are not Acts of Authority but Usurpation as Hooker saith 8. But yet he that acteth in one thing without and against Authority is to be obeyed in other things where he hath Authority and not resisted by Arms in every Usurpation yea the Honour of his Office and true Power is to be preserved while we refuse obedience to his sinful Usurpation 9. Grotius and common reason convinced me that where the summa potestas is in King and Senate each part hath right to defend its own true Part therein It can be no part in Soveraignty which is meerly at the Will and Mercy of the other part 10. I did and do believe that the Constitution fixing the chief power in King and Parliament united as one Politick Person it supposeth that they must not be divided And that neither part hath power against the other as such The King hath power over them as Subjects but not as Legislators or exempted Proprietors So that separating them by fixed opposition is dissolving the Constitution As separating Soul and Body Husband and Wife dissolve Man and Matrimony 11. Therefore I did and do believe that neither King nor Parliament had any right to raise an Offensive War against each other None but unavoidably defensive could be lawful Therefore the first assailant was the culpable beginner 12. I did believe that neither the King nor the Parliament as such are questionable by Law having no superior Judicature to try them And that the person of the King is inviolable there being no Power or Law to punish him and therefore the Law saith The King can do no wrong but it layeth all the blame on the Subjects who are responsible for their actions 13. I did and do believe that as every Man hath a power of private Self-defence against a Murderer or Thief so every Kingdom hath a power or right of
I never wrote a word to justifie his Death but only once told the Papists that they were unmeet Accusers as being guilty of more 2. I preach'd against it 3. I wrote against it over and over 4. It cost me the dear Labour and Sufferings of almost two years in the Army to have kept them in Loyal Obedience 4. I called them oft and long to Repentance Whence then did this Man find matter or occasion for such a shameless forgery As for the Notion of Martyrdom I leave Canonizing to the Righteous Judge § 19. Accus VI. Who more opposed the Return of our present Soveraign Ans Mendac VI. 1. Ask for his proof of this 2. The King testified the contrary 3. See my Sermon before the Parliament the day before he was Voted Home 4. And my Sermon to the City on their Thanksgiving called Right Rejoicing 5. Would the King have made such an Enemy his Chaplain and a Bishop The Truth is this There were two Seasons that called to me for my Endeavours for the King The first was at Worcester Fight and at Sir George Booth's Fight At that time I openly declared the Army to be in a state of Rebellion in which none should own them But I durst not meddle on either side Not for the Cromwellians their Cause being sinful Not to restore the King because I foresaw all the Divisions Silencings Persecutions and Calamity to the Kingdom which his Bishops and other revengeful Instruments would bring in Nor was I deceived in expecting most that hath befallen us of twenty nine years since save that I thought that Popery and Cruelty would have made a speedier progress than they did Not knowing by what methods God would stop them And I durst not hasten Gods Judgments on the Land till I knew that he required it 2. But afterward when I saw that the Army cast all into utter confusion and that Gods Providence had resolved the doubt how much I did towards a due subjection to the King is not a thing that wanteth evidence I cannot Repent that I was not one that brought into England that Tribe of Revengeful destructive Prelates and their Agents that corrupted and divided the Church of England § 20. Accus VII Or hath been as active in making the Government uneasie Ans 1. Uneasie To whom To the King I have his Testimony to the contrary He sent D. Lauderdale to me purposely to invite me to receive the Testification of his Favour and Acceptance Read his Character of us in his Gracious Declaration Read Mr. Gaches Letter to me for the King translated and published by the means of Duke Lauderdale I know nothing that I did to make his Government uneasie unless all my labour to have united his Subjects made it uneasie Or unless his Confessor Huddleston was in the right that he was before for the Roman Religion and it was uneasie to him to be stopt in promoting it Of which confess I was oft guilty But if he mean the Prelates Government I believe I did much to make it uneasie to them I laboured by such reasons to have prevented their ejecting 2000 Godly Ministers at once and all the Cruelties and Miseries that have followed that it must needs be uneasie to their Consciences and Credit while they could make no answer to the proof of their iniquity I gave such reasons against their Lay Excommunicaters and their Cursing Canons and their causless and obstinate dividing of the National Church by their frivolous tearing Impositions as must make Cruelty the more uneasie But if I be not blind and mad the Government of Church and State had been more easie if they would have heard our pacificatory Requests § 21. Accus VIII Or who hath or can do more than Mr. B. to renew all our troubles and confusions Ans By what By studying praying preaching writing and speaking and exemplary living for Unity and Peace which God knoweth hath been my chief or second study and labour these Forty four years valuing the supernal Wisdom which is first Pure and then Peaceable But methinks I hear the Legion that are his Army who was a Liar and Murderer from the beginning say What have we to do with thee Art thou come to torment us before the time But they have had leave to enter into the Swine And O that their suffocation in the Sea of confusion occasion not Christ to be driven out of our Coasts by them that love their Swine better than Christ § 22. Accus IX So that I could not devise to give a better Epitome of the late Rebellion and Schism than this account of Mr. B's Actions and Writings which is an Abstract of the rise and progress of both in whom they yet both live and with whom I wish they may both die Ans To the same purpose saith Morley of me Ex uno disce omnes And though I unfeignedly think my self worse than the most Nonconforming Ministers that I know yet I intreat all Forreigners and Natives of future Ages to think no worse of the Parliament and Nonconformists than this Accusation alloweth them to do They were at least no worse than I which I say because the Accusers seem to allow you this much And all the rest have not wrote above Sixscore Books to make themselves known as I have done and so by me you may know the worst of them ex uno omnes The Sum of my wickedness is the Wars But 1. What 's this to all the rest of the Ejected Silenced Ministers of whom I think there is not living one of fifty or a hundred that ever medled with the Wars though one Archbishop did and many that Conform And why would they never grant my earnest request that they would Silence only me and all others that had any hand in the War except the Conformists and no more 2. I thought I had been a Rebel if I had been against the Parliament the Representative Kingdom and the salus populi or bonum publicum and I thought the Legislative power was the Supream and that this power was in King and Parliament conjunct and that neither of them had power against the other but that their Union was the constituted summa potestas which I was bound to endeavour and their division was the dissolution of the Government And I thought that all Subjects were under the Law and that the King might not protect them from his Courts of Judicature 3. I knew that Points of Humane Policy and Laws are not in our Creed nor such Controversies so clearly decided in Scripture as that Salvation should lye on them Though Rich. Hooker's Opinion was for more popular power than mine I find not that our Clergy place him in Hell for it or call him the most Bloody Instrument of Rebellion 4. I have elsewhere shewed that the chief stream of the Writers of Policy Laws History Heathens and Christians Papists and Protestants Lawyers and Divines doth give so much more power to the people
War stated by the Parliament Commissions for the King and Parliament I was in it and for it Because 1. He that is for the Highest Power in a Civil War is of the righter side caeteris paribus than he that is against it but they that were for King and Parliament were for the Highest Power in our Civil War Proved They that were for them that have the Legislative Power were for them that had the Highest Power as Morley confesseth and almost all others But they that were for King and Parliament were for them that had the Legislative Power Ergo c. Obj. What Hypocrisie is it to shoot at the King and say you fight for him Ans 1. The King protested to be for the Parilament as his Shrewsbury Half Crowns shew while he fought against their Armies and Persons Ergo the Parliament might more clearly be for the King while they fought against his Army and not his Person though in the Field 2. They knew that the King had discretion enough to keep his Person out of the reach of Danger And so he did At Edgehill he stood on the Hill as I heard and look'd down on the Fight in the Field At Naseby where he was nearest he was safe but that was after the first Cause and War I never heard else that he came near 3. Else any Traytor that could possess the Kings Person and carry him about as they did Henry VI. should be for the King and all against him that would rescue him Obj. He was willingly with his Army Ans He may fight for the King that doth it against his Will while he doth it not to hurt his Person Prerogative or Rights We Sware not to be for all the Will of the King If in a Passion he would kill Himself his Son his Lords his Parliament yea or would but Ravish a Woman he may be held and resisted Arg. 2. They that were to bring King and Parliament again to Union fought for the King and Kingdom and the Highest Power for it is the Constitution But the first Wars Commissions were to bring the King and Parliament to Unity Ergo c. Arg. 3. They that were really for the Common Safety and Salus Populi and the very Constituted Form of Government in a case of notorious danger and only against an Army of Subjects that fled from the Justice of the Supream Judicature were righter than those that were against their Wars But c. Ergo c. Arg. 4. They that were for a Defensive War according to Law and Constitution were righter than they that raised War against them contrary to Law and Constitution But c. Ergo c. The Parliament to the last were against all violence to the Person of the King and were cast out by Cromwell for Voting to receive him As it was easie for Bradshaw and â—ook to Charge all the Bloodshed on the King so is it fo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accuser to Charge it according to his Judgment But all of us must be willing of Conviction and deep Repentance so far as we shall be proved guilty Arg 5. The present King and Parliament have by Practice and by Law declared the right of more than Arming and Resisting a King in several Cases Arg. 6. In a doubtful Case under God there is no Judge that hath a deciding power above the Supream Judicature § 50. Accus XXXVII He next accuseth me as falsly Charging the peaceable Reign of King Charles the First with Persecution wherein there was no such thing but Peace save against the Seditious And he appealeth to the Canons Ans 1. See the Preface to my Book called Cain and Abel for an answer to this 2. We appeal to the Canons too and to the Bishops Visitation Articles and to the experience of all England that delight not in the Destruction of the true Servants of Christ 3. But alas how far are Leeches from feeling the smart of the Persons whose Blood they feast upon The Papists say none were punished in Queen Mary's days but the Hereticks and Seditious So saith the King of France And so said the Irish when they Murdered 200000. 4. Q. 1. Was there nothing but Amiable Peace when Laud and others wrote for a Forreign Jurisdiction under the Name of our obeying the Pretorian Power of Forreign Councils Q. 2. Was it Sedition not to Read the Book for Sunday Sports and Dancing which exempted Children and Servants from the Government of their Parents and Masters For which many Ministers suffered Q. 3. Was it Sedition for Religious people to go hear a Conformable Preacher at the next Parish when they had no Preaching at Home Q. 4. Was it Sedition for Religious people to pray with their Sick Friends and Fast and Humble themselves to God without Travelling to the Bishop for a License Q. 5. Was it Sedition for a Man Vowed to the Ministry by Episcopal Ordination to Preach or Expound any matter in the Church or elsewhere without a new License from the Bishop Q. 6. Was it Sedition for any Man Noble or Ignoble to affirm that any thing was repugnant to the Word of God in the Ceremonies Liturgy Ordinations or the Et caetera Government of the Church Q. 7. Was it Sedition to refuse the false Et caetera Oath of 1640 Q. 8. Was it Sedition to say that other Societies in England were true Churches besides the Episcopal Churches At least the French and Dutch Q. 9 Was it for Sedition that Men were punished for not Receiving the Sacrament when the Conscience of their ignorance and unfitness deterred them Q. 10. Were the many thousand Families that were put to fly the Land to Holland and America punished for nothing but Sedition Were New England and Barmudas planted without any Persecution Or was it no punishment to be driven from House Land Goods Kindred and Native Countrey into an unplanted Wilderness among VVoods and wild Men and Beasts Q. 11. Was it no Persecution to be Excommunicate ipso facto by Canons 6 7 8 c. without being admonished or heard Q. 12. Was it nothing but Amiable Peace that laid all the Ten sorts of the Excommunicate named in the Statute in the common Goal during Life depriving them there of their Estates unless they Lied by a feigned Repentance Q. 13. Yea was it only harmless that made Seriousness in Religion such a common Scorn as the word Puritane then signified if Mr. Robert Bolton Bishop Abbot Bishop Downame and other Conformists may be believed But say these Accusers All this was but justice and was well done But the casting out of two hundred accused on Oath for gross scandal and utter insufficiency by the Parliament was Persecution and was not well done § 51. Accus XXXVIII Next I am accused because other Men exploded the Lords Prayer Ans 1. And what is that to me that constantly used it 2. And who may not see that the use of it was prescribed in the Directory 3. And the Presbyterian
publick Self-defence against Forreign or Home bred Enemies 14. But I believe that this power belongeth not to a wronged or persecuted party but only to the Body of the Kingdom Because their good is not the bonum publicum and a Civil War would do more hurt than their death or ruin Nor may a Kingdom defend all its Rights or revenge all its injuries by a Civil War which will do more hurt than their wrongs But where the destruction of the Kingdom is apparently endeavoured or the change of their Constitution or a hurt greater than a Civil War a Self-defence is lawful and necessary 15. I believe Grotius and all Politicks that Regere perdere rempublicam are inconsistent and that whoever declareth his purpose to destroy the Kingdom can be no King of it For the terminus is essential to his relation If it be Murder not to defend the Life of a Brother against the assault of a Murdering Robber it is far worse not to do our Duty to save a Kingdom against publick Murderers and Destroyers 16. If a King profess himself a Papist according to the true definition he taketh Approved General Councils for the Rule of his Religion And the Laterane Council sub Innoc. 3. bindeth all Temporal Lords on pain of Excommunication and Deposition to exterminate all that deny Transubstantiation and others called Hereticks from their Dominions if they are able and other Counsels and Popes have the like And it must be supposed that he that professeth himself so bound in Conscience is resolved as soon as he can to do it And he that imposeth on them a false Religion and faith Turn or Die professeth to destroy or damn them Yet may he be endured if he disclaim such Councils or promise Liberty till Evidence of perilous attempts nullifie that promise But if he put the Nation under the power of Souldiers Judges Magistrates of the same profession it must be supposed that he cannot save the Kingdom from them or that all they will be neglecters of their own Religion Or if he put himself into the power of an Army of that Religion he puts the Nation into their power though he were a Protestant himself For he is utterly unable to resist their power when Religion engageth their deluded Consciences to destroy us And though causless fears will not warrant defensive Arms rational well-grounded fears will For when Men are dead it is too late 17. But it followeth not that therefore a Papist may be resisted in France Spain Portugal or any Papist Kingdom nor yet a Heathen by persecuted Christians as in the Roman Empire Because their Religion bindeth none of these to exterminate or destroy their own Kingdoms as being of the same Religion as themselves And the Christians then and Protestants there now are not the Kingdom but a Party Therefore King and Parliament have here newly enacted for the setling of this Crown that no Papist may be here King or Regent Queen For though as in the Pond Judge Hale tells us two Pikes devoured all the other great store of Fish and survived only themselves God never authorized one Man to damn or murder a whole Kingdom 18. The Interest of the King his Honour Safety and Power and the Interest of the People their common safety and welfare are distinct but must not be opposite The King is for the Kingdom finaliter under God's Glory though the People are as Subjects to obey the King it is to that end the common good 19. In application I did believe that both King and Parliament sinfully began and managed this War For if either or both were wronged so much was by them to be endured as was not worse than a Civil War I believe that the Parliament did very ill in being emboldened by the Scots Army to provoke the King beyond the degree of meer necessity And that it was ill done of those that secretly or openly encouraged the Apprentices tumultuous way of Petitioning to move any Parliament Men from following their Judgments and in permitting the gross Scorns and Abuse of the Bishops and Liturgy And I believe that after they did yet worse in taking and imposing the Scots Covenant to procure their help 20. I did and do believe that yet they did but their Duty in seeking to redress the dangerous Abuses of Ministerial Governours and bringing the Instruments by Legal tryal to Punishment For what purpose else are they a Judicature Subjects are all under the Law And the common Judges are Sworn to do Justice though the King's Seal should be sent to Prohibit them 21. I did believe that the King did ill to forsake them and on pretence of the Tumults to gather an Army in Yorkshire Nottingham and Shrewsbury and that whose Commissions soever were first dated his Armed Collection of Men was first raised But yet that the beginning was by such degrees of mutual Provocation that to this day it is hard to say who began 22. I had read the King's Letter in Spain to the Pope promising to venture Crown and Life for the Union of the Christian Churches including the Roman which is recorded in Mr. Chesne the King of France his Geographer and in Prin and Rushworth And whether it be true or not that the Scots say in a Book called Truths Manifest that K. Charles then in Scotland had possession of their Broad Seal and put that Seal to a Commission for the Irish Insurrection I am past doubt that K. Ch. II. granted a Commission to Monk Manchester and others to try the Marquis of Antrim's Plea by which it was proved and determined that he had the K. Ch. I's Commission Though I believe that the King that caused them to rise allowed them not to Murder all the Protestants Put whom else were they to rise against but the Protestants And must they rise against them and not kill them And was not the Murderous temper and use of the Irish well known 23. I know that the Irish a year before Edgehill Fight on that day Oct. 23. 1641. were to have surprized Dublin And by the full Account of Dr. Henry Jones since Bishop and Sir John Temple and the Earl of Orery Murdered Two hundred Thousand and boasted that they did it by the King's Commission and that when they had done there they would come hither Though I believed them not I knew that Two hundred Thousand men dead are past Pleading their own Cause or defending their Country It is easie to Plead the justness of their Cause against dead Men that cannot contradict them Solitudinem faciunt Pacem vocant There is no resisting Murderers in the Grave And I thought that if the King put in Arms and Power the English Papists of the same Religion bound to destroy us his own good meaning could not preserve himself or us And I knew that the King stopt the Carriage-Horses that were sent by the Parliament to relieve Ireland and took them for his own Service and many
ways delayed their Relief Though he offered to go over himself the Parliament fearing he would go to Head the Irish 24. The King had before assaulted the Parliament-House in Person with Armed Men to have surprized Five Members and the Lord Kimbolton whom he accused And after frustration confest it a Breach of their Privileges 25. The Money sent Dolbier to buy German Horses and other actions and the Confessions of Sir Jacob Astley Sir John Conniers Sir Fulke Haukes my Mother-in-laws Brother Chidley and the other Commanders of the English Army that were to have been drawn up to London together with the King 's putting a Guarding Regiment on them did put me past all doubt that they were devoted to violence had they not defended themselves And no vain Talk to the contrary can make me doubt of it to this day So that though I think they had done more prudently to avoid War had they spared Strafford and Laud to please the King yet I am fully satisfied that afterward they were necessitated to save themselves from designed Force 26. I am certain that two things filled the Parliaments Armies And both of grand Importance 1. That all over the Kingdom save here and there a sober Gentleman and a formal Clergyman the Religious Party and all that loved them were generally for the Parliament alienated from the Persecutors and Silencers And the Profane Party in all Countries Debaucht Gentlemen Malignant Haters of Piety the Rabble of Drunkards Blasphemers were generally against the Parliament And religious People were loth to herd with such And could hardly believe that in so great a Cause God would reveal the Truth to all his Enemies the sensual Rabble and hide it from the generality of them that fear him And especially that in most Countries the Malignants forced away the Religious and either rose against them themselves or set the King's Soldiers to Plunder and Destroy them My own Father living 18 Miles from me was Plundered by the King's Soldiers though he never scrupled Conformity nor ever medled against the King and was thrice laid in Prison and had still lain there had not Sir Fulke Haukes his Brother in Law been by Prince Rupert made Governour of Shrewsbury and this for nothing And after laid in again till the Town was taken This last was only because when they made him Collector for the King he refused to distrein of those that paid not fearing lest he should be put to repay it And almost all the Religious People of Kederminster were forced to fly and leave their Houses and Trades to their undoing to save their Lives though they had never medled with Wars And the men that had no maintenance of their own were forced to become Garison-Soldiers in Coventry to avoid Famine The second thing and the main that drove men to the Parliament Garisons and Armies was the Irish Murders with the Papists Power with the King They thought that it must be an unusual War that should Kill Two hundred Thousand As dreadful as it was I do believe that all the Wars of England Kill'd not Fifty thousand nor near it And though Fear which is a Tyrant overcame partly their Discretion yet this joyned with the Experience of that which forced them from home was too strong a tryal for most to overcome And it confirmed their Suspition when the Queen brought in a Popish Army under General King and the Earl of Newcastle's Army had so great a number of Papists and after the Earl of Glamorgan was authorized to have brought over an Army of Irish Papists and the English Regiments that fought there against them had been called hither to fight against the Parliament and were routed at Nantwich No wonder if men thought that England would have been made too like to Ireland whether the King would or not had such Armies Conquered 27. The Parliament Protested to be for the King and not against his Person or Legal Power or Prerogative but only against his Illegal Will to defend themselves and the Kingdom from an unlawful Army and to bring Delinquents to Legal Tryal and Punishment And they accordingly gave out all their Commissions till the Cause was changed by fairfax's Commission that left out the King And the Soldiers of the Garison where I was commonly believed this to be their Obligation and the true Case of the War viz. Offensive against armed Delinquents as the Sheriff may raise the Posse Comitatus and Defensive against the Kings illegal Will and Way 28. I did believe that if the King by such an Army as he had should Conquer the Parliament the Legal and all Probable Security of the Nation for Life Property Liberty and Religion was in all likelihood gone If it should lye on the King's Will only thereby it were gone For what then were our Constitution or Parliaments for and what differ we from Slaves And were he willing and those with him that meant well he would not be able to Master such an Army 29. I did believe that if the Parliament were certainly more faulty than they were the Kingdoms Security was not therefore to be forsaken by the Subjects nor all Parliaments and Government to be left to the Will of the King who had for so many years interrupted Parliaments and dissolved them still in Displeasure and had raised Taxes called Ship-money by himself without them and on the same account might command all the rest Therefore I owned not any of the discerned Miscarriages of the Parliament but only thought I was bound to defend the common Good and Safety as it was the End of Government My judgment yet is That if the King of England wrongfully begin a War against France the Subjects ought by Arms to help him not owning his wrong Cause but to save the Kingdom which would be lost and enslaved if he were Conquered So the fault of the Parliament could not disoblige the People from labouring to secure the Constitution of the Kingdom and therein their Posterities Properties Liberties and Safety And the bare Promise of a King is no such Security 30. I did believe that if there were a Controversie in these Cases the Supream Council and Judicature of the Kingdom had the most satisfying Power of Determination to particular Persons As the Judgment of a General Council is preferable to any lower Judges and the Judgment of the College of Physicions is more authoritative than of a single Dr. And the Judgment of the University is more than of the Vice-Chancellors or one Man And tho yet it may fall out that the Dissenter may be in the right the unlearned that cannot confidently judge are more excuseable for not resisting the higher Judges 31. Obj. By this Rule whatever wrong a Parliament shall do to the King we must all take their part against him And if they betray their Trust we must bear them out in their Treachery Ans 1. Distinguish between a wrong to the King and the betraying of the
Bonum Publicum the common Safety and the Constitution 2. And between a Case controvertible and a Case clear and certain And so I answer 1. If a Parliament wrong the King we must not joyn with them in wronging him nor own their wrong nor defend the Persons from legal Justice He might have dissolved them and called another had he not past a Law to the contrary He may Impeach any Members at their own Bar But at what Judicature shall he try the highest Judicature it self 2. And if the Representative would treacherously destroy the Constitution and yield to enslave them or to give up the Kingdom to the Pope or any Foreign Power the Case being past Controversie the People have not thereby lost the natural Power of Self-defence But may as lawfully choose more trusty Representatives and fight for Self defence against such Traitors as against a Tyrant 3. But the species of the Constitution in King and Parliament must still be maintained and the Salus Populi without respect to which there is no Government And no personal Faults can forfeit that 32. Therefore I ever thought as it was a dissolution of the Constitution for the King to put down Parliaments and pretend as Bishop Morley blindly pleadeth to the sole Power of Legislation so it is Treason for a Parliament to put down Monarchy and to assume the sole Legislative Power As the Rump did when they pretended to settle a Government without a King or House of Lords If either King or Parliament personal should forfeit their Power the Kingdom doth not thereby forfeit their right in the constituted Form of Government by a King and Parliament SECTION 4. I Have interposed this account of the Principles on which I acted I will next add an account of my Actions hereupon and then return to the Confession of my own Sins as far as I know them 1. Refusing a Chaplain's Commission I continued about two Years or more in Coventry as a Lecturer to the Garison and City in quietness save that we daily heard of all the dismal Wars abroad Only twice I went out with them 1. To take in Tamworth Castle that cost no Blood 2. And to besiege Banbury Castle whose Soldiers rob'd Warwickshire and the Travellers and Carriers on London Road. But thence we were raised and driven home with some loss Also for two or three Months the care of my Native Countrey and of my Father drew me into Shropshire with some that went to settle a Garison at Wem There and at Longford House I staid till my Father was delivered from Imprisonment by Exchange for a short time 2. All that ever I converst with did all this while protess to own the King and only to separate him from an Army of Delinquents and to reunite him and his Parliament And we thought all the Armies had intended no worse But when Naseby Fight was past having heard that the King was left out of the New Commissions I went to see the Field where the Fight was and the Army And there accosted me some sober honest Captains and told me that their Army was corrupted by the fault of the Ministers that had all forsaken them being weary of the Labour and impatient of the Sectaries in the Army and so they were all left to the Preaching of their own Officers and Souldiers and a few Chaplains of their own Mind and Choice And that the bold Leaders began already to say that God hath committed the safety of the Nation to their trust And what were the Lords and Knights in William the Conqueror's time but his Colonels and Captains In a word I understood by them that they had a purpose to set up themselves and to overturn the Government of Church and 〈◊〉 This so surprized me that whereas these Captains intreated 〈◊〉 among them and got Col. Whalley who then seemed of their 〈◊〉 to invite me to his Regiment I took but one days time to answer them And I opened the sad Case that we were all like to be in to an Assembly of Ministers in Coventry whom I gathered to counsel me and told them what I found and that the Land was now like to fall into their hands and that though I thought it was too late I was inclined to venture my life among them in seeking to reclaim them The Ministers Dr. Bryan Dr. Grew Mr. King Mr. Brumskill Mr. Morton and others seeing my inclination gave their consent But the Committee after consent refusing I was forced to tell them what I saw and heard in the Army and what Danger the Kingdom was in and so to go away against their will But Col. W. Puresoy a Confident of Cromwell's threatened me for such words and I imagine sent Cromwell word that Night For the next Morning I was met with scorn and I suppose all known to Cromwell that I had said and Cromwell would never after allow me any opportunity beyond the Regiment that I joyned to And there I spent near two years in Labours and Disputings against well-meaning perverted Sectaries if it had been possible to have turned them from what they after did But my capacity was narrow though there I prevailed with most And I got Mr. Cook since of Chester that suffered much for the King and after by the King a great Enemy to Sects and Sedition to come and help me but they wearied him away And besides Mr. Bowles I know none but perverse Sectaries part Arminians but most Antinomians or worse left to be their Teachers I told the Parliament Men what the Army would do and warned them to prepare But it was too late Cromwell and his Confederates did all and made a Stale of Fairfax's Name and Vane and Haslerigge and their Friends in Parliament disbanded all the sober Souldiers in Garisons and Bragades that would have resisted them and so put the Power of King Parliament and Kingdom into their hands and some of them repented when it was too late In Feb. 1656 7. they began their Conspiracy against the Parliament in a Meeting at Nottingham and that very day God separated me from them by Bleeding 120 Ounces at the Nose at Milborne in Derbyshire when else I had in vain hazarded my life against them at Triploe Heath by drawing from them as many as I could But Sir Edward Hatley and other Officers that did it and drew off about Five thousand did but strengthen them For Cromwell fill'd up their places with Sectaries and Soldiers that had served the King before and was stronger than before as having none to distrust To tell what they did after against the Eleven Members and then against the Majority of the Parliament and then against the King and then against the Rump and then against the Ministry and how Cromwell contrived himself into the Supremacy would be to write the History of that time and to Epitomize Whitlock This much I thought necessary to premise to my own review of my actions and for them that
conformable to Episcopacy and Parochial Worship and some of them so Zealous for the Liturgy and Diocesanes that they would not hear a Man as a Minister that had not Episcopal Ordination The Archbishop of York Williams was one of them and was not he for Episcopacy § 5. But the Accuser confuteth all this by telling us that it began in King James days between the Regians and the Republicans between Prerogative and Priviledge by a Party that would have perswaded the King to War for the Palatinate c. And why began he it not in Queen Elizabeth's Reign who more overtopt Parliaments than King James did I perceive by this Man that none must pass for Conformable and Episcopal that are not of Sibthorp and Mainwaring's Mind and renounce not Parliamentary Priviledges and give not up Property and Liberty to the meer will of the King called Prerogative And so all our Parliaments till the Dividing and Tearing Long one were not of the Church of England And what then was that Church Was it a Christian Kingdom and yet was the Kingdom Representative no part of it Are none but Leeches Sangutsugi's Men of Blood that must have all lye and die in Goals among Rogues that will not Swear and Subscribe and Declare and Covenant and Practise all that they impose of the Church of England What a Reproach is this to such a Church If I must Repent that I take not all the old Parliaments and all the Bishops in Queen Elizabeths days to be no Church Protestants if I must Repent for taking Jewel Bishop Bilson Ri. Hooker and his Friend Sir Edwin Sandyes for Church Protestants and Repent for believing all Rushworth's Collections all Whitlock's Memoirs all Sir Simon Dewes and Dr. Fuller's Church History and the Volumes of M. S. Parliament Speeches if I must take this King and Parliament and all the Bishops and Clergy that Conform to them to be no Protestants of the Church of England because they have made a Law declaring it to be the Rights and Liberties of the people to be governed by Law and not by Arbitrary Prerogative and have asserted what the old Parliaments claimed I must then heinously dishonour the Church of England and Repent that I am a Man § 6. He falsly feigneth me to say that the Bishops began the War because I said it began between the two Episcopal Parties those that were of Archbishop Abbot's and the old Reformers way and those that were for Land's Innovations and Persecutions And I should justly be noted for vain and tedious if I would stand to answer all his talk about the Provocations He that will read Whitlock may have full satisfaction and particularly find that the Parliament voted a Diocesane in every County when they began to reform And were they not then for Episcopacy § 7. Page 10. He saith From the year 1660 it hath been my chief work to pour out the like contempt malice and violence as was begun 1640. Ans Not a word proved or true till I was silenced 1662 Aug. 24. I was never accused for any word then preached writ and published Which was not for want of Enemies or Power Of many years after I neither preach'd nor printed And what I printed since the world may be judge of § 8. Page 12. He saith that the numerous fry of Sectaries agree to own me as their Champion Ans When the Grand Accuser can hope to make such stuff as this believed and that in a Land City and Time where the clean contrary is more commonly known than I am what can be devised so impudently false which he may not by his stamp make current as truth Are not above Sixty Books of Sectaries written more or less against me an evidence to prove that they take me not for their Champion Are not above Sixscore Books of my own writing many at large and all in part against Sectaries and Errors a visible Evidence of this Mans falshood Is not the common Cry of City and Countrey a sufficient witness that the Sectaries take me not for their Champion but their Adversary Indeed they have shewed it but by words it being but the two Master Sects Papists and Tory Prelatists that shew it by Fining Silencing Prison and taking all for their prey § 9. The Accuser tells me that it is no new thing for Hereticks to have many admirers and to pretend to purity that they may deceive Ans Which is very true and I will add that which is far worse It is no new thing even for them that do not so much as seem to have either Purity Conscience or common Honesty no nor to scruple the grossest Lying and Perjury to have more Followers than Christ himself had while he was on Earth notwithstanding his Purity and all his Miracles Such Men find corrupted nature as disposed to believe and follow them as a Dunghil to breed Weeds or a Carcase Maggots Even those that openly militate under Satan as deadly Enemies to serious Godliness if they will but cloak their malignity with the Name of a Sacred Function and call Piety and Conscience by their own Titles Hypocrisie and Schism shall convert more Souls to Diabolism in a little time than all the Preachers that they silence could have converted to Piety and serious Christianity And the French Prelacy and Dragoon Discipline will cleanse a Nation quickly from Protestant Heresie and Schism We hope not for the honour of having more Followers than such Men. This Man and his Sect would comfort me if I were in fear of that threatening of Christ Mat. 5. Woe to you when all Men speak well of you § 10. Ibid. He saith That under a form of Godliness I would destroy the power of it Ans Hem What is the Power of Godliness with this Sect of Men If it be the Power of Silencing the most Godly and Practical and Blameless Preachers and of Beggering and Murdering by long Imprisonment in common Goals both Preachers and Hearers that will not give over all publick Worship of God like Atheists till they dare venture to Lie and be Perjured and own all that such Men bid them say is faultless If it be the power of Godliness to have an ignorant worldly scandalous Priest who driveth Men from him by his naughtiness to hate threaten and ruine them if they will hear any but him or use any trustier Pastor for their Souls and that would turn Churches into Prisons and Sacraments into forced Drenches to be given by him that can get a Patent for the Trade which some Patrons and Prelates chosen by a Papist King can easily help him to then I am against the power of Godliness Where Gain is Godliness I have long been against the power of it § 11. Page 13. He saith Our Nation would be less in danger of new Flames if all my Books Practical and Polemical were consumed to Ashes Ans How came I to escape till now my self Not at all by your Clemency Your
in words 46. Thence I went quietly to a costly Prison where I continued in pain and languor near two years Enjoying more quietness in that Confinement than I had done of many years before Because they had no further to hunt me And God there healed my Bloody Urine that had continued two years 47. Being Fined 500 Marks and to give Bond for the Behaviour when they saw that I did neither pay the Fine nor Petition the King and Papists who all this while did their work by Men called Protestants resolved to have the thanks for my Release and offered me deliverance by the Marquess of Powis his endeavour But they would not abate my Bonds to the Behaviour 48. When I was released the Protestant Justices at the Sessions that declared they had nothing against me would not take up my former Bonds but made me long wait with Counsel at Hicks Hall and I know not that they have given up my Bonds to this day But Patience is my remedy 49. Before while I lived in St. Giles's Parish I went Morning and Evening to the Parish Church to Common Prayer and Sermon And I Communicated kneeling at the Rails But I first told Dr Sharp now Dean of Canterbury that I am ipso facto Excommunicate by Canon 7 8 9. and left it to his consideration But after Consultation he admitted me because the Canon bound him not before prosecution or declaration 50. In Prison and since my Release I have written divers Books for Communion with the publick Churches And one of Government and one against Schism and others pacificatory that are not printed And I have continued to preach only as a helper to another not related to any gathered Church as their Teacher though Licensed by Law to have gathered such a Church as well as others 51. The reason why I have not these four years gone to any Parish Church is because Prisons and utter disability of Body hindered me being scarce able to creep once a day to our Assembly but the fourth Door from my House 52. To conclude Whoever after reading my many great and small Writings for Concord and Peace and for the Church especially my Cure of Church Divisions my Treatise of the way of Unity my Catholick Theology my Christian Directory my Methodus Theologiae and the numerous Volumes of Controversie written all to end Controversies and shall know that it hath been my chief study and labour these forty four years to promote Unity Peace and Concord and what I have suffered for it and yet will accuse my Heart and Life as quite contrary to all this must bring to any sober impartial Man very clear evidence to prove me so mad and deadly an Enemy to so long and painful Labours § 14. I am next therefore further to enquire what this Evidence is But his words do seem to forbid an answer for they are capable of none but what will sound harshly even to name them as they are Most Impudent Lies meer forgeries or the most unquestionable Duties made most odious sins and most of the pretence fetcht from some words of my Writings and Confessions depraved and impudently falsified The General Accusation is page 14. I dare challenge any Historian that hath observed or read the Tragedies of the late times to shew a parallel in any one person I say not only among the Apostate Clergy but the Laity and the worst of them that may equal Mr. B. Accus I. Particularly Who is there among the Living that entertained more early Prejudices against the Bishops Ans Mendac I. I thought them to be of Divine Institution till after I was Ordained And since then I have proved it of the Primitive Episcopacy And opposed none but that sort of Diocesans who put down all the Bishops and Churches that should be under them and will be the sole Bishops of many hundred or score Parishes making true Episcopal Discipline impossible and substituting a delusion § 15. Accus II. That left his Calling as a Minister of Peace and entred with the first into a War against the King Mendac II. I never left my Calling nor ever took Command or Office or so much as a Chaplains relation to any Souldiers nor pay for it Save that when Naseby Fight almost ended the War I went a Chaplain to have tryed to save the Land from Rebellion I always was for King and Parliament and never against the Kings Person Power or Prerogative but only for his return to his Parliament and against his Will and Instruments When Hen. VI. was carried about by his Enemies his Friends fought for him that fought against the Army where his Person was I was so far from going into a War with the first that I only fled to Coventry for a private Refuge when I was forced from Home of which enough before § 16. Accus III. And for four years space which was the heat of the Wars was an Agent as well as an Eye-witness of most of the terrible Battles that were fought in England Mendac IV. I never so much as saw one of those terrible Battles The first that ever I saw was that at Langport when the Field War ended And there I saw not the killing of one Man Because I said that I saw some Fields and Dead he forgeth me to have seen the Fights I never saw the Fight at Edgehill but being at Alcester I went to see the Ground and some unburied Bodies the following day I never saw either of the two Newberry Fights nor the Countrey I never saw the Fight at Horncastle at Allford or any in the East South West or North. I never saw the greatest Fight at York nor ever was in or near the County I saw not that at Mongomery nor that at Nampwich nor any Fight in England save that aforesaid at Langport and the flight of our Coventry Men from Banbury And I went to see the Ground at Naseby when the Armies were gone a day or two before And I once saw at a distance about thirty Men of a side Fight between Linsell and Longford where one was kill'd Some Sieges I was not far off while I was with the Armies on the Accounts at large before recited § 17. Accus IV. Who ever boasted of drawing thousands to that War Ans He falsly calleth a Confession a Boasting To convince Cromwell's Soulders that pull'd down the Government I that had drawn thousands into the Parliaments defensive War could not have denied the heinousness of my Crime if I had done as they did or been against King and Parliament united or for the changing of the Government I said by aggravation that I had drawn in thousands because at Coventry and Wem I had publickly preach'd against the accusations of the Cause that I then thought just § 18. Accus V. Who hath said more to justifie not the War only but the Death of the Royal Martyr Ans Mendac V. What can a Reader say of such Men that shall find 1. That
Independants § 65. Accus LII Page 47. Having told what a few Rumpers said to Monk he saith And because they did this and might justifie it by Mr. B's Theses in his Holy Commonwealth they are the Supream Power the best Governours in all the World Ans How pregnant is malice of falshood 1. It is false that the Parliament in question did what he saith which was done by their Adversaries Such as Scot Robinson and Haseldrigge that flattered Monk till he had them in his Net 2. It is false that my Thâ—ses justifie them which are written against them 3 It is false that it was for this that I call them the Supream Power or the best Governours It 's King and Parliament that I call Supream It was King Parliament the Rump and Richard that the Men whom I wrote against pull'd down And I only tell them that if the Errours of all these Rulers will justifie an Army for Deposing them there is no Power on Earth that might not be so Deposed there being none better than all these Deposed by them § 66. Once more I tell this Accuser and the World that I am so far from justifying King or Parliament from the beginning progress or ending of this War that I think both sides deeply guilty of very heinous sin And I cannot tell whether I know a Man living that hateth War more than I hate it While I medled in it it was far a more sad and hateful Life to me than my abode in Prison was when the Church Defenders laid me there with an unsolvable Fine The truth is both sides began they knew not what I knew not a Man but Sir Francis Nethersole that knew what War was or foresaw what was like to come of it Both sides thought it would be prevented by the Countreys forsaking the other side or that one Fight would end it And no Man can tell just where and when and by whom it was begun No more than just when a Chronical Disease begins in Man Only I am sure that Virtually and Dispositively it began in that division of Minds Hearts and Lives which is common in the World between them that Love a Life of Serious Godliness and cannot Love Wickedness and them that Hate a Godly Life because it 's against their Lust and Carnal Interest Not that every Adversary to the Parliament was a Cainite but that through the Land an Enmity between the Seriously Godly and the Prophane encouraged by Pharisaical Ceremonious Formalists was a War in our Bowels ready to break forth upon the first advantages And the Religious Party as in all former Ages had many young ignorant Novices that by Pride ran into Extreams being self-conceited and unruly and ready by Schism or petulant Censoriousness to vilifie all that be not of their Sects and to pretend Fanatick Inspirations for their Errours As the contrary Party was prone to be so Jealous of their beloved Dominion Wealth and Ease and Honour as to take such for intolerable Enemies that flattered them not in their Worldly Pomp. Long did heart-burnings continue between these discordant Parties one side blaming and the other side ruining those that were against them Till Laud's attempts for Innovation stirred up such opposition in Scotland and distaste in England as I cannot justifie The Parliament encouraged by the Scots went higher in provoking the King than they ought And the King too much occasioned their Jealousie that he intended to have Invaded Property and Liberty and to subdue them by force if they restrained or punished the Executioners of his Illegal Will But this brake out by such degrees that no Man can name the beginning As a small breach in a Pond of Water groweth wider till it let out the whole And as Personal Duels begin in a word or a suspicion and proceed to wrath and then to reproach and thence to revenge When Division was the Death of the Constituted Form of Government both sides should have hated and feared it more than either did But the Parliament thought the King would soon return as deserted And the Devil among us all was as if he had cast among Boys red hot pieces of Brass or Iron and they scrambled for it thinking by the Colour that it was Gold till it stuck to their Fingers and burnt them to the Bone And the dread of 200000 Murdered in Ireland put such a pannick fear in the Antipapists in England as darkened their Wits And yet if the Captain and Mariners fall out by folly the Ship may be preserved by the innocent If the Citizens could not agree about quenching the Fire in 1666. the Inhabitants may endeavour it and pull down Houses to that end without the guilt of injury to the Owners I think that King and Parliament grievously sinned but not equally in doing so much to cause and no more to prevent a Civil War I would they had hearkened to Whitlock's Speech and other Mens healing motions 1641. But who in the beginning fore-knows the end And when once the breach is made usually there is no hope left of any better end than one of the two Parties ruin True is the old saying He that draweth his Sword against his King must throw away the Scabbard When all mutual Trust is gone all hope of Reconciliation is gone The present state of England is a lively Exposition of the beginning of that miserable War We were thus in fear of Popery and Slavery here of late The Murder of 200000 in Ireland and the Papists coming in to the King in England was as loud an Alarm as King James his Liberty of Conscience here The Archbishop and Bishops and the Lay Church Lords and Patrons here had Sworn or Promised against taking Arms against the King on any pretence what soever They did not all own King William's Title to the Crown Yet they thought it lawful to save the Kingdom from a misgoverning King and the Kings own Kindred Lords Army and Clergy forsook him and joyned with him that came in against him They meant it not as owning then the Invaders Right to the Crown nor as disowning King James but to save the Kingdom and it proved contrary to their expectation that without Blood the turn of the Nation turned the Government Just so the first beginners of the resistance of King Charles the First his Army intended no change of the Government and they thought that the War would have been as soon almost ended as begun as King William's was here but when it was once begun reconciliation became impossible And one or others must be ruined Yet we that owned not the miscarriages of either side but thought King and Parliament greatly sinful thought it an absolute Duty to do our best to save the Kingdom from the most threatning danger And we thought that the Massacre of Ireland the Papists in England the malignity of most of the Kings Adherents and the prospect of such an Army of Delinquents Conquering a Parliament and putting
all the Land into the Sole power of the King who was himself in the power of Papists and Delinquents did clearly tell us where the present danger of the Kingdom lay But future Changes we could not foresee 〈…〉 part I was a young Novice and knew not what War was 〈…〉 considerable interest in any to have prevented it But 〈…〉 that I more repent of than that I feared it so little and that I did not speak more earnestly for the preventing of it by mutual pacificatory means and that I said any thing towards unpeaceable irritations Who could have forethought that all those doleful Events would follow which make up Whitlock's impartial Memorials § 67. Yet I must truely say though it displease the guilty that the effects were quite different on the Land from what the Malignants commonly report They would falsly perswade the World that all ancient Piety was despised the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and all sober Ministers cast out and Tub preachers set up to vent their Nonsence The truth is among 10000 of the Clergy about 300 or more were turn'd out as Ignorant and Scandalous and with them unjustly some for being for the King against the Parliament The number I know not but conjecture that there might be an hundred such at least In the places of these the most seriously Religious young Men that the Universities would afford with some few old Nonconformists and but few such as the Parishioners chose were set up Most of these young Men were such as had no hand in the Wars but were Lads or young Students while the War continued It pleased God that very many of them became such fervent able Preachers that a great change followed among their Hearers and multitudes of the Ignorant Debauch'd and Worldlings became Serious Godly Christians And the younger sort grew up accordingly For instance in the County of Worcester where I lived where before there was one Family that minded Piety or the Life to come or Prayed or Read the Scripture there were many after that did it In the Town where I lived where there was before one or two Houses in a Street that worshipped God by Prayer in their Families and avoided Profaneness and minded the Concerns of their Souls at last there was scarce more than two Houses on a Street-side that did not learn the Catechism read the Scripture pray and live soberly and this in great love and peace and humility towards others commonly disowning the Cromwellians and Sectarians Disloyalties Rebellions and Schisins But indeed when the Sectaries got dominion many Anabaptists and Self conceited Novices set up themselves for Preachers where they could get Hearers but the sober godly people kept so much Concord and Integrity that these others were but here and there and that as a disgraced broken Sect as the Quakers be among us now But Harrison took the advantage of the ignorance and badness of the Parish Ministers in Wales to set up Itinerant Anabaptists and Separatists in many places This is the truth of the Consequents about Religion And it fell out that the Cromwellians and Anabaptists professing more Zeal for Godliness than ordinary did much of their work by suppressing sin and profaneness and countenancing Godliness Which hath taught us to wish that of two Evils rather Hypocrisie than Malignity may be in power It 's better Godliness be promoted for evil Ends than hated and persecuted 68. Whereas therefore the Diocesane Church of England exclusive of all Nonconformists and such as these Men accuse is so oft called The best Church in the World It must mean that it is best in Constitution and Laws or in the Men that are Ministers and Members If the first be their meaning 1. The best Laws without the best Men never make the best Church 2. Is one sole Bishop over a Thousand or many Hundred Parishes without any Bishop or Pastoral Church under him a better Form of Government than the contrary that was continued for many hundred years and described by Archbishop Usher and others 2. Is a Church Governed by Lay Civilians decretive use of the Keys so much better than that which is Governed by the Keys in the hands of the Clergy only 3. Is a Church Governed by Canons that ipso facto Excommunicate all that affirm any of their Offices Ceremonies or Forms to have any thing sinful better than those that unite in things necessary and bear with such as these 4. Are Bishops and Deans chosen by Kings perhaps Papists and Incumbents chosen by any that can buy a Presentation better than those that are chosen by the Clergy and People and Invested by the Prince and Patron 5. Is a Church where the ignorant sinful and unwilling are forced to Communicate unless they will lye Beggar'd in Goals better than those that receive none to Communion but the Desirers 2. But if it be the best Church in the World for Men they should let others praise them rather than their own Mouths Are they so much better Men than the Nonconformists Do their Lives shew it Doth credible fame speak it Though Mr. White was blamed for publishing the Names of such as by credible Oaths were ejected for Drunkenness or other Scandal this was no proof that they were the best Men in the World Nor yet that of 10000 that Conformed 8000 of them had Conformed before to the Directory and Declared their Assent and Consent to the altered Common Prayer Book before ever they saw it as I have proved Whereas I remember not that ever I heard of one Nonconformist these twenty eight years that was accused and punished for any such crime unless preaching Christs Gospel be a crime even when Power and Malice watcht for advantages against them and crouded them into Goals for preaching and praying Nor do I remember more than two single instances of Im norality by credible accusations of fame which was of Fornication lamented in all these years But alas how different is the common fame of too many of the publick Clergy And are these the best Men in all the World § 69. You may partly judge by their Works their Writings and their Lives Compare the Writings and Ministerial Labours of the Conformists and Nonconformists these thirty years or since the New Impositions Some pious Conformists have done extraordinarily well Especially Dr. Barrow Dr. Tillotson Dr. Patrick Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tennison c. And is there not the same Spirit of Wisdom Piety and Peace in the Writings of Anthony Burgesse Mr. Charnock Dr. Manton Dr. Bates Mr Hâ—w Richard Alleine Joseph Alleine Tho. Gouge Mr. Swinnock Dr Gâ—lpin many Volumes of the Morning Lectures Mr. Flavel's Mr. Steel's Mr. Ambrose's and many more such This Man singleth out me for one of the worst Men living and Bishop Morley bid Men judge of all the rest by me ab uno disce omnes And he was accounted one of the most Eminent of the Clergy for Parts and Orthodoxness One Book
than Mr. B. of these things And now it is all intolerable 3. That Disputation of Ordination was never yet answered that I could hear of and yet Men were forced to be re-ordained I never had a hand in ordaining any one § 83. Accus LXVI His Accusations of my holy Commonwealth are so slippery and trifling that they call not for an Answer unless it be that he taketh it for criminal 1. That I told Cromwell's Army that it was Treason to take Arms against the highest Power as they did and that if the highest Legislative Power was in the King alone and not in King and Parliament conjunct I must confess that I was guilty of death 2. Or that I said I honoured all the Providences of God that made our Changes though I abhorred the Deeds of Men that were guilty And is it a Crime to honour God and his Works 3. Or that I desired Richard Cromwell to govern well and called my self his Subject though I never owned his Right to the Government thinking that Christ directed me so far to submit to the Possessor when he paid Tribute to Caesar and sent Lepers and others to the High Priests that were Usurpers And this very Man and his best Church in the World except seven or eight Bishops do now practise that which he so condemned me for yea and much more while they swear Obedience to the present King William publishing that it is as to a King de facto only § 84. Accus LXVII is That I say I had been a Traytor had I taken Arms against the Parliament Ans Yes or the King either if the Legislative Power be in them conjunct The King protested that he took not Arms against the Parliament and the Parliament protested that they took not Arms against the King This Man makes Mr. Udal guilty of Sedition against the Queen because it was against the Bishops her Ministers And is it not as criminal to be against the Parliament Are they so much lower than the Bishops Here he wonders that any Christian can still take me for a Saint and the Guide of the Party and recites some applauding words of Mr. John Humfreys no Sectary But I take my self for a very great Sinner and know no Party that take me for their Guide and am so conscious of my Ignorance that I know it to be far greater than my Knowledge and yet my Affections come short of what I know The rest of his Invectives to the end of his first Chapter are nothing but a rabble of intimated congested Lyes upon the occasion of the Wars and perverted Words unworthy of a Confutation They are all built on the supposition that all that they did against the Parliament and Kingdom was not only just but necessary and all the Ignorance Drunkenness Ungodliness and Cainism of the vicious part of their Clergy were not to be blamed but the reproof of them and endeavours to reform them was heinous wickedness What a Charm is the name of the Diocesan Clergy that can turn the most scandalous Treachery into Sanctity and make the best Church in the World of the Haters of ferious Godliness and make a desire of their Reformation to be the badge of intolerable Rebels § 85. Accus LXVIII He begins his second Chapter with a recital of my Profession that 't is Treason to fight against the King and with this oft repeated Lye that I had the confidence to meet the Old King and his Armies in the Field This is his Diocesan History I never met the King in the Field nor ever saw an Army where he was nor ever saw one of his Armies till that of Goring's at Langport-Fight where the Field War ended Indeed I came into the Quarters where they had gone before me and I was so guilty of opposing them as to be ashamed of the fame they left behind them At South-â—ederton the Gentleman where I quartered told me that in his House they prick'd their Fingers and made the Blood run into the Cup and drunk a Health to the Devil At the Catherine-Wheel in Salisbury the Neighbours reported that some of them drinking a Health to the Devil one of them was carried away and never seen more I went into the Room and saw a new Standard and Glass where the Window was broken but the Woman said she was not in the Room and knew not how it was done whatever the Neighbours said of it from the Soldiers that were frighted But 't is none of my purpose to intimate that they were all such or most § 86. Accus LXIX His next Accusation is Our offering our Consent to Archbishop Usher ' s Reduction of the Primitive Episcopacy as a means of Concord Against this he saith The Bishops knew whence it came not from the Archbishop but from the Presbyterian Forge Ans Still this is English Church-History The Archbishop Usher owned it to his death as his Chaplains Dr. Bernard and Dr. Parre testifie He owned it to me himself and told me King Charles the First refused it at first but after would have accepted it But he exclaimeth against it as that which would have pulled down the Bishops or cut their Throats So that if one Bishop may not be said to govern many hundred Churches when a Lay-Chancellor doth it without any subordinate Bishop or Presbyters their Throats are cut And even the two Agents of our Misery Sheldon and Morley who were intrusted by the King to word this Declaration are by this Man made their own Cut-throats by granting some part of Pastoral Power to the Rural Deans and Synods This is the Church that must not be amended He saith that by this Model They would have robbed the Bishops of all their power and taken it to themselves And was Archbishop Usher such a Robber of himself and all the Bishops Did he motion any thing but the Primitive Episcopacy with the edditions of their large Diocess Wealth and Honour What was the power that they would have taken to themselves Was it to be Diocesans to rule a Diocess as the smallest Church that had none under it Would each Man have had this Diocesan Power or only all as one Political Body If each Man sure England had not Diocesses enough for so many Thousands If all as an Aristocracy could they desire more than Convocations have Or did they desire so much to all the Ministers of a Diocess in Conjunction with the Bishop as his Councils as every single Lay-Chancellor hath without the Bishop This is just like the Papists Accusation of Parish-Pastors that every Man would be a Pope in his own Parish And their saying of Masters that are for governing their Families that every one would be a Pope to his own House And against Self-governing of our Words and Actions that every one would be a Pope to himself And Idiots perceive not the Contradiction To be a Pope is to be one that claimeth the Government of all the World or Church
And is governing a Family or my self governing all the World And is governing a Parish-Church under an Archbishop the governing of many hundred Parishes that are no Churches but parts of a Diocesan Church I mentioned Mr. Stanley Gower's words to me of Archbishop Usher that he told him that a Bishop and Presbyter differed not Ordine but Gradu and that he took his Primacy and Lordship not as his Church-Office but as a Collateral Dignity given by the King and one would think no Man that believes the Scripture should think otherwise But this Accuser saith that he will not believe Mr. Stanley as he calls him or me But must we therefore both disbelieve our own Ears For he thinks the Bishop should then act against his Judgment and Conscience What Act may that be And he citeth Dr. Bernard's Testimony as against my Report whereas the very cited words of Dr. Bernard say the same that a Bishop hath Superiority in Degree above a Presbyter And the Accuser putteth these words that are against himself in Capital Letters it seemeth not knowing what he did or what Ordo and Gradus signifie § 87. Accus LXX He saith I injuriously mention King Charles the First his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions because he there gave away his Right for Peace Ans I mention only his own description of the Constitution by King Lords and Commons and their several Powers And would he persuade Men that the King falsly described it or that his Historical Description was his Guilt And he falsly saith that I am a Dissenter from Bishop Usher ' s Judgment about the King's Tribute in Ireland His Uuntruths come so thick that I am weary of naming them As pag. 88. 1. That I was for the Extirpation of Episcopacy Root and Branch 2. And yet that the Archbishop's Model which we desired preserveth that Species of Diocesan Bishops which Mr. B. would destroy Would we destroy that which we desired 3. And That under which Mr. B. maketh Christ's true Discipline unpraecticable Ans Palpably false For therefore we desired it because it maketh that Discipline practicable by the help of Parish-Pastors which without them is impossible 4. That no Government will please me as long as the Liturgy is established When he should have said that professing Assent and Consent to all in it will not please me till I can do it without lying 5. He saith Conformity is to me impossible as long as any of those which I account heinous Sins are retained Ans Yes if Lying be Conformity to me one Lye is unlawful 6. That I was always opposing the Party that was uppermost Ans If that were true it seemeth I sought not for Preferment 7. That I would have the new Liturgy or nothing Ans And yet we offered to use the Old if amended so we might not profess it less liable to Exception than our Translation of the Scripture it self and left it to the Bishops to joyn so much of the Additional Forms as they saw good but the Book was never debated by them § 88. Accus LXXI I have heard it credibly reported by some Reverend Persons there present that that Treaty might have had the desired effect of Concord had not Mr. B. so obstinately resisted Ans That is either those Reverend Persons would have amended their Impositions if I had not Petitioned them to do it and told them the necessity of it or else that all the rest of the Commissioned Nonconformists would have Conformed to all the old faults which they protested that they judged sinful and to all the worse that should after be added if I had not been against it These Reverend Persons were as Credible and Reverend as you are as our present state in England tells us Then he tells us what the Bishop of Chester told Mr. Walton Morley's Steward what Bishop Sanderson said against me which is half false Bishop Sanderson taking the Chair I being by a multitude of Arguments from the words of the Text proving against Dr. Gunning that Paul in Rom. 14 and 15. requireth us to receive to Communion such as differed in as great matters as those do that scruple kneeling at the Sacrament which I told them I scruple not I once told Dr. Gunning that he did petere principium in a case wherein Dr. Sanderson said that word was not in the common Logical sence applicable to his words And the old Learned peevish Man added that I was perverse for saying it And this was the heavy Charge And he addeth what Bishop Morley said of my eagerness to dispute when my Prethren were unwilling Ans Bishop Morley's words of me were much what as credible as yours or Roger Le Strange's Why then did they consent if they were unwilling And if neither Reasoning nor Petitioning them might be used what were we Commissioned for The truth is many of our Brethren when the Bishops told them they would say nothing to us till we brought in writing to them all the faults that we found with the Liturgy and also all the Forms in terminis which we desired as amendments or additions did say It was not this but an amicable consulation that the King Commissioned us for and seeing that this was a meer fraudulent pretence for our frustration they motioned our departing as being denied all that we were called to But I told them that the Bishops would report behind our Backs where we could not be heard that we had nothing to say against their Impositions nor any other terms to offer thinking we would never have agreed on any other Therefore I satisfied divers of them that though we were prejudged it were better let the World see our Cause stated in Writing than leave them to accuse us so when we should never have leave to declare the truth and deny their misreports § 89. Accus LXXII Page 91. He saith His Petition for Peace then was like his Pleas now meer Threatening and Reviling Take heed saith he how you drive Men by penalties on that which they judge would tend to their Damnation The denial of these Desires would renew all our Troubles Ans And indeed is both Damnation and the renewing of our Troubles and Divisions a matter of jest or so indifferent as that it is threatening and reviling humbly to petition Drs to take heed of them They rejected this Reviling Petition And hath England or Hell gained more by their rejection Doth it not tend to Mens Damnation to Swear Subscribe Profess or Practise all those words and things as good and lawful which they think sinful and the Imposers only call Indifferent Have not the Divisions been these thirty years a trouble to this Land which these Men might have prevented and cost them nothing He addeth They tell the Bishops of unmerciful Impositions Ans And is it Mercy to drive Men to Sin and Hell or a crime to beg for so cheap Mercy for the Souls of Men even of Bishops He that doubteth is condemned
within the Church 2. Did he know my Heart that I did it for Reputation And may he not say the like by any Man that doth good 3. Did I gain by Nonconformity that from the Day that I was silenced had never taken a Groat for Preaching nor ever had a Church to maintain me and had commonly refused even Friends Gratuities save 10l from one Man that I could not refuse for many Years after this and save from few to this day Who by refusing a Bishoprick and other Emoluments have lost I think above Twenty Thousand Pounds by Nonconformity What Answer do these Men deserve And I preached but one Sermon in that Chapel When I had built it to have preached freely And when they persecuted me away I resigned it to the Parish-Minister for their publick Worship which is used there to this Day near Sixteen Years But must I tell this Man how I got the Money that did it How much others gave towards it and how much I borrowed or else be so guilty as this Spirit maketh me If it were a Crime to be rich Fame reporteth him extraordinarily guilty But if it be Building Chapels that is the Crime I never heard of his Guilt § 108. Accus XC He saith I am guilty of Pride Malice and Uncharitableness for telling Men that the Wheel is turning and bidding them remember which side will be down at last whether I mean of a Change by Providence or of the Day of Judgment Ans Alas poor Men How soon will you know that such Counsel once signified better than Pride Malice and Uncharitableness unless all Preaching be such § 109. Accus XCI He accuseth me for saying in Mr. Corbet's Funeral-Sermon How sad a Prognostick the Death of such Men was Ans Had this Man known the great Wisdom sincere Piety eminent Charity and Peaceableness of that excellent Man as well as I did or as Glocester Chichester and London did and his Writings testifie he would not have turned my Lamentation into a Reproach nor seemed to intimate his contrary Disposition § 110. Accus XCII Because some other Men say that the Time of the Episcopal Persecution will be but short he gathers that we are engaged in some Plot against the Government Ans Who he meaneth I know not but if the time of Life and this World be short certainly Persecution will be short Every one that saith Your Life is short is not in a Plot to murder you All save one Man that were commissioned as against us in 1661. have found already by Death that their time of Revenge and Wrath was short His talk of Dr. Owen and his surmizing that some would have had a Toleration for Popery is like the rest when our main fears have been lest this sort of Men were studying from the time of Laud a Coalition with the French Papists and so many of them have written for a Foreign Jurisdiction But if we would not be ruined silenced and dye in Goals by them they will say we are for Popery § 111. Accus XCIII He accuseth me as most unchristian in my Answer to Mr. Cheyny for what I say of his Books and accounting him melancholy Mr. Cheyny is a Man better known to me than to him and I think much better loved by me He calls himself a Nonconforming Conformist and a Conforming Nonconformist I have motioned him to Friends for publick Employment for his serious Piety But these Men that seem now to be for him have depressed him and driven him up and down and disown his Books I think more than I do But any one that will allow them to use his Name for them shall be so far praised while they cannot well endure him But he glorieth of Mr. Cheyny's Success in pleading the Direction in some dubious Cases to go to the Bishop for Resolution in the Preface to the Liturgy And I wonder not at their valuing of that Clause for it is worth to many some Hundreds a Year and 't is hard to imagine what else could quiet many Men's Consciences But if I should say This is a frivolous â—alliate though I prove it he will say I am criminal or confuted by so denominating it But 1. The Words limit the Decision of the Bishop only to that which is not contrary to any thing in the Book and I am very tractable in such a Case But it is none of the Cases that I am concerned in 2. If it were in the Bishop's power to put what Sense he please on all the Words he were the Law maker for the Sense is the Law 3. I have gone to divers Bishops and asked their Sense and found it as unsatisfactory as the Book it self For instance I asked the Bishops at the Savoy-Debate If I have two in my Parish that declare they believe not in Christ but are Deists and yet will send their Child to be baptized with Godfathers and Godmothers of their own Fraternity who declare that whatever they say they never mean to own or educate the Child what Right that Child hath both to Baptism and certain Salvation And Dr. Sanderson in the Chair answered That as long as he brought such Godfathers as the Church of England requireth I must not doubt of his Right I long after asked Bishop Cunning What proof he had from God's Word of the certain undoubted Salvation of all such baptized Infants if the Parents were Heathens or Jews or Atheists and resolved to educate their own Children And he answered that As any one had Right to take up an exposed Child in the Street and take him in Charity into his House so any one had power as an Act of Charity to take up any Heathen's or Infidel's Child and being him to Baptism and then it was certain by the Word of God that he was in a present State of Salvation These Bishops Judgments are not that undoubted Word of God which they boast of but will not shew us And other Bishops think otherwise And so under several Bishops we must be of several Religions § 112. Accus XCIV He accuseth me for speaking of the Tediousness of Mr. R. Hooker's Argumentation when their Bishop Sam. Parler speaketh much more and the Case is undeniable And that I say If Hooker Bilson and Usher were alive they would be Nonconformises Ans Have I not fully proved it They were honest Men and would not subscribe and practise contrary to their own Writings but their Writings are downright against much of Conformity How large is Hooker for the Popular Legislative Power and that the King useth not Power but Usurpation when he useth more than the Law giveth him How large is bishop Bilson for Resisting the King in divers Cases Doth not Conformity renounce and forswear this Mark the renowned Bilson in this Honest Men would not go against their Judgments § 113. Accus XCV Pag. 134 135. He maketh it my shameful heinous Sin to beg of the Bishops not to be guilty of one of the most