visible eev'n to most of those Men who now will see nothing At passing of the former Act he himself conceal'd not his unwillingness and testifying a general dislike of thir actions which they then proceeded in with great approbation of the whole Kingdom he told them with a maisterly Brow that by this Act he had oblig'd them above what they had deserv'd and gave a peece of Justice to the Common wealth six times short of his Predecessors as if he had bin giving som boon or begg'd Office to a sort of his desertless Grooms That he pass'd the latter Act against his will no man in reason can hold it questionable For if the February before he made so dainty and were so loath to bestow a Parlament once in three yeare upon the Nation because this had so oppos'd his courses was it likely that the May following he should bestow willingly on this Parlament an indissoluble sitting when they had offended him much more by cutting short and impeaching of high Treason his chief Favorites It was his feare then not his favor which drew from him that Act lest the Parlament incens'd by his Conspiracies against them about the same time discover'd should with the people have resented too hainously those his doings if to the suspicion of thir danger from him he had also added the denyal of this onely meanes to secure themselves From these Acts therfore in which he glories and wherwith so oft he upbraids the Parlament he cannot justly expect to reape aught but dishonour and dispraise as being both unwillingly granted and the one granting much less then was before allow'd by Statute the other being a testimony of his violent and lawless Custom not onely to break Privileges but whole Parlaments from which enormity they were constrain'd to bind him first of all his Predecessors never any before him having giv'n like causes of distrust and jealousie to his People As for this Parlament how farr he was from being advis'd by them as he ought let his own words express He taxes them with undoing what they found well done and yet knows they undid nothing in the Church but Lord Bishops Liturgies Ceremonies High Commission judg'd worthy by all true Protestants to bee thrown out of the Church They undid nothing in the State but irregular and grinding Courts the maine grievances to be remov'd if these were the things which in his opinion they found well don we may againe from hence be inform'd with what unwillingness he remou'd them and that those gracious Acts wherof so frequently he makes mention may be english'd more properly Acts of feare and dissimulation against his mind and conscience The bill preventing dissolution of this Parlament he calls An unparalell'd Act out of the extreme confidence that his Subjects would not make ill use of it But was it not a greater confidence of the people to put into one mans hand so great a power till he abus'd it as to summon and dissolve Parlaments Hee would be thankt for trusting them and ought to thank them rather for trusting him the trust issuing first from them not from him And that it was a meer trust and not his Prerogative to call and dissolve Parlaments at his pleasure And that Parlaments were not to be dissolv'd till all Petitions were heard all greevances redrest is not onely the assertion of this Parlament but of our ancient Law Books which averr it to be an unwritt'n Law of common Right so ingrav'n in the hearts of our Ancestors and by them so constantly enjoy'd and claim'd as that it needed not enrouling And if the Scots in thir Declaration could charge the King with breach of their Lawes for breaking up that Parlament without their consent while matters of greatest moment were depending it were unreasonable to imagin that the wisdom of England should be so wanting to it self through all Ages as not to provide by som known Law writt'n or unwritt'n against the not calling or the arbitrary dissolving of Parlaments or that they who ordain'd thir summoning twice a yeare or as oft as need requir'd did not tacitly enact also that as necessity of affaires call'd them so the same necessity should keep them undissolv'd till that were fully satisfi'd Were it not for that Parlaments and all the fruit and benefit we receave by having them would turne soon to meer abusion It appeares then that if this Bill of not dissolving were an unparallel'd Act it was a known and common Right which our Ancestors under other Kings enjoyd as firmly as if it had bin grav'n in Marble and that the infringement of this King first brought it into a writt'n Act Who now boasts that as a great favour don us which his own less fidelity then was in former Kings constrain'd us onely of an old undoubted Right to make a new writt'n Act. But what needed writt'n Acts when as anciently it was esteem'd part of his Crown Oath not to dissolve Parlaments till all greevances were consider'd wherupon the old Modi of Parlament calls it flat perjury if he dissolve them before as I find cited in a Booke mention'd at the beginning of this Chapter to which and other Law-tractats I referr the more Lawyerlie mooting of this point which is neither my element nor my proper work heer since the Book which I have to Answer pretends reason not Autoritys and quotations and I hold reason to be the best Arbitrator and the Law of Law it self T is true that good Subjects think it not just that the Kings condition should be worse by bettering theirs But then the King must not be at such a distance from the people in judging what is better and what worse which might have bin agreed had he known for his own words condemn him as well with moderation to use as with earnestness to desire his own advantages A continual Parlament he thought would keep the Common-wealth in tune Judge Common wealth what proofs he gave that this boasted profession was ever in his thought Some saith he gave out that I repented me of that setling Act. His own actions gave it out beyond all supposition For doubtless it repented him to have establish'd that by Law which he went about so soon after to abrogat by the Sword He calls those Acts which he confesses tended to thir good not more Princely then friendly contributions As if to doe his dutie were of curtesie and the discharge of his trust a parcell of his liberality so nigh lost in his esteem was the birthright of our Liberties that to give them back againe upon demand stood at the mercy of his Contribution He doubts not but the affections of his People will compensate his sufferings for those acts of confidence And imputes his sufferings to a contrary cause Not his confidence but his distrust was that which brought him to those sufferings from the time that he forsook his Parlament and trusted them ne're the sooner for what he tells of
the injunction of his all-ruling error He alleges the uprightness of his intentions to excuse his possible failings a position fals both in Law and Divinity Yea contrary to his own better principles who affirmes in the twelfth Chapter that The goodness of a mans intention will not excuse the scandall and contagion of his example His not knowing through the corruption of flattery and Court Principles what he ought to have known will not excuse his not doing what he ought to have don no more then the small skill of him who undertakes to be a Pilot will excuse him to be misledd by any wandring Starr mistak'n for the Pole But let his intentions be never so upright what is that to us What answer for the reason and the National Rights which God hath giv'n us if having Parlaments and Laws and the power of making more to avoid mischeif wee suffer one mans blind intentions to lead us all with our eyes op'n to manifest destruction And if Arguments prevaile not with such a one force is well us'd not to carry on the weakness of our Counsels or to convince his error as he surmises but to acquitt and rescue our own reason our own consciences from the force and prohibition laid by his usurping error upon our Liberties understandings Never thing pleas'd him more then when his judgement concurr'd with theirs That was to the applause of his own judgement and would as well have pleas'd any selfconceited man Yea in many things he chose rather to deny himself then them That is to say in trifles For of his own Interests and Personal Rights he conceavs himself Maister To part with if he please not to contest for against the Kingdom which is greater then he whose Rights are all subordinat to the Kingdoms good And in what concernes truth Justice the right of Church or his Crown no man shall gaine his consent against his mind What can be left then for a Parlament but to sit like Images while he still thus either with incomparable arrogance assumes to himself the best abilitie of judging for other men what is Truth Justice Goodness what his own or the Churches Right or with unsufferable Tyranny restraines all men from the enjoyment of any good which his judgement though erroneous thinks not fit to grant them notwithstanding that the Law and his Coronal Oath requires his undeniable assent to what Laws the Parlament agree upon He had rather wear a Crown of Thorns with our Saviour Many would be all one with our Saviour whom our Saviour will not know They who govern ill those Kingdoms which they had a right to have to our Saviours Crown of Thornes no right at all Thornes they may find anow of thir own gathering and thir own twisting for Thornes and Snares saith Solomon are in the way of the froward but to weare them as our Saviour wore them is not giv'n to them that suffer by thir own demerits Nor is a Crown of Gold his due who cannot first wear a Crown of Lead not onely for the weight of that great Office but for the compliance which it ought to have with them who are to counsel him which heer he termes in scorne An imbased flexibleness to the various and oft contrary dictates of any Factions meaning his Parlament for the question hath bin all this while between them two And to his Parlament though a numerous and chois Assembly of whom the Land thought wisest he imputes rather then to himself want of reason neglect of the Public interest of parties and particularitie of private will and passion but with what modesty or likelihood of truth it will be wearisom to repeat so oft'n He concludes with a sentence faire in seeming but fallacious For if the conscience be ill edifi'd the resolution may more befitt a foolish then a Christian King to preferr a self-will'd conscience before a Kingdoms good especially in the deniall of that which Law and his Regal Office by Oath bids him grant to his Parlament and whole Kingdom rightfully demanding For we may observe him throughout the discours to assert his Negative power against the whole Kingdom now under the specious Plea of his conscience and his reason but heertofore in a lowder note Without us or against our consent the Votes of either or of both Houses together must not cannot shall not Declar. May 4. 1642. With these and the like deceavable Doctrines he levens also his Prayer VII Vpon the Queens departure TO this Argument we shall soon have said for what concerns it us to hear a Husband divulâ—… his Houshold privacies extolling to others the verâ—…tues of his Wife an infirmity not seldom incident to those who have least cause But how good shee was a Wife was to himself and be it left to his own fancy how bad a Subject is not much disputed And being such it need be made no wonder though shee left a Protestant Kingdom with as little honour as her Mother left a Popish That this Is the first example of any Protestant Subjects that haue tak'n up Armes against thir King a Protestant can be to Protestants no dishonour when it shal be heard that he first levied Warr on them and to the interest of Papists more then of Protestants He might have giv'n yet the precedence of making warr upon him to the subjects of his own Nation who had twice oppos'd him in the op'n Feild long ere the English found it necessary to doe the like And how groundless how dissembl'd is that feare least shee who for so many yeares had bin averse from the Religion of her Husband and every yeare more and more before these disturbances broke out should for them be now the more alienated from that to which we never heard shee was inclin'd But if the feare of her Delinquency and that Justice which the Protestants demanded on her was any cause of heralienating the more to have gain'd her by indirect means had bin no advantage to Religion much less then was the detriment to loose her furder off It had bin happy if his own actions had not giv'n cause of more scandal to the Protestants then what they did against her could justly scandalize any Papist Them who accus'd her well anough known to be the Parlament he censures for Men yet to seeke thir Religion whether Doctrine Discipline or good manners the rest he soothes with the name of true English Protestants a meer scismatical name yet he so great an enemy of Scism He ascribes Rudeness and barbarity worse then Indian to the English Parlament and all vertue to his Wife in straines that come almost to Sonnetting How fitt to govern men undervaluing and aspersing the great Counsel of his Kingdom in comparison of one Woman Examples are not farr to seek how great mischeif and dishonour hath befall'n to Nations under the Government of effeminate and Uxorious Magistrates Who being themselves govern'd and overswaid at home under a Feminine usurpation
upon his Subjects though no way by them provok'd he sends an Agent with Letters to the King of Denmark requiring aid against the parlament and that aid was comming when Divine providence to divert them sent a sudden torrent of Swedes into the bowels of Denmark He then endeavours to bring up both Armies first the English with whom 8000 Irish Papists rais'd by Strafford and a French Army were to joyne then the Scots at Newcastle whom he thought to have encourag'd by telling them what Mony and Horse he was to have from Denmark I mention not the Irish conspiracie till due place These and many other were his Counsels toward a civil Warr. His preparations after those two Armies were dismiss'd could not suddenly be too op'n Nevertheless there were 8000 Irish Papists which he refus'd to disband though intreated by both Houses first for reasons best known to himself next under pretence of lending them to the Spaniard and so kept them undisbanded till very neere the Mounth wherin that Rebellion broke forth He was also raising Forces in London pretendedly to serve the Portugall but with intent to seise the Tower Into which divers Canoneers were by him sent with many fire works and Granado's and many great battering peeces were mounted against the City The Court was fortifi'd with Ammunition and Souldiers-new listed who follow'd the King from London and appear'd at Kingston som hunderds of Horse in a warlike manner with Waggons of Ammunition after them the Queen in Holland was buying more of which the Parlament had certain knowledge and had not yet so much as once demanded the Militia to be settl'd till they knew both of her going over sea and to what intent For she had pack'd up the Crown Jewels to have bin going long before had not the Parlament suspecting by the discoveries at Burrow Bridge what was intended with the Jewells us'd meanes to stay her journey till the winter Hull and the Magazin there had bin secretly attempted under the Kings hand from whom though in his declarations renouncing all thought of Warr notes were sent over sea for supply of Armes which were no sooner come but the inhabitants of Yorkshire and other Counties were call'd to Arms and actual forces rais'd while the Parlament were yet Petitioning in peace and had not one man listed As to the Act of Hostilitie though not much material in whom first it began or by whose Commissions dated first after such Counsels and preparations discover'd and so farr advanc'd by the King yet in that act also he will be found to have had precedency if not at London by the assault of his armed Court upon the naked People and his attempt upon the House of Commons yet certainly at Hull first by his close practices on that Town next by his seige Thus whether Counsels preparations or Acts of hostilitie be considerd it appeares with evidence anough though much more might be said that the King is truly charg'd to bee the first beginner of these civil Warrs To which may be added as a close that in the I le of Wight he charg'd it upon himself at the public Treaty and acquitted the Parlament But as for the securing of Hull and the public stores therin and in other places it was no Surprisall of his strength the custody wherof by Autority of Parlament was committed into hands most fitt and most responsible for such a trust It were a folly beyond ridiculous to count our selves a free Nation if the King not in Parlament but in his own Person and against them might appropriate to himself the strength of a whole Nation as his proper goods What the Lawes of the Land are a Parlament should know best having both the life and death of Lawes in thir Lawgiving power And the Law of England is at best but the reason of Parlament The Parlament therfore taking into thir hands that wherof most properly they ought to have the keeping committed no surprisal If they prevented him that argu'd not at all either his innocency or unpreparedness but their timely foresight to use prevention But what needed that They knew his chiefest Armes left him were those onely which the ancient Christians were wont to use against thir Persecuters Prayers and Teares O sacred Reverence of God Respect and Shame of Men whither were yee fled when these hypocrisies were utterd Was the Kingdom then at all that cost of blood to remove from him none but Praiers and Teares What were those thousands of blaspheming Cavaliers about him whose mouthes let fly Oaths and Curses by the voley were those the Praiers and those Carouses drunk to the confusion of all things good or holy did those minister the Teares Were they Praiers and Teares that were listed at York muster'd on Heworth Moore and laid Seige to Hull for the guard of his Person Were Praiers and Teares at so high a rate in Holland that nothing could purchase them but the Crown Jewels Yet they in Holland such word was sent us sold them for Gunns Carabins Morters-peeces Canons and other deadly Instruments of Warr which when they came to York were all no doubt but by the merit of some great Saint suddenly transform'd into Praiers and Teares and being divided into Regiments and Brigads were the onely Armes that mischiev'd us in all those Battels and Incounters These were his chief Armes whatever we must call them and yet such Armes as they who fought for the Common-wealth have by the help of better Praiers vanquish'd and brought to nothing He bewailes his want of the Militia Not so much in reference to his own protection as the Peoples whose many and sore oppressions greeve him Never considering how ill for seventeen yeares together hee had protected them and that these miseries of the people are still his own handy work having smitt'n them like a forked Arrow so sore into the Kingdoms sides as not to be drawn out and cur'd without the incision of more flesh He tells us that what he wants in the hand of power he has in the wings of Faith and Prayer But they who made no reckning of those Wings while they had that power in thir hands may easily mistake the Wings of Faith for the Wings of presumption and so fall headlong We meet next with a comparison how apt let them judge who have travell'd to Mecca That the Parlament have hung the majestie of Kingship in any airy imagination of regality between the Privileges of both Houses like the Tombe of Mahomet Hee knew not that he was prophecying the death and burial of a Turkish Tyranny that spurn'd down those Laws which gave it life and being so long as it endur'd to be a regulated Monarchy He counts it an injury Not to have the sole power in himself to help or hurt any and that the Militia which he holds to be his undoubted Right should be dispos'd as the Parlament thinks fitt And yet confesses that if he had it in his actual
Propositions were obtruded on him with the point of the Sword till he first with the point of the Sword thrust from him both the Propositions and the Propounders He never reck'ns those violent and merciless obtrusions which for almost twenty years he had bin forcing upon tender consciences by all sorts of Persecution till through the multitude of them that were to suffer it could no more be call'd a Persecution but a plain VVarr From which when first the Scots then the English were constrain'd to defend themselves this thir just defence is that which he cals heer Thir making Warr upon his soul. He grudges that So many things are requir'd of him and nothing offerd him in requital of those favours which he had granted What could satiate the desires of this man who being king of England and Maister of almost two millions yearly what by hook or crook was still in want and those acts of Justice which he was to doe in duty counts don as favours and such favors as were not don without the avaritious hope of other rewards besides supreme honour and the constant Revennue of his place This honour he saith they did him to put him on the giving part And spake truer then he intended it beeing meerly for honours sake that they did so not that it belong'd to him of right For what can he give to a Parlament who receaves all he hath from the People and for the Peoples good Yet now he brings his own conditional rights to contest and be preferr'd before the Peoples good and yet unless it be in order to their good he hath no rights at all raigning by the Laws of the Land not by his own which Laws are in the hands of Parlament to change or abrogate as they shall see best for the Common-wealth eev'n to the taking away of King-ship it self when it grows too Maisterfull and Burd'nsome For every Common-wealth is in general defin'd a societie sufficient of it self in all things conducible to well being and commodious life Any of which requisit things if it cannot have without the gift and favour of a single person or without leave of his privat reason or his conscience it cannot be thought sufficient of it self and by consequence no Common-wealth nor free but a multitude of Vassalls in the Possession and domaine of one absolute Lord and wholly obnoxious to his will If the King have power to give or deny any thing to his Parlament he must doe it either as a Person several from them or as one greater neither of which will be allow'd him not to be consider'd severally from them for as the King of England can doe no wrong so neither can he doe right but in his Courts and by his Courts and what is legally don in them shall be deem'd the Kings assent though he as a several Person shall judge or endeavour the contrary So that indeed without his Courts or against them he is no King If therefore he obtrude upon us any public mischeif or withhold from us any general good which is wrong in the highest degree he must doe it as a Tyrant not as a King of England by the known Maxims of our Law Neither can he as one greater give aught to the Parlament which is not in thir own power but he must be greater also then the Kingdom which they represent So that to honour him with the giving part was a meer civility and may be well term'd the courtesie of England not the Kings due But the incommunicable Jewell of his conscience he will not give but reserve to himself It seemes that his conscience was none of the Crown Jewels for those we know were in Holland not incommunicable to buy Armes against his Subjects Being therfore but a privat Jewel he could not have don a greater pleasure to the Kingdom then by reserving it to himself But he contrary to what is heer profess'd would have his conscience not an incommunicable but a universal conscience the whole Kingdoms conscience Thus what he seemes to feare least we should ravish from him is our chief complaint that he obtruded upon us we never forc'd him to part with his conscience but it was he that would have forc'd us to part with ours Som things he taxes them to have offer'd him which while he had the maistery of his Reason he would never consent to Very likely but had his reason maisterd him as it ought and not bin maisterd long agoe by his sense and humour as the breeding of most Kings hath bin ever sensual and most humour'd perhaps he would have made no difficulty Mean while at what a fine pass is the Kingdom that must depend in greatest exigencies vpon the fantasie of a Kings reason be he wise or foole who arrogantly shall answer all the wisdom of the Land that what they offer seemes to him unreasonable He preferrs his love of Truth before his love of the People His love of Truth would have ledd him to the search of Truth and have taught him not to lean so much upon his own understanding He met at first with Doctrines of unaccountable Prerogative in them he rested because they pleas'd him they therfore pleas'd him because they gave him all and this he calls his love of Truth and preferrs it before the love of his peoples peace Som things they propos'd which would have wounded the inward peace of his conscience The more our evil happ that three Kingdoms should be thus pesterd with one Conscience who chiefly scrupl'd to grant us that which the parlament advis'd him to as the chief meanes of our public welfare and Reformation These scruples to many perhaps will seem pretended to others upon as good grounds may seem real and that it was the just judgement of God that he who was so cruel and so remorseless to other mens consciences should have a conscience within him as cruel to himself constraining him as he constrain'd others and insnaring him in such waies and counsels as were certain to be his destruction Other things though he could approve yet in honour and policy he thought fit to deny lest he should seem to dare aeny nothing By this meanes he will be sure what with reason conscience honour policy or puntilios to be found never unfurnisht of a denyal Whether it were his envy not to be over bounteous or that the submissness of our asking stirr'd up in him a certain pleasure of denying Good Princes have thought it thir chief happiness to be alwayes granting if good things for the things sake if things indifferent for the peoples sake while this man sits calculating varietie of excuses how he may grant least as if his whole strength and royaltie were plac'd in a meer negative Of one Proposition especially he laments him much that they would bind him to a generall and implicit consent for what ever they desir'd Which though I find not among the nineteene yet undoubtedly the Oath of his coronation
commends had rather bin in his way it would perhaps in som measure have perform'd the end for which they say Liturgie was first invented and have hinder'd him both heer and at other times from turning his notorious errors into his Praiers XVIII Upon the Uxbridge Treaty c. IF the way of Treaties be look'd upon in general as a retiring from bestial force to human reason his first Aphorism heer is in part deceav'd For men may Treat like Beasts as well as fight If som fighting were not mar-like then either fortitude were no vertue or no fortitude in fighting And as Politicians ofttimes through dilatory purposes and emulations handle the matter there hath bin no where found more bestialitie then in treating which hath no more commendation in it then from fighting to come to undermining from violence to craft and when they can no longer doe as Lions to doe as Foxes The sincerest end of Treating after War once Proclaim'd is either to part with more or to demand less then was at first fought for rather then to hazzard more lives or wors mischiefs What the Parlament in that point were willing to have don when first after the Warr begun they Petition'd him at Colebrook to voutsafe a treaty is unknown For after he had tak'n God to witness of his continual readiness to Treat or to offer Treaties to the avoiding of bloodshed had nam'd Windsor the place of Treaty and pass'd his royal word not to advance furder till Commissioners by such a time were speeded towards him taking the advantage of a thick Mist which fell that evening weather that soon invited him to a designe no less treacherous and obscure he follows at the heels those Me engers of Peace with a traine of covert Warr and with a bloody surprise falls on our secure Forces which lay quartering at Brentford in the thoughts and expectation of a Treaty And although in them who make a Trade of Warr and against a natural Enemy such an onset might in the rigor of Military Law have bin excus'd while Armes were not yet by agreement suspended yet by a King who seem'd so heartily to accept of treating with his subjects and professes heer He never wanted either desire or disposition to it professes to have greater confidence in his Reason then in his Sword and as a Christian to seek Peace and ensue it such bloody and deceitful advantages would have bin forborn one day at least if not much longer in whom there had not bin a thirst rather then a detestation of civil Warr and blood and a desire to subdue rather then to treat In the midst of a second Treaty not long after fought by the Parlament and after much adoe obtain'd with him at Oxford what suttle and unpeaceable designes he then had in chace his own Letters discover'd What attempts of treacherous hostility successful and unsuccessful he made against Bristow Scarborow and other places the proceedings of that Treaty will soon put us in mind and how he was so far from granting more of reason after so much of blood that he deny'd then to grant what before he had offerd making no other use of Treaties pretending Peace then to gaine advantages that might enable him to continue Warr. What marvel then if he thought it no diminution of himself as oft as he saw his time to be importunate for Treaties when hee sought them onely as by the upshot appeard to get opportunities and once to a most cruel purpose if we remember May 1643. and that Messenger of Peace from Oxford whose secret Message and Commission had it bin effected would have drownd the innocence of our Treating in the blood of a designed Massacher Nay when treaties from the Parlament sought out him no less then seven times oft anough to testifie the willingness of thir obedience and too oft for the Majesty of a Parlament to court thir Subjection he in the confidence of his own strength or of our divisions returnd us nothing back but denials or delaies to thir most necessary demands and being at lowest kept up still and sustain'd his almost famishd hopes with the howrly expectation of raising up himself the higher by the greater heap which he sate promising himself of our sudden ruin through dissention But he inferrs as if the Parlament would have compell'd him to part with somthing of his honour as a King What honour could he have or call his joyn'd not onely with the offence or disturbance but with the bondage and destruction of three Nations wherof though he be careless and improvident yet the Parlament by our Laws and freedom ought to judge and use prevention our Laws els were but cobweb Laws And what were all his most rightful honours but the peoples gift and the investment of that lustre Majesty and honour which for the public good no otherwise redounds from a whole Nation into one person So far is any honour from being his to a common mischeif and calamity Yet still he talks on equal termes with the grand Representative of that people for whose sake he was a King as if the general welfare and his subservient Rights were of equal moment or consideration His aime indeed hath ever bin to magnifie and exalt his borrowd Rights and Prerogatives above the Parlament and Kingdom of whom he holds them But when a King setts himself to bandy against the highest Court and residence of all his Regal power he then in the single person of a Man fights against his own Majesty and Kingship and then indeed sets the first hand to his own deposing The Treaty at Uxbridge he saith gave the fairest hopes of a happy composure fairest indeed if his instructions to bribe our Commissioners with the promise of Security rewards and places were faire What other hopes it gave no man can tell There being but three maine heads whereon to be treated Ireland Episcopacy and the Militia the first was anticipated and forestall'd by a Peace at any rate to be hast'nd with the Irish Rebels ere the Treaty could begin that he might pretend his word and honour past against the specious and popular arguments he calls them no better which the Parlament would urge upon him for the continuance of that just Warr. Episcopacy he bids the Queen be confident he will never quitt which informes us by what Patronage it stood and the Sword he resolves to clutch as fast as if God with his own hand had put it into his This was the moderation which he brought this was as farr as Reason Honour Conscience and the Queen who was his Regent in all these would give him leave Lastly for composure in stead of happy how miserable it was more likely to have bin wise men could then judge when the English during Treaty were call'd Rebels the Irish good and Catholic Subjects and the Parlament before hand though for fashions sake call'd a Parlament yet by a Jesuitical slight not acknowledg'd though call'd
so but privatly in the Counsel Books inroull'd no Parlament that if accommodation had succeeded upon what termes soever such a devilish fraud was prepar'd that the King in his own esteem had bin absolv'd from all performance as having treated with Rebels and no Parlament and they on the other side in stead of an expected happines had bin brought under the Hatchet Then no doubt Warr had ended that Massacher and Tyranny might begin These jealousies however rais'd let all men see whether they be diminish'd or allay'd by the Letters of his own Cabinet open'd And yet the breach of this Treaty is lay'd all upon the Parlament and thir Commissioners with odious Names of Pertinacy hatred of Peace Faction and Covetousness nay his own Bratt Superstition is layd to their charge not withstanding his heer profess'd resolution to continue both the Order Maintenance and Authority of Prelats as a truth of God And who were most to blame in the unsuccessfullness of that Treaty his appeale is to Gods decision beleeving to be very excusable at that Tribunal But if ever man gloried in an unflexible stifness he came not behind any and that grand Maxim always to put somthing into his Treaties which might give colour to refuse all that was in other things granted and to make them signifie nothing was his own Principal Maxim and particular instructions to his Commissioners Yet all by his own verdit must be consterd Reason in the King and depraved temper in the Parlament That the highest Tide of success with these principles and designes set him not above a Treaty no great wonder And yet if that be spok'n to his praise the Parlament therin surpass'd him who when he was thir vanquish'd and thir captive his forces utterly brok'n and disbanded yet offerd him three several times no wors proposals or demands then when he stood fair to be thir Conqueror But that imprudent surmise that his lowest Ebb could not set him below a Fight was a presumption that ruin'd him He presag'd the future unsuccessfulness of Treaties by the unwillingness of som men to treat and could not see what was present that thir unwillingness had good cause to proceed from the continual experience of his own obstinacy and breach of word His prayer therfore of forgiveness to the guilty of that treaties breaking he had good reason to say heartily over as including no man in that guilt sooner then himself As for that Protestation following in his Prayer How oft have I entreated for peace but when I speak therof they make them ready to Warr unless he thought himself still in that perfidious mist between Colebrook and Houndslow and thought that mist could hide him from the eye of Heav'n as well as of Man after such a bloody recompence giv'n to our first offers of Peace how could this in the sight of Heav'n without horrours of conscience be utter'd XIX Vpon the various events of the Warr. IT is no new or unwonted thing for bad men to claim as much part in God as his best servants to usurp and imitate thir words and appropriate to themselves those properties which belong onely to the good and righteous This not onely in Scripis familiarly to be found but heer also in this Chapter of Apocrypha He tells us much why it pleas'd God to send him Victory or Loss although what in so doing was the intent of God he might be much mistak'n as to his own particular but we are yet to learn what real good use he made therof in his practice Those numbers which he grew to from small beginnings were not such as out of love came to protect him for none approv'd his actions as a King except Courtiers and Prelats but were such as fled to be protected by him from the fear of that Reformation which the pravity of thir lives would not bear Such a Snowball he might easily gather by rowling through those cold and dark provinces of ignorance and leudness where on a sudden he became so numerous He imputes that to Gods protection which to them who persist in a bad cause is either his long-suffering or his hard'ning and that to wholesom chastisement which were the gradual beginnings of a severe punishment For if neither God nor nature put civil power in the hands of any whomsoever but to a lawfull end and commands our obedience to the autority of Law onely not to the Tyrannical force of any person and if the Laws of our Land have plac'd the Sword in no mans single hand so much as to unsheath against a forren enemie much less upon the native people but have plac'd it in that elective body of the Parlament to whom the making repealing judging and interpreting of Law it self was also committed as was fittest so long as wee intended to bee a free Nation and not the Slaves of one mans will then was the King himself disobedient and rebellious to that Law by which he raign'd and by autority of Parlament to raise armes against him in defence of Law and Libertie we doe not onely think but beleeve and know was justifiable both by the Word of God the Laws of the Land and all lawfull Oaths and they who sided with him fought against all these The same Allegations which he uses for himself and his Party may as well fitt any Tyrant in the world for let the Parlament bee call'd a Faction when the King pleases and that no Law must bee made or chang'd either civil or religious because no Law will content all sides then must be made or chang'd no Law at all but what a Tyrant be he Protestant or Papist thinks fitt Which tyrannous assertion forc'd upon us by the Sword he who fights against and dyes fighting if his other sins overweigh not dyes a Martyr undoubtedly both of the Faith and of the Common-wealth and I hold it not as the opinion but as the full beleef and persuasion of farr holier and wiser men then Parasitie Preachers Who without their dinner-Doctrin know that neither King Law civil Oaths or Religion was ever establish'd without the Parlament and thir power is the same to abrogate as to establish neither is any thing to bee thought establish'd which that House declares to be abolisht Where the Parlament sitts there inseparably sitts the King there the Laws there our Oaths and whatsoever can be civil in Religion They who fought for the Parlament in the truest sense fought for all these who fought for the King divided from his Parlament fought for the shadow of a King against all these and for things that were not as if they were establisht It were a thing monstrously absurd and contradictory to give the Parlament a Legislative power and then to upbraid them for transgressing old Establishments But the King and his Party having lost in this Quarrel thir Heav'n upon Earth beginn to make great reckning of Eternal Life and at an easie rate in forma Pauperis Canonize one another
goes on therfore with vehemence to repeat the mischeifs don by these Tumults They first Petition'd then protected dictate next and lastly overaw the Parlament They remov'd obstructions they purg'd the Houses cast out rott'n members If there were a man of iron such as Talus by our Poet Spencer is fain'd to be the page of Justice who with his iron flaile could doe all this and expeditiously without those deceitfull formes and circumstances of Law worse then ceremonies in Religion I say God send it don whether by one Talus or by a thousand But they subdu'd the men of conscience in Parlament back'd and abetted all seditious and schismatical Proposals against government ecclesiastical and civil Now wee may perceave the root of his hatred whence it springs It was not the Kings grace or princely goodness but this iron flaile the People that drove the Bishops out of thir Baronies out of thir Cathedrals out of the Lords House out of thir Copes and Surplices and all those Papistical innovations threw down the High Commission and Star-chamber gave us a Triennial Parlament and what we most desir'd in revenge whereof he now so bitterly enveighs against them these are those seditious and scismatical Proposals then by him condescended to as acts of grace now of another name which declares him touching matters of Church and State to have bin no other man in the deepest of his solitude then he was before at the highest of his Sovrantie But this was not the worst of these Tumults they plaid the hasty midwives and would not stay the ripening but went streight to ripping up and forcibly cut out abortive Votes They would not stay perhaps the Spanish demurring and putting off such wholsome acts and counsels as the Politic Cabin at WhiteHall had no mind to But all this is complain'd heer as don to the Parlament and yet we heard not the Parlament at that time complaine of any violence from the people but from him Wherfore intrudes he to plead the cause of Parlament against the People while the Parlament was pleading thir own cause against him and against him were forc'd to seek refuge of the people 'T is plaine then that those confluxes and resorts interrupted not the Parlament nor by them were thought Tumultuous but by him onely and his Court Faction But what good Man had not rather want any thing he most desir'd for the public good then attain it by such unlawfull and irreligious meanes as much as to say Had not rather sit still and let his Country be Tyranniz'd then that the people finding no other remedie should stand up like Men and demand thir Rights and Liberties This is the artificialest peece of fineness to perswade men into slavery that the wit of Court could have invented But heare how much betterthe Moral of this Lesson would befitt the Teacher What good man had not rather want a boundless and arbitrary power and those fine Flowers of the Crown call'd Prerogatives then for them to use force and perpetual vexation to his faithfull Subjects nay to wade for them through blood and civil warr So that this and the whole bundle of those following sentences may be apply'd better to the convincement of his own violent courses then of those pretended Tumults Who were the chiefe Demagogues to send for those Tumults some alive are not ignorant Setting aside the affrightment of this Goblin word for the King by his leave cannot coine English as he could Money to be current and t is beleev'd this wording was above his known stile and Orthographie and accuses the whole composure to be conscious of som other Author yet if the people were sent for emboldn'd and directed by those Demagogues who saving his Greek were good Patriots and by his own confession Men of some repute for parts and pietie it helps well to assure us there was both urgent cause and the less danger of thir comming Complaints were made yet no redress could be obtain'd The Parlament also complain'd of what danger they sate in from another party and demanded of him a Guard but it was not granted What marvel then if it chear'd them to see some store of thir Friends and in the Roman not the pettifogging sense thir Clients so neer about them a defence due by nature both from whom it was offer'd and to whom as due as to thir Parents though the Court storm'd and fretted to see such honour giv'n to them who were then best Fathers of the Common-wealth And both the Parlament and people complain'd and demanded Justice for those assaults if not murders don at his own dores by that crew of Rufflers but he in stead of doing Justice on them justifi'd and abetted them in what they did as in his public Answer to a Petition from the City may be read Neither is it slightly to be pass'd over that in the very place where blood was first drawn in this cause as the beginning of all that follow'd there was his own blood shed by the Executioner According to that sentence of Divine justice In the place where Dogs lick'd the blood of Naboth shall Dogs lick thy blood eev'n thine From hence he takes occasion to excuse that improvident and fatal error of his absenting from the Parlament When he found that no Declaration of the Bishops could take place against those Tumults Was that worth his considering that foolish and self-undoing Declaration of twelve Cypher Bishops who were immediatly appeacht of Treason for that audacious Declaring The Bishops peradventure were now and then pulld by the Rochers and deserv'd another kind of pulling but what amounted this to the feare of his own person in the streets Did he not the very next day after his irruption into the House of Commons then which nothing had more exasperated the people goe in his Coach unguarded into the City did hee receave the least affront much less violence in any of the Streets but rather humble demeanours and supplications Hence may be gather'd that however in his own guiltiness hee might have justly fear'd yet that hee knew the people so full of aw and reverence to his Person as to dare commit himself single among the thickest of them at a time when he had most provok'd them Besides in Scot-Land they had handl'd the Bishops in a more robustious manner Edinburrow had bin full of Tumults two Armies from thence had enterd England against him yet after all this he was not fearfull but very forward to take so long a journey to Edinburrow which argues first as did also his rendition afterward to the Scotch Army that to England he continu'd still as he was indeed a stranger and full of diffidence to the Scots onely a native King in his confidence though not in his dealing towards them It shews us next beyond doubting that all this his feare of Tumults was but a meer colour and occasion tak'n of his resolved absence from the Parlament for some other end not
down all other men into the condition of Slaves and beasts they quite loose thir commendation He confesses a rational sovrantie of soule and freedom of will in every man and yet with an implicit repugnancy would have his reason the sovran ofthat sovranty and would captivate and make useless that natural freedom of will in all other men but himself But them that yeeld him this obedience he so well rewards as to pronounce them worthy to be Slaves They who have lost all to be his Subjects may stoop and take up the reward What that freedom is which cannot be deni'd him as a King because it belongs to him as a Man and a Christian I understand not If it be his negative voice it concludes all men who have not such a negative as his against a whole Parlament to be neither Men nor Christians and what was he himself then all this while that we deni'd it him as a King Will hee say that hee enjoy'd within himself the less freedom for that Might not he both as a Man and as a Christian have raignd within himself in full sovranty of soule no man repining but that his outward and imperious will must invade the civil Liberties of a Nation Did wee therfore not permit him to use his reason or his conscience not permitting him to bereave us the use of ours And might not he have enjoy'd both as a King governing us as Free men by what Laws we our selves would be govern'd It was not the inward use of his reason and of his conscience that would content him but to use them both as a Law over all his Subjects in whatever he declar'd as a King to like or dislike Which use of reason most reasonless and unconseionable is the utmost that any Tyrant ever pretended over his Vassals In all wise Nations the Legislative power and the judicial execution of that power have bin most commonly distinct and in several hands but yet the former supreme the other subordinat If then the King be only set up to execute the Law which is indeed the highest of his office he ought no more to make or forbidd the making of any law agreed upon in Parlament then other inferior Judges who are his Deputies Neither can he more reject a Law offerd him by the Commons then he can new make a Law which they reject And yet the more to credit and uphold his cause he would seeme to have Philosophie on his side straining her wise dictates to unphilosophical purposes But when Kings come so low as to fawn upon Philosophie which before they neither valu'd nor understood t is a signe that failes not they are then put to thir last Trump And Philosophie as well requites them by not suffering her gold'n sayings either to become their lipps or to be us'd as masks and colours of injurious and violent deeds So that what they presume to borrow from her sage and vertuous rules like the Riddle of Sphinx not understood breaks the neck of thir own cause But now againe to Politics He cannot think the Majestie of the Crowne of England to be bound by any Coronation Oath in a blind and brutish formalitie to consent to whatever its Subjects in Parlament shall require What Tyrant could presume to say more when he meant to kick down all Law Goverment and bond of Oath But why he so desires to absolve himself the Oath of his Coronation would be worth the knowing It cannot but be yeelded that the Oath which bindes him to performance of his trust ought in reason to contain the summ of what his chief trust and Office is But if it neither doe enjoyn nor mention to him as a part of his duty the making or the marring of any Law or scrap of Law but requires only his assent to to those Laws which the people have already chos'n or shall choose for so both the Latin of that Oath and the old English and all Reason admits that the People should not lose under a new King what freedom they had before then that negative voice so contended for to deny the passing of any Law which the Commons choose is both against the Oath of his Coronation and his Kingly Office And if the King may deny to pass what the Parlament hath chos'n to be a Law then doth the King make himself Superiour to his whole Kingdom which not onely the general Maxims of Policy gainsay but eev'n our own standing Laws as hath bin cited to him in Remonstrances heertosore that The King hath two Superiours the Law and his Court of Parlament But this he counts to be a blind and brutish formality whether it be Law or Oath or his duty and thinks to turn itoff with wholsom words and phrases which he then first learnt of the honest People when they were so oft'n compell'd to use them against those more truely blind and brutish formalities thrust upon us by his own command not in civil matters onely but in Spiritual And if his Oath to perform what the People require when they Crown him be in his esteem a brutish formality then doubtless those other Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy tak'n absolute on our part may most justly appear to us in all respects as brutish and as formal and so by his own sentence no more binding to us then his Oath to him As for his instance in case He and the House of Peers attempted to enjoyne the House of Commons it beares no equalitie for hee and the Peers represent but themselves the Commons are the whole Kingdom Thus he concludes his Oath to be fully discharg'd in Governing by Laws already made as being not bound to pass any new if his Reason bids him deny And so may infinite mischeifs grow and he with a pernicious negative may deny us all things good or just or safe wherof our ancestors in times much differing from ours had either no fore sight or no occasion to foresee while our general good and safety shall depend upo the privat and overweening Reason of one obstinat Man who against all the Kingdom if he list will interpret both the Law and his Oath of Coronation by the tenor of his own will Which he himself confesses to be an arbitrary power yet doubts not in his Argument to imply as if he thought it more fit the Parlament should be subject to his will then he to their advice a man neither by nature nor by nurture wise How is it possible that he in whom such Principles as these were so deep rooted could ever though restor'd again have raign'd otherwise then Tyrannically He objects That force was but a slavish method to dispell his error But how oft'n shall it be answer'd him that no force was us'd to dispell the error out of his head but to drive it from off our necks for his error was imperious and would command all other men to ronounce thir own reason and understanding till they perish'd under
As for Delinquents he allowes them to be but the necessary consequences of his their withdrawing and defending A pretty shift to mince the name of a delinquent into a necessary consequent what is a Traitor but the necessary consequence of his Treason what a Rebell but of his Rebellion From this conceit he would inferr a pretext onely in the Parlament to fetch in Delinquents as if there had indeed bin no such cause but all the Delinquency in London Tumults Which is the overworn theme and stuffing of all his discourses This he thrice repeates to be the true State and reason of all that Warr and devastation in the Land and that of all the Treaties and Propositions offer'd him he was resolv'd never to grant the abolishing of Episcopal or the establishment of Presbyterian Government I would demand now of the Scots and Covnanteers For so I call them as misobservers of the Covnant how they will reconcile the preservation of Religion and their liberties and the bringing of delinquents to condign punishment with the freedom honour and safety of this vow'd resolution here that esteems all the Zeale of thir prostituted Covnant no better then a noise and shew of pietie a heat for Reformation filling them with prejudice and obstructing all equality and clearness of judgment in them With these principles who knows but that at length he might have come to take the Covnant as others whom they brotherly admitt have don before him and then all no doubt had gon well and ended in a happy peace His prayer is most of it borrow'd out of David but what if it be answerd him as the Jewes who trusted in Moses were answerd by our Saviour There is one that accuseth you eev'n David whom you misapply He tells God that his Enemies are many but tells the people when it serves his turn they are but a faction of some few prevailing over the Major part of both Houses God knows he had no passion designe or preparation to imbroyle his Kingdom in a civill Warr. True for he thought his Kingdom to be Issachar a strong Ass that would have couch'd downe betweene two burd'ns the one of prelatical superstition the other of civil tyrannie but what passion and designe what close and op'n preparation he had made to subdue us to both these by terror and preventive force all the Nation knows The confidence of som men had almost perswaded him to suspect his own innocence As the words of Saint Poul had almost perswaded Agrippa to be a Christian. But almost in the work of repentance is as good as not at all God saith he will find out bloody and deceitfull men many of whom have not liv'd out half thir days It behoov'd him to have bin more cautious how he tempted Gods finding out of blood and deceit till his own yeares had bin furder spent or that he had enjoy'd longer the fruits of his own violent Counsels But in stead of wariness he adds another temptation charging God To know that the chief designe of this Warr was either to destroy his Person or to force his judgement And thus his prayer from the evil practice of unjust accusing men to God arises to the hideous rashness of accusing God before Men to know that for truth which all Men know to be most fals He praies That God would forgive the people for they know not what they doe It is an easie matter to say over what our Saviour said but how he lov'd the People other Arguments then affected sayings must demonstrat He who so oft hath presum'd rashly to appeale the knowledge and testimony of God in things so evidently untrue may be doubted what beleif or esteem he had of his forgiveness either to himself or those for whom he would so fain that men should heare he pray'd X. Upon their seiziug the Magazins Forts c. TO put the matter soonest out of controversy who was the first beginner of this civil Warr since the begining of all Warr may be discern'd not onely by the first Act of hostilitie but by the Counsels and preparations foregoing it shall evidently appeare that the King was still formost in all these No King had ever at his first comming to the Crown more love and acclamation from a people never any people found wors requital of thir Loyaltie and good affection First by his extraordinary feare and mistrust that thir Liberties and Rights were the impairing and diminishing of his regal power the true Original of Tyranny Next by his hatred to all those who were esteem'd Religious doubting that thir principles too much asserted libertie This was quickly seen by the vehemence and the causes alleg'd of his persecuting the other by his frequent and opprobrious dissolution of Parlaments after he had demanded more Mony of them and they to obtain thir rights had granted him then would have bought the Turk out of Morea and set free all the Greeks But when he sought to extort from us by way of Tribute that which had bin offerd him conditionally in Parlament as by a free People and that those extortions were now consum'd and wasted by the luxurie of his Court he began then for still the more he did wrong the more he fear'd before any Tumult or insurrection of the People to take counsel how he might totally subdue them to his own will Then was the designe of German Horse while the Duke raignd and which was worst of all som thousands of the Irish Papists were in several parts billeted upon us while a Parlament was then sitting The Pulpits resounded with no other Doctrine then that which gave all property to the King and passive obedience to the Subject After which innumerable formes and shapes of new exactions and Exacters overspreâ—…d the Land Nor was it anough to be impoverish'd unless wee were disarm'd Our Train'd Bands which are the trustiest and most proper strength of a free Nation not at warr within it self had thir Arms in divers Counties tak'n from them other Ammunition by designe was ingross'd and kept in the Tower not to be bought without a Licence and at a high rate Thus farr and many other waies were his Counsels and preparations before hand with us either to a civil Warr if it should happ'n or to subdue us without a Warr which is all one untill the raising of his two Armies against the Scots and the latter of them rais'd to the most perfidious breaking of a solemn Pacification The articles wherof though subscrib'd with his own hand he commanded soon after to be burnt op'nly by the Hangman What enemy durst have don him that dishonour and affront which he did therin to himself After the beginning of this Parlament whom he saw so resolute and unanimous to releeve the Common-wealth and that the Earl of Strafford was condemn'd to die other of his evil Counselers impeach'd and imprison'd to shew there wanted not evil counsel within himself sufficient to begin a warr
disposing he would defend those whom he calls His good Subjects from those mens violence and fraud who would perswade the World that none but Wolves are fitt to be trusted with the custody of the Shepheard and his Flock Surely if we may guess whom he meanes heer by knowing whom he hath ever most oppos'd in this controversie we may then assure our selves that by violence and fraud he meanes that which the Parlament hath don in settling the Militia and those the Wolves into whose hands it was by them intrusted which drawes a cleer confession from his own mouth that if the Parlament had left him sole power of the Militia he would have us'd it to the destruction of them and thir Freinds As for sole power of the Militia which he claimes as a Right no less undoubted then the Crown it hath bin oft anough told him that he hath no more authority over the Sword then over the Law over the Law he hath none either to establish or to abrogate to interpret or to execute but onely by his Courts and in his Courts wherof the Parlament is highest no more therfore hath he power of the Militia which is the Sword either to use or to dispose but with consent of Parlament give him but that and as good give him in a lump all our Laws and Liberties For if the power of the Sword were any where separate and undepending from the power of Law which is originally seated in the highest Court then would that power of the Sword be soon maister of the law being at one mans disposal might when he pleas'd controule the Law and in derifion of our Magna Charta which were but weak resistance against an armed Tyrant might absolutely enslave us And not to have in our selves though vanting to be free-born the power of our own freedom and the public safety is a degree lower then not to have the property of our own goods For liberty of person and the right of selfpreservation is much neerer much more natural and more worth to all men then the propriety of thir goods and wealth Yet such power as all this did the King in op'n termes challenge to have over us and brought thousands to help him win it so much more good at fighting then at understanding as to perswade themselves that they fought then for the Subjects Libertie He is contented because he knows no other remedy to resigne this power for his owne time but not for his successors So diligent and carefull he is that we should be slaves if not to him yet to his Posterity and faine would leave us the legacy of another warr about it But the Parlament have don well to remove that question whom as his manner is to dignify with some good name or other he calls now a many headed hydra of Goverment full of factious distractions and not more eyes then mouthes Yet surely not more Mouthes or not so wide as the dissolute rabble of all his Courtiers had both hee s and shee s if there were any Males among them He would prove that to govern by Parlament hath a monstrositie rather then perfection and grouuds his argument upon two or three eminent absurdities First by placing Counsel in the senses next by turning the senses out of the head and in lieu therof placing power supreme above sense reason which be now the greater Monstrosities Furder to dispute what kind of Government is best would be a long debate it sufficeth that his reasons heer for Monarchy are found weake and inconsiderable He bodes much horror and bad influence after his ecclips He speakes his wishes But they who by weighing prudently things past foresee things to come the best Divination may hope rather all good success and happiness by removing that darkness which the mistie cloud of his prerogative made between us and a peacefull Reformation which is our true Sun light and not he though he would be tak'n for our sun it self And wherfore should we not hope to be Govern'd more happily without a King when as all our miserie and trouble hath bin either by a King or by our necessary vindication and defence against him He would be thought inforc'd to perjurie by having granted the Militia by which his Oath bound him to protect the People If he can be perjur'd in granting that why doth he refuse for no other cause the abolishing of Episcopacy But never was any Oath so blind as to sweare him to protect Delinquents a-against Justice but to protect all the people in that order and by those hands which the Parlament should advise him to and the protected conside in not under the shew of protection to hold a violent and incommunicable Sword over us as readie to be let fall upon our own necks as upon our Enemies nor to make our own hands and weapons fight against our own Liberties By his parting with the Militia he takes to himself much praise of his assurance in Gods protection to the Parlament imputes the fear of not daring to adventure the injustice of their actions upon any other way of safety But wherfore came not this assurance of Gods protection to him till the Militia was wrung out of his hands It should seem by his holding it so fast that his own actions and intentions had no less of injustice in them then what he charges upon others whom he terms Chaldeans Sabeans and the Devill himself But Job us'd no such Militia against those enemies nor such a Magazin as was at Hull which this King so contended for and made VVarr upon us that he might have wherewithall to make warr against us He concludes that Although they take all from him yet can they not obstruct his way to Heaven It was no handsom occasion by faining obstructions where they are not to tell us whither he was going he should have shut the dore and pray'd in secret not heer in the High Street Privat praiers in publick ask something of whom they ask not and that shall be thir reward XI Upon the Nineteen Propositions c. OF the Nineteen Propositions he names none in particular neither shall the Answer But he insists upon the old Plea of his Conscience honour and Reason using the plausibility of large and indefinite words to defend himself at such a distance as may hinder the eye of common judgement from all distinct view examination of his reasoning He would buy the peace of his People at any rate save onely the parting with his Conscience and Honour Yet shews not how it can happ'n that the peace of a People if otherwise to be bought at any rate should be inconsistent or at variance with the Conscience and Honour of a King Till then we may receave it for a better sentence that nothing should be more agreeable to the Conscience and Honour of a King then to preserve his Subjects in peace especially from civil Warr. And which of the
the Parlament and Citty finding no compliance answerable to his hope from the Protestant Armies betakes himself last to the Irish who had in readiness an Army of eight thousand Papists which he had refus'd so oft'n to disband and a Committy heer of the same Religion With them who thought the time now come which to bring about they had bin many yeares before not wishing only but with much industrie complotting to do som eminent service for the Church of Rome thir own perfidious natures against a Puritan Parlmt the hated English thir Masters he agrees concludes that so soon as both Armies in England were disbanded the Irish should appeare in Arms maister all the Protestants and help the King against his Parlament And we need not doubt that those five Counties were giv'n to the Irish for other reason then the four Northern Counties had bin a little before offerd to the Scots The King in August takes a journey into Scotland and overtaking the Scotch Army then on thir way home attempts the second time to pervert them but without success No sooner comm into Scotland but he laies a plot so saith the Scotch Author to remove out of the way such of the Nobility there as were most likely to withstand or not to furder his designes This being discover'd he sends from his side one Dillon a Papist Lord soon after a cheif Rebell with Letters into Ireland and dispatches a Commission under the great Seale of Scotland at that time in his own custody commanding that they should forthwith as had bin formerly agreed cause all the Irish to rise in Armes Who no sooner had receiv'd such command but obey'd and began in Massacher for they knew no other way to make sure the Protestants which was commanded them expressly and the way it seems left to thir discretion He who hath a mind to read the Commission it self and sound reason added why it was not likely to be forg'd besides the attestation of so many Irish themselves may have recourse to a Book intitl'd The Mysterie of Iniquity Besides what the Parlament it self in the Declaration of no more addresses hath affirm'd that they have one copy of that Commission in thir own hands attested by the Oathes of some that were ey-witnesses and had seen it under the Seale Others of the principal Rebels have confess'd that this Commission was the summer before promis'd at London to the Irish Commissioners to whom the King then discoverd in plain words his great desire to be reveng'd on the Parlament of England After the Rebellion brok'n out which in words onely he detested but under hand favour'd and promoted by all the offices of freindship correspondence and what possible aide he could afford them the particulars wherof are too many to be inserted heer I suppose no understanding Man could longer doubt who was Author or Instigator of that Rebellion If there be who yet doubt I referr them especially to that Declaration of July 1643. with that of no addresses 1647. and another full volum of examinations to be sett out speedily concerning this matter Against all which testimonies likelyhoods evidences and apparent actions of his own being so abundant his bare deniall though with imprecation can no way countervaile and least of all in his own cause As for the Commission granted them he thinkes to evade that by retorting that some in England fight against him and yet pretend his authority But though a Parlament by the known Laws may affirme justly to have the Kings authority inseparable from that Court though divided from his Person it is not credible that the Irish Rebels who so much tenderd his Person above his Autoritie and were by him so well receavd at Oxford would be so farr from all humanitie as to slander him with a particular Commission sign'd and sent them by his own hand And of his good affection to the Rebels this Chapter it self is not without witness He holds them less in fault then the Scots as from whom they might allege to have fetch'd thir imitation making no difference between men that rose necessarily to defend themselves which no Protestant Doctrin ever disallow'd against them who threatn'd Warr and those who began a voluntary and causeless Rebellion with the Massacher of so many thousands who never meant them harme He falls next to flashes and a multitude of words in all which is contain'd no more then what might be the Plea of any guiltiest Offender He was not the Author because he hath the greatest share of loss and dishonour by what is committed Who is there that offends God or his Neighbour on whom the greatest share of loss and dishonour lights not in the end But in the act of doing evil men use not to consider the event of thir evil doing or if they doe have then no power to curb the sway of thir own wickedness So that the greatest share of loss and dishonour to happ'n upon themselves is no argument that they were not guilty This other is as weake that a Kings interest above that of any other man lies chiefly in the common welfare of his Subjects therfore no King will do aught against the Common welfare For by this evasion any tyrant might as well purge himself from the guilt of raising troubles or commotions among the people because undoubtedly his chief Interest lies in thir sitting still I said but now that eev'n this Chapter if nothing els might suffice to discover his good affection to the Rebels which in this that follows too notoriously appeares imputing this insurrection to the preposterous rigor and unreasonable severitie the covetous zeale and uncharitable fury of some men these some men by his continual paraphrase are meant the Parlament and lastly to the feare of utter extirpation If the whole Irishry of Rebells had fee'd som advocate to speak partially and sophistically in thir defence he could have hardly dazl'd better Yet never the less would have prov'd himself no other then a plausible deceiver And perhaps nay more then perhaps for it is affirm'd extant under good evidence that those fained terrors and jealousies were either by the King himself or the Popish Preists w ch were sent by him put into the head of that inquisitive people on set purpose to engage them For who had power to oppress them or to releive them being opprest but the King or his immediat Deputy This rather should have made them rise against the King then against the Parlament Who threat'nd or ever thought of thir extirpation till they themselves had begun it to the English As for preposterous riger covetous zeale and uncharitable fury they had more reason to suspect those evils first from his own commands whom they saw using daily no greater argument to prove the truth of his Religion then by enduring no other but his owne Prelatical and to force it upon others made Episcopal Ceremonial and common-Prayer-Book Warrs But the Papists
sacred History and times of Reformation that the Kings of this World have both ever hated and instinctively fear'd the Church of God Whether it be for that thir Doctrin seems much to favour two things to them so dreadful Liberty and Equality or because they are the Children of that Kingdom which as ancient Prophesies have foretold shall in the end break to peeces and dissolve all thir great power and Dominion And those Kings and Potentates who have strove most to ridd themselves of this feare by cutting off or suppressing the true Church have drawn upon themselves the occasion of thir own ruin while they thought with most policy to prevent it Thus Pharaoh when once he began to feare and wax jealous of the Israelites least they should multiply and fight against him and that his feare stirr'd him up to afflict and keep them under as the onely remedy of what he feard soon found that the evil which before slept came suddenly upon him by the preposterous way he took to shun it Passing by examples between not shutting wilfully our eyes we may see the like story brought to pass in our own Land This King more then any before him except perhapps his Father from his first entrance to the Crown harbouring in his mind a strange feare and suspicion of men most religious and thir Doctrin which in his own language he heer acknowledges terming it the seditious exorbitancie of Ministers tongues and doubting least they as he not Christianly expresses it should with the Keys of Heav'n let out Peace and Loyaltie from the peoples hearts though they never preacht or attempted aught that might justly raise in him such apprehensions he could not rest or think himself secure so long as they remain'd in any of his three Kingdoms unrooted out But outwardly professing the same Religion with them he could not presently use violence as Pharaoh did and that course had with others before but ill succeeded He chooses therfore a more mystical way a newer method of Antichristian fraud to the Church more dangerous and like to Balac the Son of Zippor against a Nation of Prophets thinks it best to hire other esteemed Prophets and to undermine and weare out the true Church by a fals Ecclesiastical policy To this drift he found the Goverment of Bishops most serviceable an order in the Church as by men first corrupted so mutually corrupting them who receave it both in judgement and manners He by conferring Bishoprics and great Livings on whom he thought most pliant to his will against the known Canons and universal practice of the ancient Church wherby those elections were the peoples right sought as he confesses to have greatest influence upon Church-men They on the other side finding themselves in a high Dignity neither founded by Scripture nor allow'd by Reformation nor supported by any spiritual gift or grace of thir own knew it thir best cours to have dependence onely upon him and wrought his fansie by degrees to that degenerat and unkingly perswasion of No Bishop no King When as on the contrary all Prelats in thir own suttle sense are of another mind according to that of Pius the fourth rememberd in the Trentine storie that Bishops then grow to be most vigorous and potent when Princes happ'n to be most weak and impotent Thus when both Interests of Tyrannie and Episcopacie were incorporat into each other the King whose principal safety and establishment consisted in the righteous execution of his civil power and not in Bishops and thir wicked counsels fatally driv'n on set himself to the extirpating of those men whose Doctrin and desire of Church Discipline he so fear'd would bee the undoing of his Monarchie And because no temporal Law could touch the innocence of thir lives he begins with the persecution of thir consciences laying scandals before them and makes that the argument to inflict his unjust penalties both on thir bodies and Estates In this Warr against the Church if he hath sped so as other haughty Monarchs whom God heertofore hath hard'nd to the like enterprize we ought to look up with praises and thanksgiving to the Author of our deliverance to whom victorie and power Majestie Honour and Dominion belongs for ever In the mean while from his own words we may perceave easily that the special motives which he had to endeere and deprave his judgement to the favouring and utmost defending of Episcopacie are such as heer wee represent them and how unwillingly and with what mental reservation he condescended against his interest to remove it out of the Peers house hath bin shown alreadie The reasons which he affirmes wrought so much upon his judgement shall be so farr answerd as they be urg'd Scripture he reports but distinctly produces none and next the constant practice of all Christian Churches till of late yeares tumult faction pride and covetousness invented new models under the Title of Christs Goverment Could any Papist have spoke more scandalously against all Reformation Well may the Parlament and best-affected People not now be troubl'd at his calumnies and reproaches since he binds them in the same bundle with all other the reformed Churches who also may now furder see besides thir own bitter experience what a Cordial and well meaning helper they had of him abroad and how true to the Protestant cause As for Histories to prove Bishops the Bible if we mean not to run into errors vanities and uncertainties must be our onely Historie Which informs us that the Apostles were not properly Bishops next that Bishops were not successors of Apostles in the function of Apostleship And that if they were Apostles they could not be preciselie Bishops if Bishops they could not be Apostles this being Universal extraordinarie and immediat from God that being an ordinarie fixt particular charge the continual inspection over a certain Flock And although an ignorance and deviation of the ancient Churches afterward may with as much reason and charity be suppos'd as sudden in point of Prelatie as in other manifest corruptions yet that no example since the first age for 1500 yeares can be produc'd of any setled Church wherin were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishops above them the Ecclesiastical storie to which he appeals for want of Scripture proves cleerly to be a fals and over-confident assertion Sczomenus who wrote above Twelve hundred years agoe in his seventh Book relates from his own knowledge that in the Churches of Cyprus and Arabia places neer to Jerusalem and with the first frequented by Apostles they had Bishops in every Village and what could those be more then Presbyters The like he tells of other Nations and that Episcopal Churches in those daies did not condemn them I add that many Western Churches eminent for thir Faith and good Works and settl'd above four hundred years agoe in France in Piemont and Bohemia have both taught and practis'd the same Doctrin and not admitted of
new disguise He layes down his Armes but not his Wiles nor all his Armes for in obstinacy he comes no less arm'd then ever Cap a pè And what were they but wiles continually to move for Treaties and yet to persist the same man and to fortifie his mind before hand still purposing to grant no more then what seem'd good to that violent and lawless Triumvirate within him under the falsifi'd names of his Reason Honour and Conscience the old circulating dance of his shifts and evasions The words of a King as they are full of power in the autority and strength of Law so like Sampson without the strength of that Nazarites lock they have no more power in them then the words of another man He adores Reason as Domitian did Minerva and calls her the Divinest power thereby to intimate as if at reasoning as at his own weapon no man were so able as himself Might we be so happy as to know where these monuments of his Reason may be seen for in his actions his writing they appeare as thinly as could be expected from the meanest parts bredd up in the midst of so many wayes extraordinary to know somthing He who reads his talk would think he had left Oxford not without mature deliberation Yet his Prayer confesses that he knew not what to doe Thus is verifi'd that Psalme He powreth contempt upon Princes and causeth them to wander in the Wilderness where there is no way Psal. 107. XXIII Vpon the Scots delivering the King to the English THat the Scots in England should sell thir King as he himself here affirmes and for a price so much above that which the covetousness of Judas was contented with to sell our Saviour is so foule an infamy and dishonour cast upon them as befitts none to vindicate but themselves And it were but friendly Counsel to wish them beware the Son who comes among them with a firme beleif that they sould his Father The rest of this Chapter he Sacrifices to the Echo of his Conscience out-babling Creeds and Ave's glorying in his resolute obstinacy and as it were triumphing how evident it is now that not evill Counselors but he himself hath been the Author of all our troubles Herein onely we shall disagree to the worlds end while he who sought so manifestly to have annihilated all our Laws and Liberties hath the confidence to perswade us that he hath fought and suffer'd all this while in thir defence But he who neither by his own Letters and Commissions under hand and Seale nor by his own actions held as in a Mirror before his face will be convinc'd to see his faults can much less be won upon by any force of words neither he nor any that take after him who in that respect are no more to be disputed with then they who deny Principles No question then but the Parlament did wisely in thir decree at last to make no more addresses For how unalterable his will was that would have bin our Lord how utterly averse from the Parlament and Reformation during his confinement we may behold in this Chapter But to be ever answering fruitless Repetitions I should become liable to answer for the same my self He borrows Davids Psalmes as he charges the Assembly of Divines in his twentith Discourse To have set forth old Catechisms and confessions of faith new drest Had he borrow'd Davids heart it had bin much the holier theft For such kind of borrowing as this if it be not better'd by the borrower among good Authors is accounted Plagiarie However this was more tolerable then Pammela's Praier stol'n out of Sir Philip. XXIV Vpon the denying him the attendance of his Chaplains A CHAPLAIN is a thing so diminutive and inconsiderable that how he should come heer among matters of so great concernment to take such room up in the Discourses of a Prince if it be not wonderd is to be fmil'd at Certainly by me so mean an argument shall not be writt'n but I shall huddle him as he does Prayers The Scripture ownes no such order no such function in the Church and the Church not owning them they are left for ought I know to such a furder examining as the Sons of Sceva the Jew met with Bishops or Presbyters we know and Deacons we know but what are Chaplains In State perhaps they may be listed among the upper Servingmen of som great houshold and be admitted to som such place as may stile them the Sewers or the Yeomen-Ushers of Devotion where the Maister is too restie or too rich to say his own prayers or to bless his own Table Wherfore should the Parlament then take such implements of the Court Cupbord into thir consideration They knew them to have bin the main corrupters at the kings elbow they knew the king to have bin always thir most attentive Scholar Imitator of a child to have suckt from them thir closet work all his impotent principles of tyranny superstition While therfore they had any hope left of his reclaiming these sowers of Malignant Tares they kept asunder from him and sent to him such of the Ministers and other zealous persons as they thought were best able to instruct him and to convert him What could religion her self have don more to the saving of a soule But when they found him past cure that he to himself was grown the most evil Counseler of all they deny'd him not his Chaplains as many as were fitting and som of them attended him or els were at his call to the very last Yet heer he makes more Lamentationfor the want of his Chaplains then superstitious Micah did to the Danites who had tak'n away his houshold Priest Yee have tak'n away my Gods which I made and the Priest and what have I more And perhaps the whole Story of Micah might square not unfitly to this Argument Now know I saith he that the Lord will doe me good seeing I have a Levite to my Priest Micah had as great a care that his Priest should be Mosaical as the King had that his should be Apostolical yet both in an error touching thir Priests Houshold and privat Orisons were not to be officiated by Priests for neither did public Prayer appertain onely to their Office Kings heertofore David Salomon and Jehosaphat who might not touch the Priesthood yet might pray in public yea in the Temple while the Priests themselves stood and heard VVhat aild this King then that he could not chew his own Mattins without the Priests Oretenus Yet is it like he could not pray at home who can heer publish a whole Prayer-book of his own and signifies in some part of this Chapter almost as good a mind to be a Priest himself as Micah had to let his Son be There was doubtless therfore some other matter in it which made him so desirous to have his Chaplaines about him who were not onely the contrivers but very oft the
though briefly in regard so much on this Subject hath been Writt'n lately It happn'd once as we find in Esdras and Josephus Authors not less beleiv'd then any under sacred to be a great and solemn debate in the Court of Darius what thing was to be counted strongest of all other He that could resolve this in reward of his excelling wisdom should be clad in Purple drink in Gold sleep on a Bed of Gold and sitt next Darius None but they doubtless who were reputed wise had the Question propounded to them Who after som respit giv'n them by the King to consider in full Assembly of all his Lords and gravest Counselors returnd severally what they thought The first held that Wine was strongest another that the King was strongest But Zorobabel Prince of the Captive Jewes and Heire to the Crown of Judah being one of them proov'd Women to be stronger then the King for that he himself had seen a Concubin take his Crown from off his head to set it upon her own And others besides him have lately seen the like Feat don and not in jest Yet he proov'd on and it was so yeilded by the King himself all his sages that neither Wine nor Women nor the King but Truth of all other things was the strongest For me though neither ask'd nor in a Nation that gives such rewards to wisdom I shall pronounce my sentence somwhat different from Zorobabel and shall defend that either Truth and Justice are all one for Truth is but Justice in our knowledge and Justice is but Truth in our practice and he indeed so explaines himself in saying that with Truth is no accepting of Persons which is the property of Justice or els if there be any odds that Justice though not stronger then truth yet by her office is to put forth and exhibit more strength in the affaires of mankind For Truth is properly no more then Contemplation and her utmost efficiency is but teaching but Justice in her very essence is all strength and activity and hath a Sword put into her hand to use against all violence and oppression on the earth Shee it is most truely who accepts no Person and exempts none from the severity of her stroke Shee never suffers injury to prevaile but when fashood first prevailes over Truth and that also is a kind of Justice don on them who are so deluded Though wicked Kings and Tyrants counterfet her Sword as som did that Buckler fabl'd to fall from Heav'n into the Capitol yet shee communicates her power to none but such as like her self are just or at least will do Justice For it were extreme partialitie and injustice the flat denyall and overthrow of her self to put her own authentic Sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked Man or so farr to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals that he alone shall have the punishing of all other men transgressing and not receive like punishment from men when he himself shall be found the highest transgressor We may conclude therfore that Justice above all other things is and ought to be the strongest Shee is the strength the Kingdom the power and majestie of all Ages Truth her self would subscribe to this though Darius and all the Monarchs of the World should deny And if by sentence thus writt'n it were my happiness to set free the minds of English men from longing to returne poorly under that Captivity of Kings from which the strength and supreme Sword of Justice hath deliverd them I shall have don a work not much inferior to that of Zorobabel who by well praising and extolling the force of Truth in that contemplative strength conquer'd Darius and freed his Countrey and the people of God from the Captivity of Babylon Which I shall yet not despaire to doe if they in this Land whose minds are yet Captive be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the strength and supremacie of Justice as that heathen king was to confess the strength of truth or let them but as he did grant that and they will soon perceave that Truth resignes all her outward strength to Justice Justice therfore must needs be strongest both in her own and in the strength of Truth But if a King may doe among men whatsoever is his will and pleasure and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men then contrary to this magnifi'd wisdom of Zorobabel neither Truth nor Justice but the King is strongest of all other things which that Persian Monarch himself in the midst of all his pride and glory durst not assume Let us see therfore what this King hath to affirm why the sentence of Justice and the weight of that Sword which shee delivers into the hands of men should be more partial to him offending then to all others of human race First he pleades that No Law of God or man gives to subjects any power of judicature without or against him Which assertion shall be prov'd in every part to be most untrue The first express Law of God giv'n to mankind was that to Noah as a Law in general to all the Sons of men And by that most ancient and universal Law whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed we find heer no exception If a king therfore doe this to a King and that by men also the same shall be don This in the Law of Moses which came next several times is repeated and in one place remarkably Numb 35. Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer but he shall surely be put to death the Land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shedd therein but by the blood of him that shed it This is so spok'n as that which concern'd all Israel not one man alone to see perform'd and if no satisfaction were to be tak'n then certainly no exception Nay the King when they should set up any was to observe the whole Law and not onely to see it don but to do it that his heart might not be lifted up above his Brethren to dreame of vain and reasonless prerogatives or exemptions wherby the Law it self must needs be founded in unrighteousness And were that true which is most fals that all Kings are the Lords Anointed it were yet absurd to think that the Anointment of God should be as it were a charme against Law and give them privilege who punish others to sin themselves unpunishably The high Preist was the Lords anointed as well as any King and with the same consecrated oile yet Salomon had put to death Abiathar had it not bin for other respects then that anointment If God himself say to Kings Touch not mine anointed meaning his chos'n people as is evident in that Psalme yet no man will argue thence that he protects them from Civil Laws if they offend then certainly though David as a privat man and in his own cause feard to lift his hand against the Lords Anointed much less can this
forbidd the Law or disarm justice from having legal power against any King No other supreme Magistrate in what kind of Government soever laies claim to any such enormous Privilege wherfore then should any King who is but one kind of Magistrat and set over the people for no other end then they Next in order of time to the Laws of Moses are those of Christ who declares professedly his judicature to be spiritual abstract from Civil managements and therfore leaves all Nations to thir own particular Lawes and way of Government Yet because the Church hath a kind of Jurisdiction within her own bounds and that also though in process of time much corrupted and plainly turn'd into a corporal judicature yet much approv'd by this King it will be firm anough and valid against him if subjects by the Laws of Church also be invested with a power of judicature both without and against thir King though pretending and by them acknowledg'd next and immediatly under Christ supreme head and Governour Theodosius one of the best Christian Emperours having made a slaughter of the Thessalonians for sedition but too cruelly was excommunicated to his face by Saint Ambrose who was his subject and excommunion is the utmost of Ecclesiastical Judicature a spiritual putting to death But this yee will say was onely an example Read then the Story and it will appeare both that Ambrose avouch'd it for the Law of God and Theodosius confess'd it of his own accord to be so and that the Law of God was not to be made voyd in him for any reverence to his Imperial power From hence not to be tedious I shall pass into our own Land of Britain and shew that Subjects heer have exercis'd the utmost of spirituall Judicature and more then spirituall against thir Kings his Predecessors Vortiger for committing incest with his daughter was by Saint German at that time his subject cursd and condemnd in a Brittish Counsel about the yeare 448 and thereupon soon after was depos'd Mauricus a King in Wales for breach of Oath and the murder of Cynetus was excomunicated and curst with all his offspring by Oudoceus Bishop of Landaff in full Synod about the yeare 560 and not restor'd till he had repented Morcant another King in Wales having slain Frioc his Uncle was faine to come in Person and receave judgement from the same Bishop and his Clergie who upon his penitence acquitted him for no other cause then lest the Kingdom should be destitute of a Successour in the Royal Line These examples are of the Primitive Brittish and Episcopal Church long ere they had any commerce or communion with the Church of Rome What power afterward of deposing Kings and so consequently of putting them to death was assum'd and practis'd by the Canon Law I omitt as a thing generally known Certainly if whole Councels of the Romish Church have in the midst of their dimness discern'd so much of Truth as to decree at Constance and at Basil and many of them to avouch at Trent also that a Councel is above the Pope and may judge him though by them not deni'd to be the Vicar of Christ we in our clearer light may be asham'd not to discern furder that a Parlament is by all equity and right above a King and may judge him whose reasons and pretensions to hold of God onely as his immediat Vicegerent we know how farr fetch'd they are and insufficient As for the Laws of man it would ask a Volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all Antiquity In Greece Orestes the Son of Agamemnon and by succession King of Argos was in that Countrey judg'd and condemn'd to death for killing his Mother whence escaping he was judg'd againe though a Stranger before the great Counsel of Areopagus in Athens And this memorable act of Judicature was the first that brought the Justice of that grave Senat into fame and high estimation over all Greece for many ages after And in the same Citty Tyrants were to undergoe Legal sentence by the Laws of Solon The Kings of Sparta though descended lineally from Hercules esteem'd a God among them were oft'n judg'd and somtimes put to death by the most just and renowned Laws of Lycurgus who though a King thought it most unequal to bind his Subjects by any Law to which he bound not himself In Rome the Laws made by Valerius Publicola soon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race expell'd without a writt'n Law the Law beeing afterward writt'n and what the Senat decreed against Nero that he should be judg'd and punish'd according to the Laws of thir Ancestors and what in like manner was decreed against other Emperours is vulgarly known as it was known to those heathen and found just by nature ere any Law mentiond it And that the Christian Civil Law warrants like power of Judicature to Subjects against Tyrants is writt'n clearly by the best and famousest Civilians For if it was decreed by Theodosius and stands yet firme in the Code of Justinian that the Law is above the Emperour then certainly the Emperour being under Law the Law may judge him and if judge him may punish him proving tyrannous how els is the Law above him or to what purpose These are necessary deductions and therafter hath bin don in all Ages and Kingdoms oftner then to be heer recited But what need we any furder search after the Law of other Lands for that which is so fully and so plainly set down lawfull in our own Where ancient Books tell us Bracton Fleta and others that the King is under Law and inferiour to his Court of Parlament that although his place to doe Justice be highest yet that he stands as liable to receave Justice as the meanest of his Kingdom Nay Alfred the most worthy King and by som accounted first abolute Monarch of the Saxons heer so ordain'd as is cited out of an ancient Law Book call'd the Mirror in Rights of the Kingdom p. 31. where it is complain'd on As the sovran abuse of all that the King should be deem'd above the Law whereas he ought be subject to it by his Oath Of which Oath anciently it was the last clause that the King should be as liable and obedient to suffer right as others of his people And indeed it were but fond and sensless that the King should be accountable to every petty suit in lesser Courts as we all know he was and not be subject to the Judicature of Parlament in the main matters of our common safety or destruction that he should be answerable in the ordinary cours of Law for any wrong don to a privat Person and not answerable in Court of Parlament for destroying the whole Kingdom By all this and much more that might be added as in an argument overcopious rather then barren we see it manifest that all Laws both of God and Man are made without exemption of any person
evil will then not feare to disswade or to disobey him not onely in respect of themselves and thir own lives which for his sake they would not seem to value but in respect of that danger which the King himself may incurr whom they would seem to love and serve with greatest fidelitie On all these grounds therfore of the covnant it self whether religious or political it appeares likeliest that both the English Parlament and the Scotch Commissioners thus interpreting the Covnant as indeed at that time they were the best and most authentical interpreters joyn'd together answered the King unanimously in thir Letters dated Jan. 13 th 1645. that till securitie and satisfaction first giv'n to both Kingdoms for the blood spilt for the Irish Rebels brought over and for the Warr in Ireland by him fomented they could in no wise yeild thir consent to his returne Here was satisfaction full two yeares and upward after the Covnant tak'n demanded of the King by both Nations in Parlament for crimes at least Capital wherwith they charg'd him And what satisfaction could be giv'n for so much blood but Justice upon him that spilt it Till which don they neither took themselves bound to grant him the exercise of his regal Office by any meaning of the Coynant which they then declar'd though other meanings have bin since contriv'd nor so much regarded the safety of his person as to admitt of his return among them from the midst of those whom they declar'd to be his greatest enemies nay from himself as from an actual enemy not as from a king they demanded security But if the covnant all this not with standing swore otherwise to preserv him then in the preservation of true religion our liberties against which he fought if not in armes yet in resolution to his dying day and now after death still fights against in this his book the covnant was better brok'n thē he sav'd And god hath testifi'd by all propitious the most evident signes whereby in these latter times he is wont to testifie what pleases him that such a solemn and for many Ages unexampl'd act of due punishment was no mockery of Justice but a most gratefull and well-pleasing Sacrifice Neither was it to cover their perjury as he accuses but to uncover his perjury to the Oath of his Coronation The rest of his discours quite forgets the Title and turns his Meditations upon death into obloquie and bitter vehemence against his Judges and accussers imitating therin not our Saviour but his Grand-mother Mary Queen of Scots as also in the most of his other scruples exceptions and evasions and from whom he seems to have learnt as it were by heart or els by kind that which is thought by his admirers to be the most vertuous most manly most Christian and most Martyr-like both of his words and speeches heer and of his answers and behaviour at his Tryall It is a sad fate he saith to have his Enemies both accusers Parties and Judges Sad indeed but no sufficient Plea to acquitt him from being so judg'd For what Malefactor might not somtimes plead the like If his own crimes have made all men his Enemies who els can judge him They of the Powder-plot against his Father might as well have pleaded the same Nay at the Resurrection it may as well be pleaded that the Saints who then shall judge the World are both Enemies Judges Parties and Accusers So much he thinks to abound in his own defence that he undertakes an unmeasurable task to bespeak the singular care and protection of God over all Kings as being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth But what Patrons they be God in the Scripture oft anough hath exprest and the earth it self hath too long groan'd under the burd'n of thir injustice disorder and irreligion Therfore To bind thir Kings in Chaines and thir Nobles with links of Iron is an honour belonging to his Saints not to build Babel which was Nimrods work the first King and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel but to destroy it especially that spiritual Babel and first to overcome those European Kings which receive thir power not from God but from the beast and are counted no better then his ten hornes These shall hate the great Whore and yet shall give thir Kingdoms to the Beast that carries her they shall committ Fornication with her and yet shall burn her with fire and yet shall lament the fall of Babylon where they fornicated with her Rev. 17. 18. chapt Thus shall they be too and fro doubtfull and ambiguous in all thir doings untill at last joyning thir Armies with the Beast whose power first rais'd them they shall perish with him by the King of Kings against whom they have rebell'd and the Foules shall eat thir flesh This is thir doom writt'n Rev. 19. and the utmost that we find concerning them in these latter days which we have much more cause to beleeve then his unwarranted Revelation here prophecying what shall follow after his death with the spirit of Enmity not of Saint John He would fain bring us out of conceit with the good success which God hath voutsaf'd us Wee measure not our Cause by our success but our success by our cause Yet certainly in a good Cause success is a good confirmation for God hath promis'd it to good men almost in every leafe of Scripture If it argue not for us we are sure it argues not against us but as much or more for us then ill success argues for them for to the wicked God hath denounc'd ill success in all that they take in hand He hopes much of those softer tempers as he calls them and less advantag'd by his ruin that thir consciences doe already gripe them T is true there be a sort of moodie hot-brain'd and alwayes unedify'd consciences apt to engage thir Leaders into great and dangerous affaires past retirement and then upon a sudden qualm and swimming of thir conscience to betray them basely in the midst of what was chiefly undertak'n for their sakes Let such men never meet with any faithfull Parlament to hazzard for them never with any noble spirit to conduct and lead them out but let them live and die in servil condition and thir scrupulous queasiness if no instruction will confirme them Others there be in whose consciences the loss of gaine and those advantages they hop'd for hath sprung a sudden leake These are they that cry out the Covnant brok'n and to keep it better slide back into neutrality or joyn actually with Incendiaries and Malignants But God hath eminently begun to punish those first in Scotland then in Ulster who have provok'd him with the most hatefull kind of mockery to break his Covnant under pretence of strictest keeping it and hath subjected them to those Malignants with whom they scrupl'd not to be associats In God therfore we shall not feare what their fals fraternity can doe against us He seeks againe with cunning words to turn our success into our sin But might call to mind that the Scripture speakes of those also who when God slew them then sought him yet did but flatter him with thir mouth and ly'd to him with thir tongues for thir heart was not right with him And there was one who in the time of his affliction trespass'd more against God This was that King Abaz He glories much in the forgivness of his Enemies so did his Grandmother at her death Wise men would sooner have beleev'd him had he not so oft'n told us so But he hopes to erect the Trophies of his charity over us And Trophies of Charity no doubt will be as glorious as Trumpets before the almes of Hypocrites and more especially the Trophies of such an aspiring charitie as offers in his Prayer to share Victory with Gods compassion which is over all his works Such Prayers as these may happly catch the People as was intended but how they please God is to be much doubted though pray'd in secret much less writt'n to be divulg'd Which perhaps may gaine him after death a short contemptible and soon fading reward not what he aims at to stirr the constancie and solid firmness of any wise Man or to unsettle the conscience of any knowing Christian if he could ever aime at a thing so hopeless and above the genius of his Cleric elocution but to catch the worthles approbation of an inconstant irrational and Image-doting rabble that like a credulous and hapless herd begott'n to servility and inchanted with these popular institutes of Tyranny subscrib'd with a new device of the Kings Picture at his praiers hold out both thir eares with such delight and ravishment to be stigmatiz'd and board through in witness of thir own voluntary and beloved baseness The rest whom perhaps ignorance without malice or some error less then fatal hath for the time misledd on this side Sorcery or obduration may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves and recover THE END