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
to this day § 32. Accus XIX He was acquainted Forty years ago with many Aged Nonconforming Ministers and probably Confederate with them c. Ans Yes in the Baptismal Covenant renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil I repent not of that Nor take it for a sin to have known them § 33. Accus XX. Prejudices against Conformity possest him from his Youth Ans Not unless Cainism be Conformity or twenty four years old be my Youth such as your Writings and Doings are an ill cure of prejudice § 34. Accus XXI Is that I broke my Oaths to the King and Ecclesiastical Superiors whom I was bound to obey Ans I thought verily that I broke neither I Swore not to obey the Convocation much less against the Parliament in unlawful Canons and imposed Oaths never yet Authorized I took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and thought that defending the Land against Armed Delinquents and Irish and Papists Insurrections had been no breach of it If I was mistaken the Lord convince me and forgive me But your way is unapt to it Let the Reader peruse but Sir Edward Deering's Speeches in Parliament proving that this Et caetera Oath was sinfully imposed without Authority by them that were neither a Convocation a Synod or Commissioners the same Man that spake so much for Liturgy and Episcopacy against Presbytery and Independency And I doubt not but it was flat Perjury that by it we were required to Swear viz. That the described Et caetera Government of the Church ought so to stand And was I perjured for refusing Perjury As a summary Confutation of a multitude of his Lies I at once tell the Reader that I neither was nor am for the way called Presbytery Independency or the English Diocesane way But for the mixture described excellently by Grotius de Imper. Sum. Pot. and Bishop Usher and Sir Edward Deering whose Counsel I wish'd that the Parliament had followed And that I was and am far from defending the irregular Actions of the Parliament or any Members of it Tho' they thought that the Delinquents had put a necessity on them to overgo their own Judgments to please the Scots and the Indiscreet and Schismatical part of the Nonconformists I doubt not but they did ill herein and should have trusted God in the use of none but lawful means I believe that a few Men by Craft and unwearied Industry over-reach'd many that knew not what they did Sir Edward Deering nameth some of them especially Sir H. V. Sir A. H. and O. C. that over-reach'd his own upholders and all the rest I believe they did ill to excite and encourage disorder and tumults on pretence of Petitioning and of scurrilous defamations of such Men as the Lord Falkland the Lord Digby Sir Edward Dering and some other worthy Men and so many good Bishops as they abused And yet that I durst not for these miscarriages consent to give up the Kingdoms Parliamentary Security for its present and future Safety and Liberties I still think is consonant to the most common Principles of Lawyers Politick Writers Historians Divines Protestants Papists and Heathens Even the late great Lord Chancellor Hide sat Chairman of the Committee of Parliament that received the Petitions against Episcopacy Root and Branch and made such Speeches against the Delinquents as I dare not justifie But he forsook them when they quite over-went him If the King of England had a War with the French and I knew that his Cause were bad I would not defend his bad Cause but I would in his Army defend the Kingdom against those that would Captivate it by Conquest For the Kingdom doth not forfeit its safety by the Kings misdoing And if any say Then the King shall be defended in all his injuries how bad soever I would answer That is by accident it is the Kingdom that I defend and Him as a means to defend the Kingdom and not to justifie his sin I leave that to God What a case is a Kingdom in if it must Fight against it self and its representing security as oft as its Representatives miscarry by any sinister means And that all that are to be judged by the chief Judicature shall Fight to Conquer them if the King do but bid them If the safety of this Kingdom be once put into the Trust of the King alone the Constitution is changed and all Enslaved § 35. Accus XXII He saith that in 1640. I entred into a War against the King Ans Whereas the War in England began not till 1642. And I never medled in War but as aforementioned long after § 36. Accus XXIII He saith by the Treatise of Diocesane Episcopacy meditated 1640. I broached Faction in the Church my Pen disdaining to be less active than my Sword Ans 1. I never struck with a Sword in War or Peace 2. Did Meditating broach a Book that was not published nor written till thirty years after 3. Is it Faction to give reasons why I Swore not to Faction even that Antiepiscopal sort of Diocesanes that put down many hundred Churches and Bishops to set up the Name and Image of one 4. Why is not that Book answered to this day when so many Nonconformists have Challenged Called and Beg'd for an Answer to it Will a Lying Scorn satisfie any Conscionable Nonconformist 5. That Book owneth so much of Bishops and Diocesanes and Archbishops which Sir Edward Dering condemned that these Men now shew that it is not such as I only but such as Grotius Spalatensis Usher Hall yea most of the great Writers for Episcopacy of whose Judgment I have there given a particular account whom he condemneth for Faction and Enmity to the Church I have written against the Pope too And is not that as bad I am sure many Papists write more against Episcopacy than I. § 37. Accus XXIV It 's probable his Church History had its conception at the same time Ans About Forty years after 1640. Forty years breaks no square with this sort of Men I would this lort of History were not too common with them § 38. Accus XXV Page 23 He feigneth me in my Church History to commend all the Hereticks and omit what is good of the Fathers and Martyrs and write only their faults Ans It seems he thought that without reading the Book that disproveth him his Faction would take his word that he saith true § 39 Accus XXVI The like he saith of my reproaching Councils because I shew the miscarriages of many and our Bishops that plead for a Forreign Jurisdiction dare yet own but six or eight General Councils § 40. Accus XXVII Page 25. He reciteth my mention of the former courses of undoing Men for hearing a Sermon of a Godly Conformist at the next Parish when they had none at home and for Fasting and Praying c. And he taketh it for my crime to call these ungodly Persecutions crimes So that he that is not for them while they are
at the Governours House Col. John Barker where I was offered to be Chaplain to the Garrison Regiment which I refused but undertook to preach once a Week to the Soldiers but without pay In which place God shewed me for about two years so great Mercy as I can never be sufficiently thankful for In a quiet and safe Habitation in the midst of a Kingdom torn by War and in pious converse with a great number of Excellent Learned Ministers that retired thither for safety from the rage of Soldiers and the Company of as pious understanding Gentlemen of the Committee as I knew living Sir Rich. Sheffington Mr. George Abbot Godfrey Bossevile and many more But because it was here that I declared my self for the Parliament I am here put to open the Case as it stood with me in order to my request to them that think I sinned yet better to help me by their Counsel and Prayers that God would convince me if I erred and pardon my known and unknown Sin SECTION 3. 1. I Did and do believe that the Legislative Power is the chief Flower of the summa potestas or true Soveraignty In this Bishop Morley himself fully confirmeth me 2. I did believe that the Legislative Power was by the Constitution of this Kingdom in the King and Parliament and not in the King alone This I believed because the words of the Laws say that they are made by the Consent and Authority of the Parliament And the King granted it in his Answer to the 19 Propositions in sence And not only Hooker and Bilson but all the old Bishops and the old Parliaments Judges and Lawyers commonly held it And I was not wiser in Law than all they I know few but Bishop Morley that deny that the Parliament have part in the power of Legislation And even he granteth that they are Authors of the matter to which the King puts the form And so he makes the Controversie like that of Aristotle and Galen about Generation whether the form be only à semine maâ—is vel utriusque As if the very Matter cum dispositione receptiva were not an Essential constitutive part But now King and Parliament have by a Law of the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects determined the Case 3. I did and do believe that it is commonly agreed that Parliaments have five Eminent Relations 1. They are part of the I egislative power by the Constitution of the Kingdoms 2. They are the Kings Supream Council 3. They are the Kings Supream Court of Judicature by the Lords 4. They Represent the Nation as subject to the King 5. They are the Nations Representatives so far as they are Free For had they not Liberties and Properties they were meer Slaves 1. As Subjects they are to obey 2. As Supream Council they are to be the chief Advisers 3. As the Supream Court the King is finally to exercise Judicature by them 4. As they represent the people as far as they are Freemen and not Slaves they are to secure their reserved and natural Liberties and Properties in their Lives Limbs Wives Children and Acquisitions which are not to be taken from them but by Consent or Forseiture 5. Their Legislative power they have not as Hooker and many others think by Nature but by that Fundamental Contract which made the form of Government For though Government be of God in the Genus and as empowered and obliged primarily to promote obedience to Gods own Laws yet it is of Man by Contract that the Persons or Families or Number and Order of Rulers be constituted and restraint put on the Invasion of Propriety 4. I did and do believe Grotius Lawson and other Writers of Politicks who agree that the bare Title of Supream given to a King is no proof that the whole Soveraignty summa potestas or Legislation in particular is in him alone and not at all in the Senate or Parliament for it is for Unity sake Honourary not excluding but implying the Parliaments part and also that he is to exercise his Judicatures by the Legal way of his Courts Judges and Magistrates 5. I did and do believe that the King is singulis universis subditis major quoad Fus regendi and that the people quâ talis have no power of publick Government but that he is not Universis melior And that meliority maketh the final Cause And that salus populi or bonum publicum is the Essentiating End or terminus of Humane Government And it is no Government save equivocally which is destructive of this End 6. I believe that the same God that Instituted Political Government did also make 1. Self-Government 2. Paternal Government 3. Marital Government 4. And Pastoral Church Government And that no King hath any Right to null any of these or alter them in Essentials or Integrals but only to over rule them 7. I believe that all Power is of God and no King hath any but what God hath given him And that God hath given none against himself or any of his own Laws And all Laws are nullities that are against them And are not Acts of Authority but Usurpation as Hooker saith 8. But yet he that acteth in one thing without and against Authority is to be obeyed in other things where he hath Authority and not resisted by Arms in every Usurpation yea the Honour of his Office and true Power is to be preserved while we refuse obedience to his sinful Usurpation 9. Grotius and common reason convinced me that where the summa potestas is in King and Senate each part hath right to defend its own true Part therein It can be no part in Soveraignty which is meerly at the Will and Mercy of the other part 10. I did and do believe that the Constitution fixing the chief power in King and Parliament united as one Politick Person it supposeth that they must not be divided And that neither part hath power against the other as such The King hath power over them as Subjects but not as Legislators or exempted Proprietors So that separating them by fixed opposition is dissolving the Constitution As separating Soul and Body Husband and Wife dissolve Man and Matrimony 11. Therefore I did and do believe that neither King nor Parliament had any right to raise an Offensive War against each other None but unavoidably defensive could be lawful Therefore the first assailant was the culpable beginner 12. I did believe that neither the King nor the Parliament as such are questionable by Law having no superior Judicature to try them And that the person of the King is inviolable there being no Power or Law to punish him and therefore the Law saith The King can do no wrong but it layeth all the blame on the Subjects who are responsible for their actions 13. I did and do believe that as every Man hath a power of private Self-defence against a Murderer or Thief so every Kingdom hath a power or right of
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
Bonum Publicum the common Safety and the Constitution 2. And between a Case controvertible and a Case clear and certain And so I answer 1. If a Parliament wrong the King we must not joyn with them in wronging him nor own their wrong nor defend the Persons from legal Justice He might have dissolved them and called another had he not past a Law to the contrary He may Impeach any Members at their own Bar But at what Judicature shall he try the highest Judicature it self 2. And if the Representative would treacherously destroy the Constitution and yield to enslave them or to give up the Kingdom to the Pope or any Foreign Power the Case being past Controversie the People have not thereby lost the natural Power of Self-defence But may as lawfully choose more trusty Representatives and fight for Self defence against such Traitors as against a Tyrant 3. But the species of the Constitution in King and Parliament must still be maintained and the Salus Populi without respect to which there is no Government And no personal Faults can forfeit that 32. Therefore I ever thought as it was a dissolution of the Constitution for the King to put down Parliaments and pretend as Bishop Morley blindly pleadeth to the sole Power of Legislation so it is Treason for a Parliament to put down Monarchy and to assume the sole Legislative Power As the Rump did when they pretended to settle a Government without a King or House of Lords If either King or Parliament personal should forfeit their Power the Kingdom doth not thereby forfeit their right in the constituted Form of Government by a King and Parliament SECTION 4. I Have interposed this account of the Principles on which I acted I will next add an account of my Actions hereupon and then return to the Confession of my own Sins as far as I know them 1. Refusing a Chaplain's Commission I continued about two Years or more in Coventry as a Lecturer to the Garison and City in quietness save that we daily heard of all the dismal Wars abroad Only twice I went out with them 1. To take in Tamworth Castle that cost no Blood 2. And to besiege Banbury Castle whose Soldiers rob'd Warwickshire and the Travellers and Carriers on London Road. But thence we were raised and driven home with some loss Also for two or three Months the care of my Native Countrey and of my Father drew me into Shropshire with some that went to settle a Garison at Wem There and at Longford House I staid till my Father was delivered from Imprisonment by Exchange for a short time 2. All that ever I converst with did all this while protess to own the King and only to separate him from an Army of Delinquents and to reunite him and his Parliament And we thought all the Armies had intended no worse But when Naseby Fight was past having heard that the King was left out of the New Commissions I went to see the Field where the Fight was and the Army And there accosted me some sober honest Captains and told me that their Army was corrupted by the fault of the Ministers that had all forsaken them being weary of the Labour and impatient of the Sectaries in the Army and so they were all left to the Preaching of their own Officers and Souldiers and a few Chaplains of their own Mind and Choice And that the bold Leaders began already to say that God hath committed the safety of the Nation to their trust And what were the Lords and Knights in William the Conqueror's time but his Colonels and Captains In a word I understood by them that they had a purpose to set up themselves and to overturn the Government of Church and 〈◊〉 This so surprized me that whereas these Captains intreated 〈◊〉 among them and got Col. Whalley who then seemed of their 〈◊〉 to invite me to his Regiment I took but one days time to answer them And I opened the sad Case that we were all like to be in to an Assembly of Ministers in Coventry whom I gathered to counsel me and told them what I found and that the Land was now like to fall into their hands and that though I thought it was too late I was inclined to venture my life among them in seeking to reclaim them The Ministers Dr. Bryan Dr. Grew Mr. King Mr. Brumskill Mr. Morton and others seeing my inclination gave their consent But the Committee after consent refusing I was forced to tell them what I saw and heard in the Army and what Danger the Kingdom was in and so to go away against their will But Col. W. Puresoy a Confident of Cromwell's threatened me for such words and I imagine sent Cromwell word that Night For the next Morning I was met with scorn and I suppose all known to Cromwell that I had said and Cromwell would never after allow me any opportunity beyond the Regiment that I joyned to And there I spent near two years in Labours and Disputings against well-meaning perverted Sectaries if it had been possible to have turned them from what they after did But my capacity was narrow though there I prevailed with most And I got Mr. Cook since of Chester that suffered much for the King and after by the King a great Enemy to Sects and Sedition to come and help me but they wearied him away And besides Mr. Bowles I know none but perverse Sectaries part Arminians but most Antinomians or worse left to be their Teachers I told the Parliament Men what the Army would do and warned them to prepare But it was too late Cromwell and his Confederates did all and made a Stale of Fairfax's Name and Vane and Haslerigge and their Friends in Parliament disbanded all the sober Souldiers in Garisons and Bragades that would have resisted them and so put the Power of King Parliament and Kingdom into their hands and some of them repented when it was too late In Feb. 1656 7. they began their Conspiracy against the Parliament in a Meeting at Nottingham and that very day God separated me from them by Bleeding 120 Ounces at the Nose at Milborne in Derbyshire when else I had in vain hazarded my life against them at Triploe Heath by drawing from them as many as I could But Sir Edward Hatley and other Officers that did it and drew off about Five thousand did but strengthen them For Cromwell fill'd up their places with Sectaries and Soldiers that had served the King before and was stronger than before as having none to distrust To tell what they did after against the Eleven Members and then against the Majority of the Parliament and then against the King and then against the Rump and then against the Ministry and how Cromwell contrived himself into the Supremacy would be to write the History of that time and to Epitomize Whitlock This much I thought necessary to premise to my own review of my actions and for them that
War stated by the Parliament Commissions for the King and Parliament I was in it and for it Because 1. He that is for the Highest Power in a Civil War is of the righter side caeteris paribus than he that is against it but they that were for King and Parliament were for the Highest Power in our Civil War Proved They that were for them that have the Legislative Power were for them that had the Highest Power as Morley confesseth and almost all others But they that were for King and Parliament were for them that had the Legislative Power Ergo c. Obj. What Hypocrisie is it to shoot at the King and say you fight for him Ans 1. The King protested to be for the Parilament as his Shrewsbury Half Crowns shew while he fought against their Armies and Persons Ergo the Parliament might more clearly be for the King while they fought against his Army and not his Person though in the Field 2. They knew that the King had discretion enough to keep his Person out of the reach of Danger And so he did At Edgehill he stood on the Hill as I heard and look'd down on the Fight in the Field At Naseby where he was nearest he was safe but that was after the first Cause and War I never heard else that he came near 3. Else any Traytor that could possess the Kings Person and carry him about as they did Henry VI. should be for the King and all against him that would rescue him Obj. He was willingly with his Army Ans He may fight for the King that doth it against his Will while he doth it not to hurt his Person Prerogative or Rights We Sware not to be for all the Will of the King If in a Passion he would kill Himself his Son his Lords his Parliament yea or would but Ravish a Woman he may be held and resisted Arg. 2. They that were to bring King and Parliament again to Union fought for the King and Kingdom and the Highest Power for it is the Constitution But the first Wars Commissions were to bring the King and Parliament to Unity Ergo c. Arg. 3. They that were really for the Common Safety and Salus Populi and the very Constituted Form of Government in a case of notorious danger and only against an Army of Subjects that fled from the Justice of the Supream Judicature were righter than those that were against their Wars But c. Ergo c. Arg. 4. They that were for a Defensive War according to Law and Constitution were righter than they that raised War against them contrary to Law and Constitution But c. Ergo c. The Parliament to the last were against all violence to the Person of the King and were cast out by Cromwell for Voting to receive him As it was easie for Bradshaw and â—ook to Charge all the Bloodshed on the King so is it fo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Accuser to Charge it according to his Judgment But all of us must be willing of Conviction and deep Repentance so far as we shall be proved guilty Arg 5. The present King and Parliament have by Practice and by Law declared the right of more than Arming and Resisting a King in several Cases Arg. 6. In a doubtful Case under God there is no Judge that hath a deciding power above the Supream Judicature § 50. Accus XXXVII He next accuseth me as falsly Charging the peaceable Reign of King Charles the First with Persecution wherein there was no such thing but Peace save against the Seditious And he appealeth to the Canons Ans 1. See the Preface to my Book called Cain and Abel for an answer to this 2. We appeal to the Canons too and to the Bishops Visitation Articles and to the experience of all England that delight not in the Destruction of the true Servants of Christ 3. But alas how far are Leeches from feeling the smart of the Persons whose Blood they feast upon The Papists say none were punished in Queen Mary's days but the Hereticks and Seditious So saith the King of France And so said the Irish when they Murdered 200000. 4. Q. 1. Was there nothing but Amiable Peace when Laud and others wrote for a Forreign Jurisdiction under the Name of our obeying the Pretorian Power of Forreign Councils Q. 2. Was it Sedition not to Read the Book for Sunday Sports and Dancing which exempted Children and Servants from the Government of their Parents and Masters For which many Ministers suffered Q. 3. Was it Sedition for Religious people to go hear a Conformable Preacher at the next Parish when they had no Preaching at Home Q. 4. Was it Sedition for Religious people to pray with their Sick Friends and Fast and Humble themselves to God without Travelling to the Bishop for a License Q. 5. Was it Sedition for a Man Vowed to the Ministry by Episcopal Ordination to Preach or Expound any matter in the Church or elsewhere without a new License from the Bishop Q. 6. Was it Sedition for any Man Noble or Ignoble to affirm that any thing was repugnant to the Word of God in the Ceremonies Liturgy Ordinations or the Et caetera Government of the Church Q. 7. Was it Sedition to refuse the false Et caetera Oath of 1640 Q. 8. Was it Sedition to say that other Societies in England were true Churches besides the Episcopal Churches At least the French and Dutch Q. 9 Was it for Sedition that Men were punished for not Receiving the Sacrament when the Conscience of their ignorance and unfitness deterred them Q. 10. Were the many thousand Families that were put to fly the Land to Holland and America punished for nothing but Sedition Were New England and Barmudas planted without any Persecution Or was it no punishment to be driven from House Land Goods Kindred and Native Countrey into an unplanted Wilderness among VVoods and wild Men and Beasts Q. 11. Was it no Persecution to be Excommunicate ipso facto by Canons 6 7 8 c. without being admonished or heard Q. 12. Was it nothing but Amiable Peace that laid all the Ten sorts of the Excommunicate named in the Statute in the common Goal during Life depriving them there of their Estates unless they Lied by a feigned Repentance Q. 13. Yea was it only harmless that made Seriousness in Religion such a common Scorn as the word Puritane then signified if Mr. Robert Bolton Bishop Abbot Bishop Downame and other Conformists may be believed But say these Accusers All this was but justice and was well done But the casting out of two hundred accused on Oath for gross scandal and utter insufficiency by the Parliament was Persecution and was not well done § 51. Accus XXXVIII Next I am accused because other Men exploded the Lords Prayer Ans 1. And what is that to me that constantly used it 2. And who may not see that the use of it was prescribed in the Directory 3. And the Presbyterian
and Episcopal Nonconformists that now are commonly used it But he hath found out one Independent Dr. John Owen who when he was Vice-Chancellor at Oxford was against the common use of it as necessary § 52. Accus XXXIX He feigneth also that the Creed and Ten Commandments were also cast out and scarce a Chapter read in many Churches Ans 1. Was he that hated them more oft in their Churches than I I knew not one such Presbyterian Congregation in England 2. Read the Directory whether it were for them or against them and judge of this Mans words § 53. Accus XL. His Exclamation against the Scots Covenant and Cromwell's doings I before shewed to be just And I think I opposed both more than he did § 54. Accus XLI Page 39. Whereas I before said how I went into the Army after Naseby Fight by the Consent of an Assembly of Loyal Ministers in Coventry to try whether there was any hope to save the Church and State from the Corrupted Army He feigneth that this was the Westminster Assembly or some Rebellious Branch of them All falsly as the rest § 55. Accus XLII That I went to Col. Whalley Ans Who then profest himself a Lamenter of the Armies Corruption and a Desirer of their Reformation and so continued while I was with him But was after overcome by his Kinsman Cromwell and worldly Interest to hold on with them for his preferment § 56. Accus XLIII His Page 41. is made of meer forged Lies As 1. That I promised my self great things much what as I did from King Charles the Second when instead of a Bishoprick I craved leave in vain to have been for nothing the Curate of an ignorant Reading Vicar 2. That I was disappointed of my hopes By whom And how And for what 3. That I thought my self capable of advancement but They did not As if I sought that which I refused 4. That I was well promised for my pains Who never ask'd them any thing nor was promised any thing 5. That I was content with the pleasing work of drawing Blood gratis Because I that never drew a drop of any Mans Blood did labour to prevent the Papists and malignant other Leeches from bursting with the Blood of King Parliament and Kingdom 6. That I hoped they would have advanced me to some Military Preferment Who never was so much as a Souldier and could have had Military Preferment long before Thus the Mans Brain from what cause let others judge breeds Lies as a Carkass breedeth Maggots They swarm by heaps Is this the Credit of our Church History § 57. Accus XLIV Page 42. Against his Will he is forced to leave the Army Ans Yes just the day that they consulted at Nottingham to Rebel and I had else at Triploe-Heath ventured my Life against them But it had been in vain as it was to those that drew off about 5000 from them whose places they fill'd up with King Charles the First 's Souldiers that had come to them and with Fanaticks that would be true to their Interest § 58. Accus XLV That ever since it hath been my business to destroy the best Established Church in the World Ans By desiring them not to set up a Forreign Jurisdiction which the Kingdom is Sworn against And by humble Petitioning them not to silence all the Ministers of England conditionally and two thousand of the most Faithful actually in one day By striving for Concord as for Life upon terms once granted by the King in his Gracious Declaration and after on lower terms consented to by Bishop Wilkins Dr. Burton Judge Hale and I think by Dr. Tillotson and Dr. Stillingfleet I never motioned the alienation of one Farthing of the Revenues of the Bishops or Deans nor spake against their Baronies Parliament Place and Power 〈◊〉 nor against their vast Diocesses so they would not put down the Inferiour Pastoral Office and Churches and make Lay Civilians Usurpers of the Keys Thus I sought to destroy the best Church in the World Locusts are famished if they may not destroy our Trees and Fruit and Pikes if they may not devour all the lesser Fish All Human's Wealth and Honour is nothing to him if Mordecai be not hanged This Envy consumeth them if we lye not still with Rogues in Goals § 59. Accus XLVI He will not affirm that I was given to plunder But it is a suspicious sign when I would take up a Man to exchange for my Father Ans This hath a little modesty though even natural Affection be a Crime with Tories even when exercised without hurting any Here also he repeateth his Forgery of raining Manna § 60. Accus XLVII Page 43 That I sate down on the Sequestred Living of Mr. Dance at Kiderminster Ans This is cautelously said Not that I had a hand in Sequestring him not that I took his living But that I sate down on it And Bishop Morley saith That he was a Man of an unblameable life But I. He shall not hereby draw me to recite the Articles Sworn against him by as credible Men as any of his Neighbours 2. I think that it is not a blameless life to undertake the Pastoral Care of Souls and neither preach to them nor be able to Expound the Creed and to keep one as ignorant but much more vicious Turner at Mitton under him 3. I yet believe that such a Mans Possession doth not oblige the people to venture their Souls upon his Pastoral Care and own him for their Teacher and seek no other Nor make it a sin for any other to Teach them No more than the King's Ships or Armies must wilfully cast away Ships and Lives for want of Conduct because a Man that hath no tolerable skill is in Possession How cheap are Souls or how contemptible is Ministerial Knowledge and Preaching with these Men. You see here what is the best Church in the World in their account and what it is to destroy it 4. Almost two years before the Wars the Vicar conscious of his obnoxiousness entred into Bond with the chief Magistrates and others of the Town and Parish to pay 60 l. per Annum to a Lecturer of their choice he keeping his Vicaridge and officiating as Reader And so he put out Mr. Jo. Dide his Preaching Curate in whose place I came being before in another County Which Mr. Dide though more offensive before than the Vicar to the Religious people being after on my Testimony for him received into a Benefice of his own was so reconciled to the people of Kiderminster that he Bequeathed much of his Estate to them 5. In my absence some years Mr. Dance by Bond owed me about 120 l. of which I never desired or ask'd for a Penny And if Mr. Dance when forced out had right to his Benefice I that was forced away had right to my Salary Which yet I think was no good Title in him or me But he was sequestred when I was in another Countrey
Independants § 65. Accus LII Page 47. Having told what a few Rumpers said to Monk he saith And because they did this and might justifie it by Mr. B's Theses in his Holy Commonwealth they are the Supream Power the best Governours in all the World Ans How pregnant is malice of falshood 1. It is false that the Parliament in question did what he saith which was done by their Adversaries Such as Scot Robinson and Haseldrigge that flattered Monk till he had them in his Net 2. It is false that my Thâ—ses justifie them which are written against them 3 It is false that it was for this that I call them the Supream Power or the best Governours It 's King and Parliament that I call Supream It was King Parliament the Rump and Richard that the Men whom I wrote against pull'd down And I only tell them that if the Errours of all these Rulers will justifie an Army for Deposing them there is no Power on Earth that might not be so Deposed there being none better than all these Deposed by them § 66. Once more I tell this Accuser and the World that I am so far from justifying King or Parliament from the beginning progress or ending of this War that I think both sides deeply guilty of very heinous sin And I cannot tell whether I know a Man living that hateth War more than I hate it While I medled in it it was far a more sad and hateful Life to me than my abode in Prison was when the Church Defenders laid me there with an unsolvable Fine The truth is both sides began they knew not what I knew not a Man but Sir Francis Nethersole that knew what War was or foresaw what was like to come of it Both sides thought it would be prevented by the Countreys forsaking the other side or that one Fight would end it And no Man can tell just where and when and by whom it was begun No more than just when a Chronical Disease begins in Man Only I am sure that Virtually and Dispositively it began in that division of Minds Hearts and Lives which is common in the World between them that Love a Life of Serious Godliness and cannot Love Wickedness and them that Hate a Godly Life because it 's against their Lust and Carnal Interest Not that every Adversary to the Parliament was a Cainite but that through the Land an Enmity between the Seriously Godly and the Prophane encouraged by Pharisaical Ceremonious Formalists was a War in our Bowels ready to break forth upon the first advantages And the Religious Party as in all former Ages had many young ignorant Novices that by Pride ran into Extreams being self-conceited and unruly and ready by Schism or petulant Censoriousness to vilifie all that be not of their Sects and to pretend Fanatick Inspirations for their Errours As the contrary Party was prone to be so Jealous of their beloved Dominion Wealth and Ease and Honour as to take such for intolerable Enemies that flattered them not in their Worldly Pomp. Long did heart-burnings continue between these discordant Parties one side blaming and the other side ruining those that were against them Till Laud's attempts for Innovation stirred up such opposition in Scotland and distaste in England as I cannot justifie The Parliament encouraged by the Scots went higher in provoking the King than they ought And the King too much occasioned their Jealousie that he intended to have Invaded Property and Liberty and to subdue them by force if they restrained or punished the Executioners of his Illegal Will But this brake out by such degrees that no Man can name the beginning As a small breach in a Pond of Water groweth wider till it let out the whole And as Personal Duels begin in a word or a suspicion and proceed to wrath and then to reproach and thence to revenge When Division was the Death of the Constituted Form of Government both sides should have hated and feared it more than either did But the Parliament thought the King would soon return as deserted And the Devil among us all was as if he had cast among Boys red hot pieces of Brass or Iron and they scrambled for it thinking by the Colour that it was Gold till it stuck to their Fingers and burnt them to the Bone And the dread of 200000 Murdered in Ireland put such a pannick fear in the Antipapists in England as darkened their Wits And yet if the Captain and Mariners fall out by folly the Ship may be preserved by the innocent If the Citizens could not agree about quenching the Fire in 1666. the Inhabitants may endeavour it and pull down Houses to that end without the guilt of injury to the Owners I think that King and Parliament grievously sinned but not equally in doing so much to cause and no more to prevent a Civil War I would they had hearkened to Whitlock's Speech and other Mens healing motions 1641. But who in the beginning fore-knows the end And when once the breach is made usually there is no hope left of any better end than one of the two Parties ruin True is the old saying He that draweth his Sword against his King must throw away the Scabbard When all mutual Trust is gone all hope of Reconciliation is gone The present state of England is a lively Exposition of the beginning of that miserable War We were thus in fear of Popery and Slavery here of late The Murder of 200000 in Ireland and the Papists coming in to the King in England was as loud an Alarm as King James his Liberty of Conscience here The Archbishop and Bishops and the Lay Church Lords and Patrons here had Sworn or Promised against taking Arms against the King on any pretence what soever They did not all own King William's Title to the Crown Yet they thought it lawful to save the Kingdom from a misgoverning King and the Kings own Kindred Lords Army and Clergy forsook him and joyned with him that came in against him They meant it not as owning then the Invaders Right to the Crown nor as disowning King James but to save the Kingdom and it proved contrary to their expectation that without Blood the turn of the Nation turned the Government Just so the first beginners of the resistance of King Charles the First his Army intended no change of the Government and they thought that the War would have been as soon almost ended as begun as King William's was here but when it was once begun reconciliation became impossible And one or others must be ruined Yet we that owned not the miscarriages of either side but thought King and Parliament greatly sinful thought it an absolute Duty to do our best to save the Kingdom from the most threatning danger And we thought that the Massacre of Ireland the Papists in England the malignity of most of the Kings Adherents and the prospect of such an Army of Delinquents Conquering a Parliament and putting
against me called his Letter is most shameless for untruths in publick matters of Fact His last and greatest is to prove against me that the Parliament hath no part in Legislative Power nor the whole Kingdoms any right of self defence against any Commissioned by the King on any pretence whatsoever This Accuser is an Eminent Member of the best Church in the World Is this bundle of his gross untruths a proof that he is one of the best Men in the World He saith that the Good that I wrote was for mischievous Ends. And what should move a Man in pain and expectation of speedy death to write above Sixscore Books great and small that are contrary to the bent of his own Heart And for that which he mischievously would overthrow To spend his Life against his own Affections § 70. Accus LIII His next charge is that I was employed in assisting the Commissioners for Sequestration Ans. A downright Lie I never had any thing to do for them or with them Another sort called Commissioners for Approbation that were to judge of Men for Institution upon Presentations would have had me to assist them and I utterly refused it But at last they got a trick that when a Man was presented that they would not approve and yet would not incur the blame of rejecting him they named three Countrey Ministers near him and said If those approved him they would accept him Three or four times they named me and I refused to meddle in it Till three Ministers that were Episcopal and Royalists against the Parliament told me They should lose their Livings if I refused them and only for them did I deny my self to do this Office And now this Man makes it my crime to help his Party to Benefices I never put out or rejected one of his Party He dealeth with me just as Dr. Pearce did When I desired to reconcile the Religious sort to the Ignorant multitude whom the Conformists had made their Church I was still met with the objection that they had nothing but the name and accidents of Christians that they scarce ever spake of God or Christ or the Life to come unless in jest or at the saying of their Service that they never prayed in their Families that multitudes of them were common Swearers Lyars Drunkards c. To keep them from censuring the Conformists and their Churches over-much and separating groundlesly I told them how some foul Sins that have got advantage by Custom may stand with some degrees of Grace And what doth this Doctor but turn this to my own reproach as if I was for vicious Looseness and had described not theirs but my own Communicants whenas without this charitable Lenitive I doubt it is above half the Conformable Laity that we must have turned from the Sacrament and so have maimed the Church of England Just so doth this Man accuse me for keeping in three Prelatists § 71. Accus LIV. He maketh a long Accusation again of my taking the Sequestration full of gross Falshoods Principally That the Augmentation came out of the Tythes of the Vicaridge A Lye merely forged by him without the least appearance of Proof It was granted aliunde I know not whence by the Parliament and paid by them 2. That the Vicar then had little and he talks of desolate Wives and Children Whereas the Vicar had no Child and had 40 l. a Year for doing nothing His debauch'd sottish Curate at Mitton had all his old Pay without any Abatement and was connived at by us to read Common Prayer once a day and the other half of the day they had a worthy Preacher 3. And as for the 60 l. before and after paid me as Lecturer the Vicar's Bond for it was procured by his own Friends importunity before the Wars Oh What a rate do these Accusers set on Souls that would leave so many to two such Men whom many Plow-men and Weavers in that Congregation farther excelled in Knowledge and the Exercise of it than I will now express § 72. Accus LV. He saith that I think my self wronged that I had not the fifth part still paid me and expected to have it offered as my due Ans A mere Lye 'T is capable of no better Name and Answer § 73. Accus LVI Because I said that the Papists Doctrine of deposing and destroying Kings was worse or had less excuse than their act that here had fought against him while I published my abhorrence of both sorts of Regicides he feigneth me to plead for them and that more than others § 74. Accus LVII Pag. 57. He saith It is Men of my persuasion that say that the Representatives of the People in Parliament have the supream Power and whatever is enacted and declared for Law by the Commons in Parliament hath the form of a Law Ans Impudently false Whereas in my Christian Directory I have fully confuted this and such like in Ri. Hooker the Man of their persuasion that they boast of Had he said that I hold that they have part of the Supream Legislative Power he had said true § 75. Accus LVIII After a deal of impertinent talk of the Army 's ill usage of the King which 't is like I did more against than many such as he he saith That I plead for the Obligation of the Solemn Covenant contumaciously against the Authority of the whole Nation Ans If the Reader will find truth in this Man's Writings he must first separate it from all the Chaff of Untruths that covereth it I distinguish between 1. The Imposing of that Covenant 2. And the Taking of it 3. And the Keeping of the unlawful parts of it 4. And the Keeping of the lawful and necessary parts The three first I speak against the fourth is all the matter of our dispute That Covenant is also a Vow to God Therein Men vowed to be against Popery Profaneness Heresie and Schism and all that is against sound Doctrine and Godliness and to repent of Sin and amend and to defend the Person and Rights of the King King Charles the Second took this Covenant and so did his Lords and Knights and others at their Composition and many that imposed and took it were then and some are yet alive The Question is Whether I. and all England can and must be certain that this Vow bindeth neither King Parliament-men or any one living to renounce Popery Schism and Profaneness and to repent of Sin and to defend the King All the Corporations of England are constituted by a new Oath that there is NO OBLIGATION from this Covenant on ME OR ANY OTHER PERSON I gave the Reasons why I durst not swear this leaving other Men's Consciences to their Judge Now either there is some such Obligation or there is not If there is and I should venture by an Oath or a Subscription to justifie King Parliament and all the Corporations in England in publick national Perjury What greater Wickedness could I commit Would