Parliament and had stood up to defend him where there was openly such defiance of Enmity between them he had been censur'd by all Judgment for double-mindedness or sawning And as Lanfrank charged one of his Predecessors Remigius Bishop of Lincoln Quod officio emerat Episcopatum So the World would have censur'd this Prelate that he kept his Place by Service Simony as Mr. Fuller calls it And with what Safety and Liberty he could appear let one Passage demonstrate The Duke demanded that the Attorney-General might plead for him in the House of Peers against the Charge transmitted by the Commons which was opposed because the Attorney was one of the King 's Learned Council and sworn to plead in Causes concerning the King and not against them And the King is supposed to be ever present in the noble Senate of the Lords It was rejoyn'd That His Majesty would dispense with the Attorney's Oath It came to be a Case of Conscience and was referr'd to the Bishop's Learning Some of them judged for the Duke that this was not an Assertory-Oath which admits no alteration but a Promissory-Oath from which Promise the King if he pleas'd might release his Learned Counsel Bishop Felton a devout man and one that feared God very learned and a most Apostolical Overseer of the Clergy whom he governed argued That some Promissory-Oaths indeed might be relaxed if great cause did occur yet not without great cause lest the Obligation of so sacred a thing as an Oath should be wantonly slighted And in this Oath which the Attorney had taken it was dangerous to absolve him from it lest bad Example should be given to dispense with any Subject that had sworn faithful Service to the Crown for which plain Honesty he was wounded with a sharp Rebuke And the reverend Author told me this with Tears Yet the Archb. Abbot said as much and went farther for whom Budaeus would stand up a great Scholar and a Statesman De Asse lib. 3. fol. 102. Neque turpe esse credo cos homines observare quibus apud Principem gratiâ slagrare contigit si non cosdem apud populum ordines infamiâ invidiâ slagrare videamus As who would say it is Duty to love a Favourite for the King's sake and it is Duty to desert him when he becomes a publick Scandal For no man will be happy to stick to him who is so unhappy to become a common Hatred All that Parliament was a long Discontent of eighteen weeks and brought forth nothing but a Tympany of swelling Faction and abrupt Dissolution whereby the King saved that great Lord who lost His Majesty in some expeditions Honour abroad and the love of his People at home This was another Fire-brand kindled after the former at Oxford to burn down the Royal House and the most piously composed Church of England For a wife Oratour says it is Isocr Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 243. The cause of an Evil must not be ascribed to things that concur just at the breaking out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to the forerunning Mischiefs which were soaking long to ripen the Distempers Well was it for Lincoln that he had no hand in this Fray for as the Voyagers to Greenland say When the Whale-fishing begins it is better to be on the Shore and look on E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem than to be employed in the Ships to strike them and hale them to Land 71. Say then that he neither did harm nor receive any by being shut out of this turbulent Parliament Yet his Advice had been worth the asking because of the Plunges that His Majesty was put to upon the Dissolution but he heard of no Call to such a purpose For no man looks on a Dyal in a cloudy day when the Sun shines not on it God's Mercy was in it for he sate safer at home than he could have done at the Council-Board at this time where much Wisdom was tryed to help the King's Necessities out of the Peoples Purses by a Commandatory Loan and with the least Scandal that might be for not to run into some Offence was unavoidable Pindar the Poet was call'd out of his House to speak with some Friend in the Street Castor and Pollux says the Tale-teller searce was his Foot over the Threshold when the Building sunk and all that were within perish'd Thus upon a time the least Shelter gave the most Safety as did the lesser Honour procure this man the more Peace But as Camillus in Livy thrust out of Rome and retired to Ardea prayed that they that had cashier'd him might have no need of him so this forlorn Statesman would have been satisfied to have his place at the Council-Table supplied by others if the King's Affairs had not wanted him at this instant when he suddenly slid down from his former value in the love of this People The Bishops most likely it came from them advised His Majesty first to fly to God and to bid a publick Fast first at Court then over all the Land about the fifth of July Bish Laud whose Sermon was printed preach'd before the King upon the 21st Verse of the 17th Chapter of St. Matthew This kind goeth not out but by Prayer and Fasting The Preface of the Book and the Exhortation publish'd to the observing that solemn Fast stirred up all good Christians to entreat God not to take Vengeance on the Murmurings of the People to keep their Spirits in Unity to divert the plague of immoderate Rain like to corrupt the Fruits of the Harvest and chiefly to preserve us from the Bloody Wars that Spain intended against us Intended says the Book for depredation of Merchants Ships was the worst they had done us Let the Reader gather this by the way That a publick Fast had not been indicted before by the Supreme Authority upon the Alarums of our Enemies Preparations In Eighty eight an Order came out call'd A Form of Prayer necessary for the present Time and State to be used on Wednesdays and Fridays that is certain Collects to be added to the Common Prayer Yet no Fast was bidden saving thus far That Preachers in their Sermons and Exhortations should move the People to Abstinence and Moderation in their Dyet to the end they might be more able to relieve the Poor c. The first Form to be used in Common Prayer with an Order of publick Fast for every Wednesday in the week for a time was set out by Queen Elizabeths special Command in Aug. 1563. when the Plague called The Plague of New-haven was rise in London In which Book is a passage to illustrate our Common-Prayer-Book for the first Rubrick prefixt to the Order for the Holy Communion That so many as intend to be Partakers of the Holy Communion should signifie their Names to the Curate over night or else in the morning either before the beginning of Common Prayer or immediately after That immediately after means that in
foolish in their several Extreams of Years I prostrate at the Feet of your Princely Clemency Which was granted as soon as the Paradox was unridled to pitch upon them Another Gust that blew from the same Cape I mean from the Pulpit began to be so boisterous that it came very cross to his Majesty's Content Our Unity among our selves was troubled in Point of Doctrine which was not wont The Synod of Dort in the Netherlands having lately determined some great Controversies awakned the Opposition of divers Scholars in our Kingdom who lay still before Learned and Unlearned did begin to conflict every Sunday about God's Eternal Election Efficacy of Grace in our Conversion and Perseverance in it with much Noise and little Profit to the People The King who lov'd not to have these Dogmatizers at Variance us'd all speed to take up the Quarrel early that our Variances might not reproach us to them that were without For there was that in him which Pope Leo applauded in Marcian the Emperor Ep. 70. In Christianissimo Principe sacerdotalis affectus He was a mixt Person indeed a King in Civil Power a Bishop in Ecclesiastical Affections After he had struggled with the Contentious Parties a while and interposed like Moses Sirs ye are Brethren Acts 7.26 and that this rebated not the keen Edge of Discord he commanded Silence to both Sides or such a Moderation as was next to Silence First Because of the Sublimity of the Points The most of Men and Women are but Children in Knowledge and strong Meat belongs to them only that are of full Age Hebr. 5.14 St. Austin subscribed to that Prudence Lib. 2. de porsev c. 16. Unile est ut taceatur aliquod verum propter incapaces Secondly Because the ticklish Doctrine of Predestination is frequently marr'd in the handling either by such as press the naked Decree of Election standing alone by it self and do not couple the Means unto it without which Salvation can never be attained or by those that hold out God's peremptory Decrees concerning those whom especially he hath given to Christ and do not as much or more enforce the Truth of Evangelical Promises made to all and to every Man that whosoever believeth in the Son of God shall not be confounded Now let the Reader consider all the Premises and he shall find how the Instructions that follow depend upon them Which in Form and Stile were the Lord Keepers in the Matter his Majesty's Command and were called Directions concerning Preachers 101. Forasmuch as the Abuses and Extravagancies of Preachers in the Pulpit have been in all Ages repressed in this Realm by some Act of Council or State with the Advice and Resolution of Grave and Learned Prelates insomuch as the very Licencing of Preachers had his Beginning by an Order of the Star-Chamber 〈◊〉 July 〈◊〉 Hen. 8. And that at this present young Students by Reading of late Writers and ungrounded Divines do broach Doctrines many times unprofitable unfound Seditious and Dangerous to the Scandal of this Church and Disquieting of the State and present Government His Majesty hath been humbly entreated to settle for the present either by Proclamation Act of Council or Command the several Diocesans of the Kingdom these Limitations and Cautions following untill by a general Convocation or otherwise some more mature Injunctions might be prepared and enacted in that behalf First That no Preacher under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop or Dean of a Cathedral or Collegiate Church do take occasion by the Expounding of any Text of Scripture whatsoever to fall into any Discourse or common Place otherwise than by opening the Coherence and Division of his Text which shall not be comprehended and warranted in Essence Substance Effect or natural Inference within some one of the Articles of Religion set forth 1562 or in some one of the Homilies set forth by Authority in the Church of England not only for a Help to the Non-preaching but withal for a Pattern and a Boundary as it were for the Preaching Ministers And for their further Instruction for the Performance hereof that they forthwith read over and peruse diligently the said Book of Articles and the two Books of Homilies Secondly That no Parson Vicar Curate or Lecturer shall Preach any Sermon or Collation upon Sundays and Holy Days hereafter in the Afternoon in any Cathedral or Parish Church throughout the Kingdom but upon some Part of the Catechism or some Text taken out of the Ten Commandments or the Lords Prayer Funeral Sermons only excepted And that those Preachers be most encouraged and approved of who spend this Afternoon's Exercise in the Examining of the Children in their Catechisms and in the Expounding the several Heads and Substance of the same which is the most ancient and laudable Custom of Teaching in the Church of England Thirdly That no Preacher of what Title soever under the Degree of a Batchelor of Divinity at the least do henceforth presume to Preach in any Popular Auditory the deep Points of Predestination Election Reprobation or of the Universality Efficacy Resistibility or Irresistibility of Gods Grace but leave those Themes to be handled by Learned Men and that moderately and modestly by way of Use and Application rather than by way of positive Docttine as being Points fitter for the Schools and Universitles than for simple Auditories Fourthly That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever under the Degree and Calling of a Bishop shall presume from henceforth in any Auditory within this Kingdom to Declare Limit or bound out by way of positive Doctrine in any Sermon or Lecture the Power Prerogative Jurisdiction Authority or Duty of Sovereign Princes or to meddle with Matters of State and the References between Princes and the People otherwise than as they are Instructed and Precedented in the Homily of Obedience and in the rest of the Homilies and Articles of Religion set forth as before is mentioned by Publick Authority but rather confine themselves wholly to those two Heads of Faith and good Life which are all the Subject of the ancient Sermons and Homilies Fifthly That no Preacher of what Title or Denomination soever shall causelesly and without any Invitation from the Text fall into any bitter Invectives and undecent raising Speeches or Scoslings against the Persons of either Papists or Puritans but modestly and gravely when they are occasion'd thereunto by the Texts of Scripture free both the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England from the Aspersions of either Adversary especially where the Auditory is suspected to be tainted with the one or the other Infection Lastly That the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath just Cause to blame for former Remisness be more wary and choice in Licensing of Preachers and revoke all Grants made to any Chancellor Official or Commissary to pass Licenses in this kind And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom a new Body severed from the ancient
Moriar ego sed me mortuo vigeat ecclesia Let me retire to my little Zoar but let your Gracious Majesty be pleas'd to recommend â—â—â—o my most able and deserving Successor an especial Care of your Church and Church-men To call upon the Judges who God's Name be prais'd are ready enough to hear such Motions to relieve the poor sort of Church-men publickly affronted in their Persons by factious and insolent Justices or judicially wrong'd in their Causes by wilful and partial Jurors Likewise to entertain and countenance their just Plaints in that great Court of Chancery the which of all the rest in Westminster-Hall as not proceeding upon the Verdicts of Lay and Country Juries hath been ever by those of my Coat held most equal and indifferent Also to mingle always some few of the Clergy of best Means and Discretion in the Commission of the Peace who with their very Presence and sitting in that place are a great Countenance to their poor Brethren And withal to keep and preserve poor Ministers from the Oppressions of malicious Informers in that great and chargeable Court of the Star-Chamber Lastly to afford all the Clergy of England that Solace and Relief which his Lordship knoweth well they will expect from your Majesty such a Son of such a Father So may God make your Majesty more victorious than David more wise than Solomon and every way as good a King as your Majesty's blessed Father It shall be the continual Prayer of Your Majesty's poor Subject and Chaplain JO. LINCOLN Foxly Octob 25. This is the Dirge with which that Swan expir'd Being careful of nothing but that his poor Brethren might not be trampled upon over his back especially those that served in Country Cures among bad Pay-masters and narrow-hearted contentious Chuffs So I have done with the ex-authorized Lord-Keeper not fall'n in his worth or in himself though fall'n from a great Place Be it justly ascrib'd to him which Pliny doth to M. Cato lib. 29. c. 1. Cujus autoritati triumphus atque censura minimum conferunt tanto plus in ipso est There was enough in him still to keep him as great as King James had made him 31. The Subject which is now under the Quill is the Bishop of Lincoln A few late Writers who want the Polishing of Humanity and the Meekness of Christianity have done him high reproach in some Occurencies They shall answer for it to God I will only put this little Syrup into the Reader 's Mouth to take away the ill relish of those Defamations that the Fire of Envy would have gone out by this time but that there is a Pile of Vertue left behind to keep it burning Yet even those Men have scarce given him a little scratch or no more anent his Episcopal Administration of his Diocess He made that Office a good Work 1 Tim. 3.1 Neither did he hold any Preheminence of Place without an eminence of Worth and Prudence For four Years after his Consecration he was not in Condition through the great Burthen of other Imployments to appear among his Clergy But it is well known to them that lived under his Charge in those days that both Ministry and Laity were greatly satisfied with his Government For his Encouragements to the Best-deserving were very kind his Dispatches were never intermitted and his Directions strictly look'd after to be observ'd by those that were under him in any part of his Jurisdiction Yet to reach no further than Truth from this time forward his Presence wrought more than his Substitutes in his absence his Light shin'd clearer and the Influence of it was stronger when he was six'd and resident in his own Orb. As Columella commends it wittily to an Owner to live upon his own Ground if he would thrive says he Fimus optimus in agro est Domini vestigium So the Vineyard of Christ in every part of it will prosper best when the Vine-dresser himself doth walk about the Field Or to go higher as Moses said of the promised Land Deut. 11.12 It is a Land which the Lord thy God cares for the Eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it from the beginning of the Year to the end So it runs like a Verse set to the same Tune to say that the Eye of God is all the Year long upon that Portion of his Church where the Diocesan is not a Stranger but a Co-habitant or if you will a Companion with his Brethren And the Bishop having now no more to do with civil Distractions bethought him instantly of the Duty of his Pastoral Staff made Provision for an Houshold which attended him in a great Retinue and removed from Barkshire without touching at London to Bugden in Hunting donshire His Privacy at Foxly conceal'd his Double-diligence to make haste to be gone lest more Anger should shower upon him if he tarried Wherein I espy into Salmasius his Note upon Solinus p. 327. That a Lion never runs away fast from his Enemies but when he hath got into a shady Wood and cannot be seen Ubi virgulta sylvasque penetravit acerrimo cursu fertur velut abscondente turpitudinem loco Beside he that felt the Frowns or rather the Despight of the Court by being near to it knew it was wholsome to change Air to be rid of that Disease as well as Hippocrates prescribes it for the worst Symptoms of the Body Aphor. 20. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To go to a new Soil is good to mitigate an old Sickness No question but being lodg'd now in his Episcopal Palace his most proper Watch-Tower he found it best for the best Health that of a quiet Mind and a good Conscience He was in the way to know himself better when he was more alone to himself than in late Years He was at rest to make use of the Verse of a judicious Heathen Tacitum sylvas inter reptare salubres Horat. Curantem quicquid dignum sapiente bonoque est He might now do as well as know the meaning what the Scriptures intend when they say that Rulers go in and out before the People For how can they go out unto them that are never in among them Else they may be out but never in Here this History hath found him and shall recount things most memorable that there concern'd him speaking after the rate of enough and not a jot beyond it This many both Friends and Strangers to him have desired often from the Author of this Piece to be informed in And it is a quaint Rule which fell from Pliny Lib. 35. c. 2. N. H. Nullum majus est felicitatis specimen quà m omnes scire cupere qualis fucrit aliquis He is happy that hath lived so that many desire to know how he lived Into which every one that looks will like this Order to proceed by to rank things praise-worthy on the right-hand as it were by themselves and all things on the other hand which fell upon him by
would witness against me for my Council-Table Opinion I would say to him as Gallus did to Tyberius Caesar Good Sir speak you first for I may mistake and you may witness against me for it in the next Parliament Some did make Laws with Ropes about their Necks What Must men give their Counsel as it were with Ropes about their Necks Solomon says When thou comest to a rich man's table put a knife to thy Throat But what 's here When we give Judgment as we are able among the Lords of the Council must we put an Ax to our Necks Beware of such Traps pittying the case of human Weakness 145. The fourth Question is thus comprized Whether some Members of the House of Commons may be present at the Examination Judicially they cannot the Judicature is in your Lordships but whether organically and ministerially is the Scruple to be satisfied I will be brief in my Conceptions what is against the claim of the House of Commons and what is for them This is not for them That 50 Edw. 3. one Love was a Witness in Lord John Nevile's Case Love denied what he had confest before two Knights Members of the Lower House The House of Commons send them to the Lords to confront Love which they did and Love was thereupon committed Now their being here was only to confront not to assist the Lords either judicially or ministerially Many things make for them why they may be there ministerially at least First Originally both Houses were together and so the Commons heard all Examinations Considerent inter se Modus ten Pl. and sate so till Anno 6 Edw. 3. by Mr. Elsing's Collections which are not over-authentick Secondly After that time they have all the House of Commons been present when Witnesses were sworn here Anno 5 Hen. IV. Rot. 11. swears his Fealty before the Lords and Commons and two or three days after by the same Oath and before the same persons clears the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of York from a Suspicion of Treason laid to their charge The Commons were by and heard all this The third Reason is Mr. Attorny-General if this Lord were arraigned of Treason as I pray God bless him from deserving it would be by and observe his Defence and such Witnesses as he should produce for himself and would no doubt bring Counter proofs Sur le Champ and upon the sudden against the same if he were able The House of Commons is in this case the King's Attorny who make and maintain the charge So far out of brief Notes for take them to be no other you have a strong Judgment pass'd upon four Questions Says Tully in his Brutus of Caesar's Eloquence Tabulam benè pictam collocat in bono lumine He draws his Picture well and hangs it out to be well seen So here 's a Piece well drawn and placed in the light of Perspicuity His next Argument is very long but of that use to the Reader that he shall not sind so much Learning in any Author on that Theme that I know a Scholar would not want it They that fostered deadly Enmities against E. Strafford laboured to remove the Bishops from the hearing of his Cause This Bishop and his Brethren minding to him all the Pity and Help they could shew him the Opposites began to vote them out of Doors and would not admit them in the Right of Peers in this Cause because it was upon Life and Blood Lincoln maintains that the Lords did them Injury and that Bishops in England may and ought to vote in causâ sanguinis That they were never inhibited by the Law of this Land never by the Peers of the Land before this time That their voluntary forbearance in some Centuries of the Ages before proceeded from their Fears of the Canons of the Court of Rome and by the special Leave of the King and both Houses who were graciously pleased to allow of their Protestations for their Indemnity as Church-men when the King and Parliament might have rejected their Protestations if they had pleas'd And much he insisted upon it that the opponent Lords grounded their Judgment upon the corrupt Canons of the Church of Rome Indeed I find in my own Papers that the Monks of Canterbury complain'd against Hubert their Archbishop to the Pope for sitting upon Tryals of Life and Blood They could not complain that he went against the Laws and Customs of England but their Appeal was to the Pope's Justice and it was more tolerable for Monks to rake in the Rubbish of the Roman Courts than for English Barons And say in sooth must not Divines of the Reformed Church meddle in Cause of Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amph. Would they be laugh'd at for this Hypocrisie or abhorr'd For who more forward to thrust into the Troops of the late War than the Ministers whom they countenanc'd Have I not seen them prance about the Streets in London with Pistols in their Holsters and Swords by their sides And so for Edg-hill and Newberry c. Could they rush into so many Fights and be clear from cause of Blood Nay the Pontisical part make but a Mockery of this Canon for anno 1633 a Book was printed in Paris sill'd with a Catalogue of Cardinals Bishops and Priests who had been brave Warriours most of them Leaders in the Field the Author a Sycophant aimed to please Cardinal Richlieu and a Fig for the Canons Reason Canons Parliamentary Privileges nay Religion are to corrupt men as they like them for their own ends Now hear how this Bishop did wage his Arguments for the affirmative 146. It is to be held for a good Cause against which nothing of moment can be alledg'd such is this concerning the Right of Bishops to vote in causâ sanguinis First It is not prohibitum quia malum not any way evil in it self no more than it is an evil thing in it self to do Justice Secondly It was in use from the Law of Nature when the eldest of the Family was King Priest and Prophet Thirdly It was in use under Moses's Law and so continued in the Priests and Levites down to Annas and Caiaphas and after Christ's death till the Temple was destroyed as appears by the scourging of the Apostles by the stoning of Stephen and commanding St. Paul to be smitten on the Mouth Fourthly It was in use in the persons of the Apostles themselves as in that Judgment given upon Ananias and Saphira in the delivery up to Satan as most of the ancient Fathers expound that Censure to be a corporal Vexation And generally in all the Word of God there is no one Text that literally inhibits Church-men more than Lay-men to use this kind of Judicature For that Precept to be no striker 1 Tim. 3.3 is no more to be appropriated to a Bishop distinct from the rest of Christian men than that which is added not to be given to Wine that is immoderately taken Proceed we
refuse to concurr with the Parliament nay if he took more time to deliberate upon it it would be worse for the Earl and he would come to a more unhappy Death for an Hellish Contrivance was resolved upon just as in St. Paul's case Acts 23.15 the Zealots that had vowed Paul's death laid the Plot with the Priests and Elders to signisie to the Captain to bring him down to enquire somewhat more perfectly concerning him and ere ever he came near they would fall upon him The condemn'd Earl when he heard of this was no longer fond of Lise but sent word to the King that he was well prepared for his End and would not his gracious Majest y should disquiet himself to save a ruin'd Vessel that must sink A valiant Message and sit for so great a Spirit Loginus notes acutely that when Ajax was to combat with Hector he begg'd some things of such Gods as he call'd upon but to escape with life was not in his Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was beneath a Graecian Heroe to desire Life It being therefore to no purpose to dispute what was the best Remedy to save this Lord when there was none at all the House of Lords nominate four Prelates to go to His Majesty to propound how the Tenderness of his Conscience might safely wade through this insuperable dissiculty these were L. Primate Usher with the Bishops Morton Williams Potter There was none of those four but would have gone through Fire and Water as we say to save the Party which being now a thing beyond Wit and Power they state the Question thus to the King sure I am of the Truth because I had it from the three former Whether as His Majesty refers his own Judgment to his Judges in whose Person they act in Court of Oyer Kings-bench Assize and in Cause of Life and Death and it lies on them if an innocent man suffer so why may not His Majesty satisfie his Conscience in the present matter that since competent Judges in Law had awarded that they found Guilt of Treason in the Earl that he may susser that Judgment to stand though in his private mind he was not satisfied that the Lord Strafford was criminous for that juggling and corrupt dealing which he suspected in the Proofs at the Tryal and let the Blame lye upon them who sate upon the Tribunal of Life and Death The four Bishops were all for the ashrmative and the Earl took it so little in ill part that Reverend Armagh pray'd with him preach'd to him gave him his last Viaticum and was with him on the Scassoid as a Ghostly Father till his Head was severed from his Body 154. Indeed His Majesty in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem to represent it as if he did not approve what he received from the four Bishops at that Consultation And I will leave such good men to his Censure rather than contradict any thing in that most pious most ravishing Book which deserves as much as Tully said of Crassus in his Brutus Ipsum melius potuisse scribere alium ut arbitror neminem Perhaps the King could have wrote better but I think no man else in the three Kingdoms What a venomous Spirit is in that Serpent Milton that black-mouth'd Zoilus that blows his Vipers Breath upon those immortal Devotions from the beginning to the end This is he that wrote with all Irreverence against the Fathers of our Church and shew'd as little Duty to his Father that begat him The same that wrote for the Pharisees That it was lawful for a man to put away his Wife for every cause and against Christ for not allowing Divorces The same O horrid that desended the lawfulness of the greatest Crime that ever was committed to put our thrice-excellent King to death A petty School-boy Scribler that durst graple in such a Cause with the Prince of the learned men of his Age Salmasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius says of Ammonius Plutarch's Scholar in Aegypt the Delight the Musick of all Knowledge who would have scorn'd to drop a Pen-full of Ink against so base an Adversary but to maintain the Honour of so good a King whose Merit he adorns with this Praise p. 237. Con. Milt De quo si quis dixerit omnia bona vix pro suis meritis satis illum ornaret Get thee behind me Milton thou savourest not the things that be of Truth and Loyalty but of Pride Bitterness and Falshood There will be a time though such a Shimei a dead Dog in Abishai's Phrase escape for a while yet he and the Enemies of my Lord the King will fall into the Hands of the Avenger of Blood And that Book the Picture of King Charles's innocent Soul which he hath blemish'd with vile Reproaches will be the Vade Mecum of godly persons and be always about them like a Guardian Angel It is no marvel if this Canker-worm Milton is more lavish in his Writings than any man to justifie the beheading of Strafford whom good men pray'd for alive and pitied him dead So did the four Bishops that I may digress no longer who pour'd the best Oyl they could into the King's Conscience to give him Peace within himself when the main Cause was desperate and common Fury would compel him in the end to sacrifice this Earl to the Parliament Things will give better Counsel to men than men to things But a Collector of Notes W. Sa. hath a sling at the Bishop of Lincoln his quill hits him but hurts him no more than if it were a Shuttle-cock with four Feathers Forsooth when those four Bishops were parting from the King he put a Paper into His Majesty's Hand and that could be nothing else but an Inflammatory of Reasons more than were heard in publick left the King should cool and not set his Hand to the fatal Warrant This Author was once in the right p. 154. of his own Book That it becomes an Historian in dubious Relations to admit the most Christian and Charitable Pessumè it is optimè herclè dicitis Plaut in Pen. But this Case needs no Favour The Paper which that Bishop put into the King's Hands as he told me the next morning was an humble Advice to His Majesty why he should not give the Parliament an indesinite time to sit till both Houses consented to their own dissolution Was not this faithful Counsel For what could the King see in them who had been so outragious already to stand out the trial of their wavering Faith Trust should make men true Says Livy lib. 22. Vult sibi quisque credi habita fides ipsam plerumque fidem obligat But a number of these men cared not for moral Principles they were all for the Scriptures and they read them by new Lights The King had too much Faith and they had no Good Works What magnanimous Prince would bow so low to give the Keys of Government to so many Male-contents
and out of those their Treatises wherein especially they handled the Cause for which he Appealed unto them And Thirdly When he had fixed what was prime and principal Truth in any Debate with great Meekness and Sweetness he gave copious Latitude to his Auditors how far they might dissent keeping the Foundation sure without breach of Charity These were the Constellations whose fortunate Aspect did shine upon this Neophytus in the Orb of Cambridge and being under the Influence of such Luminaries a judicious Academian might Prognostic how much he would prosper without a judicious Astrologer But for all that he posted so speedily through the broad Way of the best Tracts of Knowledge yet he found a little leisure to call in as he went at the attaining of some Skill in Musick Instrumental and Vocal not as a Siren to catch him but as a Delight to solace him Nay though he set his Face to the end of a great Journey yet in transiâ—â— he took Acquaintance of the French Tongue to make himself able to read the choice Pieces of that acute Nation which flow'd in easily and apace into him having the Pipes of the Latin Tongue ready cast to convey it What shall we say to him that took in hand such a long Sorites of Sciences and Tongues together But that such Blood and Spirits did boil in his Veins as Tully felt when he spake so high Mihi satis est si omnia consequi possim Nothing was enough till he got all 14. The Gamester was the freer to throw at all because he was like to draw a good Stake Preferment already holding its Hand half open For â—fâ—câ—bi 2º his Patron and tenderly-loving Kinsman Dr. Vaughan was Removed from the Bishoprick of Chester to the See of London The young Eaglets are quickly taken up upon the Wings of the old one But the good Bishop within three Years after he had ascended to that Dignity ended his days greatly lamented of all and lived not till his young Cousin was adult for Promotion This only was much to his Benefit that every Year the Bishop sent for him to spend a few Weeks in his Palace of London a great help to his Breeding to let him see the course of Church-Government managed by the Piety and Wisdom of so grave a Prelate who had much of a Gentleman much of a Scholar and most of a Christian During his abode in the Reverend Bishop's Palace he had the opportunity to tender his Duty to that noble-minded and ancient Baron John Lord Lumley who received him with equal Courtesie and Bounty as his Kinsman That Lord having given his Sister in Marriage to Mr. Humfry Llyd of Nor. h. Wales a most industrious Antiquary as appears in Ortelius and Adjutant to Mr. Cambden in his great Work This Lord Lumley did pursue Recondite Learning as much as any of his Honourable Rank in those Times and was owner of a most precious Library the Search and Collection of Mr. Humsry Llyd Out of this Magazine that great Peer bestowed many excellent Pieces printed and Manuscript upon Mr. Williams for Alliance sake a Treasure above all Presents most welcom to him Yet the noble-hearted Lord a free Mccaenas gave with both hands and never sent his young Kinsman away from him without a Donative of ten Pieces The first Gift of Books he kept better then Gold for the Gold went from him again as magnificently as if he had been no less then the Lord Lumley himself But that he had received those noble Favours I heard him remember with great and grateful Expressions in the Chancel of the Parish-Church of Cheam near to Nâ—nâ—â—câ— in Surrey whereof my self have been Rector now above 30 Years coming on a day to view the Burial-place of the Lord Lumley where his Body lies under a comely Monument 15. It fell out luckily to Mr. Williams to keep him from incurring great Debts that he had such an Ophir or Golden Trade to drive with the Lord Lumley's Puâ—se who supplied him with a Bounty that grudg'd him nothing till the Year 1â—â—9 for then that aged Baron died Four Years before the loss of that dear Friend An. 1605 he took his Degree of Master of Arts and he Feasted his Friends at the Commencement as if it had been his Wedding having more in Cash at command by the full Presents of many Benefactors then is usual with such young Graduates His Merits being known brought him in a great Revenue long before he had a certain Livelihood A Master of Arts is a Title of honest Provocation rightly considered Nomina insignia onerosa sunt says the Emperor Alexander Mammaens But they are scarce so many as a few that are warm'd with the remembrance of that Honour which the Regent-House conferr'd upon them worthy to be taxed in parodie with that Increpation Heb. 5.12 Cum deberetis Magistri esse propter tempus rursum indigetis ut vos doceamini When for the time ye eught to be Masters you have need one teach you again Whose Reproach hath this and no other use that they are a pitiful Foil to their Betters I am sure I explain a Man who added as much Grace to the Name as any his Ancestors of those that came after he that was the best was but second in the Order Every day borrowing much of the Night advanced his Knowledge He hired himself to labour under all Arts and sorts of Learning The more he toil'd the more he perceiv'd that nothing in this Earth had such Amplitude as the extent of Sciences He saw it was a Prospect which had no Horizon a Man can never say he sees the utmost bound of the Coast Therefore he was continually drawing his Bow because he was sure he could never shoot home No Man fishes to get all the Fish in the Sea yet since the Sea contains so much he is slothful that labours but for a little Our Student began now to fall close to the deep and spacious Studies of Divinity I deliver from his own mouth what he would relate sometimes in his riper Years That he began to read all the Scriptures with the choicest and most literal and as he found it fit with the briefest Commentators so that all his Superstructure might knit close to that Foundation He compared the common places of P. Martyr Chemnitius and Musculus Calvin and Zanchie being in at all with the Sacred Text and found that Harmony in them all with the Oracles of God's Word that he perceived he might with a good Conscience as he would answer it to Christ Jesus defend the Integrity of the Reformed Religion taking it not upon Trust but upon Judgment and Examination But an Artist knoweth not what he hath got by all his Diligence till he useth it neither can a Scholar understand what Tast is in the Waters of his own 〈◊〉 till he draws some quantity out Therefore he disclosed himself both in his own Terms and for his Friends in common Places and
April ensuing and pleasantly bad him expect the Labourers peny as soon as they that had serv'd him longer But the Bishop of Winchester made a proposition before his Majesty for another employment and both could not consist together that whereas the Arch-Bishop of Spalato a Proselyte much welcom'd at that time was design'd to be present at Cambridge commencement in the next July that he might behold the University in the fairest Trim and hear the disputation the best being ever provided for that appearance that Mr. Williams might be reserv'd unto that time for a double Service to answer publickly in Divinity for the Degree of Doctor the fittest to be the Days-man before that Learned Prelate and likewise give him Hospitality such as a great Guest deserv'd so it was order'd and so it was perform'd Some men are right Learned yet with all that worth steal out of the World unknown because it was their ill hap never to be brought upon a Theatre of manifestation And some are as Valiant as the best and yet are never praised for it because they were never invited into the Field to shew it So Velleius speaks for Seianus that he never Triumph'd nou merito sed materiâ adipiscendi triumphalia defectus est he deserv'd it but the matter of a Triumph never fell in his way There are others whom not only deliberate Advice but every casualty and contingence puts forward to be Aspectabiles it conducts them likely where they may best be viewed and their full Stature seen upon the advantage of a Rising I fall into this contemplation because an Object is before me wherein I may aptly Exemplify Dr. Williams his Title for which he stood in the Act an 1617. cull'd not out gaudy Seasons for vain Glory that cannot be suspected because he took all his Academical degrees in their just year But he above that disposeth all things provided those Co-incidencies of great Resort and Celebrity such as Arch-Bishop Spalato's Presence at this Commencement to make his Worthiness be known the further The Theses which he defended in the Vespers and were imposed upon him by the over-ruling Power of the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of the Consistory it is their Right and Custom were these 1. Supremus Magistratus nou est Excommunicabilis 2. Subductio calicis est mutilatio Sacramenti Sacerdotii It was well for the Doctor that he was a right Stag well breath'd and had a fair Head with all his Rights for I never heard a Respondent better hunted in all my time that I was a Commorant in Cambridge The Opponents were the Princes of their Tribes Men of Renown in their Generation Dr. Richardson the first Dr. Branthwait Dr. Ward Dr. Collins Dr. Alabaster Dr. Goad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who did Honour the University that day to the admiration of Mr. Antonie de Dominis with the utmost of their Learning Every Argument they pressed was a Ramm to throw down the Bulwarks of the Cause and yet it totter'd not neither did the Answerer give ground Such a Disputation was worthy to be heard which was carried with equal Praise of the Assailants and Defendants As Plutarch lib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says of Moral Precepts that they require a good Speaker and a good Hearer with mutual Diligence as a Game at Tennis is well play'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When the Stroke is serv'd well and the Service taken well 39. That I may mix some Profit to the Reader in this Relation I will let him know upon what Rules and Reasons the Respondent proceeded in the first Cause for the Conviction of all Gainsayers both of the Pontifician part and of the heady Consistories of some Reformed Churches The Pontifician Rubbish he removed away as a Dunghil of unsavoury Filth fit to be cast out of the Lord's Vine-yard either because the Popes medled so far beyond their own Bounds attempting to send out Effulminations against Christian Kings in all Countries upon Arrogation of an Universal bishoprick which hath the Plenitude of all Jurisdiction in it self alone to which they have exalted themselves without Christ's Warrant and Seal or because by the Declaratory Sentence of their Excommunications they inflict the highest Temporal Indignities upon Kings that can be imagin'd As inhibiting their Courts of Justice to proceed any further till he that sits in the Throne shall receive Absolution from their Grace Absolving their Subjects from obligation of all Service and Fidelity Deposing them from their Government and exposing their Lives to Assassinate For though they do not say that such Effects should necessarily go along with Excommunication yet they maintain That if the Pope see cause such Tragical Punishments may be annex'd unto it Far wide from the Truth For it is evident that an Excommunicated Person can be deprived of nothing by the Church but that which is enjoyed through the Ministry of the Church and its Priviledges but how can he be dispossess'd of that which he holds by Civil and Natural Right which are not dependant upon Spiritual Relations And as it is expedient to chip away these hard Crusts of Error so neither is the Crum to be digested which likes the Palates of some who are devoted to the Presbyterian Discipline A King is not obnoxious to be interdicted or deprived of the Sacraments by their Aldermen who can shew no more for the Proof of such Officers with whom they Organize a Church then the Pope can for his unlimited Jurisdiction Nor is it to be suffered that they should deny a Christian King to be a Church-Officer properly and by right of his Crown over Christian Subjects as Christians whose Causes can never be separated by their Metaphysical Abstractions before distinct supreme Rulers that are co-ordinate but that there will be endless Jarrs in their several Entrenchments and God is not the God of Confusion Should he that is next under God in all Causes be subject to the Courts of his Liege-People and Homagers He is their common Parent and the only Mandat how to bear our selves to our Father is to Honour him But what can make him more vile before the People then to thrust him out of the Communion of Saints Moreover the greater Excommunication includes in it the Horror of Anathematizing or a Curse but Curse not the King no not in thy thought Eccles 10.20 Neither would God give a constant Power to any which were in vain and could not sting Vanum est quod fine suo destuuitur But it is vain to interdict a King over whom there is no external Power appointed to bring him into order by Violence and Coercion if he will not be Interdicted In every Policy there must be a Supreme that can be Judged of none for else the Process between Party and Party would be Circular or rather Infinite These Aphorisms and abundance more flowed from the Doctor Respondent in the warmth of Disputation Above all his Answer was highly applauded which he gave to Dr.
for him that kept the Seal of England as for him that kept the Seal of France In what Kingdom soever he had been born in what Age soever he had lived he would have shared with them that had a considerable part of Honour and Dignity Certainly he was embued with that Wit and Spirit that he need not lag after the Train of Preferment unless he would And I dare not say he would For they that are sanguine and of a stirring temper which was his Complexion love to take the right hand I must be thus far bold because I write not of an Angel or a Soul among the Beati but of a Man consisting of Humane Desires and Passions And he that describes an ingenious active Man without some addition to Honour and Greatness makes him not Laudable but Prodigious And I will as soon believe it as I will the Alcoran that the Angel Gabriel took out all the black Core of Original Frailty from the Heart of Mahomet Experience teacheth us more then strict Rules that Virtue which is forward to thrust it self into practise nay into danger for the public Good will never discharge it chearfully without a Ticket from hope of some Amplification Salust in the Oration De republicâ ordinandâ spake pleasingly and truly to Caesar Ubi gloriam dempseris ipsa per se virtus amara atque aspera est 46. Now he whom I insist upon being a Subject thus fit for Impression his good Master King James was as ready to put the Stamp upon him He never met with any before no not the Lord Egerton much less with any after that loved him like King James at the full rate of his worth That King's Table was a trial of Wits The reading of some Books before him was very frequent while he was at his Repast Otherwise he collected Knowledge by variety of Questions which he carved out to the capacity of his understanding Writers Methought his hunting Humour was not off so long as his Courtiers I mean the Learned stood about him at his Board He was ever in chase after some disputable Doubts which he would wind and turn about with the most stabbing Objections that ever I heard And was as pleasant and fellow-like in all those Discourses as with his Huntsmen in the Field They that in many such genial and convival Conferences were ripe and weighty in their Answers were indubiously designed to some Place of Credit and Profit Wherein he followed the Emperor Adrian as Spartianus remembers it Omnes professores honoravit divites fecit licet eos quaestionibus semper agitaverit But among them all with whom King James communed was found none like Daniel c. 1. v. 19. His Majesty gave his Ear more Graciously to this Chaplain and directed his Speech to him when he was at hand oftner then to any that crowded near to harken to the Wisdom of that Salomon He had all those Endowments mightily at command which are behoved in a Scholar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle 3º Top. terms them unto Extemporary Colloquies Ingenium in numerato habuit as Quintil. l. 6. said of a ready Man he had all his Learning in ready Money and could spend it at an hour as well as at a day's warning There was not a greater Master of Perspicuity and elucidate Distinctions which look'd the better in his English that ran sweet upon his Tongue especially being set out with a graceful Facetiousness that hit the joint of the Matter For his Wit and his Judgment never parted If the King lead him quite out of the rode of Verbal Learning and talk'd to him of real and gobernative Wisdom he pleas'd his Majesty most of all because his Answers discover'd that he loved to see through the present to the future Chiefly since he would be bold not only to argue but to quarrel against Innovations For though he was never addicted to his own Opinions no not among his Inferiors with that pertinacious Obligation for better for worse yet neither his best Friends nor the higher Powers could ever get him pleas'd with new Crotchets either in Church or State His constant Rule was That old Imperfections were safer then new Experiments To which purpose a Saying of his was famous in Court The manner how it came in was thus A great Servant to the King press'd for a change of that which was well enough already and commended his Design by this Note That it would be an easier way for the People Sir says Dr. Williams a Bed is an easie Repose but it is not wholsom to lie upon a new Tick and new-driven Feathers All these Passages the King consider'd from time to time Multa viri virtus animo c. And was glad he had a Servant to be raised up of whom He thought as Cicero did of Demetrius Valerius lib. 3. de Leg. Et doctrinae studus regendà civitate Princeps That he was a full Scholar fit for the Sacred and for the Civil Gown In a word one of the stronger Cattle Gen. 30.41 and designed for a Bell-weather in Jacob's Flock 47. The King was the Fountain of Honour indeed but there was a pre-eminent Pipe through which all Graces flowing from him were derived I pray the Reader to consider the sweetness of this King's Nature for I ascribe it to that cause that from the time he was 14 Years old and no more that is when the Lord Aubigny came into Scotland out of France to visit him even then he began and with that Noble Personage to clasp some one Gratioso in the Embraces of his great Love above all others who was unto him as a Parelius that is when the Sun finds a Cloud so fit to be illustrated by his Beams that it looks almost like another Sun At this time upon which my Pen drops the Marquess of Buckingham was the Parelius He could open the Sluce of Honour to whom and shut it against whom he pleased This Lord was our English Alcibtades for Beauty Civility Bounty and for Fortitude wanted nothing of Man enough says Art Wils p. 223. who favours all Republicans and never speaks well of Regians it is his own distinctions if he can possibly avoid it The Marquess by Sweetness as much as by Greatness by Courtesie as well as by Power pluck'd a world of Suitors to him especially by his generous and franc Usage For he did as many Favours to the King's Servants and Subjects freely and nobly that is without the sordid Fee of Gifts and Presents as ever any did that ruled the King's Affections Some of the most honoured Ladies of his Blood have told me That there was a Chopping-taker in his Family that was least suspected but his Lordship's Hands were clean and his Eyes could not look into every dark corner Dr. William was aware that this was the Man by whom the King delighted to impart his Bounties Aemilio dabitur quicquid petit Juv. Sat. 7. The Doctor had crept
the opening of that Session it was much Noted that the King had said before all the Members Spare none where you find just Cause to punish And if the two Houses should sit a year what good could be expected from them but two or three Subsidies That it were less danger for the King to gather such a Sum or greater by his Prerogative though it be out of the way than to wait for the exhibition of a little Mony which will cost Dishonour and the Ruin of his most Loyal and Faithful Servants 60. O what a Tempting Fiend is self-preservation These Mormo's and ill shap'd Jealousies hatch'd in Hell and prompted by the Father of mischief disquieted the King but Rob'd my Lord of Buckingham of all peace of Mind till the Dean of Westminster his good Genius conjur'd them down whose Wisdom luckily consulted gave him this Advice as I find it in a Breviate of his own hand Writing That the Parliament in all that it had hitherto undertaken had deserv'd praise as well for their dutiful demeanor to the King as for their Justice to his people His Majesties just and gracious Prerogative was untouch'd The Grievances of all that were Wronged with indifferency were Received which they must sift or betray the Trust of their Country which sent them The former Parliament was very Tart if not undutiful what then Shall we be fearful to put our hands into cold Water because we have been Scalded with hot There 's no Colour to quarrel at this general Assembly of the Kingdom for Tracing delinquents to their Form For it is their proper Work And the King hath very Nobly encourag'd them to it in his Speech that in the first day he made before them nay even proffering to have the blemishes of his Government Reformed by them for his own Words must literally bear that meaning as you well remember them if I may know my Errors I will Reform them But your Lordship is Jealous if the Parliament continue Embodied in this Vigour of your own safety or at least of your Reputation least your Name should be used and he brought to the Bandy Follow this Parliament in their undertakings and you may prevent it Swim with the Tide and you cannot be Drown'd They will seek your favour if you do not start from them to help them to settle the public Frame as they are contriving it Trust me and your other Servants that have some Credit with the most Active Members to keep you clear from the strife of Tongues But if you assist to break up this Parliament being now in pursuit of Justice only to save some Cormorants who have devoured that which must be regorged you will pluck up a Sluce which will over-whelm your self The King will find it a great disservice before one year expire The Storm will gather and burst out into a greater Tempest in all insequent Meetings For succeeding Parliaments will never be Friends with those with whom the former fell out This is Negative Counsel I will now spread Affirmative Proposals before your Honour which I have studied and consider'd Delay not one day before you give your Brother Sir Edward a Commission for an Embassage to some of the Princes of Germany or the North-Lands and dispatch him over the Seas before he be mist Those empty Fellows Sir G. Mompesson and Sir Fr. Michel let them be made Victims to the publick Wrath. It strikes even with that Advice which was given to Caesar in Salust when the people expected that some should be Examples of impartial Justice Lucius Posthumins Marcus Fauonius mihi videntur quâ—si magnae navis supervacua onera esse Si quid adversi coortâ—m est de illis pstissumon sactura sit quia pretii minimi sunt Let Lord Posthumius and M. Fauonius be thrown over board in the Storm for there are no Wares in the Ship that may better be spared Nay my Sentence is cast all Monopolies and Patents of griping projections into the Dead Sea after them I have search'd the Signet Office and have Collected almost forty which I have hung in one Bracelet and are fit for Revocation Damn all these by one Proclamation that the World may see that the King who is the Pilot that sits at the Helm is ready to play the pump to eject such Filth as grew Noysom in the Nostrils of his people And your Lordship must needs partake in the Applause for though it is known that these Vermin haunted your Chamber and is much Whisper'd that they set up Trade with some little Licence from your Honour yet when none shall appear more forward than your self to crush them the Discourse will come about that these Devices which take ill were stoln from you by Mis-representation when you were but New blossom'd in Court whose Deformities being Discover'd you love not your own Mistakings but are the most forward to re-call them 61. Before I proceed though Anger be an Enemy to Counsel I confess I cannot refrain to be angry O hearken not to Rhehoboams Ear-Wigs drive them away to the Gibbet which they deserve that would incite the King to Collections of Aid without concurrence of his Parliament God bless us from those Scorpions which certainly would beget a popular Rage An English mans Tribute comes not from the King's Exaction but by the peoples free Oblation out of the Mouth of their Representatives Indeed our Ancient Kings from the beginning did not receive but impose Subsidies When the Saxon Monarchs wanted Relief for repairing Castles Bridges or Military Expeditions they Levied it at their will upon the Shires as we may learn by some Names the only Remainder of those Old times Burg-boot Brig-boot Hen-fan Here-geld Horn-geld Danegeld Terms that meet us every where in our Ancient Chronicles The Normans you may Swear lost nothing that came in by wonted Signory but exacted as they saw Cause as William the Conqueror de Unaquâque hidâ sex solidos cepit imposed Six Shillings on every plowed Land saith Mathew Paris And William Rusus had his Auxilium non lege statutum an Aid without an Act of Parliament as Hoveden in the Life of Henry the Second And in this manner the Norman Race supplied themselves as they needed until King John's Reign who in his great Charter bound himself and his Successors to Collect no Aid nisi per commune concilium regni as it is in Matthew Paris With this agrees the Old Statute of 51 Henry the Third de tallagio non concedendo that Subsidies should not be Levied without the consent of Parliament Which being confirmed also in the 25 of Edward the First hath been inviolably observ'd by all the good and peaceable Kings of England to this very day And God forbid that any other Course should be Attempted For this Liberty was settled on the Subject with such Imprecations upon the Infringers that if they should remove these great Land-Marks they must look for Vengeance as if Entail'd by publick
Vows on them and their Posterity These were the Deans Instructions which the Lord Marquess received with as much Thankfulness as he could express and requited his Adviser with this Complement that he would use no other Counsellor hereafter to pluck him out of his plunges for he had delivered him from Fear and Folly and had Restor'd him both to a light Heart and a safe Conscience To the King they go together forthwith with these Notes of honest Settlement whom they found accompanied in his Chamber with the Prince and in serious Discourse together upon the same perplexities Buckingham craves leave That the Dean might be heard upon those particulars which he had brought in Writing which the King Mark'd with Patience and Pleasure And whatsoever seem'd contentious or doubtful to the King 's piercing Wit the Dean improved it to the greater liking by the Solidity of his Answers Whereupon the King resolv'd to keep close to every Syllable of those Directions Sir Edward Villiars was sent abroad and return'd not till September following Michel and Mompesson received their censure with a Salvo that Mompesson's Lady not guilty of his Crimes should be preserv'd in her Honour And before the Month of March expir'd Thirty seven Monopolies with other sharking Prouleries were decry'd in one Proclamation which return'd a Thousand praises and Ten Thousand good prayers upon the Sovereign Out of this Bud the Deans Advancement very shortly spread out into a blown Flower For the King upon this Tryal of his Wisdom either call'd him to him or call'd for his Judgment in Writing in all that he deliberated to Act or permit in this Session of Parliament in his most private and closest consultations The more he founded his Judgment the deeper it appear'd so that his Worth was Valued at no less than to be taken nearer to be a Counsellor upon all Occasions The Parliament wearied with long sittings and great pains was content against the Feast of Easter to take Relaxation and was Prorogued from the 27 of March to the 18 of April The Marquess had an Eye in it upon the Lord Chancellor to try if time would mitigate the displeasure which in both Houses was strong against him But the leisure of three Weeks multiplied a pile of New Suggestions against him and nothing was presaged more certain than his downfal which came to Ripeness on the third of May. On that day the Patent of his Office with the Great Seal was taken from him which Seal was deliver'd to Four Commissioners the Lord Treasurer Mountagu Duke of Lenox Lord Steward of the King's Houshold William Earl of Pembroke Lord Chamberlain to the King and Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surry with whom it rested till the 10th of July following In the mean time Sir James Leigh Lord Chief Justice of the King's-Bench was Commissioned to be Speaker in the Upper House and Sir Julius Caesar Master of the Rolls was Authorized with certain Judges in equal power with him to hear dispatch and decree all Causes in the Court of Chancery 62 The Competitors for the Office of the Great Seal were many Sir James Leigh before mention'd a Widower and upon Marriage with a Lady of the Buckingham Family Sir Henry Hobart Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Chancellor to the Prince a Step to the Higher Chancellorship and as fit as any man for his Learning and Integrity which of these it was uncertain but one of these was expected And verily a fitter Choice could not be made than out of the pre-eminent Professors of the Common Laws but that all Kings affect to do somewhat which is extraordinary to shew the liberty of their power The Earl of Arundel was thought upon a Master of Reason and of a great Fortune For it was remembred upon the Death of Lord Chancellor Bromly anno 1587 That Queen Elizabeth designed a Peer of the Realm for his Successor Edward Earl of Rutland whose Merit for such a place is favour'd by Mr. Cambden because he was Juris scientiâ omni politiori literaturâ ornatissimus and if his Death much bewailed had not prevented the Great Seal had been born before him But the likeliest to get up and I may say he had his Foot in the Stirrup was Sir Lionel Cranfield Married in the kindred that brought Dignity to their Husbands a man of no vulgar head-piece yet scarce sprinkled with the Latin Tongue He was then Master of the Court of Wards and did speak to the Causes that were brought before him quaintly and evenly There seemed to be no Let to put him in Possession of the great vacant Office but that the Lord Marquess set on by the King was upon enquiry how profitable in a just way it might be to the Dignitary and whether certain Branches of Emolument were natural to it which by the endeavour of no small ones were near to Lopping Sir Lionel besought the Marquess to be sudden and to Advise upon those things with the Dean of Westminster a found man and a ready who did not wont to clap the Shackles of delay upon a business He being spoken to to draw up in Writing what he thought of those Cases return'd an Answer speedily on the Tenth of May with the best advantage he could foresee to the promotion of the Master of the Wards Yet it fell out cross unto him that the Dean woing for another utterly beyond expectation sped for himself The Paper which he sent to the Marquess hath his own Words as they follow My most Noble Lord ALthó the more I Examine my self the more unable I am made to my own Judgment to wade through any part of that great Employment which your Honour vouchsafed to confer with me about yet because I was bred under the place and that I am credibly inform'd my True and Noble Friend the Master of the Wards is willing to accept it and if it be so I hope your Lordship will incline that way I do crave leave to acquaint your Honour by way of prevention with secret underminings which will utterly overthrow all that Office and make it beggerly and contemptible The lawful Revenue of that Office stands thus or not much above at any time In Fines certain 1300 l. per annum or thereabout In Fines Casual 1250 l. or thereabout In greater Writs 140 l. for impost of Wine 100 l. in all 2790. and these are all the true means of that great Office Now I am credibly inform'd that the Lord Treasurer begins to Entitle the King to to the casual Fines and the greater Writs which is a full Moiety of the profits of the place not so much to Enrich the King as to draw Grist to his own Mill and to wind from the Chancellor the donation of the Cursitors places The preventing the Lord Treasurers in these Cases made Queen Elizabeth ever Resolve suddenly upon the disposing of the Great Seal Likewise they are very busie in the House of Commons and I saw a Bill which
it was happy for him when five years after Lime-Hounds were laid close to his foot-steps to hunt him and every corner searched to find a little of that Dust behind his door Eut it proved a dry scent to the Inquisitors for to his Glory and the Shame of his Enemies it could never appear that the least Bird-lime of Corruption did stick to his Fingers And now I have shewn what was the rich Portion which he brought when he was wedded to the Office of the Great-Seal these are convictive and day-light Evidences To one or two Writers of late that have gone another way I have nothing to answer because in those things wherein they calumniate they address not themselves to prove any thing Enough to give them up to the censure of that Infamy which they merit Qui notitiam viri non ex bonis gestis dictisque sed ex minus probabilibus fieri volunt quo quid nequius says the Author called Zeno of Verona When such candid Authors as Sir T. Moore Sir J. Hayward S. Daniel and Renowned Camden wrote the Lives of Princes they drew the Characters of Men by their Actions and Speeches not out of Obloquies and Suspicions the Brats of rotten Fame that have no Father But in Sick or rather Pestilentious Times when no Wares are set forth so much as Untruths and Malice too many are not more bold to Lie then confident to be Believed Never with no People under the Sun did Veracity suffer so much as by the Pen of Sir A. Wel. whose Pamphlet is Perpetuus Rhotacismus one snarling Dogs-Letter all over which I condemn therefore as Philoxenus the Poet censured Dionysius the Syracusan's Tragedy A fronte ad calcem unâ liturâ circumduxit Correct it with one Scratch or Score from the beginning to the end 66. Such as he are not in my way why then should I loiter one Line to jostle them out Yet since discreet Persons and they that extol'd the Dean and confess'd that his Soul carried a great freight of Worth did think their Exceptions weighty against his undergoing that great Office I will not dissemble as if I were a Stranger to them The Words of the Wise are as Nails fastned by the Masters of Assemblies Eccles 12.11 Yet some Nails are not so fast in but they may be wrench'd out Many alledged that he had Dedicated himself to the Church in an holy Calling Why should he take his hand from his own Plow to preside in Secular Affairs Indeed when the Harvest was great and the Labourers few it was the Summum bonum of a Labourer to ply that Harvest for nothing could be better then to Plant the Gospel among those that had not believed But where an whole Nation is gained so far as to believe in Christ and the Message of Salvation known to all that Church is preserved unto Christ by other means beside Preaching They that attend their Charge in Prayer Exhortation and dispensing the Sacraments in all Quarters of the Land had need to have some of their own Coat in Places of Power and Dignity to preserve their Maintenance from Sacrilege and their Persons from being trodden down with dirty Feet Such as God hath bless'd to go in Rank with the Chiefest to help their Brethren whether in public Office or in Attendance on their Sovereign in his Chappel Closet Eleemosynary Trust or the like they are as much in the Harvest as they that labour in the Pulpit St. Ambrose in his sundry Embassages for his Lord the Emperor the Father of Gr. Nazianzen a Bishop of whom his Son says in his Epitaph that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 employed in Pre-eminency and Honour and Government Euseb de vit Constanti l. 4. c. 27. Sozom. l. 1. c. 9. mention the Rescript of Constantine to Ablavius the Praetorian Praefect Ut pro Sanctis semper venerabilibus habeatur quicquid Episcoporum fuerit sententiâ terminatum idque in cansis omnibus quae vel Praetorio vel civili jure tractantur Which large Concession of Constanstine was restrained indeed by Gratian and Valentiman an 376 Ad causas quae ad Religionis observantiam pertinebant All the Prelates to whom the Emp. Constantine the Great referred the Hearing of Causes by Appeals which they discharged to the gaining of great Love and Praise these were not out of their Sphere but served the Church when they did that which ingratiated the Church and made the Christian Name to be venerable Some never speak of Secular Policy but as of a Prophane thing whereas a worthy Man may manage a Civil Tribunal with that maintenance of Virtue with that galling of Vice and evil Manners so as many good Pulpit-Orators put together might give God thanks if their Success were equal Councils it is true may be produced as to be brief the Quin-Sext in Trullo can 11 which forbids Priests and Deacons it names not Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to handle worldly Principalities I am struck with Reverence to the Council but not Convicted by its Reason which is fetch'd out of one Scripture that no Man can serve two Masters Tell this to the Ecclesiastics of Rome who are wholly buried in Things not only different but contrary to the Ministry Instituted by Christ Opposite Masters cannot be served by one faithful Servant subordinate may for we may love both and hate neither The King's Service in a Righteous way is not opposite to Christ's Evangelical Administrations but co-incident And a Supreme Governor doth not lose his Right in a Subject that is made a Priest or Bishop but may employ him under him as he pleaseth since the compacture of the whole Commonwealth together is but one Christian Oeconomy ABP Spotswood p. 299. In the Articles proponed to the Parliament at Sterling by Mr. Andrew Melvin an 1578. this is the 17th of the 11th Cap. We deny not that Ministers may and should assist their Princes when they are required in all things agreeable to the Word of God whether it be in Council or Parliament or out of Council providing always that they neither neglect their own Charges nor through flattery of Princes hurt the public State of the Church A Caution that their own Charges be not neglected is most Pious otherwise the Indulgence is very indefinite Many Zealots are as kind to themselves in England to serve their own turn I never saw any of our Ministry more abstracted from their Studies continually progging at the Parliament-Door and in Westminster-Hall for many years together having no Calling but that of an Evil Spirit to raise Sedition then those that were most offended at a Bishop for bestowing some part of his Time in a Secular Place And yet a considerate Judge will not say that the Lord-Keepership is an Employment merely Secular To mitigate the strict Cases of the Law with the Conscience of the King in whose Place he sits is it not as fully Ecclesiastical as a Consistory of teaching and ruling Elders
to that Treatise as follow Let the World take notice if it may concern any your Honour is be unto whom next unto His most Sacred Majesty my most Gracious Sovereign and Master I owe more then to all the World beside Professing unseignedly in the word of a Priest Fâ—cisti ut vivam moriar ingratus 81. The Lord-Keeper being so great a Dealer in the Golden Trade of Mercy and so successful he followed his Fortune and tried the King and the Lord Marquess further in the behalf of some whom their dear Friends had given over in Despair to the Destiny of Restraint And those were of the Nobles For he carried a great regard to their Birth and Honour and knew it was good for his own safety to deserve well of those high-born Families The East of Nerthumberland had been a Prisoner in the Tewer above 15 years His Confidents had not Considence and a good Heart I say not to Petition but to dispute with the King how ripe the Earl was for Clemency and Liberty 〈◊〉 Majesty was very merciful but must be rubb'd with a Fomentation of hi◠〈◊〉 Oyl to make him more supple This dextrous Statesman infuseth into 〈…〉 how to compass the Design with what Insinuations and Argum◠〈…〉 were improved with the Earl's demulcing and well-languag'd Phrases And when it came to strong Debate the Lord-Keeper got the better of the King in Reason So the Physic wrought as well as could be wish'd and on the 18th of July the Earl of Northumberland came out of the Tower the Great Ordnance going off to give him a joyful Valediction Who turned his Thoughts to consider the Work of God that a Stranger had wrought 〈◊〉 Comfort for him in his old Age whose Face he had ne 〈…〉 never purchased by any Benefit nor courted so much as by the meâ—age of a Salutation Which his Lordship compared to St. Peter's Deliverance by the Angel of God Acts 12. when Peter knew not who it was that came to help him Though not in order of Time yet in likeness of Condition the Earl of Oxford's Case is to be ranked in the same File It was in April in the year following that he was sent to the Tower betrayed by a false Brother for rash Words which heat of Wine cast up at a merry meeting His Lordship's Enemies were great and many whom he had provoked yet after he had acquainted the Lord-Keeper with the long Sadness of his Restraint in a large Letter which is preserved he wrought the Earl's Peace and Releasment conducted him to the King's Chamber to spend an hour in Conference with His Majesty from whence a good Liking was begot on both sides Whom thereupon that Earl took for his trusty and wisest Friend using his Counsel principally how to Husband his Estate and how to employ his Person in some Honourable Service at Sea that the Dissoluteness of his Hangers-on in the City might not sink him at Land The Lord-Keeper did as much for the Earl of Somerset in Christmas-time before bringing him by his mediation out of the House of Sorrow wherein he had continued above five years that he might take fresh Air and enjoy the comfort of a free Life which was affected by him to gratisie the splendid and spreading Family of the Howards And they were all well pleased with him as were the greatest part of the Grandees except the Earl of Arundel for a Distast taken of which the Lord-Keeper need not be ashamed 82. Within Six Weeks after he was settled in that Office the Earls Secretary brought two Patents to be Sealed the one to bestow a Pension of 2000 l. per annum upon his Lord out of the Exchequer which was low mow'n and not sit to bear such a Crop beside the Parliament which was to meet again in the Winter could not choose but take Notice what over-bountiful Issues were made out of the Royal Revenue to a Lord that was the best Landed of all his Peers Yet the Seal was put to with a dry assent because there was no stopping of a Free River With this Patent came another to confer the Honour of the Great Marshal of England upon the same Noble Personage The Contents of it had scarce any Limits of Power much exceeding the streit Boundaries of Law and Custom The Lord Keeper searching into the Precedents of former Patents when the same Honour was conser'd found a great inequality and doubted for good Cause that this was a device to lay his unfitness for his great place Naked to the World if he swallowed this Pill But nothing tended more to the praise of his great Judgment with His Majesty He writes to my Lord of Buckingham to acquaint the King that he thought His Majesty intended to give to greater Power than the Lords Commissioners had who dispatch'd Affairs belonging to that Office joyntly before him and that all Patents refer to the Copy of the immediate Predecessors who were the Earls of Essex Shrewsbury and Duke of Somerset but my Lord leap'd them over and claim'd as much as the Howards and Mowbries Dukes of Norfolk did hold which will enlarge his Authority beyond the former by many Dimensions There is much more than this in the Cabal of Letters p. 63. And much more than I meet there in his own private Papers The King was much satisfied with the Prudence and Courage of the Man that he had rather display these Errors than commit them for fear of a mighty Frown so the Earls Counsel were appointed to attend the Lord Keeper who joyning their hands together examin'd the Obliquities of the Patent and alter'd them What would have follow'd if it had pass'd entire in the first Draught For being so much corrected and Castrated yet the proceedings of the Court of Honour were a Grievance to the People not to be supported The Decrees of it were most uncertain most Arbitrary most Imperious Nor was there any Seat of Judgment in the Land wherein Justice was brought a bed with such hard Labour Now I invite the Reader if he please to turn to the 139 pag. of Sir An. Wel. Pamphlet and let him score a Mark for his Remembrance at these Lines That Williams was brought in for this Design to clap the Great Seal through his Ignorance in the Laws to such things that none that understood the danger by knowing the Laws would venter upon This Knight when he is in a Course of Malice is never out of his Way but like an egregious Bugiard here he is quite out of the Truth For the New Lord Keeper walk'd so Circumspectly that he seem'd to fear an Ambush from every Grant that was to pass for the use of encroaching Courtiers if any thing were Ambiguous or Dangerous he was not asham'd to call for Counsel If any thing were prest against Rule he was inexorable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eth. He kept constant to Justice in its Flat Square I could be Luxuriant in instances nothing is
qualifying of themselves for Civil Employments And another sort of Gentlemen termed Forenses who were Pleaders at the Bar and Trained up in real Causes he makes the former more Innocent and Harmless a great deal then the latter and yields hereof the principal Reason Nos enim qui in foro verisque litibus terimur multum malitiae quamvis nolimus addiscimus For we saith he That are bred in Real Quirkes and personal Contentions cannot but Reserve some Tang thereof whether we will or no. These Reasons though they please some Men yet God be Praised if we do but Right to this Noble Profession they are in our Common-Wealth no way concluding or Demonstrative For I make no question but there are many Scores which profess our Laws who beside their Skill and Practice in this kind are so Richly enabled in all Moral and Intellectual Endowments Ut omnia tanquam singula persiciant that there is no Court of Equity in the World but might be most safely committed unto them I leave therefore the Reason of this Alteration as a Reason of State not to be Fathom'd by any Reason of mine and will say no more of my Calling in the General 85. Now when I reflect upon myself in particular Quis sum ego aut quis Filius Ishai What am I or what can there be in me in Regard of Knowledg Gravity or Experience that should afford me the least Qualification in the world for so weighty a Place Surely if a Sincere Upright and well-meaning Heart doth not cover Thousands of other Imperfections I am the unfittest Man in the Kingdom to supply the Place And therefore must say of my Creation as the Poet said of the Creation of the World Materiam noli quaerere nulla fuit Trouble not your Heads to find out the Cause I confess there was none at all It was without the least Inclination or thought of mine own the immediate work of God and the King And their Aâ—ions are no ordinary Effects but extraordinary Miracles What then Should I beyond the Limits and Duty of Obedience despond and refuse to make some few years Tryal in this place Nor Tuâ—s O Jacobe quod optas Explorare labor mihi jussa capessere fas est I will therefore conclude this Point with the Excuse of that Poet whom the Emperor Gratian would needs enforce to set out his Poem whether he would or no. Non habeo ingenium Caefar sed jussit habebo Cur me posse negem posse quod ille putet I am no way fit for this great Place but because God and the King will have it so I will endeavour as much as I can to make my self fit and put my whole confidence in his Grace and Mercy Qui neminem dignum Eligit sed eligendo dignum facit as St. Austin speaks And so much of my Calling now I come unto my Carriage in this Place 86 It is an Observation which Tully makes In causis dicendis effugere solebat Antonius ne succederet Crasso Antonius was ever afraid to come after Crassus a most Eloquent and Powerful Orator And the greatest discouragement I find in this Place is that I am to come after after indeed nec passibus aequis my two immediate Predecessors the one of 〈◊〉 Excellent in most things the other in all things But both of them so bred in this Course of Life Ut illis plurimarum reruni agitatio frequens nihil esse ignotum patiobatur as Pliny speaks of the Pleaders of his time It were too much to expect at my bands a Man bred in other Studies that readiness or quickness of dispatch which was effected by them Lords both of them brought up in the King's Courts and not in the King's Chappel My Comfort is this That Arriving here as a Stranger I may say as Archimedes did when he found these Geometrical Lines and Angles drawn every where in the Sands of AEgypt Video vestigia humana I see in this Court the Footsteps of Wise Men many Excellent Rules and Orders for the managing the same the which though I might want Learning and Knowledg to invent if they were not thus offer'd to my hands yet I hope I shall not want the Honesty to Act and put in Execution These Rules I will precisely follow without the least deslexion at all until Experience shall Teach me better Every thing by the Course of Nature hath a certain and regular motion The Air and Fire move still upward the Earth and Water fall downward The Celestial Bodies whirl about in one and the self same Course and Circularity and so should every Court of Justice Otherwise it grows presently to be had in Jealousie and Suspicion For as Vel. Paterculus Observes very well In iis homines extraordinaria reformidant qui modum in voluntate habent Men ever suspect the worst of those Rules which vary with the Judges Will and Pleasure I will descend to some few particulars 87. First I will never make any Decree That shall Cross the Grounds of the Common or Statute Laws for I hold by my Place the Custody not of mine own but of the King's Conscience and it were most absurd to let the King's Conscience be at Enmity and Opposition with his Laws and Statutes This Court as I conceive it may be often occasion'd to open and confirm but never to thwart and oppose the Grounds of the Laws I will therefore omit no Pains of mine own nor Conference with the Learned Judges to furnish my self with competency of Knowledg to keep my Resolution in this Point Firm and Inviolable Secondly I shall never give a willing Ear to any Motion made at this Bar which shall not apparently tend to further and hasten the bearing of the Cause The very word Motion derived a movendo to move doth teach us that the hearing is Finis perfectio terminus ad quem the End Perfection and proper Home as it were of the matter propounded If a Counsellor therefore will needs endeavour as Velleius Writes of the Gracchi Optimo ingenio pessime uti to make that bad Use of a good Wit as to justle a Cause out of the King's High-way which I hold in this Court to be Bill Answer Replication Rejoynder Examination and Hearing I will ever Regard it as a Wild Goose Chase and not a Learned Motion The further a Man Runs out of his Way the further he is from home the End of his Journy as Seneca speaks so the more a Man Tattles beside these Points the further it is from the Nature of a Motion Such a Motion is a Motion Per Antiphrasin ut mons a non movendo It tends to nothing but certamen ingenii a Combat of Wit which is Infinite and Endless For when it once comes to that pass some will sooner a great deal loose the Cause then the last Word Thirdly I would have no Man to conceive that I come to this Place to overthrow without special Motives the Orders
and Decrees of my Predecessors I would be loth to succeed any man as Metellus did Caius Verres Cuius omnia erant ejusmodi ut totam Verris Praeturam retexere videretur Whose Carriage saith Tully was a meer Penclopes Web and untwisting of all the Acts of Verres ' s Pretorship Upon New matter I cannot avoid the re-viewing of a Cause but I will ever expect the forbearing of Persons so as the Ashes of the Dead may be hereafter spared and the Dust of the Living no further Raked Fourthly I will be as cautelous as I can in referring of Causes which I hold of the same Nature of a By-way Motion For one Reference that Spurs on a Cause there are ten that bridle it in and hold it from hearing This is that which Bias calls the backward forwarding of a Cause for as the Historian speaks Quod procedere non potest recedit Fifthly I profess before hand this Court shall be no Sanctuary for Undiscreet and Desperate Sureties It is a Ground of the Common Law That a man shall make no Advantage of his own Follies and Laches When the Mony is to be borrowed the Surety is the first in the Intention and therefore if it be not paid let him a God's Name be the first in Execution Lastly I will follow the Rules of this Court in all Circumstances as near as I can And considering that as Pliny speaks Stultissimum est adimitandum non optima quaeque proponere It were a great Folly to make Choice of any other then the very best for Imitation I will propound my Old Master for my Pattern and Precedent in all things Beseeching Almighty God so to direct me That while I hold this place I may follow him by a True and Constant imitation And if I prove Unfit and Unable for the same That I may not play the Mountebank so in this Place as to Abuse the King and the State but follow the same most Worthy Lord in his Chearful and Voluntary Resignation Sic mihi contingat vivere sicque mori 88. This he deliver'd thus much and I took Councel with my self not to Abbreviate it For it is so Compact and Pithy That he that likes a little must like it all Plutarch gives a Rule for Sanity to him that Eats a Tortoise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eat it up all or not a whit for a Modicum will Gripe the Belly He that fills himself with a great deal shall procure a Cleansing Evacuation So the Speech of a Great Orator is Instructive when it is entire Pinch it in with an Epitome you mangle the meaning and avile the Eloquence From Words he fell to Practise Industry I think was his Recreation for certain he had not a drop of Lazy Blood in his Veins He fill'd up every hour of the Day and a good part of the Night with the dispatch of some public and necessary business And though as a Counsellor of State and both as a Peer and Speaker in Parliament he had many diversions yet none of the work in Chancery was diminish'd which Attendance grew so light and familiar to him that in a little while it seem'd to be no more a burthen to him then the Water is to the Fishes under which they Swim He would not excuse himself a day for any the most lawful pretence he would not impart himself to the Star-Chamber or Parliament when it sate before he had spent two hours or more among the Pleaders Two or three Afternoons he Allotted every Week to hear Peremptories By which unequall'd diligence commonly he dispatch'd five or six Causes in a morning according to the quality or measure of the Points that came to be debated He did not only labour Six Days but as it follows in the Commandment He did all that he had to do For of all the Causes that were usually set down for hearing he never left any of them unheard at the End of the Term which was both an especial Ease and Comfort to the Subject and a full Testimony of his labour and ability to expedite so many Knotty and Spacious Causes that came before him in as little time as the Clients could expect The Survey of an whole year will give better satisfaction then every Term a part by it self Whereupon he Writes thus to the Lord Marquess July 10. 1622. In this Place I have now serv'd His Majesty one whole Year diligently and honestly But to my Hearts Grief by Reason of my Rawness and Inexperience very unprofitably Yet if his Majesty will Examine the Regâ—ers there will be found more Causes finally Ended this one Year then in all the Seven Years preceding How well ended I confess ingeniously I know not His Majesty and your Lordship who no doubt have Received some Complaints though in your Love 〈…〉 from me are in that the most competent Judges A Testimony of Great Labour and not more Copious then Clear For the Registry could not I ye Thus Joseph in his faithful Service under King Pharaoh gather'd in as much in one Year as was wont to be Reap'd in Seven And truly it becomes him that he was not confident but mistrustful of himself least some Waspish and Vexatious men had attempted to lay open some Errors to his Superiors which should escape him in fixing so many Planetary Causes But there was I had almost said none Yet then I had forgotten Sir John Bourcher who complain'd to both Houses of Parliament that his matters in debate were for ever shut up in a Decree before his Counsel was ready having some Allegations which expected more time to be Ripen'd still more time The business of this Knight was Arbitrated with consent by the Chief Baron Jac. 7. That Arbitration he would not stand to It was Decreed in full hearing by the Lord Elsmore Jac. 10. This did not please him Yet it was Order'd to the same Effect by the Lord Bacon Jac. 17. And after this the same Decree was confirm'd by the Lord William's Jac. 19. Having the consent of Justice Hutton Justice Chamberlain and the Master of the Rolls with an hundred Pounds advantage more then was given him before And was not this Suit come to Adultage for Tryal after Seventeen Years Vexation in it first and last If a Suitor shall have Power to define when his Cause is sufficiently heard a Fidler would not undertake the Office of a Judge Sir John durst not have presum'd to this Boldness but that he was encourag'd by his Father-in-Law the Lord Sheffeild who was a Scholar a Judicious Lord and of great Experience that knew well enough the Futility of this Appeal for it was discharg'd with a general Rebuke But the Spirits usually beat with an un even Pulse when they stirr too much in pity to our own Relations 89. Some others there were I yet remember it of the coarsest Retainers to Court who liv'd by picking up Crumbs that fell from Stale Bread these Whisper'd their Discontents that Causes
were cut off too soon that delay would bring them to a more considerate Ripeness Sic vero dificiente crimine laidem ipsam in vituperium vertit invidia says Tully but he is sufficiently prais'd who is disprais'd for nothing but his Vertues Dispatch was a Vertue in him And all his Sails were fill'd with a good Wind to make riddance in his Voyage He was no Lingerer by Nature and kindly warmth is quick in digestion Our time is but a Span long but he that doth much in a short Life products his Mortality To this he had such a Velocity of mind that out of a few Words discreetly spoken he could apprehend the Strength and Sirrup of that which would follow This is that Ingeny which is so much commended 4. Tuseul Multarum rerum brevi tempore percussio such a Wit is ever upon an Hill and fees the Champain round about him And it was most contrary to his incorruptness to prolong an hearing as Felix did Act. 24.26 Till Mony purchas'd a convenient Season He never was Accus'd of it Quod nemo novit poene non fit as Apuleius says 10. Metam 'T was never known therefore 't was never done is a Moral and a Charitable inference Guess his great Spirit from this Essay and how he Coveted no Man's Silver or Gold that when he was in his lowest Want and Misery in the Tower Sequestred of all he had yet he Refus'd the offers of his Friends with this Reason that he knew not how to take from any but a King There is another Rub in the way sometimes Court Messages and Potentates Letters for alass in many Causes there are great Betters that are no Gamesters But he had a Spell against that Inchantment an invincible Courage against Enmity and Envy I will truly Translate Mamertinus his Qualities upon him of which he boasted in the Panegyric for his Consulship Animi magm adversus pecuniam liberi adversus offensas constantis adversus invidiam Those Magnificoes that were Undertakers for perdue Causes gave him over quickly for a stubborn Man that would go his own Pace and make no Halt for their sakes that sate in the Gallery of great ones above him As Cicarella says of Sixtus Quintus in his Addition to Platina In ore omnium erat nunc tempus Sixti est it is not as it was these are Pope Sixtus's days No Man now can work a Reprieve for a Malefactor So this Magistrate was passive to many Solicitations but strenuously Resolv'd to be Active for none for whatsoever Cause was brought before him he could instantly discern the true Face from the Vizard and whether the Counsel did not endeavour rather to shut it up then to open it It askt him a little time to Learn as it were the use of the Compass how to Sail into the Vast Ocean ef Pleadings and not to creep always by the Shore To follow the Pleaders in their own method and to speak to them in their own Dialect nay to reduce them from starting out and to Rectifie every Sprain and Dislocation See what a Globe of Light there is in natural Reason which is the same in every Man but when it takes well and riseth to perfection it is call'd Wisdom in a few 90. The Terms of the Common Law as in all other Professions and Sciences seem Barbarous to the Vulgar Ear and had need to be familiariz'd with pre-acquaintance which being the Primar of that Rational Learning he had inur'd himself to it long before and was nothing to seek in it Yet one of the Bar thought to put a Trick upon his Fresh-man-ship and trouled out a Motion crammed like a Granada with obsolete Words Coins of far fetch'd Antiquity which had been long disus'd worse then Sir Thomas Mores Averia de Wethernham among the Masters of Paris In these misty and recondit Phrases he thought to leave the New Judge feeling after him in the Dark and to make him blush that he could not Answer to such mystical Terms as he had Conjur'd up But he dealt with a Wit that was never entangl'd in a Bramble Bush for with a serious Face he Answer'd him in a cluster of most crabbed Notions pick'd up out of Metaphysics and Logic as Categorematical and Syncategorematical and a deal of such drumming stuff that the Motioner being Foil'd at his own Weapon and well Laugh'd at in the Court went home with this New Lesson That he that Tempts a Wise man in Jest shall make himself a Fool in Earnest Among many Gown-men at the Bar this was but one and that one proved a solid Pleader and sound at the hands of a more reconcileable man more than common Favour who procur'd him Knighthood and did send him his help in another Capacity Ten Years after to advance his Fortunes To proceed his Judgment could not be dazzled with Dark and Exotic Words they were proper to the matters in Hand The difficulty that he did most contend with was against Intrigues and immethodical Pleadings so that he had much to do to force the Councel to gather up their Discourses more closely and to hold them to the Point in Hand checking Excursions and impertinent Ramblings with the Rebuke of Authority though it seem'd a little Brackish to some Palates With a little Experience he gather'd up such Ripeness of Judgment and so sharp-sighted a knowledg that upon the opening of a Bill he could readily direct the Pleaders to that which was the Issue between the Plaintiff and Defendant and constrein them to speak to nothing but the very Weight of the Cause from the Resolution whereof the whole business did attend it's dispatch So true it is which Nepos delivers in the Life of Atticus Facile existimari potest Prudentiam esse quandam Divinati nem Prudence is a kind of Divination let it Tast a little and it can guess at all It needs not to have all the Windows opened when it can see Light enough through a Chink On the Judges part it is not Patience but Weakness not to abridge Prolixity of Words that he may come the sooner to the Truth And on the Advocates part 't is Affectation to seem more careful of his cause then he is when he speaks more then he needs Thus the Lord Keeper behav'd himself constantly and indifferently towards every Bill and Answer using the same method the same diligence the same Application of his great Gifts to all Causes following the Council which Q. Cicero gave to his Brother de Petiti Consul It a paratus ad dicendum venito quasi in singulis caulis Judicium de omni ingenio futurum sit so he carried himself as if he his whole sufficiency were to be Tried upon every Decree he made I shall say much I think enough to his Approbation that in the Tryal of two Terms the Councei at the Bar were greatly contented with him The Primipili or Vantguard of them were such as fil'd up their place with great Glory in
Cook in his Jurisdiction of Courts looks no higher than 28. of Edw. 3. This Lord Keeper cites a Precedent out of his own Search of Records of a Baron Fin'd and Imprison'd by it in the 16th of Edw. 2. as it is quoted Cabal P. 58. Of what standing it was before for the Evidence doth not run as if then it were newly born to me is uncertain For the Dignity that famous Judge I mentioned lifts up his Style that it is the most honourable Court our Parliament excepted that is in the Christian World Jurisdic P. 65. The Citations of it are to cause to appear Coram Rege Concilio for the King in Judgment of Law is always in the Court when it fits and King James did twice in Person give Sentence in it The Lords and others of the Privy Council with the two Chief Justices or two other Justices or Barons of the Exchequer in their Absence are standing Judges of that Court. For in Matters of Right and Law some of the Judges are always presum'd to be of the King's Counsel The other Lords of Parliament who are properly De magno Concilio Regis are only in Proximâ poteentiâ of this Council and are actually Assessors when they are specially called These Grandees of the Realm who cannot fit to hear a Cause under the Number of Eight at the least ennoble this Court with their Presence and Wisdom to the Admiration of Foreign Nations and to the great Satisfaction of our selves for none can think himself too great to be Try'd for his Misdemeanors before a Convention of such Illustrious Senators And as Livy says Nihil tam aequandae libertati prodest quà m potentissimum quemque posse causam dicere As touching the Benefit that the Star-Chamber did bring thus that Atlas of the Law the Lord Cook Et cujus pars magna fuit says in the same Place That the right Institution and ancient Orders thereof being observed it keepeth all England in Quiet Which he maintains by two Reasons First Seeing the Proceeding according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm cannot by one Rule of Law suffice to punish in every Case the Enormity of some great and horrible Crimes this Court dealeth with them to the end the Medicine may be according to the Disease and the Punishment according to the Offence Secondly To curb Oppression and Exorbitancies of great Men whom inferior Judges and Jurors though they should not would in respect of their Greatness be afraid to offend Indeed in every Society of Men there will be some Bashawes who presume that there are many Rules of Law from which they should be exempted Aristotle writes it as it were by Feeling not by Guess Polit. 4. c. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They that were at the Top among the Greeks nor would be rul'd nor would be taught to be rul'd Therefore this Court profest the right Art of Justice to teach the Greatest as well as the Meanest the due Construction of Good Behaviour I may justly say that it was a Sea most proper for Whale-Fishing little Busses might cast out Nets for Smelts and Herring So says the great Lawyer Ordinary Offences which may sufficiently be punished by the Proceeding of the Common Laws this Court leaveth to the ordinary Courts of Justice Ne dignitas hujus Curiae vilesceret 96. Accordingly the Lord Keeper Williams having Ascended by his Office to be the first Star in the Constellation to illuminate that Court he was very Nice I might say prudent to measure the Size of Complaints that were preferred to it whether they were knots fit for such Axes A number of contentious Squabbles he made the Attorney's Pocket up again which might better be compounded at home by Country Justices It was not meet that the Flower of the Nobility should be call'd together to determine upon Trifles Such long Wing'd Hawks were not to be cast off to fly after Field-Fares The Causes which he designed to hear were Grave and Weighty wherein it concern'd some to be made Examples for Grievous Defamations Perjuries Riots Extortions and the like Upon which Occasions his Speeches were much heeded and taken by divers in Ciphers which are extent to this day in their Paper Cabinets To which I Appeal that they were neither long nor Virulent For though he had Scope on those Ocasions to give his Auditors more then a Tast of his Eloquence which was clear sententious fraught with Sacred and Moral Allusions yet he detested nothing more then to insult upon the Offendor with girds of Wit He foresaw that Insolencies and Oppressions are publick provocations to bury a Court in it's own Shame And what could exasperate more then when an unfortunate man hath run into a Fault to shew him no humane Respect Nay to make him pass through the two malignant Signs of the Zodiaque Sagitary and Scorpio That is to wound him first with Arrows of sharp-pointed Words and then to Sting him with a Scorpiack censure Indeed if there be an extreme in shewing too much mercy I cannot Absolve the Lord Keeper For many I confess censur'd him for want of deeper censures said he was a Friend to Publicans and Sinners to all delinquents and rather their Patron then their Judge 〈◊〉 was so oftentimes when he scented Malice in the Prosecution It was so sometimes when he laid his Finger upon the Pulse of humane Frailty Brethren if a Man be overtaken in a Fault we which are Spiritual Restore such a one in the Spirit of meekness considering thy self least thou also be Tempted Galat. 6.1 Pliny the younger had been faulted that he had excus'd some more then they deserv'd Whereupon he Writes to Septitius lib. 7. Ep. Quid mihi invident felicissimum Errorem Ut enim non sint tales quales à me praedicantur ego tamen Beatus quod mihi videntur Which is to this meaning Why do you grudg me this Error they are not so good as I accounted them but I am happy in my Candor that I account them better then they are But first he never condemn'd an Offender to be Branded to be Scourg'd to have his Ears cut Though that Court hath proceeded to such censure in time old enough to make Prescription yet my Lörd Cook adviseth it should be done sparingly upon this Reason Quod Arbitrio judicis relinquitur non facile trahit ad effusionem Sanguinis They that judge by the light of Arbitrary Wisdom should seldom give their sentence to spill Blood He would never do it and declin'd it with this plausible avoidance as the Arch-Bishop Whitgift and Bancroft and the Bishop of Winton the Learned Andrews had done before him that the Canons of Councils had forbidden Bishops to Act any thing to the drawing of blood in a judicial Form Once I call to mind he dispens'd with himself and the manner was pretty One Floud a Railing Libelling Varlet bred in the Seminaries beyond Seas had vented Contumelies bitterer then Gall against many
did now Imprison and Execute the Rigour of his Laws against the Roman Catholics I must deal plainly with your Lordship our Viperious Country-men the English Jesuits in France to frustrate those pious endeavours of his Majesty had many Months before this Favour granted retorted that Argument upon us by Writing a most malicious Book which I have seen and read over to the French King Inciting him and the three Estates to put all those Statutes in Execution against the Protestants in those parts which are here Enacted and as they falsly inform'd severely Executed upon the Papists I would therefore see the most subtle State-monger in the World chalk out away for 〈◊〉 Majesty to mediate for Grace and Favour for the Protestants by Executing at this 〈◊〉 the Severity of his Laws upon the Papists And that this Favour should 〈…〉 Toleration is a most dull and yet a most devilish misconstruction A Toleration looks forward to the time to come This favour backward to the Offences past If any Papist now set at Liberty shall offend the Laws again the Justices may Nay must recomm◠him and leave Favour and Mercy to the King to whom they properly belong Nay let those two Writs directed to the Judges be as diligently perused by these rash Censurers as they were by those Grave and Learned Men to whom his Majesty referred the Penning of the same and they shall find that these Papists are not otherwise out of Prison then with their Shackles about their Heels sufficient sureties and good recognizances to present themselves again at the next Assizes As therefore that Lacedaemonian opposed the Oracle of Apollo by asking his Opinion of the Bird which he grasp'd in his hand whether it were alive or dead So it is a matter yet controverted and undecided whether these Papists clos'd up and grasp'd in the Bands of the Law be still in Prison or at Liberty Their own demeanour and the success of his Majesties Negotiations are the Oracles that must decide the same If the Lay-Papists do wax insolent with this Mercy insulting upon the Protestants and Translating this favour from the Person to the cause I am verily of Opinion that his Majesty will remand them to their former State and Condition and renew his Writ no more But if they shall use these Graces modestly by admitting conference with Learned Preachers demeaning of themselves Neighbourly and Peaceably praying for his Majesty and the prosperous success of his Pious Endeavours and Relieving him bountifully which they are as well able to do as any other of his Subjects if he shall be forced and constrained to take his Sword in Hand Then it cannot be denied but our Master is a Prince that hath as one said plus humanitatis poene quam hominis And will at that time leave to be merciful when he leaves to be himself In the the mean while this Argument fetch'd from the Devils Topics which concludes a concreto ad abstractum from a favour done to the English Papists that the King favoureth the Popish Religion is such a Composition of Folly and Malice as is little deserved by that Gracious Prince who by Word Writing Exercise of Religion Acts of Parliament late Directions for Catechising and Preaching and all Professions and Endeavours in the World hath demonstrated himself so Resolved a Protestant God by his Holy Spirit open the Eyes of the People that these Airy Representations of ungrounded Fancies set aside they may clearly discern and see how by the Goodness of God and the Wisdom of their King this Island of all the Countries in Europe is the sole Nest of Peace and True Religion And the Inhabitants thereof unhappy only in this one thing that they never look up up to Heaven to give God Thanks for so great an Happiness Lastly for mine own Letter to the Judges which did only declare not operate the Favour it was either mispenned or much mis-construed It recited four kinds of Recusants only capable of his Majesties Clemency Not so much to include these as to exclude many other Crimes bearing among the Papists the Name of Recusanties as using the Function of a Romish Priest seducing the King's Liege people from the Religion established Scandalizing and Aspersing our King Church State or present Government All which Offences being outward practises and no secret Motions of the Conscience are adjudged by the Laws of England to be meerly Civil and Political and excluded by my Letter from the benefit of those Writs which the bearer was imployed to deliver unto my Lords the Judges And thus I have given your Lordship a plain Accompt of the Carriage of this business and that the more suddenly that your Lordship might perceive it is no Aurea Fabula or prepared Fable but a bare Narration which I have sent unto your Lordship I beseech your Lordship to let his Majesty know that the Letters to the Justices of the Peace concerning those four Heads recommended by his Majesty shall be sent away as fast as they can be exscribed I will not trouble your Lordship more at this time c. Your Lordships I. L. C. S. 105. The Letter as it exceeds in length so it excells in Judgment Yet thrusting into the midst of the Throng to part the Fray he got a knock himself For because he was principally employ'd by his Office to distribute the King's Favours to some of the adverse Sect he was Traduc'd for a Well-willer to the Church of Rome nay so far by a ranting fellow about the Town that he was near to receive a chief promotion from that Court no less than a Cardinals Hat At the first Bruit of this Rumor the Scandal was told him and one Sadler the Author discover'd which he despis'd to prosecute and pass'd it by with this moderation ' That the Reporters saw the Oar under Water and thought it was ' Crooked but he that had it in his hand knew that it was whole and streight An admirable Similitude to reconcile contraries to a good meaning for the Eye were not right if the Oar under Water did not seem broken to it And the Judgment were not right if it had not a contrary Opinion So the people that are upon the Shore judge one way for they look upon things beneath the Water But States-men judge another who work at the Oar or guide the Bark The Error of the former is tolerable the Sense of the other is Magisterial and unquestionable So great were this Lord's disaffections to that corrupt and unfound Church that he watch'd their Ministers more narrowly then any Counsellor when they shot beyond the Mark of his Majesties late indulgences It was ever the unlucky diligence of those that were Proctors to agitate the Recusants Cause to importune his Majesty for those things which they did not hope to obtain but the very offer of them with their Arts and Graceless Carriage would make the Council Table odious contribute much to embitter the Subjects
effected Mellino had a good Course for it though Cardinal Barberino catcht the Hare and was as near to the Papacy and as publickly cry'd up as Cardinal Sachetti in the late Contestation of the tedious Conclave wherein the now inthroned Alexander the VII had much ado to step before him But Mellino lost the Day and thereupon Am. de Dominis his Cake was Dough who set his Rest upon a Card before it was drawn Yet that was the least part of his Folly he remains for an Example of the most besotted Cast-away that ever I read Ita se res habet ut plerumque cui fortunam mutaturus est Deus consilia corrumpat says Paterculus The Judgment of Blindness fell upon Sodom before the Vengeance of Fire How durst this bold Bayard look the Court of Rome in the Face upon any Terms whose Writings were more copious against the Amplitude of the Papacy than ever came out of the Press An Italian never forgives an Injury But Indignities written and with the Pen of a Diamond against the Sublimity Pontifical are more unpardonable with them than Blasphemies against Christ Had Cardinal Mellino his Confident been elected Pope the Pope would have forgotten all that the Cardinal had promised him What had Fulgentio the Servite done to be compared with his Scopuli and such jerking Books He had maintained the Venetian just Laws against Paul the Fifth's Abrogations yet ever abode in the Bosom of the Roman Church He had wrote the Life of Frier Paul whom they hated to the full pitch of his Praise But what were these Toys to the Ecclesiastical Republick of Antonius de Dominis Yet after twelve years that Fulgentio had provok'd them he having obtained safe Conduct to go to Rome under the Fisher's Ring and Berlingerius Gessius the Apostolical Nuntio at Venice pawn'd his Faith to the poor Man for his Incolumity yet he was cited before the Inquisition Condemn'd and Burnt in Campo di Flora And his Ashes were scarce cold when this daring Wretch came wittingly into the Den of the Lion 111. I forbear a while to tell his Disaster for a third Reason remains of the retrocession of this Crab whose Brains were fallen into his Belly He protested he came hither and returned to the Place from whence he came for the same end to finish the Work which G. Cassander began to compose a Method of Concord for the Eastern and Western Churches Greeks and Latins for the Uniting of the Northern and Southern Distractions of the Reformed Evangelical Divines and the Papalins That this had been his Design within his own Breast for twenty years and that his Studies were now come to that Maturity that he saw no Unlikelihood to prevail But what if the Arch-Bishopric of York had fallen into his Mouth which he gap'd for Certainly he would have forgot his Trade of Composing Churches and cast Anchor upon this Shoar for ever for his Religion was a Coat that had all Colours but wanted Argent and Ore Yet if a Mountain of some such Promotion had stopt his way I do not dis-believe him but that he was traversing in and out to attone the Differences of the most principal Christian Sects So Mr. Camden understood him under whose Hand I find this Note among his Diary Records Accingit se aditer Romam Versus nescio quâ spe convocandi generalis concilii rem religionis componendi He was packing for Rome in hopes to see a General Council call'd to cure the Distractions of Religion I appeal also to the Writer of the best Appeal Bishop Morton our Holy Polycarpus who told me that he dehorted Spulat from his Vagary into Italy to accommodate Truth and Peace for the Italians would never be perswaded to retract an Error Spalat takes him up for it churlishly An putas Papam Cardinales diabolos esse quod non possunt converti Says our Bishop again Neque puto Spalatensem Deum esse ut possit eos convertere Further When he was convented before the High Commissioners Mart. 30 he requested their Lordships to think charitably of him that his Departure hence was not that he took any Dislike at the Church of England which he held to be sound and Orthodox and that he would avouch before the Pope Grackan c. 85. to whom he was going Etiamsi hoc fiat cum discrimine vitae meae though it cost him his Life And it will not cost you less says the Lord Keeper for you may propound to the Pope the Conciliation you drive at but you will never be suffered to live to prosecute it God's Will be done says the other I do not fear it yet I suspect it the more that so wise a Man presageth it The same had dropt from his Pen Lib. 7. Eccl. Reip. c. 7. ar 133. Conciliation and Union to reduce Christ's Flock to feed together without Schism is so brave a Work Ut pro hôc negotio si contingeret nobis vitam cum sanguine fundere praeclari martyrii laudem apud Deum Ecclesiam mereremur For all this sew believ'd him that he was in earnest He that is untrue in many things is justly presum'd to be bad in all But I am brought over by palpable Evidences to suspect him of so much Honesty that he followed that good Work with all the Might of Wit and Labour to bring the Churches of Christ together which were withdrawn from one another in Hatred and Hostility And it was an easie thing to him to surmise it feasible because he was of so loose a Religion Nay He thought it was so near to be effected that it was already as good as done if both sides would take prudent notice that it was done For he builds upon this Bottom 7 de Rep. Eccl. c. 12. a. 13. Nihil sive in dogmatibus sive in ritibus in alterutrd parte adeo intolerabile esse invenw ut propterea separatio facienda sit aut schisma fovendum On all sides all Opinions were so tolerable in his Presumption that the White and the Black Church were both of a Colour For Example these Instances which follow and many others may be found in that 12 Chap. rashly slubber'd over We may communicate with them that hold Transubstantiation for it destroys Nature rather than Grace it is an Error of a good Mind not out of Dishonour to Christ but out of Devotion For Image-worship it is the least thing of an hundred to be past over for as when the Bible lyes before us and we Pray out of the Psalms we do not adore the Bible no more do they the Crucifix that is plac'd before them The Supremacy of the Pope is no necessary Cause of Divorcement for John and Cyriacus of Constantinople took to themselves the Title of Universal Bishop yet Gregory the Great who highly inveighed against their Error kept Unity with that Church And so should we do upon like Provocation Art 117. Thus he patcheth up the Rents but it was
up the greatest part of the Time in speaking to the Redress of petty Grievances like Spaniels that rett after Larks and Sparrows in the Field and pass over the best Game Therefore his Majesty to loose no time drew up a Proclamation with his own Pen Feb. 20 to this end that certain of the Lords of the Privy Council should have Power and special Commission to receive the Complaints of all the good People of this Land which should be brought before them concerning any Exorbitances Vexations Oppressions and Illegalities and either by their own Authority if it would reach to it to see them corrected or to give Orders to cut them off by the keenest Edge of the Laws That Complainants should be encouraged to present their Grievances as well by the Invitement of the Proclamation as by the Signification of the Judges to the Country and Grand Juries in their respective Circuits The Draught of this the Features of his Majesty's own Brain came by Post to pass the Great Seal Yet for all that Hast the Lord Keeper took time to scan it and sent it back with Advice that the Project would be sweeter if it were double refined presuming therefore that his Majesty would not be unwilling to stop a little at the Bar of good Counsel he wrote this ensuing Letter to the Court Feb. 22. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty 120. I Do humbly crave Your Majesties Pardon that I forbear for two or three days to seal Your Proclamation for Grievances until I have presented to Your Majesty this little Remonstrance which would come too late after the Sealing and Divulging the Proclamation First As it is now coming forth it is generally misconstrued and a little sadly look'd upon by all men as somewhat restreining rather than enlarging Your Majesties former Care and Providence over Your Subjects For whereas before they had a standing Committee of all the Council-Table to repair unto they are now streitned to four or five only Most of which number are not likely to have any leisure to attend the Service Secondly I did conceive Your Majesty upon Your first Royal Expression of Your Grace in this kind in a Resolution to have mingled with some few Lords of Your Privy-Council some other Barons of Your Kingdom Homines as Pliny said of Virginius Rufus innoxiè Populares Whose Ears had been so opened to the like Grievances in the time of Parliament as their Tongues notwithstanding kept themselves within the compass of Duty and due Respect to Your Majesty as the Earls of Dorset and Warwick the Lord Houghton Dr. Morton the Lord Dennie the Lord Russel the Lord North. And among the Lords Spiritual the Bishops of Lichfield Rochester and Ely and especially unless Tour Majesty in Your deep Wisdom have some Reasons of the Omission Dr. Buckeridge the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury This mixture would produce the these Effects ensuing First An Intimation of Your Majesties Sincerity and Reality in this Proclamation Dr. Felton Secondly A more free and general Intimation to Parties Aggrieved who will repair soonear to these private Peers then to the great Lords of Your Majesties Council Thirdly The making of these Lords and the like Witnesses of Your Majesties Justice and good Government against the next ensuing Parliament and the stopping of their Ears against such supposed Grievances at that time as shall never be heard of in their Sitting upon this Commission Fourthly and Lastly The gaining of these Temporal Lords to side with the State being formerly much wrought upon by the Factious and Discontented If Your Majesty shall approve of these Reasons it is but to Command Your Secretary to interline these or some of these Names in the Commission which in all other respects is already wisely and exceeding well penn'd with two short Clauses only First That these Lords shall attend very carefully and constantly in Term-time when they are occasion'd to be at London Secondly That they be instructed to receive all Complaints with much Civility and Encouragement giving them full Content and Redress according to the merit of their Grievances For nothing will sooner break the Heart of a People or make them lose their Patience than when hopes of Justice are frustrated after the Royal Word is engaged But if Your Majesty in Your high Wisdom will overpass these Particulars which I have dutifully presented upon the return of the Proclamation as it is it shall be sealed and divulged with all expedition But these Reasons were not overpass'd Both the Proclamation and private Orders to the Lords Commissioners were reformed by the Contents of that weighty Letter His Majesty greatly inclining to the Lord-Keeper's Readiness and espying Judgment in all Consultations For as Laertius in Zeno's Life said of a famous Musician 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Ismenias could play well upon all Instruments So this was another Ismenias who had the Felicity to make all Deliberations pleasing and tuneable especially he had that way above all that I knew to make sweet Descant upon any plain Song that was prick'd before him It will be to the Profit of the Reader if I rub his memory with one Passage of the Letter for it is but one though it come in twice which presseth the King to Sincerity and Reality to fix his Word like the Center of Justice that cannot be moved Righteous Lips are the delight of Kings Prov. 16.23 And a King of Righteous Lips is most delightful Since the coercitive part of the Law doth not reach him upon what Nail shall those Millions that stand before his Throne hang their Hopes if his Word do not bind him A People that cannot give Faith to their Sovereign will never pay him Love It seems that the ancient Latin Kings did profess to use Crookedness and Windings of Dissimulation in their Polity therefore their Scepter was called Lituus because it bent in toward the upper end But the Scepter of thy Kingdom says David of GOD is a right Scepter A right one indeed For Contracts and Promises bind God to Man much more must they oblige the King to his People An Author of our own Dr. Duck in his very Learned Treatise De usu Juris Civilis p. 44. hath well delivered this Morality Princeps ad contractum tenetur uti privatus nec potest contractum suum rescindere ex plenitudine potestatis cum maximè in eo requiratur bena sides Falshood is Shop-keepers Language or worse but 't is beneath Majesty 121. A Parliament being not far of either in the King's Purpose or in Prospect of Likelihood Serj Crooke Cvew Finch Damport Bramston Bridgman Crawly Headly Thin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authurst Blng. Dâ—y the Lord Keeper was provident that the Worthies of the Law should be well entreated Their Learning being most comprehensive of Civil Causes and Affairs they had ever a great Stroke in that Honorable Council Therefore he wrought with his Majesty to sign a Writ for the Advancement of some
of the Gravest and Greatest Pleaders who were ripe for Dignity And a Call of Serjeants was splendidly solemnized for Number Thirteen for Quality of the best Reputation May 6 1623 Who on that Day made their Appearance before Lord Keeper sitting in the High Court of Chancery who congratulated their Adoption unto that Title of Serjeancy with this Oration AS upon many other Occasions so likewise upon this present in hand I could wish there sate in this Place a man of more Gravity and Experience than can be expected from me to deliver unto you those Counsels and Directions which all your Predecessors have successively received at this Bar. Yet among many Wants I find one singular Comfort that as I am of the least Ability to give so you are of the least Need to receive Instructions of all the Calls of Serjeants that any Man now alive can bring to his Remembrance You are either all or the far greater Number of you most Learned most Honest and well accomplish'd Gentlemen Lest therefore my Modesty or your Integrity might suffer therein I will not be tedious in this kind of Exhortation but like those Mercuries or High-way-Statues in Greece I will only point out those fair Ways which my self I confess have never trodden In the beginning for my Preface be assured that your Thankfulness shall be recommended to his Majesty who hath honoured you with this high Degree making your Learning only and your Integrity His Praevenient and all other Respects whatsoever but subsequent and following Causes of his Gracious Pleasure towards you Turning my Speech next to your selves I will observe mine own common Exordium which hitherto I have used to all those whom I have saluted with a few words when they were Installed in their Dignities and I have it from the manner of the old Romans Meminisse oportet Ossicii Tâ—lum Remember the Title of your Degree and it will afford you sufficient Matter of Admonition You are call'd Servientes ad Legem Sergeants at the Law Verba bractrata Words very malleable and extensive and such as contein more Lessons than they do Syllables 122. The word Sergeant no doubt is Originally a Stranger born though now for many Years denizon'd among us It came over at the first from France and is handled as a French word by Stephen Pasquier in his Eighth Book of Recherches and the Nineteenth Chapter They that are too luxuriant in Etymologies are sometimes barren in Judgment as I will shew upon the Conjectures of this Name For they are not call'd Sergeants quasi Caesariens some of Caesars Officers as the great Guiacius thinks Nor Sergents qu isi Serregens because they laid hold on Men as inferiour Ministers But Sergiens in the old French is as much as Serviens saith Pasquier a Servant or an Attendant As Sergens de Dicu the Servants of God in the old History of St. Dennis Sergens Disciples de la Sanchitè Servants or Disciples of his Holiness the Pope in the Life of St. Begue And Sergens d'Amour Servants of Love in the Romance of the Rose a Book well known in our Country because of the Translator thereof Geoffry Chaucer And therefore as Pasquier thinks that those inferiour Officers are called Sergeans that is Servants because at the first Bailiffs or Stewards employ'd their own Servants in such Summons So this more honourable Appellation of Sergeant at Law hath received it Denomination because at the first when the Laws were no more than a few plain Customs When as the Year-Books had not yet swelled When the Cases were not so diversified When so many Distinctions were not Coined and Minted When the Volumes of the Laws through our Misdeeds and Wiliness were not so multiplied Men employ'd their own Servants to tender their Complaints unto the Judges and to bring them home again a plain and present Remedy But afterward Multitude of Shifts begetting Multitudes of Laws and Multitudes of Laws Difficulties of Interpretations especially where the Sword had engraven them in strange Languages as those induced by the Saxons Danes and Normans into this Island the State was enforced to design and select some learned Men to prepare the Causes of the Client for the Sentence of the Judge and the Sentence of the Judge for the Causes of the Client who though never so Enobled by their Birth and Education yet because they succeeded in those places of Servants were also call'd Servientes Sergeants or Servants Great Titles have grown up from small Originals as Dux Comes Baro and others and so hath this which is Enobled by the affix unto it a Sergeant at Law 123. Though you are not the Rulers of Causes and Masters upon the Bench yet it is your Pre-eminence that you are the chief Servants at the Bar In the Houshold of our Dread Sovereign the Chief in every Office who Commands the lower Ministers is advanced to be called the Sergeant of his Place as Sergeants of the Counting-House Carriages Wine-Cellar Larder with many others In like manner your Name is a Name of Reverence though you are styled Servants For you are the Principal of all that practise in the Courts of Law Servants that is Officers preferr'd above all Ranks of Pleaders For every thing must be Ruled by a Gradual Subordination You are next in the Train to my Lords the Judges And some of your File not seldom employ'd to be Judges Itinerant But you are all constantly promoted to be Contubernales Commensales You have your Lodgings in the same Houses and keep your Table and Diet with those Pillars of the Law who therefore call you and love you as their Brethren Fortescue in his sixth Book De laudibus Legum Angliae Cap. 50. compares your Dignities with the chief Degrees of the Academies And there is no Argument that proves the Nobleness of the one but it is as strong and militant for the other I will touch upon the Reasons as they are set down in Junius his Book De Academiâ and apply them in order to this purpose First This Degree is as a Caveat to the whole State and Commonwealth that by it they may know whom to employ and whom not to employ in their weighty Causes and Consultations And so doth Fortescue appropriate Omnia Realia Placiata all the Real Actions and Pleadings of his time to the Sergeants only Secondly As St. Paul saith to the Corinthians Epistola nostra vos estis You are our Letter or Epistle So may we the Judges in our several Places say unto the Sergeants Epistela nostra vos estis You are by reason of your Degrees our Letters of Recommendation unto the Kings Majesty for his Choice and Election for the Judges of the Kingdom Because as Fortescue also truly observes no Man though never so Learned can be chosen into that eminent Place Nisi statu gradu Servientis ad Legem fuerit insignitus Thirdly and lastly This Degree of Honour is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a kind of
my power to advertise you of all Particulars though it would be very useful to me I end c. If one should say to this That young Heads hope for the best upon all Expectations because Experience hath not taught them to Distrust I take it up and Answer That there was nothing then in appearance to be distrusted no not the Remora of the Pontifical Dispensation when it should come with all its Trinkets about it The Prince had excellently prevented it For as it was Reported before the Lords and Commons in our ensuing Parliament 1624. his Highness did utterly refuse to Treat with the King of Spain or his Council until he was assured he might go on with the Marriage if he satisfied them to his Power and Conscience in all Particulars to be Debated without respect to any orders that should come from Rome This was granted to his Highness before he would sit in Consultation which caused the Lord Marquess unto that time to bear up with chearfulness 137. The month of May coming in with its Verdue his Lordship had a Garland sent him the most eminent Title of a Duke to shew says the Lord-Keeper in his Dispatch May 2. That His Majesty is most constant and in some degrees more enslamed in his Affections to your Grace than formerly and which is better than all unaffectedly to remunerate your Diligence in the great Negotiation and that being the Princes right hand by the Trust you are in your Honour might be no less than the Conde Duke Olivares the Great Privado of King Philip. It may be 't is so small a Circumstance that I have not searched about it that the Patent came with the Ships that carried the Prince's Servants into Spain to attend his Highness who went with the King's Order and their own great Desire a most specious Train of them to visit their dear Master and to serve him in all Offices of his Family Among these two were his Highness's Chaplains who were sent over to Officiate to him and his Court in the Worship of God These were Dr. Maw and Dr. Wrenn both of prime Note for Learning and Discretion very Learned to defend their own Religion and very Discreet to give no wilful Offence to the opposite part in a Foreign Dominion The Spanish liked not their company yet they took it not so ill for they could not but expect them as that there was not one Romish Catholic declared for such a one among all his Highness's Attendants Cabal p. 15. Tully states the Proverb in the Feminine Sex Lib. 5. ad Att. Ep. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As you would say Such as Diana her self such are her Nymphs about her But it is better paralell'd in King David's Person He that walketh with a perfect heart he shall serve me Psal 101.6 These were the Chorus of the Scene that sung in Tune with the chief Actor and seconded his Part with their Symplasma as it is called by ancient Musicians in their adherence to sincere Religion Yet some of these brought Instructions with them to the Duke of Buckingham from his secret Intelligencers which not only disturbed all posteriour Treaties but made the Prince return for England with the Willow Wreath Because the King and they that were faithful to his meaning knew not of it till July next after let it squat till then and it that order be started up In this place it sufficeth to glance at it that the Duke was cunningly dealt with and underhand by some whom he had lest behind to be as it were the Life-Guard of his Safety who were to send him notice of common Talk or secret Whispers that might concern him These perswaded him to set the Match back by degrees and in the end to overturn it That this was the desire of most Voices in England And his Grace must look to stand by the love of the People as well as of the King Or if he could not prevail in that let him be sure to joyn the Restitution of the Palatinate with the Marriage in the Capitulations or the Unsatisfaction which all would take that pitied the King's Daughter and her Children would undo him Upon these and their subtile Arts Sir W. Ashton Reflects in this Passage Cabal p. 32. I believe that your Grace hath represented to you many Reasons shewing how much it concerns you to break the Match with all the force you have This was the Junto at London that had done his Grace this Office and had guilded their Councils over with flourishing Reasons That these would procure him a stable continuance in Power and Sublimity with everlasting Applause Well every thing that is sweet is not wholsom Cael. Rhodoginus says lib. 23. c. 25. That at Trevisond in Pontus the Honey that Bees make in Box-Trees breeds Madness if it be eaten So I mean that the Urgencies of those Undertakes who pretended so far to the Duke's Prosperity were no better than Rhodoginus his Box-Tree Honey-Combs Yet after they had given the Qu now began the Duke to irritate the Spaniard to shut out or to slight the Earl of Bristow in all Councels to pour Vinegar into every Point of Debate to fling away abruptly and to threaten the Prince's Departure These boistrous Moods were not the way to succour the Prince's Cause for Favour cannot be forc'd from great Spirits by offering Indignities And the Temper of the Business in hand was utterly mistaken For they were not met at a Diet to make Articles of Peace and War but to Woo a fair Lady whose Consent is to be sought with no Language but that which runs sweet upon the Tongue As Q. Cicero wrote to his Brother de Peti Consul Opus est magnopere Blanditiâ Quae etiamsi vitiosa turpis sit in caeterâ vitá tam in Petitione est necessaria All Suitors are ty'd to be fair spoken but chiefly Lovers 138. No doubt but at this time in the Prime of May the Duke with such such others as the Prince did take into his Council sate close to consider upon the Overtures that came with the Dispensation For all thought that was the Furnace to make or to mar the Wedding-Ring and it asked Skill and Diligence to cast it well It is a Gibe which an Heathen puts upon an Amorose that wasts his whole time in Dalliance upon his Mistress 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Love is an idle Man's Business But there was Business enough beside Courtship and Visits which came thick to keep this Love from being idle The Dispatches that were sent from Spain to employ those that were in Commission here to direct the great Negotiation were many First The Dispensation came to the King from the Prince his Son May 2. But it came to scanning a good while after as will appear by this Letter of the Lord Keepers to the Duke dated May 9. May it please your Grace IT is my Fortune and I thank God for it to be ever rendring
being Eleven of them in the Tower Wisheech Newgate and no more This Favour had many Reasons to speak for it First To let all those who were inquisitive about the Event of his Highness Journey take notice that there was yet life in the Treaty by the motion of this Pulse Secondly To gratifie the most obnoxious of that Religion for requital of the Entertainment his Highness had among them Thirdly In Retaliation for the Prisoners that were set at Liberty in Spain to Congratulate the Princes welcom Fourthly That his Highness might keep his Word with those of that way who had done him good Offices abroad to whom he had said Cab. p. 251. That though the Marriage were broken his Catholick Subjects should not fare the worse for it Therefore hear what Mr. Secretary Conway Writes to the Lord Keeper October 7. Right Honorable HIs Majesty calling to Mind His promise to the Spanish Ambassadors for giving Liberty to the Priests requires your Lordship to prepare the Ordinance for their Liberty and to put it in Execution the rest of the Pardons being suspended till the Solemnizing the Marriage And His Majesty would that you should signifie so much to the Ambassadors in your own Person to acquaint them with His Mindfulness And then that your Lordship will be pleased to move the Ambassadors as giving them a good opportunity to do an acceptable Work that they would move for the Releasement of Dr. Whiting from Imprisonment who for his Sermon Preach'd at Hampton-Court stands committed but His Majesty will have him remain suspended from Preaching untill His further Pleasure be known Now for the Letters which his Majesty was made to believe were dispersed to the Magistrates Spiritual and Temporal about the Suspension of the Laws because his Majesty was disobeyed in it the Lord Keeper after he had seen the Inclination of the Court in three or four days wrote to the Secretary who knew all the Passages to put the Duke upon it to acquaint the King with the Naked Truth and fore-speak Displeasure Upon which Mr. Secretary Conway returns this Octob. 11. from Royston Right Honorable SO soon as I received your Letter with the like Observation that I will use in all your Command I took the Duke of Buckingham just as he was going to the King and had no more time with him but to tell him that Point touching your Wise and Moderate Retention of the Letters to the Bishops and Justices The Duke prepared the King so well as His Majesty gave me order to signifie to you that those Letters should still be retained unless some Complaints should make change of Counsels or the Accomplishment on the other side equal that of ours and occasion another step forward That Wise and Moderate way of your Lordships will ever get you Estimation and Ease I am glad to see how brave a Friend you have of the Duke And I know your Lordship will give me leave to make you as glad as my self that absence hath made no change towards my Lord Duke in the Kings Favour but his return if it be possible hath multiplied it And the Prince and He are for Communications of Counsels Deliberations and Resolutions as if they were but One. The King requir'd but one Thing more of the Lord Keeper that as he had addulced all Things very well to his Mind so the Ministers of the King of Spain might not Grudge that their Teeth were set on Edge with sower Grapes which he did effect most Artificially albeit the Ambassadors by his means had lost many Suits and more Labour as the Secretary was willed to acknowledge from Hinchingbrooke Octob. 25. Right Honorable I Delivered to his Majesty the good Temper you left the Embassadors in which gave his Majesty Contentment and moved his Thanks to you Your Humane and Noble Usage you may be sure will best beseem your Lordship and please others And when there is any Cause for you to take another Form on you be confident you shall have seasonable Knowledge For my Lord Duke hath as well a Noble Care of you as Confidence in you and Affection to you of which I am assured though a mean Witness So much was contrived and a great deal more to keep the Treaty from an utter dissociation till the next Parliament sate For the Coppy of the Memorials given January 19 by Sir Wal. Aston to the King of Spain professeth That because the Faculty for the Use of the Procuration expired at Christmas the King my Master that you may know the sound Intentions of his Proceedings with the good End to which it aims hath renewed the Powers and deferred the delivery of them only to give time for the Accomplishment and setling that which hath been promised for the satisfying his Expectations Cab. P. 39. Neither did the Spaniards return the Jewels which the Prince had presented at the Shrine of Love till the end of February at which Surrendry and not before the golden Cord was broken Nothing is more sure than that the Prince's Heart was removed from the Desire of that Marriage after the Duke had brought him away from the Object of that Delightful and Ravishing Beauty But all the while the King had his Head full of Thoughts brooding upon two things like the Twins that struggled in the Womb of Rebeckah the Consummation of the Marriage and the Patrimony of his Son-in-Law to be regained with the Dignity Electoral His Wisdom hovered between them both like the Sun at his Noonday Height Metâ distans aequalis utraque He knew he should be disvalued to the wounding of all Good Opinion if he did not engrast that Alliance into his Stem which he had sought with so much Expence of Time and Cost to strengthen and aggrandize his Posterity And he knew he should loose Honour with all the Potentates of Europe beside other Mischiefs if nothing were done for re-possessing the Palatinate Yet in sine he sate down and it cleast his Heart that he affected neither As a Canker eats quickly into soft and sappy Wood so an Error was gotten into his gentle Nature the same that Spartianus says had crept into Didius Julianus Reprehensus in eo praecipue quos regere authoritate sud debuit regendae reipub praesules sibi ipse fecit He submitted himself to be ruled by some whom he should have awed with Authority but he wanted Courage to bow them to his own Bent. A Prince that preserves not the Rights of his Dignity and the Majesty of his Throne is a Servant to some but therein a Friend to none least of all to himself 174. But he did so little bear up with an Imperatorian Resolution against the Method of their Ways who thrust his Counsels out of Doors that the Flies suck'd him where he was gall'd and he never rub'd them off He continued at Newmarket as in an Infirmary for he forgot his Recreations of Hunting and Hawking yet could not be drawn to keep the Feasts of
Honour and Safety could not approve 187. After this says the Reporter my Lord Duke hath informed you of the Dispensation the Whirly-Gig of the Dispensation which run round from Pope to Pope and never could be said to settle And though an orbicular Motion is fittest for the Spheres of Heaven yet a circular Motion which is ever beginning and never ending is stark naught for dispatch of Affairs on Earth Both the Dispensation and the Labour of the Junto of Divines upon it and their Fumbling Fingers were never fit to tye a Love-Knot Nay the Conde Duke brake out into such a Chase against their Theologues that he said the Devil put it into his Head to commit the Matter to their Learning So that it seems the Resolution of the Divines came quite contrary to the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost The next thing says he reported out of his Grace's Digestions was the Loathing that the Prince did take at the Length of the Treaty as well as the Matter but chiefly at that In the Matter that he was offered the present Conducting of the Lady into England so he would sell his Soul for the Favour and be a Client to Saints and Images to beg a Blessing of them upon his Marriage And whereas his Highness had travelled into so far a Country as well to relieve a Sister and her Posterity as to fetch a Wife he was at such a loss about the Loss of his Sister's Inheritance that the Spanish Council would fasten upon nothing to content him Hereupon his Highness declared himself plainly to the Conde in these Words Look to it Sir for without this you must not conclude of either Marriage or Friendship For I must go to my Father and acquaint him with your Resolution Here the Lord Keeper grew warm and besought their Lordships to observe how constant his Highness remained to the principal Ground of all the Restitution of the Palatinate which was the Hinge upon which all his subsequent Actions did move Look to it for neither Marriage nor Friendship can be made without the Restitution of that Dominion Which Protestation effecting little good his Highness look'd homeward But his Purposes and Preparations for his Return were often slackned But because the King of Spain expected a Betrothing with his Sister before his going away the Conde Duke revived the Treaty for the Restitution of the Paltz And after Conference with the Emperors Ambassadors there was projected a Restitution of the Country to the Son upon a Condition of a Marriage with the Emperors second Daughter which the Prince entertained But then the stabbing Condition comes after That for his Religion he must first be bred in the Emperors Court at which his Highness stopt his Ears But for the Electorate it was a thing in Nubibus out of their Power and it seems out of their Affections for they would not be drawn to meddle in it And whereas they had once made a chearful Proffer To assist us with the Arms if the Emperor did not keep his Word to put the Prince Palatine into his own again Now they slew back and confest the Emperor had been inconstant and did not deal well with them but if he would beat and buffet them they would not promise to employ a Leavy of Forces against the House of Austria 188. Now says the Voice of the Reporter since his Highness could prevail for nothing to come on well his wisest Project was to take care that himself might come off well For which there is not one of your Lordships I presume but would have given much and done much And it cost you nothing but the Perturbation of some Suspicions and Fears I say Fear was the worst you susser'd For Religion God be thanked suffer'd not at all though it was greatly mistrusted There the Lord Keeper delighted their Expectations in that which they listned after how the Kings Ministers and himself principally for he shrunk not in his Head did proceed from time to time in the last Summer about the Pardon and Dispensation about which the Spanish Ambassadors struggled for the Recusants sake In Contemplation whereof the Prince had a free and friendly Dismission yet not a Joint of Religion sprained nor a Law actually dislocated But as a Wound that is cured by a Weapon Salve sine contactu so the Law was never touch'd only the Point and Edge of the Weapon a little anointed and by the Operation of it our Noble Prince past the Pikes of Danger and is come Home to his Fathers House from a far Land without a Pater peccavi GOD be thanked he neither sinned against Heaven nor against his Father nor against you nor against the Laws or Religion for which we have cause to offer up a great Thanksgiving to GOD because there is not a spot in the Sacrifice He goes on then as the Tract of my Lord the Duke did lead him and enters into a large Field to rip up that which had been told them before how near the Prince and the Infanta were drawn together where the Marriage staid and upon what Conditions they parted Which though it had been many Years in Destination as we were credulous and do not yet lay down our Faith yet if Conde Olivarez may be trusted until they had seen the Gallantry of the Prince and his Deservings being daily now in their Eyes they held us with fair Words before but Performance till then was never meant Which he made good at least to his own Opinion by two Letters the first bears date Nov. 5. 1622. it was the late King of Spain's as the Conde said read over six times by his Highness and Sir Walter Aston and presently out of their Memories for they were not permitted to excribe it set down in Writing and I hope says the Lord Keeper when you consider the Notary you will hold it authentical The second Letter is written with Olivarez his own Hand Novemb. 8. 1623. Translated by the Prince himself very neatly and exactly Let the Clerk read them both These declare the Resolution of the Spanish Court at least in my Opinion that the great Conde's Heart was not with us till the Prince lodg'd in their Palace and sate in Council with them himself the last Summer But by that opportunity their Eyes were opened and they perceiv'd that their Lady whom they magnifie so much could never make a more happy Wife than with so brave a Husband So that no doubt the Desposorios and perhaps the Nuptials had been past by this time with mutual liking if the scandal of invading the Palatinate had been removed out of the way This the Duke's Grace says the Lord Reporter hath impartially spread out holding a just Balance in his Hand And most prudently knowing that he spake in the hearing of the wisest in the Kingdom and most faithfully for as Valerian said of Posthumius in the History of Pollio if Posthumius deceive us Sciatis nusquam gentium reperiri qui
possit penitus approbari 189. But the Unkindness of the Palatinate intervening the Prince reserv'd himself till he were satisfied therein And at his last Farewel engaged himself to leave a Proxy and did deposite the same in my Lord of Bristol's Hand who should keep it and use it as his Proctor and by his Direction His present Direction was That if the Confirmation came from Rome clear and entire which it did not then within so many Days he should deliver it to the King of Spain A second Direction was sent unto him the 8th of October 1623. That for fear a Monastery should rob his Highness of his Wife he should stay the delivery till that were clear'd and that his Highness should send him further Direction Your Lordships may hear the Letter if you please Read it Now because my Lord of Bristol in his Letter November 1. 1623. doth press so vehemently that the Prince had engaged his Faith and Power not to retract the same And that Cirica the Secretary had put it into an Instrument sign'd and seal'd Authentically I hold it most proper in this place to clear that Aspersion First His Highness told your Lordships plainly and directly that he had never by Oath or Honour engaged himself not to revoke the Powers more than by that Clause De non revocandá procuratione included in the Instrument it self Secondly I must let your Lordships know that it is lawful by the Civil and Canon Law and I Appeal herein to those Learned of that Profession now Assistants to this Noble House for any Man to revoke his Proxy and so likewise his Resignation notwithstanding that it hath the Clause De non revocandà Procuratione inserted within it Further and thirdly I affirm unto you That though the Prince had sworn not to stay or revoke his Proxy yet notwithstanding that Oath the Revocation is good in Law Jurans non revâ—are procuratorem si revocet non obstante juramento valebit revocatio Johan de Seluá Tract Doctri Vol. 5. I have digressed thus far to let your Lordships see plainly that my Lord of Bristol in this Charge upon the Prince hath forgotten himself very much and that his Highness might justly honourably and legally not only stay as he did but withal if he had so pleas'd absolutely revoke his own Proxy And now by the Mercy of God and his own wise and judicious Demeanor his Highness is arrived at Royston and hath made his Narration to the King how that he is return'd an absolute Freeman excepting only this one Condition and Limitation That if his Majesty may receive sufficient assurance from the King of Spain concerning the Restitution of the Palatinate then indeed he is obliged in Honour to go on to the Esposorios Otherwise free every way Free because of that which Olivarez had promised to his Highness before the return of Sir Francis Cottington Free because of what his Highness had said to Olivarez after the return of Sir Francis being constant to the same Principle in his dear Sisters behalf And free because his Power was staid justly legally and honourably His Majesty was glad as he had just cause to be of this wise and very circumspect Carriage in so great a Negotiation and told his Highness that he had played his part very well And now his Majesties part came upon the Stage Which was to provide with all Fatherly Love that his only Son should not be Married with a Portion of his only Daughters Tears And therefore his Majesty likewise presently requires the stay of the delivery of the Proxy until he had sufficient assurance for the Restitution of the Palatinate Which your Lordships will remember to be no new or springing Condition but the very same that is urged before and offer'd once by Olivarez in a blank Paper to his Highness which Paper was nobly returned by his Highness in his last answer to Olivarez The Provision his Majesty took herein your Lordships shall hear out of the Dispatch from Royston Octob. 8. 1623. 190. Your Lordships would conceive that upon this Dispatch the Earl of Bristol would take all Hints and Occasions to put off the Esposorios unless the required Assurance were first obteined But the Truth is and I am heartily sorry to find it he did not so First The Confirmation came from Rome alter'd and mangled And indeed of stopping the Power thereupon he labours with all his strength of Wit to hide and palliate the same Secondly When they had alter'd the Portion from 600000 in ready Cash to an Yearly Pension of 200000 and a few Jewels in stead of staying for all upon this Impediment he seems to approve and applaud the same Thirdly For the Assurance of the Restitution of the Palatinate which is the Foundation of the Marriage and Friendship he is so far from providing for it beforehand that he leaves it to be mediated by the Infanta after the Marriage Lastly In stead of putting off the Contract as any Man in the World would have done he is come to prefix a precise Day for the Esposorios These things your Lordships will soon observe out of the Letters that shall be read in the method that I will direct E. of Bristol 's Letters Octob. 24. 1623. and Novemb. 1. 1623. Out of this rash fixing of the Day in Spain which was controuled again by an Express from hence issued an unnecessary Discourtesie put upon that King by the Earl of Bristol and in a manner wantonly From that Discourtesie thrown upon them followed others cast upon us which being omitted the last Day his Highness commands me to mention them in this place As the taking away of the Title of La Princessa from the Lady and the debarring of our Ambassadors from any further Access unto her Person And with these the greatest Discourtesie of all that when they return'd unto us a poor meager and carion Dispatch concerning the Palatinate not worthy the reading and therefore wisely omitted the last Day yet the Earl of Bristol sent it with this Item That they were fain to antedate it for their Honour or else it would have been ten times worse Your Lordship may hear it if you please Madrid Decemb. 6. 1623. Well for all this big-blown nothing they have taken their Pen in Hand again and have sent unto his Majesty a Project of a Letter that if his Majesty shall so desire it shall be written unto him from the King of Spain and this Letter is the Hercules Pillars and the Nihil Ultra in the whole Negotiation of the Palatinate Read it Jan. 5. 1623. This Letter his Majesty hath scanned to a Syllable and imagining there might be some hidden Virtue to be extracted out of that Phrase Alzar la meno that King Philip will not take his Hand off the Business until our Master shall receive Satisfaction his Majesty sent unto the Spanish Ambassador for a Comment on the same and behold this all that they return to
Prince his Heir and the whole Flower of the Realm with that Infernal Powder-Plot Not reveal it said I Yes more it was hatch'd in their Brain and confirm'd with their Blessing If Clanculary Confession was cast out of the Church of Constantinople for one Mans Lust What just cause have we to gagg it for forty Mens Treason I would have him hang'd for his Wit that should invent a way to discharge a Pistol that might give no Report Now let me forfeit my Credit if wise Men will not say That Conspiracies buzzed into the Ear and imposed never to be detected upon the deepest Obligations of Faith Church-Love Merit c. are far more dangerous than Powder and Shot that kill and crack not Would you in good earnest have us Repeal our Laws of Correction against such dangerous Flambeaux Were not that to break down our Walls and to let in the fatal Horse with his Belly-full of Enemies If they plead that there is no such danger in them now Let them tell it to deaf Men. We know and can demonstrate that the most of Contrivances against our State have been whetted upon the Grind-stone of Confession Our Sages that made the Laws to blow away the Locusts into their own Red-Sea have given us a taste of their Malice in the Preface of the Statute Eliz. 27. That they came into the Land to work the Ruine Desolation and Destruction of the whole Realm Therefore marvel not if some have lost their Lives that have tempted the Rigour of those Laws Neither doth it move us that our Fugitives thereupon have sprinkled their Calenders with new Martyrs What if Jeroboam's Priests had pass'd their own Bounds and come to Jerusalem where it is likely they would have been cut off for Enemies and Rebels should their Names have been crowded into the Catalogue of the good Prophets that were stoned by Tyrants Beshrew your Superiours beyond Seas that Conjure up such Spirits to come into our Circle It grieves us God knows our Hearts to Execute our Laws upon one ot two in Seven Years for a Terror to others But Prudence is a safer Virtue then Pity And it is far better our Adversaries should be obnoxious to our Tribunal then we to theirs by the Thraldom of our Nation which is the drift of those unnatural Emissaries And if the Venetians that are under the Obedience of your Church have banish'd some of that Stamp and irrevocably out of their Territories Nay if your selves in France did sometimes Expel the same Faction accept it favorably from us who will never be under that Obedience if we Banish all 227. Hold out your Great Courtesie my Lord to a few Words more The Answering of an Objection or two will not stay you long And before I conclude I will deal you a good Game to make your Lordship a Saver if you will follow Suit You please your self Sir because you ask no more Liberty for your sacrifical Priests in our Land then the Reformed Ministers enjoy with you in France But the Comparison doth not consist of equal Terms The Protestants receive a benefit of some Toleration in your Realm to stop the mischief of Civil Wars and to settle a firm Peace among your selves It is the Reason which your Wisest and most candid Historian Thuanus doth often give and Mounsieur Bodin before him p. 588. Reip. Ferenda ea Religio est quam sine interitu reip auferre non potest If you did not so you would pull up much of your own Wheat with that which you call Tares But such a Toleration in this Kingdom would not only disturb Peace but with great Probability dissolve it In the next place you urge that such a memorable Favour might be done to gratifie the sweet Madam our intended Princess upon the Marriage O my Lord you are driven by Blind Mariners upon a Rock If this could be Granted by the King which you contend for and wereeffected Sweet Lady she would be brought in the Curses of this Nation and would Repent the day that she drew the Offence of the whole Land upon her Head Let me say on the Husbands Part what your Country-man Ausonius says for the Wife Saepe in conjugiis fit noxia si nimia est dos If the Prince should make a Joynter to his Wife out of the Tears and Sorrows of the People it were the worst bargain that ever he made His Majesties Consort of Happy Memory Queen Ann did not altogether concord with our Church Indeed the Diversity between us and the Lutherans among whom she was bred is as little as between Scarlet and Crimson The Colours are almost of the same Dip. But she carried it so prudently that she gave no notice of any dissention Neither ever did demand to have a Chaplain about her of the Lutheran Ordination This were a Precedent for the most Illustrious Madam to follow rather to procure the love of the generality then of a few Male-contents from whom you your self my Lord will have Cause to draw off when I tell you all They deal not with your Lordship sincerely They thrust your whole hand into the Fire and will not touch a Coal with one of their own Fingers They that incite and stir these Motions behind the Curtain dare not upon pain of their Lives ask it in Parliament where they know the Power Rests and no where beside to ratifie the Grant And when they Solicite your Lordship to obtain these indulgences for them in the Court they know you beat the wrong Bush Upon my Faith the Bird is not there Noli amabo verberare Lapidem ne perdas manum Plaut in Curcul Knock not your Fingers against a Stone to Grate them Perchance my Lord you think I have pinch'd you all this while with a streit Boot which you can neither get on nor off Your Lordship shall not depart from me with little Ease if Truth and plain dealing will purchase me to be called your Friend None can Repeal our Laws but his Majesty with the Votes of the three Estates as you term them the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the people And to dispense with the Execution of a Law absolutely and unrestreinedly is as much as to Repeal it which if the King should assay it were null in Law and in Revenge of it in the next Parliament it would be faster bound and perchance the Rigour of it increased But Favour and Mercy may be shewn Praeter sententiam legis in some exempted Cases and to some particular persons Clemency against the Capital Sentence of the Laws is the Kings Prerogative the Life of his Subject when it is forfeit to him he may choose whether he will take the forfeiture Every Varlet says Seneca may kill a Citizen against the Law but then he turns to the Emperor Servare nemo praeter te c. None but the Supreme Majesty can save a Life against the Law Work upon that my Lord and it were a good days work to
malevolent and vexatious Accidents Many of the one sort and the other were coincident in time yet it is no error to part them in the Relation because they are distinct in Condition His Vertues were ever in motion and so were his Crosses For the first he was not exalted in Mind because he knew they were the Gifts of God For the second he was not dejected for he knew they were the Tryals of God Joseph's party-colour'd Coat might portend many Changes in his Life but it was an Ornament and he woâ—e it with distinction from his Brethren because his Father lov'd him 32. I open the Door now to let the Bishop in to his Exchange He came to his Seat of Bugden at disadvantage in the Winter And Winter cannot be more miry in any Coast of England than it is round about it He found an House nothing to his content to entertain him 'T was large enough but rude waste untrimm'd and in much of the outward Dress like the grange of a Farmer From the time of his Predecessor Dr. Russel that was Lord Chancellor of England and sat there in the Days of Edward the Fourth and laid out much upon that place none that followed him no not Splendian Woolsey did give it any new Addition but rather suffered it to be overgrown with the Decays of an ill-favour'd Antiquity This Bishop did Wonders in a short time with the Will of a liberal Man and the Wit of a good Surveyor For in the space of one Year with many Hands and good Pay he turn'd a ruinous thing into a stately Mansion The out Houses by which all strangers past were the greatest Eye-sore these he pluck'd down to the Ground and re-edified with convenient Beauty as well for use as uniformity These were Stables Barns Granaries Houses for Doves Brewing and Dairies And the outward Courts which were next them he cast into fair Allies and Grass-plats Within Doors the Cloysters were the trimmest part of his Reparations the Windows of the Square beautified with Stories of colour'd Glass the Pavement laid smooth and new and the Walls on every side hung with Pieces of exquisite Workmen in Limning collected and provided long before The like and better was done for the Chappel in all these Circumstances and with as much cost as it was capable of For the over-sight from the beginning was that it was the only Room in the House that was too little He planted Woods the Trees in many places devised by him into Ranks and Proportions But Woods are the most needful Supplies for Posterity and the most neglected He fenced the Park and stored it with Deer He provided for good Husbandry and bought in the Leases of the Demeasnes for them that would stock the Grounds which improvidently and for hunger of Monies were let out to the very Gates And though Aristotle 4th Eth. say of a magnificent Man that he is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 costly upon himself yet here was one of that Quality that laid out much for his own Delight and Satisfaction He loved stirring and walking which he used two hours or more every day in the open Air if the Weather serv'd Especially if he might go to and fro where good Scents and Works of well-form'd Shape were about him But that this was his innocent Recreation it would amount to an Error that he should bury so much Money in Gardens Arbors Orchards Pools for Water-fowls and for Fish of all variety with a Walk raised three Foot from the Ground of about a Mile in compass shaded and covered on each side with Trees and Pales He that reports this knows best that all the Nurseries about London for fair Flowers and choice Fruits were ransack'd to furnish him Alcinous if he had lived at Bugden could not have liv'd better And all this take it together might have stood to become five Ages after his Reparation But what is there that appears now or what remains of all this Cost and Beauty All is dissipated defaced pluck'd to pieces to pay it I mean for them that sing with grace in their hearts to the Lord Colos 3.16 First Well-tuned Musick was intermingled in the Liturgy of Prayers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Basil Notions of Piety will sink further into the Mind through delightful warbling and a Lesson so pleasantly deliver'd lodgeth surer in the Memory Therefore the Agathyrsians in Plato's days put their Laws into Songs to prevent it in every Plebeian that he might not forget them Secondly It must be very profitable to sing some part of holy Service Quia cantans diutius super còdem moratur says Aquinas 2.2 Qu. 91. Art 2. the Understanding dwells the longer upon all that it pronounceth and knows that best which it rehearseth with leisure and distinction Nihil in transeursu oportet à Dris petere It is one of Numas's Laws in Plutarch and none of the worst of them not to run over Prayers in haste as a Bowl tumbles down a Hill but with pause and sober deliberation Thirdly all that love to have Church-work done with some of those holy Carols appeal to experience that they feel them now with a full Tide into their Heart sooner than plain reading Aristotle in his 19 Probl. gives the Cause why there is no Impression from Odours upon the Passions of the Mind and but little from Colours because the Objects of those Senses are conveyed into the Fancy without stirring or agitation but there is a great Consent between the Musick and the Spirits because so much Motion concurs with the Harmony how then shall the Affections be unstirr'd when God is praised by Asaph and the Quire Will not the Heart be more passionate when it applies it self to God in such tunable Solemnity than by that which is utter'd in the vulgar Mode of Elocution Fourthly David requires it of the Saints to make a chearful Noise to the God of Jacob. This is the use of Anthems to make us merry and joyful before the Lord. Can Flutes and Trumpets inspire a Resolution into the Breast of Souldiers Or why do they carry them to Battel Did Cornets and other Wind-instruments animate the robustious Greeks to stand out their Games with a Courage more than Manly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist lib. 8. Polit. c. 5. It cannot be denied says that Philosopher but such Musick comforted them in their Conflicts as if it had been an Enthusiasm Turn it into a Church-way among good Christians and will it not have alike Operation there Will not a skilful Hymn made to God enliven and penetrate as far to a Heavenly end as other Minstrilsie had its effect in civil Applications But this Seraphical Devotion is shut out of doors and more than this O Lord thou seest it until he open the Way again who hath the Key of David 34. Some will not be brought to like this and some of later growth cannot easily be brought to understand it it being hard for them to miss
of an evil Life mention'd in the 109 Canon Wherein the Bishop did not commend the Proceedings of his deputed Judges Though it might be said in favour of them that Humane Laws are strictest against them that act contrary to publick Peace Or that Crimes are punishable by Statutes and are fitter for Tryal at a Quarter Sessions Some spied into another Reason that Proctors and Registers wanted not those Scandals themselves for which in the Eye of the World they were fit to be presented Yet when all is said it were more laudable in Courts Christian to be more severe against Evils which the Light of Nature had made Evils than against Evils which were made Evils by the Laws of Holy Church Both were to be corrected but rather Works of Commission against known Light than Trespasses of Omission for want of Light of Understanding The hardest Task which the Bishop had was to perswade his Officers to live by honest Gains to moderate their Fees to wash their Hands from bribes and filthy Lucre the only way to live in clear Fame that Men might speak well of them and of their Authority Covetousness is not a Branch but a Root of Evil says St. Paul all that grows may be seen in a Plant but not the Root Whose Example is more fit to shew it than Tribonius who digested the Code of the Civil Law of whom Suidas says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He was most subtle to shadow and cover the Disease of Covetousness From thence proceed the Delays that consume the Substance of Appellant and Defendant and make them curse such expectative Proceedings Whose Clamors incited the Bishop to Passion sometimes and to call upon them instantly for dispatch For how long will an Horse-leach suck if it be not pull'd off A little is taken to enter a Cause but the Price increaseth at every turn when it is brought to Examination Like German Toss-pots that drink small Cups at first and quaff down great Bowls when they are drunk Similer says of the Cantons where he liv'd that the People lik'd Expedition in their Causes as much as Justice Quod si in judiciis nostris error aliquis committitur in causis implicicis obscuris nequaquam tantum damni inde datur quantum ex litium diuturna prorogatione accipitur Res â—â—el p. 140. 46. If a Curse were of moment as when a whole Parish were in a Broil about it the bishop appointed a Consistory to rule it with his own Presence and Judgment He trusted not his Chancellor and Commissaries upon old Experience but like a wise Governour he look'd upon them with a new Probation in every great Cause as if he had never known them What greater Praise could Symmachus have given to Theodosius in point of using his Counsellors than this Solenne est ei singulos ut novos semper expendere nec consuetudini condonare judicium Ep. p. 124. A Magistrate that will not research his Deputies but leaves them to their Work with an indefinite Confidence in their Honesties doth as absurdly as Tanner the Jesuite spake absurdly in the Colloquy at Reinsberg That the Pope might err unless he did use all due and ordinary means but without all doubt and question he did ever use those means The Bishop had a deeper insight into Man and never fail'd to be Rector Chori in Causes that requir'd a more special Audience Wherein he spared himself so little and gave so much ease to the People that he did often ride to the parts of his Diocess remotest from his ordinary home as Leicester Buckinghamshire Wellen in Hartfordshire c. and kept his Courts where all the Complainants were at hand to attend them A way of great content and much neglected Yet the 125 Canon provides That all Officials should appoint meet places for the keeping of their Courts as should be expedient for entertainment of those that made their appearance and most indifferent for their Travail and that they may return homewards in as due season as may be But these Courts which kept Peace among the Sons of the Church and super-intended over Delinquents are quite ex-authorized taken in pieces as musty Vessels wherein nothing kept sweet that was put into them The Fault was in the Demolishers that had no better Scent they had Noses and smelt not For whereas the Grievance pretended was that they had too much Power the Truth is on the contrary that they could not do their work as they ought to satisfie the People and to beat down Sin because they had too little Take their highest and in a manner their only censure Excommunication terrible in it self What doth a profane Person care for it Prosecute them with Writs de Excommunicatis capiendis and all the Grist that came to their Mill would not pay the cost of it What a Coil hath been made to set up Consistories of Ministers and ruling Elders that should proceed against Scandals with rebukes suspension from the Sacrament open penance and lastly as they expound it let him be unto thee as an Heathen and a Publican Make the Sinner liable to Imprisonment to destraining to a Forfeiture to some loss in his profit and he will be sure to feel it and sly from the occasion Confess the Truth will not many look better to outward Honesty if you discipline them in their Purse Bucer fell upon this in an Epistle to Luther Scrip. Anglic. p. 657. Excommunicationis loco egregiam in multis civitatibus disciplinam poenas sceleribus dignas sancitas esse And Erastus writes like a wise Man that noted other ways than Presbyterian Censures to rectifie the common Disorders of Christians as to straiten them in Priviledges of Reputation and Matters of Gain which none should communicate in but the obedient Simler says Helv. Hist p. 148. There was not a Minister admitted into the Consistory of Scaphuse but the most Judicious of the Laity exercis'd that Authority because their Punishments did chiefly extend against the Body or the Fortunes of the Peccant What little good hath the Stool of Repentance wrought among the fierce natur'd Scots They have sat so long upon it that they know not how to blush at it We should be shame-fac'd Nay which is better we should be innocent but we are neither Plato says in his Protagoras that lest Men should fall into the Confusion of all Sin God had given them two Blessings to restrain them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Shame and Justice But since we have lost Shame Justice must take another course and let us blood in that Vein which may most probably cure us Ploratur lacrymis amissa pecunia veris Juven Sat. 13. Set a Fine upon their Heads that deserve it and it will vex their Hearts But no more of Jurisdiction dissolv'd Rosa hyeme non est rosa It was yet to be remembred for his sake that was the Honour of it whilst it stood 47. For it was murmur'd a good while before the
Script and Memory after the ransacking of his Papers Therefore as Tully writes lib. 3. de Orat. Majus quiddam de Socrate quà m quantum Platonis libri prae se ferunt cogâ—andum That Socrates was a braver man than Plato had made him in his Dialogues So I have not made Dr. Williams so compleat a Bishop as he was he was more than I have describ'd him and would have been far more than himself had attain'd to if the Messenger of Satan had not been sent to busset him in many Troubles and Trials lest he should have been exalted above measure 63. After much that hath been dilated in this Book pleasing for Peace and Honour Praise-worthy for Merit and Vertue I must make room for Grief it will thrust in into every Registry and Chronicle into the remembrance of any man's Life which is continued from the beginning to the end Says â—lato in his Phaedon after his way of a Fable-frame of Philosophy when Jupiter could not make Joy and Sorrow agree 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He yoked their Heads together that they could never be parted Therefore those things which God's Providence hath joyn'd inseparably no Pen can put asunder so that the Current of this History hitherto clear must fall into a dead Sea-like Jordan The Good which this famous Bishop did must be continued with the Evil which he suffer'd As Polusiote writes of Jeremias that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most passive the most persecuted of all the Prophets So of all that this Church had preferr'd to the like Dignity except them that resisted to Blood none was wounded with so many Darts of Despight as this man or aviled with so many Censures or stood so long in chase before his Enemies Having delivered up the Great Seal from the first day that he removed to Bugden all Promises were broken which gave him Assurance of Countenance and Safety and the place to which he was bidden to go as to a Sanctuary assorded him no more shelter than an Arbour in the Winter against a Shower of Rain Therefore to keep off Mistakes be it noted as to the time it was the same wherein he lived so like a Bishop and wherein he suffer'd so like a Confessor But Method distinguisheth those Troubles by themselves like Tares gathered from the good Wheat and bound in their own Bundles Some are greater practis'd upon no Subject before nor fit to be done hereafter Some are lesser matters yet not unworthy my Hand When they are disposed Limb by Limb and in order as they were done there will be much of them I would they had been less and be known to be enforced without Shame of the World with so much Wrong and Rancour that an indifferent Reader will depose there needs no Fiction nor Colour to make them worse than they were Those that were outdone in the first place were outgone by them that came after Quid prima querar Quid summa gemam Pariter cuncla deslere juvat Sene. Her Oet What the last and greatest should have been is unknown because they came not to that Birth It was decreed by Men but undecreed by GOD who sent his Judgments upon all and brought both Actors and Sufferers to utter Ruin by that Parliament which held us as long as the issue of Blood held the Woman in the Gospel Twelve years Mat. 9.20 It was no thanks to his Foes to give over then It was strange they would not give over till then when one black day like a Dooms-day blended the whole Hierarchy and with their Lordships Leave the Nobility in one mass of Destruction Those underfatigable Enemies that pursued him knew that he could never fall so low while he was alive but that there was Worth which was like to get up and rise again He had never felt such Sorrow if he had been contemn'd It was his ill luck to be feared because of the great Powers of his Mind whom none had cause to fear since he never fought Revenge Then they saw he would stand upright and never stoop after they had loaded his Back with so many Burthens which made them obstinate to proceed and labour in vain to crush out that which was not Wind but Spirit The Mountainous Country of Wales wherein he was born breeds hardy men but sew his Equals which Courage is no more to be forgotten than the twelve Labours of Hercules Let Xenophon speak for Socrates so must I for this Hero 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apolog. in sine Observing the Wisdom and Generosity of the Man I cannot but remember him and when I remember him I cannot but praise him Neither were it useful I will subscribe to it to bring up his Sufferings from the Dead now he is gone unless the People that come after may be made the wiser and the stronger by them if they fall into the like But noble Examples are like the best Porcellan Dishes of China which are made in one Age laid up in the Earth and are brought forth to be used in another That 's the Goal I drive to And those Circuitions which are brought in for those Applications sake will make that which might be shut up in a little swell into a Volume Casaubon gives us this Warning of Polybius in his rare Preface before him Ita narrat ut moneat Personam historici cum assumpsit Polybius non in totum exuit philosophi Folybius was a Philosopher in his History so would I be and more a Teacher of Christ and the Laws of his Church as I am by Ordination 64. For an entrance I take my method from a wise Artist concerning the long and dangerous Adventures of his Aeneas to search into the Cause Quo numine laeso which way it came about since there was no man living whose Harm this Bishop wish'd that he could never find his Peace and Prosperity again when once he had lost them Why principally I cast it upon his Sins What Man is without them And his were not many but those some were great ones a lofty Spirit whose motion tended upward restless to climb to Fower and Honour And not one among an hundred of great Aspirers that live to see quiet days And this was joyn'd with too much Fire in the passion of his Anger in which Mood indeed which is strange he would reason excellently and continue it in the very Euro-clydon of his Choler as the Low Germans are most cunning at a Bargain when they are more than half tippled But in such an evil extasie of the Mind words would fall from him or from any which pleased not Men and were hateful to GOD Let these stand for the Fore-singer that points to the cause of his bitter Encounters Every man 's evil Genius that haunts him is his own Sin which wipes not out any paat of the Good which hath been written of him before The same man appears not the same but another in some miscarriages Polybius lib. 16. commends
illa quibus conciliatur plebis animus cò usque ne differantur donec ea praestare cogi videantur Passing right is Sir J. Haward's Hist of H. IV. p. 4. says he The Multitude are more strongly drawn by unprofitable Courtesies than by churlish Benefits Among those that argued for this Petition de Droit I shall remember what past from two eminent Prelates Archbishop Abbot offer'd his own Case to be consider'd banish'd from his own Houses of Croydon and Lambeth confin'd to a moorish Mansion-place of Foord to kill him debarr'd from the management of his Jurisdiction and no cause given for it to that time harder measure than ever was done to him in his Pedagogy for no Scholar was ever corrected till his Fault was told him But he had fuller'd the Lash in a Message brought by the Secretary and no cause pretended for it And what Light of Safety could be seen under such dark Justice The Bishop of Lincoln likewise promoted the Petition but he was a great Stickler for an Addition that it might come to the King's Hands with a mannerly Clause That as they desir'd to preserve their own Liberties so they had regard to leave entire that Power wherewith His Majesty was entrusted for the Protection of his People which the Commons disrelish'd and caused to be cancell'd This caused the Bishop to be suspected at first as if he had been sprinkled with some Court-holy-water which was nothing so but a due Consideration flowing from his own Breast that somewhat might be inserted to bear witness to the Grandeur of Majesty A Passage in Xenophon commends such unbespoken Service lib. 8. Cyrip says he Hystaspus would do all that Cyrus bade but Chrysantus would do all which he thought was good for Cyrus before he bade him 77. In the Debate of this great matter among the Lords this Bishop hath left under his own Pen what he deliver'd partly in glossing upon a Letter which His Majesty under the Signet sent to the House May the 12th partly in contesting with the chief Speakers that quarrel'd at the Petition As to the former First the King says That his Predecessors had never given Leave to the free Debates of the highest Points of Prerogative Royal. The Bishop answered The Prerogative Royal should not be debated at all otherwise than it is every Term in Westminster-hall Secondly the Letter objects What if some Discovery nearly concerning Matters of State and Government be made May not the King and his Council commit the Party in question without cause shewn For then Detection will dangerously come forth before due time Resp No matter of State or Government would be destroyed or defeated if the Cause be exprest in general terms And no danger can likely ensue if in three Terms the Matter be prepared to be brought to Trial. Ob. 3. May not some Cause be such as the Judges have no Capacity of Judicature or Rules of Law to direct or guide their Judgment Resp What can those things be which neither the Kings-bench nor Star-chamber can meet them Obj. 4. Is it not enough that we declare our Royal Will and Resolution to be which God willing we will constantly keep not to go beyond a just Rule and Moderation in any thing which shall be contrary to our Laws and Customs And that neither we nor our Council shall or will at any time hereafter commit or command to Prison for any other cause than doth concern the State the Publick Good and Safety of our People Resp Not the Council-Table but the appointed Judges must determine what are Laws and Customs and what is contrary to them And this gracious Concession is too indefinite to make us depend upon that broad Expression of Just Rule and Moderation Especially be it mark'd That all the Causes in the Kingdom may be said to concern either the State the Publick Good or the Safety of the King and People This under Favour is abundantly irresolute and signifies nothing obtain'd Obj. 5. In all Causes hereafter of this nature which shall happen we shall upon the humble Petition of the Party or Signification of our Judges unto us readily and really express the true cause of the Commitment so as with Conveniency and Safety it be fit to be disolosed And that in all Causes of ordinary Jurisdiction our Judges shall proceed to the delivery or bailment of the Prisoner according to the known and ordinary Rules of this Land and according to the Statutes of Magna Charta and those six Statutes insisted on which we intend not to abrogate or weaken according to the true intention thereof Resp To disclose the cause of Imprisonment except Conveniency and Safety do hinder are ambiguous words and may suffice to hold a man fast for coming forth And if all Causes be not of ordinary Jurisdiction as I hope they are who shall judge which be the extraordinary Causes We are lost again in that Uncertainty So likewise for the Intention of Magna Charta and the six Statutes who shall judge of the true Intention of them That being arbitrary we are still in nubibus for any assurance of legal Liberty So the Concessions of His Majesty's Letter were waved as unsatisfactory 78. And the Bishop went on to shew that the Contents of the Petition were suitable to the ancient Laws of the Realm ever claimed and pleaded expedient for the Subject and no less honourable for the King which made him a King of Men and not of Beasts of brave-spirited Freemen and not of broken-hearted Peasants The Statute in 28 Edw. 3. is as clear for it as the day at Noon-tide That no man of what state or condition soever shall be put out of his Lands or Tenements nor taken nor imprison'd nor disinherited nor put to death without being brought to answer by due process of Law I know one Lord replied to this lately That the Law was wholsom for the good of private men and sometime it might be as wholsom for the Publick Weal that the Soveraign Power should commit to Custody some private man the cause not being shew'd in Law upon more beneficial occasion than a private man's legal Liberty And though the Hand of Power should seem to be hard upon that one person a Benefit might redound to many First be it consider'd if no Law shall be fixt and inviolable but that which will prevent all Inconveniencies we must take Laws from God alone and not from men Then be it observ'd that to bring the exception of a Soveraign Power beside the Laws in Cases determined in the Laws takes away all Laws when the King is pleas'd to use and put forth this Soveraign Power wherewith he is trusted and makes the Government purely arbitrary and at the Will of the King So shall this Reason of State eat up and devour the Reason of Laws Shew me he that can how the affirmation of a Soveraign Power working beside the Law insisted upon shall not bring our Goods and our
ten degrees backward upon their Dyal they knew it That Abner gave good Counsel to Asahel not to pursue a valianter man than himself and a Captain of the Host but lay hold on one of the young men and take his Armour 2 Sam. 2.21 they knew it Yet they had shuffled the Cards that they knew they should win somewhat by the Hand for if the Bishop gave no Answer to this Challenger he was baffled and posted upon every Gate about London for a Dastard If he return'd them their own again then pull him to the Stake and worry him in the Star-chamber where he was struggling for Life at this time in which fatal juncture the King must be told that he was an Enemy to the Piety of the Times and the Good Work in hand So that this Spaniel was to put up the Fowl that the Eagle might fall upon the Quarry But it was soon decided for rather than forsake a good Cause and a good Name Lincoln chose to use his Pen to maintain his innocent Letter though malicious Subtlety had made it manifest that nothing could fall so moderately from him in that cause which would not be subject to perverse exposition The Athenians had deserted their old Philosophy Cum imminente periculo major salutis quà m dignitatis cura fuit Justin lib. 5. Therefore a Mind that was not degenerous had rather provide for Dignity than Safety None writes better than Budaeus upon such a case de Asse lib. 1. fol. 10. Tanta fuit vis numinis ad stylum manum urgentis ut periclitari malis quà m rumpi degeneri patientiâ Some divine Spirit did so strongly stir him up to write that he had rather run any hazard than smother such an Injury with cowardly Patience 98. I have cleared the rise of the Controversie which follows That a Letter of the Bishop's was sent to some few persons nine years before to stop a Debate in a private Parish and to make Peace in the place This was published by Dr. Heylin with a Confutation and censur'd for Popular Affectation Disaffection to the Church Sedition and for no better than No Learning And the Plot was as Concurrencies will not let it be denied to pop out this Pamphlet when the Bishop's Cause in Star-chamber was now ripe for hearing And this was the Pack-needle to draw the Whip-cord of the Censure after it But what was this about Take the Substance or rather the Shadow that was contended for out of the Letter in an Abstract The Vicar of Grantham P. T. of his own Head and never consulting the Ordinary had removed the Communion-Table to that upper part of the Chancel which he called the Altar-place where he would officiate when there was a Communion and read that part of Service belonging to the Communion when there was none And when the People shewed much dislike at it because it was impossible as they alledg'd that the 24th part of the Parish should see or hear him if he officiated in that place he persisted in his way and told them he would build an Altar of Stone upon his own cost at the upper end of the Quire and set it with the ends North and South Altar-wise and six it there that it might not be removed upon any occasion A Complaint being made against this by the Alderman and a multitude of the Town the Bishop contented himself at first to send a Message to the Magistrate and the Vicar that they should not presume either the one or the other of them to move or remove that Table any more otherwise than by special direction of him and his Chancellor that in his Journey that way he would view the place and accommodate the matter according to the Rubrick and Canons There being no certain day set when the Bishop would come the Inhabitants of Grantham prevented him and came with open cry to Bugden against the Vicar who was among them at the Hearing Some Heat and sharp Impeachments against each other being over the Bishop did his best to make them Friends and supp'd them together in his great Hall while himself retired to his Study and bade them expect that he would frame somewhat in a thing so indifferent to him to give them content against the Morning So he bestowed that night in writing and made his Papers ready by day As the Panegyrist said to Constantine of such Celerity Quorum igneae immortales mentes mintâ—â—e sentiunt corporis moras p. 303. The Secretary gave a short Letter to the Alderman in which that which concerns the case in hand is this little That his Lordship conceived that the Communion-Table when it is not used should stand in the upper end of the Chancel not Altar-wise but Table-wise But when it is used either in or out of the time of Communion it should continue in the place it took up before or be carried to any other place of Church or Chancel where the Minister might be most audibly heard of the whole Congregation What can a Critick in Ceremonies carp at herein What else but that the end and not the side of the Table should stand toward the Minister when he perform'd his Liturgy Is this all And must a Controversie as big as a Camel be drawn through the Eye of this Needle But more of the same comes after in a larger Script which the Bishop at the same time willed to be delivered to the Divines of the Lecture of Grantham to be examined by them upon their next meeting-day that their Vicar being one of their company might read the Contents and take a Copy for his own use if he would but to divulge it no further Herein the Bishop derives his Conceptions from the Injunctions Articles and Orders of the Queen from the Homilies and Canons from Reports out of the Book of Acts and Monuments and from the Rubricks of the Liturgy and shews out of these that the Utensil on which the Holy Communion is celebrated ought not to be an Altar but a joyned Table that the Name of Table is retained by the Church of England and the other of Altar laid aside that the Table without some new Canon is not to stand Altar-wise in Parish-Churches and the Minister be at the North end thereof but Table-wise and he must officiate at the North side of the same that this Table when holy Duties are not in performing at it must be laid up in the Chancel but in the time of Service to be removed to such a place of Church or Chancel the over-sight of Authority appointing it wherein he that officiates may be most conveniently seen and heard of all They that would peruse the whole Letter are referred to it in Print but the sum of it is already laid before them And the Author was so little over-weening tho' in a frivolous case that he prays the Divines to whom he sent it that if they found mistakings in his Quotations or had met with any Canons
or Constitutions differing from the alledg'd or did vary in their Judgment that they would send their Reasons and they should be kindly and thankfully accepted How could a Prelate carry himself with more Moderation or a Scholar write with more Modesty or a Variance be more suddenly composed as it was with more Indifferency Did this Letter deserve to be ript up nine years after and torn into Raggs by an angry Censure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss w. It will be a dishonour to the Times that Posterity should hear of it I see if the Dr. had been in the place of the Bishop he would have led the Parish of Grantham another Dance to their cost and vexation Many that are in low condition are best where they are As Livy says lib. 1. dec 5. Quidnam illi Consules Dictatoresve facturi erant qui proconsularem imaginem tam trucem saevÃmque fecerint If such had been the Consuls and Dictators of the Church what would they have done who flew so high when they had no Authority 99. Scan this now both for the Form and Matter before equal Judges in some Moral and Prudential Rules The Letter or private Monition as he calls it that drew it up Hol. Tab. p. 82. was written nine years before and in all that time had gained this Praise that it savour'd of Fatherly Sweetness to satisfie the Scrupulous by Learning in matter of Ceremony rather than to strike the case dead with Will and Command The Contents of it had been quoted in a Parliament with well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful in a little A Divinity-Professor in his Chair Dr. Pr. had spoken reverendly of it by the relation of many it was punctually read or opened fully to the King at the hearing of the Cause of St. Gregory's Church Ho. Tab. p. 58. and no Counsellor did inform that it was disparaged A Litter of blind Whelps will see by that time they are nine days old and was the Answerer blind that could not see the reputation this Paper had got by that time it was nine years old Let a Presbyter for me dispute the truth with him that is of the greatest Order in the Church yet what Canons will suffer him to taunt and revile a Bishop whose whole Book was but a Libel against a Diocesan p. 58. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Const lib. 2. c. 31. Which Canon will not allow a Clerk of a lower degree to raise an evil Murmur against a Bishop Much of the like is an Antiquity from Ignatius downward Their supereminent Order is not to be exposed to petulant Scoffings by their own Tribe Sed servanda est uniuscujusque Episcopi reverentia says Gregory Ep. 65. Ind. 2. since the Age grew learned and Knowledge puffed men up Ministers are more malapart among us and in every state with the Fathers of the Church but from the beginning it was not so If the like to this had been done upon the Person of another Bishop he would have been taught better Manners that had presum'd it The Example is the same wheresoever it lighted and might have taught them that where Reverence is forgotten to any of the chief Order that he that abuseth one doth threaten many It is a sad Presage to my Heart to apply that of Baronius to them that did not maintain the Honour of their Brother Quod Praesides ecclesiarum alter alterius vires infringebant Deus tranquilla tempora in persecutiones convertebat an 312. p. 6. These Annals prevent me not to forget that for a better colour to make licentious Invectives the Respondent takes no notice that a Bishop wrote the Letter For why not rather some Minorite among the Clergy Indeed it had not the Name but the Style tells him all the way that it could come from none but the Diocesan of Grantham Therefore I will give him his Match out of Baronius anno 520. p. 22. Maxentius contra epistolam Hormisdae scripsit sed ut liberam sibi dicendi compararet facultatem Hormisdae esse negavit sed ab adversariis ejus nomine scriptam esse affirmans This is a stale Trick to bait a Pope or a Prelate in the name of one that was much beneath them Sternitur infoelix alieno vulnere Aen. lib. 10. but he that wilfully makes these mistakes I take him for what he is I pass to the main Question What did this Letter prescribe that it should be torn with the Thorns of the Wilderness It pared away no Ceremony enjoyned O none further from it but it moderated a doubtful case upon the Mode and Practice of a Ceremony how the Communion-Board should stand and how the Vicar in that Church should pray and read at it for best edification of his Flock He must give me time to study upon it that would demand me to start him a Question belonging to God's Service of less moment Had the Gensdarmery of our great Writers no other Enemy to fight with Nothing to grind in their Brain-mill but Orts This the Colleges of Rome would have to see us warm in petty Wranglings and remiss in great Causes as Laertius says of one Xenophon of the Privy-Purse to Alexander the Great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 632 He would quiver for cold in the hot Sun and sweat in the Shade It was a Task most laudably perform'd by Whitgift Bridges Hooker Morton Burgess to maintain the use of innocent Ceremonies with whom Bishop Williams did ever jump and as Fulgentius says in P. Paulo's Life would defend and observe all Ordinances the least considerable and no whit essential But this was a great deal below it to litigate not about the continuance but about the placing of a Ceremony an evil beginning to distract Conformists who were at unity before and to make them sight like Cocks which are all of a Feather and yet never at peace with themselves Wo be to the Authors of such Cadmaean Wars Quibus semper praelia clade pari Propertius A most unnecessary Gap made in the Vine yard through which both the wild Boar our foreign Enemy and the little Foxes at home may enter in to spoil the Grapes Plutarch lib. de Is Osyr tells me of a Contention between the Oxyndrites and Cynopolites who went to War for the killing of a Fish which one of the Factions accounted to be a sacred Creature and when they were weaken'd with slaughter on both sides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sine the Romans over-run them and made them their Slaves Let the Story be to them that hates us and the Interpretation fall upon our Enemies 100. Yet will some of the stiffer Faction say it was time to clip the Wings of this Letter or if it could be done to make it odious abroad for the Mctropolitan intending one common decency in all Churches of his Province about the Table of Christ's Holy Supper this Paper six years older than his translation to the See of Canterbury
hath given encouragement to the Metropolitan and Bishops and other Ordinaries to require the like in all Churches committed to them The Bishop says He hath left all to the Law to the Communion-book to the Canons and Diocesan p. 59. And which is much they two should agree the Doctor says so too Ant. p. 64. That it is left to the Judgment of the Ordinary for the thing for the time N. B. when and how long he may find cause The Bishop says more That after this Order he had heard of no Bishop that had exacted of his Diocess the placing of the Holy Table Altar-wise p. 69. And in the year following 1634. the Archbishop holding a Metropolitical Visitation keeps him to the ancient form in this Interrogatory Doth the Table stand in a convenient place of Chancel or Church If one Prelate was singular in his Visitation of Norwich Diocess which the Dr. would seem not to speak out but to intimate our Bishop hath a Passage to meet it p. 85. out of Archbishop Whitgift There is no manner of reason that the Orders of the Church should depend upon one or two mens liking or disliking Where now appears I say not the Command but the Encouragement that the Order made for St. Gregory's Church should be observed in all Parishes It will conduce to this Cause to borrow one Quotation out of the Bishop and two out of the Doctor the Bishop's is taken from an Act of Council made for reformation 1 Edw. 6. That the form of a Table shall never move the simple from the superstitious Opinions of the Popish Mass and that this superstitious Opinion is more held in the minds of the simple and ignorant by the form of an Altar than of a Table The Dr. p. 105. out of a Sermon of Bishop Hooper's preach'd before K. Edward It were well it might please the Magistrates to turn the Altars into Tables according to the first Institution of Christ to take away the false Perswasion of the People which they have of Sacrifices to be done upon the Altars for as long as the Altars remain both the ignorant People and the ignorant evil-perswaded Priest will dream always of Sacrifice Then p. 129. Bishop Ridley took down Altars and appointed the form of a right Table to be used in all his Diocess Duo Scipiadae These two Bishops were very learned and very Martyrs A little remains to shut up this Controversie or rather to shut it out For to set the Table under the East Window of the Chancel the ends running North and South is this to set it Altar-wise Verily it is a meer English Phrase or rather an English Error because Altars beyond the Seas are placed promiscuously either at the top or in the midst of the Chancel as the Bishop notes p. 218. and commonly so far from the Wall that the Priests and Deacons might stand round about them As in Cardinal Borromaeo's Reformation a space of eight cubits was to be left between the Altar and the Wall Altare in medio Ecclesiae situm says Baron anno 451. p. 62. Josephus Vicecomes a skilful man in these punctilio's Altaria in medio Ecclesiae allocata fuisse But to fasten it sure I refer it to Marcellus Corcyrensis lib. 3. Sacr. Cerem p. 215. he says The Pope never preacheth but when he celebrates the Mass himself he goes not up into a Pulpit but sits in his Chair Sedet ante altare super faldistorium si altare est apud Parietem Si autem sedes Papae non infra sed supra altare est ut in Ecclesiâ S. Petri similibus tune Papa vertit faciem ad chorum sedens in praedictâ sede Here 's the Altar in the chief Mother-Church of Rome in the midst of the Quire which falls into this conclusion that these local Differences among us about the Holy Table are not in imitation of any Church but forms taken up at home so that upon the final Sentence Maxima de nihilo nascitur historia as Propertius says fitly 106. Here you have the Book of the Holy Table epitomiz'd and you see the Bishop broke not the Peace of the Church but was upon the defence His Adversary tells us lately that it was a Book cried up every where with great applause when it came first to light What would it have been if it had been studied any long time and lick'd over with a second or third examination But one month in the Autumn began it and ended it as not only the Author but the Amanuensis testified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is when one is swift in doing a good thing God and he were joyn'd together But this Praise belongs to the Dr. as well as to him who is a swift Dromedary traversing her ways Jer. 2.23 There are Passages between them with some bitterness on both sides I like it in neither they that spit upon one another are both defiled I cite nothing faln in that kind for every Dunghill smells ill but not till you stir it To excuse such things Non contumelias sed argutias vocamus says Seneca It may be sharpness of Wit but it is bluntness of Wisdom One thing the Criticks noted beside That in some Passages the Holy Table is too light and merry and no Merriment is worse than the Laughter of Anger Subridens mistâ Mezentius irâ Virg. It was not publish'd in the person of a Bishop And to me it seems that a joculary Style was not amiss for a frivolous Cause Nor would the Author seem to be damp'd or troubled but full of sanguine Alacrity for all the Provocation And if Mirth keep decorum it is a good Rule of Theages the Pythagorean Laert. p. 847. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the office of Virtue to act with pleasure and not with sadness Or as Solomon much better A merry heart doth good like a medicine Prov. 17.22 But if any the least thing were amiss he heard of it on both Ears in the Antidotum Lincolniense which I pass over because no Reply was made unto it Not that the Author had won the Field but as Livy said Dec. 1. lib. 3. when the People of Rome retired to the Aventine Mountain for the Injury done to Virginia and the Senators ask'd them what they would have Non defuit quid responderetur defuit qui responsum daret The Bishop I know was making his Notes ready to vindicate his Book and was resolved as the Italian Proverb runs to give his Adversary Cake for Bread for he was like to Bishop Fisher in Erasmus's Character of him Ep. p. 396. Roffensis vir pius cum primis ac eruditus sed eo ingenio ut non facilè desinat ubi semel incaluit in certamine He was prevented by his Cause in Star-chamber which was brought to hearing in the same month that the Antidotum came abroad a Censure pass'd upon him which was executed with that rigour that all that he
mediate for him And was it not likely he would think who had procured him his first Rochet well fringed with good Commendums But what Suspicion to find a thankful Man did bring Lincoln into this Error 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Pindar Old kindness is fast asleep and Men are forgetful This Hand return'd him nothing from his Majesty but Denials and Despairs as if he had lighted upon one of the Genethliaci or Figure-Casters that never portend a good Horoscope to any or as I may better set it down in Gassendus's Complaint De Pareliis p. 309. Ita praeposteri sumus ut nunquam captemus bona omina A good word from so gracious an Agent would have cleared any man who made Lincoln's Fidelity more suspected to his Royal Master Bishop Laud knew him how strong he was in his Intellectuals how fit to manage Civil and Church Affairs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Tully translates it out of Aratus Huic non una modo caput ornans stella relucet He thought it a disparagement to have a Parage with any of his Rank and out of Emulation did dry his Substance that it might not flow so fast into Charitable Works Therefore as the Oratour wrote to Atticus Qui mihi pennas inciderunt nolunt easdem renasci so he kept the Feathers of the other short that they might not grow again to fly before him Lincoln took it not a whit to heart because he foresaw it I have heard him say Though I did as much for him as I could when he wanted me yet I knew he would fail if ever I wanted him What remedy but the Cause which had rotted three years in the Dung must now be made ripe a Mischief which had lyen like a Match kindled to give fire to a Train of Powder long after So it came to be sifted by the great Abilities of Mr. William Noy Attorney General a Man of Cynical behaviour but of an honest heart to his Friends and Clients and both together did become him This famous Lawyer profest a great averseness from dealing in this Cause for he wanted a Ground to plead upon The Defendant maintains that he had opened no Counsels of the Kings but what he spake to Lamb and Sibthorp was Parliamentary Communication Let the Peers and Commons look to it it concerns them all that their Priviledges be maintain'd to be unquestionable for those things which past from one to another at that season who by the Writ that Summons them do meet as Counsellors for great Affairs concerning the Church and Commonwealth And by this very Demurrer Mr. Selden about two years before had quash't a Bill which was preferr'd in the Star-Chamber against him in a like Accusation Neither contemn the Inconvenience because the storm fell upon one Bishop and no more The whole Tree was as good as unfastned when one Bough was shaken It is a good Caution in Arist 5. Polit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is all assumed to say The Danger is not great that lights upon one or two Particulars when by that Entrance it will break in upon the whole Kind Be it known therefore that this Bill was kept under Hatches and never came to hearing For which way could the Council stir to plead upon it As great a Pleader as ever lived Demosthenes gives us this Rule Olynth .. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As the Foundation of an House and the Keel of a Ship must be laid strong and firm so should the Foundations of all Actions But in this charge let Wit and Learning turn it self every way there was no Bottom to build upon Therefore Mr. Noy after two years grew weary of it and slackned the Prosecution He died untimely for our Bishop's good who acknowledgeth it under his Hand That he dealt fairly with him not reckoning by his Maundings and rough Language which came from him to please the supervising Prelate But Lincoln never felt harm from him whose Finger he cut but with the back of his Knife Therefore I pronounce him innocent of this Man's ruin upon the reason that Ulysses spared Terpiades Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He sung such Songs as the riotous Suitors of Penelope would have him by constraint and necessity 112. Who have we next to play this Game but notorious Kilvert and for the same reason that God gave why Phocas was made Emperour of the World because there was not a worse Hem Si quid rectè curatum velis huic mandes oportet A Man branded long before in a Parliament for Perjury a Knight of the Post as we call it A Name which some learned Scholar gave at first to such Catives For Casaubon in his Theophrastus shews out of Pausanias in his Atticks that perjur'd Men were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that usually stood about the Panathenaick Race-posts called Adrettum to be hired to give a Testimony whether it were right or wrong Here 's one that wore that Badge and our Bishop writes more and Truth in all That in scorn of Justice for many years he lived from his own Wife a vertuous and well-born Gentlewoman whom he had stol'n away from her Parents and lived in open Adultery with another Man's Wife one Mr. Bines hard by White-hall and begot divers Bastards upon her Body besides his other Debaucheries and Infamies of all kinds This Man as himself avouched was found out and employed by Archbishop Laud by this time he is in that Throne by Secretary Windebank and Sir J. Lamb to prosecute the Cause against the Bishop without entring him as a Prosecutor upon Record as he ought to have done and was assured he should advance his Fortunes thereby which was truly perform'd This Fellow interloping into the Prosecution of the Cause disturb'd it in every point of the due Proceeding left not one Rule or Practice of the Court unbroken menacing and intimidating Witnesses Clerks Registers Examiners Judges and the Lord keeper himself One that would undertake any Office to serve Greatness and would preserve their Favour that kept him upon any Conditions who lack't not such Wisdom as St. James abhors c. 3. v. 15. which is earthly sensual devillish whose Description I cut off with that which Cutzen the Jesuit said of Illyricus from his own Opinion about Original Sin Cujus vel substantia peccatum est a vitiated Leper in his whole Substance O evil World that the Vices of such a Creature should make free way for him to be gracious instead of Vertues how much do Powers and Dominions dishonour themselves when it is not close but openly seen that such Instruments have their Countenance nay their Recompence Budaeus lib. 1. de As f. 15. spared not a great one in France for that Error Immemor personae quam gerebat quod virtuti debebatur illiberali obsequio dandum esse censuit While Kilvert ranted it and bore down all Justice before him there was not an honest Man either that acted in this matter or only look't
Francorum ac Saliorum quamplurimae pro cujusque statu ac conditione poenae infliguntur Quin barbarissimi Indi qui ad occasum positi sunt cum de sceleribus conviclum nobilem ac plebeium tenerent nobili capillos aut brachialia truncabant plebeio nares auriculas praecidebant But I said that after the Censure of the forenamed Causes and that of this Bishop all much against the popular Judgment many great men did presage and the Commonalty did wish the extinction of that noble Court and it was overthrown by Vote in the first five months of the Long Parliament before the King had carried away his most considerable Friends to York This is the condition of mortal things says Pliny Ut à necessariis primùm cuncta venerint ad nimium Nat. Hist l. 26. Many Tribunals were of necessary institution at first and of necessary destruction when they run into Excess Indeed it is not the primitive Court that is pulled down but another when it waxeth quite unlike it self Non est eadem harmonia ubi è Phrygio in Doricum transit says Aristotle 5 Pol. The Musick is not the same which is altered from a shrill to a grave Note Yet better terms I hope may set it up in a better Constitution A Pot that boils over may be taken from the Fire and set on again Howsoever I am not so bold with holy Providences to determine why God caused or permitted this great Court to be shut up like an unclean place or why Divine Judgment was so severe against their persons especially that inflamed the Censure against our Bishop But I will cover his Case with St. Austin's Eloquence touching the Doom pass'd upon St. Cyprian Alia est Sella terrena aut Stella terrena aliud tribunal coelorum ab inferiore accepit sententiam à superiore coronam Ps 36. Conc. 3. And certainly Christ doth feel the Injuries done to an Innocent who was sentenc'd by unrighteous Judgment 121. My Pen must not now go with the Bishop my good Master to his Lodgings in the Tower whither in my Person I resorted to him weekly and if I said daily a lesser Figure than an Hyperbole would salve it excepting when he was confined to close Imprisonment which was not wont but upon the Discoveries or Jealousies of dangerous Treasons The Christians that were committed by idolatrous Emperors were in liberâ custodiâ their Deacons and Relievers of their Wants might resort unto them I have the Authority of Photius for it Ep. 97. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They that put the Martyrs to death hindered not their Friends to come and administer unto them But Christian Magistrates should be more observant of that Clemency else the Praise which our Saviour gives to the Charitable would be prevented I was in prison and ye came unto me Mat. 25.36 He that hath no more than the freedom of a Prison much more he that hath not so much is in a strait Captivity The Rabbins have a Saying That if Sea were Ink and the World Parchment it would never serve enough to contain the praises of Liberty But so good a Disciple as I write of did not believe the Jews that there was so much sweetness as they dreamt of in any temporal Prosperity And finding that the People on this side Tweed and beyond were provoked to Discontents and more discontented than they were provoked and hearing Presages of ill to come both from the Judicious and from every Mechanick's Mouth things were so bad without-doors that he saw no reason but to think that Malice had withered him away into no unhappy Retirement Upon which subject he made some Latin Poems especially when he took no good Rest I am of opinion it was so with Job c 35.10 God my maker giveth Songs in the night and after the vulgar Latin Qui dedit carmina in nocte To which Moral Gregory says Carmen in nocte est felicitas in tribulatione With such Diversions our Job compounded with his Sorrows to pay them not the half he owed them And whatsoever Face thy Fate puts on shrink not nor start not but be always one as Laureat Johnson sings it in his Underwoods Briefly Imprisonment to him was no worse than it is to a Flower put into an Earthen Pot streightned for spreading but every whit as sweet as in the open Beds of the Garden Yet he wanted not Tentatious to break his Heart if God had not kept it He lookt for Mercy from His Majesty now he had pluckt him down after a long chase with a Censure Neque Caesari quicquam ex victoriis ejus laetius fuit quà m servasse Corvinum as Vellicus hath immortalized the memory of Caesar Whereas three new Bills were allowed to be entred against this Bishop as I shall relate when I come again into that rugged way which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Photius calls Basilius's Usage an unspeakable pickling a man in the Brine of Misery He lookt for some of the Nobles to mediate for his Enlargement as there were not a few that did lend him help before while there was Hope that he might recover but Kings like not that any should pity them whom they have undone So there was not one Ebedmelech in the Court that would tye a few Rags together to draw Jeremiah out of Prison How few there be that will co-part with any in their ruin'd Fortunes Miserorum non secus ac desunctorum obliviscuntur Plin. Ep. lib. 9. which we may translate into English out of the Psalm 31.12 I am a fear to mine acquaintance I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind The same measure that David found in Jury Thuanus confesseth was to be seen in France Hist lib. 23. That among all that Diana Valentina had preferred when she was their King's Mistress Nemo unus repertus qui fortunam jacentis à suis relictae sublevaret With the same Neglect Velleius chargeth the Aegyptians when Pompey their great Benefactor fled unto them and was deserted Quis in adversis beneficiorum servat memoriam Aut quis ullam calamitosis deberi putat gratiam Even they whose Spiritual Father Paul was whom he had begotten at Rome in Christ's Gospel they all forsook him and none stood to him when he was convented 2 Tim. 4.16 Some few also of this bountiful Lord's Servants stood afar off now and came not near him They were so well provided under him that they did not need him and they were so heartless and timorous that he did not need them Hirundines Thebas quod i. lius moenia saepiùs capta sint negantur subire Plin. N. H. lib. 10. c. 24. Thebes was so often sackt and taken that no Swallows would nest within it a Summer-bird and a subtle that will endure Winter and hard Seasons with no body Yet to give his honest Followers their due the greatest part of them shrunk not but did their best Service that they could afford to their forlorn
same Building Where should we look for kindness but in the Rulers of the Church the noblest part of Christ's Family And kindness is nobleness says St. Chrysostom and mercy is a generous thing The Beraeans were more noble than the Thessalonians Acts 17. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he It doth not signifie nobleness of blood but gentleness of pity Now for the Book the Stone of Scandal at which his Grace stumbled so much it was known unto him that some things got into practice in the Church under his Government and by his Authority were disrelisht by a considerable part in his Province and they of the best conformity whose averseness he thought would be the stiffer by the contents of that Book His remedy was to bring the Author into question and to crush all that sided with him in his Person as the State Maxim goes Compendium est victoriae devincendorum hostium duces sustulisse Paneg. to Constantine p. 339. But which way shall the Book be brought into Disgrace with bad Interpretations It will do no good Forced Earth in time will fall to its own level First then besides some Answers publisht to decry it he incensed his Majesty with a relation of it in whose Ecclesiastical Rights it was mainly written for what he had collected and offered in a Paper to his Majesty Lincoln got a sight of it by the Duke of Lennox and proved that all the Matters of Fact set down against him were false and not to be found in the Book but that it strongly maintain'd the contrary Positions which when his Majesty saw he seem'd to take it ill from the Informer So these flitting Clouds were blown over before they could pour down the Storm they were big with His Grace sent the Book to the Attorney Generâ— to thrust it into an Information who return'd it back that it would not bear it Here again was Tencer's luck in Homer Il. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He had a good will to hit Hector with an Arrow but he mist him Then in his Speech made against Burton Prin and Bastwick which he printed with a Dedication to the King he fell upon this Book reading out of his Notes that he that gave allowance to thrust it at that time into the Press did countenance thosethâ—ee Libellers and did as much as in him lay to fire the Church and State Now under colour to Censure others to fall upon a man that was neither Plaintiff Defendant nor Witness in their Cause would amount to a Libel in anothers mouth against whom Justice had been open But as Demosthenes says against Aristogiton 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Sword is useless if it have not an edg to cut so this bitter flam was but a leaden Dagger and did not wound What remained next but take him Bull-begger fetch him into the High-Commission Court where his Grace was President Judge and might be Advocate Proctor Promotor or what he would And he was so hot upon it that three Letters were written by Secretary Windebank in his Majesties Name to hasten the Cause Whereas honest and learned Dr. Rive the King's Advocate knew not where to act his part upon it Lincoln is now in his Coup in the Tower whither four Bishops and three Doctors of the Civil Laws came to take his Answer to a Book of Articles of four and twenty sheets of Paper on both sides The Defendant refuseth to take an Oath on the Bible claiming the Priviledge of a Peer but his Exception was not admitted He stood upon it that himself was a Commissioner that they had no power over him more than he had over them which did not suffice him Then they come to the Articles whose Proem in usual form was That he must acknowledge and submit to the power of that high Court which he did grant no otherwise than in such things and over such persons as were specified in their Commission The second Article contain'd That all Books licensed by his Grace's Chaplains are presumed to be Orthodox and agreeable to sound and true Religion which he denied and wondred at the Impudency that had put such an Article upon him The third That he had licensed a Book when none but the Archbishops and Bishop of London had such power Nay says Lincoln my self and all Bishops as learned as they have as much power as they not only by the Council of Lateran under Leo the Tenth and the Reformatio Cleri under Cardinal Pool but by Queen Elizabeth ' s Injunctions and a Decree in Star-Chamber The fourth That he named a Book called A Coal from the Altar a Pamphlet The fifth That he said all Flesh in England had corrupted their ways The sixth That in a jear he said he had heard of a Mother Church but never of a Mother Chappel The seventh That again in a scoff he derived the word Chappel from St. Martin 's Hood The eighth That he said the people were not to be lasht by every mans whip The ninth That he maintain'd the people were God's people and the King's people but not the Priest's People The tenth That be flouted at the prety of the Times and the good work in hand The rest of the Cluster were like these and these as sharp as any of the seven and twenty Articles and one and thirty Additionals This was the untemper'd Mortar that crumbled away or as the Vulgar Latin reads it Ezech. 13.10 Liniebant parietem luto absque paleis So here was dirt enough but not so much as a little straw or chaff to make it stick together But such as they were the Bishop had the favour to read them all over once before he was examined a favour indeed not shew'n to every body After the Examination past over he required a Copy of it which the three Civilians voted to be granted but his Grace and Sir J. Lamb would first have him re-examined again upon the same Interrogatories to try the steadiness of his memory and to catch him in a Snare if he did vary An Error that may easily be slipt into by the tediousness of the Matter and the intricate Forms of the Clerk's Pen wherein an aged or illiterate man will scarce avoid the danger of Perjury But the Bishop being of a prodigious memory had every word by heart which he had deposed before against two subsequent Examinations which laid this Cause asleep till God shall awaken it and hear it on both sides at the last day 124. No worse could be lookt for than that their frivolous Articles should go out as they did in a Cracker And less was expected from that which followed whose steam when it came abroad was laught at in good Company but it cost the unfortunate Bishop some thousands in good earnest for Cyphers for Riddles for Quibbles for Nothing It made a third Information in Star-Chamber for like Herulus in Virgil Aen. 8. Ter letho sternendus erat The driver on and the dealer in it was the
Incendiaries do promise us that they will never be better 138. Sir Fr. Walsingham an honourable Counsellor did not mistake them but he was mistaken that says ever he was a Puritan as this Letter will testifie written to Mons Crittoy Secretary of France and to be read in the Supplement of the Cabala of Letters p. 40. For those which named themselves Reformers and we commonly call Puritans this hath been the Proceeding towards them a great while when they inveighed against such Abuses in the Church as Pluralities Non-residence and the like their Zeal was not condemned only their Violence was sometimes censur'd When they refused the use of some Ceremonies and Rites as superstitious they were tolerated with much connivence and gentleness Yea when they call'd in question the superiority of Bishops and pretended to bring in a Democracy into the Church yet their Propositions were heard consider'd and by contrary Writings debated and discussed Yet all this while it was perceived that their course was dangerous and popular as because Papistry was odious it was ever in their Mouths That they sought to purge the Church from the Relicks of Popery a thing acceptable to the People who love ever to run from one Extream to another Because multitude of Rogues and Poverty were an Eye-sore and Dislike to every man therefore they put it into the Peoples Headâ— That if Discipline were planted there should be no Beggars nor Vagabondâ— A thing vâ—ry plausible And in like manner they promise the People many other impossible Wonders of their Discipline Beside they opened the People a way to Government by their Consistory and Presbytery a thing in consequence no less prejudicial to the Liberties of private men than to the Soveraignty of Princes yet in the first shew very popular Nevertheless this except it were in some few that entred into extream contempt was born withal because they pretended but in dutiful manner to make Propositions and to leave it to the Providence of God and to the Authority of the Magistrate But now of late years when there issued from them a Colony of those that affirmed the Consent of the Magistrate was not to be attended when under pretence of a Confession to avoid Slanders and Imputations they combined themselves by Classes and Subscriptions when they descended into that vile and base means of defacing the Government of the Church by ridiculous Pasquils when they began to make many Subjects in doubt to take an Oath which is one of the fundamental points of Justice in this Land and in all places when they began both to vaunt of their Strength and Number of their Partizans and Followers and to use Comminations that their Cause would prevail though with Uproar and Violence then it appeared to be no more Zeal no more Conscience but meer Faction and Division And therefore though the State were compelled to hold somewhat a harder hand to restrain them than before yet it was with as great moderation as the Peace of the State and Church couâ—â— permit Thus far Walsingham the Wise one of the Pillars of 〈…〉 â—is Generation It is not such Fire-Drakes as he writes of could not 〈◊〉 to threaten the Nation that they would prevail though with Uproar and Violence No worse man than Cartwright their Master is the Author of those Minaces as Dr. Bancroft quotes him and Scutliff against the Petition p. 72. The Author of the Demonstration saith That great Troubles were coming if they might not have their Will and That the Discipline should come by a way that would make all our Hearts ake And how right Sir Francis hits them That Presbytery was popular in the first Shew but odious in the Say As Solinus says of the River Hypanis c. 14. Qui in Principiis eum norunt praedicant qui in fine experti sunt non injuria execrantur They that welcome it in would be glad to open a Postern to let it out If it consisted in no more than contemplative Doctrine the trouble of it had chiefly fallen upon the Universities But it is as practick as the Wind of which we say Usque adeo agit ut nisi agat not sit It is a medling bysie-body that will let nothing be quiet In short it is bred in the Brain but like a Catarrh it falls upon the Heart 139. Had Secretary Walsingham tasted what Lincoln did from undermining Presbyterians Mons Crittoy had heard more and worse from him than he did in that honest Letter You shall have the Case as it follows No sooner did this Parliament open but Disquietness and Uproars began with it in many Churches to disturb the Holy Service The House of Commons were their Countenance therefore provided no Remedy to controul them That Impiety which was wont to be abhorr'd was brooded and cherish'd Yet the House of Lords appointed a Committee of their own Members to give Glory to God by driving Profaners out of his Temple and at the same time selected a Sub-Committee out of Divines of very contrary Opinions for Indifferency sake to propose unto them matters fit for their cognizance Bishop of Lincoln Primate of Armagh Bishop of Duâ—ham Bishop of Norwich Dr. Ward D. Prideaux D. Sanderson Dr. Featly Dr. Brounrigg Dr. Holdsworth Dr. Hacket Dr. Twiss Dr. Burgess Mr. White Mr. Marshal Mr. Calamy Mr. H … to prevent these Clamours odious in our Land and scandalous to other Nations The Bishop of Lincoln had the Chair both in the Committee and Sub-committee with Authority given him to call together those Assistants whom the Lords had named to consult for Peace and to stop the Breaches which Sedition had caused Those which were named for the Sub-committee were some few more than did meet but such as did constantly appear to lay their Heads together are recited in the Margin who were called by Lincoln's Letter to attend in these words I am commanded by the Lords of the Committee for Innovations in matters of Religion that you know that their said Lordships have assigned and appointed you to attend them as Assist ants in that Committee and to let you know in general that their Lordships do intend to examine all Innovations in Doctrine or Discipline introduced into the Church without Law since the Reformation And if their Lordships shall find it behoveful for the good of the Church and State to examine after that the Degrees and Perfection of the Reformation it self which I am directed to intimate unto you that you may prepare your Thoughts Studies and Meditations accordingly expecting their Lordships Pleasure for the particular points as they shall arise Dated Martis 12. 1640. The Bishop and as many as were of his Judgment found no way but to let them that seemed to be distasted with the Church for certain things have somewhat granted that they ask'd for to let Suspicions pass for Proofs and any Point of a dubious sence for a kind of Error As they that raise a Blister where there was none
before to prepare a Cure for preventing an Apoplexy Necessity hath no Law but it shews a great deal of Reason to unsettle some few things by Condescension for the settlement of a general Peace Sometimes a little Loss is a great Gain Those words of Tully will make it good in his Oration for Plancius Haec de sapientissim is clarissimis viris c. non semper easdem sententias ab iisdem sed quascunque Reip. status inclinatio temporum ratio concordiae post ularet esse defendendas Now this Theological Junto had six meetings in West College in all which time all Passages of Discourse were very friendly between part and part The Complainants noted the Passages of some Books that suited not in their judgment with the Doctrin of our Church they were condemned Somewhat in Ceremony and outward form was presented as beside Canon and supernumerary they had their asking to bid it be restrain'd Their Exceptions against our Liturgy were petty and stale older than the Old Exchange yet for their contentment the Vote of the Meeting did bend one way to castigate some Phrases to publish the next printed Books in all Passages from the beginning to the end with the Translation of K. James's Bible and to furnish the Calendar altogether with Lessons of Canonical Scripture dispunging the Apocryphal The Bishop had undertaken a Draught for regulating the Government Ecclesiastical but had not finish'd it The sudden and quiet dispatch of all that was done already was attributed to the Chairman's Dexterity who could play his Prize at all Weapons dally with crooked Humours and pluck them straight bring all Stragglers into his own Pound and never drive them in foresee a Tempest of Contradiction the best that ever I knew and scatter it before it could rise and won all his Adversaries insensibly into a complyance before they were aware To this day they of the Nonconformists that survive and were present will tell you that they admired two things in him in their Phrase his Courtesie and his Cunning. 140. When Peace came so near to the Birth how it abortived and by whose fault comes now to be remembred The Presbyterians knew not what to ask more than was yielded to them before the face of such Scholars with whom they were match'd But when they were among themselves in their own Body they would stand to nothing Itdem eadem possunt horam durare probantes Hor. Ep. 1. They did never abide long by their own Reformings for they walk by no Church-Rule of any Age. How soon would they be weary of other mens Concessions A few weak Brethren might take these Alterations in good part which were like to be obtained but the noted men of the Faction could not bring themselves into Fame and Name and somewhat else but in a greater confusion The old Waters must be troubled more before they could catch the great Fish in their Flue As one says of the Jesuites that profess Poverty and yet build stately Colleges richly endowed that they are not Mendicants for small Monies but Beggars by wholesale So these could make no Trade out of such small Bargains as mend this and mend that but it would be worth an Alderman's Wealth to a lucky Stickler to be a Reformer by whole-sale Then as Aristophanes jeers in his Equit. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that 's low to day may be aloft to morrow Therefore they make Clamour against the Bishops for split that holy Order and they knew all would sink with it No Revilings were thought ill enough to make them odious as Theophylact complains of his Bulgarians Episcoporum accusationibus tanquam suorum defensionibus ninituntur Baron ann 1073. par 88. So our disobedient Children by blotting the good Name of their Reverend Fathers supposed themselves would look as white as a new-plaister'd Wall It was their Eye which was evil that could not see the Good of our Apostolical Government Like Luther's Fool in his Comment on Gen. 13 who standing in the Sun and looking downward complain'd his Shadow was crooked The Presbyterians understood that they should expose themselves and their Cause to the Censure of wise men if they did adventure no further in conference at the Sub-committee Therefore to cut off that Meeting in the heat and great hopes of it they had a Champion that brought a Bill into the House of Commons to take away for ever Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons Chancellors c. call'd The Bill of Root and Branch This man was Sir Ed. Deering a Knight of strong Abilities Qui omnes virtutes unus facti temeritate abstulit as Paterculus said of Brutus lib. 1. What must not this poor Church suffer when her Principalities were deslin'd to be funder'd before new could be provided to which all might be firmly fastned What could a single person do worse than abrogate all our Laws and Constitutions Which is the same with that of Demosthenes ad Timocr 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Device was there left to make Sorrow eat further into our Hearts than to obtrude the new Gewgaw of the Geneva Platform upon us instead of the Chair which St. Peter St. John St. Mark had erected in Europe Asia and Africa from the Primitive Times Rerum novitate extrusa vetustas Luc. lib. 3. When the Athenians compelled the Spartans to renounce their own Laws and to accept those of Athens Livy pitied them Dec. 4. lib. 6. Nulla res tanto erat damno quà m disciplina Lycurgi sublata cui per annos 800 assueverant This was worse compare continuance of time but much more for Conscience But did these Innovators sile another Bill then or ever after what form of Government should succeed in the place of Episcopacy No they could never hammer out such an Engine upon their Anvil for which Dr. Owen girds them being then in a good vein Vind. Evan. p. 216. Wise Builders are they pull down they will although they have nothing in the room of what they endeavour'd to destroy Was there never a wise man among them that had learnt the Polity of the Venetians no ordinary Statesmen Where no Officer must depart out of his Government foreign or domestick Priusquà m novus in ipsius locum substitueretur Match Resp lib. 1. c. 50. Ours were not such Senators but like School-boys that make a Blot greater with wiping it out It is not an Artist's Work but a Hangman 's says Tully to cut off the Limbs of a sound Body Orat. pro Sestio Non est ea medicina cumsanae parti corporis scalpellum adhibetur atque integrae Carnificina est ista crudelitas But this was their hour and the power of Darkness All was in Tumult The King's Arm was too weak to hold the Balance of Justice As Plutarch in Dion makes or tells a Story That Pigs were sarrowed in Syracusa another London without Ears And the Soothsayers told Dionysius the younger upon it That the People would be contumacious
in the Records of the Tower can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and voting in Causes of Blood Sometimes by the great Favour of the King Lords and Commons not otherwise they were permitted to absent themselves never before now commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause that was agitated in Parliament So our Law Books say That the Prelates by the Canon-Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be tryed Which is enough to shew their Right thereunto This is to be seen 10 Edw. IV. f. 6. placit 17. And That it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford Pleas of the Crown f. 59. And saith Stamford the Canon-Law is a distinct and separated notion and not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common-Law or the Law of the Land 152. Coming now to an end it moves me little what some object That many worthy Fathers of this Church-reformed and Bishop Andrews among the rest did forbear to vote in Causes of Blood and voluntarily retired out of the House if such things came in question nor did offer to enter any Protestation I do not doubt but they had pious Affections in it though they did not fully ponder what they did I have heard that a main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. II. That it is the honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood Now the French word Honesty signifies Decency and Comeliness As though it were a butcherly and a loathsom matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an imaginary Decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Tradition in the dark Foggs and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a shaven Crown to depend on the Pope to plead Exemptions and to resuse to answer for Felonies in the King's Courts All these were esteemed in those days the Honesty of the Clergy And such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. II to absent themselves when they listed from the Aslembly of the Estate contrary to the King's Command in the Writ of Summons and to the Duties of their places as Peers of Parliament Yet they had more insight into what they did than some of our Bishops for they never offer'd to retire themselves in those days before their Protestation was benignly received and suffer'd to be enter'd upon the Parliament-Roll by the King the Lords and the House of Commons I know those excellent men that are with God proposed other Scruples to themselves they doubted not of the Legality or Comeliness for an Ecclesiastical Peer of the Kingdom of England to vote in a Judgment of Blood they did it continually in passing all Appeals and Attainders in Parliament but it startled them because it is not the practice of Prelates in other parts of the Christian Church so to do and thought it better to avoid Scandal and the Talk of other Nations That there being in the High Court of Parliament and Star-chamber Judges enough beside them they might without any prejudice to their King and Country forbear voting in those Judicatures somewhat the rather because all our Bishops in England are Divines and Preachers of the Gospel and consequently to be employ'd in Mercy rather than in Judgment who never touch upon the sharpness of the Law unless it be to prepare mens Hearts to relish and receive the comfort of the Gospel Let the Piety then and the Good-meaning of those grave Fathers be praised but I say they forgot their Duty to the Writ of the King's Summons and the use and weight of their Place And now to close I protest without vaunting I cannot perceive how this can be answer'd which I have digested together And if so many Bishops cannot obtain their Right which is so clear on their side God send the Earl of Strafford better Justice who is but a single Peer 153. Blame not my Book that there is so much of this Argument I hope the Ignorant will not read it at all but let a knowing man read it again and when he hath better observ'd it he will think it short Some History-spoilers have detracted from our Bishop that though he pleaded much in Parliament to his own Peril in the behalf of E. Strafford yet he wrought upon the King to consent to give way to his beheading Says our Arch-Poet Spencer lib. 3. Can. 1. st 10. Great hazard were it and Adventure fond To lose long-gotten Honour with one evil Hand But he shall lose no Honour in this for first as Nazian Or. 27 rejects them that had raised an ill Report of him whom he praised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can you prove that they were sound in their mind that said so if any will believe it from such authors a good man hath lost his thanks Ego quod bené fec◠malè feci quia amor mutavit locum Plautus That which was well done is ill done because it is not lovingly requited Hear all and judge equally Both the Houses of Lords and Commons by most Voices found the Earl guilty of Treason they made the greater Quire but those few that absolved him sung better The King interceded by himself by the Prince his Son to save him craved it with Cap in Hand Being founder'd in his Power he could go no further the Subjects denied their Soveraign the Life of one Man so Strafford must be cast away Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Rom. non judicium fuit Cic. pro Plancio Whose Calamity is the shame of English Justice His Majesty for divers days could not find in his Heart to set his Hand to the Warrant for Execution for Conscience dresseth it self by its own light And I would he had been as constant to his own Judgment in other things that we might remember it to his Honour as Capitolinus testifies for Maximus Non aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit The fate of it was that the Parliament would not grant Mercy to the Earl and would have Justice from the King according to their Sentence whether he would or no They threaten and were as good as their Word to sit idle and do nothing for publick Safety and Settlement the whole Realm being in distraction till the Stroke was struck All the Palace-Yard and Hall were daily full of Mutineers and Outcries His Majesty's Person was in danger the roguy Off-scum in the Streets of Westminster talk'd so loud that there was cause to dread it Though there is nothing more formidable than to fear any thing more than God yet the most eminent Lords of the Council perswaded His Majesty to make no longer resistance Placeat quodcunque necesse est Lucan lib. 4. Not he but Necessity should be guilty of it If he did
by inch somewhat may be gotten out of small pieces of business nothing out of supervacaneous And Sir says he I would it were not true that I shall tell you Some of the Commons are preparing a Declaration to make the Actions of your Government odious if you gallop to Scotland they will post as fast to draw up this biting Remonstrance Stir not till you have mitigated the grand Contrivers with some Preferments But is this credible says the King Judge you of that Sir says the Bishop when a Servant of Pymm 's in whose Master 's House all this is moulded came to me to know of me in what terms I was contented to have mine own Case in Star-chamber exhibited among other Irregularities And I had much ado to keep my Name and what concerns me out of these Quotations but I obtain'd that of the fellow and a Promise to do me more Service to know all they have in contrivance with a few Sweetbreads that I gave him out of my Purse What is there in all that the Bishop said especially in the last touch that look'd not like sober Warning Yet nothing was heeded The King saw Scotland and I know not what he brought thence unless it were matter to charge the five Members of Treason who were priviledg'd from it with a Mischief His Majesty being returned to London Nov. 26. That which the Commons called The Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom came forth by their Vote Decemb. 15. to besoil His Majesly's Reign with studied bitterness And this was a Night-work and held the Members Debate all Wednesday night and till three of the Clock in the Thursday morning Synesius spake his worst of Trypho's Tribunal Lib. de Prov. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he did not administer justice in the day-time but in the night a time more proper for thieves to go to work and for the beasts of the forrest to come out of their dens and get their prey if the loyal part had staid it out who appeared the greater number in the beginning of the question they had cast it out for a vile desamation but the one half of that part had slunk away and were gone to bed as st Peter stood to his Master stoutly till midnight but railed him by the second crowing of the Cock If these had kept the wise Rules of the Roman Senate the one part had been frustrate in all they obtained in the dead of the night and long after Says Budaeus Senatus consultum ante exortum post occasum solis nullum fait lib. 1. in Pand. p. 231. And the other part had been fined for departing away Senatori qui non aderit aut causa aut culpa esto Cic. de Leg. But their Apology is That those were no Juridical hours either for a Roman or an English Senate Birds of Day keep not time with Screetch-owls But these Libertines had leave to sit as long as they would by night or day Magna sumendo majora praesumimus Sym. Ep. p. 9. Great Concessions are the cause of greater Presumptions 156. During some part of the time that the King was in the North Miseries came trooping all at once upon the Church The Reverend Fathers every day libelled and defamed in the Press durst not come in to help The Times did make it appear what Blood was about mens Hearts They that feared to diversifie from the received Doctrine and Discipline of the Church before dreading Ecclesiastical Consistories and the High-Commission Court encreased into so many Sects almost as there were Parishes in England And as Aventine said lib. 8. Annal. of the Schoolmen newly sprung up in his days Singulae sectae judicio multarum sectarum stultitiae cowvincuntur But what were we the better when every Spark kindled another to make a general Combustion Our Case in God's House was as bad as that of the Gauls in Caesar's time lib. 6. Bel. Gal. Non solùm in omnibus civitatibus atque in omnibus pag is partibusque sed in singulis domibus factiones sunt The Parliament which saw the Body of Christ wounded look'd on and passed by on the other side Luke 10.32 as if they did but smile at the variety of Throngs and Dispositions I think they durst net pour in Wine or Oyl to heal the Wounds of Religion for that reason which Dr. Owen gives Praef. to Vind. p. 36. For by adhering to one Sect professedly they should engage all the rest against them Only Lincoln for all this universal Contempt of Episcopacy visited his great Diocess in October not by his Chancellor but in his own person Naequid expectes amicos quod tute agere possies so cited out of Ennius Trust not to your Friends when you can do your Work your self A Bishop is lazy that doth his Duty by a Proxy Pontificium significat potestatem officium says a Critick Heral in Arnob. p. 115. The Etymology of a Pontificate imports Power and Office They are both Yoke-fellows Says another Critick and a good Judge indeed Salmas in Solin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Age of Christian Emperors were Visitors that went from Church to Church like Paul and Barnabas to set things in order who long before that were Physicians that were sent from Village to Village to cure the Sick This Labour our Bishop undertook personally to heal the Maladies of Brain-sick Distempers at Boston Lester Huntington Bedford Hitchin the last Visitation that was held in either Province to this day And God grant he might not say as Synesius did of his Diocess of Ptolomais when he and all the Bishops of Aegypt were ejected by a conquering Party 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O my Ptolomais am I the last Bishop that ever thou shalt have But I hope better things Hope is the common Revenue of the Distressed they have much of that who have nothing else I go on with our Bishop who so long as he was in Place and for a while that his Words were remembred brought those Counties to a handsom state of quietness Cocus magnum abenum quando fervet paulâ confutat truâ When a Cauldron of hot Liquor boils and is ready to run over a Cook stays it by casting in a Ladle of cold Water No man could comprize his Exhortations in better Harmony than this Oratour and set several Instruments in tune one to another and the Voice to them all Eloquium tot lumina clausit Meta. l. as Mercury lull'd Argos asleep with all his Eyes for says he much to this meaning Countrymen and Neighbors whither do you wander Here are your lawful Ministers present to whom of late you do not refort I hear but to Tub-preachers in Conventicles There is a Penalty for this and no Power can protect you against the Statutes in force which are not yet repealed but you are bound in Conscience to keep those Laws which are not Fetters upon your Hands but Bracelets they are the
Ruin of a Kingdom as little Children are more afraid of a Vizard than of the Fire therefore they stroke them with fair words when they meet them O Indignity An quae Turpia cerdoni Volesos Brutumque decebunt Juven Sat. 8. That which was base in Coblers was it not worse in Lords and Knights and Squires and such as assumed to be the Princes of the Land No Senators that intended to rule a People did ever endure the like Let M. AEmilius the Consul speak for the State of Rome Livy lib. 39. Majores nostri ne vos quidem nisi cum aut vexillo in arce posito comitiorum causâ exercitus positus esset aut plebi Concilium tribuni edixissent aut aliqui ex magistratibus and concionem vocassent temerè coire voluerint ubi legitimum rectorem multitudini censerent esse debere They that boulster up such Insurrections as these their own Guards upon a new Quarrel may knock them on the Head Cum tot populis stipatus eas in tot populis vix una fides Sen Hercul furens But these Wat Tylers and Round-Robins being driven or persuaded out of White-hall there was a buzz among them to take their way to Westminster-Abby some said Let us pluck down the Organs Some cried Let us deface the Monuments that is prophane the Tombs and Burying-places of Kings and Queens This was carried with all speed to the Archbishop the Dean who made fast the Doors whi◠they found shut against them and when they would have forced them they were beaten off with Stones from the top of the Leads the Archbishop all this while maintaining the Abby in his own person with a few more for fear they should seize upon the Regalia which were in that place under his Custody The Spight of the Mutineers was most against him yet his Followers could not entreat him to go aside as the Disciples restrained Paul from rushing into an Uproar Act. 19.30 but he stood to it as Cesius Quintius in Livy lib. 3. Unus impetus tribunitios popularesque procellas sustinebat After an hours dispute when the Multitude had been well pelted from aloft a few of the Archbishops Train opened a Door and rush'd out with Swords drawn and drove them before them like fearful Hares They were already past their Duty but short of their Malice and every day made Battery on all the Bishops as they came to Parliament forcing their Coaches back tearing their Garments menacing if they came any more What Times could be worse None says Tully upon M. Antony's Violence upon the Senate Phil. Or. 13. Caesare dominante venicbamus in Senatum si non liberè tamen tutò What Aid did the Lords afford to quell these Affronts Why let Softhenes be beaten before the Judgment-seat Gallio cares for none of these things Act. 18.17 The Bishops were God's Ministers and let him defend them as Tyberius to that way in Tacitus Deorum injuriae Diis curae sunt The remissness of our Parliament Lords Optimates non Optimi shewed the same Indifferency O ye religious Kings that would govern with Peace how are ye able These foul and unremediable Uproars tell you that the only Imperatorian Art is to be furnish'd with a good Army and to know how to order it 168. So great a Hurry continuing wherein all things were turned the wrong side upward there was such an apparent Mischief co-incident that whatsoever did pass in the Lords House during their constrained absence was null and invalid for if any one person in either House be repelled by force and be denied Freedom to give his Vote that Nicety is a Bar to the whole Proceeding of the Parliament as some write that comment subtilly upon Parliamentary Privileges Not as if the Speaker did ever sit in his Chair when none were absent or that one Vote is like to sway a Cause yet sometimes it comes to so near a scrutiny but this Judgment is made of it That it may so fall out and doth often that one Member put the case the person forced out may propose such Reasons to the House as that all resolve into his Opinion This great Prejudice concurring by repelling the Bishops tumultuously from taking their Places in the Lords House York called his Brethren together to set their Hands to a Petition and Protestation made to His Majesty and the Lords Temporal and put it into the L. Keeper Littleton's Hand yet not to be read till His Majesty by the Bishop's Invitation should fit with the Peers in the House and then to read it in the King and the Lords audience and not before The L. Keeper unadvisedly I hope it was no worse produceth the Petition c. before the King was made acquainted with it which made a Project well contrived break out into a Thunder-clap of Mischief which rash or bad dealing in the Lord-Keeper York could not suspect And he that drives much business shall be cross'd in some for want of Luck though he be never so prudent Nulli fortuna tam dedita est ut multa tentanti ubique respondeat Sen. lib. 1. de irâ c. 3. That Protestation follows here whose like and almost same York had found in the Records of the Tower which he studied there till his Eye-sight was much the worse for it To the KING 's Most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament The humble Petition and Protestation of all the Bishops and Prelates now called by His Majesty's Writs to attend the Parliament and now present about London and Westminster for that Service THat whereas the Petitioners are called up by several and respective Writs and under great Penalties to attend in Parliament and have a clear and indubitate Right to vote in Bills and other matters whatsoever debateable in Parliament by the ancient Customs Laws and Statutes of this Realm and ought to be protected by Your Majesty quietly to attend and prosecute that great Service They humbly remonstrate and protest before God Your Majesty and the noble Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament that as they have an indubitate Right to Sit and Vote in the House of the Lords so are they if they may be protected from Force and Violence most ready and willing to perform their Duties accordingly And that they do abominate all Actions or Opinions tending to Popery and the maintenance thereof as also all Propension and Inclination to any malignant Party or any other Side or Party whatsoever to the which their own Reasons and Consciences shall not move them to adhere But whereas they have been at several times violently menaced affronted and assaulted by multitudes of People in their coming to perform their Services in that Honourable House and lately chased away and put in danger of their Lives and can find no Redress or Protection upon sundry Complaints made to both Houses in these particulars They likewise humbly protest before your Majesty and the noble House of Peers
be gracious with all As Curtius doth instance in Amyntas lib. 4. Semper 〈◊〉 ancipiti rerum mutatione pendens he would please the Macedonians and not displease the Persians and was distrusted by both And Livy gives us an Example in Servilius lib. 19. He was forward to plead for the Authority of the Senate and not backward to justifie the opposite Liberty of the People Ita medium se gerendo nec plebis odium vitavit nec apud patres iniit gratiam I would not have my L. Bacon ill interpreted in his Essay of Faction whose words appear more crafty than honest Let a man be true to himself with an end to make use of both Factions He speaks not of two Camps in the Field one headed by the King another by Cade or Watt Tyler but of two great parts in the Court that have Clients adhering to them and should'ring one-another out of Favour if they can for he expounds it thus upon that very Contrast Mean men in their risings must adhere to one side but great men that have Strength in themselves were better to maintain themselves neutral and indifferent But he that comes not to quench the Flame when the King's House is set on Fire watching what will be the Fate of the Incendiaries he deserves to undergo a Saxon Ordeal to pass through hot Plow-shares to reveal his Double-deasing Solon's Law in Plutarch hath escap'd no man I think that hath written Politicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In a publick Seditum be that looks on and will be of no side till the Fray be done is to be branded with Infamy I will degree this noxious Neutrality one Peg higher when a cunning Fox that would save all curried Favour both with King and Rebels lent his Sword to him and his Pistols to them Dubiis Mars errat in armis Georg. 2. Like the god of War that fights on both sides What say you to two Kinsmen what say you to two Brothers shewing their Prowess one against another he for Caesar and he for the Republicans this a Gibelline and that a Guelph that upon the last Revolution of the Quarrel the faithful Brother may merit to compound for the Peace of the false or if God would have it so the false for the faithful This was the Mystery of Iniquity when the same Family had such a reciprocal Interest in our publick Miseries that their Cards were so well packt that they could not be Losers An Example which Sir Robert Dallington hath given for such juggling is worthy to be remembred Aphor. lib. 2. c. 2. The Duke of Ferrara would not enter into League with Charles the Third of France but suffer'd his Son Alsonso to sight under the Duke of Millain as his Lieutenant-General that the Son might make the Father's Peace if the Leagues prevailed and that he might free his Son if the French had the better What Reward should these have But as the Scripture speaks properly Let them be divided in twain and 〈◊〉 their portion with Hypocrites A Syren half Flesh and half Fish is painted with its Eyes always cast upon its Looking-glass because such amphibious and all-part-pleasing Creatures have their Eyes upon nothing but their own Preservation And Theophrastus in his Character of a glavering Sycophant pinns this Knave upon his Back 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He will please his Client and strike in with his Client's Adversary because he would be of that gender which is the common of two and so become unprofitable to both in proper construction I need not be long in this for an ingenuous Pagan how much more a Christian will easily learn this Lesson to be hot or cold the luke-warm Quality that partakes of both is fit to make a Vomit Salmasius writes upon Solinus That Tityrus was a Mungril Beast begotten between a Goat and an Ew But there is no Creature of that composition to be presented at the last day before the Judgment of God They that are at the right Hand must be pure Sheep harmless gentle without any Goatishness in them and surely those Tityri will be found among the worst of the Goats that are rejected to the left Hand 177. After Caterpillars the Locusts succeeded such as you may find Rev. c. 9. v. 2 7. The bottomless Pit that is the endless Parliament was opened and a smoak went out of the pit a Cloud of Ordinances to make War with the King And there came locusts out of the smoak no ordinary ones but such as had stings like scorpions who were like borses prepared to battail and they had as it were crowns like gold for they took the Soveraignty of Kingly Power upon them I do not interpret but allude unto the place They that commanded in the bottomless Pit had Wealth enough to maintain an Army all that London and the Land was worth But to maintain their Cause that is to sight against their Lawful King all their Money could not purchase them so much Scripture Law or Reason as would justifie them with one Argument Their Preachers over-stretch'd their Sinews to defend them and could not but left it to the Sword-men to hold it out at the Arms end Yet they abused so much Divinity as would serve to cover some of the deformity of the Sin with a few torn pieces of Jeroboam's Garment for I am perswaded of some of them that if they had look'd upon their Impious Act without a Disguise they would have run mad at the astonishment of their Guiltiness All this Mischief was their Pulpit-ranters Work The great Sedition rais'd against Moses and Aaron Numb 16. is called the Gainsaying of Core Wherefore should Core carry the Name since Dathan and Abiram great Princes had their Hands in it Because that mucinous 〈◊〉 did more harm by his prating than all the Factious in the Conspitacy beside The 〈◊〉 of this Design gave great Wages to their Chaplains but the Work which they perform'd was not worth the half of it between Knave and Knave The Crime was so black that they could not lay any white upon it to make it colour like Justice and Innocency They dodg'd St. Paul Rom. c. 13. and St. Peter's Text 1 Ep. c. 2. v. 11. with as many turnings as ever old Hare gave to a brace of Grey-hounds but they could find nothing out of the Scriptures to make them look like theirs nor any Quotation out of pure Antiquity in the best Ages of the Church to adjust their execrable Action And must not that Cause be very bad which could not put on a good outside either from the Authority of God or Man Only as they enforced accumulative Misdemeanors against the Earl of Strassord to indict him of Treason so they rak'd up accumulative Misgovernments in Charge against the King to allow themselves the committing of Treason All their Shifts and Shufflings shall be cursorily examin'd though their Persons are in a Sanctuary so are not their Opinions There is
a Writer Gisbert Voetius of Utrecht learned indeed but bitter minded against our King and the old Settlement of our Church this man the Assembly of Divines did easily gain unto them and for their Interest he states a Question Disput tom 2. p. 852. How Subjects may quell their King and pull him down by force of A◠Which is intended for our English Case cut out into as many Exceptions almost as there he words in the Thesis and all the Particulars wrongly applied to our ungodly Distempers His Hammer strikes thus upon the Forge Primo quaestio est an à Proceribus Statibus Ordinibus Magistratibus Superioribus Infericribus qui pro ratione regiminis publicâ auctoritate instructi sunt palea 2. Regi Principi limitato conditionato palea 3. In extremo necessitatis casu palea 4. Post omnia frustra tentata palea 5. Secundum leges pacta fundamentalia principatus palea 6. Defensivè armis resisti palea 7. Ut respub ab interitu conservari possit palea First When had our Peers our Magistrates superiour and inferiour Power to bring His Majesty by Fear or Force into Order Never 2. When was his Empire limited or made conditional otherwise than to charge his Conscience before God to keep his Laws Never 3. Were we brought by ill administration to the brink of extream Necessity No such thing 4. Or were all dutiful means tryed to obtain the King's Consent to honest Demands Widest of all from Truth 5. Or have we Pactions sundamental between the King and People to constrain him to concur with their Proposals 'T is a meer Chimera 6. Did the Parliament wage the defensive part of the War Quite mistaken 7. Was there no other way but by such a rout of Russians to keep our native Country from Ruin Nay was it in the least danger of Ruin Not at all not till these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these Club-Lawyers silled the whole Land with Blood and Burning What cutting and carving hath this Dutch Workman made to bring us to worship the Idol of Rebellion And when all is said we know that an Idol is nothing in the World 1 Cor. 3.4 and as it follows there is no other God but one and none but that one God above the King against whose punitive Justice and none beside K. David offended 178. Many things were alledged to commence and continue this fatal War Quae prima querar Quae summa gemam Pariter cuncta deslere juvat Sen. Her Fur. One thing made a loud cry far and wide That His Majesty had left his Parliament and that the Members fate in great danger This was a Scandal taken which did raise such Enemies whom nothing else could have tempted from their Loyalty He lest his Parliament yes but consider it intelligently not till he had granted as much as was abundant for our Liberty Peace and Welfare not till he had yielded up more Branches of his Soveraignty and Revenue than all his Predecessors had granted in 300 years before not till he had trusted them to spend out that Parliament at their own leisure and yet they would trust him with nothing An Affront of deep Indignity Dare they not trust him that never broke with them And I have heard his nearest Servants say That no man could ever challenge him of the least Lye But as Probus said of Epaminondas Adeò veritatis diligens ut ne joco quidem mentiretur Was it square dealing to protest against him that would pay them all due Debt if they would let him I am sure when he left them he left a great many traces of Fame and Glory a great many Benefits of Obligation behind him And this Case will prove the same or much like to the Objection of the Pontificians They say we made a Schism in departing from the Church of Rome We say that the Schism was on their part for they that give the Cause for which it is necessary to abandon Communion they are the Authors of the Schism We continued in the Fellowship of Christ's Church and retreated from the Errors of an incorrigible corrupted part and from the Affrightments and Censures of them that were turned our open Enemies Say over the same to this Parliament and it will be the King's Apology They made the Schism that offer'd him Bills unfit to be pass'd with Clamoring Menacing and undutiful Violence which he must sign or fly far enough Sed qui mali sensu aut metu extorquere assensum velit eo ipso ostendit se argument is diffidere Grot. lib. 6. de Christi Relig. They made the Schism that used his Royal Name with Irreverence a King must not be contented with mediocrity of Respect but their Manners were gross and Plebeian They made the Schism that heard the highest Indignities against his Crown with Patience when Sir Harry Ludlow spake Treason and was not question'd To cut off a great deal they received his ample Concessions with no Thanks and degreed to further Demands and more unreasonable that fill'd the Palace the Hall their Stairs their Doors with such as forbore not to bring in doubt the Safety of his Sacred Person When so many were chased to such a barbarous Boldness what wise man would stand it out and not prevent it What security hath the Earthen Pitcher against an Iron Pot He that fears the worst prevents it soonest 179. The High Court of Parliament one House or both under the Saxon Monarchs or in a few Descents after was created to assist the King to be his great Council When he pleased he call'd it when he pleased he dismiss'd it In succession of days none fate there before he had taken an Oath to bear true Ligance to him and his Heirs and to defend His Majesty against all Perils and Assaults Never was it intended to obtrude upon him with force to compel him to take out his Lesson which they taught him as in a Pedagogy but to propound and advise with due distance and humility Introducta in alicujus utilitatem in ejus laesionem verti non debent if I may believe the Civil Law That which was instituted for the Soveraigns benefit in common sence must not be elevated above him to unthrone him A right Parl. is the Mind of many gathered into one Wisdom this look't rather like the petulancy of many breaking out into one frowardness The form that gives essence to every thing was gone when they that silled the places of Counsellors would transcend and give Law to Majesty If yet they dare criminate him upon Schism tell them that Christ came to the lost Sheep of the House of Israel yet when they took up stones to stone him he went away through the midst of them There is King Charles his Pattern Wherefore then did they hunt after him in warlike Terrour as if they would fetch him in by Proclamation of Rebellion Had he seen the Tyde ebb but an inch I should guess by the
brave Men as ever march't upon English Ground If there were somewhat of the Libertine among them there was nothing but the Hypocrite among the Enemy whose Sacriledges Robberies and Spoils I defer alittle to spread open and the Foxes skin shall never be able to cover all the Lion Few Soldiers in the heat of their Blood in their Hunger and Watchings in their Necessities and revengeful Executions make perfect Saints To have castra simillima regi as Statius hath it was to be wish't more than hoped for As for the Nobles Commanders Knights and Gentry and many Scholars that jeoparded their Lives in that Service I wish their due Honour may be set forth in a long-liv'd History to which I will lend that of Curtius lib. 4. Fatebimur regem talibus ministris illos tanto rege fuisse dignissimos His Majesty's Council the best Peerage of three Nations that could never leave him had more true Piety in their hearts than their Pharisees would dissemble To continue their Allegiance to death had more of Heaven in it than was in all their simpering Preciseness For Religion and Loyalty are like the Wax and Wiek making one Taper between them to shine before God and Man but for all that they would bring the King away from his evil Council and take him to themselves the very Pink of the faithful I must not say but it it is a mannerly Expression if any thing be wrong to remove it from the Soveraign and to charge them with it who did execute the Order David though he knew Saul's bitterness yet is willing to impute his Persecutions to Saul's Servants 1 Sam. 26.19 If they be the children of men that have stirred thee up against me cursed be they of the Lord. There will ever be such Sycophants in a Court that will whisper corrupt talk endeavouring that none should get the start of them in the Royal Favour but must all prudent Senators be cast off and supprest if some Ear-wiggs peradventure had got into credit Let the Shepherd put away his Dogs and the Wolf will ask no more Let the King once forfeit his Friends to an ignoble Trial and he shall never see days of Comfort and Security again Did he ever protect any Servant from the Trial of the Law That would not suffice our Judges in Parliament but he must leave them to the Votes of an Arbitrary Censure Then a wife man had better pay half his Estate for a Fine than be a Privadoe to the King in his nearest Employments And most miserable is he that must not choose those whom he will trust but have his Officers of greatest Dispatches thrust upon him by Compulsion King Richard the Second had Counsellers and Guardians empowered to retrench him in his Government whose Arrogancy when his great Spirit shook off it is known what it cost him Never think to see a King's House so purged of undeserving persons that none of them will creep into that trust they deserve not Budaeus gave over that hope Lib. 5. de Asse p. 110. Ita est reip nostrae status ut clitella generosis equis instrataque speciosa imponantur asinis The best Steeds sometimes shall carry the Panniers and Jades and Asses be covered with the Foot-cloth There was never man so wise that did not love some Simpletons whom you may call Fools Nor never Prince so absolute but did stamp some Honours upon base Mettal Non est nostrum aestimare quem supra caeteros quibus causis extollas says a good States-man in Tacitus And our excellent Camden shifts in this answer for Queen Elizabeths sake whose Affections were so strong to Robert Earl of Leicester that he knew not whether it were a Synastria a Star which reigned at both their Births that made him a Gratioso to so brave a Lady Make any unlikely answer rather than defie a King with an Army to pluck his best betrusted from him Thuamus is an Author to be delighted in whose observation it is Lib. 11. That Maurice of Saxony made his Apology for raising War against Charles the Fifth that he intended no offence to Caesar but to divorce him from Alva and Granval his evil Counsellors A Stale and thread-bear Cheat and yet the Devil to this day cannot find out a better Take away those whom they call Evil Counsellors place as good or better in their room it is not impossible it were a marvel if they did eat a bushel of Salt in Court and not be scowled upon with Envy as much as they that did forego them Let any Tree grow tall in favour and the Shrubs will complain that it drops upon the underwood A great disheartning it is to our Grandees to see so many of worth and clear integrity ruin'd by a publick hatred which made Pausanias pity Demosthenes and the chief Burgesses of Athens in Att. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A great Actor in the Affairs of the Commonwealth feldom goes to his Grave with Honour and Peace I am not of their Spirit then that would remove the King's Counsel from him but some are of my mind that in many great Dispatches they did heartily wish that the King himself had been removed from his Council For he was more happy when he took the way which he spun out of his own Brain than when he alter'd his Opinion to follow the Judgment of his Counsellors But it was his humble temper to like that wisdom in others which was greater in himself 183. It is not too late to unblind some of the People provided they beware of them that spit Holy Water as other Jugglers have a slight to spit fire The Pope's Cruciada drew thousands of Soldiers to adventure into the Holy War and our cunning Popelings made their Muster exceed by carrying the Figure of Religion in their Colours Therefore it is good to take off this great Charm that bewitcht the heedless into Rebellion Which Inchantment was a common cry That Religion lay a bleeding reform the Church either now or never This is the time to pull up Popery and Prelacy and Fortune is an Hand-maid to no Mistress but Occasion Therefore let the faithful live and die together for God's Cause and Christ's Kingdom Pack away Bishops Liturgy Courts Ecclesiastical Canons Crosses Organ Musick Ceremonies Change for every thing for any thing Seraque terrisici cecinerunt omnia vates Aen. 5. Survey all this calmly They that undertake to alter so much at once is it likely they will mend it all at once for the better A better Head-piece than theirs gives them a wiser Principle Synes de provid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Things may admit a general change of a sudden for the worst but not for the better Then to clap Religion into a quarrel is a formal foolery that every Child can look through it Ex cupiditate quisque suorum religionem velut pedissequam habet Leo. Ep. 23. Now look back into King Edward the Sixth's days who those
and so it did for certain in Adam the first Father and first King Yet grant them their asking here is an Instance to silence them All the Creatures were made before Man yet God gave him the Dominion to govern them that were created before and after him It is to no more purpose to cavil That the King is made for the good of the People Is that which is appointed for the good of another the less for that Cause Quite contrary 't is therefore the greater So is a Preceptor and Shepherd the one above the Scholars the other above the Flock Saravia distinguisheth skilfully de Obed. p. 228. Quod est propter aliud si benesicium ab co accipit minus esl si dat majus est They stretch their Wit further and say That the King gives his Oath to his Subjects to mamtam them in their known Laws It well befits him So God gave an Oath to Abraham and David Quare juramentum praes itum Inseriori non ei subjicn Superiorem says the same Author As for the matter of the Oath to keep the Laws it puts him not under the Wrath of Men if he do not keep them but under the Wrath of God A King is to keep the Laws of Nations with other Princes yet is not subject to them God defend us from making Experiments what would come to pass if the choice of a Governor or Governors were referred to the thousands and millions of England Beware a Heptarchy again beware an Hecatontarchy Things give better Counsel to men than men to things Look behind enquire into Histories what bloody meetings the World hath known upon such ambitious bandings between Gogs and Magog's Parties An quae per totam res atrocissima Lesbon Non audita tibi est Metam l. 2. Is it forgotten how they have lifted up their Friends in a Fit and straightway pluck'd them down in a Fury As the Greek Emperor said to a Bishop Ego te Furne condidi ego te destruam For as Painters delight in Pieces not being made but in their making so the Hare-brain'd Multitude run on to a Choice with Greediness and when it is pass'd they loath it with Fickleness The Conclusion shall be That this Stratagem to unthrone a King by the pretended inherent Right of the People can come to no conclusion For if there were occasion for all Cities Counties Burroughs Hamblets to come to try that Right who shall warn them that the opportunity is ripe to require their concurrence Who shall summon them Why A. rather than B Who shall propound Upon what place shall they meet Who shall preserve Order and Peace For every Hog when you drive them must have a String about his own Leg. Who shall umpire and stop Outrages Such there will be Saevitque animis ignobile vulgus An hundred impossible Dissiculties may be added to these and he that can rowl them up all into Sence deserves the Philosopher's Stone for his Labour To divert the vulgar fort from meddling with things improper to and so much above them Budaeus remembers me how to call them to such a Choice as is fitter for them lib. 1. de As In Pervigilio Epiphamae regnum ad sesquiboram lusu sabae sortiuntur Let them chuse the King of the Bean on Twelsth-night and be merry with the Cake-bread 189. The best of Kings had some that fell off from him after the fust and second year of the War when they saw his Enemies had got ground in some Skirmishes and Sieges and were possest of the best part of his Navies surrendred to them by a false Faitour This was a colour for their Rhetoricians to impute Righteousness to the fortunate Part. And their Orders for Thanksgivings boast of it that God did own their Cause because of the Victories which had besall'n them But Wisdom dresseth her self by her own Light and minds not the shadow of Success for after the first dark Cloud that comes it can be seen no more It is not strange that Self-lovers are so wary and rash Springolds so sond to like that which is most lucky Thucyd. l. 1. notes it upon the variable turnings of the Peloponnesian Wars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men cannot leave but they will bend their Fancies to the Casualties of Events Nay says Matth. de Prin. c. 25. There is no living for us without that Tropical Humour Si tempora mutant ur statim perit qui in agendo rationem non mutat But all such Errours shall be reversed and the mistakes consuted before a Tribunal Eternal Impartial which will deceive none Go not about then to try right and wrong as they are bandied among us No man knows either Love or Hatred by all that is before them All things come alike to all There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked Eccles 9.2 If you Judge the merit of a Cause or the integrity of a Man by prosperous Chance Epicurus will have a strong tentation to say Is there a God whose wisdom sees and governs all things Dionysius when he had rob'd a Temple and failed away merrily with his Booties scost at it Videt is amici quà m bona à Diis immortalibus navigatio sacrilegis datur Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. 3. Such a Scandal another of the voluptuary Sect took at a Courtezan that had forsworn her self and look't more amiably after it Obligasti Perfidum diris caput enitescis Pulchrior multo juvenumque prodis Publica cura Horat. Od. l. 4. We that are bred under holy Discipline know that it will be the worse for thee hereafter for their Torments will appear more bitter in the next World because they felt nothing but pleasure in this The ways of God are past finding out He permits that Evil which he hates and he Corrects that Good which he loves This is the Trial of Faith Quicquid imponitur molit All that is brought to her Mill she will grind it into fine slour of Thanksgiving and Patience and is afsured That as a Ball mounts higher when it is thrown to the ground so a good Cause when it is beaten will rebound higher to Heaven Otherwise says Manilius l. 5. Si sorte accesserit impetus ausis Improbitas fiet virtus If Sin get the better at hand-blows Vertue shall hold up its hand at the Bar and be condemned for Vice Joshuah's discomfit at Ai Josiah's at Megiddo the hundred Victories that the Saracens have had against the Christians tell us how they that sight the Lord's Battels are not priviledged from turning their Backs to their Enemies It is an acute passage of S. Ambrose in an Epistle to Valentinian That the Heathen had no reason to beast that the Idols whom they worshipt were true Gods and gave them â—icleries for if the Romans prevailed where were the Carthaginian Gods to help them if the Carthaginians triumpht where were the Roman Gods when they were beaten Success will neither serve Christians nor Heathen
the Fabricks into Coin Four hundred years will not restore their Woods and Timber-Trees so well preserv'd now not the Prelates but the Kingdoms damage What haste they made to rid these things out of the way and to purse up all and to barter presently with their Customers the Jews for fear was upon them lest what remained should return to the right Owners For no time not an Age can cross us in our just Claim hereafter Praescribere volentibus mala fides in aeternum obstat a Maxim of Law in Dr. Duck's Book p. 21. Long before him and in plainer words the Oratour in his best piece Phil. 2. speaking of and praising King Deiotarus Scivit homo sapiens jus semper hoc fuisse ut quae tyranni eripuissent tyrannis sublatis ii quibus ea erepta essent recuperarent God hath a Cyrus in store we hope to pluck away again that which was dedicated to him from prophane Belshazzars When the Phocians had spoiled the Temple of Delos the Grecks were so offended at that Sacriledge that they all resolved in their Pan-hellenium Quod totius orbis viribus expiari debet Lib. 8. Justin And when those Phocians were routed in a bloody Battel and ask't leave to bury their dead the Locrians answer'd them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Diod. lib. 16. p. 427. That it was the Common Law of Greece to cast away the Carkasses of the Sacrilegious and not to allow them Burial Some of our Thieves who rob'd God are interr'd in Peace some of them among Princes and Nobles yet they and theirs cannot escape the Curse of an hundred Anathema's darted against them Now it is discernable that the Parliament and such as they raised to maintain their Cause got an East and West-Indies out of the Clergy and Laiety pulling a few Locks away at first at last the Fleece of all the Flock like Graecian Toss-pots that begin with small Cups and quaff off great ones when they are drunk Some little remains to be put to this nay no little but more than a thousand and a thousand drams of Gold to be cast into the Heap of their Gains wherein they suck't the Blood of the Rich and quite starved them who were poor already I mean they and their Horses lying upon the Charge of the Country Vetelliani per omnia Italiae municipia desides tantum hospitibus met uendi Tacit. lib. hist 3. like to like as the Devil to the Collier they were our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Casaubon puts it into one word upon Theophrastus we call it Free-quarter What a grief to be made servile to provide for such Guests when the Family knew it was Judas that dip't his hand with them in the Dish What an Expence it was to bring out all their Stores laid up for a year and to waste it in a week sometimes upon an hundred of their Orgoglioes It is an Arabian Proverb If thy Friend be Honey eat him not up all But these Horse-leaches seldom lest an House till they had thresht the Barn Empty and drunk the Cellar dry And had their mouth been a little widder They would have devoured bidder and shidder says Spencer in his Calendar There are greater wrongs to be complained of than this yet none more vexatious and he that is unlucky to be made an Host to lodge such Guests at Free-quarter let him set up a Cross for his Sign-post Now if the Reader carry in memory that Parliament Priviledges Religion Liberty the Peoples innate Power and the like were the Colour and Pretence to take up Arms against the King but the thing intended was Sacriledge goodly Lands Spoils of all forts a Mass of Riches will he not excuse an honest Vicar of Hampshire who changed one word in the last Verse of the Song Te Deum O Lord in thee have I trusted let me never be a Round-head 193. The Condemnation of an impious disloyal and sacrilegious Rebellion hath filled up many Pages of this Book Loqui multum non est nimium si tamen est necessarium which is St. Austin's by-word As for the Dependance it is not unartificial which the Subject designed in these Papers for that barbarous War running on through many years of the Archbishop of York's life and it being the saddest and most remarkable Passage of the Age it could not be lest out from the remembrance of any Occurrences made and traversed upon those infamous Times The Hatred and Horror of it struck as deep into this Prelate's Heart as into any mans I do not believe that of Cicero to Torquatus lib. 6. ep Nihil praecipuè cuiquam est dolendum in eo quod accidit universis A wise man full of Observation apt to make likely Presages from present Actions upon future Miseries could not pass them by with Slights and Carelesness as some others did Of two things for certain he was disappointed Three years at the most never pass'd over his Head since he had a good Purse but he expended a valuable Sum upon some Monumental Work of Charity His Mind was still the same for all Ground is not barren that lies sallow But being stript of those Revenues which suppeditated Oyl to the Lamp the Light of his Spirit was eclipsed in this obscurity to be unprofitable Another and no less Calamity was that his Papers of long study and much commentation with his choice Books were either rifled or it may be burnt with Cawood Castle and being eager if not ambitious to restore his Notes again by diligence and a mighty memory yet in the noise of Wars beating up of Quarters and shifting of Lodging to sly from Danger it was impossible to contrive it Arts did never profit in the distractions of Wars Chirurgery may get experience by daily searching into wounds Geometry may enhaunce its skill by crecting Bulwarks and drawing Lines for new forts of Fortifications But all Sciences beside will wither in the midst of Arms and Barbarism will over-spread till Learning recover Maintenance Rest and Peace Aptly to this Isocra 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the concord and good management of things in Greece the Philosophers and their Studies would fare much the better Yet a man need not say his Life is under great Adversity for want of such Accessions which are but Notes of good direction in the Margent of the Book but belong not to the Text which the Reader cannot span whose Contents are the Church of Christ in its Doctrine Piety Regulation of Order kept inviolate the King's Crown and Honour supported the Laws maintain'd to us as our Ancestors enjoy'd them Liberty and Property defended from wrong and violence these are the Contents of the great Charter so precious to the pious and political man And all these Pillars which held up our Subsistence were battered by the Sons of Anak and ready to fall In this disasterous season who would not pity a great and aged Prelate driven into the remotest corner of the Land and least
Service and Affairs And in that respect as well as your common interest and duty we command your suitable compliance which we assure you shall be looked upon by us as a fresh acceptable Testimony of your Affections to Us and our Cause and preserved in our Royal remembrance with the rest of your Merits against the time when it may please God to enable Us to reflect thereon for your good Thus far his Majesty to make way for the Lord Byron a gallant Person a great Wit a Scholar very Stout full of Honour and Courtesie yet favour'd the English Interest above the Welsh in those Counties which did not take And the Dye of War run so false that he lost the Cast to one who had not the Ames-Ace of Valour in him Neither did the scatter'd Forces of those distressed Parts ever set them another Stake Prince Rupert observing the Royal Directions wrote largely as followeth May 16. 1644. To all Governours and Officers to all Sheriffs Commissioners of the Array or Peace all Vice-Admirals or Captains of Ships in the three Counties WHereas I understand by his Majesty's Letters unto me lately directed that the most Reverend Father in God John Lord Archbishop of York by reason of his great Experience and Imployments in the Affairs of this Kingdom as well under my Grandfather of famous memory as under his Majesty that now is hath been intrusted in the three Counties c. from the first beginning of these Troubles and gives his best Advice in Matters of Importance which have relation to the King's Service and the Peace and safe keeping of those Counties from all Invasions by Sea or Land And that he hath discharged that Trust reposed in him faithfully and successfully during the time of his abode in those parts My will and pleasure is That according to his Majesty's intimation to me you and every one of you in all matters of importance and moment touching or concerning his Majesty's or my Service under his Majesty in those Counties as also in all Matters of Questions Doubts and Variances which may fall out either among your selves or between your selves and the several Counties wherein you govern or command shall from time to come consult and advise with the said most Reverend Father in God and follow such his Advices and Counsels in the Premisses which shall be grounded upon the Laws of the Land or the pressing Necessities of these times and agreeing with our Directions and future Instructions from time to time RUPERT Nothing was wanting of Royal and Princely care to preserve the Archbishop in Conway-Castle yet all would not serve There was none whom Envy did more strive to hold down upon all occasions which his great Deservings brought upon him So true is that of Synesius de provid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vertue doth not quench Envy but rather kindle it One violent Person unframed all good Order who would submit to no Authority a hot Man for he was ever dry and he did not conceal it for he was always drinking 198. That Affront waited more leisure to break forth and suffered him to take a long and a tedious Journey in Winter to Oxford in obedience to these Lines which he received from his Majesty Decemb. 16. 1644. CHARLES R. WE having had frequent experience of your good Affection and Ability to serve us and having occasion at this time to make use of them here We have thought fit and do by these Presents require you to repair hither to Us to Oxon with all convenient expedition Desiring you to come as throughly informed as you can of the true condition of Our Affairs c. Presently he set forward though the ways were much beset and came in January with the first to the King for he had many things to represent and was not in his Element when he was consined in private Walls He took up his Lodging with the Provost of Queens-Colledge Dr. Christopher Potter a Master in Divinity and a Doctor of Piety He was received in the Court with much Grace where he saw his stay must be short For that City could not long receive so many Nobles and Gentry as came to make a Session of Parliament neither could so many of the King 's principal Friends be spared from their Countries Being then a good Husband of his time and having private Audience with his Majesty he gave him that Counsel to which Wisdom and Allegiance led him as Thraseas Paetus the famous Senator said Suum esse non aliam quà m optimam sententiam dicere One passage is fit to see the light which had much of prudence in it and too much of prophesie He desir'd his Majesty to be informed by him and to keep it among Advices of weight That Cromwel taken into the Rebels Army by his Cousin Hambden was the most dangerous Enemy that his Majesty had For though he were at that time of mean rank and use among them yet he would climb higher I knew him says he at Bugden but never knew his Religion He was a common Spokes-man for Sectaries and maintained their part with stubbornness He never discoursed as if he were pleased with your Majesty and your great Officers indeed he loves none that are more than his Equals Your Majesty did him but Justice in repulsing a Petition put up by him against Sir Thomas Steward of the Isle of Ely but he takes them all for his Enemies that would not let him undo his best Friend and above all that live I think he is Injuriarum persequentissimus as Porcius Latro said of Catiline He talks openly that it is sit some should act more vigorously against your Forces and bring your Person into the power of the Parliament He cannot give a good word of his General the Earl of Essex because he says the Earl is but half an Enemy to your Majesty and hath done you more favour than harm His Fortunes are broken that it is impossible for him to subsist much less to be what be aspires to but by your Majesty's Bounty or by the Ruin of us all and a common Confusion as one said Lentulus salvâ Repub. salvus esse non potuit Paterc In short every Beast hath some evil properties but Cromwel hath the properties of all evil Beasts My humble motion is that either you would win him to you by the Promises of fair Treatment or catch him by some stratagem and cut him short Now if it shall be objected Who reports this saving the Archbishop himself to magnifie his own parts that he was so excellent in fore-sight and as Ajax slighted his Rival Sua narret Ulysses Quae sine teste gerit I satisfie it thus His Servants and they that daily listned to his Discourses have heard it come from him long before the accident of saddest experience how some of them would live to see when Cromwel would bear down all other Powers before him and set up himself The King received it with a
Clergy of England as being neither Parsons Vicars nor Curates be Licenced henceforward in the Court of Faculties only with a Fiat from the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and a Confirmation under the Great Seal of England And that such as transgress any one of these Directions be suspended by the Lord Bishop of the Diocess or in his Default by the Lord Arch-Bishop of the Province Ab officio beneficio for a Year and a Day untill his Majesty by the Advice of the next Convocation shall prescribe some further Punishment 102. These Orders were well brought fourth but Success was the Step-Mother Destinata salubriter omni ratione potentior fortuna discussit Curtius lib. 5o. Crossness and Sturdiness took best with the Vulgar and he was counted but a Cockney that stood in awe of his Rulers No marvel if some were brought to no State of Health or toward any Temper of Convalesence with these Mandates Nothing is so hardly bridled as the Tongue saith St. James especially of a mis-guided Conscience when their Bladder if full of Wind the least Prick of a Thorn will give it eruption A Fool traveleth with a Word as a Woman in Labour of a Child Ecclus. 19.11 Restraint is not a Medicine to cure epidemical Diseases for Sin becomes more sinful by the Occasion of the Law Diliguntur immodice sola quae non licent says one of the Exteriors Quintil. decl 1a. The less we should the more we would Curb Cholerical Humours and you press out Bitterness as it is incident to those that are strait-lac'd to have sower Breaths The Scottish Brethren were acquainted by common Intercourse with these Directions that had netled the aggrieved Pulpitarians And they says Reverend Spotswood P. 543. accuse them to be a Discharge of Preaching at least a Confining of Preachers to certain Points of Doctrine which they call Limiting of the Spirit of God But the Wiser Sort judged them both necessary and profitable considering the Indiscretion of divers of that sort who to make Ostentation of their Learning or to gain the Applause of the Popular would be medling with Controversies they scarce understood and with Matters exceeding the Capacity of the People But what a Pudder does some make for not stinting the Spirit or Liberty of Prophecying as others call it They know not what they ask Such an indefinite Licence is like the Philosopher's Materia Prima a monstrous Passive Subject without Form A Quid libet which is next to nothing Indeed it is a large Charter to pluck down and never to build up Every Man may sling a Stone where he will and let it light as Luck carries it But how can the House of God be built unless the Builders be appointed to set up the Frame with Order and Agreement among themselves according to the Pattern which was shewn in the Mount Try it first in Humane Affairs and see how it will sadge with them before we proceed to Heavenly Dissolve the publick Mint let every Man Coin what Money he will and observe if ever we can make a Marchandable Payment Their Confusion is as like to this as a Cherry to a Cherry Give their Spirit as much Scope as they ask Let them Coin what Doctrine they will with the Minting-Irons of their own Brain They may pay themselves with their own Money but will it pass with others for Starling Will it go for current Divinity To meet them home Suppose this Priviledge were allow'd yet every good Spirit will limit it self to lawful Subjection Yet these would not Then what Remedy in earnest none was try'd It is the height of Infelicity to be incurable As Pliny in his Natural History said of Laws made against Luxury in Rome which would not be kept down therefore the Senators left to make Laws against it Frustra interdicta quae vetucrant cernentes nullas potiùs quam irritas esse Leges maluerunt 103. Neither were uncharitable Suspicions like to mend For the Unsatisfied that sung so far out of Tune had another Ditty for their Prick-Song The King's Letters were directed to the Lord Keeper to be Copy'd out and sent forth to the Judges and Justices to afford some Relaxation of our Penal Laws to some but not all Popish Recusants Which made sundry Ministers interpose very harshly and in the Prophet Malachy's Stile Chap. 2. Ver. 13. To cover the Altar of God with Tears and Weeping and Crying but the Lord regarded not the Offering neither received it with Good-will at their Hands What could this mean as they conjectured but the highest Umbrage to the Reformed Religion and â—at Toerâ—ion of Popery Leave it at that cross way that they knew not whither this Project will turn Nay Should they not hope for the best Event of the Meaning A King is like to have an ill Audit when every one that walks in the Streets will reckon upon his Councels with their own casting Counters It is fit in sundry Occurrences for a Prince to disguise his Actions and not to discover the way in which he treads But many times the Wisdom of our Rulers betrays them to more Hatred than their Follies because Idiots presume that their own Follies are Wisdom Plaurus displays these impertinent Inquisitors very well in Trinummo Quod quisque habet in animo aut habiturus est sciunt Quod in aurem Rex Reginae dixerit sciunt Quae neque futura neque facta sunt illi sciunt Yet these Fault-sinders were not jear'd out of their Melancholly though they deserv'd no better but were gravely admonished by his Majesty Vivâ voce in these Words I understand that I am blamed for not executing the Laws made against the Papists But ye should know that a King and his Laws are not unfuly compared to a Rider and his Horse The Spur is sometime to be used but not always The Bridle is sometime to be held in at other times to be let loose as the Rider finds Cause Just so a King is not at all times to put in Execution the Rigor of his Laws but he must for a time and upon just Grounds dispense with the same As I protest to have done in the present Case and to have conniv'd only for a time upon just Cause howbeit not known to 〈◊〉 If a Man for the Favour shew'd to a Priest or Papist will judge me to be inclining that way he wrongs me exceedingly My Words and Writings and Actions have sufficiently 〈◊〉 what my Resolution is in all Matters of Religion That Cause not known to 〈…〉 in part unfolded by that grave Father Spotswood where I quoted him 〈◊〉 Says he The Better and Wiser Sort of his Country-men who considered 〈…〉 Estate of things gave a far other Judgment thereof than the Discontented 〈…〉 then our King was treating with the French King for Peace to the Protestants of France and with the King of Spain for withdrawing his Forces from the Palatinate At which time it was no way fitting that
5. to be wasted over into Italy in his Bark Thus he went on with other flatuous Disparagements One Copy of this and no more came to the Leiger Embassador of the Catholick King of which the Lord Keeper had the Use and would never deliver it again but wrote to my Lord Marquess April 20th to bid the Earl of Bristow to take care either to stifle it if it were not divulg'd or to cause it to be called in if it were published Such Scriblers should be informed against in the Ragguaglia's of Pernassus and amerced to pay for the the Loss of our Time 133. Aste the gaudy Days of the Royal Welcome were past over my Lord of Buckingham obliged the Lord Keeper greatly unto him with a Letter Dated March 26 and came about the Declining of April for the Comfort of the Contents which were these My good Lord HOwsoever I wrote so lately unto you that I have not since received any Letter from your Lordship yet because you shall see that I let slip no Opportunity I do it again by this Conveyance and must again tell you the good News of his Highness's being in perfect Health I cannot doubt but many idle and false Rumors will daily be there spread during the Absence of his Highness which I know your Lordship and the wiser sort will easily contemn and believe only that which you shall find avowedly advertised from hence And here let me thus far prevent with your Lordship any sinister Report that shall be made in the main Point which is the Prince's Religion assuring you that he is no way pressed nor shall be perswaded to change it for so is it clearly and freely professed unto him I hope I shall shortly be able to advertise your Lordship of the Arrival of the Dispensation which will be the Conclusion of our Business And thus wishing your Lordship all Honour and Happiness c. The Pearl which came in this Letter is that Satisfaction purchased of God with the Prayers of all devout Men that the Prince should not be inveigled in Conferences or unquieted with Disputes to strip himself of the Wedding-Garment of that incorrupt Faith in Christ which he had professed from a Child for that Wedding sake which he came to conclude How impudently have some Trash-Writers out-faced this Truth as if the Prince had been beset on all sides to make Shipwrack of his Religion in the Gulph of Rome Ar. Wilson of all others is the most forward Accuser and therefore the Falfest Tast him in these Parcels P. 230 that the Earl of Bristow insinuated it with this crafty Essay to his Highness That none of the King 's of England could do great things that were not of that Religion Yet he interfears in that same Page That Gondamar prest the Earl of Bristow not to hinder so pious a Work assuring him that they had Buckingham's Assistance in it Then belike Gondamar was jealous of Bristow that he was contrary to that which he called a pious Work the Prince's Perversion Certainly he knew Bristow as far as a Friend could know a Friend And as many Bow-shots wide is he from my Lord of Buckingham's Sincority in that Action as a Lyar is from Heaven Is not his Lordship's Hand-writing so solemn'y mention'd an uncontroulable Testimony The same Author slanders Conde d'Olivares and makes him utter that which never came from him That if the Prince would devote himself to their Church it would make him â—th way to the Infanta's Afflictions and if he seared the English would rebel he should be assisted with an Army to reduce them The Conâ—e Duke carried no such threatning Fire in one Hand nor at that time any of his Holy Water in the other For he committed nothing to offend his Highness's Ears in that â—ind till his Passions made him forget himself about three Months after Not contented with this he makes the Prince say that which he never thought as that when the Conde Duke propounded That if his Highness would not admit of a sudden Alteration and that publickly yet he would be so indulgent to litten to the Infanta in Matters of Religion when they both came into England Which the Prince promised to do But what says true hearted Spotswood P. 544. That the Prince was stedfast and would not change his Religion for any worldly Respect nor enter into Conference with any Divines for that purpose Utri credetis Is there any Choice which of these two should rather be believed I am careful to praemonish conscientious Readers against Serpentine Pens least their nibling should ranckle A Serpent you know from the beginning was a Lodging for the Devil Gen. 3. and so is a Slanderer The Manual of Romish Exorcisms says Instruct 2. that it is presumed for a sign that he is possest with a Devil Qui linguam extorquet miris modis eandem exerit ingenti oris hiatu I translate that to the Manners of the Mind which is meant there of the Body And let the Living learn the dead Man whom I speak of can take no Warning it is a divelish thing to loll out the Tongue of Contumely These being fore Times to out-face the Truth and willing to listen to Defamations no marvel if some take the Liberty to Lye and have the Confidence to be believed But that Sectaries that have quite overthrown the Church of England a right and pleasant Vineyard of Jesus Christ that these should be the Men who for the most part have challenged the Prince and the chief Ministers that laboured to effect the Spanish Match for being luke-warm at the best and unfastned from the Religion then profest is very audacious The Accused were Innocent and never gave ground to any pernicious Alteration but themselves the Accusers have trodden down that Religion of which in their deep Hypocrisy they would seem to be Champions The Prince and Buckingham were ever Protestants those their Opposites you know not what to term them unless Detestants of the Romish Idolatry As if all were well so they be not Popified though they have departed from the Church in which they were Baptized and a Church I will not say as sound as it was in its Cradle in the Apostles Times but as pure and Orthodox in Doctrine and Government as far as they were maintained to be of Divine Right and Constitution as it was in its Childhood in the time of their Disciples even that next succeeded them And are these the Declamers for Religion and the Temple of the Lord Ex isto ore Religionis verbum excidere an t clabi potest as Tully said of Clodius Orat. pro domo suâ ad Pontif. and so I give them no better Respect at parting 134. But what will be said when one that is greatly affected to our poor demolish'd Church doth concur with those Snarling Sectaries of his own accord That in the flagrant expectation of that Match some for hope of Favour began to Favour the Catholick
Cause It is the Author of the Observations upon H. L. his History of the Reign of King Charles pag. 137. He hath not bestowed his Name upon his Reader but he hath a Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Homer Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I ought not to put him to the first Question of our Catechism Quo nomine vocaris For good Writers nay Sacred Pen-Men do not always Inscribe their Names upon their Books Scholars do invariably Father the Work and some of them say they have it from the Printer upon one that hath Wrote and Publish'd much favoring of Industry and Learning And they give Reasons which will come into the Sequel though a great while deferr'd why he blotts the good Name of King James Why he grates so often upon the mild Nature and matchless Patience of King Charles And if Fame have taken the right Sow by the Ear it is one that had provok'd the then Bishop of Lincoln in Print with great Acrimony Twenty years ago and that Anger flames out in him now as hot as ever Panthera domari nescia non semper saeuit Yet when that Bishop came out of the Tower and this Adversary sought him for Peace and Love because the Bishop was then able to do him a Displeasure he found him easie to be Reconciled What should move this Man to forget that Pacification so truly observ'd on the Bishops part who was the greater and the offended Party Naturale est odisse quem laeseris And Malice is like one of the Tour Things Prov. 30.15 That never say it is enough 'T is Degenerous for the Living to Trample upon the Dead but very Impious that he that was once a Christian nay a Christian Priest should never cease to be an Enemy The Words with which he wounds the Spanish Match through his side though otherwise he is one that witheth it had succeeded are these That that Bishop being in Power and Place at C◠the time of King James made himself the Head of the Popish Faction because he thought the Match with Spain which was then in Treaty would bring not only a Connivance to that Religion but a Toleration of it And who more like to be in Favour if that Match went on than such as were most zealous in doing Good Offices to the Catholick Cause Here 's a Knot of Catter-Pillars wrapt in a thin Cobweb so easie it will be to sweep them of The accused Person was always free of Conference Let any now living say that heard him often Discourse of the adverse Church if he did not constantly open himself not for a Gainsayer only but for a Stiff Defier of their Corrupt Doctrines although he was ever pitiful for Relaxation of their Penalties And would that Party cleave unto him for their greatest Encourager Encouragement was the least their Head could give them Beside the Thing is a Chimaera I never knew any Head of the Popish Faction in this Kingdom Others and Bishops in Rank above him have been traduced in that Name but who durst own that Office especially in the end of King James his Reign when every year almost was begirt with a Parliament and every Parliament procreated an inquisitive Committee for Matters of Religion What Mist did he walk in that neither Parliament nor Committees did detect him for Head or Patron or Undertaker call it what you will of the Pseudo-Catholick Cause could nothing but the goggle Eye of Malice discover him 135. Perhaps the Contemplation of the Spanish Match might embolden him so this Author would have us think It could not it did not take a little in the highest Topicks to both It could not For as the Anteceding Parliament was much taken with King James's Words That if the Match should not prove a fartherance to our Religion he were not Worthy to be our King so this his Majesties near Counsellor knew his meaning of which he often discours'd that when the Holy-Days of the Great Wedding were over his Majesty would deceive the Jealousies of his Subjects and be a more vigorous Defender of the Cause of the True Faith than ever And Judge the Bishop by his own Words in his Sermon Preach'd at the Funerals of that Good King that his Majesty charg'd his Son though he Married the Person of that Kings Sister never to Marry her Religion I said likewise he did not Look back to the first Letters he dispatch'd into Spain but much more let every Reader enjoy the Feature of his own Piety and Wisdom which he put into the Kings Hand to have his liking while his Majesties Dear Son was in Spain to Cure popular Discontents and sickly Suspicions which had come forth with Authority in October following if the long Treaty had not Set in a Cloud The Original Draught of his Contrivances yet remaining is thus Verbation That when the Marriage was Consummated and the Royal Bride received in England His Majesty should Publish his Gracious Declaration as followeth First To assure his Subjects throughout his three Kingdoms that there is not one word in all the Treaty of the Marriage in prejudice of our own Religion Secondly To Engage himself upon his Kingly Word to do no more for the Roman-Catholics upon the Marriage than already he did sometime voluntarily Grant out of Mercy and Goodness and uncontroulably may do in disposing of his own Mulcts and Penalties Thirdly That our Religion will be much Honoured in the Opinion of the World that the Catholic King is content to match with us nor can he Persecute with Fire and Sword such as profess no other Religion than his Brother-in-Law doth Fourthly That His Majesty shall forthwith advance strict Rules for the Confirmation of our Religion both in Heart and in the outward Profession 1. Common-Prayer to be duly performed in all Churches and Chappels Wednesdays and Fridays and two of every Family required to be present 2. Every Saturday after Common-Prayer Catechising of Children to be constantly observed 3. Confirmation called Bishopping to be carefully executed by the Bishop both in the General Visitations of his Diocese and every Six months in his own House or Palace 4. That Private Prayers shall no Day be omitted in the Family of him that is of the Degree of an Esquire else not to be so named or reputed 5. All Ladies and all Women in general to be Exhorted to bestow two hours at the least every Day in Prayer and Devotion 6. All our Churches to be Repaired and outwardly well Adorned and comely Plate to be bought for the Communion-Table 7. Dispensations for Pluralities of Livings to be granted to none upon any Qualification but Doctors and Batchelors in Divinity at the least and of them to such as are very Learned Men. 8. Bishops to encourage Public Lectures in Market-Towns of such Neighbouring Ministers as be Learned and Conformable 9. A Library of Divinity-Books to be Erected in every Shire-Town for the help of the poorer Ministers and Leave shall be