him nor condemn'd themselves But he will needs have vengeance to pursue and overtake them though to bring it in it cost him an inconvenient and obnoxious comparison As the Mice and Ratts overtook a German Bishop I would our Mice and Ratts had bin as Orthodoxal heer and had so pursu'd all his Bishops out of England then vermin had ridd away vermin which now hath lost the lives of too many thousand honest men to doe He cannot but observe this Divine Justice yet with sorrow and pitty But sorrow and pitty in a weak and over-maister'd enemy is lookt upon no otherwise then as the ashes of his revenge burnt out upon it self or as the damp of a coold fury when we say it gives But in this manner to sit spelling and observing divine justice upon every accident slight disturbance that may happ'n humanly to the affaires of men is but another fragment of his brok'n revenge yet the shrewdest the cunningest obloquy that can be thrown upon thir actions For if he can perswade men that the Parlament and thir cause is pursu'd with Divine vengeance he hath attain'd his end to make all men forsake them and think the worst that can be thought of them Nor is he onely content to suborn Divine Justice in his censure of what is past but he assumes the person of Christ himself to prognosticate over us what he wishes would come So little is any thing or person sacred from him no not in Heav'n which he will not use and put on if it may serve him plausibly to wreck his spleen or ease his mind upon the Parlament Although if ever fatal blindness did both attend and punish wilfulness if ever any enjoy'd not comforts for neglecting counsel belonging to thir peace it was in none more conspicuously brought to pass then in himself and his predictions against the Parlament and thir adherents have for the most part bin verify'd upon his own head and upon his chief Counselors He concludes with high praises of the Army But praises in an enemy are superfluous or smell of craft and the Army shall not need his praises nor the Parlament fare worse for his accusing prayers that follow Wherin as his Charity can be no way comparable to that of Christ so neither can his assurance that they whom he seems to pray for in doing what they did against him knew not what they did It was but arrogance therfore and not charity to lay such ignorance to others in the sight of God till he himself had bin infallible like him whose peculiar words he overweeningly assumes XXVII Intitil'd to the Prince of Wales VVHat the King wrote to his Son as a Father concerns not us what he wrote to him as a King of England concerns not him God and the Parlament having now otherwise dispos'd of England But because I see it don with some artifice and labour to possess the people that they might amend thir present condition by his or by his Sons restorement I shall shew point by point that although the King had bin reinstall'd to his desire or that his Son admitted should observe exactly all his Fathers precepts yet that this would be so farr from conducing to our happiness either as a remedy to the present distempers or a prevention of the like to come that it would inevitably throw us back again into all our past and fulfill'd miseries would force us to fight over again all our tedious Warrs and put us to another fatal struggling for Libertie and life more dubious then the former In which as our success hath bin no other then our cause so it will be evident to all posteritie that his misfortunes were the meer consequence of his perverse judgement First he argues from the experience of those troubles which both he and his Son have had to the improvement of thir pietie and patience and by the way beares witness in his own words that the corrupt education of his youth which was but glanc'd at onely in some former passages of this answer was a thing neither of mean consideration nor untruly charg'd upon him or his Son himself confessing heer that Court delights are prone either to root up all true vertue and honour or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them without any reall fruits tending to the public good Which presents him still in his own words another Rehoboam soft'nd by a farr wors Court then Salomons and so corrupted by flatteries which he affirmes to be unseparable to the overturning of all peace and the loss of his own honour and Kingdoms That he came therfore thus bredd up and nurtur'd to the Throne farr wors then Rehoboam unless he be of those who equaliz'd his Father to King Salomon we have heer his own confession And how voluptuously how idlely raigning in the hands of other men he either tyranniz'd or trifl'd away those seventeen yeares of peace without care or thought as if to be a King had bin nothing els in his apprehension but to eat and drink and have his will and take his pleasure though there be who can relate his domestic life to the exactness of a diary there shall be heer no mention made This yet we might have then foreseen that he who spent his leisure so remissly and so corruptly to his own pleasing would one day or other be wors busied and imployd to our sorrow And that he acted in good earnest what Rehoboam did but threat'n to make his little finger heavier then his Fathers loynes and to whip us with his two twisted Scorpions both temporal and spiritual Tyranny all his Kingdoms have felt What good use he made afterward of his adversitie both his impenitence and obstinacy to the end for he was no Manasseh and the sequel of these his meditated resolutions abundantly express retaining commending teaching to his Son all those putrid and pernicious documents both of State and of Religion instill'd by wicked Doctors and receav'd by him as in a Vessel nothing better seasond which were the first occasion both of his own and all our miseries And if he in the best maturity of his yeares and understanding made no better use to himself or others of his so long and manifold afflictions either looking up to God or looking down upon the reason of his own affaires there can be no probability that his son bred up not in the soft effeminacies of Court onely but in the rugged and more boistrous licence of undisciplin'd Camps and Garrisons for yeares unable to reflect with judgement upon his own condition and thus ill instructed by his Father should give his mind to walk by any other rules then these bequeath'd him as on his Fathers death-bed as the choisest of all that experience w ch his most serious observation and retirement in good or evil dayes had taught him David indeed by suffering without just cause learnt that meekness and that wisdom by adversity
this King and most his Favorites were Courtiers and Prelates men whose chief study was to finde out which way the King inclin'd and to imitate him exactly How these men stood affected to Parlaments cannot be forgott'n No man but may remember it was thir continuall exercise to dispute and preach against them and in thir common discours nothing was more frequent then that they hoped the King should now have no need of Parlaments any more And this was but the copy which his Parasites had industriously tak'n from his own words and actions who never call'd a Parlament but to supply his necessities and having supply'd those as suddenly and ignominiously dissolv'd it without redressing any one greevance of the people Somtimes choosing rather to miss of his Subsidies or to raise them by illegal courses then that the people should not still miss of thir hopes to be releiv'd by Parlaments The first he broke off at his comming to the Crown for no other cause then to protect the Duke of Buckingham against them who had accus'd him besides other hainous crimes of no less then poysoning the deceased King his Father concerning which matter the Declaration of No more addresses hath sufficiently inform'd us And still the latter breaking was with more affront and indignity put upon the House and her worthiest Members then the former Insomuch that in the fifth year of his Raign in a Proclamation he seems offended at the very rumor of a Parlament divulg'd among the people as if he had tak'n it for a kind of slander that men should think him that way exorable much less inclin'd and forbidds it as a presumption to prescribe him any time for Parlaments that is to say either by perswasion or Petition or so much as the reporting of such a rumor for other manner of prescribing was at that time not suspected By which feirce Edict the people forbidd'n to complain as well as forc'd to suffer began from thenceforth to despaire of Parlaments Whereupon such illegal actions and especially to get vast summs of Money were put in practise by the King and his new Officers as Monopolies compulsive Knight-hoods Cote Conduct and Ship money the seizing not of one Naboths Vineyard but of whole Inheritances under the pretence of Forrest or Crown Lands corruption and Bribery compounded for with impunities granted for the future as gave evident proof that the King never meant nor could it stand with the reason of his affaires ever to recall Parlaments having brought by these irregular courses the peoples interest and his own to so direct an opposition that he might foresee plainly if nothing but a Parlament could save the people it must necessarily be his undoing Till eight or nine years after proceeding with a high hand in these enormities and having the second time levied an injurious Warr against his native Countrie Scotland and finding all those other shifts of raising Money which bore out his first expedition now to faile him not of his own chois and inclination as any Child may see but urg'd by strong necessities and the very pangs of State which his own violent proceedings had brought him to hee calls a Parlament first in Ireland which onely was to give him four Subsidies and so to expire then in England where his first demand was but twelve Subsidies to maintain a Scotch Warr condemn'd and abominated by the whole Kingdom promising thir greevances should be consider'd afterward Which when the Parlament who judg'd that Warr it self one of thir main greevances made no hast to grant not enduring the delay of his impatient will or els fearing the conditions of thir grant he breaks off the whole Session and dismisses them and thir greevances with scorn and frustration Much less therfore did hee call this last Parlament by his own chois and inclination but having first try'd in vaine all undue ways to procure Mony his Army of thir own accord being beat'n in the North the Lords Petitioning and the general voice of the people almost hissing him and his ill acted regality off the Stage compell'd at length both by his wants and by his feares upon meer extremity he summon'd this last Parlament And how is it possible that hee should willingly incline to Parlaments who never was perceiv'd to call them but for the greedy hope of a whole National Bribe his Subsidies and never lov'd never fulfill'd never promoted the true end of Parlaments the redress of greevances but still put them off and prolong'd them whether gratify'd ot not gratify'd and was indeed the Author of all those greevances To say therfore that hee call'd this Parlament of his own chois and inclination argues how little truth wee can expect from the sequel of this Book which ventures in the very first period to affront more then one Nation with an untruth so remarkable and presumes a more implicit Faith in the people of England then the Pope ever commanded from the Romish Laitie or els a natural sottishness fitt to be abus'd and ridd'n While in the judgement of wise Men by laying the foundation of his defence on the avouchment of that which is so manifestly untrue he hath giv'n a worse foile to his own cause then when his whole Forces were at any time overthrown They therfore who think such great Service don to the Kings affairs in publishing this Book will find themselves in the end mistak'n if sense and right mind or but any mediocrity of knowledge and remembrance hath not quite forsak'n men But to prove his inclination to Parlaments he affirms heer To have always thought the right way of them most safe for his Crown and best pleasing to his People What hee thought we know not but that hee ever took the contrary way wee saw and from his own actions we felt long agoe what he thought of Parlaments or of pleasing his People a surer evidence then what we hear now too late in words He alleges that the cause of forbearing to convene Parlaments was the sparkes which some mens distempers there studied to kindle They were indeed not temper'd to his temper for it neither was the Law nor the rule by which all other tempers were to bee try'd but they were esteem'd and chos'n for the fittest men in thir several Counties to allay and quench those distempers which his own inordinate doings had inflam'd And if that were his refusing to convene till those men had been qualify'd to his temper that is to say his will we may easily conjecture what hope ther was of Parlaments had not fear and his insatiat poverty in the midst of his excessive wealth constrain'd him Hee hoped by his freedom and their moderation to prevent misunderstandings And wherfore not by their freedom and his moderation But freedom he thought too high a word for them and moderation too mean a word for himself this was not the way to prevent misunderstandings He still fear'd passion and prejudice in other men not
difficult to be guess'd And those instances wherein valour is not to be question'd for not scuffling with the Sea or an undisciplind Rabble are but subservient to carry on the solemn jest of his fearing Tumults if they discover not withall the true reason why he departed onely to turne his slashing at the Court Gate to slaughtering in the Field his disorderly bickering to an orderly invading which was nothing els but a more orderly disorder Some suspected and affirm'd that he meditated a Warr when he went first from White Hall And they were not the worst heads that did so nor did any of his former acts weak'n him to that as he alleges for himself or if they had they cleere him onely for the time of passing them not for what ever thoughts might come after into his mind Former actions of improvidence or fear not with him unusual cannot absolve him of all after meditations He goes on protesting his no intention to have left White Hall had these horrid Tumults giv'n him but Faire Quarter as if he himself his Wife and Children had bin in peril But to this anough hath bin answer'd Had this Parlament as it was in its first Election Namely with the Lord and Baron Bishops sate full and free he doubts not but all had gon well What warrant this of his to us Whose not doubting was all good mens greatest doubt He was resolv'd to heare reason and to consent so farr as he could comprehend A hopefull resolution what if his reason were found by oft experience to comprehend nothing beyond his own advantages was this a reason fit to be intrusted with the common good of three Nations But saith he as Swine are to gardens so are Tumults to Parlaments This the Parlament had they found it so could best have told us In the meane while who knows not that one great Hogg may doe as much mischief in a Garden as many little Swine He was sometimes prone to think that had he call'd this last Parlament to any other place in England the sad consequences might have bin prevented But change of ayr changes not the mind Was not his first Parlament at Oxford dissolv'd after two Subsidies giv'n him and no Justice receav'd Was not his last in the same place where they sat with as much freedom as much quiet from Tumults as they could desire a Parlament both in his account and thir own consisting of all his Friends that fled after him and suffer'd for him and yet by him nicknam'd and casheer'd for a Mungrill Parlament that vext his Queen with thir base and mutinous motions as his Cabinet letter tells us Wherby the World may see plainly that no shifting of place no sifting of members to his own mind no number no paucity no freedom from tumults could ever bring his arbitrary wilfulness and tyrannical Designes to brook the lest shape or similitude the lest counterfet of a Parlament Finally instead of praying for his people as a good King should doe hee prayes to be deliver'd from them as from wild Beasts Inundations and raging Seas that had overborn all Loyalty Modesty Laws Justice and Religion God save the people from such Intercessors V. Upon the Bill for Trienniall Parlaments And for setling this c. THe Bill for a Triennial Parlament was but the third part of one good step toward that which in times past was our annual right The other Bill for setling this Parlament was new indeed but at that time very necessary and in the Kings own Words no more then what the World was fully confirm'd hee might in Justice Reason Honour and Conscience grant them for to that end he affirms to have don it But wheras he attributes the passing of them to his own act of grace and willingness as his manner is to make vertues of his necessities and giving to himself all the praise heaps ingratitude upon the Parlament a little memory will sett the cleane contrary before us that for those Beneficial acts we ow what wee ow to the Parlament but to his granting them neither praise nor thanks The first Bill granted much less then two former Statutes yet in force by Edward the third that a Parlament should be call'd every yeare or ofter if need were nay from a farr ancienter Law Book call'd the Mirror it is affirm'd in a late Treatise call'd Rights of the Kingdom that Parlaments by our old Laws ought twice a year to be at London From twice in one year to once in three year it may be soon cast up how great a loss we fell into of our ancient liberty by that act which in the ignorant and Slavish mindes we then were was thought a great purchase Wisest men perhaps were contented for the present at least by this act to have recoverd Parlaments w ch were then upon the brink of danger to be forever lost And this is that which the King preaches heer for a special tok'n of his Princely favour to have abridg'd over reach'd the people five parts in six of what thir due was both by ancient Statute and originally And thus the taking from us all but a Triennial remnant of that English Freedom which our Fathers left us double in a fair annuity enrowl'd is set out and sould to us heer for the gracious and over liberal giving of a new enfranchisment How little may we think did he ever give us who in the Bill of his pretended givings writes down Imprimis that benefit or privilege once in three year giv'n us which by so giving he more then twice every year illegally took from us Such givers as give single to take away sixfold be to our Enemies For certainly this Common-wealth if the Statutes of our Ancestors be worth ought would have found it hard and hazardous to thrive under the dammage of such a guilefull liberatie The other act was so necessary that nothing in the power of Man more seem'd to be the stay support of all things from that steep ruin to which he had nigh brought them then that Act obtain'd He had by his ill Stewardship and to say no worse the needless raising of two Armies intended for a civil War begger'd both himself and the Public and besides had left us upon the score of his needy Enemies for what it cost them in thir own defence against him To disingage him and the Kingdom great sums were to be borrow'd which would never have bin lent nor could ever be repaid had the King chanc'd to dissolve this Parlament as heertofore The errors also of his Goverment had brought the Kingdom to such extremes as were incapable of all recovery without the absolute continuance of a Parlament It had bin els in vaine to goe about the setling of so great distempers if hee who first caus'd the malady might when he pleas'd reject the remedy Notwithstanding all which that he granted both these Acts unwillingly and as a meer passive Instrument was then
stirr'd him so vehemently to have Sir John Hotham punisht and not at all that we heare to have him repent it had a strange operation to be call'd a sorrow for his sin Hee who would perswade us of his sorrow for the sins of other men as they are sins not as they are sin'd against himself must give us first some testimony of a sorrow for his own sins and next for such sins of other men as cannot be suppos'd a direct injury to himself But such compunction in the King no man hath yet observ'd and till then his sorrow for Sir John Hothams sin will be call'd no other then the resentment of his repulse and his labour to have the sinner onely punish'd will be call'd by a right name his revenge And the hand of that cloud which cast all soon after into darkness and disorder was his own hand For assembling the Inhabitants of York-shire and other Counties Horse and Foot first under colour of a new Guard to his Person soon after being suppli'd with ammunition from Holland bought with the Crown Jewels he begins an op'n Warr by laying Seige to Hull Which Town was not his own but the Kingdoms and the Armes there public Armes bought with the public Mony or not his own Yet had they bin his own by as good right as the privat House and Armes of any man are his own to use either of them in a way not privat but suspicious to the Common-wealth no Law permitts But the King had no proprietie at all either in Hull or in the Magazin So that the following Maxims which he cites of bold and disloyall undertakers may belong more justly to whom he least meant them After this he againe relapses into the praise of his patience at Hull and by his overtalking of it seems to doubt either his own conscience or the hardness of other mens beleif To me the more he praises it in himself the more he seems to suspect that in very deed it was not in him and that the lookers on so likewise thought Thus much of what he suffer'd by Hotham and with what patience now of what Hotham suffer'd as he judges for opposing him He could not but observe how God not long after pleaded and aveng'd his cause Most men are too apt and commonly the worst of men so to interpret and expound the judgements of God and all other events of providence or chance as makes most to the justifying of thir own cause though never so evill and at tribute all to the particular favour of God towards them Thus when Saul heard that David was in Keilah God saith he hath deliver'd him into my hands for he is shut in But how farr that King was deceav'd in his thought that God was favouring to his cause that story unfolds and how little reason this King had to impute the death of Hotham to Gods avengement of his repuls at Hull may easily be seen For while Hotham continu'd faithfull to his trust no man more safe more successfull more in reputation then hee But from the time he first sought to make his peace with the King and to betray into his hands that Town into which before he had deny'd him entrance nothing prosper'd with him Certainly had God purpos'd him such an end for his opposition to the King he would not have deferr'd to punish him till then when of an Enemy he was chang'd to be the Kings Friend nor have made his repentance and amendment the occasion of his ruin How much more likely is it since he fell into the act of disloyalty to his charge that the judgement of God concurr'd with the punishment of man and justly cut him off for revolting to the King To give the World an example that glorious deeds don to ambitious ends find reward answerable not to thir outward seeming but to thir inward ambition In the mean while what thanks he had from the King for revolting to his cause and what good opinion for dying in his service they who have ventur'd like him or intend may heer take notice Hee proceeds to declare not onely in general wherfore Gods judgement was upon Hotham but undertakes by fansies and allusions to give a criticism upon every particular That his head was divided from his body because his heart was divided from the King two heads cut off in one family for affronting the head of the Common-wealth the eldest son being infected with the sin of his Father against the Father of his Countrie These petty glosses and conceits on the high and secret judgements of God besides the boldness of unwarrantable commenting are so weake and shallow and so like the quibbl's of a Court Sermon that we may safely reck'n them either fetcht from such a pattern or that the hand of some houshold preist foisted them in least the World should forget how much he was a Disciple of those Cymbal Doctors But that argument by which the Author would commend them to us discredits them the more For if they be so obvious to every fancy the more likely to be erroneous and to misconceive the mind of those high secrecies wherof they presume to determin For God judges not by human fansy But however God judg'd Hotham yet he had the Kings pitty but marke the reason how preposterous so farr he had his pitty as he thought he at first acted more against the light of his conscience then many other men in the same cause Questionless they who act against conscience whether at the barr of human or Divine Justice are pittied least of all These are the common grounds and verdicts of Nature wherof when he who hath the judging of a Whole Nation is found destitute under such a Governour that Nation must needs be miserable By the way he jerkes at some mens reforming to models of Religion and that they think all is gold of pietie that doth but glister with a shew of Zeale We know his meaning and apprehend how little hope there could be of him from such language as this But are sure that the pietie of his prelatic modell glister'd more upon the posts and pillars which thir Zeale and fervencie guilded over then in the true workes of spiritual edification He is sorry that Hotham felt the Justice of others and fell not rather into the hands of his mercy But to cleare that he should have shewn us what mercy he had ever vs'd to such as fell into his hands before rather then what mercy he intended to such as never could come to aske it VVhatever mercy one man might have expected t is too well known the whole Nation found none though they besought it oft'n and so humbly but had bin swallow'd up in blood and ruin to set his privat will above the Parlament had not his strength faild him Yet ctemenoy he counts a debt which he ought to pay to those that crave it since we pay not any thing to God for his mercy but
prayers and praises By this reason we ought as freely to pay all things to all men for of all that we receive from God what doe we pay for more then prayers and praises we look'd for the discharge of his Office the payment of his dutie to the Kingdom and are payd Court payment with empty sentences that have the sound of gravity but the significance of nothing pertinent Yet again after his mercy past and granted he returnes back to give sentence upon Hotham and whom he tells us he would so fain have sav'd alive him he never leaves killing with a repeated condemnation though dead long since It was ill that sombody stood not neer to whisper him that a reiterating Judge is worse then a tormentor He pitties him he rejoyces not he pitties him again but still is sure to brand him at the taile of his pitty with som ignominious mark either of ambition or disloyaltie And with a kind of censorious pitty aggravats rather then less'ns or conceals the fault To pitty thus is to triumph He assumes to foreknow that after times will dspute whether Hotham were more infamous at Hull or at Tower-hill What knew he of after times who while he sits judging and censuring with out end the fate of that unhappy Father and his son at Towerhill knew not that the like fate attended him before his own Palace Gate and as little knew whether after times reserve not a greater infamy to the story of his own life and raigne He saies but over again in his prayer what his Sermon hath Preacht How acceptably to those in heav'n we leave to be decided by that precept which forbidds Vaine Repetitions Sure anough it lies as heavie as he can lay it upon the head of poore Hotham Needs he will fast'n upon God a peece of revenge as done for his sake and takes it for a favor before he know it was intended him which in his closet had bin excusable but in a Writt'n and publish'd prayer too presumptuous Ecclesiastes hath a right name for such kind of Sacrifices Going on he prayes thus Let not thy Justice prevent the objects and opportunities of my mercy To folly or to blasphemy or to both shall we impute this Shall the Justice of God give place and serv to glorifie the mercies of a man All other men who know what they ask desire of God that thir doings may tend to his glory but in this prayer God is requir'd that his justice would forbeare to prevent and as good have said to intrench upon the glory of a mans mercy If God forbeare his Justice it must be sure to the magnifying of his own mercy How then can any mortal man without presumption little less then impious take the boldness to aske that glory out of his hand It may be doubted now by them who understand Religion whether the King were more unfortunat in this his prayer or Hotham in those his sufferings IX Upon the listing and raising Armies c. IT were an endless work to walk side by side with the Verbosity of this Chapter onely to what already hath not bin spok'n convenient answer shall be giv'n Hee begins againe with Tumults all demonstration of the Peoples Love and Loyaltie to the Parlament was Tumult thir Petitioning Tumult thir defensive Armies were but listed Tumults and will take no notice that those about him those in a time of peace listed into his own House were the beginners of all these Tumults abusing and assaulting not onely such as came peaceably to the Parlament at London but those that came Petitioning to the King himself at York Neither did they abstain from doing violence and outrage to the Messengers sent from Parlament he himself either count nancing or conniving at them He supposes that His recess gave us confidence that he might be conquer'd Other men suppose both that and all things els who knew him neither by nature Warlike nor experienc'd nor fortunate so farr was any man that discern'd aught from esteeming him unconquerable yet such are readiest to imbroile others But he had a soule invincible What praise is that The stomach of a Child is ofttimes invincible to all correction The unteachable man hath a soule to all reason and good advice invincible and he who is intractable he whom nothing can perswade may boast himself invincible whenas in some things to be overcome is more honest and laudable then to conquer He labours to have it thought that his fearing God more then Man was the ground of his sufferings but he should have known that a good principle not rightly understood may prove as hurtfull as a bad and his feare of God may be as faulty as a blind zeale He pretended to feare God more then the Parlament who never urg'd him to doe otherwise he should also have fear'd God more then he did his Courtiers and the Bishops who drew him as they pleas'd to things inconsistent with the feare of God Thus boasted Saul to have perform'd the Commandment of God and stood in it against Samuel but it was found at length that he had fear'd the people more then God in saving those fatt Oxen for the worship of God which were appointed for destruction Not much unlike if not much wors was that fact of his who for feare to displease his Court and mungrel Clergy with the dissolutest of the people upheld in the Church of God while his power lasted those Beasts of Amalec the Prelats against the advice of his Parlament and the example of all Reformation in this more unexcusable then Saul that Saul was at length convinc'd he to the howr of death fix'd in his fals perswasion and sooths himself in the flattering peace of an erroneous and obdurat conscience singing to his soul vain Psalms of exultation as if the Parlament had assail'd his reason with the force of Arms and not lie on the contrary their reason with his Armes which hath bin prov'd already and shall be more heerafter He twitts them with his Acts of grace proud and unself-knowing words in the mouth of any King who affects not to be a God and such as ought to be as odious in the ears of a free Nation For if they were unjust acts why did he grant them as of grace If just it was not of his grace but of his duty and his Oath to grant them A glorious King he would be though by his sufferings But that can never be to him whose sufferings are his own doings He faines a hard chois put upon him either to kill his own Subjects or be kill'd Yet never was King less in danger of any violence from his Subjects till he unsheath'd his Sword against them nay long after that time when he had spilt the blood of thousands they had still his person in a foolish veneration Hee complaines That civil Warr must be the fruits of of his seventeen yeares raigning with such a measure of Justice Peace and
Plenty and Religion as all Nations either admir'd or envi'd For the Justice we had let the Counsel-Table Starr-Chamber High Commission speak the praise of it not forgetting the unprincely usage and as farr as might be the abolishing of Parlaments the displacing of honest Judges the sale of Offices Bribery and Exaction not found out to be punish'd but to be shar'd in with impunity for the time to come Who can number the extortions the oppressions the public robberies and rapines committed on the Subject both by Sea and Land under various pretences Thir possessions also tak'n from them one while as Forrest Land another while as Crown-Land nor were thir Goods exempted no not the Bullion in the Mint Piracy was become a project own'd and authoriz'd against the Subject For the peace we had what peace was that which drew out the English to a needless and disshonourable voyage against the Spaniard at Cales Or that which lent our shipping to a treacherous and Antichristian Warr against the poore Protestants of Rochell our suppliants What peace was that which fell to rob the French by Sea to the imbarring of all our Merchants in that Kingdom which brought forth that unblest expedition to the I le of Rhee doubtfull whether more calamitous in the success or in the designe betraying all the flowre of our military youth and best Commanders to a shamefull surprisal and execution This was the peace we had and the peace we gave whether to freinds or to foes abroad And if at home any peace were intended us what meant those Irish billeted Souldiers in all parts of the Kingdom and the designe of German Horse to fubdue us in our peacefull Houses For our Religion where was there a more ignorant profane and vitious Clergy learned in nothing but the antiquitie of thir pride thir covetousnes and superstition whose unsincere and levenous Doctrine corrupting the people first taught them loosness then bondage loosning them from all sound knowledge and strictness of life the more to fit them for the bondage of Tyranny and superstition So that what was left us for other Nations not to pitty rather then admire or envy all those seaventeen yeares no wise man could see For wealth and plenty in a land where Justice raignes not is no argument of a flourishing State but of a neerness rather to ruin or commotion These were not some miscariages onely of Goverment which might escape but a universal distemper and reducement of law to arbitrary power not through the evil counsels of some men but through the constant cours practise of al that were in highest favour whose worst actions frequently avowing he took upon himself and what faults did not yet seem in public to be originally his such care he took by professing and proclaiming op'nly as made them all at length his own adopted sins The persons also when he could no longer protect he esteem'd and favour'd to the end but never otherwise then by constraint yeilded any of them to due punishment thereby manifesting that what they did was by his own Autority and approbation Yet heer he asks whose innocent blood he hath shed What widdows or Orphans teares can witness against him After the suspected Poysoning of his Father not inquir'd into but smother'd up and him protected and advanc'd to the very half of his Kingdom who was accus'd in Parlament to be Author of the fact with much more evidence then Duke Dudley that fals Protector is accus'd upon record to have poison'd Edward the sixt after all his rage and persecution after so many Yeares of cruel Warr on his People in three Kingdoms Whence the Author of Truths manifest a Scotchman not unacquainted with affaires positively affirmes That there hath bin more Christian blood shed by the Commission approbation and connivance of King Charles and his Father James in the latter end of thir raigne then in the Ten Roman Persecutions Not to speake of those many whippings Pillories and other corporal inflictions wherwith his raign also before this Warr was not unbloodie some have dy'd in Prison under cruel restraint others in Banishment whose lives were shortn'd through the rigour of that persecution wherwith so many yeares he infested the true Church And those six Members all men judg'd to have escap'd no less then capital danger whom he so greedily pursuing into the House of Commons had not there the forbearance to conceal how much it troubl'd him That the Birds were flowne If som Vultur in the Mountains could have op'nd his beak intelligibly and spoke what fitter words could he have utter'd at the loss of his prey The Tyrant Nero though not yet deserving that name sett his hand so unwillingly to the execution of a condemned Person as to wish He had not known letters Certainly for a King himself to charge his Subjects with high treason and so vehemently to prosecute them in his own cause as to doe the Office of a Searcher argu'd in him no great aversation from shedding blood were it but to satisfie his anger and that revenge was no unpleasing morsel to him wherof he himself thought not much to be so diligently his own Caterer But we insist rather upon what was actual then what was probable He now falls to examin the causes of this Warr as a difficulty which he had long studied to find out It was not saith he my withdrawing from White Hall for no account in reason could be giv'n of those Tumults where an orderly Guard was granted But if it be a most certain truth that the Parlament could never yet obtain of him any Guard fit to be confided in then by his own confession some account of those pretended Tumults may in reason be giv'n and both concerning them and the Guards anough hath bin said alreadie Whom did he protect against the Justice of Parlament Whom did he not to his utmost power Endeavouring to have rescu'd Strafford from thir Justice though with the destruction of them and the City to that end expressly commanding the admittance of new Soldiers into the Tower rais'd by Suckling and other Conspirators under pretence for the Portugall though that Embassador beeing sent to utterly deny'd to know of any such Commission from his Maister And yet that listing continu'd Not to repeat his other Plot of bringing up the two Armies But what can be disputed with such a King in whose mouth and opinion the Parlament it self was never but a Faction and thir Justice no Justice but The dictates and overswaying insolence of Tumults and Rabbles and under that excuse avouches himself op'nly the generall Patron of most notorious Delinquents and approves their flight out of the Land whose crimes were such as that the justest and the fairest tryal would have soonest condemn'd them to death But did not Catiline plead in like manner against the Roman Senat and the injustice of thir trial and the justice of his flight from Rome Coesar also then hatching Tyranny injected
binds him to no less neither is he at all by his Office to interpose against a Parlament in the making or not making of any Law but to take that for just and good legally which is there decreed and to see it executed accordingly Nor was he set over us to vie wisdom with his Parlament but to be guided by them any of whome possibly may as farr excell him in the gift of wisdom as he them in place and dignitie But much neerer is it to impossibilitie that any King alone should be wiser then all his councel sure anough it was not he though no King ever before him so much contended to have it thought so And if the Parlament so thought not but desir'd him to follow their advice and deliberation in things of public concernment he accounts it the same proposition as if Sampson had bin mov'd to the putting out his eyes that the Philistims might abuse him And thus out of an unwise or pretended feare least others should make a scorn of him for yeilding to his Parlament he regards not to give cause of worse suspicion that he made a scorn of his regal Oath But to exclude him from all power of deniall seemes an arrogance in the Parlament he means what in him then to deny against the Parlament None at all by what he argues For by Petitioning they confess thir inferioritie and that obliges them to rest if not satisfi'd yet quieted with such an Answer as the will and reason of their Superior thinks sit to give First Petitioning in better English is no more then requesting or requiring and men require not favours onely but thir due and that not onely from Superiors but from Equals and Inferiors also The noblest Romans when they stood for that which was a kind of Regal honour the Consulship were wont in a submissive manner to goe about and begg that highest Dignity of the meanest Plebeians naming them man by man which in their tongue was call'd Petitio consulatus And the Parlament of England Petition'd the King not because all of them were inferior to him but because he was superior to any one of them which they did of civil custom and for fashions sake more then of duty for by plaine Law cited before the Parlament is his Superiour But what law in any trial or dispute enjoynes a free man to rest quieted though not satisfi'd with the will and reason of his Superior It were a mad law that would subject reason to superioritie of place And if our highest consultations and purpos'd lawes must be terminated by the Kings will then is the will of one man our Law and no suttletie of dispute can redeem the Parlament and Nation from being Slaves neither can any Tyrant require more then that his will or reason though not satisfying should yet be rested in and determin all things We may conclude therfore that when the Parlament petition'd the King it was but meerly forme let it be as foolish and absurd as he pleases It cannot certainly be so absurd as what he requires that the Parlament should confine thir own and all the Kingdoms reason to the will of one man because it was his hap to succeed his Father For neither God nor the Lawes have subjected us to his will nor sett his reason to be our sovran above Law which must needs be if he can strangle it in the birth but sett his person over us in the sovran execution of such Laws as the Parlament establish The Parlament therfore without any usurpation hath had it alwaies in thir power to limit and confine the exorbitancie of Kings whether they call it thir will thir reason or thir conscience But this above all was never expected nor is to be endur'd that a King who is bound by law and Oath to follow the advice of his Parlament should be permitted to except against them as young Statesmen and proudly to suspend his following thir advice untill his seven yeares experience had shewn him how well they could govern themselves Doubtless the Law never suppos'd so great an arrogance could be in one man that he whose seventeen yeares unexperience had almost ruin'd all should sit another seven yeares Schoolmaster to tutor those who were sent by the whole Realme to be his Counselers and teachers And with what modesty can he pretend to be a Statesman himself who with his Fathers Kingcraft and his own did never that of his own accord which was not directly opposit to his professed Interest both at home and abroad discontenting and alienating his Subjects at home weakning and deserting his Confederats abroad and with them the Common cause of Religion So that the whole course of his raign by an example of his own furnishing hath resembl'd Phaeton more then Phoebus and forc'd the Parlament to drive like Jehu which Omen tak'n from his own mouth God hath not diverted And he on the other side might have rememberd that the Parlament sit in that body not as his Subjects but as his Superiors call'd not by him but by the Law not onely twice every yeare but as oft as great affaires require to be his Counselers and Dictators though he stomac it nor to be dissolv'd at his pleasure but when all greevances be first remov'd all Petitions heard and answer'd This is not onely Reason but the known Law of the Land When he heard that Propositions would be sent him he satt conjecturing what they would propound and because they propounded what he expected not he takes that to be a warrant for his denying them But what did he expect he expected that the Parlament would reinforce some old Laws But if those Laws were not a sufficient remedy to all greevances nay were found to be greevances themselves when did we loose that other part of our freedom to establish new He thought some injuries done by himself and others to the Common wealth were to be repair'd But how could that be while he the chief offender took upon him to be sole Judge both of the injury and the reparation He staid till the advantages of his Crown consider'd might induce him to condiscend to the Peoples good Whenas the Crown it self with all those advantages were therfore giv'n him that the peoples good should be first consider'd not bargain'd for and bought by inches with the bribe of more offertures and advantages to his Crown He look'd for moderate desires of due Reformation as if any such desires could be immoderate He lookd for such a Reformation both in Church and State as might preserve the roots of every greevance and abuse in both still growing which he calls The foundation and essentials and would have onely the excrescencies of evil prun'd away for the present as was plotted before that they might grow fast anough between Triennial Parlaments to hinder them by worke anough besides from ever striking at the root He alleges They should have had regard to the Laws in force
sacred History and times of Reformation that the Kings of this World have both ever hated and instinctively fear'd the Church of God Whether it be for that thir Doctrin seems much to favour two things to them so dreadful Liberty and Equality or because they are the Children of that Kingdom which as ancient Prophesies have foretold shall in the end break to peeces and dissolve all thir great power and Dominion And those Kings and Potentates who have strove most to ridd themselves of this feare by cutting off or suppressing the true Church have drawn upon themselves the occasion of thir own ruin while they thought with most policy to prevent it Thus Pharaoh when once he began to feare and wax jealous of the Israelites least they should multiply and fight against him and that his feare stirr'd him up to afflict and keep them under as the onely remedy of what he feard soon found that the evil which before slept came suddenly upon him by the preposterous way he took to shun it Passing by examples between not shutting wilfully our eyes we may see the like story brought to pass in our own Land This King more then any before him except perhapps his Father from his first entrance to the Crown harbouring in his mind a strange feare and suspicion of men most religious and thir Doctrin which in his own language he heer acknowledges terming it the seditious exorbitancie of Ministers tongues and doubting least they as he not Christianly expresses it should with the Keys of Heav'n let out Peace and Loyaltie from the peoples hearts though they never preacht or attempted aught that might justly raise in him such apprehensions he could not rest or think himself secure so long as they remain'd in any of his three Kingdoms unrooted out But outwardly professing the same Religion with them he could not presently use violence as Pharaoh did and that course had with others before but ill succeeded He chooses therfore a more mystical way a newer method of Antichristian fraud to the Church more dangerous and like to Balac the Son of Zippor against a Nation of Prophets thinks it best to hire other esteemed Prophets and to undermine and weare out the true Church by a fals Ecclesiastical policy To this drift he found the Goverment of Bishops most serviceable an order in the Church as by men first corrupted so mutually corrupting them who receave it both in judgement and manners He by conferring Bishoprics and great Livings on whom he thought most pliant to his will against the known Canons and universal practice of the ancient Church wherby those elections were the peoples right sought as he confesses to have greatest influence upon Church-men They on the other side finding themselves in a high Dignity neither founded by Scripture nor allow'd by Reformation nor supported by any spiritual gift or grace of thir own knew it thir best cours to have dependence onely upon him and wrought his fansie by degrees to that degenerat and unkingly perswasion of No Bishop no King When as on the contrary all Prelats in thir own suttle sense are of another mind according to that of Pius the fourth rememberd in the Trentine storie that Bishops then grow to be most vigorous and potent when Princes happ'n to be most weak and impotent Thus when both Interests of Tyrannie and Episcopacie were incorporat into each other the King whose principal safety and establishment consisted in the righteous execution of his civil power and not in Bishops and thir wicked counsels fatally driv'n on set himself to the extirpating of those men whose Doctrin and desire of Church Discipline he so fear'd would bee the undoing of his Monarchie And because no temporal Law could touch the innocence of thir lives he begins with the persecution of thir consciences laying scandals before them and makes that the argument to inflict his unjust penalties both on thir bodies and Estates In this Warr against the Church if he hath sped so as other haughty Monarchs whom God heertofore hath hard'nd to the like enterprize we ought to look up with praises and thanksgiving to the Author of our deliverance to whom victorie and power Majestie Honour and Dominion belongs for ever In the mean while from his own words we may perceave easily that the special motives which he had to endeere and deprave his judgement to the favouring and utmost defending of Episcopacie are such as heer wee represent them and how unwillingly and with what mental reservation he condescended against his interest to remove it out of the Peers house hath bin shown alreadie The reasons which he affirmes wrought so much upon his judgement shall be so farr answerd as they be urg'd Scripture he reports but distinctly produces none and next the constant practice of all Christian Churches till of late yeares tumult faction pride and covetousness invented new models under the Title of Christs Goverment Could any Papist have spoke more scandalously against all Reformation Well may the Parlament and best-affected People not now be troubl'd at his calumnies and reproaches since he binds them in the same bundle with all other the reformed Churches who also may now furder see besides thir own bitter experience what a Cordial and well meaning helper they had of him abroad and how true to the Protestant cause As for Histories to prove Bishops the Bible if we mean not to run into errors vanities and uncertainties must be our onely Historie Which informs us that the Apostles were not properly Bishops next that Bishops were not successors of Apostles in the function of Apostleship And that if they were Apostles they could not be preciselie Bishops if Bishops they could not be Apostles this being Universal extraordinarie and immediat from God that being an ordinarie fixt particular charge the continual inspection over a certain Flock And although an ignorance and deviation of the ancient Churches afterward may with as much reason and charity be suppos'd as sudden in point of Prelatie as in other manifest corruptions yet that no example since the first age for 1500 yeares can be produc'd of any setled Church wherin were many Ministers and Congregations which had not some Bishops above them the Ecclesiastical storie to which he appeals for want of Scripture proves cleerly to be a fals and over-confident assertion Sczomenus who wrote above Twelve hundred years agoe in his seventh Book relates from his own knowledge that in the Churches of Cyprus and Arabia places neer to Jerusalem and with the first frequented by Apostles they had Bishops in every Village and what could those be more then Presbyters The like he tells of other Nations and that Episcopal Churches in those daies did not condemn them I add that many Western Churches eminent for thir Faith and good Works and settl'd above four hundred years agoe in France in Piemont and Bohemia have both taught and practis'd the same Doctrin and not admitted of
all of them agree in one song with this heer that they are sorry to see so little regard had to Laws establisht and the Religion settl'd Popular compliance dissolution of all order and goverment in the Church Scisms Opinions Undecencies Confusions Sacrilegious invasions contempt of the Clergie and thir Liturgie Diminution of Princes all these complaints are to be read in the Messages and Speeches almost of every Legat from the Pope to those States and Citties which began Reformation From whence he either learnt the same pretences or had them naturally in him from the same spirit Neither was there ever so sincere a Reformation that hath escap'd these clamours He offer'd a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen So offerd all those Popish Kings heertofore a cours the most unsatisfactory as matters have been long carried and found by experience in the Church liable to the greatest fraud and packing no solution or redress of evil but an increase rather detested therfore by Nazianzen and som other of the Fathers And let it bee produc'd what good hath bin don by Synods from the first times of Reformation Not to justifie what enormities the Vulgar may committ in the rudeness of thir zeal we need but onely instance how he bemoanes the pulling down of Crosses and other superstitious Monuments as the effect of a popular and deceitful Reformation How little this savours of a Protestant is too easily perceav'd What he charges in defect of Piety Charity and Morality hath bin also charg'd by Papists upon the best reformed Churches not as if they the accusers were not tenfold more to be accus'd but out of thir Malignity to all endeavour of amendment as we know who accus'd to God the sincerity of Job an accusation of all others the most easie when as there livs not any mortal man so excellent who in these things is not alwaies deficient But the infirmities of best men and the scandals of mixt Hypocrits in all times of reforming whose bold intrusion covets to bee ever seen in things most sacred as they are most specious can lay no just blemish upon the integritie of others much less upon the purpose of Reformation it self Neither can the evil doings of som be the excuse of our delaying or deserting that duty to the Church which for no respect of times or carnal policies can be at any time unseasonable He tells with great shew of piety what kinde of persons public Reformers ought to be and what they ought to doe T is strange that in above twenty years the Church growing still wors and wors under him he could neither be as he bids others be nor doe as he pretends heer so well to know nay which is worst of all after the greatest part of his Raign spent in neither knowing nor doing aught toward a Reformation either in Church or State should spend the residue in hindring those by a seven years Warr whom it concernd with his consent or without it to doe thir parts in that great performance T is true that the method of reforming may well subsist without perturbation of the State but that it falls out otherwise for the most part is the plaine Text of Scripture And if by his own rule hee had allow'd us to feare God first and the King in due order our Allegeance might have still follow'd our Religion in a fit subordination But if Christs Kingdom be tak'n for the true Discipline of the Church and by his Kingdom be meant the violence he us'd against it and to uphold an Antichristian Hierarchie then sure anough it is that Christs Kingdom could not be sett up without pulling down his And they were best Christians who were least subject to him Christs Goverment out of question meaning it Prelatical hee thought would confirm his and this was that which overthrew it He professes to own his Kingdom from Christ and to desire to rule for his glory and the Churches good The Pope and the King of Spain profess every where as much and both his practice and all his reasonings all his enmitie against the true Church we see hath bin the same with theirs since the time that in his Letter to the Pope he assur'd them both of his full compliance But evil beginnings never bring forth good conclusions they are his own words and he ratifi'd them by his own ending To the Pope he ingag'd himself to hazard life and estate for the Roman Religion whether in complement he did it or in earnest and God who stood neerer then he for complementing minded writ down those words that according to his resolution so it should come to pass He praies against his hypocrisie and Pharisaical washings a Prayer to him most pertinent but choaks it straight with other words which pray him deeper into his old errors and delusions XXI Vpon His Letters tak'n and divulg'd THE Kings Letters taken at the Battell of Naesby being of greatest importance to let the people see what Faith there was in all his promises and solemn Protestations were transmitted to public view by special Order of the Parlament They discover'd his good affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the straight intelligence he held the pernitious dishonorable peace he made with them not solicited but rather soliciting w ch by all invocations that were holy he had in public abjur'd They reveal'd his endeavours to bring in forren Forces Irish French Dutch Lorrainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon us besides his suttleties and mysterious arts in treating to summ up all they shewd him govern'd by a Woman All which though suspected vehemently before and from good grounds beleev'd yet by him and his adherents peremptorily deny'd were by the op'ning of that Cabinet visible to all men under his own hand The Parlament therfore to cleer themselves of aspersing him without cause and that the people might no longer be abus'd and cajol'd as they call it by falsities and Court impudence in matters of so high concernment to let them know on what termes thir duty stood and the Kingdoms peace conceavd it most expedient and necessary that those Letters should be made public This the King affirmes was by them don without honour and civilitie words which if they contain not in them as in the language of a Courtier most commonly they do not more of substance and realitie then complement Ceremony Court fauning and dissembling enter not I suppose furder then the eare into any wise mans consideration Matters were not then between the Parlament and a King thir enemie in that state of trifling as to observ those superficial vanities But if honour and civilitie mean as they did of old discretion honesty prudence and plaine truth it will be then maintain'd against any Sect of those Cabalists that the Parlament in doing what they did with those Letters could suffer in thir honour and civilitie no diminution The reasons are already heard And that it is with none more familiar then with Kings