Casuists cannot be ignorant how they annihilate and jeast with sin by their sociable Doctrine of Probable Opinion of Directing the Intention and such like as you may see more at large in the Mystery of Jesuitism of which the last Edition with its Additionals will yield you more satisfaction With these things I should be very unwilling to charge them did I not know that the Agitators of these Political evasions from Sin were the chief Casuists amongst them and their Books printed and reprinted by the consent of their Superiours For those men are very much to blame who scandalize a General Religion with the fancies and extravagancies of some private Writers for by this means might Rebelling-Presbyterianism King-killing Independentism deluded Quakerism and other Heresies be thrown upon the famous Church of England and several absurdities upon the Romanists which cannot be found in the Tridentine Council How obsequious this Order is to their Superiours Commands may be seen in many stories related by Hasenmullerus and others Ignatius himself being willing to throw away his life rather than disobey an ignorant Physitian Nor had it been handsom in him to have been refractory who was the Author of this obedient Constitution and wrote a long Letter from Rome to those of his Order in Portugal to perswade them to it which is yet extant What other Articles they have I need not relate these three being a sufficient taste and the rest of their Order may be had either in Italian or Latin To give a true Character of the Jesuite at large would be too tedious since one of themselves viz. Alexander Haius hath performed it well enough in few words viz. Jesuita est omnis homo one as fit to act any thing as he is able to comply with every condition meerly Tales quales as themselves were pleas'd to term it more publickly at Paris They are generally a sort of people more skilful in the causes and motions of the Body Politick than the Philosopher in the Natural being Richelieu's for plotting as quick-sighted as Lynceus as restless as the Bird of Paradice as insinuating and flattering as Clisophus or Charisophus more cruel than the ill-natur'd Barbarian and like the old woman Ptolomais never in their own Trade but when stirring up mischief and the best Actors on the Political Stage fit to undertake and finish any wickedness for which they have formerly been reproachfully banish'd France Bohemia Hungaria Moravia Turky and Venice though since with much ado restored Several of them have suffered in China England Scotland and other places for their villainies nor hath Germany suffered them to go unpunished nor could they expect more favour from many in that Countrey since the misery of it And the loss of the Palatinate if you believe Sir Simond D'ewes had its source from their Brains And one of this Society who suffer'd at Strasburg confest that he was one of the thirty Jesuits who were imploy'd to be Agents for the Roman Cause in the late German Wars and that their Orders were to poyson and make away the chiefest Officers or others who opposed the Emperour as my Author assures us And Teimurases Prince of the Georgeans a people lying upon the Caspian Sea will have none of them in his Territories whence they were forced to fly for that notorious Imposture of theirs concerning the head of that Martyred Queen Ketaban a story so commonly known that I do not a little admire at de S. Lazare for passing by the fraud and jugling of the Jesuites with silence and untruths Mendoza hot-headed Gret-serus and others of the same Society are as parties bound to commend the Honesty and Religion of this Order But the Ingenious Thuanus Pasquier who affords you Pleadings and Reasons against them and others though Roman-Catholicks think it not fit to attribute any goodness to the Jesuite knowing that he is a Subject too dangerous to live in Liberty in any well setled State Spain excepted these two reciprocally maintaining each other more through politick ends than true love of Religion I am confident Great Brittain and Ireland have felt the force of their active brains as the Raign of Queeen Elizabeth and the dangerous beginning of King James can testifie Nor were they any more beneficial to King Charles doing what they could to foment our Dissentions as the Long Parliament could not deny As appears by their Articles against Father Philips one of which was this The damnable Doctrine which he and other Jesuites have taught to destroy and depose Kings hath been the cause of the Civil Warrs like to befal these Kingdoms if God in his mercy did not prevent it And his Seditiousness is somewhat apparent by his Letter sent to Mr. Mountague in France and produced to the House of Commons June 25 in which was this expression Can the wise Cardinal endure England and Scotland to unite and not be able to discern In the end it is like they will joyn together and turn head against France And how vigilant the Cardinal was to keep the two Nations from uniting is visible from the presence and great endeavours of Mr. Thomas Chamberlain a Scotch-man Chaplain and Almoner to Richelieu amongst the Scots who play'd likewise his Cards well in England before our late Rebellion with Order not to depart from Scotland till things succeeding as the Cardinal wish'd he might return into France with good news of a perfect dissention betwixt England and Scotland And to this may be added the Industry of the Cardinal's Secretary in the said Nation where he carryed himself so cunningly that he was taken into Consultation with the Heads of the Covenanters And what good counsel could spring from such a Fountain cannot be ignorant to any who either understood the experience or knew the political biass of the said Cardinal which might well move him to say concerning our late Troubles That 't was easie for one with half an eye to have foreseen them Whereby it seems strange to me that he would never imploy a Jesuite if we may credit Mr. Howell though it may be that he supposed them too much linked to the Interest of Spain to doe him or France any good Nor is the multitudes of them in England any small probability of their bad Intentions being unwilling to hazard their lives as here they do unless upon some grand Design Jarrigius one of their own Society affirmeth that fifty of them clad in several habits kept Council in London whence they deputed a General Agent to Rome And Oliver Cromwell profest that he could prove by witness that they had a Consistory and Council that rul'd all the affairs in England as he could prove by the Particular Instrument then in his power And how formerly they swarm'd in England Mr. Gee will at large inform you And King James could never forget the miseries he suffered whilst King of
the perfidious hot-spurr'd Presbyters THE HISTORY Of the Wicked PLOTS and CONSPIRACIES OF OUR Pretended Saints BOOK II. CHAP. I. The mischievous and impudent Contrivances and Innovations of the wicked long-Parliament 1. Their slandering of the Court and Church 2. Their Affection to the Schismaticall Incendiaries 3. The Impudence and seditiousnesse of their Lecturers 4. Their designes to alter the frame of Civil Government 5. Their Plots to overthrow Episeopacy 6. Their stirring up the people to Tumults 7. The small esteem the Commons had of the King and Nobility Whereby it appears that it was not the King but the Parliament that occasioned and began the Warres HAving now and that as succinctly as I could somewhat discovered the peace-consuming zeal of our Presbyterians I shall come to the subject intended to wit our late unhappy Distractions The seeds of which was not only before sown by the Nonconformists but began a little to take root and sprout forth through the temper of our English Parliament 1628. and the after actions of the Scottish Covenanters by whom the King was cajol'd to call a Parliament to fit November the third 1640. A day ominous to the Clergy by a former president upon that day the 20. year of King Henry the Eighth that Parliament beginning which began the ruine of Cardinal Woolsey the power of the Clergy and the dissolution of those famous Monuments of Charity the Abbeys and such like hospitable buildings England hath afforded us many Parliaments yet but one of them honoured with the Epithet of Good and that some hundred years agoe though since his Majesty hath been pleas'd to memorize one with the character of the healing and blessed Parliament as many of our former Representatives have had several names added to them as the Parliament that wrought wonders The great Parliament The marvellous Parliament The Laymens Parliament because no Lawyer was to be in it The unlearned Parliament either for the unlearnedness of the Members or for their malice to learned men Barebones Parliament The short Parliament and in the same year 1640. did our long wicked Parliament commence and I have heard of a Mad Parliament No sooner did the long Parliament sit but their proceedings were hurryed on with that fiery zeal that if distractions had not followed thereupon it would have been as strange to the discreeter sort as Margaret Countess of Hollands year-like birth at Lusdunen to our Country-women or the story of the womanly girle who at six years old was brought to bed of a son in Indostain For instantly they fell upon grievances abuses in Religion violation of laws liberties and what not Concerning which their speeches flew plentifully about and releas'd the grand Incendiaries Prynne Burton Bastwick and Dr. Leighton and giving them great rewards Some of them being triumphantly guarded into London by many thousands of horse and foot with rose-mary and bays in their hands and hats Novemb. 28. which was not only an high affront to the Kings Authority but a political glass to the Nonconformists through which they might see the strength and unanimity of their own Faction who were grown so valiant that a little before this upon the fast day Novemb. 17. where Dr. Burgess and Marshall preacht above 7 houres before the Commons and before the Lords two Bishops but as the second service was reading a Psalm was struck up by some of the Brethren which presently disturbd the Divine service to the amazement of the civill and orthodox Auditors who could little expect any such thing without an express order by authority But this is no great matter in respect of their after actions which are so many against the King and Kingdom and that too before his Majesty's horrid murther that it is impossible for me in this Compendium to decimate them into a relation their very printed Acts and Ordinances in that time amounting to above 530. Besides their Declarations Petitions Remonstrances Votes Proclamations Messages Speeches and such like passages and all stuft with some worshipful thing or other by which their pretty actions were confirmed Yet as farr as brevity will allow me I shall endeavour to speak out and as plain as I can yet must I not accuse all nor half it may be of the members many of them spur'd on by their Loyalty following his Majesty and sitting in Parliament in the Schools at Oxford after whose departure the House at Westminster seemed like Pandora's box from whence all our future mischiefs and diseases flew over the Nation The Parliament a little after its beginning having triumph'd over divers persons of quality whom they knew to be opposers of their intended Presbytery thought it fitting to seek some absolute way of security to themselves for the future And to this nothing could be thought more conducible considering how they had gul'd an odium of Reverend Episcopacy into the simple people than by the certainty of Parliaments for which purpose they procured of the King who dreamt nothing of their after-games and fetches an Act for Triennial Parliaments And that their own actions might appear of more grandure by the stability of their own foundation they also obtain'd from his Majesty who was never wanting to grant any thing to his Parliaments pretended to be for the good of his subjects an Act whereby themselves should not be dissolved prorogued or adjourn'd but by their own consent By which means they were fancied by many of the Kingdome to be of such high Authority that neither King law or any power else could have any influence over them let their actions be never so treasonable or wicked And so might Phaeton suppose when his Father had given him the command of his refulgent Chariot though his indiscreet authority brought ruine to himself and destruction to some parts of the world And well may any one in this turn their own weapons against themselves and yet not be deem'd too medling Such a continuing-Commission is freely given yet cunningly procured to the Captain of a ship But when this Governour falls so farr distracted as to indeavour nothing more then the ruine of his Vessel by their own popular consequence his Commission is void as being no more able to govern his charge to the best This instance I quote more because oft alledged against Regall authority than for any similitude it carrieth unlesse upon our perpetual Parliamentary account And therefore the reviving of this long-Parliament by a modern Writer seems to be to as small purpose as Don Quixot's martial endeavours to retrive the I know not what Knight-errantry by his paper helmet his wind-mill and claret-butts encounters or Hortensius the self-conceited School-master in du Parques Franchion to obtain the Crown and Kingdome of Poland The King having as he thought pacifyed his Subjects in England having granted them what they desired thought it likewise expedient to settle all things in Scotland in a peaceable temper for which purpose he put himself to the
passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many ages Yet for all these good turns done them by the King do they Print though the King earnestly desired the contrary and sedulously spread abroad this Remonstrance thereby to make him odious and themselves as Patrons to the people a fair requital for such large benefits and sufficiently to shew their ingratitude and What more wicked then that amongst our vertuous Ancestours The Heathen Heraclians were more noble to their Athenian Enemies and the savage Lions for their thankfulness to Mentor Helpius and Androdus will be a reproach upon record to these Puritanical Members And Alexander was more ingenuous to his Horse than these to their King Yet never was there any who desired Peace and the Subjects good more than He for the obtaining of which he consented to them in such things that he parted with many Jewels from his Crown as Queen Elizabeth used to call such Priviledges granting them Triennial Parliaments abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Writs for Ship-Money Bishops-Votes in Parliament Temporal power of the Clergy slip'd away Tunnage Poundage and gave the Parliament leave to sit as long as they pleas'd and that they might see he privately acted nothing against them he admitted into his Privy-Council several Lords which were great Favourites and Correspondents with the Parliamentary Party and in many other things besides these hath this King valed his Crown as a Learned Doctor phraseth it Yet could not all this please some men being like the Sea insatiable Though a moderate Member of the Parliament asked what they could desire more of the King seeing he had granted them so much he was answered by Mr. Hambden as a late Historian tells us To part with his Power and trust it to us And that some of them had higher thoughts than the Loyalty of a Subject or the trust of Parliament could dispense withal I could easily be perswaded to and those especially who by their former actions in Parliaments had drawn some displeasure upon themselves and knew well enough that the more Prerogative and Power the King lost the more they gain'd which at last would more then preserve them But this Faction as the King tells us was only of a few ambitious discontented and seditious persons who under strange pretences had entered into a Combination to alter the Government both of Church and State And so that this might be done they did not care after what manner nor who perisht so their own heads were but held up that me-thinks I hear them threat and encourage like Tasso's Tyrant Aladin Purche'l Reo non si salvi il guisto pera El'innocente Sù sù fideli mei sù via prendete Le flamme e'l ferro ardete uccidete So I Obtain my wish let just with wicked dye Come come rouse up my faithful friends and shew How bravely you can burn and murther too And what courses they steered to arrive at their hoped for Authority may in part be seen in these following Observations One of their first steps was to make the Court and Church odious amongst the Vulgar under the Title of Popish and Arminians a wickedness quite contrary to the Laws of our Land which make special provision against the publishers of such rumours whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may arise between the King and his People or the Nobility or Bishops yet neither Law nor Gospel can have any any sway with these men who had used this knack of reviling in several former Parliaments and may be seen in the multitude of their long-winded Speeches and printed too forsooth the better to spread the Infection about the Nation yet you may take all the Reason amongst them and never grow madd with too much Learning though the multitude of words are enough to choak the largest Leviathan nor could much be expected many of the Members being so ignorant that I dare boldly say that they did not know what the five Controverted Points signified and I believe would have taken and voted too Jacob van Harmine and the Remonstrants for Calvinists though have damn'd Arminius for a wicked Heathen Thus the Priests in Spain told the people to make them hate the Reformed Religion that Protestants were not like other men had heads like Dogs and such like Beasts They also restored into favour all those who had opposed the Peace of the Nation as Prynne Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburn and such like who were stiff men to raise their Interests as farr as Pen Ink or Brawling could do and that their Interest might be the more strengthened in the Countrey they put into Offices and Imployments of trust all those whom they either found or were by them made discontented against the Court and Religion by which trick they twisted their Obligations so close together that they made good use of this afterwards And to make their Cause more favourable to the People and to blast the Reputation of their Enemies they promoted abundance of bawling Lecturers most of them of no great Learning or Conscience but as furious as Orlando and with throats O heavenly wide who could scold excellently against Bishops and Government and vomit out a Lesson with as much ease as a Matron of Billingsgate both being compos'd of the same materials and to the same purpose viz. strife and for their dexterity and quickness they out-did a Mountebank being alwayes as ready for the Pulpit as a Knight-Errant for combate never out of his way let the Text be what it will like the Sompners Fryer in Chaucer but nothing related to the honest Parson in the same Poet that it is beyond admiration how they can conjure such an Olla Podrida of Sermon-Notes from such good Texts and that of so little coherence that their extraction seems as miraculous as the generation of the Cadmian armed Souldiers from Serpents teeth To raise up Rebellion and Sedition there cannot be a better Trumpet in the World then the mouths of such Hirelings as hath been proved by long experience Wat Tyler and Straw's Rebellion could not want incouraging Sermons as long as John Ball lasted who cheer'd up that Levelling Army at Black-heath with a long Preachment beginning with this Proverb When Adam dolve and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman And 't is observed by Mr. Howell that the Preaching Fryers and Monks were the chief Incendiaries of the Catalonians to their late Revolt And we have it from Authentcik Authority how that Hernando de Avalos and Juan de Padilla in the Spanish Civil Wars against the Emperour Charles V. in the first place imploy'd some Fryers to rail against the Government in their Pulpit and so to incite the people to Warr which according to expectation took fire in Toledo these men being the first thunderers of Seditions into the Castillians and to this purpose the famous Spanish
that in themselves what they hated in others Witness their accusing the Bishops of Treason for putting in their protestation against the others proceedings seeing they were kept out by violence and tumults And yet when it was after the Commons case the Army expelling them they also put in their Protestation to the same purpose Thus are men oft paid in their own coin But to return to the Convocation which I suppose had as much lawful Power as a Presbyterian Assembly and I am confident have used it with more discretion In what little esteem the Kirkers of Scotland had the civil Authority their own Histories will tell you and in the Scotch troubles before our late Wars it appears by their own Commissioners as if it were the Kirk's right to determine all Ecclesiastical affairs by their Assemblies And it is the opinion of our English Non-conformists declared in their Book of Discipline in Queen Elizabeth's dayes That their Presbyterian Synods are to handle and decide both Doctrine Discipline and Ceremonies of the Church and accordingly were all their actions steered The House of Commons having thus voted against the Convocation made it a Coy-duck to draw in the rest of their designs And in the first place they fall heavy upon the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as a promoter of the former Canons and so accuse him of high-Treason though as then they had laid no Articles against him but promised to do it to the Lords upon which he was secured and the third day after was fined five hundred pounds which he was forced to borrow and to sell plate to repay it such a liberal Benefactor was he to the advancement of Learning that he left himself nothing and if the severe stroke of injustice had not untimely sequestrated and cut him off Saint Paul's Cathedral had silenced the fame of the ancient wonders our English Clergy had been the glory of the World the Bodleian in Oxford had daily more and more out-stript the Vatican and his publick Structures had ore'topt the Escurial and all this by his own munificence in which he so far excelled his neighbours that he was not unlike the good Emperor Titus Vespasian whose liberal soul made him think that he had lost that day in which he had not given something The next day that they accused the Arch-bishop they also accused Bishop Wren of the same crime And a little after voted highly against the Learned and Reverend as the French Churches beyond sea can testifie Dr. Cousins and the next day receive Petitions against Dr. Duck and Sir John Lamb. And a week after received a Remonstrance pretended to be loaden with seven hundred Ministers hands against Bishops the which if true yet that number bears no proportion with above nine thousand which were the number of our English Clergy and however it was Mr. Selden himself did declare that very day that the House of Comons had nothing to do with Church-affairs in that nature And reason tels us that it is not only hard but unjust that men should be accused for acting according to the known Laws of the Land they not being as then repealed But what care the Commons for this seeing they are resolved come what will of it to have Sir Jack Presbyter to bear the sway and therefore they fall heavy upon Episcopal government and after a whole day's debate the Majority against both Law and Reason did agree to take away Lordly Prelacy their medling with temporal affairs their jurisdictions and Courts and a great part of their Means and Estates and afterwards inlarged upon these things And that the Country might not be ignorant also of their enmity to Church government they therefore appoint Commissioners to go into all places of the Kingdom and there remove all Altars Images and Rayls about the Communion-table and sell them and punish those who shall endeavour to set them up again Nor was this all but they also question Sir John Lamb and Sir Nathaniel Brent for getting Organs repair'd and setting up some new Organs in Churches Though I do not know against what Law these two Gentlemen had offended though I know against what the latter did afterwards And having gon thus far away they in a fury hurry Arch bishop Laud to the Tower whither he was followed and rail'd at by the then significant rabble of the Anti-church-government Puppies And some few dayes after they appointed a forsooth Committee for Religion of ten Earls ten Bishops and ten Barons by which means the Lay-votes were not only double to the Clergy but in fine none of the latter left they knowing now their own intentions and power so far that they were more then confident to have the Clergy-men in short time to be but as Ciphers To obtain which they endeavoured all ways that malice or industry could propose to them And as a means to encourage others to oppose Bishops and Church-government they not only released the scribling fire-brands of the Nation as Burton Prynn Leighton Lilburn c. but also as a reward for their good service voted them many thousand pounds a piece And the next week fined the Members of the Convocation house two hundred thousand pounds And afterwards voted that not only the Bishops but all other Clergy-men that did either send their Proxies or execute the said Canons were guilty But if the Lords have a Religious Committee the Commons must have one too or else they think themselves out-vapoured And so they jumble up a Company of Ministers together giving them authority to consult the Canons and Liturgy and also to draw up a plat-form or model for Reformation to be setled in the Kingdom and by what rule these men were to work is no difficult business to collect from the Commons Votes some few dayes after that it was necessary to have an Uniformity of Religion with Scotland as also from their kindness to the Armed Covenanters not long before by Voting for them 300000 pounds with the goodly title of Brethren And all this because they march'd into England with a numerous Army protesting swearing and fighting against Episcopal Government for that was the thing now also aimed at in England so that Mr. Pym speaks the hearts of others as well as his own when he reproved one of the Lords saying That it was not enough to be against the Persons of the Bishops if he were not against the Function And according to this Maxim the Commons by their former Votes having made the way more facile boldly Vote the Government of the Church of England by Archbishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Archdeacons c. to be prejudicial to both Church and State and the next day Voted also that from that time there should be no such things as Archbishops Bishops c. in England Nor was this all but presently after they also expunged all Deans
ma ruine These rabble factious Tumults never mend A Nation but its ruine doth portend The Neapolitans will never forget the miseries brought upon them by a sordid Fisherman Thomas Anello And Munster and other parts of Germany do yet remember with sadness their Anabaptistical tumults The great Turk no sooner hears of the Seditious Rabble but he fears his own neck And Tyler with his rustick Clowns made King Richard submit to their unbounded impudence Nor can it be denyed but that the Londoners and others set up the first post of the Kings Scaffold when by these out-ragious Tumults they began the wicked Warr. The Tumults of which his Sacred Majesty gives the best character in his incomparable Book favour'd the Parliament with a twofold courtesie one was they forced him from London there being no safety for his Royal Person whilst such unbelieving miscreants did domineer The other was they having learn'd the knack to cry Thief first horribly exclaim'd that themselves were thereby only in danger and therefore desired not only a Guard to defend their Worships though they punish'd those appointed to protect them but very modestly to have the disposal of the whole Militia in England And this claim rather then desire of theirs they call just and necessary and for the ease benefit safety and security of the people and that his Majesty could neither in Honour Justice or Conscience deny he having it not legally before And this small request is but to command the Militia Thus the Wolf only desired the Dogs to be divided from the Sheep Thus Alexander would but command the whole World Thus would Calvin only have his Countrey-men and Creatures mingled with the Geneva Senate Thus did Nero desire that Rome might have but one neck And thus the crafty Fryer in the Sumpners tale desired to his dinner only the liver of a Capon and a roasted Pigs-head knowing full well that if he got those he should not want his part of the Pigg and Capon too And thus the Parliament only desired the Militia that they might only command the King and all England All small requests which might have been augmented if the modest Supplicants had had more confidence But an old Scotch Poet would have taught them better manners and discretion if their wicked policy would have given them leisure to have consulted either Morality or Divinity but what is in the Covenant Thou art ane gret fuil soune said he Thyng to desyre quhilk may nocht be This of the Militia though the King deny yet they seize upon it not only in London but in all England and Wales some Countries being so forward at the Parliaments beck that they had begun their Militia assoon as Petitioned for and this before the Queen imbarqued for Holland And what little account they made of the King is visible by their Ordinance for the Militia in which the People are commanded to act nothing but as the Parliament would and that if they did they should be tryed by none but the Parliament and that this should be as long and no longer then the Parliament pleas'd These actions the King might well wonder at which astonishment may be increast when they tell him they can endure no longer his denyals And the same day vindicate those who had armed themselves though contrary to the Kings express Command and Order the day before But the Kings Authority is of no force with these men who proceeded farther by Voting That all Commissions granted under the Great Seal and by the Kings Consent to the Lieutenants in several Counties are illegal and void and that those who act by them shall be disturbers of the Peace But yet that all such persons as shall be nominated by the Parliament shall be cock-sure in their Authority And that their former Ordinance by some Law or other doth oblige the People This the King the same day forbids to be obey'd because against his consent and this command of his the Parliament Votes to be a high breach of the Priviledges of Parliament Thus went or rather ran the sturdy members in opposition to the King as if their malice had exceld Hamilcar's the Carthagenian against the Romans And by this fury they engaged themselves so farre that they thought it not safe to retreat and so brought it to the tryal of the Bloud-thirsty Sword by which was miserably acted The Civil Wars tumultuous Broyls And bloudy Factions of a mighty Land Whose People haughty proud with forraign spoils Upon themselves turn back their conquering hand Whilst Kin their Kin Brother the Brother foils Like-Ensigns all against like-Ensigns Band Bows against Bows against the Crown Whilst all pretending right all Rights fall down Yet for all these and many more miseries of Warr the Parliament could not doubt of many partakers since the Commons had made themselves such a Bug-bear and Terror to the Nation that the power of the King was even shrunk into a Duke of Venice Nor were the Authority and Priviledge of the Peers regarded with any more favourable Aspect being now rather become an other House then a House of Lords If the Peers think it not convenient that the Protestation should be taken all England over the Commons will not only judge the contrary but command it to be done If the Lords Order the Common-Prayer and other Ceremonies confirm'd by act of Parliament to be us'd and read in all Churches in this the Commons will oppose both King and Lords and order the quite contrary and punish those who do not obey them If the Peers refuse to joyn with them to Petition the King for a Guard against the Tumults knowing them to be the fomenters of them They will Petition themselves and think much if the King do deny them though he knew If he gave them an Inch they would take an Ell. If the Lords at first refuse to join with them to obtain the Militia yet will the Commons not only demand it but threaten the dissenting Nobility one of them desiring that a Catalogue might be taken of their names who consented not to them that so they might be known to the Commons Goodly goodly hath not the Peers brought themselves unto a fine pass But I believe they know best whom they may thank for 't Certainly the dapper Commons thought they might as well spurn at King and Lords as the old Gyants fight against Jupiter for I believe from Ovid they took a Scheme of many of their mutations But these men wrought by action as well as words and thoughts which was a high token of the Commons strength who had so much influence amongst the Sectaries a word good enough for him Lord or Clown that takes exception at it and power over the Lords that they gott 9 of the Peers voted never to sit again in Parliament because they were obedient to his Majesty so that Mr. Pym's Item to the Earl of Dover one of
the 9 Lords was not unsignificant viz. That if he look'd for any preferment he must comply with them in their waies and not hope to have it by serving the King Words of such a Mandrake-sound that they would have astonished a Roman ear whose generosity and vertue made them raise a Temple to Fidelity But all bonds of obedience and loyalty were hurld off by these sons of contradiction and Majesty it self so farr disrepected that Martin could with confidence wipe his lips with the whore in the Proverb and think he had done no wrong when he affirmd that the Kings Office is forfeitable and that the happiness of this Kingdome doth not depend upon him or any of the Royall branches of that stock and this was seconded by that worshipful Champion Sir Henry Ludlow who peremptorily said that he was not worthie to be King of England Nor are these words unbefitting the Father of such a known Son as Edmud Ludlow one of the Kings noted Tryers and an immortal Enemy to all goodnesse Church-government and literature Nor did the whole Parliament speak little lesse then the former when they affirmed he had no negative vote call'd all his Actions illegall and his Letters Declarations and Proclamations scandalous and false forbidding people to be obedient to him upon pain of displeasure declaring all such as did to be Traitors Taxing him with an intention towards Popery O implacable Malice foisted into the world by these his back-friends and spread abroad with abundance of impudence and malice by their zealous Myrmidon and Journy-work-jobber Prynne one that if he had lived amongst the Malabars in the East-Indies where long eares is a Token of honour comlinesse and bravery would have been held a man of no great credit But the best on 't is Pryn's scandalous pamphlet call'd the Popish Royall Favourite i. e. the King was many years ago learnedly and industriously answer'd to the Honour of his Majesty honesty of the undertaker and discredit and confusion of the Mercury-admiring accuser And therefore Mr. Baxter was somewhat to blame to cull such false trifles out of Prynne to prove the King reconcileable to Rome though he believes he was no Papist and this ten years after the Kings Beheading But to return to the Parliament who will yeild to none in bitterness against his Majesty who protest to him when no nearer York then New-Market That they would make use of that power which they had for their security and professing in the same paper that it was not words that could secure them And what their intention was in this may be gathered by voting some few daies before That the Nation should be put into a posture of Defence and only by Authority of Parliament And all those Extravagancies were acted by the Parliament in opposition and discredit to the King before his Majesty had so much as one man either in offensive or defensive Armes in a publick way So that he might well admire at those who charg'd him to be the first beginner and raiser of this Warre Thus the Kings mildnesse gave encouragement to those furious spirits who never left plotting till they had fill'd England with more villanies then Rome is in the vacancy of her Popedome or Tacitus could reckon up in the front of his History and this by their unjust dealings with him by warre and such like wickednesses though they might have consulted the Apothegm of that great Goth Athanaricus being good Divinity Law and Reason that A King is a earthly God and whosoever rebels against him is guiltie of his own death Nor doth the great Father of the Church intimate to us lesse obedience to our Kings then the former But these men cared little for reason or authority in any but themselves as appears by those impudent and irrational Propositions sent to the King at New Castle when they were Masters and had him in hold whereby he would be but a King of clouts and the Nobility and Gentry of his party bound to hop headlesse Articles so palpably wicked that an Italian through his Majesty looks upon them as distructive both to Church and State Nor could lesse be expected from these men in the height of their Pride and prosperity when at the beginning of these wicked Warres long before the stroak at Edghill The good King weeping as it were over the approaching ruine of his Subjects earnestly endeavours to perswade the Parliament to a Reconciliation in the lamentable breathings of Tancredi to the violent Rinaldo Dimmi che pensi far vorrai le mani Del civil sangue tu dunque bruttarte E con le piaghe ind egnede ' Christiani Trafiger Cristo ond'ei son membra e perte c. Ah non per Dio vinci te stesso Tell me what mean you now Will you yet stain Your hands in your friends bloud by Civill Warre And by your killing Christians now again Pierce Christ his side of whom we members are c. Ah no for Gods sake conquer your passion Desiring that they might both lay down their Armes and recall all their papers against each other upon an appointed day and so enter into a Treaty But they being carryed along with a Spirit of contradiction like the Scotch Presbyter who railing against King Church and Government and being commanded by King James to speak either sense or come down replyed like himself I say man I 'se nowther speak sense nor come down They I say resolved to run counter absolutely declare that they will not think of peace till the King have taken down his Standard left his Armies repair'd to the Parliament that so justice might be done upon those who had adhear'd to them and how by this his Majesty himself could escape they having some few daies before taxed him with most mischievous Tyranny I know not And in the same paper the lands of all those who were of the Kings party were forfeited and I think it is not unknown how they were disposed on afterwards Nor need we doubt but those men who without Blushing could Vote the Queen a Traitor would not care to draw up some blood into their faces soe they might have their revenge on his Majesty And whether this clause For the preservation of his Majesties person was voted to be left out in the New modled Commission the Commons and my Lord Fairfaz know best and what the meaning of such a seclusion was the revolution of a few years did fully import Thus did the English use the King as the Scots did their James the third who hated him as Mr. Drummond informes us because he got the love of his people by Piety and Justice and having taken up armes against him would not hearken to any termes of reconciliation unlesse he freely resigned the title of his Crown and Realm in favour of his Son then in theirs Hands and voluntarily deposed himself
declared that he could not in Honour and Conscience consent for by them he was not only devested of all Regal Authority but the Church ruined and his Loyal Party bound to suffer what deaths and miseries the Parliament please then they impiously Vote that no more addresses should be made to the King nor none received from him whereby they dash all hopes of a future settlement by the Kings ruling over them contrary to their former Vows and Protestations so that their seeming friendship by Treaties seems to me not unlike that of Rhadamistus King of Iberia whereby he betray'd well-meaning Mithridates King of Armenia to his destruction This action with their Vote against the Queen and that concerning Sir Fairfax's Commission doth not a little or'e-cloud the Presbyterians who think they come off with honour when they deny it was them but the Independants who beheaded his Majesty But what little difference there is in the offence let others judge The Presbyterians by this Vote of Non-address actually deny the King to be their King by professing themselves his enemies for ever and thereby they not subject to his Kingship or Rule And the Independents take him acknowledg'd thus by consequence by the Presbyterians to be no King and in the notion of no King behead him And what suitable intentions they had for more then disowning him may be collected from them selves in the reasons inducing them to such a Vote which were because he was a coutinual breaker of promise and trust His punishing of Prynne Burton Bastwick and such like dicturbers of the peace His Wars with Scotland His accusing some of the Members not forgot by some then in Parliament His raising War against or rather defending himself from the Parliament and such like accusatious which they call Tyranny And that He hath wholly forgotten his duty to the Kingdome they meant themselves and so thus conclude These are some of the many reasons why we cannot repose any more trust in him and have made those former resolutions that is the Votes against any more addresses Yet they say they will settle the Government though it seems without them so that the Army might very well tell us that these Votes were understood by all To imply some farther intentions of proceeding in justice against him and settling the Kingdome without him To this the Presbyterians cannot reply that the Army forced them because it is utterly denied by the Souldiery who look upon themselves with sorrow and shame because they were so slack in putting such a good action forward as they accusingly affirme themselves Nor can they say that they were out voted by the Independent-faction because 't is well known they were far the greater number till they were Secluded the House almost a year after And whether their thus Voting and Scandalizing his Majesty was done more like Presbyterians then good Subjects let those judge who know that it was once enacted Treason To attempt any harm to the person of the King Queen c. or deprive them of their Dignity Title or Name of their Royal Estates or standerously and maliciously pronounce by express writing or words that the King should be Heretick Schismatick Tyrant Infidel or Usurper or to hold from him his Castles Holds or Marches or Artillery or Ordnances of War Yet were the intentions of Parliament more severe against his Majesty the Army and others would be as wicked as the best of them of which some authentick testimonies will not be amiss And first you shall have the story of some pure Rogues chickens of the Parliaments and Armies own breeding and I warrant you brave boys for King and Parliament though their zeal for the latter devoured the former as appears by their Loyalty James Symball Deputy-Keeper of Winchester-house Prison said King's head upon the Tower-block Francis Wade being urged to drink the King's health denied it his reason was because the King was no King but a Tyrant having put the Parliament out of his Protection and so the whole Kingdome Robert White a Souldier on the Parliaments party being demanded what he would have done to the King had he met him in the head of his Army answered He would have as soon killed him as another man Words as full of Loyally as Harry Martin of chastity or the Rump of true piety If Doctor Chayfield must be brought upon his knees by the Long-Parliament for saying From all Lay-Puritans and all Lay-Parliament-men good Lord deliver me If Sir John Lamb must undergo the same punishment for setting up Organs If Master Hollis the Burgess for Newark upon Trent must be banished the Parliament-house for saying that the Scotch Army should be prosecuted with all rigour and extremity and speedily expulst the Kingdome by main force If Master Smith must be committed to the Gate-house onely for speaking against the Parliament If a poor Printer must be condemned to the same prison onely for Printing an Elegy in commendation of the Earl of Strafford If the Lord Digby's speech in the behalf of the Earl must be voted to the flames onely for being Printed And his Brother-in-law Sir Lewis Dives be condemn'd as a Delinquent onely for ordering the same to be Printed a thing allowable to all other Parliament-men If these and many more severe judgements be thought fitting by the Parliament what punishment is meritorius for the former verlits for vomitting out such hellish assertions against his Sacred Majesty But for all this you shall see how cleverly they came off as if with Saint Dominick they had never committed a sin worthy damnation or rather had been as innocent as the child unborn For though at first they were committed to prison by Serjeant Creswell Yet was it soon taken notice of by the Adjutators in the Army a sort of underlings secretly put on by Cromwell whom they call their Patron and Protectour to carry on his designs in the Army every Regiment having two who used to meet in Juntos and there consult for the seducing the rest of the Souldiers these Rabscallies who neither must nor durst be denied present the case of the former fellows to Sir Thomas Fairfax their nominal General desiring their releasment from their Tyrannical sufferings for so they call it He accordingly writes to Speaker Lenthall Upon which the Commons order the business to be consider'd by the Committee of Indempnity and to relieve them as they see cause and so how they came off you may judge The imprisonment of these men made such a noise in the Army that it presently flew as far as Yorkshire and was there taken notice on and by the Adjutators in Pointz his Army amongst other things sent up as a grievance to Fairfax Nor was this action then let alone but was the next year brought upon the stage again by the Sectaries of London Westminster and Southwark complaining of the imprisonment of such good
and spent in these late distractions Nor did I as yet ever hear of any godly men that desired wert it possible to purchase their FRIENDS or money again at so dear a rate as with the return of these to have those soul-burdening Anti-Christian yokes re-imposed upon us And if any such there be I am sure that desire is no part of their Godlinesse and I professe my self in that to be none of the number Would not this man be a fit Chaplain to an Army of Cannabals whose delight is to devoure one another Well I shall desire to ask Mr. William one or two Questions which will be worth his answering I. Is Episcopacy such a devilish Government and Presbytery so good and necessary that the first ought to be null'd and the latter set up though the doing of it will cost an hundred thousand mens lives and the destruction of three Kingdoms and the King to boot II. Had not the King some friends that were truly Godly who wisht the Restauration of his Life Crown Throne Authority Supremacy and Prerogative and the Episcopal Church-Government too Or could no man that was Godly desire these things If not then III. Would the Brethren wish this King upon the Scaffold too provided that would free them from our Episcopacy Or do they think it fitting or lawful to rebell again and destroy so many families for the rooting out of our Bishops Though Mr. L'estrange will not shame the man by concealing his name Yet because I am pretty confident of no alteration in his judgment unlesse it be according to his custome from worse to worse I shall tell thee where thou maist find him out After thou hast put on a mortified countenance and obtain'd the art of a counterfeited cough but muster all the wickednesse thou canst hear of into thine heart foot it demurely to Mr. Jenkin's house I mean the very same man of Christ Church London the very same man that petitioned and recanted with a breath and if thou canst meet with him he may tell thee who was the utterer of that Sermon But not to trouble you any longer with particular instances I shall give you the Vote of a whole Club of London Levites where you may see what good opinion they had of the King The wofull miscarriages of the King himself which we cannot but acknowledge to be many and very great in his Government that have cost the three Kingdomes so dear and cast him down from his Excellency into an horrid Pit of misery almost beyond example Pray that God would give him effectual Repentance For subjects to give such a Character upon their Soveraign is the highest piece of impudence but for them to throw such aspersions upon the most vertuous of men is a malitious slander not to be found in Christians Yet was this piece of falshood approved of and subscribed to by 59 Presbyterian cushion-dusters about London all which in the same paper acknowledge the legality of the Rebellion If the King be such a wicked man as these Brethren make of him what must then be done with him Some of them say 't is no great matter if execution be done upon him However it may be most of them will agree with their Champion Mr. Baxter who decrees that he must be deposed Nor are the subjects afterwards to trouble themselves for his Restauration Nor is the Injured Prince himself to seek his re-settlement if the Common Wealth may prosper without him and so he is obliged to resigne his Government And thus the people being free from any obedience to him may choose another King Or if a Common-Wealth be pitcht upon it is not at all displeasing to Baxter who is not fond that is his word of any one Government above another only his desire is that the Parliaments may be Holy and this ascertained from Generation to Generation by such a necessary Regulation of Elections as I have after here at large described and that all those that by wickednesse have †forfeited their †liberties may neither choose nor be chosen But I shall leave Mr. Baxter to his own Repentance only I would put him in mind that once he thus magnied a Government of Traytors which were his Majesties profest Enemies If that Nation that is most happy of any upon Earth in a Government suited to the highest Interest and to Gods description Rom. 3. 3. should yet murmure and despise that Government It would be a most hainous sin and a terrible Prognostick especially to the guilty souls These men must be brave Subjects that make it their whole business to study Rebellion and where they cannot execute the King will imprison and spit upon the face of the person like those beyond Seas that hang the Effigies when they cannot ruine the life Of which Presbyterian wickednesse and policy thus a good Poet. By this self-pregnant sin improves to rh ' full Affront at London Treason growes at Hull A bold Repulse succeeds perplext abode Despis'd at home thrives to refus'd abroad Place tutors Place on Cities Cities call He may not here be safe nor there at all When lo the spreading mischief not content To force up breaches in One Element Invades his Navy doth insulting stand O're the joint-Trophies both of Sea and Land To gild this Rapine for the Vulgar eies They chase him through all His Capacities Shift lights and distances untill they see Another self in him which is not He. Vex Stills and Crucibles the Furnace ply To soft and drain a Chymick Majesty At last their careful sweats auspicious howr Drops him apart distinguisht from his Power I cannot but smile when I see the Independent girding at the Presbyterians and vindicate their own actions by the Disciplinarian Principles proving them to be as great enemies to the King as those who cut off his head as the laws of the land makes the Trespass as great felloniously to lop off the noble branches as to root up the whole body of the Royall Oak To which purpose one of the Presbyterian seconds though at last their Interest were differently bottom'd thus twits the Brethren If by the Covenant we were indispensably obliged to preserve his Person i. e. the Kings How comes it to pass that we were oblig'd by the same Covenant to wage Warr against him I have heard of a distinction betwixt his Power and his Person but never of any betwixt his Person and Himself So that if the Covenant would have dispenc'd any Souldier of England or Scotland to kill his Person by an accident of Wars as his life was oft in danger before he came to the Scaffold his death had been violent and the Obligation to preserve him had ended and yet according to this Argument the Covenant had not been broken Why then should these men think the World so dull as not to understand plainly enough that The Covenant provided for his Death more ways than one Though
this Objection may sound harsh in a Presbyterians ear who do not love to hear of their Iniquities yet that famous Geneva Bull Stephen Marshall can out-rore this though its clamours were as loud as the Nilan Thunderings of Catadupa Noysing it out to the World that if he had been so slain it had been none of the Parliaments fault for he might have kept himself farther off if he pleas'd These men rail against the Pope as Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon and their wording is all for they never yet proved it but whether they do not both tread in the same way both taking upon them to depose Kings let those who are skill'd in Story judge yet for my part I think that one of our Countrey-men was not amiss in this They depose Kings by force by force you 'll do 't But first use fair means to perswade them to 't They dare kill Kings now 'twixt you here 's the strife You dare shoot at the King to save his life And what 's the difference pray whether they fall By the Popes Bull or your Oxe-General Three Kingdoms you have striv'd to make your own And like the Pope usurp a Triple-Crown But somewhat more to this purpose the former Writer thus reasoneth If in matter of Supream Command we of the People may not obey any but the Husband or the King Why then did the Presbyterian Party for so many years oppose and not totally submit to their now supposed Husband Why did they Commissionate so many thousand men who by accident of Warr had the power though not the Chance to kill him Nay in the Parliaments Case it was alwayes conjoyntly argued by them that it was he the Husband that would have kill'd them the supposed Wife for which reason the Kirk of Scotland long ago sent him a Bill of Divorce unless he satisfied for the bloud of three Kingdoms Which of the two Parties it was that at last kill'd him belongs not much to the satisfaction of us the people though here questioned because those Parties as to that Act differ'd no more than Diminutio and Obtruncatio Capitis do for they who after a long Warr and by long Imprisonment dispoil'd him of that Regal power did according to the Term of the Civil Law Diminuere Caput Regis and they who in Consequence of his Civil death took away his Natural life did Obtruncare Caput Regis If he had been kill'd in an Action of Warr before should the Souldier or he who gave the Souldier Commission have answer'd for his life For the more clearing of this I shall desire Jack Presbyter to resolve me these two Quaeries First Whether he doth approve of Cook ' s Appeal or Vindication of the King's Tryal except where he demands Justice though I need not except it If he doth take him Jaylor and Lord have mercy upon him But if he doth not then Secondly Whether he can shew me any thing in that Hellish piece of Treason except when Cook doth vindicate his Majesty from some slanders but I can show the same wickedness in Books publish'd by the Authority of Presbyterians or made and printed by people of that Faction For a piece of Parallel I shall at present point you to one or two Instances See The Mystery of Iniquity yet working in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Printed for Sam. Gellibrand 1643. Declaration of the Commons of England concerning no farther Address or Application to be made to the King 1647. A Remonstrance of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland to his Majesty 1645. Mr. Robert Douglas being Moderator whose Sermon at Scoon 1651. you may also read John Vicars his several lying and scandalous Pamphlets And the several Presbyterian Books and expressions mentioned in this Book needless now to be repeated And to this purpose thus saith the learned Mr. Rich. Watson Whosoever will take the pains to compare the particulars in the Scottish Remonstrance which they brought in their hands when they came in upon the Covenant with those in the accursed Court proceeding against his late Royal Majesty may be able to do Dorislaw Steel Cook c. some little courtesie in their credit and plead for them that they drew not up but only Transcrib'd a Charge brought long since from Edenburgh to London Thus both Parties think the King alike guilty though it was the Presbyterian that first perswaded the Independent to think him so Then here must be all the difference The first declares him abominably wicked the latter being credulous believes the Declaration One part cowardly deliver him up I shall not hint upon the word selling to Execution and the other being more hardy strike the stroak Not that by this I lessen the wickedness of a Rumper as I cannot excuse that of a secluded Member since the latter knowingly destroy'd and kill'd the King 1642. the other under the notion of a private man murther'd Charles Stuart six years after The Laws of the Land not only in Killing but also in Fighting against the Kings Command making it Treason How to that Heaven did this Pilot Steer 'Twixt th' Independent and the Presbyter Plac'd in the Confines of two shipwracks thus The Greeks are seated 'twixt the Turks and Vs Whom did Bizantium free Rome would condemn And freed from Rome they are enslav'd by Them So plac'd betwixt a Precipice and Wolf There the Aegean here the Venice-gulf What with the rising and the setting Sun By these th' are hated and by those undone Thus Vertue 's hemm'd with Vices and though either Solicites her Consent she yields to neither Nay thus our Saviour to enhance his grief Was hung betwixt a Murderer and a Thief What the Powder-plot intended the Independent acted and I am confident the Presbyterians acted more mischief than Faux or his Complices Both of them were stopt in their designs and actions Only we know how farr the Romanists would have gone but we cannot understand what would have been the conclusion of the Puritans Villanies As we have a fifth of November in memory of one so shall we never think of the third of November but in detestation of the other two If the Presbyter would repent his former Vindications of the late Rebellion against their King It would convert the Act of Indempnity into one of Oblivion and people instead of dashing them in the teeth with their Iniquities would pitty their former blindness But when at this day they still continue in the same faults 't is not a sign of infirmity but real malice and enmity to that which is good Still we hear them perswade the people to the legality of the late Warr and that by consequence the same may be lawful against the Son which was against the Father and that upon such petit jealousies as their factious brains can possess the poor people with all whose easie natures are accustomed to take Pique against any thing that their hot-spurr'd Parson
upon the wicked CHAP. VI. Some short Observations upon their Covenant AN understanding Gentleman assures us that A league amongst Subjects giveth law to a King breaks all bonds of Soveraignty and invites a people to seek for a New Maister And this dear-bought experience hath prov'd true to both Nations yet were the events of these Agreements more mischievous they would be courted by the seditious thinking such pieces of Perjury to be the best works of their Holy-days Since the reformation this mode of swearing against Authority hath been commonly practis'd in Scotland In their first Covenant 3 Decemb 1557. An Earl of Argile was the first subscriber and chief promoter and how active an Earl of Argile hath been in our days about such wickednesse need not here be related but I hope as the other was the first so this shall be the last Yet in this way hath the English been as faulty as the worst of them though I believe at first drol'd in by their Neighbours For when at the beginning of the Warres the English Commissioners went from the Parliament into Scotland to desire their assistance against the King and having addres'd themselvs to the Scotch Assembly delivering them a letter subscribed by some Presbyterian Ministers in which they complaind that their blood was shed like water upon the grouud for defence of the Protestant Religion they receiv'd a negative answer The Assembly telling them amongst other things That you cannot say you fight for the Reform'd Religion since you have not begun to reform your Church ye had thriven better if you had don as we did Begun at the Church and thereafter striven to have gotten the civil sanction to what ye had don in the Church A few days after Sir W. Ermin Mr. Hamden and the rest of the Commissioners were invited by some of their friends to make a new Address to the Assembly which they did the second time desiring a gracious Answer Upon this request the Assembly propounded to them this Will ye join in Covenant with us to reform Doctrine and Discipline conform to this of Scotland and ye shall have a better Answer Sir W. Ermin and the rest answered that they had not that in their Instructions but thank'd the Assembly and said they would represent it to the Parliament of England The Assembly replyd that there would be much time loosed ere they could go to the Parliament for their resolutions and thereafter to return to Scotland to draw up a Solemn League and COVENANT The danger was great and they were not able to resist the King But we shall draw up the Covenant here and send up with you some Noble men Gentlemen and Ministers that shall see it subscrib'd which accordingly was don only two or three words altered Thus was this spurious Wretch illegally begotten and brought forth by unlawful Parents by the Scots worship'd and ador'd as the only Idol fit to bless their undertakings and by their Brothers in mischief the English Long Parliament embraced who peremptorily enjoyn all people to swear Allegiance to it as their only supream Law and authentick Shibuleth to distinguish Treason from Loyalty Though what authority they had to impose such an Oath being against the Command both of King and Law must be left for Mr. Prynne to discover in some Terra incognita since we have no such custome amongst us Yet for all this Mr. Simeon Ash had the confidence in the Pulpit to wonder that any man should think that the Covenant was made here only to bring in the Scots when the Presbyterian Parliament and party was low in England Having thus seen the Birth of this Monster it might quickly be desected and the poison and mischief lodg'd in it might evidently be manifested to the whole world but that it hath formerly been don by more able pens However it cannot but seem strange to any that these men should swear to extirpate the Government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops c. which have been confirmd by 32 Acts of Parliament And they could never yet tell who made them Rulers over Israel and gave them power to such actions quite contrary to Magna Charta the laws of the Land and the Kings express command The first two are known to any one who hath heard any thing of the laws of the land and the latter is as true Yet because I have heard some deny and others question its truth I shall give you his Majesties own Proclamation against it 1643. By the KING His Majesties Proclamation forbidding the Tendering or taking of a late Covenant called a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation c. WHEREAS there is a Printed paper intituled a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religin The honour and happinesse of the King and the peace and safety of the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be Ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the twenty first day of September last to be Printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in Truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against us and against the Established Religion and Laws of this Kingdome in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and endeavour to bring in Forraign Force to invade this Kingdome We do therefore straightly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects of what Degree of Quality soever Upon their Allegiance That they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby Forbid and Inhibit all Our Subjects to Impose Administer or Tender the said Covenant as they and every one of them will answer to the Contrary at their Utmost and Extremest Perils Given at our Court at Oxford this Ninth day of October in the Nineteenth year of our Raign GOD SAVE THE KING Than this what could be more plain and authentick yet a furious Presbyterian is pleas'd to tearm this action of the King Satanical slander and abuse a most impious and audacious Paper Atheistical boldness Impious and Platonical pleasure c. Besides the unlawfulness of its making and Imposition the qualities and conditions of the Brat were so impious that an honest man could never take it for several reasons amongst many other take these two or three 1. § They swear to extirpate Popery without respect of persons In which they might be ask'd What they would do with the Queen If they forced her Religion 't was Treason If they did not they are perjur'd 2. § This Oath makes them to be but Conditional Subjects swearing to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom before the King or his Authority few of the takers understanding any of these things by which means they swore they knew not what And that this Oath obligeth them to be but conditional Subjects is plain they swearing To preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority
October 22. 1640. December 11. 1640. Sueton. in Cal. cap. 46. December 16 1640. May 3. 4. 1641. May 12. Decemb. 30. 1641. Decemb. 27. Decemb. 6. 1648. True Representation c. pag. 10. 13 14. Bancroft's dangerous Positions p. 111. Decemb. 18. 1640. Decemb. 21. Sueton. 8. Decemb. 19. Jan. 23. 16¼ March 4. Jan. 24. Jan. 31. Feb. 7. March 7 9 10. April 2. May 19 24 27. June 3. 4 7 12. Febr. 11. Febr. 21. March 4. March 1. March 21. April 20 21. April 27. August 4. May 5. 17. May. 2. February Ex. Coll. p. 521. 11. June 12. June 15. June 15. June 16. Decemb. 1640. 12. June 1641. 21. June 9. July 10. July 15. July 16. July 17. July 31. July 30. July 3 4. August 17. Aug. 30. Decemb. 9. July 10. July Remains 1. Septemb. 6. Septemb. 7. Septemb. 9. Septemb. 28. Sepeemb 23. Octob. 26. Octob. 27. Octob. 6. Decemb. 20. Decemb. 27. Decemb. 30. Decemb. 31 Jan. 1641 2 2 Feb. 1. 4. Feb. Large Declar. Anno. 1637. p. 41. Bacons Hist Hen. 7. p. 128. Coor Lycosth de Prodigiis c. Chron. Gualther Tom. 4. p. 279. 24 Decemb. 1641. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 9. 6 Feb. 16¼ Chaucer fol. 164. Conf. Hamp Court pag. 104. Baxters Grotian Religion Discov Sect. 76. p. 113 114. Holy Common wealth pag. 485. Id. p. 477. Sect. 15. Id. p. 486. Sect. 2. Id. p. 488. Id. p. 478. Sect. 17. Id. Preface pag. 14. Sect. 3. Id. Pref. p. 24. Gangraena Part. 1. p. 162. 164. Fullers Appeal part 3. p. 58. VI. Alex. ab Alex. lib. 2. cap. 13. Mat. Paris Anno. 1222. pag. 315. Id facinus pulcherrimum esse arbitramur Tul. Orat. 18. Sect. 94. Seditiosus est Is qui malus atque inutilis est civis Id. de Invent. lib. 1. Sect. 59. Seditiosissimus quisque ignavus Tacit. Hist 4. cap. 34. Sam. Daniel Letter to Octavia Sect. 27. a Nullo verò facto verbo nulla concione nulla lege concitatam nocturaam Seditionem quis audivit Tull. Orat 32. Sect. 20. b Ut mare quod suâ naturâ tranquillum sit ventorum vi agitari atque turbari sic populum suâ sponte esse placatum hominum seditiosorum vocibus ut violentissimis tempestatibus concitari Tull. Orat. 14. Sect. 46. Irrationale vulgus Mat. Paris p. 315. Sect. 32. H. Lestrange pag. 191. 11. May. 1640. 22. Octob. * Neremberg Hist Nat. pag. 227. 3. May 1641. Pezel Mellif Hist part 1. pag. 48. 29. April 5. Maj. 10. May. October 12. Decemb. 27. Decemb. 28. Decemb. Bishop Hall's Remains p. 47. Fuller Book 11. p. 185. Sect. 14. 29. Decemb. 1. Jan. Mat. Paris Anno 1075. p. 10. Dr. Barwick's life of the Bishop p. 103. Mat. Paris pag. 315. Nihil ausuram plebem principibus amotis Tacit An. lib. 1. cap. 55. 5. January 1641 2. * 28. March 1660. Edwards Gangr Part. 1. p. 183. 31 Decemb. 1641. Ex. Coll. p. 531 532. Tho. May ' s Hist Parliament lib. 2. p. 29. 8. February 1641 2. Th. Cantipratan lib. 2. c. 10. Sect. 25. Gierusal liber Cant. 1. Cap. 4. 6. Ex. Coll. p. 80 710 715 716. Chaucer fol. 50. a. Sir David Lyndesay Buke 1. February 1641½ 5. March 14. March 15. March 16. March VII Ex col p. 548. Ex coll p. 530. Ex coll p. 552. August Du. Avity â—le Monde Asia p. 527. Vindiciae Caroli Regis or a Royal Vindication of the King 1645. 40. Grotian Religion discover'd Sect. 73 p. 105. 9 March 1641 2 2. March King Portrait cap. 10. Hist lib. 1. c. 2. Deus terre nus est Imperator contra quem quicunque manus levare nisus fuerit ipse sui sanguinis reus existit Paul Diacon de gestis Rom. lib. 11. in vita Gratiani * August confess lib. 3. cap. 8. †1646. * Gal. Gualdo Prior. Hist part 4. lib. 1. pag. 8. Tasso Cant. 5. Ex coll p. 583. 584. Id. p. 584 585. Id. p. 575. 23 May. 1643. 24 March 1644 5 Hist of Scotl. pag. 107. 113. Bacons Hist Hen. 7. p. 70. Stow. d. 425. Mat. Paris p. 15. De jure belli ap Scotos Rom. 13. 1 2. Clark of Oxfords Tale 3 fol. 56. a * their Apologet. The Armies plea. 1659. pag. 5. De Amichristo in append post Annotat. in Evangel p. 65. Horat. Epist lib. 1. Ep. 18. Tull. de Offic. lib. 3. sect 63. Epigram pag. 201. Quod Aeneas probavit Pius damnavit Edward ' s Gangr part 3. p. 240. Antiq. l. 2. c. ult Borel centur 2. Sect. 63. 23. May. 1643. 24. March 1644 5. Quibus nec ara nec sides nec jusjurandum soret Alex. sol 268. a. Testimoniorum Religionem fidem nunquam ista Natio coluit Tull. Orat. 24. sect 148. Epist ad Quint. l. 1. Ep. 2. sect 300. Quibus utilitas semper est fide sanctior Alex. ab Al. p. 268. 2 Sam. 20. 9 10. 27. Jan. 1642 3. 29. Decemb. 1647. 17. January 1647 8. Alex. ab Ab. sol 253. b. Declarat shewing the reasons of no more Address Remonstrance from St. Albnus 16. Nov. 1648. pag. 8. Idid pag. 7. 26. Hen. 8. c. 13. 12 Februa 1641 2. 4. March 26. Apr. 1641. 14. May. 17. May. 12. July Nic. Jansenius Vit. S. Dominici lib. 1. c. 1. p. 7. l. 2. c. 14. pag. 188. Their letter to Crom. 30. Apr. 1647. Septemb. 1647. 12. September 14. September 5. July 1647. Their Declara to joyn with the Army p. 2. Sir Tho. Fairfax Letter to the Parl. from Cambridge 6. Jun. 1647. Their letter to London from Royston 10. Ju. * Declara concerning their advance to London 1647. pag. 10. Humble Remonstrance from St. Albans 23. Jun. 1647. pag. 12. 9. April 1648. a 30. April b May. 3. June 30. June Sept. 1648. 5. Decemb. Breviary pag. 212. 6. Decemb. Ang. 19. 1641. Their humble Answer 3. Jan. 1648 9. p. 2. Hist Independ part 2. Sect. 23. Armies plea 1659 p. 28. 4 January 1648 9 9 Jan. Remonstrance from Kingston 18 Aug. 1647. pag. 20. Humble Remonst from St. Albans 23 June 1647. pag. 10. Lilburns and Overtons books The Army harmlesse Roial project A pair of Crystal Spectacles Scots Cabinet open'd 11 Sept. 1648. October 16 Octob. Novemb. December 7. 16 Dec. January 16. 18. Novem. * Pag. 22 23 24. 50. 56. 61. 64. Id pag. 62. 2 Aug. 1648. Elenc Mot. p. 119 120. The Army harmlesse p. 3 4. Anno. 1647. Edw. Gangraen part 3. p. 172. Vox Coeli p. 5. A model of Truths Sect. 4. Tho. Lansii consultat p. 558 Gage's survey of the West-indies c. 12. p. 74 75. Stow. p. 289. Bakers Chron. pag. 167. Stow. p. 302. ½ Cent. 9. Sect. 49. Ex coll p. 252. * Cujus siquis materiae pondus styli nitorem rationis nervos ardoremque pictatis aequa lance pensitet Regnum inter scriptores illum promeruisse vel ipsa fatebitur invidia et quae praedominum civile ausu nefan do extorsit reddet literarium
Elench Mot. pag. 191 Gualdo part 3. pag. 413. Sam. Daniel Warrs of York and Lancaster book 2. Sect. 109 110. Diod. Sicul Bib. l. 14. c. 1. 6 Feb. 7 Feb. 14 Feb. 20 April Declarat why they dissolved the Rump 30 April 4 July 1459. Stow's Chron. pag. 412. col 1. 12 December Cant. 2. Sect. 1. 16 Dec. John Lydgate lib. 5. fol. 126. Egregius simulandi et dissimulandi Artisex qui sublatis in Coelum oculis dextraque pectori applicata Dei nomon invocabit lacrymabitur precabitur aget paenitentiam donec sub quinta costa trajecerit alloquentem Elench Motuum pag. 88. Tasso Cant. 2. Cant. 2. Gualdo part 4. 〈◊〉 9. P. 515. Verstegan cap. 3. p. 85. Cent. 10. sect 22. 3. Sept. 1658. Preface to his Holy-Common-wealth p. 25. 6. May. 1659. 23. Septemb. 5. Octob. 11. Octob. 13. Octob. 19. Octob. 26. Octob. 3. Novemb. 26. Decemb. Declarat 22. April 1653. Cleaveland Declarat 6. May. 1659. Humble Representation 5 Octob. 1659. Georg. Goodwin Melissa Relig. Pont. Eleg 2. * Populus nullis legibus tenebatur arbitria Iâ—â—lacipum pro-legibus erant Justin pag. 1. 21. February 1659 60. 24. February 16. March 25. Apr. 1660. 1 May. Clerk of Oxford ' s tale par 6. f. 59. R. Abbot's Geogr. pag. 314. Purchas part 4. pag. 1285. Psal 55. 20 21. Armies Plea 1659. p. 24. Lucan lib. 10. Quod genus hominum nihil tam atrox sit quod resugisti nihil tam turpe quod erubescat decuniae Egisyppus Exid. Hierosol lib. 5. cap. 25. Ex. Coll. p. 575. Epigram p. 212. De Imperandi Authoritate l. 2. cap. 24 25. c. Tot erant in Anglia Tyranni quot castellorum domini Lans Consult p. 559. Armies plea 1659. p. 7 8. Pru. de Sandoval part 1. lib. 6. Sect. 1. 1b Sect. 20. Ex. Coll. p. 548. Sandoval lib. 6. Sect. 20. Porque quando se ais grandes podais dezir que vistes los Cavalleros Justin lib. 18. Id. lib. 2. Lud. Lucius Hist Jesuit li 1. 3. cap. 2. pag. 317. Elenc Haeret. pag. 53. Bas Dor. lib. 2. p. 33 34. August Brun. Trias Electoral pag. 123. Mutius de Germ. l. 15. p. 130. Lib. 5. cap. 10. 26. June 1657. Gage's Travels pag. 101. Apellatione autem rei sacrae accipitur ea quae sanctitatem aliquam habet aut Christi institutione aut Ecclcsiae Consecratione ca item quam Ecllesia ad sacros usus Ministeria destinavit Jo. Sor. Institut Moral part 1. lib. 9. cap. 27. Levit. 27. 28. Id. 5. 15. 18. Id. 22. 15. Dan. 5. 2 23. Mal. 3. 8 9. Ezek. 48. 12 14. Hag. 1. 9 10. 2 Chron. 28. 22 23 24. 2 King 12. 17 18. Prov. 20. 25. Laqueos mortis sibi induit quisquis Deum offendit res ipstus aut sacras aut consecratas avertendo i. e. tollendo quod jam illius est aut quod illi debetur retinendo Junius in loc Act. 5. Rom. 2. 22. Ezra 6. 11 12. Quanto vehementius judicandus est sur Sacrilegus qui eusus fuerit non uadicunque tollere sed de Ecclesia tollere Qui aliquid de Ecclesia suratur Judae perdito comparatur August in Evang. Joan. Tract 50. p. 80. F. a Concil Edit Bin. vol. 1. p. 100. a. b Concil Bin. pag. 180. 6 Edit Crabbe To. 1. p. 161. col 2. c Orat. 1. p. 361. d Hist Eccles lib. 3. c. 8. e Spelman Concil p. 235. f Lib. 3. Epist 30. Mat. 18. 17. Siquis docet domum Dei contemptibilem esse conveatus qui in ea celebrantur Anathema fit Concil Gangrens c. 5. Bin. vol. 1. p. 384. Ut non solum Excommunicatus sed etiam Anathematizatus moriatur Concil Turonens 2d c. 25. Bin. To. 2 p. 660. a. Concil Coloniens part 9. cap. 17. Crabbe To. 3. p. 808. Concil Aquisgranens lib. 3. cap. 12. Id. lib. 2. c. 28. Crab. To. 2. p. 726 729. Concil Constantinopol Quinsextum Canon 97. Francise à Coriolano summ Concil pag. 60. vid. Plura in Conciliorum omnium General Provincial collectione Regia Edit Lutet Paris Anno 1644. 25 Hen. 8. c. 19. at the end Docemus etiam ut sacerdotes Ecclesias suas omni honorificentia custodiant in divinum Ministerium purumque servitium in nihilum praeterea Ncc illic hi permittant quid superflui nec vel intro nec vel in proximo Nullum illic vaniloquium nihil factum indecorè non hic inordinatae compotationis locus nec vanita is unquam alicujus nec Ecclesiae Coemiterium Canis intret nec porcorum plures quam quis i. e. custos as Spelman possit regere Canon 26. circa An 967. Spelman Concil pag. 451. Nullus sacerdotum seu laicus praesumat calicem aut patinan aut quaelibet vasa sacra divino cultui mancipata ad alios usus retorquere Nam quicunque de Calice Sacrato aliud bibit praeter Christi sanguinem qui in Sacramento accipitur patinam ad aliud Officium habet quà m ad Altaris ministerium deterrendus est exemplo Balthasar qui dum vasa Domini in usus communes assumpsit vitam pariter cum Regno amisit Sect. 18. Spelm. Consil pag. 594. Quicunque res Dei vel Ecclesiae abstulerit duodecima componat solutione Episcopi res undecima solutione c. Spelm. Cons p. 123. Concil pag. 398. 497. Weaver's Fun. Mon. p. 48. Auctuarium Addit in Calce Mat. Paris p. 241 242. Reyner Dis cept Histor de Antiq. Benedict in Anglia Append. p. 49 51. Stow. p. 431. col 2. Id. p. 372. col 1. 2 Hen. c. 1. 13. 50 Edw. 3. c. 1. 1 Rich. 2. cap 1. 8 Rich. 2. c. 1. 6 Rich. 2 c. 1. 32 Hen. 8. c. 12. 1 Phil. Mar. cap. 9. 2 Mary c. 8. 1 Eliz. c. 2. 1 Jac. c. 3. Speed p. 888. M. C. Relat. of the Expedition in Kent p. 164. Amos 2. 1 2 3. Quis homo est tanta confidentia qui sacerdotem audeat violare Plaut in Rud. Act. 3. scen 2. Merc. rust pag. 26. Psalm 74. 6. Hist Independ par 2. Sect. 216. Dr. Paske's his Letter to the Earl of Holland August 1642. Mat 21. 12 13. Luk. 19. 45. Joh. 2. 14 15. Siquis apud ecclesiam mercaturam excerceat legis violatae poena esto Leg. Presb. Northumb. Sect. 20. Spelm. concil p 497. Concil Constantinop can 86. Francisc ad Coriolano sum Concil pag. 602. The great Abridgment in the word Church-yard Charact. of Eng. p. 11 12. Id. p. 13. Edwards Gangraen part 3. p. 17 18. Annon merito cum Propheta Psal 74. nunc exclamabimus Quantum indignatus est inimicus in Sancto Incenderunt sanctua ium Dei polluerum Tabernaculum ejus Nisi forte levius est aedes sacras in equorum ac ferarum Religiosis viris ejectis stabula convertisse Orat. in Synod Augustana Crab. pag. 237. Clem. Spelman's Epist before his Fathers Book De non temerand Eccles Id. The grand Account 1647. Photius Nomocon Tit. 2.