court the Continent for self-preservation where they must provide for a rainy-day And what is become of all our Gold I know not unless it hath travell'd too XIV Another means to overthrow England Campanella thinks is to set them and the Dutch together by the Ears The fulfilling of which is fresh in every ones memory XV. After all Campanella's pumping to undo England and root out the Protestant Religion he can imagine no way more conducible to such ends then the reducing of that Kingdom into a Common-wealth Of which Observation there needs no Remarks but Experience not yet forgot CHAP. V. The Original of the Commons in Parliament That the Clergy is one of the Three Estates and the King Supream above all WHen I find God himself calling Rebellion the sin of Witchcraft for me to speak against it by endeavouring to aggravate the Iniquity would be to as small purpose to an Ingenious man as the pains and expences of Calvisius Sabinus to attain to the height of Learning since his memory was so weak that it could scarce retain the Names of Ulysses Achilles and Priamus Yet were it neerer allyed to Hell then it is it would not want both daring and knowing Patrons which doth something mitigate my admiration when I consider what Paper Time besides too much Bloud hath been spent by some men of late dayes to Apologize for the greatest Wickedness and thereby to strengthen themselves through their Actions in the Peoples Affections These though they had the worst Plea yet came off with the best Success by which they clamourously declared the Justness of their Cause hinting to the Royalists that it was owned by a Supernatural Power But Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him ne're gain applause That from th' event states th' goodness of the cause And how Orthodox such Arguments are is obvious if we do but consider the often prosperity of the wicked who are sometimes permitted to conquer more for a scourge to others than any justness in themselves And I dare be confident in our case it holds the unlawfulness of these late domestick Commotions being rightly more appropriated to the Parliament than his Majesty as in it's due place shall be shewn But first to make the way more plain and easie to those who call themselves the weak Brethren the first fomenters of this Rebellion we shall in brief consider the Antiquity Subordination and Priviledges of Parliaments as they now stand whereby it is plain they had no power given them thus to raise Wars against and imprison much less behead their Soveraign For what I here speak is intended chiefly against the Long-Parliament The most ancient Government in this Island that Records can instruct us of is Monarchy and that in its Antiquity the most absolute the higher we go finding our Kings more free and powerful That reciprocal Compact between King and People so much boasted of by our Common-wealths-men and others being but a meer dream and Chamaera as that great Soul of Reason and Divinity the Reverend Bishop Sanderson hath compendiously and fully evinced That the ancient Kings of this Island had Meetings for Consultations reason prompts me to believe though I do not remember after what certain fashion yet since Christianity was setled here the Kings used to imploy the Archbishops Bishops and Nobility by way of Advice and Counsel Ethelbert the famous King of our Kentish Saxons being converted unto the Christian Faith about the year 596. some nine years after viz. 605. summons a Council in which were not only the Laity but the Clergy also After which time the Reverend Archbishops and Bishops have sat as a part of those grand Meetings till the late Exclusion by the Long-Parliament as the well-read Dr. Heylin who though under a great decay of sight sees more than a whole Nation of Presbytery hath sufficiently asserted These Lords Spiritual and Temporal were the only Parliament known to former Kings and so but one House However sometimes upon great concerns the King would when himself best pleas'd have some of the Commoners joyned with them but then they were not as now elected but particularly chosen according to the Kings desire and these were of more than ordinary savour and discretion and therefore call'd Wise-men The first time that in History we can meet with a Parliament consisting of the Clergy Nobility and Commons is in King Henry the firsts dayes at Salisbury Anno 1116. and so the Clergy were 500. years before the Commons in Parliaments But why this King should be the first that threw this favour so generally upon the Commons was as some are pleas'd to affirm grounded upon his own Usurpation For he being but the younger Son of William the Conquerour following the President of William Rufus seized upon the Crown in the absence of his eldest Brother Robert and afterwards most cruelly put out his eyes This they say moved many Discontents amongst the Nobility against whom to strengthen himself he thought it best to pleasure the Commons which was done by calling them to this Parliament at Salisbury whereby his Usurpation became more formidable against his Enemies But though the Commons were call'd to Counsel at this time if at this time since Prynne denyeth it yet were they not thereby made or esteem'd necessary since in several Kings raigns successively after Parliaments were held as Prynne their chief Patron doth acknowledge consisting only of the Spiritual and Temporal Barons And when afterwards they did really sit is as uncertain as after what manner or when they had their first Speaker The first by that Title upon Record being Sir Thomas Hungerford Anno 1376. though the year before John Stow calls Sir Peter de la More their Prolocutor And before these two but three viz. Petrus de Mountford Scroope and Sir William Trussel the first of these viz. Mountford being in the 44 th year of Henry III. that are known are supposed to officiate as Speakers for in what nature they were of is not yet known though for certain if the Commons sat by themselves they could not want some such like Officer It being many years afterwards viz. Anno 1401. that the King Henry IV. required the Commons to choose a Speaker before which time no such Command being recorded Thus we see the small Antiquity of Parliaments as they now stand with us representing the three Estates the Clergy Nobility and Commons This I write to shew how strangely confident the Commons were of late dayes who if you will believe Prynne one of themselves had really no such Power and Judicatureship as they did in the least pretend to Nor would I be thought in this or any thing in the sequent Discourse to invalid the true and real Authority of Parliaments or to lessen the Credit of the Commons House holding it now to be an Essential part of Parliament but yet not so much as some of
into their hands i. e. The opposite and malignant Party of Papists Prelats and others the sons of defection and contention their adherents and suffer our selves to be cut off and massacred by such bloody and barbarous cruelty as they have executed this time past in Ireland and England There is a necessity of taking of Armes for mutual defence In this case it is most necessary that every one against all doubting be perswaded in his mind of the lawfulness of this undertaking and of the goodness of the cause maintain'd by him To assist our Brethren in England who are calling for our help and are shedding their blood in defence of that Power without which Religion can neither be defended nor reformed nor unity of Religion with us and other Reformed Kirks be attained To whom of old and of late we have made Promises of the real Declarations of all Christian duty and thankfulness and who upon our desires and their endeavours for unity in Religion have often warn'd us that the Malignant Party would bend all their invention and forces to interrupt the work and to ruin and destroy them in the undertaking of it which we see this day come to pass The Question is no sooner rightly stated but it is soon resolved the Lord save us from the Curse of Meroz who came not to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty when we look upon the cause which they maintain the Prayers Tears and Blood which they have poured forth and the insolencies and the blasphemies of the enemies we cannot doubt but inlargement and deliverance shall arise unto England God forbid and be it far from us to sit down at ease on this side of Jordan till our Brethren be possessed in the Liberties of the Kingdome of Christ. And this Seditious canting-language they second in another of their Declarations to the same purpose Unless we can which God forbid blot out of our thoughts the sense of piety and Religion toward God of honour and duty towards our Soveraign and of gratitude toward the Parliament and Kingdome of England we can in no wise resist our present call to this Expedition Very pretty that their duty to their King should oblige them to fight against him and his Authority But the people of this Gang are very much given to make Bulls and Non-sense This is not unlike to our Long-Parliament who thus very gravely Ordered To the intent that his Majesties Revenue might no more be mis-applyed and that the same may be imploy'd for the good of his Majesty and the Common-wealth The Lords and Commons therefore do Ordain That all his Majesties the Queens and Princes Revenue shall be seized upon But what if I should tell you that some of these Diegos can affirm for their excuse that they were bound by the Oath of Allegiance to take the Parliaments part against the King would you not think that the price of Oaths is faln very low Well if you will enquire of old Master Thomas Hall the Parson of Kings-Norton he can tell you what is the opinion of him and others in this case He is a notable Champion against May-poles and will give you aboundance of arguments to prove that they are the Devils Angle-rods which being well baited with Holy-sisters is the onely way to catch Puritans as an old woman told a zealous Grandee but enough of his precise and simple Objections of which I may say as the famous Selden said of some old fashioned Rhimes You may read them and then laugh at them If their Allegiance obliged them to fight against the King they may well suppose that by the Covenant they were bound to cut him off by the Article of bringing Malignants to punishent and what may be the sequel of such assertions I hope our Superiours will consider And what do you think of another swash-buckler of this Tribe who assures the world that the English had as much cause to rejoyce for their Conquests over his Majesty as the Israelites for their deliverance from wicked Pharaoh and his Egyptians And this use of Exhortation the better to advantage the memory of the whining Sisterhood he coughs out in as good Dogril Rhime as ever John Cotton or Vavasor Powel were guilty of a tast of whose hatred to the King's Party you may see in these following Sing praise sing praise unto Jehova high For he hath Tryumphed most gloriously O're all our foes The Horse and Rider He Hath tumbled down to deepest misery Yea all the rotten-rout of Romanists Papists and Prelates Atheists Royallists And Mad-Malignants void of grace or sence To whom God now hath made just recompence Why he should distinguish betwixt Royalists and Malignants I know not though I might very well and I am as ignorant what difference he finds betwixt a Romanist and a Papist unless all this be with the fellow in the Play to make up Meeter And who must this boaster be but the furious John Vicars one that hated all people that loved obedience as the Devil doth Holy water and could out-scold the boldest face at Billings-gate if Kings Bishops Organs or May-pole were to be the objects of their zealous indignation of which I shall give you but one tast to wit against his Sacred Majesty The King's Letter full indeed of much EVIL and Demonstration of no Change of heart from his former BLOODY CRUEL and UNKINGLY PRACTISES of the RUINE of Himself and His Kingdomes as much as in Him lay Is this fit to be Printed for the information of the people and yet Ja. Cranford thought it very fitting Was is convenient to dedicate such stuff as this to Almighty God yet the Author thought nothing more Would any man call this a fair and famous History yet Vicars himself could give it that Encomium Or could any imagine that such a Rayler against the King and Church should even the other day deserve the Title of The Worthy Patriot of his Countrey and yet so is he honoured but by whom Edward Thomas Mr. Pryn's Bookseller can better inform you than my self The truth of it is this man's Histories only look like a Company of Thanks-giving Sermons stitch'd up together as Georgius Hornius well Characteriz'd them Yet must I needs say that of all men that pretended to deep Learning and good History this Hornius of Strangers is the most partial in his short Story of our late English Wars which makes me somewhat mistrust the mans Principles seeing at his being then in England he might have more exactly informed himself if Interest had not sway'd him But I hope his History of the Scottish Rebellion and the beginning of the English when it is printed will be more Ingenuous or else I shall desire him to acquaint himself with his friend Monsieur de Parival or the two Italians Priorato and Bisaccione and other Forraigners who are more impartial I need not tell you how the Presbyterian
to acquaint the Committee of both Kingd at London that a course might be taken by the joint advice of both Kingdomes for attaining the just ends exprest in the Solemn League and Covenant And to the same purpose but with abundance of railing against the King the year before did the General Assembly of the Scotish Kirk Mr. Robert Dowglass being Moderator expresse themselves to his Majesty And in this humour of conditional and malepert capitulating Subjects they continue nay even when people might perceive the Army bent against Monarchy or at least the Royal Family of the Stuarts For thus they endeavour to make people believe that the King cannot be truly King indeed unlesse he humbly give satisfaction to his covenanting people We leave it to be pondered by your Lordships whether they that obstruct and hinder the requiring of satisfaction and security from his Majesty in point of Religion before his Restitution to the exercise of his Royal Power do not upon the matter and consequence obstruct and hinder his Majesties deliverance and restitution whereof such security and assurance had from his Majesty might be a powerful and effectual means And a little after more fully declare themselves thus This Restitution of his Majesty to the exercise of his Royall Power before security had from Him for setling Religion your Lordships know by our eight desires and otherwaies is conceived by us to be inconsistent with the safety and security of Religion the bringing of his Majesty to some of his houses in or neer London before satisfaction and security had from him in point of Religion and in such other things as are necessary for the safety of the Kingdomes could not as we conceive but be an exceeding great discouragement and offence to the Presbyterianins England who will conceive that the Remedy is worse then the disease seeing your Lordships are obliged by the third Article of the Covenant to defend his Majesties person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdomes We conceive your Lordships should not demand from nor presse upon the Kingdome of England his Majesties Restitution with freedome and honour and safety except with that qualification in the Covenant and with a subordination to Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdomes And if all these things should come to passe then the Kirkers cry out that all is undone and so they leave it to judgment Whether his Majesty shall not be restored to his honour before Jesus Christ be restored to his honour and set upon his Throne of Government in his Church Whether his Majesty shall not be in a condition of liberty before the Ordinances of Christ have a free course And is this to endeavour the setling of Religion before all worldly interests Or rather to make it come after the Kings interest And If his Majesty may be restored with honour freedome and safety before such satisfaction had from Him we fear it shall lye as a great scandal upon this Kingdome And a little after they plainly subject his Majesty to their wills in the interpretation of the Covenant Whatsoever we owe to the King in civill matters distinct from the cause of Religion sure all these other duties are with a subordination to the glory of God and the good of Religion And we are very confident that it was and will be farre from the thoughts of the General Assembly under colour of his Majesties Honour to concurre with him or any in his Name in a cause which is hurtful and prejudicial to the good of Religion and to the other ends of the Solemn League and Covenant Yet this way of diffience and standing off with their Soveraign Mr. Robert Beyley wonders that any body should call a Fault As if these men have the priviledg to secure the person of the King when they please and then deny him either Authority or Liberty till he ask them forgiveness and give them satisfaction for his thinking much to be made a slave to their fancies Upon such like expressions as these a Parliamentarian makes this observation If the Scots Commissioners did plainly affirm to the Committees of both Houses at the Conference that they could not admit of the Kings presence in Scotland because of the divisions and troubles of that Kingdome which he might make such use of as to raise forces both against them and us What could this imply but that notwithstanding his person might be in safety in Scotland yet Scotland could not be in safety whilst his person was there And if they positively affirm it on their part may not we make a question of it on ours Thus both parties catch at what pretences they can to exclude the King from both his Kingdomes As they did with the Father so did they continue to act villany with the Son concerning which I shall give you the words of that great Mattyr of Loyalty the Noble and Valiant Marquesse of Montross And so little are these Godly and Religious men toucht with any sense of what mischieves they have already done That they begin afresh with his Majesty Our now Gracious Soveraign upon the same score where they left with his Father of ever blessed memory They declare him indeed to be their King but with such conditions and provisoes as robb him of all Right and Power For while they pretend to give him a little which he must accept as from them they spoil him of all that Power and Authority which the Law of God of Nature and of the Land hath invested him with by so long continued descent from his famous Predecessors They press him to join with those who by a Sacrilegious Covenant have confederated all his dominions in Rebellion and laid all Royall Power in the Dust Which in effect were nothing better then that he himself should asperse with Insamy the sacred memory of his ever Glorious Father that he should with his own hands destroy himself and ruine all such who have still been Loyall to him in his three Kingdoms These are the men who first entring England sollicited those of their faction to rise in that desperate Rebellion as a Prologue to the ensuing Tragedie which they meant to act These are they who were the chief and main Instruments of all the Battails Slaughters and Bloody occasions within that of their own Kingdome These are they who sold their Soveraign to a bloody and infamous Death yea these are they who still digg in his Grave and who are more pernitiously hatching the Destruction of his present Majesty by the same bare old antiquated Treacheries then ever they did that of his most excellent and most innocent Father Except he would subscribe to their fancies they would not allow him to be their King nor come amongst them which is confess'd by the Estates of Scotland themselves Scotland is desirous to imbrace him upon grant of their just desires and are most
upon the wicked CHAP. VI. Some short Observations upon their Covenant AN understanding Gentleman assures us that A league amongst Subjects giveth law to a King breaks all bonds of Soveraignty and invites a people to seek for a New Maister And this dear-bought experience hath prov'd true to both Nations yet were the events of these Agreements more mischievous they would be courted by the seditious thinking such pieces of Perjury to be the best works of their Holy-days Since the reformation this mode of swearing against Authority hath been commonly practis'd in Scotland In their first Covenant 3 Decemb 1557. An Earl of Argile was the first subscriber and chief promoter and how active an Earl of Argile hath been in our days about such wickednesse need not here be related but I hope as the other was the first so this shall be the last Yet in this way hath the English been as faulty as the worst of them though I believe at first drol'd in by their Neighbours For when at the beginning of the Warres the English Commissioners went from the Parliament into Scotland to desire their assistance against the King and having addres'd themselvs to the Scotch Assembly delivering them a letter subscribed by some Presbyterian Ministers in which they complaind that their blood was shed like water upon the grouud for defence of the Protestant Religion they receiv'd a negative answer The Assembly telling them amongst other things That you cannot say you fight for the Reform'd Religion since you have not begun to reform your Church ye had thriven better if you had don as we did Begun at the Church and thereafter striven to have gotten the civil sanction to what ye had don in the Church A few days after Sir W. Ermin Mr. Hamden and the rest of the Commissioners were invited by some of their friends to make a new Address to the Assembly which they did the second time desiring a gracious Answer Upon this request the Assembly propounded to them this Will ye join in Covenant with us to reform Doctrine and Discipline conform to this of Scotland and ye shall have a better Answer Sir W. Ermin and the rest answered that they had not that in their Instructions but thank'd the Assembly and said they would represent it to the Parliament of England The Assembly replyd that there would be much time loosed ere they could go to the Parliament for their resolutions and thereafter to return to Scotland to draw up a Solemn League and COVENANT The danger was great and they were not able to resist the King But we shall draw up the Covenant here and send up with you some Noble men Gentlemen and Ministers that shall see it subscrib'd which accordingly was don only two or three words altered Thus was this spurious Wretch illegally begotten and brought forth by unlawful Parents by the Scots worship'd and ador'd as the only Idol fit to bless their undertakings and by their Brothers in mischief the English Long Parliament embraced who peremptorily enjoyn all people to swear Allegiance to it as their only supream Law and authentick Shibuleth to distinguish Treason from Loyalty Though what authority they had to impose such an Oath being against the Command both of King and Law must be left for Mr. Prynne to discover in some Terra incognita since we have no such custome amongst us Yet for all this Mr. Simeon Ash had the confidence in the Pulpit to wonder that any man should think that the Covenant was made here only to bring in the Scots when the Presbyterian Parliament and party was low in England Having thus seen the Birth of this Monster it might quickly be desected and the poison and mischief lodg'd in it might evidently be manifested to the whole world but that it hath formerly been don by more able pens However it cannot but seem strange to any that these men should swear to extirpate the Government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops c. which have been confirmd by 32 Acts of Parliament And they could never yet tell who made them Rulers over Israel and gave them power to such actions quite contrary to Magna Charta the laws of the Land and the Kings express command The first two are known to any one who hath heard any thing of the laws of the land and the latter is as true Yet because I have heard some deny and others question its truth I shall give you his Majesties own Proclamation against it 1643. By the KING His Majesties Proclamation forbidding the Tendering or taking of a late Covenant called a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation c. WHEREAS there is a Printed paper intituled a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religin The honour and happinesse of the King and the peace and safety of the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be Ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the twenty first day of September last to be Printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in Truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against us and against the Established Religion and Laws of this Kingdome in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and endeavour to bring in Forraign Force to invade this Kingdome We do therefore straightly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects of what Degree of Quality soever Upon their Allegiance That they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby Forbid and Inhibit all Our Subjects to Impose Administer or Tender the said Covenant as they and every one of them will answer to the Contrary at their Utmost and Extremest Perils Given at our Court at Oxford this Ninth day of October in the Nineteenth year of our Raign GOD SAVE THE KING Than this what could be more plain and authentick yet a furious Presbyterian is pleas'd to tearm this action of the King Satanical slander and abuse a most impious and audacious Paper Atheistical boldness Impious and Platonical pleasure c. Besides the unlawfulness of its making and Imposition the qualities and conditions of the Brat were so impious that an honest man could never take it for several reasons amongst many other take these two or three 1. § They swear to extirpate Popery without respect of persons In which they might be ask'd What they would do with the Queen If they forced her Religion 't was Treason If they did not they are perjur'd 2. § This Oath makes them to be but Conditional Subjects swearing to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom before the King or his Authority few of the takers understanding any of these things by which means they swore they knew not what And that this Oath obligeth them to be but conditional Subjects is plain they swearing To preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority
they are delivered to us by Adam Contzenus a deep observing Jesuite which our late English Law-choppers have observed to a hair as is obvious by the sequent Rules I. The Intent of the Calvinists in altering Religion in the Palatinate by extirpating the Lutherans was conceal'd lest the vulgar having knowledge of it should tumultuate After this manner were the Orthodox Divines in England weakened The Presbyterians at their Initiation into this Kingdom not going openly like honest men but skulking up and down to private Conventicles which they call'd Synods or Assemblies according to the directions of their great Mustaphi's such as Cartwright Snape Gibby Travers Gillebrand Whittington Goodman c. But having once increast the number of their Disciples into a formidable body took the impudence to affront King Queen Laws and all their Superiours Nor of all these many Opinions we have had two pregnant and powerful amongst us few were observed how they took root till like Cadmus his Souldiers they shew'd themselves so potent that they might scorn a resistance Nor could we dream of any intentions lurking in the breasts of our pretended Potentates tending any way to the introducing of a motley-Babylonick Herd of Religions since Prelacy was murdered out by a drove of Villains seeing they so solemnly protested against any such endeavour as you may see by these following words And we do here declare that it is farr from our purpose or desire to let loose the Golden Reyns of Discipline and Government in the Church to leave private persons or particular Congregations to take up what Form of Divine Service they please For we hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realm a conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyn according to the Word of God This Protestation is something serious But alas it may be they looking upon themselves as our Lords and Masters Dissimulation is a thing permitted them by a French States-man though I believe in equality they are more our Neighbours and so could not demand the same priviledge granted by de Marnix to Kings What they meant by the Laws of the Land I know not but it is certain they favour'd Episcopacy more than any other Government And it is as true what the old Poet sung 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whilst we are rul'd by wilful power and might Laws cannot do so much as do us right And what validity can we expect in a Declaration from those who can swallow down Oaths with more content and celerity than Lazarello de Tormes could a Saucidge or a little Sack Who look upon Allegiance to others as a nicety of State yet make it Treason if not observed to themselves But if our own Laws cannot be in force I wish the Aegyptians might who held perjury a double offence against God and Man and so rewarded the guilty with death II. Some more craftily suborned humbly to petition the Prince though he earnestly long'd for the change himself and so possibly might prompt them to it that the Exercise of their Religion might be granted None can be ignorant of the same manner of Jugling in England for these many years last past in so much that we have had scarce any Petition concerning Religion or the Change of Government but what trucking collogueing and running about to get peoples hands to it most of them being either Servants or such mean Handy-craft-men that want brains to apprehend either the advantage or damage of any Publick concern but are driven on with such hasty fury that nothing can satisfie them but a present performance though with as much ignorance and envy as those who rail'd against the Innocent Aristides because he was too just and honest to live amongst such wretches Of this manner of cheating up Petitions the famous Dr. Hammond takes special notice And that great Prop of Learning the late Arch-bishop of Canterbury gave a large hint in his Speech upon the Scaffold in these words Here hath been of late a fashion taken up to gather hands and then to go to the great Court of this Kingdom the Parliament and clamour for Justice as if that great and wise Court before whom the causes come which are unknown to the many could not or would not do justice but at their appointment A way which may endanger many an Innocent man and pluck his bloud upon their own heads and perhaps upon the Cities also And this hath been lately practised against my self the Magistrates standing still and suffering them openly to proceed from Parish without check many well-meaning people are caught by it Of this clandestine way of Jugling up Petitions several Counties did publickly complain about the beginning of these Wars to the Parliament in their Petitions for Episcopacy but to small purpose the Members resolving to break the Laws did not like that which would confirm them This way of begging was used above a dozen years ago by some Privado's in the County of Buckingham Essex Oxford and Barks to decide and lessen the Parliament and promote an Independent Army and Faction against them And thus as it was thought did the well-known Committee of Derby-house imploy Col. Rainsborough to go up and down and solicit the common sort of Marriners to subscribe and present the House of Commons with a Petition against a Personal Treaty with the King which other places Petitioned for And to make them more complying gave 12 d. a piece to those who would subscribe it And this way of hudling up requests was used by those Bloud-thirsty Canabals for the bringing of his Majesty and others to the Block In this Art of State-craft Oliver Cromwell was excellently well seen and made it one of his main blinds to deceive an easie believing multitude which he thought both lawful and commendable in himself but when once raised to a Protector thought it little less then Treason in others greatly complaining of such actions to his mock-Parliament Thus the Priest forgets that ever he was Clerk every man thinking himself in the right and so did the three poor Nuns of Mergate when they drew up their Innocent Petition as here followeth by the By though now converted to a wrong sense We thre poor Nuns of Mergate Piteously compleineth to your gud Estate Of one Sir Johnne of Whipesuade Who hath stopped our Water-gate With two Stons and a Stake Help us Lord for Cryst hys sake These poor women through their simplicity dream'd of nothing but what was honest desired nothing but what was just a reparation of their wrongs being the only thing they aimed at not like our self-ended Time-servers who from the Noddles of three or four like a Multiplying-Glass can produce you many thousands Thus five or six in Decemb 1653. when Oliver was scarce warm in his Protectorship to make his footing the more sure drew up an Address to him and sent it through the three Kingdoms as a pattern for
of the Earl of Manchester In which two Universities there was a thorough Purge to the perpetual reproach and ignominy of the Undertakers many famous and learned Doctors Heads of Houses Masters of Arts and others were turned out of their Fellowships and Colledges because they would not submit to that which was contrary to their Oaths and the Priviledges of both places imposed upon them by those who had no more authority in such things than they had to behead or rebel against their Master IX Contzenus saith these Revolutions must be done moderately and with abundance of cunning the first step being to make the followers and abetters of the contrary Opinion odious and as it were a scorn in the Countrey and this by disgracing them especially with things which seem most ridiculous absurd and hate ful to the common people either by nick-naming or any way else The scandalous Reports and Pamphlets thrown against both King and Bishop as Popish though they thought nothing less may be some sign what good use hath been made of Contzen's Observation What disgrace cast upon the decent Habits of Church and University though the first according to the Canons and the other appointed by the Statutes of the place What unseemly Titles given to Organs as Bag-pipes and what irreverent names to Churches as Steeple-houses How were the Clergy nick-named with the title of Hirelings Humane Learning as Heathenish and Scholars as professing enmity against the Gospel How Cromwel's Faction spread abroad Pamphlets against King City and Parliament 1647. that the people might take the Army for honest men is somewhat pointed at by Mr. Walker And since that What scurrilous Books hath been contrived by Needham Goodwin Milton Rogers and such like Billingsgate Authors is not unknown to to any Nor is it forgot what impertinent Reports the Long-Parliament spread amongst the People to make the King odious as that he was a Favourite to the Catholicks and those call'd Arminians which sufficiently demonstrated a Presbyterian malice since the first was false and the other no crime And this must also be laid in the dish of Archbishop Laud though Prynne and they knew that he wrote more against the Romanists than all our Brittain Presbyterians who have spent more time in the commendation of Rebellion than in the Service of God And certainly I may as well call Prynne a Stage-Player for writing his Histriomastix as he the Archbishop Papistical because he wrote so learnedly against them And as if this were not mischief enough the People must now and then be alarum'd with strange Reports of Forces from Denmark Lorraign and other strange places as if the Nation were to be conquer'd and the Natifs throats cut which if we yield yet will the ignominy only fall upon the Presbyterian Party who by their want of Allegiance would bring the King to such straits that his own Subjects were not able to defend him from their Tyranny They thought it fit for us to send aid into the Palatinate and yet unlawful for Denmark to assist his own Kinsman against his Rebellious Subjects It was convenient they thought to give help to the French against their lawful King yet held it abominable for Forraigners to give a good wish to the King of England against his rebellious people The Covenanters in Scotland might with honesty crave aid from the French King though a Roman-Catholick against their Anointed Soveraign But so must not the King of England from the Duke of Lorraign though his life endangered by his bloud-thirsty Subjects The Parliament forsooth may make a Pacification with the Irish Catholicks but the King must not harbour such a thought without grand aspersions If the King but march towards Scotland the malignity of envious tongues endeavours to blast his Reputation as not fit to wear the Crown But many thousands of the Scotch-Covenanters may come into England fight against their King kill his faithful Subjects and inrich themselves by their plundering and stealing from the honest People and for their villainies receive large rewards with the Epithet of Brethren and so they were but in Iniquity being guilty of High-Treason because marched and acted against the Kings consent who is the Supreme Authority of the three Nations And that the Supream Head may when rebell'd against for his own security and defence desire help of his Neighbours though of a different perswasion in Religion I think needs no dispute He that would lose his Kingdom quietly is as simple as the Rebel 's wicked and if his own Sword be not long enough for the tryal he may lawfully borrow his Friends If the Parliament stood so much upon their Priviledges I know no reason but that the King might maintain his Prerogative and if any Contradiction be betwixt these two they are obliged to yield to their betters Nor doth it thwart the practise of former times for the Supream Authority to desire assistance from people of a contrary Religion as may be seen by the following examples as I find them set down to my hand in a late French Treatise Aza the good King of Judaea procured assistance from Benhadad the Idolatrous King Syria And so did the Great Constantine imploy in his Armies many Heathenish Goths So were the wicked Vandals call'd into Africa by good Boniface And after this manner did Narses under the Emperour Justinian imploy the Pagan Lombards The good Arcadius Emperour of Constantinople though a Christian delivered the tuition of his young son Theodosius and the Government of the Empire till his Son came to age into the hands of Isdigerdis King of Persia a Heathen who accordingly kept his promise with the Emperour Heraclius the Emperour was beholden to the Saracens as Basilius and Constantine's sons to John Emperour of Constantinople were to Ostelzi And by these people were also Henry and Frederick Brothers to the King of Castile mainly benefited in their Wars against the French Ludouick Sforza Duke of Milan and others begg'd assistance from the Turk against the French as Maximilian of Austria did against the Venetians And if it be lawful to procure aid from Heathens certainly a Christian may seek help from those who profess Jesus Christ though in every thing they cannot absolutely agree But enough of this since the Presbyterian commits ten times more sin in Rebelling than the wickedst man can do in defending his own right though by the assistance of Turks and Infidels X. What a great stickler Robert Parsons the Jesuite was to overthrow both England and the Protestant Religion in it is well known the great States-man Cardinal D'Ossat taketh notice several times of his designs against these Kingdoms Some of his Plots and Contrivances shall follow as they were publisht by some Roman Catholicks One of his means is to alter the Municipal Laws of the Land that the Civil Laws might have sway 'T is needless to relate how the Laws have been chopped and changed by diversity of Governments not
trouble of a journy thither yet not without some notable observators No sooner he being departed but our Parliament ordering some members to go also into Scotland in notion of a Committee to inform them of all passages in Scotland Yet when the King went into Scotland the Parliament adjourn'd though appointed a Committee of the Commons consisting of 50 of and over which Mr. Pym was the chief Lord and Maister of mis-rule and him I find nominated at the very beginning of this Parliament with the Emphasis of the great parliament man And the truth of it is that he was so farre the dominus fac totum in this juncto that his words were laws all things being acted according to his desire Here many things of Church matters were by these Gentlemen purely innovated and then prosecuted with such violence that the Episcopal clergy durst not gainsay him as Dr. Fuller Mr. Hutton Mr. Fletcher and others of St. Giles Cripplegate Mr. Booth the Minister of St. Botolphs Aldersgate Dr. Heywood of St. Giles the Ministers of St. George Southwark of Margarets new Fish-street c. could very well testifie by experience Although the house of Lords would not consent in these things to join with the Commons yet did they so farre supinely wink at the others actions that their Authority was now so much intrench'd upon by the Commons that their priviledges slipt from them unperceived though without all question the presbyterian party both understood and smiled at such proceedings About this time there was a great deal of noise and clamour about a Letter forsooth against Mr. Pym with I know not what plaister in it and written God wot when and delivered by no body knows whom but a Gentleman forsooth in a gray-coat on horseback and great searching and inquiring for this man in the moon was made but all to as little purpose as the Northwest passage or the philosophers stone And many times hath it been printed and spread abroad to let the good people see the wickedness forsooth of Malignants and with such chaffe as this have many of our old fools been taken Yet when that impudent Libel stuft with as much malice as either this letter or hell could afford was vented against that great prop of learning the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Laud no notice was in the least wise taken of it nor did he himself any thing regard it though it thus threatned his destruction Laud look to thy self be assured thy life is sought as thou art the fountain of wickedness Repent of thy monstrous sins before thou be taken out of the World c. And assure thy self neither God nor the world can endure such a vile Councellor or Whisperer to live Than this what more implacable destructive and abominable considering his nearness to the Kings person his trust and beneficial endeavours for the publick good Yet had he been better or if I may say here the best and the designes against him more devilish yet would our Non-conformists have hug'd and blest themselves at this opposition had it been as after malicious experience proved to his ruine and all this because he was an absolute opposer of the Presbyterian innovations who though but of a very little body yet had a soul more large and vast for the good of Church and Literature then a whole Parliament of Disciplinarians But let us now think of his Majesties return from Scotland in whose absence some of the Parliament had rais'd large reports of strange and terrible plots and designs against John an Oaks and John a Stiles by which means many people were endeavour'd to be whisper'd into dissatisfaction of the King and such a jealousie was grown by the noise of this Chimaera that many did according as they were bid think that things were not then well carryed and this was cunningly aimed at the King and his Favourites by those who had their Coy-ducks in such obedience that their Commands was not unlike that of Madam Fame to Aeolus in our ingenious Chaucer Bring eke his other claviown That hight Sclaunder in every Towne With which he wont is to diffame Hem that me lyst and do * hem shame But these Alarums served the Parliaments turn being a Cloak under which they might deceive the People in their pretences for raising a Guard the which they did and it may be to defend them from a Pedicularie disease of which possibly they saw some symptoms then in the House Of these Romantick Jealousies Frights Alarums and unheard of Plots and Designs his Majesty tells the Parliament and of the evil consequences of such slanders in his first Speech to them after his return from Scotland And in his next earnestly desires them to prosecute the Irish affairs and perceiving them considering about pressing of Souldiers with a check at his Prerogative He desires that the bounds of his ancient and undoubted Authority might not then fall into debate however that it may pass with a Salvo jure he is willing rather then such disputes should take up time in such an hour of extreamity for whilest the Grass groweth the Horse may sterve Upon this they clamour against his Majesties dealings professing the Priviledges of Parliament were broken by these his Exceptions for which they demand satisfaction and earnestly desire his Majesty not only to declare the names of but also to deliver up to punishment those persons who had given such counsel Nor was this mode of dealing one of their least Plots upon all occasions desiring the King to betray his faithful Counsellors by that means not only to leave him naked but to the discretion of the Houses But these things carryed no great shew of unhandsomness though like the Apples of Sodem beautiful without yet stuft with filthiness in respect of their after Thunder-claps which like Brutus shew'd their malice in their fronts For the next day after their Petition they welcome him home with a Remonstrance as they call it in which maliciously they endeavour to rip up all the faults and none is good but God of his Majesties Raign and that in as civil a way as their zeal could allow them as you may see in the Paper it self for in it through his actions they tax him with Cruelty Injustice Oppression Violence and what not They out-braid him for putting forth untrue scandalous false and impudent Declarations in it they highly commend the Schismatical Non-conformists blaming the King for punishing them Nor is this all but the Scotch Invasion of England too is extoll'd and defended and the King scandalized as if he endeavoured to root out the true Religion and bring in Popery nor are they silent against the Bishops and their Orthodox Divines by which it is plain the Presbyterian ruled the Parliament nor must the Innocent Ceremonies and forsooth Superstition escape a scouring And yet in this very same mogende-Paper they confess they must acknowledge that his Majesty hath
onely approve of but also protect thereby gaining infinite Proselytes as the Devil in the Northern Coasts doth his subjects by making them invulnerable And these they feed up and nourish with strange fears more fantastical then Lazarellos when he thought the dead man would be carried to his Master's house strongly fomented and agitated by unheard of Plots set a foot to destroy Religion and Nation like the Roterdam-ship which would kill the English under water and all this upon worsegrounds and reasons then the influence of a Talisman Though nothing was more false and impudent then these pretended dangers yet what by the authority and countenance of those Grandees who patronized such rumours and what by the power which the Tubthumping boute-feus had over the peoples inclinations and judgments whereby the Pulpit became the worst thing in the Nation many had not onely a bad opinion of the King but thought very well of the Parliament who in all their actions were far more sedulous then his Majesty but most of all as a hindg upon which themselves and designs hung in sending forth their papers to abuse the people by making the King's actions odious and their own for the best And of this they took special care not onely by appointing a Committee to consider of the most convenient way to disperse them and to give an allowance to their Messengers but also by taking care by Order that every Petty Constable or Tythingman throughout England shall have one of every one of their Orders Declarations c. and to read them publickly to their neighbours And how these flattering papers might work in the Country where they commonly believe all that is in Print is easily to be imagined considering that most of them heard but the reasons of one Party the Parliament taking a special care by Declaration that nothing which came from the King should be received or permitted to be read Whilst the Parliamentarian-papers flew plentiful about the Nation swoln with big praises of their worships the better to captivate the ignoranâ— people to their Lure who are naturally of themselves apt to gape after any novelty or change especially when any gain is like to be had by it as there was in this undertaking they knowing that Plundering would be permitted them and the Parliament assuring them that if they received any damage it should be repai'd them out of the estates of their enemies By these ways the Country was droled into an high conceit of the Parliament and nothing stuck with those of the more wise and honest sort but the word Treason which they knew they should incur by assisting the Parliament against the King But this doubt was presently wipt away in the opinion of many by the Parliaments distinction betwixt the Person and Office of a King as also by their daily protestations at the beginning of the Wars That they fought not against the King but against his wicked Council Of which Protestations in 1642. I shall give you a tast whereby you may the better distinguish between their tongues and hearts And first we shall give you the Vote by which the Army was first order'd to be rais'd which was thus Resolved upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised King's Person defence of both houses of Parliament and those who have obey'd their Orders and Commands and preserving of the true Religion the Laws Liberty and Peace of the Kingdome And to confirm the people in their intentions for the preservation of the King they thus profess and protest House of Commons your Loyal Subjects who are ready to lay down their lives and fortunes and spend the last drop of their bloud to maintain your Crown and Royal Person and greatness and glory And they pray your Majesty to rest assured that they will always be tender of your Honour and Reputation with your good Subjects We seek nothing but your Majesties Honour and Peace and the Prosperity of your Kingdomes Their earnest intentions and endeavours to advance your Majesties Service Honour and Contentment c. Do resolve to preserve and govern the Kingdome by the Counsel and Advice of the Parliament for your Majesty and your Posterity according to our Allegiance and the Law of the Land As if there could be a greater care in them the King's friends at York of his Majesties Royal Person then in his Parliament The services which we have been desirous to perform to our Soveraign Lord the King and to his Church and State in proceeding for the publick peace and prosperity of his Majesty and all his Realmes Within the presence of the same all-seeing Diety we Protest to have been and still to be the enely end of all our counsels and endeavours wherein we have Resolved to continue freed and enlarged from all private aimes personal respects or passion whatsoever Who in all their Counsels and Actions have proposed no other end unto themselves but the care of the Kingdomes and the performance of all Duty and Loyalty to his Person Your Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having nothing in their thoughts and desires more precious and of higher esteem next to the honour and immediate service of God then the just and faithful performance of their duty to your Majesty and this Kingdome We the Lords and Commons are resolved to expose our lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of true Religion the King's Person Honour and Estate Will really endeavour to make both his Majesty and Posterity as great rich and potent as much beloved at home and feared abroad as any Prince that ever sway'd this Scepter which is their firm and constant Resolution And you shall declare unto all men that it hath been and still shall be the care and endeavour of both Houses of Parliament to provide for his Majesties safety Concerning the Allegations that the Army rais'd by the Parliament is to Murther and depose the King we hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that profest but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a scandal especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every Member of both Houses whereby they promise in the Presence of Almighty God to defend his Majesties Person The Promise and Protestation made by the Members of both Houses upon the nomination of the Earl of Essex to be General and to live and dye with him wherein is exprest that the Army was rais'd for the Defence of the King's Person And we have always desired from our hearts and souls manifested in our Actions and in many humble Petitions and Remonstrances to his Majesty profest our Loyalty and Obedience to his Crown readiness and resolution to defend his person and support his Estate with our lives and fortunes to the uttermost of our power We
In the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms In which cases too themselves will be Judges so that the meaning is this as hath been proved before by several examples If the King will not obey the Covenant they are sworn not to obey nor defend the King 3. § By this Oath they commit absolute High Treason by nulling several Acts of Parliament made for the Preservation of the King and his friends For here they swear to bring to Publick Tryal to receive Condign Punishment the Kings best Subjects and Friends under the notion of Malignants whom they thus describe Evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion Dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant And that justice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof By this they quite overthrow all Government making Loyalty Treason and Rebellion the only sign of a good Subject And how severe they stick to this murthering Article you shall see by one passage In the year 1646. the Parliament remaining Conquerours many of the Loyal Party thought it fit to compound for their Estates better to have something than nothing Amongst those in the County of Chester who were put to this hardship were Mr. Richard Brereton of Ashley Mr. John Wilson and others This highly perplext the Committee then at Chester who therefore wrote several Letters to the Youths at Goldsmiths-Hall desiring them never to take such friends to the King into Composition and one of their great sticklers at Chester Mr. S. C. thus delivers the Opinion of himself and his friends about this business The Gentlemen here conceive they are bound in Conscience and by their late National Covenant to do their duty in their place to bring Delinquents to condign punishment Here they will have no mercy but stick close to their wicked Principles And this Oath must receive no Interpretation For if we endeavour but to mitigate it then some strange curse or other will tumble upon the Nation as Crofton not long since affirm'd His Sacred Majesty and the Kingdom must submit to the plain and literal sense thereof though it seem as sower Grapes unless we will by Gods wrath set our own and childrens Teeth on edge 4. § The Covenant if it were in force would be the cause and maintainer of Rebellion for ever for in it they also swear to assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof by which means they oblige themselves to all acts of hostility in its behalf though the King and Parliament as is now done should find reason for its nullity and 't is well known how oft they deny'd and defied their King upon this score O the Obedience and Charity of a Covenanter who like the wicked Jews combine together by Oath to kill those more holy than themselves needs must the malice of these men be so violent that they may be excus'd from saying the Lords-Prayer the very clause of forgiving their Enemies being enough to fright them into Dispair I wish I could say Repentance but that is a thing their zealous fury will not give them so much as leave to think on all of them hurryed on with that bloody rage as to cry out with that Levite in the Poet Blood Blood Blood destroy O Lord The Covenant-Breaker with a two-edg'd Sword Yet this Imp of wickedness the Brethren will not cast off The London-Ministers professing all the power on Earth cannot absolve them from it And Zach. Crofton keeps a great deal of clutter publickly affirming that it doth not only bind those who took it but those also who did not and that the Obligation of this Oath is for ever binding from Generation to Generation And in another of his flaunting Pamphlets he assureth the Reader That he doth and cannot but do it now contest for and assert the Solemn League and Covenant in that Religious part which must be promoted with out-most Zeal by all who wish well to the King and Kingdom though the Devil and his Instruments do endeavour to damp deaden and divert the discharge of duty And then afterwards tells them that Gods wrath will fall upon the King and Kingdom if Episcopacy be not extirpated and the Covenant observed to its literal sense and plain meaning And as they would thus continue it in fury so did they begin it as I have shew'd you before however I shall afford you one other piece of Canting confidence Mr. Andrew Cant the Father for the Son is now as bad in one of his Sermons at Glasgow told the Scots concerning their Covenant That he was sent to them with a Commission from Christ to bid them subscribe the Covenant which was Christ's contract and that he himself was come a Wooer to them for the Bridegroom and call'd upon them to come to be hand-fasted by subscribing that Contract And told them plainly That he would not depart the Town till he got the names of all who should refuse to subscribe that Contract of whom he promis'd to complain to his Master i. e. Christ As for the Obligation of the Covenant they themselves are sometimes forced to deny it unless they will make it a particular exception against all General Rules When the Scots in 1639. were a little troubled that Episcopacy was not absolutely abjured in their former Oaths which many thought binding to them The Covenanters thinking to take away that rub that all men might with more freeness embrace their Covenant declare publickly to the World that the swearer is neither obliged to the meaning of the prescriber of the Oath nor his own meaning but as the Authority shall afterwards interpret it and then by this Heathenish rule what will become of the binding force of the Covenant at this time Which is void also in the opinion of a great Presbyterian under the name of Theophilus Timorcus who thus shews himself Suppose that upon mature deliberation the Ministers that subscribed and took the Oath of Canonical Obedience find that it was an unlawful Oath or Subscription They are in such case only obliged to be humbled for their rash subscription and taking of that Oath and their second Oath against them will hold valid Now if they think this a sufficient salvo I shall only insert these four words Holy League and Covenant instead of the fore-mentioned four words Oath of Canonical Obedience and think the Absolution sufficient according to their own Argument Mr. Crofton tells us that the Oath which the King taketh at his Coronation for the defence of Bishops is of small validity because limited to the Laws of the Land But will this subordinate it to the Covenant Or will he make a little scribble-scrabble of a few perjured Rebels to be the Law of the Land If the
this Blake is summon'd before the Council which so incensed Andrew Melvill that he labour'd to make it a Publick Cause and did so much That they declare it would be ill to question Ministers and boldly told King James who asked them if they had seen the Conditions of Huntly's Pardon That both he and the rest should either satisfie the Church in every point or be pursued with all extremity so as they should have no reason to complain of the over-sight of Papists And as for Blake they gave him a Declinator affirming it was the Cause of God whereunto it concerned them to stand at all hazzard and this Declinator was sent to all the Presbyteries in the Kingdom who were desired not only to subscribe it but to commend the Cause in their private and publick Prayers to God by which means they fancyed themselves so strong that they deny the King to have power to judge a man for speaking in Pulpit and that the King in what he had already done had so wronged Christs Kingdom that the death of many men could not be so grievous to them And therefore they ordain a Fast for averting the Judgements then threatning the Kirk This action so vext his Majesty that he forbad all Convocatings and Meetings but they little cared for him or his Orders for Mr. Walter Balcanquall did not only forthwith rail against the Court naming several of the chief Courtiers but desired all the well-affected to meet in the Little Church to assist the Ministry who did accordingly and Petition the King in behalf of the Kirk But the King asking them who they were that durst convene against his Proclamation was worshipfully replyed by the Lord Lindesey That they durst do no more then so and that they would not suffer Religion to be over-thrown Multitudes unmannerly thronging into the room the King departed and they went to the little Church again where Lindesey told them No course but one let us stay together that are here and promise to take one part and advertise our friends and the favourers of Religion to come unto us for it shall be either theirs or ours Upon which great clamours shoutings and lifting up of hands followed some crying to Arms others to bring out Haman for whilst the Lords were with the King being sent as above-said from the Little-Church Mr. Cranstone read to the People that story others cryed out The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon and so great were the Peoples fury rais'd on a sodain That if the Provost by fair words and others by threats had not tamed them they had done some violence These actions of the Kirkers makes the King leave the Town go to Linlithgow whereupon they resolve for Warr the Ministers agitating them Amongst the rest one John Welsh in his Sermon rail'd pitifully against the King saying He was possest with a Devil and compared him to a Madd-man and affirmed That Subjects might lawfully rise and take the Sword out of his hand In this fiery zeal they write a Letter to the Lord Hamilton desiring him to be their General telling him in it That the People animated by the Word and Motion of Gods Spirit had gone to Arms. But all came to nothing Hamilton refusing such rebellious honour carryeth the Letter to the King who orders the guilty Ministers to be apprehended who escape by flying into England and the Magistrates of Edenburgh are pardoned The overthrow of this one business strengthened the Kings Authority mightily which was also confirmed by the Assembly at Perth now better known by the name of St. John's Town The Ministry being now pretty quiet Ruthen Earl of Gowry conspired to kill the King but to his own ruin His Majesty for this Preservation orders that Thanks should solemnly be render'd to God but in this he found the Presbyters cross-grain'd denying to do any such thing for such a deliverance whereupon they were silenced yet afterwards shewing their willingness were restored In this year was King James his third son his second viz. Robert dying young Charles born afterwards King of England The next year was kept an Assembly at Burnt-Island whither Mr. John Davidson wrote a rayling Letter checking them for their cowardise in not opposing the ungodly telling them that the King was not sound and that Warr was more commendable than a wicked Peace But the graver sort rather pittyed and smiled at the mans madd zeal then troubled themselves to vex at him And now Queen Elizabeth dying King James the undoubted next Heir to the English Crown is at London Proclaimed accordingly whither he went to receive his Crown having thus happily united the two Kingdoms And here I shall leave off from prosecuting the Presbyterian Story in Scotland any further though I might tell you of their calling against the Kings consent an Assembly at Aberdeen to rant against Episcopal Government nor would they dissolve at the Kings command till they were proclaimed Traytors and yet did some of them scorn to acknowledge their Error and were by some of their Brethren vindicated to King James face in England the next year And many more instances of their Waspish humour in denying the Kings Authority might be shewn out of their own Historians who abound in such examples but if Symmetry will tell us the stature of the man by the proportion of his foot these may serve so much at this time to satisfie that I fear they will rather nauseate And really those who thought it a hard case that Mr. Blake should be punished for affirming in a Sermon 1596. That all Kings were the Devils Barns that the Kings heart was treacherous and that the Devil was in the Court and the guiders of it That the Queen of England was an Atheist and a wicked Woman That the Nobility and Lords were miscreants bribers degenerated godless dissemblers and Enemies to the Church That the Council were Holliglasses Cormorants and men of no Religion And in his Prayer for Queen Anne he said We must pray for her for the fashion but we have no cause she will never do us good Nor did he word it only but also rais'd Arms both Horse and Foot against the Kings consent These men I say who thought it unjust to have him questioned for such rebellious actions may also for ought I know think it strange with Buchanan that our Laws do not provide ample and honourable rewards for those who can boldly murder their Prince And yet must this Buchanan and Knox be cryed up as valiant noble bold and publick-spirited men and this present world scorned because we have no such fire-brands And whether this title is rashly thrown upon them let any ingenious man judge not only by their fore-mentioned tenets and actions against their Kings but by the answerable nurturing up of their Disciples who at the University of St. Andrews instead of Divinity Lectures had these Political or rather a ruine to
and Chapters Prebendaries c. So that in four dayes time the hasty Commons over-throw as much as in them lay the Reverend Church of England which had continued many hundreds of years a flourishing glory to the Nation The Commons for their parts having thus pull'd down the pale of our Church fastned and strengthened by so many Authentick and Fundamental Laws as old again as the House of Commons will not leave Religion without some Government No good souls they were more kind-hearted And therefore in the first place they Vote that all the Lands and Means belonging to Deans and Chapters Chancellors or Commissaries Archdeacons Deans Prebendaries Chapter Canon c. shall be taken away and disposed of to the advancement of Learning and Piety That is if their after-actions may be taken for Expositors to maintain Rebellion Heresie Sacriledge and ruine Universities for these mens promises like Hebrew must still be read backwards and after this rule did they send a request to the King by Secretary Vain That he would give them leave to look into his Revenues and Expences and they would make him the richest King in Christendom But the Parliament will not spend their time only in selling Lands but something must be considered of a Church-Government too and therefore they Vote that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction fit to be exercised in England shall be committed to such a number of persons and in such a manner as their Worships shall think fit Nor were they long without making the Nation happy with the discovery of their Intellectuals which was That six of the Clergy and six of the Laity should be appointed in every County for the setling of Church-Government But this was a little shaken by an after conclusion viz. That nine of the Laity and three of the Clergy in every Diocess should have power to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as shall be ordered by Parliament and to have their Monethly meetings for that purpose And the next day to make this hotch-potch Model more compleat they Vote That there shall be several select Committees of the Clergy appointed for the Ordination of Clergy-men into the Ministry But yet this Presbyterian Brat would not come to perfection And therefore to give more encouragement to the Covenanting-admirers they conclude That all Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Jurisdiction shall be exercised in this Kingdom by the Commissioners as there was by Bishops And the same day read the Bill for the using of Lectures taking away Cross in Baptism Surplis bowing at the Name of Jesus standing up at the Gospel Gloria Patri Pictures in Churches c. and conclude the day with the appointing of a Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel And the next day they give further power to their nine Commissioners to wit That after the first of August any five of them shall be a Quorum and have full power to try all Ecclesiastical Causes and to appoint Deputies under them in several places And after this they further agreed That if any of the nine Commissioners should dye that five or more of them are to choose another presently and so if any of them resign and that if any came to take Orders that these Commissioners shall appoint five Clergy men to grant Ordinations And for the more speedy putting of this medly in practise the Knights and Burgesses of every Shire are commanded to bring in the Names of the nine Commissioners for their several Counties to be appointed and that no Clergy-man be of the Commission Thus farr had the Commons thrown I cannot say built up this their confused Babylon when on a sodain an unexpected Remora was joyned to their further proceedings by some fallings out betwixt the Lords and them about the Protestation For the Commons having ordered that it should be taken all over the Kingdom were in this opposed by the Peers who threw it out of their House which so incensed the Commons that they presently Vote That what person soever shall not take the Protestation is unfit to bear Office in Church or Common-wealth And thinking that the Bishops were the reason of the Lords dissent appoint a Committee for impeaching them about the late Canons who accordingly Voted thirteen Bishops to be Delinquents whom the Lords also suspended their house till a further hearing And so violently were these good men persecuted by the Presbyters that they never left plotting till they had got them Voted Traytors and sent to the Tower Nor could they have any outward content any where considering the reproaches threats and curses daily thrown against them by the wicked the danger of their lives by Tumults and their Lands Voted from them long before by their and Religions Enemies the Non-conforming Commons though they agreed to allow them a liberal allowance during life and how unhandsomly the Parliament in this neglected this promise the Reverend Bishop Hall will satisfie you The Commons now having as they thought bridled the Bishops and their Party are resolved to root out the Common-Prayer Book too to which purpose some of them desire that it might be altered and some thing added to it the which after some speeches being put to the Vote it appear'd that there were then but 55. Disciplinarians in the House no more voting for Alterations so that the Book came off with credit the Orthodox Party knowing well enough that if that House once fell to alter it it rather belonging to able and lawful Divines they would equal the Tinker who made two holes for mending one The Anti-Episcopalians being thus baffled fall to it again getting it to be moved again in the House the next week where they came off with the like success And the next day being a Thanks-giving day for the Peace between the two Nations to shew their malice to Church-Government and countenance the Schismaticks the Commons would not go to St. Margarets Westminster as was by them appointed because the Bishop of Lincoln had caus'd a set Form of Prayer for that occasion to be printed and used in the Church the news of which so started their Worships that they turn'd tail and went to the preachment at Lincolns Inne But if the Commons were troubled at this they were after out of their wits and all stark-madd against the Lords Because they had put forth an Order and sent it all over the Nation strictly injoyning the reading of the Common-Prayer against which and many other Church-affairs the Commons the same day put forth a Declaration ordering it to be printed and sent over the Kingdom and with them they also got the nine dissenting Lords to protest against the Order made by the House of Peers This cross-graind action of the Commons so incensed the Lords that they left off sitting for a while causing the Hangings of their House to be taken down Nor did this any way vex the Commons
Heathen yet would he be as much King and have as much right to the Crown and Rule as if he were Presbyterian 'T is not the Religion of the Magistrate but that in me be what it will that I do call Religion or Conscience which obligeth my obedience to him The Roman-Catholick had as much Reason and Law for their Gun-Powder Treason as the Scotch and English Puritans for their many Rebellions and may as to themselves as much rejoyce for their delivery from the Presbyterian Tyranny as they from the others intended cruelty but in this they may both shake hands and cry quits Brother which hath made me smile as often as I hear a Disciplinarian rail against the Romanists for that wicked design since themselves have been as guilty only some difference in the method one putting their confidence in Fire and the other in the Sword The many Rebellions of these People and their resolutions never to lay down their Swords till the King would satisfie them in what they pleas'd is a sufficient manifestation of their Conditional Obedience and that they are not farther Subject to that Authority than the King is obedient to their Wills examples of which are yet fresh in every mans memory At the very beginning of their Rebellion they having declar'd those who adhear'd to the King to be Traytors and He had done the same to the Earl of Essex His Majesty unwilling to have the bloud of his Subjects shed and delighting in Peace sent to the Parliament to call in their Declarations against his Party and he would call in all his against them and their Associates and that both the Armies might be disbanded an Act of Oblivion to be pass'd and a perfect Peace compos'd And What could be more gracious then this yet this they deny Nor will they hearken to any Overtures of a Treaty with him unless he first call in all his Declarations against them Disband his Army yield himself to them and permit those who were with him to be proceeded against and suffer as Delinquents Thus will they have none of him unless he submit to them and permit his best Friends to be ruined And yet these men must think themselves so good Subjects that they deserve his Majesties thanks for their so acting and in so doing think themselves Obedient enough in all Conscience But if this be their duty I wish they would tell me what they think disobedience to be This rejecting their Soveraign is sufficient to stop the mouths of these men from railing against Pope Gregory VII call'd Hildebrand who having excommunicated the Emperour Henry IV. would not absolve him nor receive him into favour till throwing off all his Princely attire he had waited three several dayes in the coldest time of Winter bare-footed at the walls of Vercelli in Piemonte in Italy where the Pope then was to beg audience and forgiveness Phaëton had no reason to question his birth-right unless Phoebus would allow him the command of his flaming Chariot to the ruin of the Youth and a great part of the World And 't is strange Logick and impudence in our Puritans to deny themselves to be Subjects unless they command as Supream A pretty mode to trample upon Authority as if they had set for their pattern Pope Alexander III. who insteed of offering his Toe to be kist by Frederick Barbarossa set his foot upon the Emperours neck If at the beginning of the Warr they were so stubborn as not to receive their King into their favour unless he yield to their mercy and suffer his friends to be distroy'd he must expect stranger Conditions when they are heightned with bloud and villany For then must he ask them Pardon give them satisfaction and carry nothing about him but the bare Title or else he shall be none of their King To which purpose a whole Club of them having sufficiently rail'd against Hâ—m after all their lies scandals and hellish forgeries thus conclude their malice and obedience These are some few of the many reasons Why we cannot repose any more trust in him i. e. King Charles I. and have made those former resolutions yet we shall use our utmost endeavour to settle the present Government as may best stand with the Peace and Happiness of this Kingdom Here they quite renounce any more Obedience to him nay make it by Vote both of their Lords and Commons to be High-Treason for any to make any Application or Address to him And if these be good Subjects without all question 't is Treason to be obedient And what they meant by their utmost endeavours I know not only this I am certain of having thus thrown away the Father they never apply'd themselves to the Son unlesse it were the motion of some of them to proclaim him Traytor and the conclusion of them all was to send the Earl of Warwick to fight him How long before they had been resolved to renounce their King and his Government I know not yet the Earl of Loudoun then Lord Chancellor of Scotland a pretty while before this gave the King notice of their intentions telling him that Some are so afraid others so unwilling to submit themselves to your Majesties Government as they desire not you nor any of your Race longer to raign over them If your Majesty refuse to assent to the Propositions you will lose all your Friends lose the City and all the Country and all England will join against you as one man and when all hope of Reconciliation is past it is to be feard They will processe and depose you and sett up another Government They will charge us to deliver your Majesty to them and to render the Northern Garrisons and to remove our Army out of England And upon your Majesties refusing the Propositions both Kingdomes will be constrain'd to agree and settle Religion and Peace without you which will ruine your Majesty and your Posterity And if your Majesty reject our faithful advice and lose England by your wilfulnesse your Majesty will not be permitted to come and ruine Scotland And at the beginning of the same year when his Majesty from Oxford earnestly desired them that there might be a personal Treaty The Lords and Commons of the English Parliament and the Commissioners of the Scotch Parliament after they had impudently hinted at his Majesty as a most wicked person they expresly deny any such means for peace untill he had given them satisfaction and security And this was still their custome with his Majesty first must he satisfie them before they will hear any thing from him In the same year the Committee of Scotland tell his Majesty at New Castle We hope you come with intentions and full resolutions to give all just satisfaction to the joint-desires of both your Kingdomes And two daies after assure him that If your Majesty shal delay the present performing thereof we shal be necessitated for our own exoneration
willing upon just satisfaction given to our desires And after this fashion doth the General Assembly bid their King stand off wondring that any one should be against their keeping out the King till their Provisoes be submitted to by him And their reason is because should his Majesty be put in power before he did ingage himself to submit to them then no obligation would be upon him Well having jugled him into Scotland they use him worse than a Gally-slave threatning destruction to Him and all his Friends unless he will dance after their humours and declare according to their malicious and Hell-contrived dictates Of which thus take the words of their proud beggarly Assembly They will not own him nor his Interest otherwise then with a subordination to God and in so farr as he owns and prosecutes the Cause of God and disclaims his and his Fathers Opposition to the Work of God and to the Covenant and all the Enemies thereof And this piece of Impudence was seconded by the Committee of Estates and the Covenanting Swash-bucklers of the Scotch Army But that you might the better see that their Obedience to the King was no longer than he served their turns and Interests I shall give you a piece of a Letter from their Great Minister of State the Earl of Loudoun Chancellor of Scotland which he wrote to his present Sacred Majesty Since your Majesty refuseth to do what is necessary for the good of Religion and Gods Interest They will look to the safety and good of Religion and to their own safety and emit a Declaration how willing they are to hazard their lives for your Majesties Interest if ye had been for Religion But that being deny'd they will separate the preservation of Religion from Your Interest and so to the safety of this Kingdom And if there be a difference and separation upon those grounds there will never in human appearance be such a Conjunction And Your Enemies who will grant any thing which may destroy your Majesty will win their ends This last clause doth in part vindicate the report of the Intention of some of the Scots to deliver his Majesty to Cromwell or the Rump if they had not forced their ends Besides these of more publick imployment I shall afford you one passage out of a private English thorough paced Presbyterian who thus speaks his own and the rest of his associates Intentions They who are now for the right of the Son and continuance of the Government are as much against the vices in and about him as about the Father And should He do as his Father had done they who are now for the performance of this Oath and Covenant would as truly joyn against him as against the Father This is home and pat to the purpose and may sufficiently inform his present Majesty what small Obedience and Loyalty he can expect from these people 'T is storyed of Pope Julius II. that being angry against Lewis XII King of France and marching out with an Army against the French took St. Peter's Keys and hurl'd them into the River Tiber with this furious Bravado Since St. Peter ' s Keys will not quell mine Enemies I 'le try what St. Paul ' s Sword will do These men take the same course but upon different scores The first two being Princes standing upon their own bottoms and for ought that I know neither bound to one another by way of such an Obedience The second almost of as much difference as betwixt Heaven and Earth one party within his own Dominions above all that 's mortal and superiour to the Law it self the other of so an inferiour Allay that by all the obligations Human and Divine he is so farr bound to a real Obedience that the least Opposition is not only Perjury but Treason 'T is a pretty piece of Policy the People had got first seditiously to swear a wicked Oath and then to declare that it is so farr binding That they cannot in Conscience admit their lawful King to reign over them unless he will swear and forswear as fast as they do Should we swear to root out Presbytery root and branch they would call it wicked and no way obligatory and yet I am confident we have as much right if not more to do so than they had for the extirpation of Episcopacy The Arch-Duchess swore never to put off her smock and the Arch-Duke that he would not eat till Ostend should be taken but Sir Francis Vere was not to be courted with such babbles but made them know the folly of such rashness by the necessity of their nullity and had he yielded upon the foppery of preserving them from perjury it 's probable Queen Elizabeth or the States of Holland would have rewarded him with an halter but he was too wise to be catch'd with such chaffe 'T is true Richard I. being at dinner at Westminster and hearing that Philip of France had besieged Verneüil in Normandy swore that he would not turn his face till he had gotten thither with his Army whereupon he caus'd the wall to be cut through that he might save his Oath by not turning his back and never rested till with an hundred Ships he had crost the Seas from Portsmouth into Normandy where the only rumour of his approach made the French King raise his siege and without stroke or sight of his magnanimous Enemy quit the Field Yet this is no example to us he being his own Master and the action in vindication of his right whereas we are but Subjects obliged to obey our King not to make Covenants and Oaths of our own heads against him his Authority and the Laws of the Land But it is not so much the validity of an Oath which these people are guided by for if so then they would not have broken those Oaths and Promises which they had formerly taken of Allegiance Supremacy Canonical Obedience University Oaths and Subscriptions but self-ended Interest is the Card they steer by and have all along been so earnest for What is advantagious to their humours that they are for if you be against the Covenant they are sworn to be your Enemies but if you Worship that Idol you need no more Christianity you are then qualified for any thing but if otherwise you are only fit company for the wicked which hypocritical partiality mindes me of a passage in their Assembly at Glasgow 1638. The University of Aberdene sent none of their Professors to that Assembly not daring to trust themselves upon the way having been so much threatned with the loss of their lives for writing against the Covenant Only they sent one of their number no Divine but a Professor of Humanity to excuse their absence His Commission being read gave him only power to be there and did constitute him their Agent in any thing which might concern their University requiring him to continue there and from time to time to
excommunicated that took not the Covenant and then any man might lawfully kill him who would put himself to so much trouble as to do it But we need not trouble our selves much by a recital of their words since their actions all along in that Kingdom were furiously hurryed on against Episcopacy or the Toleration of any thing that did thwart their Covenant And after this manner have we in England proceeded the Brethren thinking it impossible for any thing to thrive unless Episcopacy be pluck'd up root and branch of which take the words of Crofton I 'le stand by it It i. e. Episcopacy must be extirpated if King and Kingdom or Peace and Glory must be preserved from Gods angry extirpation It it not unknown to any that is conversant in their Writings and Sermons How for many years together they thundred before their Parliament the ruine of Episcopal Government pronouncing sad woes and judgements if any such things were tolerated which highly stir'd up the people of both Houses to act so fiercely against all Law and Reason for the maintenance of their wicked Covenant and Presbytery allowing no more mercy to the Orthodox Clergy than a Jew who sometimes might breathe amongst them but not do any thing in satisfaction of their Consciences These men being then Supream being against neutrality in Religion as well as Warr concerning which thus their Chieftains of both Kingdoms declare We give now publick warning to such Persons to rest no longer upon their Neutrality or to please themselves with the naughty and slothful pretext of Indifferency But that they address themselves speedily to take the Covenant and joyn with all their power in the defence of this Cause against the common Enemy and by their zeal and forwardness hereafter to make up what hath been wanting through their luke-warmness This they shall finde to be their greatest wisdom and safety Otherwise we do declare them to be publick Enemies to the Religion and Countrey and that they are to be censured and punished as profess'd Adversaries and Malignants Nor had they only the Solemn League but another Covenant as full of Treason and Wickedness as ever was invented by Satan and the refusers of this and none could take it but such wretches as themselves they Ordered to be dealt withall as Conspirators and Enemies and their Estates disposed of accordingly And besides this their Lords and Commons put forth another Oath stuft with non-sense for the preservation of themselves and their City with the power granted to seize upon the persons of all such as refused the said Oath Thus had these Puritans several gins laid to ruine the Orthodox and Loyal Subjects I might here tell of their giving Sir William Brereton and his Cheshire Associates Authority to turn out all the Ministers and School-Masters of that County who were for the King I might tell how they order'd every man upon his peril to submit to the destruction of Fonts Surplisses Organs painted Glass-windows c. I can also tell you how their Lords and Commons Ordain'd That if any Person or Persons shall use or caus'd to be used the Common-Prayer-Book That then every such person so offending therein shall for the first offence forfeit and pay the sum of five pounds For the second offence the sum of ten pound and for the third offence shall suffer one whole years Imprisonment without Bail or Main-prize And it is further Ordain'd That every Minister which shall not hence-forth pursue and observe the Directory for publick Worship according to the true intent and meaning thereof in all Exercises of the Publick Worship of God shall for every time that he shall so offend lose and forfeit the sum of forty shillings And that what person soever shall with intent to bring the said Directory into contempt and neglect or to raise opposition against it Preach Write Print or cause to be written or printed any thing in the derogation or depraving of the said Book or any thing therein contain'd or any part thereof shall lose and forfeit for every such offence such a sum of Money as shall at the time of his Conviction be thought fit to be imposed upon him by those before whom he shall have his Tryal provided that it be not less than five pounds nor exceeding the sum of fifty pounds I could also tell you how they turn'd out the learned and loyal Clergy and put into their places a company of Rebellious Schismatical Tub-thumpers such people being most advantagious for their turns and how they Order'd that if any of the Loyal Clergy endeavour'd to get their own again they should with all their friends and assisters be Imprisoned whereby many of them were forced to beg for their livings And many such like actions as these might be shewn whereby their malice appear'd visibly against the Episcopal Party and against the Toleration of any thing but their Rebellious Covenant and Schismatical Presbytery One of them tells us that This very Toleration hath been the principal cause of all our late Innovations Dislocations and Conflagrations And That no Orthodox sincere Christian can or dare cordially Ingage or bid God speed to the proceedings of Supream Power so long as they intend to allow a General Toleration of Errors and false Opinions How many Petitions were there yearly put up in behalf of the Covenant and that nothing should be allow'd but according to that League endeavouring what in them lay to raze out the very thoughts of Episcopacy And yet these men are now angry that they have not publick allowance for their sins If the Episcopal Clergy desire that they may have priviledge of Conscience according to the Laws of the Land Baxter blesseth himself and wonders they can have the confidence to ask such a favour and tells them that this denyal is so farr from being a Persecution that it is rather done for their greatest honour and accommodation For if you of the Episcopal Clergy should have liberty it would be the greatest blow that ever was given to your Government and the reason is because You would have a small Clergy and none of the best and the People in most Parishes that are most ignorant drunken profane unruly For the cause of their love to Episcopacy is because it was a shadow if not a shelter to the profane heretofore so that a Prelatical Church would in the common account be near kin to an Alehouse or Tavern to say no worse where some honest men may be and yet it is taken for the note of an honest sober man to be as little in them as may be 'T was the fashion of Andreas Ordogna that famous Painter of Florence to paint all his Enemies in Hell And what less malice Baxter and his Associates have against the Episcopal Clergy may in part be seen by their actions and railing and what reason they have now besides their Impudence to expect and demand a
passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many ages Yet for all these good turns done them by the King do they Print though the King earnestly desired the contrary and sedulously spread abroad this Remonstrance thereby to make him odious and themselves as Patrons to the people a fair requital for such large benefits and sufficiently to shew their ingratitude and What more wicked then that amongst our vertuous Ancestours The Heathen Heraclians were more noble to their Athenian Enemies and the savage Lions for their thankfulness to Mentor Helpius and Androdus will be a reproach upon record to these Puritanical Members And Alexander was more ingenuous to his Horse than these to their King Yet never was there any who desired Peace and the Subjects good more than He for the obtaining of which he consented to them in such things that he parted with many Jewels from his Crown as Queen Elizabeth used to call such Priviledges granting them Triennial Parliaments abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Writs for Ship-Money Bishops-Votes in Parliament Temporal power of the Clergy slip'd away Tunnage Poundage and gave the Parliament leave to sit as long as they pleas'd and that they might see he privately acted nothing against them he admitted into his Privy-Council several Lords which were great Favourites and Correspondents with the Parliamentary Party and in many other things besides these hath this King valed his Crown as a Learned Doctor phraseth it Yet could not all this please some men being like the Sea insatiable Though a moderate Member of the Parliament asked what they could desire more of the King seeing he had granted them so much he was answered by Mr. Hambden as a late Historian tells us To part with his Power and trust it to us And that some of them had higher thoughts than the Loyalty of a Subject or the trust of Parliament could dispense withal I could easily be perswaded to and those especially who by their former actions in Parliaments had drawn some displeasure upon themselves and knew well enough that the more Prerogative and Power the King lost the more they gain'd which at last would more then preserve them But this Faction as the King tells us was only of a few ambitious discontented and seditious persons who under strange pretences had entered into a Combination to alter the Government both of Church and State And so that this might be done they did not care after what manner nor who perisht so their own heads were but held up that me-thinks I hear them threat and encourage like Tasso's Tyrant Aladin Purche'l Reo non si salvi il guisto pera El'innocente Sù sù fideli mei sù via prendete Le flamme e'l ferro ardete uccidete So I Obtain my wish let just with wicked dye Come come rouse up my faithful friends and shew How bravely you can burn and murther too And what courses they steered to arrive at their hoped for Authority may in part be seen in these following Observations One of their first steps was to make the Court and Church odious amongst the Vulgar under the Title of Popish and Arminians a wickedness quite contrary to the Laws of our Land which make special provision against the publishers of such rumours whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may arise between the King and his People or the Nobility or Bishops yet neither Law nor Gospel can have any any sway with these men who had used this knack of reviling in several former Parliaments and may be seen in the multitude of their long-winded Speeches and printed too forsooth the better to spread the Infection about the Nation yet you may take all the Reason amongst them and never grow madd with too much Learning though the multitude of words are enough to choak the largest Leviathan nor could much be expected many of the Members being so ignorant that I dare boldly say that they did not know what the five Controverted Points signified and I believe would have taken and voted too Jacob van Harmine and the Remonstrants for Calvinists though have damn'd Arminius for a wicked Heathen Thus the Priests in Spain told the people to make them hate the Reformed Religion that Protestants were not like other men had heads like Dogs and such like Beasts They also restored into favour all those who had opposed the Peace of the Nation as Prynne Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburn and such like who were stiff men to raise their Interests as farr as Pen Ink or Brawling could do and that their Interest might be the more strengthened in the Countrey they put into Offices and Imployments of trust all those whom they either found or were by them made discontented against the Court and Religion by which trick they twisted their Obligations so close together that they made good use of this afterwards And to make their Cause more favourable to the People and to blast the Reputation of their Enemies they promoted abundance of bawling Lecturers most of them of no great Learning or Conscience but as furious as Orlando and with throats O heavenly wide who could scold excellently against Bishops and Government and vomit out a Lesson with as much ease as a Matron of Billingsgate both being compos'd of the same materials and to the same purpose viz. strife and for their dexterity and quickness they out-did a Mountebank being alwayes as ready for the Pulpit as a Knight-Errant for combate never out of his way let the Text be what it will like the Sompners Fryer in Chaucer but nothing related to the honest Parson in the same Poet that it is beyond admiration how they can conjure such an Olla Podrida of Sermon-Notes from such good Texts and that of so little coherence that their extraction seems as miraculous as the generation of the Cadmian armed Souldiers from Serpents teeth To raise up Rebellion and Sedition there cannot be a better Trumpet in the World then the mouths of such Hirelings as hath been proved by long experience Wat Tyler and Straw's Rebellion could not want incouraging Sermons as long as John Ball lasted who cheer'd up that Levelling Army at Black-heath with a long Preachment beginning with this Proverb When Adam dolve and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman And 't is observed by Mr. Howell that the Preaching Fryers and Monks were the chief Incendiaries of the Catalonians to their late Revolt And we have it from Authentcik Authority how that Hernando de Avalos and Juan de Padilla in the Spanish Civil Wars against the Emperour Charles V. in the first place imploy'd some Fryers to rail against the Government in their Pulpit and so to incite the people to Warr which according to expectation took fire in Toledo these men being the first thunderers of Seditions into the Castillians and to this purpose the famous Spanish