endowed the Church and to accept of no other Interest or Reputation but what they gain by abstracting themselves from the world by humility and strictness of Doctrine and Conversation things being best preserved by the same means they were at first attain'd Yes yes the Authority of the Priesthood consists purely in the peoples Opinion of their Vertue and Piety and their Revenues in the Alms and voluntary Oblations of Christian People and not in endowments of Lands and Lordships nor grants of Secular Powers and Jurisdictions that is to say that because the Primitive Christians were perpetually exposed to Persecutions and Martyrdoms therefore bring forth your Rods and Axes and Pillories and Whipping-posts and Strappado's and Cheilostrophia and Rhinolabides and boil them roast them crucifie them hang them for things are best preserved by the same means they were at first attain'd But then good Mr. Trinkle the calamity of those times was the common fate of all Christian People Clergy and Laity were equally involved in the same miseries and yet I hope no Lay-man is so weak as to suppose that when Christianity has got the upper-hand and the favour and protection of the Government that he lyes under any obligation to quit those comforts and possessions of life that he may honestly and lawfully enjoy because it was the hard and unhappy fate of the Primitive Christians to suffer the loss of all for the sake of their Religion and why then should the Clergy be tyed more than they to an impertinent and unprofitable self-denyal or if it be their duty to be poor and miserable I am sure it is equally the duty of all And therefore in all States as Christianity prevail'd Churches were endowed with Lands and Revenues and Churchmen priviledged with exemptions and immunities and when it was setled as the Religion of the State the Clergy were every where admitted to a share of the Government as they are in all other Religions of the World And indeed who can more safely be trusted with the welfare of mankind than such persons whose very profession in prudence lays upon them peculiar obligations to justice and sobriety not but that they are liable though not so much to the same miscarriages with other Mortals but yet if they have better means to preserve them from unjust practices they are less likely to fall into them for the world is to be govern'd in humane wayes and though the Divine Providence may in some rare and extraordinary junctures over-bear the wisdom of men yet in its ordinary conduct of things it makes use of the most probable means and gives a blessing proportionable to the natural effects of things themselves So that it is a pretence only fit for such as are void of all other pretence to say that though Clergy-men are the best qualified of all men in the world for the managery of publique affairs yet God will never bless their endeavours how good or pious soever because he never intended them for that employment But such is the unhappy fate of the Clergy that they must be subjected to the lash of every proud and wanton pedant and if there be any man in any Age more remarkably ill-natured he is sure to be venting his malice and choler upon the Sacred Office though in ours every thing can be laying heavy and unreasonable burdens upon the backs of the Clergy and as rare a thing as it was in the time of yore in our dayes every Animal has confidence enough to bray forth his reproofs of the Prophets madness And nothing more familiar than for such men as have a mind to exempt themselves from the great and indispensable obligations of Religion to be alwayes prescribling idle and unnecessary severities to Church-men and though they indulge themselves in the most licentious courses yet they will by no means allow them the common and ordinary comforts of life It is a crime in a Clergy-man to be happy nay to be a man And if he will but be unkind and uncivil to himself they will love him for that though for nothing else This is very hard dealing and one would think very strange and yet there are two very obvious reasons of it beside the general principle of ill-nature 1. There are some men that dare not bid open defiance to all Religion and yet have no mind to be brought under the obligations of real vertue and goodness and therefore in excuse of their own neglect are willing to stretch the Precepts and Duties of the Gospel to an impracticable severity and thereby they make Apology to themselves for their own negligence in that it is not to be expected from men of business and that live in the world and in the middest of temptations that they should attend so constantly to that height of rigour and austerity that as they will have it the Laws of Religion require No this concerns Parsons and Church-men and such whose Trade it is to profess and pretend to a greater strictness than their neighbours But for them it is enough to be solemn and serious at certain seasons of devotion and to expiate all the wickedness of their lives by doing penance now and then in some childish and unprofitable instances of mortification People will endure any thing in Religion rather than be truly vertuous And this is the great disadvantage of the Church of England as to interest that it teaches men the plain and practicable precepts of the Gospel such as concern their lives and conversations and does not allow any tricks of eluding or baulking their duty it does not feed them with push-pin Orthodoxy and Scholastick Nothings about Faith and Justification and procatâ—rtick causes nor commute Penances and Prayers for the habitual practice of Vertue and Holiness but if men will mortifie their own vices and passions joyn the love of God with the love of their neighbour and endeavour after an entire conformity to the Laws of their Religion well and good she will administer comfort to an uniform and universal obedience But these though they are very plain are grievous hard sayings they grate upon mens pleasures and profits and pluck out right eyes and cut off right hands for there is scarce any man but has his peculiar and darling vice for which so it may be indulged men are content to make any satisfaction And when I discoursed of the Return of Popery I might have insisted upon this as one of the greatest grounds of danger that men will not endure the plain dealing of the Church of England but they must have a Religion that will be more compliant with their humours and reconcile some vices with the hopes of Eternal Life And this is the main subtilty of the Church of Rome she has found out wayes at the same time to ease the Consciences of wicked men and to advance her own wealth and grandeur though that which is most of all taking is that their Priests whatever burthen they lay upon
part of the old Elsibeth Puritanism But as Martyn was just such another Wit as you so are you just such another fool as Martyn that as despicable as you make your self when you would play the Monkey are ten times a more ridiculous sight when you would look serious For here forsooth you would fain make up your Mouth and turn up the white and put on as rebuking a Countenance as you fancy J. O. did when he spoke of the day of Judgment and take me up with ruful face for that peculiar delight and felicity I have which no man envies me in Scripture Drollery My friend this is too severe reckoning what can we not make mention of any Name recorded in Holy Writ but we must abuse the sacred book it self shall we not dare so much as to take the names of the Hivites Perizzites and Hittites into our Lips because we find the story of their wickedness recorded in the Holy Scriptures shall we not call a Traitour Judas or a Rebel Achitophel for fear of prophaning the Old and New Testament This is a shrewd and a sad symptom of wretched Poverty of Cavil when you are every where forced to make so very much of so very little I only wonder how the Bramble escaped this severity especially when one would think that of all the Books of the Bible you should have been acquainted with the Book of Judges because though it be no Gazet yet it conteins the Transactions of a certain time when there was no King in Israel and yet even here you betray the Grossness of your Ignorance and declare in the Simplicity of your Heart that you cannot imagine what the Mystery of Shiboleth is no more than of Categoricalness and Entanglement And yet the story of Shiboleth is recorded in the same Book of Judges with that of the Bramble so that it is not improbable but you might be equally ignorant of both and that you might look for this story in Gerhard's Herbal or AEsop's Fables But as for the other two words you know as well as I that it is only for my dear J. O's sake that I am so fond of them as well as divers others that you might as well have insulted over viz. Self-wrought-out-mortification Eristicalness Songs upon Sigionoth the high places of Armageddon Providential revolutions and some other affected Phrases that are the peculiar Language or Shiboleth of your secret ones But perhaps you had a mind to reserve this Parable for all its being found in the Bible for your own Drollery and you are wonderfully pleasant both upon that and me because after I had in allusion to that transformed Calvin into a Bramble not a Bishop Bramble as you notably clinch it for the nearness of the sound to Bishop Bramhall I should ascribe indefatigableness to him a Liberty that has ever been allowed of by all Criticks and must be practised by all the Writers of Apologues and without it what pleasant work would such a Sarcastical Wit as you make with AEsops Fables and Reignold the Fox But if I am guilty of a solecism and I do not much care if I grant it I am not alone you your self stick as fast in the same absurdity for when you have turn'd the Clergy of England into an Ivy-bush you in the same breath ascribe cunning and contrivance to it now if you will but undertake to teach a shrub how to plot and contrive for its own self-interest I will undertake to teach it how to take pains to compass its ends so that your Politick Ivy will be a fit match for my Indefatigable Bramble and I hope in time will overcome it too i. e. that the discretion of the Church of England may at last be too hard for the Zeal of the Geneva Faction But though it be prophane enough to droll upon the word of God yet wilfully to pervert or in your own unaffected language trinkle it is somewhat worse and that is the next Article of my charge that when I quote St. Paul to prove that the fruits of the spirit as he enumerates them Gal. 5. 22. are only Moral Vertues I translate say you joy to chearfulness peace to peaceableness and faith to faithfulness as if either the Apostles Original were written in English or I had translated it out of English into English no that is your own way of translation to expound the Greek Text by the English Version as you do the Chapter by the Contents It was not then joy and peace and faith that I translated into chearfulness peaceableness and faithfulness but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But what ignorance or rather what forgery is this of Scripture and Religion Who is there of the Systematical German Genevah Orthodox Divines but could have taught you better Who is there of the sober intelligent Episcopal Divines of the Church of England but would abhorr this interpretation So say you but then say I what honest and upright dealing is this with Scripture and Religion Who is there of the Systematical German Genevah Orthodox Divines that could have taught me better Who is there of the sober intelligent Episcopal Divines that would not approve of this interpretation And so M r Impertinence you and I are even you see how little Answer will serve to stop your mouth though you open never so wide But this confidence is worth all our Moral Vertues and is able to make such stuff as this pass among the Party for Wit and Demonstration And with what Triumph here do you bear me down and rescue this Text from my violent interpretation and carry it off as bravely recover'd out of the Enemies possession and yet it is but dropping one simple No-forsooth in your way and your carreere is stopt and there may you stand gaping till the day of Judgement For as for this Text when all your Orthodox Divines have sifted and bolted it to the Bran they will with all their search and canvasing never get any thing out of it or discover any thing in it beside Moral Vertues And if you have credit enough to borrow a Bible in the Neighbour-hood you will quickly find if you can find the Epistle that St. Paul is there describing the opposite Effects between the Flesh and the Spirit and therefore as all the fruits of the flesh there reckoned up are immoral Vices so must all the fruits of the Spirit there opposed to them be moral Vertues but particularly chearfulness must answer to envy or discontentedness peaceableness to strife or contention and faithfulness to the Gnostick treachery or perfidiousness But in the Name of Mercury tell me to what end you quarrel my preferring the word chearfulness before that of Joy when as I have told you they are but synonymous expressions of the same thing and may be and often are used promiscuously and differ no more than Reason and Reasoning And what if instead of this I had made
Keys in Mr. Mayor and the Town-Clerk and issued out Excommunications under the Town Seal and every Fisherman upon the Lake Lemane if he were a Livery man of the City immediately became an Apostle and the Spirit of Infallibility forsook the whole Order of Church-men and setled upon every illiterate Mechanick that had a bold Face and a loose Tongue And with what Apostolical Wisdome and Gravity they made Religion it self ridiculous Mr. Calvin himself has inform'd us particularly in the cases of Bertileir and Perin who were absolved from the Sentence of Excommunication by the Common-Council and under the Town-Seal And 't is observable that those States that have made bold to despise or disregard the Power of the Clergy have always first prostituted the Revenues of the Church to the worst of men and in a little time the Government of it to the Scorn and Contempt of the Common Rabble And therefore all wise and pious Princes have ever chosen to govern Religion by the Counsel and Assistance of their Clergy and to be determined in Enquiries of Faith by their Decrees and Declarations for though all Power of External Coercion be vested in the Civil Magistrate yet that of teaching and declaring the Law of God is the Right and Office of Ecclesiasticks so that though they cannot force Princes to confirm and ratifie their Decrees yet may Princes be obliged by Vertue of an Higher Authority by regard to Piety and Religion by the Order and Decency of things to have reference to their Judgments though if they will not it is not in the Power of the Church to call them to an account for their Proceedings as the men of Rome and Geneva talk That shall be demanded at an higher Judicature they can only declare and discharge their Duty and leave the pursuance of their Cause to the Judgment of God For in all Affairs whatsoever capable of External Cognizance the Supreme Civil Power must and will over-rule this is absolutely necessary to the Order and Preservation of Government and the World must be govern'd as they will or not be govern'd at all And thus have I briefly proved that the Clergy must be vested with some Power peculiar to themselves both from the Institution of Christ and the nature of Society for as much as the Constitution of the Church as such is distinct from that of the Civil State so that all Christians are obliged to the Visible Profession of the Name of Christ not only without the leave but against the Edicts of the Supreme Authority of Kingdomes and Common-wealths The next thing to be consider'd against Erastus is that their Office is not merely declarative or ministerial but carries proper jurisdiction in all the Acts and Exercises of its Power and enforces all its Decrees by Penalties and Inflictions and wherever we find Coercion there is all that can be required to the Nature and Exercise of Jurisdiction that is nothing else but a Power of Imposing Laws and Inflicting Punishments and whoever has a Right to both these Acts of Government has all that Authority that is proper to Empire and Dominion and whatsoever Privileges and Prerogatives of absolute Sovereignty we can imagine they are all reducible to one of these swo Heads either a Power of requiring Obedience to its Commands or of punishing Disobedience by its Penalties and both these are apparently included in the Priestly Office that consists of two parts first the Authoritative Power of Preaching whereby they are enabled to declare Divine Laws under Penalty of the Divine Displeasure and this is proper Legislation and is declared to be so in his Original Commission granted by our Saviour to his Apostles and their Successours to the End of the World in that he sent them as his Father sent him to teach or disciple all Nations whereby he derived upon them the same Power that himself was furnisht with from above to pursue the same ends so that if he himself were entrusted with any proper Jurisdiction he has conveyed and imparted the same to the Apostolical Office and Order and that he was so is an unquestionable and granted Case on all sides and therefore he himself founds the Validity of their Commission upon the Right of his Power All Power in Heaven and Earth says he is given me of my Father therefore go c. I am now enthroned Sovereign Lord of the whole Creation and the Exercise of all my Fathers Power is entrusted to my Management and therefore in the first place I appoint and Authorize you and your Successors in my Name and by Vertue of my Supremacy to take care of the Guidance and Instruction of my Church this is the Office and Power to which you are deputed next and immediately under my self in the Discharge and Execution whereof I engage all my Power to be immediately assistant to you to the end of the World So that it is plain that their Power of Preaching and Declaring the Laws of the Gospel is properly Authoritative and of the same Nature though of a Subordinate force with our Saviours own Dominion over Mankind and all Men by Vertue of his Command and his Commission are bound to give Obedience to their Doctrines in the right and Faithful Discharge of their Trusts as to the Authorized Stewards of his Mysteries And then as for the other part of the Power of the Keys or Church Censures it is as full of Jurisdiction as any Secular Power whatsoever it judges gives Sentence and inflicts Punishment in Criminal Causes and though they do not execute their own Judgment but leave it to the Divine Justice yet where God has promised to abett their Censures by his immediate Power 't is the same thing as to all the purposes of Government as if it were done by the stroke of their own Arm and though they did but only minister to the Divine Judgement as to these immediate Inflictions of Heaven yet the sentence it self is a severe instance and exercise of Coercive Jurisdiction it cuts a man off from all the Advantages of the Communion of Saints and of our Saviours Incarnation and that is a Capital Execution and more affrightful to any man that makes Profession of the Christian Faith than all the Rods and Axes and Pillories and Whipping-posts of the Secular Power And as their Authority carries in it true and proper Jurisdiction so is it in its Kind Supreme Universal and Uncontroulable and extends to all Nations Ages and Conditions Kings and Princes are subject to the Spiritual Authority of their Doctrines they have Souls to be conducted to Heaven as well as their Subjects and therefore stand as much in need of Spiritual Guides and Instructors for if Christ have intrusted the Spiritual Government of his Church in the hands of his Apostles and their Successors then all its Members of what Rank and Quality soever are regularly to make enquiries and receive determinations of Conscience from their Mouths and when the
is it not a sad thing that a well-bred and fashionable Gentleman that has frequented Ordinaries that has worn Perukes and Muffs and Pantaloons and was once Master of a Watch that has travell'd abroad and seen as many Men and Countries as the Famous Vertuosi Sorbier and Coriat that has heard the City Lyons roar that has staved and tail'd to the Bears of Bern that has eaten of the Race of Capons at Geneva that has past the Alps and seen all the Tredescin rarities and old stones of Italy that has sat in the Porphyrie Chair at Rome that can describe the method of the Election of Popes and tell stories of the tricks of Carnivals that has been employed in Embassies abroad and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home that has read Playes and Histories and Gazets that I say a Gentleman thus accomplisht and embellisht within and without and all over should ever live to that unhappy dotage as at last to dishonour his grey hairs and his venerable Age with such childish and impotent endeavours at wit and buffoonry Thus having coursed you through eleven beginnings from the Preface into the Ecclesiastical Polity from thence into the Defence from the Defence back again into the Preface from that into Bishop Bramhall anon into the Preface to the Ecclesiastical Polity and streight back again into the Bishops Preface and from thence away to Dr. Thorndike the Friendly Debate Mr. Hooker to Mr. Hales for 10 pages of Rithm to Ism thence to J. O's discourse of Evangelical Love and Unity from p. 127 to the end and then from page the first to page the 127 th and so backward and forward to the conflagration of London the burning of the Ships of Chatham St. Pauls Church and Diana's Temple Ben. Johnson Horace the 5 Chap. to the Galatians and the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus After all this I thought I might begin to expect a little rest and to hope that we need not despair that you began to design to conclude to begin to draw an end of beginning to begin as knowing that all raving fits usually end in a Lethargy and it began to succeed just according to my wishes when I heard all on the suddain Mr. Bayes good night But whether it is that some body has strewed Cow-itch in your Bed or that your Conscience is very restless or that you only slept dogs sleep immediately in the very next line I am awaked with good morrow Mr. Bayes and am teased as freshly for a certain Preface shewing what grounds there are of fears and jealousies of Popery as if this had been our first salute and we had never exchanged word before And here to borrow one of your Schemes of Speech it seems that England is no stranger to rumours of Popery it seems that it has been the Puritan Artifice ever since the Reformation to possess the People with these panick fears it seems the Church of England has perpetually been traduced by them as Popishly affected It seems I vindicate the Church from this aspersion by pregnant and undeniable instances of Religious Loyalty and Obedience it seems I have charged the Rebels as justly and undeniably with the direct contrary Principles and Practices It seems I do not recriminate any designs of Popery to the Non-conformists but charge them most righteously with a constant and boysterous opposition to the Church thereby creating dangerous disorders and disturbances to the State It seems Atheistical and Irreligious Caitifs out of a peculiar hatred and most exquisite malice to the Church and Church-men are never wanting to promote and abett these mischievous disorders It seems if crafty and sacrilegious Statesmen joyn in the Confederacy they are apt enough to run the Kingdom into such miserable necessities that there is no support of their interest without rapine and sacriledge It seems that if the Church of England should ever be hereby destroyed no other Religion can be establish'd in lieu of it but Popery because Fanaticism is so wild and untractable a thing that it is uncapable of any settlement upon any Principles It seems all this either is or for any thing you are able to oppose to it may be as true as Gospel and though it seems you dare not answer it because you cannot yet it seems you have the confidence to deny it all and confute it with abundance of censure and cavil and more it seems you could have done were it not for falling under the penalty of a certain Act of Parliament against spreading of false news even as you durst not answer what you had quoted out of my Eccles. Pol. for fear of bringing your self within the Statute of Treasonable Words Sweet Gentleman What a misfortune it is when a Godly Loyal tender Conscience bearing so much awful Reverence and soultry affection to the Supreme Magistrate should in all his Disputes so cross with Authority that he dares not speak out his mind plainly only for fear of being hang'd But were it not for the Statute against Treasonable Words you would make me an Example to all Generations But yet though you dare not Reply for fear of these sanguinary Laws against Treason yet you can do what is more serviceable to your purpose you can take occasion to raise calumny enough from my Discourse to render my Self and all the Clergy odious to all Interests within the Kings Dominions And first you begin with the King himself and discover that after all it was neither the Book-seller nor Geneva nor the Trouts nor the Sprats nor the Race of Capons nor Presbyterians nor Millecantons of Fanatiques nor B. Bramble nor Usinulca nor the Hobgoblins nor J. O. nor Non-conformity nor Hungary nor Transylvania nor Bohemia nor Poland nor Savoy nor France nor the Netherlands nor Denmark nor Sweden nor Scotland nor Germany but the King was the person aim'd at from the beginning And it now sufficiently detects my malice to His Majesty to stir up matter of such dangerous and seditious Discourse Though not above a page or two since he was abundantly assured and satisfied of my Loyalty and we were all three very good Friends and yet here you tell His Majesty nine times over how I bear an evil eye to him and his Government that I publish Manifesto's against his Indulgence that I make his proceedings odious c. by raising a publick and solemn Discourse through the whole Nation concerning a matter the most odious and dangerous that could be exposed When your Self and all your Readers both know that most mens heads were fill'd with these jealousies and all mens mouths with these Discourses before my Preface was publish'd or thought on and withall that I am so far from adding any encouragement to the fears and jealousies of the people that my only design was to shew that it was a thing impossible in it self ever to be brought about by any other means than the folly of the Nonconformists So that whatever designs the Popish
vouchsafe Him is that you do not know but he may lead a more unblameable conversation than the worst and wickedest men in the world were it not for one inexcusable fault his obstinacy in not assuming the Revenue of the Church to his own Use. So that my aspersion if it were true is upon your Principles so far from detecting any malicé to His Government that it would clear him of the only blemish that lyes upon his Reputation Sure you are half Guelph and half Gibelline you are every where so cross and contradictory to your self But as I have asperst the King with the only thing for which you would commend him so I have all along appropriated or impropriated all the Loyalty from the Nobility the Gentry and the Commonalty and dedicated it to the Church Why did any of the Kings Subjects fight for him beside the Clergy Had he any Commanders in his Army beside Bishops and Dignitaries Were not all his Battels fought under the Conduct of General Usher and Captain Bramhall against Dr. Cromwel and Dr. Ireton for with that Title were they Dub'd at Oxford by one J. O. in their Return from the bloody Conquest of Ireland Did not the Kings whole Infantry consist of poor Readers as the Kirk Foot did of Mass-Johns who brought in Covenant and Reformation in exchange for shooes and stockings But if you can name any of the Nobility Gentry or Commonalty that ventured Lives and Fortunes for the Royal Cause I believe we shall never be so impudent as to deny them their share of Loyalty and Service to their Prince And if you cannot I am sure I can name amongst them as gallant Examples of Courage and Integrity as perhaps no Age can parallel they fought and they suffer'd with the constancy and resolution of Martyrdom and nothing could in the least abate their zeal and their devotion to an opprest and an afflicted Prince and this because their Loyalty was founded upon Principles of Conscience and Religion and that is it that I have appropriated to the Church of England that it teaches the duty of Subjects in absolute and indispensable terms without leaving shifts evasions for disobedience whereas all other Parties tye it on with false and counterfeit knots so that by the help of reserves the Subject may be as much as ever at liberty to obey or disobey as himself shall deem convenient And when sometimes they shall have preached up the necessity of Allegiance in the most positive and comprehensive terms they will bring themselves off with so many clauses and exceptions as must utterly evacuate the obligation of their own Doctrines And if at any time they happen to be stubborn in their Loyalty their Prince is indebted for that either to chance or interest or inclination or some other uncertain and changeable Principle But the thing that I have appropriated to the Church of England is Loyalty upon firm and effectual Principles in so much that a man must be an Apostate before he can be a Rebel and renounce his Religion and his Duty to God before he can neglect his Allegiance and his Duty to his Prince This is the peculiar and distinguishing Article of the Church of England so that when you infer that I have impropriated it to the Clergy from the Nobility and Gentry you must first suppose that none of the Nobility or Gentry belong to her Communion And now are you not a modest and an honest Gentleman to charge me with such an unsufferable rudeness and disingenuity against so great a number of the bravest and most gallant spirits in the world Though this I know was intended only in pursuance of your Grand Design by such impudent Leasings to raise up a misunderstanding between the Clergy and all other Orders of men in the Kingdome And that is the bottom of all your malice and hatred to them that as long as they are able to keep and make good the Pulpits Loyalty will be the Religion of the people and they will not easily be wrought upon to listen to your Factions and Democratical insinuations And that is it whatever you pretend of the Dignitary of Lincoln that makes you and your Partners to gnash your teeth and knit your fists with so much impatience against the Order it self But were you capable of wit in your anger you would have let fly at them with some more plausible and probable aspersions and not think to bring them into discredit among wise and sober men with such rank and notorious fictions For this can only betray your malice and ill intentions and though you had right on your side it would be an invincible prejudice against your Cause and your Party that scruple not any Arts howsoever dishonest or dishonourable to do a despite to the Church of England I remember another Accusation which though it be not altogether so impudent as this yet when I first read it methoughts it was somewhat more pleasant that my Preface intermedles with the King the Succession the Privy Council Popery Atheism Bishops Ecclesiastical Government and above all it seems this is more sawcy than all the rest with Non-conformity and J. O. Why truly not unlike but it seems if you had resolved to write a Preface it is like you would have mentioned nothing more than your own private affairs and only informed the Reader of your losses at Picquet and the Gaming Ordinaries your adventures at the Bear-garden of Bern your encounters with the mighty race of Capons at Geneva your Remarques upon the wheel of Fortune and whipping of Gigs and your studies in the 5. Epist. to Marcellinus But alas my breeding and condition are too private to bless the world with such great and observable Memoires and therefore not having the advantage that You and Caesar had of writing my own Novels I was forced to intermeddle with the affairs of others the King the Council and above all J. O. And towards them all I have endeavourd the utmost Ingenuity and if I have fail'd I even ask their pardon I do them right And then though I have abused them never so unworthily I make them ample amends by this clause of additional Civility But however I have treated them I must confess I am bound to beg your pardon in particular because you your self have intermedled with none of these things And now did ever any fool in the world make so much noise and puther to so little purpose But of all the Examples that ever I read of the undue and brutish stirring of Passions I never met with any like that horrible and boobily noise that you have raised upon my pitying the folly of some men that can smell Jesuites and Gunpowder Plots upon every ordinary and accidental firing of a chimney upon this away you run like a man scared with the horrour of the discovery crying and roaring out to the Citizens nothing but fire fire and if they enquire where why it
Friend and Foe and eating up All Men Women and Children He that came off with Honour in threescore and seventeen Duels before he was one and twenty and in forty years more by Land and Sea fought as many pitcht Battels could not have made a more war-like sound Certainly you go as I have read of one in the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus for why should not I read your Fathers as well as you read mine always hung like a Justice of Peace's Hall with Pikes Halberts Peitronels Callivers and Muskets And if you could but victual your self for half a year in your Breeches it is not to be doubted but you would be able to over-run whole Countries Hungary Transylvania Bohemia and all the other territories of modern Orthodoxy The first Argument I made use of to remove all popular suspicions of Popery from the Government was the manifest inconvenience to the State that must arise from any alteration in the Church and this I proved from those impregnable principles of Loyalty that are peculiar to our Communion from all other Dissenters so that all design of Change being so manifestly imprudent and impolitick I thought it too wild a surmise for the Wisdome of the Government unless it were not only trinkled but bewitch'd to expose it self and therefore that there could be no other probable ground of danger but from the restlesness and seditious practices of the Fanatique Party that might possibly some time or other make way for the return of Popery by making disturbances in Church and State And to this purpose I gave a large Character of the peculiar Genius and the distinguishing principles of the Church of England from the Gibelline Faction But it seems you do not like my Characters and what is that to me am I obliged to justifie them because such Jack-Gentlemen as you do not approve them If you have any thing to except you know the Law and the Press is open but your bare dislike will no where pass for a confutation And to tell us that you find on either side only the natural effect of such Hyberbole's and Oratory that is not to be believed is in a great many words only to say I lye It may be so but yet that satisfies no body And yet tell me can you deny the Loyalty of the Church of England both in its principles and practices if you cannot whatever I have said in her commendation is undeniably true and then it is you that lease Can you deny that the regular Clergy are the most zealous Assertours of the Rights of Princes and that they and only they teach subjection to be an indispensable duty of Religion without false reserves and limitations Can you deny that those Subjects that stuck to the Communion of the Church of England ever stuck to hazard Lives and Fortunes out of devotion to their Prince Can you prove that every any forsook the Royal Cause in its greatest distress that did not first forsake the Church of England Can you deny that the main Article that distinguishes ours from all other Communions is that we vest the Crown in an Ecclesiastical Supremacy which is one half of the Sovereign Power whilst they challenge it either to themselves or some foreign Jurisdiction that has no more ground of Claim beside bare confidence to exercise any Authority in the Kings Dominions than the King has in his These are the Elogies I gave to the Church of England If they are such Hyperboles as are not to be believed that is to say if they are lyes make it good or else confess your impudence to call them so not only without proof or evidence but against Experience and Demonstration And so for my contrary Character of the Fanatiques that too is all a lye or such an Hyperbole as is not to be believed and so I am answer'd but if that be all you have to say I am very well satisfied too You had done them some kindness if you had undertaken to prove either that the Preachers never taught the people Aphorisms of Disloyalty and Rebellion or that they were never engaged in actual War against their lawful Prince by their Instigation or that any of them have renounced their old Principles though they could never be prevail'd with so much as to acknowledge their Crime either to God or the King These are plain Cases of Conscience so that till they have done this if they were ever guilty they are so still And therefore when you only tell us that I have dress'd them all up in Sambenita 's painted with all the Flames and Devils in Hell All the service you do your brethren is to inform the World that whoever will draw a Fanatique to the life must get the Devil to sit for his picture and if a man cannot describe them without dressing them up in Sambenita's I cannot help that this I am sure of that I have not made one false stroke or ill feature that I cannot justifie to any Artist I am not concern'd how ugly the piece is so it be but like and yet you your self have not been able to tell me one fault that I have committed I am only sorry that they are so very deformed as you have represented them for I never suspected before you informed me either that they were so bad or the Devil so good But I know what it is that so much girds you though your guilty Conscience dares not touch it viz. that I have there proved that nothing but the Good Old Cause lyes at the bottom of all your present Schism and that the most zealous Patriots of Conventicles are such as have given the World but very little ground to suspect them from their profess'd Principles or open Practices of the least tenderness of Religion and kindness to Monarchy so that nothing better can ever be expected from them than factions and republican Designs I know this twinges to the quick it is so observable all the Kingdome over that as you cannot endure to hear it so you dare not deny it And now your appearance has amply verified the truth of the Observation When at the same time that you come forth to vindicate the Innocence and Peaceableness of the Non-conformists and pass your word to the King that they shall never lift up disloyal thought against him you cannot forbear to let us see how warmly you are concern'd to justifie the late Rebellion In that the King had turn'd his whole Kingdome into a Prison that many thousands of his Subjects were constrained to seek habitations abroad every Countrey even though it were among Savages and Canibals appear'd more hospitable to them than their own that his whole Reign was deformed with Sibthorpianism i. e. with his affecting an absolute and arbitrary Government that himself and his party were the cause of the War that the Parliament took up Arms in defence both of their Liberty and Religion and that their Cause against the King was like
Bishop reproves his Prince of any enormous Vice if he refuse to hear him he sins against the Command of God who has given him Authority in his name to declare and to bind every mans Duty upon his Conscience under pain of the Divine Displeasure and it is an equal Aggravation of Guilt in all men before God to break his Commands against the Sentence and Declaration of his Officers This is so clear and obvious a Truth that if there be any Divine Institution or perpetual Necessity of a Priestly Office in the Church the greatest must be equally bound with the least to Obedience not by the Coercion of Secular Penalties but by the Tyes of Religion and the Judgments of God I mean not hereby to excuse the boldness and insolence of those men that take upon them to upbraid and expose their Prince with publick and Pulpit Reproofs This is to abuse the Dignity of their Office into the Ill-manners and Sedition of the Kirk that insulted in nothing more than putting affronts upon Kings and exposing them and their Authority to the contempt of the Rabble No but all Addresses to Superiours must be private and prudent and modest and though Kings may and ought to be inform'd of their duty as well as Subjects yet it must be done with all the Arts of Gentleness and Humility and if any man shall abuse his Sacerdotal Freedome to vent unhandsom and disgraceful Reflections upon his Superiours he deserves as much as you do the Scorn of a Buffoon and the Correction of the Stocks And now from these Premises it is very easie to determine the bounds of the Imperial and the Priestly Power notwithstanding that both are and must be acknowledged Supreme in their several Kinds The Prince is Supreme and Absolute over all things and persons within his own Dominions as far as they concern the Affairs of this present Life but yet when they are consider'd purely as relating to the Life to come the Priest is Superiour and therefore in all cases of Competition whenever they happen he can only refer the Justification of himself and his Cause to the future Judgement of God but at present he must be content either to obey the Commands or if in Cases of manifest Obedience to God he cannot to submit to the Authority of his present Superiours and if it be his Fortune to oppose the Judgment of his Prince there is no remedy but he must suffer his Lot and rather choose to be endamaged in his own private affairs than that Government should be disturbed or defeated for his sake Here then is no interfering of the two Jurisdictions the exercise of the one is Spiritual and of the other Secular and so being of different natures and to different ends they may both without any material inconvenience be supreme in their different kinds and if the Ecclesiastical State shall at any time think it self obliged to controwl the civil power it is only of a spiritual efficacy and brings no direct disadvantage to the supreme Authority because it has ordinarily no visible force but in the World to come and that makes no alteration in the present state of things So that the exercise of the supreme civil Power is as uncontroulable as if it were absolute and not limited by the spiritual because at present it must prevail as to the Government of the World and the effectual execution of its Decrees And thus have I to avoid dull or wilful mistakes as briefly as the nature of the Subject would permit proved the necessity of a spiritual Authority in the Church as a distinct society by it self and in order to its peace here and the salvation of its members hereafter And then that it is not a meerly ministerial Office but is Authoritative to all the intents and purposes of Jurisdiction and in the next place that it is supreme and uncontroulable in its own kind by any other Power whatsoever and lastly that its spiritual Supremacie is no infringement to the civil Rights of Sovereign Princes in that their Power must notwithstanding all Countermands whatsoever over-rule in the present Government of the World And now I hope you see how plainly the spiritual Power of the Church is reconcileable with the Ecclesiastical Supremacy of Kings and that there is no necessity as you dream that whoever asserts one must unavoidably casheir the other And upon review of the whole â—â—ate of the controversie 't is some comfort and satisfaction to me that as I have not vested the civil Magistrate with any other Power than what is and ever has been challenged by all Common-wealths in the World so I never could meet with any thing objected against it but what proceeded purely from malice or inadvertency And that is all the trouble I have been put to both by you and J. O. to vindicate easie and honest assertions from wilful or sleepy Mistakes But the great Misprison of all and that approaches nearest to Treason against modern Orthodoxy is my presuming to trample upon your great secret of symbolical Ceremonies which hard word is now become the only remaining Palladium of your Cause and Idol of your Conventicles for in our dayes it is not with you as it was from the Reign of good Queen Elizabeth quite down to that of the Good Long Parliament The Good Gentlemen of those times had the Holy Discipline and the Scepter of the Lord Christ to rattle in the Peoples and the Princes ears but those good dayes are gone and the Kirk-discipline when it came to be put in practice though it were an Iron rod upon the backs of Kings yet it proved such a wooden Scepter among the Common People that it quickly wore it self into sport and contempt and all the little Folk that waged War with so much zeal and fury against Prelacy and Antichrist only aim'd their stroaks at random and rail'd and raged at they knew not what till at last they became ashamed at the littleness of their own Pretences and how little all of them were able to perforn in behalf of the Divine Right of Presbytery sufficiently appears to the world by the great Smectymnuan labours Nothing but a complicated dulness could ever have brought forth such a phlegmatick and insipid Pamphlet and no man has now so little wit or so much confidence as to own much less to appear in defence of such a contemptible and baffled Cause or if there should remain a Scot or an High-Lander so unalterably peevish he lyes below both our scorn and our confutation But though their Principles have forsaken them yet they so invincible is their constancy will never forsake their Principles but having once been drawn into a Revolt from the Church by a manifest Imposture they have too much stomach to confess their fault so far as only to return back to her Communion and therefore Covenant one and all to stand firm to their party and justifie themselves as they can And then the
result of all their Messages Remonstrances and Declarations is the illegal and arbitrary imposition of unscriptual Ceremonies by which when we come to treat more closely they mean nothing else but only those three establish'd in the Church of England for they themselves never stick to allow or practise any others so these be excepted And had you wit and learning enough to judge of Non-sense you would even cross your self were it not a Popish Symbol to observe what a deal of Metaphysicks J. O. has lavish'd away upon this Argument But alas you shew so little judgment as to slide over his great depths of subtilty and fix upon speculations so wretchedly shallow that every man has wit enough to fathom their folly Thus I verily believed I had in my first Book acquitted my self manfully enough towards battering down this Theological Scar-crow that you have set up in the high places of Armageddon to fray away the People or rather Boys and Girls from the Communion of the Church by shewing that it is so far from being a crime in any Ceremonies to be significant and symbolical that it is their only nature and office so to be that the signification of all Ceremonies is equally arbitrary that it is of the very same kind and to the very same purpose with that of words and therefore that all tender Consciences have the same reason to be offended at the one as the other These I thought in the simplicity of my heart solid and satisfactory notions and counted upon it that we should never more be annoyed with such a thin and empty bubble But behold out stalks the great Leviathan J. O. and pours upon me such a volley of Distinctions as would have stunded a whole Regiment of stouter and more experienced School-men than my self In the first place he distinguishes very subtilely between the Appointment and the Institution of Ceremonies the first he allows of but the last is or may be blasphemy From hence he advances to distinguish between natural and customary signs and then of customary signs between Catholique and Topical and these all pass muster But as for all such wicked signs as signifie neither by Nature nor by Custom but only by vertue of their Institution they are full of such rank and desperate Idolatry that the people of God ought rather than suffer themselves to be defiled with them to tear the Church into Schisms and the State into Wars to murther and banish Kings to subvert the Government and destroy Religion At their own peril therefore be it as he threatens them if Magistrates will be venturing at such a dangerous extravagance of power because 1. They have not any absolute Authority over the sign and thing signified 2. They cannot change their Natures nor create a new relation between them 3. They cannot give a mystical and spiritual efficacy to them And then lastly as for the signification of words that I have parallel'd with that of Symbols the Schoolmen have demonstrated it that when they are signs of sacred things they are signs of them only as things but not as sacred Here are dragons and deeps it were worth a mans while to work in the Mines of Metaphysicks for such Jewels as these this is gibberish strong enough to make a Rosi-crucian mad and were J. O. in good earnest I should notwithstanding all Quarrels be so much his friend as to provide him a dark lodging and clean straw But what wretched fooling this is any man that has a mind to the sport may see in my Reply to him where I gave my self the divertisement of ferreting him from distinction to distinction i. e. from non-sense to non-sense And methinks it is no unpleasant sight to see a poor Rat thus to work and traverse it about to find some little hole wherein he may hide his baffled head when he can hope for no other shelter then to stand still and wink hard But as for your part though you are in the very same straits yet you have the confidence to think your self close with your eyes open and all the world staring at you Thus whereas your most astonishing objection from Cartwright downwards for just where he begun you have all left off and stand like the statue of Erasmus in the posture of turning over a leaf but without ever turning it over will stand in the same posture to the day of judgement against the Institution of Symbolical Rights is that it is no less an attempt than to entrench upon the Divine Prerogative by offering to institute new Sacraments J. O. in particular expresses his sense of it thus that to say that the Magistrate has power to institute visible signs of Honour to be observed in the outward worship of God is upon the matter to say that he has power to institute new Sacraments for so such things would be For this I took him up somewhat roundly as he deserved I upbraided him with the precariousness of the Cavil I challenged him with that plain answer that he could not but know had alwayes been returned to it viz. that Divine Institution is the only thing necessary to the nature and the office of a Divine Sacrament and so at last I dared him to renounce his Argument if he would not take notice of his answer And I could do no less when they have for above one hundred and fifty years together vext and haunted us with such a new-fangled nothing To all this what do you reply why after a tedious deal of forced mirth and grinning you gravely inform us that the Non-conformists were never so silly as to attempt to prove that these Symbolical Ceremonies are indeed Sacraments Nothing less 't is that which they most labour against And now is it not time for me to cry Victory and Triumph when I have put an end to so long and bloody a War when I have gain'd all that we have fought for ever since Cartwrights Rebellion when you your self have resign'd up the Controversie and tyed all their Champions and their Chiefteins to my Chariot wheels Are you not a trusty Patron of the dear Brethren and their dear Cause to give them all up thus broadly for a generation of egregious and incorrigible block-heads should they ever be so weak as to go about to prove that these Symbolical Ceremonies are indeed Sacraments When it is the very Curtana of the Cause when it is the only weapon wherewith Cartwright gored the Bowels of the Church and that has been transmitted successively to all their Champions down to J. O. and the Cobler of Gloster when it is so undeniably upon record in all their writings when it is the subject of so many whole Books and when it is still the last word of all their brawls and contentions So that you say well It is time indeed for the Non-conformists to desire a truce to bury their dead nay there are none left alive to desire it
it must have all as you would emprove it in your conclusion against me viz. that because Sardanopalus was a King and a good Spinster that therefore every King must be as good a Spinster as Sardanapalus But here is a very like Picture and yet like no body I describe and characterize some men so that though you know there are no such you dare not touch it is too hazardous Whoop and hola is all our talk of Duels and fighting come to this to be afraid of no body If there are no such persons fear not they will never challenge you for taking them by the Beard I did not set down the first letters of any mans name nor describe the features of any mans face nor give intimation of my knowledge of any man's lodging I only characterized the qualities of some Persons that are to be found in all Ages to oppose the Clergy of all Ages in their opposition to the Clemency of the Kings of all Ages Now that any mans qualities should be characterized when there is no such man in the World no man can understand but a man of Contradictions For the persons cannot be pointed at but by the Character and therefore if the Character happen to suit no body at this time then it is certain no body at this time can be characterized Nor indeed did I ever hear of any such Persons who gave the King such Counsels of Sacriledge as I there described beside your self that have nothing to lay to his charge since the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity beside his not seizing the Church revenues otherwise though the Clergy are the vilest men in the World you do not see but that he leads a more unblameable Conversation A very obliging Testimony and when his Majesty wants a Living he will no doubt come to you for a Certificate But to let that pass this intimation against the Council is as stabbingly suggested as the story of Sardanapalus that a man cannot give a general Character of a sacrilegious Statesman but some of his Majesties Privy-Council must immediately be glanced at this indeed is too hazardous to be touch'd and yet you cannot keep in your fingers from pointing though you dare not touch A man of your reading cannot be ignorant that there are too many of this sort of Vermine in all Ages and that there are enough of them at this time though they dare not appear in publick view but if ever affairs should at any time seem to require it they will be ready and officious to instruct Princes in this dangerous Lesson to encourage them to burn Temples to plunder Churches to trample upon all the Laws of Justice and affront all the solemnities of Religion to scorn the pedantiok stories of Honour and Conscience and to set down to themselves no other measures of Government but falshood oppression and cruelty These are the Sejanusses that I described and I took my Character from the monsters of former times and you may find the men in the deformed Reigns of Nero and Tiberius They are engendred under Tyrants and out of the corruptions of Government and they cannot usually lift up their heads under a merciful and gracious Prince though the last King it seems had the ill fortune to have his whole Reign deformed by being unhappily trinkled with Ceremonies Arminianism and Manwaring Were it possible that ever his Majesty should degenerate from the goodness of his own Nature as much as they say Nero did we might then but not till then fear such Favourites and Counsellers as should dare to tell him it is below a Sovereign Prince to submit to the Pedantry of Conscience and to be imposed upon with the solemn cheats of Religion these are fit stories to trinkle his People into servitudeâ— but he must own no other Rule of Good and Evil Justice and Honesty beside his own pleasure or reason of State and for his own convenience he may break Oaths murther the Innocent and care not how he oppress and defraud his Subjects and sacrifice the welfare of a whole Kingdome to his own Pride and Luxury And therefore Sir you must not stick at Rapine or Sacriledge for the support or the ease of your Government but seeing your Reign is short be so provident as to make the best advantage of your Fortune and seeing you received your Power by the chance of inheritance and are no way accountable for the discharge of any trust make your own days as pleasant and easie as you may and burthen not your self with a superfluous care for the happiness of your Subjects or Posterity Now to say that in such a general Character of wickedness as this I must speak particularly concerning King and Counsellers is such an height of impudence that his Majesty can never sufficiently requite it by assigning you a Nitch in the Old Exchange that is honour enough for such vulgar Wits as King James and my self He can do no less than pearch your Laureated Effigies upon the Imperial Grashopper The only publique place that I can think of where you may sit out of danger of rotten Eggs and Turnip tops But you fall so often into these throws and pangs of Ingenuity that it is impossible for me to correct all your Leasings and therefore I will only exemplifie two or three of the goodliest ones lest I should be cast and condemned for baulking a legal Plea And thus Imprimis have I cast a mischievous aspersion upon His Majesty of thinking to convert the Revenues and Dignities of the Church to his own use To lay such an heinous act of Insolence to my Charge without any reference to my Writings were not to be endured in any person living beside your self who when you have cast all the foulest aspersions in the world upon any special friend whom you design to treat with an Additional Civility can easily wipe off all again with an impudent and counterfeit Apology it is but protesting that You recreate your self with believing that your simple judgement cannot beyond your intention abate any thing of my just value with others and then you have done me right and merited my pardon though you had accused me of poisoning my Parents and eating up all my Brothers and Sisters But these are your leasings for it was but just now that the King and I were very good friends and that he was assured of my Loyalty and yet here am I aspersing him with a calumny the blackest and most odious in the world Whereas you cannot but be conscious that I have given His Majesty as large and fair a Testimonial as he or any man else can desire of his Zeal and Conformity to the Church of England Though had I been so dis-ingenuous as to dart this aspersion upon him yet it had been less disobliging than your scurvy Commendation who when you set your self to strein for elaborate and studious Periods of flattery the highest Elogy you can find in your heart to
Antisacraments to the prejudice of Christs own true Sacraments than which worse need not be said of the most Antichristian Church in the World And thus the Commissioners of the Worcester-house Conference obstructed his Majesties felicity and the Nations settlement because they thought it reasonable and convenient to stick to the present establishments of the Church till some proof of their unlawfulness was produced and because when none could be produc'd they would not condescend to that temper and moderation as to change all her Constitutions without any other reasonable Motive than to salve the reputation of the Presbyterians they must be branded for cunning and revengeful men And good reason too because the Non-conformists demand nothing but what is so far from doing us any harm that it would only make us better And yet all their demands are against our legal Establishments of which your worship is so enamour'd And as for the Act of Uniformity and that superfoetation of Acts that followed after it though they were all establish'd by Law yet were they procured by trinkling nay by Bishops trinkling and for that reason serve only to expose the Wisdome of King and Parliament to after Ages Another special commendation of the Church of England as by Law establish'd that its Legal Establishments are so foolish as to be a perpetual Testimony of the Law-makers Folly Find me out a Fanatique in Hungary Transylvania Bohemia Scotland Geneva Pin-makers Hall J. O's Congregation that may not boast his deep respect and reverence to the Church of England upon as good Terms as your self So that it is plain here you did but Personam induere of an honest Zealot for say what you will you must and shall know that all Zealots are not Rogues and Cut-throats And after all your counterfeit reverence you mean no body else by this particular Bran than the Bishops and the Clergy of the Church of England as 't is by Law establish'd Upon them it is that you dispense forth this sweet Character with so much bounty and in the very spirit of meekness And in the first place Arch-bishop Laud cannot lye quiet in his Grave but after a great many fair and foul words as consistent with themselves as the rest of your Book you are pleased at length to score all the miscarriages of the late Kings Reign and all the miseries of the late War upon his head and Conscience I suppose because he was a man so learned so pious so wise so studious to do both God and his Majesty good service you thought he was better able to bear it than some others whose reputation was not altogether so clear and unquestionable But poor Bishop Laud this is hard measure that when never any man's Innocence clear'd it self so gallantly from all the assaults of Malice and Calumny his venerable ashes should be thus insolently arraign'd by every bold and Fanatique Blockhead For notwithstanding the vigour and activity of his mind his zeal for the settlement and prosperity of the Church his care to reduce Religion to sober and justifiable Principles his Interest in the Kings favour and Counsels yet was he so wise and so pious in the conduct of all his affairs that when he was devested of all Power and Protection when he was exposed to the violence and outrage of the people when Calumny was let loose upon him when he was treated not only without mercy but justice and common civility when Libels and Petitions against him were rewarded when tumults and clamours were invited when he was even overwhelm'd with the number of Slanders Jealousies and Accusations when he was prosecuted by some with the utmost Fraud and Artifice by others with an unheard of malice and violence when his Murther was decreed with an absolute Doom before his Trial when his impeachment was drawn up in the most heinous and aggravating terms when the Evidence was managed with an unusual vehemence and animosity yet after all this his Innocence appear'd so clear and his Integrity so unblemish'd that not only his Judges but his very enemies were convinced and ashamed of their own Accusations For when the particular Articles of his Charge came to be examined they proved after the expence of a great deal of time and wit and eloquence so trifling and silly that they durst not venture to proceed any farther against him in way of legal Tryal and so were forced to condemn him and he was the first and last that was ever so condemned by Ordinance of Parliament without any other Formality than bringing him once to the Commons Bar for fashion sake that he might not be condemn'd unseen as he was unhear'd but condemn'd he was for no other Crime than that of cumulative Treason that is what you please and by this Impudence they might take away the life of any innocent man if either they hated him or he liked not them But the Remarque that his Historian has made upon the review of all their proceedings against him is so just and observable that all Circumstances consider'd it will appear the highest Act of Malice and Impudence that ever was before committed for since it has been outdone by any Age and under any Government in the World Viz. That as the predominant Party in the united Provinces to bring about their ends in the death of Barnevelt subverted all those fundamental Laws of the Belgick Liberty for maintenance whereof they took up Arms against Philip the second So the Contrivers of this mischief had violated all the fundamental Laws of the English Government for maintenance whereof they had pretended to take up Arms against the King It was said they a fundamental Law of the English Government and the first Article in the Magna Charta that the Church of England shall be free and shall have all her whole Rights and Priviledges inviolable Yet to make way unto the condemnation of this innocent man the Bishops must be voted out of their place in Parliament which most of them have held far longer in their Predecessors than any of our noble Families in their Progenitors and if the Lords refuse to give way unto it as at first they did the people must come down to the house in multitudes and cry No Bishops no Bishops at the Parliament doors till by the Terrour of the Tumults they extort it from them It is a fundamental Law of the English Liberty That no Free-man shall be taken or imprisoned without cause shewn or be detained without being brought unto his answer in due form of Law Yet here we see a Free-man imprisoned ten whole weeks together before any charge was brought against him and kept in Prison three whole Years more before his general accusation was by them reduced unto particulars and for a Year almost detain'd close Prisoner without being brought unto his answer as the Law requires It is a fundamental Law of the English Government That no man be disseized of his Free-hold or Liberties but
State because he never intended him for that employment when all Princes were as little aware of it as his Majesty till you were pleased to inform them So that it must be consessed that he followed the best Light that as J. O. speaks God held forth as the horns in his hand to the believers of that Generation for then he had no reason to suppose that he could do better than to trust his Affairs with a man learned and wise and pious not being bless'd with your Revelations from the high places of Armageddon And yet for all this had the Arch-bishops precipitate violent rigorous sanguinary and extreme Counsels been followed I am apt to think it had by the blessing of God been the most likely way to prevent all the mischiefs of the late Rebellion He saw plainly enough what the Antimonarchical Faction aim'd at how they had prepared the People for Confusion how they had encombred the Kings Affairs and that there was no probable way of escape for his Majesty but by some violent breaking through those difficulties in which they had entangled his Government And if the Faction had been convinced by any thing but Declarations that the King would not bear such insufferable Affronts against his Crown and Prerogative it is at least to be supposed that they would never have attempted it with such open and impudent endeavours But though he committed his exquisite understanding to the Arch-bishops keeping he kept his own sweet-nature and Gentlemans Memory to himself for being a person of an incomparable goodness he was strangely easie to forget and forgive the boldest injuries and that was all the use they made of his gentleness to encourage one another in their disloyal Practices till at length they proceeded to demand his Crown and when for meer peace and goodness-sake he had granted them one half of it by vertue of that they fought for the other And as little as the Arch-bishop gain'd upon them by his Priestly implacableness the King gain'd much less by his Princely Condescensions They were already resolved upon Rebellion and then every thing was an occasion of Tumult when they were resolved to tumultuare upon every occasion And though the War be no more to be imputed to the Kings goodness than the wickedness of impenitent sinners is to Gods mercy yet had they not shamelesly presumed upon that they though Presbyterians could never have had the confidence to treat him as they did Nay so little did he work upon them by the good-nature of all his condescensions that they perpetually set themselves to pick quarrels and take exceptions at the most obliging words as for example in the Bill of pressing and leavying Souldiers by Authority of Parliament when he had made a passionate Speech to them to move their pity towards the lamentable estate of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland and to dispatch their supplies for suppressing the Rebellion and to avoid dispute and delay he offers them to pass their own Bill that they were then framing though expresly against his undoubted Prerogative so it might be done with a salvo jure leaving the Debate to a better and more quiet season How think you did these meek-natured men that had they not been forced to it by Laud and Sibthorpianism could never have lift up an ill thought against the King requite all this tenderness and condescension but immediately Vote a Petition i. e. a Remonstrance to represent to his Majesty how he had violated the ancient lawful and undoubted Priviledges and Liberties of Parliament by taking notice of any Matter though it were Town-talk in agitation in either House before it was presented to his Majesty in due course of Parliament and humbly beseech i. e. threaten him to make known the Persons that by their Evil Counsels had induced him to it that they might be brought to condign punishment i. e. be affronted and severely handled only for being acquainted with the King Were not these men resolved upon it to renounce all sense of Duty and respect to their Prince that could seize such an advantage of discontent in such a sad juncture of Affairs from such a slight and unjust occasion And what way was there to deal with them but by such violent and precipitate Counsels as you impute to the Arch-bishop They were you see plainly from all their proceedings proof against all the obligations of goodness and ingenuity and then there is no way left but to suppress them by force and rigour and if that fail'd it was only because the Faction was grown too strong for the Government And 't is possible nay likely that if the King had through his whole Reign taken contrary Counsels and Courses yet the event might have been the same because however he carried Himself and his Affairs they were resolved to pursue their Democratical designs and had as the world went Power and Interest enough so to confound his Government till they brought him into a necessity of a Civil War But the three Rocks upon which this Man so learned so wise so pious ruin'd the King and Kingdom were Sibthorp Arminianism and the Scotch Liturgy so as not to leave it in the power of the Rebels to prevent the war For they alas Righteous Men acted in the sincerity of their Hearts and faithful discharge of their Consciences and were only forced into Arms in Defence of the King Kingdom and Themselves by Sibthorp Arminianism and the Liturgy But as for the Story of Sibthorp and the Loan-money in short thus it hapned In all the Parliaments under the late Kings Reign there was alwayes a strong Cabal of ill-affected persons that resolved to lay hold on all Advantages which way soever Affairs were managed to embroil the Government and bring the King into such streights as should make him obnoxious to their Power and to this purpose they put him upon expensive wars and when they had so done obstructed all Supplies by falling to complaints of Grievances and disputes of Liberties and Priviledges and Remonstrances against his Government and Petitions of Redress that is to say by assaulting him with Demands and Threatnings and however things were Reformed yet these Malevolent Persons as his Majesty expresses it like Empyricks and lewd Artists did strive to make new work and to have some disease on foot to keep themselves in request and to be employed and entertain'd in the Cure chiefly by raising jealousies and designs upon their Religion a wicked Practice sayes the King that they took up not for any care that they had of the Church but only as a plausible Theme to deprave our Government as if We our Clergy and Counsel were either senseless or careless of Religion with many other wicked Arts and Practices that the Declaration recapitulates p. 8 9 10. But the King being engaged in a foreign War in defence of his Unkle the King of Denmark by the Counsels and Perswasions of both Houses of Parliament with
Parliament began to challenge it and then he could make use of nothing else and the dispute then was not whether the Prerogative should govern but whether it were vested in him or them and that brought forth the War they fought for the Crown and when the Parliament had won it they were resolved to wear it and exercised all the Jurisdictions of Sovereign Power by vertue of their Parliamentary Supremacy But to return to Manwaring it is a great instance of the Presbyterian Humanity that though the poor man had begged their pardon with all the expressions of sorrow and humility yet no less punishment would appease their fury but to be imprisoned during their pleasure i. e. for ever to be fined a thousand Pounds to be suspended three Years and to be made uncapable of any farther Ecclesiastical preferment with many other heavy tokens of their displeasure and all this only for his too eager Zeal and forwardness in the Cause of Loyalty and so his Majesty understood it and therefore punish'd him with preferment accordingly to defie their pragmaticalness and to encourage such as promoted his and the Kingdomes service though they might fail in a point of Prudence But as for those persons that openly refused the Loan and affronted the Kings Commissions and would rather suffer Imprisonment than comply in so easie and reasonable a Demand they plainly shewed they had forgot that respect they owe to their Prince and that duty they owe to God who so severely requires them to obey not for their wrath only but for Conscience sake so that it was a manifest and unpalliable Breach both of Loyalty and Religion Especially when it was so very manifest that the King was forced upon all extraordinary courses purely by the stubborness of Presbyterian Parliaments and when they had such unquestionable assurance both from his own Temper that he could do nothing but what was just and honourable and from his Royal word that he would be always as tender of his Peoples ancient and just Liberties as of the Rights of his Crown and Soveraignty In these plain Circumstances as things stood between him and his Parliaments punctilios of Law were superseded For when it was so manifest that their demands were disloyal and unreasonable and withal that on one hand their designs were worse than their Declarations and on the other that his Majesty never intended any thing but the Peace and prosperity of his Kingdomes that was sufficient motive to overrule all good Subjects and ingenuous men not to endanger all by standing too curiously upon precedents and and niceties of old Custome But when these men first put the King upon his necessities and then defeated him of his supplies and so forced him upon extraordinary courses and then resisted his Authority and affronted his proceedings and animated the people to stand it out against his Commissioners and raised a disturbance and discontent through the whole Nation and all this when they knew his Majesties occasions so urgent and his designs so just and pious I dare determine that whatever they were by the Laws of the Land they were most notorious Rebels by all the Laws of the Gospel though what they proved afterward we all know it being these very men I mean as many of them as persisted in their stubborness for some of them were converted to a more orderly temper by the mere power of shame and modesty that were the great Authors and Ringleaders in the Long-parliament Rebellion The next fatal Rock upon which this man so learned so wise so pious ruin'd both King and Kingdome is the Rock of Arminianism for it seemed he and the Bishops had in order to setting up a new kind of Papacy of their own here in England provided themselves of a new Religion in Holland Arminianism which though it were the Republican Opinion there yet now they undertook to accommodate it to Monarchy c. But I beseech you Sir that are so deep a Statesman to inform a poor sucking Divine which way Arminianism is concern'd for or against Monarchy As for its Orthodoxy I have not a word to say especially when it has been so sufficiently determin'd by the Synod of Dort and the Assembly of West-minster i. e. all the Modern Orthodox Divines of Hungary Transylvania Bohemia and so downward to Pin-makers Hall though how it should at all conduce to Popery I must confess it is beyond my comprehension when the controversie has been always more or less disputed in all Nations under all Governments by all Sects and all Religions and is bandied as much by the Divines of the Church of Rome as by those of the Reformation And therefore when you upbraid us that in the late beating up the Pulpit Drums against Popery some were so ignorant as to fight the Papists with Arminian Arguments you would have done well to tell us the Ear-mark of an Arminian Argument I always thought they had been equally concern'd with other Protestants against the Pope and that the Arminians howsoever otherwise heterodox agree no more with some Papists in some things than the Calvinists agree with other Papists in other things so that their differences have no relation to their common Cause against Popery But to what purpose is it to talk to a Gamester of matters of Divinity For you understand none of these things but write purely by roat you find grievous outcries of Arminianism in the Long-Parliament Speeches and Declarations and you thought you might serve your turn of it as they did theirs It was an hard word that the people understood not at all i. e. as little as themselves did the thing only they taught them to hate and abhorr it as Children do Bugbears and Hobgoblins So that in those days Arminianism and Popery went always hand in hand and if they had a mind to blast any mans Reputation it was but sticking this name upon him and his business was done and among other Artifices to give better Countenance to the Cheat a counterfeit Letter was framed to the Rector of the Jesuites in Bruxels in which they inform him with what Art and success they had planted here the Sovereign Drug of Arminianism to purge the Protestants from their Heresies and to make a Party against the Puritans that were their only dangerous enemies with abundance more of the like impudent stuff though by whom it was written it was never yet discover'd yet by several passages in favour of the Puritan Faction it is evident enough to all sober men that it was a mere Gullery of their own devising And agreeably to this they were always very liberally bestowing their stroaks upon the Monster of Arminianism I desire Mr. Speaker that we may consider the increase of Arminianism an errour that makes the Grace of God lackey it after the will of man yea I desire that we may look into the very belly and bowels of this Trojan Horse to see if there be not men