onely approve of but also protect thereby gaining infinite Proselytes as the Devil in the Northern Coasts doth his subjects by making them invulnerable And these they feed up and nourish with strange fears more fantastical then Lazarellos when he thought the dead man would be carried to his Master's house strongly fomented and agitated by unheard of Plots set a foot to destroy Religion and Nation like the Roterdam-ship which would kill the English under water and all this upon worsegrounds and reasons then the influence of a Talisman Though nothing was more false and impudent then these pretended dangers yet what by the authority and countenance of those Grandees who patronized such rumours and what by the power which the Tubthumping boute-feus had over the peoples inclinations and judgments whereby the Pulpit became the worst thing in the Nation many had not onely a bad opinion of the King but thought very well of the Parliament who in all their actions were far more sedulous then his Majesty but most of all as a hindg upon which themselves and designs hung in sending forth their papers to abuse the people by making the King's actions odious and their own for the best And of this they took special care not onely by appointing a Committee to consider of the most convenient way to disperse them and to give an allowance to their Messengers but also by taking care by Order that every Petty Constable or Tythingman throughout England shall have one of every one of their Orders Declarations c. and to read them publickly to their neighbours And how these flattering papers might work in the Country where they commonly believe all that is in Print is easily to be imagined considering that most of them heard but the reasons of one Party the Parliament taking a special care by Declaration that nothing which came from the King should be received or permitted to be read Whilst the Parliamentarian-papers flew plentiful about the Nation swoln with big praises of their worships the better to captivate the ignoranâ— people to their Lure who are naturally of themselves apt to gape after any novelty or change especially when any gain is like to be had by it as there was in this undertaking they knowing that Plundering would be permitted them and the Parliament assuring them that if they received any damage it should be repai'd them out of the estates of their enemies By these ways the Country was droled into an high conceit of the Parliament and nothing stuck with those of the more wise and honest sort but the word Treason which they knew they should incur by assisting the Parliament against the King But this doubt was presently wipt away in the opinion of many by the Parliaments distinction betwixt the Person and Office of a King as also by their daily protestations at the beginning of the Wars That they fought not against the King but against his wicked Council Of which Protestations in 1642. I shall give you a tast whereby you may the better distinguish between their tongues and hearts And first we shall give you the Vote by which the Army was first order'd to be rais'd which was thus Resolved upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised King's Person defence of both houses of Parliament and those who have obey'd their Orders and Commands and preserving of the true Religion the Laws Liberty and Peace of the Kingdome And to confirm the people in their intentions for the preservation of the King they thus profess and protest House of Commons your Loyal Subjects who are ready to lay down their lives and fortunes and spend the last drop of their bloud to maintain your Crown and Royal Person and greatness and glory And they pray your Majesty to rest assured that they will always be tender of your Honour and Reputation with your good Subjects We seek nothing but your Majesties Honour and Peace and the Prosperity of your Kingdomes Their earnest intentions and endeavours to advance your Majesties Service Honour and Contentment c. Do resolve to preserve and govern the Kingdome by the Counsel and Advice of the Parliament for your Majesty and your Posterity according to our Allegiance and the Law of the Land As if there could be a greater care in them the King's friends at York of his Majesties Royal Person then in his Parliament The services which we have been desirous to perform to our Soveraign Lord the King and to his Church and State in proceeding for the publick peace and prosperity of his Majesty and all his Realmes Within the presence of the same all-seeing Diety we Protest to have been and still to be the enely end of all our counsels and endeavours wherein we have Resolved to continue freed and enlarged from all private aimes personal respects or passion whatsoever Who in all their Counsels and Actions have proposed no other end unto themselves but the care of the Kingdomes and the performance of all Duty and Loyalty to his Person Your Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having nothing in their thoughts and desires more precious and of higher esteem next to the honour and immediate service of God then the just and faithful performance of their duty to your Majesty and this Kingdome We the Lords and Commons are resolved to expose our lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of true Religion the King's Person Honour and Estate Will really endeavour to make both his Majesty and Posterity as great rich and potent as much beloved at home and feared abroad as any Prince that ever sway'd this Scepter which is their firm and constant Resolution And you shall declare unto all men that it hath been and still shall be the care and endeavour of both Houses of Parliament to provide for his Majesties safety Concerning the Allegations that the Army rais'd by the Parliament is to Murther and depose the King we hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that profest but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a scandal especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every Member of both Houses whereby they promise in the Presence of Almighty God to defend his Majesties Person The Promise and Protestation made by the Members of both Houses upon the nomination of the Earl of Essex to be General and to live and dye with him wherein is exprest that the Army was rais'd for the Defence of the King's Person And we have always desired from our hearts and souls manifested in our Actions and in many humble Petitions and Remonstrances to his Majesty profest our Loyalty and Obedience to his Crown readiness and resolution to defend his person and support his Estate with our lives and fortunes to the uttermost of our power We
Subjects who would thus shackle their King extirpate and ruine his most faithful friends I should willingly leave to the judgment of Cornelius Burges himself if he would but throw by his malice and those ill-got lands which binds him to a perpetual partiality But because some may object that this was but the fancy of some fiery Lecturers though I think it would be difficult to nominate so much as one of this faction then of age who did not actively acknowledge the legality of the Rebellion and yet I hear of small repentance we will see what they say in their so much cryed up Representatives in Parliament and this multitude we shall consider in two respects I. In their Actions from the beginning of the Warre till the end of it II. In their Principles after their happy seclusion by the Independent Army til the Restauration of his Majesty As for the first It is as true as Penry Martin marre Prelat was hang'd or Burton and Bastwicks eares cut off that the members and 't is well known what they were of the wicked Long Parliament remaining at Westminster did declare the lawfulnesse of the War and accordingly by their wicked Counsels carryed it on which is as impossible to be denyed as the fight of Lepanto or 88. As for the second viz. the malevolent humours of the secluded Members if their hearts may be known by their actions and we have no other Index they shall presently appear as bad as their Neighbours For after that God had allowed them some ten or eleven years time of repentance they still harden their own hearts looking upon their former actions against their King to be too honest to require remorse or sorrow as if they had done God good service by fighting against his Laws and Anointed For no sooner were they restored by the now Duke of Albemarle but they fell again to the adoring and doing homage to their long-forgotten Idol the Holy-League and for it 's greater honour vomiting out this Order Ordered that the Solemn League and Covenant be printed and published and set up and forthwith read in every Church and that also once every year according to former Order of Parliament and that the same Solemn League and Covenant be also set up in this House And to shew themselves as pert blades against the King as ever it was Ordered by their Worships that no Commissioner or Commissionated Officer should exercise any power or Authority till he had acknowledged as followeth I do acknowledge and declare that the War undertaken by both Houses of Parliament in their defence against the Forces raised in the name of the late King was just and lawful c. Nor is this all though enough in conscience to make a Traytor or else farewell Poulton but the better to make the insuing Parliament according to their Puritanical humours thereby to bring the Nations again into slavery They a little after the former Orders Decree that none shall be capable of being chosen a Member of Parliament which hath any way assisted the King against their Worships unless he had since recanted his former adhearing to the King Hitherto we see no sign of repentance for their former Rebellion but rather a stubborn malepert zeal swaying amongst this Faction and prompting them to a readiness of their own justification for their so doing Though it is a certain truth that they were the Causa sine quâ non of the King's Murther they putting the sword into the Independent hand which gave the fatal stroke And these who are thus so confident to justifie their wickedness against the Father will not be wanting to create the same jealousies that they might have the same opportunity against the Son as the multitude of scandalous and seditious Pamphlets and I wish many Lectures were not so too yet daily flying abroad doth somewhat intimate However had their malice hurried them on to far more extravagant actions and who knows what they might have done if their Carreer had not been stopt yet had they done but like themselves A Presbyteri an Parliament being as far from doing Soveraignity any good for hitherto an instance cannot be cull'd out of any story as the rest of the Puritans studious for the reall peace of the Church and Kingdome against both which such is their malice that I could easily believe that they Tutor up one another as Amilcar the Carthagenian did his young son Hannibal by making him swear to persecute the Romans with all fury imaginable And we know that Beza perswaded his Brother hot-head John Knox by all means to extirpate Episcopal Government out of Scotland though the being of it there might cause peace and unity And what mad pranks old Knox play'd in that Kingdome their own stories can inform us And the truth of it is the old zealot had been so well nurtured up at Geneva by Beza and others that no other could be expected from him of whole factious humour and doctrine take this for a Tast He maintained That Subjects may not onely God's Law not as a King but as an Offender Certainly Master John was very well acquainted with the poor fellow of Collen who bittingly distinguished betwixt the Prince Elector and the Arch-bishop And probably the Logicians in the long-winded Juncto were beholden to these two cunning Pates who could with aboundance of dapperness squeeze out of their infected brains the forgotten distinction of the Person and Office of a King which is not unlike some Pole-Axes with a Gun and tuck all in one piece if one fail to distroy you the other is certain of execution The Proverb assureth us that it is good to have two strings to a bow thus the Presbyterians when they cannot hurt they King they will punish the Offender and rather then their malice in this must not take effect they will sacrifice the lives of many thousands of Innocents Though when all is sum'd up all their specious pretenses is far short of the value of one drop of bloud The Roman Rebels under Catiline could tell the people that they fought not for Supremacy or Riches but meer Liberry And how hath the air of Great Britain been putrified with the hypocritical clamours of Religion Reformation and Priviledges and that with such fury as if our Puritans like Catilines associates had encouraged one another into a wicked conspiracy with the intoxicating healths of humane blood It is reported of Pope Boniface VIII that he entred like a Fox ruled like a Lyon and dyed like a Dog And I am confident our Puritans obstain'd more by hypocricy then true piety And having once made themselves Masters it is not forgot how they Tyrannized over the poor Nation and the King 's best friends which hath brought such an odium upon them in the Nostrils of all good men that I believe their exit wil be as reproachful to themselves as beneficial to the Nations so that of them
they will also tell the people that they are obliged to right themselves which is the only way to set up the Stage that the Tragedy may be acted over again But I hope the Lecturers and Pamphleters will forget their Parts and then the People will be more unwilling and unfit for Action CHAP. III. The small or rather no Authority or Power that the Presbyterians allow the King to have over them TO lessen Authority is the only way to null it and 't is as true that those who desire and act the first do it meerly to make it subservient to the latter People will not declare their designs at first a plausible pretence being half a Conquest which may be spoil'd by too much haste For A'voli troppo alti e repentini Sogliono i precipitii esser vicini Those men who too too high and hasty go Do take the course to their own over-throw The Turks will shew you friendship but thereby to make you embrace their Faith Zopirus made a fair Relation to the Babylonians but quite different from his Intentions Warr is in vain if not maintain'd by stratagems as well as force Towns have been taken by shew of Friendship as many men with Darius have been ruin'd by those who promis'd to be their defence Our Parliament at first declar'd their Intentions were only to relieve the King from his wicked Council But having once done that as they supposed they not only afforded him no better but took away his Authority clapt him up in Prison and there kept him secure till his Cut-throats convey'd him to the Scaffold And which was an augmentation to their wickednes they did not do this only to make themselves Supream but looking upon themselves as the highest Authority they thought they might thereby lawfully do this and farr more fancying the King to be as subject to their wills as a Gally-slave to his Captain For proof of which 't is in vain to quote practice or the multitude of their Declarations each of them pen'd to prove the legality of their actions Only it will not be amiss to give you the opinion concerning this point of a noted Presbyterian Writer yet making a noyse in his Fetters who would gladly perswade the people that they are bound to obey the Parliament and their Orders though against the Kings express command The Parliament ever retain'd a Jurisdiction in themselves over both Church and Crown Of which in another place he speaks more plain thus The Votes Orders and Ordinances of the Lords and Commons in Parliament even without or against the Kings Personal Command is to be obey'd and observed But it is not only the Parliament but the People too forsooth that must be hail fellow well mett with or rather above the King And they know that this familiarity with Majesty is the only way to bring it into contempt which Crofton thinks a good Card for him to play and therefore he thus very pertly be-speaks the People Is not the meanest Subject interested in the Kings Oath and capacitated humbly to demand performance Do not Royal Acts fall under the consideration of Casuists resolving Conscience Are not Kings Objects of Ministerial admonition How bold soever it may seem none but a proud Pashur and shameless Semaiah could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King Keep the Oath and thou shalt be delivered from that distress which may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to Pray For Him Doth not the last clause speak little Crofton a pert blade who with Calvin Knox and others of that gang would make brave Modlers for a New Utopia by making the Parliament as bounders and controllers over the King and allow the People over the Parliament and then should we have a brave World the King and Three Estates lying at the mercy of the People and the bold Presbyterian Tub-tatler allow'd to infuse into the Rabble what Principles are most agreeable to the sense of their Classes but I hope this Plot is too visible to take effect Yet thus did the Scots with King Charls I. by appealing from him and his Council to a General Assembly in these words And because we did in our former Protestation Appeal from the Lords of his Majesties Council so do we now by these renew our solemn Appeal with all Solemnities requisite unto the next Free General Assembly and Parliament as the only Supream National Judicatories competent to judge of National causes and proceedings Which way of Appealing is High-Treason by the Law of Scotland as they knew very well by a good Token For when their Ministers held an Assembly at Aberdene after it was Prorogued by King James they were cited to appear before the Lords of the Council to answer that high contempt but they denying the Authority and appealing to a General Assembly were therefore arraigned and found guilty of High-Treason and had received the sentence accordingly if King James out of his mercy had not reprieved them before sentence and only inflicted upon them perpetual banishment which they under-went But that they may know themselves the better for the future I shall transcribe them a Copy of the Scotch Statute that they may learn how to avoid Treason The eighth Parliament current holden at Edenburgh the 22. of May in the year of God 1584. by the Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Prince James the sixt by the Grace of God King of Scots and Three Estates of this Realm An Act for Confirming the Kings Majesties Royal Power over all Estates and Subjects within this Realm FOR AS MUCH as some persons being lately call'd before the Kings Majesty and his Secret Council to answer upon certain Points to have been enquired of them concerning some Treasonable Seditions and Contumelious Speeches uttered by them in Pulpits Schools and other wayes to the disdain and reproach of His Highness his Progenitors and present Council contemptuously declined the judgement of his Highness and his said Council in that behalf to the evil example of others to do the like if timely remedy be not provided Therefore our Soveraign Lord and his Three Estates assembled in this present Parliament ratifieth and approveth and perpetually confirmeth the Royal Power and Authority over all Estates as well Spiritual as Temporal within this Realm in the Person of the Kings Majesty our Soveraign Lord his Heirs and Successors And also statuteth and ordaineth That his Highness his Heirs and Successors by themselves and their Councils are and in time to come shall be Judges competent to all persons his Highness Subjects of what Estate Degree Function or Condition soever they be of Spiritual or Temporal in all matters wherein they or any of them shall be apprehended summoned or charged to answer to such things as shall be enquired of them by our said Soveraign Lord and his Council And that none of them which shall happen to be apprehended called or
who neither cared for them nor their sitting nor any else that would not dance after them and Geneva For they are resolved for Jack Presbyter and therefore being informed that the Lords Order for the Common-Prayer had been read in Churches and not their Declaration they drew up an Order and sent it to be printed enjoyning that their aforesaid Declaration should be read in all Churches And so severe were they in this point that they put Dr. Haywood of St. Giles to some trouble for not permitting their Order to be read though he had not only his own Conscience and the Lords Order but the Law of the Land to testifie his justness And what more ridiculous then to astonish the people into discontents and sidings by reading to them at the same time two contrary Orders and that of the Commons being quite against the Laws of the Land Thus did the Commons batter down Religion as Captain Jones in the Poet did the Jesuites more by strong hand then reason yet had they left one thing undone which was the extirpation of Episcopacy root and branch to bring which villany about they Voted them to have no place in the House of Lords nor to meddle with any secular affairs But here before they went any further they were somewhat troubled at the King because he being then in Scotland had sent Mr. Warwick Orders to draw up five Congé d'Eslire's for five new Bishops there being then so many Sees vacant but in this strait Mr. Stroud thinks it fitting to Petition the King to stop these five till they had dispacht the charge against the other Bishops Yet what need they care whether the King make Bishops or no since they are resolved never to acknowledge them to be so for they can with the same ease cut off all as one Therefore seeing the King for Bishops they bend themselves more resolutely against them and so prepare their charge against those formerly accused and for the Champions to mannage this Combate Pymme and St Johns by the commendations of one another are chosen The death of the first is noys'd by report and the honesty of the latter is not unknown to any The Parliament was something stopt in their proceedings against Bishops by the Irish Rebellion yet having taken some breath they sent a message to the Lords desiring that the 13. Bishops might speedily come to answer And not long after as an incouragement to the factious they released Simmonds a Printer who had been in custody for printing a Book against the Common-Prayer yet the very same day was Walker the Iremonger imprisoned only for Printing a Book concerning Mr. Prynne though the first deserved as much hanging as the latter Imprisonment and from these men the Bishops might well expect good justice But still they sit and Vote in the House of Lords which vext the Sectaries to the guts because they could not tell how to get them out handsomly for they had no great confidence in their Articles of Canons and Constitutions and whilest they Voted there the Orthodox Party would still exceed At last some ill spirit or other put it into the noddles of Isaac Pennington Captain Ven and such combustible humours to raise such tumults against the Reverend Fathers the fear whereof should either keep them from the House or bring some ruine sacrilegiously to be acted upon them And accordingly up cometh the Rabble of London to the Parliament House crying out No Bishops no Bishops And at last got the Bishop of Lincoln then going to the House with the Earl of Dover into the midst of them where they had like to have squeez'd him to death And having thus begun many hundreds of them come again the same day with Swords and Staves causing great uproars both in Westminster and London not only to the affrightment of the Bishops but the King and Queen and the next day also assaulted Westminster Abby These Tumults obtain'd the end of their Contrivers keeping the Bishops from the House pelting of them with stones as they endeavoured to go By which they drew up a Petition to the King how that the Tumults kept them out and therefore protested against all things that should be done in the House of Peers in time of their thus violent seclusion Which did trouble the Parliament so much that one Mr. Weston of the Commons House thought he had spoke bravely when he moved that the Bishops might be sent to Bedlam But Glyn and others were cleerly for High Treason which accordingly was done and ten of them sent to the Tower and two to the Black Rod. And thus their businesse being don the great tumults ceas'd the Presbyterians sang Victoria whilst the reverend Church of England lay in the dust miserably trod upon by a Schismatical zeal yet had they they nothing to accuse the Bishops of and so were forced to release them all but two against one of which they could say nothing for if they could they would and whether the cry of the others bloud be yet stopt I know not How were the Country cheated with swarms of Petitions against this Ecclesiastical Order yet in this none more ridiculous then the Londoners One troup of Tradesmen petition against Bishops and their reason was because their being was the decay of trading and in the clause of all gave a notable lash at the House of Lords Nor is this all but the very Porters 15000 said to be in number Petition too and affirm that they cannot indure the weight of Episcopacy any longer and therefore must have redress Nay the very women by the pushing on of their hot-headed associates thought themselves so much concerned in these Church-affairs that they must petition too And these as fit persons to apprehend Chuch-government as the simple Cockney country-businesse who thought a bush hung about with black moles skins to be a black pudding tree yet these sort of Fanaticks are apt to have abominable discretions for thus the Scots some years before in their Petition against the Common Prayer Book begun it thus We Men Women and Children and Servants having considered c. Most miraculous Children Born like Adam at the top of understanding O the happiness to spring from the loins of a Covenanter who as it was said of the Lady Margaret can bring forth men instead of children Certainly these children were akin to that boy of Cracovia in Poland which had not only teeth but spake the first day of its birth but when he received Christianity lost that faculty And probably had these covenanting Children women and such like known more of Christianity then these did they had never acted so violently against Church-government Or it may be they were somewhat related to that other child born in the same City which spoke distinctly at half a year old yet nothing but mischief was by it uttered distruction to all Poland and that
by the invading Tartars Nor could such a Government handsomly desire any longer footing when rustick women servants and little children were able to evince its rationality Nor must such learned Petitions as these be discountenanced but the Commons shall know of it who severely chid the Lord Major and Sheriffs of London because they gave some check to a tumultuating paper carrying on the Commons Presbyterian design These actions might well move the late martyr'd King thus to expostulate with his and their enemies How oft was the business of Bishops enjoying their ancient places and undoubted priviledges of the House of Peers carryed for them by farre the Major part of Lords Yet after five repulses contrary to all order and custome it was by tumultuary instigations obtruded again and by a few carryed when most of the Peers were forced to absent themselves In like manner was the Bill against Root and Branch brought in by Tumultuary clamours and Schismatical terrors which could never pass till both Houses were sufficiently thinned and over-awed For though the Commons as abovesaid had a great while agoe voted the Bishops to have no Votes in the Lords House yet the Peers would never consent to it till they were not only threatned by Petitions but unheard-of Tumults And when the Lords by these unlawful and extravagant courses had been forced to agree with the Commons against the Bishops good God! How did the Sectaries triumph What bonefires What bells ringing What yelling and roaring in the streets That the noise made by the neighbours when Don Russel took Madam Chaunteclere away towards the Wood was but a silence in respect of this Thundering Triumph So strongly did malice carried on by industry work amongst the giddy multitude as if Presbytery had given philters about the Nation or the people madded themselves with too much Hemlocks and acknowledged no curing Hellebore but the extirpation of Bishops and the violation of Laws Yet if it had been only the sottish multitude who had thrown durt in the face of Episcopacy their ignorance had been some pardon for their malice But when men that pretend to great learning do join with the rabble in their revilings I may have some cause to think that their unbounded malice led them to act either contrary to their principles or learning Yet might these also be born withall there being repentance with the Proverb on this side Heaven But when people after twenty years meditation of our former miseries are nothing moved but as stubborn as ever Pharoahs obstinacy must be confest to yield to theirs This resolvednesse or it may be the scorn to be baffled like Mr. Knewstub's friends in Suffolk possessing some people makes me the less wonder at those who yet defie Episcopacy So that I am nothing astonished when I see Prynns Titus unbish reprinted with a worshipful preface knowing the hot-headed zeal of the Author Nor am I troubled when I see Mr. Baxter one that would be thought sober not long since flirting against Episcopacy telling them That the best of the Clergie and the best of the people would disown them so that the most ignorant drunken prophane unruly with some civill persons would be at first their Church or Diocesse For the cause of the peoples love to Episcopacy is because it was a shadow if not a shelter to the prophane Passing over his comparison of a Prelatical Church to an Ale-House or Tavern to say no worse where some honest men may be These things I say from Baxter are no offence to me for had he said much more he had not said more then might be expected from one of his Principles not fitting to be allowed in a settled Kingdome For he confesseth himself though with some repentance for just then his hopes were dasht by the deposing of his friend Richard that he was one of them that blew the coals of our unhappy distractions Nor need we doubt it seeing he not only acknowledgeth the Parliament to be the highest Power whereby he was so farre obliged to join with them against the Kings party that if he had been for the King he had incurr'd the danger of the Condemnation threatned by God against resisters of the higher powor And if his opinion had only then been so his fault might have received a mitigation as well as others who have seriously repented of their former actions But he is yet so farre against the King as to professe publickly if it were to do again he would do it For if I should do otherwise I should be guilty of Treason or disloyalty against the Soveraign power of the Land and of perfidiousnesse to the Common-wealth And again I had been a Traitor and guilty of resisting the highest powers I give you his own very words And his opinion of the Kings Army is farre from that charity which his proselytes would needs cloathe him with calling them Impious and Popish Armies and whether this following rule of his alludes to them or no let others judge That all those that by wickednesse have forfeited their Liberties may neither choose nor be chosen to sit in Parliaments Independants and Anabaptists he can not mean because he joins them with Godly men nor would he the Presbyterians being of his own party and what the words have forfeited their Liberties signifie is not unknown But no more of this grating discourse Let who will rail against the Reverend Bishops yet Mr. Edwards a stiff Presbyterian and one as his acquaintance assures us that was often transported beyond due bounds with the keennesse and eagernesse of his Spirit doth highly commend both them and their Chaplains as zealous and couragious against errors and false doctrines Having thus infused into the Rabble a spirit of opposition both to Church and Court The next thing was to try how forward they would be in action For which purpose nothing could be thought more convenient for their designs then the agitation of Tumults and such like unlawful uproars Which are commonly one of the first steps to the ruine of a Nation and therefore held most wicked and odious by all Countries and Ages So that for such seditious persons the Laws have every where provided severe punishments The ancient Romans did not only use to punish the Ringleaders with death but sometimes also every tenth man of the too oft abused multitude Nor hath the English been lesse severe against the tumultuating disturbers of the peace not only hanging the Chief-tains but cutting off the feet or hands of the inferior rabble nor hath this been looked upon as satisfactory but all the Magistrates of London have been deposed and others put in Nay so odious have these people been to society that the Roman Orator looks upon the murthering of a seditious person to be if wicked yet glorious and truly noble And I shall so far agree with the same Orator that though it be no
Middlesex who by Order had commanded those men to keep watch but sent one of them viz. Justice Long to the Tower This favour of the Commons so animated the people that they thought sedition was then lawful and those tumults a glory to the City because they shewed its strength And therefore many thousands of them run crowding to Westminster crying out No Bishops no Bishops and having thus ranted it in the morning they come again in the afternoon armed with swords and staves and other weapons and then they domineer to the purpose running up and down Westminster inquiring for the Bishops protesting they would pull them in pieces whereupon they were desired by the Marquess of Hertford to stay in the house all night the people vowing to watch their going out and to search every Coach with Torches it being then dark that they might not escape And when the Lords sent down to the Commons that an order might be taken with the tumult and care of the Bishops lives they would do nothing in the business laughing in their sleeves that they had thus brought that great City to worship them and Villainy Yet were the Bishops some way or other cunningly stoln out of the house to the great grief of the blood thirsty Rebels that they had thus lost their sacralegiously intended sacrifice Yet what they mist then they hoped to obtain the next day and therefore away they hurry again to Westminster having Sir Richard Wisman for their Captain And being thus spurr'd on they assault the Abby where the Archbishop of York was then but the doors being strongly lock'd and barr'd and good opposition made they gain'd nothing to boast of and Sir Richard's head was so broke with a tyle thrown from the Leads that he dyed of it nor did John Lilbourn one well known depart without the loss of some rebellious bloud being with some others pelted with stones to the purpose This repulse did something discourage them yet the next day they were coming again but at White-Hall were stopt by the Train-Band and forced to return back some of them being well cudgell'd which action was highly resented by the Parliament who therefore ordered that those who stopt the Londoners coming to Parliament should be found out and examined before a Committee which Order was a good New-years-gift to the seditious Schismaticks Such is the malice of Presbytery against Bishops as if they were all inspired with the same spirit of venome and hatred that he had who long ago cryed out Short red God red shea we the Byshop And accordingly was the Bishop with a hundred men murthered And not inferiour to the former was he in London when the Tumult was railing against the Reverend and Learned Bishop Morton some crying Pull him out of his Coach others acting so violently that the Bishop believed he should never have escaped alive if a leading man amongst the rabble had not cryed out Let him go and hang himself words wicked enough and vomitted with as much malice though by Providence they saved the good Bishop's life The chief men tamper'd withal by some of the factious Members to stirr up these Tumults were Alderman Pennington and Venne two King-Tryers and Manwaring nominated one of the Kings Judges and other such like Instruments they could not want Venne pleading to the people That the worser Party was like to have the better of the good Party and used to imploy his Wife as a Mercury to run about and stir up the people And it is an old Note that Sectaries used in the first place to tamper with such soft-hearted Creatures The truth on 't is the audaciousness of these men was intolerable being like one of their Predecessors Constantinus who is branded for a lover of Tumults and then confidently to glory in such villanies Yet had his Majesty but stript himself of so much mercy as to have eas'd the Nation of the Ring-leaders of these disorders by some meritorious exemplary punishment it may be the rest of the rabble would have learn'd better manners by the Precedent of such an execution But the Kings tenderness made them more audacious so that they never left murmuring and tumultuating till they had terrified the King from White-Hall where he could neither stay with safety nor honour having his power so much scorned that when he went into London the Rabble rung nothing in his ears but Priviledges of Parliament Priviledges of Parliament Alderman Fowke one that went under the notion of one of the Kings Judges as long as the Times were accordingly but they no sooner change but then he denyes and publickly clears himself this man made a worshipful Speech to the King taking upon him to vindicate the accused Members and to give his Majesty advice concerning Fears and Jealousies Nor was this all but that City also protects the accused Members and brings them again to the Parliament-House in the greatest triumph that their wit could imagine with Guns Trumpets flying colours and such like bravado's which was not only an absolute defying but contempt of his Majesty So that Hugh Peters that scandal to the Pulpit spake no false Doctrine when he affirm'd in Alhallows Church in Lumbardstreet That If ever this Kingdom was brought into slavery this City would be the cause of it These Tumults though confest by the Common-Council of London to be the great trouble and affrightment of his Majesties good Subjects and experience also proved it yet must they not be supprest though the Lords earnestly perswaded the Commons to it because as they affirm'd They must not discourage their Friends this being a time they must make use of their Friends Mr. Pym saying God forbid that the House of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten people to obtain their just desires in such a way The favourablest construction of which words must be by Petition and yet this way was not then acted without Tumults it being then grown to a custom as their own Historian confesseth for a Petition to be backt by great multitudes to Westminster or White-Hall As that was from Kent which was brought to Westminster by about 5000. all a Horse-back and all this noyse was to thank the Lords for their acting so bravely against Bishops And with such like Presbyterian trash were most of their Papers stuft and in so plentiful a manner that if Visions had been then in frequent use that as the Priests formerly saw St. Peters Church in Rome full of Serpents so might England but London especially have been view'd cramb'd full of Devils But where the Albertus Magnus would be I know not And yet the simple people are easily drawn to fancy that Tumults are the only way to make a Nation happy though the ingenuous Tasso will assure them in the contrary Quando sia poi di sì gran moti il fine Non fabriche di Regni
to the contrary who as story saith is true to his promise with those Miscreants who contract with him so that his Majesty might now be dumb with astonishment when six years before he cryed out with grief And are all the specious promises and loud professions of making us a great and glorious King Of setling a greater Revenue upon us then any of our Ancestors have enjoyed of making us to be honour'd at home and fear'd abroad resolved into this Yet doth the King yet live as a Saint as well as a Martyr in the memory of good men and as long as Learning or Piety are permitted to adorn the world his divine meditations will be had by every one in greater esteem then Alexander had of Homer Antonius Caracalla of Oppians Verses or the Lord Burleigh of Tully's Offices Such is the excellency of the style the strength of its reason the noblenesse of its Subject that malice it self cannot deny but that the Royall Composer hath excell'd all other humane pen-men Nor was the fame of his quil only made known to this Island but forraigners allow him the priority of all others in this virtue But I shall conclude this sad Tragedie and Murther with the Stanza's of a good Historian and Poet. What dissolute proceedings have we here What strange presumptuous disobedience What unheard fury void of awe or fear With monstrous unexampled insolence Durst Subjects ever here or any where Thus impiously presume so fowle offence To violate the power commanding all And into judgment Majesty to call Fame hide it close and do not carry word To after-coming ages of our shame Blot out of Books and rase out of Record All Monuments memorials of the same Forget to tell how we did lift our sword And envious idle accusations frame Against our lawful Soveraign when we ought His end and our release have stay'd not sought CHAP. III The Inconstancy villany and monstrous Tyranny of the wicked Army till the Restauration of his Majesty THus did the Rump tryumph when separated from the secluded Members The which outing was as great a Providence as any that hath hapned to the distracted Kingdoms these many years the miraculous restauration of his Majesty excepted For if they had admitted the King to his Title again yet had it been so qualified that his Authority and honour had lain in the dust his friends and our ancient Church utterly distroyed and discredited and an abused Nation trampled upon by a tyrannizing and schismatical Presbytery The Rump being thus a Cock-horse acted on with more wickedness then the 30 Athenian Tyrants there being no good Theramenes at Westminster as there was at Athens honestly to oppose our unheard of Villanies who presently Vote the House of Lords uselesse and dangerous and the Kingly-Office unnecessary and burthensome And for the better carrying on of their designes order a Committee of Estates consisting of several Lords and Commons who were to sit in White-Hall and rule the Militia and Navy and look after the Trade and safety and peace of the Nation and this to continue a year and no longer And makes it treason for any to proclaim the King vote themselves a Free State and a Common-wealth and order an Engagement to be taken all England over to be true and faithful to them And having thus secured themselves they ruled the roast till 1653. In which year they were pul'd out by the eares by their Generall and darling Cromwel and his hireling Red-coats who affirm'd Wisedome and direction being sought from the Lord it seem'd to be a duty incumbent upon us who had seen so much of the power and presence of God going along with us And that we were bound by necessity and providence to act as we have done even beyond and above our own thoughts and desires The Rump being thus squeezed out Oliver began to be all in all and so for some daies the Nation remain'd without any Government but what reflected from the beams of his Orient Nose in which time the Fleet and the Army in Scotland with others congratulate his valour against the Beasts at Westminster and resolve to stick to him as was formerly concluded upon amongst themselves Yet at last after some consultation a Councill of State was order'd to sit till another Representative be call'd he and his Officers acting at pleasure At last as the King doth with the Peers so did he with his confiding Commons sending out his Letters to every man who should sit whereby none were permitted but such as he pleas'd The men that were summon'd by his particular writs above a hundred in number accordingly met at White-Hall where their Patron Cromwell made a canting Speech to them and then gave them an Instrument under his own fist and seal whereby he constituted them the Supreme authority of the Nation taking himself to be Don Quixot's Knighterrant to whom all things were common This conventicle puts me in mind of that Parliament kept at Coventry in Henry the sixths time which was afterwards declared a devilish Councill and only celebrated for the distruction of the Nobility and no lawful Parliament Because they which were return'd were never elected according to the due order of the Law but secretly named by them which desired rather the destruction then the advancement of the Common-wealth The majority of these men were according to Olivers own heart being of his own fraternity by whose compliablenesse he knew was the only way to make himself more great To bring which to pass upon some instinct or other they and he together dissolve themselves A great part of them with their gray headed Speaker going to Oliver and deliver'd him the power that they pretended to have receav'd from him whose wicked working-noddle was not unlike Ismens in Tasso who I suoi Demon negli empi uffici impiega Pur come servi egli discioglie elega Could Devills imploy to act what he design'd And them as if his slaves could loose and bind Now were we again left without any shew of Government but what lay in the sword and breasts of Cromwell and his dissembling adherents who after three days seeking God as they said and their devilish Hypocrisie verified the old saying In nomine Domini incipit omne malum It was resolved upon that Cromwell should be chosen Lord Protector of the three Nations And was accordingly sworn and after proclaimed Thus Oliver Cromwel from a low estate yet a Gentleman rais'd himself to the Supremacy in England not unlike the Macedonian Nabin thus related by the Poetical Monck of Saint Edmunds-Bury Having no title save title of robbrye Only by force himself to magnefye Which with stronge honde toke full possession For to be crowny'd in thilke region To obtain this Height his naturall dissimulation was none of his least assistants who with his eyes lift up to heaven and his hands clapt upon his breast
against peace 'T is the sword not disputes nor Treaties that must end this Controversie Wherefore turn your plow-shares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears to fight the Lords battels to avenge the blood of Saints which hath been spilt It must be avenged either by us or upon us I have sometimes feard alwaies praid that too much mercy and pitty in our State Physitians i. e. the Parliament might not retard the healing of this land Men who have deserted their trust falsified their Covenants how soon are they received into favour enjoy their Estates as if they were never enemies Oh! how are Neutralists and Malignants spared I have often thought that too much mercy towards Malignants hath made more Delinquents than ever justice hath punish'd mercy should not weigh down justice in God they are both equall why should it not be so in man Pitty to the bad hath proved cruelty to the good the sparing of Offenders hath made many worse few or none better To them that have shewd no mercy let judgment be shewd without mercy Guilt hath been contracted much innocent blood hath been spilt which must either be aveng'd on us or by us Oh there are many Malignant humours to be purged out of many of the Nobles and Gentry in this Kingdome before we can be healed The Lord heals a Land by cutting off these distemper'd members that endangers the health of the Land 'T was the Lord troubled Achan and cut him off because he troubled Israel O that in this our State-physitians i. e. the Parliament would resemble God to cut off those from the Land who have distemper'd it Melius est ut pereat unus quám unitas Men who lye under the guilt of much innocent blood are not meet persons to be at peace with till all the guilt of blood be expiated and avenged either by the sword of the Law or Law of the sword else a peace can never be safe nor just And then at the last tells you that the Parliaments cause and men are so good but the Malignants so abominably wicked that Heaven and Hell may almost as soon meet as these two make a peace I might also tell you how he hints upon the perfidiousnesse of Princes upon the deaths of King James and Prince Henry upon the losse of Rochell and the Irish Rebellion but I shall leave such false dirty slanders to be swallowed down by those Puritans who first spewed them forth yet did Ja Cranford think this houre of Rebellion very worth printing the better to perswade the people to embrace such wickednesse Which calls to my memory one expression then utter'd by Love That it was a very hurtful opinion that people must not defend themselves by force of Arms against their King What wickednesse this rebellious barrangue boaded I shall not say only desire you to observe that his Sacred Majesty was murther'd the same day four years that this blood-thirsty doctrine was vomited out by Love and the same day that Love dyed on was also honourd with the death of that bloody Tyrant Richard III. What do you think of another of these Champions viz. Mr. Samuel Rutherford No lesse man then Professor of Divinity at St. Andrews who thus yell'd out his malice against the Kings friends Bloody men who defend a cursed cause O enemies of the Gospel O Malignants and haters of the Lord and his Saints Malignants are but drawing blood of Christs heele in these bloody Warres He God suffereth Malignants to ride over his people that he may perfume the work of Hell in the enemies who are as it were skullions to purge the vessels of mercy and to humble them Malignants plow the Church and sow blood in the three Kingdomes The wicked of these Kingdomes malignants bloody-Irish rotten-hearted men such back-sliders and perjured Apostates as are in Scotland delivered to Satan and Excommunicated And after this speaking concerning the reasons of Gods judgments upon the Nation he thus delivers himself Others say Rebellion against the King is the cause but rather the not timous rising to help the Lord and his oppressed people against the mighty is the cause The defection of both Kingdomes to Altar-worship Imagery Idolatry Popish and Arminian doctrine c. And a little after this throws more dirt upon the King and his party than half his enemies had done before Yet was all this very pleasing to the Lords house then at Westminster who like true English Barons who should neither suffer their King nor their Peers to be abused the next day having consulted with their Pillows like themselves Order thanks to be given to Rutherfurd with desires also that he print his gudly geere I could also tell you how Samuel Anneley L. L. D. and Preacher at Cliffe in Kent very manfully perswaded the Parliament to do justice upon the King and not to treat with him any more yet highly extols and affirms the obligation of the Covenant so that some can cut off the Kings head by authority of the Covenant for which pretty salvo it may be the Commons ordered Mr. Boys to give the Dr. thanks where also they desire him to print this Queer come off I would also tell you of Mr. Matthew Barker formerly of James Garlick hithe London whence Mr. Freeman was wrongfully sequestred and plundred and his Curate Mr. Anthony turn'd out then of Mortlake in Surrey who earnestly in the pulpit perswaded the Parliament to continue in the wicked ways they had begun And that they do by all means execute justice And not to have any more Treaties and this man must have their thanks too from the mouth of Collonel Harvy I would also tell you how Mr. Tho. Brooks of Thomas Apostles whence Mr. Cooper was sequestred plundred and sent Prisoner to Leeds Castle in Kent furiously stirr'd up the Rumpers to do justice but because this was after the seclusion I shall neither speak of him or his being thankd by Sir John Bourchier The plain truth is should I give you a Bead-role of all the Treasonable rebellious and seditious expressions only utter'd from the Pulpit before the Parliament it self from the beginning of these warres till the Kings murther as I could soon do did I think it worth the while a Stranger might well suppose our English Pulpits not to be unlike that dreadful passage in Sir John Mandevile where so many Devills cunningly acted their parts to intise passengers to their perpetual ruine and well might he judge every Presbyterian black coat a Cataline whose only businesse is to promote Rebellion and Bloodshed yet was none of them ever checkt by but had the hearty thanks from the Parliament for so doing which shall stand as a perpetual in famy to the Presbyterians in the house whether secluded or a Rumper For had they any respect to his Majesty they would never have suffered him
and Chapters Prebendaries c. So that in four dayes time the hasty Commons over-throw as much as in them lay the Reverend Church of England which had continued many hundreds of years a flourishing glory to the Nation The Commons for their parts having thus pull'd down the pale of our Church fastned and strengthened by so many Authentick and Fundamental Laws as old again as the House of Commons will not leave Religion without some Government No good souls they were more kind-hearted And therefore in the first place they Vote that all the Lands and Means belonging to Deans and Chapters Chancellors or Commissaries Archdeacons Deans Prebendaries Chapter Canon c. shall be taken away and disposed of to the advancement of Learning and Piety That is if their after-actions may be taken for Expositors to maintain Rebellion Heresie Sacriledge and ruine Universities for these mens promises like Hebrew must still be read backwards and after this rule did they send a request to the King by Secretary Vain That he would give them leave to look into his Revenues and Expences and they would make him the richest King in Christendom But the Parliament will not spend their time only in selling Lands but something must be considered of a Church-Government too and therefore they Vote that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction fit to be exercised in England shall be committed to such a number of persons and in such a manner as their Worships shall think fit Nor were they long without making the Nation happy with the discovery of their Intellectuals which was That six of the Clergy and six of the Laity should be appointed in every County for the setling of Church-Government But this was a little shaken by an after conclusion viz. That nine of the Laity and three of the Clergy in every Diocess should have power to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as shall be ordered by Parliament and to have their Monethly meetings for that purpose And the next day to make this hotch-potch Model more compleat they Vote That there shall be several select Committees of the Clergy appointed for the Ordination of Clergy-men into the Ministry But yet this Presbyterian Brat would not come to perfection And therefore to give more encouragement to the Covenanting-admirers they conclude That all Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Jurisdiction shall be exercised in this Kingdom by the Commissioners as there was by Bishops And the same day read the Bill for the using of Lectures taking away Cross in Baptism Surplis bowing at the Name of Jesus standing up at the Gospel Gloria Patri Pictures in Churches c. and conclude the day with the appointing of a Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel And the next day they give further power to their nine Commissioners to wit That after the first of August any five of them shall be a Quorum and have full power to try all Ecclesiastical Causes and to appoint Deputies under them in several places And after this they further agreed That if any of the nine Commissioners should dye that five or more of them are to choose another presently and so if any of them resign and that if any came to take Orders that these Commissioners shall appoint five Clergy men to grant Ordinations And for the more speedy putting of this medly in practise the Knights and Burgesses of every Shire are commanded to bring in the Names of the nine Commissioners for their several Counties to be appointed and that no Clergy-man be of the Commission Thus farr had the Commons thrown I cannot say built up this their confused Babylon when on a sodain an unexpected Remora was joyned to their further proceedings by some fallings out betwixt the Lords and them about the Protestation For the Commons having ordered that it should be taken all over the Kingdom were in this opposed by the Peers who threw it out of their House which so incensed the Commons that they presently Vote That what person soever shall not take the Protestation is unfit to bear Office in Church or Common-wealth And thinking that the Bishops were the reason of the Lords dissent appoint a Committee for impeaching them about the late Canons who accordingly Voted thirteen Bishops to be Delinquents whom the Lords also suspended their house till a further hearing And so violently were these good men persecuted by the Presbyters that they never left plotting till they had got them Voted Traytors and sent to the Tower Nor could they have any outward content any where considering the reproaches threats and curses daily thrown against them by the wicked the danger of their lives by Tumults and their Lands Voted from them long before by their and Religions Enemies the Non-conforming Commons though they agreed to allow them a liberal allowance during life and how unhandsomly the Parliament in this neglected this promise the Reverend Bishop Hall will satisfie you The Commons now having as they thought bridled the Bishops and their Party are resolved to root out the Common-Prayer Book too to which purpose some of them desire that it might be altered and some thing added to it the which after some speeches being put to the Vote it appear'd that there were then but 55. Disciplinarians in the House no more voting for Alterations so that the Book came off with credit the Orthodox Party knowing well enough that if that House once fell to alter it it rather belonging to able and lawful Divines they would equal the Tinker who made two holes for mending one The Anti-Episcopalians being thus baffled fall to it again getting it to be moved again in the House the next week where they came off with the like success And the next day being a Thanks-giving day for the Peace between the two Nations to shew their malice to Church-Government and countenance the Schismaticks the Commons would not go to St. Margarets Westminster as was by them appointed because the Bishop of Lincoln had caus'd a set Form of Prayer for that occasion to be printed and used in the Church the news of which so started their Worships that they turn'd tail and went to the preachment at Lincolns Inne But if the Commons were troubled at this they were after out of their wits and all stark-madd against the Lords Because they had put forth an Order and sent it all over the Nation strictly injoyning the reading of the Common-Prayer against which and many other Church-affairs the Commons the same day put forth a Declaration ordering it to be printed and sent over the Kingdom and with them they also got the nine dissenting Lords to protest against the Order made by the House of Peers This cross-graind action of the Commons so incensed the Lords that they left off sitting for a while causing the Hangings of their House to be taken down Nor did this any way vex the Commons