persecuting them with the same slanders as their enemies did impudently outfacing the apologies of their fathers and justifying the calumnies of their enemies by pretending that they used those tame weapons prayers and tears only for want of the military Sword and Spear Miscreant persecutors of Crowns will you depose the very Martyrs too from those Crowns which they purchased as much by their meekness as their faith Was not this the onely controversie beetween them and their persecutors that the one believed them inclined to propagate their religion by force the other protested that they would not so defend their lives And do not you joyn with their persecutors do not you persecute them afresh and put them to an open shame Would not they have resisted their bloody Tyrants and do you persecute your own King the best of your Kings Is it thus you rejoyce in persecutions by inflicting not by undergoing them by inflicting them upon the Defendor of the Faith How basely have you confuted the Apologies of Tertullian and other defendors of the Christian faith How unchristianly have you justified the bloody persecutors thereof How heathenishly have you strengthened those slanders wherewith they persecuted it no lesse bitterly and unjustly then with the Sword Where shall we hide this shame How shall we reskue our holy Religion and innocent Martyrs from this disgrace poured upon them not so much by their persecutors as their professors Nay how shall we ever hope to propagate our Religion for the future What black Indian of the East or West what wilde African or American will change that Divel Worship which their fathers have practiced without any such guilt for the Christian Religion whose professors call it Godlinesse to be inhumane Tell it not in Quinsay publish it not in the hoords of the Nomades lest those Miscreants triumph in the greater purity of their infidelity What Turk or Jew will ever be brought to a tollerable charity towards that Religion whose professors call the horridest Treasons the cause of God Tell it not in Constantinople publish it not in the Streets of Bagdat lest those circumcised Infidels triumph in the greater piety of their own profession Is this the propagation of the Gospel Is this the advancement of the Kingdome of Jesus Christ Ah! must the Christian the Christian Religion which was first planted and alway watered and alway thrived with the Blood of her defendors and professors shed by their persecutors now wither by the blood of her defendors shed by her own Children Is the patience and meeknesse and peaceablenesse so much recommended by the great Author of our faith not onely by his Sermons but his sufferings and alwayes practised by his disciples Is that sweet beauty of our Religion which won so great a part of the world to her imbraces now disfigured with such a gastly deformity that she must for ever despair of gaining any more Lovers and that not by the witherings of age but by the manglings of her unnatural children But these perhaps are remote considerations and our zeal against our neighbor Babylon may excuse the inconvenience of that Scandal which probably may never reach the more distant Heathen And is it thus we hope to root out Popery what by strengthening their most plausible pretences Is not this the great clamor of their popular declamations That we no sooner forsake unity with the Catholick Church but we are wildered by the unsteadinesse of our own rambling fancies or abused by the craft of such other seducers as our unhappiness or our curiosity may expose us to That there is nothing in doctrine so absur'd in practice impious which a smooth toung and a zealous look may not prefer to an easie and credulous belief as a holy truth That there is no security from the most horrid impieties and blasphemies but in the bosome of the mother Church the onely determiner of controversies Witness those swarms of ridiculous Sects witness those horrible confusions in Church and State Witness the execrable massacre of the defender of your faith Whence came these horrible plagues but from your separation from us and how can you ever be secure from further crumblings till you are again united with us Tell it not in Rome publish it not in the covents of their Friers and Colledges of their Jesuits lest the conclave rejoyce lest their priests triumph in the ruine of the strongest pillar of our Religion and the strengthening of their own pretences Yet all this and other their plausiblest harangues are fully answered by this Royal defender of the Faith who thus armeth the heir of his Kingdomes The scandal of the late troubles which some may object and urge to you against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them or your own thoughts in this that scarce any one who hath been a beginner or an active prosecutor of this late War against the Church the Laws and Meâ— either was or is a true lover imbracer or practicer of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither giveth such rules nor ever before set such examples The Protestant Religion giveth no such rules but doth not the Romish Is not Rebellion a doctrine as properly Popish and more pernicious then Purgatory indulgences or any other Who first taught it lawful to resist Kings was it not the Pope Who first taught it not only lawfull but pious to depose Kings if they be Hereticks was it not the Pope Who first taught that the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are dispenced with by the interest of Religion was it not the Pope Doth not the Solemn League and Covenant of the English Schismaticks with their Scottish brethren bear the lively image of the holy Ligue between the French Jesuites and their brethren of Spain The Protestant Religion never before set such examples but how often hath that Anti-christian See armed not only Subjects against their Soveraigns but Sons against their Royal Fathers adding unnaturalnesse to Rebellion How came it to it 's present grandure but by vexing their Soveraigns the Empp. with holy Rebellions How many Henn and Fread and other Empp. and K K. have their Saints butchered What Nation hath not heard the roaring of their Bulls absolving Subjects from their Allegiance Who hath not heard of the Holy Ligue of France the Guelphs and Gibellines of Italy Let this execrable regicide committed upon those principles which you maintain and we detest make another Item in the goodly Inventory of your holy Rebellions and Regicides For no true lover of the Protestant Religion established in England was an active prosecutor of this war against the Church the Laws and the King But what multitudes of your Priests and Jesuites under the vizors of gifted brethren and Independent Souldiers envenoming the Army and inflaming the Rebellion were these Volunteers in such an important service No their absolute obedience to their superiors is too well known to leave any probability of their undertaking such designes
The BOW OR The LAMENTATION of DAVID over SAUL and JONATHAN Applyed to the Royal and Blessed MARTYR K. Charles the I. IN A SERMON Preached the 30 th of January At the Cathedral Church of S. Peter in EXON BY ARTH. BVRY one of the Prebendaries Published to stop the mouth of Calumny LONDON Printed for Henry Brome at the Gun Ivy-lane 1662. 2 SAM 1. 18. Also he bad them teach the Children of Juda the use of the Bowe THis strange Text cannot be more impertinent to the businesse of this sad day then that which occasioned it The words immediately foregoing tell us that David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son as we do now over a greater King then Saul and a kinder man than Jonathan To beleive the Jewish interpretation that David took warning from the wounds which Saul received from the Philistian Archers to teach the children of Juda that military art were to confesse an unpardonable ignorance it was their usuall weapon The learned Grotius observing the lamentation to be musicall came so far towards the discovery of the truth as to say David would have them taught to use Musick in their Wars But what Musick with a bow Were the Jewes taught that practice which the ancient Germans used in their wars to encourage themselves with the sprightly twang of their beaten Bow-strings as we do by beat of Drum What harmony will that interpretation keep with the lamentation thus harshly interrupted The omission of the LXX and the Vulgar Latin give us a fair hint for a smooth interpretation for they omitting all mention of the Bow read the words thus And David lamented Also he bad them teach it the Children of Juda. Good sense but no good fidelity Our Tindal approving the sense but not the infidelity retaineth the word but translateth it with new infidelity Reading thus He bad them teach the Children of Juda the staves thereof a good Paraphrase but a bad translation Upon these hints our excellent Gregory cleareth all difficulties He observeth it usuall for Poets to bestow upon their Odes some Title suitable to their Subject Thus our Psalmist titleth some of his Psalms Altashith Sosannim Mahaloth And now having composed a threne in memory of Saul wounded by the Bowmen and of Jonathan that dear Archer who shot his Arrow beyond the Lad and thereby expressed a love exceeding the love of Women honored the memory of so dear a friend with a passionate threne and that threne with a name most endearing the instrument of so rare a kindnesse And now the sense is smooth and Musical David composed this epicedium in memory of Saul and Jonathan and caused them to teach it the Children of Juda calling it the Bow in memory of the fatal wounds which Saul received from the Bowmen of the enemy and the rare kindnesse which himself received from the Bow of Jonathan at that passionate parting when they kissed one another and wept one with another untill David exceeded And to this clear sense doth the Hebrew not only invite us by leaving out the word use but force us too by the necessary concord of the participle written with the substantive Bow both of them feminines The demonstration being Grammatical The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Written must marry the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bow therefore the Bow it self not the story of it was written therefore it was writable therefore a form of words therefore this very form of lamentation commanded to be taught the Children of Juda and recorded in the book of Jasher What the book of Jasher was is as needlesse to enquire as impossible to find we find but one mention more of it and that Poetical Josh 10. 13. your margins tell you the word signifieth an upright man and haply it may be an abbreviation of the word Israel and the book a Poetical register of the publick occurrences of that Nation Whatever that book were it is lost and so is the story of it But this we have found that in that book was written this Lamentation which David made and called The Bow and commanded to be taught the Children of Juda. Having thus found the Bow we shall view it a little and then exercise with it 1. Observ That under the Law it self Kings had power as they saw occasion to make additions and alterations in the form of publick Worship For David bad them to whom he directed his Odes the chief Musicians to teach the Children of Juda this Bow that they might use it with other of his Psalms in the publick service of God That this was usual witnesse the many other Psalms which are superscribed To the chief Musician and sometimes by name To Asaph which were publickly sung as occasion required as appeareth by their praising God in the words of the 136. Psalm when the ark was brought into the oracle in Solomons Temple Was it a small alteration to change the ambulatory Tabernacle to a standing Temple contrary to the pattern shewed in the Mount and without any command of God Yet God commendeth and blesseth David for that intention though he suspendeth the performance The law required thirty years of age to qualify the children of Levi for the service of the congregation Yet David commanded them to be numbred from twenty years The law forbad any unclean person to eat the passover Lev. 7. 10. and 22. yet Ezekia dispensed with it as also with the Levites performing the Priests office in killing the Sacrifices 2. Chro. 30. 17 18. Now if under the law where every punctilio was so exactly prescribed the Kings the best of the Kings made such alterations How much more under the Gospel where there is only this generally directory injoyned Let all things be done decently and in order and the particulars left to the wisdome of the governours of the Church shall it be in the power of Kings to prescribe such forms as they shall judge most decent Is it a blessing to the Church to have Kings her nursing fathers and shall it not be her duty to submit to their government Was there ever any Religion which questioned the power of their rulers in things acknowledged to be indifferent And shall the Christian onely which of all others doth most earnestly and frequently injoyn obedience shall that onely dispense with it and that without any colour of necessity but under pretence of freedome from any obligation Well but grant the Christian Kings the onely Cyphers of Religion not able to bind the conscience by any direct obligation will not that love of peace which is so earnestly recommended to us require though by accident onely to obey all their innocent injunctions Doth it become a peaceable and humble Christian thus to dispute with his King You have no power to command me and therefore I will not obey And not rather thus Though you have no power to command me yet for peace sake I will obey Because
which destroy whole Nations by teaching it a pious devotion to turn Bankrupt in allegiance in hope to drive a quicker trade in Religion A French Catholique who acknowledgeth the Kings Supremacy is not half so dangerously Popish as an English Schismatick which denieth it This then this is that Thorough Reformation which the truly Godly party longeth for These are the Popish doctrines upon which the Pope first built and still maintaineth his greatnesse These are the Anti-christian doctrines which do so diametrically oppose that Great and Dear commandment and legacy which Christ gave his Church Peace and Love And why must this great duty and happinesse be thrust out of the Church What do you fear shame Will your reputation grow cheap with the people if you build again the things you destroyed Pacem contemnentes gloriam quarentes pacem perdunt gloriam He that thus saveth his credit shall lose it but he that loseth it shall save it What more glorious victory then to overcome our selves What greater honour in the sight of God and Angels and wise and good men then such a magnanimous embracing of shame Did St. Augustine get more honour by any one yea or by all his other books then by his Retractations Did Aberdeen ever perform an Exercise so worthy the wisedome and piety of a Christian Accademy as this to which we invite you But if you will needs be covering your nakednesse with fig-leaves you cannot thereby hide but proclaim your shame your own first doctrines and publick protestations will tear those aprons and convince you not only of error but obstinacy And the meanest understanding will when a little calm hath setled our troubled waters plainly perceive how unfit they are to be trusted who are at the same time self-condemned and self-justified But what if this were not what if the common people could be perpetually muffeled Is the breath of the multitude the onely sweet and whole ayre are not the wise and learned not onely of this Nation but of the whole Christian world worthy to be regarded Is not the King worthy to be considered Are not the two great representatives of Church and State worthy to be thought on Nay is not God himself fit to be remembred and all the inhabitants of heaven who rejoyce at the repentance of every sinner Is not the Magistrate fit to be feared whose sword you tempt by giving such manifest ombrages of jealousie while you justifie those doctrines which we all are sadly convinced to be pernicious If then you truly lament that inhumane murther which we thus solemnly deplore If you have any sense of those Long and Many and Great miseries under which we all groaned If you really thirst for a Thorough Reformation from the Antichristian doctrines of Rome If you desire that peace and love may be established on earth and an Act of Oblivion in heaven If you will not perpetuate Jealousies in the Magistrate and troubles in the Church Then joyn with us in singing this strayn of David's lamentation by cursing those Philistian doctrines which were not the place but the cause of our wofull Tragedies You inhumane you unchristian c. Oh you bloudy and Anti-christian doctrines may every pretender to Loyalty and Christianity for ever detest you Whoever saith it becometh a Subject to question the fitnesse of the Kings commands when they are not warranted by a particular Word of Scripture Let him be Anathema Whoever saith the Kings commands do not bind the Conscience to obedience in things not sinfull let him be Anathema For by such principles as these was the best King that ever governed a Christian Kingdome vilely cast away as if he had not been annointed with oyle THE END Some Books Printed for H. Brome at the Cun in Ivy-lane IUstice Revived or the whole Office of a Countrey Justice by Ed. Wingate Esq A New Geographicall Dictionary in 8. Trap on the Major Prophets in folio Cases of Conscience in the late Rebellion by Mr. Lyford Mr. Grenfields Loyal Sermon before the Parliament Dr. Browns Scpulchal Urns and Garden of Cyrus in 8. The life of Dr. Tho. Fuller in 8. A Treatise of Moderation by Mr. Gaule in 8. Mr. Stones ' Sermon against Rebellion preach't at St. Pauls Golden Remains of the most Learned R. Stuart D. D. Mr. Sprat's Plague of Athens in 4. The Harmony of the World The Pourtraicture of his sacred Majesty King Charles the Second from his Birth 1630. till this present year 1661. being the whole story of his escape at Worcaster his travels and troubles The Covenant discharged by John Russell in 4. English Lovers a new Romance Mr. Walwin's Sermon on the happy return of King Charles the Second Mr. Morton's Rule of Life A short view of the lives of the Illustrious Princes Henry Duke of Gloucester and Mary Princes of Orange deceased by T. M Esq in 8. Aeneas his Voyage from Troy to Italy an Essay upon the third Book of Virgil by J. Boys Esq in 8. The alliance of Divine Offices exhibiting all the Liturgies of the Church of Engl. since the Reformation by Hamon L'estrange Esq in fol. Blood for Blood in 35 Tragicall stories Books written by R. L'estrange Esq A view of some late Remarkable Transactions leading to the happy Government under our gracious Soveraign King Charles II. in 4. The Holy Cheat proving from the undeniable practices of the Presbyterians that the whole design of that party is to enslave both King and People under the colour of Religion A Caveat to the Cavaliers A Modest Plea both for the Author and Caveat The Relaps'd Apostate State Divinity A Whip for the Schismatical Animadverter of the Bishop of Worcester's Letter 1. Sam. 20. a Num. 4. 3. b 1 Chro. 23. 27 d Jamq opus exegi c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
mercilesse enemies that he might beg his life of them by the oratory of his tears or purchase it with the Revenues of the Crown and Church No his last Declaration speaks other language I thank my God saith he I have armed my self against their fury and now let the Arrows of their envy fly at me I have a breast to receive them and a heart possest with patience to sustain them for God is my Rock and my Shield therefore will I not fear what man can doe unto me His tedious Imprisonment could not extort one word of complaint from him the horror of their cruel Bar could not stoop him to plead much lesse to pray for his life The terrors of the bloudy Scaffold could not make him let fall a word unworthy of His Majesty He discoursed upon that fatal Theater in that cruel company as if he had been among His Lords in Parliament unconcerned in any thing but the care of his people A few words bestowed upon his own necessary vindication and all the rest in directions to the way of peace A discourse which we then admired for the magnanimity and now for the wisdome of it God having now declared that to be the onely right way which that Blessed Martyr then shewed though those times had onely need not capacity of such directions Thus did the mighty fall as man falleth before wicked men with a fall sutable to his life in point of constancy and pious charity and most unsutable in point of those other circumstances of formal justice Thus were Saul and Jonathan greatnesse and goodnesse magnanimity and love wisdom in counsail and care of the people lovely in his life and in his death they were not divided Oh ye daughters of Israel saith our Psalmist vers 24. weep over Saul who clothed you in Skarlet with olker delights who put on ornaments of Gold upon your apparel Ye daughters of England weep over Charles who clothed you with Silks with other braveries whose peaceful and righteous raign protected your fathers while they gathered that wealth you now enjoy rendring the Sea safe to the Merchant and the land to the Husbandman keeping you in a happy ignorance of Excise Contributions quarterings plunderings c. and in the Church of Quakers Seekers Ranters c. he clothed you in Silk not Garments rolled in Blood he kept your eyes and the Sword dry Let those tears be now paid as a just tribute to his memory which he then saved by the righteousnesse of his government Weep over him whose watchings defended your sleeps whose cares secured your pleasures whose Sword guarded your peace whose prisons protected your liberty whose death preserved your Laws Weep over Saul but more over Jonathan Remember that rich treasure of his vertues which made him the delight of all good men the hate of all evil remember that firmnesse of his constancy that sweetnesse of his love that tendernesse of his charity that universal graciousnesse of his disposition We are distressed for thee most dear Soveraign very pleasant hast thou been to us thy love to us was wonderfull passing the love of women Oh! had'st thou been some Nero or Caligula some bloudy or filthy Tyrant that never spared man in their anger nor woman in their lust had'st thou been such as thy enemies were and accused thee to be we would have reserved our tears for our private sorrows and suffered thy memory to perish with thy life Or had'st thou fallen by the usual wayes of mortality we would have comforted our selves with such a common infelicity But to have such a King so destroyed in the name of the people under formalities of justice by the hands of mushroms under thine own window and all this only for being excessively good How shall we raise our lamentations to a proportion sutable to thy excellencies or our griefs We are distressed for thee most dear Soveraign thy love to us was wonderfull passing the love of women and our love to thee shall be sutably great and durable we will annually remove thy marble and embalm thy ashes with pious tears and spicy Elogies that the enemies of thy vertues may know the greatnesse of their guilt and the enemies of our Nation and Religion may know our innocency Though we cannot restore thy life we wil eternise thy memory though we cannot raise thy ashes yet we will revive our own credit Those rivers of tears which we thus solemnly and annually offer up to thy dear name will not indeed wash away some mens guilt who love their Negro blacknesse but they will our shame 2. Our shame which is the ground of the next strain of this mournfull Bow expressed in the next verse Tell it not in Gath publish it not c. It is a double misery when our loss and shame is our enemies gain and glory Nations have thought it worthy a war to remove the trophees of their defeats yea more men have sacrificed their lives to the honor then to any other interest of their country Moses useth this argument to God himself prayeth him not to destory Israel lest the heathen should triumph Cleopatra could have been content to have out-lived the losse of her Kingdomes if she might have escaped the triumph of Augustus But when the Philistins fasten the bodies of Saul and his sons to the wall of Bethshan then the valiant men of Jabesh Gilead hazard their lives to remove such a Trophee of their shameful defeat And indeed whoever pretendeth any affection to his country will feel quick resentments not only of its losses but its dishoners a strong motive to those our honoured Patriots who by this command of an annuall lustration have taken care to wash away this Royal Bloud that it may not defile the land Such indeed was the charitable temper of that Blessed Martyr that he would not gratifie the malice of a few with sinister thoughts of the generality But such is the precipitancy of vulgar censurers that they brand whole nations with infamy due only to to some particulars How do such men justifie that old slander that the King of England is a King of divels How did that divilish villany make the name of an Englishman stink in the nostrils of all nations How often have our Merchants and travelling Gentry chose rather to deny their country then endure this shame But what do we talk of the honour of our Nation Our Religion Our Religion is sham'd by it both in general as Christian and in particular as Protestant Tell it not in the Regions of darkness publish it not among the heathen persecutors lest those bloudy tormentors of the Christian Church triumph as in a posthumous justification of their cruelties as a necessary policy to weaken a sect so pernicious to their lives and estates Let those Blessed Martyrs whose bloud sealed not only the truth of their Religion but the firmness of their loyalty let them not blush to see the professors of the same Religion
without command Tell it now in Rome publish it in all their Covents and Colledges but tell it truly That the Church of England did not act but suffer in this hideous Rebellion That she requireth all her Sons to professe by Oath their detestation of it as a doctrine damnable and heretical But a faction infected with that damnable doctrine wherewith Rome efferated the meekness and stained the purity of the Christian Religion acted this devilish inhumanity upon the principles and instigations of Popish incendiaries to the grief and ruine of the true Sons of our Church who hazarded their lives to prevent it and do thus solemnly professe their detestation of it When the Sons of Rom◠shall practice such a a publick repentance for that multitude of Rebellions and Regicides which their Popes and their doctrines have acted through the Christian world we will acknowledge an equality of shame due to us and them We will be content that this one Murther shall out weigh that multitude of theirs as much as this one King did excell all theirs and to make the scales even we will cast in so much charity as not to impute those doctrines and impieties to their Church but to factiousnesse of the Jesuites and the ambition of the Popes We will yield to any the most unreasonable composition if they will thus solemnly and authentically renounce that damnable doctrine But untill they do let them not upbraid us with the Splinter so our Saviours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth let them not upbraid us with the Splinter that is in our eye while there is a beam in their own eye That beam from whence our Splinter came which we thus carefully pull out of our watering eye But these still are remote enemies we have others within our own pale that shame us more Enemies not to the Christian or the Protestant but to All Religion Men whose God is their belly whose Heaven is the Tavern whose Religion is Debauchery These men to ease themselves from the trouble as they take it of holiness will needs force themselves and tempt others to believe that Religion is onely an engine of State that Zeal is but an implement of ambition that the precisest Saints are but insinuating hypocrites who disguise the basest and bloudiest designes under the mortified countenance of sanctity and humility Witness say they the furies of the German and the greater furies of the English Sectaries These men rail at our harmlesse good fellowship and themselves destroy the peace of the world Make great scruple to take the other Cup and make themselves drunk with the blood of Kings Make long prayers and devour widows houses These these are they whose Triumphs shame us while they condemn all holinesse and godly zeal as tending to the furious wickednesse of the Fanaticks Tell it not therefore in the Taverns publish it not in the Ale-houses lest the Drunkards rejoyce lest the Atheists Triumph lest every devout christian be condemned for a Puritan and every professor of zeal for a Fanatick yet these misprisions are easily wiped away by our Holy Martyr himself Let not saith he counterfeit and disorderly zeal abate your value and esteem of true piety Both of them are known by their fruits the sweetnesse of the vine and fig-tree are not to be despised though the Bramble and Thorne should pretend to bear figs and grapes thereby to rule over the trees But say you that accuse Religion of the abuses which it suffered can you wash your hands from the blood of this just person Did not your wickednesse ruine him by provoking God and Man against that righteous cause which you engaged in Did not your detestable rudenesse fright thousands out of their wits and their allegiance who loved the King more heartily then your selves and would have followed his party if they could have indured such company as fought against heaven by their prophanenesse and earth by their opressions Doth not the Law declare you Traitors that alienate Subjects affections from their Soveraign Doth not this gracious Kings first Proclamation disclaim you as those that do him more mischief by your lewdnesse then you can recompence by your valours Doth not our Church disclaim you as greater non conformists by your disobedience to her doctrines then others are by their disobedience to her discipline What impudence hath steeled your foreheads that you dare call your selves the Kings good Subjects and the true sons of the Church when you are disobedient to both and renounced by both And did you not make the Rebels prosperous too as well as numerous Did God give up his holy army to the rout for the sin of one Achan and must he not forsake whole Armies of Achans Did you not even compell him to desert a righteous King that he might not prosper a profane party But stay can we not avoid one shame without splitting upon another and must we yield the Rebels their so much vanted title of The Godly party Tell it not in Amsterdam publish it not in the conventicles of the Schismaticks lest they boast against the Episcopal discipline as a nurse of prophanesse because the new discipline is maintained by Godly people and the old by prophane Yet the unjustice of such a boast will betray it self if we consider that those very persons whose piety they boast of received their piety from the Ministery of the Episcopal way and onely their faction from them who made profession of zeal a bait to betray them Is there any thing more credulous then zeal and is it any wonder if those who were most zealous had the strongest byas towards that party that made the most glorious professions of it The Episcopal Government then may say to the new discipline as Laban did to Jacob These Children are my Children and these Saints are my Saints why hast thou stolen them from me What Godly men hast thou whom thou didst not receive from me And if thou didst receive them why boastest thou as if thou didst not receive them And on the other side what wonder if the prophaner sort were not caught when the baits were not fitted for them Thus far then we are ingeniously humble we acknowledge they have cheated many of our Godly and few of our prophane Yet must not that humility make us yeild them the glory of greater Sanctity Admit they have deluded a multitude of vulgar hearts full of sail and void of ballast with fancies inflamed with zeal and understanding dazeled with every blaze Are the multitude the judge of truth Doth justice passe Sentence by her Counters and not by her Ballance Or had the Episcopal party no Saints who hazzarded their lives and afterward took chearfully the spoiling of their Goods and imprisonment of their Persons to save their consciences without any hope of recompense from their now ruined party If we granted you a greater multitude yet would we challenge you to come to the ballance for men of judicious and fixed
the perpetual importunities of the King and Kingdom extort their consent to a treaty which they grant but with this condition that the King first depose himself by signing four Bills yeilding up himself religion laws friends people and all to their Arbitrary power which because he cannot but refuse to do they fairly depose and excommunicate him by voting against all addresses to him or from him And is not this an accomplishment of the greatest self conviction in the world thus to depose him whose lawfull authority they had so often sworn to defend Yet still the Presbyterians are godly men but being engaged are led on by Providence to such actions as themselves had often declared sinfull but now appear godly because providence calleth upon them to change their principles with their condition But what invention shall we find out to justifie us against this last pretence providence it self fiighting also in its course against our last actions as well as against all our first pretences and requiring us to return where we first set out by changing those principles too with our condition I do not I professe I do not thus uncover their nakednesse to upbraid but to convince them who are hardened against all other evidences We appeal to themselves to their own publick protestations to those very principles into which their holy cause was first baptized If they have not as peremptorily resisted every one of them as the King himself we shall yield them the honour of being the only godly party They professed to make him a great and glorious King How did they perform this by illustrating his magnamity patience and other suffering vertues They professed to bring him to his Parliament How did they perform this By bringing his power thither and keeping away his person They promised to remove him from his evil Counsellours How did they perform this by keeping him from that his great Councell They promised to defend the Protestant Religion established in England How did they perform this By comparing the Loyalty of its principles with those of the new discipline At last they made providence their rule Let them do so now and joyn with us in detesting those principles which providence it self hath so manifestly blasted and which do so manifestly confesse themselves not fit to be trusted as having skrewed up such Godly men to such a heigth of impiety But what is this to the Presbyterians They did not kill the King Grant it are they therefore the godly party because they did not come up to the very top of wickednesse When they boast what they did not they might do well to remember what they did They put the King though not to death yet upon the certain expectations of death as knowing there are but few steps between the prisons and graves of Princes They did not kill the King 't is true But 't is as true they could not They would not if they could How shall we know that By their protestations let them shew us how they made good any one protestation and we will believe them How can they expect belief from us how can they believe themselves whose principles run through so many changes They voted the Kings concessions a ground for peace But when when it was too late when they had no other way to oppose the Army the Army who first pretended to restore the King and then were opposed by the Parliament as they are now when they declare to destroy him They voted his concessions only a ground for a treaty that they might engage his friends to help them and not engage themselves to restore the King But these things are past and pardoned They are now his best Subjects They restored the King Yes As Marcus Livius was the cause of the taking of Tarentum because if he had not first lost it it could not have been taken So were they cause of restoring the King because if they had not driven him from his Kingdome he could not have been restored But they restored him They restore him Why then are they so mad that he was restored so freely without articles The Scots shew us the way of Presbyterians bringing in Kings They declare him their undoubted rightfull King but withall he must not exercise any power untill he have submitted to such conditions as they think good to prescribe Then they bestow a Crown upon him but a thorny one and make his Kingdome worse then his banishment But the Presbyterians are the Kings faithfull Subjects If they will be believed let them make it credible by some evidence Let them follow the ingenuity of their brethren of Aberdeen Let them shew their affections to the Son by their detestation of those principles which ruined the Father How jealous would a just resentment make them of every principle that hath the least appearance of evil of every garment spotted with the flesh When Adonijab petitioned for Abishag the warming-pan rather then the Concubine of David what a storm of jealousie doth this raise in Solomon to the ruine of Adonijah and his party one slain another degraded another confined How would that jealously become every affectionate heart towards all those principles which do though never so little glance toward disobedience How should we suspect every questioning of the fitnesse of any royall command How should we curse The mountains of Gilboa every thing that contributed though never so little to the ruine of that Beauty of Israel How should we be jealous of our selves how should we fear the jealousies of our Superiours while we foster those opinions of whose creeping venome we have had such lamentable experience But why so much fondness for Absalom Why must we be tempted to say like Joab you declare that you regard neither Prince nor People For we perceive that if your covenant had been brought in and the King kept out it had pleased you well What so great necessity of establishing the new and destroying the old Government What do you fear Popery This is that we crave that you would renounce those principles which are no lesse propetly Popish then perniciously Anti-christian What age what Nation not onely of the Christian but universall world ever denied the power of the Civil Magistrate in Ecclesiastical affairs untill the ambition or the Popes wrested it from the Emperors who were they that refused the doctrine and Oath of Supremacy when first imposed in England and ever since Is it thus that you make your selves Antipodes to the Jesuites that you may carry your faces opposite wayes and dwell in the same longitude and latitude from truth and charity Is it thus you run from one another only as Sampson's foxes did with countenances seperate and tayls united in those fiery doctrines to which the Church of Christ oweth all her combustions Believe it those Plebaeian doctrines of purgatory Indulgences Dirges c. which onely pick Purses are not so properly and fundamentally Popish as those Jesuitish principles