and death did not Moses Joshua Samuel Eliah Elizaeus Jehoida and others of the Priests and Prophets of the old Testament and S. Peter also the Prince of the Apostles in the new Testament judge in the case of blood and pronounced the sentence of death against Malefactors As when Ananias and Sapphira were suddenly brought unto their end by the judgement of the Apostle and if they be able and fit to judge of any thing then why not of this If you say because they are the Advocates of mercy Ob. the procurers of pardon the Preachers of repentance and men that are made to save life and not to put any one to death or to bring any man unto his end I answer Sol. That they are therefore the fittest men to be the Judges both of life and death For who can better and more justly judge me to death than he that doth most love my life it is certain he will not condemn me without just cause even as God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father of mercies and even mercy it self is the fittest and most righteous Judge that can be found both of death and damnation Clergy how fit to be Judges because his mercy and goodness towards his creatures will not permit his severity against sin though never so detestable to his purity to do the least injustice to their persons so our love of mercy and pity will not suffer us to do any thing that shall transcend the Rules of justice and equity And as our inclination to mercy prohibites us to condemn the innocent so our love to justice and our charge to preserve it will not permit us to justifie the wicked for the Scripture teacheth us That he which justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the innocent that calleth the evil good and the good evil that spareth Agag and killeth Naboth are both alike abominable unto the Lord. And therefore notwithstanding this unjust Canon I never find in any of our Histories that the Bishops did ever withdraw themselves and quit their Votes in this case either before or after save only from the 10th year of Richard the 2d unto the 21th year of the raign of the same unfortunate King which they did not because they could not justly be present but because they had just reasons to be absent as you may find it in the Annals of his time Therefore I know nor how to palliate their facility of yielding way to those Nâ—n-Canonical Lords Non-Canonicall Lords to produce those non-obliging Canons which they abhorred in all that made not for the furtherance of their design to exclude them from doing this which was one of their chiefest duties for who knoweth not the Lord Say and Lord Brook and others of the Lords to hate all Canons even the old Canons of the Apostles as inconsistent with their new Rules of Independent Government and yet herein to exclude the Bishops Votes in the judgement of this man and the passing of this Bill which being admitted might perhaps have turned the scales they will take hold of the unjustest Law and alleadge one of the worst of Canons a Canon against reason and most repugnant to the best of God's Properties which though they be all equall in themselves fummè perfectissimè yet are they not so perceived by us but his mercy is over all his works But you will say Was this man so just that he was unjustly condemned to death Did all men so untruly complain against him And was he good notwithstanding all the evill that was proved against him I answer That I dare not and I do not say that he was unjustly adjudged to death or that the Bill it self was unjust But this I assure my self that he was a very wise and understanding man and indued with may rare Heroick vertues and most excellent graces as among the rest The Earle's Vertues with those two incomparable indowments that cannot easily be found among many of the Nobles of this World 1. Faithfulness to his Prince to whom as I conceive he shewed himself a true servant and most Trusty in his greatest imployments save in what was and I know not that justly proved against him and I believe he would never have taken Arms as some others of the Lords do now against his Soveraign 2. Love unto the Church and Church-men to whom though others think it their glory to oppresse them and a vertue to contemn them yet he was a true Friend a most Noble Benefactor and most just unto his death as his very last speech unto his dearest Son doth sufficiently testifie unto all posterity which speech was to this effect and I would to God it were indelibly imprinted in the memory of all our Nobility That as he regarded his father's blessing or expected a blessing from God upon what his father left him so he would be careful never to take away or in any wise to diminish any part or parcell of the goods or Patrimony of the Church which if he did would prove a Canker to waste and consume all that he had Yet it may be he was which in truth I cannot imagin as the Philosopher saith of Marcus Antonius a man of that composition that his vices did equalize if not exceed his vertues and his offences cloud all his graces and obscure all his glory And as the saving of one mans life cannot save him from suffering that doth unjustly put another man to death so the rarest Vertues cannot justifie the man that committeth so many horrible offences How a Malefactor may be unjustly condemned as his accusers conceived this man did to which it may be well replyed That a notorious Malefactor though I apply not this to him may be unjustly condemned and so he may be justly condemned and unjustly executed as when he is not condemned for the fault committed or condemned not according to the Law which condemneth that Fact For though a Murderer deserveth death yet any one may not presently be the death of that Murderer nor the Judge condemn him for robbery And though I should commit many offences worthy of death yet if the Law doth not condemn me I ought not to die for any of them For as the Apostle saith Where there is no Law there is no sin because sin is the transgression of the Law Therefore the Earl of Strafford might be an evill man and do many things that in the sight of God and good men were worthy of death Yet if our Law made not those crimes Capital or if the Law made them Capital and not Treason we ought not for Treason to adjudge him unto death So in sum the result is this That he might justly deserve death and yet be very unjustly condemned to death And it seemed to some of his friends that so he was especially because they had no plain unquestionable Law but were fain in some kind to make a Law to take off his head and when
least indignity for any personal distaste but upon due examination of witnesses a full hearing and a just censure in open Court which course if it be neglected should be rather punished in the offenders than the discipline dissolved the Governours removed and a new fantastical fancie erected 2. For the Doctrines of these men 2. The Doctrines of the faction that are like to be setled by the new Synod they are like the poetical fiction of those Sisters facies non omnibus una Nec diversa tamen I did once intend while I lived amongst them to collect a whole Volume of them but Satan then prevented me and plotted my destruction for mine intention yet now I will set down these few out of those many which I then observed 1. Though Moses saith The secret things belong to the Lord our God 1. They search into Gods secrets Deut. 29.29 but the things revealed belong to us and our children for ever yet these men are all Gnostiques they know very much even of the secrets and counsels of God and they are sure who shall be saved and who shall be damned and as men of the Cabinet-counsel of God broach their illusions for divine revelations and perswade the people that what they say or do is all from God and therefore that this War which they prosecute was preordained of God for the destruction of the wicked to whom they formerly preached their damnation and thereby have caused many silly soules most desperately to end the miseries of their wretched life by putting themselves to an untimely death 2. They onely They judge th mselves only the elect as the elect of God which shall be the sole heires of heaven are the Lords Proprietaries of all this worldly wealth and the reprobates being enemies unto God have no right unto any of Gods creatures and therefore they think they may lawfully take away the goods of those reprobates whom now they call Malignants and they have as good warrant for it as ever the Israelites had to spoil the Aegyptians for they tell us that Saint Paul which knew right from wrong tells them plainly that whether they be things present 1 Cor 3.22 23 or things to come even all are yours and ye Christ's That there is a double right to the things of this wo ld Psal 104.28 Matth. 5.45 and Christ God's but they understand not that men have a double right unto these worldly goods 1. As Christians and so God as a mercifull Father hath provided all things for them 2. As the Creatures of God and so God as a faithful Creator openeth his hand and filleth all things living with plenteousnesse and maketh his Sun to shine upon the just and upon the unjust and so the wicked have as good an interest in their estates as the godly and besides God hath not given them the power to distinguish who are the elect or who are reprobates And therefore if we have any regard of our goods that God hath given us we have great reason to look about us for these are the greatest Cheaters in Christendome and as they have made us Malignants so they will make us reprobates when they please that they may enjoy those things that we have 3. They think themselves free from all sin Numb 23.21 Tit. 1.15 3. Because Balaam saith God beheld no iniquity in Jacob and the Apostle saith To the pure all things are pure they teach their Proselytes that in them which are the holy Brethren there is no sin and their adultery drunkenesse cozenage and the like odious crimes are no crimes because God loving them so tenderly as a fond mother seeth no fault in her untoward child so he takes no notice of any offence that they commit but for the ungodly To the unbelieving nothing is pure Titus 1.15 their Prayers are sinnes their Alms are odious and whatsoever commendable duty they do perform God accounteth their best actions to be heinous transgressions and to adde the more weight of punishment to their damnation which Doctrine how abominable it is to God and how destructive to all men to make these holy Brethren and their sanctified Sisters senslesse in all sinnes Matth. 9.12 uncapable of repentance when the whole hath no need of the Physitian and to discourage all other ignorant men from doing good duties when the performance of them shall multiply their stripes is so apparent to all men that I need not stand to confute it for if Coniah though he were the Signet upon my right hand Jer. 22.24 Ezek. 33.15 or as the apple of mine eye doth offend I will cut him off and if the wicked forsake his wickednesse and do that which is just love mercy and speak truth he shall be accepted and the Lord will not call light darknesse nor good evill in any one 4. They allow the women to offend while their husbands sleep Joh. 11.11 1 Cor. 7.39 4. Because our Saviour saith Our friend Lazarus sleepeth when as indeed he was dead and the Heathens say Sleep is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brother of Death they take this colour to hide their adulteries that while the husband sleepeth the wife is as free from him as if he were dead a foolery so ridiculous that the naming of it is a sufficient confutation of it and yet you shall hardly withdraw our London-Anabaptists from it 5. They justify many kinds of lyes and equivocations Gen 12 13. Acts 23.5 5. Because Abraham said that Sarah was his Sister and Saint Paul said I wist not brethren that he was the High Priest they hold it as an Article of their Creed that for officious lyes and equivocations being for the furtherance of their cause the good work which they pretend they may and ought to use them to swallow them down like water they make no bones of them and therefore it is dangerous to treat and weaknesse to give credit without sufficient pledges to the faith of these men whose profession may as lawfully deceive us as their Religion teacheth them to destroy us and I believe the experience which his Majesties Officers had of them in the performance of their promises and conditions of departure from Winchester Reading and other Townes surrendred unto them may sufficiently confirm this equivocall point of their Publique faith 6. 6. They would root out all those that they term wicked Deut 7.2 1 Sam. 15.23 Because the Lord straitly charged the Israelites to root out the wicked Canaanites and the rest of those cursed Nations and translated the Kingdom of Israel from Saul unto David because he spared Agag and our Saviour bids us succidere ficum to cut down that unprofitable tree which bare no fruit they are so filled with such unmerciful cruelty towards all those they term wicked and judge Malignants that they had better fall into the hands of heathen Tyrants than of these their holy brethren who embruing their hands
and idolatrous Governours but also commanded all his followers to do the like and so we see they did for the Christians which were at Hierusalem when Saint James was martyred were more in number and greater in power then were the persecutors of that Apostle and yet for the reverence they bare to the Law of God and the example of their Master Christ interimi se à paucioribus quà m interimere patiebantur they rather suffered themselves to be killed then they would kill their Persecutors saith St. Clement And so the other Apostles under Caligula Claudius Nero Clement recognit lib. 1. f. 9. and Domitian that were bloody Tyrants cruell Persecutors and most wicked Idolaters and those holy Fathers of the Church Liberius Hosius Athanasius Nazianzen Hilary Ambrose Augustine Hierom Chrysostom and the rest for a thousand years together followed the example of Patience without resistance yea Quamvis nimius copiosus noster sit numerus though their power was great and their number greater then their adversaries yet none of them strugled when he was apprehended saith St. Cyprian Cyprian ad Demetrium Tertul. in Apolog He that would see more plenty of proof let him read the Treatise A perswasion to Loyalty Where the Authour bringeth the Fathers of all ages to confirm this point And the reason is rendred by Tertullian because among the Christians Occidi licet occidere non licet It was lawfull for them to suffer themselves to be killed but not to kill for our Saviour had pronounced them blessed that would suffer for righteousnesse sake and what more righteous then to suffer death for not being an Idolater to die rather then to deny their God Therefore they are not to be blessed which refuse to suffer because that in not suffering but in rising up and rebelling against their Persecutors they are as the Apostle saith convinced of sin and in sinning they acquire unto themselves damnation Rom. 13. Besides if it were lawfull to maintain this Doctrine then the Papists that believe our Religion to be false and that we perswading men unto it do seduce them from the true service of God may lawfully rebell against their Prince and justifie all their trayterous plots and every heretical Sect that believeth we are Idolaters as they do all which oppose the crosse in Baptism may without offence fall into Rebellion against all those Magistrates that maintain that Idoll as they term it And this false pretext might be a dissembled cloak for all Rebels to say They do it in defence of their Religion because they are afraid to be compelled unto Idolatry And therefore the truth is if any Tyrant like Julian should endeavour to compell me unto the Idols Temple or to worship my true God with false service I will rather die then do it but I may not resist when I am compelled by any means for so I find that Shadrac Meshao and Abeduego Elias the Prophets and the Apostles and all the Christians of the Primitive Church did use to do in the like case And I had rather imitate the obedience of those good Saints to those wicked Kings that would have compelled them to Idolatry then the insolencie of those proud Rebels that under these false pretences wiâ—l rebell against their lawful Princes 2. Not for any injury that is done unto us 2. If we may not rebell when we are compelled to Idolatry much lesse may we do it for any other injury for what injury can be greater then to be forced to Idolatry when as to be robbed of my faith and religion is more intolerable then to be spoyled of all my goods and possessions No injury greater then compulsion to Idolatry And therefore when Christ suffered as great an injury as could be offered unto his person when the souldiers came with Swords and Staves to take him as if he had been a thief and a murderer and Saint Peter then like a hot-headed Puritane was very desirous to revenge this indignity our Saviour reprehended his rashnesse because he knew what the other as yet knew not that he ought not to resist when the Magistrate doth send to apprehend and so the Christians of the Primitive Church were extreamly injured by their Persecutors And the Catholique faith it self suffered no small oppression under Constantius the Arian Emperour and yet that purer age wherein the better Christians lived did not so much as once think of any revenge or resistance When and who did first resist and what moved them Baron ad annum Christi 350. saith Baronius But about the year of Christ 350. then first saith he alas the Christian Souldiers being swell'd with pride and taken up with a cruell desire of bearing rule have conspired against the Christian Emperours when as before ne gregarius quidem miles inveniri quidem posset qui adversus Imperatores licet Ethnicos Christianorum quoque persecutores à partibus aliquando steterit insurgentium tyrannorum not a Christian could be found that stood up against the Heathen Emperours that were the persecutors of the Christians But to make it yet more plain that no grievance should move good Christians to make resistance no injury should cause them to rebell against their Magistrates our saviour saith authoritativè with authority enough I say unto you Matth. 5.39 that ye resist not evill but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also and if by our Saviour's rule we may not resist any one what think you that we may resist our King our Priest or any other Magistrate that correcteth or reproveth us 1 Pet. 2.19 And Saint Peter saith This is thank-worthy if a man for conscience toward God endure grief suffering wrongfully for what glory is it if when ye suffer for your faults ye take it patiently but if when ye do well and suffer for it ye take it patiently this is acceptable with God where you see still the rule of piety is none other but suffering though it be never so unjustly How pathetically the Fathers perswade us to suffer not to resist And therefore the Fathers are most plentifull in the explanation and confirmation of this point for Tertullian that was no babe in the School of Divinity nor any coward in the Army of Christ speaking of those faithful Christians that suffered no small measure of miseries in his time saith that one short night with a few little torches might have wrought their deliverance and revenged all their wrongs if it had been lawful for them to blot out or expell evill with evill but God forbid saith he ut aut igne humano vindicetur divina secta Tertul. in Apologeâ— aut doleat pati in quo probatur that either the divine sect that is the Christian Religion should be revenged with humane fire or that it should grieve us to suffer wherein we are commended for suffering Nazianzen that for his soundnesse of judgement and
our selves and our families we shall be in the power of these men at their pleasure under the pretence of Religion contrary to all justice to be deprived of any part of our freehold when we shall have not one man of our own Calling to speak a word in our behalf on no Seat of Justice throughout the whole Kingdom O terque quaterque beati Queis ante or a patrum contigit oppetere O most miserable and lamentable condition of Gods Ministers I must needs speak it though I should die for it and if some did not speak it I think the stones would cry against it and proclaim it Better for the Clergy were their hope only in this world never to have been born or at least never to have seen a Book then to fall into the hands and to be put under the censure of these men that do thus love Christ by hating his Ministers This Act more prejudiciall to the future times than now who as I said before by this one Act are made liable to undergo all kind of evils which shall not only fall upon the present Clergy for were it so our patience should teach us to be silent but also to the increase of all prejudices to the Gospel more than my fore-sight can expresse in all succeeding Ages And therefore I may well say with Jeremy Jer. 5.9 29. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this And we need not wonder that such plagues calamities and distresses have so much increased in this Kingdom ever since the passing of this Act and yet the anger of the Lord is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still and I fear his wrath will not be appeased till we have blotted this and wiped away all other our great sins and transgressions with the truest tears of unfained repentance These are like to be the consequences of this Act And yet our good King who we know loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue and was as I assure my self most unwilling to passe it was notwithstanding over-perswaded considering where thirteen of the Bishops were even in prison and in what condition all the rest of them stood in question whether all they should stand or be cut down root and branch to yield His assent unto the Act though if the case in truth were rightly weighed not much lesse prejudicial to his Majesty than injurious to us to be thus deprived of our right and exposed to all miseries by excluding us from all Civil Judicature And I would to God the King and all the Kingdom did continually consider how his Majesty was used ever since the confirmation of this Act How the King hath been used ever since this Act passed for they no sooner had excluded the Bishops and Clergy out of their right but presently they proceeded and prosecuted the Design ever since to thrust out the King from all those just Rights and Prerogatives which God and Nature and the Laws of our Land have put into his hands for the Government of this Kingdom neither was it likely to succeed any otherwise as I have fully shewed and I would all Kings would read it in the Grand Rebellion That the Act should be annulled But I see no reason why it may not and why it should not be retracted and annulled when the Houses shall be purged of that Anabaptistical and Rebellious Faction that contrived and procured the same to Passe for these three special Reasons Reason 1 1. Because that contrary to all former Precedents that Bill for their exclusion was as it is reported at the first refused and after a full hearing among the Lords it was by most Votes by more than a dozen voices rejected And yet to shew unto the World that the Faction's malice against the Bishops had no end and their rage was still implacable at the same Session and which is very considerable immediately assoon as ever they understood it was rejected the House of Commons revived it and so pressed it unto the Lords that if I may have leave to speak the truth contrary to all right * For I conceive this to be an approved Maxim That no Right not proved forfited by some offence can be taken away without wrong it must be again received and while the Bishops were in prison it was with what honour I know not strangely confirmed 2. Because this Bill had the Royall assent after that a most riotous tumult and many thousands of men with all sorts of Warlike weapons both on land and water most disloyally had driven His Majesty to flie from London that most Rebellious City not without fear for his own safety even for the safety of his life as himself professeth And when they had so cunningly Reason 2 contrived their Plot as to get some of the Kings servants and friends that were about him In his Majesties answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons 16. of July p. 8. and imployed in the Queens affairs to perswade Her Majesty to use all her power with the King for the passing of this Bill or else Her journey should be stayed as formerly they had altered Her resolution for the Spaw and at Rochester she should understand the sense of the House to stop Her passage unto Holland whereas the passing of this Bill might make way for Her passage over And many other such frights and fears they put both upon the King and Queen to inforce Him full sore against his will as we believe to passe this harsh Bill for the exclusion of the spiritual Lords out of the House of Peers and of all the Clergy from all Secular Judicature But Master Pym will tell us as he did that it was the opinion of both Houses There was no occasion given by any tumults that might justly cause His Majesties departure To whom I answer with the words of Alderman Garraway Ald. Gar. speech at Guild-hall If the Houses had declared that it had been lawful to beat the King out of Town I must have sate still with wonder though I should never believe it but when they declare matters of Fact which is equally within our own knowledge and wherein we cannot be deceived as in the things we have seen with our eyes if they dissent from truth they must give me leave to differ from them As if they should declare They have paid all the money that they owe unto the City or that there * For now I understand it is pulled down was no Crosse standing in Cheapside we shall hardly believe them And therefore seeing we all remember when the Alarm was given that there was an attempt from Whitehall upon the City how hardly it was appeased and how no Babies thought the Design of those subtile heads that gave that false Alarm was no lesse than to have caused Whitehall to be pulled down and they that loved the King and saw the Army both by land and
the Church and the Lands of the Bishops is that golden Wedge and the brave Babylonish garment which the Anabaptistical Achans of our time do most of all thirst after in this their pretended holy Reformation I must here sistere gradum stay awhile and let you know 1. Sacriledge what it is 1. That the taking away of any Lands or goods given and consecrated to holy uses and to convert the same to any other purpose than which they were dedicated is termed sacriledge that is the stealing of holy goods from the right owners to our selves and others to whom we leave them 2. That this sacriledge is a sin for it is a snare to the man 4. That it is a sinne who devoureth that which is holy and after vowes to make inquiry that is whether such a service be needful or such a taking away be a sin 3. That this sinne is a very great sinne for Saint Paul saith 3. A great sin Thou that abhorrest Idols committest thou sacriledge And Idolatry is the giving of our goods and service to false gods Sacriledge the taking away of goods dedicated to the service of any God especially of the true God And this seemeth by the Apostles words to be a greater sinne than the other because the devill laboureth more to take away the service of the true God than to establish his own service for he knoweth that as light taken away darknesse must needs follow so the true Religion being destroyed Hosea 2.8 Ezech. 16. 1 Reg. 18.19 Gen. 22. Idolatry must needs succeed and he knoweth that Idolatry hath been bountiful enough to the service of Idols that he needeth not so much to fear the taking away of their goods as to care that the goods dedicated to Gods service be taken away 4. That this sin is a very dangerous sinne both to 1. The Persons that commit it 2. 4 A most dangerous sin Joshua 7. Act. 5.4 1. To the sacrilegers To the Common-wealth that suffers it for 1. Not onely Achan Ananias and Sapphira and other private men perished for this sinne but the proudest Kings and greatest Peers that became sacrilegious were plagued and destroyed by God as Belshazzar the great Monarch of Assyria William Rufus and abundance more that you may find in our Histories for the curse of God like Damocles sword by a slender thred hangs over their heads and makes them like those that perished at Endor and became as the dung of the earth And I beseech you mark it Make them like a wheel and as the stubble before the wind persecute them with thy tempest let them be confounded and be put to shame and perish which say Let us take to our selves the houses of God in possession and if this be the guerdon of them that say it I wonder what shall be the plague of them that do it and I wonder more that the very thought of this Curse doth not make their hearts to tremble if their consciences were not seared to be senselesse of all fear 2. The sin of sacriledge extendeth it selfe not onely to the persons committing it but also to the whole Nation that suffereth it 2. To whole Nations as the sin of Achan was not onely a snare to catch him to be destroyed but it troubled all Israel so that they were still discomfited and never prospered till the sacrileger was punished and the Lord appeased If you say The sinne is taken away when the Parliament takes these things away I answer that we must not idolize the Parliament as if it were a kind of omnipotent Creature and like the Pope such an infallible Lord God upon earth as that their Votes and Sanctions were the supremest rule of justice that cannot be unjust because they are enacted by the whole State because as no conclusions are therefore truths because determined by a whole Councell so no Lawes are therefore just because done by a whole Parliament but when they do agree with the common rules of truth and justice which God hath given unto men and shewed the same in his holy Word which he hath left to be the right rule of our actions And therefore if the greatest Assemblies Parliament or Councell make not the will of God the rule to guide their proceedings thereby their Sanctions are so farre from taking away the nature of the sin that they do increase the evill and make it the more out of measure sinfull and to become a national sin that before was but personal and the more exceedingly sinful when the same is confirmed by a Law so that none dares speak against it and the sinners are become senselesse in their sinnes and therefore the Prophet demandeth how any man that feareth God dares meddle with such a people that will thus justifie their sinnes saying Shall the throne of iniquity that is any unjust course have fellowship with thee which framest mischief by a Law And the Lord doth extremely threaten them that walk after unrighteous ordinances as that they should sow much Mich. 6.15 16. but not reap tread the Olives but not annoint themselves therewith and sweet wine but not drink it because the Statutes of Omri are kept and all the works of the house of Achab and they walked in their counsels Hos 5.10 11. and the Prophet Hosea doth more fully set down the wrath of God both against the makers and the observers of all unrighteous Laws Object If you say The Lands and Lordships of the Bishops were not the patrimony of the Church but were onely in superstitious times given by our Kings and others unto the Church-men and therefore now the King being in want they may be restored to the Crown again Sol. I confesse the Lands of the Church are the free bequests of godly Kings and of other pious men dead long agoe with most fearful imprecations made against all those that should seek to alter their Wills and Testaments Gal. 3.15 and the Apostle saith If it be but a mans Testament no man altereth it that is no honest man ought to alter it though perhaps his Will might have been made wiser and his goods bestowed to better use for our Saviours Maxim when he gave a Penny to him that laboured but one hour and but a Penny to him that had endured the heat of the day is unanswerable Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own And therefore 1. As others daily leave their estates of great Amount to whom they please many times to strangers and perhaps to idiots or debauched persons of wicked lives and noxious manners and yet no man grudgeth or endeavoureth to take away those just Legacies which their good Benefactours had bestowed upon these unjust men so there is no reason that any mans eyes should be evill for the goodnesse of their Ancestours unto the Clergie but that their Wills should stand to those uses after their death as intemerate as if they were
Apostle to their own destruction Psal 109 6. when as the Prophet saith Their prayers shall be turned into sin 6. Christ commandeth us to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars that is 6. To render all his dues unto him as I shall more fully shew hereafter your inward duties of honour love reverence and the like and your outward debts tolls tribute custome c. and the Rebels render none unto him but take all from him and return His Arms to his destruction I might produce many other places and precepts of Holy Scripture to inforce this duty to honour the king but what will suffice him cui Roma parùm est Luke 16.31 if they beleive not Moses neither will they believe if one should arise from the dead and if these things cannot move them then certainly all the world cannot remove them from their Wickedness Yet 3. Quia exempla movent plus quà m praecepta docent 3. All kings should be honoured by the example of all Nations 1 The Israelites 1 In Egypt Exod. 12.37 Exod. 1.9 you shall finde this doctrine practised by the perpetual demeanour of all Nations For 1. If you looke upon the Children of Israel in the Land of Egypt it cannot be denyed but Pharaoh was a wicked king and exercised great cruelty and exceeding tyranny against Gods people yet Moses did not excite the Israelites to take arms against him though they were more in number being six hundred thousand men and abler for strength to make their party good then Pharoah was as the king himself confesseth but they contained themselves within the bounds of their Obedience and waited Gods leisure for their deliverance because they knew their patient suffering would more manifest their own piety and aggravate king Pharoah's obstinacy and especially magnify Gods glory then their undutiful rebelling could any ways illustrate the least of these 2. Davids demeanour towards Saul is most memorable 2. Under Saul The loyal Subjects belief p. 55. for though as one saith king Saul discovered in part the described manner of such a king as Samuel had foreshewed yet David and all his followers performed and observed the prescribed conditions that are approved by God in true Subjects never resisting never rebelling against his king though his king most unjustly persecuted him Samuel also when he had pronounced Sauls rejection 1 Sam. 15. yet did he never incite the people to Rebellion but wept and prayed for him and discharged all other duties which formerly he had shewed to be due unto him and Elias that had as good repute with the people 3. Under Ahab and could as easily have stirred up sedition as any of the seditious Preachers of this time yet did he never perswade the Subjects to withstand the illegal commands of a most wicked king 1 Reg. 21.25 that as the Scripture testifieth had sold himself to work wickedness and became the more exceedingly sinful by the provocation of Jezabel his most wicked wife and harlot but he honoured his Soveraignty and feared his Majesty when he fled away from his cruelty And because these are but particular presidents Two examples of the whole Nation under Heathen kings 1. Under Artaxerxes Ezra 1.1 I will name you two observeable examples of the whole Nation 1. When Cyrus made a Decree and his Decree according to the Laws of the Medes and Persians should be unalterable that the Temple of Jerusalem should be re-edified and the adversaries of the Jews obtained a letter from Artaxerxes to prohibit them the people of God submitting themselves to the personal command of the king contrary to that unalterable Law of Cyrus pleaded neither the goodness of the work nor the justness of the cause but yeilded to the kings will and ceased from their work until they obtained a new Licence in the second year of king Darius and if it be objected that they built the Temple in despite of those that hindered them with their sword in one hand and a trowel in the other it is rightly answered that having the kings leave to build it they might justly resist their enemies that did therein not onely shew their malice unto them but also resisted the will of the King 2. When Ahashuerus to satisfie the unjust desire of his proud favorite 2. Under Ahashuerus Hester 3.10 had wickedly decreed and most tyrannically destined all the Nation of the Jewes to a sudden death yet this dutiful people did not undutifully rebel and plead the King was seduced by evil counsel and misguided by proud Haman therefore nature teaching them vim vi pellere to stand upon their own defence they would not submit their necks to his unjust Decree but being versed in God's Lawes and unacquainted with these new devices they return to God and betake themselves to their prayers Hester 8.11 until God had put it into the Kings heart to grant them leave to defend themselves and to sheath their swords in the bowels of their adversaries which is a most memorable example of most dutiful unresisting Subjects an example of such piety as would make our Land happy if our zealous generation were but acquainted with the like Religion The author of the Treatise of Monarchy p. 32. But here I know what our Anabaptists Brownist and Puritan will say that I build Castles in the air and lay down my frame without foundation because all Kings are not such as the Kings of Israel and Judah weâ—e as the Kings that God gave unto the Jews and prescribed special Laws both for the Kings to govern and the people to obey them but all other Nations have their own different and several Laws and Constitutions according to which Laws their Kings are tyed to rule and the Subjects bound to obey and no otherwise Henric. Stephaâ— in libello de hac re contendit in omnes respub debere leges Hebraeorum tanquam ab ipso Deo profectas per consequens omnium optimas reduci I answer that indeed it is granted there are several Constitutions of Royalties in several Nations and there may be Regna Laconica conditional and provisional Kingdoms wherein perhaps upon a real breach of some exprest conditions some Magistrates like the Ephori may pronounce a forfeiture as well in the successive as in the elective Kingdoms because as one saith succession is not a new title to more right but a legal continuance of what was first gotten which I can no ways yield unto if you mean it of any Soveraign King because the name of a King doth not always denotate the Soveraign power as the Kings of Lacedaemon though so called yet had no regal authority and the Dictator for the time being and the Emperours afterwards had an absolute power though not the name of Kings for I say that such a government is not properly a regal government ordained by God but either an Aristocratical or Democratical government instituted by the people
it is most lamentable to consider how many thousands they have murdered 7. How they loosened the reins to all lust hoc fonte derivata clades in patriam populumque fluxit Horat. car l. 3. 8 How they are like Argivi fares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ps 94.12 9. How they belyed all sorts of good men Quomodo Deus pater genuis filium veritatem nempe sic diabolus lapsus genuit quasi filium mendacium Aug. super Ioh. Habac. 2.9 Gildas de exci dio Britan. and how they are thought worthy of the greatest honour and the best reward that have killed most of God's faithfull servants and the King 's loyal Subjects 7. For adulteries Fornications and all Uncleannesse they may now freely do it lust may flow like the river whose bankes are broken down when they have overthrown those courts of Justice and were never at rest till they had most violently suppressed the power and execution of all Ecclesiastical censures that were the chiefest bars and hindrances of these unlawful lusts 8. For stealing they have changed the name but not the nature of it for under the pretence of preserving to us the propriety of our goods they have not stolne but plundered away that is robbed us of all our goods and carried them into those Rebellious Townes that are now the dens of these thieves and are stronger in their wickednesse then the hils of the robbers and that which makes this sin most sinful is that it is established by a Law 9. They have justified the Cretans and proved themselves the right bastard sons of the father of lyes filling all and every corner of this Kingdome with palpable intolerable and incredible lyes slanders and false witnesse-bearing against God against his Anointed against the Church and against all the reverend governours of the Church all religious Protestants all the loyal Subjects of this Nation that the Angels do now blush and the Devils do laugh and rejoyce to see they are so fruitful in begetting so many Children so perfectly formed and so compleately perfected in their own image and likenesse and if ever the saying of Gildas was true they have proved it now Moris continui gentis erat sicut nunc est ut infirma esset ad retundenda hostium tela fortis ad civilia bella infirma inquam ad exequenda pacis ac veritatis insignia fortis ad scelera mendacia 10. They have coveted an evil covetousnesse 10. The extent of their covetousnesse when they coveted all evil unto themselves not onely their neighbours houses goods and lands and all that are theirs but also the patrimony of the Church the revenues of the Clergy and all the rights and prerogatives of the King to be entayled upon themselves and their faction that so they and theirs might be both Kings and Priests and all not to God but to themselves and their fellow Rebels in the government of this Kingdome And as they have thus transgressed all the old Commandments of the Law How they transgressed the new commandment of the Gospel Gen. 4.9 so they come no wayes short in transgressing the new Commandment of the Gospel for their love to their brethren is now turned to perfect hatred when they say not with Cain am I my brothers keeper but with Apollyon I will be the destroyer of my brethren neither will I sell them as the brethren of Joseph did him unto the Egyptians but I will send them if I can possibly quick to hell let those Lâ—yal subjects that have been unexspectedly murdered and those many thousands that have beene plundered of all their Estates testifie to the World the love of these men unto their brethren who have felt more cruelty and barbarity and less charity from these holy Saints then could be expected from Jews Turkes and Pagans 23. Though every sin deserves the wrath of God How they have committed the 7 deadly sins Rom. 6.23 as the Apostle saith in general the reward of sin is death be it little or be it great yet because some sins do more provoke the wrath of God and do sooner produce this deadly fruit then other sins the Divines have observed seaven special sins which they terme the seaven deadly sins and these also you may finde committed in the highest degree by these factious Rebels For 1. Pride which is an high conceit of a mans own worth 1 Their Pride Quid juvat O homines tanto turgescere fastu Nam ut ait Comicus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 far beyond his just deserts and therefore believing himself to be inferiour to none scorns to be subject unto any is the Father that produceth and the nurse that cherisheth all rebellion and our Parliamentary faction together with the Assembly of their Divines thinking themselves holyer then the Saints and wiser then their Brethren have therefore made this unnatural war to destroy us all because we will not subscribe with them to destroy both Church and State this is the fruit of pride but the punishment is to be resisted by God who throweth damnation upon their heads because they resist the ordinance of God 2. Pride cannot subsist without meanes therefore covetousnesse must support it and I shewed you before how covetous these Rebels are not of any good 2. Their Covetousnesse Sacrilegia minuta puniuntur magna jam in triumphis feruntur Senec. ep 87. 3. Their luxury Certa quidem tantis causa est manifesta ruinit Luxuriae nimium libera facta via est Propert. eleg 11. l. 3. 4. Their envy but of our goods and of our lives that they may enjoy our lands even the lands of the Church that they may take the houses of God in possession which may prove to them like Aurum Tholosanum or as Midas gold that was the destruction of that covetous wretch 3. Their luxury and lust must needs proceede from fulnesse and pride and I beleive it is not unknown to many how these Rebels spend their time in revelling and feasting chambering and wantonnesse which though never so secretly done by them in the night yet are they publickly seene in the day and seene to their shame if they could be ashamed of any thing 4. How envy hath possest their souls it is almost beyond all sence to consider it they envy that any man should be king and themselves subjects that any man should be a Bishop and themseves Priests or that any man should be rich and themselves not so wealthy therefore they will needs pull down what themselves cannot reach unto 5. If Epicurus were now living or Sardanapalus came to these mens feasts 5. Their Gluttony and drunkennesse they might think themselves the teachers of sobriety and the masters of abstinency in comparison of these new gulists who make a God of their bellies and fare deliciously every day that they can get it more deliciously then Dives it is incredible to consider what they
be heartily sorry that these unjust Acts and Ordinances were ever done and more sorry that they were not sooner undone and then God will turne his face towards us he will heale the bleeding wounds of our Land and he will powre down his benefits upon us but till we do these things I do assure my selfe and I beleive you shall finde it that his wrath shall not be turned away but his hand will be stretched out still and still untill we either do these things or be destroyed for not doing them King James his speech made true by the Rebells Thus it is manifest to all the World that as it was often spoken by our sharpe and eagle-sighted Soveraigne King James of ever blessed memory no Bishop no King so now I hope the dull-ey'd owle that lodgeth in the desart seeth it verifyed by this Parliament for they had no sooner got out the Bishops but presently they laid violent hands upon the Crowne seized upon the Kings Castles How the Rebells have unking'd our King shut him out of all his Townes dispossest him of his owne houses took away all his sâ—ips detained all his revenues vilified all his Declarations nullified his Proclamations hindered his Commissions imprisoned his faithfull Subjects killed his servants and at Edge-hill and Newbury did all that ever they could to take away his life and now by their last great ordinance for their counterfeit Seale they pronounce all honours pardons grants commissions and whatsoever else His Majesty passeth under his Seale to be invalid void and of none effect and if this be not to make King Charles no King I know not what it is to be a King Hos 8.4 so they have unking'd him sine strepitu and as the Prophet saith they have set up Kings but not by me they have made Princes and I knew it not What kings they would have to rule us but whom have they made Kings even themselves who in one word do and have now exercised all or most of the regall power and their Ordinances shall be as firm as any Statutes and what are they that have thus dis-robed King Charles and exalted themselves like the Pope as if they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Antichrist above all that are called Gods truly none other then king Pym king Say king Faction or to say the truth most truly and to call a spade a spade king perjurers king murderers king traytors * Whâ—ch S. Peter never bade us honour The Rebells brave exchange Psal 146.20 and I am sorry that I should joyne so high an office so sacred a thing as King to such wicked persons as I have shewed them to be And what a royal exchange would the Rebels of this Kingdome make just such as the Israelites made when they turned their glory into the similitude of a Calfe that cateth hay and said these be thy Gods Psal 146.20 O Israel which brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt for now after they have changed their lawful King for unlawful Tyrants and taken Jothams bramble for the cedar of Lebanon the Devils instruments for Gods Anointed Judg. 9.15 they may justly say these be thy Kings O Londoners O Rebels that brought thee out of a Land that flowed with milke and hony out of those houses that were filled with all manner of store into a land of misery into houses of sorrow that are filled with wailings lamentations and woes when we see the faithful City is become an harlot our gold drosse and our happinesse turned to continual heavinesse But as the Rutilians considering what fruit they should reape by that miserable war wherein they were so far ingaged cried out at last Virgil Aeneid l. 12. Scilicet ut Turno contingat regiae conjux Nos animae viles inhumata infletáque turba Sternamur campis We undo our selves our wives and our children to gain a wife for Turnus so our seduced men may say we ingage our selves to dye like doggs that these rebels may live like Kings who themselves sit at ease while others endure all woes and do grow rich by making all the Kingdome poore and therefore O England quae tanta est licentia ferri lugebit patria multos when as the Apostle saith evill men and seducers wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived for God is not mocked but whatsoever a man soweth 2 Tim. 3.13 Gal. 6.7 that shall he also reape for though we for our sins may justly suffer these and many other more miseries we do confesse it yet the whole world may be assured that these Rebels the generation of vipers being but the Rod of Gods fury The Rebels sure to be destroyed Contemptrix superûm sevaeque avidissima caedis violenta fuit scires è sanguine natam 2 Sam. 7.1 to correct the offences of his children such seeds of wickedness as they sow can produce none other harvest then ruine and destruction to all these usurping Kings and Traytors who thinke to please God by doing good service unto the Devil and to go to Heaven for their good intention after they are carried into Hell for their horrid Rebellion God Almighty grant them more grace and our King more care to beware of them and when God doth grant him rest with David on every side round about him to restore his Bishops and Clergy to their pristine station that when these bramble rods are burnt and these rebels fallen the King and the Bishops may still stand like Moses and Aaron to guide and gouerne Gods people committed to their charge And thus I have shewed thee O man some of the sacred rights of royal Majesty granted by God in his holy Scriptures practised by Kings from the beginning of the world yeilded by all nations that had none other guide but the light of nature to direct them I have also shewed thee how the people greedy of liberty and licentiousnesse have like the true children of old Adam that could not long endure the sweet yoke of his Creator strived and strugled to withdraw their necks from that subjection which their condition required and their frowardnesse necessitated to be imposed upon them and thereby have either graciously gained such love and fauour from many pious and most clement Princes as for the sweetning of their well merited subjection to grant them many immunities and priviledges or have most rebelliously incroached upon these rights of Kings wresting many liberties out of the hands of Government and forcibly retaining them to their own advantage sometimes to the overthrow of the royal government as Junius Brutus and his associates did the Kings of Rome sometimes to the diminution of the dimidium if not more then halfe his right as the Ephori did to the kings of Lacedemon but alwayes to the great prejudice of the king and the greater mischief to the Common-wealth because both reason and experience hath found it alwayes true that the regal
and perfect Eternity to which all men naturally have a propensity and desire to be united but yet cannot because they know him not and therefore is that Precept to know him so often urged The reason why we know not so much of God as should make us happy And the reason why we know not so much of God as we should and which should make us happy is because we know not our selves we know not our own vanity and misery for the nearest way to bring us to Eternity is to understand our own vanity and the first step to happiness is to know our selves to be unhappy and that this unhappiness was derived unto us by that sad accident of sin which separated us from God who is felicity and eternity and made us wholly to become vanity and replenished with all misery and therefore 2. The very Philosophers could tell us that to know our selves is the ready way both to know God 2. To konw our selves the best way to know God and to enjoy God For as he that knoweth God will never relie on himself so he that knoweth himself will alwaies seek to rely on God because he seeth his own vanity his weakness and his frailty to be such and so great that he cannot subsist without God and therefore Socrates seeing this sentence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Know thy self engraven upon the Portal of the Temple of Apollo and considering with himself that there could be no access unto God but through his House and no entrance into the House but by the Door and then seriously musing with himself why this Sentence should be set upon the door he concluded that the readiest way to come to God was to know himself and therefore he left the course and practise of other Philosophers that searched into the motions of the Heavens and the influence of the Planets and applied their studies rerum cognoscere causas to understand the causes of all natural things which they conceived was the only thing that could make them happy and bring them to enjoy the summum bonum and he gave himself wholly to learn the knowledge of himself and he conceived there was no folly comparable to this to be painful and diligent to know all other things and to be ignorant and know nothing of himself to study Arts and Sciences and to forget himself and therefore non se quaesiverit extra but he employed all his time and his pains to know himself because he conceived that the knowledge of himself would be more beneficial to him than the knowledge of all other physical things whatsoever For which cause and no other the Oracle seeing him preferring the moral Philosophy before the Natural pronounced him the wisest man in Greece not because his knowledge was more compleat or his sufficiency greater than others but because his knowledge of himself was far better than the knowledge of others that studied other things and neglected to understand themselves And no marvel that the Oracle should proclaim him for the wisest man that doth best know himself because it is not only very good and profitable but also a very hard and difficult thing for a man fully and truly to know himself that is to know Not only the quiddities and the qualities both of his body and of his soul which notwithstanding in themselves are most admirable and excellent if we consider 1. The Parts and composition of the Body which as the Prophet saith are fearfully and wonderfully made yea so admirably composed that Galen saith Galenus de usu partium 1. The admirable structure of mans body the true expression or the tight Anatomization of them is as an holocaust or Sacrifice most acceptable to God that hath by that excellent composure of this incomparable structure shewed his own most incomprehensible wisdom as you see the least finger and the least Joynt of any Finger hath his use and cannot be spared by any means 2. That far more noble part of man that Spark of heavenly fire 2. The difficultie of understanding the particularities of the Soul and immortal spirit which is his Soul in the Original Essence Faculties Operations Use End and the like almost infinite Points thereof wherein and about which the best Philosophers have so puzled themselves that they rather bewrayed their own Ignorance than truly expressed any point of the most necessary knowledge of this Substance as learned Suarez in his voluminous work de Anima sheweth and Aristotle himself confesseth when he saith that the more knowledge a man hath of these things the more occasion of doubting is offered unto him which made him as many men think to define the Soul to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corporis phisici organici vitam habentis potentia which is ignotum per ignotius a definition harder Arist de Anima l. 2. c. 1. tex 6. Cicero l. 1. Tuscul q. What man should chiefly know concerning himself or at least as hard to be understood as the thing defined Whenas Cicero reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translateth the same to signifie a continued and perpetual motion which is far short of the right definition of the Soul But especially to know mans Original how he came into the world his duty what he should do and how he should behave himself while he continueth in the world his state and condition how he standeth in relation to his God that made him preserveth him and giveth to him all that he hath while he liveth in this world and what shall become of him when he dieth and departeth out of this world these and the like Considerations concerning man are hard to know and few men do learn them which is the reason that few do attain to Eternal Life Yet as the Poet saith Plagae dant Animum What effects Afflictions do work in us And as S. Greg. saith Oculos quos culpa claudit poena apperit the eyes which sin and transgressions have blinded afflictions and punishments have opened because as the Greek proverb saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Persecutions bring Instructions and suffering teacheth understanding as the Children of Jacob being questioned and afflicted in Egypt about their Brother whom they had sold unto the Ishmaelites had their eyes opened and their sin which for so many years they had buried in the Grave of Forgetfulness and in the Pit where they had thrown their Brother is now revived and makes them to confess and to say one to another We are verily guilty concerning our Brother in that we saw the anguish of his Soul when he besought us and we would not hear Gen. 42.21 therefore is this distress come upon us and so Crosses and Afflictions do reduce our sins unto our remembrance and extort Confession of their Misdeeds from many others And therefore the Prophet David either upon the consideration of Absolons unnatural Rebellion and Persecution of him What moved