Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	england_n	king_n	people_n	13,931	5	5.0853	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96590	The discovery of mysteries: or, The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present Parliament. To overthrow the established religion, and the well setled government of this glorious Church, and to introduce a new framed discipline (not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be) to set up a new invented religion, patched together of Anabaptisticall and Brownisticall tenents, and many other new and old errors. And also, to subvert the fundamentall lawes of this famous kingdome, by devesting our King of his just rights, and unquestionable royall prerogatives, and depriving the subjects of the propriety of their goods, and the liberty of their persons; and under the name of the priviledge of Parliament, to exchange that excellent monarchicall government of this nation, into the tyrannicall government of a faction prevailing over the major part of their well-meaning brethren, to vote and order things full of all injustice, oppression and cruelty, as may appeare out of many, by these few subsequent collections of their proceedings. / By Gr. Williams L. Bishop of Ossory.	Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672.	1643 (1643)	Wing W2665; Thomason E60_1; Thomason E104_27; ESTC R23301	95,907	126

the first of the three and are termed one of the greatest states of this realme And this I conceive to be the right constitution of a Parliament therefore now to cast off one of the three States Anno octavo Elizabeth c. 1. and to cut off the head of all three by making the King but one of them that so both the King and the two Houses might be onely co-ordinate when as indeed they are as in some respect concurrent so also subordinate unto him as to their Head is such a change and alteration as would quite overthrow the fundamentall constitution of the Government of this Kingdome and make our King if these men might have their will to have no more power than the Duke of Venice And to that end this Faction have by themselves and their Pamphleters The false grounds of the originall of our Kings The disclaimer p. 17 18 19. laid down such false grounds of the originall of our Kings as are exceeding derogatory to the Crown of England as that they are Kings by paction and covenant with their people which at first chose them and intrusted them with their Government and for the preservation of their Lawes against the incroachments of the King and the making of new Lawes as occasions required ordained the great Councell which they call Parliament and which should have full power to restrain the King if he did abuse his Power and therefore the people may withdraw their trust when the Kings neglect their duty and nullifie their faith unto their Subjects for whosoever is indifferently read in Histories and the Chronicles of our Kingdom may easily finde how falsly and maliciously they would make this free Monarchie to have been elective and to be a conditionall Government because England France Post mortem Maximi Constans postular mi à Britannis But not a word in all the storie that any one of the British Kings was electus Anonymus MS. in Bibl. Oxon. qui scripsit hist omnium regum qui regna verunt in Anglia and Spain were parts and parcels of the Roman Empire and when the Emperours by reason of their intestine broyles at home could not look into the parts abroad the right Heit unto the Crown of Britain assumed unto himselfe all the Royaltie and power that the Emperour had over us and succeed him not by any pact or covenant with the people though not as then for some reasons without the request of the people but by that right which God and nature allowed unto Kings and was due either to the Roman Emperour or to any other absolute Monarch of any Nation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the old Chronicles of those 〈…〉 the regaining of the Crown by Vortigerne after that the people had rebelliously rejected him and received but not elected his son Vortimer in his place do most sufficiently clear the case And therefore what Soveraigne Power soever is due to any absolute Monarch and what obedience soever S. Paul affirmeth to be due to the Roman Emperours that then ruled over us or Saint Peter commandeth to be given to other Kings the same is in all things due to our Kings ever since Aurelius Ambrosius that succeeded Vortigerne or if you will not ascend so high yet without all contradiction ever since William the Conquerour whom you cannot say was elected nor any other that succeeded him and therefore cannot be debarred or denied any of those Prerogatives and Soveraignties that belong unto the most absolute Monarch save onely in those things which of their speciall grace and favour they granted unto their Subjects and bound themselves at their Coronation to performe those promises of priviledge and freedom which they made unto them and that distinction of the disclaimer of an absolute and a Politique Monarch P. 17 18 19 20. with his two leaves discourse upon the same is so false and so frivolous that as Saint Bernard saith of the fooleries of Abailardus it deserveth rather Fustibus contundi quàm rationibus refelli Aristot. Polyt l. 4. for Aristotle tels us that the supreme Power of all Government which resideth in every absolute Monarch and doth constituere Monarcham give being unto the Monarch consisteth chiefly in these three distinct branches 1. The supreme power of every Government wherein it consisteth Legislative to make and repeal Lawes 2. Bellative to pronounce War and conclude Peace 3. Iudicative decisively to determine all crimes and causes whatsoever And when this threefold power is not penes annus but penes optimates then it is no Monarchis but an Aristocracie and when it is penes populum then it is neither of those but a meer Democracie or popular Government And therefore out Kings having the sole power first to make War and conclude Peace at their own pleasure and have called Parliaments onely to supply their wants and to adde their councell and assistance therein Secondly to make Lawes and repeal them when they please save onely that they promised to their People and obliged themselves not to do it without the advice of their Parliament And thirdly to judge all their Subjects according to their Lawes it is most apparent that our Kings are most absolute Monarches as Cassaneus Bodinus Sir Thomas Smith and all that wrote of this Kingdom do peremptorily affirme and though I deny not Bodius distinction of a Lordly Monarch a royall Monarch and a tyrannicall Monarch Bod. l. 2. c. 2. 3. which sheweth onely the Power and the Practise of the Monarch yet I say that the distinction of an absolute and mixed Monarchie which designeth the manner of the Government is a meer fopperie and a ridiculous distinction because that Government which extendeth it selfe to more than one can never be a Monarchie as every man knoweth that understandeth the word Monarch These and many more such injuries and insufferable indignities they have offered unto our King and so indeed unto the whole Kingdom which they durst not have offered to any tyrannicall King that would have ruled them with his iron rod but as the mercie of God emboldeneth wicked men to proceed in their abominations so the lenitie and goodnesse of this pious Prince nothing else in him encouraged these factious ambitious men the people greedy of a licentious libertie the Nobilitie and Gentrie of rule which is their naturall disease thus to usurpe the rights of our King and to raise this miserable war CHAP. XII Sheweth the unjust proceedings of this Faction against their fellow Subjects set down in four particular things 2. 2. Their proceedings against the Subjects wherein I shall in most points set down what I finde in the Remonstrance of the Commons to the House of Commons and what I collected out of other Writers of the best credit LEst they should be thought juster to their fellow Subjects than they are to their Severalgue King you may observe what I finde related of them 1. That besides the Act which they

seemes they did unto Master Pym when an Order passed under his sole teste for taking away the Rayles from the Communion Table for this is a course we never heard of in former times 9. 9. The multiplying of their Priviledges When their Priviledges are so infinitely grown and inlarged more than ever they were in former Parliaments and so swelled that they have now swallowed up almost all the priviledges of other men so that they alone must do what they please and where they will in all Cities and in all Courts because they have the Priviledge of Paliament 10. When according to the great libertie of language 10. Their speaking and s●…ing in other Courts which we deny them not within their own wall they take the Priviledge to speak what they list in other places and to governe other Courts as they please where as they did in Dublin and do commonly in London they sit as Assistants with them that are priviledged by their Charters to be freed from such Controllers 11. When above all that hath been or can be spoken 11. Their close Committee they have made a close Committee of safetie as they call it which in the apprehension of all wise and honest men is not onely a course most absurd and illegall but also most destructive to all true Priviledges and contrary to the equitable practice of all publique meetings that any one should be excluded from that which concerneth him as well as any of the rest and this Committee onely which consisteth of a very few of the most pragmatical Members of their House must have all intelligences and privie counsels received and reserved among themselves and what they conclude upon must be reported to the House which must take all that they deliver upon trust and with an implicite Roman faith believe all that they say and assent to all that they do onely because these forsooth are men to be confided in upon their bare word The greatnesse of this abuse when their House hath no power to administer an Oath unto any man in the greatest affaires happinesse or destruction of the whole Kingdom for this is in a manner to make these men Kings more than the Roman Consuls and so as great a breach of Priviledge and abuse of Parliament as derogatory to his Majestie that called them to consult together and as injurious to all the people as can be named or imagined CHAP. XIV Sheweth how they have transgressed the publike lawes of the Land three wayes and of foure miserable consequences of their wicked doings 2. 2. Against the publike laws of the land FOr those publike written and better known laws of this Land they have no lesse violated and transgressed the same than the other and that aswell in their execution and exposition as in their composition for 1. 1. In the execution of the old lawes When they had caused the Archbishop of Canterbury to be committed to the Tower Judge Berkeley to the Sheriffe of London sir George Ratcliffe to the Gate-house for no lesse crimes than high Treason and many other men to some other prisons for some other faults yet all the world seeth how long most of them have beene kept in prison some a yeare some two some almost three and God onely knoweth when these men intend to bring them to their legall tryall which delay of iustice is not only an intolerable abuse to the present subiects of this kingdome to be so long deprived of their liberty upon a bare surmise but also a far greater iniury to all posterity when this president shall be produced to be imitated by the succeeding Parliaments and to iustifie the delayes of all inferiour Iudges 2. 2 In expounding the lawes Whereas wee believe what judge Bracton saith and Judge Britton likewise which lived in the time of Edward the first Si disputatio oriatur justiciarii non possunt eam interpretari sed in dubiis obscuris Domini regis erit expectanda interpretatio voluntas cum ejus sit interpretari cujus est condere Citatur a Domino Elism in post-nati p. 108 if any dispute doth arise the Judges can not interpret the same but in all obscure and doubtfull questions the interpretation and the will of the King is to be expected when as he that makes the law is to bee the expounder and interpreter of the law yet they have challenged and assumed to themselves such a power that their bare Vote without an act of Parliament may expound or alter a knowne law which if it were so they might make the law as Pighius saith of the Scripture like a nose of wax that may bee fashioned and bended as they pleased but we doe constantly maintaine that the House of Commons hath no power to adjudge of any point or matter but to informe the Lords what they conceive and the House of Peeres hath the power of Iudicature which they are bound to doe according to the rules of the knowne established lawes and to that end they have the Judges to informe them of those cases and to explaine those lawes wherein themselves are not so well experienced though now they sit in the House for cyphers even as some Clergie did many times in the Convocation and if any former Statute be so intricate and obscure that the Iudges cannot well agree upon the right interpretation thereof then as in explaining Poynings Act and the like either in England or Ireland the makers of the Act that is the King and the major part of both Houses must explaine the same 3. 3. In composeing and setting forth new laws Whereas we never knew that the House had any power to make Orders and Ordinances to bind any besides their own members to observe them as lawes yet they compell us to obey their orders in a stricter manner than usually we are injoyned by Law and this course to make such binding ordinances as they doe to carry the force though not the name of an Act of Parliament or a Law is a mighty abuse of our lawes and liberties for Sir Edward Cooke tels us plainly that as the constitution of our Government now standeth neither the House of Commons and the King L. Cooke in the preface of the Stat. of Westminster the second Lamberts Archeton 27.1 can make any binding law when the Peeres dissent nor the Lords and King when the Commonalty dissenteth nor yet both Houses without the Kings consent but all three King Peeres and Commons must agree before any coactive law can be composed Nay more it is sufficiently proved that dare jus populo or the legislative power being one principall end of regall authority was in Kings by the law of nature while they governed the people by naturall equity long before municipall lawes or Parliaments had any being for as the Poet saith Remo cum fratre Quirinus jura dabat Virgilius Hoc Priami gestamen erat cum jura

omnium sapientum seniorum populorum totius regni per praeceptum regis Inae and in the second Charter of King Edward the Confessour granted to the Church of Saint Peter in Westminster How former times respected the Clergie it is said to be Cum concilio decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Comitum aliorumque suorum optimatum with the councell and decree of the Archbishops Bishops Earles and other Potentates And so not onely the Saxon Kings but the Norman also ever since the Conquest had the Bishops in the like or greater esteem that they never held Parliament or Counsell without them And surely these Princes were no Babes that made this choice of them neither was the Common wealth neglected nor justice prejudiced by these Governours And whosoever shall reade mores gentium or the pilgrimage of Master Purchas Livie Plutarch Appian and the rest of the Greek and Latine Histories I dare assure him he shall finde greater honour given and farre lesse contempt cast upon the Priests and Flamins the Prophets of the Sybils then we finde of this faction left to the Servants of the living God who are now dealt withall worse than Pharach dealt with the Israelites that took away their straw and yet required their full tale of brickes for these men would rob us of all our meanes and take away all our Lands and all our rights and yet require not only the full tale of Sermons and Service as was used by our Predecessours but to double our files to multiplie our paines How the Clergie are now used and to treble the Sermons and Service that they used to have of our forefathers more than ever was done in any Age since the first Plantation of the Gospell and when we have done with John Baptist the utmost of our endeavours like a shining and a burning lampe that doth waste and consume it selfe to nothing while it giveth light to others they onely deal with us as Cartiers use to do with their packe horses hang bels at their eares to make a melodious noise but with little provander lay heavie loades upon their backes and when they can bear no more burdens take away their bels withdraw their praises call them Jades exclaim against their lazinesse and then at last turne them out to feed upon the commons and to die in a ditch and thus we have now made the Ministers of Christ to be the emblems of all miserie and in pretending to make them more glorious in the sight of God we have made them most base in the eyes of all men And therefore the consequence of this Act is like to prove most lamentable when the people considering how that hereby we are left naked of all comfort and subject to all kinde of scorne and distresse and how that this being effected is but the praeludium of a farre greater mischiefe they will rather with no great cost make their children of some good Trade and their children will choose so to be than with such great costland more care and yet little hope to bring them up to worse condition than the meanest of all Trades The Clargie alone are deprived of Magna Charta or the lowest degree of all rustickes when as they can challenge and it shall not be denied them to have the priviledges of the Law and a propertie in their goods which without their own consent yielded in their persons or their representours cannot be taken from them and the Clergie onely of all the people in this Kingdom shall be deprived of the right and benefit of our great Charter which so many famous Kings and pious Princes have confirmed unto us and when we have laboured all the dayes of our lives with great paines and more diligence to instruct our people and to attain to some competencie of meanes to maintain our selves and our families we shall be in the power of these men at their pleasure under the pretence of Religion contrarie to all justice to be deprived of any part of our freehold when we shall have not one man of our own calling to speak a word in our behalfe on no Seat of Justice throughout the whole Kingdom O terque quaterque beati queis ante ora patrum contigit oppetere O most miserable and lamentable condition of Gods Ministers I must needs speak it though I should die for it and if some did not speak it I thinke the stones would crie against it and proclaim it better for the Clergie were their hope onely in this world never to have been borne or at least never to have seen a book then to fall into the hands and to be put under the censure of these men that do thus love Christ This Act more prejudiciall to to the future times than now by hating his Ministers who as I said before by this one Act are made liable to undergo all kinde of evils which shall not onely fall upon the present Clergie for were it so our patience should teach us to be silent but also to the increase of all prejudices to the Gospell more than my foresight can expresse in all succeeding Ages And therefore I may well say with Jeremie Jer. 5.9.29 Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this And we need not wonder that such plagues calamities and distresses have so much encreased in this Kingdom ever since the passing of this Act and yet the anger of the Lord is not turned away but his hand is stretched out still and I fear his wrath will not be appeased till we have blotted this and wiped away all other our great sinnes and transgressions with the truest teares of unfained repentance These are like to be the consequences of this Act and yet our good King who we know loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue and was as I assure my selfe most unwilling to passe it was notwithstanding over-perswaded considering where thirteen of the Bishops were even in prison and in what condition all the rest of them stood in question whether all they should stand or be cut down root and branch to yield his assent unto the Act though if the case in truth were rightly weighed not much lesse prejudiciall to his Majestie than injurious to us to be thus deprived of our right How the King hath been used ever since this Act passed and exposed to all miseries by excluding us from all Civill Judicature and I would to God the King and all the Kingdom did continually consider how his Majestie was used ever since the confirmation of this Act for they no sooner had excluded the Bishops and Clergie out of their right but presently they proceeded and prosecuted the designe ever since to thrust out the King from all those just rights and prerogatives which God and nature and the Lawes of our Land have put into his hands for the government of this Kingdome neither was it likely to succeede any other wise as

Act of Pacification for their assistance to withstand their King and to overthrow our Church it is apparent to all the world how perfidiously they dealt with God and man and how treacherous their thoughts were from the beginning both to the King and Kingdom Yet as we found our Brethren of Scotland howsoever these men bevaved themselves in their secret intentions to have carried themselves none otherwise than as wise rationall and religious men in all the Treatie so I assure my selfe they will hereafter still continue both faithfull unto God and loyall unto their King and as they perceived not their intentions at the first so they will not now joyne with them in any Association of Rebellion to withstand their own Liege Lord and to change the established Lawes and Religion of our Kingdom but will rather live in peace and happinesse in their own Land than by forsaking their enjoyed quietnesse to involve themselves in the unhappinesse of a desperate War in another Countrey 2. 2. The compelling of all people to ●…ak their new ●amed Protestation After they had thus endeared themselves unto their Brethren of Scotland they framed a Protestation to maintain and defend as farre as lawfully they might with their lives powers and estates the True Reformed Protestant Religion his Majesties Royall Person honour and estate the power and priviledges of Parliament the lawfull rights and liberties of the Subjects and every person that should make the same Protestation in whatsoever he should do in the lawfull pursuance of the same and to their power and as farre as lawfully they might to oppose and by all good wayes and meanes endeavour to bring to condigne punishment all such as shall either by force practise counsels plots conspiracies or otherwise * Which word is like the c. in the Canonical Oath do any thing to the contrary of any thing in the said Protestation contained and neither for fear hope nor other respect to relinquish this promise vow and protestation In which Protestation though no man can espie the least shadow of ill prima facie at the first reading thereof yet if you look further and search narrowly into the intentions of the composers the frame of the Protestation and the practise of these Protestors ever since the framing of it you shall finde that Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè these men are no Changelings but as like themselves as ever they were for 1. As it was intended so it succeeded 1. To terrifie the Papists and to raise a rebellion in Ireland it terrified the Papists and made them so desperate as almost to despair of their very being as concerning the place where or the manner how they should live which thing together with many other harsh and hard proceedings against many of them and the small countenance which they shewed unto a very moderate Petition that the Papists exhibited unto them hath driven abundance of them into Ireland whom I saw my selfe and there consulting with the Irish which were then also threatened by the Agents of this faction there that ere long they should be severely handled and brought to the Church whether they would or no or pay such a mulct as should make them poor what course they should take in such a desperate condition wherein they were all like to be ruined or to be rooted out of all the Kings Dominions they concluded what they would do to defend themseves by a plain Rebellion So this course against them hath been the leading card as some of them confessed of that great Rebellion which being kindled as some Sectaries in England expected they thought they would so much the more weaken the King by how much the more combustion should be raised in each one of his Dominions and therefore notwithstanding all the Kings gracious Messages and wishes unto the House of Commons which I wish all men would remember how affectionately he desired it to hasten to releeve that bleeding Kingdom yet still they protracted and neglected their redresse and at last passed such Votes made such Orders and procured such Acts as rather respected themselves and their posteritie to get all the land and goods of the Rebels to themselves that were the Adventurers than the relieving of us that were distressed and would as I told some of the House of Commons rather increase the Rebellion than any wayes quench that destroying flame And this was as it succeeded and as you see hereby most likely intended a most detestable plot for the kindling of that Rebellion and continuing of that bloody War in Ireland without which they knew this Rebellion in England could never have gained so much strength as it hath 2. 2. To gaine all Sectaries to their side By their large expression of what religion they protested to defend not the Protestant religion as it is established by Law and expressed in the 39 articles of the Church of England but as it is repugnant to popery and taught perhaps by Burton Burges Goodwin Burrowes or the like Amsterdamian schismatickes they opened the gap so wide and made Heaven gate so broad that all Brownists Anabaptists Socinians Familists Adamites and all other new England brood and outlandish Sectaries what soever that opposed popery might returne home and joyne with them as they have done since to overthrow our established Church and state And this plot to increase their own strength was as craftily don and is as Detestable as the other which to weaken the King in England caused a rebellion in Ireland 3. 3. To descry their owne strength By their illegall compelling and forcible inducing of all the people in the Kingdome to take the same or to be adjudged ill affected and popish and after the Lords had rejected the imposing of it they by their Declaration which shewed that what person soever would not take it was unfit to beare office either in Church or Common wealth prevailed in this plot so that they descried the number of their owne party they understood their own strength and they perceived thereby many things which they knew not before for now they had with David numbred Israel and so far as the wit and policy of the Devill had instructed them they had searched into the secrets of all hearts 4. 4. To insnare all the simpler sort to adhere unto them Having compelled the people to take it they have hereby insnared all the simpler sort and tender consciences to sticke unto them when they tell them and presse it upon their soules that they have made a Protestation to maintaine the priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the Subject and therefore they are bound to adhere to the Parliament to the uttermost of their power and so by this equivocall Protestation they have seduced thousands into their Rebellion and led them blindfold unto destruction Butto let you see not the syncerity of their hearts The mystery of their iniquity but the mystery

as unreasonable and as senslesse a Priviledge as ever was challenged and was never heard of till this Parliament for why should any man refuse his Triall or the House deny their Members to the justice of the Law when as the deniall of them to be tried by the Law implyeth a doubt in us of the innocencie of those whom we will not submit to justice and their Triall would make them live gloriously hereafter if they were found innocent and move the King to deliver those men that had so wickedly conspired their destruction to the like censure of the Law But for them to cry out The King is misinformed and We dare not trust our selves upon a Triall may be a way to preserve their safetie but with the losse of their reputation and perhaps the destruction of many thousands of people If they say they are contented to be tried but by their own House which in the time of Parliament is the highest Court of justice it may be answered said a plain Rustique with the old Proverbe Aske my fellow if I be a thief for mine own part I reverence the justice of a Parliament in all other judgements betwixt partie and partie yea betwixt the King and any other Subject yet when the partie accused shall be judged by his own Societie his Brethren and his own Faction I believe any indifferent Judge would see this to be too great partialitie against the King that he shall not have those whom he accuseth to be tried by the Lawes already established and the ordinary course of Justice and if the Iudges offend in their sentence the Parliament hath full power undenied them by his Majestie to question and to punish those Judges as they did for that too palpable injustice as they conceived in the case of the Ship money but they will be judged by themselves and all that dissent from them must be at their mercie or destruction And yet it is said to be evident that no Priviledge can have its ground or commencement unlesse it be by statute grant or prescription and by the stat 26. Hen. 8. cap. 13. it is enacted that no offender in any kinde of high Treason shall have the priviledge of any manner of Sanctuarie so all the Grants of such a priviledge if any such should be made are meerly void 1. Hen. 7. Staffords case and not one instance could hitherto beproduced whereby such a Priviledge was either allowed or claimed but the contrary most clearly proved by his Majestie out of Wentworths case And therefore seeing your own Law-bookes tell us that the Priviledge of Parliament doth not extend to Treason the breach of the Peace and as some thinke against the Kings debt it is apparent how grossely they do abuse the People by this claim of the Priviledge of Parliament 4. 4. Conniving with their Faction for any fault When they connive with their own compeeres for any breach of priviledge as with Master Whitakers for searching Master Hampdens pockets and taking away his papers immediately after the abrupt breaking up of the last unhappy Parliament and those that discovered the names of them that differed in opinion from the rest of the Faction in the businesse of the Earle of Strafford and specially with that rabble of Brownists and Anabaptists which with unheard of impudencie durst aske that question publiquely at the Barre who they were that opposed the well affected partie in that House as if they meant to be even with them whosoever they were and likewise that unruly multitude of zealous Sectaries that were sent as I finde it by Captain Ven and Isaac Pennington to cry Justice Justice Justice and No Bishops no Bishops and this to terrifie some of the Lords from the House and to awe the rest that should remain in the House as they had formerly done in the case of the Earle of Strafford and when others that they like not are for the least breach of pretended Priviledge either imprisoned or expelled for I assure my selfe there cannot be higher breaches of Priviledges than these be nor greater stainec to obscure the honour and vilifie the repute of this Parliament 5. 5. The ingaging one another in civill causes When there is such siding and ingaging one another in civill causes that they may be conglutinated together for their great Designe to do things not according unto justice but for their own ends contrary to all right and their favour is scarce worth the charge of attendance to them that speed best by their Ordinances but the complaint is that men have the greatest injuries done them in this that themselves call the highest Court of Justice which others say hath now justified all other inferiour Courts and made all unrighteous judges most just 6. 6. The surreptitious carrying of businesses When as we have been informed a matter of the greatest importance hath been debated and put unto the question and upon the question determined and the Bill once and again rejected yet at another time even the third time when the Faction had prepared the House for their own purpose and knew they could carry it by most voyces the same question hath been resumed and determined quite contrary to the former determination when the House was more orderly convened as it is said they did to passe the Ordinance for the Militia which many men dare avouch to their faces to be no Priviledge of Parliament but a great abuse of their fellow Members and a greater injurie unto all their fellow Subjects 7. 7. Their partiall questioning of some men and not questioning of some others When the elections of some of their Members have been questioned and others have been accused for no lesse than capitall crimes as Master Griffith was yet if these men incline and conspire with this Faction to confirme those positions which they proposed to themselves to overthrow the Church and State and to uphold their usurped Government and tyrannicall Ordinances they will pretend twenty excuses as the great affaires of the State the multiplicitie of their businesses the necessitie of procuring monies the shortnesse of their time though they sate almost three yeares already that they have no leisure to determine these questions which in truth they do purposely put off least they should leese such a friend unto their partie but when any other which dissenteth from their humours doth but any thing contrary to the straitest Rules of the House they do presently notwithstanding all their greatest affaires call that matter into question and it must be examined and followed with that eagernesse as in my Lord Digby's case that he must be forthwith condemned and excluded The L. Digby in his Apolog. for we say this cannot be any just priviledge but an unjust proceeding of this Parliament 8. When they delegate their power to some men to do some things of themselves without the rest 8. The delegating of their power to particular men as it

vocatis more daret populis Because this was the custome of the Kings of Scythia Assyria Aegypt c. long before Moses and Pharonaus when municipall lawes first began to give lawes unto their people according to the rules of naturall equity which by the law of nature they were all bound to observe And though some Kings did graciously yeeld and by their voluntary oathes for themselves and their successors binde themselves many times to stricter limits then were absolutely requisite as William Rufus King Stephen Henry the fourth Richard the third and the like granted many priviledges perhaps to gaine the favour of their Subjects against those which likely had a better title to the Crowne than themselves or it may be to satisfie their people as the guerdon or compensation for the sufferance of some fore-passed grievances as Henry the first Edward the second Richard the second and the like yet these limitations being agreeable to equity and consistent with Royalty and not forcibly extracted ought in all truth and reason to be observed by them And hence it is that the Kings of this Realme according to the oathes and promises which they made at their Coronation can never give nor repeale any law but with the assent of the Peeres and People But though they have thus yeelded to make no lawes nor to repeale any lawes without them yet this voluntary concession of so much grace unto the people doth no wayes translate the legislative power from the King unto his assistants but that it is formaliter and subiectivè still in the King and not in them else would the government of this Kingdome bee an Aristocracy or Democracy and not a Monarchy because the supreame power of making and repealing Lawes and governing or judging decisively according to those lawes Cassan in catal glorlamundi are two of those three things that give being to each one of these three sorts of government Therefore the King of England being an absolute Monarch in his owne Kingdome as Cassaneus saith and no man can deny it the legislative power must needs reside solely in the King 22 Ed. 3.3 pl. 25. Vid. The view of a printed booke entituled Observations c. where this point is proved at large p. 18 19 21 22. ut in subjecto proprio and the consent of the Lords and Commons is no sharing of that power but only a condition yeelded to be observed by the King in the use of that power and so both the Oath of Supremacy and the form of all our ancient Statutes wherein the King speakes as the Lawmaker doe most evidently prove the same unto us Le Roy voit Neither durst any Subjects in former times either assume such a power unto themselves or deny the same unto their King for you may finde how the House of Commons denying to passe the Bill for the pardon of the Clergy which Hen. 8. granted them when they were all charged to be in a Premunire unlesse themselves also might be included within the pardon received this answer from the King that he was their Soveraigne Lord and would not be compelled to shew his mercy nor indeed could they compel him to any thing else but seeing they went about to restraine him of his Liberty he would grant a pardon unto his Clergie by his great Seale without them Sir Rich. ● in vita Her though afterwards of his owne accord he signed their pardon also which brought great commendation to his judgement to deny it at first when it was demanded as a right and to grant it afterward when it was received as of grace And yet the deniall of their assent unto the King is more equitable to them and lesse derogatory to him then to make orders without him and this manner of compulsion to shew grace unto themselves is more tolerable than to force him to disgrace and displace his most faithfull servants onely because others cannot confide in them when no criminall charge is laid against them And therefore for the Lords and Commons to make Orders and Ordinances without the King and in opposition to the King is a meere usurpation of the Regall power a nullifying of the Kings power and a making of the Royall assent which heretofore gave life to every law to be an empty piece of formality which is indeed an intolerable arrogancy in the contrivers of these Orders and the makers of these Ordinances a monstrous abuse of the Subjects and a plaine making of our good King to be somewhat like him in the Comedy a King and no King And where as no Subject and under favour be it spoken not the King himselfe after he hath taken his Oath at his Coronation is free from the observation of the established lawes yet they make themselves so farre above the reach of Law that they freed him which the Lord chiefe Justice Bramston had committed to Newgate for felony in stealing the Countesse of Rivers goods they hindered all men as we found in their journall from proceeding against Sir Thomas Dawes they injoyned the Judges by their orders to forbeare to proceed in their ordinary courses in the Courts of Justice contrary to the eaths of those Judges and some Parliament men came to the Bench to forbid the Judges to grant Habeas Corpuses which is as great an iniquity and as apparent an injustice as ever was done by any Parliament And that which is a note above Ela The most abominable wickednesse of these factious Rebels above all that could be spoken whereas the Law of God and man the bonds and obligations of civility and Christianity tie us all to be dutifull and obedient unto our King in all things either actively or passively and no wayes for no cause violently to resist him under the greatest penalties that can be devised here and damnation hereafter yet these men contrary to all Lawes doe injoyne us and compell us as much against our consciences as if they should compell us with the Pagan tyrants to offer Sacrifice unto Idols to war against our most gracious Soveraigne whom we from our hearts doe both love and honour and they proscrible us as malignants and as enemies to the Common wealth if we contribute not money horse and armes to maintaine this ungodly war Ps 50.22 August contra Faust l. 22. c. 75.76 and so become deadly enemies unto our owne soules O consider this yee that forget God lest for tearing us he teare you in pieces while there is none to helpe you for considering what the Apostle saith Rom. 13.1.2 And what Saint Augustine saith ordo naturalis mortalium paci accommodatus hoc poscit ut suscipiendi belli authoritas atque consilium penes Principem sit and lest men should thinke they ought by force of armes to resist their king for religion he answereth that objection by the example of the Apostles isti non resistendo interfecti sunt ut potiorem esse docerent victoriam pro fide

doth not make their hearts to tremble if their consciences were not seared to be senslesse of all fear 2. 2. To whole Nations The sin of sacriledge extendeth it selfe not onely to the persons committing it but also to the whole Nation that suffereth it as the sin of Achan was not onely a snare to catch him to be destroyed but it troubled all Israel so that they were still discomfited and never prospered till the sacriledger was punished and the Lord appeased If you say the sin is taken away when the Parliament takes these things away I answer that we must not idolize the Parliament as if it were a kinde of omnipotent Creature and like the Pope such an infallible Lord God upon earth as that their Votes and Sanctions were the supremest rule of justice that cannot be unjust because they are enacted by the whole State because as no conclusions are therefore truths because determined by a whole Counsell so no Lawes are therefore just because done by a whole Parliament but when they do agree with the common rules of truth and justice which God hath given unto men and shewed the same in his holy Word which he hath left to be the right rule of our actions And therefore if the greatest Assemblies Parliament or Counsell make not the will of God the rule to guide their proceedings thereby their Sanctions are so farre from taking away the nature of the sin that they do increase the evill and make it the more out of measure sinfull and to become a nationall sin that before was but personall and the more exceedingly sinfull when the same is confirmed by a Law so that none dares speak against it and the sinners are become senslesse in their sinnes and therefore the Prophet demandeth how any man that feareth God dares meddle with such a people that will thus justifie their sinnes saying Shall the throne of iniquitie that is any unjust course have fellowship with thee which frameth mischief by a Law And the Lord doth extremely threaten them that walke after unrighteous ordinances as that they should sow much but not reap tread the olives but not anoint themselves therewith Mich 6.15 16 Hos 5.10.11 and sweet wine but not drinke it because the statutes of Omri are kept and all the workes of the house of Achab and they walked in their counsels and the Prophet Hosea doth more fully set down the wrath of God both against the makers and the observers of all unrighteous Lawes If you say Object the Lands and Lordships of the Bishops were not the patrimonie of the Church but were onely in superstitious times given by our Kings and others unto the Churchmen and therefore now the King being in want they may be restored to the Crown again I confesse the Lands of the Church are the free bequests of godly Kings Sol. and of other pious men dead long ago with most fearfull imprecations made against all those that should seek to alter their Wils and Testaments and the Apostle saith If it be but amans Testament no man altereth it that is Gal. 3.15 no honest man ought to alter it though perhaps his Will might have been made wiser and his goods bestowed to better use for our Saviours maxime when he gave a Penny to him that laboured but one hour and but a Penny to him that had endured the heat of the day is unanswerable Is it not lawfull for me to do what I will with mine own and therefore 1. As others daily leave their estates of great amount to whom they please many times to strangers perhaps to idiots or debauched persons of wicked lives and noxious manners and yet no man grudgeth or endeavoureth to take away those just Legacies which their good Benefactours had bestowed upon these unjust men so there is no reason that any mans eyes should be evill for the goodnesse of their Ancestours unto the Clergie but that their Wils should stand to those uses after their death as intemerate as if they were now alive to dispose of their beneficence 2. They are most injurious to the King who is wise as an Angel of God and therefore holdeth this sacriledge odious to his princely heart that would seek to enrich his Crown with that which will shake it on his head and endanger all his Posteritie to such fearfull judgements as his Progenitours have denounced and God hath executed upon many Kings and Princes for the like sinnes for as Moses prayeth against the sacrilegious enemies of Levi Deut. 33.11 Smite through the loines of them that rise against him and of them that hate him that they rise not again so we finde that many ancient families having by the Statute of Dissolution taken some of the Lands and Tithes of the Church into their possessions Pierius in Hieroglyph have found the same like the Gold of Tholous or the Eagles feathers pernitiosa potentia that will consume all the feathers where they shall be mingled Who so is wise will consider these things Aelian l. 5. c. 15. Var. Hist and will not to satisfie these Anabaptisticall dregges of the people and the enemies of all Christian Religion sacrilegiously take away with Aelians boy the golden plate from Dianas Crown the Lands and Revenues of the Church but having not so learned Christ they will do that which becommeth Saints and suffer the dead to enjoy their own will in that wherein they put them to no charge and if they do intend to promote Gods service they will not rob Saint Peter to pay Saint Paul but will rather say with holy David God forbid that I should offer sacrifice to God of that which cost me nothing 15. As any wooden Preachers like Jeroboams Priests de face plebis scarce worthy to be compared with the Groomes of their stable Iob 30.8 or such humi serpentes poor abjects as Job speakes of The sonnes of villaines and bondmen more vile than the earth they crawle upon are fit enough to be their teachers and beggarly pensioners so any place a thatched barue a littered stable What prayers and Sermons please these men or an ample Cow-house is thought by these to be very fair and fit to be the House of Him that was borne in a stable and laid in a manger and any service prayers without sense such as our Saviour blames and preaching without learning without truth such as their Euthusiasts conceive in illa hora quicquid in buccam venerit without any further studie of meditation is justified to be most acceptable to God witnesse the Authour of one argument more against the Cavaliers where that great Scholar in his own opinion railes against our grave Bishops and most impudently reproacheth a very reverend man of known worth and great learning by the scandalous epithite of The ceremonious Master of Baliol Colledge Doctour Lanrence whom for a most learned and pious Sermon preached before the King upon these

anger with such horrible abominations 5. The fifth mischiefe As Jerusalem justified Samaria so this Faction hath just fied all the Romanists and shewed themselves worse Christians lesse Subjects and viler Traitors than all the Papists are for these facticus rebels justifie their Rebellion and to the indeleble shame of their profession they maintain that it is not only lawfull but that it is their duty to bear Armes and to w●ge War against their King when the King doth abuse his power whereas the Doctrine of the Church of Rome * Christopherson tract contr rebell Rhemist in Nov. Test p. 301. Goldastus de Monarchia S. Imper. Rom. to 3. Dr. Kellison in his Survey Aquin de Regim Princip c. 6. Concil Constan Sess 15. Stephan Cantuar. Ando 8. H. 3. Tolet. in summa l. 5. c. 6. Gr. Valentia p. 2. q. 64. Bellar. Apol. c. 13. Lessins l. 2. c. 9. Serrarius Azorius c. utterly denieth the same and concludes them no Children of the Church that do it and Doctour Kellison giveth this reason for it because Faith is not necessarily required to Jurisdiction or Government neither is authority lost by the losse of Faith therefore it is not lawfull for any Subjects to rebel against their King though their King should prove a Tyrant or should apostate from the Faith of Christ so that now the Papists boast they are better Subjects than these rebellious protestants and therefore I fear that this Faction Defendens Christum verso mucrone cecîdit By their unjust defigne to propagate the Gospell have most grievously wounded the Faith of Christ and given a more deady blow to the protestant religion than ever it had since the reformation when it is impossible that the true religion should produce rebellion And therefore seeing we are free borne Subjects and persons interessed in the good and safety of this Kingdome as well as any of them we must crave liberty to expresse our grievances and to crave redresses and seeing my selfe am called to be a Preacher of Gods Word and a Bishop over many of the soules of my brethren for which I must render an account to my God both for my silence when I should speake and speaking any thing that should not be spoken I resolved to feare my God and neither out of flattery to the King and his party nor out of hatred or malice to those factious men but as I am perswaded in my conscience fully satisfied and guided by Gods Truth to set forth this discoverie of these mysteries what danger soever I shal undergoe and if I shal become their enemy for speaking truth I shal fare no worse than S. Paul did and it shal be with them if they doe not repent as it was with the Israelites Ezek. 7 25 27. When their destruction commeth they shal seeke peace and shal not have it but calamitie shal come upon calamitie CHAP. XV. Sheweth a particular recapitulation of the Reasont whereby their Designe to alter the Government of the Church and State is evinced and a patheticall disswasion from Rebellion ANd thus I have set down not any thing to render these men more odius then they are If I have beere mis-informed of any thing that shall appeare false I shall not blush to retract it by an ingenious confession or to abuse my Reader with falshood or uncertainties but to report what I knew and what I collected out of the present writings of best credit and attested by men of known truth and integrity whereby it is most apparent to any discerning eye that the faction of Anabaptists and Brownists and some other of the subtillest heads in the House of Commons had from the first convention of this Parliament secretly projected this designe and insensibly to the rest of their wel-meaning brethren prosecuted the same to alter and change the ancient government both of the Church and Kingdom which the author of Sober sadnesse proveth by these subsequent reasons Sober Sadnes p. 44 45 46. as for the first 1. By suspending all Ecclesiasticall lawes and censures Their designe to change the Church Government proved 4 waies which indulgence of all vices hath drawn all offendours to comply with them 2. By setting the people on worke to petition against the present Government and the Service of the Church 3. By the Bill concluded for the abolishing of our Government 4. By the chiefe persons countenanced and employed by them in that businesse who are Anabaptists and Brownists and all sorts of Sectaries he evinceth their designe to change our our Church Government and to convert the patrimony of the Church which our religious Ancestors dedicated for the advancement of Gods worship not to establish learning and a preaching Ministery as they pretended but to dis-ingage their publique faith which otherwise would never prove a saving faith And I wish there might be none about His Majesty that pretending great loyalty unto him doe comply with them herein and either to raise or to secure their owne fortunes would perwade S. Paul to part with S. Peters keyes so he may still hold the sword in his hand or to speake more plainly to purchase the peace of the Common-wealth with the ruine of Gods Church but for this let me be bold 1. To crave leave to tell His Majesty it was not His sword that hath brought him from a flying Prince out of Westminster and as yet unsecured at Nottingham to be a victorious King at Edge-hill and immediately to be the terrour of all the Rebels in London but it was God whose Church and Church Service he defended that protected him hitherto and gave him the victory in battaile and let him be assured that he which is yea and amen wil be his shield and buckler stil to defend him from the strivings of his people and to subdue them that rise against him while he defendeth them whose eyes next under God are onely fixt on him to be as God hath promised their nursing father 2 To assure those that would suffer the Church to fall or perhaps sell the same out of a by-respect unto themselves that taking their rise from the fall of the Church or laying the foundation of their houses in the ruine of the Clergy they doe but build upon the sands whence they shal fall and their fall shal be great 1 Reg. 16.34 ●…sh 6.26 when the successe thereof shal be as the successe of the City of Iericho that was built by Hiel who laid the foundation of it in Abiram his first borne and set up the gates thereof in Segub his youngest sonne and had her destiny described by Joshua and all the possessions that they shall get shall prove Acheldama's fields of blood and we hope God will raise deliverance to his Church from some better men when as they and their fathers house shall all perish and shall stink in the nostrils of all good men for their perfidiousnesse in Gods cause But if any man