Aldermen and Common-council of the City of London which because 't is penned in so divine a stile I have here transcribed Right Honourable Your late and seasonable Testimony given to the truth of the Gospel and you affection to the peace of the Kingdomes manifested in your humble Remonstrance and Petition to the Honourable Houses of Parliament hath so revived the remembrance of your former faith and zeal and proclaymed you the worthy seed of so noble Ancestors in that famous City as we cannot but acknowledg with all thankfulness the Grace of God bestowed on you and stir you up to take notice how since you were precious in the Lord's sight you have been ever honourable The Lord hath ever loved you given men for you and people for your life What an honour was it in the days of old when the fire of the Lord was in Sion and his furnace in your Hierusalem even in Queen Mary's days that there were found in you men that loved not their lives unto the death What a glory in after-times when Satan had his Throne and Antichrist his seat in the midst of you that there were still found not a few that kept their Garments clear But the greatest praise of the good hand of God upon you hath been this that amidst the many mists of Error and Heresie which have risen from the bottomless pit to bespot the face and darken the glory of the Church while the Bride is a making ready for the Lamb you have held the Truth and most piously endeavoured the setting of Christ upon his Throne We need not remember how zealous you have been in the cause of God nor how you have laid out your selves and estates in the maintenance thereof nor how many acknowledgments of the same you have had from the Honourable Houses nor how precious a remembrance will be had of you in after Ages for your selling of all to buy the Pearl of price Wee onely at this time do admire and in the inward of our hearts do bless the Lord for your right and deep apprehensions of the great and important matters of Christ in his Royal Crown and of the Kingdomes in their Vnion while the Lord maketh offer to bring our Ship so much afflicted and tossed with tempest to the safe harbour of Truth and Peace Right memorable is your zeal against Sects and Sectaries your care of Reformation according to the Word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches Your earnest endeavours and noble adventures for preserving of the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and Liberties of the Kingdome together with his Majesties just power and greatness and your high profession that it is not in the power of any humane authority to discharge or absolve you from adhering unto that our solemnly sworn League and Covenant or to inforce upon you any sense contrary to the Letter of the same Besides your other good services done to the Lord and us in strengthening the hands of the reverend Assembly of Divines and of our Commissioners in their asserting the Government of Christ which the more it is tryed will be ever found the more precious Truth and vindicating the same from the Vsurpation of man and contempt of the Wicked These all as they are so many testimonies of your piety loyalty and undaunted resolution to stand for Christ so are they and shall ever be so many obligations upon us your Brethren to esteem highly of you in the Lord and to bear you on our Breasts before him night and day and to contribute our best endeavours to improve all opportunities for your encouragement And now we beseech you in the Lord Honourable and well-beloved go on in this your strength and in the power of his might who hath honoured you to be faithfull Stand fast in that Liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free And in pursuance of this Truth we are confident you will never cease to study the peace and nearer conjunction of the Kingdomes knowing that a threefold cord is not easily broken Now the Lord Iesus Christ himself and God even our Father who hath loved and honoured you and given you everlasting consolation and good hope through Grace comfort your Hearts and stablish you in every good work Subscribed in the name of the general Assembly by Robert Blair Moderator Moreover in another Letter from the said Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster they told them how they did congratulate with the Lord's people in all their successes and did impatiently desire to have their Brethren here and themselves joyned nearer to Christ and to one another in all his Ordinances and especially in Presbytereal Government But in the neck of these Letters 't is worthy observation that the Marquess of Argyle and Scottish-Commissioners delivered a paper to the Members at Westminster representing the Necessities of their Army desiring therefore that their Quarters in the North might be enlarged and a considerable supply of mony dispatcht to them Most certain it is that though these sanctified men both English and Scotch did seem to be so firmly united by their grand Combination called the solemnleague and Covenant as that in humane reason few there were that thought they could afterwards have differed the gayning of the King's person into their Hands began now to make it manifest that this seeming sacred Tye was but a mear jugling device originally forged and set on foot for the better carrying on their sacrilegious temporal ends For from that very time however they conceal'd themselves with all the subtilties imaginable their animosities against each other did daily increase as 't will hereafter appear Nevertheless to make a specious outward shew of their continued accordance they agreed together in sending certain Propositions to the King which they had been no less than eight months in hammering in order to a well-grounded Peace as their phrase was whereunto they required his Answer within four days How monstrous and unreasonable these were the tenor of them will sufficiently shew they being publickly printed in brief that he should ratify the solemn-league and Covenant abolish Episcopacy invest the subject with the power of the Militia and exempt from pardon several Lords and other considerable persons that during the war had adhered to him Whereunto His Majesty most piously and prudently made this return That they importing so great alterations in Government both in Church and Kingdome it was very difficult to return a particular and positive answer to them before a full debate wherein their necessary explanation true sense and reasons of them were rightly weighted and understood To which end he desired to come to London or any of his Houses thereabouts upon the publick Faith and the security of the two Houses of Parliament and Scottish-Commissioners Where by his personal presence he might not onely raise a mutual confidence betwixt himself and his people but have those doubts
my knowledge in the words of my Authors most of which I have quoted the rest being taken from the common Mercuries and other public-licensed Narratives of the chiefest occurrences in those times If the Reader think it disproportionat that so particular an account is given of the counsels and proceedings leading to the Rebellion but one more brief of the transactions in it He may be pleas'd to know that the Author being not a military man was more enabled to relate what past in counsel than in the field The Diary part until the year 1646 was compos'd at Oxford in the time of the late troubles before that Garrison of his Majestie was rendred up to General Fairfax as the Original copy will apparently shew which hath bin seen and read by several persons of great honour and credit many years since who are yet living and upon occasion if need be will assert the same Which original was a good while since with little variation transcrib'd for the Press and has now for many months been out of the Author's hands and far distant from him in order to the publishing thereof so that he has wanted opportunity to review piece by piece what he had written or correct the errors which in so long a work must needs escape for which the Readers candor is desir'd If the Reflections on what is past are sometimes severe let it be imputed to the just indignation conceiv'd against those men who under specious pretences mask'd the most black designs and an abhorrence of those proceedings which embroil'd the nation in a civil war perfidious in its rise bloody in its prosecution fatal in its end and which to this day proves mischievous in its consequents When the subjects of this miserable Kingdom had murder'd the defender both of us and of our faith and driven away his children Princes and Nobles into strange lands bidding them as David speaks on a like occasion go serve other Gods the divine vengeance gave us the natural product of this sin of ours several of our Princes and great men returning back corrupted in their principles and tainted with the religion wherewith they long converst And in like manner when men had for a long time falsely cried out of the intentions to bring in Popery thereby the more easily to destroy the Protestant Religion by Law establish'd the same divine justice has permitted the whole Protestant Religion to be now under the greatest danger imaginable by the real plots and execrable machinations of Papists among us at this day who both in this and our sister Kingdoms by Combinations among themselves and by fomenting divisions among us have gone very far towards the ruine of our Church and subversion of the State and say of both there there so would we have it down with them down with them even to the ground But that alpowerful God who by miracle so lately restored unto us our Religion and our Laws will as we hope and earnestly pray preserve them still against the joint attemts of Popery on the one hand and Fanaticism on the other and make his Jerusalem a praise in the earth In which prayer all true Protestants and what is commensurat thereto all loyal Subjects will joyn their suffrage and say Amen A Short View of the Late Troubles IN ENGLAND CHAP. I. THE chief design of this ensuing Discourse being to shew the mischievous fruits of Hypocrisy which is under the colour of Sanctity to act any sort of wickedness And that these great pretenders to Godliness were they who have been the chief disturbers of our blessed peace I shall observe that upon the departure long since of most of the Subjects of this Realm from the Church of Rome by reason of its apparent corruptions there were some who did unhappily infuse into sundry well meaning people a bad opinion of our Reformation These were men of proud and peevish Spirits who had not light enough in themselves to discern the truth because they wanted learning to search into Antiquities nor knowledg to trace those of that Church in the paths by which they had deviated from the Doctrine of Christ and his holy Apostles and so by reason thereof ran from one extremity to another Thus sleighting the authority of the learned and pious Reformers who shew'd the Errors of the Romish Church such a liberty to the private Spirit was at that time by them allow'd as at last when the giddy multitude became in that sort deluded by those their false Teachers every Brain-sick person stampt the Seal of God's Spirit upon his own false and erroneous conceits Which false Teachers among other their Artifices to captivate the Vulgar and to beget a disaffection in them to that reverend Ecclesiastical Discipline which was then establish'd have cunningly suggested to them that all the Reformed Churches in forreign parts do utterly dislike thereof as too much favouring of the Romish polutions And by this subtle insinuation tho most notoriously false have so far prevail'd upon their Proselytes that they do not only refuse to communicate with us in our Divine Offices but in that and whatever else their own vain fancies do prompt them are become disobedient and refractory to the superior powers which God hath ordain'd They who would know more of these things may repair unto the Relations of such learned men as have written of our Reformation and make their own observations thereon as also upon what I shall further say in this Historical Work whereunto I refer them beginning with the Anabaptists of Germany from an Author of good credit They had always in their mouths says he those great things Charity Faith the true Fear of God the Cross the Mortification of the Flesh. All their exhortations were to set light of the things in this world to account Riches and Honours vanity They were solicitous of men of Fasts and to often meditations on Heavenly things Wherever they found men in Diet Attire Furniture of House or any other way observers of Civility and decent Order such they reported as being carnally and earthly minded They so much affected to cross the ordinary custom in every thing that when other men used to put on better attire they would be sure openly to shew themselves abroad in worse The ordinary names of the days of the week they thought it a kind of prophaneness to use and therefore accustomed themselves to make no other distinction than by numbers From this they proceeded unto public Reformation first Ecclesiastical and then Civil Touching the former they boldly vouched that themselves only had the Truth which thing upon peril of their lives they would at all times defend and that since the Apostles lived the same was never before in all points sincerely taught Wherefore that things might be brought again to that integrity which Jesus Christ by his word requireth they began to controll the Ministers of the Gospel for attributing so much force and virtue unto
the Scriptures of God read whereas the Truth said they was that when the word is said to engender faith in the Heart and to convert the soul of man or to work any such spiritual divine effect these speeches are not thereunto appliable as it is read and preached but as it is engrafted in us by the power of the Holy Ghost opening the eyes of our understanding and so revealing the Mysteries of God No marvel was it to see them every day broach some new thing not heard of before for they interpreted that restless levity to be their growing to spiritual perfection and their proceeding from faith to faith But the differences amongst them growing by this means in a manner infinite there was scarcely found any one of them the forge of whose Brain was not possest with some special Mystery Whereupon although their mutual contentions were most fiercely prosecuted amongst themselves yet when they came to defend the Cause common to them all against the adversaries of their faction they had ways to lick one another whole the founder in his own perswasion excusing the Dear Brethren who were not so far enlightned Their own Ministers they highly magnifyed as men whose Vocation was from God but their manner was to term others Disdainful Scribes and Pharisees to account their calling a humane Creature and to detain the people as much as might be from hearing them The custom of using Godfathers and Godmothers at Christenings they scorn'd and hated conformity to the Church in observing those solemn Festivals which others did in as much as Antichrist they said was the first Inventor of them The pretended end of their civil Reformation was that Christ might have dominion over all that no other might reign over Christian men but Heâ—and for this cause they laboured with all their might in overturning the Seats of Magistracy Certain it is that these men at first were only pityed in their error the great Humility Zeal and Devotion which appeared to be in them being in all mens opinion a pledge of their harmless meaning Whereupon Luther made request unto Frederick Duke of Saxony that within his dominion they might be favourably dealt with and spared for that their error excepted they seemed otherwise right good men By means of which toleration they gathered strength much more than was fafe for the State of the Commonwealth wherein they lived For they had their secret meetings in Corners and Assemblies in the night the people flocking unto them by thousands Nor were the means whereby they both allured and retained so great multitudes ineffectual viz. First a wonderful shew of Zeal towards God Secondly an hatred of Sin and a singular love of Integrity Lastly a cunning sleight which they had to stroak and smooth up the minds of their followers as well by appropriating unto them all the favourable titles the good words and the gracious promises in Scripture as by casting the contrary always on the heads of such as were severed from that retinue And in all these things being fully perswaded that what they did it was in obedience to the will of God and that all men should do the like there remain'd after speculation practise whereby the whole frame thereunto if it were possible might be squared But seeing that this could not be done without mighty opposition and resistance against it therefore to strengthen themselves they secretly entred into a League of Association concluding that as Israel was deliver'd out of the Egypt of the worlds servile thraldome to sin and superstition As Israel was to root out the Idolatrous nations and to plant instead of them a people which feared God So the same Lords good will and pleasure was now that these new Israelites should under the conduct of other Ioshuas Sampsons and Gedeons perform a work no less miraculous in casting out violently the wicked from the Earth and establishing the kingdom of Christ with perfect Liberty But these men in whose mouthes at the first sounded nothing but mortification of the flesh were come at the length to think they might lawfully have their six or seven wives apiece They who at the first thought judgment and justice it self to be merciless cruelty accounted at the length their own hands sanctifyed with being imbrued in Christian bloud They who at first were wont to beat down all Dominion and to urge against poor Constables Kings of Nations had at the length both Consuls and Kings of their own erection amongst themselves Finally they who could not brook at first that any man should seek no not by law the recovery of his goods injuriously taken or withheld from him were grown at the last to think they could not offer unto God more acceptable sacrifice then by turning their adversaries clean out of House and Home and by enriching themselves with all kind of spoil and pillage For a further Character of them Sleidan tells us that Muncer by his new Doctrine touching goods to be in common incited the Boores of Franconia and Turingen to undertake the Holy-war as he call'd it against their Princes telling them that he was commanded of God to destroy all wicked Princes and substitute new ones in their places and that they were call'd indeed Princes but were Tyrants Moreover that they would not restore unto the people their liberty nor permit them to have the true Religion and service of God exhorting them rather to dye then to allow their wickedness and suffer the Doctrine of the Gospel to be taken from them and therefore to play the men and gratify God in destroying such unprofitable people Likewise that this their great zeal towards God and outward humility got them in the beginning many followers for their demands were first that they might choose them such Ministers as should preach Gods word sincerely without any mixture of mens traditions Secondly that thenceforth they would pay no Tythes but of Corn only and the same to be distributed by the discretion of good men partly to the Ministers of the Church partly upon the poor and partly upon common affairs Thirdly that they had till that time been unworthily kept in Bonds considering how they were all made free in the bloud of Christ. Fourthly that they refused not to have a Magistrate knowing that he is ordain'd of God and would obey him in all honest things but could not abide to be any longer bound unless it were shewed reasonable by the testimony of Scripture Fifthly that in all their Letters which they wrote to provoke and allure others to their fellowship they made their boast that they took up arms by Gods Commandment and for a certain love and zeal to the Common-wealth to the intent the Doctrine of the Gospel might be set forth augmented and maintained And sixthly that Truth Equity and honest living might reign and flourish as also that they might so provide for them and theirs that
Vicaridges Donatives and all other Ecclesiastical livings and of all Impropriations and Gleabe-lands then under Sequestration out of which to allow an yearly maintenance for such as should be approved of for the work of the Ministry this act being called An Act for the better propagating and Preaching the Gospel in Wales For it was to extend no farther at present their Resolutions being to go on as they found their success in this Hereupon all the Church-doors in that part of the Realm being soon shut up they imploy'd three or four most Impudent Schismatical Knaves viz. Ienkin Iones Vavasor Powel and David Gam to range about in those Parts as Itinerants there to Preach to the People when where and what they pleased in order to the more firm establishment of their own Tyrannical Dominion The next work was to make sale of the Fee-farm-Rents of the Crown to which end they passed an act Also for the farther enslaving and terrifying of the People they passed another for the establishing an High Court of Iustice by which act Commissioners were named to hear and determine of all Crimes and Offences contrary to the Articles therein contained And having built Three Famous new Pinnaces the better to spread forth and perpetuate the Memorial of some of their Grandees upon the lanching of them which the States went to see they named one of them the Faithful Speaker another the succesful Fairfax and the Third the Bold President and soon after for the surer obliterating of Monarchy they Voted that the Kings Armes in all places should be pull'd down and defaced CHAP. XXXIV ABOUT this time the Scots in whose power it once was to have restored the late King to his Royal Throne had they been really sensible of that whereof in their many Declarations they so boasted seeing the Clouds thicken apace from England which threatned the like Slavery to them as their Presbyterian Brethren here did then suffer under the power of the Independant Saints resolving to adventure an after-Game for the recovery of their power dispatcht the Lord Libertoun into the Netherlands unto the young King Charles the Second by the colour of whose Title they knew full well that an Army might easily be Raised But withall making advantage of his then distressed condition instigated and animated by the Presbyterians here they required that he should take the Covenant and likewise submit to their Directory and Catechism promising that in so doing they would admit him to the Throne of that Realm endeavour the recovery of his Rights and assist him in bringing the Murtherers of his Father to condign punishment Towards the accomplishment of which work the Presbyterians here were also by compact to have acted as opportunity might best serve Unto which dishonourable terms he being over-perswaded by some greater Polititians than St. Paul who prohibited the doing Evil that Good might come thereof against his own judgment was drawn to assent and to adventure His Royal Person into Scotland for carrying on that work Whereupon the Scots having by the help of their Preachers soon Rais'd a powerful Host and for that reason called the Kirk-Army as a preamble to that Slavery which they intended to the King welcom'd him thither with that most inhumane and infamous Murther of the best of His Subjects I mean the most Loyal and truly noble Marquess of Montross whom the unhappy event of War had made their Prisoner The danger of which Army so Rais'd in Scotland being discerned here it was Voted at Westminster that General Fairfax should forthwith March into that Kingdom and quell the Brethren But he being either toucht in conscience with the solemn League and Covenant which had formerly so firmly knit these Brethren in iniquity together or rather over-awed by some of the Godly Party here declined that Service laying down his Commission Whereupon that Superlative Saint Cromwel being constituted General having taken off the Heads of Mr. Love one of the fiercest of the Presbyterian Pulpit-men and Gybons another active man for the Cause the more to strike a terror into the rest of the Presbyterians here Marcht into Scotland with no less than sixteen thousand Horse and Foot Where notwithstanding he had at first some hopeful effects of his Expedition he became at length reduced to such desperate extremities that he would gladly have retreated for the preservation of himself In this seeming lost condition therefore when those proud Presbyterians of that Realm had in conceit swallow'd him up Almighty God made him the apparent and signal scourge of that disloyal and most perfidious people by the utter overthrow of their great and powerful Army at Dunbar their word then being for Kirk and Covenant As Trophies of which wonderful Victory the colours then taken were soon after hung up in Westminster-Hall It will not I think be amiss before I proceed farther to observe fome particulars which passed by Letters betwixt General Cromwel and the Governour of Edenborough-Castle within a few days after this great Victory at Dunbar the Governour objecting First that the English had not adhered to their first Principles nor had been true to the ends of the Covenant And Secondly that men of Civil imployments had usurped the calling and imployment of the Ministry to the scandal of the Reformed Kirks To the first of these objections therefore Cromwel demands of them whether their bearing witness to themselves of their adhering to their first Principles and ingenuity in presecuting the ends of the Covenant justifies them so to have done because they themselves say so Adding that they must have patience to have the truth of their Doctrines and Sayings tryed by the Touch-stone of the word of God and that there be a Liberty and duty of Tryal there is also a Liberty of Iudgment for them that may and ought to trye Which if so then they must give others leave to say and think that they can appeal to equal Iudges who they are that have been the truest fulfillers of the most real and equitable ends of the Covenant But if those Gentlemen quoth Oliver who do assume to themselves to be the infallible Expositors of the Covenant as they do too much to their Auditories of the Scriptures account a different sense and Iudgment from their own to be a breach of the Covenant and Heresie no marvel quoth he that they judge of others so authoritatively and severely but we quoth he have not so learned Christ. And to the second answered thus Are you troubled that Christ is Preached Is Preaching so inclusive in your Function Doth it scandalize the Reformed Kirks and Scotland in particular Is it against the Covenant Away with the Covenant if it be so I thought the Covenant and these could have been willing that any should speak good of the name of Christ If not 't is no Covenant of God's approving nor the Kirk you mention so much the Spouse of Christ.
Plague of heresie is amongst you and you have no power to keep the sick from the whole The wolves that were wont to lie in the woods are come into your Sheep-fold and roare in the Holy Congregation O thou Shepherd of Israel why hast thou broken down the Hedge of this thy Vineyard which thy right hand hath planted the Boare of the wood and the Wilde-beast of the forest do devour Whereupon many good People beginning to whisper their Fears of that which shortly after hapned these subtile Foxes to drive their great work with the less suspition in their grand Remonstrance of the 15th of December cryed out against certain Malignants as they term'd them who had infused into the People that they meant to abolish all Church-Government and leave every Man to his own fancie for the Service and Worship of God absolving them of that obedience which they owe under God unto His Majesty acknowledging him to be intrusted with the Eclesiastical Law as well as with the Temporal to Regulate all the Members of the Church of England by such Rules of Order and Discipline as are established by Parliament And in the same Remonstrance declared That it was far from their purpose or desire to let loose the golden Reynes of Discipline and Government in the Church and leave private Persons or particular Congregations to take up what forme of Divine-service they pleased holding it requisite that there should be through the whole Realm a conformity to that Order which the Law enjoyns But to the end they might bring the work to pass by others in which they did not then think fit to shew themselves openly as their Brethren of Scotland had done the Tumultuous rabble of Sectaries were by their contrivance brought to Westminster and there violently assaulted the great Church threatning to pull down the Organs and Popish Reliques for so they called those stately Monuments of the Kings and others And after His Majesty was driven from London and that they had got his Navy Forts Magazine c. into their hands they ordered that an Assembly of Divines should meet with whom they might consult for setling of the Church-Government and Liturgy Shortly after which a Petition pretended to have been brought from Cornwall was Read in the House of Commons amongst other things desiring that the Ceremonies and Service of the Church might be abolished But notwithstanding all this left any jealousy of their intentions should so far prevail as to stagger the People whom they had hitherto deluded with their specious pretences especially being then about to raise their Rebellious Forces they declared That their prepararations of Arms was for security of Religion the safety of His Majesties Person c. And having thus form'd an Army the first work wherewith they began was to Deface the most Antient and Chief Cathedral of this Kingdom Soon after which some of their Forces in their first march from London towards Worcester broke open the Church at Aâ—ton four miles from London defaced whatsoever was decent therein tore the Bible and Book of Common-Prayer sticking the leaves of them upon the walls with their Excrements And when their whole Army under the Command of the Earl of Essex came to Worcester the first thing they there did was the Prophanation of the Cathedral destroying the Organ breaking in pieces divers beautiful Windows wherein the Foundation of that Church was lively Historified with Painted Glass and barbarously Defacing divers fair Monuments of the Dead And as if this were not enough they brought their Horses into the body of the Church keeping fires and Courts of Guard therein making the Quire and side-isles with the Font the common places wherein they did their easements of Nature Also to make their wickedness the more compleat they rifled the Library with the Records and Evidences of the Church tore in pieces the Bibles and Service-books pertaining to the Quire putting the Surplices and other Vestments upon their Dragooners who rode about the streets with them Which shameful outrages done by the Souldiers thus early being much taken notice of and observation made of the liberty given to their seditious Preachers caused thereupon a general murmur by most People To cast a mist therefore before their Eyes for a while the Members fitting at Westminster publisht a Declaration wherein they exprest that though they had Voted the utter eradication of Episcopacy yet they intended not to extirpate the Liturgy and Common Prayer but so far to Regulate the same as might agree with the Truth of Gods word To which purpose and that it might bear a fair semblance of Reformation they brought in a Bill for an Assembly of Divines wherein they say that the Parliament doth not intend wholly to abrogate the Book of Common-Prayer and Liturgy But notwithstanding all these fine shews they gave daily Countenance to divers libellous Pamphlets and to all such Schismatical Preachers as endeavoured to deprave the same commanding Dr. Duek by an Order of the House dated Aug. 3. that he should not put by a Minister from Institution and Induction though he had scandalized the Liturgy of the Church calling the Book of Common-Prayer a great Idol After which it was not long e're they went on towards the suppressing thereof shutting up the Cathedral of St. Paul in London upon Sundays Yet that they might not be suspected in their well-wishes to the Protestant Religion they Voted that it was the design of the King's Army to destroy the Protestant Religion and to bring in Popery All which fair pretences and Votes were made by the Members at Westminster whilst their Forces in divers parts went on with such horrid practises as the like hath not been seen in this Realm since the Pagan-Danes upon their Invasions exercised their Heathenish Cruelties here Sr. William Waller their Western-General about this time entring Winchester where his Souldiers Committed the like barbarous outrages in that Cathedral as was done by the E. of Essex's Men at Worcester tearing likewise in pieces those Chests of Lead wherein were enshrin'd the Bones of divers Saxon Kings Queens devout Bishops and Confessors with which they broke in pieces the Costly Historical Windows there Besides this they battered and Defaced the Brazen Statua's of the King and that of His Royal Father K. Iames which His Majesty as a pledge of his Princely favour had given to that Church hack't and hew'd the Crown on his Head swearing that they would bring him back to the Parliament And having so done seized upon the Rich Hangings Cusheons Pulpit-Clothes and Communion-Plate spoiling or carrying away whatsoever else was of Ornament or worth The like for the most part they did soon after in the Cathedral at Chichester Nor was there any place they came to where they made not the like devastation At Sudeley in Gloucestershire the Seat of the Antient and Noble Familes of the Lords Sudley
â—henceforth they should not be oppressed with any violence And that when they had thus at few words declared the cause of their enterprize they would then command their Neighbours to arm and come unto them immediately and help them If not then would they threaten to come upon them with all their force But having gotten the power and Arms into their hands they committed divers horrid outrages insomuch as Luther exhorted all men that they would come to destroy them as wicked Theeves and parricides in like case as they would come to quench a common fire having most shamefully broken their faith to their Princes taken other mens goods by force and cloak all this abomination and wickedness with the cover of Christianity which saith he is the vilest and unworthiest thing that can be imagined In Suevia and Franconia about forty thousand Pesants took Arms rob'd a great part of the Nobility plunder'd many Towns and Castles Muncer being their chief Captain so that the Princes of the Empire Albert Count of Mansfeild Iohn Duke of Saxony and his Cousen George Philip the Lantgrave of Hesse and Henry Duke of Brunswick were necessitated to raise what power they could and having offered them pardon upon submission and delivering up their principal Leaders which was refused marcht against them But Muncer preparing for Battel encouraged his followers crying out to them to take their weapons and fight stoutly against their Enemies singing * a Song whereby they call'd for help of the Holy Ghost The success of which Battel was that the Rebels at the first onset were soon put in disorder and above five thousand slain on the place and that Muncer fled and hid himself but being found and brought to the Princes was with his fellow Phifer beheaded at Mulhuse And about the year 1535 Iohn of Leyden a Taylor by trade and of this Tribe preaching the Doctrine of Rebaptization so much infected the inferior sort of people by the means of private Conventicles that his followers grew numerous and exercised violence against those that were not of their Sect. At last robbing their adversaries and gathering together in great Troops they possest themselves of the strongest part of the City of Munster declaring that all such as were not rebaptized ought to be accounted Pagans and Infidels and to be killed His Companions were Rosman and Cnipperdoling who gathered together to that City great numbers of the base sort of people and seeing their strength chose new Senators of their own Sect making Cnipperdoling the chief who taught that the People might put down their Magistrate And albeit that the Apostles had no commandment to usurp any jurisdiction yet such as were their Ministers of the Church ought to take upon them the right of the Sword and by force to establish a new Common-wealth Hereupon they spoil'd the Suburbs and burnt the Churches so that the Bishop of Munster who was Lord of the City and forced out beseiged them the neighbour Princes giving assistance which seige continuing long the famine grew to be such as that the beseiged miserably perished in great numbers and at length the beseigers forcing their entrance by assault slew many took the Ring-leaders and having put them to death hang'd their Bodies in several Cages of Iron on the highest Towers of that City Thus far Sleidan It is not unworthy observation that divers of these German Phanatiques to the end they might at that time be the better known to those of their own Sect did cut their hair round as Petrus Crinitus an Author of good credit in his Book de Bello Rusticano Tom. 3. pag. 209. averreth From which example there is no doubt but that these of ours took their pattern whence they were generally called Roundheads Concerning these men the testimony likewise of Mr. Iohn Calvin may I presume be here not unfitly produced as well for other respects as for that he lived in that time Olim Fanatici homines saith he ut sibi applauderent in sua inscitia jactabant Davidis exemplo spernandas esse omnes literas sicut hodie Anabaptistae non alio praetextu se pro spiritualibus venditant nisi quod omnis scientiae sint expertes Brainsick men in times past would take example from David to despise all learning as now our Anabaptists who only hold themselves inspired with gifts because they are ignorant of all literature And he addeth Cum sub specie studii perfectionis imperfectionem nullam tolerare possumus aut in corpore aut in membris Ecclesiae tunc Diabolum nos tumescere superbia hypocrist seducere moneamur Whereas under the colour of a desire of perfection we can tolerate no imperfection either in the body or the members of the Church then may we be admonished that it is the Devil which pusseth us up with pride and seduceth us with hypocrisy And in another place he further saith Quia nulla specie illustriori seduci possunt miseri Christiani c. Because silly Christians who with a zeal to follow God cannot by any more notable shew be seduced then when the word of God is pretended the Anabaptists against whom we write have that evermore in their mouths and always talk of it There is an undoubted Tradition that upon the suppressing of this pernicious Sect in Germany many of them fled into the Netherlands and that thence â—â—70 Ships laden with some got into Scotland where they first propagated their mischievous Principles Which within a short time spreading hither have not a little endangered the utter ruine of Church and State For that they soon after arrived here to a considerable increase it may very well be concluded from what the same person hath expressed in an Epistle of his written to Edward Duke of Somerset then Protector to King Edward the sixth in these words Amplissime domine Audio esse duo seditiosorum genera c. Sir I hear there are two sorts of seditious men among you who lift up the head against the King and state of the Kingdom the one are a sort of Giddy-headed men who promote their sedition under the name of the Gospel The other are so hardned in the superstitions of Antichrist that they cannot endure a revulsion of them and both these must be restrained by the revenging Sword which the Lord hath put into your hand since they rise up not only against the King but against God himself who hath placed the King in his Royal Throne and made you Protector of his person and his Royal Majesty CHAP. II. ANd as this evil Generation became at that time first transplanted hither upon the dissipating of those German Sectaries so had it shortly afterwards much furtherance in its growth from some persons of more able parts and of no mean quality who having embraced the Reformation here in the time of King Edward the sixth to avoid the storm in Queen Mary's Reign fled beyond Sea where