And to this purpose they have impudently given out in Ireland Sometimes o The Irish Remonstrance p. 5 48 4â— 77. that His Majesty was personally though disguised present with the Rebells there Sometimes p Ibid. p. 6. that he was dead and that the young King went to Masse but most commonly that which they did was by the q Ibid p. 45 48 56 Kings authority and that they had the Broad-Seale for it and that it was the Kings pleasure r Ibid p 68. that all the English should be banished and loose their goods because the Queenes Priest was hanged before her face And that there was a Covenant betwixt the Irish and the Scots upon these tearmes that the Irish should never take part with the English against the Scots nor the Scots with the English against the Irish And * Ibid. p. 38. that all the Scottish Nation was joyned with them for the extirpation of the English So that the †Ibid. Scots were to leave never a drop of English blood in England and that the Irish had command to leave never a drop of English blood in Ireland and that for that purpose they had the ‖ Ibid. Earle of Argiles hand together with the hands of the greatest part of the prime Nobility of Scotland And that many might more readily come into an Association in their damnable League and might carry it on with more courage and higher hope of happy successe they coyned such comfortable Lyes as these That there was an Army to come to their aide from Spaine * Ibid p. 10. another of no fewer then 40000. from France another from a Ibid Flanders that b Ibid p. 54. Dublin was taken and that the distressed in Ireland might have no hope of succour in England or Scotland they told them that there was the like c Ibid. p. 35. stirres in both these Kingdoms meaning that the Papists pursued and prevailed over the Protestants there as they did in Ireland a thing then no doubt both in their desire and designe and like to be also in their indeavour when they might begin with hope to goe on with successe And that they might have the more colour for their bloody combination these seditious Seeds-men gave out that the Puritane Parliament in England was the cause of all this in that they have made an d Ibid. p. 4â— Act that all Papists in Ireland must goe to Church or otherwise be hanged at their owne doores and therefore they began with the Protestants first least they should begin with them who had resolved to e Ibid. p. 35 45. murther all the Papists throughout the Kingdome and yet like odious hypocrites as they be they sometimes f Ibid. pretended that if the Lord Lievtenant of Ireland that last was had not been put to death by the Parliament they had not made this Insurrection whereas indeed they held and hated him as the most heavy-handed Deputy that was set over them though Protestants had as great cause to complaine of the weight of his hand as Papists had if not greater and plotted this mischiefe as upon Confession is recorded g Ibid. p. 35. â—â— seventeene yeares before their Rebellion brake out Their hatred of the best Protestants under the name of Puritans is notorious throughout the three Kingdom of England Scotland and Ireland but they hate them most where they thinke they are most able to doe them hurt that 's in Parliament and therefore they have been alway forward to falsifie their Acts and Intentions to blast that venerable Assembly with the blackest calumny they can conceive and to doe as desperate acts against them as the Devill himselfe can put into their heads h King Iames premonit p. 328. King Iames chargeth them with three Lyes together of the Act of Parliament concerning the Oath of Allegiance and all the Kingdome yea all the Christian world knoweth their devillish malignity towards that most Honourable Court in the Powder-plot i King Iames his second Speech in Parliament p. 501. purposely devised against the place of their meeting that where the crull Lawes as they call them were made against their Religion both place and persons should be blowne up at once which plot had it taken effect they purposed to have laid it on the k Speeds Chron. lib. 10. p. 1252. col 2. Puritans And what they could not then bring about by that secret satanicall treachery they have of late attempted and undertaken by open Warre and the Warre we now see translated out of Irish into English and their hate and spight written in Capitall Letters with the blood of English Protestants I am not so vainly presumptuous as to present such particulars as these to instruct the sage and prudent Senators of this most High and Honourable Court who see and fore-see a thousand times more and further into the Popish mistery of Iniquity with all the Engins that are working under it then many thousands of such private persons as my selfe can possible conceive but by such a breviate as I have brought in to make some more cautelous resentment of Popish plots in the common people and of their common perill thereby if there be not a very watchfull jealousie in the great Counsell of the Kingdome over them and a zealous and unanimous industry of all true-hearted Protestants to disappoint them but I shall meete with them againe before we part Thirdly The Miseries and Mischiefes of Warre being such as have been shewed it cannot but well become every good and wise man to shew himselfe disaffected to it and much troubled for it as well as by it So did the Prophet when he bewailed the condition of his time by the oppression and desolation of Warre as out of this Chapter I have told you and to doe all good offices they can to promote peace as the Parliament by their many humble and pressing Petitions and other prudent addresses to his Majesty have indeavoured to doe yet so as well became their piety and prudence as to desire no peace but such an one as whosoever treats of it admits of God to be of the Quorum in it and in ballacing the conditions on both sides will suffer his glory and the conscionable discharge of their trust to the King and Kingdome to make downe weight in the finall determination thereof against which an agreement would prove but a conspiracie for betraying of trust But for a peace upon such tearmes as those we now mentioned that Englishman who would not like Ionah when to appease a tempest and save a Ship from splitting he was content to be cast into and swallowed up of the Sea Ion. 1.12 willingly lay downe his life is not worthy to live And the more zealous should every one be of making up the breach of peace by how much more worthy they are who are divided and betwixt whom the neerest Union that can
THE a O thou sword of the Lord how long will it be ere thou be quiet put up thy selfe into thy scabbard rest and be still Jer. 47.6 Meritò in terra homini non gloria sed pax est quÄ™â—enda pax cum Deo pax cum proximo pax cum seipso Bernard in fest omnium Sanctorum Serm. 5. col 297. FVRY OF VVARRE AND b And Samuel said to Saul thou hast done foolishly thou hast not kept the Commandement of the Lord thy God which he commanded thee 1 Sam. 13.13 Omnes stulti mali sunt Senec. de Benefic lib. 5. cap. 15. Humilis res est stultitia abjects sordida servilis multis affectibus saevissimis subjecta Hos tam graves dominos interdum alternis vicibus imperantes dimittit a te sapientia quÄ™ sola libertas est Idem Epist lib. 5 ep 37. FOLLY OF SINNE As an Incentive to it declared and applyed FOR Caution and Remedy against the Mischiefe and Misery of both IN A SERMON Preached at St. Margarets Westminster before the Honourable House of COMMONS at their late solemne and publike FAST Aprill 26. 1643. By Iohn Ley Minister of Great Budworth in Cheshiere LONDON Printed by G.M. for Christopher Meredith at the Signe of the Crane in Pauls Church-yard 1643. TO THE HONOVRABLE HOVSE OF COMMONS Assembled in PARLIAMENT WHile I humbly offer that to the view which I lately presented to the audience of your ever Honoured and then sacred Assembly both the preaching and publishing of it in print being acts of due obedience to your commands and I wish they were capable of titles of gratitude for your favours it may be my lot to have some passages of my Sermon censoriously met withall if not for any falsehood or fault in the matter yet for some supposed incongruity to the office of the Authour and with pretence also of some biassed partiality in the great differences of our most unhappily divided Kingdom divided under those Names as some mistake and mis state the question which have best right to the humblest reverence and heartiest loyalty of all the Subjects of the Land which calumnie if I cannot prevent I may have hope to repell the assault of it by such considerations as these which I crave leave to tender to the touch of your * Lydius lapis the touchstone Plin. nat bist l. 33. c 8. Lydian judgement and in them to speake to you and of you to others as the dictat of duty and discretion shall direct me First It cannot in equity or prudence be deemed an impertinency to our ministeriall profession or an over-busie medling in matters above or besides our calling to appeare apprehensive of our common perill and to doe what lyeth within the fathome of our power and the verg of our vocation either for prevention of imminent or for removall or mitigation of our present miseries And if we affected the praise of prudent silence which the Prophet commendeth as seasonable for evill times Amos 5.12 I doe not see how we could now observe it being often required by our superiours to publish their minds and our own unto the people in matters of secular concernement and many times also in private desired to satisfie their doubts when they are called upon to give their assent and assistance in matters of great moment for the publike welfare And I thanke God such have ever beene the principles which have set the deepest impression upon my judgement and conscience and upon others likewise by mine information that to my knowledge I have not whispered any resolution or advice in theeare which I may not warrantably publish upon the house topps as our blessed Saviour gave direction to his Disciples Mat. 10.27 Nor have I breathed out any position or opinion either in private or publike for which I should be unwilling to bleed or to dye Secondly For my loyall affection to his Majesty mine own heart tells me I prize him as the dutifull subjects of David did him their Royall Soveraigne when they valued his life at ten thousand of their ovvn 2 Sam. 18.3 and had rather my body should be the sheath of a two edged and poisoned Sword as * Speeds ChroÌ„ l. 7. c. 20. p. 300 Lilloe's was when he stept betwixt the murtherer and King Edwine his Master to intercept the deadly thrust intended and aimed at the heart of his Soveraigne then consent to lay any hands upon him but as the Angells did upon Lot Gen. 19.16 for his deliverance from danger in which case a loving violence hath more affinity with duty then with disobedience for a King being a publike person hath no power to dispose of himselfe for perillous adventure in ¶ Basil Dor. l. 2. p. 165 166. respect that to his preservation or fall the safety or wrack of the whole Common-weale is necessarily coupled like as the body is to the head as his Majesties learned Father of famous memory resolved in case of duells and though afterwards speaking of a just war he counselled the Prince to whom he wrote * Ibidem once or twice in his own person to hazard himselfe fairely but afterwards to conserve himselfe for the weale of his people for whose sake he must be more carefull for himselfe then for his own I conceive the reason rendred for the security of his Royall Person is of force not only against the perill of a single combat but of a sociable warre or set battell especially for hereafter since his Majesties courage and magnanimity is so well knowne that his cautionary prudence can never come under the misinterpretation of timerous cowardize for avoidance whereof his Royall Father gave advice for the adventure fore-mentioned Thirdly For the high Court of Parliament whereof your honourable House of Commons is the Alpha in order of proceeding his Majesty that last was hath taught me to know it as the ¶ Ibidem Kings head-Court and his Majesty that now is advanced mine estimation of it by his gracious acknowledgement †His Majesties Speech Ian. 25. 1640. that often Parliaments are the fittest meanes to keepe correspondence betwixt him and his people which he doth much desire ‖ His Majesties answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons Iunij 17. 1642. p. 6. that it is impossible for him to subsist without the affections of his people and that those affections cannot possibly be preserved or made use of but by Parliaments that they cannot give the least credit or have the least suspition that his Majesty would chose any other way to the happines he desires to himself and his posterity but by Parliaments And it is raised yet higher by his gracious acceptation of his Speech who represented it to him as a most soveraigne remedy against all the distempers of this Nation were they * Mr. Speaker in his Speech to his Majesty November the 5. 1640. saith he troubled at Sea troubled at home or invaded from
be is required if there were but a single seperation of a paire of excellent Friends we should have an affectionate sorrow in our hearts for their sakes as * Heu mibi qui vos simul iâ—uâ—nire nonpossuâ—â— ut inovear ut doleo ut Itmeo procâ—derem ad pe les vestros sterem quantâ— valerem rogarem quaotu a amarem nuâ—â— utrumque vestrâ pro setpso nunc utrumque pro alterutro pro alijs ac maxi are infiâ—mu qut vos tanquam in Theatro vitae bujus cum magâ—o sur pericuâ—o pectant August Epiâ—l 〈◊〉 Tom. 20 inter opera Hâ—eron p 350. 391. Augustine passionately expressed upon the quarrels and invectives betwixt Hierom and Ruffinus Woe is mee saith he that I cannot find you both together how am I moved how am I grieved how doe I feare how willing would I be to fall downe at your feete I would weepe according to my power and begge according to my love now of the one for the other and then of both for both and for others also who with great perill and scandall see you as in a Theater contesting and contending as Enemies “ Hoc magnum triste naraculum est ab amâ—â—â—â—ijs talibus a I has mimtâ—â—â—as per to nâ—sse 〈◊〉 It is a great and a sad Miracle saith he from such Amity as hath been to be changed to such emnity as is now betwixt you And yet this Emnity was not exercised with the Pike but with the Pen the dropps that were spilt in their Warre were not dropps of blood but of Inke How would the good man have been grieved to have seen such an estrangement betwixt so great and of himself so good a King as our dread Soveraigne and so wise and worthy a Counsell as the High Parliament how would his heart have melted into tender commiseration of so many slaine so many spoiled and ruined for this world so great a desolation as is made in many parts of this late flourishing Kingdome by a most unnaturall Warre and that under adverse Titles in their Names who are or should be as neerely allied and linked together as the ingagements of Religion Law Conscience Prudence and Fidelity to God and man can possibly make them Ob. But what hope of Peace when both sides have so farre proceeded in Warre When a man seeth Armies prepared it is a madnesse as the “ Prat a mentis cuâ—â— acâ—em videres 〈◊〉 cogirare 〈◊〉 Oâ—â—t de Dejo taro 〈◊〉 6 Orator saâ—◠〈◊〉 o expect a peace Answ I Though I shall shew a Reason why I am not of his mind I confesse I should conceive more hope of a pacification of our stormy distempers if no Divines but such as are of S. Augustines sincerity and charity did officiate as Chaplaines and that while perswasions to peace are proposed on the one side incentives to warre were not sounded on the other Of the Parliaments propension to peace by offering and accepting of such conditions as may consist with the great trust reposed in them both for the reformation of matters amisse in Church and State and preservation of their own priviledges and the peoples rights and Liberties I have intimated enough already for this time and place there can be no doubt for their part in this Audience no need therefore here either to give intelligence or make apologie on their behalfe though elsewhere there may be use of both Thirdly For his Majesties part to whom humble addresses of reconciliation have been many times presented and in whose power it was and yet is to crowne them all with a comfortable conclusion We have had so many emphaticall professions not only of his peaceable mind towards the Parliament but of his pittifull disposition towards all his people that we cannot but wonder by what impostures or presumptions in usurping his power and abusing his name his subjects especially those who in a common calamity should have been severed from the common sort by a marke of security as Ezek. 9.46 have suffered and yet doe suffer so wofull a change of their Peace into Warre and of prosperity into misery as of late under pretence of his Commands or Commissions they have done His Majesties expresses such as become a true l The Kings of Palestine were commonly called Abimelechs a Name compounded of benignity and Authority signifying a Father and a King for Rulers and among them Kings are 〈◊〉 are Fathers to such as are subordinate to them as a King â—â— 18 Iob 29.16 and under that Title they are to be honoured by the fift Commandement whereby is implyed that they must rule with indulgence as Fathers and their Subjects obey with benevolence as children Abimilech that is both a Father and a King the Royall Sonne and Heire of him who gloried in the Title Rex Pacificus and said m King Iames true Laws of free-Monarchy pag. 195. of his works in Folio a King by the Law of Nature becomes anaturall Father to his Lieges at his Coronation are as followeth that n So in his Majesties answer to the Parliaments Petition and reasons against his going into Ire-land p 9. his life when it is most pleasant is nothing so pretious to him as it is and shall be to governe his people with honour and Iustice o In his Majesties Answer to the Declaration of both Houses concerning Hâ—ll sent May 4. 1642. p. 17. that it is not in the power of any person to incline him to take Armes against his Parliament and miserably to imbroyle this Kingdome in a Civill Warre and that his Affections abhorre and his heart bleeds at the apprehension of Civill Warre and he doth ingage himselfe in the word of a King p In the second Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom p. 4. That the security of all and every one of the Parliament from violence is and ever shall be as much as his care to preserve himselfe and his children and q Declarat Parliament March 12 p 9. that he will be as carefull of their priviledges as of his owne Prerogatives r In his Speech to the Ministers and Freeholders assembled at Heworth Heath in Yorkeshiere Iune 3. 1642. That in all his time before the Parliament having never caused the effusion of one drop of blood in his riper judgement in government he will never open such issues of blood as might drowne himselfe and his posterity in them * His Majesties Answer to the desires and Propositions of both Houses Feb 3. 1642. p 10. that he hath given up all the faculties of his soul to an earnest desire of Peace and reconciliation with his people And we had experience of truth as well as of power in the word of a King Eccles 8.4 in his Majesties accommodation of Accord with his Subjects of Scotland which he professed when he shewed himselfe most displeased with them in these words Å¿ His Majesties large Declaration upon the