exceeding even the desires of those that have been factiously discontented if they do but pretend to any modest and sober sense 64. The Odium and oâ—fences which some mens rigour or remissness in Church and State may have contracted upon a Kings Government he should resolve to expiate by such Lawes and Regulations for the future as may not only rectifie what was amiss in practise but supply what was defective iâ— the constitution 65. No man should have a greater zeal to see Religion setled and preserved in Truth Unity and Order than the King whom it most concerns both in piety and policy 66. A King's confidence in others may betray himself and his Kingdomes to those advantages which some men seek for who want nothing but power and occasion to do mischief 67. When our sins arâ— ripe there is no preventing of God's Justice from reaping that glory in our Calamities which we robb'd him of in our Prosperity 68. Great abilities in a Minister of State may be prone to create in him great confidence of undertakings and this is like enough to betray him to great errours and many enemies 69. Though a King cannot in his Judgment approve all a Minister of State hath done driven it may be by the necessity of Times and the Temper of that People he is set over more than lead by his own disposition to any height and rigour of actions yet he may not be convinced of any such criminousness in him as willing to expose his life to the strokes of Justice and malice of his enemies 70. When a King bears the touch of Conscience with great régret for any act of so sinfull frailty as discovers more a fear of Man than of God as a sign of his repentance he should often with sorrow confess the same both to God and Men. 71. No man is worthy to bear the name and place of God on earth who will not avoid inconveniences of State by acts of so high injustice as no publick convenience can expiate or compensate 72. In all likelihood a King can never suffer with his People greater calamities yet with greater comfort by vindicating the Innocency of his Minister at least by denying to sign any destructive Bill according to that Justice which his Conscience suggesteth to him than he wil do after he shall have gratified some mens unthankfull importunities with so cruel a favour 73. It may be observed by a King that those who counsel him to sign a destructive Bill to an innocent Minister of State are so far from receiving the rewards of such ingratiatings with the People that no meâ— are harrassed and crushed more than they when he is least vexed by them who counsels the King not to consent against the vote of his own Conscience 74. A King fully conscious to his Soul of permitting an Innocent Minister of State to be destroyed may so much the more welcome those Judgments God hath pleased to send upon him as he may hope them to be a means which his mercy hath sanctified so to him as to repent of that unjust Act and for the future not to do the like 75. Nothing should more fortifie a Kingâ—s resolutions against alâ— violent importunities which seek to gain consent from him to Acts wherein his Conscience is unsatisfied than the sharp touches he may have had for some such he before hath yeilded to 76. When a King's enemies of his own People load his Act of Justice because extraordinary in the method with obloquies and exasperations in touchy times it will fill indifferent men with great jealousies and fears yea and many of his friends will resent it as a motion rising rather from Passion than Reason and not guided with such discretion as the Times require 77. Though a King be furnish'd with just motives and pregnant grounds to proceed against any Subjects so that there needs nothing to the evidence he can produce against those he chargeth save a free and legal Tryal let that be all he desireth 78. A King should not yield to any temptation of displeasure or revenge against the persons of his Subjects further than he has discovered the unlawfull correspondencies they have used and engagements they have made to embroyl his Kingdoms 79. Probabilities may be sufficient to raise jealousies in any King's heart who is not wholely stupid and neglective of the publick peace 80. A fair and legal tryal of men called in question by their King can amount to no worse effect than either to do him and his Kingdom right in case they be guilty of else to clear their Innocency and remove his suspitions 81. When once People have learned to think hard thoughts againâ—t their King they will afterward abundantly vent them by words and deeds 82. Not any thing except our sins more ominously presageth alâ— the miseries incident to a Kingdom by Civil War then Tumults in the Capital City of it which when at their height are not like a storm at Sea which yet wants not its terrour but like an Earthquake shaking the veâ—y foundations of all than which nothing in the World hath more of horrour 83. In Popular Tumults a short sit or two of shaking as an ague may pass away but when once they become a quotidian fever allwayes increasing to higher inflammations impatient of any mitigation restraint or remission they threaten ruine 84. An unsafe guard may too easily be entertain'd by such as scare themselves and others with unnecessary fears 85. Such great Demagogues and Patrons of Tumults as send for them to flatter and embolden them to direct and tune their clamorous importunities God will in his due time let them see that those are no fit means to be used for attaining his ends 86. They are no wise Statesmen who own people in Tumults to be their friends commending their Courage Zeal and Industry which to sober men can seem no better than that of the Devil who goes about seeking whom he may deceive and devour 87. It is not alwayes an effect of Pusillanimity in a man for popular terrours to deserâ— his publick station 88. When Popular Tumults are become as the breaking in of a Sea for a King to resist at present threatens imminent danger but to withdraw gives it space to spend its fury and gains him a sitter time to repair the breach 89. A King by all means to decline a Civil War may in many particulars deny himself especially haveing no Army to flie unto for protetection or vindication 90. A King should resolve to hear reason in all things and to consent to it so far as he can comprehend it 91. When unquiet people with unpassionate representations reflect upon any not more Princely than friendly contributions which their King may have granted towards the perpetuating of their happiness he need not despair of recovering their Love and Loyalty unto him 92. The Loyal and cleared affections of mis-led People will strive to return such retributions of Honour and Love
the abatement of mens sins not the desolating of Nations he will command the Sword of Civil Wars to sheath it self 76. A King of divers Nations may incurre the the censure or misconstruction of one while he gratifies the active spirits among them of the other so far as that he seems to many to prefer the desires of that party before his own interest and honour 77. Religion and Liberty are common and vulgar flourishes to disguise an other errand of that Army which invades their own Kings territories to make him and his Church to write after them and theirs though it were in bloudy characters 78. Presbytery seeks to suppress and render odious under the names of Sects Schisms or Heresies several Parties which if they can get but numbers strength and opportunity may according to Presbyteries opinion and pattern set up their wayes by the like methods of violence representing a wonderful necessity thereof to avoid the further miseries of War which they may first begin and engage themselves to continue until they obtain their end 79. When God hath first taken us off from the folly of our opinions and fury of our passion he hath many wayes to teach us those rules of true Reason and peaceable Wisdome which is from above tending most to his glory and his Church's good 80. They that have any true touches of Conscience will not endeavour to carry on the best designs much less such as are and will be daily more apparently factious and ambitious by any unlawfull means under the title of a Covenant 81. Ties by Leagues and Covenants are either superfluous and vain when men were sufficiently tied before or fraudulent and injurious if by such after-ligaments they find the Imposers really ayming to dissolve or suspend their former just and necessary obligations 82. Factious men to whom it is enough if they get but the reputation of a seeming encrease to their Party little romember That God is not mocked 83. Against the Church the King or the Publick Peace no mans lawfull Calling can engage him 84. The soâ—â— and servile temper of some Divines dispose them in alterations of Religion and Government to sudden acting and compliance contrary to their former judgments profession and practise 85. No man should be more forward than a King himself to carry on all due Reformation with mature judgment and a good Conscience in what things he shall after impartial advice be by God's Word and right reason convinced to be amiss 86. Crowns and Kingdoms have a period with the life of their King but Reputation and Honour may survive to a glorious kind of Immortality when he is dead and gone 87. A King should never permit the malice of his enemies to deprive him of that comfort which his confidence in the generality of his people gives him 88. What a King may bear from foreign enemies he cannot so well from his own Subjects who next his children are dear unto him 89. Nothing could give a King more cause to suspect and search his own Innocency than when he observes many who made great professions of singular piety forward to engage against him 90. When many Professours of singular Piety engage with persons that take arms against their King it gives to vulgar minds so bad a reflection upon Him and his Cause as if it had been impossible to adhere to Him and not with all part from God to think or speak well of Him and not to blaspheme God 91. Truly Learned and Religious men will endeavour to be so well satisfied in the Cause of their injur'd King's sufferings as that they may chose rather to suffer with Him than forsake Him 92. When Popular Preachers though but in hypocrisie and falshood urge Religious pretensions against their King it is not strange that the same to many well-minded men should be a great temptation to oppose Him 93. When a King useth the assistance of Subjects of a different profession from Him they are most ready to interpret it a sighting against Religion who least of all men care whom they imploy or what they say and do so they may prevail 94. So eager are some men in giving their Soveraign better counsel than what they pretend he hath before heark'ned to that they will not give Him leave to take it with freedom as a Man nor honour as a King 95. No men should be more willing to complain than the King be to redress what he sees in Reason to have been either done or advis'd amiss 96. They who of pretended Sufferers become zealous Actors in persecution deprive themselves of the comfort and reward whatsoever they before expected 97. The noise and ostentation of Liberty is the design and artifice some men use to withdraw the peoples affections from their King 98. A good King should be so far from desiring to oppress as not to envy his Subjects that liberty which is all he ought desire to enjoy himself viz. To will nothing but according to Reason Lawes and Religion 99. Lords and Gentlemen which assist their King in a Civil War would not be so prodigal of their Liberties if they suspected he would infringe them as with their Lives and Fortunes to help on the inslaving of themseves and their Posterities 100. As to civil Importunities none but such as desire to drive on their ambitious and covetous design over the ruines of Church and State Prince Peers and People will ever desire greater Freedom than good Lawes allow The ninth Century 1. SUch men as thirst after Novelties or despair to relieve the necessities of their fortunes or satisfie their Ambition in peaceable times become principal impulsives to popular Commotions 2. Rebels will blast the best Government of the best King with all the odious reproaches which impotent malice can invent and expose Him to all those contempts which may most diminish the Majesty of a King and encrease the ungratefull insolencies of his People 3. A King who is well assured that his Innocency is clear before God in point of any calumnies rebellious Subjects do object may prophesie That his reputation shall like the Sun after Owles and Bats have had their freedom in the night and darker times rise and recover it self to such a degree of spendour as those feral birds shall be grieved to behold and unable to bear 4. A King cannot so much suffer in point of honour by rude and scandalous pamphlets as those men do who having power and pretending to so much piety are so forgetfull of their duty to God and him as not to vindicate the Majesty of their King against any of those who contrary to the precept of God and precedents of Angels speak evil of dignities and bring railing accusations against those who are honoured with the name of Gods 5. They will easily contemn such shadows of God as Kings are who reverence not that Supreme and adorable Majesty in comparison of whom all the glory of Men and Angels is but
his own vindication 80. Mens evil maners and seared consciences will soon enough confute and revenge the black and false scandals which they cast upon their King 81. Rebels credit and reputation may be blasted by the breath of that same furnace of popular obliquy and detraction which they study to heat and inflame to the highest degree of infamy and therein seek to cast and consume their King's name and honour 82. They are misperswaded who think these two utterly inconsistent to be at once loyal to their King and truly religious toward God 83. Some popular Preachers think it no sin to lye for God and what they call Gods Cause cursing all that will not curse with them 84. Such men look so much at and cry up the goodness of the end propounded that they consider not the lawfulness of the means used nor the depth of that mischâ—ef chiefly plotted and intended 85. The weakness of these mens judgments must be made up by their clamours and activity 86. It is a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize their King and his thinking theirs cannot be true if they cry not down his as false 87. A King ights not against his own Religion who imployes Subjects of different perswasions to maintain it 88. Differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the sameness of Duty Allegeance and Subjection 89. Different professions in point of Religion cannot take away the community of Relations either to Parents or to Princes 90. It is lawfull for a King in exigents to use the aid of any his Subjects of what perswasion soever 91. It were a very impertinent and unseasonable scruple in a King then to dispute the points of different beliefs in his Subjects when he is disputed with by swords points and when he needs the help of his Subjects as men no less than their prayers as Christians 92. The noise of a Kings evil Counsellers is a usefull device for those who are impatient any mens councels but their own should be followed in Church or State 93. Bold Subjects give counsels more like a drench that must be forced down than a draught which might be fairly and leisurely dranâ—â— if their King liked it 94. Moderate men are sorry to see their King prone to injure himself out of a zeal to relieve his Subjects 95. Truly humble Christians will so highly prize the reward of persecutions as rather not to be relieved than be revenged so as to be bereaved of that Crown of Christian patience which attends humble and injur'd sufferers 96. Men are not more prone to desire liberty than unapt to bear it in the popular sence which is to do what every man liketh best 97. The divinest liberty is to will what men should and to do what they so will according to Reason Lawes and Religion 98. Good men count the bounds of the Lawes their Ornament and Protection others their Manacles â—â— Oppression 99. It is not just that any man should expect the reward and benefit of the law who despiseth its rule and direction 100. He that seeks an unreasonable liberty justly loseth his safety The Fourth Century 1. THose men are the best preservers of their true liberty who allow themselves the least licentiousness against or beyond the Lawes 2. It is impossible chose men should be really tender of their fellow-subjects liberties who have the hardiness to use their King with severe restraints 3. A resolv'd King restrain'd by Subjects will rather perish thaâ— complain to those who want nothing to compleat their mirth and triumph but such musick 4. Conscientious tenderness attended with proud and arrogant activity seeks to hatch every egge of different opinion to a faction or schisme 5. Lawes and Scepters of Monarchs should not intrench on God's Soveraignty which is the only King of mens Consciences 6. God gives no men liberty to break the Law established further than with meekness and patience they are content to suffer the penalties annexed rather than perturb the publick peace 7. some men in the necessities of their fortunes distrust Gods providence as well as their own merits 8. Never were any Princes more glorious than those whom God hath suffer'd to be tried in the fornace of afflictions by their injurious Subjects 9. Some men speak against their King rather what they wish than what they believe or know 10. Rude and scandalous Pamphlets like fire in great conflagrations fly up and down to set all places on like flames 11. It is no wonder if men not fearing God should not honour their King 12. God hath graven such Characters of divine Authority and sacred Power upon Kings as none may without sin seek to blot them out 13. From God alone are all traditions of true Glory and Majesty that is in Kings 14. No news to have all Innovations ushered in with the name of Reformations in Church and State 15. The pride of those that study novelties can hardly allow any share or degree of wisdom or godliness to former times 16. For set and prescribed forms of publick prayer there is no doubt but that wholsome words being known and fitted to mens understandings are soonest received into their hearts and aptest to excite and carry along with them judicious and fervent affections 17. Constant forms of Prayers are not more likely to slat and hinder the Spirit of Prayer and Devotion than unpraemeditated and confused variety to distract and lose it 18. Slight and easie Legerdemain will serve to delude the Vulgar 19. No men are prone to be greater Tyrants and more rigorous exactors upon others to conform to their illegal novelties than such whose pride was formerly least disposed to the obedience of lawfull Constitutions and whose licentious humours most pretended Conscientious liberties 21. It is impossible for a Prince to preserve the State in quiet unless he hath such an influence upon Churchmen and they such a dependance on him as may best restrain the seditious exorbitancies of Ministers tongues who with the keyes of Heaven have so far the keyes of the Peoples hearts as they prevail much by the Oratory to let in or shut out both Peace and Loyalty 21. The want of Government is that which the Church can no more dispence with in point of well-being than the want of the Word and Sacrament in point of being 22. Scripture is the best rule and the Church's universal practise the best Commentary of Religion 23. No frame of church-Church-government is more agreable both to Reason and Religion than that which is Paternal not Magisterial 24. Faction and Confusion Emulations and Contempts are prone to arise among equals in power and function 25. Inconstancy is a great prejudice against Novelty 26. The stream of times and the prevalency of parties overpowreth the judgements of some men 27. Ministers may find as great a difference in point of thriving between the favour of the People and of Princes as Plants do between being watered
successes on either side impair the wellfare of the whole 79. Those Victories are still miserable that leave our sins nnsubdued flushing our pride and animating to continue injuries 80. Peace it self is not desirable til repentance have prepared us for it 81. When we fight more against our selves and less against God we shall cease fighting against one another 82. No glory is more to be envied than that of due reforming either Church or State when deformities are such that the perturbation and novelty are not like to exceed the benefit of reforming 83. The setling of Religion ought to be the first rule and standard of reforming 84. It is a great miscariage when popular clamours and fury are allowed the reputation of zeal and the publick sense 85. Freedome Moderation and Impartiality are the best tempers of reforming counsels and endeavours 86. What is acted by Factions cannot but offend more than please 87. Where the Scripture is not clear and punctual in precepts there the constant and universal practise of the Church in things not contrary to Reason Faith or Maners or any positive Command is the best Rule that Christians can follow 88. The Vulgar are taken with novelties as children with babies very much but not very long 89. If there were as much of Christ's Spirit for meekness wisdome and charity in mens hearts as there is of his Name used in the pretensions to reform all to Christs it would certainly obtain more of Gods blessing and produce more of Christs glory the Churches good the honour of Religion and the unity of Christians 90. Publick Reformers had need first act in private and practise that on their own hearts which they purpose to try on others 91. Deformities within will soon betray the Pretenders of publick Reformations to such private designs as must needs hinder the publick good 92. The right methods of reforming the Church cannot subsist with that of perturbing the civil State 93. Religion cannot be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest ingredients and ornaments of true Religion for next to Fear God is Honour the King 94. Christ's Kingdom may be set up without pulling down the Kings and men will not in impartial times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects 95. As good ends cannot justifie evil means so nor will evil beginnings ever bring forth good conclusions unless God by a miracle of mercy create Light out of Darkness Order out of Confusions and Peace out of Passions 96. The greatest experiments of Virtue and Nobleness are discovered in the greatest advantages against an enemy and the greatest obligations are those which are put upon us by them from whom we could least have expected them 97. Bees will gather honey where the Spider sucks poyson 98. Subjects can hardly be happy if their King be miserable or enjoy their peace and liberties while he is oppressed 99. A King should not only with patience bear indignities but with charity forgive them 100. Subjects captivate their King that allow him not the liberty of his own thoughts and are unwilling he should follow the light of his own conscience The Fifth Century 1. IT is unreasonable for Subjects to expect the King should think their Counsâ—ls good for him who maintain a War against him 2. Prosperity gains the greatest esteem and applause among the Vulgar as adversity exposeth to their greatest slighting and disrespect 3. Good Fortune is not alwayes the shadow of Vertue and Justice but oftner attends vitious and injurious actions as to this world 4. No secular advantages seem sufficient to that Cause which begun with Tumults depends chiefly upon the reputation with the Vulgar 5. Rebels think no Victories so effectual to their designs as those that most rout and wast their Kings credit with his people 6. The taking away a Kings credit is but a necessary preparation to the taking away of his life and his kingdomes 7. It is an exquisite method of Rebels cunning and cruelâ—y To compel their King first to follow the funerals of his honour and then destroy him 8. Few mens Consciences are so stupid as not to inflict upon them some secret impressions of that shame and dishonour which attends all unworthy actions have they never so much of publick flattery and popular countenance 9. Chams curse of being servant of servants must needs be on them who seek by dishonourable actions to please the vulgar and confirm by ignoble acts their dependance upon the people 10. What Providence denies to Force it may grant to Prudence 11. When necessity is a King's Counsellor his confidence in a rebellious people may disarm and overcome them and the rendring his Person to them engage their affections to him 12. God must be a Kings chiefest Guard and his Conscience both his Counsellor and his Comforter 13. No necessities should compel a King to desert his â—â—â—â—ur or swerve from his judgâ—â—â—â— 14. An univâ—â—sal confidence put in dissembling Subjects may make them ashamed not to be really such as they ought and profess to be 15. So various are all humane affairs and so necessitous may the state of Princes be that their greatest danger may be in their supposed safety and their safety in their suposed danger 16. A King ought not in rebellious times to be less solicitous for his friends safety than his own and he may chuse to venture himself upon further hazards rather than expose their resolute loyalty to all extremity 17. It is some skil in play to know when a game is lost better fairly to give over than to contest in vain 18. A King that casts himself upon the kindness of Subjects that have fought against him must study to reinforce his judgment and fortifie his mind with Reason and Religion that he may not seem to offer up his souls liberty or make his Conscience their Captive 19. No success should darken or disguise truth to a King who in the greatest necessity should no less conform his words unto his inward dictates than if they had been as the words of a King ought to be among Loyal Subjects full of power 20. Reason is the divinest power A King should never think himself weakned while he may make full and free use of that 21. No Eclipse of outward fortune should rob a King of the light of Reason 22. What God denies of outward strength to a distressed King his grace may supply with inward resolutions not morosity to deny what is fit to be granted but not to grant any thing which Reason and Religion bids him deny 23. A King should never think himself less thâ—n himself while he is able to preserve the integrity of his Conscience when the only jewel left him worth keeping 24. When Kings are deceiv'd in their confidence it is but an essay which God will have them make of man's uncertainty the more to fix them on himself who never faileth them that trust in him 25. Though the Reeds
God and the Church have especially designed and consecrated some men 65. Confusion in Religion will as certainly follow every man's turning Priest or Preacher as it will in the State where every man affects to rule as King 66. A King may bear with more grief and impatience the want of his Chaplains than of any other his servants and next if not beyond in some things to the being sequestred from his Wife and Children since from these indeed more of humane and temporary affections but from those more of heavenly and eternal improvements may be expected 67. In the inforced not neglected want of ordinary means God is wont to afford extraordinary supplies of his gifts and graces 68. A King that in solitude has Gods Spirit to teach him and help his infirmities in prayer reading and meditation will need no other either Oratour or Instructer 69. Some little practise wil serve that man who only seeks to represent a part of honesty and honour 70. A King cannot be so low but He is considerable adding weight to that Party where he appears 71. When the excentrique and irregular motion of the Times cannot well be resisted nor quieted Better swim down such a stream than in vain to strive against it 72. Impossible it is for lines to be drawn from the center and not to divide from each other so much the wider by how much they go farther from the point of union 73. Professed Patrons for the Peoples Liberties cannot be utterly against the Liberty of their King what they demand for their own Conscience they cannot in reason deny to his 74. Novel Injunctions cannot well be stamped with the authority of Lawes without the Kings consent 75. Men are hardly content with one sin but adde sin to sin til the later punish the former 76. Power is above all Rule Order and Law where men look more to present Advantages than their Consciences and the unchangeable rules of Justice while they are Judges of others they are forced to condemn themselves 77. Vengeance oft pursues and overtakes them that thought to have escaped and fortified themselves most impregnably against it both by their multitude and compliance 78. Whom the Lawes cannot God will punish by their own crimes and hands 79. Fatal blindness frequently attends and punisheth wilfullness so that men shall not be able at least to prevent their sorrowes who would not timely repent of their sins nor shall they be suffered to enjoy the comforts who securely neglect the counsels belonging to their peace 80. Brethren in Iniquity are not far from becoming insolent enemies there being nothing harder than to keep ill men long in one mind 81. It is not possible to gain a â—air period for those motions which go rather in a round and circle of fancy than in a right line of reason tending to the Law the only center of publick consistency 82. Men are much more happy when subject to known Lawes than to the various wills of any men seem they never so plausible at first 83. Vulgar compliance with any illegal and extravagant wayes like violent motions in nature soon growes weary of it self and ends in a refractory fullenness 84. Peoples rebounds are oft in their faces who first put them upon those violent strokes 85. A King may so far esteem the valour and gallantry some time shewed by an Army which hath fought against him as to concur toward a just satisfying their demands of pay and indemnity and to wish he may never want such men to maintain himself his Lawes and Kingdome in such a peace as wherein they may enjoy their share and proportion so much as any men 86. It is some kind of deceiving and lessening the injury of a Kings long restraint when he finds his leisure and solitude have produced something worthy of himself and usefull to his Successour 87. In Civil Warres a Kings cause is not to be measured by the success nor his judgment of things by his misfortunes 88. It is an advantage of wisdom to a young Prince to have begun spent some years of discretion in the experience of troubles and exercise of patience 89. In troubles Piety and all Virtues both Moral and Political are commonly better planted to a thriving as Trees set in winter than in the warmth and serenity of times 90. The delights which usually attend Princes Courts in time of Peace and Plenty are prone either to root up all Plants of true Virtue and Honor or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them 91. Princes should alwayes remember they are born and by Providence designed to the publick good 92. Flatteries are as unseparable from prosperous Princes as Flies ate from fruit in Summer whom adversity like cold weather drives away 93. Charles le Bon a more glorious name for a Prince than le Grand Better for him and his people he be good than great 94. The early exercise of Gods graces and gifts bestowed upon Princes may best weed out all vicious inclinations and dispose them to such Princely endowments and imployments which will most gain the love and intend the welfare of those over whom God may place them 95. A Prince ought to begin and end with God who is King of Kings the Soveraign disposer of the Kingdomes of the World 96. The best Government and highest Soveraignty a Prince can attain to is to be subject to God that the Scepter of his Word and Spirit may rule in his heart 97. The true glory of Princes consists in advancing Gods Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Church's good Also in the dispensation of civil Power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace 98. Piety will make a Prince prosperous at least it will keep him from being miserable 99. He is not much a loser that loseth all yet saveth his own soul at last 100. A Kings affliction is Gods Physick having that in healthfulness which it wants in pleasure The Sixth Century 1. A Prince at mature age ought if satisfied in his own Judgment and Reason seal to that sacred bond which education hath written that it may be judiciously his own Religion and not other mens custom or tradition which he professeth 2. A Princes fixation in matters of Religion is not more necessary for his souls than his Kingdoms peace 3. The Devil of Rebellion doth commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation and the old Serpent can pretent new lights 4. When some mens Consciences accuse them for sedition and faction they stop its mouth with the name and noise of Religion When Piety pleads for peace and patience they cry out zeal 5. Unless a King in point of Religion be well setled he shall never want temptations to destroy him and his under pretensions of Reforming 6. Reforming matters of Religion seems even to the worst men as the best and most auspicious beginning of their worst desfgns 7. Some Reformers of Religion hope
to cover their irreligious deformities whereto they are conscious by a severity of censuring other mens opinions or actions 8. A King ought to take heed of abetting any factions or applying to any publick discriminations in matters of Religion contrary to what is in his judgment and the Church well setled 9. A King 's partial adhering as head to any one side gains him not so great advantages in some mens hearts who are prone to be of their Kings Religion as it loseth them in others who think themselves and their profession first despised than persecuted by him 10. A King should take such a course as may either with calmness and charity quite remove seeming differeces in Religion and offenses by impartiality or to order affairs in point of Power that he shall not need to fear or flatter any Faction 11. If a King stand in need of any Faction he may have flatterrd that affects him not or must stand to their courtesie he is undone The Serpent will devour the Dove 12. A King may never expect less of loyalty justice or humanity than from those who engage into Religious Rebellion 13. Religious Rebels make their interest alwayes Gods 14. Ambitious Policies march under the colours of Piety not only with greatest security but applause as to the populacy 15. A King may hear Jacobs voice from such religious Reformers but he will feel they have Esau's hands 16. As ill humors fall to the disaffected part which causeth inflammations so all affectors of novelties adhere to that side which hath the most remarkable and specious note of difference in point of Religion 17. Nothing ought to seem little or despicable to a King in matters which concern Religion and the Church's peace so as to neglect a speedy reformation and effectual suppression 18. Errors and Schismes which seem at first but as a hand-breadth by seditious spirits as by strong winds are soon made to cover and darken the whole heaven 19. A King should never charge his head with such a Crown as shall by its heaviness oppress the whole body the weakness of whose parts cannot return any thing of strength honour or safety to the head but a necessary debilitation and ruine 20. A Kings Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather than exacting the rigour of the Lawes there being nothing worse than legal Tyranny 21. Tumults Armies and Prisons are not the best arguments to convince the testimony of a King's conscience 22. It is not safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the Lawes in which is wrap't up the publick Interest and the good of the Community 23. A King should never repose so much upon any mans single counsel fidelity and discretion in managing affairs of the first magnitude that is matters of Religion and Justice as to create in himself or others a difference of his own judgment which is likely to be alwayes more constant and impartial to the interests of his Crown and Kingdom than any mans 24. A King should beware of exasperating any Factions by the crossness and â—â—â—â—erity of some mens passions humors or private opinions imployed by him grounded only upon the differences in lesser matters which are but the skirts and suburbs of Religion 25. A Charitable connivence and Christian toleration often dissipates the strength of Factions which rougher opposition fortifies and puts the despised and opressed party into such combinations as may most enable them to get a full revenge on those they count their Persecutors who are commonly assisted by that vulgar commiseration which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of Religion 26. A King is not to connive at or tolerate any faction that amounts to an insolent opposition of Lawes and Government or Religion established as to the essentials of them such â—â—â—tions and minings are intolerabâ—e 27. A King must alwayes keep up solid Piety and those fundamental Truths which mend both hearts and lives of men with impartial favour and justice 28. A King must take heed that outward circumstances and formalities of Religion devour not all or the best encouragements of Learning industry and piety 29. A King ought with an equal eye and impartial hand to distribute favours and rewards to all men as he finds them for their real goodness both in abilities and fidelities worthy and capable of them 30. A King by rewarding men of best deserts shall be sure to gain himself the hearts of the best and the most too who though they be not good themselves yet are glad to see the severer wayes of vertue at any time sweetned by temporal rewards 31. Combinâ—â—â—â—actions have no sooner by force subdued what they counted their common enemy and are secured from that fear but they are divided to so high a rivalry as sets them more at defiance against each other than against their first Antagonists 32. Time will dissipate all Factions when once the rough horns of private mens covetous and ambitious designs shall discover themselves which were at first wrapt up and hidden under the soft and smooth pretensions of Religion Reformation and Liberty 33. As the Wolfe is not less cruel so he will be more justly hated when he shall appear no better than a Wolfe under Sheeps clothing 34. To undeceive the seduced Vulgar who in simplicity follow disguises as a King needs no palliations if he study really to exceed in true and constâ—â—â— demonstrations of goodness piety and virtue towards the People even all those men that make the greatest noise and ostentations of Religion so shall he neither fear any detection as they do who have but the face and mask of goodness nor shall he frustrate the just expectations of his people who cannot in reason promise themselves so much good from any Subjects novelties as from the virtuous constancy of their King 35. None are greater Oppressours of Vulgar Estates Liberties and Consciences than those men that entitle themselves the Patrons and Vindicators of them only to usurpe power over them 36. No Passion should betray a Prince to any study of revenge upon those whose own sin and folly will sufficiently punish them in due time 37. So soon as the forked arrow of factious emulations is drawn out use all princely arts and clemency to heal the wounds that the smart of the cure may not equal the anguish of the hurt 38. Acts of Indempnity and Oblivion when desired and accepted are to be granted not only as Acts of State-policy and necessity but of Christian charity and choise 39. They that deprive a King of all cannot of a power to forgive them and to have a heart to do it is a greater argument of Gods love to him than any prosperity can be 40. None will be more loyal and faithfull to an injur'd King than those Subjects who sensible of their errours and his sufferings will feell in their own souls most vehement motives to repentance and earnest desires to make
obscurity 6. They who seek to gain reputation with the vulgar for their extraordinary parts and piety must needs undo whatever was formerly setled never so well and wisely 7. I could never see any reason why any Christian should abhor or be forbidden to use the same forms of Prayer since he prayes to the same God believes in the same Saviour professeth the same Truths reads the same Scriptures hath the same Duties upon him and feels the same daily wants for the most part both inward and outward which are common to the whole Church 8. A serious sense of that inconvenience in the Church which unavoidably followes every mans several maner of officiating no doubt first occasioned the wisdom and piety of the ancient Churches to remedy those mischiefs by the use of constant Liturgies of publick composure 9. It was either the tumultuariness of People or the factiousness and pride of Presbyters or the covetousness of some States and Princes that of late years gave occasion to some mens wits to invent new models of Church-government and proposed them under the specious titles of Christs Government Scepter and Kingdom the better to serve their turns to whom the change was beneficial 10. As the full and constant Testimony of all Histories may sufficiently convince unbiased men That the Primitive Churches were undoubtedly governed by the Apostles and their immediate Successours the first and best Bishops so it cannot in reason or charity be supposed that all Churches in the world should either be ignorant of the rule by them prescribed or so soon deviate from their divine and holy pattern 11. Since the first Age for 1500 years not one Example can be produced of any setled Church wherein were many Ministers and Congrations which had not some Bishop above them under whose jurisdiction and government they were 12. Use is the great Arbitratour of words and Master of language 13. Not only in Religion but also in right Reason and the true nature of Governments it cannot be thought that an orderly Subordination among Presbyters or Ministers should be any more against Christianity than it is in all secular and civil Governments where Parity breeds Confusion and Faction 14. I can no more believe that such order is inconsistent with true Religion than good features are with beauty or numbers with harmony 15. It is not likely that God who appointed several orders and a Prelacy in the Government of his Church among the Jewish Priests should abhor or forbid them among Christian Ministers who have as much of the Principles of Schism and Division as other men 16. I conceive it was not the favour of Princes or ambition of Presbyters but the wisdom and piety of the Apostles that first setled Bishops in the Church which Authority they constantly used and injoyed in those times which were purest for Religion though sharpest for Persecution 17. Tyranny becomes no Christians least of all Churchmen 18. The late Reformed Churches whose examples are obtruded for not retaining Bishops the necessity of times and affairs rather excuseth than commendeth for their inconformity to all Antiquity 19. I could never see any reason why Churches orderly reformed and governed by Bishops should be forced to conform to those few rather than to the Catholick example of all Ancient Churches which needed no Reformation 20. It is no point of wisdom or charity where Christians differ as many do in some points there to widen the differences and at once to give all the Christian World except a handfull of some Protestants so great a scandal in point of Church-Government as to change it whom though you may convince of their Errours in some points of Doctrine yet you shall never perswade them that to compleat their Reformation they must necessarily desert and wholly cast off that Government which they and all before them have ever owned as Catholick Primitive and Apostolical 21. Never Schismaticks nor Hereticks except the Arians have strayed from the Unity and Conformity of the Church in point of Government ever having Bishops above Presbyters 22. Among those that have endeavoured or effected a change in the Government of the Church such as have rendred themselves guilty of inconstancy cause a great prejudice against their novelty in the opinion of their King whose consent they would have 23. Their facility and levity is never to be excused whose learning or integrity cannot in charity be so far doubted as if they understood not what before they did or as if they conformed to Episcopal Government contrary to their consciences and yet the same men before ever the point had any free and impartial debate contrary to their former Oaths and practice against their obedience to their Lawes in force and against their Kings consent have not only quite cried down the Government by Bishops but have approved and encouraged the violent and most illegal stripping Bishops and other Churchmen of all their due Authority and revenues the selling away and utter alienation of those Church Lands from any Ecclesiastical uses 24. The Desertors of Episcopacy will at last appear the greatest Enemies to and betrayers of their own interest whose folly will become a punishment unto it self for 25. Presbytery is never so considerable or effectual as when it is joyned to and crowned with Episcopacy 26. Those secular additamenâ—â— and ornaments of Authority Civil Honour and Estate which Christian Princes in all Countryes have annexed to Bishops and Church men are to be lookt upon but as just rewardâ— of their learning and piety who are fit to be in any degree of Church-Government also enablements to works of Charity and Hospitality meet strenthnings of their Authority in point of respect and observance 27. I would have such men Bishops as are most worthy of those encouragements and be ablest to use them 28. A Kings good intention whose judgment faild at any time makes his errour venial 29. It is neither just for Subjects nor pious for Christians by violents and indignities with servile restraints to seek to force their King and Soveraign against the well-laid gounds of his judgment to consent to any their weak and divided novelties touching the Government of the Church 30. I could never see any probable shew in true Reason and in Scripture for the Government of the Church otherwise than by Bishops the greatest Pretenders of a different sense either contenting themselves with the examples of some Churches in their infancy and solitude when one Presbyter might serve one Congregation in a City or Countrey or else denying these most evident Truths 1. That the Apostles were Bishops over those Presbyters they ordained as well as over the Churches they planted 2. That Government being necessary for the Churches wellbeing when multiplied and sociated must also necessarily descend from the Apostles to others after the example of that power and Superiority they had above others which could not end with their persons since the use and ends of such Government still
continue 31. Ignorance Superstition Aâ—varice Revenge with other disorderly and disloyal Passions have so blown up some mens minds against Episcopal Government in the Church that what they want of Reasons or Primitive Patterns they supply with violence and oppression 32. Some mens zeal for Bishops Lands Houses and Revenues hath set them on work to eat up Episcopacy 33. A King solemnly obliged by an Oath agreable to his judgment to preserve Episcopal Government and the Rights of the Church hath a particular engagement above other men so to do 34. The said King being daily by the best disquisition of Truth more confirmed in the Reason and Religion of that to which he is sworn no man that wisheth not his damnation can perswade Him at once to so notorious and combined sins as those of Sacriledg and Perjury in parting with Episcopacy 35. Men of ambitious Covetousness and secrilegious Cruelty will torture with their King both Church and State in Civil dissentions till if he have not an invincible resolution he shall not be forced to consent and declare that he does approve what God knowes he utterly dislikes and in his Soul abhors 36. Should a King pressed by Imperious Subjects shamefully and dishonouraly give his consent to any bold demand against Reason Justice and Religion yet should he not by so doing satisfie the divided Interests and Opinions of those Parties if any such be among them which contend with each other as well as both against Him 37. The abuses of Episcopacy deserve to be extirpated as much as the use retained 38. A right Episcopacy doth at once satisfie all just desires and interests of good Bishops humble Presbyters and sober People so as Church-affairs should be managed neither with tyranny parity nor popularity neither Bishops ejected nor Presbyters despised nor People oppressed 39. A King that can seldom get opportunities to Treat with Subjects in armes against Him should yet never want either desire or disposition to it having greater considence of his Reason than his Sword 40. A King should very unwillingly be compelled to defend himself with Arms against his Subjects and very willingly embrace any thing tending unto Peace 41. No success should ever enhaunce with a King the price of Peace between him and his Subjects which should be as earnestly desired by Him as any man though He be like to pay dearer than any man for it so He reserve his Honour and his Conscience 42. A King should condescend to the desires of his Subjects as far as Reason Honour and Conscience will give Him leave having special regard to those differences that are essential to the security or prosperity of his People To deny some other demands may be the greatest justice to Himself and favour to his Subjects 43. A King willing to condescend to the setling of Church-affairs so as he may give satisfaction to all men must have a care not to comply with such whom faction covetousness or superstition may have engaged more than any true zeal charity or love of reformation 44. Although a King may be content to yield to all that may seem to advance true piety yet He must seek to continue what is necessary in point of Order Maintenance and Authority to the Church's Government especially if He be perswaded that it is most agreable to the true principles of all Government raised to its full stature and perfection as also to the Primitive Apostolical pattern and the practise of the Universal Church conform thereto 45. The King is very excusable both before God and all unpassionate men for the distance between Him and Subjects in Arms against Him that in Treaties and Transactions endeavoureth no less the restauration of peace to his People than the preservation of his own Crowns to his posterity 46. If such Treaties give occasion to any mans further restiveness it is imputable to their own depraved tempers not to any Concessions or Negations of their King who has alwayes the content of what He offered and they the regret and blame for what they refused 47. A King may presage the unsuccessfulness of any Treaty with his Subjects among whom he finds an unwillingness to treat that implying some things to be gained by the Sword whose unreasonableness they are loth to have fairly scanned being more proper to be acted by Soldiers than by Counselors 48. When God gives a King victory over his Subjects in Armes against him it is to try Him that He may know how with moderation and thanks to own and use his power who is the only true Lord of Hosts able when he pleases to repress the confidence of those who fight against him though with great advantage for power and numbers 49. A King who for small beginnings on his part at length is attended on by an Army wherewith He may encounter his rebellious Subjects has this comfort that He is not wholly forsaken by his Peoples love or Gods Protection 50. When God at any time permits the same King to be worsted by his Enemies it is to exercise his patience and teach Him not to trust in the arme of Flesh but in the living God 51. They who fight against their King are forced to slie to the shifts of some pretended Fears and wild fundamentals of State as they use to call them which actually overthrow the present Fabrick both of Church and State 52. The imaginary Reasons which Rebels alledg for self defence are commonly most impertinent and such as will fit any Faction that hath but power and confidence enough to second with the Sword all their demands against the present Lawes and Governours 53. Lawes and Governours can never be such as some side or other will not find fault with so as to urge what they call a Reformation of them to a Rebellion against them 54. They are Parasitick Preachers that dare call those Martyrs who died fighting against their King the Lawes their Oaths and right Religion established For 55. Sober Christians know than the glorious Title of Martyr can with truth be applied only to those who seriously prefer God's Truth and their duty in all the foresaid particulars before their lives and all that is dear to them in this World 56. The Wounds and temporal Ruines of those loyal Subjects who are slain in Civil Wars serve as a gracious opportunity for their eternal Health and Happiness while the evident approach of death through God's grace effectually disposeth their Hearts to such Humility Faith and Repentance which together with the Rectitude of their engagement fully prepares them for a better life than that which their enemies brutish and disloyal firceness can deprive them of or without repentance hope to enjoy 57. Those Rebels who may have often the better against their King's side in the Field will never have so at the Bar of God's Tribunal or their own Consciences 58. The condition of loyal Subjects in a Civil War though conquered and dying for their King no question is
of his holy Spirit in us 75. God's Spiritual perfections are such as he is neither to be pleased with affected Novelties for matter or manner nor offended with the pious constancy of our petitions in them both 76. A pious moderation of mens judgments is most commendable in matters of Religion that their ignorance may not offend others nor their opinion of their own abilities tempt them to deprive others of what they may lawfully and devoutly use to help their infirmities 77. The advantage of Errour consists in novelty and variety as of Truth in unity and constancy 78. The Church is sometimes pest'red with errours and deformed with undecencies in God's service nnder the pretense of variety and novelty as deprived of truth unity and order under this fallacy That Constancy is the cause of formality 79. If God keep us from formal Hypocrisie in our hearts we know that praying to him or praising of him with David and other holy men in the same formes cannot hurt us 80. If God gives us wisdom to amend what is amiss within us there will be less to amend without us 81. The effects of blind zeal and over-bold devotion are such as God evermore defend and deliver his Church from them 82. Such should be the uprightness and tenderness of a King whom God hath set to be a Defender of the Faith and a Protector of his Church as by no violence to be overborn against his Conscience 83. The Deformation of the Church as to that Government which derived from the Apostles had been retained in purest and primitive times began when the Revenues of the Church became the object of secular envy which still seeks to rob it of the incouragements of Learning and Religion 84. A Christian King should be as the good Samaritan compassionate and helpfull to God's afflicted Church which when some men have wounded and robbed others pass by without regard either to pity or relieve 85. As the Kings power is from God so should he use it for God 86. Though a Soveraign be not suffered to be Master of his other rights as a King yet should he preserve that liberty of Reason love of Religion and the Churches welfare which are fixed in his Conscience as a Christian 87. Sacriledg invades those temporal blessings which God's Providence hath bestowed on his Church for his glory 88. Some mens sins and errours deserve God's just permission to let in the wild Boar and the subtile Foxes to wast and deform his Vineyard which his right hand hath planted and the dew of heaven so long watered a happy and flourishing estate 89. His memory is cursed who bears the infamous brand to all Posterity of being the first Christian King in his Kingdom who consented to the oppression of God's Church and the Fathers of it whose errours he should rather like Constantine cover with silence and reform with meekness than expose their persons and sacred functions to vulgar contempt 90. Their Counsels bring forth and continue violent Confusions by a precipitant destroying the ancient boundaries of the Churches Peace who mean to let in all manner of errours schismes and disorders 91. The God of Order and of Truth doth in his own good time abate the malice asswage the rage and confound all the mischievous devices of his the King 's and his Churches enemies 92. The God of Reason and of Peace disdains not to treat with sinners preventing them with offers of atonement and beseeching them to be reconciled with himself abounding in mercy to save them whom he wants not power or justice to destroy 93. When God softens our hearts by the bloud of our Redeemer and perswades us to accept of peace with him then as Men and Christians are we enclied to procure and preserve peace among our selves 94. A King should be content to be overcome when God will have it so 95. The noblest victory is over a man's self and his enemies by Patience which was Christ's conquest and may well become a Christian King 96. God between both his Hands the right sometimes supporting and the left afflicting fashioneth us to that frame of Piety he liketh best 97. Whe had need ask God forgiveness for the Pride that attends our prosperous and the repinings which follow our disastrous events 98. When we go forth in our own strength God withdraws his and goes not forth with our Armies 99. Let God be all when we are something and when we are nothing that he may have the glory when we are in a victorious or inglorious condition 100. It is hard measure for a King to suffer evil from his Subjects to whom he intends nothing but good and he cannot but suffer in those evils which they compel him to inflict upon them punishing himself in their punishments The Third Century 1. A King against whom his Subjects take up armes both in conquering and being conquered is still a sufferer in which case he needs a double portion of God's Spirit which only can be sufficient for him 2. A King in time of Civil War as he is most afflicted so ought he to be most reformed that he may be not only happy to see an end of the civil distractions but a chief instrument to restore and establish a firm and blessed Peace to his Kingdoms 3. The pious ambitions of all divided Parties should be to overcome each other with reason moderation and such self denial as becomes those who consider that their mutual divisions are their common distractions and the Union of all is every good mans chiefest interest 4. God for the sins of our peace brings upon us the miseries of Civil War and for the sins of War sometimes thinks fit to deny us the blessing of peace so keeping us in a circulation of miseries yet even then he gives the King if his servant and all Loyal though afflicted Subjects to enjoy that peace which the World can neither give to them nor take from them 5. God will not impute to a good King the bloud of his own Subjects which with infinite unwillingness and grief may have been shed by him in his just and necessary defence but will wash him in that pretious bloud which hath been shed for him by his great Peace-maker Jesus Christ who will redeem him out of all his troubles For 6. The triumphing of the Wicked is but short and the joy of Hypocrites is but for a moment 7. God who alone can give us beauty for ashes and Truth for Hypocrisie will not suffer us to be miserably deluded with Pharisaical washings instead of Christian reformings 8. Our great deformities being within we ought to be the severest Censurers and first Reformers of our own Souls 9. Rash and cruel Reformers bring deformities upon Church and State 10. Factions kindle fires under the pretense of Reforming 11. God shewes the World by some mens divisions and confusions what is the pravity of their intentions and weakeness of their judgments 12. They whom God's
in State-affairs so neither should He think any Bishops worthy to sit in the House of Peers who would not vote according to his Conscience 97. The King must in Charity be thought desirous to preserve that Government in its right constitution as a matter of Religion wherein his judgment is fully satisfied that it has of all other both the fullest Scripture-grounds and until the last Century the constant practise of all Christian Churches 98. The King that has no temptation to invite Him to alter the Government of Bishops that He may have a title to their Estates will not easily believe their pretended grounds to any new wayes who desire a change 99. Some there are who by popular heaps of weak light and unlearned Teachers seek to overlay and smother the pregnancy and authority of that power of Episcopal Government which beyond all equivocation and vulgar fallacy of names is most convincingly set forth both by Scripture and all after-Histories of the Church 100. The King should have fair grounds both from Scripture Canons and Ecclesiastical examples whereon to state his judgment for Episcopal Government and not permit any policy of State or obstinacy of Will or partiality of Affection either to the Men or their Function to fix Him The Second Century 1. ALL the Churches in the Christian World which Presbyterians or Independants can pretend to are by so much fewer than others governed by Bishops as those in my three Kingdoms will equalize I think if not exceed 2. Oppression will necessarily follow both the Presbyterian parity which makes all Ministers equal and the Independant inferiority which sets their Pastors below the People 3. The Britannike Bishops are as legally invested in their Estates as any who seek to deprive them and they having by no Law been convicted of those crimes which might forfeit their Estates and Livelihoods the King without many personal injustices to many worthy men can give up neither their Order nor Revenue 4. Those Subjects in vain pretend to tenderness of Conscience and Reformation who can at once tell the King That his Coronation-Oath binds Him to consent to whatsoever they shall propound to Him though contrary to all the Rational and Religious freedom which every man ought to preserve and at the same time perswade Him That He must and ought to dispense with and roundly break that part of his oath which binds Him â— agreeable to the best light of Reason and Religion He hath to maintain the Government and Legal Rights of the Church 5. It were strange the King's oath should be valid in that part which both Himself and all men in their own case esteem injurious and unreasonable as being against the very natural and essential liberty of their Souls yet it should be invalid and to be broken in another clause wherein He thinks Himself justly obliged both to God and Man 6. I cannot find that in any Reformed Churches whose patterns are so cryed up and obtruded upon the Churches under my Dominions that either Learning or Religion works of Piety or Charity have so flourished beyond what they have done in my Kingdoms by God's blessing which might make Me believe either Presbytery or Independancy have a more benign influence upon the Church and mens hearts and lives than Episcopacy in its right constitution 7. They who take part with the King in a Civil War have clearly and undoubtedly for their Justification the Word of God and the Lawes of the Land together with their own Oathes all requiring obedience to his just Commands but to none other under Heaven without Him or against Him in the point of raising Armes 8. The King should be well pleased with his Parliaments intentions to reform what the Indulgence of Times and corruption of Manners may have depraved 9. The King may be willing to grant or restore to Presbytery what with Reason or Discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the Authority of Episcopacy is neither just as to that ancient Order nor safe for Presbytery nor yet any way convenient for this Church or State 10. The contentions between the Presbyterians and Independants in the Britannike Churches have been the struglings of those twins which one womb enclosed the yonger striving to prevail against the elder What the Presbyterians hunted after the Independants sought and caught for themselves 11. That the Builders of Babel should from division fall to confusion is no wonder but for those that pretend to build Jerusalem to divide their tongues and hands is but an ill Omen and sounds too like the fury of those Zelots whose intestine bitterness and divisions were the greatest occasion of the last fatal destruction of that City 12. The Independants in this seemd more ingenuous than the Presbyterian rigour who sometimes complaining of exacting their conformity to lawes became the greatest exactors of other mens submission to their novel injunctions 13. The King should alwayes wish so well to Parliament and City that He should be sorry to see them do or suffer any thing unworthy such great and considerable bodies in this Kingdom 14. When such Bodies become restive and refractory against Soveraignty the King may be glad to see them scared and humbled by Tumults or otherwise but not broken by that shaking of whom He should never have so ill a thought as to despair of their Loyalty to Him which mistakes may eclipse but He should never believe Malice can quite put out 15. When Parliament or City are not only divided and separated from the King but brought to intestine confusion within themselves He should look upon them as Christ did sometime over Jerusalem as objects of his prayers and tears with compassionate grief as foreseeing those severer scatterings which will certainly befal such as wantonly refuse to be gathered to their duty 16. The best profession of Religion I have ever esteemed that of the Church of England as coming nearest to Gods Word for Doctrine and to the Primitive examples for Government with some little amendment which I have often offered though in vain 17. All the lesser Factions at first were officious servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and military success discovering to each their peculiar advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of uniform Religion pretended each to drive for their Party the trade of profits and preferments to the breaking and undoing not only of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all 18. In the administration of Justice the settled Lawes of the Britannike Kingdoms are the most excellent rules the King can govern by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects industry liberty and happiness and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and Prerogative of any King who owns his People as Subjects not as Slaves
Secular violence weakens truth which prejudices and is unreasonable to be used till such means of rational conviction hath been applied as leaving no excuse for ignorance condemns mens obstinacy to deserved penalties 6. There is too much of Man to have much of Christ when his pretended institutions are caried on or begun with the temptations of Covetousness or Ambition 7. Wise and Learned men think that nothing hath more marks of Schisme and Sectarisme than the Presbyterian way 8. A King is not to repeal the Laws constitutions of the Church till he sees more rational and Religious motives than Soldiers use to carry in their knapsacks 9. A King ought to esteem the Church above the State the glory of Christ above his own and the salvation of mens Souls above the preservation of their Bodies and Estates 10. No men may without sin and presumption forcibly endeavour to cast the Churches under their Kings care and tuition into the moulds they have fancied and fashioned to their designs till they have first gained his consent and resolved both his and other mens consciences by the strength of their reasons 11. Violent motions which are neither Manly Christian nor Loyall should neither â—â—ake nor settle the Religion of King or Subject who knowes what Religion means 12. The proper engine of Faction is Force 13. Force is the Arbitratour of Beasts not of reasonable Men much less of humble Christians and Loyal Subjects in matter of Religion 14. Men are prone to have such high conceits of themselves that they care not what cost they lay out upon their opinions especially those that have some temptation of gain to recompence their losses and hazards 15. Men jealous of the justifiableness of their doings and designs before God never think they have humane strength enough to carry their work on seem it never so plausible to the people 16. What can not be justified in Law or Religion had need be fortified with power 17. Such is the inconstancy that attends all minds engaged in violent motion that whom some of them one while earnestly invite to come into their assistance others of them soon after are weary of and with nauseating cast them out 18. Much of Gods Justice and mans folly will at length be discovered through all the filmes and pretensions of Religion in which Politicians wrap up their designs 19. In vain do men hope to build their Piety on the ruins of Loyalty 20. Neither those considerations nor disigns can be durable when Subjects make bankrupt of their Allegeance under pretence of setting up a quicker trade for Religion 21. All Reason and Policy will teach That the chief interest of Subjects consist's in their fidelity to the Crown not in their serviceableness to any Party of the People to the neglect and betraying of their Kings safety and honour for their own advantages 22. The less cause a King hath to trust men the more should he apply himself to God 23. It is hard for men to be engaged by no less than swearing for or against those things which are of no clear morall necessity but very disputable 24. In points disputable the application of oaths can hardly be made and enjoined with that judgment and certainty in one's self or that charity and candour to others of different opinion as Religion requires 25. Religion never refuses fair and aequable deliberations yea and dissentions too in matters only probable 26. The enjoining of Oaths upon People must needs in things doubtfull be dangerous as in things unlawfull damnable and no less superfluous where former religious and legal Engagements bound men sufficiently to all necessary duties 27. Ambitious minds never think they have laid snares and ginnes enough to catch and hold the vulgar credulity 28. By politick and seemingly pious stratagems of oaths ambitious minds think to keep the populacy fast to their party under the terrour of perjury 29. After-contracts devised and imposed by a few men in a declared Party without the Kings consent without power or precedent from God's or man's Lawes can never be thought by judicious men sufficient either to absolve or slacken the moral and eternal bonds of duty which lye upon all Subjects Consciences both to God and their King 30. Ambiguous dangerous and authorized novelties are not to be preferred before known and sworn duties which are dispensable both to God and King 31. Later Vowes Oaths or Leagues can never blot out the former gravings and characters which by just and lawfull Oaths have been made upon the souls of men 32. Considerations by way of Solemn Leagues and Covenants are the common roads used in all factious and powerfull perturbations of State or Church 33. Formalities of extraordinary zeal and piety are never more studied ond elaborate than when Politicians most agitate desperate designs against all that is setled or sacred in Religion and Lawes 34. Religion and Lawes with the scrues of cunning Politicians are wrested by secret steps and less sensible degrees from their known rule and wonted practise to comply with the humors of those men who aim to subdue all to their own will and power under the disguises of holy combinations 35. The cords and wit hs of Solemn Leagues and Covenants framed more out of Policy than Piety will hold mens consciences no longer than force attends and twists them 36. Every man soon growes his own Pope and easily absolves himself of those ties which not the Commands of God's Word or the Lawes of the Land but only the subtilty and terrour of a Party casts upon him 37. Illegall wayes of Covenanting seldom or never intend the engaging men more to Duties but to Parties 38. It is not regarded how men keep Covenants in point of Piety pretended provided they adhaere firmly to the Party and design intended 39. Imposers of politick Covenants make them like Manna agreable to every mans palate and rellish who will but swallow them 40. Naboth's Vineyard made him the only Blasphemer of his City and fit to dye 41. While the breath of Religion fills the Sails Profit is the Compass by which factious men steer their course in all seditious commotions 42. Church-Lands and Revenues issuing chiefly from the Crown are held of it and legally can revert only to the Crown with the Kings consent 43. No necessity should drive a King to invade or sell the Priests Lands which both Pharaohs Divinity and Josephs true Piety abhorr'd to do 44. It is unjust both in the eye of Reason and Religion to deprive the most sacred employment of all due incouragements and like hard-harted Pharaâ—h to withdraw the straw and increase the task 45. Some pursue the oppressed Church to the red Sea of a Civil War where nothing but a miracle can save it 46. A Christian King ought to esteem it his greatest title to be call'd and his chiefest glory to be The Defender of the Church both in its true Faith and its just fruitions equally abhorring Sacriledge
infinitely more to be chosen by a sober man that duly values his duty his soul and eternity beyond the enjoyments of this present life than the most triumphant glory wherein their and their Kings Enemies supervive who can hardly avoid to be daily tormented by that horrid guilt wherewith their suspicious or convicted Consciences do pursue them 59. In the safety and preservation of a King and good Lawes established all honest men cannot but think the wellfare of their Country to consist 60. Not any shews or truth of piety on their side who take armes against their King are sufficient to dispense with or expiate the defects of their Duty and Loyalty to Him which have so pregnant convictions on mens Consciences that even profaner men are moved by the sense of them to venter their lives for Him 61. When Providence gives a good King or denies Him Victory his desire should be neither to boast of his power nor to charge God foolishly but to believe that at last he will make all things to work together for his good 62. A King 's often messages for Peace with his Subjects will shew that he delighteth not in War as his gracious Concessions will sufficiently testifie how willingly he would have prevented it and his total unpreparedness for it how little he intended it 63. When King and Subjects are once engaged in a Civil War it may be too late to review the occasions thereof but not to wish a happy conclusion of so unhapy beginnings nor to believe that the inevitable fate of their sins was such as would no longer suffer the divine justice to be quiet 64. A King is not to desire that any man should be further subject to Him than He and all his People may be subject to God 65. The Passions and Opinions of men are not to be gratified with partiality and popular compliance to the detriment of the Publick and scandal of Religion 66. It is a sad spectacle for all sober men and their Soveraign to behold the dissolutions of all Order and Government in a Church many novelties and schisms and corrupt opinions many undecencies and confusions in sacred administrations all sacrilegious invasions upon the Rights and Revenues of a Church much contempt and oppression of the Clergy many injurious diminutions and persecutings of the King to follow as showers do warm gleams the talk of Reformation which yet has been a known artifice to disguise some mens effecting all the fore-mentioned mischief who have pretended authority and been possessed of power to accomplish it 67. The studies to please some parties whose fury is accompted zeal may injure all 68. A King may offer to put all differences in Church-affairs and Religion to the free Consultation of a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen the results of whose counsels as they will include the votes of all so it s like they may give most satisfaction to all 69. An Assembly of Divines applied though by a Parliament in an unwonted way to advise of Church-affairs being not legally convened and chosen not acting in the name of all the Clergy of a Kingdom not doing any thing with freedom and impartiality being limited and confined if not overaw'd to do and declare what they do is to be so far disliked nor can it be accounted the Representative of a Church 70. Many men cried up for learning and piety met together in an Assembly being not left to the liberty of their own suffrages have been prevail'd upon by the influence of contrary factions who made secret encroachments of hopes and fears to comply with great and dangerous Innovations in the Church without any regard to their own former judgment and practise or to the common interest and honour of the Clergy and in them of Order Learning and Religion against examples of all Ancient Churches the Lawes in force and their Soveraign's consent 71. A King's consent ought never to be gained in any point against a pregnant light that shines in his understanding 72. A due Reformation will easily follow moderate Counsels and give content even to many Divines who have been led on with much gravity and formality to carry on other mens designs which they may discover though they dare not but smother their frustrations and discontents 73. The specious and popular Titles of Christ's Government Throne Scepter and Kingdom also the noise of a through Reformation may as easily be fined on new models as fair colours may be put to ill-favoured Figures 74. Christ's Kingdom certainly is not divided nor hath two faces as some Reforming parties have had at least 75. The breaking of Church-windows which Time had sufficiently defaced 2. The putting down of Crosses which were but Civil not Religious marks 3. The defacing of Monuments and Inscriptions of the dead which served but to put posterity in mind to thank God for that clearer light wherein they live 4. The leaving of Ministers to their liberties and private abilities in the publick service of God where no Christian can tell to what he may say Amen nor what adventure he may make of seeming at least to consent to the Errours Blasphemies and ridiculous Undecencies which bold and ignorant men list to vent in their prayers preaching and other Offices 5. The setting forth of old Catechisms and Confessions of Faith new-drest importing as much as if there had been no sound or clear doctrine of faith in the Church before a long consultation had matured their thoughts touching the first Principles of Religion All these and the like are the effects of poular specious and deceitfull Reformations 76. It were to be wished that some most pretending Reformers had made it their unanimous work to do God's work and not their own they had not as now they have left all things more deformed than when they began in point of Piety Morality Charity and good Order 77. They who think that the Government of a Church and State fixed by many Lawes and long Customs will not run into their new molds endeavour to melt it first in the fire of a Civil War by the advantages of which they resolve if they prevail to make their King and all his Subjects fall down and worship the Images they shall form and set up 78. Christ's Government will confirm the King's not overthrow it if as He owns his from Christ so He desires to rule for his glory and his Churches good 79. Had some men truly intended Christ's Government or known what is meant in their hearts they could never have been so ill governed in their words and actions both against their King and one another 80. The freedom and secresie of a King 's private letters especially unto his Queen commands a civility from all men nor is there any thing more inhumane than to expose them if taken to publick view 81. The King that studies to approve his heart to God's omniscience may be content if Providence will have it so that even his private
letters if taken by his Subjects in arms against Him should be discovered to the World though without any those dresses or popular captations which some of them use in their speeches and expressions 82. Unquiet Subjects many times take Armes against a just prudent and innocent King into whose most retired thoughts if they could by any means have a clear sight they might discover how they are divided between the love and care He hath not more to preserve his own Rights than to procure their Peace and Happiness and an extreme grief to see them both deceived and destroyed 83. No man can blame a King that by all fair and just correspondencies endeavours to avoid the pressures of his Enemies though his own Subjects 84. Some mens design like Absoloms is by enormous actions to widen differences between a King and his Subjects and exasperate all sides to such distances as may make all Reconciliation desperate 85. A King under the misfortune of having his letters taken by Subjects in Armes against Him hath much quiet and satisfaction within Himself when the integrity of his intentions is not jealous of any injury his Expressions can do them For 86. Although the confidence of privacy may admit of greater freedom in writing letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet it is best for a King when the Innocence of his chief purposes cannot be so stained or misinterpreted by his Enemies as not to let all men see That He wisheth nothing more than a happy composure of differences with Justice and Honour not more to his own than his Peoples content who have any sparks of love or loyalty left in them 87. It repaireth somewhat a King's misfortune that his private letters being taken by his Subjects in armes against Him cannot gratifie their malice further than to let them see his constancy to his Wife the Lawes and right Religion he professeth as likewise to convince them that He can both mind and act his own and his Kingdoms affairs so as becomes a Prince especially if his Enemies have before been very loath it should be believed of Him as if He were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the names of Evil Counsellours 88. It is the policy of Rebels to seek by all means to smother and extinguish all sparkes of Love Respect and Loyalty of the People to their King that they may never kindle again so as to recover His the Lawes and the Kingdoms Liberties which they seek to overthrow 89. God's unerring and impartial Justice can and will over-rule the most perverse wills and designs of men He is able and will turn even the worst of an innocent King's Enemies thoughts and actions to his good 90. Civility and Humanity most become such as pretend to Religion which they ought to pay to all men beside that respect and honour they owe to their King 91. They who do but remember how God blest the modest respect and filial tenderness which Noah's sons bare to their Father can never expect the divine approbation of any their undecent actions toward their King 92. Their malicious intentions can never be either excusable or prosperous who think by any unhandsome means to expose their King to the highest reproach and contempt of his People forgetting that duty of modest concealment which they owe to the Father of their Countrey in case they should discover any real uncomeliness 93. They who by publishing their King 's private letters think to render Him as a vile Person not fit to be trusted or considered under any Notion of Majesty will see themselves mistaken when God makes him as he did David more respected in the hearts of many who become better satisfied by knowing what He writ than by learning what they maliciously interpret and report 94. Although God gives Kingdoms yet sometimes his Providence permits that the King hath not any place left in them where he may with safety and honour rest his head Shewing him that Himself is the safest Refuge and the strongest Tower of defence in which he may put his Trust 95. A King in extremities should look not to man so much as to God who will have it so that he may wholly cast himself and his distressed affairs upon God's mercy who hath both hearts and hands of all men in his dispose 96. Necessity may sometimes command a King to withdraw from his chiefest strength and adventure upon their Loyalty who first began his Troubles whom God happily may make a means honourably to compose them 97. When Necessity constrains a King to cast Himself upon them who though they besiege Him in his Garrison and encounter Him in the field yet profess They fight not against Him but for Him He puts Himself to resolve the riddle of their Loyalty and gives them opportunity to let the World see they mean not what they do but what they say 98. God sees it sometimes not enough to desert a King of all Military power to defend himself but to put him upon using their power who seem to fight against him yet ought in duty to defend him 99. When a King finds it necessary to leave those that have adhered to Him He may hope such a method of Peace may be more prosperous than that of War both to stop the effusion of blood and the wounds that were made before 100. A King should never trust any nation of his Subjects further than to men that if they betray Him He may justifie to all the World they have not deceiv'd Him and if they sell Him at any dear rate He should be only sorry that his price should be so much above his Saviours The Tenth Century 1. GOD sometimes sees t is fit to deprive a King of Wife Children Army Friends and Freedom that He may be wholy his who alone is all 2. A King should never permit them who have got his person to gain his consent against his conscience 3. A King's denial of unjust demands made by Subjects in armes against Him which they call obstinacy He may know God acounts honest constancy which Reason and Religion as well a Honour forbid Him to recede 4. It is evident sometimes that Subjects who pretend to fight against evil Counsellours with their King fight indeed against a good Conscience within Him And whatsoever they may say of course intend not to bring Him to his Parliament till they have brought his mind to their obedience 5. After-times may see what the blindness of that Age will not wherein is both practis'd and countenanced Subjects fighting against their Soveraign whom if they have a good King God may at length shew that he chuseth rather to suffer for them than with them 6. When Providence is pleased to deprive a King of all other civil comforts and secular attendants the absence of them all may best be supplied by the attendance of such his Chaplains whom for their functions He reverenceth
and for their fidelity may have cause to love 7. As a King never needs so He should never desire more the service and assistance of Clergy-men judiciously pious and soberly devout than when by misfortune sequesterd from civil comforts and secular attendants 8. A distressed King cannot think some Divines though He respects them for that worth and piety which may be in them proper to be his present Comforters and Physicions who have had a great influence in occasioning the publick calamities in his Kingdoms and inflicting the wounds He hath upon Himself 9. The spirits of those Divines whose judgments stand at a distance from their King or in jealousie of Him or in opposition against Him cannot so harmoniously accord with his or his with theirs either in Prayer or other holy duties as is meet and most comfortable whose golden rule and bond of perfection consists in that of mutual Love and Charity 10. The King who is much a friend to all Church-men that have any thing in them beseeming that sacred function will if there be cause hazard his own interest upon Conscience and Constancy to maintain their Rights 11. Such Clergy-men who so unhandsomely requite their King as to desert Him in his calamity when their Loyalty and Constancy is most required may live to repent no less for his sufferings than their own ungratefull errours and that injurious contempt and meanness which they bring upon their calling and persons 12. An afflicted King though he pities all Clergy-men that desert Him and despiseth none of a different opinion from his yet sure He may take leave to make choise of some for his special Attendants who are best approved in his judgment and most sutable to his affection 13. A King imprisoned by his Subjects to whom they will not permit the attendance of his Chaplains can make no more charitable construction of their denial than that they esteem Him sufficient Himself to discharge his duty to God as a Priest though not to Men as a Prince 14. I think both Offices Regal and Sacerdotal might well become the same Person as anciently they were under one name and the united rights of primogeniture 15. A King cannot follow better presidents if He be able than those two eminent David and Solemon not more famous for their Scepter and Crowns than one was for devout Psalms and Prayers the other for his divine Parables and Preaching whence the one merited and assumed the name of a Prophet the other a Preacher Titles of greater honour where rightly placed than any of those the Roman Emperours affected from the Nations they subdued But 16. Since the order of God's Wisdome and Providence hath for the most part alwayes distinguished the gifts and offices of Kings and Priests of Princes and Preachers both in the Jewish and Christian Churches an imprisoned King may be sorry to find Himself reduced to the necessity of being both or injoying neither 17. As a Soveraign owes his Clergy the protection of a Christian King so He should desire to enjoy from them the benefit of their gifts and prayers 18. However as the spiritual Government by which the devout Soul is subject to Christ and through his merits daily offers it self and its services to God every private believer is a King and Priest invested with the honour of a Royal Priesthood yet he is not thereby constituted Priest or Preacher as to the outward polity of the Church 19. A King's consciousness to his spiritual defects may make him more prize and desire those pious assistances which especially in any his exigencies holy and good Ministers either Bishops or Presbyters may afford him 20. The King is reduced to great extremities to whom by God's pleasure and permission to his Subjects nothing is left but his life for them to take from Him and nothing more to desire of them which might little seem to provoke their jealousies and offence to deny Him as some have done than this of having some means afforded Him for his souls comfort and support 21. When a King reduced to extremity by his Subjects makes choice of Chaplains to assist Him that are men no way scandalous and every way eminent for their learning and piety no less than for their Loyalty no exceptions imaginable can be made against them but only this That they may seem too able and too well affected toward him and his service 22. A King should count his misfortunes the greater by far when they light also upon the young Prince his son and any others whom he may have cause to love so well as Himself and of whose unmerited sufferings He should have a greater sense than of his own 23. The different education of Princes hath different success when they come to exercise their Government the evidence of which Holy Writ affords us in the contemplation of David and Rehoboam The one prepared by many afflictions for a flourishing Kingdom The other softned by the unparallel'd prosperity of Solomon's Court and so by flatteries corrupted to the great diminution both of Peace Honour and Kingdom 24. A distressed King may trust that God will graciously direct all the black lines of Affliction which he pleaseth to draw on him to the Centre of true happiness if by them he be drawn neerer of God 25. When a yong Prince shall attain the Crown whereof his Father was injuriously devested He ought first to do justice to God his own Soul and his Church in the profession and prosecution both of truth and unity in Religion the next main hinge on which his prosperity will depend and move being that of Civil Justice He is to administer to his People 26. When a good King is persecuted by his own Subjects for the preservation of a right Religion and just Lawes established he may without vanity turn the reproach of his Sufferings as to the World's censure into the honour of a kind of Martyrdome as to the testimony of his own Conscience 27. Since a distressed King knowes not how God will deal with Him as to a removal of the pressures and indignities which his justice even by the very unjust hands of some of his own Subjects may have been pleased to lay upon Him He should not be much solicitous what wrong He suffers from man while He retains in his soul what He believes is right before God 28. In civil dissentions between King and Subjects though He offer all for Reformation and safely that in Reason Honour and Conscience He can yet he must reserve whatsoever He cannot consent unto without an irreparable injury to his own Soul the Chruch and his People and the next undoubted Heir of his Kingdoms 29. No difficulties are insuperable to divine Providence 30. When a yong Prince after his Fathers decease comes to the government of Kingdoms which Tumults and Civil Wars had put into disorder He ought seriously to consider the former real or objected miscariages which might occasion his troubles that so he
do nor the least evill they prevent 18. The King against whom all advantages will be taken by persons disaffected to Him should take heed where He comes that no eminent disorder or damage befall any Man by any person of his Train or under his protection 19. Where a Party of People have shewed themselves eminently loyal to their King the fullest testimony of his affection to them and to the peace of their County may be this to pass over the considerations of Honour and Reproach and not permit a provocation to provoke Him to make that place be the seat of his War 20. No honest man can imagine that his King will ever sit down under a bold and unexcusable Treason 21. A King wholly cast upon the affections of his People having no hope but in the blessing and assistance of God the justness of his Cause and the love of his Subjects to recover what is taken from Him and Them may expect a good issue the rather in that they are equal losers with Him 22. When a King desires nothing of his People but what is necessary to be done for the preservation of God's true Religion the Lawes of the Land the Liberty of the Subject and the very being of his Kingdom He has reason to look for a speedy and effectual compliance with his demands 23. A King has no reason to suspect the Courage and Resolution of those his Subjects whose Conscience and Loyalty have brought them to Him to fight for their Religion their King and the Lawes of their Land especially when they are to meet with no Enemies but Traytors Schismaticks and Atheïsts such as desire to destroy both Church and State and who have before condemned them to ruine for being loyal to their King 24. It gives courage to the Soldier when his King satisfies Him that the cause is just wherein He means to make use of his valour 25. If the time of War and the great necessity and straits a King is driven to beget any violation of those Lawes to which He hath consented He may hope it shall be imputed by God and Man to the Authors of the War and not to Him if so He hath earnestly laboured for the preservation of the Peace of his Kingdom 26. The Residence of an Army is not usually pleasant to any place and that of a distressed King caries more fear with it who it may be thought must only live upon the aid and relief of his people 27. It is not prudence in loyal Subjects to suffer a good Cause to be lost for want of supplying their King with that which will be taken from them by those who pursue Him with violence 28. Whilst ill men sacrifice their Money Plate and utmost Industry to destroy the Commonwealth good men should be no less liberal to preserve it 29. When it hath pleased God to bless a King with success in a War He should remember the Assistance every particular man gave Him to his advantage 30. However a King succeeds in his Wars it will be honour and comfort to his loyal Subjects that with some charge and trouble to themselves they did their part to support their King and preserve the Kingdom 31. The People that have been awed by a Rebellious Army will be more prone to express their affections to their King with that courage which becomes them when his Residence shall be so near that his Power shall have an influence upon the Country for their protection 32. No man should have more power to fright People from their Loyalty than their King have to restore them to it 33. Loyal Subjects in assisting their King defend themselves who may be sure the Sword which is drawn against Him will destroy them if He defend them not 34. It will be a shame for People to venture nothing for their King who ventures his life for them 35. In a Civil War whatsoever good People shall be willing freely to contribute their King should take kindly from them and whatsoever they lend Him he should having passed the word of a King see justly repayed to them 36. A King should take especial notice of such who are backward to contribute in a time of visible necessity 37. When a King considers the publick interests and concernments of his Parliament in the happiness and honour of the Nation and their particular sufferings in a Rebellion for their affection and Loyalty unto Him He must look upon them as the most competent Considerers and Counsellours how to manage and improve the condition all are in his and their condition being so equall that the same violence hath oppress'd them all 38. It will be in vain for them who have informed the World by divers set Battels against their King to boast how tender they have been for the safety of his Person 39. It will be hard for a King who is to struggle with many defects and necessities to keep a strict discipline among his Soldiers 40. Guilt and Despair make Rebels sometimes more wicked than they at first intended to be 41. A King should have no greater sadness for those who are his ill Subjects than He hath joy and comfort in their affections and fidelities who are his good 42. License and Disorder in an Army will discredit and may destroy the best cause 43. Subjects ought to remember That moneys are the nerves of War and accordingly expedite supplies to their King when He needs them 44. There is no profession a King hath made for the defence and maintenance of right Religion Lawes and Liberties which He should not inviolably observe 45. A King's Opinion wherein He differs from his Subjects in Parliament should not be like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians unalterable being not infallible 46. Nothing should so much afflict a King as the sense-and feeling He has of the sufferings of his Subjects and the miseries that hang over his Kingdoms when drawn upon them by those who upon pretenses of good violently pursue their own interests and ends 47. Such men may be supposed most apt and likely to maintain their power by blood and rapine who have only got it by Oppression and Injustice 48. Civil Dissentions that are desperate may encourage and invite a foreign Enemy to make a prey of the whole Nation where they are 49. Plague Pestilence and Famine will be the inevitable attendants of unnatural Contentions between a King and his People 50. A Kingdom being infested with Civil War so general a habit of uncharitableness and cruelty is contracted throughout that even Peace it self will not restore the Peace to their old temper and security 51. In the time of a Civil War the King should be so deeply sensible of the miseries and calamities of his Kingdom and the grievous sufferings of his Subjects as most earnestly to desire that some expedient may be found out which by the blessing of God may prevent the further effusion of blood and restore the Nation to Peace
King according to man's unjust reproaches but according to the iunocency of his hands in his sight 32. If a King have desired or delighted in the wofull day of his Kingdomes calamities If he have not earnestly studied and faithfully endeavoured the preventing and composing of the bloudy distractions in his Kingdome It is just that God's hand be against him and his fathers house 33. A King that hath enemies enough of men if his Conscience do witness his integrity may conditionally dare to imprecate God's curse upon him and his to gain the World's opinion of his innocency which God himself knowes right well provided that he trust not to his own merit but Gods mercies 34. When the troubles of a King's Soul are enlarged it is the Lord that must bring him out of his distress 35. Pious simpliciy is the best policy in a King 36. They who have too much of the Serpents subtilty forget the Doves innocency 37. Though hand joyn in hand a King by Gods assistance should never let them prevail against his Soul to the betraying of his Conscience and Honour 38. God having turn'd the hearts of the men of Judah and Israel they restored David with as much loyal zeal as they did with inconstancy and eargerness pursue him 39. A depressed King in whom God preserves the love of his truth and uprightness need not despair of his Subjects affections returning towards him 40. God can soon cause the overflowing Seas to ebbe and retire back again to the bounds which he has appointed for them 41. He can as soon make them ashamed who trangress without a cause and turn them back that persecute the Soul of their King 42. Integrity and uprightness will preserve a King in distress that waits upon the Lord. 43. From just moral and indispensable bonds which God's Word in the Lawes of a Kingdom have laid upon the Consciences of men no pretensions of Piety and Reformation are sufficient to absolve them or engage them to any contrary practises 44. Nothing violent and injurious can be religious 45. God allowes no mans committing Sacriledg under the zeal of abhorring Idols 46. Sacrilegious designs have sometimes the countenance of religious ties 47. The wisest of Kings hath taught all his Successours That it is a snare to take things that are holy and after vowes to make enquiry 48. A King ought never to consent to perjurious and sacriligious rapines which set upon him the brand and curse to all posterity of robbing God and his Church of what his divine bounty had given and his clemency had accepted wherewith to encourage Learning and Religion 49. Though a King's Treasures be exhausted his Revenues diminished and his debts increased yet should he never be tempted to use prophane Reparations least a coal from God's Altar set such a fire on his Throne and Conscience as will be hardly quenched 50. Though the State recover by God's blessing of peace yet the Church is not likely in times where the Charity of most men is grown cold and their Religion illiberal 51. When God continues to those that serve him and his Church all those incouragements which by the will of pious Donors and the justice of the Lawes are due unto them they ought to deserve and use them aright to God's glory and the relief of the poor That his Priests may be cloathed with righteousness and the poor may be satisfied with bread 52. Rather than holy things should be given to Swine or the Church's bread to Dogs Let them go about the City grin like a Dog and grudg that they are not satisfied 53. Let those sacred morsels which some men have by violence devoured neither digest with them nor theirs Let them be as Naboth's Vineyard to Ahab gall in their mouths rottenness to their names a moth to their Families and a sting to their Consciences 54. Break in sunder ô Lord all violent and sacrilegious Confederations to do wickedly and injuriously 55. Divide their hearts and tongues who have bandyed together against the Church and State that the folly of such may be manifest to all men and proceed no farther 56. A King whose righteous dealing is favoured by God in the mercies of the most High never shall miscary 57. A King who is made the object of popular reproach has his soul among Lions among them that are set on fire even the sons of men whose teeth are spears and arrowes and their tongue a sharp sword 58. Those sons of men that turn their Kings glory into shame love vanity and seek after lies 59. When wicked men on every side are set to reproach their King if God hold his peace the Kings Enemies will prevail against him and lay his honour in the dust 60. God shall destroy them that speak lies against their King and will abhor both the bloud-thirsty and deceitfull men 61. God can make the Kings righteousness appear as the light and his innocency to shine forth as the Sun at noon-day 62. A good King should pray that God would not suffer his silence to betray his innocence nor his displeasure his patience but that after his Saviour's example being reviled he may not revile again and being cursed by his enemies he may bless them 63. God would not suffer Shemei's tongue to go unpunished whose judgments on David might seem to justifie his disdainfull reproaches 64. Hot burning coals of eternal fire should be the reward of false and lying tongues against their King 65. A King's prayer and patience should be as water to cool and quench their tongues who are set on fire with the fire of Hell and tormented with those malicious flames 66. The King is happy that can refute and put to silence mens evil speaking by well-doing praying that they may not enjoy the fruit of their lips but of his prayer for their repentance and God's pardon 67. A King ought to learn David's patience and Hezekia's devotion that he may look to God's mercy through mens malice and see his justice in their sin 68. Even Sheba's seditious speeches Rabshekah's railing and Shemei's cursing may provoke as a King 's humble prayer to God so God's renewed blessing toward him 69. Though men curse God may bless and the afflicted King shall be blessed and made a blessing to his people and so the stone which some builders refuse may become the head-stone of the corner 70. If God look not down from heaven and save the reproach of some men would swallow up their King 71. God can hide the King in the secret of his Presence from the pride of men and keep him from the strife of tongues 72. God's mercies are full of variety and yet of constancy 73. God denieth us not a new and fresh sense of our old and daily wants nor despiseth renewed affections joined to constant expressions 74. The matters of our prayers ought to be agreeable to God's Will which is alwayes the same and the fervency of our spirits to the motions
Piety to the King in loyalty and to one another in charity 6. In quenching the flames and withdrawing the fewel of Civil Wars 7. In blessing King and People with the freedom of Publick Councels and delivering the Honour of Parliament from the insolency of the vulgar 8. In keeping the King from the great offence of exacting any thing against his Conscience and especially from consenting to sacrilegious rapines and spoilings of God's Church 9. In restoring him to a capacity to glorifie God in doing good both to the Church and State 10. In bringing him again with peace safety and honour to his chiefest City and Parliament if chased from them 11. In putting again the sword of Justice into his hand to punish and protect 1. The Soul of the said King ought to praise God and magnifie his name before his People 2. To hold God's glory dearer to him than his Crowns 3. To make the advancement of true Religion both in purity and power to be his chiefest care 4. To rule his People with justice and his Kingdoms with equity 5. To own ever to God's more immediate hand as the rightfull succession so the mercifull restauration of his Kingdoms and the glory of them 6. To make all the World see this and his very Enemies enjoy the benefit hereof 78. A restored King as he should freely pardon for Christ's sake those that have offended him in any kind so his hand should never be against any man to revenge what is past in regard of any particular injury done to him 79. When a King and People have been mutually punished in their unnatural divisions the King should for God's sake and for the love of his Redeemer purpose this in his heart That he will use all means in the wayes of amnesty and indempnity which may most fully remove all fears and bury all jealousies in forgetfullness 80. As a King's resolutions of Truth and Peace are toward his People so may he expect God's mercies to be toward him and his 81. God will hear the King's prayer which goeth not out of feigned lips 82. If a King commit the way of his Soul to the Lord and trust in him he shall bring his desire to pass 83. A King ought not to charge God foolishly who will not restore him and his but to bless his Name who hath given and taken away praying to God that his People and the Church may be happy if not by him yet without him 84. God who is perfect Unity in a Sacred Trinity will in mercy behold King and People whom his Justice may have divided 85. They who at any time have agreed to fight against their King may as much need his prayers and pity as he deliverance from their strivings when ready to fight against one another to the continuance of the distractions of his Kingdoms 86. The wayes of Peace consist not in the divided wills of Parties but in the point and due observation of the Lawes 87. A King should be willing to go whither God will lead him by his Providence desiring God to be ever with him that he may see God's constancy in the Worlds variety and changes 88. The King whom God makes such as he would have him may at last enjoy the safety and tranquillity which God alone can give him 89. God's heavy wrath hangs justly over those populous Cities whose plenty addes fewel to their luxury whose wealth makes them wanton whose multitudes tempt them to security and their security exposeth them to unexpected miseries 90. To whom God gives not eyes to see hearts to consider nor wills to embrace and courage to act those things which belong to his glory and the publick Peace their calamity comes upon them as an armed man 91. Rebellious Cities and Pâ—â—â—â— cannot want enemies who abâ—â—â—â— in sin nor shall they be long undisarmed and undestroyed who with a high hand persisting to fight against God and the clear convictions of their own Consciences fight more against themselves than ever they did against thier King their sins exposing them to Gods Justice their riches to others injuries their number to Tumults and their Tumults to Confusion 92. A depressed King should have so much charity as to pray That his fall be not their ruine who have with much forwardness helped to destroy him 93. An injur'd King should not so much consider either what Rebellious People have done or he hath suffered as to forget to imitate his crucified Redeemer to plead their ignorance for their pardon and in his dying extremities to pray to God his father to forgive them who know not what they did 94. They who have denied tears to their King in his saddest condition may need his prayers for God's grace to bestow them upon themselves who the less they weep for him the more cause they have to weep for themselves 95. A King should pray that his bloud may not be upon them and their children whom the fraud and faction of some not the malice of all have excited to crucifie him 96. God can and will both exalt and perfect a good King by his sufferings which have more in them of God's mercy than of man's cruelty or God's own justice 97. God that is King of Kings who filleth Heaven and Earth who is the fountain of eternal life in whom is no shadow of death is both the just afflicter of death upon us and the mercifull Saviour of us in it and from it 98. It is better for us to be dead to our selves and live in God than by living in our selves to be deprived of God 99. God can make the many bitter aggravations of a Soveraign's violent death as a Man and a King the opportunities and advantages of his special graces and comforts in his Soul as a Christian 100. If God will be with the King he shall neither fear nor feel any evil though he walk through the valley of the shadow of death The Fourth Century 1. TO contend with Death is the work of a weak and mortal man to overcome it is the grace of him alone who is the Almighty and immortal God 2. Our Saviour who knowes what it is to dye with a King as a Man can make the King to know what it is to pass through death to life with him his God 3. Let a distressed King say Though I dye yet I know that thou my Redeemer livest for ever though thou slayest me yet thou hast encouraged me to trust in thee for eternal life 4. God's favour is better to a distressed King than life 5. As God's Omniscience discovers so his Omnipotence can defeat the designs of those who have or shall conspire the destruction of their King 6. God can shew an injur'd King the goodness of his will through the wickedness of theirs that would destroy him 7. God gives a distrâ—ssed King leave as a man to pray that the cup of death may pass from him but he has taught him as a Christian by
importunities of unquiet Subjects both to secure his friends and overcome his Enemies to gain the peace of all deprives himself of a sole power to help or hurt any yielding the Militia to be disposed of as the two Houses shall think sit 42. The Militia is the King 's undoubted right no less than the Crown 43. The King should not desire to be safer than he wisheth the Parliament and his People 44. The new modelling of Soveraignty and Kingship makes the Majesty of the Kings of England hang like Mahomet's Tomb by a magnetique Charme between the power and priviledges of the two Houses in an ayery imagination of Regality 45. The Body of Parliament as the Moon from the Sun receiveth its chiefest light from the King 46. Parliament-men may remember that they sit there as their Kings Subjects not Superiours called to be his Counsellors not Dictatours Their summons extends to recommend their advice not to command his duty 47. When the two Houses have once been in the Wardship of Tumults their Propositions are not to be hearkned to until they shall have sued out their livery and effectually redeem'd themselves 48. When the King's judgment tells him that any propositions sent to him are the results of the Major part of their votes who exercise their freedom as well as they have right to sit in Parliament and not before he may expect his own judgment for not speedily and fully concurring with every one of them 49. The King cannot allow the Wisdom of his Parliament such a completeness and inerrability as to exclude himself 50. A Parliament without the concurrent reason of the King cannot beget or bring forth any one complete and authoritative Act of publick Wisdom which makes the Lawes 51. A King may satisfie his Parliament and his People but for fear or flattery to gratifie any Faction how potent soever were to nourish the disease and oppress the body 52. The end of calling a Parliament being to use their advice that sit the King ought to have charity enough to think there are wise men among them and humility enough to think it fit he should in some things hearken to them whose counsel he may want 53. The Suns influence is not more necessary in all Natures productions then the King's concurrence in all Lawes 54. We are to take heed of and beware the old leaven of Innovations masked under the name of Reformation which heaved at and sometime threatned both Prince and Parliament in Queen Elizabeth's and King James's dayes 55. Reason Honour and Safety both of Church and State command the King to chew such morsels as a factious Parliament may present him with before he lets them down 56. The King hath not any ground of credulity to induce him fully to submit to all the desires of those men who will not admit or do refuse and neglect to vindicate the freedom of their own and others sitting and voting in Parliament 57. I know not any such tough and malignant humours in the constitution of the English Church which gentler Applications than those of an Army raised by their Scotch fellow Subjects might not easily remove 58. If the Scotch sole Presbytery were proved to be the only Institution of Jesus Christ yet were it hard to prove that Christ had given Subjects commission by the Sword to set it up in any Kingdom without the Soveraigns consent 59. If Presbytery in the Supremacy of Subjects be an Institution of Christ it is the first and onely point of Christianity that was to be planted and watered with Christian bloud 60. The many learned and pious Churchmen in England who have been alwayes bred up in and conformable to the Government of Episcopacy cannot so soon renounce both their former opinion and practise only because a Party of the Scots will needs by force assist a like Party of English either to drive all Ministers as sheep into the common fold of â—resbytery or destroy them at least fleece them by depriving them of the benefit of their flock 61. What respect and obedience Christ and his Apostles payd to the chief Governours of States where they lived is very clear in the Gospel but that He or they ever commanded to set such a parity of Presbyters and in such a way as some Scots endeavour is not very disputable 62. The Effusions of blood shed for the advancement of Scotch Presbitery runs in a stream contrary to that of the Primitive Planters both of Christianity and Episcopacy which was with patient sheding of their own bloud not violent drawing other mens 63. Wise and learned men think that nothing hath more markes of Schism and Sectarism than the Presbyterian way 64. The Presbyterian Scots are not to be hired at the ordinary rate of Auxiliaries nothing will induce them to engage till those that call them in have pawned their Souls to them by a Solemn League and Covenant 65. Some pretenders of late to Reformation have intended mainly the abasing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and the robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues 66. The Bishops and Church-men as the fattest Deer must be destroyed when the other Rascal-herd of Schisms Heresies c. being lean may by these men enjoy the benefit of Toleration 67. If the poverty of Scotland might yet the plenty of England cannot excuse the envy and rapine of the Churches Rights and Revenues 68. There is not any exception to which the best Kings may be so liable in the opinion of them who are resolved to oppose them as too great a fixedness in that Religion whose judicious and solid grounds both from Scripture and Antiquity will not give his Conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided Innovations which their bold Ignorance would needs obtrude upon Him and His People 69. There is not such an Oglio or medley of various Religions in the World again as those men entertain in their service who find most fault with the King that adheres to the establishment of the Church without any scruple as to the diversity of their Sects and Opinions 70. It hath been a foul and indeleble shame for such as would be counted Protestants to inforce their Lord and King a declared Protestant to a necessary use of Papists or any other who did but their duty to help Him to defend Himself 71. The Papists have had a greater sense of their Allegeance than many Protestant Professours who seem to have learned and to practise the worst principles of the worst Papists 72. The King is not to justifie beyond humane errours and frailties Himself or his Councellours who may have been subject to some miscarriages yet such as were far more reparable by second and better thoughts than those enormous extravagances wherewith some men have wildred and almost quite lost both Church and State 73. The event of things may make evident to the People That should the King follow the worst Counsels that his worst Counsellours might
have the boldness to offer Him or Himself any inclination to use He could not bring both Church and State in three flourishing Kingdoms to such a Chaos of confusions Hell of miseries as some have done who most clamour against his Counsels out of which they can not or will not in the midst of their many great advantages redeem either Him or his Subjects 74. Some mens unsatiable desires of revenge upon the King his Court and his Clergy may wholely beguile both Church and State of the benefit of any either Retractations or Concessions He may have made 75. Some men being conscious to their own formality in the use of our Publick Liturgy have thought they fully expiated their sin of not using it aright by laying all the blame upon it and a total rejection of it as a dead letter thereby to excuse the deadness of their hearts 76. I do not see any reason why Christians should be weary of a well-composed Liturgy as I hold ours to be more than of all other things wherein the Constancy abates nothing of the excellency and usefullness 77. Sure we may as well before hand know what we pray as to whom we pray and in what words as to what sense when we desire the same things what hinders we may not use the same words 78. I ever thought that the proud oftentations of mens abilities for invention and the vain affectations of â—ariety for expressionâ— in publick prayer or any sacred administrations merits a greater brand of sin than that which they call coldness and barrenness nor are men in those novelties less subject to formal and superficial tempers as to their hearts than in the use of constant forms where not the words but mens hearts are to blame 79. I make no doubt but a man may be very formal in the most extemporary variety and very fervently devout in the most wonted expressions Nor is God more a God of variety than of constancy 80. I am not against a grave modest discreet and humble use of Ministers gifts even in publick the better to fit and excite their own and the Peoples affections to the present occasions 81. I know no necessity why private and single abilities should quite justle out and deprive the Church of the joint abilities and concurrent gifts of many learned and godly men such as the Composers of the Service-book were who may in all reason be thought to have more gifts and graces enabling them to compose with serious deliberation and concurrent advice such Forms of prayers as may best fit the Churches common wants inform the Hearers understanding and stir up that siduciciary and fervent application of their spirits wherein consists the very life and soul of prayer and that so much pretended spirits of prayer than any private man by his solitary abilities can be presumed to have 82. What such mens solitary abilities are many times even there where they make a great noise and shew the affectations emptiness impertinency â—udeness confusions flatness levity obscurity vaine and ridulous repetitions the sensless and oft-times blasphemous expressions all these burthened with a most tedious and intolerable length do fufficiently convince all men but those who glory in that Pharisaïcal way 83. Men must be strangely impudent and flatterers of themselves not to have an infinite shame of what they so do and say in things of so sacred a nature before God and the Church after so ridiculous and indeed prophane a manner 84. In Sacramental administrations Ministers own forms to be used constantly are not like to be so sound or comprehensive of the nature of the duty as forms of publick composure 85. In Sacramental administrations and the like every time to affect new expressions when the subject is the same can hardly be presumed in any mans greatest sufficiences not to want many times much of that compleatness order and gravity becoming those duties which by the mean are exposed at every celebration to every Ministers private infirmities indispositions errours disorders and defects both for judgment and expression 86. The want of a constant Liturgy of publick composure this Church will sufficiently feel when the unhappy fruits of many mens ungoverned ignorance and confident defects shall be discovered in a multitude of errours schismes disorders and uncharitable distractions in Religion 87. The Innovations which Law Reason and Religion forbids must not be brought in and abetted much less so obtruded as wholly to justle out the publick Liturgy of the Church 88. The severity of those men is partial and inexcusable who cried out of the rigour of Lawes and Bishops which suffered them not to use the liberty of Conscience which they deny others having the power in their hands 89. They who suddenly changed the Liturgy into a Directory seem to have thought that the Spirit needed help for invention though not for expressions 90. Matter prescribed doth as much stint and obstruct the Spirit as if it were clothed in and confined to fit words 91. This matter of the publick Liturgy is of so popular a nature as some men knew it would not bear learned and sober debates least being convinced by the evidence of Reason as well as Lawes they should have been driven either to sin more against their knowledg by taking it away or to displease some faction of the people by continuing the use of it 92. They that use such severity as not to suffer without penalty any to use the Common-prayer-book publickly although their Consciences bind them to it as a duty of piety to God and obedience to the Lawes I believe have offended more considerable men not only for their numbers and estates but for their weighty and judicious piety than those are whose weakness or giddiness they sought to gratifie by taking it away 93. One of the greatest faults some men found with the Common prayer book I believe was this That it taught them to pray so oft for their King to which Petitions they had not Loyalty enough to say Amen nor yet Charity enough to forbear Reproaches and even Cursings of Him in their own Forms instead of praying for Him 94. I wish their Râ—pentance may be their only punishment that seeing the mischiess which the disuse of publâ—ck Liturgies hath produced they may restore that credit use and reverence to them which by the ancient Churches were given to Set Forms if sound and wholesome words 95. To such as have any jealousie that the King is earnest and resolute to maintain the Church-Government by Bishops not so much out of piety as policy and reason of State this may be said That He being as King intrusted by God and the Lawes with the good both of Church and State there is no reason He should give up or weaken by any change that power and influence which in right and reason He ought to have over both 96. As the King is not to incline to Bishops for any use to be made of their Votes
whose subjection as it preserves their property peace and safety so it will never diminish his Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consist in the injoyment of the fruits of their industry and the benefit of those Lawes to which themselves have consented 19. No Subjects can without an high degree of guilt and sin devest the King of those enjoyments which the Lawes have assigned to Him 20. The King in uncertain times is to require and entreat the Prince his Son as his Father and his King that He never suffer his heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England 21. After trial much search and many disputes I conclude the Religion of the Church of England to be the best in the World not only in the Community as Christian but also in the special notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the pomp of superstitious Tyranny and the meanness of fantastick Anarchy 22. The drought being excellent as to the main both for Doctrine and Government in the Church of England some lines as in very good figures may happily need some sweetning or polishing which might have easily been done by a safe and gentle hand if some mens precipitancy had not violently demanded such rude alterations as would have quite destroyed all the beauty and proportions of the whole 23. The King is not to entertain any aversation or dislike of Parliaments which in their right constitution with Freedom and Honour will never injure or diminish his greatness but will rather be as interchangings of love loyalty and confidence between a Prince and his People 24. The sad effects that have issued from the insolencies of popular dictates and tumultuary impressions should make Parliaments more cautious to preserve that Freedom and Honour which belong to such Assemblies 25. Nothing can be more happy for all than in fair grave and honourable wayes to contribute their Councels in Common enacting all things by publick consent without Tyranny or Tumults 26. After the storm of Civil dissension and War wherein the folly and wickedness of some men have so far ruined as to leave nothing intire in Church or State to the Crown the Nobility the Clergy or the Commons either as to Lawes Liberties Estates Order Honour Conscience or Lives the yong Prince that succeeds should be an Anchor or Harbour rather to the tossed and weather-beaten Kingdoms a Repairer of the ruines by his wisdom justice piety and valour 27. The King cannot in what extremity soever suffer any diminution of the Churches patrimony or alienation of it it being without paradventure Sacriledg and likewise contrary to his Coronation-Oath 28. The Government of the Church according to its constitution in England is a chief column and support to the Monarchy and Crown 29. The greatest means to make a Parliament happy is That the King on his part and the Members thereof on theirs lay aside all suspicion one of another 30. The Navy and Forts are the walls and defence of this Kingdom which if out of Order all men may easily judge what encouragement it will be to our Enemies and what disheartning to our Friends 31. The King can no way consent that the voyces of Bishops in Parliament should be taken away which they have enjoy'd since and before the Conquest and is one of the fundamental constitutions of this Kingdom 32. Often Parliaments is the fittest mean to keep correspondency between the King and his People 33. Neither Queen Elizabeth nor my Father King James did ever avow that any Priest in their time was executed meerly for Religion the inconveniences that by this severity may fall to the King's Subjects and other Protestants abroad ought to be considered by any Parliament that presses it 34. The Parliament that takes the Government all in pieces must do like a skillfull Watchmaker to make clean his Watch who takes it asunder puts it again together but leaves not out one pin if he means to have it go better 35. The Parliament ought not to wish more than they can shew the King the way how conveniently it may be done 36. It is the great expression of Trust the King has in the affections of his Parliament unto Him when before they do any thing for Him He puts a confidence in them by his gracious concessions 37. If any person durst be so impudent as to move the King to alter the Lawes He ought to put such a mark upon him as from which all posterity might know his intention was ever to govern by the Law and no otherwise 38. That Parliament is not to alledg against the King his deceiving their expectation in the time of his return having departed with their consent who as much and more have deceived Him in the condition for proceeding in his affairs 39. When the King sends a Serjeant at Armes to His Parliament He may expect obedience not a message 40. In cases of Treason no person hath a priviledg by being a Member of the Parliament 41. The King should alwayes be as tender of any thing which may advance the true Protestant Religion protect and preserve the Lawes of the Land and defend the just priviledg and freedom of Parliaments as of his Life or his Crown 42. When the King calls his Parliament together to be witnesses of his Actions and privy to his Intentions it may be certainly believed He has not the least thought disagreeing with the happiness and security of his Kingdom 43. A loyal Parliaments concurrence with the King it may be hoped will so far prevail over the hearts and understandings of the whole Kingdom who must look upon the Members as persons naturally and originally trusted by and for them that it will be above the reach and malice of those who sometimes have too great an influence upon the People to discredit the King 's most intire Actions and sincere Promises the Members being the best witnesses for the one and security for the other 44. When the King and his Parliament have both the same ends there will be no other differences in the way than what upon debate and right understanding will be easily adjusted 45. Let right Religion in which all are most nearly concerned and without care of which they must not look for God's blessing be vindicated and preserved Let the King's honour and Rights which have an inseparable relation with the Subjects interests be vindicated and if ravish'd from Him restored Let the Subjects Liberties Properties Priviledges without which a good man should not desire to be a King be secured and confirmed and there is nothing the Parliament can advise the King to wherein He should not meet them that together they may inform Posterity how much their trust and confidence in each other is a better expedient for the Peace and Preservation of the Kingdom than Fears and Jealousies 46. During any Session of Parliament the King may expect as most proper for the duty of Subjects that Propositions for the remedies of evils ought rather to come to Him than from Him yet such should be his Fatherly care of his People that He should rather lay by any particular respect of his own dignity than that any time should be lost for the preventing of those threatning evils which cannot admit the delayes of the ordinary proceedings in Parliament 47. That the Subjects cannot be obliged to obey an Act Order or Injunction of Parliament to which the King hath not given consent is the King 's known and unquestionable Priviledg and being so is a Priviledg of the Kingdoms 48. The Kings power is invested in Him by the Law and by that only He should desire to maintain it 49. The King that gives away the Militia parts with the power of the Sword entrusted to Him by God and the Lawes of the Land for the protection and government of his People thereby at once devesting Himself and dis-inheriting his Posterity of that right and Prerogative of the Crown which is absolutely necessary to the Kingly Office and so weakens Monarchy in his Kingdom that little more than the name and shadow of it will remain 50. For the abolishing Arch-Bishops Bishops c. a Britannike Soveraign cannot give his consent as He is a Christian and a King 51. The Britannike Kings have so inseparably woven the right of the Church into the liberties of the rest of the Subjects as the Government by Arch-Bishops and Bishops cannot be abolished 52. The King cannot consent to the alienation of Church-Lands because it cannot be denied to be a sin of the highest Sacriledg as also that it subverts the intentions of so many pious Donors who have laid a heavy curse upon all such prophane violations Beside which matter of Conscience it will be a prejudice to the publick good many of the Subjects having the benefit of renuing Leases at much easier Rates than if those possessions were in the hands of private men Nor is it to be omitted the discouragement which it will be to all learning and industry when such eminent rewards shall be taken away which now lye open to the Children of meanest persons 53. The exercise of mercy should be no more pleasing to the King than to see both Houses of Parliament consent for his sake that He should moderate the severity of the Law in an important case 54. No Free-born Subject of England can call Life or any thing he possesseth his own if Power without Right dayly make new and abrogate the old fundamental Law of the Land 55. I am confident no learned Lawyer will afirm that an impeachment can lye against the King all the Lawes going in his Name and one of their Maximes being that The King can do no wrong 56. The Commons of England was never a Court of Judicature Vid. H. Grot. ad cap. 1. Proverb 1. Lips Excerpt ex Comoed. Tragoed Graec.