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
so but privatly in the Counsel Books inroull'd no Parlament that if accommodation had succeeded upon what termes soever such a devilish fraud was prepar'd that the King in his own esteem had bin absolv'd from all performance as having treated with Rebels and no Parlament and they on the other side in stead of an expected happines had bin brought under the Hatchet Then no doubt Warr had ended that Massacher and Tyranny might begin These jealousies however rais'd let all men see whether they be diminish'd or allay'd by the Letters of his own Cabinet open'd And yet the breach of this Treaty is lay'd all upon the Parlament and thir Commissioners with odious Names of Pertinacy hatred of Peace Faction and Covetousness nay his own Bratt Superstition is layd to their charge not withstanding his heer profess'd resolution to continue both the Order Maintenance and Authority of Prelats as a truth of God And who were most to blame in the unsuccessfullness of that Treaty his appeale is to Gods decision beleeving to be very excusable at that Tribunal But if ever man gloried in an unflexible stifness he came not behind any and that grand Maxim always to put somthing into his Treaties which might give colour to refuse all that was in other things granted and to make them signifie nothing was his own Principal Maxim and particular instructions to his Commissioners Yet all by his own verdit must be consterd Reason in the King and depraved temper in the Parlament That the highest Tide of success with these principles and designes set him not above a Treaty no great wonder And yet if that be spok'n to his praise the Parlament therin surpass'd him who when he was thir vanquish'd and thir captive his forces utterly brok'n and disbanded yet offerd him three several times no wors proposals or demands then when he stood fair to be thir Conqueror But that imprudent surmise that his lowest Ebb could not set him below a Fight was a presumption that ruin'd him He presag'd the future unsuccessfulness of Treaties by the unwillingness of som men to treat and could not see what was present that thir unwillingness had good cause to proceed from the continual experience of his own obstinacy and breach of word His prayer therfore of forgiveness to the guilty of that treaties breaking he had good reason to say heartily over as including no man in that guilt sooner then himself As for that Protestation following in his Prayer How oft have I entreated for peace but when I speak therof they make them ready to Warr unless he thought himself still in that perfidious mist between Colebrook and Houndslow and thought that mist could hide him from the eye of Heav'n as well as of Man after such a bloody recompence giv'n to our first offers of Peace how could this in the sight of Heav'n without horrours of conscience be utter'd XIX Vpon the various events of the Warr. IT is no new or unwonted thing for bad men to claim as much part in God as his best servants to usurp and imitate thir words and appropriate to themselves those properties which belong onely to the good and righteous This not onely in Scripis familiarly to be found but heer also in this Chapter of Apocrypha He tells us much why it pleas'd God to send him Victory or Loss although what in so doing was the intent of God he might be much mistak'n as to his own particular but we are yet to learn what real good use he made therof in his practice Those numbers which he grew to from small beginnings were not such as out of love came to protect him for none approv'd his actions as a King except Courtiers and Prelats but were such as fled to be protected by him from the fear of that Reformation which the pravity of thir lives would not bear Such a Snowball he might easily gather by rowling through those cold and dark provinces of ignorance and leudness where on a sudden he became so numerous He imputes that to Gods protection which to them who persist in a bad cause is either his long-suffering or his hard'ning and that to wholesom chastisement which were the gradual beginnings of a severe punishment For if neither God nor nature put civil power in the hands of any whomsoever but to a lawfull end and commands our obedience to the autority of Law onely not to the Tyrannical force of any person and if the Laws of our Land have plac'd the Sword in no mans single hand so much as to unsheath against a forren enemie much less upon the native people but have plac'd it in that elective body of the Parlament to whom the making repealing judging and interpreting of Law it self was also committed as was fittest so long as wee intended to bee a free Nation and not the Slaves of one mans will then was the King himself disobedient and rebellious to that Law by which he raign'd and by autority of Parlament to raise armes against him in defence of Law and Libertie we doe not onely think but beleeve and know was justifiable both by the Word of God the Laws of the Land and all lawfull Oaths and they who sided with him fought against all these The same Allegations which he uses for himself and his Party may as well fitt any Tyrant in the world for let the Parlament bee call'd a Faction when the King pleases and that no Law must bee made or chang'd either civil or religious because no Law will content all sides then must be made or chang'd no Law at all but what a Tyrant be he Protestant or Papist thinks fitt Which tyrannous assertion forc'd upon us by the Sword he who fights against and dyes fighting if his other sins overweigh not dyes a Martyr undoubtedly both of the Faith and of the Common-wealth and I hold it not as the opinion but as the full beleef and persuasion of farr holier and wiser men then Parasitie Preachers Who without their dinner-Doctrin know that neither King Law civil Oaths or Religion was ever establish'd without the Parlament and thir power is the same to abrogate as to establish neither is any thing to bee thought establish'd which that House declares to be abolisht Where the Parlament sitts there inseparably sitts the King there the Laws there our Oaths and whatsoever can be civil in Religion They who fought for the Parlament in the truest sense fought for all these who fought for the King divided from his Parlament fought for the shadow of a King against all these and for things that were not as if they were establisht It were a thing monstrously absurd and contradictory to give the Parlament a Legislative power and then to upbraid them for transgressing old Establishments But the King and his Party having lost in this Quarrel thir Heav'n upon Earth beginn to make great reckning of Eternal Life and at an easie rate in forma Pauperis Canonize one another
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
goes on therfore with vehemence to repeat the mischeifs don by these Tumults They first Petition'd then protected dictate next and lastly overaw the Parlament They remov'd obstructions they purg'd the Houses cast out rott'n members If there were a man of iron such as Talus by our Poet Spencer is fain'd to be the page of Justice who with his iron flaile could doe all this and expeditiously without those deceitfull formes and circumstances of Law worse then ceremonies in Religion I say God send it don whether by one Talus or by a thousand But they subdu'd the men of conscience in Parlament back'd and abetted all seditious and schismatical Proposals against government ecclesiastical and civil Now wee may perceave the root of his hatred whence it springs It was not the Kings grace or princely goodness but this iron flaile the People that drove the Bishops out of thir Baronies out of thir Cathedrals out of the Lords House out of thir Copes and Surplices and all those Papistical innovations threw down the High Commission and Star-chamber gave us a Triennial Parlament and what we most desir'd in revenge whereof he now so bitterly enveighs against them these are those seditious and scismatical Proposals then by him condescended to as acts of grace now of another name which declares him touching matters of Church and State to have bin no other man in the deepest of his solitude then he was before at the highest of his Sovrantie But this was not the worst of these Tumults they plaid the hasty midwives and would not stay the ripening but went streight to ripping up and forcibly cut out abortive Votes They would not stay perhaps the Spanish demurring and putting off such wholsome acts and counsels as the Politic Cabin at WhiteHall had no mind to But all this is complain'd heer as don to the Parlament and yet we heard not the Parlament at that time complaine of any violence from the people but from him Wherfore intrudes he to plead the cause of Parlament against the People while the Parlament was pleading thir own cause against him and against him were forc'd to seek refuge of the people 'T is plaine then that those confluxes and resorts interrupted not the Parlament nor by them were thought Tumultuous but by him onely and his Court Faction But what good Man had not rather want any thing he most desir'd for the public good then attain it by such unlawfull and irreligious meanes as much as to say Had not rather sit still and let his Country be Tyranniz'd then that the people finding no other remedie should stand up like Men and demand thir Rights and Liberties This is the artificialest peece of fineness to perswade men into slavery that the wit of Court could have invented But heare how much betterthe Moral of this Lesson would befitt the Teacher What good man had not rather want a boundless and arbitrary power and those fine Flowers of the Crown call'd Prerogatives then for them to use force and perpetual vexation to his faithfull Subjects nay to wade for them through blood and civil warr So that this and the whole bundle of those following sentences may be apply'd better to the convincement of his own violent courses then of those pretended Tumults Who were the chiefe Demagogues to send for those Tumults some alive are not ignorant Setting aside the affrightment of this Goblin word for the King by his leave cannot coine English as he could Money to be current and t is beleev'd this wording was above his known stile and Orthographie and accuses the whole composure to be conscious of som other Author yet if the people were sent for emboldn'd and directed by those Demagogues who saving his Greek were good Patriots and by his own confession Men of some repute for parts and pietie it helps well to assure us there was both urgent cause and the less danger of thir comming Complaints were made yet no redress could be obtain'd The Parlament also complain'd of what danger they sate in from another party and demanded of him a Guard but it was not granted What marvel then if it chear'd them to see some store of thir Friends and in the Roman not the pettifogging sense thir Clients so neer about them a defence due by nature both from whom it was offer'd and to whom as due as to thir Parents though the Court storm'd and fretted to see such honour giv'n to them who were then best Fathers of the Common-wealth And both the Parlament and people complain'd and demanded Justice for those assaults if not murders don at his own dores by that crew of Rufflers but he in stead of doing Justice on them justifi'd and abetted them in what they did as in his public Answer to a Petition from the City may be read Neither is it slightly to be pass'd over that in the very place where blood was first drawn in this cause as the beginning of all that follow'd there was his own blood shed by the Executioner According to that sentence of Divine justice In the place where Dogs lick'd the blood of Naboth shall Dogs lick thy blood eev'n thine From hence he takes occasion to excuse that improvident and fatal error of his absenting from the Parlament When he found that no Declaration of the Bishops could take place against those Tumults Was that worth his considering that foolish and self-undoing Declaration of twelve Cypher Bishops who were immediatly appeacht of Treason for that audacious Declaring The Bishops peradventure were now and then pulld by the Rochers and deserv'd another kind of pulling but what amounted this to the feare of his own person in the streets Did he not the very next day after his irruption into the House of Commons then which nothing had more exasperated the people goe in his Coach unguarded into the City did hee receave the least affront much less violence in any of the Streets but rather humble demeanours and supplications Hence may be gather'd that however in his own guiltiness hee might have justly fear'd yet that hee knew the people so full of aw and reverence to his Person as to dare commit himself single among the thickest of them at a time when he had most provok'd them Besides in Scot-Land they had handl'd the Bishops in a more robustious manner Edinburrow had bin full of Tumults two Armies from thence had enterd England against him yet after all this he was not fearfull but very forward to take so long a journey to Edinburrow which argues first as did also his rendition afterward to the Scotch Army that to England he continu'd still as he was indeed a stranger and full of diffidence to the Scots onely a native King in his confidence though not in his dealing towards them It shews us next beyond doubting that all this his feare of Tumults was but a meer colour and occasion tak'n of his resolved absence from the Parlament for some other end not
difficult to be guess'd And those instances wherein valour is not to be question'd for not scuffling with the Sea or an undisciplind Rabble are but subservient to carry on the solemn jest of his fearing Tumults if they discover not withall the true reason why he departed onely to turne his slashing at the Court Gate to slaughtering in the Field his disorderly bickering to an orderly invading which was nothing els but a more orderly disorder Some suspected and affirm'd that he meditated a Warr when he went first from White Hall And they were not the worst heads that did so nor did any of his former acts weak'n him to that as he alleges for himself or if they had they cleere him onely for the time of passing them not for what ever thoughts might come after into his mind Former actions of improvidence or fear not with him unusual cannot absolve him of all after meditations He goes on protesting his no intention to have left White Hall had these horrid Tumults giv'n him but Faire Quarter as if he himself his Wife and Children had bin in peril But to this anough hath bin answer'd Had this Parlament as it was in its first Election Namely with the Lord and Baron Bishops sate full and free he doubts not but all had gon well What warrant this of his to us Whose not doubting was all good mens greatest doubt He was resolv'd to heare reason and to consent so farr as he could comprehend A hopefull resolution what if his reason were found by oft experience to comprehend nothing beyond his own advantages was this a reason fit to be intrusted with the common good of three Nations But saith he as Swine are to gardens so are Tumults to Parlaments This the Parlament had they found it so could best have told us In the meane while who knows not that one great Hogg may doe as much mischief in a Garden as many little Swine He was sometimes prone to think that had he call'd this last Parlament to any other place in England the sad consequences might have bin prevented But change of ayr changes not the mind Was not his first Parlament at Oxford dissolv'd after two Subsidies giv'n him and no Justice receav'd Was not his last in the same place where they sat with as much freedom as much quiet from Tumults as they could desire a Parlament both in his account and thir own consisting of all his Friends that fled after him and suffer'd for him and yet by him nicknam'd and casheer'd for a Mungrill Parlament that vext his Queen with thir base and mutinous motions as his Cabinet letter tells us Wherby the World may see plainly that no shifting of place no sifting of members to his own mind no number no paucity no freedom from tumults could ever bring his arbitrary wilfulness and tyrannical Designes to brook the lest shape or similitude the lest counterfet of a Parlament Finally instead of praying for his people as a good King should doe hee prayes to be deliver'd from them as from wild Beasts Inundations and raging Seas that had overborn all Loyalty Modesty Laws Justice and Religion God save the people from such Intercessors V. Upon the Bill for Trienniall Parlaments And for setling this c. THe Bill for a Triennial Parlament was but the third part of one good step toward that which in times past was our annual right The other Bill for setling this Parlament was new indeed but at that time very necessary and in the Kings own Words no more then what the World was fully confirm'd hee might in Justice Reason Honour and Conscience grant them for to that end he affirms to have don it But wheras he attributes the passing of them to his own act of grace and willingness as his manner is to make vertues of his necessities and giving to himself all the praise heaps ingratitude upon the Parlament a little memory will sett the cleane contrary before us that for those Beneficial acts we ow what wee ow to the Parlament but to his granting them neither praise nor thanks The first Bill granted much less then two former Statutes yet in force by Edward the third that a Parlament should be call'd every yeare or ofter if need were nay from a farr ancienter Law Book call'd the Mirror it is affirm'd in a late Treatise call'd Rights of the Kingdom that Parlaments by our old Laws ought twice a year to be at London From twice in one year to once in three year it may be soon cast up how great a loss we fell into of our ancient liberty by that act which in the ignorant and Slavish mindes we then were was thought a great purchase Wisest men perhaps were contented for the present at least by this act to have recoverd Parlaments w ch were then upon the brink of danger to be forever lost And this is that which the King preaches heer for a special tok'n of his Princely favour to have abridg'd over reach'd the people five parts in six of what thir due was both by ancient Statute and originally And thus the taking from us all but a Triennial remnant of that English Freedom which our Fathers left us double in a fair annuity enrowl'd is set out and sould to us heer for the gracious and over liberal giving of a new enfranchisment How little may we think did he ever give us who in the Bill of his pretended givings writes down Imprimis that benefit or privilege once in three year giv'n us which by so giving he more then twice every year illegally took from us Such givers as give single to take away sixfold be to our Enemies For certainly this Common-wealth if the Statutes of our Ancestors be worth ought would have found it hard and hazardous to thrive under the dammage of such a guilefull liberatie The other act was so necessary that nothing in the power of Man more seem'd to be the stay support of all things from that steep ruin to which he had nigh brought them then that Act obtain'd He had by his ill Stewardship and to say no worse the needless raising of two Armies intended for a civil War begger'd both himself and the Public and besides had left us upon the score of his needy Enemies for what it cost them in thir own defence against him To disingage him and the Kingdom great sums were to be borrow'd which would never have bin lent nor could ever be repaid had the King chanc'd to dissolve this Parlament as heertofore The errors also of his Goverment had brought the Kingdom to such extremes as were incapable of all recovery without the absolute continuance of a Parlament It had bin els in vaine to goe about the setling of so great distempers if hee who first caus'd the malady might when he pleas'd reject the remedy Notwithstanding all which that he granted both these Acts unwillingly and as a meer passive Instrument was then
the injunction of his all-ruling error He alleges the uprightness of his intentions to excuse his possible failings a position fals both in Law and Divinity Yea contrary to his own better principles who affirmes in the twelfth Chapter that The goodness of a mans intention will not excuse the scandall and contagion of his example His not knowing through the corruption of flattery and Court Principles what he ought to have known will not excuse his not doing what he ought to have don no more then the small skill of him who undertakes to be a Pilot will excuse him to be misledd by any wandring Starr mistak'n for the Pole But let his intentions be never so upright what is that to us What answer for the reason and the National Rights which God hath giv'n us if having Parlaments and Laws and the power of making more to avoid mischeif wee suffer one mans blind intentions to lead us all with our eyes op'n to manifest destruction And if Arguments prevaile not with such a one force is well us'd not to carry on the weakness of our Counsels or to convince his error as he surmises but to acquitt and rescue our own reason our own consciences from the force and prohibition laid by his usurping error upon our Liberties understandings Never thing pleas'd him more then when his judgement concurr'd with theirs That was to the applause of his own judgement and would as well have pleas'd any selfconceited man Yea in many things he chose rather to deny himself then them That is to say in trifles For of his own Interests and Personal Rights he conceavs himself Maister To part with if he please not to contest for against the Kingdom which is greater then he whose Rights are all subordinat to the Kingdoms good And in what concernes truth Justice the right of Church or his Crown no man shall gaine his consent against his mind What can be left then for a Parlament but to sit like Images while he still thus either with incomparable arrogance assumes to himself the best abilitie of judging for other men what is Truth Justice Goodness what his own or the Churches Right or with unsufferable Tyranny restraines all men from the enjoyment of any good which his judgement though erroneous thinks not fit to grant them notwithstanding that the Law and his Coronal Oath requires his undeniable assent to what Laws the Parlament agree upon He had rather wear a Crown of Thorns with our Saviour Many would be all one with our Saviour whom our Saviour will not know They who govern ill those Kingdoms which they had a right to have to our Saviours Crown of Thornes no right at all Thornes they may find anow of thir own gathering and thir own twisting for Thornes and Snares saith Solomon are in the way of the froward but to weare them as our Saviour wore them is not giv'n to them that suffer by thir own demerits Nor is a Crown of Gold his due who cannot first wear a Crown of Lead not onely for the weight of that great Office but for the compliance which it ought to have with them who are to counsel him which heer he termes in scorne An imbased flexibleness to the various and oft contrary dictates of any Factions meaning his Parlament for the question hath bin all this while between them two And to his Parlament though a numerous and chois Assembly of whom the Land thought wisest he imputes rather then to himself want of reason neglect of the Public interest of parties and particularitie of private will and passion but with what modesty or likelihood of truth it will be wearisom to repeat so oft'n He concludes with a sentence faire in seeming but fallacious For if the conscience be ill edifi'd the resolution may more befitt a foolish then a Christian King to preferr a self-will'd conscience before a Kingdoms good especially in the deniall of that which Law and his Regal Office by Oath bids him grant to his Parlament and whole Kingdom rightfully demanding For we may observe him throughout the discours to assert his Negative power against the whole Kingdom now under the specious Plea of his conscience and his reason but heertofore in a lowder note Without us or against our consent the Votes of either or of both Houses together must not cannot shall not Declar. May 4. 1642. With these and the like deceavable Doctrines he levens also his Prayer VII Vpon the Queens departure TO this Argument we shall soon have said for what concerns it us to hear a Husband divulâ—… his Houshold privacies extolling to others the verâ—…tues of his Wife an infirmity not seldom incident to those who have least cause But how good shee was a Wife was to himself and be it left to his own fancy how bad a Subject is not much disputed And being such it need be made no wonder though shee left a Protestant Kingdom with as little honour as her Mother left a Popish That this Is the first example of any Protestant Subjects that haue tak'n up Armes against thir King a Protestant can be to Protestants no dishonour when it shal be heard that he first levied Warr on them and to the interest of Papists more then of Protestants He might have giv'n yet the precedence of making warr upon him to the subjects of his own Nation who had twice oppos'd him in the op'n Feild long ere the English found it necessary to doe the like And how groundless how dissembl'd is that feare least shee who for so many yeares had bin averse from the Religion of her Husband and every yeare more and more before these disturbances broke out should for them be now the more alienated from that to which we never heard shee was inclin'd But if the feare of her Delinquency and that Justice which the Protestants demanded on her was any cause of heralienating the more to have gain'd her by indirect means had bin no advantage to Religion much less then was the detriment to loose her furder off It had bin happy if his own actions had not giv'n cause of more scandal to the Protestants then what they did against her could justly scandalize any Papist Them who accus'd her well anough known to be the Parlament he censures for Men yet to seeke thir Religion whether Doctrine Discipline or good manners the rest he soothes with the name of true English Protestants a meer scismatical name yet he so great an enemy of Scism He ascribes Rudeness and barbarity worse then Indian to the English Parlament and all vertue to his Wife in straines that come almost to Sonnetting How fitt to govern men undervaluing and aspersing the great Counsel of his Kingdom in comparison of one Woman Examples are not farr to seek how great mischeif and dishonour hath befall'n to Nations under the Government of effeminate and Uxorious Magistrates Who being themselves govern'd and overswaid at home under a Feminine usurpation
Plenty and Religion as all Nations either admir'd or envi'd For the Justice we had let the Counsel-Table Starr-Chamber High Commission speak the praise of it not forgetting the unprincely usage and as farr as might be the abolishing of Parlaments the displacing of honest Judges the sale of Offices Bribery and Exaction not found out to be punish'd but to be shar'd in with impunity for the time to come Who can number the extortions the oppressions the public robberies and rapines committed on the Subject both by Sea and Land under various pretences Thir possessions also tak'n from them one while as Forrest Land another while as Crown-Land nor were thir Goods exempted no not the Bullion in the Mint Piracy was become a project own'd and authoriz'd against the Subject For the peace we had what peace was that which drew out the English to a needless and disshonourable voyage against the Spaniard at Cales Or that which lent our shipping to a treacherous and Antichristian Warr against the poore Protestants of Rochell our suppliants What peace was that which fell to rob the French by Sea to the imbarring of all our Merchants in that Kingdom which brought forth that unblest expedition to the I le of Rhee doubtfull whether more calamitous in the success or in the designe betraying all the flowre of our military youth and best Commanders to a shamefull surprisal and execution This was the peace we had and the peace we gave whether to freinds or to foes abroad And if at home any peace were intended us what meant those Irish billeted Souldiers in all parts of the Kingdom and the designe of German Horse to fubdue us in our peacefull Houses For our Religion where was there a more ignorant profane and vitious Clergy learned in nothing but the antiquitie of thir pride thir covetousnes and superstition whose unsincere and levenous Doctrine corrupting the people first taught them loosness then bondage loosning them from all sound knowledge and strictness of life the more to fit them for the bondage of Tyranny and superstition So that what was left us for other Nations not to pitty rather then admire or envy all those seaventeen yeares no wise man could see For wealth and plenty in a land where Justice raignes not is no argument of a flourishing State but of a neerness rather to ruin or commotion These were not some miscariages onely of Goverment which might escape but a universal distemper and reducement of law to arbitrary power not through the evil counsels of some men but through the constant cours practise of al that were in highest favour whose worst actions frequently avowing he took upon himself and what faults did not yet seem in public to be originally his such care he took by professing and proclaiming op'nly as made them all at length his own adopted sins The persons also when he could no longer protect he esteem'd and favour'd to the end but never otherwise then by constraint yeilded any of them to due punishment thereby manifesting that what they did was by his own Autority and approbation Yet heer he asks whose innocent blood he hath shed What widdows or Orphans teares can witness against him After the suspected Poysoning of his Father not inquir'd into but smother'd up and him protected and advanc'd to the very half of his Kingdom who was accus'd in Parlament to be Author of the fact with much more evidence then Duke Dudley that fals Protector is accus'd upon record to have poison'd Edward the sixt after all his rage and persecution after so many Yeares of cruel Warr on his People in three Kingdoms Whence the Author of Truths manifest a Scotchman not unacquainted with affaires positively affirmes That there hath bin more Christian blood shed by the Commission approbation and connivance of King Charles and his Father James in the latter end of thir raigne then in the Ten Roman Persecutions Not to speake of those many whippings Pillories and other corporal inflictions wherwith his raign also before this Warr was not unbloodie some have dy'd in Prison under cruel restraint others in Banishment whose lives were shortn'd through the rigour of that persecution wherwith so many yeares he infested the true Church And those six Members all men judg'd to have escap'd no less then capital danger whom he so greedily pursuing into the House of Commons had not there the forbearance to conceal how much it troubl'd him That the Birds were flowne If som Vultur in the Mountains could have op'nd his beak intelligibly and spoke what fitter words could he have utter'd at the loss of his prey The Tyrant Nero though not yet deserving that name sett his hand so unwillingly to the execution of a condemned Person as to wish He had not known letters Certainly for a King himself to charge his Subjects with high treason and so vehemently to prosecute them in his own cause as to doe the Office of a Searcher argu'd in him no great aversation from shedding blood were it but to satisfie his anger and that revenge was no unpleasing morsel to him wherof he himself thought not much to be so diligently his own Caterer But we insist rather upon what was actual then what was probable He now falls to examin the causes of this Warr as a difficulty which he had long studied to find out It was not saith he my withdrawing from White Hall for no account in reason could be giv'n of those Tumults where an orderly Guard was granted But if it be a most certain truth that the Parlament could never yet obtain of him any Guard fit to be confided in then by his own confession some account of those pretended Tumults may in reason be giv'n and both concerning them and the Guards anough hath bin said alreadie Whom did he protect against the Justice of Parlament Whom did he not to his utmost power Endeavouring to have rescu'd Strafford from thir Justice though with the destruction of them and the City to that end expressly commanding the admittance of new Soldiers into the Tower rais'd by Suckling and other Conspirators under pretence for the Portugall though that Embassador beeing sent to utterly deny'd to know of any such Commission from his Maister And yet that listing continu'd Not to repeat his other Plot of bringing up the two Armies But what can be disputed with such a King in whose mouth and opinion the Parlament it self was never but a Faction and thir Justice no Justice but The dictates and overswaying insolence of Tumults and Rabbles and under that excuse avouches himself op'nly the generall Patron of most notorious Delinquents and approves their flight out of the Land whose crimes were such as that the justest and the fairest tryal would have soonest condemn'd them to death But did not Catiline plead in like manner against the Roman Senat and the injustice of thir trial and the justice of his flight from Rome Coesar also then hatching Tyranny injected
binds him to no less neither is he at all by his Office to interpose against a Parlament in the making or not making of any Law but to take that for just and good legally which is there decreed and to see it executed accordingly Nor was he set over us to vie wisdom with his Parlament but to be guided by them any of whome possibly may as farr excell him in the gift of wisdom as he them in place and dignitie But much neerer is it to impossibilitie that any King alone should be wiser then all his councel sure anough it was not he though no King ever before him so much contended to have it thought so And if the Parlament so thought not but desir'd him to follow their advice and deliberation in things of public concernment he accounts it the same proposition as if Sampson had bin mov'd to the putting out his eyes that the Philistims might abuse him And thus out of an unwise or pretended feare least others should make a scorn of him for yeilding to his Parlament he regards not to give cause of worse suspicion that he made a scorn of his regal Oath But to exclude him from all power of deniall seemes an arrogance in the Parlament he means what in him then to deny against the Parlament None at all by what he argues For by Petitioning they confess thir inferioritie and that obliges them to rest if not satisfi'd yet quieted with such an Answer as the will and reason of their Superior thinks sit to give First Petitioning in better English is no more then requesting or requiring and men require not favours onely but thir due and that not onely from Superiors but from Equals and Inferiors also The noblest Romans when they stood for that which was a kind of Regal honour the Consulship were wont in a submissive manner to goe about and begg that highest Dignity of the meanest Plebeians naming them man by man which in their tongue was call'd Petitio consulatus And the Parlament of England Petition'd the King not because all of them were inferior to him but because he was superior to any one of them which they did of civil custom and for fashions sake more then of duty for by plaine Law cited before the Parlament is his Superiour But what law in any trial or dispute enjoynes a free man to rest quieted though not satisfi'd with the will and reason of his Superior It were a mad law that would subject reason to superioritie of place And if our highest consultations and purpos'd lawes must be terminated by the Kings will then is the will of one man our Law and no suttletie of dispute can redeem the Parlament and Nation from being Slaves neither can any Tyrant require more then that his will or reason though not satisfying should yet be rested in and determin all things We may conclude therfore that when the Parlament petition'd the King it was but meerly forme let it be as foolish and absurd as he pleases It cannot certainly be so absurd as what he requires that the Parlament should confine thir own and all the Kingdoms reason to the will of one man because it was his hap to succeed his Father For neither God nor the Lawes have subjected us to his will nor sett his reason to be our sovran above Law which must needs be if he can strangle it in the birth but sett his person over us in the sovran execution of such Laws as the Parlament establish The Parlament therfore without any usurpation hath had it alwaies in thir power to limit and confine the exorbitancie of Kings whether they call it thir will thir reason or thir conscience But this above all was never expected nor is to be endur'd that a King who is bound by law and Oath to follow the advice of his Parlament should be permitted to except against them as young Statesmen and proudly to suspend his following thir advice untill his seven yeares experience had shewn him how well they could govern themselves Doubtless the Law never suppos'd so great an arrogance could be in one man that he whose seventeen yeares unexperience had almost ruin'd all should sit another seven yeares Schoolmaster to tutor those who were sent by the whole Realme to be his Counselers and teachers And with what modesty can he pretend to be a Statesman himself who with his Fathers Kingcraft and his own did never that of his own accord which was not directly opposit to his professed Interest both at home and abroad discontenting and alienating his Subjects at home weakning and deserting his Confederats abroad and with them the Common cause of Religion So that the whole course of his raign by an example of his own furnishing hath resembl'd Phaeton more then Phoebus and forc'd the Parlament to drive like Jehu which Omen tak'n from his own mouth God hath not diverted And he on the other side might have rememberd that the Parlament sit in that body not as his Subjects but as his Superiors call'd not by him but by the Law not onely twice every yeare but as oft as great affaires require to be his Counselers and Dictators though he stomac it nor to be dissolv'd at his pleasure but when all greevances be first remov'd all Petitions heard and answer'd This is not onely Reason but the known Law of the Land When he heard that Propositions would be sent him he satt conjecturing what they would propound and because they propounded what he expected not he takes that to be a warrant for his denying them But what did he expect he expected that the Parlament would reinforce some old Laws But if those Laws were not a sufficient remedy to all greevances nay were found to be greevances themselves when did we loose that other part of our freedom to establish new He thought some injuries done by himself and others to the Common wealth were to be repair'd But how could that be while he the chief offender took upon him to be sole Judge both of the injury and the reparation He staid till the advantages of his Crown consider'd might induce him to condiscend to the Peoples good Whenas the Crown it self with all those advantages were therfore giv'n him that the peoples good should be first consider'd not bargain'd for and bought by inches with the bribe of more offertures and advantages to his Crown He look'd for moderate desires of due Reformation as if any such desires could be immoderate He lookd for such a Reformation both in Church and State as might preserve the roots of every greevance and abuse in both still growing which he calls The foundation and essentials and would have onely the excrescencies of evil prun'd away for the present as was plotted before that they might grow fast anough between Triennial Parlaments to hinder them by worke anough besides from ever striking at the root He alleges They should have had regard to the Laws in force
What remaines then He appeales to God and is cast lik'ning his punishments to Jobs trials before he saw them to have Jobs ending But how could Charity her self beleive ther was at all in him any Religion so much as but to fear ther is a God when as by what is noted in the Declaration of no more addresses he vowd solemnly to the Parlament with imprecations upon himself and his Posterity if ever he consented to the abolishing of those Lawes which were in force against Papists and at the same time as appeard plainly by the very date of his own Letters to the Queen and Ormond consented to the abolishing of all Penal Lawes against them both in Ireland and England If these were acts of a Religious Prince what memory of man writt'nor unwritt'n can tell us newes of any Prince that ever was irreligious He cannot stand to make prolix Apologies Then surely those long Pamphlets set out for Declarations and Protestations in his Name were none of his and how they should be his indeed being so repugnant to the whole cours of his actions augments the difficulty But he usurps a common saying That it is Kingly to doe well and heare ill That may be sometimes true but farr more frequently to doe ill and heare well so great is the multitude of Flatterers and them that deifie the name of King Yet not content with these neighbours we have him still a perpetual preacher of his own vertues and of that especially which who knows not to bee Patience perforce He beleives it will at last appeare that they who first began to embroyle his other kingdoms are also guilty of the blood of Ireland And wee beleive so too for now the Cessation is become a Peace by publishd Articles and Commission to bring them over against England first only ten thousand by the Earl of Glamorgan next all of them if possible under Ormond which was the last of all his transactions don as a public Person And no wonder for he lookt upon the blood spilt whether of Subjects or of Rebels with an indifferent eye as exhausted out of his own veines without distinguishing as he ought which was good blood and which corrup the not letting-out wherof endangers the whole body And what the Doctrin is ye may perceave also by the Prayer which after a short ejaculation for the poore Protestants prayes at large for the Irish Rebels that God would not give them over or thir Children to the covetousness cruelty fierce and cursed anger of the Parlament He finishes with a deliberat and solemn curse upon himself and his Fathers House Which how farr God hath alreadie brought to pass is to the end that men by so eminent an example should learn to tremble at his judgements and not play with Imprecations XIII Upon the calling in of the Scots and thir comming IT must needs seem strange where Men accustom themselves to ponder and contemplat things in thir first original and institution that Kings who as all other Officers of the Public were at first chos'n and install'd onely by consent and suffrage of the People to govern them as Freemen by Laws of thir own framing and to be in consideration of that dignity and riches bestow'd upon them the entrusted Servants of the Common-wealth should notwithstanding grow up to that dishonest encroachment as to esteem themselves Maisters both of that great trust which they serve and of the People that betrusted them counting what they ought to doe both in discharge of thir public duty and for the great reward of honour and revennue which they receave as don all of meer grace and favour as if thir power over us were by nature and from themselves or that God had sould us into thir hands Indeed if the race of Kings were eminently the best of men as the breed at 〈◊〉 is of â—…orse it would in some reason then be their part onely to command ours always to obey But Kings by generation no way excelling others and most commonly not being the wisest or the worthiest by far of whom they claime to have the governing that we should yeild them subjection to our own ruin or hold of them the right of our common safety and our natural freedom by meer gift as when the Conduit pisses Wine at Coronations from the superfluity of thir royal grace and beneficence we may be sure was never the intent of God whose ways are just and equal never the intent of Nature whose works are also regular never of any People not wholly barbarous whom prudence or no more but human sense would have better guided when they first created Kings then so to nullifie and tread to durt the rest of mankind by exalting one person and his Linage without other merit lookt after but the meer contingencie of a begetting into an absolute and unaccountable dominion over them and thir posterity Yet this ignorant or wilfull mistake of the whole matter had tak'n so deep root in the imagination of this King that whether to the English or to the Scot mentioning what acts of his Regal Office though God knows how un willingly he had pass'd he calls them as in other places Acts of grace and bounty so heer special obligations favours to gratifie active spirits and the desires of that party Words not onely sounding pride and Lordly usurpation but Injustice Partiality and Corruption For to the Irish he so farr condiscended as first to tolerate in privat then to covnant op'nly the tolerating of Popery So farr to the Scot as to remove Bishops establish Presbytery and the Militia in thir own hands preferring as some thought the desires of Scotland before his own interest and Honour But being once on this side Tweed his reason his conscience and his honour became so streitn'd with a kind of fals Virginity that to the English neither one nor other of the same demands could be granted wherwith the Scots were gratifi'd as if our aire and climat on a sudden had chang'd the property and the nature both of Conscience Honour and Reason or that he found none so fit as English to be the subjects of his arbitrary power Ireland was as Ephraim the strength of his head Scotland as Iudah was his Law-giver but over England as over Edom he meant to cast his Shoo and yet so many sober Englishmen not sufficiently awake to consider this like men inchanted with the Circaean cup of servitude will not be held back from running thir own heads into the Yoke of Bondage The summ of his discours is against setling of Religion by violent meanes which whether it were the Scots designe upon England they are best able to cleare themselves But this of all may seem strangest that the King who while it was permitted him never did thing more eagerly then to molest and persecute the consciences of most Religious men he who had made a Warr and lost all rather then not uphold a Hierarchie of persecuting
but complain'd of Thus these two heads wherein the utmost of his allowance heer will give our Liberties leave to consist the one of them shall be so farr onely made good to us as may support his own interest and Crown from ruin or debilitation and so farr Turkish Vassals enjoy as much liberty under Mahomet and the Grand Signor the other we neither yet have enjoyd under him nor were ever like to doe under the Tyranny of a negative voice which he claimes above the unanimous consent and power of a whole Nation virtually in the Parlament In which negative voice to have bin cast by the doom of Warr and put to death by those who vanquisht him in thir own defence he reck'ns to himself more then a negative Martyrdom But Martyrs bear witness to the truth not to themselves If I beare witness of my self saith Christ my witness is not true He who writes himself Martyr by his own inscription is like an ill Painter who by writing on the shapeless Picture which he hath drawn is fain to tell passengers what shape it is which els no man could imagin no more then how a Martyrdom can belong to him who therfore dyes for his Religion because it is establisht Certainly if Agrippa had turn'd Christian as he was once turning and had put to death Scribes and Pharisees for observing the Law of Moses and refusing Christianitie they had di'd a truer Martyrdom For those Laws were establisht by God and Moses these by no warrantable authors of Religion whose Laws in all other best reformed Churches are rejected And if to die for an establshment of Religion be Martyrdom then Romish Priests executed for that which had so many hundred yeares bin establisht in this Land are no wors Martyrs then he Lastly if to die for the testimony of his own conscience be anough to make him Martyr what Heretic dying for direct blasphemie as som have don constantly may not boast a Martyrdom As for the constitution or repeale of civil Laws that power lying onely in the Parlament which he by the verry law of his coronation was to grant them not to debarr them nor to preserve a lesser Law with the contempt and violation of a greater it will conclude him not so much as in a civil and metaphoricall sense to have di'd a Martyr of our Laws but a plaine transgressor of them And should the Parlament endu'd with Legislative power make our Laws and be after to dispute them peece meale with the reson conscience humour passion fansie folly obstinacy or other ends of one man whose sole word and will shall baffle and unmake what all the wisdom of a Parlament hath bin deliberatly framing what a ridiculous and contemptible thing a Parlament would soon be and what a base unworthy Nation we who boast our freedom and send them with the manifest peril of thir lives to preserve it they who are not mark'd by destiny for Slaves may apprehend In this servil condition to have kept us still under hatches he both resolves heer to the last and so instructs his Son As to those offerd condescensions of Charitable connivence or toleration if we consider what went before and what follows they moulder into nothing For what with not suffering ever so little to seem a despicable scism without effectual suppression as he warn'd him before and what with no opposition of Law Goverment or establisht Religion to be permitted which is his following proviso and wholly within his own construction what a miserable and suspected toleration under Spies and haunting Promooters we should enjoy is apparent Besides that it is so farr beneath the honour of a Parlament and free Nation to begg and supplicat the Godship of one fraile Man for the bare and simple toleration of what they all consent to be both just pious and best pleasing to God while that which is erroneous unjust and mischeivous in the church or State shall by him alone against them all be kept up and establisht and they censur'd the while for a covetous ambitious sacrilegious faction Another bait to allure the people is the charge he laies upon his Son to be tender of them Which if we should beleeve in part because they are his Heard his Cattell the Stock upon his ground as he accounts them whom to wast and destroy would undoe himself yet the inducement which he brings to move him renders the motion it self somthing suspicious For if Princes need no Palliations as he tells his Son wherfore is it that he himself hath so oft'n us'd them Princes of all other men have not more change of Rayment in thir Wardrobes then variety of Shifts and palliations in thir solemn actingsand pretences to the People To try next if he can insnare the prime Men of those who have oppos'd him whom more truly then his meaning was he calls the Patrons and Vindicators of the People he gives out Indemnity and offers Acts of Oblivion But they who with a good conscience and upright heart did thir civil duties in the sight of God and in thir several places to resist Tyranny and the violence of Superstition banded both against them he may be sure will never seek to be forgiv'n that which may be justly attributed to thir immortal praise nor will assent ever to the guilty blotting out of those actions before men by which thir Faith assures them they chiefly stand approv'd and are had in remembrance before the throne of God He exhorts his son not tostudy revenge But how far he or at least they about him intend to follow that exhortation was seen lately at the Hague now lateliest at Madrid where to execute in the basest manner though but the smallest part of that savage barbarous revenge which they doe no thing elsbut study contemplate they car'd not to let the world know them for profess'd Traitors assassinatersof all Law both Divine and human eev'n of that last and most extensive Law kept inviolable to public persons among all fair enemies in the midst of uttermost defiance and hostility How implacable therefore they would be after any termes of closure or admittance for the future or any like opportunity giv'n them heerafter it will be wisdom our safety to beleeve rather and prevent then to make triall And it will concerne the multitude though courted heer to take heed how they seek to hide or colour thir own fickleness and instability with a bad repentance of thir well-doing and thir fidelity to the better cause to which at first so cherfully and conscientiously they joyn'd themselves He returnes againe to extoll the Church of England and againe requires his Son by the joynt autority of a Father and a King not to let his heart receive the least check or disaffection against it And not without cause for by that meanes having sole influence upon the Clergy and they upon the people after long search and many disputes he could not