Simonical praier annex'd Although the Praier it self strongly prays against them For never such holy things as he means were giv'n to more Swine nor the Churches Bread more to Dogs then when it fed ambitious irreligious and dumb Prelats XV. Upon the many Jealousies c. TO wipe off jealousies and scandals the best way had bin by clear Actions or till Actions could be clear'd by evident reasons but meer words we are too well acquainted with Had his honour and reputation bin dearer to him then the lust of Raigning how could the Parlament of either Nation have laid so oft'n at his dore the breach of words promises acts Oaths and execrations as they doe avowedly in many of thir Petitions and addresses to him thether I remitt the Reader And who can beleive that whole Parlaments elected by the People from all parts of the Land should meet in one mind and resolution not to advise him but to conspire against him in a wors powder plot then Catesbies to blow up as he termes it the peoples affection towards him and batter down thir loyalty by the Engins of foule aspersions Water works rather then Engines to batter with yet thosé aspersions were rais'd from the foulness of his own actions Whereof to purge himself he uses no other argument then a general and so oft'n iterated commendation of himself and thinks that Court holy water hath the vertue of expiation at least with the silly people To whom he familiarly imputes sin where none is to seem liberal of his forgiveness where none is ask'd or needed What wayes he hath tak'n toward the prosperitie of his people which he would seem so earnestly to desire if we doe but once call to mind it will be anough to teach us looking on the smooth insinuations heer that Tyrants are not more flatterd by thir Slaves then forc'd to flatter others whom they feare For the peoples tranquilitie he would willingly be the Jonah but least he should be tak'n at his word pretends to foresee within Kenn two imaginarie windes never heard of in the Compass which threaten if he be cast overboard to increase the storm but that controversy divine lot hath ended He had rather not rule then that his people should be ruin'd and yet above these twenty yeres hath bin ruining the people about the niceties of his ruling He is accurate to put a difference between the plague of malice the ague of mistakes the itch of noveltie and the leprosie of disloyaltie But had he as wel known how to distinguish between the venerable gray haires of ancient Religion and the old scurffe of Superstition between the wholsome heat of well Governing and the fevorous rage of Tyrannizing his judgement in Statephysic had bin of more autoritie Much he Prophesies that the credit of those men who have cast black scandals on him shal ere long be quite blasted by the same furnace of popular obloquie wherin they sought to cast his name and honour I beleive not that a Romish guilded Portrature gives better Oracle then a Babylonish gold'n Image could doe to tell us truely who heated that Furnace of obloquy or who deserves to be thrown in Nebuchadnezzar or the three Kingdoms It gave him great cause to suspect his own innocence that he was oppos'd by so many who profest singular pietie But this qualm was soon over and he concluded rather to suspect their Religion then his own innocence affirming that many with him were both learned and Religious above the ordinary size But if his great Seal without the Parlament were not sufficient to create Lords his Parole must needs be farr more unable to create learned and religious men and who shall authorize his unlerned judgement to point them out He guesses that many well minded men were by popular Preachers urg'd to oppose him But the opposition undoubtedly proceeded and continues from heads farr wiser and spirits of a nobler straine those Priest-led Herodians with thir blind guides are in the Ditch already travailing as they thought to Sion but moor'd in the I le of Wight He thanks God for his constancy to the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home Abroad his Letter to the Pope at home his Innovations in the Church will speak his constancy in Religion what it was without furder credit to this vain boast His using the assistance of some Papists as the cause might be could not hurt his Religion but in the setling of Protestantism thir aid was both unseemly suspicious inferr'd that the greatest part of Protestants were against him his obtruded settlement But this is strange indeed that he should appear now teaching the Parlament what no man till this was read thought ever he had lernt that difference of perswasion in religious matters may fall out where ther is the samenes of allegeance subjection If he thought so from the beginning wherfore was there such compulsion us'd to the puritans of England the whole realm of Scotl. about conforming to a liturgie Wherfore no Bishop no king Wherfore episcopacie more agreeable to monarchie if different perswasions in religion may agree in one duty allegeance Thus do court maxims like court Minions rise or fall as the king pleases Not to tax him for want of Elegance as a courtier in writing Oglio for Olla the Spanish word it might be wel affirm'd that there was a greater Medley disproportioning of religions to mix Papists with Protestants in a Religious cause then to entertaine all those diversifi'd Sects who yet were all Protestants one Religion though many Opinions Neither was it any shame to Protestants that he a declar'd Papist if his own letter to the Pope not yet renowne'd bely him not found so few protestants of his religion as enforc'd him to call in both the counsel the aid of papists to help establish protestancy who were led on not by the sense of thir Allegeance but by the hope of his Apostacy to Rome from disputing to warring his own voluntary and first appeale His hearkning to evil Counselers charg'd upon him so oft'n by the Parlament he puts off as a device of those men who were so eager to give him better counsell That those men were the Parlament that he ought to have us'd the counsel of none but those as a King is already known What their civility laid upon evil Counselers he himself most commonly own'd but the event of those evil counsels the enormities the confusions the miseries he transferrs from the guilt of his own civil broiles to the just resistance made by Parlament imputes what miscarriages of his they could not yet remove for his opposing as if they were some new misdemeanors of their bringing in and not the inveterat diseases of his own bad Goverment which with a disease as bad he falls again to magnifie and commend and may all those who would be govern'd by his Retractions and concessions rather then by Laws of
for his high misgoverment nay fought against him with display'd banners in the field now applaud him and extoll him for the wisest and most religious Prince that liv'd By so strange a method amongst the mad multitude is a sudden reputation won of wisdom by wilfulness and suttle shifts of goodness by multiplying evil of piety by endeavouring to root out true religion But it is evident that the chief of his adherents never lov'd him never honour'd either him or his cause but as they took him to set a face upon thir own malignant designes nor bemoan his loss at all but the loss of thir own aspiring hopes Like those captive women whom the Poet notes in his Iliad to have bewaild the death of Patroclus in outward show but indeed thir own condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Iliad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it needs must be ridiculous to any judgement uninthrall'd that they who in other matters express so little fear either of God or man should in this one particular outstripp all precisianism with thir scruples and cases and fill mens ears continually with the noise of thir conscientious Loyaltie and Allegeance to the King Rebels in the mean while to God in all thir actions beside much less that they whose profess'd Loyalty and Allegeance led them to direct Arms against the Kings Person and thought him nothing violated by the Sword of Hostility drawn by them against him should now in earnest think him violated by the unsparing Sword of Justice which undoubtedly so much the less in vain she bears among Men by how much greater and in highest place the offender Els Justice whether moral or political were not Justice but a fals counterfet of that impartial and Godlike vertue The onely grief is that the head was not strook off to the best advantage and commodity of them that held it by the hair an ingratefull and pervers generation who having first cry'd to God to be deliver'd from thir King now murmur against God that heard thir praiers and cry as loud for thir King against those that deliver'd them But as to the Author of these Soliloquies whether it were undoubtedly the late King as is vulgarly beleev'd or any secret Coadjutor and some stick not to name him it can add nothing nor shall take from the weight if any be of reason which he brings But allegations not reasons are the main contents of this Book and need no more then other contrary allegations to lay the question before all men in an eev'n ballance though it were suppos'd that the testimony of one man in his own cause affirming could be of any moment to bring in doubt the autority of a Parlament denying But if these his fair spok'n words shall be heer fairly confronted and laid parallel to his own farr differing deeds manifest and visible to the whole Nation then surely we may look on them who notwithstanding shall persist to give to bare words more credit then to op'n deeds as men whose judgement was not rationally evinc'd and perswaded but fatally stupifi'd and bewitch'd into such a blinde and obstinate beleef For whose cure it may be doubted not whether any charm though never so wisely murmur'd but whether any prayer can be available This however would be remember'd and wel noted that while the K. instead of that repentance which was in reason and in conscience to be expected from him without which we could not lawfully re-admitt him persists heer to maintain and justifie the most apparent of his evil doings and washes over with a Court-fucus the worst and foulest of his actions disables and uncreates the Parlament it self with all our laws and Native liberties that ask not his leave dishonours and attaints all Protestant Churches not Prelaticall and what they piously reform'd with the slander of rebellion sacrilege and hypocrisie they who seem'd of late to stand up hottest for the Cov'nant can now sit mute and much pleas'd to hear all these opprobrious things utter'd against thir faith thir freedom and themselves in thir own doings made traitors to boot The Divines also thir wizzards can be so braz'n as to cry Hosanna to this his book which cries louder against them for no disciples of Christ but of Iscariot and to seem now convinc'd with these wither'd arguments and reasons heer the same which in som other writings of that party and in his own former Declarations and expresses they have so oft'n heertofore endeavour'd to confute and to explode none appearing all this while to vindicate Church or State from these calumnies and reproaches but a small handfull of men whom they defame and spit at with all the odious names of Schism and Sectarism I never knew that time in England when men of truest Religion were not counted Sectaries but wisdom now valor justice constancy prudence united and imbodied to defend Religion and our Liberties both by word and deed against tyranny is counted Schism and faction Thus in a graceless age things of highest praise and imitation under a right name to make them infamous and hatefull to the people are miscall'd Certainly if ignorance and perversness will needs be national and universal then they who adhere to wisdom and to truth are not therfore to be blam'd for beeing so few as to seem a sect or faction But in my opinion it goes not ill with that people where these vertues grow so numerous and well joyn'd together as to resist and make head against the rage and torrent of that boistrous folly and superstition that possesses and hurries on the vulgar sort This therefore we may conclude to be a high honour don us from God and a speciall mark of his favor whom he hath selected as the sole remainder after all these changes and commotions to stand upright and stedfast in his cause dignify'd with the defence of truth and public libertie while others who aspir'd to be the topp of Zelots and had almost brought Religion to a kinde of trading monopoly have not onely by thir late silence and neutrality bely'd thir profession but founder'd themselves and thir consciences to comply with enemies in that wicked cause and interest which they have too oft'n curs'd in others to prosper now in the same themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I. Upon the Kings calling this last Parlament THat which the King layes down heer as his first foundation and as it were the head stone of his whole Structure that He call'd this last Parlament not more by others advice and the necessity of his affaires then by his own chois and inclination is to all knowing men so apparently not true that a more unlucky and inauspicious sentence and more betok'ning the downfall of his whole Fabric hardly could have come into his minde For who knows not that the inclination of a Prince is best known either by those next about him and most in favor with him or by the current of his own actions Those neerest to
in himself and doubted not by the weight of his own reason to counterpoyse any Faction it being so easie for him and so frequent to call his obstinacy Reason and other mens reason Faction Wee in the mean while must beleive that wisdom and all reason came to him by Title with his Crown Passion Prejudice and Faction came to others by being Subjects He was sorry to hear with what popular heat Elections were carry'd in many places Sorry rather that Court Letters and intimations prevail'd no more to divert or to deterr the people from thir free Election of those men whom they thought best affected to Religion and thir Countries Libertie both at that time in danger to be lost And such men they were as by the Kingdom were sent to advise him not sent to be cavill'd at because Elected or to be entertaind by him with an undervalue and misprision of thir temper judgment or affection In vain was a Parlament thought fittest by the known Laws of our Nation to advise and regulate unruly Kings if they in stead of hearkning to advice should be permitted to turn it off and refuse it by vilifying and traducing thir advisers or by accusing of a popular heat those that lawfully elected them His own and his Childrens interest oblig'd him to seek and to preserve the love and welfare of his Subjects Who doubts it But the same interest common to all Kings was never yet available to make them all seek that which was indeed best for themselves and thir Posterity All men by thir own and thir Childrens interest are oblig'd to honestie and justice but how little that consideration works in privat men how much less in Kings thir deeds declare best He intended to oblige both Friends and Enemies and to exceed thir desires did they but pretend to any modest and sober sence mistaking the whole business of a Parlament Which mett not to receive from him obligations but Justice nor he to expect from them thir modesty but thir grave advice utter'd with freedom in the public cause His talk of modesty in thir desires of the common welfare argues him not much to have understood what he had to grant who misconceav'd so much the nature of what they had to desire And for sober sence the expresion was too mean and recoiles with as much dishonour upon himself to be a King where sober sense could possibly be so wanting in a Parlament The odium and offences which some mens rigour or remissness iu Church and State had contracted upon his Goverment hee resolved to have expiated with better Laws and regulations And yet the worst of misdemeanors committed by the worst of all his favourites in the hight of thir dominion whether acts of rigor or remissness he hath from time to time continu'd own'd and taken upon himself by public Declarations as oft'n as the Clergy or any other of his Instruments felt themselves over burd'n'd with the peoples hatred And who knows not the superstitious rigor of his Sundays Chappel and the licentious remissness of his Sundays Theater accompanied with that reverend Statute for Dominical Jiggs and May-poles publish'd in his own Name and deriv'd from the example of his Father James Which testifies all that rigor in superstition all that remissness in Religion to have issu'd out originally from his own House and from his own Autority Much rather then may those general miscarriages in State his proper Sphear be imputed to no other person chiefly then to himself And which of all those oppressive Acts or Impositions did he ever disclaim or disavow till the fatal aw of this Parlament hung ominously over him Yet heerh ee smoothly seeks to wipe off all the envie of his evill Goverment upon his Substitutes and under Officers and promises though much too late what wonders he purpos'd to have don in the reforming of Religion a work wherein all his undertakings heretofore declare him to have had little or no judgement Neither could his Breeding or his cours of life acquaint him with a thing so Spiritual Which may well assure us what kind of Reformation we could expect from him either som politic form of an impos'd Religion or els perpetual vexation and persecution to all those that comply'd not with such a form The like amendment hee promises in State not a stepp furder then his Reason and Conscience told him was fitt to be desir'd wishing hee had kept within those bounds and not suffer'd his own judgement to have binover-borne in some things of which things one was the Earl of Straffords execution And what signifies all this but that stil his resolution was the same to set up an arbitrary Goverment of his own and that all Britain was to be ty'd and chain'd to the conscience judgement and reason of one Man as if those gifts had been only his peculiar and Prerogative intal'd upon him with his fortune to be a King When as doubtless no man so obstinate or so much a Tyrant but professes to be guided by that which he calls his Reason and his Judgement though never so corrupted and pretends also his conscience In the mean while for any Parlament or the whole Nation to have either reason judgement or conscience by this rule was altogether in vaine if it thwarted the Kings will which was easie for him to call by any other more plausible name He himself hath many times acknowledg'd to have no right over us but by Law and by the same Law to govern us but Law in a Free Nation hath bin ever public reason the enacted reason of a Parlament which he denying to enact denies to govern us by that which ought to be our Law interposing his own privat reason which to us is no Law And thus we find these faire and specious promises made upon the experience of many hard sufferings and his most mortifi'd retirements being throughly sifted to containe nothing in them much different from his former practices so cross and so averse to all his Parlaments and both the Nations of this Iland What fruits they could in likelyhood have produc'd in his restorement is obvious to any prudent foresight And this is the substance of his first section till wee come to the devout of it model'd into the form of a privat Psalter Which they who so much admire either for the matter or the manner may as well admire the Arch-Bishops late Breviary and many other as good Manuals and Handmaids of Devotion the lip-work of every Prelatical Liturgist clapt together and quilted out of Scripture phrase with as much ease and as little need of Christian diligence or judgement as belongs to the compiling of any ord'nary and salable peece of English Divinity that the Shops value But he who from such a kind of Psalmistry or any other verbal Devotion without the pledge and earnest of sutable deeds can be perswaded of a zeale and true righteousness in the person hath much yet to learn
them to pacifie the Kings mind whom they perceav'd by this meanes quite alienated in the mean while not imagining that this after act should be retorted on them to tie up Justice for the time to come upon like occasion whether this were made a precedent or not no more then the want of such a precedent if it had bin wanting had bin available to hinder this But how likely is it that this after act argu'd in the Parlament thir least repenting for the death of Strafford when it argu'd so little in the King himself who notwithstanding this after act which had his own hand and concurrence if not his own instigation within the same yeare accus'd of high Treason no less then six Members at once for the same pretended crimes which his conscience would not yeeld to think treasonable in the Earle So that this his suttle Argument to fast'n a repenting and by that means a guiltiness of Straffords death upon the Parlament concludes upon his own head and shews us plainly that either nothing in his judgment was Treason against the Common-wealth but onely against the Kings Person a tyrannical Principle or that his conscience was a perverse and prevaricating conscience to scruple that the Common-wealth should punish for treasonous in one eminent offender that w ch he himself sought so vehemently to have punisht in six guiltless persons If this were that touch of conscience which he bore with greater regrett then for any sin committed in his life whether it were that proditory Aid sent to Rochel and Religion abroad or that prodigality of shedding blood at home to a million of his Subjects lives not valu'd in comparison of one Strafford we may consider yet at last what true sense and feeling could be in that conscience and what fitness to be the maister conscience of three Kingdoms But the reason why he labours that wee should take notice of so much tenderness and regrett in his soule for having any hand in Straffords death is worth the marking ere we conclude He hop'd it would be someevidence before God and Man to all posteritie that he was farr from bearing that vast load and guilt of blood layd upon him by others Which hath the likeness of a suttle dissimulation bewailing the blood of one man his commodious Instrument put to death most justly though by him unwillingly that we might think him too tender to shed willingly the blood of those thousands whom he counted Rebels And thus by dipping voluntarily his fingers end yet with shew of great remorse in the blood of Strafford wherof all men cleer him he thinks to scape that Sea of innocent blood wherein his own guilt inevitably hath plung'd him all over And we may well perceave to what easie satisfactions and purgations he had inur'd his secret conscience who thaught by such weak policies and ostentations as these to gaine beleif and absolution from understanding Men. III. Upon his going to the House of Commons COncerning his unexcusable and hostile march from the Court to the House of Commons there needs not much be said For he confesses it to be an act which most men whom he calls his enemies cry'd shame upon indifferent men grew jealous of and fearfull and many of his Friends resented as a motion rising rather from passion then reason He himself in one of his Answers to both Houses made profession to be convinc'd that it was a plaine breach of thir Privilege Yet heer like a rott'n building newly trimm'd over he represents it speciously and fraudulently to impose upon the simple Reader and seeks by smooth and supple words not heer only but through his whole Book to make som beneficial use or other ev'n of his worst miscarriages These Men saith he meaning his Friends knew not the just motives and pregnant grounds with which I thought my selfe furnish'd to wit against the five Members whom hee came to dragg out of the House His best Friends indeed knew not nor could ever know his motives to such a riotous act and had he himself known any just grounds he was not ignorant how much it might have tended to his justifying had he nam'd them in this place and not conceal'd them But suppose them real suppose them known what was this to that violation and dishonor put upon the whole House whose very dore forcibly kept op'n and all the passages neer it he besett with Swords and Pistols cockt and menac'd in the hands of about three hunderd Swaggerers and Ruffians who but expected nay audibly call'd for the word of onset to beginn a slaughter He had discover'd as he thought unlawfull correspondencies which they had vs'd and ingagements to imbroile his Kingdomes and remembers not his own unlawfull correspondencies and conspiracies with the Irish Army of Papists with the French to land at Portsmouth and his tampering both with the English and the Scotch Army to come up against the Parlament the least of which attempts by whomsoever was no less then manifest Treason against the Common-wealth If to demand Justice on the five Members were his Plea for that which they with more reason might have demanded Justice upon him I use his own Argument there needed not so rough assistance If hee had resolv'd to bear that repulse with patience which his Queen by her words to him at his return little thought he would have done wherfore did he provide against it with such an armed and unusual force But his heart serv'd him not to undergoe the hazzard that such a desperate scuffle would have brought him to But wherfore did he goe at all it behooving him to know there were two Statutes that declar'd he ought first to have acquainted the Parlament who were the Accusers which he refus'd to doe though still professing to govern by Law and still justifying his attempts against Law And when he saw it was not permitted him to attaint them but by a faire tryal as was offerd him from time to time for want of just matter which yet never came to light he let the business fall of his own accord and all those pregnancies and just motives came to just nothing He had no temptation of displeasure or revenge against those men None but what he thirsted to execute upon them for the constant opposition which they made against his tyrannous proceedings and the love and reputation which they therfore had among the People but most immediatly for that they were suppos'd the chief by whose activity those 12. protesting Bishops were but a week before committed to the Tower He mist but little to have produc'd Writings under some mens own hands But yet he mist though thir Chambers Trunks and Studies were seal'd up and search'd yet not found guilty Providence would not have it so Good Providence that curbs the raging of proud Monarchs as well as of madd multitudes Yet he wanted not such probabilities for his pregnant is come now to probable as were sufficient to raise jealousies
so oft'n contrary to the commands of God He would perswade the Scots that thir chief Interest consists in thir fidelity to the Crown But true policy will teach them to find a safer interest in the common friendship of England then in the ruins of one ejected Family XIIII Upon the Covnant VPON this Theme his Discours is long his Matter little but repetition and therfore soon answerd First after an abusive and strange apprehension of Covnants as if Men pawn'd thir souls to them with whom they Covnant he digresses to plead for Bishops first from the antiquity of thir possession heer since the first plantation of Christianity in this Iland next from a universal prescription since the Apostles till this last Centurie But what availes the most Primitive Antiquity against the plain sense of Scripture which if the last Centurie have best follow'd it ought in our esteem to be the first And yet it hath bin oft'n prov'd by Learned Men from the Writings and Epistles of most ancient Christians that Episcopacy crept not up into an order above the Presbyters till many years after that the Apostles were deceas'd He next is unsatisfied with the Covnant not onely for some passages in it referring to himself as he supposes with very dubious and dangerous limitations but for binding men by Oath and Covnant to the Reformation of Church Discipline First those limitations were not more dangerous to him then he to our Libertie and Religion next that which was there vow'd to cast out of the Church an Antichristian Hierarchy which God had not planted but ambition and corruption had brought in and fosterd to the Churches great dammage and oppression was no point of controversie to be argu'd without end but a thing of cleer moral necessity to be forthwith don Neither was the Covnant superfluous though former engagements both religious and legal bound us before But was the practice of all Churches heertofore intending Reformation All Israel though bound anough before by the Law of Moses to all necessary duties yet with Asa thir King enter'd into a new Covnant at the beginning of a Reformation And the Jews after Captivity without consent demanded of that King who was thir Maister took solemn Oath to walk in the Command'ments of God All Protestant Churches have don the like notwithstanding former engagements to thir several duties And although his aime were to sow variance between the Protestation and the Covnant to reconcile them is not difficult The Protestation was but one step extending onely to the Doctrin of the Church of England as it was distinct from Church Discipline the Covnant went furder as it pleas'd God to dispense his light and our encouragement by degrees and comprehended Church Goverment Former with latter steps in the progress of well doing need not reconcilement Nevertheless he breaks through to his conclusion That all honest and wise men ever thought themselves sufficently bound by former ties of Religion leaving Asa Ezra and the whole Church of God in sundry Ages to shift for honestie and wisdom from som other then his testimony And although after-contracts absolve not till the former be made void yet he first having don that our duty returns back which to him was neither moral nor eternal but conditional Willing to perswade himself that many good men took the Covnant either unwarily or out of fear he seems to have bestow'd som thoughts how these good men following his advice may keep the the Covnant and not keep it The first evasion is presuming that the chief end of Covnanting in such mens intentions was to preserve Religion in purity and the Kingdoms peace But the Covnant will more truly inform them that purity of Religion and the Kingdoms peace was not then in state to be preservd but to be restor'd and therfore binds them not to a preservation of what was but to a Reformation of what was evil what was Traditional and dangerous whether novelty or antiquity in Church or State To doe this clashes with no former Oath lawfully sworn either to God or the King and rightly understood In general he brands all such confederations by League and Covnant as the common rode us'd in all Factious perturbations of State and Church This kinde of language reflects with the same ignominy upon all the Protestant Reformations that have bin since Luther and so indeed doth his whole Book replenish'd throughout with hardly other words or arguments then Papists and especially Popish Kings have us'd heertofore against thir Protestant Subjects whom he would perswade to be every man his own Pope and to absolve himfelf of those ties by the suggestion of fals or equivocal interpretations too oft repeated to be now answer'd The Parlament he saith made thir Covnant like Manna agreeable to every mans Palat. This is another of his glosses upon the Covnant he is content to let it be Manna but his drift is that men should loath it or at least expound it by thir own relish and latitude of sense wherin least any one of the simpler sort should faile to be his crafts maister he furnishes him with two or three laxative he termes them general clauses which may serve somwhat to releeve them against the Covnant tak'n intimating as if what were lawfull and according to the Word of God were no otherwise so then as every man fansi'd to himself From such learned explications and resolutions as these upon the Covnant what marvel if no Royalist or Malignant refuse to take it as having learnt from these Princely instructions his many Salvo's cautions and reservations how to be a Covnanter and Anticovnanter how at once to be a Scot and an Irish Rebel He returns again to disallow of that Reformation which the Covnant vows as being the partiall advice of a few Divines But matters of this moment as they were not to be decided there by those Divines so neither are they to be determin'd heer by Essays curtal Aphorisms but by solid proofs of Scripture The rest of his discourse he spends highly accusing the Parlament that the main Reformation by them intended was to robb the Church and much applauding himself both for his forwardness to all due Reformation and his aversness from all such kind of Sacrilege All which with his glorious title of the Churches Defender we leave him to make good by Pharaoh's Divinity if he please for to Josephs Pietie it will be a task unsutable As for the parity and poverty of Ministers which he takes to be so sad of consequence the Scripture reck'ns them for two special Legacies left by our Saviour to his Disciples under which two Primitive Nurses for such they were indeed the Church of God more truly flourisht then ever after since the time that imparitie and Church revennue rushing in corrupted and beleper'd all the Clergie with a worse infection then Gehezi's some one of whose Tribe rather then a King I should take to be compiler of that unsalted and
all of them agree in one song with this heer that they are sorry to see so little regard had to Laws establisht and the Religion settl'd Popular compliance dissolution of all order and goverment in the Church Scisms Opinions Undecencies Confusions Sacrilegious invasions contempt of the Clergie and thir Liturgie Diminution of Princes all these complaints are to be read in the Messages and Speeches almost of every Legat from the Pope to those States and Citties which began Reformation From whence he either learnt the same pretences or had them naturally in him from the same spirit Neither was there ever so sincere a Reformation that hath escap'd these clamours He offer'd a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen So offerd all those Popish Kings heertofore a cours the most unsatisfactory as matters have been long carried and found by experience in the Church liable to the greatest fraud and packing no solution or redress of evil but an increase rather detested therfore by Nazianzen and som other of the Fathers And let it bee produc'd what good hath bin don by Synods from the first times of Reformation Not to justifie what enormities the Vulgar may committ in the rudeness of thir zeal we need but onely instance how he bemoanes the pulling down of Crosses and other superstitious Monuments as the effect of a popular and deceitful Reformation How little this savours of a Protestant is too easily perceav'd What he charges in defect of Piety Charity and Morality hath bin also charg'd by Papists upon the best reformed Churches not as if they the accusers were not tenfold more to be accus'd but out of thir Malignity to all endeavour of amendment as we know who accus'd to God the sincerity of Job an accusation of all others the most easie when as there livs not any mortal man so excellent who in these things is not alwaies deficient But the infirmities of best men and the scandals of mixt Hypocrits in all times of reforming whose bold intrusion covets to bee ever seen in things most sacred as they are most specious can lay no just blemish upon the integritie of others much less upon the purpose of Reformation it self Neither can the evil doings of som be the excuse of our delaying or deserting that duty to the Church which for no respect of times or carnal policies can be at any time unseasonable He tells with great shew of piety what kinde of persons public Reformers ought to be and what they ought to doe T is strange that in above twenty years the Church growing still wors and wors under him he could neither be as he bids others be nor doe as he pretends heer so well to know nay which is worst of all after the greatest part of his Raign spent in neither knowing nor doing aught toward a Reformation either in Church or State should spend the residue in hindring those by a seven years Warr whom it concernd with his consent or without it to doe thir parts in that great performance T is true that the method of reforming may well subsist without perturbation of the State but that it falls out otherwise for the most part is the plaine Text of Scripture And if by his own rule hee had allow'd us to feare God first and the King in due order our Allegeance might have still follow'd our Religion in a fit subordination But if Christs Kingdom be tak'n for the true Discipline of the Church and by his Kingdom be meant the violence he us'd against it and to uphold an Antichristian Hierarchie then sure anough it is that Christs Kingdom could not be sett up without pulling down his And they were best Christians who were least subject to him Christs Goverment out of question meaning it Prelatical hee thought would confirm his and this was that which overthrew it He professes to own his Kingdom from Christ and to desire to rule for his glory and the Churches good The Pope and the King of Spain profess every where as much and both his practice and all his reasonings all his enmitie against the true Church we see hath bin the same with theirs since the time that in his Letter to the Pope he assur'd them both of his full compliance But evil beginnings never bring forth good conclusions they are his own words and he ratifi'd them by his own ending To the Pope he ingag'd himself to hazard life and estate for the Roman Religion whether in complement he did it or in earnest and God who stood neerer then he for complementing minded writ down those words that according to his resolution so it should come to pass He praies against his hypocrisie and Pharisaical washings a Prayer to him most pertinent but choaks it straight with other words which pray him deeper into his old errors and delusions XXI Vpon His Letters tak'n and divulg'd THE Kings Letters taken at the Battell of Naesby being of greatest importance to let the people see what Faith there was in all his promises and solemn Protestations were transmitted to public view by special Order of the Parlament They discover'd his good affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the straight intelligence he held the pernitious dishonorable peace he made with them not solicited but rather soliciting w ch by all invocations that were holy he had in public abjur'd They reveal'd his endeavours to bring in forren Forces Irish French Dutch Lorrainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon us besides his suttleties and mysterious arts in treating to summ up all they shewd him govern'd by a Woman All which though suspected vehemently before and from good grounds beleev'd yet by him and his adherents peremptorily deny'd were by the op'ning of that Cabinet visible to all men under his own hand The Parlament therfore to cleer themselves of aspersing him without cause and that the people might no longer be abus'd and cajol'd as they call it by falsities and Court impudence in matters of so high concernment to let them know on what termes thir duty stood and the Kingdoms peace conceavd it most expedient and necessary that those Letters should be made public This the King affirmes was by them don without honour and civilitie words which if they contain not in them as in the language of a Courtier most commonly they do not more of substance and realitie then complement Ceremony Court fauning and dissembling enter not I suppose furder then the eare into any wise mans consideration Matters were not then between the Parlament and a King thir enemie in that state of trifling as to observ those superficial vanities But if honour and civilitie mean as they did of old discretion honesty prudence and plaine truth it will be then maintain'd against any Sect of those Cabalists that the Parlament in doing what they did with those Letters could suffer in thir honour and civilitie no diminution The reasons are already heard And that it is with none more familiar then with Kings