If the time spent in this Parliament be considered in relation backward to the long growth and deep root of those Grievances which we have removed to the powerful supports of those Delinquents which we have pursued to the great necessities and other charges of the Commonwealth for which we have provided or if it be considered in relation forward to many advantages which not only the present but future ages are like to reap by the good Laws and other proceedings in this Parliament we doubt not but it will be thought by all indifferent judgments that our time hath been much better imployed then in a far greater proportion of time in many former Parliaments put together and the charges which have been laid upon the Subjects and the other inconveniences which they have born will seem very light in respect of the benefit they have and may receive And for the matter of Protections the Parliament is so sensible of it that therein they intend to give them whatsoever ease may stand with Honour and Justice and are in a way of passing a Bill to give them satisfaction They have sought by many subtle practices to cause jealousies and divisions betwixt us and our brethren of Scotland by slandering their proceedings and intentions towards us and by secret endeavours to instigate and incense them and us one against another They have had such a party of Bishops and Popish Lords in the House of Peers as hath caused much opposition and delay in the prosecution of Delinquents hindered the proceedings of divers good Bills passed in the Commons House concerning the reformation of sundry great abuses and corruptions both in Church and State They have laboured to seduce and corrupt some of the Commons House to draw them into Conspiracies and Combinations against the Liberty of the Parliament and by their Instruments and agents they have attempted to disaffect and discontent His Majesties Army and to engage it for the maintenance of their wicked and traiterous designs the keeping up of Bishops in their Votes and Functions and by force to compel the Parliament to order limit and dispose their proceedings in such manner as might best concur with the intentions of this dangerous and potent faction And when one mischievous design and attempt of theirs to bring on the Army against the Parliament and the City of London had been discovered and prevented they presently undertook another of the same damnable nature with this addition to it to endeavour to make the Scotish Army neutral whilst the English Army which they had laboured to corrupt and invenome against us by their false and slanderous suggestions should execute their malice to the subversion of our Religion and the dissolution of our Government Thus they have been continually practising to disturb the Peace and plotting the destruction even of all the Kings dominions and have employed their Emissaries and Agents in them all for the promoting of their devilish designs which the vigilancy of those who were well-affected hath still discovered and defeated before they were ripe for execution in England and Scotland only in Ireland which was farther off they have had time and opportunity to mould and prepare their work and had brought it to that perfection that they had possessed themselves of that whole Kingdom totally subverted the Government of it rooted out Religion and destroyed all the Protestants whom the conscience of their duty to God their King and Countrey would not have permitted to joyn with them if by God's wonderful providence their main enterprise upon the City and Castle of Dublin had not been detected and prevented upon the very Eve before it should have been executed Notwithstanding they have in other parts of that Kingdom broken out into open Rebellion surprized Towns and Castles committed murders rapes and other villanies and shaken off all bonds of Obedience to His Majesty and the Laws of the Realm and in general have kindled such a fire as nothing but God's infinite blessing upon the wisdom and endeavours of this State will be able to quench it And certainly had not God in his great mercy unto this Land discovered and confounded their former designs we had been the Prologue to this Tragedy in Ireland and had by this time been made the lamentable spectacle of misery and confusion And now what hope have we but in God when as the only means of our subsistence and power of Reformation is under Him in the Parliament But what can we the Commons without the conjunction of the House of Lords and what conjunction can we expect there when the Bishops and Recusant Lords are so numerous and prevalent that they are able to cross and interrupt our best endeavours for Reformation and by that means give advantage to this malignant party to traduce our proceedings They infuse into the People that we mean to abolish all Church-government and leave every man to his own fancy for the Service and Worship of God absolving him of that Obedience which he owes under God unto His Majesty whom we know to be entrusted with the Ecclesiastical Law as well as with the Temporal to regulate all the members of the Church of England by such rules of order and discipline as are established by Parliament which is his great Council in all affairs both of Church and State We confess our intention is and our endeavours have been to reduce within bounds that exorbitant power which the Prelates have assumed unto themselves so contrary both to the Word of God and to the Laws of the Land to which end we past the Bill for the removing them from their Temporal power and employments that so the better they might with meekness apply themselves to the discharge of their functions Which Bill themselves opposed and were the principal instruments of crossing it And we do here declare that it is far from our purpose or desire to let loose the golden reins of Discipline and Government in the Church to leave private persons or particular Congregations to take up what form of Divine Service they please for we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realm a Conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyn according to the Word of God and we desire to unburthen the Consciences of men of needless and superstitious Ceremonies suppress innovations and take away the monuments of Idolatry And the better to effect the intended Reformation we desire there may be a general Synod of the most grave pious learned and judicious Divines of this Island assisted with some from foreign parts professing the same Religion with us who may consider of all things necessary for the peace and good Government of the Church and represent the results of their consultations unto the Parliament to be there allowed of and confirmed and receive the stamp of Authority thereby to find passage and obedience throughout the Kingdom They have malitiously charged us that we intend to destroy and discourage
attain to that Kingdom of Peace in my Heart and in thy Heaven which Christ hath purchased and thou wilt give to thy Servant tho a Sinner for my Saviours sake Amen II. Vpon the Earl of STRAFFORD's Death I Looked upon my Lord of Strafford as a Gentleman whose great Abilities might make a Prince rather afraid than ashamed to employ him in the greatest affairs of State For those were prone to create in him great confidence of undertakings and this was like enough to betray him to great errors and many enemies Whereof he could not but contract good store while moving in so high a sphear and with so vigorous a lustre he must needs as the Sun raise many envious exhalations which condensed by a Popular Odium were capable to cast a cloud upon the brightest Merit and Integrity Though I cannot in my Judgment approve all he did driven it may be by the necessities of Times and the Temper of that People more than led by his own disposition to any height and rigor of actions yet I could never be convinced of any such Criminousness in him as willingly to expose his life to the stroke of Justice and Malice of his Enemies I never met with a more unhappy conjuncture of affairs than in the business of that unfortunate Earl when between my own unsatisfiedness in Conscience and a necessity as some told Me of satisfying the importunities of some people I was perswaded by those that I think wished Me well to chuse rather what was safe than what seemed just preferring the outward Peace of my Kingdoms with men before that inward exactness of Conscience before God And indeed I am so far from excusing or denying that compliance on My part for plenary consent it was not to his destruction whom in my Judgment I thought not by any clear Law guilty of Death that I never bare any touch of Conscience with greater regret which as a sign of my Repentance I have often with sorrow confessed both to God and men as an act of so sinful frailty that it discovered more a fear of Man than of God whose name and place on Earth no man is worthy to bear who will avoid inconveniencies of State by acts of so high injustice as no publick convenience can expiate or compensate I see it a bad exchange to wound a mans own Conscience thereby to salve State sores to calm the storms of Popular discontents by stirring up a tempest in a mans own bosome Nor hath Gods Justice failed in the event and sad consequences to shew the world the fallacy of that Maxime Better one man perish tho unjustly than the people be displeased or destroyed For In all likelihood I could never have suffered with my people greater calamities yet with greater comfort had I vindicated Strafford's Innocency at least by denying to sign that destructive BILL according to that Justice which my Conscience suggested to Me than I have done since I gratified some mens unthankful importunities with so cruel a favour And I have observed that those who counselled Me to sign that BILL have been so far from receiving the rewards of such ingratiatings with the People that no men have been harassed and crushed more than they He only hath been least vexed by them who counselled Me not to consent against the Vote of my own Conscience I hope God hath forgiven Me and them the sinful rashness of that business To which being in my Soul so fully conscious those Judgments God hath pleased to send upon Me are so much the more welcome as a means I hope which his Mercy hath sanctified so to Me as to make Me repent of that unjust Act for so it was to Me and for the future to teach Me That the best rule of Policy is to prefer the doing of Justice before all enjoyments and the Peace of my Conscience before the preservation of my Kingdoms Nor hath any thing more fortified my resolutions against all those violent importunities which since have sought to gain a like consent from Me to Acts wherein my Conscience is unsatisfied than the sharp touches I have had for what passed Me in my Lord of Strafford's Business Not that I resolved to have employed him in my Affairs against the advice of my Parliament but I would not have had any hand in his Death of whose Guiltlesness I was better assured than any man living could be Nor were the Crimes objected against him so clear as after a long and fair hearing to give convincing satisfaction to the Major part of both Houses especially that of the Lords of whom scarce a third part were present when the Bill passed that House And for the House of Commons many Gentlemen disposed enough to diminish my Lord of Strafford's greatness and power yet unsatisfied of his guilt in Law durst not condemn him to die who for their Integrity in their Votes were by Posting their Names exposed to the popular calumny hatred and fury which grew then so exorbitant in their clamours for Justice that is to have both My self and the two Houses Vote and do as they would have us that many 't is thought were rather terrified to concur with the condemning party than satisfied that of right they ought so to do And that after-Act vacating the Authority of the precedent for future imitation sufficiently tells the world that some remorse touched even his most implacable Enemies as knowing he had very hard measure and such as they would be very loath should be repeated to themselves This tenderness and regret I find in my Soul for having had any hand and that very unwillingly God knows in shedding one mans blood unjustly tho under the colour and formalities of Justice and pretences of avoiding publick mischiefs which may I hope be some evidence before God and Man to all Posterity that I am far from bearing justly the vast load and guilt of all that Blood which hath been shed in this unhappy War which some men will needs charge on Me to ease their own Souls who am and ever shall be more afraid to take away any mans life unjustly than to lose My own But Thou O God of infinite mercies forgive Me that act of sinful compliance which hath greater aggravations upon Me than any man Since I had not the least temptation of Envy or Malice against him and by My place should at least so far have been a preserver of him as to have denied my consent to his destruction O Lord I acknowledg my transgression and my sin is ever before Me. Deliver Me from blood-guiltiness O God thou God of my salvation and my tongue shall sing of thy righteousness Against Thee have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight for Thou sawest the contradiction between my heart and my hand Yet cast Me not away from thy presence purge Me with the Blood of my Redeemer and I shall be clean wash Me with that precious effusion and I shall be whiter
although they had been all raised to that Dignity and Trust by the Faction yet answered that It was contrary to the known Laws and Customs of England that the King should be brought to Tryal To heal these two wounds which the Lords and Judges had branded their Cause with they use two other Artifices to keep up the Spirits and Concurrence of their Party First they bring from Hertfordshire a Woman some say a Witch who said that God by a Revelation to her did approve of the Armie's Proceedings Which Message from Heaven was well accepted of with thanks as being very seasonable and coming from an humble Spirit A second was the Agreement of the People which was a Module of a Democratical Polity wherein those whose abject Condition had set them at a great distance from Government had their hopes raised to a share of it if they conspired to remove the great Obstruction which was the Person and Life of the King This was presented to the House of Commons by Sr Hardress Waller and sixteen other Officers as a temporary remedy for when they had perpetrated their Impiety they discountenanced and fiercely profecuted those that endeavoured it In confidence of these their Arts and their present Power notwithstanding all these publick Abhorrencies and Detestations by all Persons of Honour and Knowledge they enacted their Bill And for President of this Court they chose one of the Number John Bradshaw A person of an equal Infamy with his new employment a Monster of Impudence and a most fierce Prosecutor of evil purposes Of no repute among those of his own Robe for any Knowledge in the Law but of so virulent and petulant a Language that he knew no measure of modesty in Speaking and was therefore more often bribed to be silent than fee'd to maintain a Client's cause His Vices had made him penurious and those with his penury had seasoned him for any execrable undertaking They also had a Sollicitor of the same metal John Cook A needy Man who by various Arts and many Crimes had sought for a necessary Subsistence yet still so poor that he was forced to seek the shelter of obscure and sordid Corners to avoid the Prison So that vexed with a redious Poverty he was prevailed upon through the hopes of some splendid booties to venture on this employment which at the first mention he did profess to abhorr These were their chief Agents other inferiour Ministers they had equally qualified with these their prime Instruments as Dorislaus a German Bandito who was to draw up the Charge Steel another of their Counsel under pretence of sickness covered his fear of the Event though he did not abhor the wickedness of the Enterprise having before used his Tongue in a cause very unjust and relating to this the Murther of Captain Burleigh The Serjeants Clarks and Cryer were so obscure that the World had never taken notice of them but by their subserviency to this Impiety These were the publick Preparations In private they continually met to contrive the Form of their Proceedings and the Matter of their Accusation Concerning the first they were divided in Opinions Some would have the King first formally degraded and devested of all His Royal habiliments and Ensigns of Majesty and then as a private person exposed to Justice But this seemed to require a longer space of time than would comport with their project which as all horrid acts was to be done in a present fury lest good Counsels might gather strength by their Delay Others rejected this course as too evidently conforming with the Popish procedure against Sovereign Princes and they feared to confirm that common Suspicion that they followed Jesuitical Counsels whose Society it is reported upon the King's offering to give all possible Security against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome at a Council of theirs did decree to use their whole Interest and Power with the Faction to hasten the King's death Which sober Protestants had reason enough to believe because all or most of the Arguments which were used by the Assertors of this Violence on His Majesty were but gleanings from Popish Writers These Considerations cast the Determination on their side who designing a Tyrannical Oligarchy whereby they themselves might have a share in the Government would have the King proceeded against as King that by so shedding His Blood they might extinguish Majesty and with Him murther Monarchy For several of them did confess that indeed He was guilty of no Crime more than that He was their King and because the Excellency of His Parts and Eminent Vertues together with the Rights of His Birth would not suffer Him to be a private Person In their second debate about the Matter of Accusation all willingly embraced the Advice of Harrison who was emulous of the Power of Cromwell and though now his Creature yet afterwards became the Firebrand and Whirlwind of the following Times to blacken Him as much as they could yet found they not wherewith to pollute His Name For their old Scandals which they had amassed in their Declaration for no more Addresses to the King had been so publickly refuted that they could afford no colour for His Murther Therefore they formed their Accusation from that War to which they had necessitated Him And their Charge was that He had levied War against the Parliament that He had appeared in Arms in several places and did there proclaim War and executed it by killing several of the Good People for which they impeached Him as a Tyrant Traytor Murderer and an implacable Common Enemy This Charge in the Judgment of Considering Men argued a greater guilt in those that prosecuted it than in Him against whom it was formed for they seemed less sensible of the instability and infirmities of Humane Nature than those that had none but her light to make them generous for such never reproached their conquered Enemies with their Victory but these Men would murther their own Prince against whom they had nothing more to object than the unhappy issues of a War which leaves the Conquered the only Criminal while the names of Justice and Goodness are the spoils of the Conquerour How false those Imputations of Tyranny Treason and Murther were was sufficiently understood by those who considered the peaceful part of the King's Reign wherein it was judged that if in any thing He had declined from the safest arts of Empire it was in the neglect of a just Severity on Seditious Persons whom the Laws had condemned to die And in the War it was known how often his Lenity had clipped the Wings of Victory But it appeared that these Men as they had broken all Rights of Peace so they would also those of Conquest and destroy that which their Arms pretended to save How little Credit their Accusation found appeared by the endeavours of all Parties to preserve the King's Person from Danger and the Nation from the guilt of His Blood For while they
out those Comparisons of Caligula and Nero the first would kill numbers of Senators to make himself Sport and the last thought it just enough that Paetus Thraseas should die because he look'd like a School-master But this Prince's Anger was without Danger to any His Admonitions were frequent Corrections seldom but Revenge never He grieved when His Pity had not Power or Skill to save Offenders and then He punished the bad but yet gave them space to repent and make their Execution as near as He could like a natural Death to translate them from hence to a place where they could not Sin He had nothing of the Beast in Him which Machiavel requires in such Princes as make Success the only end of their Counsels and consult a prosperous Grandeur more than an unspotted Conscience He scorned to abuse the Character of God upon Him by turning a Fox to dissemble and abhorred to think that He whom Heaven had made above other men should degenerate to the Cruelty of a Lion He sooner parted with Mortality than Mercy for He ended His days with a Prayer for His Enemies and laboured to make His Clemency immortal by commanding the practice of it to His Son None of His Vertues were in the Confines of Vice and therefore this Admirable Clemency proceeded not from a defect of Spirit as His Detractors imputed it and the Vulgar who mistake Cruelty for Valour imagined but like the Bowels of the Supremest Mercy which are incircled with an Infinite Power so this Pity to guilty and frail men was attended with an Incomparable Fortitude For this Vertue consisting in despising Dangers and Enemies in those Causes that render Death comely and glorious the King gave several Evidences of a Contempt of all Power beneath that of Heaven When the Lord Rey first acquainted Him with the Conspiracy of Ramsey and Hamilton He was upon a Remove to Theobalds where the Marquess was to wait upon Him as Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber who having some notice given him of the Discovery besought His Majesty to spare his attendance till he could clear his innocence and return the Treason upon the Accuser The King answered that He would therefore make him wait to let him see He did as little fear his strength as distrust his Loyalty for He knew he durst not attempt His Life because He was resolved to sell it so dear And to make good His Confidence He made him ride alone with Him in His Coach to Theobalds and lie in His Chamber that Night while the sollicitous Court admired and even censured His Magnanimity for it went beyond His pattern and did more than that Emperour who was stiled the Delight of Mankind who being informed of a Conspiracy against him invited the two Chiefs of it to accompany him to the Spectacula and caused them both to sit next on each side to him in the Theatre and to give them more advantage for their design put the swords of the Gladiators under colour of enquiring their judgments concerning their sharpness into their hands to shew how little dread he had of their fury But the British Prince's Magnanimity exceeded that of the Excellent Roman's as much as the privacies of a Bed-chamber and the darkness of Night make up a fitter Scene for the Assassination of a beloved Sovereign than a publick Theatre As He never provoked War so He never feared it and when the miserable Necessity lay upon Him to take up Arms to preserve Himself from an unjust Violence He shewed as much if not more Valour than those can boast of that with equal force finished Wars with Conquest in the success of these Fortune the Vanity of an Enemy and the assistances of Friends may challenge a part of the Praise but in that none but His own brave Soul had the Glory For to attempt at Victory against an Enemy that had almost more Forts and Garrisons than He had Families to joyn with Him that with Cannon out-vied the number of His Muskets that had gotten from Him a Navy which His Care had made the most formidable in the World and not left Him the command of a Cock-boat that were prodigal with the Treasure of a Nation and His Revenues when He begged for a subsistence was such a Courage that would have made that Senate of Gallant Persons who were the most competent Judges of Valour and never censured Vertue by the Success but thanked their Imprudent Consul for not despairing of the Common-wealth when he gathered up those broken Legions which his Rashness had obtruded to an Overthrow to have decreed a Triumph for CHARLES had His life been an Honour to that Age or could those Generations have reckoned Him among their great Examples Most Men indeed thought the King's side most glorious yet they concluded the other more terrible those that minded their Duty were in the Royal Camp but such as cared for Safety took part with the Faction or at least did not oppose them As He first entred the War so did He continue in it His moderation alwaies moved Him to desire Peace and His Fortitude made them sometimes sue for it His Adversaries never prevailed upon His Fears but upon the Treachery and Covetousness of some of His Party who could not endure an Honourable Want and on such their Gold was stronger than their Iron on Him and He was rather Betray'd than Overcome His Greatness of Mind forsook Him not with His Fortune Arms and Liberty it being Natural and not built upon them this made Him tenacious of Majesty when His Power was gone For when Whaley that had the Command of the Guards upon Him while He was in the Army insolently intruded into His Presence to hear His Discourse with a Foreign Minister of State and being bold in His Power and Office refused to obey the Command for a greater Distance the King caned him to an Observance When the Parricides sent their party of Souldiers to force Him from the Isle of Wight to the Slaughter Cobbet that commanded them thrust himself into the Coach with Him but the King sensible that the nearness of such a Villain was like a Contagion to Majesty with His Hand forced him away to herd among his bloody fellows His Spirit alwaies kept above the barbarous Malice of His Enemies and of their rudest Injuries would seem unsensible He told a faithful Servant of His that the Conspirators had kept Him for two Months under a want of Linnen and Shirts But said He I scorned to give them that pleasure ac to tell them I wanted Thus all the strokes of Fortune upon His Magnanimous Soul were but like the breaking of Waves upon a Rock of Diamonds which cannot shake but only wash it to a greater Brightness But though He knew not how to submit to the Power of men yet He would tremble under the Frowns of God His great Spirit made Him not unquiet or furious under the Corrections of the Almighty But with a wonderful
as well as say it else you say little But that the conforming of the Church Discipline to the Civil Policy should be a depraving of it I absolutely deny for I aver that without it the Church can neither flourish nor be happy And for your last instance you shall do well to shew the prohibition of our Saviour against addition of more Officers in the Church than he named and yet in one sense I do not conceive that the Church of England hath added any for an Archbishop is only a distinction for Order of Government not a new Officer and so of the rest and of this kind I believe there are divers now in Scotland which you will not condemn as the Moderators of Assemblies and others 4. Where you find a Bishop and Presbyter in Scripture to be one and the same which I deny to be alwaies so it is in the Apostles time now I think to prove the Order of Bishops succeeded that of the Apostles and that the name was chiefly altered in reverence to those who were immediately chosen by our Saviour albeit in their time they caused divers to be called so as Barnabas and others so that I believe this Argument makes little for you As for your proof of the antiquity of Presbyterian Government it is well that the Assembly of Divines at Westminster can do more than Eusebius could and I shall believe when I see it for your former Paper affirms that those times were very dark for matter of fact and will be so still for Me if there be no clearer Arguments to prove it than those you mention for because there were divers Congregations in Jerusalem Ergo what are there not divers Parishes in one Diocess your two first I answer but as one Argument and because the Apostles met with those of the inferiour Orders for Acts of Government what then even so in these times do the Deans and Chapters and many times those of the inferiour Clergy assist the Bishops But I hope you will not pretend to say that there was an equality between the Apostles and other Presbyters which not being doth in My judgment quite invalidate these Arguments And if you can say no more for the Churches of Corinth Ephesus Thessalonica c. than you have for Jerusalem it will gain no ground on Me. As for Saint Jerome it is well known that he was no great Friend to Bishops as being none himself yet take him altogether and you will find that he makes a clear distinction between a Bishop and a Presbyter as your self confesses but the truth is he was angry with those who maintained Deacons to be equal to Presbyters 5. I am well satisfied with the explanation of your meaning concerning the word Fallacy though I think to have had reason for saying what I did but by your favour I do not conceive that you have answered the strength of my Argument for when you and I differ upon the interpretation of Scripture and I appeal to the practice of the Primitive Church and the universal consent of the Fathers to be Judge between us Methinks you should either find a fitter or submit to what I offer neither of which to My understanding you have yet done nor have you shewn how waving those Judges I appeal unto the mischief of the interpretation by private Spirits can be prevented Indeed if I cannot prove by Antiquity that Ordination and Jurisdiction belong to Bishops thereby clearly distinguishing them from other Presbyters I shall then begin to misdoubt many of my former Foundations as for Bishop Davenant he is none of those to whom I have appealed or will submit unto But for the exception you take to Fathers I take it to be a begging of the Question as likewise those great discoveries of secrets not known to former Ages I shall call new-invented fancies until particularly you shall prove the contrary and for your Roman Authors it is no great wonder for them to seek shifts whereby to maintain Novelties as well as the Puritans As for Church-ambition it doth not at all terminate in seeking to be Pope for I take it to be no point of humility to indeavour to be independent of Kings it being possible that Papacy in a multitude may be as dangerous as in one 6. As I am no Judge over the Reformed Churches so neither do I censure them for many things may be avowable upon necessity which otherwayes are unlawful but know once for all that I esteem nothing the better because it is done by such a particular Church though it were by the Church of England which I avow most to reverence but I esteem that Church most which comes nearest to the purity of the Primitive Doctrine and Discipline as I believe this doth Now concerning Ordination I bad you prove that Presbyters without a Bishop might lawfully ordain which yet I conceive you have not done for 2 Tim. 1. 6. it is evident that Saint Paul was at Timothie's ordination and albeit that all the Seventy had their power immediately from Christ yet it is as evident that our Saviour made a clear distinction between the twelve Apostles and the rest of the Disciples which is set down by three of the Evangelists whereof Saint Mark calls it an Ordination Mark 3. 15. and Saint Luke sayes And of them he chose Twelve c. Luk. 6. 13. only Saint Matthew doth but barely enumerate them by their name of distinction Mat. 10. 1. I suppose out of modesty himself being one and the other two being none are more particular For the Administration of Baptism giving but not granting what you say it makes more for Me than you but I will not engage upon new Questions not necessary for My purpose 7. For my Oath you do well not to enter upon those Questions you mention and you had done as well to have omitted your instance but out of discretion I desire you to collect your Answer out of the last Section and for your Argument though the intention of my Oath be for the good of the Church collective therefore can I be dispensed withal by others than the representative Body certainly no more than the People can dispense with Me for any Oaths I took in their favours without the two Houses of Parliament As for future Reformations I will only tell you that incommodum non solvit Argumentum 8. For the King my Father's opinion if it were not to spend time as I believe needlesly I could prove by living and written testimonies all and more than I have said of Him for His perswasion in these points which I now maintain and for your defensive War as I do acknowledge it a great sin for any King to oppress the Church so I hold it absolutely unlawful for Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to make War though defensive against their lawful Sovereign against which no less proofs will make Me yield but God's Word and let Me tell you that upon such points
as these instances as well as comparisons are odious 9. Lastly You mistake the Quaere in My first Paper to which this pretends to answer for my Question was not concerning force of Arguments for I never doubted the lawfulness of it but force â—f Arms to which I conceive it says little or nothing unless after My example you â—â—â—er Me to the former Section that which it doth is merely the asking of the question after a fine discourse of the several ways of perswading rather than forcing of Conscience I close up this Paper desiring you to take notice that there is none of these Sections but I could have inlarged to many more lines some to whole pages yet I chose to be thus brief knowing you will understand more by a word than others by a long discourse trusting likewise to your ingenuity that Reason epitomized will weigh as much with you as if it were at large June 22. 1646. C. R. VI. Mr Alexander Henderson's Third Paper For His MAJESTY Concerning the Authority of the Fathers and Practice of the Church July 2. 1646. HAving in my former Papers pressed the steps of Your Majesty's Propositions and finding by Your Majesty's last Paper Controversies to be multiplied I believe beyond Your Majesty's intentions in the beginning as concerning The Reforming Power The Reformation of the Church of England The difference betwixt a Bishop and a Presbyter The warrants of Presbyterian Government The Authority of Interpreting Scripture The taking and keeping of Publick Oaths The forcing of Conscience and many other inferiour and subordinate Questions which are Branches of those main Controversies all which in a satisfactory manner to determine in few words I leave to more presuming Spirits who either see no knots of Difficulties or can find a way rather to cut them asunder than to unloose them yet will I not use any Tergiversation nor do I decline to offer my humble Opinion with the Reasons thereof in their own time concerning each of them which in obedience to Your Majesty's Command I have begun to do already Only Sir by Your Majesty's favourable permission for the greater expedition and that the present velitations may be brought to some Issue I am bold to intreat that the Method may be a little altered and I may have leave now to begin at a Principle and that which should have been inter Praecognita I mean the Rule by which we are to proceed and to determine the present Controversy of Church-Policy without which we will be led into a labyrinth and want a thred to wind us out again In Your Majesty's First Paper the universal Custom of the Primitive Church is conceived to be the Rule in the Second Paper Section 5. the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of the Fathers is made a convincing Argument when the Interpretation of Scripture is doubtful in your Third Paper Sect. 5. the Practice of the Primitive Church and the universal Consent of Fathers is made Judge And I know that nothing is more ordinary in this Question than to alledge Antiquity perpetual Succession universal Consent of the Fathers and the universal Practice of the Primitive Church according to the Rule of Augustine Quod universa tenet Ecclesia nec à Concilio institutum sed semper retentum est non nisi authoritate Apostolica traditum rectissimè creditur There is in this Argument at the first view so much appearance of Reason that it may much work upon a modest mind yet being well examined and rightly weighed it will be found to be of no great weight for beside that the Minor will never be made good in the behalf of a Diocesan Bishop having sole power of Ordination and Jurisdiction there being a multitude of Fathers who maintain that Bishop and Presbyter are of one and the same Order I shall humbly offer some few Considerations about the Major because it hath been an Inlet to many dangerous Errours and hath proved a mighty hinderance and obstruction to Reformation of Religion 1. I desire it may be considered that whiles some make two Rules for defining Controversies the Word of God and Antiquity which they will have to be received with equal veneration or as the Papists call them Canonical Authority and Catholical Tradition and others make Scripture to be the only Rule and Antiquity the authentick Interpreter the latter of the two seems to me to be the greater Errour because the first setteth up a parallel in the same degree with Scripture but this would create a Superiour in a higher degree above Scripture For the interpretation of the Fathers shall be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and accounted the very Cause and Reason for which we conceive and believe such a place of Scripture to have such a sense and thus men shall have dominion over our Faith against 2 Cor. 1. 24. Our faith shall stand in the wisdom of man and not in the power of God 1 Cor. 2. 5. and Scripture shall be of private interpretation For the Prophecy came not of old by the will of man 2 Pet. 1. 20 22. Nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit Homo jam Deo propitius esse debebit saith Tertullian 2. That Scripture cannot be Authentically interpreted but by Scripture is manifest from Scripture The Levites gave the sense of the Law by no other means but by Scripture it self Neh. 8. 8. Our Saviour for example to us gave the true sense of Scripture against the depravations of Satan by comparing Scripture with Scripture and not by alledging any Testimonies out of the Rabbins Matt. 4. And the Apostles in their Epistles used no other help but the diligent comparing of Prophetical writings like as the Apostle Peter will have us to compare the clearer light of the Apostles with the more obscure light of the Prophets 2 Pet. 1. 19. And when we betake our selves to the Fathers we have need to take heed that with the Papists we accuse not the Scriptures of Obscurity or Imperfection 3. The Fathers themselves as they are cited by Protestant Writers hold this Conclusion That Scripture is not to be interpreted but by Scripture it self To this purpose amongst many other Testimonies they bring the saying of Tertullian Surge Veritas ipsa Scripturas tuas interpretare quam Consuetudo non novit nam si nosset non esset if it knew Scripture it would be ashamed of it self and cease to be any more 4. That some Errours have been received and continued for a long time in the Church The Errour of Free-will beginning at Justin Martyr continued till the time of Reformation although it was rejected by Augustine as the Divine Right of Episcopacy was opposed by others The Errour about the Vision of God That the Souls of the Saints departed see not the face of God till the Judgment of the Great Day was held by universal Consent The same may be said of the Errour of the Millenaries and which more nearly
though my Sins are so many and grievous that I may rather expect the effects of thy Anger than so great a deliverance as to free Me from my present great Danger yet O Lord since thy Mercies are over all thy Works and Thou never failest to relieve all those who with humble and unfeigned Repentance come to Thee for succour it were to multiply not diminish my Transgressions to despair of thy heavenly favour wherefore I humbly desire thy Divine Majesty that Thou wilt not only pardon all my Sins but also free Me out of the hands and protect Me from the Malice of my cruel Enemies But if thy wrath against my hainous offences will not otherwise be satisfied than by suffering Me to fall under my present Afflictions thy Will be done yet with humble importunity I do and shall never leave to implore the assistance of thy Heavenly Spirit that My Cause as I am Thy Vicegerent may not suffer through My weakness or want of Courage O Lord so strengthen and enlighten all the Faculties of my Mind that with clearness I may shew forth thy Truth and manfully endure this bloody Trial that so my Sufferings here may not only glorifie Thee but likewise be a furtherance to My Salvation hereafter Grant this O merciful Father for His sake who suffered for Me even Jesus Christ the Righteous Amen KING CHARLES HIS MESSAGES FOR PEACE I. From CANTERBURY Jan. 20. MDCXLI II. For the Composing of all Differences HIS Majesty perceiving the manifold distractions which are now in this Kingdom which cannot but bring great inconveniencies and mischief to this whole Government in which as His Majesty is most chiefly interessed so He holds Himself by many reasons most obliged to do what in Him lies for the preventing thereof though He might justly expect as most proper for the duty of Subjects that Propositions for the remedies of these evils ought rather to come to Him than from Him yet His Fatherly care of all His People being such that He will rather lay by any particular respect of His Own Dignity than that any time should be lost for prevention of these threatning evils which cannot admit the delays of the ordinary proceedings in Parliament doth think fit to make this ensuing Proposition to both Houses of Parliament that they will with all speed fall into a serious consideration of all those particulars which they shall hold necessary as well for the upholding and maintaining of His Majesty's Just and Regal Authority and for the setling of His Revenue as for the present and future establishment of their Priviledges the free and quiet enjoying of their Estates and Fortunes the Liberties of their Persons the security of the true Religion now professed in the Church of England and the setling of Ceremonies in such a manner as may take away all just offence Which when they shall have digested and composed into one intire body that so His Majesty and themselves may be able to make the more clear Judgment of them it shall then appear by what His Majesty shall do how far he hath been from intending or designing any of those things which the too great Fears and Jealousies of some persons seem to apprehend and how ready He will be to equal and exceed the greatest examples of the most indulgent Princes in their Acts of Grace and Favour to their People So that if all the present Distractions which so apparently threaten the Ruine of this Kingdom do not by the blessing of Almighty God end in an happy and blessed Accommodation His Majesty will then be ready to call Heaven and Earth God and Man to witness that it hath not failed on His part From HUNTINGDON March 15. Upon His Removal to YORK In pursuance of the Former HIS Majesty being now on His remove to His City of York where He intends to make His Residence for some time thinks fit to send this Message to both Houses of Parliament That he doth very earnestly desire that they will use all possible industry in expediting the business of Ireland in which they shall find so chearful a concurrence by His Majesty that no inconvenience shall happen to that service by His absence He having all that Passion for the reducing of that Kingdom which He hath expressed in His former Messages and being unable by words to manifest more affection to it than He hath endeavoured to do by those Messages having likewise done all such Acts as he hath been moved unto by His Parliament therefore if the misfortunes and calamities of His poor Protestant Subjects shall grow upon them though His Majesty shall be deeply concerned in and sensible of their sufferings He shall wash His hands before all the World from the least imputation of slackness in that most necessary and pious work And that His Majesty may leave no way unattempted which may beget a good understanding between Him and His Parliament He thinks it necessary to declare That as He hath been so tender of the Priviledges of Parliament that He hath been ready and forward to retract any Act of His own which He hath been informed hath trencht upon their Priviledges so He expects an equal tenderness in them of His Majesty 's known and unquestionable Priviledges which are the Priviledges of the Kingdom amongst which He is assured it is a Fundamental one That His Subjects cannot be obliged to obey any Act Order or Injunction to which His Majesty hath not given His consent And therefore He thinks it necessary to publish That He expects and hereby requires Obedience from all His loving Subjects to the Laws established and that they presume not upon any pretence of Order or Ordinance to which His Majesty is no party concerning the Militia or any other thing to do or execute what is not warranted by those Laws His Majesty being resolved to keep the Laws Himself and to require Obedience to them from all His Subjects And His Majesty once more recommends to His Parliament the substance of His Message of the twentieth of January last that they compose and digest with all speed such Acts as they shall think fit for the present and future establishment of their Priviledges the free and quiet enjoying their Estates and Fortunes the Liberties of their Persons the security of the true Religion now professed in the Church of England the maintaining His Majesties Regal and Just Authority and setling His Revenue His Majesty being most desirous to take all fitting and just wayes which may beget a happy understanding between Him and His Parliament in which He conceives His greatest Power and Riches do consist III. From NOTTINGHAM Aug. 25. MDCXLII When He set up His Standard By the Earls of Southampton and Dorset Sir John Culpepper Knight Chancellour of the Exchequer and Sir W. Wedale Knight WE have with unspeakable grief of heart long beheld the distractions of this our Kingdom Our very Soul is full of anguish until We may find some remedy to
Reverend Divines whose Names I have here set down may have free liberty to wait upon Me for their discharging of their Duty unto Me according to their Function Holdenby 17. February 1646. CHARLES R. B. London B. Salisbury B. Peterborough D. Shelden Clark of My Closet D. Marsh Dean of York D. Sanderson D. Baily D. Heywood D. Beal D. Fuller D. Hammond D. Taylor XXVIII From HOLDENBY Mar. 6. MDCXLVI VII In pursuance of the former To the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster IT being now seventeen days since I wrote to you from hence and not yet receiving any Answer to what I then desired I cannot but now again renew the same unto you And indeed concerning any thing but the necessary duty of a Christian I would not thus at this time trouble you with any of My desires But My being attended with some of My Chaplains whom I esteem and reverence is so necessary for Me even considering My present condition whether it be in relation to My Conscience or a happy settlement of the present Distractions in Religion that I will slight divers kinds of censures rather than not to obtain what I demand nor shall I do you the wrong as in this to doubt the obtaining of My wish it being totally grounded upon Reason For desiring you to consider not thinking it needful to mention the divers reasons which no Christian can be ignorant of for point of Conscience I must assure you that I cannot as I ought take in consideration those alterations in Religion which have and will be offered unto Me without such help as I desire because I can never judge rightly of or be altered in any thing of my Opinion so long as any ordinary way of finding out the truth is denied Me but when this is granted Me I promise you faithfully not to strive for Victory in Argument but to seek and submit to Truth according to that Judgement which God hath given Me always holding it My best and greatest Conquest to give contentment to My two Houses of Parliament in all things which I conceive not to be against My Conscience or Honour not doubting likewise but that you will be ready to satisfie Me in reasonable things as I hope to find in this particular concerning the attendance of My Chaplains upon Me. Holdenby 6. of March 1646. CHARLES R. XXIX From HOLDENBY May 12. MDCXLVII In Answer to their Propositions To the Speaker of the House of Peers pro tempore to be communicated to the two Houses of Parliament at Westminster and the Commissioners of the Parliament of Scotland CHARLES R. AS the daily expectation of the coming of the Propositions hath made His Majesty this long time to forbear giving His Answer unto them so the appearance of their sending being no more for any thing He can hear than it was at His first coming hither notwithstanding that the Earl of Lauderdale hath been at London above these ten days whose not coming was said to be the only stop hath caused His Majesty thus to anticipate their coming to Him And yet considering His condition that His Servants are denied access to Him all but very few and those by appointment not His own election and that it is declared a crime for any but the Commissioners or such who are particularly permitted by them to converse with His Majesty or that any Letters should be given to or received from Him may He not truly say that He is not in case fit to make Concessions or give Answers since He is not master of these ordinary actions which are the undoubted rights of any free-born man how mean soever his birth be And certainly He would still be silent as to this Subject until His condition were much mended did He not prefer such a right understanding betwixt Him and His Parliaments of both Kingdoms which may make a firm and lasting Peace in all His Dominions before any particular of His own or any earthly blessing and therefore His Majesty hath diligently imployed His utmost endeavours for divers months past so to inform His understanding and satisfie His Conscience that He might be able to give such Answers to the Propositions as would be most conformable to His Parliaments but He ingenuously professes that notwithstanding all the pains that He hath taken therein the nature of some of them appears such unto Him that without disclaiming that Reason which God hath given Him to judge by for the good of Him and His People and without putting the greatest violence upon His own Conscience He cannot give His Consent to all of them Yet His Majesty that it may appear to all the world how desirous He is to give full satisfaction hath thought fit hereby to express His readiness to grant what He may and His willingness to receive from them and that Personally if His two Houses at Westminster shall approve thereof such further information in the rest as may best convince His Judgement and satisfie those doubts which are not yet clear unto Him desiring them also to consider that if His Majesty intended to wind Himself out of these Troubles by indirect means were it not easie for Him now readily to consent to what hath or shall be proposed unto Him and afterwards chuse His time to break all alledging that forced Concessions are not to be kept surely He might and not incur a hard censure from indifferent men But Maxims in this kind are not the guides of His Majesty's Actions for He freely and clearly avows that He holds it unlawful for any man and most base in a King to recede from His Promises for having been obtained by force or under restraint Wherefore His Majesty not only rejecting those acts which He esteems unworthy of Him but even passing by that which He might well insist upon a point of Honour in respect of His present condition thus answers the first Proposition That upon His Majesty's coming to London He will heartily joyn in all that shall concern the Honour of His two Kingdoms or the Assembly of the States of Scotland or of the Commissioners or Deputies of either Kingdom particularly in those things which are desired in that Proposition upon confidence that all of them respectively with the same tenderness will look upon those things which concern His Majesty's Honour In answer to all the Propositions concerning Religion His Majesty proposeth That He will confirm the Presbyterial Government the Assembly of Divines at Westminster and the Directory for three years being the time set down by the two Houses so that His Majesty and His Houshold be not hindred from that form of God's Service which they formerly have had And also that a free consultation and debate be had with the Divines at Westminster twenty of His Majesty's nomination being added unto them whereby it may be determined by His Majesty and the two Houses how the Church shall be
or be taken away from honest men in possession but as much profit as you will With this last you are only to acquaint Richmond Southampton Culpepper and Hide XXIV To the QUEEN OXFORD Feb. 15. 25. MDCXLIV V. Dear Heart 20. THE expectation of an Express from Thee as I find by Thine of the 4. Febr. is very good news to Me as likewise that Thou art now well satisfied with My diligence in Writing As for our Treaty there is every day less hopes than other that it will produce a Peace But I will absolutely promise Thee that if we have one it shall be such as shall invite Thy return for I avow that without thy company I can neither have peace nor comfort within My self The limited days for treating are now almost expired without the least agreement upon any one Article wherefore I have sent for enlargement of days that the whole Treaty may be laid open to the world And I assure Thee that Thou needest not doubt the issue of this Treaty for My Commissioners are so well chosen though I say it that they will neither be threatned nor disputed from the grounds I have given them which upon My word is according to the little Note Thou so well remembrest And in this not only their obedience but their judgments concur I confess in some respects Thou hast reason to bid Me beware of going too soon to London for indeed some amongst us had a greater mind that way than was fit of which perswasion Percy is one of the chief who is shortly like to see Thee of whom having said this is enough to shew Thee how he is to be trusted or believed by Thee concerning our proceedings here In short there is little or no appearance but that this Summer will be the hottest for War of any that hath been yet And be confident that in making Peace I shall ever shew My constancy in adhering to Bishops and all our Friends and not forget to put a short period to this perpetual Parliament But as Thou lovest Me let none perswade Thee to slacken Thine assistance for Him who is eternally Thine C. R. Oxford 15. 25. Feb. 1644. 5. 3. 20. To My Wife 15. Feb. 1645. by P. A. XXV To the Marquess of ORMOND OXFORD 16 Feb. MDCXLIV Ormond I Should wrong My own service and this Gentleman Sir Timothy Fetherston if I did not recommend him and his business to you for the particulars of which I refer you to Digby And now again I cannot but mention to you the necessity of hastening of the Irish Peace for which I hope you are already furnished by Me with materials sufficient But in case against all expectation and reason Peace cannot be had upon those terms you must not by any means fall to a new rupture with them but continue the Cessation according to a Postscript in a Letter by Jack Barry a Copy of which Dispatch I herewith send you So I rest POSTSCRIPT In case upon particular mens fancies the Irish Peace should not be procured upon powers I have already given you I have thought good to give you this further Order which I hope will prove needless to seek to renew the Cessation for a year for which you shall promise the Irish if you can have it no cheaper to joyn with them against the Scots and Inchequin for I hope by that time My condition may be such as the Irish may be glad to accept less or I be able to grant more XXVI To the QUEEN OXFORD 19. Feb. MDCXLIV V. 21. Oxford 19. Feb. Old style DEAR Heart I cannot yet send Thee any certain word concerning the issue of our Treaty only the unreasonable stubbornness of the Rebels gives daily less and less hopes of any accommodation this way wherefore I hope no rumours shall hinder Thee from hastning all Thou mayest all possible assistance to Me and particularly that of the D. of Lorrain's concerning which I received yesterday good news from Dr Goffe that the P. of Orange will furnish Shipping for his Transportation and that the rest of his Negotiation goes hopefully on by which and many other ways I find Thy affection so accompanied with dexterity as I know not whether in their several kinds to esteem most But I will say no more of this lest Thou mayest think that I pretend to do this way what is but possible to be done by the continued actions of My Life Though I leave news to others yet I cannot but tell Thee that even now I have received certain intelligence of a great defeat given to Argyle by Montross who upon surprize totally routed those Rebels killed 1500 upon the place Yesterday I received Thine of 27. Jan. by the Portugal Agent the only way but Expresses I am confident on either to receive Letters from Thee or to send them to Thee Indeed Sabrian sent Me word yesterday besides some Complements of the Imbargo of the Rebels Ships in France which I likewise put upon Thy score of kindness but is well enough content that the Portugal should be charged with Thy Dispatches As for trusting the Rebels either by going to London or disbanding My Army before a Peace do no ways fear my hazarding so cheaply or foolishly for I esteem the interest Thou hast in Me at a far dearer rate and pretend to have a little more wit at least by the Sympathy that is betwixt Us than to put My self into the reverence of perfidious Rebels So impatiently expecting the Express Thou hast promised Me I rest eternally Thine I can now assure Thee that Hertogen the Irish Agent is an arrant knave which shall be made manifest to Thee by the first opportunity of sending Pacquets 11. 21. To My Wife 19 Feb. 1645. by P. A. XXVII To the Marquess of ORMOND OXFORD Feb. 27. MDCXLIV V. Ormond THE impossibility of preserving My Protestant Subjects in Ireland by a continuation of the War having moved Me to give you those powers and directions which I have formerly done for the concluding of a Peace there and the same growing daily much more evident that alone were reason enough for Me to enlarge your powers and to make My commands in the point more positive But besides these considerations it being now manifest that the English Rebels have as far as in them lies given the command of Ireland to the Scots that their aim is a total subversion of Religion and Regal Power and that nothing less will content them or purchase Peace here I think My self bound in Conscience not to let slip the means of setling that Kingdom if it may be fully under My obedience nor to lose that assistance which I may hope from My Irish Subjects for such scruples as in a less pressing condition might reasonably be stuck at by Me. For their satisfaction I do therefore command you to conclude a Peace with the Irish whatever it cost so that My Protestant Subjects there may be secured and my Regal Authority preserved But
Considerations the inconveniences as I conceive that may upon this occasion fall upon My Subjects and other Protestants abroad especially since it may seem to other States to be a severity Which having thus represented I think My self discharged from all ill consequences that may ensue upon the Execution of this person XXVI To the House of Lords at WESTMINSTER Feb. 10. MDCXL XLI MY Lords That freedom and confidence which I expressed at the beginning of this Parliament to have of your love and fidelity towards My Person and Estate hath made Me at this time come hither to acquaint you with that Alliance and Confederacy which I intend to make with the Prince of Orange and the States which before this time I did not think expedient to do because that part I do desire your Advice and Assistance upon was not ready to be treated on I will not trouble you with a long digression by shewing the steps of this Treaty but leave you to be satisfied in that by those who under Me do manage that Affair Only I shall shew you the reasons which have induced Me to it and in what I expect your Assistance and Counsel The Considerations that have induced Me to it are these First the matter of Religion Here needs no Dispensation no fear that My Daughter's Conscience may be any way perverted Secondly I do esteem that a strict Alliance and Confederacy with the States will be as useful to this Kingdom as that with any of My Neighbouâ—â— especially considering their Affinity Neighbourhood and way of their Strength And lastly which I must never forget in these occasions the use I may make of this Alliance towards the establishing of My Sister and Nephews Now to shew you in what I desire your Assistance You must know that the Articles of Marriage are in a manner concluded but not to be totally ratified until that of Alliance be ended and agreed which before I demanded your assistance I did not think fit to enter upon And that I may not leave you too much at large how to begin that Counsel I present you here the Propositions which are offered by Me to the States Ambassadours for that intent And so My Lords I shall only desire you to make as much expedition in your Counsels as so great a business shall require and shall leave your Lordships to your own free debate XXVII To the Lords and Commons at His Passing the Bill for Triennial Parliaments at WESTMINSTER Feb. 15. MDCXL XLI MY Lords and you the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons You may remember when both Houses were with Me at the Banquetting-House at White-Hall I did declare unto you two Rocks I wished you to eschew This is one of them and of that consequence that I think never Bill passed here in this House of more favour to the Subject than this is And if the other Rock be as happily passed over as this shall be at this time I do not know what you can ask for ought I can see at this time that I can make any question to yield unto Therefore I mention this to shew unto you the sense that I have of this Bill and the Obligation as I may say that you have to Me for it For hitherto to speak freely I had no great incouragement to do it if I should look to the outward face of your Actions or Proceedings and not to the inward Intentions of your hearts I might make question of doing it Hitherto you have gone on in that which concerns your selves to amend and not in those things that nearly concern the strength of this Kingdom neither for the State nor My Own particular This I mention not to reproach you but to shew you the state of things as they are You have taken the Government all in pieces and I may say it is almost off the Hinges A skilful Watch-maker to make clean his Watch will take it asunder and when it is put together it will go the better so that he leave not out one pin of it Now as I have done all this on My part you know what to do on yours And I hope you shall see clearly that I have performed really what I expressed to you at the beginning of this Parliament of the great trust I have of your affections to Me. And this is the great expression of trust that before you do any thing for Me I do put such a Confidence in you XXVIII To the Lords and Commons about Disbanding the Armies in Ireland and England at the Banquetting-House in WHITE-HALL April 28. MDCXLI MY Lords and Gentlemen For Answer to your Desires I say First Concerning the removal of Papists from Court I am sure you all know what legal trust the Crown hath in this particular and therefore I need not say any thing to give you assurance that I shall use it so that there shall be no just cause of Scandal Secondly For disarming of Papists I am very well content it shall be done according to Law Thirdly For the Irish Army you must understand I am already upon Consultation how to disband it but I find many difficulties in it therefore I hold it not only fit to wish it but to shew the way how it may be conveniently done This is not all I desire but since you have mentioned the disbanding of Armies it is My Duty to My Country to wish for disbanding of all Armies and to restore the same Peace to all My three Kigndoms that the King My Father did leave them in And I conjure you as you will answer the same to God and to your Country to join with Me heartily and speedily for the disbanding of the two Armies in England This is a very good time to speak of it and there are but two waies to do it One is to answer their Petitions and the second is to provide Monies You are Masters of the one and with Me you are Judges of the other And you shall not be readier nor so ready to bring this to a happy Conclusion than I My self shall be XXIX To the House of Lords concerning the Bill of Attainder of the Earl of STRAFFORD at WESTMINSTER May 1. MDCXLI MY Lords I had no intention to have spoken to you of this business this day which is the great business concerning My Lord of Strafford because I would do nothing that might serve to hinder your occasions But now it comes so to pass that seeing of necessity I must have part in the Judgment I think it most necessary for Me to declare My Conscience therein I am sure you all know I have been present at the hearing of this great Case from the one end to the other And I must tell you that in My Conscience I cannot condemn him of High Treason It is not fit for Me to argue this business I am sure you will not expect that A Positive Doctrine best becomes the Mouth of a Prince Yet I must
upon or about the thirtieth day of November in the year last mentioned at Newbury aforesaid and upon or about the eighth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and five at the Town of Leicester and also upon the fourteenth day of the same month in the same year at Naseby-field in the County of Northampton At which several times and places or most of them and at many other places in this Land at several other times within the years aforementioned and in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and six he the said Charles Stuart hath caused and procured many thousands of the Free People of the Nation to be slain and by Divisions Parties and Infurrections within this Land by Invasions from Forein Parts endeavoured and procured by him and by many other evil ways and means he the said Charles Stuart hath not only maintained and carried on the said War both by Land and Sea during the years before mentioned but also hath renewed or caused to be renewed the said War against the Parliament and good People of this Nation in this present year one thousand six hundred forty and eight in the Counties of Kent Essex Surry Sussex Middlesex and many other places in England and Wales and also by Sea and particularly he the said Charles Stuart hath for that purpose given Commission to his Son the Prince and others whereby besides multitudes of other persons many such as were by the Parliament intrusted and imployed for the safety of the Nation being by him or his Agents corrupted to the betraying of their Trust and revolting from the Parliament have had entertainment and Commission for the continuing and renewing of War and Hostility against the said Parliament and People as aforesaid By which cruel and unnatural Wars by him the said Charles Stuart levied continued and renewed as aforesaid much innocent blood of the Free People of this Nation hath been spilt many Families have been undone the publick Treasury wasted and exhausted Trade obstructed and miserably decayed vast expence and damage to the Nation incurred and many parts of the Land spoiled some of them even to Desolation And for further prosecution of his said evil Designs he the said Charles Stuart doth still continue his Commissions to the said Prince and other Rebels and Revolters both English and Foreiners and to the Earl of Ormond and to the Irish Rebels and Revolters associated with him from whom further Invasions upon this Land are threatned upon the procurement and on the behalf of the said Charles Stuart All which wicked Designs Wars and evil Practices of him the said Charles Stuart have been and are carried on for the advancing and upholding of the Personal Interest of Will and Power and pretended Prerogative to himself and his Family against the Publick Interest Common Right Liberty Justice and Peace of the People of this Nation by and for whom he was intrusted as aforesaid By all which it appeareth that he the said Charles Stuart hath been and is the Occasioner Author and Contriver of the said unnatural cruel and bloody Wars and therein guilty of all the Treasons Murders Rapines Burnings Spoils Desolations Damage and Mischief to this Nation acted or committed in the said Wars or occasioned thereby And the said John Cook by Protestation saving on the behalf of the People of England the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Charge against the said Charles Stuart and also of replying to the Answers which the said Charles Stuart shall make to the Premisses or any of them or any other Charge that shall be so exhibited doth for the said Treasons and Crimes on the behalf of the said People of England impeach the said Charles Stuart as a Tyrant Traitor Murtherer and a publick and implacable Enemy to the Commonwealth of England and pray that the said Charles Stuart King of England may be put to answer all and every the Premisses that such Proceedings Examinations Tryals Sentence and Judgment may be thereupon had as shall be agreeable to Justice His Majesty with His wonted Patience heard all these Slanders and Reproaches sitting in the Chair and looking sometimes on the pretended Court sometimes up to the Galleries and rising again turned about to behold the Guards and Spectators then he sate down with a Majestick and unmoved countenance and sometimes smiling especially at those words Tyrant Traitor and the like Also the silver head of His Staff happened to fall off at which He wondred and seeing none to take it up He stooped for it Himself The Charge being read Bradshaw began Sir you have now heard your Charge read containing such matters as appear in it you find that in the close of it it is prayed to the Court in the behalf of the Commons of England that you answer to your Charge The Court expects your Answer KING I would know by what Power I am called hither I was not long ago in the Isle of Wight how I came there is a longer story than I think is fit at this time for Me to speak of but there I entred into a Treaty with both Houses of Parliament with as much publick Faith as it 's possible to be had of any People in the World I treated there with a number of Honourable Lords and Gentlemen and treated honestly and uprightly I cannot say but they did very nobly with Me we were upon a conclusion of the Treaty Now I would know by what Authority I mean lawful there are many unlawful Authorities in the world Thieves and Robbers by the high-ways but I would know by what Authority I was brought from thence and carried from place to place and I know not what And when I know by what lawful Authority I shall answer Remember I am your King your lawful King and what sins you bring upon your heads and the Judgment of God upon this Land Think well upon it I say think well upon it before you go further from one sin to a greater Therefore let Me know by what lawful Authority I am seated here and I shall not be unwilling to answer In the mean time I shall not betray My Trust I have a Trust committed to Me by God by old and lawful Descent I will not betray it to answer to a new unlawful Authority Therefore resolve Me that and you shall hear more of Me. Bradshaw If you had been pleased to have observed what was hinted to you by the Court at your first coming hither you would have known by what Authority which Authority requires you in the name of the People of England of which you are elected King to answer KING No Sir I deny that Bradshaw If you acknowledge not the Authority of the Court they must proceed KING I do tell them so England was never an Elective Kingdom but an Hereditary Kingdom for near these thousand years therefore let Me know by what Authority I am called
Court Your Lordship was pleased to give him a further day to consider and to put in his Answer which day being yesterday I did humbly move that he might be required to give a direct and positive Answer either by denying or confession of it But my Lord he was then pleased for to demur to the Jurisdiction of the Court which the Court did then over-rule and command him to give a direct and positive Answer My Lord besides this great delay of Justice I shall now humbly move your Lordship for speedy Judgment against him My Lord I might press your Lordship upon the whole that according to the known rules of the Law of the Land That if a Prisoner shall stand as contumacious in contempt and shall not put in an issuable Plea guilty or not guilty of the Charge given against him whereby he may come to a fair Tryal that as by an implicite confession it may be taken pro confesso as it hath been done to those who have deserved more favour than the Prisoner at the Bar has done But besides my Lord I shall humbly press your Lordship upon the whole fact The House of Commons the Supreme Authority and Jurisdiction of the Kingdom they have declared That it is notorious that the matter of the Charge is true as it is in truth my Lord as clear as Crystal and as the Sun that shines at noon day which if your Lordship and the Court be not satisfied in I have notwithstanding on the People of England's behalf several Witnesses to produce And therefore I do humbly pray and yet I must confess it is not so much I as the innocent blood that hath been shed the Cry whereof is very great for Justice and Judgment and therefore I do humbly pray that speedy Judgment be pronounced against the Prisoner at the Bar. Bradshaw went on in the same strain Sir you have heard what is moved by the Counsel on the behalf of the Kingdom against you Sir you may well remember and if you do not the Court cannot forget what dilatory dealings the Court hath found at your hands You were pleased to propound some Questions you have had your Resolution upon them You were told over and over again that the Court did affirm their own Jurisdiction That it was not for you nor any other man to dispute the Jurisdiction of the supreme and highest Authority of England from which there is no Appeal and touching which there must be no dispute yet you did persist in such carriage as you gave no manner of Obedience nor did you acknowledge any authority in them nor the High Court that constituted this Court of Justice Sir I must let you know from the Court that they are very sensible of these delays of yours and that they ought not being thus authorized by the supreme Court of England to be thus trifled withal and that they might in Justice if they pleased and according to the rules of Justice take advantage of these delays and proceed to pronounce Judgment against you yet nevertheless they are pleased to give direction and on their behalfs I do require you that you make a positive Answer unto this Charge that is against you Sir in plain terms for Justice knows no respect of Persons you are to give your positive and final Answer in plain English whether you be guilty or not guilty of these Treasons laid to your Charge The King after a little pause said When I was here yesterday I did desire to speak for the Liberties of the People of England I was interrupted I desire to know yet whether I may speak freely or not Bradshaw Sir you have had the Resolution of the Court upon the like Question the last day and you were told That having such a Charge of so high a nature against you your work was that you ought to acknowledge the Jurisdiction of the Court and to answer to your Charge Sir if you answer to your Charge which the Court gives you leave now to do though they might have taken the advantage of your Contempt yet if you be able to answer to your Charge when you have once answered you shall be heard at large make the best Defence you can But Sir I must let you know from the Court as their Commands that you are not to be permitted to issue out into any other discourses till such time as you have given a positive Answer concerning the matter that is charged upon you KING For the Charge I value it not a rush It is the Liberty of the People of England that I stand for For Me to acknowledge a new Court that I never heard of before I that am your King that should be an Example to all the People of England for to uphold Justice to maintain the old Laws indeed I do not know how to do it You spoke very well the first day that I came here on Saturday of the Obligations that I had laid upon Me by God to the maintenance of the Liberties of My People the same Obligation you spake of I do acknowledge to God that I owe to Him and to My People to defend as much as in Me lies the ancient Laws of the Kingdom therefore until that I may know that this is not against the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom by your favour I can put in no particular Charge If you will give Me time I will shew you My Reasons why I cannot do it and this Here being interrupted He said By your favour you ought not to interrupt Me. How I came here I know not there 's no Law for it to make your King your Prisoner I was in a Treaty upon the Publick Faith of the Kingdom that was the known two Houses of Parliament that was the Representative of the Kingdom and when that I had almost made an end of the Treaty then I was hurried away and brought hither and therefore Bradshaw Sir you must know the pleasure of the Court. KING By your favour Sir Bradshaw Nay Sir by your favour you may not be permitted to fall into those discourses you appear as a Delinquent you have not acknowledged the Authority of the Court The Court craves it not of you but once more they command you to give your positive Answer Clerk Do your Duty KING Duty Sir The Clerk reads Charles Stuart King of England you are accused in the behalf of the Commons of England of divers high Crimes and Treasons which Charge hath been read unto you the Court now requires you to give your positive and final Answer by way of Confession or Denial of the Charge KING Sir I say again to you so that I might give satisfaction to the People of England of the clearness of My Proceeding not by way of Answer not in this way but to satisfie them that I have done nothing against that Trust that hath been committed to Me I would do it but to acknowledge a new Court against their
Majesty therefore rather preferred the safety of His People from that present and visible danger than the providing for that which was more remote but no less dangerous to the state of this Kingdom and of the affairs of that part of Christendom which then were and yet are in friendship and alliance with His Majesty and thereupon His Majesty not being then able to discern when it might please God to stay His hand of Visitation nor what place might be more secure than other at a time convenient for their re-assembling His Majesty dissolved that Parliament That Parliament being now ended His Majesty did not therewith cast off His Royal care of His great and important affairs but by the advice of His Privy Council and of His Council of War He continued His preparations and former resolutions and therein not only expended those moneys which by the two Subsidies aforesaid were given unto Him for His own private use whereof He had too much occasion as He found the state of His Exchequer at His first entrance but added much more of His own as by His credit and the credit of some of His Servants He was able to compass the same At last by much disadvantage by the retarding of provisions and uncertainty of the means His Navy was prepared and set to Sea and the designs unto which they were sent and specially directed were so probable and so well advised that had they not miscarried in the execution His Majesty is well assured they would have given good satisfaction not only to His own people but to all the world that they were not lightly or unadvisedly undertaken and pursued But it pleased God who is the Lord of Hosts and unto whose Providence and good pleasure His Majesty doth and shall ever submit Himself and all His endeavours not to give that success which was desired And yet were those attempts not altogether so fruitless as the envy of the Times hath apprehended the Enemy receiving thereby no small loss and our party no little advantage and it would much avail to further His Majestie 's great affairs and the Peace of Christendom which ought to be the true end of all hostility were these first beginnings which are most subject to miscarry well seconded and pursued as His Majesty intended and as in the judgment of all men conversant in actions of this nature were fit not to have been neglected These things being thus acted and God of his infinite Goodness beyond expectation asswaging the rage of the Pestilence and in a manner of a sudden restoring health and safety to the Cities of London and Westminster which are the fittest places for the resort of His Majesty His Lords and Commons to meet in Parliament His Majesty in the depth of Winter no sooner descried the probability of a safe assembling of His people and in His Princely Wisdom and Providence foresaw that if the opportunity of seasons should be omitted preparations both defensive and offensive could not be made in such sort as was requisite for their common safety but He advised and resolved of the summoning of a new Parliament where He might freely communicate the necessities of the State and by the counsel and advice of the Lords and Commons in Parliament who are the representative body of the whole Kingdom and the great Counsel of the Realm He might proceed in these enterprises and be inabled thereunto which concern the common good safety and honour both of Prince and People and accordingly the sixth of February last a new Parliament was begun At the first meeting His Majesty did forbear to press them with any thing which might have the least appearance of His own Interest but recommended unto them the care of making of good Laws which are the ordinary subject for a Parliament His Majesty believing that they could not have suffered many days much less many weeks to have passed by before the apprehension and care of the common safety of this Kingdom and of the true Religion prosessed and maintained therein and of Our Friends and Allies who must prosper or suffer with us would have led them to a due and a timely consideration of all the means which might best conduce to those ends which the Lords of the higher House by a Committee of that House did timely and seasonably consider of and invited the Commons to a Conference concerning that great business at which Conference there were opened unto them the great occasions which pressed His Majesty which making no impression with them His majesty did first by message and after by Letters put the House of Commons in mind of that which was most necessary the defence of the Kingdom and due and timely preparations for the same The Commons House after this upon the seven and twentieth of March last with one unanimous consent at first agreed to give unto His Majesty three intire Subsidies and three Fiteens for a present supply unto Him and upon the six and twentieth of April after upon second cogitations they added a fourth Subsidy and ordered the days of payment for them all whereof the first should have been on the last day of this present month of June Upon this the King of Denmark and other Princes and States being ingaged with His Majesty in this Common Cause His Majesty fitted His occasions according to the times which were appointed for the payment of those Subsidies and Fifteens and hastned on the Lords Committees and His Council at War to perfect their resolutions for the ordering and setting of His designs which they accordingly did and brought them to that maturity that they found no impediment to a final conclusion of their Counsels but want of money to put things into Action His Majesty hereupon who had with much patience expected the real performance of that which the Commons had promised finding the time of the year posting away and having intelligence not only from His own Ministers and Subjects in forein parts but from all parts of Christendom of the great and powerful preparations of the King of Spain and that His design was upon this Kingdom or the Kingdom of Ireland or both and it is hard to determine which of them would be of worst consequence He acquainted the House of Commons therewith and laid open unto them truly and clearly how the state of things then stood and yet stand and at several times and upon several occasions re-iterated the same But that House being abused by the violent and ill-advised Passions of a few members of the House for private and personal ends ill beseeming publick persons trusted by their Country as then they were not only neglected but wilfully refused to hearken to all the gentle admonitions which His Majesty could give them and neither did nor would intend any thing but the prosecution of one of the Peers of this Realm and that in such a disordered manner as being set at their own instance into a Legal way wherein the proofs
manner of a Parliament new Jurisdictions were erected of Romish Archbishops Taxes levied another State moulded within this State independent in Government contrary in Interest and affection secretly corrupting the ignorant or negligent Professours of our Religion and closely uniting and combining themselves against such as were sound in this posture waiting for an opportunity by force to destroy those whom they could not hope to seduce For the effecting whereof they were strengthened with Arms and Munition encouraged by superstitious Prayers enjoyned by the Nuntio to be weekly made for the prosperity of some great Design And such power had they at Court that secretly a Commission was issued out intended to be issued to some Great men of that profession for the levying of Souldiers and to command and employ them according to private instructions which we doubt were framed for the advantage of those who were the contrivers of them His Majesties Treasure was consumed His Revenue anticipated His Servants and Officers compelled to lend great sums of mony Multitudes were called to the Council-Table who were tired with long attendances there for refusing illegal payments The Prisons were filled with their Commitments many of the Sheriffs summoned into the Star-Chamber and some imprisoned for not being quick enough in levying the Ship-money the people languished under grief and fear no visible hope being left but in desperation The Nobility began to be weary of their silence and patience and sensible of the duty and trust which belongs to them and thereupon some of the most eminent of them did petition His Majesty at such a time when evil Counsels were so strong that they had reason to expect more hazard to themselves then redress of those publick evils for which they interceded Whilest the Kingdom was in this agitation and distemper the Scots restrained in their Trades impoverished by the loss of many of their Ships bereaved of all possibility of satisfying His Majesty by any naked Supplication entred with a powerful Army into the Kingdom and without any hostile Act or spoil in the Countrey as they passed more then forcing a passage over the Tyne at Newborne near Newcastle possessed themselves of Newcastle and had a fair opportunity to press on further upon the Kings Army but duty and reverence to His Majesty and brotherly love to the English Nation made them stay there whereby the King had leisure to entertain better Counsels wherein God so blessed and directed Him that He summoned the great Council of Peers to meet at York upon the twenty fourth of September and there declared a Parliament to begin the third of November then following The Scots the first day of the great Council presented an humble Petition to His Majesty whereupon the Treaty was appointed at Rippon a present Cessation of arms agreed upon and the full conclusion of all Differences referred to the wisdom and care of the Parliament At our first meeting all Oppositions seemed to vanish the mischiefs were so evident which those evil Counsellors produced that no man durst stand up to defend them Yet the work it self afforded difficulty enough The multiplied evils and corruption of sixteen years strengthned by Custome and Authority and the concurrent interest of many powerful Delinquents were now to be brought to judgment and Reformation The Kings Houshold was to be provided for they had brought Him to that want that He could not supply His ordinary and necessary Expences without the assistance of His People Two Armies were to be payed which amounted very near to thirty thousand pounds a month the people were to be tenderly charged having been formerly exhausted with many burthensome Projects The Difficulties seemed to be insuperable which by the Divine Providence we have overcome the Contrarieties incompatible which yet in a great measure we have reconciled Six Subsidies have been granted and a Bill of Poll-money which if it be duly levied may equal six Subsidies more in all six hundred thousand pounds Besides we have contracted a debt to the Scots of two hundred and twenty thousand pounds and yet God hath so blessed the endeavours of this Parliament that the Kingdom is a great gainer by all these charges The Ship-money is abolished which cost the Kingdom above 200000 pounds a year The Coat and Conduct-money and other military charges are taken away which in many Countries amounted to little less then the Ship-money The Monopolies are all supprest whereof some few did prejudice the Subject above a Million yearly the Soap an hundred thousand pounds the Wine three hundred thousand pounds the Leather must needs exceed both and Salt could not be less then that besides the inferiour Monopolies which if they could be exactly computed would make up a great sum That which is more beneficial then all this is that the root of these evils is taken away which was the arbitrary power pretended to be in His Majesty of taxing the Subject or charging their estates without consent in Parliament which is now declared to be against Law by the judgment of both Houses and likewise by an Act of Parliament Another step of great advantage is this the living Grievances the evil Counsellors and actors of these mischiefs have been so quelled by the Justice done upon the Earl of Strafford the flight of the Lord Finch and Secretary Windebank the accusation and imprisonment of the Archbishop of Canterbury of Judge Bartlet and the impeachment of divers other Bishops and Judges that it is like not only to be an ease to the present times but a preservation to the future The discontinuance of Parliaments is prevented by the Bill for a Triennial Parliament and the abrupt dissolution of this Parliament by another Bill by which it is provided it shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of both Houses Which two Laws well considered may be thought more advantageous then all the former because they secure a full operation of the present remedy and afford a perpetual Spring of remedies for the future The Star-chamber the High-Commission the Courts of the President and Council in the North were so many forges of Misery Oppression and Violence and are all taken away whereby men are more secured in their Persons Liberties and Estates then they could be by any Law or Example for the regulation of those Courts or Terror of the Judges The immoderate power of the Council-Table and the excessive abuse of that power is so ordered and restrained that we may well hope that no such things as were frequently done by them to the prejudice of the publick Liberty will appear in future times but only in Stories to give us and our posterity more occasion to praise God for his Majesties Goodness and the faithful endeavours of this Parliament The Canons and the power of Canon-making are blasted by the Vote of both Houses The exorbitant power of Bishops and their Courts are much abated by some Provisions in the Bill against the High-Commission Court
and all their Jealousies and apprehensions which may lessen their Charity to each other and then if the Sins of this Nation have not prepared an inevitable Judgment for us all God will yet make Us a Great and a Glorious King over a Free and Happy People MDCXLI To the Kings most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament The humble PETITION and PROTESTATION of all the Bishop and Prelates now called by His Majesties Writs to attend the Parliament and present about London and Westminster for that service THat whereas the Petitioners are called up by several and respective Writs and under great Penalties to attend in Parliament and have a clear and indubitate Right to vote in Bills and other matters whatsoever debatable in Parliament by the Ancient Customes Laws and Statutes of this Realme and ought to be protected by Your Majesty quietly to attend and prosecute that great Service They humbly remonstrate and protest before God Your Majesty and the Noble Lords and Peers now assembled in Parliament That as they have an indubitate Right to sit and vote in the House of the Lords so are they if they may be protected from Force and Violence most ready and willing to perform their Duties accordingly and that they do abominate all Actions or Opinions tending to Popery and the maintenance thereof as also all propension and inclination to any Malignant party or any other side or party whatsoever to the which their own Reasons and Consciences shall not move them to adhere But whereas they have been at several times violently Menaced Affronted and Assaulted by multitudes of people in their coming to perform their services in that Honourable House and lately chased away and put in danger of their lives and can find no redress or protection upon sundry complaints made to both Houses in these particulars They likewise humbly protest before Your Majesty and the Noble House of Peers That saving unto themselves all their Rights and Interests of Sitting and Voting in that House at other times they dare not Sit or Vote in the House of Peers until Your Majesty shall further secure them from all Affronts Indignities and Dangers in the premisses Lastly Whereas their Fears are not built upon Phantasies and Conceits but upon such Grounds and Objects as may well terrifie men of good Resolutions and much Constancy they do in all humility protest before Your Majesty and the Peers of that most Honourable House of Parliament against all Laws Orders Votes Resolutions and Determinations as in themselves Null and of none effect which in their absence since the twenty seventh of this instant Month of December 1641. have already passed as likewise against all such as shall hereafter pass in that most Honourable House during the time of this their forced and violent absence from the said most Honourable House Not denying but if their absenting of themselves were wilful and voluntary that most Honourable House might proceed in all these premisses their Absence or this their Protestation notwithstanding And humbly beseeching Your most Excellent Majesty to command the Clerk of that House of Peers to enter this their Petition and Protestation among his Records They will ever pray to God to bless and preserve c. Jo. Eborac Thomas Duresme Rob. Co. Lich. Jos Norwich Jo. Asaphen Guil. Ba. Wells Geo. Hereford Rob. Oxon. Mat. Ely Godfr Glouc. Jo. Peterburg Mor. Llandaff MDCXLI Jan. 3. ARTICLES of HIGH TREASON and other High Misdemeanours against the Lord Kimbolton Mr. Denzil Hollis Sir Arthur Hesilrig Mr. John Pym Mr. John Hambden and Mr. William Stroude I. THAT they have traitorously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdom of England to deprive the King of His Regal Power and to place in Subjects an Arbitrary and Tyrannical power over the Lives Liberties and Estates of His Majesties Liege People II. That they have traitorously endeavoured by many foul Aspersions upon His Majesty and His Government to alienate the Affections of His People and to make His Majesty odious unto them III. That they have endeavoured to draw His Majesties late Army to disobedience to His Majesties Commands and to side with them in their Traitorous Designs IV. That they have traitorously invited and encouraged a foreign Power to invade His Majesties Kingdom of England V. That they have traitorously indeavoured to subvert the Rights and very Being of Parliaments VI. That for the compleating of their Traitorous Designs they have indeavoured as far as in them lay by force and Terror to compel the Parliament to joyn with them in their Traitorous Designs and to that end have actually raised and countenanced Tumults against the King and Parliament VII That they have traitorously conspired to levy and actually have levied War against the King MDCXLII Jun. 2. PROPOSITIONS made by both Houses of Parliament to the KINGS Majesty for a Reconciliation of the Differences between His Majesty and the said Houses YOUR Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having nothing in their thoughts and desires more pretious and of higher esteem next to the Honour and immediate Service of God then the just and faithful Performance of their Duty to Your Majesty and this Kingdom and being very sensible of the great Distractions and Distempers and of the imminent Dangers and Calamities which those Distractions and Distempers are like to bring upon Your Majesty and Your Subjects all which have proceeded from the subtle Insinuations mischievous Practices and evil Counsels of men disaffected to God's true Religion Your Majesties Honour and Safety and the publick Peace and Prosperity of Your People after a serious observation of the Causes of those Mischiefs do in all humility and sincerity present to Your Majesty their most dutiful Petition and Advice That out of your Princely Wisdome for the establishing Your own Honour and Safety and gracious tenderness of the welfare and security of Your Subjects and Dominioins You will be pleased to grant and accept these their humble Desires and Propositions as the most necessary effectual means through God's blessing of removing those Jealousies and Differences which have unhappily fallen betwixt You and Your People and procuring both Your Majesty and them a constant course of Honour Peace and Happiness I. That the Lords and others of Your Majesties Privy Council and such great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the seas may be put from Your Privy Council and from those Offices and Imployments excepting such as shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament And that the persons put into the places and imployments of those that are removed may be approved of by both Houses of Parliament And that all Privie-Counsellours shall take an Oath for the due execution of their places in such form as shall be agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament II. That the great Affairs of this Kingdom may not be concluded or transacted by
chuse and to remove none till they appear to Us to have otherwise behaved themselves or shall be evicted by Legal proceedings to have done so But this Demand as unreasonable as it is is but one link of a great Chain and but the first round of that Ladder by which Our Just Ancient Regal Power is endeavoured to be fetched down to the ground For it appears plainly that it is not with the Persons now chosen but with Our chusing that you are displeased For you demand That the persons put in the places and imployments of those who shall be removed may be approved by both Houses which is so far as to some it may at the first sight appear from being less then the power of nomination that of two things of which We will never grant either We would sooner be content that you should nominate and We approve than you approve and we nominate the meer nomination being so far from being any thing that if We could do no more We would never take the pains to do that when We should only hazard those whom We esteemed to the scorn of a refusal if they happened not to be agreeable not only to the Judgment but to the Passion Interest or Humour of the present major part of either House Not to speak now of the great factions animosities and divisions which this power would introduce in both Houses between both Houses and in the several Countries for the choice of persons to be sent to that place where that power was and between the persons that were so chosen Neither is this strange Potion prescribed to Us only for once for the cure of a present pressing desperate disease but for a Diet to Us and Our Postetity It is demanded That Our Counsellors all Chief Officers both of Law and State Commanders of Forts and Castles and all Peers hereafter made as to voting without which how little is the rest be approved of that is chosen by them from time to time and rather then it should ever be left to the Crown to whom it onely doth and shall belong if any place fall void in the intermission of Parliament the major part of the approved Council is to approve them Neither is it only demanded that We should quit the Power and Right our Predecessors have had of appointing Persons in these places but for Counsellors We are to be restrained as well in the Number as in the Persons and a power must be annext to these places which their Predecessors had not And indeed if this power were past to them it were not fit We should be trusted to chuse those who were to be trusted as much as We. It is demanded That such matters as concern the publick and are proper for the High Court of Parliament Which is Our Great and Supreme Council may be debated resolved and transacted only in Parliament and not elsewhere and such as presume to do any thing to the contrary shall be reserved to the Censure and Judgment of the Parliament and such other matters of State as are proper for Our Privy Council shall be debated and concluded by such of Our Nobility though indeed if being made by Us they may not vote without the Consent of both Houses We are rather to call them your Nobility and others as shall be from time to time chosen for that place by approbation of both Houses of Parliament and that no publick Act concerning the affairs of the Kingdom which are proper for Our Privy Council may be esteemed of any validity as proceeding from the Royal Authority unless it be done by the Advice and Consent of the major part of Our Council attested under their hands Which Demands are of that nature that to grant them were in effect at once to depose both Our Self and Our Posterity These being past We may be waited on bare-headed We may have our hand kist the style of Majesty continued to Us and the Kings Authority declared by both Houses of Parliament may be still the style of your Commands We may have Swords and Maces carried before Us and please Our Self with the sight of a Crown and Scepter and yet even these Twigs would not long flourish when the Stock upon which they grew were dead but as to true and real Power We should remain but the outside but the Picture but the Sign of a King We were ever willing that Our Parliament should debate resolve and transact such matters as are proper for them as far as they are proper for them and We heartily wish that they would be as careful not to extend their Debates and Resolutions beyond what is proper to them that multitudes of things punishable and Causes determinable by the ordinary Judicatures may not be entertained in Parliament and so cause a long chargeable fruitless attendance of Our People and by degrees draw to you as well all the Causes as all the faults of Westminster-Hall and divert your proper Business That the course of Law be no ways diverted much less disturbed as was actually done by the stop of the proceedings against a Riot in Southwark by Order of the House of Commons in a time so riotous and tumultuous as much increased the danger of Popular Insolencies by such a countenance to Riots and discountenance of Law That you descend not to the leisure of recommending Lecturers to Churches nor ascend to the Legislative Power by commanding the Law not having yet commanded it that they whom you recommend be received although neither the Parson nor Bishop do approve of them and that the Refusers according to the course so much formerly complained of to have been used at the Council Table be not sent for to attend to shew cause at least that you would consider Conveniency if not Law and recommend none but who are well known to you to be Orthodox Learned and Moderate or at least such as have taken Orders and are not notorious depravers of the Book of Common-Prayer a care which appeareth by the Discourses Sermons and Persons of some recommended by you not to have been hitherto taken and it highly concerns both you in duty and the Commonwealth in the consequences that it should have been taken That neither one Estate transact what is proper for two nor two what is proper for three and consequently that contrary to Our declared will Our Forts may not be seized Our Arms may not be removed Our Moneys may not be stop'd Our legal Directions may not be countermanded by you nor We desired to countermand them Our Self nor such entrances made upon a real War against Us upon pretence of an imaginary War against you and a Chimoera of Necessity So far do you pass beyond your limits whilst you seem by your Demand to be strangely streightned within them At least we could have wish'd you would have expressed what matters you meant as fit to be transacted only in Parliament and what you meant by only in Parliament You
Parliament as to prevail with the major part remaining of both Houses how much soever that major part be the smaller in comparison of the whole to suffer that name whose Reverence by all means We desire to preserve to be so soyl'd as to be prefixed to a Paper of this unsufferable nature that tends not only to the Destruction of Our Person but to the Dissolution of this Government and of all Society If at least this Declaration which We rather see cause to hope it hath not have so much as been seen in the Houses and be not the single work of the same Omnipotent Committee to which is devolved the whole power of the Parliament and which as We understand is trusted without acquainting the Houses to break up any Man's House and take away the Arms and Mony intended to defend and feed him if they shall see cause to suspect that he meant to assist his Sovereign with them and may well be as fully and implicitly trusted to Declare as to Act whatsoever they please And though We doubt not but to their utmost they will continue that injury to Us and that violation of the Subjects Liberty and of publick Right to vex and imprison those who shall publish any of Our Answers to their Declarations and indeed whilst they affirm against all Truth and command against all Law it concerns them to take care that nothing be heard but what they say yet Our comfort is that Our Intentions and the Duty of Our Subjects are so well and so generally known to Our People that We cannot fear from whomsoever it come and though no Answer came out with it that either what is there said should be believed or what is there commanded should be obeyed Who knows not that Our Commissions for Horse and Foot were not granted out till not only our Prerogative but Our Propriety Our Goods Arms Towns Militia and Negative Voice were taken from Us and all the Kingdom commanded to be in Arms and invited to bring in Horse Plate and Mony to frame an Army against Our Command and Proclamation and till Horse were raised and mustered accordingly and then with no intention nor hath any Action in any of Our Ministers given the least suspicion of such an Intention by them to compel Our Subjects to submit to Our Commissions of Array or make use of them against the Parliament but to regain Hull held out in Rebellion against Us and to suppress all such as without Our Authority and against Our Commands should raise Forces in this Our Kingdom and levy War against Us under pretence of any Order or Ordinance of one or both Houses And such traitorous Assemblies and Marches have been the only lawful and necessary Occasions of our good Subjects which have not been so much as interrupted by any Troops of Ours And what is affirmed of the spoiling and killing them as they were so travelling under our Protection and according to Law is a most malicious Affirmation as well without truth as without instance invented at once to make Our Troops terrible and Us odious to Our People What care have We taken that by this means the power of the Sword should not come into the hands of Papists who have by Our Proclamation strictly charged that no Papist should presume to list himself either as Officer or Soldier in this Our Army having directed how he should be discovered if he did presume and suffer if he were discovered What care have We taken to avoid Combustion and Civil War offering to lay down Our Arms when they shall have lay'd down their in whom it was Treason to take them up and restored Us those things which could not without Treason as well as Injustice be forced away and kept from Us Our Arms Ships Town c. And when We might meet both Our Houses in a safe and secure place to debate freely of all the Differences in a Parliamentary way And by whose Influences these Propositions were rejected and whether the Proposer or Rejecters were most careful to avoid this Ruine and Desolation of the Kingdom We leave all the World to judge and whether they who divert the Men and Mony collected for the relief of Distressed Ireland to raise Forces against their Prince who asks them nothing but what is Legal nor will deny them any thing that is do not joyn with the Popish and Jesuitical Faction in the bloody Massacre of many Thousand Protestants in that miserable Kingdom We propose likewise to every Man's judgment whether the declaring those to be Traitors who execute Our Commission of Array issued in so many Kings Reigns agreed upon by Parliament and there yielded to by the King to be settled as now it is as a matter of great grace and since that time which was in the 5 Hen. IV. in no Parliament complained of whilst Our good Subjects are vexed and imprisoned not only for resisting but for humbly petitioning so as may seem but to insinuate something against their most illegal Commands concerning the Militia To which power of commanding no Title can be made by any Statute or any Precedent nor can We ever find by search nor obtain to be told what those Fundamental Laws are by which it is pretended so deep those Foundations are laid beyond all means of discovery and the declaring that those who raise Men by virtue of Our Command and Commission the only Legal way traitorously and rebelliously levy War against the King and ordaining it to be lawful for all Our Subjects by force of Arms to resist them and their Accomplices and the raising of Forces by Authority of Parliament that is by the remaining part of both Houses never in the most outragious times before attempted and commanding several persons whom they call Lieutenants to lead and giving them power to transport from one County to another the Forces of several of Our Counties against them and to kill and slay all such as by force shall oppose them Our Self not excepted commanding all Our Officers and Subjects to be assisting to them and undertaking to secure them for so doing by the Power and Authority of Parliament which is first to allow and next to command and then to pardon Treason be not to have already subverted as much as in them lies the Liberty of the Subject the Law of the Land and altered the Ancient Government of the Kingdom leaving Our Subjects without all Rule to walk by when the most clear Laws cannot direct and secure them and they see all those Ancient bounds passed over which were ever as much known to be the Duty of both Houses to observe as it was evident that there were and that it was necessary that there should be Two Houses of Parliament and at once behold the Law which is to defend and protect the Subject and Us Who are to protect and defend the Law need Defence and Protection We doubt not therefore but all Our good Subjects will come in
that they might protest against those Lords who would not agree to the Votes of the House of Commons as the Petitions of Surrey and Hartfordshire do and perswaded others in the name of many thousands of poor People in and about the City of London to Petition against a Malignant Faction which made abortive all those good Intentions which tended to the Peace and Tranquillity of the Kingdom and to desire That those Noble Worthies of the House of Peers who concurred with them in their happy Votes might be earnestly desired to joyn with the House of Commons and to sit and Vote as one entire body professing that unless some speedy remedy were taken for the removal of all such Obstructions as hindered the happy Progress of their great Endeavours the Petitioner should not rest in quietness but should be enforced to lay hold on the next remedy which was at hand to remove the Disturbers of their Peace and want and necessity breaking the bounds of modesty not to leave any means unassayed for their relief adding that the cry of the poor and needy was That such Persons who were the Obstacles of their Peace and Hinderers of the happy proceedings of this Parliament might be forthwith publickly declared whose removal they conceived would put a period to those Distractions after it had been said in the House of Peers That whoever would not consent to the Proposition made by the House of Commons concerning the Forts Castles and the Militia when it was rejected by a major part twice was an Enemy to the Commonwealth This Petition was brought up to the House of Lords by the House of Commons at a Conference and after the same day Master Hollis a Person formerly accused by Us of High Treason and a most malicious Promoter and Contriver of those Petitions and Tumults pressed the Lords at the Bar to joyn with the House of Commons in their desire about the Militia and further with many other expressions of like nature desired in words to this effect That if that desire of the House of Commons were not assented to those Lords who were willing to concur would find some means to make themselves known that it might be known who were against them and they might make it known to them who sent them Upon which Petition so strangely framed countenanced and seconded so great a number of the Lords departed that that Vote passed which they had so often before denied in order to the Ordinance concerning the Militia and since that time they have been able to carry any thing and upon the matter the Resolution of the House of Commons hath been wholly guided by those Persons who had given so plain evidence that they had the Multitude at their Command and hath wholly guided that of the House of Peers who with little debate or dispute have for the most part submitted to whatsoever hath been brought to them Shortly after they passed their Ordinance with such a Preamble as highly concerned Us in Honour and Justice to protest against and wholly excluding Us in whom that whole Power absolutely was and is from any Power or Authority in the Militia the Arms and Strength of the Kingdom and that for as long as they pleased And as if the matter were not worth the considering or that there ought to be no other measure to guide Us in point of Judgment or Understanding but their Votes it was ill taken that We did not immediately return Our Answer but took some time to consider it and We were again with great passion and impatience pressed to give Our Answer they being pleased to tell Us They could not but interpret the Delay to be in a degree a Denial and in the mean time to give Us an instance how modestly they were like to use such Power when We should commit it to them they presumed of themselves knowing We had appointed Our Son the Prince to meet Us at Greenwich in Our return from Dover to inhibite his meeting Us there and to endeavour to get him into their custody All these things considered and the Insolence and Injustice of the Ordinance We might very well have rejected that Proposition with a flat denial and just indignation but We easily perceived that Our good People were misled by the Cunning and Malice of those Boutefeus and thought it always compliance worthy a Prince to take all possible pains to undeceive such who are led into mistakings and therefore We returned to their Proposition for the Ordinance a gracious Answer and Animadversion made it evident to them that the Preamble was in it self untrue and against Our Honour to consent to and expressed Our clear intention in Our going to Our House of Commons We allowed all those persons recommended to Us except only in Corporations to whom a Right was formerly granted by Charter not consistent with this Ordinance and offered to grant such Commissions to them as had very long and happily been used in this Kingdom and which We had this very Parliament granted to two Lords at the instance and intreaty of both Houses If that Power should not be thought enough We offered to grant any should be first vested in Us and so we be enabled to grant but desired that the whole might be digested into an Act of Parliament whereby Our good Subjects might know what they were to do and what they were to suffer that there might be the least latitude for the exercising of any Arbitrary Power over them Which Answer We desire all Our Subjects to read and consider whether We did not thereby grant all which themselves had first desired and whether there was cause to vote such who advised that Answer to be enemies to the State and mischievous Projectors against the Defence of the Kingdom But as if all the Acts passed by Us amongst which that for the taking away the Votes of Bishops out of the House of Peers was the last were of no other value but as instances that We would never deny them any thing they immediately in great fury address themselves to Us with a new humble Petition as they called it but it was indeed a Threatning and told Us plainly That if We would not then in that instant give Our Royal assent to their Ordinance they were resolved to dispose of the Militia by the Authority of both Houses without Us advised Us to stay about London to put away evil Counsellors and to let Our Son the Prince be and continue at S. James's or some other of Our Houses near about London that the Jealousies and Fears of Our People might be prevented We must appeal to all the World whether considering what had been done in publick and said in private We had no cause of Jealousie and whether having such evidence of the Malice Guilt and Power of those accused Members who had designed to have taken the Prince Our Son from Us by froce it was not high time to remove a little further from
yet He cannot but be pleased with the ingenuity of this confession that the implicite faith of His seduced Subjects begins to wear out so fast that the authority of Declaring new unknown Fundamental Laws doth not now so work with them to believe that these Taxes are laid according to the Laws of God and Man nor the many pretences of imminent Dangers and inevitable ruine of their Religion Laws and Liberties so perswade them to believe this Cause to be the Cause of the Kingdom but that if their Cause Authority and Eloquence were not assisted by force and Rapine their Army must needs be dissolved for want of being thought fit much less necessary to be pay'd by those who have equal right to judge of the Necessity and Danger and for whose sakes interests and concernments only it was pretended to be raised and who are defended by it against their wills Nor is it strange that His Majesty cannot receive these Charges upon Him as a reason to make Him contented and acquiesce with these Injuries to His Subjects or that they who saw His Majesties condition the last year till continued Violence against Him opened the eyes and hearts of His Subjects to His assistance should not believe that He began that War which they saw Him so unlikely to resist or that they who could never find nor hear from them who use not too modestly to conceal what is for their advantage that from the beginning of the world to this present Parliament ever one man was raised before by Commission from both Houses should not believe the raising of that their Army to be so warranted as is pretended and any more approve of their Law than of their Necessity or that they who know that His Majesty in whom the power of making War and Peace was never denyed to be till these new Doctrines which make it unlawful for Him to do any thing and lawful to do any thing against Him were of late discovered though he can legally raise an Army is not allowed to be legally able to raise money to maintain it will not allow of the Argument from the power of Raising to the power of Taxing and are as little satisfied with their Logick as with their Law and extreamly troubled to pay an Army they do not desire for a Necessity they cannot see by a Law they never heard of and that other men without their consent must be jealous fearful and quicksighted at their Charges and they have great reason to be apt to suspect that those made most haste to make a War and have least desire of making Peace who in time of War pretend their legal power to be so vastly inlarged His Majesty therefore hath great reason to insist that no Violence or Plundering be offered to His Subjects for not submitting to the illegal Taxes of one or both Houses which in it self is equal His Majesty being willing to be obliged from the like course and relying wholly upon the known Justice of His Cause and the Affection of His People and in which if the Kingdom be of their mind and believe the Cause of the contrary Army to be really their own the advantage will be wholly theirs and this Judgment will be best given when the People is left to their liberty in this decision His Majesty's real desire of disbanding the Armies may fully appear by His often seeking and earnest endeavours to continue and conclude this Treaty in order to that disbanding VI. His Majesty leaves their Preamble to all the world to consider and to judge whether any man by their saying they were ready to agree to His Majesty's Articles in the manner as was exprest would not have expected to have found after that expression that they had agreed at least to some one thing material in them and had not only meant by agreeing as was exprest to express they would not agree at all For the Clause of Communication of Quarters so quietly left out His Majesty looks upon it as of most infinite importance the leaving out of that having discomposed the whole many things having in the rest been assented to which were therefore only yielded because the Inconveniences growing by these Clauses if they were alone were salved by that Addition and some things in the other very dark and doubtful were by that interpreted and cleared And His Majesty is sufficiently informed how highly it concerns Him that every thing be so clear that after no differences may arise upon any disputable point since they whose Union Industry Subtilty and Malice could perswade any of His People that in the business of Brainceford He had broken a Cessation before any was made or offered would have a much easier work to lay the breach of a made Cessation to His Majesty's charge if the ground of that Breach would bear the least dispute His Majesty doth agree that to preserve things in the same state on both sides with as little advantage or disadvantage to either as the matter will possibly bear is truly the nature of a Cessation and is willing this Principle should be made the Rule and never intended any thing that should contradict it but cannot see the inequality in this which is pretended For could Sir Ralph Hopton and the Earl of Newcastle come by this means to the King and not the Earl of Stamford and Lord Fairfax to the Earl of Essex Nor can His Majesty find any stronger Passes or Forces to hinder His Armies from joyning with Him than hinders theirs from joyning with them If the Forces be unequal theirs will hardly hinder the passage of His without a Cessation if they be equal their coming in time of Cessation will be of equal use and advantage to their side somewhat in point of Supplies to come with them excepted and some advantage to one side will be poize it how you will But on the other side if this clause be not in how much greater is the disadvantage the other way by some Clauses and how are His Forces principally the Earl of Newcastle's cooped up in old and eaten-up Quarters or necessitated to retire to such as are more barren and more eaten So that if this were yielded to under the disguise of a Cessation He must admit that which will much endanger the dissolving of the Army and destruction of the Cause which is such a disadvantage as is against the nature of a Cessation formerly agreed and stated Notwithstanding all this His Majesty to shew His extraordinary and abundant desire of Peace and to prevent the effusion of blood is contented if both Houses shall refuse to consent to His Propositions which are so much for the benefit and advancement of the publick Trade and advantage of His good Subjects to admit a Cessation upon the matter of their own Articles excepting that liberty be given to the Committee to word it according to the real meaning and intention and that the remove of Quarters within their own bounds which
to the Committee of both Kingdoms and in case of Disagreement an Appeal lies to the two Houses of the Parliament of England in whom the power of prosecuting the War is to be settled And we must insist to desire that the Lord Lieutenant and the Judges in that Kingdom may be nominated by the two Houses of Parliament who have by sad experience to the great cost of this Kingdom expence of so much Treasure and Blood the loss of many thousand Lives there and almost of all that whole Kingdom from His Majesties Obedience and an inestimable prejudice to the true Protestant Religion found the ill consequence of a bad choice of Persons for those great places of Trust Therefore for His Majesties Honour the good of His Service the great Advantage it will be to the rest of His Majesties Dominions the great Comfort to all good Christians and even an acceptable Service to God himself for the attaining of so much good and the prevention of so much evil they desire to have the nomination of those great Officers that by a prudent and careful Election they may by providing for the good of that now miserable Kingdom discharge their Duty to God the King and their Countrey And certainly if it be necessary to reduce that Kingdom and that the Parliament of England be a faithful Council to his Majesty and fit to be trusted with the prosecution of that War which his Majesty was once pleased to put into their hands and they faithfully discharged their parts in it notwithstanding many practices to obstruct their proceedings as is set forth in several Declarations of Parliament then we say your Lordships need not think it unreasonable that His Majesty should ingage himself to pass such Acts as shall be presented to him for raising Moneys and other necessaries for that War for if the War be necessary as never War was more that which is necessary for the maintaining of it must be had and the Parliament that doth undertake and manage it must needs know what will be necessary and the People of England who have trusted them with their Purse will never begrudge what they make them lay out upon that occasion Nor need his Majesty fear the Parliament will press more upon the Subject then is fit in proportion to the occasion It is true that heretofore Persons about his Majesty have endeavoured and prevailed too much in possessing him against the Parliament for not giving away the Money of the Subject when his Majesty had desired it but never yet did his Majesty restrain them from it and we hope it will not be thought that this is a fit occasion to begin We are very glad to find that your Lordships are so sensible in your expressions of the Blood and Horrour of that Rebellion and it is without all question in His Majesties Power to do Justice upon it if your Lordships be willing that the Cessation and all Treaties with those bloody and unnatural Rebels be made void and that the prosecution of the War be settled in the two Houses of the Parliament of England to be managed by the joynt advice of both Kingdoms and the King to assist and to do no Act to discountenance or molest them therein This we dare affirm to be more than a probable course for the remedying those mischiefs and preserving the remainder of His Majesties good Subjects there We cannot believe your Lordships will think it fit there can be any Agreement of Peace any respite from Hostility with such Creatures as are not fit to live no more than with Wolves or Tigers or any ravenous Beasts destroyers of mankind And we beseech you do not not think it must depend upon the condition of His Majesties other Kingdoms to revenge or not revenge God's Quarrel upon such perfiduous Enemies to the Gospel of Christ who have imbrued their hands in so much Protestant Blood but consider the Cessation that is made with them is for their advantage and rather a Protection then a Cessation of Acts of Hostility as if it had been all of their own contriving Arms Ammunition and all manner of Commodities may be brought unto them and they may furnish themselves during this Cessation and be assisted and protected in so doing that afterwards they may the better destroy the small remainder of his Majesties Protestant Subjects We beseech your Lordships in the bowels of Christian Charity and Compassion to so many poor Souls who must perish if the strength of that raging Adversary be not broken and in the Name of him who is the Prince of Peace who hates to be at Peace with such shedders of Blood give not your consents to the continuation of this Cessation of War in Ireland and less to the making of any Peace there till Justice have been fully executed upon the Actors of that accursed Rebellion Let not the Judgment of War within this Kingdom which God hath laid upon us for our Sins be encreased by so great a Sin as any Peace or Friendship with them whatsoever becomes of us if we must perish yet let us go to our Graves with that comfort that we have not made Peace with the Enemies of Christ yea even Enemies of mankind declared and unreconciled Enemies to our Religion and Nation let not our War be a hindrance to that War for we are sure that Peace will be a hindrance to our Peace We desire War there as much as we do Peace here for both we are willing to lay out our Estates our Lives and all that is dear unto us in this World and we have made Propositions unto your Lordships for both if you were pleased to agree unto them We can but look up to God Almighty beseech him to encline your hearts and casting our selves on him wait his good time for the return of our Prayers in settling a safe and happy Peace here and giving success to our Endeavours in the prosecution of the War of Ireland It had been used by the Commissioners during the Treaty that when Papers were delivered in of such length and so late at night that present particular Answers could not be given by agreement between themselves to accept the Answers the next day dated as of the day before although they were Treating of another Subject and these two last Papers concerning Ireland being of such great length and delivered about twelve of the clock at night when the Treaty in time was expiring so as no Answer could be given without such consent and agreement therefore the King's Commissioners delivered in this Paper 22. February YOur Lordships cannot expect a particular Answer from us this night to the two long Papers concerning Ireland delivered to us by your Lordships about twelve of the clock this night but since there are many particulars in those Papers to which if they had been before mentioned we could have given your Lordships full satisfaction and for that we presume your Lordships are very willing to
in the behalf of Episcopal Superiority are so clear and frequent in his Writings that altho he of all the Ancients be least suspected to favour that Function overmuch yet the Bishops would not refuse to make him Arbitrator in the whole business As for the Catalogues there will be more convenient place to speak of them afterwards Fifthly your long Discourse concerning the several stations and removes of Timothy and Titus Sect. 13 14. and their being called away from Ephesus and Crete Sect. 15. His Majesty neither hath time to examine nor thinketh it much needful in respect of what He hath said already so to do It is sufficient to make His Majesty at least suspend His Assent to your Conjectures and Inferences First that He findeth other Learned men from the like Conjectures to have made other Inferences as namely that Timothy and Titus having accompanied Paul in many journeys postea tandem were by him constituted Bishops of Ephesus and Crete Secondly that supposing they were after the times of the several Epistles written to them sent by the Apostles to other places or did accompany them in some of their journeys even for a long time together it cannot be concluded thence that they were not then Bishops of those Churches or that the Government of those Churches was not committed to their peculiar charge If it be supposed withall which is but reasonable that their absence was commanded by the Apostle and that they left their Churches cum animo revertendi Thirdly that the places which you press again of i Tim. i. 3. and Titus i. 5. weigh so little to the purpose intended by you even in your own judgments for you say only They put fair to prove it that you cannot expect they should weigh so much in His as to need any further Answer save only that His Majesty knoweth not what great need or use there should be of leaving Timothy at Ephesus or Titus in Crete for ordaining Presbyters and Deacons with such directions and admonitions to them for their care therein if they were not sent thither as Bishops For either there were Colleges of Presbyters in those places before their coming thither or there were not if there were and that such Colleges had power to ordain Presbyters and Deacons without a Bishop then was there little need of sending Timothy and Titus so solemnly thither about the work if there were none then had Timothy and Titus power of sole Ordination which is a thing by you very much disliked Those inconveniences His Majesty thinketh it will be hard wholly to avoid upon your Principles That Discourse you conclude with this Observation That in the very same Epistle to Timothy out of which he is endeavoured to be proved a Bishop there is clear evidence both for Presbyters imposing hands in Ordination and for their Ruling Yet His Majesty presumeth you cannot be ignorant that the evidence is not so clear in either particular but that in the former very many of the Latin Fathers especially and sundry later Writers as Calvin and others refer the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the remoter Substantive Grace or Gift and not that of Imposition of Hands and so understand it as meant of the Office of Presbytery or as we were wont to call it in English by derivation from that Greek word of Priesthood in Timothy himself and not of a Colledg or Company of Presbyters collectively imposing hands on him and that the Greek Fathers who take the word collectively do yet understand by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there a Company of Apostles or Bishops who laid hands on Timothy in his ordination to the Office of a Bishop as was ordinarily done by three joyning in that act in the Primitive and succeeding times and not of a College of mere Presbyters and that in the latter particular to wit that of Ruling the place whereon His Majesty conceiveth your Observation to be grounded hath been by the Adversaries of Episcopal Government generally and mainly insisted upon as the only clear proof for the establishing of Ruling-Lay-Elders which interpretation His Majesty knoweth not how far you will admit of As to the Angels of the Churches His Majesties purpose in naming these Angels in His first Paper sufficiently declared in His second required no more to be granted for the proving of what He intended but these Two Things only First That they were Personae singulares and then That they had a Superiority in their respective Churches as well over Presbyters as others which two being the Periphrasis or Definition of a Bishop His Majesty conceived it would follow of it self That they were Bishops That the Epistles directed to them in their respective Reproofs Precepts Threatnings and other the contents thereof did concern their fellow-Presbyters also and indeed the whole Churches which in your last you again remember His Majesty did then and doth still believe finding it agreeable both to the tenor of the Epistles themselves and to the consentient judgment of Interpreters Only His Majesty said and still doth That that hindreth not but that the Angels to whom the Epistles were directed were Personae singulares still This His Majesty illustrated by a Similitude which tho it do not hold in some other respects and namely those you observe for His Majesty never dreamt of a four-footed Similitude yet it perfectly illustrates the thing it was then intended for as is evident enough so that there needeth no more to be said about it That which you insist upon to prove the contrary from Revel xi 24. But I say to you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 plurally and the rest in Thyatira is plainly of no force if those Copies in which the copulative conjunction is wanting be true for then the Reading would be this But I say to you the rest in Thyatira But following the ordinary Copies the difficulty is not great such manner of Apostrophes by changing the number or turning the speech to another person being very usual both in Prophetick Writings such as this Book of Revelation is and in Epistles of this nature written to one but with reference to many others therein concerned Beza expoundeth it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to you that is the Angel as President and his Collegues the other Presbyters and to the rest that is to the whole flock or people which manner of speaking might be illustrated by the like forms of speech to be used in a Letter written to a Corporation wherein the Mayor and Aldermen especially but yet the whole Town generally were concerned but directed to the Mayor alone or from a Lord containing some Orders for his own houshould especially and generally for the whole Township but by the Inscription directed to his Steward only or the like The Consent of ancient and later Writers was produced by His Majesty for the proof of the two things before named only but especially of the first viz. That the Angels were Personae singulares
for the latter viz. That they were superiour to Presbyters also had been confessed by your selves in your first Grant before but was not produced to prove the Conclusion it self immediately viz. That they were Bishops in distinct sense altho sundry of their Testimonies come up even to that also But to the first point That they were Single persons the concurrence is so general that His Majesty remembreth not to have heard of any one single Interpreter before Brightman that ever expounded them otherwise And yet the same man as His Majesty is informed in his whole Commentary upon the Revelation doth scarce if at all any where else save in these Seven Epistles expound the word Angel collectively but still of one single person or other insomuch as he maketh one Angel to be Gregory the Great another Queen Elizabeth another Cranmer another Chemnitius and the like But generally both the Fathers and Protestant Divines agree in this That the Angel was a Single person some affirming plainly and that in terminis he was the Bishop some naming the very persons of some of them as of Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna and others some calling him the chief Pastor or Superintendent of that Church and those that speak least and were more or less disaffected to Bishops as Beza Doctor Reynolds the Geneva Notes and even Cartwright himself the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 President or chief among the Presbyters And this they do sundry of them not crudely delivering their Opinions only and then no more but they give Reasons for it and after examination of the several Opinions prefer this before the rest affirming That Doctissimi quique interpretes all the best learned Interpreters so understand it and that they cannot understand it otherwise vim nisi facere Textui velint unless they will offer violence to the Text. That which His Majesty said concerning the Subdivision of those that had divided themselves from the common received judgment of the Church was meant by His Majesty as to the Subdivision in respect of this particular of the Angels wherein they differ one from another as to the Division in respect of their dislike of Bishops wherein they all agree And truly His Majesty doth not yet see how either their Differences can be possibly reconciled in the former no accommodation in the world being able to make all the people of the whole Church nor yet a Colledg consisting of many Presbyters to be one Single person or their recess wholly excused in the latter their dissenting from the common and received Judgment and Practice of the Christian Church in the matter of Episcopacy and the evil consequents thereof having in His Majesties Opinion brought a greater reproach upon the Protestant Religion and given more advantage or colour at least to the Romish party to asperse the Reformed Churches in such sort as we see they do than their disagreement from the Church of Rome in any one controverted Point whatsoever besides hath done As to the Apostles Successors Here little is said the substance whereof hath not been Answered before His Majesty therefore briefly declares His meaning herein That the Apostles were to have no necessary Successors in any thing that was extraordinary either in their Mission or Unction That His Majesty spake not of Succession into Abilities otherwise than by instance mentioning other particulars withal which thing He thinketh needeth not to have been now the third time by you mentioned That in the Apostles Mission or Commission for His Majesty under the name of Mission comprehended both and consequently in the Apostolical Office as there was something extraordinary so there was something ordinary wherein they were to have Successors That Bishops are properly their Successors in the whole Apostolical Office so far as it was ordinary and to have Successors That therefore the Bishops Office may in regard of that Succession be said to be Apostolical That yet it doth not follow that they must needs be called Apostles taking the Denomination from the Office inasmuch as the Denomination of the Apostles peculiarly so called was not given them from the Office whereunto they were sent but as the word it self rather importeth from the immediateness of their Mission being sent immediately by Christ himself in respect whereof for distinction sake and in Honour to their Persons it was thought fitter by those that succeeded in common usage to abstain from that Denomination and to be styled rather by the Name of Bishops That if the Apostles had no Successors the Presbyters who are their Successors in part mediately and subordinately to the Bishops will be very hard set to prove the Warrant of their own Office and Mission which if not derived from the Apostles who only received power of Mission from Christ by a continued line of Succession His Majesty seeth not upon what other bottom it can stand As to the standing Officers of the Church You insisted upon Two Places of Scripture Phil. i. 1. and 1 Tim. iii. to prove that there were to be no more standing Officers in the Church than the two in those places mentioned viz. Presbyters who are there called Bishops and Deacons whereunto His Majesties Answer was That there might be other tho not mentioned in those places which Answer tho it were alone sufficient yet ex abundanti His Majesty shewed withall that supposing your interpretation of the word Bishop in both the places viz. to denote the Office of Presbyter only there might yet be given some probable conjectures which likewise supposed true might satisfie us why that of Bishop in the distinct sense should not be needful or proper to be named in those places His Majesties former Reason tho in Hypothesi and as applied to the Church of Philippi it be but conjectural yet upon the credit of all Ecclesiastical Histories and consideration of the Condition of those times as it is set forth in the Scriptures also it will appear in Thesi to be undoubtedly true viz. That the Apostles themselves first planted Churches That they were perpetual Governours and in chief of all the Churches whilst they lived That as the burthen grew greater by the propagation of the Gospel they assumed others in partem curae committing to their charge the peculiar oversight of the Churches in some principal Cities and the Towns and Villages adjacent as James at Jerusalem and others in other places sooner or later as they saw it expedient for the service of the Church That the persons so by them appointed to such peculiar charges did exercise the powers of Ordination and other Government under the Apostles and are therefore in the Church Stories called Bishops of those places in a distinct sense That in some places where the Apostles were themselves more frequently conversant they did for some while govern the Churches immediately by themselves before they set Bishops there and that after the Apostles times Bishops only were the ordinary Governours of the Churches of Christ And His
the Church of England as well by their personal Subscriptions as otherwise so attested and declared and which Himself in His Judgment and Conscience hath for so many years been and yet is perswaded to be at least of Apostolical Institution and Practice Truly His Majesty cannot but wonder what should be the reason of your great shiness and unwillingness to discover your minds in a matter of so great and necessary consequence and for a final conclusion of this whole Dispute which His Majesty thinketh fit to shut up with this Paper He must plainly tell you That your endeavours to have given Him satisfaction in the Questions proposed would have added much in His opinion to the reputation of your Ingenuity in the whole undertaking it being not probable you should work much upon His Judgment whilst you are fearful to declare your own nor possible to relieve His Conscience but by a free discharge of yours Nevertheless His Majesty liketh well of your Prayer in the close of your Paper and thinketh you should do very well to joyn therewith your utmost possible endeavours towards the settling of Truth and a happy Peace in this unsettled Church and Kingdom THE END ΕΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ THE POURTRAICTURE OF HIS SACRED MAJESTY IN HIS SOLITUDES and SUFFERINGS I. Vpon His MAJESTIES Calling this last PARLIAMENT THIS last Parliament I called not more by others advice and necessity of my Affairs than by my own choice and inclination who have always thought the right way of Parliaments most safe for my Crown as best pleasing to my People And altho I was not forgetful of those sparks which some mens distempers formerly studied to kindle in Parliaments which by forbearing to convene for some years I hoped to have extinguished yet resolving with My self to give all just satisfaction to modest and sober desires and to redress all publick Grievances in Church and State I hoped by my freedom and their moderation to prevent all misunderstandings and miscarriages in this In which as I feared affairs would meet with some Passion and Prejudice in other men so I resolved they should find least of them in My self not doubting but by the weight of Reason I should counterpoise the over-balancings of any Factions I was inded sorry to hear with what Partiality and Popular heat Elections were carried in many places yet hoping that the Gravity and Discretion of other Gentlemen would allay and fix the Commons to a due temperament guiding some mens well-meaning zeal by such rules of moderation as are best both to preserve and restore the health of all States and Kingdoms no man was better pleased with the convening of this Parliament than My self who knowing best the Largeness of my own Heart toward my Peoples good and just contentment pleased My self most in that good and firm understanding which would hence grow between Me and my People All Jealousies being laid aside My own and My Childrens Interests gave Me many obligations to seek and preserve the Love and welfare of my Subjects the only temporal Blessing that is left to the ambition of just Monarchs as their greatest Honour and Safety next Gods Protection I cared not to lessen My self in some things of my wonted Prerogative since I knew I could be no loser if I might gain but a recompence in my Subjects Affections I intended not only to oblige my Friends but mine Enemies also exceeding even the desires of those that were factiously discontented if they did but pretend to any modest and sober sense The Odium and offences which some mens Rigor or Remisness in Church and State had contracted upon my Government I resolved to have expiated by such Laws and regulations for the future as might not only rectify what was amiss in Practice but supply what was defective in the Constitution No man having a greater zeal to see Religion setled and preserved in Truth Unity and Order than My self whom it most concerns both in Piety and Policy as knowing that No flames of civil Dissentions are more dangerous than those which make Religious pretensions the grounds of Factions I resolved to reform what I should by free and full advice in Parliament be oonvinced of to be amiss and to grant whatever my Reason and Conscience told Me was fit to be desired I wish I had kept My self within those bounds and not suffered my own Judgment to have been overborn in some things more by others importunities than their Arguments My confidence had less betrayed My self and my Kingdomes to those advantages which some men sought for who wanted nothing but Power and Occasions to do mischief But our Sins being ripe there was no preventing of Gods Justice from reaping that Glory in our Calamities which we robb'd him of in our Prosperity For Thou O Lord hast made us see that Resolutions of future Reforming do not always satisfie thy Justice nor prevent thy Vengeance for former miscarriages Our Sins have overlaid our Hopes Thou hast taught us to depend on thy Mercies to forgive not on our purpose to amend When Thou hast vindicated thy Glory by thy Judgments and hast shewed us how unsafe it is to offend Thee upon presumptions afterwards to please Thee then I trust thy Mercies will restore those Blessings to us which we have so much abused as to force Thee to deprive us of them For want of timely Repentance of our sins Thou givest us cause to repent of those remedies we too late apply Yet I do not repent of my calling this last Parliament because O Lord I did it with an upright intention to thy Glory and my peoples good The Miseries which have ensued upon Me and My Kingdoms are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us and may be yet through thy mercy preparative of us to future Blessings and better hearts to enjoy them O Lord tho Thou hast deprived us of many former comforts yet grant Me and My people the benefit of our afflictions and thy chastisements that thy rod as well as thy staff may comfort us Then shall we dare to account them the strokes not of an Enemy but a Father when thou givest us those humble affections that measure of Patience in Repentance which becomes thy Children I shall have no cause to repent the Miseries this Parliament hath occasioned when by them thou hast brought Me and My people unfeignedly to repent of the Sins we have committed Thy Grace is infinitely better with our Sufferings than our Peace could be with our Sins O thou soveraign Goodness and Wisdom who over-rulest all our Counsels over-rule also all our hearts That the worse things we suffer by thy Justice the better we may be by thy Mercy As our Sins have turned our Antidotes into poyson so let thy Grace turn our poysons into Antidotes As the Sins of our Peace disposed us to this unhappy War so let this War prepare us for thy blessed Peace That although I have but troublesom Kingdoms here yet I may
than snow Teach Me to learn Righteousness by thy Judgments and to see my frailty in thy Justice While I was perswaded by shedding one mans blood to prevent after-troubles thou hast for that among other sins brought upon Me and upon my Kingdoms great long and heavy troubles Make Me to prefer Justice which is thy Will before all contrary clamors which are but the discoveries of mans injurious will It is too much that they have once overcome Me to please them by displeasing Thee O never suffer Me for any reason of State to go against my Reason of Conscience which is highly to sin against Thee the God of Reason and Judg of our Consciences Whatever O Lord Thou seest fit to deprive Me of yet restore unto Me the joy of thy Salvation and ever uphold Me with thy free Spirit which subjects my Will to none but thy Light of Reason Justice and Religion which shines in my Soul for Thou desirest Truth in the inward parts and Integrity in the outward expressions Lord hear the voice of thy Sons and my Saviours Blood which speaks better things O make Me and my People to hear the voice of Joy and Gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce in thy Salvation III. Vpon his MAJESTIES going to the House of COMMONS MY going to the House of Commons to demand Justice upon the Five Members was an act which my Enemies loaded with all the obloquies and exasperations they could It filled indifferent men with great jealousies and fears yea and many of My Friends resented it as a motion rising rather from Passion than Reason and not guided with such discretion as the touchiness of those times required But these men knew not the just motives and pregnant grounds with which I thought My self so furnished that there needed nothing to such evidence as I could have produced against those I charged save only a free and legal Tryal which was all I desired Nor had I any temptation of displeasure or revenge against those mens Persons further than I had discovered those as I thought unlawful correspondencies they had used and engagements they had made to embroyl My Kingdoms of all which I missed but little to have produced writings under some mens own hands who were the chief Contrivers of the following Innovations Providence would not have it so yet I wanted not such probabilities as were sufficient to raise jealousies in any Kings heart who is not wholly stupid and neglective of the publick Peace which to preserve by calling in question half a dozen men in a fair and Legal way which God knows was all my design could have amounted to no worse effect had it succeeded than either to do Me and My Kingdom right in case they had been found guilty or else to have cleared their Innocency and removed My Suspicions which as they were not raised out of any Malice so neither were they in Reason to be smothered What flames of Discontent this spark tho I sought by all speedy and possible means to quench it soon kindled all the world is witness The aspersion which some men cast upon that action as if I had designed by force to assault the House of Commons and invade their Privilege is so false that as God best knows I had no such intent so none that attended Me could justly gather from any thing I then said or did the least intimation of any such thoughts That I went attended with some Gentlemen as it was no unwonted thing for the Majesty and Safety of a King so to be attended especially in discontented times so were My Followers at that time short of my ordinary Guard and no way proportionable to hazard a tumultuary conflict Nor were they more scared at my coming than I was unassured of not having some affronts cast upon Me if I had none with Me to preserve a Reverence to Me For many people had at that time learn'd to think those hard thoughts which they have since abundantly vented against Me both by words and deeds The Sum of that business was this Those men and their adherents were then looked upon by the affrighted Vulgar as greater Protectors of their Laws and Liberties than My self and so worthier of their protection I leave them to God and their own Consciences who if guilty of evil machinations no present impunity or Popular vindications of them will be subterfuge sufficient to rescue them from those exact Tribunals To which in the obstructions of Justice among men we must religiously appeal as being an argument to us Christians of that after unavoidable Judgement which shall re-judge what among men is but corruptly decided or not at all I endeavoured to have prevented if God had seen fit those future Commotions which I foresaw would in all likelihood follow some mens activity if not restrained and so now have done to the undoing of many thousands the more is the pity But to over-awe the Freedom of the Houses or to weaken their just Authority by any violent impressions upon them was not at all My design I thought I had so much Justice and Reason on My side as should not have needed so rough assistance and I was resolved rather to bear the repulse with Patience than to use such hazardous extremities But thou O Lord art my witness in heaven and in my heart If I have purposed any violence or oppression against the Innocent or if there were any such wickedness in my thoughts Then let the Enemy persecute my Soul and tread my life to the ground and lay mine Honour in the dust Thou that seest not as man seeth but lookest beyond all popular appearances searching the heart and trying the reins and bringing to light the hidden things of darkness shew thy self Let not my Afflictions be esteemed as with wise and godly men they cannot be any argument of my Sin in that matter more than their Impunity among good men is any sure token of their Innocency But forgive them wherein they have done amiss though they are not punished for it in this world Save thy Servant from the privy Conspiracies and open Violence of bloody and unreasonable men according to the uprightness of my heart and the innocency of my hands in this matter Plead my cause and maintain my right O thou that sittest in the Throne judging rightly that thy Servant may ever rejoyce in thy Salvation IV. Vpon the Insolency of the Tumults I Never thought any thing except our Sins more ominously presaging all these Mischiefs which have followed than those Tumults in London and Westminster soon after the Convening of this Parliament which were not like a Storm at Sea which yet wants not its Terror but like an Earthquake shaking the very foundations of all than which nothing in the world hath more of horror As it is one of the most convincing Arguments that there is a God while his power sets bounds to the raging of the Sea so 't is no
this That they would not suffer themselves to be over-aw'd with the Tumults and their Patrons nor compelled to abet by their suffrages or presence the designs of those men who agitated Innovations and Ruin both in Church and State In this point I could not but approve their generous Constancy and Cautiousness further than this I did never allow any mans refractoriness against the Priviledges and Orders of the Houses to whom I wished nothing more than Safety Fulness and Freedom But the truth is some men and those not many despairing in fair and Parliamentary ways by free deliberations and Votes to gain the concurrence of the major part of Lords and Commons betook themselves by the desperate activity of factious Tumults to sift and terrifie away all those Members whom they saw to be of contrary minds to their purposes How oft was the business of the Bishops enjoying their Ancient places and undoubted Priviledges in the House of Peers carried for them by far the major part of Lords Yet after five repulses contrary to all Order and Custom it was by tumultuary instigations obtruded again and by a few carried when most of the Peers were forced to absent themselves In like manner was the Bill against Root and Branch brought on by tumultuary Clamours and schismatical Terrors which could never pass till both Houses were sufficiently thinned and over-awed To which Partiality while in all Reason Justice and Religion my Conscience forbids Me by consenting to make up their Votes to Acts of Parliament I must now be urged with an Army and constrained either to hazard My own and My Kingdoms ruine by My Defence or prostrate My Conscience to the blind obedience of those men whose zealous Superstition thinks or pretends they cannot do God and the Church a greater service than utterly to destroy that Primitive Apostolical and anciently-Universal Government of the Church by Bishops Which if other mens Judgments bind them to maintain or forbid them to consent to the abolishing of it Mine much more who besides the grounds I have in My Judgment have also a most strict and indispensable Oath upon my Conscience to preserve that Order and the Rights of the Church to which most Sacrilegious and abhorred Perjury most unbeseeming a Christian King should I ever by giving My Consent be betrayed I should account it infinitely greater Misery than any hath or can befal Me inasmuch as the least Sin hath more evil in it than the greatest Affliction Had I gratified their Anti-episcopal Faction at first in this point with My Consent and sacrificed the Ecclesiastical Government and Revenues to the fury of their Covetousness Ambition and Revenge I believe they would then have found no colourable necessity of raising an Army to fetch in and punish Delinquents That I consented to the Bill of putting the Bishops out of the House of Peers was done with a firm perswasion of their contentedness to suffer a present diminution in their Rights and Honour for My sake and the Common-weals which I was confident they would readily yield unto rather than occasion by the least obstruction on their part any danger to Me or to My Kingdom That I cannot add my consent for the total Extirpation of that Government which I have often offered to all fit Regulations hath so much further tie upon My Conscience as what I think Religious and Apostolical and so very Sacred and Divine is not to be dispensed with or destroyed when what is only of civil Favour and priviledg of Honour granted to men of that Order may with their Consent who are concerned in it be annulled This is the true state of those Obstructions pretended to be in point of Justice and Authority of Parliament when I call God to witness I knew none of such consequence as was worth speaking of to make a War being only such as Justice Reason and Religion had made in My own and other mens Consciences Afterwards indeed a great shew of Delinquents was made which were but consequences necessarily following upon Mine or others withdrawing from or defence against Violence but those could not be the first occasion of raising an Army against Me. Wherein I was so far from preventing them as they have declared often that they might seem to have the advantage and Justice of the defensive part and load Me with all the Envy and Injuries of first assaulting them that God knows I had not so much as any hopes of an Army in my thoughts Had the Tumults been honourably and effectually repressed by exemplary Justice and the Liberty of the Houses so vindicated that all Members of either House might with Honour and Freedom becoming such a Senate have come and discharged their Consciences I had obtained all that I designed by my withdrawing and had much more willingly and speedily returned than I retired this being my Necessity driving the other my Choice desiring But some men knew I was like to bring the same Judgment and Constancy which I carried with Me which would never fit their Designs and so while they invited Me to come and grievously complained of my Absence yet they could not but be pleased with it especially when they had found out that plausible and popular pretext of raising an Army to fetch in Delinquents when all that while they never punished the greatest and most intolerable Delinquency of the Tumults and their Exciters which drave My self and so many of both Houses from their places by most barbarous indignities which yet in all Reason and Honour they were as loath to have deserted as those others were willing they should that so they might have occasion to persecute them with the Injuries of an Army for not suffering more tamely the Injuries of the Tumults That this is the true state and first drift and design in raising an Army against Me is by the sequel so evident that all other pretences vanish For when they declared by Propositions or Treaties what they would have to appease them there was nothing of consequence offered to Me or demanded of Me as any original difference in any point of Law or order of Justice But among other lesser Innovations this chiefly was urged The Abolition of Episcopal and the Establishment of Presbyterian Government All other things at any time propounded were either impertinent as to any ground of a War or easily granted by Me and only to make up a number or else they were merely consequential and accessary after the War was by them unjustly begun I cannot hinder other mens thoughts whom the noise and shew of Piety and heat for Reformation and Religion might easily so fill with Prejudice that all equality and clearness of Judgment might be obstructed But this was and is as to my best observation the true state of affairs between us when they first raised an Army with this design either to stop my mouth or to force my Consent And in this truth as to my Conscience who was God knows
patience as bad as my worst Enemies can falsly say and I hope I shall still do better than they desire or deserve I should I believe it will at last appear that they who first began to embroil my other Kingdoms are in great part guilty if not of the first letting out yet of the not timely stopping those horrid effusions of blood in Ireland Which whatever my Enemies please to say or think I look upon as that of my other Kingdoms exhausted out of My own veins no man being so much weakned by it as My self And I hope tho mens unsatiable Cruelties never will yet the Mercy of God will at length say to his Justice It is enough and command the Sword of Civil wars to sheath it self his merciful Justice intending I trust not our utter Confusion but our Cure the abatement of our Sins not the desolating of these Nations O my God let those infinite Mercies prevent us once again which I and My Kingdoms have formerly abused and can never deserve should be restored Thou seest how much Cruelty among Christians is acted under the colour of Religion as if we could not be Christians unless we crucifie one another Because we have not more loved thy Truth and practised in Charity Thou hast suffered a spirit of Error and bitterness of mutual and mortal Hatred to rise among us O Lord forgive wherein we have sinned and sanstifie what we have suffered Let our Repentance be our Recovery as our great Sins have been onr Ruine Let not the Miseries I and My Kingdoms have hitherto suffered seem small to Thee but make our Sins appear to our Consciences as they are represented in the glass of thy Judgments for Thou never punishest small failings with so severe Afflictions O therefore according to the multitude of thy great Mercies pardon our Sins and remove thy Judgments which are very many and very heavy Yet let our Sins be ever more grievous to us than thy Judgments and make us more willing to repent than to be relieved first give us the Peace of penitent Consciences and then the tranquillity of united Kingdoms In the sea of our Saviours Blood drown our Sins and through this Red sea of our own blood bring us at last to a state of Piety Peace and Plenty As My publick relations to all make Me share in all My Subjects sufferings so give Me such a pious sense of them as becomes a Christian King and a loving Father of My People Let the scandalous and unjust Reproaches cast upon Me be as a breath more to kindle My Compassion Give Me grace to heap Charitable coals of fire upon their heads to melt them whose Malice or cruel Zeal hath kindled or hindred the quenching of those Flames which have so much wasted My Three Kingdoms O rescue and assist those poor Protestants in Ireland whom Thou hast hitherto preserved And lead those in the ways of Thy saving Truths whose Ignorance or Errors have filled them with Rebellious and destructive Principles which they act under an opinion that they do Thee good service Let the hand of Thy Justice be against those who maliciously and despitefully have raised or fomented those cruel and desperate Wars Thou art far from destroying the innocent with tho guilty and the erroneous with the malicious thou that hadst pity on Nineveh for the many Children that were therein give not over the whole stock of that populous and seduced Nation to the wrath of those whose Covetousness makes them Cruel nor to their Anger which is too fierce and therefore justly cursed Preserve if it be thy will in the midst of the furnace of thy severe Justice a Posterity which may praise Thee for Thy Mercy And deal with Me not according to mans unjust Reproaches but according to the Innocency of My hands in Thy sight If I have desired or delighted in the woful day of My Kingdoms Calamities if I have not earnestly studied and faithfully endeavoured the preventing and composing of these bloody Distractions then let thy hand be against Me and My Fathers house O Lord Thou seest I have Enemies enough of men as I need not so I should not dare thus to imprecate Thy Curse on Me and Mine if My Conscience did not witness my Integrity which Thou O Lord knowest right well But I trust not to My own Merit but thy Mercies Spare us O Lord and be not angry with us for ever XIII Vpon the calling in of the SCOTS and their Coming THE Scots are a Nation upon whom I have not only common ties of Nature Soveraignty and Bounty with my Father of Blessed memory but also special and late obligations of Favours having gratified the active Spirits among them so far that I seemed to many to prefer the desires of that Party before My own Interest and Honour But I see Royal bounty emboldens some men to ask and act beyond all bounds of Modesty and Gratitude My Charity and Act of Pacification forbids Me to reflect on former passages wherein I shall ever be far from letting any mans ingratitude or inconstancy make Me repent of what I granted them for the publick good I pray God it may so prove The coming again of that Party into England with an Army only to conform this Church to their late New model cannot but seem as unreasonable as they would have thought the same measure offered from hence to themselves Other Errand I could never understand they had besides those common and vulgar flourishes for Religion and Liberty save only to confirm the Presbyterian Copy they had set by making this Church to write after them tho it were in bloody Characters Which Design and End whether it will justifie the use of such violent Means before the Divine Justice I leave to their Consciences to judg who have already felt the misery of the Means but not reaped the benefit of the End either in this Kingdom or that Such knots and crosness of grain being objected here as will hardly suffer that Form which they cry up as the only just Reformation and setling of Government and Discipline in Churches to go on so smoothly here as it might do in Scotland and was by them imagined would have done in England when so many of the English Clergy through levity or discontent if no worse Passion suddenly quitted their former engagements to Episcopacy and faced about to their Presbytery It cannot but seem either Passion or some Self-seeking more than true Zeal and pious Discretion for any foreign State or Church to prescribe such medicines only for others which themselves have used rather successfully than commendably not considering that the same Physick on different constitutions will have different operations that may kill one which doth but cure another Nor do I know any such tough and malignant Humours in the constitution of the English Church which gentler applications than those of an Army might not easily have removed Nor is it so proper to hew out
I am afflicted by those whose Prosperity I earnestly desire and whose Seduction I heartily deplore If they had been my open and forein Enemies I could have born it bur they must be my own Subjects who are next to my Children dear to Me and for the restoring of whose Tranquility I could willingly be the Jonah if I did not evidently foresee that by the divided Interests of their and Mine Enemies as by contrary winds the storm of their Miseries would be rather encreased than allayed I had rather prevent my Peoples Ruine than rule over them nor am I so ambitious of that Dominion which is but my Right as of their Happiness if it could expiate or countervail such a way of obtaining it by the highest Injuries of Subjects committed against their Soveraign Yet I had rather suffer all the miseries of Life and die many Deaths than shamefully to desert or dishonourably to betray my own just Rights and Soveraignty thereby to gratify the Ambition or justifie the Malice of my Enemies between whose Malice and other mens Mistakes I put as great a difference as between an ordinary Ague and the Plague or the Itch of Novelty and the Leprosie of Disloyalty As Liars need have good memories so Malicious persons need good inventions that their Calumnies may fit every mans fancy and what their Reproaches want of truth they may make up with number and shew My Patience I thank God will better serve Me to bear and my Charity to forgive than my Leisure to answer the many false aspersions which some men have cast upon Me. Did I not more consider my Subjects Satisfaction than My own Vindication I should never have given the Malice of some men that pleasure as to see Me take notice of or remember what they say or object I would leave the Authors to be punished by their own evil Manners and seared Consciences which will I believe in a shorter time than they be aware of both confute and revenge all those black and false Scandals which they have cast on Me and make the world see there is as little truth in them as there was little worth in the broaching of them or Civility I need not say Loyalty in the not-suppressing of them whose credit and reputation even with the People shall ere long be quite blasted by the breath of that same fornace of Popular obloquy and detraction which they have studied to heat and inflame to the highest degree of infamy and wherein they have sought to cast and consume my Name and Honour First nothing gave Me more cause to suspect and search My own Innocency than when I observed so many forward to engage against Me who had made great professions of singular Piety For this gave to vulgar minds so bad a reflection upon Me and My Cause as if it had been impossible to adhere to Me and not withal depart from God to think or speak well of Me and not to blaspheme him so many were perswaded that these two were utterly inconsistent to be at once Loyal to Me and truly Religious toward God Not but that I had I thank God many with Me which were both Learned and Religious much above that ordinary size and that vulgar proportion wherein some men glory so much who were so well satisfied in the cause of my Sufferings that they chose rather to suffer with Me than forsake Me. Nor is it strange that so religious Pretensions as were used against Me should be to many well-minded men a great temptation to oppose Me especially being urged by such popular Preachers as think it no sin to lye for God and what they please to call Gods Cause cursing all that will not curse with them looking so much at and crying up the goodness of the End propounded that they consider not the lawfulness of the Means used nor the depth of the Mischief chiefly plotted and intended The weakness of these mens Judgments must be made up by their Clamors and activity It was a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize Me and Mine they thought theirs could not be true if they cryed not down Mine as false I thank God I have had more tryal of his Grace as to the constancy of My Religion in the Protestant profession of the Church of England both abroad and at home than ever they are like to have Nor do I know any Exception I am so lyable to in their opinion as too great a Fixedness in that Religion whose judicious and solid grounds both from Scripture and Antiquity will not give My Conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided Innovations which the bold ignorance of some men would needs obtrude upon Me and My People Contrary to those well-tryed foundations both of Truth and Order which men of far greater Learning and clearer Zeal have setled in the Confession and Constitution of this Church in England which many former Parliaments in the most calm and unpassionate times have oft confirmed in which I should ever by Gods help persevere as believing it hath most of Primitive Truth and Order Nor did My using the assistance of some Papists which were my Subjects any way fight against My Religion as some men would needs interpret it especially those who least of all men cared whom they imployed or what they said or did so they might prevail 'T is strange that so wise men as they would be esteemed should not conceive that differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Duty Allegiance and Subjection The first they owe as Men and Christians to God the second they owe to Me in common as their KING Different professions in point of Religion cannot any more than in civil Trades take away the community of Relations either to Parents or to Princes And where is there such an Oglio or medly of various Religions in the World again as those men entertain in their service who find most fault with Me without any scruple as to the diversity of their Sects and Opinions It was indeed a foul and indeleble shame for such as would be counted Protestants to enforce Me a declared Protestant their Lord and King to a necessary use of Papists or any other who did but their duty to help Me to defend My self Nor did I more than is lawful for any King in such exigents to use the aid of any his Subjects I am sorry the Papists should have a greater sense of their Allegiance than many Protestant Professors who seem to have learned and to practise the worst Principles of the worst Papists Indeed it had been a very impertinent and unseasonable scruple in Me and very pleasing no doubt to My Enemies to have been then disputing the points of different Beliefs in My Subjects when I was disputed with by Swords points and when I needed the help of My Subjects as Men no less than their Prayers as Christians The
that an orderly Subordination among Presbyters or Ministers should be any more against Christianity than it is in all secular and Civil Governments where Parity breeds Confusion and Faction I can no more believe that such Order is inconsistent with true Religion than good Features are with Beauty or Numbers with Harmony Nor is it likely that God who appointed several orders and a Prelacy in the Government of his Church among the Jewish Priests should abhor or forbid them among Christian Ministers who have as much of the Principles of Schism and Division as other men for preventing and suppressing of which the Apostolical Wisdom which was divine after that Christians were multiplied to many Congregations and Presbyters with them appointed this way of Government which might best preserve Order and Union with Authority So that I conceive it was not the Favour of Princes or Ambition of Presbyters but the Wisdom and Piety of the Apostles that first setled Bishops in the Church which Authority they constantly used and enjoyed in those times which were purest for Religion tho sharpest for Persecution Not that I am against the managing of this Presidency and Authority in one man by the joynt counsel and consent of many Presbyters I have offered to restore that as a fit means to avoid those Errors Corruptions and Partialities which are incident to any one man also to avoid Tyranny which becomes no Christians least of all Church-men besides it will be a means to take away that burthen and odium of affairs which may lie too heavy on one mans shoulders as indeed I think it formerly did on the Bishops here Nor can I see what can be more agreeable both to Reason and Religion than such a frame of Government which is Paternal not Magisterial and wherein not only the necessity of avoiding Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts which are prone to arise among equals in Power and Function but also the differences of some Ministers gifts and aptitudes for Government above others doth invite to employ them in reference to those Abilities wherein they are eminent Nor is this Judgment of Mine touching Episcopacy any pre-occupation of Opinion which will not admit any oppositions against it It is well known I have endeavoured to satisfie My self in what the chief Patrons for other ways can say against this or for theirs And I find as they have far less of Scripture grounds and of Reason so for Examples and Practice of the Church or testimonies of Histories they are wholly destitute wherein the whole stream runs so for Episcopacy that there is not the least rivulet for any others As for those obtruded Examples of some late Reformed Churches for many retain Bishops still whom necessity of times and affairs rather excuseth than commendeth for their Inconformity to all Antiquity I could never see any reason why Churches orderly reformed and governed by Bishops should be forced to conform to those few rather than to the Catholick example of all Ancient Churches which needed no Reformation and to those Churches at this day who governed by Bishops in all the Christian world are many more than Presbyterians or Independents can pretend to be All whom the Churches in My Three Kingdoms lately governed by Bishops would equalize I think if not exceed Nor is it any point of Wisdom or Charity where Christians differ as many do in some points there to widen the differences and at once to give all the Christian world except a handful of some Protestants so great a scandal in point of Church-Government whom tho you may convince of their Errors in some points of Doctrine yet you shall never perswade them that to compleat their Reformation they must necessarily desert and wholly cast off that Government which they and all before them have ever owned as Catholick Primitive and Apostolical so far that never Schismaticks nor Hereticks except those Aerians have strayed from the Unity and Conformity of the Church in that point ever having Bishops above Presbyters Besides the late general Approbation and Submission to this Government of Bishops by the Clergy as well as the Laity of these Kingdoms is a great confirmation of My Judgment and their Inconstancy is a great prejudice against their Novelty I cannot in charity so far doubt of their Learning or Integrity as if they understood not what heretofore they did or that they did conform contrary to their Consciences So that their facility and Levity is never to be excused who before ever the point of Church-government had any free and impartial debate contrary to their former Oaths and Practice against their obedience to the Laws in force and against My Consent have not only quite cried down the Government by Bishops but have approved and encouraged the violent and most illegal stripping all the Bishops and many other Church-men of all their due Authority and Revenues even to the selling away and utter alienation of those Church-lands from any Eclesiastical uses So great a power hath the stream of Times and the prevalency of Parties over some mens Judgments of whose so sudden and so total change little reason can be given besides the Scots Army coming into England But the Folly of these men will at last punish it self and the Desertors of Episcopacy will appear the greatest Enemies to and Betrayers of their own Interest for Presbytery is never so considerable or effectual as when it is joined to and crowned with Episcopacy All Ministers will find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as Plants do between being watered by hand or by the sweet and liberal dews of Heaven The tenuity and contempt of Clergy-men will soon let them see what a poor Carcass they are when parted from the influence of that Head to whose Supremacy they have been sworn A little Moderation might have prevented great mischiefs I am firm to Primitive Episcopacy not to have it extirpated if I can hinder it Discretion without Passion might easily reform whatever the rust of Times or indulgence of Laws or corruption of Manners have brough upon it It being a gross vulgar Error to impute to or revenge upon the Function the faults of Times or Persons which Seditious and popular Principle and Practice all wise men abhor For those Secular additaments and ornaments of Authority Civil Honour and Estate which My Predecessors and Christian Princes in all Countries have annexed to Bishops and Church-men I look upon them but as just Rewards of their Learning and Piety who are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strengthenings of their Authority in point of Respect and Observance which in peaceful times is hardly payed to any Governors by the measure of their Virtues so much as by that of their Estates poverty and meanness exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of licentious minds and manners which persecuting
Times much restrained I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those encouragements and best able to use them If at any time My Judgment of men failed My good Intention made my error venial And some Bishops I am sure I had whose Learning Gravity and Piety no men of any worth or forehead can deny But of all men I would have Church-men especially the Governors to be redeemed from that vulgar Neglect which besides an innate principle of vicious opposition which is in all men against those that seem to reprove or restrain them will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian Parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independent Inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People This for my Judgment touching Episcopacy wherein God knows I do not gratifie any design or Passion with the least perverting of Truth And now I appeal to God above and all the Christian World whether it be just for Subjects or pious for Christians by Violence and infinite Indignities with servile restraints to seek to force Me their KING and Soveraign as some men have endeavoured to do against all these grounds of My Judgment to consent to their weak and divided Novelties The greatest Pretender of them desires not more than I do that the Church should be governed as Christ hath appointed in true Reason and in Scripture of which I could never see any probable shew for any other ways who either content themselves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Countrey or else they deny these most evident Truths That the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted and That Government being necessary for the Churches well-being when multiplied and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and superiority they had above others which could not end with their Persons since the use and Ends of such Government still continue It is most sure that the purest Primitive and best Churches flourished under Episcopacy and may so still if Ignorance Superstition Avarice Revenge and other disorderly and disloyal Passions had not so blown up some mens minds against it that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Patterns they supply with Violence and Oppression wherein some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy which however other men esteem to Me is no less sin than Sacriledg or a Robbery of God the giver of all we have of that portion which devout minds have thankfully given again to him in giving it to his Church and Prophets through whose hands he graciously accepts even a cup of cold water as a libation offered to himself Furtheâ—more as to My particular engagement above other men by an Oath agreeable to my Judgment I am solemnly obliged to preserve that Government and the Rights of the Church Were I convinced of the Unlawfulness of the Function as Antichristian which some men boldly but weakly calumniate I could soon with Judgment break that Oath which erroneously was taken by Me. But being daily by the best disquisition of Truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which I am sworn how can any man that wisheth not my Damnation perswade Me at once to so notorious and combined sins of Sacriledg and Perjury besides the many personal Injustices I must do to many worthy men who are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they have by no Law been convicted of those Crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods I have oft wondred how men pretending to Tenderness of Conscience and Reformation can at once tell Me that My Coronation-Oath binds Me to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Me which they urge with such Violence tho contrary to all that Rational and Religious Freedom which every man ought to preserve and of which they seem so tender in their own Votes yet at the same time these men will needs perswade Me that I must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of My Oath which binds Me agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion I have to maintain the Government and legal Rights of the Church 'T is strange My Oath should be valid in that part which both My self and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of our Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein I think My self justly obliged both to God and Man Yet upon this Rack chiefly have I been held so long by some mens ambitious Covetousness and Sacrilegious Cruelty torturing with Me both Church and State in Civil dissentions till I shall be forced to consent and declare that I do approve what God knows I utterly dislike and in my Soul abhor as many ways highly against Reason Justice and Religion and whereto if I should shamefully and dishonourably give my Consent yet should I not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties which contend with each other as well as both against Me and Episcopacy Nor can My late condescending to the Scots in point of Church-Government be rightly objected against Me as an inducement for Me to consent to the like in my other Kingdoms for it should be considered that Episcopacy was not so rooted and setled there as 't is here nor I in that respect so strictly bound to continue it in that Kingdom as in this for what I think in my Judgment best I may not think so absolutely necessary for all places and at all times If any shall impute My yielding to them as My Failing and Sin I can easily acknowledg it but that is no argument to do so again or much worse I being now more convinced in that point nor indeed hath My yielding to them been so happy and succesful as to encourage Me to grant the like to others Did I see any thing more of Christ as to Meekness Justice Order Charity and Loyalty in those that pretend to other modes of Government I might suspect My Judgment to be biassed or forestalled with some Prejudice and wontedness of Opinion but I have hitherto so much cause to suspect the contrary in the Manners of many of those men that I cannot from them gain the least reputation for their new ways of Government Nor can I find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cried up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominion either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in My Kingdoms by Gods blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independency have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right
Images they should form and set up If there had been as much of Christs Spirit for Meekness Wisdom and Charity in mens hearts as there was of his Name used in the pretensions to reform all to Christs Rule it would certainly have obtained more of God's Blessing and produced more of Christs Glory the Churches good the Honour of Religion and the Unity of Christians Publick Reformers had need first act in private and practise that on their own hearts which they purpose to try on others for Deformities within will soon betray the Pretenders of publick Reformation to such private Designs as must needs hinder the publick good I am sure the right methods of Reforming the Church cannot consist with that of perturbing the Civil State nor can Religion be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest Ingredients and Ornaments of true Religion for next to Fear God is Honour the King I doubt not but Christs Kingdom may be set up without pulling down Mine nor will any men in impartial times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects Christ's Government will confirm Mine not overthrow it since as I own Mine from Him so I desire to Rule for his Glory and his Churches good Had some men truly intended Christ's Government or knew what it meant in their hearts they could never have been so ill governed in their words and actions both against Me and one another As good Ends cannot justifie evil Means so nor will evil Beginnings ever bring forth good Conclusions unless God by a miracle of Mercy create Light out of Darkness Order out of our Confusions and Peace out of our Passions Thou O Lord who only canst give us beauty for ashes and Truth for Hypocrisie suffer us not to be miserably deluded with Pharisaical washings in stead of Christian Reformings Our greatest Deformities are within make us the severest Censurers and first Reformers of our own Souls That we may in clearness of Judgment and Vprightness of heart be a means to reform what is indeed amiss in Church and State Create in us clean hearts O Lord and renew right spirits within-us that we may do all by thy directions to thy Glory and with thy Blessing Pity the Deformities which some rash and cruel Reformers have brought upon this Church and State quench the fires which Factions have kindled under the pretence of Reforming As thou hast shewed the world by their Divisions and Confusions what is the pravity of some mens Intentions and weakness of their Judgments so bring us at last more refined out of these fires by the methods of Christian and charitable Reformations wherein nothing of Ambition Revenge Covetousness or Sacrilege may have any influence upon their counsels whom thy Providence in just and lawful ways shall entrnst with so great good and now most necessary a work That I and My People may be so blest with inward Piety as may best teach us how to use the Blessing of outward Peace XXI Vpon His MAJESTIES Letters taken and divulged THE taking of My Letters was an opportunity which as the malice of Mine Enemies could hardly have expected so they knew not how with honour and civility to use it Nor do I think with sober and worthy minds any thing in them could tend so much to My Reproach as the odious divulging of them did to the infamy of the Divulgers The greatest experiments of Virtue and Nobleness being discovered in the greatest advantages against an Enemy and the greatest Obligations being those which are put upon us by them from whom we could least have expected them And such I should have esteemed the concealing of My Papers The freedom and secrecy of which commands a Civility from all men not wholly barbarous nor is there any thing more inhumane than to expose them to publick view Yet since Providence will have it so I am content so much of My Heart which I study to approve to Gods Omniscience should be discovered to the world without any of those dresses or popular captations which some men use in their Speeches and Expresses I wish my Subjects had yet a clearer sight into My most retired Thoughts Where they might discover how they are divided between the Love and Care I have not more to preserve My own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and that extreme Grief to see them both deceived and destroyed Nor can any mens Malice be gratified further by My Letters than to see My Constancy to my Wife the Laws and Religion Bees will gather Honey where the Spider sucks Poyson That I endeavour to avoid the pressures of my Enemies by all fair and just Correspondencies no man can blame who loves Me or the Commonwealth since My Subjects can hardly be happy if I be miserable or enjoy their Peace and Liberty while I am oppressed The World may see how some Mens design like Absolom's is by enormous Actions to widen differences and exasperate all Sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate Yet I thank God I can not only with Patience bear this as other Indignities but with Charity forgive them The Integrity of My Intentions is not jealous of any injury My Expressions can do them for although the confidence of Privacy may admit greater freedom in Writing such Letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet the Innocency of My chief Purposes cannot be so stained or mis-interpreted by them as not to let all men see that I wish nothing more than an happy composure of Differences with Justice and Honour not more to My own than My Peoples content who have any sparks of Love or Loyalty left in them who by those My Letters may be convinced that I can both mind and act My own and My Kingdoms Affairs so as becomes a Prince which Mine Enemies have always been very loth should be believed of Me as if I were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the name of Evil Counsellors It 's probable some men will now look upon Me as My own Counsellor and having none else to quarrel with under that notion they will hereafter confine their anger to My self Altho I know they are very unwilling I should enjoy the liberty of My own Thoughts or follow the light of My own Conscience which they labour to bring into an absolute captivity to themselves not allowing Me to think their Counsels to be other than good for Me which have so long maintained a War against Me. The Victory they obtained that day when My Letters became their prize had been enough to have satiated the most ambitious thirst of Popular glory among the Vulgar with whom Prosperity gains the greatest esteem and applause as Adversity exposeth to their greatest slighting and disrespect As if good fortune were always the shadow of Virtue and Justice and did not oftner attend Vicious and Injurious actions as to this world But
see them only scared and humbled not broken by that shaking I never had so ill a thought of those Cities as to despair of their Loyalty to Me which Mistakes might eclipse but I never believed Malice had quite put out I pray God the Storm be yet wholly passed over them upon whom I look as Christ did sometime over Jerusalem as objects of My Prayers and Tears with compassionate Grief foreseeing those severer scatterings which will certainly befall such as wantonly refuse to be gathered to their Duty fatal blindness frequently attending and punishing wilfulness so that men shall not be able at last to prevent their Sorrows who would not timely repent of their Sins nor shall they be suffered to enjoy the Comforts who securely neglect the Counsels belonging to their Peace They will find that Brethren in iniquity are not far from becoming insolent Enemies there being nothing harder than to keep ill men long in one mind Nor is it possible to gain a fair period for those motions which go rather in a round and circle of Fancy than in a right line of Reason tending to the Law the only Center of publick consistency whither I pray God at last bring all sides Which will easily be done when we shall fully see how much more happy we are to be subject to the known Laws than to the various Wills of any men seem they never so plausible at first Vulgar compliance with any illegal and extravagant ways like violent motions in Nature soon grows weary of it self and ends in a refractory sullenness Peoples rebounds are oft in their faces who first put them upon those violent strokes For the Army which is so far excusable as they act according to Soldiers Principles and Interests demanding Pay and Indemnity I think it necessary in order to the Publick Peace that they should be satisfied as far as is just no man being more prone to consider them than My self tho they have fought against Me yet I cannot but so far esteem that Valour and Gallantry they have some time shewed as to wish I may never want such men to maintain My self My Laws and My Kingdoms in such a Peace as wherein they may enjoy their share and proportion as much as any men But Thou O Lord who art perfect Vnity in a Sacred Trinity in Mercy behold those whom thy Justice hath divided Deliver Me from the strivings of my People and make Me to see how much they need my Prayers and Pity who agreed to fight against Me and yet are now ready to fight against one another to the continuance of my Kingdoms Distractions Discover to all sides the ways of Peace from which they have swerved which consists not in the divided Wills of Parties but in the joynt and due observation of the Laws Make Me willing to go whither Thou wilt lead Me by thy Providence and be Thou ever with Me that I may see thy Constancy in the worlds variety and Changes Make Me even such as Thou wouldst have Me that I may at last enjoy that Safety and Tranquillity which Thou alone canst give Me. Divert I pray Thee O Lord thy heavy Wrath justly hanging over those populous Cities whose Plenty is prone to add fewel to their Luxury their Wealth to make them wanton their Multitudes tempting them to Security and their Security exposing them to unexpected Miseries Give them eyes to see hearts to consider wills to embrace and courage to act those things which belong to thy Glory and the publick Peace lest their Calamity come upon them as an armed man Teach them that they cannot want Enemies who abound in Sin nor shall they be long undisarmed and un-destroyed who with a high hand persisting to fight against Thee and the clear convictions of their own Consciences fight more against themselves than ever they did against Me. Their Sins exposing them to thy Justice their Riches to others Injuries their Number to Tumults and their Tumults to Confusion Tho they have with much forwardness helped to destroy Me yet let not my Fall be their Ruine Let Me not so much consider either what they have done or I have suffered chiefly at first by them as to forget to imitate my crucified Redeemer to plead their Ignorance for their Pardon and in my dying extremities to pray to Thee O Father to forgive them for they knew not what they did The tears they have denied Me in my saddest condition give them grace to bestow upon themselves who the less they weep for Me the more cause they have to weep for themselves O let not my Blood be upon them and their Children whom the Fraud and Faction of some not the Malice of all have excited to crucifie Me. But Thou O Lord canst and wilt as Thou didst my Redeemer both exalt and perfect Me by my Sufferings which have more in them of thy Mercy than of mans Cruelty or thy own Justice XXVII To the PRINCE of Wales SON if these Papers with some others wherein I have set down the private reflections of My Conscience and My most impartial thoughts touching the chief passages which have been most remarkable or disputed in My late Troubles come to Your hands to whom they are chiefly design'd they may be so far useful to You as to state Your Judgment aright in what hath passed whereof a Pious is the best use can be made and they may also give You some directions how to remedy the present Distempers and prevent if God will the like for time to come It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of My long Restraint when I find My leisure and Solitude have produced something worthy of My self and useful to You that neither You nor any other may hereafter measure My Cause by the Success nor My Judgment of things by My Misfortunes which I count the greater by far because they have so far lighted upon You and some others whom I have most cause to love as well as My self and of whose unmerited Sufferings I have a greater sense than of Mine own But this advantage of Wisdom You have above most Princes that You have begun and now spent some years of Discretion in the experience of Troubles and exercise of Patience wherein Piety and all Virtues both Moral and Political are commonly better planted to a thriving as Trees set in Winter than in the warmth and serenity of times or amidst those Delights which usually attend Princes Courts in times of Peace and Plenty which are prone either to root up all Plants of true Virtue and Honour or to be contented only with some Leaves and withering Formalities of them without any real Fruits such as tend to the Publick good for which Princes should always remember they are born and by Providence designed The evidence of which different Education the holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of David and Rehoboam the one prepared by many Afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom the other softned
by the unparallel'd prosperity of Solomon's Court and so corrupted to the great diminution both for Peace Honour and Kingdom by those Flatteries which are as unseparable from prosperous Princes as Flies are from Fruit in Summer whom Adversity like cold weather drives away I had rather You should be Charles le Bon than le Grand Good than Great I hope God hath designed You to be both having so early put You into that exercise of his Graces and Gifts bestowed upon You which may best weed out all vicious inclinations and dispose You to those Princely Endowments and Employments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God shall place You. With God I would have You begin and end who is King of Kings the Soveraign Disposer of the Kingdoms of the world who pulleth down one and setteth up another The best Government and highest Soveraignty You can attain to is to be subject to Him that the Scepter of his Word and Spirit may rule in your Heart The true Glory of Princes consists in advancing God's Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good also in the dispensation of Civil Power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace Piety will make You prosperous at least it will keep You from being miserable nor is he much a loser that loseth all yet saveth his own Soul at last To which center of true Happiness God I trust hath and will graciously direct all these black lines of Affliction which he hath been pleased to draw on Me and by which he hath I hope drawn Me nearer to Himself You have already tasted of that Cup whereof I have liberally drank which I look upon as God's Physick having that in Healthfulness which it wants in Pleasure Above all I would have You as I hope You are already well grounded and setled in your Religion the best Profession of which I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England in which You have been educated Yet I would have your own Judgment and Reason now seal to that sacred Bond which Education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other mens Custom or Tradition which You profess In this I charge You to persevere as coming nearest to God's Word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for Government with some little Amendment which I have other-where expressed and often offered tho in vain Your fixation in matters of Religion will not be more necessary for your Souls than your Kingdoms Peace when God shall bring You to them For I have observed that the Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretend new Lights When some mens Consciences accuse them for Sedition and Faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion when Piety pleads for Peace and Patience they cry out Zeal So that unless in this point You be well setled You shall never want temptations to destroy You and Yours under pretensions of Reforming matters of Religion for that seems even to worst men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst Designs Where besides the Novelty which is taking enough with the Vulgar every one hath an affectation by seeming forward to an outward Reformation of Religion to be thought Zealous hoping to cover those Irreligious deformities whereto they are conscious by a severity of censuring other mens opinions or actions Take heed of abetting any Factions or applying to any publick Discriminations in matters of Religion contrary to what is in your Judgment and the Church well setled Your partial adhering as Head to any one side gains You not so great advantages in some men hearts who are prone to be of their King's Religion as it loseth You in others who think themselves and their profession first despised then persecuted by You. Take such a course as may either with Calmness and Charity quite remove the seeming differences and offences by impartiality or so order affairs in point of Power that You shall not need to fear or flatter any Faction For if ever You stand in need of them or must stand to their courtesie You are undone The Serpent will devour the Dove You may never expect less of Loyalty Justice or Humanity than from those who engage into Religious Rebellion Their Interest is always made God's under the colours of Piety ambitious Policies march not only with greatest security but applause as to the populacy You may hear from them Jacob's voice but You shall feel they have Esau's hands Nothing seemed less considerable than the Presbyterian Faction in England for many years so compliant they were to publick Order nor indeed was their Party great either in Church or State as to mens Judgments But as soon as Discontents drave men into Sidings as ill Humors fall to the disaffected part which causes Inflammations so did all at first who affected any Novelties adhere to that Side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were officious Servants to Presbytery their great Master till Time and Military success discovering to each their peculiar Advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of Uniform Religion pretended each to drive for their Party the trade of Profits and Preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all Let nothing seem little or despicable to You in matters which concern Religion and the Churches Peace so as to neglect a speedy reforming and effectual suppressing Errors and Schisms which seem at first but as a hand-breadth yet by Seditious Spirits as by strong winds are soon made to cover and darken the whole Heaven When You have done Justice to God Your own Soul and his Church in the profession and preservation both of Truth and Unity in Religion the next main hinge on which Your Prosperity will depend and move is that of Civil Justice wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdoms to which You are rightly Heir are the most excellent Rules You can Govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects Industry Liberty and Happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his People as Subjects not as Slaves whose Subjection as it preserves their Property Peace and Safety so it will never diminish Your Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of their Industry and the benefit of those Laws to which themselves have consented Never charge Your head with such a Crown as shall by its heaviness oppress the whole Body the weakness of whose parts cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the Head but a necessary debilitation and Ruin Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting