it must have all as you would emprove it in your conclusion against me viz. that because Sardanopalus was a King and a good Spinster that therefore every King must be as good a Spinster as Sardanapalus But here is a very like Picture and yet like no body I describe and characterize some men so that though you know there are no such you dare not touch it is too hazardous Whoop and hola is all our talk of Duels and fighting come to this to be afraid of no body If there are no such persons fear not they will never challenge you for taking them by the Beard I did not set down the first letters of any mans name nor describe the features of any mans face nor give intimation of my knowledge of any man's lodging I only characterized the qualities of some Persons that are to be found in all Ages to oppose the Clergy of all Ages in their opposition to the Clemency of the Kings of all Ages Now that any mans qualities should be characterized when there is no such man in the World no man can understand but a man of Contradictions For the persons cannot be pointed at but by the Character and therefore if the Character happen to suit no body at this time then it is certain no body at this time can be characterized Nor indeed did I ever hear of any such Persons who gave the King such Counsels of Sacriledge as I there described beside your self that have nothing to lay to his charge since the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity beside his not seizing the Church revenues otherwise though the Clergy are the vilest men in the World you do not see but that he leads a more unblameable Conversation A very obliging Testimony and when his Majesty wants a Living he will no doubt come to you for a Certificate But to let that pass this intimation against the Council is as stabbingly suggested as the story of Sardanapalus that a man cannot give a general Character of a sacrilegious Statesman but some of his Majesties Privy-Council must immediately be glanced at this indeed is too hazardous to be touch'd and yet you cannot keep in your fingers from pointing though you dare not touch A man of your reading cannot be ignorant that there are too many of this sort of Vermine in all Ages and that there are enough of them at this time though they dare not appear in publick view but if ever affairs should at any time seem to require it they will be ready and officious to instruct Princes in this dangerous Lesson to encourage them to burn Temples to plunder Churches to trample upon all the Laws of Justice and affront all the solemnities of Religion to scorn the pedantiok stories of Honour and Conscience and to set down to themselves no other measures of Government but falshood oppression and cruelty These are the Sejanusses that I described and I took my Character from the monsters of former times and you may find the men in the deformed Reigns of Nero and Tiberius They are engendred under Tyrants and out of the corruptions of Government and they cannot usually lift up their heads under a merciful and gracious Prince though the last King it seems had the ill fortune to have his whole Reign deformed by being unhappily trinkled with Ceremonies Arminianism and Manwaring Were it possible that ever his Majesty should degenerate from the goodness of his own Nature as much as they say Nero did we might then but not till then fear such Favourites and Counsellers as should dare to tell him it is below a Sovereign Prince to submit to the Pedantry of Conscience and to be imposed upon with the solemn cheats of Religion these are fit stories to trinkle his People into servitudeâ— but he must own no other Rule of Good and Evil Justice and Honesty beside his own pleasure or reason of State and for his own convenience he may break Oaths murther the Innocent and care not how he oppress and defraud his Subjects and sacrifice the welfare of a whole Kingdome to his own Pride and Luxury And therefore Sir you must not stick at Rapine or Sacriledge for the support or the ease of your Government but seeing your Reign is short be so provident as to make the best advantage of your Fortune and seeing you received your Power by the chance of inheritance and are no way accountable for the discharge of any trust make your own days as pleasant and easie as you may and burthen not your self with a superfluous care for the happiness of your Subjects or Posterity Now to say that in such a general Character of wickedness as this I must speak particularly concerning King and Counsellers is such an height of impudence that his Majesty can never sufficiently requite it by assigning you a Nitch in the Old Exchange that is honour enough for such vulgar Wits as King James and my self He can do no less than pearch your Laureated Effigies upon the Imperial Grashopper The only publique place that I can think of where you may sit out of danger of rotten Eggs and Turnip tops But you fall so often into these throws and pangs of Ingenuity that it is impossible for me to correct all your Leasings and therefore I will only exemplifie two or three of the goodliest ones lest I should be cast and condemned for baulking a legal Plea And thus Imprimis have I cast a mischievous aspersion upon His Majesty of thinking to convert the Revenues and Dignities of the Church to his own use To lay such an heinous act of Insolence to my Charge without any reference to my Writings were not to be endured in any person living beside your self who when you have cast all the foulest aspersions in the world upon any special friend whom you design to treat with an Additional Civility can easily wipe off all again with an impudent and counterfeit Apology it is but protesting that You recreate your self with believing that your simple judgement cannot beyond your intention abate any thing of my just value with others and then you have done me right and merited my pardon though you had accused me of poisoning my Parents and eating up all my Brothers and Sisters But these are your leasings for it was but just now that the King and I were very good friends and that he was assured of my Loyalty and yet here am I aspersing him with a calumny the blackest and most odious in the world Whereas you cannot but be conscious that I have given His Majesty as large and fair a Testimonial as he or any man else can desire of his Zeal and Conformity to the Church of England Though had I been so dis-ingenuous as to dart this aspersion upon him yet it had been less disobliging than your scurvy Commendation who when you set your self to strein for elaborate and studious Periods of flattery the highest Elogy you can find in your heart to
length approved and publish'd special care being taken I still relye upon the Kings word that the small alterations of it in which it differs from the English Liturgy should be such as might best comply with the minds and dispositions of the Scots and prevent all grounds of fear or jealousie and chiefly to avoid all misconstruction that some Factious Spirits would have put upon it as a badge of that Churches dependance upon the Church of England if it had been the same with the English Service-Book totidem verbis And this was the Liturgy that no doubt might be an occasion of exasperating the Bramble-Faction that were already ripe for Rebellion and resolved to improve all disgusts whether just or unjust real or pretended to authorize their disloyal resolutions But to let you into the main Mystery the circumstance that gave life and vigour to their designs was the Act of Revocation that it seems hapned to be set on foot not long before by which the King intended the Revocation of those Lands of the Church that in the minority of King James the Great Men had to the prejudice of the Crown seized on and shared among themselves to which the Occupants having no other Title beside impudent Sacriledge and Usurpation the King thought he might justly challenge them for his own Use at least from the present Possessours A course warranted as himself still tells me both by the Laws of that Kingdom and the frequent examples of his Royal Progenitors And this you may believe was provocation enough to put them into an uproar and the People were perswaded as I am informed by a good Authour from the mouth of a Noble Lord that the intendment of the Act was to revoke all former Laws for suppressing of Popery and setling the Reformed Religion in the Kirk of Scotland and this raised such Tumults that the King was forced to desist from the prosecution of the Act under that Title and to carry it on though with much opposition under another Name of a Commission of Surrendries a thing so offensive to the stomachs of the Lords of the Erection as the Lay Impropriators were there call'd that they could never digest it but first according to the usual method vented their choler in Libels and then in Rebellion For though they were satisfied for their Tythes to the utmost farthing according to the Rates of purchasing in that Kingdom yet this fretted them that they saw themselves rob'd of the dependence of the Clergy and Laity upon their Power and of that Sovereign Command and Superiority which they had by the tye of Tythes exercised over them several wayes as the King will inform you And this was the reason of State beside the ease of his Subjects that moved his Majesty to issue out this Commission For before the greatest part of the Laity were Vassals by Tenure and all the Clergy slaves by custom to the Nobility And therefore they immediately set themselves to work the People to a disaffection to his Majesties Government and to perswade them that these were the contrivances of the Bishops and that under them there were dangerous innovations design'd upon their Religion So that 't is plain as the King observes that before either the Service-Book or Book of Canons so tragically now exclaimed against were thought on the seeds of Sedition and discontent were sowen by the Contrivers of the Covenant first upon the occasion of the Revocation next upon occasion of the Commission of Surrenders and lastly upon occasion of his denying honours to some of them at his last being in that Kingdom of which he has there given a large and particular account and this brought forth first private traducing his Government and then publique Libels And now by this time Sedition was grown so ripe and ready to seed that it wanted nothing to thrust it out and make it shoot forth into an open Rebellion but some fair and specious pretence They could not yet compass the Cloak of Religion whereby to siel the eyes and muffle the face of the Multitude for by none of the three former Occasions could they so much as pretend that Religion was endanger'd or impeach'd But so soon as they got but the least hint of any thing which they thought might admit a misconstruction that way they lost no time but took Occasion by the fore-lock knowing that either that or nothing would first facilitate and then perfect their designs Now the occasion they took of fetching Religion within the reach of their Pretences was the new Liturgy And this produced I still relye upon the Kings Authority the late wicked Covenant or pretended Holy League Though following the pattern of all other Seditions they did pretend Religion yet nothing was less intended by them For when they had sayes the Royal Understanding received from us full satisfaction to all their desires expressed in any of their Petitions Remonstrances or Declarations their persisting for all that in their tumultuous and rebellious Courses doth demonstrate to the world their weariness of being govern'd by us and our Laws by our Council and other Officers put in Authority by and under us and an itching humour of having that our Kingdom governed by a Table of their own devising consisting of Persons of their own choosing A Plot of which they are very fond being an abortion of their own brain but which indeed is such a monstrous birth as the like has not yet been born or bred in any Kingdom Jewish Christian or Pagan Of which he afterwards describes a particular Plat-form as it was put in practice at Edinburgh And thus observe it you shall still find a Common-wealth and Sacriledge at the bottom of all Rebellion that appears under the mask and pretence of Religion And it was these men that raised the Tumults and trinkled the Rabble into all those disorderly courses that by degrees brought forth the Covenant and the War And it is pretty observable that the first Remonstrance at Edinburgh was made in the name of the Men Women Children and Servants who being urged with the Book of Service and having consider'd the same the Children as well as the rest humbly shew c. These were followed by the Burghours and the Burghours by the Gentry and Nobility And so at length did the Scotch-war break out in which the Liturgy was no more concern'd than the Children of Edinburgh whose tender Consciences it seems were offended at it though in truth they deserved to be soundly whipt for beginning a War for the Cause when the Cause was too good to be fought for And now consider whether you had not been better advised to let this business of the War alone when you can no other way bring your Clients off with reputation unless the King will be content to suffer Himself his Royal Father and his Loyal Subjects to be impeach'd of their Rebellion For the blame of it must light somewhere and therefore if the
a Prince cannot take money for any place in Court without Tyranny who drains his Peoples purses to no other end than to maintain a vain and wastful Prodigality and who spends his time in nothing more than either the rifling of the Subjects houses the deflouring of their Wives and Daughters the slaughter of the innocent c. And though it be alwayes implanted in the Souls of men not more to love and reverence a just and vertuous Prince than to abominate and detest an ungodly Tyrant Yet even in this case he requires Duty and Obedience from the Subject to such a Magistrate as the Minister of God And to this purpose Mr. Speaker he has admirably explain'd all Texts both of the Old and New Testament in favour of the Prerogative and Supremacy of Kings But then Mr. Speaker we must understand both him and our selves aright that when he restrains us from executing vengeance upon Licentious Princes this must still be understood of private persons For if there be now any popular Officers and such he knows there are every where without an if ordained to moderate the licentiousness of Kings such as the Ephori of old set up against the Kings of Sparta the Tribunes of the People against the Roman Consuls and the Demarchi against the Athenian Senate and with which Power perhaps as the world now goes and yet he knows the Christian world now to go so every where without a perhaps the three Estates are furnished in each several Kingdom when they are solemnly assembled So far am I from hindring them from putting a restraint on the exorbitant Power of Kings as their Office binds them that I conceive them guilty rather of a perfidious dissimulation if they connive at Kings when they play the Tyrants or wantonly insult over the Common People in that they basely betray the Subjects Liberty of which they know they were made Guardians by Gods own Ordinance and appointment This Mr. Speaker is our Case we are entrusted by God and our Countrey with the Peoples Liberties and we must give an account to both for the faithful discharge of our Trust. And wherever the fault lyes I dare not pretend to know but this I do know that we have God be praised as Gracious a Prince as ever wielded Scepter and yet I know not by what means though perhaps I do know his whole Reign is deform'd with Tyranny and Absolute Government Mr. Speaker it concerns us to look about us our Lives and Liberties and what is dearer our Religion lyes at stake let us then take Courage and whatever it cost see this licentiousness curb'd and the force of Law restored No doubt but the King will be advised by his great Council or if he will not it is our duty to snatch him from a Precipice however we must not be so slothful and perfidious as to betray the Subjects Liberty of which we know we were made Guardians by Gods own Ordinance and appointment And thus had they got out of Mr. Calvin a Jus Divinum for the Long-Parliament Rebellion and under this pretence of being Trustees for the Peoples Liberties they plainly usurp'd the Kings Supremacy Nothing must be done in the Government of the State without their Advice and Approbation and any proceedings that they disliked and yet they disliked all that were done without them became immediately illegal and till they are redress'd all Government must be laid aside and if the King hapned at any time to do any thing contrary to some idle precedent of Sparta and Lycurgus it was a manifest subversion of the Fundamental Laws And thus by this fooling and the help of Calvin came they at length to challenge the Sovereignty to themselves and to set the Crown upon their own heads that is as we all know to suffer the King to do nothing without them and to assume a Power to themselves as oft as they judged it expedient of doing every thing without the King and this made these Pedants as troublesome in their demands as were the Rebels by design till they had challenged every branch of the Regal Power Both these and the Zealots were excellent Tools of Sedition but they were no more than Tools the Master-workmen were the cunning and reserved Members of the Republican Faction For it is plain enough that all things were govern'd in both Houses by a Cabal of such as had from the beginning as appeared afterwards a design upon the alteration of the Government And these men were able upon all occasions to form themselves into all shapes and all parties to drive on their designs and it was not so much their business to make Speeches and complain of Grievances as to perplex and obstruct the Kings Affairs and by any artifices make him obnoxious to their Power and when that was grown great enough they understood their own work Their usual trick was to appear alwayes with the first to comply with the Kings designs and desires and when by that means they had brought him into straits they still left him v. g. they were perpetually putting the King upon expensive wars by great promises of assistance and accordingly seem'd alwayes the most chearful and liberal voters of Taxes but yet they were sure to raise so many disputes and difficulties about other matters that the supply was either altogether diverted or came alwayes too late This was the particular unkindness that the King complain'd of in all his Parliaments But by leaving him thus perpetually in the lurch they forced him at length to make use of some extraordinary courses and then they presently made their advantage of that to raise their clamours and complaints of Arbitrary Government and nothing could stop their mouths till his Majesty had not only done severe penance but made ample Restitution by some special Act of Grace whereby he granted away some considerable Branch of his Power And so they would for a while receive him into favour again and then anon play the same game over again and by this means they at length grew so much upon him and gain'd so many advantages of him till perceiving their own strength they command him to resign his Regal Power into their hands or if he refuse to stand upon his own guard and defend himself as he can by force of Arms. And that was the contest of the war who should wear the Crown He or They. It was these men chiefly that invited back the Kirk-Army after they had agreed to Articles of Pacification and return'd home satisfied with the Kings Concessions and the abolition of Episcopacy that was indeed the pretence of the Covenanters Rebellion but very far from being the end of those men that set them on Their business was only to bring the King under a necessity of calling a Parliament for Money and for that he was to pawn his Crown into their hands and buy supplies at the price of his Sovereignty And it succeeded accordingly for the
and these quickly poison'd the people with their own principles of Sedition and Anarchy so that being before the Government was aware grown strong and numerous that made work for the Inquisition which though it soon check'd their growth yet it did little towards a total suppression of the Party partly by reason of the tenderness of the Dutchess of Parma the then Regent and partly by the Envy and Ambition of the Belgick Lords who underhand opposed all proceedings against Sectaries and Hereticks and encouraged their seditious practices so that between them both the wise and resolute Ministry of Granvel was rendred not only successess but withal odious to the people For as he was a man of extraordinary Wisdome Courage and Fidelity that sincerely pursued his Masters interest faithfully executed his Commands and kept up the height of his Authority so being an Implacable Divine he saw to the bottom of the Projects that were carried on by the discontented Lords and foresaw the tendency of Factions in Religion to disorders and seditions in the State And therefore was severe and rigorous in the execution of Laws as knowing that nothing else could ever reduce the people to any peaceable temper after they were once possess'd with such ill Principles and ill humours But for this by the advice of the Dutchess and importunity of the Lords he was removed and the rigour of Edicts remitted and that for the present seem'd to appease all tumults and discontents But by that means the dissenting and discontented Party in a little time grew so considerable as to put the King upon his former resolutions of force and rigour but it was now too late they were grown too strong for the Government When the Venom was too far spread they applyed the Antidote that did then rather irritate than expel the Poison And now too late the Dutchess of Parma saw and bemoan'd her loss of Granvil But so the War broke out with that bruitish rage and fury of the people that their Leaders repented their own rashness and join'd when it was to no purpose with the Governess to suppress Tumults and Insurrections And what were the Events and Traverses of that long and bloody War you know better than I it is enough that at length in the middest of these Confusions the Estates of the Provinces take an opportunity to seize the Government into their own hands and set up a new Common-wealth and a new Religion And this as an ingenious Gentleman tells me was not a little advantaged by a particular Accident viz Whereas in most if not all other parts in Christendom the Clergy composed one of the three Estates of the Countrey and thereby shared with the Nobles and Commons in their influences upon the Government That order never made any part of the Estates in Holland nor had any vote in their Assembly which consisted only of the Nobles and the Cities and this Province bearing always the greatest sway in the Councils of the Union was most inclined to the settlement of that Profession which gave least pretence of Power or Jurisdiction to the Clergy and though he applies the Observation only to Religion yet it is as true of the Government in that as we all know the Estates of Holland were the head of the Rebellion so that after all your Politiques you see that the King of Spain lost the United Provinces purely for want of Trinklers But supposing the truth of your story the consequence you would make of it is to deter Princes from exercising an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over the Consciences of their Subjects lest they exasperate such as are tender into Rebellion Or because the Church of Rome abuse their Government into Tyranny therefore we must have none at all And now it were worth while to know what your meaning should be to beat up and down thus industriously through all Histories for such idle stories as these and then to apply them as Caveats and Sea-marks and directions to Princes without ever being in the least concern'd to caution Subjects against the like wantonness upon the like occasions What else can your meaning be but to inform the world what slight pretences will serve the turn at some lucky junctures of affairs both to cause and to warrant Rebellion And the result of all your discourse as address'd to his Majesty amounts to this that by these examples he may learn to condescend to the childish humours of his Subjects and give place to their follies and extravagances whenever they grow head-strong and have a mind to take advantage of being quarrelsom for every trifle 'T is wise advice and such as would quickly make him so glorious a King as the Long-parliament made his father who gain'd so little by his condescensions to their peevishness that he thereby only emboldned them in their Impudence till in a little time no less would satisfie them but to demand the whole Sovereignty it self and when it was denyed them to fight for it In short I can make neither more or less of all this politique Lecture to his Majesty than I can of Bradshaws speech at the High Court of Justice where he justifies their proceedings by raking up as you have done Examples Ancient and Modern of killing and deposing such Tyrant and Traytour Kings as would be forcing their Subjects to conform But beside the wise instructions you have drop'd upon his Majesty and all other Sovereign Princes to humour their subjects like Children and to use their Power with so much caution and tenderness that they may not have any pretence of disturbance howsoever capricious and unreasonable i. e. in short to beware of governing their people for fear of offending them Beside this general care for the welfare of Mankind your sage Wisdom extends it self to the Kingdoms of Gill and Osbolston and wonderfully concern'd you are to settle and preserve a good Understanding between Ushers and School-boys and to this end have you enrich'd the Politiques of the World with divers shrewd and enlightning Observations against the Illegal and Arbitrary Government of whipping School-masters I never remarked so irreconcileable and implacable a Spirit as that of Boys against their School-masters or Tutours The quarrels of their education have an influence upon their Memories and Understandings for ever after then they are not Gentlemen They cannot speak of their Teachers with any patience or civility and their discourse is never so flippant nor their Wit so fluent as when you put them upon that Theme Nay I have heard old men otherwise sober peaceable and good natur'd who never could forgive Osbolston as the younger are still inveighing against Dr. Busby It were well that both old and young would reform this Vice and consider how easie a thing it is upon particular Grudges and as they conceive out of a just censure to slip either into juveline Petulancy or inveterate Uncharitableness 'T is all remarqued like a Senatour that reflects upon the Histories of
a Jest or a Quibble in its confutation You are a right Champion for the Fanatique Cause that can confute any Argument with face and confidence There is no disputing such an Adversary without an head-piece This is only tilting of foreheads where the hardest skull not the fullest must get the victory Away you trifling Wretch talk you no more of Ecclesiastical Policy and hereafter never pretend to any knowledge that pretends either to Reason or Modesty for had you any sense of the former you would never have been so silly as to be so seriously scared at such an innocent and undeniable proposition or any of the latter you could never have been so impudent as to bray forth such a confident and heinous censure against it as if it were notoriously evident without proof that it directly subverts all the Principles of Religion and Government And therefore I would fain know in good earnest what your meaning was in making your first onset upon this Grand Thesis If you intended its Confutation why have you not discharged so much as one semi-vowel of exception against it If you did not to what purpose is it to trouble your self and the world with its Quotation A man in my Opinion had as good altogether unless he be very idle keep his mouth shut as gape and yet say nothing If this be the Grand Thesis in comparison whereof the rest of my Assertions as you inform us are to be reckoned no better than sneaking Corollaries and if I bottom all the foundations of Government and Religion upon it and make it more necessary to the support of the World than the Pillars of the Earth or the eight Elephants one would think this if any thing should have been battered down with knocking and dead-doing Arguments and here if any where one would have expected you should have given an hot and fierce alarm and have drawn up all your squadrons of vowels mutes semi-vowels and liquids and by the next Gazet to have heard of a sorer and more dreadful battel than ever was fought in your Grammar-War or my Roman Empire Now after all this Threatning and Preparation what a disappointment must it be to the Readers and Spectators to see so proud an He that bore up so bravely and with such a manful Confidence come off with this soft and gentle Rebuke Verily and indeed now it is a naughty Proposition ay and all that Thou a Rat-Divine thou hast not the Wit and Learning of a Mouse when thou endeavour'st to bite thou canst not so much as nibble Thou talk of Government of the Crowns and State of Princes to School Truant mind your Push-pin and con your eight parts of Speech and presume not hereafter to cavil at things that are above the capacity and concern of Boys and Girls and sucking-bottles And yet to the same purpose that is to none at all is that tedious train of Quotations that you bring in at the tail of this without passing any smarter remarque upon them than the same general censure of Malignancy though if they are chargeable there was no need of your Edition for they were in print before and therefore it is but sit you should be endited for a scandalous Plagiary to transcribe so much of my Book to no other purpose than only to make up 6 pages towards your full tale of 326. I believe it will be found against the Laws of the Stationers-hall for your Book-seller to print so much of another mans Copy after it is enter'd according to Order without his leave and consent and I hope M r Martyn will seek his remedy against the Assigns of John Calvin and Theodore Beza They are bold and sawcy fellows as it is the nature of every thing to be so that relates to Geneva But you and I will not concern our selves in their Controversies they know without our information as well as any Vermine in Christendom how to manage their own Affairs by the intrigues and mysteries of their own Trade At least it more concerns me to keep close to your self for they tell me that if a man will keep continually running after a mad dog it is the only way to secure himself from being bitten Tell me therefore quickly in answer to the Grand Thesis do you seriously believe that his Majesty has no Power in matters of Religion What then becomes of all your Acts of Parliament against Popery ever since the Reformation nay what then becomes of the Declaration it self for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience in which his Majesty declares that he therein only makes use of that Supreme Power in Ecclesiastical Matters which is not only inherent in the Crown but has been declared and recognized to be so by several Statutes and Acts of Parliament Beside do you not think it possible for men to create publique disturbances under pretences of Religion Was there never any Rebellion carried on by popular Zeal and Reformation Did you never hear of any men that set up Christs Standard in defiance to their Princes and that fought against his Person at least only to carry on the work of the Lord and that have murther'd and banisht Kings only to dethrone Antichrist and the Whore You so great a Traveller and did you never hear the Countrey people tell stories of the merry pranks of John of Leydon and the Anabaptists of Germany You so great an Historian and never read of any Kingdomes and Empires some time or other embroil'd or destroyed by Arts of Religion You would be an Historian indeed if you could but name any one Nation in the World whose Annals do not afford us variety of sad stories to this purpose And then after all this dare you be so confident as to declare it is absolutely unlawful and in all cases for any Prince to claim or exercise any Authority over Conscience or Religion If you dare not but allow a necessity of Coercion in some cases then after all your confidence you grant the truth and justifie the innocence of the Grand Thesis viz. That it is necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Common-wealth should be vested with a Power to govern and conduct the Consciences of Subjects in affairs of Religion An Assertion so obvious and so harmless that never any People in the World had so little brains or so much forehead as to deny it to all Intents but only the salvage Anabaptists of Germany and they indeed claim'd an absolute exemption from the Civil Power for themselves and that only upon the priviledge of Saint-ship but then they equally cancell'd all Government and protested against all manner of Subjection either to Secular or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But excepting these inhumane Canibals this Grand Thesis that you suppose to be so grosly absurd that barely to name it is enough to expose the person that shall maintain it as an open enemy to God and Man is so granted and undoubted
only shelter but abett their pride and insolence Those vices that meer moral Philosophy would banish humane conversation take shelter under the protection of zeal and those heats that bare reason would quench in humane nature are kindled at the Altars of Religion and they usually nourish this glowing coal in their bosoms till it burn out all their bowels of natural pity and compassion This is enough but yet it is not all for as their zeal is implacably fierce and bitter against all that oppose them so is it salvagely rude and censorious against all that are not as extravagantly mad raving as themselves aspersing men of a silent and composed piety with the odious names of hypocrites and Luke-warm Formalists and abhorring nothing more than the vertues of Christian meekness and discretion But if this be Religion then farewel all principles of humanity and good nature farewel that glory of Christianity an universal love and tenderness to mankind let us bid adieu to all the practices of charity let us renounce all pretences to the meekness and innocence of a Christian Spirit Let our B. Saviour be branded as the greatest Incendiary in the world let his Laws be cancell'd as arts and precepts of Sedition let us banish Religion humane converse as the mother of all rudeness and incivility and let us at last go to the school of Atheism and Impiety to learn good manners And yet all this is the unavoidable event of fixing peoples care and zeal upon this imaginary godliness call'd Grace as distinguish'd from all morality or the obligations of natural Religion in that whilest their minds are busied and satisfied with this phantastick nothing it appeases their Consciences in the neglect of their useful and material duties and prevents all endeavours of possessing them with serious and effectual Resolutions of vertue and true goodness I must beg your pardon if I have discoursed too warmly and copiously upon this Theme it is you see of very weighty Consequence both to the welfare of mankind here and their eternal salvation hereafter and upon this mistake meerly are founded all Abuses and Impostures of Religion whatsoever viz. when men fancy it to be some secret they know not what and therefore I here declare that I still adhere to my opinion with the seriousness of a dying man and that I shall be content to stand or fall for ever by my integrity in this belief But what can we think of you must you not be deeply concern'd in a matter of such sad and serious importance to whiff it all away with so childish a conceit as this that this is first to turn Grace into a meer fable and then to give the moral of it At least must we not suppose you profoundly learned to be so very fond of such a poor crawling fancy that were it not ridiculous for its sence would be unpardonable for its wit and yet you are so highly opinion'd of it that you have reserved it for the disert of your book and serve it in for the last jest to give a farewel to the whole entertainment One pregnant conceit I had almost overpass'd in hast give me but leave to record it and I have done viz. that I have made the passage to Heaven so easie that one may fly thither without Grace as Gonzales to the Moon only by the help of his Ganzas Now I would fain know what likeness there is between flying without Grace and with Ganzas do but make me out the wit of the similitude and I will cast you in the sence of the argument into the bargain The Plot or Hypothesis of the fourth Play is debauchery tolerated That is to say I have in some of my Books represented his Majesty this Declaration to issue out to all his Loving Subjects for the toleration of debauchery in opposition to that of the fifteenth of March for the indulgence of tender consciences Whereas ever since our happy Restauration we have out of our special zeal and care for the interest and security of the Church of England executed with all severity all penal Laws against whatsoever sort of Non-conformists and Recusants but yet finding by the sad experience of 12 years how ineffectual all forcible courses are either to reduce or restrain dissenters We think our self obliged to make use of that unhoopable Power that is naturally inherent in us not granted by Christ but belonging to us and our Predecessors under the broad Seal of Nature next and immediately before him By vertue whereof we have and claim an absolute dominion not only over the consciences of all our subjects but over all the Laws of God and man so as to repeal or dispense with their obligation as shall from time to time seem good to our Royal Will and Pleasure And therefore that we may obviate and prevent those mischiefs that are likely to befal our Kingdom from the sobriety and demureness of the Non-conformists our Will and Pleasure is to give a free and uncontroulable Licence to all manner of vice and debauchery and of our Princely Grace and Favour we release to all our Loving Subjects the obligation of the ten Commandments and all Laws of God and Statutes of this Realm whatsoever contrary to the contents of this our Declaration And we require of all Judges Justices and other Officers whatsoever that the execution of all manner of penalties annexed to the Laws aforesaid whether by Pillories Whipping-posts Gallies rods or axes c. be immediately suspended and they are hereby suspended From whence we hope by the Blessing of God to give some check and allay to the insolence of fanatick Spirits and by debauching our good people out of all tenderness of Conscience to free our Kingdoms from those great and grievous annoyances wherewith they perpetually disturb our Government and at last bring back all the advantages of peace and good-fellowship both to our Self and all our loving Subjects c. Such a Declaration as this had been a stabbing proof against me and home to your purpose But when you have exhibited so foul a charge without so much as referring to any passage of mine to make it good you prove nothing at all but that you have a bold face and a foul mouth For we all know you are not so unskilful at improving the smallest and most inconsiderable advantages that had you been furnish'd with any shadow of proof you would have smother'd it and therefore when you have produced none your Readers easily conclude that the only reason is because you know none Yes but however I have said as much as amounts to the same reckoning But what have you to do with my reckonings mind your own accounts and take care to ballance your expences with your incoms Assure your self I shall never trust you to be any of my Auditors for I find you are as ignorant in Computation as in Logick But yet that which amounts to this summ is this that it
with the Most high You know that he never intended Church-men for Ministers of State You know what he intends away you wretch if you have any spark of Modesty unextinguish'd retire into your Closet and lament and pine away for these desperate Blasphemies The Ruac Hakodesh dwell in such a distemper'd and polluted mind as yours it may as soon unite it self to a Swine Fatuos hujus terrae filios quod attinet says a Jewish Zealot non magis nostro judicio prophetare possunt quà m asinus rana Asses and Tod-poles may as soon expect the Impressions of the divine Spirit as such dunces and sots as you And yet you do not think it enough to pretend acquaintance with the present thoughts and intentions of the Almighty but you must be betraying his future designs and blabbing what shall be hereafter Thus you dare divine augurate and presage mutual felicity to his Majesty and the Kingdome from his gracious Declaration of Indulgence and that what ever humane Accident may happen they will they can never have cause to repent this action or its Consequences Amen! I wish you a true Prophet with all my soul nothing recreates me so much as to hear of the prosperity of my King and Countrey But if you should ever live to see this Declaration repented of would it not be a sad rebuke to your confidence I am sure if it were my case I should never be able to lift up my head after it And though we have no Laws against counterfeit Prophets because it is rare for any man in these Northern Climates to arrive to that degree of Impudence and Vanity yet among the Jewish Zealots they were punish'd more severely than notorious Rogues and Cut-throats And if you do not pretend to some particular ensurance from Heaven you add rashness to your impudence to be thus confident in your predictions of future Contingencies For you your own self know how uncertain the success of the best Contrivances may be for after all things may be laid with all the depth of humane Policy there happens lightly some uggly little contrary Accident from some quarter or other of Heaven that frustrates and renders all ridiculous I should have been so modest as to say successess for wise Counsels are not rendred foolish by disappointment Now was it not possible that some of these little ugly Accidents that might or might not be fore-seen might spoil all the success of so wise and so well-laid an Action And therefore I say it again it was not discreetly done to ensure success so boldly to so contingent an Event There are thousands of little and great Accidents that it is not possible for humane Wisdome to prevent that might frustrate all its good consequences and there are some that my slender judgment could easily have foreseen and fore-told It was possible that the Non-conformists might have made ill use of his Majesties goodness and condescention to embolden their Party to more sawcy and insolent demands This I say is possible for all the King has so obliged them by his late mercy that if there were any such Knave there can be no such fool among them that would ever lift up an ill thought against him I know as well as you that there is not in the World a more grateful and good natur'd Generation of men in all other cases but the case of Loyalty and of the Race of Capons So that still I say it is possible they may forget his kindness and their own Duty and that they will not I think your word is no competent security For you have pass'd it but once before and that with your hand upon your heart and that was when you protested upon your Honour and Integrity your own reading of the fifth Epistle to Marcellinus Beside as it is possible for the Non-conformists to be unmindful of their Duty and their Obligation to the King so is it you know possible too for the Members of Parliament to be some time or other so trinkled that nothing shall put them in good humour but cancelling this Declaration or any other Act of Indulgence to the Non-conformists And then that though no other sinister Accident should intervene may for all your Prophecie prove an occasion of some Repentance You know how much I might here insult over your baffled Impudence but this is enough to let you see how unadvised a thing it is to be too positive in Predictions And now to return to the Clergy have you not made an admirable speech to have them thrust out from all Offices in the State because they are unqualified for them by their Education and that because by their Education they have peculiar advantages to make the best Ministers of State were it not that God that has prepared and qualified them above all other men for that employment will not bless them in it because he never intended them for it For a lucky hand at Contradictions you are the man And had you not thus demonstratively baffled your own malice I might have confuted your rash censures of all Ages by the experience and opinion of most Ages and shewn that as none are better qualified for State-Affairs than Church-men so none have acquitted themselves with greater Art or Success and that things have rarely miscarried but when their Counsels have not been effectually followed as I shall shew anon in the Cases of Cardinal Granvile and Arch-Bishop Laud though when all is done you know the wisdome of a design is not to be measured by its success But your insolence is not worth so much Correction Only look upon our next Neighbours o're-sea and tell me to whose conduct that King and Kingdom owe their present flourishing condition Who were they that brought it back from the very point of dissolution to that Settlement and Grandeur it now enjoys Were they not Church-men and did they not do it by such Counsels as you think perhaps as the case stood were precipitate and sanguinary viz. when the Nation was divided into two powerful Factions by resolving to break one to pieces for ever that so they might not be embroil'd in Civil Wars upon every slight occasion whenever the People grew wanton or any Great Man hapned to be out of favour whereas the former Statesmen that were for the trinkling Policy entail'd an hereditary Civil War upon the Kingdom from Generation to Generation even as I remember J. O. sayes the Lord had sworn a great while ago to destroy the Amalekites and the Kerns But having taken upon your self the Office of Vicar General to the Clergy of all Ages and all Nations Hungary Transylvania Bohemia c. you are not content to turn them all out of publique employment in the State but you would wheedle them out of all the comforts and advantages of life and perswade them to strip themselves of all the secular conveniencies wherewith the wisdome and the bounty of former Ages have
King that ever wielded the English Scepter But otherwise if he should offer to relieve himself by any extra-Parliamentary courses it was a breach of his sworn Trust and a dissolution of the Government and if any of his Subjects obeyed or assisted him it was Treason against the fundamental Laws of the Land This was as much as if they had plainly told him and the King understood them so Sir it is in vain to expect Peace or Money from us unless you will be content to forgo your Crown and Royal Dignity and to resign all your Power into our hands This was right Presbyterian Loyalty and is I hope sufficient to cap your idle stories of Sibthorp Arminianism and the Scotch Liturgy At least I am sure it is after all your Hectoring and Achillizing about the late War in defyance of the Act of Indempnity and Oblivion another brave cast of your Modesty to upbraid my Insolence for summoning in all the World and preaching up nothing but Repentance and so frequently calling for Testimonies signal Marks publick acknowledgments satisfaction recantation c. For as I take it here are sufficient materials and motives for Repentance They are obliged to repent of casting away an hundred thousand Lives only to dethrone the King and erect the Scepter of the Lord Christ a cause that they themselves now confess by deserting it as foolish as that was knavish And this is at least suspicion of guilt enough to oblige men to look about them and reflect seriously whether it may not lye upon their Consciences Nothing crys so loud either for Repentance or Vengeance as Blood it requires the deepest Sorrow and Contrition to wash it off so that if they were at all sensible of their Crime or thought it a Crime at all they would never put us to call for tokens of Repentance they would overdo enough of their own accord in Expiation and by the Frankness and Ingenuity of their Confessions quickly satisfie all the World of the sincerity of their change But when they will not be brought to take any notice of their former practices or to make any acknowledgment of their former Crimes when some of the most serious and upright of them protest their Non conviction of any guilt and declare themselves so well satisfied in all their actings in the War that they cannot nay that they dare not ask God forgiveness and yet they did not think the Cause too good to be fought for When none of them have been so ingenuous as to beg their Princes pardon or to make any promise of better behaviour for the time to come in short when they have given us all the symptoms of hardness of heart and impenitence and yet notwithstanding all this boast the merits of their party and chalenge their Princes favour and indulgence from the great security that he ought to have of their peaceable and loyal demeanour this I think is a very impudent affront both to the Clemency of their Prince and the Ingenuity of Mankind Especially when after they had beheld all the dire consequences of their rebellious Acts and Ordinances they were so far from acknowledging their folly that upon the Restauration of the secluded Members by the General one of the first things they voted was to vote themselves innocent and to lay all the mischief and wickedness of the War upon their murther'd Prince Thus far the Presbyterians and Independents were equally concern'd but that the Presbyterians were no farther concern'd they may thank the Ambition and Treachery of Oliver Cromwel more than their own good intentions They had stript the King of his power they had imprison'd his person and what had they to do more after all the affronts and indignities they had offer'd him than what the Independents did after they had wrested the Supremacy out of their hands For it is certain there was no living for them in safety if ever he whom they had reason to suppose their irreconcileable enemy were restored to his Throne and Soveraign Power and then if they had behaved themselves so that they could not safely trust him that was an unremoveable Bar to his restitution And though it is possible that they never intended to attempt his life yet they carried things so high through the whole Progress of their Rebellion as at least to make it expedient nay necessary for their own preservation and if they had intended it they could scarce have used him more scurvily than they did They caused his own great Seal to be broken and a new one to be made in defyance to his Authority His propositions of Peace and his offers of personal Treaty were often denyed an Ordinance was made if he presumed to come within the line of Communication to secure i. e. seize his person It was voted Treason and death without mercy for any of his Subjects to harbour and conceal him and when Sir Thomas Fairfax was made General the Clause for preservation of his Majesties person was left out of his Commission And in the Scotch Declaration of 46. all their concern and care of the Kings person was only conditional viz. as far as it was consistent with their own designs that is as they word it the Preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdomes That is as you may see by their propositions that they made as the only terms of Peace if he would resign his Crown and which is worse take the Covenant they would suffer him to live otherwise they were absolved from all Obligations towards his person and for the preservation of his life And when he was fall'n into the hands of the Independents and so in danger enough the question was propounded to the Kirk whether it were lawful for them to assist the King in the recovery of his Kingdome and it was resolved in the Negative and in answer to that Clause in the Covenant that was objected to them for defence of the Kings person they determin'd it was to be understood in defence and safety of the Kingdomes These men no doubt are fit to be trusted that can think to satisfie themselves and the World with such an impudent and ridiculous interpretation of Oaths as this But however they intended to dispose of his person the Rebellion as far as they avowed it put him out of his Throne and setled all the Regal Power which they call'd arbitrary Government upon themselves And for Subjects to take away their Princes Authority by force of Arms is little less impudent and wicked that after that to take away his life Thus far the Presbyterians and Independents were equally guilty and went hand in hand like dear Brethren they both combined to depose the King though when that was done the perfidious Independents did not only shake off their dear brethren but turn'd all their ownweapons upon themselves And thus as they enter'd into Covenant in defence of King and Parliament so did these enter into an
Engagement in defence of the Parliament and Army meaning as they did that as the King was virtually in the Parliament so was the Parliament virtually in the Army And thus was their silly and sensless Distinction of the King 's personal and politick Capacity turn'd upon themselves And the same Articles and Demands that the Parliament sent to the King they sent to the Parliament and baffled all their Excuses by Precedents from their own Principles and Proceedings v. g. Their Charge against the eleven Presbyterian-members by the Example of the Archbishop and the Earl of Strafford when they pleaded that they could not legally procede against them till the particulars of their Crime were specified and so they acted over all the same Knavery again till they at length proceded to crown all their wickedness with the Kings murther But the fraud and malice the injustice and folly the impudence and hypocrisie of these men is so notorious that it need not be reported and yet so unconceivably horrid that it would scarce be credited They committed all the boldest impieties in the world not only under the greatest shews of Religion but by Authority of divine Impulse they still sought the Lord for all their wickedness and they were directed to all their Murthers and Perjuries by his deep and hidden discoveries of himself to his secret Ones They made no more of an Oath than other men do of a Complement they would swear an hundred times backward and forward to follow the Revolutions of Providence and the Rump when they had murthered the King absolv'd themselves by their own Vote from Perjury it was but voting the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance to be null and void and they were as innocent as if they had never taken them But to say all in one word their Rebellion was not only against the King but against Monarchy it self that is to say against all Kings And I remember I have seen an humble Testimony for God in this perillous time by a few who have been bewailing their own and others Abominations and would not be comforted until their Redeemer who is holy be exalted in Righteousness and his Name which has been so much blasphemed be sanctified in the sight of the Nations subscribed by J. O. and some other secret ones In which having witnessed against all the Backslidings and Abominations of many from the Publick Good Old Cause and bemoaned the Rebuke that was poured forth upon the Rump and Barebones Parliament they procede to witness in all humility and fear against the setting up or introducing any Person whatsoever as King or chief Magistrate or an House of Lords or any other thing of like Import under what name or title soever or any other Power arising from the Nation as a Nation upon the old corrupt and almost ruinated Constitution apprehending that the great Work of taking the Kingdom from man and giving it to Christ hath had its beginning in the Revolutions we have been under And then positively they do witness for andhumbly assert that the Right of making and giving Laws unto Men is originally in God who hath given this Power as well as the Execution thereof unto Christ as he is the Son of Man and therein made universal Lord and Sovereign over the whole World and under Christ as his Ministers a certain number of men qualified and limited according to his Word ought to be set apart to the Office of chief Rule Government over these Nations as part of Christ's universal Kingdom So that you see J. O. is a profest enemy to the present Government of the State upon the same Principles that he is a Non-conformist to the present Establishment of the Church He is bound in Conscience to abhorr and oppose Monarchy in pure Obedience to the Institutions of Christ as King of Saints and Nations having appointed in his Word a certain number of Men to be set apart for the Office of chief Rule and Government over these and all other Nations in the World Now I think it is convenient that men who have openly witnessed such Principles as these should at least be bound to unwitness them before they are too confidently trusted by the present Government J. O. was absolutely for the divine Right of a Common-wealth but a very little before his Majesties Restitution for this Declaration was publish'd after the Cheshire Insurrection upon occasion whereof he threatens to witness with full evidence to the Conviction of all Upright ones against the abominable Malignity Treachery and Enmity of many in eminent Power and in the publick Ministry and then I dare appeal to your self whether it would not become him to recant such a positive Principle of Rebellion as this before he can with any modesty boast his own and his Parties Allegiance to the present Government At least if he refuse this when he is upbraided to it that is an undoubted evidence of his Constancy to his old Principles and then judge you whether it is fit for such a man to claim a Liberty of publick talking in any Common-wealth when he is under a tye of Conscience to subvert it And yet it was upon this occasion that I fell to preaching Repentance and calling for signal Marks and Acknowledgments c. when with all the scorn and indignation in the World he spit at my bare suspicions of their Loyalty in that as he has the confidence to affirm they give all the security for it that mankind can desire from their profest duty principle faith and doctrine And this Impudence I must confess provoked me to deal somewhat more roundly with him and to let him see how great and how many obligations himself and his party lay under to a publick Repentance Of all which you have taken no notice but only to wonder at my Insolence and that signifies nothing but only to shew your own The grounds and motives that I have laid before you to exhort you to this duty are plain and undeniable they are too many to be here repeated you may if you please find them in my Reply to J. O. from p. 629. to p. 641. If you can quit your selves of them as I am sure you never can I will give you as many more but till the old Scores are discounted there is no need of a new Reckoning and as you love your selves be advised never to call for any And now you see upon what reason I demanded signal Marks it was none of my own Motion but his Challenge though without that it had been pertinent and ingenuous enough unless they would learn more sober Principles However I had never taken any notice of his former Blasphemies had I not been driven to it by his own Impudence I was not so disingenuous as to object his or any mans personal Miscarriages to the disparagement of a publick Cause though you have raked up the faults as you suppose them of several particular Members of the Church of
into which you have not precipitated your self with all the Circumstances and Aggravations of an affected Cox-comb And whoever compares your Lectures must conclude Sancho to be much the deeper Politician For the result of all your Instructions to Princes how to govern well is to advise them not to govern at all because the Body is in the power of the mind and the mind in the hand of God so that to punish the body for the mind is to make the Innocent suffer for the Guilty and to punish the mind when it is in the hand of God is to violate the Divine Majesty And now if both the minds and the bodies of his Majesties Subjects are entirely exempt by Divine Right from his Authority what a mighty Emperour was Sancho in comparison to the Kings of England for you know how he served Mr. Doctor Pedro Rezio of Agnero when he would not suffer him to eat his meat at quiet and though his body were in the power of his mind and his mind in the hands of God yet for all that his Highness made bold to lay his Doctorship neck and heels for his Impertinency whereas according to your Measures when the King suffer'd the Law to pass upon Hugh Peters and Colonel Venner he did not only violate his own but the Divine Majesty And though the Cow-keeper declared War point-blank for God himself yet he had his outward Tabernacle fairly suspended by a mere carnal humane Institution for which the judge must expect to give an account at the day of Judgment for violating the Divine Majesty But in truth this solemn and frowning Non-sense is so horribly ridiculous that I am perfectly ashamed to expose it And yet it is the result not only of your own Book but of all the Books of your own Party whilst they make the Conscience subject to God alone and impute all the Actions of the outward man to that inward Principle and then what has the Magistrate to do with any of his Subjects when their bodies are purely in the power of their minds their minds in the power of God There is avast deal more of such wretched stuff that I shall pass by because I perceive every body has wit enough to discern it at first sight by their own natural Sagacity Only one deep Aphorism I cannot omit no more than you can your idle stories because Kings may make use of it for their own advantage viz. that as reasonable men are to be govern'd by reason so are Consciencious men by Conscience What you mean I neither know nor care but this advantage I can make of it for the use of Kings that then his Majesties Conscience if you will allow him any has a Sovereignty over the Consciences of his Subjects and since blashemous Consciences have been conscienciously burnt and rebellious Consciences conscienciously hang'd 't is a powerful Evidence of the Necessity of a Consciencious Government in the Kingdom of Conscience and that his Majesty as he knows best may conscienciously reduce all sturdy Consciences to acquiesce conscienciously in his and the Churches most consciencious Discipline For as he has a royal Understanding and a Gentlemans Memory so has he an imperial and superlative Conscience by virtue whereof he is able to exercise a Consciencious Dominion over ten thousands of his Consciencious little Kings and by virtue of this it was that Hugh Peters being a reasonable man was reasonably hang'd and a consciencious man was conscienciously hang'd and if ever hereafter the Consciences of any Subjects shall drill them into the like consciencious Freaks against the sovereign Conscience that may inflict the same consciencious Punishment upon them by virtue of its consciencious Authority and this I take to be the only Consciencious meaning of these words that Consciencious men are to be dealt with only by Conscience And thus though by your former Maxims you had deposed him from exercising any Authority over his Subjects yet now by this you have reenthroned him in his full Power by making his Conscience King of their Consciences so that it concerns him to look to his Conscience lest he lose his Kingdom in that they will not have their Consciences governed by any thing but Conscience But seeing there is little hopes of perswading his Majesty out of his Government you procede in the next place to prescribe him worshipful Rules and Measures how to manage it discreetly by a preposterous duty and slavish regard to the Will and Insolence of his Subjects Not a word in all your Book of exhortation to them to be obedient all your Advice is thrown away upon Kings to be discreet and to connive and not like the hard-hearted-inflexible-tyrant Clergy exasperate the People to Rebellion by the extravagancy of their just Power but to be so satisfied with having abundance of it as to be content to abate of its exercise by their discretion To condescend for peace sake and the quiet of Mankind to such things as would break a proud heart before it would bend you are all for humbling of Kings not to exact obedience too much to the establish'd Laws lest they require things impossible unnecessary and wanton of their People upon all Occasions to give them good words and humour them like Children to consider the Temper of the Climate the Constitutions of their Bodies and the Antipathies of their Stomachs And if all this will not prevail but his Majesty still prove a stubborn and untractable Pupil he must be taught to reflect upon the histories of former times and consider the Catastrophes of such pragmatical Kings and Governours as would not humour their Subjects like Children nor consider their Infirmities and when they had got a Cold force them to be covered Sir what do you mean by all this Do you not think the King a well-bred Gentleman that you read him these Lectures of Civility as if he were not respectful and mannerly enough to his Subjects If you do not mean mischief why do you speak of it in his time Why stir such an odious seditious impertinent unseasonable discourse Why take this very minute of time but that you have mischief to say no worse in your heart This is plainly written with an evil eye and aim at his Majesty and the measures he has taken of Government For if he be so uncivil as not to condescend to his Inferiours so indiscreet as not to connive at their Infirmities so inhumanâ— as not to yield to their Weaknesses so ill-bred as not to desire them to be covered when they have got a Cold. Nay if he be so hard-hearted as when any of them have an Antipathy to any thing for instance a Flemish Antipathy to Monarohy a Consciencious Antipathy to Obedience and a Fanatick Antipathy to Morality as to cram these things down their throats in spite of their stomachs he is an hard-hearted and inflexible Tyrant and then every body knows the stories of the Roman Emperour
uncover'd when they had got a cold dyed quietly as he lived But as for his Unkle J. Caesar his adopted Father the case is plain he was a bold and venturesom Gamester that out-trinkled the Senate and cheated them of the Empire of the whole world for it was an usual thing for the Gamesters of those dayes to throw at all Now this was too great a stake to be rook'd of and they such implacable Gamesters that out of pure revenge when they had lost all and he would refund nothing they made no more ado but stabb'd him though as for your part you are the most irreconcileable Loser I ever heard of you are not content to wreck your malice upon the man that cheated you but for his sake you run a muck at the whole Profession and vow the destruction of all Clergy-men dead or alive that ever were or ever shall be However had I been Mecaenas I would have strugled a little more than two dayes before I would have suffer'd him to abandon Cicero to Mark Anthonies revenge whom it seems for he was a great Gamester too nothing would satisfie but his enemies life only because he had so horribly paid him off in the Parliament House with sharp speeches which it seems the Great Man when he was run down call'd railing But Augustus was bound in honour to protect him not only out of respect to his wit and eloquence but because he was the Creatour and first Patron of his own fortune In that by his means he first gain'd the good affection of the Lords of the Senate and by their means you know he at length obtain'd an unhoopable Empire Though indeed some of your State-Politicians are willing enough to excuse him in that first if Cicero did him any service it was not out of any love to him but out of hatred to Anthony for Senatours too are implacable in their Picques as well as Divines and Gamesters but chiefly out of affection to the Senate because it seems there himself Reign'd just as the Presbyterians when it was too late would have joyn'd with the Royalists not out of any Kindness to the King and his Party but hatred to Cromwel and his Sectaries and zeal for their holy Discipline by which they hoped at last to rule all and set their feet upon the necks of Kings And secondly because it was necessary to remove the fiercest of all Factions out of the way for the quiet and establishment of his new design'd Monarchy In that the most obstinate both of the Nobles and Commons being singled out in this bloody Proscription and the odium of the cruelty by the cunning behaviour of Augustus lying upon Anthony and Lepidus when he had once rid his hands of them he was pretty secure ever after from being troubled with any attempts of the old democratical Gentlemen to recover the old democratical Liberty So that by this means he had no need of one of your High-Courts of Justice that ungrateful work was done to his hand by these wicked men Or if he had been put to it he would never have been so bloody as the late Tyrant was who would not be satisfied with the Kings murther but went on to assassinate such other of the Nobility that had been most eminent for Courage and Loyalty only to terrifie the Kings Loyal Subjects from all attempts of their duty and indeed to affright them out of the Kingdom when they saw their lives every day at the mercy of a rude and a spiteful Tyrant And you know when it was put to the question at a Council of War whether all the Royallists should be massacred and carried in the negative by no more than two Votes But now how all this story of Augustus comes in I cannot imagine for I do not remember that I have any where perswaded the King to a Proscription at least it might have been pertinent before the Kings Judges had made satisfaction to Justice but to what purpose it serves now I profess again is past my understanding The next shred of History belongs to the King of Polands Taylour-Parliament who because the King would not near their Mode have suffer'd the Turk to-enter as coming nearer their fashion If the King of Poland have a Taylour then he is no unhoopable Prince But in this as I take it you are flatly contradicted by the more authentick testimony of your own Gazets and I do not believe this is yet recorded in any other History However Parliaments may learn from hence if the King will not be ruled to â—all in Turks and Scots and that is another Principle of Modern Orthodoxy And it has so vile an Innuendo as Lawyers speak in actions for scandalous words that if it have any reference to our King of whom you are speaking all along and bringing your reasons and re-inforcements for gratifying the Non-conformists it is an impudent entrenchment upon his Majesties Crown and Prerogative For the Polish Kingdome being Elective and not Hereditary the Parliament deal with their Kings as the Subjects of King Gill and King Osbolston are wont at certain seasons of the year to deal with their Sovereign Masters barr him out and keep him out till he subscribe first to what Articles and Conditions they are pleased to prescribe him or else there is no coming in there for him to play Rex among them Friend you dance upon the high-ropes and by your Politique Lectures endanger your head as well as your neck 'T is unsafe to play tricks so high as you do when you meddle with his Majesties Crown and compare it with that of Poland for else you bring it in impertinently when our English Constitutions know no Interregnum nor is it in the Power of our Parliaments to choose or refuse what King they please Take heed remember what the Turk did when he mounted the high Rope if you will be shewing your ambitious Activity it is lightly you will some time or other break your Neck From the King of Poland according to the method of your Chronology you march over all the Roman and Turkish Empire and there find 1900. years ago an Instance to prove of what dangerous Consequence it is to impose new fashions upon the People for even Alexander the great had almost lost all he had conquered by forcing his Subjects to conform to the Persian habit Take it for a warning O ye Kings how great soever how you impose fashions whether of Tunicks or Pantaloons upon your Subjects for even Alexander the Great lost all the East Indies Medes Persians Asia Africa as far as the Mountains of the Moon and the Head of Nilus died a beggar was outed of all his Conquests and all for forcing his Subjects to conform If you would have a Law enacted that no man shall hereafter dare to bring over any new Fashions from France but that Vests Perukes Tunicks Cimarrs c. shall continue the English fashion inviolable and unaltered to all
Ages let the Tire-men and Tire-women look to it and see you answered I am not concerned But he that runs may all along read your design of Modern Orthodoxy and instructing wise Princes to look to it have a care what they do and force not their Subjects to conform to any habit civil or sacred in that Alexander the Great had almost lost all he had conquer'd by forcing his Subjects to conform But this is one of your leasings for Alexander the Great never lost a foot of what he had conquer'd and therefore not almost all but died unconquer'd and to his dying day lost not one foot either by seeming Friend or Foe Grecian or Persian by forcing his Subjects to conform or not conform Will you never be ashamed of your Leasings But as for the great danger that Alexander was in as I remember it followed a fair time after and arose from another Cause viz. that he disowned Philip for his Father and would by all means be complemented as the Son of Jupiter it was this which gave occasion to the sedition for which Philotas died But if this goodly story were true and you would prove any thing out of it it signifies nothing but against King and Parliament for making a Law to force all Subjects to conform to their habit and fashion and is only a sly insinuation against the foolish Act of Uniformity by which they have not only exposed their Wisdom to after Ages but endanger'd all at Present for Alexander the Great c. The next Story is of the King of Spain who when upon a Progress he enters Biscay is pleased to ride with one Leg naked and above all to take care that there be not any Bishop in his Retinue From hence be advised O Kings whenever you take a Pilgrimage for Scotland to travel bare-footed and to take no Bishop in your Retinue as you would avoid a solemn League and a Kirk-rebellion Though if you will yield to stand upon the Stool of Repentance and there suffer Mass John to rate both your self and your royal Ancestors for a Succession of Lowns and Tyrants and acknowledge the sins of your house and your own former ways and give satisfaction to the People of God in both Kingdoms and take all this with Kingly wisdom and meekness they may perhaps present him as the Biscains do the King of Spain with a leather-bag full of Maravides 60. whereof make a Crown but yet withal forbid him to touch it with the end of his Lance. Or if his English Subjects should grow so capricious that nothing will please them but the King must appear ridiculously before them to make them sport and humour them like Children he must be wise and gratifie their Childishness as the King of Spain does the Biscainers lest they grow touchy angry and rebel And as for what you suggest of their Scotch Antipathy to Bishops from thence it is come to pass that they are become the most Barbarous People of all Europe always excepting the afore-excepted the Canibals of the Race of Capons so as that they will not have any Traffick with any other Countreys nor mix with any other People for fear of corrupting their Language and Gentility though that is little better than wild Irish and they little better than Jack-gentlemen And though they have some dark and general Notions of Christianity still remaining among them yet are they since their Picque against Bishops fallen into such rudeness and ignorance that they have scarce any knowledge at all of the particular Articles of their Faith and Precepts of their Religion and so it must be wherever there is no superiour Clergy the poor Parish-priests will in process of time become as ignorant and barbarous as the Common People The next Story is of a Certain Tyrant that demanded subsidies of so many Bushels of Fleas But because you will not or cannot tell us when or where this same Tyrant does or did live nor what his Name is or was I have good reason to suspect either that it is but an idle Story or he some Jack Gentleman Though what you would make of it I cannot devise unless it be that if the King should impose some trivial things and ceremonies as are in your Judgment not worth a Flea and fine or punish the People for Non-payment of such Niceties he had as good be quiet and would get but little by distraining and should be called Tyrant for his pains So that if the King exact Obedience and Uniformity to the establish'd Laws he is worse than the Flea-tyrant seeing the Non-conformists cannot pay it in Conscience and seeing withal they desire no Alteration but what is so far from doing us any harm that it would only make us better The next is a Story of a certain Queen that being desired to give a Town-scal sat down naked on the Snow and left them that Impression and other Town-seal could they get none for their hearts if they would be content with that well and good she would part with no other and though it caused no disturbance yet Kings do not approve the Example But if it caused no disturbance the Story might have been spared But how come you to know that Kings do not approve of the Example that you dare thus confidently publish their Opinion when I dare say you cannot name two Kings that ever heard the story Will you never learn Modesty But why do you not tell us the Name of this Queen and City and Countrey It could not be the Queen of the Amazons because her whole Territorie as Travellers that have been there tell me lies within the Tropicks and just under the Equinoctial and there they tell me too it never snows So that I doubt it must be the Queen that reigns in Terra incognita Dowager to the Tyrant that has his subsidys paid him in Fleas by the Bushel measured to him in good Tale by Jack Gentleman But whoever she was or where-ever she lived the Politick Emprovement of her story runs thus There was a certain German Princess bold Bettrice by name that being either mad or maudlin played a sluttish Trick somewhere before the worshipful Mr. Mayor and his Brethren and though their Worships were not so implacably offended at her Majesties rudeness as presently to pass a Vote of common Council for taking up Arms to revenge the Affront so that there followed no disturbance in the State from the extravagance of the frolick yet Kings that never heard of it do not as they have told you their minds approve of the Example But rather take it for a warning to behave themselves mannerly and modestly before their Subjects Though I cannot see why they should be so much deterr'd from it by this Example when no harm that we read of ensued upon this freakish use of her Prerogative But had the Consequences proved never so fatal I am apt to think that Kings though you had not
represented them would not have been very forward to approve or follow the Example because Royal Sense can never be much delighted with sitting upon the cold Snow The next is a Queen too and she almost as bold a Virago as the former whoever she was and it is the Queen of Sweden who said Io non voglio governar le bestie but afterwards resign'd But I don't believe she understood one word of Italian before she went to Rome or if she did it is certain the People of Sweden did not so that though she did speak to her People that displeasing word Bestie I do not see how that could cause her Resignation But the true and manifest Reasons of it were on her Subjects part their natural fierceness and inclination to wars that made them loath to be bestrid by a Petticoat and therefore they lean'd to her Kinsman the General and her declared Successour and on her own part a capricious desire of foreign Travel and Conversation with more refined wits But however from hence let Princes be instructed to flatter the meanest of the People lest if they speak contemptibly of them they depose them for their moroseness and want of breeding The next Novel is of the Revolt of Switzerland from the Emperour and its turning Common-wealth only upon occasion of imposing a civil Ceremony by a capricious Governour who set up a Pole in the high-way with a Cap upon the top of it to which he would have all passengers to be uncover'd and do obeysance But one sturdy Swiss that would not conform thereupon over-turn'd the Government as it is at large in history One sturdy Swiss that would not conform this is your Modern Orthodox Language that would not conform so Alexander the Great had almost lost all because he would force his Subjects to conform But to what would he not conform not to a Civil Ceremony a Civil Ceremony how much less to a Religious Ceremony that is no less than an as-it-were-a-Sacrament But however to give you the short of the story it runs thus The Switzers were declared a Free People some hundreds of years before for their good service against the Saracens and at the time you speak of they had no desire to renounce their dependence upon the Empire but upon the House of Austria as an Hereditary Fee And their casting off their Obedience to the Prefect sent by the Emperour Albert of that Family was contrived long enough before the Hat was set upon the Pole and this not by a Rout and Tumult but by the direction of the Chief Magistrate the Baron of Altinghuse But the Prefect knowing of the design to make short work of it set up the Cap and Pole as a tryal and discovery of the Malecontents So that this was no more the cause of their revolt than the Kings setting up the Royal Standard at Nottingham was of the long-Parliaments Rebellion who had before in several cases challenged and as far as they were able seised on his Power and by consequence deposed him from his Sovereignty From hence let wise Princes beware of forcing their Subjects to be uncover'd unseasonably i. e. whenever they have got a cold or are out of humour and it is good advice to the Parliament to have a special care that they injoyn not the Quakers nor others to put off their Hats whether in Courts of Judicature the Parliament House or Chambers of Presence nor injoyn them a Leg or a Cringe or a Bow as they love the Kingdom for one sturdy Swiss that woul'd not conform c. And that which is more material good Sir Pol. you may hence infer that they had need make a Law and Enact that no Wagg by any trick wile or stratagem in earnest or jest use any endeavours to make men put off their Hats as they pass by the three Poles at Tyburn for fear of turning the Kingdom into a Common-wealth again if they will be wise see the consequences and observe the Sea-marks for one sturdy Swiss that would not conform This is right Modern Orthodoxy and you had done well to have added the judgement of a Professour of it in the Corporation of Losarne scituate on the Lake of Lemane on what point of the Compass you Travellers are so critical I dare not determine though this I dare that it is not far from the Town of Geneva Viz. That it was well done of the Switzers to free themselves of their subjection to the House of Austria when the Princes of that House had exercised more than ordinary cruelty in most parts of the Countrey as David might lawfully have kill'd Saul though he did forbear to do it lest he should give an example to the people of Israel of killing their Kings which other men prompted by Ambition might be like enough to imitate against himself and his Royal Posterity The King of Spains losing Flanders is the last piece of News that makes up this Gazet and this hapned according to the information of your Correspondent by setting up the Inquisition But this story is so like that of Alexander the Great that I need only deny it and say that as Alexander dyed seised of all his Acquists and Conquests so neither has the King of Spain lost Flanders by the Inquisition because it is in force there to this day as you may see and feel too if you will but take a voyage to Ostend with an English Bible in your hand and talk there as freely of the Clergy of the Church of Rome as you have here of the Clergy of the Church of England And as for the United Provinces it is evident that he was stript of them by the Fate of War and whatever was the cause of the War was the occasion of his loss And that as it usually happens in the like cases was set on foot by divers concurrent accidents as bringing in Spanish and Italian Forces by Charles the fifth in his Wars against France a grievance unknown to the Flemmings in the Reign of former Princes and it was against these foreign Troops that the States made the first Remonstrance The natural Insolence of the Spaniards that could not but exasperate the peoples hatred against their pride and oppression The peculiar haughtiness of Philip the second that made him neglect and disoblige the Natives and confer all Offices of Trust and Honour upon Strangers His absence from the Provinces and leaving them to the Government of a subordinate Minister whereas they had always shared in the residence of all former Princes And if you will consult the Prince of Oranges Declaration in the head of his Army you will find the main grievance to be this that the States of the Provinces were forcibly restrain'd from holding according to custom their general Assemblies But besides all this the Netherlands were the very Sanctuary and Rendevouz of all the Calvinists from England France and Germany and the Anabaptists from Westphalia and other parts