France nor the Low Countries we never knew or understood the least trace of dissention hereupon and if the fashion of some Particulars amongst us displease other Churches they do not less displease ours The Reformed Churches are better instructed than lightly to quarrel at the exteriour circumstance of Divine Service where the substance is whole and sound they have learned to speak after Calvin in the Confession presented in the Name of the Churches of France to the Emperour and Princes of Germany We acknowledg that all and every Church have this right to make Laws and Statutes and for to establish a common Policy amongst them provided that all things be done in the House of God decently and in order and they owe obedience to these Statutes so that they do not inthrall the Conscience nor impose Superstition and those that refuse this are accounted by us seditious and wilful Beza goes yet a little further and maintains that in the outward of Religion Many things may yea ought to be born notwithstanding they are not justly commanded St. Augustin hath an Epistle upon this Subject which is a Golden Epistle wherein he instructs Januarius of the indifferency of Ecclesiastical Observations as of the times of Fasting and the divers customs of receiving the Blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper All things of this kind saith he have their Observations free and for this there is no better of Discipline for a grave and prudent Christian then to do as he seeth them do in all the Churches whither he goes for that which is neither against faith and good manners ought to be held indifferent and ought to be observed according to the company with whom we live and converse and hereupon he reports how his Mother being come to Millan found her self in great perplexity because they did not fast on the Saturday as they did in the Church from whence she came and he to resolve he went to ask counsel of St. Ambrose Archbishop of Millan who answered him When I saith he go to Rome I fast on the Saturday when I am here I fast not on that day do ye the same Into whatsoever Church ye go observe their customes if you your self will not give offence to persons and will that no person should give you offence All Protestants of Europe except the Faction of the Covenant govern themselves thus in whatsoever place they are they joyn with the Reformed Church whatsoever their form of Discipline be which as some say is divers in all Nations To this grave counsel of S. Ambr. S. Austin adds a Character to the life of the imperious and scrupulous humour of our melancholy zealots whom one would think had an intention to paint them out I have oft perceived saith he with much grief and sorrow that many weak and infirm persons have been much troubled through their Contentions wilfulness and superstitious fearfulness at some of their Brethren for doing some things which could not be certainly defined by the Authority of the Holy Scriptures nor by the tradition of the universal Church nor by the utility that might thereby come for the bettering and amendment of our lives only because there is some matter for their conceptions to reason and discourse upon or because they think the farther they go or are able to separate themselves from the Customs received is the most exquisite and nearest to perfection moving such litigious and idle Questions that they make appear to all that they will never allow of any thing well done unless they do it themselves The Reformed Churches take and give this Liberty that every one form an outward Order of Divine Service according to their prudence and its more to be wished than expected that there should be one and the same order throughout all Churches But I know not any Church that reject and cast off all certain Forms as the Covenanters The Declaration following made some few years since by persons of account in the Churches of France is notable As for the Ceremonies and Customs of Ecclesiastical Service and Discipline no judge convenient to leave to every Church his own without altering or changing any thing One day when it shall please God to perfect and confirm amity amongst these Churches we may be able by an universal councel and consent to form a certain Liturgy which may be as a Symbole and Bond of Concord The Churches of the Covenanters ought to be exempted out of this Number for the Liturgy is become to them an Apple of Discord which hath made them quarrel with all Churches of the world being in this point like unto Esau whose hands were against every one and every ones hands against him Therefore the Directors refute themselves by a manifest contradiction then when by their publike Declaration they tell the people that it is to conform themselves to the Reformed Churches that they prescribe not an ordinary form of publike Prayers and Administration of the Sacraments Seeing that it is a thing most notoriously known that all the Reformed Churches have certain Forms of Prayers But they do as if they should apparrel themselves with Green and Yellow because the Ministers of France apparel themselveâ— with black 'T is the Doctrine of the Brownists which now predominate in England that for to have a Liturgie or Form of Prayers is to have another Gospel Now after all this Do they not well think you to court the Churches of France and to make a great noise of their conformity with them having so openly condemned them and their phanatical Phrensie in this point is proceeded so far that neither the Lords Prayer nor the Ten Commandements nor the Apostles Creed are repeated in their Churches nor are taught their Children in their Houses much less any Form of Catechism Behold here a Faction who reject the Books of Christian Religion An horrible and unheard of thing in all ages and in all Churches since Christianity entred the world And dare these people speak of Reformation and Conformity with the Reformed Churches CHAP. XVI Of the great prudence and wisdome of the first English Reformers and of the fool-hardiness of these at present IF these directors who boast themselves of a new Light had had at least the light of Prudence they would have considered that they had to deal with popular Spirits who were accustomed to a good and holy Liturgie but since on a sudden interdicted the use they could not but think they were suddenly transported into another Gospel for the people are dull and fastned upon the exterior and that if they be once fastened to a form of devotion which is good although below perfection there is occasion to praise God that the people have any tast of devotion even in any Form and it should be cherished and encouraged And if there be any thing in this Form to be amended it should be done so mildly and dexterously that the people be not exasperated and the
them from the outward communion of the visible Church and in this as in other things Buchanan hath shewed himself to be less skilled in Divinity then in Poetry The best excuse which can be alledged in his Defence is that which Mr. Du Moulin lends him which may also serve for Mr. Knox That if he hath written any thing which passeth moderation we must 〈◊〉 attribute it to his Religion but nature for its most certain both these were hot headed men and had a great Antipathy against Monarchy As for the doctrine of King killing which is a familiar doctrine amongst the Jesuits and is oft their shame and reproach they to render us as odious as themselves and by way of exchange alledge and quote in their writings the passages of Buchanan Knox and Goodman who together with them teach the same Doctrine That cunning Jesuite Petra Sancta is very curious in searching into their writings whom that excellent person Mr River answers and tels him that none amongst us approve or allow those wicked Maximes and imputes the cause to their supposed persecution which had exasperated their spirits and to the hot heads of the Nations of this Iland After this so wise and charitable a reprehension coming from a person of such eminency men of learning amongst them ought at least to have learned modesty since they refused to learn obedience of their Parliaments which condemned these Doctrines of Knox and Buchanan by their publike Acts or by the determinations of their principal Divines who have learnedly refuted them and also by considering what great pains Mr. Bloudil Mr. Valade and other judicious and learned men of Forraign Churches have taken to wash off the filth of their doctrines and behaviours which have exceedingly scandalized the Evangelical profession after so many Iterated saving advertisements one would have thought they should have preserved themselves from falling into the same offences and from giving new occasions of rejoycing to their enemies and of shame to their brethren but behold of late worse then ever their hot heads have produced such new effects of violence as gives a challenge of defiance to the very Jesuits themselves The Author of Sions Plea animates the people to war and to pull down the Bishops speaking thus Smite neither small nor great but the troublers of Israel wound that Hazael in the fifth Rib Yea if your father and mother stand in your way to prevent you dispatch them suddenly pull down the ensign of the Dragon set up the standard of Jesus Christ What If the father of the State stand in your way now when ye are busie in this holy cause must he be dispatched no doubt but they would tread upon him to make way and would serve the Son as they had done the Father 't is a point resolved on by the same Author They must strike the Basilike vein none but that can heal the Pluresie of State which is as much as to say in good English that they must cut the throat of the King for the publike good This Author were a good Scholler of the two Jesuites Guignard and Scribanius had he not too grossly borrowed their Terms for say they France was sick and they must cut the Basilike vein to heal her and Scribanius that they committed a great error on S. Bartholomews even that they cut not that vein That is that those of the Guisian Faction spared the lives of the King of Navar and the Prince of Condie Oh rare Flowers of Diabolical Rhetorick Oh the shame of Christian Religion Is this the simplicity and meekness of the Gospel Is this the way to guide Conscience into the way of peace and to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ or Christ on his Throne If S. Paul were alive doubtless these men would even maintain to his face that he understood not the nature of the spiritual Kingdome when he said Rom. 14.7 That the Kingdome of God is righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And when he read this lesson to the Christians Let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which peace ye are called in one body They would have taught him that the Kingdome of Jesus Christ ought to be set up by the murthering of Kings the destruction of the people and the oâ—erthrow of States and would have sent him to their Catechise to be instructed That the Parliament Souldiers at the present ought not to consider us as their Fellow-Citizens or their Parents or their companions in Religion but as Enemies of God upholders of Anti-Christ and therefore their eye should not pity us nor their sword spare us These are the words of that abominable Catechism published by Authority for the use of the Covenanters Army Oh behold the principles of Faith wherewith these dull souls are instructed Behold the Bread of Life wherewith their Divines feed the consciences of the poor people Jer. 23.4 I have seen in the Prophets of Hierusalem an horrible thing they commit adultery and walk in lies they strengthen also the hands of evil doers Israel the daies of thy visitation are come thy Prophets are fools and thy men of Revelations are mad To these prodigious Doctrines we will joyn that Aphorism in the book entituled Altare Damascenum That all Kings have a natural hatred against Christ If ye would believe this man every one that loves Christ must bear an irreconcileable hatred to all Kings was there ever a more seditious and execrable Maxime after such a Doctrine pronounced by an Author of such account should we ask who hath put weapons into the hands of this superstitious people against their Soveraign for these poor miserable people hate the King for the love of God yea many account him an Enemy of Jesus Christ even because he is a King That we may the better discover by what spirit this man is led observe how he deals with his natural Prince he calls King James of most happy and glorious memory Infestissimus Ecclesia Hostes the most mortal enemy of the Church without doubt these who read this will question what Religion this man is of who so qualifies the incomparable Defender of the Faith who hath so vigorously and sincerely maintained the truth that if there were a Christian in the world who knew not thar great Prince neither by his admirable writings nor by the Renown of his Piety and Wisdome and should hear him call'd the most spiteful and mortal Enemy of the Church he might well imagine that King James had turned Turk and changed the Churches of his Kingdome into Mosques and sold his Christian Subjects for slaves to the Moors It were to do wrong to the testimony that himself hath given by the Immortal Monuments of his Religious Wisdome and by his truly Christian and Fatherly Government to undertake here to defend him against so unequal an Adversary wherein the injuries spoken of this excellent King turns to the ruine and perdition of
purely of Elect. It s great pity when men will be too wise and introduce Laws of Severity into the Church which God hath not required at our hands These men should meditate on the Text of Solomon Eccles 7.16 Be not righteous over-much neither make thy self over-wise why shouldest thou destroy thy self Or otherwise Why shouldest thou draw desolation on thy self Thus the Pharisees by an impertinent wisdome and affected Authority and a sublime Divinity of Chymeras were confounded in the vanity of their understandings and drew desolation upon themselves and their Church But yet there is a mystery of Iniquity under this scruple which doth deeply stain the Divines of the Covenant for their Masters foment them for to advance their affairs and it is easie to see that if they once become the strongest they will exclude from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper all those who cannot banish from their heart the love of their King and the Church wherein they were born and brought up In a Sermon preached before the House of Commons and printed by command we learn that their Party will no more communicate with the Antichristian Faction the Preacher explains himself and tells us he means all those that adhere to the King in this quarrel They have many times preached that none should receive the Lords Supper but those who had taken the Covenant yea they have spoke aloud that the Oath of the Covenant and the Lords Supper should be administred together so that the Communicants must swear upon the Body Blood of our Lord and upon the hope of their Salvation that they would be Rebels to their King as long as they live and the Blood of Jesus Christ must be imployed for the same use the cup of mans blood which the confederates with Cataline drunk round one to another in taking the Oath of Conjuration to murder their Superiours and ruine their country But this design is not yet ripe for execution they defer it for a time In the mean time these Gentlemen and the Spiritual Fathers deny themselves the Seal of their Union with Jesus Christ and hereafter they will dispose of this Sacrament according as the necessity of the Covenanters do require They forgot to put down this Article of their reservation in the Epistle they sent to forreign Churches but in inviting them in general to conform themselves unto them they exhort them to this amongst the rest What Must the Reformed Churches then abstain from the Lords Supper and chuse to interdict the Ordinance of Jesus Christ rather then put themselves in danger of administring to the unworthy Must the Universal Christian Church be gulled by their scruples composed of the folly of some and the malice of others Must all believers in the World hold their Faith in suspence and deprive themselves of the Sacrament of their Union with Jesus Christ until the Covenanters of England have found a proper time to make use of the Body and Blood of Christ to bind together a wicked faction and have made the mysteries of Salvation their footstool for ambition Rather then suffer by a criminal complacency that Religion should be so destroyed and that these horrible things should pass for Doctrines of the Reformed Churches let all those who bear this title defend the honour of the Gospel and thereby a publick detestation of so great a corruption Let all those who love God testifie by a just anger they hate the evil It matters not what fraternity these Innovators pretend with other Churches if they corrupt the Christian Religion and invite them to do the like Familiaris accipere haud familiariter let them manifest they have no fraternity with heresie and impiety repulse boldly the temptation of those who invite so basely to do ill that they may have no more courage to return But there is one consideration which should mitigate your indignation against them That amongst this most impious extravagansie there is a malady and disease of the spirit for many of this party have their brains dislocated and displaced Some whereof have taken their children and gone and sacrificed them pretending a particular command like that God gave to Abraham others have shut themselves up with a Bible and resolved to eat nothing because it is written That man shall not live by bread alone but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God Some have killed their cat because she had taken a mouse on Sunday but defer'd the execution until Munday And there are women and tradesmen amongst them who preach by the spirit without call knowledge or premeditation others who account the receiving of the Sacrament on their knees is to communicate at Mass and that the Surplice is the Smock of the Whore of Babylon the Publick Prayers Mass refined the sound of the Organs the Hoboyes of Antichrist ye need not wonder the Covenanters have so great a party since fools and Ideots are on their side The like weakness is seen in the Epistle of the Assembly to the Reformed Churches they highly aggravate the persecutions prepared for all those who would not bear the mark of the beast meaning by this mark their obedience to the order of Episcopacy and the use of the Publick Service for the King required no other thing of them but as beasts which being cast into the river ordinarily swim against the stream so many of these brutish spirits think they can never be saved but in going against the ancient received customes how good soever they be and make all their piety and honesty to consist in a sullen and dogged devotion fantastical and turbulent which will give no rest to themselves nor others This scrupulous humour hath produced strange effects witness he that killed his mother and brother in cold blood having no other quarrel against them but that they loved the Liturgy This was a preamble of the devil who the year after began this war for the same subject in which he made use of the melancholy humour of the people to cut the throats of their brethren for devotion according to the instructions before alledged out of Sions Plea and the Souldiers Catechisme In effect their spirit of contradiction and their bloody inclination which hath formed this maxime of the times that the Reformation must be made by blood are the productions of a sharp choler predominant in the Hipocondres or bowels whose vapours besiege the animal spirits which carries them into a savage rage which hath something of the nature of the Licanthropy There is alwayes in the worst parties excellent natures which are carried away with the stream and we know amongst the party of the Covenant some very brave men but the churlish zealots whose fierceness and number govern even the Governours themselves are of weak and malignant spirits whose temper is like that of Tiberius that is of dung kneaded and wrought together with blood these are men of sad sordid and reserved natures
of the service of the divers Sects of Religion they take no care of their Order but of their Liberty to convert all which will one day turn to their ruine and confusion when they shall have no enemy to unite them But in the mean while Religion is destroyed and all the world behold with astonishment that the English Reformers have left the Church without any discipline now these many years they have done much worse then he who began to build but was not able to finish for these have overthrown the antient order without ever considering what they would build in the place and yet they are not agreed thereupon they made a great noise of the building they would erect but this noise proceeded from their contestation and their building advanced like that of Babel that which the one builded the other pull'd down and in the end the division of tongues will make them forsake their work It 's an easie thing to ruine 't is a work of ignorance and insolence 't is the pastime of the devil and the occupation of his children Destruction and unhappiness is in their wayes and the way of peace they have not known Rom. 3.16 And ordinarily those that burn down the house know not what it is to build it up and those who build up a Church or State proceed by wayes and rules quite contrary to those that ruine them the sharp and rigorous proceeding of our enemies wholly to raze the established order witness they want knowledge to build an order in the Church for to this purpose there is not only required to conceive an Idea of Reformation but to consider the matter they have in hand and how to frame it For as he is not the best Engenier who knows best how to make a Regular platform upon paper but he that can best accommodate his rules to the nature of the place which he fortifies and it would be a strange method to pull down and lay level the place for to build it again regularly But it s that wherein our new Reformers have laboured Certainly they neither understand the Theory nor the Practick of the work they undertake and their knowledge goes no further then destruction It 's true many of the Assembly desired the Scotch Discipline and to establish it courted the Scotch Armies We also respect these Armies hoping that God will one day touch their hearts to defend the rights and person of their Soveraign and we pray God for their prosperity But let them give us leave to tell them mildly our advice of their Discipline the wisest amongst us commend the subordination and concatenation of their Synods and do confess that that was wanting in the English Order judging that the Synodal Power is not incompatible with the Episcopal but in an order well made both the one and the other is requisite and it is impossible that the English Bishops excellent in knowledge and piety who have lived within these ninety yeares should not know this very well above all those who were imploid in the Reformation But behold that which hath hindred the ordinary use of Synods amongst us incontinent after the Reformation it had been to ill purpose to have given all the Clergy liberty to assemble in a Synod Papistry being not then well rooted out of the Priests and Curates and before the English Church was well healed of this old malady she fell into a new one and was infected with a fanatick and malignant Sect who made piety consist in overthrowing all order and superiority in the Church and to controle that of the Magistrate whereupon our Soveraigns and their Prelates beholding the body of the Church swollen with evil humours and mutinous superstition continually ready to break forth feared least the frequent use of Synods should not be made use of by the discontented to gather and associate a faction and therefore accounted the surest way to maintain peace and truth was to keep these violent spirits in their duty by the Episcopal rod assisted with the Royal Scepter and certainly this way would have had better success if they had not let the bridle too loose for such hard mouths The Synod is proper to make Ordinances and the Bishop is proper to cause them to be observed The Synod to hinder tyranny the Bishop to prevent confusion the Synod to determine in point of Doctrine the Bishop to maintain order and discipline the Synod to remedy inveterate evils the Bishop to suppress immergent evils and in the mean while both the one and the other serve to all these uses and ought not to be separated in a Church where there is freedom and where the estate upholds the Religion But in a Church which lives under a state of a contrary Religion order must bend to necessity and as it is not possible to have all the parts of Ecclesiastical Government also there is less need for common adversity unite affections and take away many occasions of scandal and disorder Such are the Reformed Churches of France where the order is sutable to their condition and the native piety and simplicity of their Discipline is commended even by those of a diverse Profession Now having had leisure to examine their Discipline we find not that it doth much resemble the Scotch discipline for the Consistories and Synods of France have not Ruling Elders whose voices alwaies carry it as they do in Scotland Their Elders pass not any sentence in matter of Doctrine neither have they the power of the Keys to determine Censures All that Calvin granted them was but praeesse moribus to have an eye to the manners and behaviour of the flock in which they served as Assistants to the Pastors and this was a commendable use But in Scotland the Elders command for the Lord of the Parish is ordinarily the ruling Elder of the Consistory and in some manner is a Lay Bishop and although the Minister is alwaies Moderator it s but for form for the Elders have the principal power and being Deputies to the Assemblies they keep there the same credit above all in the General Assembly where Dukes Marquesses Earles and Barons have their voices and decide the points of controversies and the censures of the Church We greatly respect the power of Synods but we require that it be purely Ecclesiastical and that it be managed by none but by those who are appointed of God lay persons have not to do but to assist them except the King who ought to have the exterior power which the Scotch deny him to convocate and dissolve their Assemblies to suppress disorders without medling himself with the interiour or spiritual for it seems to us a thing unreasonable and contradictory to it self that the other Laiques should be admitted to the full capacity of the spiritual power equal or above the Ministers and that the King only should be excluded and hath not so much as the exercise of his temporal and purely Royal power
THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH SCOTCH Presbytery Wherein is discovered their Designs and Practises for the Subversion of Government in CHURCH and STATE Written in French by an Eminent Divine of the REFORMED CHURCH and now Englished The Second Edition Corrected and Enlarged EPIPHANIUS Lib. 1. Haeres â—7 Quod hominum Genus ad Ecclesiae Dei probrum Scandalum adornasse submisisse Satanas videtur quippe qui Christianorum sibi nomen indiderint ut propâ—er eos offensae Gentes à sanctae Ecclesiae utilitate abhorreant nuntiatamque veritatem ob immania illorum facinora incredibilem nequitiam repudient ut inquam frequentibus illorum sceleribus animadversis eos quoque quia Sancta Dei Ecclesia sunt tales esse sibi persuadeant atque ita a verissima Dei Doctrina aures avertant ut certe paucorum improbitaâ—e conspecta in universos eadem Maledicta Conjiciunt Printed in Villa Franca Anno Dom. 1660. THE PREFACE WE will take our first rise from that Royal Declaration or Manifesto which his Majesty of great Britain Cha. the I. commanded to be exposed to the world for the satisfaction not only of his own people but of the Reformed Churches abroad at that time when the differences were at the highest 'twixt him and his Parliament-Subjects who practised all the artifices that could be by making use of Press and Pulpit for that purpose to make him not onely odious at home but sent clandestine Agenis and intelligence abroad to traduce him among the Reformed Princes and States that He was branling in his belief and had a design to re-introduce the Roman Religion into his Dominions which was the motive of publishing this Manifesto hereunto annext CAROLUS singulari Omnipotentis Dei providentia Angliae Scotiae Franciae Hiberniae Rex Fidei Defensor c. Universis singulis qui praesens hoc scriptum ceu protestationem inspexerint potissimam Reformatae Religionis cultoribus cujuscunque sint gentis gradus aut conditionis salutem c. CUM ad aures nostras non ita pridem fama pervenerit sinistros quosdam rumores literasque politica vel perniciosa potiùs quorundam industriâ sparsas esse nonnullis protestantium ecclesiis in exteris partibus emissas nobis esse animum consilium ab illa Orthodoxa Religione quam ab incunabilis imbibimus ad hoc usque momentum per integrum vitae nostrae curriculum amplexi sumus recedendi Papismum in haec Regna iterum introducendi Quae conjectura ceu nefanda potius calumnia nullo prorsus nixa vel imaginabili fundamento horrendos hosce tumultus rabiem plusquà m belluinam in Anglia suscitavit sub praetextu cujusdam chimericae Reformationis regimini legibusque hujus Dominii non solum incongâ—uae sed incompatibilis VOLUMUS ut toti Christiano Orbi innotescat ne minimam quidem animum nostâ—um incidisse cogitatiunculam hoc aggrediendi aut transversum unguem ab illa Religione discedendi quam cum corona sceptroque hujus regni solemni sacramentali juramento tenemur prositeri protegere propugnare Nec tantum constantissima nostra praxis quotidiana in exercitiis praefatae Religionis praesentia cum crebris in facie nostrorum agminum asseverationibus publicisque procerum hujus Regni testimoniis sedula in regiam nostram sobolem educando circumspectione omissis plurimis aliis argumentis luculentissimè hoc demonstrat sed etiam faelicissimum illud matrimonium quod inter nostram primogenitam illustrissimuÌ„ principem Auriacum sponte contraximus idem fortissimè attestatur Quo nuptiali faedere insuper constat nobis non esse proposituÌ„ illaÌ„ pâ—ofiteri solummodo sed expandere corroborare quantum in nobis situm est Hanc sacrosanctam Anglicanae Christi Ecclesiae Religionem tot Theologorum convocationibus sancitam tot comitiorum edictis confirmatam tot Regiis Diplomatibus stabilitam una cum regimine Ecclesiastico Liturgia ei annexa quam liturgiam regimenque celebriores protestantium Authores tam Germani quam Galli tam Dani quam Helvetici tam Batavi quam Bohemi multis elogiis nec sine quadam invidia in suis publicis scriptis comprobant applaudunt ut in transactionibus Dordrechtanae Synodus cui nonnulli nostrorum praesulum quorum Dignitati debita prestita fuit reverentia interfuerunt apparet Istam inquimus Religionem quam Regius noster pater beatissimae memoriae in illa celeberâ—ima fidei suae Confessione omnibus Christianis principibus ut haec praesens nostra protestatio exhibita publicè asserit Istam istam Religionem solenniter protestamur Nos integram sartam tectam inviolabilem conservaturos pro virili nostro divino adjuvante Numine usque ad extremaÌ„ virae nostrae perioduÌ„ protecturos omnibus nostris Ecclesiasticis pro muneris nostri supradicti sacro-sancti juramenti ratione doceri praedicari curaturos Quapropter injungimus in mandatis damus Omnibus ministris nostris in exteris partibus tam Legatis quam Residentibus Agentibusque nunciis reliquisque nostris subditis ubicunque Orbis Christiani terrarum aut curiositatis aut comercii gratia degentibus hanc solennem sinceram nostram protestationem quandocunque sese obtulerit loci temporis opportunitas communicare asserere asseverare Dat. in Academia Civitate nostra Oxoniensi pridei Idus Maii 1644. CHARLES by the Providence of Almighty God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all who profess the true Reformed Protestant Religion of what Nation degree and condition soever they be to whom this present Declaration shall come Greeting WHereas We are given to understand That many false Rumors and scandalous Letters are spread up and down amongst the Reformed Churches in forreign Parts by the Pollitick or rather the pernitious industry of some ill affected persons that we have an inclination to recede from that Orthodox Religion which we were born baptized and bred in and which We have firmly professed and practised throughout the whole course of our life to this moment and that We intend to give way to the Introduction and publick exercise of Popery again in Our Dominions Which conjecture or rather most detestable calumny being grounded upon no imaginable foundation hath raised these horrid Tumults and more then barbarous Wars throughout this flourishing Island under pretext of a kind of Reformation which would not only prove incongruous but incompatible with the fundamental Laws and government of this Kingdom We desire that the whole Christian World should take notice and rest assured that We never entertained in Our imagination the least thought to attempt such a thing or to depart a jot from that holy Religion which when we received the Crown and Scepter of this Kingdom We took a most solemn Sacramental Oath to profess and protect Nor doth Our most constant practice and quotidian visible presence in the exercise of
this sole Religion with so many Asseverations in the head of Our Armies and the publick Attestation of our Barons with the circumspection used in the education of our Royal Off spring besides divers other undeniable Arguments onely demonstrate this but also that happy Alliance of Marriage We contracted twixt Our eldest Daughter and the Illustrious Prince of Orenge most clearly confirms the reallity of Our intentions herein by which Nuptial ingagement it appears further that Our endeavours are not only to make a bare profession thereof in Our own Dominions but to inlarge and corroborate it abroad as much as lieth in our Power This most holy Religion of the Anglican Church ordained by so many Convocations of learned Divines confirmed by so many Acts of National Parliaments and strengthened by so many Royal Proclamations together with the Ecclesiastick Discipline and Liturgy thereunto appertaining which Liturgy and Discipline the most eminent of Protestant Authors as well Germans as French as well Danes as Swedes and Switzeâ—s as well Belgians as Bohemians do with many Elogies and not without a kind of Envy approve and applaud in their publick Writings particularly in the transactions of the Synod of Dort wherein besides other of Our Divines who afterwards were Prelates one of Our Bishops assisted to whose dignity all due respects and precedency was given This Religion We say which Our Royal Father of blessed memory doth publickly assert in that His famous Confession address'd as we also do this our Protestation to all Christian Princes This this most holy Religion with the Hierarchy and Liturgy therof We solemnly protest that by the help of Almighty God we will endeavour to our utmost power and last period of our life to keep intire and inviolable and will be careful according to our duty to Heaven and the tenor of the foresaid most sacred Oath at Our Coronation that all our Ecclesiasticks in their several degrees and Incumbences shall preach and practise the same Wherefore we enjoyn and command all our Ministers of State beyond the Seas as well Ambassadors as Residents Agents and Messengers And We desire all the rest of Our loving Subjects that sojourn either for curiosity or commerce in any forraign Parts to communicate uphold and assert this Our solemn and sincere Protestation when opportunity of time and place shall be offered This Royal Declaration or Manifesto was committed to the management and care of James Howel Esq Clerk of His Majesties Privie Council who though then Prisoner in the Fleet performed the business very worthily and like himself CHARLES par la Providence de Dieu Roy de la grand ' Bretagne de France d' Irlande Defenseur de la Foy c. A tous ceux qui ceste presente Declaration verront particulierement a Ceux de la Religion Reformâ—e de quelque Nation degreou condition qu'ils soient Salut AYant receu advis de bonne main que plusieurs faux rapports lettres sont esparses parmi les Eglisses Reformees de là la mer par la politique ou plustost la pernicieuse industrie de personnes mal affectionnes a nostre governement que nous auons dessein a receder de celle Religion que Nous auons professè pratiquè tout le temps de nostre vie iusques a present de vouloir intro duire la papautè derechef en nos Dominions Laquelle conjecture ou calumnie plustost appuyee sur nul fundement imaginable a suscitè ces horribles tumultes allumè le feu d'une tres sâ—nglante guerre en tous les quatre coins de ceste fleurissante Monarchie soubs pretexte d'une chymerique Reformation la quelle seroit incompatible avec le governement les loix fondementales de ce Royaume Nous Desirons quil soit notoire a tout le monde que la moindre pensee de ce faire n'a pas entree en nostre imagination de departir ancunement de cell'Orthodoxe Religion qu'auec la Couronne le sceptre de ce Royaume Nous sommes tenus par un serment solennel sacramentaire a proteger defendre Ce qu'appert non seulement par nostre quotidienne presence es Exercies de la dite Religion avec tant d'asseverations a la teste de nos Armees la publicque Attestation de nos Barons avec le soin que nous tenons en la nourrituredes Princes Princesses nos enfans Mais le tres-heureux mariage que nous avons conclu entre la nostre plus aisnee le tres illustrie Prince d' Orenge en est encore un tres-evident tesmoignage par la quell'alliance il appert aussy que nostre desir est de n'en faire pas vne nue profession seulement dicelle mais de la vouloir estendre corroberer autant qu'il nous est possible Cest'Orthodoxe Religion de leglise Anglicane Ordonnee par tant de Conventione de Teologues confirmee par tant de arrests d'Parlement fortifie par tant d'Edicts royaux auec la discipline la Lyturgie a elle appartenant laquelle discipline Lyturgie les plus celebres Autheurs Protestants tant Francois qu' Allemands tant Seudois que Suisses tant Belgiens que Bohemiens approuent entierement non sans quelqu envie en leur escrits particulierement en la Synode de Dort ou un de nos Euesques assistoit la Reverence precedence deue a sa dignite Ecclesiastique luy fut exactement rendue Ceste tres sainte Religion que nostre feu pere de tres-heureuse memoire aduoue en sa celebre Confession de la Foy addressee come nous faisons ceste Declaration atous Princes Chrestiens Nous Protestons que moyennant la grace de Dieu nous tascherone de conseruer ceste Religion inviolable en son entier selon la mesure de puissance que Dieu amis entre nos mains Et nous requerons commandons a tous nos ministres d'estat tant Ambassadeurs que Residens Agens ou messagers a tous autres nos subjects qui font leur seiour es pays estrangers de communiquer maintenir aduouer ceste nostre solennelle Protestation toutes fois quantes que l'occasion se presentera TO THE MINISTERS OF THE REFORMED CHURCH AT PARIS Gentlemen HAving to contend with them who invite you to uphold their disloyalty by your example nothing can be more to our purpose then to prefix your example in the front of this work to teach them Loyalty During the Agitations of the State your Church as the Needle in the Marriners Compass kept steady upon the point of rest which is God and the King And your obedience served as an Ensign on a hill to France to guide the people to their duty Whereby you have justified the holiness of your profession making the world know the Religion you teach binds you to be good subjects and that you honour the King because ye fear God Therefore the English Covenanters
did very ill to address themselves to you since they hold a method quite contrary for they dishonour and massacre their King under a colour of devotion to God and undertake to set up the Kingdome of Jesus Christ by the ruine of the Kingdome of their Soveraign which is as if they would build the Temple of God with Cannon shot and defend Religion in violating it The truth of the Gospel was never advanced by these wayes but the patience and even the sufferings of the Christians was it which propagated the Christian Religion and rendered the Church mighty and glorious Those who suffered under the Pagan and Arian Emperours conquered both the Empire and Emperours and the Champions of truth purchased a Kingdome to Jesus Christ not in shedding the blood of their Soveraigns but in pouring forth their own for righteousness by a voluntary submission to their judgement He who cannot frame himself to this Doctrine doth not so much as God requires of him if he makes profession of Christianity for Christ tells us in calling us that whosoever taketh not up his Cross and cometh not after me cannot be my Disciple and commands him who would imbrace the Gospel to set down before and calculate the expence as if he were about to build Certainly he that cannot resolve to subject himself to his Soveraign for the love of God and never draw his sword against him to whom God hath committed it made an ill calculation before he dedicated himself to Jesus Christ for he ought not to take upon him Christianity if he were not able to go through with it and was not resolved rather to suffer then resist and to spend his goods and life to preserve himself in that subjection commanded by the Word of God For maintaining this holy Doctrine we have been banished and pursued with Armes and after we had defended our Soveraign with more fidelity then success we have been constrained to forsake our dear Country driven from our houses and spoiled of our revenues but yet we praise God for giving them since he hath done us the honour that we should lose them for his service and we ought this to our King of whom our lands held to abandon them for love of him For to enter into a Covenant against him peaceably to enjoy his and the Kings his Predecessors bounty and to betray the truth and our consciences to save our moneys we could never resolve Now since those who have done the evil began first to cry out and have spread their unjust clamours through all the Reformed Churches we 'll make the same journey with our just complaints and after the example of the abased Levite by the Sonnes of Jemini we send this recital of our grievances through all the quarters of Israel Judg. 19.30 Consider of it take advice and speak your minds The injury which doth touch us nearest is not our Exile nor the loss of our goods nor theirs of our nearest Relations but the extreme wrong done to the Gospel and the Reformed Churches to whom these new Reformers falsly impute their Maximes of Rebellion and hereby render our most holy profession suspected and hateful to Princes of a contrary Religion This Gentlemen toucheth you very near considering your condition and the Summons the Assembly at Westminster made to you to covenant with them or to make a covenant like theirs The Epistle was addressed to the Church of Paris in the name of all the Reformed Churches of France and with the Epistle they sent the Oath of their Covenant which concludes with an Exhortation in form of a prayer to God That it would please him to stir up by their example other Churches who live under the Tyranny of Antichrist to swear this Covenant or one like it This same Epistle together with the Oath being sent to the Ministers of the Church of Genevah stirred up in them a holy jealousie and drew from that excellent person Monsieur Diodati who is now in glory an answer worthy of him in the name of all the Church Repell this horrible scandal which so extremely wrongs Christianity in general wash and cleanse this filthy attempt of the blackest oppression which above all is imputed to the most pure profession of the Gospel as if the Gospel opposed and affronted by a kind of antipathy and secret hatred all Royal Power of Soveraign Authority Pacifie the exasperated spirit and too much provoked of your King and drive him not upon Pinacles and Precipices Blessed be God who touched the heart of this great person whose memory shall be for ever precious for rendring so open a testimony to the truth And because he have not suffered himself to be flâ—ered and perswaded by the complements of these enemies to his a Mjesty to applaud them in their evil actions such are these Refiners of Reformation as not content by their factious zeal to set their own country on fire but they labour also to cast the fire into their neighbours and to blow Rebellion through all Europe And of late the most enormous actions of the English drew from Master Salmasius Prince of Letters and the Honour of France a defence of the Right of Kings God was so pleased to raise up the Learnedst pen of these times to defend the best cause of the world in which this great person hath highly honoured his country But to speak right he more honoured himself and the Church wherein he was educated For if hereafter these malefactors dare be so bold as to say the Reformed Churches approved their actions they shall produce this book which condemns them and defends the Royal cause with such wisdome and efficacy of spirit suitable to the dignity of the subject and shall require them to produce if they can any one of the Reformed Churches who have in the least manner written in favour of their proceedings It should have been a strange and shameful thing if there were none found amongst the Reformed Churches who should not disown their wicked Doctrines and cause all Princes and people of the world to know that the Reformed Churches are very far from following their counsels and abhor their seductions to disloyalty from what part soever they come Heretofore indeed it was accounted the duty of charity and prudence to cover the faults of this faction and if corruption enter into Israel not to publish it in Gath but when the Doctrine of Rebellion disputed in corners ascends the Pulpit hold assizes in open Court sends forth Ambassadors invites the Reformed Churches to their party and imploy the Gospel Piety zeal of Gods Glory to raise subjects against their Soveraigns now 't is time or never to pluck off their mask of hypocrisie and shew where the evil lies and discover the wickedness of a party 〈◊〉 preserve from shame and disgrace the general and the rather since the Aphorismes of Rebellion and seducing people to sedition are reproached to the Protestants and imployed by the enemies of our
change and abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by mans authoritie so that all things be done to edifying XXXV THe second Book of Homilies the severall titles whereof we have ioyned under this Article doth contain a godly and wholsome Doctrine and necessary for these times as doth the former book of Homilies which were set forth in the time of Edward the sixth and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understanded of the people Of the Names of the Homilies 1 OF the right use of the Church 2 Against peril of Idolatry 3 Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches 4 Of good works first of Fasting 5 Against Gluttony and Drunkennesse 6 Against Excesse of Apparel 7 Of Prayer 8 Of the Place and Time of Prayer 9 That Common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministred in a known Tongue 10 Of the reverent estimation of Gods Word 11 Of Alms doing 12 Of the Nativity of Christ 13 Of the passion of Christ 14 Of the Resurrection of Christ 15 Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of Christ 16 Of the Gifts of the holy Ghost 17 For the Rogation daies 18 Of the State of Matrimony 19 Of Repentance 20 Against Idlenesse 21 Against Rebellion XXXVI THe Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of Edward the sixth and confirmed at the same time by authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and ordering neither hath it any thing that of it selfe is superstitious and ungodly And therefore whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the second year of the aforenamed King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully consecrated and ordered XXXVII THe Queens Majestie hath the chief power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief government of all estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiasticall or Civil in all causes doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any forreign Iurisdiction Where wee attribute to the Queenes Majestie the chiefe government by which titles we understand the mindes of some slanderous folkes to be oâ—fended we give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that only prerogative which we see to have been given alwaies to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiasticall or Temporall and restraine with the Civil sword the stubborne and evil deers The Bishop of Rome hath no Iurisdiction in this Realm of England The Lawes of the Realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences It is lawful for Christian men at the Commandment of the Magistrate to weare weapons and serve in the warres XXXVIII THe Riches and goods of Christians are not common as touching the right title and possession of the same as certain Anabaptists do falsly boast Notwithstanding every man ought of such things as he possesseth liberally to give almes to the poore according to his ability XXXIX AS we confesse that vaine and rash swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Iesus Christ and Iames his Apostle So we judge that Christian Religion doth not prohibite but that a man may sweare when the Magistrate requireth in a cause of faith and charitie so it be done according to the Prophets teaching in justice judgment and truth The Contents Chap. 1. OF the Seditious Liberty of the new Doctrines which hath been the principal means of the Covenant p. 1. Chap. 2. That the Covenanters are destitute of all Proofs for their war made against the King p. 12. Chap. 3. Express Texts of Scripture which commands Obedience and forbids Resistance to Soverigns p. 23. Chap. 4. The Evasions of the Covenanters upon the Texts of Saint Paul Rom. 13. and how in time they refuse the judgment of Scripture p. 28. Chap. 5. What Constitution of State the Covenanters forge and how they refuse the judgment of the Laws of the Kingdom p. 40. Chap. 6. What Examples in the Histories of England the Covenanters make use of to authorize their actions p. 46. Chap. 7. Declaring wherein the Legislative power of Parliament consists p. 50. Chap. 8. How the Covenanters will be Judges in their own cause p. 63. Chap. 9. That the most noble and best part of the Parliament retired to the King being driven away by the worser p. 65. Chap. 10. A Parallel of the Covenant with the holy League of France under Henry the Third Pag. 71. Chap. 11. The Doctrine of the English Covenanters parallel'd with the Doctrine of the Jesuits p. 72. Chap. 12. How the Covenanters wrong the Reformed Churches in inviting them to joyn with them with an Answer for the Churches of France p. 81. Chap. 13. The preceding Answer confirmed by Divines of the Reformed Religion with an Answer to some Objections of the Covenanters upon this Subject p. 101. Chap. 14. How the Covenanters have no reason to invite the Reformed Churches to their Alliance since they differ from them in many things of great importance p. 115. Chap. 15. Of abolishing the Lyturgy in doing of which the Covenanters oppose the Reformed Churches p. 122. Chap. 16. Of the great prudence and wisdom of the first English Reformers and of the Fool hardinesse of these at present p. 132. Chap. 17. How the Covenanters labour in vain to sow Sedition between the Churches of England and France upon the point of Discipline Of the Christian prudence of the French Reformers and of the nature of Discipline in general p. 145. Chap. 18. How the Discipline of the Covenanters is far from the practise of other Churches p. 156. Chap. 19. That the Covenanters ruine the Ministers of the Gospel under colour of Reformation p. 163. Chap. 20. Of the Corruption of Religion objected to the English Clergy and the waies that the Covenanters took to remedy them Pag. 167. Chap. 21. An Answer to the Objection That the King made War against the Parliament p. 176. Chap. 22. Of the Depraved and Evil Faith of the Covenanters p. 184. Chap. 23. Of the Instruments both Parties made use of and of the Irish Affairs p. 207 Chap. 24. How the different Factions of the Covenant agreed to ruine the King and contributed to put him to death p. 226. Chap. 25. Of the cruelty of the Covenanters towards the good Subjects of the King p. 232. CHAP. I. Of the seditious Liberty of New Doctrines which hath been the principal means of the Covenant A Compleat History of our Affairs since
Reformation they were constrained to provide for the safety of their own lives After this there was no more speech of the Agreement in Religion for that would utterly have spoiled their work for it had never been possible to have raised the people against the King if the conclusion of this conference had been made known to the world that the King the Court and the Bishops made profession of the sincere reformed Religion Now because all the Lies and Subtilties of the Devil were not capable to impute unto them another Confession of Faith but that which they maintain which was Holy and Orthodox known every where and confirmed by the Confessions of all the reformed Churches of Europe the Factious perswaded the people both by their Sermons and seditious Libels that the degree of Bishops was an essential Branch and Mark of Antichrist and that to pull them down was to do the work of the Lord and to ruine Antichrist and that if the King would maintain them he would be destroyed with them as being one of those Kings who gave his power to the Beast And besides the destruction of Bishops they openly demanded the Abolition of the Divine Service received in the Church of England condemning the use of all other prayers yea even of the Lords Prayer quarrelling with the Apostles Creed denied the necessity of the Sacraments boasted of a new Light that had appeared to them from Heaven to draw them out of Popish Darkness and all that was not compatible with their extravagant Illuminations they called Popery and the Ministers that disobeyed them Baal's Priests and the supporters of Antichrist By such kind of people were the great multitudes stirred who came crying at the Gates of the King and Parliament for Reformation threatning with fire and sword all those that should oppose it Of these Assemblies we may speak what is spoken of the uproar at Ephesus Acts 19.32 The Assembly was confused and the more part knew not wherefore they were come together for those that called for Reformation understood not one another and their opinions were different in Religion as appears at this day agreeing only in this to pull down the Ecclesiastical Government and what New Government they will build upon the Ruines of the Old we shall know when the sword hath decided the controversie but whilst the Mariners strive the Ship sinks The Lord behold his poor Church in compassion We have great hope now beholding the diversity of Opinions and Inclinations that these evil ingredients will together make a good Temperature and that the disorder yea even the Licentiousness it self will inforce order as commonly evil Manners beget good Laws but to attain this it 's required in this general confusion that those of clear and sound judgments who see the bottom of the evil and know the Remedy of it But having considered them that walk before in the design of Reformation we find that they are such that neither know the Remedy nor the Evil. As for the Evil in stead of having their eyes upon the errors of particulars against the principal points of Faith and Confession of the English Church they grew obstinate against certain small and indifferent Ceremonies which the King had many times offered to change by a Synod lawfully assembled and cast all the Fire of their passion upon the Episcopall preheminence a Surpliss a Festival Forms of Prayer Painted windows and condemning many good things amongst â—he evil And as for the Remedy we have here whereat to admire that striking at so small and light evils they would employ such extream Remedies nothing being able to serve but general destruction as if to heal the pain of the Teeth they would cut off the Head in stead of proceeding by an amiable conference appointing a deputation of the Clergy of the Kingdom to assemble in a Synod to calm the fiery spirits and to keep the people in obedience to their Soveraign and to fasten the building that shaked by the Ciment of Charity they made open profession that the Reformation could not be effected but by blood that they would have no peace with the Bishops and their Clergy that they must destroy before they build raze Babylon as they called our Discipline even to the very foundations overthrow the Altars of Baal and sacrifice all his Priests that now the time was come that the Israel of God ought to pillage the Egyptians And that now the just should wash their footsteps in the blood of the ungodly for such they accounted us and thus they did us the honour to plunder and kill us in Scripture Language And with this Divinity the Pulpits sounded aloud and the people publickly exhorted to take up Arms against the King and to destroy all Ministers both of Church and State that should joyn with him and for this effect these following Texts of Scripture were pressed by their zealous Preachers Luke 19.27 Those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me Judg. 5.23 Curse ye Meroz curse ye bitterly the Inhabitants thereof because they came not to the help of the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Jer. 48.10 Cursed be he that doth the work of the Lord deceitfully and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from bloud and these they appropriated to their war against their King and Clergy of England and all that adhered unto them there being no way of Reformation in these mens accounts but to kill us for the Love of God and the Advancement of his Kingdom Now being exceedingly astonished how men of Learning could possibly be so bewitched with a furious and foolish zeal we found at length having sounded the depth of their opinions that their Brains were troubled with Prophesies and Revelations that their principal reading was in Commentaries upon the Revelation which they interpreted according to their fancies and that they had studied more what God would do hereafter than what their Duty was to do for the present that they made no Conscience to transgress the declared Will of God in his Commands to accomplish the secret will of his Decree That they were Millenariâ—s expecting a Temporal Kingdom of Jesus Christ believing that the time of that Kingdom was now come and to establish that Kingdom they were to pluck down that of Antichrist as they understood the ancient Ecclesiastical Order and to dispossess Kings drive away the wicked dash the children of Babel against the stones tread the winepress of the wrath of God till the Blood rose to their Bridle reins that thereby Christ alone may reign in the world and the meek inherit the earth We have since enough tasted of the fruits of their meekness All this is drawn from the model of the Common-wealth of John a Leyden and the Prophets of Munster But if any of the Covenanters shall disavow these opinions they cannot deny but they were preached publickly and ordinarily neither can they
Scripture where it 's commanded for Subjects to take up Arms for Religion against their Soveraign He returned this Scripture Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Gal. 5.1 But we maintain against him that both Saint Peter and Saint Paul preserved themselves more stedfast in their Christian Liberty in suffering death than all the Armies of the Covenanters in fighting and that they take the waies not to establish but to shake and overthrow their liberty in Christ We need not prove that Saint Paul in this Scripture never meant to speak of fighting but to preserve the spirit free from superstition Christian Liberty consists not in shaking off the yoke of Superiour Powers but of that of Error and vice and that liberty which our enemies have assumed to present their Petitions to their King upon their Pikes point and in the end to kill him was not the liberty from which Christ had made them free Let them learn the Lesson of Saint Peter to carry themselves as free and not using their Liberty for a Cloak of Maliciousness CHAP. IV. The Evasions of the Covenanters upon the Texts of Saint Paul Rom. 13. And how in Fine they refuse the Judgment of Scripture THE Apostle commands Rom. 13.1 That every Soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no power but of God The Powers that be are ordained of God To this Scripture some of them answer that evil Kings are not ordained of God having learned this Doctrine of Goodman but therein they directly contradict Saint Paul who spake of the Powers then in being they that were then when Saint Paul wrote this Epistle were one of the three Nero's Successors of Tyberius the best of them were nothing worth a child is capable to distinguish betwixt the wickedness of a Prince and his authority the first whereof is of himself the second is of God and it 's of the power that Saint Paul speaks of without distinction of persons As for the following verse where Saint Paul infers thus Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Buchanan and his followers answer that this Command was but for a time whilst the Church was in it's Infancy weak and under the Cross incapable to resist their Prince but if Saint Paul had lived now and were to write a body of Common-wealth he would speak far otherwise and would leave Kings to be punished of their Subjects and this is that Buchanan assures us upon his word Likewise one of the best writers of the Covenanters affirms that Saint Paul spake to some particulars dispersed in the condition of the Primitive Church who had not means to provide for their safety if this License were lawful men might reject all the Doctrines of Saint Paul's Epistles as written to particulars and the Masters of the Covenant would make a way to exempt themselves from many duties commanded by Saint Paul which would very ill accord with their intentions So when the Apostle saith Rom. 12.9 10. Let Love be without dissimulation abhor that which is evil cleave to that which is good be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love preferring one another there is some appearance that they take this Command addressed to some particulars and not to them since they give themselves the liberty to do the quite contrary There is in these Epistles some Commands provisional moveable according to the times and persons as those which concern the outward Order others which are purely personal as the Command made to Timothy to come to him before Winter but the Moral Doctrines are immoveable and vary not according to the Times since that reason of Saint Paul given that the Powers that be are ordained of God is a Truth perpetual and universal and the Command not to resist the Powers ought also to be general for all Ages and all people so likewise this reason is perpetual That the Magistrate beareth not the sword in vain but to do justice and this other ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Wherefore the Command grounded hereon to be subject to the higher Powers not resist them is of perpetual necessity and obligation And since to resist the powers is to resist the Ordinance of God may we not ask of our new Divines why the strong and not the weak are permitted to resist the Ordinance of God It 's enough to have a good sword to exempt a man from the Commands of the Gospel The Covenanters might defend this interpretation of the Text of Saint Paul by the authority of Cardinal Bellarmine who saith that if the Christians long since did not depose Dioclesian Julian the Apostate Valens the Arrian and others it was because they wanted temporal forces otherwise of right they might which is the language of our Covenanters but this opinion draws along with it three inconveniencies First That it blasts the primitive Church and deprives the Martyrs of their honour for it 's little worth praise to suffer for the Gospel when a man hath a will without means to rebel their obedience to their Soveraigns was then nothing worth since it was forced and all their protestations of subjection in the writings of the Fathers of which they are full ought to be imputed to weakness and hypocrisie This likewise is to accuse Saint Paul of want of sincerity as if he taught patience and obedience to Kings only to accomodate himself to the Times and not to obey God but he clears himself sufficiently of this accusation saying that we must not only be subject for wrath that is to say for fear of punishment but also for Conscience Moreover this Doctrine is pernicious to the Church for if it were embraced it would render Christians suspected and hateful to their Soveraigns as persons who would subject the Conscience of their Prince to theirs and submits to them only out of weakness and wait only an occasion to cast off their yoke which would oblige Kings ever to keep them weak and to impose heavy burdens upon them and so prevent their rising Also this Doctrine is pernicious to the profession of the Gospel for it would much hinder the conversion of Pagan Kings since that turning Christians according to the Mode they should lose their authority there being no Pagan Religion which teacheth Subjects to resist their Prince by Arms which would also indure Christian Kings of a diverse Religion to hinder with all their might the Conversion of their Subjects Blessed be God that there are none but the Jesuits and Covenanters that maintain so destructive an Opinion The Reformed Churches and the most part of the Roman Church give no jealousie to their Princes hereupon The holy prudence of the Apostles saw well that even besides Conscience the Counsell the most profitable for the conservation of the Church and the propagatiâ—â— of the
Empire and for such hath been known in the world governed by one Soveraign Head having the dignity and Royal greatness of the Emperial Crown to which there is a Body Politick joyned composed of all sorts and degrees of people as well Spiritual as Temporal who are bound next to God to render unto him Natural Obedience If the Body Politick be naturally subjected to him as to its Head it 's contrary to Nature that it should be subjected to the Body Politick and his maxime Râ—x est universis minor is condemned as false by the Parliament they knew not in those daies what it was to make the Body of the State march with its head downward and feet upward but they were careful to maintain the Head in that eminent place where God had set it and hither also tend the words following That the chief Soveraign is instituted and furnished by the goodness and permission of Almighty God with full and entire Power Preheminence Authority Prerogative and Jurisdiction to execute Justice and put a final determination in all Cases to all sorts of his Subjects within this Kingdome and that many Laws and Ordinances had been made in preceding Parliaments for the full and sure conserving of the prerogative and preheminence of this Crown These good Subjects could not find words enough nor consult of means sufficient according to their mind to defend the Authority of their King esteeming and well they might that the happiness and liberty of the Subjects lay in the inviolable power of their Soveraign that the greatness of the State consisted in that of the Prince and that there is no other way to crown the Body but to place the Crown upon the Head This stile is very far from that of the nineteen Propositions presented to the King by the Two Houses in the beginning of the War which required that all matters of State should be treated of only in Parliament or if the King would treat of any Affairs in his Councel this Councel should be limited to a certain number and the old Councellors cashiered unless such whom it pleased the Two Houses to retain and that none hereafter should be admitted without their approbation that the King should have no power in the Education and Marriage of his children without their advice that all great Officers of the Crown and the principal Judges should alwayes be chosen by the approbation of the Two Houses or by a Councel authorized by them the same also in Governours of places and in the Creation of Peers which hath since been denied to the King in effect And as for the Militia they would have the King wholly put it into their hands that is to say he should take his Sword from his side and give it them which he could not do without giving them the Crown for the Crown and the Royal Sword are both of one piece so also for the point of Religion these propositions take from him all Authority and liberty of judgement yea even the liberty of Conscience for they require that his Majesty consent to such a Reformation as the Two Houses should conclude upon without telling him what this Reformation is Let all the world here judge if these men speak like Subjects they had reason to present these Articles with their swords in their hands but the King had more reason to draw his to return them an answer All these propositions are founded upon one only proposition which passeth amongst them for a Fundamental Law That the King is bound to grant to the People all their Demands but this is a Fundamental in the Ayr and made void by the practise of all Ages since Eng. was a Monarchy and by that Authentical Judgement of the States assembled under Henry the Fift That it belongs to the Supremacy of the King to grant or refuse according to his pleasure the Demands that are made to him in Parliament And in stead of the House of Commons being as it is now the Soveraign Court a thing never heard of until this present Age The House supplicated Henry the Fourth not to employ himself in any Judgement in Parliament but in such cases as in effect appertained to him because it belonged to the King alone to judge except in cases specified by the Statutes The same House under Edward the Third acknowledged that it did not belong to them to take Cognisance of such matters as the keeping of the Seas or the Marshes of the Kingdome yea even during the sitting of Parliaments the Kings have alwayes disposed of the Militia and Admiralty of the Forts and Garrisons the Two Houses never interposing or pretending any right thereunto they declared ingeniously to Edw. the First that to him belonged to make express Command against all Force of Arms and to that end they were bound to assist him as their Soveraign Lord. They declared also to King Henry the Seventh that every Subject by the duty of his subjection was bound to serve and assist his Prince and Soveraign Lord upon all occasions by which they signified that it was not for them to meddle with the Militia but that their duty as Subjects bound them to be aiding and assisting to him The Learned in the Laws tell us that to raise Troops of Horse or Foot without Commission of the King or to lend Aid is esteemed and called by the Law of England to levy war against the King our Soveraign Lord his Crown and Dignity In this point all that is done without him is done against him and this is conformable to the general Right of all Nations As for the Royal Estate saith Bodin I believe there is no person that doubts that all the Power both of making Peace and War belongs to the King since none dare in the least manner do any thing in this matter without the Command of the King unless he will forfeit and endanger his Head If the Two Houses were priviledged to the contrary by any Statute we should have heard them speak it but for what they have done we see no other Authority then their practice Therefore none ought to wonder if this their new practice hath less Authority with persons of a sound judgement then these practises of all ages past and if we cannot perswade our selves that without the Authority of the King they cannot abolish those of Parliaments Authorized by the King let them not then make such a loud noise with the Authority of Parliament 'T is in obedience to that Supreme Court of Parliament that we so earnestly strive to preserve the Princes Rights those Acts of Parliament are in full force which have provided with great care to defend the Royal Prerogatives judging aright that the Soveraignty is the Pillar of the publick safety and that it cannot be divided without being weakned and without shaking the State that rests upon it But we leave the reasons of the form of this Estate to them who formed it contenting our selves
condition they would commit new ones But when the honest and most understanding of the City came in a good number to petition the two Houses to hearken to peace and satisfie the King they were severely rebuked as seditious and these Gentlemen let them know that they loved no noise but of their own making Behold here the waies whereby the Parliament of London obtained their absolute power Behold the Foundations they laid for a most holy Reformation Posterity will be ashamed of the Actions of their Fathers all Forreign Nations will abhor these proceedings remorse and sorrow may in the end enter into the hearts of the Londoners when they shall behold themselves the sole object of publick Execrations and curses Those of Gaunt and Paris have only reason to pardon them when they shall remember their Baracado's and the estate of the Nobles during the holy League CHAP. X. A Parallel of the Covenant with the holy League of France under Henry the 3d. WHo so shall compare the holy League of France with the English Covenant shall find that they are sisters daughters of the same Father and that the younger is to the life after the Image of the Elder in both you shall find an Oath of mutual assistance to extirpate Heresie without the Authority of the King and which at last is turned against the King himself A Jealousie without ground of the Religion of their Soveraign and a War of Religion against a King of the same Religion which they would make the world believe was a Heretick A League with strangers and Armies raised in the Kingdom against their natural Prince who gave them no other occasion of the War but his too much Gentleness A King submitting himself to reason offering himself to remedy all the grievances of his Subjects and a people refusing to admit him to bring a remedy and resolved to give order without him the King driven from his chief City which he had honoured by his ordinary presence The fire of civil war blown about by seditious preachers The superstitious people tributary to the ambition of some particulars weak Conscience instructed to cut the throat of their King for the love of God and to gain Paradise fastings frequent Devotions doubled Prophetical Inspirations Examples of Angelical Holiness and all this to perswade the superstitious people that God favoured their Seditions as his cause and that their Leaders took Counsel of none but the Holy Ghost and had no other aim but the setting up of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ Writers under pay to write scandalous libels against their King the people fed with lies to drain money out of their purses one while amazing them with fears where there was none another while flattering them with false hopes and with forged news A Parliament in the principal City but in it a smal number who wanting the Royal assistance support themselves by granting liberty to an inveagled people and by power of rich and foolish Citizens Nobility scorned Artificers and Banquerouts bearing the sway all Order Divine and Humane overturned the ancient Laws and Customes broken and new fundamental Laws never heard of before in their places In brief it appears at this day that the Devil marches abroad and walks in the same paths he did about fifty years since CHAP. XI The Doctrine of the English Covenanters parallel'd with the Doctrine of the Jesuits SInce the League of France and the English Covenant were both made upon pretence of Religion it 's not unworthy our paines to consider the conformity of the Doctrines they employed to maintain both the one and the other and how the Jesuits Maximes were the chief support of the Covenant Both in the League and Covenant the people were encouraged to take up Arms against their King by this opinion of Car. Bellar. who teacheth that in the Kingdoms of men the power of the K comes from the people because it 's the people that makes the King and that the people do never so transfer their power over to the King but they retain it in habitu and so that in certain cases they may in effect re-assume it again which was also the judgment of Navarrus whom the Cardinal highly extois And thus also the Author of the Observations upon the Kings Declarations who is the Master of the Sentences with the Covenanters teacheth us That originally the power is in the people who are the fountain and efficient cause and that the Authority is not in the Prince but secondarily and derivatively All these State Philosophers are full of School terms but little reason and he adds That this Authority founded by the people cannot be dissolved but by that power which gave it constitution Which is as much as to say That the people may take away the Kings power and authority when they please Another of the Sect but more antient tells us That Princes and Governours have their authority from the people who when they find it convenient may resume and take it from them again as every man may revoke when he please his own procuration or warrant but this reason shall by and by be examined and refuted The Cardinal explains himself more clearly in that which before he had written in covert Terms saying That a King such as he there describes may yea ought by the consent of all to be deprived of his Authority and Goodman is of his opinion That evil Princes ought to be deposed and that this alone belongs to the inferiour Magistrates to put in execution We learn from Doctor Charron that the French Leaguers eluded the strength of S. Pauls Texts which forbids the opposing of Soveraigns in saying That the commands had regard and respect only to the State of the Christians of those times because they were not then strong enough to make resistance I have before shewed how Bellarmine Buchanan and the Champions of Covenant make use of the same reason and exposition But to clear the way and make it smooth to come to deposing of Soveraign Princes These two parties are wont to absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Emanuel Sa the Jesuite saith That the people may depose their Prince even after they have sworn perpetual obedience to him And Mr. Knox saith That if Princes prove Tyrants against God and his Truth their Subjects are free from their Oaths of Allegiance c. To the excommunication and deposing of the Prince ordinarily there follows execution according to the Authentick Bull That it s not Homicide to kill an excommunicated person The French League produced two examples in the persons of their Kings and this accords with the Doctrine of Buchanan That Ministers may excommunicate Princes and that a King after he is cast into Hell by Excommunication is unworthy to live or to enjoy life upon earth But observe in passing the Reformed Churches do not teach that the Excommunicatio Major do cast any person into Hell but onely excludes
him that spake them like unto the bitings of the weasel who consumes his teeth by gnawing of steel Certainly when the Divines of France defend in their writings the Confession of Faith of his Majesty against the Doctors of the contrary Religion they account not that King a most mortal enemy of the Church That most holy Confession confirmed by the practice of that great Prince will serve as a bright shining light in the Church in after Ages and cover the memory of them who injured and reproached him with perpetual shame But for the present thâ—se rare Adages which curse the best of Kings and Royalty in general are gather'd as choice and golden sentences Witnesse this other which comes from the Authority of his Companion as great a liar as himself who hath this passage He erres not much who saith that there is in all Kings a mortal hatred against the Gospel they will not suffer willingly the King of Kings to govern in their Kingdomes yet God hath some amongst the Kings who pertain to him but very few it may be one in an hundred But since he is upon the number instead of counting a hundred Kings one after another let him account only a hundred years without going out of England and we intreat this good man to consider what Kings have raigned over this Kingdome within this hundred years and let him in good earnest tell us which of them he would leave to God and which he would give to the Devil let them consider the piety of him whom God hath made a Saint and they a Martyr let them find if they can in all his Kingdome a man more just and meek more temperate and religious and let envy and rebellion who finding nothing to bite at in the life of this Monarch burst asunder at his feet and hide themselves in their own confusion Let us say the same to the Observator upon his Majesties Declarations who speaking of all Kings now raigning but with a particular application to his Soveraign saith That to be the delight of mankind as Titus Vespasian is now a sordid thing amongst Princes but to be tormentors and executioners of the Publique to plot and contrive the ruine of their subjects which they ought naturally to protect is now accounted a work worthy of Caesar If reviling and speaking reproachful words against the King were blasphemy according to the stile of the civil Laws of Israel 1 King 21 10. then this impious person is a Blasphemer in the highest degree against the sacred Majesty of Kings and moreover exceeding ridiculous as well as wicked to appropriate this description to his King whose known piety justice and clemency deserved rather the title of the delights of mankind then that Emperour upon whom the love of the people conferred it The like I may speak of the Kings of France within these fifty years all the Lists of the French Kings furnisheth not such excellent Princes wherefore Aphorismes of Rebellion could never have been pronounced in an age more proper to give the Authors the lye The Lord rebuke these black souls who curse God in the person of his Anointed their sentence is written and their qualities painted out to the life by St. Peter 2 Pet. 2.10 11 12. who despise Dominions presumptuous self-willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities whereas Angels which are greater in power bring not railing accusations against them before the Lord but these are natural bruit beasts made to be taken and destroy'd speak evil of things which they understand not and shall utterly perish in their own corruption I might heap up many more passages of our enemies which teach murther rebellion and hatred of Kings in which they seem to dispute with the very Jesuites themselves this description of their devotion A seditious piety a factious Religion which would be Judge of the consciences of Princes who abhor their Religion because they hate their Government who make good subjects and good Christians to be things incompatible Whosoever would weary his patience and behold how ingenious the Covenanters have been even to exercise the patience of God and insult over the persons and authority of Kings let them read their Sermons which were daily printed by authority after they had preached them before the House of Commons wherein the filthy Torrent of seditious Eloquence and the fantasticalness of a Bastard Devotion were imploy'd to tear apieces the King to disfigure him in odious colours and stir up the people to all cruel and bloody courses against him out of which books we might collect thousands of Modern Authorities in favour of the wickedness of these times which passed from them as Doctrines of Religion but we esteem our selves worthy of a better imployment then to be poring on Carrion and stirring in sinks and puddles That which we have cited out of known Authors shall suffice to let the world see with whom we have to do and that we are call'd to the condition of S. Paul to fight with beasts CHAP. XII How the Covenanters wrong the Reformed Churches in inviting them to joyn with them with an answer for the Churches of France AS 't is the vice of those who are strucken with the Leprosie to endeavour to infect others so the Covenanters like to them labour by all means possible to spread abroad the poyson of their impiety Those who have preached and published their most infamous Doctrines which renders Christianity hateful both to Turks and Pagans were so bold as to address their publike Declarations to the Reformed Churches of France the Low Countryes and Switzerland as if they made profession of the same Doctrines they had the impudence to invite these so pure Churches to have society with them and to pray them to esteem the Cause of the Covenant that of all the Churches In this the Assembly of Divines at London were imployed by their Masters That which makes this Temptation less dangerous is That the Letter they wrote upon this subject to their Neighbours could very hardly be understood This Venerable Company of Divines of Consummate Knowledge and the Flower of Eloquence of that Party writ a Latine Letter to the French Flemens and Switzers wherein there wants nothing in the Outward but Language and Common sense a most worthy Cover for the Inward for so evil a drogue there needed not a Better Box. This Epistle amongst a ridiculous affectation of Criticismes Greek and Poetical phrases and many Rhetorical Figures is here and there fill'd with Solecismes Barbarismes and the like Grammar Elegancies like a foundred horse that goes up and down and it 's pity to behold hâ—w their Eloquence stumbles in Capriolinge This piece of Latine was much admired and many praises heaped upon the Authors and publick thanks by special command given to them by the House of Commons so much is knowledge valued in this Reformed party It 's likely many hands contributed to the composing of it for
from Whom they take the use of their holy prayers have great cause to fear they will also take from them their Religion whereupon some have Fallen into a desperate Melancholy if they deal thus with us because they have a greater measure of light then we it is much to be desired that they had a little more that they fall not into the offence condemned by S. Paul and through thy knowledge shall thy weak brother perish for whom Christ died but when ye sin against the Brethren and wound their weak conscience ye sin against Christ 1 Cor. 8.11 12. Heretofore this faction would be spar'd in their disobedience to the Ecclesiastical Laws pretending tenderness and weakness of Conscience but now that they are become Masters of the Laws they regard not our weakness but force us to follow their fantasies without considering our doubts and scruples The King by the Articles of Uxbridge offered them liberty of Conscience but they will not give neither the King nor his subjects the like liberty Either take the Covenant or leave your Benefice was the choice they gave many Ministers Alledge to them the great and deep affliction of the people because they had taken from them their Common Prayers their Forms for the celebration of the Sacraments and of Marriage their customs of receiving the Sacrament at Christmas Easter and Pentecost and the decent manner of burying their dead with some Prayers and Texts of Scripture which put the living in mind of their mortality and raised up in them an assurance of their resurrection They will answer you that these observations are not necessary and mock at the affliction of the ignorant people But we hold that it is necessary to obey God who hath commanded us to do nothing whereby thy weak brother stumbleth is offended or made weak but be such as give none offence neither to the Jew nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God Rom. 14.21 Also the imaginary danger which they fear of things that may come to passe is a thousand times less then the present scandal and offence done to pious souls to behold all Ecclesiastical order overthrown and Liberty given to prophane and fanatique spirits to whom any thing is permitted unless to obey the King and the orders established by Lawfull Authority But let us pass to other offences There are many more besides the violation of Orders the very substance of Religion is endamaged What care do many people take to Baptize their children How do they reprove them that Baptize no more in the Name of the Father the Son and the holy Ghost Is it notpermitted to every one to Baptize or not Baptize their children and Baptism is it not refused to many Infants which are presented to be Baptized These new Reformers find so many difficulties in the capacity of their Parents that they are constrained many times to carry their children far from their dwellings to be received into the Christian Church for 't is one of the Errors of the Times that if the Father hath not Faith that is to say a Faith after their mode the Infant must not be Baptized In stead whereof the Reformed Churches in Baptizing Infants consider not the Faith of the Parents but of the Church in which they are born and the Doctrine not according as it is believed but according as it is taught Fidem non subjectivam sed objectivam For if they must be certain whether the Father hath Faith they should also be certain that he is the Father of the Infant which the Charity of the Church questioneth not Also it is an ordinary custom amongst them to rebaptize aged persons and to plunge women naked into the Water untill they say they feel faith The abuse of the blessed Sacrament of the Lords Supper is yet worse because it is more universal and maintained by the body of their Divines We beseech all lovers of the Christian Religion to enquire themselves of these Ministers how long time they have forborn to receive or administer this holy Sacrament when was it that the heads of the Covenanters received it when is it that their Souldiers were partakers of it those zealous murtherers whose assassinations and plunderings are steeped in piety Is it because they dare not receive the body and blood of our Lord with hands defiled with rapine and innocent blood But this reason cannot serve for the Churches where the Ministers are laid hold on and forbidden to administer the Sacrament where they are Ministers How many Churches are there where there hath been no speaking of a Sacrament these fifteen or sixteen years And is it not for them to mock God to make a Directory of the manner of receiving the Lords Supper and not to make use of it yea by force to hinder execution and performance of it Our Lord Jesus hath commanded us To do this in remembrance of him 1 Cor. 11.26 But behold here persons who impose a necessity not to do because they know not those who are worthy and therefore they hinder others to obey Jesus Christ taking by force the Bread and Wine from the people who were assembled to communicate and carried away the Minister out of the Church for fear he should administer the Sacrament These actions cry to heaven and will one day draw down a just vengeance These proceedings make us fear least they rank the Lords Supper amongst the superannuated ceremonies which must be abolished for in many Churches where the Covenanters are it 's not used which is a horrible thing to hear the Church of God since Christs time never before brought forth such examples Certainly since Jesus Christ would that we should do this in remembrance of him until his coming again if he should come now he would find it very strange that they had left before his coming this celebration of the memory of his death which he had so expresly commanded and it is to be presumed that he will receive no reason against his Command for the coming of Jesus Christ is the only reason which ought to make this holy Ordinance cease By this scruple that they dare not administer the holy Supper but to those alone whom they know to be worthy which is the general pretext of their party for their total abstinence they condemn not only the Reformed Churches who exclude none from the holy Communion unless they be ignorant and scandalous persons but also Jesus Christ who administred to the Disciple that betrayed him even then when he was plotting his treason in his heart By this also they even bind themselves not to celebrate the Supper of the Lord until they be inspectors and lookers into Conscience that is to say Gods For otherwise they cannot be fully satisfied of the worthiness of persons and all those who have a holy desire to partake of the Lords Table shall not be admitted until these principal Clerks of the Councel-Chamber of God have formed a Church which consists
seems superfluity in the eyes of envy and untill these hungry Harpies have caught that little which hath escaped the claws of Sacriledge they will never leave calling for the Reformation of the Clergy that is to say wholly to ruine them The devil who hates the Gospel labours to ruine iâ— by the poverty of those who preach it knowing well that the indigence of Ministers brings contempt upon the Ministry And that the Rewards being taken away the Study of Divinity will be neglected and then there will be none but the meanest of the people like to the Priests of Jeroboam Poverty abates the courage and clips the wings of conception and oft-times occasions evil designs and Councels in those whose means are too small for their Degree To do well in Pulpit and by Writing to build up indeed the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and to destroy the works of the devil they ought to have their spirits free and not oppressed through necessity Magnae mentis opus nec de Lodice paranda Attonitae They that require and would a man should do well and yet will not do well to him t is an unjust demand and many now in England pass the unjustice of Pharaoh requiring double the number of Bricks and yet give to them less straw If they alledge to us that Jesus Christ and his Apostles were poor we answer that so were their auditors and the condition of our Lord and his Disciples is a pattern as well for Layicks as the Clergy And if the Primitive Church of Hierusalem spoken of in the Acts ought to be proposed for an example of the Ecclesiastical and Civil Government of all Christendom the Clergy of England humbly beseech the Gentlemen our Reformers to imitate these pious souls who sold their possessions and brought the price and laid them down at the Apostles feet Let them sell their Lands and bring the mony to their Pastors to dispose of according to their discretion and the Ministers will part with their Tithes If we were now to speak to the Clergy of England we would exhort them to love their Office and their Benefice and now that God hath called them to the Cross and poverty to rejoyce in their conformity to Jesus Christ who made himself poor to enrich us expecting their reward in Heaven bearing patiently the spoyling of their goods accounting themselves rich enough if God be glorified and his Gospel purely Preached but these Exhortations have an evil grace in the mouth of them who come to plunder or Sequester them which is as if a thief in robbing a traveller should preach a Sermon to him of Christian patience and contempt of the world 't is the method of our enemies who driving their Ministers from their houses and Revenues read such Lectures of Divinity to them For the present some Ministers who have been the principall instruments of their party have means and honour and yet little enough considering the great service they have done them Peters their great and active agent had for a recompence given him but with great glory and ostentation two hundred pound 〈◊〉 Annum in Land But who so considers well the geniâ— of the Faction will judge that that little good they do now to their Ministers will not long continue It were a pleasant thing to consider if there were not greater cause of sorrow in it how of two Ambitions the simple serves the Ambition of the crafty for the Ministers who animated the people against their King are people impatient of subjection who would be every one of them Kings and Bishops in their Parishes and during these agitations they reign in the Pulpit a time bâ— they are set a work by those who manage the publique affairs who raise them up and flatter them to the people untill they have done their work with them for when these Gentlemen shal have done to destroy Church and State and built their Imaginary Throne of Jesus Christ upon the ruines of the Kingdom they will have so strict a hand of the Discipline that the power and the profit shall remain with them allowing their spiritual Fathers a portion purely spiritual and will discharge them of those cares which accompany the riches and honours of the world Before these Civil Warres the Bishops were profitable to all Ministers friends and enemies for those who submitted themselves freely to them enjoyeâ— their protection and those who opposed them were respected and secretly maintained by the adversaries of the Episcopal Order but now the Bishops are cut off there is neither protection nor opposition that can gain respect or support to the Clergy The stubborn and refractory Ministers have struck so violently at the root of that great tree which they have now made to fall after they had been a long time cover'd under the shadow of it but they may assure themselves that it will not be long before they themselves be crushed under the fall of it and draw upon themselves a just punishment They will then consider too late that they have been but Instruments to the covetousness and ambition of others and in the dissipation of the Goods of the Church they shall be dealt with as the Captain of Samaria to whom the King of Israel committed the keeping of the Gate where the Provision was to enter then when the people after a long Famine pressed to enter they shall behold the plenty but not taste of it but be trodden under foot CHAP. XX. Of the Corruptions of Religion objected to the English Clergy and the ways that the Covenanters took to Remedy them WEE will answer to the Objections against the King and his Party and will begin with the most ordinary Now they reproach us with corruption in Religion in such an accusation we must have regard to them that speak it it s those who turn the rising up of the people against their King into a Doctrine and Article of Faith it s those that have absented themselves from the Lords Supper for these many years those who summoned their King before them to give account of his actions those who have committed against his Sacred Person an execrable Paracide those who will employ the Body and Blood of our Lord to knit up a conspiracy against their King Those who neither teach the people in the Church nor their children at home the ten Commandments the Creed nor the Lords Prayer those who suffer and make use of all damnable Sects and punish none but those who â—each to suffer for righteousness and not to resist the Supream Powers to all these we might add many more hateful Truths but we will not without necessity publish the evil that may be hid for we love not to teach evil by representing it Whosoever shall consider their belief and practice will never wonder that such kind of People find something to say against our Religion God be praised that thus opposing us they make all the world to know that we are not guilty
it was they made the people believe a long time that the occasion of their taking up Arms was to bring the King to his Parliament but the hypocrisie of protestation is now clearly manifested for when the King offered to return to his Parliament they utterly refused to receive him telling him plainly if he came he should come at his peril Forbidding all persons whatsoever under pain of death to receive or entertain him in their houses Let all good subjects who have taken this Oath open now at last their eyes and acknowledge that the intentions of their Guides was quite contrary to their professions The Sixth Article required every person to swear That this cause touched the Glory of God the happiness of the three Kingdomes and the Dignity of the King Indeed this cause touched the Glory of God with such fowl hands as have defiled it as much as possible men could and it touched the happiness of the three Kingdomes with such malignant claws as have torn them to pieces But if they will that we take them in their sense namely that their cause defends and advanceth the Glory of God the happiness of the Kingdomes and the Dignity of the King we behold and feel the contrary But grant that this should be true 't is not a thing for which we must swear Oaths are of two sorts the one sort are to affirm the truth of a thing present or past the other for to promise and oblige our will for the future these two sorts of Oaths cannot be taken together The Oath of the Covenant is of the latter and therefore it is very ill done of them to confound it with the first which is altogether of another nature and usage and in a promise for the future to thrust in an affirmation of a thing present yea of a thing false or at least doubtful and whereof they of their party are not accorded But suppose that this Oath were of the first sort the things which we should affirm upon Oath are such as require the testimony of the person who swears Such are all questions of fact But as for questions of right they ought not neither can they be decided by Oath and it is to want common sense to make his neighbour judge to know which is the true Religion and to judge whether the Cause of the Parliament is better then the Kings There the Oath loseth his use for it s made to perswade and give Authority to the thing by the witness of the person If the Cause of the Covenant be the Cause of God there is no need to swear it but to justifie it by reason and practice And although we should even believe that it searcheth and advanceth the Glory of God the happiness of the Kingdome and dignity of the King it were unjust and ridiculous to press us to swear it for moral truths and even also Theological ought to be believed not sworn Civil things only and those amongst them which are matters of fact ought only to be affirmed by oath we have a very firm belief of the truth of many points of Religion and of the honesty of divers persons and yet nevertheless for all the world we would not swear to them all who have any ingenuity or good sense acknowledge that to force us to affirm the goodness of the Covenant by Oath is an extreme tyranny and full of ignorance and absurdities And also seeing we are very ill satisfied of the goodness thereof it s another tyranny to make us swear to defend it and a most barbarous cruelty to confiscate our possessions and sequester our Ministers of their benefices because they refuse to take so unreasonable an Oath and yet all this was practised during the Presbyterian Reign The Articles of the Covenant were assisted with a Religious Prologue and Epilogue full of protestations of zeal and repentance and therefore it was almost impossible but the most part of them that took it should be perjured considering the generality of the people are evil And this should have prevented the Gentlemen to impose the Covenant indifferently upon all under such great penalties For as they will not suffer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper to be administred to the people for fear to encrease their condemnation They should have by the same reason according to their principles have withheld to administer these protestations of zeal and repentance to their consciences whose disposition they were ignorant of Now a great evidence of their depraved and evil Faith consists in their protestations of sanctity and superlative expressions of zeal in which the Independent party who rejected the Covenant without comparison fly higher then their Predecessors All their Ordinances and Declarations yea even their Letters of News were sallies of zeal All their murthers and robberies were to establish the purity of the Gospel to conquer a Kingdome for Jesus Christ and that godliness might reign and flourish If they speak of the abominable parricide committed against their Soveraign they say that God made bare the Arm of his Holiness that the Lord is on their right hand that he hath smote Kings in the day of his wrath and that they may wash their feet in the blood of the ungodly Thus they made their horrible crimes march disguised in terms of Scripture and the devil borrowed the language of the Spirit of God Whosoever shall well consider the use they made of the Scripture and whereto they imployed their great shew of holiness shall find an Answer to the Question in the 50 Psal 16. But to the wicked God saith what hast thou to do to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldest take my Covenant in thy mouth Behold here the work of the Covenanters they declare the Statutes of God and take his Covenant into their mouths to put on rebellion the mask of Religion and to invest themselves without trouble of the Authority and Revenues of the Crown the goods of the Church and without suspition to grope the purses of the people for the outward shew of devotion doth much amuse the assistants and gain their belief for who can fear any evil from those who so piously invite them to repentance and the advancement of the Glory of God who would not confide and trust in them that declare the Statutes of God and take his Covenant in their mouth Satan in all forms is dangerous but he is never so pernicious as when he clothes himself as an Angel of Light and it is ill going Procession when the Devil carries the Cross Moreover by their fruits ye shall know them How often abused they the credulity of the people when they conjured them to help to fetch the King from his evil Councellors and to bring him gloriously to his great and faithful Councel that is to say to themselves but their faithfulness appeared then when he departed from them whom they called his evil Councellors to yeeld himself up to them for then their terrible
answered that he judged his agreement then profitable for the interests of his party and hereupon he was dismissed and sent away without any punishment and these Gentlemen condemned this accord and allyance by a publick Act. But where is the man that is so simple as to be deceived by so sottish a force But to undecive the abused and to shew that these Gentlemen gave no orders for to break this agreement they had news a while after that great succours were put into this Garrison of Derry then the Covenanters by the Troops of his Holiness and then all the Jugling was discovered and there rested then no other answer for them to give but that of the Italian who being exceedingly pained with the Gout and having prayed to God and all the Saints and yet found no ease began to call and pray to the Devil for help and gave this Reason to them that rebuked him for it Ogni adjuto e bono all help is good from whomsoever it come Now every man who shall compare their Protestations with their Actions may demand these Questions with astonishment and horror Are these the men who have so cried out against the murtherers which massacred so many thousand Protestants Are these they who before and after the Massacre did so press the King to sign their utter extirpation Are these those who rendred the King odious only for offering them peace and pardon Are these the men that stirred up the people against their King because he had some few Souldiers of the Roman Religion scattered here and there in his Armies for he never had an entire company of that Religion and yet behold they themselves entertain a great Body of an Army of the most refined Papists and the most violent enemies of the Reformed Religion to whom when the King treated with them he refused to give them any toleration Behold the Army of the Popes become the Parliaments behold the Murderers whom they would have rooted out become their Souldiers Behold the revenge of the blood of their Brethren which they made such a noise of The Massacre of the Protestants is pardoned the Murderers provided they massacre those that remain of them Is it to pay the Armies of his Holiness that such great Summes of Money are raised of the Protestants and that they suck the poor Families even to the very Marrow Is this the effect of so many solemn Professions of so many Fasts and publick Humiliations for the establishment of the Gospel in Ireland Where is their shame Where is their Ingenuity Where is their Conscience Be confounded Infamous Hypocrites and since ye cannot hereafter avoid the execration of men endeavour to prevent by your repentance the Judgment of God upon your Impostures CHAP. XXIV How the different Factions of the Covenant agreed to ruine the King and contributed to put him to death WE will not undertake to deprive the Independants of the glory to have been the last Actors in that exectable paracide committed upon the Sacred Majesty of their King an action which being the shame of the Nation and reproach of Religion was nevertheless set forth to the eyes of the world with the ostentation of Justice and Piety and for this horrible execution there was a solemn Thanksgiving enjoyned to be rendered to God by a publick Ordinance It 's true this Ordinance was ill obeyed and many Ministers cryed out against it which did so provoke their new Masters that they appointed a Committee to eject the Ministers out of their Benefices and to place in Lay persons Now because the Presbyterians thunder aloud against this action we will see whether they have not contributed to it and if their behaviour to their good King gave him occasion to hope for better dealing at their hands And for this purpose we may do well to consider the Propositions which they presented to the King at Beverly and since at Uxbridge and at New-Castle then when the Presbyterians held the better end of the staffe they required of him in substance that he should not dispose neither of the Militia nor of the civil Government nor of his Townes and Revenues nor of his Children nor of his Court nor of Honours nor of the Offices of the Crown and that he should hold no power in the Treaties of peace of War and of Commerce with his Neighbours That his Councel should no more depend upon him that he should have no Negative voice in Parliament and should be bound to grant whatsoever the Parliament would demand of him that he should shew no Acts of Grace nor execute Justice and not have the power to do either good or evil that he should consent that his party should be for ever ruined and deliver up all those who had served him to their rage and Butchery That he should utterly overthrow both the Civil and Ecclesiastical Government cut all the Nerves of Government and dispossess himself and his posterity without resource In brief that he should betray all the trusts God had committed to him and render himself the most miserable and guilty creature in the whole Universe All the choice left this poor Prince was whether he would be destroyed by his enemies or by his own proper Act for if he condescended not to these demands being then in their hands that made them the least he could expect was to be deposed and if he granted them he deposed himself Every man that hath either prudence or Conscience will chuse rather to be executed by another hand than be his own proper Executioner Read the Articles which are too long to be inserted here and if there were any thing that was his or which God had given him to keep that these Gentlemen demanded not of him except his life and if he could assure himself of his life after he had given his enemies the Sword of Justice and had by consequence acknowledged them his Superiours before whom he was Justiciable The Sequel of Affairs have shewed the truth of this consequence for it was upon the Presbyterian Principles that the Independants built their Conclusions Let them weigh well this reasoning Saint Paul teacheth us Rom. 13. that the Supream Magistrate beareth the Sword by God he is his Minister upon this ground the Supream Magistrate exerciseth Authority in the earth by way of force Observe that the Apostle saith not he beareth Swords he assignes him but one and this sword both executes Justice and the Militia by one and the same power Now the Presbyterians have a long time taught that the Sword of the Militia appertained of right and originally to the people of whom the Parliament is the Representative and if this Doctrine be not true their Arms were unjust but if it be true the sword of Justice also belongs to them for if upon these grounds it was lawful for them to wrest out of the hand of the King the Sword of the Militia to make use of it against him it was no less