THE Free-born Subject OR THE Englishmans Birthright Asserted against all TYRANNICAL VSVRPATIONS EITHER IN CHURCH OR STATE LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun in St. Pauls Church-yard at the West-end 1679. THE FREE-BORN SUBJECT OR The Englishmans Birthright Asserted against all Tyrannical Usurpations either in RELIGION or STATE NOw to take my Text to pieces By a Free-born Subject is meant a person that is born under the Protection of the Law and thereby entitled to certain known Immunities and Privileges as his Birthright But then he is likewise tied up by the same Law to certain Rules and Measures of Obedience to Government So that he seems to be Free in one respect and Subject in another Now how far he is Enfranchised by this Liberty and how far Limited by that Subjection will be the Question You shall seldom or never find this expression used but as a kind of Popular Challenge and still in favour of the Free-born without any regard at all to the Subject Whereas we should as well consider the Authority of an Imperial Prince on the one hand as the Privileges of a Free-born People on the other And not so far mistake either the Force or the Intent of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right by which we claim to these Liberties as if by being discharged of our Vassalage we were also discharged of our Allegiance The Englishmans Birthright sounds much to the same purpose too with the Free-born Subject Only there lies a stronger Emphasis in Common Speech upon the word Englishman As when we speak of a Brave Man that stands up for the Honour and Defence of his Country such a one we cry is a Right Englishman a True Englishman Now to the end that we may not be misled by the Sound and Jingle of Words into a false and dangerous Notion of Things let us repair to the Law which is the Known and Common Standard of our Civil Actions that we may not either give up our Own just Rights on the One hand or Encroach upon his Majesties on the Other For it is the Law that marques out the Metes and Bounds both of King and People that shews how far we are to Go and where to Stop and teaches us to distinguish betwixt Liberty and Sedition betwixt a True Right Old Englishman and a shuffling double-hearted Moderm Impostor As we have our Legal Rights so we lie under Legal Restrictions too And the King likewise hath his Legal Prerogatives which are also accompanied with certain Legal Limitations From whence it appears that the Law serves as a Common-Rule and lies as a Common Obligation both upon Prince and Subject And yet though there be a Duty Incumbent on both sides there is a great difference even in point of Law it selfe betwixt the Kings Violation of the Law and the Peoples The King breaks his Word the People forfeit their Bond. They are Both of them Bound alike in Conscience but the People are over and above engaged upon a Penalty It makes a huge noise in the World that Kings are bound by the Laws as well as the People And so they are in Honour and Conscience but no further And this arises from the very Nature of Government it self For wheresoever the Last Appeal lies there rests the Government And there can be no Government at all without the Establishment of a Final Result for otherwise the King shall Iudge the People and the People Rejudge the King and so the Controversie shall run round World without end Take notice now that all Appeals move from a Lower Court or Sentence to a Superiour and consider then how ridiculous it were to Appeal Downward or from Sovereign Princes to any other Power than to the King of Kings who alone is above them But let us put the Case now that a Prince mis-governs How shall he be tried It must be either By the Law or Without it If the Former where is the Law that says The People may call their Soveraign to accompt in case he does not Govern according to Law Or if they cannot produce such a Law the Assertion is Treasonous If the Latter we are at our Old Salus Populi again Which in one word is no other then a direct Dissolution of the Law and a Prostitution of Authority to the Will of the Multitude Having already stated the Conditions and Advantages of a Free-born Subject and of our English Birthrights we shall now proceed to the asserting of these our Privileges against all Tyrannical Usurpations either in matter of Religion or State And first a word of Tyrannical Usurpations Under this Head may be comprised all sorts of Violence and Oppression by what means or Instruments soever exercised contrary to Law and Iustice. By Tyranny we do understand An Vnjust Domination or an Abuse of a Lawful Power to the injury of the People as if a Prince should turn a Legal Government into and Arbitrary Now we commonly reckon That for an Vsurpation when One man takes upon him the Right of another without any Title to it at all As our late Oliver was called Vsurper And there are also Mixt Cases as was That before mentioned where Tyranny and Vsurpation meet Both in One. According to This Division we may be oppressed three several ways either Immediately by the Prince himself or Mediately by his Ministers as by special Direction and Command Or otherwise we may be simply oppressed one Subject by another But still these Oppressions are Illegal every way and the Question is Now what Legal Relief in the Case For as the Law entitles us to the Privileges we claim and to the enjoyment of them so does the Law likewise appoint and chalk us out the Methods of Asserting and Maintaining our Rights in case they be invaded So that we must onely Oppose Legal Remedies to Illegal Wrongs and not think to deliver our selves from one Violence by another For Popular Commotions are the most Criminal and Dangerous of all sorts of Oppressions Other Oppressions may lie Heavy upon particular Persons but This is an Oppression of Law and Government it self And it is as Foolish as it is Impious For while we Phansie all things to be Lawful for us because we suffer many things against Law we incur a Legal Forfeiture of all our Privileges by the unlawful manner of endeavouring to preserve them It is a Maxim in Law but not in Morals that the King can do no wrong for he may shed Innocent Bloud with his own hand which is the Greatest of Wrongs but it is not looked upon however as a Wrong in Law because there is no Law to question him for it The Ordinary shift upon this Point is That the King may be sued and that consequently he stands answerable to the Law To which I say with a Distinction that the King hath a Twofold Right a Right of Dominion and a Right of Propriety In the Former which is the point in Question there lies no
Action of Law In the other there may for otherwise he might take away any mans Free-hold at pleasure And were it not a wild thing to imagine otherwise when according to the very Stile of the Law all Writs Trials and Forms of Iustice run in the Kings name So that admitting their Supposition the King sits Iudge upon himself When the late Underminers of the Government found that they could not shake the Royal Authority This way for it was attempted they had recourse afterward to the Phansie of a Coordinate Government making the King Lords and Commons to be the Three Estates in stead of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons represented in Parliament Which mistake being swallowed by the Undiscerning Multitude proved the Foundation of our Common Ruine This Whimsie being now set on foot again I shall bestow a Word or two upon the Unmasking of that pernicious and sensless Pretence and make it appear that the Position is Destructive not onely of the Three Estates as some account them but of the very Being of Parliaments Supposing the Government to be Coordinate as these People will have it any Twâ— Parts of the Three may Out the Third The King lies at the Mercy of the Lords and Commons the Commons at the Mercy of the King and the Lords and the Lords as much at the Mercy of the King and Commons So that at this rate no body knows to day what Government we shall have to morrow This is the Just Ratio of a Coordinate State and then to colour the Invention they tell us that the King is Singulis Major Vniversis Minor Greater then the Diffusive Body of the People but Inferiour to the Collective Which strikes at the very Root of Parliaments for if it be True that a Prince by calling of a Parliament dethrones himself what Prince would ever call a Parliament As it is clear that Sovereign Power is Sacred and not to be Touched it is no less Clear on the other side that all the Executors of Illegal Powers and Violences may be questioned for that the Law puts no difference betwixt one Subject and another but provides for Common Iustice betwixt man and man without any difference of regard to Dignities or Persons And as it appoints us such a Relief in such and such Cases so does it likewise ordain and direct such and such Punishments in other Cases according as the wisdom of the Law-makers hath found convenient So that he is upon his Good behaviour either for Redress or Punishment But I hear many people say that 't is True the Law provides well enough for us but what if Iustice be overaw'd and obstructed My answer is that we are to help our selves by Law if we can but if the Law will not relieve us we must be Patient especially in a Case where 't is impossible to find a Remedy that is not worse then the Disease Let us but look a little into the Consequences of passing That Line and taking upon us to be our Own Carvers First by Transgressing the Bounds of the Law we cast our selves out of the Protection of it Secondly by declining the Common Equity of it we run into Partialities and Factions and every man makes himself both Iudge and Party Thirdly from a Certain and Infallible Provision for the Stating and Determining of all Controversies we transport our selves into an Absolute Impossibility of ever Reconciling them I might have said of Vnderstanding them For Fourthly from matter of Fact we betake our selves to Questions and Propositions of Notion as the Law of Nature Self-preservation c. which signifie nothing more then to puzzle the Multitude and confound the Order of Civil Administration For there can be no Proof made of a Thought but under Countenance of These Blinds the Ambitious the Revengeful the Necessitous the Factious the Covetous the Malicious and the like Stalk to their Vnrighteous and Self-Ends And what 's the Issue of all This but that when by Coveting more then did belong to us we have lost what we had when by forsaking the Known and the Safe ways of Peace and Iustice we have wandered out our Lives in Pathless Dangerous and Vncomfortable Errors without either Light or Guide to set us right again When we have been led by a False Shew of Liberty as by an Ignis Fatuus through Boggs and Ditches and all in pursuit of a Sluttish Vapour When by breaking the Bond of Humane Society we have turned a Community into a Desert and like Wild Beasts torn one another to pieces What is the fruit at last of all our Wild Adventures but Bondage Beggery Shame and Late Repentance So that our Best and Surest Way will be for every man to look to his Own Province without intermeddling in the Jurisdiction of Another Having sufficiently discoursed upon the Quality of Tyrannical Usurpations we come now to Religion and State as the Subject Matter they are to work upon Wherein we shall Distinguish betwixt Tyranny as an Act of the Government and Usurpation as a Claim of the People Touching the Power of Kings and the Possibility of Tyranny in the matter of Religion the Question falls into a very narrow Compass for Conscience lies out of the Reach of Law And the Powers of Government are onely exercised upon Ouvert and Sensible Acts. But the point in hand however is This First What is intended by the Tyranny here spoken of Secondly How are we to behave our selves in Case of such Tyranny There may be Tyranny either in forcing a man upon a Penalty to Renounce the Right Religion or to Embrace a False One Or in Prohibiting to any man the Freedom of Worship after his Own way And all these Cases vary according to the Constitution of the Government and the Conscience of the Governour For the same thing may be Lawful in One place and not in Another and to One Person too and not to Another And it may be more or less Excusable also according to These Circumstances In short It is a Tyranny to press a man to a False Worship A Tyranny to punish him for adhering to a True one A Tyranny to hinder any man from Worshipping God as he Ought And the Tyranny it self is yet farther aggravated if it be done in Opposition to the Law of the Land And to the Conscience of the Ruler as well as to Common Equity But still when I have lost Liberty Estate nay and Life it self by reason of Religion my Religion it self is preserved Inviolate even when my Body lies in Ashes The Prince that Acts all these Tyrannies hath undoubtedly a great deal to answer for to Almighty God But what Remedy is there for the Subject that Suffers them And let That be the next Point In Case of such Persecutions as aforesaid I know no more then These Four ways of Application for Relief Either by Prayer to Almighty God By Recourse to the Law for Protection By Petition to the Government
he quitted all those Advantages he Gave and Forgave all that was possible to shew how much he prized a Dominion over the Hearts of his People above That of their Bodies and Estates Touching his affection to the Religion of the Church of England since it hath pleased God in his Infinite Wisdom to permit that his Majesty should be Calumniated upon That point it is a singular Providence that this should happen in a Iuncture when the plain matter of Fact and the Naked History of his Royal Proceedings may suffice to the most prejudicate and the most obstinate of his Enemies as an Unanswerable Confutation It is every day more and more artificially Insinuated and Improved especially since the Discovery of the late horrid Design and particularly in the Libel last mentioned as if his Majesty were not so careful and zealous for the Suppressing and Preventing of Popery and for the Punishing of Delinquents as is needful for the security of his Government Nay there are some so daring as to take upon them in Hint and Mystery to intimate the very Countenancing of the Plot it self If the Proceeding be not altogether so quick and sanguinary as some would have it we shall onely say This that Those of all men have the least Colour to complain of his Majesties want of Rigour that stand indebted already for their Heads and for their Fortunes unto his Grace and Mercy As to his Opinion of the Church of Rome his Majesty hath given the World so many and so ample Evidences of his dislike of That Communion that every mans Conscience as well as Reason cannot but discharge him upon That point It cannot be imagined that in his late Troubles and Exile he wanted either Arguments or Solicitations either in point of State or of Religion and the most plausible too that could be found out to work upon either his Conscience or his Necessities And yet no Temptations either on the One hand or on the Other had any farther Operation upon his Majesties Iudgment then by causing a stricter Enquiry into the Subject in debate to confirm him still more and more in the Truth of his Profession In so much that in the Lowest and most hopeless State of his Distresses he chose rather to abide all Extremities then to depart in any Tittle from the Faith of the Reformed Communion Now his Majesty having given this Earnest of his stedfastness to the Religion of the Church of England during his Banishment and shewing that neither Fear nor Despair could shake him in his Resolutions it were a strange thing for him now to relinquish That Cause in Opposition to his Interest which when it might have turned to his Temporal Advantage no Persecution or Flattery could ever prevail upon him to do I might add to all This that he hath steered the same Course in all his Devotions both Publique and Private and that the Maintainance of This Church hath been Undeniably the Scope of all his Deliberations and Councils in all Religious Concernments since his Blessed Return But it is not enough in all Cases for a Prince to be Tender and Innocent in the matter of Religion Witness the late Pious and yet Vnfortunate Prince For wheresoever this Incantation takes place the Sinews of Government are Loosened the Sacredness of Order Dissolved and all Obligations cancelled as well Moral as Divine And not onely so but the very Shadow and Imagination of it frights people into Lakes and Precipices and transports them with Panique Terrors into the Execution of the very Mischiefs they fear So that his Majesty hath two main Difficulties to encounter at once The One to Master the Plot it self the Other to Temper and Sweeten the Passions of men zealous in the contrary Extreme that no Inconvenience may arise from Their Misapprehension of Things another way According to these Measures his Majesty hath governed his Course throughout the whole Tract of This Affair leaving no means unattempted that might probably give light to the Bottom of This Tragical Design He hath given all sorts of Encouragement to Informations by Countenance Protection and Reward The Depositions have been formally taken before his Majesty and his Privy Council and the Evidences strictly weighed and examined and from thence afterward heartily recommended and faithfully Transmitted to the Two Houses of Parliament as the most Rational Method for the Common Satisfaction both of King and People Neither hath his Majesty been wanting on his Own part in a Vigorous Concurrence with the Two Houses to do all that in him lay toward the Suppressing of Popery the seizing and securing of Popish Recusants and providing more effectually by the best means that could be devised for the Maintainance and Establishment of our Religion Having issued out divers Proclamations and done several other Publique Acts upon the Motion and Advice of his Two Houses of Parliament to the Ends aforesaid even to the taking away from the Popish Lords their Ancient Right of Session in the House of Peers and disabling all Papists whatsoever to all purposes whatsoever from any Advantages in the Government And if it be not yet enough that in this Dangerous Juncture his Majesty hath walked hand in hand and kept pace with his Two Houses of Parliament it may be justly affirmed that he hath in some degree even supererogated in This matter and added an Excess of Affection to the Conscientious Discharge of his Princely Care and Function Of This we might give several Instances but one shall serve for all in his Majesties Speech to both Houses of Parliament on Saturday Nov. 8. 1678. where he quickens the Two Houses themselves in these words I do desire you saith his Majesty to think on some ready means for Conviction of Popish Recusants and to expedite your Counsels that the World may see our Vnanimity and that I may have the Opportunity to let you see how ready I am to do any thing that may give satisfaction After This demonstrative Clearness on his Majesties side let us cast an Impartial Eye the Other way and so conclude Was not This the very Charge upon the late King and was there ever any Prince that lived more faultless Was not the Care of the Protestant Religion pretended and was not all Religion in a manner subverted Was not the Kings Honour and Safety the Pretext of a Solemn Covenant and was he not delivered up by the Same Covenant to his very Executioners What a Clamour there was about Magna Charta the English Liberties and a Reformation onely of some Excrescences as they called them in the Church and State And did not this specious Flourish conclude in a Total Extinction of Law Freedom and Government Were not the same Arguments used Then as Now Are not the same Artifices of Libelling Authority practised Now which were Then And are not the People poisoned the same way This Year that they were the Last In short Is not High-gate the way to St-Albans Still So certainly are we now running the same Stage over again Was there not a Time when St. Pauls was turned into a Garrison When Apprentices cancelled their own Indentures and had them renewed again by an Ordinance When for fear of Red-coats in the Clouds the Credulous Multitude brought them like Aegyptian Plagues into their very Pots and Dishes Oh! but do you think they cry that These Godly People will ever touch the King How many well meaning People thought the same thing before and yet contributed to the destroying of their Soveraign not knowing what they did Be not deluded Immediately after the sending of what is above-written to the Press comes out a Pamphlet entitled Englands Safety Or the Two Vnanimous Votes of the last Good Parliament concerning the D. of York being a Papist c. I have so great a Reverence as well for the Honour of the Constitution of Parliaments as for the Personal Loyalty of the Members of our late Great Representative that I cannot but take notice of the Abuse which is First put upon That Illustrious Convention it self and afterward upon the People in This Libel It makes the House of Commons to be the Parliament But neither did those worthy Gentlemen claim to themselves a Full Parliamentary Power to the Exclusion of any other Legal and Essential Concurrence Nor will they take it well to be so much Mis-represented And then it is as great an Abuse on the Other hand to the whole Nation For if This Opinion be swallowed once the People will be apt to take Ordinances again for Laws So that the Title is in a great Mistake upon That Point And now that the Reader may not incur almost as Great a one on the other hand in another Lei it be observed that the Woman in whose Name this Pamphlet is published is so far from being a Well-Willer to the Kings Person or Government that from the time of his Majesties Restauration it hath been her Constant Business to promote all Spiteful and Scandalous Books and Papers against both Church and State To these Pretended Votes I can say nothing whether True or False but This I am sure of that Debates of That Solemnity and Importance ought not to be made Publique that nothing can be more Derogatory to the Dignity of that Great Body then as the Fashion hath been of late for every Pedant and Mechanique to set up the Trade of Teaching Parliament-men their Lessons The Subject of his Royal Highnesses's Succession to the Crown is made the Common Theme of the Press And I do not presume to Reason the matter either Pro or Con as it is a Case out of my Province But still I am at Liberty to assert the Duty of a Free-born and of a Faithful Subject and to affirm that I have not found any one Argument in any of these Libels which in a Natural Consequence does not likewise reach the King whom God preserve and in Mercy keep all his Subjects in Due Obedience THE END ADVERTISEMENT THe History of the Plot Or a Brief and Historical Account of the Charge and Defence of Edward Coleman Esq Of Ireland Grove and Pickering Of Green Berry and Hill Of Whitebread Harcourt Fenwick Gavan and Turner Of Richard Langhorn Esq Of Sir George Wakeman Marshal Rumly and Corker Not omitting any one Material Passage in the whole Proceeding Compiled by Roger L'Estrange And Printed for Richard Tonson within Grayes-Inn Gate next the Lane Price 2 s. 6 d.
Formal Trials Arrest my Bookseller as an Invader of their Propriety and Threaten him most wonderfully into the Bargain He puts in Bail to the Action and there the Squabble rests They do not complain of any Imitation of their Copy but take upon them as if no man else were to write upon That Subject At this rate we shall have all Sermons forfeited to the Kings Printers for Descanting upon Their Bibles and all Books whatsoever to the Company of Stationers because they are made out of the Four and Twenty Letters and the ABC is Their Copy What a Scandal is this to the Commonwealth of Letters What a Cramp to Learning and Industry That if I have a mind to Compile a History I must go to Forty little Fellows for leave forsooth to Write the Narrative of the Proceedings upon our Blessed King and Martyr the Brave Earl of Strafford Archbishop of Canterbury with a hundred more Instances of the like nature because some or other of them has lurched perhaps a Copy of Their Trials What if a man should write the Battle of Worcester and the Kings miraculous Escape after the Defeat must he not mention the Thousand Pound that was set upon his Majesties Head without leave of the Printer that had the Propriety of the Proclamation that offered it Or if a Body would draw up a Systeme of Treason and Sedition must he go to the Publisher of Bacons Government for a License I am the larger because it is a Publick Case And take notice First that the whole Story is drawn into less than a Sixth part of Their Volume Secondly That there is not so much as One Material Clause omitted in it Thirdly That it is incomparably Plainer and more Intelligible then the other beside the many Corrections in it Fourthly That it is Eleven Shillings saved Theirs being rated at Thirteen and Six pence at the Lowest Penny and This onely at Half a Crown And so much for this I come now to an Examination of Two Libels the most Audacious and Virulent that have yet passed the Press The One of them Entitled Omnia Comesta à Bello Or Bel hath devoured all The Other is called My Lord Lucas's Speech But take notice that my Exception lies to the Supplement or Appendix not concerning my self at all with the Speech The Former of these Papers is an Allusion to the Story of Bel and the Dragon where the Priests and their Wives came in at a Back-dore and consume what was offered to the Idol It is Printed BELLO in stead of BELO and the Mistake is a great deal Righter then the Meaning For it was in Truth the WAR that Devoured all and the Good Old Cause which was the Foundation of That War was in effect no better than a CHRISTIAN IDOL It comes forth as an Answer to the First of Five Pretended Questions which he sets down at Length and we will speak of them in Order as far as shall be needful Quaery 1. Whether the Great Cause of Impoverishing the Nation Ruine of Trade and General Consumption of Comfort Settlement and Content which hath brought the Land to a meer Anatomy be not the Pomp Pride Luxury Exaction and Oppression of the Prelates Pag. 3. He Concludes in the Affirmative And Pag. 4. The Trading Stock of the Nation he says is devoured in this Prelatical Gulph But are we so Miserable then And is the Hierarchy the Cause of all our Miseries Let us compare the Times a little when we had Bishops and when we had None For there is no Trial of the Truth and Reason of Things like Experience From 1558. when Q. Elizabeth came to the Crown to 1641. we had a Continued Succession of a Protestant or rather a Reformed Prelacy And so from 1660. to this present 1679. which is upward of a hundred Years And all this while the Government stood firm upon its Ancient Basis. The Gospel flourished and the Subject enjoyed their Legal Liberties under a Legal Administration both in Church and State From 1641 to 1660. Episcopacy was Out of Dores Do but observe now what Havock was made in the State both Ecclesiastical and Civil in matter of our Religion Liberties and Properties in That Interval of onely Nineteen Years when an Ordinance was of more force then an Act of Parliament And our Lives Freedoms and Estates lay at the Mercy of the Tyrants of Athens in a Derby-house Committee But let us yet come closer to the Business I would fain know what these men would be at that are so desperately unsatisfied with the Condition they are in Would they be in the days of Queen Elizabeth again or of King Iames or of the Late King If nothing of This will content them there is no other choice left but That of Rebellion For whosoever Traces the History of these Male-contents will find Deadness of Trade and Persecution to have been their Constant Complaint from the Reformation it self to this day After the Passing of a General Sentence upon the Bishops as the Authors of all our Calamities he takes the whole to pieces Treating First of the Revenues Pomp and State of Prelates And there he tells us of Two Provincial Arch-bishops with their Princely Retinue Domestique Chaplains Officers of Temporal Tithes Spiritual Officers Vicar General Guardian of the Spiritualities Dean of the Arches with all their Vnder-Officers and Attendants To be as brief as possible First Where is the Crime or the Iniquity of all This Pomp and State Or why should not an Ecclesiastical Body have its Dignities and Dependences as well as a Civil Community There is no body envies my Lord Maior his Sword-bearer his Mace-bearer or any other Servant or Ensign of his Preeminence and Office For beside that the very Splendor and Magnificence creates and preserves a Reverence for Authority This Multiplicity and Subordination of Officers is of absolute Necessity also as subservient to Order and to the very Discharge of his Function The Second Question is Are these Officers established by Law or not If by Law This clamour is an Arraignment of King Lords and Commons Thirdly It is not onely a Legal Establishment but an Establishment of many Ages and continued without Interruption till both Church and Kingdom fell together And then in Lieu of Bishops we had a Motly Synod of State-Pensioners Hirelings to poison the Pulpits and the People and to decoy the silly Multitude out of their Lives Fortunes Liberties Duties and Religions Men kept in Pay to preach Thanksgiving Sermons and to help out at a Dead Lift towards the bringing of their Soveraign to the Scaffold When they had preached and prayed the Kingdom into Bloud and Disobedience and held the Rabble several Years agog and gaping after the Blessed Reformation so graciously promised them Out comes at last the False Conception of their Directory A kind of Spiritual Moon-Calf But by this time the King was as good as Lost and so they fell presently to sharing of the
Publique Revenues of Church and State They Dispatch their Prince Enslave the People and there is an end of That Reformation And it is the very Fellow of it that they would have again Was it not a Blessed Exchange now to be freed from the Prelatical Tyranny and their Retinue and to have such Gospel-Ministers Generals Majors and Lieutenant Generals Plunderers Sequestrators Decimators Regicides and Sacrilegious Vsurpers set up in their stead This Cuckoo-Song of Forty One Forty One Forty One over and over were Ill-natured and Ridiculous if the other Cuckoo-Song of Popery and Tyranny Popery and Tyranny and accompanied with the Former Principlies over and over had not made it absolutely Necessary His next Grievance is The Ecclesiastical Courts Court of Faculties Court of Audience Prerogative Court Delegates 24 Bishops Diocesan with their Trains Domestick Servants Chaplains Officers and Courts Chancellors Registers Apparators Proctors Archdeacons Commissaries Officials Surrogates Their Lordly Palaces Ecclesiastical Dignities Baronies c. viis modis amounting to at least Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pounds a Year Enriching themselves also by Ordinations Institution and Induction by making Rural Deans Licenses to Curates School-masters Parish-Clerks Physicians Midwives Marriages by Absolutions by Commutation of Penance Probates of Wills Letters of Administration Presentment c. Pag. 4 5. There is enough said already to their Dignities and Officers and so for their Courts Fees and Privileges They are all of them of Ancient Right and Custom If they envy the Bishops their Revenue the Common People may as well set up a Levelling Trade again and fall upon All Estates and Conditions of men that are better to live then themselves Why should such a Lord Gentleman Merchant c. have so many Hundred Thousand Pounds a Year amongst them and the Poor ready to sterve Is not Money drawn into a few hands here as well as there and Their abundance consequently the Cause of Our Want Nay the same Reason reaches the King as well as the Church So that Gods Providence to Some must be rendred and Injustice to Others One would think by the Out-Cry that all This went immediately out of the Peoples Pockets whereas the Patrimony of the Church is Setled and Confirmed by the Great Charter of the English Liberties as firmly as any Freehold we have There hath been always This Clamour against their Courts But how was it with us when they were put down We had our Triers in good time Our Committees for Sequestration Decimation Money upon the Propositions the Sale of Irish Lands Our Loans for our Brethren the Scots Our Committees for Crown and Church Lands and a hundred other Inventions for the Beggering and Enslaving of us contrary to Law by way of Commuting for the Iurisdiction of These Courts according to Law In stead of Licenses to Preach or Teach School we had Sequestrations and Imprisonments for Preaching or Teaching unless upon the Conditions of Renouncing both the King and the Church In stead of Demanding Lawful Oaths we were upon pain of Plunder Confiscation and Imprisonment pressed to Vnlawful Ones as Covenants Negative Oaths Oaths of Abjuration and not onely so but in direct Contradiction to the Oaths of Allegiance and Canonical Obedience to Double-hatch the Perjury in Defiance of both our Implicit and Explicit Obligations Here is the short of that Exchange Upon his Computation of the Value and Dependences of the Ecclesiastical State he reckons some Ten Thousand Persons one way or other belonging to the Church And at least 450000 l. per ann First In place of the Ten Thousand Persons he speaks of who in another place he sayes bring nothing to the Stock what do ye think of an Army of 40000 men wholly exempt from the Civil Iurisdiction and onely Triable by Martial Law Hist. Indepency Pag. 68. Part. 1. Or in stead of the Churches spending four or five hundred Thousand Pound a Year of their Own what do ye think of the Vsurpers spending above Forty Millions in less then seven Years of the Kingdoms money Hist. Indep Pag. 8. But of this hereafter We had Then no longer the Eye-sore before us of the Prelats Lordly Palaces The Kings Palaces were likewise seized by the same hands Our Churches turned into Stables Our very Alters Robbed and Profaned And to go thorough stitch He whips up the Clergy for their Visitations their Paschal Rents and Procurations Nay their Canons Vicars Petty-Canons Singing-men and Boys Choristers Organists Gospellers Epistlers and Virgers too And all this as idly as if he talked in his sleep Here he takes Breath and at the Bottom of the 5. Page promises a Catalogue of more Families Ruined more Persons Imprisoned and an accompt of more Money spent by the Cruelty of the Prelats then by all the Law-suits of England all Payments and Taxes beside Except upon the late Extraordinary Occasion This Libel was Printed as I remember before the Great Plague and now of late Reprinted over and over and dated 1679. So that His late Extraordinary Occasion is onely a Civiller way of Expressing Our late Extraordinary Rebellion Something shall be said to This By and By. His 6. Page and a good part of the 7. are a Rhapsody of Grievances Upon the Kings Restauration and Purchasers of Church Lands were forced to Restore them without any Compensation He makes it to be a hard Case the Restoring of them to the Right Owner but says nothing of the Tyranny of Taking them from him He tells us that the Rusty Ecclesiastiques that neither serve our Lord Jesus Christ nor their Country but their Own Bellies this is the Complement he bestows upon them hord up the Mony that they have extorted from the Subject by Fines and have brought the Nation to a Consumption I wonder how Church-Leases that are commonly the best Penniworths should be a Greater Grievance to the Nation then Others that are set at higher Rates which we hear no Complaint of at all And I do not see how it consists with his charge of Luxury upon the Prelats that upon so great Expence there should be no Circulation of the Treasure I could tell him of the Turkish Slaves Redeemed Their Bounties to Ministers Widows Their Publique Works as The Oxford Theatre the Reparation of Litchfield Cathedral and the Re-edifying of such of their Palaces as the Iniquity of the late Times had demolished c. To say nothing of the Common Right they have to dispose of their Own or to the Secret Charities of many of our Eminent Churchmen who have too much Honour and Piety to make Proclamation of it in the Market Place But now comes a Lamentable Story We have all our Able Godly Orthodox Ministers turned out Ruined and Beggered and no manner of Supply provided for the Maintainance of them and their Families And in Their Rooms in many Places a Company of Debauched Illiterate Superstitious Profane Priests which Blind Guides must needs lead them that follow them to Hell Pag. 6. Let