in the Church liberty liberty hath cryed downe peace there This is the very engine whereby he doth usually convey sedition and faction into the body of the State liberty liberty it that popular voyce together with a pretence of Religion whereby the peace of the State hath beene so often demolished and cast downe for my part I wish there may be a perpetuall contract betweene peace and liberty but if one must goe we had farre better part with liberty then peace And therefore by the way we may note that they are no better Polititians then they are Christians that goe about to preserve or recover liberty by Sedition their first care should be to preserve the integrity of the body and then that it may be fat and well-liking And now it is very easie for me to bring it home unto you since it is as clear as the light That however the commands of His Majestie have been either with or against the Law of the Kingdome as concerning matter of priviledge liberty the disobedience and much more the active resistance of you and your party is most clearely to the great disturbance of the State yea even almost to the destruction thereof whither it is still drawing nearer and nearer by that meanes and how foone it may come to that unhappy period we know not And it is as cleare that it hath beene very scandalous to the Church and our profession and given as much or more occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme and exposed the Protestant Religion yea the whole profession of Christianity more to ignominy and reproach and to an odium with interesse than any action that hath beene publikely carried by the professours of the Protestant Religion since the Reformation hath ever done And therefore you must either professe your selves to be much more wise then our Saviour which I hope you dare not averre or to be much more wicked then becometh those that professe to be his Disciples which I doubt you will not admit But I pray you what commands doe you finde enjoyned you by His Majestie contrary to the Law of the Kingdome as concerning the commanding part thereof or when against the priviledge or liberty that he denyeth to them If you should aske me the like question on the other side I beleeve I could furnish you with store of instances Since I take it it may be easily proved that the whole businesse and the maine body of that designe which is now in hand against His Majestie is a bastard issue and can derive no pedigree from the Law either of God or man to make it legitimate As for His Majestie He desires nothing but that Authority to be acknowledged in Him which the Law hath placed in Him He desires to make the knowne Law of the Kingdome the onely rule of His rule and Government But it is by no meanes so on the other side if they can finde any colours from the Lawes that may put any plausible appearance of legality upon their businesse well and good but if not let the Law cry never so loud A monstrous headlesse vote of the dismembred Houses of Parliament or for a need of the House of Commons alone without or against the King and the House of Lords shall be countenance though to set forward the prosecution of their most illegall purposes And to make good their Protestation for the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Honour and Estate of His Majestie the Priviledges of Parliament the Lawes of the Kingdome and the Liberty of the Subject The Protestant Religion must be scorned and reproached by Brownists Anabaptists and Atheists The Honour and State of His Majestie must be exposed to the contempt of the vilest of the people The Priviledges of Parliament must be perpetually trampled on at the pleasure of some few that are predominant in the Houses by casting out the Members by meere arbitrary Votes for nothing but because they make use of that priviledge which the Law allowes and the Houses themselves begged and obtained of His Majestie at their first entrance upon their consultation for a freedome of speech nay sometime a whole side as it were of the House of Lords first forced out by terrour and tumult and then voted out upon meere pleasure And the power and authority of the House of Commons to a most palpable abusing and betraying of the trust reposed in them by His Majestie and the people of the Land reduced to a close Committee of about 15 or 16 persons some strange designe sure that they have in hand that they must get into such corners and have such cloudes over them to cover it And they say the businesse is made a night-worke too it seemes they dare not trust the Sunne with it a fit time to consult about a worke of darkenesse But they must remember either now or hereafter that there is a light over them that they see not that discovers all their secrets There is one still amongst them that they cannot vote out neither to whom light and darkenesse are both alike and the night is as cleare as the day There is an invisible notary too that takes our records of all their determinations and plots and truely they had best finde him out and prevaile with him if they can to take an oath of secrecy which they can never doe before they proceed any farther in the businesse for as sure as they live hee 'le reveale all else and a thousand to one will undoe all their plots by some counter-plot or other and will be as bad as an Elisha to the King of Syria to defeat and disappoint their most secret designes They may guesse at some thing if they will by what hath already fallen out they have had divers experiments how unprosperously their counsels thrive And therefore methinks Master Pym might well propose that question that the King of Syria did unto his servants upon the severall defeats that hee observed to have befallen him in his enterprises against Israel Will yee not shew me which of us is for the King But to save him a labour let him but the next time they meet reade the 12 first verses of the 139 Psalme and a hundred to one that will be as good as any charme they can use to discover him who it is that doth thus secretly intrude into their counsels and that doth thus defeat and make voyde all their most subtile contrivances so that hitherto for the most part they have brought forth nothing but winde though I confesse it hath beene a whirle-winde that hath disturbed and shaken the frame both of Church and State Even the very same that defeated the Counsell of Achitophel against David little doe they thinke how he sits and laughs at their most wise plots and contrivances of wickednesse Let them but looke into the second Psalme and they may see him at it methinkes if they could but put on the spectacle of the Psalmist They
may there see him as it were deriding at them and laughing at their grave and prudent madnesse whilest they with such confidence sit together as if all the wisedome in the world were in their breasts striving to breake off from themselves and others the bonds and cords of the Lords Anointed Little do they see how he blasts all their consultations how he damps all their purposes even as fast as they give them issue reade Is 8.9 10. Oh that they would at length be wise indeed and remember that woe of the Prophet Is 29.15 Woe be to them that seeke deepe to hide their counsell from the Lord and their workes are in the darke and they say Who seeth us and who knoweth us Surely your turning of things upside downe shall be esteemed as the potters clay But is this to maintaine the priviledges of Parliament to devest the Members of that power and trust reposed in them by His Majestie and the people and to commit the managing of the affaires of the Kingdome to your new device of a close Committee And to make them not onely the Masters of the rest of the Members of the Houses and them their slaves and shadowes but to make them Lords Paramount over the King and the whole Kingdome to require oathes of Allegeance unto them as of late hath most insolently and impiously beene done in London if wee are not mis-informed and to put the lives liberties and estates of all the people of the Land into the disposing of a matter of 15 men that have no such power given them either by King or Subjects and those for ought we know neither Angels nor Saints nor of the best sort of men that they may sacrifice all at their pleasure to their passions and no man must so much as aske a reason of them for feare of pressing into a secret of State Was there ever a Nation so befooled Was there ever a people brought to such a passe Is the famous and flourishing Government of this Nation by the King and the States of the Kingdome under him brought now to an Oligarchy a meere usurpation a most tyrannicall and arbitrary rule of 15 men that are made as it were absolute Lords of the Lawes the liberties the lives and estates of the whole Nation Sure they have played their cards well they have shewed themselves excellent projectors so handsomely and undescried to set up a Monopoly in themselves both of Regall and Parliamentary power a Monopoly upon the point of all the wealth and estates of the Kingdome They have carried the businesse very cunningly to bring things unto this passe and when they have done to make such fooles of the poore people whom they ride in the businesse and likely enough laugh at them in their sleeves to see how silly and simple the poore fooles are to be led so gently by the nose of them as to get them out of conscience to undoe themselves their wives and children to furnish them with money and to expose their lives unto the greatest dangers to the losse of so many thousands of them and all to make good their owne bondage and slavery to these Masters of the Close Committee En quo discordia cives perduxit miseros We have quarrelled our selves into a pretty condition But shall we be mad still Have the people of the Land abjured their senses and reason with their consciences Will they never be weary of such a miserable slavery Now for the Liberty of the Subject and the Lawes of the Kingdome you may easily guesse what becomes of them when the Priviledges of Parliament are trampled on by their owne feet Qui sibi nequam cui bonus if they make so bold with their owne you may well imagine what they doe with ours Or where I beseech you is the Magna Charta is not that a Law of the Kingdome When contrary to the very first words of that Charter the liberties of the Church are professedly invaded c. Or what is become of the Petition of Right which was so much talk't of heretofore when at the pleasure of these men without any due processe at Law the estates nay the lives of the Subject must be taken away by force and violence witnesse the late murder of His Majesties Subjects at Bristol and at London by Martiall Law which no Law putteth into their hands either without or against His Majesties Authority for that loyall designe of theirs to have delivered up those Cities unto His Majestie Or where is the Law for the Militia or for the taking away of His Majesties Ships and Forts Or where is there any Law to enable them to command any of the Kings Subjects to take up Armes against the King whose Subjects they themselves confesse themselves to be in their language though they do indeed most clearly deny it in their practise Or is it subjection to seek the ruine of a Princes Authority and His life by open force and hostility if this be subjection I pray you tell me what is rebellion or why doe they dissemble with God and man in stiling themselves His Majesties most humble and obedient Subjects when they are in actuall opposition against Him and will neither obey Him nor the Law by which hee governes if this be subjection Jacke Cade had a great deale of wrong and Wat Tyler too And Percy and Catesby were a couple of fooles that they would not come in to justifie themselves to be the Kings humble and obedient Subjects But it seemes it is no wrong at all done by the people to themselves when they obey the most unlawfull and most unreasonable commands of your party But if you obey the King against the Law you consent unto your owne wrong but we cannot so much forget our reason as to beleeve it Or doe you meane to bring in a new reason as well as a new religion But I beseech you what if I am not bound to obey him nay what if I am bound not to obey him as in some cases I confesse I am if His Majestie should command me contrary to the Law of God c. must I needs then take up Armes no certainly in such case I must submit to His Authority in the willing suffering of that punishment he shall inflict as is afore-said Or did our Saviour wrong himselfe in submitting unto Pilate or did those good Christians in the Primitive times wrong themselves when they glorified God so much in their chearfull sufferings upon this very ground If you may be Judge they shall all have actions of the case against themselves and were Martyrs in their owne wrong indeed I doubt you 'le never be guilty of such a sinne And so I have done with your first Proposition that you propose to the Malignants as you most malignantly stile them that are the Kings good Subjects And now let us see what instruction you give us in your second Cum bonis avibus What is it The great
if they hinder the killing quelling of those who would both kill and quell you yours your Religion Kingdome They become friends of Gods enemies and ours and resolve to make peace with them with whom God hath resolved to have warre How doe you prove that why Exod. 17. ult what saith that place why these are the words which you leave us to finde out there for he sayd because the Lord hath sworne to have warre with Amalek from generation to generation Go to now where does your great strength lie or how may a man doe to bind this Sampson of yours This invincible perswasive or reply or what you will call it wherewith you doe so unmercifully seize upon the judgments of the poore blear-eyed people Wee 'le examine it a little Your drift is or should be to shew that the resolution of the people is not good that their money shall not help to kill in your designe for that must be your meaning now how do you drive them from this resolution why thus you shew them very learnedly that their money must help to kill c. how prove you that why because they may not hinder the killing quelling of them c. well it seemes then you are all for killing and quelling wee might have hoped of more favour you might have given the people leave to have thought you more mercifull but is this good Logique they may not hinder therefore their money must help is there no meane betweene helping and hindering consider it well and you 'l finde there is but that 's your weaknesse or perhaps your hast wee 'l pardon it and allow it that force it wants But how doe you prove they may not hinder the killing quelling of the Kings Party for that 's your meaning without all question why because they are those that would both kill and quell you yours your Religion your Kingdome wee need your help a little here wee understand you in part your Us there stands for your Party I conceive and your Ours for your Wives Children Friends Family and the like but we cannot tell yet what you meane by our Religion nor very well what you meane by our Kingdome your Commentary here a little I beseech you doe you meane by Your Religion the Brownists or the Anabaptists or the Familists or the Seperatists or the Libertines or the Papists for it is thought you have of all these sorts in your Party so that your party is very party-coloured or doe you meane that which wee doubt you have too little to doe with the true knowne Protestant Religion or what do you meane by Your Kingdome is this Kingdome any more yours then His Majesties or ours or what Kingdome is it that you meane I presume you will say that by Your Religion you meane the true Protestant Religion and by Your Kingdome this Kingdome of England that is so denominated a Kingdome from that good King that God hath set over it and if so then give me leave to aske you first how it appeares to you that the Kings party would kill you or yours or that they would quell you doe you but quell your rebellious spirits and I dare warrant you for either killing or quelling by His Majesty or His Party if He can help it any further then the Law armes Him against you nay you may assure your selves His Majesty hath that grace and clemency in Him that will moderate the severity of the Law too and it is not best for you to deny Him that power you have had good experience of His Majesties mercy if you would thinke on 't some have thought He hath beene cruell to Himselfe in being mercifull to you I but I hope all His mercy will returne at length into His owne bosome you had best take heed you slight it not too much lest if it be kept too long before you make use of it that good and pleasant Wine turne Vinegre You may doe well to remember that mercy loves not to stand too long at the doore clemency is not easily wearied but if it once grow throughly angry it may prove the greatest fury If you will needs put His Majesty to His choice which of the two He will have spilt He knowes there is difference of price and value betweene rebellious and loyall bloud And if there be no help for 't but that you will worke your ruine the price of the safety and preservation of His faithfull people you may thanke your selves for setting up such a Market I know not how to helpe you but in truth I shall be sorry for you But you may prevent it if you will it is but returning to your obedience and loyalty and I doubt not but shall find His Majesties sword that is now most unwillingly drawn against you for your correction ready most cheerfully to exercise it selfe in your protection and so you and yours may be safe if you please and the Subjects may keepe their money for better purposes then to imploy it to set forward the killing of men it was sure ordained for a meanes of preservation not for the instruments of ruine and destruction But your Religion your Religion That will be kill'd and quell'd if this cry were not in your mouthes I could scarce thinke you to be Rebels for is not this the usuall accoutrement of rebellion to march under the colours of Religion at least in pale or in quarter with some others as liberty perhaps or some such like because Religion will not of it selfe take with all palats but I pray you doe not beleeve that this vizour will alwayes be undiscovered this velvet maske hath beene so much used that the nap is all worne of almost and the bare face may be seene through it This pretence of Religion is growne so stale and hath beene so often made the lure of sedition that the very boyes can almost spy out the imposture and therefore your wiser way will be to get some new fashion for your strumpet unlesse you meane to have them throw stones and rotten apples at her alas this is an old trick to begin mischiefe in the name of God In nomine Domini incipit omne malum is too old and too true a saying but let them take heed that set it forward in such a stile for this is something worse then to take Gods name in vaine and then they are not like to be held guiltlesse And amongst others you had best be wary for whilst you make God and Religion the stile of this horrid businesse your whole progresse is a kind of a running blasphemy nay perhaps I could easily show you that in many of you is a running perjury in those that have taken the Oaths of Alleageance and Supremacy further answer I cannot give you so fully as perhaps I might if I did but know what stamp you are of onely this let me tell you first for the Protestant Religion as it hath been for these many yeares in this
AN ANSWER TO Certaine Observations of VV. BRIDGES concerning the present Warre against His MAJESTIE VVhereby hee pretends to justifie it against that Hexapla of Considerations viz. Theologicall Historicall Legall Criticall Melancholy and Foolish Wherein as he saith it is look't upon by the squint-eyed multitude Printed in the Yeare 1643. To the READER ALthough I am not much in love with Apologies yet for the prevention of objections in this cavilling age give me leave to premise a word or two It may be thought here that I have done too much and too little Too much in that I have been so large in my Answer unto so short a Preface Too little in that I have not proceeded to a reply unto the Sermon it selfe as well as to the Prooeme To the first I confesse it hath beene thought that my paines therein hath exceeded the merit of the Preface Neither did I intend to bestow the fifth part of that paines about it that I have done but if I have erred herein I hope it may deserve a pardon in that it hath proceeded from a desire to satisfie nor need it be any wonder that the wedge is so much greater than the knot since it is the wisest way for them that cannot endure the light to wrap up themselves as close as they can in obscure brevity They that are to speake in an ill cause had best to take heed they say not too much for the more they say of it the more they betray it Since it is a hard thing for them that have such a taske to be so vigilant over their pennes but that in many expressions some discoveries will intrude it is very difficult to be constant in falshood and therefore errours had need have but a narrow way to walke in lest they betray themselves by their reeling You can hardly give a lye so good a tire but if you ty it not up it will betray it selfe But for the truth which is my businesse the more it is unfolded the more it is preserved and indeed the more closely errour is wrapt up and intangled the more worke is necessary for the unraveling it The worke of Master Bridges as it is a worke of darkenesse so it is a worke of thicke darkenesse like a thicke compacted cloud of errours incorporated one into another and my worke is to disperse this cloud and to lay open these errours And if the dispersion of a cloud take up more roome than the thickning or condensation of it I hope the light that did it is no way to be blamed Besides in the persecution of one or a few falshoods we are many times led into the view of many profitable and necessary truths and if I have made my journey so much the longer to take them along with me so that I have not gone much out of my way I presume the Readers profit may excuse my labour For the second objection my answer is briefe That the truth is I finde nothing in the Sermon of any danger and therefore as a toothlesse dogge I might well trust it amongst the nakedst people without a muZZle And so having said thus much for thy satisfaction I intreat thee to reade without prejudice with an upright unengaged judgement with a resolution to embrace the truth where thou find'st it and to relinquish errour where thou discover'st it And so I commend thee to God and rest An earnest defirer of thy salvation and of the peace of the Church and State THO. WARMSTRY AN ANSVVER TO CERTAINE OBSERVATIONS of W. BRIDGES concerning the present Warre against His MAJESTIE whereby he pretends to justifie it against that Hexapla of considerations viZ. Theologicall Historicall Legall c. NOt to trouble my selfe much with those impertinencies in the beginning of your Preface where you most rashly and impiously set our blessed Saviours name in the stile of this unchristianlike designe calling it the businesse of Christ Jesus his Kingdome And as you transgresse against Piety there so against Charity too in the same clause as if your malice were not active enough if you did not in the same breath and sentence blaspheme God and injure man You stile the good and obedient people of the Land by that scornfull title of The squint eyed multitude as if every eye were asquint that is not bloudshotten like yours And to let passe your slighting of those bookes that have beene set forth which you say have had their answers though I could tell you that all have not beene answered that we know of And for those answers of yours and some others to Doctor Ferne whom you bite in the margine their answers have had replyes too nor yet to insist upon your vaine promises of delivering the sense of the whole in that of Rom. 13. He that resisteth c. which it may be you were afraid to speake out lest your owne pen should transcribe your sentence and allot unto you that judgement or damnation which the Apostle there denounceth against resisters of the higher powers and in that of the Evangelist resist not evill c. And to give you leave to passe over and let goe Fathers Councells the Doctrine of our owne Bishops since they are so little for your turne I leave all these upon your score and come to observe upon your Observations which you commend unto your Reader And first in the Theologicall consideration you observe thus 1. That the King must command not onely according to Gods Law but mans also Answ It is most true That the King is bound in duty to regulate his commands by the rules of the Law of God and the Kingdome and if he doth otherwise he sinnes and is answerable to God for it But it doth by no meanes follow that he is answerable unto the Subjects or corrigible by them for all correction is to proceed from a Superiour and the King who is acknowledged to be supreame hath no Superiour on earth to judge him 2. That if he doe not so command the resistance is not a resistance of power but will Answ Though the King doe exceed the limits of his duty yet the resistance may be a resistance of his power for they that judge not superficially of things may easily discerne That a Kings power is larger then his duty And he may exceed his duty in commanding and yet his authority may injoyne the Subject to obey Pharoah exceeded his duty in commanding the Israelites to make brick without straw And Casar's Officers exceeded the limits both of the Law of God and man when against the liberty of the Subject they require tribute of our Saviour yet wee have examples of obedience in both There are somethings unlawfull for a Governour to command which are not unlawfull for the Subject to obey as in the cases before named and in all tyrannous and frivolous commands in such cases we may petition and some admonish and reprove the King with reverence and put him in minde of his duty
offence of Authority is whatsoever is committed against the State spoken like a Politician And what is this to your purpose The great offence of Authority you say is whatsoever is committed against the security of the State And I say so too and inferre upon it that therefore that designe which you are about and would justifie is one of the great offences against Authority for what greater offence against the security of the State then to incense a people to rebell against their Governour or to teach them to trample under foot that supreame power of the Magistrate and those Lawes of the Kingdome upon which the safety and security of the State is established Talke what you will of the danger and oppression of a tyranny you may see if you will in the fruit of this your bloudy designe that one rebellion and civill warre may bring in more mischiefe against the safety and security of the State then halfe a dozen Tyrants would likely have done for shew me any Tyrant that ever reigned in this or any other Kingdome that by his single oppression brought a Kingdome to the sixth part of that consusion that this ungodly designe now on foot hath brought our Kingdome unto Great complaint there was of the tyranny of Ship-money and Loanes c. and are they not all reduced But for my part I care not who knowes my minde though I cannot justifie the things nor those that advised them yet I conceive it had beene much better for us to have borne Ship-money Loanes Monopolies and many more oppressions then to have changed those burdens for such a confusion as is now brought into the State which is like without Gods great mercy to end in the ruine and destruction of the Nation And therefore you are no good Counsellor for the safety and security of the State for though that grand principle which is so much abused be admitted for true That Salus populi suprema lex yet I can tell you it will make little for your purpose since it is no way for the safety of the people as you see written in bloud before your eyes upon Edge-hill and at Braynceford many other places that they should enabled to take up Armes against their Prince as often as they shall fancy or be perswaded by any others that meane to plough with them for a crop to their owne ambition That the Prince hath broken his covenant with them or transgressed the limits and bounds of his Government The peoples safety is never at greater hazzard then when it is put into their owne hands shew me a Common-wealth that ever suffered so much in the gripe of a Tyrant as many have done by the feet of a multitude otherwise your Observation will be turned against your self And your owne penne will condemne you for a great offender against the security of the State when you incense the people to maintaine Sedition you see the Malignants are but little the wiser for this your second Proposition I come to your third Heathens tell us that the wise must give as much to the Law as may be but to the Law-giver as little for sayes he he is a man subject to passions may be miscarried c. Had I a minde to cavill I could quarrell at your Grammer But let that passe Heathens tell us you say Well said it is very well done Heathens are fit Authors for such an heathenish businesse But yet you must deale electively amongst them you may not take them all at adventure some are too honest to countenance your businesse and that 's not well where Heathens must correct Christians And truely I doubt you have mistaken your choice here for what I pray you doe these Heathens tell you That the wise must give as much to the Law as may be but to the Law-giver as little because he is a man subject to passions What doe you meane by the Law if you meane the authenticall constitutions of the Kingdome made by the King with advice of the two Houses of Parliament The quarrell is then His Majesties and ours who doe complaine that there is too little given unto the Lawes That they are vilified and despised battered downe and demolished by I know not what arbitrary and illegall Ordinances give you and your party the Law its due and there will be quickly an end of the quarrell then the King shall have His Rights and praeeminences acknowledged which the Lawes doe give Him and the Subjects shall have their rights and liberties made good and their lives secured from plunder and violence which the Lawes allow them then those offenders that have violated the Lawes shall be brought to condigne punishment Then Brownists and Separatists depravers of the Common-Prayer-Booke and all rebellious and seditious people shall have their due portions that the Law gives them and in that distribution I doubt you would have little cause to rejoyce Then the Militia of the Kingdome shall be restored into His hands unto whose trust the Law hath committed it Then new Lawes shall not be made without the royall assent of His Majestie Then treason shall be treason againe and loyalty shall be loyalty againe Then the good Subjects of His Majestie shall not be imprisoned or spoyled of their goods or deprived of their lives without a due and a legall tryall Then there shall be no Supersedeas'es sent out to prohibit or interdict a legall proceeding against any routs or riots in Southwarke Then Habeas Corpus'es shall be granted unto the Subject upon just and legall causes without any quarrell against the Judges But alas that 's the cause that we groane that you give so little to the Law I would you were so good an Advocate as to perswade those whose part you seeme to act to re-establish the Law in its full and authenticall force and I thinke the King and his party will aske no more of you But you deale deceitfully with the Law as well as with His Majestie you talke much of it you speake it faire you give it good words but in the meane time you make too little account of the force of it it is with your party no better then Sampsons withes or cords at best you use it but as a leaden Lesbian rule bending it and bowing it to your owne purposes and things never go right when the structure is made the measure of the rule But I would faine know what you here meane by the Law-giver whose portion you would have to be so straitened as little as may be to be given unto him Doe you meane by the Law-giver the King I thanke you for that then for sure that is your meaning But truely in my opinion you deserve to be complained of to the Close Committee for giving so much as that stile imports unto His Majestie for if the King be the Law-giver then the Legislative power is not in the Houses but in the King for there must be but one Law-giver
unlesse you meane to confound the body of the Common-wealth as indeed it seemes you doe and then what will become of your Ordinances of Parliament Sure you have much to answer for for this neither can I see how you will slip the collar unlesse you should say that by Law-giver here you understand the Houses of Parliament And then you runne into another errour that will deserve the Barre for sure it will be thought a strange doctrine there that as little as may be should be given unto the two Houses that we may give the more unto the Lawes It will seeme then that you would have them regulated by the Lawes and not to be left unto such a God-like power of arbitrary rule as some seeme to affect Sure this was not well considered otherwise Master Glyn might have beene sent upon another message unto you then to give you thankes for your Sermon even to have required you to make a recantation and the Order before your Booke should have ended there That no man should presume to print your Sermon and then Andrew Crooke might have had the more leisure but I see wise men may sleepe Indeed we may see plainly here how they that shoot upward against God or his Substitute make a marke of their owne heads and here you may note too what a scurvy scab this conscience is that will speake interlocutory truths for us even a-fore wee are aware even when we are bent to the most contrary falshoods You might have done well to have lookt a-fore you had leapt into this Dilemma if you had beene more constant in your errours they might perhaps have pass't the better But this reeling shewes you to be drunke whether with malice or ambition or popularity I know not you cannot walke steedily it seemes a giddinesse that many of your side are sicke of Now you are on one side now on another so here you have clearely forsaken your rote and reeled cleane over the gutter to the other side However you would be understood you are a very Royalist in this though indeed you confound your selfe too by contrarieties even in the same period so that I can scarce tell what to make of you neither do I beleeve you very well understood your selfe Do you meane the King must have as little as may be given to him then you acknowledge the King to be the Law-giver and that the Legislative power is in Him Or doe you meane the Houses of Parliament by the Law-giver then by your doctrine the Houses of Parliament must have as little given to them as may be See how you are caught in your owne spring see Pro. 18.7 But your good meaning may perhaps save you from the bar greater faults than these have been look't over in those in whose affection the Houses have confided They and we too know your meaning well enough your meaning is that the King must have as little as may be given unto him and perhaps you will leave the honest Philosopher to answer for the terme of the lawgiver but then you must have something to say for the application But let 's goe And I pray you tell me then would you have the King have lesse than he hath I hope those good men whose advocate you are by this time have done their endeavours to have left him a pretty naked Majestie They have taken a good competent care that his Highnesse should not surfet either of revenue or authority They have not only beene frugall in their gifts or indeed in their no gifts but they have done the best they could to purge him of all superfluities Good faire attempts have beene made by some to have drawne out his very blood As long as his Majestie hath such carefull Physitians you need not feare his being Plethoricall But why doe you spend time and Paper briefly sir you may know this That his sacred Majestie whom we believe against all those slanders and blasphemies that have beene raifed against him hath professed his intention to governe by the lawes only And we find not that he desires any other power than such as the law gives him and his ancestours have quietly enjoyed and such as may enable him to give life unto the law if this be so then for ought I know the more we give to the King the more we give to the law and the more unto the law the more unto the King if this be not so prove the contrary for they that are wife will not take your jealousies for proofes yea with his Majesties favour I durst almost be bold to lay him before you at your mercy thus farr Take not from the law of the Kingdome and spare not the King take as much from him as you can But then you must leave him as much as the law allows him and I am confident he will be well content with it Indeed the Philosopher was wise and honest in his rule and puts us in minde that the safety of a State doth much depend upon this That all cases as neere as may be that fall under consideration in Government should have their cleer full and positive rules set downe in the received lawes of the common-wealth wherby they are to be ruled and managed that as little as possibly may be may be left to arbitrary government Where the rule of the magistrate is only his owne will and judgement which is subject to be misguided by passions which the law is not lyable unto And we finde not but that this is his Majesties earnest desire Perswade you if you can the houses of Parliament to joyne with him in these designes by leaving of all arbitrary government by ordinances or otherwise in opposition to the knowne constitutions of the Kingdome and then you need goe no further for an umpire The law will be the dayes man of this great quarrell and will send every one home in peace with his owne portion The King the Parliament the Subject shall have all their owne The King shall be the supreme governour The Parliament the great Councell The Subjects shall have their lives and liberties secured excepting only such as have forfeited their titles And God shall have his service duely and peaceably performed And then instead of a deformation of the Church and a destruction of the Common-wealth we may have a full and happy reformation of the one and a reparation of the other Quod faxit Deus And I intreat you in the meane time to remember that the houses of Parliament are neither Gods nor Angels sure some of them are men subject to passions as well as others otherwise there would never have beene such doing and undoing as there hath beene no nor halfe that adoe amongst us that there now is And therefore I pray you intreat them not to challenge absolute power to themselves but that they as well as his Majestie may make the lawes their rule too for there is some doubt made I can tell
You may see there though he deserveth favour yet his necessity doth not exempt him from being a thiefe not from the crime no nor yet from the punishment and God doth not use to prescribe penalties where there 's no offence he shall be fined in a seven fold restitution And therefore though men be truly engaged in duty to supply such exigencies you before speake of yet this doth not destroy their property as if that ceased as you imply whensoever such occasion or necessity is present but obligeth their duty And therefore in those cases where you have not or cannot gaine their consent you must leave them to performe their owne duties or else you will transgresse yours whether you be King or Parliament or a single Subject But perhaps you will say that the Parliament hath in them a devolution of all the Subjects propriety so as to dispose of their estates to publique purposes if you meane by the Parliament the King and the Houses I grant so that they doe it by Act of Parliament And you must take in the body of the Convocation if the Clergy be Subjects or have any liberty or property for the disposing of the estates of the Clergy But if you meane by the Parliament the two Houses without the King I deny that they have the consent of the Subjects for the disposing of their estates since they were chosen by the Subjects not to manage the publique affaires of themselves but in a Parliamentary manner order and motion to joyne with His Majestie and to doe things by His consent by Act of Parliament and therefore since they have not His consent for the disposing of the estates of the Subjects as they now doe Nor doe it by Act of Parliament which cannot be without the King They can plead no consent of the Subject who gave them their power onely in that sense and to that purpose as afore-said If you are rationall you understand this if impartiall honest you will acknowledge it give over abusing the people with your Observations And here the people may see who meane best unto their properties and liberties since you put us to plead for them whilest you oppose them for the advantage of your party And yet will they never open their eyes but still runne on madding upon their owne ruine I pray you speake to them to have a little more wit and honesty let them have your example it may be it may worke much with them But what if I should grant you your Theses in your owne sense Yet it will trouble you exceedingly to prove your Hypothesis you are so farre from doing it that for ought appeares you were ashamed to mention it You leave us to collect it but prove it I pray you for your credit is not so great that we are bound to take your bare word though you gave it us never so plainly Prove it then that the money and goods that is forced by your party from the poore Subjects is for the supply of any of those necessities you speake of Is it for the supply of the necessity of the Lord to maintaine a Warre against his Substitute acknowledged so by the Scots in their late Petition to His Majestie and directly contrary to Gods command Rom. 13. Is it for the supply of the necessity of the Lord to maintaine practises of Sacriledge demolishing of Churches violating of Sepulchres to set forward a disturbance of Gods Service in his house to abandon the daily use of publike Prayers where they have beene used and whereby God hath received so much glory and the people so much comfort and to bring in prophanenesse or at the best to undertake a reformation by a way God allowes not when it hath beene offered in a peaceable and fit manner or where doe you finde that the sword is to be moderator or that reformation in Religion is to be founded in bloud Or is it for the supply of the necessity of the Law to nourish a Warre clearely against Law both in it selfe and in the purpose and drift of it in it selfe as being without and against the Kings command and against His Person and Authority who is declared by Law the supreame Governour and so the supreame Moderator of the Sword in the drift or purpose which we understand not at all if it be not to abridge the King of that preeminence and authority which His Ancestours have and He ought to enjoy by the Law of the Kingdome As the power of the Militia of consenting or with-holding His assent to the allowance or dis-allowance of Acts of Parliament of choosing Privie Counsellors c. Some say necessity hath no Law but I am sure the Law hath no necessity of the plunder of mens estates to any such purpose Is it for the supply of the necessity of liberty of the Subject that their liberty should be taken away to cure men of their diseases by killing them or to cast them into the Sea for feare they should suffer ship-wracke Is it for the necessity of the cause or the defenders what cause is it I beseech you that doth necessitate any such thing is it Religion have wee not beene Protestants all this while why doe you not confute the Articles of the Church of England it may be indeed your new Synod will doe it for you Hath not the truth flourished amongst us all this while till of late you your selfe seeme to confesse it if there be any sense in your words in your next Paragraph as wee shall see anon Who is it than that goes about an alteration might you not have thanks if you would let it flourish still as heretofore it hath done or if any thing be to be mended hath it not been offered what 's that cause then the necessity whereof doth lay such fanges upon the Estates of the Subjects or who are those defenders you speake of I am sure I know who is the Defender of the Faith under God and then remember who it is that you oppose surely you had need explaine your selfe for for ought we can yet learn by you the Subjects have good right to keepe their goods unto themselves for any necessity that you can plead it doth neither alter their Property nor engage them in duty to impart for the maintainance of this dismall Warre against His Majesty They are much more engaged to impart them to Him that stands for the defence of the true Protestant Religion together with the Law and Liberty of the Subjects This is the cause and this is the defender that may much better plead necessity of supply But you have two strings to your bow and so you had need for you see one of them will not hold And what 's your second let us see what that will doe Your money shall not helpe to kill That 's the resolution of the squint-eyed multitude well say you when you meane ill but what 's your answer why you tell them that
Kingdome under the successive and sucesfull raignes of three gracious Monarchs without interruption untill now so if you hinder not His sacred Majesty hath given us good assurance and wee have good witnesse of it even God himselfe besides many thousands upon earth that it shall not be killed nor quelled but maintained and if ever any thing fall out otherwise I am perswaded wee shall have to thanke such as you for it which God forbid And for those other things that walke under the name of Religious I hope His Majesty will by Gods assistance take some good course for quelling of them as well Popery as Brownisme and the rest of that rabble that wee can scarce tell what to call Both God and his good people doe expect from His Majesty that He will be vigilant for the extirpation of these by all due and lawfull meanes and that He will not admit of the least shew of a toleration of them but yet wee doe beleeve His Majesty will finde out more proper wayes than the sword for the rooting out of those errors from amongst us and if they can be but quiet and keepe themselves from sedition and corruption of others it's like His Majesty will shed no mans bloud meerely for His opinion but will rather take care for the application of the due meanes for their conversion and so leave them to the mercy of the Lord for wee beleeve His Majesty hath other principles and those farre more gracious and god-like than those that you seeme to walke by Though he be never so zealous for Gods house yet wee conceive He doth not think that He should have any thanke from God if He should build up Sion with bloud His Majesty we hope will rather remember that David was not suffered to build the Lord a Temple because his hands had been imbrued in bloud that the Temple was to be built by a Solomon a King of Peace and in a raigne of Peace and in a peaceable manner without all noyse and tumult not so much as the noyse of an axe or an hammer to be heard in that holy businesse much lesse of a Sword or Speare or of those thunder-emulating instruments which have beene the brood of cruelty of these last times of the world wee beleeve His Majesty will not willingly make use of any such instruments as these in that worke unlesse the malice of the adversaries compell Him to it Indeed it may fall out that Sanballat and Tobiah with their complices of Arabians Ammonites and Ashdodites may put Nehemiah's work-men to their weapons as well as their tooles in the building of the Walls of Jerusalem and to set them upon the businesse with a Trowell in one hand and a Sword in the other that the builders should have their weapons girded by their sides and so build and that Nehemiah may be enforced to set a Trumpeter by him but this was onely for the defence of the worke not to offer any violence to any but to repell it in case it were offered by any unto them neither doe wee know of any violence intended of that sort you seeme to suspect either against you or your religion as you call it be it what it will if you will be but quiet and not rayse tumults in Church or Common-wealth nor quarrell with other men because forsooth they will not put out their eyes that they may be as blind as you if you can 〈…〉 alone and be quiet you may if you will needs be let alone and be quiet in your folly for any matter of bloud or the like And yet wee beleeve His Majesty will not let England become an Amsterdam Truth shall have more encouragement then Errour it is fit that those dotards that will persist should be made sensible it is mercy not to let them perish upon too easie termes this is not to cut them off from the clemency of God but to hasten them unto it and this may be done without killing I hope and therefore wee beleeve you fright the people in vaine and make bugbeares of your owne fancies when you seeme to perswade them they shall find a bloudy persecution for religion but I hope they will be wiser then to thinke it is any good warrant for them to be rebellious because you are pleased to be fearefull and suspicious It is no wisedome for them to cast their goods out of their vessells because you are pleased to dreame of a storme they might likely provide much more for their safety by casting out such a rebellious Prophet as you are that have out-run the errand the Lord sent you on are become a fugitive from his work like Jonas who when the Lord sent him to Niniveh runnes to Joppa and from thence is bound for Tarshish It were happy for you if some storme or other might but send you into your right course againe But I would faine have done with you you cannot make it appeare that the King or His Party hath any mind to kill you or yours nor to quell the true Protestant Religion no nor yet to divorce you from any of your phantasies by the sword admit any of His Army would yet I am confident you may looke for more mercy from His Majesty and if you hinder not He may have power answerable to His goodnesse but your Kingdome is in danger they would quell the Kingdome who are those I beseech you if you will not tell me I can tell you who they are even they that go about to demolish or diminish the majesty and authority of the kingly Throne for so much as they take from the power and eminency of the King so much they quell and destroy the Kingdome for it is the King and the regall power that gives it the name of a Kingdome they than that goe about to turne the King into an empty stile or a meere shadow of regaity and to change the regall Government into a popular State or Aristocraticall those are they that go about indeed to destroy the very essence of a Kingdome looke than who they are that are against the King and against Monarchy those are they that go about to quell the Kingdome but perhaps you meane not by the Kingdome this or that forme of Government but the people and inhabitants and in this sense who are they that would quell the Kingdome but even they that have beene the Authors of this most bloudy and unnaturall Warre against His Majesty that have divided the Kingdome against it selfe that have most mercilessely sacrificed the lives of the poore seduced people of the Land to their passionate and ambitious or malicious designes they that have abused both Parliament and people by endeavouring to make them flaves to their humorous resolutions against their duty both to King and people they that have stricken at the very foundation of the State and Government and brought the Common-wealth into a meere Chaos and a confusion these these are they that would
quell the Kingdome and therefore if you will needs have the people buy bloud you must send them to market there there they may perhaps find some within their purchase but royall and loyall bloud is of too great a rate I can tell you for all the money they have to pay a sufficient value for the least drop of it But yet I am not come to the maine force of your argument They must give their money to help to kill those that would kill and quell you c. why otherwise they become friends of Gods enemies and yours and resolve to make peace with them with whom God is resolved to have warre and you prove it because Moses tells us that the Lord hath sworne to have warre with Amalek from generation to generation Well than it seemes wee must needs admit that all that are your enemies eo nomine are Gods enemies now that wee are no way convinced of because wee doe finde your cause to be Gods or that you have any commission from him but rather you have many prohibitions from God if you would take his word in the holy Scripture unlesse you meane with the Libertines to take the warrant of a private spirit And then secondly you seeme to hold that wee must all assist you with force and violence for the destruction of your enemies and Gods how than shall the rule of our Saviour be made good that will have you forgive your enemies and I say unto you resist not evill which must bind all private men from revenge but you 'l say the Members of the Parliament are all Magistrates I grant it in subordination to His Majesty but wheresoever they are found in direct opposition to Him they become so farre private in their motions like the Moone in the Dragons tayle in direct opposition to the Sunne shee looseth her light But God you say is resolved to have warre with them that have warre with you and therefore the people must Prove that Why The Lord is resolved to have warre with Amaleck from generation to generation therefore with the King and his partie for it seemes we must necessarily believe that you are Israelites and they are Amalekites but that the people are not satisfied of they must therefore looke for better evidence from you to convince them in the meane time let me desire you to take heed how you misinterpret the Lords oathes lest you should seeme to taxe God of perjury as well as some bodie hath done the King And ther 's an end of your criticall Observations And now in the fifth place you come like an operatour to cure the people of their melancholy you draw them forth in their sullen fits as you conceive venting their sad and discontented thoughts in those sorrowfull notes you are pleased to set downe That trading is dead There money goes Never so many payments I cannot blame them I confesse to think they pay something too deare for their ruine but what 's the salve you give them for their sore why surely they are like to find but little comfort from you First you tell such a man that he is not worth the answering And I tell you that he that gives such an answer is scarce worthy to receive a replie unto it And therefore let that goe But yet upon second thoughts you are a little more pitifull And in some doubt of his capacitie you send him to learne of Job That we must receive good at the hand of God as well as evill True there is very good reason for it that they should be patient in misery and thankfull in prosperity unto God But yet under favour this doth not infer that men are bound to contribute to their owne miseries or be any way accessary to draw them upon themselves no nor yet to returne any thankes unto those that are the instruments of their calamity we must submit to Gods justice even in the oppression of men and yet that doth no way justifie their oppression nor hinder us from the use of any lawfull meanes to deliver ourselves from them and those pressures they would lay upon us it no way ties us to give our selves up into their hands or to consent to our owne ruine Thirdly you tell them that the Gospell hath beene a beaceable plentifull Gospell and then they loved it ran after it But now it is otherwise they are otherwise affected and you commend unto them that of our Saviour Ioh. 6.26 you follow me for the loaves And hath the Gospell beene so peaceable and plentifull a Gospell when was that I beseech you under what Kings raign or how comes it to passe that it is not so still Surely if that Gospell could have contented you and others that have beene so amourous of changes that which was amongst us in the time of Queene Elizabeth King Iames or in any part of the raigne of our Gracious King I am well assured you might have had it in as peaceable and plentifull a condition as ever if men had not beene weary of Gods blessings His Majestie hath made you very faire offers if they might have been embraced but it seems you are growne weary of that Manna and your wanton palates are fallen a lusting after some new diet And because other men will not be perswaded to part with all they have to serve your humours you seeme to challenge them of temporizing and that they measure out their zeale by their worldly advantage This is indeed a hainous crime I confesse like the rich man in the Gospell to goe away sorrowfull from Christ because he requires him to part with his estate or with the Gadarens to drive him out of their coasts upon the apprehension of the losse of a few swine They that will part with our Saviour or his Gospell upon such termes as these are very worthie of their owne choice even to loose that Jewell that they hold at so low a rate But that this is the case of every one that refuseth to undoe his wife and children to supply you with his estate to buie fuell for that fire which is now raging in the bowels of the Church and Common-wealth or that it is to be disaffected to the Gospell of Christ not to promote a warre against the substitute of Christ is a paradoxe that I can never admit into my beliefe nor doe I thinke the speech of our Saviour in the 6. of John 26. is any thing at all to your purpose And therefore you are no good Quack salver for melancholy The people may even die of their purse-dumps for any remedie you here afford them But it may be you are better at the cure of their follie That 's the sixth and last consideration which you say is a meere foolish one if it may be so termed or rather for fooles also will be talking a meere prating a meere nothing and non-sensicall thoughts about the present things in the Kingdom within the verge of this you shall