passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many ages Yet for all these good turns done them by the King do they Print though the King earnestly desired the contrary and sedulously spread abroad this Remonstrance thereby to make him odious and themselves as Patrons to the people a fair requital for such large benefits and sufficiently to shew their ingratitude and What more wicked then that amongst our vertuous Ancestours The Heathen Heraclians were more noble to their Athenian Enemies and the savage Lions for their thankfulness to Mentor Helpius and Androdus will be a reproach upon record to these Puritanical Members And Alexander was more ingenuous to his Horse than these to their King Yet never was there any who desired Peace and the Subjects good more than He for the obtaining of which he consented to them in such things that he parted with many Jewels from his Crown as Queen Elizabeth used to call such Priviledges granting them Triennial Parliaments abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Writs for Ship-Money Bishops-Votes in Parliament Temporal power of the Clergy slip'd away Tunnage Poundage and gave the Parliament leave to sit as long as they pleas'd and that they might see he privately acted nothing against them he admitted into his privy-Privy-Council several Lords which were great Favourites and Correspondents with the Parliamentary Party and in many other things besides these hath this King valed his Crown as a Learned Doctor phraseth it Yet could not all this please some men being like the Sea insatiable Though a moderate Member of the Parliament asked what they could desire more of the King seeing he had granted them so much he was answered by Mr. Hambden as a late Historian tells us To part with his Power and trust it to us And that some of them had higher thoughts than the Loyalty of a Subject or the trust of Parliament could dispense withal I could easily be perswaded to and those especially who by their former actions in Parliaments had drawn some displeasure upon themselves and knew well enough that the more Prerogative and Power the King lost the more they gain'd which at last would more then preserve them But this Faction as the King tells us was only of a few ambitious discontented and seditious persons who under strange pretences had entered into a Combination to alter the Government both of Church and State And so that this might be done they did not care after what manner nor who perisht so their own heads were but held up that me-thinks I hear them threat and encourage like Tasso's Tyrant Aladin Purche'l Reo non si salvi il guisto pera El'innocente Sù sù fideli mei sù via prendete Le flamme e'l ferro ardete uccidete So I Obtain my wish let just with wicked dye Come come rouse up my faithful friends and shew How bravely you can burn and murther too And what courses they steered to arrive at their hoped for Authority may in part be seen in these following Observations One of their first steps was to make the Court and Church odious amongst the Vulgar under the Title of Popish and Arminians a wickedness quite contrary to the Laws of our Land which make special provision against the publishers of such rumours whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may arise between the King and his People or the Nobility or Bishops yet neither Law nor Gospel can have any any sway with these men who had used this knack of reviling in several former Parliaments and may be seen in the multitude of their long-winded Speeches and printed too forsooth the better to spread the Infection about the Nation yet you may take all the Reason amongst them and never grow madd with too much Learning though the multitude of words are enough to choak the largest Leviathan nor could much be expected many of the Members being so ignorant that I dare boldly say that they did not know what the five Controverted Points signified and I believe would have taken and voted too Jacob van Harmine and the Remonstrants for Calvinists though have damn'd Arminius for a wicked Heathen Thus the Priests in Spain told the people to make them hate the Reformed Religion that Protestants were not like other men had heads like Dogs and such like Beasts They also restored into favour all those who had opposed the Peace of the Nation as Prynne Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburn and such like who were stiff men to raise their Interests as farr as Pen Ink or Brawling could do and that their Interest might be the more strengthened in the Countrey they put into Offices and Imployments of trust all those whom they either found or were by them made discontented against the Court and Religion by which trick they twisted their Obligations so close together that they made good use of this afterwards And to make their Cause more favourable to the People and to blast the Reputation of their Enemies they promoted abundance of bawling Lecturers most of them of no great Learning or Conscience but as furious as Orlando and with throats O heavenly wide who could scold excellently against Bishops and Government and vomit out a Lesson with as much ease as a Matron of Billingsgate both being compos'd of the same materials and to the same purpose viz. strife and for their dexterity and quickness they out-did a Mountebank being alwayes as ready for the Pulpit as a Knight-Errant for combate never out of his way let the Text be what it will like the Sompners Fryer in Chaucer but nothing related to the honest Parson in the same Poet that it is beyond admiration how they can conjure such an Olla Podrida of Sermon-Notes from such good Texts and that of so little coherence that their extraction seems as miraculous as the generation of the Cadmian armed Souldiers from Serpents teeth To raise up Rebellion and Sedition there cannot be a better Trumpet in the World then the mouths of such Hirelings as hath been proved by long experience Wat Tyler and Straw's Rebellion could not want incouraging Sermons as long as John Ball lasted who cheer'd up that Levelling Army at Black-heath with a long Preachment beginning with this Proverb When Adam dolve and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman And 't is observed by Mr. Howell that the Preaching Fryers and Monks were the chief Incendiaries of the Catalonians to their late Revolt And we have it from Authentcik Authority how that Hernando de Avalos and Juan de Padilla in the Spanish Civil Wars against the Emperour Charles V. in the first place imploy'd some Fryers to rail against the Government in their Pulpit and so to incite the people to Warr which according to expectation took fire in Toledo these men being the first thunderers of Seditions into the Castillians and to this purpose the famous Spanish
commenced thinking by the terror of these Forces to reduce those in Scotland having had formeely good luck there to his Obedience But in this he ruined himself for London more then could be expected from that Monster of Wood and Stone considering their former proneness to and complyance with intolerable mischief and when many of them will really be honest and dutiful to the Laws considering the multitude of their Schismatical Presbyterian-Pulpitiers I know not this City I say opposing the Committee of Safety in the City and the Rumpers playing their Cards well at Portsmouth and other places and General Monk politickly droling Lambert to delays Fleetwood and the rest of his seeming sanctified Associates fell to durt By which means the indefatigable Rump was restored again and with a seeming joy received by the Time-serving Army their former stiff Enemies now protesting themselves their especial friends Nor need this Hypocrisie appear any strange matter from such like Hirelings as they were who are Masters of their own tongues and humours and can commend and vilifie according as their own Interest leads of which their actions towards this very Rump will testifie sufficiently For when they dissolved them 1653. 20. April they then call'd them a corrupt Party having an aversion to things conducible to the good of the Common-wealth and opposition to the people of God And that through the corruption of some and jealousie of others the non-attendance and negligence of many would never answer those ends which God his People and the whole Nation expected from them This is an Indictment black enough to make any man odious to all the World yet few years after the Scene was altered and those aspersions quite forgot For when their Interest ingaged them to restore the Rump again Good God! how they Stroak them on the head Call them good Boys and buy them Ginger-bread Then they look upon them as people faln from Heaven and think nothing can be too good for such white Boys professing That the want of them is one cause of the Lords with-drawing his wonted presence for they were eminent Asserters of the Good Cause and had a special presence of God with them and were signally blest in that work And with this same Legerdemain was the poor Rump gull'd the third time For but some six dayes before they were again cast out by these Souldiers the very Army call themselves several times the Parliaments Army and humble and faithful Servants protesting through the help of God that they would be found notwithstanding all endeavours to the contrary faithful to them But Experience proved that this their Protestation lasted no longer then that the Rump acknowledged them or rather five or six Chieftains in Authority so that I may say of the Army as was formerly sung of the Pope by one of our own Poets Nulla non concessa potestas Illius Imperium fasque nefasque facit Dat rapit exarmat ditat depauperat ornat Foedera rescindit bella cruenta ciet Cuncta tamen licitè quoniam generale Imperium nil nisi jure facit These have all power and by their Swords can cause Things to be good or bad though ' gainst all Laws Can make us poor or rich can give or take Raise cruel Wars and all Agreements break Yet all these things are legal cause their might So frames their Rule that what they do is right By which means we seem'd to be return'd to the first Chaos of Government where people were ruled by no Laws but the will and lust of their Chieftains as Justin informs us And probably that people under no Laws live more happy than those whose Laws and Government are so apt to change that they know not what to trust to next day The Rump being thus restored thought nothing but that all would fall down and worship them But in this they quickly found that they reckon'd without their Hoast For General Monke perceiving the inconsistency of these self-ended erroneous popular Governments with the good of the Nations resolved to crush the proceedings of any more such like wickedness For which purpose with his small Army he moved towards London by any easie and tedious motion by which means he sounded the hearts of all the Nation by their Address to him where he found all the clamour for a Free-Parliament and through it the Restauration of their desired King And to bring this about after some complements with the Rump who now fear'd him for a blind and fashion sake he restored the long-banish'd Secluded Members A piece of a Parliament being now drawn together by the addition of the Secluded Members to the Rump the good Nobility and Gentry of the Nation began to be valiant once more and to utter some thoughts of Kingship Knowing that the animosity of the two parties in the House against each other would be the Rump's destruction and the occasion of a New-representative for which they nominated a Council of State consisting of thirty Members and the next Moneth Dissolved themselves from being a Parliament leaving the Government of the Nation to the aforesaid Council till the New-representative met The new-New-Parliament being met according to their Writs received his Majesties Gratious Letters to them by Sir John Greenvill and unanimously acknowledge him for their King and Soveraign with desires of his return to receive his Crown And having prepar'd all things for his reception he accordingly return'd to England where long may he raign to the unspeakable joy and benefit of the good and Loyal people and the confusion of Rebellion and Schism Thus in the space of eleven years have we run the Gant-lope through the series of seventeen Governments of which take this following scheme 1. King Charles the first 2. Rump 3. Oliver and his Officers 20. April 1653. 4. Council of State 30. April 5. Barebones Parliament 4. July 6. Oliver and his Officers 12. Decemb. 7. O. Cromwell Protectour 16. Decemb. 8. Richard Protectour 3. Septem 1658. 9. Rump the second time 6. May 1659. 10. Wallingford-house Junto with Lambert and Fleetwood 13. Octob. 11. Council of ten men 19. Octob. 12. Committee of Safety 26. Octob. 13. Rump the third time 26. Decemb. 14. Secluded Members and Rump 21. Feb. 1659 60. 15. Council of State 16. March 16. Parliament 25. Apr. 1660. 17. King Charles the second And what miseries the Nation underwent in these chopping and changing of Models is not yet forgot This thing was to day High-treason which to morrow was good law and the seduced people swore to maintain that the contrary to which the next week they were constrain'd to defend So that old Chaucer's complaint may well be here revived O sterne people unsad and untrewe Aye undiscrete and chaungying as a fane Delyting ever in rumur that is new For like the Moon ever waxe ye and wane Ever full of clappying dere enough a iane Your dome is false your
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
call God to witness that though our quarrel be against the Malignant party for his Majesties sake yet not in that sense as is here affirmed but out of our Loyalty and affection to his Majesty Shall not the frequent protestations of both Houses of Parliament for his Majesties security to the utmost power that the Law can give to them or they unto the Law be sufficient to take away the pretence of danger to his Majesties Person To think they i. e. the Militia or Army would have followed us in any Act of dis-loyalty against his Majesty if we should have been so wicked as to have had them to do it Thus you see what glorious protestatious are here for the preservation of the King which I dare boldly say did ingage many honest men to joyn with the Parliament really dreaming that those men who have thus so solemnly vow'd before the Almighty to preserve the King and Laws must be men of publick honest spirits and not to be drawn though by chains of gold the wealth of Peru or East-Indies to the magnifying of their own Interest and the relinquishing of that publick Good to which they have tyed themselves by so many oaths And after the same manner did the City of London declare themselves by Petition Yet let their Promises Vows or Protestations be never so many a French Poet sings not amiss S'il promen s'il rit de sa promesse faile C'est qu'il en jure en Amant ou qu'il parle en Poëte He that doth swear and ne're means to do it Swears like a Lover or sings like a Poet. And really if experience may be a rule 't is more then probable that many of the Members had learn'd the Jesuit's rule by them call'd The Direction of the Intention whereby you may do any wickness if you propose to your self a good intent And after this manner hath our former Rebels blanch'd over their designs Wat Tyler and his Companions pretended onely to act against King Richards the seconds evil Counsel but if they had once got to have been Masters their intentions were to have kill'd the King and Nobility Jack Cade and his rabble under the colour of holy and good intents rais'd a Rebellion against King Henry the sixth and what iniquities such rubbish of humanity would have acted if they had been Masters is not known The Cornish rusticks under the notion to deliver King Henry the seventh from evil Council rais'd a Rebellion And the subtile Fox in Chaucer profest he onely came to hear the Cock sing but when by that craft he had once got hold of him the case and story was alter'd And after this deceitful manner acted the Parliament if you will give any credit to one of the King 's greatest enemies who thus informs us So powerful perswasive and contentful were their first Engagements Papers and Remonstances so fraught with self-denying doctrines tender regard to the peace of the Nation and satisfaction to all Interests as even lull'd all peaceable people into a sound sleep of security casting all the care upon the General Council of the Army as upon a people they thought could never have the face to decline either these principles or to neglect the performance of so many Engagements Promises and Protestations made as in the presence of the All-seeing God frequently calling upon him the searcher of all hearts to bear witness to their integrity and sincerity therein Insomuch that we who always with some wissness observed them many times denied our own understandings rather then we would draw hasty conclusions from evident testimonies of their defection And this principle of believing but especially their publick multiplyed affections for the preservation of the King were the motions which led Major General Massey to joyn himself to the Parliament as himself declareth and that they led many others is more then probable We see by experience that Religion is rooted into some men not so much by good and true reason as by birth and education the which if after they change is as oft for the worse as the contrary 'T is custome and fashion that over-powers or rather overthrows the rationality of all men The Indian women of Tiembas have always torn and bloody faces by which lacerating they judge themselves most beautiful The Goths gloried in a tall corpulent King on the contrary the Saracens liked none unless he were little and lean Custome hath made it as natural to a Brittish Presbyterian as it is to all Schismaticks to babble up sedition as to the Spaniard to court gravity whilst their neighbouring French affect an active airyness The Teneriff or Pico shall sooner shrink to Mole-hills the name of the Escurial be forgot and the great Tun at Heidleburgh fill'd with Renish-wine but a mornings draught to a Pigmie then a Non-conformist cease from being disobedient or our Disciplinarians as if they had been stuft with a Biscayners ignorance and spirit from hating and persecuing our lawful government of Bishops and how sedulous and crafty they have been to inveagle themselves into other mens affections is not unknown Many who take exception at Government can produce no other reason for their dissent but because others do so too so that to sin with company is thought by them rather a glory then shame If a great man take distast at Majesty he is confident to have most of his Relations and Servants of his opinion being apt to run as blindly into their Master's quarrel as their own ruin Nor is it a difficult thing among such variety of humours to entise some into the greatest wickedness some mens malice so far overclouding their reason that like Le Faucheur and Chauvinus they destroy those spectacles which should give them a sight and knowledge of truth and reality of the business by the malignity and wicked humours of their eyes and spirits Other men though their Grandeur of estate or affection with the people may after espouse them to be ring-leaders of the rabble yet at first were rather entised themselves then they the instruments of others wickedness Juam de Padilla's fault was that he was young good natur'd and so easily wrought upon by his haughty wife Donna Maria Pacheco to rebel against Charles the fifth And many others have been led the same way 'T is observed that Dod Pedro Lasso's sweet disposition love to justice and publick good engaged him in the same quarrel being noted for one clearly without malice but by the Inhabitants of Toledo hug'd into Treason and what influence great Cities have upon the people London knoweth too too well Many men through the hatred of some other person by way of Revenge and what more sweet and inticing may be drawn into Factions and so to espouse a bad quarrel to work their malice upon private enemies as the Venavides and Caravajales two noble familes in Castile or the Feuds antiently in
will they allow the Civil Authority to have any thing to do with them or any of their Kirk-actions as I have formerly shew'd in their continual practise and for an assurance take one of their Declared Maxims As the Assembly cannot make Civill Laws nor repeal them nor impede the Parliament from making or repealing Civil Laws No more can the Parliament make Ecclesiastical Laws Originally nor repeal or hinder the Lawful Assemblies to repeal the same For albeit Acts of the Assembly are and may be ratifyed in Parliament that is only that the Civil Sanction may concur with the Ecclesiastical Constitution But will not stop the Assembly to recal their Own Act which being annull'd by them the Civil Ratification falls ex Consequenti For to maintain that the Kirk may not repeal her own Acts ratified once in Parliament is so derogatory to Christs Prerogative and Ordinance to the Liberty of the Kirk and Freedom of the Assembly to the nature and reason of all Ecclesiastical jurisdiction as we have more largely declared in the Protestation 22 September last that we believe few or none will be of that Opinion Nor will they allow the King to Dissolve any of their Juntos with which Impudent humour King Charles I. was sufficiently troubled For having by Proclamation Dissolved their Assembly at Glasgow 1638 They publickly deny his Authority for so doing declaring that It was most unlawful in it self and prejudicial to those Priviledges which Christ in his word hath left to his Church to dissolve or break up the Assembly of this Church or to stop and stay their Proceedings in Constitution of Acts for the welfare of the Church or execution of Discipline against Offenders and so to make it appear that Religion and Church Government should depend absolutely upon the pleasure of the Prince And after this they very solemnly protest against the departure of the Kings Commissioner 'till their humours be satisfyed a sufficient sign of their Presumption to be so malepert with one that represented the Kings Person and Authority but they go on in their boldnesse We again and again do by these presents cite and summon them and every one of them to compeer before this present General Assembly to answer to the premises and to give in their Reasons Defences and Answers against the Complaints given in or to be given against them and to hear Probation sed and Sentence pronounced against them and conform to our former Citations and according to Justice with certification of affairs Like as by these presents we summon and cite all those of his Majesties Council or any other who have procured consented subscribed or ratified this present Proclamation to be responsable to his Majesty and Three Estates of Parliament for their Counsels given them in this Matter so highly importing his Majesty and the whole Realm conform to the 12 Act King James IV. Parliament II. and protest for remedy of Law against them and every one of them Having thus begun to thunder they fall to work though they had no power to act being Dissolved by the Kings Command yet to it they fall in a furious Zeal not stopping at any thing which was once propounded so that in one hour they declar'd six General Assemblies to be null and void In another hour they condemn'd not confuted Armianism In another hour they deprived the Archbishop of St. Andrews and two other Bishops viz. Galloway and Brechen as at other times of that Kirk-Rump all the rest of the Bishops In another hour they declared Episcopal Government to be inconsistent with the Laws of that Church and Kingdom and so abolished it And thus in all haste without fear or wit in a very few dayes they had made almost an hundred Acts sometimes three or four at one time and sometimes more to the utter discredit of their Brethren of our English Assembly who sat hum-druming several years and after all expectations brought forth nothing worth a Mouse But the one was shackled and the other at liberty the one was over-rul'd and aw'd by a Parliamentary Nod but the other would neither be govern'd by God nor Man Though no question had that at London been their own Masters they would have been as hasty as their Brethren An English Covenanter being as good wildfire as any Kirker in Scotland But by this you may guess how deliberate our Northern Seers are how rationall they are that without Archimedes his Engine can skrew up a Government in a moment like those in the Arsenal in Venice who in less than two hours time can make and lanch a compleat Gally But enough of their denying the Kings Authority over them in their Assemblies I shall only give you one of their private Instructions by them carefully sent to some Ministers in every Presbytery in whom they put most special trust Private Instructions Aug. 27. 1638. That the ablest man in every Presbytery be provided to dispute De Potestate Supremi Magistratûs in Ecclesiasticis praesertim in Convocandis Conciliis de Senioribus de Episcopatu de Juramento de Liturgia corruptelis ejusdem How the Saints held these Questions need not be ask'd nor how partially they would go about them for I cannot well say study them When people once dispute Authority practice assures us that they are resolv'd for the Negative and when such questions as these are on purpose propos'd by a byass'd Zealot the Intention is only to confirm people in Opposition The Brethren long before this had found the benefit of such Discourses which made them now trudge in the same way For their seditious Predecessors in the University of St. Andrews insteed of Divinity had thrust up these Politick Questions Whether the Election or Succession of Kings were the better form of Government How farr the Royal Power extended Whether Kings might be censured for abusing the same and depos'd by the Estates of the Kingdom But besides those who expresly deny and fight against the Kings Supremacy his Majesty hath other Enemies to his Authority which are as dangerous amongst the People as any other And these are those who commend his Enemies and so approve their Actions not but that a wicked man in some things might be highly commended for other qualities Thus of one hand I find the great Gustavus Adolphus highly applauded but that he was a Protestant and on the other our Queen Elizabeth's Sister Queen Mary as greatly commended but that she was a Roman-Catholick yet for either of these simply aspersions are not to be cast upon Magistrates or others more inferiour However this hits not our case but the magnifying of those who are really wicked which Epithet let them take offence that will I shall freely bestow upon our Long-Parliament as being the Kings greatest Enemies the only cause of his ruine and the murtherers of many innocent Loyal Gentlemen By these Commendations the People are made to believe that
court the Continent for self-preservation where they must provide for a rainy-day And what is become of all our Gold I know not unless it hath travell'd too XIV Another means to overthrow England Campanella thinks is to set them and the Dutch together by the Ears The fulfilling of which is fresh in every ones memory XV. After all Campanella's pumping to undo England and root out the Protestant Religion he can imagine no way more conducible to such ends then the reducing of that Kingdom into a Common-wealth Of which Observation there needs no Remarks but Experience not yet forgot CHAP. V. The Original of the Commons in Parliament That the Clergy is one of the Three Estates and the King Supream above all WHen I find God himself calling Rebellion the sin of Witchcraft for me to speak against it by endeavouring to aggravate the Iniquity would be to as small purpose to an Ingenious man as the pains and expences of Calvisius Sabinus to attain to the height of Learning since his memory was so weak that it could scarce retain the Names of Ulysses Achilles and Priamus Yet were it neerer allyed to Hell then it is it would not want both daring and knowing Patrons which doth something mitigate my admiration when I consider what Paper Time besides too much Bloud hath been spent by some men of late dayes to Apologize for the greatest Wickedness and thereby to strengthen themselves through their Actions in the Peoples Affections These though they had the worst Plea yet came off with the best Success by which they clamourously declared the Justness of their Cause hinting to the Royalists that it was owned by a Supernatural Power But Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him ne're gain applause That from th' event states th' goodness of the cause And how Orthodox such Arguments are is obvious if we do but consider the often prosperity of the wicked who are sometimes permitted to conquer more for a scourge to others than any justness in themselves And I dare be confident in our case it holds the unlawfulness of these late domestick Commotions being rightly more appropriated to the Parliament than his Majesty as in it's due place shall be shewn But first to make the way more plain and easie to those who call themselves the weak Brethren the first fomenters of this Rebellion we shall in brief consider the Antiquity Subordination and Priviledges of Parliaments as they now stand whereby it is plain they had no power given them thus to raise Wars against and imprison much less behead their Soveraign For what I here speak is intended chiefly against the Long-Parliament The most ancient Government in this Island that Records can instruct us of is Monarchy and that in its Antiquity the most absolute the higher we go finding our Kings more free and powerful That reciprocal Compact between King and People so much boasted of by our Common-wealths-men and others being but a meer dream and Chamaera as that great Soul of Reason and Divinity the Reverend Bishop Sanderson hath compendiously and fully evinced That the ancient Kings of this Island had Meetings for Consultations reason prompts me to believe though I do not remember after what certain fashion yet since Christianity was setled here the Kings used to imploy the Archbishops Bishops and Nobility by way of Advice and Counsel Ethelbert the famous King of our Kentish Saxons being converted unto the Christian Faith about the year 596. some nine years after viz. 605. summons a Council in which were not only the Laity but the Clergy also After which time the Reverend Archbishops and Bishops have sat as a part of those grand Meetings till the late Exclusion by the long-Long-Parliament as the well-read Dr. Heylin who though under a great decay of sight sees more than a whole Nation of Presbytery hath sufficiently asserted These Lords Spiritual and Temporal were the only Parliament known to former Kings and so but one House However sometimes upon great concerns the King would when himself best pleas'd have some of the Commoners joyned with them but then they were not as now elected but particularly chosen according to the Kings desire and these were of more than ordinary savour and discretion and therefore call'd Wise-men The first time that in History we can meet with a Parliament consisting of the Clergy Nobility and Commons is in King Henry the firsts dayes at Salisbury Anno 1116. and so the Clergy were 500. years before the Commons in Parliaments But why this King should be the first that threw this favour so generally upon the Commons was as some are pleas'd to affirm grounded upon his own Usurpation For he being but the younger Son of William the Conquerour following the President of William Rufus seized upon the Crown in the absence of his eldest Brother Robert and afterwards most cruelly put out his eyes This they say moved many Discontents amongst the Nobility against whom to strengthen himself he thought it best to pleasure the Commons which was done by calling them to this Parliament at Salisbury whereby his Usurpation became more formidable against his Enemies But though the Commons were call'd to Counsel at this time if at this time since Prynne denyeth it yet were they not thereby made or esteem'd necessary since in several Kings raigns successively after Parliaments were held as Prynne their chief Patron doth acknowledge consisting only of the Spiritual and Temporal Barons And when afterwards they did really sit is as uncertain as after what manner or when they had their first Speaker The first by that Title upon Record being Sir Thomas Hungerford Anno 1376. though the year before John Stow calls Sir Peter de la More their Prolocutor And before these two but three viz. Petrus de Mountford Scroope and Sir William Trussel the first of these viz. Mountford being in the 44 th year of Henry III. that are known are supposed to officiate as Speakers for in what nature they were of is not yet known though for certain if the Commons sat by themselves they could not want some such like Officer It being many years afterwards viz. Anno 1401. that the King Henry IV. required the Commons to choose a Speaker before which time no such Command being recorded Thus we see the small Antiquity of Parliaments as they now stand with us representing the three Estates the Clergy Nobility and Commons This I write to shew how strangely confident the Commons were of late dayes who if you will believe Prynne one of themselves had really no such Power and Judicatureship as they did in the least pretend to Nor would I be thought in this or any thing in the sequent Discourse to invalid the true and real Authority of Parliaments or to lessen the Credit of the Commons House holding it now to be an Essential part of Parliament but yet not so much as some of
from this Swashbuckler These and many other innovating and cross grain'd actions you may find storied down by their almost-own Fuller for so may I well take the boldnesse to call him since they could never desire a more complyable Historian And therefore these may carry the more probability with the Reader let his education be either sound or rotten KING JAMES succeeding upon the death of Queen Elizabeth the Non-conformists thought to gain ground apace having to deal with a Prince as they thought bred up in their own way and a stranger not only to England but as they hoped to her government also 'T is true He had been nurst up in the Presbyterian way in Scotland but their insolencies and incroachments to get all the power into their own hands as a stiff Presbyterian under the fained name of Wilson doth confesse gave him so much experience as not only to allow of no alteration or that very small in the Church of England but also publickly to testifie his happinesse in ruling over and amongst people so sweetly united in such a Church-government whereas in Scotland He was a a King without State without Honour without Order where beardlesse boyes would brave him to his face As himself did word it Yet to satisfie their clamours He gave them a conference at Hampior-Court where their Objections seemed so trivial that Self will and an erronious Conscience was thought to be more predominant then Reason Upon which the King put forth a Proclamation for Uniformity to which all the Ministers in England and they are above nine thousand submitted except forty nine such a noise will a few disturbers cause in any society when tolerated Nor need this seem strange to those who know that in the first year of Queen Elizabeth the number of our Clergy-men who refused the Oath of Supremacy did not amount to 200. though they had all not only been bred up in the Romish Religion but also for some few years before had violently asserted the Pope's authority in England And we now see those who have been the Chief-tains of the Non-conformists to turn tail and acknowledge Episcopal government the which I hope they do more for Conscience then Covetousnesse Yet for all this though King Law and all things else were against the Disciplinarian Interest they grow resolute and as one saith starkmaa and send to their Brethren in Scotland informing them of all which had hapned and that they in Scotland must expect to conform too and then God wot would follow the utter destruction of Sion Upon which some of them take an Alarum and meet at Aberdeen in spight of the King and his Authority intending to declare against and root out all the foot-steps and memory of Episcopacy for which some of them afterwards were forced to acknowledge their fault And Andrew Melvil for writing Libels against our English Church he then being at London was called before the Council where behaving himself insolently and like a mad man he was committed to the Tower By these actions our Non-conformists easily perceived that they could gain nothing but their own shame and destruction whilst they acted only as private men whereupon they resolve under-hand to blow up the Parliaments against Prerogative to which purpose by their industry they never wanted a good party in the House who carried themselves so resolutely and cunningly that for the future Westminster only rung with the clamours of Grievancies liberty of Subject and Priviledge of Parliament A Parliament never sitting but some Member or other throwing dirt in his Majesties face and this conscionably done by freedom of speech never or very seldom satisfying the King in what he conveniently required for when his pleasure for any reasonable thing was any time made known to them then they grumble and reply that God must be served before man and then for a moneth or two nothing is done in the House but the uttering of long-winded speeches against Arminianism and Popery And this to as little purpose as Cardinal Rapacciolus his prayer that the Devils fins and transgressions might be forgiven him that so he might receive some comfort and be of good cheer For any thing or reason besides bitter Invectives is as difficult to be found amongst them as Coach horses at Venice or a Gondola in Themes as is obvious to any who have seen the Speeches in the two last Kings raigns 'T is true all were not carryed on with the same Spirit for the House was still composed of two different tempers Like Orense a Town in Gallaecia of Spain one side of which in Winter is covered with Snow and num'd by the fury of frozen blasts whilest the other side doth not only want these white Robes but is favoured with a continual warmth arising from the adjacent medicinal hot Baths yet the more wicked party obliged by being so to be more industrious will commonly gain advantages whilst the good People trusting in their honesty act altogether too supinely I shall not now trace the Extravagancies of private men but shew you some of their hot-headed prancks in Parliament because they have now made that the Stage on which they intended to act for the future and in this I shall study brevity and pass by many notorious insolencies In the first Parliament of King James which was drawn out into several Sessions one of the Members bid the rest take heed lest they gave too much to the King lest they endanger their own throats cutting when they went home Others bob'd his Majesty in his teeth for rewarding some of his own Countreymen affirming that their silver and gold abounded at Edenburgh And one Piggot after he had spoken disgracefully of the Scots added withall That it would never be well with England till a Sicilian Vesper was made of the Scotish Nation as if he had not known what Countrey-man the King was Words of such high nature that Queen Elizabeth would have shewn her Prerogative But having now to deal with a King whom they thought might have been trampled upon here as well as beyond the Tweed they left nothing unturn'd whereby they might strengthen their own Faction And this spirit of Contradiction and Contention ruling amongst them is pointed at by one of their own Brethren though clad in more favourable words these bickerings and the Members unrestless humour forced the King to dissolve the Parliament having sat long enough in all Conscience to do any good if they intended any Afterwards another Parliament being call'd and consisting of the same Temperature was presently dissolved In the next Parliament the King desires some Moneys having not had any assistance from his People for several years so that he was constrained to lessen his Houshold This necessary request the Parliament hears but never intend to grant And the better to lay it aside they first begin with the spacious and specious subject of Complaints and with a high hand
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
and this also the Protestation and Covenant bound them to keep But how these were observed and that by the Parliament itself every Member therein having taken the two Oaths is not unknown And if these allow'd them to fight against the King or at least to kill him I shall lament my Baptism and put no more trust in my Creed When the Rump had perjured themselves by beheading their King they frame an Engagement obliging all to take it or else to have no benefit of an English-man the words of which were these I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Common-wealth of England as it is now established without a King or House of Lords This was taken by all the Officers and Souldiers of the Armies who return'd their Subscriptions in Parchment-Rolles to make the work more sure and lasting and besides them many others took it But the Army kept not long to this their Solemn Engagement for they not only rooted out the Rump but alter'd the Government again to a single Person by making Oliver Cromwell Protector whose Council by Order of his Parliament was to swear Fidelity and Allegiance to him and every Member of Parliament both then and for the future did and was to swear Failty to him thus I A. B. Do in the presence and by the Name of God Almighty promise and swear That I will be true and faithful to the Lord Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominios and Territories thereunto belonging as Chief Magistrate thereof and shall not contrive design or attempt any thing against the Person or lawful Authority of the Lord Protector This Oath in behalf of Protectorship and a single Person lasted not long for the Army having overthrown Richard and again restored the Rump another Oath was ordered to be taken in these words You shall swear That you will be true faithful and constant to this Common-wealth without a single Person Kingship or House of Lords And after all this as if one Oath signified nothing some of them took a new-found-out Oath of Abjuration against Kingship though poor Souls only to their own shame and confusion And this was the pretty invention of the hot-headed Knight Don Haslerigo one of Burges's Principles to abominate and hate all Bishops but to imbrace and love their Lands dearly but this fault is not only incident to them it being the main reason that there is such a skip-jack as an English Presbytery Such horrid Perjury as this and such abominable Villanies committed by our late Parliaments made them not a little guilty of the highest Sacriledge The Parliament-House where the Commons now sit being formerly St. Steven's Chappel built by King Steven The consideration of which might have moved honest men to have acted more religiously though these men only sate there to ruine both it and the Church It being a knack amongst our new Saints to pull down Churches for the Propagation of Religion an action of more malice than reason being as ridiculous as the wise-men of Gotham to put Saltfish into a Pond to multiply or to hedge in the Cookow and as simple as Maestro Nun̄o Divinity Professor in Valladolid who made a great deal of clutter to borrow Boots and Spurs because he was to ride in a Coach But of this no more only if those men be not perjured who swallowed these contradictory Oaths I shall allow my self not only irrational but bemoan my condition because not born one of the old Aegyptian Heathens whose Religion punish'd such sins with severe death CHAP. V. The wicked Sacriledge of the Parliament and Army THe Schoolmen and others make a threefold Sacriledge viz. either by taking away from or violating in a holy place a holy thing or secondly an holy thing from or in a place not holy or fanctified or lastly a thing not holy in or from a holy place And that there are some places and things holy I suppose few but those who are wickedly interested in Church-Lands will plead ignorance For though this or that originally be not really holy of it self yet the Dedication and Consecration of them by the Church to holy uses makes them holy to the Lord. For saith God devoted things that a man shall devote unto the Lord. every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. And these things once offer'd unto the Lord are not to be profaned And if any through ignorance sin against this He shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing Belshazzar's sin was not so much for being drunk with Wine but his sacrilegious drinking out of the Vessels of the Temple Those who rob God of his Tithes and Offerings are severely curst and an express command against exchanging or alienating those things which are holy to the Lord as the Lands of his Church How highly did God punish those who regarded not his Temple every man running unto his own House and what little impression hath this made upon England where most forsook the Church drawing themselves to illegal Conventicles and such private Houses never intended for such publick duties 'T is noted as a great aggravation of King Ahaz iniquities for destroying the holy Vessels and shutting up the doors of the Temple though amongst our late rebellious Reformers such actions were esteem'd a true token of holiness Jehoash King of Judah took all the treasure and holy things out of the Temple and sent them to Hazael King of Syria for a bribe and was recompenced by being slain by his Servants But our Innocent King was murdered by those who had fed their Brethern with Monies impiously rent from Church-Lands whereby their Villanies were doubled to make them more serviceable to their cloven-footed Master who set them on work The wisest man that ever was assureth us That it is a snare to a man who devoureth that which is holy and after vows to make enquiry Out of which words a learned Writer observes That he is guilty of death who sins against God either by alienating taking away or keeping back those things which are holy or consecrated to the Lord. Ananias and Saphiras act is held by Divines as a true pattern of Sacriledge for which they suffer'd death by a special judgement of God as Achan in the old time was stoned to death St. Paul admires that any man should be so wicked as to commit Sacriledge and our late Sectaries wonder that any should stand in aw of it Our Saviours whipping the buyers and sellers and such like out of the Temple is no small sign what respect should be held to our Churches not to be turn'd into Exchanges as is well known the once famous Cathedral of St. Pauls was For Confirmation of this many heavy examples of Gods judgements against those who have either violated his Church or alienated his Messengers Lands might be drawn
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