knowing he had hard measure and such as they would be very loth should be repeted to themselves 11. The tenderness and regret the King may find in his soul for having had any hand though very unwillingly in shedding one man's bloud unjustly though under the colour and formalities of Justice and pretenses of avoyding publick mischief may be hop'd to be some evidence before God and Man to all Posterity that he is far from bearing justly the vast load and guilt of all the bloud shed in an unhappy Civil War as his Rebels charge upon him To overawe the freedom of the Houses of Parliament or to weaken their just Authority by any violent impressions upon them is a design unworthy of the King who shall not need so rough assistance if he have Justice and Reason on his side 13. Popular Tumults are not the best removers of obstructions in Parliaments which rather infringe all freedome or differing in Votes and debating matters with reason and candor 14. When the obstinacy of Men in Parliament resolved to discharge their Consciences must be subdued by Tumults it may be feared that by the same all factious seditious and scismatical proposals against Government Ecclesiastical or Civil will be backed and abetted till they prevail 15. The riot and impatience of popular Tumults is such that they will not stay the ripening and season of Counsels or fair production of Acts in the order gravity and deliberateness besitting a Parliament but will rip up with barbarous cruelty and forcibly cut out abortive Votes such as their Inviters and Incouragers most fancy 16. When Tumults are become so insolent that there is no securing of the King's freedom in Parliament nor of his very person in the streets he is not bound by his presence to provoke them to higher boldness and contempts 17. When and only when Parliaments in their first Election and Constitution sit full and free as in all reason honour and Religion they ought to be things may be so carried as will give no less content to all good men than they wish or expect 18. It may prove unhappy to convene a Parliament where the Place affords the greatest Confluence of various and vitious humours 19. The King when he calls a Parliament should purpose to contribute what in Justice Reason Honour and Conscience he can to the happy success of it nor should it have any other design in him but the General good of his Kingdoms 20. Triennial Parliaments in a Kingdom as gentle and seasonable Physick might if well applied prevent any distempers from getting head or prevailing especially if the remedy prove not a disease beyond all remedy 21. Some men when they meet in Parliament occasion more work than they find to do by undoing so much as they find well done to their hands 22. The perpetuating a Parliament is an Act of highest confidence whereby a King hopes to shut out and lock the dore upon all present jealousies and future mistakes but intends not thereby to exclude himself as some may requite him 23. Those Subjects are unworthy of an indulgent King who deceive his extreme confidence by ill using any Act of Grace wherein he declares so much to trust them as to deny himself in a high point of his Prerogative 24. A continual Parliament by preserving Lawes in their due execution and vigour but no otherwise may be thought until Experiment shew a fallacy the best means to keep the Commonweal in tune 25. The agreeing Votes of the major part in both Houses of Parliament are not by any Law or Reason conclusive to the judgment of their King nor do they carry with them his consent whom they in no kind represent 26. The King is not further bound to agree with the Votes of both Houses then he sees them agree with the will of God with his just Rights as a King and the general good of his People 27. The Members of Parliament as many men are seldom of one mind and it is oft seen that the major part of them are not the right 28. The Majesty of the Crown of England is not bound by any Coronation Oath to consent to whatever its Subjects in Parliament shall require 29. The Coronation Oath is discharged by the King 's governing by such Lawes as his People with the House of Peers have chosen and himself hath consented unto 30. The King should give no ear to the importunity of his Parliament when instead of Reason and Publick concernments they obtrude nothing but what makes for the interest of parties and flowes from the partialities of private wills and passions 31. Every Subject is bound to stand to the sentence of Parliament according to Law 32. Where an orderly guard is granted unto the Parliament no account in reason can be given for the not suppressing Tumults but only to oppress both the King 's and the Two Houses freedom of declaring and voting according to every mans Conscience 33. The King should not by power protect any against the Justice of Parliament 34. It is justifiable for men in Parliament to withdraw who fear the partiality of their trial warned by any sad president while the Vulgar threaten to be their Oppressours and Judgers of their Judges 35. When Factious Tumults overbear not the Freedom and Honour of the two Houses but they assert their Justice against them and make the way open for all the Members quietly to come and declare their Consciences no man should be so dear unto their King as whom he should have the least inclination to advise either to withdraw himself or deny appearing upon their summons 36. Though the King may approve in some cases mens generous constancy and cautiousness yet further than that he should never allow any mans refractoriness against the Priviledges and Orders of the Houses to whom he ought to wish nothing more than Safety Fullness and Freedom 37. Those men that despair in fair and Parliamentary wayes by free deliberations and Votes to gain the concurrence of the Major part of Lords and Commons betake themselves when they have interest by the desperate activity of factious Tumults to sift and terrifie away all those Members whom they see to be of contrary minds to their purposes 28. Bishops ought to enjoy their Ancient places and undoubted Priviledges in the House of Peers 39. Bills in Parliament are not to be brought on by tumultuary clamours and schismatical Terrours and passed when both Houses are sufficiently thinned and over-awed 40. The King beside the grounds he may have in his own judgment has also a most strickt and indispensable Oath upon his Conscience to preserve the Order of Bishops and the Rights of the Church to which most Sacrilegious and abhorred Perjury most unbeseeming a Christian King should he ever by giving his Consent be betrayed he might account it infinitely greater misery than any had or could befall him 41. The King puts much to the adventure who by satisfying the fears and
some reparations for their former defects 41. As the quality of a King sets him beyond a Duel with any Subject so the Nobleness of his mind must raise him above the meditating any revenge or executing his anger upon the many 42. The more conscious a King shall be to his own merits upon his people the more prone he will be to expect all love and loyalty from them and to inflict no punishment upon them for former miscariages 43. An injur'd King will have more inward complacency in pardoning one than in punishing a thousand 44. We cannot merit of God but by his own mercy 45. Counterfeit and disorderly zeal ought not to abate a King's value and esteem of true piety both of them are to be known by their fruits 46. The sweetness of the Vine and Figtree is not to be despised though the Brambles and Thornes should pretend to bear Figs and Grapes thereby to rule over the Trees 47. The publick interest consists in the mutual and common good both of Prince and People 48. We must not sterve our selves because some men have surfeited of wholsom food 49. God sometimes punisheth Rebellious Subjects with continuance in their sin and suffers them to be deluded with the prosperity of their wickedness 53. Gods grace may teach and enable an injur'd King to want as well as to wear a Crown which is not worth taking up or enjoying upon sordid dishonourable and irreligious termes 51. Let a King keep himself to true principles of piety vertue and honour He shall never want a Kingdom 52. It is a principal point of honour in a yong King to deferre all respect love and pretection to the Queen Dowager his mother especially if with magnanimity and patience she hath sufferr'd for and with his Royal Father and himself 53. A Captive King in the midst of Rebellious Subjects may be wrapt up and fortified in his own innocency and God's grace 54. The bloud of a King destroy'd by Rebels will cry aloud for vengeance to Heaven and they who shed it will have inward horrour for their first Tormenter and not escape exemplary judgments 55. They that repent of any defects in their duty toward the Royal Father may be found truly zealous to repay with interest the loyalty and love which was due to him unto their King his son 56. The mask of Religion on the face of Rebellion will not long serve to hide the men's deformities that use it 57. Mislead Subjects may learn by their miseries That Religion to their God and Loyalty to their King cannot be parted without both their sin and their infelicity 58. God may honour a King not only with the Scepter and government of Realms but also with the suffering many indignities and an untimely death for them while he studies to preserve the rights of the Church the power of his Lawes the honour of his Crown the priviledges of Parliaments the liberties of his People and his own Conscience which is dearer to him than a thousand Kingdoms 59. A Captive King hath as much cause as leisure to meditate upon and prepare for his death there being but few steps between the Prisons and Graves of Princes 60. It is Gods indulgence which gives him the space but mans cruelty that gives him the sad occasions for those thoughts 61. A King in the hands of Rebels besides the common burthen of mortality which lies upon him as a man bears the heavy load of other mens ambitions fears jealousies and cruel passions whose envy or enmity against him makes their own lives seem deadly to them while he enjoyes any part of his 62. A Kings prosperity should not make him a stranger to the contemplations of mortality 63. The thoughts of death are never unseasonable since prosperity alwayes is uncertain 64. Death is an Eclipse which oft hapneth as well in clear as clowdy dayes 65. A King by long and sharp adversity may have so reconciled within himself those natural Antipathies between Life and Death which are in all men that the common terrours of the later may be dispelled and the special horrour of it much allayed 66. A King to whom a violent death approaching is represented by the policy of cruel and implacable enemies with all terrible aggravations may look upon those things as unpoysonous though sharp since his Redeemer hath either pulled them out or given him the antidote of his death against them which as to the immaturity unjustice shame scorn and cruelty of it exceeded whatever a threatned King can fear 67. A pious King never finds so much the life of Religion the feast of a good Conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious integrity and constancy as when he comes to a close conflict with the thoughts of Death 68. Though a King be not so old as to be weary of life it is happy for him if he be not so bad as to be either afraid to dye or asham'd to live 69. It is the greatest glory of a Christians life to dye dayly in conquering by a lively faith and patient hope of a better life those partial and quotidian deaths which kill by piece-meals and make men over-live their own fates while we are deprived of health honour liberty power credit safety or estate and those other comforts of dearest relations which are as the life of our lives 70. A King lives in nothing temporal so much as in the love and good will of his people 71. A King should not think that life too long or tedious wherein God gives him any opportunities if not to do yet to suffer with such Christian patience and magnanimity in a good cause as are the greatest honour of his life and the best improvement of his death 72. In point of true Christian valour it argues pusillanimity to desire to dye out of weariness of life and a want of that heroike greatness of spirit which becomes a Christian in the patient and generous sustaining those afflictions which as shadowes necessarily attend us while we are in this body and which are less'ned or enlarged as the Sun of our prosperity moves higher or lower whose total absence is best recompensed with the Dew of Heaven 73. The assaults of affliction may be terrible like Sampson's Lyon but they yield much sweetness to those that dare encounter and overcome them who know how to over-live the witherings of their Gourds without discontent or peevishness while they may yet converse with God 74. The life of a pious King is the Object of the Devils and wicked mens malice but yet under God's sole custody and disposal 75. We must not by seeming prepared to dye think to flatter God for longer life 76. Triumphing Enemies who are solemnely cruel adde as those did who crucified Christ the mockery of justice to the cruelty of malice 77. That a King may be destroyed as with greater pomp and artifice so with less pity it is but a necessary policy to make his death appear
may avoid his own 31. By the Sun-shine of God's mercy and the splendour of a Princes virtues whole mountains of congealed factions may be thawed and dissipated 32. Acts of Indempnity and Oblivion should by an indulgent King be offered to so great a latitude as may include all that can but suspect themselves to be any way obnoxious to the Lawes and which may serve to exclude all future jealousies and insecurities 33. If God see fit to restore an injur'd King to the enjoyment of his Kingdoms He ought then to let the Prince his son fully understand the things that belong to God's glory his own honour and the Kingdoms peace 34. A charitable King though injur'd by his Subjects for the future peace of his Kingdoms should encourage the Prince his Successour to be as confident as Himself That the most part of all sides who have done amiss have done so not out of malice but misinformation or misapprehension of things 35. Whatsoever good the Royal Father intended to Church or State in times uncapable of it should be performed by the Prince his Son when possessed of his Kingdom and Power 36. It is a prayer and benediction worthy of an afflicted King That God would after his decease so bless the Prince his Son and Successour as to establish his Kingdoms in Righteousness his Soul in true Religion and his Honour in the love of God and his People 37. Though God permit Disloyalty to be perfected by the destruction of a King yet He may make his memory and name live ever in his Son as of his Father that lov'd Him and a King under whom his Kingdoms flourished for a time 38. A King in affliction should believe God's power and have hope of his will to restore Him to his Rights despairing neither of his mercy nor of his peoples love and pity 39. Although a King 's domestick Enemies use all the the poyson of falsity and violence of hostility to destroy first the love and Loyalty which is in his Subjects and then all that content of life in him which from these He chiefly enjoyed yet they may fail of their end and after the many deaths the King suffers for the good will of his People He may not be wholly dead till their further malice and cruelty take that little of life too the husk and shell as it were which they had only left Him 40. Although that a King must die as a man is certain That He may die a King by the hands of his own Subjects a violent sodain barbarous death in the strength of his years in the midst of his Kingdoms his friends and loving Subjects being helpless Spectatours his Enemies insolent Revilers and Triumphers over Him living dying and dead may sometimes be probable in humane reason nought else being to be hoped for as to mans cruelty yet He is not to despair of God's infinite mercy 41. It is not easie for a depressed King to contend with those many horrours of Death wherewith God may suffer Him to be tempted which may be equally horrid either in the suddenness of a barbarous Assasination or in the solemn cruelty of an unjust sentence and publick execution 42. A King under such a sad apprehension must humbly desire to depend upon God and to submit to his will both in life and death in what order soever he is pleased to lay them out to him 43. All Soveraigns are obliged to own God as King of Kings not only for the eminency of his power and Majesty above them but also for that singular care and protection which he hath over them in the many dangers they are expos'd unto 44. God many times so pleads the cause of that King which he permits to be in the power of disloyal and bloudy-minded Subjects that he shewes him the sad confusions following his destruction presaged and confirmed to Him by those he lives to see in his troubles and God gives his Enemies cause to fear that he will both further divide and by mutual vengeance afterward destroy them 45. It may be the King's comfort who is wronged and dethroned by his Subjects that God gives him not only the honour to imitate Christ's example in suffering for Righteousness sake though obscured by the foulest charges of Tyranny and Injustice but the charity both to forgive them and pray for them that God would not impute his bloud to them further than to convince them what need they have of Christ's bloud to wash their souls from the guilt of shedding his 46. The unfortunate King that sees himself destin'd to be murther'd by his cruel Subjects may bless God if he has the heart to pray not so much that the bitter cup of a violent death may pass from Him as that of his wrath may pass from all those whose hands by deserting him are sprinkled or by acting and consenting to his death are embrued with his bloud 47. Rebellious Subjects cannot deprive a King of more than He may be content to lose when God sees fit by their hands to take it from Him whose mercy he is to believe will more than iufinitely recompence what ever by mans injustice He is pleased to deprive him of 48. A miserable King shall not want the heavy and envied Crowns of this world when God hath mercifully Crowned and Consummated his graces with Glory and exchanged the shadowes of his earthly Kingdoms among men for the substance of that Heavenly Kingdom with himself 49. A good King overpower'd by Rebbels may notwithstanding be perswaded within himself that he is happy in the judicious love of the ablest and best of his Subjects who may not only pity and pray for him but may be content even to dy with him or for him 50. No Subjects that pretend to punish can reasonably therein exceed the errours of their Princes especially where more than sufficient satisfaction hath been made to the publick the enjoyment of which private ambitions may have frustrated 51. An injur'd King's chiefest comfort in death consists in his peace made with God before whose exact Tribunal he need not fear to appear as to any cause long-disputed by the Sword between Him and his causeless Enemies 52. A good King may look upon it with infinite more content and quiet of Soul to have been worsted in his enforced contestation for and vindication of the just Lawes of his Land the freedom and honour of his Parliaments the rights of his Crown the just liberty of his Subjects and the true Christian Religion in its Doctrines Government and due encouragements than if He had with the greatest advantages of success evercome them all 53. The King that suffers for Christ as he is the Authour of Truth Order and Peace being forced to contend against Errour Faction and Confusion shall through Christ enabling Him be more than Conquerour in the end 54. Although any violent death of an unfortunate King be the wages of his own sin as from God and the
undeceive his people and to draw to Him the Nobility and Gentry of his Kingdom 83. When a great sedition is raised in one Kingdom the King may not imprudently resolve at adventure to put Himself freely and cleerly on the love and affections of his Subjects in any other the honour and safety whereof lies nearly at the Stake 84. In Rebellious or Seditious times the King may justly expect support from the Loyal part of his Subjects till the common safety be secured 85. When People of one Kingdom invade their King in his other two things are chiefly considerable by his Great Councel for the safety and security thereof 1. The chasing out the Rebels 2. His satisfying the just grievances of those that adhere unto Him wherein He should promise to concur heartily and clearly with them that all the World may see his intentions have ever been and will be to make that a glorious and flourishing Kingdom 86. The dishonour and mischief must needs be great if for want of mony a King's Army be disbanded before the Rebels be put out of his Kingdom they invaded 87. Some men more moliciously than ignorantly will put no difference between Reformation and alteration of Government 88. What part soever of a King's Revenue is found illegal or heavy to the Subjects a King should be willing to lay down trusting in their affections 89. It is not fit for a King to argue the business of High Treason which toucheth his principal Minister of State though his Parliament countenance it if in his Conscience He cannot condemn him Nor is a Parliament to expect that a positive Doctrine should best become the mouth of a Prince 90. If a King cannot condemn as a Parliament would have Him his Minister of State of High Treason yet cannot say He can clear Him of misdemeanours the said Parliament may find out a way to satisfie Justice and their own fears and not press his Conscience 91. Although a King to satisfie the People would do great matters yet in that of Conscience so tender a thing is it neither fear nor any other respect whatsoever should ever make Him go against it 92. A King should omit no occasion whereby he may shew that affection to his people which He desires his people would shew to Him 93. It is but the mark of a King's confidence to put himself wholly upon the love and affection of his People for his subsistence 94. A King should never have other design but to win the affections of his People by his justice in his government 95. A good King can do nothing with more cheerfullness than to give his people a general satisfaction not offering to endeer himself unto them by word which should not be his way but by Acts of setling their Religion and just Liberties before he proceeds to any other 96. It is no prejudice for a King a little to misreckon in time if not deceived in his end to settle an unquiet Nation of his Subjects 97. A King ought to seek his Peoples happiness their flourishing being his greatest glory and their affections his greatest strength 98. A Soveraign ought to take that care of his Son which shall justifie Him to God as a Father and to his Dominions as a King 99. A King ought to assure upon his honour that He has no thought but Peace and Justice to his People which He should by all fair means seek to preserve and maintain relying upon the goodness and providence of God for the preservation of Himself and Rights 100. In ambiguous Times a Kings fears should be greater for the Religion He professeth his People and Lawes than for his own Rights and safety The Eleventh Century 1. IT is a high thing to tax a King with breach of promise 2. A Parliament may have worse informations than the King Counsels against which they except 3. The King of whom the Militia is demanded by his Parliament is not to part with it for an hourâ— Nor should that be demanded of a King wherewith his wife and children are not to be trusted 4. A King is not to punish or discourage his People for petitioning to Him in an humble way though the Subject do not agree with his sense 5. A King sometimes cannot satisfie his People in a debt due to the Country when all the Water goes not to the right Mill. 6. When Lawes are altered by any other Authority than that by which they were made the foundations of the Peoples happiness are destroyed 7. When the King is oppressed and his just Kights taken from Him it is impossible for the Subjects Liberties and properties to be preserved 8. Errours and mistakes among Loyal Subjects proceeding from misinformation are removed with more satisfaction and ease to them than they were received 9. A King should hold it a piece of his duty to take the utmost pains He can fully to inform and undeceive his People and rather to prevent crimes than to punish them 10. Persons of ill dispositions take as great pains to do mischief and to bring confusion as good men should for peace and happiness in a Kingdom 11. When a good King sends such Propositions of Peace and Accommodation to his Parliament that contested with Him as to which He may expect they should with alacrity submit if the unexcusable enemies of Peace be not strong enough to prevail He may reasonably hope to have no other use of his Loyal Peoples affections but in their prayers not needing their assistance when He requireth nothing that with more justice can be denied Him than his Crown or Life be taken from Him 12. When the Religion Liberty-Lawes which are good Subjects priviledg and protection become the quarrel between a King and any his People in Rebellion the taking his Towns Ships Armies and money from Him should not dishearten Him the concurrence and affection of his people with God's blessing will supply and recover all 13. In time of Rebellion when any Country or Province have shewed much forwardness and made great expressions of their affections to the King He should never be satisfied with Himself till He have found some way to fix a mark of favour and estimation upon the same which may tell Posterity how good Subjects and how much Gentlemen they have been 14. The memory of any signal Loyalty shewed by Persons or Provinces to the Royal Father should grow up in a just acknowledgment with his Sons 15. In times of distraction unquiet Spirits will be abroad and every day throw in new accidents to disturb and confound the publick Peace 16. Rebellion that at first but fortifies it self in a Town will at length rise to that insolence as not to be any longer confined within the Walls but make sallies out to exercise murder cruelty and rapine upon the persons and possessions of good Subjects 17. The sad effects of counterfeit Fears and Jealousies in a Parliament are such as no men can tell the least good they
do nor the least evill they prevent 18. The King against whom all advantages will be taken by persons disaffected to Him should take heed where He comes that no eminent disorder or damage befall any Man by any person of his Train or under his protection 19. Where a Party of People have shewed themselves eminently loyal to their King the fullest testimony of his affection to them and to the peace of their County may be this to pass over the considerations of Honour and Reproach and not permit a provocation to provoke Him to make that place be the seat of his War 20. No honest man can imagine that his King will ever sit down under a bold and unexcusable Treason 21. A King wholly cast upon the affections of his People having no hope but in the blessing and assistance of God the justness of his Cause and the love of his Subjects to recover what is taken from Him and Them may expect a good issue the rather in that they are equal losers with Him 22. When a King desires nothing of his People but what is necessary to be done for the preservation of God's true Religion the Lawes of the Land the Liberty of the Subject and the very being of his Kingdom He has reason to look for a speedy and effectual compliance with his demands 23. A King has no reason to suspect the Courage and Resolution of those his Subjects whose Conscience and Loyalty have brought them to Him to fight for their Religion their King and the Lawes of their Land especially when they are to meet with no Enemies but Traytors Schismaticks and Atheïsts such as desire to destroy both Church and State and who have before condemned them to ruine for being loyal to their King 24. It gives courage to the Soldier when his King satisfies Him that the cause is just wherein He means to make use of his valour 25. If the time of War and the great necessity and straits a King is driven to beget any violation of those Lawes to which He hath consented He may hope it shall be imputed by God and Man to the Authors of the War and not to Him if so He hath earnestly laboured for the preservation of the Peace of his Kingdom 26. The Residence of an Army is not usually pleasant to any place and that of a distressed King caries more fear with it who it may be thought must only live upon the aid and relief of his people 27. It is not prudence in loyal Subjects to suffer a good Cause to be lost for want of supplying their King with that which will be taken from them by those who pursue Him with violence 28. Whilst ill men sacrifice their Money Plate and utmost Industry to destroy the Commonwealth good men should be no less liberal to preserve it 29. When it hath pleased God to bless a King with success in a War He should remember the Assistance every particular man gave Him to his advantage 30. However a King succeeds in his Wars it will be honour and comfort to his loyal Subjects that with some charge and trouble to themselves they did their part to support their King and preserve the Kingdom 31. The People that have been awed by a Rebellious Army will be more prone to express their affections to their King with that courage which becomes them when his Residence shall be so near that his Power shall have an influence upon the Country for their protection 32. No man should have more power to fright People from their Loyalty than their King have to restore them to it 33. Loyal Subjects in assisting their King defend themselves who may be sure the Sword which is drawn against Him will destroy them if He defend them not 34. It will be a shame for People to venture nothing for their King who ventures his life for them 35. In a Civil War whatsoever good People shall be willing freely to contribute their King should take kindly from them and whatsoever they lend Him he should having passed the word of a King see justly repayed to them 36. A King should take especial notice of such who are backward to contribute in a time of visible necessity 37. When a King considers the publick interests and concernments of his Parliament in the happiness and honour of the Nation and their particular sufferings in a Rebellion for their affection and Loyalty unto Him He must look upon them as the most competent Considerers and Counsellours how to manage and improve the condition all are in his and their condition being so equall that the same violence hath oppress'd them all 38. It will be in vain for them who have informed the World by divers set Battels against their King to boast how tender they have been for the safety of his Person 39. It will be hard for a King who is to struggle with many defects and necessities to keep a strict discipline among his Soldiers 40. Guilt and Despair make Rebels sometimes more wicked than they at first intended to be 41. A King should have no greater sadness for those who are his ill Subjects than He hath joy and comfort in their affections and fidelities who are his good 42. License and Disorder in an Army will discredit and may destroy the best cause 43. Subjects ought to remember That moneys are the nerves of War and accordingly expedite supplies to their King when He needs them 44. There is no profession a King hath made for the defence and maintenance of right Religion Lawes and Liberties which He should not inviolably observe 45. A King's Opinion wherein He differs from his Subjects in Parliament should not be like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians unalterable being not infallible 46. Nothing should so much afflict a King as the sense-and feeling He has of the sufferings of his Subjects and the miseries that hang over his Kingdoms when drawn upon them by those who upon pretenses of good violently pursue their own interests and ends 47. Such men may be supposed most apt and likely to maintain their power by blood and rapine who have only got it by Oppression and Injustice 48. Civil Dissentions that are desperate may encourage and invite a foreign Enemy to make a prey of the whole Nation where they are 49. Plague Pestilence and Famine will be the inevitable attendants of unnatural Contentions between a King and his People 50. A Kingdom being infested with Civil War so general a habit of uncharitableness and cruelty is contracted throughout that even Peace it self will not restore the Peace to their old temper and security 51. In the time of a Civil War the King should be so deeply sensible of the miseries and calamities of his Kingdom and the grievous sufferings of his Subjects as most earnestly to desire that some expedient may be found out which by the blessing of God may prevent the further effusion of blood and restore the Nation to Peace
the example of Christ to adde Not my will but thine be done 8. God by resolving the King's will into his own can make them both become one 9. The desire of life should not be so great in a distressed King as that of doing or suffering God's Will in either life or death 10. God can make a King content to leave the Worlds nothing that he may come really to enjoy all in him who hath made Christ unto him in life gain and in death advantage 11. Though the Destroyers of their King forget their duty to God and him yet he ought to beseech God not to forget to be mercifull to them 12. There is no profit in a King's bloud nor in gaining his Kingdoms from him if they lose their own souls that do it 13. An injur'd King ought to pray for such as have not only resisted his just power but wholely usurped and turned it against â—im That though they may have dâ—served yet that they may not receâ—ve damnation to themselves 14. God that made his Son a Saviour to many that crucifiâ—d him while at once he suffered violently by them and yet willingly for them will at the instance of a devoted King hear the voyce of Christ's bloud call louder for Regicides than the cry of the King's bloud against them 15. Let a King pray for his murtherers That God would prepare them for his mercy by due convictions of their sin and not let them at once deceive and damn their own Souls by fallacious pâ—etensions of Justice in destroying him while the conscience of their unjust usurpation of their King's power chiefly tempts them to use all extremities against him 16. The mercies of Regicides are very false and so very cruel unto their King who while they pretend to preserve him meditate nothing but his ruine 17. God can deal with bloud-thirsty and deceitfull men otherwise than they deserve by overcoming their cruelty with his compassion and the charity of their devoted King 18. When God maketh inquisition for Royal bloud the Souls which he sindeth penitent though polluted he can sprinkle with the bloud of his Son and then the destroying Angel shall pass over them 19. Though Regicides in design think any Kingdom on earth too little to entertain at once both themselves and their King yet he ought to pray that the capacious Kingdom of God's infinite Mercy may at last receive them both 20. When King and People be reconciled in the bloud of the same Redeemer they shall come at last to live far above the ambitious desires which begat mortal enmities between them 21. When the hands of Regicides shall be heaviest and cruellest upon their King if he fall into the armes of God's tender and eternal mercies he shall be safe 22. What is cut off of a King's life in the miserable moment of a violent death may be repayed in God's ever-blessed eternity 23. The King whose eyes have seen Gods salvation shall depart in peace FINIS CAROLI I mi Monita Observata Britannica The Prudential ADVICE AND OBSERVATIONS OF King CHARLES I. Relating To the POLICIE OF HIS Britannike Kingdoms Collected and Published BY RICHARD WATSON Homer Odys ◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 London Printed for Robert Horn 1661. To the Reader Friend ALthough the Aphorismes in the two former divisions are made generall to serve the good purpose of any Prince and his People to whom the like calamities are incident as were the sad experiments of our own which prompted the Spirit of Wisdome to their production yet the guilt of our sinnes and remembrance of our sufferings will make us easily sensible of their more peculiar reflexion upon our selves This Century with the Surplusage points so directly upon our Kingdome as we have no way to avoid the seasonable importunity of the Counsel and Instruction and knowing what it cost His Majesty that left it are inexcusably miserable if we put not the best value upon it by our observance We hear much of Book-Cases and precedents in contests and pleadings for mens personal propriety I know no reason why such rules and instances as these should not be alike positive and prevalent for Publick Interest the Prerogative of the King and Priviledges of the Church One calls the Sword 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Souldier should ever have ready and at hand I could wish this might be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the King-and Parliament-mans Manuall not so much to reproach him with the unworthiness of some of his factious predecessours as to instruct him by the fatality of such examples to a future sobriety in his votes and moderation in his publick desires or demands If you and I cannot help the extravagant deviations that may yet hereafter willfully be made from the assured steadiness of this Royal Canon we may at least be satisfied in our own aversion from the Ordinances of men that imagine mischief for Law and betray their trust to the second ruine of their Country à Dieu Your servant RICHARD WATSON C. I. Monita c. Britannica The First Century 1. THe Kings of England should call their Parliaments not more by others advice and the necessity of their affairs than by their own choice and inclination 2. The right way of Parliaments is most safe for the Crown and best pleasing to the People 3. When some mens distempers study to kindle sparks in Parliaments the King may hope to extinguish them by forbearing to convene for some years 4. The King resolving with himself to give all just satisfaction to modest and sober desires and to redress all publick grievances in Church and State may hope by his freedom and the Members moderation to prevent all misunderstandings and miscariages in the Parliament he calls 5. Elections of Parliament men are many times carried in many places with partiality and popular heat 6. The King knowing best the largeness of his own heart toward his Peoples good and just contentment may please himself in the hopes of a good and firm understanding which by a Parliament may grow between him and them 7. The King should resolve to reform what by free and full advice in Parliament he is convinced to be amiss and to grant what ever his Reason and Conscience tells him is sit to be desired 8. Though the King resolve not to imploy in his affairs a questiond Minister of State against the advice of his Parliament yet he should not have any hand in his death of whose guiltlesness he is better assured than any man living can be 9. The Peoples clamours for Justice in exorbitance of fury is not to be regarded when they mean thereby the King and Two Houses of Parliament should Vote as they would have them 10. A Tumultuous Parliaments after-Act vacating the Authority of the precedent for future imitation in case of bloud sufficiently tells the World that some remorse toucheth them that are most implacable against the person as if
importunities of unquiet Subjects both to secure his friends and overcome his Enemies to gain the peace of all deprives himself of a sole power to help or hurt any yielding the Militia to be disposed of as the two Houses shall think sit 42. The Militia is the King 's undoubted right no less than the Crown 43. The King should not desire to be safer than he wisheth the Parliament and his People 44. The new modelling of Soveraignty and Kingship makes the Majesty of the Kings of England hang like Mahomet's Tomb by a magnetique Charme between the power and priviledges of the two Houses in an ayery imagination of Regality 45. The Body of Parliament as the Moon from the Sun receiveth its chiefest light from the King 46. Parliament-men may remember that they sit there as their Kings Subjects not Superiours called to be his Counsellors not Dictatours Their summons extends to recommend their advice not to command his duty 47. When the two Houses have once been in the Wardship of Tumults their Propositions are not to be hearkned to until they shall have sued out their livery and effectually redeem'd themselves 48. When the King's judgment tells him that any propositions sent to him are the results of the Major part of their votes who exercise their freedom as well as they have right to sit in Parliament and not before he may expect his own judgment for not speedily and fully concurring with every one of them 49. The King cannot allow the Wisdom of his Parliament such a completeness and inerrability as to exclude himself 50. A Parliament without the concurrent reason of the King cannot beget or bring forth any one complete and authoritative Act of publick Wisdom which makes the Lawes 51. A King may satisfie his Parliament and his People but for fear or flattery to gratifie any Faction how potent soever were to nourish the disease and oppress the body 52. The end of calling a Parliament being to use their advice that sit the King ought to have charity enough to think there are wise men among them and humility enough to think it fit he should in some things hearken to them whose counsel he may want 53. The Suns influence is not more necessary in all Natures productions then the King's concurrence in all Lawes 54. We are to take heed of and beware the old leaven of Innovations masked under the name of Reformation which heaved at and sometime threatned both Prince and Parliament in Queen Elizabeth's and King James's dayes 55. Reason Honour and Safety both of Church and State command the King to chew such morsels as a factious Parliament may present him with before he lets them down 56. The King hath not any ground of credulity to induce him fully to submit to all the desires of those men who will not admit or do refuse and neglect to vindicate the freedom of their own and others sitting and voting in Parliament 57. I know not any such tough and malignant humours in the constitution of the English Church which gentler Applications than those of an Army raised by their Scotch fellow Subjects might not easily remove 58. If the Scotch sole Presbytery were proved to be the only Institution of Jesus Christ yet were it hard to prove that Christ had given Subjects commission by the Sword to set it up in any Kingdom without the Soveraigns consent 59. If Presbytery in the Supremacy of Subjects be an Institution of Christ it is the first and onely point of Christianity that was to be planted and watered with Christian bloud 60. The many learned and pious Churchmen in England who have been alwayes bred up in and conformable to the Government of Episcopacy cannot so soon renounce both their former opinion and practise only because a Party of the Scots will needs by force assist a like Party of English either to drive all Ministers as sheep into the common fold of â—resbytery or destroy them at least fleece them by depriving them of the benefit of their flock 61. What respect and obedience Christ and his Apostles payd to the chief Governours of States where they lived is very clear in the Gospel but that He or they ever commanded to set such a parity of Presbyters and in such a way as some Scots endeavour is not very disputable 62. The Effusions of blood shed for the advancement of Scotch Presbitery runs in a stream contrary to that of the Primitive Planters both of Christianity and Episcopacy which was with patient sheding of their own bloud not violent drawing other mens 63. Wise and learned men think that nothing hath more markes of Schism and Sectarism than the Presbyterian way 64. The Presbyterian Scots are not to be hired at the ordinary rate of Auxiliaries nothing will induce them to engage till those that call them in have pawned their Souls to them by a Solemn League and Covenant 65. Some pretenders of late to Reformation have intended mainly the abasing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and the robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues 66. The Bishops and Church-men as the fattest Deer must be destroyed when the other Rascal-herd of Schisms Heresies c. being lean may by these men enjoy the benefit of Toleration 67. If the poverty of Scotland might yet the plenty of England cannot excuse the envy and rapine of the Churches Rights and Revenues 68. There is not any exception to which the best Kings may be so liable in the opinion of them who are resolved to oppose them as too great a fixedness in that Religion whose judicious and solid grounds both from Scripture and Antiquity will not give his Conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided Innovations which their bold Ignorance would needs obtrude upon Him and His People 69. There is not such an Oglio or medley of various Religions in the World again as those men entertain in their service who find most fault with the King that adheres to the establishment of the Church without any scruple as to the diversity of their Sects and Opinions 70. It hath been a foul and indeleble shame for such as would be counted Protestants to inforce their Lord and King a declared Protestant to a necessary use of Papists or any other who did but their duty to help Him to defend Himself 71. The Papists have had a greater sense of their Allegeance than many Protestant Professours who seem to have learned and to practise the worst principles of the worst Papists 72. The King is not to justifie beyond humane errours and frailties Himself or his Councellours who may have been subject to some miscarriages yet such as were far more reparable by second and better thoughts than those enormous extravagances wherewith some men have wildred and almost quite lost both Church and State 73. The event of things may make evident to the People That should the King follow the worst Counsels that his worst Counsellours might
in State-affairs so neither should He think any Bishops worthy to sit in the House of Peers who would not vote according to his Conscience 97. The King must in Charity be thought desirous to preserve that Government in its right constitution as a matter of Religion wherein his judgment is fully satisfied that it has of all other both the fullest Scripture-grounds and until the last Century the constant practise of all Christian Churches 98. The King that has no temptation to invite Him to alter the Government of Bishops that He may have a title to their Estates will not easily believe their pretended grounds to any new wayes who desire a change 99. Some there are who by popular heaps of weak light and unlearned Teachers seek to overlay and smother the pregnancy and authority of that power of Episcopal Government which beyond all equivocation and vulgar fallacy of names is most convincingly set forth both by Scripture and all after-Histories of the Church 100. The King should have fair grounds both from Scripture Canons and Ecclesiastical examples whereon to state his judgment for Episcopal Government and not permit any policy of State or obstinacy of Will or partiality of Affection either to the Men or their Function to fix Him The Second Century 1. ALL the Churches in the Christian World which Presbyterians or Independants can pretend to are by so much fewer than others governed by Bishops as those in my three Kingdoms will equalize I think if not exceed 2. Oppression will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independant inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People 3. The Britannike Bishops are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they having by no Law been convicted of those crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods the King without many personal injustices to many worthy men can give up neither their Order nor Revenue 4. Those Subjects in vain pretend to tenderness of Conscience and Reformation who can at once tell the King That his Coronation-Oath binds Him to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Him though contrary to all the Rational and Religious freedom which every man ought to preserve and at the same time perswade Him That He must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of his oath which binds Him â— agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion He hath to maintain the Government and Legal Rights of the Church 5. It were strange the King's oath should be valid in that part which both Himself and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of their Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein He thinks Himself justly obliged both to God and Man 6. I cannot find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cryed up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominions that either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in my Kingdoms by God's blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independancy have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right constitution 7. They who take part with the King in a Civil War have clearly and undoubtedly for their Justification the Word of God and the Lawes of the Land together with their own Oathes all requiring obedience to his just Commands but to none other under Heaven without Him or against Him in the point of raising Armes 8. The King should be well pleased with his Parliaments intentions to reform what the Indulgence of Times and corruption of Manners may have depraved 9. The King may be willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with Reason or Discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the Authority of Episcopacy is neither just as to that ancient Order nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church or State 10. The contentions between the Presbyterians and Independants in the Britannike Churches have been the struglings of those twins which one womb enclosed the yonger striving to prevail against the elder What the Presbyterians hunted after the Independants sought and caught for themselves 11. That the Builders of Babel should from division fall to confusion is no wonder but for those that pretend to build Jerusalem to divide their tongues and hands is but an ill Omen and sounds too like the fury of those Zelots whose intestine bitterness and divisions were the greatest occasion of the last fatal destruction of that City 12. The Independants in this seemd more ingenuous than the Presbyterian rigour who sometimes complaining of exacting their conformity to lawes became the greatest exactors of other mens submission to their novel injunctions 13. The King should alwayes wish so well to Parliament and City that He should be sorry to see them do or suffer any thing unworthy such great and considerable bodies in this Kingdom 14. When such Bodies become restive and refractory against Soveraignty the King may be glad to see them scared and humbled by Tumults or otherwise but not broken by that shaking of whom He should never have so ill a thought as to despair of their Loyalty to Him which mistakes may eclipse but He should never believe Malice can quite put out 15. When Parliament or City are not only divided and separated from the King but brought to intestine confusion within themselves He should look upon them as Christ did sometime over Jerusalem as objects of his prayers and tears with compassionate grief as foreseeing those severer scatterings which will certainly befal such as wantonly refuse to be gathered to their duty 16. The best profession of Religion I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England as coming nearest to Gods Word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for Government with some little amendment which I have often offered though in vain 17. All the lesser Factions at first were officious servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and military success discovering to each their peculiar advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of uniform Religion pretended each to drive for their Party the trade of profits and preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all 18. In the administration of Justice the settled Lawes of the Britannike Kingdoms are the most excellent rules the King can govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects industry liberty and happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his People as Subjects not as Slaves
whose subjection as it preserves their property peace and safety so it will never diminish his Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consist in the injoyment of the fruits of their industry and the benefit of those Lawes to which themselves have consented 19. No Subjects can without an high degree of guilt and sin devest the King of those enjoyments which the Lawes have assigned to Him 20. The King in uncertain times is to require and entreat the Prince his Son as his Father and his King that He never suffer his heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England 21. After trial much search and many disputes I conclude the Religion of the Church of England to be the best in the World not only in the Community as Christian but also in the special notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the pomp of superstitious Tyranny and the meanness of fantastick Anarchy 22. The drought being excellent as to the main both for Doctrine and Government in the Church of England some lines as in very good figures may happily need some sweetning or polishing which might have easily been done by a safe and gentle hand if some mens precipitancy had not violently demanded such rude alterations as would have quite destroyed all the beauty and proportions of the whole 23. The King is not to entertain any aversation or dislike of Parliaments which in their right constitution with Freedom and Honour will never injure or diminish his greatness but will rather be as interchangings of love loyalty and confidence between a Prince and his People 24. The sad effects that have issued from the insolencies of popular dictates and tumultuary impressions should make Parliaments more cautious to preserve that Freedom and Honour which belong to such Assemblies 25. Nothing can be more happy for all than in fair grave and honourable wayes to contribute their Councels in Common enacting all things by publick consent without Tyranny or Tumults 26. After the storm of Civil dissension and War wherein the folly and wickedness of some men have so far ruined as to leave nothing intire in Church or State to the Crown the Nobility the Clergy or the Commons either as to Lawes Liberties Estates Order Honour Conscience or Lives the yong Prince that succeeds should be an Anchor or Harbour rather to the tossed and weather-beaten Kingdoms a Repairer of the ruines by his wisdom justice piety and valour 27. The King cannot in what extremity soever suffer any diminution of the Churches patrimony or alienation of it it being without paradventure Sacriledg and likewise contrary to his Coronation-Oath 28. The Government of the Church according to its constitution in England is a chief column and support to the Monarchy and Crown 29. The greatest means to make a Parliament happy is That the King on his part and the Members thereof on theirs lay aside all suspicion one of another 30. The Navy and Forts are the walls and defence of this Kingdom which if out of Order all men may easily judge what encouragement it will be to our Enemies and what disheartning to our Friends 31. The King can no way consent that the voyces of Bishops in Parliament should be taken away which they have enjoy'd since and before the Conquest and is one of the fundamental constitutions of this Kingdom 32. Often Parliaments is the fittest mean to keep correspondency between the King and his People 33. Neither Queen Elizabeth nor my Father King James did ever avow that any Priest in their time was executed meerly for Religion the inconveniences that by this severity may fall to the King's Subjects and other Protestants abroad ought to be considered by any Parliament that presses it 34. The Parliament that takes the Government all in pieces must do like a skillfull Watchmaker to make clean his Watch who takes it asunder puts it again together but leaves not out one pin if he means to have it go better 35. The Parliament ought not to wish more than they can shew the King the way how conveniently it may be done 36. It is the great expression of Trust the King has in the affections of his Parliament unto Him when before they do any thing for Him He puts a confidence in them by his gracious concessions 37. If any person durst be so impudent as to move the King to alter the Lawes He ought to put such a mark upon him as from which all posterity might know his intention was ever to govern by the Law and no otherwise 38. That Parliament is not to alledg against the King his deceiving their expectation in the time of his return having departed with their consent who as much and more have deceived Him in the condition for proceeding in his affairs 39. When the King sends a Serjeant at Armes to His Parliament He may expect obedience not a message 40. In cases of Treason no person hath a priviledg by being a Member of the Parliament 41. The King should alwayes be as tender of any thing which may advance the true Protestant Religion protect and preserve the Lawes of the Land and defend the just priviledg and freedom of Parliaments as of his Life or his Crown 42. When the King calls his Parliament together to be witnesses of his Actions and privy to his Intentions it may be certainly believed He has not the least thought disagreeing with the happiness and security of his Kingdom 43. A loyal Parliaments concurrence with the King it may be hoped will so far prevail over the hearts and understandings of the whole Kingdom who must look upon the Members as persons naturally and originally trusted by and for them that it will be above the reach and malice of those who sometimes have too great an influence upon the People to discredit the King 's most intire Actions and sincere Promises the Members being the best witnesses for the one and security for the other 44. When the King and his Parliament have both the same ends there will be no other differences in the way than what upon debate and right understanding will be easily adjusted 45. Let right Religion in which all are most nearly concerned and without care of which they must not look for God's blessing be vindicated and preserved Let the King's honour and Rights which have an inseparable relation with the Subjects interests be vindicated and if ravish'd from Him restored Let the Subjects Liberties Properties Priviledges without which a good man should not desire to be a King be secured and confirmed and there is nothing the Parliament can advise the King to wherein He should not meet them that together they may inform Posterity how much their trust and confidence in each other is a better expedient for the Peace and Preservation of the Kingdom than Fears and Jealousies 46. During any Session of Parliament the King may expect as most proper for the duty of Subjects that Propositions for the remedies of evils ought rather to come to Him than from Him yet such should be his Fatherly care of his People that He should rather lay by any particular respect of his own dignity than that any time should be lost for the preventing of those threatning evils which cannot admit the delayes of the ordinary proceedings in Parliament 47. That the Subjects cannot be obliged to obey an Act Order or Injunction of Parliament to which the King hath not given consent is the King 's known and unquestionable Priviledg and being so is a Priviledg of the Kingdoms 48. The Kings power is invested in Him by the Law and by that only He should desire to maintain it 49. The King that gives away the Militia parts with the power of the Sword entrusted to Him by God and the Lawes of the Land for the protection and government of his People thereby at once devesting Himself and dis-inheriting his Posterity of that right and Prerogative of the Crown which is absolutely necessary to the Kingly Office and so weakens Monarchy in his Kingdom that little more than the name and shadow of it will remain 50. For the abolishing Arch-Bishops Bishops c. a Britannike Soveraign cannot give his consent as He is a Christian and a King 51. The Britannike Kings have so inseparably woven the right of the Church into the liberties of the rest of the Subjects as the Government by Arch-Bishops and Bishops cannot be abolished 52. The King cannot consent to the alienation of Church-Lands because it cannot be denied to be a sin of the highest Sacriledg as also that it subverts the intentions of so many pious Donors who have laid a heavy curse upon all such prophane violations Beside which matter of Conscience it will be a prejudice to the publick good many of the Subjects having the benefit of renuing Leases at much easier Rates than if those possessions were in the hands of private men Nor is it to be omitted the discouragement which it will be to all learning and industry when such eminent rewards shall be taken away which now lye open to the Children of meanest persons 53. The exercise of mercy should be no more pleasing to the King than to see both Houses of Parliament consent for his sake that He should moderate the severity of the Law in an important case 54. No Free-born Subject of England can call Life or any thing he possesseth his own if Power without Right dayly make new and abrogate the old fundamental Law of the Land 55. I am confident no learned Lawyer will afirm that an impeachment can lye against the King all the Lawes going in his Name and one of their Maximes being that The King can do no wrong 56. The Commons of England was never a Court of Judicature Vid. H. Grot. ad cap. 1. Proverb 1. Lips Excerpt ex Comoed. Tragoed Graec.
King should be very foolish indeed and unfaithfull in his trust to put the reigns of both Reason and Government wholly out of his own into their hands whose driving is too much like Jehu's and whose forwardness to ascend the throne of Supremacy pretends more of Phaethon than of Phoebus 56. If Subjects will take the liberty of sending Propositions unto their Soveraign they ought to be such as these 1. That any good Lawes antiquated by the course of times or overlay'd by the corruption of maners may be restored to their vigour and due execution 2. That any evil customes praeter-legal and abuses personal may be removed 3. That if any injuries have been done by the King and others to the Commonweal they may be repaired 4. Such equable offertures should be tendred to him wherein the advantages of his Crown being considered by them he may fairly be induced to condescend to what tends to his Subjects good without any great diminution of himself 5. Such moderate desires of due Reformation of what is indeed amiss in Church and State as may still preserve the foundation and essentials of Government in both not shake and quite overthrow either of them without any regard to the Lawes in force the wisdom and piety of their Ancestors the ancient and universal practice of Christian Churches the rights and priviledges of particular men 6. Some considerable thing should be offered in lieu or in the room of what they would have destroyed which may at once reach the good end of the others institution and also supply its pretended defects reformits abuses and satisfie sober and wise men not with soft and specious words pretending zeal and special piety but with pregnant and solid reasons both divine and humane which may justifie the abruptness and necessity of vast alterations 57. A King cannot be well counsell'd by his Parliament if in the Members of it there be not so much Learning Reason Religion and just Moderation as to know how to sever betweem the use and the abuse of things the institution and the corruption the government and the misgovernment the Primitive Patterns and the alterations or blottings of after-Copies 58. Though Armies of Souldiers may prevail against a King's Person yet Armies of unreasonable Propositions which they would enforce should never overcome him further than he sees cause it behoving him not to look at their number and power so much as to weigh their reason and justicâ— 59. It is hard at first either to discern the rise or apply the remedy to a precipitant Rebellion 60. In Civil Wars and Massacres the Sea of bloud cruelly and barbarously shed is enough to drown any man in eteâ—nal both infamy and misery whom God finds the malicious Authour or Instigatour of its effusion 61. It is a most unhappy advantage to some mens malice against their King that when they bave impudence enough to lay any thing to his charge any bloudy opportunity should be offer'd them with which he must be aspersed although nothing can be more abhorred to him than what is full of sin against God disloyalty to himself and destructive to his Subjects 62. The blame of bloudy and Rebellious Protestants must needs he greater than that of Papists by how much their Principles are more for obedience to Princes 63. The goodness of mens intentions will not excuse the scandal and contagion of their Examples 64. The King's interest ties as much in the common welfare of his Subjects as some mens doth in their perturbations 65. Although a King can with Truth wash his hands in Innocency as to any guilt in a Commotion objected to him yet he should wash them in his Tears at the sad apprehensions he ought to have to see it spread so far and make such waste 66. Distractions and Jealousies at home make most men who are better Politicians than Christians rather intent to their own safety or to the designs they are driving than to the relief of their fellow Subjects abroad though every day inhumanly butchered and massacred whose tears and bloud might if nothing else quench or at least for a time repress and smother any sparks of Civil dissensions and jealousies which some men industriously scatter in the Kingdom where they are 67. They who themselves have rebellious intentions or inclinations are unwilling to part with their King upon any hazardous expedition though to the suppressing that force which opposeth their interest being either afraid he should have any one Kingdom quieted or being loth to shoot at any mark less than him or that any should have the glory of his destruction but themselves 68. Next to the sin of those who begin a Rebellion theirs must needs be who either hinder the speedy suppressing of it by Domestick dissentions or divert the Aids or exasperate the Rebbels to the most desperate resolutions and actions by threatning all extremities not only to the known heads and chief Incendiaries but even to the whole community of a Nation Resolving to destroy root and branch men women and children without any regard to those usual pleas for mercy which Conquerours not wholly barbarous are wont to hear from their own breasts in behalf of those whose opressive faces rather than their malice engaged them or whose imbecillity for sex and age was such as they could neither lift up a â—and against them nor distinguish between their right hand and their left 69. Preposterous and unevangelical was that zeal of the rebuked Disciples who would go no lower in their revenge than to call for fire from Heaven upon whole Cities for the repulse or neglect of a few As was that of Jacobs sons whom the Father both blamed and cursed for it And so is theirs who are for utter extirpation of all and more than all that have opposed them that will extinguish a Nation for the misdemeanours and injuries of a provoked and incensed Party 70. Even in the case of Rebellion moderate remedies are rather to be applied than extreme severity such as may punish some with exemplary justice yet disarm others with tenders of mercy upon their submission and the King's protection of them from furious and factious persons though met in Parliament who would soon drown them if they refused to swim down the popular stream with them 71. A King hath enough to do to look to his own conscience and the faithfull discharge of his Trust He has no leisure to make prolix Apologies against injurious calumnies and reproaches 72. A King that can hear with patience as bad as his worst enemies can falsly say may hope still to do better than they deserve or desire he should 73. By great effusions of Subjects bloud in Civil Wars no man is so much weakened as their King 74. Which King may hope though mens unsatiable cruelty never will yet the mercy of God will at length say to his justice It is enough 75. When God's mercifull justice intends not the utter confusion but the cure
letters if taken by his Subjects in arms against Him should be discovered to the World though without any those dresses or popular captations which some of them use in their speeches and expressions 82. Unquiet Subjects many times take Armes against a just prudent and innocent King into whose most retired thoughts if they could by any means have a clear sight they might discover how they are divided between the love and care He hath not more to preserve his own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and an extreme grief to see them both deceived and destroyed 83. No man can blame a King that by all fair and just correspondencies endeavours to avoid the pressures of his Enemies though his own Subjects 84. Some mens design like Absoloms is by enormous actions to widen differences between a King and his Subjects and exasperate all sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate 85. A King under the misfortune of having his letters taken by Subjects in Armes against Him hath much quiet and satisfaction within Himself when the integrity of his intentions is not jealous of any injury his Expressions can do them For 86. Although the confidence of privacy may admit of greater freedom in writing letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet it is best for a King when the Innocence of his chief purposes cannot be so stained or misinterpreted by his Enemies as not to let all men see That He wisheth nothing more than a happy composure of differences with Justice and Honour not more to his own than his Peoples content who have any sparks of love or loyalty left in them 87. It repaireth somewhat a King's misfortune that his private letters being taken by his Subjects in armes against Him cannot gratifie their malice further than to let them see his constancy to his Wife the Lawes and right Religion he professeth as likewise to convince them that He can both mind and act his own and his Kingdoms affairs so as becomes a Prince especially if his Enemies have before been very loath it should be believed of Him as if He were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the names of Evil Counsellours 88. It is the policy of Rebels to seek by all means to smother and extinguish all sparkes of Love Respect and Loyalty of the People to their King that they may never kindle again so as to recover His the Lawes and the Kingdoms Liberties which they seek to overthrow 89. God's unerring and impartial Justice can and will over-rule the most perverse wills and designs of men He is able and will turn even the worst of an innocent King's Enemies thoughts and actions to his good 90. Civility and Humanity most become such as pretend to Religion which they ought to pay to all men beside that respect and honour they owe to their King 91. They who do but remember how God blest the modest respect and filial tenderness which Noah's sons bare to their Father can never expect the divine approbation of any their undecent actions toward their King 92. Their malicious intentions can never be either excusable or prosperous who think by any unhandsome means to expose their King to the highest reproach and contempt of his People forgetting that duty of modest concealment which they owe to the Father of their Countrey in case they should discover any real uncomeliness 93. They who by publishing their King 's private letters think to render Him as a vile Person not fit to be trusted or considered under any Notion of Majesty will see themselves mistaken when God makes him as he did David more respected in the hearts of many who become better satisfied by knowing what He writ than by learning what they maliciously interpret and report 94. Although God gives Kingdoms yet sometimes his Providence permits that the King hath not any place left in them where he may with safety and honour rest his head Shewing him that Himself is the safest Refuge and the strongest Tower of defence in which he may put his Trust 95. A King in extremities should look not to man so much as to God who will have it so that he may wholly cast himself and his distressed affairs upon God's mercy who hath both hearts and hands of all men in his dispose 96. Necessity may sometimes command a King to withdraw from his chiefest strength and adventure upon their Loyalty who first began his Troubles whom God happily may make a means honourably to compose them 97. When Necessity constrains a King to cast Himself upon them who though they besiege Him in his Garrison and encounter Him in the field yet profess They fight not against Him but for Him He puts Himself to resolve the riddle of their Loyalty and gives them opportunity to let the World see they mean not what they do but what they say 98. God sees it sometimes not enough to desert a King of all Military power to defend himself but to put him upon using their power who seem to fight against him yet ought in duty to defend him 99. When a King finds it necessary to leave those that have adhered to Him He may hope such a method of Peace may be more prosperous than that of War both to stop the effusion of blood and the wounds that were made before 100. A King should never trust any nation of his Subjects further than to men that if they betray Him He may justifie to all the World they have not deceiv'd Him and if they sell Him at any dear rate He should be only sorry that his price should be so much above his Saviours The Tenth Century 1. GOD sometimes sees t is fit to deprive a King of Wife Children Army Friends and Freedom that He may be wholy his who alone is all 2. A King should never permit them who have got his person to gain his consent against his conscience 3. A King's denial of unjust demands made by Subjects in armes against Him which they call obstinacy He may know God acounts honest constancy which Reason and Religion as well a Honour forbid Him to recede 4. It is evident sometimes that Subjects who pretend to fight against evil Counsellours with their King fight indeed against a good Conscience within Him And whatsoever they may say of course intend not to bring Him to his Parliament till they have brought his mind to their obedience 5. After-times may see what the blindness of that Age will not wherein is both practis'd and countenanced Subjects fighting against their Soveraign whom if they have a good King God may at length shew that he chuseth rather to suffer for them than with them 6. When Providence is pleased to deprive a King of all other civil comforts and secular attendants the absence of them all may best be supplied by the attendance of such his Chaplains whom for their functions He reverenceth
by which to find out their Original 10. It hath been often sound that mutual returns of long answers and replies have rather multiplied disputes by starting new questions than informed the Conscience by removing former scruples 11. In former times under Pagan Princes the Church was a distinct Body of it self divided from the Common-wealth and so was to be governed by its own rules and Rulers The Bishops therefore of those times though they had no outward coercive power over mens persons or estates yet in as much as every Christian man when he became a Member of the Church did ipso facto and by that his own voluntary act put himself under their government they exercised a very large power of jurisdictionâ— in spiritualibus in making Ecclesiastical Canons receiving accusations conventing the accused examining of witnesses judging of crimes excluding such as they found guilty of scandalous offences from the Lord's Supper enjoyning penances upon them casting them out of the Church receiving them again upon their repentance c. And all this they exercised as well over Presbyters as others but after that the Church under Christian Princes began to be incorporated into the Common-wealth whereupon there must of necessity follow a complication of the Civil and Ecclesiastical powers the jurisdiction of Bishops in the outward exercise of it was subordinate unto and limited by the Supreme Civil power 12. Although there be no cause to dislike their opinion who derive the Episcopal power originally from Christ himself without whose warrant the Apostles would not either have exercised it themselvs or derived it to others yet for that the practise in them is so clear and evident and the warrant from him expressed but in general terms As my Father sent me so send I you and the like we may chuse rather to fix the claim of the power upon that practise as the more evidential way than upon the warrant which by reason of the generality of expression would bear more dispute 13. Arguments drawn from Names and Words and conjectural Expositions of Scripture are subject to such frailties as in debate will give little satisfaction to his judgment and conscience that requites it 14. The testimonies of so many writers ancient and modern as have been produced for the Scripture-Original of Bishops may be conceived of so great importance in a question of this nature that we are bound both in charity and reason to believe That so many men of such quality would not have asserted the same with so much confidence but upon very good ground 15. One witness for the affirmative ought to be of more value than ten for the negative and the testimony of one person that is not interessed than of an hundred that are 16. A Prince to shew the greatness of his mind is rather to conquer his enemies by pardoning than by punishing 17. A King may expect not to be ceusur'd for having parted with too much of his right when the price and commodity is so great such as security to Himself and peace to his People 18. A prudent Parliament ought to remember how usefull a King's power is to a Peoples liberty 19. A Prince is never to affect more greatness or prerogative than what is really and intrinsecally for the good of his Subjects not satisfaction of Favourites 20. A Prince that so useth his Prerogative will never want means to be a Father to all and a bountifull Prince to any he would be extraordinarily gracious unto 21. All men trust their treasure where it returns them interest 22. If Princes like the Sea receive and repay all the fresh streams and rivers trust them with they will not grudge but pride themselves to make them up an Ocean 23. Subjects who have learnt that Victories over their Princes are but triumphs over themselves will be more unwilling to hearken to changes afterward 24. A distressed King may best learn to own Himself by retiring into Himself and therefore can the better digest what befalls Him not doubting but God can restrain his Enemies malice and turn their fierceness unto his praise 25. If God give an injur'd King success against Rebels He ought to use it humbly and far from revenge 26. If God restore an exil'd King to his right upon hard conditions whatsoever He promiseth He ought to keep 27. Those men who have forced Lawes which they were bound to observe will find their triumphs full of troubles 28. A Prince is not to think any thing in this world worth obtaining by foul and unjust means 29. No Earthly power can justly call a King in question as a Delinquent 30. A good King will not without shewing a reason seek to impose a belief upon his Subjects 31. There is no proceeding just against any man but what is warranted either by God's Lawes or the municipal Lawes of the Country where he lives 32. The true Liberty of Subjects consists not in the power of Government but in living under such Lawes such a Government as may give themselves the best assurance of their lives and propriety of their goods 33. The King who has a Trust committed to Him by God by old and lawfull descent must not betray it to answer to a new unlawfull Authority 34. It is a great sin for Subjects to withstand lawfull Authority as it is to submit to an Authority Tyrannical or any other wayes unlawfull 35. A hasty sentence once past may be sooner repented than recalled 36. It is in vain for a King to be a Sceptick by denying the power Rebels have when greater than He can resist 37. A hasty Judgment passed upon the Life of a King may bring on that trouble and perpetual inconveniency to a Kingdom that the child which is then unborn may repent it 38. God many times does pay Justice by an unjust Sentence 39. Conquest is never just except there be a good just cause either for matter of wrong of just Title and then they that go beyond it the first quarrel that they have to it is it that makes unjust at the end what was just at first 40. Sole matter of Conquest is a great Robbery 41. Those Magistrates or Officers will never be right nor will God ever prosper them who give not God his due their King his due and the People their due 42. The regulating a Church rightly according to Holy Scripture is To give God his due A National Synod freely called freely debating among themselves must settle the Church if out of order when that every Opinion is freely and clearly heard 43. A Subject and a Soveraign are clean different things and a share in Government is nothing pertaining to the People FINIS To the Reader Friend THis Century may be complete and others added when more of His Sacred Majesty's Writings shall be Published Which advertisement I pray take with you as you proceed to the other Titles under which you may apprehend the like defect at the end Icon Animae Basilicae
Piety to the King in loyalty and to one another in charity 6. In quenching the flames and withdrawing the fewel of Civil Wars 7. In blessing King and People with the freedom of Publick Councels and delivering the Honour of Parliament from the insolency of the vulgar 8. In keeping the King from the great offence of exacting any thing against his Conscience and especially from consenting to sacrilegious rapines and spoilings of God's Church 9. In restoring him to a capacity to glorifie God in doing good both to the Church and State 10. In bringing him again with peace safety and honour to his chiefest City and Parliament if chased from them 11. In putting again the sword of Justice into his hand to punish and protect 1. The Soul of the said King ought to praise God and magnifie his name before his People 2. To hold God's glory dearer to him than his Crowns 3. To make the advancement of true Religion both in purity and power to be his chiefest care 4. To rule his People with justice and his Kingdoms with equity 5. To own ever to God's more immediate hand as the rightfull succession so the mercifull restauration of his Kingdoms and the glory of them 6. To make all the World see this and his very Enemies enjoy the benefit hereof 78. A restored King as he should freely pardon for Christ's sake those that have offended him in any kind so his hand should never be against any man to revenge what is past in regard of any particular injury done to him 79. When a King and People have been mutually punished in their unnatural divisions the King should for God's sake and for the love of his Redeemer purpose this in his heart That he will use all means in the wayes of amnesty and indempnity which may most fully remove all fears and bury all jealousies in forgetfullness 80. As a King's resolutions of Truth and Peace are toward his People so may he expect God's mercies to be toward him and his 81. God will hear the King's prayer which goeth not out of feigned lips 82. If a King commit the way of his Soul to the Lord and trust in him he shall bring his desire to pass 83. A King ought not to charge God foolishly who will not restore him and his but to bless his Name who hath given and taken away praying to God that his People and the Church may be happy if not by him yet without him 84. God who is perfect Unity in a Sacred Trinity will in mercy behold King and People whom his Justice may have divided 85. They who at any time have agreed to fight against their King may as much need his prayers and pity as he deliverance from their strivings when ready to fight against one another to the continuance of the distractions of his Kingdoms 86. The wayes of Peace consist not in the divided wills of Parties but in the point and due observation of the Lawes 87. A King should be willing to go whither God will lead him by his Providence desiring God to be ever with him that he may see God's constancy in the Worlds variety and changes 88. The King whom God makes such as he would have him may at last enjoy the safety and tranquillity which God alone can give him 89. God's heavy wrath hangs justly over those populous Cities whose plenty addes fewel to their luxury whose wealth makes them wanton whose multitudes tempt them to security and their security exposeth them to unexpected miseries 90. To whom God gives not eyes to see hearts to consider nor wills to embrace and courage to act those things which belong to his glory and the publick Peace their calamity comes upon them as an armed man 91. Rebellious Cities and Pâ—â—â—â— cannot want enemies who abâ—â—â—â— in sin nor shall they be long undisarmed and undestroyed who with a high hand persisting to fight against God and the clear convictions of their own Consciences fight more against themselves than ever they did against thier King their sins exposing them to Gods Justice their riches to others injuries their number to Tumults and their Tumults to Confusion 92. A depressed King should have so much charity as to pray That his fall be not their ruine who have with much forwardness helped to destroy him 93. An injur'd King should not so much consider either what Rebellious People have done or he hath suffered as to forget to imitate his crucified Redeemer to plead their ignorance for their pardon and in his dying extremities to pray to God his father to forgive them who know not what they did 94. They who have denied tears to their King in his saddest condition may need his prayers for God's grace to bestow them upon themselves who the less they weep for him the more cause they have to weep for themselves 95. A King should pray that his bloud may not be upon them and their children whom the fraud and faction of some not the malice of all have excited to crucifie him 96. God can and will both exalt and perfect a good King by his sufferings which have more in them of God's mercy than of man's cruelty or God's own justice 97. God that is King of Kings who filleth Heaven and Earth who is the fountain of eternal life in whom is no shadow of death is both the just afflicter of death upon us and the mercifull Saviour of us in it and from it 98. It is better for us to be dead to our selves and live in God than by living in our selves to be deprived of God 99. God can make the many bitter aggravations of a Soveraign's violent death as a Man and a King the opportunities and advantages of his special graces and comforts in his Soul as a Christian 100. If God will be with the King he shall neither fear nor feel any evil though he walk through the valley of the shadow of death The Fourth Century 1. TO contend with Death is the work of a weak and mortal man to overcome it is the grace of him alone who is the Almighty and immortal God 2. Our Saviour who knowes what it is to dye with a King as a Man can make the King to know what it is to pass through death to life with him his God 3. Let a distressed King say Though I dye yet I know that thou my Redeemer livest for ever though thou slayest me yet thou hast encouraged me to trust in thee for eternal life 4. God's favour is better to a distressed King than life 5. As God's Omniscience discovers so his Omnipotence can defeat the designs of those who have or shall conspire the destruction of their King 6. God can shew an injur'd King the goodness of his will through the wickedness of theirs that would destroy him 7. God gives a distrâ—ssed King leave as a man to pray that the cup of death may pass from him but he has taught him as a Christian by