provoking words on trifling occasions XLIII But all forementioned set together lye not half so heavy on my Soul as my inward Deficience and Omission That having had so many Convictions of the truth of Scripture and the certainty of the Life to come and can scarce think of any thing but death and the future state it is so sure and near and have read and heard and written so much of the Love of God and of Heaven as I have done it shameth it grieveth me it maketh me even abhor and loath my self that I usually reach little higher than pacifick quieting dull Affections and that Faith and Hope and Love do not keep me in more delightful thoughts of God and my Redeemer and in a more joyful longing to be with Christ and all the Blessed and that ever I should have a cold and common thought of God and things so high and holy and that the prospect of my change and the coming of Christ is not a continual Feast to my Soul and setteth me not more above the concerns of this vile and corruptible Flesh and above all impatience of pain and above the fears of Death and Corruption O what a contradiction is there between that Head and Tongue that professeth to believe what I profess of God of Christ of Endless Glory and that Heart that no more rejoiceth in that Belief and Hope but by languor and decay of Nature and doubtless great imperfection of Faith is kept from that joy that such believing in reason should produce and goeth towards Heaven with so many pawses of fear or dulness and so little of that Heavenly delight which I have long been seeking of God and which my low and weak condition needeth Lord all my sins are known to thee let me never be unwilling to know them nor let them be so unknown to me as to invalidate my Repentance or frustrate my hope of pardon through Christ Chap. III. The Reasons why I cannot without known gross Lying profess such Repentance as Dr. Stillingfleet's Anonymus Second and many such others call for or expect § 1. AS it is no less sin to Murder ones self than to Murder another so it is no less to belie ones self than to belie another Yea it is the greater in that it is like to be more against knowledge we being better acquainted with our own thoughts and deeds than with other Mens And it would be the greater sin in me because that the Father of Lies purposely designeth his calumnies to cause hatred in many and to frustrate all my Writings both to the Church and to particular Souls § 2. Why I cannot Repent of my Writings against the Sadduers or Brutists the Antitrinitarians the Somatists the Quakers the Anabaptists the Antinominians the Papists the Separating Dividers and the rest before-mentioned the Books that I have written against them express my Reasons But no Men call me to it by such an agreeing number of voices as the late Protestant Conformists of that fiercer sort who appropriate to themselves the Name of the Episcopal Church of England especially those that are for a Forreign or Universal Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction And no Man hath done it with such virulent malice as the Anonymus Author of the Book called The Second part of the Unreasonableness of Separation as seconding Dr. Stillingfleet Whose Libel I shall now peruse and return the Reasons why I cannot Repent of all that he reciteth by way of Accusation § 3. I. In his Preface That my Opinions and Practices have been condemned by the generality of Christians from the most Primitive and Purest Times of the Church Ans To which I appeal and can get no answer § 4. II. I must first tell the Reader that should I stay to confute all the falsification of my words which he pretendeth to recite it would make an unsavoury tedious unprofitable Volume A word put in or left out or altered will serve our grand Accuser to do much of his Works with the Sons of Ignorance and Malice He seemeth to expect that I should Repent of saying that our Civil War between King and Parliament was begun in England between two Parties of Episcopal Protestants And must I repent that I lived in England And that I know what it was naturally impossible for me not to know Why doth he not also make me a Liar for saying that I then dwelt in England and both sides were English Men and spake English Had I been a Mushroom sprung up as lately as our fiery Tories 〈◊〉 had Malice enough to make me mad I might have needed none of his imposed Repentance I have in another writing named the Commanders of the Army and the Parliaments Lords Lieutenants and all the Major Generals besides the Chaplains and Challenged them to find among all these one Presbyterian or two Independants for ten if not twenty Episcopal Protestants A Wise and Credible Parliament Man yet living hath oft told me that when the War begun he knew but One Presbyterian in all the House of Commons which was worthy Mr. Tate of Northampton it being not then known among them The Earl of Warwick who commanded at Sea I knew to be for Communion with the Patish and Episcopal Churches In the Army let them enquire of the Communion and Religion of the General and all his Commanders and I believe they will find among all the Colonels but two Independants the Lord Say and the Lord Brooke and one moderate Puritane yet living the Lord Wharton and that all the rest were moderate Episcopal Conformists what the old Scots Souldiers Browne and Urrey that turn'd to the King were I know not supposing their pay was their Religion We knew this to be true of the Earl of Essex General the Earl of Bedford General of the Horse is yet living and well known Sir John Merrike Major General Colonel Dolbiere the Earl of Peterborough General of the Ordnance Lionell Copley Scout-Master the Earl of Stampford the Lord Roberts lately President of the Kings Privy Council the Lord Hollis the Lord Kimbolton after Earl of Manchester and Lord Chamberlain that chose the Kings Preachers and constantly heard them the Lord Hastings Earl of Huntington the Lord Rochford after Earl of Dover the Lord Fielding after Earl of Denbigh the Lord St. John Son to the Earl of Bullingbrook kill'd at Edghill Col. Goodwin Col. Lssex Col. Grantham Col. Sir Henry Cholmley Col. Bampfield Sir William Constable after turn'd Independant yea Col. Hampden was no Separatist from the Parish Churches but a sober Protestant I have named the rest elsewhere I heard enough of Col. Sandyes before he was mortally wounded to tell me that he was no Puritane And as for the Major Generals of the several Counties the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax the Lord Willoughby of Parham the Earl of Stampford Sir John Gell Sir Tho. Middleton Col. Mitton Col. Morgan Col. Massey Sir William Waller the Earl of Denbigh Col. Langhorne and Col. Poyer were all
publick Self-defence against Forreign or Home bred Enemies 14. But I believe that this power belongeth not to a wronged or persecuted party but only to the Body of the Kingdom Because their good is not the bonum publicum and a Civil War would do more hurt than their death or ruin Nor may a Kingdom defend all its Rights or revenge all its injuries by a Civil War which will do more hurt than their wrongs But where the destruction of the Kingdom is apparently endeavoured or the change of their Constitution or a hurt greater than a Civil War a Self-defence is lawful and necessary 15. I believe Grotius and all Politicks that Regere perdere rempublicam are inconsistent and that whoever declareth his purpose to destroy the Kingdom can be no King of it For the terminus is essential to his relation If it be Murder not to defend the Life of a Brother against the assault of a Murdering Robber it is far worse not to do our Duty to save a Kingdom against publick Murderers and Destroyers 16. If a King profess himself a Papist according to the true definition he taketh Approved General Councils for the Rule of his Religion And the Laterane Council sub Innoc. 3. bindeth all Temporal Lords on pain of Excommunication and Deposition to exterminate all that deny Transubstantiation and others called Hereticks from their Dominions if they are able and other Counsels and Popes have the like And it must be supposed that he that professeth himself so bound in Conscience is resolved as soon as he can to do it And he that imposeth on them a false Religion and faith Turn or Die professeth to destroy or damn them Yet may he be endured if he disclaim such Councils or promise Liberty till Evidence of perilous attempts nullifie that promise But if he put the Nation under the power of Souldiers Judges Magistrates of the same profession it must be supposed that he cannot save the Kingdom from them or that all they will be neglecters of their own Religion Or if he put himself into the power of an Army of that Religion he puts the Nation into their power though he were a Protestant himself For he is utterly unable to resist their power when Religion engageth their deluded Consciences to destroy us And though causless fears will not warrant defensive Arms rational well-grounded fears will For when Men are dead it is too late 17. But it followeth not that therefore a Papist may be resisted in France Spain Portugal or any Papist Kingdom nor yet a Heathen by persecuted Christians as in the Roman Empire Because their Religion bindeth none of these to exterminate or destroy their own Kingdoms as being of the same Religion as themselves And the Christians then and Protestants there now are not the Kingdom but a Party Therefore King and Parliament have here newly enacted for the setling of this Crown that no Papist may be here King or Regent Queen For though as in the Pond Judge Hale tells us two Pikes devoured all the other great store of Fish and survived only themselves God never authorized one Man to damn or murder a whole Kingdom 18. The Interest of the King his Honour Safety and Power and the Interest of the People their common safety and welfare are distinct but must not be opposite The King is for the Kingdom finaliter under God's Glory though the People are as Subjects to obey the King it is to that end the common good 19. In application I did believe that both King and Parliament sinfully began and managed this War For if either or both were wronged so much was by them to be endured as was not worse than a Civil War I believe that the Parliament did very ill in being emboldened by the Scots Army to provoke the King beyond the degree of meer necessity And that it was ill done of those that secretly or openly encouraged the Apprentices tumultuous way of Petitioning to move any Parliament Men from following their Judgments and in permitting the gross Scorns and Abuse of the Bishops and Liturgy And I believe that after they did yet worse in taking and imposing the Scots Covenant to procure their help 20. I did and do believe that yet they did but their Duty in seeking to redress the dangerous Abuses of Ministerial Governours and bringing the Instruments by Legal tryal to Punishment For what purpose else are they a Judicature Subjects are all under the Law And the common Judges are Sworn to do Justice though the King's Seal should be sent to Prohibit them 21. I did believe that the King did ill to forsake them and on pretence of the Tumults to gather an Army in Yorkshire Nottingham and Shrewsbury and that whose Commissions soever were first dated his Armed Collection of Men was first raised But yet that the beginning was by such degrees of mutual Provocation that to this day it is hard to say who began 22. I had read the King's Letter in Spain to the Pope promising to venture Crown and Life for the Union of the Christian Churches including the Roman which is recorded in Mr. Chesne the King of France his Geographer and in Prin and Rushworth And whether it be true or not that the Scots say in a Book called Truths Manifest that K. Charles then in Scotland had possession of their Broad Seal and put that Seal to a Commission for the Irish Insurrection I am past doubt that K. Ch. II. granted a Commission to Monk Manchester and others to try the Marquis of Antrim's Plea by which it was proved and determined that he had the K. Ch. I's Commission Though I believe that the King that caused them to rise allowed them not to Murder all the Protestants Put whom else were they to rise against but the Protestants And must they rise against them and not kill them And was not the Murderous temper and use of the Irish well known 23. I know that the Irish a year before Edgehill Fight on that day Oct. 23. 1641. were to have surprized Dublin And by the full Account of Dr. Henry Jones since Bishop and Sir John Temple and the Earl of Orery Murdered Two hundred Thousand and boasted that they did it by the King's Commission and that when they had done there they would come hither Though I believed them not I knew that Two hundred Thousand men dead are past Pleading their own Cause or defending their Country It is easie to Plead the justness of their Cause against dead Men that cannot contradict them Solitudinem faciunt Pacem vocant There is no resisting Murderers in the Grave And I thought that if the King put in Arms and Power the English Papists of the same Religion bound to destroy us his own good meaning could not preserve himself or us And I knew that the King stopt the Carriage-Horses that were sent by the Parliament to relieve Ireland and took them for his own Service and many
against Liturgies and Forms and their kindness to the Principles of Separation I greatly disliked it and contradicted them and concurred in judgment with Excellent John Ball who foresaw the danger and betimes wrote against it But I opposed it with far less Zeal than I had done if I had then foreseen what followed XVII VVhen the News came of the Irish Insurrection and Murdering 200000 it possest us with such a pannick fear of them and other Papists as scarce left our Judgments free to calm deliberate determination But we could scarce sleep for fear of sudden assaults when calm reason might have told us that the danger could not be so sudden and near XVIII VVhen there appeared a probability of a Civil VVar I read the Observator and some such others that made the King to be singulis Major at Universis Minor and I did not for some weeks at least discern the Error of that Assertion as I shortly after did and when I found Ri. Hooker lib. 1. going as far and making Legislation to be the proper work of the whole Body and Bishop Bilson telling us in how many cases the King might by Arms be resisted and Grotius de Jure Belli and W. Barkley enumerates many and speaking yet higher I was much the more quieted in receiving some such Principles But consideration soon taught me to say that the people had the Meliority but not the Majority that is They were to be preferred to the King in genere Causae finalis but not in point of Governing Authority And so I forsook Hooker's Politicks but not Bilson's Jewel's Grotius's c. But I repent of that Error though it was but short XIX No Town in Worcester-shire was so famous for Pageants and pompous Shews and Revels and Debauchery at such times as Kidderminster And at the times of those Revels the Drunkards raged in malignant fury against the Religious party But by Gods great Mercy the Religious party there were of so loving meek and harmless a Temper inclined humbly to stoop to the meanest and to do good to all that there was no one single person that the Rabble had any thing against but only in general that they used to repeat Sermons sing Psalms and pray and not be Drunk nor Swear But the Parliament before the King parted from them sent an Order to be published by the Ministers for the defacing of all Images of any of the Trinity in Church Windows or in Chruch-yards And for publishing this Order the Drunken Rabble animated by the probability of the approaching War rose up against me and sought in a Tumult with Clubs to kill the Church-Warden and me before the Order was Executed whereupon and upon an Accusation to the Sessions the Articles of which I could never see or hear or know I was forced for a Month to fly to Glocester where I preached so much for Reformation in my sence of the common malignant rage of the Rabble as I have oft since feared was too keen and I since wish'd that I had rather at such a time of dangerous Division preached more for peace and to abate exasperations than to provoke them though by truth XX. I had not been long at home after my return but the War began in that Countrey by the Kings and Parliaments contending for the Militia and quickly after the first Soldiers that ever I saw raised was a Troop from Herefordshire raised by Sir W. Crofts under his Brother James Dr. Herbert Crofts the other Brother now Bishop of Hereford being Chaplain and the Dr. desiring my Pulpit I heard him Preach an Eloquent Sermon against the Parliament as Enemies to the King and Peace And Sir William Crofts and Sir Francis Nethersoke a little before meeting there for Consultation Sir Francis spoke to me to avoid all War against the King seeming himself to be against the War on both sides telling me by his observations in the Palatinate Wars how little they that begin fore-know of the end I had no thoughts of medling with War and so only gave him the hearing but I have oft since repented that I had not drawn out more of his Reasons to have help'd my Judgment to a Resolution especially since I read in Dr. W. Bates's Vitae virorum illustrium his words in his Laudatio fenebris of Prince Henry's Death when he was Orator of Cambridge in which he seemeth to have been Prophetical as England felt by sad Experience I will transcribe part of his Prophesie Page 412. Nec illa modo vulnera jam olim obducta bujus letho recruduerunt sed alia etiam quae nec dum sentimus majora nobis inflicta sunt Ah ne hoc FUNUS MILLE PRODUCAT FUNERA Nec sit dies ille cum intempestivum hujus Principis fatum acerbiore luctu quà m hodierno deflebimus caecisque in malis deprensi Principem Henricum magna voce Principem Henricum nequicquam clamabimus Inanis forte est his metus Academici si meaecum vestris quid valeant preces inanis erit Utinam etiam stultus esset Vivit quidem Priamus diu vivat diu precor Firma siet ejus domus nec unquam nutet Post satum tamen Hectoris ejusque supremum diem cui decem annos spes nostrae innixae sunt Trojae timere cum nolim reluctante licet animo invitus cogor Read the rest who would think but that he foresaw King Charles Reign and our calamitous Wars in the Death of Prince Henry XXI The Declarations and Trumpets that proclaimed the Wars so enraged the Rabble of Drunkards and Haters of Piety that the most peaceable Religious Men that did but Pray and sing Psalms and repeat the publick Sermons were forced to fly and save their Lives and Goods from their own Neighbours and the Kings Militia If a Man had short Hair and were suspected to be a Puritane as such were called the Rabble would cry Down with the Roundheads and he was in present danger In this state of Affairs I went to Worcester for safety when the Earl of Essex's Army was there and for curiosity going to see those that lay at Poike-bridge was a witness of the flight of the Parliaments Soldiers at Wikefield But I repented quickly of that curiosity and going out of my proper way XXII When the first great fight was at Edgehill I was at Allcester and for curiosity went with Mr. Sam. Clerke the day after the fight to see the place and the Relicts of the unburied slain But I had no call to so sad a sight XXIII To return home I could not with safety of my life To maintain my self one Week I had not Money enough with me nor elsewhere In this strait I went to Coventree and obtruded my self on Mr. King one of the Ministers and my old Acquaintance not paying him a Groat for a Months Diet or more And at the Months end the Committee of Coventree invited me to take my Diet and Lodging
ways delayed their Relief Though he offered to go over himself the Parliament fearing he would go to Head the Irish 24. The King had before assaulted the Parliament-House in Person with Armed Men to have surprized Five Members and the Lord Kimbolton whom he accused And after frustration confest it a Breach of their Privileges 25. The Money sent Dolbier to buy German Horses and other actions and the Confessions of Sir Jacob Astley Sir John Conniers Sir Fulke Haukes my Mother-in-laws Brother Chidley and the other Commanders of the English Army that were to have been drawn up to London together with the King 's putting a Guarding Regiment on them did put me past all doubt that they were devoted to violence had they not defended themselves And no vain Talk to the contrary can make me doubt of it to this day So that though I think they had done more prudently to avoid War had they spared Strafford and Laud to please the King yet I am fully satisfied that afterward they were necessitated to save themselves from designed Force 26. I am certain that two things filled the Parliaments Armies And both of grand Importance 1. That all over the Kingdom save here and there a sober Gentleman and a formal Clergyman the Religious Party and all that loved them were generally for the Parliament alienated from the Persecutors and Silencers And the Profane Party in all Countries Debaucht Gentlemen Malignant Haters of Piety the Rabble of Drunkards Blasphemers were generally against the Parliament And religious People were loth to herd with such And could hardly believe that in so great a Cause God would reveal the Truth to all his Enemies the sensual Rabble and hide it from the generality of them that fear him And especially that in most Countries the Malignants forced away the Religious and either rose against them themselves or set the King's Soldiers to Plunder and Destroy them My own Father living 18 Miles from me was Plundered by the King's Soldiers though he never scrupled Conformity nor ever medled against the King and was thrice laid in Prison and had still lain there had not Sir Fulke Haukes his Brother in Law been by Prince Rupert made Governour of Shrewsbury and this for nothing And after laid in again till the Town was taken This last was only because when they made him Collector for the King he refused to distrein of those that paid not fearing lest he should be put to repay it And almost all the Religious People of Kederminster were forced to fly and leave their Houses and Trades to their undoing to save their Lives though they had never medled with Wars And the men that had no maintenance of their own were forced to become Garison-Soldiers in Coventry to avoid Famine The second thing and the main that drove men to the Parliament Garisons and Armies was the Irish Murders with the Papists Power with the King They thought that it must be an unusual War that should Kill Two hundred Thousand As dreadful as it was I do believe that all the Wars of England Kill'd not Fifty thousand nor near it And though Fear which is a Tyrant overcame partly their Discretion yet this joyned with the Experience of that which forced them from home was too strong a tryal for most to overcome And it confirmed their Suspition when the Queen brought in a Popish Army under General King and the Earl of Newcastle's Army had so great a number of Papists and after the Earl of Glamorgan was authorized to have brought over an Army of Irish Papists and the English Regiments that fought there against them had been called hither to fight against the Parliament and were routed at Nantwich No wonder if men thought that England would have been made too like to Ireland whether the King would or not had such Armies Conquered 27. The Parliament Protested to be for the King and not against his Person or Legal Power or Prerogative but only against his Illegal Will to defend themselves and the Kingdom from an unlawful Army and to bring Delinquents to Legal Tryal and Punishment And they accordingly gave out all their Commissions till the Cause was changed by fairfax's Commission that left out the King And the Soldiers of the Garison where I was commonly believed this to be their Obligation and the true Case of the War viz. Offensive against armed Delinquents as the Sheriff may raise the Posse Comitatus and Defensive against the Kings illegal Will and Way 28. I did believe that if the King by such an Army as he had should Conquer the Parliament the Legal and all Probable Security of the Nation for Life Property Liberty and Religion was in all likelihood gone If it should lye on the King's Will only thereby it were gone For what then were our Constitution or Parliaments for and what differ we from Slaves And were he willing and those with him that meant well he would not be able to Master such an Army 29. I did believe that if the Parliament were certainly more faulty than they were the Kingdoms Security was not therefore to be forsaken by the Subjects nor all Parliaments and Government to be left to the Will of the King who had for so many years interrupted Parliaments and dissolved them still in Displeasure and had raised Taxes called Ship-money by himself without them and on the same account might command all the rest Therefore I owned not any of the discerned Miscarriages of the Parliament but only thought I was bound to defend the common Good and Safety as it was the End of Government My judgment yet is That if the King of England wrongfully begin a War against France the Subjects ought by Arms to help him not owning his wrong Cause but to save the Kingdom which would be lost and enslaved if he were Conquered So the fault of the Parliament could not disoblige the People from labouring to secure the Constitution of the Kingdom and therein their Posterities Properties Liberties and Safety And the bare Promise of a King is no such Security 30. I did believe that if there were a Controversie in these Cases the Supream Council and Judicature of the Kingdom had the most satisfying Power of Determination to particular Persons As the Judgment of a General Council is preferable to any lower Judges and the Judgment of the College of Physicions is more authoritative than of a single Dr. And the Judgment of the University is more than of the Vice-Chancellors or one Man And tho yet it may fall out that the Dissenter may be in the right the unlearned that cannot confidently judge are more excuseable for not resisting the higher Judges 31. Obj. By this Rule whatever wrong a Parliament shall do to the King we must all take their part against him And if they betray their Trust we must bear them out in their Treachery Ans 1. Distinguish between a wrong to the King and the betraying of the
I never wrote a word to justifie his Death but only once told the Papists that they were unmeet Accusers as being guilty of more 2. I preach'd against it 3. I wrote against it over and over 4. It cost me the dear Labour and Sufferings of almost two years in the Army to have kept them in Loyal Obedience 4. I called them oft and long to Repentance Whence then did this Man find matter or occasion for such a shameless forgery As for the Notion of Martyrdom I leave Canonizing to the Righteous Judge § 19. Accus VI. Who more opposed the Return of our present Soveraign Ans Mendac VI. 1. Ask for his proof of this 2. The King testified the contrary 3. See my Sermon before the Parliament the day before he was Voted Home 4. And my Sermon to the City on their Thanksgiving called Right Rejoicing 5. Would the King have made such an Enemy his Chaplain and a Bishop The Truth is this There were two Seasons that called to me for my Endeavours for the King The first was at Worcester Fight and at Sir George Booth's Fight At that time I openly declared the Army to be in a state of Rebellion in which none should own them But I durst not meddle on either side Not for the Cromwellians their Cause being sinful Not to restore the King because I foresaw all the Divisions Silencings Persecutions and Calamity to the Kingdom which his Bishops and other revengeful Instruments would bring in Nor was I deceived in expecting most that hath befallen us of twenty nine years since save that I thought that Popery and Cruelty would have made a speedier progress than they did Not knowing by what methods God would stop them And I durst not hasten Gods Judgments on the Land till I knew that he required it 2. But afterward when I saw that the Army cast all into utter confusion and that Gods Providence had resolved the doubt how much I did towards a due subjection to the King is not a thing that wanteth evidence I cannot Repent that I was not one that brought into England that Tribe of Revengeful destructive Prelates and their Agents that corrupted and divided the Church of England § 20. Accus VII Or hath been as active in making the Government uneasie Ans 1. Uneasie To whom To the King I have his Testimony to the contrary He sent D. Lauderdale to me purposely to invite me to receive the Testification of his Favour and Acceptance Read his Character of us in his Gracious Declaration Read Mr. Gaches Letter to me for the King translated and published by the means of Duke Lauderdale I know nothing that I did to make his Government uneasie unless all my labour to have united his Subjects made it uneasie Or unless his Confessor Huddleston was in the right that he was before for the Roman Religion and it was uneasie to him to be stopt in promoting it Of which confess I was oft guilty But if he mean the Prelates Government I believe I did much to make it uneasie to them I laboured by such reasons to have prevented their ejecting 2000 Godly Ministers at once and all the Cruelties and Miseries that have followed that it must needs be uneasie to their Consciences and Credit while they could make no answer to the proof of their iniquity I gave such reasons against their Lay Excommunicaters and their Cursing Canons and their causless and obstinate dividing of the National Church by their frivolous tearing Impositions as must make Cruelty the more uneasie But if I be not blind and mad the Government of Church and State had been more easie if they would have heard our pacificatory Requests § 21. Accus VIII Or who hath or can do more than Mr. B. to renew all our troubles and confusions Ans By what By studying praying preaching writing and speaking and exemplary living for Unity and Peace which God knoweth hath been my chief or second study and labour these Forty four years valuing the supernal Wisdom which is first Pure and then Peaceable But methinks I hear the Legion that are his Army who was a Liar and Murderer from the beginning say What have we to do with thee Art thou come to torment us before the time But they have had leave to enter into the Swine And O that their suffocation in the Sea of confusion occasion not Christ to be driven out of our Coasts by them that love their Swine better than Christ § 22. Accus IX So that I could not devise to give a better Epitome of the late Rebellion and Schism than this account of Mr. B's Actions and Writings which is an Abstract of the rise and progress of both in whom they yet both live and with whom I wish they may both die Ans To the same purpose saith Morley of me Ex uno disce omnes And though I unfeignedly think my self worse than the most Nonconforming Ministers that I know yet I intreat all Forreigners and Natives of future Ages to think no worse of the Parliament and Nonconformists than this Accusation alloweth them to do They were at least no worse than I which I say because the Accusers seem to allow you this much And all the rest have not wrote above Sixscore Books to make themselves known as I have done and so by me you may know the worst of them ex uno omnes The Sum of my wickedness is the Wars But 1. What 's this to all the rest of the Ejected Silenced Ministers of whom I think there is not living one of fifty or a hundred that ever medled with the Wars though one Archbishop did and many that Conform And why would they never grant my earnest request that they would Silence only me and all others that had any hand in the War except the Conformists and no more 2. I thought I had been a Rebel if I had been against the Parliament the Representative Kingdom and the salus populi or bonum publicum and I thought the Legislative power was the Supream and that this power was in King and Parliament conjunct and that neither of them had power against the other but that their Union was the constituted summa potestas which I was bound to endeavour and their division was the dissolution of the Government And I thought that all Subjects were under the Law and that the King might not protect them from his Courts of Judicature 3. I knew that Points of Humane Policy and Laws are not in our Creed nor such Controversies so clearly decided in Scripture as that Salvation should lye on them Though Rich. Hooker's Opinion was for more popular power than mine I find not that our Clergy place him in Hell for it or call him the most Bloody Instrument of Rebellion 4. I have elsewhere shewed that the chief stream of the Writers of Policy Laws History Heathens and Christians Papists and Protestants Lawyers and Divines doth give so much more power to the people