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 sâ—…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
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
veritatis occidi We conceive this to be so execrable an act and so odious to God and man that we are made thus miserable and abused beyond measure to have our Religion which is most glorious our Laws that in their own nature are most excellent The miserable consequences of their wicked doings 1 Mischiefe and our Liberties that make us as free as any Subjects in the World under false pretences and the shadows of religion lawes and liberties to be eradicated and fundamentally destroyed whereby 1. We are made a spectacle of scorne 1. Mischiefe and the object of derision to our neighbour Nations that formerly have envied at our happinesse and we are become the subject of all pitty and lamentation to all them that love us 2. As in the Roman civill wars in the time of Metellus 2. Mischife the the son did kill his own Father so now by the subtilty of this faction we are cast into such a war as is 1. A most unnaturall War the son against the Father and the Father against the Son the Earle of Warwick fighteth for the Parliament and my Lord Rich his Son is with the King the Earle of Dover is with the King and my Lord Rochford his Sonne with the Parliament so one brother against another as the Earle of Northumberland with the Parliament and his brother with the King the Earle of Bedford with the Parliament and his brother with the King Master Perpoiat with the Parliament and the Earle of Newark with the King Devoreux Farmer with the parliament and his brother Thomas farmer together with his brother in law my Lord Cockain with the King and the like and of Cosens without number the one part with the King and the other with the parliament and if they doe this in subtilty to preserve their estate I say it is a wicked policy to undoe the kingdom which all wise men should consider 2. A most irreligious war when one Christian of the same professed religion shal bath his Sword and wash his hands in the bloud of his fellow Christian and his fellow protestant that shal be coheire with him of the same Kingdome 3. A most unnaturall irreligious and barbarous Warre when the Subject shall shal take Armes to destroy or unthrone their owne liege a Religious and most gracious King 3. 3 Mischiefe The Service of God in most Churches is neglected when almost all the ablest gravest and most O thodox Divines and Preachers are persecuted plundered imprisoned and driven to fly as in the time of the Arian or Donatist which was worse than the heathen persecution from City to City to wander in Desarts from place to place to save themselves from the hands of these Rebels against the King and persecuters of Gods Church which is a most grievous and a most cruell persecution far more generall than that of the Anabaptists in Germany or of Queene Mary here in England the Lord of Heaven make us constant and give us patience to indure it 4. 4 Mischiefe The whole Kingdome is and shall be yet more by the continuance hereof unspeakably impoverish'd and plunged into all kind of miseries when the I'ravailer cannot passe without feare nec hospes ab hospite tutus the Carrier cannot transport his commodity but it shall be intercepted the Husbandman cannot till his ground but his horses as my selfe saw it shall bee taken from the Plough and his Corne shall bee destroyed when it is ready for the Sickle which must be the fore-runner of a famine that is ever the Usher to introduce the Plague and Pestilence and all other kind of grievous Diseases and these things put together doe set wide our gates and open our ports to bring forraigne foes into our Coasts to possesse that good Land whereof we are unworthy because with the Israelites we loathed Manna we were weary of our peace and happinesse we would buy armes and be voluntiers and every Town being too wanton would needs traine and put themselves into a posture of defence as they termed it to be secured from their owne shadows and though the King told them often there was no cause of their Jealousies and therefore forbade these disloyalties yet just like the Jewes they were willing to be deceived by this miserable faction that contrived that Act whereby they have persidiously over-reached both our good King and the rest of our wel-meaning brethren either to perfect their designe or else to make themselves perpetuall Dictators and to betray the felicity of all our people under the name of Parliament which though as I said before I honour and love as much as any of the truest Patriots of either House both in the institution and the right prosecution thereof that is as it was constituted to be the great Councell of the Kingdome graciously called by his Majesties writ considently to present the grievances of the people and humbly to offer their advice and counsels for their reformation yet I doe abhorre those men that would abuse the word Parliament only as a stalking-Horse to destroy all Acts of Parliament and I hate to see men calling the fanatique actions of a few desperate seditious persons the proceedings of Parliament and others making an Idol of it as if their power were omnipotent or unlimited and more than any regall power their judgement infallible their Orders irreprehensible and themselves unaccountable for their proceedings to be so besotted with the name of it that this bare shadow without the substance for it is no Parliament without the King and the Major part of both houses is either banished or imprisoned Ingeniosus ad blasphemiant or compelled to reside with his Majesty should so bewitch us as Master Smith blushed not to say nothing could free us from our dangers but the Divinity of a Parliament out of our owne happinesse to become more miserable then heretofore this Kingdome hath ever beene by any civill War for if you will consider the Treasons and rebellions the injustice cruelty and inhumanity the subtilty hypocrisie lying swearing blasphemy prophanesse and Sacriledge in the highest pitch and many other the like fearefull sins that have been committed since the beginning of this Parliament by the sole meanes of this faction and observe the ill acts that have beene used by them to compasse things lawfull and the wicked acts that have beene daily practised to procure things unlawfull when by bloud and rapine and the curses of many fatherlesse and widowes they have gotten the Treasures of the Kingdome and the wealth of the Kings loyall Subjects into their hands and wasted it so that their wants are stil as notorious as their crimes wee may admire the miracles of Gods mercy and the bottomlesse depth of his goodnesse that the stones in the streets have not risen against them or the fire from Heaven had not consumed these Rebels that thus far and thus insolently had tempted Gods patience and provoked him to
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 prevaling 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 Printed in the Yeare M.DC.XLIII TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTIE Most Gracious Soveraigne THough the wisest man in all the Kingdome of Persia saith great is the truth and stronger then all things yet the father of lies hath now plaid his part so well that as the Prophet saith truth is fallen in the streete and equity cannot enter in and your Majestie whom the God of truth hath anointed his sole vicegerent to be the supreame protector of them both in all your dominions hath accordingly listed up your standard against their enemies and I may truly say of you as Menevensis saith of that most noble King Alfred Si modò victor erat ad crastina bella pavebat Si modò victus erat ad crastina bella parabat Neither doe I beleive that Lucans verse can be applied to any man better then to your Majestie Non te vidère superbum Prospera satorum nec fractum adversa videbunt As the height of your glory and prosperity never swelled your pious heart so your greatest crosses and adversities never dejected your royall spirit But as the Prophet saith of the Captaine of the hoast of the Lord so I say to you that are his Lieutenant ride on with your honour or ride prosperously because of the word of truth of meekenesse and righteousnesse the people shal be subdued unto you and because the King putteth his trust in the Lord and in the mercy of the most highest he shall not miscarry especially while he fighteth as he doth the battaile of the Lord in defence of the Church of Christ who hath promised to be his shield and buckler which is the daily faithfull prayer of Your Majesties most loyally devoted Subject and most faithfully obliged servant GR. OSSORY To the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of ENGLAND Most deare Christian Brethren and fellow Subjects I Call God for a record upon my soule that I have proceeded in this Discovery of Mysteries to discharge my duty as my conscience directeth me and if I perish Iperish the Lord hath hitherto most mercifully preserved mee I have read of an ingratefull begger that when a pious man seeing his nakednesse and having a full web of cloth did freely give him as much as was requisite to make him a faire garment yet he was no wayes satisfied therewith but would have violently snatched all the web in despite of the right owners teeth and shall we that have so freely received so many acts of grace from our King more then ever any other King hath granted exact so much more as to make him no King In the life of Henry 3. presented to King Iames pag. 29. Choron Santh Albam or a King of no power like Henry the 3. in the Parliament at Oxford where the good King met so many undutifull demands that he was forced to render up to their rebellious will his royall power and when others managed the State he was left a cypher alas who hath bewitched us when men do rent the regall justice they make themselves of so many Subjects whilst they live in duty totidem tyrannos when they have left their loyalty and promises made by men which can not say they are at liberty are weake when force hath no power to make a just interest Therefore let not a faction prevaile to destroy us all I assure my selfe most of our two Houses of Parliament are very noble and very pious and many of them would willingly yeild to His Majesties perswasions for accōmodation but our Saviour saith a little leaven leaveneth the whole lumpe and a small faction may insensibly seduce if it were possible the very elect I will appeale to your owne consciences if we have not a most religious and a most gratious King if he hath not aboundantly granted his favours to all this Kingdome if the faction doth not still demand what he may lawfully and ought justly to deny then I beseech you let me not become your enemy for speaking truth let not the kingdome be made more miserable and the Church more despicable by your assisting of such a faction to the new moulding of them and let it not be thought strange that we beleeve one seditious schismatique in a Parliament may prove a treacherous rebell against his King and this Traytor may possibly seduce many those many not unlikely to prevaile to infect the major part of both Houses and if so * Shall we deeme them a Parliament and thinke it fitter to have them Jvdged by themselves then by the knowne lawes of the land then the first plotters of so great a mischeife having so far transcended the limits of truth and justice to wound their consciences and to confound the State that they know not how to retire and thinke they can not finde grace is it any wonder that such men with Iudas run on from bad to worse from worse to worst of all till at last they come to the highest step that hell can teach them But we being Gods olive though some of the Branches be broken off Rom. 11.17 yet I hope God hath not cast away his people and therefore if you take not pleasure in wickednesse and love not to become more miserable let us all feare God honour the King forsake the rebels and defend the Church so the God of all mercy will yet be mercifull unto us that we shall finde grace both with God and our King which is the hearty prayer of Your most affectionate Christian brother that doth most heartily wish your happinesse GR. OSSORY Christian Reader AS this Treatise was ready for the Presse I lighted upon Os ossorianum wherein I saw neither learning nor truth nor modesty nor honesty nor any one thing worth reply but a most distempered rage and moody choler that transported the silly man beyond his sence for omitting those his rarest passages which some discreete welwiller of the man collected in
Os ossis oris if you looke in pag. 59. you shall finde his double admiration that I should not be either recompenced with vengeance revealed from heaven or be made an example of the deepest severity of the justice of the land whereby I presume he means this Parliament or otherwise to be dismembred and torne in peeces by the impatient rage and indignation of the people for which direfull imprecation I wish the poore snake nothing else but that our good God would be so mercifull unto him as to restore him to his wits which I understand he scattered about the streets of Amsterdam and give him grace to repent for those intolerable treasons and abuses which he dispersed in his Pamphlets against his own Sacred Soveraigne And for his bone wherein I finde neither flesh nor marrow I shall throw it to his owne dogs to fight about it and will ever lest Thine affectionate loving Brother GR. OSSORY PSAL. 89.49 REmember Lord the rebuke that thy servants have and how we do beare in our bosomes the reproach of the mighty wherewith thine enemies have reproached thee and slandered the foot-steps of thine Anointed Arise therefore O Lord maintaine thine owne cause have mercy upon us and deliver us because we have put our trust in thee and forgive those poore seduced sheepe which know not what they doe The Contents of the severall Chapters contained in this TREATISE CAP. I. Sheweth the introduction the greatnesse of this Rebellion the originall thereof the secret plots of the Brownisticall faction and the two cheifest things they aimed at to effect their plot pag. 1. CAP. II. Sheweth the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earle of Straftords head how he answered for himselfe the Bishops right of voting in his cause his excellent virtues and his death p. 6. CAP. III. Sheweth how they stopped the free judgement of the Iudges procured the perpetuity of the Parliament the consequences thereof and the subtle device of Semiramis p. 14. CAP. IV. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops the threefold practice of the faction to exclude them out of the House of Peeres and all the Clergy out of all Civill Iudicature p. 19. CAP. V. Sheweth the evill consequences af this act how former times respected the Clergy how the King hath beene used ever since this Act passed and how for three speciall reasons it ought to be annulled p. 25. CAP. VI. Sheweth the plots of the faction to gaine unto themselves the friendship and assistance of the Scots to what end they framed their new Protestation how they provoked the Irish to rebell and what other things they gained thereby p. 32. CAP. VII Sheweth how the faction was inraged against our last Canons what manner of men they chose in their new Synod and of 6 speciall Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ which under false pretences they have already done p. 40. CAP. VIII Sheweth what discipline or Church government our factious schismaticks do like best 12 principall points of their doctrines which they hold as 12. articles of their faith and we must all beleeve the same or suffer if this faction should prevaile p. 51. CAP. IX Sheweth three other speciall points of doctrine which the Brownists and Anabaptists of this Kingdome do teach p. 57. CAP. X. Sheweth the great bug-beares that affrighted this faction the 4 speciall meanes they used to secure themselves the manifold lies they raised against the King and the two speciall questions that are discussed about Papists p. 64. CAP. XI Sheweth the unjust proceedings of these factious Sectaries against the King eight speciall wrongs and injuries that they have offered him which are the three States and that oâ— Kings are not Kings by election or covenants with the people p. 73. CAP. XII Sheweth the unjust proceedings of this Faction against their fellow Subjects set downe in foure particular things p. 83. CAP. XIII Sheweth the proceedings of this faction against the Lawes of the Land the Priviledges of Parliament transgressed eleven speciall wayes p. 88. CAP. XIIII Sheweth how they have transgressed the publicke Lawes of the Land 3 wayes and of 4 miserable consequences of their wicked doings p. 94. CAP. XV. Sheweth a particular recapitulation of the reasons where by their designe to alter the government both of Church and State is evinced and a patheticall disswasion from Rebellion THE Discoverie of Mysteries OR The Plots and practices of a prevailing Faction in this present Parliament to overthrow both Church and State CHAP. I. Sheweth the introduction the greatnesse of this Rebellion the originall thereof the secret plots of our Brownisticall faction and the two chiefest things that they aymed at to effect their Plot. I Have long wandered in a region of Rebellion among seduced Subjects and discontented Peeres and now at last after I had passed the raging Seas and very hardly escaped the stormes and dangers of the furging waves I am arrived in my native soyle where I finde my selfe incompassed with farre greater stormes and more violent windes then ever I thought could be on any Land for though that Grand Rebellion which you may finde lately described was both magna mira very great and very grievous such as I supposed could not be exceeded by any humane malice yet now me thinkes I heare the Spirit saying unto mee as hee did unto Ezekiell Sonne of man stand up and I will shew thee greater abominations and a rebellion farre greater and more odious then either Popish Irish or any other Sect or Nation of the world hath hitherto produced and therefore I may now say with the Poet Barbara Pyramidum sileat miracula Memphis Let proud Babylon cease to boast Of her Pyramid's stately spires This Rebellion is more stange Surmounting all infernall fires No age the like hath ever bred Nor shall when these Rebels be dead The seed of it was unseasonably sowne in the Northerne storme The seed and originall of this rebellion and the originall of those Boreall blasts either why or by whom those spirits were raised is not so well knowne to me therefore how justly the King did undertake the quarrell I will not at this time determine or with what equity the Scots made their approach into England it is not my purpose to discusse yet I must needs say that our English Sectaries and Amsterdam Recusants which hated our Church and loved not our King justum quia justum onely because he is so good too good for them did from hence arripere ansam take hold of this opportunity by procuring those to proceed that were comming on and discouraging the others of the Kings side that were cowardly enough to say no worse of themselves to betray both King and Kingdome into the hands of the Invaders So the good King was now with King David brought into a strait So new I feare more the secret enemies both of Church and State that may lurke in Court then those that he
Hannibal could not invent to effect this hard talke what to perswade mildnesse to become severe or to cause a just and most clement Prince so full of mercy so prone to pardon where there is a fault and so loth to punish but where he must by the Law of Justice the greatest fault to yeeld to put him to death that was in many things so excellent in his life the taske was to procure his assent to passe this Bill and how shall this be done as the Man of God could not be perswaded by any man but by a Man of God a Prophet by a Prophet so now the Bishops that were good men men of conscience and set apart by God to resolve and satisfie weake and tender consciences are thought fit to be sent unto this good King to perswade him as men supposed that to prevent a greater mischiefe he might justly passe this Bill and either 6. or 4. of the prime Prelates are requested by the Lords to goe unto the King to assay how far they can prevaile with him herein and so they went and how they dealt with His Majestie I do not fully understand but am informed by some that went that they assured him he ought to satisfie himselfe in point of Law by his Judges and of State by his Councell how they did any otherwise in any other thing rectify his Conscience in point of divinitie which belonged unto themselves I cannot tell But though I thinke no man can justly lay the least tittle of blame upon the just King no not the Earle himselfe as himselfe professed for yeelding to such and so earnest perswasions of I know not how many reverend Bishops wise Counsellours grave Judges and the flower of all his people to passe that Bill whatsoever it was Yet to say what I conceive with their favour The Bishops right to vote in any cause of my brethren the Bishops in the prosecution of this cause I am perswaded that they had no reason to withdraw themselves from the House and to desert their owne right when the Bill or the Iudgment was to passe against the Earle upon this slight pretence alleaged against them by the haters of the Earle and no lovers of the Bishops that a Clergie-man ought not to have any vote or to be present at the handling of the cause of bloud or death for they might know full well when my Lords grace of Yorke did most clearely manifest this truth that the first inhibition of the Clergy to be present and assistant in causa sanguinis or judicio mortis in the Canon of Innocent the third as I remember for I am driven to fly without my bookes was most unjust onely to tie the Bishops to his blinde obedience to the apparent prejudice of all Christian Princes by denying this their service unto them and it is no wayes obligatory to binde us that are by the Lawes of our Land not onely freed but also injoyned to abandon all the unjust Canons that are repugnant to our Lawes and derogatory to our Kings and to renounce all the usurped authority of the Pope for I would faine know what Scripture or what reason Pope Innocent can alleadge to exclude them from doing that good service both to God and their King which in all reason they can or should be better able to do then most others and I am sure that neither in the old nor in the new Testament nor yet in the Primitive Church untill these subtle Popes began thus to incroach upon the rights of Princes to take away the prerogatives of Kings and to domineer over the consciences of men this exclusion of them from the highest act of Justice was never found The Prophets and Apostles judged in the case of life and death for did not Moses Joshua Samuel Eliah Elizaus Jehoida and others of the Priests and Prophets of the Old Testament and S. Peter also the Prince of the Apostles in the New Testament judge in the case of bloud and pronounced the sentence of death against Malefactors as when Ananias and Sapphira were suddenly brought unto their end by the judgement of the Apostle and if they be able and fit to judge of any thing then why not of this If you say Ob. because they are the advocates of mercy the procurers of pardon the preachers of repentance and men that are made to save life and not to put any one to death or to bring any man unto his end I answer Sol. that they are therefore the fittest men to be the Judges both of life and death for who can better and more justly judge me to death then he that doth most love my life It is certaine he will not condemne me without just cause even as God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the father of mercies and even mercy it selfe is the fittest and most righteous Judge that can be found both of death and damnation because his mercy and goodnesse towards his creatures will not permit his severity against sinne though never so detestable to his purity Clergy how fit to be Judges to doe the least injustice to their persons so our love of mercy and pitty will not suffer us to doe any thing that shall transcend the rules of justice and equity and as our inclination to mercy prohibits us to condemne the innocent so our love to justice and our charge to preserve it will not permit us to justifie the wicked for the Scripture teacheth us that he which justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the innocent that calleth the evill good and the good evill that spareth Agag and killeth Naboth are both alike abominable unto the Lord. And therefore notwithstanding this unjust Canon I never finde in any of our Histories that the Bishops did ever withdraw themselves and quit their votes in this case either before or after save onely from the 10th yeare of Richard the 2d unto the 21th yeare of the raigne of the same unfortunate King which they did not because they could not justly be present but because they had just reasons to be absent as you may finde it in the Annales of his time therefore I know not how to palliate their facility of yeilding way to those Non-Canonicall Lords to produce those non-obliging Canons Non Canonicall Lords which they abhorred in all that made not for the furtherance of their designe to exclude them from doing this which was one of their chiefest duties for who knoweth not the Lord Say and Lord Brooke and others of the Lords to hate all Canons even the old Canons of the Apostles as inconsistent with their new rules of independent government and yet herein to exclude the Bishops votes in the judgement of this man and the passing of this Bill which being admitted might perhaps have turned the scales they will take hold of the unjustest Law and alleadge one of the worst of Canons a Canon against reason and most repugnant
I have fully shewed and I would all Kings would read it in the Grand Rebellion But I see no reason why it may not and why it should not be retracted and annulled That the act should be annulled when the Houses shall be purged of that Anabaptisticall and Rebellious faction that contrived and procured the same to passe for these three speciall reasons 1. 1. Reason Because that contrary to all former precidents that Bill for their exclusion was as it is reported at the first refused and after a full bearing among the Lords it was by most votes by more then a dozen voices rejected and yet to shew unto the world that the factions maltee against the Bishops had no end their rage was still implacable at the same Session which is very considerable immediatly assoone as ever they understood it was rejected the House of Commons revived it and so pressed it unto the Lords that if I may have leave to speake the truth contrary to all right * For I conceave this to be an approved maxime that no light not proved forfitea by some of fence can be taken away wuhout wrong 2 Keasom In His Majesties answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons 16 of July p. 8. it must be againe received and while the Bishops were in prison it was with what honour I know not strangely confirmed 2. Because this Bill had the Royall assent after that a most riotous tumult many thousands of men with all sorts of warlike weapons both on land and water most disloyally had driven His Majestie to fly from London that most Rebellious City not without feare for his owne safety even for the safety of his life as himselfe professeth and when they had so cunningly contrived their plot as to get some of the Kings servants and friends that were about him and imployed in the Queenes affaires to perswade Her Majesty to use all her power with the King for the passing of this Bill or else Her journey should be slaied as formerly they had altered her resolution for the Spaw and at Rochester she should understand the sense of the House to stop Her passage unto Holland whereas the passing of this Bill might make way for Her passage over and many other such frights and feares they put both upon the King and Queene to inforce him full sore against his will as we beleive to passe this harsh Bill for the exclusion of the spirituall Lords out of the House of Peeres and of all the Clergy from all Secular Judicature But Master Pym will tell us he did Ald. Gar. speech at Guild hall that it was the opinion of both Houses there was no occasion given by any tumults that might justly cause His Majesties departure To whom I answere with the words of Alderman Garroway if the Houses had declared that it had beene lawfull to beat the King out of Town I must have sate still with wonder though I should never beleive it but when they declare matters of fact which is equally within our own knowledge and wherein we cannot be deceived as in the things we have seene with our eyes if they dissent from truth they must give me leave to differ from them as if they should declare they have paied all the money that they owe unto the city or that there was * For now I understand it is pulled down no Crosse standing in Cheapside we shall hardly beleive them And therefore seeing we all remember when the alarme was given that there was an attempt from Whitehall upon the City how hardly it was appeased and how no babies thought the designe of those subtle beads that gave that false alarme was no lesse then to have caused Wite hall to be pulled downe and they that loved the King and saw the Army both by Land and water which accompanied the persons accused to Westminster the next day after His Majesties departure as if they had passed in a Roman triumph conceived the danger to be so great that I call Heaven to witnesse they blessed God that so gracioussly put it in the Kings heart rather to passe away over night though very late then hazard the danger that might have ensued the day following The meaning therefore of both Houses may be that there was nothing done which they confessed to be a tumult and no mervaile because they received incouragement as we beleeved from their defence and no reproofe that we found was made for this indignity offered unto the King but if I be constrained and in danger it is not enough for me that I am voted free and safe for if that which lookes as like a tumult as that did or as the representation of my face in the truest glasse is like my face doth come against me and incompasse me about though I may be perhaps in more safety yet I shall thinke my selfe in great feare and in no more security then His Majestie was at Edge-hill 3. 3 Reason p. 7 Because as the veiwer of the Observat hath very well exprest it no act of Parliament can prevaile to deprive the King of His right and authority as an attainder by Parliament could not barre the title to the Crowne from descending on King Hen. 7. nor was an act of Parliament disabling King Hen. 6. to re-assume the government of his people of any force but without any repeale in it selfe frustrate and void 7. rep 14. Calvins case an act of Parliament cannot take away the protection or the Subjects service which is due by the Law of nature 11. rep Sur de la Wares case William de la Ware although disabled by act of Patliament was neverthelesse called by Queene Elizabeth to sit as a peere in Parliament for that it seems the Queen could not be barred of the service and councell of any of Her Subjects 2. H. 7.6 a statute that the King by no non obstante shall dispence with it is void because it would take a necessary part of government out of the Kings hand and therefore I se not how this act can deprive the King of the service and councell of all his Bishops and clergy but that it is void of it selfe and needeth no repeale or if otherwise yet seeing that besides all this 13 of the Bishops were shut in prison when this act passed and their protestation was made long before this time and it was so unduly framed so illegally prosecuted and with such compulsive threats and terrours procured to be passed I hope the wisedome of the next Parliament together with their love and respect to the Church and Church-men will nullifie the same CHAP. VI. Sheweth the plots of the faction to gaine unto themselves the freindship and assistance of the Scotts and to what end they framed their new protestation how they provoked the Irish to rebell and what other things they gained thereby ANd thus the Sectaries of this Kingdome and the faction in
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 â—…ak their new â—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
One of them uttered in a Taverne and God will avert it from his Servant That they would make the King as poor as Job Sober Sadnesse p. 22. unlesse he did comply with them 2. 2. Wrong If any man which they like not attend the Kings Person though he be his sworne servant or assist him in his just defence which he is bound to do by the Law of God and man yet he is presently voted and condemned for a Malignant popish disaffected evill Councellour and an enemie to the State and that is enough if he be catched to have him spoiled and imprisoned at their pleasure nay my selfe was told by some of that Faction that because I went to see the King I should be plundered and imprisoned if I were taken 3. 3. Wrong Though they do solemnly professe that his Majesties personall safetie and his royall honour and greatnesse are much dearer unto them than their own lives fortunes The Petition to his Majestie the 16. of July 1642. which they do most heartily dedicate shall most willingly imploy for the support maintenance thereof yet for all this hearty Protestation they had at that very time as the King most acourately observeth in his Answer directed the Earle of Warwicke to assist Sir John Hotham against him appointed thier Generals Non turpe est abeo vinci queÌ„ vincereest nesas neque ei inhonestè aliqueÌ„ submitti quem â—eâ—… super omnes extulit Dictum Armeâ—… Pompeio and as Alderman Garroway testifieth raised ten thousand armed men out of London and the neighbour Countries before the King had seven hundredâ— and afterwards though the King sent from Nottingham a gratious Message and sollicitation for peace yet they supposing this proceeded from a diffidence of his own strength or being too confident of thier own force sleighted the Kings Grace and most barbarously proceeded in the most hostile manner waged war and gave battaile against the Kings Armie where they knew he was in his own Person and as one of their Preachers taught the Sunday before the Battaile that they might with a good conscience as well kill the King horresco dicere as any other man so according to Captain Blagues directions as Iudas taught the high Priests servants we know what Troopes and Regiments were most aimed at whereas they doe most ridiculously say they have for the defence of his person sent many a Canon bullet about his eares which he did with that Kingly courage and heroike magnanimity yea and that Christian resolution and dependance on Gods assistance passe through that it shall be recorded to his everlasting honour and their indeleble shame and reproach so long as the world endureth 4. 4. Wrong They have most disloyally and traiterously spoken both privately and publikely such things against his Majesty as would make the very Heathens teare them in peeces that should say the like of their tyrannous Kings and such as I could not believe they proceeded from the mouth of a Christian against so Christiana King but that I finde most of them were publikely uttered made knowne unto his Majesty and related by himselfe and those that were eare witnesses thereof as horresco referens that he was not worthy to be our King not fit to live Sober sadnesse P 3 The Viewer p. 4. His Majesties Declaration Trussell in the supplement to Daniels history that hee was the traitor that the Prince would governe better and that they dealt fairely with him they did not depose him as their fore-fathers had deposed Richard the second whom all the world knoweth to be most traiterously murdered and the whole progresse of that act whereby hee was deposed is nothing else but the scandall of that parliament and an horrid treason upon the fairest relation of any Chronicle and the good Bishop of Carlile was not then affraid in open house to tell the Lords so to their faces and I would our parliament men would read his speech 5 They command their owne Orders 5. Wrong Ordinances and Declarations to be printed Cum privilegio and to be published in publike throughout the whole Kingdome and they are not a little punished that neglect it and whatsoever Message Answer Declaration or Proclamation commeth from the King to informe his subjects of the truth of things and to undeceive his much seduced people they streightly forbid those to bee printed and imprison if they can catch them all that publish them as they did many worthy Ministers in the City of London and in many other places of this Kingdome 6 They have publikely voted in their house and accordingly indeavoured by Messages to perswade our brethren of Scotland to ioyne in their assistance with these grand rebels 6. Wrong to rebell against their Soveraigne but I perswade my selfe as I said before that the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland are more religious in themselves more loyall to their liege Lord and indeed wiser in all their actions then while they may live quietly at home in a happy peace to undertake upon the perswasions of rebellious subiects such an unhappy warre abroad 7. It is remonstrated and related publikely that as if they had shaken off all subiection 7. Wrong and were become already a State independent they have treated by their agents with forraigne states and doe still proceed in that course which if true is such an usurpation upon Soveraignty as was never before attempted in this Kingdome and such a presumption as few men know the secret mischiefes that may lurke therein 8. They suffer and licence their Pamphleters Pryn 8. Wrong Goodewin Burges Marshall Sedgwicke and other emmissaries of wickednesse to publish such treasons and blasphemies and abominable aphorismes as that the negative vote of the King is no more then the dissent of one man the affirmative vote of the King makes not a law ergo the negative cannot destroy it and the like absurd and senslesse things that are in those aphorisms and in Prins booke of the Soveraigne power of Parliament whereby they would deny the kings power to hinder any act that both the Houses shall conclude and so taking away those iust prerogatives from him that are as hereditary to him as his kingdome compell him to assent to their conclusions Why the two â—… Spencers dyed for which things our histories tell us that other Parliaments have banished and upon their returnes they were hanged both the Spenters the father and the sonne for the like presumption as among other Articles for denying this Prerogative unto their king and affirming that if he neglected his duty and would not do what he ought Per asperte vid. Elismere postâ—…atip 99. for the good of the kingdom he might bee compelled by force to performe it which very thing divesteth the king of all Soveraignty overthroweth Monarchy and maketh our government a meer Aristocracy contrary to the constitution of our first kings and the iudgement of all ages
for we know full well from the practise of all former parliaments that seeing the three States are subordinate unto the king p. 48 in making lawes wherein the chiefest power consisteth they may propound and consent but it is stil in the kings power to refuse or ratifie and I never read that any parliament man till now did ever say the contrary but that if there be no concurrence of the king in whom formally the power of making of any law resideth ut in subiecto to make the law the two Houses whose consent is but a requisite condition to compleat the kings power are but a livelesse convention like two cyphets without a figure that of themselves are of no value or power but ioyned unto their figures have the full strength of their places p 19 20 21 which is confirmed by the viewer of the Observations out of 11. Hen. 7.23 per Davers Polydore 185. Cowell inter Verbo prerog Sir Tho. Smith de republ Angl. l. 2. c. 3. Bodin l. 1. c. 8. for if the kings consent were not necessary for the perfecting of every act then certainly as another saith all those Bills that heretofore have passed both Houses The Letter to a Gentleman in Gloucester shite p 3 and for want of the Royall assent have slept and beene buried all this while would now rise up as so many lawes and statutes and would make as great confusion as these new orders and ordinances have done And as the Lawyers tell us that the necessity of the assent of all three states in Parliament Lamberts Archeion 271. Vid. he Viewes p. 21. is such as without any one of them the rest doe but loose their labour so Le Roy est assentus câ—o faict un act de Parliament and as another saith Nihil ratum haâ— betur nisi quod Rex comprobarit nothing is perfected but what the King confirmeth But here in the naming of the three States I must tell you that I find in most of our Writers about this new-borne question of the Kings power a very great omission that they are not particularly set downe that the whole Kingdome might know which is every one of them and upon this omission I conceive as great mistake in them that say the three States are 1. the King 2. the House of Peeres 3. Which hee the three States of England the House of Commons for I am informed by no meane Lawyer that you may find it upon the Rowles of Hen. 5. as I remember and I am sure you may find it in the first yeare of Rich. 3. where the three States are particularly named and the king is none of them for it is said that at the request Speed l 9 c 19 p. 712. Anno 1 Ric. 3 and by the assent of the three estates of this Realm that is to say the Lords Spirituall the Lords temporall and Commons of the Land assembled it is declared that our said Soveraign Lord the king is the very undoubted king of this realm wherein you may plainly see the king that is acknowledged their Soveraigne by all three can be none of the three but is the head of all three as the Deane is none of the Chapter but is caput cepituls and as in France and Spaine so in England I conceive the three estates to bee 1. the Lords Spirituall that are if not representing yet in loco in the behalte of all the Clergie of England that till these anabaptisticall tares have almost choaked all the Wheat in Gods field were thought so considerable a party as might deserve as well a representation in Parliament as old Sarum or the like Borough of scarce twenty Houses 2. The Lords Temporall in the right of their honour and their posterity 3. The Commons that are elected in the behalfe of the Countrey Cities and Burroughs and what these three States consult and conclude upon for the good of the Church and kingdome the king as the head of all was either to approve or reiect what he pleased and though we finde with some difficulty as the viewer of the Observations saith where the Parliament is said to be a body consisting of King Lords and Commons ergo without the king there is no Parliament yet herein the king is not said to be one of the three states but the first and most principall part that constitutes the body of the parliament p. 2â— 25. H 8 21. but John Bodin that had very exactly learned the nature of our parliament both by his reading and conferring with our English Embassador as himselfe confesseth saith the States of England are never otherwise assembled no more then they are in the Realmes of France and Spaine then by parliament write and the states proceed not but by way of supplications and requests unto the king Bodin de repub l. 1. c. 8 and the states have no power of themselves to determine or decree any thing seeing they cannot so much as assemble themselves nor being assembled depart without expresse commandement from the king In all this and for all the search that I have made I finde not the king named to be one but rather by the consequence of the discourse to bee none of the three but as I said the head of all the three states for either the words of Bodin must bee understood of two states in all the three kingdomes which then had beene more properly termed as we call them either the two Houses or the Lords and Commons or else they must be very absurd because the three states if the king be one of them can not bee said to be called by parliament writs when as the king is called by no writ nor can hee be said to supplicate unto himselfe or to have no power to depart without leave that is of himself Therefore it must needs follow that this learned man who would speake neither absurdly nor improperly meant by the three states 1. The Lords Spirituall 2. The Lords Temporall 3. The Commons of the kingdome and the King as the head of all calling them consulting and concluding with them and dismissing them when he pleased And Will. Martyn saith King Hen 1 at the same time 1114. devised and ordained the manner and fashion of a Court in Parliament appointing it to consist of the three estates of which himselfe was the head so that his lawes being made by the consent of all were not disliked of any these are his words And I am informed by good Lawyers that you may finde it in the preambles of many of our Statutes and in the body of some other Statutes and in some Petitions especially one presented to Queene Elizabeth for the inlargement of one that was committed for a motion that he made for excluding the Bishops out of the House of peeres Such is the difference betwixt Queene Elizabeths time and our times the three states are thus particularized and the Lords Spirituall are nominated
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 quà m 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
prosecute against the law of God and man Rev. 2.10 because the Lord commandeth us to feare none of those things that we shall suffer but to stand in our integrity unto death and we shall be crowned with the crowne of life 3. They have discharged the Apprentises and servants from their Masters services 3. How they discharged the apprentices and compell them to fight and have either compelled or perswaded them to serve in their army against the King and that without the consent and against the will of their masters and dames yea sometimes against the commands of their owne parents which I speake from their owne mouthes 4. 4. How they imprisoned out men without cause They have imprisoned very many hundreds of most able and most honest men even so many that the Prisons are not able to containe them but they are faine to consecrate the greatest houses in London to become Prisons as the Bishop of Londons house Ely house Winchester House Lambeth house Cresby house the Savoy and the like And this they doe for none other cause but either for performing the duties of their places and dischargeing their obedience to his Majesty as the last Lord Maior Gurney which deserved rather to be commended than committed if we believe many that were present at his tryall or petitioning unto them as Sir George Bynion Copmplaint p. 8 and Captaine Richard Lovelace and Sir William Boteler of Kent because they did not therein flatter and approve their present wicked courses or intending to petition unto the King for reliefe of these lamentable distresses as those Gentlemen of Hertford-shire and Westminster or for being as they conceived disaffected unto their disloyall orders A strange thing and iustice beyond president not the like to be found among the Pagans that where no law can condemne a man for his affections when no action is committed against law men shall bee robbed of their estates and adjudged for malignants which is also a crime most generall and without the compasse of any Statute and then for this now created sinne to bee condemned and imprisoned and therein to remaine without tryall of his offence perhaps as long as the Archbishop of Canterbury And this wonder is the rather to bee wondered at because it is the sence of both Houses M. Pym in his Speech at the Guild-hall if wee may believe Master Pym that it is against the rules of iustice that any man should be imprisoned upon a generall charge when no particulars are proved against him for never charge can be more generall than to be all affected or a malignant or a man not to be confided in where of you finde ten thousand in the City of London and many hundred thousands in the Kingdome and therefore when we finde so many persons of honour and reputation imprisoned only upon this surmise without any other particular charge so much as once suggested against them as was the Lord of Middlesex the Lord of Portland and abundance more and detained in prison because they were ill affected in that they have not contributed to the maintenance of this warre we see how insensibly they have accused themselves to have laid this insupportable punishment beyond the desert of the transgressors and against the rules of all iustice and how they have forgotten their protestation and exceedingly infringed the liberty of the Subiects whereof they promised to bee such faithfull procurators CHAP. XIII Sheweth the proceedings of this faction against the Lawes of the Land the Priviledges of Parliament transgressed eleven speciall wayes 3. 1. Their proceedings against the lawes FOr the Lawes of our land which are either private as those chiefly which belong unto the Parliament and are called the Priviledges of Parliament or publike which are the inheritance of every Subiect you shall find how they have invaded and violated each one of these for 1. 1. Against the priviledges Parliament Touching the Priviledges of Parliament we confesse that former Kings have graciously yeelded many iust priviledges unto them for the freedome of their persons and the liberty of their speeches so they be free from blasphemy or treason of the like unpardonable offence but such a freedome as they challenge though for my selfe I confesse my skill in Law to be unable to distinguish the Legitimate from the usurped yet in these subsequent particulars I find wise men utterly denying it them as 1. When they forbid us to dispute of their Priviledges 1. Denying us to dispute of them L. Elismer in post nati and say that themselves alone are the sole Judges of them when as in former ages they have been adjudged by the Lawes of the Kingdom when Thorpe the Speaker of the House of Commons hath been committed and detained Prisoner upon an Execution and the House confirmed that fact 2. 2. Committing and putting out their Members Complaint p. 11. When the Members of the House of whose elections and transgressions against the House or any of their fellow Members or the like the House is the proper Judge which ought to have as free libertie as any of the rest upon any emergent occasion are committed as Master Palmer and others were or put out of the House as Sir Edward Deering the Lord Faulkland Sir John Culpepper Sir John Strang wayes and others have been voted hand over head for speaking more reason than the more violent partie could answer or in very deed for speaking their mindes freely against the sense of the House or rather against some of the prevalent Faction of the House which we say is no Priviledge but the pravitie of the House to denie this just Priviledge unto those Members that were thus committed or expelled for hereby it doth manifestly appear that contrary to the practice of all former Parliaments and contrary to the honour of any Parliament things were herein debated and carried not by strength of argument but by the most voyces and the greater number were so farre from understanding the validitie of the alleaged reasons that after the Votes passed they scarce conceived the state of the question but thought it enough to be Clerkes to Master Pym 3. Denying their Members to be legally tried for any capitall crime Vide Dyer p. 59.60 Crompton 8. b. 9 10 11. Elism post nats 20 21. The viewer p. 43. and to say Amen to Master Hampden by an implicite faith 3. When they deny the Members of their House or any other imployed by them in this horrid Rebellion should be questioned for felonie treason murder or the like capitall crimes but onely in Parliament or at least by the leave of that House whereof they are Members or which doth imploy them for by this meanes any Member of their House may be a Traitor or a Murderer or a Robber whensoever he please and may easily escape before the partie wronged or complainant can obtain this leave of the House of Commons and therefore this is
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
the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earle of Straffords head how he answered for himselfe the Bishops right of voting in his cause his excellent vertues and his death 1. 1. Impediment THey get Master Pym the grand father of all the purer sort and a fit instrument for this designe in the name of the House of Commons and thereby of all the Commonalty of England The Earle his charge to charge Thomas Earle of Strafford of High-Treason a high charge indeed and yet no lesse a crime could serve the turne to turne him out of their way because nothing else could subdue that spirit by which he was so well able to discover the plots and to frustrate the practices of all the faction of Sectaries for as the Jewes were no wayes sufficient to answer Saint Stevens arguments but onely with stones so these men saw themselves unable to confute his reasons and to subdue his power but onely by putting him to death and cutting off his head for that fault which Pym alleadged he had committed But then I demand how this great charge of high Treason shall be made good against him It is answered How sought to be proved that England Scotland and Ireland and every corner of these three Kingdomes must be searched and all discontented persons that had at any time any sentence though never so justly pronounced against them by him that was so great a Judge Yet conceited to be otherwise by themselves must now be incouraged and countenanced by the faction and most likely by this grand accuser to say all that they know and perhaps more then was true against him for what will not envy and malice say or what beast will not trample upon the Lion when they see him groveling and gasping for life in an unevitable pit and it may be compassed with so many mastife dogs I meane his enemies and discontented witnesses as were able to teare more then one Lion all to peices so by this meanes they are enabled to frame neare thirty Articles against him ut cum non prosint singula multajuvent that the number might amnze the people and thinke him a strange creature that was so full of haynous offences and so compassed with transgressions But si satis accusasse quis innocens The Earle his answer if accusations were sufficient to create offenders not a righteous man could escape on earth therefore the Law condemneth no man before he be heard what he can answer for himselfe and the Earle of Strafford comming to his answer made all things so cleare in the Judgment of the common hearers and answered to every article so well that his enemies being Judges they much applauded his abilities and admired at his Dexterity whereby he had so finely untied those Gordian knots that were so fouly contrived against him and as his friends conceived had fairely escaped all those iron nets which his adversaries had so cunningly laid my popular countreyman with the rest of the more learned Lawyers had so vehemently prosecuted to insnare him in the linkes and traps of guiltinesse and in breife the Lords who as yet were unpoysoned by the leavened subtilty of this bitter faction could finde not any one of all those articles to be Treason by any Law that was yet established in this Land sic te servavit Apollo so God delivered him as he thought and his friends hoped out of all these troubles Yet as a rivelet stopped will at last prove the more violent The nature of malice viresque acquirit ibidem and recollect a greater strength in the same place so rage and malice hindered of their revengefull desires will turne to be the more implacable quia malitia eorum excaecavit eos because the malice of men bewitcheth them and hath no end till it makes an end of its hated foe therefore those men that hated and maligned the Earle like the Jewes that because their tongues could make no reply to the just defence of the holy Martyr Act. 7.51 guashed upon him with their teeth and stopping their eares ran upon him with one accord all at once because they had no Law nor learning to make those articles treason they say with the Poet hac non successit aliâ aggrediemur viâ seeing we failed herein we will attempt another way and to that end they frame a Bill of attainder against him and this if it passe by the major part of both Houses and have the royall assent will bring him to his iust deserved death and herein I will not say they shewed themselves worse then the Iewes because that when their malice was at the hichest pitch against Christ they said we have a Law and by our Law he ought to dy and these haters of the Earle seeing they had no Law will have a Law to be made that shall bring him unto his death because the House might have reasons which my sence cannot conceive Yet some of his friends have said that after a former prosecution according to Law to make a new Law where there was none before to take away a mans life is almost as bad as the Romance Law The rubs of the Bill how taken away that I read of to hang him first and then judge him afterward to whom I assented not and not many lesse then 60 worthy Members of the House of Commons would never yeild to passe that Bill it had a greater rub among the Lords where it is not thought upon any slight conjectures it had never passed but that this rub must be taken away by a new device for that the faction judging some of them might be more timorous then malicious and remembring that primus in orbe Deos fecit timor feare is a powerfull passion that produceth many strange effects the Apprentices and Porters Water men and Car-men and all the rascall rout of the ragged Regiment were gathered together by some Chedorlaomer came as they did against Christ with swords and staves without order with great impudency to awe them and to cry for Iustice against him and this was done and done againe and againe untill the businesse that they came for was done a course not prevented that may undoe all Justice and bring us all to be undone And yet all this will not do this deed untill the King passeth His assent The Kings great paines to search out the truth for as yet the new Law of orders and ordinances without the King was not hatched and the good King having so graciously so indefatigably taken such care and such paines in his owne person every day to heare and see all that could be laid unto his charge and how he had answered each particular was so just and of such tender and religious conscience that he was not satisfied as men conceived with the weight of those reasons that were produced to passe the same therefore here I finde another Stratageme used such as
their projects might be removed that so at last their sinnes like the sinnes of the Amorites by little and little growing unto the full might undergo the fulnesse of Gods vengeance which as yet I feare was not fully come to passe for till the Parliament was made perpetuall the things that they have done since were absolutely unimaginable because that while it was a dissoluble body How the faction hath strengthened it selfe they durst not so palpably invade the knowne rights either of King or Subjects whereas now their body being made indissoluble they need not have the same apprehension of either having strengthened themselves by a Bill against the one and by an Army against the other and therefore all the dissolutions of Parliaments from the beginning of them to this time have not done halfe that mischeife as the continuâ—ance of this one hath done hitherto and God onely knowes what is to succeed hereafter But seeing themselves have publiquely acknowledged in their Declarations that they were too blame if they undertooke any thing now which they would not undertake if it were in His Majesties power to dissolve them the next day and they have since used this meanes which was given them to disburthen the Common-wealth of that debt which was thought insupportable What many wise men do say to plunge it irrevocably into a farre greater debt to the ruine of the whole Kingdome to change the whole frame of our government and subjecting us to so unlimited an arbitrary power that no man knowes at the sitting of the House what he shall be worth at the riseing or whether he shall have his liberty the next day or imprisonment many wise men doe say they see no reason that this trust being forfeited and the faith reposed in them betrayed the King may not immediately re-assume that power of dissolving them into his owne hands againe and both our unjustly abused King and out much injured people declare this act to be void when as contrary to their owne faith and the trust of the King they abuse it to overthrow the fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome though I could heartily wish that because it still carrieth the countenance of a Law the faction would be so wise as to yeeld it to be presently dissolved by a Law CHAP. IV. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops the threefold practice of the faction to exclude them out of the House of Peeres and all the Clergy out of all civill Judicature 4. THere was one stop more that might hinder The fourth impediment of their designe or at least hardly suffer their plots to succeed according to their hearts desire and that is the Bishops votes in the upper House nay they cannot endure to call it so but in the House of the Lords for they rightly considered therein these 2 speciall things 1. their number 2. their abilities which are 2. maine things to stop and hinder many evils For 1. They had 26. voices which was a very considerable number and might stop a great gap and stay the streame or at least moderate the violence of any unjust prosecution 2. They were men of great learning men of profound knowledge both in divine and humane affaires and men well educated a cunabulis that spent all their time in books and were conversant with the dead that feared not to speake the truth and have wearied themselves in reading Histoties comparing Lawes The abilities of the Bishops and considering the affaires of all Common-wealthes and so were able if their modesty did not silence them to discourse de quolibet ente to untie every knot and to explaine every riddle and being the immediate servants of the living God set apart as the Apostle speaketh to offer Sacrifice and to administer the Sacraments of God to prepare a people for the Kingdome of heaven it ought not and it cannot be otherwise imagined by any child of the Church that is a true beleever but that they are men of conscience to speake the truth and to doe justice in any cause and betwixt any parties more then most others especially those young Lords and Gentlemen whose yeares do want experience Pardon mee good Lords for so plainly speaking truth and the course of their lives some in hawking and hunting and others in dicing and bowling and visiting blacke-friers play-house or perhaps in worser exercises doth sufficiently shew how weake their judgement must needs be in great affaires and how imperfect their conscience is as yet in holy things I hope not to be preferred before these grave and reverend men And therefore lest these grave men should prove great hinderances of their unjust proceedings before any of their worst intentions be well perceived there must be an exclusion of them from Parliament and from those Lords whose consciences and knowledge they may then the better captivate and bring them the sooner to side with them for to effect their great designe And it is a world of wonders to see with what subtlety and industry with what policy and villanie this one worke must be effected It would fill a volume to collect the particulars of their Devices I will reduce them to these heads 1. They used all meanes to render them odious in the eyes of all people 2. A threefold practice against the Bishops They brought the basest and the refuse of all men watermen porters and the worst of all the apprentices with threats and menaces to thunder forth the death and destruction of these men 3. Upon a pretended treason they caused 12 of them besides the Arch-Bishop that was in the Tower before to be clapt up at once into prison where they kept them in that strong house untill they got it enacted that they should be excluded from the upper House and both they and their Clergy should be debarred from the administration of any secular act of Justice in the common-wealth 1. They endeavoured to make them odious unto the people 2 wayes 1. In making that Order or giving that notice unto the people that any man might exhibit his complaint against scandalous Ministers 1 To make the odious tvvo wayes 1 Way and he should be heard which invitation of all discontented sheepe to throw dirt in their Pastors faces was too palpably malicious for our Saviour told us we should be sent as sheepe into the mids of wolves but here is a sending for the wolves to destroy the Shepheards and it came to passe hereby that no lesse then 900 complaints and petitions were brought in a very short space as I was informed by some of their owne House that feelingly misliked these undue proceedings against many Learned and most faithfull servants of Jesus Christ that were therefore hated because they were not wicked The Ministers why persecuted and persecuted because they were conformable to the Lawes of the King and the Church And the rest of our calling that were factious seditious were both countenanced and applauded
in all their seditious courses and the more they railed against our Church Government the more they were favoured by these enemies of the Church Governours As to instance in both particulars as you may finde in the author of the Sober Sadnesse p. 33. Master Squire Master Stone and Master Swadlin which they have imprisoned and scarce allowed them straw to ly on Master Reading Master Griffith Master Ingoldsby Master Willcocks and many others having done nothing worthy of death or of bonds are inserted into the blacke bill of Scandalous and superstitious Ministers onely for preaching obedience to Soveraigne authority and other points consonant to the Holy Scriptures and those that are scandalous indeed as Doctor Burgesse the ring-leader of all sedition Doctor Downing that is reputed as variable as was Doctor Perne Master Calamy that is little better Master Harding a most vicious man Master Bridge a Socinian and Master Marshall not free from the suspicion of some unjust perswasions of the weaker sex many more such factious men are not onely dispensed with for all faults but also rewarded and advanced for their infidelity to God and disloyalty to His vicegerent this the author of the Sober Sadnesse affirmeth of them 2. 2 way By framing petitions themselves as it is conceived in the name of thousands of people from Cities and Countries that either never saw or never knew what was in them against Episcopacy and Episcopall men and then exhibiting the said petitions unto themselves and the rest of their seauced brethren to instigate others of their own faction that affected not Episcopacy and those offendors that by their Ecclesiasticall censure were justly punished and yet thereby unjustly provoked to hate them to frame the like petitions against this Apostolicall function and to make the world believe how odious these Reverend men were in the judgement of so many millions of men which were indeed most ignorant and simple Petitions against Episeopacie how un justly procured and which God knowes and themselves afterwards confessed knew not what they did nor to what end their hands were purloyned from them under fair pretences that were alleadged for the Reformation of some abuses but were subscribed to most scandalous Petitions which the poor men utterly renounced when they understood how unchristianly they were seduced so strange were their plots to make the Bishops odious And yet you must not thinke that these courses are more strange than true for our Saviour tels his Apostles that were men beyond exceptions full of inspirations and abundantly indued with the gifts of sanctification They should be hated of all men for his names sake and if you look into the sufferings of Saint Paul and the most horrible imputations that were so scandalously raised against the holy Fathers you need not admire so much to see these men suffering such things as the hands of sinners to be made the scorne of men and as the off-scouring of the people as they were not long since when the Bishops and the most learned Preachers might passe with more honour and lesse contempt at Constantinople among the Turkes or in Jerusalem among the Jewes than in the Citie of London among this brood of Anabaptists 2. 2. How the scumme of the people threaten them After they had thus brought them upon the Stage and used them thus strangely without cause they get Ven and Manwaring and others of the same Sect to gather together the scum of all the prophanest rout the vilest of all men and the outcast of the People such as Job saith Are not worthy to eat with the dogges of the flocke and as they came before for the Earle of Straffords head so now again they must come in great numbers without order without honestie against all Law and beyond all Religion with swords and staves and other unfashtonable though not inconsiderable weapons to cry no Papists no Bishops and if they had added no God no Devill no Heaven no Hell then surely these men had obtained if the Parliament could have granted their requests the summe of their desires and they would have thought themselves better than either King or Bishop but as yet they go no farther than No Papist no Bishop and by this they put the good Bishops in great fear and well they might be possest of that fear qui cadit in fortem constantem virum for mine eyes did see them and mine eares did hear it said What Bishop soever they met they would be his death and I thanked God they knew not me to be a Bishop Their furious assault upon Saint Peters Church in Westminster Then they set upon Saint Peters Church of Westminster burst part of the door to pieces and had they not been most manfully withstood by the Archbishop of Yorke his Gentlemen and the Prebends Servants together with the Officers of the Church they had entered and likely ransacked spoiled and defaced all the Monnments of the ancient Kings broken down the Organs and committed such sacriledge and prophanation of that holy place as their fellow Rebels have done since in Canterbury Winchester Worcester and other places whereof I shall speak hereafter the like was never seen among the Turks and Pagans and after these things what rage crueltie and barbaritie they would have shewed to the Dean and Prebends we might well fear but not easily judge I am sure the Dean was forced to hire armed Souldiers to preserve the Church for many dayes after for seeing these rioturs tumults could not as yet obtain their ends they came nay they were brought again and again and they justled and offered some violence unto the Archbishops Grace as he went with the Earle of Dover into the Parliament House which made him and the rest of his brethren justly to fear what might be the issue of these sad beginnings which they conceived must needs be very lamentable if timely remedie were not applied to prevent these untimely frights and unchristian tumults Therefore when no Complaints either to the House of Lords or Commons could produce any safe effects but rather a frivolous excuse than a serious redresse that they came to petition against the Government and not to seek the destruction of the Governours the Bishops were inforced and in my judgement flesh and blood could take no better course in such a case in such distresse and I believe it will be found wisdom hereafter to make their Petition for their securitie and Protestation against all Acts as null they might have added to them and whom they represented that should be enacted in their unwilling absence while they were so violently hindered from the House and it may be some word might passe in this Protestation that might be bettered or explained by another word yet on such a suddain in such a fright when they scarce had time to take counsell of their pillowes or to advice with their second thoughts Quae semper sunt saniores to watch for
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
this Parliament have by their crast subtilty prevailed to have all the cheifest impediments of their design to be removed so now the hedge is broken downe and all the bores of the forrest may now come into the vineyard to destroy the vine and to undermine the Citie of God but into their counsells let not my soule come 2. The furthetances of their designe were five 2. When they had taken away these stops and hinderances of their projects they were to recollect and make up the furtherances that might helpe to advance their cause for the founding of their new Church and the establishing of their famous democraticall government popular Common-wealth And these I find to be principally five 1. The gaining of their brethren of Scotland to become their fast and faithfull freinds 2. The framing of a Protestation to frighten the Papists and to insnare the simple to be led as they listed to prosecute their designe 3. The condemning of our late canons as abominable in their judgement and inconsistent with their religion 4. The appointing of a new Synod the like whereof was never heard in the Church since Adam to compose such articles as they liked and to frame such discipline as should be most agreeable to their owne dispositions 5. The setling of a militia a word that the vulgar knew not what it was for to secure the Kingdome as they pretended from those dangers that they feared that is from those Jackes of lent and men of clouts which themselves set up as deadly enemies unto the Church and state but indeed insensibly to get all the strength of the Realme into their own hands and their confiderates that so they might like the Ephori bridle the King and bring him as they pleased to abolish and establish what lawes and government they should propose whereby perhaps he might continue King in name but they in deed These were the things they aymed at and they effected the first three before they could be discried and their plots discovered but in the other two they were prevented when God said unto them as he doth unto the Sea hitherto shalt thou goe and no further here shalt thou stay thy proud Waves and therefore I am confident and I wish all good Christians were so that their purposes shall never succeed nor themselves prosper therein while the world lasteth becaust God hath so mercifully revealed so much so graciously assisted our King and so miraculously not only delivered him from them but also strengthened him against them contrary to all appearing likely-hood to this very day which is a sufficient argument to secure our faith that we shall by the helpe of our God escape all the rest of their destructive designes But to display their banners to discover their projects and to let the world see what they are and how closely yet cunningly they went about to effect their worke I will in a plaine manner set down what I know and what I have collected from other writings and from men that are side digni for one mans eyes cannot see all things nor infallibly perceive the mysteries of all particulars for to confirme the faithfull Subjects in their due obedience both to God and their King and to undeceave the poore seduced people that they perish not in the contradiction of Corah 1. 1 The indeering of themselves unto the Scots Out Sectaties the inviters of the Scots to England It is beleeved not without cause with far greater probabilities then a bare suspicion that our own anabaptisticall Sectaries and this faction were the first inviters of those angry spirits that conceived some cause to be discontented and were glad of secret entertainers to enter into the bosome of this Kingdome whatsoever those our brethren of Scotland did I will bury it according to their Act in oblivion neither approving nor yet blaming them for any thing But for any Subject of England to enterchange Messages and to keepe private intelligence with any that seeme to be in armes against their King and the invaders of his Dominions to animate them to come and advance forward to refuse their Soveraignes service and the eath of their fidelity which was tendered unto them and to hinder the Kings soldiers to doe their duties either by denying to goe with him or refusing to fight for him when they went which if some men were brought to their Legall tryall I beleeve would be more then sufficiently proved against them can be no lesse then haynous trimes perhaps within the compasse of high Treason Or were these things but our jealousies and feares which do wear the garments of Truth yet their proceedings in Parliament do adde more fuell unto the fire of our suspicion as for our men whom we had chosen to plead for us and to treat with them to respect them more than us to enrich them by impoverishing us How they behaved themselves towards the Scots giving them no lesse than 300000.l who had entered into our Land and brought upon us such feares of I know not how many mischiefes that might succeed and not onely so but also to shew what love they bare to them and how little regard they had of us their native brethren that put such trust and confidence in their fidelitie as to commit all our fortunes and liberties into their hands paying weekly such a pension for their provision besides the maintainance of our own Armie which were forced to carry them their monies when themselves were unpaid as in a short time was able to exhaust all the wealth of this Kingdom and yet for all his Majesties continuall calling upon them to dispatch their discharge and to finish the Treatie for the good of both Kingdomes keeping them here so long and making so much of them which in truth we envied not but admired what it meant when we saw with what continuall feastings they were entertained in London and their lodgings frequented as the Kings Court till all the People began to murmur and to wax wearie of so great a charge and such a burden as they knew must at last light upon their shoulders which must needs be matters worthy of our best examinations But as yet the common people that seeth no further than the present tense and the outside of things did little know Why they detained them here so long what many wise men did then foresee that these men aymed further than they seemed to do and delayed the businesse purposely till they had attained many of their desires and had sully endeared themselves into the affections of the Scots that if need required that they could not effect all the residue of their designe as they intended which now could not so suddainly be brought unto perfection they might recall them here again to assist them to do that by force which by their craft and subtiltie they should fail to do as now by their sending for them going unto them and alleaging the
of their iniquity by this their Protestation you shall never find them urge it unto others or remembring it themselves for the desence of the Kings Person Crowne or dignity or for the liberty of any Subject but only such Subjects as will be Rebells with them for how can they be said to defend any of these when they doe their very best to destroy his person and deprive him of all his royall dignities That the rebells are all perjurers and to plunder and imprison all true Subjects for being true Subjects unto their King Whereby you see how these Rebells are likewise perjured and have weaved this Protestation like a spiders web through which themselves might passe when they pleased and like Vulcans net to catch the simpler sort to adheere most eagerly to their designes and so it is but a circle of all subtleties not unwittily questioned an pros testatio parliamentaria deterior sit juramento cum c. for if there be any thing injoyned to be done by that Protestation which was unlawfull to be done before the Protestation was taken it is no more to be justified by that act then any other unlawfull thing is by a rash and wicked vow and it ought not to be urged to doe mischeise and if there be nothing to be injoyned thereby but what was every mans duty before there was but small need to draw any argument from any protestation but if they intended to draw men from the duty of alleageance to which they were legally sworne and all men understood to doe some-what which the ignorant did not understand then such a voluntarie protestation might do the deed for they have protested to maintain the priviledges of Parliament And yet the wisest of us now may justly protest wee cannot tell what those priviledges are or how far they should extend in the judgement of the House of Commons for they are multiplied like the rats of Egypt and as Pharaohs leane kine did eat up all his fat Cowes so these meager priviledges have eaten up all our goodly lawes And therefore Priviledges of Parl. multiplyed and are like Pharaohs kine the unlimited universality of these priviledges in the Protestation extending it selfe as far as the et caetera in the Canonicall oath was but a mischeivous plot in the contrivers to catch the simple to adhere unto them and it is a madnesse in any man that hath legally sworne to defend the Kings Person Crowne and dignity which he knoweth and hath irregularly protested to maintaine the priviledges of Parliament which hee knoweth not immediatly to draw his sword against his known Soveraigne raigne or to Rebell against his well-known lawful authority in the behalfe of some thing he Knoweth not what but is told by these men it is a priviledge of Parliament O ye unwise among the the people when will you understand who hath bewitched you that you should not beleive the truth CHAP. VII Sheweth how the faction was inraged against our last canons what manner of men they chose in their new synod and of six special Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ which under false pretences they have already done 3. 3. The condemning of our last Canons FOr the Canons that were last made I must confesse my selfe and many others of my Brethren were very averse unto our sitting to make any at that time yet many reasons were shewed us that we might sit and we had the Judges of the common Lawes opinion under their hands shewed us for the legality of our sitting and conclude such canons as might be for the glory of God and the good of his Church but of those that are made though I assure my selfe the worst of them is not so ill as they alleadge nor neere so bad as most I might say the best of their illegall orders yet there were many of us that never gave our votes to passe them and though not for any offence that we saw in them yet for the scandall that might be taken at them we hartily wished they had never beene so zelously propounded at that time But the Sectaries of London and the prevalent faction in Parliament did with open mouth spend much time to the no small prejudice of the whole Kingdome and made many long speeches to exclaime against them as against a bundle of superstitions that obscured the purity of our religion an introduction unto popery and an intolerable unheard of the like invasion upon the liberty of the subjects that revived againe the papall tyranny which contary to our fundamentall lawes had incroached to make canons and constitutions to bind our consciences whereupon upon they canvas them and condemne them out of their house and the house of God out of the Church and Commonwealth and not only so but also the contrivers of them and consenters to them they terrify and threaten to adjudge them sometimes with a praemunire to have forfeited all their goods and possessions and sometimes to be fin'd as we were at last with such a heavy mulct as in all other mens judgement did farre exceed the pretended offence especially of us that never consented to them And yet we find not only in Lindwood and others of our Canonists but also in the book of Martyrs and the rest of our English histories that the Arch-Bishops within their Provinces have at severall times made Canons and Constitutions for the regulating of all the people committed to their charge without any suspicion of the least violation of our lawes but the faction say sic volumus and the houses of Parliament understand what is law better then I do and therefore accordingly before the makers of them were called to make their answers by what authority they made them or by what law they could justify them they reject the Canons and censure their makers Yet notwithstanding their distast of them it is conceived by some that the clergy having His Majesties writ to be convocated and leave to compose such Canons as they thought fit to be observed for the honour of God the discharge of their duty and the good of the Church and having the royall assent and approbation to all that they concluded which is all that I find the Statute provided in this case requireth though they should be defective or perhaps offensive in some circumstances yet if they be not legally abrogated after a full hearing of all parties and the Kings consent to reject them as it was to approve them they are still as binding and in as full force as ever they were though for mine owne part I will not undertake the taske to make that good when as both the Houses have condemned them but I say 4. 4. The appointing of a new framed Synod This Scandall taken against these Canons made way for the faction to call for a new Synod or assembly of Divines for the rectifying of things amisse as well in Discipline as in Doctrine And in
the Communicants came to partake of those holy mysteries they were fain to returne home without it for want of Bread and Wine to administer it and yet now the Church Governours have not any power to redresse any of these abominable abuses 2. Under shew of reforming the Church discipline 2. Voted down all the governours of Gods Church and bettering the Government thereof they have voted down those very Governours the Bishops and their Assistants the Deanes and Chapters whose function was constituted by the Apostles and hath from that time continued to this very day as the most learned Archbishop of Armach Bishop Hull Master Mason Master Tayler and that worthy Gentleman Master Theyer and others have sufficiently shewed to all the world 3. Under the pretence of expunging Poperie 3. Vilified out Service-book which Bishop Jewell Bishop Parry Bishop Babington Bishop Bilson Bishop Morton Bishop Davenant Bishop Hall and abundance more of the Reverend Bishops have confuted expelled and kept out of our Church more than any yea than all their schismatical Disciples whose Learning was no wayes able to answer the weakest Arguments of our Adversaries the Service Book that is established by Act of Parliament and was by those holy Martyrs that lost their lives and spilt their blood in defence of the Protestant Religion and defiance of erroneous Poperie so divinely and devoutly composed as all the Reformation can bear witnesse and I am well assured the whole flock of these Convocants shall never be able without this to make any neer so pious must be totally cried down and hath been in many places burned used to the uneleanest uses and teared all to pieces and to let you see their abomination herein I must crave patience to transcribe that it may the more generally passe the Speech of Alderman Garroway where he saith pag. 7. Alderman Garreway pag. 7. Did not my Lord Maior that is Pennington first enter upon his Office with a Speech against the Book of Common Prayer Hath the Common Prayer ever been read before him Hath not Captain Ven said that his Wife could make prayers worth three of any in that Book O Masters there have been times that he which should speak against the Book of Common Prayer in this Citie should not have been put to the patience of a Legall triall we were wont to look upon it as the greatest treasure and the Jewell of our Religion and he that should have told us he wished well to our Religion and yet would have taken away the Book of Common Prayer would never have gotten credit I have been in all the parts of Christendome and have conversed with Christians in Turkey why in all the reformed Churches there is not any thing of more reverence than the English Liturgie not our royall Exchange nor the Navie of Queen Elizabeth is so famous as this in Geneva it selfe I have heard it extolled to the skies I have been three moneths together by sea and not a day without hearing it read twice the honest Mariners then despised all the world but the King and the Common Prayer Book How the Mariners esteeme the Liturgie he that should be suspected to wish ill to either of them should have made but an ill voyage and let me tell you they are shrewd youthes those Sea-men if they once discerne that the person of the King is in danger or the Protestant professed Religion they will shew themselves mad bodies before you are aware of it I would not be a Brownist or an Auabaptist in their way for And yet these men have so basely abused and are so violent to abolish this excellent Book and divine Liturgie that Many will not believe it though it should be told unto them Hab. 1.5 I would they did but reade that Act of Parliament which is prefixed unto the same to see if they regarded either the Law of God or Man the Religion of the Clergie that composed it or the wisedome of the Parliament that confirmed it 4. 4. Abused the images and pictures of the Saints and other holy things Under colour to shew their hatred to Idolatrie they have broken down the glasse Windowes of many Churches shot off the heads of the Images of the blessed Virgin and of our dear Saviour represented in her lap upon the porch of Saint Maries in Oxford thrown away the Pictures of Christ and of others his holy Apostles and Gods blessed Saints into the Rivers taken the Ministers Surplices to make Frockes to preserve their cloathes when they dressed their horses and in Worcester they have done what I am ashamed to speak and would loathe any modest ear to hear made the Pulpit and not farre from the Town the Fout their house of office as I was informed by one of the gravest Doctours and Prehends of that Church thrown down the Organs which cost above fifteen hundred pounds and taken the Pipes and Copes of the Prebends and gone round about the Streets with the Copes on their backes and the Pipes in their hands dancing the Moris dance so in Winscombe in Glocester shire they brake down the Organs and made that Church their Slaughter house when they killed certain Sheep that they had stolen and dressed the same upon the Communion table and in Lincolne Minster the Souldiers brought their horses into the Quire laid their hay upon the holy Table and made the House of God a Stable for their horses that did now eat their hay where the Christians did use to communicate the Bodie and Blood of Christ so that these men give their Saviour no better entertainment now in his glorie than the Jewes did when he came in his humilitie Luke 2.7 but he shall be still kept low and a Stable shall be good enough for his Mansion yet as in Canterburie they did but little lesse so in Winchester they added this to their former prophanations to take the ashes of those Saxon Kings that were kept in certain Urnes and threw them about the ground as if death it selfe could not appease their rage Scava sed in manes manibus arma dabant It would fill a whole volume to relate all the villanies that they did of this kinde the consideration of which prophane usage of holy places made a worthy Gentleman pathetically to set down these fervent speeches I would to God we had not cause to complain of the horrid and barbarous attempts of divers among us Christians I can scarce call them against some the mother Churches * Canterbury Worcester Winchester Glocester Chichester and many others who as if they had studied to affront the Almightie to his face and purposely with Manasses to anger him have not spared to prophane those goodly structures and irreligiously and Antichristianlike to deface the instruments there prepared and imployed in the service of the great God at the very thought whereof I tremble and stand amazed Master Theyer in his Treatise of Episcopacie p. 56.57
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
so truly religious and void of hypocrisie in their profession as she most gracious Queene is in her religion then they say the Bishops are all Papists Deanes and Prebends are of the same stampe and all the Kings Chapleines that were preferred by the Archbishop were either close papists or profest Arminians which are but Cosen germanes unto the other Arminianism being but a bridge to passe over unto popery And with these and the like false slanders against the King Queene and Clergy they so bewitehed most of their well meaning brethren of the same house and amazed all the simplet sort of people of this Kingdome with these feares and filled them with such jealousies with those pamphlets that they caused to be printed and dispersed every where that they were at their wits end for feare of this lamentable alteration of their religion and deprivation of their liberties 2 2. The Cure The disease being thus spread like a gangrene over all the parts of the body of this Kingdome they like skilfull Physitians devise the cure and that is the preparation of a Militia and this militia they would have put into such hands as they pleased such as they might confide in and I wish the whole Kingdome knew who those men were and who they are that they doe confide in for I know 1. Some of them are poore men of most desperate fortunes if bankrupters may be termed such 2. Others to be most factious and scismaticall men addicted to Anabaptisme and Brownisme and other worser sects as amongst the London Commanders Ven Manwaring Fawlke Norington Bradly Bast and the rest whereof there are twise as many schismaticall and as it is conceived beggarly sectaries as are right honest men among them and if we looked among their Lords and all the rest of their nomination throughout the Kingdome I doubt we shall find some of them to be just of the same condition And because the King to whose care and trust God had committed all the people of this Kingdom and not to them that are called by the King and chosen only by men and that only for this time and of whom he will require an account of the lawes and religion whereof he made him keeperand defender and not of them thought most rightly that this Militia should be commited rather to such men as he might confide in as it was in the raigne of Queene Elizabeth and His Father of ever blessed memory rather than to any that they should name which was to disrobe himselfe of all his regall power of the chiefest garland of his royall prerogatives without which he could hold his Crown by no better a tenure then durante beneplacito and to put the sword out of his owne hand into the hands of them that could not love him because they could not trust him as they alleaged and what reason had he to trust them that were causelesly so distrustfull of him they startled at this deniall And because the King of heaven had by this time opened the Kings eyes God openeth the Kings eyes to let him see what hitherto he could hardly imagine that these men to whom he had granted for the good of his Kingdome so many acts of grace and favour as never any King of England did before and had very graciously offered to commit to the hands of their owne choosing so large a share of the Militia as might have rendered the whole Kingdome most secure if security in a iust and legall way had beene all that they sought for had their intentions far otherwise then they pretended and that not only the government of the Church was intended to be altered and the governours thereof destroyed but himself also was hereby disrobed of those rights which God and the lawes of the land had put into his hands and the Kingdome brought either into a base tyranny or confused anarchie when all things shall be done according to the arbitrary power of these factious and schismaticall men therefore he utterly refused to grant their desires and most wisely withstood their designe Whereupon these men put their heads together How they strengthened themselves to make their ordors firm with out the king to consult how they might strengthen themselves and make their ordinances firme and binding without the King and to that purpose having by their former doings gotten too great an interest as well in the faith as in the affections of the people in confidence of their owne strength they came roundly to the businesse and what they knew was not their right as their former Petitions can sufficiently witnesse they resolve to effect the same by force but as insensibly as they can devise as 1. To seize upon the Kings Navie to secure the Seas 2. To lay hold upon all the Kings Magazin Forts Townes and Castles 3. To with-hold his moneyes and revenues and all other meanes from the King 4. To withdraw the affections and to poyson the loyalty of all his Majesties Subjects from him And hereby they thought and it must have beene so indeed Psa 30 6 except the Lord had beene on his side they had made their hill so strong that it could not be moved and the King so weake and destitute of all meanes that he could no wayes subsist or relieve himselfe as a member of their owne House did tell me for 1. 1 Earl of Warwâ—ck made vice Admirall They get the Earle of Warwicke to be appointed Vic-admirall of the Sea and to commit all the Kings Navie into his hand and to take away that charge from Sir Iohn Pennington whom most men believed to be farre the better Sea-man but more faithfull to his King and the other purer to the Parliament 2. 2 Sir Iohn Hotham put to Hull for the Magazine They fend Sir John Hotham a most insolent man that most uncivilly contemned the King to his face to seize upon the Kings Magazine that he bought with his own money when they might as well take away my horse that I paid for and to keepe the King out of Hull which was his owne proper Towne and therefore might as well have kept him out of White-hall and was an act so full of injustice as that I scarce know a greater 3. 3 They detained the kings moneys Esay 1 23. Because moneyes are great meanes to effect any worldly affaire and the sinews of every warre when as men and armes and all other necessaries may be had for money some of them and their followers shew themselves to be just as the Peeres of Israel companions of thieves meere robbers which forcibly take away a mans money from him they take all the Kings treasure they intercept detaine and convert all the Kings revenues and customes to strengthen themselves against the King 4. Because their former Remonstrances framed by this faction 4 They labour to render the king odious by lyes of the ill government of this Kingdome though in some things
true which the King ingeniously acknowledgeth and most graciously promiseth to redresse them yet in all things full of gall and bitternesse against the King could not so fully poyson the love and loyalty of the Kings Subjects as they desired especially the love of those that knew his Majestie who the better they knew him did the more affectionately love him and the more faithfully serve him they thought to doe it another and a surer way with apparent lyes palpable slanders and abominable accusations invented printed and scattered over all the parts of this Kingdome by their trencher Chaplaines and parasiticall Preachers and other Pamphleters some busy Lawyers and Pettifoggers to bring the King into an odium disliked and deserted of all his loving Subjects And what created power under heaven was able to dissolve that wickednesse which subtiltie and malice had thus treacherously combined to bring to passe Hereupon after many threatning votes 1 Lye that he intended to war against his Parliament and actuall hostility exercised against his Royall person the King is forced to raise a guard for the defence of himselfe and those his good Subjects that attended him then presently that small guard that consisted but of the chiefe gentry of the Countrey was declared to be an army raised for the subversion of the Parliament and the destruction of our native liberties an invincible army is voted to be raised the Earle of Essex is chosen to be their Generall with whom they promise both to live and die the Earle of Bedford Generall of the Horse moneyes are provided and all things are prepared to fetch the King and all delinquents or to be the death of all withstanders and that nothing might hinder this designe though the King in many gracious Messages attested by the subscription of many noble Lords that were upon the place assured them he never intended any warre against his Parliament yet they proceed with all eagernesse and declare all those that shall assist the King either with Horse money or men to be malignants and enemies unto the King and Kingdome and such delinquents as shall be sure to receive condigne punishment by the Parliament Hoc mirum est hoc magnum And among the rest of their impudent slanders this was their Master-piece which they ever harped upon that hee countenanced Papists and intended to bring Poperie into this Kingdom and to that end had an Armie of Papists to assist him But to satisfie any sensible man in this point I would crave the resolution of these two Questions 1. Two questions to be resolved Whether every Papist that is subject to his Majestie is not bound to assist and defend his King in all his dangers 2. Whether the King should not protect his Subjects that are Papists in all their dangers so farre as by the Law he ought to do it 1. All Papists bound to assist their King and accept of their service when himselfe is invironed with dangers For first I believe there is no Law that inhibiteth a Papist to serve his King against a Rebellion or to ride post to tell the King of a Designe to murder Him or any other intended Treason against Him or being present to take away a weapon from that man that attempted to kill the King because his not comming to Church doth not exempt him from his Alleageance or discharge him of his dutie and service unto the King and therefore if a Fleet from France or Spain or any other forreigne part should invade us or any Rebellion at home should rise against his Soveraigne and seck to destroy those Lawes and Liberties whereof himselfe and his Posteritie hath as good an interest as any other Subject I say he is bound by all Lawes to assist his King and to do his best endeavour both with his purse and in his person not onely to oppose that externall Invasion but also to subdue as well that home-bred Rebellion as the forreigne Invasion 2. 2. The King bound to protect dutifull Papists If a Papist should be injured his estate seized upon his house plundered and his person if taken imprisoned not because he transgressed any other Law but that he dispenceth not with the Law of his conscience to be no Papist and being thus injured should come unto his King and say I am your Subject and have lived dutifully I did nothing which the Law gives me not leave I have truly paid all duties and humbly submitted my selfe to all penalties and yet I know not why I am thus used and abused by my neighbours I am driven from my house by force of Armes and I have no place to breathe but under your Majesties wings and the shelter of your power therefore I beseech you as you are my King and are obliged to do your best for the safetie of your true Subjects let me have your protection and you shall have my service unto death I would fain know what the King should do in such a case denie his protection or refuse his service the one is injustice the other not the best wisedom especially if he needed service for as the Law of nature and of nations requireth all Subjects to obey their Kings and faithfully to serve them of what Religion soever their Kings shall be so Lege relationis every King is bound to protect every faithfull Subject that observeth his Lawes or submitteth to their penalties without corrupting of his fellow Subjects of what Religion soever he is because they are his Subjects not as they are faithfull Christians but as obedient men and he is to rule not over the faith of their soules but the actions of their bodies and it is an Axiome in Divinitie that Fides non cogenda and if Kings cannot perswade their Subjects to embrace the true Faith they ought not to cut them off so long as they are true Subjects and therefore with what reason can any man blame the King either for protecting them in their distresses or accepting their sevice in his own extremities I cannot understand And yet for the goodly companie of Papists which his Majestie entertaineth in all his Armies they cannot all make up so much as one good Regiment as an Officer in his Majesties Armie confidently affirmeth but it will serve their turne to taxe the King to lay imputations upon him even the very things that belong unto themselves as the whole summe of those things that are expressed in Englands Petition to their King Pag. 10. mutatis mutandis might truly be presented to the two Houses that have now almost destroyed us all and to make them mightie faults in him which are no faults at all in themselves because there is no fear of their favouringPoperie though as they have very many so they should have never so many more in their Armie 3. Lye that he caused the Rebellion in Ireland Another Slander they not onely whispered but also dispersed the same farre and near among the
people to make the King still the more odious unto his Subjects that he was the cause of the Rebellion in Ireland and that the Rebels there had his Commission under the Broad Seal to plunder the Protestants and to expell them thence that so the Gospell being rooted out of Ireland Poperie might the easier be transported and planted here in England whereas themselves in very deed were the sole causers of this Rebellion as I have shewed unto you before The cause of this stander and the colour of this stander was that the Rebellion being raised the Ring-leaders of those Rebels the sooner to gain the simple to adhere unto them perswaded them to believe that they had the Kings command to do the same and to that purpose shewed them the Broad Seal which they had taken from Ministers and Clerkes of the Peace and others whom formerly they had plundered and taken their Seales from them which they cunningly affixed to certain Commissions of their own framing as M Sherman assured me he saw the Broad Seal that was taken from one M. Hart that was Clerke of the Peace in the Countie of Tumond and was found in the pocket of one of the chief Leaders of the Rebels when he was killed by the Kings Souldiers yet this false and lewd practice of these Rebels in Ireland was a most welcome newes to this Faction in England to say this imputation upon the King that he was the cause of this Rebellion which themselves had kindled and were glad to finde such a colour to impute it unto him that it might not be suspected to be raised by them Many other such falsehoods Lyes and impudent slanders hath the father of lyes caused these his Children most impudently to father upon the King but as the Philosopher saith Non quia affirmatur aut negatur How things are in deed res erit aut non erit things are not so and so because they are said to be so neither can they be no such things onely because they are denied to be such as Gold is not Copper because ignorant men affirme it to be so nor a drunken man sober or a vitious man vertuous because they deny him to be good and blazon him abroad for one of the sonnes of Belial but as Gold is Gold and Brasse is Brasse so godly men are good wicked men are evill and Rebels are none other than Rebels let men call them what they will and so our King is not such a man as they say because they affirme it but he is indeed a most just virtuous and most pious Prince let them say what they will Their tongues are their own and we cannot rule them and so all his followers are better Protestants in deed and lesse Papists in all points of faith than the best of them that terme us so by false names God forgive them these slanderous accusations CHAP. XI Sheweth the unjust proceedings of these factious Sectaries against the King eight speciall wrongs and injuries that they have offered him which are the three States and that our Kings are not Kings by election or covenants with the People ANd yet for all these strange courses contrary to all humane thoughts which is marvelous in our eyes Psal 118.23 Esay 46.10 the Lord of Heaven whose counsell shall stand and whose will shall be done hath them all in derision dissipates all these devices and turnes all the counsell of Achitophel against his own head when he opened the eyes of many millions of the Kings true Subjects to behold and detest these unfaithfull dealings and disloyall proceedings against so gratious a King and therefore petitioned and subscribed that his Majestie standing upon his Guard and defending himselfe from such indignities as might follow they would hazard their lives and fortunes to assist him to repell those more than barbarous injuries that were offered unto Him Therefore now Memoriae proditum est I finde it written that without fear of God without regard of Majestie without justice without honestie they are resolved rather than to repent of their former wickednesse to involve the whole Kingdom in an unnaturall civill War and to maintain the same against the will and contrary to the desires both of the King and Kingdom and it is almost incredible what wicked courses and how unjust and insufferable Orders and Ordinances you shall finde recorded that they have made 1. Against the King 2. Against the Subjects 3. Against the Law Which are all said to be exceedingly abused by them for 1. 1. Their proceedings against the King Against the King it is registred to Posteritie that they have proceeded besides many other things in all these particulars 1. 1. Wrong Matth. 8.20 They possesse all the Kings Houses Townes and Castles but what he gets by the strength of his sword and detain them from him so that we may say with our Saviour The foxes have holes and the fowles of the aire have nests but the King of England hath not an house allowed him by the Houses of Parliament wherein to put his head and they take not onely his Houses but also his rents and revenues and as I understood when I was in Oxford his very clothes and provision for his Table that seeing they could not take away his life by the sword they might murder him with cold or famine when he should not have the subsistence if they could hinder him to maintain life and soul together which is the shame of all shame and able to make any other men odious to all the world The complaint to the House of Commons Pag. 19. thus maliciously and barbarously to deal with their own most gracious King neither doth their malice here end but they with-hold the Rents of the Queen and seize upon the Revennes of our Prince which I assure them my Countrey men takes in great scorne and I believe will right it with their lives or this Parliament Faction shall redeem their errours with no small repentance when as we finde no Prince of Wales was ever suffered by his Subjects to have such indignities offered him by the greatest Pecres of England And here I cannot omit what Alderman Garroway saith of the reproach of Master Pym touching the maintaining of the Kings other Children which he professeth made his heart to rise and hoped it did so to many more Is our good King fallen so low Alderman Garroway his Speech that his Children must be kept for him It is worth our inquirie who brought him to that condition We hear him complain that all his own revenue is seized and taken from him Is not his Exchequer Court of Wards and Mint here his Customes too are worth somewhat and are his Children kept upon Almes How shall We and our Children prosper if this be not remedied And I pray God these things rise not up in judgement against them and this Nation but hereby they intended to verifie that disloyal Speech which