Commons which I wish all men would remember how affectionately he desired it to hasten to relieve that bleeding Kingdom yet still they protracted and neglected their redresse and at last passed such Votes made such Orders and procured such Acts as rather respected themselves and their posterity to get all the land and goods of the Rebels to themselves that were the Adventurers than the relieving of us that were distressed and would as I told some of the House of Commons rather increase the Rebellion than any wayes quench that destroying flame And this was as it succeeded and as you see hereby most likely intended a most detestable Plot for the kindling of that Rebellion and continuing of that bloody War in Ireland without which they knew this Rebellion in England could never have gained so much strength as it hath 2. By their large expression of what Religion they protested to defend 2. To gain all Sectaries to their side not the Protestant Religion as it is established by Law and expressed in the 39. Articles of the Church of England but as it is repugnant to Popery and taught perhaps by Burton Burges Goodwin Burrows or the like Amsterdamian Schismaticks they opened the gap so wide and made Heaven-gate so broad that all Brownists Anabaptists Socinians Familists Adamites and all other New-England-brood and Out-landish Sectaries whatsoever that opposed Popery might return home and joyn with them as they have done since to overthrow our established Church and State And this Plot to increase their own strength was as craftily done and is as Detestable as the other which to weaken the King in England caused a Rebellion in Ireland 3. By their illegall compelling 3. To descry their own strength and forcible inducing of all the people in the Kingdom to take the same or to be adjudged ill-affected and popish and after the Lords had rejected the imposing of it they by their Declaration which shewed That what person soever would not take it was unfit to bear Office either in Church or Common-wealth prevailed in this Plot so that they descryed the number of their own Party they understood their own strength and they perceived thereby many things which they knew not before for now they had with David numbred Israel and so far as the wit and policy of the Devil had instructed them they had searched into the secrets of all hearts 4. Having compelled the people to take it 4. To insnare all the simpler sort to adhere unto them they have hereby insnared all the simpler sort and tender consciences to stick unto them when they tell them and presse it upon their souls That they have made a Protestation to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the Subject and therefore they are bound to adhere to the Parliament to the uttermost of their power and so by this equivocall Protestati n they have seduced thousands into their Rebellion and led them blindfold unto destruction But to let you see not the sincerity of their hearts The mystery of their iniquity but the mystery of their iniquity by this their Protestation you shall never find them urge it unto others or remembring it themselves For the defence of the Kings Person Crown or Dignity or for the liberty of any Subject but only such Subjects as will be Rebels with them For how can they be said to defend any of these when they do their very best to destroy His Person and deprive him of all his Royal Dignities and to plunder and imprison all true Subjects for being true Subjects unto their King Whereby you see how these Rebels are likewise perjured and have weaved this Protestation like a Spiders web That the rebels are all perjured through which themselves might passe when they pleased and like Vulcans Net to catch the simpler sort to adhere most eagerly to their Designs and so it is but a circle of all subtilties and not unwittily questioned An protestatio Parliamentaria deterior sit juramento cum c. For if there be any thing injoyned to be done by that Protestation which was unlawful to be done before the Protestation was taken it is no more to be justified by that Act than any other unlawful thing is by a rash and wicked vow and it ought not to be urged to do mischief and if there be nothing to be injoyned thereby but what was every mans duty before there was but small need to draw any argument from any Protestation but if they intended to draw men from the duty of alleageance to which they were legally sworn all men understood to do somewhat which the ignorant did not understand then such a voluntary Protestation might do the deed for they have protested to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament And yet the wisest of us now may justly protest we cannot tell what those Priviledges are or how far they should extend in the judgement of the House of Commons for they are multiplied like the Rats of Egypt And as Pharaohs lean Kine did eat up all his fat Cows Priviledges of Parl. multiplyed and are like Pharaohs kine so these meager Priviledges have eaten up all our goodly Laws And therefore the unlimited universality of these Priviledges in the Protestation extending it self as far as the caetera in the Canonical Oath was but a mischievous plot in the Contrivers to catch the simple to adhere unto them And it is a madness in any man that hath legally sworn to defend the King's Person Crown and Dignity which he knoweth and hath irregularly protested to maintain the Priviledges of Parliament which he knoweth not immediately to draw his sword against his known Soveraign or to Rebel against his well-known lawful Authority in the behalf of some thing he knoweth not what but is told by these men It is a Priviledge of Parliament O ye unwise among the people When will you understand Who hath bewitched you that you should not believe the truth CHAP. VII Sheweth how the Faction was inraged against our last Canons What manner of men they chose in their new Synod And of six special Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ which under false pretences they have already done 3. The condemning of our last Canons 3. FOr the Canons that were last made I must confess my self and many others of my Brethren were very averse unto our sitting to make any at that time yet many Reasons were shewed us that we might sit and we had the Judges of the Common-Laws opinion under their hands shewed us for the legality of our sitting and conclude such Canons as might be for the glory of God and the good of his Church but of those that are made though I assure my self the worst of them is not so ill as they alleadge nor near so bad as most I might say the best of their illegall Orders yet there were many of us that never gave our votes
noctem Homer Il. 〈◊〉 It beseems not a Prince to take a sound sleep all night long Quint. Curt. as Alexander did on that night when he was on the next very day to fight with Darius Which might have lost him the field Ezech. 2.9 had not his fortune been better then his fore-sight For God puts a Scroule into every Prince his hand semblable to that schedule of Ezechiel wherein all their charge and duties are set down at large with this inscription Gesta illos in sinu Bear all these alwaies in thy bosome and let them never depart one of thy mind and as the Egyptians Hieroglyphic painted Oculum cum Sceptro an Eye with the Crown or Scepter to betoken a prudent Prince so should every King have an eye in his head as well as a Scepter in his hand or a Crown upon his head and to use Vigilance as well as Authority over his people And so Augustus Caesar that found Rome of brick and left it of Marble The great care of August Caesar for the good of the Common-weâ—lth is made famous by the Historians for his great and extraordinary care and vigilancy which he alwaies used for the good of his Empire when as he gave himself no rest nor suffered any one day to pass over his head in quo non aliquid legeret aut scriberet aut declamaret but he either read or writ or made some speech unto the people and when he heard of a certain Gentleman of Rome that was very deeply indebted and yet slept most securely without care to pay his debts and without fear of any danger he desired that he might buy the bed A careless Gentleman whereupon he rested because the debts that he stood bound for both to God and to the Common-wealth would never suffer him to sleep so secure when as it is ars artium the chiefest of all arts and the heardest of all things to Rule and Govern an unruly people so difficult that the Prophet David compares it to the appeasing of the raging Seas saying Thou stillest the rage of the Sea and the noise of his waves and the madness of his people because as Seneca saith Nullum morosius animal nec majori arte tractandum quà m subtilis homo There is not any living creature so froward and so hard to be tamed and ruled as a suttle and crafty man Reges fatui quibus similes But those Kings and Princes that think the Common-wealth to be made for them and not themselves for the Common-wealth and do spend their time not much better then that Romans Emperour who when he was in his privy Chamber sported himself in catching flies and to pull out their eyes with a pin for which he became so ridiculous that oâ—tentimes when any demanded Who was with the Emperour his servants would answer ne musca quidem truely not a flie they are said to be tanquam simiae in tecto like Apes on the top of a house that delight themselves to spoil and to untile the house And God made them Kings and appointed them for other ends and not to destroy his people as many Tirants do which we deserved for being so unthankfull to God and so undutifull to our King that was so pious and so gentle like King David and so good as the best that ever England had Lesson 2 2. As King David spent not his time like Domitian in catching of flies nor like Heliogabalus in following after his pleasures That king Davids chiefest care was for Religion and to promote the service of God but like Scipio and Augustus for the good of his Kingdom So here you may see the chiefest good he aimed at was to erect an House and a House of Beauty and Majesty for the Majesty of the God of Heaven for his thoughts conceived it not a sufficient discharge of his duty to provide for the peace of his Kingdom and the happiness of the Civill State unless he did also take a speciall care for the honor and service of God and see the works of Piety performed as well and rather then the duties of equity and civility for he understood it full well that God ordained Kings to be not only Reges murorum for the preservation and defence of walls and Cities and the outward prosperity of their people but also Reges sacrorum to see the holy duties of Religion and Gods worship duly performed And therefore as God had made him a Monarch over men and had given him an House of Cedars so he was desirous to become the Priest of God and to build him an House for his service What all kings and Princes ought to do And this should be a good lesson for all other Kings and Princes to imitate this good and godly King in the like sweet harmony of pollicy and piety and to have a greater care to provide for the Ark of God then for the Kings Court because Religion is the basis and pillar that must bear up their Kingdoms And therefore all good Kings ought not only with Moses to rescue their people and to set them at liberty from the Egyptian bondage and out of the hands of Vsurping Tyrants as our gratious King hath now done or with Sampson to fight for them against the forces of the Philistines Judges 15. or with Augustus to make their Cities abound with all kind of prosperity or with Ezechias to set up an exchequer for silver and gold and pretious stones 2 Chron. 32.27 and for shields and store-houses for to keep Wheat and Wine and Oyl and stables for Horses and all Beasts of service that is to strengthen their Kingdoms with Meat Money and Ammunition and all other necessaries both for War and Peace but they ought also with David to bring home the Ark of the Lord into the House of God 2 Sam. 6.17 and to set Levites to do the servâ—ce of the Tabernacle that is good and godly Ministers and Bishop 〈◊〉 attend the Church and to teach the people 1 Chron. 16.4 and 37 c. and with King Asa to overthrow the Idols and Altars and all other monuments of Idolatry and false worship of God 1 Reg. 15.12 and with Jehu to slaughter all the Priests of Baal and to root out all Heretical Schismatical and false teachers from the Church of Christ 2 Reg. 10.25 And to make this more apparant and clear That all good kings Princes ought to preserve and to promote Gods true Religion that all good Kings and Princes ought to take care of Religion and to see that Gods service should be duly exercised within their Dominions you shall find that when through the profaneness and negligence of King Saul to discharge his duty and the desidiousness and carelesseness of the Priests and Levites many abuses crept into the Church as the Tabernacle was broken and lost the Ark of God was out of the Temple out of
that it might be admired for the beauty and majesty of it Josephus Antiq. l. 15. c. ult especially after that Herod sirnamed the Great had repaired inlarged and so magnificently beautified the same Mark 13.1 so that one of his disciples in admiration of the work saith to Christ Master See what manner of stones and what buildings are here Matth. 24.1 And the Jews tell him that it was forty six years in building Joh. 2.20 before it was brought to that perfection which Zorobabel did unto it Joseph Antiq. l. 11. c. 4. Cum inchoatum erat in secundo anno Cyri qui regnavit annis 30. Et post eum Cambyses regnavit annis 8. Et absolutum erat Darii Histaspis anno 9. Et sic dempto primo anno Cyri remanent anni sicut Judaei dicunt 46. For of this Temple the Jewes here do speak as Theophlact Tolet and Calvin do observe Exod. 23.17 34.23 24. To this Temple and Metropolitan-Church the Jews were all required to meet and to appear before the Lord to do him service three times every year and because these times were too seldom and the waies too far for them to come from all the parts of Jury any oftner they had from time to time many Synagogues and Chappels Act. 13.27 c. 15.21 like our Parochiall Churches wherein they might publickly meet as they did every Sabbath to serve the Lord and because this Cathedrall Church the Temple of the High Priest though very large and spacious Origo earum tempore captivitatis Babylonicae cepit Sigon de rep l. â— c. 8. yet was not sufficient to contain the many thousands of people that were in the great City of Jerusalem they had very many Synagogues set up in this City and Paulus Phagius recounteth no less then 400 of them And Sigonius saith there were 480. And out of Jerusalem they had many Synagogues in other Cities and Provinces as there were Synagogues in Galilee Matth. 4.23 Synagogues in Damascus Sigon de repuh Heb l. 2. c. 8. Maimon in Typhil c. 11. Sect. 1. ex Goodw. Act. 9.2 Synagogues at Salamis Act. 13.5 Synagogues at Antioch Act. 13.14 And their Tradition is saith Maimonides that wheresoever ten men of Israel were there ought to be built a Synagogue and the Jews acknowledged it a great favour and were very thankfull to any man that built them any of these Synagogues as the Elders of the Jews besought Christ to heal the servant of the Centurion Luk. 7.5 because He loved their Nation and had built them a Synagogue And I would our men would be as glad and as desirous to have our decayed Churches built and not to make such havock to destroy them as they do and that without any cause in the World For You may see how Christ himself and his Apostles came and taught very often not only in the Temple but also in these lâ—sser Synagogues of the Jews and it is admirable to consider how the primitive Christians Euseb l. 10. c. 3. 4. as Eusebius recordeth erected such Oratories and Basilicaes that is Royall-houses and Churches as stately as any Kings Palace and beautified the same with excessive charges to make them fit places for the publick meetings of the Christians to serve their God and so the Church of Saint Paul in London and of Saint Peter in Westminster and the rest of the Cathedrall Churches throughout England and Ireland to pass no further can bear sufficient witness of the zeal and devotion of our Christian predecessors to erect such Great and adorn such Beautifull Houses unto God Magnos magna decent as became so great and so glorious a God as our God is to have And as the number of the Christians waxed daily beyond number and increased more and more as you may conceive by the increase which a few weeks time hath wrought after the ascention of Christ when St. Peter's sermon converted 3000. souls in one day so it caused the distinction of Assemblies and the number of Churches to be increased and multiplied in all Countreys and Cities more and more So that in Rome about a hundred year after Christ the Congregation of the Christians became so huge great that Evaristus then Bishop of Rome for the avoiding of confusion and the easier and better instruction of them caused them to be distributed and parted into fifteen particular Parishes and assigned fifteen severall Presbyters to instruct and govern them the Presbyters then being honest men and no waies contradicting Evaristus And to prove that the first Christians who lived under persecutions The fiâ—st Christians had some kind of Churches even from the Apostles time had some kind of Churches though as then not so magnificent you may see in 1 Cor. 12.18 22. c. 14.19 23. And so the most ancient of the Fathers do bear witness as Clemens Tertullian Socrates and Eusebius proves the same out of the book of Philo Judaeus lib. 2. cap. 17. And Lactantius In carminibus de passione Domini saith Quisquis ades mediusque subis in limina Templi Siste parum Whosoever thou art that comest to the House of God stay a white that is to consider whither thou goest and as Salomon saith To keep and look to thy foot when thou goest to the House of God which is as God himself expoundeth the meaning thereof unto Moses saying Exod. 3. Put off thy shooes from thy feet that is to make clean thy waies and bring no filth nor any carnall affections nor worldly desires into the House of God because The place whereon thou standest is Holy ground that is by reason of Gods gracious and speciall presence in that place where Moses stood and where God is prayed unto and praised by the Minister and Worshipped by the rest of his faithfull servants And if any man desires fuller proofs of this truth I refer him to Cardinall Bellarmin and to that excellent and Learned Sermon of Master Mede upon the 1 Cor. 11.22 Yet I deny not but the prime Primitive Christians The prime primitive Christians had no stately Churches and why and the Church which was at Jerusalem and received that Religion that is the Faith of Christ which the Scribes and Pharisees and their laws did not allow of were constrained many times to hide their heads in desolate places and were inforced by stealth to exercise and discharge the duties of their profession in vaults and private houses where they might be most safe though the places were not sutable to their service the swords of their enemies were so sore against them But at length between times by sufferance and connivency and sometimes through favour and protection they began to be imboldened and to reare up Oratories and Churches though but simple and of mean aspect because the estates of most of them were but mean and very low as S. Paul sheweth 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many Rich
Rites which were such a burthen that neither we nor our fathers could undergo and also from the curse and malediction of the moral law would under this pretence of Christian liberty be freed from the obligation of all lawes and give themselves the freedom to do what they pleased for this would prove to be not the liberty but the bondage and the base slavery of a people that are not governed by lawes but suffered to do what they please because that neither God nor good lawes confine us but for our own good and he that forbids us to obey impious commands bids us to obey all righteous lawes and rather to suffer then to resist the most unrighteous Governours But I fear that under the name of the liberty of the subjects What is often aimed at under the name of theâ— liberty of the â—ubjects the licentiousnesse of the flesh is aymed at because you may see by what is already come to passe our civil dissention hath procured to many men such a liberty that few men are sure either of their life or estate and God blesse me from such a liberty and send me rather to be the slave of Christ then such a libertine of the world Whether for the preservation of our Religion we can be warranted to rebell And if religion be the cause that moveth you here hereunto I confesse this should be dearer to us then our lives but this title is like a velvet mask that is often used to cover a deformed face decipimur specie recti for as that worthy and learned Knight Sir John Cheek that was Tutor to King Edward the sixth saith If you were offered Persecution for Religion you ought to flye and yet you intend to fight if you would stand in the truth ye ought to suffer like Martyrs and you would slay like Tyrants Thus for Religion you keep no Religion and neither will follow the Counsel of Christ nor the constancie of Martyrs And a little after he demands why the people should not like that Religion which Gods Word established the Primitive Church hath authorized the greatest learned men of this Realm and the whole consent of the Parliament have confirmed and the Kings Majesty hath set forth is it not truly set out Sir John Cheek in The true subject to the rebell p. 4 6. Dare you Commons take upon you more learning then the chosen Bishops and Clerks of this Realm have This was the judgement of that judicious man And I must tell you that Religion never taught Rebellion neither was it the will of Christ that Faith should be compelled by fighting but perswaded by preaching for the Lord sharply reproveth them that built up Sion with blood Micah 3.18 and Hierusalem with iniquitie and the practice of Christ and his Apostles was to reform the Church by prayers and preaching and not with fire and sword and they presse obedience unto our Governours yea though they were impious infidels and idolatrous True religion never rebelleth with arguments fetched from Gods ordinance from mans conscience from wrath and vengeance and from the terrible sentence of damnation And this truth is so solid that it hath the clear testimony of holy Writ the perpetual practice of all the Primitive Saints and Martyrs and I dare boldly say it the unanimous consent of all the orthodox Bishops and Catholick Writers both in England and Ireland and in all the world That Christian Religion teacheth us never with any violence to resist or with arms to withstand the authority of our lawful Kings If you say The Laws of our Land Whether the Laws of our Land do warrant us to rebell and the Constitutions of this our Kingdom give us leave to stand upon our libertie and to withstand all tyrannie that shall be offered unto us especially when our estates lives and religion are in danger to be destroyed To this I say with Laelius that Nulla lex valeat contra jus divinum Laelâ—â—s de privileg Eccles 112. Mans lawes can exact no further obedience then may stand with the observance of the divine precepts and therefore we must not so preferre them or relye upon them so much as to prejudice the other and for our fear of the losse of estate life or religion I wish it may not be setled upon groundlesse suspitions for I know and all the world may believe that our King is a most clement and religious Prince that never did give cause unto any of his subjects to foster such feares and jealousies within his breast and you know what the Psalmist saith of many men They were afraid where no fear was And Job tells you whom terrours shall make afraid on every side Job 18.11 12. and shall drive him to his feet that is to runne away as you see the Rebels do from the Kings Army in every place and in whose Tabernacle shall dwell the King of fear for though the ungodly fleeth when no man pursueth him yet they that trust in God are confident as Lyons without fear they know that the heart of the King is not in his own hand but in the hand of the Lord Prov 21.1 Bonav ad secundam dist 35. art 2. qu. 1. as the rivers of waters and he turneth it whithersoever it pleaseth him either to save them or destroy them even as it pleaseth God He ordereth the King how to rule the people And therefore in the name of God and for Christ Jesus sake let me perswade you to put away all causelesse fears and groundlesse jealousies and trust your King if not trust your God and let your will which is so unhappy in it self become right and equall by receiving direction from the will of God and remember what Vlpian the great Civilian saith that Rebellion and disobedience unto your King is proximum sacrilegio crimen and that it is in Samuel's judgement as the sinne of witchcraft whereby men forsake God and cleave unto the Devil and above all The remembrance of his Oath should be a terrour to the conscience of every Rebel remember the oath that many of you have taken to be true and faithful unto your King and to reveal whatsoever evils or plots that you shall know or hear to be contrived against his Person Crown or Dignity and defend him from them Pro posse tuo to the uttermost of your power So help you God Which Oath how they that are any wayes assistant in a warre against their King can dispence with I cannot with all my wit and learning understand and therefore return O Shulamite 〈◊〉 lay down thine arms submit thy self unto thy Soveraign and know that as the Kings of Israel were merciful Kings 1 Kings 20.31 so is the King of England thou shalt find grace in the time of need but delay not this duty â—est as Demades saith the Athenians never sate upon treaties of peace but in mourning weeds when by the losse of
gracious King and I believe the best Protestant King that ever England or Ireland saw neither Popishly affected nor Schismatically led to disaffect but most constantly resolved to be a true Defender of that true Protestant Faith which is established by Law in the Church of England and he is such a King of so unblameable a life so spotlesse in all his actions so clement and so meek towards all men and so merciful towards his very enemies that the mouth of Envy cannot truly taxe him nor malice it self disprove him in any thing Yet we know that as Moses the meekest among men and David the best of Kings were sore afflicted slandered and persecuted not a little by many of their own obliged subjects yea and the best Kings have had the greatest troubles so this good King hath had for his trial a great part of the like usage I know not by whom neither do I intend here to accuse others but to instruct you and by what I shewed out of this Text to teach you above all to take heed of disobedience and Rebellion towards your King and to let you understand that what priviledges in the New Testament are acknowledged to be due to Heathen Princes and what prerogatives the spirit of God hath in the Old Testament warranted unto the Jewish Kings and what the universal Law of Nature hath established upon all the supreme Governours do all of them appertain by unquestionable right unto his most sacred Majesty and yet His Majesty out of His incomparable goodnesse insisteth not to challenge all these but vouchsafeth to accept of those Rights and Prerogatives which are undoubtedly afforded him by the Lawes of His own Lands and these come farre short scarce the moity of the other because we know if our Historians have not deceived me how many of them were obtained by little better then by force and violence compelling Kings to consent unto them whereas Lawes should be of a freer nature And therefore of all the Nations round about us besides that God hath intrusted Him with us all we have most reason to intrust him and to give credit unto his Majesties many Protestations too high to be forgotten by him or misdoubted by us for his resolution to maintain the Liberty of his Subjects the just Priviledges of Parliaments and the true established Religion in the Kingdome of England and likewise to rule over us according to our Laws in this Realm of Ireland And we have least reason to rebell and take arms against him and therefore let us not be perswaded by any means by any man to do it because God will preserve his annointed and will as you see plague the Rebels but let us pray for our King and praise God night and day that he which might have given us a bramble not only to tear our flesh but also to set us all on fire hath given us such a Cedar such a gracious and a pious King and if either forreign foes or domestique Rebels do presse him so that he hath need of us let us adde our help and hazard our lives to defend and protect him that protecteth us and suffereth all for the protection of Gods service as it was established in the purest time of Reformation and for the preservation of our Laws from any corrupt interpretation or arbitrary invasion upon them by those factious men that under fair yet false pretences have with wondrous subtilty and with most subtle hypocrisie seduced so many simple men to partake with them not onely to overthrow the true Religion to imbase the Church of Christ that hitherto hath continued glorious in this Nation and by trampling the most learned under feet to reduce Popery into this Kingdom and to bring in Atheism or Barbarism into our Pulpits when they make their Coach-men and Trades-men like Jeroboam's Priests the basest of the people to become their Trencher-Chaplains and the teachers of those poor sheep for whom the Son of God hath shed his precious blood but also to change the well-setled government and to subvert the whole fabrick of this famous Common-wealth either by their tyranny or bringing all into an Anarchie for if we have any regard of any of these things either true Religion or ancient Government a gracious King and a learned Clergy a glorious Church and a flourishing Kingdom we ought not to spare our goods or be niggards in our contributions to help his Majesty yea as Debora saith To help the Lord against the mighty Or if we be cold and carelesse herein penurious and tenacious of our worldly pelfe preferring our gold before our God or fearing gracelesse Rebels more then we love our gracious King It may fall out as Saint Augustine saith Quod non capit Christus rapit fiscus or as it did with the Carthaginians who because they would not assist Hanniball with some reasonable proportion of their estates they lost all unto the Romans and with the Constantinopolitans that for denying a little to Paleologus lost all unto the Turkes so we may be robbed and pillaged of all because we would not part with some and I had rather the King should have all I have then that the Rebels should have any part thereof Therefore I hope I shall perswade all good men to honour God with their riches and to assist His Majesty to the uttermost of their powers even to the hazard and to the losse both of liberty and life And doing this our God which is the King of Kings will blesse us and defend us from all evill and make us Kings and Priests to live with him for ever and ever through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all praise and glory and dominion from henceforth for evermore Amen Amen Hester 4.16 If I perish I perish Yet Esdras 4.41 The truth is great and will prevail Jehovae Liberatori TO THE KINGS Most Excellent MAJESTY Most Gracious Sovereign THough the wisest man in all the Kingdom of Persia saith Great is the truth and stronger then all things Yet the father of lies hath now plaid his part so well that as the Prophet saith Truth is fallen in the Street and Equity cannot enter in And your Majesty whom the God of Truth hath anointed his sole Vicegerent to be the Supreme Protector of them both in all your Dominions hath accordingly lifted up your Standard against their Enemies and I may truly say of you as Menevensis saith of that most Noble King Alfred Si modò victor erat ad crastina bella pavebat Si modò victus erat ad crastina bella parabat Neither do I believe that Lucan's Verse can be applied to any man better than to your Majesty Non te videre superbum Prospera fatorum nec fractum adversa videbunt As the height of your glory and prosperity never swelled your Pious heart so your greatest crosses and adversities never dejected your Royal spirit But as the Prophet saith of
yet blameing them for any thing But for any Subject of England to enterchange Messages and to keep private intelligence with any that seem to be in Arms against their King and the invaders of his Dominions to animate them to come and advance forward to refuse their Soveraigns Service and the Oath of their fidelity which was tendered unto them and to hinder the Kings Souldiers to do their duties either by denying to go with him or refusing to fight for him when they went which if some men were brought to their Legal tryal I believe would be more than sufficiently proved against them can be no lesse than heynous Crimes perhaps within the compasse of high Treason Or were these things but our jealousies and fears which do wear the garments of Truth yet their proceedings in Parliament do add more fuell unto the fire of our suspicion as for our men whom we have chosen to plead for us and to treat with them to respect them more than us to enrich them by impoverishing us How they behaved themselves towards the Scots giving them no lesse than 300000. l. who had entered into our Land and brought upon us such fears of I know not how many mischiefs that might succeed and not only so but also to shew what love they bare to them and how little regard they had of us their Native Brethren that put such trust and confidence in their fidelity as to commit all our fortunes and liberties into their hands paying weekly such a Pension for their provision besides the maintenance of our own Army which were forced to carry them their monies when themselves were unpaid as in a short time was able to exhaust all the wealth of this Kingdom and yet for all his Majesties continual calling upon them to dispatch their discharge and to finish the Treaty for the good of both Kingdoms keeping them here so exceeding long and making so very much of them which in truth we envyed not but admired what it meant when we saw with what continual feastings they were entertained in London and their lodgings frequented as the Kings Court till all the people began to murmur and to wax weary of so great a charge and such a burden as they knew must at last light upon their shoulders which must needs be matters worthy of our best examinations But as yet the common people that seeth no further than the present tense Why they detained them here so long and the outside of things did little know what many wise men did then foresee that these men aimed further than they seemed to do and delayed the businesse purposely till they had attained many of their desires and had fully endeared themselves into the affections of the Scots that if need required that they could not effect all the residue of their design as they intended which now could not so suddenly be brought unto perfection they might recall them here again to assist them to do that by force which by their craft and subtilty they should fail to do as now by their sending for them going unto them and alleadging the Act of Pacification for their assistance to withstand their King and to overthrow our Church it is apparent to all the World how perfidiously they dealt with God and man and how treacherous their thoughts were from the beginning both to the King and Kingdom Yet As we found our Brethren of Scotland howsoever these men behaved themselves in their secret intentions to have carried themselves none otherwise than as wise rational and religious men in all the Treaty So I assure my self they will hereafter still continue both faithful unto God and loyal unto their King and as they perceived not their intentions at the first so they will not now joyn with them in any Association of Rebellion to withstand their own Liege Lord and to change the established Laws and Religion of our Kingdom but will rather live in peace and happiness in their own Land than by forsaking their enjoyed quietness to involve themselves in the unhappiness of a desperate War in another Country 2. The compelling of all people to take their new framed Protestation 2. After they had thus endeared themselves unto their Brethren of Scotland they framed a Protestation to maintain and defend as far as lawfully they might with their lives powers and estates the True Reformed Protestant Religion his Majesties Royal Person Honour and Estate the power and priviledge of Parliament the lawful Rights and Liberties of the Subjects and every person that should make the Protestation in whatsoever he should do in the lawful pursuance of the same and to their power and as far as lawfully they might to oppose and by all good means endeavour to bring to condign punishment all such as shall either by force practice counsels plots conspiracies or otherwise * Which word is like the c. in the Canonical Oath do any thing to the contrary of any thing in the said Protestation contained and neither for fear hope nor other respect to relinquish this Promise Vow and Protestation In which Protestation though no man can espy the least shadow of ill prima facie at the first reading thereof yet if you look further and search narrowly into the intentions of the composers the frame of the Protestation and the practice of these Protestors ever since the framing of it you shall find that Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè these men are no Changelings but as like themselves as ever they were For 1. To terrifie the Papists to raise a Rebellion in Ireland 1. As it was intended so it succeeded it terrified the Papists and made them so desperate as almost to despair of their very Being as concerning the place where or the manner how they should live Which thing together with many other harsh and hard proceedings against many of them and the small countenance which they shewed unto a very moderate Petition that the Papists exhibited unto them hath driven abundance of them into Ireland whom I saw my self and there consulting with the Irish which were then also threatened by the Agents of this Faction there that ere long they should be severely handled and brought to the Church whether they would or no or pay such a Mulct as should make them poor what course they should take in such a desperate condition wherein they were all like to be ruined or to be rooted out of all the Kings Dominions they concluded what they would do To defend themselves by a plain Rebellion So this course against them hath been the leading-card as some of them confessed of that great Rebellion which being kindled as some Sectaries in England expected they thought they would so much the more weaken the King by how much the more combustion should be raised in each one of his Dominions And therefore notwithstanding all the Kings gracious Messages and wishes unto the House of
devised here and damnation hereafter yet these men contrary to all Laws do injoyn us and compell us as much against our Consciences as if they should compell us with the Pagan Tyrants to offer sacrifice unto Idols to war against our most gracious Soveraign whom we from our hearts do both love and honour and they proscribe us as malignants and as enemies to the Common-Wealth Ps 50.22 Augu. contra Faust l. 22. c. 75. 76. if we contribute not Money Horse and Arms to maintain this ungodly War and so become deadly enemies unto our own souls O consider this yee that forget God lest for tearing us He tear you in pieces while there is none to help you for considering what the Apostle saith Rom. 13.1 2. and what Saint Augustine saith Ordo naturalis mortalium paci accommodatus hoc poscit ut suscipiendi belli Autoritas atque consilium penes principem sit and lest men should think they ought by force of Armes to resist their King for Religion he answereth that objection by the example of the Apostles Isti non resistendo interfecti sunt ut potiorem esse docerent victoriam pro fide veritatis occidi We conceive this to be so execrable an Act and so odious to God and man that we are made thus miserable and abused beyond measure to have our Religion which is most glorious our Laws The miserable consequences of their wicked doings that in their own nature are most excellent and our Liberties that make us as free as any Subjects in the World under false pretences and the shadows of Religion Laws and Liberties to be eradicated and fundamentally destroyed whereby Mischief 1 1. We are made a spectacle of scorn and the object of derision to our neighbour-Nations that formerly have envied at our happiness and we are become the Subject of all pitty and lamentation to all them that love us Mischief 2 2. As in the Roman Civil-Wars in the time of Metellus the Son did kill his own Father so now by the subtilty of this faction we are cast into such a War as is 1. A most unnatural War the Son against the Father and the Father against the Son The Earl of Warwick fighteth for the Parliament and my Lord Rich his Son with the King The Earl of Dover is with the King and my Lord Rochford his Son with the Parliament So one brother against another as the Earl of Northumberland with the Parliament and his brother with the King The Earl of Bedford with the Parliament and his brother with the King Master Perpoint with the Parliament and the Earl of Newark with the King Devoreux Farmer with the Parliament and his bâ—other Richard Farmer together with his brother in law my Lord Cokain with the King and the like and of Cosens without number the one part with the King and the other with the Parliament And if they do this in subtilty to preserve their Estates I say it is a wicked policy to undo the Kingdom which all wise men should consider 2. A most irreligious War when one Christian of the same professed Religion shall bathe his Sword and wash his Hands in the blood of his fellow Christian and his fellow Protestant that shall be coheir with him of the same Kingdom 3. A most unnatural irreligious and barbarous War when the Subject shall take Arms to destroy or unthrone their own Liege a Religious and most gracious King 3. The Service of God in most Churches is neglected when almost all Mischief 3 the ablest gravest and most Orthodox Divines and Preachers are persecuted plundered imprisoned and driven to flie as in the time of the Arian or Donatist which was worse than the Heathen perfection from City to City and to wander in Desarts from place to place to save themselves from the hands of these Rebels against the King and Persecuters of Gods Church which is a most grievous and a most cruel persecution far more general than that of the Anabaptists in Germany or of Queen Mary here in England The Lord of Heaven make us constant and give us patience to indure it 4. The whole Kingdom is and shall be yet more by the continuance Mischief 4 hereof unspeakably impoverished and plunged into all kind of miseries when the travailer cannot pass without fear nec hospes ab hospite tutus the Carrier cannot transport his commodity but it shall be intercepted the Husbandman cannot till his ground but his Horses as my self saw it shall be taken from the Plough and his Corn shall be destroyed when it is ready for the Sickle which must be the fore-runner of a Famine that is ever the Usher to introduce the Plague and Pestilence and all other kind of grievous diseases and these things put together do set wide our Gates and open our Ports to bring forraign foes into our Coasts to possess that good Land whereof we are unworthy because with the Israelites we loathed Manna we were weary of our peace and happiness we would buy Arms and be Voluntiers and every Town being too wanton would needs train and put themselves into a posture of defence as they termed it to be secured from their own shadows and though the King told them often there was no cause of their Jealousies and therefore forbade these disloyalties yet just like the Jews they were willing to be deceived by this miserable faction that contrived that Act whereby they have perfidiously over-reached both our good King and the rest of our wel-meaning brethren either to perfect their Design or else to make themselves perpetual Dictators and to betray the felicity of all our people under the name of Parliament which though as I said before I honour and love as much as any of the truest Patriots of either House both in the institution and the right prosecution thereof that is as it was constituted to be the great Council of the Kingdom graciously called by his Majesties-writ confidently to present the grievances of the people and humbly to offer their advice and counsels for their Reformation yet I do abhor those men that would abuse the word Parliament only as a Stalking-Horse to destroy all Acts of Parliament and I hate to see men calling the Fanatick actions of a few desperate seditious persons the proceedings of Parliament and others making an Idol of it as if their power were omnipotent or unlimitted and more than any Regal Power their judgment infallible their Orders irreprehensible and themselves unaccountable for their proceedings to be so besotted with the name of it that this bare shadow without the substance for it is no Parliament without the King and the Major part of both Houses is either banished or imprisoned or compelled to reside with his Majesty should so bewitch us as Master Smyth blushed not to say Nothing could free us from our dangers but the Divinity of a Parliament out of our own happiness to become more miserable Ingeniosus ad
parte rex praeesset So Master Harding saith that the office of a King in it self is all one every where not onley among the Christian Princes but also among the Heathen so that a Christian King hath no more to do in deciding Church matters or medling with any point of Religion then a Heathen And so Fekenham and all the brood of Jesuites do with all violence and virulency labour to disprove the Prince's authority and supremacy in Ecclesiastical causes and the points of our Religion and to transfer the same wholly unto the Pope and his Cardinals Neither do I wonder so much that the Pope having so universally gained and so long continued this power and retained this government from the right owners should imploy all his Hierarchy to maintain that usurped authority which he held with so much advantage to his Episcopal See though with no small prejudice to the Church of Christ when the Emperours being busied with other affairs and leaving this care of religion and government of the Church to the Pope the Pope to the Bishops the Bishops to their Suffragans and the Suffragans to the Monkes whose authority being little their knowledg less and their honesty least of all all things were ruled with greater corruption and less truth then they ought to be so long as possibly he should be able to possesse it But at last when the light of the Gospel shined and Christian Princes had the leisure to look and the heart to take hold upon their right the learned men opposing themselves against the Pope's usurped jurisdiction have soundly proved the Soveraign authority of Christian Kings in the government of the Church that not onely in other Kingdoms but also here in England this power was annexed by divers Laws unto the interest of the Crown and the lawful right of the King and I am perswaded saith that Reverend ArchBishop Bancroft had it not been that new adversaries did arise Survey of Discip c. 22. p. 251. and opposed themselves in this matter the Papists before this time had been utterly subdued for the Devil seeing himself so like to lose the field stirred up in the bosom of Reformation a flock of violent and seditious men How the Devil raised instruments to hinder the reformation that pretending a great deal of hate to Popery have notwithstanding joined themselves like Sampson's Foxes with the worst of Papists in the worst and most pernicious Doctrines that ever Papist taught to rob Kings of their sacred and divine right and to deprive the Church of Christ of the truth of all those points that do most specially concern her government and governours and though in the fury of their wilde zeal they do no less maliciously then falsly cast upon the soundest Protestants the aspersion of Popery and Malignancy yet I hope to make it plain unto my reader that themselves are the Papists indeed or worse then Papists both to the Church and State For Opinion 2 2. As the whole Colledge of Cardinals and all the Scholes of the Jesuites do most stâ—fly defend this usurped authority of the Pope which as I said Of the Anabaptists and Puritans may be with the less admiration because of the Princes concession and their own long possesion of it so on the other side there are sprung up of late a certain generation of Vipers the brood of Anabaptists and Brownists that do most violently strive not to detain what they have unjustly obtained but a degree far worse to pull the sword out of their Prince his hand and to place authority on them which have neither right to own it nor discretion to use it and that is Where the Puritans place the authority to maintain religion 1 In the Presbytery either 1. A Consistory of Presbyters 2. A Parliament of Lay men For 1. These new Adversaries of this Truth that would most impudently take away from Christian Princes the supreame and immediate authority under Christ in all Ecclesiastical Callings and Causes will needs place the same in themselves and a Consistorian company of their own Faction a whole Volume would not contain their absurdities falsities and blasphemies that they have uttered about this point I will onely give you a taste of what some of the chief of them have belched forth against the Divine Truth of God's Word and the sacred Majesty of Kings Master Calvin a man otherwise of much worth Calvin in Amos cap. 7. and worthy to be honoured yet in this point transported with his own passion calleth those Blasphemers that did call King Henry the eight the supreme Head of this Church of England and Stapleton saith that he handled the King himself with such villany and with so spiteful words Stapl. cont Horn. l. 1. p. 22. as he never handled the Pope more spitefully and all for this Title of Supremacy in Church causes and in his fifty fourth Epistle to Myconius he termed them prophane spirits and mad men that perswaded the Magistrates of Geneva not to deprive themselves of that authority which God hath given them Viretus is more virulent How Viretus would prove the temporal Pope as he calleth the King worse then the spiritual Pope for he resembleth them not to mad men as Calvin did but to white Devils because they stand in defence of the Kings authority and he saith they are false Christians though they cover themselves with the cloke of the Gospel affirming that the putting of all authority and power into the Civil Magistrates hands and making them masters of the Church is nothing else but the changing of the Popedome from the Spiritual Pope into a Temporal Pope who as it is to be feared will prove worss and more tyrannous then the Spirituall Pope which he laboureth to confirme by these three reasons Reason 1 1. Because the Spiritual Pope had not the Sword in his own hand to punish men with death but was fain to crave the aid of the Secular power which the Temporal Pope needs not do Reason 2 2. Because the old spiritual Popes had some regard in their dealings of Councils Synods and ancient Canons but the new Secular Popes will do what they list without respect of any Ecclesiastical Order be it right or wrong Reason 3 3. Because the Romish Popes were most commonly very learned but it happeneth oftentimes that the Regal Popes have neither learning nor knowledg in divine matters and yet these shall be they that shall command Ministers and and Preachers what they list and to make this assertion good he affirmeth that he saw in some places some Christian Princes under the title of Reformation to have in ten or twenty years usurped more tyranny over the Churches in their Dominions then ever the Pope and his adherents did in six hundred years All which reasons are but meere fopperies blown up by the black Devil to blast the beauty of this truth for we speak not of the abuse of any Prince
condition their Preachers are and of what worth of no faith of no learning that have already forfeited their estates if they have any and their lives unto the king and will any man that is wise hazard his estate his life and his soul to follow the perswasions of these men my life is as deare to me as the Earle of Essex his head is to him and my soul dearer and I dare ingage them both that if all the Doctors in both Vniversities and all the Divines within the kingdome of England were gathered together to give their judgement of this War there could not be found one of ten it may be as I beleive not one of twenty that durst upon his conscience say this war is lawful upon the Parliament side for though these Locusts that is the German It is contrary to the doctrine of all the Protestant Church for Subjects to resist their king Scottish and the English Puritane agreeing with the Romane Jesuite ever since the reformation harped upon this string and retained this serpentine poison within their bosome still spitting it forth against all States as you may see by their bookes Yet I must tell you plainly this doctrine of Subjects taking up armes against their lawful King is point blanck and directly against the received doctrine of the Church of England and against the tenet of all true Protestants and therefore Andreas Rivetus Professor at Leyden writing against a Jesuite Paraeus in Rom. 13. Boucher l. 2. c 2. Keckerm Syst pol. c. 32. Jun. Brut. q. 2. p. 56. Bellar. de laic c. 6. Suar. de fid cathol c. 3. Lichfield l. 4. 19. sect 19. Field l. 5. c. 30. that cast this aspersion upon the Protestants that they jumpe with them in this doctrine of warring against and deposing kings saith that no Protestant doth maintain that damnable doctrine and that rashness of Knox and Buchanan is to be ascribed praefervido Scotorum ingenio ad audendum prompto Juel and Bilson and all the Doctors of the Church are of the same minde and Lichfield saith no Orthodox father did by word or writing teach any resistance for the space of a thousand yeares and Doctor Field saith that all the worthy fathers and Bishops of the Church perswaded themselves that they owed all duty unto their kings though they were Hereticks and Infidels and the Homilies of the Church of England allowed by authority do plainly and peremptorily condemne all Subjects warring against their King for Rebels and Traytors that do resist the ordinance of God and procure unto themselves damnation and truely I beleive most of their own consciences tell them so and they that thinke otherwise I would have them to consider that if they were at a banquet where twenty should aver such a dish to be full of poyson for every one that would warrant it good would'st thou venture to eate it and hazard thy life in such a case O then consider what it is to hazard thy soule upon the like termes So you see the justness of the War on the Parliament side But. 1. On the Kings side it cannot be denied but his cause is most just for his own defence for the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion that is established by our Laws and for the rights of the Church and the just liberties and property of all his loyal Subjects this he testifieth in all his Declarations and this we know in our own consciences to be true and therefore 2. As his Majesty professeth so we beleive him that he never intended otherwise by this war but to protect us and our Religion and to maintain his own just and unquestionable rights which these Rebels would most unjustly wrest out of his hands and under the shew of humble Petitioners to become at last proud Commanders for as one saith They whom no denial can withstand Seeme but to aske while they indeed command 3. For the persons that war with him they are the chiefest of the Nobility 3 His assistants learned honest and religious all the best Gentry that hazard their lives not for filthy lucre for the Kings Revenues being so unjustly detained from him they are fain to supply his necessities and to bear their own charges and the poor common Soldiers are nothing wanting to do their best endeavours neither need they to fear any thing because 4 His authority sacred and unquestionable What the pretended Parliament is 4. The King hath a just right to give them full power and authority to do execution upon these Rebels as I have proved unto you before And therefore the result of all is that the Parliament side under the pretence of Religion fighting if not for the Crown yet certainly for the full power and authority of the King who shall have the ordering of the Militia that is who shall have the government of this Kingdome which is all one as who shall be the King they or King CHARLES and which is the very question that they would now decide by the sword in taking away our goods are theeves and robbers in killing their brethren are bloudy murderers and in resisting their King are rebellious traytors that as the Apostle saith purchase to themselves damnation when as the Prophet Esay speaketh of the like Rebels being hardly bestead and hungry Esay 8.21 22. as I believe thousands of them are in London and other Rebellious Cities they shall fret themselves and curse their King and their God and looke upward as I fear many of them do curse the King with their tongues and God in their hearts and they shall looke unto the earth Matth. 8.12 and behold trouble and darknesse dimnesse and anguish and they shall be driven to darknesse even to utter darknesse where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth if by a true repentance they do not betimes rent their hearts and forsake their fearful sinns And the Kings side in this war doing no further then the king gives Commission do no more then what God commandeth and therefore living they shall be accounted loyal Subjects worthy of honour and dying they shall be sure to be everlastingly rewarded CHAP. XIII Sheweth how the first Government of Kings was arbitrary the places of Moses Deu. 17. and of Samuel 1 Sam. 8. discussed whether Ahab offended in desiring Naboths Vineyard and wherein why absolute power was granted unto Kings and how the diversities of Government came up 2 part of the regal government in the time of peace Master Selden in his titles of Honour p. 15. That the first government of Kings was arbitrary 2. HAving thus shewed you potestatem ducendi the Kings right and power of making War it resteth that I should speake De potestate judicandi of his power and right of judging and governing his people in the time of peace touching which we finde none denying his right but all the difference is about the manner where 1. I finde Master Selden rejecting
alms or benevolence 3. Because the Tythes are due to Christ as he is our Priest and so they are the portion of the Lord as the Lord professeth and he gives them over to his Ministers that are his Embassadours and teach his people Deut. 18.2 in his stead as the Lord himself saith I am the inheritance of the Priests Therefore to deny the Priests of that portion which God saith is his and promiseth to give it them for his Service is to mock God and to make a derision of his promises as the Apostle sheweth when he saith Let him that is taught in the word make him that teacheth him partaker of all his goods Gal. 6.6 7. and then immediately addeth Be not deceived for God is not mocked and will not be mocked intimating that to deal otherwise with God's Ministers is none other thing than to mock God because God had promised this part and portion to them that stand in his stead 2 Cor. 5.20 as the Apostle sheweth And so you see how the Scriptures Fathers and Councils and all conclude that the Tythes of all our goods are due and perpetually due to Christ and by him given over by an indispensible Law unto his Substitutes the Priests and Preachers of the Gospel But then I may demand with Francis Sylvius Quomodo factum sit ut decimae tot Imperatorum Christianorum donationibus decretis Synodorum Ecclesiis in usus Canonicos pios legitimos Francisc Sylvius de decimis nempe Ministerii Sacri conservatione Ministrâ—rum Ecclesiasticorum honesto stipendio pauperum varii generis alimonia captivorum redemptione locorum Sacrorum reparatione sabâ—â—ca destinatae ad laicorum ut vocant manus pervenerint How comes it now to passe that the Tythes appointed and ordained by the Laws and Donations of so many Christian Kings and Emperours and by the Decrees of so many Councils and Synods to be paid unto the Churches for such regular pious and lawful uses as to uphold and preserve the holy Ministery and publick Service of God the honest stipend and maintenance of the Church-Ministers the relief of the poor of divers kinds the redemption of captives the reparation of Churches and other sacred places or the erecting and building of such places and the like should notwithstanding be now transferred and carried away by lay men Albertus Kranâ—zius Metropol l. 1. c. 2. I answer and say That letting passe what Albertus Krantzius relateth I find three special authors and causes of this mischief 3. Special causes why the Tythes are detained and alienated from the Chu ch 1. Cause 1. The malice of the Devil 2. The pride and arrogancy of the Pope 3. The covetousnesse and the injustice of the wicked worldlings 1. Satan is the Grand enemy of all mankind and therefore laboureth by all means to bring both the Service and servants of God into contempt and he knoweth nothing makes them more contemptible than want and poverty quae cogit ad turpia which makes them unable to discharge that honourable Service which they owe to God and forceth them to do many base and dishonourable actions and because their Lord and Master Christ which taketh pleasure in the prosperity of his servants hath very bountifully allowed them his own portion of Tythes and Oblations for their maintenance whereby they might most honourably proceed in their Profession and so inlarge the Christian Religion this deadly enemy of all goodness most cunningly and insensibly brought it so to passe that almost the whole portion of Christ is alienated from the Church and his Ministers are left like Pharaohs lean kine poor and meager whereby instead of the double honour that S. Paul saith is due unto them their ears and their souls are filled with the scornful reproof of the wealthy and the despitefulness of the proud And because this mischief could not so easily be done if he had come to do it like the prince of darkness therefore he changeth himself into an angel of light and as he perswaded Judas the Treasurer of Christ to betray Christ himself so he got the Pope the Vicar of Christ's Church to betray and to undo the Church of Christ and all under the shew and shadow of Religion because he knew that as the Poet saith Tuta frequensque via est sub amici fallere nomen Though as the same Poet saith Tuta frequensque licet sit via crimen habet but that was his desire And therefore 2. He perswaded the Pope to become the first founder of all our impropriations by alienating them from their proper use and from the Churches of Christ and conferring them on Monastries and Nunries to maintain the Abbots Monks and Nuns that were the first nursing fathers and mothers of this devouring Harpie And as the Devil said to Christ All the Kingdoms of the earth will I give thee as if he had been Lord Paramount of all the World So the Pope in the pride of his heart conceiting that being Christ's Vicar he might dispose of all that is Christs as pleased himself destroyed the servants of Christ to make his own Parasites so that he appropriated 3845. of the fattest and largest Benefices in England either to his out-landish and Italian Harpies or others his creatures Church-lands not to be sold pag. 31. of whom nothing could be expected but that they would feed themselves like Epicures and never take care for the Church of Christ And though the godly Bishops of England that saw the mischief of that practise by the neglect of God's Service in the Parish-Churches and the abominable evils committed in those Abbies and Nunries so plentifully set down by Cornelius Agrippa and others did in the time of Henry the third direct a suite to Alexander the fourth Cornelius Agrippa de vanitate Scien cap. 49. for the restitution of those impropriations to their proper uses and primitive ordination Yet the Devil would not permit that Pope to do that service unto God as to be obedient to the Ordinance of God And though it be against all reason that the Tythes which are appointed for God's Service should be transferred to any lay person because that where Tythes are paid there must be a matter of giving and receiving as the Apostle sheweth We give unto you spiritual things and we receive your temporal things but the lay men that have the impropriations do receive the Tythes but can give no spiritual gift unto the people And therefore Damasus demandeth Qua fronte aut qua conscientia Damas Decret 3. decimas oblationes vultis accipere quum vix valetis pro vobis ipsis ne dum pro aliis Deo preces offerre With what face or conscience can the lay persons demand the Tythes and Oblations when they are scarce able to pray for themselves much lesse to offer up prayers and supplications for others Yea though their own Canons and Orders speak against the impropriating of
Benefices and Tythes to lay persons as the Council of Lateran held under Pope Alexander the 3d decreed That Qui decimas laico Câ—ncil Lateran part 26. c. 8. Causa 16. q. 7. c. 3. Greg. 7. Causa 19 q 7. c. 1. Periculum animae in seculo manenti concesserit deponendus est The Priest which shall passe away the Tythes to any secular lay man is to be deposed And the Canon Si quia à modo Episcopus c. saith That if any Bishop hereafter do passe away the Tythes and Oblations to lay men let them be numbred amongst the greatest Hereticks And the lay men that receive the Tythes as to be their own proper inheritance either from the Bishops or Kings do run into the danger of their souls saith another Canon Yet as if all these were but tela aranea a Spider's web nothing would avail with the Pope to make him to desist his wicked practice of making these impropriations to whom he pleased Therefore the wrath of God being exceedingly kindled against the abominations of these wicked houses that were thus maintained with the Revenues of the Church and upheld in their wickedness by the usurped power of the Pope the good God that could bring light out of darknesse could likewise punish and destroy wickedness by wicked men As he did prophane Saul by the uncircumcised Philistines and Idolatrous Manasses by the idolatrous Babylonians So now he stirreth up a King bad enough Henry the Eighth to be as Nebuchadnezzar was unto the Jews the Rod of his fury to whip and scourge these idle loose and lewd wantons for when the King began to be weary of the same dish and to satisfie his palate desired licence of the Pope to change meat and to be divorced from his old Wife and the Pope rather for fear of offending the King of Spain than any true fear of God as some conceive knew not how to yield to his unlawful lust the King to be revenged deviseth to overthrow the Pope's former wickedness by a greater wickedness even as Physitians sometimes do allay poyson with a stronger poyson And because wickedness can never want Counsellors and Abettors the King had a Cromwell at his elbow a name as fatal unto the Church as Tarquin was to Rome and many others to please their Master gave their Vote to the same purpose That the only way to be throughly revenged was not to stand triffling about small matters that might soon have an end but to give such a perpetual wound as might not be cured and that was utterly to destroy the delights of the Pope by taking away and rooting out all the Abbies Monasteries Nunries and Religious houses within his Dominions so far as he could possibly reach and it is strange If the Lord himself had not been on our side that the Cathedrals and Bishops had not been destroyed likewise And lest the Pope by the perswasions slights and eloquence of his Emissaries and Clergy should gain them to be reduced and restored either to these Houses or to the Church again the only sure way to keep out the Popes fingers from them is to bestow both their Lands and all these impropriations upon his Nobility and Gentry and so he shall not only perpetually be revenged upon the Pope but he shall also most infinitely oblige his friends and his servants who will be tenacious enough to detain them and keep them ad Graecas calendas from returning unto their proper sphere any more and this Counsel pleased the King and his Master and though Arch-Bishop Craumer did what ever he could to get these impropriations restored unto the Church The Holy Table name and thing pag. 148. by his manifold perswasions unto the King and especially by a message purposely sent to Mr. John Calvin by one Mr. Nicholas to intreat Mr. Calvin likewise most earnestly to write to King Henry the 8th and to perswade him by all means to restore these impropriations unto the Church of God And so Mr. Bucer and all the godly Protestants of that time did their best to perswade him to restore them yet all could not prevaile to have them restored For that now 3. Covetousness and the greedy desire of wealth and love unto this present World hath seized upon the hearts and filled the souls of those Lords Knights and Gentlemen and the posterity of them likewise which had taken hold of these impropriations that they cannot endure to part with them any more But as Kites and Cormorants do seize upon a Carrion so do they engross unto themselves the portion of their God and the inheritance of the Church of Christ and such a sweet savour and pleasant taste of Tythes and Church goods hath been taken ever since the birth of this monstrous Sacriledge as that now many Noble men and almost every Knight and Gentleman of any note hath got to themselves the Tythes or some part of the Tythes of an impropriate Church for the inlarging of their Larder-house And that you need not doubt of this I must here set down what you may find in Mr. Crashaws Epistle to Mr. Perkins second Treatise of the Duties of the Ministry that in one County of the Kingdom of England the East riding of the County of York there are contained one hundred and five Parishes whereof nigh an hundred or the full number of an hundred are of this hateful name and bastardly title of Impropriations and some of them are of yearly value of four hundred pounds others worth three hundred pounds per annum others two hundred pounds and almost all worth one hundred pound a year and yet the Minister's part is ten pound stipend yea some have but eight pounds and some but six pounds and some but four pounds to live upon for the whole year and out of the Great Benefice of four hundred pounds a year the Minister had but eight pound per annum Dr. Gardiner in his Scourge of Sacriledge until of late with much labour ten pounds yearly for a Preacher And saith mine Author the most of the Churches in the properest Market-Towns of this Kingdom are thus held and retained by our Nobility and Gentry And so I found it in my Diocess of Ossory in the Kingdom of Ireland that the Impropriations had so swallowed up the Tythes and the Revenues of the Churches that as I shewed it in my Remonstrance to his Majesty six or seven Vicaridges united together will scarce make twenty pound a year for the Preacher Et durus est hic sermo for hereby the people perish and as the Prophet saith The poor Children cry for Bread and for want of means to maintain the Ministers there is none that is able to give it them I know King Henry the 8th that could cause his Parliaments as I ever understood from the old Parliament men of those times to make what Laws and to conclude what Acts of Parliament he pleased got many Laws to be made
Tythes and so they bring a spiritual dearth and a famine of Gods Word unto the rest of the poor parishioners when for want of sufficient maintenance they shall want a sufficient Minister that is able to give them any Instruction because as the Poet saith Nulla illis captetur gloria Ovid. trist lib. 5. quaeque Ingenii stimulos subdere fama solet And the benefit that these worldlings reap by this lawless impious and wicked Custome to pay no Tythes for their dry Bullocks nor any thing to God for the fruits of their ground is one main reason why the Minister's part of six or seven Parishes doth scarce amount to twenty pounds per annum as I have formerly shewed in my Remonstrance to his Majesty and I conceive it likewise to be a special Reason why the poor simple Irish Papists have so many Popish Priests amongst them for want of Protestant Priests for that want of sufficient maintenance doth cause them to leave their Parishes and charge unlooked unto and their flock untaught and then the superstitious mendicant Friar cometh to instruct and lead the silly ignorant Irish as he pleaseth And truly to say what I think though I am far enough from Popery and from all Popish errors and superstitions as I hope all the Sermons that I have Preached and the Books that I have Printed can bear witness unto the World yet as Alexander Severus told an unruly Victualler that would not suffer the Christians to erect a Church in a place which he thought more convenient and fit for him to sell Ale in it That it was better God should be served in any place and in any way then that he should have his way and God not served in any place nor any way as I shewed to you before so I conceive it better to be Superstitious then Prophane better to be a Papist then an Atheist and better to have a Popish Priest to give some light to them that sit in darkness and some knowledge of Christ to them that otherwise would know nothing then not to have any Priest at all And therefore if you would abandon Popery and suppress all popish Priests out of Ireland which is my heart's desire then I desire withal that this and all other lewd and wicked customes be taken away the lands houses and possessions of the Church be restored and all impropriations reduced to their first institution that so a sufficient Ministery may be maintained here in Ireland as they are in England and that the poor ignorant Irish may have honest and able Protestant Ministers And to that end the natives according to the institution of the Colledge should be placed in the Colledge at Dublin the which thing hitherto they say hath been too much neglected and as many as may be of their own Nation to live amongst them and to instruct them and then God will blesse this Nation and the true Protestant Religion will prosper and flourish and both we and they shall live happily together which otherwise will very hardly if ever come to pass Because that now we have not our knowledge by inspiration we cannot in an instant understand and speak all Tongues and we cannot work miracles but we must buy many Books to learn Languages and to get knowledge which the Apostles had without any Book and we must spend our time in reading writing studying and praying to God to assist us and to inable us to instruct our people and all this cannot be done without maintenance and means to do it And therefore where there is no sufficient maintenance there can be no sufficient Ministery no instructing of the people no true serving of God as it ought to be And what a heap of unspeakable mischiefs and miseries do these evil customes impropriations and taking away the land houses and possessions of the Church bring amongst us And therefore seeing the Souldiers Captains and others of the Military rank that have gotten the lands of the Irish Rebels which for their service they have justly deserved have likewise unjustly seized upon Gods part and the lands houses and possessions of the Church and are as fast wedded to these evils as to their wives so that we can more easily overcome Golias or pull the club out of Hercules hands than our lands out of these mens fingers It is high time and I hope no good man will be offended with us for it to implore and most humbly to beg and beseech the help and assistance of our Most gracious King to redress these intolerable abuses and to drive away this three-headed Cerberus or rather this many-headed Hidra the manifold Sacriledge and the great oppression of the Church of Christ that is used in these dayes and especially in this Kingdom of Ireland at this time For I call Heaven and Earth to witness that ever since the monstrous undutiful and unnatural murder of that Most glorious Martyr your Majestie 's most dear Father my Most gracious Master Charles the First until the happy Arrival of your gracious Majesty I lived more quietly and contentedly when all my Ecclesiastical Preferments were taken from me and not 20 pound per annum left me in all the world to maintain me than now I do when by your gracious goodnesse all the Church Rights and Inheritances are commanded unresistably to be yielded unto us for your Majesty may be well assured that they which neither for love of Gods favour nor fear of his vengeance will observe Gods Commandments will never regard to obey your commandments And therefore many of our Military men Colonels Captains and others that fought for the Long-Parliament and Crumwell do with some of your Commanders that herein imitate them divide and teare the Revenues and Garment of the Church the Spouse of Christ worse than the Souldiers of Pilate did with the Coat of Christ And therefore now in mine old age well-nigh 80. years I am forced to bestow all my labour and take pains and many journeys which an old man can hardly do and spend all my means in Law which were better bestowed upon the poor to wring the Church-means out of their hands or suffer the same through my remisness to be swallowed down into the belly of Hell and leave my self to be liable to that great account which I must render for my neglect of doing mine uttermost endeavour to recover it at the last Day the which wonderful streight that I am put to doth wonderfully discontent and trouble me continually which makes me oftentimes to think that I were better to resign my Bishoprick if I knew it were no offence to God to some younger man that could better combate with these Golias's than for me to agonize as I do to recover my right who may well cry out with the Poet Impar congressus Achilli But the nearness of the time that I must render mine account of my Stewardship unto God hath strengthned me to write this Treatise against
and the chief hâ—ads of all the people which are flos medulla regni are therefore added unto the superiour Magistrate 1. By Reason both to be his helpers in the government and also to refrain his licentiousnesse and to hinder his impieties if he degenerate to be an Idolater or a Tyrant 2. By Examples And to confirm this Tenet they produce many examples both out of the sacred and prophane Histories as the Judges that rose up against their neighbour-Tyrants Ezechias against the King of Assyria the people withstanding Saul that he should not slay Jonathan Ahikam defending the Prophet Jeremy against King Jehoiakim the revolâ—ing of the ten Tribes in the time of Rehoboam Jerem. 26.24 the Priests and Princes of Juda taking away Athalia the Macchabees arming themselves against Antiochus and others of the Macedonian Tyrants Thrasibulus driving the thirty Tyrants out of Athens the Romans expelling their flagitious Kings Consuls and other Tyrants that behaved themselves most wickedly out of Rome and so many Peers and Potentates of other Kingdomes that in the like cases did the like To all which I answer Sol. 1. Their Reasons answered 1. That it is most false that any Peer or inferiour Potentate Magistrate or other is appointed by God to be the Associate of the King or supreme Governour for the government of the people for as God and not the people appointed Moses Joshua Gideon and the other supreme Judges of Israel so Moses and not God immediately as he did the others appointed the Rulers of tens To what end kings do choose their inferiour Magistrates fifties hundreds and thousands which alwayes acknowledged themselves his subjects and not his associates in the government of the people And so other Kings and Princes have alwayes chosen whom they pleased to be their Peers Counsellors and inferiour Magistrates as well to bear some part of their burthen as Jethro saith unto Moses and to lessen their care as also to afford them their best assistance and counsel in the discussion and determination of great and difficult affaires but not for them to prescribe and set down Lawes Orders and Ordinances that should either moderate their royal liberty or bridle and revenge what they conceive to be Idolatry or Tyranny I am sure no King that did intend to be a Tyrant would choose Counsellours or make Magistrates to that end but they make choyce of them as I said to further them and not to hinder them to effect those things which they conceive to be most fit and just for the Magistrates that are over the people are under the King and do all All the inferiour Magistrates must do all in the name of the Superiour as you see in the name of the King from whom they derive all the power that they have whereby it followeth that neither the people can resist the Magistrates whom the King appointeth nor those Magistrates resist their King without apparent sacriledge against God because the greater can never be judged nor condemned by the lesser but as the Apostle saith of Abraham and Melchisedech Heb. 7.7 that without contradiction the lesse is blessed of the better so I say that without all controversie the inferiour must be alwayes judged of the superiour and therfore if these Peers Nobles or inferiour Magistrates have any wayes any power or authority over their Kings we must conclude against Saint Peter that these are above the King and so they and not the King are the supereminent power But we find no such power nor commandement that they have from God to refrain Kings in all the holy Scriptures Et si mandatum non est praesumptio est ad poenam proficiet non ad praemium and if there be no commandement for it it is presumption to do it which deserveth punishment and not praise because it is to the reproach of the Creator that contemning the Lord we should worship the Servant and neglecting the Emperour we should adore or magnifie his Peers as S. Augustine saith And therefore both the learned and religious Fathers And the Homily of the Church of England against wilful Rebellion and the best of our later Writers are flat against this Doctrine that any sort of men have any power over Kings but he that is the King of Kings as you may see what would be too teadious for me to set down in Johan Bodinus Apol. pro Regibus c. 27. de repub l. 2. c. 5. Barclaius contra Monarchom l. 3. c. 6. Berchetus in explicat controvers Gallicar c. 2. Saravia de Imperator autorit l. 2. c. 36. Sigon de repub Hebraeor l. 7. c. 3. Bilson de perpet Eccles gubernat c. 7. Pet. Gregor Tholos de republ l. 5. c. 3. num 14 15 16. and many more 2. For the examples that are produced 2. Their examples answered to countenance Rebels against their Kings I answer that they are unlike or of some peculiar fact or unjust and therefore no warrant for any other to do the like when as we are to live by the lawes and precepts of God and not by the examples of men which many times contrary to equity do induce us to transgresse the divine verity But to run over the particulars of their examples as brief as I can 1. I say that to conclude an ordinary rule from the doings of the Judges 1. Example answered which were extraordinarily commanded by God to be done is no more lawful for us to do then it is for us to rob our neighbours August in Jud. c. 20. because the Israelites robbed the Egyptians as Saint Augustine sheweth And therefore Aquinas if Aquinas be the Authour of that book Thom. de Regimine Princip l 1. c. 6. De Regimine Princip saith excellently well Quibusdam visum est it seems to some men that it pertaineth to the honour of valiant and heroical men to take away a Tyrant and to expose themselves to the perill and danger of death for the liberty and freedom of the Multitude whereof they have an example in the Old Testament where Ehud killed Eglon Judg. 3.21 But this agreeth not with the Apostolical Doctrine for Saint Peter teacheth us to be subject not onely to the good but also to the froward because this is thank-worthy with God if for conscience sake we patiently suffer wrongs therefore when many of the Roman Emperours did most tyrannically persecute the faith of Christ and a great and mighty multitude both of the Nobility Gentry and Commons were converted unto Christianity they are praised not for resisting but for suffering death Besides A great deal of difference betwixt a lawful King and an Usurper Eglon was not the lawful King of Israel but an alien an usurper and a scourge to them for their sinne and therefore no pattern for others to rebell against their lawful King 2. For the example of Ezechias rebelling against the King of Assyria 2.
would collect the testimonies of our best Writers I will adde but one of a most excellent King our late King James of ever blessed memory for he saith The improbity or fault of the Governour ought not to subject the King to them over whom he is appointed Judge by God for if it be not lawful for a private man to prosecute the injury that is offered unto him against his private adversary when God hath committed the sword of vengeance onely to the Magistrate how much lesse lawful is it think you either for all the people or for some of them to usurp the sword whereof they have no right against the publique Magistrate to whom alone it is committed by God This hath been the Doctrine of all the Learned The obedient example of the Martyrs in the time of Queen Mary of all the Saints of God of all the Martyrs of Jesus Christ and therefore not onely they that suffered in the first Persecutions under Heathen Tyrants but also they that of late lived under Queen Mary and were compelled to undergoe most exquisite torments without number and beyond measure yet none of them either in his former life or when he was brought to his execution did either despise her cruell Majesty or yet curse this Tyrant-Queen that made such havock of the Church of Christ and causelesly spilt so much innocent blood but being true Saints they feared God and honoured her and in all obedience to her authority they yielded their estates and goods to be spoyled their liberties to be infringed and their bodies to be imprisoned abused and burned as oblations unto God rather then contrary to the command of their Master Christ they would give so much allowance unto their consciences as for the preservation of their lives to make any shew of resistance against their most bloody Persecutors whom they knew to have their authority from that bloody yet their lawful Queen And therefore I hope it is apparent unto all men that have their eyes open and will not with Balaam most wilfully deceive themselves Numb 24.15 Gen. 19.11 or with the Sodomites grope for the wall at noon-day that by the Law of God by the example of all Saints by the rule of honesty and by all other equitable considerations it is not lawfull for any man or any degree or sort of men Magistrates Peers Parliaments Popes The conclusion of the whole or whatsoever you please to call them to give so much liberty unto their misguided consciences and so farre to follow the desires of their unruly affections as for any cause or under any pretence to withstand Gods Vice-gerent and with violence to make warre against their lawful King or indeed in the least degree and lowest manner to offer any indignity either in thought word or deed either to Moses our King or to Aaron our High Priest that hath the care and charge of our souls or to any other of those subordinate callings that are lawfully sent by them to discharge those offices wherewith they are intrusted This is the truth of God and so acknowledged by all good men And what Preachers teach the contrary I dare boldly affirm it in the name of God that they are the incendiaries of Hell and deserve rather with Corah to be consumed with fire from Heaven then to be believed by any man on Earth CHAP. X. Sheweth the impudencie of the Anti-Cavalier How the Rebels deny they warre against the King An unanswerable Argument to presse obedience A further discussion whether for our Liberty Religion or Laws we may resist our Kings and a pathetical disswasion from Rebellion I Could insert here abundant more both of the Ancient and Modern Writers that do with invincible Arguments confirm this truth But the Anti Cavalier would perswade the world Anti-Cavalier p. 17 18 c. that all those learned Fathers and those constant Martyrs that spent their purest blood to preserve the purity of religion unto us did either belye their own strength * Yet Tertul. Cypr. whom I quoted before and R ssiâ— hist Eccles l. 2. c. 1. and S. August in Psal 124. and others avouch the Christians were far stronger then their enemies and the greatest part of Julians army were Christians or befool themselves with the undue desire of over-valued Martyrdome but now they are instructed by a better spirit they have clearer illuminations to inform them to resist if they have strength the best and most lawful authority that shall either oppose or not consent unto them thus they throw dirt in the Fathers face and dishonour that glorious company and noble army of Martyrs which our Church confesseth praiseth God and therefore no wonder that they will warre against Gods annointed here on Earth when they dare thus dishonour and abuse his Saints that raign in Heaven but I hope the world will believe that those holy Saints were as honest men and those worthy Martyrs that so willingly sacrificed their lives in defence of truth could as well testifie the truth and be as well informed of the truth as these seditious spirits that spend all their breath to raise arms against their Prince and to spill so much blood of the most faithful subjects But though the authority of the best Authours is of no authority with them that will believe none but themselves yet I would wish all other men to read that Homily of the Church of England where it is said that God did never long prosper rebellious subjects against their Prince were they never so great in authority or so many in number yea were they never so noble so many so stout so witty and politique but alwayes they came by the overthrow and to a shameful end Yea though they pretend the redresse of the Common-wealth which rebellion of all other mischiefs doth most destroy The Homily against rebellion p. 390. 301. or reformation of religion whereas rebellion is most against all true religion yet the speedy overthrow of all Rebels sheweth that God alloweth neither the dignity of any person nor the multitude of any people nor the weight of any cause as sufficient for the which the subjects may move rebellion against their Princes and I would to God that every subject would read over all the six parts of that Homily against wilful rebellion for there are many excellent passages in it which being diligently read and seriously weighed would work upon every honest heart never to rebell against their lawful Prince And therefore the Lawes of all Lands being so plain to pronounce them Traytors that take arms against their Kings as you may see in the Statutes of England 25 Edw. 3. c. 2. And as you know it was one of the greatest Articles for which the Earl of Strafford was beheaded that he had actually leavied warre against the King The Nobles and Gentry Lords and Commons of both Houses of Parliament in all Kingdomes being convicted in their consciences with the
Lucifer among the Angels or if they think it necessary to correct qualify explain or alter some expressions or ceremonies in our Liturgy and Book of Common-Prayer we are so far from giving the least offence to weak Consciences that we heartily wish a lawful Synod which may have a full legal power as well to remove the offences as to punish the offenders and to establish such Laws and Canons as well against Separatists and Schismaticks Anabaptists and Brownists as against Recusants and Papists and such as may be for the Glory of God and the peace of our Church which was our sole intention in the last Synod But seeing their Plot was rather to establish a new Church than to redress the defects of the old and to countenance and advance those boute-fues that schismatically rent our Church in pieces and most wickedly defile the pure Doctrine of the same by degrading and displacing the grave Governours thereof I will to give you a taste of what fruit you are like to reap from them very briefly set down the sum of these two points Two points handled 1. What they have already done in the Affairs of our Church 1 Cor. 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 1. Opened a gap ta all licenciousness 1. What they have already done 2. What Discipline and Doctrine are like to ensue if they should be enabled or permitted to erect their new Church for as you may find it in the Remonstrance of the Commons of England to the House of Commons 1. Under colour of Regulating the Ecclesiastical Courts Courts that have been founded by the Apostles and had alwaies their Authority and Reverence among Christians even before the Secular power when the Emperours became Christians had confirmed them they have taken away in respect of the coercive part thereof which is the life of the Law and without which the other part is fruitless all the Spiritual jurisdiction of Gods Church they have taken away Aarons rod and would have only Manna left in Gods Ark so that now the crimes inquirable and censurable by those Courts though never so heinous as Adultery Incest and the like cannot be punished Heresies and Schisms which now of late have abounded in all places can no waies be Reformed and the neglect of Gods service can as hardly be repaired when as the Ministers cannot be enforced to attend their Cures the Church-officers cannot be compelled to perform their duty and the Parishioners cannot be brought by our Law to pay their Tythes and other necessary Duties which things are all so considerable that all Christians ought to fear how lamentable will be the end of these sad beginnings for my self have seen the House of God most unchristianly prophaned the Church-yard and the dead bodies of the Saints so rooted and miserably abused by Hogs and Swine that it would grieve meer men that scarce ever heard of God to see such a barbarous usage of any holy place and when the Ministers have given a seven-nights warning to prepare for the blessed Eucharist and the Communicants came to partake of those holy mysteries they were fain to return home without it for want of Bread and Wine to administer it and yet now the Church Governours have not any power to redress any of these abominable abuses 2. Under shew of Reforming the Church Discipline 2. Voted down all the Governours of Gods Church and bettering the Government thereof they have voted down those very Governours the Bishops and their Assistants the Deans and Chapters whose function was constituted by the Apostles and hath from that time continued to this very day As the most Learned Arch-Bishop of Armagh Bishop Hall Master Mason Master Tayler and that worthy Gentleman Master Theyer and others have sufficiently shewed to all the World 3. Under the pretence of expunging Popery which Bishop Jewel 3. Vilified our Service-book Bishop Parry Bishop Babington Bishop Bilson Bishop Morton Bishop Davenant Bishop Hall and abundance more of the Reverend Bishops have confuted expelled and kept out of our Church more than any yea than all their schismatical Disciples whose Learning was no waies able to answer the weakest Arguments of our Adversaries the Service Book that is established by Act of Parliament and was by those holy Martyrs that lost their lives and spilt their blood in defence of the Protestant Religion and defiance of Erroneous Popery so Divinely and devoutly composed as all the Reformation can bear witness and I am well assured the whole flock of these Convocants shall never be able without this to make any neer so pious must be totally cried down and hath been in many places burned used to the uncleanest use and teared all to pieces And to let you see their abomination herein I must crave patience to transcribe that it may the more generally pass the Speech of Alderman Garraway Alderman Garraway p. 7. where he saith pag. 7. Did not my Lord Maior that is Pennington first enter upon his Office with a Speech against the Book of Common Prayer Hath the Common Prayer ever been read before him Hath not Captain Ven said that his Wife could make prayers worth three of any in that Book O Masters There have been times that he which should speak against the Book of Common-Prayer in this City should not have been put to the patience of a Legal-Trial we were wont to look upon it as the greatest treasure and the Jewel of our Religion and he that should have told us he wished well to our Religion and yet would have taken away the Book of Common-Prayer would never have gotten credit I have been in all the parts of Christendome and have conversed with Christians in Turkey why in all the Reformed Churches there is not any thing of more Reverence than the English Liturgy not our Royal Exchange nor the Navy of Queen Elizabeth is so famous as this in Geneva it self I have heard it extolled to the skies I have been three months together by Sea and not a day without hearing it read twice How the Mariners esteem the Liturgy the honest Mariners then despised all the World but the King and the Common-Prayer Book he that should be suspected to wish ill to either of them should have made but an ill voyage and let me tell you they are shrewd Youths those Sea-men if they once discern that the person of the King is in danger or the Protestant professed Religion they will shew themselves mad bodies before you are aware of it I would not be a Brownist or an Anabaptist in their way for And yet these men have so basely abused and are so violent to abolish this excellent Book and Divine Liturgy that Many will not believe it though it should be told unto them I would they did but read that Act of Parliament which is prefixed unto the same to see if they regarded either the Law of God or Man the Religion of the Clergy that composed it or the
went from us 2. Note 1 John 2.15 but are not of us such as were called but then forsook their first love and apostated from the Church and like ungracious children did throw dirt in their mothers face or like the brood of Vipers do labour to gnaw out her bowels and here let the world judge whether we went from them or they from us whether we or they apostated from that Oath and profession which all and every one of us did make when we entred into holy Orders 3. These false Prophets saith the Apostle do lead simple 3. Note 2 Tim. 3.6 Gen. 3.1.6 or silly women captives just as their Master first seduced Eve and she Adam so do these and because they have lesse worth than can attain to the height of their ambition you may see most of them by women raised to great fortunes that their pride disdaineth to be obedient or if they fail of such wives yet are they swelled with envie which is as rebellious in these as pride is in the other 6 Ordered to take away all the revenues of the most worthy Clergy 6. Under the pretence of making our Clergie more spiritual and Apostolique they have voted away most of our temporal estates the Lands and Lordships of the Bishops Deans and Prebends and the Pluralities of those persons that possessed double Benefices and made their Order that no man should pay any rent or any dues unto any of the forenamed persons And by this taking away the free-hold of the Clergy now in present which they hold with as good right and by the same Law as the best Lord in England holdeth his Inheritance and by this discouragement of Learning for the time to come they thought to make our Clergy Angelical but have proved themselves I will not say diabolical but most injurious unto the Church of Christ by committing an Act of as great injustice and as prejudicial to the Common-wealth as can be found among the Pagans For what can be more unjust or more inhumane than to take away my Lively-hood which is my very life in mine old age without any offence of mine for which I had laboured all the dayes of my life And what consequence can this produce than that which succeeded in the like case Sublatis studiorum praemiis ipsa studia pereunt C. Tacit. 1 Reg. 12 31. Matth. 15.14 in Jeroboam's time when he robbed the Priests and Levites of their Inheritance ignorance and barbarity and the basest of the people to be the Preachers of Gods Word whereby the blind do lead the blind untill both do fall into the ditch as I can testifie some of our greatest Nobility intended to make their sonnes Priests and Bishops while the glory of Israel and the beauty of our Church remained un-obscured and now contempt and poverty being enacted and ordered to be their portion those resolutions are vanished and the Vniversities can bear me witnesse the lowest Gentrie are not so well contented to undertake this highest calling These and many other things ejusdem farinae of the same mold they have already done to overwhelm the ship of Christ under the waves of this turbulent Faction And these prophanations of Gods divine Service and the violations of the Sepulchres of the dead whose ashes and bones like canes sepulchrales they have disturbed in their graves and those unheard-of sacriledges on Gods Priests and portion are so equally practised that it is almost hard to judge which are greater either their impiety towards God their inhumanity towards the dead or their injustice towards the living CHAP. VIII Sheweth what Discipline or Church-government our factious Schismaticks do like best And twelve principal points of Doctrine which they hold as twelve Articles of their faith and we are to believe the same or suffer if this faction should prevail 2. What discipline and doctrine the new Synod is like to set up 2. FOr the discipline and the doctrine that they would establish they have not yet and I believe they can never fully agree what they shall be their desire is first to overthrow the old and then they will take care and consult how to devise a new but I could wish they would let the old alone till they could agree to produce a better Yet because their blind zeal is so violent to have their own unjust desires to destroy the vine-yard of Christ root and branch I that have served seven years a Lecturer among them in the heart of London and was conversant with the purest of these holy brethren and thereby understood most of their Anabaptistical and ridiculous tenets and what discipline they best liked will here draw you a model of their Vtopian or New England Church which they would transport hither to obscure the glory of old England 1. For their discipline and government 1. Their discipline Some would have the Scottish Synods and that form of Government which old furious Knox hath first brought among them and is fully described by that Reverend Arch-Bishop Bancroft Others like better of the Geneva Assemblies Bancâ—oft in lib. English Scottizing instituted by M. Calvin and continued by Theodore Beza two worthy members of that Church or the discipline of the Hugonots in the new French Reformation which differeth but a little from the other But most of them like better of the manner of Amsterdam where every Church is independent and every Pastour is a Pope in his own Parish and to that purpose you may remember how vehemently they have lately most foolishly written * As Smith Best Davenport Canne Robinson and Mris. Childley and many other anonyms Sober Sadnesse p. 22. for this Independent Government and how the Lord Say and the Lord Brooks two leading Captains of that faction have often protested they would dispense with all sorts of Religions so they might freely exercise their own and that such a toleration ought to be granted to all others because their Independencie cannot otherwise consist for he that is accountable to none will use what Religion he pleaseth without controule and therefore they support their own Army by men of all Nations and Religions not their grand Adversaries the Papists excepted but of fifty or sixty Souldiers that billeted in Adthrop there were no less than three or four Papists amongst them But how unsutable these Governments would prove to stand with our English Nobility and Gentry besides the novelty of them How unsutable their government would be to our Gentrie and how farre dissonant they are to the Apostolique discipline I will appeal to their own judgement when every undiscreet Parson and poor Vicar shall be able upon every discontent to excommunicate the best man in his Parish and as we have seen some of them debarring whom they pleased from the holy Table because their great anger or little judgement conceived them to be unworthy When as the Church deemed it fitter that none of her children should undergo the
hath given him 3. They have with Nadab and Abihu adventured to offer strange fire upon Gods Altar and with Vzza to lay their prophane hands upon Gods holy Arke they have rejected the Lawes that the King with the advice and consultation of all his learned Clergy hath made * Though now I reckon not this among their wickednesses and they themselves sit in Moses chaire and have undertaken to reforme the Church to make Lawes and compose Articles of our faith with the advice of a few factious men that were never esteemed otherwise then faex Cleri not woâ—â—hy to be the Curates of those worthy Divines whose feet they hurt in the stocks 〈…〉 the iron into their soules How they persecute the Bishops and the best of the Clergy 4. They have cast out all the Bâ—shops and all the faithfull Ministers of Christ out of all offices that might further the Gospell and administer justice unto the people they do rob them of their meâ—nes and count sacriledge to be no sin and in very deed they have persecuted the worthiest Clergy in many particulars far worse then ever Julian that wicked Apostata did the Lord of Heaven give us patience to indure it and suffer us not for feare of any villanie or calamity to be dejected and so fall away from his truth 5. They have called and continued an Assembly which the Pope would not do without the Emperours leave contrary to the Kings command which is a meere and mighty usurpation of the Regall right 6. They have seized upon the Kings Revenues Castles Forts Townes Ships and all that they could lay hand on and do in a hostile manner with all violence detaine them from him but what he gaines by his sword to this very day 7. They have fought against him shot at His sacred Person and sought most Barbarously to kill him under the colour to preserve him which is the finest piece of Logicke that ever was read 8. They have rayled at him slandered him and most apparently and falsly belyed him and laid to his charge the things which we his Majesties Subjects and Servants that attend Him do know that He neither did nor knew 9. They incouraged and countenanced their ignorant brazen-faced Chaplains most uncivilâ—y to rayle at Gods Anointed in the Pulpit and so they brought the abomination not of desolation but of most horrible transgression into the holy place and made Moses chaire the seat of railers 10. They taxe the Subjects at their pleasure and have raised infinite summes of money and no man but themselves knowes how they have disposed or what they have done therewith 11. They discharged Apprentices they send out their Warrants and their Edicts without and against the Kings authority which are but nugae and the minims of their doings 12. They averre that the King hath no negative voice in making Lawes but they may conclude them and make them obligatory without the Kings approbation or ratification and that they may do any thing conducible to the good of the Church and Common-wealth any Law Statute or provision made to the contrary notwithstanding What they say of their Covenants 13. They are not ashamed to teach as they do practice that it is lawfull for them to make Covenants Combinations and Confederacies of mutuall defence and offence against any person whatsoever whom themselves judge malignant not excepting the King himselfe and they say that it were better for them to renounce their Baptisme then to forsake their Covenant which they believe will be more advantageous to the Kingdome then all the Priviledges that are granted in Magna Charta or the Statutes that have been made ever since 14. They jeered at the Kings Proclamations trampled his Declarations under feet and incountred the same with rebellious Protestations To what they liken the kings pardons 15. They perswade the people to give no eare to any discourse of Accommodation or conclusion for any peace and say that the King is not to be trusted that he will performe no promise that he maketh either in his Proclamations or Declarations and therefore that the Kings Pardons may be likened to a buckler of glasse or a staffe of reede on which there is no trust no committing themselves to the defence of any such pardon So we may say with the Poet Nos juvat alma quies gens haec fera bella minatur Et quoties pacem poscimus arma crepat Whence they learned their Divinity 16. They teach the Doctrine of coercion dedignifying degrading and decapitating of Kings when they deeme them unworthy of that dignity and their arguments and reasons they collect and produce out of Dolman Bellarm. Suarez and the Magazine of the most rigid Jesuites 17. They have so barbarously and so irreverently and so prophanely abused our Service-Book that it would â—â—ath your eares to heare transcend modesty to tell you how they have dealt with it and they threatned that if the Ministers would read it they should never read book again 18. They do agree with the worst of Papists the Jesuites in a great many of the worst points of doctrine that they teach and yet being not well able to understand their tenets they hate Papists so much How contrary to Christs doctrine Matth. 13.29 they would root out all Papists that they would root them out of their very being they would destroy all the Irish that are Papists and drive all Papists out of England out of the world that the name of Papists should be no more in remembrance and contrary to all reason divinity and humanity they would force and compell every man to profess the Religion that they are of though some of them as their independents are far on the other side would have every man to have liberty to profess what Religion himselfe liketh best 19. They have most ingratefully and disloyally injured a most loving wife and their owne most gracious Queen for shewing Her love How they have wronged the Queen the Nobility Clergy Gentry and Commons of this Land and discharging Her duty to Her husband They have imprisoned and barbarously used some of the Nobility most of the Clergy and abundance of the Gentry and others of the best account of the common Subjects of this Kingdom they have plundered and robbed many thousands of men they have killed and murdered as many they have made our Cities dens of theeves our Churches prisons and all the Land Acheldama's fields of blood they multiplyed the number of Widowes Orphanes and Theeves without number throughout the Land and they filled the whole Kingdome with miseries lamentations and woes and they have done so many mischiefes as if I should set them all down would fill up another volume And 20. As if all this were not enough to fill up the measure of their iniquity they spared neither pains nor cost to call in the Scots to assist them How they laboured to call in the Scots to
perpetuate the War to fill our Kingdome with strangers and to make our calamities everlasting so they fell from evil to worse from discontent to schisme from schisme to open Rebellion and their Rebellion more wicked then any Rebels that we can reade of in any History which is the just judgment of God upon them that they which rebelliously run out of the Communion of Gods Church should most desperately run out of their own wits and refusing to be guarded by the Heavenly Angels should give themselves to be guided by the infernall Divels which made a merry fellow at the enumeration of their abhominable and indeed innumerable wickednesses to say Hell was never better then it is now The speech of a merry companion because he thought the Divels were all in London or otherwise it were impossible that the Citizens which have received so many gracious offers of pardons from His Majesty and promises of other favours should still continue so wicked as they are so gulled and seduced by this Parliament faction that non suadebis etiamsi persuaseris because as S. Augustine saith impia mens nolit intellectum and they love to cozen and cheat their own souls by new painting these old sins and calling their faction faith their madnesse zeale and their horrid Rebellion fighting for Religion but as the Poët saith Non tanti est civilia bella movere Whatsoever pretences move them to it this remedy will increase their miseries for if God be no more mercifull to us then their sin deserves it may end here in an universal destruction and hereafter in their eternall damnation for doth not all the world see how God scourgeth us with the rod of our own furious madnesse and like as it befell the Ammonites and Moabites 2 Chron. 20.23 that fighting against the Israelites did help to destroy one another so we striving not against Israel but as we pretend both against the Edomites against falshood doe utterly destroy our selves Exemplóque pari ruit Anglica turba suóque Marte cadunt coesi per mutua vulnera fratres And we that did keep our enemies in awe shall be now destroyed by the sons of our own mother but I confesse our Land abounds with sins and our sins have justly deserved this heavy punishment to light upon us yet I beseech our God to chastise us with his own hands and let us not fall under the swords of the uncircumcised Philistines that are a people much more wicked then our selves and if he will let our soules live we shall praise his name 21. When they had most fraudulently gotten His Majesty to passe an Act which though really intended How they intended to get all Ireland to themselves yet to many men seems a very strange Act to refer the managing of the affaires of Ireland to the Parliament of England then they took that course to root out all the Papists Irish English Brittish and indeed all the Inhabitants of Ireland except their own brotherhood for they could have soon descried the marke of the beast in all the rest which they thought would be most effectual to further their designe and to bring the whole Kingdom of Ireland to be inherited by their own faction that is to sell all the Lands of the Rebels to themselves for they knew none else would buy it at that time and in that manner as they determined and when they had thus locked the doore and stopped the way of all relief unto the distressed Protestants of that Kingdom they might sing Dimidium toti qui benè coepit habet For they had setled Scotland and they had now grasped Ireland and held it fast in Vulcans net and therefore now it might stay till they could reduce Eâ—gland to make a perfect work in all the three Kingdomes to the same forme of government both in Chu ch and State as they projected for the other and because they would have some places of entrance into Ireland and hinder the Rebels to possesse the whole Kingdome and also blind the eyes of the ignorant not to perceive their plot How they blinded the people by their proceedings but to keep them still in some hope of redresse they sent such a party over and the Scots must be the most considerable part as might keep their own design on foot and yet yield not an inch of any comfort to the spoyled and expelled Protestant for they left that party which they sent thither rather as a prey to their enemies as having neither cloathes meat nor money then inabled by these accoutrements to subdue the Rebels as it is better and more fully declared by the Letter of the State of Ireland to the House of Commons then I can relate unto you What the Author saw in Ireland And I being in Ireland seeing the deplorable state of that Kingdome the miserable distress of the mangled starved and naked Protestants the little children calling and crying for bread and none to give it them many worthy Ministe s begging or dying for want in the streets and the poore bare-footed and hunger-bitten Souldier lamenting his hard fortune to be transplanted out of Gods blessing into the warme sun from plenty and prosperity to be left as the Traveller betwixt Hierusalem and Hierico halfe dead betwixt merciless Rebells and more unmercifull friends neither wholly to be destroyed nor yet to be releived was much troubled and perplexed at these sad aspects and being intrusted by the Bishops my Brethren of that Kingdome to agitate the cause of the Church for our reliefe here in England and to that end having a Letter unto his Majesty and a Remonstrance of our distressed condition though with the great hazard of my life at Sea yet I arrived by Gods great blessing in England How used as soon as ever he came to his House and before I had been two dayes at home my house was surrounded with a Troope of Armed Souldiers they entred in seized upon my person searched every roome and every corner with a candle not leaving the bedstraw whereon my children lay unsearched they took all my papers and all the money they found in my house even my servants money to the summ of 40 and carried all with me their poor Prisoner to Northhampton and now I thought it was but an ill exchange to escape the Sea and to fall into the fire to shun the Lion How a precise Church-warden would have hindred a Bishop to preach and to meeet a Beare to eschew the Rebels in Ireland and to fall into the hands of T aytors in England and I knew not why but onely that I had often Preached at Tâ—wâ—â—ster where being requested by Master Lockwood to supply the place the precise Church-wardens very peremptorily told me I should not do it because I was a royalist and spake against the Parliament to whom I replyed that he had no such authority to hinder a Bishop to Preach and bad him look to