the Church in Sudly Castle at the beginning of these Wars profaned Not only the Monuments of the Chandoises spoil'd but one part of the Church converted to a Stable whilst the other was little better than a Shambles the Pulpit being made the chief stall where the meat was hung up and the communion-table served for a board to joynt upon The Inhabitants of Weden-Pinkney in Northamptonshire cannot yet forget how Mr. Losse their Minister was abused whilest he was officiating by the souldiers who rid into the Church and wounded the Minister because he would not go along with them they refusing to tell him by what authority they commanded him An action so wicked that the very heathens will rise up in judgment against them And those of Chelmsford in Essex need no remembrancer how their Church-windows having the History of Christ and the Scutchions of Bene factors painted in them were batter'd down by the instigated rabble who not content with this layd violent hands on Dr. Michelson their Parson and rent the Common Prayer Book with a great deal of joy This reformed town as my Author saith was govern'd by a Tinker two Coblers two Taylors and two Pedlers How miserably was the ancient Cathedral Church at Winchester dealt withall the famous Monuments of the Dead utterly defaced the bones of Kings Bishops c. thrown about the Church the two famous Brazen Statues of King James and King Charles erected at the entrance into the Quire pulled down the Communion-Plate books hangings cushions c. seis'd upon and made away the Church-vestments put on by the heathenish soldiers riding in that posture in derision about the streets some scornfully singing pieces of the Common-prayer whilst others tooted upon the broken pieces of Organs The stories of the old and new Testament curiously beautified with colours and cut out in carved work they utterly destroy'd against which wickednesse the Prophet David of old complained Nor did the famous Organs escape their fury being pull'd to pieces and imployed to private uses As one in York something advanced his houses if my memory fail me not with Organ and Church-wood which if he had turn'd into Looms and Shuttles had been more proper for his trade And of the brasse torn from violated Monuments might have been built a house as strong as the brazen Towers in some old Romances And after this manner was the Cathedral of Exceter served where the Commandements were defaced the Common-Prayer Book burnt the glasse-windows monuments statues and organs broke and the name of Jesus over the Communion table blotted out as superstitious Nor can some honest people of London yet forget the intolerable actions of the saint-like soldiers at St. Peter's Pauls-wharf sunday 9 Sept. 1649 who rode into the said Church with swords drawn and pistols spann'd crying out Knock the Rogues on the head shoot them kill them which was accordingly done an old woman being shot into the head and above 40 more grievously wounded and the Minister Mr. Williams hurried Prisoner to White-Hall And all this because the Common prayer establisht by the true Laws of the Land was read whence my Author observes that these Hereticks though they loudly cry up Liberty of Conscience yet will allow none to others but take all to themselves the better to cloak their villanies with pretended Religion and reformation The Cathedral of Chichester was sufficiently violated being robb'd of all her vestments and plate and not so much as a Cushion left in the pulpit the Organs and ten Commandements broke down and spoil'd the Pictures of the Kings of England and Bishops of that See defaced with the monuments seats stalls and painted walls And after the same manner was the Cathedral of Peterborough used and how Lichfield escaped is not unknown And their fury being once begun no man can expect that the Metropolitan Church of Canterbury could escape where Coll. Sandys soldidiers barbarously overthrew the Communion-Table tearing the velvet cloth from before it defacing the goodly Screen violating the monuments of the dead spoiling the organs breaking down the ancient rails and seats with the brazen Eagle which supported the Bible tearing the surplices gowns bibles and Arras hanging in the Quire representing the whole story of our Saviour wherein observing divers figures of Christ one said that here is Christ and swore that he would stab him another said here is Christ and swore that he would rip up his Bowels which they did accordingly so farre as the figures were capable and not content with this finding another Statue of our Saviour in the Frontispiece of the south-gate shot about forty shots at it tryumphing much when they had hit the head or face The ancient Cathedral of Durham can yet shew her ruines and can tell with what unspeakable tyranny the Kings poor friends were used in it And that of Carlisle deplores the want of a part of its body being ruined to be imployed in wicked Warre whilest it was intended a house of prayer and peace Nor is it unknown how sacrilegiously that excellent structure of St. Pauls in London was abused making of it an Exchange where things may be bought and sould not only contrary to the Laws of God but also of man and that not only of our own but forraign Churches as may appear by several Canons against such violations The laws of our Nation expresly forbidding any Fair or market to be held in Church-yards and by consequence not in the Church it self so that a late writer said not amisse that one might well be amazed at the genius of this age that suffered this goodly and venerable fabrick to be built about and converted into rascally ware-houses and so sordidly abused and defaced that an Argument of greater avarice malice meanesse and deformity of mind cannot possibly be exprest England is the sole spot in all the world where amongst Christians their Churches are made jakes and stables markets and tipling houses and where there were more need of Scorpions than Thongs to drive out the Publicans and Money changers And that St. Pauls by the wicked reformers was converted into a stable is not unknown to it's Neighbours which iniquities and such like occasioned the Saying That we had now a thorough Reformation in England since our horses also went to Church Yet some not content to have their horses in the Church unlesse some other villanie were done witnesse the damnable wickednesse of one Captain Beamont who at Yakesly in Huntingtonshire Anno. 1644. having pist in the Font fetched his bold horse from Mr. Finnemores stable and in derision of Baptism sprinkled it on the horse calling of him Ball Esau because he was hairy and in scorn to the Church of England crost him on the forehead and to make their villany compleat one Robert Rayner Corporal acted the part of the Minister and would also have God-Fathers one Bartly Ward but nick-named Widdow Shropshire acting the part of
then the latter they thought as it fell out accordingly afterwards would fall to their obedience with the more ease To bring this great thing about all their art was imployed But the chief of all was their old true friend and souldier Calumny by this to make the orthodox episcopal party odious to the people a way which Contzenus the Jesuite looks upon as so excellent that it is very fitting it should be endeavour'd And in this trade of vilifying our Nonconformists were so expert and sedulous that in a short while they had innumerable lying pamphlets and reports spread about the Nation that in the first year or two of this Long Parliament the hearers and believers with the relatours of these slaunders were so many and all performed with that care and celerity that Dame Report in England out-vapour'd Queen Fame in Chaucer who Had also fele up standing eares And tonges as on beest ben heares And on her fete woxen sawe I Partriche wynges redily Yet are these fictions against our reverend Church-government quite contrary to the sound and true Law of our land which will thus tell us For as much as divers questions by overmuch boldnesse of speech and talk amongst many of the common sort of people being unlearned have lately grown upon the making and consecrating of Archbishops and Bishops within this Realm whether the same were and be orderly done according to the Law or not which is much tending to the slaunder of all the state of the Clergy being one of the greatest states of this Realm c. Yet let the Laws say what they will these men will oppose and that in Ritaing waies rather then not get their end above 2000. of this faction making a tumult in London crying out they would have no Bishop nor no high Commission a bad omen to the peace of the Kingdom but a great incouragement to the Long Parliament who first sat within a fortnight after this hurry And had presently a sympathizing Petition brought them by Alderman Pennington loaden with the scrawling hands of 15000 Londoners and this forsooth against Archbishops Bishops and our Church-ceremonies though I believe if none had been subscribers but those who understood what they set their hands to that neither the Alderman nor 15000 of the rest had listed their faith and themselves in that paper which the Lord Digby call'd very well contemptible irrational and presumptious Yet did the Presbyterian faction in Parliament joy themselves thus to have brought that great City to the subjection and reverence of their new found Disciplinarian slavery and perceiving themselves thus back'd by such riches and so many men went boldly on to pull down our Reverend Church and set up their golden calves in its stead And all this pains hurly-burly alarums and warre must only be like Caligula's Army to fight for empty cochle-shels in respect of the truth glory and sincerity swaying in the English Church The first imployment of note against the Church that the Commons put themselves upon was against the Convocation contemporary with the short Parliament which they condemned as seditious dangerous against King Law Subject though the King acknowledged no such thing and one of their main reasons against this Convocation was because the clergy therein assembled perceiving how the Scots did covenant and swear against our Church-government and that our English Non-conformists were grown strong and not only corresponded with the Scots but tended the same way which would ruine our Church at last as experience proved did frame an Oath for the maintaining of our Church-Government against all Popery and its Superstition And this was called the Oath c. though the words following this c. to wit as it stands now established makes not the Oath so contemptible as our Presbytery clamoured Against this Oath the Cornmons ranted affirming the Clergy though assembled by the King's command had no power to make an Oath the which whether they had or no I shall not now dispute Only I shall have leave to think that every one thinks the best of themselves And so I suppose did the Commons when they framed the Protestation and ordered all in their own House to take it and did also recommend it to be taken all England over though the King did never consent to it nor as then had the Lords and whether the Commons by themselves have power to impose an Oath I shall not determine though report speaks the Negative And as for the Protestation it self 't is composed of such uncertain jugling materials considering the Presbyterian Notion which imposed it that a true understanding Conscience would never embrace it for these following rational Doubts waving the dispute of the Imposers authority I promise vow and protest to maintain with my life the true reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England against all Popery and Popish Innovations within this Realm Dub. 1. What the Presbyterian Imposers and Framers here mean by the Doctrine of the Church of England If the Thirty nine Articles why do they not subscribe them if any thing else why do they not mention it that men might know what they swear Dub. 2. What they mean by Popery If their Articles in what sense they meant the Points held against the Calvinists by some learned men of our Church and Holland Dub. 3. What they meant by Popish Innovations within this Realm for their Writings affirm our Church-government by Bishops and Innocent Ceremonies to be so The which if they meant then none but Schismaticks would take it if otherwise why did they not explain themselves that people might not swear ignorantly As also the power and priviledges of Parliament The lawful Rights and Liberty of Subject and shall never relinquish this Promise Vow and Protestation Dub. 4. What are the power priviledges of Parliament and Rights and Liberty of Subject As for the Parliamentary priviledges they themselves never yet undertook to declare what they are And for men to swear to defend they know not what is not unlike that Messenger who swore to observe his Masters Instructions in his sealed Commission which when he had opened he found no command but to hang himself Dub. 5. Whether it is lawful to swear never to relinquish this Protestation though the King and State should afterwards have some reasons to revoke or alter all or any clause in the said Protestation as none can question their Authority in such things And then eight dayes after was a piece of paper as if dropping from its Posteriors joyned to the rump of this Protestation wherein was declared that nothing in this Oath was to be extended to the maintaining of any form of worship discipline or government nor of any rites or ceremonies of the said Church of England By which the Hauntghost of Presbyterie is easily perceived to be there domineering and 't is the humour of these men to love
out of the Macchabees Sir Henry Spelman and other Historians but that the certainty of such punishments are unquestionable Nor did the Reverend Fathers of the Primitive Church led by the example of Gods severe threatnings and chastisements of such horrid wickedness wink at such faults as this A Reverend Asserter of the truth positively assures us that he who commits Sacriledge by taking or stealing any thing from the Church may be placed beside Judas who betray'd our Saviour And not much disconsonant from this is the opinion of the Ancient Popes Anacletus and Lucius who affirm that those who rob and abuse the Church are sacrilegious and as much guilty as if they had slain a man How lamentably do the two old Fathers Gregory Nazianzen and Theodoret complain of the violation of Churches and Church-plate and Treasure How earnestly doth Boniface dehort King Aethelbold from acting Sacriledge And How plainly doth Innocent the third tell us that he commits that sin who layeth violent hands on a Bishop Then miserable were those tumultuous wretches at Westminster by their wicked assaults but farr more those who destroy'd the Reveren'd Arch-bishop Laud one of more Integrity and Religion than Prynne Gage Burton Hornius and the rest of his railing Enemies Nor are the single Fathers only testifying the hainousness of this sin but also the whole Church And he that neglects to hear the Church let him be unto thee as an Heathen-man and a Publican represented by their Council have after much seeking God solemnly curst those who perpetrate this Iniquity In one of them it was concluded upon That if any one teach that the House of God or those who meet in it are to be despised let him be accursed And with this doth another Council also agree affirming That the sin was so intolerable that they should not only be excommunicated but that they should dye accursed And with these agree several other forraign Councils too tedious here to be related being all to the same purpose which are enough to demonstrate how the Fathers and props of the Primitive Innocent Church did look upon this sin as most abominable which might easily perswade any that dare pretend to honest principles to keep themselves from such Iniquity But because some may look upon these instances as only extranious or forraign and so not binding to the people of England Though the Laws of our Land affirm the contrary allowing and receiving as proper all such Canons Constitutions c. which are not repugnant to our Laws and the Kings Prerogative I shall shew you with as much brevity as I can what care hath been had by the State of England over the Church and her priviledges for many hundred years past King Edgar about an hundred years before the Conquest ordain'd That Churches should be imploy'd to no other use then Divine Service and that with all honour and respect every thing to be done in all decency all babling and such vain discourses to be banish'd thence with all manner of bousing and tipling Nay that a Dog shall not be permitted to enter the Church-yard or a Swine if they can possibly be kept out And many other Canons commanding reverence and respect to the Clergy and Church may be seen in the same place Besides these there is another ancient Order of the Church of England wherein it is strictly forbidden to imploy the Vessels belonging to the Church to any other use whatsoever then Divine Worship In which Canon is also set before their eyes as a warning-piece Gods judgement upon Belshazzar for carousing in the Vessels dedicated to God and the Church And formerly the Kings of England were so careful of these things that they have put heavy fines upon those who either rob'd God or his Church as may appear by the Decrees of King Aethelbert above a thousand years ago and several other English Councils as the industrious and learned Sir Henry Spelman will inform you Nor have these Sacrilegious Verlets only escapt with a fine but have been loaded with the severe and just Curse and Excommunication of the Church Of which form for example take this following pronounced by Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury assisted with other Bishops in their Pontificals against all Church-spoilers and breakers of Church-liberties By the Authority of Almighty God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost we Excommunicate Accurse and from the benefits of our holy Mother the Church we sequester all those who hereafter willingly and maliciously deprave or spoil the Church of her right And all those that by any craft or wiliness do violate break diminish or change the Church-Liberties and free Customs contain'd in the Charters of the Common Liberties c. And besides this many other instances might be given of the heavy Imprecations laid upon the sacrilegious person by authority of the Church For few there are which have been Founders or Benefactors but in their deed of gift some heavy curse or other is denounced against those who shall either alienate or take away their charity and liberality Nor hath this Sacrilegious Villany been only fined curst or excommunicated but as a reward for their wickedness have suffer'd death by Law amongst others our Chronicles assure us of five who suffer'd at one time three of them being hang'd and burnt and the other two prest to death And to them may I add the hanging of William Mandevil Baily of Abington who under pretence of holiness had rais'd a Tumult but especially against the Priests whose heads he vow'd to make as cheap as Sheep-heads which were then as some say ten a peny And how any man could think to escape without severe punishment for alienating the Church-Lands I know nor Since former Parliaments how wicked soever the latter have been have been so careful of the Priviledges and Maintenance of the Clergy that they have confirm'd them by many Statutes But these men care no more for what the Laws of the Land say then Oliver who used to call Magna Charta Magna Farta For if they had they then had never so Sacrilegiously and Trayterously violated the Statutes both of God and Man yet for all this hath this wickedness been perpetrated by those who pretended the greatest ostentation and shew of holiness as if to vilifie Gods House were the only way to do him most service It is not I suppose unknown to any in Warwick how sacrilegiously the Parliamentarians behaved themselves in St. Marie's Church and the Chappel adjoyning to the Quire beating down and defacing the ancient and curious Monuments of the Beauchamps Nor can Colchester forget how inhumanly they used the Corps of Lady Lucas and Lady Kelligrew dismembring and disjoynting their Trunks and wearing their hair in their Hats by way of Triumph Never dreaming for all their Saint-ships how God doth punish the violaters of the Dead How was
Scotland by domestick dissentions stir'd up against him by Hay Creighton Bruce Graham and other Jesuites who furnished the Rebellious Nobility with moneys from Spain to carry on their designs Nor hath Ireland reason to rejoyce in their acquaintance where the Seminary Fryars of late dayes had gone so far as in Dublin it self not only to appear in their habits but also to affront the Archbishop and Maior of that City nor were they wanting to the erection of Colledges and Societies maintain'd by good Benefactors as appears by a Letter from the Council in England to that in Ireland Yet for all this hath their rebellious favourits dealt mildly with them though the Laws be severe enough and 20. years ago look'd upon this kind of mercy as a crime fit to be thrown in the face both of King and Bishop but how deservedly let any judge but Prynne whose malice and partiality is well enough known Nor need we much trouble our selves to prove the Jesuite somewhat medling their familiarity with the Anabaptists Quakers and such like Phanaticks being suspicious Of which many examples might here be shewn but that their common knowledge would make the Relation tedious only take notice that the very Weekly Gazet suspects Mr. Rogers and those of his Fraternity to have some Jesuite or Priest at the Helm with them And Mr. Rogers takes no good course to clear himself by endeavouring to vindicate the Jesuite from having any hand in our late Warrs which this following Story is sufficient to confute When the late King was murdered Mr. Henry Spotteswood riding casually that way just as his Head was cut off espyed the Queens Confessor there on Horse-back in the habit of a Trooper drawing forth his Sword and flourishing it over his own head in Tryumph as others then did At which Mr. Spotteswood being much amazed and being familiarly acquainted with the Confessor road up to him and said O Father I little thought to have found you here or any of your Profession at such a sad spectacle To which he answered that There were at least forty or more Priests and Jesuites there present on Horse-back besides himself The resultancy of this Story is home and pat and for the truth of it I referr you to Mr. Prynne Nor need we here relate the great correspondency betwixt the late Grandees and Cardinal Mazarini of which Mr. Walker gives us a hint and experience can proclaim the rest Nor is it probable that they should have no hand in the promotion of our late distractions as most beneficial to the Catholick Cause since they have been the chief fomenters of all other Wars in Christendom leaving nothing un-essay'd that may bring all into confusion as Ludovicus Lucius and others can inform you more at large Besides all this we might give some Extracts out of the Plot discovered by Andreas ab Habernfield 1640. September to Sir William Boswell the Kings Agent at the Hague and by him to the Archbishop and so to his Majesty A design managed abroad by the Pope and Cardinal Barbarino and in England chiefly by George Con a Scotch-man and the Pope's Nuncio The substance of which was that the Roman-Catholicks here should stirr up the Puritans to revenge themselves of the Bishops and the Scots should also be perswaded to Arms whence the English should so adhere that the King remaining Inferiour in Forces should be constrain'd to crave aid from the Papists which should be deny'd unless he favoured them with a Toleration which if absolutely deny'd it was contrived by sodain death to remove him But because we find the Reality of the Plot questioned by an understanding Gentleman we shall referr you to L'estrange and Prynne's Relation But let this Plot be as it will 't is more then suspicion that our Phanaticks have been beholden in many things to the Jesuite of which one example may somewhat satisfie They caus'd the Book written by Parsons Anno 1524. under the faigned name of Doleman and call'd A Conference about the Succession of the Crown which Book was condemned by Act of Parliament 35. Elizab. to be publish'd again under the title of Several Speeches delivered at a Conference concerning the Power of Parliaments to proceed against their King for Mis-government The Arguments and Precedents are meerly the same though the fashion of the Book be a little altered Parsons having made it a Dialogue and these men into Speeches And how agreeable to this Rule of King-killing they steer'd their course is impossible to be forgot as long as Memory or Record can be had in this World CHAP. IV. The helps and assistance which the Calvinist Presbyterian and Jesuite afford one another for the ruine and alteration of Kingdoms with their Plots to destroy the Government and Tranquillity of England THat the Independents should only be beholden to the Jesuits or these Fathers the sole Ingeneers of Wickedness would mainly over-cloud the Reputation of the Presbyterians who look upon themselves as active for any mischief and as cunning contrivers And therefore 't is best for them to go hand in hand each discovering to other what new Plots they have found out for the subversion of Governments By which Club they have afforded certain Rules to Politicians which have exactly been observed and followed by our late Schismaticks as is palpable by the following Observations And first we shall begin with the Plots of the Calvinists a people never negligent to promote their own Interests Of whose Sect as the Emperour Ferdinand affirm'd the proper genius is To hold nothing either Fraud or Wickedness which is undertaken for the Religion No sanctity of Oath nor fear of Dishonour hinders them A Chararacter like that given by the experienced King James to the Puritans the same with our Non-conforming Presbyterians of whom one gives this sentence Puritans and all other Sectaries who though scarce two of them agree in what they would have yet they all in general are haters of Government And to this purpose was the judgement of the wise Secretary Walsingham when to Monsieur Critoy Secretary of France he assured them to be dangerous and very popular not Zeal nor Conscience but meer Faction and Division and besides this gives a short description of their Cunning Jugling and Rebellion for which with the Jesuite they start strange Doctrines to be as an Umbrella to their Illegal proceeding Of which the learned Bancroft Mr. David Owen and an Ingenious Epistle Congratulatory under the Name of Lysimachus Nicanor will afford you many Instances Whereby you may see that the Presbyterians in their Principles and Actions have more of Rome than the late reverend Archbishop Land or his favorites Let Bayly and the spurious Irenaeus Philalethes or any others collect or steal out of him what they please The Calvinists being resolved to root the Lutherans out of the Palatinate took this following Method to bring their ends about as
the rest to follow and what effect it took is not ignorant to any who remember the Glorious and almost Almighty profane Titles thrown upon him by such Proselytes Thus have I heard and read of a Great man who made Books in his own Fame and Vindication in these late Wars and put them forth in other mens names as some suppose Annius threw his Labours upon Chaldaick Authors And somewhat to this a Writer prompts us to this Quaere Whether the Petition of July 1659. was penn'd by the Parliament and address'd to the Parliament and so the Parliament gave the Parliament thanks However this is more than probable That those who delivered the Hartfordshire Petition at the beginning of these Wars abused all the simple Subscribers the Petition that was deliver'd taking notice of several things done in Parliament the very night before its delivery in which time it was impossible to get so many Thousand hands and then travel to London on that Errand of which abuses the King himself took special notice unless their Messengers had been as swift as the Spirit Orthon-Mercury to Corasse and the Count de Foix or those who carryed the Noble Lombard from Egypt to Pavia in one night III. But because a meer Exercising of their Religion was not sufficient unless they might have Publick places for such duties they earnestly desire and Petition that they might have but one Church or two allotted them for such Publick Duties thereby to appear as the face of a Congregation All things at first have but a small beginning Those who endeavour the hopes of their Towring Expectations at the first on-set may like Phaeton bring a ruin to themselves and designs which the Independents knew well enough and so desired as the case then stood rather to grow up by degrees than by too hasty swelling to burst with the Toad to their own Confusion What Petitions have been pressed to the Parliament by self-ended Schismaticks to have places allotted them for Preachments is troublesome to remember at this time yet Mr. Edwards informs us of divers drawn up twenty years ago for a Toleration of some Congregations to enjoy an Independent Government and to be exempted from that which should be establisht by Law And some two years after this 1643. the Independents in their Apologetical Narrative presented to the Parliament shew'd themselves so humble that they might thereby gain Pity and Toleration that they concluded that they pursued no other Interest or Design but a Subsistence be it the poorest and meanest in their own Land c. But how well this self-denying desire agreed with their after usurping Incroachments is known well enough Phil. Nye and Tom. Goodwin the main contrivers of this Petition stealing to themselves the best Preferments in the Nation and the richest Indowments both in University and Countrey being divided amongst the rest so that the Proverb was now verified Give an Inch and take an Ell. IV. The Calvinists having now got liberty to exercise their faculty in Preaching and that publickly so that that they seem'd to keep equal pace with the Lutherans an Edict as if only for quietness sake was publisht that neither Party should cast aspersions upon one another Which at length proved no small lift to throw the Lutherans first out of favour and then their places for then they durst not contradict the Calvinists who were now Favourites and by consequence might with some liberty throw dirt in their Antagonists faces Besides this degrading of the Lutherans was a sufficient disgrace to them amongst the Vulgar who are commonly so politick as to side with the strongest party so they rest secure as experience hath told us at home King James in his Directions concerning Preachers strictly prohibited them from using any bitter invectives or undecent railing speeches But this was not long observed in King Charles his raign for what could not handsomly be acted in the Pulpit was in the Press though at last the former was not a little abused by scolding Burton and such like hot-headed Cushion-thumpers and Paper grew scant with the swarms of Invective Pamphlets against both Church and State Than which scandalous Libels nothing brings more detriment to a Nation as a French States-man observeth They drawing like Orpheus the brutish Vulgar a thing most capable of Sedition to dance after whatsoever they are tuned to especially if skrew'd up to the hopes of high preferment A design most wicked as being composed of horrid juggling really intending one way though they seem to carry fair for another the pretence pointing at the Reformation of when the effect brings destruction to the Kingdom By this means the Parliament and Presbyterian got applause from the people who are apt to believe and remember falshood more than truth whereby the number and confidence of their Proselytes increast to such an height that they were able to maintain and vindicate their Pamphleteers with a strong hand though not by Reason and Law So that it was more than a common danger to write any thing though truth against the Parliament but to vilifie the King was no small hopes of preferment and credit as appears by the multitude of Pamphlets and the licensed Gazets weekly flying about in 1648. where Tyranny Hypocrisie Perfidiousness were commonly attributed to his Majesty When as the Ingenuous Mr. Walker must end his dayes in the Tower for telling true tales abroad But when a great part of the Parliament it self must be look'd upon as rotten Members for adhering to the King and the rest of them shackled for demanding their priviledges and freedom 1648. which they had so long pretended to fight for What punishment might poor people expect for presuming to pry into such Great-mens Errors If a whole Army will undertake to vindicate the words and wishes of Symbal Wade and White whereby the Murther of his Majesty was desired that man can expect no great incouragement who endeavours lay to open the Villanies of such Sectaries V. Then as if to give some content a Disputation was held but a Calvinist appointed Moderator who was afterwards made Professor 'T is nothing here to my purpose to discourse whether these Polemical Exercises upon a publick account brought either Satisfaction to the Auditors or Tranquillity to the Nation and few are like that betwixt the two Reynolds's where both conquer'd both turn'd and yielded I shall therefore let that rest since the thing self as yet is sub judice The subtile Calvinists in Germany will make themselves Moderators in their own Cause and their Brethren in England must either be Umpire betwixt the King and themselves or else all the fat is in the fire and God knows what unheard of Priviledges lost When the King at their desire upon hopes of Peace yields to call in all his Proclamations against them and Essex as Traytors if they would take off Malignancy from his followers they would not yield to Overtures
late have done Nor can I subscribe to till I be better informed that Priviledge given to the Commons by I know not whom yet I suppose of no vulgar apprehension viz. That the King may hold his Parliament for the Communalty of the Realm without Bishops Earls and Barons so that they have lawful Monitions or summons albeit they come not Yet the same Book affirms that the King with his Bishops Earls and Barons cannot hold a Parliament without the assistance of the Commons And his reason for all this assertion is because Sometime there was neither Bishop Earl ne Baron and yet the King did keep and hold his Parliaments To which I shall only answer in brief thus That if he mean that our Kings have kept Parliaments when there was no such thing as or distinction in this Nation of Priest or Nobility or some such Rank above the common People I shall utterly deny his Proposition Or if he understand that Parliaments have been held only by the King and Commons I shall not yield to him till I be assured where and when yet if both were allowed it can be no good consequence that it may be done so now if custom have any sway in England which is now a main Card of the Commons Game And because some of late more through malice than judgement have not only asserted the King to be one of the Estates by which plot they will equal themselves to him and so overthrow his Rule and Government of which Sir Edward Deering doth a little hint but also exclude the Clergy It will not be amiss in this place to right both by one or two authentick Instances The first shall be the Parliaments Bill presented to King Richard III. when but Duke of Glocester to desire him to take upon him the Kingship the which is very long but in it you shall find these words Vs the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of this Realm of England according to the Election of us the three Estates of this Land Therefore at the request and by the assent of the three Estates of this Realm That is to say the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of this Land assembled in this present Parliament Here we have Three Estates the Clergy being one and the King none My second Instance shall be taken out of one Titus Livius de Frulonisiis a Book quoted several times by Stow in Henry V. which Manuscript is also in Latin in St. Benit's Colledge Library in Cambridge where having related the life and death of Henry V. he tells us that After all these things and Ceremonies of his burying were solemnly finished as is to-fore rehersed the Three Estates of the Realm of England assembled them together in great number to take advice and deliberation amongst them what was most necessary to be done for the Regiment and Government of the said Realm of England where they concluded to take for their King the only Son of the late King Henry whose name was also Henry which was the VI. of that Name since the Conquest of England But because some may slight this as only the judgement of a private Historian we will strengthen our Assertion by the Laws of our Land In Queen Elizabeth's time an Act of Parliament affords us these words We your said most loving faithful and obedient subjects representing the Three Estates of your Realm of England as thereunto constrained by Law of God and Man c. Here are again Three Estates and the Queen none and that the Clergy are one another Act of Parliament will inform us in these words The State of the Clergy being one of the greatest States of this Realm And after this same manner was the Clergy in Scotland one of the Estates as may also appear by their own Acts of Parliament one of which runs thus That the Three Estates especially considering the persons exercising the Offices Titles and Dignities of Prelates which persons have ever represented one of the Estates And in another Parliament some thirteen years before this viz. 1584. it was thus Enacted That none presume to impugne the Dignity and Authority of the Three Estates or to seek or procure the innovation or diminution of their Power and Authority or any of them in time coming under pain of Treason And whether the Scots have of late behaved themselves according to these Laws is well known And it seems strange to me that they durst be so impudent against their King who considering his power in choosing Parliaments was one of the most absolute Monarchs in the World till the modern Rebellious Retrenchments These things are convincing to me that the King never was one or part of but above the Three Estates it being ridiculous that his Majesty should Petition himself and call himself subject to himself Nor see I any reason to doubt that the Clergy was one having Acts of Parliament for it who knew their own Constitution best 'T is true of late the Clergy have had no Representatives in Parliament the Reverend Lords Spiritual being I do not know how thrown out of the Upper-House and the action at last by threats and other villainies procured to be signed by the Royal Assent for which and seeing they are since happily restored again I shall not at this time presume to question though many who are learned in our Fundamental Laws suppose that reasons might be shewn and that grounded upon law of it's nullity to which purpose the learned Dr. Heylin hath given a short Essay both from the binding of Magna Charta the darling too of our Presbyterian Parliaments which especially provides for the Priviledges of the Clergy as also by the voiding of all actions done by the King by compulsion and not of his free-will And that Kings may be so wrought upon appears by King James who when King of Scotland was by his unruly Subjects constrained to declare several times quite contrary to his judgement and so was King Edward III. as appears by the Revocation of a Statute made the 15. year of his raign And how unwilling King Charles the first was to sign this Bill is not unknown the Parliament having got a new Art of getting their ends about viz. by Tumults and Threats so that the King was rather fought than reasoned out of it And what impudence the Commons were brasoned with to presume thus to extirpate the Spiritual Lords whose Antiquity in Parliament was double to theirs is experimentally beyond expression But they and so did the Puritanical Faction of the Nobility for such Animals were amongst them too know well enough that the King would not only be weakened but themselves strengthened by annihilation of 26. such sound Royal and Orthodox Votes for which qualifications the Schismatical Lords and Commons hated them But enough of this only I shall leave some Quaeries to the consideration of the Presbyterian mad-caps Lord or Common of the wicked
Long-Parliament I. Whether or no if the King and two Estates can extirpate the third then the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal cannot turn out the Commons as well as the King Lords Temporal and Commons exclude the Bishops II. Whether or no when the King and two Estates have turn'd out the third the King with another Estate cannot also turn out the second And lastly when only the King and one Estate remains the King as Supream cannot seclude that also III. And if these things will bear a good Consequence Whether the Presbyterians whose chiefest confidence was in the Long-Parliament but esecially the Commons have not brought their Hoggs to a fair Market But these People did not only overthrow Episcopacy but struck also at the root of Monarchy it self by their pleadings against the King's Supremacy making themselves not only equal to but above him And this not only when assembled in Parliament but when they are so far from having any Authority there there being no such thing then sitting that they are separately so many private Subjects obliged only to follow their own occasions for in this capacity I suppose they make themselves when they alledge for a Rule Rex est major singules minor Vniversis considering they place this in their Remonstrance as distinct from Parliaments But how weak this Position is let Parliaments themselves be our Judges And I do not love to reason against Authentick Records When God tells us expresly that Whoredom is a grievous sin 't was blasphemy in John de Casa to write in the vindication of Sodomy When Ignatius Irenaeus and other ancient and authentick Authors assure us that Presbytery was subordinate to Episcopacy in the first Century 't is folly in our late Schismaticks to dream of or introduce a Parity When Parliaments acknowledge themselves Subjects to his Majesty for any to conclude thence their Supremacy are in my judgement no less guilty of ignorance than that simpleton of Athens who fancied all the ships and other things to be his when he had no more interest in them then I have relation to the Crown of Castile The Lords and Commons tell us plainly what little signs they have of Superiority in these words Where by divers sundry old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and exprest that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governed by one Supream Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people and divided in tearms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporally been bounden and ought to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience c. And in many other Statutes do they acknowledge themselves the King 's most humble faithful and obedient Subjects But more especially in those two of Supremacy and Allegiance in which they acknowledge the King the Supream under God both of Civil and Ecclesiastical affairs and so swear Allegiance to him each Parliament-man before he sit taking both the Oaths as all other Subjects do Whereby they clearly renounce not only Priority but Parity by which all their Cavils bring nothing upon themselves but Perjury Against this Supremacy of our Kings though it be under God and Christ John Calvin rants in his usual hot-spurr'd zeal calling them Blasphemers and Fools who durst first presume to give such a title to a King And in obedience to this Supream Head of Geneva and Presbytery doth his dear Subject and Disciple Anthony Gilby and others of that Fraternity shoot their Wild-fire against the same Statutes of England by which they shew their Schism and Madness more than Christian Prudence Besides all this our Laws make it Treason to compass or imagin the death of the King Queen or his eldest Son to leavy Warr against the King or any way adhere to or assist his Enemies But for any to commit Treason against the Parliament especially for those who have the King on their side I see little reason because I have express Law to the contrary which tells us that any one who shall attend upon the King in his Wars and for his Defence shall in no ways be convict or attaint of High Treason ne of other offences for that cause by Act of Parliament or otherwayes by any process of Law whereby he or any of them shall loose or forfeit Life Lands Tenements Rents Possessions Hereditaments Goods Chattels or any other things but to be for that deed and service utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss And if any Act or Acts or other process of the Law here after thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this Ordinance that then that Act or Acts or other process of the Law whatsoever they shall be stand and be utterly void How this Act hath been since violated Compounders Sequestrators and Decimators will best inform you And what a pitiful ridiculous and extorted Comment the Noddles of the Long-Parliament made upon this Act may be seen in their Declarations by which you may view both their ignorance and their malice These are Presidents enough to satisfie any man in the Parliaments subjection to the King it being in his power to constitute them not they him in him being the only Authority to call and dissolve them not any such being in themselves He can pardon Malefactors not they without his consent The death of the King dissolves the Parliament though their breaking up reflects nothing upon him He can call them where he pleaseth but they not remove his Court They Petition him by way of Subjects not he them The King of England can do no wrong and never dyeth being alwayes of full age the breath of the former being no sooner expired but the next Heir is de facto King without the Ceremony of Proclamation or Coronation And whether a Parliament can do no wrong or no I leave to many men now in England to judge The Kings power hath been such that he hath call'd a Parliament with what limitations he pleas'd as King Henry the fourth's Parliament at Coventry in which no Lawyer was to sit And whether too many Lawyers in a Parliament doth more good or bad hath been oft discours'd of in late times And 't is the King hath the power of the Sword not the Parliament as their own Laws tell us for in the year 1271. Octob. 30. We find this Statute To us i. e. the King it belongeth and our part is through our Royal Seignory straitly to defend i. e. to prohibit or stop force of Armour and all other force against our Peace at all times when it shall please us and to punish them who shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of our Realm And hereunto they are bound to aid us as their Soveraign Lord at all seasons when need shall be And the meaning
of this Statute hath several times since been made good by practise on the part of the Commons For in King Edward the third's dayes a Parliament was summoned to consult about the security of the Marches of Scotland and the Seas and the advice of the Commons was desired about these things But they humbly declined it submissively desiring that they might not be put to consult of those things whereof they had no cognisance And in the same King's reign when their advice was asked touching a Prosecution of a Warr with France after four dayes consultation they returned their Answer by Justice Thorpe That their humble desire to the King was that he would be advised therein by the Lords being of more experience then themselves in such affairs And in the sixt year of King Richard the second a Parliament was call'd to consult Whether the King should go himself to rescue Gaunt or send an Army The Commons humbly answered by their Speaker Sir Thomas Puckering That the Council of Warr did more belong to the King and his Lords And the next year their advice being asked concerning the Articles of Peace with France they modestly excused themselves as too weak to counsel in so weighty matters and being more earnestly prest to shew their own opinions they humbly advised rather for Peace than Warr. For in those dayes the Knights and Burgesses made it their only care to study the well-fare of and complain of the grievances which afflicted those places for which they served Those of Lin would consult the advancement of the Trade of Fishing those of Norwich the making of Stuffs he of Teverston of Kersies those of Suffolk what conduced to the benefit of Clothing those of Cornwal for their Stanneries and never pry into those things which were farr above many of their Intellectuals Many of them being but of inferiour Trades and so almost as unfit to apprehend the Intrigues of State and manage such grand Concerns as Caligula's Horse to Officiate in Divine Service though made a Priest by the said Emperour or those Priests a hundred years ago to compile a Body of Divinity or a Church-History whose ignorance was such as to think that the New-Testament was composed by Martin Luther Such was the modesty and discretion of former Parliaments And if these of later date have any more Priviledges than the ancient 't is so farr unknown to me that I despair of ever finding them Of this I need say no more but that as a Parliament in Queen Mary's dayes supplicated That the Pope's Supremacy over them might be restored greatly repenting them of their former Schism by which means they got their absolution from Cardinal Pool So had it been well for many of our late Members to have acknowledged the King's Authority and reduced themselves betimes to his Obedience Much more might be said in the behalf of the Prerogative Royal. But this shall suffice since it hath been so well done formerly by the learned and constant true-hearted Judge Jenkins the Ingenious Mr. Diggs and others CHAP. VI. The Priviledges of Parliament and that in some Cases they are Null and Void THough these things afore specified might satisfie a Rational Subject yet as a cloud to obscure this Regal Supremacy the Commons have found out a way to cry Priviledge of Parliament And with this clamorous plea they have lately thought to save their Bacon in the multitude of their bewitched Proselytes be their Actions never so notorious And these Priviledges they are gloriously pleas'd to call Their ancient and undoubted Rights and Inheritance But King James a Prince too wise and learned to submit to or wink at a popular fury informed them plainly and truly that he should rather desire them to say That their Priviledges were but derived from the grace and permission of their Kings most of them growing but from Presidents which shews rather a Toleration than Inheritance And therefore could not endure Subjects to use such Anti-Monarchical words unless subjoyned with acknowledgement of grace and favour What their Priviledges are they have been very unwilling to shew in a particular way But be they what they will these two following they have most made use of and imbraced viz. 1. Liberty of Speech 2. Freedom from Arrest and Imprisonment As for the first 't is true that Sir Arnold Savage 1404 Speaker to the Commons humbly desired King Henry the fourth that they might freely make complaint of any thing amiss in the Government And that the King by the sinister Information of any person would not take it offensive The which the King was royally pleased to grant And after this Sir Thomas More their Speaker 1523 prayed King Henry the Eighth That If in Communication and Reasoning any man in the Common-House should speak more largely then of duty they ought to do that all such offences might be pardoned the which the King was pleased to grant And the same favour was also yielded to Thomas Moyle Esq their Speaker some twenty years after And Queen Elizabeth at the entrance of her reign was graciously pleas'd to allow the same to the Speaker Sir Thomas Gargrave before which mans time 't was very seldom asked and therefore not granted The Speakers commonly only desiring liberty for themselves not including the rest of the Members though since Gargrave's time it hath alwayes been humbly desired and also favourably granted But what of all this the King permits them Liberty of speech or rather winks at some slips which in heat of discourse or debates they may through unadvisedness let fall Therefore they may speak Treason revile Authority intrench upon Prerogative and what not But if this be a Logical Consequence then is a Kings condition as miserable as uncertain And this is something like the Long-Parliaments plea for a perpetual Session The King agrees that they shall not be dissolved without their own consent therefore they would sit till call'd to Judgement by the last Trumpet though their Treasonable Actions against the King did not only by the Law dissolve them but left them capable of severe punishments But how weak this pretended Consequence is may appear by a continued practise The Bishop of Carlile for his bold Speech in Parliament was imprisoned by King Henry the Fourth And Queen Elizabeth who was as great a favourite and darling in the eyes of her Subjects as any since the Creation tells her first Parliament at a publick meeting at White-Hall where they desired her to marry that if they had limitted her either to place or person she would then have thought it in you a great presumption being unfitting and altogether unmeet for you to require them that command or those to appoint whose parts are to desire or such to bind and limit whose duties are to obey or to take upon you to draw my love to your likings or to frame my will to your fantasie How severely did she check
himself loyal and rational be judge And truly what itching ears for Innovation and against Regal Authority some of the forraign Presbyters have is something palpable from the Letter of Gisbertus Voetius wherein he doth not only commend Prynne's Soveraign Power of Parliaments but saith that it ought to be translated into Latin and French for the benefit of the Reformed Divines and Politicians And Prynne himself tells us that it is translated into several Languages And what Pleas they may suck out of such Books against Monarchy cannot be ignorant to those who have seen what mischief the counterfeit Name of Junius Brutus a fit name for such a murtherous mind though the true Authour is supposed to be Beza and that printed in divers Languages hath laid open to those who are willing to perpetrate wickedness And how consentaneous to the Doctrines laid down in these Pamphlets their actions have been their often Rebellions in France but more especially in the dayes of Lewis the 13 th will shew us whom though he had pardoned several times yet would they never keep Articles but upon every advantage fly to their Arms again looking upon Regal Authority only as a Bug-bear to afright Children hoping in time by dwindling it to nothing to raise themselves to Superiority And how many men by these false Positions may be drawn to Schism and Rebellion is manifest from this one Example In King James his time one Knight a young Divine Preach'd at St. Peters in Oxford and in his Sermon maintain'd the Presbyterian Doctrines above specified for which being call'd in question he laid the fault upon some late Divines in forraign Churches who had misguided him in that point especially on David Paraeus who had asserted these Doctrines upon which his Comment on the Romans was publickly and solemnly burnt at Oxford 1622. June 6 th Cambridge and St. Paul's Cross in London The famous University of Oxford in a full Convocation concluding 25. June 1622. That such assertions were contrary to Scripture Councils Fathers the Faith and Profession of the Primitive Church and Monarchy it self and therefore condemned them as false wicked and seditious And did also affirm That according to the Scriptures it is not lawful for Subjects upon any terms to resist their King or Prince no not to take up Arms against him either for Religion or any other account whatsoever And for more sureness they did also Decree that every one before he took a Degree should swear to this The Opinion delivered in the sentence of these two famous Universities I shall value more than of an Assembly or Classis made up of all the Presbyterians in the World The consideration of these Disciplinarian Maximes I believe did make our ingenious Satyrist cry out Our Zeal-drunk-Presbyters cry down All Law of Kings and God but what 's their own If you desire to see any more of their wild and extravagant Principles you may consult Archbishop Bancroft's Industrious Book a piece that I am sorry is so scarse as it is and that for want of Re-printing while Calvert's shop dayly labours with the multitude of Fanatick Pamphlets and such Books as Smectymnuus must be printed and printed again and that with the addition of a long Preface by a great Time-serving Divine CHAP. VII The Rebellious Actions of the Presbyterians in Scotland till the Death of King James HOw agreeable the practise of the Brethren have been to these Treasonable Notions afore specified shall here in brief be laid down by their tumultuous Carriages in Scotland Whither these Principles kindled with a fiery zeal enough to eat up whole Kingdoms were carryed and the furiousness of them greatly augmented at the return of John Knox that great Incendiary of the Nation and Kirk of Scotland as a learned Doctor calls him from Geneva 1559. A man that still had the misfortune to carry Warr and Confusion along with him as if like Hippocrates's Twins he and they were inseparable witness the Combustions he made at Franckfort amongst the poor English Protestants fled thither for Religion where he was not undeservedly accused of High-Treason against the Emperor by comparing him in print to Nero and calling of him Enemy to Christ c. For which crimes he was forced to sculk away to Geneva thence to Deep in France and after that to Scotland whence after few weeks stay he fled back to Geneva but not setling there he returns to Deep again from which place he wrote divers Letters to the Scots to stirr them up to Rebellion and having by that means wrought some confidence among them returned to Scotland again By these Principles distill'd amongst them by this wandering Brother and the deadly Feuds of old betwixt the Nobility the Nation became miserably distracted The Kings and Queens thinking it hard measure to have their undoubted Rule and Soveraignty pluck'd from them by such inferiour Instruments and Vassals And on the other side the Congregators for so they then call'd themselves back'd on by several Hot-spurs scorned to yield subjection to any but themselves so that the disturbed Kingdom appeared to be governed by two distinct Authorities like Caesar and Pompey one party disdaining an Equal whilst the other denyed a Supream The Presbyters so farr extolling their own Priviledges as Christs Embassadours that many thought there was no Antichrist but Kings and such Civil Authority which cogitations nurst in them such a small esteem of their Rulers or Laws that they did not only think that to be their right which was most agreeable to their own humours but also that they might gain such things to themselves by the Sword As if Subjects need any more Priviledge then the course of Law At the beginning of the Reformation in Scotland the Queen-Regent favourably because contrary to her Religion allowed them the Bible in their own Language But they not content with this use their wonted Master-peice of Reviling upon which she was constrained to send for some of their Preachers to appear before her who accordingly came but with such a multitude of favourites and attendants that through fear of her own Person she was obliged to order by Proclamation all to depart who came unsent for a thing alwayes usual in the best of Governments yet was this so offensive to the Brethren that they throng in Tumults into her Privy-chamber and there threaten her with their weapons an act quite contrary to the Apostles and Primitive Christians so that she was constrained to pleasure them Afterwards she allows them liberty to use their Prayers and Service in the Vulgar Tongue provided they kept no Publick Assemblies in Edenbourgh or Leith for avoiding Tumults And in their Petition to her for the obtaining these favours they acknowledge that the Redress of all Enormities both Ecclesiastical and Civil did orderly belong to her But this acknowledging of her Authority lasted not long for when presently afterwards they demanded more liberty with a
passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many ages Yet for all these good turns done them by the King do they Print though the King earnestly desired the contrary and sedulously spread abroad this Remonstrance thereby to make him odious and themselves as Patrons to the people a fair requital for such large benefits and sufficiently to shew their ingratitude and What more wicked then that amongst our vertuous Ancestours The Heathen Heraclians were more noble to their Athenian Enemies and the savage Lions for their thankfulness to Mentor Helpius and Androdus will be a reproach upon record to these Puritanical Members And Alexander was more ingenuous to his Horse than these to their King Yet never was there any who desired Peace and the Subjects good more than He for the obtaining of which he consented to them in such things that he parted with many Jewels from his Crown as Queen Elizabeth used to call such Priviledges granting them Triennial Parliaments abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Writs for Ship-Money Bishops-Votes in Parliament Temporal power of the Clergy slip'd away Tunnage Poundage and gave the Parliament leave to sit as long as they pleas'd and that they might see he privately acted nothing against them he admitted into his Privy-Council several Lords which were great Favourites and Correspondents with the Parliamentary Party and in many other things besides these hath this King valed his Crown as a Learned Doctor phraseth it Yet could not all this please some men being like the Sea insatiable Though a moderate Member of the Parliament asked what they could desire more of the King seeing he had granted them so much he was answered by Mr. Hambden as a late Historian tells us To part with his Power and trust it to us And that some of them had higher thoughts than the Loyalty of a Subject or the trust of Parliament could dispense withal I could easily be perswaded to and those especially who by their former actions in Parliaments had drawn some displeasure upon themselves and knew well enough that the more Prerogative and Power the King lost the more they gain'd which at last would more then preserve them But this Faction as the King tells us was only of a few ambitious discontented and seditious persons who under strange pretences had entered into a Combination to alter the Government both of Church and State And so that this might be done they did not care after what manner nor who perisht so their own heads were but held up that me-thinks I hear them threat and encourage like Tasso's Tyrant Aladin Purche'l Reo non si salvi il guisto pera El'innocente Sù sù fideli mei sù via prendete Le flamme e'l ferro ardete uccidete So I Obtain my wish let just with wicked dye Come come rouse up my faithful friends and shew How bravely you can burn and murther too And what courses they steered to arrive at their hoped for Authority may in part be seen in these following Observations One of their first steps was to make the Court and Church odious amongst the Vulgar under the Title of Popish and Arminians a wickedness quite contrary to the Laws of our Land which make special provision against the publishers of such rumours whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may arise between the King and his People or the Nobility or Bishops yet neither Law nor Gospel can have any any sway with these men who had used this knack of reviling in several former Parliaments and may be seen in the multitude of their long-winded Speeches and printed too forsooth the better to spread the Infection about the Nation yet you may take all the Reason amongst them and never grow madd with too much Learning though the multitude of words are enough to choak the largest Leviathan nor could much be expected many of the Members being so ignorant that I dare boldly say that they did not know what the five Controverted Points signified and I believe would have taken and voted too Jacob van Harmine and the Remonstrants for Calvinists though have damn'd Arminius for a wicked Heathen Thus the Priests in Spain told the people to make them hate the Reformed Religion that Protestants were not like other men had heads like Dogs and such like Beasts They also restored into favour all those who had opposed the Peace of the Nation as Prynne Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburn and such like who were stiff men to raise their Interests as farr as Pen Ink or Brawling could do and that their Interest might be the more strengthened in the Countrey they put into Offices and Imployments of trust all those whom they either found or were by them made discontented against the Court and Religion by which trick they twisted their Obligations so close together that they made good use of this afterwards And to make their Cause more favourable to the People and to blast the Reputation of their Enemies they promoted abundance of bawling Lecturers most of them of no great Learning or Conscience but as furious as Orlando and with throats O heavenly wide who could scold excellently against Bishops and Government and vomit out a Lesson with as much ease as a Matron of Billingsgate both being compos'd of the same materials and to the same purpose viz. strife and for their dexterity and quickness they out-did a Mountebank being alwayes as ready for the Pulpit as a Knight-Errant for combate never out of his way let the Text be what it will like the Sompners Fryer in Chaucer but nothing related to the honest Parson in the same Poet that it is beyond admiration how they can conjure such an Olla Podrida of Sermon-Notes from such good Texts and that of so little coherence that their extraction seems as miraculous as the generation of the Cadmian armed Souldiers from Serpents teeth To raise up Rebellion and Sedition there cannot be a better Trumpet in the World then the mouths of such Hirelings as hath been proved by long experience Wat Tyler and Straw's Rebellion could not want incouraging Sermons as long as John Ball lasted who cheer'd up that Levelling Army at Black-heath with a long Preachment beginning with this Proverb When Adam dolve and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman And 't is observed by Mr. Howell that the Preaching Fryers and Monks were the chief Incendiaries of the Catalonians to their late Revolt And we have it from Authentcik Authority how that Hernando de Avalos and Juan de Padilla in the Spanish Civil Wars against the Emperour Charles V. in the first place imploy'd some Fryers to rail against the Government in their Pulpit and so to incite the people to Warr which according to expectation took fire in Toledo these men being the first thunderers of Seditions into the Castillians and to this purpose the famous Spanish
Historian Prudencio de Sandoval tells us a memorable passage of the Conde de Salvatierra who sent a Priest to Vittoria the Metropolis of Alava a little Province in old Castile only as it were to have some discourse with the Junta but upon suspition was presently put in Prison by Diego Martinez and search'd where they found Letters to the Fryers and some other people desiring them to perswade the people to Rebellion The Scotch Stories are plentiful of Pulpit-Treasons nor must our English Tub-thumpers be exempted a sort of people more antick in their Devotions than Don Buscos Fencing-Master and can so wrincle their faces with a religious as they think it wry-Look that you may read there all the Persian or Arabick Alphabet and have a more lively view of the Aegyptian Hieroglyphicks then either Kircherus or Pierius will afford you Yet for all this outward zeal experience hath told us that the chief of them were but Time-serving Pratlers acting more for their own Interest than the Publick good and according to the prosperity of their favourites so was their passion transported and apt to be cooled again from the least dissatisfaction of a Grandee that I look upon many of them to be not only as simple but as inconsistent as that Biscayner Priest in Charles the V. time who when the Commonalty rebell'd against the Emperour took so much their part that he used to pray publickly for it and Juan de Padilla and his Wife Maria Pacheco the chief promoters of that warre by the name of King and Queen affirming all other Kings to be but Tyrants yet this zeal kept not long heat for afterwards Padilla and his Soldiers marching by where the Priest lived and some of them being quartered in his house drank him up a little barrel of wine took away a wench which he kept and did other soldier-like extravagancies which turn'd his stomach so much against them and their cause that the next Sunday he thus bespake his Parishioners You know my brethren how that Juan de Padilla marching by this place his soldiers left me not one Hen they eat up my Bacon and dranke me up a whole barrel of Wine and have taken away my Catharine with them Therefore for the future I charge you not to pray to God for him but for King Charles and his Queen Juana which are our true Kings As for the Antiquity of Lecturers if looked into it will be found to be but upstart to witt in the latter end of Queen Elizabeths time and this fashion too stoln from Geneva and here introduced by those who had no Authority unless you allow Trevers and his companions to have the sway of the English Church And what law they have for their vindicarion I know not unlesse they plead an Order of the Commons whereby any Minister was permitted to use weekly Lectures in his own Church But whether any such Authority was intrusted with the Commons or if it were whether this permitted them to thump in other peoples Pulpits lyeth out of my study though a novice in Law is able to satisfie any man in this Yet were many of these Lecturers though never in orders recommended cherish'd and held up in their bold and seditious railing against the Church Book of common Prayer and the King and his Government and licence publickly given to their Pamphlets whereby many of the people were drawn to take part against their King For they having the sway or'e the Conscience which is the rudder that steers the astions words and thoughts of the rational Creature they transport and snatch it away whither they will making the beast with many heads conceive according to the colour of those rods they use to cast before them as Mr. Howell very ingeniously saith And for this cause it is that the state of Venice have a special care of the Pulpit and Press that the Priests dare not temper in their Sermons with the designs and transactions of State which the same Gentleman alloweth to be one reason why that Republick hath lasted so long in such a flourishing condition and to the benefit of this the wise and peaceful King James did agree in the Hampton Court Conference yet for all this so resolved were the Commons to carry on their designs that in 1641. they by a strong hand put several Lecturers into other mens pulpits and put the true Ministers of those Churches into aboundance of trouble because they did not at first consent to such innovations and intruders as many parishes in London are able to testifie and into what good humours that great City was preach'd by these thunderers experience hath sadly told us Nor in plain English is there any such need of these Lecturers as is pretended to by our Non-conformists for consider our Sunday-sermons with those upon our Festivals with the appointed and accidental Fasts and Thanks-giving ones and I am confident there will be as many in a year as are either well made use of or well preached Another mode they had to drive on their designes of altering the government of England confirm'd by so many wholsome Laws was to get the Lords and Commons jumbled together into one house for which purpose they put several agitators to draw up a Petition against a malignant faction and that the Peers who were agreeable to them would remove and sit and vote with the Commons professing unless some speedy remedy were taken for their satisfaction they would lay hold on the next remedy that was at hand and not to leave any means for their relief and that those who agreed not to them might be publickly declared and removed And this worshipful petition was accordingly framed and by the Commons presented to the Lords This extravagant paper was presented with the like words of a Commoner the same day that those Lords who would concurr with the Commons about the Militia would make themselves known that the dissenting Peers might be made known to the Commons These threats I say as a Royall pen informes us did so astonish many of the Lords that so many of them with indignation departed that the vote against the Kings Militia passed though it had severall times been denied before And by such like unhandsome jugling tricks as this were the rest of their designs promoted And that they really had an intent to have but one House by making the Lords sit with them a Dr. well-skilld in these times assures us out of Sr. Edward Deering's Speeches and besides this that the King himself should be but as one of the Lords and then their work was done Besides these the Presbyrerian faction had other waies to make themselves Lords and Maisters especially one without which the rest though obtain'd would not relish well with them And this it was they having oft heard from King James and he learnt it by good experience No Bishop no King cast about how to ruine the first and
ma ruine These rabble factious Tumults never mend A Nation but its ruine doth portend The Neapolitans will never forget the miseries brought upon them by a sordid Fisherman Thomas Anello And Munster and other parts of Germany do yet remember with sadness their Anabaptistical tumults The great Turk no sooner hears of the Seditious Rabble but he fears his own neck And Tyler with his rustick Clowns made King Richard submit to their unbounded impudence Nor can it be denyed but that the Londoners and others set up the first post of the Kings Scaffold when by these out-ragious Tumults they began the wicked Warr. The Tumults of which his Sacred Majesty gives the best character in his incomparable Book favour'd the Parliament with a twofold courtesie one was they forced him from London there being no safety for his Royal Person whilst such unbelieving miscreants did domineer The other was they having learn'd the knack to cry Thief first horribly exclaim'd that themselves were thereby only in danger and therefore desired not only a Guard to defend their Worships though they punish'd those appointed to protect them but very modestly to have the disposal of the whole Militia in England And this claim rather then desire of theirs they call just and necessary and for the ease benefit safety and security of the people and that his Majesty could neither in Honour Justice or Conscience deny he having it not legally before And this small request is but to command the Militia Thus the Wolf only desired the Dogs to be divided from the Sheep Thus Alexander would but command the whole World Thus would Calvin only have his Countrey-men and Creatures mingled with the Geneva Senate Thus did Nero desire that Rome might have but one neck And thus the crafty Fryer in the Sumpners tale desired to his dinner only the liver of a Capon and a roasted Pigs-head knowing full well that if he got those he should not want his part of the Pigg and Capon too And thus the Parliament only desired the Militia that they might only command the King and all England All small requests which might have been augmented if the modest Supplicants had had more confidence But an old Scotch Poet would have taught them better manners and discretion if their wicked policy would have given them leisure to have consulted either Morality or Divinity but what is in the Covenant Thou art ane gret fuil soune said he Thyng to desyre quhilk may nocht be This of the Militia though the King deny yet they seize upon it not only in London but in all England and Wales some Countries being so forward at the Parliaments beck that they had begun their Militia assoon as Petitioned for and this before the Queen imbarqued for Holland And what little account they made of the King is visible by their Ordinance for the Militia in which the People are commanded to act nothing but as the Parliament would and that if they did they should be tryed by none but the Parliament and that this should be as long and no longer then the Parliament pleas'd These actions the King might well wonder at which astonishment may be increast when they tell him they can endure no longer his denyals And the same day vindicate those who had armed themselves though contrary to the Kings express Command and Order the day before But the Kings Authority is of no force with these men who proceeded farther by Voting That all Commissions granted under the Great Seal and by the Kings Consent to the Lieutenants in several Counties are illegal and void and that those who act by them shall be disturbers of the Peace But yet that all such persons as shall be nominated by the Parliament shall be cock-sure in their Authority And that their former Ordinance by some Law or other doth oblige the People This the King the same day forbids to be obey'd because against his consent and this command of his the Parliament Votes to be a high breach of the Priviledges of Parliament Thus went or rather ran the sturdy members in opposition to the King as if their malice had exceld Hamilcar's the Carthagenian against the Romans And by this fury they engaged themselves so farre that they thought it not safe to retreat and so brought it to the tryal of the Bloud-thirsty Sword by which was miserably acted The Civil Wars tumultuous Broyls And bloudy Factions of a mighty Land Whose People haughty proud with forraign spoils Upon themselves turn back their conquering hand Whilst Kin their Kin Brother the Brother foils Like-Ensigns all against like-Ensigns Band Bows against Bows against the Crown Whilst all pretending right all Rights fall down Yet for all these and many more miseries of Warr the Parliament could not doubt of many partakers since the Commons had made themselves such a Bug-bear and Terror to the Nation that the power of the King was even shrunk into a Duke of Venice Nor were the Authority and Priviledge of the Peers regarded with any more favourable Aspect being now rather become an other House then a House of Lords If the Peers think it not convenient that the Protestation should be taken all England over the Commons will not only judge the contrary but command it to be done If the Lords Order the Common-Prayer and other Ceremonies confirm'd by act of Parliament to be us'd and read in all Churches in this the Commons will oppose both King and Lords and order the quite contrary and punish those who do not obey them If the Peers refuse to joyn with them to Petition the King for a Guard against the Tumults knowing them to be the fomenters of them They will Petition themselves and think much if the King do deny them though he knew If he gave them an Inch they would take an Ell. If the Lords at first refuse to join with them to obtain the Militia yet will the Commons not only demand it but threaten the dissenting Nobility one of them desiring that a Catalogue might be taken of their names who consented not to them that so they might be known to the Commons Goodly goodly hath not the Peers brought themselves unto a fine pass But I believe they know best whom they may thank for 't Certainly the dapper Commons thought they might as well spurn at King and Lords as the old Gyants fight against Jupiter for I believe from Ovid they took a Scheme of many of their mutations But these men wrought by action as well as words and thoughts which was a high token of the Commons strength who had so much influence amongst the Sectaries a word good enough for him Lord or Clown that takes exception at it and power over the Lords that they gott 9 of the Peers voted never to sit again in Parliament because they were obedient to his Majesty so that Mr. Pym's Item to the Earl of Dover one of
the 9 Lords was not unsignificant viz. That if he look'd for any preferment he must comply with them in their waies and not hope to have it by serving the King Words of such a Mandrake-sound that they would have astonished a Roman ear whose generosity and vertue made them raise a Temple to Fidelity But all bonds of obedience and loyalty were hurld off by these sons of contradiction and Majesty it self so farr disrepected that Martin could with confidence wipe his lips with the whore in the Proverb and think he had done no wrong when he affirmd that the Kings Office is forfeitable and that the happiness of this Kingdome doth not depend upon him or any of the Royall branches of that stock and this was seconded by that worshipful Champion Sir Henry Ludlow who peremptorily said that he was not worthie to be King of England Nor are these words unbefitting the Father of such a known Son as Edmud Ludlow one of the Kings noted Tryers and an immortal Enemy to all goodnesse Church-government and literature Nor did the whole Parliament speak little lesse then the former when they affirmed he had no negative vote call'd all his Actions illegall and his Letters Declarations and Proclamations scandalous and false forbidding people to be obedient to him upon pain of displeasure declaring all such as did to be Traitors Taxing him with an intention towards Popery O implacable Malice foisted into the world by these his back-friends and spread abroad with abundance of impudence and malice by their zealous Myrmidon and Journy-work-jobber Prynne one that if he had lived amongst the Malabars in the East-Indies where long eares is a Token of honour comlinesse and bravery would have been held a man of no great credit But the best on 't is Pryn's scandalous pamphlet call'd the Popish Royall Favourite i. e. the King was many years ago learnedly and industriously answer'd to the Honour of his Majesty honesty of the undertaker and discredit and confusion of the Mercury-admiring accuser And therefore Mr. Baxter was somewhat to blame to cull such false trifles out of Prynne to prove the King reconcileable to Rome though he believes he was no Papist and this ten years after the Kings Beheading But to return to the Parliament who will yeild to none in bitterness against his Majesty who protest to him when no nearer York then New-Market That they would make use of that power which they had for their security and professing in the same paper that it was not words that could secure them And what their intention was in this may be gathered by voting some few daies before That the Nation should be put into a posture of Defence and only by Authority of Parliament And all those Extravagancies were acted by the Parliament in opposition and discredit to the King before his Majesty had so much as one man either in offensive or defensive Armes in a publick way So that he might well admire at those who charg'd him to be the first beginner and raiser of this Warre Thus the Kings mildnesse gave encouragement to those furious spirits who never left plotting till they had fill'd England with more villanies then Rome is in the vacancy of her Popedome or Tacitus could reckon up in the front of his History and this by their unjust dealings with him by warre and such like wickednesses though they might have consulted the Apothegm of that great Goth Athanaricus being good Divinity Law and Reason that A King is a earthly God and whosoever rebels against him is guiltie of his own death Nor doth the great Father of the Church intimate to us lesse obedience to our Kings then the former But these men cared little for reason or authority in any but themselves as appears by those impudent and irrational Propositions sent to the King at New Castle when they were Masters and had him in hold whereby he would be but a King of clouts and the Nobility and Gentry of his party bound to hop headlesse Articles so palpably wicked that an Italian through his Majesty looks upon them as distructive both to Church and State Nor could lesse be expected from these men in the height of their Pride and prosperity when at the beginning of these wicked Warres long before the stroak at Edghill The good King weeping as it were over the approaching ruine of his Subjects earnestly endeavours to perswade the Parliament to a Reconciliation in the lamentable breathings of Tancredi to the violent Rinaldo Dimmi che pensi far vorrai le mani Del civil sangue tu dunque bruttarte E con le piaghe ind egnede ' Christiani Trafiger Cristo ond'ei son membra e perte c. Ah non per Dio vinci te stesso Tell me what mean you now Will you yet stain Your hands in your friends bloud by Civill Warre And by your killing Christians now again Pierce Christ his side of whom we members are c. Ah no for Gods sake conquer your passion Desiring that they might both lay down their Armes and recall all their papers against each other upon an appointed day and so enter into a Treaty But they being carryed along with a Spirit of contradiction like the Scotch Presbyter who railing against King Church and Government and being commanded by King James to speak either sense or come down replyed like himself I say man I 'se nowther speak sense nor come down They I say resolved to run counter absolutely declare that they will not think of peace till the King have taken down his Standard left his Armies repair'd to the Parliament that so justice might be done upon those who had adhear'd to them and how by this his Majesty himself could escape they having some few daies before taxed him with most mischievous Tyranny I know not And in the same paper the lands of all those who were of the Kings party were forfeited and I think it is not unknown how they were disposed on afterwards Nor need we doubt but those men who without Blushing could Vote the Queen a Traitor would not care to draw up some blood into their faces soe they might have their revenge on his Majesty And whether this clause For the preservation of his Majesties person was voted to be left out in the New modled Commission the Commons and my Lord Fairfaz know best and what the meaning of such a seclusion was the revolution of a few years did fully import Thus did the English use the King as the Scots did their James the third who hated him as Mr. Drummond informes us because he got the love of his people by Piety and Justice and having taken up armes against him would not hearken to any termes of reconciliation unlesse he freely resigned the title of his Crown and Realm in favour of his Son then in theirs Hands and voluntarily deposed himself
leaving the Government of all to the Lords of his Parliament Which impudence of theirs hurryed them on so farre that they never left fighting till their King was murder'd but how uncertain Thus are the best men violently opposed by the wicked though the vertue and patience of the former might in reason mollifie the latter to obedience How wishedly will some pitty the case of Argalus and Parthenia the patience of Gryseld in Chaucer the misery and troublesome adventures of the Phanatick Lovers in Cleopatra Cassandra Amadis de Gaul Sidney and such like Yet all these as meer Romantick as Rablaise his Garagantua And yet with an unmoved apprehension can peruse the lamentable murder of Edward the Second of England and James the first and Milcolumb the first of Scotland the cutting off the head of good King Alpinus the poisoning of Fergusius the third by his own Queen and her stabbing her self the strangling of Malvinus by his own Queen and the throat-cutting of King Fethelmachus by a Fidler and besides these the martyrdome of old Queen Ketaban in Persia The stabbing of Henry the fourth in France The sacrilegious poisoning of the Emp. Henry the seventh in Italy The miserable death of Mauricius the Emp. with his Wife and five Children by the wicked Phocas And can read the fatall stories recorded by Boccace with lesse grief then the deplorable narrative of Arnalte's love to Lucenda And the patience of the good King Henry the sixth who being grievously struck by a murthering Varlet only made this Reply Forsooth and forsooth being his words for most earnest expression never using an oath ye do fouly to smite a King anointed so May be farre out-rivall'd by some with the misfortunes and hardship of some inchaunted Lover in Ariosto Parismus the two Palmerins or Mirrour of Knighthood And for the horrid murther of his late Majesty experience tells us that many have been so farre from contracting grief that they have so much triumphantly rejoiced at it that they have thought an action of so much wickednesse to have been honourable to them and their posterity for ever Thus have we come short to our Ancestors in fidelity and Loyalty by studying all occasions to rebell against our King They rather then undergo the ignominions title of Nithing i. e. a knave or a night-filcher swarme to the Service of their King we on the contrary rather then not be branded with the wicked name of a Traytor will court all occasions by our Rebellion to make our selves meritorious to a pair of Gallows And so to conclude this assertion I shall tell you that the Parliament wanted all the qualifications to make a warre really espousable No warre being lawful unlesse it be commanded by the Supream Authority the which the Parliament was not but the King if the Laws of our Land be an authentick Standerd And secondly the occasion of the Warre must be just which was wanting on the Parliaments side all their specious pretences being false and ridiculons their reasons suggested to the people to beget a Warre being to as small purpose as the Duke of Burgundy to quarrell for a cart-load of Sheep-skins or the two Brethren neer Padua about the disposal of the Starrs and Firmament And suppose their jealousies had been true yet it was Treason in them to warre against the Supream Authority the King according to the Laws of our Land and damnable according to the word of God Let Buchanan and such as he by supposing the Apostles and the Spirit to deal with us like Hypocrites evince to the contrary For if the Apostle Paul commandeth the Christians to be obedient to their Heathen and Tyrannical Kings who made it their sport to persecute Christians and that for Conscience-sake telling them that their power was of God certainly we are bound to obey a Christian Prince whose authority can be no lesse If we perceive our selves grieved resist we cannot but by Prayers and Obedience To which purpose the ancient Chaucer instructs us who certainly in this sung according to the rule of his time and therein neither false Law nor Gospel Lordes hestes may not be fayned They may wel be wayled and complained But men must nedes unto her lustre obey And so wol I there nis no more to sey The primitive Christians when collected into great Armies were honoured for their obedience never rebelling against but fighting or quietly living under their Heathen Kings as Tertullian will satisfie more at large But now we are so farre from being peaceable in a Christian Government that if occasion of rebellion cannot handsomly be pluckt by the fore-top yet we can create reason to our selves though upon a serious reflection we acknowledge such endeavours to be unjust Thus the Army when in obedience to the Parliament it had conquer'd and ruin'd the King and Kingdome and by the assistance of the sword and Satan had made themselves Lords and Masters over their Betters then I say when they were at the top of their prosperity they do seriously professe that the Parliament did justifie many extraordinary strange and doubtlesse in respect of the letter of the Law very illegal actions viz. Their taking up Armes raising and forming Armies against the King fighting against his person imprisoning impeaching arraigning trying and executing him cutting off his Head banishing his Children abolishing Bishops Deans and Chapters took away Kingly Government and the House of Lords broke the Crowns sold the Jewels Plate Goods Houses and Lands belonging unto the Kings of this Nation erected extraordinary High Courts of Justice and therein impeached arraigned condemned and executed many notorious enemies to the publick peace when the Laws in being and the ordinary Courts of Justice could not reach them These were strange and unknown practises in this Nation and not at all justifiable as is conceived by any known Laws and Statutes Thus have you the judgment of a ruling Army against their Masters and themselves though this their repentance was but to vindicate another infidelity But here after all this it may be objected that though some factious spirits of the Parliament have been too incroaching upon the King and the chief Incendiaries of these Warres yet why should I lay all this upon the Presbyterian account To which there needs no tedious reply if we do but consider that these factious people were all Non-conformists from whom if examples may be held for proofs as Schismaticks a self-conceited giddy hot-headed zeal and by consequence Rebellion is as inseparable as pride from Menecrates or Children when gallanted up in new cloathes For my part I am apt to believe that the Bloud of many thousand Christians shed in these warrs and before cryeth loud against Presbytery as the people only guilty of the first occasion of quarrel And that they have been the chief occasion of other slaughters may be credited not only from forraign stories but the authentick judgment of the ever great
Grotius one born and bred amongst them yet so farr satisfied or rather nauseated with their manners that he looks upon them as factious turbulent and rebellious spirits and so not fit for Subjects And this character it may be hath been the occasion of their gnashing their teeth so much against him CHAP. II. The Abominable Hypocrisie and Jugling of the Parliament and Army till the Murther of his Majesty AMongst the Ancients Proteus was look'd upon as a pretty fellow that could vary his shape according to his own pleasure And with what equal respect we have lately favour'd those who have hugg'd themselves for their same knack of jugling is not nor never will be worn out of memory The smooth-tongued St. Martins Quacksalvers at Venice have delt honestly and open-handed in respect of our Modern State-Mountebancks who were so farr Pharisees that they blab'd their zeal at the corner of every street yet kept their Intentions more secret than the Boy did who dyed by the devouring Fox hid under his coat Our Politicians like Eutrapelus in the Poet were grown to the true pitch of callidity to charm their Neighbours to the changing of their Opinions with their Habits and all this industry as Bythius did the Roman Cannius meerly to cheat those who deal with them I must confess I am apt to smile though I do not approve when I read or hear a neat piece of small cousenage But for those who through private Interests by their plots and devices endeavour to over-throw whole Kingdoms no man of honesty but must abominate That man which through judgement though erronious sticks to his Principles shall be more in my favour than those who outwardly offend less yet are so peccant through design which makes me have a better opinion of many misled German-Boors at Munster then some of our late English Grandees who for their own profit have not only sided with all Parties but run counter to their former Oaths Declarations Principles if they have had any firm to make a private advantage How many have we had who have confidently given out themselves the only men of honesty and sanctity yet such as against all Morarality who have fill'd the World with strange Declarations and Vows by calling Heaven and Earth to witness that their intentions were so and so whereas if that be true of the Poet Exitus acta probat Actions do show If they intended really or no. Then may we justly conclude that they intended nothing less then that which they most engaged to perform And of this I shall give some few hints whereby infallibly may be collected the knavery of the Presbyterian and great Anti-Royalist which may serve as a warning-piece to keep us from any more Rebellion and prompt us to keep close to our true and ancient Government Monarchy and Episcopacy I have shewed before how that the King did not only not begin the Warr but that the Presbyterian Parliament by their plots and devices forced him to the endeavour of opposing strength by strength And I shall shortly demonstrate from their own deceitful lips how that they and their Party did not only protest to have no bad Intentions against the King but also to defend and maintain him and his Royal Progeny and make them more glorious and famous then ever But this I may say was done when they were either too weak or to gain more friends for when they were Conquerers and had him in their disposal nothing could satisfie their well tutor'd Army and many of themselves but the taking away his innocent life that with Thieves and Robbers after the murther they might possess all so that I may sing of them with the well known Colletet Voyez vous ce saincte Nitouche Ce juge à quo cet homme froit Il presche tous jours pour le droit Et ne l'a jamais qu ' en la bouche Which may thus be rendred O! Self-time-serving Knaves who still profess You 're for the Right when you think nothing less Thus did these men steer their Intentions according as the wind sat for most benefit Thus Aeneas Sylvius wrote many things before he was Pope which when he had once obtain'd the Triple-Crown he censured as dangerous Hence came the saying That Pius condemn'd what Aeneas thought good This jugling amongst us may allow me to affirm with a great Presbyterian I am perswaded there never was a more hypocritical false dissembling cunning Generation in England then many of the Grandees of our Sectaries Thus the Parliament for all their former Protestation to defend and preserve the King and his Posterity as if they had been double-tongued like those Islanders mentioned by Diodorus Siculus or that Boy recorded by Borel not long afterwards Voted the Queen a Traytor because she acted nothing but what became her tending to the preservation of the King her Husband and the People And within a fourth-night after this took that treasonable being against the Kings consent and the Laws of the Land and therefore abominable Vow and Covenant wherein how much their hearts agreed with their tongues to preserve the King may be deduced from their actions but the next year after wherein the Commons Voted that this clause For Preservation of his Majesties Person should be left out in Sir Thomas Fairfax his Commission So that we may well suppose these men to have taken example from the ancient Spartans whom neither Religion Contract nor Oath could bind with which variable temper the Graecians were generally inured And for their Politicks without all question they agreed so farr with their good friend Machiavil as to imbrace that good and plausible humour of the Parthians who acknowledged no Honesty nor Religion but what was for their own private Interests How did our Grandees now and then sweeten the people into good liking of them by amusing them with the joyful hopes of Peace by Treaties when in truth the thoughts of composition was as farr from their Intentions as Joab's when he slew Amasa with a kiss of seeming friendship or rather as Mr. Love who at Uxbridge Treaty instead of friendship vomitted out nothing but threatning and vilifying-contradictions to the Peace-makers yet nothing unbecoming one of his Faction in Religion When some honest meaning Sea-men drew up a Petition for an Agreement and Peace other Sea-men were procured to protest against this Petition the honest Petitioners commanded to repair home again with this instruction for the future that they need not trouble themselves about the Peace the Parliament intending to take care about it And what great care they took though the King dayly plyed them with Messages about it is not unknown to the World What imperious and wicked Propositions sent they continually to him upon such debates as at the beginning of the Wars after that to New-castle and after that to him at Carisbrook-Castle to which when he
but fire and sword must redress it When the King accused but five Members of High-treason and in a civil way went to demand them of the House the Parliament call'd it an Illegal Seditions and Traiterous act though I cannot vindicate them for it and this was one of the main occasions why the people joyn'd with the Parliament though in so doing they had no more reason then the roaring Blaces in the Counter-scuffle or Quixot's fighting with red-wine or wind-mills And certainly the King hath more right and law in each particle of his body then the whole Army could in reason pretend to And this possibly may be one reason why the Army presently acknowledg'd their secluding the Members to be a course in it self irregular and not justifiable And if the Parliament did so much dis-relish the King 's how might they abominate this of their hired Cossacks But I must confess they were paid with their own coyn the Souldiers sticking as close to their promises to fight for priviledges of Parliament as the Parliament to their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Vows and Protestations to maintain the King's person and Prerogative so that Neither barrel better Herring The Members being now reduced to a small number and the Lord 's flown away none being suffered to fit but those who had their Consciences like Fortunatus his purse full of gold and self-ends were from a name of several syllables like those of Brasil circumcised for Christians no man can now call them under the short title of RUMP and fagge-end of a Parliament with corrupt Maggots in it as Mr. Walker terms it And the truth of it is considering the many Members that went to the King with those Eleven forced away by the Army and this last Seclusion and then the Remaining will onely be the Rump of a Rump of a Rump of a Parliament That the Rumpers and the Army did comply together is palpable but whether they perswaded the Army to turn out the other members I know not though the Army did a little dash it in their teeth afterwards The Rump being thus fixt and back'd by an inconsiderable Army if either the Kingdome or London to give it no other Epithet durst know their strength compos'd of more Heresies then Rosse or Pratealus could imagin the Rump I say and the Army thus twisting their interests together go as boldly on to the distruction of others as Lazarellos blind Master leap'd to his own And first vote no more addresses to be made to the King and order themselves the supream Authority of the Nation And then two days after by the inspiration of some pretty Demon or other make an Ordinance of their supream Rebell-ships for the Tryal of his Sacred Majesty And having dapperly proceeded thus farre they in the next place conclude that Writts shall no longer run in the Kings name and at last bring the King to tryall for his Life where his declared and manifest enemies were his Judges under the title of a High Court of Justice A thing which the Army highly complain'd of several times the year before when it was their own case 'twixt them and the Parliament calling of it contrary to the law of nature that they should be judge in their own cause But now the case is alter'd quoth Ploydon the Army thinking it very fitting thut any be judges against the King so they do but make sure work of him And to bring this great thing about for all their protestations in favour of his Majesty all stones were turn'd that could be Several of the Sectaries like Hugh Peters were set up to prattle out the necessity of a Reformation in Government so that the people might take the change more peaceably Then were their several villaines imployd to vilifie his Majesty in print running through all the misfortunes of his Raign still implying that his own sins were the occasion of them all stuffing their pamphlets with abominable lyes set down with an infinite deal of malice and all applyed to the ignorant people with an aboundance of smooth-faced jugling most of them making perjury Hypocrisie and such like villanies as inseparable from his Majesty as the Devill from themselves Though if ones living writings and death do shew any thing of a man then there is no such thing as Belief if the world be not satisfied of his Majesties Vertues and Holinesse Besides these Pamphlets several people were instigated to Petition the Commons and General that speedy justice might be executed upon his Majesty and this as soon as the Army had conquered Hamilton and the rest of the Royalists Ponifract excepted For being now Maisters in the field they scorned to be bafled by an imprisoned King or a few talkers at VVestminster for both which they had laid rods in pisse Yet as a small cheat something to gull the world as if their actions were not so much their own as the desires and request of the whole Kingdome Petitions from several parts of the Nation must come thick and threefold clamoring for justice against the King One of the leading cards of this cheating game was thrown from London Westminster Southwark and Hamlets to the house of Commons and then another from Oxfordshire to the same house and the same purpose and a letter made up of the same ingredients from the Garrison of New-Castle and Tinmouth was not Sir Arthur Hazlerig then Governour to the Lord Fairfax And having thus begun they never leave off till they had petitioned the King to the block For the next month another Petition comes posting from Leicester-shire and 't is well known who were their Knights to the Commons desireing his Majesties speedy Tryall for all the passages hapned in his raign and this is back'd by another from the Maior Aldermen c. of New-Castle upon Tyne to the Commons and this hotly pursued by another from Yorkshire And to conclude this month a confident one was presented to the Generall from Iretons Regiment which was farre from complementing but struck home to the purpose In the next month Coll. Inglosbys Regiment solicits Fairfax to the same purpose which is seconded by Fleetwoods Whaleys Barksteads Overtons and blind Hewsons nor were the soldiers of New Castle Tinmouth Hartlepool and Holy Isle satisfied with their former paper but they also fall on again and clamour for justice and now also cometh the Petition of Coll. Hortons Regiment and on the last day of the month another from Sr. Hardresse Wallers tatter-demallions as also from Devonshire and Cornwall And in the next Month the General is stifly solicited for the Kings tryal by the rabble of Bristol Boston Glamorganshire Denbighshire Dover and Kent with the Cinque-ports and Canterbury in whose proposals are these words to the General First that you prosecute the execution of justice upon the person of the King Words strange to proceed from such a County as Kent who have oft
bradg'd of their Loyalty but if there be Knaves in all Families much more are there Rogues in all Provinces But not unlike to the former was the letter of Exceptions and Doubts made by sixteen Kentish Gentleman as they titled themselves directed from Maidstone to Speaker Lenthal for which they had not only his but the thanks of the house to boot In the next month the fatall stroak was given in which month for the more hastning of the Execution several Petitions made haste from many parts of the Nation to the same intent as the former One was presented to the General from the then Capt. Smiths Troop in Oxfordshire another from Hartfordshire with a third from Surrey and a hot-headed one from London to the House of Commons which was seconded by one from the Common-Councell of the same City to the same purpose and members But that which gave the deepest stroak of all was that Long winded Remonstrance from the General Counsel of Officers at St. Albans wherein after many extravagant expressions against his Majesty and some Common-wealth-like puny reasons for their so doing they think it fitting to proceed against the King the which thoughts of theirs they at last vomit out with more impudence malice and inhumanity then an Army of Savage Canabells could in these astonishing words That that capital and grand Author of our troubles the Person of the King may be speedily brought to justice for the Treason Blood and mischief he is guilty of Desires so abominably wicked that it is impossible for any but their inspiring Satan to give them a befitting descant And that they had before this an intention to alter the Government is palpable by the often consultations and proposals of their Agitators and themselves in 1647. about the Government of the Nation by succession of Parliaments some advising Biennial others Triennial and some other modells And now Cromwell and Ireton all along cheated the King under specious pretences Major Huntington demonstrated in his Articles against them to the Parliament Yet could Cromwell with good store of seeming sanctity by his natural brasen face presume to bring off all those his seeming pretensions for his Majesty under the Hypocritical and sacrilegious Vizard of profound Revelations from some Deity or other By which means he would seem to patronize all the Armies wickednesse upon Divinity So that the jugling humour of this Army well considered we may well question both the modesty and Religion of one of their scribling patrons who had confidence publickly to assert that the Nation had far lesse cause to be jealous of the innocency or integrity of the Army then the Disciples of Christ These treacherous dealings of a perfidious Army not a little assisted by the self-ended members brought his Majesty to his Tryall a thing found out but as a politick trick to blinde the people with their open intentions as may appear not only by their ridiculous indictment but their former votes and actions whereby 't is palpable that they were pre-resolved not only to alter the Government but also to cut him off as accordingly hapned to the astonishment of humanity And how ancient these wicked intentions of some of them were hatch'd was not a little hinted at by one of Cromwels Captains two years before at Daintry who then fully related the resolutions of the Army and himself to bring the King to destruction Nor was the Revelation of Mrs. Grace Cary of Bristol though I do not use to give credit to such whimms much out in this exactly pointing out before these Warrs the Beheading of the King And whether all Poets are Prophets or no need not here be discuss'd though I am confident that an ingenious Gentleman did prognosticate better then those time-serving Schismatical Scriblers Lilly Booker Culpepper or such like Sectaries when he sung the Requiem of the King and Kingdome at the beginning of the Warres They would not have the Kingdome fall By an ignoble Funerall But piously preferre the Nation To a Renowned Decollation The feet and lower parts 't is sed Would trample on and off the Head What e're they say this is the thing They love the Charles but hate the King To make an even Grove one stroak Should lift the shrub unto the Oake A new found musick they would make A Gamut but no Ela take This is the pious good intent Of Priviledge of Parliament Thus fell the best of men by the worst of Devills so that this one wicked action will verifie that old saying that Brittain is crouded with the multitude of Tyrants and the horrid Actors may be for the future judged by the more Noble inhabitants of Nicaragua in America who formerly as Solon appointed no Law for a mans killing of his Father had none for the murtherer of a King conceiving no man to be so unnatural as to commit such crimes And for that vast Chaos the City of London who thus basely suffred their King to be murthered before their faces their Ancestors will rise up in judgment against them nor will the valour of Sir William Walworth a former Lord Maior of that City be mentioned but in derision of those Schismaticks of late daies When King Richard the second was in danger of his Life and Crown by Wat Tylers Rebellion Walworth raising up the Citizens by crying out Yee good Citizens help your King that is to be murthered and succour me your Maior that am in the like danger Or if you will not succour me yet leave not your King destitute By means of which the Rebells were dispers'd and the King rescued This was the loyalty of that City in former times But how little they have trod the steps of their Ancestors let themselves judge and blush for shame For being no small occasion of the ruine of his Majesty The Beheading of whom puts me in minde of a story recorded in our Chronicles in King Richard the seconds time viz. Of an Image of Wax or an Head of Earth framed by Necromancy at Oxford which at a time appointed spake these words Caput decidetur caput elevabitur Pedes elevabuntur supra caput The Head shall be cut off the Head shall be lift up The feet shall be lift above the Head And never did it happen so true as at this time when a company of beggerly peasants by horrid Rebellion did not only cut off their Kings head but also made themselves supream But whether this was made for a prophesie or no I know not yet Nostradamus Physitian to Henry the second King of France one much given to predictions and in great repute in those times for them had a happy guesse when long since he prognosticated that Senat de Londres metront a mort leur Roy. The London Parliament shall kill their King An action so treacherous that it would not be expected from the Devill himself after so many vows and protestations
onely approve of but also protect thereby gaining infinite Proselytes as the Devil in the Northern Coasts doth his subjects by making them invulnerable And these they feed up and nourish with strange fears more fantastical then Lazarellos when he thought the dead man would be carried to his Master's house strongly fomented and agitated by unheard of Plots set a foot to destroy Religion and Nation like the Roterdam-ship which would kill the English under water and all this upon worsegrounds and reasons then the influence of a Talisman Though nothing was more false and impudent then these pretended dangers yet what by the authority and countenance of those Grandees who patronized such rumours and what by the power which the Tubthumping boute-feus had over the peoples inclinations and judgments whereby the Pulpit became the worst thing in the Nation many had not onely a bad opinion of the King but thought very well of the Parliament who in all their actions were far more sedulous then his Majesty but most of all as a hindg upon which themselves and designs hung in sending forth their papers to abuse the people by making the King's actions odious and their own for the best And of this they took special care not onely by appointing a Committee to consider of the most convenient way to disperse them and to give an allowance to their Messengers but also by taking care by Order that every Petty Constable or Tythingman throughout England shall have one of every one of their Orders Declarations c. and to read them publickly to their neighbours And how these flattering papers might work in the Country where they commonly believe all that is in Print is easily to be imagined considering that most of them heard but the reasons of one Party the Parliament taking a special care by Declaration that nothing which came from the King should be received or permitted to be read Whilst the Parliamentarian-papers flew plentiful about the Nation swoln with big praises of their worships the better to captivate the ignoranâ— people to their Lure who are naturally of themselves apt to gape after any novelty or change especially when any gain is like to be had by it as there was in this undertaking they knowing that Plundering would be permitted them and the Parliament assuring them that if they received any damage it should be repai'd them out of the estates of their enemies By these ways the Country was droled into an high conceit of the Parliament and nothing stuck with those of the more wise and honest sort but the word Treason which they knew they should incur by assisting the Parliament against the King But this doubt was presently wipt away in the opinion of many by the Parliaments distinction betwixt the Person and Office of a King as also by their daily protestations at the beginning of the Wars That they fought not against the King but against his wicked Council Of which Protestations in 1642. I shall give you a tast whereby you may the better distinguish between their tongues and hearts And first we shall give you the Vote by which the Army was first order'd to be rais'd which was thus Resolved upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised King's Person defence of both houses of Parliament and those who have obey'd their Orders and Commands and preserving of the true Religion the Laws Liberty and Peace of the Kingdome And to confirm the people in their intentions for the preservation of the King they thus profess and protest House of Commons your Loyal Subjects who are ready to lay down their lives and fortunes and spend the last drop of their bloud to maintain your Crown and Royal Person and greatness and glory And they pray your Majesty to rest assured that they will always be tender of your Honour and Reputation with your good Subjects We seek nothing but your Majesties Honour and Peace and the Prosperity of your Kingdomes Their earnest intentions and endeavours to advance your Majesties Service Honour and Contentment c. Do resolve to preserve and govern the Kingdome by the Counsel and Advice of the Parliament for your Majesty and your Posterity according to our Allegiance and the Law of the Land As if there could be a greater care in them the King's friends at York of his Majesties Royal Person then in his Parliament The services which we have been desirous to perform to our Soveraign Lord the King and to his Church and State in proceeding for the publick peace and prosperity of his Majesty and all his Realmes Within the presence of the same all-seeing Diety we Protest to have been and still to be the enely end of all our counsels and endeavours wherein we have Resolved to continue freed and enlarged from all private aimes personal respects or passion whatsoever Who in all their Counsels and Actions have proposed no other end unto themselves but the care of the Kingdomes and the performance of all Duty and Loyalty to his Person Your Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having nothing in their thoughts and desires more precious and of higher esteem next to the honour and immediate service of God then the just and faithful performance of their duty to your Majesty and this Kingdome We the Lords and Commons are resolved to expose our lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of true Religion the King's Person Honour and Estate Will really endeavour to make both his Majesty and Posterity as great rich and potent as much beloved at home and feared abroad as any Prince that ever sway'd this Scepter which is their firm and constant Resolution And you shall declare unto all men that it hath been and still shall be the care and endeavour of both Houses of Parliament to provide for his Majesties safety Concerning the Allegations that the Army rais'd by the Parliament is to Murther and depose the King we hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that profest but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a scandal especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every Member of both Houses whereby they promise in the Presence of Almighty God to defend his Majesties Person The Promise and Protestation made by the Members of both Houses upon the nomination of the Earl of Essex to be General and to live and dye with him wherein is exprest that the Army was rais'd for the Defence of the King's Person And we have always desired from our hearts and souls manifested in our Actions and in many humble Petitions and Remonstrances to his Majesty profest our Loyalty and Obedience to his Crown readiness and resolution to defend his person and support his Estate with our lives and fortunes to the uttermost of our power We
use in Scotland and thus the Duke of Matalone the chief of the Caraffa's falling out with the Prince of Sanza at a Ball had like to have brought their private injuries into a publick hostility to the trouble of the Kingdome of Naples Thus the insupportable malice of private men may be a publick detriment as the breach between the English and French was not a little widened by the hatred and brags of the Lord Cordes who us'd to say that he could be content to lye in Hell for seven years so he might win Calice from the English And to these I may add Don Pedro de Ayala Earl of Salvatierra who through the enmity betwixt him and his Lady Margarita whom the Court favour'd against him and therefore by way of opposition was invited to side with the Commonalty against the Emperour In which case the late Earl of Essex by a favourable construction was not much different Yet far is it from me to vindicate these mens actions but rather to mitigate some by considering the powerfulness of perswasion it being natural for a man to run into errors and mistakes and if of his own Temper he be so prone to vice how easy is it to draw him thither when he is made more flexible by the subtle allurements of his seeming best friends Many men who have been most serviceable and loyal have at first through mistakes slipt into some faults De la Force run himself so much into the displeasure of Lewis the thirteenth King of France that he was proclaimed Traytor but afterwards did so recover his Reputation with his Majesty that he received the Trunchion to be Marshal of France and grew to be a great favorite Sir Robert Clifford was a great adhearer to Perkin Werbeck but upon the sight of his error became very advantageous to King Henry the seventh in discovering the King's enemies The Macedonian souldiers did once muteny and that in a furious manner against Alexander but when they had considered the greatness of their crime they came weeping to him and that in such an humble manner confessing their faults and desiring his favour and pardon that story will scarce allow such another president And the King did not onely forgive them but satisfied their former desires by sending many of them home where by his special Command they were honoured not onely by having the chief places in Theaters but with Crowns also The Athenians would pardon him who confest his fault And the Abbot Serapion conquer'd the Devil by acknowledging the sin of Theft frequent with him when young If a woman by the true repentance of her most horrid iniquity obtain'd the pardon of Pope Innocent The King's grace and favour will not be wanting to those who by their timely repentance denote the reality whilst those who stave off the acknowledgement of their offence to the last can in reason expect no hopes of reconciliation their repentance being so late that it demonstrates rather a jugling and time-serving humor then a true and genuine remorse The Noble Earl of Montross that Scotish Oak and regal Buckler of fidelity and valour at first was as much peccant as the greatest Covenanter yet none proved afterwards more faithful to his Majesty and active against his former associates because the King's enemies then himself The great Earl of Strafford and Atturney General Noy were look'd upon at first great courters of the Commonalty and dis-regarders of Prerogative yet upon better insight became the greatest admirers of the King's Authority And I have heard of those who have so far grieved for their former actions that they have wish't themselves breathless when they first drew sword for the Parliament It is repentance that doth please God himself and Kings who are truely call'd God's upon Earth have received into favour their greatest enemies upon remorse of their former villanies Yet all mens intellectuals do not so sympathize as to perceive their errors at the same time Some with Sir F. Fortescue may know themselves erronious at the first onset others as we have too frequent examples are so stiff neck't opinionated that they will not be convinced of their guilt till their appearance before the greatest and last Tribunal As for the first they deserve pardon and favour because they deal ingenuously and like men of reason and nobleness whilst the latter merit the severity of laws and scorn And as I cannot plead for these so shall I never for those who did not onely oppose all Treaties with the King but those also who when any such thing was obtain'd still shoved it off by uncivil impudent and abominable Propositions framed either for the prolonging of war and bloud-shed or the reducing of his Majesty to be but a King of Clouts and so under the obedience and lash of their Schismatical Presbyterian Tyranny from which scourge I hope these three Kingdomes and all good people will for the future be delivered THE HISTORY Of the Wicked PLOTS and CONSPIRACIES OF OUR Pretended Saints BOOK III. CHAP. I. That the Presbyterians were not willingly and actively Instrumental for the uncapitulated restauration of his Majesty I Have often smiled at the Story of an old Knight who in the small space of one Battle changed his opinion twice and that with so much zeal and vehemency as to cry out when his Clerk brought him news that Prince Rupert had beat his enemies O the goodness of God! that will not suffer Traytors to prosper Those who fight against their King must expect to have God for their enemy c. And a Posset must be made too to cherish up the wearied spirits of the Messenger Yet scarce had finished his discourse against the wickedness of Rebellion when being truly assured of the mistake of his former information and that the Parliament remained victorious he alters his note and bauls out O the Gospel the Gospel the Gospel Blessed be God who hath thus put to shame the enemies of Reformation O! had the Malignants got the better we should have had Popery restored again But O the goodness of God who hath thus dispersed the members and raggs of Antichrist c. And after this manner did Master Gawen Hamilton who at Edinbourgh when the Victory seem'd to incline to the Queen Regent abused those of the Kirk but when the French were at last forced to retreat turn'd his coat and fought against the Queen Regent's party with all vehemency Old Savill in the Play rather then lose his beloved bunch of Keys would comply with any thing and how far a Presbyterian would stretch his Conscience rather then lose Authority must be left to judgment for I am apt to believe that many of them are not unlike Paulet the old Marquiss of Winchester who would rather bow then break being always of the King's Religion I have known some in these late times seriously deny any difference betwixt the Ministry and Laity and yet
Sermon of which Preachment the Kings Commissioners complained though to small purpose as appears by the Answers yet I shall willingly quit him from this knowing that neither the Parliament nor their Commissioners would be guided by his pratling and being fully satisfied that the Parliament never really intended a Peace unless they had thereby reduced the King to a Royal slave or worse and have got liberty for themselves to have acted Treason and Tyrannized over the poor Nation cum Privilegio and this was the design of all their counterfeited Treaties Yet I must needs acknowledge that Mr. Love did what in him lay to dissolve the Peace as is palpable from the wicked and malicious assertions and admonitions laid down by him in that Sermon concluding it Whiles our Enemies go on in their wicked practises and whiles we keep our Principles we may assoon make Fire and Water to agree and I had almost said reconcile Heaven and Hell as their spirits and ours either they must grow better or we must grow worse before it is possible for us to agree Words denoting such a malignant principle that I am willing to quit those whom he and the rest of his gang are pleas'd to call so by putting the Saddle on the right Horse and attributing the Epithet to himself I might here also intimate some of his sacrilegious vapours by discoursing upon his extravagant reproaches thrown upon the Church of England which I am confident might lawfully defend herself by force of Arms against the impious actions of her spurious Antagonists if that be true which Mr. Love affirms viz. That it is an hurtful Opinion to imagine that the people might not do so against their Soveraign I shall conclude with our supposed Martyr by asserting that he who had the ignorance blind-zeal and impudence to tearm Episcopacy and the Common-Prayer-Book the two Plague-sores several times in one Preachment had need have set-Forms of Sermons enjoyned him as well as Prayers And the Presbyterian House of Commons who cleared Mr. Love from any slander for pratling such stuff did plainly demonstrate what little desire they had for Peace and thereby intimated their abominable hypocrisie to the whole world since the Sermon pardon the giving it so good a Title seemed more like an Harangue to encourage the People to a bloudy slaughter and it is not unknown how oft he mentioned the necessity of drawing bloud than the imbracement of a happy and setled Peace Having thus sufficiently proved Mr. Love to be no such Martyr as his Fraternity flab out though much more might be enlarged upon this Subject and upon every discourse fly to him as a sufficient Asylum where they think they may handsomly secure a Reputation I shall now say something to another Objection whose main force lyeth upon the credit of the Covenant and so may with its Dam sleep with ignominy rather than be held forth as a badge of honesty In this plea they boast much in their taking the Covenant in which there is one clause for the Preservation of the Kings Person to which League one of their Chieftains brags that above 600. Ministers did subscribe To which I shall answer that if he glory in the number 600. is but a poor Bed-role in respect of 10000. for about so many Ministers are there in England But again the taking of this Covenant is no consequence of a good and loyal Subject but rather the contrary being against the Kings express command But again It is not the taking of an Oath provided it be a lawful one but the keeping of it that may demand commendations And when Subjects break Allegiance at pleasure as they are a trouble to their King and Countrey so are they wicked before God and so merit no commendation no good being entended either to King or Countrey by this knack of Perjury What benefit was it for Ataulphus Sigericus Thurismundus Theudesilus Agila and Luyba those Goths in Spain or for Friola and Sancho Kings of Leon to confide in their people and expect obedience since they were slain by their own Subjects What advantage was it for St. Wenceslaw Jaromirus and Wenceslaw the V. Dukes and Kings of Bohemia or for Gotrick and the three Eric's of Denmark to trust to the obedience which Law and Nature might assure them of since contrary to all fidelity they were murdered by their own People Those of Swedland cannot handsomly boast of their Loyalty by killing Ingevallus Eric Aorsel or Stanchil and Swercherus their Kings Nor could the Queen of the same Countrey expect Commendations by affirming her subjection and love to her King and Husband Ingemarus since she broak both by hanging him in a Gold Chain as Queen Fredegunde did hers by procuring the murder of Chilperic King of France as Fergusius III. and Malvinus Kings of Scotland were thus assassinated by their Queens Will any man quit the Treasons of Zedechias for saying that he was sworn Physitian to the Emperour or pardon Jaques Clement Jean Chastel or Francis Ravaillac if they should say Their Religion obliged them to obedience since the first poysoned Charles le Chauve the second stabbed Henry III. of France Chastel assaulted Henry IV. and the last man murdered him Would it not heighten the wickedness of Dowall the three Donalds and the two Fidlers by pleading that they were Subjects when they were so farr from observing their Allegiance that they impiously murdered their Soveraigns Nothatus Ethodius I. Findocus Fethelmacus Conranus or Goranus and Duffus Kings of Scotland and to these I may add the Assassinators of James I. of the same Nation But to return home passing by the disobedience shewn to some of our own Kings of former ages will it any way diminish the crimes of the Presbyterian Ministry with the rest of the Schismaticks if they should plead that they formerly subscribed the Articles of the Church of England but especially the 36. Canon when they took their Degrees as appears by their own hands in the two Universities a Catalogue of which might be produced to the eternal ignomy and perjury of the Brotherhood since they violently broke all their promises to the destruction of our Church and State Can any quit the long Parliament of Hypocrisie when they affirm that they all took the Protestation for the Kings Preservation and therefore wonder'd that he should think much at their actions though they were in actual rebellion against him Would it not be a pretty plea for the Kings Enemies to say Alas How could we intend any harm against him since we all took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Or can any man give any credit to the wicked Long-Parliament when they affirm that they never rejected the Common-Prayer-Book nor do intend only to alter it When the enmity of those then in the Houses against that Book both before and after is well enough known But truth in those dayes was not used to be spoken within those walls
neither out of them by the Zealots then in Possession Our late Grandees made many hundred Protestations that all their actions were only for the Preservation of the Kings Person yet they most wickedly murthered him because he was a Defender of the true Faith as the ancient Sweeds martyr'd their good King Eric Stenchil because he intended to bring the Christian Religion amongst them And our Presbyterians swore in the Covenant to preserve the King yet never did in the least assist him but fought what they could against him as appears by the series of the whole Warr. When the Parliament threw by their King and Oaths in the Votes for Non-Address the Nation saw that they were then contriving his ruine And the Royalists knew that their Soveraign must be saved then or never for which purpose in 1648. they seize upon Carlisle Barwick and Pontefrait in the North whilst those of Kent grow numerous in the South Thus the Kings Party though devested of Arms and Strength bestirr themselves like faithful Subjects But what did the Brethren do Alas they acted very high too though the clean contrary way The Parliament cursing the Royal design with Bell Book and Candle contriving night and day how to bring them to distruction whilst their Associates in the Countrey and Army furiously opposed and at last as the Devil was permitted to triumph over Job proved victorious to the ruine of the Kings best friends Yet had these Zealots according to their Oaths taken up their Weapons probably the Kings murder and other following mischiefs had been stopt But God would not suffer such wicked perjured Wretches to be Authors of so much good It being miraculous which are now ceased that the madd Bulls of Spain should be so favourable to the Corps of St. James And that the Devil that delighter in mischief should wait upon a good Knight so faithfully and be so beneficial to Christianity as to pay for a Bell that the people might with more facility be drawn to Church Thus did these people for all their gude Covenant suffer their King to be murdred before their faces without moving one hand for a rescue unless you will allow the Petitioning of a few when it was too late to do any good by soft words though it was more than could be expected from those who had done him all the mischief that Sword Gun or Malice could do which puts me in mind of a passage in a Paper printed for Robert White before the decollation of his Majesty The well-known Gilb. Mabbot being Imprimatur It 's conceived absurd and hypocritical to swear the Preservation of the Kings Person as a man when at the same time a Warr is ingaged against him and he known to be in the Field subject to death by the Bullet and Sword And it is well known that some of the Souldiers said that they would kill the King asson as another man Though I do not say that the Presbyterians were the men that did actually murder him yet we know that the Rump was not free from some of that Faction and so whether any of that party consented to the stroak or no yet I am confident that most if not all of that gang brought him to the Scaffold concerning which I shall borrow a Story from an Ingenious Knight for I do not love like some of late to steal whole pages and attribute their product to mine own Brain and this may very well reflect upon the whole Presbyterian Party Some Robbers on Shooters-Hill assault an honest Gentleman yet the Thieves among themselves are divided some inclining only to bind him and leave him helpless in the adjacent Woods But others for their greater security from pursuit determin rather to murther him out-right Now I suppose an honest Jury will find both Parties guilty of and agreed in the main Design viz. Robbery The Application is so true and plain that any man will judge the Presbyterians as well guilty of High-Treason For 1. Fighting against their King 2. Voting all his Assisters to be Traytors contrary to the Law 3. Hanging and Beheading many gallant Gentlemen only for their Loyalty 4. Sequestrating the Orthodox and ruining the Church both against Law and King 5. Calling his Majesty through his Declarations scandalous impious false wicked tyrannical and what not 6. Voting the Queen a Traytor for assisting the King her Husband against Rebels 7. Ordering such abominable Propositions that a Peace could not be agitated unless the Kings best Friends were delivered up to hop headless 8. Forcing Oaths upon the People contrary to the Kings Command and the Law of the Land 9. Confining his Majesty 10. Pinding him up to such intolerable Rules and Covenants or else they will have none of him 11. Throwing him by or rather disowning him to be their King by their Votes for Non-Address 12. Voting and Fighting against those who in 1648. endeavoured to release him from his Imprisonment and save him from the Block With several other such like mad pranks as these which if not singly as most of them will yet I am confident will make Accumulative Treason which will either hang them according to their own deeds or else they murdered the Earl of Strafford and murther is death both by the Laws of God and Man I say an Indifferent Jury need never go from the Barr to consider but at the first hearing would freely find the Presbyterian Subjects as well guilty of Treason against their Soveraign as those who would not add sin to sin by Hypocrisie but impiously declared their dislike to Monarchy by a wicked Decollation Another refuge and that the last that the Brethren have is in the action of Sir George Booth That some of them were well-wishers to it I cannot because my knowledge is not Omnipotent deny but what assistance and upon what conditions they afforded to that design I shall leave for them to demonstrate I being unwilling to say what Lords utter Enemies to Episcopacy would not so much as Interest themselves in it if reports be true or at least so cowardly that they only advantaged the Kings Enemies But enough of this it being farr from my humour to be so malepert with some Nobles as the Presbyterians are impudent with his Majesty Though I am really of Opinion that had that Design taken effect we should have had our old warre renew'd again the Puritans having been once armed and imbodyed would have fought down our legal Episcopal Government and chained up his Majesty to some New-Castle or Isle of Wight-like conditions or if they had proved Maisters sent the King beyond Sea again or secured him if not yielded him up also to the Independants for what wickednesse have they not undertaken to bring about their ends whether it be true or noe that the Devils have had several conventions for the extirpating of the Franciscan Order it matters not though I am confident the Brethren seldome consult but
for the distruction of our Church But if 8000 Fiends could no way endamage seven poor Fryers I hope nor they nor Presbytery will ever be able to do any mischief to the Church of England Yet as a descant upon the Objection of those who plead their activity in Sir George Booth's businesse I shall propose one Query Whether if the Presbyterians had supposed that our present King would have been so opposite to their Interests as his glorious Father was They would any way have bestirr'd themselves for his Restauration Here I would not be understood of those who at the beginning of these troubles had the misfortune to be of that Faction yet since turn'd to the true Church with an acknowledgment of their former errours and this through conscience not preferment the once-flourishing Church being then in a persecution But I intend those whose frantick zeal yet binds them up to Schism as well as those who are stuft with Presbytery in Sr. George's rising and since of whom I believe repentance is not yet impossible because I read that the Devill himself hath humbly acknowledged and confessed his offences But to the Query if they would not have endeavour'd his restorement being so qualified then must they needs have a large stock of confidence to demand thanks where none is due but rather an halter for their assistance in the businesse But if they did desire the King again and so qualyfied then must they either declare that they have been wicked Villains and Traytors against the late King or that this present King was help'd in by them more through their goodness to him than his own desert For my part I am apt to give credit to the negative really thinking that if they had had as bad thoughts of this King as of his Father who yet was better than the best of his enemies they would have made it their businesse to have kept him out though under favour 't is as much Treason to depose a Tyrant as a good King And I am drawn to be of this perswasion by these following Motives That they looked upon his Fathers non-complyance with their peevish humours as a monstrous wickednesse is a truth not hitherto denyed Wherefore else should Mr. Love pray that God would redeem him i. e. Charles II. from the iniquity of his Fathers house And not half an houre before his own death to be so farre out of Charity with the oppressed and Martyr'd King as to bluster out For my part I have opposed the Tyranny of a King And with this Love great in the eyes of the Presbyterians doth the grand Patron of that Sect in Scotland Mr. Robert Dowglas agree who had the impudence pardon that low expression for language cannot reach the wickednesse of his pretended Sermon to tell the King to his face several times of the sins of his Father and Family Of which I shall give you some taste and that in his own words It is earnestly wished that our Kings heart may be tender and be truly humbled before the Lord for the sins of his Fathers house And for the many evils that are upon that Family Again Our late King did build much mischief to Religion all the days of his Life And again Sir there is too much iniquity upon the throne of your predecessors who framed mischief by a Law such Laws as have been destructive to Religion and grievous to the Lords people And again I may say freely that a chief cause of the judgment upon the Kings house hath been the Grand-fathers breach of Covenant with God and the Fathers following his steps in opposing the work of God and the Kirk within this Realm And since he holds the King to be so wicked what must be done with him himself doth intimate in these following words This may serve to justifie the proceedings of this Kingdome against the late King who in an hostile way set himself to overthrow Religion Parliament Laws and Liberties If Elisha call'd judgment from Heaven upon little Children for calling of him bald-head What punishment do these Boute-feus deserve for throwing such false and wicked slanders and reproaches upon a just and good King If the Romans according to their custome broak the legs of the wicked accuser of Apollonius because he could not prove his words what tortures do those merit who so falsly revile their innocent Ruler And if Nerva would have servants slain as ungrateful wretches who presumed to accuse their Masters What death would he inflict upon those who had the impudence thus to vilifie their Soveraign But it was not Dowglas alone who thought the late Rebellion against the King to be lawful and commendable but others of them and those the chief too nor indeed do I remember that any Presbyterian denyed it Amongst its chief assertors thus doth Love declare himself I did it is true oppose in my place and calling the forces of the late King and were he alive again and should I live longer the cause being as then it was I should oppose him longer And of the same Rebellious humour is the much talked of Baxter who several times professeth that if he had not been on the Parliaments party he had been guilty of High Treason against the Higher power which his hasty zeal took to be the Parliament But I shall leave him to the meditation of the Rebels plea which if he do but seriously consider I am confident he may have a sight of his sins against which conversion I believe the Brethren pray daily And of this opinion concerning the lawfulnesse of the Warre was old Hall of Kings-Norton canting and recanting Jenkins of London mad-pated Crofton railing Vicars with the rest of the covenanting Diegoes It being one Article in their League and Creed that all Malignants that divided the King from his people c. contrary to the League and Covenant be brought to publick Tryal and receive condigne punishment and by whom this is meant needs no Oedipus to unriddle So that if the King offer to protect these eye-sores of theirs they think themselves obliged by their Oath to take Armes to punish the Kings best subjects according to their pretty oath And yet must these mens actions be held ever for the best as if they had taken infallibility from the Papall Chair Which puts me in mind of a Quaker who not long since through ignorance led a friend of mine above 4 miles out of his way going to Oxford and when he perceived his error greatly cryed up the good providence of God which had brought them that way because as he said for ought he knew they might have been rob'd had they gone the right road And how many of the Puritans have hug'd themselves because they have been in a wrong way against King and Church may appear by many of their Thanks-giving Sermons and speeches And whether these men can be call'd good
Subjects who would thus shackle their King extirpate and ruine his most faithful friends I should willingly leave to the judgment of Cornelius Burges himself if he would but throw by his malice and those ill-got lands which binds him to a perpetual partiality But because some may object that this was but the fancy of some fiery Lecturers though I think it would be difficult to nominate so much as one of this faction then of age who did not actively acknowledge the legality of the Rebellion and yet I hear of small repentance we will see what they say in their so much cryed up Representatives in Parliament and this multitude we shall consider in two respects I. In their Actions from the beginning of the Warre till the end of it II. In their Principles after their happy seclusion by the Independent Army til the Restauration of his Majesty As for the first It is as true as Penry Martin marre Prelat was hang'd or Burton and Bastwicks eares cut off that the members and 't is well known what they were of the wicked Long Parliament remaining at Westminster did declare the lawfulnesse of the War and accordingly by their wicked Counsels carryed it on which is as impossible to be denyed as the fight of Lepanto or 88. As for the second viz. the malevolent humours of the secluded Members if their hearts may be known by their actions and we have no other Index they shall presently appear as bad as their Neighbours For after that God had allowed them some ten or eleven years time of repentance they still harden their own hearts looking upon their former actions against their King to be too honest to require remorse or sorrow as if they had done God good service by fighting against his Laws and Anointed For no sooner were they restored by the now Duke of Albemarle but they fell again to the adoring and doing homage to their long-forgotten Idol the Holy-League and for it 's greater honour vomiting out this Order Ordered that the Solemn League and Covenant be printed and published and set up and forthwith read in every Church and that also once every year according to former Order of Parliament and that the same Solemn League and Covenant be also set up in this House And to shew themselves as pert blades against the King as ever it was Ordered by their Worships that no Commissioner or Commissionated Officer should exercise any power or Authority till he had acknowledged as followeth I do acknowledge and declare that the War undertaken by both Houses of Parliament in their defence against the Forces raised in the name of the late King was just and lawful c. Nor is this all though enough in conscience to make a Traytor or else farewell Poulton but the better to make the insuing Parliament according to their Puritanical humours thereby to bring the Nations again into slavery They a little after the former Orders Decree that none shall be capable of being chosen a Member of Parliament which hath any way assisted the King against their Worships unless he had since recanted his former adhearing to the King Hitherto we see no sign of repentance for their former Rebellion but rather a stubborn malepert zeal swaying amongst this Faction and prompting them to a readiness of their own justification for their so doing Though it is a certain truth that they were the Causa sine quâ non of the King's Murther they putting the sword into the Independent hand which gave the fatal stroke And these who are thus so confident to justifie their wickedness against the Father will not be wanting to create the same jealousies that they might have the same opportunity against the Son as the multitude of scandalous and seditious Pamphlets and I wish many Lectures were not so too yet daily flying abroad doth somewhat intimate However had their malice hurried them on to far more extravagant actions and who knows what they might have done if their Carreer had not been stopt yet had they done but like themselves A Presbyteri an Parliament being as far from doing Soveraignity any good for hitherto an instance cannot be cull'd out of any story as the rest of the Puritans studious for the reall peace of the Church and Kingdome against both which such is their malice that I could easily believe that they Tutor up one another as Amilcar the Carthagenian did his young son Hannibal by making him swear to persecute the Romans with all fury imaginable And we know that Beza perswaded his Brother hot-head John Knox by all means to extirpate Episcopal Government out of Scotland though the being of it there might cause peace and unity And what mad pranks old Knox play'd in that Kingdome their own stories can inform us And the truth of it is the old zealot had been so well nurtured up at Geneva by Beza and others that no other could be expected from him of whole factious humour and doctrine take this for a Tast He maintained That Subjects may not onely God's Law not as a King but as an Offender Certainly Master John was very well acquainted with the poor fellow of Collen who bittingly distinguished betwixt the Prince Elector and the Arch-bishop And probably the Logicians in the long-winded Juncto were beholden to these two cunning Pates who could with aboundance of dapperness squeeze out of their infected brains the forgotten distinction of the Person and Office of a King which is not unlike some Pole-Axes with a Gun and tuck all in one piece if one fail to distroy you the other is certain of execution The Proverb assureth us that it is good to have two strings to a bow thus the Presbyterians when they cannot hurt they King they will punish the Offender and rather then their malice in this must not take effect they will sacrifice the lives of many thousands of Innocents Though when all is sum'd up all their specious pretenses is far short of the value of one drop of bloud The Roman Rebels under Catiline could tell the people that they fought not for Supremacy or Riches but meer Liberry And how hath the air of Great Britain been putrified with the hypocritical clamours of Religion Reformation and Priviledges and that with such fury as if our Puritans like Catilines associates had encouraged one another into a wicked conspiracy with the intoxicating healths of humane blood It is reported of Pope Boniface VIII that he entred like a Fox ruled like a Lyon and dyed like a Dog And I am confident our Puritans obstain'd more by hypocricy then true piety And having once made themselves Masters it is not forgot how they Tyrannized over the poor Nation and the King 's best friends which hath brought such an odium upon them in the Nostrils of all good men that I believe their exit wil be as reproachful to themselves as beneficial to the Nations so that of them
and at last fairly took the Old Knave by the beard giving him a swing from the seat of Correction to the utter discredit and defilement of his short Lecturing Coat and Sister-visiting black and white Caps for Two Caps he had and turns up that within You 'd think he wore a black Pot tip't with Tin These three younkers being now on Cock-horse so tryumph'd over their old wicked Parent that he durst scarce say his soul was his own not allowing him his will in any thing and by a just judgment of God paying him home in his own coyn as the learned and judicious Patron of our Church observeth For as this old jugler had impudently quiped the Reverend Church of England with what command or example have you for kneeling at the Communion for wearing a Surplice c for Lord Bishops for a penned Liturgy for keeping Holy-days c. So these three Mad-caps thus retort upon their amazed Father where are your Lay-Presbyters your Classes c. to be found in Scripture where your Steeple-houses your National-Church your Tithes and Mortuaries your Infant-sprinklings nay where your Meeter-Psalms your two Sacraments your observing a weekly Sabbath Shew us say they a Command or Example for them in Scripture Thus did these three hopefalls retort tearming all the old Knaves actions selvish worldly wicked and onely of humany institution which proceeding from his own Brats so perplext old Father Schism that being naturally of a cholerick temper he could no longer endure the injuries and ingratefulness of these three Hot-spurs who received life and nourishment under the shadow of his fiery zeal but that which touch'd his heart most was their plucking from him all Rule and Authority so that his credit could scarce obtain a beast to trott it to the next Lecture These affronts sufficient to make the Father run horn-mad and the multitude of Conventicles may allow some Presbyterian Cockolds or else what would the Sister-hood do prompts him to a resolution to free himself from the lash of these his three boys who out strip'd him in new inlighten'd zeal and being thus grown mad with dispair and willing to submit to any thing so he might be freed from this yoak and having consulted his pillow with aboundance of time and leasure he saw no way to quel these his insulting Children but the restauration of his Majesty And because a late repentance is better then none he hoped by thus working his own benefit to obtain his own pardon knowing the King's mercy to be as great as the Presbyterian wickedness Thus for his own advantage to obtain the return of his Majesty he procured a Parliament which to the joy of the Nation recall'd the King yet not according to the Presbyterian hopes who expected not a free but conditional return The truth of this Application must be left to the understanding Reader who shall be minded of the Spanish Proverb Hagase el milagro y hagalo Mahoma Let us but have our desires though the Devil or Turk be our instruments or Assistants And with this I am pretty confident the Brethren did not disagree is appearing by their long compliance yet hatred to be kept under that they did not care so be that they were but relieved from the Independent slavery though it were done by him whom they always hated and was the son of him who they always held for the Common enemy and whose friends they had solemnly sworn to punish and ruin What good wishes these people had for the King was meerly for their own ends as I am apt to credit when I consider their high complying with Richard one of their Chieftains viz. Master Baxter applying himself several times to him by way of a faithful subject and advising him how to behave himself the better to perpetuate his usurp'd authority and seem'd very discontented at his deposing And though many of them disliked Oliver yet if you do but inquire of Doctor Manton for so he is now for which he may thank the negligence of the Proposer I suppose he can inform you who it was that when Oliver was re-made Protectour 1657. pray'd so heartily for him in Westminster Hall And for the Saints of the Committee of Safety you would bless your self to see how the Brotherhood of Leicestershire accosted them humbling themselves under the protection of those Lords of Wallingford house declaring their utter dislike to the intentions of those who in Sir George Booths business stir'd for the King Nay should I say that some of this faction were a part of the very Rump it self I supposed the Brethren would be puzzel'd to prove the Contrary Thus like Diogenes's Archer do they hit every where but the right mark and this through an innated spirit of wickedness and inconstancy which puts me in mind of a story Robert King of Naples having desired Giotto then famous in Italy to paint him out his Kingdome drew an Asse with a Saddle on his back and smelling to another new Saddle and upon each Saddle a Crown and a Scepter the King demanding what he meant thereby he replyed Such is your Kingdome and Subjects for they desire new Lords daily I am confident that the best Hieroglyphick of a Time-server would be a fat-beneficed Presbyterian yet did that Faction but once grow powerful they would be like Giotto's Asse still smelling after new Governments and Neapolitan Courser in Boccalini always ready to cast his Rider So that if one should ask many of them Where was the binding force of their Covenant in Oliver's Richard's the Rump's and the Committee of Safety 's time there would be but a shuffling Answer return'd Thus I suppose the Query is sufficiently satisfied information being particularly given of their Opinions and Actions all running cross-grain'd to the King and his Interest and therefore I suppose little beneficial to his restauration A tast of which you may see in these few instances I. The late war against the King was lawful and commendable II. It is lawful for Subjects to fight against their King and so the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy of small validity III. The King is not above the two Houses of Parliament and so they not subject to him IV. They are bound to oppose all Arch-bishops Bishops Deans Prebends c. having exactly sworn against them in the Covenant and so against Church-government appointed by the King and the Laws V. They are by the same Oath obliged to bring to condign Punishment all Malignants that is all those who assisted the King and were sufferers with him here or beyond-sea so that had these men been such a main stake in the King's restauration they would according to their Oaths and Cruelty either have stopt the King's friends as the Scots did from returning with him or have proceeded against them as Malefactors and Malignants and so have butcher'd them out of this world as they formerly did with the Arch-bishop of Canterbury Sir
Alexander Carew Master Bowcher Master Yeomans Master Tomkins Master Challoner Sir George Lysle Sir Charles Lucas and several others some by a dissembling method of judicature and other by the quick and speedy mode of Abington VI. They never assisted any Plot in behalf of the King Nay suffered him to be Murthered without one stroke not taking the Royalists part in his relief Nay when a little before his murther the Royal party rose up in Armes for his rescue the Presbyterians of the Parliament opposed their actions by Voting and Ordering whilst those in the Country fought against them VII If this present King be as bad as his Father that is thwart their Schismatical humours as much they are bound to fight against him and so not to restore him freely as he was For if they be not obliged to oppose him so qualified then was their late war against his Father unnecessary and so by their own confession themselves Traytors If again they are bound to oppose him so qualified then must they confess that the restauration of the present King so qualified was more through their own goodness and hopes of his amendment than any desert or merit in himself This shews that they are for the King onely when he is for their ends And Conditional Subjects in a Pure Monarchy deserve a Halter rather then Commendation VIII None fit to be a Commission-Officer that would not affirm the late Rebellion lawful so that it is no hard matter to judge what a pretty Militia they would have had again and being once up God knows how they would have imploy'd them IX None is capable of being a Parliament-man that was ever on the Kings Party unless he had recanted and declared his sorrow therefore by his after-adhering to the Parliament So that the Faction of the Houses so qualified would presently drive the King from White-Hall again and How would they then Tyrannize having the Militia at their beck as abovesaid X. They have quietly submitted to every Party and usurped Authority yet grumble to live obedient to that commanded by the King and the Laws of the Land so that it appears that they have no great share of Love or Obedience to Charles II. as their King and Soveraign but it may be only because he releas'd them from an Independent bondage for which they deserve no store of thanks their duty being rather bought than freely bestowed How these Opinions and Actions can agree with honest and faithful Subjects I cannot in the least conjecture And therefore I must think it very improbable that those men should freely and without any Conditions restore the Son and set him over them whose Father they had fought against imprisoned vilified and basely delivered up into the hands of his bloudy Executioners Certainly these Principles can never quadrate with the free and uncapitulated Restauration of his Majesty some being unwilling to have him ride in on Horse-back and others looking as farr back as the Isle of Wight Mordake though Instrumental in the Restauration of King James I. of Scotland yet he with two of his sons suffer'd death for their former Treasons whilst the third fled into Ireland And really the Presbyterians do very badly yet like themselves requite his Majesty for his free Pardon of their Villanies by their refractory behaviour and wicked Pamphlets which prompts me to agree with an Ingenious Gentleman That Men possibly may repent of Presbytery but Presbytery never yet repented of any thing To be short For any thing that I yet perceive I may as well give credit to Sedulius his Apology in behalf of Pisa's Conformity of St. Francis with our Saviour as to the high brags of our Presbyterians concerning their restoring the King many men making high pretences though without any ground or reason Old Falstaff swore that he fought a long hour by Shrewsbury Clock with stout Percy and at last slew him though if you will believe the Comaedian the sight of a drawn Sword would be a sufficient purge to his Knightship Our Legendaries affirm that the reason of no venomous Creatures in Ireland is because St. Patrick beat them away with his staff which I believe to be as true as his causing the stoln Sheep to bleat in the Theifs belly along time after it had been eaten Our modern Exorcists will tell you pretty Stories of their afrighting the Devil with some Priests Gloves and Shirts Dibdale's Stockings Campian's Girdle and such like knick-knacks though the truth of the business is undeniably false Some Witches will relate fine tales of their travailing in divers shapes hither and thither though all that while they have not budged out of their Chambers being deluded by a Trance A late Printer hath boasted himself the Author of a modern Book though the poor Soul as they say understands no Latin a language often made use of in that Treatise And the Indians confidently believe and relate that those little sandish Islands adjoyning to the Island Manare were miraculously done by the leaping and jumping of an Ape call'd Hanimantus their chief God and to these may I add the whimsical boasts of the Presbyterians of their activeness for his Majesties uncapitulated Restauration However to pleasure these people I shall freely confess that they have done this King a great deal of good by making themselves odious his Parliaments obedient himself by all confest to be Supream and the People taught to beware of any more trusting to specious Pretences since thereby they are but cajoll'd to set up Usurpers in Authority and ruine themselves yet was all this not done by the consent of the Brethren they having all this while fought against them and therefore cannot expect any thanks To conclude if the Presbyterians did not assist the Kings return then are they perjured as neglecters of their Allegiance And if they were the Restorers then are they perjured too as neglecters of their League and Covenant For its Obligation Crofton and others of that gang maintain to be perpetual which they so solemnly swore to defend because they did not bring to condign Punishment the Malignants i. e. the Kings best friends according to their Oath all which they Voted Traytors And how many of those persons of Quality which return'd with his Majesty were by the Presbyterian faction excepted from Pardon may appear in Qualification in their Propositions to the King That they all broak the Oath of Allegiance is palpable that they have not fulfill'd their Covenant is as true the first they did freely the latter by constraint as appears by their yet whining after it So they could not be actively Instrumental And the Independents Anabaptists and such like Phanaticks may boast of a forced Passive Subjection as well as they CHAP. II. The wickedness of our Presbyterians in throwing Aspersions upon his Majesty and Instigating the People to Rebellion by assuring them in the Lawfulness of Subjects Fighting against their Kings THe astonishment of the
were so farre for liberty of subject and Conscience that they hoped by their hands that God would fulfill the desires of him who prayd to Almighty God in the Kirk of St. Andro That He would carry through the good cause against all his Enemies especially against Kings Devils and Parliaments Are not these precious souls to promote the Holy League or to put forward the cause of Muntzer or John a Leyden Well if you will have any more of this Caledonian doctrine Then what do you think Was not he a dapper Covenanter that could thus twit his late Majesty We must not lose you and the Kingdome by preferring your Fancies and groundlesse affections before sound reason you should complain to the heart that the head is much distempered The Lyon must be cured of the Kings Evill Is not this a pretty reflection fitting to prompt a Rumper to do what he will against a King But if this be not enough Bradshaw may pick a small vindication from the Covenanters who thus assure Kings that The people may be well enough without them for there was NONE TILL Cains days Happy souls that have the sole power of understanding Scripture and History Nor is their knowledge stinted here only but they can as if they had a strange spirit of Divination even know the hearts of their betters for thus one of their Grandees R. B. from the Pulpit could assure his Beloved that the Lord hath forsaken our King and given him over to be led by the Bishops the blind brood of Anti-Christ who are hot Beagles hunting for the blood of Gods Saints Is not this fit stuff from the jaws of an hot-headed Covenanter I can tell you also that when his Majesty sufficiently provoked by these furious Rebells went himself to reduce them to obedience one of these Tub-Pratlers told his Hearers that they of the Holy Covenant were like Israel at the Red sea and Pharaoh and his host comming upon them And another H. R. was as forward as any of them when he compared the King to a Wicked Italian who delighted to kill men both in soul and body And was not the King highly beholden to these his gude Subjects And had no the reason to thank Mr. Cant. for his good opinion of and wishes for him when in his Sermon at Glascow he could dapperly pray to God To take away the Kings Idolatry But words are but winde and therefore deeds must do the feat for obtaining of which they think themselves obliged to vindicate any manner of murder or bloodshed Thus one of their Zealots highly applauding John Feltons stabbing the Duke of Buckingham God hath chalked out the way unto you God offer'd himself to guide you by the hand in giving this first blow will you not follow home The sprinkling of the blood of the Wolfe if we can follow the Lord in it may prove a means to save us c. But because the life of a Subject is too small a recompence for their Revenge the pouring out of Sacred Royall bloud would not be amisse as appears by the words of a Covenanting Brother Tell the Head it 's sick presse the people to Arms to strike the BASILIKE VEIN since nothing but THAT will cure the pleurisie of your Estate And is not this a good way to plead for Zion Is it not an hard case that none but these blood-shot eyes can discern the Pattern in the Mount Would not a man think King Charles the I by these Characters to be a stranger Monster than ever Aldrovandus heard of And can any man think that these Kirkers spoke like subjects when they publickly declared that We deserve and expect a proper word to their betters Approbation and Thanks from his Majesty And all this only for Rebellion according to Mr. Andrew Ramsey Minister of Edenburgh his Doctrine viz. That it was Gods will that the primitive Church should confirm the Truth by suffering and that now the truth being confirm'd It 's his will that we defend the Truth by Action in Resisting TYRANTS And what was meant by this word Tyrants the Time when the word was spoke doth sufficiently demonstrate And so little respect have these Brethren to the Supream Powers that a great Grandee well known in England if you say but Thomas Cartwright did thus proudly give his judgement concerning this Question Whether the King himself might be Excommunicated That Excommunication should not be exercised upon Kings I utterly mislike And how exactly these Disciplinarians Quadrate with the Jesuites in Politicks the learned Mr. Corbet under the Name of Lysimachus Nicanor hath Ingeniously discover'd which Book so handsomly exposed the Zealots that the Author being after murthered by the Irish Robert Bayly that Scavinger of Presbytery betwixt snarling and rejoycing could not refrain from crying out O the judgement of God! The Aethiopians paint the Devil white and look upon our Europians as not beautiful because not of their black and obscure Complexion And our dark-souled Puritans censure all Vertue and Loyalty as abominable because contrary to their Principles which perswades them to espouse such Maxims as these I. That it is lawful for Subjects to make a Covenant and Combination without the King and to enter into a Band of mutual defence against their King and all persons whatsoever II. After a Law is made and confirmed yet if the Subjects or rather as appears by practise if onely a part of them protest against such established Law or Laws Then that doth void all obedience to those Laws and the Protestors are discharged from any obligation to live under them although the Protestations and the validity of them be not discussed before the competent Judges of them III. A number of men being the greater part of the Kingdome because they are the greater may do any thing what they themselves do conceive to be conducible to the glory of God and the good of the Church notwithstanding of any Laws standing in force to the contrary And that these especially met in a Representative Assembly may not onely without the Authority of the King but against the express Commandement of the King and his Council and Judges declaration of it to be against the Laws of the Land sit act and determine of things concerning the Church and State as if there were neither King Council or Judges in the Land and several other such like dangerous positions as these whereby they ruin and destroy Kingdomes Which can never be upon a sure foundation as long as such Bonte-feu's are tolerated Schism being the chief overthrower of Nations Upon these Principles our English Presbyterians rebell'd against their Soveraign and upon the same account their Neighbours did in Scotland and then trudg'd forwards to the assistance of their Southern associates declaring the necessity of such a Rebellion Unless we will either Betray our Religion Liberties and Laws and all that we and ours do possess
this Objection may sound harsh in a Presbyterians ear who do not love to hear of their Iniquities yet that famous Geneva Bull Stephen Marshall can out-rore this though its clamours were as loud as the Nilan Thunderings of Catadupa Noysing it out to the World that if he had been so slain it had been none of the Parliaments fault for he might have kept himself farther off if he pleas'd These men rail against the Pope as Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon and their wording is all for they never yet proved it but whether they do not both tread in the same way both taking upon them to depose Kings let those who are skill'd in Story judge yet for my part I think that one of our Countrey-men was not amiss in this They depose Kings by force by force you 'll do 't But first use fair means to perswade them to 't They dare kill Kings now 'twixt you here 's the strife You dare shoot at the King to save his life And what 's the difference pray whether they fall By the Popes Bull or your Oxe-General Three Kingdoms you have striv'd to make your own And like the Pope usurp a Triple-Crown But somewhat more to this purpose the former Writer thus reasoneth If in matter of Supream Command we of the People may not obey any but the Husband or the King Why then did the Presbyterian Party for so many years oppose and not totally submit to their now supposed Husband Why did they Commissionate so many thousand men who by accident of Warr had the power though not the Chance to kill him Nay in the Parliaments Case it was alwayes conjoyntly argued by them that it was he the Husband that would have kill'd them the supposed Wife for which reason the Kirk of Scotland long ago sent him a Bill of Divorce unless he satisfied for the bloud of three Kingdoms Which of the two Parties it was that at last kill'd him belongs not much to the satisfaction of us the people though here questioned because those Parties as to that Act differ'd no more than Diminutio and Obtruncatio Capitis do for they who after a long Warr and by long Imprisonment dispoil'd him of that Regal power did according to the Term of the Civil Law Diminuere Caput Regis and they who in Consequence of his Civil death took away his Natural life did Obtruncare Caput Regis If he had been kill'd in an Action of Warr before should the Souldier or he who gave the Souldier Commission have answer'd for his life For the more clearing of this I shall desire Jack Presbyter to resolve me these two Quaeries First Whether he doth approve of Cook ' s Appeal or Vindication of the King's Tryal except where he demands Justice though I need not except it If he doth take him Jaylor and Lord have mercy upon him But if he doth not then Secondly Whether he can shew me any thing in that Hellish piece of Treason except when Cook doth vindicate his Majesty from some slanders but I can show the same wickedness in Books publish'd by the Authority of Presbyterians or made and printed by people of that Faction For a piece of Parallel I shall at present point you to one or two Instances See The Mystery of Iniquity yet working in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Printed for Sam. Gellibrand 1643. Declaration of the Commons of England concerning no farther Address or Application to be made to the King 1647. A Remonstrance of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland to his Majesty 1645. Mr. Robert Douglas being Moderator whose Sermon at Scoon 1651. you may also read John Vicars his several lying and scandalous Pamphlets And the several Presbyterian Books and expressions mentioned in this Book needless now to be repeated And to this purpose thus saith the learned Mr. Rich. Watson Whosoever will take the pains to compare the particulars in the Scottish Remonstrance which they brought in their hands when they came in upon the Covenant with those in the accursed Court proceeding against his late Royal Majesty may be able to do Dorislaw Steel Cook c. some little courtesie in their credit and plead for them that they drew not up but only Transcrib'd a Charge brought long since from Edenburgh to London Thus both Parties think the King alike guilty though it was the Presbyterian that first perswaded the Independent to think him so Then here must be all the difference The first declares him abominably wicked the latter being credulous believes the Declaration One part cowardly deliver him up I shall not hint upon the word selling to Execution and the other being more hardy strike the stroak Not that by this I lessen the wickedness of a Rumper as I cannot excuse that of a secluded Member since the latter knowingly destroy'd and kill'd the King 1642. the other under the notion of a private man murther'd Charles Stuart six years after The Laws of the Land not only in Killing but also in Fighting against the Kings Command making it Treason How to that Heaven did this Pilot Steer 'Twixt th' Independent and the Presbyter Plac'd in the Confines of two shipwracks thus The Greeks are seated 'twixt the Turks and Vs Whom did Bizantium free Rome would condemn And freed from Rome they are enslav'd by Them So plac'd betwixt a Precipice and Wolf There the Aegean here the Venice-gulf What with the rising and the setting Sun By these th' are hated and by those undone Thus Vertue 's hemm'd with Vices and though either Solicites her Consent she yields to neither Nay thus our Saviour to enhance his grief Was hung betwixt a Murderer and a Thief What the Powder-plot intended the Independent acted and I am confident the Presbyterians acted more mischief than Faux or his Complices Both of them were stopt in their designs and actions Only we know how farr the Romanists would have gone but we cannot understand what would have been the conclusion of the Puritans Villanies As we have a fifth of November in memory of one so shall we never think of the third of November but in detestation of the other two If the Presbyter would repent his former Vindications of the late Rebellion against their King It would convert the Act of Indempnity into one of Oblivion and people instead of dashing them in the teeth with their Iniquities would pitty their former blindness But when at this day they still continue in the same faults 't is not a sign of infirmity but real malice and enmity to that which is good Still we hear them perswade the people to the legality of the late Warr and that by consequence the same may be lawful against the Son which was against the Father and that upon such petit jealousies as their factious brains can possess the poor people with all whose easie natures are accustomed to take Pique against any thing that their hot-spurr'd Parson
they will also tell the people that they are obliged to right themselves which is the only way to set up the Stage that the Tragedy may be acted over again But I hope the Lecturers and Pamphleters will forget their Parts and then the People will be more unwilling and unfit for Action CHAP. III. The small or rather no Authority or Power that the Presbyterians allow the King to have over them TO lessen Authority is the only way to null it and 't is as true that those who desire and act the first do it meerly to make it subservient to the latter People will not declare their designs at first a plausible pretence being half a Conquest which may be spoil'd by too much haste For A'voli troppo alti e repentini Sogliono i precipitii esser vicini Those men who too too high and hasty go Do take the course to their own over-throw The Turks will shew you friendship but thereby to make you embrace their Faith Zopirus made a fair Relation to the Babylonians but quite different from his Intentions Warr is in vain if not maintain'd by stratagems as well as force Towns have been taken by shew of Friendship as many men with Darius have been ruin'd by those who promis'd to be their defence Our Parliament at first declar'd their Intentions were only to relieve the King from his wicked Council But having once done that as they supposed they not only afforded him no better but took away his Authority clapt him up in Prison and there kept him secure till his Cut-throats convey'd him to the Scaffold And which was an augmentation to their wickednes they did not do this only to make themselves Supream but looking upon themselves as the highest Authority they thought they might thereby lawfully do this and farr more fancying the King to be as subject to their wills as a Gally-slave to his Captain For proof of which 't is in vain to quote practice or the multitude of their Declarations each of them pen'd to prove the legality of their actions Only it will not be amiss to give you the opinion concerning this point of a noted Presbyterian Writer yet making a noyse in his Fetters who would gladly perswade the people that they are bound to obey the Parliament and their Orders though against the Kings express command The Parliament ever retain'd a Jurisdiction in themselves over both Church and Crown Of which in another place he speaks more plain thus The Votes Orders and Ordinances of the Lords and Commons in Parliament even without or against the Kings Personal Command is to be obey'd and observed But it is not only the Parliament but the People too forsooth that must be hail fellow well mett with or rather above the King And they know that this familiarity with Majesty is the only way to bring it into contempt which Crofton thinks a good Card for him to play and therefore he thus very pertly be-speaks the People Is not the meanest Subject interested in the Kings Oath and capacitated humbly to demand performance Do not Royal Acts fall under the consideration of Casuists resolving Conscience Are not Kings Objects of Ministerial admonition How bold soever it may seem none but a proud Pashur and shameless Semaiah could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King Keep the Oath and thou shalt be delivered from that distress which may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to Pray For Him Doth not the last clause speak little Crofton a pert blade who with Calvin Knox and others of that gang would make brave Modlers for a New Utopia by making the Parliament as bounders and controllers over the King and allow the People over the Parliament and then should we have a brave World the King and Three Estates lying at the mercy of the People and the bold Presbyterian Tub-tatler allow'd to infuse into the Rabble what Principles are most agreeable to the sense of their Classes but I hope this Plot is too visible to take effect Yet thus did the Scots with King Charls I. by appealing from him and his Council to a General Assembly in these words And because we did in our former Protestation Appeal from the Lords of his Majesties Council so do we now by these renew our solemn Appeal with all Solemnities requisite unto the next Free General Assembly and Parliament as the only Supream National Judicatories competent to judge of National causes and proceedings Which way of Appealing is High-Treason by the Law of Scotland as they knew very well by a good Token For when their Ministers held an Assembly at Aberdene after it was Prorogued by King James they were cited to appear before the Lords of the Council to answer that high contempt but they denying the Authority and appealing to a General Assembly were therefore arraigned and found guilty of High-Treason and had received the sentence accordingly if King James out of his mercy had not reprieved them before sentence and only inflicted upon them perpetual banishment which they under-went But that they may know themselves the better for the future I shall transcribe them a Copy of the Scotch Statute that they may learn how to avoid Treason The eighth Parliament current holden at Edenburgh the 22. of May in the year of God 1584. by the Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Prince James the sixt by the Grace of God King of Scots and Three Estates of this Realm An Act for Confirming the Kings Majesties Royal Power over all Estates and Subjects within this Realm FOR AS MUCH as some persons being lately call'd before the Kings Majesty and his Secret Council to answer upon certain Points to have been enquired of them concerning some Treasonable Seditions and Contumelious Speeches uttered by them in Pulpits Schools and other wayes to the disdain and reproach of His Highness his Progenitors and present Council contemptuously declined the judgement of his Highness and his said Council in that behalf to the evil example of others to do the like if timely remedy be not provided Therefore our Soveraign Lord and his Three Estates assembled in this present Parliament ratifieth and approveth and perpetually confirmeth the Royal Power and Authority over all Estates as well Spiritual as Temporal within this Realm in the Person of the Kings Majesty our Soveraign Lord his Heirs and Successors And also statuteth and ordaineth That his Highness his Heirs and Successors by themselves and their Councils are and in time to come shall be Judges competent to all persons his Highness Subjects of what Estate Degree Function or Condition soever they be of Spiritual or Temporal in all matters wherein they or any of them shall be apprehended summoned or charged to answer to such things as shall be enquired of them by our said Soveraign Lord and his Council And that none of them which shall happen to be apprehended called or
summoned to the effect aforesaid presume to take in hand to decline the judgement of his Highness his Heirs and Successors or their Council in the Premises under the pain of Treason To make this way of Appealing more plausible to the People they are very willing to make a separation betwixt the two words Sacred and Majesty sticking close to Calvin who calls it blasphemy to yield the King a Supremacy in the Church under God and Christ to which purpose thus the Zealot Henderson delivered himself to his Majesty Such an Headship as the Kings of England have claimed and such a Supremacy as the Houses of Parliament crave with Appeals from the Supream Ecclesiastical Judicature to them as set over the Church in the same line of subordination I do utterly disclaim upon such reasons as give my self satisfaction And to this purpose against the Kings Supremacy in Church affairs he ranted before the House of Lords the year before Yet when he was Moderator of the Assembly of Glasgow in one of his Speeches there he attributed very much to the Kings Power in Ecclesiastical Causes and Assemblies and at last affirm'd That the King was Universal Bishop over all his Kingdom A Copy of this Speech his Majesties Commissioner James then Marquess of Hamilton used means to obtain but could not get it presently because those expressions had offended the Covenanters yet at last a Copy was sent him but with all those Expressions left out which were spoak in favour of the Kings Power in Ecclesiastical businesses by which one may guess at their jugling Another of these Brethren is very furious against the giving these Titles to the King and must call it Blasphemy too But this man is not only against this but also against the attributing any such Epithets as Vertuous Pious or Religious to our Superiours as if he had borrowed his breeding from Buchanan who rants against those who give the Titles of Majesty Lordship Illustrious c. And these two also agree very well together in slaundering those who will not fight against their Kings since they say Dame Nature knows no such distinction And this is agreeable to our Long-Parliament-Worthies who gravely declared it a fit Foundation for all Tyranny and a most distructive Maxim or Principle for the King to avow That He oweth an account of his Actions to none but God alone And that the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any Law And this power over the King Henderson doth not only give to the Representatives but also to the People over both them and the King especially in Reforming and so by consequence must make them also judges too and then shall we have a mad world my Masters If the Prince or Supreme Magistrate be unwilling then may the Inferiour Magistrate and the People being before rightly inform'd in the grounds of Religion lawfully reform within their own sphere and if the light shine upon all or the major part they may after all other means assayed make a publick Reformation And a few lines after thus to the same purpose It is not to be deny'd but the prime Reforming Power is in Kings and Princes quibus deficientibus it comes to the Inferior Magistrate quibus deficientibus it descends to the body of the People And this you must suppose to be a pretty Rule to make the People believe that no Religion can be true but the Presbyterians and the Covenanters and so a necessity of Reforming to their Directory For if not how will they answer the common Quaere How came they then or how durst they alter the Church Government against his Majesties express command Well necessity or no necessity the English Presbyterians will swear that they have power to Reforme and in that the King signifyeth but a Cypher For Could not they null Episcopacy against the Kings command Could not they devide their Lands amongst themselves against the Kings command Could not they Ruine the Common-Prayer-Book against the Kings command Could not they call a Pye-bald Assembly against his command Could they not swear a wicked Covenant against his command Could they not set up the Directory against his command Could they not set up Classical Provincial and National Assemblies against his command Could they not Murther and begger an Archbishop and others of the Orthodox and Loyal Clergy against his command Could they not destroy Cathedrals against his command Could they not make Perjury lawful against his command Could they not commit Sacriledge against his command Could they not turn the Kings Loyal Subjects out of both the Universities against his command Could they not make Schismatical Presbyterian Ordinations against his command Could they not make what they pleased to be Idolatry and Superstition against his command Could they not make Treason a Rule of Christianity against his command Nay could they not do any thing but make a man a woman and a woman a man according to Pembrokes oath and judgement For those who vote Loyalty Treason and cloak Rebellion with high Commendations and Religion will fancy a Legal Power into themselves obliging them to oppose their Prince And puft on with this perswasion a Puritanical Committee of our long Parliament order this to be Printed and Dispers'd in behalf of their Associates They have only used that Legal Power which was in them for the punishment of Delinquents and for the prevention and restraint of the Power of Tyranny of all which they are the legal Judges and all the Subjects of this Kingdom are bound by the Laws to obey them herein And this Opinion might be the reason why Prinne and his Fellows were so angry against that Murther'd Archbishop Laud for not suffering such seditious expressions as these to be used to the people in their Sermons It is lawful for the Inferior and subordinate Magistrates to defend the Church and Common-wealth when the Supreme Magistrate degenerates and falleth into Tyranny or Idolatry for Kings are subject to their Common-wealths And that Subjects may lawfully take up Armes against their Kings command and in their Sermons revile the Kings Court with Pride Avarice Idleness Flattery Folly Wickedness and such like Yet had a man in London but hinted half so much against the Parliament he had been claw'd for it to the purpose But it is not the English Puritans alone that would thus trample upon their Kings Nay the Scots too will be as wicked as them or else they could not handsomely call one another Brethren And this is especially practised by their zealous Hinters who deny the King to have no more to do in or with their Assemblies than the meanest Cobler amongst them whilst they thus Impudently told his Majesties Commissioner That if the King himself were amongst them he should have but one voice and that not Negative neither nor more affirmative than any one Member of their Assembly had Nor
will they allow the Civil Authority to have any thing to do with them or any of their Kirk-actions as I have formerly shew'd in their continual practise and for an assurance take one of their Declared Maxims As the Assembly cannot make Civill Laws nor repeal them nor impede the Parliament from making or repealing Civil Laws No more can the Parliament make Ecclesiastical Laws Originally nor repeal or hinder the Lawful Assemblies to repeal the same For albeit Acts of the Assembly are and may be ratifyed in Parliament that is only that the Civil Sanction may concur with the Ecclesiastical Constitution But will not stop the Assembly to recal their Own Act which being annull'd by them the Civil Ratification falls ex Consequenti For to maintain that the Kirk may not repeal her own Acts ratified once in Parliament is so derogatory to Christs Prerogative and Ordinance to the Liberty of the Kirk and Freedom of the Assembly to the nature and reason of all Ecclesiastical jurisdiction as we have more largely declared in the Protestation 22 September last that we believe few or none will be of that Opinion Nor will they allow the King to Dissolve any of their Juntos with which Impudent humour King Charles I. was sufficiently troubled For having by Proclamation Dissolved their Assembly at Glasgow 1638 They publickly deny his Authority for so doing declaring that It was most unlawful in it self and prejudicial to those Priviledges which Christ in his word hath left to his Church to dissolve or break up the Assembly of this Church or to stop and stay their Proceedings in Constitution of Acts for the welfare of the Church or execution of Discipline against Offenders and so to make it appear that Religion and Church Government should depend absolutely upon the pleasure of the Prince And after this they very solemnly protest against the departure of the Kings Commissioner 'till their humours be satisfyed a sufficient sign of their Presumption to be so malepert with one that represented the Kings Person and Authority but they go on in their boldnesse We again and again do by these presents cite and summon them and every one of them to compeer before this present General Assembly to answer to the premises and to give in their Reasons Defences and Answers against the Complaints given in or to be given against them and to hear Probation sed and Sentence pronounced against them and conform to our former Citations and according to Justice with certification of affairs Like as by these presents we summon and cite all those of his Majesties Council or any other who have procured consented subscribed or ratified this present Proclamation to be responsable to his Majesty and Three Estates of Parliament for their Counsels given them in this Matter so highly importing his Majesty and the whole Realm conform to the 12 Act King James IV. Parliament II. and protest for remedy of Law against them and every one of them Having thus begun to thunder they fall to work though they had no power to act being Dissolved by the Kings Command yet to it they fall in a furious Zeal not stopping at any thing which was once propounded so that in one hour they declar'd six General Assemblies to be null and void In another hour they condemn'd not confuted Armianism In another hour they deprived the Archbishop of St. Andrews and two other Bishops viz. Galloway and Brechen as at other times of that Kirk-Rump all the rest of the Bishops In another hour they declared Episcopal Government to be inconsistent with the Laws of that Church and Kingdom and so abolished it And thus in all haste without fear or wit in a very few dayes they had made almost an hundred Acts sometimes three or four at one time and sometimes more to the utter discredit of their Brethren of our English Assembly who sat hum-druming several years and after all expectations brought forth nothing worth a Mouse But the one was shackled and the other at liberty the one was over-rul'd and aw'd by a Parliamentary Nod but the other would neither be govern'd by God nor Man Though no question had that at London been their own Masters they would have been as hasty as their Brethren An English Covenanter being as good wildfire as any Kirker in Scotland But by this you may guess how deliberate our Northern Seers are how rationall they are that without Archimedes his Engine can skrew up a Government in a moment like those in the Arsenal in Venice who in less than two hours time can make and lanch a compleat Gally But enough of their denying the Kings Authority over them in their Assemblies I shall only give you one of their private Instructions by them carefully sent to some Ministers in every Presbytery in whom they put most special trust Private Instructions Aug. 27. 1638. That the ablest man in every Presbytery be provided to dispute De Potestate Supremi Magistratûs in Ecclesiasticis praesertim in Convocandis Conciliis de Senioribus de Episcopatu de Juramento de Liturgia corruptelis ejusdem How the Saints held these Questions need not be ask'd nor how partially they would go about them for I cannot well say study them When people once dispute Authority practice assures us that they are resolv'd for the Negative and when such questions as these are on purpose propos'd by a byass'd Zealot the Intention is only to confirm people in Opposition The Brethren long before this had found the benefit of such Discourses which made them now trudge in the same way For their seditious Predecessors in the University of St. Andrews insteed of Divinity had thrust up these Politick Questions Whether the Election or Succession of Kings were the better form of Government How farr the Royal Power extended Whether Kings might be censured for abusing the same and depos'd by the Estates of the Kingdom But besides those who expresly deny and fight against the Kings Supremacy his Majesty hath other Enemies to his Authority which are as dangerous amongst the People as any other And these are those who commend his Enemies and so approve their Actions not but that a wicked man in some things might be highly commended for other qualities Thus of one hand I find the great Gustavus Adolphus highly applauded but that he was a Protestant and on the other our Queen Elizabeth's Sister Queen Mary as greatly commended but that she was a Roman-Catholick yet for either of these simply aspersions are not to be cast upon Magistrates or others more inferiour However this hits not our case but the magnifying of those who are really wicked which Epithet let them take offence that will I shall freely bestow upon our Long-Parliament as being the Kings greatest Enemies the only cause of his ruine and the murtherers of many innocent Loyal Gentlemen By these Commendations the People are made to believe that
any of your Protestations and seeming kindnesses may thank himself for his own distruction not a man of you but like Pope Sixtus IV. if the Poet hit right Fraudisque dolique Magister Et sola tantum proditione potens A Master of frauds and deceits And only powerful in Treacherous feats So stubborn and perverse are these People in their Iniquities that the King Church must either submit to their whimsies or else neither shall have Peace For if ever the Common-Prayer-Book be imposed again against the Authority ofthese seditious Caterpillers they plainly tell the present King that there will inevitably follow sad Divisions and widening of the Breaches which your Majesty is endeavouring to heal And in their second Paper to his Majesty they thus swagger Should we lose the opportunity of our desired Reconciliation and Union It astonisheth us to fore-see what doleful effects our Divisions should produce which we will not so much as mention in particular lest we should be mis-understood And in another place they threaten the King with what great Calamities will fall upon the People in his Raign if Episcopacy be fully setled And in another of their Pamphlets talks of the Worlds running into Confusion yet a little after assures the Bishops how patiently they will undergo this Persecution for such is Obedience in the Opinion of these men But how improbable it is that these men should continue in this Resolution shall be left to experience though any man may imagine that their words were farr from their intentions when they shall hear the same People tell the very same Bishops that they must make loud complaint of their Persecutions in their Sermons Prayers and other Discourses To which purpose thus take their own words It is easie to fore-see how those expressions in mens Sermons or Prayers or familiar Conference which seem to any mis-understanding or suspicious or malicious Hearers to Intimate any sense of Sufferings will be carryed to the Ears of Rulers and represented as a Crime And Nature have planted in all men an Unwillingness to suffer and deny'd to all men a love of Calamity and necessitated men to feel when they are hurt and made the Tongue and Countenance the Index of our Sense These Effects will be unavoidable while such Impositions are continued And while a fear of sinning will not suffer men to swallow and digest them These are the expressions not of private but the publick and chief persons of their Faction not singly neither for not a word of these past but with the approbation and consent of their wisest Grandees which may be for ought I know a Representative of their whole Body Yet here you see the Foundations of another Warr laid if their desires be not satisfied and if this do not signifie their Obedience to be no longer than the King and Bishops comply with their humours I will submit to be chain'd for a punishment to Jenkin's or Calamy's Pulpit for a twelve-month to learn the meaning of the Covenanters Gibbridge When they expresly declare that unless the King satisfie their desires there shall be Divisions Breaches aoleful Effects great Calamities Confusions and that they for their parts shall not hold their peace I must take it for granted that they are willing nay resolv'd if they can get opportunity again to renew their Rebellion and all this wickedness to retrive that hellish Imp their Covenant burnt by the Hang-mans hand by publick Authority And those who will thus out-face King Church Law and Authority must be as farr from being good Subjects as Ravaillac was when he stab'd his Soveraign CHAP. V. I. The wicked Reproaches the Presbyterians cast upon the present Episcopal Church II. What small reason they have to desire Toleration from the King and Episcopal Party since they deny the same to them with their scandals upon the Church as Popish which are wiped off III. Their slanders upon the late King and his vindication from his own Enemies IV. Their endeavours to begger the Episcopal Church V. Their stories of Gods judgments retorted THere is a Tale of Bajazet the first that he had an Ethiope born in India about him and having upon a march one day his Tent pitch'd near an high Tree He call'd the Ethiope and said Dre Areb if thou lov'st me go up to the top of that Tree The Indian scambled up presently so the Emperour sent presently for some to hew down the Tree the poor Ethiop begging his life all the while and that his Counsellors would intercede for him but nothing prevailing the Ethiop pull'd down his Breeches and with his Excrements and Urine did so bewray the hewers that they gave over work and in the interim the Ethiop gets down telling the Turks Counsellors Would all such privy Counsellors as you were so bewray'd whose Counsell cannot do as much good as mine Excrements There is nothing in this story that I do entend to be applicatory but to one piece of policy of the Presbyterians who at this time when all means else fail them make it one of their best Asylum's and last refuge to bespatter and vilifie those whom they take for their enemies And in this art they are so dexterous as to charme the simple people into a belief of their words each of their Lecturers being as active for England as the spirit Rigilde in Scudery's Master-piece was for to perswade the Spaniards into Tumults and Uproars And they are not ignorant how credulous the vulgar are A poor German was easily perswaded that a fellow was burnt at Auspurg for a Cheat by placing snow before an hot furnace and there to remain till it was hardened with the heat and then to have sold it for salt A priest once made some people so firmly believe that the Storks were men of a farre Country but only in winter Transfigured That they did all seriously profess for the future to have a greater respect and honour for those Birds If many men of good literature are apt to credit the stories in Gononus Metaphrastes Surius Dauroultius Nider Marulus Cantipratanus Lippeloo Caesarius and such like Sacred Romancies we may well suppose the Faith of the unlearned to be more easily wrought upon This makes them at this time throw about their dirt to the purpose perswading the people that nothing but wickedness and Sathan rules and over-spreads the whole Land To which purpose thus they send their Mercuries about and old Hall of Kings-Norton rants bravely I do verily believe there hath been a greater flood of open profanesse in ten weeks past than in ten years before Which is a pretty information to the people of what mischief the Kings return hath brought upon the Kingdome And to this purpose also Crofton when he tells us of the Suppressing pious painful Preachers thrust out and prophane drunken deboist canonical Common-Prayer-Book men forced in wheresoever a Bishops power can reach And this
is seconded by his Brother in malice that hocus pocus and jugler in Divinity and Policy Dick Baxter Too many Congregations have none but insufficient or scandalous Teachers or no preaching Ministers at all And then bravely bids his friends at Kiderminster never to join themselves with the Episcopal Government but to stick close to those destructive and seditious rules he taught them Let none draw you from Catholick unity to a Faction though the declaming against Faction and Schism should be the device by which they should accomplish it Is not the world well mended when Episcopacy must be call'd Faction and Schism and Presbytery only held to be Catholick But this is just like the other actions of the same man who used to call Rebellion Loyalty and Loyalty Rebellion with such fury doth his distempered zeal make him continually run counter Nor is this all but they impudently tell the Bishops to their very faces of their cruelty pride and covetousnesse uncharitable censoriousnesse unmerciful opposition and such like And then declare to the world of strange Persecution of many hundred worthy men laid by and that conformity is the means to strip these Nations of the glory in which they have excell'd all the rest of the world even a learned able holy Ministry and a people sincere and serious and understanding in matters of their salvation And also that the readiest way to bring the Gospel into contempt in the World and cause all Religion to dwindle away into Formality first and then to barbarism and brutishnesse is to let in an ignorant idle vitious Ministry Thus do they vilifie all that are not of their Gang really making it their businesse to make the people believe that none can be good but a Presbyterian though I hope in this Book that their knavery is sufficiently made visible In another of their ridiculous Pamphlets they perswade the Nation again to believe strange things that some hundreds of able holy faithful ministers are of late cast out and not only very many of their families in great distresse but aboundance of Congregations in England Ireland and Wales are overspread with lamentable ignorance and are destitute of able faithful Teachers Thousands of the Servants of the Lord that are either deprived of their Faithful Teachers or in fears of losing them And that there are few Nations under the Heavens of God as farre as we can learn that have more able holy faithful laborious and truly peaceable Preachers of the Gospell proportionably than those are that are now cast out in England and are like in England Scotland and Ireland to be cast out if the old conformity be urg'd This course of unmerciful opposition is the greatest wrong to it that you can easily be drawn to unawares while so many truly fearing God are cast or trodden down and tempted to think ill of that which themselves and the Church thus suffer by And when so many of the worst befriend this way because it gratifieth them it tends to make your cause judged of according to the quality of its friends and adversaries Well said self-conceipt And in another place hints to the world that if the Presbyterians be turnd out there will not be honest men enough in the Nation to supply their places And having thus told the Bishops the wickednesse of their party and the honesty and goodnesse of a Puritan they boldly appeal to the King and after a great many good morrows thus pittifully conclude And shall wait in hope that so great a Calamity of your people as will follow the losse of so many able faithful Ministers as the rigorous imposition would cast out should never be recorded in the History of your Raign Thus these simpring Brethren are highly against liberty of conscience in others yet would they have it themselves Though they will so farr comply as not to be against an unimpos'd Liturgy yet are they expresly against our Common-Prayer Book Nay were it alter'd according to their own desires yet would they not be obliged by the Laws to use it Though in Queen Elizabeths time they amongst themselves having compos'd A Book of the form of Common Prayer c. they presented it to the Parliament earnestly desiring that by Act of Parliament that Book might be confirm'd and used all the Kingdome over Yet about 1585. four Presbyterian Classes made complaint to the Lord Burleigh against the Liturgy though they would not have it all taken away his Lordship bid them make a better upon which the first Classis fram'd a new one somewhat neer the Geneva mode but this the second Classis dislik'd and alter'd in 600 particulars that again had the fate to be quarrel'd at by the III Classis and what the third resolved upon the fourth would not Thus would these men have somewhat but they cannot agree amongst themselves a sufficient sign of their inconstancy altering this way and that according to the weather sometimes they will have a form impos'd anon they will have it at liberty and another time they will have none at all of whom I shall say with a late Characterizer That they are bold Gentlemen that cannot speak to man without notes and yet prate to God ex tempore The African Scipio conquerd the wild and heathenish Spaniards by his courtesie St. Francis if you will believe the Legend brought a mad Wolfe to such civility that he could behave himself a la mode and live friendly with his Neighbours A furious Buck and a pack of Hounds were miraculously brought to devotion by worshipping a Sea-toss'd Relique And an Elephant at Adsmeer in Indostain in the height of his fury remembred the courtesie receiv'd from an Herb-woman as St. Hieromes Lyon requited the cure of his foot by the keeping of his Masters Asse which being lost by his negligence the meek Lyon did penance by bearing home the wood 'T is said that a Wolfe at the command of St. Blase restored the hogg which it had taken from a poor woman Nor would the birds depart from the same man till he had laid his hands on them and blest them A sheep is storyed to have bleated in the Thief 's belly at the command of St. Patrick and the stones to have said Amen to St. Bedes Preachment as the Marble yielded to St. James body and an high Tower at the command of the same St. bowd down its Top equal to the ground to let a Merchant escape Thus monsters and stocks and stones if you believe the Legends can obey but no courtesie can win over these Non-conforming men still they will be opposite still seditious never complying to Authority unlesse that submitt to them first and as men neer drowning still catching hold of any thing for a pretence to cover their obstinacy When the Parliament and Queen inact conformity they deny obedience to that law when King James by Proclamation
order the same they deny its obligation when King Charles I desires any thing by order then they refuse also affirming that such things cannot stop the force of Laws Yet when his present Majesty by Proclamation gratiously giveth a kind of toleration then they take hold of it and will stand by it let the Act of Conformity say what it will to the contrary And indeed his Majesty is greatly beholden to them thus to testifie their Obedience It being the first time that ever they comply'd with King or Command in matters of Religion Nor is their present obedience upon any vertue or stress of the Command but that it is agreeable to their wills Balthassar Cossa and other Cardinals being at Bologna to choose a Pope several they named but none could content Cossa wherefore they desired him to nominate whom he would whereupon he declared that he would be Pope himself and so was chosen and nominated John XXIII After this manner do our Presbyterians no King Law Councill Convocation or any thing else can please them but what is of their own election or beneficial to their own designes When themselves make a Covenant then they will swear for uniformity and the ruine of those who do not agree with them But if the King and laws demand unity then they are for liberty of Conscience yet if the Anabaptists Independents c. being then in supremacy plead and allow that liberty then they cry out that the Church is undone for want of Government Though now being not Lords and Maisters they are against such a settlement and stick to that license granted by the Kings Declaration which though but temporary yet will they never quit its Freedome till they be come Conquerors again by Rebellion let King and Parliament act what they will to the contrary and in this I am confirm'd by an expression in one of their Grandees We doubt not but his Majesty will appoint such persons to review our Liturgy as will agree in one which shall not be liable to just Exceptions TILL THAT TIME HIS MAJESTY GRANTS A LIBERTY What arguments these Resolute hot-spurrs will make out of just exceptions and the last words till that time his Majesty grants a liberty may very easily be suspected and I am confident the event will shew to be most seditious pleading the Kings Declaration against their Future Conformity though the King Parliament and Convocation agree on the contrary Thus will they act like the Bitch in Justine which desired the benefit of a place to whelp in which being granted begs of the Shepherd liberty also to bring up her young there this being performed too then confidently demands for the future a propriety in that Kennell But these men might know that Agesilaus the great King of the Lacedemonians us'd to condiscend to the pleasuring of his Son when a Child by riding with him on an Hobby-horse and what liberty our King grants to consciences that are truly tender cannot handsomly be laid hold on by these wicked Incendiaries whose abominable actions proclaim them to have no Conscience unlesse it be to commit mischief If these men will not allow liberty to the Episcopal Clergy I know no reason they should have it themselves as for the first 't is plain of which take some examples Where you have the kneeling at the Sacrament call'd an horrible stumbling block and that the kneeler is a Thief and in the same place tells the people that if none would communicate with the Ring-leaders and Introducers they would be forced to desist and had desisted long ago for shame Nay he goeth farther and tells them that though they receive much good and comfort by the Common-prayer yet they sin if they go to it And fairly assures us that we are bound to oppose the Liturgy for otherwise the Superiours will be embolden'd to sin whilst they think that to be lawfully imposed which is by us received and obeyd Mr. Matthew Newcomen now a great man amongst them and an old Smecty M Nuan when the Presbyterians were top and top gallant if I mistake not preach'd a Sermon against Toleration And one of their great Pulpit-teers of Scotland publickly told our House of Lords that Liberty of Conscience is no remedy but Physick worse then the Disease And in the same temper were this mans Country men when they cry'd out God defend all those who will defend Gods cause and God confound the Service-Book and all the maintainers of it And this was the heat of the Scotch people at the beginning of their Covenant turning out all those that would not subscribe it though contrary to the Kings command They presently expell'd two Regents from the Colledge of Edinburgh for not taking it In Fyfe they order'd a Communion throughout their Churches at which they made every one to swear not to subscribe any thing but their Covenant Nor were there few Ministers in that Kingdom not subscribers of their Covenant whom they did not presently process and cite before their several Presbyteries and others were kept from their Priviledges Nor was this all One of their Ministers refused to pray for Sir William Nesbett late Provost of Edinburgh when he was lying upon his Death-bed only because he had not subscribed their Covenant Another pray'd God to scatter them all in Israel and to divide them in Jacob who had counsell'd the King to require the Confession of Faith to be subscribed by His Authority Many would not admit to the Communion those who had not subscribed their Covenant Others would not suffer children to be baptized in the Churches of those Ministers who were out of the Covenant though they were their own Parish-Churches but carryed them sometimes many miles to be baptized by Covenanting-Ministers One preach'd That all the Non-subscribers of the Covenant were Atheists and so concluded that All the Lords of the Kings Council and all the Lords of the Session were such because none of them had subscrib'd it Another preach'd That as the wrath of God never was diverted from his people until the seven Sons of Saul were hang'd up before the Lord in Gibeon so the wrath of God would never depart from Scotland till the twice seven Prelates the number of the Bishops in that Kingdom were hang'd up before the Lord there Another preach'd That though there were never so many Acts of Parliament against the Covenant yet it ought to be maintain'd against them all Another deliver'd in his Sermon That the bloudiest and sharpest Warr was rather to be endured than the least Error in Doctrine and Discipline And another of these Bloud-Hounds in his Pulpit thus furiously wished That he and all the Bishops in that Kingdom were in a bottomless Boat at Sea together for he could be well content to lose his life so they might lose theirs And what do you think of another of these Furies who affirm'd that Every man ought to be
O the height of Puritanical Malice were I a Caesar Vaninus I would call Presbytery the Father of Lies His enemies the Independents are farr more Civil in this than these Brethren of which I shall give you one or two Instances enough to cleer his Majesty from this Presbyterian slander John Cook then of Grays-Inn Barrister his Immortal foe when it was his purpose to cast all the filth that he could upon the King with an intention to make him odious to Eternity yet even then doth cleer him of this I do not think that the King was a Papist or that he design'd to introduce the Popes Supremacy in spiritual things into this Kingdome Nor that I think he did believe Transubstantiation God forbid I should wrong the dead And another of his profest Enemies viz. Will. Lilly thus vindicates the King He was no Papist or favour'd any of their Tenents And because an Enemies Commendation is held Authentick you shall see what a good King he was according to their own Opinions Of him thus saith the aforesaid Cook who yet demanded Justice against him for which Treason he since felt the Law He was well known to be a great student in his younger dayes He had more learning and dexterity in State affairs undoubtedly then all the Kings in Christendome And thus farther saith Lilly He was an excellent Horsman would shoot well at a Mark had singular skill in Limming and Pictures A good Mathematitian not unskilful in Musick well read in Divinity excellently in History and no lesse in the Laws and Statutes of this Nation He had a quick and sharp Conception would write his mind singularly well and in good language and style only he loved long Parentheses He would apprehend a matter in Difference betwixt party and party with great readiness and methodize a long matter and Contract it in few lines Insomuch that I have heard Sir Robert Holdorne oft say He had a quicker Conception and would sooner understand a Case in Law or with more sharpness drive the matter unto a head than any of his Privy Council Insomuch that when the King was not at the Council Table Sir Robert never car'd to be there He had also amongst others his special gifts the gift of patience Insomuch that if any offer'd him a long Discourse or Speech he would with much Patience and without any Interruption or Distaste hear their Story or Speech out at length He did not much court the Ladies He had exquisite judgement by the Eye and Physiognomy to discover the virtuous from the wanton he honour'd the virtuous He was nothing at all given to Luxury was extreme sober both in his Food and Apparel He could argue Logically and frame his Arguments Artificially If these qualities confest by an enemy do not make a good man Jack Presbyter can have small hopes to be so who hated him because he was too vertuous for them as the Devill envies honesty Amongst all the Plots and Designes these men have to overthrow the Church of England 't is none of the least to ruine its Glory by making it contemptible by Poverty For which purpose they endeavour to get all the Bishops Lands alienated or sold Dr. Burgess being their Champion and they will never question Law as long as Prynne hath any malice who toils and writes what he can to get the Lands confirm'd as they were sold by his Associates those Sacrilegious of the wicked long Parliament who impiously sold the Church Revenues to maintain their Rebellion against God and their King Had they been the Doners they might have had a more plausible Plea for their Alienation but since these Lands were given by other Pious and Noble Benefactors it shews their Devillish Avarice and Malice to meddle with or pocket up that which they had no claime to nor power over being but a Rump of two Houses actually in Rebellion against their King and so had no more Authority to conclude and act in such an high Concern without and against the consent of the King than the Pope hath to give away this or that Kingdom upon his form of Excommunication to any of his Favorites that can win it and wear it or poor Simnell had to the Crown in King Henry VII time Yet to have this wickedness confirm'd Burges and his Associats will offer severall hundred thousand pounds to his Majesty by way of gift thereby to hook him in to be pertakers of their sins a Presbyterian being like a Common Drunkard who is not satisfy'd with his own Excess but makes it his business that all his Neighbours too should be partners with him in his wickedness and debauchery But his Majesty is too Sacred and good to be toll'd away by such Miscreants it shews their abominable Impudence to imagine to perswade the Son to be an Enemy to the Church whose Father was a Glorious Martyr for it as if they would shew him a better way and Rule than the Example and Footsteps of his holy Parent To me it seems a strange piece of malicious Ignorance in them who will allow some knavish Lawyers to get by their prating some ignorant Physitians by distruction some cousening Trades-men by false dealing and some murthering Souldiers by plundring for some such there are in all faculties though their callings be lawfull and commendable two three or four Thousand pounds a year and yet think it an hard case or unlawful for a Reverend Bishop or Clergy-man who hath spent many years and all his own means in hard study and is held the most honourable preferment as much as the Soul excels the Body to possess that which other good charitable men have freely given him since such a deed of gift is so farr from endamaging our Presbyterian Grumblers that it is a main encouragement for their studies and preferment If they say as I have heard that these Benefactorships were given not to the men but the Diocesses by this retort they malepertly reflect upon the Kings discretion whose wisdom thinks such men fit for and capable of such Places But by this they may as well reason against Colledge and Hospital Lands and the Commons belonging to Corporations and when they have once taken these away they will eat up one another through avarice But enough of this only there was some ground for the observation that the only way to preferment was to be a busling Non-conformist Besides these and others they have another way to shake the foundation of Episcopacy and the peace of the Nation They know full well that nothing seems more formidable to the vulgar then a story of Gods strange judgments upon this or that And if they question the verball Narrative shew it them in print and 't is sufficient they having not confidence enough to deny that which cometh from the Press The story of a Spirit will fright these people out of their little witts and the relation of such a terrible
upon the wicked CHAP. VI. Some short Observations upon their Covenant AN understanding Gentleman assures us that A league amongst Subjects giveth law to a King breaks all bonds of Soveraignty and invites a people to seek for a New Maister And this dear-bought experience hath prov'd true to both Nations yet were the events of these Agreements more mischievous they would be courted by the seditious thinking such pieces of Perjury to be the best works of their Holy-days Since the reformation this mode of swearing against Authority hath been commonly practis'd in Scotland In their first Covenant 3 Decemb 1557. An Earl of Argile was the first subscriber and chief promoter and how active an Earl of Argile hath been in our days about such wickednesse need not here be related but I hope as the other was the first so this shall be the last Yet in this way hath the English been as faulty as the worst of them though I believe at first drol'd in by their Neighbours For when at the beginning of the Warres the English Commissioners went from the Parliament into Scotland to desire their assistance against the King and having addres'd themselvs to the Scotch Assembly delivering them a letter subscribed by some Presbyterian Ministers in which they complaind that their blood was shed like water upon the grouud for defence of the Protestant Religion they receiv'd a negative answer The Assembly telling them amongst other things That you cannot say you fight for the Reform'd Religion since you have not begun to reform your Church ye had thriven better if you had don as we did Begun at the Church and thereafter striven to have gotten the civil sanction to what ye had don in the Church A few days after Sir W. Ermin Mr. Hamden and the rest of the Commissioners were invited by some of their friends to make a new Address to the Assembly which they did the second time desiring a gracious Answer Upon this request the Assembly propounded to them this Will ye join in Covenant with us to reform Doctrine and Discipline conform to this of Scotland and ye shall have a better Answer Sir W. Ermin and the rest answered that they had not that in their Instructions but thank'd the Assembly and said they would represent it to the Parliament of England The Assembly replyd that there would be much time loosed ere they could go to the Parliament for their resolutions and thereafter to return to Scotland to draw up a Solemn League and COVENANT The danger was great and they were not able to resist the King But we shall draw up the Covenant here and send up with you some Noble men Gentlemen and Ministers that shall see it subscrib'd which accordingly was don only two or three words altered Thus was this spurious Wretch illegally begotten and brought forth by unlawful Parents by the Scots worship'd and ador'd as the only Idol fit to bless their undertakings and by their Brothers in mischief the English Long Parliament embraced who peremptorily enjoyn all people to swear Allegiance to it as their only supream Law and authentick Shibuleth to distinguish Treason from Loyalty Though what authority they had to impose such an Oath being against the Command both of King and Law must be left for Mr. Prynne to discover in some Terra incognita since we have no such custome amongst us Yet for all this Mr. Simeon Ash had the confidence in the Pulpit to wonder that any man should think that the Covenant was made here only to bring in the Scots when the Presbyterian Parliament and party was low in England Having thus seen the Birth of this Monster it might quickly be desected and the poison and mischief lodg'd in it might evidently be manifested to the whole world but that it hath formerly been don by more able pens However it cannot but seem strange to any that these men should swear to extirpate the Government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops c. which have been confirmd by 32 Acts of Parliament And they could never yet tell who made them Rulers over Israel and gave them power to such actions quite contrary to Magna Charta the laws of the Land and the Kings express command The first two are known to any one who hath heard any thing of the laws of the land and the latter is as true Yet because I have heard some deny and others question its truth I shall give you his Majesties own Proclamation against it 1643. By the KING His Majesties Proclamation forbidding the Tendering or taking of a late Covenant called a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation c. WHEREAS there is a Printed paper intituled a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religin The honour and happinesse of the King and the peace and safety of the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be Ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the twenty first day of September last to be Printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in Truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against us and against the Established Religion and Laws of this Kingdome in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and endeavour to bring in Forraign Force to invade this Kingdome We do therefore straightly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects of what Degree of Quality soever Upon their Allegiance That they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby Forbid and Inhibit all Our Subjects to Impose Administer or Tender the said Covenant as they and every one of them will answer to the Contrary at their Utmost and Extremest Perils Given at our Court at Oxford this Ninth day of October in the Nineteenth year of our Raign GOD SAVE THE KING Than this what could be more plain and authentick yet a furious Presbyterian is pleas'd to tearm this action of the King Satanical slander and abuse a most impious and audacious Paper Atheistical boldness Impious and Platonical pleasure c. Besides the unlawfulness of its making and Imposition the qualities and conditions of the Brat were so impious that an honest man could never take it for several reasons amongst many other take these two or three 1. § They swear to extirpate Popery without respect of persons In which they might be ask'd What they would do with the Queen If they forced her Religion 't was Treason If they did not they are perjur'd 2. § This Oath makes them to be but Conditional Subjects swearing to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom before the King or his Authority few of the takers understanding any of these things by which means they swore they knew not what And that this Oath obligeth them to be but conditional Subjects is plain they swearing To preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority
and the Switzers for a Cart-load of Sheeps-skins And if the Antipathy betwixt the French and Spaniards began upon so slight occasion if you believe mine Authours as because the French were not so gloriously clad as the other at an Interview betwixt Lewis XI and the King of Castile If all this trouble and bloudshed for such trifles why may they not stand stoutly to their Covenant But if they be so stiff for that Oath against all Laws and honesty why may not the Orthodox stick to their King Laws and Church-government by Bishops since the swarving from these things is High-Treason and Schism But enough of this perjur'd and condemn'd Traytor since the judicious Reasons of the famous University of Oxford and that miracle of Learning too untimely snatch'd away the Reverend Dr. Langbaine have put it and its part-takers to a perpetual confusion against whom though I think none of them ever yet durst undertake the Doctor nor could the other be answer'd but with Treason of which enquire more of Mr. Crofton their scribling will not be unlike the Pigmies fighting against Hercules and their crying Victoria to as little purpose as Falstaf's vapouring of his own valour at Gads-Hill Yet since they stand so stifly to the literal sense of this Brat I shall leave one or two Quaeries to their consideration I. Whether those who took the Covenant and there sware to extirpate all Schism do not thereby engage to be like Hoyle their own Executioners II. Whether when they sware to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority and not to diminish his just power and greatness they did keep their Oaths by Voting no more Address to him the Scots by selling him the English by buying him hurrying him from Prison to Prison Imposing upon him strange Conditions contrary to his Prerogative taking from him the Militia acting all without and against his Commands c. If they say they did according to the Covenant Then III. Whether such a wicked Oath is to be allow'd in a Kingdom which permitteth nay I may say commandeth such affronts to be done to Majesty contrary to all the Laws of the Land And if these Actions were against the Covenant then are they perjur'd But it may be I have gone too farr against these People who in their Scotch Assembly at Glasgow by Act forbad any to write or speak against their Covenant And the same did the English Leaguers and what danger it may be to write against their Laws since our own cannot be in force I know not And since a man must not speak ill of the dead whose flaming exspiration was a Type of the Reward befitting to the Imposers This I retort upon that Presbyterian who would have all May-Pole dancers hang'd I shall leave this wicked Covenant only tell them that the Lord Ravenstein under pretence of the binding of his Oath ran into a great Rebellion against his Masters the Emperour Frederick and Maximilian as our Zealots have against their King To conclude the words of James II. King of Scotland are worth your reading Could there be any greater surety for you than to rely on the Laws of the Common-wealth and Countrey especially in a Countrey where Laws and not Faction rule and where a man 's own goodness is able to preserve him But such men as you are raise these Factions to the subversion of all Laws and Authority And for Subjects to make an Offensive and Defensive League against all Persons is to disclaim all Government and do what they please without controlement commit Treason in the highest degree and make your own Swords and Power justifie your proceedings which though you first use against mean persons and conceal the progress of your Actions for there are degrees in evil and wicked men begin at that which seems the least of evils or not an evil at all at the first your last aim is likely to be the Robbing upon the Crown Consider you are born under a Monarchy which admitteth of no Soveraignty but it self and it is natural to Princes to hold it in highest esteem and in no case to suffer it to be shaken by their Subjects Take your Prince for your best protection and an Innocent life Renounce that Union and League and let it not be heard any longer that ever such an unjust Confederation was and so wonted Clemency shall be prefer'd before deserved Justice But 't was the wickedness of this action which made the Zealots love it and therefore order'd that in the Prayers after every Sermon the Minister should give God thanks for the Covenant like John Becold a Taylor of Leyden better known by the Name of John of Leyden who having cruelly cut off the head of one of his Wives made others with himself prayse God and rejoyce for such wickedness The Brethren having thus laid their ground-work for a further Rebellion earnestly exhorts the people to stick close to their former seditious Principles and to be resolute in them Then they advise their Associates in the Parliament to be valiant for their Cause and to endeavour what in them lyeth to oppose and overthrow any thing whatsoever Sacred or Civil which thwarts their Principles And for the better carrying on this Rebellion they engage their Ministry to use what Interest they can with their Parishioners for the affecting of their designs concerning which you shall hear Mr. Crofton himself speak If private men and individual persons who have sworn the Covenant will make Conscience of the Oath of God upon them there can be no probability of a Return and Re-establishment within the compasse of this age of the evils we have sworn to extirpate They being lock'd under a moral impossibility of re-admission or continuance by that publick Parliamentary capacity into which many who have sworn the Covenant are at this time resolved and in which they cannot but know themselves bonnd to endeavour in their places and callings with all sincerity and reality and constancy to extirpate the same and for that others and those not a few as Ministers of the Gospel are bound to the same in their Capacity I am sure the Ministerial rebukes and confutations of the one and publick Parliamentary Debates of the other will lay a very great Remora unto their return Here we have a Peter the Hermit blowing a Trumpet to his Holy-warre And that in such an hasty and resolute fashion that our Presbytery seem to stand upon the very brink of Rabicon only wanting some ill spirit or other to head them and lead them over into a Warr against their own King and Countrymen so prone are they to distruction as if they were again turnd to Heathenism and worship'd the spears those primitive Instruments of Warre as their only God And the Reverend Church of England hath little reason to expect peace at these mens hands now that they cannot obtain their ends when they protest that if they had
In the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms In which cases too themselves will be Judges so that the meaning is this as hath been proved before by several examples If the King will not obey the Covenant they are sworn not to obey nor defend the King 3. § By this Oath they commit absolute High Treason by nulling several Acts of Parliament made for the Preservation of the King and his friends For here they swear to bring to Publick Tryal to receive Condign Punishment the Kings best Subjects and Friends under the notion of Malignants whom they thus describe Evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion Dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant And that justice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof By this they quite overthrow all Government making Loyalty Treason and Rebellion the only sign of a good Subject And how severe they stick to this murthering Article you shall see by one passage In the year 1646. the Parliament remaining Conquerours many of the Loyal Party thought it fit to compound for their Estates better to have something than nothing Amongst those in the County of Chester who were put to this hardship were Mr. Richard Brereton of Ashley Mr. John Wilson and others This highly perplext the Committee then at Chester who therefore wrote several Letters to the Youths at Goldsmiths-Hall desiring them never to take such friends to the King into Composition and one of their great sticklers at Chester Mr. S. C. thus delivers the Opinion of himself and his friends about this business The Gentlemen here conceive they are bound in Conscience and by their late National Covenant to do their duty in their place to bring Delinquents to condign punishment Here they will have no mercy but stick close to their wicked Principles And this Oath must receive no Interpretation For if we endeavour but to mitigate it then some strange curse or other will tumble upon the Nation as Crofton not long since affirm'd His Sacred Majesty and the Kingdom must submit to the plain and literal sense thereof though it seem as sower Grapes unless we will by Gods wrath set our own and childrens Teeth on edge 4. § The Covenant if it were in force would be the cause and maintainer of Rebellion for ever for in it they also swear to assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof by which means they oblige themselves to all acts of hostility in its behalf though the King and Parliament as is now done should find reason for its nullity and 't is well known how oft they deny'd and defied their King upon this score O the Obedience and Charity of a Covenanter who like the wicked Jews combine together by Oath to kill those more holy than themselves needs must the malice of these men be so violent that they may be excus'd from saying the Lords-Prayer the very clause of forgiving their Enemies being enough to fright them into Dispair I wish I could say Repentance but that is a thing their zealous fury will not give them so much as leave to think on all of them hurryed on with that bloody rage as to cry out with that Levite in the Poet Blood Blood Blood destroy O Lord The Covenant-Breaker with a two-edg'd Sword Yet this Imp of wickedness the Brethren will not cast off The London-Ministers professing all the power on Earth cannot absolve them from it And Zach. Crofton keeps a great deal of clutter publickly affirming that it doth not only bind those who took it but those also who did not and that the Obligation of this Oath is for ever binding from Generation to Generation And in another of his flaunting Pamphlets he assureth the Reader That he doth and cannot but do it now contest for and assert the Solemn League and Covenant in that Religious part which must be promoted with out-most Zeal by all who wish well to the King and Kingdom though the Devil and his Instruments do endeavour to damp deaden and divert the discharge of duty And then afterwards tells them that Gods wrath will fall upon the King and Kingdom if Episcopacy be not extirpated and the Covenant observed to its literal sense and plain meaning And as they would thus continue it in fury so did they begin it as I have shew'd you before however I shall afford you one other piece of Canting confidence Mr. Andrew Cant the Father for the Son is now as bad in one of his Sermons at Glasgow told the Scots concerning their Covenant That he was sent to them with a Commission from Christ to bid them subscribe the Covenant which was Christ's contract and that he himself was come a Wooer to them for the Bridegroom and call'd upon them to come to be hand-fasted by subscribing that Contract And told them plainly That he would not depart the Town till he got the names of all who should refuse to subscribe that Contract of whom he promis'd to complain to his Master i. e. Christ As for the Obligation of the Covenant they themselves are sometimes forced to deny it unless they will make it a particular exception against all General Rules When the Scots in 1639. were a little troubled that Episcopacy was not absolutely abjured in their former Oaths which many thought binding to them The Covenanters thinking to take away that rub that all men might with more freeness embrace their Covenant declare publickly to the World that the swearer is neither obliged to the meaning of the prescriber of the Oath nor his own meaning but as the Authority shall afterwards interpret it and then by this Heathenish rule what will become of the binding force of the Covenant at this time Which is void also in the opinion of a great Presbyterian under the name of Theophilus Timorcus who thus shews himself Suppose that upon mature deliberation the Ministers that subscribed and took the Oath of Canonical Obedience find that it was an unlawful Oath or Subscription They are in such case only obliged to be humbled for their rash subscription and taking of that Oath and their second Oath against them will hold valid Now if they think this a sufficient salvo I shall only insert these four words Holy League and Covenant instead of the fore-mentioned four words Oath of Canonical Obedience and think the Absolution sufficient according to their own Argument Mr. Crofton tells us that the Oath which the King taketh at his Coronation for the defence of Bishops is of small validity because limited to the Laws of the Land But will this subordinate it to the Covenant Or will he make a little scribble-scrabble of a few perjured Rebels to be the Law of the Land If the
Kings Oath and other mens Oaths must submit to the Laws of the Land I know no reason but the Covenant should too being expresly against them So that either the Covenant must null the Laws or the Laws the Covenant If the first then farewell Poulton since the swearing of Presbytery can make those Statutes useless if the latter then adieu Covenant and Presbytery not forgetting the League and since that the names of the Parliament-men subscribers in Parchment a great sign of the Loyalty and good Religion of the present Commons who in this have excell'd all other Parliaments for many Generations past let others commend themselves for me that were burnt by the hands of the Hangman in London by Authority of Parliament a Supream Power to that which made and forced it But that you may see the folly of some Oaths and how the Swearers are sometimes even necessitated to smooth them over with a gentle Interpretation and a slender performance I shall tell you one story Bretislaus or Bisetislaus Son to Udalricus Duke of Bohemia fell in love meerly by report for as then he had not seen her with Jutha Daughter to the Emperour Otho II call'd Ruffo To obtain her he goeth under the shew of Religion to Ratisbone or Regenspurg where she was in a Monastery and after some contrivances gets her on Horseback and gallops away with her to his Father and by her own consent marryed her The Emperour enraged at this raiseth an Army and solemnly swears a mischief to Bohemia and never to return with his Army till he had placed his Throne in the midst of that Countrey Against him Bretislaus and his Father raise Forces the Son also swearing to carry fire into the middle of Germany and that so near the Imperial Court that Caesar himself should be constrain'd to shut his eyes for the greatness of the light and splendour of those flames The Armies drawing near together and preparing for battel The Lady Gutta grieved that so much blood should be shed for her sake tearing her hair and face exposed her self to all danger by running betwixt the two Armies and over-whelm'd with sorrow having found out the Emperour earnestly pleads in behalf of her husband the strength of Love the Child within her c. With which Caesar was so moved to compassion that with tears he told her of his willingness to Peace but that his Oath obliged him to the contrary She told him that her husband had sworn too but that he should consider the vanity of that Religion which alloweth of and giveth place to wickedness since Oaths should not strengthen the foundation of sin and mischief Well Peace is made they having found out as they thought a way to keep them both from Perjury the Emperour going to Boleslau then held to be the middle of Bohemia where a Throne being made with a few stones he sits him down as Conquerour And Bizetislaus for so some also call him to save his Oath went into Germany and the Emperour being by set fire to a few Cottages and spoil'd two or three little Fields for which damages he presently satisfied paying the value The Brethren think they have got another salvo for their honesty when they would make people have a good opinion of the Covenant because several of the Royalists took it and in this accusation Crofton is impudent to a Wonder especially to his Betters But is it any honour to the Independent Engagement against King c. nay the Covenant too because some great Presbyterians took it The truth is the Presbyterians by the fortune of Warr becoming Masters seiz'd upon the Revenues of those who had been faithful to his Majesty not suffering many of them to Compound but upon abominable terms for their Estates unless they would take the Covenant to boot which shews the implacable malice of the Puritans who in this like the Italian made it their business to destroy the soul too And this may serve to shew what small reason they have to demand Toleration of those whose Consciences they formerly so wickedly forced Which horrid act will remain as a mark of Ignominy upon this Faction to Eternity And in behalf of the Royalist I shall afford you another Story which will apply it self Emuanuel King of Portugal with-held from a Bishop his Revenues The Bishop complains to the Pope who sends a Legat either to perswade the King to Restitution or Excommunicate him and upon the Kings refusal the latter was denounced and so the Legat departs towards Rome again The King enraged at this Sentence mounted on Horse-back to follow the Legat and having over-taken him drew out his Sword threatning to kill him unless he would absolve him which was done and the King return'd to his Court The Legat being got to Rome and told the Story of his Journey The Pope was very angry and sharply checkt him for absolving the King to whom the Legat reply'd Most holy Father had you been in danger of your life as I was you would have given the King absolution double and treble No People rails more against the Pope and a Jesuite than a Puritan and yet in their destructive Principles of Government none agrees more with them Tell them but of the Pope's Excommunicating of Kings and disingaging their Subjects from any more obedience to them and you shall hear nothing but roaring against Antichrist and Babylon and stories of the Whore Beast Horns and enough to fright Children out of their Wits Yet if you tell them that they are guilty of the same by dispensing with the Peoples Oaths to their Kings and Bishops then will they call it the Cause of God the Interest of Jesus Christ and a good sign that they are the true Saints of God and the sureness of their Election thus though seeming mortal Enemies are they united to destroy the Civil Power If the latter Oath especially when wickedly and villainously impos'd cannot take away the Obligation of the former and that agreeable to the cause as the Reverend and Learned Patron of the Church saith whose single testimony is of more worth than the opinion of a whole Assembly of Covenanters I cannot conceive how a company of Noddles being but a piece of a Parliament pratling at Westminster and in active Rebellion against their King can quit honest men for Knaves can ease themselves from their Oaths and Subscriptions to Kingly and Episcopal Obedience by an after-Imposition of a contradictory and wicked Oath But it may be they may suppose that if Hortensius shed tears for the death of a Lamprey If Macarius Abbot of Alexandria penitentially tormented himself in Bryars and Thorns six Moneths or seven years for the death of a Flea If the Aetolians and Arcadians Warr'd together for a wild Boar If the Carthaginians and the People of Piraca for a Sea-Rovers ship If the Scots and Picts for a few Dogs If Charles Duke of Burgondy