deny but the defenders of this pernicious Doctrine were the chief of their New Reformation and the Authors of the war people whose Counsels were applauded as Oracles and who drew after them their party by the repetition of their sanctified strength of zeal those who dared to contradict them did it very fearfully and kissing their hands before they spake but they themselves carried all before them acting with a prophetick liberty and boldness also after all they only were the men to be trusted and who were put upon all great designs and employments for they feared that they who are less governed by Enthusiasms might at last so far forget themselves as to be faithful to their Sovereign and yield to a peaceable accomodation Behold here then wherefore we would not joyn our selves with these Reformers because we see that even they themselves have the greatest need of Reformation being far gone from the Doctrine of the reformed Churches erring in the Faith but yet more in Charity It 's they would sweep the Church as God swept Babylon with the Beesom of destruction They speak not of reforming neither Doctrines nor Manners but to ruine the Persons They account the most part of the Clergy of the Kingdom unworthy to be corrected but altogether to be rooted out that one part of the Reformation was to ruine the King and to take the sword from his side to cut off his head the favourers of tumults were the only persons that were caressed they lent their ears to the populâ—r tumults whilst they shut the mouths and bound the hands of the Magistrates It was they taught that the people were above the King and that the Command of Saint Paul that every one should be subject to the higher Powers obligeth the King for to obey the People it was they that upheld yea favoured and courted all sorts of pernicious Sects provided that they would bandy with them against their King It was they that suffered to go unpunished the Blasphemies in the Pulpits the Insolencies Sacriledges and horrible profanations of the Service of God and permitted all things to those who were of the zealous party We beheld on the other side that the King took knowledge of the grievances of his people as well for the spiritual as temporal and laboured sincerely to remedy them that he consented to the alteration of offensive things in Religion and to the punishment of those who were accused as troublers of the Church provided that the things and persons were examined by regular and lawful waies of a general Synod which he offered to assemble he also was pleased to yield of his own right to augment the rights of his Subjects and daily multiplied acts of favour capable to convert the most alienated spirits passed by the many and great affronts that were done to his authority and endeavoured by all waies possible to overcome evil with good But the more the King yielded the more insolent were the factious against him he offered to reform both the State and Church but they would not permit him they themselves would do that work without him The King sent divers messages to know of them what things they would reform but to this they answered only with complaints Neither could he obtain any declaration of that which they desired until that his Forts Magazines Ships and Revenues were taken from him the reason of which hath since been given by one of their principal Champions Having to sow the Lords Field they had need to make a fence about it before they begin that the work-men might labour without interruption and that to lance the Apostume of a sick State they must first bind the Patient Our Conscience could not accomodate it self to this prudence neither ever expect any good from such a way of Reformation which would bind the Royal hands and feet of Majesty before they would declare what they desired of his Favour and cut asunder the Nerves of his Authority and subsistance under colour to establish the Kingdom of Jesus Christ A strange proceeding to us that have learned of St Paul that a Prince beareth not the sword in vain Rom. 13.4 But in that is the Minister of God to execute wrath and that to resist him yea when he should make use of the sword to commit injustice is to resist the Ordinance of God But if he use it well or ill that ought to be left to him who gave it him and to whom only he ought to render account his Subjects ought to counsel him if he did ill and refuse to assist him in evil doing and not repress him by Arms That if this Command of St Paul obliged the Romans to obey a cruel vicious Prince and enemy to God we should account our selves much more bound to obey a just merciful religious Prince whose life was a rare example of piety and sanctity and his Government so just and peaceable that he might well be called the Father of his Subjects who wanted nothing to make them happy but to know their happiness CHAP. II. That the Covenanters are destitute of all Proofs from Holy Scripture for their War made against the King THese violent beginnings of the Covenanters and their Progress also which overthrows all humane Authority had great need to strengthen it self by Divine Authority to satisfie the Conscience whence is it that they made a great noise of it in their Pulpits but not in their Disputes for those that exhorted the people in Scripture-term to War against the King hang down the head when in conference their Proofs are demanded saying that It is not for Divines but Lawyers to decide the present quarrel Whence it appears that there is a great difference betwixt the terms and proofs of Scripture and that many that have the voice of the Lamb speak as the Dragon But fearing lest they should accuse us that we suppress their proofs behold here all that they make use of both in their Books and Sermons part borrowed from the writings of the Jesuites and part from two Books which are Printed with Machiavels Prince and not without great reason for there are three wicked Books together and its a wonder how that in threescore years their Books have not been burnt for company by the hands of the common Executioner They alledge the example of David who had six hundred men for his guard when he was pursued by Saul 1 Sam. 22.2 The example of the Army of Israel which saved Jonathan when Saul would have put him to death 1 Sam. 14.45 Of Ehud who slew Eglon King of Moab an Oppressor of the Israelites Judg. 3.21 The example of the Town of Libnah which revolted from the obedience of Jehoram because he had forsaken the Lord God of his Fathers 2 Chr. 21.10 Of Jehu that cut off the House of Ahab 2 Kings 9. The example of Jehojadah the High Priest who commanded Athaliah the Queen to be put to death 2 Kings 11.15 Of the Priests
Gospel was to subject themselves wholly to their Soveraigns and without any reservation but to suffer for righteousnesse sake rather than disobey God for hereby the principal hinderance was removed namely that shadow which the enemies of the Gospel made the Emperors to apprehend that this Doctrine which spread so fast would bring along with it an alteration in their Estates and that the Christians waâ—ted but the coming of a King that would break in pieces all other Kings and have for his possession the ends of the earth it 's that which Saint Peter had regard unto where he exhorteth Believers 1 Pet. 2 13 15. To submit themselves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake that in all well-doing ye may put to silence the Ignorance of foolish men By this manner of subjection whole States were converted and in the end patience overcame For the Christians of the first Ages have made appear by their piety and moderation that the Kingdom whither they aspired was not of this world neither did in any thing diminish the rights of Monarchs but rather strengthened their authority binding their Subjects anew by Conscience yea so far as to make whole Armies of valiant mâ—n that had power in their hands to lay down their necks rather than to draw their swords against their Emperor so did the Christian Souldiers under Maximinian who would have constrained them to sacrifice to his Idols The Armies of the English and Scottish Covenanters are not capable of this Doctrine these Northern people are impatient Libertines and haughty they will form a Gospel according to the Ayr of their â—â—â—mate Their other crafty Evasion is not much better that Saint Paul forbids to disobey the power of the King but not to his person but the Text is formally against this for the Apostle by Power doth not understand a Quality without a Subject but fastens it to the Person saying in vers 6. That the Prince is the Minister of God and that he bears not the sword in vain and that they are ordained of God to do Justice And he speaks vers 6. of Princes in the plural number they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing 'T is the style of Saint Paul to call the Angels who excel in power Principalities and Powers When he speaks Eph. 3.10 That the manifold wisdom of God might be known to Principalities and Powers in heavenly places It appears that he speaks not of Accidents but of Persons for they are the Persons and not the Titles that are capable of knowledge Now I would fain know of these men what this Person is that it is lawful to resist If it be the person of the King or supream Magistrate whilst it is joyned to his power they resist the power in the person and if it be the person separated from the power they must needs before resist either the one or the other for to mâ—ke this violent separation And seeing that the Covenanters maintain that the authority of the King resides in their Chief those that draw the sword against them may return the same answer and say that they resist not their authority but their Persons but the Oath of Allegiance and that of supremacy which are imposed by Act of Parliament cause all these subtilties to vanish for men take these Oaths to the person of the King and not to his power or to his supremacy separated from him Moreover this distinction is contradicted by another which hath been frequent a long time in their mouths that they resisted not the King but his Armies which signifies in effect that they resisted not the person or King but his power for his power laid in his Armies and as it is the nature of a lie to enter far these people who say they are licensed by Saint Paul to oppose the person of the King and not his power were marvellously impatient when they were told they fought against the King and affirmed that they fought for him and defended his person which doubtless seems to be spoken to move laughter and indignation but God cannot be mocked nor Conscience wholly blinded by their impatience hereupon they testifie that their Conscience makes their process and dictates to them within that to bear Arms against the King is to sin against God and Nature It 's a notable Symptome of a desperate sick State where the reason of a people is smitten with astonishment whereof we have a most lamentable example for was there ever such a capricious madness to accuse the Royal Majesty of Treason to make Edicts by the King against the King to swear a Covenant for defence of the King which nevertheless obligeth them to make war against him and the King being alive to forge a Platonick Idea of the same King residing fifty miles from himself that so they might fight against the Person of the King There is no Cymera nor fantastical humour like this Behold the work of the Spirit that now works efficaciously in the children of disobedience Behold another Evasion The Apostle say they doth not teach us who is the Superiour Power but that it is the Superiour Power that we must obey and therefore they strive to form in the Kingdom a Superiour Power above the King a thing contrary to the Constitution of this Monarchy as I hope to make appear It 's easie to gather which is the Superiour Power which Saint Paul understands for he expresses it himself It s the Power which bears the Sword ver 3. And he to whom Tribute is paid Psal 7. Rights that appertain to the King alone and which were actually possessed by the Emperor where Saint Paul wrote this Epistle That which they alledge against this that the Emperor then was more absolute than the Kings at present is false but he was much more limited Suetonius that lived under Trajan puts amongst the enormities of Caligula to have been very near changing the form of Government which was a Principality into a Kingdom and to place the Diadem upon his head And the Learned called not the power of these Emperors Regnum but Principatus and were this allegation true yet it would be far from the purpose for be it that the Emperor should be more or less absolute than our Kings the command of Saint Paul is alwaies the same That we must not resist him that bears the Sword and to whom Custome is due because his Authority is of God This other starting hole is of the same stuffe they say that the defence not to resist Supream Powers obligeth only Particulars and not the States of a Kingdom this is to make another Gospel for the General than for the Particulars as if they should say the Commandments of God are directed to every one but not to all which is to overthrow common Sense since the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are imposed upon all the States of England whereby they are bound also in General none sit
in Parliament that takes not their Oaths at his entrance neither is it in their power to overthrow without and against the King that which is established by the King sitting in Parliament Also this is a thing that never entred into the spirits of the English before the times of this epidemical phrensie that the Kings Writs which makes the Estates to assemble and the deputation of the people that sends them should exempt their Deputies or Parliament men from the duty of Subjects and absolve them of their Oath of Allegiance and St. Pauls Command The Text of St. Paul according to the Greek requires that every Soul should be subjects If so be then that their Deputies or Parliament men have no souls they are not bound to give obedience to the King When we reason thus our adversaries are extraordinarily moved and would take this matter out of the hands of the Clergy saying that the Lawyers not the Divines are to decide where the Supream Power of the State rests whether it be in the person of the King or the people and with what limitations the King ought to be obeyed and that the Apostle requiring an obedience to supream Powers intends an obedience according to the Laws and the Laws are every where different and that one and the same Rule of Scripture cannot serve for all Kingdoms that the Kingdom of England not being formed as the Kingdom of Israel or the Roman Empire the Commands of the Old and New Testament alledged toucheth not the present Quarrel Now are they not ashamed to forbid our Clergy to discourse of Political affairs whilst the Gentlemen of the Bar take upon them to teach Divinity to the Clergy and by infinite Booâ—s as processes stir up the people to Rebellion by Reasons of Religion and to uphold staggering Consciences in the duty of Obedience and Christian Concord and to defend the Truth of God by our sufferances as we have endeavoured to do It 's not to meddle in the affairs of State but to discharge our Consciences and to keep that good thing which God hath committed unto us We cannot be accused to intrude our selves into the Civil Government as their Ministers who serve as Agents and Factors in publick affairs It s henceforth the duty of Divines to handle this point of State for the Lawyers and States-men of the Covenant who having lately built their New Policy upon a New Divinity of their fashion have forced the Divines to become Polititians at leaâ—â—o far as to defend true Divinity from the crime of Disobedience since they press us for Conscience to joyn with them to resist the King they must satisfie our Consciences that the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom require us so to do But if they would that Divines rest themselves upon the faith of the Lawyers in the point of resistance upon which there is no less penalty than damnation it is to press an implicit Faith and blind obedience upon those that preach the contrary Without exceeding then the limits of our vocation we do acknowledg that the Apostle requires an obedience according to the Laws of the State not only of the State of Rome but of every other form of Government and we deny that there may not be found in Scripture a Rule of Obedience which serves for all sorts of Estates for such is that of the present Text That every Soul should be subject to the Higher Powers and that he that resisteth the Powers resisteth the Ordinance of God and thereby shall receive to himself damnation the reason inserted between these two sentences do manifestly regard all forms of States that there are no powers but they be of God and the powers that are are ordained of God therefore the Command that goes before and after appertains to all sorts of Government Let every one be subject to the power and let none resist the power and threatnings also which is the terriblest of all threatnings that those that resist the Powers shall receive to themselves damnation Saint Peter wills us to be subject to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake that is we are to subject our selves to every form of Government lawfully established and to perswade our selves that that Ordinance is of God Generally the Scriptures before alledged oblige all persons of all Estates to yield Obedience to him and those in whom the Supream Power resides and there cannot 〈◊〉 brought any valuable reason why it is more lawful to resist the Supream Power in England than in Israel or in Rome Indeed if they could produce a fundamental Law of the Kingdom that did permit the people of England in certain cases to take up Arms against the King they had some reason then to say that Saint Paul did not forbid the English to resist their Prince beyond the nature of their Laws as the Princes of Germany when they took up Arms against the Emperor produced the Golden Bull of Charles the fourth and the Emperial Capitulation for by it they were expresly permitted to make war against him if he attempted any thing against their ancient composition although I account that this Capitulation could not be made without contradicting the Command of the Apostle for Histories mention that the Emperour was reduced to it by the threatnings and Menaces of the Pope but now by long prescription the Empire is not that it was and it 's a point disputable what is the Supream Power in divers States of Germany 'T is that which but of late hath been put to the Question in England and was never disputed before the year 1642. where the Supream Power of the Kingdom resides unless when the Crown was in dispute between two Princes The Kings enemies employed all their forces to prove that the Soveraign Authority appertained to the people to evade the Text of Saint Paul and other Texts of Scripture which did marvellously incommode their affairs imitating those that alter the Lock of their doors when the Key is in possession of their Adversary for beholding to their great regret that the Scripture is wholly ours commanding obedience and strictly forbidding resistance to Soveraigns yea under pain of damnation they labour with all their might to change the nature of the State that thereby the rules of subjection contained in the Scripture might be of no use One of their Authors of whom they make great account affirms boldly that the passages in Scripture against resisting the Supream Power are of no force but in simple and absolute Monarchies as that of the Jews and Romans and do no waies touch ours This is a clean shaver who cuts the knot that he cannot untie wherein he imitates the ingenuity of Buchanan who having taught Subjects to punish their King and feeling himself pressed by Conscience which suggested to him that the Scripture was wholly contrary to it prevents the Objection that might be made by maintaining that it 's ill inferred to say that the thing
is unlawful because there is no such thing or the like found in Scripture These their Confessions are very remarkable and indeed most strange coming from Christians who should rather frame their policy to Scripture than reject the Scripture because it contradicts the policy they would establish They have found out an invention to cast off the yoke of their King which is to cast off that of the Word of God After this so open a profession it 's against all equity they should make use of Scripture for their cause either in their Writings or Sermons They alledg nothing but examples but there is no reason that the examples should be made use of by them who reject the Commands but after they have turned themselves into as many postures as a Fencer to defend themselves against the invincible Text of the Apostle in the end hither they are driven to refuse wholly to debate the difference touching their duty to their King by the Commands of Scripture The last Figure of Proteus is the Natural and after all their tricks of Lying and Hypocrisie at last their Nature shews it self In fine when all is said this is the only answer on which they rest that the Commands of Scripture cannot determine the point of their resistance and that we must have recourse to the Lawyers This speech is commonly in the mouths of all the wisest of their party and let all Christian Churches take notice of this their most shameful Evasion The Covenanters of England who pretend to establish the Kingdom of Christ according to the Word of God refuse to be judged by the Commands of Scripture touching the War made against their Soveraign CHAP. V. What Constitution of State the Covenanters forge and how they refuse the Judgment of the Laws of the Kingdom TO elude the strength of humane Laws as well as divine they forge a primitive and fundamental Constitution of this Estate destitute of all authority both of God or man And here we must distinguish between their doctrine they taught in the beginning of their Covenant and that which they taught afterwards for then when they were to fight with the King in the field and were not yet capable oâ— so high hopes as afterwards they effected they forged a form of State suitable to their possibility then which was to constrain the King by the Terror of their Arms to accord to all that should please them and wholly to put the Government into their hands notwithstanding their Principles then led them to those Conclusions which since followed for they supposed that the Soveraign Power was inherent in the People that the People elected the King and had committed to him the Authority that he exercised reserving to themselves the Power to assume it again when the State should judge it most convenient and to take away the sword of Justice and the Militia to make use of it against him if there were need That the King had not the Supream Power but by Paction which being once broke by him the Subjects were exempted from their Obedience That he was onely Depository of the Supremacy but when the Estates were assembled the Supremacy was joyntly possessed by him and the two Houses so that the King had but the thirds and that but very hardly for they held that the States had a Negative voice and the King could do nothing without their consent and whether the King had the Negative Voice of right they were not agâ—eed but all accorded to take it away from him in effect that is to say after their account That the People might refuse the King what displeased them but if the King denyed what the People propounded to him they esteemed that the two Houses might and ought to do it without him and force him to it by Arms and this Doctrine hath been confirmed by their practise or to speak the truth this their practise hath occasioned this Doctrine Now since God through his secret and incomprehensible Judgments hath suffered the wickedness of this Age to have success above their desires they built upon these principles this Conclusion that the People may judge and execute their King dissolve the Monarchie for ever and turn it into an Aristocracy or Popular Government for yet they cannot agree to which they should hold themselves since then they would perswade us that the Constitution of the English Government exempts us from these two great dangers Disobedience to God and damning our Souls in resisting the King and since they would oblige us for Conscience sake to oppose the King in obedience to God and the higher Powers and that our Clergie are commanded to exhort the people that God hath commanded them to draw their Swords against their Soveraign there is a necessity to satisfie our Reason and resolve our Consciences hereupon to enquire whether the Nature of the State be such as they have painted it out to us And for this we have not referred our selves to those of the Royal party but have consulted with the most Judicious Writers of the Covenanters who pass amongst them as Oracles of the State expecting that for proof of this form of Government they would have produced the old Records of the Kingdom which are now in their Custodie the ancient Statutes of Parliaments and the Testimony of their old Historians but they alledge no such things though much pressed thereunto by their Adversaries onely they make a Discourse in the Air upon the Law of Nature that hath given to every person and by consequent to every Estate a power for his preservation troubling the Ignorant Readers brains with barbarous terms and thorny distinctions and extracting the Quintessence of the State into an invisible substance They tell us that the Parliament was coordinate and not subordinate to the King That the three Estates of Parliament whereof the King made one being fundamental admitted not of the difference of Higher or Lower That the power of the King in Parliament was not Royal but Political That this Fundamental Law of the kingdom was not written for if it were it should be superstructive and therefore Mutable and not Fundamental That the mixture of the three Estates in Government was not Personal but Incorporate Those that understand not these Mystical sentences ought to be nevertheless content it being not reasonable that they should understand them better then the Authors themselves An affected obscurity amongst Ideots passeth for knowledge and ye shall find that the Discourses that have least reason in them are most difficult like Olive stones which are very hard because there is nothing in them Now is it not requisite to subtilize upon the virtuality and actuality of the Peoples power for to inform the Conscience of the Subject touching the Justice of his Arms against his King but for that there is indeed need both of Divine and Humane Authority and such as is easie and to be understood of all But the observation of Mr. du Moulin
is very true that ordinarily Lying arms its weaknesse with thorns like Lizards who save themselves by running into Bushes Above all in a point where the Question of Right is founded upon that of Fact as this Question now whether it be lawful for the English to take up Arms against their Prince here to go about to satisfie Reason and Conscience with political and metaphisical Contemplations is not to purpose they should besides Divine Authority which should ever march before enquire whether the Laws and Constitutions of the Country authorize this War The Question being not to dispute which is the best Form of Government but to preserve the Form to which God hath subjected us and to observe the Laws of the Kingdom and after many Moral and Political Discourses for our Adversaries pay us with no other those that have any Honesty or Understanding come always to this that they would shew us by what Law of England it is permitted the Subjects to take up Arms without the Kings permission and against him When did the people ever make this Election Where is it that they have reserved the liberty to resume the Supreme Authority when they shall please Is there any Statute made during the Ages that this Monarchy hath continued that prefers or equals the two Houses to the King or doth authorize them to ratifie any thing without him Where is the Articles of that Capitulation which in some certain cases dissolves the Subjects Oath of Allegiance Is there any Case in the Law in which it should be lawful for Subjects to take from their King or Supreme Magistrate his Forts Navies and Magazines and to take into their hands the sole Administration of Justice and the Militia to confer the great Offices of the Crown to receive Ambassadors to treat with Forreign Nations and to dispose of the Goods and Lives of the Kings Subjects To these so important Questions for the duty and happiness of all the members of an Estate and the eternal salvation of their Souls and Bodies to answer with Platonick considerations and in stead of producing the Laws of the Kingdom to Philosophy upon the Law of Nature and form an appeal from Authentical and known Laws to a Word not written made at pleasure This is to mock God and men this is to insult upon the Brutality of the people and to take a wicked advantage from the wine of Astonishment or Senselessness which God in his just wrath hath poured forth upon this miserable Nation for if they did beleeve there remained any common sense in this blind and mad people durst they so boldly return so ridiculous an Answer to those that demand where are those Fundamental Laws written that now make all other Laws bow to them namely that the Fundamental Laws are not written and that if they were they should be superstructive and not fundamental after this account the command to love God with all our heart and our Neighbour as our self is not fundamental because it is written it were to profane Reason to imploy it to refute a reasoning so unreasonable it must needs be that these people know they have to do with Persons of great credulity since they dare give them for a Fundamental Law a Fantasie which they never heard before spoken of and whereof no Writings nor Histories make mention and this is to fight against their King overthrow the State lose their goods hazard their Lives and Consciences But what should I say There is no reason but is perswasive when the Conclusions are taken and there is strength to maintain them Christendome which have now their eyes upon our Broils will take notice of the open confession of the Troubles of this State That for the War against the King and for the form of Government which they establish in the kingdome a Superiour power that abolisheth the Royal they have no Fundamental Law written Is not this then marvellously to abuse the Justice of God and the patience of reasonable creatures made after his Image and indued with knowledge to constrain them to prostitute their Consciences and Lives in a Quarrel for which they openly confess there is not any Law written and for which there is not the least footing of Approbation in all that hath been established or left authentically written since England hath been a Nation We have let you see before how they decline the Defences of Scripture against the resistance of Soveraigns behold now they confess there is no fundamental Law written for to justifie their Arms and the superiority of the people above the King which they would introduce with the sword and thus they acknowledge they have no authority neither divine nor humane for what they do as Cardinal Perron having maintained the power of the Pope over the Temporal of Kings before the Estates of France in conclusion affirmed that it was an Article which was not decided neither by the Scriptures nor the Ancient Church so that the Pope and our Mutineers agree together to usurp an authority upon Kings without any ground or warrant in the Word of God and contradicted by all humane Constitutions that is to say that hoth God and man are contrary unto them CHAP. VI. What Examples in the Histories of England the Covenanters make use of to authorize their Actions BUt do we not much wrong them to say that there is nothing makes for them in all the ancient Writings and Histories of this Kingdom Do they not alledg the two Parliaments that deposed Edward the second and Richard the second yea truly and to their great shame as the wisest of their party do acknowledg affirming that those Acts of Parliament against Richard the second were not properly the Acts of the two Houses but of Henry the fourth and his victorious Army in which they say true for the Duke of Lancaster who after caused himself to be called Henry the fourth having prevailed with the people to rise against their lawful King assembled a Parliament which he made to do whatsoever he would and having deposed and imprisoned this poor King soon after caused him to be put to death though this action were as just as it is execrable yet it would make nothing to the purpose where the Question is of that which the two Houses may do separate from the King for the deposing of King Richard was by another King sitting in Parliament for until these last States the two Houses never thought that they were able to conclude any thing without the Royal Consent and since the Parliaments held under the House of York declared Henry the fourth Usurper of the Crown and therefore condemned the Parliament which had confirmed his usurpation The other example is no better than this the deposing of Edward the second by the Conspiracy of his Wife and the Favourites of this Queen who served themselves of a Parliament to execute this wickedness and having deposed the King and crowned his Son who
condition they would commit new ones But when the honest and most understanding of the City came in a good number to petition the two Houses to hearken to peace and satisfie the King they were severely rebuked as seditious and these Gentlemen let them know that they loved no noise but of their own making Behold here the waies whereby the Parliament of London obtained their absolute power Behold the Foundations they laid for a most holy Reformation Posterity will be ashamed of the Actions of their Fathers all Forreign Nations will abhor these proceedings remorse and sorrow may in the end enter into the hearts of the Londoners when they shall behold themselves the sole object of publick Execrations and curses Those of Gaunt and Paris have only reason to pardon them when they shall remember their Baracado's and the estate of the Nobles during the holy League CHAP. X. A Parallel of the Covenant with the holy League of France under Henry the 3d. WHo so shall compare the holy League of France with the English Covenant shall find that they are sisters daughters of the same Father and that the younger is to the life after the Image of the Elder in both you shall find an Oath of mutual assistance to extirpate Heresie without the Authority of the King and which at last is turned against the King himself A Jealousie without ground of the Religion of their Soveraign and a War of Religion against a King of the same Religion which they would make the world believe was a Heretick A League with strangers and Armies raised in the Kingdom against their natural Prince who gave them no other occasion of the War but his too much Gentleness A King submitting himself to reason offering himself to remedy all the grievances of his Subjects and a people refusing to admit him to bring a remedy and resolved to give order without him the King driven from his chief City which he had honoured by his ordinary presence The fire of civil war blown about by seditious preachers The superstitious people tributary to the ambition of some particulars weak Conscience instructed to cut the throat of their King for the love of God and to gain Paradise fastings frequent Devotions doubled Prophetical Inspirations Examples of Angelical Holiness and all this to perswade the superstitious people that God favoured their Seditions as his cause and that their Leaders took Counsel of none but the Holy Ghost and had no other aim but the setting up of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Writers under pay to write scandalous libels against their King the people fed with lies to drain money out of their purses one while amazing them with fears where there was none another while flattering them with false hopes and with forged news A Parliament in the principal City but in it a smal number who wanting the Royal assistance support themselves by granting liberty to an inveagled people and by power of rich and foolish Citizens Nobility scorned Artificers and Banquerouts bearing the sway all Order Divine and Humane overturned the ancient Laws and Customes broken and new fundamental Laws never heard of before in their places In brief it appears at this day that the Devil marches abroad and walks in the same paths he did about fifty years since CHAP. XI The Doctrine of the English Covenanters parallel'd with the Doctrine of the Jesuits SInce the League of France and the English Covenant were both made upon pretence of Religion it 's not unworthy our paines to consider the conformity of the Doctrines they employed to maintain both the one and the other and how the Jesuits Maximes were the chief support of the Covenant Both in the League and Covenant the people were encouraged to take up Arms against their King by this opinion of Car. Bellar. who teacheth that in the Kingdoms of men the power of the K comes from the people because it 's the people that makes the King and that the people do never so transfer their power over to the King but they retain it in habitu and so that in certain cases they may in effect re-assume it again which was also the judgment of Navarrus whom the Cardinal highly extois And thus also the Author of the Observations upon the Kings Declarations who is the Master of the Sentences with the Covenanters teacheth us That originally the power is in the people who are the fountain and efficient cause and that the Authority is not in the Prince but secondarily and derivatively All these State Philosophers are full of School terms but little reason and he adds That this Authority founded by the people cannot be dissolved but by that power which gave it constitution Which is as much as to say That the people may take away the Kings power and authority when they please Another of the Sect but more antient tells us That Princes and Governours have their authority from the people who when they find it convenient may resume and take it from them again as every man may revoke when he please his own procuration or warrant but this reason shall by and by be examined and refuted The Cardinal explains himself more clearly in that which before he had written in covert Terms saying That a King such as he there describes may yea ought by the consent of all to be deprived of his Authority and Goodman is of his opinion That evil Princes ought to be deposed and that this alone belongs to the inferiour Magistrates to put in execution We learn from Doctor Charron that the French Leaguers eluded the strength of S. Pauls Texts which forbids the opposing of Soveraigns in saying That the commands had regard and respect only to the State of the Christians of those times because they were not then strong enough to make resistance I have before shewed how Bellarmine Buchanan and the Champions of Covenant make use of the same reason and exposition But to clear the way and make it smooth to come to deposing of Soveraign Princes These two parties are wont to absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Emanuel Sa the Jesuite saith That the people may depose their Prince even after they have sworn perpetual obedience to him And Mr. Knox saith That if Princes prove Tyrants against God and his Truth their Subjects are free from their Oaths of Allegiance c. To the excommunication and deposing of the Prince ordinarily there follows execution according to the Authentick Bull That it s not Homicide to kill an excommunicated person The French League produced two examples in the persons of their Kings and this accords with the Doctrine of Buchanan That Ministers may excommunicate Princes and that a King after he is cast into Hell by Excommunication is unworthy to live or to enjoy life upon earth But observe in passing the Reformed Churches do not teach that the Excommunicatio Major do cast any person into Hell but onely excludes
must touch it But I am constrained to it by the frequent Declarations of the Covenanters who have nothing so strong nor so frequent for to move the people to take up Arms against their King as to propose to them the example of the French Churches as a pattern which they ought and are bound to follow Would to God that in leaving us there they would have given us liberty to hold our peace but since they will not give over publishing abroad and making all places ring with our calamities the remembrance whereof we rather desire should be for ever buried since they impute the actions of some few to the generality of our Churches and even to Religion it self and since that they alledge our errors for to exhort us to return to them again and since they change the subject of our repentance and sorrow into rules for their imitation and into precepts of the Gospel Is it not now high time to speak and prefer the Interest of Gods Glory and of the Truth of his Word above the credit of men whatsoever they be yea and of our own too Let God be true and every man a Liar Rom. 3.4 Confess thy fault and give glory to the Lord God of Israel Jo. 7.19 Mr. Rivet was not ashamed to call these our stirrings culpam nostrorum the fault of his Country-men and this was spoken as a Champion of the truth to confess it so freely that it was both to our sin and dammage wherein as he himself declares he agrees with Monsieur du Moulin who in his second Epistle to Monsieur Balzak makes the same confession in equivalent terms Such was the Piety and ingenuity of these godly and learned persons that all their care and pains was to defend the Truth only and not their persons It would be a great honor for the Churches of France with one consent publikely to declare that they judge all wars of Subjects against their Soveraign unlawful and to exhort their Brethren of England to Obedience and fidelity to their Prince then for to preserve the credit of some of their party and suffer their actions to serve as snares to the weak consciences of their Neighbours and of pretext to those who labour to corrupt the Doctrine of the Gospel My self being a member of the Reformed Church of France doubt not but I shall be owned and approved to give an Answer for them to the Summons of a strange Covenant It s a very great affliction to us to behold the famous Churches of Great Britain to destroy themselves for controversies without necessity and which might have been easily composed And that which toucheth us most is the danger of the Truth which is much weakned by these divisions for it s to be feared that in your contending and striving one with another you over-turn not the Candlestick of the Gospel and that God being provoked takes not away his saving Light which was not given to lighten you one to fight against another We will not enter into the causes of your quarrels and could wish that you had left out the remembrance of ours and had not imployed the unforâ—unate actions of your poor Neighbours which anguish and terrour produced to serve as example to your people to take up Arms against their King They were but the lesser part of our Churches that were involved in that party The signal testimonies of our fidelity to the Crown ever since the reducing of Rochel and other places which were moved in our hands do efface the memory of the troubles moved in their behalf and the cause of these motions being equitably considered by sober and moderate spirits would beget pity rather then hatred For if just fear could justifie Arms against their lawful Soveraign those of our Religion who bare Arms in this occasion could represent to you that when the King demanded back again the places that he had granted them for their security they had great occasion to fear that with these places they should lose the security of their consciences and lives in which they were happily deceived For the late King who was as gentle in making use of a victory as valiant in gaining one ever laboured more to comfort than to punish and compassion stifling his anger made them know that the strongest place for the security of Subjects is the Clemency and Justice of their Soveraign Oh these Royal Vertues were eminently manifest in him whom God had given you for your King Who being the Defender of the Reformed Christian Faith and publishing his most holy Profession with such protestations which gave us full satisfaction we cannot see how you can alledge the example of our taking up of Arms should they be the most just of the world having not the same subjects of fear The security of your consciences and lives were without question But you are not the first whom ease and long prosperity hath carried to the same impatience to which others have been driven by affliction And since then ye address your selves to us to give you advice We beseech you consider that to take counsel of your Friends it must not be when their swords are in their hands and their enemies before them but when they are quiet and at peace 'T is not from our Souldiers but our Divines that you should enquire whether you should draw your swords against your Prince if you refer your selves to them they will all conclude for the Negative For whilst our Wars continued whereof you have too good a memory not one of all our Divines maintained those dangerous Maximes which is now defended by your Sermons and Writings They that say most for their Party excuse it and lay it upon necessity 'T is not from any of our Books that ye have drawn these vile Maximes That the Authority of the Sovereign Magistrate is of Humane Right That the people is above their King That the people gave the power to the Prince and may take it away when they please That Kings are not the anointed of the Lord That if the King fail in performing the Oath at his Coronation the Subjects are absolved from their Oaths of Allegiance That if the Prince falls from the Grace of God the people are loosed from their subjection That for to establish a Discipline which they account to be the only Kingdom of Jesus Christ Subjects may take up Arms against their Prince That Kings are to be judged before their Subjects That the Civil Government ought to be formed according to the pattern of the Ecclesiastical which is not Monarchical This Maxime tends to the abolition of Royalty in all States In all the Writings of our Divines ye find no such matters but such as teach Subjects Loyalty Humility Obedience and Patience All agree together with the ancient Christians and say that prayers and tears are the weapons of the Church We never spake of deposing our Kings and do not believe that any man living
us these scourges for our sins by this our impatience will be bridled by Humility Moreover le ts remember that it is not for us to remedy these evils and that all that we have to do is to beg help of God in whose hands the hearts of Kings and motions in Kingdoms are He said a little before That the Word of God bound us not only to be subject to Princes that are worthy of our duty but to all Princes whatsoever and howsoever they came to the Soveraignty and although they do nothing less then perform the duties of good Soveraigns In his Commentary upon Daniel Let us learn saith he by the example of the Prophet to beseech God for Tirants if it shall please him to subject us to their inordinate pleasure for what though they be unworthy of all Offices of Humanity yet neverthelesse because it is by the will of God that he commands it s our duty to bear the yoke patiently not only because of wrath as Saint Paul admonisheth but also for Conscience sake otherwise we are not only Rebels against them but against God This Lesson is of the same Authors Let this be ever in our memory that the same Divine Authority that gives Authority to Kings establisheth also the most wicked Kings Oh let never these seditious thoughts enter into our spirits that we should deal with the King as he deserves and that it is not reasonable to yield the duty of Subjects to him who will not perform the duty of King to us Which is notwithstanding the arguing of the Covenanters Peter Martyr an Italian but a Minister in those Churches our enemies invite to associate with them is not less contrary to them Expounding that place of the Proverbs By me Kings reign saith That under the name of Kings the Text understands also Tyrants Whence he collects this consequence Therefore learning hence that thy K. is established by God beware thou never conspirest any seditious thing in the State all that thou must do when thou art oppressed is to appeal to the Tribunal of God there being no other superiour power to whom a Tyrant ought to obey He saith also very pertinently worthy our best observation That then when God Would chastise the Kings of Judah for their sins he did not do it by the Jews but by the Babylonians Assyrians and Egyptians shewing by the conduct of his justice and providence that it is not for subjects to take knowledge of the faults of their soveraigns but that they ought to leave them wholly to God who hath other means in his hand to punish them and reduce them to their duty Surely if Calvin and Martyr had lived in these days and were benificed in England they would eject them out of their benefices for this troublesom doctrine which hinders the progress of the holy Covenant and fils their consciences full of scruples whom they instruct to rebel against their Soveraign for the Lords sake And above all Monsieur Deodatâ— would be very ill dealt with by them for being Author of that excellent Epistle sent from the Church of Genevah to the Ecclesiastical Assembly at London in which your good King is highly prais'd for the justice and clemency of his proceedings in this present quarrel the popular tumults condemned which forced him to retire from his Parliament and these Gentlemen earnestly entreated to dispossess their spirits of all factious inclinations and to wash off this foul spot by which they have and do defame the pure profession of the Gospel giving occasion for the world to believe that the reformed Religion hath a secret hatred and antipathy against the Majesty of Kings and soveraign authority against this Epistle our enemies vomited out many outragious words in their books maintaining that it was supposititious and invented by some prophane Atheist Behold here the thanks that this great and learned person and the reverend Ministers his brethren received for their charitable and truly Christian counsel And this is further to be observed that the Assembly at London having sent their Epistle and Oath of their Covenant to seventeen forraign Churches whereof the Churches of France made but one they make no noise of the Answers they received which doth evidently testifie they did not satisfie them and that they durst not produce them for fear of making it appear that the generality of the reformed Churches were ashamed of their actions and condemned the insurrections of Subjects against their Soveraign under pretence of reformation This Divinity of Rebellion being founded upon one only Maxime that the power of Kings is of humane and not divine right and that their right to the Kingdom is but a paction between them and the people It s much to purpose to produce here what the Churches of France hold hereupon and how they refuse the reasons of the Jesuits which are the same with the Covenanters Behold the last Chapter of the Buckler of Faith which is a garment so fit for the size of both parties that after the one hath made use of it the other may put it on they need change nothing but the persons Thomas the Prince of the School Divines saith that the power of Princes and Lords is but of humane institution and comes not from God to whom we may joyn Cardinal Bellarmine in his Book against Barkley and Monsieur Arnoux who upon the second Article of our confession cals the power of the Magistrate a humane law conformable to the Apothegme of reverend Father Binet the Jesuit who told Mr. Casaubon that it were better all Kings were killed than a confession should be revealed because the power of Kings is but an humane right but confession is of Divine right The Reasons they bring for this opinion are 1. That the first King that was raised in the world namely Nimrod was raised by violence and not by the ordinance of God 2. That the most part of the Empires and Kingdoms that ever have been came by conquest one Nation overcoming the other or by some Prince whose ambition moved him to pick an unjust quarrel with his Neighbour 3. That Emperors and Kings are established by humane ways whether they come to the Crown by hereditary succession or by election since there is no extraordinary revelation nor no rule in the Word of God that a Nation are bound to follow rather Succession which is hereditary than that which is by Election 4. That there is no express command of God to obey Henry rather than Lewis or to acknowledge this man rather than that for King 5. That for these considerations the Apostle St. Peter calls our obedience to Kings an Ordinance of man saying Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supream or unto Governours c. 1 Pet. 2.15 These are the ordinary reasons of the Covenanters if they should disavow them their Books would witness
power by certain humane means introduced by custome which notwithstanding hinders not but their power may be founded in the Word of God when they are once established for as we said before the Question is not of the means by which a Prince comes to the Kingdome but what Obedience is due to him after he is once instaled And therefore Saint Peter after he had called this Ordinance an humane Ordinance commands us to subject our selves for the Lords sake and to obey his command Whosoever makes the Authority of Kings depend upon the institution of men and not upon the Ordinance of God lessens their Majesty more then three quarters and takes from them that which secures their lives and Crowns more then their Guards or mighty Armies which plants in the Subjects hearts Fear instead of Love and Reverence Then the fidelity and obedience of Subjects will be firm and lasting when it shall be incorporated with piety and accounted a part of Religion and of the service we owe to God This foundation being over-turned that the Authority of Kings is but an humane Ordinance that which they build upon it must necessarily fall for to reason thus that the people may take away their Authority from the King because they gave it him is to prove one absurdity by another as if one should prove the Moon might be burnt because it s made of wood For to say the people gave the power to the King is to imagine that which never was no not in Kingdomes which are Elective The People give not the King his Authority for they cannot give that they have not but he defers his obedience to Henry or Charles But this Prince being elected receives his Authority from God as the beginning and source from whence all power flowes By me Kings Raign Pro. 8.15 And there is no Power but of God Rom. 13.1 None ought therefore to take this Power which God hath given him Thus the Wife choseth her Husband and gives him a promise of obedience in marriage but it is not she that gives him his Authority that comes from above And there is as great an absurdity to say that the People may depose the King because they chuse him as to affirm that the Woman may put away her Husband or subject him to her when she shall judge expedient because that she made choice of him For the woman loseth the liberty of her choice by the bond of marriage and the People likewise lose the liberty to revoke their choice when the Prince Elected is declared King 'T is a strange consequence to say that the people may take away the Kings Authority because they have sworn obedience to him the Election is no other thing And it 's a reason that overthrows it self to say that the people may take from the King his Authority because they gave it him For put the case that it were true that the people gave Authority to the King whom they Elect since then the people have given away their Authority 't is no more in them This maxime being once admitted that it is lawful for every one to take back again what he hath given it would break the Laws of Society and fill the world with injustice and confusion But let our enemies know that although the Authority of the King had not begun before the Oath of Allegiance which this Parliament took in a Body at the beginning of their sitting yet the Body of the State made thereby an irrevocable gift of their obedience to the King and from this Oath we draw a better consequence then theirs namely that they cannot dispose of their obedience since they have given it to the King So that were their reasons good they would be of no force but in Kingdomes which were Elective and make nothing against King Charles for neither he nor any of the Kings his Ancestors in all ages past ever came to the Crown by Election It 's not to purpose to alledge the Oath the King took at his Coronation as an agreement and paction made with his people equivalent to an Election for the King receives not his Kingdome at his Coronation he is King before his Crown is put on and therefore Watson and Clark who conspired against King James of glorious memory were justly condemned as guilty of High Treason although they alledged that the King was not then Crowned and it was judged by the Court that the Crowning was but a ceremony for to make the King known to his people It 's the like also in France I judge saith Bodin that no man doubts but the King enjoyes before his Anointing the possession and propriety of his Kingdome Before this ceremony the King enjoyes as fully all his Rights as after and according to the Laws of France and England the King never dies whilst there remains any of the Royal Blood for in the same hour that the King expires the lawful Heir is totally invested of the Kingdome Wherefore the Eldest Sonne of Edward the Fourth who was murthered by his Uncle Richard is by general consent numbered amongst the Kings and named Edward the Fifth although he never wore the Crown nor took any Oath nor exercised any Authority Henry the Sixth was not Crowned but in the ninth year of his Reign and yet before his Coronation many were attainted of High Treason which could not have been done if he had not been acknowledged King In the Oaths of the Kings of France and England at their Coronation there is no image of stipulation covenant or agreement betwixt them and their subjects They receive not their Crowns upon any condition and their people owe their obedience whether they perform or violate their promises This Oath is a laudible custome profitable to bear up the Authority of the Prince by the love of his Subjects and to give to the people this satisfaction that the King whom God hath given them hath an intention to govern them with Justice and Clemency and to preserve their Rights and Liberties If the King by his Oath should bind himself to fall from the Right to his Kingdome when he should violate his Promises he would then be lesser after his Oath then before and surely if the Kings did believe they should diminish their propriety by their Oath they would never take it and to shew that their Authority depends not of their Oath but their Oath of their Authority the Kings of England form it at their pleasure Very hardly shall you find three that have taken the same Oath without changing some things That which was presented to Henry the Eighth which is to be seen in the Rolls was corrected by his own hand and interlined And moreover the Oath is made to God and not to the People and binds the Conscience of the Prince but doth not limit his Soveraignty if the intention of this solemnity were to make a stipulation or agreement with the people the people at the same time should also
seems superfluity in the eyes of envy and untill these hungry Harpies have caught that little which hath escaped the claws of Sacriledge they will never leave calling for the Reformation of the Clergy that is to say wholly to ruine them The devil who hates the Gospel labours to ruine iâ— by the poverty of those who preach it knowing well that the indigence of Ministers brings contempt upon the Ministry And that the Rewards being taken away the Study of Divinity will be neglected and then there will be none but the meanest of the people like to the Priests of Jeroboam Poverty abates the courage and clips the wings of conception and oft-times occasions evil designs and Councels in those whose means are too small for their Degree To do well in Pulpit and by Writing to build up indeed the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and to destroy the works of the devil they ought to have their spirits free and not oppressed through necessity Magnae mentis opus nec de Lodice paranda Attonitae They that require and would a man should do well and yet will not do well to him t is an unjust demand and many now in England pass the unjustice of Pharaoh requiring double the number of Bricks and yet give to them less straw If they alledge to us that Jesus Christ and his Apostles were poor we answer that so were their auditors and the condition of our Lord and his Disciples is a pattern as well for Layicks as the Clergy And if the Primitive Church of Hierusalem spoken of in the Acts ought to be proposed for an example of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Government of all Christendom the Clergy of England humbly beseech the Gentlemen our Reformers to imitate these pious souls who sold their possessions and brought the price and laid them down at the Apostles feet Let them sell their Lands and bring the mony to their Pastors to dispose of according to their discretion and the Ministers will part with their Tithes If we were now to speak to the Clergy of England we would exhort them to love their Office and their Benefice and now that God hath called them to the Cross and poverty to rejoyce in their conformity to Jesus Christ who made himself poor to enrich us expecting their reward in Heaven bearing patiently the spoyling of their goods accounting themselves rich enough if God be glorified and his Gospel purely Preached but these Exhortations have an evil grace in the mouth of them who come to plunder or Sequester them which is as if a thief in robbing a traveller should preach a Sermon to him of Christian patience and contempt of the world 't is the method of our enemies who driving their Ministers from their houses and Revenues read such Lectures of Divinity to them For the present some Ministers who have been the principall instruments of their party have means and honour and yet little enough considering the great service they have done them Peters their great and active agent had for a recompence given him but with great glory and ostentation two hundred pound 〈◊〉 Annum in Land But who so considers well the geniâ— of the Faction will judge that that little good they do now to their Ministers will not long continue It were a pleasant thing to consider if there were not greater cause of sorrow in it how of two Ambitions the simple serves the Ambition of the crafty for the Ministers who animated the people against their King are people impatient of subjection who would be every one of them Kings and Bishops in their Parishes and during these agitations they reign in the Pulpit a time bâ— they are set a work by those who manage the publique affairs who raise them up and flatter them to the people untill they have done their work with them for when these Gentlemen shal have done to destroy Church and State and built their Imaginary Throne of Jesus Christ upon the ruines of the Kingdom they will have so strict a hand of the Discipline that the power and the profit shall remain with them allowing their spiritual Fathers a portion purely spiritual and will discharge them of those cares which accompany the riches and honours of the world Before these Civil Warres the Bishops were profitable to all Ministers friends and enemies for those who submitted themselves freely to them enjoyeâ— their protection and those who opposed them were respected and secretly maintained by the adversaries of the Episcopal Order but now the Bishops are cut off there is neither protection nor opposition that can gain respect or support to the Clergy The stubborn and refractory Ministers have struck so violently at the root of that great tree which they have now made to fall after they had been a long time cover'd under the shadow of it but they may assure themselves that it will not be long before they themselves be crushed under the fall of it and draw upon themselves a just punishment They will then consider too late that they have been but Instruments to the covetousness and ambition of others and in the dissipation of the Goods of the Church they shall be dealt with as the Captain of Samaria to whom the King of Israel committed the keeping of the Gate where the Provision was to enter then when the people after a long Famine pressed to enter they shall behold the plenty but not taste of it but be trodden under foot CHAP. XX. Of the Corruptions of Religion objected to the English Clergy and the ways that the Covenanters took to Remedy them WEE will answer to the Objections against the King and his Party and will begin with the most ordinary Now they reproach us with corruption in Religion in such an accusation we must have regard to them that speak it it s those who turn the rising up of the people against their King into a Doctrine and Article of Faith it s those that have absented themselves from the Lords Supper for these many years those who summoned their King before them to give account of his actions those who have committed against his Sacred Person an execrable Paracide those who will employ the Body and Blood of our Lord to knit up a conspiracy against their King Those who neither teach the people in the Church nor their children at home the ten Commandments the Creed nor the Lords Prayer those who suffer and make use of all damnable Sects and punish none but those who â—each to suffer for righteousness and not to resist the Supream Powers to all these we might add many more hateful Truths but we will not without necessity publish the evil that may be hid for we love not to teach evil by representing it Whosoever shall consider their belief and practice will never wonder that such kind of People find something to say against our Religion God be praised that thus opposing us they make all the world to know that we are not guilty
it was declared by the House of Commons at Westminster That the Kings coming to their House was Treason as if the Majesty resided in the Commons but how ridiculous and false this is hath heretofore been shewed and yet they could in no other sense call the Houses at Westminster his Parliament since they had taken up Arms against his Majesty doubtless those of both Houses who adhered to the King at Oxford without comparison the more considerable in quality were rather his Parliament for these were for him and the other against him Moreover by this frequent expression they would frequently signifie that the King was the Aggresseur and he that first assaulted them a thing which they have much laboured to perswade the world although it be notoriously known that his enemies had seized upon his Forts Towns Magaziens Ships Revenues and Levied Souldiers before ever the King had so much as one single company of Horse or Foot When he first came to York he had not so much as his ordinary guards whereas his enemies had all the strength of the Kingdom they wanted only God on their side and this great power encouraged the seditious in all countries where he passed to entertain him with the same courtesie the Gergasites received Christ Jesus beseeching him to depart out of their quarters and the good King had then this conformity with his Saviour that he had not where to lay his head He was then in a condition to suffer but his enemies in a posture to oppose When he would in a peaceable manner without Arms enter into his Town of Hull he found the gates shut and the walls garnished with Souldiers presenting their Muskets against him upon this his Majesty levied fix companies of Foot and two Cornets of Horse for the Guard of his Person but set not up his Standard until four moneths after this prodigious act of hostility and rebellion having often before endeavoured to reduce his Subjects to their obedience by all reasonable and Christian offers witness a number of most excellent Declarations composed and written by himself wherein the world beheld the sincerity of his actions with the piety and candor of his spirit worthy so great a Prince The Covenanters considering that they could not perswade them who had any remembrance or common sense that the King began the War laboured to prove that although they began yet their Armies were but defensive affirming that a War undertaken upon a just fear was defensive yea although they struck the first blow and that they seized upon the Forts Magaziens and Revenues of the King because they feared he would make War upon them That is to say that they made War upon him least he should make War upon them A reason much like that of Count Gondomore Ambassador of Spain in England who by his cunning and subtilty had wrought so far as to have a gallant English Knight to be condemned and put to death being demanded what evil he had done that he so persecuted him Answered That it was not for any evil he had done but for that evil which he might do But the Court that did it had just reasons far from the Spanish interests but in these mens dealings with the King were he even a Subject the injustice is both without reason and without example For was there ever any Court of Justice which condemned a man to lose both his goods and his life not because he had done any evil but for fear he should That which would be most unjust against the meanest Subject can it possibly be thought and reputed a work of Piety and Justice against their lawful Soveraign But leaving these persons who from the beginning had this Diabolical design which since they have inhumanely executed we will believe of many of the Covenanters that the intent of their Army was not to punish the King for the pretended exorbitancies of his past Government although they laboured by all means to perpetuate the memory and to stifle those eminent and signal acts of grace by which the King had merited the love of his people beyond all his Predecessors We are willing also to believe that some amongst them condemn the Doctrine of Goodman turned since into sad practice That Judges ought to summon Princes before them for their offences and proceed against them as against other Criminals and Malefactors If it were not then for the punishing of what was passed it was for fear of the future they took up Arms which indeed is the only reason left them For after the King had promised to give content to his people in all their reasonable requests represented to him and they had taken the power out of his hands then when he would have accomplished his promises all the reason they give for so violent a proceeding is That they durst not trust the King Which verily is a most frivolous and injurious excuse Which is as if one had a Neighbour that dwelt by him more mighty then himself and whose displeasure he feared it should be permitted him to watch his opportunity to surprize his house seize upon his revenues and drive from his possessions to free and deliver him from fear But such an action as this from Subjects towards their Prince is beyond all comparison more unjust The Question between the King and his Subjects being not Whether they may with confidence leave the Sword in the Kings hand but whether God hath committed the Sword to the King to be born by him Now in this their dealings with the King they give him an evil example for by the same reason he may take from his subjects the propriety they have in their estates because he dares not trust them and finds by sad experience they use it for his destruction And he should have much more reason to do it since the Subjects hold their Lands of the King but the King holds not his power of the people Prudence ought not to seize upon Justice The care of a mans self cannot give him a right to the goods of another The duty of a Christian is not to fortifie himself against his fears but to obey the Commandments of God But if his fear and forecast carries him beyond his duty he should above all fear him that can cast both body and soul into hell Yea I say unto you fear him Luke 12.5 Taking then that which themselves accord that the Subjects took up Arms to secure themselves against their fears Had not the King as much reason to take up Arms after their example to provide against his If he had been their equal this reason had been sufficient enough how much more then being their Soveraign for the sword that they had drawn against him was his own those Forts Towns Ships Arms and Revenues which they imployed against him were his therefore he had a double reason to take up Arms one to defend himself and another to recover his own rights By all Laws Divine and
Humane the King alone hath the power of the Sword whosoever strikes without him is a murtherer Saint Bernard preaching to the Knights Templers of Hierusalem to perswade them from Duells saith that two things are required to make a combat just and lawful The defence of a just cause and obedience to a lawful power The last of these is the principal and that alone which gives to Souldiers a just call for in wars ordinarily the interests of Princes are only known to themselves and often the right and wrong being of two sides we esteem it not necessary that every Souldier be perfectly satisfied of the Justice of the Armies of his Soveraign but as for obedience to a lawful power it s a condition absolutely requisite to justifie the taking up of Arms of a Souldier and there is no exception nor modification that can be brought against it Saint Augustine saith That a just man bearing Armes under a sacrilegious Prince may justly obey his commands if he knowes not the war wherein he serves is against the Commandment of God or if he be doubtful of it So that the Prince may be faulty in commanding and the Subject innocent in rendring the duty of his obedience According to this wise Councel if it be not palpably manifest that the commandment of the Prince do transgress the Laws of God whom we must ever obey rather then men the subject in matter of war be it forraign or civil hath but one thing to consider for conscience namely where the lawful power is Who he is to whom God hath committed the sword and who hath power to give it to others and to whom God hath subjected him in taking up the sword at his command we cannot do amiss This gives full satisfaction to their consciences who took up Arms and fought for the King for besides the goodness of his defence which is just and necessary if ever any were they learn that it is possibly to fight justly for him even when his cause may be unjust but without him it is impossible to draw the sword justly much less against him how just soever the complaints and fears of the contrary party that draws the sword be All lawful demands religious intentions specious pretexts pretended necessities the publick good the Masque of all Rebellions prayers fastings Covenanting with God all this and much more can never make a war just which receives the sword from him to whom God hath not given it and draws it against him to whom God hath committed it Therefore the principal of the Covenanters well perceiving this endeavoured from the beginning to make the King either give them or lend them the power of the Militia In doing whereof they did much wrong to their cause for if they had the lawful power of the sword why did they then so often demand it of the King And if they had it not why did they draw the sword without the lawful power and against him to whom the power appertained by their own confession Why else should they ask it of him They either did injustice to the King to take from him the Militia or else they did injustice to themselves to demand it Certainly by their importunity for the Militia they manifestly condemned themselves and acknowledged that the Militia belonged to the King and that they made the war without his authority and therefore they had great need of many Sermons fastings prayers protestations Oaths upon Oaths to bind in many knots this Covenant which otherwise held by nothing and to perswade the people that instead of the Lawful and Ordinary Power they had an Extraordinary one which was conducted by Revelation Rebellion is against nature Samuel saith It s as the sin of Witchcraft or Divination 1 Sam. 15.23 It is composed of such charms which for a time corrupts the use of reason but cannot destroy the faculty but at last the cloud will vanish and they shall retain nought but the impression of shame and astonishment for their past errors and an earnest desire of an acknowledgment This natural notion is imprinted in the hearts of Subjects That they ought to obey the King and that to him pertaines the Power of Peace and War The very Name of King will make even Souldiers spring from the ground to serve him the Plow-shares shall furnish him with Swords and the Flayls and long Staffes shall fight so his Crown The Arms which they have ravisht from him shall acknowledge their Master and return of themselves to him as those which were unjustly taken from Ajax It 's a very hard thing to fight against nature This appeared in the Counties of the Covenanters wherein whilst the King was Master he raised Ten Thousand men in Eight Daies but after the Covenanters commanded in them although they levied Souldiers continually their Forces ever decreased and those they listed in the day disbanded and run away in the night That if the secret judgment of God which would chastise us had not rendred the people fearful and dismayed for a time such was their number and hatred against the Party of the Covenanters that they had easily dispatched the Countries against the King though themselves were disarmed And it must be in the end that Nature surmounts the constraint for the King is the center of the State whither all parts tend by their own proper weight and wherein all the lines of the common interests terminate Their complaints of violence by the Kings Forces are of no consideration the Armies of the King as well as those of the Covenanters were not composed all of Saints but these complaints sound ill in their mouths who lifted up their hands against their Soveraign those who had so often planted their Artilery against the Squadron where the person of the King was and had shot fifty Cannon shot against the Queen in her bed and after all this cut off the Head of their lawful Soveraign can they assume the impudence to complain of our Souldiers taking away their poultry and killing their sheep If those who were in actual Rebellion against their King had been punished by our Souldiers as they deserved they would never have had the power to complain that their houses were plundered or that they spoyled and destroyed their Goods We dare maintain that those amongst the Covenanters that suffered less than death have suffered less than they deserved we do not desire that every one should be punished according to his deserts for we would not that God should so deal with us but that our enemies may know both by the divine Law and the Law of Nations every person that rebels against his Prince is guilty of death Josh 1.18 and loseth his propriety in his Goods and Possessions Let them know also that being destitute of lawful Authority for the war and drawing their swords against him that bears the sword by Divine Authority every stroak they struck against the faithful Subjects of the King
the mighty hand of God which leads his Church through waies he knows safest for them and stopping the ear to all factious Councils cloathed with the zeal of Religion ye will at last obtain that testimony of God which he gives to the Church of Ephesus I know thy works and thy labour and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them which are evil and thou hast tried them which say they are Apostles and are not and hast found them liars and hast borne and hast patience and hast not fainted Rev. 2.2 and thus ye shall surely obtain the promised reward following To him that overcometh will I give to eate of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God v. 7. This hope is our support in the depth of our afflictions for under that terrible weight of publick and particular miseries capable to bear down the strongest and firmest spirits we are raised and kept up by this consolation that we serve a good Master who will never forsake them who forsake all which is most dear to them to follow him What though our sufferings be the effects of our sinnes yet are they also honourable markes of our loyalty both to God and our King and though we have left our estates a little before death would have taken them away yet God hath by his grace preserved in us a good conscience riches which is not subject to sequestration but dying we shall carry away with us In these great tryalls of our faith and patience whilst we seek ease in pouring forth our griefs into the bosome of our brethren behold yet another encrease of affliction upon affliction for we find to our great regret that the subtilty of our enemies have begotten an evil understanding between you and some of ours to which some have much contributed if the complaints we hear be true that they have manifested and declared themselves contrary to the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches and that they have despised your assemblies as not being Churches and maintained that there could be no Church where there was no Bishop As for their Doctrine if it be divers from our publick Confession they are no more of our Church then of yours and to satisfie you upon this point we have joyned the Confession of the Church of England which all thâ—se who have been received into holy Orders sware to defend at their reception and all who were to be admitted into Churches were injoyned at their entrance publickly to read and to professe thereupon their consent to them under pain of losing their Benefices If any have departed from that profession which they did so solemnly make the body of the Church which maintains that holy Doctrine is no way responsible for their erring If the Rebels had not prevented the King from assembling a nationall Synod to which his Majesty purposed to invite other Reformed Churches your Judgments would have been heard for the purging our Churches of all new Doctrines which without all comparison are worse and in a farre greater number amongst our enemies then amongst the Royall party As for this position that there cannot be a Church without a Bishop we account it full of rashnesse and void of Charity It 's indeed a cruel sentence to deprive of the benefit of the Gospel and of their union with Christ all those Churches which live under the Crosse and cannot enjoy the Episcopal Order That Famous Dr. Andrews Bishop of Winchester was not of this opinion for in one of his Epistles touching Episcopacy He saith he should be harder than Iron who would not acknowledge that there are holy Churâ—â—es that subsist and flourish without Bishops and with what respect our Bishops speak of your Church you shall read in this ensuing Treatise It 's easie to see that the Episcopal Order is wholly incompatible with the present condition of the Reformed Churches of France for if there were twenty or thirty Bishops amongst you that should Govern all the other Churches it would be easie for those of the contrary Religion under whom you live to fil up those places with some persons who should be at their devotion whence would follow either a seduction or an oppression of the other Pastors But whilst the Gentlemen of the Clergy in the Court behold all Pastors equal they will lose their cunning in this multitude and although they be excellent in playing on the Organs yet they have not fingers enough to touch every Key If your Order of equality might or ought to be conserved if it should please God the French Monarchy should embraâ—e the Reformation it s a thing we will not touch but if that only were the obstruction we account you too wise and good Christians and such as would not hinder the setling of the holy Doctrine for maintaining a point of Discipline You then Gentlemen joyning to your Christian charity the French courtesie pardon our English Schollers who peradventure have brought with them from the Vniversity an humour a little affirmative and from the fresh remembrance of their Glorious Church retain yet an admiration of home things which is an humour Neighbour Nations observe in the English and which those that heretofore have known England will easily pardon Consider on the other side whether some of yours have not given them just occasion to be so sharp and bitter and to passe their limits in their affirmations it cannot be denied but we have met with spirits possessed with the reports of our adversaries who have been more ready to court you than we as alwaies those that have 〈◊〉 â—vil cause are ever more diligent to gain by faction that which they want and cannot obtain by right It may be also that your people have manifested themselves too rigid in their Opinions as well as some of ours upon points which touch not the principles of Religion and as it is ordinary for humane infirmity to turn custom into necessity you may not wonder that if some of yours maintain as necessary and perpetual which your wise Reformers established as arbitrary and for the present necessity as it is formally declared by the last Article of your Discipline We have placed in the Front of this work the Manifesto of the Late King Charles the First of Blessed and Glorious Memory in which he takes a religious care to satisfie you touching his Constancy in the Reformed Religion and of his Resolution to enlarge and strengthen it in all forraign Countries to the utmost of his power he could no more to manifest how much he valued your affection and good opinion and we following the example of our holy and Glorious Martyr labour here to knit with you a holy union which our enemies have so vigorously laboured to break and in these our great afflictions do take care to prevent your and to give you saving Councell Know then Gentlemen that your most holy Religion is much defamed by the Actions of these paraciâ—â— Zealots
change and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by mans authoritie so that all things be done to edifying XXXV THe second Book of Homilies the severall titles whereof we have ioyned under this Article doth contain a godly and wholsome Doctrine and necessary for these times as doth the former book of Homilies which were set forth in the time of Edward the sixth and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understanded of the people Of the Names of the Homilies 1 OF the right use of the Church 2 Against peril of Idolatry 3 Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches 4 Of good works first of Fasting 5 Against Gluttony and Drunkennesse 6 Against Excesse of Apparel 7 Of Prayer 8 Of the Place and Time of Prayer 9 That Common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministred in a known Tongue 10 Of the reverent estimation of Gods Word 11 Of Alms doing 12 Of the Nativity of Christ 13 Of the passion of Christ 14 Of the Resurrection of Christ 15 Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ 16 Of the Gifts of the holy Ghost 17 For the Rogation daies 18 Of the State of Matrimony 19 Of Repentance 20 Against Idlenesse 21 Against Rebellion XXXVI THe Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of Edward the sixth and confirmed at the same time by authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and ordering neither hath it any thing that of it selfe is superstitious and ungodly And therefore whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the second year of the aforenamed King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully consecrated and ordered XXXVII THe Queens Majestie hath the chief power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief government of all estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiasticall or Civil in all causes doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any forreign Iurisdiction Where wee attribute to the Queenes Majestie the chiefe government by which titles we understand the mindes of some slanderous folkes to be oâ—fended we give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only prerogative which we see to have been given alwaies to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiasticall or Temporall and restraine with the Civil sword the stubborne and evil deers The Bishop of Rome hath no Iurisdiction in this Realm of England The Lawes of the Realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences It is lawful for Christian men at the Commandment of the Magistrate to weare weapons and serve in the warres XXXVIII THe Riches and goods of Christians are not common as touching the right title and possession of the same as certain Anabaptists do falsly boast Notwithstanding every man ought of such things as he possesseth liberally to give almes to the poore according to his ability XXXIX AS we confesse that vaine and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Iesus Christ and Iames his Apostle So we judge that Christian Religion doth not prohibite but that a man may sweare when the Magistrate requireth in a cause of faith and charitie so it be done according to the Prophets teaching in justice judgment and truth The Contents Chap. 1. OF the Seditious Liberty of the new Doctrines which hath been the principal means of the Covenant p. 1. Chap. 2. That the Covenanters are destitute of all Proofs for their war made against the King p. 12. Chap. 3. Express Texts of Scripture which commands Obedience and forbids Resistance to Soverigns p. 23. Chap. 4. The Evasions of the Covenanters upon the Texts of Saint Paul Rom. 13. and how in time they refuse the judgment of Scripture p. 28. Chap. 5. What Constitution of State the Covenanters forge and how they refuse the judgment of the Laws of the Kingdom p. 40. Chap. 6. What Examples in the Histories of England the Covenanters make use of to authorize their actions p. 46. Chap. 7. Declaring wherein the Legislative power of Parliament consists p. 50. Chap. 8. How the Covenanters will be Judges in their own cause p. 63. Chap. 9. That the most noble and best part of the Parliament retired to the King being driven away by the worser p. 65. Chap. 10. A Parallel of the Covenant with the holy League of France under Henry the Third Pag. 71. Chap. 11. The Doctrine of the English Covenanters parallel'd with the Doctrine of the Jesuits p. 72. Chap. 12. How the Covenanters wrong the Reformed Churches in inviting them to joyn with them with an Answer for the Churches of France p. 81. Chap. 13. The preceding Answer confirmed by Divines of the Reformed Religion with an Answer to some Objections of the Covenanters upon this Subject p. 101. Chap. 14. How the Covenanters have no reason to invite the Reformed Churches to their Alliance since they differ from them in many things of great importance p. 115. Chap. 15. Of abolishing the Lyturgy in doing of which the Covenanters oppose the Reformed Churches p. 122. Chap. 16. Of the great prudence and wisdom of the first English Reformers and of the Fool hardinesse of these at present p. 132. Chap. 17. How the Covenanters labour in vain to sow Sedition between the Churches of England and France upon the point of Discipline Of the Christian prudence of the French Reformers and of the nature of Discipline in general p. 145. Chap. 18. How the Discipline of the Covenanters is far from the practise of other Churches p. 156. Chap. 19. That the Covenanters ruine the Ministers of the Gospel under colour of Reformation p. 163. Chap. 20. Of the Corruption of Religion objected to the English Clergy and the waies that the Covenanters took to remedy them Pag. 167. Chap. 21. An Answer to the Objection That the King made War against the Parliament p. 176. Chap. 22. Of the Depraved and Evil Faith of the Covenanters p. 184. Chap. 23. Of the Instruments both Parties made use of and of the Irish Affairs p. 207 Chap. 24. How the different Factions of the Covenant agreed to ruine the King and contributed to put him to death p. 226. Chap. 25. Of the cruelty of the Covenanters towards the good Subjects of the King p. 232. CHAP. I. Of the seditious Liberty of New Doctrines which hath been the principal means of the Covenant A Compleat History of our Affairs since
Reformation they were constrained to provide for the safety of their own lives After this there was no more speech of the Agreement in Religion for that would utterly have spoiled their work for it had never been possible to have raised the people against the King if the conclusion of this conference had been made known to the world that the King the Court and the Bishops made profession of the sincere reformed Religion Now because all the Lies and Subtilties of the Devil were not capable to impute unto them another Confession of Faith but that which they maintain which was Holy and Orthodox known every where and confirmed by the Confessions of all the reformed Churches of Europe the Factious perswaded the people both by their Sermons and seditious Libels that the degree of Bishops was an essential Branch and Mark of Antichrist and that to pull them down was to do the work of the Lord and to ruine Antichrist and that if the King would maintain them he would be destroyed with them as being one of those Kings who gave his power to the Beast And besides the destruction of Bishops they openly demanded the Abolition of the Divine Service received in the Church of England condemning the use of all other prayers yea even of the Lords Prayer quarrelling with the Apostles Creed denied the necessity of the Sacraments boasted of a new Light that had appeared to them from Heaven to draw them out of Popish Darkness and all that was not compatible with their extravagant Illuminations they called Popery and the Ministers that disobeyed them Baal's Priests and the supporters of Antichrist By such kind of people were the great multitudes stirred who came crying at the Gates of the King and Parliament for Reformation threatning with fire and sword all those that should oppose it Of these Assemblies we may speak what is spoken of the uproar at Ephesus Acts 19.32 The Assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together for those that called for Reformation understood not one another and their opinions were different in Religion as appears at this day agreeing only in this to pull down the Ecclesiastical Government and what New Government they will build upon the Ruines of the Old we shall know when the sword hath decided the controversie but whilst the Mariners strive the Ship sinks The Lord behold his poor Church in compassion We have great hope now beholding the diversity of Opinions and Inclinations that these evil ingredients will together make a good Temperature and that the disorder yea even the Licentiousness it self will inforce order as commonly evil Manners beget good Laws but to attain this it 's required in this general confusion that those of clear and sound judgments who see the bottom of the evil and know the Remedy of it But having considered them that walk before in the design of Reformation we find that they are such that neither know the Remedy nor the Evil. As for the Evil in stead of having their eyes upon the errors of particulars against the principal points of Faith and Confession of the English Church they grew obstinate against certain small and indifferent Ceremonies which the King had many times offered to change by a Synod lawfully assembled and cast all the Fire of their passion upon the Episcopall preheminence a Surpliss a Festival Forms of Prayer Painted windows and condemning many good things amongst â—he evil And as for the Remedy we have here whereat to admire that striking at so small and light evils they would employ such extream Remedies nothing being able to serve but general destruction as if to heal the pain of the Teeth they would cut off the Head in stead of proceeding by an amiable conference appointing a deputation of the Clergy of the Kingdom to assemble in a Synod to calm the fiery spirits and to keep the people in obedience to their Soveraign and to fasten the building that shaked by the Ciment of Charity they made open profession that the Reformation could not be effected but by blood that they would have no peace with the Bishops and their Clergy that they must destroy before they build raze Babylon as they called our Discipline even to the very foundations overthrow the Altars of Baal and sacrifice all his Priests that now the time was come that the Israel of God ought to pillage the Egyptians And that now the just should wash their footsteps in the blood of the ungodly for such they accounted us and thus they did us the honour to plunder and kill us in Scripture Language And with this Divinity the Pulpits sounded aloud and the people publickly exhorted to take up Arms against the King and to destroy all Ministers both of Church and State that should joyn with him and for this effect these following Texts of Scripture were pressed by their zealous Preachers Luke 19.27 Those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me Judg. 5.23 Curse ye Meroz curse ye bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because they came not to the help of the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Jer. 48.10 Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from bloud and these they appropriated to their war against their King and Clergy of England and all that adhered unto them there being no way of Reformation in these mens accounts but to kill us for the Love of God and the Advancement of his Kingdom Now being exceedingly astonished how men of Learning could possibly be so bewitched with a furious and foolish zeal we found at length having sounded the depth of their opinions that their Brains were troubled with Prophesies and Revelations that their principal reading was in Commentaries upon the Revelation which they interpreted according to their fancies and that they had studied more what God would do hereafter than what their Duty was to do for the present that they made no Conscience to transgress the declared Will of God in his Commands to accomplish the secret will of his Decree That they were Millenariâ—s expecting a Temporal Kingdom of Jesus Christ believing that the time of that Kingdom was now come and to establish that Kingdom they were to pluck down that of Antichrist as they understood the ancient Ecclesiastical Order and to dispossess Kings drive away the wicked dash the children of Babel against the stones tread the winepress of the wrath of God till the Blood rose to their Bridle reins that thereby Christ alone may reign in the world and the meek inherit the earth We have since enough tasted of the fruits of their meekness All this is drawn from the model of the Common-wealth of John a Leyden and the Prophets of Munster But if any of the Covenanters shall disavow these opinions they cannot deny but they were preached publickly and ordinarily neither can they
of Jerusalem who resisted Uzziah the King when he would have exercised the Priests Office 2 Chron. 26.18 The example of Elisha who caused the door to be shut when Joram the King of Israel sent a messenger to cut off his head 2 Kings 6.13 And also the malediction that Deborah gave to the Inhabitants of Meroz because they came not to the help of the Lord when Barak fought against Siserae Iudges 5.23 Likewise the malediction pronounced by Jeremy against him that should do the work of the Lord deceitfully and that should keep his sword from shedding the blood of the Moabites Jer. 48.10 The Idols of Laban and the Genealogies of the Patriarchs might also have been brought to this purpose it must needs be that the Spirit of Error and of Lies have a great power upon the understanding of these people for to perswade them by such reasons to hazard their Goods and Lives and Consciences in an open War against their Soveraign All these passages of Scripture are Examples and particular Cases and all except one far from the point in controversie but in a matter of such importance as the resisting of the King which is so expresly forbidden and under pain of damnation there is need of a formal command or of a permission expressed that exempts Christians at least in some certain cases for the crime of resisting the higher powers which is to resist God and from the punishment of eternal damnation without this all the Examples of Subjects rising up against their Princes from the very Creation of the World cannot nor is able to put Conscience into a quiet condition He hath but small knowledge that knows not that Examples prove nothing but that such a thing hath been done and is possible not that it ought to be done or that it is lawful to be done if there be not a Law built upon the Example and a Soveraign Authority given to it that it may be a pattern for the future and then it s not the Example but the Law that we are bound to follow which cannot be said of the Examples before alledged which beside the general insufficiency of Examples in matter of proof touch not the point of Resistance in question except the first which is wholly contrary to it Which is the Example of David who being persecuted by Saul took six hundred men for his Guard this might suffice for Answer That this action is not recommended by the Word of God nor proposed as an example for us to follow Christian piety and prudence may imitate many actions of holy persons which are not formally recommended in the word of God but the question being to exempt us from a prohibition and a formal threatning Rom. 13.2 one of the most considerable and penal in all the Scripture we may receive no example to the contrary if it be not expresly recommended and turned into a command and besides the last command ought to have the advantage and to be obeyed before the first Moreover extraordinary Cases in Scripture wherein there is a Miraculous and Prophetick Conduct cannot serve for a pattern in ordinary cases David was Anointed King over Israel by a special command of God and in all the List of the Kings of Judah there were none but Saul and David called to the Kingdom in this manner And this holy Unction gave them priviledges in Israel which were onely proper to them and which the Gentlemen of the Covenant have not in England for ordinary cases there are perpetual and inviolable precepts and these precepts are wholly contrary to the resisting of Soveraigns by Arms. Our Enemies nevertheless challenge a particular Interest in this example of David because they account themselves the anointed of the Lord but deny this Title to their King if he be not one of the Elect of God but let them learn that that which renders Kings the anointed of the Lord is not true Faith nor the Gifts of the Spirit but that Soveraign power which they have from on high And therefore Cyrus a Pagan King is called by God himself his anointed and his Shepherd Isai 45.1 If then Kings are the anointed of the Lord without consideration of their Religion or vertue it follows then that they lose not their unction neither by their Errors nor their Vices and that falling from the grace of God yet they fall not from that power which they held of him This is spoken of by the way against the Heresie of most part of the Covenanters who deny the divine Unction of Kings and fasten it to their fâ—ntasies in Religion And we have cause to give thanks to these men who alledge to us the example of David there being nothing in all the Scripture more contrary to them for in stead of that they pursued the King with weapons in their hands and gave him Battel David fled continually from place to place and never struck one stroke nor drew his Sword against his King Twice he let him escape when he had him in his power and having taken away his spear restored it to him again and having but cut off the Lap of his garment his heart smote him for it and when one counselled him to dispatch him then when he was in his hands he said The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords anointed to stretch forth my hand against him seeing he is the Anointed of the Lord 1 Sam. 24.6 And when his servants would have slain him he saith Destroy him not for who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless 1 Sam. 26.9 This Divine Title bound his hands and possessed his spirit with fear and astonishment And since our Enemies make him to say that he would not stretch forth his hand against the King if he descended not in Battel against him let them well read the Text but especially in the Original and they shall find no such thing David doth rather put Saul wholly into the hands of God Vers 10. The Lord shall smite him or his day shall come to die or he shall descend into the battel and perish The Lord forbid that I should stretch forth my hand against the Lords Anointed He doth not say that he will not stretch forth his hand against him unless that the Lord smite him for if God smite him what need had David to smite him He doth not say he would descend into Battel against him for then his Actions would have contradicted his Words for he always fled from him the Event proved that his words were Prophetical and that hâ— waited whilest Saul should be slain in a strange War and that the hand of the Lord should be upon him And if David never gave him Battel we cannot impute it to his weakness for he might as well have defeated the Army of Saul as that of the Philistines before Keilah with his small number if God who guided him in all his ways had
King whom they ought to defend and maintain against a stranger usurping and that had murthered the Royal Family and here the Maxime is valid That against a publike enemy every one hath right to take up Arms But what conclude they from these two last examples they would have been ashamed to have named them before the death of their King but since they have explained themselves God defend the holiness of his Word and confound this Divelish Divinity Those that follow are not much better they alledge the example of the Priests who resisted King Uzziah when he would have exercised the Priests Office so ought the Ministers of the Gospel to resist the King if he would administer the Sacraments but this resistance ought to be done by humble admonitions and as refusing to serve him in his design not by way of Arms In the matter of 〈…〉 the Priests used not any violence it is said 〈…〉 caused him to go out of the Temple because Go◠〈…〉 him with the Leprosie but that 〈…〉 force for the Text saith vers 20. he 〈…〉 â—ed to go out because the Lord had 〈…〉 his serves nothing for their Subject they have no other reason to alledge this but because having quarrelled against all Kings they take delight to blast their Dignity The like is the example of Elisha who commanded the door to be shut against the messenger that was sent from Ioram to cut off his head 2 Kings 2.32 If Elisha had sent a Messenger to cut off the Kings Head the example had been to the purpose for this is our case at this day but to shut the door against an Officer of the Kings to save his life being condemned to die wrongfully and without force of Justice is very far from attempting either against the Person or Authority of the King The English Law in many Caseâ— gives to every one his house for a place of safety neither is there any Law either Divine or Humane that forbids us to defend a blow from what part soever it comes if the Covenanters had done no other thing there never had been a War but they proceeded further then defence Was there ever a more important Action upon so small a foundation to persecute their King by Sea and Land destroy his Estate plant their Cannon against his Person imprison him and at last cut off his head because Elisha caused the door to be shut against the Messenger of Joram But in recompence behold here two proofs wherein there is as much piety as reason Judg. 5.23 Deborah cursed the Inhabitants of Meroz because they came not forth to help the Lord against Jabin and Sisera and Jer. 48.10 Jeremy cursed them that kept their sword from shedding the blood of the Moabites Ergo Cursed are all they that came not to help the Covenanters against the King For these rare consequences they deserve a bundle of Thistles such as Asses feed on and to be driven from the society of men as being deprived both of Reason and Humanity who hath given them power to stretch to the King either by words or actions the judgements pronounced against the enemies of God and which are restrained to certain Nations and Persons The King was he a Moabite Was he a Pagan or an Usurper of a Kingdom as Jabin Are you Prophets as Deborah and Jeremy to curse with Authority If ye be not Prophets ye are Sacrilegious for cursing is a Fire that appertains only to God to cast forth they who are so bold to take it into their hands without Authority burn them and hurt none but themselves but oftentimes doth good to them whom they would hurt for this Rashness moves God to jealousie and provokes him to do the contrary according to the Psalmist Psal 109. Let them curse but do thou bless we have great hopes that our enemies shall be the Occasion of the blessing of God upon us since they take such pains to curse us it is the constant Argument of their Sermons and publike Prayers to it they employ the vehemency of their Eloquence and fervour of their Devotion Let us then say with David 2 Sam. 16.12 It may be the Lord will look upon our affliction and that the Lord will requite good for their cursing but let us bless them that persecute us and despitefully use us O our God! turn their Hearts and bless their persons and as our Lord Jesus by his Prayer on the Cross saved them which crucified him save we beseech thee all those that crucifie him in his Members and those who killing us think they do God service CHAP. III. Express Texts of Scripture which Commands Obedience and forbids Resistance to Soveraigns FOr to draw them from Examples and particular Cases which is their retreat to general Precepts we beseech them as they love God and their own salvation to review their proofs and consider that in all the Scripture there is neither Precepts nor Permission that authorizeth the taking up of Arms against their Soveraign but there are very many formal Commands to the contrary The first Commandment Honour thy Father and thy Mother binds us to honour the King for in the beginning Soveraignty appertained to Fathers and is derived of the paternal power Deut. 13.6 c. Now it is impossible to honour the King and draw your sword against him upon which we observe that in case of Idolatry the Father was commanded by the King to accuse his Son and Daughter and the Husband his Wife and to stretch forth first his hand against them to slay them but neither the Son nor the Daughter ought to accuse the Father nor the Wife the Husband much less to put forth their hand against them Whence we learn that neither Children nor Subjects ought to rise up against their Fathers or their Kings which have in them the Paternal Character no not for the service of God and that their Persons ought to be inviolable those who confess this Truth and yet in the mean while separate the Authority of the King from his Person deny that which they have confessed and expose the Person of the King to violence for it is the Authority that renders the Persons of Kings unviolable Therefore among so many Reprehensions and Judgments against Idolatrous Kings whereof the holy History is full ye shall in no place nor part find that the people are reproved for not depressing or deposing their King ordinarily the punishment that God sent upon them came immediatly from himself or out of the Kingdome not by their own Subjects Before God would employ Jehu who was a Subject to destroy the Kings of Israel and Judah he anointed him King and besides gave him a special and extraordinary Command We say the like of Jeroboam whose Example is very ill alledged to defend Rebellion for Jeroboam was sent of God to take the Kingdom from Rehoboam and was authorized by a formal donation The sentence of David before mentioned 1 Sam. â—6 9 is of
very great weight Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltless And this other of him Touch not mine Anointed and do my Prophets no harm Psal 109.19 But the Covenanters have violently and cruelly proceeded against both God speaking under the name of Soveraign Wisdom saith By me Kings reign and Princes decree Justice By me Princes rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the earth Prov. 8.15 16. If it be by him that Kings reign they should be respected for love of him and he that resists them makes against God To this purpose also tends that excellent scripture Prov. 24.21 22. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their calamity shall rise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both A Scripture which shews that the fear of the King is a part of the fear of God and that those that rise up against him are reserved of God for a sudden calamity And this is also of him Eccles 8.2 I counsel you to keep the Kings Commandment and that in regard of the Oath of God A passage that binds us to keep the Commandment of the King for the Love of God and the Oath of Allegiance under which all Subjects are born and many have actually taken for every Oath is a contract made with God And a little after Eccles 8.14 Where the word of the King is there is power and who may say unto him what dost thou But we have to do with those who make this Question to their King and care neither for his word nor power The Law speaks expresly Exod. 22.28 Thou shalt not revile the Judges nor curse the Ruler of thy people Yea it restrains the thoughts as well as actions Eccles 10.20 Curse not the King no not in thy thoughts If we are not to speak nor think ill of the King much less should do ill to him the violation of these Commands by the Covenanters are too enormous and cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance Our Lord Jesus Christ himself commands us to render to Cesar the things which are Cesars and to God the things that are Gods Mat. 22. â—1 He himself would pay Tribute to Cesar although of right he should have made Cesar Tributary to him and not having money he caused it to be brought to him by a Miracle rather than he would be wanting in this duty this is far from taking the Kings Revenues from him and employing the Tribute due to him to raise a war against him When the Officers of Justice came to take him he rebuked his Disciple who had drawn his sword against them and healed the wound that he had made Mat. 26. He suffered himself peaceably to be led before Herod and Pilate whom he might have as easily destroyed as make them fall down backward who came to apprehend him but he submitted to the Divine Authority that shined in the Person of the Governour yea even to death openly professing that the power which he had was from above John 19.11 If the power of Kings depended upon the gift of their Subjects as the Covenanters held Jesus Christ should have said that the power that he had was from below but this Divinity proceeds from another Doctor than the Son of God Saint Paul is marvellous express and full upon this point Rom. 13.1 c. Let every soul be subject unto the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation For Rulers are not a terrour to good works but to the evil Wilt thou then not be afraid of the Power Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same For he is the Minister of God to thee for good but if thou do that which is evil be afraid for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the Minister of God a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doth evil Wherefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake For for this cause pâ—y you tribute also for they are Gods Ministers attending continually upon this very thing Render therefore to all their dues Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custome to whom Custome Fear to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour Oh! behold with what vigour of spirit and power the Apostle presseth Obedience and condemns resistance of Soveraign Powers Is there any thing in the world so strong and pressing as this Divine Lesson the authority alone had been sufficient but over and above he adds threatnings promises reason upon reason they who shall well consider the Text will learn That it is impossible to be a good Christian without being a good Subject and that they cannot resist the King without resisting God also that terrible threatning of damnation should retain men in their duty Let every one in the fear of God that have born Arms against their King think well of this and repent Oh! it is a dangerous thing to resist God he must be very imprudent that will hazard the damnation of his soul so formally denounced against Rebels upon distinctions and good intentions at the great day of account they will find these very light things The Divines of the Covenant labour with might and main to elude the force of this Scripture which plucks them by the throat they change themselves into many contrary forms to escape it as we shall see hereafter Saint Paul recommends this Doctrine to Titus Tit. 3.1 2. Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good work to speak evil of no man to be in brawlers shewing all meekness to all men A dangerous Scripture to teach subjection and meekness is to strike the Covenanter at the heart Saint Peter speaks in the same stile 1 Pet. 2.13 c. Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supream or unto Governours as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of them that do well for so is the will of God that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousnesse but as the Servants of God Honour all men Love the Brotherhood Fear God Honour the King The rest of the Chapter is employed in teaching Christians to submit to their Superiours and to suffer for righteousness Behold truly the Doctrine of Christ it 's thus that the Apostles plaâ—ted the Church it 's thus that they fought the good fight not in killing Kings but in bearing the Cross for the Gospel One of ours having requested a Learned Divine that followed the party of the Covenanters that he would give him a precept of
Scripture where it 's commanded for Subjects to take up Arms for Religion against their Soveraign He returned this Scripture Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Gal. 5.1 But we maintain against him that both Saint Peter and Saint Paul preserved themselves more stedfast in their Christian Liberty in suffering death than all the Armies of the Covenanters in fighting and that they take the waies not to establish but to shake and overthrow their liberty in Christ We need not prove that Saint Paul in this Scripture never meant to speak of fighting but to preserve the spirit free from superstition Christian Liberty consists not in shaking off the yoke of Superiour Powers but of that of Error and vice and that liberty which our enemies have assumed to present their Petitions to their King upon their Pikes point and in the end to kill him was not the liberty from which Christ had made them free Let them learn the Lesson of Saint Peter to carry themselves as free and not using their Liberty for a Cloak of Maliciousness CHAP. IV. The Evasions of the Covenanters upon the Texts of Saint Paul Rom. 13. And how in Fine they refuse the Judgment of Scripture THE Apostle commands Rom. 13.1 That every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God To this Scripture some of them answer that evil Kings are not ordained of God having learned this Doctrine of Goodman but therein they directly contradict Saint Paul who spake of the Powers then in being they that were then when Saint Paul wrote this Epistle were one of the three Nero's Successors of Tyberius the best of them were nothing worth a child is capable to distinguish betwixt the wickedness of a Prince and his authority the first whereof is of himself the second is of God and it 's of the power that Saint Paul speaks of without distinction of persons As for the following verse where Saint Paul infers thus Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Buchanan and his followers answer that this Command was but for a time whilst the Church was in it's Infancy weak and under the Cross incapable to resist their Prince but if Saint Paul had lived now and were to write a body of Common-wealth he would speak far otherwise and would leave Kings to be punished of their Subjects and this is that Buchanan assures us upon his word Likewise one of the best writers of the Covenanters affirms that Saint Paul spake to some particulars dispersed in the condition of the Primitive Church who had not means to provide for their safety if this License were lawful men might reject all the Doctrines of Saint Paul's Epistles as written to particulars and the Masters of the Covenant would make a way to exempt themselves from many duties commanded by Saint Paul which would very ill accord with their intentions So when the Apostle saith Rom. 12.9 10. Let Love be without dissimulation abhor that which is evil cleave to that which is good be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love preferring one another there is some appearance that they take this Command addressed to some particulars and not to them since they give themselves the liberty to do the quite contrary There is in these Epistles some Commands provisional moveable according to the times and persons as those which concern the outward Order others which are purely personal as the Command made to Timothy to come to him before Winter but the Moral Doctrines are immoveable and vary not according to the Times since that reason of Saint Paul given that the Powers that be are ordained of God is a Truth perpetual and universal and the Command not to resist the Powers ought also to be general for all Ages and all people so likewise this reason is perpetual That the Magistrate beareth not the sword in vain but to do justice and this other ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Wherefore the Command grounded hereon to be subject to the higher Powers not resist them is of perpetual necessity and obligation And since to resist the powers is to resist the Ordinance of God may we not ask of our new Divines why the strong and not the weak are permitted to resist the Ordinance of God It 's enough to have a good sword to exempt a man from the Commands of the Gospel The Covenanters might defend this interpretation of the Text of Saint Paul by the authority of Cardinal Bellarmine who saith that if the Christians long since did not depose Dioclesian Julian the Apostate Valens the Arrian and others it was because they wanted temporal forces otherwise of right they might which is the language of our Covenanters but this opinion draws along with it three inconveniencies First That it blasts the primitive Church and deprives the Martyrs of their honour for it 's little worth praise to suffer for the Gospel when a man hath a will without means to rebel their obedience to their Soveraigns was then nothing worth since it was forced and all their protestations of subjection in the writings of the Fathers of which they are full ought to be imputed to weakness and hypocrisie This likewise is to accuse Saint Paul of want of sincerity as if he taught patience and obedience to Kings only to accomodate himself to the Times and not to obey God but he clears himself sufficiently of this accusation saying that we must not only be subject for wrath that is to say for fear of punishment but also for Conscience Moreover this Doctrine is pernicious to the Church for if it were embraced it would render Christians suspected and hateful to their Soveraigns as persons who would subject the Conscience of their Prince to theirs and submits to them only out of weakness and wait only an occasion to cast off their yoke which would oblige Kings ever to keep them weak and to impose heavy burdens upon them and so prevent their rising Also this Doctrine is pernicious to the profession of the Gospel for it would much hinder the conversion of Pagan Kings since that turning Christians according to the Mode they should lose their authority there being no Pagan Religion which teacheth Subjects to resist their Prince by Arms which would also indure Christian Kings of a diverse Religion to hinder with all their might the Conversion of their Subjects Blessed be God that there are none but the Jesuits and Covenanters that maintain so destructive an Opinion The Reformed Churches and the most part of the Roman Church give no jealousie to their Princes hereupon The holy prudence of the Apostles saw well that even besides Conscience the Counsell the most profitable for the conservation of the Church and the propagatiâ—â— of the
was under age caused the Father to be most cruelly put to death in prison yet the authority of the young K. must be made use of to make the resolution of the Parliament pass into an Act for without the King the Parliament can no more act than a Body without a Head But when the young King came to age he caused the Authors and Complices of his Fathers death to be executed and caused all the Acts of this Parliament to be broken by another And less than these to the purpose is which they alledg concerning the accord the Barons extorted from King John by which this unhappy and imprudent King being reduced to a straight promised to put himself into the power of twenty five of his Barons and submitted himself to divers other dishonorable Conditions and this accord was not made in Parliament but in the field by force of Arms there being no Parliament then sitting and therefore was of no force nor was ever kept These Articles of the Barons were much like those the two Houses sent the King to Beverly Oxford and New-Castle the Covenanters imitate these Barons in their affectation of Piety for they called their General the Marshal of the Lords Army and of his holy Church and these perswaded their Chiefs that they led the Battels of the Lord of Hoasts but these transferred not the Crown to another Prince as the Barons did but have taken away both his Crown and Life having long before declared by writing to their King that they dealt very favourably with him if they did not depose him and that if they did they should not exceed the Limits of Modesty nor of their Duty This Judgment was pronounced in the House of Commons without contradiction that The King might fall from his Office that the happiness of the Kingdom did not depend upon him nor the Royal Branches of his House and that he did not deserve to be King of England The Authors of these Opinions are declared in a Declaration of his Majesties In one point the Barons and Covenanters are very different for the Lords that remained with the Covenanters were without power all places of Honour and Trust being taken out of their hands by their Inferiours and at last their House abolished by the Commons so that in stead of producing this War of the Barons the Covenanters should rather have alledged the Seditions and Commotions of Watt Tyler and Jack Straw poor Artisans and followed with people of the same rank for these persons and the Cause of the Covenanters are far more alike Behold here with what authorities the Margins of their Books are stuffed Behold the Examples which the polititians of the times present to the Gentlemen of the Parliament for to teach them what they ought to do those infamous actions which were abhorred by the ages following them are become the supporters of ours and despair which makes men snatch up any sorts of weapons forceth our enemies to justifie their actions by the examples of Rebels and Paricides 't is not for nothing then that these Histories are so often alledged though nothing to the purpose and it 's not without cause that they print them apart for not being able to justifie their actions they have declared their intentions and made the King to see what he sholud trust to if he fell into their hands Certainly if there had not been a design laid to come to that both to prepare the people and intimidate the King those incendiaries who by these horrible examples and their Maximes of State grounded thereupon teaching the deposing of Kings should have been hanged long since with their Books about their necks For so many men which are studied in the Laws of the Kingdom and are at the helm of affairs cannot be ignorant of that which King James of happy and glorious memory marks in his Book of the Right of Kings that in the time of Edward the Third there was an Act of Parliament made which declared all them Traytors who imagined it's the word of the Law or conspired the death of the King â—on which Act the Judges grounding themselves have alwaies judged them for Traytors who dared but to speak of deposing the King because they believed that they could not take away the Crown from off the Kings Head without taking away his Life It was heretofore a crime worthy of death to speak yea to think evil against the King and moreover the Word of God which is to be obeyed forbids us to speak evil of the King no not in our thought but now it 's the exercise of devout Souls to write Meditations upon the deposing of their King CHAP. VII Declaring wherein the Legislative Powers of Parliament consists HAving no better Authorities in all the Examples of the Ages past they establish a New one which by the unlimited largeness supplies what it wants of length of time for when we require to be governed by the Laws they answer us that the Parliament is the Oracle of the Laws that it is for that great Court to declare what is Law and what is not to interpret the Laws to dispense with them or to make new ones That themselves are the Parliament excluding all others and that since they have declared that this War is according to Law and that such Maximes as they give us are fundamental Laws of the Kingdom we must remit our selves to them and receive for Law what they ordain But because strangers may read who have no knowledge of the Government of England for to examine this Imperious reason we are obliged to declare here what we know touching the present affairs We have learned to acknowledg the Parliament 〈◊〉 England for the Supream Court of the Kingdom that can make and unmake Laws and from whose Judgment there is no appeal But of this Court the King is the principal part and it 's he that renders it soveraign the two Houses in all their Legislative Acts acknowledg him their true and sole Soveraign the House of Lords only can evert the Judgment of the Courts of Justice but not their own without the consent of the King and the House of Commons the House of Commons is not a Judicial Court having not power to administer an Oath inflict a Fine or imprison any but those of theâ—r own House and these two neither apart nor together cannot make a Law but when they would enact any thing they both together present a Writing to the King in form of a request if the King approves of them the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal answers for the King in these French words Le Roy le veult and then it is made an Act but if the King refuseth it he returns answer Le Roy S'avisera and the business passeth no further Before the consent of the King the proposition of the two Houses contained in the Writing is like unto that which the Romans called Rogatio but when the King grants it
they may then give it the name of Lex and in effect it is but a request before the pleasure of the King makes it pass into a Law and was never other before this present Parliament Therefore the English Lawyers call the King the life of the Law for though the King in Parliament cannot make any Law without the concurrence of the two Houses yet nevertheless it 's his Authority only that gives it the strength and Name of a Law and they are so far from having any Legal Authority in their Commands without the consent of the King that the customary right gives them not so much as a Name neither takes any Cognisance of them To say then that the Parliament hath declared this War lawful and that the Orders of Parliament are Laws is by an ambiguous term to abuse the ignorance of the people for by the Parliament they understand somtimes one House somtimes both and somtimes the King and both Houses together it 's thus that men understand them when they speak of the Supream Court of Parliament and of Acts of Parliament for the King was ever accounted the first of the three Estate without whom the two other had not power to conclude any thing lawfully for all their Authority is derived from him not only for a time but by a continual Influence which being interrupted the power of necessity ceaseâ—h These three togeâ—her have power to interpret the Laws to revoke them and to make others therein properly lies the Oracle of the Laws A Judicious Writer of the Royal party calls the union of the three Estates the Sacred Tripos from whence the Oracles of the Law are pronounced When any one of these three are separate from other the other two stagger and are lame nor cannot serve for a firm foundation for the safety of the State and satisfaction of the Subjects Conscience But let us assume the business higher you cannot more vex our Enemies than to tell them this Truth that the Monarchy which is at this day began by Conquest this is that which by no means they will endure to hear of but would perswade men that it began by an Election and Covenant which indeed had never any being but in their own Fancies If they would be believed for this they should then produce some Records For the bold conjecturers are less credible than all the Histories which assures us of three Conquests in this Kingdom since the Romans and Picts Namely that of the Saxons Danes and Normans Moreover those that would abolish this Office and Dignity destroy that of their own Laws for all the Lands of the Kingdom are held of the King by right of the Sword as appears by the nature of Homages and Services that the Lords of Fiefes owe to the King when William the Conqueror took possession of the Kingdome strengthening the Right of his Conquest by the last Will and Testament of Edward the Confessor he declared himself Master of all the Land and disposed of it according to his pleasure His Son Henry the first eased the People somwhat of the severe and unlimited Government of his Father and confirmed to the English their ancient priviledges which since after long and bloudy wars were anew confirmed and the Quarrel determined by that wise King Edward the first who having as much valour as wisdom in condescending to the Rights of his Subjects knew well how thereby to preserve his own for after all the Soveraignty of Kings remained inviolable and those prerogaâ—ives were preserved which were only proper to him who is not subject but to God alone Such also is the Court of Wards by which a great many Orphans of the Kingdom are in Wardship to the King and almost all the Lands appertaining to him until they be of Age. In this thing the Kings of England exceed all other Christian Princes This being such an essential mark of absolute Soveraignty that there cannot be a greater Certainly if this Monarchy had begun either by Election or Covenant the Subjects would never have given the King so vast a power over their Estates and Families Amongst the priviledges of the English these three are the principal That the King cannot make a Law without the consent of his Estates That no Law made in Parliament can be revoked but in Parliament and that the King can levy no moneys of his Subjects beâ—â—des his ordinary Revenues without the concurrence of the Two Houses in the intervals of Parliaments the King according to his Supream Power may make Edicts seem burdensom to the Subjects or to impair their Laws and Priviledges they humbly present them in the next Parliament the K. when the complaint appears just unâ—o him easeth them for to make their requests pass for Acts without the pleasure of the K. they cannot neither can the K. make new Acts in Parl. without their consent In the mean while the King makes not them partakers of his Authority but assembling them in Parliament he renders them capable to limit his Authority in Cases that appertain to their cognisance for there are many cases wherein they are not to meddle at all in the point of the Militia and for fear they should forget that even this power they have to limit the King comes from the Authority of the King and he can take it away from them when he pleaseth for when he breaks up the Parliament he retires to himself the Authority that he gave them to limit his and moreover if they stretch their priviledges beyond the pleasure of the King he hath power to dissolve the Parliament and after the word of the King is passed which dischargeth them and sends them away they have not power to sit or consult a minute Whence Bodinus well versed in the nature of the States of Christendome concludes the King of England to have Soveraign Authority The Estates of England saith he cannot be assembled nor dissolved but by the Edict of the Prince no more then in France and Spain which proves sufficiently that the Assemblies have no power of themselves to command or forbid a thing and he laughs at the ignorance of Bellaga who affirm the States of Arragon to be above their King and yet nevertheless confesseth the States cannot assemble nor separate without him Illud Novum planè absurdum That saith he is New and altogether a most absurd Doctrine And therefore it was that which occasioned them who had a design to overthrow Church and State to labour to draw a promise from his Majesty that the late long Parliament should not be dissolved without the consent of both Houses well knowing that without that granted the King when he pleased might have overturned their designs which they having obtained shewed by their Actions that they thought themselves then priviledged to do what they would without his Authority and thus it is with us at this day Yet so it is that they themselves do confess that this grant did
not alter the Nature of the two Houses and the Gentlemen of the Parliament have often protested that they would not make use of this Act of Grace to the disadvantage of his Majesty so then if there were no Soveraignty resident in the two Houses before this grant there is no more after and the pretended Fundamental Laws not written that parts Soveraignty between the King and his Subjects yea that transport it wholly to the people are much to be suspected of falsity since they never appear but since the promise they obtained of the King both to his and their great damage to perpetuate this Parliament as long as they pleased and since they have begun to exercise the Soveraignty by force of Arms. Thus the new Nobility after they had obtained the Firss by right or wrong produce Coats of Arms and Titles which were heretofore unknown They maintain this their New Soveraignty by a Maxime of Stephanus Junius Brutus Rex est singulis Major universis Minor That is to say as they expound it That the King is the Soveraign of Particulars but the Representative body of the State is greater then he and have Soveraignty over him and all their Writers and amongst others the Observator on the Kings Answers attribute Majestie to the Commonalty and not to the King or Supreme if this be true it 's very strange how this Representative Body of the State the Parliament have left it so long time to the Kings the Court of Wards and many other Rights of Soveraignty which they have enjoyed without Contradiction until that present Parliament This vile Maxime then being destitute of all proofs from the Laws and Customes of the State ought to be despised but moreover it is also void of all reason for if the English be subject to their King in Retail are they not in Gross if in pieces not in the whole being born Subjects have they power to give the Soveraignty to their Deputies or Parliament men and make them Chief that is to say can they give them that which they have not And seeing also that they cannot assemble in Parliament without the King or Supreme Magistrates Writ this Writ of the Kings doth it render them forthwith Soveraigns above the King The stile of the Writ calls them ad Consul andum de quibusdam arduis to consult with him about some difficult affairs and not to master him and to dispose of his Authority And since they call this great Court the Body Representative of Subjects they must needs then be Subjects otherwise they should not represent them who sent them and that which the King accords to should be granted to Soveraigns but his Subjects should receive no benefit thereby He who will well examine this Proposition That the Soveraignty over the Soveraign rests in the Representative body of Subjects shall find it full of contradictions and to destroy it self They cannot bring any probable reason saith Bodin that the Subjects ought to command their Prince and that the Assembly of Estates ought to have any power unless when the Prince is under age or distracted or captive then the Estates may depute him a Regent or Lieutenant Otherwise if Princes were subâ—ect to the Laws of the States and Commands of the people their Power were nothing and the Title of a King would be a Name without the thing moreover under such a Prince the Common-wealth should not be governed by the people but by some few persons equal in their Suffrages who who would make Laws and Edicts not by the Authority of the Prince but by their own who for all that come and present him humbly with requests every one apart by himself and all in a body making shew of Faithfulness and Obedience these things are as ridiculous as can be imagined thus saith Bodin Behold here the Form of State of our Covenanters in their beginning so drawn to the life by this learned Person that one would say he took the very Copie from them In effect when under a Monarchy a Faction in an Assembly of States shall take upon them the Soveraignty the State change not into an Aristocracy nor Democracy but into a pure Obligarchy which is the worst of all Forms of State and but the corruption of others The Royal Power being once usurped 't is not then the greatest nor the best nor the most who govern the affairs but some few unquiet and ambitious persons who love contention and know how to fish in troubled waters and as these men deceive the King with a false Idea of Soveraignty so they deceive their companions perswading them that the have part in their Authority because they have voices in the House for in such Assemblies where the choice of persons is more by hap then Judgment the Suffrage is to all but the Power is in a few The same Author numbring the Soveraign and absolute Monarchies of Christendom places England and Scotland amongst them and saith That without all Question their Kings have all the rights of Majesty and that it is not lawful for their Subjects neither apart nor in a Body to attempt any thing against the Life Reputation or Goods of their Soveraign be it either by ways of Force or Justice although he were guilty of all the crimes a man could imagine in a Tyrant For the Subjection that the Parliament owe to their King we can have no better witness then the Parliament it self for that disloyal maxime that the body of the State is above the King is contradicted by the ordinary stile of their papers presented to the King by this Body The Two Houses most humbly beseech their Soveraign Lord the King and they qualifie themselves the most humble and loyal subjects of his Majesty 'T is the Presentative Body of the Kingdome who speaks and nothing by way of Complement but Duty This Preface hath an excellent Grace in the beginning of a Declaration of the Two Houses to their King wherein they tell him that they deal favourably with him if they do not depose him and that they may do it without exceeding the limits of their Duty and Modesty This discourse is like the Locusts of the bottomless pit Revelations 9. which had the faces of men but the tails of Scorpions and therefore to avoid this disproportion in their Articles presented to the King at New-Castle they left out the Qualification of Subjects The ordinary Preface of Statutes do lively express the Nature of the three Estates The King by the Advice and Consent of the Prelates Earls and Barons and at the instance and request of the Commonalty hath ordained c. For it 's the King alone properly that ordains the Peers as Councellors advise and Consent the Commons as Suppliants require and solicite The Parliament held in the twenty fourth year of Henry the Eight speaks thus By divers ancient and authentical Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared that this Kingdome of England is an
Empire and for such hath been known in the world governed by one Soveraign Head having the dignity and Royal greatness of the Emperial Crown to which there is a Body Politick joyned composed of all sorts and degrees of people as well Spiritual as Temporal who are bound next to God to render unto him Natural Obedience If the Body Politick be naturally subjected to him as to its Head it 's contrary to Nature that it should be subjected to the Body Politick and his maxime Râ—x est universis minor is condemned as false by the Parliament they knew not in those daies what it was to make the Body of the State march with its head downward and feet upward but they were careful to maintain the Head in that eminent place where God had set it and hither also tend the words following That the chief Soveraign is instituted and furnished by the goodness and permission of Almighty God with full and entire Power Preheminence Authority Prerogative and Jurisdiction to execute Justice and put a final determination in all Cases to all sorts of his Subjects within this Kingdome and that many Laws and Ordinances had been made in preceding Parliaments for the full and sure conserving of the prerogative and preheminence of this Crown These good Subjects could not find words enough nor consult of means sufficient according to their mind to defend the Authority of their King esteeming and well they might that the happiness and liberty of the Subjects lay in the inviolable power of their Soveraign that the greatness of the State consisted in that of the Prince and that there is no other way to crown the Body but to place the Crown upon the Head This stile is very far from that of the nineteen Propositions presented to the King by the Two Houses in the beginning of the War which required that all matters of State should be treated of only in Parliament or if the King would treat of any Affairs in his Councel this Councel should be limited to a certain number and the old Councellors cashiered unless such whom it pleased the Two Houses to retain and that none hereafter should be admitted without their approbation that the King should have no power in the Education and Marriage of his children without their advice that all great Officers of the Crown and the principal Judges should alwayes be chosen by the approbation of the Two Houses or by a Councel authorized by them the same also in Governours of places and in the Creation of Peers which hath since been denied to the King in effect And as for the Militia they would have the King wholly put it into their hands that is to say he should take his Sword from his side and give it them which he could not do without giving them the Crown for the Crown and the Royal Sword are both of one piece so also for the point of Religion these propositions take from him all Authority and liberty of judgement yea even the liberty of Conscience for they require that his Majesty consent to such a Reformation as the Two Houses should conclude upon without telling him what this Reformation is Let all the world here judge if these men speak like Subjects they had reason to present these Articles with their swords in their hands but the King had more reason to draw his to return them an answer All these propositions are founded upon one only proposition which passeth amongst them for a Fundamental Law That the King is bound to grant to the People all their Demands but this is a Fundamental in the Ayr and made void by the practise of all Ages since Eng. was a Monarchy and by that Authentical Judgement of the States assembled under Henry the Fift That it belongs to the Supremacy of the King to grant or refuse according to his pleasure the Demands that are made to him in Parliament And in stead of the House of Commons being as it is now the Soveraign Court a thing never heard of until this present Age The House supplicated Henry the Fourth not to employ himself in any Judgement in Parliament but in such cases as in effect appertained to him because it belonged to the King alone to judge except in cases specified by the Statutes The same House under Edward the Third acknowledged that it did not belong to them to take Cognisance of such matters as the keeping of the Seas or the Marshes of the Kingdome yea even during the sitting of Parliaments the Kings have alwayes disposed of the Militia and Admiralty of the Forts and Garrisons the Two Houses never interposing or pretending any right thereunto they declared ingeniously to Edw. the First that to him belonged to make express Command against all Force of Arms and to that end they were bound to assist him as their Soveraign Lord. They declared also to King Henry the Seventh that every Subject by the duty of his subjection was bound to serve and assist his Prince and Soveraign Lord upon all occasions by which they signified that it was not for them to meddle with the Militia but that their duty as Subjects bound them to be aiding and assisting to him The Learned in the Laws tell us that to raise Troops of Horse or Foot without Commission of the King or to lend Aid is esteemed and called by the Law of England to levy war against the King our Soveraign Lord his Crown and Dignity In this point all that is done without him is done against him and this is conformable to the general Right of all Nations As for the Royal Estate saith Bodin I believe there is no person that doubts that all the Power both of making Peace and War belongs to the King since none dare in the least manner do any thing in this matter without the Command of the King unless he will forfeit and endanger his Head If the Two Houses were priviledged to the contrary by any Statute we should have heard them speak it but for what they have done we see no other Authority then their practice Therefore none ought to wonder if this their new practice hath less Authority with persons of a sound judgement then these practises of all ages past and if we cannot perswade our selves that without the Authority of the King they cannot abolish those of Parliaments Authorized by the King let them not then make such a loud noise with the Authority of Parliament 'T is in obedience to that Supreme Court of Parliament that we so earnestly strive to preserve the Princes Rights those Acts of Parliament are in full force which have provided with great care to defend the Royal Prerogatives judging aright that the Soveraignty is the Pillar of the publick safety and that it cannot be divided without being weakned and without shaking the State that rests upon it But we leave the reasons of the form of this Estate to them who formed it contenting our selves
to obey the Laws until the same Authority that made them alters and changes them This Authority being that of the Prince sitting in Parliament we hold not our selves bound by that which passeth in any House or Councel without him and against him accounting that where the Princes Authority shines not their power is eclips'd above all since the Houses at Westminster were reduced to the fourth part of their number and the lesser part the major part being frighted away and filled their vacant places with persons of their own judgement without the Kings Authority if the Houses had ever any Power without him it was like the light of the Moon without the Sun Exiguum malignum Lumen as the Astrologers call it it was a little light which did nought but hurt Our great Lawyer Fortescue speaks well that as a Natural Body when the Head is cut off is not called a Body but a Trunck so in the Body Politick the Commonalty without a Head cannot any way incorporate or make a Body CHAP. VIII How the Covenanters will be Judges in their own Cause BUt was there ever any thing more unreasonable then this proceeding They would that the judgement of the Lesser part of the Two Houses without the King and against all former Parliaments should be received yea in their own Quarrel and that in the Controversie whether the King hath Authority above this Assembly or it above him this Assembly will be judge 't is for them they tell us to declare what is Law and to make the Law Now that Assembly declares that their Authority is above the King that their Arms are just and the Kings unjust and that the Representative Body of the State cannot erre in Law and that it 's your duty to stand to their judgement These people would be ashamed to confess where they have learned thus to reason Is it not of him who said Dic Ecclesiae hoc est tibi ipsi Tell it to the Church that is to say to thy self and truly to confute them we will do them the shame to employ the same words we make use of against him changing only the persons In the present Quarrel one of the Controversies is Whether the Two Houses at Westminster without the King are the Soveraign Judges in point of Law In this Controversie should the Two Houses be Judges they should then be Judges in their own Cause and should be assured to gain their process Item if it be disputed whether they can erre in this Controversie also they would judge they could not erre Should they be Infallible Judges of their Infallibility Who beholds not in this an evident contradiction That it must be that he that disputes whether the Two Houses can erre must address himself to the Two Houses as to Judges that cannot erre to judge this Question so likewise in the Question whether the Authority of the Two Houses be above the King it 's certain that the Two Houses cannot be Judges since by this same Question their Authority to Judge is called into doubt the one pretends that the difference hath been decided and judged by the Authority of a Soveraign and infallible Judge it 's certain that hereby he renders the wound incurable the quarrel eternal and beyond all terms of reconciliation It matters not to say that between two parties that pretend to the Soveraignty there can be no Judge but that the strongest must carry it for if the two parties desire peace they may choose Arbiters The King or Supreme being the Natural Soveraign of his Enemies and he who gives vigor to the Laws hath desired notwithstanding that the difference should be determined by the Laws he pretends not to infallibility He hath also often chosen his Neighbours for Arbiters and hath fully satisfied them by reasonable offers and such as are worthy of him witness the Report that the extraordinary Ambassadors of the States Generals made to their Lords for which the Parliament of London declared their great discontent in writings The King being to render account of his Actions to none but God alone submitted himself notwithstanding to Reason and Piety remitting himself wholly to the Ancient Laws and Constitutions of his Kingdome He hath often protested and oft-times published and in this difference taken all Christendome for Arbiters but what in the Question whether his Subjects can make a Law against him and whether they have right to make war on him and would also that he should remit himself to their Ordinances yea even those which they have made without him against his will and against himself and that he should acknowledge them for Supreme Judges in their own cause without other Arbiters then their will Now they have had their wills wholly and have been Judges and parties both together a priviledge that belongs to God alone to whose Supreme Court we appeal CHAP. IX That the most Noble and best part of the Parliament retired to the King being driven away by the worser THat which doth strongly perswade us to believe that the Priviledges of Parliament which they would extend even in infinitum have an ill foundation is because we have seen them opposed by the better part of the Parliament both in Quality and Dignity For besides the King an hundred seventy five of the House of Commons and the best qualified withdrew themselves from amongst them and of the Lords eighty three so that scarcely the third part remained at Westm Almost all the Gentry wholly followed the King and when we consider the persons the Condition and Revenues of those that withdrew themselves we cannot see that they had any need to fish in troubled waters or to warm themselves at the Great Fire that began to slame as those had that remained Without doubt that great Body of Lords and Gentlemen of the Kingdome loved their Liberty and would never have assisted the King to have obtained an unlimited power break their Priviledges and impose a perpetual yoak of slavery upon them and their posterity When need was these Members of Parliament assembled themselves and the King deferred to their Councels as much as their Priviledges required Whereupon those of the Parliament of London were extraordinarily vexed maintaining that the Name and Power of Parliament was from that time fastened to the place where they sate which is a point that we will not dispute how strange soever it be but we would have them remember that they have had their sitting in other places and have not for all that thought they had left their Authority at Westminster and we dare answer for them that if the Lords and Commons which held with the King had driven them away and taken their place they would soon have changed their Opinion Besides this strong consideration of numbers and persons all those who know that the King is the Fountain of Authority and that without him there is no more lawful Power then day without the sun would never make
against them for they are full of them But I would they could get them out of the Schools of the Jesuits and come and learn the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches which speak thus Wee on the contrary maintain that Obedience to Kings and Magistrates is of Divine right and founded upon an Ordinance of God for which purpose those passages serve which commands obedience to Kings and the higher Powers as to Persons whom God hath set up and whom we cannot resist without resisting God There is no power but of God the powers that be are ordained of God whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the Ordinance of God Rom. 13.1 2. Item We must be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake V. 5 7. And Saint Peter in that place they object against us wills that we yield our selves Subjects to Kings for the Lords sake So that although Nebuchadnezzar was a wicked King and a Rod in the hand of God to destroy the Nations notwithstanding God speaks thus to him by his Prophet Daniel Thou O King art a King of Kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom power strength and glory Dan. 2.37 Moses the first Prince Lawgiver of Israel was established by an Ordinance of God and Joshua after him Num. 27.18 Saul the first King of Israel and David his Successor were anointed by Samuel and consecrated to be Kings according to the Ordinance of God 2 Kings 9. God sent to Jehu a Prophet for to anoint him King of Israel It s God that girdeth the loins of Kings with a girdle Job 12.18 God is he that governs or as our Translation read it God is the Judge he pulleth down one and setteth up another Psal 75.7 The Lord raiseth the poor out of the dust and lifteth the needy out of the dunghil that he may set him with Princes Psal 113.7 8. Certainly if the providence of God extends it self even to the feeding of Fowls and giving food to the young Ravens when they cry unto him Psal 147. Yea as to number the very hairs on your head so that not one of them falls without his Providence who believes that when God will establish or set up a man on the top of mankind and make him Head of Millions of people the counsel of God doth not intervene and that he leaves not all things to go at adventure and by chance The reasons they alledge against so evident and apparent a truth are lame and interfere 1. They say that Nimrod the first King in the World was raised by violence But that is false that before Nimrod there was no Soveraign Prince in the World Before Nimrod the Fathers and Heads of Families were Kings and Priests and Soveraign Princes of their Families For after the Flood men lived five or six hundred years So that it was easie for one man to behold five hundred yea a thousand persons of his Posterity over whom he exercised a paternal power and by consequence a Soveraignty for there was no other form of Royalty in the earth whose children servants being joyned together one Family could make a great Commonweal And even in the time of Abraham then when the life of man was shorter we read how Abraham was called by the Children of Heath a Prince of God Gen. 23.6 that is to say a mighty Prince and of his own Family he drew out three hundred and eighteen Souldiers to whom if we joyn the Maid-servants and those servants who were not fit to bear arms in war ye cannot but confess that although he had no children yet his own Family were capable to fill a good Town 2. They object to us also that the most part of the Empires and Kingdomes have had their beginning by Conquest and violence and therefore not by the Ordinance of God And that if the Conqueror had invaded the Country of another by the Ordinance of God the Inhabitants of the Country had offended God in opposing and resisting him Upon which I say that those Inhabitants in a Country whom a strange Prince will invade do well to oppose and resist him and if in this defensive war the Usurper is slain he is justly punished But if he become Master of them and if all the ancient Possessors of the Kingdome are extinguished and the States of the Country assembled contrive a new form of State and all the Officers throughout the Kingdome give to the new King an Oath of Fidelity then we must believe that God hath established such a Prince in the Kingdome then I say the people ought to submit to the Will of God who for the sins of Kings and People transfers Kingdomes and disposeth of the events of Battels according to his good pleasure 3. It matters not to say that Princes who enter Kingdomes by Hereditary Succession or by Election come in by wayes introduced by Custome and not by the Ordinance of God For the Question is not by what wayes or means a Prince comes to the Kingdome but whether if being once established by the Ordinance of God we are bound to obey him Our Adversaries indeed would have the Power of Parliament of Divine Right although the Members of Parliament enter by Election and oft-times by close and under-hand dealing and by some crafty Caballe Let them hold that the Parliament is by Divine Right it appears by their authentique Catechisme that they teach us this Doctrine Page 5. It 's a gross error to say that the King is the Supreme Power but that power appertains to the Soveraign Court of Parliament which not to obey is to resist the Ordinance of God But let us hearken to a better Author 4. That if there be no Command in the Word of God to obey Henry rather then Lewis c. It 's sufficient that there is a command for to obey the King and a command to keep our Oath and Fidelity we have sworn and by consequence to be faithful to the King to whom we have taken the Oath of Allegiance There is no more command of God found to injoyn us particularly to obey the Parliament that began November the third 1640 to which nevertheless our adversaries accounted themselves to be subject by Divine Right So that if this consideration should take place it would follow that none of them that are now in the world are obliged by Divine Right to fear God or to believe in Jesus Christ because the Scripture hath not particularly appointed Thibalt Antony or William that they should fear God and believe in Jesus Christ It sufficeth that the Word of God contains Rules which bind particulars without naming them S. Peter truly in the place before cited calls the obedience we owe to Kings a humane Ordinance and that either because Kings command many things which in their nature are not of Divine Right as their commands which forbid wearing of gold or silver or the like things on their apparrel or because they attain this
take a reciprocal Oath and in a paction of such importance there should also pass some publick contract things which are not practised so that hereby it evidently appears that this imagination of the enemies of Monarchy have not any foundation neither in Law nor Custome Some persons think they speak very finely in saying that the Authority of the King is an Usurpation of the Sword confirmed by Custome that if they could gain their liberty by the sword and confirm it by custome their Right would be as good as his and upon this they Phylosophy upon the Resolutions of States which are in the hand of God and teach us to follow the course of his Providence But by speaking thus they commit a double errour against conscience and against prudence As for conscience the antient constitution of the State confirmed by so many ages Statutes Oaths of Allegiance do suffice to learn all Christians that live under this Monarchy that it was God that established it and that by the command of God they are bound to defend the State under which they are born and whom the Body of the Kingdome hath sworn to maintain These discourses of following the Providence of God in matters of Revolutions of States are then only seasonable when the Royal Blood is extinguished or when Usurpation hath gained prescription through length of years but not when they are neer to overthrow the Estate and ruine the King these considerations are good when the evil is done and out of remedy but not when they are acting ill and when the obedience and loyalty of the subjects may remedy all The providence of God will never serve for excuse of the wickedness of men let us do that which we ought to do and leave God to do what he pleaseth and above all these moralities of revolution of States are worst in their mouths who labour to make this revolution in the State for it 's their duty to prevent this revolution with all their power posterity may excuse themselves by the providence of God in following a new form of State whilst those that introduced it shall be condemned by his Justice Besides all this there is a great want of prudence in this reasoning for in quarrelling the Rights of the King as usurpations of violence and custome they teach the King to quarrel at their liberties and priviledges for the same reason yea and by one much greater for the Priviledges of Parliament are much newer then the Royal Authority and the King may say they were obtained by force after many long and bloody wars he might cast off all prescription gained upon the unlimited power of the first Norman Kings and put himself into all the rights of their Conquests by another Wise subjects who would keep their priviledges ought by all means to preserve peace for there is nothing renders Kings more absolute then war Under a Royal Estate the principal means to preserve the peoples liberty is to maintain the only authority of the King dividing it amongst many they do but multiply their Masters For it s better to have one evil Master then many good ones CHAP. XIV How the Covenanters have no reason to invite the Reformed Churches to their Allyance since they differ from them in many things of great importance WE wonder exceedingly how our Enemies dare solicite the Reformed Churches to Covenant with them From whence comes this great familiarity Is it because of their great resemblance one with another It s that we cannot find As for obedience due to the King which is the principal point of the Covenanters we have made it already appear that the Divines of the Reformed Religion are as contrary to the Covenanters as they are to the Jesuiâ—es their Brethren and Companions in blood and war This point being denied them they care not much for the society of any Church in other points of Doctrine This is the first and great Commandment of the Covenant to obey the people against their King maintain but this their fundamental maxime and they will give you leave to chuse your Religion but in many other things this faction differ from the Reformed Churches Concerning the Doctrine of the Lords Day they have a great quarrel against Calvin who is so far from constraining the Church to a Jewish observation of the Sabbath that he accounts that the Church is not subjected to the keeping of the seventh day a passage which Learned Rivet alledgeth and approâ—â—s and to both these doth Doctor Prideaux since Bishop of Worcester joyn who in a discourse of the Sabbath complains that the English Sabbatarians lean towards Judaisme and go against the common received Doctrine of Divines never considering into what captivity they cast themselves in establishing the observation of the seventh day under Christianity by the authority of a Mosaical Precept Master Primrose Minister of Rohan hath writ a very Learned Book full of profound knowledge upon this Subject wheâ—e amongst other things he proves at large how all the Reformed Churches are contrary to this opinion Although God hath no need of the errour of men to establish his service we so much love the reverence due to that holy day that we would not lightly quarrel at any thing thereupon Let every one enjoy his Opinion so that God may be served and the day which is dedicated to him be not violated neither by prophaneness nor superstition But since the Covenanteâ— in this point are so contrary to the Reformed Churches and have so often condemned it by their writings the Assembly at London did very ill to plead conformity with these Churches in this Article and complain to them of the Liberty the King gave to poor servants to sport on Sunday after Divine Service So also for the Festivals although Mr. Rivet declares his desire that those daies which carry the Names of Saints should be abolished in England because of the abuses of these Festivals in the Church of Rome nevertheless he acknowledgeth and commends the Protestation of the English Church hereupon that they observe them not for the Service of Saints but for to glorifie God in imitation of the Primitive Church by the memory of those whom God was pleased to serve himself by to build up his Church and exceedingly blames those who accuse them of Idolatry for this observation King James of happy and glorious memory speaks thus in his Confession of Faith As for the Saints departed I reverence their memory in honour of whom our Church hath established so many daies of Solemnity as there are Saints enrolled by the Authority of the Scripture The Festivals of Saints scarce exceed the number of the Apostles and Evangelists Monsieur du Moulin his Champion defends this Confession of his Majesty Indeed saith he we condemn not this celebration of the memory of Martyrs and Saints we find the custome good of the English Church who have daies set apart for the commemoration of the Apostles
of the service of the divers Sects of Religion they take no care of their Order but of their Liberty to convert all which will one day turn to their ruine and confusion when they shall have no enemy to unite them But in the mean while Religion is destroyed and all the world behold with astonishment that the English Reformers have left the Church without any discipline now these many years they have done much worse then he who began to build but was not able to finish for these have overthrown the antient order without ever considering what they would build in the place and yet they are not agreed thereupon they made a great noise of the building they would erect but this noise proceeded from their contestation and their building advanced like that of Babel that which the one builded the other pull'd down and in the end the division of tongues will make them forsake their work It 's an easie thing to ruine 't is a work of ignorance and insolence 't is the pastime of the devil and the occupation of his children Destruction and unhappiness is in their wayes and the way of peace they have not known Rom. 3.16 And ordinarily those that burn down the house know not what it is to build it up and those who build up a Church or State proceed by wayes and rules quite contrary to those that ruine them the sharp and rigorous proceeding of our enemies wholly to raze the established order witness they want knowledge to build an order in the Church for to this purpose there is not only required to conceive an Idea of Reformation but to consider the matter they have in hand and how to frame it For as he is not the best Engenier who knows best how to make a Regular platform upon paper but he that can best accommodate his rules to the nature of the place which he fortifies and it would be a strange method to pull down and lay level the place for to build it again regularly But it s that wherein our new Reformers have laboured Certainly they neither understand the Theory nor the Practick of the work they undertake and their knowledge goes no further then destruction It 's true many of the Assembly desired the Scotch Discipline and to establish it courted the Scotch Armies We also respect these Armies hoping that God will one day touch their hearts to defend the rights and person of their Soveraign and we pray God for their prosperity But let them give us leave to tell them mildly our advice of their Discipline the wisest amongst us commend the subordination and concatenation of their Synods and do confess that that was wanting in the English Order judging that the Synodal Power is not incompatible with the Episcopal but in an order well made both the one and the other is requisite and it is impossible that the English Bishops excellent in knowledge and piety who have lived within these ninety yeares should not know this very well above all those who were imploid in the Reformation But behold that which hath hindred the ordinary use of Synods amongst us incontinent after the Reformation it had been to ill purpose to have given all the Clergy liberty to assemble in a Synod Papistry being not then well rooted out of the Priests and Curates and before the English Church was well healed of this old malady she fell into a new one and was infected with a fanatick and malignant Sect who made piety consist in overthrowing all order and superiority in the Church and to controle that of the Magistrate whereupon our Soveraigns and their Prelates beholding the body of the Church swollen with evil humours and mutinous superstition continually ready to break forth feared least the frequent use of Synods should not be made use of by the discontented to gather and associate a faction and therefore accounted the surest way to maintain peace and truth was to keep these violent spirits in their duty by the Episcopal rod assisted with the Royal Scepter and certainly this way would have had better success if they had not let the bridle too loose for such hard mouths The Synod is proper to make Ordinances and the Bishop is proper to cause them to be observed The Synod to hinder tyranny the Bishop to prevent confusion the Synod to determine in point of Doctrine the Bishop to maintain order and discipline the Synod to remedy inveterate evils the Bishop to suppress immergent evils and in the mean while both the one and the other serve to all these uses and ought not to be separated in a Church where there is freedom and where the estate upholds the Religion But in a Church which lives under a state of a contrary Religion order must bend to necessity and as it is not possible to have all the parts of Ecclesiastical Government also there is less need for common adversity unite affections and take away many occasions of scandal and disorder Such are the Reformed Churches of France where the order is sutable to their condition and the native piety and simplicity of their Discipline is commended even by those of a diverse Profession Now having had leisure to examine their Discipline we find not that it doth much resemble the Scotch discipline for the Consistories and Synods of France have not Ruling Elders whose voices alwaies carry it as they do in Scotland Their Elders pass not any sentence in matter of Doctrine neither have they the power of the Keys to determine Censures All that Calvin granted them was but praeesse moribus to have an eye to the manners and behaviour of the flock in which they served as Assistants to the Pastors and this was a commendable use But in Scotland the Elders command for the Lord of the Parish is ordinarily the ruling Elder of the Consistory and in some manner is a Lay Bishop and although the Minister is alwaies Moderator it s but for form for the Elders have the principal power and being Deputies to the Assemblies they keep there the same credit above all in the General Assembly where Dukes Marquesses Earles and Barons have their voices and decide the points of controversies and the censures of the Church We greatly respect the power of Synods but we require that it be purely Ecclesiastical and that it be managed by none but by those who are appointed of God lay persons have not to do but to assist them except the King who ought to have the exterior power which the Scotch deny him to convocate and dissolve their Assemblies to suppress disorders without medling himself with the interiour or spiritual for it seems to us a thing unreasonable and contradictory to it self that the other Laiques should be admitted to the full capacity of the spiritual power equal or above the Ministers and that the King only should be excluded and hath not so much as the exercise of his temporal and purely Royal power
in the Assembly We could wish also that the power of their Consistories and Synods were a little more limitted for these Assemblies being Courts of Conscience which takes cognisance of all the offences of the Church they may enclose in their Jurisdiction all criminal and civil causes of the Kingdom there being no cause which hath not in it a point of Conscience And so hereby it may come that the sentences of Judges may be controuled in the Consistory and the Officers of the Crown questioned about their managing of publick affairs and so the Government of the State become purely arbitrary And the power of the Ecclesiastical Councel being such the most unquiet and ambitious will be ever pressing to be of it whereupon sidings and factions will abound revenge and particular interest will turn the ballance There they will form factions in the State and parties against the King for what is there that they dare not enterprise who have so vast a power which have no other limits than the extent of the flitting and moveable conscience of particulars which give account to none who pretend to have their authority only of Divine right and therefore are not subject to be controuled These are not conjectures nor suppositions but observations of long experience certainly that personal citation which was sent by the National Synod of Scotland to their King when he was in the midst of his Armies in England Feb. 1645. filled Forreign Churches with amazement and scandal And no less is the Authority they exercise even over their Parliaments which having demanded advice of the Synod concerning what they were to do with their King the Ministers concluded that they should not bring the King into Scotland and that the Kingdom of Scotland ought not to espouse his quarrel for to maintain his Rites in England and their advice passed for an Ordinance after this they cannot reprove the Bishops for being Councellours of State Monarchy which can endure neither Master nor Companion can hardly comply with this Court of Conscience which gives Laws but receives none unless themselves make them and limit the King but refuse to be limited by him but the Magistrates of an Aristocratick or popular Common-wealth will shift better with them for this Court pretending an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction purely Soveraign and Divine yet nevertheless admit lay men to the participation of this power The Lords never fail to be Members of this consistory and to govern there And thus the question touching the Ecclesiastical authority is Eluded Now although above all we desire to enjoy an Apostolical and Episcopal Discipline where the Bishop assisted with the Councel of his Clergy governs the Church and admits other Pastors according to their degree and quality to the participation of the power of ths Keies yet nevertheless if the revolution of the State brings in another Discipline our Ministers submit themselves to it not to be Actors there remembring themselves of their duties and promise made at their reception of Orders but to surfer themselves to be governed remembring that they are call'd to preach the Gospel and whether there be a good or an evil Order in the Church or even none at all the vocation binds them to feed the Flock and to maintain the holy Doctrine But indeed its great pity to be reduced to expect a Discipline of those that have none and yet make the Kingdom of Christ to consist in it for which they made such clamours in their licentiousness and overthrow of all Order and lawful Vocation in the Church The Reformed Churches of France who employ all their Zeal and Industry to maintain the purity of the Gospel without contending with any about the outward Discipline look upon with contempt and compassion the impetuous weakness of our enemies who overthrow the holy Doctrine and ruine Church and State for points of Discipline which is to lose the end for the accessaries yea although these accessaries are not good in this regard there being but two things to reprove in the Covenanters their end and the meanâ— which they employ to attain that end CHAP. XIX That the Covenanters ruine the Ministers of the Gospel under colour of Reformation ONE of the points of Reformation for which they laboured so much with Cannon shot was to abase and pull down the Clergy which is a work already done without proceeding further As for their greatness the only thing wherein it consisted was taken from them in the year 1645. Which was the Bishops sitting and having power to vote in the Lords House the rest is a smal thing As for their Revenues they are confiscated and sequestred and even the Revenues of the Bishops were such as might cause rather pitty then envy except four or five Bishopricks the rest were so poor that for to help them to uphold their Degree and pay their dues to the King Tenths and first Fruits his Majesty ever out of compassion gave them some other Benefices otherwise very few would have hazzarded the taking of them the Bishopricks of England being like the ruined Monasteries in some Countries which have nothing remaining but the wals with nothing in them The children of those parents who had formerly fâ—tted themselves by the Bishopricks have now swallowed the rest and yet labour to begger the inferior Clergy This is that they call Reformation and in truth 't is the Reformation of Scotland where the Tenths of the Clergy are possessed by the Ruling Elders above all by the Lords some of them having the Tenths of whole Provinces Therefore ye need not wonder they fight with such Zeal for a Reformation which is so profitable In England ordinarily the great Towns and rich Parishes are impropriated and in the hands of Lay persons the rest of the Benefices have but to provide in a Mediocrity for Students in Divinity Those who Reform the Clergy are those who possess the Goods of the Church and besides the Tithes that are alienated many of them even make use of the Tithes of the Clergy with which they are lawfully invested terrifyâ—g their poor Ministers with Sequestration too weak to contend against them and force them to injurious and damageable contracts How many Patrons are there who sell their Benefices to them who will give most And by the infamous Simony of these Gentlemen who make a noise of Reformation the door of the Church is shut to the Clergy unless they have a golden key to open it and thus they prefer profit before conscience 'T is well done of them to mend that which they have marred and they of all other have reason to take in hand the Reformation of Ministers because themselves have done what possibly they can to corrupt them Of all Liberal Professions Divinity is the poorest and have most Thorns in her way and therefore Parents find it more profitable to put their children to a Trade than bring them up in the Study of Divinity and yet after all this their very poverty
of their evil opinions amongst men blame and praise take their force from him that gives them Those who accuse us of corruption in Religion should do well to tell us first amongst the scores of Religions that are what their Religion is for there are many Religions which are together with the Covenanters and live together as so many wilde beasts in the Ark who when they are gone out thence will devour one another or flee one from another but at present they all agree to tear us a pieces Now to these accusers of Corruption we present the thirty nine Articles of our Confession which they and we have sworn and subscribed and let their Consciences judge between them and us which of the two Parties have violated and falsified their Oath How have they observed the thirty sixt Article in which they acknowledged that the consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops used in England and confirmed by Act of Parliament contains nothing in it that is either Superstitious or Impious and yet now thunder out against this Order as a mark and branch of Antichrist Is this to want memory or conscience Can they upbraid us with any thing like unto this to have opposed in a Body and condemned an Article of our Confession The corruptions which they alledge against us are falsely so named or at the worst they are but faults of particulars But the Body of the Church hath kept and doth keep the Confession of their Faith inviolable If they produce any we would have brought in any new Doctrines or Customes who can produce others that have opposed them and that the Religion subsisted entire whilst they subsisted Let them not rob those Divines of their due praise who in the beginning of the Parliament laboured sincerely to confirm the Doctrine and to stifle the difference about Discipline We have before represented with what Wisdom Piety and Vigor many Bishops and Divines chosen by his Majesty had lead the two Parties to accord upon a certain number of Propositions which contained the Body of Religion and what great hope there was that the point of Discipline would be amiably composed and how a Faction enemies to the peace of the Church and jealous least any good should come by the means of the Bishops broke off that excellent accord which could never since be renewed persecuting the Prelates with all rigor never giving them rest until they had imprisoned them as Criminals although they were not guilty of any other crime then because they would have terminated the differences of Religion But this was to stifle the Covenant in the cradle and take away all pretext from this holy Rebellion It 's not then a wonder if this sin be not pardoned them it appears by the testimony of the Reverend Pastors of the Church of Geneva in what esteem our Religion was amongst our Neighbours for in their Epistle to the Assembly at London They beseech God that he would restore our Church and Kingdome to such a high degree of holiness and glory as it had shined in until that present By this they acquit us of the corruption which they impute to us and do obliquely accuse this Assembly and those that imploy them that by their means the Kingdom hath lost his glory and the Church her holiness Now put the case that the Corruption were as great amongst us as they make it yea put the case also that even in our Liturgie composed with so much piety and wisdome that there were something to mend as a Freckle in a fair Face and that the Discipline ought to be over-looked what could there be more expected of the King and the Clergy then to submit the Persons and things to be Reformed How often had the King offered to joyn his Authority to the Advice of Parliament and a National Synod to examine and punish the faulty and correct disorders yea and even the Laws themselves if there were need To these so reasonable commands behold here what obedience they yielded A part of the House of Commons having driven away the other by violence and popular tumults and put to flight nine parts of ten of the House of Lords besides the Bishops who represented the Body of the Clergy this small rest in lieu of a National Synod by lawful deputation of the Church chose some Ministers of their Faction for to make use of their Advice so far as it should please them These Ministers who had no Deputation nor Representation nor Authority from the Body of the English Church and having divers Lay persons joyned with them who wholly govern them mould a Religion all new defame the reputation of the Church and Confession to which they had sworn Obedience invite to their aid Forreign Churches as their brethren and ordain that which serves the intention of their Masters We know that amongst these Divines there were some men of Merit Persons which we know had it been in their power would have overcome evill with good but amongst pieces of gold there is many times a great deal of small money like unto our clipped half Testors they are the little heads without learning If the two Houses had assembled the body of the Clergy as was proposed to them by his Majesty they had found themselves filled with Orthodox Persons and they cannot complain if those persons whom they had most desire to received not the publike censure of the Clergy since they would not permit the Clergy to assemble themselves neither can they complain that any guilty hath gone unpunished for they have taken a sure course for by the universal ruine of the Deans and Chapiters they have involved the innocent with the guilty Hearken what the King said hereupon I was content to accord and render to the Presbyter that is to say to the Body of Pastors all the right which with reason and discretion they could pretend in their conjunction with the Episcopal degree but to suffer them wholly to invade the Ecclesiastical Power and to cut off altogether with the sword the Authority of this ancient Order for to invest themselves in it it was that which I accounted neither just in regard of the Bishops nor sure nor profitable in regard of the Presbyter himself neither any way convenient for the Church or State A right and good Reformation might have been easily produced by moderate Councils and I am perswaded such Councils would have given more contentment even to those very Divines who have been perswaded with much gravity and formality to serve the designs of others which without doubt many of them now acknowledge although they dare not make their discontent appear for finding themselves frustrated of their intentions I am very well assured that the true method to reform the Church cannot subsist with the perturbation of the Civil State and that Religion cannot justly be advanced in depressing Loyalty which is one of the principal ingredients and ornaments of true Religion for after the Precept
they committed an execrable Murther 1 Sam. 11.12 And every Penny they levied upon them they committed Rapine employing their Robberies to maintain Murther and Rebellion If the Names of these crimes offend their ears the crimes themselves should much more afflict their Consciences these terms proceed not from passion but flow from the necessary consequence of this Truth That the war of the Covenanters is destitute of all Authority lawful and divine Oh that every Christian who hath drawn his sword in this sinful cause would seriously consider how he should answer it before God and man and that he may have horrour and dread in him for the evil he hath deserved and yet much more for that which he hath committed CHAP. XXII Of the Depraved and Evil Faith of the Covenanters BUT we cannot so slightly let them pass with their fore-alledged excuse for the War that they durst not trust the King The cause is evident which is because they had taken from him all the ground of reason that might be that he should trust them nothing being more to be distrusted than a Depraved and Ill Faith The King permitted them to perpetuate the Parliament as long as they pleased he committed himself wholly over to their Faith Affection and Conscience if any thing obligeth a man to be faithful it is to repose an entire and free confidence in him and there is nothing more odious and unworthy the name of man than to employ that assurance and confidence they have freely committed to us to deceive and ruine them They themselves after this signal favour without example often declared to the world that if they should abuse so great a trust to the dammage and detriment of his Majesty they should be unworthy to live upon the earth but this was before the Loyal Subjects had separated themselves from their company They are then condemned by their own confession for that most signal Act of Trust such as never King gave to his Subjects they returned him the most infamous and perfidious Acts and base ingratitude that ever Subjects rendred to their King He that said Fidelem si putaveris facies the means to make men faithful was to think them so was never known to these men In Conscience can ye believe that when the King committed to them this great power that he understood it thus That when he should refuse to do any thing they requested him he gave them liberty to force him to do it or to do it without him to take from him his Children to seize upon his Revenues to turn his Armies Navies and Forts against him to make a broad Seal and to break his to dispose of all the Offices of the Crown to levy Forreign Souldiers and bring them into his Kingdom to deprive his Subjects of their Goods and possessions to drive the Ministers of the Gospel from their flocks to rob the Church of her Revenues to overthrow the ancient Laws of the Land and to make a Religion all new After all this can any man wonder if they durst not trust the King For where is the Criminal or Malefactor that dares commit himself to or trust the Judge and where is the Cozener and Deceiver who being discovered dares trust him whom he hath cozened and deceived If by these vile actions they have violated the trust the King reposed in them and if by the Act for the continuance of the Parliament the King gave them a power to deal thus with him we refer our selves to the better part of the Parliament who withdrew themselves to the King abhorring such a prodigious violation of the publick faith and of the duty of Subjects and Christians unfaithfulness they committed the like to the people who deputed and committed to them the publick safety For doubtless in their choice it never enter'd into the Spirits of them who sent them to invest them with an absolute power over their goods and persons much less over their King for they could not give that which they had not nevertheless they have executed this power casting their fellow-Citizens out of their houses and possessions and gather'd together great treasure out of the rents of the King and his Subjects manifesting themselves very liberal of the goods of others But they defend these actions by a new Maxime of State invented upon this occasion Some of the principal Citizens of London being oppressed by their great and often Taxes came to the House and represented to them that it was their duties to maintain the Subjects in the propriety of their goods and beseeched them not to fall themselves into that inconvenience which they were bound to remedy The Gentlemen of the House of Commons answered them that in truth the Subjects might plead the propriety of their goods against the King but not against the Parliament to whom it appertained to dispose of all the goods of the Kingdom but to perswade the people to believe this is a very hard task who rather judged that the Parliament whom they had chosen had violated the publick faith and the trust committed to them and had taken that into their disposing which was never committed them Let these Gentlemen never hereafter speak so loud of their publick faith since they have lost it nor ever attempt to borrow more money upon so sorry a caution There were none in either Houses who had not often taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy by which they acknowledge the King their Soveraign depending of none and had sworn to him loyalty and obedience They moreover took the protestation made in the beginning of the Parliament and imposed upon the whole Kingdome wherein also they swear the same thing The Oath of the Covenant which was taken after renew'd the same promise and there they swore to defend the Person and Authority of the King and cause the world to behold their fidelity and that they would not in the least thing diminish his just power and greatnesse Consider here good Reader Oaths enough to binde them to perform and keep their promise But this multitude of oaths is a kind of proof of their ill faith for they that swear often manifest thereby that they think themselves unworthy to be believed and distrust that every one mistrusts them It had been better for them to have been faithful to their King without swearing for as in the Grammar Latine two Negatives make an Affirmative these on the contrary in stead thereof would seem to make two Affirmatives to make one Negative and that many oaths to be faithful to their Soveraign bound them to do the contrary for in effect these last oaths were solely imployed to ruine the antient Oath of Allegiance for if their intentions had been simply to be faithful to their Soveraign they needed have taken no other oath then the first Therefore after these two new oaths came the third which they called the Negative Oath in which they caused men to swear That they should neither
directly nor indirectly assist the King in this war And thus behold in fine the mask taken off and the intention of their former oaths uncover'd There can be no greater symptome of a desperate sick State then the multiplication of oaths to form parties and factions and we may say after the Prophet Jeremy 23.10 The land mourns because of Oaths As for the principals who imposed the Oaths they made use of them to halter and intangle the consciences of the people for to serve their ambition practising the Doctrine of Lysander who taught that men ought to be amused with oaths as children with bables and as for the people upon whom the oaths were imposed for the most part they took them rather for imitation then knowledge or for fear or from a blind zeal or an implicit faith Moreover the multitude of Oaths do imbase the dignity and a people accustomed to them respect no more an oath then their old shoes Those also that swear often are often forsworn overthrowing one oath with another But the Oath of the Covenant hath this singular wherein it surpasseth all Chymera's Centaurs Hypogriffâ— in extravagance and contradiction for in taking it in the sense of the Covenanters they overthrow this Oath by the Oath it self and they forswear that which they had sworr for in sweaâ—ing that they would defend the Person and Authority of the King and make the world behold their fidelity according to their opinion they are bound to make war against him and by virtue of this Oath they persecuted rob'd and after all deposed him Oh supreme degree of perfidy and frantick blindness Have we not whereat to mourn and lament to behold these illuminated Reformers so plunged in the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity for to persecute their good King with all rage and violence because they had sworn to defend him and to be faithful to him This Oath was called Covenant that is to say Alliance or confederation because those that took it for at present its forbidden to be taken pretended to make an Alliance and Covenant with God This Oath is yet in vogue in Scotland It 's their New Covenant besides that of the New Testament and the modern Canonical Scripture which is Judge in all cases of conscience and from which there is no appeal Their ill faith is moreover evident in the composition of this Oath and certainly it 's the only thing evident in the third Article which is a discourse so twisted and interwoven composed expresly not to be understood There they swear to defend the Person and Authority of the King in defence of Religion and the publique Liberty It 's very hard to say what that signifies every good soul who suffer'd himself to be perswaded to take this Oath understood thereby that to defend the Person of the King was a necessary point both to preserve their Religion and Liberty and that they could not fear God as they ought without honouring the King and those that took the Oath in this sense were bound to fight against the Covenanters for the defence of their Religion and Soveraign But the unworthy companions of the Covenant interpreted it thus that they bind themselves to defend the Person and Authority of the King so far forth as it is compatible with the defence of Religion and Liberty Now say they we find that the defence of the Person and Authority of the King is incompatible with the defence of Religion and the Publique Liberty and therefore we are bound to oppose and ruine the King for the defence of Liberty and Religion And thus it appears that this malicious obscurity is a fold of the Serpent and a lurking hole of the evil spirit even the rather when we narrowly consider this construction to defend one thing in defence of another which signifies nothing and wants both true Logick and common sense The Oath being a profession before God and the strongest affirmation of all had need to have been clear and couched in such terms that every one might have understood it in the same sense they took it but to insert such equivocations was to abuse the Name of God whom they took to witness and the simplicity of the people He that takes a forked Oath and understands it not in the sense that he that gives it or understands it not at all swears not in Truth in Righteousness and Judgement which are the qualities required in an Oath for he calls God to witness his hypocrisie blindness and temerity The same Article makes profession of fidelity to the King and to diminish nothing of his just Authority and greatness It 's no new thing for Rebels to take the Oath of Allegiance to their Soveraign to combine a faction against him The Mutineers in the time of Richard the Second took an Oath to be faithful to the King and people and yet nevertheless made use of this Oath to stir up the people to ruine the King And these did the like and when hereupon we tax them with unfaithfulness and breach of their Oath they answer and pay us with a distinction betwixt the politick and personal capacity of the King and they tell us that it was against Charles they made the Warre and not against the King making the King a pure Idea an Accident without a Substance It 's very hard for them to say what became of the politick capacity of the King then when they beheaded him in his personal capacity for they so long honoured him in Idea that at last they massacred him in substance But they forget that in the same Article they had sworn to be faithful to the Person of the King and protested to defend his Person and Authority as things conjoyned and inseparable So strong is truth and respect due to Soveraignty so natural to Subjects that even in the Oath which they formed to confederate against him their duty is couched in express terms which will one day be produced in judgement against them But in good earnest have we not much to wonder at and to acknowledge the wrath of God in the blindness of these men that so many millions of men should think they were bound to persecute the King to all extremity and to take away his goods honour liberty safety and at last his life because they had sworn to defend the Person and Authority of the King and make the world behold their fidelity and that they would diminish nothing of his just Power and Authority Is it possible that their by-got zeal could so dislocate their brains and a-brutish their spirits as to make them commit so many crimes and enormities upon so unreasonable a consequence Oh Lord create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us In the fourth Article of this Oath they promise to endeavour with all their power to bring to condigne punishment all those who were the cause of separating the King from his people and according to this
which was the way as he thought most proper for the designs of his ambition then privately to make him away but he durst not proceed thus far whilst the King was so neer the gates of London and in the heart of his Kingdome the hearts whereof he possessed I will not undertake to sound the mysteries of iniquity of this Agent of Satan but shew you a piece of his perfidiousness and profound hypocrisie The night before the King stole from Hampton Court Cromwell came to visit him causing all persons to withdraw out of the Chamber except Major Huntington in whom he only confided and taking the King aside had a long discourse with him which Huntington could not hear but could well behold his passionate gesture which witnessed a singular freedome and affection Cromwell at his departure cast himself upon his knees and took the King by the hand kissing it many times wetting it with his tears and at length lifting up his voice said to him Sir so God bless me and my children as I am resolved to endeavour to place you and your children in your rights and dignities after this approaching to Huntington Major saith he tarry with the King and 〈◊〉 there happen any thing now this night take a good horse and come with all speed and acquaint me This night then the King passed secretly the Thames and taking post cast himself into the trap they had laid for him in that retired place So soon as Huntington knew of the departure of the King and whether he was gone he went in all hast to give advice to Cromwell that the King had escaped into the Isle of Wight who beholding him astonished and amazed at this sudden change laughed at him telling him That the King was there where he desired and that there wanted nothing now to the satisfying of his desires but that all his children were there with him This history is attested by Huntington himself a person of credit and repute whose eyes this action and the like hath opened and turned his heart towards the King his Soveraign Now the King being confined into this little Island where all the avenues might easily be kept by the Creatures of Cromwell and the other Gentlemen of the Covenant the Mask was presently taken off at Westminster and in the Army and all their oaths and protestations to maintain the person and authority of the King were changed into loud cries in calling for Justice against him to which the Gentlemen at Westminster easily condescended and for this effect declared him incapable to govern charged him with all the crimes malice could devise forbidding all persons to make any more addresses to him But in this fair way they had some disturbance by those Parties that in the year 1648. rose for the King but God justly provoked against this sinful Nation suffered injustice to triumph through the disloyaly of persons who having until that time born Arms against the King took part with him expresly to betray and ruine him And thus from the beginning to the end of this Tragedy falshood hath plaid his part and at length this just Prince lost his life by the hand of those his Subjects who had called Heaven and Earth to witness their Loyalty and Affection and this is very admirable and memorable to all ages how the Conscience and constancy of the King took a way altogether contrary to that of the Covenanters for whilst the Covenanters swore themselves to destroy him he would do neither the one nor the other to save his life or Crown for its manifest that there was a time wherein if the King would have promised that which he was resolved not to have kept he had in a short time been put into such a condition according to all humane appearances as would have put him out of the power of all the discontented to constrain him to have kept his promise I cannot pass the last Act of this hideous Treason without letting the world behold another piece of the damnable Hipocrisie of Oliver Cromwel The day assigned for the Execution of the King being come the Councel of War sate which was then the Great Councel of the Kingdom A Letter without Name was addressed to this Councel to represeâ—t to them by Reasons of Conscience and Prudence the formidable consequences of so strange and hateful an Execution Cromwel seemed to be much touched at it which caused some suspicions as though he himself underhand had procured it and proposed it to the consideration of the Councel part of this company began to yeeld to the force of Justice and their duty and to lean towards compassion Cromwel beholding this made a turn to the door and sent one of his confidence to those to whom the Execution was committed to command them to dispatch the business Then returning to the Councel Table made a long Discourse shewing the inconvenience of this execution and advised them so to secure the person of the King for the time to come that he might neither do nor receive hurt This Discouse was seconded by others and then again re-assumed by himself with a great many words to lengthen the Consultation until that one briskly entring into the Chamber told them Gentlemen You may cease to consult the work is done the King is executed Upon this Cromwel suddenly fell upon his knees with signs of great devotion crying out That this was the work of God and a true stroak of heaven the Councel being disposed to save his life but the Divine justice would not suffer so much innocent blood shed by this Tyrant to pass unpunished and hereupon made an eloquent Prayer to give glory to God and acknowledge his providence And from this History I leave the Reader to draw a Character of this Person whose perpetual method was to make his Impostures to pass for miraculous and divine managements When he would make his Inventions pass into publike resolutions he would suborn a Prophet or Prophetess who should come and find him in full Councel or in the head of his Army for to enjoyn him on the behalf of God that which before he had resolved he caused all the Councels he proposed to pass for motions of the blessed Spirit therefore if his Councels and Actions did ill accord with his preceding professions his inspirations from above excused all and he laid all the fault upon God when any minded him of his Protestations made to preserve the person of the King and restore him to his Dignities He would Answer That it was indeed his Intention but that when he sought God to open him a way for the performance God had silenced him and shewed that it would not be acceptable to him His partie seriously give him this commendation That he was so affected with the glory of God that if he had promised any thing with the most solemn and holy adjurations and that afterward God should put it into his spirit That the contrary to what he
suit or cause might come unto me and I would do him justice 2 Sam. 15.4 In publick grievances good Subjects are wont to cast the blame upon the Ministers of State and rest satisfied in seeing some of them punished accounting it their principal interest to preserve the honour of their Soveraign and good Princes when they are informed that the Ministers of State have abused their Authority to the damage of their Subjects which is theirs are wont to examine them and judge them according to the Laws And in this the King did as much as possible they could require of him having submitted the persons of those whom the Covenanters complained against to be judged and tried by lawful and ordinary waies But whilst they tread under foot the Royal Authority the Power of Parliament and the Majesty of the Laws and that they were in open war against him what reason had he to submit his Servants and Ministers to the judgment of his enemies Being certain that whilst the War continued they would aim most at them who served him best Then when the Parliament was whole and entire there passed a Vote worthy the gravity of that great Court That the King could do no wrong and that his Officers and not he were guilty of the evil which was done in the publick Government But since those who loved the King departed and withdrew themselves to him those which remained at Westminster followed a way quite contrary for they cast upon the King all the faults of his Servants and made use of them against him whom they ought should have punished for having ill served him Then when they took in hand to examine the Ministers of State in stead of punishing them which were guilty they received them into favour yea after their â—aults proved against them and turned all the discontent of the people upon the King What a great noise was there in the House of Commons against the forgers of Monopolies One would have thought that hardly any should have escaped with their lives but there happened altogether the contrary For because the Monopolists and other accused persons made a considerable number in Parliament they made use of their faults to make a strong faction against the King terrifying and making them understand there was no way left to preserve them from utter ruine but to joyn with the new party which was forming and hereupon they were promised impunity for what evils they had done on condition they should do greater Some of these were sent to the King to Newmarket in the behalf of their companions to whom his Majesty said these words capable to convert them or to make their Indiâ—emenâ— at the day of Judgment Gentlemen lay your hands upon your Consciences Who are they which invented those Taxes by which you have so provoked my people against me For whose advantage and profit were those Imposts â—â—â—ied Were my Revenues encreased by them It was you that induced and moved me 〈◊〉 them for your own particular profit and now you return me a worthy recompence Other Parliament men guilty of many crimes were kept in the Parliament in hope of impuâ—ity the holy Covenant 〈◊〉 a Garment which covered a multitude of sins even to the violating of a great Lady and abusing her by own of their Members almost in the sight of the Parliament Behold these the Reformers of Church and State Others which were not of the Parliament but under censure for having been Councellours or Instruments in the Imposts and Taxes of the people were released by them and employed for the same business as persons who well understood the Trade who pillaged then with a good Conscience for the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Those whose infamous life was the shame of the Royal Court were the honour of the Court at Westminster and the Pillars of the Covenant Likewise the Judges accused of corruption and the Ministers of a scandalous life in taking the Covenant obtained a plenary indulgence of all their sins for after that there was no more to say to them for those who washed themselves in this water returned as white as if they had been washed with Ink or with the second Baptism the Anabaptists use at this day But now let us look upon the Armies Our enemies cry aloud that the King made use of those of the Church of Rome to serve him in his Wars Upon which an excellent Writer makes this gentle Question to them How many were in their Armies or how many they would have had For if the common report do not much wrong them they employed divers persons of that Religion there were persons of Honour and Quality who assured us that they Prisoners of the same Religion served the Covenanters We refer our selves to their own Consciences if they gave not a Commission to my Lord Aston to levy Forces The Relation in notable the King being at York this gallant man accounted the most experienced and best Commander of War of his time came to present his Service to his Majesty the King gave him thanks and withal told him he was resolved to employ none of his Religion in his Army Well saith he I will go then to those who will employ me and indeed went presently to Westminster where he was received with open Arms and a Commission given him written and signed which he carried to the King Ye cannot wonder then that the King made use of him and others of his Religion whom before he was resolv'd not to employ although he had to take away all shadow of occasion from his enemies who sought somthing whereat to quarrel with him made a Proclamation that none professing the Religion of the Church of Rome should come neer his Court. After this the Covenanters used all their power to make them draw to the Kings Party well considering their party being so small would bring more hatred than help to the King and for this effect they treated them with great inhumanity forcing them to forsake their Houses and Lands and run and hide themselves under the Kings Protection and this the King could not refuse them for as they owed him their Subjection the King owed them his Protection so long as they governed themselves according to the Laws and accomplished the Conditions whereby they were permitted by Act of Parliament to live in the Kingdom By this reason of Reciprocal duty the King protecting them as his Subjects they were bound to defend him as their King and ye shall not find in all the Statutes which concern them that they are exempted to serve the King in his Armies neither is it reasonable that they only should be free from the perils of war whilst thâ—ir fellow Subjects venture their lives and are shedding their bloud for the defence of their Country The Covenanters made it appear sufficiently to the world that they judged that Religion ought not to exclude any from bearing Arms in the publick danger for
in their Armies they made use of all Religions yea that of the Church of Rome as we shall shew hereafter If it were lawful for them to make use of those who denied the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and of others that denied his Divinity and those who were re-baptized and denied Baptism to Infants and the Blessed Sacrament of the whole Church it were not less lawful for the King to make use of Souldiers of the Roman Religion and if those whom they now call Reformed embrace the Doctrine of the Jesuits touching the deposing and murdering of Kings and that persons of the Roman Religion reject this and joyn themselves with the Reformed Church in this point the King had reason to serve himself of the Last as well as of the First Moreover the King had but two Religions in his Armies which were too many And although the Roman is not tolerated by the Laws yet the Statutes give protection to the persons which make profession of it but the Covenanters Motly Army consisted of many Religions there can be no certain number of them for they multiplied and subdivided daily and these Religions had no tolleration by the Laws nor the persons which made profession of them But put the case that the Covenanters were a party Reformed uniform and illuminated since they have destroyed their King what Law Divine or Humane doth hinder him for using all means that God gives him to defend himself And if amongst his Loyal Subjects there be some who are blinded in matter of Religion why should he not make use of those who are blind to repress those who are illuminated and maintain his Life and Crown 'T is then a ridiculous Question which they demand of the King whether he will defend the reformed Religion with Souldiers of the Roman Religion for he makes not use of them to defend his Religion but his Person and Scepter which those whom they call Reformed would wickedly pluck out of his hands 'T is foolishly and unjustly done of them to complain that the King made them to kill the Protestants a name which they make a great noise with when they have lost the thing they were not Protestants but Rebels whom the King killed in his just defence The King was not to enquire of what Religion they were that made War upon him the true Religion gives not license to Malefactors to do evil and to binde the hands of the Judge that he should not punish them chiefly when the Malefactor fights against the Judge and he to whom God hath committed the sword to execute vengeance in wrath is constrained to make use of it to defend his life and authority the Malefactor who is instructed in a holy Religion is doubly guilty he is the evil servant in the Gospel who knows his Masters will but does it not and therefore he shall be beaten with many stripes This above written serves as an Answer to the eâ—clamations of our enemies That the King caused an Armie of Irish Papists to come over to kill the Protestants in England for it matters not what Religion the English be of if they be Rebels and who can blame him for employing Rebels converted against Rebels obstinate but onely those that perish by them But that which gives occasion of laughter in this Objection is that there were none and the Irish have not yet sent over their Army into England according to their promise to help the King We grant that the English are far more considerable to the King then the Irish suppose the difference be as great as betwixt a Son and a servant but if the Son prove unnatural and draws his sword against his Father who can blame the Father if he arms his servant were he a Barbary slave to defend his life 'T is not to purpose then for them so often to object to us that the Irish were the Executioners to cut the throats of a multitude of Protestants in Ireland and that it 's a horrible thing to bring them over into England to do as much here for at the worst they were but Executioners of Rebels Certainly civil War is a horrible thing where one destruction draws on another Abyssus abyssum advocat but since the enraged and implacable obstinacy of the Covenanters brought the King to this extremity that he could not quench the fire that they had kindled in his Kingdom but by ruine like those who would quench a Town all in flames with Cannon-shot what could we do other then call in the Irish to his succours having rebellions then on all sides Was it not wisely done of him to make an agreement with the most tractable and pliant and to serve himself with their Forces to make head against the others If the English would not have had the King made peace with the Irish why did they then refuse the peace and pardon which the King so often and so graciously rendred them And did he enter into Treaty with his Irish Subjects before he had a long time in vain sollicited his English to their duty Should he rather willingly have lost two Kingdoms to help his enemies to render themselves Masters of the third But say they the Irish shed abundance of Protestants blood in Ireland which should have been revenged in stead of granting them peace It s true they committed many fearful and strange cruelties but this blood hath been sufficiently revenged For for one which they put to death five of theirs have been killed since the beginning of the War And moreover this reason sounds ill in the mouthes of Christians who ought to leave vengeance to God We could not expect that the Covenanters would ever commend this peace which might have been so disadvantagious to them and might have supplied the King with many Souldiers if the Irish had kept their word The principal reason of their complaint was because the Londoners lost much hereby for they had advanced great sums of monies to the two Houses for which they were to have had the Irish Rebels Lands after they were extirpated which was to buy the Bears skin before he was killed and this partly was the cause of breaking up of the Treaty at Uxbridge for the Citizens of London would by no means hear of Peace unless the King would break his faith with the Irish and root them out for the quarrel that the English Covenanters had with them was not for their Religion or Rebellion but because they would not suffer themselves to be killed in a peaceable and quiet manner that thereby the Merchant Adventurers of London might have their Bargain And thus the Covenanters as much as in them lay justified the unjust arms of the Irish since they would by no means have peace with them And after all the King hath the sole power of Peace and War and if he will receive into grace and pardon his Subjects who have offended him he is to give account to none Yet nevertheless that it may appear
answered that he judged his agreement then profitable for the interests of his party and hereupon he was dismissed and sent away without any punishment and these Gentlemen condemned this accord and allyance by a publick Act. But where is the man that is so simple as to be deceived by so sottish a force But to undecive the abused and to shew that these Gentlemen gave no orders for to break this agreement they had news a while after that great succours were put into this Garrison of Derry then the Covenanters by the Troops of his Holiness and then all the Jugling was discovered and there rested then no other answer for them to give but that of the Italian who being exceedingly pained with the Gout and having prayed to God and all the Saints and yet found no ease began to call and pray to the Devil for help and gave this Reason to them that rebuked him for it Ogni adjuto e bono all help is good from whomsoever it come Now every man who shall compare their Protestations with their Actions may demand these Questions with astonishment and horror Are these the men who have so cried out against the murtherers which massacred so many thousand Protestants Are these they who before and after the Massacre did so press the King to sign their utter extirpation Are these those who rendred the King odious only for offering them peace and pardon Are these the men that stirred up the people against their King because he had some few Souldiers of the Roman Religion scattered here and there in his Armies for he never had an entire company of that Religion and yet behold they themselves entertain a great Body of an Army of the most refined Papists and the most violent enemies of the Reformed Religion to whom when the King treated with them he refused to give them any toleration Behold the Army of the Popes become the Parliaments behold the Murderers whom they would have rooted out become their Souldiers Behold the revenge of the blood of their Brethren which they made such a noise of The Massacre of the Protestants is pardoned the Murderers provided they massacre those that remain of them Is it to pay the Armies of his Holiness that such great Summes of Money are raised of the Protestants and that they suck the poor Families even to the very Marrow Is this the effect of so many solemn Professions of so many Fasts and publick Humiliations for the establishment of the Gospel in Ireland Where is their shame Where is their Ingenuity Where is their Conscience Be confounded Infamous Hypocrites and since ye cannot hereafter avoid the execration of men endeavour to prevent by your repentance the Judgment of God upon your Impostures CHAP. XXIV How the different Factions of the Covenant agreed to ruine the King and contributed to put him to death WE will not undertake to deprive the Independants of the glory to have been the last Actors in that exectable paracide committed upon the Sacred Majesty of their King an action which being the shame of the Nation and reproach of Religion was nevertheless set forth to the eyes of the world with the ostentation of Justice and Piety and for this horrible execution there was a solemn Thanksgiving enjoyned to be rendered to God by a publick Ordinance It 's true this Ordinance was ill obeyed and many Ministers cryed out against it which did so provoke their new Masters that they appointed a Committee to eject the Ministers out of their Benefices and to place in Lay persons Now because the Presbyterians thunder aloud against this action we will see whether they have not contributed to it and if their behaviour to their good King gave him occasion to hope for better dealing at their hands And for this purpose we may do well to consider the Propositions which they presented to the King at Beverly and since at Uxbridge and at New-Castle then when the Presbyterians held the better end of the staffe they required of him in substance that he should not dispose neither of the Militia nor of the civil Government nor of his Townes and Revenues nor of his Children nor of his Court nor of Honours nor of the Offices of the Crown and that he should hold no power in the Treaties of peace of War and of Commerce with his Neighbours That his Councel should no more depend upon him that he should have no Negative voice in Parliament and should be bound to grant whatsoever the Parliament would demand of him that he should shew no Acts of Grace nor execute Justice and not have the power to do either good or evil that he should consent that his party should be for ever ruined and deliver up all those who had served him to their rage and Butchery That he should utterly overthrow both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government cut all the Nerves of Government and dispossess himself and his posterity without resource In brief that he should betray all the trusts God had committed to him and render himself the most miserable and guilty creature in the whole Universe All the choice left this poor Prince was whether he would be destroyed by his enemies or by his own proper Act for if he condescended not to these demands being then in their hands that made them the least he could expect was to be deposed and if he granted them he deposed himself Every man that hath either prudence or Conscience will chuse rather to be executed by another hand than be his own proper Executioner Read the Articles which are too long to be inserted here and if there were any thing that was his or which God had given him to keep that these Gentlemen demanded not of him except his life and if he could assure himself of his life after he had given his enemies the Sword of Justice and had by consequence acknowledged them his Superiours before whom he was Justiciable The Sequel of Affairs have shewed the truth of this consequence for it was upon the Presbyterian Principles that the Independants built their Conclusions Let them weigh well this reasoning Saint Paul teacheth us Rom. 13. that the Supream Magistrate beareth the Sword by God he is his Minister upon this ground the Supream Magistrate exerciseth Authority in the earth by way of force Observe that the Apostle saith not he beareth Swords he assignes him but one and this sword both executes Justice and the Militia by one and the same power Now the Presbyterians have a long time taught that the Sword of the Militia appertained of right and originally to the people of whom the Parliament is the Representative and if this Doctrine be not true their Arms were unjust but if it be true the sword of Justice also belongs to them for if upon these grounds it was lawful for them to wrest out of the hand of the King the Sword of the Militia to make use of it against him it was no less
lawful for them to employ the Sword of Justice against him all their Philosophy cannot divide these two Powers which have the same foundation both in Scripture and reason and which have been equally violated in beheading him and making war against him Therefore the Presbyterians who now cry so loud that the Person of the King was inviolable and not subject to the sword of Justice condemns by this all their past actions for if it were an execrable paracide to cut off his Head upon a Scaffold it could not be the action of a good Subject to take off his Head by a Cannon Bullet in the field as they many times assayed And in employing the Militia against the King they gave the Independants the Sword of Justice who unhappily massacred him After they took from him his Sword his Crown his Revenues his Servants his Children the Liberty of his Person and which is much more of his Conscience they left the Independants but a step to go further which was to take away his life And all wherein these last surpass them was that they gave the last blow to the King the Presbyterians laid his head on the Block and the Independants cut it off The name Independant was hardly known then when his Majesty complained in one of his Declarations that divers persons to the number of seventeen had been accused to have said they would kill the King and how the Accusers could obtain no Justice against them if the Members of Parliament who now abhor this murder had then had any care of the safety of his sacred person they would never have stayed the course of Justice against these crimes They had not entertained in pay Mercurius Britannicus and such Rascals by horrible Libels to defame his Majesty and enflame the rage of a foolish and seditious people against him If the quarrel had been only against his evil Counsellours which is the old and super-annuated pretext of all Rebels they would never have cashiered the Army of the Earl of Essex for to employ a and a medly of pestilent Anabaptists whom they knew to be mortal and sworn enemies to the King and Monarchy Certainly we have so much Charity as to believe they had not an intention to put him to death when they began the war against him no not even when they imprisoned him as Judas according to all appearance had no intention to cause his Master to be crucified when he sold him to the Council of the Jews and never thought that the Priests would proceed so far for when he heard they had condemned him to dy this unexpected blow so surprized him and moved him in such a manner that he presently brought back again the reward of iniquity and rendred witness to the Truth and to his Conscience before the Council I have sinned in betraying innocent blood 'T is more than the Presbyterians have declared beholding their K. condemned and beheaded by their practises although it was beyond their intention neither have they been so smitten with remorse of conscience to bring back again that which they have got by sacriledge and rebellion and yet notwithstanding Jesus saith of Judas much more penitent then some of them That it had been better for him he had never been born In speaking thus we have no design to lead them to despair but to repentance to which the mercy of God is ever open since we speak of the party and not of particulars many whereof detest their Councels and past actions and we do not doubt but that of such the King shall yet receive most signal services It s that whereof his wise and glorious Father assured him in his last instructions Be assured saith he as I am that the most part of those who have injured me have done it not through malice but through misinformation and a sinister apprehension of the affairs None will be more loyal and faithful both to me and you then those subjects who being sensible of their errors and of the wrongs we have received shall feel in their souls most vehement stirrings to repentance and ardent desires to do us some reparation for their past offences Without question there are many that yet serve the Covenanters especially those in civil imployments and even some in the Parliament who groan under the yoke of impiety and sigh after Religion peace their King and their duty But alas 't is but to think of liberty when they are in chains although so afflicted as we are we have great compassion on them and esteem their condition worse then ours It s a great misery to be obliged to evil because they have done evil and to do the work of the devil and to know it and cannot retire Behold the fruits of affranchising themselves in the beginning to do evil to the end that good might come of it flattering themselves with a good intention which pretext cannot be wanting to any injustice and with a vain hope to return to their duty when they should see it expedient and to amend when they would what they had marred they offended God with gladness of heart but now they find themselves fettred in a cruel necessity continually to offend him or to cast themselves into our condition they were better to come and keep us company and generously to be ruined for the love of God then to be perpetual Actors in the ruine of their King their Country their Church and their Conscience and by their hardness and impenitent heart treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and the declaration of the righteous judgement of God who will render to every one according to his works CHAP. XXV Of the cruelty of the Covenanters towards the good Subjects of the King FRom the oppression of the King let us cast our eyes upon that of his subjects to begin this discourse is to enter into a gulf without bottom of misery and impiety for the Covenant is the den of Cyclops paved with blood hung with spoils 't is the Cave of Radamanth where is heard the noise of whips the clattering of chains the menaces of furies and the pitiful shrieks of those whom the Vultures tear a pieces and who are fleâ—d alive there you shall behold thousands massacred stretched upon the ground the Flower of the Church and State cut off the grandure of the Kingdome reduced into a heap of ruines upon which set some petit Gentlemen enriched by the general wrack and fatted by the blood and bowels of their miserable country there you shall behold the Grandees of the Kingdome a foot begging the favour of their inferiours a horseback and beholding their offices and revenues distributed among common persons and their enemies Against them and all the Nobility is the great quarrel the Covenanters hate them because they are persons of honour and acknowledged the King for the Fountain of Honor and as such for the most part they have followed and served him thus almost all the rich and