upon the Pamphlets lying on every Stationer's stall 3. The next sort of men that betrayed and killed their King 3 Rulers of the people were not so much a Sect of seduced Zelots as a companie of great Rulers Rulers of the people saith the Text or as they are termed in their rebellion against Moses Princes of the Assemblie famous in the Congregation men of Renown Numb 6.2 and these were either the heads of severall families as our Lords and Nobilities are or else such as in their several countries or cities by their wealth or authority had gained power over the people to like or dislike what they pleased as our Knights of the Shire or Burgesses for the Parliament are and these were very deep in setting forward the Treason and Murder of their King 4. The Sadduces were another Sect among the Jews of pestilent doctrine 4 The Sadduces denying all Scripture that made against them and denying the immortalitie of the soul and the resurrection of the dead like Cromwels Atheistical Commanders and all punishment for sins after death therefore being more wicked in their tenets then the Pharisees and absurder then the Scribes it is very like they were more active in the death of their King then the rest of the forementioned Murderers 5. 5 Lawyers like the Chair-men of the long Parliament There were some comprised under some of the former Sects that are termed by the Evangelists 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lawyers which as Christ saith sate in Moses Chaire and so were Chair-men because of some excellent parts that were thought to be in them beyond the ordinary sort of men and these men saith our Saviour have taken away the key of knowledge i.e. the Law and instead thereof they taught the traditions of men which traditions S. Luke 1.52 Matth. 15.3 Ephes 2.15 Paul calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we may properly term Ordinances as our English Translation renders it and by these new-devised Ordinances of these Chairâ—men they quite spoyled and frustrated the good old Law both of God and Man 6. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we translate Elders or 6 The Presbyans as the word properly sounds Presbâ—ters had a mighty share in the blood of their King and S. Luke saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7 The Priests Matth. 27.1 Mark how the Prâ—sbyters are not only called the Elders but the Elders of the people because the common people only magnifie them and they only endevour to please the people the Presbyterie were the first that came against him 7. The Priests joyned with these Presbyters to kill their King for so the Evangelist saith that when the morning was come all the chief Priests and Elders of the people took counsell against Jesus so put him to death and as then the Jewish Elders and Priests conspired together against their King so we find now the Presbyters or Preaching-Elders and Romish Priests though their faces are averse and seem to look divers wayes yet like Sampsons Foxes they are tyed together by the tayls and both are Anti-Kings enemies unto Monarchy and do like Mars his Priests called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 scatter the fire of Sedition and Rebellion amongst the people and Sheba-like blow their Trumpets in all places even in their Pulpits to stirre up the discontented people to take Armes against their King though he be Christ himself And therefore if any King would be free from Rebellion he must banish these Priests and Presbyters from his Dominions 8. 8 The whole Paâ—liament of the Jews conspired together to put Christ their King to death Mar. 15.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nemine contradicente Esay 1.4 S. Mark saith that these Priests held a Consultation with the Presbyters or Elders and Scribes and the whole Councill and bound Jesus and carried him away and delivered him to Pilate so here is the whole Parliament of the Jews against their King who had they not been Jews had never done it but these had formerly forsaken God and therefore no wonder that they do now betray their King yet it might be wondered that this Councill consistings of Heterogeniall parts severall Sects as Pharisees and Sadduces Scribes and Herodians Priests and Presbyters whereof most of them differed in many things and hated each other very much even as much as Papist and Puritane Calvinist and Lutheran do amongst us yet they can deponere inimicitias lay aside all differences and conspire together to betray to death their Lord and King and our Saviour himself tels us how Videlicet when they saw the Heir they said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 within themselves i. e. by their wicked thoughts and then they said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among themselves i. e. by consultation and publishing their intention one to another Come i. e. by combination and making a firm League and Covenant with an indissolveable oath that although we be of sundry sects and different opinions among our selves yet after we have made this Covenant we need not suspect one another but we may confide in the Covenanters and assure our selves of fidelity to assist one another to the uttermost ut occidamus even to kill him that his Kingdom and his Vineyard both Church and Common-wealth may be our own and thus saevis inter se convenit Vrsis these cruell Bears and savage Beasts do consult and agree together to put to death the Lords Anointed Therefore this Counsell worse then the worst of the Popish counsels may rightly be termed a Devillish counsell Psal 1.1 even the counsell of the ungodly the way of sinners and the seat of the scornfull when as Jacob saith of his sons Simeon and Levi The instruments of cruelty are in their habitations and their swords are the weapons of violence and therefore O my soul come not thou into their secret and let not mine honor be united unto their assembly But let thy thoughts abhor all their actions For in their anger they slew a man and through envy they murdered the best of men and their own King even Jesus Christ and therefore cursed be their anger for it was fierce and their wrath for it was cruell and for their malice let all such murderers be divided in Jacob and scattered in Israel and let due vengeance be speedily rendered to all such abominable Traytors 9. 9 Flattering Courtiers We read of another Faction that had their fingers in this Treason i. e. the Herodians who were a company of flattering Courtiers and alwaies followed the over-ruling party And these were subtile Foxes that made use of Policy without honesty and therefore Christ that knew them well enough Mar. 8.15 and I would to God King Charls had known his Courtiers also adviseth us to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Herodians i. e. the leaven not of bread but of the doctrine and practices when as their Doctrines are contagious and infectious and their practices
the manner of them to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him so it may be Zimri will shew some good reason why he kill'd his Master And I doubt not but he had learnt Absolons lesson that it was for the ill government of Elah propter bonum Reipublicae for the good of the people that they might be better governed and much eased of many burthens and relieved of their grievances To which I say that you must understand all Traytors and wicked actors to be just like unto Watermen that row one way and look another way so they pretend one thing and intend another thing Thus Zimri pretended to amend the Government to ease the people to reform the Laws and rectifie their Religion but his intention and his chiefest ayme was to make himself great to get his Masters place and to become a King himself which was first in his intention though last in the execution otherwise if his principal ayme had been as he pretended the publike good he would have turned and changed the Kingdom of Israel into a Common-wealth or else he would have made either Omri or Tibni whom the people loved and not himself whom they hated to be their King sed menrita est iniquitas sibi but wickedesse though not always yet sometimes bewrayeth it self as the action of Zimri to make himself a King discovered his prime intention and the chiefest occasion that moved him to slay his Master to be his Ambition and desire of bearing rule And indeed this Ambition and desire of bearing rule hath so strangely bewitched the minds of many men Camer l. 5. c. 8. that as Camerarius saith it is almost incredible to believe and most strange to consider what inordinate desire men have to raign and to rule as Kings what villanies they have committed to become Kings What horrible things have been done by those that were ambitious of bearing rule what execrable things they have done to continue Kings for Amurath the third caused five of his younger brethren to be strangled in his presence Ismael the second son to Teâ—mas King of Persia did put to death so many of his brethren as he could lay hold on and all the Princes that he suspected to have any desire to his Kingdom that so they might raign and rule without fear And Solyman mistrusting his own son Mustapha when he returned victorious from the Persian war and was received with such generall applause caused him presently to be strangled and a Proclamation to be made throughout all the Army that there must be but one God in heaven and one Emperour i.e. Himself here on earth and Camerarius saith that this is a perpetuall custom in the race of the Ottomans and among the Turkish Souldans to put all that pretend succession unto death Neither is it only a Turkish custom but it is also the practice of all such as are bewitched with such inordinate desire to rule as Kings to do the like For Plutarch writeth that Diotarus having many sons and desirous that only one of them should reign slew all the rest with his own hands and Justin saith that Horodes King of the Parthians killed his own Father and after that massacred all his brethren that he might reign and rule alone and the sacred story sheweth that the very people of God the sons of Israel were not free but pestered with this disease Judges 9. as Abimeleck the son of Gedeon slew seventy of his brethren in one day and played many other tragicall parts that he might make himself a King 2 Sam. 15.16 And the furious ambition of young Absolon did set him on fire to seek to end his Fathers dayes and to play the Parracide that he might reign in his Fathers place and so Zimri when he began to reign as soon as he sate on his throne he delayed not the time but presently slew all the house of Baasha 2 King 16.11 as Baasha had formerly done to all the posterity of Jeroboam he left him not one that pisseth against a wall neither of his kinsfolks nor of his friends And not to go from home for Examples Did not Henry the fourth put by Richard the second his own King and Cosen-German that he himself might be the King and did not Richard the 3d. cause the true King his brothers chidren his own Nephews the sons of Edward the fourth that were but children and never offended him to be done to death that he might wear the Crown himselfe And my papers would fail me if I should set down all the examples that I could produce of this nature for there is not any thing so sacred which the great men of this world that desire to be made greater will not dare to violate and spare neither King father brether nor friend to bring themselves to their desired advancement to be the rulers of the people and to have the power both of our lives and goods in their own hands as the proof is plainly seen in the foresaid examples and especially in Antoninus Caracalla who when he had most unnaturally and barbarously slain his own brother Geta even in his mothers lap and between her arms and being counselled by some friends to Canonize him among the Heroes and to place him with the Deastri to mitigate the thought of so execrable a fact answered like a vile Caitiffe Sit divus modò non sit vivus Let him be a god among the dead so he be not alive among men So great an enemy is the inordinate desire of raigning and ruling to all piety and right saith Camerarius l. 5. c. 8. And for Zimri's pretence to rectify the government to ease the people to establish the true service of God which King Elah and his Father Baasha had permitted to be continued as Jeroboam had corrupted it and to fulfill the Words of the Lord which he spake by Jehu the son of Hanani 1 King 16.2 I say these things were least in his thoughts and were but meer pretences and shadows to hide and cover his malice unto his King and his ambitious desire of bearing rule for he being a subject and a servant unto King Elah what warrant had he or what command from God to kill his King Jeroboam was the master piece of Idolatry and the ring-leader of them that made Israel to sin and yet I would fain know where God gives leave to his subjects to kill him for this intolerable impiety But when God setteth up Kings if they prove wicked to corrupt his service and to destroy his servants he can raise other Kings to punish them as he did Pharaoh King of Egypt and Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon to chastise and to remove the evill Kings of Judah or he can take them away by death or by twenty other waies that we know not of without making their own
rebellion and disobedience of the people as here because Zedechia was not suffered by these stubborn and disobedient people to follow the advice of this our Prophet therefore they were all delivered into seventy years Captivity And as the Lord is extream angry with those rebellious people that disobey and labour to displace the Kings and Governours that he sets over them So he sheweth abundance of his love and kindnesse to them that submit themselves to his ordinance and behave themselves dutifully and loyally towards those Kings whatsoever they be that God placeth over them as you may see it in the whole course and Story of King David and Saul for as he was the most dutiful and most faithful subject that ever we read of so God was pleased to raise him to be the best King that ever reigned over Israel for his King and his Governour was Saul the very first of that Order among the Jews and he was an hypocrite a persecutor a murderer a tyrant and a mad man yet when David whose life he thirsted after had him at his mercy and could as easily have taken off his head as to cut off the lap of his garment he said The Lord forbid 1 Sam. 24.6 that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords Annointed to stretch forth my hand against him and his heart smote him because he had cut off his skirt And when he had him again in the like trap he said unto Abner Art not thou a valiant man and who is like thee in Israel wherefore then hast thou not kept thy Lord the King this thing is not good that thou hast done As the Lord liveth you are worthy to die because you have not kept your Master the Lords Annointed and his oath As the Lord liveth sheweth 1 Sam. 26.16 that he spake it in good earnest and jested not And if they be worthy to die that defend not and protect not such a wicked King especially in going about so vile an action as the murdering of so good a man and so dutiful a subject as David was then what shall become of them and what are they worthy of that murmur and grudge and plot against the life of such a â—ood King as maintained peace and jâ—stice amongst his people and offered no special injury to any particular man of us all Surely if I had the wisdom of Solomon and the eloquence of Demosthenes I were not able to expresse the odiousnesse of their sin that conspired against the person and proceedings of such a King as is inoffensive before God and all good men But to go on to shew unto you how faithful this good subject was to this bad King when the young man that was an Amalekite and none of Saul or Davids subjects came of his own accord to bring tidings unto David of Sauls death and of the good service that he thought he had done unto Saul at his own request to put him out of his pain David presently caused him to be put to death 2 Sam. 1.15 because he durst presume to offer any violence though that violence seemed to be a favour unto the Ruler of the people whom we are straightly forbidden to revile Exod. 22.28 or to speak evil of him So dutiful and so loyal a subject was David to so evil a Governour and so wicked a King as Saul And this his loyalty and fidelity unto Saul was one of the chiefest vertues that we find commendable in him before God had according to his fidelity to his King raised him to the Rule and Government of his people And I wish that all and every one of us would strive and study to imitate this good man in our obedience fidelity and loyalty to our King and Governours that God hath placed over us But here it may be some troubled and discontented spirit will say I could willingly yield all due respect and obedience unto our Kings and Governours could I be satisfied that God appointed them to be the Kings and Governours of his people Jeremy 23.21 but as the Lord saith of the false Prophets They run and I sent them not So he saith They have set up Kings but not by me Hosea 8.4 and they have made Princes and I knew it not And should we be obedient and faithful to such Kings and Governours that ambitiously set up themselves and are not righteously set up by God To these men that stumble at this block I answer 1. That the Prophet speaketh there as I shewed to you before not of any Soveraign Monarch but of the Aristocratical government of many men that will all be as Kings and Princes ruling and domineering over the people for so you see the Prophet speakes in the plural number of many Kings that in all the whole Scripture you shall never find to be either appointed or approved by God to be the Governours of his people for indeed those many Kings and Governours of equal authâ—rity are none of Gods Governours neither are they set up by God nor as I find approved by God in any place of all the Scripture But as God is One and the only Monarch of all the World so he ever appoints one Monarch only to be his Deputy to govern the people or nation that he committeth under his charge 2. I say that this Monarch and Governour whom God raiseth to govern his people attaineth unto his Throne and right of Government even by the ordination of God divers wayes as 1. Sometimes by Birth which is the most usual best and surest way and most agreeable to Gods will 2. Sometimes by Choice and the election of the people as Herodotus saith the Medes chose Deioces to be their King and the Princes of Germany now chuse their Emperour and they commonly chuse him that is by Birth the eldest son of the deceased King 3. Sometimes by the power of the Sword as God gave the Monarchy of the Medes unto Cyrus and the Kingdom of Darius and of many others unto Alexander and the Empire of the Romans unto Augustus and many other Kingdoms unto others that had no other right unto their Dominions but what they purchased with the edge of their Sword Which right though it be nothing else but Vsurpation and Intrusion in these ambitious hunters after rule and dominion yet notwithstanding it must needs be a very good right as the same cometh from the just God who is the God of war and giveth the victory unto Kings when as the Poet saith Victrix causa diis placuit And he having the right and power Paramount to translate the rule and transferre the dominion of his people to whom he will he hath oftentimes for their sins thrown down the mighty from their seat and translated the government of his people unto others whom some waies he thought fitter to effect his Divine will as he did give the Kingdom of Saul unto David and of Belshazzers unto Cyrus and
sed hoc solo contentus quia praecipitur he that is truly obedient to him whom God commanded us to obey never regardeth what it is that is commanded so it be not simply and apertly evill but he considereth and is therewith satisfied that it is commanded and therefore doth it because as S Aug. saith The command of the Superiour is a sufficient excuse for the inferiour Mandatum imperantis tollit peccatum obedientis i.e. in all things not apparantly forbidden And therefore as Julians Christian-Souldiers would not sacrifice unto the Idols which was an apparent evil at his command Sed timendo potestatem contemnebant potestatem but in fearing the power of God regarded not the wrath of man yet when he led them against his enemies they never questioned who they were that they went against nor examined the cause of his war but they went freely with him Et subditi erant propter Dominum aeternum etiam Domino temporali and in all such civill commands they obeyed this wicked King for his sake that was the King of kings and it may be fought against their own brethren So did the Jews that followed Saul against David and yet we never read that ever they were blamed for it And so should we do the like if we would do what God commandeth us For it is not in the subject's choice against whom he will fight but he must be obedient to his King if he will be obedient unto God for so the Lord saith I have made the earth the man and the beast Jerem. 27.5 6. that are upon the ground by my great power therefore certainly none should deny his Right to dispose of it and now I have given all these Lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon my servant and yet he was both a Heathen and Idolater and a mighty Tyrant and all nations shall serve him and his son and his sons son and it shall come to passe that the nation and Kingdom which will not serve the same Nâ—buchadnezzar the King of Babylon and that will not put their necks under the oke of the King of Babylon that nation will I punish saith the Lord with the sword and with the famine and with the pestilence until I have consumed them by his hands Therefore hearken not ye unto your Prophets nor to your Divines which speak unto you saying Ye shall not serve the King of Babylon for they prophesie a lye unto you which he repeateth again and again they prophesie a lye unto you that you should perish Which very words I may take up against the Rebels of England Ireland and Scotland God gave these Kingdoms unto King Charles and they cannot deny this nor deny him to be a good man and a most religious King and He hath commanded us to obey him and they that will not serve him he will destroy them by his hand Therefore believe not your false Teachers whether they be the Priests and Jesuits of Ireland or the Brownists and Anabaptists of England for God hath not sent them though they multiply their lyes in his name because God hath so straightly commanded us to obey our King in all civil causes and in all things wherein he giveth not a special charge to do the contrary And therefore that which is most worthy to be observed though God himself for the sin of Solomon declared by his Prophet that he had decreed to cut off ten parts of the Kingdom from Rehoboam yet because the people revolted not to satisfie Gods justiâ—e for the sins of Solomon but out of their own discontents that he would not ease them of their burdens for this revolt from a foolish and an oppressing Prince they are termed Rebels 1 Kings 12.19 and as the Thief to prevent his discovery will commit murder scelus scelere regitur and one great mischief will shelter it self under a greater so their Rebellion corrupted their Religion and made them fall away from God to worship Idols as they had done from their King to serve a Traytor which soon brought them to confusion Because this revolt as it proceeded from them was most abominable unto God And therefore though they were not reduced to Rehoboam because that may pretend some cause as oppression yet this after a plenary disquisition can admit of none excuse and therefore being abominable above measure it cannot expect the least favour from God but they were most severely punished by God because they transgressed his will by thus rebelling against their King contrary to his Commandment 2. The other Caution is That if the King commandeth what the Lord forbiddeth or the contrary then I may disobey but I must not resist for this is the will of God that where my active obedience cannot take place my passive obedience must supply it And though our Kings were as Idolatrous as Manasses as Tyrannical as Nero as wicked as Ahab and as prophane as Julian yet we may not resist we must not Rebel which would overthrow the very order of nature Arnis de autâ—rit princ c. 3. pag. 68. as Arnisaeus proveth by many examples and takes away the glory of martyrdom and makes all the Precepts of the Gospel of none effect And therefore when the Christians in Tertullians time were more in number and of greater strength than their enemies yet being compelled to Idolatry they rather suffered any persecution than admitted of any Rebellion against the most wicked of their persecutors And Juâ—tinian faith Q is est tantae authoritatis ut nolentem principem possit coarctare Who hath so much power as to restrain an unwilling Prince And yet it is very strange to consider what new Divinity hath been taught ex cathedra pestilentiae out of the chair of our new Assembly to raise Rebellion against our King and that which is worse than Rebellion to refuse the grace of Remission The Scribes and Pharisees were most wicked hypocrites and they sate in Moses chair but they never durst teach such tenets as now are published and practised in these Kingdoms And therefore our Saviour saith Math. 23.3 All that they bid you observe that observe and do Indeed there were some Hereticks among them that in the dayes of Theudas and Judas Galilaeus taught That the Jews were not to pray for the life of the Emperour because he was but extraneous an Vsurper and none of their lawful Kings for which errour Pilate mingled their blood with their sacrifice but these never durst avouch they should not pray for their own lawful King much lesse that they might rebel and take up arms against him Joseph Antiq. though he were never so wicked For they knew that the holiest men that ever were among the Hebrews called Essaei or Esseni that is the true Practisers of the Law of God maintained that Soveraign Princes whatsoever they were ought to be inviolable to their subjects as they were in most places among the most
unsearchable ways to pull down the pride of men and to cross the ambition of aspiring spirits should not rather fear to deal unjustly and be contented with his own unblameable station then seek to raise himself by unwarrantable courses and especially such as are by the downfall of others When as Pliny writeth of the Hart-wolf Quamvis in fame mandens si respexerit aliud oblivionem cibi subrepere aiunt digressumque quaerere illud c. that be he never so hungry and eating yet if he seeth another prey Venator sequitur fugientiae capta relinquit Semper inventis ulteriora petit Ovid. Amor. lib. 2. he forsakes his meat and followeth after the same and thereby doth oftentimes like Aesops Dog lose the morsel in his mouth by snatching at the shadow in the water so the ambitious covetous wretches making no account of what they have but greedily and unjustly hunting after more do by the just judgement of God amittere certa dum incerta petunt as Plautus saith lose what they justly had by their unjust seeking of what they should not look after Secondly The Episcopal Clergy For those Clergy-men that were not the Members of the false Prophet but were Royalists and the approvers of the Episcopal Function and yet have not escaped the fierie tryal but have been driven through fire and water and have suffered many heavy things to be plundered of their Goods deprived of their Livings and often times detained in Bonds or driven to flie from their house and home I say that besides other causes best known to God into whose secrets we dare not dive we know good reasons that they were not thus handled without good cause nor any ways unjustly dealt withall by the just God as specially if there were nothing else but because they were not 1. Either right Royalists or 2. Right Episcopals but as the Poet saith of the Maremaid Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superné or like those half-Christians that begin in the spirit but end in the flesh or those Apostles that would build Tabernacles to remain with Christ on Mount Tabor where he was transfigured in glory but will flinch away and forsake him on Mount Calvary when his face was filled with ignominy so they like the Jews in Elias his time halted betwixt God and Baal were staggering betwixt the King and the Parliament and tottered betwixt the Bishops and the Presbyters as doubtful what would be the event and issue of this debate For 1. Divers indeed loved the King and approved his Cause as most just and right and their Consciences told them how far they were obliged even by God's word to honour and obey him in all his just Commands and to assist him against his unjust enemies but they like Ephraim that was as a Cake baked on the one side or like the Church of Laodicea that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were termed a righteous people and yet were neither hot nor could but luke-warm in their Profession so were these men as they pretended for the King but did nothing against the Parliament nor any thing to any purpose for the King for had they all with their tongues and with their pens hi scriptis illi verbis published and thundered it out like Trumpets unto their several Congregations and to all the World how unjustly and how unchristian-like it is for any Subjects to rebel and to warr against their King and how far they and all other true Subjects and good Christians are bound in Conscience and obliged by God's Word to defend him whom they know without question is their undoubted King and had they themselves to give good examples unto their people opened their purses and extended their bounty to the uttermost of their power and sent their Servants and their Children to assist his Majesty I doubt not but am sure of it that they had herein pleased God and in all probability defended the King and freed themselves from that yoak of Tyranny and all those burthens and afflictions that since the Parliament prevailed were imposed upon them and they were necessitated to undergo them but they were such as Pliny speaks of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mouthless men that could not or would not speak a word in the King's cause and they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men without hands able to do nothing or at least willing to do nothing for him that underwent all his trouble for the Church and Church-men And therefore when they neglected their duty to do what in their Consciences they were perswaded they should do it was most just that they should suffer what they would not suffer because the sins of omission are as punishable as the sins of commission and he that is not with me saith our Saviour is against me and he that gathereth not scattereth abroad and so the Angel cursed Meroz and cursed bitterly the inhabitants thereof because they came not forth to help Israel against Jahin King of Canaan and so they are justly punished that being in their hearts for the King they did not with their tongues hands and purses do the uttermrst of their endeavours to aid and assist the King for as the Poet saith Foederis haec species id habet concordia signum Vt quos jungit amor jungat ipsa manus Our hands should ever go with our hearts and I am confident had all we that in our hearts were for the King given to his Majesty in time the fifth part of that which the Parliament hath since plundered and wrested from us we might by the assistance of God have preserved both our King and our selves from all the miseries and losses that the Parliament hath since brought upon us and what fools were we to save our wealth and shut our purses to enrich our enemies and to impower them to destroy our selves O let ns never do so again Secondly For those that approved of Episcopacy and had subscribed to the Articles and allowed the Liturgy of our Church and were in their Consciences perswaded of the purity and excellency thereof the same being composed by those godly Martyrs that weeded all superstition and superfluities from it and then sealed the rest that was inoffensive and pious with their blood and the same also being justified by all the convocations of all the Bishops and Clergy ever since and accordingly confirmed by acts of Parliament throughout the reign of four most pious Princes for the space of well near one hundred years for them I say through hope to save and to retain their livings and so for the love of the World to comply with the Parliament and to embrace their directory so indirectly to serve God every Presbiter after his own fancy and to omit the whole set form of God's Worship injoyned to be observed in all Churches save onely the reading of a Psalm and two Chapters which notwithstanding they did not according to the Rubrick and to
beseech Your Majesty to give me leave to make that Remonstrance to the World which I hope no man can contradict as That I was Your Father's Chaplain and waited on His Majesty six or seven years at least in the Moneth of December and when the Wars began though my ever honoured Lord and Master the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery was mis-led contrary to his Childrens desire to adhere unto the Parliament which fault can no ways be excused though I could say very much to lessen it because I knew the Uprightness of that Noble Person that was hoodwinked by the Subtlety of his Adherents yet my self according to my duty stuck to his Majesty and perswaded some of his Children that were my Scholars to do the like and I wrote my first Book against the Parliament which is intituled The Grand Rebellion and being fetched by a Troop of Soldiers was carryed Prisoner to North-hampton where the Committee had The Grand Rebellion in their Hands and had not God most mercifully and very strangely turned away their eyes from looking on it to preserve me I looked for no other end then to be utterly ruined but the Lord preserved me and delivered me out of their hands and the next Winter being in Oxford I printed my Discovery of Mysteries or The Plots of the pretended Parliament to overthrow both Church and State and on that very day that I was preaching in Saint Marie's before the Parliament then sitting in Oxford the Soldiers from Northhampton came and plundred my house and all my Houshold-stuff and about eight milch Kine and all that I had in Abthorp where my Wife and Children resided and sequestred my Lands to the use of the Parliament yet this Breach could not break my Loyalty to my King or my Heart in my Body but by the next Winter after I had written my third Book intituled The Rights of Kings and the Wickednesses of the pretended Parliament c. And according to my poor Ability out of the Means I had from Wales I gave unto His Majesties own Hand every Winter for three years together the Testimony of my Loyalty and Affection to the uttermost of my Power and His gracious Majesty did like a most gracious King most favourably accept of that Mite which I offered Him as Sir Bryan O-Neal and others do very well know And when Major General Mytton came and subdued our Country of Wales though the Arch-Bishop of York was my singular good Friend and very earnestly perswaded me to submit unto the Parliament and to use his own words said that I should fare no worse then he did but should sail in the same Boat and so sink or swim and so be saved or destroyed together yet I answered that I would never trust them that they would be true to me that wrote so many Books against them when they were so false unto their King that had been so gracious unto them and therefore I went and gave ten pound to a Parliament Captain to let me pass into Ireland by a most desperate Attempt under the hands and through the Pikes of mine Enemies that would have destroyed me had they but known me and there how faithfully and freely I have often preached for Obedience to his Majesty and against both the Inglish Scottish and the Irish Rebels the most Honourable Duke of Ormond his Grace and all the rest of the Council at Dublin can sufficiently testifie And when the most noble Marquess could not possibly preserve Ireland any longer but was fain to yield it up unto the Parliament and I had the Benefit of the Articles of Ireland confirmed and allowed unto me under the Hands of all the Commissioners that signed them I was taken at Sea in my Passage into Wales and pillaged of all that I had my Books Goods Money and Cloaths to the full value of an Hundred Pounds and then coming to the Parliament for to have the performance of the said Articles one Scot since executed for a Traitour demanded if I wrote not The Grand Rebellion and the other Books that I had written against the Parliament and I confessing the truth he asked if I deserved not rather to have my head cut off then to have the benefit of any Articles so I was feign to make mine Addresse to Sir Thomas Fairfax who very honourably wrote two Letters which after I shewed them I got againe and do still keep them as a memorial of his just and great favour unto me one to the Committee of North-hampton who presently restored me to all the Lands I had in that County the other to the Committee of Anglesey who though they were my near Kinsmen and some of them descended from the House of Owen Tydder the Grand-Father of Henry the Seventh as well as my self yet very unjustly and unfriendly they denied to restore me to my Means in that County so that I was feign to make my second Address to his Excellencie Sir Thomas Fairfax who again as honourably as formerly wrote to Major General Mytton to put me into all my Possessions but before I could come to General Mytton Anglesey was revolted from the Parliament and besieged by Mytton and the Means of the Deanerie that belonged unto me was Alienated from the Church and taken quite away and so ever since I was forced to live upon less means then twenty pounds per annum though my ever honoured Lord the Earle of Pembrook and Mountgomery offered to procure me a Living in Lancashire worth 400. l. per annum so I would submit my self to the Parliament which with many thanks unto his Lordship for his favour I utterly refused and though other Bishops accepted and received each one 100. pounds a year from Mr. Henry Cromwell that offered the same very courteously unto me yet knowing how unjustly he had power to bestow it and how I should be fettered if I accepted it I refused to take it and resolved to accept of no Salarie Gratuity gift or Benevolence from any man to this very day but to be very well contented with the poor estate that God had left me and when as divers Royalists and other good Christians seeing my mean estate and considering my much Sufferings did offer me and sent unto me divers sums of Monies I refused them all and was faine before they left sending to me to desire them publikely in the Pulpit at Dublin to offer no more of their gifts and benevolence unto me for whose love and good will I did most heartily thank them because I Preached not in expectation of any reward but resolved to refuse the same in hope that they would the rather beleive the truth of my Doctrine as I thank God I saw many of them did though many others were much offended with me so that I was forced to leave Dublin and so fell to my Prayeres and Studies more and more to discover The Great Anti-Christ comforting my self herein that if I was not mightily mistaken in
right when they do the greatest wrongs and do commit such horrid murders as to murder their own King 3. For the Judge our Saviour seemeth tacitly to yield 3 The Judge was corrupt that by the permission of God not his Commission Pilate through the power of the sword and according to the Laws of the Conquerors had power and authority granted unto him to be the Judge both of life and death but according to the Laws of the Romans that had then subdued the Jews and committed this power unto Pilate none were to be condemned to death except he were proved guilty of the Crimes that should be laid to his charge And this Judge ingenuously and openly confesseth that although like a good Judge herein he had examined the matter throughly John 18.38 and sifted him and his cause ad amussim to the uttermost yet he could find no fault in him worthy of death and therefore being desirous to free him whom he found so innocent by a fair excuse and to quit himself from pronouncing so unjust a sentence against a just man he advised his adversaries to take their King and to judge him according to their Law that is if they had any Law to crucifie their King that was so just and had offended no Law because the Romans thought such proceedings of Subjects against their King very strange and therefore had no such Law neither in their 12. Tables nor in any of the Acts and Decrees of their Senate whereby he might justly condemn him and justly answer it if he were questioned for it And herein also this Judge by this fine device shewed himself witty and his counsel honest as it aimed at a good end that is to free the party accused but afterwards becoming the Judge of Christ not by the Roman Law which as himself confessed gave him no authority to condemn any innocent person but by the importunity of the rebellious Subjects and malicious enemies against their King that thirsted after his blood he forgets his duty and contrary to his own conscience So was King Charles condemned to death to satisfie the Parliament and the people that still cryed Justice Justice Mar. 15 15. Luke 23.24 and contrary to the Roman Law and to all other Laws he doth most unjustly condemn that Just King to death And both the Evangelists S. Mark and S. Luke tell us He did it to content the people and to satisfie the High Priests and the Elders that had over-perswaded him to become his Judge and over-ruled him to adjudge him unto death And therefore the Charge laid against this King being unjust the witnesses being both false and disagreeing and his Judge thus corrupted and compelled and so as it were newly made by the clamor of the people condemning him contrary to the Roman Law which was then the Law of their Land to please the people it is apparent to all the World as I conceive that both the Judge and Witnesses and all the Complotters and Contrivers of this Kings death and all the whole Parliament and Council of the Jews that approved and rejoyced at his death yea and all the people that cryed to have him put to death are justly meant by S. Stephen and by him here rightly termed murderers because as I take it the Law saith that in murder there can be no accessary but all and every one that hath any hand in it are deemed principalls And how far murderers are to be pardoned I leave it to him that pardoneth all sins to be determined But if God will pardon murderers I wish he would not prefer them to places of Trust and Authority lest the Woolf lett-go still continue a Woolf to vex the Lambs And as it is said of the Devil Daemon languebat monachus tunc esse volebat Daemon convaluit mansit ut ante fuit 2. 2 Of whom these Tâ—â—ytors were murderers Having spoken of the style and denomination of these Persecutors of the Prophets that they were traytors and murderers we are now to confider of whom they were the traytors and murderers and the Martyr tells us it was of that Just One and I told you that we find him to be 1. 1 Of a King proved 1. By his Birth A King and so proved to be divers wayes as 1. At his birth when the Wise men that came from the East worshipped him as King while he was in his swadling clouts and they are by the constant course and order of the Church annually on the twelfth day after the day of his birth commemorated and commended for it 2. 2 By the ministration of his Office In the ministration of his kingly office when he entred Jerusalem as Kings use to do in a Royall and a pompous manner and his disciples and a great multitude of his followers did him obeysance and gave him royall honour as to their King by cutting down the boughs and spreading their garments under his feet and crying Blâ—ssed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord Luke 19.38 Matth. 21.15 and the childrens crying Hosanna as we use to do God save the King and when the chief Priests and Scribes were displeased at this acceptation of him for their King and bad him to rebuke his disciples for this attempt Christ told them plainly that if these should hold their peace the stones would immediately cry out that is to proclaim him King and to do him all Royal homage 3. 3 At his arraignment At his arraignment when he was to lay down his soul to be a ransome for our sins he avouched himself to be a King for Pilate demands the question Art thou a King and Pilate understood not any kingdome in this question but of a temporal kingdome when as in his conception to speak of a Spiritual King or kingdome was but a vain fancie and a meer Chimaera and therefore ad mentem interrogantis to satisfie the demand of Pilate Christ answereth without dissimulation aequivocation or mental reservavation Mark 15.2 that he was a King Matth. 27.11 or if he did not so he made no answer unto Pilate which as the Evangelist saith he did 4. 4 At his death At his death he had it written upon his Crosse who he was Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews so that when they took away his life they could not deprive him of his right unto his kingdome 5. 5 At his burial At his burial he had his grave sealed as a King 2. 2 â—hey were the murderers of their own King We find this just one whereof this Martyr speaketh to be not only a King but also the King of these Jews that murdered him for he was not a King of Egypt that oppressed them nor the king of Syria that sought to subdue them but their own King the King of the Jews for so the wise men testifie Where is he that is born king of the Jews And so Pilate the
no Heir by Inheritance to the Crown and was rejected by Gods Spirit and David by Gods own appointment was to Succeed him in that Kingdom 1 Sam. 16.1 13. and was anointed by Samuel to be King in his stead which was very much Yet this Good Subject when Saul was put into his Hands and his servants perswaded him to take the Advantage of that good opportunity 1 Sam. 24 24. and to do justice upon that Wicked King he would by no meanes be advised by them nor suffer them to Rise against his King and when Abishai told him that God had delivered his enemy i.e. Saul into his hands and therefore desired that if David would not do it himself he would suffer Him to smite him David answered No by no means 1 Sam. 26.9 10 11. and he yeelds this reason Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords anointed and be guiltless And he addeth The Lord shall smite him but God forbid that I should stretch forth mine hand against him Nay more then this when David took the Speare and the cruse of water from Sauls boulster and then went a great way from them he cried unto Abner and said Vers 16. Wherefore hast thou not kept thy lord the King As the Lord liveth ye are worthy to die because you have not kept your Master the Lords anointed Where you see David sweareth a Great oath As the Lord liveth and therefore he jesteth not They are worthy to die not they Alone that Kill their King but they also that hazard not their own lives to Protect and preserve the life of their King be their King never so Wicked I am sure in Davids judgment this is True Divinity Yea more then all this when Saul had fallen upon his own sword because he would not fall into the hands of his uncircumcised enemies and being in extream anguish desired a young Amalekite that was passing by to rid him out of his pain and the young man in favour to him performing his request and out of his respect to David that was to succeed him he brought the Crown that was upon his head and the Bracelet that was upon his arm unto David that the enemies might not have them and to shew that he took no pleasure in the death of Saul he came in a very mournfull manner with his Clâ—athes rent and Earth upon his head and likewise to shew his Loyal respect unto David he fell to the Earth and did Obeysance unto him and though he was a stranger and Subject neither to Saul nor to David therefore owed no service unto either of them yet because he took away the Life of Davids King the anointed of God and his Vicegerent here on earth David caused one of his young men 2 Sam. 1. to fall upon the poor Amalekite and for his mistaken curtesie unto Saul and unwelcome service unto David to smite him that he died So dear was the life of this Wicked King unto this Godly man that was a man according to Gods own heart the best subject that ever we read of and therefore was honored by God to become the best King that ever Israel had So that in the Genealogie of Christ the King of Kings he is preferred before Abraham as S. Matth. 1.1 Matthew sets it down The book of the Generation of Jesus Christ the son of David the son of Abraham And is it not Strange that these Jews that were given so much to read the Scripture and had them more readily then our Puritans have them at their fingers end and could tell how many Affirmative and how many Negative precepts were in all the Bible and how many times every word was therein mentioned and yet that they would not now consider that Job saith Is it fit to say to a King Thou art wicked Job 34.18 Psal 105.15 Eccl. 8.4 Numb 16. Deut. 33.5 Hos 1.4 2 Reg 21.24 and that God himself saith Touch not mine anointed and the wisest amongst the sons of men saith Where the Word of a King is there is power and Who may say unto him What doest thou Or that they could not remember how fearfully God destroyed those Rebels that rose against Moses that was a King in Jesuron and destroyed the posterity of Jehu because he had destroyed his own King Ahab and stirred the people to slay all them that had slain Amon though he was a most wicked King But the truth is that the Old Serpent the Prince of darkness teacheth his Schollers to reject the Old light and now to stand altogether for New lights new Revelations and new Divinity therefore S. Augustine speaks most truely of these Scripturists that they had the Bible In manibus but not In cordibus and they had the truth in Codice but not in Capite for now Caiphas contrary to all the Old Scripture Joh 18.14 hath a New Revelation that it is expedient Pro salute populi that One man should dye for the people therefore Christ their King must needs be Killed and all the people cried out for justice and double their crie Crucify Him Crucify Him Salus Populi doth require it 2 From the Word of God 2. To prove it Lawfull to put any King to death Prosalute Populi he that hath all Scripture ad unguem can furnish you with a Text of S. Peter 1 Pet. 2.13 that affirmeth the Kingly office to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Humane Ordinance or creature therefore the people being the maker of the King Ob. they may destroy their Own creature if he failes in the End for which he was created To this our True Divines have oftentimes most truly answered 1. That the Jews held their Royal Government to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Sol. Immediate from God and to be in force without the Election of Ordination from man and all other dominions and rule to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Humane Ordinance because God had determined and set down the Plat-form of their Government which he had not done to other Nations that as the Prophet saith had not the knowledge of his Laws and therefore S. Peter writing here to the Jews tels them that although the Kingly office should be but as they held an Humane Ordinance and not as theirs was a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Divine Rule yet his Precept was that they should Submit themselves thereunto for the Lords sake i.e. though the Governours were Heathens and their Government Heathenish yet Obedience and not Resistance is due unto them for the Lords sake by whom All Kings both Jews and Gentiles do bear rule 2. That although the Jurisdiction of Kings for Extent in some Part 2 Sol. and in some Degree might be said to be Humane from men yet the power of the Sword which hath Potestatem vitae necis is simply and absolutely Divine from God For who can give power over the Life of man but he that
not to destroy the Law or the Prophets but to fulfill them and themselves by their false Expositions and new invented traditions were the innovators and corrupters both of the Law and Prophets and more particularly 1. For the Sabbath he sheweth that themselves are herein too nice and superstitious and he no prophaner thereof because the Sabbath was made for man i.e. for the good of man both for his soul and body of his soul by serving God and of his body by those necessary actions and recreations that may conduce for the continuance of his health on that day 2. For the reverence to be observed in the Temple or Church of God 2 Objection answered Esay 56.7 he sheweth that he was not too strict in driving the buyers and sellers and all other prophaners thereof out of the same because God himself saith even of this material Temple or Church of stones My house shall be called an house of prayer for all people for the Gentiles as well as for the Jewes but they had prophaned the same by making it a house of Merchandize and so a den of thieves as they do that make it a stable for their horses or a receptacle for their plundered and stolne goods And in both these points our Puritans now are just as the Jewes were then too much given to prophane the Church and too superstitious to observe the Sabbath But 3. For abridging the liberty of divorces 3 Objection answered Matth. 5.32 he tells them that he teacheth no otherwise then what was from the beginning that whosoever putteth away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery but you by forsaking the good old way and following the traditions of your latter Rabbines your Assembly of new Divines have made the Commandements of God of none effect and teach for Doctrine the Commandements of men Chap. 15.6 just as they do now forsake the good old government of the Church that hath been from the beginning from Christ his time and follow the new invented Government that is forced from the false and wrested Expositions of our upstart Rabbines that never yet saw the age of a man since the death of Calvin and Beza the first Fathers that begat it 2. As they did thus unjustly taxe their King for Innovation 2 The destruction of the people And this madded the people against King Charles John 11.48 and the alteration of their established Religion so they have another bait whereby they do as cunningly catch the people and set them like wild men to joyn with them yea to out-goe them in their desires to destroy their King and that is Salus populi the safety and liberty of the people which they said would be utterly lost if they did let Him goe and this madded the people against their King though there was no truth in the charge nor ground to believe it but the feares and jealousies of the people raised only by the malice of their wicked leaders for how could it be that either the safety or the liberty of the people should be any wayes impaired by that King that came to fulfill the Law and to root out all the false glosses thereof and was contented to lose not his Kingdom only but also his own life for the safety and liberty of his people as themselves confesse that he must die for the people i. e. for their Lawes and Liberties and so become the Martyr of the Law and the Saviour of his people So you see the pretended charge against this King Jo. 11 48. that he was a tyrant by indevouring to destroy their Lawes and to alter their Religion and a Traytor to the State by forbidding Tribute unto the Conqueror whom now they were resolved to honour for their onely King lest they should lose their place and their Nation 2. 2 The true causes that moved the murderers to kill their Kings The true reall causes that moved these murderers to kill their King were very many but especially four 1. Envie to him 2. Despaire in themselves 3. Fear to lose 4. Ambition to be great For 1. 1 Envie Joh. 7.47 Mar. 7.37 They perceived that for his admirable worth and his divine endowments when as never man spake as he did and that he did all things well the people loved him followed him and adhered to him then As the glorious rayes of the Sun upon any putrified matter causeth a stench so his excellent vertues begat the poysonouâ—brats of envie and malice in these wicked miscreants and so Pilate perceived that for envie they had delivered or rather as the word signifieth betrayed him to death 2. 2 Despair of pardon When they had by their Declarations and Remonstrances their calumnies slanders and false accusations sought with all art to render him odious unto his people and had in all things opposed him to the uttermost of their might Gen. 4.13 then as Cain cried out my sin is greater then can be forgiven So the guilt of their malice and the remembrance of their fore-past wickednesse against him were of so deep a stain they they conceived all the water in the Sea could not wash it away and all the mercie of man could not remit their sin such is the conscience of all unconscionable sinners therefore though this good King could would and did forgive his enemies and pray for his persecutors yet because their hate and sins were so great that they could not believe it they thought themselves no wayes secured unlesse he were killed 3. 3 Fear to lose what they had gotten The men were now got into great power they had the liberty to be of what Sect and profession they pleased Scribes Pharises or Sadduces or what you will and to do what they would so long as they pleased the Conqueror no man could contradict them but if the right King continue King they saw he would not and could not endure such an Anarchie of Government and a Hodge podge to remain amongst them therefore Caiaphas the second man in power tells them it is expedient that he die for fear of the losse of their places and this their great power and liberty 4. 4 Ambition to be great men Matth. 21.23 Mâ—â— 12.7 Luk. 20.9 This King himself in the parable of the Vineyard which is faithfully recorded by three Evangelists sets down as I conceive it the main cause fundamental ground of his death that is their ambition desire to be great and to hold all power and authority in their own hands for so the wicked husband-men say This is the heir Venite come let us kill him and then retinebimus haereditatem ejus we shall hold his inheritance His it is we confesse yet then We shall hold it because as S. Mark saith then certainly erit nostra it will be ours and no man can keep us from it and indeed this desire of bearing rule And
I would fain know if these four things were not the very causes that made the Rebels to being King Charles unto death this covetousnesse to get what is none of our own hath been the death of many Kings of many men for what made Caracalla slay his brother Geta in his mothers lap and between her armes but this inordinate desire to raign What made Phraharers son of Horodes King of Parthia kill his own Father and 29. of his brethren but the like desire to raign And what made Abimelech the bastard son of Gedeon slay 70. of his brethren in one day and Jehn to slay his Master even as Zimri had done the like before him and Absolon attempt to do so to his own Father but only this ambitious desire of bearing rule And if you look into the 8. c. of the 5. Book of Camerarius Camerar l. 5. c. 8. his historical meditations you shall find a Catalogue of such wicked murderers that have bin the death of many Kings that they might raign as kings themselves and therefore let the pretences of these murderers of their King be what you will change of Religion Arbitrary Government great Tyranny or loss of liberty yet all these are but forged and fained to blind the World and to deceave the people and the true Cause indeed is this Haereditas erit nostra This Profit is the point that doth the deed And as the desire to raign makes the regicides Cant. 2. so this inheritance of the Church which is signified by the Vineyard brought the doctrine of killing deposing and depriving into the Church of Christ and it is as truly Esay 5. as wittily said by one that Quid vultis mihi dare is the Jews question in this case Omnia haec tabi dabo is the Devil's answer to the Church-robber And such a dialogue betwixt the Devil and the Jew for the inheritance of the Church is powerfull enough to bring any King even Christ himself the King of Kings unto his death so I do assure my self and all the World may be assured of it it is not the calling or the office of the Bishops or of Deans Prebends which neither they nor their grand Master was ever able to disprove to be Divine that they so much detest but it is their Lands and inheritance that they so greedily gape for and as this made Naboth to lose his life so this makes our calling detestable and this was the cause the cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that brought Charles our King and one speciall cause that brought Christ the King of kings unto their deaths because they would not betray the trust that God reposed in them nor surrender up this their rightfull Inheritance unto the greedy Usurpers but shewed themselves faithfull shepherds that were ready to lay down their lives for their sheep rather then to betray the laws and liberties of the people and the happiness that God had determined for their subjects and for this as we owe to our Saviour Christ our selves our souls and our bodies to honor him and serve him to praise him and to magnify him for ever as our only Saviour and preserver from everlasting death and destruction so this good King this just magnanimous King King Charles that rather suffered an ignominious death then to give away the inheritance of the Church or annull the highest calling in the same the Calling of the Reverend Bishops deserves to be everlastingly Loved indelibly Chronicled and universally Published like Mary Magdalen for a faithfull Martyr a true Protector and a nursing Father unto the Church of Christ which here I vow for mine part ever to do whensoever opportunity offers it self to do it But as I said before they had their King in their hands Ob. they had him their Prisoner so they had his Kingdom in their power and possession already what needed they therefore to kill him that they might have that which they had For if Ahab had had the Vineyard questionless Naboth had not died Saint Mark answereth fully that they kild the Heire Sol. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might hold it and continue in it An answer specially to be observed for covetousness is a sin of Retention and never thinks of Restitution and the sin of forcible entrance can not endure to be put out of Possession thereforelest if he lived he might use some means to Regain it there is no surer way for them to hold in Peace what they unjustly got by the sword but by the death of the Just Owner And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as I conceive signifieth not only that we may hold what we have but also that we may have more then we hold as if they should have said Some-what we have while we have him our prisoner and in our hands but more we shall get when we get him dead for then we shall have all as much as we can or will desire Therefore seeing ambition is like the daughters of the Horseleëch that still crieth more and more these murderers are like the Whore in the Apocalyps that having tasted the blood of the Saints will never give over till she be drunk with blood so will they never be satisfied with any less than the blood of their King Apoc 17. the death of the right Heir that they may hold what they have and have whatsoever they desire So you see the true Causes why these wicked murderers have put their King to death Now 3. 3 The patient and silent demeanor of this King Esay 53. Act. 8.32 When his adversaries most maliciously illegally and falsly accused him and laid many things to his charge contrary to all truth yet he answered not unto their charge but this good King being reviled reviled not again and being smitten smote not again but as a Lamb before his shearer is dumb so opened he not his mouth The Reason The Reason of not answering to their charge four fold why he answered not is not expressed by the Holy Evangelists therefore we may not curiously prie into that which is concealed nor Positively conclude the Reason that is not revealed unto us Yet with Modesty it may be conjectured that he would not answer 1. Reason 1 Lest his wise and satisfactory Answer might convince Pilate that was a rational man and seemed to bear no malice against him and being satisfied to let him go freed from the accusation of his enemies and so the Counsell of God which he knew and came to fulfill it touching the Redemption of mankind by his death might thereby be frustrated So far did he prefer our good before his own life A most gratious King 2. Reason 2 He answered them not lest his answering might have ministred an occasion to these malicious miscreants to suborn more perjurers to bear false witness against him so carefull was this good King of the good of his enemies that they should not heap
more vengeance upon themselves by committing the more sins 3. Reason 3 He answered not because he held that Power which at that time the sword had so unjustly gotten to be insufficient and unjustifiable in his case to try his person and to condemn Him to death who in respect of the Hypostaticall union was Rex universae terrae and so King of the Romans as well as of the Jews therefore he would not answer to that charge that was so illegally charged against him coram non Judice before a Judge that had no lawfull commission to be his Judge So Bradshaw had no commission to be King Charles his Judge Or 4. Reason 4 It may be said that he answered nothing to the false charge laid against him because of the illegall power authority or right that his enemies had to require it when as he being their King was not to answer for any faci that he had done to any one of all his Subjects as the King that was according to Gods own heart sheweth when after he had committed both adultery and murder he saith to God Against thee only have I sinned And therefore the Jews being Christ his Subjects and so having neither right nor authority Math. 27.11 to lay any charge against Him that was their King he was altogether silent in all that concerned the charge laid against him Mar. 15.2 But for any other question that Pilate his servant and now made his Judge Luk. 23.3 did ask him He gave him a full and a sufficient answer as you may see in all the Evangelists Or else Joh. 18.34 36. and chap. 19 11. as S. Jerom. comments upon the Evangelists he spake nothing that is nihil durum nihil asperum nothing that might offend either the Judge or the Jews But we find What this King spake not to save his own life but for others that neither Jews nor Gentiles neither High Priest nor Pilate would condemn this King before they gave him liberty to speak and they were ready to hear what he would or could say for himself Because the law of the Jews as Nicodemus a Counsellor of their law testifieth judged no man before it heard him and it was not the manner of the Romans Jo. 7.51 Act. 25.16 to deliver any man to die before he had liberty to answer for himself as Festus another Judge of the Romans confesseth And yet such was the injustice shewed to Charles our King which you may remember by his subject-Judge that contrary to all Laws both of Heaven and Earth both of Jews and Gentiles he would not hear those just Reasons that he sought to shew for himself against their unjust proceedings against him And therefore no doubt but Annas and Caiphas and unjust Pilate will rise in Judgment to condemn that unjust Judge at the last day But though this good King Christ said nothing to their Charge to save his own life yet at his death he spake much to preserve his enemies from Everlasting death as when he said I thirst that was not for the blood of his enemies as they and the Souldiers did for his blood but it was for the accomplishment of the mysterie of theirs and our salvation that was to be effected by his death And especially when as Bellar mine observeth he prayed for his very murderers that were slaughtering and tormenting him and said Father forgive them for they know not what they do and some of them are simply ignorant of the wickedness of this fact being seduced by their false Teachers and others though wilfully blind yet are they ignorant of the consequents of this act that is the heavy punishment that is due to them and without great repentance must light on them for this wicked deed therefore O my Father I pray thee revenge not my death but forgive them for my sake And this prayer prevailed for Longinus that thrust him through his side How mightily the prayer of Christ prevailed with God to forgive his enemies to become a Convert if old Tradition may be believed for truth and for 3000. more at one clap when S. Peter took off the vail that shadowed the truth and shewed to the poor seduced people the horrible wickedness of their malicious leaders and for many many more that returned unto him immediately after and would have prevailed for all the very worst of his murderers even for Judas Annas and Caiphas yea and for the Judges the first and second Pilate that pronounced the Sentence against their Kings if they had had the grace to repent them of their evill deed and to believe in this their Saviour 4. Consider 4 How Speedily they condemned their King I pray you how speedily they executed and made an end of him after he was Condemned for he was apprehended but upon Thursday when-as upon Wednesday at night he did eat the Pass-over with his Disciples and tels them that after two daies was the Feast of the Passover the greatest feast that they had Math. 26.2 solemnized in remembrance of their great and wonderfull deliverance out of Pharaohs bondage And yet they would not suffer him to live till that Feast was past but being taken upon Thursday he must all that day and all that night be hurried from Annas to Caiphas from Caiphas to Pilate from Pilate to Herod and from Herod back again to Pilate and so from place to place and the very next day which was Friday by nine of the clock in the morning which was their third hour of the day they fastened him to his Cross Mar. 15.25 with nails so large that being found they made a helmet and a bridle for Constantine as it is reported And this was a very quick dispatch indeed King Charleâ— I remember another King that was murdered in like manner by his subjects but though suddenly enough dispatched out of the way yet had a litle more favour and a litle longer time before he was beheaded But why would not these miscreants suffer their King to live one day Quest to prepare himself for his death after he was condemned They answer That the next day after he was adjudged to die Resp Why they would not suffer their King to live one day longer was their Feast day and the greatest feast in the year therefore they must not suffer him to pass over that day nor to die on that day for these two speciall Reasons 1. Reason 1 Lest there should be an uproare among the people because that day being set apart for an holy meeting as the Lord commanded it and as our Apprentices are permitted upon Shrove-tuesday Servants had liberty on Holy dayes and Feast-dayes to take their liberty and to go a Shroving where they please So were their labourers and servants under colour of going to the Temple suffered on this day to gad abroad and to go where they would And therefore the raskality of the people and
these murderers All these saith our Saviour shall be destroyed and so they were all of them that repented not did soon perish For 1. Judas the prime Traytor hanged himself and that without any regard of his grand Masters who when they saw his disconsolate soul and heard his confession of his foul Treason said no more but What is that to us as if they said Be hang'd or be damn'd we do not care thou shouldst have looked to that thy self 2. Pilate that unjust Judge not long after the execution of this King was disgracefully displaced and exiled his Countrey and therefore killed himself in a strange land 3. Herod died most miserably being eaten up with worms 4. Annas and Caiphas were violently killed as the Stories do report 5. The Priests and Presbyters Pharisees and Sadduces and many others that were Actors in the murdering of this King lived I believe most of them to see the famous City of Jerusalem besieged and many of them to see it destroyed and at least 1100000. of their Countrey-men slaughtered and all the rest even their Children that were unborn when they kil'd their King either Captivated by their enemies or scattered like Vagabonds over all the face of the earth And as the severall Factions and the different Sects conspired together and agreed as one man to kill their King So their divisions and differences made way for the Romans to destroy them all and which is strange by this their wicked act the very things that they feared came upon them for their great Prophet Caiphas tels them it was expedient that he should die lest the Nation perish and by the just Judgment of God their Nation must perish because they did so wickedly put their King to death And so they were resolved to kill him lest the Romans should invade their Land and change their laws and because they did kill him God sent the Romans to destroy their Country to change their laws and to make such havock of slaughtering them ut nec locus crucibus nec cruces corporibus sufficerent And ever since the murder of their King they have been hated of all Nations For Sisibut King of the Visigothes and Dagobert the 10th King of France commanded them on pain of death to depart out of their Dominions And Ferdinando and Isabella King and Queen of Castile within these seven-score years 1500. years after the murdering of their King handled them very shrewdly Camerar l. 5. c. 9. and put an infinite number of them to death And Emmanuel King of Portugal did the like So hateful are they for their regicide to all good men and so just is God in all his wayes and so exceedingly hating Rebellion against our Kings and much more the murdering of our own lawful just and pious King that the same never escapeth the severest punishment that can be imagined as I shall shew it in the next Treatise For if he who sheddeth mans blood though but a poor Beggar by man shall his blood be shed then surely he that sheds his Kings blood cannot escape the severe vengeance of God who peremptorily saith Vengeance is mine and I will revenge saith the Lord. And you know what the Apostle saith It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God who is a consuming fire And therefore if any man hath persecuted Gods Servants the Preachers or conspired to take away the life of his King the Annointed of the Lord let him repent and that quickly lest God as He saith to the Church of Pergamos do quickly come unto him and fight against him with the sword of his mouth which is a two-edged sword that cuts on every side the soul with the worm of conscience and the body with most fearful plagues and punishments For if the blood of Abel which had no voice while it lived yet being dead cryed so loud here on earth that it was easily heard in heaven and it was as fearful as it was loud for it was for vengeance against his brother then questionless the innocent blood of a just King being dead yet speaketh and speaketh louder for vengeance against his Subjects than the other did against his brother which I fear without our speedy and deep repentance will be abundantly poured out upon this sinful generation for that we have so barbarously murdered our own King in such wicked manner that I never read the like in any History nor the Sun I believe did ever see the like since the devilish murder of the King of kings from which these murderers took their pattern to proceed in like manner in most particulars and herein therefore Licet parvis componere magna I thought good to parallel the practises of both sorts of murderers the Jewish and the English murderers The murdered I confess are far unlike and will admit of no comparison the difference and distance betwixt their Persons being so great as is betwixt Heaven and Earth the Creator and the creature King Charles being begotten by an earthly father as all other men are and subject to like passions as we are but Jesus Christ the King of the Jews was conceived by the Holy Ghost and free from all sin and mastering all affections And King Charles was King but of small Territories But Jesus Christ was Rex universae terrae and he was and is King of kings and Lord of lords King Charles did good but to many and hurt but few if he hurt any but the King of the Jews did good to all and wronged none and so in all other things I know how that the one is finite and the other infinite in justice wisdom Power and all other Attributes of excellencies But if we look how both these Kings were handled by their Subjects we shall find the later not much unlike the former and King Charles hated traduced mocked spightfully used and causelessely killed and murdered And all this in like manner though not in every particular in like measure by his own Subjects as Jesus Christ was by the wicked Jews As I hope I have fully and sufficiently and plainly declared unto you in this Treatise And therefore that we ought all of us to confess lament and bewail as in general all our sins so more especially this our great sin of murdering our own King and to pray to God night and day that for the merits of the death and passion of Jesus Christ the King of the Jews he would pardon and forgive us our sins committed in putting to death our own most just and gracious King Grant this O dear Father for thy dear Son Jesus Christ his sake to whom be glory c. THE SECOND TREATISE 2 Kings 9.31 Had Zimri peace that slew his Master THE Doctrine of Obedience both to God and to our lawful King and his Magistrates hath been so fully and so excellently handled by the Right reverend and most Worthy and Learned Bishop of Downes that more need not and better cannot
executing of justice and judgement upon Idolaters and Murderers and the like haynous offenders and not suffering them to live still in pride and prosperity amongst us is the only thing to procure peace and to turn away God's anger from any Nation And therefore Jezabel doth peremptorily demand of Jehu Had Zimri peace that slew his Master Touching which words I shall humbly desire you to consider these two special things 1. The Speaker And 2. The Speech And And 1. The Speaker is said to be Jezabel the Wife of Ahab King of Israel and the Daughter of Eth-baal King of the Zidonians touching whom you may consider these three particulars 1. That she was a Noble woman Three things observable in Jezabel 2. She was a Witty woman 3. She was a Very-very wicked woman For 1. She was as I told you doubly innobled by Birth and by Marriage and so she was to be respected as Jehu that caused her to be killed hath himself confessed that she ought to be honoured and regarded as she was a Kings Daughter And the very Heathens testifie as much That à principibus nasci praeclarum est It is an excellent thing to be born of Noble Princes When with the Poet we can say Maecoenas aetavis edite regibus And therefore Solomon saith though not altogether Grammatically to be understood yet literally very true Blessed art thou O Land Eccles 10.17 when thy King is the Son of Nobles And on the other side Most wretched is that Land as our Land hath lately been when a rustick Marius or a Valerius Armentarius or a Potter's son like Dionysius or any other of such like mean abstract shall either by policy flattery or subtilty come to obliterate the Nobility and to sit in the Throne of Soveraignty as the very Histories both of the Greeks and Latines do afford us store of examples to confirm this truth As when Maximinus from a Shepherd in Thracia became an Emperour in Rome and Dioclesian that had been a Bondman and was made free by Aemilianus a Senator became in like manner to be the Emperour he proved to be one of the worst and the most bloody persecutor of all the Emperours And the Reason hereof is because as the Poet truly faith Asperius nihil est humili cùm surgit in altum Nothing is more cruel than a mean man raised high and none is prouder than the Beggar when he is mounted on his palfrey he will then ride you knew where the Proverb saith ut fluvialibus undis Extumuit terrens fluit acriùs amne Perenni As the Land-flood swelling high is ever more violent than the continual running stream So no kingdom can be more miserable than that where as Jotham said the Bramble shall reign over the Vines and the Olives or Abimelech Judges 9. the son of a Maid-servant and a Subject shall suppresse and destroy all the Royal children of Jerub-baal that had deserved so well at the hands of Israel And the examples of Maion Cleander and Sejanus confirm this truth unto us For this Maion was of mean parentage whose father was a Shop-keeper selâ—ing Oil but from that mean degree William King of Sicily raised him to be Chancellor and chief Admiral of Sicily and then enriched him beyond measure and favoured him above all his Nobles and he abusing his wealth and his power The notable treachery of Maion was insatiable in his lust spared no cruelty to surther his own designs and fell at length into a conceit of a kingdom and being expert to fain and to dissemble what he pleased he began to perswade his friends to depose King William and to defend his ambition by the deposition of King Chilperick and the choosing of King Pipin the son of Charles Martel in his stead which proved so fortunate to all the Kingdom of France And Herodian sets down the very like proceedings of Cleander The ambition of Cleander that was a Phrygian born and of that rank of men that are used to be sold publickly by the Cryer yet coming to the Emperour's Court young Commodus takes him for his servant and raised him to that honour to be both Captain of the Guard chief Chamberlain and General of all his Forces and then pride and ambition prickt him forward to aspire unto the Empire Herod l. 2. and he had dispatched his Master had not Faxilla the Sister of Commodus revealed his plots unto her Brother The unparalleld pride and ambition of Sejanus And Valerius Maximus inveighs most bitterly against Sejanus as Camerarius explains the passage of Valerius for his aspiring thoughts against Tiberius which if it had prevailed would have paralleld yea and out-gone the surprising of Rome by the Gauls the slaughter of those 300. of one Noble Stock the Allian day the Scipio's opprest in Spain the Trasimene lake the Cannae and AEmathian fields swimming in civil blood And therefore Sextus Aurelius Victor saith That so far as his wit goes he finds it most certain that the basest men when they have climbed to any height are of all others the most proud and ambitious And Camerarius saith that experience witnesseth That commonly those who from the stock of Tradesmen or sordid Paisants rise to places of worth either by their Wit or Fortune Who most pernicious to the Common-wealth are far prouder and more pernitious to the Common-wealth than those of a Noble and Antient Race So that it was well said of old Porters bear rule and the bad are set over the good I fear lest the floods will sink the Ship when these base and ignobly-born sons of the earth do envy the Nobles and sit at the stern to rule the roste For as Claudian observeth Nothing is more cruel than a mean man raised high He strikes at all while all be fears le ts fury flie So far as power can no beasts such fiercenesse have Or rage as hath o're freeman a domineering slave But as the Italian proverb is Apes the higher they go An Italian Proverb the more they lay open their shame so it fareth with these insolent fellowes that at last they will be hated of all and then come to a miserable end as it happened to this zimri Sejanus Maion Cleander Perennius and infinite others of later times and in our own time Yet I deny not but some of them though very seldome may prove vertuous as we find many of them that were the sons of Nobles to degenerate and like this Jezabel to become very wicked 2. This woman Jezabel was a very witty woman for here her speech is 3 Jezabel was a witty and a well educated woman sententia brevis very short but materia uberrima the matter is so full and so excellent that no Sage no Philosopher no Oratour nor scarce Prophet could comprehend more truth and a more observable Lesson more briefly and more plainly than she doth in these few words Had Zimri peace that slew his
King 21.8 false Prophets at her own Table and she vowed to be the death of Elias 1 King 18.4 and made a wicked King to become far more wicked by her continuall instigation of him to wickedness and therefore she was a very wicked woman vers 19 and the more inabled to be wicked because she was so Noble and so Witty when as there is no wickedness so great and so unavoydable as armed wickedness which is invented by Subtilty perpetrated by Power and defended by Authority for And how inabled to be wicked as Non nisi ex magnis ingeniis magni errores Great Heresies never spring from mean Schollers and great oppressions could never be acted by petty Landlords or mean Gentlemen so Jezabel could never have gotten Naboth's Vineyard if she had not had the wit to device this plot and the learning to write these letters for so the Text saith 1 King 21.8 That she wrote letters in Ahabs name and the power as being King Ahabs wife to seal them with his seal and send them as from him to the Nobles and Elders to execute her wicked will neither could she have maintained 400. false Prophets at her own Table if she had not had the wealth and power for to do it and so if Irene had not been an Empress she had never perswaded a whole Council to set up the worshipping of Images And therefore great Schollers ought earnestly to beg and to pray to God for grace to sanctify their learning that they may be retained within the sphere of truth and not to start aside like Arius Eutyches Nestorius and the like learned Hereticks that thought so well of themselves that they disdained to walk in the troden paths of Orthodoxall Divinity and therefore invented most wicked Heresies and so as the Lord saith of proud Babylon their Wisdom and their knowledge caused them to fall which hath been the practice of our Presbyterians and Jesuits in these very daies And in like manner Kings and Princes Magistrates and Judges Landlords and Great men ought to be very carefull of their actions and more carefull then any other men that are of a lower station because they are more inabled to do more wickedness For if a mean man wrong me I may perchance be able to right my self but if a Judge decree against me or a mighty man oppress me I must with patience be resolved to bear it or by strugling in all likelihood to be much more damnified And the Devill laboureth more to get a subtile Scotus or a learned Origen to become an Heretick a powerfull Nero to become a Tyrant and an Assembly of Senators and a choise Parliament to become Rebels and to bandy against their King as the Senators of Rome conspired the death of Caesar and the Jewish Sanhedrim the death of Christ and the grave Judges to become such Judasses as to sell the Truth or like the Judges of Susanna to condemn the Innocent and the rich Landlords to turn miserable Oppressors I say the Devill laboureth more and rejoyceth more to have one such than twenty other poor Snakes that want the abilities of Wit Learning Power and Authority to become his Instruments of wickedness And therefore I say to all such men of good parts and great power as the Prophet saith Psal 2â— for the same cause Be wise now therefore O ye Kings be Learned all ye that are the Judges of the Earth And do you follow the known common troden path of truth all you that are good Schollers And so much for the speaker Jezabel that was a noble witty and wicked woman 2. For the Speech of this wicked-wicked woman 2 The speech of Jezabel it is a most Excellent Speech worthy to be set in Letters of Gold inter dicta sapientum among the Aphorisms or Parables of the wise As I shall make it manifest unto you when I come to explain the same In the interim you may observe How that many wicked men and wicked women Hereticks and Tyrants have had many times some Excellent sayings and sometimes most worthy Acts have proceeded from them As the Papists and Presbyterians have made many good Sermons and written many Excellent Books and Treatises of Divinity full of Learning and great Piety and who better then Bellarmine his Meditations upon his Gemitus columbae How many wicked men have said and done many things well Soliloquies De ascensione animi in coelum per scalas rerum creatarum Septem verba Christi in cruce And his Comments upon the Psalms and the like And so Ferus Granatensis Drexelius and many more have done the like and we find divers others that have been great Hereticks to have done so likewise And in like manner we do read that many wicked men have done some speciall Acts of Virtue and Piety As Herod that sought the Life of Christ yet did he as Josephus relates it most Magnificently re-edify and beautify the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and the other Herod the husband of Herodias hearkened to John Baptist in many things and Pilate that condemned Christ to death did many things exceeding well as in the strict examination of Christ his Cause and justifying his Innocency when he delivered him to be Crucified and Claudius Lisâ—as though he would not release S. Paul from his bands yet he preserved his Life and delivered him out of the hands of his enemies and the unrighteous Judge that as our Saviour saith Luk. 18.5 feared not God neither regarded man yet did he once justice to the importunate Widow and Am. Marcellinus tels us that even fulian the Apostate and the bitterest persecutor of the Christians was adorned with many singular properties as being an Excellent Schollar bred in Athens at the same time with Greg. Nazian and writing many Epistles Orations and Morall sayings and behaving himself most mildly and courteously towards all men but the Christians and so we read that Vespasian Titus Nerva Trajan Antoninus Pius Marcus Aurelius and many others of the Roman Emperors had many good parts in them and did many singular acts of Virtue though they were no Christians but some of them very Evill men and great persecutors of the Christians And I could instance in many Tyrants and other great Oppressors of Gods people and wicked men even in our own Kingdom that have done some Acts of Virtue and Piety And I could name you the men that have been very Turbulent in Gods Church and mis-led abundance of the people and yet have made some good Sermons and written some good Treatises of Divinity And what then Shall we therefore adore them and follow them in their factions and evill waies because they do or have done some good By no means For as thou shouldest not drink the Wine that is mingled with some Poâ—son though the Wine be never so good so it is not safe for thee to hear that Sermon that leads thee to Sedition though
Alexander the Great was so addicted to this vice that many times in his drink he slew his dearest friends as Clitus and others that we read of in Q. Curtius Valued worth 600. crowns and making a Supper on a time for his Captains he propounded a Crown to him that could drink most and one Promochus drank 5. gallons of wine but died within three dayes after and 41. more and so his Crown did him no credit Dan. 5.2 3 4 5. And Belshazar the son of the Great Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon drinking and quaffing in the Vessels that his father took from the House of God espied the hand-writing upon the wall that his kingdom should be taken from him and given to the Medes and Persians And many men in these dayes drink away their Lands their Monies their Wits and all that they have And therefore most wisely doth the Mother of King Lemuel say Prov. 31.4 It is not for Kings O Lemuel it is not for Kings to drink wine nor for Princes to drink strong drink And the son of Syrach saith Eccles 31.25 Plin. de viris illust c. 14. Shew not thy valour in wine for wine hath destroyed many As here King Elah was destroyed in his wine And Pliny the younger saith that Antiochus was killed at a Banquet by his own Minions because he would have forced them to drink beyond their abilities and against their wills And S. Augustine writes that one Cyrillus a Citizen of Hippo had an ungracious son that in the midst of his drunkenness killed his own mother great with child and his father that sought to restrain his fury and would have ravished his sister Aug. 60.10 Ser. 33. Vt citatur à Beard p. 491. Euseb hist l. 8. c. 16. had not she escaped from him with many wounds And Eusebius writeth that the Emperour Maximinus was so often deeply plunged in drunkenness that he became many times so mad that in his drunken madness he commanded many things to be done which he greatly repented of when he became sober again and no marvel for temulentia signifieth a voluntary madness and wine is termed temetum quia tentat mentem it shaketh the minde The notable Story of some young Drunkards out of Athenaeus Athenaeus l. 2. and destroyeth the senses as it appeareth by that notable Story which Athenaeus writeth of certain young men that drank so much that they verily believed they were sailing in a Gally and so tossed with the winds that they threw all things in the Chamber out at the window as Mariners use to throw their ladings over-board in a Tempest whereupon some Captains seeing the same came in unto them and finding them extreamly vomiting asked What they ayled who answered That they were Sea-sick and the storm forced them to throw all their goods into the Sea and because they supposed those Captains to be Tritons or Sea-gods they said That if they would help them at this time to arrive safe to land they would honour them for their Saviours ever after such madness is in drunkenness And Gregorius Turonensis saith that Attila which was called The scourge of god having married a Wife of excellent beauty and having well carowsed on his Marriage day fell at night into so dead a sleep that lying upon his back the blood that usually issued at his nostrils descended into his throat and strangled him and so indeed Drunkenness hath destroyed many more And yet Elah would not follow the counsel of King Lemuels Mother which might perhaps have saved his life and therefore Zimri takes this occasion to conspire his death So I come to the second Person mentioned in this Text which is Zimri 2. This Zimri was 1. King Elah's subject Second person is Zimri 2. King Elah's servant 3. A servant in an honourable place 1. Elah was Zimri's King and Zimri was Elah's subject 1 A subject and the Spirit of God sets down what honour is due unto our King Eccles 8.2 when he counselleth us to keep the Kings commandment or as the phrase imports to observe the mouth of the King and that in regard of the oath of God i.e. the solemn vow which thou madest at thine incorporation into Gods Church to obey all the Precepts of God whereof this is one To fear God and to honour the King or else the oath of alleageance and fidelity How straightly God prohibiteth the subject to offer the least dishonour unto his King which the subject makes unto his King in the presence and with the approbation of God who will most certainly plague all perjurers that take his Name in vain And so the same Spirit of God hath imprisoned and chained up our very thoughts words and works in the links of the strictest prohibition that they should no way peep forth to produce the least dishonour unto our King For 1. He saith Curse not the King no not in thy thought i.e. Eccles 10.30 Think not any ill nor to do any evil unto thy King and therefore the very thought of Treason was adjudged by the Court of France to be Treason and he that confest unto his Priest that he once thought to kill the King but afterwards repenting him of his intention he utterly abandoned the execution yet he was executed for that very thought 2. The same Spirit saith Thou shalt not revile the Gods i. e. the Judges of the Land nor curse that is in S. Paul's phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speak evil of the Ruler of the people And 3. The Lord of Hosts gives this peremptory charge to every subject Touch not mine Annointed which is the least indignity that may be Psal 105.15 1 Sam. 24.4 5. and yet may not be done to our King by any means And therefore Davids heart smote him when he did but cut off the lap of Saul's garment And therefore it appears that Zimri had no fear of God no regard of his Laws nor any thought of his favour when he fostered so vile a thought and committed so horrible an act as to kill his King But is that so transcendent a sin for a subject to kill his King Quest What if the King proves a Tyrant or an Heretick or else seeks the ruine of his subjects may not the subjects then in such a case kill such a King Look into the 9. several Speeches delivered at a Conference concerning the power of Parliament to proceed against their King for misgovernment and there you shall find many examples of subjects that have deposed and killed their Kings when their Kings deserved the same and therefore Zimri may be excused if King Elah deserved to be killed I answer that many Kings indeed have proved very wicked Answ and have justly deserved some severe censure but from God not from their subjects we need not go far for proof hereof but if we may believe Sir Walter Rawleigh our own King Henry the Eight was bad enough and might
flor aliâ— faedera regni And yet when God and nature and Scripture and all the wise men in the world and our own reason and experience tells us it is better for us to honour the King then Kings to obey one then many when as the wisest of men tells us plainly that for the transgressions of a Land many are the Princes thereof Prov. 28.2 but by a man of understanding the State shall be prolonged Shall we be so mad as to rebell against our King whom God commandeth us to honour and chuse unto our selves 400. Kings which God never appointed over us and never advised us to obey them which if you do I say it is not vanitas vanitatum but it is the folly of follyes but and iniquity of all iniquities and therefore deserveth justly to be punished with the misery of all miseries Wherefore I beseech you my brethren to follow the counsell of the Apostle and to obey the Precept of God to honor the King the King which he hath placed over you and leave the other Kings the usurping and imaginary Kings to their own shame But 2. As we are to honor the King and not Kings so we are to consider among other things 1. Quem and 2. Qualem Regem Both what King and what manner of King we are bound to honor for we are to waigh in every King 1. Modum assumendi 2. Normam gubernandi 1. The manner or the waies how any King cometh to his Kingdom 2. The rules by which he governeth and guideth the people that shall be under his charge 1. Hos 8.4 God saith of many Kings They have raigned but not by me As many men do Preach whom he hath not sent these are Vsurpers and come to their government without right And therefore we are not to honor them because though they should govern justly yet they have unjustly attained unto their government and I know not where we are commanded to be voluntarily obedient to Usurpers Others there are that do attain unto their Dominions and yet not all the same way for 1. Some come by the Sword 2. Others by the peoples choice 3. Others by the right of their birth And though the last is best and most authentick yet we may not reject the other two so far forth as they are from God for when rightfull Kings become with Nimrod to be unjust Tyrants God many times disposeth their Crowns as pleaseth him as he did the Kingdom of Saul unto David and Belshazzars unto Cyrus and the like and this Right is good as it proceedeth from God Who giveth victory unto Kings when as the Poet saith victrix causa Deo placuit And as Daniel saith he removeth Kings and setteth up Kings Dan. 2.21 and Job 34.24 And when Kings neglected their duty so far that the people knew not that they had any King or who had any right to be their King or when the people were so miserably handled by such foes as invaded them that they could not tell how to withstand them then as Herodotus saith of the Medes that chose Deioces which is the first elective King that I read of to be their Protector the people made choice of the chiefest man amongst them to be their King Or as we read of Abimeleck when he that had no right unto the Crown would cloak his Vsurpation by the election of the people this popular choice was held for a good way to maintain that Vsurped Authority And though I deny not the right of some Elective Kings because God out of his infinite lenity to our Human frailty rather then his people should be without Government doth permit and it may be approve the same when it is orderly done as he did the Bill of Divorcement unto the Jews yet if we should justly waigh the case of Abimeleck and as some say of Jeroboam who of all the Kings of Israel and Judah were only made by the suffrage of the people how unjustly they entred how wickedly they raigned and how lamentably the first that was without question the creature of the people ended both his life and his raign it would shew unto us how unsuccessefull it is to admit any other makers of our King then He that is the King of kings And the time will not permit me to set down the great and many mischiefs that happened to the children of Israel by these Elective Kings no less then at all times to cast off the service of God and in the end utterly to destroy themselves when by Salmanazar they were carried Captives unto Assyria never to return again to this very day But against all this the brood of Anabaptists will object as they do now positively teach that to be a King is but an ambitious intrusion into Authority when as Nimrod rather by humane violence Gen. 10.8 then by any Divine Ordinance became to be the first King that ever was in this World and therefore S. 1 Pet. 2.13 Peter calleth the establishing of Kings to be the ordinance of man I answer that the Scripture shall determine this question for Solomon saith Hearken O ye Kings hear ye that Govern the Nations Sap. 6.1 2 3. for power is given unto you by the Lord and principality by the most high And S. Paul saith There is no power but from God and whosoever resisteth the power Rom. 13.5 resisteth the Ordinance of God And Daniel saith to Nebuchadnezzar O King thou art the King of kings for the God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Dan. 2.37 Power Strength and Glory and the Wisdom of God saith Prov. 18.15 Esay 45.1 Per me reges regnant And the Lord saith as much unto Cyrus and no less to Nebuchadnezzar And to make the point more plain by Examples I would demand Jer. 27.5 6. whether Moses his government over Israel was by his own intrusion or by the Ordinance of God And what shall I say of Saul when he sought his father Asses and of David when he fed the flock of Jesse was it their desire or Gods design that made them Kings And you may see how little Jehu dreamed of a Kingdom when Elisaeus sent one of the children of the Prophets To annoint him from the Lord to be King over Israel 2 King 9. Therefore S. Augustine saith Aug. de Civit. Dei that the greatness of Empires cometh neither by chance nor by destiny by chance he understandeth as he saith the things that happen beyond our knowledg of their causes or without any premeditated order of reason assisting their conception and birth and by destiny he understandeth as the Pagans deemed what happeneth without the will either of God or men by the inevitable necessity of some particular order which opinion is most injurious to Gods providence but we must certainly believe that Kingdoms are constituted and established simply and absolutely by the Divine Providence of God and in another pâ—ace he saith
that the same true God which giveth the Kingdom of Heaven to his children only giveth the Earthly Kingdoms both to the good and to the bad as he pleaseth yet alwaies justly And for Nimrod I say the words bear no more then he became mightier then other Kings or began to Tyrannize more then all the other Kings And for S. Peters words I say he means it only of Elective Kings Which in another place I shewed more fully than the time will now give me leave in what sense he calleth them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore I say the calling of Kings is the proper Ordinance of God as it is fully and most learnedly shewed by a most Reverend Prelate of our Church lately published and intituled Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas Howsoever as I said we condemn not as unlawfull the right of all Elective Kings yet we ought to acknowledg how much more bound we are to God that himself in a rightfull line of succession hath appointed our Kings to raign over us so that we need not fear the error of our Election if there be no error in our submission 2. As we are to consider quem whom so we ought to remember qualem what manner of King we are commanded to honor for as the unjust Vsurper may govern the people justly as they do sometimes and in some places so they that have just Titles to their Crowns may prove unjust in their Governments as too too many both of the Kings in Israel and Judah and I fear many other Kings have been And yet if they be our lawfull Kings be they what they will Cruell Tyrannous or Idolatrous or if you will put all together I say we are bound to honor them and no waies to Rebell against them for if thy Brother the son of thy Mother or thy son or thy daughter Deut. 13.6 or the wife of thy bosome or thy friend which is as thine own soul shall intice thee to Idolatry and to serve strange gods thine eye shall not spare him neither shalt thou have any pity upon him but for the son to rise up against the Father the wife against her Husband the servant against his Lord or the subject against his King here is not a word and we are not to do what the Lord doth not command as Tostat well observeth upon this place Therefore though Jeroboam made Israel to sin by setting up his calves to be adored Nâ—buchadnezzar commanded all his people to worship his Golden Image Ahab Manasses Nero Julian and the rest of the persecuting Emperors did most impiously compell their Subjects to Idolatry and exercised all kinds of cruelty against Gods servants yet you shall never find that either the Jews under Jeroboam or Daniel in Babylon or Elias in the time of Ahab or any Christian under Julian or the rest of those bloody Tyrants did ever rebell against any of those wicked Kings for they all considered the law of God and I beseech you all to consider it likewise 1. Exod 22.28 Moses saith Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy people yea though he should be evil yet must thou not speak evil of him for as thou art to honor thy Father not so much because he is good as because he is thy Father and therefore the son of Noah was accursed because he despised his Father when his father sinned so we are to honor our King and to speak no ill of him though he should be never so ill for Is it fit to say to a King Thou art wicked And to Princes Ye are ungodly Job 34.18 2. 2 Not to do the least indignity unto our King As we are to bridle our tongues so much more ought we to refrain our hands from offering the least violence unto our King When the Lord saith peremptorily Touch not mine annointed where he doth not say Non occides or ne perdas the worst that can be but ne tangas the least that may be neither doth he say Sanctos meos my holy ones but Christos meos my annointed ones whether they be holy or unboly good or bad therefore though Saul was a wicked King and a heavy persecutor of David without cause hunting him like a Partridge upon the Mountains and seeking no less then to take away his life yet when the men of David said unto him Behold the day of which the Lord said unto thee I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand that thou maist do to him as it shall seem good unto thee what seemed good unto him Truely no waies to hurt him nor to do the least indignity unto him for his heart smote him because he had cut off the skirt of his robe and therefore he said unto his men 1 Sam. 24.4 5 6 The Lord forbid that I should do this thing unto my Master the Lords annointed to stretch forth my hand against him And why so because he is the annointed of the Lord that is not because he is a good man but because he is my King Nay we are not only forbidden to offer violence That we are to protect our King with the hazard of our lives but we are also injoyned to give our best assistance to protect the persons of our most wicked Kings for David not only staid his servants with the former words and suffered them not to rise against Saul but when Saul lay sleeping within his trench and David and Abishai took away his speare and had the power to destroy him What saith David unto Abner Art not thou a Valiant man And who is like thee in Israel Wherefore then hast thou not kept thy Lord the King This thing is not good that thou hast done as the Lord liveth 1 Sam. 15.16 ye are worthy to dye because you have not kept your Master the Lords annointed And if this thing is not good and David jesteth not but sweareth As the Lord liveth they are worthy to dye that preserve not the life of their King be he never so wicked then certainly this thing is not good and they are more then worthy to die that not only refuse to assist but also rise in Arms to persecute and to take away the life of a most Pious and a Gracious King So you see the person whom we are to honor the King whatsoever he be good or bad 2. The Honor that we are to exhibite unto him is to be considered out of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word so significant that it not only comprehendeth all the duty which we owe to our Father and Mother but it is also used to express most if not all the service of God when he saith If I am a father Malach. 1.5 where is my honor And therefore when Ahassuerus asked Haman What should be done unto the man Whom the King would honor he answered let the Royall apparell be brought which the King useth to weare and the Horse that the King rideth upon
and other places round about and that only for Religion and not for worldly Dominion which is the suffering of the Christians under the Turk that permitteth any profession so they yield themselves to his subjection He must ingenuously confess this truth of Isidorus that the greatest of all Persecutions is that which is prosecuted by the Ministry of Antichrist that now raigneth in the world But if you would desire to know who is this Antichrist that now reigneth and thus rageth in the world I answer VVho is the Great Antichrist divers opinions That although many good Arguments are produced to prove the Great Turk to be that Great Antichrist and Constantinople to be that Babylon which is the Throne of that bloudy beast and as many good Arguments are alleadged by Powel Whitaker Downham Thompson and others of our Protestant Writers to prove that series paparum from Boniface in Phocas time to this present Pope is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spoken of by St. Paul 2 Thes 3. and that Rome is his proper seat and so called Babylm by St. Peter Yet divers others of no small Learning do avouch That as Ecclesia credentium corpus cum capite the whole Catholick Church of Christ head and members is said to be and is so termed unus Christus one Christ as in Joh. 3.13 And Christ saith unto Saul Why persecutest thou me when he persecuted his Church So Ecclesia malignantium the Congregation of the wicked or especially Senatus consultus the great Sanedrim of the people the supream Counsel A pack of wicked men is termed the Antichrist and the highest Court of any Nation which is the representative mystical body of that dispersed and nefarious Synagogue is oftentimes for their unanimous consent in all wickedness spoken of quasi unus homo as if they were but one man because they all have but one head one will and one end to destroy the truth and the true Church of Christ And this supream stool of wickedness that establisheth mischief by a Law 2 Thes 3.8 doth now appear to many men to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That man of sin and the child of perdition whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming because they say First There is neither Note Argument Saying nor Testimony of holy Scripture that doth competere antichristo and is sutable unto Antichrist but it is most properly found to agree with that Cumulus Senatorum the representative Council of all wickedness As 1. They have seated themselves in a mystical Babylon the Amsterdam of all confusion where you may easily find almost all Heresies maintained that have been invented and any Religion used but the true Religion that dares not be professed 2. They do sit in the Temple of God as God that is they do possess the truest Church of God that we know to be on earth and as God they establish Worship and Religion and ordain Laws for the Government of that Church and root out that Worship and Government which God himself hath ordained 3. They exalt themselves above all that is called God i.e. Above Kings This point of the Great Antichrist is fully and at large handled in my Book of The Great Antichrist revealed of whom the Scripture most properly saith Dixi Dii estis I said you are Gods because they are in Gods stead and do exercise Gods Power here on Earth and yet this grand Council of the Great Synagogue would not only be worshipped themselves as Kings but will suppress Kings deny any service to be done to them and suffer none to do them Worship which is properly to exalt themselves above Kings when they keep Kings so low 4. When by their false assembled Prophets they deny the Notions whereby we understand the Father and the Son to be the true God as they plainly do by the cashiering of the words Essence Person Trinity and the like words which the Church of God penes quam norma loquendi hath ever used to bring her Children thereby to some sure knowledge of that great mystery of godliness and to inable them to confute those wicked Hereticks that denied the same they do manifest themselves to be that Antichrist who as St. John saith denieth the Father and the Son 1 Joh. 2.22 which neither Turk nor Pope as yet ever did 5. The unfolding of that great mystery of the Beast Aug de Civitat Dei l. 20. c. 9. 14. which Beast St. Augustine understandeth of the Society of wicked Christians and the City of Satan that is signified by that Beast and the mystery which the Holy Ghost setteth down to be observed as the most proper Note of the Beast is that it containeth 666. touching which if you omit one thousand which is a full and perfect number and which is not an unusual thing in the Scripture to do to make the other the more mystery and consider that in 646. this great Sanedrim or superlative Council demanded the Militia or soveraign rule over the King for twenty years which being added to 646 do make up the just number of 666. This they say is a strong Argument to prove the grand Council to be that Great Beast 6. And lastly The unspeakable unparalelled persecution of this Antichrist above all the persecutions that preceded it either of Pope Turke or heathen Tyrants do plainly prove them to the judgment of some men to be the greatest Antichrist that as yet is revealed unto the world though some think that a greater may yet come before Christ does come to judgment which I do not believe But though I say as St. Augustine doth in the like case Alii atque alii aliud atque aliud opinati sunt Divers men have divers opinions about the time place and person of Antichrist which neither my Text nor my time will give me leave either to discuss or to disprove any of the same now Yet thus much I dare boldly say that letting pass the persecutions of the Preachers not to be paralelled in any History if you consider first the number of them all the Reverend Bishops all the Deans all Prebends and all the best Divines in the whole Kingdom And 2. the misery that is imposed upon them worse than death Quia dulce mori miseris To be spoyled of all their means banished from all their friends wife children and Parents and exposed to all wants and contempts so that neither Nero Domitian Dioclesian nor Julian brought such a storm upon the Church of Christ as is now brought upon the body of the whole Clergy within these five years and omitting the many thousands of good Christians No Historian can shew me any king that hath suffered more indignities at any â—nchristian hand than King Charls hath suffered from the Long Parliament that for their Religion and good conscience have lost their lives livings and liberties I say letting
he devised the way to depose her and to set the Crown upon the right Heirs Head whose example we ought all to follow when opportunity serveth Or were I not so that we must renounce usurped power how shall we protect and maintain the just and lawful authority 2 Sam. 15 16. surely the people that followed Abso lon when he had the power to trample Justice under foot to possesse the royal City and to drive the lawful King to flie from place to place and the followers of those perfideous Rebels of Killkenney that so barbarously massacred the poor Protestants and so foully so falsely deluded both the good King and all the Kings friends and have now as themselves pretend the great power in this Kingdom may well be justified not to have offended if this doctrine may be defended that usurped authority is not to be resisted but to be obeyed when its power is most prevalent But the Apostle tells us plainly Rom. 14.2 that whatsoever is not of faith is sin and with what faith I pray you can I obey that power and submit my self to that authority which my conscience tells me to be against truth and without Justice But Tertull. ad Scapulam makes this most clear where he sheweth how tender the Christians were to preserve the right to the lawful Emperours and therefore though Albinus was most powerful in the West and Pisen Niger in the East yet the Christians would be nec Albiniani nec Cassiani nec Nigriani Yet this much I must tell you that where the right heir is not apparent as it was not amongst many of the Primitive Emperours who were often lifted up to that royal dignity by none other right than the Sword of the tumultuous Souldiers and unconstant cohorts and were therefore obeyed by the good Christians because they knew not of any other that had any better right unto the Empire the same as yet being unsetled to continue in any hereditary line or when the just Title to the Crown is not cleered as perhaps it was not to all the Subjects in the time of Hen. 4. Edw. 4. and Rich. 3. and the like doubtful claimes then it is not for every private mechanick or ignorant Rustick to determine the right to the Crown and decide the equity or the iniquity of such powers but as the Apostle saith and as it was most learnedly handled by a most Reverend and a most learned Prelate of our Church not long since in this place they ought to study to be quiet to follow their own Trades 1 Thes 4 11. and to do their own business and not to polupragmatize in matters so transcendent and so metaphysical to their Mechanick and Rustick capacities And in this qualified sence you must understand and not mistake the meaning of the same most Reverend Prelate in this place upon our last Kings day that when it is doubtful to whom the right of the Soveraign Power should belong or who hath right unto the Soveraignty then all ignorant and private men are excused though they resist not the Government that hath the present power over them but do obey the same especially by their passive obedience and likewise by their active obedience in all honest and lawful demands All which with all that I said before I say to clear the integrity of the said Reverend Prelates intention from any sinister apprehension of misunderstanding hearers But where the right is indubitable and the soveraignty not to be questioned whose it is as it is with our most gracious King whom all the Irish Rebels of Kilkenny and all the other Rebels of these three Kingdoms deny not to be their lawful Soveraign I say that what Power soever exalteth it self above him or against him which the Parliament of England doth not when it challengeth only a kind of co-ordination with him we are not to yield any obedience unto the same especially if the same command or require any thing contrary to his commands because as the Son of Syrach saith We are to stand with the right and in the truth and as our Saviour saith To continue faithful therein unto death if we desire to enjoy the Crown of life And therefore though the dumb devil may hold my tongue Rev. 2.10 so that I shall be able to say nothing of what truth should be delivered yet all the power of hell shall never open my mouth and cause me to say that untruth which my conscience telleth me cannot be justified because this love to the truth of Scripture is a singular Testimony of our love to God 3. The next sign of the love of God is to love the honour of God without which we cannot be said to love God 2 To love Gods honour 4. The next sign is to love Gods Image that is Man 5. To observe Gods Precepts 6. To hate Sin 7. A longing desire to be with God to have an Union and Communion with him for it is an impregnable property of a person loving to desire to be united to the person loved and therefore Pyramus loving Thisbe cries out to the wall that hindered them to meet together Invide dicebat paries quid amantibus obstas Many other signs of Gods love I should shew unto you and the impediments that hinders us to love God such as are 1. The ignorance of the incomprehensible sweetness and unspeakable goodness of God 2. The too much love of our selves and of our carnal desires 3. The bewitching allurements of the pleasures profits and other vanities of this present world and the like that do hinder blind and suffocate our love to God And then last of all I should shew unto you the helps and furtherances to beget and to nourish the love of God in us such as are 1. The continual meditation of Gods goodness towards us and his excellencies in himself 2. The daily reading and hearing of Gods Word and the reading of other godly Books that do incite and invite us to love the Lord above all the things of this World 3. Continual Prayers to God for Grace and the assistance of his Holy Spirit to encline our hearts to love him 4. Often discourse and conference with good and holy men about the goodness of God and heavenly things and the like All which I should more fully and amply inlarge unto you but that the time binds me to defer the same to a fitter opportunity and in the interim to pray to God for grace to abandon the love of this World and to love God and to encrease in our love to him more and more through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom be Glory and Honour and Thanks now and for evermore Amen Jehovae Liberatori THE DECLARATION OF THE Just Judgments of GOD. THE Man that was according to God's own heart the best Subject that ever we read of and the greatest Ring that ever Israel saw David the Son of Jesse saith that the LORD is righteous in
by the importunity of their People to yield to many things that they desired And what Favours and Priviledges they thus obtained from these Kings they challenged as their Right and Due from the succeeding Princes and the more Favours and Priviledges they obtained the more still they desired and at last in some Parliaments from Advisers the Members thereof would fain become Directours and instead of being Counsellours they aymed to be Commanders of their Kings and to perswade them that they ought and must enact what Laws and do what things as they concluded should be done But seeing as the Poet saith Flumina magna vides parvis de fontibus orta small Springs do often make great Rivers therefore to prevent the increase of this growing Mischief to allay the Disease before the Sore grew to be incurable and to quench the Flame before the Fire burnt the House the wise and prudent Kings retained always in their own hands the power to dissolve the Parliament whensoever they pleased that as they called them together when they thought good so they might dismiss them when they listed either when all things were reasonably concluded or when they conceived the Parliament men to become unreasonable in their Demands which was the first Signal Evidence of the Ambitious Desire of Kingly Majesty in the Lord Protectour when he dissolved the Long Parliament which made me to believe he aymed to be a King Therefore when the King perceived Qui sâ—mel verecundiae fines transgress us fuerit eum oportet gnaviter esse impudentem Cicero not the importunity but as some of the King's Friends said the impudency of this Long Parliament beyond all the Parliaments that preceded it and saw them so insolent and their proceedings so violent in all their courses for him then to pass away that Supreamest Power or at least one Branch of the Highest Power which was in him and which never any other King passed before and so to give that Sword which God had put into his hands into the hands of any mad men or to the usage of his Enemies was such a fault in my apprehension as passed all the errours that this good King ever committed or as I believe any other for this was none other then to give the Sword to his enemies to enable them to destroy him So that this good King might well cry out with the Poet Heu patior telis vulnera facta meis Indeed Golias's Head was cut off with his own Sword but David took it from him perforce and Golias gave it not neither could he hold it when he lay at David's feet when as the King was not so when he passed this Act but he might have easily denied to pass this Bill of an indissoluble Parliament which had never been an Act had he not given his consent unto the same which in a short time after made his Enemies Kings and unkinged him and the Lord Protectour was hereby put in mind of his Grammar Lesson Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum and therefore he never gave to his Parliaments such advantage against him But you will say that the Parliament deceived the good King who was therefore the sooner deceived because he was good for as the Oratour saith Cicero Epist l. 10. Vt quisque est vir optimus it à difficilimè esse alios improbos suspicatur and Cicero saith most truly that Credulitas error magìs est quà m culpa quidem in optimi eujusque mentem irrepit facillimé So the credulous and well-minded King believed the deceitful Protestations of the subtle Parliament who pretended onely they desired him to pass this Act that they might the sooner be trusted to raise up Moneys to satisfie their Brethren the Scots that were their Brethren indeed but intended hereby to change the Government to root out the King and to exstirpate the Royal Race and so to settle themselves and their Successours in the Throne of Supremacy for ever as it is more amply expressed in the Discovery of Mysteries and as afterwards they shewed their intentions unto all I answer that it is most true they deceived the good King so did the Serpent deceive our Progenitours and the old Prophet deceived the Man of God yet this excused neither of them And the Lord Coke saith Tantum abest Cokus Dè Jure Râ—gis Ecclesiastico ut ignorantia excuset aut extennet ejus errorem qui veritatem invenire poterat quam necessariò agnoscere debeat tantùm investigare noluit ut in causa sit cur graviùs plectatur And it cannot be denyed but that the King should have searched and sifted into their Plots and not to have been ignorant of their Wiles as we are not to be ignorant of the Wiles of Satan as the Apostle testifieth And I must confess that as it was wickedness in them to deceive the King so it was want of good Counsel in him to be deceived and suffer himself to be circumvented by them for had he consulted with God and by God's Ministers that were now to be all tumbled down I believe these Foxes of Satan should not have ensnared his Majesty because they could have sufficiently informed him how the Old Serpent hath Emissaries enough to deceive if it were possible the very Elect. And therefore as he was as innocent as the Dove so he should have been as wise as the Serpent to avoid the Stings and to finde out the Windings of the Infernal Serpent and one man's head though the wisest among many is scarce sufficient to pierce into the Plots and Subtilties of many heads And if you say he had his Counsellours true and I could name them and they were great ones too and wise men too but as I said before they were not the Ambassadours of Christ the Counsellours that are sent for God for their Advice was not suffered at this time to be desired their presence was to be excluded and themselves shortly to be imprisoned And therefore as Lucan saith Hoc placet ô Superi cùm vobis vertere cuncta Propositum nostris erroribus addere crimen Therefore as the King though unwillingly gave way to these Foxes to suppress and to exclude God's Ministers from his Counsels so God might justly give way for his Counsellours to betray him to his enemies by yielding to their Desires to have an everlasting Parliament thereby to end him and to remain as Kings themselves without end Some other Misprisons it may be the good King might commit of less moment and not so easily to be observed though easily pass as Plutarch saith in great affairs But howsoever for all that this good King did and in all the things that he suffered or have happened unto him you may see that God is just in all his ways and holy in all his Works and how the Judgments of the great God as they proceed from him may easily be justified by the weakest of men And yet as in the sufferings and
for judgement against the Bishops that were the Authours of these evils and so as all the Mariners were tossed for Jonas his sin so all the Bishops must suffer for the offence of few And though as Eusebius saith all the malice of the world and all the persecution of Tyrants and all the Stratagems of that old Serpent could not darken the glory of Christ his Church while the Bishops and the rest of the Priests and Preachers of God's word held together and kept the Unity of Faith in the Bond of Peace yet when the Bishops fell together by the ears and dissented in their opinions the one from the other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they that held the faith of one Substance which is the right Catholick faith from them that maintained the faith of the like Substance which was and is the Arrian Heresy and when the Priests banded against the Bishops and the Bishops did therefore seek to suppress those Priests then the Lord darkened the glory of the daughter of Sion and the Church that formerly triumphed sate then as a Sparrow that is alone mourning upon the House-top even so now in our days when they that ought and had promised and vowed most solemnly when they were admitted to Holy Orders to reverence their Bishops and to be advised by them and obedient to them began to spurn with their heels to spit in their faces and to bark against them in their Pulpits our Saviour's words must hold true that A Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand and much less the Hierarchy when the Priests and Bishops are at such ods and so contrary to themselves And this division of Reuben with the aforesaid distempers was a great presage of their present fall yet I believe not all the cause that moved God to permit the Devil to stir up Enemies to throw them down but the true cause was greater sins if I judge right then either of these for the former might be the aspersions of Enemies and but onely the allegation of ill-willers without any sound ground for their Justification or if true but the Acts of some few of the inferiour Bishops and the Divisions of the Clergy might lessen our repute and weaken our Authority but not utterly to overthrow our Hierarchy as all the contentions of the Primitive Church never did And therefore the true causes of our ruine must needs be of an higher nature and they might be besides the forenamed and some others that we know not of these three main faults that can neither be denied nor excused 1. The misguiding of the good King before the Long Parliament The three great saults of the Bishops 2. The neglecting of him in the Parliament 3. The evil Counsel they gave him with the Parliament First The King having a reverend opinion of the Bishops Fault was perswaded to second and to set forward the Designs of the Bishop of Canterbury in many things that brought him the ill opinion and so diminished the love of the people as in the matter of Saint Gregory's by Saint Paul's and especially in sending the newly amended Liturgy unto the Scotish Church and the Prosecution of that business so eagerly to the great prejudice of the King which was to speak what I conceive to be truth without flattery such an Episcopal offence as cannot be expiated with words nor could be defended with the power of the King as the Scots alleadged Non omnibus unum est Quod placet hic spinas colligit ille rosas and which I conceive to be the Original and the Seed of all the King's troubles and misfortunes and the Bishop's overthrow mittere falcem in alienam messem to busie themselves out of their own Diocess especially among the Scots that were bewitched with the love of the Presbytery and hated all forms of Liturgies but such as was without form or beauty like Christ at his Passion that was then as the Prophet saith without form or beauty for had they rested quiet without raising up those Northern blasts and those Spirits that they could not lay down they might no doubt in my Judgement have remained quiet to this very day but they throwing these stones into the Air they fell into their own fore-heads and they verified the old Proverb Qui striut insidias aliis sibi damna dat ipse he that diggeth a pit for another shall fall into it himself for by troubling the Scots with the new service they pull'd an old house upon their own heads and an unspeakable trouble upon the King and this Kingdom as they soon felt it afterwards and all the people smarted for it Secondly Great fault of the Bishops When they had troubled these unsavory waters and raised up these foul Spirits that they could not binde and had engaged the good King in this bad cause they neither justified the King with their pens nor assisted him with their purses near so much as so good a Patron both of them and of their Churches had deserved but as men stupified with that storm that the Parliament had raised they were tongue-tied in his Cause and hand-bound for any great help or assistance they afforded him against his and their own enemies And what a neglect was this of so good a King by wise men to save their Wealth and to lose both their King and themselves I would they had remembred Ausonius his Epigram 55. Effigiem Ausonius Epigt 55. Rex Croese tuam ditissime regum Vidit apud manes Diogenes Cynicus Constitit utque procul stetit majore cachinno Concussus dixit Quid tibi divitiae Nunc prosunt regum Rex O ditissime cumsis Sicut ego solus me quoque pauperior Nam quaecunque habui mecum fero cum nihil ipse Ex tantis tecum Croese feras opibus But they skulked to escape the storm I could name the men that had and let abundance of Wealth and ready Coin behind them and yet did nothing to relieve the King and suffered their King to suffer Ship-wrack a fault not unworthy to be punished by the Judges and an unthankfulness yea and such unthankfulness as exceeded all their former defects and faults to do so little for him that did so much for them and was contented to lose his life as he did rather then he would consent that they should lose their honour and be degraded of that Calling to which Christ had called them I am sure it is our duty and we ow it unto our King as I have fully shewed in my Book Of the Right of Kings to hazard our lives for our King and to spend all that we have in the defence of our King and I think this King well deserved if ever any King deserved at the Bishops hands that they should hazard their lives and expose all that they had in the just defence of so just a King and therefore God dealt most justly with us to suffer all our Bishops to
ádmixtis dulcia acerbis and a soft answer appeaseth wrath saith Solomon and a faire speech gaineth love and Secondly 1. Secondly on the Presbyterian part 1. Pride Pride 2. Ignorance 3. Envy 4. Ambition 5. Coveteousness 6. Hatred in the Presbyters are the causes of all the discontent betwixt them and the Bishops First Their Pride and Arrogancy was such that they thought too well of themselves Superbos Jequiter ultor a tergo deus and preferring themselves before others they thought themselves worthy to be set above others but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Menander none shall escape the punishment of Pride because as Cicero saith Nullum est officium tam sanctum tamque solenne quod non superbia abitio comminuere ac violare solet and as St. Augustine saith Destruit superbia quicquid justitia aedificat Pride destroyeth whatsoever Virtue or Righteousness buildeth and the Poet saith as much Inquinat egregios adjuncta superbia mores our Pride soileth and spoileth the best and fairest things and so the Pride of these men destroyed whatsoever their good parts deserved and deserve much they could not For Secondly 2 Ignorance Ignorance is many times the Mother of Pride when as none is so bold as blinde Bayard for though sometimes multum facit ad ingenium superbia Pride spurreth on some to get Learning and their Learning makes them the prouder yet true knowledge and especially the Divine Learning teacheth Humility and not Pride for when they have attained to all Arts and do know as much as Berengarius that was said to know as much as was knowable or as Solomon that wrote of all Natures from the Isop that groweth upon the Wall to the Cedar of Lebanon Yet may they cry out with the Poet O quantum mortalia pectora cecae noctis habet Ovid Mâ—t. l. 6 Alas alas how much Blindness lodgeth in all mortal men and they may most truly say with Job that they are but of yesterday and know nothing But their ignorance of the truth of the Holy Scriptures the Writings of the ancient Fathers and the Ecclesiastical Stories of all Times made them to neglect their Duties and to spurn against both their King and their Bishops for had they been well vers'd in these things and had understood them well I should have thought it not possible for the Devil to have filled them with so much poyson as they have shewed both against their King and against their Bishops and that just like the Coy-Duck Officiosa aliis exitiosa suis to destroy their Brethren to pleasure their Enemies and the Enemies of God's Church For Thirdly Seeing the Bishops whom they deemed no more then their Equals to be preferred before them and conceiving themselves thereby to be neglected they both hated the King for his choice and envied the Bishops for their places and because they were not capable to work any other revenge their Tongues were their own and they let fly their Arrows even bitter words both against our obedience to the King though cunningly and obliquely and most directly against the Calling of the Bishops making that nothing wherein themselves had nothing to do But till their envie had gotten power to work their ends it onely wrought the greatest mischief unto themselves for as it is said of Mount Aetna Nil a liud nisi se valet ardens Aetna cremare that it burns nothing but it self Sic se non alios invidus ipse cremat so the envious man comburitur intus extra doth burn and pine away himself through envie and this envie destroyed the whole Nation of the Jews because as Saint Ambrose saith Maluerunt invidere quà m credere they rather chose to envie Christ for his honour that he had for his Miracles and good Deeds then believe in him for their own Salvation and the Bishops thought with Pindarus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Melior est invidentia commiseratione that a Case hateful was better then woful and that it was better for them to be envied by these then to be pitied by all But Fourthly The next thing that made them to start aside like a broken Bow Ambition was not so much their envy against the Bishops as their ambition to obtain their places and their ambition which as the Scholeman saith is one of the Daughters of Pride failing to lay hold of what it went about or that preferment which they sought made them to flie out against the Bishops and as Arius missing the Bishoprick of Alexandria became the Father of the Arian Heresie and Aerius as Epiphanius writeth being denied the Bishoprick that he required did first broach that Heresie that there was no difference betwixt a Presbyter and a Bishop so the Presbyterians haughty spirit breaketh forth to discontent to murmure to traduce to maligne and to abundance of other evils not easily to be discovered for as Cicero saith Facillimè ad res injust as impellitur quisquis est altissimo animo gloriae cupido He is most easily induced to do very unjust things that is of an high minde and ambitious of glory and great places Nam dulce venenum Est mundi lethalis honos because this deadly desire of honour is like sweet poyson that enticeth us to suck it up And Fifthly As covetousness and the love of this present World Covetousness made Demas to forsake St. Paul so the like worldly love and the love of the things of this World hath made these false Brethren to forsake their leaders for this is that root of bitterness Javenal Satyr 14. which choaketh every pleasant flower and destroyeth every virtue for as Juvenal saith quae reverentia legum Quis metus aut pudor est unquam properantis avari what respect of Laws what fear of punishment or what shame of the World is at any time in a covetous man that maketh hast to be rich Nam saevior ignibus Aetnae Fervens amor ardet habendi Yet we may and ought to covet that which is good for he that coveteth the Office of a Bishop to feed the Flock of Christ to preach the Gospel and to promote the Glory of God desires a good work saith the Apostle but he that desires a Bishoprick to Lord it over God's Inheritance and to enrich himself and his Posterity to purchase Lands and to leave Lordships for his Children this is an evil sickness that produceth death And this covetousness is said to be the Epidemical Disease of the Presbyterians that are generally seen to be more covetous then any other kinde of men as it is expressed in particular by the Authour of the last Will and Testament of Sir John Presbyter Sixthly Covetousness Their covetous desire and ambition to get Wealth and Preferment and their unworthiness to obtain it causing them to miss of it have bred in them not onely envy against the Bishops but also discontent and hatred against the King for preferring the other and neglecting them though the King did to them herein
prophane all Holy-daies even those that are set apart for the Commemoration of the blessed Birth Circumcision and Ascension of our only Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and all other days that the former Saints and the whole Church of Christ had appointed for the children of God to meet to give thanks to God for the great blessings that all we had received from him I demand of any man even themselves being Judges if it be not very just that they should be plundred and pressed and even lose their livings which have so unjustly and so perfidiously done those things in hope to retain their livings for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non te latuerit O supreme Jupiter horum malorum quisquis autor extitit The Heathen man can tell us God will not be mocked neither can we blinde the all-seeing eyes of God nor hide our selves out of his sight when we do commit such evils and Christ tells us plainly he that saveth his life shall lose it and he that loseth his life for his sake shall finde it And were the Martyrs so ready to lose their lives for his sake and shall we be so unwilling to forgo a little worldly pelf and some small living for his sake that tells us plainly whatsoever we give or lose for his sake we shall be required an hundred-fold and shall receive eternal life Let them therefore that will if not out of faction or ignorance but for the love of their livings reject our inoffensive and divine Liturgy that is so conducing to peace and good order so little obnoxious to any just exception and so exceeding profitable for the instruction of the people for mine own part I know it to be the true service of the true God and the best way that I know to serve God and therefore by God's help I will never omit it nor be guided by their directory for all the livings that they could or can heap upon me and I pray God it be not layd to their charge that to comply with the factious opposers of it or to retain their livings have done it to betray the service of God and to lay aside those heavenly prayers that were made by holy Saints and approved by all the best Doctours of the Church and appointed by authority to be used to help the devotion of God's people and in the stead thereof to authorise or at least by their example to encourage every Ignoramus to prate nonsence and sometimes to belch out blasphemies in his prayers to God and in the face of the Church without shame God forgive them Secondly For the lay-subjects of the King that have had their part in the miseries of these latter days The lay-subjects I speak onely of those that in their Consciences approved of their King's cause for his enemies their portion perhaps is yet unpaid I may divide them into two ranks just as were the followers of Gideon 1. Judges vii 7. Some were faint hearted and they were the greatest part and that by much 2. Others were very faithful and couragious but they were by far the smalest number not above 300. of 32000. so were the following subjects of King Charles First The faint-hearted Royalist the fainthearted subjects that loved the King and wished that he might prosper and prevail against his Adversaries but feared the powerful numerous multitude of the Parliament abettors that were very many and were just like the Inhabitants of Meroz that hated the Cananites but did nothing for the Israelites so did these nothing or so little as nothing for the King and for their fellow-subjects that were with him And yet the Scholes tell us and so do the Heathens also that Qui potest liberare alium non liberat occidit he that can deliver another that is from anundeserved death as in his Conscience he believeth is innocent and delivereth him not killeth him and is thereby guilty of his blood and the Canonists do say Scotus in sent dist 15. decret secunda parte c. usa 23. q. 3. Et Seneca passimâ— qui succurrere perituro potest cum non succurrâ—t occidit And Cicero saith Nâ—l habet fortuna majus quam ut possit nec nâ—turametius quaÌ„ ut velit servare Pro. xxiv 11 12. qui non repellit injuriam à Socio cùm potest tam est in vitio quam qui facit he that hindereth not an injury or a wrong that is done his fellow when it lyeth in his power to do it is as much in fault as he that doth the injury and Solomon saith If thou faint in the day of Adversity thy strength is smal and if thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain and sayest behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy Soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works and the Prophet David biddeth us to defend the Fatherless and the Widdows and to see that such as be oppressed have right which was the practice of Job as himself confesseth and of Moses also when he killed the Aegyptian to deliver the oppressed Israelite out of his hands and the Poet that knew no more then what the dim Light of Nature shewed him saith Turpe erit in miseris veteri tibi rebus amico Auxilium nulla parte tulisse tuum Ovid. lib. 2. De Ponto It is a foul shame for any man to leave an old friend in distress and not to further him with his aid and assistance And if men are thus obliged to assist their Neighbours and their Friends A shameful thing to neglect our Friends in Adversity when they are wronged how much more are they bound to aid and to defend their King when they see him wronged and sought to be murdered or dethroned for these men had sworn Allegiance and fidelity to their King at divers times and many of them if not most of them had their places and offices at least their Protection formerly from him and passing over those that were furthest from my knowledge and to speak of them quorum pars magna fui mine own Country men and Kinsmen with some great I know not how good men had like Aeneas and Vcalegon invited the wily Greeks to enter Troy and to come into our Coasts the chiefest Gentry were all moved and perswaded to swear and to take an Oath so well deviced and penned as the best and most learned Divines in all those parts could do it to be true and faithful unto their King and to the uttermost of their power with the hazard of their lives and the expence of their goods and fortunes to oppose all those Adversaries The inconstancy of many men that then opposed him and the chiefest of them by name And yet behold the Constancy and the Faithfulness of these good Subjects how good Christians I know not before one drop of their blood
was spilt or any part of their goods spent they submitted themselves to the Parliament and left the Kings friends to sink or swim and the King himself to do as he could and I believe they were neither the first nor the last that did the like in many parts of this Kingdom neither do I conceive these men to be the worst of the King's Subjects because that indeed there was something now that might induce faint-hearted men and semi-Subjects to yield unto the Parliament though not to break their Oath which is indispensable and should be inviolably kept in any Case for that the King was worsted and the Parliament had very much prevailed against him though this also is no such great Inducement either with wise men or faithful Subjects to make them so suddenly to lay down their Bucklers because as the Poet saith Victores victique cadunt victique resurgunt The doubtful events of war And as another saith Communis Mars est interfectorem interficit Sam. xi 25. That is in King David's Phrase The Sword devoureth one as well as another as well the Conquerour as the conquered and therefore Menevensis saith of King Alfred Si modo victor erat ad crastina bella pavebat Si modo victus erat ad crastina bella parabat He feared his Enemies when he overcame them and he prepared against them when they overcame him and as Demosthenes answered when he was charged for running away from his Enemies Vir fugiens denuò pugnabit he that runs away to day may cause his enemies to fly away to morrow and so we finde it verefied many times as the Histories of the greatest Warriours testifie unto us But if fear of the Prevalency of the Parliament was now so powerful with them as to binde their hands and to shut their Purses from the King what was the reason they were so slow and did so little aid him either with men or mony when in all probability the King had the better or at lest stood at even terms with his enemies and then might with a little help and a small weight added turn the Scales and so subdue his Adversaries and prevent all the miseries and disasters that have happened ever since Surely here can be made none other answer nor any excuse alledged but the same reason that the Merozites had to shut their mouths stop their feet and hold their hands till they did see who should prevail and under whose wings they thought to shelter themselves when all the brunt was past The true cause of the neutrality of most men in this Kingdom without danger or at least to come off upon very reasonable termes And this was the cause of the neutrality of the most men especially the greatest men of this Kingdom And is it not therefore most just that this pannick fear and punick faith should suffer the punishment that such perfidiousness deserved that he which refuseth the sweet How justly these men were punished by suffering all that fell upon them just and easie Yoke of Christ should undergo the bitter hard and cruel Yoke of Satan or that they which undutifully neglected and refused to do a little help which their Conscience told them they should do for their King that exposed himself to the hazard of his life and loss of his Kingdom for to maintain the Service of God and to defend their Laws and Liberties should bear the full Measure and Weight of that punishment which they deserved Yes certainly me judice these of all others merited to be scourged with Scorpions and not lashed with twigs and I pray God their deserts do not light upon their heads when as neither plundering nor composition nor taxes can Paralel that greatness of their offence that destroyed both the King and his partie by their deserting of them Therefore whatsoever miseries taxes or service or any other Trouble of the like nature hath fallen on any person of this classes The greatness of their offence let him say and he shall say but the truth that God hath not onely most justly dealt with him that had so unjustly neglected his King but hath been more mercifull unto him then either his offence deserved or with any reason could be expected Secondly 2 The faith For those Subjects of the King that were like Gedeons faithfull Souldiers and spent their Wealth and Strength to the uttermost of their power to assist his Majestie and did according to their Consciences and as they conceived the Word of God Expounded by the true Prophets and servants of Christ directed them and yet felt the rod of God and the miseries of those times in full measure and far heavier then most others as though they had been the worst of men and the greatest of all Sinners such as divers of the Jews conceited those eihtteen Galilaeans upon whom the Tower of Siloah fell and those whose Blood â—ilate mingled with their Sacrifice were I say that if God should be extreme to marke what they had don amiss or should with the Eye of justice look upon the best of all his Saints were he as faithfull as Moses that was faithfull in all Gods house as religious as David that was a man according to Gods own heart as constant as Saint Peter that was contented to be Crucified for the Faith of Christ and as industrious as Saint Paul that laboured more then any of all the Apostles yet were he not able to answer God one of a thousand but he must lay his Hand upon his Mouth and opening the same he must say with Holy Job If I wash my self in Snow water and make my hands never so clean Job ix 30. yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine owne Cloaths shall abhorr me Dan. ix 7. and with the Prophet Daniel O Lord righteousness belongeth unto the When we do never so well God may justly punish us though not for that our well-doing but for some other evil-doings that we had done at some other time before or for some defect in our well-doing Why God punisheth the loyal Subject and his owne most faithfull servants but unto us shame and confusion of Faces And therefore how faithfull and how constant soever these seemed to be both in the service of God and discharging their duties unto the King yet must they confess they failed in many things of that degree of perfection which God requireth at their hands in both respects they neither serveing God as they ought nor being such Subjects unto thir King as the strictness of God's Law requireth And therefore I say First that in all our sufferings whatsoever calamities we have endured and what pressure soever lyeth upon us we must all confess that either for our delinquences and miscariages in these times or some other offences committed by us at some other times we are most justly and farr less then we deserve afflicted and punished by God whose judgments on us as upon all others are always most