or the not few years that I have been setled in my Principles it ought to be no strange thing if it be found no easie work to make Me alter them and the rather that hitherto I have according to Saint Paul's rule Rom. 14. 22. been happy in Not condemning my self in that thing which I allow Thus having shewed you How it remains to tell you what I believe in relation to these miserable Distractions No one thing made Me more reverence the Reformation of My Mother the Church of England than that it was done according to the Apostles defence Acts 24. 18. neither with multitude nor with tumult but legally and orderly and by those whom I conceive to have the Reforming power which with many other inducements made Me alwaies confident that the work was very perfect as to Essentials of which number Church-Government being undoubtedly one I put no question but that would have been likewise altered if there had been cause Which opinion of Mine was soon turned into more than a confidence when I perceived that in this particular as I must say of all the rest we retained nothing but according as it was deduced from the Apostles to be the constant universal custom of the Primitive Church and that it was of such consequence as by the alteration of it we should deprive our selves of a lawful Priesthood and then how the Sacraments can be duly administred is easie to judge These are the principal Reasons which make Me believe that Bishops are necessary for a Church and I think sufficient for Me if I had no more not to give my consent for their expulsion out of England But I have another obligation that to My particular is a no less tie of Conscience which is my Coronation Oath Now if as S. Paul saith Rom. 14. 23. He that doubeth is damned if he eat what can I expect if I should not only give way knowingly to my Peoples sinning but likewise be perjured My self Now consider ought I not to keep My self from presumptuous sins and you know who saies What doth it profit a Man though he should gain the whole World and lose his own Soul Wherefore my constant maintenance of Episcopacy in England where there was never any other Government since Christianity was in this Kingdom methinks should be rather commended than wondred at my Conscience directing Me to maintain the Laws of the Land which being only my endeavours at this time I desire to know of you what warrant there is in the Word of God for Subjects to endeavour to force their King's Conscience or to make him alter Laws against his will If this be not My present case I shall be glad to be mistaken or if my Judgment in Religion hath been misled all this time I shall be willing to be better directed till when you must excuse Me to be constant to the Grounds which the King my Father hath taught Me. Newcastle May 29. 1646. C. R. II. Mr Alexander Henderson's First Paper For His MAJESTY SIR IT is Your Majestie 's Royal Goodness and not my merit that hath made Your Majesty to conceive any opinion of my Abilities which were they worthy of the smallest testimony from Your Majesty ought in all duty to be improved for Your Majestie 's satisfaction And this I intended in my coming here at this time by a free yet modest expression of the true motives and inducements which drew my mind to the dislike of Episcopal Government wherein I was bred in my younger years in the University Like as I did apprehend that it was not Your Majestie 's purpose to have the Question disputed by Divines on both sides which I would never to the wronging of the Cause have undertaken alone and which seldom or never hath proved an effectual way for finding of Truth or moving the minds of Men to relinquish their former Tenents Dum res transit à judicio in affectum witness the Polemicks between the Papists and us and among our selves about the matter now in hand these many years past 1. SIR when I consider Your Majestie 's Education under the hand of such a Father the length of time wherein Your Majesty hath been setled in Your Principles of Church-Government the Arguments which have continually in private and publick especially of late at Oxford filled Your Majestie 's ears for the Divine Right thereof Your Coronation Oath and divers State reasons which Your Majesty doth not mention I do not wonder nor think it any strange thing that Your Majesty hath not at first given place to a contrary impression I remember that the famous Joannes Picus Mirandula proveth by irrefragable Reasons which no rational man will contradict That no man hath so much power over his own Vnderstanding as to make himself believe what he will or to think that to be true which his Reason telleth him is false much less is it possible for any Man to have his Reason commanded by the will or at the pleasure of another 2. It is a true saying of the School-men Voluntas imperat intellectui quoad exercitium non quoad specificationem Mine own will or the will of another may command me to think upon a matter but no will or command can constrain me to determine otherwise than my Reason teacheth me Yet Sir I hope Your Majesty will acknowledge for Your Paper professeth no less that according to the saying of Ambrose Non est pudor ad meliora transire It is neither sin nor shame to change to the better Symmachus in one of his Epistles I think to the Emperours Theodosius and Valentinian alledgeth all those motives from Education from Prescription of time from worldly Prosperity and the flourishing condition of the Roman Empire and from the Laws of the Land to perswade them to constancy in the ancient Pagan profession of the Romans against the imbracing of the Christian Faith The like reasons were used by the Jews for Moses against Christ and may be used both for Popery and for the Papacy it self against the Reformation of Religion and Church-Government and therefore can have no more strength against the Change now than they had in former times 3. But Your Majesty may perhaps say That this is petitio principii and nothing else but the begging of the Question and I confess it were so if there can be no Reasons brought for a Reformation or Change Your Majesty reverences the Reformation of the Church of England as being done legally and orderly and by those who had the Reforming Power and I do not deny but it were to be wish'd that Religion where there is need were alwaies Reformed in that manner and by such power and that it were not committed to the Prelates who have greatest need to be reformed themselves nor left to the multitude whom God stirreth up when Princes are negligent Thus did Jacob reform his own Family Moses destroyed the golden Calf the good Kings of Judah reformed the Church
take in those of another Kingdom to their Resolutions who are not bound by our Laws But what violation soever they make of the Laws they are forward to put the King in mind of His Duty and therefore tell Him That He is sworn to maintain the Laws as they are sworn to their Allegiance to Him these Obligations being reciprocal It is true in some sense that the Oath of the King and Subjects is reciprocal that is each is bound to perform what they swear the King as well as the Subjects but he that will well weigh their Letter and make one part have connexion with the other and examine that part of their Covenant whereby they swear they will defend the Kings Person and Authority no further or otherwise than in preservation of their Religion and Liberties may easily find another construction viz. That the Subjects Allegiance is no longer due than the King performs His Duty nay no longer than He in their opinion observes His Duty whereof they themselves must be Judges and if He fail in His Duty they may take up Arms against Him A Principle which as it is utterly destructive to all Government so we believe they themselves dare not plainly avow it lest as they now make use of it against the King so the People finding their failure of Duty and breach of Trust should hereafter practise it by taking up Arms against them and so shake of that yoak of Tyranny imposed by their fellow Subjects which lies so heavy upon them It were well as they still press upon the King maintenance of the Laws they would also know that their Obligation to observe the same is reciprocal and while they here resolve to defend and preserve the full Power of this Parliament which in their sense can be no other than the Power they have exercised this Parliament they would take notice that they are therein so far from observation of the Laws that they desperately resolve an utter subversion of them For what can more tend to the destruction of the Laws than to usurp a Power to themselves without the King and against His will to raise Arms to attribute to their Orders or pretended Ordinances the power of Laws and Statutes to inforce Contributions Loans and Taxes of all sorts from the Subject to imprison without cause shewed and then prohibit Writs of Habeas Corpus for their enlargement to lay Excises upon all Commodities to command and dispose of the Lives and Estates of the free-born Subjects of this Kingdom at their pleasure to impose Tonnage and Poundage contrary to the Law declared in the late Act for Tonnage and Poundage and all this done and justified as by a legal civil Power founded and inherent in them All which are manifest breaches of the Petition of Right and Magna Charta the great Evidence of the Liberties of England which Charter by express words binds them and us though assembled in Parliament as well as the King And though it be not now as heretofore it hath been taken by solemn Oath on the Peoples part as well as on the Kings nor a Curse as heretofore pronounced on the Violators yet they having taken a Protestation to maintain the Laws and the Liberties and Properties of the Subject and inclusively that Charter let them take heed whilst they make use of this their pretended Power to the destruction of the Law lest a Curse fall upon them and upon their Posterity God knoweth and it is too certain a truth that our selves and many other good Subjects in this Kindom even under the Power of the Kings Army have suffered exceedingly in Liberty and Estates during this present Rebellion by many heavy Charges the sad consideration whereof makes our hearts bleed because we can see no way for relief so long as this unnatural Rebellion continues But as these things were first practised by them and thereby necessitated upon the Kings Army so it was never yet pretended that they were done by virtue of a Law but either by Consent or by the unhappy and unavoidable exigences of War and to expire with the present Rebellion which God in mercy hasten For our parts we have the inward comfort of our own Consciences witnessing with us that we have improved all opportunities and advantages for the restoring of this Kingdom to its former Peace and we must witness for His Majesty His most hearty desires thereof And though both His Majesty and our endeavours therein have been made frustrate yet God in his great goodness hath raised up our spirits not to desert our Religion our King our Laws our Lives the Liberties of us English free-born Subjects and by God's assistance and His Majesty's concurrence we do resolve to unite our selves as one Man and cheerfully adventure our Lives and Estates for the maintenance and defence of the true Reformed Protestant Religion of the Church of England of which we profess our selves to be for the defence of the Kings Person and Rights of His Crown for the regaining and maintaining the Rights and Privileges of Parliament and the Liberty of the Subjects Person and Property of his Estate according to the known Laws of the Land to repel those of the Stotish Nation that have in a warlike manner entred this Realm and to reduce the Subjects thereof now in Rebellion to the Kings Obedience And we doubt not but the same God will enlighten the eyes of the poor deceived People of this Land like true-hearted honest English-Men to joyn unanimously with us in so just and pious a work And the God of Heaven prosper us according to the goodness of the Cause we have in hand The Names of the Lords and Commons of Parliament assembled at Oxford who did subscribe the Letter to the Earl of Essex dated January 27. 1643. CHARLES P. YORK CUMBERLAND Ed. Littleton C. S. Fra. Cottington D. Richmond M. Hartford E. Lindsey E. Dorset E. Shrewsbury E. Bath E. Southampton E. Leicester E. Northampton E. Devonshire E. Carlisle E. Bristol E. Berkshire E. Cleveland E. Rivers E. Dover E. Peterburgh E. Kingston E. Newport E. Portland V. Conway L. Digby L. Mowbray and Maltravers L. Wentworth L. Cromwell L. Rich. L. Paget L. Chandois L. Howard of Charleton L. Lovelace L. Savile L. Mohun L. Dunsmore L. Seymour L. Percy L. Wilmott L. Leigh L. Hatton L. Jermyn L. Carrington JOhn Fettiplace Esq Sir Alex. Denton Sir John Packington Sir Tho. Smith F. Gamul Esq Jo. Harris Esq Joseph Jane Esq Rich. Edgcombe Esq Jonathan Rashleigh Esq G. Fane Esq P. Edgcombe Esq Will. Glanvill Esq Sir Ro. Holborne Sir Ra. Sydenham Fra. Godolphin Esq Geo. Parry D. of Law Amb. Manaton Esq Ri. Vivian Esq Jo. Polewheele Esq John Arundell Esq Tho. Lower Esq Sir Edw. Hide Will. Allestree Esq Sir Geo. Stonehouse Ed. Seymour Esq Peter Sainthill Esq Sir Will. Poole Roger Matthew Esq Ri. Arundell Esq Ro. Walker Esq Giles Strangwaies Esq Sir John Strangwaies Sir Tho. Hele. Sir Ger. Naper Sam. Turner
have said in that Protestation you mention and We thank you for being satisfied with it in which God knows Our Resolution to be so firm and stedfast that We will give any Security under Heaven for the observation of it And as Our greatest desire at this present is to meet in a full and free Convention of Parliament which We are confident would quickly put an end to all these Troubles So when it shall please God to restore that Blessing to Us We shall value and esteem that Council and frequently consult with it and be advised by it as the best means to make both King and People truly happy and We shall then by an Act given wipe out the footsteps of these extraordinary Supplies which nothing but this real visible Necessity which oppresses us all could have compelled Us to make use of and which shall never be mentioned or remembred by Us to the least Prejudice of your Rights and Liberties And in the mean time We shall leave nothing undone for the preservation of particular Contracts and prevention of the disorder and licence of the Souldier which is in Our Power to do no particular Person enduring half that sadness of heart for those Breaches and Pressures which We Our Self do For the prevention and suppression whereof We shall proceed with all Rigour and Severity Lastly as the support and maintenance of the Religion Laws and Privileges of Parliament is as you well know the only Argument of Our defensive Arms so those being secured We shall with all imaginable Joy lay down those Arms And as you have been Our Witnesses and Our Assistants in Our earnest desires of Peace so We promise you We shall not only with the same earnestness always embrace it if it shall be offered but pursue and press it upon the least likelihood of Opportunity And this Our Resolution by God's Blessing shall never be altered by any Advantages or prosperous Success His MAJESTY'S Protestation I DO Promise in the presence of Almighty God and as I hope for his Blessing and Protection That I will to the utmost of My Power defend and maintain the true Reformed Protestant Religion established in the Church of England and by the Grace of God in the same will live and die I desire to Govern by the known Laws of the Land and that the Liberty and Property of the Subject may be by them preserved with the same care as My own just Rights And if it please God by His blessing upon this Army raised for My necessary defence to preserve Me from this Rebellion I do solemnly and faithfully Promise in the sight of God to maintain the just Privileges and Freedom of Parliament and to govern by the known Laws of the Land to My utmost Power and particularly to observe inviolably the Laws consented to by Me this Parliament In the mean while if this time of War and the great necessity and streights I am now driven to beget any violation of those I hope it shall be imputed by God and Man to the Authors of this War and not to Me Who have so earnestly laboured for the preservation of the Peace of this Kingdom When I willingly fail in these particulars I will expect no Aid or Relief from any Man or Protection from Heaven But in this Resolution I hope for the chearful Assistance of all good Men and am confident of God's Blessing MDCXLIV The Declaration of the most Excellent and Potent Prince CHARLES King of Great Britain sent to the Protestant Churches beyond the Seas CHARLES by the Providence of Almighty God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith To all those who profess the true Reformed Protestant Religion of what Nation degree and condition soever they be to whom this present Declaration shall come Greeting Whereas We are given to understand that many false Rumors and Scandalous Letters are spread up and down amongst the Reformed Churches in Foreign parts by the politick or rather the pernicious industry of some ill-affected Persons that We have an inclination to recede from that Orthodox Religion which We were born baptized and bred in and which We have firmly professed and practised throughout the whole course of Our Life to this moment and that We intend to give way to the introduction and publick Exercise of Popery again in Our Dominions Which Conjecture or rather most detestable Calumny being grounded upon no imaginable foundation hath raised these horrid Tumults and more than barbarous Wars throughout this flourishing Island under pretext of a kind of Reformation which would not only prove incongruous but incompatible with the Fundamental Laws and Government of this Kingdom We desire that the whole Christian World should take notice and rest assured that We never entertained in Our Imagination the least thought to attempt such a thing or to depart a jot from that holy Religion which when we received the Crown and Sceptre of this Kingdom We took a most Solemn and Sacramental Oath to profess and protect Nor doth Our most constant practice and quotidian visible presence in the exercise of this sole Religion with so many Asseverations in the head of Our Armies and the publick Attestation of Our Barons with the circumspection used in the Education of Our Royal Off-spring besides divers other undeniable Arguments only demonstrate this but also that happy Alliance of Marriage We contracted betwixt Our Eldest Daughter and the Illustrious Prince of Orange most clearly confirms the reality of Our Intentions herein by which Nuptial Engagement it appears further that Our endeavours are not only to make a bare Profession thereof in Our Own Dominions but to inlarge and corroborate it abroad as much as lyeth in Our Power This most holy Religion of the Anglicane Church ordain'd by so many Convocations of Learned Divines confirm'd by so many Acts of National Parliaments and strengthned by so many Royal Proclamations together with the Ecclesiastick Discipline and Liturgy thereunto appertaining which Liturgy and Discipline the most eminent of Protestant Authors as well Germans as French as well Danes as Swedes and Switzers as well Belgians as Bohemians do with many Elogies and not without a kind of envy approve and applaud in their publick Writings particularly in the Transactions of the Synod of Dort wherein besides other of Our Divines who afterwards were Prelates one of Our Bishops assisted to whose Dignity all due respects and precedency was given this Religion We say which Our Royal Father of blessed Memory doth publickly assert in that His famous Confession address'd as We also do this Our Protestation to all Christian Princes this this most holy Religion with the Hierarchy and Liturgy thereof We solemny protest that by the help of Almighty God We will endeavour to Our utmost Power and last period of Our Life to keep entire and inviolable and will be careful according to Our duty to Heaven and the tenor of the aforesaid most sacred Oath at Our
not given full and satisfactory Answers concerning Religion the Militia and Ireland you cannot for the Reasons above mentioned expect an addition of time neither have we received any Instructions to continue this Treaty longer than the twenty days of which this is the last And as for your Lordships Safe-Conduct we conceive the Three Sundays last past being not accounted any days of the Treaty so this next Sunday is not to be esteemed one of the two days allowed after the Treaty in your Lordships Safe-Conduct but your Lordships are to have two days besides this next Lords day The King's Commissioners Reply 22. February WE cannot express the great sadness of our hearts that all our earnest endeavours to give your Lordships satisfaction in all particulars of this Treaty have produced no better effects towards a blessed Peace which his Majesty and we who are trusted by him do so heartily pray for and that so many and great Offers made by us to your Lordships in the particulars we have Treated upon should not be thought a good progress on our part in the said Treaty as we find by your Lordships last Paper to our great grief they are not and therefore that this must be the last day of the Treaty We desire your Lordships to consider that we being intrusted by his Majesty to Treat with your Lordships for a safe and well grounded Peace have upon the matter of your Lordships Propositions consented to so many particulars and alterations of very great importance and that your Lordships who were to Treat with us have not abated one tittle of the most severe and rigorous of your Propositions saving what you were pleased the last Night to propose in the point of Time concerning the Militia which though it seems to be limited to seven years in truth leaves it as unlimited as it was before in your-Propositions for at the end of seven years it must not be exercised otherwise than shall be settled by his Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament so that all the Legal Power now in his Majesty is taken away and not restored after the seven years expired Neither is there a full consent to that limitation offered by your Lordships the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland Nor have your Lordships offered to us any prospect towards Peace other than by submitting totally to those Propositions the which if we should do we should consent to such Alterations as by Constructions and Consequences may dissolve the whole frame of the present Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil in this Kingdom And though the particulars proposed by your Lordships have by Debate appeared not only evidently unreasonable but literally considered to comprehend things to be extended to Powers not intended by your selves yet your Lordships have not been pleased either to restrain or interpret any particular in any other manner than as is set forth in the said Propositions In the matter of Religion we have offered all such Alterations as we conceive may give satisfaction to any Objections that have been or can be made against that Government and have given your Lordships Reasons not onely why we cannot consent to your Lordships Propositions but that even those Propositions if consented to could not be in order to a Reformation or to the procuring the publick Peace And we must desire your Lordships to remember that though you do not onely in your Covenant which you require may be taken by his Majesty and enjoyned to be taken by all his Subjects undertake the Reformation in point of Government but even in point of Doctrine too thereby laying an imputation upon the Religion it self so long professed in this Kingdom with the general approbation of all Reformed Churches yet your Lordship have not given us the least Argument nor so much as intimated in your Debate the least Prejudice to the Doctrine of the Church of England against which we presume you cannot make any colourable Objection nor have you given us the view in particular of the Government you desire should be submitted to in the place of that you propose to be abolished and therefore we propose to your Lordships if the Alterations proposed by us do not give your Lordships satisfaction that so great an Alteration as the total Abolition of a Government established by Law may for the Importance of it and any Reformation in Doctrine for the Scandal of it be suspended till after the Disbanding of all Armies his Majesty may be present with the Two Houses of Parliament and calling a National Synod may receive such Advice both from the one and the other as in a matter of so high concernment is necessary and we are most confident that his Majesty will then follow the Advice which shall be given him And as any Reformation thus regularly and calmly made must needs prove for the singular Benefit and Honour of the Kingdom so we must appeal to your Lordships whether the contrary that is an Alteration even to things though in themselves good can by the Principles of Christian Religion be enforced upon the King or Kingdom In the business of the Militia though your Lordships do not deny that the Jealousies and apprehensions of Danger are mutual and that the chief end of depositing the Militia in the hands of certain Persons is for security against those Jealousies and possible Dangers yet your Lordships insist That all those Persons to be entrusted shall be nominated by the Two Houses of Parliament in England and the Estates of the Parliament in Scotland and that the time for that great general and unheard-of Trust shall be in such manner that though it seem to be limited to seven years yet in truth by declaring that after those seven years it shall not be otherwise exercised than His Majesty and the Two Houses of Parliament shall agree His Majesty may thereby be totally and for ever devested of the power of the Sword without which He can neither defend Himself against Foreign Invasions nor Domestick Insurrections nor execute His Kingly Office in the behalf of His Subjects to whom He is sworn to give protection And to both these your Lordships add the introducing a Neighbour-Nation governed by distinct and different Laws though united under one Sovereign to a great share in the Government of this Kingdom In stead of consenting to these Changes we have offered and proposed to your Lordships That the Persons to be trusted with the Militia of the Kingdom may be nominated between us or if that were refused that an equal number shall be named by you and the other number by his Majesty and that half the Forts and places of Strength within the Kingdom shall be in the Custody of those whom you think fit to be trusted therewith and the other half in such hands as his Majesty pleases to commit the same to and all persons as well those nominated by your Lordships as by his Majesty to take an Oath for the due discharge
by the unparallel'd prosperity of Solomon's Court and so corrupted to the great diminution both for Peace Honour and Kingdom by those Flatteries which are as unseparable from prosperous Princes as Flies are from Fruit in Summer whom Adversity like cold weather drives away I had rather You should be Charles le Bon than le Grand Good than Great I hope God hath designed You to be both having so early put You into that exercise of his Graces and Gifts bestowed upon You which may best weed out all vicious inclinations and dispose You to those Princely Endowments and Employments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God shall place You. With God I would have You begin and end who is King of Kings the Soveraign Disposer of the Kingdoms of the world who pulleth down one and setteth up another The best Government and highest Soveraignty You can attain to is to be subject to Him that the Scepter of his Word and Spirit may rule in your Heart The true Glory of Princes consists in advancing God's Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good also in the dispensation of Civil Power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace Piety will make You prosperous at least it will keep You from being miserable nor is he much a loser that loseth all yet saveth his own Soul at last To which center of true Happiness God I trust hath and will graciously direct all these black lines of Affliction which he hath been pleased to draw on Me and by which he hath I hope drawn Me nearer to Himself You have already tasted of that Cup whereof I have liberally drank which I look upon as God's Physick having that in Healthfulness which it wants in Pleasure Above all I would have You as I hope You are already well grounded and setled in your Religion the best Profession of which I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which You have been educated Yet I would have your own Judgment and Reason now seal to that sacred Bond which Education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens Custom or Tradition which You profess In this I charge You to persevere as coming nearest to God's Word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for Government with some little Amendment which I have other-where expressed and often offered tho in vain Your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your Souls than your Kingdoms Peace when God shall bring You to them For I have observed that the Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretend new Lights When some mens Consciences accuse them for Sedition and Faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion when Piety pleads for Peace and Patience they cry out Zeal So that unless in this point You be well setled You shall never want temptations to destroy You and Yours under pretensions of Reforming matters of Religion for that seems even to worst men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst Designs Where besides the Novelty which is taking enough with the Vulgar every one hath an affectation by seeming forward to an outward Reformation of Religion to be thought Zealous hoping to cover those Irreligious deformities whereto they are conscious by a severity of censuring other mens opinions or actions Take heed of abetting any Factions or applying to any publick Discriminations in matters of Religion contrary to what is in your Judgment and the Church well setled Your partial adhering as Head to any one side gains You not so great advantages in some men hearts who are prone to be of their King's Religion as it loseth You in others who think themselves and their profession first despised then persecuted by You. Take such a course as may either with Calmness and Charity quite remove the seeming differences and offences by impartiality or so order affairs in point of Power that You shall not need to fear or flatter any Faction For if ever You stand in need of them or must stand to their courtesie You are undone The Serpent will devour the Dove You may never expect less of Loyalty Justice or Humanity than from those who engage into Religious Rebellion Their Interest is always made God's under the colours of Piety ambitious Policies march not only with greatest security but applause as to the populacy You may hear from them Jacob's voice but You shall feel they have Esau's hands Nothing seemed less considerable than the Presbyterian Faction in England for many years so compliant they were to publick Order nor indeed was their Party great either in Church or State as to mens Judgments But as soon as Discontents drave men into Sidings as ill Humors fall to the disaffected part which causes Inflammations so did all at first who affected any Novelties adhere to that Side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were officious Servants to Presbytery their great Master till Time and Military success discovering to each their peculiar Advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of Uniform Religion pretended each to drive for their Party the trade of Profits and Preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all Let nothing seem little or despicable to You in matters which concern Religion and the Churches Peace so as to neglect a speedy reforming and effectual suppressing Errors and Schisms which seem at first but as a hand-breadth yet by Seditious Spirits as by strong winds are soon made to cover and darken the whole Heaven When You have done Justice to God Your own Soul and his Church in the profession and preservation both of Truth and Unity in Religion the next main hinge on which Your Prosperity will depend and move is that of Civil Justice wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdoms to which You are rightly Heir are the most excellent Rules You can Govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects Industry Liberty and Happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his People as Subjects not as Slaves whose Subjection as it preserves their Property Peace and Safety so it will never diminish Your Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of their Industry and the benefit of those Laws to which themselves have consented Never charge Your head with such a Crown as shall by its heaviness oppress the whole Body the weakness of whose parts cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the Head but a necessary debilitation and Ruin Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting
of the Archbishop Abbot who was then with the Prince and the Duke and other of the Nobility waiting in the Privy Chamber for the King 's coming out on his Brother's head adding That if He continued a good Boy and followed His Book he would make him one Day Archbishop of Canterbury Which the Child took in such disdain that He threw the Cap on the Ground and trampled it under His Feet with so much eagerness that he could hardly be restrained Which Passion was afterward taken by some over-curious as a presage of the ruine of Episcopacy by His Power But the event shewed it was not ominous to the Order but to the Person of the Archbishop whom in his Reign he suspended from the Administration of his Office An. 1611 In his eleventh Year he was made Knight of the Garter An. 1612 and in the twelfth Prince Henry dying Novemb. 6. He succeeded him in the Dukedome of Cornwal and the Regalities thereof and attended his Funeral as Chief Mourner on Decemb. 7. On the 14th of Feb. following He performed the Office of Brideman to the Princess Elizabeth his Sister who on that Day was Married to Frederick V. Prince Elector Palatine the Gayeties of which Day were afterwards attended with many fatal Cares and Expences His Childhood was blemished with a supposed Obstinacy for the weakness of his Body inclining him to retirements and the imperfection of His Speech rendring Discourse tedious and unpleasant He was suspected to be somewhat perverse But more age and strength fitting Him for Manlike Exercises and the Publick Hopes inviting Him from his Privacies He delivered the World of such Fears for applying Himself to Action he grew so perfect in Vaulting riding the great Horse running at the Ring shooting in Cross-bows Muskets and sometimes in great Pieces of Ordnance that if Principality had been to be the Reward of Excellency in those Arts He would have had a Title to the Crown this way also being thought the best Marks-man and most graceful Manager of the great Horse in the three Kingdoms His tenacious humour He left with his Retirements none being more desirous of good Counsel nor any more Obsequious when he found it yea too distrustful of his own Judgment which the issue of things proved always best when it was followed When he was sixteen Years old An. 1616 on Nov. 3. He was created Prince of Wales Earl of Chester and Flint the Revenues thereof being assigned to maintain his Court which was then formed for Him And being thus advanced in Years and State it was expected that He should no longer retain the Modesty which the Shades of his Privacy had accustomed Him unto but now appear as the immediate Instrument of Empire and that by Him the Favours and Honours of the Court should be derived to others But though Providence had changed all about yet it had changed nothing within Him and He thought it Glory enough to be great without the diminution of others for He still permitted the Ministry of State to His Father's Favourites which gave occasion of Discourse to the Speculativi Some thought He did it to avoid the Jealousies of the Old King which were conceived to have been somewhat raised by the popularity of Prince Henry whose breast was full of forward Hopes For Young Princes are deemed of an impatient Ambition and Old ones to be too nice and tender of their Power in which though they are contented with a Successor as they must have yet are afraid of a Partner And it was supposed that therefore King James had raised Car and Buckingham like Comets to dim the lustre of these rising Stars But these were mistaken in the nature of that King who was enclined to contract a private friendship and was prodigal to the Objects of it before ever he had Sons to divert his Love or raise his Fears Some that at a distance looked upon the Prince's actions ascribed them to a Narrowness of Mind and an Incapacity of Greatness while others better acquainted with the frame of his Spirit knew His prudent Modesty enclined Him to learn the Methods of Commanding by the practice of Obedience and that being of a peaceful Soul He affected not to embroil the Court and from thence the Kingdom in Factions the effects of impotent minds which He knew were dangerous to a State and destructive to that Prince who gives Birth unto them that therefore He chose to wait for a certain though delayed Grandeur rather then by the Compendious way of Contrasts get a precocious Power and leave too pregnant an Example of Ruine Others conceived it the Prudence of the Father with which the Son complyed who knew the true use of Favourites was to make them the objects of the People's impatience the sinks to receive the Curses and Anger of the Vulgar the Hatred of the Querulous and the Envy of unsatisfied Ambition which he would rather have fall upon Servants that His Son might ascend the Throne free and unburthened with the discontents of any This was the rather believed because He could dispence Honours where and when He pleased as He did to some of His own Houshold as Sir Robert Cary was made Lord Cary of Lepington Sir Thomas Howard Viscount Andover and Sir John Vaughan Lord of Molingar in Ireland The Evenness of His Spirit was discovered in the loss of His Mother An. 1618 whose Death presaged as some thought by that notorious Comet which appeared Nov. 18. before happened on March 2. Anno 1618. which He bewailed with a just measure of Grief without any affected Sorrows though she was most affectionate to Him above all her other Children and at her Funeral he would be chief Mourner The Death of the Queen was not long after followed with a sharp Sickness of the King wherein his Life seeming in danger the consequences of his Death began to be lamented Dr Andrews then Bishop of Ely bewailed the sad Condition of the Church if God should at that time determine the days of the King The Prince being then only conversant with Scotch men which made up the greatest part of his Family and were ill-affected to the Government and Worship of the Church of England Of this the King became so sensible that he made a Vow If God should please to restore his Health he would so instruct the Prince in the Controversies of Religion as should secure His affections to the present Establishment Which he did with so much success as he assured the Chaplains who were to wait on the Prince in Spain that He was able to moderate in any emergent Disputations which yet he charged them to decline if possible At which they smiling he earnestly added That CHARLES should manage a Point in Controversy with the best-studied Divine of them all In His 19th Year An. 1619 on March 24. which was the Anniversary of King James's coming to the Crown of England He performed a Justing at White-hall together with several of
will only say one word to you Now that you are the Speaker I command you to do the office of a Speaker which is faithfully to report the great Cause of the Meeting that My Lord Keeper in My Name did represent unto you the last day with this assurance That you giving Me your timely help in this great Affair I shall give a willing ear to all your just Grievances XIX To the House of Lords at WESTMINSTER April 24. MDCXL His Majesty said THAT the cause of His coming was to put them in mind of what had been delivered by the Lord Keeper in His Name unto both Houses the first day of the Parliament and after at White-Hall How contrary to His expectation the House of Commons having held Consultation of matter of Religion Property of Goods and Liberty of Parliament and voted some things concerning those three Heads had therefore given them the precedence before the matter of His Supply That His Necessities were such they could not bear delay That whatsoever He had by the Lord Keeper promised He would perform if the House of Commons would trust Him For Religion that His Heart and Conscience went together with the Religion established in the Church of England and He would give Order to His Arch-Bishops and Bishops that no Innovation in matter of Religion should creep in For the Ship-money that He never made or intended to make any profit to Himself of it but only to preserve the Dominion of the Seas which was so necessary that without it the Kingdom could not subsist But for the way and means by Ship-money or otherwise He left it to them For Property of Goods and Liberty of Parliament He ever intended His People should injoy them holding no King so Great as he that was King of a rich and free People and if they had not Property of Goods and Liberty of Persons they could be neither rich nor free That if the House of Commons would not first trust Him all His Affairs would be disordered and His business lost That though they trusted Him in part at first yet before the Parliament ended He must totally trust them and in conclusion they must for execution of all things wholly trust Him Therefore since the matter was no more than who should be first trusted and that the trust of Him first was but a trust in part He desired the Lords to take into their consideration His and their own Honour the Safety and Welfare of this Kingdom with the great Danger it was in and that they would by their Advice dispose the House of Commons to give His Supply the precedence before the Grievances XX. To the Lords and Commons at the Dissolving of His Fourth Parliament at WESTMINSTER May 5. MDCXL MY Lords There can no occasion of My coming to this House be so unpleasing to Me as this is at this time The fear of doing that which I am to do at this day made Me not long agoe come to this House where I expressed as well My fears as the remedies I thought necessary for the eschewing of it Unto which I must confess and acknowledge that you My Lords of the Higher House did give me so willing an ear and with such affection did shew your selves thereafter that certainly I may say if there had been any means to have given an happy end to this Parliament you took it So that it was neither your Lordships fault nor Mine that it is not so Therefore in the first place I must give your Lordships thanks for your good endeavours I hope you remember what My Lord Keeper said to you the first day of the Parliament in My Name what likewise he said in the Banquetting-House in White-Hall and what I lately said to you in this place My self I name all this unto you not in doubt that you do not well remember it but to shew that I never said any thing in way of favour to My People but that by the Grace of God I will really and punctually perform it I know that they have insisted very much on Grievances and I will not say but that there may be some though I will confidently affirm that there are not by many degrees so many as the publick voice doth make them Wherefore I desire you to take notice now especially at this time that out of Parliament I shall be as ready if not more willing to hear and redress any just Grievances as in Parliament There is one thing which is much spoken of though not so much insisted on as others and that is Religion Concerning which albeit I expressed My self fully the last day in this place to your Lordships yet I think it fit again on this occasion to tell you that as I am most concerned so I shall be most careful to preserve that purity of Religion which I thank God is so well established in the Church of England and that as well out as in Parliament My Lords I shall not trouble you long with words it being not My fashion wherefore to conclude What I offered the last day to the House of Commons I think is well known to you all as likewise how they accepted it which I desire not to remember but wish that they had remembred how at first they were told in My Name by My Lord Keeper That Delay was the worst kind of Denial Yet I will not lay this fault on the whole House for I will not judge so uncharitably of those whom for the most part I take to be Loyal and well-affected Subjects but that it hath been the malicious cunning of some few seditiously-affected men that hath been the cause of this Misunderstanding I shall now end as I began in giving your Lordships thanks for your affection shewed to Me at this time desiring you to go on to assist Me in the maintaining of that Regal Power that is truly Mine And as for the Liberty of the People that they now so much seem to startle at know My Lords that no King in the World shall be more careful to maintain them in the Property of their Goods Liberty of their Persons and true Religion than I shall be And now My Lord Keeper do what I have commanded you XXI To the Great Council of Lords at YORK September 24. MDCXL MY Lords Upon sudden Invasions where the dangers are near and instant it hath been the custom of My Predecessors to assemble the Great Council of the Peers by their Advice and Assistance to give a timely remedy to such evils as cannot admit a delay so long as must of necessity be allowed for the assembling the Parliament This being our condition at this time and an Army of Rebels lodged within the Kingdom I thought it most fit to conform My self to the practice of My Predecessors in like cases that with your advice and assistance we might joyntly proceed to the chastisement of their Insolencies and securing of Our good Subjects In the first
and still must pursue those ends and undergo that Charge for which it was first granted to the Crown it having been so long and constantly continued to Our Predecessors as that in four several Acts of Parliament for the granting thereof to King Edward the Sixth Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth and Our blessed Father it is in express terms mentioned to have been had and enjoyed by the several Kings named in those Acts time out of mind by authority of Parliament And therefore upon these reasons We held it agreeable to Our Kingly Honour and necessary for the safety and good of Our Kingdom to continue the receipt thereof as so many of Our Predecessors had done Wherefore when a few Merchants being at first but one or two fomented as it is well known by those evil Spirits that would have hatched that undutiful Remonstance began to oppose the payment of Our accustomed duties in the Custom-house We gave order to the Officers of Our Customs to go on notwithstanding that opposition in the receiving of the usual duties and caused those that refused to be warned to attend at the Council-board that by the wisdom and authority of Our Council they might be reduced to obedience and duty where some of them without reverence or respect to the honour and dignity of that presence behaved themselves with such boldness and insolency of speech as was not to be endured by a far meaner Assembly much less to be countenanced by a House of Parliament against the body of Our Privy Council And as in this We did what in honour and reason was fit for the present so Our thoughts were daily intentive upon the re-assembling of Our Parliament with full intention on Our part to take away all ill understanding between Us and Our people whose loves as We desired to continue and preserve so We used Our best endeavours to prepare and facilitate the way to it And to this end having taken a strict and exact survey of Our Government both in the Church and Commonwealth and what things were most fit and necessary to be reformed We found in the first place that much exception had been taken at a book intituled Appello Caesarem or An Appeal to Caesar and published in the year 1625. by Richard Mountague then Batchelour of Divinity and now Bishop of Chichester and because it did open the way to those Schisms and Divisions which have since ensued in the Church We did for remedy and redress thereof and for satisfaction of the Consciences of Our good people not only by Our publick Proclamation call in that Book which ministred matter of offence but to prevent the like danger for hereafter reprinted the Articles of Religion established in the time of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory and by a Declaration before those Articles We did tie and restrain all Opinions to the sense of those Articles that nothing might be left for private fancies and innovation For We call God to record before whom We stand that it is and always hath been Our hearts desire to be found worthy of that Title which We accompt the most glorious in all Our Crown Defender of the Faith neither shall We ever give way to the authorizing of any thing whereby any Innovation may steal or creep into the Church but preserve that unity of Doctrine and Discipline established in the time of Queen Elizabeth whereby the Church of England hath stood and flourished ever since And as We were careful to make up all breaches and rents in Religion at home so did We by Our Proclamation and Commandment for the execution of Laws against Priests and Popish Recusants fortifie all ways and approaches against that foreign Enemy which if it have not succeeded according to Our intention We must lay the fault where it is in the subordinate Officers and Ministers in the Country by whose remissness Jesuites and Priests escape without apprehension and Recusants from those convictions and penalties which the Laws and Our Commandment would have inflicted on them For We do profess that as it is Our duty so it shall be our care to command and direct well but it is the part of others to perform the Ministerial Office And when We have done Our Office We shall account Our Self and all charitable men will accompt Us innocent both to God and Men and those that are negligent We will esteem as culpable both to God and Us and therefore will expect that hereafter they give Us a better accompt And as We have been careful for the setling of Religion and quieting the Church so were We not unmindful of the preservation of the just and ancient Liberties of Our Subjects which We secured to them by Our gracious Answer to the Petition in Parliament having not since that time done any Act whereby to infringe them but Our care is and hereafter shall be to keep them intire and inviolable as We would do Our own Right and Sovereignty having for that purpose enrolled the Petition and Answer in Our Courts of Justice Next to the care of Religion and of Our Subjects Rights We did Our best for the provident and well ordering of that aid and supply which was granted Us the last Session whereof no part hath been wastfully spent nor put to any other use than those for which it was desired and granted as upon payment of Our Fleet and Army wherein Our care hath been such as We chose rather to discontent Our dearest Friends and Allies and Our nearest Servants than to leave Our Souldiers and Mariners unsatisfied whereby any vexation or disquiet might arise to Our people We have also with part of those Moneys begun to supply Our Magazines and stores of Munition and to put Our Navy into a constant form and order Our Fleet likewise is fitting and almost in a readiness whereby the Narrow Seas may be guarded Commerce maintained and Our Kingdom secured from all forein attempts These Acts of Ours might have made this impression in all good minds that We were careful to direct Our counsels and dispose Our actions so as might most conduce to the maintenance of Religion honour of Our Government and safety of Our People But with mischievous men once ill-affected Seu bene seu malè facta premunt and whatsoever once seemed amiss is ever remembred but good endeavours are never regarded Now all these things that were the chief complaints the last Session being by Our Princely care so seriously reformed the Parliament re assembled the twentieth of January last We expecting according to the candor and sincerity of Our own thoughts that men would have framed themselves for the effecting a right understanding between Us and Our people But some few malevolent persons like Empiricks and lewd Artists did strive to make new work and to have some Disease on foot to keep themselves in request and to be imployed and entertained in the Cure And yet to manifest how much offences have been diminished the Committees
so much desired and hoped that nothing might be wanting on His part to bring them into the right way for His Honour the safety of the Kingdom and their own good He resolved to desire the assistance of the Lords of the higher House as persons in rank and degree nearest to the Royal Throne and who having received Honour from Him and His Royal Progenitors He doubted not would for those and many other reasons be moved in honour and dutiful affection to His Person and Crown to dispose the House of Commons to express their duties to His Majesty in expediting the matter of Supply for which they were called together and which required so present a dispatch For this purpose His Majesty in His Royal Person came again to the Lords House on Wednesday the 24. day of April where Himself declared to the Lords the cause of His coming which was to put them in mind of what had been by the Lord Keeper in His name delivered unto both Houses the first day of the Parliament and after at White-Hall how contrary to His expectation the House of Commons having held consultation of matter of Religion Property of Goods and Liberty of Parliament and voted some things concerning those three heads had thereby given them the precedence before the matter of His Supply that His necessities were such they could not bear delay that whatever He had by the Lord Keeper promised He would perform if the House of Commons would trust Him For Religion that His Heart and Conscience went together with the Religion established in the Church of England and He would give order to His Archbishops and Bishops that no Innovation in matter of Religion should creep in For the Ship-money that He never made or intended to make any profit to Himself of it but only to preserve the Dominion of the Seas which was so necessary that without it the Kingdom could not subsist but for the way and means by Ship-money or otherwise He left it to them For Property of Goods and Liberty of Parliament He ever intended His People should enjoy them holding no King so great as He that was King of a rich and free people and if they had not Property of Goods and Liberty of Persons they could be neither rich nor free That if the House of Commons would not first trust Him all His affairs would be disordered and His business lost That though they trusted Him in part at first yet before the Parliament ended He must totally trust them and in conclusion they must for execution of all things wholly trust Him Therefore since the matter was no more than who should be first trusted and that the trust of Him first was but a trust in part His Majesty desired the Lords to take into their considerations His and their own Honour the Safety and welfare of this Kingdom with the great danger it was in and that they would by their advice dispose the House of Commons to give His Supply the precedence before the Grievances His Majesty being departed the Lords took into serious consideration what His Majesty had commended to their care and forthwith laying aside all other debates such was their Lordships dutiful and affectionate carriage they remembring well what had been formerly declared in His Majestie 's name to both Houses His Majestie 's gracious promises and expressions then and at this time with the pressing and urgent occasions which so much imported the Honour of His Majesty and the good of this Kingdom their Lordship 's delivered their votes in these words We are of opinion that the matter of His Majestie 's Supply should have precedence and be resolved of before any other matter whatsoever and we think fit there shall be a Conference desired with the House of Commons to dispose them thereunto Accordingly the next day being Saturday the 25. day of April a Conference was had in the Painted Chamber by a Committee of both Houses where the Lord Keeper by the Lords command told the House of Commons of His Majestie 's being the day before in person in the higher House how graciously he had expressed Himself in matter of Religion Property of Goods and Liberty of Parliament and that He would therein graciously hear and relieve them and give them what in reason could be desired with the effect of what else had been graciously delivered unto them by his Majesty as well touching His constant Zeal and affection to the Religion established in the Church of England as touching the Ship-money and the necessity of His affairs which was such that delay was as prejudicial as denial and that if time were lost both Houses could not recover it and therefore their Lordship's though they would move nothing nor give any advice concerning Subsidies but decline it as that which naturally was to begin with the House of Commons yet being alike interessed and concerned in the Honour and Safety of the Kingdom they held it fit to let them know their opinions and desires which was That they should go first on with the matter of his Majestie 's Supply as that which was most necessary and fit to have precedence and that being done they would chearfully joyn with them in the presenting of their Grievances The House of Commons having heard their Lordships opinion and desire in stead of concurring with their Lordships in preferring the consideration of his Majestie 's Supply before their Grievances they spent the whole day on Monday following being the 27 of April in taking causless exceptions to what had been at the Conference related to them and the next day being Tuesday the 28. of April they desired a Conference with the Lords and their Lordships meeting them presently in the Painted Chamber they were so far from their expressing of any willingness to joyn with their Lordships in what had been upon so weighty reasons recommended unto them that on the contrary they challenged the Lords for invading the Privileges of the House of Commons alledging That the Lords having in the former Conference acknowledged that the matter of Subsidie and Supply ought to begin in the House of Commons had in their voting that it was fit and most necessary that matter of Supply should have precedence before all other business not only been transported beyond the bounds which their Lordships had formerly set to themselves but by medling with matter of Supply had as far as in them lay concluded both the matter and order of proceeding which the House of Commons took to be a breach of their Privilege and for it desired reparation of their Lordships And because the Lords had in the first Conference enumerated those three particulars of Religion Propriety of Goods and Privilege of Parliament the House of Commons collected they had taken notice of some proceedings in their House concerning those particulars and thereby broken another great Privilege of the House of Commons established in Parliament and called the Indempnity of the Commons
at Our Court at Tavestock the 8 th of September 1644. The Bill for Abolishing Episcopacy VVHereas the Government of the Church of England by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers depending upon the Hierarchy hath by long experience been found to be a great impediment to the perfect Reformation and growth of Religion and very prejudicial to the Civil State and Government of the Kingdom Be it therefore Enacted by the King 's most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the Authority of the same That from and after the fifth day of November in the year of our Lord One Thousand Six Hundred Forty and Three there shall be no Arch-bishop Bishop Chancellor or Commissary of any Arch-Bishop or Bishop nor any Dean Sub-dean Dean and Chapter or Arch deacon nor any Chancellor Chaunter Treasurer Sub-treasurer Succentor or Sacrist of any Cathedral or Collegiate Church nor any Prebendary Canon Canon-Residentiary Petty-Canon Vicar-Choral Choristers old Vicars or new Vicars of or within any Cathedral or Collegiate Church or any other their Officers within this Church of England or Dominion of Wales and that from and afrer the said fifth day of November the Name Title Dignity Jurisdiction Office and Function of Arch bishops Bishops their Chancellors and Commissaries Deans Sub-deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons Canons and Prebendaries and all Chaunters Chancellors Treasurers Sub-treasurers Succentors and Sacrists and all Vicars-Choral and Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars and every of them and likewise the having using or exercising of any Power Jurisdiction Office or Authority by reason or colour of any such Name Title Dignity Office or Function within this Realm of England or Dominion of Wales shall thenceforth cease determine and become absolutely void and shall be abolished out of this Realm and the Dominion of Wales any Usage Law or Statute to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And that from and after the said fifth day of November no Person or Persons whatsoever by Virtue of any Letters-Patents Commission or other Authority derived from the King's Majesty His Heirs or Successors shall use or exercise any Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical within this Realm or Dominion of Wales but such and in such manner as shall be appointed and established by Act of Parliament And that all Counties Palatine Mannors Lordships Castles Granges Messuages Mills Lands Tenements Meadows Leasues Pastures Woods Rents Reversions Services Parks Annuities Franchises Liberties Priviledges Immunities Rights Rights of Action and of Entry Interests Titles of Entry Conditions Commons Courts-Leet and Courts-Baron and all other Possessions and Hereditaments whatsoever of what nature or quality soever they be or wheresoever they lie or be other than Impropriations Parsonages appropriate Tithes Oblations Obventions Pensions Portions of Tithes Parsonages Vicarages Churches Chappels Advowsons Nominations Collations Rights of Patronage and Presentation which now are or lately were of or belonging unto any Arch-bishop Bishop Arch-bishoprick or Bishoprick or any of them or which they or any of them held or injoyed in right of their said Arch-bishoprick or Bishoprick respectively shall by the Authority of Parliament be vested adjudged and deemed to be and shall be in the very real and actual possession and seisin of the King's Majesty His Heirs and Successors and He shall have hold possess and enjoy the same to Him His Heirs and Successors without any Entry or other Act whatsoever and that the King's Majesty His Heirs and Successors His and their Lessees Farmers and Tenants shall hold and enjoy the same discharged and acquitted of payment of Tithes as freely and in as large ample and beneficial means to all intents and purposes as any Arch-bishop or Bishop at any time or times within the space of two years last past held or enjoyed or of right ought to have held or enjoyed the same Provided nevertheless and be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all Leases Grants Gifts Letters-Patents Conveyances Assurances or Estates whatsoever hereafter to be made by the King's Majesty His Heirs or Successors of any the Mannors Lands Tenements Hereditaments which in or by this Act shall come or be limited or disposed of unto His Majesty His Heirs or Successors other than for the Term of One and Twenty years or Three Lives or some other Term of years determinable upon One Two or Three Lives and not above from the time as any such Lease or Grant shall be made or granted whereupon the accustomed yearly Rent or more shall be reserved and payable yearly during the said Term and whereof any former Lease is in being not to be expired surrendred or ended within three years after the making of any such new Lease shall be utterly void and of none effect to all intents constructions and purposes any clause or words of non obstante to be put in any such Patent Grant Conveyance or Assurance and any Law Usage Custom or any thing in this Act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding And be it further Enacted and Ordained That all Impropriations Parsonages appropriate Tithes Oblations Obventions Portions of Tithes Parsonages Vicarages Churches Chappels Advowsons Nominations Collations Rights of Patronage and Presentation which now are or lately were belonging unto any Arch-bishop or Bishop Arch-bishoprick or Bishoprick and all Mannors Castles Lordships Granges Messuages Mills Lands Tenements Meadows Pastures Woods Rents Reversions Services Parsonages appropriate Tithes Oblations Obventions Pensions Portions of Tithes Parsonages Vicarages Churches Chappels Advowsons Nominations Rights of Patronage and Presentation Parks Annuities Franchises Liberties Priviledges Immunities Rights Rights of Action and of Entry Interests Titles of Entry Conditions Commons Courts-Leet and Courts-Baron and all other Possessions and Hereditaments whatsoever of what nature or quality soever they be or wheresoever they lie or be which now are or lately were of or belonging to any Sub-dean Dean Dean and Chapter Arch-deacon Chaunter Chancellor Treasurer Sub-treasurer Succentor Sacrist Prebendary Canon Canon-Residentiary Petty-Canon Vicars Choral Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars or any of them or any of the Officers of them or any of them which they held or enjoyed in right of their said Dignities Churches Corporations Offices or Places respectively shall by Authority of this present Parliament be vested adjudged and deemed to be and shall be in the very real and actual possession and seisin of Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Esquire Peter Malbourne Esquire and they shall have hold possess and enjoy the same to them their Heirs and Assigns without any Entry or other Act whatsoever and that for themselves their Lessees Farmers and Tenants discharged and acquitted of payment of Tithes as freely and in as large ample and beneficial manner to all intents and purposes as any of the Persons or Corporations whose Offices or Places are taken away by this Act at
any time or times within the space of two years now last past held or enjoyed or of right ought to have held or enjoyed the same In trust and confidence nevertheless and to the intent and purpose that they the said Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Esquire Peter Malbourne Esquire and the Survivors and Survivor of them his and their Heirs and Assigns shall satisfie and pay unto all and every Arch-bishop Bishop Dean Sub-dean Arch-deacon Chaunter Chancellor Treasurer Sub-treasurer Succentor Sacrist Prebendary Canon Canon-Residentiary Petty-Canon Vicars Choral Choristers old Vicars and new Vicars and other Officers and persons belonging unto or now imployed in or about the said Cathedral or Collegiate Churches such yearly Stipends and Pensions for so long time and in such manner as by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled shall be ordered directed and appointed and shall dispose of all and singular the aforesaid Mannors Lands Tithes Appropriations Advowsons Tenements Hereditaments and other the Premisses and of every part and parcel thereof and of the Revenues Rents Issues and Profits thereof to the uses intents and purposes above and hereafter expressed that is to say for a competent maintenance for the support of such a number of Preaching Ministers for the service of every Cathedral and Collegiate Church and His Majesties free Chappel of Windsor as by the Lords and Commons shall be ordered and appointed and likewise for the maintenance of Preaching Ministers throughout the Kingdom of England Dominion of VVales and Town of Barwick in such places where such maintenance is wanting and for a proportionable allowance for and towards the reparation of the said Cathedral and Collegiate Churches in such manner and form and to such persons and for such other good uses to the advancement of true Religion and the maintenance of Piety and Learning as by this or any other Act or Acts of Parliament now or hereafter to be made shall be set down or declared And be it further Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all Leases Gifts Grants Conveyances Assurances and Estates whatsoever hereafter to be made by the said Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Esquire Peter Mabourne Esquire the Survivors and Survivor of them or the greater part of them his and their Heirs and Assigns of any the Mannors Lands Tenements or Hereditaments which in or by this Act shall come or be limited or disposed of unto the said Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Esquire Peter Malbourne Esquire other than for the Term of One and Twenty years or Three Lives or some other Term of years determinable upon One Two or Three Lives and not above from the time as any such Lease or Grant shall be made or granted whereupon the accustomed yearly Rent or more shall be reserved and payable yearly during the said Term whereof any former Lease is in being and not to be expired surrendred or ended within Three years after the making of such Lease shall be utterly void and of none effect to all intents constructions and purposes any thing in this Act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding Provided nevertheless where no Lease hath been heretofore made nor any such Rent hath been reserved or payable of any the Lands Tenements or Hereditaments in this Act limited or disposed of unto the said Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Esquire Peter Malbourne Esquire that in such case it shall be lawful for the said Sir William Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John Wollaston John Warner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Esquire Peter Malbourne Esquire the Survivors and Survivor of them or the greater part of them his and their Heirs to make any Lease or Estate for the Term of One and Twenty years or Three Lives or some other Term of years determinable upon One Two or Three Lives and not above taking such Fine as they in their Judgments shall conceive indifferent and reserving a reasonable Rent not being under the Third part of the clear yearly value of the Lands Tenements or Hereditaments contained in such Lease And it is further Declared to be the true intent and meaning of this Act That all and every the Lessees Farmers and Tenants of all and every the said Persons and Corporations whose Offices or Places are taken away by this Statute now having holding or enjoying any Estate Term or Interest in possession by himself his under-Tenants or Assigns of or in any Mannors Lands Tenements Appropriations or other Hereditaments whatsoever shall and may be preferred in the taking and renewing of any Estates Leases or Grants of any such Mannors Lands Tenements or Hereditaments before any other Person the said Lessees Farmers or Tenants or other Parties interessed as aforesaid desiring the same and giving such Fines Rents and other considerations for the same as by the said Sir VVilliam Roberts Knight Thomas Atkins Sir John VVollaston John VVarner John Towes Aldermen of the City of London John Packer Peter Malbourne Esquires or the Survivors or Survivor of them or the major part of them his or their Heirs or Assigns shall be thought and held just and reasonable Provided also and be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all and singular Revenues Rents Issues Fees Profits Sums of Money and Allowances whatsoever as have heretofore been and now ought to be paid disposed or allowed unto or for the maintenance of any Grammar-School or Scholars or for or towards the Reparation of any Church Chappel High-way Causey Bridge School-house Alms-house or other charitable use payable by any the Corporations or Persons whose Offices or Places are taken away by this Act or which are chargeable upon or ought to issue out of or be paid for or in respect of the said Premisses or any of them shall be and continue to be paid disposed and allowed as they were and have been heretofore any thing in this present Act to the contrary thereof notwithstanding And to the intent and purpose the Parliament may be certainly and clearly informed of the Premisses to the end the same may be distributed applied and imployed to and for such pious and godly uses and purposes as is intended and herein declared Be it Ordained and Enacted That the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England for the time being shall by virtue of this Act have full Power and Authority and is hereby required to award and issue forth several Commissions under the Great Seal of England into all and every the Counties and Cities within the Kingdom of England and Dominion of VVales to be directed unto such and so many persons as by the
unto the Kingdom of England by the Kingdom of Scotland upon the first Monthly allowance which shall grow due to the Scotish Army from the time they shall make their first entrance into the Kingdom of England 7. That the Kingdom of Scotland to manifest their willingness to their utmost ability to be helpful to their Brethren of England in this common Cause will give the Publick Faith of the Kingdom of Scotland to be joyntly made use of with the Publick Faith of the Kingdom of England for the present taking up of Two hundred thousand Pounds sterling in the Kingdom of England or elsewhere for the speedy procuring of the said Hundred thousand Pounds sterling as aforesaid as also a considerable sum for the satisfying in good proportion the Arrears of the Scotish Army in Ireland 8. That no Cessation nor any Pacification or Agreement for Peace whatsoever shall be made by either Kingdom or the Armies of either Kingdom without the mutual Advice and Consent of both Kingdoms or their Committees in that behalf appointed who are to have full Power for the same in case the Houses of the Parliament of England or the Parliament or Convention of Estates of Scotland shall not sit 9. That the Publick Faith of the Kingdom of Scotland shall be given to their Brethren of England that neither their entrance into nor their continuance in the Kingdom of England shall be made use of to any other ends then are expressed in the Covenant and in the Articles of this Treaty and that all matters of difference that shall happen to arise between the Subjects of the two Nations shall be resolved and determined by the mutual Advice and Consent of both Kingdoms or by such Committees as for this purpose shall be by them appointed with the same Power as in the precedent Article 10. That in the same manner and upon the same conditions as the Kingdom of Scotland is now willing to aid and assist their Brethren of England the Kingdom of England doth oblige themselves to aid and assist the Kingdom of Scotland in the same or like cases of streights and extremities 11. Lastly it is agreed and concluded that during the time that the Scotish Army shall be imployed as aforesaid for the defence of the Kingdom of England there shall be fitted out as Men of War eight Ships whereof six shall be of Burthen betwixt One hundred and Twenty and two hundred Tun the other between three and four hundred Tun whereof two shall be in lieu of the two Ships appointed by the Irish Treaty all which shall be maintained at the charge of the Kingdom of England to be imployed for the defence of the Coast of Scotland under such Commanders as the Earl of Warwick for the time of his being Admiral shall nominate with the approbation of the Committees of both Kingdoms which Commanders shall receive from the said Earl general Instructions that they do from time to time observe the Directions of the Committees of both Kingdoms The Ordinance for calling the Assembly of Divines An Ordinance of the Lords and Commons in Parliament for the calling of an Assembly of Learned and Godly Divines and others to be consulted with by the Parliament for the settling of the Government and Liturgy of the Church of England and for vindicating and clearing of the Doctrine of the said Church from false Aspersions and Interpretations WHereas amongst the infinite Blessings of Almighty God upon this Nation none is or can be more dear unto us than the purity of our Religion and for that as yet many things remain in the Liturgy Discipline and Government of the Church which do necessarily require a further and more perfect Reformation than as yet hath been attained and whereas it hath been declared and resolved by the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament that the present Church-government by Arch-bishops Bishops their Chancellours Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-deacons and other Ecclesiastical Officers depending upon the Hierarchy is evil and justly offensive and burthensom to the Kingdom a great impediment to Reformation and growth of Religion and very prejudicial to the State and Government of this Kingdom and that therefore they are resolved that the same shall be taken away and that such a Government shall be settled in the Church as may be most agreeable to Gods Holy Word and most apt to procure and preserve the Peace of the Church at home and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland and other reformed Churches abroad and for the better effecting hereof and for the vindicating and clearing of the Doctrine of the Church of England from all false Calumnies and Aspersions it is thought fit and necessary to call an Assembly of Learned Godly and Judicious Divines who together with some Members of both the Houses of Parliament are to consult and advise of such matters and things touching the Premisses as shall be proposed unto them by both or either of the Houses of Parliament and to give their Advice and Counsel therein to both or either of the said Houses when and as often as they shall be thereunto required Be it therefore ordained by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled That all and every the Persons hereafter in this present Ordinance named that is to say Algernon Earl of Northumberland William Earl of Bedford Philip Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery William Earl of Salisbury Henry Earl of Holland Edward Earl of Manchester William Lord Viscount Say and Seal Edward Lord Viscount Conway Philip Lord VVharton Edward Lord Howard of Escr John Selden Esquire Francis Rous Esquire Edmund Prideaux Esquire Sir Henry Vane Knight senior John Glyn Esquire Recorder of London John VVhite Esquire Bulstrode VVhitelock Esquire Humphry Salway Esquire Mr. Serjeant VVild Oliver Saint-John Esquire His Majesties Sollicitor Sir Benjamin Rudyard Knight John Pym Esquire Sir John Clotworthy Knight John Maynard Esquire Sir Henry Vane Knight junior VVilliam Pierrepont Esquire William VVheeler Esquire Sir Thomas Barrington Knight VValter Young Esquire Sir John Evelin Knight Herbert Palmer of Ashwel Batchelor in Divinity Oliver Bowles of Sutton Batchelor in Divinity Henry VVilkinson of VVaddesdon Batchelor in Divinity Thomas Valentine of Chalfont-Giles Batchelor in Divinity Doctor VVilliam Twisse of Newbury VVilliam Raynor of Egham Master Hannibal Gammon of Maugan Mr. Jasper Hicks of Lawrick D. Joshua Hoyle late of Dublin in Ireland VVilliam Bridges of Yarmouth Thomas VVincop of Ellesworth Doctor in Divinity Thomas Goodwin of London Batchelor in Divinity John Ley of Budworth in Cheshire Thomas Case of London John Pyne of Bereferrers Master VVhidden of Mooreton D. Richard Love of Ekington D. VVilliam Gouge of Blackfriers London D. Ralph Brownrigge Bishop of Exceter D. Samuel Ward Master of Sidney Colledge John White of Dorchester Edward Peal of Compton Stephen Marshall of Finchingfield Batchelor in Divinity Obadiah Sedgewick of Cogshall Batchelor in Divinity M. Carter Peter Clark of Carnaby William Mew of Estington Batchelor in Divinity
for the latter viz. That they were superiour to Presbyters also had been confessed by your selves in your first Grant before but was not produced to prove the Conclusion it self immediately viz. That they were Bishops in distinct sense altho sundry of their Testimonies come up even to that also But to the first point That they were Single persons the concurrence is so general that His Majesty remembreth not to have heard of any one single Interpreter before Brightman that ever expounded them otherwise And yet the same man as His Majesty is informed in his whole Commentary upon the Revelation doth scarce if at all any where else save in these Seven Epistles expound the word Angel collectively but still of one single person or other insomuch as he maketh one Angel to be Gregory the Great another Queen Elizabeth another Cranmer another Chemnitius and the like But generally both the Fathers and Protestant Divines agree in this That the Angel was a Single person some affirming plainly and that in terminis he was the Bishop some naming the very persons of some of them as of Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna and others some calling him the chief Pastor or Superintendent of that Church and those that speak least and were more or less disaffected to Bishops as Beza Doctor Reynolds the Geneva Notes and even Cartwright himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 President or chief among the Presbyters And this they do sundry of them not crudely delivering their Opinions only and then no more but they give Reasons for it and after examination of the several Opinions prefer this before the rest affirming That Doctissimi quique interpretes all the best learned Interpreters so understand it and that they cannot understand it otherwise vim nisi facere Textui velint unless they will offer violence to the Text. That which His Majesty said concerning the Subdivision of those that had divided themselves from the common received judgment of the Church was meant by His Majesty as to the Subdivision in respect of this particular of the Angels wherein they differ one from another as to the Division in respect of their dislike of Bishops wherein they all agree And truly His Majesty doth not yet see how either their Differences can be possibly reconciled in the former no accommodation in the world being able to make all the people of the whole Church nor yet a Colledg consisting of many Presbyters to be one Single person or their recess wholly excused in the latter their dissenting from the common and received Judgment and Practice of the Christian Church in the matter of Episcopacy and the evil consequents thereof having in His Majesties Opinion brought a greater reproach upon the Protestant Religion and given more advantage or colour at least to the Romish party to asperse the Reformed Churches in such sort as we see they do than their disagreement from the Church of Rome in any one controverted Point whatsoever besides hath done As to the Apostles Successors Here little is said the substance whereof hath not been Answered before His Majesty therefore briefly declares His meaning herein That the Apostles were to have no necessary Successors in any thing that was extraordinary either in their Mission or Unction That His Majesty spake not of Succession into Abilities otherwise than by instance mentioning other particulars withal which thing He thinketh needeth not to have been now the third time by you mentioned That in the Apostles Mission or Commission for His Majesty under the name of Mission comprehended both and consequently in the Apostolical Office as there was something extraordinary so there was something ordinary wherein they were to have Successors That Bishops are properly their Successors in the whole Apostolical Office so far as it was ordinary and to have Successors That therefore the Bishops Office may in regard of that Succession be said to be Apostolical That yet it doth not follow that they must needs be called Apostles taking the Denomination from the Office inasmuch as the Denomination of the Apostles peculiarly so called was not given them from the Office whereunto they were sent but as the word it self rather importeth from the immediateness of their Mission being sent immediately by Christ himself in respect whereof for distinction sake and in Honour to their Persons it was thought fitter by those that succeeded in common usage to abstain from that Denomination and to be styled rather by the Name of Bishops That if the Apostles had no Successors the Presbyters who are their Successors in part mediately and subordinately to the Bishops will be very hard set to prove the Warrant of their own Office and Mission which if not derived from the Apostles who only received power of Mission from Christ by a continued line of Succession His Majesty seeth not upon what other bottom it can stand As to the standing Officers of the Church You insisted upon Two Places of Scripture Phil. i. 1. and 1 Tim. iii. to prove that there were to be no more standing Officers in the Church than the two in those places mentioned viz. Presbyters who are there called Bishops and Deacons whereunto His Majesties Answer was That there might be other tho not mentioned in those places which Answer tho it were alone sufficient yet ex abundanti His Majesty shewed withall that supposing your interpretation of the word Bishop in both the places viz. to denote the Office of Presbyter only there might yet be given some probable conjectures which likewise supposed true might satisfie us why that of Bishop in the distinct sense should not be needful or proper to be named in those places His Majesties former Reason tho in Hypothesi and as applied to the Church of Philippi it be but conjectural yet upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical Histories and consideration of the Condition of those times as it is set forth in the Scriptures also it will appear in Thesi to be undoubtedly true viz. That the Apostles themselves first planted Churches That they were perpetual Governours and in chief of all the Churches whilst they lived That as the burthen grew greater by the propagation of the Gospel they assumed others in partem curae committing to their charge the peculiar oversight of the Churches in some principal Cities and the Towns and Villages adjacent as James at Jerusalem and others in other places sooner or later as they saw it expedient for the service of the Church That the persons so by them appointed to such peculiar charges did exercise the powers of Ordination and other Government under the Apostles and are therefore in the Church Stories called Bishops of those places in a distinct sense That in some places where the Apostles were themselves more frequently conversant they did for some while govern the Churches immediately by themselves before they set Bishops there and that after the Apostles times Bishops only were the ordinary Governours of the Churches of Christ And His
patience as bad as my worst Enemies can falsly say and I hope I shall still do better than they desire or deserve I should I believe it will at last appear that they who first began to embroil my other Kingdoms are in great part guilty if not of the first letting out yet of the not timely stopping those horrid effusions of blood in Ireland Which whatever my Enemies please to say or think I look upon as that of my other Kingdoms exhausted out of My own veins no man being so much weakned by it as My self And I hope tho mens unsatiable Cruelties never will yet the Mercy of God will at length say to his Justice It is enough and command the Sword of Civil wars to sheath it self his merciful Justice intending I trust not our utter Confusion but our Cure the abatement of our Sins not the desolating of these Nations O my God let those infinite Mercies prevent us once again which I and My Kingdoms have formerly abused and can never deserve should be restored Thou seest how much Cruelty among Christians is acted under the colour of Religion as if we could not be Christians unless we crucifie one another Because we have not more loved thy Truth and practised in Charity Thou hast suffered a spirit of Error and bitterness of mutual and mortal Hatred to rise among us O Lord forgive wherein we have sinned and sanstifie what we have suffered Let our Repentance be our Recovery as our great Sins have been onr Ruine Let not the Miseries I and My Kingdoms have hitherto suffered seem small to Thee but make our Sins appear to our Consciences as they are represented in the glass of thy Judgments for Thou never punishest small failings with so severe Afflictions O therefore according to the multitude of thy great Mercies pardon our Sins and remove thy Judgments which are very many and very heavy Yet let our Sins be ever more grievous to us than thy Judgments and make us more willing to repent than to be relieved first give us the Peace of penitent Consciences and then the tranquillity of united Kingdoms In the sea of our Saviours Blood drown our Sins and through this Red sea of our own blood bring us at last to a state of Piety Peace and Plenty As My publick relations to all make Me share in all My Subjects sufferings so give Me such a pious sense of them as becomes a Christian King and a loving Father of My People Let the scandalous and unjust Reproaches cast upon Me be as a breath more to kindle My Compassion Give Me grace to heap Charitable coals of fire upon their heads to melt them whose Malice or cruel Zeal hath kindled or hindred the quenching of those Flames which have so much wasted My Three Kingdoms O rescue and assist those poor Protestants in Ireland whom Thou hast hitherto preserved And lead those in the ways of Thy saving Truths whose Ignorance or Errors have filled them with Rebellious and destructive Principles which they act under an opinion that they do Thee good service Let the hand of Thy Justice be against those who maliciously and despitefully have raised or fomented those cruel and desperate Wars Thou art far from destroying the innocent with tho guilty and the erroneous with the malicious thou that hadst pity on Nineveh for the many Children that were therein give not over the whole stock of that populous and seduced Nation to the wrath of those whose Covetousness makes them Cruel nor to their Anger which is too fierce and therefore justly cursed Preserve if it be thy will in the midst of the furnace of thy severe Justice a Posterity which may praise Thee for Thy Mercy And deal with Me not according to mans unjust Reproaches but according to the Innocency of My hands in Thy sight If I have desired or delighted in the woful day of My Kingdoms Calamities if I have not earnestly studied and faithfully endeavoured the preventing and composing of these bloody Distractions then let thy hand be against Me and My Fathers house O Lord Thou seest I have Enemies enough of men as I need not so I should not dare thus to imprecate Thy Curse on Me and Mine if My Conscience did not witness my Integrity which Thou O Lord knowest right well But I trust not to My own Merit but thy Mercies Spare us O Lord and be not angry with us for ever XIII Vpon the calling in of the SCOTS and their Coming THE Scots are a Nation upon whom I have not only common ties of Nature Soveraignty and Bounty with my Father of Blessed memory but also special and late obligations of Favours having gratified the active Spirits among them so far that I seemed to many to prefer the desires of that Party before My own Interest and Honour But I see Royal bounty emboldens some men to ask and act beyond all bounds of Modesty and Gratitude My Charity and Act of Pacification forbids Me to reflect on former passages wherein I shall ever be far from letting any mans ingratitude or inconstancy make Me repent of what I granted them for the publick good I pray God it may so prove The coming again of that Party into England with an Army only to conform this Church to their late New model cannot but seem as unreasonable as they would have thought the same measure offered from hence to themselves Other Errand I could never understand they had besides those common and vulgar flourishes for Religion and Liberty save only to confirm the Presbyterian Copy they had set by making this Church to write after them tho it were in bloody Characters Which Design and End whether it will justifie the use of such violent Means before the Divine Justice I leave to their Consciences to judg who have already felt the misery of the Means but not reaped the benefit of the End either in this Kingdom or that Such knots and crosness of grain being objected here as will hardly suffer that Form which they cry up as the only just Reformation and setling of Government and Discipline in Churches to go on so smoothly here as it might do in Scotland and was by them imagined would have done in England when so many of the English Clergy through levity or discontent if no worse Passion suddenly quitted their former engagements to Episcopacy and faced about to their Presbytery It cannot but seem either Passion or some Self-seeking more than true Zeal and pious Discretion for any foreign State or Church to prescribe such medicines only for others which themselves have used rather successfully than commendably not considering that the same Physick on different constitutions will have different operations that may kill one which doth but cure another Nor do I know any such tough and malignant Humours in the constitution of the English Church which gentler applications than those of an Army might not easily have removed Nor is it so proper to hew out
that matters being impartially setled might be more satisfactory to all and more durable But much of Gods Justice and Mans folly will at length be discovered through all the films and pretensions of Religion in which Politicians wrap up their designs In vain do men hope to build their Piety on the ruines of Loyalty Nor can those confederations or designs be durable when Subjects make Bankrupt of their Allegiance under pretence of setting up a quicker trade for Religion But as my best Subjects of Scotland never deserted Me so I cannot think that the most are gone so far from Me in a Prodigality of their love and respects toward Me as to make Me to despair of their return when besides the bonds of Nature and Conscience which they have to Me all Reason and true Policy will teach them that their chiefest interest consists in their Fidelity to the Crown not in their serviceableness to any Party of the People to a neglect and betraying of my Safety and Honour for their own advantages However the less cause I have to trust to men the more I shall apply My self to God The troubles of My Soul are enlarged O Lord bring Thou Me out of My distress Lord direct Thy Servant in the ways of that Pious Simplicity which is the best Policy Deliver Me from the combined strength of those who have so much of the Serpents Subtility that they forget the Doves Innocency Tho hand joyn in hand yet let them not prevail against My Soul to the betraying of My Conscience and Honour Thou O Lord canst turn the hearts of those Parties in both Nations as Thou didst the men of Judah and Israel to restore David with as much loyal zeal as they did with inconstancy and eagerness pursue him Preserve the love of thy Truth and Vprightness in Me and I shall not despair of My Subjects affections returning towards Me. Thou canst soon cause the overflowing Seas to ebb and retire back again to the bounds which Thou hast appointed for them O My God I trust in Thee let Me not be ashamed let not My Enemies triumph over Me. Let them be ashamed who transgress without a cause let them be turned back that persecute My Soul Let Integrity and Vprightness preserve Me for I wait on Thee O Lord. Redeem thy Church O God out of all its Troubles XIV Vpon the COVENANT THE Presbyterian Scots are not to be hired at the ordinary rate of Auxiliaries nothing will induce them to engage till those that call them in have pawned their Souls to them by a Solemn League and Covenant Where many engines of Religious and fair pretensions are brought chiefly to batter or rase Episcopacy This they make the grand evil Spirit which with some other Imps purposely added to make it more odious and terrible to the Vulgar must by so solemn a Charm and Exorcism be cast out of this Church after more than a Thousand years possession here from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island and an universal prescription of time and practice in all other Churches since the Apostles times till this last Century But no Antiquity must plead for it Presbytery like a young Heir thinks the Father hath lived long enough and impatient not to be in the Bishops Chair and Authority tho Lay-men go away with the Revenues all Art is used to sink Episcopacy and lanch Presbytery in England which was lately boyed up in Scotland by the like artifice of a Covenant Altho I am unsatisfied with many passages in that Covenant some referring to My self with very dubious and dangerous limitations yet I chiefly wonder at the design and drift touching the Discipline and Government of the Church and such a manner of carrying them on to new ways by Oaths and Covenants where it is hard for men to be engaged by no less than swearing for or against those things which are of no clear Moral necessity but very disputable and controverted among Learned and Godly men whereto the application of Oaths can hardly be made and enjoined with that Judgment and certainty in ones self or that Charity and candor to others of different Opinion as I think Religion requires which never refuses fair and equable Deliberations yea and Dissentings too in matters only probable The enjoyning of Oaths upon People must needs in things doubtful be dangerous as in things unlawful damnable and no less superfluous where former Religious and Legal Engagements bound men sufficiently to all necessary duties Nor can I see how they will reconcile such an Innovating Oath and Covenant with that former Protestation which was so lately taken To maintain the Religion established in the Church of England since they count Discipline so great a part of Religion But ambitious minds never think they have laid snares and gins enough to catch and hold the Vulgar credulity for by such politick and seemingly-pious Stratagems they think to keep the populacy fast to their Parties under the terror of Perjury Whereas certainly all honest and wise men ever thought themselves sufficiently bound by former ties of Religion Allegiance and Laws to God and Man Nor can such after-Contracts devised and imposed by a few men in a declared Party without My consent and without any like power or precedent from God's or Mans Laws be ever thought by judicious men sufficient either to absolve or slacken those Moral and Eternal bonds of Duty which lie upon all my Subjects Consciences both to God and Me. Yet as things now stand good men shall least offend God or Me by keeping their Covenant in honest and lawful ways since I have the Charity to think that the chief End of the Covenant in such mens intentions was To preserve Religion in Purity and the Kingdoms in Peace To other than such ends and means they cannot think themselves engaged Nor will those that have any true touches of Conscience endeavour to carry on the best designs much less such as are and will be daily more apparently factious and ambitious by any unlawful means under that Title of the Covenant unless they dare prefer ambiguous dangerous and unauthorized Novelties before their known and sworn Duties which are indispensable both to God and My self I am prone to believe and hope that many who took the Covenant are yet firm to this Judgment That such later Vows Oaths or Leagues can never blot out those former gravings and characters which by just and lawful Oaths were made upon their Souls That which makes such Confederations by way of Solemn Leagues and Covenants more to be suspected is That they are the common road used in all Factions and Powerful Perturbations of State or Church Where formalities of extraordinary Zeal and Piety are never more studied and elaborate than when Politicians most agitate desperate designs against all that is setled or sacred in Religion and Laws which by such screws are cunningly yet forcibly wrested by secret steps and less sensible degrees from
I am afflicted by those whose Prosperity I earnestly desire and whose Seduction I heartily deplore If they had been my open and forein Enemies I could have born it bur they must be my own Subjects who are next to my Children dear to Me and for the restoring of whose Tranquility I could willingly be the Jonah if I did not evidently foresee that by the divided Interests of their and Mine Enemies as by contrary winds the storm of their Miseries would be rather encreased than allayed I had rather prevent my Peoples Ruine than rule over them nor am I so ambitious of that Dominion which is but my Right as of their Happiness if it could expiate or countervail such a way of obtaining it by the highest Injuries of Subjects committed against their Soveraign Yet I had rather suffer all the miseries of Life and die many Deaths than shamefully to desert or dishonourably to betray my own just Rights and Soveraignty thereby to gratify the Ambition or justifie the Malice of my Enemies between whose Malice and other mens Mistakes I put as great a difference as between an ordinary Ague and the Plague or the Itch of Novelty and the Leprosie of Disloyalty As Liars need have good memories so Malicious persons need good inventions that their Calumnies may fit every mans fancy and what their Reproaches want of truth they may make up with number and shew My Patience I thank God will better serve Me to bear and my Charity to forgive than my Leisure to answer the many false aspersions which some men have cast upon Me. Did I not more consider my Subjects Satisfaction than My own Vindication I should never have given the Malice of some men that pleasure as to see Me take notice of or remember what they say or object I would leave the Authors to be punished by their own evil Manners and seared Consciences which will I believe in a shorter time than they be aware of both confute and revenge all those black and false Scandals which they have cast on Me and make the world see there is as little truth in them as there was little worth in the broaching of them or Civility I need not say Loyalty in the not-suppressing of them whose credit and reputation even with the People shall ere long be quite blasted by the breath of that same fornace of Popular obloquy and detraction which they have studied to heat and inflame to the highest degree of infamy and wherein they have sought to cast and consume my Name and Honour First nothing gave Me more cause to suspect and search My own Innocency than when I observed so many forward to engage against Me who had made great professions of singular Piety For this gave to vulgar minds so bad a reflection upon Me and My Cause as if it had been impossible to adhere to Me and not withal depart from God to think or speak well of Me and not to blaspheme him so many were perswaded that these two were utterly inconsistent to be at once Loyal to Me and truly Religious toward God Not but that I had I thank God many with Me which were both Learned and Religious much above that ordinary size and that vulgar proportion wherein some men glory so much who were so well satisfied in the cause of my Sufferings that they chose rather to suffer with Me than forsake Me. Nor is it strange that so religious Pretensions as were used against Me should be to many well-minded men a great temptation to oppose Me especially being urged by such popular Preachers as think it no sin to lye for God and what they please to call Gods Cause cursing all that will not curse with them looking so much at and crying up the goodness of the End propounded that they consider not the lawfulness of the Means used nor the depth of the Mischief chiefly plotted and intended The weakness of these mens Judgments must be made up by their Clamors and activity It was a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize Me and Mine they thought theirs could not be true if they cryed not down Mine as false I thank God I have had more tryal of his Grace as to the constancy of My Religion in the Protestant profession of the Church of England both abroad and at home than ever they are like to have Nor do I know any Exception I am so lyable to in their opinion as too great a Fixedness in that Religion whose judicious and solid grounds both from Scripture and Antiquity will not give My Conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided Innovations which the bold ignorance of some men would needs obtrude upon Me and My People Contrary to those well-tryed foundations both of Truth and Order which men of far greater Learning and clearer Zeal have setled in the Confession and Constitution of this Church in England which many former Parliaments in the most calm and unpassionate times have oft confirmed in which I should ever by Gods help persevere as believing it hath most of Primitive Truth and Order Nor did My using the assistance of some Papists which were my Subjects any way fight against My Religion as some men would needs interpret it especially those who least of all men cared whom they imployed or what they said or did so they might prevail 'T is strange that so wise men as they would be esteemed should not conceive that differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Duty Allegiance and Subjection The first they owe as Men and Christians to God the second they owe to Me in common as their KING Different professions in point of Religion cannot any more than in civil Trades take away the community of Relations either to Parents or to Princes And where is there such an Oglio or medly of various Religions in the World again as those men entertain in their service who find most fault with Me without any scruple as to the diversity of their Sects and Opinions It was indeed a foul and indeleble shame for such as would be counted Protestants to enforce Me a declared Protestant their Lord and King to a necessary use of Papists or any other who did but their duty to help Me to defend My self Nor did I more than is lawful for any King in such exigents to use the aid of any his Subjects I am sorry the Papists should have a greater sense of their Allegiance than many Protestant Professors who seem to have learned and to practise the worst Principles of the worst Papists Indeed it had been a very impertinent and unseasonable scruple in Me and very pleasing no doubt to My Enemies to have been then disputing the points of different Beliefs in My Subjects when I was disputed with by Swords points and when I needed the help of My Subjects as Men no less than their Prayers as Christians The
by my great Peace-maker Jesus Christ who will I trust redeem Me shortly out of all My Troubles for I know the triumphing of the Wicked is but short and the joy of Hypocrites is but for a moment XX. Vpon the Reformations of the Times NO Glory is more to be envied than that of due Reforming either Church or State when Deformities are such that the Perturbation and Novelty are not like to exceed the benefit of Reforming Altho God should not honour Me so far as to make Me an instrument of so good a work yet I should be glad to see it done As I was well pleased with this Parliaments first intentions to reform what the indulgence of Times and corruption of Manners might have depraved so I am sorry to see after the freedom of Parliament was by factious Tumults oppressed how little regard was had to the good Laws established and the Religion setled which ought to be the first Rule and Standard of Reforming with how much Partiality and popular Compliance the Passions and Opinions of men have been gratified to the detriment of the Publick and the infinite Scandal of the Reformed Religion What dissolutions of all Order and Government in the Church what Novelties of Schisms and corrupt Opinions what Undecencies and Confusions in Sacred Administrations what Sacrilegious invasions upon the Rights and Revenues of the Church what Contempt and Oppressions of the Clergy what injurious Diminutions and Persecutings of Me have followed as showres do warm gleams the talk of Reformation all sober men are Witnesses and with My self sad Spectators hitherto The great miscarriage I think is that Popular clamors and fury have been allowed the Reputation of Zeal and the publick Sense so that the study to please some Parties hath indeed injured all Freedom Moderation and Impartiality are sure the best tempers of Reforming Counsels and endeavours What is acted by Factions cannot but offend more than it pleaseth I have offered to put all differences in Church affairs and Religion to the free consultation of a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen the results of whose Counsels as they would have included the Votes of all so it 's like they would have given most satisfaction to all The Assembly of Divines whom the Two Houses have applied in an unwonted way to advise of Church Affairs I dislike not further than that they are not legally convened and chosen nor act in the name of all the Clergy of England nor with freedom and impartiality can do any thing being limited and confined if not over-awed to do and declare what they do For I cannot think so many men cried up for Learning and Piety who formerly allowed the Liturgy and Government of the Church of England as to the main would have so suddenly agreed quite to abolish both of them the last of which they knew to be of Apostolical institution at least as of Primitive and Universal practice if they had been left to the liberty of their own sussrages and if the influence of contrary Factions had not by secret encroachments of hopes and fears prevailed upon them to comply with so great and dangerous Innovations in the Church without any regard to their own former Judgment and Practice or to the common Interest and Honour of all the Clergy and in them of Order Learning and Religion against examples of all Ancient Churches the Laws in force and My Consent which is never to be gained against so pregnant light as in that point shines on My Understanding For I conceive that where the Scripture is not so clear and punctual in Precepts there the constant and universal Practice of the Church in things not contrary to Reason Faith Good Manners or any positive Command is the best Rule that Christians can follow I was willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with Reason or Discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the Power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the Authority of that Ancient Order I think neither just as to Episcopacy nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church or State A due Reformation had easily followed moderate Counsels and such I believe as would have given more content even to the most of those Divines who have been led on with much Gravity and Formality to carry on other mens designs which no doubt many of them by this time discover tho they dare not but smother their frustrations and discontents The specious and popular titles of Christ's Government Throne Scepter and Kingdom which certainly is not divided nor hath two faces as their Parties now have at least as also the noise of a thorough Reformation may as easily be fixed on new models as fair colours may be put to ill-favoured figures The breaking of Church-Windows which time had sufficiently defaced pulling down of Crosses which were but Civil not Religious marks defacing of the Monuments and Inscriptions of the Dead which served but to put Posterity in mind to thank God for that clearer light wherein they live the leaving of all Ministers to their liberties and private abilities in the Publick Service of God where no Christian can tell to what he may say Amen nor what adventure he may make of seeming at least to consent to the Errors Blasphemies and ridiculous Undecencies which bold and ignorant men list to vent in their Prayers Preaching and other Offices the setting forth also of old Catechisms and Confessions of Faith new drest importing as much as if there had been no sound or clear Doctrine of Faith in this Church before some four or five years consultation had matured their thoughts touching their first Principles of Religion All these and the like are the effects of popular specious and deceitful Reformations that they might not seem to have nothing to do and may give some short flashes of content to the Vulgar who are taken with Novelties as Children with Babies very much but not very long but all this amounts not to nor can in Justice merit the glory of the Churches thorough Reformation since they leave all things more deformed disorderly and discontented than when they began in point of Piety Morality Charity and good Order Nor can they easily recompence or remedy the Inconveniencies and Mischiefs which they have purchased so dearly and which have and ever will necessarily ensue till due Remedies be applied I wish they would at last make it their Unanimous work to do Gods work and not their own Had Religion been first considered as it merited much trouble might have been prevented But some men thought that the Government of this Church and State fixed by so many Laws and long Customs would not run into their new moulds till they had first melted it in the fire of a Civil War by the advantages of which they resolved if they prevailed to make My self and all My Subjects fall down and worship the
motives to Repentance and earnest desires to make some reparations for their former defects As Your quality sets you beyond any Duel with any Subject so the Nobleness of Your Mind must raise You above the meditating any Revenge or executing Your Anger upon the many The more conscious You shall be to Your own Merits upon Your People the more prone You will be to expect all Love and Loyalty from them and to inflict no Punishment upon them for former Miscarriages You will have more inward complacency in Pardoning one than in Punishing a thousand This I write to You not despairing of God's Mercy and My Subjects affections towards You both which I hope You will study to deserve yet we cannot merit of God but by his own Mercy If God shall see fit to restore Me and You after Me to those enjoyments which the Laws have assigned to Us and no Subjects without an high degree of Guilt and Sin can divest Us of then may I have better opportunity when I shall be so happy to see You in Peace to let You more fully understand the things that belong to God's Glory Your own Honour and the Kingdoms Peace But if You never see My face again and God will have Me buried in such a barbarous Imprisonment and Obscurity which the perfecting some mens Designs requires wherein few hearts that love Me are permitted to exchange a word or a look with Me I do require and entreat You as Your Father and Your KING that You never suffer Your Heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England I tell You I have tried it and after much search and many Disputes have concluded it to be the best in the world not only in the Community as Christian but also in the special notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the pomp of Superstitious Tyranny and the meanness of Fantastick Anarchy Not but that the draught being excellent as to the main both for Doctrine and Government in the Church of England some lines as in very good Figures may haply need some sweetning or polishing which might here have easily been done by a safe and gentle hand if some mens Precipitancy had not violently demanded such rude Alterations as would have quite destroyed all the Beauty and Proportions of the whole The scandal of the late Troubles which some may object and urge to You against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them or Your own thoughts in this That scarce any one who hath been a Beginner or an active Prosecutor of this late War against the Church the Laws and Me either was or is a true Lover Embracer or Practiser of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither gives such Rules nor ever before set such Examples 'T is true some heretofore had the boldness to present threatning Petitions to their Princes and Parliaments which others of the same Faction but of worse Spirits have now put in execution But let not counterfeit and disorderly Zeal abate your value and esteem of true Piety both of them are to be known by their fruits The sweetness of the Vine and Fig-tree is not to be despised tho the Brambles and Thorns should pretend to bear Figs and Grapes thereby to rule over the Trees Nor would I have you to entertain any aversation or dislike of Parliaments which in their right constitution with Freedom and Honour will never injure or diminish your Greatness but will rather be as interchangings of Love Loyalty and Confidence between a Prince and his People Nor would the events of this Black Parliament have been other than such however much biassed by Factions in the Elections if it had been preserved from the Insolencies of Popular dictates and Tumultuary impressions The sad effects of which will no doubt make all Parliaments after this more cautious to preserve that Freedom and Honour which belongs to such Assemblies when once they have fully shaken off this yoke of Vulgar encroachment since the Publick Interest consists in the mutual and common good both of Prince and People Nothing can be more happy for all than in fair grave and honourable ways to contribute their Counsels in common enacting all things by publick consent without Tyranny or Tumults We must not starve our selves because some men have surfeited of wholsom food And if neither I nor You be ever restored to Our Rights but God in his severest Justice will punish My Subjects with continuance in their Sin and suffer them to be deluded with the prosperity of their Wickedness I hope God will give Me and You that Grace which will teach and enable Us to want as well as to wear a Crown which is not worth taking up or enjoying upon sordid dishonourable and irreligious terms Keep You to true Principles of Piety Virtue and Honour You shall never want a Kingdom A Principal point of Your Honour will consist in Your conferring all Respect Love and Protection on Your Mother My Wife who hath many ways deserved well of Me and chiefly in this that having been a means to bless Me with so many hopeful Children all which with their Mother I recommend to your Love and Care She hath been content with incomparable Magnanimity and Patience to suffer both for and with Me and You. My Prayer to God Almighty is whatever becomes of Me who am I thank God wrapt up and fortified in My own Innocency and his Grace that he would be pleased to make You an Anchor or Harbour rather to these tossed and weather-beaten Kingdoms a Repairer by Your Wisdom Justice Piety and Valour of what the Folly and Wickedness of some men have so far ruined as to leave nothing intire in Church or State to the Crown the Nobility the Clergy or the Commons either as to Laws Liberties Estates Order Honour Conscience or Lives When they have destroyed Me for I know not how far God may permit the Malice and Cruelty of My Enemies to proceed and such apprehensions some mens words and actions have already given Me as I doubt not but My Blood will cry aloud for Vengeance to Heaven so I beseech God not to pour out his Wrath upon the generality of the People who have either deserted Me or engaged against Me through the Artifice and hypocrifie of their Leaders whose inward Horror will be their first Tormentor nor will they escape exemplary Judgments For those that loved Me I pray God they may have no miss of Me when I am gone so much I wish and hope that all good Subjects may be satisfied with the Blessings of Your Presence and Virtues For those that repent of any defects in their Duty toward Me as I freely forgive them in the word of a Christian King so I believe You will find them truly zealous to repay with interest that Loyalty and Love to You which was due to Me. In sum what Good I
provision of Arms and Powder out of England that the Court was extreamly corrupted and that the matters of Church and State were so out of frame as must tend to a Change There were no Witnesses and the Defendant denying what the Appellant affirmed the Tryal was thought must be by Duel In order to which the King grants a Commission for a Court-Marshal where though the presumptions of Ramsey's guilt were more heightned yet the King hinders any further process by Combat which is doubted whether it be lawful either thinking none so foolish as to strive for Empire which He found so full of Trouble or knowing that Magistracy being the sole Gift of Heaven it was vain to commit a Crime in hope of enjoying it or in fear of losing it which was the Principle upon which Excellent Princes have neglected the diligent Inquisition of Conspiracies and fatally continues Hamilton in that favour as did enable him afterwards more falsly to act that Treason of which he was then accused Some Tumults in Ireland shewed a defect in that Government which made the King send over as Deputy thither the Lord Wentworth An. 1632 a most accomplished Person in affairs of Rule of great Abilities equal to a Minister of State The King 's choice of him he soon justified by reducing that tumultuary people to such a condition of Peace and security as it had never been since its first annexion to this Crown and made it pay for the Charges of its own Government which before was deducted out of the English Treasury their Peace and Laws now opening accesses for Plenty This enjoyment of Peace and Plenty through all the King's Dominions made Him mindful of employing some fruits of it to the Honour of that God that caused it and not to let so great a Prosperity wholly corrupt the minds of men to a neglect of Religion which is usual He shewed his own Zeal for the Ornaments of it and spent part of His Treasure towards the repair of St Paul's Church and by His Example Admonitions and Commands drew many of His Subjects to a Contribution for it and had restored it to its primitive lustre and firmness adorned it to a magnificence equal with the Structure which is supposed the goodliest in the Christian World had not the Malice of His Enemies forced him to Arms mingled His Mortar with the blood of innocent people and sacrilegiously diverted all the Treasure and Materials gathered for this pious design to maintain an impious and unjust War and afterwards to dishonour His cares for Religion they barbarously made it a Stable for their Horse and Quarters for their unhallowed Foot Some reasons of State drew the King from London An. 1633 May 13. to receive the Imperial Crown of Scotland Himself professed that He had no great stomach to the Journey nor delight in the Nation being a race of men that under the Scheme of an honest animosity and specious plain-dealing were most perfidious A full Character of their great Movers Yet as He had been nobly treated all along His Journey by the English Nobility so was He there magnificently received and crowned at Edinburgh June 10th But the King soon found all those Caresses false For the Nobility and Laick Patrons could not concoct His Revocation though legal and innocent of such things as had been stoln from the Crown during His Father's Minority with a Commission for Surrendry of Superiorities and Tithes to be retaken from the King by the present Occupants who could as then pretend no other Title than the unjust usurpation of their Ancestors on such conditions as might bring some Profit to the Crown to which they justly belonged some Augmentation of the Clergy and far more ease and benefit to the common People whom by advantage of those illegal Tenures they oppressed with a most bitter Vassalage This Act of His Majesty being so full of equity and publick good those whose greatness was builded upon Injustice did not bare-facedly oppose it but endeavoured to hinder that and all the other designs of Peace and Order by opposing in the Parliament next after the Coronation the Act of Ratification of all those Laws which King James had made in that Nation for the better regulating the affairs of that Church both as to the Government and Worship of it This was highly opposed by such as were sensible of their diminution by a legal restitution of their unrighteous Possessions And although the King carried it by the major part of Voices yet to prevent their own fires with the publick Ruine they did most assiduously slander it among the People as the abetting of Popery and the betraying their Spiritual Liberty to the Romish yoke These Calumnies received more credit by the King's Order for a more decent and reverend Worship of God at His Royal Chappel at Edinburgh conformably to the English Usage Their noise grew lowder by the Concent of their party of Malecontents in England who also took advantage to diffuse their poison from the King's Book of Sports which King JAMES had in his time published in Lancashire and was now ratified by King CHARLES for a more universal Observance The Occasision of which was the Apostasie of many to Popery whose Doctrines and Practices are more indulgent to the licentious through the rigid Opinion of some Preachers who equall'd all Recreations on the Sabbath as they call'd it to the most prodigious transgressions On the contrary some of the ignorant Teachers had perverted many to down-right Judaisme by the consequence of so strict an Observance of the Sabbath And some over-busie Justices of Peace had suppressed all the ancient Feasts of the Dedications of Churches The King therefore intended by this Edict to obstruct the success of the Enemies on both sides and to free His People from the yoke of this Superstition But such is the weakness of Humane Prudence that the Remedies it applies to one Inconvenience are pregnant of another and whereas the Generality of men seldom do good but as necessitated by Law when Liberty is indulged all things are soon filled with Disorder and Confusion And so it happened in this that the Vulgar abusing the King's Liberty which was no more than is granted in other Protestant Churches and committing many undecencies made many well-temper'd Spirits too capable and credulous of those importunate Calumnies of the Faction that His Majesty was not well-affected to Religion The boldness of the Pickeroons An. 1634 Turks and Dunkirk-Pirates infesting our Coasts damaging our Traffique the Usurpation of the Holland Fishers on the King's Dominion in the Narrow Seas and His Right disputed in a Tract by the Learned Grotius call the King 's next Cares for His own Honour and the People's Safety But the Remedy appeared exceeding difficult the furnishing of a Navy for so honourable an undertaking being too heavy a burden for His Exchequer which although not emptied by any luxuriant Feasts nor profusely wasted on some prodigal and unthirsty Favourite
attempts the King first opposes the Law in several Declarations manifests the Power of Arms to be the ancient and undoubted Right of the Crown by many Proclamations charges all men under the Crime and Penalties of Treason to forbear the Execution of those Ordinances which were published to license their Rebellion and answers with a wonderful Diligence and Eloquence all the fictious Pretensions of the Parliament to that Power in their several Remonstrances But though the King had in the judgment of all understanding and uninteressed persons the Juster Cause and the more powerful Pen yet the Faction's Hast which is most essicacious in civil Discords the Slanders they had raised of Him and impressed in the minds of the People the terrors of that Arbitrary Power which the House of Commons had a long while exercised in the vexatious prosecution of all such as did oppose their imperious Resolves for they would by their Messengers send for the Great Earls and Prime Barons of the Kingdom as Rogues and Felons and weary them and others with a tedious and chargeable Attendance oppress them with heavy and unproportionable Censures and restrain them by Illegal Imprisonments and the hopes of licence and spoil in the ruine of Church and State had so preoccupied the Minds of the inferiour Multitude that neither Law nor Religion could have the least consideration in their practices and those Persons whom His Majesty appointed as Commissioners of Array in few places found that Obedience which was due to the just Commands of a Gracious Prince who vainly expected that Reverence to Justice in others which Himself gave After the experience of their Power in these their Successes at Land and having gotten the whole Navy at Sea being made Masters of the most and greatest Strengths of the Kingdom they then thought it might be safe for them to publish the aims and ends of their most destructive designs which if sooner manifested when the King by his Message of the 20th of Jan. from Windsor-Castle advised them to prescribe the limits of their Privileges give full Boundaries to His own Power and propose what was in their judgments proper to make the People happy and most religiously promised an equal tenderness of theirs and the Peoples Rights as of His own and what was for the Publick good should not be obstructed for His Particular Emolument they had justly drawn upon themselves all that popular hatred which they endeavoured to fling upon the King and had been buried under those ruines which they projected for the Grave of Majesty But then the Faction confided not so much in their own force nor were the Vulgar then so blinded with fury as to chuse their own destruction and therefore to that Message of Peace nothing was returned but Complaints that by such Advisoes their Counsels were disturbed that it was contrary to their unbounded Privileges to be minded of what was necessary But now they were furnished with a Power equal to their Ambition they thought it expedient to confirm their newly-gotten Empire with some pretensions to Peace but with a great deal of Caution that the affectation of it might not disappoint them of their hopes which were all built upon War and Confusion Therefore they formed the Conditions such as the King could not in Honour or Conscience grant them nor expect Peace by them Or if He did they should be instated in such a Grandeur that they might reap for themselves all the reproachful Honours and unlawful gains of an Arbitrary Power the thing they aimed at and leave the King overwhelmed with shame and contempt for their miscarriages in Government These Conditions were digested into Nineteen Propositions which when presented to the King He saw by an assent to them He should be concluded to have deposed Himself and be but as an helpless and idle Spectator of the Miserie 's such Tyrants would bring upon the People whom God had committed to His Trust Therefore He gave them that denial which they really desired and expected and adjusts His refusal in a Declaration wherein He sets forth the Injustice of each Proposition His Answer He sent by the Marquess of Hertford and Earl of Southampton Persons of great Integrity and Prudence with Instructions to treat in the House of Peers upon more equal Conditions But it behoved the Faction not to let the Kingdom see any way to Peace therefore denying any admittance to those Lords before ever the King's Answer could publickly discover who were the obstructours of the Peoples quiet they Ordered a Collection to be made of Money and Plate to maintain Horse Horse-men and Arms for the ensuing War The specious Pretences for which were the Safety of the King's Person and the taking Him out of the hands of Evil Counsellors the Defence of the Privileges of Parliament the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the maintenance of the ancient Laws of the Land Such inviting causes as these inflamed the Minds of the Multitude and filled them with more aiery hopes of Victory than the noise of Drums and Trumpets But that which was most powerful were the Sermons of such who being displeased with the present Ecclesiastical Government were promised the richest Benefices and a partage of the Revenues which belonged to Bishops Deans and Chapiters These from their Pulpits proclaimed War in the Name of Christ the Prince of Peace and whatsoever was contributed to the spilling of the Blood of the Wicked was to build up the Throne of the meekest Lamb and besides the satisfaction they were to expect from the Publick Faith which the Parliament promised there was a larger Interest to be doubled upon them in the Kingdom of Saints that was now approaching Deluded by these Artifices and Impostures People of all Conditions and all Sexes some carried by a secret Instinct others hurried by some furious Zeal and a last sort led by Covetousness cast into this Holy Treasury the Banck for Blood all the Ornaments of their Family all their Silver Vessels even to their Spoons with the Pledges of their first Love their Marriage-rings and the younger Females spared not their Thimbles and Bodkins the obliging Gifts of their Inamorato's from being a part of the Price of Blood But while these Preparations were made at London the King at York declares against the Scandal that He intended to Levy War against the Parliament calling God to witness how far His desires and thoughts were from it and also those many Lords who were Witnesses of His Counsels and Actions do publish to the World by a Writing subscribed with all their Names to the number of Forty and odd that they saw not any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget the belief of any such Design and were fully perswaded that He had no such intention But all was in vain for the Faction chose that the People should be rather guilty of committing Rebellion that only of favouring the Contrivers of it and decreed to try
took no notice of it although it was so weighty an Occurrence to have His prime Minister cut off in the busie Preparations for a great Design till He had finished His Addresses to Heaven and His Spirit was dismissed from the Throne of Grace to attend the Cares of that on Earth This was so clear an Evidence of a most fixed Devotion that those who built their Hopes upon His Reproaches slanderously imputed it to a secret Pleasure in the fall of him whose Greatness was now terrible to the Family that raised it which both His Majesties care of the Duke's Children afterwards as also the Consideration of His Condition did evince to be false and that the King neither hated him nor needed to fear him whom He could have ruined with a Frown and have obliged the People by permitting their Fury to pass upon him Besides His Majestie 's constant Diligence in those Duties did demonstrate that nothing but a principle of Holiness which is alwaies uniform both moved and assisted Him in those sacred Performances to which He was observed to go with an exceeding Alacrity as to a ravishing pleasure from which no lesser Pleasures nor Business were strong enough for a Diversion In the morning before He went to Hunting His beloved Sport the Chaplains were before Day call'd to their Ministry and when He was at Brainford among the Noise of Arms and near the Assaults of His Enemies He caused the Divine that then waited to perform his accustomed Service before He provided for Safety or attempted at Victory and would first gain upon the Love of Heaven and then afterwards repel the Malice of Men. Those that were appointed by the Parliament to attend Him in His Restraints wondred at His constant Devotions in His Closet and no Artifice of the Army was so likely to abuse Him to a Credulity of their good Intentions as the Permission of the Ministery of His Chaplains in the Worship of God a Mercy He valued to some of His Servants above that of enjoying Wife and Children At Sermons He carried Himself with such a Reverence and Attention that His Enemies which hated yet did even admire Him in it as if He were expecting new Instructions for Government from that God whose Deputy He was or a new Charter for a larger Empire and He was so careful not to neglect any of those Exercises that if on Tuesday Mornings on which Dayes there used to be Sermons at Court He were at any distance from thence He would ride hard to be present at the beginnings of them When the State of His Soul required He was as ready to perform those more severe parts of Religion which seem most distastful to Flesh and Blood And He never refused to take to Himself the shame of those Acts wherein He had transgressed that He might give Glory to His God For after the Army had forced Him from Holmeby and in their several removes had brought Him to Latmas an house of the Earl of Devonshire on Aug. 1. being Sunday in the Morning before Sermon He led forth with Him into the Garden the Reverend Dr Sheldon who then attended on Him and whom He was pleased to use as His Confessour and drawing out of His Pocket a Paper commanded him to read it transcribe it and so to deliver it to Him again This Paper contained several Vows which He had obliged His Soul unto for the Glory of His Maker the advance of true Piety and the emolument of the Church And among them this was one that He would do Publick Penance for the Injustice He had suffered to be done to the Earl of Strafford His consent to those Injuries that were done to the Church of England though at that time He had yielded to no more than the taking away of the High Commission and the Bishops power to Vote in Parliament and to the Church of Scotland and adjured the Dr that if ever he saw Him in a Condition to observe that or any of those Vows he should solicitously mind Him of the Obligations as he dreaded the guilt of the breach should ly upon His own Soul This voluntary submission to the Laws of Christianity exceeded that so memorable humiliation of the good Emperour Theodosius for he never bewailed the Blood of those seven thousand Men which in three hours space he caused to be spilt at Thessalonica till the resolution of St Ambrose made him sensible of the Crime But the Piety of King Charles anticipated the severity of a Confessor for those Offences to which He had been precipitated by the Violence of others This Zeal and Piety proceeded from the Dedication of His whole Soul to the Honour of His God for Religion was as Imperial in the Intellectual as in the Affectionate Faculties of it This Profession of the Church of England was His not so much by Education as Choice and He so well understood the Grounds of it that He valued them above all other Pretensions to Truth and was able to maintain it against all its Adversaries His Discourse with Henderson shews how just a Reverence He had for the Authority of the Catholick Church against the Pride and Ignorance of Schismaticks yet not to prostitute His Faith to the Adulterations of the Roman Infallibility and Traditions Nevertheless the most violent Slanders the Faction laboured to pollute Him with were those that rendred Him inclinable to Popery From which He was so averse that He could not forbear in His indearments to the Queen when He committed a secret to Her Breast which He would not trust to any other and when He admired and applauded Her affectionate Cares for His Honour and Safety in a Letter which He thought no Eye but Hers should have perused to let Her know that He still differ'd from Her in Religion for He says It is the only thing of Difference in Opinion betwixt Vs. Malice made the Slanderers blind and they published this Letter to the World than which there could not be a greater Evidence imaginable of the King 's most secret thoughts and Inward Sincerity nor a more shameful Conviction of their Impudence and damnable Falshood Nor did He only tell the Queen so but He made Her see it in His Actions For as soon as His Children were born it was His first Care to prevent the satisfaction of their Mother in baptizing them after the Rites of Her own Church When He was to Die a time most seasonable to speak Truth especially by Him who all His Life knew not how to Dissemble He declares His Profession in Religion to be the same with that which He found left by His Father King James How little the Papists credited what the Faction would have the World believe was too evident by the Conspiracies of their Fathers against His Life and Honour which the Discovery of Habernefield to whose relations the following practices against Him and the Church of England gained a belief brought to light They were mingled likewise
if time be unnecessarily lost 5. Now for the fallaciousness of my Argument to my knowledge it was never My practice nor do I confess to have begun now For if the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal consent of the Fathers be not a convincing Argument when the interpretation of Scripture is doubtful I know nothing For if this be not then of necessity the Interpretation of private Spirits must be admitted the which contradicts St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 20. is the Mother of all Sects and will if not prevented bring these Kingdoms into confusion And to say that an Argument is ill because the Papists use it or that such a thing is good because it is the Custom of some of the Reformed Churches cannot weigh with Me until you prove these to be infallible or that to maintain no Truth And how Diotrephes Ambition who directly opposed the Apostle St John can be an Argument against Episcopacy I do not understand 6. When I am made a Judge over the Reformed Churches then and not before will I censure their Actions as you must prove before I confess it that Presbyters without a Bishop may lawfully ordain other Presbyters And as for the Administration of Baptism as I think none will say that a Woman can lawfully or duely administer it though when done it be valid so none ought to do it but a lawful Presbyter whom you cannot deny but to be absolutely necessary for the Sacrament of the Eucharist 7. You make a learned succinct discourse of Oaths in general and their several Obligations to which I fully agree intending in the particular now in question to be guided by your own Rule which is when any Oath hath a special reference to the Benefit of those to whom I make the Promise if we have their desire or consent the Obligation ceaseth Now it must be known to whom this Oath hath reference and to whose benefit The Answer is clear Only to the Church of England as by the Record will be plainly made appear And you much mistake in alledging that the two Houses of Parliament especially as they are now constituted can have this Disobligatory power for besides that they are not named in it I am confident to make it clearly appear to you that this Church never did submit nor was subordinate to them and that it was only the King and Clergy who made the Reformation the Parliament merely serving to help to give the Civil Sanction All this being proved of which I make no question it must necessarily follow that it is only the Church of England in whose favour I took this Oath that can release Me from it wherefore when the Church of England being lawfully assembled shall declare that I am free then and not before I shall esteem My self so 8. To your last concerning the King My Father of Happy and Famous Memory both for his Piety and Learning I must tell you that I had the Happiness to know Him much better than you wherefore I desire you not to be too confident in the knowledge of His Opinions for I dare say should his Ghost now speak He would tell you that a bloody Reformation was never lawful as not warranted by God's Word and that Preces lachrymae sunt Arma Ecclesiae 9. To conclude having replied to all your Paper I cannot but observe to you that you have given Me no Answer to my last Quaere It may be you are as Chaucer says like the People of England What they not like they never understand but in earnest that question is so pertinent to the Purpose in hand that it will much serve for My satisfaction and besides it may be useful for other things C. R. Newcastle June 6. 1646. IV. Mr. Alexander Henderson's Second Paper For His MAJESTY SIR THE smaller the encouragements be in relation to the success which how small they are Your Majesty well knows the more apparent and I hope the more acceptable will my obedience be in that which in all humility I now go about at Your Majesty's command yet while I consider that the way of man is not in himself nor is it in man that walketh to direct his own steps and when I remember how many supplications with strong crying and tears have been openly and in secret offered up in Your Majesty's behalf unto God that heareth prayer I have no reason to despair of a blessed success 1. I have been averse from a disputation of Divines 1. For saving of time which the present exigence and extremity of affairs make more than ordinarily pretious While Archimedes at Syracuse was drawing his figures and circlings in the sand Marcellus interrupted his Demonstration 2. Because the common result of Disputes of this kind answerable to the prejudicate opinions of the Parties is rather Victory than Verity while tanquam tentativi Dialectici they study more to overcome their adverse Party than to be overcome of Truth although this be the most glorious Victory 3. When I was commanded to come hither no such thing was proposed to me nor expected by me I never judged so meanly of the Cause nor so highly of my self as to venture it upon such weakness Much more might be spoken to this purpose but I forbear 2. I will not further trouble Your Majesty with that which is contained in the second Section hoping that Your Majesty will no more insist upon Education Prescription of time c. which are sufficient to prevent Admiration but which Your Majesty acknowledges must give place to Reason and are no sure ground of resolution of our Faith in any point to be believed although it be true that the most part of men make these and the like to be the ground and rule of their Faith an Evidence that their Faith is not a Divine Faith but an humane Credulity 3. Concerning Reformation of Religion in the third Section I had need have a Preface to so thorny a Theme as your Majesty hath brought me upon 1. For the Reforming power it is conceived when a General Defection like a Deluge hath covered the whole face of the Church so that scarcely the tops of the Mountains do appear a General Council is necessary but because that can hardly be obtained several Kingdoms which we see was done at the time of the Reformation are to Reform themselves and that by the Authority of their Prince and Magistrates if the Prince or supreme Magistrate be unwilling then may the inferior Magistrate and the People being before rightly informed in the grounds of Religion lawfully Reform within their own sphere and if the light shine upon all or the major part they may after all other means assayed make a publick Reformation This before this time I never wrote or spoke yet the Maintainers of this Doctrine conceive that they are able to make it good But Sir were I worthy to give advice to Your Majesty or to the Kings and supreme Powers on Earth
Advocate Rives and D. Duck. And afterward in a Letter of one of the Commissioners for the two Houses He sent inclosed this Note Nov. 2. C. R. The Bishop of Armagh the Bishop of Excester the Bishop of Rochester the Bishop of Worcester Dr. Ferne Dr. Morley XXXVIII From NEWPORT Sept. 29. MDCXLVIII Containing His Concessions HIS Majesty did use many earnest endeavours for a Personal Treaty which He hoped might have been obtained at Westminster between Him and His two Houses of Parliament immediately yet they having made choice of this way by you their Commissioners His Majesty did gladly and chearfully accept thereof in this place as a fit means to begin a Treaty for Peace which might put an end to His own sad condition and the Miseries of His Kingdom For an entrance whereunto His Majesty hath already expressed His consent to the First Proposition But finding you are limited by Instructions which you have no warrant to communicate unto Him and having cause by your Paper of the twentieth of this present to believe that you have no power to omit or alter any thing though He shall give you such reasons as may satisfie you so to do without transmitting the Papers to the two Houses at a far distance where His Majesties reasons expressions and offers upon debate cannot be fully represented and from whence their Answers cannot be returned without much waste of the time allotted for the Treaty here and having lately received another Paper concerning the Church containing in it self many particulars of great importance and referring to divers Ordinances Articles of Religion and other things eleven or twelve in number of great length and some of them very new and never before presented to His Majesty the due consideration whereof will take up much time and require His Majesties presence with His two Houses before a full resolution can well be had in matters of so high consequence To the end therefore that the good Work now in hand may by God's blessing proceed more speedily and effectually to an happy conclusion and that His two Houses of Parliament may at present have further security and an earnest of future satisfaction His Majesty upon consideration had of yours makes these Propositions following Concerning the Church His Majesty will consent that the calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster be confirmed for three years by Act of Parliament And will by Act of Parliament confirm for three years the Directory for the publick Worship of God in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales And will likewise confirm for three years by Act of Parliament the Form of Church-Government which ye have presented to Him to be used for the Churches of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales Provided that His Majesty and those of His Judgment or any others who cannot in Conscience submit thereunto be not in the mean time obliged to comply with the same Government or Form of Worship but have free practice of their own profession And that a free consultation and debate be had with the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in the mean time twenty of His Majesties nomination being added unto them whereby it may be determined by His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament how the said Church-Government and Form of Publick Worship after the said time may be setled or sooner if Differences may be agreed and how also Reformation of Religion may be setled within the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and the Dominion of Wales And the Articles of Christian Religion now delivered to Him may in like manner be then considered of and determined and care taken for the ease of tender Consciences And concerning the Bishops Lands and Revenues His Majesty considering that during these troublesom times divers of His Subjects have made contracts and purchaces and divers have disbursed great summs of moneys upon security and engagement of those Lands His Majesty for their satisfaction will consent to an Act or Acts of Parliament whereby legal estates for lives or for years at their choice not exceeding 99 years shall be made of those Lands towards the satisfaction of the said Purchasers Contractors and others to whom they are engaged at the old Rents or some other moderate Rent whereby they may receive satisfaction And in case such Leases shall not satisfie His Majesty will propound and consent to some other way for their further satisfaction Provided that the propriety and inheritance of those Lands may still remain and continue to the Church and Church-men respectively according to the pious intentions of the Donors and Founders thereof and the rent that shall be reserved to be for their maintenance His Majesty will give his Royal assent for the better observation of the Lord's day for suppressing of Innovations in Churches and Chappels in and about the Worship of God and for the better advancement of the Preaching of God's Holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom and to an Act against enjoying pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual persons and Non-residency and to an Act for regulating and Reforming both Universities and the Colledges of Westminster Winchester and Eaton His Majesty will consent to an Act for the better discovery and speedy conviction of Popish Recusants as is desired in your Propositions and also to an Act for the education of the children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion As also to an Act for the true levying of the penalties against Papists to be levied and disposed in such manner as both Houses shall agree on and as is proposed on His Majesties behalf As also to an Act to prevent the practices of Papists against the State and for putting the Laws in Execution and for a stricter course to prevent hearing and saying of Mass But as to the Covenant His Majesty is not yet therein satisfied that He can either sign or swear it or consent to impose it on the Consciences of others nor doth He conceive it proper or useful at this time to be insisted on Touching the Militia His Majesty conceives that your Proposition demands a far larger power over the persons and estates of His Subjects than hath ever hitherto been warranted by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm Yet considering the present Distractions require more and trusting in His two Houses of Parliament that they will make no further use of the power therein mentioned after the present Distempers setled than shall be agreeable to the legal exercise thereof in times past or just necessity shall require His Majesty will consent to an Act of Parliament That the Lords and Commons in the Parliament of England now assembled or hereafter to be assembled or such as they shall appoint during the space of ten years shall arm train and discipline or cause to be armed trained or disciplined all the Forces of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales the Isles of Gernesey and Jersey and the Town of Barwick
KING A Proclamation about the dissolving of the Parliament WHereas We for the general good of Our Kingdom caused Our High Court of Parliament to assemble and meet by Prorogation the twentieth day of January last past sithence which time the same hath been continued and although in this time by the malevolent dispositions of some ill-affected persons of the House of Commons We have had sundry just causes of offence and dislike of their proceedings yet We resolved with patience to try the uttermost which We the rather did for that We found in that House a great number of sober and grave persons well affected to Religion and Government and desirous to preserve Unity and Peace in all parts of Our Kingdom and therefore having on the five and twentieth day of February last by the uniform Advice of Our Privy Council caused both Houses to be adjourned until this present day hoping in the mean time that a better and more right understanding might be begotten between Us and the Members of that House whereby this Parliament might have an happy end and issue and for the same intent We did again this day command the like Adjournment to be made until the tenth day of this month It hath so happened by the disobedient and seditious carriage of those said ill-affected persons of the House of Commons that We and Our Regal authority and Commandment have been so highly contemned as Our Kingly Office cannot bear nor any former Age can parallel And therefore it is Our full and absolute resolution to dissolve the same Parliament whereof We thought good to give notice unto all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and to the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of this present Parliament and to all others whom it may concern that they may depart about their needful affairs without attending any longer here Nevertheless We will that they and all others should take notice that We do and ever will distinguish between those who have shewed good affection to Religion and Government and those that have given themselves over to Faction and to work disturbance to the Peace and good order of our Kingdom Given at Our Court at White-hall this second day of March in the fourth year of Our Reign of Great Britain France and Ireland God save the KING His MAJESTIE's Speech at the Dissolving of the Parliament My Lords I Never came here upon so unpleasant an occasion it being the Dissolution of a Parliment Therefore men may have some cause to wonder why I should not rather chuse to do this by Commission it being a general Maxim of Kings to leave harsh commands to their Ministers Themselves only executing pleasing things Yet considering that Justice as well consists in reward and praise of Vertue as punishing of Vice I thought it necessary to come here to day to declare to you and all the world that it was meerly the undutiful and seditious carriage in the lower House that hath made the Dissolution of this Parliament And you my Lords are so far from being causes of it that I take as much comfort in your dutiful demeanors as I am justly distasted with their proceedings Yet to avoid mistakings let me tell you that it is so far from me to adjudge all the House alike guilty that I know that there are many there as dutiful Subjects as any in the world it being but some few Vipers amongst them that did cast this mist of undutifulness over most of their eyes yet to say truth there was a good number there that could not be infected with this contagion insomuch that some did express their duties in speaking which was the general fault of the House the last day To conclude as these Vipers must look for their reward of punishment so you my Lords may justly expect from Me that favour and protection that a good King oweth to His loving and dutiful Nobility And now my Lord Keeper do what I have commanded you His MAJESTIE's Declaration to all His loving Subjects of the Causes which moved Him to Dissolve the Parliament HOwsoever Princes are not bound to give account of their Actions but to God alone yet for the satisfaction of the minds and affections of Our loving Subjects We have thought good to set down thus much by way of Declaration that We may appear to the world in the truth and sincerity of Our own Actions and not in those colours in which We know some turbulent and ill-affected Spirits to masque and disguise their own wicked intentions dangerous to the State would represent Us to the publick view We assembled Our Parliament the seventeenth day of March in the third year of Our Reign for the safety of Religion for securing Our Kingdoms and Subjects at home and Our Friends and Allies abroad and therefore at the first sitting down of it We declared the miserable afflicted estate of those of the Reformed Religion in Germany France and other parts of Christendom the distressed extremities of Our dearest Uncle the King of Denmark chased out of a great part of his Dominions the strength of that party which was united against Us that besides the Pope and house of Austria and their ancient Confederates the French King professed the rooting out of the Protestant Religion that of the Princes and States on Our party some were over run others diverted and some disabled to give assistance For which and other important motives We propounded a speedy supply of Treasure answerable to the necessities of the Cause These things in the beginning were well resented by the House of Commons and with much alacrity and readiness they agreed to grant a liberal aid But before it was brought to any perfection they were diverted by a multitude of questions raised amongst them concerning their Liberties and Priviledges and by other long disputes that the Bill did not pass in a long time and by that delay Our affairs were put into far worse case than at the first Our forein actions then in hand being thereby disgraced and ruined for want of timely help In this as We are not willing to derogate from the merit and good intentions of those wise and moderate men of that House to whose forwardness We attribute it that it was propounded and resolved so soon so We must needs say that the delay of passing it when it was resolved occasioned by causless jealousies stirred up by men of another temper did much lessen both the reputation and reality of that supply and their spirit infused into many of the Commissioners and Assessors in the Country hath returned up the Subsidies in such a scanty proportion as is infinitely short not only of Our great Occasions but of the precedents of former Subsidies and of the intentions of all well-affected men in that House In those large disputes as We permitted many of Our high Prerogatives to be debated which in the best times of Our Predecessors had never been questioned without punishment or sharp reproof so We
for Grievances Committees for Courts of Justice and Committees for Trade have since the sitting down of the Parliament received few complaints and those such as they themselves have not thought to be of that moment or importance with which Our ears should be acquainted No sooner therefore was the Parliament set down but these ill-affected men began to sow and disperse their Jealousies by casting out some glances and doubtful speeches as if the Subject had not been so clearly and well dealt with touching their Liberties and touching the Petition answered the last Parliament This being a plausible Theme thought on for an ill purpose easily took hold on the minds of many that knew not the practice And thereupon the second day of the Parliament a Committee was appointed to search whether the Petition and Our Answer thereunto were enrolled in the Parliament Roll and in the Courts at Westminster and in what manner the same was done And a day was then also appointed on which the House being resolved into a Committee should take into consideration those things wherein the Liberty of the Subject had been invaded against that Petition This though it produced no other effect of moment or importance yet was sufficient to raise a jealousie against Our Proceedings in such as were not well acquainted with the sincerity and clearness of them There followed another of no less skill for although Our proceeding before the Parliament about matters of Religion might have satisfied any moderate men of Our zealous care thereof as We are sure it did the most yet as bad stomachs turn the best things into their own nature for want of good digestion so those distempered persons have done the like of Our good intents by a bad and sinister interpretation For when they did observe that many honest and Religious minds in that House did complain of those dangers that did threaten the Church they likewise took the same word in their mouth and their cry likewise was Templum Domini Templum Domini when the true care of the Church never came into their hearts and what the one did out of zeal unto Religion the other took up as a plausible Theme to deprave Our Government as if We Our Clergy and Council were either senseless or careless of Religion And this wicked practice hath been to make Us seem to walk before Our people as if We halted before God Having by these Artifices made a jealous impression in the hearts of many and a day being appointed to treat of the Grant of Tonnage and Poundage at the time prefixed all express great willingness to grant it but a new strain is found out that it could not be done without great peril to the Right of the Subject unless We should disclaim any right therein but by Grant in Parliament and should cause all those goods to be restored which upon Commandment from Us or Our Council were stayed by Our Officers until those duties were payed and consequently should put Our self out of possession of the Tonnage and Poundage before they were granted for else it was pretended the Subject stood not in fit case to grant it A fancy and cavil raised of purpose to trouble the business it being evident that all the Kings before named did receive that duty and were in actual possession of it before and at the very time when it was granted to them by Parliament And although We to remove all difficulties did from Our own mouth in those clear and open terms that might have satisfied any moderate and well-disposed minds declare that it was Our meaning by the gift of Our people to enjoy it and that We did not challenge it of right but took it de bene esse shewing thereby not the right but the necessity by which We were to take it wherein We descended for their satisfaction so far beneath Our self as We are confident never any of Our Predecessors did the like nor was the like ever required or expected from them yet for all this the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage was laid aside upon pretence they must first clear the right of the Subject therein under colour whereof they entertain the complaints not only of John Rolls a member of their House but also of Richard Chambers John Fowkes and Bartholomew Gilman against the Officers of Our Customs for detaining their goods upon refusal to pay the ordinary duty accustomed to be paid for the same And upon these complaints they send for the Officers of the Customs enforcing them to attend day after day by the space of a month together they cause them to produce their Letters Patents under Our great Seal and the Warrants made by Our Privy Council for levying of those duties they examine the Officers upon what questions they please thereby to entrap them for doing Our Service and Commandment In these and other their Proceedings because We would not give the least shew of interruption We endured long with much patience both these and sundry other strange and exorbitant incroachments and usurpations such as were never before attempted in that House We are not ignorant how much that House hath of late years endeavoured to extend their Priviledges by setting up general Committees for Religion for Courts of Justice for Trade and the like a course never heard of until of late so as where in former times the Knights and Burgesses were wont to communicate to the House such business as they brought from their Countries now there are so many Charis erected to make enquiry upon all sorts of men where complaints of all sorts are entertained to the unsufferable disturbance and scandal of Justice and Government which having been tolerated a while by Our Father and Our self hath daily grown to more and more height insomuch as young Lawyers sitting there take on them to decry the Opinions of the Judges and some have not doubted to maintain that the resolutions of that House must bind the Judges a thing never heard of in Ages past But in this last Assembly of Parliament they have taken on them much more than ever before They sent Messengers to examine Our Attorney General who is an Officer of trust and secrecy touching the execution of some Commandments of Ours of which without Our leave first obtained he was not to give account to any but to Our self They sent a captious and directory message to the Lord Treasurer Chancellor and Barons of the Exchequer touching some judicial proceedings of theirs in Our Court of Exchequer They sent Messengers to examine upon sundry questions Our two chief Justices and three other of Our Judges touching their judicial proceedings at the Gaol-Delivery at Newgate of which they are not accomptable to the House of Commons And whereas Suits were commenced in Our Court of Star-Chamber against Richard Chambers John Fowkes Bartholomew Gilman and Richard Philips by Our Attorney General for great misdemeanors they resolved that they were to have Priviledge of Parliament against Us
Learning whereas it is our chiefest care and desire to advance it and to provide a competent maintenance for conscionable and preaching Ministers throughout the Kingdom which will be a great encouragement to Scholars and a certain means whereby the want meanness and ignorance to which a great part of the Clergy is now subject will be prevented And we intend likewise to reform and purge the fountains of Learning the two Universities that the streams flowing from thence may be clear and pure and an honour and comfort to the whole Land They have strained to blast our proceedings in Parliament by wresting the interpretation of our Orders from their genuine intention They tell the people that our medling with the power of Episcopacy hath caused Sectaries and Conventicles when Idolatry and Popish Ceremonies introduced in the Church by the command of the Bishops have not only debarred the people from thence but expelled them from the Kingdom Thus with El ah we are called by this malignant party the Troublers of the State and still while we endeavour to reform their abuses they make us the Authors of those mischiefs we study to prevent For the perfecting of the Work begun and removing all future impediments we conceive these courses will be very effectual seeing the Religion of the Papists hath such Principles as do certainly tend to the destruction and extirpation of all Protestants when they shall have opportunity to effect it It is necessary in the first place to keep them in such a condition as that they may not be able to do us any hurt And for avoiding of such connivence and favour as hath heretofore been shewed unto them that His Majesty be pleased to grant a standing Commission to some choice men named in Parliament who may take notice of their encrease their counsels and proceedings and use all due means by execution of the Laws to prevent all mischievous designs against the Peace and Safety of this Kingdom That some good course be taken to discover the counterfeit and false conformity of Papists to the Church by colour whereof persons very much disaffected to the true Religion have been admitted into place of greatest authority and trust in the Kingdom For the better preservation of the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom that all illegal Grievances and Exactions be presented and punished at the Sessions and Assizes and that Judges and Justices be very careful to give this in charge to the Grand-Jury and both the Sheriff and Justices to be sworn to the due execution of the Petition of Right and other Laws That His Majesty be humbly petitioned by both Houses to employ such Counsellours Ambassadours and other Ministers in managing His business at home and abroad as the Parliament may have cause to confide in without which we cannot give His Majesty such Supplies for support of His own estate nor such assistance to the Protestant party beyond the Sea as is desired It may often fall out that the Commons may have just cause to take exceptions at some men for being Counsellors and yet not charge those men with crimes for there be grounds of diffidence which lye not in proof there are others which though they may be proved yet are not legally criminal To be a known favourer of Papists or to have been very forward in defending or countenancing some great Offendors questioned in Parliament or to speak contemptuously of either House of Parliament or Parliamentary proceedings or such as are Factours or Agents for any foreign Prince of another Religion such are justly suspect to get Counsellours places or any other of trust concerning publick employment for money For all these and divers others we may have great reason to be earnest with His Majesty not to put His great affairs into such hands though we may be unwilling to proceed against them in any legal way of charge or impeachment That all Counsellours of State may be sworn to observe those Laws which concern the Subject in his Liberty That they may likewise take an Oath not to receive or give reward or pension from any foreign Prince but such as they shall within some reasonable time discover to the Lords of His Majesties Council And although they should wickedly forswear themselves yet it may herein do good to make them known to be false and perjured to those who employ them and thereby bring them into as little credit with them as with us That His Majesty may have cause to be in love with good counsel and good men by shewing Him in an humble and dutiful manner how full of advantage it would be to Himself to see His own estate settled in a plentiful condition to support His Honour to see His people united in ways of Duty to Him and endeavours of the publick good to see Happiness Wealth Peace and Safety derived to His own Kingdom and procured to His Allies by the Influence of His own Power and Government That all good courses may be taken to unite the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland to be mutually aiding and assisting of one another for the common good of the Island and honour of both To take away all differences amongst our selves for matters indifferent in their own nature concerning Religion and to unite our selves against the common enemies which are the better enabled by our Divisions to destroy us all as they hope and have often endeavoured To labour by all offices of friendship to unite the foreign Churches with us in the same Cause and to seek their liberty safety and prosperity as bound thereunto both by charity to them and by wisdom for our own good For by this means our own strength shall be encreased and by a mutual concurrence to the same common End we shall be enabled to procure the good of the whole body of the Protestant profession If these things may be observed we doubt not but God will crown this Parliament with such success as shall be the beginning and foundation of more Honour and Happiness to His Majesty then ever yet was enjoyed by any of His Royal Predecessours Die Mercurii 15. Decemb. 1641. It is this day resolved upon the Question by the House of Commons that Order shall be now given for the Printing of this REMONSTRANCE of the State of the Kingdom H. Elsinge Cler. Parl. D. Com. His MAJESTIES Answer to the Petition which accompanied the Declaration presented to him at Hampton-Court 1 December 1641. WE having received from you soon after Our return out of Scotland a long Petition consisting of many desires of great moment together with a Declaration of a very unusual nature annexed thereunto We had taken some time to consider of it as befitted Us in a matter of that consequence being confident that your own reason and regard to Us as well as Our express intimation by Our Comptroller to that purpose would have restrained you from the publishing of it till such time as you should have received Our Answer
to it But much against our expectation finding the contrary that the said Declaration is already abroad in Print by directions from your House as appears by the printed Copy We are very sensible of the disrespect Notwithstanding it is Our Intention that no failing on your part shall make Us fail in Ours of giving all due satisfaction to the desires of Our People in a Parliamenatry way and therefore We send you this Answer to your Petition reserving Our self in point of the Declaration which We think unparliamentary and shall take a course to do that which We shall think fit in Prudence and Honour To the Petition We say That although there are divers things in the Preamble of it which We are so far from admitting that We profess We cannot at all understand them as Of a wicked and malignant party prevalent in the Government of some of that party admitted to Our Privy Council and to other Imployments of trust and nearest to Vs and Our Children of endeavours to sow among the People false Scandals and Imputations to blemish and disgrace the Proceedings of the Parliament all or any of which did We know of We should be as ready to remedy and punish as you to complain of that the Prayers of your Petition are grounded upon such Premises as we must in no wise admit Yet notwithstanding We are pleased to give this Answer to you To the first concerning Religion consisting of several branches We say That for the preserving the Peace and Safety of the Kingdom from the designs of the Popish party We have and will still concur with all the just desires of Our People in a Parliamentary way That for the depriving of the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament We would have you consider that their Right is grounded upon the Fundamental Law of the Kingdom and constitution of Parliament This We would have you consider but since you desire Our concurrence herein in a Parliamentary way We will give no farther answer at this time As for the abridging of the inordinate power of the Clergy We conceive that the taking away the High-Commission Court hath well moderated that but if there continue any Usurpations or Excesses in their Jurisdictions We therein neither have nor will protect them Unto that Clause which concerneth Corruptions as you style them in Religion in Church-Government and in Discipline and the removing of such unnecessary Ceremonies as weak Consciences might check at That for any illegal Innovations which may have crept in We shall willingly concurr in the removal of them That if Our Parliament shall advise Us to call a National Synod which may duely examin such Ceremonies as give just cause of offence to any We shall take it into consideration and apply Our self to give due satisfaction therein But We are very sorry to hear in such general terms Corruption in Religion objected since We are perswaded in Our Conscience that no Church can be found upon the earth that professeth the true Religion with more purity of Doctrine than the Church of England doth nor where the Government and Discipline are jointly more beautified and free from Superstition then as they are here established by Law which by the grace of God We will with Constancy maintain while We live in their Purity and Glory not only against all invasions of Popery but also from the irreverence of those many Schismaticks and Separatists wherewith of late this Kingdom and this City abounds to the great dishonour and hazard both of Church and State for the suppressing of whom We require your timely and active assistance To the second prayer of the Petition concerning the removal and choice of Counsellours We know not any of Our Council to whom the Character set forth in the Petition can belong That by those whom We had exposed to Trial We have already given you sufficient testimony that there is no man so near unto Us in place or affection whom We will not leave to the Justice of the Law if you shall bring a particular charge and sufficient proofs against him and of this We do again assure you but in the mean time We wish you to forbear such general aspersions as may reflect upon all Our Council since you name none in particular That for the choice of Our Counsellours and Ministers of State it were to debarr Us that natural liberty all Free-men have and as it is the undoubted right of the Crown of England to call such persons to Our secret Counsels to publick employment and Our particular service as We shall think fit so We are and ever shall be very careful to make election of such persons in those places of trust as shall have given good testimonies of their abilities and integrity and against whom there can be no just cause of exception whereon reasonably to ground a diffidence and to choices of this nature We assure you that the mediation of the nearest unto Us hath always concurred To the third prayer of your Petition concerning Ireland We understand your desire of not alienating the forfeited lands thereof to proceed from your much care and love and likewise that it may be a Resolution very fit for Us to take but whether it be seasonable to declare Resolutions of that nature before the Events of a War be seen that We much doubt of Howsoever We cannot but thank you for this care and your chearful ingagement for the suppression of that Rebellion upon the speedy effecting whereof the Glory of God in the Protestant Profession the safety of the British there Our Honour and that of the Nation so much depends All the Interests of this Kingdom being so involved in that business We cannot but quicken your affections therein and shall desire you to frame your Counsels and to give such expedition to the Work as the nature thereof and the pressures in point of Time require and whereof you are put in mind by the daily insolence and increase of those Rebels For Conclusion your promise to apply your selves to such courses as may support Our Royal Estate with Honour and Plenty at home and with Power and Reputation abroad is that which We have ever promised Our self both from your Loyalties and Affections and also for what We have already done and shall daily goe adding unto for the comfort and happiness of Our People His MAJESTIES Declaration to all His loving Subjects Published with the Advice of his Privy Council ALthough We do not believe that Our House of Commons intended by their Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom to put Us to any Apology either for Our past or present Actions notwithstanding since they have thought it so very necessary upon their observation of the present Distemper to publish the same for the satisfaction of all Our loving Subjects We have thought it very sutable to the duty of Our place with which God hath trusted Us to do Our part to so good a Work in which we
the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Profession many about Us can witness with Us that we have often delivered Our Opinion that such a course with God's blessing upon it would be the most effectual for the rooting out of Popery out of this Kingdom We shall therefore thank you for it and encourage you in it and when it comes unto Us do Our Duty And We heartily wish for the publick good that the time you have spent in making Ordinances without Us had been imployed in preparing this and other good Bills for Us. For the Eighth touching the Reformation to be made of the Church-Government and Liturgy We had hoped that what We had formerly declared concerning the same had been so sufficiently understood by you and all good Subjects that We should not need to have expressed Our Self further in it We told you in Our Answers to your Petition presented to Us at Hampton-Court the first of December That for any illegal Innovations which may have crept in We should willingly concurre in the removal of them that if Our Parliament should advise Vs to call a National Synod which may duely examine such Ceremonies as give just cause of Offence to any We should take it into Consideration and apply Our Self to give due satisfaction therein that We were perswaded in Our Conscience that no Church could be found upon the Earth that professeth the true Religion with more Purity of Doctrine then the Church of England doth nor where the Government and Discipline are jointly more beautified and free from Superstition then as they are here established by Law which by the Grace of God We will with Constancy maintain while We live in their Purity and Glory not only against all Invasions of Popery but also from the Irreverence of those many Schismaticks and Separatists wherewith of late this Kingdom and Our City of London abounds to the great dishonour and hazard both of Church and State for the suppression of whom We required your timely and active assistance We told you in Our first Declaration printed by the Advice of Our Privy Council That for differences amongst our selves for matters indifferent in their own nature concerning Religion We should in tenderness to any number of Our loving Subjects very willingly comply with the Advice of Our Parliament that some Law might be made for the exemption of tender Consciences from punishment or prosecution for such Ceremonies and in such Cases which by the judgment of most men are held to be matters indifferent and of some to be absolutely unlawful Provided that this ease should be attempted and pursued with that modesty temper and submission that in the mean time the Peace and Quiet of the Kingdom be not disturbed the Decency and Comeliness of God's Service discountenanced nor the Pious Sober Devout actions of those Reverend Persons who were the first Labourers in the blessed Reformation or of that time be scandaled and defamed And we heartily wish that others whom it concerned had been as ready as their Duty bound them though they had not received it from Us to have pursued this Caution as We were and still are willing and ready to make good every particular of that Promise Nor did we onely appear willing to joyn in so good a Work when it should be brought Us but prest and urged you to it by Our Message of the fourteenth of February in these words And because His Majesty observes great and different troubles to arise in the hearts of His People concerning the Government and Liturgy of the Church His Majesty is willing to declare That He will refer the whole consideration to the wisdom of His Parliament which he desires them to enter into speedily that the present Distractions about the same may be composed but desires not to be pressed to any single Act on His part till the whole be so digested and settled by both Houses that His Majesty may clearly see what is fit to be left as well as what is fit to be taken away Of which We the more hoped of a good success to the general satisfaction of Our People because you seem in this Proposition to desire but a Reformation and not as is daily preached for as necessary in those many Conventicles which have within these nineteen months begun to swarm and which though their Leaders differ from you in this opinion yet appear to many as countenanced by you by not being punished by you few else by reason of the Order of the House of Commons of the 9th of September daring to do it a destruction of the present Discipline and Liturgy And We shall most chearfully give Our best assistance for raising a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers in such course as shall be most for the encouragement and advancement of Piety and Learning For the Bills you mention and the Consultation you intimate knowing nothing of the particular matters of the one though We like the Titles well nor of the manner of the other but from an Informer to whom We give little credit and We wish no man did more common Fame We can say nothing till We see them For the Eleventh We would not have the Oath of all Privy Counsellors and Judges streightned to particular Statutes of one or two particular Parliaments but extend to all Statutes of all Parliaments and the whole Law of the Land and shall willingly consent that an enquiry of all the breaches and violations of the Law may be given in charge by the Justices of the Kings Bench every Term and by the Judges of Assize in their Circuits and Justices of Peace at the Sessions to be presented and punished according to Law For the Seventeenth We shall ever be most ready and We are sorry it should be thought needful to move Us to it not only to join with any particularly with the States of the United Provinces of which We have given a late proof in the Match of Our Daughter for the defence and maintenance of the Protestant Religion against all designs and attempts of the Pope and his Adherents but singly if need were to oppose with Our Life and Fortune all such Designs in all other Nations were they joyned And that for Considerations of Conscience far more then any temporal end of obtaining access of Strength and Reputation or any natural end of restoring Our Royal Sister and her Princely Issue to their Dignities and Dominions though these be likewise much considered by Us. For the Eighteenth It was not Our fault that an Act was not passed to clear the Lord Kimbolton and the Five Members of the House of Commons but yours who inserted such Clauses into both the Preamble and Act perhaps perswaded to it by some who wish not that you should in any thing receive satisfaction from Us as by passing the Preamble We must have wounded Our Honour against Our Conscience and by another Clause have admitted a Consequence
them and to forbid Our own Money to be paid to Us or to Our use under colour that We will imploy it ill to beat Us and starve Us for Our own good and by Our own Power and Authority which must in short time make the greatest Court and the greatest Person cheap and of no estimation Who those sensible men are of the publick Calamities of the Violations of the Privileges of Parliament and the Common Liberty of the Subject who have been baffled and injured by Malignant men and Cavaliers about Us We cannot imagine And if those Cavaliers are so much without the fear of God and Man and so ready to commit all manner of Outrage and Violence as is pretended Our Government ought to be the more esteemed which hath kept them from doing so insomuch as We believe no Person hath cause to complain of any injury or of any damage in the least degree by any man about or who hath offered his service to Us. All which being duly considered if the Contrivers of these Propositions and Orders had been truly sensible of the Obligation which lies upon them in Honour Conscience and Duty according to the high Trust reposed in them by Us and Our People they would not have published such a sense and apprehension of imminent Danger when themselves in their Consciences know that the greatest and indeed only Danger which threatens this Church and State the blessed Religion and Liberty of Our People is in their own desperate and seditious Designs and would not endeavour upon such weak and groundless Reasons to seduce Our good Subjects from their Affection and Loyalty to Us to run themselves into Actions unwarrantable and destructive to the Peace and Foundation of the Commonwealth And that all Our loving Subjects may see how causless and groundless this scandalous Rumour and Imputation of Our raising War upon Our Parliament is We have with this Our Declaration caused to be printed the Testimony of those Lords and other Persons of Our Counsel who are here with Us who being upon the place could not but discover such Our Intentions and Preparations and cannot be suspected for their Honours and their Interests to combine in such mischievous and horrid Resolutions And therefore We streightly charge and command all Our loving Subjects upon their Allegiance and as they will answer the contrary at their peril That they yield no Obedience or Consent to the said Propositions and Orders and that they presume not under any such Pretences or by colour of any such Orders to Raise or Levy any Horse or Men or to bring in any Money or Plate to such purpose But if notwithstanding this clear Declaration and Evidence of Our Intentions these men whose Design is to compell Us to raise War upon Our Parliament which all their Skill and Malice shall never be able to effect shall think fit by these Alarms to awaken Us to a more necessary care of the defence of Our Self and Our People and shall themselves under colour of Defence in so unheard-of a manner provide and seduce others to do so too to offend Us having given Us so lively testimony of their Affections what they are willing to do when they have once made themselves able all Our good Subjects will think it necessary to look to Our Self and We do then excite all Our well-Affected people according to their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and according to their solemn Vow and Protestation whereby they are obliged to defend Our Person Honour and Estate to contribute their best Assistance to the Preparations necessary for the opposing and suppressing of the Traitorous Attempts of such wicked and Malignant persons who would destroy Our Person Honour and Estate and ingage the whole Kingdom in a Civil War to satisfie their own lawless Fury and Ambition and so rob Our good Subjects of the blessed fruit of this present Parliament which they already in some degree have and might still reap to the abundant satisfaction and joy of the whole Kingdom if such wicked hands were not ready to ruine all their possession and frustrate all their hopes We do therefore declare That whosoever of what degree or quality soever shall then upon so urgent and visible necessity of Ours and such an apparent Distraction of the Kingdom caused and begotten by the Malice and Contrivance of this Malignant Party bring in to Us and to Our use ready Money or Plate or shall underwrite to furnish any number of Horse Horsemen and Arms for the preservation of the publick Peace the defence of Our Person and the vindication of the Privilege and Freedom of Parliament We shall receive it as a most acceptable Service and as a testimony of his singular Affection to the Protestant Religion the Laws Liberties and Peace of the Kingdom and shall no longer desire the continuance of that Affection than We shall be ready to justifie and maintain those with the hazard of Our Life And We do farther declare That whosoever shall then bring in any sums of Money or Plate to assist Us in this great Extremity shall receive consideration after the rate of eight pounds per cent for all such Moneys as he shall furnish Us withall and shall upon the payment of such Money to such persons whom We shall appoint to receive the same receive Security for the same by good lawful Assurance of such of Our Lands Forests Parks and Houses as shall be sufficient for the same and more real Security than the name of Publick Faith given without Us and against Us as if We were no part of the Publick and besides We shall always look upon it as a service most affectionately and seasonably performed for the preservation of Us and the Kingdom But We shall be much gladder that their submission to those Our Commands and their desisting from any such attempts of raising Horse or Men may ease all Our good subjects of that trouble charge and vexation His MAJESTY's Declaration and Profession disavowing any Preparations or Intentions in Him to Levy War against His Houses of Parliament By the KING THere having been many Rumours spread and Informations given which may have induced many to believe that We intend to make War against Our Parliament We profess before God and declare to all the World that We always have and do abhorr all such Designs and desire all Our Nobility and Council who are here upon the place to declare whether they have not been witnesses of Our frequent and earnest Declarations and Professions to this purpose whether they see any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget a belief of any such Design and whether they be not fully perswaded that We have no such Intention but that all Our Endeavours according to Our many Professions tend to the firm and constant settlement of the true Protestant Religion the just Privileges of Parliament the Liberty of the Subject the Law Peace and Prosperity of this Kingdom Given at
taken all possible pains to destroy King and People or such whom they shall recommend to succeed that the same Faction may be carried through the whole Kingdom which these Men have raised in both Houses of Parliament that all Affairs of the Kingdom be managed not only by their Advice but their absolute Direction and Command lest any Man should think himself Our Servant that the Education and Marriage of Our Children be committed to them lest any Christian Prince should make addresses to Us in such Treaties in a word that in gratitude to their Modesty and Duty for not deposing Us We will not now depose Our Self and suffer the People and Kingdom which God and the Law hath committed to Our Government and Protection and for which We must make an account to be devoured by them Sure these Men think 't is no affront to ask any thing But can Our good Subjects be longer kept in this Trance Can the Nobility Gentry Clergy Commonalty of England sacrifice their Honour Interest Religion Liberty to Terms and the meer sound of Parliament and Privilege Can their Experience Reason and Understanding be captivated by words and assumptions contradictory to all Principles What one thing have We denied that with reference to the publick Peace and Happiness were to be bought with the loss of the meanest Subject And yet into what a Sea of blood is the rage and fury of these Men launching out to wrest that from Us which We are bound if We had a thousand lives to lose in the contention to defend Nay what one thing is there that makes life precious to good Men which We do not defend and these Men oppose and would evidently destroy What Grievance or Pressure have Our People complained of and been eased by Us whch is not now brought upon them in an unlimited degree Is the true Reformed Protestant Religion sealed by the blood of so many Reverend Martyrs and established by the Wisdom and Piety of former blessed Parliaments dear to them We must appeal to all the world being called upon by the Reproaches of these men whether Our own practice the best evidence of Religion and all the assistance and offers We can give have been wanting to the Advancement of that Religion And what can be more done by Us to satisfie and secure Our People in that point On the other side let all Our good Subjects consider and weigh what pregnant Arguments they have to fear Innovation in Religion if these desperate persons prevail when the principal Men to whose care and authority they have committed the managery of that part refuse Communion with the Church of England as much as the Papists do and have not only with that freedom they think fit to use reproached the Book of Common-Prayer and the Government of the Church in their Speeches but have published those Speeches in the view of all Men in Print that the World might see by what Measure and Rule the Reformation they so much talk of is to be made when such Petitions have been contrived by them and accepted with publick thanks which revile the Book of Common-Prayer calling it a Mass-book in scorn and contempt of the Law whilest other Petitions for the Government established by Law have been rejected discountenanced and the Petitioners punished and when two Armies were kept in the bowels of the Kingdom ten weeks at the charge of fourscore thousand pounds a Month for the countenance of a Bill to eradicate Episcopacy Root and Branch when such licence is given to Brownists Anabaptists and Sectaries and whilst Coachmen Felt-makers and such Mechanick persons are allowed and entertained to preach by those who think themselves the principal Members of either House when such barbarous Outrages in Churches and heathenish Irreverence and Uproars even in the time of Divine Service and the Administration of the blessed Sacrament are practised without control when the blessed means of advancing Religion the Preaching of the Word of God is turned into a licence of Libelling and Reviling both Church and State and venting such Seditious Positions as by the Laws of the Land are no less than Treason and scarce a Man in Reputation and Credit with these grand Reformers who is not notoriously guilty of this whilest those Learned Reverend Painful and Pious Preachers who have been and are the most eminent and able Assertors of the Protestant Religion are to the unspeakable joy of the Adversaries to Our Religion disregarded and oppressed lastly when for the settling and composing all these Distractions and Distempers instead of a free and general Synod of Grave and Learned Divines which hath been so much talked of and to whose deliberations We were and are willing to commit the Consideration of those Affairs a Conference is desired with particular Men nominated by themselves contrary to the Rights and Practice of the Church the major part of whom though We confess there are many Reverend Learned and Pious persons amongst them are not of Learning nor Understanding sutable to so great a Work or are of known avowed Disaffection to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church and of those who have preached Seditiously and Treasonably against Our Person and Authority as Doctor Downing and others Whoever from his Soul desires a true Examination and Reformation in Religion cannot expect it from the results of these Mens Counsels nor think the true service of God is like to be advanced or preserved by such practices And all sober Men must look with strange Horrour and Indignation upon the last Declaration of the Lords and Commons which after such unprecedented Outrages and Violences against Us publishes the ground of their taking up defensive Arms as they call them to be for the maintetenance of the true Religion the taking and keeping of Hull Our Navy Our Money and Goods the exercising of the Militia and all the other Injuries We complain of to be for the maintenance of Religion But whosoever believes them to be for the preservation of Our Person may believe the other too Would Men enjoy the Laws they were born to the Liberty and Property which makes the Subjection of this Nation famous and honourable with all neighbouring Kingdoms We have done Our part to make a Wall of Brass for the perpetual defence of them whilest these ill Men usurp a Power to undermine that Wall and to shake those Foundations which cannot be pulled down but to the confusion of Law Liberty Property and the very Life and Being of Our Subjects Is the Dignity Privilege and Freedom of Parliament Parliaments whose Wisdom and Gravity have prepared so many wholsome Laws and whose Freedom distinguishes the Condition of Our Subjects from those of any Monarchy in Europe precious unto Our People Where was that Freedom and that Privilege when the House of Commons presumed to make Laws without the House of Peers as they did in their Vote upon the Protestation and of the 9th of September when the House
lastly after having lived so many years in the most glorious and most unblemished Church of Christendom the total defacing and pulling down the whole Fabrick of it censuring and reproaching the Doctrine and destroying the Discipline and as if we were cast ashore in some uninhabited Climate where the Elements of Christianity were not known the calling without the least shadow or colour of Law or Lawful Authority against His Majesty's express Consent manifestly against the Statute of 25 th year of King Henry the Eighth an assembly of Divines composed of some Noblemen Gentlemen and Ministers all under the style of Godly and Learned Divines most of which are not otherwise known than by their Schism and Separation from that Church in which they were born and to which they have subscribed and these Men now must new-make and mould the Religion by which we must all be saved God in his good time we hope will vindicate his own Cause and repair the breaches which have been lately made For the Laws of the Land and the Liberty of the Subject so speciously urged and pretended to be the end of those who have disturbed our Peace we need say little every place and every person is an ample evidence and testimony of the bold and avowed violation of either The Charter of our Liberties Magna Charta so industriously and Religiously preserved by our Ancestors and above Thirty several times confirmed in Parliament that Rampire and Bulwark of all the precious Privileges and Immunities which the Subjects of this Kingdom could boast of and which distinguishes them from all the Subjects of Christendom is levelled and trampled under foot scorned despised and superseded by Votes and Orders Men of all sorts Clergy and Laity imprisoned without the least charge that by the Law is called a Crime and their Estates are sequestred by Persons of whom the Law can take no notice Committees made by Committees Rob Banish and Imprison the Lords and Commons of England Men committed by Persons of no Authority for no cause to Prison have by Habeas Corpus the good old Remedy and Security for our Liberty been brought to the Kings Bench and by command of those who first committed them remanded and Commands given to the Judges that they should grant no Habeas Corpus which they were sworn to grant to any Persons committed by them or by those to whom they grant Authority to commit which themselves have not Power to do Neither can we pass over the motion made by Mr. Rigby a Member of the House of Commons to transport those Lords and Gentlemen who were Prisoners and by them accounted Malignants to be sold as Slaves to Argiers or sent to the new Plantation in the West Indies urged the second time with much earnestness because the Proposer had contracted with two Merchants to that purpose the which though it took no effect at that time may awaken those who have observed so many things to pass and be ordered long after they have been once or twice denied and rejected And who sees the new and inhumane way of imprisoning Persons of Quality under Decks on Ship-board by which cruel usage many of our Country-men have been murthered may have reason to fear they may be hereafter carried a longer voyage than is yet avowed The twentieth part of our Estates is at once taken and if we are not willing to obey that Order the other Nineteen are taken from us as Malignants a term unknown and undefined and yet crime enough to forfeit our Lives and all that we have Our fellow-Subjects have been executed in cold blood for doing that which by the Laws of God and Man they were bound to do and after their Murther their Estates seized and their Wives and Children exposed to Misery and Famine Laws made and Penalties imposed by Laws this Parliament are suspended dispensed withal and those things done by Order against which those Laws were made And that there may be no face of Justice over the Land the Judges are prohibited to ride their Circuits for the administration of that Justice which the King owes His People and they are bound to execute And after all this and after the merciless shedding so much English Blood after the expending so much Money much of which was given for relief of our poor Protestant Brethren of Ireland and diverted for the improving the Distractions at home after the transportation of such vast sums of Money and great Treasure into Foreign parts to the unspeakable impoverishing this Poor Kingdom to make our Misery lasting and our Confusion compleat a Foreign Enemy is invited and brought into the Bowels of this Kingdom to drink our blood to divide our Possession to give us new Laws and to Rule over us And the better to make way to those horrid Impositions by confounding and making void all civil Rights and Proprieties and the better preparing the Kingdom to be shared by Strangers a New Great Seal the special Ensign of Monarchy and the only way by which Justice is derived and distributed to the People is counterfeited and used albeit it be by the express letter of the Statute of the 25 th year of King Edward the Third declared to be High Treason Having now made this clear plain Narration to the Kingdom the truth and particulars whereof are known to most Men that when Posterity shall find our names in the Records of these times as Members trusted by our Country in that great Council by whose Authority and Power the present Alteration and Distraction seems to be wrought it may likewise see how far we have been and are from consenting to these desperate and fatal Innovations we cannot rest satisfied without Declaring and Publishing to all our fellow-Subjects and to the whole World that all our Intentions and Actions have been are and shall be directed to the defence of His Majesty's Person and just Rights the preservation of the true Protestant Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom established by Law That as we do with all humility to God Almighty and as a great Blessing from him acknowledge His Majesty's happy and Religious Reign and Government over this Kingdom and especially the excellent Laws and Statutes made in His time and particularly those in this Parliament so we do with all duty and submission Declare That His Majesty is the only Supream Governour of this Realm in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Temporal That His Natural Person is not to be divided from His Kingly Office but that our natural Allegiance and the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy do bind us and all His other Subjects to Loyalty and Allegiance to His Natural Person That His Majesty's Negative Voice without which Monarchy is dissolved is an inherent Right of His Crown and that no Orders of one or both Houses of Parliament without His Majesty's express Consent can make a Law to bind the Subjects either in their Property or Liberty That we do from our Souls abhor
your Lordships are not satisfied that such Words as we have charged him with were spoken by him we are ready to produce the proof thereof to your Lordships Their further Answer 1. February WE will represent both your Lordships Papers concerning Master Love unto the Lords and Commons assembled in the Parliament of England at Westminster who will proceed therein according to Justice In the next place according to the order before mentioned do follow the Passages and Papers concerning Religion Their Paper 31. January ACcording to the Paper delivered by us to your Lordships yesternight we do now offer these Propositions following which concern Religion That the Bill be passed for abolishing and taking away of all Arch-Bishops Bishops c. according to the Third Proposition That the Ordinances concerning the Calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines be confirmed by Act of Parliament That the Directory for Publick Worship already passed both Houses of the Parliament of England and the Propositions concerning Church-Government hereunto annexed and passed both Houses be enacted as a part of Reformation of Religion and Uniformity according to the Fifth Proposition That His Majesty take the Solemn League and Covenant and that the Covenant be enjoyned to be taken according to the Second Proposition To this was annexed the following Paper of the 31. January That the ordinary way of dividing Christians into distinct Congregations and most expedient for Edification is by the respective bounds of their Dwellings That the Minister and other Church-Officers in each particular Congregation shall joyn in the Government of the Church in such manner as shall be established by Parliament That many particular Congregations shall be under one Presbyterial Government That the Church be governed by Congregational Classical and Synodical Assemblies in such manner as shall be established by Parliament That Synodical Assemblies shall consist both of Provincial and National Assemblies The King's Commissioners Paper 1. February HAving considered your Lordships Paper containing the Propositions concerning Religion with the Paper annexed and finding the same to contain absolute Alterations in the Government both of the Ecclesiastical and Civil State we desire to know whether your Lordships have power to Treat and debate upon the said Propositions and upon debate to recede from or consent to any Alterations in the said Propositions if we shall make it appear to be reasonable so to do or whether your Lordships are bound up by your Instructions to insist upon the Propositions without any Alteration Their Answer 1. February OUR Paper given in to your Lordships concerning Religion doth contain no Alterations but such as are usual in a time of Reformation and by the wisdom of the Parliaments of both Kingdoms are judged necessary at this time for settling Religion and Peace And as by our Commissions and Papers formerly shewed your Lordships we have made known our Power to Treat upon them so are we ready by Debate to shew how reasonable they are and that there will be no reason to expect that we should alter or recede from them But as for your demand of our shewing what farther Power we have by our Instructions it is that we have no warrant to do as we have already signified to your Lordships by a former Paper The King's Commissioners Paper 1. February YOUR Lordships first Proposition in the Paper concerning Religion referring to the Third Proposition sent to His Majesty we find that refers to the Articles of the late Treaty of the date at Edenburgh 29. Nov. 1643. and to the joynt Declaration of both Kingdoms We desire your Lordships we may see those Articles and Declarations and your Lordships second Proposition in that Paper referring to the Ordinances concerning the Calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines we desire to see those Ordinances Their Answer 1. Feb. ACcording to your Lordships desire in the third Paper we now deliver in the Articles of the late Treaty of the date at Edenburgh 29. of November 1643. and the joynt Declaration of both Kingdoms and we shall speedily deliver to your Lordships the Ordinances concerning the Calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines The King's Commissioners Paper 1. Feb. VVE desire to know whether the Propositions which we have received from your Lordships touching Religion be all we are to expect from you upon that Subject Their Answer 1. Feb. THere are other things touching Religion to be propounded by us unto your Lordships upon the Propositions formerly sent unto His Majesty from the Parliaments of both Kingdoms which we shall in due time give in unto your Lordships But we do first desire your Answer to the Paper touching Religion given in yesterday that some good progress may be made therein before the three days assigned to Treat upon Religion in the first place do expire The King's Commissioners Paper 1. Feb. VVE desired to know whether the Propositions we formerly received from your Lordships concerning Religion were all that would be offered concerning that Subject because we thought it very necessary since so great Alterations are proposed by you to have a full view of the whole Alterations that are desired since in an Argument of the greatest weight and highest importance we cannot possible give a present Judgment of any part till we have a prospect of the Whole But since your Lordships do not yet think it time to let us have a sight of the rest but first desire our Answer to the Paper delivered yesterday which contains many particulars of which we never heard before we shall apply our selves to understand the things proposed by you in such manner as we may return your Lordships a speedy Answer and to that purpose must desire your Lordships information in some particulars which are comprized in your Lordships paper And when your Lordships consider that the Directory for Worship being so long was delivered to us but yesterday that the Covenant the Articles of the Treaty of Edenburgh the Declaration of both Kingdoms which are comprehended within the First Proposition were delivered to us but this day and therefore we could return no Answer concerning the Bill for abolishing Arch-bishops and Bishops which is proposed to be passed according to the Third Proposition in which the said Articles and Declarations are comprehended and that the Ordinances for the Sitting of the Assembly are not yet delivered unto us we are confident your Lordships will not think us negligent in making as good a progress in the Treaty upon Religion as is in our power which we shall endeavour to advance with all diligence and the best of our understanding Afterwards the same first of February the Ordinances for the Assembly of Divines were delivered in After some debate touching the nature of the Church Government intended by the Paper annexed to the first Paper upon the Subject of Religion which are here before set down the Kings Commissioners delivered in this following Paper 1. Feb. THE Information we
Peers pro tempore and William Lenthal Speaker of the House of Commons My Lord and Mr. Speaker I Have received your Letter of the second of this Month containing the Names of those who are to Treat with Me and though they do not come at the time appointed I shall not wonder at first judging it too short in respect of My two Houses not of My self so that I did not imagine it could be kept as I then commanded Sir Peter Killegrew to tell you by word of Mouth and therefore it shall be far from Me to take Exceptions for their having elapsed the appointed time for God forbid that either my two Houses or I should carp at circumstances to give the least impediment to this Treaty much less to hinder the happy finishing of it I say this the rather because I know not how it is possible in this I shall wish to be deceived that in Forty days Treaty the many Distractions of these Kingdoms can be setled and if so it were more than strange that time enough should not be given for the perfecting of this most great and good Work which as I will not believe can be stuck on by the two Houses so I am sure it shall never be by Carisbrook 7. Sept. 1648. Your good Friend CHARLES R. I think fit to tell you because I believe in this Treaty there will be need of Civil Lawyers I have sent for My Advocate Rives and D. Duck. And afterward his Majesty desired the Persons named in this Note inclosed in a Letter of one of their Commissioners Novemb. 2. to be sent to Him C. R. The Bishop of Armagh the Bishop of Excester the Bishop of Rochester the Bishop of Worcester Dr. Fern Dr. Morley The Propositions of both Houses being the same which had been presented to his Majesty at Hampton-Court and little differing from those which had been largely discussed in the former Treaties at Oxford and Uxbridg for this reason as also because neither Party did publish the particulars of this Treaty we have thought fit to represent only what is Authentick and therefore shall add only His Majesties fair Offers in order to a Peace His MAJESTIES Propositions 29. Sept. 1648. HIS Majesty did use many earnest endeavours for a Personal Treaty which he hoped might have been obtained at Westminster between Him and His two Houses of Parliament immediately yet they having made choice of this way by you their Commissioners His Majesty did gladly and chearfully accept thereof in this place as a fit means to begin a Treaty for a Peace which might put an end to His own sad Condition and the Miseries of His Kingdom For an entrance whereunto His Majesty hath already expressed His Consent to the First Proposition But finding you are limited by Instructions which you have no Warrant to communicate unto Him and having cause by your Paper of the 20. of this present to believe that you have no power to omit or alter any thing though He shall give you such Reasons as may satisfie you so to do without transmitting the Papers to the two Houses at a far distance where His Majesties Reasons Expressions and Offers upon Debate cannot be fully represented and from whence their Answers cannot be returned without much wast of the time allotted for the Treaty here and having lately received another Paper concerning the Church containing in it self many particulars of great importance and referring to divers Ordinances Articles of Religion and other things eleven or twelve in number of great length and some of them very new and never before presented to His Majesty the due consideration whereof will take up much time and require His Majesties Presence with His two Houses before a full resolution can well be had in matters of so high consequence To the end therefore that the good work now in hand may by God's blessing proceed more speedily and effectually to an happy Conclusion and that His two Houses of Parliament may at present have further security and an earnest of future satisfaction His Majesty upon consideration had of yours makes these Propositions following Concerning the Church His Majesty will consent That the Calling and sitting of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster be confirmed for three years by Act of Parliament And will by Act of Parliament confirm for Three years the Directory for the Publick worship of God in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales And will likewise confirm for Three years by Act of Parliament the form of Church-Government which ye have presented to Him to be used for the Churches of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales Provided that His Majesty and those of His Judgement or any others who cannot in Conscience submit thereunto be not in the mean time obliged to comply with the same Government or form of Worship but have free practice of their own profession And that a free Consultation and debate be had with the Assembly of Divines at Westminster in the mean time Twenty of His Majesties Nomination being added unto them whereby it may be determined by His Majesty and His two Houses of Parliament how the said Church-Government and form of Publick Worship after the said time may be setled or sooner if Differences may be agreed and how also Reformation of Religion may be setled within the Kingdoms of England and Ireland and Dominion of Wales And the Articles of Christian Religion now delivered to Him may in like manner be then considered of and determined and care taken for the ease of tender Consciences And concerning the Bishops Lands and Revenues His Majesty considering that during these troublesome times divers of His Subjects have made Contracts and Purchases and divers have disbursed great Sums of Money upon security and engagement of those Lands His Majesty for their satisfaction will consent to an Act or Acts of Parliament whereby legal Estates for Lives or for Years at their choice not exceeding ninety nine years shall be made of those Lands towards the satisfaction of the said Purchasers Contractors and others to whom they are engaged at the old Rents or some other moderate Rent whereby they may receive satisfaction And in case such Lease shall not satisfie His Majesty will propound and consent to some other way for their further satisfaction Provided that the Propriety and Inheritance of those Lands may still remain and continue to the Church and Church-men respectively according to the pious intentions of the Donors and Founders thereof And the rest that shall be reserved to be for their maintenance His Majesty will give His Royal Assent for the better observation of the Lords day for suppressing of Innovations in Churches and Chappels in and about the Worship of God and for the better advancement of the Preaching of God's Holy Word in all parts of this Kingdom and to an Act against enjoying Pluralities of Benefices by Spiritual Persons and Non-residency and to an Act for Regulating and
the Church of England as well by their personal Subscriptions as otherwise so attested and declared and which Himself in His Judgment and Conscience hath for so many years been and yet is perswaded to be at least of Apostolical Institution and Practice Truly His Majesty cannot but wonder what should be the reason of your great shiness and unwillingness to discover your minds in a matter of so great and necessary consequence and for a final conclusion of this whole Dispute which His Majesty thinketh fit to shut up with this Paper He must plainly tell you That your endeavours to have given Him satisfaction in the Questions proposed would have added much in His opinion to the reputation of your Ingenuity in the whole undertaking it being not probable you should work much upon His Judgment whilst you are fearful to declare your own nor possible to relieve His Conscience but by a free discharge of yours Nevertheless His Majesty liketh well of your Prayer in the close of your Paper and thinketh you should do very well to joyn therewith your utmost possible endeavours towards the settling of Truth and a happy Peace in this unsettled Church and Kingdom THE END ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ THE POURTRAICTURE OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY IN HIS SOLITUDES and SUFFERINGS I. Vpon His MAJESTIES Calling this last PARLIAMENT THIS last Parliament I called not more by others advice and necessity of my Affairs than by my own choice and inclination who have always thought the right way of Parliaments most safe for my Crown as best pleasing to my People And altho I was not forgetful of those sparks which some mens distempers formerly studied to kindle in Parliaments which by forbearing to convene for some years I hoped to have extinguished yet resolving with My self to give all just satisfaction to modest and sober desires and to redress all publick Grievances in Church and State I hoped by my freedom and their moderation to prevent all misunderstandings and miscarriages in this In which as I feared affairs would meet with some Passion and Prejudice in other men so I resolved they should find least of them in My self not doubting but by the weight of Reason I should counterpoise the over-balancings of any Factions I was inded sorry to hear with what Partiality and Popular heat Elections were carried in many places yet hoping that the Gravity and Discretion of other Gentlemen would allay and fix the Commons to a due temperament guiding some mens well-meaning zeal by such rules of moderation as are best both to preserve and restore the health of all States and Kingdoms no man was better pleased with the convening of this Parliament than My self who knowing best the Largeness of my own Heart toward my Peoples good and just contentment pleased My self most in that good and firm understanding which would hence grow between Me and my People All Jealousies being laid aside My own and My Childrens Interests gave Me many obligations to seek and preserve the Love and welfare of my Subjects the only temporal Blessing that is left to the ambition of just Monarchs as their greatest Honour and Safety next Gods Protection I cared not to lessen My self in some things of my wonted Prerogative since I knew I could be no loser if I might gain but a recompence in my Subjects Affections I intended not only to oblige my Friends but mine Enemies also exceeding even the desires of those that were factiously discontented if they did but pretend to any modest and sober sense The Odium and offences which some mens Rigor or Remisness in Church and State had contracted upon my Government I resolved to have expiated by such Laws and regulations for the future as might not only rectify what was amiss in Practice but supply what was defective in the Constitution No man having a greater zeal to see Religion setled and preserved in Truth Unity and Order than My self whom it most concerns both in Piety and Policy as knowing that No flames of civil Dissentions are more dangerous than those which make Religious pretensions the grounds of Factions I resolved to reform what I should by free and full advice in Parliament be oonvinced of to be amiss and to grant whatever my Reason and Conscience told Me was fit to be desired I wish I had kept My self within those bounds and not suffered my own Judgment to have been overborn in some things more by others importunities than their Arguments My confidence had less betrayed My self and my Kingdomes to those advantages which some men sought for who wanted nothing but Power and Occasions to do mischief But our Sins being ripe there was no preventing of Gods Justice from reaping that Glory in our Calamities which we robb'd him of in our Prosperity For Thou O Lord hast made us see that Resolutions of future Reforming do not always satisfie thy Justice nor prevent thy Vengeance for former miscarriages Our Sins have overlaid our Hopes Thou hast taught us to depend on thy Mercies to forgive not on our purpose to amend When Thou hast vindicated thy Glory by thy Judgments and hast shewed us how unsafe it is to offend Thee upon presumptions afterwards to please Thee then I trust thy Mercies will restore those Blessings to us which we have so much abused as to force Thee to deprive us of them For want of timely Repentance of our sins Thou givest us cause to repent of those remedies we too late apply Yet I do not repent of my calling this last Parliament because O Lord I did it with an upright intention to thy Glory and my peoples good The Miseries which have ensued upon Me and My Kingdoms are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us and may be yet through thy mercy preparative of us to future Blessings and better hearts to enjoy them O Lord tho Thou hast deprived us of many former comforts yet grant Me and My people the benefit of our afflictions and thy chastisements that thy rod as well as thy staff may comfort us Then shall we dare to account them the strokes not of an Enemy but a Father when thou givest us those humble affections that measure of Patience in Repentance which becomes thy Children I shall have no cause to repent the Miseries this Parliament hath occasioned when by them thou hast brought Me and My people unfeignedly to repent of the Sins we have committed Thy Grace is infinitely better with our Sufferings than our Peace could be with our Sins O thou soveraign Goodness and Wisdom who over-rulest all our Counsels over-rule also all our hearts That the worse things we suffer by thy Justice the better we may be by thy Mercy As our Sins have turned our Antidotes into poyson so let thy Grace turn our poysons into Antidotes As the Sins of our Peace disposed us to this unhappy War so let this War prepare us for thy blessed Peace That although I have but troublesom Kingdoms here yet I may
vigor and due execution or some evil Customs preterlegal and abuses personal had been to be removed or some injuries done by My self and others to the Common-weal were to be repaired or some equable offertures were to be tendred to Me wherein the advantages of my Crown being considered by them might fairly induce Me to condescend to what tended to My Subjects good without any great diminution of My self whom Nature Law Reason and Religion bind Me in the first place to preserve without which 't is impossible to preserve My People according to My place Or at least I looked for such moderate desires of due Reformation of what was indeed amiss in Church and State as might still preserve the Foundation and Essentials of Government in both not shake and quite overthrow either of them without any regard to the Laws in force the Wisdom and Piety of former Parliaments the ancient and universal practice of Christian Churches the Rights and Priviledges of particular men nor yet any thing offered in lieu or in the room of what must be destroyed which might at once reach the good end of the others Institution and also supply its pretended defects reform its abuses and satisfie sober and wise men not with soft and specious words pretending zeal and special piety but with pregnant and solid Reasons both Divine and humane which might justifie the abruptness and necessity of such vast alterations But in all their Propositions I can observe little of these kinds or to these ends Nothing of any Laws dis-jointed which are to be restored of any Right invaded of any Justice to be unobstructed of any Compensations to be made of any impartial Reformation to be granted to all or any of which Reason Religion true Policy or any other human motives might induce Me. But as to the main matters propounded by them at any time in which is either great Novelty or Difficulty I perceive that what were formerly look'd upon as Factions in the State and Schisms in the Church and so punishable by the Laws have now the confidence by vulgar clamors and assistance chiefly to demand not only Tolerations of themselves in their vanity novelty and confusion but also Abolition of the Laws against them and a total extirpation of that Government whose Rights they have a mind to invade This as to the main Other Propositions are for the most part but as waste paper in which those are wrapped up to present them somewhat more handsomly Nor do I so much wonder at the variety and horrible novelty of some Propositions there being nothing so monstrous which some fancies are not prone to long for This casts Me into not an Admiration but an Extasie how such things should have the fortune to be propounded in the name of the Two Houses of the Parliament of England among whom I am very confident there was not a fourth part of the Members of either House whose Judgments free single and apart did approve or desire such destructive changes in the Government of the Church I am perswaded there remains in far the major part of both Houses if free and full so much Learning Reason Religion and just Moderation as to know how to sever between the use and the abuse of things the institution and the corruption the Government and the mis-government the Primitive Patterns and the aberrations or blottings of after Copies Sure they could not all upon so little or no Reason as yet produced to the contrary so soon renounce all regard to the Laws in force to Antiquity to the Piety of their Reforming Progenitors to the Prosperity of former times in this Church and State under the present Government of the Church Yet by a strange fatality these men suffer either by their absence or silence or negligence or supine credulity believing that all is good which is gilded with shews of Zeal and Reformation their private dissenting in Judgment to be drawn into the common Sewer or stream of the present vogue and humor which hath its chief rise and abetment from those popular Clamors and Tumults which served to give life and strength to the infinite activity of those men who studied with all diligence and policy to improve to their Innovating designs the present Distractions Such Armies of Propositions having so little in my Judgment of Reason Justice and Religion on their side as they had Tumult and Faction for their rise must not go alone but ever be back'd and seconded with Armies of Soldiers Tho the second should prevail against my Person yet the first shall never overcome Me further than I see cause for I look not at their Number and Power so much as I weigh their Reason and Justice Had the Two Houses first sued out their Livery and once effectually redeemed themselves from the Wardship of the Tumults which can be no other than the Hounds that attend the Cry and Hollow of those men who hunt after Factious and private Designs to the ruin of Church and State Did my Judgment tell Me that the Propositions sent to Me were the Results of the major part of their Votes who exercise their freedom as well as they have a right to sit in Parliament I should then suspect My own Judgment for not speedily and fully concurring with every one of them For I have Charity enough to think there are wise men among them and Humility to think that as in some things I may want so 't is fit I should use their Advice which is the end for which I called them to a Parliament But yet I cannot allow their wisdom such a compleatness and inerrability as to exclude My self since none of them hath that Part to act that Trust to discharge nor that Estate and Honour to preserve as My self without whose Reason concurrent with theirs as the Suns influence is necessary in all Natures productions they cannot beget or bring forth any one compleat and authoritative Act of publick Wisdom which makes the Laws But the unreasonableness of some Propositions is not more evident to Me than this is That they are not the joynt and free desires of those in their Major number who are of right to sit and Vote in Parliament For many of them savor very strong of that old leaven of Innovations masked under the name of Reformation which in my two last famous Predecessors days heaved at and sometime threatned both Prince and Parliaments but I am sure was never wont so far to infect the whole mass of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom however it dispersed among the Vulgar Nor was it likely so suddenly to taint the major part of both Houses as that they should unanimously desire and affect so enormous and dangerous Innovations in Church and State contrary to their former education practice and judgment Not that I am ignorant how the choice of many Members was carried by much Faction in the Countreys some thirsting after nothing more than a passionate revenge of
their known Rule and wonted Practice to comply with the Humours of those men who aim to subdue all to their own Will and Power under the disguises of Holy Combinations Which cords and withes will hold mens Consciences no longer than Force attends and twists them For every man soon grows his own Pope and easily absolves himself of those ties which not the commands of God's Word or the Laws of the Land but only the subtilty and terror of a Party casts upon him either superfluous and vain when they were sufficiently tied before or fraudulent and injurious if by such after-ligaments they find the Imposers really aiming to dissolve or suspend their former just and necessary Obligations Indeed such Illegal ways seldom or never intend the engaging men more to Duties but only to Parties therefore it is not regarded how they keep their Covenants in point of Piety pretended provided they adhere firmly to the Party and Design intended I see the Imposers of it are content to make their Covenant like Manna not that it came from Heaven as this did agreeable to every mans palate and relish who will but swallow it They admit any mens senses of it tho divers or contrary with any Salvo's Cautions and Reservations so as they cross not their chief Design which is laid against the Church and Me. It is enough if they get but the reputation of a seeming encrease to their Party So little do men remember that God is not mocked In such latitudes of sense I believe many that love Me and the Church well may have taken the Covenant who yet are not so fondly and superstitiously taken by it as now to act clearly against both all Piety and Loyalty who first yielded to it more to prevent that imminent Violence and Ruine which hung over their heads in case they wholy refused it than for any value of it or devotion to it Wherein the latitude of some general clauses may perhaps serve somewhat to relieve them as of Doing and endeavouring what lawfully they may in their Places and Callings and according to the Word of God For these indeed carry no man beyond those bounds of good Conscience which are certain and fixed either in Gods Laws as to the general or the Laws of the State and Kingdom as to the particular regulation and exercise of mens duties I would to God such as glory most in the name of Covenanters would keep themselves within those lawful bounds to which God hath called them surely it were the best way to expiate the rashness of taking it which must needs then appear when besides the want of a full and lawful Authority at first to enjoyn it it shall actually be carried on beyond and against those Ends which were in it specified and pretended I willingly forgive such mens taking the Covenant who keep it within such bounds of Piety Law and Loyalty as can never hurt either the Church My self or the Publick Peace against which no mans lawful Calling can engage him As for that Reformation of the Church which the Covenant pretends I cannot think it just or comely that by the partial Advice of a few Divines of so soft and servile tempers as disposed them to so sudden acting and compliance contrary to their former Judgments Profession and Practice such foul Scandals and Suspicions should be cast upon the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England as was never done that I have heard by any that deserved the name of Reformed Churches abroad nor by any men of Learning and Candor at home all whose Judgments I cannot but prefer before any mens now factiously engaged No man can be more forward than My self to carry on all due Reformations with mature Judgment and a good Conscience in what things I shall after impartial advice be by God's Word and right Reason convinced to be amiss I have offered more than ever the fullest freest and wisest Parliaments did desire But the sequel of some mens Actions makes it evident that the main Reformation intended is The abasing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and the robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues For no men have been more injuriously used as to their legal Rights than the Bishops and Church-men These as the fattest Deer must be destroyed the other Rascal-herd of Schisms Heresies c. being lean may enjoy the benefit of a Toleration Thus Naboth's Vineyard made him the only Blasphemer of his City and fit to dye Still I see while the breath of Religion fills the Sails Profit is the Compass by which Factious men steer their course in all seditious Commotions I thank God as no man lay more open to the Sacrilegious temptations of usurping the Churches Lands and Revenues which issuing chiefly from the Crown are held of it and legally can revert only to the Crown with My Consent so I have always had such a perfect abhorrence of it in my Soul that I never found the least inclination to such Sacrilegious Reformings yet no man hath a greater desire to have Bishops and all Church-men so reformed that they may best deserve and use not only what the pious Munificence of My Predecessors hath given to God and the Church but all other additions of Christian Bounty But no necessity shall ever I hope drive Me or Mine to invade or sell the Priests Lands which both Pharaoh's divinity and Joseph's true Piety abhorred to do So unjust I think it both in the eye of Reason and Religion to deprive the most Sacred Employment of all due encouragements and like that other hard-hearted Pharaoh to withdraw the Straw and encrease the Task so pursuing the oppressed Church as some have done to the Red sea of a Civil War where nothing but a Miracle can save either It or Him who esteems it his greatest Title to be called and his chiefest glory to be The Desender of the Church both in its true Faith and its just Fruitions equally abhorring Sacriledg and Apostasy I had rather live as My Predecessor Henry the Third sometime did on the Churches Alms than violently to take the bread out of Bishops and Ministers mouths The next work will be Jeroboam's Reformation consecrating the meanest of the People to be Priests in Israel to serve those Golden Calves who have enriched themselves with the Churches Patrimony and Dowry which how it thrived both with Prince Priests and People is well enough known And so it will be here when from the tuition of Kings and Queens which have been nursing Fathers and Mothers of this Church it shall be at their allowance who have already discovered what hard Fathers and Stepmothers they will be If the Poverty of Scotland might yet the Plenty of England cannot excuse the Envy and Rapine of the Churches Rights and Revenues I cannot so much as pray God to prevent those sad Consequences which will inevitably follow the Parity and Poverty of Ministers both in Church and State since I think it no less
than a mocking and tempting of God to desire him to hinder those mischiefs whose occasions and remedies are in our own power it being every mans sin not to avoid the one and not to use the other There are ways enough to repair the Breaches of the State without the Ruines of the Church as I would be a Restorer of the one so I would not be an Oppressor of the other under the pretence of Publick Debts The occasions contracting them were bad enough but such a discharging of them would be much worse I pray God neither I nor Mine may be accessary to either To Thee O Lord do I address my Prayer beseeching Thee to pardon the rashness of my Subjects Swearings and to quicken their sense and observation of those just moral and indispensable bonds which thy Word and the Laws of this Kingdom have laid upon their Consciences From which no pretensions of Piety and Reformation are sufficient to absolve them or to engage them to any contrary practices Make them at length seriously to consider that nothing Violent and Injurious can be Religious Thou allowest no mans committing Sacriledg under the zeal of abhorring Idols Suffer not Sacrilegious designs to have the countenance of Religious ties Thou hast taught us by the wisest of Kings that it is a snare to take things that are holy and after Vows to make enquiry Ever keep thy Servant from consenting to Perjurious and Sacrilegious Rapines that I may not have the brand and curse to all posterity of robbing Thee and Thy Church of what thy Bounty hath given us and thy Clemency hath accepted from us wherewith to encourage Learning and Religion Tho my Treasures are exhausted my Revenues diminished and my Debts encreased yet never suffer Me to be tempted to use such profane Reparations lest a Coal from thine Altar set such a fire on my Throne and Conscience as will be hardly quenched Let not the Debts and Engagements of the Publick which some mens Folly and Prodigality hath contracted be an occasion to impoverish thy Church The State may soon recover by thy blessing of Peace upon us the Church is never likely in Times where the Charity of most men is grown so cold and their Religion so illiberal Continue to those that serve Thee and thy Church all those Incouragements which by the will of the pious Donors and the Justice of the Laws are due unto them and give them grace to deserve and use them aright to thy Glory and the relief of the Poor That thy Priests may be cloathed with Righteousness and the Poor may be satisfied with bread Let not Holy things be given to Swine nor the Churches bread to Dogs rather let them go about the City grin like a Dog and grudge that they are not satisfied Let those Sacred morsels which some men already by violence devoured never digest with them nor theirs Let them be as Naboth's Vineyard to Ahab gall in their mouths rottenness to their Names a moth to their Families and a sting to their Consciences Break in sunder O Lord all violent and Sacrilegious Confederations to do wickedly and injuriously Divide their hearts and tongues who have bandied together against the Church and State that the Folly of such may be manifest to all men and proceed no further But so favour My righteous dealing O Lord that in the Mercies of Thee the Most High I may never miscarry XV. Vpon the many Jealousies raised and Scandals cast upon the KING to stir up the People against Him IF I had not My own Innocency and Gods Protection it were hard for Me to stand out against those stratagems and conflicts of Malice which by Falsities seek to oppress the Truth and by Jealousies to supply the defect of real causes which might seem to justifie so unjust Engagements against Me. And indeed the worst effects of open hostility come short of these Designs For I can more willingly lose my Crowns than my Credit nor are my Kingdoms so dear to Me as my Reputation and Honour Those must have a period with my Life but these may survive to a glorious kind of Immortality when I am dead and gone A good name being the embalming of Princes and a sweet consecration of them to an Eternity of Love and Gratitude among Posterity Those foul and false Aspersions were secret engines at first employed against my Peoples love of Me that undermining their opinion and value of Me My Enemies and theirs too might at once blow up their Affections and batter down their Loyalty Wherein yet I thank God the detriment of my Honour is not so afflictive to Me as the sin and danger of my Peoples Souls whose eyes once blinded with such mists of Suspicions they are soon misled into the most desperate precipices of actions wherein they do not only not consider their Sin and Danger but glory in their zealous adventures while I am rendred to them so fit to be destroyed that many are ambitious to merit the name of my Destroyers imagining they then fear God most when they least honour their King I thank God I never found but my Pity was above my Anger nor have my Passions ever so prevailed against Me as to exclude my most compassionate Prayers for them whom devout Errors more than their own Malice have betrayed to a most Religious Rebellion I had the Charity to interpret that most part of my Subjects fought against my supposed Errors not my Person and intended to mend Me not to end Me. And I hope that God pardoning their Errors hath so far accepted and answered their good Intentions that as he hath yet preserved Me so he hath by these Afflictions prepared Me both to do Him better service and My people more good than hitherto I have done I do not more willingly forgive their seductions which occasioned their loyal Injuries than I am ambitious by all Princely merits to redeem them from their unjust Suspicions and reward them for their good Intentions I am too conscious to My own Affections towards the generality of my People to suspect theirs to Me nor shall the Malice of my Enemies ever be able to deprive Me of the comfort which that confidence gives Me. I shall never gratifie the spightfulness of a few with any sinister thoughts of all their Allegiance whom Pious frauds have seduced The worst some mens Ambition can do shall never perswade Me to make so bad interpretations of most of my Subjects actions who possibly may be Erroneous but not Heretical in point of Loyalty The sense of the Injuries done to my Subjects is as sharp as those done to My self our welfares being inseperable in this only they suffer more than My self that they are animated by some Seducers to injure at once both themselves and Me. For this is not enough to the Malice of my Enemies that I be afflicted but it must be done by such instruments that my Afflictions grieve Me not more than this doth that
may in all reason be thought to have more of Gifts and Graces enabling them to compose with serious deliberation and concurrent advice such Forms of Prayers as may best fit the Churches common wants inform the Hearers understanding and stir up that fiduciary and fervent application of their spirits wherein consists the very life and soul of Prayer and that so much pretended Spirit of Prayer than any private man by his solitary abilities can be presumed to have which what they are many times even there where they make a great noise and shew the affectations emptiness impertinency rudeness confusions flatness levity obscurity vain and ridiculous repetitions the sensless and oft-times blasphemous expressions all these burthened with a most tedious and intolerable length do sufficiently convince all men but those who glory in that Pharisaick way Wherein men must be strangely impudent and flatterers of themselves not to have an infinite shame of what they so do and say in things of so sacred a nature before God and the Church after so ridiculous and indeed profane a manner Nor can it be expected but that in duties of frequent performance as Sacramental administrations and the like which are still the same Ministers must either come to use their own Forms constantly which are not like to be so sound or comprehensive of the nature of the Duty as Forms of Publick composure or else they must every time affect new expressions when the Subject is the same which can hardly be presumed in any mans greatest sufficiencies not to want many times much of that compleatness order and gravity becoming those Duties which by this means are exposed at every celebration to every Ministers private Infirmities Indispositions Errors Disorders and Defects both for Judgment and Expression A serious sense of which inconveniences in the Church unavoidably following every mans several manner of officiating no doubt first occasioned the Wisdom and Piety of the Ancient Churches to remedy those mischiefs by the use of constant Liturgies of Publick composure The want of which I believe this Church will sufficiently feel when the unhappy fruits of many mens ungoverned Ignorance and confident defects shall be discovered in more Errors Schisms Disorders and uncharitable Distractions in Religion which are already but too many the more is the pity However if Violence must needs bring in and abet those Innovations that men may not seem to have nothing to do which Law Reason and Religion forbids at least to be so obtruded as wholly to justle out the Publick Liturgy Yet nothing can excuse that most unjust and partial severity of those men who either lately had subscribed to used and maintained the Service-book or refusing to use it cryed out of the rigor of the Laws and Bishops which suffered them not to use the liberty of their Consciences in not using it That these men I say should so suddenly change the Liturgy into a Directory as if the Spirit needed help for Invention tho not for Expresions or as if matter prescribed did not as much stint and obstruct the Spirit as if it were cloathed in and confined to fit words So slight and easie is that Legerdemain which will serve to delude the Vulgar That further they should use such severity as not to suffer without penalty any to use the Common-prayer-Book publickly although their Consciences bind them to it as a duty of Piety to God and Obedience to the Laws Thus I see no men are prone to be greater Tyrants and more rigorous exacters upon others to conform to their illegal Novelties than such whose Pride was formerly least disposed to the obedience of lawful constitutions and whose licentious humors most pretended conscientious liberties which freedom with much regret they now allow to Me and my Chaplains when they may have leave to serve Me whose Abilities even in their extemporary way comes not short of the others but their Modesty and Learning far exceeds the most of them But this matter is of so popular a nature as some men knew it would not bear learned and sober Debates lest being convinced by the evidence of Reason as well as Laws they should have been driven either to sin more against their Knowledg by taking away the Liturgy or to displease some Faction of the People by continuing the use of it Tho I believe they have offended more considerable men not only for their numbers and estates but for their weighty and judicious Piety than those are whose Weakness or Giddiness they sought to gratify by taking it away One of the greatest faults some men found with the Common-Prayer-Book I believe was this that it taught them to pray so oft for Me to which Petitions they had not Loyalty enough to say Amen nor yet Charity enough to forbear Reproaches and even Cursings of Me in their own Forms in stead of praying for Me. I wish their Repentance may be their only Punishment that seeing the mischiefs which the disuse of Publick Liturgies hath already produced they may restore that credit use and reverence to them which by the ancient Churches were given to Set Forms of sound and wholesom words And Thou O Lord which art the same God blessed for ever whose Mercies are full of variety and yet of constancy Thou deniest us not a new and fresh sense of our old and daily wants nor despisest renewed affections joyned to constant expressions Let us not want the benefit of thy Churches united and well-advised Devotions Let the matters of our Prayers be agreeable to thy will which is always the same and the fervency of our spirits to the motions of thy Holy Spirit in us And then we doubt not but thy Spiritual perfections are such as Thou art neither to be pleased with affected Novelties for matter or manner nor offended with the Pious constancy of our Petitions in them both Whose variety or constancy Thou hast no where either forbidden or commanded but left them to the Piety and Prudence of thy Church that both may be used neither despised Keep men in that pious moderation of their Judgments in matters of Religion that their Ignorance may not offend others nor their opinion of their own Abilities tempt them to deprive others of what they may lawfully and devoutly use to help their infirmities And since the advantage of Error consists in Novelty and Variety as Truth 's in Vnity and Constancy suffer not thy Church to be pestered with Errors and deformed with Vndecencies in thy Service under the pretence of Variety and Novelty nor to be deprived of Truth Vnity and Order under this fallacy That Constancy is the cause of Formality Lord keep us from formal Hypocrifie in our own hearts and then we know that praying to Thee or praising of Thee with David and other Holy men in the same Forms cannot hurt us Give us Wisdom to amend what is amiss within us and there will be less to mend without us Evermore defend and deliver thy Church
that an orderly Subordination among Presbyters or Ministers should be any more against Christianity than it is in all secular and Civil Governments where Parity breeds Confusion and Faction I can no more believe that such Order is inconsistent with true Religion than good Features are with Beauty or Numbers with Harmony Nor is it likely that God who appointed several orders and a Prelacy in the Government of his Church among the Jewish Priests should abhor or forbid them among Christian Ministers who have as much of the Principles of Schism and Division as other men for preventing and suppressing of which the Apostolical Wisdom which was divine after that Christians were multiplied to many Congregations and Presbyters with them appointed this way of Government which might best preserve Order and Union with Authority So that I conceive it was not the Favour of Princes or Ambition of Presbyters but the Wisdom and Piety of the Apostles that first setled Bishops in the Church which Authority they constantly used and enjoyed in those times which were purest for Religion tho sharpest for Persecution Not that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt counsel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions and Partialities which are incident to any one man also to avoid Tyranny which becomes no Christians least of all Church-men besides it will be a means to take away that burthen and odium of affairs which may lie too heavy on one mans shoulders as indeed I think it formerly did on the Bishops here Nor can I see what can be more agreeable both to Reason and Religion than such a frame of Government which is Paternal not Magisterial and wherein not only the necessity of avoiding Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts which are prone to arise among equals in Power and Function but also the differences of some Ministers gifts and aptitudes for Government above others doth invite to employ them in reference to those Abilities wherein they are eminent Nor is this Judgment of Mine touching Episcopacy any pre-occupation of Opinion which will not admit any oppositions against it It is well known I have endeavoured to satisfie My self in what the chief Patrons for other ways can say against this or for theirs And I find as they have far less of Scripture grounds and of Reason so for Examples and Practice of the Church or testimonies of Histories they are wholly destitute wherein the whole stream runs so for Episcopacy that there is not the least rivulet for any others As for those obtruded Examples of some late Reformed Churches for many retain Bishops still whom necessity of times and affairs rather excuseth than commendeth for their Inconformity to all Antiquity I could never see any reason why Churches orderly reformed and governed by Bishops should be forced to conform to those few rather than to the Catholick example of all Ancient Churches which needed no Reformation and to those Churches at this day who governed by Bishops in all the Christian world are many more than Presbyterians or Independents can pretend to be All whom the Churches in My Three Kingdoms lately governed by Bishops would equalize I think if not exceed Nor is it any point of Wisdom or Charity where Christians differ as many do in some points there to widen the differences and at once to give all the Christian world except a handful of some Protestants so great a scandal in point of Church-Government whom tho you may convince of their Errors in some points of Doctrine yet you shall never perswade them that to compleat their Reformation they must necessarily desert and wholly cast off that Government which they and all before them have ever owned as Catholick Primitive and Apostolical so far that never Schismaticks nor Hereticks except those Aerians have strayed from the Unity and Conformity of the Church in that point ever having Bishops above Presbyters Besides the late general Approbation and Submission to this Government of Bishops by the Clergy as well as the Laity of these Kingdoms is a great confirmation of My Judgment and their Inconstancy is a great prejudice against their Novelty I cannot in charity so far doubt of their Learning or Integrity as if they understood not what heretofore they did or that they did conform contrary to their Consciences So that their facility and Levity is never to be excused who before ever the point of Church-government had any free and impartial debate contrary to their former Oaths and Practice against their obedience to the Laws in force and against My Consent have not only quite cried down the Government by Bishops but have approved and encouraged the violent and most illegal stripping all the Bishops and many other Church-men of all their due Authority and Revenues even to the selling away and utter alienation of those Church-lands from any Eclesiastical uses So great a power hath the stream of Times and the prevalency of Parties over some mens Judgments of whose so sudden and so total change little reason can be given besides the Scots Army coming into England But the Folly of these men will at last punish it self and the Desertors of Episcopacy will appear the greatest Enemies to and Betrayers of their own Interest for Presbytery is never so considerable or effectual as when it is joined to and crowned with Episcopacy All Ministers will find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as Plants do between being watered by hand or by the sweet and liberal dews of Heaven The tenuity and contempt of Clergy-men will soon let them see what a poor Carcass they are when parted from the influence of that Head to whose Supremacy they have been sworn A little Moderation might have prevented great mischiefs I am firm to Primitive Episcopacy not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it Discretion without Passion might easily reform whatever the rust of Times or indulgence of Laws or corruption of Manners have brough upon it It being a gross vulgar Error to impute to or revenge upon the Function the faults of Times or Persons which Seditious and popular Principle and Practice all wise men abhor For those Secular additaments and ornaments of Authority Civil Honour and Estate which My Predecessors and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men I look upon them but as just Rewards of their Learning and Piety who are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strengthenings of their Authority in point of Respect and Observance which in peaceful times is hardly payed to any Governors by the measure of their Virtues so much as by that of their Estates poverty and meanness exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of licentious minds and manners which persecuting
Times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those encouragements and best able to use them If at any time My Judgment of men failed My good Intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose Learning Gravity and Piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar Neglect which besides an innate principle of vicious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian Parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent Inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my Judgment touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratifie any design or Passion with the least perverting of Truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian World whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by Violence and infinite Indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their KING and Soveraign as some men have endeavoured to do against all these grounds of My Judgment to consent to their weak and divided Novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do that the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themselves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Countrey or else they deny these most evident Truths That the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and That Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplied and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their Persons since the use and Ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if Ignorance Superstition Avarice Revenge and other disorderly and disloyal Passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Patterns they supply with Violence and Oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no less sin than Sacriledg or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands he graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furtheâ—more as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to my Judgment I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the Unlawfulness of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniate I could soon with Judgment break that Oath which erroneously was taken by Me. But being daily by the best disquisition of Truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn how can any man that wisheth not my Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined sins of Sacriledg and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those Crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods I have oft wondred how men pretending to Tenderness of Conscience and Reformation can at once tell Me that My Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such Violence tho contrary to all that Rational and Religious Freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me that I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of My Oath which binds Me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My Oath should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of our Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and Sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in my Soul abhor as many ways highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give my Consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-Government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms for it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this for what I think in my Judgment best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My Failing and Sin I can easily acknowledg it but that is no argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and succesful as to encourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgment to be biassed or forestalled with some Prejudice and wontedness of Opinion but I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the Manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least reputation for their new ways of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cried up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominion either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in My Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right
constitution The Abuses of which deserve to be extirpated as much as the use retained for I think it far better to hold to Primitive and Uniform Antiquity than to comply with divided Novelty A right Episcopacy would at once satisfie all just desires and interests of good Bishops humble Presbyters and sober People so as Church affairs should be managed neither with Tyranny Parity nor Popularity neither Bishops ejected nor Presbyters despised nor People oppressed And in this Integrity both of My Judgment and Conscience I hope God will preserve Me. For Thou O Lord knowest my Vprightness and Tenderness As Thou hast set Me to be a Defender of the Faith and a Protector of thy Church so suffer Me not by any violence to be over-born against My Conscience Arise O Lord maintain thine own Cause let not thy Church be deformed as to that Government which derived from thy Apostles hath been retained in purest and Primitive times till the Revenues of the Church became the object of secular Envy which seeks to rob it of all the encouragements of Learning and Religion Make Me as the good Samaritan compassionate and helpful to thy afflicted Church which some men have wounded and robbed others pass by without regard either to pity or relieve As My Power is from Thee so give Me grace to use it for Thee And though I am not suffered to be Master of my other Rights as a KING yet preserve Me in that liberty of Reason love of Religion and thy Churches welfare which are fixed in My Conscience as a Christian Preserve from Sacrilegious invasions those temporal Blessings which thy Providence hath bestowed on thy Church for thy Glory Forgive their Sins and Errors who have deserved thy just permission thus to let in the wild Boar and subtile Foxes to waste and deform thy Vineyard which thy right hand hath planted and the dew of Heaven so long watered to a happy and flourishing estate O let Me not bear the infamous brand to all posterity of being the first Christian KING in this Kingdom who should consent to the oppression of thy Church and the Fathers of it whose Errors I would rather with Constantine cover with silence and reform with meekness than expose their Persons and Sacred Functions to vulgar contempt Thou O Lord seest how much I have suffered with and for thy Church make no long tarrying O my God to deliver both Me and It from unreasonable men whose counsels have brought forth and continue such violent Confusions by a precipitant destroying the ancient boundaries of thy Churches Peace thereby letting in all manner of Errors Schisms and Disorders O thou God of Order and of Truth in thy good time abate the Malice asswage the Rage and confound all the mischievous Devices of Thine Mine and thy Churches Enemies That I and all that love thy Church may sing Praises to Thee and ever magnifie thy Salvation even before the Sons of men XVIII Vpon Uxbridg Treaty and other Offers made by the KING I Look upon the way of Treaties as a retiring from fighting like Beasts to arguing like Men whose strength should be more in their Understandings than in their Limbs And tho I could seldom get opportunities to Treat yet I never wanted either desire or disposition to it having greater confidence of my Reason than my Sword I was so wholly resolved to yield to the first that I thought neither My self nor others should need to use the second if once we rightly understood each other Nor did I ever think it a diminution of Me to prevent them with expresses of My Desires and even Importunities to Treat It being an office not only of Humanity rather to use Reason than Force but also of Christianity to seek peace and ensue it As I was very unwillingly compelled to defend My self with Arms so I very willingly embraced any thing tending to Peace The events of all War by the Sword being very dubious and of a Civil War uncomfortable the End hardly recompencing and late repairing the mischief of the Means Nor did any success I had ever enhaunce with Me the price of Peace as earnestly desired by Me as any man tho I was like to pay dearer for it than any man All that I sought to reserve was Mine Honour and My Conscience the one I could not part with as a KING the other as a Christian The Treaty at Vxbridg gave the fairest hopes of an happy Composure had others applied themselves to it with the same Moderation as I did I am confident the War had then ended I was willing to condescend as far as Reason Honour and Conscience would give Me leave nor were the remaining Differences so essential to my Peoples Happiness or of such consequence as in the least kind to have hindred My Subjects either Security or Prosperity for they better enjoyed both many years before ever those demands were made some of which to deny I think the greatest Justice to My self and Favor to my Subjects I see Jealousies are not so easily allayed as they are raised Some men are more afraid to retreat from violent Engagements than to engage what is wanting in Equity must be made up in Pertinacy Such as had little to enjoy in Peace or to lose in War studied to render the very name of Peace odious and suspected In Church affairs where I had least liberty of Prudence having so many strict ties of Conscience upon Me yet I was willing to condescend so far to the setling of them as might have given fair satisfaction to all men whom Faction Covetousness or Superstition had not engaged more than any true Zeal Charity or love of Reformation I was content to yield to all that might seem to advance true Piety I only sought to continue what was necessary in point of Order Maintenance and Authority to the Churches Government and what I am perswaded as I have elsewhere set down My thoughts more fully is most agreeable to the true Principles of all Government raised to its full stature and perfection as also to the primitive Apostolical Pattern and the practice of the Universal Church conform thereto From which wholly to recede without any probable reason urged or answered only to satisfie some mens wills and phantasies which yet agree not among themselves in any point but that of extirpating Episcopacy and fighting against Me must needs argue such a softness and infirmity of Mind in Me as will rather part with Gods Truth than Mans Peace and rather lose the Churches Honour than cross some mens Factious humors God knows and time will discover who were most to blame for the unsuccessfulness of that Treaty and who must bear the guilt of after-calamities I believe I am very excusable both before God and all unpassionate men who have seriously weighed those Transactions wherein I endeavoured no less the restauration of Peace to My People than the preservation of My own Crowns to My Posterity Some men have that
Images they should form and set up If there had been as much of Christs Spirit for Meekness Wisdom and Charity in mens hearts as there was of his Name used in the pretensions to reform all to Christs Rule it would certainly have obtained more of God's Blessing and produced more of Christs Glory the Churches good the Honour of Religion and the Unity of Christians Publick Reformers had need first act in private and practise that on their own hearts which they purpose to try on others for Deformities within will soon betray the Pretenders of publick Reformation to such private Designs as must needs hinder the publick good I am sure the right methods of Reforming the Church cannot consist with that of perturbing the Civil State nor can Religion be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest Ingredients and Ornaments of true Religion for next to Fear God is Honour the King I doubt not but Christs Kingdom may be set up without pulling down Mine nor will any men in impartial times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects Christ's Government will confirm Mine not overthrow it since as I own Mine from Him so I desire to Rule for his Glory and his Churches good Had some men truly intended Christ's Government or knew what it meant in their hearts they could never have been so ill governed in their words and actions both against Me and one another As good Ends cannot justifie evil Means so nor will evil Beginnings ever bring forth good Conclusions unless God by a miracle of Mercy create Light out of Darkness Order out of our Confusions and Peace out of our Passions Thou O Lord who only canst give us beauty for ashes and Truth for Hypocrisie suffer us not to be miserably deluded with Pharisaical washings in stead of Christian Reformings Our greatest Deformities are within make us the severest Censurers and first Reformers of our own Souls That we may in clearness of Judgment and Vprightness of heart be a means to reform what is indeed amiss in Church and State Create in us clean hearts O Lord and renew right spirits within-us that we may do all by thy directions to thy Glory and with thy Blessing Pity the Deformities which some rash and cruel Reformers have brought upon this Church and State quench the fires which Factions have kindled under the pretence of Reforming As thou hast shewed the world by their Divisions and Confusions what is the pravity of some mens Intentions and weakness of their Judgments so bring us at last more refined out of these fires by the methods of Christian and charitable Reformations wherein nothing of Ambition Revenge Covetousness or Sacrilege may have any influence upon their counsels whom thy Providence in just and lawful ways shall entrnst with so great good and now most necessary a work That I and My People may be so blest with inward Piety as may best teach us how to use the Blessing of outward Peace XXI Vpon His MAJESTIES Letters taken and divulged THE taking of My Letters was an opportunity which as the malice of Mine Enemies could hardly have expected so they knew not how with honour and civility to use it Nor do I think with sober and worthy minds any thing in them could tend so much to My Reproach as the odious divulging of them did to the infamy of the Divulgers The greatest experiments of Virtue and Nobleness being discovered in the greatest advantages against an Enemy and the greatest Obligations being those which are put upon us by them from whom we could least have expected them And such I should have esteemed the concealing of My Papers The freedom and secrecy of which commands a Civility from all men not wholly barbarous nor is there any thing more inhumane than to expose them to publick view Yet since Providence will have it so I am content so much of My Heart which I study to approve to Gods Omniscience should be discovered to the world without any of those dresses or popular captations which some men use in their Speeches and Expresses I wish my Subjects had yet a clearer sight into My most retired Thoughts Where they might discover how they are divided between the Love and Care I have not more to preserve My own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and that extreme Grief to see them both deceived and destroyed Nor can any mens Malice be gratified further by My Letters than to see My Constancy to my Wife the Laws and Religion Bees will gather Honey where the Spider sucks Poyson That I endeavour to avoid the pressures of my Enemies by all fair and just Correspondencies no man can blame who loves Me or the Commonwealth since My Subjects can hardly be happy if I be miserable or enjoy their Peace and Liberty while I am oppressed The World may see how some Mens design like Absolom's is by enormous Actions to widen differences and exasperate all Sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate Yet I thank God I can not only with Patience bear this as other Indignities but with Charity forgive them The Integrity of My Intentions is not jealous of any injury My Expressions can do them for although the confidence of Privacy may admit greater freedom in Writing such Letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet the Innocency of My chief Purposes cannot be so stained or mis-interpreted by them as not to let all men see that I wish nothing more than an happy composure of Differences with Justice and Honour not more to My own than My Peoples content who have any sparks of Love or Loyalty left in them who by those My Letters may be convinced that I can both mind and act My own and My Kingdoms Affairs so as becomes a Prince which Mine Enemies have always been very loth should be believed of Me as if I were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the name of Evil Counsellors It 's probable some men will now look upon Me as My own Counsellor and having none else to quarrel with under that notion they will hereafter confine their anger to My self Altho I know they are very unwilling I should enjoy the liberty of My own Thoughts or follow the light of My own Conscience which they labour to bring into an absolute captivity to themselves not allowing Me to think their Counsels to be other than good for Me which have so long maintained a War against Me. The Victory they obtained that day when My Letters became their prize had been enough to have satiated the most ambitious thirst of Popular glory among the Vulgar with whom Prosperity gains the greatest esteem and applause as Adversity exposeth to their greatest slighting and disrespect As if good fortune were always the shadow of Virtue and Justice and did not oftner attend Vicious and Injurious actions as to this world But
devout retirements where neither the solemnity of the Duty nor the modest regard to others do require so great exactness as to the outward manner of performance Tho the light of Understanding and the fervency of Affection I hold the main and most necessary requisites both in constant and occasional solitary and social Devotions So that I must needs seem to all equal minds with as much Reason to prefer the service of My own Chaplains before that of their Ministers as I do the Liturgy before their Directory In the one I have been always educated and exercised in the other I am not yet Catechised nor acquainted And if I were yet should I not by that as by any certain Rule and Canon of Devotion be able to follow or find out the indirect extravagancies of most of those men who highly cry up that as a piece of rare composure and use which is already as much despised and disused by many of them as the Common-prayer sometimes was by those men a great part of whose piety hung upon that popular pin of railing against and contemning the Government and Liturgy of this Church But I had rather be condemned to the woe of Vae soli than to that of Vae vobis Hypocritae by seeming to pray what I do not approve It may be I am esteemed by my Deniers sufficient of My self to discharge My Duty to God as a Priest tho not to Men as a Prince Indeed I think both Offices Regal and Sacerdotal might well become the same Person as anciently they were under one name and the united rights of primogeniture Nor could I follow better precedents if I were able than those two eminent Kings David and Solomon not more famous for their Scepters and Crowns than one was for devout Psalms and Prayers the other for his Divine Parables and Preaching whence the one merited and assumed the name of a Prophet the other of a Preacher Titles indeed of greater honour where rightly placed than any of those the Roman Emperors affected from the Nations they subdued it being infinitely more glorious to convert Souls to Gods Church by the Word than to conquer men to a subjection by the Sword Yet since the order of Gods Wisdom and Providence hath for the most part always distinguished the gifts and Offices of Kings and Priests of Princes and Preachers both in the Jewish and Christian Churches I am sorry to find My self reduced to the necessity of being both or enjoying neither For such as seek to deprive Me of My Kingly Power and Soveraignty would no less enforce Me to live many months without all Prayers Sacraments and Sermons unless I become My own Chaplain As I owe the Clergy the protection of a Christian KING so I desire to enjoy from them the benefit of their Gifts and Prayers which I look upon as more prevalent than My own or other mens by how much they flow from Minds more enlightned and Affections less distracted than those which are encumbred with Secular affairs besides I think a greater Blessing and acceptableness attends those Duties which are rightly performed as proper to and within the limits of that calling to which God and the Church have specially designed and consecrated some men And however as to that Spiritual Government by which the Devout Soul is subject to Christ and through his Merits daily offers it self and its services to God every private believer is a King and a Priest invested with the honour of a Royal Priesthood yet as to Ecclesiastical order and the outward Polity of the Church I think confusion in Religion will as certainly follow every mans turning Priest or Preacher as it will in the State where every one affects to rule as King I was always bred to more modest and I think more Pious Principles The consciousness to my Spiritual defects makes Me more prize and desire those Pious assistances which holy and good Ministers either Bishops or Presbyters may afford Me especially in these Extremities to which God hath been pleased to suffer some of my Subjects to reduce Me so as to leave them nothing more but my Life to take from Me and to leave Me nothing to desire which I thought might less provoke their Jealousy and offence to deny Me than this of having some means afforded Me for my Souls comfort and support To which end I made choice of men as no way that I know scandalous so every way eminent for their Learning and Piety no less than for their Loyalty nor can I imagine any exceptions to be made against them but only this That they may seem too able and too well-affected toward Me and my Service But this is not the first service as I count it the best in which they have forced Me to serve My self tho I must consess I bear with more grief and impatience the want of my Chaplains than of any other my Servants and next if not beyond in some things to the being sequestred from my Wife and Children since from these indeed more of human and temporary Affections but from those more of Heavenly and Eternal Improvements may be expected My comfort is that in the enforced not neglected want of ordinary means God is wont to afford extraordinary supplies of his Gifts and Graces If his Spirit will teach Me and help my infirmities in Prayer Reading and Meditation as I hope he will I shall need no other either Orator or Instructor To Thee therefore O My God do I direct my now solitary Prayers What I want of others help supply with the more immediate assistances of thy Spirit which alone can both enlighten my darkness and quicken my dulness O thou Sun of Righteousness thou Sacred Fountain of Heavenly Light and Heat at once clear and warm my Heart both by instructing of Me and interceding for Me. In Thee is all Fulness from Thee is all Sufficiency by Thee is all Acceptance Thou art company enough and comfort enough Thou art my King be also my Prophet and my Priest Rule Me teach Me pray in Me for Me and be Thou ever with Me. The single wrestlings of Jacob prevailed with Thee in that Sacred Duel when he had none to second him but Thy self who didst assist him with power to overcome Thee and by a welcome violence to wrest a Blessing from Thee O look on Me thy Servant in infinite mercy whom Thou didst once bless with the joint and sociated Devotions of others whose fervency might inflame the coldness of my Affections towards Thee when we went to or met in thy House with the Voice of joy and gladness worshipping Thee in the unity of Spirits and with the bond of Peace O forgive the neglect and not improving of those happy Opportunities It is now thy pleasure that I should be as a Pelican in the wilderness as a Sparrow on the house top and as a Coal scattered from all those pious glowings and devout reflections which might best kindle preserve
great offence of enacting any thing against my Conscience and especially from consenting to Sacrilegious Rapines and spoilings of thy Church If Thou wilt restore Me to a capacity to glorifie Thee in doing good both to the Church and State Then shall my Soul praise Thee and magnifie thy Name before my People Then shall thy Glory be dearer to Me than my Crowns and the advancement of true Religion both in purity and power be my chiefest care Then will I rule My People with Justice and My Kingdoms with Equity To thy more immediate hand shall I ever owe as the rightful Succession so the merciful Restauration of My Kingdoms and the glory of them If Thou wilt bring Me again with Peace Safety and Honour to my chiefest City and My Parliament If Thou wilt again put the Sword of Justice into My hand to punish and protect Then will I make all the world to see and my very Enemies to enjoy the benefit of this Vow and Resolution of Christian Charity which I now make unto Thee O Lord. As I do freely pardon for Christ's sake those that have offended Me in any kind so my hand shall never be against any man to revenge what is past in regard of any particular injury done to Me. We have been mutually punished in our unnatural Divisions for thy sake O Lord and for the love of my Redeemer have I purposed this in my heart That I will use all means in the ways of Amnestie and Indemnity which may most fully remove all Fears and bury all Jealousies in forgetfulness Let thy Mercies be toward Me and Mine as my resolutions of Truth and Peace are toward my People Hear my Prayer O Lord which goeth not out of feigned lips Blessed be God who hath not turned away my Prayer nor taken his Mercy from Me. O my Soul commit thy way to the Lord trust in him and he shall bring it to pass But if Thou wilt not restore Me and Mine what am I that I should charge Thee foolishly Thou O Lord hast given and thou hast taken Blessed be thy Name May my People and thy Church be happy if not by Me yet without Me. XXVI Vpon the Armies Surprizal of the KING at Holdenby and the ensuing Distractions in the Two Houses the Army and the City WHat part God will have Me now to act or suffer in this new and strange scene of affairs I am not much solicitous some little practice will serve that man who only seeks to represent a part of Honesty and Honour This surprize of Me tells the world that a KING cannot be so low but he is considerable adding weight to that Party where he appears This motion like others of the Times seems eccentrick and irregular yet not well to be resisted or quieted Better swim down such a stream than in vain to strive against it These are but the struglings of those Twins which lately one Womb enclosed the younger striving to prevail against the elder what the Presbyterians have hunted after the Independents now seek to catch for themselves So impossible is to for lines to be drawn from the Center and not to divide from each other so much the wider by how much they go farther from the point of union That the Builders of Babel should from Division fall fall to Confusion is no wonder but for those that pretend to build Jerusalem to divide their tongues and hands is but an ill omen and sounds too like the fury of those Zealots whose intestine bitterness and divisions were the greatest occasion of the last fatal destruction of that City Well may I change My Keepers and Prison but not my captive Condition only with this hope of bettering that those who are so much professed Patrons for the Peoples Liberties cannot be utterly against the Liberty of their KING What they demand for their own Consciences they cannot in reason deny to Mine In this they seem more ingenuous than the Presbyterian Rigor who sometimes complaining of exacting their conformity to Laws are become the greatest Exactors of other mens submission to their novel injunctions before they are stamped with the Authority of Laws which they cannot well have without My Consent 'T is a great argument that the Independents think themselves manumitted from their Rivals service in that they carry on a business of such consequence as the assuming My Person into the Armies custody without any Commission but that of their own Will and Power Such as will thus adventure on a KING must not be thought over-modest or timorous to carry on any design they have a mind to Their next motion menaces and scares both the Two Houses and the City which soon after acting over again that former part of tumultuary motions never questioned punished or repented must now suffer for both and see their former Sin in the glass of the present Terrors and Distractions No man is so blind as not to see herein the hand of Divine Justice they that by Tumults first occasioned the raising of Armies must now be chastened by their own Army for new Tumults So hardly can men be content with one sin but add sin to sin till the latter punish the former Such as were content to see Me and many Members of both Houses driven away by the first unsuppressed Tumults are now forced to fly to an Army or defend themselves against them But who can unfold the riddle of some mens Justice The Members of both Houses who at first withdrew as My self was forced to do from the rudeness of the Tumults were counted Desertors and outed of their Places in Parliament such as stayed then and enjoyed the benefit of the Tumults were asserted for the only Parliament-men Now the Fliers from and Forsakers of their Places carry the Parliamentary power along with them complain highly against the Tumults and vindicate themselves by an Army such as remained and kept their stations are looked upon as Abettors of tumultuary insolencies and betrayers of the freedom and honour of Parliament Thus is Power above all Rule Order and Law where men look more to present Advantages than their Consciences and the unchangeable rules of Justice while they are Judges of others they are forced to condemn themselves Now the Plea against Tumults holds good the Authors and Abettors of them are guilty of prodigious Insolencies whenas before they were counted as Friends and necessary Assistants I see Vengeance pursues and overtakes as the Mice and Rats are said to have done a Bishop in Germany them that thought to have escaped and fortified themselves most impregnably against it both by their Multitude and Compliance Whom the Laws cannot God will punish by their own Crimes and hands I cannot but observe this Divine Justice yet with sorrow and pity for I always wished so well to Parliament and City that I was sorry to see them do or suffer any thing unworthy such great and considerable Bodies in this Kingdom I was glad to
intended do You perform when God shall give you Power Much Good I have offered more I purposed to Church and State if Times had been capable of it The deception will soon vanish and the Vizards will fall off apace This mask of Religion on the face of Rebellion for so it now plainly appears since My Restraint and cruel Usage that they fought not for Me as was pretended will not long serve to hide some mens Deformities Happy times I hope attend You wherein Your Subjects by their Miseries will have learned That Religion to their God and Loyalty to their King cannot be parted without both their Sin and their Infelicity I pray God bless You and establish Your Kingdoms in Righteousness Your Soul in true Religion and Your Honour in the Love of God and Your People And if God will have Disloyalty perfected by My Destruction let My Memory ever with My Name live in You as of Your Father that loves You and once a KING of Three flourishing Kingdoms whom God thought fit to honour not only with the Scepter and Government of them but also with the suffering many indignities and an untimely Death for them while I studied to preserve the rights of the Church the power of the Laws the Honour of My Crown the Priviledg of Parliaments the Liberties of My People and My own Conscience which I thank God is dearer to Me than a thousand Kingdoms I know God can I hope he yet will restore Me to My Rights I cannot despair either of his Mercy or of My Peoples Love and Pity At worst I trust I shall but go before You to a better Kingdom which God hath prepared for Me and Me for it through My Saviour Jesus Christ to whose Mercies I commend You and all Mine Farewell till We meet if not on Earth yet in Heaven XXVIII Meditations upon Death after the Votes of Non-addresses and His MAJESTIES closer Imprisonment in Carisbrook-Castle AS I have leisure enough so I have cause more than enough to meditate upon and prepare for my Death for I know there are but few steps between the Prisons and Graves of Princes It is God's Indulgence which gives Me the space but Man's Cruelty that gives Me the sad occasions for these thoughts For besides the common burthen of Mortality which lies upon Me as a Man I now bear the heavy load of other mens Ambitions Fears Jealousies and cruel Passions whose Envy or Enmity against Me makes their own lives seem deadly to them while I enjoy any part of Mine I thank God My Prosperity made Me not wholly a stranger to the contemplations of Mortality Those are never unseasonable since this is always uncertain Death being an Eclipse which oft happeneth as well in clear as cloudy days But My now long and sharp Adversity hath so reconciled in Me those natural Antipathies between Life and Death which are in all men that I thank God the common terrors of it are dispelled and the special horror of it as to My particular much allayed for altho My Death at present may justly be represented to Me with all those terrible aggravations which the policy of Cruel and Implacable enemies can put upon it affairs being drawn to the very dregs of Malice yet I bless God I can look upon all those stings as unpoisonous tho sharp since My Redeemer hath either pulled them out or given Me the Antidote of his Death against them which as to the Immaturity Unjustice Shame Scorn and Cruelty of it exceeded whatever I can fear Indeed I never did find so much the Life of Religion the Feast of a good Conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious Integrity and Constancy as since I came to these closer conflicts with the thoughts of Death I am not so old as to be weary of Life nor I hope so bad as to be either afraid to dye or ashamed to live true I am so afflicted as might make Me sometime even desire to dye if I did not consider that it is the greatest glory of a Christians life to die daily in conquering by a lively Faith and patient Hopes of a better life those partial and quotidian deaths which kill us as it were by piece-meals and make us overlive our own fates while we are deprived of Health Honour Liberty Power Credit Safety or Estate and those other Comforts of dearest relations which are as the Life of our lives Tho as a KING I think My self to live in nothing temporal so much as in the Love and good will of My People for which as I have suffered many deaths so I hope I am not in that point as yet wholly dead notwithstanding My Enemies have used all the poison of Falsity and violence of Hostility to destroy first the Love and Loyalty which is in my Subjects and then all that content of Life in Me which from these I chiefly enjoyed Indeed they have left Me but little of Life and only the husk and shell as it were which their further Malice and Cruelty can take from Me having bereaved Me of all those worldly Comforts for which Life it self seems desirable to men But O my Soul think not that life too long or tedious wherein God gives Thee any opportunities if not to do yet to suffer with such Christian Patience and Magnanimity in a good Cause as are the greatest Honour of our lives and the best improvement of our Deaths I knows that in point of true Christian Valour it argues Pusillanimity to desire to dye out of weariness of life and a want of that heroick greatness of spirit which becomes a Christian in the patient and generous sustaining those Afflictions which as shadows necessarily attend us while we are in this Body and which are lessened or enlarged as the Sun of our Prosperity moves higher or lower whose total absence is best recompenced with the dew of Heaven The assaults of Affliction may be terrible like Sampsom's Lion but they yield much sweetness to those that dare to encounter and overcome them who know how to overlive the witherings of their Gourds without discontent or peevishness while they may yet converse with God That I must dye as a man is certain that I may dye a King by the hands of my own Subjects a violent sudden and barbarous death in the strength of my years in the midst of my Kingdoms my Friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectators my Enemies insolent Revilers and Triumphers over me living dying and dead is so probable in humane reason that God hath taught Me not to hope otherwise as to mans Cruelty however I despair not of God's infinite Mercy I know my Life is the object of the Devils and Wicked mens Malice but yet under God's sole custody and disposal whom I do not think to flatter for longer Life by seeming prepared to die but I humbly desire to depend upon him and to submit to his will both in life and death in what order soever he