into Heav'n he them in his Book they him in the Portrature before his Book but as was said before Stage-work will not doe it much less the justness of thir Cause wherin most frequently they dy'd in a brutish fierceness with Oaths and other damning words in thir mouths as if such had bin all the Oaths they fought for which undoubtedly sent them full Sail on another Voyage then to Heav'n In the mean while they to whom God gave Victory never brought to the King at Oxford the state of thir consciences that he should presume without confession more then a Pope presumes to tell abroad what conflicts and accusations men whom he never spoke with have in thir own thoughts We never read of any English King but one that was a Confessor and his name was Edward yet sure it pass'd his skill to know thoughts as this King takes upon him But they who will not stick to slander mens inward consciences which they can neither see nor know much less will care to slander outward actions which they pretend to see though with senses never so vitiated To judge of his conditions conquerd and the manner of dying on that side by the sober men that chose it would be his small advantage it being most notorious that they who were hottest in his Cause the most of them were men oftner drunk then by thir good will sober and very many of them so fought and so dy'd And that the conscience of any man should grow suspicious or be now convicted by any pretentions in the Parlament which are now prov'd fals and unintended there can be no just cause For neither did they ever pretend to establish his Throne without our Liberty and Religion nor Religion without the Word of God nor to judge of Laws by thir being establisht but to establish them by thir being good and necessary He tells the World He oft'n prayd that all on his side might be as faithfull to God and thir own souls as to him But Kings above all other men have in thir hands not to pray onely but to doe To make that prayer effectual he should have govern'd as well as pray'd To pray and not to govern is For a Monk and not a King Till then he might be well assur'd they were more faithfull to thir lust and rapine then to him In the wonted predication of his own vertues he goes on to tell us that to Conquer he never desir'd but onely to restore the Laws and Liberties of his people It had bin happy then he had known at last that by force to restore Laws abrogated by the Legislative Parlament is to conquer absolutely both them and Law it self And for our Liberties none ever oppress'd them more both in Peace and Warr first like a maister by his arbitrary power next as an enemy by hostile invasion And if his best freinds fear'd him and he himself in the temptation of an absolute Conquest it was not only pious but freindly in the Parlament both to fear him and resist him since their not yeelding was the onely meanes to keep him out of that temptation wherin he doubted his own strength He takes himself to be guilty in this Warr of nothing els but of confirming the power of some Men Thus all along he signifies the Parlament whom to have settl'd by an Act he counts to be his onely guiltiness So well he knew that to continue a Parlament was to raise a War against himself what were his actions then and his Government the while For never was it heard in all our Story that Parlaments made Warr on thir Kings but on thir Tyrants whose modesty and gratitude was more wanting to the Parlament then theirs to any of such Kings What he yeelded was his feare what he deny'd was his obstinacy had he yeelded more fear might perchance have sav'd him had he granted less his obstinacy had perhaps the sooner deliverd us To review the occasions of this Warr will be to them never too late who would be warn'd by his example from the like evils but to wish onely a happy conclusion will never expiate the fault of his unhappy beginnings T is true on our side the sins of our lives not seldom fought against us but on their side besides those the grand sin of thir Cause How can it be otherwise when he desires heer most unreasonably and indeed sacrilegiously that we should be subject to him though not furder yet as farr as all of us may be subject to God to whom this expression leaves no precedency Hee who desires from men as much obedience and subjection as we may all pay to God desires not less then to be a God a sacrilege farr wors then medling with the Bishops Lands as he esteems it His Praier is a good Praier and a glorious but glorying is not good if it know not that a little leven levens the whole lump It should have purg'd out the leven of untruth in telling God that the blood of his Subjects by him shedd was in his just and necessary defence Yet this is remarkable God hath heer so orderd his Prayer that as his own lipps acquitted the Parlament not long before his death of all the blood spilt in this Warr so now his prayer unwittingly drawes it upon himself For God imputes not to any man the blood he spills in a just cause and no man ever begg'd his not imputing of that which he in his justice could not impute So that now whether purposely or unaware he hath confess'd both to God and Man the bloodguiltiness of all this Warr to lie upon his own head XX. Upon the Reformation of the times THis Chapter cannot punctually be answer'd without more repetitions then now can be excusable Which perhaps have already bin more humour'd then was needfull As it presents us with nothing new so with his exceptions against Reformation pittifully old and tatter'd with continual using not onely in his Book but in the words and Writings of every Papist and Popish King On the Scene he thrusts out first an Antimasque of two bugbeares Noveltie and Perturbation that the ill looks and noise of those two may as long as possible drive off all endeavours of a Reformation Thus sought Pope Adrian by representing the like vain terrors to divert and dissipate the zeal of those reforming Princes of the age before in Germany And if we credit Latimers Sermons our Papists heer in England pleaded the same dangers and inconveniencies against that which was reform'd by Edward the sixth Whereas if those fears had bin available Christianity it self had never bin receav'd Which Christ foretold us would not be admitted without the censure of noveltie and many great commotions These therfore are not to deterr us He grants Reformation to be a good work and confesses What the indulgence of times and corruption of manners might have deprav'd So did the foremention'd Pope and our Gransire Papists in this Realm Yet
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
Propositions were obtruded on him with the point of the Sword till he first with the point of the Sword thrust from him both the Propositions and the Propounders He never reck'ns those violent and merciless obtrusions which for almost twenty years he had bin forcing upon tender consciences by all sorts of Persecution till through the multitude of them that were to suffer it could no more be call'd a Persecution but a plain VVarr From which when first the Scots then the English were constrain'd to defend themselves this thir just defence is that which he cals heer Thir making Warr upon his soul. He grudges that So many things are requir'd of him and nothing offerd him in requital of those favours which he had granted What could satiate the desires of this man who being king of England and Maister of almost two millions yearly what by hook or crook was still in want and those acts of Justice which he was to doe in duty counts don as favours and such favors as were not don without the avaritious hope of other rewards besides supreme honour and the constant Revennue of his place This honour he saith they did him to put him on the giving part And spake truer then he intended it beeing meerly for honours sake that they did so not that it belong'd to him of right For what can he give to a Parlament who receaves all he hath from the People and for the Peoples good Yet now he brings his own conditional rights to contest and be preferr'd before the Peoples good and yet unless it be in order to their good he hath no rights at all raigning by the Laws of the Land not by his own which Laws are in the hands of Parlament to change or abrogate as they shall see best for the Common-wealth eev'n to the taking away of King-ship it self when it grows too Maisterfull and Burd'nsome For every Common-wealth is in general defin'd a societie sufficient of it self in all things conducible to well being and commodious life Any of which requisit things if it cannot have without the gift and favour of a single person or without leave of his privat reason or his conscience it cannot be thought sufficient of it self and by consequence no Common-wealth nor free but a multitude of Vassalls in the Possession and domaine of one absolute Lord and wholly obnoxious to his will If the King have power to give or deny any thing to his Parlament he must doe it either as a Person several from them or as one greater neither of which will be allow'd him not to be consider'd severally from them for as the King of England can doe no wrong so neither can he doe right but in his Courts and by his Courts and what is legally don in them shall be deem'd the Kings assent though he as a several Person shall judge or endeavour the contrary So that indeed without his Courts or against them he is no King If therefore he obtrude upon us any public mischeif or withhold from us any general good which is wrong in the highest degree he must doe it as a Tyrant not as a King of England by the known Maxims of our Law Neither can he as one greater give aught to the Parlament which is not in thir own power but he must be greater also then the Kingdom which they represent So that to honour him with the giving part was a meer civility and may be well term'd the courtesie of England not the Kings due But the incommunicable Jewell of his conscience he will not give but reserve to himself It seemes that his conscience was none of the Crown Jewels for those we know were in Holland not incommunicable to buy Armes against his Subjects Being therfore but a privat Jewel he could not have don a greater pleasure to the Kingdom then by reserving it to himself But he contrary to what is heer profess'd would have his conscience not an incommunicable but a universal conscience the whole Kingdoms conscience Thus what he seemes to feare least we should ravish from him is our chief complaint that he obtruded upon us we never forc'd him to part with his conscience but it was he that would have forc'd us to part with ours Som things he taxes them to have offer'd him which while he had the maistery of his Reason he would never consent to Very likely but had his reason maisterd him as it ought and not bin maisterd long agoe by his sense and humour as the breeding of most Kings hath bin ever sensual and most humour'd perhaps he would have made no difficulty Mean while at what a fine pass is the Kingdom that must depend in greatest exigencies vpon the fantasie of a Kings reason be he wise or foole who arrogantly shall answer all the wisdom of the Land that what they offer seemes to him unreasonable He preferrs his love of Truth before his love of the People His love of Truth would have ledd him to the search of Truth and have taught him not to lean so much upon his own understanding He met at first with Doctrines of unaccountable Prerogative in them he rested because they pleas'd him they therfore pleas'd him because they gave him all and this he calls his love of Truth and preferrs it before the love of his peoples peace Som things they propos'd which would have wounded the inward peace of his conscience The more our evil happ that three Kingdoms should be thus pesterd with one Conscience who chiefly scrupl'd to grant us that which the parlament advis'd him to as the chief meanes of our public welfare and Reformation These scruples to many perhaps will seem pretended to others upon as good grounds may seem real and that it was the just judgement of God that he who was so cruel and so remorseless to other mens consciences should have a conscience within him as cruel to himself constraining him as he constrain'd others and insnaring him in such waies and counsels as were certain to be his destruction Other things though he could approve yet in honour and policy he thought fit to deny lest he should seem to dare aeny nothing By this meanes he will be sure what with reason conscience honour policy or puntilios to be found never unfurnisht of a denyal Whether it were his envy not to be over bounteous or that the submissness of our asking stirr'd up in him a certain pleasure of denying Good Princes have thought it thir chief happiness to be alwayes granting if good things for the things sake if things indifferent for the peoples sake while this man sits calculating varietie of excuses how he may grant least as if his whole strength and royaltie were plac'd in a meer negative Of one Proposition especially he laments him much that they would bind him to a generall and implicit consent for what ever they desir'd Which though I find not among the nineteene yet undoubtedly the Oath of his coronation
commends had rather bin in his way it would perhaps in som measure have perform'd the end for which they say Liturgie was first invented and have hinder'd him both heer and at other times from turning his notorious errors into his Praiers XVIII Upon the Uxbridge Treaty c. IF the way of Treaties be look'd upon in general as a retiring from bestial force to human reason his first Aphorism heer is in part deceav'd For men may Treat like Beasts as well as fight If som fighting were not mar-like then either fortitude were no vertue or no fortitude in fighting And as Politicians ofttimes through dilatory purposes and emulations handle the matter there hath bin no where found more bestialitie then in treating which hath no more commendation in it then from fighting to come to undermining from violence to craft and when they can no longer doe as Lions to doe as Foxes The sincerest end of Treating after War once Proclaim'd is either to part with more or to demand less then was at first fought for rather then to hazzard more lives or wors mischiefs What the Parlament in that point were willing to have don when first after the Warr begun they Petition'd him at Colebrook to voutsafe a treaty is unknown For after he had tak'n God to witness of his continual readiness to Treat or to offer Treaties to the avoiding of bloodshed had nam'd Windsor the place of Treaty and pass'd his royal word not to advance furder till Commissioners by such a time were speeded towards him taking the advantage of a thick Mist which fell that evening weather that soon invited him to a designe no less treacherous and obscure he follows at the heels those Me engers of Peace with a traine of covert Warr and with a bloody surprise falls on our secure Forces which lay quartering at Brentford in the thoughts and expectation of a Treaty And although in them who make a Trade of Warr and against a natural Enemy such an onset might in the rigor of Military Law have bin excus'd while Armes were not yet by agreement suspended yet by a King who seem'd so heartily to accept of treating with his subjects and professes heer He never wanted either desire or disposition to it professes to have greater confidence in his Reason then in his Sword and as a Christian to seek Peace and ensue it such bloody and deceitful advantages would have bin forborn one day at least if not much longer in whom there had not bin a thirst rather then a detestation of civil Warr and blood and a desire to subdue rather then to treat In the midst of a second Treaty not long after fought by the Parlament and after much adoe obtain'd with him at Oxford what suttle and unpeaceable designes he then had in chace his own Letters discover'd What attempts of treacherous hostility successful and unsuccessful he made against Bristow Scarborow and other places the proceedings of that Treaty will soon put us in mind and how he was so far from granting more of reason after so much of blood that he deny'd then to grant what before he had offerd making no other use of Treaties pretending Peace then to gaine advantages that might enable him to continue Warr. What marvel then if he thought it no diminution of himself as oft as he saw his time to be importunate for Treaties when hee sought them onely as by the upshot appeard to get opportunities and once to a most cruel purpose if we remember May 1643. and that Messenger of Peace from Oxford whose secret Message and Commission had it bin effected would have drownd the innocence of our Treating in the blood of a designed Massacher Nay when treaties from the Parlament sought out him no less then seven times oft anough to testifie the willingness of thir obedience and too oft for the Majesty of a Parlament to court thir Subjection he in the confidence of his own strength or of our divisions returnd us nothing back but denials or delaies to thir most necessary demands and being at lowest kept up still and sustain'd his almost famishd hopes with the howrly expectation of raising up himself the higher by the greater heap which he sate promising himself of our sudden ruin through dissention But he inferrs as if the Parlament would have compell'd him to part with somthing of his honour as a King What honour could he have or call his joyn'd not onely with the offence or disturbance but with the bondage and destruction of three Nations wherof though he be careless and improvident yet the Parlament by our Laws and freedom ought to judge and use prevention our Laws els were but cobweb Laws And what were all his most rightful honours but the peoples gift and the investment of that lustre Majesty and honour which for the public good no otherwise redounds from a whole Nation into one person So far is any honour from being his to a common mischeif and calamity Yet still he talks on equal termes with the grand Representative of that people for whose sake he was a King as if the general welfare and his subservient Rights were of equal moment or consideration His aime indeed hath ever bin to magnifie and exalt his borrowd Rights and Prerogatives above the Parlament and Kingdom of whom he holds them But when a King setts himself to bandy against the highest Court and residence of all his Regal power he then in the single person of a Man fights against his own Majesty and Kingship and then indeed sets the first hand to his own deposing The Treaty at Uxbridge he saith gave the fairest hopes of a happy composure fairest indeed if his instructions to bribe our Commissioners with the promise of Security rewards and places were faire What other hopes it gave no man can tell There being but three maine heads whereon to be treated Ireland Episcopacy and the Militia the first was anticipated and forestall'd by a Peace at any rate to be hast'nd with the Irish Rebels ere the Treaty could begin that he might pretend his word and honour past against the specious and popular arguments he calls them no better which the Parlament would urge upon him for the continuance of that just Warr. Episcopacy he bids the Queen be confident he will never quitt which informes us by what Patronage it stood and the Sword he resolves to clutch as fast as if God with his own hand had put it into his This was the moderation which he brought this was as farr as Reason Honour Conscience and the Queen who was his Regent in all these would give him leave Lastly for composure in stead of happy how miserable it was more likely to have bin wise men could then judge when the English during Treaty were call'd Rebels the Irish good and Catholic Subjects and the Parlament before hand though for fashions sake call'd a Parlament yet by a Jesuitical slight not acknowledg'd though call'd
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
to transgress the bounds of all honour and civility there should not want examples good store if brevity would permitt In poynt of Letters this one shall suffice The Duchess of Burgundie and heire of Duke Charles had promis'd to her Subjects that shee intended no otherwise to Govern then by advise of the three Estates but to Lewis the French King had writt'n Letters that shee had resolv'd to committ wholly the managing of her affaires to foure Persons whom shee nam'd The three Estates not doubting the sincerity of her Princely word send Embassadors to Lewis who then beseig'd Arras belonging to the Duke of Burgondy The King taking hold of this occasion to set them at division among themselves question'd thir Credence which when they offerd to produce with thir instructions he not only shewes them the privat Letter of thir Duchess but gives it them to carry home wherwith to affront her which they did shee denying it stoutly till they spredding it before her face in a full assembly convicted her of an op'n Iye Which although Commines the historian much blames as a deed too harsh and dishonourable in them who were Subjects and not at Warr with thir Princess yet to his Maister Lewis who first divulg'd those Letters to the op'n shaming of that young Governess he imputes no incivilitie or dishonour at all although betraying a certaine confidence repos'd by that Letter in his royal secrecie With much more reason then may letters not intercepted only but won in battell from an enemie be made public to the best advantages of them that win them to the discovery of such important truth or falshood Was it not more dishonourable in himself to faine suspicions and jealousies which we first found among those Letters touching the chastitie of his Mother thereby to gaine assistance from the King of Denmark as in vindication of his Sister The Damsell of Burgundie at sight of her own letter was soon blank and more ingenuous then to stand out-facing but this man whom nothing will convince thinks by talking world without end to make good his integrity and faire dealing contradicted by his own hand and seale They who can pick nothing out of them but phrases shall be counted Bees they that discern furder both there and here that constancy to his Wife is set in place before Laws and Religion are in his naturalities no better then Spiders He would work the people to a perswasion that if he be miserable they cannot be happy VVhat should hinder them VVere they all born Twins of Hippocrates with him and his fortune one birth one burial It were a Nation miserable indeed not worth the name of a Nation but a race of Idiots whose happiness and welfare depended upon one Man The happiness of a Nation consists in true Religion Piety Justice Prudence Temperance Fortitude and the contempt of Avarice and Ambition They in whomsoever these vertues dwell eminently need not Kings to make them happy but are the architects of thir own happiness and whether to themselves or others are not less then Kings But in him which of these vertues were to be found that might extend to the making happy or the well-governing of somuch as his own houshold which was the most tious and ill govern'd in the whole Land But the op'ning of his Letters was design'd by the Parlament to make all reconciliation desperate Are the lives of so many good and faithfull men that dy'd for the freedom of thir Country to be so slighted as to be forgott'n in a stupid reconcilement without Justice don them VVhat he feares not by VVarr and slaughter should we feare to make desperate by op'ning his Letters VVhich fact he would parallell with Chams revealing of his Fathers nakedness VVhen he at that time could be no way esteem'd the Father of his Countrey but the destroyer nor had he ever before merited that former title He thanks God he cannot onely beare this with patience but with charity forgive the doers Is not this meer mockery to thank God for what he can doe but will not For is it patience to impute Barbarism and inhumanity to the op'ning of an Enemies Letter or is it Charity to cloth them with curses in his Prayer whom he hath forgiv'n in his Discours In which Prayer to shew how readily he can return good for evil to the Parlament and that if they take away his Coat he can let them have his Cloak also for the dismantling of his Letters he wishes They may be cover'd with the Cloak of confusion VVhich I suppose they do resigne with much willingness both Livery Badge and Cognizance to them who chose rather to be the Slaves and Vassals of his will then to stand against him as men by nature free born and created with a better title to thir freedom then any King hath to his Crown XXII Vpon His going to the Scots THe Kings comming in whether to the Scots or English deserv'd no thanks for necessitie was his Counselor and that he hated them both alike his expressions every where manifest Som say his purpose was to have come to London till hearing how strictly it was proclaim'd that no man should conceal him he diverted his course But that had bin a frivolous excuse and besides he himself rehearsing the consultations had before he took his journey shewes us cleerly that he was determin'd to adventure upon their Loyalty who first began his troubles And that the Scots had notice of it before hath bin long since brought to light What prudence there could be in it noman can imagin Malice there might be by raising new jealousies to divide Freinds For besides his diffidence of the English it was no small dishonour that he put upon them when rather then yeild himself to the Parlament of England he yeelded to an hireling Army of Scots in England payd for thir Service heer not in Scotch coyn but in English Silver nay who from the first beginning of these troubles what with brotherly assistance and what with mounthly pay have defended thir own Liberty and consciences at our charge However it was a hazardous and rash journey taken to resolve riddles in mens Loyaltie who had more reason to mistrust the Riddle of such a disguised yeelding and to put himself in their hands whose Loyalty was a Riddle to him was not the cours to be resolv'd of it but to tempt it What providence deny'd to force he thought it might grant to fraud which he stiles Prudence But Providence was not couzen'd with disguises neither outward nor inward To have known his greatest danger in his supposed safety and his greatest safety in his supposed danger was to him a fatal Riddle never yet resolv'd wherin rather to have imployd his main skill had bin much more to his preservation Had he known when the Game was lost it might have sav'd much contest but the way to give over fairely was not to slip out of op'n Warr into a
none of these things come upon me All these took the paines both to confess and to repent in thir own words and many of them in thir own tears not in Davids But transported with the vain ostentation of imitating Davids language not his life observe how he brings a curse upon himself and his Fathers house God so disposing it by his usurp'd and ill imitated prayer Let thy anger I beseech thee le against me and my Fathers house as for these Sheep what have they don For if David indeed sind in numbring the people of which fault he in earnest made that confession acquitted the whole people from the guilt of that sin then doth this King using the same words bear witness against himself to be the guilty person and either in his soule and conscience heer acquitts the Parlament and the people or els abuses the words of David and dissembles grossly to the very face of God which is apparent in the next line wherein he accuses eev'n the Church it self to God as if she were the Churches enemie for having overcom his Tyranny by the powerfull and miraculous might of Gods manifest arme For to other strength in the midst of our divisions and disorders who can attribute our Victories Thus had this miserable Man no worse enemies to sollicit and mature his own destruction from the hast'nd sentence of Divine Justice then the obdurat curses which proceeded against himself out of his own mouth Hitherto his Meditations now his Vowes which as the Vowes of hypocrits use to be are most commonly absurd and som wicked Jacob Vow'd that God should be his God if he granted him but what was necessary to perform that Vow life and subsistence but the obedience profferd heer is nothing so cheap He who took so hainously to be offer'd nineteen Propositions from the Parlament capitulates heer with God almost in as many Articles If he will continue that light or rather that darkness of the Gospel which is among his Prelats settle thir luxuries and make them gorgeous Bishops If he will restore the greevances and mische ifs of those obsolete and Popish Laws which the Parlament without his consent hath abrogated and will suffer Justice to be executed according to his sense If he will suppress the many Scisms in Church to contradict himself in that which he hath foretold must and shall come to pass and will remove Reformation as the greatest Scism of all and Factions in State by which he meanes in every leafe the Parlament If he will restore him to his negative voice and the Militia as much to say as arbitrary power which he wrongfully averrs to be the right of his Predecessors If he will turne the hearts of his people to thir old Cathedral and Parochial service in the Liturgie and thir passive obedience to the King If he will quench the Army and withdraw our Forces from withstanding the Piracy of Rupert and the plotted Irish invasion If he will bless him with the freedom of Bishops again in the House of Peers and of fugitive Delinquents in the House of Commons and deliver the honour of Parlament into his hands from the most natural and due protection of the people that entrusted them with the dangerous enterprize of being faithfull to thir Country against the rage and malice of his tyran nous opposition If he will keep him from that great offence of following the counsel of his Parlament and enacting what they advise him to which in all reason and by the known Law and Oath of his Coronation he ought to doe and not to call that Sacrilege which necessity through the continuance of his own civil Warr hath compelld them to necessity which made David eat the Shew-bread made Ezechiah take all the Silver which was found in Gods House and cut off the Gold which overlayd those dores and Pillars and give it to Sennacherib necessity which oft times made the Primitive Church to sell her sacred utensils eev'n to the Communion Chalice If he will restore him to a capacity of glorifying him by doing that both in Church and State which must needs dishonour and pollute his name If he will bring him again with peace honour and safety to his cheife Citty without repenting without satisfying for the blood spilt onely for a few politic concessions which are as good as nothing If he will put again the Sword into his hand to punish those that have deliverd us and to protect Delinquents against the Justice of Parlament Then if it be possible to reconcile contradictions he will praise him by displeasing him and serve him by disserving him His glory in the gaudy Copes and painted Windows Miters Rochets Altars and the chanted Service-Book shall be dearer to him then the establishing his Crowne in righteousness and the spiritual power of Religion He will pardon those that have offended him in particular but there shall want no suttle wayes to be eev'n with them upon another score of thir suppos'd offences against the Common-wealth wherby he may at once affect the glory of a seeming justice and destroy them pleasantly while he faines to forgive them as to his own particular and outwardly bewailes them These are the conditions of his treating with God to whom he bates nothing of what he stood upon with the Parlament as if Commissions of Array could deale with him also But of all these conditions as it is now evident in our eyes God accepted none but that final Petition which he so oft no doubt but by the secret judgement of God importunes against his own head praying God That his mercies might be so toward him as his resolutions of Truth and Peace were toward his People It follows then God having cutt him off without granting any of these mercies that his resolutions were as fained as his Vows were frustrat XXVI Vpon the Armies surprisall of the King at Holmeby TO give account to Royalists what was don with thir vanquisht King yeilded up into our hands is not to be expected from them whom God hath made his Conquerors And for brethren to debate rippe up thir falling out in the eare of a common enemy thereby making him the judge or at least the wel pleas'd auditor of thir disagreement is neither wise nor comely To the King therfore were he living or to his Party yet remaining as to this action there belongs no answer Aemulations all men know are incident among Military men and are if they exceed not pardonable But som of the former Army eminent anough for thir own martial deeds and prevalent in the House of Commons touch'd with envy to be so farr outdon by a new modell which they contemn'd took advantage of Presbyterian and Independent names and the virulence of som Ministers to raise disturbance And the Warr being then ended thought slightly to have discarded them who had faithfully don the work without thir due pay and the reward of thir invincible valour But
they who had the Sword yet in thir hands disdaining to be made the first objects of ingratitude and oppression after all that expens of thir blood for Justice and the common Liberty seiz'd upon the King thir pris'ner whom nothing but their matchles deeds had brought so low as to surrender up his Person though he to stirr up new discord chose rather to give up himself a captive to his own Countrymen who less had won him This in likelihood might have grown to som hight of mischeif partly through the strife which was kindling between our elder and our younger Warriors but chiefly through the seditious tongues of som fals Ministers more zealous against Scisms then against thir own Simony and Pluralities or watchfull of the common enemy whose suttle insinuations had got so farr in among them as with all diligence to blow the coles But it pleas'd God not to embroile and put to confusion his whole people for the perversness of a few The growth of our dissention was either prevented or soon quieted the Enemy soon deceav'd of his rejoycing and the King especially disappointed of not the meanest morsel that his hope presented him to ruin us by our division And being now so nigh the end we may the better be at leasure to stay a while and hear him commenting upon his own Captivity He saith of his surprisal that it was a motion eccentric and irregular What then his own allusion from the Celestial bodies puts us in minde that irregular motions may be necessary on earth somtimes as well as constantly in Heav'n That is not always best which is most regular to writt'n Law Great Worthies heertofore by disobeying Law oft-times have sav'd the Common-wealth and the Law afterward by firme Decree hath approv'd that planetary motion that unblamable exorbitancy in them He meanes no good to either Independent or Presbyterian and yet his parable like that of Balaam is overul'd to portend them good farr beside his inintention Those twins that strove enclos'd in the womb of Rebeccah were the seed of Abraham the younger undoubtedly gain'd the heav'nly birthright the elder though supplanted in his Similie shall yet no question find a better portion then Esau found and farr above his uncircumcis'd Prelats He censures and in censuring seems to hope it will be an ill Omen that they who build Jerusalem divide thir tongues and hands But his hope fail'd him with his example for that there were divisions both of tongues and hands at the building of Jerusalem the Story would have certifi'd him and yet the work prosper'd and if God will so may this notwithstanding all the craft and malignant wiles of Sanballat and Tobiah adding what fuell they can to our dissentions or the indignity of his comparison that lik'ns us to those seditious Zelots whose intestine fury brought destruction to the last Jerusalem It being now no more in his hand to be reveng'd on his opposers he seeks to satiat his fansie with the imagination of som revenge upon them from above and like one who in a drowth observes the Skie he sits and watches when any thing will dropp that might solace him with the likeness of a punishment from Heavn upon us which he strait expounds how he pleases No evil can befall the Parlament or Citty but he positively interprets it a judgement upon them for his sake as if the very manuscript of Gods judgements had bin deliverd to his custody and exposition But his reading declares it well to be a fals copy which he uses dispensing oft'n to his own bad deeds and successes the testimony of Divine favour and to the good deeds and successes of other men Divine wrath and vengeance But to counterfet the hand of God is the boldest of all Forgery And he who without warrant but his own fantastic surmise takes upon him perpetually to unfold the secret and unsearchable Mysteries of high Providence is likely for the most part to mistake and slander them and approaches to the madness of those reprobate thoughts that would wrest the Sword of Justice out of Gods hand and imploy it more justly in thir own conceit It was a small thing to contend with the Parlament about sole power of the Militia when we see him doing little less then laying hands on the weapons of God himself which are his judgements to weild and manage them by the sway and bent of his own fraile cogitations Therfore they that by Tumults first occasion'd the raising of Armies in his doome must needs be chastn'd by thir own Army for new Tumults First note heer his confession that those Tumults were the first occasion of raising Armies and by consequence that he himself rais'd them first against those supposed Tumults But who occasion'd those Tumults or who made them so being at first nothing more then the unarmed and peaceable concours of people hath bin discust already And that those pretended Tumults were chastiz'd by thir own Army for new Tumults is not prov'd by a Game at Tictack with words Tumults and Armies Armies and Tumults but seemes more like the method of a Justice irrational then Divine If the Citty were chast'nd by the Army for new Tumults the reason is by himself set down evident and immediat thir new Tumults With what sense can it be referrd then to another far-fetchd and imaginary cause that happ'nd so many years before and in his supposition only as a cause Manlius defended the Capitol and the Romans from thir enemies the Gauls Manlius for sedition afterward was by the Roman throwns headlong from the Capitol therfore Manlius was punisht by Divine Justice for defending the Capitol because in that place punishd for sedition and by those whom he defended This is his Logic upon Divine Justice and was the same before upon the death of Sir John Hotham And heer again Such as were content to see him driv'n away by unsuppressed Tumults are now forc'd to fly to an Army Was this a judgement was it not a mercy rather that they had a noble and victorious Army so neer at hand to fly to From Gods Justice he comes down to Mans Justice Those few of both Houses who at first with-drew with him from the vain pretence of Tumults were counted Desertors therfore those many must be also Desertors who with-drew afterwards from real Tumults as if it were the place that made a Parlament and not the end and cause Because it is deny'd that those were Tumults from which the King made shew of being driv'n is it therefore of necessity impli'd that there could be never any Tumults for the future If some men fly in craft may not other men have cause to fly in earnest But mark the difference between their flight and his they soon return'd in safety to thir places he not till after many years and then a Captive to receive his punishment So that their flying whether the cause be consider'd or the event or both neither justifi'd
though briefly in regard so much on this Subject hath been Writt'n lately It happn'd once as we find in Esdras and Josephus Authors not less beleiv'd then any under sacred to be a great and solemn debate in the Court of Darius what thing was to be counted strongest of all other He that could resolve this in reward of his excelling wisdom should be clad in Purple drink in Gold sleep on a Bed of Gold and sitt next Darius None but they doubtless who were reputed wise had the Question propounded to them Who after som respit giv'n them by the King to consider in full Assembly of all his Lords and gravest Counselors returnd severally what they thought The first held that Wine was strongest another that the King was strongest But Zorobabel Prince of the Captive Jewes and Heire to the Crown of Judah being one of them proov'd Women to be stronger then the King for that he himself had seen a Concubin take his Crown from off his head to set it upon her own And others besides him have lately seen the like Feat don and not in jest Yet he proov'd on and it was so yeilded by the King himself all his sages that neither Wine nor Women nor the King but Truth of all other things was the strongest For me though neither ask'd nor in a Nation that gives such rewards to wisdom I shall pronounce my sentence somwhat different from Zorobabel and shall defend that either Truth and Justice are all one for Truth is but Justice in our knowledge and Justice is but Truth in our practice and he indeed so explaines himself in saying that with Truth is no accepting of Persons which is the property of Justice or els if there be any odds that Justice though not stronger then truth yet by her office is to put forth and exhibit more strength in the affaires of mankind For Truth is properly no more then Contemplation and her utmost efficiency is but teaching but Justice in her very essence is all strength and activity and hath a Sword put into her hand to use against all violence and oppression on the earth Shee it is most truely who accepts no Person and exempts none from the severity of her stroke Shee never suffers injury to prevaile but when fashood first prevailes over Truth and that also is a kind of Justice don on them who are so deluded Though wicked Kings and Tyrants counterfet her Sword as som did that Buckler fabl'd to fall from Heav'n into the Capitol yet shee communicates her power to none but such as like her self are just or at least will do Justice For it were extreme partialitie and injustice the flat denyall and overthrow of her self to put her own authentic Sword into the hand of an unjust and wicked Man or so farr to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals that he alone shall have the punishing of all other men transgressing and not receive like punishment from men when he himself shall be found the highest transgressor We may conclude therfore that Justice above all other things is and ought to be the strongest Shee is the strength the Kingdom the power and majestie of all Ages Truth her self would subscribe to this though Darius and all the Monarchs of the World should deny And if by sentence thus writt'n it were my happiness to set free the minds of English men from longing to returne poorly under that Captivity of Kings from which the strength and supreme Sword of Justice hath deliverd them I shall have don a work not much inferior to that of Zorobabel who by well praising and extolling the force of Truth in that contemplative strength conquer'd Darius and freed his Countrey and the people of God from the Captivity of Babylon Which I shall yet not despaire to doe if they in this Land whose minds are yet Captive be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the strength and supremacie of Justice as that heathen king was to confess the strength of truth or let them but as he did grant that and they will soon perceave that Truth resignes all her outward strength to Justice Justice therfore must needs be strongest both in her own and in the strength of Truth But if a King may doe among men whatsoever is his will and pleasure and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men then contrary to this magnifi'd wisdom of Zorobabel neither Truth nor Justice but the King is strongest of all other things which that Persian Monarch himself in the midst of all his pride and glory durst not assume Let us see therfore what this King hath to affirm why the sentence of Justice and the weight of that Sword which shee delivers into the hands of men should be more partial to him offending then to all others of human race First he pleades that No Law of God or man gives to subjects any power of judicature without or against him Which assertion shall be prov'd in every part to be most untrue The first express Law of God giv'n to mankind was that to Noah as a Law in general to all the Sons of men And by that most ancient and universal Law whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed we find heer no exception If a king therfore doe this to a King and that by men also the same shall be don This in the Law of Moses which came next several times is repeated and in one place remarkably Numb 35. Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer but he shall surely be put to death the Land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shedd therein but by the blood of him that shed it This is so spok'n as that which concern'd all Israel not one man alone to see perform'd and if no satisfaction were to be tak'n then certainly no exception Nay the King when they should set up any was to observe the whole Law and not onely to see it don but to do it that his heart might not be lifted up above his Brethren to dreame of vain and reasonless prerogatives or exemptions wherby the Law it self must needs be founded in unrighteousness And were that true which is most fals that all Kings are the Lords Anointed it were yet absurd to think that the Anointment of God should be as it were a charme against Law and give them privilege who punish others to sin themselves unpunishably The high Preist was the Lords anointed as well as any King and with the same consecrated oile yet Salomon had put to death Abiathar had it not bin for other respects then that anointment If God himself say to Kings Touch not mine anointed meaning his chos'n people as is evident in that Psalme yet no man will argue thence that he protects them from Civil Laws if they offend then certainly though David as a privat man and in his own cause feard to lift his hand against the Lords Anointed much less can this
evil will then not feare to disswade or to disobey him not onely in respect of themselves and thir own lives which for his sake they would not seem to value but in respect of that danger which the King himself may incurr whom they would seem to love and serve with greatest fidelitie On all these grounds therfore of the covnant it self whether religious or political it appeares likeliest that both the English Parlament and the Scotch Commissioners thus interpreting the Covnant as indeed at that time they were the best and most authentical interpreters joyn'd together answered the King unanimously in thir Letters dated Jan. 13 th 1645. that till securitie and satisfaction first giv'n to both Kingdoms for the blood spilt for the Irish Rebels brought over and for the Warr in Ireland by him fomented they could in no wise yeild thir consent to his returne Here was satisfaction full two yeares and upward after the Covnant tak'n demanded of the King by both Nations in Parlament for crimes at least Capital wherwith they charg'd him And what satisfaction could be giv'n for so much blood but Justice upon him that spilt it Till which don they neither took themselves bound to grant him the exercise of his regal Office by any meaning of the Coynant which they then declar'd though other meanings have bin since contriv'd nor so much regarded the safety of his person as to admitt of his return among them from the midst of those whom they declar'd to be his greatest enemies nay from himself as from an actual enemy not as from a king they demanded security But if the covnant all this not with standing swore otherwise to preserv him then in the preservation of true religion our liberties against which he fought if not in armes yet in resolution to his dying day and now after death still fights against in this his book the covnant was better brok'n thē he sav'd And god hath testifi'd by all propitious the most evident signes whereby in these latter times he is wont to testifie what pleases him that such a solemn and for many Ages unexampl'd act of due punishment was no mockery of Justice but a most gratefull and well-pleasing Sacrifice Neither was it to cover their perjury as he accuses but to uncover his perjury to the Oath of his Coronation The rest of his discours quite forgets the Title and turns his Meditations upon death into obloquie and bitter vehemence against his Judges and accussers imitating therin not our Saviour but his Grand-mother Mary Queen of Scots as also in the most of his other scruples exceptions and evasions and from whom he seems to have learnt as it were by heart or els by kind that which is thought by his admirers to be the most vertuous most manly most Christian and most Martyr-like both of his words and speeches heer and of his answers and behaviour at his Tryall It is a sad fate he saith to have his Enemies both accusers Parties and Judges Sad indeed but no sufficient Plea to acquitt him from being so judg'd For what Malefactor might not somtimes plead the like If his own crimes have made all men his Enemies who els can judge him They of the Powder-plot against his Father might as well have pleaded the same Nay at the Resurrection it may as well be pleaded that the Saints who then shall judge the World are both Enemies Judges Parties and Accusers So much he thinks to abound in his own defence that he undertakes an unmeasurable task to bespeak the singular care and protection of God over all Kings as being the greatest Patrons of Law Justice Order and Religion on Earth But what Patrons they be God in the Scripture oft anough hath exprest and the earth it self hath too long groan'd under the burd'n of thir injustice disorder and irreligion Therfore To bind thir Kings in Chaines and thir Nobles with links of Iron is an honour belonging to his Saints not to build Babel which was Nimrods work the first King and the beginning of his Kingdom was Babel but to destroy it especially that spiritual Babel and first to overcome those European Kings which receive thir power not from God but from the beast and are counted no better then his ten hornes These shall hate the great Whore and yet shall give thir Kingdoms to the Beast that carries her they shall committ Fornication with her and yet shall burn her with fire and yet shall lament the fall of Babylon where they fornicated with her Rev. 17. 18. chapt Thus shall they be too and fro doubtfull and ambiguous in all thir doings untill at last joyning thir Armies with the Beast whose power first rais'd them they shall perish with him by the King of Kings against whom they have rebell'd and the Foules shall eat thir flesh This is thir doom writt'n Rev. 19. and the utmost that we find concerning them in these latter days which we have much more cause to beleeve then his unwarranted Revelation here prophecying what shall follow after his death with the spirit of Enmity not of Saint John He would fain bring us out of conceit with the good success which God hath voutsaf'd us Wee measure not our Cause by our success but our success by our cause Yet certainly in a good Cause success is a good confirmation for God hath promis'd it to good men almost in every leafe of Scripture If it argue not for us we are sure it argues not against us but as much or more for us then ill success argues for them for to the wicked God hath denounc'd ill success in all that they take in hand He hopes much of those softer tempers as he calls them and less advantag'd by his ruin that thir consciences doe already gripe them T is true there be a sort of moodie hot-brain'd and alwayes unedify'd consciences apt to engage thir Leaders into great and dangerous affaires past retirement and then upon a sudden qualm and swimming of thir conscience to betray them basely in the midst of what was chiefly undertak'n for their sakes Let such men never meet with any faithfull Parlament to hazzard for them never with any noble spirit to conduct and lead them out but let them live and die in servil condition and thir scrupulous queasiness if no instruction will confirme them Others there be in whose consciences the loss of gaine and those advantages they hop'd for hath sprung a sudden leake These are they that cry out the Covnant brok'n and to keep it better slide back into neutrality or joyn actually with Incendiaries and Malignants But God hath eminently begun to punish those first in Scotland then in Ulster who have provok'd him with the most hatefull kind of mockery to break his Covnant under pretence of strictest keeping it and hath subjected them to those Malignants with whom they scrupl'd not to be associats In God therfore we shall not feare what their fals fraternity can doe against us He seeks againe with cunning words to turn our success into our sin But might call to mind that the Scripture speakes of those also who when God slew them then sought him yet did but flatter him with thir mouth and ly'd to him with thir tongues for thir heart was not right with him And there was one who in the time of his affliction trespass'd more against God This was that King Abaz He glories much in the forgivness of his Enemies so did his Grandmother at her death Wise men would sooner have beleev'd him had he not so oft'n told us so But he hopes to erect the Trophies of his charity over us And Trophies of Charity no doubt will be as glorious as Trumpets before the almes of Hypocrites and more especially the Trophies of such an aspiring charitie as offers in his Prayer to share Victory with Gods compassion which is over all his works Such Prayers as these may happly catch the People as was intended but how they please God is to be much doubted though pray'd in secret much less writt'n to be divulg'd Which perhaps may gaine him after death a short contemptible and soon fading reward not what he aims at to stirr the constancie and solid firmness of any wise Man or to unsettle the conscience of any knowing Christian if he could ever aime at a thing so hopeless and above the genius of his Cleric elocution but to catch the worthles approbation of an inconstant irrational and Image-doting rabble that like a credulous and hapless herd begott'n to servility and inchanted with these popular institutes of Tyranny subscrib'd with a new device of the Kings Picture at his praiers hold out both thir eares with such delight and ravishment to be stigmatiz'd and board through in witness of thir own voluntary and beloved baseness The rest whom perhaps ignorance without malice or some error less then fatal hath for the time misledd on this side Sorcery or obduration may find the grace and good guidance to bethink themselves and recover THE END
forbidd the Law or disarm justice from having legal power against any King No other supreme Magistrate in what kind of Government soever laies claim to any such enormous Privilege wherfore then should any King who is but one kind of Magistrat and set over the people for no other end then they Next in order of time to the Laws of Moses are those of Christ who declares professedly his judicature to be spiritual abstract from Civil managements and therfore leaves all Nations to thir own particular Lawes and way of Government Yet because the Church hath a kind of Jurisdiction within her own bounds and that also though in process of time much corrupted and plainly turn'd into a corporal judicature yet much approv'd by this King it will be firm anough and valid against him if subjects by the Laws of Church also be invested with a power of judicature both without and against thir King though pretending and by them acknowledg'd next and immediatly under Christ supreme head and Governour Theodosius one of the best Christian Emperours having made a slaughter of the Thessalonians for sedition but too cruelly was excommunicated to his face by Saint Ambrose who was his subject and excommunion is the utmost of Ecclesiastical Judicature a spiritual putting to death But this yee will say was onely an example Read then the Story and it will appeare both that Ambrose avouch'd it for the Law of God and Theodosius confess'd it of his own accord to be so and that the Law of God was not to be made voyd in him for any reverence to his Imperial power From hence not to be tedious I shall pass into our own Land of Britain and shew that Subjects heer have exercis'd the utmost of spirituall Judicature and more then spirituall against thir Kings his Predecessors Vortiger for committing incest with his daughter was by Saint German at that time his subject cursd and condemnd in a Brittish Counsel about the yeare 448 and thereupon soon after was depos'd Mauricus a King in Wales for breach of Oath and the murder of Cynetus was excomunicated and curst with all his offspring by Oudoceus Bishop of Landaff in full Synod about the yeare 560 and not restor'd till he had repented Morcant another King in Wales having slain Frioc his Uncle was faine to come in Person and receave judgement from the same Bishop and his Clergie who upon his penitence acquitted him for no other cause then lest the Kingdom should be destitute of a Successour in the Royal Line These examples are of the Primitive Brittish and Episcopal Church long ere they had any commerce or communion with the Church of Rome What power afterward of deposing Kings and so consequently of putting them to death was assum'd and practis'd by the Canon Law I omitt as a thing generally known Certainly if whole Councels of the Romish Church have in the midst of their dimness discern'd so much of Truth as to decree at Constance and at Basil and many of them to avouch at Trent also that a Councel is above the Pope and may judge him though by them not deni'd to be the Vicar of Christ we in our clearer light may be asham'd not to discern furder that a Parlament is by all equity and right above a King and may judge him whose reasons and pretensions to hold of God onely as his immediat Vicegerent we know how farr fetch'd they are and insufficient As for the Laws of man it would ask a Volume to repeat all that might be cited in this point against him from all Antiquity In Greece Orestes the Son of Agamemnon and by succession King of Argos was in that Countrey judg'd and condemn'd to death for killing his Mother whence escaping he was judg'd againe though a Stranger before the great Counsel of Areopagus in Athens And this memorable act of Judicature was the first that brought the Justice of that grave Senat into fame and high estimation over all Greece for many ages after And in the same Citty Tyrants were to undergoe Legal sentence by the Laws of Solon The Kings of Sparta though descended lineally from Hercules esteem'd a God among them were oft'n judg'd and somtimes put to death by the most just and renowned Laws of Lycurgus who though a King thought it most unequal to bind his Subjects by any Law to which he bound not himself In Rome the Laws made by Valerius Publicola soon after the expelling of Tarquin and his race expell'd without a writt'n Law the Law beeing afterward writt'n and what the Senat decreed against Nero that he should be judg'd and punish'd according to the Laws of thir Ancestors and what in like manner was decreed against other Emperours is vulgarly known as it was known to those heathen and found just by nature ere any Law mentiond it And that the Christian Civil Law warrants like power of Judicature to Subjects against Tyrants is writt'n clearly by the best and famousest Civilians For if it was decreed by Theodosius and stands yet firme in the Code of Justinian that the Law is above the Emperour then certainly the Emperour being under Law the Law may judge him and if judge him may punish him proving tyrannous how els is the Law above him or to what purpose These are necessary deductions and therafter hath bin don in all Ages and Kingdoms oftner then to be heer recited But what need we any furder search after the Law of other Lands for that which is so fully and so plainly set down lawfull in our own Where ancient Books tell us Bracton Fleta and others that the King is under Law and inferiour to his Court of Parlament that although his place to doe Justice be highest yet that he stands as liable to receave Justice as the meanest of his Kingdom Nay Alfred the most worthy King and by som accounted first abolute Monarch of the Saxons heer so ordain'd as is cited out of an ancient Law Book call'd the Mirror in Rights of the Kingdom p. 31. where it is complain'd on As the sovran abuse of all that the King should be deem'd above the Law whereas he ought be subject to it by his Oath Of which Oath anciently it was the last clause that the King should be as liable and obedient to suffer right as others of his people And indeed it were but fond and sensless that the King should be accountable to every petty suit in lesser Courts as we all know he was and not be subject to the Judicature of Parlament in the main matters of our common safety or destruction that he should be answerable in the ordinary cours of Law for any wrong don to a privat Person and not answerable in Court of Parlament for destroying the whole Kingdom By all this and much more that might be added as in an argument overcopious rather then barren we see it manifest that all Laws both of God and Man are made without exemption of any person