the King and murther him notwithstanding this Treatie and vote of Parliament If it were the Parliament that voted the Treatie and the concessions to be a sufficient ground for peace they must be Traytours by the Parliaments Judgment that dissolved them and placed the name of Parliament vpon others and this Author must speake more evill of them then his Majest doth or more of his Masters and might with farr more reason take on him the defence of the Tumults as afterwards he doth then the Parliament for if the Parliament may be modelled by Tumults and are no longer a Parliament then the leaders of the rabble judge well of their Actions then the King in speaking any thing against the Parliament doth no more then this Author confesseth the Tumults may doe and himselfe too He might have claimed a priviledge to speake for the dead aswell as write against the King being dead for his Masters murthered it with the King and its like he hath leave from his new Masters to name it yet for it will not stand well heereafter with their Goverment to name a Parliament which may continue the memory of King and Lords and the new Representatives will when the Masters are ready for it make the name of Parliament like an old Almanacke and the Author wil be forbidden to name it as reason now forbidds the defence of their Actions against his Majest As he to acquitt himselfe hath not spared his adversaries so to him in his booke no more Courtshipp wil be vsed then he vses but what is properly his owne guilt not imputed any more to his evill Councellours a Ceremony vsed longer by the Parliament then he desired shal be laid heere without Circumlocutions at his owne doore Courtship nor Civilitie could be expected from any that tooke on them the defence of such a cause as this Author hath done and his Majest moderation in speaking of his adversaries stigmatizeth this Author for his vnprovoked insolence and malitious falshood and the cause he maintaynes that could not stand but by rayling and slander In laying the ground worke of this horrid Rebellion the Master worke men saw that people are to be debaucht by degrees and they cannot suddenly beleive absurdities till their passions by Custome be made Master of their reason and confirmed in the pursuite of what was propounded to them vnder pretence of their good The people then held it a sin to offer violence to the person of their King They thought they could not cut of the lappe of his garment They held it odious to reproach his person and the Parliament had so often declared that kings can doe no wrong and that the law for bidds the speaking of it that though the wickednes of some were enough confirmed to wish his destruction they durst not say it but pretend desire of Justice against other persons and they resolved as Assassines to stabb him while they kneeled to him and to betray him professing dutie and loyaltie vndermininge his authoritie with aspersions on his evill Councellours as they called them And as then they laid faults vpon his Councellours that never acted so now this slanderer will make the King guiltie of Actions that were never done by him and vnder pretence of not sparing him in laying the guilt on him that was properly his seekes to lay all mens faults on him and is as disloyall to truth as Loyaltie To acquit himselfe his Majest needed to be very carefull for his adversaries by their declarations have done it and they have acquitted his Councellours of these very Crymes they objected to them for this Author wil have the faults they were charged with to be the Kings and it is in his Language a Ceremonie to accuse men falsely by forged Calumnies to seduce the people to the spending of their blood and hazard of their soules This Author is the first that sought to be beleived in an Apologie for falshood and to defend the Parliament and yet contradict it sayes theise deceites and lies were in Ceremonie It s certaine the King endeavoured to vndeceive the people that they might have knowne that the malice of these Traytours was to himselfe whatever they pretended against his evill Councellours this Author makes traynes of Treason framed of knowne vntruths to be only Ceremonies and rankes the fifth ninth Commaundement in the Ceremoniall law as many of the rest as the breach may be made serviceable to their deceites If the reproofe of evill speaking against Kings in Scripture be a Ceremonie if dutie and loyaltie be a Ceremonie if veracitie be a Ceremonie what is morall in this Authors jugdment Those whome he calls the Parliament vsed those impostures vntill they had drawne the people to establish thier owne slavery and the Empire of those miscreants over them and now they laugh at these miserable people that thus beleived them as they doe at the finesse of their fraudes and despise the power of God as they doe his Precepts It is sufficiently evident to the world what promises professions those the Author calls the Parliament vented to make his late Majest a glorious King besides their legall oaths they devised new protestations of loyaltie and this the Author calls a Ceremonie to make the world beleive they were loyall to their King fot the Actions they intended needed strong Charmes to delude the people make them beleive those men loyall to the King that raysed a warr against him The Parliament in one of their declarations told the King that if they should say that the evill Acts they complained of were done by his Maj they should speake contrary to the law and the Testimonie of their owne hearts In another that they were ready to lay downe their lives and fortunes and spend the last dropp of their blood to maintaine his Crowne and Royall person in greatenes and glory and cast themselves downe at his Royall feete What would he have the world thinke of this so stoutly acted vehemence only a Ceremonie Certainly one of the most pernitious that ever was practised and an impudent defence suites well with a discovered falshood They professe themselves Enemies to stage playes but it is that they might engrosse the trade to themselves for their Pulpits aswell as Pamphlets sound principally this representation of passion stage devotion but it is a sollesisme in so greate an actor as this Author that speakes alowde that all is but a Ceremonie for he thereby gives the world to vnderstand that he intends the same falshood in his slanders then the faction in Parliament vsed in their professions of dutie and loyaltie This course of his in laying the faults on the King he sayes is that they who from the beginning or but now of late by what vnhappines he knowes not are so much infatuated not with his person only but with his palpable faults dote vpon his deformities may have none to blame but their owne folly if they live
thing against the King whereat should they sticke their impudence is commended and rewarded Would they sticke at truth that 's out of fashion in the new state But perhapps they sticke to name a man least they have a conviction from him or some els that could discover the Circumstances about it But since he makes a scruple if there be not reason in the booke why is he soe vnwilling to admit the King to be the Author surely it were for his advantage to make the King author of such a booke and if they were a Coadiutors why doth he lay his weakenes or errours as he pretends vpon the King The Author doth not add nor take away from the reason in the booke but the booke commends the Author and shames the answeare But allegations not reasons are the maine contents of this booke and neede noe more then other contrary allegations to lay the question before all men in an even ballance The allegations in his Majest booke are either such as are only knowne to himselfe or such as were evident to all men by the light of reason or notorietie of Actions And Iconoclastes vainely flatters himselfe that his contrary allegations wil be of any weight to move the scale Sober men take his ostentation of confidence rather as an effect of frensy then a perswasion of reason But through his whole booke he offers allegations against apparent reasons Though it were supposed that the Testimony of one man in his owne case affirminge could be of any Moment to bring in doubt the authoritie of a Parliament denying a contrary allegation against this would weigh downe the ballance in most mens judgment The periuries impostures cruelties devastations of those he calls the Parliament are soe knowne common abroade that the mention of them is a name of infamy and takes away all credit from their Actions Their owne journalls tell the world that they never speake truth but for their advantage and omit noe falshood that will serve their turne But doth Iconoclastes thinke any Parliament infallible or that all men condemned by Parliament had Justice done them He wil then finde that they condemne one another and for this last misnamed Parliament their bloody executions have such apparent markes of Injustice and cruelties as themselves cannot deny it vnles they will deny the records themselves have made the Testimony of former Parliaments There are in his Majest booke many particulars that the Parliament neither did nor could deny and through the whole booke the Author hath produced few or none of their denyalls There hath been much vse made of the name of Parliament but the Author must thinke he hath an inchanting pen if after the murther of the king abolishing the Lords house plucking out the members from the lower house prostituting the very constitution of Parliament to the lawlesse multitude and packing the Roome with a few meane persons eyther terrified by power or flattered by promises he can perswade any that such a Company sitting on the vsuall seates of the lower house be the Parliament he may as well give the name of Parliament to a Parish vestry as that Convention all the odds is the place of their meetinge But if these his faire spoken words shal be heere fairly confronted and laid parallell to his owne farr differing deedes manifest visible to the whole nation then c. His Majest words he sayes are faire spoken and will appeare sincere against al the fowle spokē words of this author to confront them And his actions are soe wel knowne to the whole nation as he doth in vaine appeale to them as witnesses of the truth of those false and incongruous Calumnies that he hath produced His Majest Actions being laid parallel to this Authors different expressions shew the lewdnes of the Libellers impudence that will appeale for the truth of what he sayes to those that best know the contrary and in a case where the evidence of the fact excludes all appeale The Author concludes that we may looke on them who notwithstandinge shall persist to give to bare words more credit then to open Actions as men whose judgment was not rationally evinced perswaded but fatally stupified bewitched into such a blinde and obstinate beleife for whose cure he sayes it may be doubted not whether any charme though never soe wisely murmured but whether any prayer can be availeable If after the reading of this Authors booke any man thinke him a modest man that he hath dealt ingeniously with his Majest booke or person he may be sure that such a person were not rationally evinced but eyther maliciously prepossest or stupidly infaetuated and neither vnderstood words nor Actions And this Author meanes not to cure but to charme expressing his delight in the terme of murmuringe which was the Custome of witches in their Charmes never vsed by servants of God though wicked men are compared to the deafe adder whose eare is stopped to the murmuring Charmer as theirs to the holy advice But Iconoclastes may aswell hope to turne men into stones by his absurd assertions or into serpents by his lewde reproaches and perswade men of his reason or honestie We know the prayers of the wicked are abominable aswell as their wilfull falhood and slander while he seekes to place those that will not be led by him among those that Charmes cannot cure nor prayers profit declares his prayers noe other then Charmes and himselfe a man that can neither cure nor pray and sets prayer among those things he scoffes at aswell as the Titles of him that is only to be prayed to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vpon the KINGS Calling this last PARLIAMENT THat which the King lajes downe as his foundation that he called this last Parliament not more by others advice and the necessitie of his affaires then by his owne choice and inclination is to all knowing men so apparently vntrue that a more inauspicious Sentence could hardly have come into his minde That his Majest intention could be apparent to all knowing men must have better Authoritie then this Authors word to be beleived His Majest best knew his own intentions and ought to be credited against the Malicious conjectures of such as seeke matter of slander against him to shelter their owne impieties never King of England shewed greater affection to Parliaments then his Majest and never King found greater ingratitude His frequent coming to Parliaments in his Fathers Raigne His many good offices done the houses and the larg acknowledgments of their obligations to him are vpon the Records of both houses Vpon the death of his Father he instantly called a Parliament seeking to continue the same vnderstanding betweene him and his houses as there had been in the time of his Father He had then entred into a dangerous warr with Spaine vpon the Parliaments Councell was in preparation of a greate fleete stood charged with a greate debt left on him by his Father besides
sufferings of the people were lesse then when Parliaments were frequent they neede not be forbidden to complaine when their peace plentie were a reason strong enough to restraine them however querulous murmurings wrought by seditious contrivers may happē ought to be forbiddē in al just Governments Where vpon such illegall Actions and especially to get vast summs of mony were put in Practice by the King and his new Officers as Monopolies compulsive knighthoods Coate Conduct and Shipmony the seezing not of on Nabaoths Vineyard but of whole inheritances vnder the pretence of forrest or Crowne lands Corruption bribery compounded for with impunities graunted for the future as gave evident proofe that the King never meant nor could it stand with the Reason of his affaires ever to recall Parliaments All the pretences of Tyranny and oppression wherewith the Rebells have sought to maske their disloyaltie are reduced to this on summe to get money That Princes must have supplies from their people for support of the Kingdome cannot be doubted and where the lawes have given the King a richt to demaund money of partioular persons in certanie cases or of the whole people theis are no illegall exactions but due debts The King of England is entitled by law to diverse dues from his subjects and of such things his learned Councell and his Judges have the care that he loose not his rights and they are bound by oath to preserve them if in any cases they faile in their judgment their King cannot be guiltie of illegall exactions in following their Councell and of such nature are the particulars he mentions vnles Coate and Conduct money which had been disbursed by the Counties for the present where souldiers were raysed and was of inconsiderable value and to be repayed and only of practice in case of warr when necessitie requires greater contributions and such Actions as theis the best Governments could never avoyde and those formes of Government which theis Rebells Preferr before Monarchy ordinairly practis but they must supply with exclamations what they want of matter and having broken all bounds of dutie Justice and humanitie they seeke to make the common meanes which necessitie compells Governnours to vse for publique support the height of oppression and Tyranny The vast summs received by all the wayes were farr short of that greate charge which the Kingdome required and of what former Kings had received in the like space but inconsiderable in regard of the present exactions He resembles the legal proceedings in cases of civil right to Nabaoths vineyard so as al suites for recovery of deteined rights is the getting of Nabaoths vineyard but they that by the blood of many Naboaths have gotten their inheritances would have Civill Controversies not bloody murther the sin of Ahab Corruption and bribery compounded for with impunitie for the future is a denomination which cannot be fixt to any Actions of Majest That his Majest hath a power to pardon was never denyed and therefore no act of grace in that kinde can be illegall but this which they call corruption and bribery was no other then the fees which some officers received and were questioned to be above their due had they been convict their mulct was pecuniary and due to the King They vrged long Custome in their defence and in a case of that nature where only errour not corruption or bribery can be admitted it was neerer to justice then favour to forbeare profecution And as the fact was not illegal so had it been it was only theirs by whose Councell it was done and theis men that professe such zeale against corruption and bribery pretend that it was necessary to take away the starr chamber where such Crymes were punisht and from whence comes it that it could not stand with his majest affaires te recall Parliaments when his Majest desired to continue nothing but what was necessary for the Kingdome Having brought by theis irregular courses the peoples interest and his owne to so direct an opposition that he might foresee plainely if nothing but a Parliament could save the people it must necessarily be his vndoing The King had no interest but that which was common to the people with him and nothing that was their interest could be opposite to his The people were very farr from any such apprehensions of being Destroyed or that they might not be saved without the Kings vndoing And wherein could the King foresee his vndoing by Parliament must he necessarily foresee that a Parliament would follow Traytours against him Or must he necessarily foresee that a Parliament would vndertake an illegall and vn just power Must he necessarily foresee that a Parliament would produce a Rebellion when no Action was desired to be continued by him which was not according to law nor any greivance duely proved vnredressed But because in the Parliament which he called a faction destroyed him and hath vndone the Kingdome therefore Iconoclastes would have it plainely to be foreseene Such as know the difference of the last from former Parliaments know likewise that it was not from the condition of the Parliament but the conjuncture of affaires at the time of calling it that produced those wicked effects filling the mindes of many with ambitious thoughts and desire to lay the foundation of their private greatenes in the publique ruines It is impossible that the interest of a King can have an opposition to that of his people which is vainely fancied by him or that any thing by him alledged should worke such opposition And although there have been disputes in Courts and Parliaments touching the profitts and rights of the Crowne yet before this Rebell generation non were so shameles to pretend them causes of the subjects violence and necessarily desturctive to the King or people which had the people imagined would have been the issue of a Parliament they would have had a greater aversion to it then Iconoclastes supposes in his late Mejest And as the preservation of the people is the Kings interest so his preservation is theirs which the people now finde to late and could not foresee that such as made vse of the pretence of their interest minded it least Till eight or nine yeares after proceeding with a high hand in these enormities having the second time levied an injurious warr against his native countrey Scotland and finding all those other shifts of raysing money which bore out his first expedition now to faile him not of his own choice and inclination as any childe may see but vrged by strong necessities and the very pangs of State which his owne violent proceedings had brought him to he calls a Parliament Iconoclastes is very industrious to shew that he can expresse the malice of his heart with his pen and can give false denominations to Actions with greater confidence then true where it may advantag his Masters The gentle hand wherewith his Majest governed during the nine yeares he mentions
weakest capacities that can only suspect not prove nor descerne He concludes the King as Criminous as the Earle and therefore he sayes insteed of detesting his ambition evill Councell violence and oppression of the people he falls to prayse his greate a bilities It had been a Kinde of slander to forbeare the due commendation of such abilities as all men admired and an vnexcusable injustice to reproach the memory of the innocent with the false accusations of malicious Enemyes If his Majest had recounted any faults of the Earle it had byn no satisfaction to his conscience for consenting to his death but it had been a signe of an vnsound minde to seeke matter of excuse for an illegall sentence from the disposition of the suffering partie and such Actions as the law had not made the merit of such a sentence The world is well informed now that those Rebells account the due performance of just authoritie violence and oppression and that their cheife hatred against the Earle of Strafford was for his fidelitie to king and Kingdome and his opposition of Rebellion his evill Councell That beneath the decency of a King he compares him to the sun which in all figurative vse beares allusion to a King not to a subject If such be the Kingly Prerogative that the sun beares allusion only to Kings not to subjects then must this libeller confesse himselfe to be of that sordid generation which by that influence are raysed out of sinkes and puddles to obscure that gloryous luster and his observation of this allusion might justly make him reflect vpon himselfe with detestation contending against such cleere light and slandring truth it selfe But vertue in other persons besides Kings hath been set foorth by allusion to the sun and his triviall exception at the decency of that allusion shewes him as insignificant as will full He hath a conceite that the King Knitts contradictions as close as words can lie togeather not approving in his judgment and yet approving in his subsequent reason all that Stafford did as driven by the necessitie of times and the temper of that people The Kings words are I cannot in my judgment approve all he did driven it may be by the necessitie of times c. And let the reader judge whether this libellers falsification be not Knit as close and words can lie togeather and its like he knew it by his impertinent vse of the Phrase close Knit to his supposed contradictions Though the King justly excused some things which he could not approve doth he therefore approve all and doth the libeller thinke that what a man cannot approve he must thinke inexcusable and that Circumstances doe not alter the qualitie of Actions But he sayes it is the marvell and may be the astonishment of all that have a conscience how he durst with the same words of contrition wherewith David repented the murthering of Vriah repent his lawfull compliance to that just Act. It is noe marvell to men that know theis Rebells though heeretofore it might have been the astonishment of all that such should offer to perswade others of their esteeme of conscience that make it their common scoffe and while this libeller charges the King with no lesse then murder in consenting vnwillingly and consequently in him to an vnjust sentence makes an exclamation why he should repent in Davids words for the like Cryme The libeller well knowes that if it had been to a lawfull sentence of condemnation yet blood guiltines lies where consent with the tongue had not the perswasion of the heart when the King thought blood lay on him should he thinke to hide his sin from God this prophane Sectary wonders a sinner durst repent These miscreants are loath to behold their murders in those bloody colours which the truth of God gives them therefore they wil call that Act just against the cry of their Consciences as they stirred vp the people to cry justice without knowledge of the fact It would have taken much from the heavines of his sin to have told God in his confession how he laboured what darke plots he had contrived into what a League entred and with what conspiratours against his Parliament Kingdome to rescue so notable an instrument c. Doubtles the King would have taken that course if he could have charg'd himselfe with any sinfull labour in that kinde That he ought to have vsed all his power and skill to have rescued that Earle was his dutie to God and a person so cruelly shamelessely oppressed And all men know what false feares were pretended what ridiculous plots were imagined to disorder the people and when there is such apparent discovery of Trayterous plots and such avowing of Trayterous Actions there can be none so infatuated to beleive that all necessary prevention of such wicked designes was not to withstand the ruine of the Parliament and Kingdome It was feare which made him fayne both the scruple and the satisfacttion And what feare could make him fayne a scruple whome could he feare if he had not scrupled but God only and where doth in appeare that he fayned satisfaction but it s the libellers want of the fear of God and men that makes him thus feareles of slandering and contradicting Repentance came not on him till a long time after when he saw he could have suffred nothing more though he had denyed the Bill Though the King say he could have suffred nothing more though he had denyed the Bill he never finds that repentance came not from him till long after but knew very well his repentance followed the fact close at the heeles He askes a question how be could vnderstandingly repent of letting that be Treason which the Parliament and whole nation so judged He hath already told vs it was al most the whole nation and the greater part of the Parliament but he finds now that any diminution induces doubt and it must be the Parliament and whole nation May not a man vnderstandingly repent because the whole nation was in the same fault how many Acts of Parliament have been made whereof it had been happy for King and people they had repented there neede not an enumeration in so Knowne a truth It was a worldly repentance not a consciencious or els a strange Tyrany which his conscience had got over him to vex him like an evill spirit for doing one act of Iustice to fortefie his resolution from ever doing so any more We may see what account this man makes of sin or conscience that thus derides the terrours of conscience We may beleive their consciences cauterized that are such strangers to vexations of conscience and that sin and Rebellion have got a strange Mastery of them that fortifies their resolutions against all repentance and the approbation of it in others This libeller cannot perswade himselfe that when he calls murther Justice and Rebellion loyaltie that he is beleived though he professe admiration that men
as much as the name of malignant partie was hatch'd when the Tumults begun The Rebellion in Ireland was then broken out which was not till neere six moneths after the insolence of the Tumults began and that Rebellion in all probabilitie tooke example and encouragement from these Tumults The 〈◊〉 conspiracie of Scotland while the King was 〈…〉 of a peece the 〈◊〉 having preceeded the Kings journey thither that conspiracie 〈◊〉 knowes vanis he into ayre could give noe more occasion of Tumults then of this Authors remembrance That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of unknown persons 〈…〉 the Citie was as vnknowne to such as were then 〈◊〉 as the persons to this Author and as such resort is knowne to be noe cause of such Tumults The King being returned from Scotland dismisses that guard which the Parliament thought necessary in the middest of soe many dangers to have about them It s true the conspiratours in Parliament eyther from the guilt of their consciences or advantage to their plots pretended apprehension of danger that they might have a guard which they might make vse of to excoute their designes and affront the members of the house that refused to cuncurr to their plotts and therefore noe guard pleased them but such as were composed cheifely of such persons as made vp the Tumults The King dismissed the guard which the Parliament thought necessary put in another contrary to the priviledge of that high Court and by such a one commaunded as made them noe lesse doubtfull of the guard it selfe It s very likely that they had as litle doubt of danger from any other as from the guard for they sought to create dangers to others feared none to themselves but from their owne guilt It s well knowne there was not the least appearance of danger but from what that faction intended and such desire of a guard was noe lesse vnknowne then ridiculous to all former Parliaments and it was soe farr from being a priviledge to that high Court that the leaders of the faction in the lower house procured a vote to desire it of the king And how could it be contrary to the priviledge of that high Court for him to change the guards that had first placed them The guard which the king appointed was commaunded by the cheife officer of that guard and because he gave commaund to keepe of the Tumults therefore the Rebell faction concluded their busnies could not be done by such a guard nor such a Commaunder Which they therefore sayes he discharge deeming it more safe to fitt free though without a guard in open danger then enclosed with a suspected safetie And in what safetie sate they that were threatned and abused by those Tumults every day The visible cause of a guard was the Tumults but the cause why guards were desired was to act the same for which the Tumults were raysed and the danger pretended was a deceite for they that desired a guard would rather be without one then not have a Commaunder of their owne faction and the houses found noe inconvenience in the want of a guard but in the insolencie of the Tumults which the seditious faction invited would not have them hindred by any guards The people therefore least their worthyest and most faithfull Patriotts who had exposed themselves for the publique and whome they saw now left naked should want aide or he deserted in the middest of these dangers came in multitudes though vnarmd in wittnes their fidelitie and readines in case of any violence offred to the Parliament It hath been aldeady observed that these Tumults preceded the desire of guards and they were soe farr from being acceptable to the Parliament that the house of Lords desired their restraint and invited the lower house to concurre with them to suppresse these Tumults and though the factions partie withstood the motion yet it was thought necessary by a greate part of that house to joyne with the Lords in that desire And how could they wittnes their fidelitie to the Parliament when soe greate a part thought them a greivance And why did they menace and assault the members of both houses Why did they prescribe resolutions to the Parliament and in case their demaunds were not graunted denounce to rout to the opposers Is this fidelitie to the Parliament This Author neede not seeke such bliede excuses for Tumults that justifies open Treason noe doubt those his faithfull Patriots well-vnderstood that their greatest danger was from the law which they had violated and they would be secure by subverting it and engaging multitudes in their owne guilt The king had reason to send into the Citie to for bid such resorts and nothing but sedition could encourage or permit them The supposition of the kings inâ—ying to see the peoples love devolved on mother object shewes that Rebellious inclinations were the desire and strength of the leaders in the lower house the envying may be properly changed into indignation that subjects should breake their dutie and become workers of their owne miserie such Tumultuous licence had not soe much probabilitle to hinder any action of the King towards the Parliament as to ruine the Parliament kingdome The faction feared not any action of his Majest but endeavoured to promote their owne designes against him He is now come to tells vs some reasons why the Parliament petitioned the king for a guard after they were content to sit without one and while be maintanies a power in his imaginary Parliament to murther the king he presents them petitioning the king for a guard and their words which he will not take notice of are worth observing The Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the house of Commons your faithfull and loyall subjects who are ready to lay downe their lives and fortunes and spend the last dropp of their blood to maintaine your Crowne and royall person in greatnes and glory doe oust themselves downe at your Royall feete with such elaborate deceites did they hope to perswade the king to give them a guard to oppresse himselfe Their subsequent actions have been a full Comment vpon theise wicked dissimulations and their false professions convince the present shamelesse challenges of power in theis that thus addresse themselves That blood was drawne in a fray or two at the Court gate and even at their owne gate in Westminster hall Are not these proper motives for a Parliament to call for guards A Constable of a Parish might more reasonably set a guard about his house after the parting of a fray then the Parliament seeke for an armed guard vpon such an occasion If the tumults were soe seditious as to shew their insolencie at the gate of white hall or Westminster hall and any of them were wounded in such disorderly resorts it had been just and necessary to forbid their comming in such numbers and provoking such danger and their continuance is a mainfest signe that these tumults were not the voluntary motion of the people
shape of a Masterly brow but gracious aspect in his Majest saying the greatnes of the obligation above their deserts that he had put vpon them by passing the first Bill and the Masterly brow suites not with the following scurrilous conceite that the kings recital of the obligation he had putt vpon them by that Act was as if he had beggd an office to a sort of his desertles groomes and these desertles groomes now Rule the new Republique there being none that had the least desert that would accept such a Trayterous office That the King passed the latter Bill to prevent the encrease of the present disorders not out of consideration of the fittnes of that Bill he neede not spend time to prove and his consent was moved from the reason of the time not the matter and the libeller hath well observed that they had offended him much more after the passing of the former Bill which is not to their creditt but shame It was feare made him passe the Bill least the Parliament and people incensed by his conspiracies should resent his doings if he had added the denyall of this only meanes to secure themselves Either his memory is short or his absurditie vnnaturall that soe lately said the kings feares were pretences and does he thinke that his Majest could feare their resenting more at that time then afterward besides his supposed fantasticall conspiracies were not as much as named or spoken of to Parliament or people at the time of passing that Bill and there cannot be imagined any cause of his Majest passing that Bill but his earnest desire to avoyde a Civil warr and assure his people of his purpose by committing so greate a trust vnto them neither can there be imagined other cause why the passing of that Bill was soe much importun'd by the Rebells but to secure themselves for being conscious of their owne guilt they knew themselves vnsecure vnles they gained a power over King and lawes The libeller cannot excuse neither the ingratitude nor disloyaltie of the Rebel partie in Parliament from the Kings consent to these lawes to present disorders and mischeifes which in themselves had not been fitt for his consent at another time and their insolence in binding him first of all his Predecessours shewes their corruption and guilt that would vse soe much violence disloyaltie to a Prince whose gratious Government had least of all his Predecessours provoked it The King taxes them with vndoing what they found well done The libeller sayes They vndid nothing in the Church but Lord Bishopps Liturgies Ceremonies high Commission judged worthy by all true Protestants to be throwne out of the Church These Protestants which are true only to him will judge the like of all Kings and Rulers of State and all orders of the Church that are not of their Bedlem patterne These false Sectaries talke of Church true Protestants just as they doe of Parliament as long as it consists of their owne limbs it must be obeyed but if it dissent from their Commaunds then they are worse then Ceremonies in Religion Doubtles al true Protestants abhorre this den of Schismatickes that boast of their Rebellious defacing of the Church and hate their societie there having not been yet any true Protestant Church that ever pretended that Lord Bishopps Leiturgies Ceremonies or high Commission were worthy to be throwne out of the Church the greatest part of Protestants retaining the like The vndid nothing in the state but irregular and grinding Courts The Courts they tooke away were judged by al wisemen to have been profitable to the Kingdome and fitt to be continved and the best Governours sometimes graunt that to the peoples irregularities thereby to preserve them from proceeding to their owne ruine which were fitt to deny at another time it s their Zeale to publique safetie not feare and dissimulation as the libeller calls it It was a greater confidence of the people to put into one mans hand a power to Summon and dissolve Parliaments then the King put in the people by the 〈◊〉 of continuance of the Parliament And if the libeller could shew the Act whereby the people put that power in the King he had said some thing But how had they put it into his hands or what confidence was it if they might take it away when they list This man cannot see truth through his owne contradictions while he acknowledges the Kingly power to Summon and dissolve Parliaments forthwith adds that Kings could not dissolve Parliaments till all greivances were redressed and then where was the kings power to dissolve or the peoples confidence This is he sayes not only the assertion of this Parliament a strong proofe but of our ancient lawe bookes that noe man ever read which averr it to be an vnwritten law of Common right soe engraven in the hearts of our Ancestours and by them soe constantly enjoyed and claimed as that it needed not enrolling this is pretty poetry that because a law is no where to be found therefore it was engraven in the hearts of our Aucestours where are those law bookes But how many hundred yeares since was this engraving worne out surely if there had been either such an vnwritten law and soe constantly enjoyed and claimed it would have been often enrolled ere now but the libeller expected applause for his conceite not creditt to his assertion If the Scotts could charge the King with breach of their lawes for breaking vp that Parliament without their consent it were vnreasonable that the wisedome of England should be soe wanting to it selfe as not to provide against the not calling or arbitrary dissolving of Parliaments If they had provided against it where was the confidence he talked of It followes not that because the Scotts charged the King with breaking of the Parliament without their consent that therefore the King offended in it neither was the wisedome of the English nation wanting to it selfe in leaving the calling and dissolving of Parliaments Arbitrary to the King it being a power essentiall to Monarchy and we have seene that the taking away of that power dissolves the Government and drawes confusion and miserie vpon the state and it cannot be avoyded but that from a power erected to affront the soveraigntie there must follow sedition and Civill discord People must depend vpon their Kings grace and goodnes for redresse of their greivances whose power and safetie consists in their welfare not seeke by violence to be their owne Carvers and the people never found soe greate suffering by submission to their Kings as by seeking wayes to oppose them It appeares that if this Bill of not dissolving were an vnparalleld act it was a knowne and Common right That it was an vnparalleld Act he doth not deny that it was a Common right noe where appeares and how can that be an vnparalleld Act that is a Common right He sayes it s not enrolled and how then shall it appeare to be
giddy wicked Rebellion in the people By what law was the king bound to attend these Lords or what authoritie had they to prepare matter for the Parliament more then any others of the Kingdome Is it not a knowne Treason to endeavour to depose the King and did not the late Parliament professe to abhorre the thought of it And how comes it to passe that these Lords have a power to threaten the King with deposing him What Rebells can be convicted by any law if this Action be not Treason The libeller getts nothing by this example but an evidence against his Masters for these Lords and their assistants had their pardon for that Rebellion And wherein did this Rebellion of these Lords differ from that of Jach straw and other Traytours mentioned by Mr. Sollicitour against the Earle of Strafford His folly in seeking to draw an Argument from the Actions of Rebells to prove a Cryme in the King is ridiculous to any reasonable man and it s not imaginable that the king should be bound to attend any meeting of his Peeres and Councellours which did tend towards a Parliament for by that Rule he must attend in as many places as there are factions noe sober time ever pretended that the king was bound to attend the Parliament which was to be called and dissolved by him and our Ancestours would be esteemed as voyde of reason as loyaltie if their Parliaments were governed by a Tumultuous rabble and the king were oblidged to doe what they would have though the whole kingdome were bleeding to death of those wounds which their impious and inconsiderate violence and fury had inflicted The king sayes the shame was to see the barbarous Rudenes of those Tumulte to demaund any thing And this the libeller beleives was the truest cause of his deserting the Parliament And was it not a just cause for him to desert the Parliament or faction in it when either they could not or would not restrayne that barbarous rudenes The worst and strangest of that any thing they demaunded was but the vnlording of Bishopps and expelling them the house and the reducing of Church discipline to a conformitie with other Protestant Churches And this the libeller would have noe Barbarisme What did the Parliament there if the Tumults may demaund the alteration of the Government of Church or state Can it be presumed that a rowte of Mechannicks could determine what was conformitie to other Protestant Churches The libeller at first remembred Mr. Solicitours discourse against the Earle of Strafford there he might have found that it was Treason to goe about assemble a multitude to alter the Government of Church or state And to seeke the vnlording of Bishopps by force in that manner they did was Treason by the law and we have seene that this desperate rabble whose demaunds the libeller sayes were but the vnlording of Bishopps and the like thinke the murther of the king and destruction of his family noe other then a but. They were demaunded by the Parliament which is vntrue but they were demaunded by a factton who suborned these Tumults to overaw and drive away the greatest part of the members of both houses The King in a most tempestuous season forsooke the helme and steerage of the Common wealth He withdrew himselfe from that storme which the Traytours had raysed against him and admitted not any steerage when all was whirled by tempestuous Tumults The libeller would willingly mince the causes of his Majest departure and therefore he catches hold of the mention of shame to exclude feare from the barbarous rudenes of the Tumults to demaund any thing he would conclude there were only demaunds noe barbarous rudenes and would make the last word to exclude all that went before To be importuned the removing of evill Councellours and other greivances was to him an intollerable oppression To offer violence to him for his protection of faithful Councellours the support of Government in Church and state was intollerable and though the libeller doe commend the violence of the Tumults yet heere he calls it only importunitie and the Kings denyall of the impetuous demaunds of a rabble to change the Government in Church and state denyall and delay of Justice If violence be lawful as he oftē affirmes why doth he mince his defence and soe often fly to these termes of importunitie and petitioning The advice of his Parliament was esteemed a bondage because the the King sayes of them whose agreeing votes were not by any law conclusive to his judgment for sayes the libeller the law ordaines a Parliament to advise him in his greate affaires but if it ordaine also that the single judgment of a King shall outballance all the wisedome of his Parliament it ordaines that which frustrates the end of its owne ordaining There is no doubt but in a Monarchy the dependence of the people is vpon the King the greatenes of whose interest in the prosperitie of the Kingdome is more likely to oblidge him to their preservation then any number of private men can be encleined to and as the law ordained a Parliament to advise him soe it forbidds them to commaund or prescribe him though the Major part of Parliament involve the whole It s against all reason to include the King who is allwayes furnisht by law with his other Councells may see good reason to preferr the Counsell of the smaller number and that law which ordained the Parliament to be called and dissolved by the King had destroyed what it ordained if the King had been bound to consent to all advices given him by the Parliament Such a restraint vpon the King not only makes voyde and vseles those select Councells which by law are continually to advise him but destroyes the Government of Monarchy which the law cannot intend and gives the Parliament the absolute soveraigntie which the people would not live vnder being contrary to their desires and dispositions the trust reposed in such as they elected The Kings judgment may dissent he sayes to the destruction of himselfe and Kingdome And soe doubtles may the judgment of a major part in Parliament and we have found by long experience that Parliaments have produced Acts to the preiudice of the state and corruption of Religion but this libeller holds all meanes frustraneous that beget not Rebellion and as in his affection he preferrs the judgment of the Parliament before the Kings soe any Company or committee of Lords that conspire against him as appeares by his late remembred instance against Rich the 2 And what power he would have in the Parliament over the King he would place in the Tumults his admired Iron flaile over the Parliament and prayes vnto God to send them that they may purge the Parliament and prescribe lawes both to the King and them and therefore he judges that it is vnlawlike that a remedy soe slender should be the vtmost meanes of publique safetie And we are sure that
part of them not in the right it had been more his modestie to have doubted their seeing him more oft in the wrong The libeller prescribes modestie to the king insolence impudence to subjects that the Rule of their Rebellion If the king had not governed his Actions by good advice nor seene the often Levitie and precipitation of a Major part he should have doubted of their seeing him in the wrong however they owne him dutie as their king he no submission to them That the King ought to graunt the peoples rights and liberties because of right demaunded it being his dutie not his bountie to graunt these things But it is the subjects miserie aswell as their madnes to demaund the kings rights as their owne and we know that the demaunds of Rebells are for themselves and to take away the peoples rights aswell as loyaltie and wee finde that there were such as the king mentions whome noe fountaine of Royall bountie was able to overcome and for whome the comparision of hidropike thirst was very favourable being more insatiate then guslers in a wine sellar and neerer the nature of horse leaches and swine The King confesses a rationall soveraigntie of soule and freedome of within every man and yet with an implicite repugnancie would make vseles that freedome of will in all other men but himselfe That cannot be by vsing the libertie of his negative voyce for are the wills of other men captivated because they cannot doe as they will because the king will not doe what they will have him and because men are subject to Government is freedome of will denyed them Them that yeilde him the obedience meaning the king he pronounces worthy to be slaves which he inferrs from these words of the King the he deserves to be a slave who captivates the rationall soveraignetie of soule and libertie of his will to compulsion And how can the libeller draw any such conclusion from these words Lawes that restraine Actions doe not captivate the will nor doth he consent to have his will captivated that submitts to Government But he captivates his will that Acts what another directs him though he judge it evill and in such case a law may not be obeyed though violence may not be vsed against the law-maker What that Freedome is which cannot be denyed him as a King because it belongs to him as a man a Christian the Libeller sayes he vnderstands not if it be his negative voyce it concludes all men who have not such a negative as his against the whole Parliament to be neither men nor Christians And aswell he might have said that because every man ought to have freedome in giving his vote in Parliament therefore every man ought to be there The Libeller neede not be ashamed to confesse ignorance that blushes not at such fooleries The king argues that he could not be debarred of that as a king which belonged to him as a man and a Christian which was libertie of will in giving his vote and by what Logicque could the Libeller thence conclude that all that have not a negative voyce to what the Parliament propounds are noe men nor Christians If the king have not a negetive voyce he hath noe voyce every members of Parliament hath a voyce affirmative negative and they deny that to the king in denying his negative voyce which they allow all that have any voyce He demaunds what was he himselfe all this while that we denyed it him as a King He had the freedome of his will when he gave noe vote against it but all the world sayes that you were Traytours in the deniall His naturall libertie of will was not taken from him by your Trayterous violence though his right to vse it in his kingly office were Rebelliously withstood If a King be prohibited the vse of his reason in his Government he is denied that which belongs to him as a man and a Christian and these impudent Traytours are soe cauterized that they scoffe at their Lewde villany asking whether he did not enjoy the libertie of his will when they had imprisoned and deposed him He askes might not the King have enjoyed both reason and conscience governinge vs as free men by what lawes we our selves would be governed And how could he governe if you make the lawes he might be governed And who shall governe when every man is a law-maker and he could not enjoy reason nor conscience governing by lawes he approved not It was not the inward use of his reason and conscience that would content him Doubtles it ought not being a King but sayes he to vse them both as a law over all his subjects in whatsoever he declared as a King to like or dislike The King were noe King if his subjects might make lawes without him and his reason and conscience ought to be his lawes in governing and he justly said It were better to be without the Title of King if it should carry with it such a vassallage as not to suffer him to vse his reason and conscience in what he declared as a King to like or dislike which vse of reason sayes the libeller most reasonles and vnconscionable is the vtmost that any Tyrant ever pretended over his vassalls Tyrants were never esteemed by their pretences but by their Actions it shewes that these men knew not what Tyrany was who make a just right of all Governours the vse of reason Tyrany and that which never king was thought fitt to be denyed though Tyrants abused it Tyrany is in the abuse of power not in the rule of Government In all wise nations the Legislative power and the judiciall execution of that power have been distinct But never devided being allwayes subordinate one to the other the judiciall execution depending on the Legislative He makes an assumption If then the king be only sett vp to execute the law he ought noe more to make or forbidd the making of any law then other inferiour Iudges But if the king be set vp to make law by the advice of his Councell the Parliament can they make lawes without him but this Libeller that would be thought soe strong at Arguments talkes himselfe into contradictions and allowes the king neither the one power nor the other for he affirmes the king cannot judge and make lawes he must not and what will he conclude sure that his owne nation is not wise nor himselfe honest or rationall He cannot reject a law offred him by the Commons no more then make a law-which they reject And hath it sense that because a man cannot doe an Act without the advice of another therefore he must doe what that other advises The man dictates and would be beleived though the Commons never did nor could offer a law to the king for he wel knowes it must passe the Lords before it come to the king but he was loath to mention the Lords least it should cry downe the noyse
he hath made of the kings single judgment for the Lords house may not have a negative in his judgment notwithstanding their number But why is it offred the king if he may not reject it and whence hath it been that so many Bils have been rejected in al ages without any complaint When Kings come soe low as to fall vpon Philosophy which before he neither valued nor vnderstood is a signe they are then put to their last trump If the king had not valued nor vnderstood Philosophy he could not have made soe pertinent vse of it and if the Libeller had vnderstood Philosophy or valued truth he would have given better signes of it Could not his Majest discourse of his reason and will but it must be out of the way or above his abilities But why is this a signe that kings are then put to their trump why the vse of Philosophy more then other learning Though kings come low Rebells will come to seeke corners to hide themselves He shewes not how Philosophy breakes the necke of their cause or how he hath made advantage of Philosophy against the king but we finde how his elaborate contradictions have broken the necke of his owne cause through out all his discourses The king sayes he cannot thinke the Majest of the Crowne of England to be bound by any Coronation oath in a blinde and brutish formalitie to consent to whatever its subjects in Parliament shall require And sayes the Libeller What Tyrant could presume to say more And the law it selfe Religion and reason never said lesse It cannot but be yeilded that the oath which bindes him to performance of his trust ought in reason to containe the summe of what his cheife trust and office is But what if it doe not is there an argument to be drawne from what the oath ought to be but is not The oath may containe the generall dutie of Justice right but it neither did nor could comprehend all the wayes of effecting it The libeller sayes that the Kings negative voyce is not contained in that oath But that oath oblidges him to governe by just lawes which comprehends a negative to all vnjust lawes and can it impose an obligation vpon the king of doing Justice and not give him a libertie of judging what is just or vnjust The Libeller sayes that his oath requires only his assent to those lawes which the people have already chosen or shall chuse there is noe such word in that oath and his mention of the Lattine and old English of that oath are of another sense that the libeller was conscious of therefore he sayes All reason admits that the people should not loose vnder a new king what freedome they had before but their freedome consists not in an exemption from soveraigne power It is the custome of Rebels to contradict corrupt al lawes vpō pretence of their private reason allow no reason but what concludes against just authoritie he wel knew there was not that double sense he assignes but we wil make his sens the kings oath if the peoples choise be referred to the time past it implies not that their choise was or ought to be a law though they had a choise in the laws made as stil they have they could not loose what they never had the Parliament which at first mētioned the kings oath acknowledged that as they did not determine the questiō how far foorth the king is oblidged to follow the judgmēt of his parliament so as to conclude that a new law might be mad without his consent so they acknowledge that the contrary may be truly inferred out of al they had said That if the King deny what the Parliament hath chosen he makes himselfe superiour to his whole Kingdome And who doubts but he is doe not they which take the oath of supreamacie acknowledge it The libeller sayes the generall maximes of Policie gainsay it The general maximes of Rebellion doe but Policy cannot It is impossible in Policy that he to whome every soule must be subject should not be superiour to them all Our owne standing lawes gainsay it as hath been cited in Remonstrances that the King hath two superiours the law and his Court of Parliament The merit of those remonstrances are neere the rate of this libell though as yet they never mentioned such standing lawes if there had been such standing lawes the Author would have found them enrolled but that he doth not how absurdly such a pretence is obtruded whē the superiotie of persōs places is in quesstiō to name the superiority of law which holds comparisō with sciences not with persōs that the Parliament should be above the king who is the head of the Parliament without whom a Parliament hath no being is as Monstrous to reasō as law it is impossible that the law cā say that the king hath no superiour but God say that the Parliament is his superiour the king might wel say that this was blinde brutish formalitie and no part of the law his oath or dutie but such brutish formalities Rebells vse to blinde the people The King and Peeres represent only themselves the Commons are the whole Kingdome Which is as apparently false as that the Common Councell of London are the whole kingdome the commons in Parliament have no power from the people to doe any thing without the king Lords Infinite mischiefes may grow while our safetie shall depend vpon the over weening reason of one man And we finde by experience that desperate ruine inevitably followes when our safetie depends vpon the agreement of a multitude It is the nature of sectaries to be wise in their owne conceite and thence come arrogance and contempt of Government it is a principall in their schisme to improve this naturall insolence and contemne all Estates and abilities of men dissenting from them though his Majest were of most eminent natural endowments this libeller cals him a man neither by nature nor nurture wise Which shewes he vnderstood not wisedome in others nor was sensible of his owne folly soe apparent to all his readers That a King should want breeding to make him wise is strange in the libellers owne judgment and that the experience breeding of the King was eminently extraordinary the world well knowes He calls the Kings negative his will the Parliaments demaunds advice May not their demaunds be willfull and his negative advised The nature and nurture of this libeller is disobedience and therefore will have the Kings wisedome to be will the Rebells rashnes wisedome and it is impossible that men who have sucked in such principles should ever be obedient to any Government studying only how they may disaffect subjects to it He sayes the Kings errour was imperious and force was vsed not to dispell errour out of his head but to drive it from of our neckes These Rebells sought to be imperious
Treason in Kings to have sold Jewells of the Crowne would have made it some Cryme to have bought Jewells for the Crowne and it is noe Treason now to sell the Crowne Jewells and all by his cut throate crew The Parliament was not ignorant to what intent these summs were raysed their owne actions told all the world they were necessary to be raysed The Kings refusing to settle the military power in trustie hands vpon their petitions and doubting he would possesse himselfe of Hull they were necessitated by the turbulence and danger of the times of their owne authoritie to putt the Kingdome into a posture of defence and to send Sr. Iohn Hotham to take Hull into his possession How many lewde lyes have they sent abroade into the world that the King made warr vpon them and it was the Libellers owne pretence in the beginning of the last Chapter now plainly tells they seized Hull because they suspected the King intended it and because he would not settle the militia as they desired If he had no power over the Militia why did they petition him If the Parliament be his superiour why did they petition at all Doe superiours petition inferiours But what was that turbulence danger of the Kingdome was there any more then what themselves had made by rumours and Tumults and is not the seizing of a fort an Act of warr The King had attempted the same before And was that any cause for them because the King sends to his Castles or forts must they therefore take them from him And he sayes letters of the Lord Digby were intercepted wishing the King to retire to some safe place And therefore these Rebells would provide he should be safe in noe place The King offred to goe in person into Ireland and that he would Arme his guard from his Magazine of Hull The Parliament he sayes foreseeing the kings drift petition him that they might have leave to remove the Magazine of Hull to the Tower of London Soe carefull they were to have the Rebellion in Ireland proceede that they desired his Majest to forbeare his going into Ireland out of consideration of danger to his person when as they intended to destroy him at home and the true cause was that they would deteine theis Armes to make warr against him if he would not submitt to be deposed and to keepe the money given for Ireland to drive on the warr heere The King afterward going to Hull required the Governour to deliver him the Towne whereof the Governour humbly desired to be excused till be could send to the Parliament It seemes the libeller would not have that a denyall The King proclaimed Hotham Traytour before the Towne walls And noe man dobuted but he was soe The King gave order to stopp all passages betweene him and the Parliament And had he not reason to prevent supplies and intelligences to a Traytour Yet sayes the Libeller he demaunded Iustice as vpon a Traytour vsing a strange iniquitie to require Iustice vpon him whome he had debarred from his apparence Traytours must be apprehended before their apparence and it was a strange iniquitie in them that would not apprehend a Traytour as in Justice they ought but a most execrable impietie in such as pretend Justice to cleere a malefactour without hearing both parties as the libeller sayes the Parliament did Sr. Iohn Hotham for he sayes the Parliament noe sooner vnderstood what had passed they declare Sr. Iohn Hotham had done noe more then was his dutie They meant noe doubt his dutie to them as fellow Traytours not to his king and soveraigne That this proves that to be false which is heere affirmed by the King that his greatest Enemies had scarce confidence enough to abett or owne it And such as knew the manner of their proceedings at that time know the truth of what the King affirmes and though the necessitie of their engagement made them owne it yet there were very few or none that esteemed it an act of Justice in them but of Policie for their owne securitie The king sayes it affected him more with sorrow for others then anger for himselfe nor did the affront trouble him soe much as their sin The libeller sayes there is vse of this booke to shew vs what a deluded thing the creature is which is called the vulgar who will believe such vaine glories as these And surely we cannot believe any creature soe deluded as those for whose capacitie the libeller writes that makes the deluded vulgar judges of lawes and kings yet heere spurnes it as a despised creature The strangenes of beleife that he imagines as that the King proclaimed him Traytour without due proces of law If he could have told what the due proces of law was no doubt he would If a theife or murtherer be taken in the Act or escape must there not be a proclamation for his apprehension If Traytours be in Armes against their King is it choler or rashnes to proclaime them Traytours The King had lately been convinced of his illegallitie with the five members He was injuriously denyed Justice against them which produced the second insolence of Hotham The Kings relation declares his anger to be incensed as he had but doth it follow from thence that he was not more sorry for others then angry May not a fathers sorrow for his sons disobedience exceede his anger and may not a King desire the punishment of a Malefactour because he pitties his person greives for the ill consequence of his offence Yet this trifling Libeller would inferr that the king could not be more sorry then angry because his words testifie impatience of delay till Hotham be punished It s a strange operation of sorrow that stirred him soe vehemently to have Hotham punished and not to have him repent But this exception is more strange that a man may not be vehement for the punishment of one for whose offence he is greived and there may be just cause of sorrow for an Act which the repentance of the Actour cannott remedy He knowes well how litle his Majest was likely to worke vpon Hotham at that time obstinate but it was a necessitie vpon his Majest to endeavour that he should be proceeded against injustice There hath not been observed in the King a sorrow for his owne sins nor for such sins of others as cannot be supposed a direct injury to himselfe This man will not have the Kings sorrow for his sins observed nor acknowledged wee have seene his malicious detractions of the Kings sorrow for his consent to the death of the Earle of Strafford and it cannot be expected from such men that they will give Testimony to any truth that deny all evidence of it The Kings labour to have the sinner only punished wil be called revenge And why They pretended justice not revenge that after cut of Sr. John Hothams head May not a King doe justice without revenge The jnjustice in abettinge protecting Sr.
for the Kingdome Sawes to dismember them swords to lance them and famine to pine them till they were sufficiently purged of their former prosperitie and he neede not have vsed soe many shifts to deny the beginning of the warr when he sayes the cure of the Kingdome was to be made with incisions What want of protection appeared in those seventeene yeares never people were more secure But the man mistakes the scene of his exclamation as his Sermonizers there notes tell the people of suffring that knew none among them He sayes the wings of faith may be mistaken for the wings of presumption Presumptuous men are mistaken of the wings of faith and this Libeller hath sufficiently exprest himselfe one of them and may feare by his presumption to fall head long The King sayes that the Parliament have hung the Majest of King-shipp in an airy imagination of Regalitie betweene the priviledges of both houses like the tombe of Mahomett To this sayes the Libeller he knew not that he was prophesying the death and buriall of a turkish Tyrany that spurned downe those lawes which gave it life and being soe strong as it endured to be a regulated Monarchy he was not prophesying but relating a plaine story how a just Monarchy was opprest by a Turkish imposture and Tyrany and and Empire sett vp in an Army of Janizaries that spurned downe al law and Religion and as the Turkish doctrine of propogating their superstition by blood and warr was preached vnto the people as their dutie to doe the like for their new hereticall fancies soe their deceites in making the King a fantastique supposition and his authoritie nothing els but the opinions of the two houses was as grosse and lewde as the imaginary Miracle of Mahometts Tombe From the Kings words touching the vse of the Militia that he would but defend himselfe soe farr as to defend his good subjects from these mens violence who perswade the world that none but wolves are fitt to be trusted with the Custody of the sheepeheard and his flocke The Libeller would inferr this a cleere confession from his owne mouth that if the Parliament had left him the sole power of the Militia he would have vsed it to the destruction of them and their friends And is an vse for defence against wrong and fraude an vse to destruction And if the faction called Parliament be not permitted to destroy the sheepeheard and his flocke is it a destruction to them But they knew themselves wolves and could not be secure while any power was out of their hands therefore would perswade that they were fittest to be trusted with that which was the sole defence against their rapacitie He sayes the King hath been often told that he had noe more power over the sword then the law But who told him soe Never any but knowne Rebells Parliaments have allwayes said the contrary and the practice of it in all times was never questioned Though Kings cannot be ordinary Judges yet all Justice flowes from them and by their Commissions and because their condition and place requires that Justice be administred by their deputies according to the Custome of all Governments therefore they have not power to vse the Militia which is most proper to their place and cannot be seperated from their person could not be told by reasonable men The pretended feare of Rebells that he may by this power controll the law they will not extend to their owne power of the militia and may not their Rebell generall controll all lawes by the power of his Army And doth he not The subjects of England vnderstood the securitie of their lawes to rest in their King whose interest they knew it was to preserve them Tyrany and breach of lawes would make his Estate vnsecure and dangerous and therefore they fought to defend him against such as would destroy their lawes and him But in this clamour of the Libeller he only seekes to vilifie Monarchicall Government and to perswade all people that live vnder Kings that they are not free and vnderstand not what is libertie as is in other formes of Government the people were not Commaunded and might chuse their owne lawes and order their warrs There is frequent experience in the Roman Commonwealth of the Rebellion of the people vnder ptetence of libertie and seditious inclinations will assoone take occasion to object Tyrany to senates Parliaments as kings What state can those Rebells frame that may not degenerate into a Tyrany but they only seeke pretences for their Rebellion against the present Government to transferr it to themselves The King is contented to resigne his power for his owne time And sayes the Libeller he is carefull wee should be slaves to his posteritie and leaue vs the legaice of another warr about it There is noe doubt but the Rebells desired the Militia to enslave the people and destroy the king and they would rather be devills then subjects This Libeller makes noe difference betweene a subject and a slave and though they pretended the setling of the Militia in respect of present danger yet they are soe impudent to reject the kings offer to settle it for his owne time He sayes the King calls the Parliament a many headed Hydra of Government and not more eyes them mouths which he falsely recites for the King sayes As this many headed Hydra of Government makes a shew to the people to have more eyes to see soe they will finde it to have more mouths too to be satisfied and heere the Libeller according to his custome answeares sense with non sense for he sayes surely not more mouths nor soe wide as the dissolute rabble of his Courtiers both hee s and shee s if there were any males among them Doth he make a question whether any males and yet talke of a dissolute rabble And are the new senatours commaunded single life to prevent the generation of Traytours But the Kingdome findes that those numbers of leane kine have devoured more in seven yeares then all the Courtiers in seven hundred He sayes to dispute what kinde of Government is best would prove a long Theame it sufficeth that his reasons heere for Monarchy are found weake and inconsiderable We have the word of a grave Author for it who hath made long invectives yet never handled the Theame nor answeared any one reason produced for Monarchy though it be a long Theame to dispute what Government were best in his judgment yet he might have made the question shorter by disputing whether subjects might Rebell to subvert the Monarchy vnder which they live And he would have Tyrany a ground for Rebellion and that Tyrany to be Monarchy and if the dispute be long the solution wil be very easie The King is not our sun though he would be taken for it And why did he say that the sun in all figurative vse and signification beares allusion to a King blames the king for his comparison
contradictions and absurdities soe obvious to the first sight His labour to declaime against persecution is not matter of fact and the impertinencie of it hath been already sufficiently detected The king sayes Many things are required of him nothing offred in requitall And the Libeller demaunds What could satiate the desires of this man who being King of England and Master of almost two millions yearely was still in want And yet the Masters in the new state affirme in their declaration that the constant Revenue of the Crowne exceeded not a hundred thousand pound a yeare And why should not the King expect contributions from his subjects aswell as al his Predecessours still had And why will this man deny him supplies that soe often obtrudes his wants and he will have the King content with Rebells Charitie and allowes them to take al from him when they list as the subjects money this is the supreame honour and Revenue that the king ought to content himselfe with It was for honours sake that they put the King vpon the giving part not that it belonged to him of right for he sayes all lawes are in the hands of the Parliament and King-shipp it selfe He sayes it and yet we must beleive him that England was a Monarchy if the Majestie were not in the king how was it other then a republique and it was for honours sake that they have been subjects these many hundred yeares wherefore would he have the world beleive warrs were made betweene competitours for the Crowne of England was it only to be a king in a play but we finde that what Rebells can attaine by power they will assert for right and they which have had soe many denialls and have professed conscientious subjection at last come to say it was for honours sake and of forme not necessitie that they were subjects The Libeller proceedes to shew that Monarchy cannot permit the requisites necessary to societie That the will of one man in Government is contrary to freedome And why not the will of five hundred to the freedome of the rest as much as that one These men thinke that their clamour against the power of one man hes a greate influence vpon the ignorant people which might have had some beleife before they had tryed their new Masters If we looke vpon the most ancient stories of the world we finde the people both in peace and warr commaunded by one man nature teaching the necessitie of one generall in an Army and the Government which God himselfe appointed to his people was by one man and as moyses was at first soe were his successours and the kings after Saul and David and this Libeller can speake nothing of this power of one man but must censure and vilifie Gods owne institution he offers nothing against Monarchy but what hes equall opposition to Parliament and all formes of Government for the peoples good for which he sayes the king hath his rights will assoone become a pretence for Rebellion against any Rulers as kings His denyall that the King is not greater then his Parliament is only opposinge his bare word to all sense and reason for doth the greater petition the lesse and yet the Parliament constantly petition the king He sayes the King can doe noe wrong And have not they then that pretend he had done wrong committed disobedience and wrong The King can doe noe right but in his Courts And if they be his Courts and his deputies and doe all in his name doth it not follow that it is his doing And though the kings sitt not ordinarily in their Courts yet they have often sate in severall Courts and in Parliament the King himselfe gives orders as appeares by the Presidents of all times and wherefore did the Parliament preferre their petition of right to the King and importuned his answeare if he had noe power to doe right but by his Courts But what concernes the administration of Justice by deputies is not peculiar to England but to all other Kingdomes Without his Courts he is noe King And yet they are his Courts and cannot sitt but by his graunt If the King doe wrong in the highest degree he must doe it as a Tyrant not as a King of England But he is still King of England though a Tyrant and if subjects may judge their King the ordinary acts of soveraigntie wil be wrong in the highest degree If he cannot as one greater give oft to the Parliament as the Libeller supposes and that it may be termed the Courtesie of England to aske any thing of the King They would not have importuned the Acts that have passed this Parliament nor have vsed their Iron flaile to obteine them and by his rule subjection is noe more the Courtesie of England then all other Countreyes We never forced him to part with his conscience but it is he that would have forced vs to part with ours and doth he that refuses the demaund of another force his conscience that demaunds Doth the Kings denyall force his subjects consciences because they force themselves to Rebell and enforce him to say what they will have him The Authors descant vpon the Kings words of the incommunicable Iewell of his conscience discovers how he hath exposed his owne to the flatterie and slaverie of his Masters and had he thoughts of conscience he would not have valued it at the basest price The breeding of Most kings hath ever been sensuall and most humoured He speakes it of his owne sense and inclination to such base offices Kings have greatest cause to avoyde such breeding and persons of such condition The kings dissent from his whole kingdome is a supposition of that which never was and were impossible ever to happen but should it happen they that are governed must submitt to the governour and that by all the Rules of divine and humane law The Libeller saying the king preferrs his love of truth before the love of his people the Kings words are the love I have of my peoples place hath greate influence vpon me but the love of truth and inward peace hath more And who thinkes not that it ought to have soe For his search of truth he had gone amisse if he had rested on those propounders which the Libeller prescribes him And that vnaccountable Prerogative which the Libeller sayes is the truth he loves would have been judged a truth by the Libeller if he had reteined either feare of God or love to his Countrey It is our ill hap that three kingdomes should be pestred with one conscience which scrupled to graunt what the Parliament advised him But it was the miserie of the three kingdomes that a faction of depraved men that had cast away conscience should oversway the Parliament and demaund graunts for their owne ambition against the kingdome These scruples to many he sayes seeme pretended to others vpon as good grounds may seeme reall And to this it seemes the Libeller inclines for noe reason wil
permitt that he should suffer soe much vpon a pretence of conscience It was the just judgment of God that he who was soe cruell and remorseles to other mens consciences should have a conscience soe cruell to himselfe And were not they that were soe cruell to his conscience condemned by their owne being heerein the instruments of hell to afflict the consciences of others but these miscreants can sport themselves with their owne sins and others sufferings Hath he made asmuch as a pretence of the Kings crueltie to any mans innocencie The Libeller recites that the King said he thought fit to deny some things in honour Policie though he could approve them which is not at al said by the King but that some things which a King might approve yet in honour Policie might be denyed at some time to some men And who doubts it can there be a want of such considerations in a King Good Princes thought it their happines to be allwayes graunting How could that be if it be true which he sayes they had nothing to graunt But good subjects never demaunded that which should make their King vnable to graunt any more He remembers himselfe now that good things were to be graunted for the things sake indifferent things for the peoples sake and he hath made it his continued Theame that the King could graunt nothing in favour but all was necessary in Justice and it is apparent that the kings large concessions invited these ingratefull Rebells to make those shameles demaunds which themselves knew noe king in honour Policie and Justice could graunt Vndoubtedly his Coronation oath bindes him to a generall and implicite consent to whatever the Parliament desired And then vndoubtedly the king must be in worse condition then any subject for noe man but he is bound to such a blinde obedience and it is a strange blindenes in this man to offer such a thing to be beleived which himselfe holds incredible for he sayes the Kings oath cannot binde him against necessary reformation And can it then binde him to make wicked lawes which must be reformed Is the Parliament infallible may they not make ill lawes What is the reason that the Libeller and his Sectaries would not give obedience to Acts of Parliament vpon pretence of conscience ought the king to consent to such lawes as the subjects ought not to obey The King ought not to vie wisedome with the Parliament and why then doe the Libeller and his Sectaries vie wisedome with all former Parliaments Any of the Parliament may as farr excell him in the guift of wisedome as he them in place and dignitie But it s very vnlike and neere to impossible especially if we looke to the experience of all times and it is often found that a King is wiser then all his Councell And though the libeller say sure it was not he meaning the King as wise men as any of his Councell or Parliament thought it was he never good subjects contended with their King for that comparison The king sayes that that were as if Sampson should have consented to put out his eyes that the Philistins might with more safetie mocke and abuse him And this sayes the Libeller out of an vnwise or pretended feare of scorne for yeilding to his Parliament he gives cause of suspition that he made a scorne of his Regall oath Could any man suspect that his Regall oath bound him to such a dispicable slavery that a king should be in greater bondage to his Parliament then any vassall to a Lord a king might justly scorne such an oath that would make him scorned by all when he had taken it but the Libeller had noe better answeare and therefore retreates to his Common refuge of insignificant repetition The King sayes to exclude him-from all power of denyall seemes an arrogance The Libeller adds in the Parliament he meanes and askes what in him then to deny against the Parliament It is no arrogance to deny in him that is asked but arrogance in him that askes to receive noe denyall The king sayes its least of all becomminge those that make their addresses in a humble and loyall way of petitioning who by that confesse their inferioritie which oblidgeth them to rest if not satisfied yet quieted with such an answeare as the will and reason of the superiour thinkes fitt to give To this the Libeller sayes petitioning in better English is noe more then requesting or requiring And is it not good English to call our prayers pititions and is it better English to say wee require when we pray and is requesting and requiring the same in good English Is the petitioning of his new Masters requesting or requiring Men require not favours only but their due and that not only from superiours but equalls and inferiours It s the first time that such requiring of favours was heard of and a sorry inference that because men require of equalls they may of superiours and that there is noe difference betweene superioritie of Government and superioritie in fortune or Title It was called petitio consulatus when the noblest Romans went about and begged that dignitie of the meanest plebeians naming them man by man But might not those to whome they went deny their petition Could they require their election as due and was their begging requiring He would willingly make badd English out of good Lattyn though good Lattin may be noe good manners from a subject to his king and it is absurd in Government for any to pray that ought to commaund the Libeller seemes distracted that would have petitioning requiring and prove it by the signification it hath of begging They petitioned not because all of them were inferiour but because he was superiour to any of them But why then doe they petition in their politique Capacitie as a Parliament He tells vs at last it was for fashions sake more then dutie But why then did they professe it to be their dutie He tells vs the Misteries of their Religion their professions and promises are Ceremonies their submissions for fashion this is the doctrine of cut throates By plaine law cited before the Parliament is his superiour And why had he not brought in petitio principy as well as petitio consulatus vsing it soe often and that in good English is begging the question Doubtles he thinkes that some beleive it is plaine law because he saith soe but such as reade his booke finde he vnderstands not law nor reason and will not speake the truth he vnderstands It were a mad law that would subject reason to supcrioritie of place And doth not himselfe say it that the Parliament is superiour and therefore the kings reason must be subject to it and is not he mad or senseles He returnes againe to his invective against Monarchy and one mans will and soe its only the kings Cryme that he was a Monarch and if the King be not bound in a blinde obedience to all that the
Parliament requires we must all be slaves a proper inference and vpon this he concludes that petitioning was but forme because he doth not like the Kingly Government It cannot be soe absurd to binde the King to a blinde obedience as to confine the Parliaments reason to the will of one man Much more absurd to bind the King and leave subjects vnconfined That the King did nothing but what was opposite to his professed interest cannot be supposed but in his concessions to the late Parliament and we finde by sad experience that nothing is more ruinous to the Kingdome then a power in the Parliament over the King and they have been soe farr from a power to confine the exorbitancie of Kings that those illegall conventions which acted the Tragedies of some Kings were but the stales to vsurpers and moulded to their will That the King called them young statesmen he imputes to arrogance Doubtles the King might have said much more then what he did that most part of these propounders were young statesmen Is there a man in England that doubts it if he regard either age or experience how they have governed themselves and the Kingdome all men see who from soe greate tranquilitie have turned it into a lamentable combustion and despised the Kingdomes interest both at home and abroade that Phaetons miscarriage was never soe answeared by the practice of any rash and precipitate medlers in affaires of state as these vsurpers and as they drove furiously with Iehu soe they practized his hipocrisie that loved the Kingdome better then the commaunds of God and departed not from the sins of Jeroboam though he pretended Zeale for the Lord and that omen of confusion from such fury and madnes his Majest prayed God to divert but the Libeller is pleased with his owne prognostickes and makes augury a warrant for any villany though the wickednes of his Masters may give just occasion to thinke their vengeance fleepes not He comes now to dictate law and tumbling of his repetitions that the Parliament sit not as subjects but superiours called not by him but by the law And doth not this man know the Parliament sayes all this is false and that they are his subjects and called by his writ Surely this Libeller takes pleasure in outfacing all truth otherwise he would not vse such absurd and palpable falsities and that after himselfe had said the king was trusted with the summoning and dissolving of Parliaments Vnreasonable desires might be vnexpected by the king and denyed Wee may see that Iehues fury and Phaetons rashnes were not ill remembred to these men that held the enforcing of old lawes repairing of injuries moderate desires of reformation soe contemptible that nothing but the rooting vp of the foundation of Government could be a remedie for the kingdome whose greate prosperitie was their greatest greivance and all those good lawes which he commends were vseles and to noe purpose That they which came to the Parliament had no authoritie to redresse greivances but to desire the redresse was acknowledged a truth by the late Parliamēt befor their insolēce was confirmed by the kings concessions That their Fathers made as vast alterations to free themselves from ancient Popery is much mistaken for whoever lookes into the reformation of Religion in England shall finde that it moved from the head and that the Parliament conformed themselves vnto the Counsells taken by the king and made not the alterations the Libeller supposes Alterations were made where corruptions had entred into doctrine or practice but it was very farr from esteeming the primitive Church a time of superstition and plucking vp by the rootes what ever was planted in the first ages of the Church Sectaries are not to be judges of what varies from Scripture their opinions arising from disobedience must needes be full of errour and schisme and his Majest had good reason to preferre the doctrine and practice of the primitive Church before any moderne opinion of reformation and as all the pregnant and solid reasons of the Churches beyound the seas wrought lesse with the faction in Parliament then the Tumults and rabbles soe farr lesse with this Libeller that defends a schisime from them all vnder the divided Conventicles of Independancy and a crew of ignorant and irreligious Hobgoblins that eate the fat of robbery and oppression And he heere pretends the example of all the reformed Churches against Episcopacie and afterwards confesses the Lutherans who are the greater part of a contrary practice The falshood giddines of their oracles are more ridiculous thē ever were the superstitious pilgramages of blinde votaries he that thus reprehends the kings oppositiō to the change of Church Government while he strives for innovation exclaimes against it as a Cryme for he sayes they would vindicate the Government of the Church innovated corrupted he should have shewed from what time it was corrupted The king sayes such as were looked vpon before as factious in the state Schismaticall in the Church demaunded not only tollerations for themselves in their vanitie noveltie and confusion but alsoe an extirpation of that Government whose rights they had a minde to invade And the Libeller askes was this man ever likely to be advised who setts himselfe against his chosen Councellours and censures the Government of other protestant Churches as bad as any Papist Certainly such Councellours were very vnfitt to advise that were soe ill qualified such as the lawe judges offenders are incapable to judge of law that such were these demaunders is evident to al men that know the lawes and Government of England There are noe Protestant Churches that thinke their Government censured if others differ from it in any particular but they will hold it a Schismaticall insolence in any to endeavour to alter a Government well setled vpon pretence to introduce another against the will of the king It imports not any contempt of the kingdome if such as they chose be found either defective or false and to engage the kingdome in all the impieties that men act which are chose by them is as absurd as vainely pretended by the Libeller who will make a faction prevalent by Tumults and sedition to be the kingdome and the king should have had his kingdome in greate contempt if he had taken such a faction for the kingdome He drawes an Argument from the penaltie of being a Christian vnder the heathens and a Protestant vnder Papists And surely had they sought to introduce their Religion with the destruction of the Civill state such a fact would have merited the name of treason but their course was contrary to these Sectaries who sought only to enjoy the libertie of their conscience not to enforce others That our saviour comming to reforme his Church was accused of an intent to invade Caesars right as good a right as ever the Prelate Bishopps had the one being gotten by force the other by spirituall vsurpation Helpes not the Sectaries
vnderstanding of the nature and consequence of the things graunted and as his Majest professed a cleerer information after these Actions had passed him soe he evidently saw that they were more against his subjects good then his owne and that insteede of preventing an Arbitrary power it would have introduced an arbitrary licence and confusion into the Kingdome and such men as preferre the bondage of popular confusion or the licentious insolence of many Lords are eyther inchanted with a witch craft of Rebellion or stupidly benummed with a senseles Lethargy With what Zeale the Libeller reproves the abuse of Scripture when he exclaimes as if it offended his conscience we may perceive by the allusion he makes saying Ireland was as Ephraim the strength of his head meaning the Kings Scotland as Iudah was his law giver but over England as over Edom he meant to cast his shooe Hath this man reverence to Scripture or the Author of it He comes againe to accuse the King for persecuting the consciences of Religious men a knowne vntruth yet soe much beloved by the Libeller as he seemes impatient to misse the repetition of it and with this he joynes his reproving the Kings profession of being an Enemy of those that forced the conscience because he had made a warr and lost all rather then not vphold the Bishopps It is an Argument that he esteemed his conscience that lost all for it But the Libeller sayes they were persecuting Bishopps The King vpholding Bishopps vpholds not persecution or abuse and the Libellers confounding the office ill exercise of it makes knowne his want of Argument The falshood of their Calumnies against the Bishopps is sufficiently manifested to the world that after soe many vehement outcryes they have not proved on such act of persecution done by any one of them not the presons but the office lawe were the persecution in this mans judgment The King obtruded new Ceremonies vpon vs vpon the Scotts a new Liturgie There were noe new Ceremonies obtruded by him in England and this horrid Rebellion to take away the Ceremonies and Government legally established and continually practised vnder the name of innovations detects both the fraude and outrage of their proceedings The new leiturgie offred the Scots by advice of their Bishopps and Clergie was an act befitting the care of a King and noe man will beleive that it was an offence te their consciences who made noe conscience of blood and Rebellion vpon pretence of their conscience which the world sees was an hipocriticall straining at a straw and swallowing a Camell and these tender conscience men have written their tendernes of conscience with the blood of their brethren which will remaine a memoriall of their dissembled sanctitie What hinderance of the search of truth he meanes is not vnderstood vnles he would have the dreames of mad sectaries confirmed by authoritie He would have the penalties of lawes thought persecution of the conscience and sectaries the Judges and sayes if himselfe meaning the King and his learned Churchmen were the obstinate part should Reformation suffer them to sit Lording like the greate whore And are sectaries Libells convictions of Kings and learned Churchmen and the clamours of malefactours a sentence against the Judge Such is the Government that must now rule the world and Reformation must be an Idoll in the hands of a seditious sectarie whereto the people must fall downe and such vnstable multitudes carried about with every winde of doctrine are likely to be those many waters on which the greate whore sits which hath for corruption and crueltie a greate resemblance vnto those false prophetts that now seduce the people These Clergimen were not to bedriven like sheepe but driven out like wolves But they are theeves and wolves that enter into the sheepefold by violence and stealth and the ambition and greedines of these wolves will finde occasion to sucke the blood and devoure the flesh of the sheepe The king sayes that he beleives the Presbiterie though proved to be the only institution of Iesus Christ were not by the sword to be set vp without his consent which is contrary saith the Libeller both to the doctrine and knowne practice of all Protestant Churches if his sword threaten those who of their owne accord imbrace it But then it cannot be sett vp by the sword vnles his sword threaten those that imbrace it And this jugler denies what the king sayes and yet in effect professes it and while he enrages the Tumults to sett vp their Presbiterie with the sword produces Arguments only for defence The reformed Churches professe to follow the ancients in suffering not associate themselves to bloody Sectaries in Rebelling And his next words impert that private men may not contend with Magistrates nor vse force against them Though Christ and his Apostles being to Civill affaires but private men contended not with Magistrates yet when Magistrates themselves and especially Parliament come to know Religion they ought to defend it against any King or Tyrant What is defence to the question in hand of setting vp Religion by the sword without the kings consent May an inferiour Christian Magistrate take Armes against his superiour a Pagan to sett vp Religion Is he not as much a private man as our Saviour and his Apostles where the Civill power hath not given him a right And as a Civill right is not imaginable soe the pretence of a power from Religion is execrable and false which will not permitt an vsurpation vpon the Civill right There may be a King where there is noe Parliament and it is noe more lawfull for an inferiour Migistrate or to Parliament who are but private men in regard of the Prince whose deputies they are to take the sword to sett vp Religion against the King their soveraigne then for any private men and were not the libeller distracted betweene evidence of truth and his owne corrupt inclinations he would not instance in the name of Magistrates and Parliament that but the line before pretended the power of the people to doe the same thing by the doctrine and practice of all Protestant Churches and would make them more publique persons then their Saviour and his Apostles he thinkes his reviling language of Tyrany and bloody Bishopps and the King their pupill are irrefragable Arguments in the judgment of his pubills There is a large difference betweene forcing men by the sword to turne Presbiterians and defending them who willingly are soe But then it is impious to force ment to be soe what those wretches did to the King for not being soe and for not consenting to impose it vpon the kingdome by a law the world knowes and the world is wittnes and they have robbed men of their possessions by the sword to sett vp this new Religion His charging Covetuousnes and ambition to be the events of Episcopacy is schismaticall malice for Episcopacie in the beginning of the Church was attended with povertie and
VARIOUS EVENTS Of the warr IT is noe new or vnwonted thing for bad men to claime as much part in God as his best Servants And all men looke vpon the Rebells in England as the vnparalleld prodigies of this hipocrisy their claimes vnto Gods service and favour the vsurpation of those appellations that belong to the Godly their ostentations of fastings prayers and thankesgivings and severe censures of the persons and manners of others are a sufficient demonstration of this presumption of men hardned in wickednes and resolved to prosecute ambitious disignes He is yet to learne what good vse the King made of these various events neither will he acknowledge though he see the vse of insolence crueltie which the Rebells have made of their successes against him Those numbers which the King grew to from small beginnings came not out of love but fled to be protected from the feare of reformation A jolly conceite what feare of reformation was there or appeares yet It was necessary dutie to oppose Rebells and confusion and that was then knowne vnto the silliest people but such as were poysened by the contagious doctrines of Rebellious Sectaries Such a snow ball might easily gather through those cold and darke provinces of ignorance and lewdenesse And can he thinke that any Provinces are soe ignorant and lewde as these sinkes and Kenells whence the Rebells raked the rabble of rascallitie which they armed against the king The libeller could not be ignorant of what al his partie acknowledge the greate disproportion in qualitie both for place and education that was in the Kings partie above their owne The Libeller would have Gods long suffering sometimes to harden and be the beginning of a severer punishment But he over lookes that sensible obduration which successes have brought vpon the Rebells and as they are a severe punishment vpon the nation soe we may conceive by their wickednes that their prosperitie bindes them over to greater judgment He would convince the King of breaking lawes and that he had not the sword by law not soe much as to vnsheath against a forraigne Enemy And by soe palpable an vntruth it being knowne vnto the whole world that Leagues and warrs with forraigne nations were made by the King alone we may conclude he hath quitted shame is resolved to sticke to his false assertions and tottering Arguments though never soe contrary to his owne Judgment knowledge heere againe he repeates his jaded discourse of a free nation body of Parliament and sword in a single hand so often spurred vp and downe since the beginning of his booke The libeller if the would have vsed Arguments should have expressed wherein his pretences differ from other Rebells for all pretend Tyrany in their Rulers fighting for libertie but he will have fighting lawful to make a new Republique and to take the sword to destroy the old insteede of making the King guiltie of the breach of lawes justifies the Rebelliō because lawes were executed Whatever he objects for a reason of Rebellion against a King is as possible to any other Government for are al Republiques of one Religion may the subjects of different Religion from what is established in any state Rebel say it is vnreasonable that rulers must be obeyed when they wil not conforme to the opinions of a sect so severall opinions must decide their Religion by the sword If such Rebells die Martirs we have been much deceived of malefactours and noe Traytours will want a saint-shipp This opinion of his touching the holines of Rebellion he sayes is not the opinion but full beleife of farr holyer and wiser men then Parasiticke preachers For holy and wise men the Libeller seemes to be litle acquainted with and vnles they be the scandall of preachers and basest of Parasites none can be soe vile to maintaine such odious assertions It s well knowne the Crim catching sermonizers to these Rebells have confidence enough to speake what they know not men hired to act a false part will blush at nothing and therefore though never King was established by Parliament nor could be because they depended on him and were called by him though Parliaments never acted in law Civill oaths nor Religion but by the Kings assent and the oath which he calls the Kings and hath soe often mentioned was never establisht by Parliament yet against all evidence this libeller his Mates will affirme that nothing was thought to be established which that house declares to be abolished It s like he meanes the house of Commons which never till these blacke times pretended a power to give an oath much lesse make a law and such as make these vast vntruths outgoe Parasiticke preachers and all knights of the Post that are yet discovered It were absurd to give the Parliament a legistative power and vpbraide them for transgressing old Establishment Whoever thought them to have a legislative power Is not the King the Legislatour and they his Counsell and is it not absurd to give the Legislative power to them that are to advise the Legislatour and when the two houses desire the King that it may be made a law by the King with their consent is it not absurd that one house should say all the Legislative power is in them But there neede noe proofe of their transgressing old establishments when they confesse it It s like the Rebells thinke their heaven heere and they doe not much value the losse of the other and noe man is troubled with his censure to whome Charitie and truth are alike despicable The Libeller that scoffes at the seeking of heaven in forma pauperis shewes his value of heaven and seekes none but that which is to be found in forma proditoris He thinkes to take of the horror of their death that dyed in willfull perjury and Rebellion against the king by raving against the kings partie who he sayes died most frequently with oaths and other damning words in their mouths And is soe impotent to hope that the Calumnies of a perjured wretch will finde creditt for were he not distempered by hellish delusion or sottishly drunken he would not soe stupidly affirme that it was notorious that they who were hottest in his cause the most part of them were men oftner drunke then by their good will sober it being a knowne truth that men of most eminent sobrietie were hottest in the kings cause theis traytours never forbare any wickednes by their will but for their ends The king neede not a discovery to the state of their consciences more then by their Actions that fought against him and he might justly beleive they had never the better of him in their owne consciences where they were more affraid to encounter those many reasons from law alleagiance and Christian grounds then in a desperate bravery to sight And is it to presume more then a Pope to say this But he that will not sticke at open
falsification will not sticke to slander thoughts and offer conjectures for convertions such as were most zealous in his Majest cause had a sobrietie vnblemishable by a Traytours malice and were not only free from druken distemper but brutish insolence and brazen impudence which the Rebells rather affect then repent of And is there not a just cause that the consciences of many should grow suspitious and corrected by the pretentions of the misnamed Parliament now proved false and vnintended What 's become of their making a glorious King lawes of the land priviledges of Parliament Doth not every man see they are all in the dirt among the Libellers Ceremonies But they never pretended to establish his Throne without our Libertie and Religion nor Religion without the word of God nor to judge of lawes by their being established but to establish them by their being Good and necessary They never pretended that his throne was inconsistent with libertie or Religion nor to judge of lawes otherwise then by being established But who must be the Dictatours the Parliament which is crumbled into a close Committee and state Counsell or any rabble that shall say this or that law is not good and therefore to be repealed though established he ought to have concluded that they never pretended priviledge of Parliament further then the subterranean junto or the Tumults should judge necessary To pray and not to governe is for a Monke not a King But is prayer inconsistent with Government Those men will accuse the King for being a Christian and have as litle love to prayer as obedience a monke will better governe then such a man pray who is constant to malice falshood and this man that sayes to governe by Parliament justifies his Rebellion to take away Kinglie Government His legislative Parliament and oppressed lawes cannot be admitted where other answeare is wanting but the Libeller hath long since thrust the force of them out of doores by his many prevarications confining them all in the Cabinet of his owne braine which must determine whether they be good and necessary He is constant to Iohn of Leidens principles that must take away other mens goods for doubt of ill vsing them and because the King sayes he feared the temptation of an absolute Conquest therefore it was pious and friendly in the Parliament to resist him Their pietie and friendshipp were much alike and the Libellers Riligion might come in for a share It s very probable that this warr had never been if the Act for continuance of the Parliament had not been consented to by the King and that Act might stopp the mouth of any reasonable man from saying there was such a power in the two houses as the Libeller dreames of that desired that Act from the King and it was never heard in our story that ever Parliaments made warr against Kings as Tyrants or otherwise for how could they make awarr that neither could nor ever did pretēd to sit longer then their King pleased the immodestie ingratitude of the present Rebells have farr exceeded the worst Examples He is obstinate to his principles and feares to attribute any thing to the Kings concessions or denyall and had he graunted lesse in all probabilitie himselfe and the Kingdome had suffred lesse It cannot be doubted but the Libeller will invert whatever the King sayes and it is a greate adventure that he sayes the sins of their lives not seldome fought against them and wee have greate cause to beleive their prosperitie did noe lesse that continue hardned in soe execrable a cause The King sayes he desires not any man should be further subject to him then all of vs should be subject to God And this Mountebanke holds this a sacriledge worse then Bishopps lands for he sayes he desires asmuch subjection as is due to God and so desires noe lesse then to be a god And is subjection to Princes in the Lord subjection to them as God And doth the King desire otherwise that would have them noe otherwise obey him then that they might obey God renouncing all obedience that consists not with obeying God but sale worke must be slight and the Libeller would not exceede his hire The Rebells desiring the Kings acquittall of them for the blood of the warr confirmes their guilt not their innocence Though God impute not to any man the blood shedd in a just cause in respect of the ground and reason of doing it yet there may be temptations vnto naturall infirmitie in acting a just cause and the King was not without a sense of such danger therefore the Libeller wretchedly beggs an argument of his guilt from his prayer not to have blood imputed to him Vpon the REFORMATION Of the Times NOveltie and perturbation are justly condemned not only by Christians but morall men and it is a noveltie taken vp only by Sectaries that would confine all Religion to their owne frensy and reject the vniversall consent of all times and places and not only boasting of the truth of their owne delusions but obtruding them vpon the world threatning fire and sword to gainsayers and yet they will pretend the example of our Saviours publishing his gospell and pretend like reason for their fanaticke conceites as for his divine revelations and miraculous Testimonies and because reformation may be necessary therefore they conclude it must be as often as these that are carried about with every winde of doctrine shall thinke fitt they would reduce Christianitie to a cloud without water tossed to fro with the breath of private opinion The first reformers in the time of Pope Adrian pretended not a reformation of the vniversall Church and a rejection of whatever was received by the primitive as those men now neither did they presume to enforce others to their perswasion and though noveltie and perturbation were objected to them yet they still deprecated that guilt and it is a most vnchristian and prophane disposition to desregard lawes established and Religion setled vpon presumption of private opinions and these of men neither learned discreete nor honest There is greate difference betweene a clamour and an vndeniable truth and we may not thinke that popular compliance dissolution of all order and Government in the Church schisme vndecencies confusions sacrilegious invasions contempt of the Clergy and their Leiturgie and diminution of Princes are lesse odious because Papists objected them or that any pretended reformation introduced by these detestable practices can be acted or approved by Christians All men are wittnes that the present Sectaries are guiltie of all these The former reformers did not give occasion for such aspersions that desired only the libertie of their owne consciences from the practice and beleife of errours newly enjoyned and anciently rejected in the Church or els followed the orderly reformations which Princes and states authorised in their owne Dominiōs but these new reformers obtrude their dictates vpon all the world and will dispose of all Kingdomes with
the hearts of Rebells must necessarily make the words of the wise the wayes of the inst matter only of contempt and derision and such as have once broken the bounds of modestie thinke it dishonour to have shame and repentance and will advance their confusions insteede of order their Blasphemies for zeale their sacriledge for reformation their Tyrany for law and all the hell they feare is the losse of their vsurped power and the restoring of just right and their jealosies of loosing their owne greatenes provokes them still to an increase of their lewdenes making truth and right the object of their spite and persecution These debaucht Rebells proclaime that there is noe good but Rebellion noe worke of God but submission to it and repentance for opposing it If the Church of England be Antipapall how comes it to bo a schisme And why hath the libeller so continually made vp his discourses with inclinations to Popery Independencie knowes noe schisme for if it allow every meeting its libertie where is the schisme It s a Rule that noe Scripture nor ancient Creede bindes our faith to any Church denominated by a particular name But he rejects what was received by the vniversall Church What doth that contradict the Kings advice to his Son of his esteeme of the Church of England if he beleive as he did vpon good ground that it was agreeable in doctrine to the word of God It is apparent that these Sectaries are seperated from all Churches of the world and that Government which they call Catholique had neither precept nor practice in any Church being newly crept out of hell to persecute the Church Noe man was ever bid to be subject to the Church of Cornith Rome or Asia but to the Church without addition And why doth he deny to be subject to the Church without addition was there never Church before this day heere we have the builders of Babell none vnderstand what another sayes were not those that lived in those Churches of Corinth Rome Asia commaunded to be subject to the Governours of those Churches Is it not the Apostles Commaund to obey those that have the oversight of them and may every man despise their new independent congregations seeke for a Church without addition and where then will he finde him We may imagine what manner of state such Church reformers will erect and what it is they call reformation that looke vpon all Churches as schismes because not rent into as many parts as particular persons These schismatickes pretend the Church of England allmost growne Popish and yet nothing altered from the first reformation while they disguise their meaning by pretending popery to gett the vulgar vnawares to favour their dissembled zeale they demaund to have the Reformation vnestablished And the restraint of their Rebellion is Pharaohs prohibition to the Israelites that sought leave tosacrifise to God It was a greate testimony of the Kings zeale to the Church of God that he forewarned his Sonne to suppresse errours schismes his owne experience having taught him that these doggs and evill workers are the greatest evills to Church and state and these destroyers that are the reproaches of Religion the Scabbs and biles to be Church allow noe protestant Churches to be communicated with that are not tainted with the same putrifaction that hath corrupted them For the Civill state the kings precepts tend to the preservation of Civill libertie and it was farr from our Fathers to thinke that any humane lawes were immutable but further that lawes should be altered at the will of a mutable multitude and that their King should be excluded from the judgment of the reasons for a change He falls from the question touchinge repeale of lawes and talkes of saving the Kingdome we may better trust the King with saving the Kingdome then any number of men we can picke out whose private fortunes may be saved though the kingdome be lost The Turkes Iawes and Moores enjoy vnder the Turkish Government what their industrie and labour have made their owne If that be true the Libeller is much out of the way to thinke it a reproach to Civill Government to compare it to the Turkes what Civill libertie doth the freest nation claime more and what doe these Masters of the new Republique pretend to allow more Doe they not plainely tell the people they ought to have noe more then they will give them Thus he will defend the Turke Jew and Moore rather then be an Englishman There is noe doubt but the libertie of the subject depends on the Regall power in the first place There is noe libertie without Government and where the Government is regall the subject must maintaine it or be a Traytour and give vp his libertie for a prey to ravenous vsurpers That the King suffred it to be preached in his owne hearing that the subject had noe propertie of his goods but all was the Kings right Is a mainfest vntruth yet they which make advantage of such inventions practise what they reproach for doth not that thing they call a Parliament consisting of a few contemptible persons professe that all the goods of the subjects are at their disposing By the lawes of England noe act can be a law without the king though both houses propounded it and in that negative voyce of the kings the people reposed their libertie which they would not wholly intrust to a Major part of one or both houses The power of the whole nation is vertually in the Parliament But there is noe vertue in it without the king And is it vertually in such a part of the Parliament as either the Army or the Tumults shall picke out The Libeller hath borne wittnes for the kings Martirdome though he intended the contrary and while he names the Rebells war in their owne defence cannot avoyde to tell the world the Rebellion was to take away the Kings negative voyce and establish lawes at their owne will Every man will beare wittnes that it is Martirdome to die rather then burne incense to Idolls or Devills and he that refuses to introduce schisme and disorder into the Church and committ sacrilegious pillage of Church goods and is persecuted to death for his refusall is noe lesse a Martir then he that suffers for denying an Idolatrous worshipp and this is not to die for Religion because establisht but that establishment which we ought to preserve and all the painting dawbing of these Artisans of Rebellion will not deface that Martirdome which their owne wicked hands have testified There are no reformed Churches that have abolisht the Decalogue so long a king that dies by a wicked Rebellion for not consenting to Trayterours demaunds is judged a Martir by the best reformed Churches but he does not looke before he leape that brings in the Romish Priests executed for that which had been established for he might have knowne they were executed by lawes in force and for doing what noe
law in force allowed and there is a great deale of difference betweene heretickes dying for errours against vniversall truths and Martirs dying for vniversally received truths The legislative Parliament and law of Coronation and obstinacie of one man his soe often chewed Rhetorique will not aide him to overcome so apparent truth and noe Parliament could have been soe ridiculous and contemptible a thing as they which abuse the name have now made it spurning it too and fro like a footeball at the will of the multitude and noe men are more markes for slaves then such as are destined to such a vassallage vnder such Masters Noe tolleration can please schismatickes that is bounded with any lawes and vnles they have a libertie to treade downe all law and Religion they account it not freedome and such tolleration which other Churches account themselves happy in these Sectaries account despicable that will have it not beneath the honour of a Parliament and free nation to receive a Schismaticall pretended Religion devised by a junto of Mechannickes His suspitions of palliation are of the same stuffe with his positions and we may well thinke vpon his owne grounds that the Kings advice to his Son to be tender of the people was sincere whose destruction would be his vndoing Which might justly move a Prince to that tendernes Powerfull Rebells are noe lesse infamous then greate and these who place the hopes of immortall prayse in the excesse of villanies only erect the Monuments of their impieties the higher that they may be seene by posteritie though they avoyded for the present the heigth of Hamans Gallowes and we may not thinke such men looke to be remembred in mercy with God who shewed none to men They thinke with Cain their sin greater then can be forgiven Although the King Exhort his Son not to study revenge yet they beleive that he or at least they about him intend not to follow that exhortation and that he sayes was seene lately at the Hague It s like he intends the killing of Doristans their Rebell Agent Is that an Argument of studying revenge after Reconciliation that a profest villaine was staine in the heate of indignation comming in Triumph with the blood of the Murthred King as his Trophey The Libeller would willingly perswade the multitude that it concernes them asmuch as thâ—â—e impious projectours of Rebellion to feare such revenge and therefore they may not repent but like himselfe maintaine Treason to be the better cause and to returne to loyaltie were ficklenes and instabilitie He cannot endure the Government by Bishopps for he sayes it is away to subdue the consciences of vulgar men to slavish doctrine The doctrine he meanes is order an obedience and he would have a compendious way to schisme and Rebellion and that 's the grudge which Traytours have at this Government and their profest quarrell He will not admit that Parliaments can have freedome if the King may deny any thing which a Major part propounds as if they had noe freedome vnles the prevailing partie were absolute Lords and yet their freedome is preserved though the Army picke out a few to be the Parliament and send packing the rest and this is the foundation of the English freedome as he would have it and that this Conventicle must have the name of Parliament and not of a faction The conclusion that the Libeller would have is that the Parliament should consist of a few Trayterous designers to whose voyce the rest must be only an Eecho and the found of a Parliament must be noe other then a bagpipe yeilding only such noates as the breath and stopps of the prime Masters allow it We have seene those tapistry Parliaments which he mentions which stay and remove at the pleasure of those Masters of the houshould And should not the King have a power to stopp the extravagant motions of these impetuous Commaunders which blasted all such whose wisedome and gravitie offred wholesome Counsells for publique safetie and ordered their mutes and noughts to signifie their pleasure The Kingdome would be sure of miserie as often as they see a Parliament and the people see they must seeke their preservation in vnitie which is Resident in the head not in those broken fractions the subject of division and such as seeke vents and ouletts from the supreame Government are the whirle windes of misery and confusion but Traytours would have lawes as easily broken as the spiders webb And this Parliament to which the King must be subject himselfe will allow noe more freedome then to sit in the noose of their Military generall which when he pleases to draw to geather with one twitch not only with his negative but positive Command shall throtile the whole nation to the wish of Caligula in one necke and this the Kings negative was farr from and if the Libeller stitch togeather all the quibbles of pasquills satirs they will agree vnto his Rebell Masters but lose their propertie by his application to lawfull Government Where they have placed the Militia the Kingdome now feele who vnderstood not the word when they were at first hoodminckt by it to seeke they knew not what The deliverance which these men boast of is the deprivation of just Government and the substitution of lawles will and the people see that they are foe farr from a deliverance that they are delivered over to a languishing miserie vnder the sharpest servitude and they now finde their Idolizing a Parliament hath drawne them from their loyaltie to him whome God had set over them and cast them vnder the hard bondage of these Masters and like them which rejected the sonns of Gideon and tooke the sonne of his servant to raigne over them they feele a fire of division kindled among them to devoure one another This Libeller allowes not any thoughts of revenge in his Majest now living for the murder of his father and yet reproacheth him for making peace with the Irish and not seeking their totall extirpation and the peace with them he calls a sordid dishonourable and irreligious seeking of his Crowne But the man is vnwilling he should have any waÌ„yes at al and would perswade his Sectaries for none els will beleive him that the King may not make peace with a Rebell submitting to oppose a Rebell persevering That the Presbiter Scott which woes the King now living is put of proceedes from his termes not from his qualitië Should not the people of England seeke the restitution of their King and legall Government whereof they have been cheated with the adulterate ostentations of libertie and redresse of greivances they would appeare arrant beasts that cryed out and below'd by the instinct of their drivers fighting like brutes till they ran into the pinfold where they are reserved for servitude and slaughter by those Masters who allured them with foode to put the yoake on their neckes The Libeller dislikes the kings conclusion that Religion to God and loyaltie to
judge and punish the Governour Were it possible for mankinde to subsist in such a state or can there be a possibilitie of any right or Justice in such confusion The Scripture forbids vs to judge another mans servant but this man will have the father punisht by the childe the Master by the servant the Prince by the people Iustice is and ought to be strongest The strength of publique Justice is the Magistrate Though Justice ought to be strong in our affections and Actions yet all men are not obliged nor permitted to doe all Acts of Justice The execution of Civill Justice is the Magistrates office it is the strength of Injustice to vsurpe the calling of others From this Lunaticke discourse of the strength of Justice he concludes That if by sentence thus written it were my happines to set free the mindes of Englishmen from longing to returne poorely vnder that Captivitie of Kings from which the strength and supreame sword of Iustice hath delivered them I shall have done a worke not much inferious to that of Zorobabell The sentence of this braine sicke Libeller is very weake to worke on any opinion but the hath set free some Englishmen from the Captivitie of a received errour for they were made beleive they fought for their King and this man tells them it was to shake of Kings and surely his vainities and deceites and his Masters Tyrany will perswade the Englishmen to seeke their returne vnder the free and glorious Government of Kings from the Captivitie of theis Tyrants vsurpers that have enslaved them And that horrid murder of the King vnder the shamelesse pretence of justice must necessarily worke detestation of the fact and a longing to be delivered from the Dominion of such Monsters Noe doubt this Libeller would thinke it an happines to be secure in his stolen power but he must expresse more reason and lesse impietie to effect such a worke he may be assured that as long as there are men soe ingenuous to acknowledge Justice that they must detest his cause and him And though Kings be vnaccountable to men for their Actions it is noe way contrary to the wisedome of Zorobabell who names not Justice and if he had given that strength to Justice which he did to truth it had been in the same sense vnderstanding the force of Justice as of other vertues The strength of the King is over the persons that of truth and Justice over the minde But if the King be accountable to men are not they to whome he is accountable by the libellers Argument not only stronger then the King but stronger then Justice And soe Justice is not strongest vnles the sword be putt into a madd mans hand and the giddy multitude from whome nothinge but Injustice can be expected may punish their Rulers To what end were Governments ordained if justice be only in the Governed Were ever like Tyranies and Injustices committed by single Rulers as by the vnbridled multitude and yet justice must have noe strength in the mouth of a King and the word of Rebells only must be the strength of justice and this Champion that bindes justice to Rebell power and excludes it from Kings hopes to be a Zorobabell to the Englishmen for his wise sentence That noe law of God or man gives the subjects any power of Iudicature without or against the King he will prove most vntrue and by that most ancient and vniversall law he that sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shedd and heere he sayes is noe exception of a King Though it be plaine that he to whome the power of shedding the blod of the offender is committed must necessarily be excepted vnles they will suppose he must kill himselfe doth the Libeller imagine that by this law all men were judges or that the subject may judge the soveraigne who is not permitted by any law to judge an Equall As the divine law appointed punishments soe likewise Rulers and if people may judge their Rulers it anulls all the Commaunds of obedience to superiours all subordination in humane societie and all decision of Controversie while every one may pretend his owne opinion the Rule of justice Next he hath found the place in numbers Ye shall take noe satisfaction for the life of a Murderer But judges to whome the law was given were appointed to declare who was guiltie of Murder and we may easily see who had beene the Murderers if every man were to judge a superiour or the multitude their Rulers and this the Libeller might have found in the same booke where the people charge Moses and Aron with killing the people of the Lord and Moses sayes they were ready to stone him And the Libeller may with his Anabaptisticall brethren vpon better grounds abolish Magnistracie then make every man a Magistrate as by this reason he would Though the law appointed noe satisfaction for the life of a murderer yet we finde David pardoned the murder of his son Absolom and Civill punishments are not of immutable law and it had been murder to take away his life whome the king had pardoned and we finde that though Jacob curst the rage of his two sons yet he put them not to death for the murder of the Sichemites A law must be founded in vnrighteousnes if the people doe not punish their Rulers as the Rulers them And such a law is contrary to those Rules of righteousnes God hath prescribed and is the destruction of mankinde not any law at tall and this man feares not to charge God with vnrighteousnes that forbidds evill speakinge of their Rulers though wicked and vnjust and scoffes at his ordinance calling anointinge a Charme Can any man of Common reason imagine that a people wil be obedient vnto any whome they have power to punish or that subjection can consist with such a condition The anointinge of Abiathar to be a Priest did not exempt him from the power of the King And can any reasonable man thinke that any but the King could have vsed that power vpon Abiathar or that because the King who was anointed to that office over the Priest was subject to the like from his people or any private man as this Atheist will have it David as a private man and in his owne cause feared to lift vp his hand against the Lords anointed but this Cannot forbidd the law nor disarme Iustice from havinge legall power against any King This sheweth that divine law forbadd all men to take the Armes of justice without or against the King who is referred to Gods justice and justice hath noe Armes but his power What David feared he judged all others had cause to feare who can touch the Lords anointed and be innocent If David were a private man being anointed King who was a publique man But what David feared these wretches despise and Count this forbearance of David a ceremony which he might have forborne If David feared in his owne cause to
lift vp his hand against the Lords anointed the Libeller is his owne judge and must be his tormenter that makes an impious defence of those that lifted vp their hand against the Lords anointed in their owne cause and were by his owne confession but private men and he would have their exorbitance and disobedience to law vnblameable Was David a more private man then they All supreame Counsells in other formes of Government that have not at Monarch claime this priviledge of exemptioÌ„ from their subjects Judicature but those gracelesse Rebells hold nothinge sacred the place of Gods vicegerent they wil have to be an enormous priviledge and blow away Religion justice like Chaffe with the blast of their fancie though they pretend the strength of it Aboâ—â—â—…iat of Kings He hath done with Scripture he descends now to saint Ambrose excommunicatinge Theodosius he will allow the Bishopp to be a saint for this fact though his calling were Prelaticall and vnlawfull in his judgment But what is spirituall excommunication to the puttinge of a King to death This fact of saint Ambrose is noe Rule Though Christian Bishopps refused to give the holy misteries to Princes in cases of fins they did not presume to make a Civill seperation betweene them and their people and will the Libeller allow the Bishopps to be more publique persons then Christ and his Apostles and to doe what they would not He that makes such out cryes against Popery heere takes vp the most scandalous doctrine that any of them maintaine and which the most sober disclaime and takes vp those Arguments which the Jesuites vse for the Clergies and Popes power over Princes yet the man would be accounted a zealous Protestant The examples of excommunication by the brittish Bishopps saint Germaine Oudeceus the clergy of Morcant might be al true but nothing to the purpose nor are their excommunications Rules for Christian practice neither can there be any inference of deposing or murderinge Kings from such Actions But for the greater Credit he sayes the facts of theis Brittish Bishopps were before we had Communion with the Church of Rome And may not he looke on himselfe and his crew with horrour for vilyfying and reproaching the calling of Bishopps as Papell and Antichristian and yet confesse it to be before we had any Communion with the Church of Rome What power of deposinge Kings and consequently of putting them to death was assumed and practised by the Canon law he sayes he omitts as a thing generally knowne Why would he not tell by whome it was practised would that discredit the Authoritie What power the Popes practised in deposinge Kings is generally knowne and detested by all good men being Actions contrary to all lawes but of their owne making But did the people of England expect that all the promises of Reformation made by the late Parliament would end only in approvinge the Tyrany and vsurpation of the Pope over Kings and justifying of the powder plot and are all the complaints of the Protestant Divines against the practice of the Popes become impertinent Clamours But such a defence is suteable to the cause Whole Councells have decreed that a Counsell is above the Pope though by them not denyed the vicar of Christ and wee may be ashamed in our cleerer light not to descerne further that a Parliament is above a King It were a shame to vs if we should not descerne the difference betweene the independent power of Kings and the vsurped power of the Pope and this breaker wants shame that pretends cleerer light and opposition to Rome and yet begg Examples from it Such as preferred the authoritie of Counsells above the Pope had their warrant from the ancient Counsells which knew not the vicarshipp of the Pope different from his brethren And had these Counsells thought him Christs vicar and infallible as the Romanists now maintaine their conclusion of the Counsells superioritie could not consist with their premisses being much alike this Authors ordinary Arguments But what resemblance has a Counsell of the whole Church to the Parliament or Counsell of a particular kingdome By the lawes of some kingdomes there are noe Parliaments at all and in Counsells they are not subjects but brethren to 〈◊〉 the Pope as they anciently stiled themselves and they anciently convened and departed without any leave from him but in the English Parliament they are all subjects to the king and their places were by his institution and the kings calling any convention for advice doth not alter the qualitie of subjection He comes now to humane lawes and by them he will prove a divine truth The judgment given against Orestes either at Athens whose king he was not or in any other Countrey where he was but a Titular proves nothing though he story were Authenticke and the proceedings legall but popular furies though occasioned by their Governours Crymes are not Examples of imitation Solons lawes belonged not to kingly Government neither were the kings of Sparta Monarchs nor Licurgus a King indeede though he had a Title the constitution of that State being a Republique and their King noe other then a Consul of Rome or a Duke of venice The Decree in Rome is farr wide from the matter and what the Senate did against Nero was in vindication of their ancient power not acknowledging the Justice of his soveraigntie Though Theodosius decreed the law to be above the Emperour yet he decreed not any person to have power over the Emperour The law was above him in reguard it was his Rule but could not make any person or societie above him The law is the directive power to Kings but subject them not to any and it is a senseles deduction from the superioritie of the Rule to imagine an inferioritie of the Rulers to the people or a communitie in power by the Rule That Bracton or Cleta say the King is inferiour to the Court of Parliament is a manifest vntruth and Bracton sayes expressely the King hath not a superiour on earth to punish him and that only God is the avenger of his Actions soe farr were theis men from affirminge that he stands as liable to receive Iustice as the meanest of his subjects But this man thinkes that some of his Readers will beleive that the name of an Author is sufficient Authoritie though the speake contrary to what he alleadges It is said in an ancient booke the King ought to be subject to the law by his oath Though the King be bound to performe the law by his oath is there any to judge him when all are his subjects and derive their power from him or is he subject to any person And who can judge another that is not subject to him Because Kings bound themselves to doe Justice therefore did they give other men power over them That the king permitted questions of his right to ordinary Iudicature is an vse of Counsell not subjection all Courts being his Counsells
them Though Armyes have been defeated a good cause can never and though he would have his Trayterous faction beleive them that followed the king a defeated partie yet it seemes by his jealosie him selfe doth not Tyrants cannot sleepe while lawfull heires survive and the guilt of their consciences and vsurped power make their Enemies as terrible after they have lost Armyes as before When Rebells prevaile they declaime against Treason and in contempt of God and their consciences reproach such with their Crymes that most oppose them in their first Actions they made vse of the Kings name and authoritie their declarations cannot be retracted wherein they profest to be for King and Parliament that they fought not against the king but his evil councell The Cryme of fighting against the king was a Treason so knowne that shame as well as feare would have lessened their partie had they not made vse of the kings name pretended his authoritie and vnles they thinke that their assertions of apparent vntruths will have the same power over the reasons of men as their Armes have gotten over their persons they would not patch vp discourses with such incongruities objecting that the kings partie vsed his name and authoritie which vndoudtedly they had and which those men professe to destroy and which had been vseles to any had it not been the acknowledged power of the kingdome and a confessed Cryme to oppose it and which those Traytours would never have pretended had not the evidence of its right been so apparent nor have destroyed after so much vse of it had they not exceeded all former Traytours as farr as he did his Predecessours of whom the spirit of God saies there was none like him that sold himselfe to worke wickednes It s the drift of the Rebell partie to confirme and continue their power by the same Arts they have gained it deny justice to the memory of his Majest as before obedience to his Government Those whose power hath been gottē by the peoples credulitie would willingly deprive them of reason whereby they might see their errour which is the cause that the Rebells having misted many into the present mischeyfe by Calumnies of insufficiencie in his Majest and disaffection to the established Religion account any proofe published to the contrary the plot of a faction against their Rebell Common-wealth and although their often accesses to him and debates with him during his restraint and the observation of his devotion gave such proofe of both as diverse of their followers were vndeceived both in him and the cause they had prosecuted yet this they would have an effect of faction any relation of his Maj afflictions a designe His Maj actions neede no defence the Rebells impious actions against him are incapable of any this Author hath some reason to coniecture that all mention of the sufferings of his late Maj tends to the ruine of the Rebell power True narrations of the horrid Actions of Traytours though they recount the greatenes glory of theyr triumphs sting them with an expectation of vengeance destruction of their power There are a great number that since they have seene that booke thinke it had been agreat losse to the world if it had perished yet they are farr from designe by it and if it were published with any designe it was an innocent one to publish what a murthered King had left written of himselfe for the reason of his Actions and cleering of mistakes The designe is now the third time to corrupt the people to the dishonour of the present Government retarde a generall peace so needeful to this afflicted nation They cannot say any were corrupted that followed their King vnles the lawes their legall oaths and Scripture it selfe corrupted them for theis were the guides they followed and the Rebells may rest assured that if there were not these bonds vpon the loyall English humane Treatises though never so excellent would little move them to the losse of life and fortunes For the dishonour of that which he calls the present Government themselves have written enough though the King and his partie were silent Their power was gotten by often repeated propositions protestations of affection and loyaltie to his late Majest which they never meant to performe many false pretences to the people to defend the King and estabilshed lawes and Religion breach of oaths murther of the King and of theis nothing can be denyed by themselves and there is nothing can be said of any to dishonour beyound swearing and fore swearing Treason and Murther And can they thinke their peace is retarded by the Kings partie when themselves have so often sworne by the name af God in hipocrisie to deceive made Religion the Maske of sacriledge and murther and pretend pittie to the afflicted nation while they afflict it continue the same wickednes where by they brought the miserie vpon it They may be sure though they destroy the King and his partie God will raise them Enemies they thinke not of and prepare destroyers they feare not It s a Good deede he sajes to the living by remembring men of the truth of what they know to he misaffirmed to keepe them from entring into warr But it is wickednes to oppose truth and offer that to be beleived by men which they know to be false If this Author would remember men only of truth he would finde no adversary and if his partie would act accordingly there would be no neede of a new warr for then they would restore King and lawes but this Author by falsifying of Actions att corrupting of principles endeavours to draw men into a state of Rebellion against God and their King and make the warr endles the people helpeles and his pretended Charitie is more odious then the Hipocrites Almes this respecting only selfe glory that of this Author a snare to destroy others As to moment of soliditie he sayes in the booke it selfe stuft with nought els but the Common grounds of Tyranny and Poperie suguered a little over or any neede of answearing in respect of stayed and well principled men I take it on me as a worke assigned rather then by me chosen or affected He would have it thought there was no moment of soliditie because he hath none in this Iconoclastes stuft full of the common grounds of Rebellion confusion which are only of Moment to the support of vsurpation the measure of his well principeld men to whome a rayling libell is more convincing then a Logicall Argument That the booke is stuft with nought els but grounds of Tyrany and Popery when the most part of his exceptions comprehended not those heads is an Hiperbole vnbefitting any but such as had sacrificed shame and conscience to a wicked cause If the publishing of his Majest booke as he sajes conteyning nothing but grounds of Tyrany and Popery were a designe of his partie surely it must concurre with the Authors ends for
and saint him to befoole the people the lattine Motto which they vnderstand not leaves him as it were a politique contriver The lattine being taken in the right sense what roome had there been for this curious observation And if they which set foorth his Majest booke had been curiously or stupidly negligent the Author had detracted nothing from his Majest It is not the picture but the crueltie exercised vpon him that made him a Martir and these miscreants are enraged to see their owne Actions in picture which they shamed not to commit in the face the world The picture is farr short of the measure of his Majest pietie and sufferings and wee may expect hard measure vpon the booke when a picture in the front cannot escape the Image breaker This Author its likely wrote from them that vnderstood not lattine that seekes to make the front and lattine in the end so different when the front hath a picture in the posture of prayer and the lattine in the end is applied to the efficacy of prayer If he had expected to worke on such as vnderstood lattine he would not have obtruded such an insignificant observation of misconstrued lattine Doth the commendatious of a mans devotions shew him a politique contriver They that published his Majest booke are heerein free from that negligent curiositie the Author would have seene by contriving a sense which himselfe will not affirme to be theirs which vsed the words but his owne by a libertie of choice where are different senses to be made but the Author shewes himselfe an vnpolitique contriver of detraction when he inserts the detection of it in the relation Quaint Emblems and devices begg'd from the old Pageantry of some twelf nights entertainment at white hall will doe but ill to make a saint or Martir The Traytours are loath to see the Emblems of their owne inhumane crueltie and how insteed of harmeles Pageantry they erected the Theatre of their Barbarous villanie at white hall The wickednes of those that Martired his Majest may be shadowed by Emblems but neither art nor wit can fully expresse it Bloody Massacres are the Pageantry of Tyrants and the scritches of Martirs their Musique If the people resolve to take him sainted at the rate of such a Cannonizing I shall he sayes suspect their Calender more then the Gregorian He is very Kinde that will suspect their Calender no more then the Gregorian for that Calender which hath nothing peculiar or notable but the new account of the yeare is received by a greate part of the world for the truest and if the Author have no greater aversion from the Calender he supposes he is likely very neere the beleife of it it seemes he had a minde to make a conceite from the word Calender therefore produceth the Gregorian Calender of computation insteed of the Calender of saints The Authors Pageantry playing with a picture is not the way to vncannoinze a saint The peoples opinion of his Majest sanctitie is not wrought by a picture and if they have any esteeme of such representations of his sufferings their just passion condemnes this Authors malitious detractions The Memoriall of the just shal be blessed in despight of the malice and scorne of men God lookes on their sufferings puts all their teares into his bottle and their death is right deare in his sight And if we looke vpon the eminencie of the Sufferer the pride and crueltie of the persecutors the true causes on the part of the sufferer or the pretended causes of suffering on the part of the persecutors we shall finde few Parallells in Calenders among saints to that of his late Majest and its memorable in his story that his persecutors their expressions so much resemble the cursed Jewes that crucified our blessed saviour This man would make his Majest after death a politique contriver the Jewes our blessed saviour adeceiver This Author pretends a plot to worke by this booke published after his Majest death that revenge which he could not obteine in his life the cursed Jewes pretended the beleife of our saviours resurrection of greater danger then his Miracles in his life time Such as preserve the Memory of the sufferings of holy men in Calenders have Zeale for their warrant and it was an ancient practice in the Church of God and such as deride that Custome to cast reproach vpon the persons they have persecuted will have their memories rott as they have their faces hardned and their consciences seared We may see what answeare this Author intends to his Majest booke that makes such observations vpon the Claspe frontispice Is it the way to confute a booke to revile the printer Iconoclastes hath an indignation at any holy meditations in his Majest booke and tells men there is danger of a Designe and to keepe men from reading it gives Caveatts against the outside In one thing he must commend his opennesse who gave the Title to this booke 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say the Kings Image by the shrine he dresses out for him certeinly would have the people come and worshipp Was man made to be worshipt because the Scripture tells vs he was created in the Image of god And is this author so greate a stranger to the expressions of such as writ the lives Actions of woorthy persons who terme some men patternes or Images of Kings Captaines Judges and the like and when his Majest booke conteyned such Kingly meditations was it improperly named Icon-basilice Such sorry Jests shew more will then witt to speake some what and the confidence of his slanders are the same with his conceites that binds this trivial scoffe with a certenly For which reason this answeare is intitled Iconoclastes the famous surname of many Greeke Emperours who in their zeale to the commaund of god after long tradition of Idolatrie in the Church tooke courage brake al supperstitious Images to peices And the end of this answeare is to breake all good Emperours aswell as Kings to peices and the Author made an improper choice of the famous surname of good Emperours that reproaches their calling and justifies the violence done them for that very worthy Act of theirs in breaking superstitious Images for if the people may judge their Kings for their Actions in Church or State how will this Author exempt the good Emperour Leo from the Justice of the peoples violence against him for breaking downe of Images for he must confesse their power to vse violence if he will erect a Tribunall in the people over their Kings as he doth over his owne Poets have fancied transformations and men turned into Beasts noe age hath produced more Monsters in opinion touching Religion and moralitie then this of ours that glory in their defacing of the Image of God in man by Creation and in Kings and governours by institution and if every man may vse violence against his King vpon his owne authoritie and the murther
of Kings be an Act of Justice whereto must mankinde be reduced but to be Tigers or Devills in destroying one another And they cannot deny but what may be done to a King may be done to any other schisme and Rebellion are inseperable Companions and as this Author defames the Kingly Government so the Church may not escape his fury for rather then it shall have any estimation he will have a long tradition of Idolatry before those good Emperours but if he had vouchsafed to reade the story and depended not vpon his spirits he would have found that not tradition but an impious Rebellion stirred vp against a good Emperour brought the superstitious Images into the Church and that the good Emperour with stood the bringing in of them not brake them downe after long Tradition and thence he might have told vs what kinde of reformation must be expected from popular fury and that as then by Tumultuous violence superstition was established so now in England confusion and prophanenes This Image breaker thinkes he may aswell vsurpe an Emperours surname as his Masters their Kings power and Estate and while he magnifies the good Emperours corrects himselfe least the people thence thinke on their reverence to their King For he sayes the people exorbitant and excessive in all their motions are prone oft times not to a Religious only but to a Civill kinde of Idolatrie in Idolizinge their Kings though never more mistaken in the object of their worshipp heeretofore being wont to repute for saints those faithfull and coragious Barons who lost their lives in the field making glorious warrs against Tyrants for the common libertie Never time can better witnes this truth then the present that the people are exorbitant and excessive in all their motions nor ever man that put pen to paper could more improperly lay it on their score then this Author that takes on him to defend the most exorbitant and excessive motions of the people that any Kingdome hath felt the power of his Masters being founded on those motions and if the people yet see not their errour they cannot longer be deceived having such a Testimonie as this Author a man without exception in that point and its likely they begun to see how they were made instruments of their owne slavery that this Author gives so severe a Character of the people If they be prone to a Religious Idolatrie as the Author sayes they are they are very vnfit Reformers of the Church and for that Civill kinde of Idolatrie in Idolizing their Kings that is in an eminent degree of obedience for such appeares his meanings it wil never prove sin to them and the contrary vice Rebellion is more frequent and more dangerous to their salvation and many will goe to heaven with this Civill kinde of Idolatrie when Rebells and despisers of Dominion wil be excluded The Author should have done well to tell what this Civill kinde of Idolatrie is if it differs from true obedience and whether it may not be given to others aswell as Kings I beleive if there be such a Civill kinde of Idolatrie the worst degree of it is in the reverence borne to King killers and common destroyers of their Countrey as the stories of all times testifie Rebells never wanted pretentions but libertie and Justice were the common Maske of such Monsters so this man wil have the world beleive the pretences of Rebells and that Rebellion was allwayes the lawfull side and thence those faithfull and couragious Barons that had broken their faith and Alleagiance to their King Trayterously armed the multitude for private revenge and ambition must be sainted those whome the cleere evidence of law judged Traytours and their warrs Rebellion must be the patrons of common libertie I thinke the Author will hardly finde a Calender of such saints if he receive a Connonization at such a rate it will deserve farlesse credit then the Gregorian Calender but he is not like to finde a Calender of saints for his purpose vnles it be filled with such faithles Traytours It hath been said of Politicians that they love the Treason and hate the Traytour but these new Masters saint the Traytours make Treason the Canon of their Religion Some men have pitied men of parts whose passions have carried them into vnwarrantable Actions but never till this age did Christians adore such saints Rebellion is dearer to this Author then Religion and he will rather commend superstitious Actions of a blinde age and the very dreggs of Popery against which he professeth so greate Zeale then want an ingredient to the varnish of that horrid sin and rather then that shal be discountenanced Popery and Judaisme it selfe shal be admitted There were a people that Idolized Todes and vipers and all venemous creatures and these men have resumed that Idolatry that will have the most cruell and destructive impieties to make men saints He instances in two particulars Simon de Montfort Earle of Leicester against Hen. 3. and Thomas Plantagenet Earle of Lancaster against Edward 2. For the first of these he was by the Testimony of the stories of that age the most ingrate full Rebell that any state hath harboured a man overloaden with his Masters favours matcht to his sister intrusted with his secretts and his forces yet this man whome neither benifitts affection nor trust could oblidge nor keepe from thrusting the King from his Throne assuminge the Government to himselfe for the common libertie as the Author will have it is enrolled for a saint If there were any so exorbitant and excessive in their motions to saint such a faithlesse wretch the Author will hardly finde any so much mistaken in his Civill Kinde of Idolatry to their Kings but whence comes Hen 3 to be a Tyrant of whome the stories report so much mildnes and hardly so greate an errour as the vnadvised advancement of that Rebell Montfort But it is very vsuall with these men that wherever they finde an Example of Rebellion there the King is a Tyrant and all such Presidents as were conveyed to our times to shew vs the mischeife and wickednes of Rebellion are produced as authorities for the committing of it and Garnetts straw wil be a Miracle and he a saint the Assassins of Kings glorious Champions for common libertie For the secound the stories are very silent of any common libertie pretended by the Earle of Lancaster or any Tyrany against that King but it matters not what truth there be in an assertion so a King be made the Criminall and though the mistake of such as held the Earle of Lancaster for some time a saint were ridiculous to that very age yet this Author will have it a lesse errour then the keeping of the fifth Commaundement and the people that vsed a Civill Kinde of Idolatry to their good Emperour that had the famous surname of Iconoclastes more mistaken in the object of their worshipp then such as Idolized the
superstitious Images he had broken for the Author sayes they were never more mistaken in the object of their worshipp then in the Civill Kinde of Idolatrie in Idolizing their Kings It s apparent in the stories of our nation that superstitious Churchmen had their hands in those Rebellions the Author mentions therefore might induce the ignorant rabble to adore the Calves they had set vp in our dayes wee finde they have successours that teach the people doctrines of Devills and seduce them from obedience to those that had the rule over them Now with a besotted and degenerate basenesse of spirit ex cept some few who yet reteine in them the old English fortitude and love of freedome and have testified it by their matchles deedes the rest embastardized from the ancient noblenes of their Ancestours are ready to fall flat and give adoration to the Image and memory of this man who hath offred at more cunning fetcher to vndermine our libertie and put Tyrany into an Act then any Brittish King before him It s very strange that all except some few are so besotted as not to love libertie so naturall to man and those that have so contended for it as the English nation but if it were possible for Iconoclastes to deale faithfully wee might have expected that he would have told vs what that libertie was the people loved not which is the libertie of those ambitious Traytours that now lord it over them which are those few he mentions whose matchlesse villanies have wasted more English blood in these few yeares then all our Kings in their victorious warrs since the conquest The people doubtles love libertie but they finde themselves cheated of their just libertie vnder a lawfull King and brought vnder the slavery of many Tyrants who perswaded the poore people it was libertie to be without a King though subject to the licentious will of vpstart vsurpers and why is it degnerate basenes of spirit to vindicate their lawes liberties against Tyrants that have vsurped it and revenge the fraude iniury done them by deceivers that vnder pretence of law and libertie bereft them of both The best of the Rebells pretence which this Author defends is to fight for libertie and if the people finde their libertie taken away is it vnlawfull to resume it from Tyrants and vsurpers which this Author holds lawfull Kings It s true men were besotted with the name of libertie and those Mountebanques infused the principles of Rebellion into the people by telling there could be no libertie vnder Monarchy as if the nature of Governments were vnknowne till our time and thence this Author writes as if none but besotted people should reade him If these vipers had professed in the beginninge of their Rebellion that Simon Monford Thomas Earle of Lancaster had been saints and that they intended to follow the Example of such Traytours the people would not have been so besotted the miseries brought on the Kingdome by such seducers being so largely delivred in story but the people have now found by sad experience that the leaders of the present disorders are the Progenie of those cursed Rebels whose Actions made them odious to all posteritie and dishonoured the times wherein they lived and this Author would brand the whole nation making Rebellion their fortitude and love of freedome when its plaine to all readers that those Rebellions were the scourge of the nation which langiushed vnder the burthens that were encreased by those whome they followed against their kings How the people have been Idolized by those Rebells Tumults defended and the power over their king pretended for the justification of this odious Rebellion besides the declaration of those they call a Parliament this Author frequently tells vs in this answeare yet is soe carelesse of truth or shame as heere their reason and affection are as contemptible as their right in Government and some few must raigne over them The greatest vnhappines of the English nation hath been in the misfortunes of their kings the greatest dishonour in the prevalence of insolent and sly Rebells the noble blood of the most renowned persons being wasted in those disorders and Civilitie for many yeares destroyed If we place vertue in the insolent attempts of Rebells against lawfull Princes not only Christian fortitude but morall vertue grow contemptible rage and venom will sooner get a saint-shipp then Justice or innocence If so many are so ready to fall flat to the Image and memory of his late Majest as the Author sayes his Masterts have cause to vse new principles and as they fought against their king by faining a power in the people so they must now lay fetters on them and cast away the maske a Ceremony to be vsed no longer It was not a part of our liberties to be deprived of our king nor to Rebell against him such acts being contradictions not only to Christian but English libertie and such as take that libertie to themselves robb others of their just lawfull liberties Doe the present or did ever Traytours give libertie to any but their faction And doe they allow them any more then libertie at the will of the Commaunder And if libertie be so precious to these men why should John lilborne bemore restrained then Iconoclastes And why should any be more Cryminall that write or speacke against an vsurped power then they that wrote against the knowne legall authoritie Prisoners in Gayles hire persons of strong voyces to begg for them att the grate and the Rebells have found this Authors rancour and impudence so sublimated as his falsities and slanders were probable to infest the world though to knowing and honest men they sound the voyce of a Beast and not a man what one libertie of the English Nation is there now left Doe not all men see that their ridiculous howse and state Councell act at the will of their sword Master whose act those Cyphers are disposed of to signifie what he pleaseth Doe not all men see that the vse of the name libertie signifieth nothing but a sound to fill the peoples eares and deceive their vnderstandinge That Tyranny should be objected to the best King in whose time fewer men suffred death then in any time of like extent throughout all our Kings shewes hellish rage not common impudence In his Raigne of sixteene yeares vntill this abominable Parliament one only Peere of the Kingdome suffered death that not for any provocation or offence against the Kings person but for Crymes of another nature a raritie in the stories of the best Kings and yet so brutish is this man to say that he hath offred at more cunning fetches to vndermine our liberties and put Tyrany into an art then any brittish King before him Wherein should Tirany appeare was there any violence vsed in taking away mens Estates Can they object Covetuousnes or luxury to his late Majest they have not yet pretended it but they would make
brands that high hand of slander and detraction which this breaker stretches out against him and it will fill posteritie with amazement at the folly of the present age that should take such things for enormities as fines for knighthood Coate conduct and shipmony whereof some of them were scarce felt or observed and the rest easily borne And submit themselves to contributions excises loanes and taxes to which those which he calls enormities hold no proportion But not contented with the false appellations of his Majest Civill Actions he proceedes to defy and reproach his Actions for preservation and defence of his Kingdome and calls it an injurious warr to resist an invading Enemy That the Scotts were entred neere a hundred mile into the Kingdome at the time he mentions he cannot be ignorant and to call the warr injurious on his Majest part cannot come from any that thinkes any thing injurious that Rebells commit or any thing just that Governours command When any Actions are rehearsed of his Majest against the Scotts the Traytours call them vnjust and amplifie their slander with the Circumstance of his native Countrey When the Scotts offer obedience to the King or he concurr with them they decry such Actions in respect they are of his native Countrey thus shifting saying and gainsaying to deceive the people If there any yet remaine that will trust such common Cheates His collection that necessitie and not choice brought the King to call a Parliament followes not from any of his premisses His Majest doth not exclude the necessitie of his affaires from moving him to call the Parliament When he sayes that he called the Parliament not more by necessitie then his owne choice doth he exclude necessitie or affirme his owne choice only without consideration of Circumstances Parliaments ought not to be called but vpon greate occasions and their too often Convention is a burthen not an ease to the people and such was the judgment of the late Parliament at the beginning It is not new that necessities have caused Kings to call Parliaments which yet was never made an Argument to prove their owne vninclinaâ—ion to call a Parliament His descant vpon strong necessities and pangs of state layes open the Treason of these conspiratours that plotted how their Country might pine and languish that so vnnaturall Emperickes might excercise their bloody practice and a mercilesse Tyrany could only be exspected from such as sought their power by their Countreyes sufferings And if his Majest proceedings had been violent they had not produced that necessitie First in Ireland which only was to give him four subsidies and so to expire then in England where his first demaund was but twelue subsidies to maintaine a Scotch warr condemned and abominated by the whole Kingdome promising their greivances should be considered afterwards The Parliament in Ireland he might have knowne was not the first that was called in the nine yeares he mentions but fals hood are so common that mistakes are not worth the observation and if the King had called that Parliament in Ireland to obtaine fower subsidies where had been the fault May not a King call a Parliament to be supplyed But if Iconoclastes had patience to know truth or speake it he might easily have found a greate number of good lawes made in that Parliament to worke a conformitie of that nation to England and he vnseasonably produced this instance of the Parliament of Ireland which so mainely contradicts his assertion for the necessities alone he supposes could not worke the calling of that Parliament where Parliaments had been so frequent before In England where he sayes his Majest first demaund was but twelue subsidies he hath lost his expectation and his Ironicall but hath lost its mirth for he cannot thinke that the people now apprehend twelue subsidies so greate a demaund by the King when they see a farr greater proportion given the Scotch for invading the Kingdome and after such an execrable warr and barbarous prodigalitie their greivance is increast and all that is effected or pretended to be done for them is the Destruction of King and Church and dividing the Estates of both among the Master Rebells vpon whose Arbitrary and vnlimited power they must now depend That these twelue subsidies were demaunded to maintaine Scotch warr hath no colour of truth it being not at al propounded And as it had been a sottish and perverse disposition to have condemned the warr against the Scotts when they were in preparation to invade England so it is as shamelesly said by Iconoclastes that it was condemned and abominated by the whole people Himselfe if a wicked obduration had not made him love lying must have conffessed that the late Earle of Essex though afterward in Rebellion against the King with greate demonstrations of Zeale and affection to his Majest went a Commaunder in that expedition And if we respect the qualitie or number of noble worthy persons that engaged themselves in that first warr our stories have rarely remembred an Army that went into Scotland of greater number of eminent persons so as Iconoclastes hath just cause to condemne and abominate himselfe for the Lewdenes and evidence of this vntruth and if the then Parliament had not been abused by some representing his Majest desires the designes of such as meant to make advantage of the breach of that Parliament had been disappointed and the Calamities ensuing had been prevented And as there were no greivances then in the Kingdome but might admit longer delay of redresse then the publique necessities of supply so his Majest might justly demaund subsidies in the first place with promise to redresse their greivances afterwards And Iconoclastes too late observes the order of that demaund of his late Majest to be amisse when the late Parliament graunted so many subsidies for the Scotts without expectation of any such promise Which when the Parliament who judged that warr it selfe on of their maine greivances made no haste to graunt not enduring the delay of his impatient will or els fearing the conditions of their graunt he breakes of the whole session and dismisses them and their greivances with scorne and frustration That the Parliament judged that warr any of their greivances that never mentioned it in their debates or resolutions is fit for the affirmation of this Author only But if the Parliament had judged that warr one of their maine greivances the rest whereof so greate noyse hath been made will hardly be thought weightie This warr was then newly begun the King had received no supply from the people for the charge past and could this be a maine greivance Wee see at what rate this man makes greivance and to what ordinary accidents he applies his exorbitant expressions The then Parliament would not have been slow in his Majest supply if some false Ministers had not interposed and some seditious persons had not plotted to impose a necessitie vpon his Majest to dissolue the Parliament They had not
preserve the love and welfare of his subjects To this of his Majest he sayes Who doubts it but the same interest common to all Kings was never yet availeable to make them all seeke that which was indeede best for themselves their posteritie But if it be the interest of Kings to preserve the love and welfare of their subjects in vaine doth Iconoclastes from the transgressions of particular persons defame the sacred office of Kings and endeavour to set vp vsurpers whose interest cannot so much oblidge them to the love welfare of the people He sayes all men are oblidged by their interest to honestie and Iustice but that consideration workes litle in private men It seemes by his writing it workes litle in him that so litle regards honestie and Iustice But his interest is not to regard it for the interest of his profitt and esteeme with his Masters cannot be maintained by honestie and Iustice and that interest is more prevalent with him then the interest of a good conscience or heaven it selfe He might well have descerned that his Majest argued from the Humane or Civill interest which men are apt to judge strongest and the breaker impertinently diverts the sense to talke of mens fayling in the exercise of vertue when their temporall interests are the cause of their miscarriage and therefore his Majest reason was strong that since his interest as well as right carried him to the inclination he mentioned it might be more probable to others But the Image breaker admits no reasons not gives any but magisterially layes downe his position that Kings have lesse consideration of honestie Iustice then other men It were an injury to that high calling to offer an answeare to such a barking detractour against the most approved most ancient and most sacred office for the preservation of Humane societie that will deprave that which God hath sanctified and will make those by whome God dispenseth the blessings of peace vnto men the greatest Enemies to God and goodnes He intended to oblidge both friends Enemies and to exceede their desires did they but pretend to any modest and sober sense To this he sayes mistaking the whole busines of a Parliament which meete not to receive from him obligations but Iustice nor he to expect from them their modestie but their grave advice vttered with Freedome in the publique cause This man mistakes the whole busines of a Parliament that would exclude modestie from the advice and libertie from the advised The freedome that the libeller intends is inconsistent with modestie as-well as Monarchy Trayterous dispositions having an Antipathy to morall vertues How often have Parliaments made petitions to their King for graces were they not oblidged when they were graunted But it cannot be expected that such as despise dutie should willingly acknowledge the right of those to whome it belongs and such as vse no modestie will acknowledge no gratitude or obligation If their advice had been grave their behaviour would have been modest and they whose dutie was only to advise had no pretence to Commaund and dictate nor they that were to receive Justice from their King to snatch what they desired and become judges of their owne demaunds Such as wil not be oblidged by lawes nor oaths cannot by benefites favours and such as have robbed a King of his power grow quickely to that height of impudence to deny he had ever any as this Author that is so Brutish to affirme that Kings cannot oblidge their subjects thence it followes that they owe no thankes to God for a good King as they professe to owe him none for his good Government His talke of modestie in their desires of the common welfare argues him not much to have vnder stood what he had to graunt who misconceived so much the nature of what they had to desire His excepting at the talke of modestie shewes how little he vnderstands other modestie or the right or practice of Parliament Is not humilitie a word of larger signification then modestie and yet this breaker will make modestie contrary to the nature of the Parliaments desires and the Kings graunts when humilitie is the common expression of the Parliaments petitions to the King And he might well have said the King vnderstood not what he had to graunt if he had not expected his subjects desires to have a modest and sober sense Can there be desires of the common-welfare that exclude modest sober sense But the truth is the desires of the late faction in the name of Parliament had neither modest nor sober sense and thence the libeller would inferr it vnnecessary and it was very farr from the nature of what they had to desire to demaund their Kings Crowne And for sober sense the expression was too meane and recoiles with as much dishonour vpon himself fo to be a King where sober sense could possible be so wanting in a Parliament And must it be the Kings dishonour if an Assembly of Parliament want sober sense how does that recoile vpon him can he make them otherwise Iconoclastes lately reprehended his mention of heate in Elections and now it s the Kings dishonour if the Parliament want sober sense was there never experience of a Parliament that wanted sober sense or was any man so savage as to hold sober sense too meane for a greate Councell Wee have seene not only sober sense but al Religion reason law Justice wanting in a Parliament being taken for the prevalent partie and Histories record it to have happened more then once Kings have been vnhappy in such Parliaments but the dishonour and infamy rests vpon such Assemblyes and these Apologists are the Trumpetts of their shame not the covers of their nakednes The odium and offences which some mens rigour or remissenes in Church state had contracted vpon his Government he resolved to have expiated with better lawes and regulations To this he sayes the worst misdemneanours of rigour or remissenes he hath taken vpon himselfe as often as the Clergy or any other of his Ministers felt themselves over-burthened with the peoples hatred He instances in the superstitious rigour of his sundayes Chappell remissenes of his sundayes Theatre that reverend statute for Dominicall liggs Maypoles derived from the Example of his Father Iames which testifies that all superstition and remissenes in Religion issued from his authoritie and the generall misearriages in state imputed cheifely to himselfe That the remissenes and rigour of some men may contract odium and offence in the best Governments was never doubted but that this libeller would take occasion from his Majest intention to expiate them with better lawes to cast them on his Majest shewes that this Rebellion arose not from offences in Government but wicked inclinations of ambition Covetuousnes and that amendments were not desired but confusion It was just honourable that the King should take on him the defence of his lawes against Sectaries
of this mans Religion otherwise we might demaund of him why the King should goe further then his reason and conscience directed him and why the libeller his Mates should hould it lawfull for them to spurne at al lawes both in Church and state vpon pretence of their reason and conscience against them he cannot deny to have done this they should doe well to shew how the King may goe against his reason conscience Is it intayled vpon him with his Fortune as a King to have lesse priviledge then they must he renounce his owne reason and conscience to the advice of a Parliament And must they controll him and the Parliament Surely the King must give an account to God for the Talents he hath lent him But how can the breaker conclude from the Kings forbearance of Acts wherein he is vnsatisfied in his conscience that is to set vp an Arbitrary Government when as nothing is introduced And why must not all Brittaine be chained to the judgment reason and conscience of the King as well as all Israell Gods owne peculiar people and not only all Brittaine but the whole world are Chained to the reason judgment and conscience of their Rulers be they one or many And the seducers would perswade vs that Brittaine could not be happy vnles it were reduced to its ancyent barbaritie and governed by a multitude of Kings Religions God had promised peculiar assistance to Kings and Commaunds the peoples obedience to them the miseries of the Kingdome many be imputed in a greate part to what his Majest observed that he had suffered his owne judgment to be overborne in some things A Tyrant may make this pretence and it were in vaine for any Parliament to have reason judgment or conscience if it thwarted the Kings will It were much more tollerable for a Tyrant to pretend conscience in governing then for a people to pretend conscience in rebelling and this libeller hath reprehended the peoples levitie and violence so sharpely as he cannot if he pretend reason subject the reason judgment and conscience of the Rulers to the controll of the subjects Because Tyrants may pretend conscience therefore by good logicque no King may vse it and because some Kings may not rightly governe therefore he will have the right judgment in the people which he so much despises and which as it hath been the meanes of the Rebells present power so it hath been in all ages the cause of confusion and miserie to states and Kingdomes The reason judgment and conscience of a Parliament is not therefore in vaine because not infallible it is most probable that a King will follow the best Councell but it cannot be presumed that in Parliaments the greater-part will continue subjects if they may be Kings by saying they wil be and it was the wisedome of our Ancestours that would have no lawes made without the will of their King and they never trusted such as they chose further then to present their desires and offer their Councell vnto him and consent to what should be ordeyned by him with advice of the Lords it were in vaine to have a King if he were not impowred to judge of Councells or if lawes might be obtruded vpon him and the people without him The present Calamities testifie how vnhappily and absurdly a Parliament seekes to Commaund whose office is to Councell and pretend Councell vseles vnles they may deprive him whome they advise of the benifit of Councell taking away his power to vse it To what end doe they Councell if there be none to be Councelled but all to be commaunded That thus these promises made vpon experience of hard sufferings and his most mortified retirements being thorowly sifted containe nothing much different from his former practices His Majest expressions being thorowly sifted containe nothing in them but pious and Princely considerations and from libellers owne mouth all men may see that his Majest practices against which they maliciously exclaime were consonant to Religion and Justice and only opposite to Trayterous and schismaticall licence It was the libellers profession to parrallell his Majest faire spoken words as he calls them to his owne farr different Actions and now his words and deedes being sifted by malice it selfe are not much different the libeller is some what ingenuous to discover his owne vanitie and falshood He leaves it to prudent foresight what fruites in likelyhood his Majest restorement would have produced We have seene already the fruites of the inhumane cruelties exercised vpon him and the continuance and encrease of those abominable impieties that attend such Actions where of the libeller makes a large profession who confidently obtrudes lavish lyes for knowne truths petulant insolence for sober sense maximes of villany for sound Arguments which are the bitter fruites of disobedience and Rebellion To that part of the section which he calls the devout of it and modelled into the forme of a private Psalter he objects nothing but his spleene that it is not to be admired more then the Arch-Bishopps late Breviary and other manualls and handmaides of Devotion and these he calls the lip worke of every Prelaticall leiturgist quilted out of Scripture Phrase with as much ease and as litle neede of Christian diligence or judgment as belongs to the compiling of any ordinary saleable peece of English Divinitie that the shopps value The Authors of leiturgies and helpes to devotion have their memory blessed by the benifit which many devout soules have acknowledged to have received from their labours and the crueltie which bloody Rebells exercised on the person of the late Arch-bishopp and their other barbarismes towards the Prelates to please that kennell by whome they acted their Rebellion hath satisfied the world of the nature of Sectaries of whose bloody disposition many by sheepes-clothing were much deceived Quilting of Scripture Phrase was wont to be the prayse of their long winded Lecturers who vsed it more for sound then sense but it seemes their spirit is changed The libeller will hardly gett credit vnles with those for whose sake he doth not professe to write that is his wise and well principled men the Sectaries if he affirme that there is more neede of Christian diligence in the bold and extempore bablinge of their senseles zealots then the compiling of those Leiturgies and Manualls he mentions And such as have observed the presumption of this rabble in their prayers will beleive they hate diligence as much as they want judgment Why English or saleable should dininish the esteeme of Divinitie is not vnderstood but becaused they are common termes he would have his readers vnderstand that they signifie nothing but common matter and he expects that some will thinke English and saleable Divinitie of no regard though they vnderstand no other But he proceedes such a kinde of Psalmastry or other verball devotion without suteable deedes cannot perswade any of Zeale and righteousnes in the person
But such as make Psalmastrie a word of contempt relish not the Zeale of the sweete singer of Israell and their deedes are odious to all good men that seeke matter of reproach vpon the devotions of others and make their malitious surmises positive truths The instances of Tyrants counterfeiting Religion are frequent and that hipocrisie is inseperable from Tyrants by vsurpation such as this libellers Masters whose want of right seekes protection from dissembled vertue but this seldome happens to Kings by just Title whose power wants not that support His comparing his late Majest to knowne vsurpers that confirmed their Crownes gained by robbery and kept with falshood blood shewes his odious shamelessnes in the dissimititude whoever observes the prophane assumption of the Titles of pietie by these Monsters their hipocriticall professions to maske their wicked ends shall finde that Andronicus Comnenus and our English Rich. 3. Came short of them not only in counterfeiting Religion and conscience but in falshood and crueltie Insteede of shake speares scene of Rich. 3. The libeller may take the Parliaments declaration of the 29. May where their words are The providing for the publique peace and prosperitie of his Majest and all his Realmes we protest in the presence of the all-seeing Deitie to have been and still to be the only end of all our Councells endeavours wherein wee have resolved to continue freed and enlarged from all private aimes personall respects or passions whatsoever and againe in their petition of the second of June they tell him that they have nothing in their thoughts and desires more pretious and of higher esteeme next to the honour and immediate service of God then the just and faithfull performance of their dutie to his Majest and the libeller will not finde in historie or poet words of a deeper hipocrisie in the mouth of a villaine nor more contradicted by their Actions That which he adds from his Testimony out of shakespeare of the imagined vehemence of Rich. the 3. In his dissembled professions holds noe proportion with theis hipocrisies really acted not fancyed by a poet and this libeller hath learnt to act a part out of shakespeare and with Rich. 3. accusing loyaltie and innocency for high Crymes and crying out against their wickednes that sought to restore the disposessed heires of the Crowne to their right and amplifying their offence as the highest against God and man and wherein comes the libeller short of his patterne in this scene He sayes heerein the worst of Kings professing Christianisme have by farr exceeded him and he gives his reason for that the King hath as it were vnhallowed and vnchristned by borrowing to a Christian vse prayers offred to a heathen God And doth saint Paul exceede the worst of Kings professing Christianisme by borrowing to a Christian vse the words of an heathen Philosopher and poet did he thereby vnhallow and vnchristen Scripture His meaning is as followes afterward that the King vsed a prayer taken out of S. Philip Sydnies Arcadia After the first Edition of his Majest booke the Printers finding the greate vent of them in the following Editions Printed prayers and other things in the Kings name not belonging to the booke Among these prayers there is a prayer taken out of the Arcadia That prayer is neither made by a heathen woman nor to a heathen God but is composed by the Author a Christian without reference to any heathen Deitie and the Author is not thought to vnchristen prayer by it the libeller himselfe saying the booke in its kinde is full of worth and wit but as his outcry hath noe cause from the matter so heere is no evidence of the fact that his Majest made vse of that prayer or popt into the Bishopps hands as a relique of his exercise though he might warrantably have vsed it and professed it But he goes on to shew what he can say vpon this occasion Who would have imagined so little feare in him of the true alseeing Deitie so litle reverence of the holy Ghost whose office is to dictate and presens our Christian prayers so litle care of truth in his last words or honour to himselfe or to his friends or sense of his afflictions or of that sad hower which was vpon him as immediately before his death to pop into the hand of that grave Bishopps who attended him as a speciall relique of his saintly exercises a prayer stolne c. All men that have observed this Authors practice hitherto rest assured that he hath so litle feare or reverence of the all seeing Deitie so litle care of truth or honour as he stickes not to charge his Majest with facts neverdone and innocent Actions with transcendent guilt If his Majest had vsed the prayer or delivered it as he imagines no man of Christian sobrietie could charge the fact with Cryme what one word or sentence is there in that prayer which a Christian may not vse but the Image breaker hath a greate quarrel to al formes of prayer and by the reason he produces that the office of the holy Ghost is to dictate and present our Christian prayers all set prayers want reverence to the holy Ghost so tender is he of the best reformed Churchs of whome he so often makes a propertie And whence concludes he no care of truth in his last words when the King never spake of it He aggravates this fact by the person of the grave Bishopp who had been a Prelaticall leiturgist had it not been to paint a slander The laughter which he conceives is caused by the thought of this that he which acted so Tragically should have such a ridiculous exit might rather strike horrour in the libeller for his malitious opposition to truth that will so contrary to his owne knowledge charge him to act tragically that had governed so mildly and to have a ridiculous exit that left the world with so greate pietie and such vniversall greife of the people for his sufferings but desperate wretches laugh at the wickednes they act His Majest friends have had good experience that his Enemies who have spared no paines to traduce him would not for beare any occasion of detraction His Majest enduring afflictions with admired patience his fuffering death with Christian fortitude his vertuous life holy Martyrdome cannot be blasted by an Atheists scorne nor a Rebells malice His conclusion in the begging of the question that it is cleere the King was not induced but constrained to call the last Parliament which by his owne shewing is apparently false for if there had been such a constraint the Lords in vaine petitioned and all the necessities that he hath supposed may concurr with the Kings inclination to call a Parliament and if necessitie had constrained him to call a Parliament what should hinder but he might avouch in the eares of God that he did it with an vpright intention to his glory and his peoples good If necessitie of his peoples
disrelish those his prime qualities and makes the execration of such wickednes to be strange infatuation and hardnes of heart and so calls the Kings vnwilling and forced consent to an act he judged evill the tasting of a just deede and his repentance for it he calls spattring at it The Devills are tormented with the repentance of others and their Agents blasphemously deride it and its doubtfull whether the pittie or detestation ought to be greater to wards such desperate persons that call the consent to an execrable murder tasting of one good deede and the resolution against the like spattring at it no doubt this man spatters at conscience direlishes all repentance nothing being so naturall to him as the opposition to pietie That wo is denounced to the Scribes and Pharisees for straining at a gnat and swallowing a Cammell We scarcely finde so greate a Cammel swallowed by the Scribes and Pharisees as many that are greedily devoured by this libeller His prophane and malitious scornes and reproaches of repentance in this very section and magnifying an execrable Murther are Cammells in the Jugdment of true Christians though it seeme not so to that sense which is wholy reprobate the straining at gnats and swallowing Cammels was never more apparent in any sect of men then this libeller and his crew and if the ruine of three Kingdomes be soe big bulky as he confesses and would falsely have to be the deedes of his late Majest and that a wo belongs to them what may this libeller his Complices expect that have strained at formes and Ceremonies swallowed downe not only periuries and Murthers the defence of odious sins and the reproaching of Christian duties but have vndoubtedly brought this ruine vpon his Majest three Kingdomes He followes his common place of reproaching his Majest conscience and sayes if it were come to that vnnaturall discrafie to digest poyson it was not for his Parliament and Kingdomes to feede with him any longer This Chapter the libeller hath composed for a satyre against conscience to make it more a bhord by his crew of Caniballs with whome non can feede but blood thirstie savages Could he name a greater discrasie then what he commends that confines conscience to shed blood exludes it from sparing These Traytours had made falshood and disobedience unnaturall to them and thereby they caused such as sought to preserve themselves from that pestilence to avoyde them those venemous persons according to their malitious qualitie sought to infect with their disposition or destroy by their rage all that came neere them or restrained their Company That the King would perswade vs that the Parliament escaped not some touches of remorse for putting Strafford to death in forbidding it to be a President for the future but he sayes in faire construction that act implyed rather a desire to pacifie the Kings minde not imagining that this after Act should be retorted on them whether it were made a President or not no more then the want of a President for this It s some what strange that the Image breaker finding his rigour only to rayle would medle with this Argument but it seemes he apprehended the hope of a fallacie in the word after would insinuate that this Act was made after the murther which was made to authorise it and in a faire construction it hath not the least shadow of a desire to pacifie the King for it did not diminish any of their power or purposes that contrived that Act but only to exclude this fact from ordinary Justice which in a faire construction implyes that it was not law but will and power whereby they proceeded The truth was themselves saw that by the consequence of that fact of theirs all mens lives and fortunes were exposed to danger and ruine and no Magistrate or officer but might be drawne within the compasse of Treason by the Rules they had held with the Earle of Strafford all they that were present at the debates of that busnies know well that their proper feares caused that provision in the Act and though themselves were not bound to Presidents they were affraid that others would follow their Presidents as in truth they ought if this President had been according to law He would not have that this Act argued in the Parliament their least repenting when it argued so litle in the King who accused the six members for the same Crymes which he would not thinke treasonable in the Earle The accusation of those six members was of other and higher Crymes besides some of those objected to the Earle of Strafford and vpon better grounds and if it had been only those it shewes apparently that they that would not proceede vpon that accusation repented of what they had done against the Earle of Strafford or had no conscience at all but were only guided by corrupt respects of person and interest and his Majest might try what they would doe against persons evidently guiltie of that which they had judged so high a Cryme in another For the discovery of their former false proceedings that the King held nothing Treason but against himselfe He hath been already told was the judgment of the accusers of the Earle of Strafford and he might have knowne it to be so farr from a Tyranicall principle as he calls it that it is the rule of law and Government for have not his Masters changed the stile of proceedings against offenders which the law formerly vsed in regard of their change of Government and devised one according to their new modell It s possible they that devised that clause in the Act did not expect it would be retorted vpon them they were blinded with their fury and precipitation But the Image breaker might have observed that a greater evidence of their injustice could not have been provided He that is so shamelesse to insinuate the Kings instigation to that clause in the Act for the death of the Earle Strafford which were a madnes in any man to suppose may aswell pretend it for his death The six members must stand condemned if he acquit them for the contrary of what he affirmes is constantly true And it were folly to aske him why he should conclude the six members guiltles that never were tryed when they were accused of such facts as he himselfe sayes were Treason in others for he will certainly say it though he thinke it not He concludes against the Kings conscience in saying that he bare that touch of conscience with greater regret then any other in regard of the proditory aide he supposes sent to Rochell and Religion abroade and a Prodigalitie of shedding blood at home as he phrases it There cannot be a greater evidence of the Kings innocence and the Rebels lewdenes then their absurd accusations of him who after their barbarous reproaches and crueltie make his greatest Cryme the resistance of their Rebellion and the misfortune of an expedition in favour of Rochell and
but the instigation of the factious partie in Parliament That it was reasonable and just for the Parliament to make choise of their owne guards and Commaunder will only appeare to such as had trayterous plotts against the King and the choice that they made of the Earle of Essex shewes by their after imployment and his ensuing Actions that the King had just reason for the refusall and though this Author thinke that he hath said somewhat by naming him the Kings owne Chamberlaine yet all men see that these obligations which the King had put vpon that Earle could not with hold him from being a leader to the mad multitude against King and Kingdome It is the right of inferious Courts to make choice of their owne guards which is vtterly false but can he tell that ever an inferiour Court vndertooke to be guarded by a Militia or that ever they had other guards then from Constables and inferiour officers whome they might require to keepe the peace and doe their dutie and noe Court could ever make choice of any guard either for number or Commaunder He sayes that why the King refused the guard desired the next day made mainfest for then be came to blocke vp or assault the house of Commons It soone appeared wherefore they desired a guard to protect Traytours destroy the King That the King came to blocke vp or assault the libelles hath already confessed to be false for he did it not when it was in his power if he had refused a guard for that reason he would have performed it it s impertinently alleadged for the cause of those tumults when he hath shewed that those tumults were begun long before for he lately to vs of the blood drawne at the gate of white hall and Westminster hall which himselfe knowes was in the tumults He proceedes to say that he had begun to fortifie his Court and entertained armed men How absurdly doth he produce any acts of his Majest which were occasioned by the tumults to be causes of the tumults fortifying his Court and entertaining armed men there was good cause for and what could it signifie that the King fortified his owne house But an apprehension of danger And how could it offend any vnles such as were disaffected to his safetie He sayes these men soe entertained standing at his Pallace gate reviled and with drawne swords wonnded many of the people as they passed by in a peaceable manner whereof some died His owne relation makes it more then probable that such as were wounded gave the occasion of the hurt they had for they were not drawne to the Palace gate and might have quietly passed by though any of his Maj Servants stood at the gate the truth is they dayly provoked his Maj with insolent menacinge words Actions enforced such as guarded the Court to repel them with force if they were reviled they gave the provocation by their seditious carriage these armed men are now come to drawne swords there being no armes found by this Author but swords wherewith the persons vsually walked which were necessarily drawne against that rowt The passing by a multitude though neither to St. Georges feast nor to a tilting of it selfe was no Tumult The expression of their loyaltie and stedfastnes to the Parliament whose lives they doubted to be in danger was noe Tumult but wherefore should such a multitude resort that had nothing to see vnles they were tumults If a multitude of people either at St. Georges feast or a tilting should threaten the King or with violence presse into his Court and reproach and assualt such as they found there this would be a tumult somewhat more but this was not al these tumults acted they assaulted the members of both houses neere their doores they threatned them that consented not to what they would have they prescribed to the King and both houses what they should doe doth this triviall discourser make no difference betweene such Actions that are the most pernitious disorders in states the comming of a multitude to see a tilting If the purpose of such multitudes had been preservation of the lives or safeties of any members in Parliament it was very vnsuteable to their pretence to enquire into the proceedings of the houses assualt menace the members The loyaltie which he sayes they bare to the Parliament was il exprest by breaking the priviledges wronging the members their loyaltie was due to their King in the first place they owed nothing to the Parliament but as their Kings Court Councel but the Author thinkes fit they should breake their sworne loyaltie to their King to maintaine a faction agianst him If it grew to be so the cause was in the King his retinue who by hostile preparations and actuall assailing the people gave just cause to defend themselves can himselfe believe this dreame of his when he reades it over that the kings preparations against the tumults after a long continved insolence against him should more excuse them for encreasing their violence them justifie their first attempts Neede they come to white hall or Westminster to defend themselves but their disorderly absurd pretences are fit Apologies for a tumultuous rowt These petitioning people needed not have been so formidable to any but to such whose consciences misgave them how il they had deserved of the people and doe non forbid such petitioning people but those whose consciences misgave them how il they had deserved of the people why then were the kentish petitioners and other soe roughly handled comming vnarmed more peaceably then these Tumults And doe the libellers Masters permitt such petitioning people at present vnles it be some of their owne suborning And are the people which he soe lately described to to be exorbitant and excessive in their motions become such exact judges of al mens meritt and determine of punishment without respect to their Rulers If the libeller would have shewen what these Tumults wanted to make them Cryminall and wherefore other Tumults were condemned he would have found meanes to have come to himselfe have sayd that Tumults were necessary Preparations to Rebellion That the King was soe Emphaticall and elaborate on this Theame will redound lesse perhapps them he was aware to the commend ation of his Government for in good Governments they happen seldomest and rise not without couse It is more then perhapps that this libellers commendation of the Tumults will condemne his defence If Tumults never happen without cause we must accuse the best Governments of giving that cause we are sure Davids Government wanted them not but Absolon and Sheba shall condemne the man after Gods owne heart Did this libeller thinke any truth in scripture or was he at all acquainted with it that will have a just cause for all Tumuls when we reade soe many against Moyses by the children of Israell And it he had pleased to
Common right What needed written Acts when as it was anciently esteemed part of his Corwne oath His Crowne oath is well knowne and may not be tryed by estimation but inspection The libellers estimation hath as litle proofe as authoritie He referrs the lawerlie mooting of this point to a booke called the rights of the Kingdome written it seemes by some Author of as much fidelitie in his quotations as this libeller in his narrations and to other law Tracts being neither his Element nor proper worke since the booke which he hath to answeare pretends to reason not to Authoritie And he holds reason to be the best Arbitratour and the law of law it selfe And it appeares by his writings that reason is neither his Element nor worke heere for had he vse of reason he would not referr vs to bookes that are onely of Authoritie to prove the ignorance and boldnes of the writer neither could reason judge it a law that a king should not dissolve a Parliament till all particular greivances were considered though the setting of it might prove an incurable greivance but his reason would have the Parliament defend the Kingdome with their votes as the Roman Senatours their Capitall with their robes against the Gaules The King must not be at such distance from the people in judging what is better and what worse That the people are not the best judges of what is better and what is worse the libeller himselfe acknowledges saying they are excessive in all their motions and is it not reason that the King then should be at such distance in judging but the libeller seekes to be at greate distance with truth that sayes the Kings owne words condemned him that he had not knowne as well with moderation to vse as with tarnestnes to desire his owne advantages Where as the King spake not of himselfe but others his words were If some men had knowne as well with moderation to vse as with earnestnes to desire advantages of doing good or evill Doth this man thinke reason the law of law or falshood the Master of both law and reason that soe palpably belyes the booke before him The King sayes a continuael Parliament he thought would keepe the Commonwealth in tune To this sayes to Libeller Iudge Commonwealth what proofes he gave that this boasted profession was ever in his thought The king doubtles thought not that every Parliament would keepe the Commonwealth in tune but a Parliament that preferred publique good before private faction The King saith as he relates him some gave out that I repented me of that setling Act. The Libeller sayes his owne Actions gave it out beyound all supposition for be went about soe soone after to abrogate it by the sword Heere the Libeller omitts a materiall word which the King vsed which was soone for the Kings words are that I soone repented It is well knowne that the wicked vse which the Traytours made of that setling Act might give the king just cause to repent him of it but as the king vsed not the sword till many Moneths after the passing of that Bill soe the cause of his Armes were the violent and Trayterous Actions of a faction not the abrogation of that Bill The King calls those Acts which he confesses tended to their good noe more Princely then friendly contributions as if sayes the Libeller to doe his dutie were of Courtesie and the giving backe of our Liberties stood at the mercy of his contribution He would have it beleived that Parents can doe nothing for their childrens good out of favour all is of dutie and noe thankes belongs to them from their children nor any from subjects to their Soveraignes or rulers for the greatest benefitts they receive by good Government and all the vigilance watchfullnes pietie of Princes for the peoples good is not at all thankes worthy theis are the Maximes of Rebells and if Kings will not yeelde vp their power they may be compelled and the quitting of Government for which Kings must give account to God is by theis mens Divinitie the giving backe of liberties being noe other then to give licence to all wickednes and beare the sword in vaine The kings sayes he doubts not but the affections of his people will compensate his sufferings for those Acts of confidence To this sayes the libeller not his confidence but his distrust brought him to his sufferings and he trusted nere the sooner for what he tells of their pietie and Religious strictnes but rather hated them as Puritans whome he allwayes sought to extirpate The libeller himselfe cannot deny but that if the king had not had confidence that those Acts of his would not have beē abused he would not have graunted them for if the had not been so confident it had been much more eligible for him to hav run the peril of a war without graunting them and wee have seene by experience that many as well as the king were deceived in those that profest pietie and Religious strictnes and though the king had just cause to hate the faction of the hipocriticall Puritan yet he thought that there could not soe much impietie lurke in many vnder such profession of pietie and Religious strictnes as hath since exceeded the most blasphemous Atheist and had the king sooner distrusted he had in humane reason prevented much of the Calamitie that hath befallen himselfe and his kingdome That those Acts of the Kings did not argue that he meant peace knowing that what he graunted out of feare he might assoone repeale by force It is noe argument that he would doe it because he might doe it but it is one of the libellers vsuall Arguments to conclude from the possibilitie to the being and there cannot be a greater Argument of a mans desire of peace then to part with his right to prevent a warr and by this rule of the libeller there must never be peace nor end of Rebellion but by the destruction of the king because their guilt is still vnsecure That the Tumults threatned to abuse all acts of grace and turne them into wantonesse This sayes the libeller is abusing of Scripture not becomming such a saint to adulterate sacred words from the grace of God to the acts of his owne grace And is it an abuse of Scripture to say the King did Acts of grace and whence then comes it to be an abuse of Scripture to say the people abused the Kings grace or turned it into wantonesse was it not a sin of wantonesse in the people and may it not be soe exprest without any abuse of Scripture Scripture is abused when it is applyed to a prophane ludicrous sense but the words heere are not transferred from a right signification There are diverse words that signifie both divine and humane Actions there is noe abuse of them in either sense And the libeller having excepted to the vse of an expression of Scripture presently makes bold with Scripture saying that
Rebellion the only remedy which he approves is the destruction of al publique safetie and shewes the Libeller as vnable to judge of law as vnwilling to obey any He concludes that the Kings negative voyce was never a law but a reasonles Custome growne vp from flattery or vsurpation And how shall wee judge that soe long a Custome without contradiction was noe law that the contrary was an vnwritten law and constantly enjoyed claimed Can he thinke that because the support of Rebellion is a subversion of law that therefore Rebells reasons are the rule of law And yet he is confident it is better evidence then Rolls and records as they deale with law soe with Scripture making their fantasticke dreames Diabolicall infusions the Canon of their Religion And the Monarchy of David and his successours ordeined by God and that had both a negative and affirmative voyce was a reasonlesse Custome from flattery or vsurpation He proceedes to shew the strength of his Argument Because the negative voyce is claimed to one man not as a wise or good man but as a King And how doth he claime the power of the Parliament as to wise or good men or as to elected men And it may be easily supposed that the Major part of the Parliament may not be soe wise and good as their King especially soe assisted by other Councells as kings are and it were noe abusive thing to Summon Parliaments though the King doe take their advices by weight not by number but it were an abusive thing that such as were called to advise should take vpon them to determine The King sayes The whole Parliament represents not him in any kinde To this sayes the Libeller If the Parliament represent the whole kingdome the king represents only himselfe and a king without his kingdome in a Civill sense is nothing nor without nor against the representative and soe his negative as good as nothing and though we should allow him something yet not equall to the whole kingdome nor them that represent it But what answeare is this to the King that being not represented cannot be bound by the votes of them that represent him not Is the Libellers making him nothing or not equall to the representative any reason why he should be bound by their votes The King is by law reason the representative of the Kingdome as this sottish libeller cannot deny it out of Parliament so he might well see that the election of persons to advise him doth not take away that supream representation which the law hath given him there can be nothing more absurd then that an elected company representing subjects to their King should take away the Kingly representation it is a ridiculous sophistrie that because the king is not the subject therefore he is without his kingdome The people in Parliament are represented petitioning and consenting not commaunding and revolting it is repugnant to their condition to be equall or not inferiour to their King which were to destroy the relation of king subject The king maintaines to be no further bound to agree with the votes of both houses then he sees them to agree with the will of God with his just rights as a King and the generall good of the people The Libeller would allow him freedome with due bounds but not that he should have a negative vpon that which is agreed by the whole Parliament Where are his bounds now for if he have noe freedome where they agree he hath none at al for if they doe not agree he can neither consent nor dissent but such poore sophismes are the reason of these popular Tribuns and they will have both affirmative and negative in the Tumults but not in the King To know the will of God better then his whole Kingdome whence should he have it The Libeller doubtles will affirme that himselfe knows the will of God better then many whole Kingdomes and why will he deny that possible to a King I may aske him why he should call the judgment of the Parliament or a Major part of it the judgment of the whole Kingdome when the Major part of the Kingdome be of another minde if because they represent it then why may not the Kings judgment in the highest representation be preferred before theirs If the Libeller were put to tell whenever such an Action had happened that the king dissented from his whole kingdome he would hardly finde it when people have in greatest multitudes opposed their king they were rarely or never in the right To know the will of God better then his whole kingdome he askes whence should he have it Court breeding he sayes and conversation of flatterers was a bad schole But conversation with Sectaries Rebels was worst of al kings may be presumed to have better breeding then any others and the Libeller in another place argues from the kings breeding a greater expectation of abilitie Flatterers are most hatefull to kings and their principall breeding is to avoyde the insinuations of such deceivers but the present faction have outdone all Court flatterers in falshood The king could not judge of his owne rights but he had a right to keepe them when they were judged He sayes the king had noe right by law to judge in any Court. And yet he judged in all Courts all judgments being in his name and we are sure that the lower house could never judge of the smallest cases nor the higher but in respect of the kings presence among them because the king judges by his delegates doth he not judge or can they judge his Crowne to themselves That the king cannot judge of Treason fellony because he is held a partie And why did he then exclaime that the king should hold noe Treasons but against himselfe but if that were the reason his Judges were incompetent aswell as he but it is necessary that in a learned profession as the law the king should judge by others The kings rights he sayes must give place to generall good But it is generall evill to take away his rights He may not yeilde to Traytours that desire him to part with them for their owne advantages It is noe arrogance in a king to suppose a cleerer insight of the generall good then others though chosen for the Parliament whose breeding and condition could not quallifie them for such a descerninge and it is a fond imagination in the Libeller to suppose the Parliament the kings Councell and suppose the king voyde of Judgment to descerne the foundnes of their advice They have most authoritie to judge of the publique good who for that purpose are chosen out and sent by the people to advise him But it necessarily followes that he hath most authoritie whome they are sent to advise their authoritie being to advise his to determine and being sent to advise they destroy their owne authoritie and office when they Commaund If the King see oft the major
at his Tryall or other proceedings against him the cases being contrary for Lentulus and the rest were accused for conspiring against the state Strafford was accused by those that conspired against the state and sought to take him away for a cleerer passage to their designe The King vouchsafes to the Reformation which both Kingdomes intended noe better name then innovation and ruine both to Church and state and the expelling of Bishopps out of the Church ruine to the Church and out of the house of Peeres ruine to the state And he askes how happy the nation could be in such a governour who counted that their ruine which they thought their deliverance It cannot be doubted but the abolition of the order and Government of Church and state is an innovation performed by force against the King execrable Rebellion and the King never doubted to say that such disorderly innovations were the ruine of Church and state and the innovations and ruines mentioned by the King to be agitated by some men are not restrained to the cause of the Bishopps though that alone and the manner of proceeding in regard of the injustice violence and the dangerous consequences that attend it threatned ruine to Church and state It is strange that a people may mistake their ruine for their deliverance that a wise Prince by denying them their wil may keepe them from perishing which their owne errours would cast them into but such as knew how small a part of the people how contemptible affected those innovations and how they were cherisht by the leaders of Rebellion to strengthen their partie and how others were drawne in by hopes and feares to comply with a potent faction for their profit or safetie and how greate a partie both for number qualitie detested these innovations may well conclude that neither the nation thought it their deliverance nor the Kings refusall other then a just care and providence for their good It is not likely that the house of Peeres gave hardly their consent to the Bills against the Bishops that soe easily gave it to attach them of high Treason But it is apparent they hardly gave their consent to those Bills for they had often rejected them and therefore his presumption is of noe weight against plaine proofe If their rights and priviledges were thought so vndoubted in that house then was that protestation noe Treason and the house will become liable to a just construction either of injustice for soe consenting or of vsurpation to expect that their voting or not voting should obstruct the Commons The priviledges of the Bishopps had they not been vndoubted they needed not an Act of Parliament nor soe many Acts of violence to take them away neither can the Commons pretend to greater right for their sitting in the one house then the Bishopps in the other and the Libeller hath rightly concluded that their protestation was noe Treason but that their accusation by the house of Commons was a false and vngrounded Clamour and their commitment by the Lords house an odious injustice but it could be noe vsurpation to expect that their voting or not voting was conclusive to the Commons To what end did the Commons offer their accusation to the Lords if their voting or not voting were not considerable It is Justice when they concurre vsurpation when they dissent But Lords house Commons house are vsurpers when they obstruct the Dictates and overswaying insolence of rabbles and Tumults The Commons were not to desist for five repulses of the Lords noe not for fiftie from what in the name of the Kingdome they had demaunded soe long as those Lords were none of our Lords and what if they had been your Lords were they then to desist if so it was more then they would doe to their King but our or not our makes noe difference to resolute Traytours The Lords were soe farr their Lords as they were not to persist by the power wherewith they were intrusted for the kingdome in their demaund after the Lords refusall for to what end hath the law ordained a Lords house and the Commons soe long practised their addresses to them if they may doe what they please without them Doth the vse of the name of the kingdome add any right to them that have not the power of the kingdome and demaund things to the destruction of the kingdome The king allowes not such a faction the name of a Parliament which hath nothing of either house but some members that assume the name without the priviledges and authoritie that constituted it Though the Bill against roote and branch passed not till many of the Lords with some few of the Commons either enticed away by the king or overawed by the sense of their owne malignitie deserted the Parliament that was noe warrant for them who remained being farr the greater number to lay aside the Bill He well knowes they that remained of the Lords house were an inconsiderable number and such as deserted the Commons house wanted not many of the number of them that remained and of them that remained many were overawed by force and diverse plainely dissented to that Bill The injustice of them that remained was intolerable that refused all reparation or securitie to such as were injured by the Tumults and it was a most perfidious Act in them to enforce their members to desert the house that they might exercise their Arbitrary power over the kingdome the injury was so apparent the pretēce of malignancie so ridiculous against the deserting members that noe sober man can imagnie enticement or overawing to be the cause of their withdrawing and these remaining members ought to have forborne by their dutie to the kingdome the passing of such a Bil in the absence of soe many members but they that will forbeare noe degree of treason cannot probably abstaine from breakes of priviledge and lesse injuries He sayes this degrading of the Bishopps was orthodoxall in the Church ancient and reformed What will not this man say Wee neede not wonder at his other impudencies that will affirme the taking away the order of Bishopps orthodoxall in the ancient Church which never wanted them The King sayes he was bound besides his judgment by a most strict and vndispensable oath to preserve that order and the rights of the Church And sayes the Libeller If the letter of that oath be not interpreted by equitie reformation or better knowledge then was the King bound to graunt the Clergie all priviledges graunted to them by Edward the Confessour and so bring in Popery Equitie must be admitted in all interpretations of oaths and soe must better knowledges but the knowledge of other men is noe exposition to him that takes an oath if his owne knowledge be not convinced The King hath sworne to preserve the priviledges of the Church to be a protectour of the Bishopps and by what equitie reformation or better knowledge would this libeller induce
delinquents The London Tumults was the Kings overworne Theame and stuffing of all his discourses Which was not at all mentioned in this place but t is a Theame of difficultie to the Libeller and wherefore he would stopp the beleife of it by his threed bare repetitions of the blood of the warr delinquents Tyrany and Popery which are become as vaine as the taunts of children He turnes to the Scotts and Covenanters whome he calls misobservers of the Covenant and askes how they will reconcile the preservation of Religion c. With the Kings resolution that esteemes all the Zeale of their prostituted Covenant noe better then a noyse and shew of pietie c. For the Covenanters and misobservers of the Covenant we leave to debate their owne controversies but noe man knowes what he supposes that by those principles the King might at length come to take the Covenant and that then all had ended in a happy peace which he hates vpon any conditions but his owne He makes an opposition between the Kings telling God that his Enemies are many and telling the people they are but a faction of some few prevayling over his Major part of both houses Might not his Enemies be many though a faction of a few prevailed over the Major part of both houses and wherein doth the King misapply David or David accuse him But the Libeller stickes not at misapplication nor false accusations The King sayes he had noe passion designe or preparation to imbroyle his Kingdome in a Civil warr The Libeller sayes true yet formerly said that his fury incited him to prosecute them with the sword of warr How doth he handle his outworne Theame But he gives a reason for that the King thought his Kingdome to be Issachar that would have couched downe betweene two burthens of Prelaticall superstition and Civill Tyrany As his Majest subjects had peace without burthens soe the rest of Issachar was more eligible then the blood and Treacherie of Simeon and Levi whose rage and crueltie their Father cursed vpon his death bedd but such attempts the libeller likes better then Issachars ease He sayes the King had made preparation by terrour and preventive force The fury of a warr is come to terrour and preventive force It s certaine the Rebells had vsed all meanes to prevent his defence his terrour must be litle whose force they had surprised The King sayes God will finde out bloody and deceitefull men many of whome have not lived out halfe their dayes The Libeller sayes It behoved him to have been more cautious how he tempted God til his owne yeares had been further spent Is it temptation to rely on the truth of Gods word And may not innocent persons whose lives are ready to be taken away by blood thirstie Tyrants reflect vpon Gods word touching wicked mens being cut of though they see their owne life expiring The King in his prayer sayes that God knew the cheife designe of this warr was either to destroy his reason or force his judgment The Libeller sayes This is hideous rashnes accusing God before men to know that for truth which all men know to be false And is it not horrid presumption in the Libeller to say all men know that to be false which himselfe confesses true And we must expect that the wickednes of these Rebels which accuse veritie of vntruth will reproach the sinceritie of his Majest in praying for his Enemies with hipocrisie their owne corruption excluding confession of others integritie Vpon their seizing the MAGAZINS AND FORTS THe beginning of all warr may be descerned by the Councells and preparations foregoing not only by the first Act of hostilitie And by Councells and preparations foregoing such as were the alteration of the Government which this breaker confesses to be their cheife end and without which noe peace could be graunted we may easily conclude who made the first Act of hostilitie for these pretences which he musters vp have neither the nature of Councells nor preparations for the warr but are made excuses for Acts of hostilitie which they would not have pretended had they not begun the warr The particulars neede not examination but shall only be named to lay open the nakednes of their pretences And first he sayes noe King had ever more love at his first comming to the Crowne It s true but that moved envy in the seditious faction who sought to infuse contrary inclinations into the people He sayes never people were worse requited first by his mistrust that their liberties were the impairing of his Regall power He had soone cause to mistrust that the conspiratours plotted to vndermine his Regall power vpon pretence of the peoples rights to that purpose raysed jealosies among them the originall of all Rebellion Next by his hatred to all those who were esteemed Religious doubting that their principles too much asserted libertie His Majest profession and practice sufficiently vindicate him from this aspersion to hate those that were esteemed Religious but his pietie permitted him not to esteeme hipocriticall sectaries Religious and his prudence instructed him that these schismatickes which this Libeller calls Religious maintained principles destructive to Government which they then abiured but now avow That this was seene by his persecuting which was never seene for the dissolution of Parliaments he hath been already answeared but the vntruth which he hath added whether more ridiculous or abominable may not passe vnobserved which is that these dissolutions were after they had graunted more money then would have bought the Turke out af Morea and set free all the greekes And yet the Parliament gave more to the Scotts for invading England Doth this grosse Mountebanque thinke that the value of a subsidie in England the number of them that were graunted to the King are soe vnknowne what owles and buzzards doth he thinke would cast their eyes on his papers surely if they be saleable it is for sport or scorne and he might aswell have said it was enough to subvert the Turkish Empire He sayes the King tooke Councell how he might subdue them to his will The reason of this pretence is to excuse their Rebellious conspiracie to subdue him to their will The designe of German horse is a bugbeare long since derided Billetting of Souldiers in all parts Which were raysed and imployed in that warr which the Parliament advised shewes that impudence it selfe is bankerupt in pretences for their villany That the pulpitts resounded all propertie to the King and passive obedience to the subject Propertie they medled not with but it was their dutie to God to preach the kings soveraignitie the peoples passive obedience and what affinitie hath such preaching with Councells and preparations for a Civill warr His mention of exactions cannot be omitted though false impertinent Disarming of Trayned bands is not done by vsing some of their Armes in the publique service and it was farr from preparation to a Civill warr to
naked people the ragged Regiment a formidable Army But if these doe not prove the King to have done the first act for it seemes he doubted it would not yet at Hull he is sure and if the King had fortified all or any of the Townes of his Kingdome is that the act of warr Is not the law evident that he may doe it and hath it not been the approved practice of all ages And if he beseidged Hull who began the warr they that surprized it or he that would recover it And yet the Libeller gravely concludes from this fardle that the King is truly charged with beginning the warr though the particulars themselves evince the contrary He sayes that at the Isle of weight he charged it vpon himselfe at the publique Treatie What he did at that Treatie is well knowne to be in order to the procuring of peace and though they that treated with him would have an Act to acquitt them for their securitie yet that could not alter the fact and the King tooke nothing on himselfe by consenting to passe an act if the Treatie tooke effect which act by law to whose interpretation only it was subject could not be expounded to charge the king with the beginning of that warr but so mainfest is the vntruth of their pretence that they would aide their cause by inferences from an Act of their owne importunitie and violence for their owne securitie He sayes the securing of Hull was noe surprisal but a timely prevention But was it not allwayes in the Kings power and Custodie before and what they did to Hull they did to his other Castles and is it noe surprizall to dispossesse those that are in possession He sayes it were folly beyound ridiculous to count our selves a free nation if the King against the Parliament might appropriate to himselfe the strength of a whole nation as his proper goods And is it lesse ridiculous to count themselves a free nation if the Parliament may appropriate to themselves all the strength of the kingdome as their owne proper goods against al the people are they more a free nation because they have many Masters Our nation justly accounted it selfe a free nation and yet a king had all the strength of the kingdome appropriated to him as his owne proper goods and they have seene how their libertie was preserved by that constitution how it hath been lost by vsurpation of this right in the name of Parliament The Parliament had never the life and death of lawes in their power and the people never thought it for their Securitie that they should and the Libeller may with as good reason call succeeding acts preventions aswell as this taking of Hull a Securing Are not the taking of Townes Acts of hostilitie vnder what name soever had not the taking of Hull been an Act of hostilitie in an Enemy And is it lesse in a Rebell The question is now of an act of hostilitie not the right of it and that the taking af a Towne is not an act of hostilitie wil be incredible to the meanest capacitie and noe lesse that the Parliament have a power of hostilitie against the king He sayes the law of the land is at best but the reason of Parliament And the reason of Parliament is noe reason if it differ from the opinion of Sectaries witnes his censure of voting the kings concessions a ground for peace it were as dissonant from law as reason that a kingly Government should be subject to the reason of a Major part in Parliament The King sayes they knew his cheifest Armes left him were those only which the ancient Christians were wont to vse against their persecutors prayers and teares At this the Libeller makes an exclamation O Sacred reverence of God respect and shame of men whither were ye fled when these hipocrisies were vttered Was the Kingdome at all that cost of blood to remove prayers and teares Shakespeare could not have framed a fitter exclamation for Rich. 3. Doubtles reverence of God respect and shame of men are fled from this man that makes this vaine prophane outcry Doth it follow that because the King got strength therefore he was possest of it when they rebelled against him doth not he reproach him that all his adherents hardly amounted to the making vp of one ragged Regiment strong enough to assault the vnarmed house of Commons And can he thinke there is a God that cryes out sacred reverence of God vpon occasion of these words of his Majest was ever king more destitute of aide and might more truly vse that expression then he Those thousands of Cavileers whose number he soe often despised and now advances are a conviction of his contempt of God and men and his prophanes is more abominable then any oaths curses and carouses he supposes And the numbers mustred on He worth Moore were a sufficient proofe of the Kings want of Armes to make a warr as they were then the matter of the Rebells scorne were not the Libeller as vaine as wicked he would not have mentioned the sale of the Crowne Iewells to buy Armes for a ground of his exclamation when nothing could shame him more were he capable of it for may not a man justly say that the cheifest Armes left a King were prayers teares when all his visible meanes to procure Armes were the Jewells of his Crowne those guns which were bought with the Jewells he calls deadly instruments of warr but the instruments of Rebells are harmeles and vnkilling Men of corrupt consciences thinke they may prophane the name of God at their pleasure by making their lewde constructions of words and Actions And although this libeller jeere at the Kings weakenes in the beginning of this warr which was visible to all the world the strength he found was vnexpected by his Enemies and that all men judged prayers and teares his cheifest Armes yet because strength came to him the Libeller calls Ammunition Regiments and Brigades prayers and teares his ordinary Armes being slander vntruth and prophanes In his next words he sayes they who fought for the Commonwealth have by the helpe of better prayers vanquished It seemes he holds not their prayers their cheifest Armes who trusted more in other Armes then their prayers and might thence have reasonably concluded that their succes was not given to their prayers but permitted for the sins scourge of the nation The King reckons not the want of the Militia in reference to his owne protection as his peoples Not consideringe sayes the Libeller how ill for seventeene yeares he had protected them and the miseries are like a forked Arrow it cannot be drawne out without incision of more flesh He hath told vs that those miseries of seventeene yeares were peace and plentie which those merciles Phisitians will cure by an endles warr letting out the blood and tearing the flesh of the afflicted people and wee now descerne what Phisike they intended
of the Earle of Strafford and heere reprehends the allusion to himselfe but they wil be the sun and set the would on fire He askes wherefore we should not hope to be governed more happily without a King when all our miserie hath been by a King or by our necessary vindication and defence against him He may not well hope to be governed happily by those that have gotten power by wicked Arts. An vnjust power wil seeke to support it selfe by the same meanes it was raysed It cannot be hoped that they will governe happily that seeke the oppression of the greatest part of the people and that can secure their private fortunes what ever become of the Kingdome They cannott hope for Gods blessing which only can make happy vpon the many wilfull perjuries hipocrisies cruelties which they vsed to vsurpe this Government and the persecution and murther of their lawfull soveraigne and they that pretēded miserie they knew not for a ground to change their Government will finde it by their folly and madnes He sayes the King would be thought enforced to perjury by having graunted the Militia by which his oath bound him to protect the people The Libeller askes if he can be perjured in graunting that why doth he refuse for no other cause the abolishing of Episcopacie The Libeller himselfe hath exprest other causes of his refusall to abolish Episcopacie but why may not one be perjured in both being equally bound by his oath If the Libeller have a sense in this it s very misticall vnles he meane that a man neede not feare many perjuries that committed one The protection of Delinquents was no part of his oath but of the innocent and that he ought to doe against popular fury and any vsurpt authoritie vnder what name soever That he was to protect by such hands as the Parliament should advise him was noe part of his oath and he could poorely protect that must expect such hands as others should allow him that were an oath to as litle vse as the power it supposed He may not hold a violent and incommunicable sword over vs vnder the shew of protection And must there not be a sword of protection because it may be turned to violence this is Rebells Logicke that would have no Judges because they may be corrupt these that terrifie the people with the dangers of violence vnder lawfull Governours vse power most Tyranically but wherefore incommunicable he thinkes it a thundering word to startle the people like Arbitrary Government and fundamentall lawes Is the sword of the supreame power communicable if it be in many hands what if they fight one with another which is the sword then to protect the people and how will they fight for their Liberties The King sayes that his yeilding the Militia was from the love of publique peace and assurance of Gods protection The Libeller askes wherefore this assurance of Gods protection came not till the Militia was wrung out of his hands Whence can he conclude that it came not till then But the wringing of the Militia out of his hands shewes how impudently these men pretend right or truth for their Actions must a man give vp his strength when it is demaunded because he hath an assurance of Gods protection and because he sees some reason to part with it as the king did for love of publique peace must he not therefore have an assurance of Gods protection his holding it fast was his dutie and the wringing it from him hath open injustice both in the Act and intention And the Libellers prophanes in jeering at the kings saying that God was able abundantly to compensate him as he did to Iob whatever honour power or libertie Chaldeans sabeans or the Devill himselfe deprived him of saying Iob vsed noe Militia nor Magazine at Hull Is not vnlike the Apostates scoffing at the Christians patience and suffering The King sayes Although they take all from him yet can they not obstruct his way to heaven The libeller sayes t is noe handsome occasion to tell vs whither he was going And hath it been an vnhandsome occasion in the saints of God to take occasion from their afflictions to declare their resolutions But these are his common censures He sayes private prayers in publique aske something of whome they aske not But prayers vpon a publique occasion lose not their reward for being publique Vpon the NINETEENE PROPOSITIONS THE King vses plausibilitie of large and indefinite words to defend himselfe at such distance as may hinder the eye of Common Iudgment from all distinct view and examination of his reasoning It is the Libellers labour to keepe his reasoning from Common view and therefore seekes to divert the readers by Chimericall suppositions and invectives against Monarchy and repeated common places of misgovernment Vpon examination the Kings plaine and distinct reasoning will appeare convincing to every right judgment The Libeller sayes The king shewes not how it can happen that the peace of a people should be inconsistent with the conscience and honour of a King And doth this man hold that the King ought to sacrifise Religion Justice and pietie for the peace of his people Shall he destroy innocent men and persecute Christians to procure peace Or are these things consistent with honour conscience and may not such things be desired by a wicked people in order to peace And therefore the Libeller vainely presses that nothing is more agreeable to the conscience and honour of a King then to preserve his subjects in peace And is there any thing more contrary to the conscience dutie of subjects then to procure a Civill warr by demaunding concessions of their King which in honour and conscience he cannot grannt which being graunted would be noe ground for a lasting peace though it avoyded a present warr The Libeller askes which of the propositions were obtruded on him with the point of the sword till he with the point of the sword thrust from him both propositions and propounders A strange question in this Libeller that hath soe often obtruded the feares and terrours raysed in the King by the Tumults and Iron flaile seizing of the Magazins and not leaving him a sword that had a point to thrust but this Theame is too much soyled by soe often repetition and yet he proceedes to talke of merciles obtrusions which for almost twentie yeares the King had been forcing vpon tender consciences by all sorts of persecutions And these tender consciences he will allow to be preferred before the peace of the Kingdome Truly these are not large and indefinite words but apparent absurdities to the eye of every Common judgment that the pretended conscience of every hipocriticall sectarie must be preferred to the peace of a Kingdome and the King must be allowed none but lose life and Kingdome or prostitute his conscience The Libellers examination of the Kings booke it seemes was noe other then of his owne writings that huddles vp
neither was this which he calls noe meane matter a conference about the Rebellion and this peculiar right which this Libeller accuses the King for parting with not to Papists peculiarly but subjects in generall the accusers of the Earle of Strafford charged him for asserting to the King and that inconsiderable Rent was in their judgment excessive these are the colours of Justice and truth which these Rebells put on their Calumnies They departed not till within two moneths before the Rebellion Rebells ordinarly disgiuse their intentions and therefore such might frequent the Court as the faction in Parliament pretended affection and dutie while they plotted to destroy the King and now the Libeller resorts to his Scotch Author who he sayes declares What should move the King to those close meetings he that beleives Sanders Carries and other Papists in their virulent forgeries against Queene Elizabeth may likely give credit to the Libeller and his friend the Scotchman and take vp infamous Libells for true stories The Libeller flies from hence to one of his common haunts the designe of bringing vp the English and Scotch Army and thinkes it noe repetition which he had soe often obtruded and he inferrs that because the King could not prevayle with them he betakes himselfe to the Irish who had in readines an Army of eight thousand Papists and a Committee heere of the same Religion But what to doe to kill one another If the King sought to make vse of the Irish that rebelled he might more advantagiously have done it then by cutting one anothers throates and had they intended him assistance they would not have consumed themselves against his subjects there and how could he transport that Army from Ireland that was disbanded before ever the Rebellion brake foorth and the Committee departed two moneths before He tells vs from his friend the Scotchman that there were they who thought now was the time to doe service for the Church of Rome against the Puritant Parliament It s very likely there were they who thought the Puritan faction in Parliament had done more to the advantage of the Church of Rome by the embroyling of England then ever had been done since the reformation and they might well thinke it a fit time to attempt any designe against the Kingdome And did not the Libeller thinke that there are among the vulgar such capacities as receive legends and Romanses for true stories he would not soe grossely produce such discourses of five Counties given to the Irish and fower offred to the Scotch And of like stuffe is his mention of the Kings attempt to pervert the Scotch Army from their way homeward and the plot which he hath taken from his Scotch Colleague to remove out of the way such as were most likely to withstand or not further his defignes With this libertie of invention doe theis Traytours seeke to maske their villany That a Commission vnder the greate seale of Scotland commaunded this Rebellion Was taken vp after the pretence of the greate seale of England was detected of falsitie and as this greate seale of Scotland hath asmuch vntruth soe it hath noe more colour there being noe possibilitie for the King to vse that seale not at all in his power to such a Commission The sending of the Ld. Dillon is of the same stampe what the Irish did is easily graunted but the falshoods of this Libeller and his friend the scotchman are no misteries of iniquitie but open and detected cheates one quotes the authoritie of the other as if they were strangers mett by chance and make Libelling their worke to distract the people and yet from these devices the Libeller will conclude that the King cannot be doubted to be Author or instigatour of that Rebellion It had been ridiculous to cite a gazett but a branded stigmaticke infamous If his reason be moved by such Arguments t is the lesse wonder that his language and practice is soe corrupt and he may reckon himselfe among that rabble of the vulgar he soe much despises These Testimonies likelyhoods evidences and apparent Actions which he mentions in the declaration of July 1643. Are of as litle credit as his friend the Scotchman And there is not a more evident conviction of malefactours then their declarations against the king are of the guilt of those that contrived them setting foorth their dutie which the dissembled and condemning their actions which they disavowed It is not credible that the Irish Rebells would be soe farr from humanitie as to slander him being soe well received by him at Oxford If a man had wanted an proofe of the Libellers absurditie he might heere be furnished by himselfe that drawes an Argument from the humanitie of the Irish whose barbaritie and Treacherie is soe greate a part of his accusation against the king They who were received at Oxford vpon offer of submission were very farr from pretence of such a Commission and it may be aswell concluded they had a Commission at Oxford as before because they were there and aswell concluded that they never Rebelled as that they made noe salfe pretences of their Rebellion The king neede not bring proofes against a groundles accusation that containes not any evidence of fact and a single denyall by al lawes is preferred before such a charge and it is as likely that the Rebells in Ireland should pretend his Seale as those in England his authoritie noe man doubts of the invaliditie of a Rebells pretence This Chapter is not without witnes of his good affection to the Rebells which he collects from that the king sayes they were lesse in fault then the Scotts from whome they might alledge to have fetched their imitation making no difference sayes the Libeller betweene men that rose necessarily to defend themselves which noe Protestant Doctrine ever disallowed against them who threatned warr and those who began a voluntary causeles Rebellion If the Irish made warr not to be restrained from their Religion had they not the same cause the same pretence of defending themselves as the other pretended for refusing the Common prayer booke and expelling Bishopps Where lies the odds Is it Protestant Doctrine that they may defend themselves and Papists may not and that Protestants may Rebell for Religion Papists may not That were very much to the credit of Religion but the Libeller will not acknowledge the protestants nor their Doctrine who maintaine it to be vnlawful for subjects to defend themselves against the supreame power though Tyranically abused and there is noe neede to fly to the Parliaments authoritie if subjects may take Armes against their king vpon pretence of defending themselves The Libeller well knowes the just indignation the Protestants abroade have expressed for this scandall the king names not the Scotts but thinkes that their blame must needes be greater whose Actions the Irish had to alledge for their imitation by how much protestant principles are more against Rebellion then those of Papists
low condition themselves were in and the power of the Rebells But the Libeller would prove that the Protestants there were on the winning hand because they kept their owne not withstanding the misse of those forces which were landed in walls and Cheshire who without difficultie Mastered a greate part of these Countreyes The Protestants keeping of their owne was by the benifitt of that cessation without which they hoped not to keepe it and those Countreyes of walls and Cheshire were not mastered by those forces as the Libeller supposes but protected by them against the Tyrany of the Rebellion then entring vpon them The Declaration which he vouches for proofe is an infamy to the Authors conteyning neither colour of proofe nor soundnes of Argument and of as litle creditt as his owne assertions In the meane time those forces of the Protestants which the king gott by that cessation declare to the world that the Irish Rebellion crossed his ends and advanced those of the English Rebells The way-laying of provisions was contradicted by such apparent proofes in his Majest answeares that vntill they make some reply to those particulars their clamours will signifie nothing but want of matter The forces he called over stood him in noe small steede against our maine forces That noe way hinders but that they might be termed handfulls in respect of the numerous Rebells both in Ireland England The reasons of the cessation besides the knowne evidence of truth and weight have an addition of Authoritie from the Libellers calling them false and frivolous without the least shew of reason it being his custome to stile truth and reason by such Titles He reprehends the king for likening his punishments to Iobs Tryalls before he saw them have Iobs endings And vpon the same reason he will not allow the Tryalls of the Martirs to have a likenes to Jobs because the end in respect of Temporall felicitie was not the same The king sayes he hath not leisure to make prolix Apologies from whence the libeller concludes those long declarations and Remonstrances which he calls Pamphletts set out in his name were none of his And is not on of the cruell designes of the Traytours had noe leisure to make prolix Apologies therefore the declarations and Remonstrances published by him while he was at libertie were none of his The king hath given sufficient Testimony to stopp the mouth af a destractour that noe writings published in his name were above his abilitie If his declarations were weightie and just why are they Pamphletts if not why will not the Libeller believe him the Author whome he seeks to vilifie but the world knowes the declarations in the name of Parliament were none of theirs but voted vpon the word of a junto by such as had not capacitie to vnderstand them That though the Common saying that it is Kingly to doe well and heare ill be sometimes true yet more frequently to doe ill and heare well by the multitude of flatterers that deifie the name of Kings It can hardly be proved that ever evill king had soe many flatterers as the best kings have detractours and himselfe produces instances how the multitude deified Simon Mountford and such popular brovillions against their kings For the peace in Ireland the Justice of it is now apparent and he that pardons Rebells to save the effusion of the blood of his good subjects shewes greater tendernes to the good then they that by endeavouring to exclude all from mercy expose them promiscuously to mutuall slaughter and may justly be judged to looke vpon both with an indifferent eye and that neither Justice nor pittie but greedy and rapacious disires carry them to that crueltie The King prayes at large for the Irish Rebells It seemes Charitie for Enemies is held a sin by these miscreants otherwise he would not have censured a prayer soe becoming a Christian that God would not give over the whole stocke of that seduced nation to the wrath of those whose covetuousnes makes them cruell nor to their anger which is too feirce and therefore justly cursed The King deprecates the Rebellion of Ireland and in his prayer concludes his innocence and that if he had not studied the composing of the differences sayes let thy hand be vpon me my fathers house And this the Libeller calls a solemne Curse which is his judgment of the Cryme and the assertion of his innocence Though God afflict his servants his hand is not against them in wrath as this wretch presumes to say and lookes not on that curse which God denounces against bloody and deceitefull men that pretend his service in the destruction of his servants Vpon the calling in of the SCOTTS and their COMMINGE HE that observes how greate a part of this Libellers booke his invectives against Monarchy take vp how frequently and impertinently he offers his exceptions against Kingly Government in excuse of falshood and Rebellion may well wonder at his exceptions to pretended repetitions in the Kings booke he enters vpon this Chapter with his opinion of the originall of Kings to be servants of the publique And yet the people were subjects to them and how farr Kings mistake the nature of their office that thinke they are Masters of the people And yet God gave nations to serve them Though their power is for publique good yet they have a peculiar proprietie in that power and Estate as private men in their private fortunes its more for the peoples good to be subject though to an evill King then to fall to confusion And if rulers may not retaine their power because factious multitudes say that they are but intrusted for the peoples good that it is for the peoples good that they yeilde vp the sword they bare it in vaine Such a wooden sword have the Rebells provided for all Rulers but themselves for when they get power by their swords of steele or mines of powder the people may not thinke that they shall finde such Lords of straw as they pretend governours of the people ought to be We are taught by Scripture that the people are commaunded to hearken and obey not teach commaund and though his supposition that Government is in the people and that they ordained Kings be vaine and false by the examples of Scripture and of most Authenticke histories yet were it admitted that a King came in by the peoples consent they are not after such submission Judges of their owne obedience or their Kings power It were vaine to follow the Libeller in his exceptions to the words of favour and gratification as sounding pride and Lordly vsurpation as if kings only had nothing in their power to oblidge men with all these are the spleenetique vapours of Rebellious distemper For the Kings concessions to the Scotts either touching Episcopacie or the Militia wee shall heare his answeare in due time howsoever the king was not bound to the same Actions where Circumstances varied nor after a fuller
persecution but the libeller will make Martirdome their ambition and wants their Covetuousnes He will have that English Episcopacie hath markes of schisme whether we looke at Apostolicke times or reformed Churches if he had shewed wherein it had deserved an answeare but we see what Apostolicke times he meanes that will not allow any Church of the world from the time of the Apostles til the present age because the Church of England is not vniversall therefore all Sectaries may pretend themselves the Church For the authoritie of Scripture he needed not take paines to prove it The Church of England claimes not power over other Churches but to correct Schismatickes within her selfe The exposition of Scripture may not be received from arrogant Sectaries against the judgment of the vniversall Church the King might very well reject such reasons as they which offered them had soe lately before disavowed and pretended themselves scandalized with the imputation of such opinions The greatest number of these pretended Reformers professed detestation of the opinion of lawfullnes in taking Armes against their Prince of the opinion of the vnlawfullnes of Episcopacy booke of Common prayer and Ceremonies and who now would dispute with such men maintaining these renounced opinions with such bloody vehemencie It is not for the King to defend the Church otherwise then the Church would be defended And what is the Church in the libellers sense nothing but the crew of John of Leydons saints and must the King follow them against the Church these are the Divill 's factours to sett vp an Idoll Religion These deceivers talke of the power of the keyes in whose power holy things are as if the keyes that Christ gave to his Disciples are transmitted to this distempered crew that pretend a power of their owne giving Their Blasphemous pretence of enthusiasmes hath been the wonder and scorne of wise men and that 's the spirit which must not be fettered with a negative voyce But may it not be fettered by the Parliaments negative voyce and why is it more fettered by the kings then theirs That which he calls Tyranicall and presumptuous in the king wich the same breath justifies in the Parliament and yet complaines of Tyrany vpon the conscience Such consciences are senseles of Tyrany aswell as of sin having given themselves vp to the Empire of hell The kings negative voyce could impose nothing yet these desperate hipocrites say they were compelled to implore the aide of Parliament to remove it from their consciences And if the ground of their warr were to take away his negative voyce their pretence of defensive force appeares noe other then violence and persecution which they soe hipocritically complaine of such tender consciences as feele not falshoods and Rebellion must be mercilesse destroyers of Religion and Government as these have proved The King had cause to seeke aide against Rebellion and oppression but that 's noe warrant for Traytours to linke themselves by conspiracies to performe it and the King might justly wonder at their confident boasting of Gods assistance as if they had the certaintie of some Revelation and flying to the Scotts succours while they were soe furnisht with provisions for warr And now after all the Libellers rayling at Episcopacie Copes surplisses he will not permitt Arch Presbiterie Classicall Provinciall and diocesine Presbitery claiming Lordly power and superintendencie to be imposed vpon them Heere 's Babell confounded and they that were linkt in disloyaltie must part for Presbitery and independencie and will not see the evill spiritt that first combined them in Rebellion and now divides them to fight one against another A Determination by the best divines in Christendome in a full and free synod is he sayes an improbable way and every true Church hath wherewithall from heaven to be compleate and perfect within it selfe And why doth he tell vs that no Church denominated by a particular name bindes our faith or obedience and hath any Romanist affirmed more for their infallibilitie then he ascribes to every one of his Parlours and wherefore is English protestant a Schismaticall name as he affirmes and that the whole nation is not to be thought soe raw as to neede the helpe of other nations But what is the whole nation to every conventicle are theis seperaists the whole nation And why would he bind the Kinge to other reformed Churches If the primitive Christians had been of his opinion Generall Councells had been of litle vse the Disciples at Antioch needed not have sent to Jerusalem for advice in a question But these men thus shuffle and pretend the sufficiencie of a nation intend only the perfection of their Parlour congregations and allow noe sufficiencie in Church or nation that submits not to their insolent prescriptions He sayes the King accuses pietie with want of loyaltie because he sayes in vaine doe men hope to builde their pietie on the ruines of loyaltie The King rightly determines that pietie is but pretended where loyaltie is despised as such doe that thinke it safe to renounce all fidelitie to their lawfull King and his family and depend on the faith of perjured villaines vpon pretence of pietie as he perswades the Scotts to doe Vpon the COVENANT HE seemes desirous to be short in this Argument being a point which he is loath to touch till he see the successe of some attempts and he would not willingly be out of hope of the Scotts nor venture to displease them by his glosses To the mention of the Bishopps possession heere since the first plantation of Christianitie in this Island and vniversall prescription since the Apostles till this last centurie he sayes But what availes the most primitive antiquitie against the plaine sense of Scripture which if the last Centurie have best followed it ought in our esteeme to be the first But where is the plaine sense of Scripture against antiquitie It s very plaine that these Sectaries noe more esteeme the present century then the ancient nor more the scripture then either of them but take a libertie to vent their owne fanaticall and arrogant fancies for Scripture and reject all ordinary meanes vpon pretence of a lying spiritt His Majest meant not to oppose antiquitie to Scripture but where the practice of antiquitie is consonant to Scripture It s impious to reject the Communion of the first age All helpes of interpretation are fetters to the proud Schismatickes and this Libeller that so lately obtruded the Example of the reformed Churches in the case of Epicopacie quickely scornes the Classicall Provinciall and diocesine Presbiterie and the last Century hath only seene the ascent of these Locusts and he only likes that part of the last Century wherein they crept soorth and they would willingly have the credit to be a part of other Churches though they are in truth Enemies to them all We may with farr better reason beleive the interpretations and practice of the primitive Church then any moderne
Reformers and there were never any but those Sectaries soe shamelesse to deny the Authoritie of antiquitie or charge it in this particular with an aberration from Scripture and many learned men living vnder Presbitery acknowledge the dignitie of Bishopps above Presbiters in the times of the Apostles The Libeller likes any limitations in the Covenant dangerous to the king soe much of the Covenant as concernes the casting out of Bishopps but he will sweare and forsweare comformitie to the Church of Scotland or any other That this Covevant had former practice vnles in the french League cannot be shewne The Libeller would have the Israelites entring a new into a Covenant with Asa their King to be a new Covenant when it was only a renewing of their promise of obedience to God noe Articles of their owne devising and as that was with the King soe he hath found one without a King for the Jewes after the captivitee tooke solemne oath to walke in the Commaundements of God without consent demaunded of that King who was then their Master and they had the Authoritie of that King But did they take an oath to vse violence against that King if he consented not to them or was the Covenent to walke in Gods Commaundements a new Covenant This is like their pulpitt proofes That Protestant Churches have made Leagues or Covenant against their King Or imposed their confessions with Civill penalties vpon refusers without their Prince is a notorious slander for the protestation it was confined to established law the Covenant to destroy law and what was established by it the protestation to defend the Doctrine the Covenant to destroy the Government which is comprehended in the Doctrine and this the Libeller holds needes noe reconcitement There is noe doubt but the Examples of Asa and Esra were approved by Scripture but they are farr from the Examples of the present Covenant and if the Libeller approve the taking of the Covenant how doth he satisfie himselfe in the breach of it he hath found out away for he may aswell breake that as his oath to his King and obligation to former lawes which he sayes are Conditionall and that condition to be expounded by every man at his pleasure He proceedes to shew the strength of the Covenant and yet he will keepe it one way and his brethren of another name and sect another way If he Covenant oblidge to contrary courses it cannot be a Rule of Reformation and as it clashes with former oaths to God and the king rightly vnderstood soe the clashing of these that devised it shewes that the spiritt of peace was not desired by the contrivers of that Covenant That the Kings booke is replenished with Popish Arguments must be spoken in a Corner not publiquely with any modestie for the Protestants throughout the world know the contrary and will disavow this Covenanting power to be a part of their Religion The salvoes cautions and reservations vsed in taking the Covenant were the arts of the deceitefull composers and it s well knowne it was an artifice vsed to perswade men to take it that they might vse the libertie of their owne sense and the Libeller willing to say some thing in detraction of the King vpon every occasion as if it were a sin to vse truth and ingenuitie transposes words of the Kings which were vsed in reproofe to additions of his owne as if the King approved these shuffling cautions who he well knowes detested both the Covenant and them and shewed the inniquitie of these deceites and we have seene that these Cautions have made Covenanter and anticovenanter Presbiterian and independent Rebell The Libeller likes well the povertie of the Ministers of the gospell And although the primitive povertie of Churchmen was very glorious yet the Christian Laitie were never soe sordid to thinke a liberall patrimony vnfit for them and Religion hath litle power where the Clergie are trencher chaplaines to gluttons feasts These men that judge povertie a curse to themselves hold it Christs legacie to the Ministers If there were any legacie povertie was to all Christians aswell as Clergie but we see that notwithstanding these professions their Levites now hold more pluralities without remorse then ever were knowne and shame not to contradict their former declamations but it is the calamitie of the Church that greedy doggs devoure her patrimony and barking detractours traduce her Clergie Vpon the many JEALOSIES c. TO wipe of Iealosies and scandalls the best way had been by cleere actions or till Actions could be cleered by evident reasons Cleere Actions nor evident reasons will stopp the mouth of malicious slanderers nor abate the industrie of conspiratours in raising jealosies But these which his Majest complained of were tempered only to vulgar capacitie and were long since hist at by all knowing men who saw apparently they were not the opinions of the devisers but artifices of deceite and the progresse of this Rebellion hath cleered al mistakes and taken away al credit from these fopperies It is very late for the Libeller to call to his aide the petitions and addresses composed by the faction in Parliament when himselfe accuses them for want of wisedome and integritie and whoever reades these addresses will easily finde not only cause to suspect the truth of what they say but plaine proofe of falshood and hipocrisie That the whole Parliament conspired against the King he never said and the author well knowes that it was a potent faction only to whome the King imputes this injurie though their being elected to that place is no exemption from a possibilitie of errour Cryme and we have seene it beyound doubt that this faction conspired to blow vp the peoples affections towards him and batter downe their loyaltie by the Engnies of fowle aspersions and have acted what the powder plot intended The King offers not to purge himselfe by any other Arguments then such whose proofe is visible to all the world and the silliest people see how they were cheated by factious Artists The Kings Arguments are not only demonstrable to the best but obvious to common vnderstandings and it cannot be expected that such as are resolute in wicked courses will aske forgivenes or have it The world knowes the King when he wrote this expected the Rebells crueltie but feared it not and there was not cause to vse insinuations which were not to be divulged till his death Tyrants and vsurpers are forced to flatter but it s a wicked slander to charge him with flatterie that is feareles of crueltie This Libeller prophanely descants on Scripture as he doth apparently vpon the Kings misfortunes for vpon the Kings saying that he could willingly be the Ionah for restoring his peoples tranquillitie if he did not foresee that by the divided interests of their and his Enemies as by contrary windes the storme of their miseries would rather be encreased then allayed The Libeller sayes these mindes were never heard of in the
commō counsel of Presbiters whē these schismes began and when things were soe governed were there not Apostles in the Church and superiour to Presbiters St. Ierome affirmes that Bishopps rather by custome then ordainement of Christ were exalted above Presbiters St Ierome speakes of priviledges given to Bishopps above Presbiters by custome but he affirmes the power of ordination belonging to them and not to Presbiters Though St. Ierome make a difference betwixt the ordainment of Christ and the practice of the Apostles neither he nor any good Christian ever questioned the lawfullnes authoritie of such Custome of the Church in the times of the Apostles and this man that in this very Chapter said the King produced noe Scripture and that antiquitie was not of weight against it now gravely determines that interpretation of St. Ierome in his sense shal be received before intricate◠stuffe tatled out of Timothy and Titus Thus this prophane hipocrite prostitutes Scripture where it contradicts their practises and St. Ierome shal be preferred before Scripture if he seeme to favour their sense and vilified beneath Esops falles if he dissent from them If it be farr beyound Court Element what is said by his Majest it is not above his owne the proper Element of this breaker is prophanes and impudence and heere againe he importunately obtrudes the Kings letter to the Pope which he makes a cheife support of his Trayterous pretences but the authoritie of a gazet out of which he quotes it is too meane to rayse a scandall vpon a Prince in the judgment of any reasonable men and this man well knowes the fraude in publishing that false Copie of the Kings letter which he willfully passes by and the satisfaction which the King gave the Parliament and whole Kingdome vpon his returne out of Spaine the dissolving of those Treaties which occasioned that letter must stopp the mouth of all detractours to offer it as an argument of his Majest inclination to the Roman Religion The Libeller answeares his Majest argument to prove his sufferings out of conscience not Policie because his losses were more considerable then episcopacy with objecting hardning and blindnes being himselfe hardned to oppose all light of truth and shut his eyes against the cleerest demonstrations Where hath more faction and confusion ever been bredd then vnder the imparitie of his owne Monarchicall Government The king pretended not any Government could absolutely shut out faction but we may be sure those factions are most dangerous to all Governments whose principles are destructive to it and these factions were not bredd in the constitution of Monarchy but among the Enemies af it and the envious man sowed his tares while men slept and as he will not stand powling of the reformed Churches to know their numbers soe he wil hand over head affirme that the farr greater part in his Majest three kingdomes desired what they have now done to throw downe Episcopacie which hath as litle weight as truth the reformed Churches are not vilified one by another though each maintaine their severall formes of Government and his Majest is farr from vilifying those Churches but the Libeller vilifies himselfe and them that scoffs at their Arch presbitery classicall and Diocesine Presbitery and their Priest-led herodians blinde guides None but Lutherans retained Bishopps and therein convinces himselfe of his often repeated vntruths that all the reformed Churches rejected Episcopacy for the Novations Montanists having noe other Bishopps then such as were in every village is another of his falsities in adding the word every and it doth not prove that these heretickes had not Bishopps and Presbiters which Christians may have though they live in Caves and deserts and its evident in story those heretickes had Bishopps That the Aerians were condemned for heretickes the Libeler well knowes and the King naming them soe meddles not with their particular heresies and it is too obscure to be seene that the King fastens that opinion touching Bishopps and Presbiters for their heresie Though the Clergie ought to minister the gospell if the people supply them not yet such temutie and contempt quickely becomes a Carkase indeede The Sectaries that place their greatenes in being the ringleaders of faction turne all Religion into a fantasme and knowing they could never by any judicious choise obtaine preferment in the Church professe the dislike of them and seeke their fortunes in seducing the multitude It s easily beleived that wealth may breede vices in the Clergie as well as others but must they therefore be made poore and others rich by the robbery of them the Kings choise of Bishopps will convince the clamours of the Schismatickes and gives just cause to expect the evill consequences the King foretells of their removall That the function of Bishopps and Presbiters was not tyed to place though the exercise of it was by Ecclesiasticall constitution he hath been already told and that it was necessary the Apostolique power for the Government of the Church must descend to Bishopps there being noe others that ever pretended to it How the Church florisht vnder Episcopacie the extent of the Christian Religion over soe greate a part of the world doth sufficiently testifie the corruption of many in that order doth not take away the benifitt of it which acrewed vnto the Church by the labours of others and all ages have recorded persons of greate learning and holines of life in that order He talkes againe of the Kings Coronation oath to give vs such lawes as our selves should chuse when he knoweth that the clause which he pretends to be in that oath imports noe such thing nor was that oath wherein the clause in pretended ever ministred to the King nor diverse other Kings nor ordeined to be soe In likelihood they were neerer amendment that sought a stricter forme of Church discipline then that of Episcopacie But they that sought to remove Episcopacy would have the Church discipline in their owne hands that it might be loose and in likelyhood they would not be strict to themselves his boasting of what the Scotts could worke by power shewes that he regards nothing right but power and soe he can prevayle despises all Justice and conscience Vpon the VXBRIDGE TREATIE THat men may treate like beasts aswell as fight noe way opposes his Majest Aphorisme which affirmes Treaties a retiring from fighting like beasts to agreeing like men Treaties being managed only by the vse of reason fighting by force and his Majest spake of the nature of Treaties not the abuses of men in them and though some fighting may be manlike yet the Act is common to beasts rationall Treaties cannot The Kings march and fight at Brainford the Libeller would make a thirst of warr though in the rigour of Marshall law it might have been excused in a naturall Enemy that makes a trade of warr And may as justly be defended in the King whome that faction which proferred a Treatie to him at Cole-brooke intended to
surprize him having disposed their forces in such places as must have effected it if he had not speedily prevented it by that onset What he intimates touching Oxford Bristow and scarborrow naming noe particulars he can expect no answeare whoever lookes over the memoriall of passages touching Treaties will finde that the Kings offers were soe large as nothing but desire of peace could have moved him to it and nothing but guiltines and ambition could be the cause of their refusall That the faction in Parliament would have compelled him to part with his honour as a King the Libeller denyes not but askes what honour he had but the peoples guift yet he seekes to defend the Actions of theis villaines as defending themselves and resorts to his common principles that Kings are but the servants of the people who may dispose of their Kings and their honour as they thinke best And by his doctrine the King and people must be the prey of every powerfull Traytour It neede not be repeated that the peoples welfare consists in supporting the rights of their King and that it is their miserie to deprive themselves of him and turne into confusion and slavery to vsurpers And it is Monstrous that a kings highest Court sitting by his regall authoritie should bandie themselves against their soveraigne and like vipers eate out the bowells of their parent fighting against that power which gives them being and by an vnnaturall malice of the members to the head cast the whole body into and incureable consumption This insolence and presumption of the pretended Parliament hath brought the loose rabble and lawles Army to despise the representation which they soe much magnifie and doe that vnto them which they did vnto their king It cannot be doubted that subjects cannot with dutie treate on equal termes with their king and the practice of all times makes it manifest that none but Traytours attempted it and it was a sufficient proofe of the kings desire of peace that he sought a Treatie where a submission was due to him The Kings instructions were to bribe their Commissioners with promise of securitie rewards and places How he proves such instructions he tells vs not but we are sure that the demaunds of their Commissioners were securitie rewards and places for they would have all in their power There were but three heads of the Treatie Ireland Episcopacie and the Militia the first was forestalled by a peace that the King might pretend hu word against the Parliaments Arguments And if there had not been a peace made it was a most detestable Rebellion and blood thirstie crueltie to continue an intestine warr against the King and his people of England vnles a few Tribunes might have the management of that warr in Ireland and exclude the King from any interest in that kingdome and yet this must be a defensive warr on the Rebells part The King bids the Queene be confident he will never quit Episcopacy which informes vs by what patronage it stood And how could that informe you even as well as the Kings telling her that Religion was the sole difference betweene them informes you that the Queene directed him in matters of Religion The sword he resolves sayes the Libeller to clutch as fast as if God with his owne hand had put it into his And there is noe doubt but he had and it was a Rebellious wickednes in that faction which sought to wrest it from him in despite of Gods ordinance and their owne sworne subjection In all these the King had reason honour and conscience on his side and his pretence that the Queene was Regent in all these is farr from credible when causes to the contrary are soe obvious to every vnderstanding The Libeller himselfe professes their intentions to take away the Kings right and would suggest to the world that it was only the Queenes Councell that he would preserve his Crowne Wise men could judge the composure likely to be more miserable then happy But these wise men were taught by their guilt never to thinke themselves secure and to preferre their power before their conscience and the Kingdomes peace The English were called Rebells during the Treatie And why not till the Treatie had made an abolition of their offence for did they forbeare any of their reproachfull termes or Rebellious actions against the king and his partie during the Treatie The Irish were called good and Catholique subjects And that some of them might be though the Libeller cannot produce the instance of it The Parliament was called a Parliament for fashions sake and in the Counsell bookes enrolled noe Parliament That it was no Parliament all knowing men agree and the enrolling of their opinions that held it noe Parliament was noe injury to the Treatie and the Kings appellation of them a Parliament because they would not be treated with otherwise gives them noe right nor shutts vp him from that opinion of their condition which was true and reall Christians treate with the Turke by those appellations he will be called by though they doe not acknowledge them belonging to him It was a divellish fraude that the King in his owne esteeme had been absolved from performance as having treated with Rebells and noe Parliament and they insteede of an expected happines brought vnder the hatchett Who now doth not fee that force and guilt were the continuers of this horrid Rebellion and blood and that these Traytours perferred their private securitie before publique peace But whence is this collection of a divellish fraude by a divellish interpreter If the King thought not the appellation due to them which he gave them doth it follow that he must esteeme himselfe absolved of performance of his promises therefore These are dreames from divellish infusions not reasonable suppositions the titles of treating parties having noe influence vpon the performance of the things promised and they of the other side might have said they were absolved from performance because they treated with the Kings Commissioners vnder other Titles then they had or were knowne by but they would perswade the people that they cannot be safe vnlesse the master Rebells rule May not that bratt superstition be justly laid to their charge that impose for the Scepter of Christs Kingdome a yesterdayes invention of congregationall consistories and make it Religion and truth of God to roote out Prelates of the Church of God For the meritt of the Treaties and where the blame lay of their breach the world hath long since full satisfaction and that the Rebells came but vnwillingly to Treaties and with reserves allwayes to breake it of never mittigating the rigour of any proposition in the least degree and though the Libeller and others spitt Sulphur and cast foorth their cloudes of lying and slander yet the evidence of the facts dissolve and consume their venome and confidence and the meanest capacitie descernes the falshood and crueltie of their proceedings both in warr and Treaties Vpon the
to Poperie the Irish Rebells and the peace made with them not out of favour but necessitie to divert the finall destruction of the Protestant partie there The endeavours to be assisted with forraigne forces when soe horrid a Rebellion had taken deepe roote was neither against any former professions nor any rules of Justice and pietie but naming of Papists and forraigne forces were the bugbeares wherewith the faction affrighted the silly people and vnder pretence of revenging the blood of Ireland sought to draw men inclinable to assist the King or vnwilling to fight against him into that imployment that he might be more exposed to their power and they might have the better meanes to weaken him and support their owne Rebellion These Letters have discovered their grosse impostures in representing the King wholy Governed by the Queene or others shewing cleerely that his owne judgment cheifely steered his owne affaires and it s like the faction long since saw their owne rashnes in that Publication and that the world tooke notice that they were soe farr from doubting the Kings affection to Popery that their designe was cheifely to declare his aversenes to it that they might prevent his succours from Princes of that Religion That it was done by them without honour Civilitie no man boubts vnles infected with Schismaticall or Rebellious malice and betweene King and subjects matters can never be 〈◊〉 that condition that his honour and their dutie are trifling and superficall vanities and with whome they are soe we may not wonder at any brutish and inhumane Barbaritie when was there an example of such a Treason against nature and humanitie to divulge the Letters betweene man and wife touching conjugall privacie And honour and Civilitie being taken as he would have it for discretion honestie prudence and plaine truth the publishers of these Letters not only stand guiltie of the breach of those vertues but appeare the venemous and vnnaturall Traytours to mankinde To cover this base Act the Libeller sayes that such courses are familiar with none more then Kings and produces and Example out of Commines relating the discovery of a Latter by Lewes the eleventh written to him from the Dutchesse of Burgundy which he sayes the Historian doth not charge with incivilitie or dishonour And is that the case of publishing Letters that passed betweene man and wife and may subjects doe to their King what Enemies may one to another The Libeller will say yes for he holds noe subordination though the publishers professed the contrary and would not be thought to have abjured their Alleagiance or that they tooke their King for their Enemy but their practices were noe more consistent then the Libellers Arguments The injury offred to the Kings Mother was too well knowne to be a fained suspition or jealosie in him and if they had not been guiltie of that base aspersion they would have acquitted themselves some other way then by the publication and frequent repetition The Libeller appeares to glory more in recitall of it then in the argument which he can draw from pretence of faining a suspition and he that suckes any imputations vpon the King out of those letters must be a Beetle not a Bee and they that from placing constancy to his wife before the mention of Religion and law will spin a webb of determination for the prioritie of affection have more of the spiders venom then the Bees sweetenes They which esteemed their King though one man the breath of their nostrills thought the nation could not be happy without him And the late Parliament whereon the Libeller buildes his faith affirmed in their declarations the happines of the Kingdome did soe mainely depend on his Majest and the Royall branches of that roote as in an ordinary way of providence they would not except it from any other fountaine or streame And are they therefore a nation of Ideots and miserable as he sayes The happines of a nation consists in true Religion pietie Iustice prudence temperance fortitude contempt of avarice and ambition And how shall these be preserved in a nation by the rule of the rabble And bandying the Government with a racket betweene opposite factions but these Rebells with the madd men of Munster will introduce new Ierusalem with the destruction of their Kings and Rulers and the Libeller its like lookes to be a greate saint in this terrestriall Paradise who sayes they in whomesoever these vertues dwell eminently neede not Kings but are the Architects of their owne happines and whether to themselves or others are not lesse then Kings The world hath been well acquainted with these Architects of Treason and shall never want pretenders to those vertues whose practice shewes them the builders of Babell that place their happines in their power and other mens confusion the King appeares eminent in these vertues not only by his constant actions but in his houshold which was admired for itts order amongst strangers above other Courts though by the Libeller traduced as all laudable things are To make reconciliation desperate the Libeller holds reasonable and askes why they should feare it and such as intend not reconciliation with God thinke they have noe neede to be reconciled to men Their fact is not parallell to Chams revealing his fathers nakednes for the King at that time could not be esteemed the father of his Countrey nor had ever merited that Title And might not Cham have said soe to his father aswell as doe what he did But they who acknowledged that Title due to him as the Parliament did and gave it him as their King cannot excuse themselves from a sin parallell to Chams nor from the merit of this curse The Libeller professes aversenes to all reconciliation vpon pretence of Justice to the lives of them that dyed for the freedome of their Countrey and yet he will not professe to want Charitie and why then is it mockery with God for the King to pray that God will judge his cause and that the evill they intended returne on their owne heads that they may be ashamed and covered with their owne confusion as with a cloake the King forgave his Enemies but still prayed vnto God for the vindication of his innocencie by the conviction of those false accusers and this is not to wish them that evill which hinders Charitie but prayer for that favour of God which protects innocencie and that livery of detraction and confusion the Libeller will rather weare then exchange it for the robe of righteousries whose malice to the living not Justice to the dead drawes theis hipocriticall pretences from him Vpon his GOING to the SCOTTS IT was not an excuse but a reall intelligence that the King had of their consultations at London designing mischeife to his person if he came there The junto did not vse to proclaime their Councells neither was it pretended they did and though necessitie Counselled the King to adventure vpon their loyaltie who first begun his
troubles yet the rigour of the English Rebells drew on that necessitie and the Kings comming to the Scotts might worke if there were any remainders of loyaltie to devide those who were only joyned by an vnlawfull and dissembled confederacie and it had not been an Act of malice but prudence to resolve vpon such an hope for friends they could not be that are contemned for an hireling Army paid not in Scotch come but English silver jeered with their Brotherly assistance and monthly pay and a right vnderstanding of the disaffection to the English Rebells towards them might recall them to their dutie to the king and withdraw them from their disloyall combination The scotts needed not armies to defend their libertie consciences which were never invaded the charges were not out of charity to them but for the necessitie of those who sent for the scotch assistāce he il pretēds a cause for the scotts mistrust of the king in that case where a ground of suspitiō could not be imagined judges others by his own obduratiō that loyaltie once broken is rather tempted to a finall shipwracke then preserved by an opportunitie to recover it Providence doubtles is never cousened but deceivers though they falsifie their faith to others must expect that as their falshood was permitted soe it will receive its detection and demeritts The man thinkes much that their profest loyaltie who fought against their King should be called a riddle and as it was a very darke one to generall vnderstanding soe if they had preserved the Kings person being in their power they had given some solution doing what they said of their loyaltie not what their former Actions imported And doth not the Libeller say its ridiculous that they whose profest loyaltie led them to direct armes against the Kings person should thinke him violated by theit murther of him which he calls Justice who vnderstands not that so necessitous may be the state of Princes that their greatest danger may be in their supposed safetie and their safetie in their supposed danger But he would have that the only way for the Kings preservation was to sacrifise his reason honour conscience not to have run such hazards though his Majest left his force he resolved not to leave his conscience and change an outward for an intestine warr and Rebells desist not from their violence whether he strive or yeilde If he contend he is bloody if he yeilde he is wily if he offer reason he is obstinate If he acknowledge he is guilty and thus the players of a Rebell game having irrecoverably lost honour conscience play on still to gaine power increase guilt The words of a King are full of power by the law and that law is not like the Nazarites locke of sampson but an anointing they have from God which is inseperable though Rebells like the faithles harlot cut of his force and Armies yet the right of his power is inseperable and if these Traytours had looked to precept or Example they might have found that a Kings word had power and their persons reverence without respect to the merit of their Actions David pretended not that Saul had not authoritie of law when he persecuted him without a cause when Sauls life was in his power The King appeales not vnto Libellers and common pasquills to judge of his reason such ' as are offended at the name or estimation of reason are likely to have a small part in it Monuments of his reason appeare as thinly in his Actions and writting as could be expected from the meanest parts bred vp in the middest of soe many wayes extarordinary to know something Surely the Monuments of the Libellers irrationall assertions appeare very thicke in this whole discourse and men may be amazed at his folly that makes him run into soe many absurdities to avoyde the confession of truth how often hath he objected to the King that his breeding could not enable him to judge of matters and heere would advance his breeding to abase his parts but such as reade the Kings booke and his will see Monuments enough of his Majest reason and the Libellers absurditie and impudence The Kings deliberations touching his leaving Oxford though mature yet foreseene to be of doubtfull event and therefore vainely observed by the Libeller to contradict his prayer Though I know not what to doe yet mine eyes are towards thee Wicked men contemne Princes and God causeth them to wander in the wildernes where their is noe way The punishments vpon Princes are most frequent for the wickednes of the people whereby they come to confusion and have many rulers but it was a willfull falsification of the Libellers to cite a Text as spoken of Princes that was altogeather applyed to the people Psalme 107. Vpon the SCOTTS Delivering the KING to the ENGLISH THis objecting of selling the King by the Scotts is soe fowle an infamy as befists none to vindicate but themselves In the meane time the Libeller thinkes he may say with the high Priests to Judas confessing his sin of betraying our saviour what is that to vs and he would have the infamy only rest on the seller none on the buyer and its like will as he professes disagree with the King to the worlds end and will out babble all law truth and reason that such as fought to change the Government destroy the lawes fought for them and he may babble to the worlds end and not be beleived against the evidence of the fact and that miror before his face wherein he sees all that acted which he denies renders him not only a denyer of principles but common sense the Traytours decree of non addresses was what they ever intended though they had not a confidence to act it presently and from that example of disloyaltie the Libeller others made a change of principles to sute with such monstrous productions It s probable the Libeller would be ever answearing fruiteles repetitions for his answeares are noe other and yet he thinkes himselfe not liable to censure for his stall repetition in the lines before of the kings being vnalterable in his will would have been our Lord averse from Parliament and reformation If the Libeller retained any estimation of Davids heart he would not soe often have reproached the vse of Davids words And we have good reason to beleive that he that suffred Davids troubles was supported with a measure of Davids spirit while his persecuters exercised on him the malice of Davids Enemies And were not this Libeller possessed with an evil spirit he would not borrow matter of sport from stealing Davids spirit nor reproach and slander from Pamelaes prayer which may be vsed more warrantably then reproved but he is drawne very dry that make such vse of a scoffe Vpon the DENYING him the attendance of his CHAPPLAINES A Chapplaine is a thing diminitive and inconsiderable And the man would be ignorantly witty vppon
the King cannot be parted without the sinne infelicitie of a people And sayes its contrary to the teaching of Christ that noe man can serve two Masters These are fit Judges of our dutie to God or man and fit reformers of Church and state that will have the service of a Master or obedience to a father the serving of another Master then God and the spirit of God speaking by St. Peter feare God and honour the King must contradict the teaching of Christ such Church makers doe we now live with Such as served heathen Masters may not leave their service though they serve not their heathen Gods at their Commaund and if they did desert their earthly Masters for that reason they did not serve their Master in heaven who will be served by their subjection to their earthly Masters but he that will serve himselfe cannot serve God and that selfe service is the whole worke of these Rebells who pretend to put God in the first place that they may leave him noe place and such as desert their King vpon pretence of Gods service desert God to serve themselves and they will only enjoy their power and wealth and ease for Gods sake but suffer for him they will not that kinde of testimony to the truth of Religion they account among the corruptions of the first ages of the Church and they have found a more accurate and pleasant way to serve God Intitled MEDITATIONS VPON DEATH BEcause the King affordes time to inveigh bitterly against that murder but in the Libellers language Iustice done on him it will be as he sayes needefull to say something in defence of those proceedings Doubtles all that witt or impudence can offer in defence of Barbarisme is farr short of a colourable excuse He is courting of apocripha and makes a Prologue out of Esdras and Josephus Authors in his judgment not lesse beleived then any vnder sacred brings forth the story of the three wise questions and zorobabells determination for women and truth Quorsum haec Though he be not asked nor in a nation that gives such rewards to wisedome his Masters have not that bountie to restore the King that he may fitt next him their gratitude being of the same Stampe with their loyaltie he shall pronounce his sentence somewhat different that eyther truth and Iustice are all one or els that Iustice by his office is to put forth more strength in the affaires of mankinde To what purpose doth he soe solemnely produce this peice of Apocripha and pronounce his sentence different Iustice is a vertue of the minde and putts forth noe more strength in the affaires of mankinde then truth but he talkes of justice and truth as if they were members of the house of Commons The sensuall appetite of some is too strong for their vnderstanding and thence proceeded the conclusions for the strength of wine and women In others the vnderstanding and reason are stronger and there truth is strongest but we may be assured that in this Libeller and his Masters ambition crueltie and falshood are strongest and thence their Actions are an oppression and defiance of truth and Iustice and they are growne soe absurd as from the Titles of strength given to vertues and passions this triflinge Libeller would haue them non resident and to act without a subject If Zorobabell had made truth a fantastical person as this man strives to have justice vnderstood he had surely lost his reward as well as the opinion of his wisedome This man would have Iustice vnderstood as shee is painted in a peice of Tapistry Iustice had a sword putt into her hand to vse against all violence oppression in the earth By whome was this sword putt into her hand Doe theis Traytours beleive that their magnifying of Iustice makes any man looke on their Barbarous Actions with lesse detestation or that justice is any part of their end or Actions Justice teaches Rulers how to vse the sword put into their hands but is armelesse against any violence and oppression without the power of the Ruler If the Magistrate doe injustice there is noe justice committed to others against him The wise man by the spirit of God tells vs that he beheld wrong and injustice and the cryes of the oppressed and there was noe deliverer and where then was the Libellers justice was not violence there stronger then justice Though divine justice cannot be avoyded humane justice often fayles and cannot reach the offender Shee is most truly who accepts no person and exempts none from the severitie of her stroake Though by the Rules of justice there is no accepting nor exempting of persons yet the Magistrate to whome alone the Rule belongs is confined to persons and places justice forbidding all vsurpation and striking is oppression where lawfull power gives not the sword Shee never suffers injury to prevayle but when falshood first prevailes over truth and that is a kinde of justice done on them who are soe deluded And is not falshood an injury why should justice suffer falshood to prevayle more then other injuries and why should deluded and deceived persons be deprived of Justice And is it Justice to suffer deceived persons to be injured This man sees the horrid Injustices acted by his Masters and that must be a kinde of justice because in his sense vpon deceived men Though wicked Kings and Tyrants counterfeite the sword yet shee communicates not her power to any but such as are just or at least will doe Iustice Doth justice communicate her power to every just man or that will doe justice and are they not Tyrants that take the sword which is not given them by the Libellers owne judgment He would needes make justice a Goddesse and Poeticall fancies realities and Bellona must leade an Army without a Generall Kings have their power from God and God gives the sword ye even to wicked Kings and because the power is given them for justice it is called the sword of justice though they vse it oft-times to Injustice and though there are soe many instances of wicked Rulers who yet had their power from God yet this impudent Blaspheamour sayes It were extreame partialitie Injustice the flat denyal overthrow of her slefe to put her owne Authenticke sword into the hand of an vnjust and wicked man or soe farr to accept and exalt one mortall person above his equalls that he alone shall have the punishment of all other men transgressinge not receive like punishment from men when he himselfe shal be found the highest Transgressour He beleives not the Scripture tellinge vs Gods advancement of diverse Kings above their equalls to that condition of impunitie And must it not necessarily follow from his principles that God is vnjust and partiall in soe doinge And if all men be not punisht equally in this life for the same offences Can there be a greater Blaspheamy Were it not the height of Injustice if the governed should
guilt till tryall and conviction is a supposition like himselfe but the powder plot is outdone by theis miscreants that have destroyed king and Parliament and that which the powder plotters were ashamed to owne these villaines recount to their honour like these Giants represented by Poetts that made warr against heaven and thence this Libeller dares scoffe at the accusation of their Injustice with this lewde Blasphemy that at the resurrection it may be aswell pleaded that the saints when they shall judge the world are both Enemies judges parties and accusers Such are the thoughts of those wicked Atheists touching God and his saints and it is not at all strange that such prophane persons exercise their cursed speaking against Kings and all in Authoritie that spare not God himselfe and it is a small thing with them to vilifie those whome God hath anointed because God by his Prophetts complained against the evills of some Kings these men take on them to destroy all by that Authoritie and say the earth hath long groaned vnder burdens of their disorder Injustice and irreligion God gives Testimonies to Kings in Scripture that they were his Servants that he would by them restore and preserve his Church declared it the greatest earthly favour to sett such as he loved on the kingly Throne bestowed his owne Titles on them and yet this Libeller referrs his readers to Scripture for proofe of Rebellion against kings and would perswade the reformed Churches he is their Advocate in saying To binde their Kings in Chaines and their nobles linkes of Iron is an honour belonging to the saints Such blasphemous expositers of Scripture are these Reformers God gave that honour to the Israelites to binde the kings of the Amorites their Enemies in Chaines and their nobles in linkes of Iron Theis darlings of the Devill wil be the only saints make it their honour to destroy the powers that God hath ordeyned and there must be neither kings nor Nobles but theis evill spiritts whome noe Irons nor Chaines will restraine and perjury robbery murder and Rebellion are the honour of theise saints The building of Babell was not Nimrods worke whome by asserted vntruth he calls the first king that worke was a popular vndertakinge because the people would erect a Republique of confusion not trust God to protect them and the Libeller could not have fallen vpon an instance more like his present madnes for as those builders faind confusion in pretending to prevent it soe there Rebells pretend to preserve the Kingdome by turninge it into popular confusion and therefore those saints must destroy Babell especially that spirituall Babell and first overcome those European Kings which receive their power not from God but from the Beast Doth he meane the Beast with many heads It is his principall Argument that Kings receive their power from the people and if soe then are they this beast What Kings of Europe receive their Kingdomes from his Beast But there Sectaries are drunken with their owne prophanes pride and have a strong delusion to beleive the lies of their owne invention Those Kings are counted noe better then his ten hornes Noe better but by what proofe are they the same by such frenetique dreames as he produces They shall hate the whore and yet the saints must destroy them and shall burne her with fire and yet be overcome first themselves But they shall at last joyne their Armyes with the Beast after they have destroyed the whore And this is the Babilonish Creede a bundle of contradictions to carry their Giddy followers into attempts as wicked as their conceites are irrationall We see the grounds of their cause an hellish impulsion against Government and hatred of Kings there having not been imposters of equall impudence since Mahomett that professe a Religion to destroy all Kings and those Blasphemies that were abhorred in former Sectaries and Entheusiasts are the Creed of those miscreants T is true there be a sort of moody hott brain'd and allwayes vnedified consciences apt to engage their leaders past retirement and then vpon a sudden qualme and Swimminge of their conscience to betray them basely in the middest of what was cheifely vndertaken for their sakes Seducers cannot thinke to be vndiscovered forever but such as are not resolute villaines have a moody conscience in this mans judgment the tender conscience is become moody and hott brain'd and certenly such were many in this Rebellion or it could never have proceeded soe farr Let such men never meete with any faithfull Parliament to hazard for them And let never Parliament thinke to be better rewarded that follow a faction to betray their King then to be subject to those base multitudes whome they suborned to attempts against their loyaltie and become slaves He findes others in whose consciences gaine hath sprung a sudden leake and these are they that cry out of the Covenant broken Thus the builders of Babell are scattered while they make conscience and Religion their propertie and in the meane time nothing is more the subject of their scorne And if God were mocked in pretending the Covenant in Scotland and Vlster he was much more in England by crying out the King Religion lawes and libertie and the Libeller might have found such men whose prosperitie was sinne that Triumpht in the afflictions of him whome they persecuted and said tush God hath forsaken him let vs smite him that he rise noe more The sinne of Ahas that transgressed more in the tyme of his affliction hath noe resemblance to a vertuous Prince afflicted by Traytours whose crueltie encreased while they oppressed him and exceeded the inhumanitie of the cursed Moabites that burnt the bones of the King of Edom into lime The Kings Charatie in forgivinge his Enemies will finde a right construction with all true Christians but malice and detraction of all Acts of pittie cannot meete with lesse then detestation in all men any way quallified with Religion or reason Hipocrites Almes are not more odious then hipocrites censures the crueltie of Hipocrites will receive a greater condemnation then their Almes Prayers for Gods Compassion are not to share victory with Gods Compassion But such as strive to slander mens prayers to God are as malicious to Gods victory as the devotions of those that pray vnto him Such as reade this impudent Libell may rightly call it the Rebells Image conteyninge precepts and positions of violence against Government confusion of States doctrines of falshood and hipocrisie prayses of insolence and crueltie prophaninge of Gods name and word scoffes at things sacred dissolution of all bonds morall Civill and Religious of all orders and degrees among men And it must be hatred to God and a Diabolicall impulsion that drives on such persons to fill vp the measure of their wickednes FINIS PAge 25. Line 6. Reade not after needed Pag. 25. L. 27. Sollecisme for Sollesisme Pag. 25. L. 30. that for then Pag. 31. L. 19. for insteede of from Pag. 33. L. 10. in before their Pag. 34. L. 1. Basilice for Aclastos Pag. 40. L. 11. from after lawful Pag. 44. L. 12. Conventions for contentions Pag. 58. L. 3. supercilious for supersilious Pag. 63. L. 8. vses be before vsed Pag. 67. L. 25. notions for motions Pag. 67. L. 26. administred for administrated Pag. 69. L. 43. by for the. Pag. 72. L. 30. is for in Pag. 81. L. 17. and 19. Psalmistry for Psalmastry Pag. 83. L. 23. is for in Pag. 84. L. 25. Iingle for Inigly Pag. 87. L. 25. it is for is it Pag. 88. L. 18. few for fer Pag. 90. L. 8. aspersion of the before most Pag. 91. L. 2. occasion for reason Pag. 94. L. 9. connaturall for vnnaturall Pag. 94. L. 13. refrained for restrained Pag. 94. L. 20. vigour for rigour Pag. 95. L. 43. Cheates for Stages Pag. 111. L. 21. like for the. Pag. 111. L. 22. vapours for raignes Pag. 123. L. 9. prevent for present Pag. 137. L. 19. he for wee Pag. 147. L. 31. cause before had Pag. 149. L. 35. Stafford for Strafford Pag. 150. L. 15. noe before part Pag. 153. L. 11. we for he Pag. 156. L. 37. screeching for streching Pag. 156. L. 37. Batts for Catts Pag. 156. L. 39. we for who Pag. 159. L. 12. possession for oppression Pag. 160. L. 10. not before strange Pag. 164. L. 5. place for peace Pag. 172. L. 38. long for strong Pag. 173. L. 38. if for is Pag. 179. L. 25. peace for place Pag. 182. L. 2. principij for principy Pag. 184. L. 36. Saviour for Saviours Pag. 184. L. 37. noe for one Pag. 185. L. 25. date for dale Pag. 186. L. 8. incestuous Pag. 194. L. 38. while they for whether Pag. 197. L. 36. a junto Pag. 208. L. 28. miseries for misteries Pag. 208. L. 30. now for not Pag. 213. L. 26. quilting for questing Pag. 214. L. 9. infirme for assured Pag. 220. L. 28. preach for reproach Pag. 220. L. 44. subordination for subordinate Pag. 221. L. 24. after poisoned reade Silvester the whole Church Pag. 224. L. 19. dele him Pag. 228. L. 32. crum for crim Pag. 229. L. 34. convictions for convertions Pag. 230. L. 15. is for a Kinge insteed of by Parliament Pag. 236. L. 14. expect for except Pag. 262. L. 15. Fleta for Cleta
ΕΙΚΩΠΑΚΛΑΣΤΟΣ The IMAGE VNBROAKEN A Perspective of the Impudence Falshood Vanitie and Prophannes Published in a Libell entitled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Or the Pourtraicture of his SACRED MAJESTIE in his solitudes and Sufferings Printed Anno Dom. 1651. The INTRODUCTION WHen the booke called Icon-basilice was comming foorth the Rebells guilt Suggested Suspitions to them of danger from the memory of his late Majest as formerly they apprehended from his life striving that he might not appeare to posteritie out of those ignominious Circumstances which they had contrived in the murther of him and thence their rigid Inquisition after persons and Presses Rebells rise by flattery rule by force and they that made so many appeales to the people forbid them now to know the groanes of a dead Martyr Vpon the comming foorth of the booke they found what they feared that many whose passion kept them from a right judgment in the heate of Action saw their owne errours in that booke and that the person and cause of his late Majest began to be more Generally vnderstood and being not able to strangle it in the birth they sought how to cast itt foorth to be destroyed raysinge rumours that it was not the worke of his late Majest thinkeing to make men lesse intent on the booke if the author were suspected and that they might thereby take of all opinion of pietie and wisedome from his late Majest which might be collected from his writings it being the Custome of Rebells to prevaile more by Calumnies vpon the disposition then the Actions of Princes They seeke to improve crueltie above nature for having by wicked hands destroyed the Lords anointed they would deface the Memory of their owne vile Actions against him hyring false Prophetts to curse him they grudge at his Crowne in heaven as they usurped that on earth It s no new thing for persons of most eminent vertue to fall into the obloquy suffer by the rage of the misled people and therefore no wonder if innocence finde an oratour to accuse it Treason an Advocate to defend it Rebellion never wanted a Trumpet though the contrivance of it be in Caves vaults yet successe makes it outface the light His Majest booke hath passed the censure of the greatest part of the learned world being translated into the most spred Languages and strangers honour his Memory and abhorre his murtherers but such as regarde not the al seeing eye of God beholding their wickednes despise the judgment of the whole world and there is a man found out that will breake downe the united reason of mankinde he tells men they must take his word above their owne and all mens reason this he vndertakes that lookes on kings as Ants and the kings booke as wanting all moment of Soliditie and if as he chose the Title of Iconoclastes he had written his booke in a Forraigne or learned language his vnfaith fullnes and impudence would be as open and odious as his vanitie is ridiculous And though the exceptions against his Majest booke fall away of them selves and Traytours Apologies carry with them their owne Confutation yet indignation at the shamelesse insolence and vntruth of Iconoclastes provokes a just vindication of his late Majest from the lewde slanders of the answearer A Dumbe childe gott speech at the apprehension of an Injury to the father and its a dead Loyaltie that stands vnmoved at the cursing of a shimei and those curses of shimei recorded in Scripture were lesse virulent and more excusable then this Authors language of his late Majest through his whole Treatise which is a Treason against God and Man Religion Truth and Iustice THE Preface Examined HIS First words are To descant on the misfortunes of a person fallen from so high a digintie who hath also paid his finall debt to nature and his faults is neither of it selfe a thing commendable nor the intention of this Discourse That it is not a thing commendable is a greed by all and that it is the intention of this Authors Discourse all men discerne by this very expression and in every Period he insolently and scorne fully speakes of the person of his late Majest as fallen into that misfortune and his whole booke is a continued Confutation of this false assertion base natures delight in the misfortunes of persons in highest place It is hatefull in any to descant on the misfortunes of Princes but in such as have relation vnto them by service or Subiection as this libeller to the late king is the Compendium of all vnworthynes and vnnaturall insolence Could he say his Majest had paid his debt to his faults without descant on his misfortunes But he giues timely warning what is to be expected in his booke where like a shameles theife taken in the fact he denies what he openly acts He saies it is not to get a name for no man ever got honour by writing against a King being strong in Legions weake in Arguments Some men have desired a name for Brutish arrogance against Princes and that may be the Authors ambition but however it have fared with others that have spitt their venom in the faces of Kings its certaine he hath lighted vpon the prediction of his owne successe for he will gaine only in famy by this vndertaking Never man found honour by raking in the ashes of dead Princes but vnnatural crueltie seekes to Surfeit vpon the grave This Author doth not only digg vp the bones of the dead King but seekes to bring Destruction on al Kings and bury them in the ruines of their Authoritie depraved natures account the greatest wickednes the greatest glory more honour to subvert humane Societie then destroy a Single person The first step where by he mounts to Triumph over his sacred Majest is for that he was a King and that is vrged as proofe Sufficient that he was weake at Arguments Kings he saies being accustomed from the Cradle to vse their will only as their right hand their Reason alwayes as their left Soe desperate is the wickednes of these men that must vilifie the Ordinances of God for their defence Had they matter of just exceptiō to his late Majest the needed not they would not draw matter of Reproach from his Office and had they any feare of God or reverence to man they would not thus Lewdly traduce this greate Institution of God for the governing of mankinde the Kingly Office God him selfe saies the Kings heart is in the hand of the Lord and he turneth it as Rivers of water That a wise Sentence is in the heart of the King and yet this man pretends to expect beleife in his Calumnies vpon the late King when hee affirmes the kingly Office to bee a cause of weakenes of judgment and insufficiencie turning all the promises of God in Scripture for assistance of Kings with his spiritt to meere Compliment and wretchedly belying the many Monarchs
of the world that have beene as farr above others in Wisedome as they have beene in power Wee have lived to see that sore evill which the Scripture by the pen of a King and the wisest of men complained of to see Princes on foote Servants on horsebacke when the Licentious insolence of the meanest tramples vpon the Soveraigntie of the highest and the basest of the people revile their King He saies for their sakes that have not more Seriously considered Kings then in the gawdy name of Majestie and admired them their doings as if they breathed not the same breath with other men he will for it seemes he saies a Challenge both of him and his partie take vp the gantlet though a Kings in the behalfe of libertie and the common wealth Loyaltie hath no friends that so admire Princes as if they breathed not common breath of nature they wel know who hath said of Kings I have said you are Gods the guilt of their sin that disobey or revile thē yet non are ignorant that their breath is in their nosthrils that they shall dye as others They that are best instructed most considerate give most reverence to Kings They vnderstand that Princes have greater promises of wisedome frō God greater meanes to attaine it then others that by obeying them humane societie is maintained though they breath the same breath with them When Saul was made King of Israel there were wicked men that said how shall this man save us contemning his Authoritie because he was taken from among them selves in our dayes there is a Confluence of all the Rebellious inclinations that troubled the world pride of base people and disdaine of all Authoritie Because Kings are men must they not therefore Rule Must Gods vicegerents be despysed because they are men And because we know Kings to be men must wee beleive that seditious slanderers are more then men which are carryed as naturall brute Beasts The Archangell disputing with the Devill durst not bring against him a rayling accusation and such as take vp Rayling accusations against Princes partake of the wickednes of the evill and hate the holynes of the blessed Angell When the woman told David he was as an Angell of God did shee thinke he breathed not the same breath with others This Author by pretending to rectifie an errour that never was of admiring kings as if they breathed not the common breath of men would perswade men to scorne despise kings and Rebell against the king of kings God himselfe who wil be called king and to style that Title a gaudy name expresseth rather a scoffing Atheist then a profest Christian Ambitious Rebells that sow the seedes of disaffection to their king among the people begin with a plausible trueth that kings are men that they may erre that they may be wicked thence they come to application of particular Actions of their king represented as deceitefully as falshood can frame to the vnwary hearers because it may be so therefore in their logicke it must be so and experience it selfe hath made apparent how few or none admire Kings as if they breathed not the common breath of men and how many forgett their dutie to them that in Scripture are called Gods the prevalence of corrupt nature is so farr above reason that men are sooner infatuated by the plausible discourses of ambitious aspirers to beleive absurdities making way for Rebellion then mistaken of the nature of Kings by their sacred Title or dignitie for wee have seene men seduced to beleive they might make warr against the King so as they said it was aganist his evill Councellours and for King and Parliament that because the two houses sate by the Kings authoritie therefore him selfe had none That they made warr in their owne defence against the King and yet said they fought for King and Parlament and contrary to the knowledge of the whole world traduced his Majest Government which was the time if ever when his three Kingdomes attained the height of honour strength and wealth above their neighbours As the Arts of those seedes-men of sathan were jnspired by their Master to the ruine of mankinde so how farr they have effected it in his Majest three kingdomes by this logicke of the Devill all men are wittnesses All boundaries of right and wrong broken downe and any wickednes acted by authoritie that serves to secure the Tyranicall power will of the Rebell Masters What flouds of Christian blood what starving pininge to death of poore Captives have our dayes been wittnes of in England what jmpudent pretences of justice for publique Murthers scenes of Iudicature and theaters of slaughter honour and vertue prostituted to the Common Executioner so as the miseries of former times were but an Epitome of those numerous evills that have been brought vpon his Majest Dominions in these few yeares the facts would seeme incredible in after ages did not such as this Author undauntedly boast of the insolencies they have committed no historie yeilding on example of the like whether we reguard the impudence crueltie insolence and hipocrisie of the contrivers deceite imposture profannes of preachers or credulitie and precipitation of the vulgar The author might have done well to shew why his Majest booke seemed a Challenge it provokes no answeare nor handles any thing by way of controversie but his very devotions and instructions to his son seeme a Challenge Evidence of worth in the sufferer torments the persecutour and they cannot rest while the vertues live though the bodies are laid in the dust by their wicked hands But he wil take vp the gantlet that no man threw downe though a Kings He lately said Kings were puny Antagomists and no honour to begotten by writing against them and now he will take vp the gantlet though a Kings it seemes he reckons it a condescention to stoope to take vp a Kings gantlet those todes that thus swell wil breake with their owne venom This Authors pen shewes what libertie he loves to endure no justice towards the living or Charitie to the dead and to breake those fetters of modestie and truth wherein a Christians libertie consists Those pests of Government allwayes talke of libertie but it s only a licence to exercise their own inperious Tyrany over the people and when fire breakes out of the bramble to consume the Cedars nothing can be expected but insolence and crueltie wee have seene the libertie vnder the Rebells in England which is to rayle and Rebell against the King and destroy such as are loyall He saies its the drift of a factious and defeated partie to make the same advantage of his booke as before of his name authoritie and intend not so much the defence of his former Actions as promoting future designes Those whome he calls a defeated partie in so great contempt are never the neerer a faction for the successe that confessed Rebells have gained over
put the yoke vpon the neckes of the people and that which restrained them from an absolute arbitrary power which was the Kings negative they would take away by force and place negative and affirmative in themselves The libeller sayes well that force was not vsed to dispell errour which was vsed to enforce consent and to make errour and shewes their wickednes that tooke that course The King sayes the vprightnes of his intention will excuse the possible failings of his vnderstanding who seriously endeavours to see the best reason faithfully followes it This the libeller sayes is a position false in law Divinitie But for that we must take his word against all law Divinitie But he sayes its contrary to the Kings owne better principles who affirmes the goodnes of a mans intention will not excuse the scandall and contagion of his Example And doth it contradict what the king had said of the excuse of errour in judgment by the vprightnes of the intention because a man cannot excuse an evill Action by the intending a good end where there was noe errour of the fact but a knowne evill His not knowing through corruption of flattery Court principles will not excuse him But we are sure that this libellers willfull falshoods corrupt and Rebellious principles condemne him and make him odious to God and man and he is not like a Pilot mi'sled by a wandring starr that may be possible but like a Pilot that will not be giuded by starâ—s but maliciously destroyes the ship and men and this Author might sooner excuse a drunken Pilot then a savage Piratte and such are they who willfully practise deceites and cruelties vnder the name of nationall rights They vsed force to acqiut their owne reason and conscience from force That is they vsed force to Domineere over king and people and establish their owne will for law And to rebell against their king is to arqiut their reason and conscience The king sayes never thing pleased him more then when his judgment concurd with theirs The libeller to this sayes That was to the applause of his owne judgment and would aswell have pleased any selfe conceited man But could the king despise the judgment of the Parliament as this addle headed libeller continually exclaimes and make it matter of applause to himselfe that his judgment concurd with theirs Could he sleight their judgment and conceite his owne credited by their concurrence If he had noe other esteeme of their judgment then the libeller would have beleived doubtles he might have suspected his owne Judgment for concurring with theirs And whence comes itt that a selfe conceited man would be soe well pleased with such a concurrence A selfe conceited man scornes the concurrence of other mens judgments and preferrs his owne against all others but reason cannot be expected from this man being vse les to his vndertaking The king sayes in many things he chose rather to deny himselfe then them And sayes the libeller That is to say Trifles for of his owne interests and personall rights he conceives himselfe Master And who can deny itt but he is Master of them and yet he hath parted with these and could he part with any thing were of he was not Master And were all these lawes which the libeller commends trifles To part with if he please saith the Libeller not to contest for against the Kingdome which is greater thcn hee whose rights are all subordinate to the Kingdomes good If he may not contest for them he must part with them though he please or not please but being for the Kingdomes good he is bound to contest for them and it is to ruine the Kingdome when subjects contest to take them away from the King Those rights are in compatible with subjects and inseperable from Governours and are noe more subordinate to the peoples good then Justice or law are but they are the peoples good and the people are subordinate to their Rulers in judging what is their good But he must part with them because the Kingdome is greater then he as the Libeller sayes That is noe reason but it is according to the Rebells principles that there is no right but force the weaker may not contest against the stronger The libeller is very copious in his declamations against Monarchy and it would be tedious to follow him in his verbositie he excepts to these words of the King In what concernes truth Iustice the right of Church or his Crouwne noe man shall gaine his consent against his minde And sayes the libeller What can be left then for a Parliament but to sit like Images whilest he assumes the best abilitie of judging or restraynes all men from enjoyment of any good which his judgment thinkes not fit to graunt them And what were a King but an Image if he were bound to graunt whatsoever his subjects in Parliament demaund of him and to what end doe they take an oath of Alleagiance if he were bound to quit it when they aske it And are there any soe sunke in vnderstanding as to beleive that it is the office of a King to judge of nothing and the right of subjects in Parliament to commaund al things But this man is of Achitophells minde that if his Councell be not followed he will goe home hang himselfe Advice from subjects to a King is ordained by law but the subjection of a King to advise is monstrous and vnsupposable The Authors repetitions of rayling Epithites vpon what concernes the King or his Actions commendation of the wicked Actions against him will not alter the nature of one or other and his vehement asseveration that the law and Coronall oath require the Kings vndeniable assent to what lawes the Parliament agree vpon is not out of opinion of truth but the strength of his language himselfe shewing the contrary aswell as the Parliament The King sayes he had rather weare a Crowne of thornes with our saviour then to exchange that of gold for one of lead whose imbast flexiblenes shal be forced to binde and comply to the various oft contrary Dictates of any faction when insteede of reason publique concernement they obtrude nothing but what makes for the interest of parties and flowes from the partialitie of private wills passions The libeller sayes many would be all one with our saviour whome he will not know They who governe ill those Kingdomes which they have right to have to our saviours Crowne of thornes noe right at all Such as are Rebells to lawfull Princes vsurpe Kingdomes will never weare a Crowne of thornes with their saviour nor can hope to be knowne by him while they sucke the blood of his anointed and Tyranize over kingdomes soe wickedly gotten That Crowne of thornes which this libellers savage souldiers and others set vpon the last king is now his Crowne of rejoycing in heaven honour among men the infamy of these hellish miscreants The libeller
for decision of controversies but it s a sorry inference that Counsellours in his affaires should have power over his person As the Parliaments right is circumscribed by lawes in regarde of the subject soe it cannot be imagined absolute over the King By what the Libeller hath said he might well conclude that kings are oblidged to doe justice but that the people or particular persons may judge their king by any law divine or humane he hath not offred a colour soe barren is he in an Argument which he calls over copious Who should better vnderstand their owne lawes and when they are transgresed then they who are governed by them and whose consent at first made them Certenly he might very wel have answeared himselfe that they which governed by such lawes and whose consent at first made them better vnderstand them and when they are transgressed then they that are governed and it is a course very agreable to these mens confusion that the suiter should teach the judge The Libeller askes who have more right to take knowledge of things done within a free nation then they within themselves And surely they will not be free long from destroying one another where that 's the libertie for there wil be as many Transgressours and as many lawes as there are opinions He goes about to answeare the taking the oath of Alleagiance and supreamacy And to this his answeare is very ready that these oaths were to his person invested with his Authoritie and his Authoritie was by the people given him conditionally vnder law and oath And if his Authoritie had been conditionall their oaths could not be absolute as they are This guift and condition they imagine were engraven in Seths Pillars and they have been long enquiringe for a Cabballisticke Rabbyn to finde out the Characters How the kings hereditary succession is become a conditionall guift must have better evidence then Aphorismes of confusion never law contained either the guift or condition nor was there ever such impudence before theis Traytours that avowed because they swore faith to their kings person invested with his Authoritie they might take away his Authoritie and not breake their oath And it were a prophane oath aswell as vaine that should be voyde at the will of the taker The kings oath added nothing to his right being only an obligation of his conscience noe condition annexed to his right and if he never tooke the oath his subjects obedience is noe whit diminished and a king by inheritance needes not admittance the death of his predecessour puts him in possession this is the knowne law of England The Couquerour tooke on oath at his Crowninge and other times that made noe condition to his Government There is not only reason but absolute necessitie for the avoyding of confusion ruine of mankinde that the subject be bound to the king though the kinge faile in his dutie for the destruction of Government is more sinfull and inconvenient to humane societie then any evill that can come by a kings misgovernment He proceedes to answeare objections touchinge the Covenant wherein we shall not much insist but to detect the shifts of Malefactours to elude the evidence of truth They were accused by the King and his partie to pretend libertie and reformation but to have noe other end then to make themselves greate and to destroy his person and Authoritie for which reason sayes the Libeller they added the third Article to preserve the Kings person and Authoritie in defence of Religion priviledge of Parliament and liberties of the Kingdome And to shew with what ingenuitie he dealt in seeking to avoyde that just accusation the Libeller tells vs that they added that cause for a shew only and they intended not to preserve the Kings person further then it might consist with their opinions touchinge Reformation extirpatinge of Prelacy preservinge liberties of Parliament and Kingdome and in this very clause they called the world to be wittnes with their consciences of their loyaltie and yet made the preservation of their Kings person and Authoritie arbitrary by their owne opinions and while this Libeller would have their Rebellion a defensive warr he forbeares not to tell the world that they resolved the Kings destruction to attaine their ends The sixth Article gives asmuch preservation and defence to all that enter into the league as to him And it seemes more for they have dealt with none of them as with him and he sayes if the Covenant were made absolute without respect to these superiour things it was an vnlawfull vow and not to be kept It is agreed that vnlawfull vowes are not to be made nor kept but it is an vnlawfull vow to destroy the Kinge in order to his supposed ends yet they feare not to vow the destruction of any that oppose them though the honour and innocence of the persons were without the reach of lawes and they will exempt neither callings nor integritie from their lawles Injustice and that appeared by his glosse vpon the fourth Article of the Covenant to bring persons offending to tryall and condigne punishment all that should be found guiltie of such Crymes and delinquencies whereof the King by his letters and proofes afterward was found guiltie in what they thought him at the taking of the Covenant to be over ruled only by evill Counsellours And had not he avowed all that ever his letters conteyned in his former declarations and hath the Libeller forgotten that the imputation of Crymes to evill Counsellours was but a Ceremony and are not his foregoinge words that their ends reformation and extirpatinge Prelacy were to be preferred before the preservation of the Kings person and authoritie This last age hath produced a generation that pretend they doe God service when they scorne all his lawes and Religion and hold forth their execrable villanies to the world as gratefull and well pleasinge sacrifices to God and make ostentations of their perjuries and Blaspheamies as services to him The nullities and vsurpation of those Monster judges that made themselves cut-throates of the King needed not the Kings exceptions to avoyde their illegallitie being soe apparent what the King did or said to of them wil remaine to his honour and the Libellers infamy that glories in the misfortunes of Princes sayinge it was learnt from his graund-mother It s a sad fate to haue his Enemies both accusers parties and Iudges The Libeller sayes what malefactour might not pleade the like if his Crymes have made all men his Enemies But there were hardly ever such malefactours vnles they who tooke vpon them to judge the Kinge He that is an Enemy before judgment cannot be a judge of the Cryme and he that is an Enemy to a Malefactour vncondemned is not fit to condemne him and such as are Enemies to Government and are common destroyers cannot be judges That they of the powder plot might have pleaded the same when their judges knew not their persons nor their