ma ruine These rabble factious Tumults never mend A Nation but its ruine doth portend The Neapolitans will never forget the miseries brought upon them by a sordid Fisherman Thomas Anello And Munster and other parts of Germany do yet remember with sadness their Anabaptistical tumults The great Turk no sooner hears of the Seditious Rabble but he fears his own neck And Tyler with his rustick Clowns made King Richard submit to their unbounded impudence Nor can it be denyed but that the Londoners and others set up the first post of the Kings Scaffold when by these out-ragious Tumults they began the wicked Warr. The Tumults of which his Sacred Majesty gives the best character in his incomparable Book favour'd the Parliament with a twofold courtesie one was they forced him from London there being no safety for his Royal Person whilst such unbelieving miscreants did domineer The other was they having learn'd the knack to cry Thief first horribly exclaim'd that themselves were thereby only in danger and therefore desired not only a Guard to defend their Worships though they punish'd those appointed to protect them but very modestly to have the disposal of the whole Militia in England And this claim rather then desire of theirs they call just and necessary and for the ease benefit safety and security of the people and that his Majesty could neither in Honour Justice or Conscience deny he having it not legally before And this small request is but to command the Militia Thus the Wolf only desired the Dogs to be divided from the Sheep Thus Alexander would but command the whole World Thus would Calvin only have his Countrey-men and Creatures mingled with the Geneva Senate Thus did Nero desire that Rome might have but one neck And thus the crafty Fryer in the Sumpners tale desired to his dinner only the liver of a Capon and a roasted Pigs-head knowing full well that if he got those he should not want his part of the Pigg and Capon too And thus the Parliament only desired the Militia that they might only command the King and all England All small requests which might have been augmented if the modest Supplicants had had more confidence But an old Scotch Poet would have taught them better manners and discretion if their wicked policy would have given them leisure to have consulted either Morality or Divinity but what is in the Covenant Thou art ane gret fuil soune said he Thyng to desyre quhilk may nocht be This of the Militia though the King deny yet they seize upon it not only in London but in all England and Wales some Countries being so forward at the Parliaments beck that they had begun their Militia assoon as Petitioned for and this before the Queen imbarqued for Holland And what little account they made of the King is visible by their Ordinance for the Militia in which the People are commanded to act nothing but as the Parliament would and that if they did they should be tryed by none but the Parliament and that this should be as long and no longer then the Parliament pleas'd These actions the King might well wonder at which astonishment may be increast when they tell him they can endure no longer his denyals And the same day vindicate those who had armed themselves though contrary to the Kings express Command and Order the day before But the Kings Authority is of no force with these men who proceeded farther by Voting That all Commissions granted under the Great Seal and by the Kings Consent to the Lieutenants in several Counties are illegal and void and that those who act by them shall be disturbers of the Peace But yet that all such persons as shall be nominated by the Parliament shall be cock-sure in their Authority And that their former Ordinance by some Law or other doth oblige the People This the King the same day forbids to be obey'd because against his consent and this command of his the Parliament Votes to be a high breach of the Priviledges of Parliament Thus went or rather ran the sturdy members in opposition to the King as if their malice had exceld Hamilcar's the Carthagenian against the Romans And by this fury they engaged themselves so farre that they thought it not safe to retreat and so brought it to the tryal of the Bloud-thirsty Sword by which was miserably acted The Civil Wars tumultuous Broyls And bloudy Factions of a mighty Land Whose People haughty proud with forraign spoils Upon themselves turn back their conquering hand Whilst Kin their Kin Brother the Brother foils Like-Ensigns all against like-Ensigns Band Bows against Bows against the Crown Whilst all pretending right all Rights fall down Yet for all these and many more miseries of Warr the Parliament could not doubt of many partakers since the Commons had made themselves such a Bug-bear and Terror to the Nation that the power of the King was even shrunk into a Duke of Venice Nor were the Authority and Priviledge of the Peers regarded with any more favourable Aspect being now rather become an other House then a House of Lords If the Peers think it not convenient that the Protestation should be taken all England over the Commons will not only judge the contrary but command it to be done If the Lords Order the Common-Prayer and other Ceremonies confirm'd by act of Parliament to be us'd and read in all Churches in this the Commons will oppose both King and Lords and order the quite contrary and punish those who do not obey them If the Peers refuse to joyn with them to Petition the King for a Guard against the Tumults knowing them to be the fomenters of them They will Petition themselves and think much if the King do deny them though he knew If he gave them an Inch they would take an Ell. If the Lords at first refuse to join with them to obtain the Militia yet will the Commons not only demand it but threaten the dissenting Nobility one of them desiring that a Catalogue might be taken of their names who consented not to them that so they might be known to the Commons Goodly goodly hath not the Peers brought themselves unto a fine pass But I believe they know best whom they may thank for 't Certainly the dapper Commons thought they might as well spurn at King and Lords as the old Gyants fight against Jupiter for I believe from Ovid they took a Scheme of many of their mutations But these men wrought by action as well as words and thoughts which was a high token of the Commons strength who had so much influence amongst the Sectaries a word good enough for him Lord or Clown that takes exception at it and power over the Lords that they gott 9 of the Peers voted never to sit again in Parliament because they were obedient to his Majesty so that Mr. Pym's Item to the Earl of Dover one of
will they allow the Civil Authority to have any thing to do with them or any of their Kirk-actions as I have formerly shew'd in their continual practise and for an assurance take one of their Declared Maxims As the Assembly cannot make Civill Laws nor repeal them nor impede the Parliament from making or repealing Civil Laws No more can the Parliament make Ecclesiastical Laws Originally nor repeal or hinder the Lawful Assemblies to repeal the same For albeit Acts of the Assembly are and may be ratifyed in Parliament that is only that the Civil Sanction may concur with the Ecclesiastical Constitution But will not stop the Assembly to recal their Own Act which being annull'd by them the Civil Ratification falls ex Consequenti For to maintain that the Kirk may not repeal her own Acts ratified once in Parliament is so derogatory to Christs Prerogative and Ordinance to the Liberty of the Kirk and Freedom of the Assembly to the nature and reason of all Ecclesiastical jurisdiction as we have more largely declared in the Protestation 22 September last that we believe few or none will be of that Opinion Nor will they allow the King to Dissolve any of their Juntos with which Impudent humour King Charles I. was sufficiently troubled For having by Proclamation Dissolved their Assembly at Glasgow 1638 They publickly deny his Authority for so doing declaring that It was most unlawful in it self and prejudicial to those Priviledges which Christ in his word hath left to his Church to dissolve or break up the Assembly of this Church or to stop and stay their Proceedings in Constitution of Acts for the welfare of the Church or execution of Discipline against Offenders and so to make it appear that Religion and Church Government should depend absolutely upon the pleasure of the Prince And after this they very solemnly protest against the departure of the Kings Commissioner 'till their humours be satisfyed a sufficient sign of their Presumption to be so malepert with one that represented the Kings Person and Authority but they go on in their boldnesse We again and again do by these presents cite and summon them and every one of them to compeer before this present General Assembly to answer to the premises and to give in their Reasons Defences and Answers against the Complaints given in or to be given against them and to hear Probation sed and Sentence pronounced against them and conform to our former Citations and according to Justice with certification of affairs Like as by these presents we summon and cite all those of his Majesties Council or any other who have procured consented subscribed or ratified this present Proclamation to be responsable to his Majesty and Three Estates of Parliament for their Counsels given them in this Matter so highly importing his Majesty and the whole Realm conform to the 12 Act King James IV. Parliament II. and protest for remedy of Law against them and every one of them Having thus begun to thunder they fall to work though they had no power to act being Dissolved by the Kings Command yet to it they fall in a furious Zeal not stopping at any thing which was once propounded so that in one hour they declar'd six General Assemblies to be null and void In another hour they condemn'd not confuted Armianism In another hour they deprived the Archbishop of St. Andrews and two other Bishops viz. Galloway and Brechen as at other times of that Kirk-Rump all the rest of the Bishops In another hour they declared Episcopal Government to be inconsistent with the Laws of that Church and Kingdom and so abolished it And thus in all haste without fear or wit in a very few dayes they had made almost an hundred Acts sometimes three or four at one time and sometimes more to the utter discredit of their Brethren of our English Assembly who sat hum-druming several years and after all expectations brought forth nothing worth a Mouse But the one was shackled and the other at liberty the one was over-rul'd and aw'd by a Parliamentary Nod but the other would neither be govern'd by God nor Man Though no question had that at London been their own Masters they would have been as hasty as their Brethren An English Covenanter being as good wildfire as any Kirker in Scotland But by this you may guess how deliberate our Northern Seers are how rationall they are that without Archimedes his Engine can skrew up a Government in a moment like those in the Arsenal in Venice who in less than two hours time can make and lanch a compleat Gally But enough of their denying the Kings Authority over them in their Assemblies I shall only give you one of their private Instructions by them carefully sent to some Ministers in every Presbytery in whom they put most special trust Private Instructions Aug. 27. 1638. That the ablest man in every Presbytery be provided to dispute De Potestate Supremi Magistratûs in Ecclesiasticis praesertim in Convocandis Conciliis de Senioribus de Episcopatu de Juramento de Liturgia corruptelis ejusdem How the Saints held these Questions need not be ask'd nor how partially they would go about them for I cannot well say study them When people once dispute Authority practice assures us that they are resolv'd for the Negative and when such questions as these are on purpose propos'd by a byass'd Zealot the Intention is only to confirm people in Opposition The Brethren long before this had found the benefit of such Discourses which made them now trudge in the same way For their seditious Predecessors in the University of St. Andrews insteed of Divinity had thrust up these Politick Questions Whether the Election or Succession of Kings were the better form of Government How farr the Royal Power extended Whether Kings might be censured for abusing the same and depos'd by the Estates of the Kingdom But besides those who expresly deny and fight against the Kings Supremacy his Majesty hath other Enemies to his Authority which are as dangerous amongst the People as any other And these are those who commend his Enemies and so approve their Actions not but that a wicked man in some things might be highly commended for other qualities Thus of one hand I find the great Gustavus Adolphus highly applauded but that he was a Protestant and on the other our Queen Elizabeth's Sister Queen Mary as greatly commended but that she was a Roman-Catholick yet for either of these simply aspersions are not to be cast upon Magistrates or others more inferiour However this hits not our case but the magnifying of those who are really wicked which Epithet let them take offence that will I shall freely bestow upon our Long-Parliament as being the Kings greatest Enemies the only cause of his ruine and the murtherers of many innocent Loyal Gentlemen By these Commendations the People are made to believe that they are all Saints thereby inticing the Countrey to
and the Switzers for a Cart-load of Sheeps-skins And if the Antipathy betwixt the French and Spaniards began upon so slight occasion if you believe mine Authours as because the French were not so gloriously clad as the other at an Interview betwixt Lewis XI and the King of Castile If all this trouble and bloudshed for such trifles why may they not stand stoutly to their Covenant But if they be so stiff for that Oath against all Laws and honesty why may not the Orthodox stick to their King Laws and Church-government by Bishops since the swarving from these things is High-Treason and Schism But enough of this perjur'd and condemn'd Traytor since the judicious Reasons of the famous University of Oxford and that miracle of Learning too untimely snatch'd away the Reverend Dr. Langbaine have put it and its part-takers to a perpetual confusion against whom though I think none of them ever yet durst undertake the Doctor nor could the other be answer'd but with Treason of which enquire more of Mr. Crofton their scribling will not be unlike the Pigmies fighting against Hercules and their crying Victoria to as little purpose as Falstaf's vapouring of his own valour at Gads-Hill Yet since they stand so stifly to the literal sense of this Brat I shall leave one or two Quaeries to their consideration I. Whether those who took the Covenant and there sware to extirpate all Schism do not thereby engage to be like Hoyle their own Executioners II. Whether when they sware to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority and not to diminish his just power and greatness they did keep their Oaths by Voting no more Address to him the Scots by selling him the English by buying him hurrying him from Prison to Prison Imposing upon him strange Conditions contrary to his Prerogative taking from him the Militia acting all without and against his Commands c. If they say they did according to the Covenant Then III. Whether such a wicked Oath is to be allow'd in a Kingdom which permitteth nay I may say commandeth such affronts to be done to Majesty contrary to all the Laws of the Land And if these Actions were against the Covenant then are they perjur'd But it may be I have gone too farr against these People who in their Scotch Assembly at Glasgow by Act forbad any to write or speak against their Covenant And the same did the English Leaguers and what danger it may be to write against their Laws since our own cannot be in force I know not And since a man must not speak ill of the dead whose flaming exspiration was a Type of the Reward befitting to the Imposers This I retort upon that Presbyterian who would have all May-Pole dancers hang'd I shall leave this wicked Covenant only tell them that the Lord Ravenstein under pretence of the binding of his Oath ran into a great Rebellion against his Masters the Emperour Frederick and Maximilian as our Zealots have against their King To conclude the words of James II. King of Scotland are worth your reading Could there be any greater surety for you than to rely on the Laws of the Common-wealth and Countrey especially in a Countrey where Laws and not Faction rule and where a man 's own goodness is able to preserve him But such men as you are raise these Factions to the subversion of all Laws and Authority And for Subjects to make an Offensive and Defensive League against all Persons is to disclaim all Government and do what they please without controlement commit Treason in the highest degree and make your own Swords and Power justifie your proceedings which though you first use against mean persons and conceal the progress of your Actions for there are degrees in evil and wicked men begin at that which seems the least of evils or not an evil at all at the first your last aim is likely to be the Robbing upon the Crown Consider you are born under a Monarchy which admitteth of no Soveraignty but it self and it is natural to Princes to hold it in highest esteem and in no case to suffer it to be shaken by their Subjects Take your Prince for your best protection and an Innocent life Renounce that Union and League and let it not be heard any longer that ever such an unjust Confederation was and so wonted Clemency shall be prefer'd before deserved Justice But 't was the wickedness of this action which made the Zealots love it and therefore order'd that in the Prayers after every Sermon the Minister should give God thanks for the Covenant like John Becold a Taylor of Leyden better known by the Name of John of Leyden who having cruelly cut off the head of one of his Wives made others with himself prayse God and rejoyce for such wickedness The Brethren having thus laid their ground-work for a further Rebellion earnestly exhorts the people to stick close to their former seditious Principles and to be resolute in them Then they advise their Associates in the Parliament to be valiant for their Cause and to endeavour what in them lyeth to oppose and overthrow any thing whatsoever Sacred or Civil which thwarts their Principles And for the better carrying on this Rebellion they engage their Ministry to use what Interest they can with their Parishioners for the affecting of their designs concerning which you shall hear Mr. Crofton himself speak If private men and individual persons who have sworn the Covenant will make Conscience of the Oath of God upon them there can be no probability of a Return and Re-establishment within the compasse of this age of the evils we have sworn to extirpate They being lock'd under a moral impossibility of re-admission or continuance by that publick Parliamentary capacity into which many who have sworn the Covenant are at this time resolved and in which they cannot but know themselves bonnd to endeavour in their places and callings with all sincerity and reality and constancy to extirpate the same and for that others and those not a few as Ministers of the Gospel are bound to the same in their Capacity I am sure the Ministerial rebukes and confutations of the one and publick Parliamentary Debates of the other will lay a very great Remora unto their return Here we have a Peter the Hermit blowing a Trumpet to his Holy-warre And that in such an hasty and resolute fashion that our Presbytery seem to stand upon the very brink of Rabicon only wanting some ill spirit or other to head them and lead them over into a Warr against their own King and Countrymen so prone are they to distruction as if they were again turnd to Heathenism and worship'd the spears those primitive Instruments of Warre as their only God And the Reverend Church of England hath little reason to expect peace at these mens hands now that they cannot obtain their ends when they protest that if they had
that in themselves what they hated in others Witness their accusing the Bishops of Treason for putting in their protestation against the others proceedings seeing they were kept out by violence and tumults And yet when it was after the Commons case the Army expelling them they also put in their Protestation to the same purpose Thus are men oft paid in their own coin But to return to the Convocation which I suppose had as much lawful Power as a Presbyterian Assembly and I am confident have used it with more discretion In what little esteem the Kirkers of Scotland had the civil Authority their own Histories will tell you and in the Scotch troubles before our late Wars it appears by their own Commissioners as if it were the Kirk's right to determine all Ecclesiastical affairs by their Assemblies And it is the opinion of our English Non-conformists declared in their Book of Discipline in Queen Elizabeth's dayes That their Presbyterian Synods are to handle and decide both Doctrine Discipline and Ceremonies of the Church and accordingly were all their actions steered The House of Commons having thus voted against the Convocation made it a Coy-duck to draw in the rest of their designs And in the first place they fall heavy upon the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as a promoter of the former Canons and so accuse him of high-Treason though as then they had laid no Articles against him but promised to do it to the Lords upon which he was secured and the third day after was fined five hundred pounds which he was forced to borrow and to sell plate to repay it such a liberal Benefactor was he to the advancement of Learning that he left himself nothing and if the severe stroke of injustice had not untimely sequestrated and cut him off Saint Paul's Cathedral had silenced the fame of the ancient wonders our English Clergy had been the glory of the World the Bodleian in Oxford had daily more and more out-stript the Vatican and his publick Structures had ore'topt the Escurial and all this by his own munificence in which he so far excelled his neighbours that he was not unlike the good Emperor Titus Vespasian whose liberal soul made him think that he had lost that day in which he had not given something The next day that they accused the Arch-bishop they also accused Bishop Wren of the same crime And a little after voted highly against the Learned and Reverend as the French Churches beyond sea can testifie Dr. Cousins and the next day receive Petitions against Dr. Duck and Sir John Lamb. And a week after received a Remonstrance pretended to be loaden with seven hundred Ministers hands against Bishops the which if true yet that number bears no proportion with above nine thousand which were the number of our English Clergy and however it was Mr. Selden himself did declare that very day that the House of Comons had nothing to do with Church-affairs in that nature And reason tels us that it is not only hard but unjust that men should be accused for acting according to the known Laws of the Land they not being as then repealed But what care the Commons for this seeing they are resolved come what will of it to have Sir Jack Presbyter to bear the sway and therefore they fall heavy upon Episcopal government and after a whole day's debate the Majority against both Law and Reason did agree to take away Lordly Prelacy their medling with temporal affairs their jurisdictions and Courts and a great part of their Means and Estates and afterwards inlarged upon these things And that the Country might not be ignorant also of their enmity to Church government they therefore appoint Commissioners to go into all places of the Kingdom and there remove all Altars Images and Rayls about the Communion-table and sell them and punish those who shall endeavour to set them up again Nor was this all but they also question Sir John Lamb and Sir Nathaniel Brent for getting Organs repair'd and setting up some new Organs in Churches Though I do not know against what Law these two Gentlemen had offended though I know against what the latter did afterwards And having gon thus far away they in a fury hurry Arch bishop Laud to the Tower whither he was followed and rail'd at by the then significant rabble of the Anti-church-government Puppies And some few dayes after they appointed a forsooth Committee for Religion of ten Earls ten Bishops and ten Barons by which means the Lay-votes were not only double to the Clergy but in fine none of the latter left they knowing now their own intentions and power so far that they were more then confident to have the Clergy-men in short time to be but as Ciphers To obtain which they endeavoured all ways that malice or industry could propose to them And as a means to encourage others to oppose Bishops and Church-government they not only released the scribling fire-brands of the Nation as Burton Prynn Leighton Lilburn c. but also as a reward for their good service voted them many thousand pounds a piece And the next week fined the Members of the Convocation house two hundred thousand pounds And afterwards voted that not only the Bishops but all other Clergy-men that did either send their Proxies or execute the said Canons were guilty But if the Lords have a Religious Committee the Commons must have one too or else they think themselves out-vapoured And so they jumble up a Company of Ministers together giving them authority to consult the Canons and Liturgy and also to draw up a plat-form or model for Reformation to be setled in the Kingdom and by what rule these men were to work is no difficult business to collect from the Commons Votes some few dayes after that it was necessary to have an Uniformity of Religion with Scotland as also from their kindness to the Armed Covenanters not long before by Voting for them 300000 pounds with the goodly title of Brethren And all this because they march'd into England with a numerous Army protesting swearing and fighting against Episcopal Government for that was the thing now also aimed at in England so that Mr. Pym speaks the hearts of others as well as his own when he reproved one of the Lords saying That it was not enough to be against the Persons of the Bishops if he were not against the Function And according to this Maxim the Commons by their former Votes having made the way more facile boldly Vote the Government of the Church of England by Archbishops Bishops Chancellors Deans Archdeacons c. to be prejudicial to both Church and State and the next day Voted also that from that time there should be no such things as Archbishops Bishops c. in England Nor was this all but presently after they also expunged all Deans
would weep pray bemoan and call upon God till he had destroy'd him to whom he seem'd most friendly so that in this he seem'd to be typified by Alete in the Italian Heroick Poem Alete è l'un che da principio indegno Tra le brutture de la Plebe è sorto Ma l'innalzaro à i primi honor del Regne Parlar facondo e lusinghiero e scorto Pieghevoli costumi e vario ingegno Al finger pronto à l'ingannare accorto Gran fabro di calunnie adorne in modi Novi che sono accuse e paion lodi Alete from the basest Rabble came From a vile Clown's unworthy loyns being sprung Yet did he rise unto the greatest Name By a dissembling lying cunning tongue His temper to all humours could he frame And by his craft and lyes blanch o're all wrong A great back-biter but in such quaint wayes As whom h'accuseth most he seems to praise Nor may we be branded with want of Charity if we suspect his Religion to be as true as he pretended for that he confided more in the sharpness of his Sword than the right of his Cause is evident from his swerving from all his Oaths Protestations and Promises for the advantage of his own Interest in which he was not unlike Argante in the former Poet who D'ogni Dio sprezzator eche ripone Ne la spada sua legge e sua ragione Did scorn and spurn at God and would afford Nor Law nor Reason but his bloudy Sword Yet for all his Valour and Knavery as Piedro Messia admires the sodain rise of Julius Caesar so may I of Oliver considering he had not only the Royalists his Enemies and Experience tells us and a Venetian well observeth he was the greatest that ever the King had but also the Presbyterians to both which Cromwel's Faction was but a handful yet may this wonder be somewhat lessen'd by considering that the Parliament and Non-conformists had done formerly the main drudgery of the work to his hands Many Articles was he sworn to observe contain'd in the Book of Government which with his Oath were afterwards alter'd by The Advice As he gain'd his Government by bloud and craft so did he keep it cutting off all people whom he the least suspected and toleing the people along to their own slavery and destruction as the Pyed Pyper did the Children and Rats of Hamel in Brunswick some four years he protected it giving Laws to and dissolving Parliaments at pleasure a thing which he and his Creatures formerly judged most wicked But many men commend themselves in that for which they despise others And thus shall I leave Oliver with Nostradamus his Praediction above a hundred years ago Le Roy des Isles sera chassé par force Mis à son Lieu qui de Roy n'aura signe A King of Islands shall be bannish'd and An upstart Jack by force shall rule the Land Oliver being thus wafted away in a whirlwind his Son Richard as the Father had appointed succeeded to whom all the Armies of the three Nations with some others shoal with innumerable Addresses pittifully lamenting the death of his Father whom they profainly honour with all the good titles they could pick out of the Holy Scriptures protesting to stand by him and professing and acknowledging their happiness under his Rule But for all these their Asseverations he had not govern'd prudently piously faithfully to his immortal honour as his great friend and admirer Mr. Baxter saith long but they by the contrivance of Lambert and others having weakned his Party by forcing him to dissolve his Parliament thrust him out of the Throne too by which action as Mr. Baxter saith he was very ill used The Officers of the Army having thus sleighted him command all things by their Consultations at Wallingford-House and from thence issued forth a Declaration to recal the Rump again who the next day accordingly met And this forsooth was by them call'd the Good old Cause but why it should be honour'd with that Epethite I know no more than why the wicked sin of Sodomie should be commended by Johannes Casa These men having Triumph'd for about half a year a great jealousie grew betwixt them and their Army For Lambert returning to London proud with his pretty Conquest over Sir George Booth instigated his Red-coats to Petition the Parliament for a General and then he knew how to act his part as well as Cromwell did in 1648 But the cunning Rumpers smelling the design Voted this grand Office as in a single Person to be needless chargeable and dangerous which denyal of theirs was so farr from danting the Resolved Commanders who knew that if they were now baffled their ruine by Rump-craft would soon follow who made no more use of the Parliament nor the Members of the Army then they would serve for one anothers Interests and so after several Consultations at Wallingford House publickly desired a Chief Commander again in their Representation delivered by Gyant Desborough The Rump perceiving the Army resolute and fearing a change of Government enact it Treason for any to raise Moneys but by their consent and the next day their disease being desperate Vote Lambert and the chief of his Faction out of Commission and appoint seven Commissioners over the Army Fleetwood being Lieutenant-General a man of an easie disposition and so apt to be both cozened and commanded But this hindred nothing the Armies prosecution of their own designs who to requite the good turn done them by the Rump turn'd them out of Authority leaving us without any Government only appointing Fleetwood Commander in Chief whose soft nature made him imploy'd by both Factions wanting wit of himself to do any man any harm yet as a Cyfer could add something to the number The Rump being now defunct and the Army-Lords Paramount are continued some days without any Form of Government but those Ranters at Wallingford-House who at last constituted ten pure Youths to carry on the affairs of the State But the glory of these Decemviri lasted not long being null'd by their Lords and Masters the Army so unconstant were their actions who order'd another Model of Government under the pretty Title of The Committee of Safety consisting of Twenty three Brethren in Iniquity all people of great pretended Sanctity though their villany made some think that Hell was broke loose and sat in Council in a place built for their betters The Committee of Safety who now appointed a pack of Beagles to hunt after some Form of Government from Utopia Atlantis the fairy Country or some Terra incognita or other provided there should be no such thing as King-ship continued not long in any peaceable condition For General Monk hating the Tyranny of the English Army opposed their proceedings which occasioned Lambert with some tatterdemallions to march Northwards the same day that the wicked Long-Parliament
order the same they deny its obligation when King Charles I desires any thing by order then they refuse also affirming that such things cannot stop the force of Laws Yet when his present Majesty by Proclamation gratiously giveth a kind of toleration then they take hold of it and will stand by it let the Act of Conformity say what it will to the contrary And indeed his Majesty is greatly beholden to them thus to testifie their Obedience It being the first time that ever they comply'd with King or Command in matters of Religion Nor is their present obedience upon any vertue or stress of the Command but that it is agreeable to their wills Balthassar Cossa and other Cardinals being at Bologna to choose a Pope several they named but none could content Cossa wherefore they desired him to nominate whom he would whereupon he declared that he would be Pope himself and so was chosen and nominated John XXIII After this manner do our Presbyterians no King Law Councill Convocation or any thing else can please them but what is of their own election or beneficial to their own designes When themselves make a Covenant then they will swear for uniformity and the ruine of those who do not agree with them But if the King and laws demand unity then they are for liberty of Conscience yet if the Anabaptists Independents c. being then in supremacy plead and allow that liberty then they cry out that the Church is undone for want of Government Though now being not Lords and Maisters they are against such a settlement and stick to that license granted by the Kings Declaration which though but temporary yet will they never quit its Freedome till they be come Conquerors again by Rebellion let King and Parliament act what they will to the contrary and in this I am confirm'd by an expression in one of their Grandees We doubt not but his Majesty will appoint such persons to review our Liturgy as will agree in one which shall not be liable to just Exceptions TILL THAT TIME HIS MAJESTY GRANTS A LIBERTY What arguments these Resolute hot-spurrs will make out of just exceptions and the last words till that time his Majesty grants a liberty may very easily be suspected and I am confident the event will shew to be most seditious pleading the Kings Declaration against their Future Conformity though the King Parliament and Convocation agree on the contrary Thus will they act like the Bitch in Justine which desired the benefit of a place to whelp in which being granted begs of the Shepherd liberty also to bring up her young there this being performed too then confidently demands for the future a propriety in that Kennell But these men might know that Agesilaus the great King of the Lacedemonians us'd to condiscend to the pleasuring of his Son when a Child by riding with him on an Hobby-horse and what liberty our King grants to consciences that are truly tender cannot handsomly be laid hold on by these wicked Incendiaries whose abominable actions proclaim them to have no Conscience unlesse it be to commit mischief If these men will not allow liberty to the Episcopal Clergy I know no reason they should have it themselves as for the first 't is plain of which take some examples Where you have the kneeling at the Sacrament call'd an horrible stumbling block and that the kneeler is a Thief and in the same place tells the people that if none would communicate with the Ring-leaders and Introducers they would be forced to desist and had desisted long ago for shame Nay he goeth farther and tells them that though they receive much good and comfort by the Common-prayer yet they sin if they go to it And fairly assures us that we are bound to oppose the Liturgy for otherwise the Superiours will be embolden'd to sin whilst they think that to be lawfully imposed which is by us received and obeyd Mr. Matthew Newcomen now a great man amongst them and an old Smecty M Nuan when the Presbyterians were top and top gallant if I mistake not preach'd a Sermon against Toleration And one of their great Pulpit-teers of Scotland publickly told our House of Lords that Liberty of Conscience is no remedy but Physick worse then the Disease And in the same temper were this mans Country men when they cry'd out God defend all those who will defend Gods cause and God confound the Service-Book and all the maintainers of it And this was the heat of the Scotch people at the beginning of their Covenant turning out all those that would not subscribe it though contrary to the Kings command They presently expell'd two Regents from the Colledge of Edinburgh for not taking it In Fyfe they order'd a Communion throughout their Churches at which they made every one to swear not to subscribe any thing but their Covenant Nor were there few Ministers in that Kingdom not subscribers of their Covenant whom they did not presently process and cite before their several Presbyteries and others were kept from their Priviledges Nor was this all One of their Ministers refused to pray for Sir William Nesbett late Provost of Edinburgh when he was lying upon his Death-bed only because he had not subscribed their Covenant Another pray'd God to scatter them all in Israel and to divide them in Jacob who had counsell'd the King to require the Confession of Faith to be subscribed by His Authority Many would not admit to the Communion those who had not subscribed their Covenant Others would not suffer children to be baptized in the Churches of those Ministers who were out of the Covenant though they were their own Parish-Churches but carryed them sometimes many miles to be baptized by Covenanting-Ministers One preach'd That all the Non-subscribers of the Covenant were Atheists and so concluded that All the Lords of the Kings Council and all the Lords of the Session were such because none of them had subscrib'd it Another preach'd That as the wrath of God never was diverted from his people until the seven Sons of Saul were hang'd up before the Lord in Gibeon so the wrath of God would never depart from Scotland till the twice seven Prelates the number of the Bishops in that Kingdom were hang'd up before the Lord there Another preach'd That though there were never so many Acts of Parliament against the Covenant yet it ought to be maintain'd against them all Another deliver'd in his Sermon That the bloudiest and sharpest Warr was rather to be endured than the least Error in Doctrine and Discipline And another of these Bloud-Hounds in his Pulpit thus furiously wished That he and all the Bishops in that Kingdom were in a bottomless Boat at Sea together for he could be well content to lose his life so they might lose theirs And what do you think of another of these Furies who affirm'd that Every man ought to be
excommunicated that took not the Covenant and then any man might lawfully kill him who would put himself to so much trouble as to do it But we need not trouble our selves much by a recital of their words since their actions all along in that Kingdom were furiously hurryed on against Episcopacy or the Toleration of any thing that did thwart their Covenant And after this manner have we in England proceeded the Brethren thinking it impossible for any thing to thrive unless Episcopacy be pluck'd up root and branch of which take the words of Crofton I 'le stand by it It i. e. Episcopacy must be extirpated if King and Kingdom or Peace and Glory must be preserved from Gods angry extirpation It it not unknown to any that is conversant in their Writings and Sermons How for many years together they thundred before their Parliament the ruine of Episcopal Government pronouncing sad woes and judgements if any such things were tolerated which highly stir'd up the people of both Houses to act so fiercely against all Law and Reason for the maintenance of their wicked Covenant and Presbytery allowing no more mercy to the Orthodox Clergy than a Jew who sometimes might breathe amongst them but not do any thing in satisfaction of their Consciences These men being then Supream being against neutrality in Religion as well as Warr concerning which thus their Chieftains of both Kingdoms declare We give now publick warning to such Persons to rest no longer upon their Neutrality or to please themselves with the naughty and slothful pretext of Indifferency But that they address themselves speedily to take the Covenant and joyn with all their power in the defence of this Cause against the common Enemy and by their zeal and forwardness hereafter to make up what hath been wanting through their luke-warmness This they shall finde to be their greatest wisdom and safety Otherwise we do declare them to be publick Enemies to the Religion and Countrey and that they are to be censured and punished as profess'd Adversaries and Malignants Nor had they only the Solemn League but another Covenant as full of Treason and Wickedness as ever was invented by Satan and the refusers of this and none could take it but such wretches as themselves they Ordered to be dealt withall as Conspirators and Enemies and their Estates disposed of accordingly And besides this their Lords and Commons put forth another Oath stuft with non-sense for the preservation of themselves and their City with the power granted to seize upon the persons of all such as refused the said Oath Thus had these Puritans several gins laid to ruine the Orthodox and Loyal Subjects I might here tell of their giving Sir William Brereton and his Cheshire Associates Authority to turn out all the Ministers and School-Masters of that County who were for the King I might tell how they order'd every man upon his peril to submit to the destruction of Fonts Surplisses Organs painted Glass-windows c. I can also tell you how their Lords and Commons Ordain'd That if any Person or Persons shall use or caus'd to be used the Common-Prayer-Book That then every such person so offending therein shall for the first offence forfeit and pay the sum of five pounds For the second offence the sum of ten pound and for the third offence shall suffer one whole years Imprisonment without Bail or Main-prize And it is further Ordain'd That every Minister which shall not hence-forth pursue and observe the Directory for publick Worship according to the true intent and meaning thereof in all Exercises of the Publick Worship of God shall for every time that he shall so offend lose and forfeit the sum of forty shillings And that what person soever shall with intent to bring the said Directory into contempt and neglect or to raise opposition against it Preach Write Print or cause to be written or printed any thing in the derogation or depraving of the said Book or any thing therein contain'd or any part thereof shall lose and forfeit for every such offence such a sum of Money as shall at the time of his Conviction be thought fit to be imposed upon him by those before whom he shall have his Tryal provided that it be not less than five pounds nor exceeding the sum of fifty pounds I could also tell you how they turn'd out the learned and loyal Clergy and put into their places a company of Rebellious Schismatical Tub-thumpers such people being most advantagious for their turns and how they Order'd that if any of the Loyal Clergy endeavour'd to get their own again they should with all their friends and assisters be Imprisoned whereby many of them were forced to beg for their livings And many such like actions as these might be shewn whereby their malice appear'd visibly against the Episcopal Party and against the Toleration of any thing but their Rebellious Covenant and Schismatical Presbytery One of them tells us that This very Toleration hath been the principal cause of all our late Innovations Dislocations and Conflagrations And That no Orthodox sincere Christian can or dare cordially Ingage or bid God speed to the proceedings of Supream Power so long as they intend to allow a General Toleration of Errors and false Opinions How many Petitions were there yearly put up in behalf of the Covenant and that nothing should be allow'd but according to that League endeavouring what in them lay to raze out the very thoughts of Episcopacy And yet these men are now angry that they have not publick allowance for their sins If the Episcopal Clergy desire that they may have priviledge of Conscience according to the Laws of the Land Baxter blesseth himself and wonders they can have the confidence to ask such a favour and tells them that this denyal is so farr from being a Persecution that it is rather done for their greatest honour and accommodation For if you of the Episcopal Clergy should have liberty it would be the greatest blow that ever was given to your Government and the reason is because You would have a small Clergy and none of the best and the People in most Parishes that are most ignorant drunken profane unruly For the cause of their love to Episcopacy is because it was a shadow if not a shelter to the profane heretofore so that a Prelatical Church would in the common account be near kin to an Alehouse or Tavern to say no worse where some honest men may be and yet it is taken for the note of an honest sober man to be as little in them as may be 'T was the fashion of Andreas Ordogna that famous Painter of Florence to paint all his Enemies in Hell And what less malice Baxter and his Associates have against the Episcopal Clergy may in part be seen by their actions and railing and what reason they have now besides their Impudence to expect and demand a
accident though false will force the poor souls to a blessing of themselves from such people against whom God hath such an enmity Thus at the beginning of the Warres John Vicars afrighted many of the weaker sort from having any agreement with the Kings party by fobbing into their heads strange stories of Gods wrath against Cavaliers And thus they now set themselves awork again by abusing the vulgar with such fopperies What strange judgments do they threaten to these Nations if Episcopacy and Common-prayer book be not taken away And what sad Revolutions do they denounce if they be not remov'd To which purpose Mr. Ed. Bagshaw one now well known amongst the Brethren hath lately put forth a Sermon enough to make a whole Country distracted And to carry on this great work the dropping Anabaptist and Millenary make a great noise in which Throng H. Jessey holding up his ridiculous Pamphlet The Lords loud Call to England which is seconded by another forging zealot under the title of Mirabilis Annus both which are as free from truth as Tom. Scot from chastity here you may be as long finding a true story as Diogenes an honest man in Athens In both which books to my own knowledge and eye-sight are some most abominable lies and forgeries that were but St. Quintin now alive to pull them by their Noses those parts would soon fall off and leave the Sectaries mark'd for lyers Not unlike one Harris a Gold-smith who in the straits of Magellan going to blow his Nose instead of the snot threw the nose into the fire so violent was the cold and so Antony Knivet drew his benumm'd toes off with his frozen stockens But I hope Jessey and the rest of his Sectarian Associates will have no more influence upon the people than He Knolls and others of his Club had over the old blind woman neer Algate in London who by their anointing with oil thought to restore her to sight But alas these Dreamers can do no miracles unlesse like the two Priests of Orleance by deceipt and cunning But of these things I could pay them in their own coin if I thought it worth the while I could tell them of a great Lord a mortall enemy to Bishops and Cathedrals who March 1640. told some other Lords I hope one of us shall live to see no one stone left upon another of that Building meaning St. Pauls And after going to storm Lichfield-Close being all compleatly armed was in March 1643. shot in the left eye by a Gent. that was both dumb and deaf and which is also observeable he was thus slain upon St. Ceddes day who is the Patron of that Cathedral I could also tell them of Col. Hambdens being slain in that very place where he first took up Arms against the King I could also tell them of Mr. Tho. Hoyle Alderman of York and a Parliament man who hang'd himself in his own House at Westminster upon the same day and hour twelve-month that the King was murdered I could also tell them the rumours of Essex's death the storys of Pyms eating-disease and how the Lord Gray welterd in his own blood I could tell them of Mr. Hall of St. Needs in Huntingtonshire who hang'd himself of Sr. Tho. Martin of Cambridg-shire who said that he had rather wash his hands in the blood of the young King of Scots then in the Deer then slain and the same day brake his skull and shoulders of which he died I could tell them of one adventuring to climb up to pull down Cheap-side Cross slipt his hold and falling with his ribbs upon the Iron pikes wounded himself to death I could tell of another that endeavouring to tear down the Organs at Worcester fell down upon the Pavement broke his bones and dyed I could tell of another who had his hand shiver'd to pieces by the breaking and splitting of his gun as he endeavour'd to shoot at the similitude of Christ over All-souls Coll. gate in Oxford and of another who thinking to do the same at Martin Colledge had one of his eies blown out and the other little better I could tell the Anabaptists of one Anne Martin and another woman who got their deaths by the new mode of dipping And I could tell the Quaker how Lieutenant Thomas lately poyson'd himself and of a woman of his Tribe endeavouring to do miracles fell presently mad And as for the Presbyterians I could tell them a story of a great Preacher of their Faction viz. Mr. Barker of Pitchley in Northamptonshire and was by them held a godly man who was publickly hang'd for incest and murder who defil'd his Niece and had the child murdred which he had by her And let them consider the temperature of Dr. Cheynell But 't is a mark upon all this Fraternity to be hot-headed which doth make good the Description of a Puritan made long since by Dr. Butler of Cambridge viz. A Puritan is a Protestant frayd out of his witts I shall say nothing of Mary Gadbury a great Follower of Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Case then of Goodwin and Jessey nor what pretty pranks she plaid to prove her self to be the Virgin Mary nor of Mr. Woodward Minister and his Wife great actors in that story yet it will not be amisse if I tell you one Covenanting passage On the same day that Mr. Joseph Caryll preach'd to exhort the people to the taking of the Covenant This following Bill was given to him to be read and praid for One that through much passion oftentimes grievously offends the Majesty of God by cursing and swearing And that since his late TAKING THE COVENANT desires the Prayers of this Congregation that his Offence may be pardoned and that he may be enabled to overcome that temptation from hence forwards Let Mr. Caryl make what interpretation he pleaseth the Reader must have as much power to judge as he Should I be as impertinent as these men I could give them story for story as long as they would and yet it may be scarce a true judgment of either side though highly fancyed so to be by the people Like the Country fellow who thought that the Astronomer taking the height of something with his Jacobs staffe had shot down the starre which by chance then fell as we usually say Tom Coryat tells a story of a fellow that mending a Clock in Venice and being very busie about the Bell at the same time one of the great men of Brasse that us'd to strike the Quarters of the hours with his great brazen hammer gave him such a violent blow that he knock'd him dead on the place should I tell the Brethren that this man was a Roman Catholick they would cry out a great judgment of God upon a Member of Anti-christ But 't is ridiculous to make every accident a judgment and 't is unchristian to question that God doth not sometimes manifestly revenge himself and cause