these may as easily be fined on new models as fair colours may be put to ill-favoured figures The breaking of Church-windowes which Time had sufficâ—ently defaced pulling down of Crosses which were but civill not Religious marks defacing of the Monuments and Inscriptions of the Dead which served but to put Posterity in mind to thank God for that clearer light wherein they live The leaving of all Ministers to their liberties and private abilities in the Publick service of God where no Christian can tell to what he may say Amen nor what adventure he may make of seeming at least to consent to the Errours Blasphemies and ridiculous Undecencies which bold and ignorant men liâ—t to vent in their Prayers Preaching and other Offices The setting forth also of old Catechismes and Confessions of Faith new drest importing as much as if there had been no sound or clear Doctrine of Faith in this Church before some four or five yeares consultation had matured their thoughts touching their first Principles of Religion All these and the like are the effects of popular specious and deceitfull Reformations that they might not seem to have nothing to do and may give some short flashes of content to the vulgar who are taken with novelties as children with babies very much but not very long But all this amounts not to nor can in Justice merit the glory of the Churches thorow Reformation since they leave all things more deformed disorderly and discontented then when they began in point of Piety Morality Charity and good Order Nor can they easily râ—compense or remedy the inconveniences and mischiefs which they have purchased so dearly and which have and every will necessarily ensue till due remedies be applied I wish they would at last make it their Unanimous work to doe Gods work and not their own Had Religion been first considered as it merited much trouble might have been prevented But some men thought that the Government of this Church and State fixed by so many Lawes and long Customes would not run into their new moulds till they had first melted it in the fire of a Civill Warre by the advantages of which they resolved if they prevailed to make My self all My Subjects fall down and worship the Images they should form and set up If there had been as much of Christs Spirit for meeknesse wisdome and charity in mens hearts as there was of his name used in the pretensions to reform all to Christs Rule it would certainly have obtained more of Gods blessing and produced more of Christs Glory the Churches good the Honour of Religion and the Unity of Châ—istians Publick Reformers had need first Act in private and practise that on their own hearts which they purpose to â—rie on others for Deformities within will soon betray the Pretenders of publick Reformations to such private designes as must needes hinder the publick good I am sure the right Methods of Reforming the Church cannot consist with that of perturbing the Civill State nor can Religion be justly advanced by depressing Loyalty which is one of the chiefest Ingredients and Ornâ—ments of true Religion for next to fear God is Honour the King I doubt not but Christs Kingdome may â—e â—et up without pulling down Mine nor wil any men in impartiall times appear good Christians that approve not themselves good Subjects Christ's Government will confirme Mine not overthrow it since as I owne Mine from Him so I desire to rule for his Glory and his Churches good Had some men truly intended Christ's Government or knew what it meant in their hearts they could never have been so ill governed in their words and actions both against Me and one another As good ends cannot justifie evill means so nor will evil beginnings ever bring forth good conclusions unlesse God by a miracle of Mercy create Light out of Darknesse order out of our confusions and peace out of our passions Thou O Lord who onely canst give us beauty for ashes and Truth for Hypocrisie suffer us not to be miserably deluded with Pharisaicall washings instead of Christian reformings Our greatest deformities are within make us the severest Censurers and first Reformers of our owne soules That we may in clearnesse of judgment and uprightnesse of heart be meanes to reforme what is indeed amisse in Church and State Create in us cleane hearts O Lord and renew right spirits within us that we may doe all by thy directions to thy glory and with thy blessing Pity the deformities which some rash and cruell Reformers have brought upon this Church and State Quench the fires which Factions have kindled under the pretence of Reforming As thou hast shewed the world by their divisions and confusions what is the pravity of some mens intentions and weaknesse of their judgements so bring us at last more refined out of these fires by the methods of Christian and charitable Reformations wherein nothing of ambition revenge covetousnesse or sacriledge may have any influence upon their counsels whom thy providence in just and lawfull waies shall entrust with so great good and now most necessary worke That I and my People may be so blest with inward piety as may best teach us how to use the blessing of outward peace 21. Vpon His Majesties Letters taken and divulged THe taking of My Letters was an opportunity which as the malice of Mine enemies could hardly have expected so they know not how with honour and civility to use it Nor doe I think with sober and worthy minds any thing in them could tend so much to My reproach as the odious divulging of them did to the infamy of the Divulgers The greatest experiments of vertue and Noblenesse being discovered in the greatest advantages against an enemy and the greatest obligations being those which are put upon us by them from whom we could least have expected them And such I should have esteemed the concealing of My Papers The freedome and secresie of which commands a civility from all men not wholly barbarous nor is there any thing more inhumane than to expose them to publique view Yet since providence will have it so I am content so much of My heart which I study to approve to Gods omniscience should be discovered to the world without any of those dresses or popular captations which some men use in their Speeches and Expresses I wish My Subjects had yet a clearer sight into My most retired thoughts Where they might discover how they are divided between the love and care I have not more to preserve My owne Rights than to procure their peace and happinesse and that extreame grief to see them both deceived and destroyed Nor can any mens malice be gratified further by My Letters than to see My constancy to My Wife the Lawes and Religion Bees will gather Honey where the Spider sucks Poison That I endeavour to avoid the pressures of my Enemies by all fair and just correspondencies no man can blame who loves me or
and You that grace which will teach and enable Us to want as well as to weare a Crowne which is not worth taking up or enjoying upon â—ordid dishonourable and irreligious tearms Keep You to true principles of piety vertue and honour You shall never want a Kingdome A principall point of Your honour will consist in Your deferring all respect love and protection to Your Mother My Wife who hath many waies deserved well of Me and chiefly in this that having been a means to blessâ— Me with so many hopefull Children all which with their Mother I recommend to Your love and care She hath been content with incomparable magnanimity and patience to suffer both for and with Me and You. My prayer to God Almighty isâ— whatever becomes of Me who am I thank God wrapt up and fortified in My own Innocency and his Grace that he would be pleased to make You an Anchor or Harbour rather to these tossed and weather-beaten Kingdomes a Repairer by Your wisdome justice piety and valour of what the folly and wickednesse of some men have so farre ruined as to leave nothing entire in Church or State to the Crown the Nobility the Clergy or the Commons either as to Lawes Liberties Estates Order Honour Conscience or lives When they have destroyed Me for I know not how farre God may permit the malice and cruelty of My Enemies to proceed and such apprehensions some mens words and actions have already given Me as I doubt not but My bloud will cry aloud for vengeance to heaven so I beseech God not to poure out his wrath upon the generality of the People who have either deserted Me or engaged against Me through the artifice and hypocrisie of their Leaders whose inward horrour will be their first Tormenter nor will they escape exemplary judgments For those that loved Me I pray God they may have no misse of Me when I am gone so much I wish and hope that all good Subjects may be satisfied with the blessings of Your presence and virtues For those that repent of any defects in their duty toward Me as I freely forgive them in the word of a Christian KING so I believe You will find them truly Zealous to repay with interest that loyalty and love to You which was due to Me. In summe what good I intended doe You performe when God shall give You power much good I have offered more I purposed to Church State if times had been capable of it The deception will soone vanish and the Vâ—zards will fall off apace This maske of Religion on the face of Rebellion for so it now plainly appears since My Restraint and cruell usage that they sought not for Me as was pretended will not long serve to hide some mens deformities Happy times I hope attend You wherein Your Subjects by their miseries will have learned That Religion to their God and Loyalty to their King cannot be parted without both their sin and their infelicity I pray God blesse You and establish Your Kingdomes in righteousnesse Your Soule in true Religion and Your honour in the love of God and Your people And if God will have disloyalty perfected by My destruction let My memory ever with My name live in you as of Your Father that loves You and once a KING of three flourishing Kingdomes whom God thought fit to honour not onely with the Scepter and Government of them but also with the suffering many indignities and an untimely death for them while I studied to preserve the rights of the Church the power of the Lawes the honour of My Crowne the priviledge of Parliaments the liberties of My People and My owne Conscience which I thank God is dearer to Me than a thousand Kingdomes I know God can I hope he yet will restore Me to My Rights I cannot despaire either of his mercy or of My Peoples love and pity At worst I trust I shall but go before You to a better Kingdome which God hath prepared for Me and Me for it through My Saviour Jesus Christ to whose mercies I commend You and all Mine Farewell till We meet if not on Earth yet in Heaven Meditations upon Death after the Votes of Non-Addresses and HIS MAJESTIES closer Imprisonment in Carisbrooke-Castle AS I have leisure enough so I have cause more than enough to meditate upon and prepare for My Death for I know there are but few steps between the Prisons and Graves of Princes It is Gods indulgence which gives Me the space but Mans cruelty that gives Me the sad occasions for these thoughts For besides the common burthen of moâ—tality which lies upon Me as a Man I now bear the heavy load of other mens ambitions fears jealousies and cruell passions whose envy or enmity against Me makes their owne lifes seem deadly to them while I enjoy any part of Mine I thank God My prosperity made Me not wholly a Stranger to the contemplations of mortality Those are never unseasonable since this is alwaies uncertaine Death being an eclipse which oft happeneth as well in clear as cloudy daies But My now long and sharp adversity hath so reconciled in Me those naturall Antipathies between Life and Death which are in all men that I thank God the common terrors of it are dispelled and the speciall horrour of it as to My particular much allayed for although My death at present may justly be represented to Me with all those terrible aggravations which the policy of cruell and implacable enemies can put upon it affaires being drawn to the very dregs of malice yet I blesse God I can look upon all those stings as unpoysonous though sharp since My Redeemer hath either pulled them out or given Me the antidote of his Death against them which as to the immaturity unjustice shame scorne and cruelty of it exceeded whatever I can feare Indeed I never did find so much the life of Religion the feast of a good Conscience and the brazen wall of a judicious integrity and constancy as since I came â—o these closer conflicts with the thoughts of Death I am not so old as to be weary of life nor I hope so bad as to be either afraid to die or ashamed to live true I am so afflicted as might make Me sometime even desire to die if I did not consider That it is the greatest glory of a Christians life to dailyâ— in conquering by a lively faith and patient hopes of a better life those partiall and quotidian deaths which kill us as it were by piece-meales and make us overlive our owne fates while We are deprived of health honour liberty power credit safety or estate and those other comforts of dearest relations which are as the life of our lives Though as a KING I think My self to live in nothing temporall so much as in the love and good-will of My People for which as I have suffered many deaths so I hope I am not in that point as yet wholly dead notwithstanding My
any man gain My consent to that wherein My Heart gives My tongue or hand the Lie nor will I be brought to affirme that to Men which in My Conscience I denied before God I will rather chuse to wear a Crown of Thornes with My Saviour then to exchange that of Gold which is due to Me for one of lead whose embased flexiblenesse shall be forced to bend and comply to the various and oft contrary dictates of any Factions when instead of Reason and Publick concernments they obtrude nothing but what makes for the interest of parties and flowes from the partialities of private wills and passions I know no resolutions more worthy a Christian King then to prefer His Conscience before His Kingdomes O my God preserve thy servant in this Native Rationall and Religious freedome For this I believe is thy will that we should maintaine who though thou dost justly require us to submit our understandings and wills to thine whose wisdom and goodnesse can neither erre nor misguide us and so farre to deny our carnall reason in order to thy sacred Mysteries and commands that we should believe and obey rather then dispute them yet dost thou expect from us only such a reasonable service of thee as not to doe any thing for thee against our consciences and as to the desires of men enjoynest us to try all things by the touch-stone of Reason and Lawes which are the rules of Civill Iustice and to declare our consents to that only which our Iudgements approve Thou knowest ô Lord how unwilling I was to desert that place in which thou hast set me and whereto the affaires of My Kingdoms at present did call me My People can witnesse how far I have been content for their good to deny My self in what thou hast subjected to My disposall O Let not the unthankfull importunities tumultuary violence of some mens Immoderate demands ever betray Me to that degenerous unmanly slavery which should make Me strengthen them by My consent in those things which I think in My Conscience to be against thy glory the good of My subjects and the discharge of My own duty to Reason and Iustice. Make Me willing to suffer the greatest indignities and injuries they presse upon Me rather then commit the least sinne against My Conscience Let the just liberties of My people be as well they may preserved in faire and equall wayesâ— without the slavery of My soul. Thou that hast invested Me by thy favours in the power of a Christian King suffer Me not to subject My Reason to other mens passions and designes which to Me seeme unreasonable unjust and irreligious So shall I serve thee in the truth and uprightnesse of My heart though I cannot satisfie these men Though I be driven from among them yet give Me grace to walk alwayes uprightly before thee Lead Me in the way of Truth and Iustice for these I know will bring Me at last to peace and happinesse with thee though for these I have much trouble among men This I beg of thee for My Saviours sake 7. Vpon the Queenes departure and absence out of England ALthough I have much cause to be troubled at My Wifes departure from Me and out of My Dominions yet not Her absence so much as the scandall of that necessity which drives her away doth afflict Me. That She should be compelled by My owne Subjects and those pretending to be Protestants to withdraw for Her safety This being the first example of any Protestant Subjects that have taken up Arms against their King a Protestant For I look upon this now done in England as another Act of the same Tragedie which was lately begun in Scotland the brands of that fire being ill quenched have kindled the like flames here I fear such motions so little to the adorning of the Protestant profession may occasion a farther alienation of mind and divorce of affections in Her from that Religion which is the only thing wherein me differ Which yet God can and I pray he would in time take away and not suffer these practises to be any obstruction to Her judgementâ— since it is the motion of those men for the most part who are yet to seek and settle their Religion for Doctrine Government and good manners and so not to be imputed to the true English Protestants who continue firme to their former setled Principles and Lawes I am sorry My relation to so deserving a Lady should be any occasion of her danger and affliction whose merits would have served her for a protection among the savage Indians while their rudenesse and barbarity knowes not so perfectly to hate all Vertues as some mens subtilty doth among whom I yet thinke few are so malicious as to hate Her for Her selfe The fault is that she is My wife All justice then as well as affection commands Me to study her Security who is only in danger for My sake I am content to be tossed weather-beaten and shipwrackt so as she may be in safe Harbour This comfort I shall enjoy by her safety in the midst of My Personall dangers that I can perish but halfe if she be preserved In whose memory and hopefull Posterity I may yet survive the malice of My enemies although they should be satiated with My bloud I must leave her and them to the Love and Loyalty of My good Subjects and to his protection who is able to punish the faults of Princes and no lesse severely to revenge the injuries done to Them by those who in all duty and Allegiance ought to have made good that safety which the Lawes chiefly provide for Princes But common civility is in vaine expected from those that dispute their Loyalty Nor can it be safe for any relation to a King to tarry among them who are shaking hands with their Allegiance under pretence of laying faster hold on their Religion T is pitty so noble and peacefull a soule should see much more suffer the rudenesse of those who must make up their want of justice with inhumanity and impudence Her sympathy with Me in My afflictions will make her vertues shine with greater lustre as stars in the darkest nights and assure the envious world that she loves Me not My fortunes Neither of us but can easily forgive since We do not much blame the unkindnesse of the Generality and Vulgar for we see God is pleased to try both our patience by the most selfe-punishing sin the Ingratitude of those who having eaten of our bread and being enriched with Our bounty have Scornfully lift up themselves against Us and those of Our owne Houshold are become Our enemies I pray God lay not their sin to their charge who thinke to satisfy all obligations to duty by their Corban of Religion and can lesse endure to see then to sin against their benefactours as well as their Soveraignes But even that policy of my enemies is so farre veniall as it was necessary to their deâ—â—gnes
the Common-wealth since my Subjects can hardly be happy if I be miserable or enjoy their peace and liberties while I am oppressed The world may see how soon mens design like Absoloms is by enormous actions to widen differences and exasperate all sides to such distances as may make all reconciliation desperate Yet I thank God I can not only with patience bear this as other indignities but with Charity forgive them The integrity of My intentions is not jealous of any injury My expressions can do them for although the confidence of privacy may admit greater freedom in writing such Letters which may be liable to envious exceptions yet the Innocency of My chief purposes cannot be so obtained or mis-interpreted by them as not to let all men seâ— that I wish nothing more then an happy composure of differences with Justice and Honour not more to My own then My peoples content who have any sparks of Love or Loyalty left in them who by those My Letters may be convinced that I can both mind and act My own and My Kingdomes Affaires so as becomes a Prince which Mine Enemies have alwayes been very loath should be belâ—eved of me as if I were wholly confined to the Dictates and Directions of others whom they please to brand with the names of Evill Counsellours It s probable some men will now look upon me as my own Counsellour and having none else to quarrell with under that notion they will hereafter confine theâ—r anger to my self Although I know they are very unwilling I should enjoy the liberty of my own Thoughts or follow the light of my own Conscience which they labour to bring into an absolute captivity to themselves not allowing me to think their Counsels to be other then good for me which have so long maintained a War against Me. The Victory they obtained that day when my Letters became their prize had been enough to have satiated the most ambitious thirst of popular glory among the Vulgar with whom prosperity gaines the greatest esteem and applause as adversity exposeth to their greatest slighting and dis-respect As if good fortune were alwayes the shadow of Vertue and Justice and did not oftner attend vitious and injurious actions as to this world But I see no secular advantages seeme sufficient to that cause which began with Tumults and depends chiefty upon the reputation with the vulgar They think no Victories so effectuall to their designes as those that most rout and waste my Credit with my People in whose hearts they seek by all meanes to smother and extinguish all sparks of Love Respect and Loyalty to Me that they may never kindle again so as to recover Mine the Lawes and the Kingdomes Liberties which some men seek to overthrow The taking away of my Credit is but a necessary preparation to the taking away of my Life and my Kingdomes First I must seem neither fit to Live nor worthy to Reign By exquisite methods of cunning and cruelty I must be compelled first to follow the Funeralls of my Honour and then be destroyed But I know Gods un-erring and impartiall Justice can and will over-rule the most perverse wills and designes of men He is able and I hope will turn even the worst of mine Enemies thoughts and actions to my good Nor doe I think that by the surprize of my Letters I have lost any more then so many papers How much they have lost of that reputation for Civility and Humanity which ought to be pay'd to all men and most becomes such as pretend to Religion besides that of respect and Honour which they owe to their KING present and after-times will judge And I cannot think that their owne consciences are so stupid as not to inflict upon them some secret impressions of that shame and dishonour which attends all unworthy actions have they never so much of publique flattery and popular countenance I am sure they can never expect the divine approbation of such indecent actions if they doe but remember how God blest the modest respect and filiall tendernesse which Noah's Sonnes bare to their Father nor did his open infirmity justifie Chams impudency or exempt him from that curse of being Servant of Servants which curse must needs be on them who seek by dishonourable actions to please the Vulgar and confirme by ignoble acts their dependance upon the People Nor can their malitious intentions be ever either excusable or prosperous who thought by this means to expose Me to the highest reproach and contempt of My People forgetting that duty of modest concealment which they owed to the Father of their Country in case they had discovered any reall uncomelinesse which I thank God they did not who can and I believe hath made Me more respected in the hearts of many as he did David to whom they thought by publishing My private Letters to have rendred Me as a Vile Person not fit to be trusted or considered under any Notion of Majesty But thou O Lord whose wise and all-disposing providence ordereth the greatest contingences of humane affaires make me to see the constancy of thy mercies to me in the greatest advantages thou seemest to give the malice of my Enemies against me As thou didst blast the counsel of Achitophel turning it to Davids good and his owne ruine so canst thou defeat their designe who intended by publishing my private Letters nothing else but to render me more odious and contemptible to My People I must first appeale to thy Omniscience who canst witnesse with my integrity how unjust and false those scandalous misconstructions are which my enemies endeavour by those Papers of mine to represent to the world Make the evill they imagined and displeasure they intended thereby against me so to returne on their owne heads that they may be ashamed and covered with their owne confusion as with a Cloake Thou seest how mine Enemies use all meanes to cloud mine Honour to pervert my purposes and to slander the footsteps of thine Anoynted But give me an heart content to be dishonoured for thy sake and thy Churches good Fix in me a purpose to honour thee and then I know thou wilt honour me either by restoring to me the enjoyment of that Power and Majesty which thou hast suffered some men to seek to deprive me of or by bestowing on me that crowne of Christian patience which knows how to serve thee in honour or dishonour in good report or evill Thou O Lord art the fountaine of goodnesse and honour thou art clothed with excellent Majesty make me to partake of thy excellency for wisdome justice and mercy and I shall not want that degree of Honour and Majesty which becomes the Place in which thou hast set Me who art the lifter up of My head and My salvation Lord by thy Grace lead Me to thy Glory which is both true and eternall 22. Vpon His Majesties leaving Oxford and going to the Scots ALthough God hath given Mee three Kingdomes
obtaine neither shall Restraint which though it have as little of safety to a Prince yet it hath not more of danger The feare of men shall never be my snare nor shall the love of any liberty entangle my soule Better others betray me than my self and that the price of my liberty should be my Conscience the greatest injuries my Enemies seek to inflict upon me cannot be without my owne consent While I can deny with Reason I shall defeat the greatest impressions of their malice who neither know how to use worthily what I have already granted nor what to require more of me but this That I would seem willing to help them to destroy My self Mine Although they should destroy me yet they shall have no cause to despise me Neither liberty nor life are so deare to me as the peace of my Conscience the Honour of my Crownes and the welfare of my People which my Word may injure more than any Warre can doe while I gratifie a few to oppresse all The Lawes will by Gods blessing revive with the love and Loyalty of my Subjects if I bury them not by my Consent and cover them in that grave of dishonour and injustice which some mens violence hath digged for them If my Captivity or death must be the price of their redemption I grâ—dge not to pay it No condition can make a King miserable which carries not with it his Souls his Peoples and Posterities thraldome After-times may see what the blindnesse of this Age will not and God may at length shew my Subjects that I chuse rather to suffer for them than with them happily I might redeem my selfe to some shew of liberty if I would consent to enslave them I had rather hazard the ruine of one King than to confirme many Tyrants over them from whom I pray God deliver them whatever becomes of Me whose solitude hath not left Me alone For thou O God infinitely good and great art with Me whose presence is better than life and whose service is perfect freedome Owne Me for thy Servant and I shall never have cause to complaine for want of that liberty which becomes a Man a Christian and a King Blesse Me still with Reason as a Man with Religion as a Christian and with Coâ—stancy in Iustice as a King Though thou sufferest Me to be stript of all outward ornaments yet preserve Me ever in those enjoyments wherein I may enjoy thy selfe and which cannot be taken from Me against my will Let no fire of affliction boyle â—ver My passion to any impatience or sordid feares There be many say of Me There is no help for Me doe thou lift up the Light of thy Countenance upon Me and I shall neither want safety liberty nor Majesty Give Me that measure of patience and Constâ—ncy which my condition now requires My strength is scattered My expectation froâ— Men defeated My Person restrained O be not thou farre from Me lest My Enemies prevaile too much against Me. I am become a wonder and a scorne to many O be thou my Helper and Defender Shew some token upon me for good that they that hate me may be ashamed because thou Lord hast holpen and comforted me establish me with thy free Spirit that I may do and suffer thy will as thou wouldst have me Be mercifull to me O Lord for my Soule trusteth in thee yea and in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge untill these calamities be overpast Arise to deliver me make no long â—arrying O my God Though thou killest me yet will I trust in thy mercy and my Saviour merit I know that my Redeemer liveth though thou leadest me through the vayl and shadow of death yet shall I feare none ill 24. Vpon their denying His Majesty the Attendance of His Chaplaines WHen Providence was pleased to deprive Me of all other civill comforts and secular attendants I thought the absence of them all might best be supplyed by the attendance of some of My Chaplaines whom for their Function I reverence and for their Fidelity I have cause to love By their learning piety and prayers I hoped to be either better enabled to sustaine the want of all other enjoyments or better fitted for the recovery and use of them in Gods good time so reaping by their pious help a spirituall harvest of grace amidst the thornes and after the plowings of temporall crosses The truth is I never needed or desired more the service and assistance of men judiciously pious and soberly devout The solitude they have confined Me unto adds the Wildernesse to my temptations For the company they obtrude upon Me is more sad than any solitude can be If I had asked My Revenues My Power of the Militia or any one of My Kingdomes it had been no wonder to have been denyed in those things where the evill policy of men forbids all just restitution lest they should confesse an injurious usurpation But to deny Me the Ghostly comfort of My Chaplaines seemes a greater rigour and barbarity then is ever used by Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors whom though the Justice of the Law deprive of worldly comforts yet the mercy of Religion allows them the benefit of their Clergy as not ayming at once to destroy their Bodies and to damne their Soules But My Agony must not be relieved with the presence of any one good Angell for such I account a Learâ—ed Godly and discreet Divine and such I would have all Mine to be They that envy My being a King are loath I should be a Christian while they seek to deprive Me of all things else They are afraid I should save my Soul Other sense Charity it self can hardly pick out of those many harsh Repulses I received as to that Request so often made for the attendance of some of My Chaplaines I have sometime thought the Unchristiannesse of those denialls might arise from a displeasure some men had to see me prefer my own Divines before their Ministers whom though I respect for that worth and piety which may be in them yet I cannot thinke them so proper for any present comforters or Physitians Who have some of them at least had so great an influence in occasioning these calamities and inflicting these wounds upon Me. Nor are the soberest of them so apt for that devotionall complyance and juncture of hearts which I desire to bear in those holy Offices to be performed with Me and for Me since their judgements standing at a distance from me or in jealousie of me or in opposition against me their Spirits cannot so harmoniously accord with mine or mine with theirs either in Prayer or other holy duties as is meet and most comfortable whose golden Rule and bond of Perfection consists in that of mutuall Love and Charity Some remedies are worse then the diseasâ— and some comforters more miserable then misery it self when like Iobs friends they seek not to fortifie ones mind
by scandalous articles and all irreverent demeanour to seeke to drive her out of My Kingdomes lest by the influence of her example eminent for love as a Wife and Loyalty as a Subject she should have converted to or retayned in their love and Loyalty all those whom they had a purpose to pervert The lesse I may be blest with her company the more I will retire to God and My owne Heart whence no malice can banish Her My enemies may envy but they can never deprive Me of the enjoyment of her vertues while I enjoy My self Thou O Lord whose Iustice at present sees fit to scatter us let thy mercâ—â— in thy due time reunite us on earth if it be thy will however bring us both at last to thy heavenly Kingdome Preserve us from the hands of our despitefull and deadly enemies and prepare us by our sufferings for thy presence Though we differ in some things as to Religion which is my greatest temporall infelicity yet Lord give and accept the sincerity of our affections which desire to seek to find to embrace every Truth of thine Let both our Hearts agree in the love of thy selfe and Christ crucified for us Teach us both what thou wouldst have us to know in order to thy glory our publique relations and our soules eternall good and make us carefull to doe what good we know Let neither Ignorance of what is necessary to be knowne nor unbelief or disobedience to what we know be our misery or our wilfull default Let not this great Scandall of those my Subjects which professe the same Religion with me be any hindrance to her love of any Truth thou wouldst have her to learne nor any hardning of her in any errour thou wouldst have cleared to her Let mine and other mens constancy be an Antidote against the poyson of their example Let the Truth of that Religion I professe be represented to her Iudgment with all the beauties of Humility Loyaltâ—â— Charity and Peaceablenesse which are the proper fruits and ornaments of it Not in the odious disguises of Levity Schisme Heresie Novelty Cruelty and Disloyalty which some mens practises have lately put upon it Let her see thy sacred and saving Truths as Thine that she may believe love and obey them as Thine cleared from all rust and drosse of humane mixtures That in the glasse of thy Truth she may see thee in those mercies which thou hast offered to us in thy Sonne Iesus Christ our onely Saviour and serve thee in all those Holy duties which most agree with his holy doctrine and most imitable example The experience we have of the vanity and uncertainty of all humane Glory and greatnesse in our scatterings and Eclypses let it make us both so much â—he more ambitious to be invested in those durable honours and perfections which are onely to be found in thy self and obtained through Iesus Christ. 8. Vpon His Majesties repulse at Hull and the fates of the Hothams MY repulse at Hull seemed at the first view an act of so rude disloyalty that My greatest enemies had scarce confidence enough to abeâ—t or owne it It was the first overt Essay to be made how patiently I could beare the Losse of My Kingdomes God knows it affected me more with shame and sorrow for others then with anger for My selfe nor did the affront done to Me trouble Me so much as their sinne which admitted no colour oâ— excuse I was resolved how to beare this and much more with patience But I foresaw they could hardly conteine themselves within the compasse of this one unworthy act who had effrontery enough to commit or countenance it This was but the hand of that cloud which was â—oone after to overspread the whole Kingdome and cast all into disorder and darknesse For t is among the wicked Maximes of bold and disloyall undertakers That bad actions must alwayes be seconded with worse and rather not be begun then not carried on for they think the retreat more dangerous then the assault and hate repentance more then perseverance in a Fault This gave Me to see clearly through all the pious disguises and soft palliations of some men whose words were sometime smoother then oyle but now I saw they would prove very Swords Against which I having as yet no defence but that of a good Conscience thought it My best policy with patience to bear what I could not remedy And in this I thank God I had the better of Hotham that no disdain or emotion of passion transported Me by the indignity of his carriage to doe or say any thing unbeseeming My self or unsutable to that temper which in greatest injuries I think best becomes a Christian as comming nearest to the great example of Christ. And indeed I desire alwaies more to remember I am a Christian then a King for what the Majesty of one might justly abhor the Charity of the other is willing to bear what the height of a King tempteth to revenge the humility of a Christian teacheth to forgive Keeping in compasse all those impotent passions whose excesse injures a man more then his greatest enemies can for these give their malice a full impression on our souls which otherwaies cannot reach very far nor doe us much hurt I cannot but observe how God not long after so pleaded and avenged My cause in the eye of the world that the most wilfully blind cannot avoid the displeasure to see it with some remorse and fear to own it as a notable stroke and prediction of divine vengeance For Sir Iohn Hotham unreproached unthreatned uncursed by any language or secret imprecation of Mine onely blasted with the conscience of his owne wickednesse and falling from one inconstancy to another not long after paies his owne and his eldest Sons heads as forfeitures of their disloyalty to those men from whom surely he might have expected another reward then thus to divide their heads from their bodies whose hearts with them were divided from their KING Nor is it strange that they who imployed them at first in so high a service and so successfull to them should not find mercy enough to forgive Him who had so much premerited of them For Apostacy unto Loyalty some men account the most unpardonable sinne Nor did a solitary vengeance serve the turne the cutting off one head in a Family is not enough to expiate the affront done to the head of the CoÌ„mon-weale The eldest Son must be involved in the punishment as he was infected with the sinne of the Father against the Father of his Country Root and branch God cuts off in one day These observations are obvious to every fancy God knows I was so farre from rejoycing in the Hotham's ruine though it were such as was able to give the greaâ—est thirst for revenge a full drought being executed by them who first employed him against Me that I so farre pitied him as I thought he at first acted more against the light
violent oppositions if once they gain to be necessary impositions upon the Regall Authority Since no man seekes to limit and confine his King in Reason who hath not a secret aime to share with him or usurp upon him in Power and Dominion But they would have me trust to their moderation abandon mine own discretion that so I might verifie what representations some have made of me to the world that I am fitter to be their Pupill then their Prince Truly I am not so confident of my own sufficiency as not willingly to admit the Counsell of others But yet I am not so diffident of my selfe as bruâ—ishly to submit to any mens dictates and at once to betray the Soveraignty of Reason in my Soul and the Majesty of my own Crown to any of my Subjects Least of all have I any ground of credulity to induce me fully to submit to all the desires of those men who will not admit or doe refuse and neglect to vindicate the freedome of their own and others sitting and voting in Parliament Besides all men that know them know this how young States-men the most part of these propounders are so that till experience of one seven years hath shewed me how well they can Governe themselves and so much power as is wrested from me I should be very foolish indeed and unfaithfull in my Trust to put the reins of both Reason and Government wholly out of my own into their hands whose driving is already too much like Iehues and whose forwardnesse to ascend the throne of Supremacy pretends more of Phaeton then of Phebus God divert the Omen if it be his will They may remember that at best they sit in Parliament as my Subjects not my Superiours called to be my Counsellours not Dictatours Their Summons extends to recommend their advice not to command my Duty When I first heard of Propositions to be sent Me I expected either some good Lawes which had been antiquated by the course of time or overlayd by the corruption of manners had been desired to a restauration of their vigour and due execution or some evill customes preterlegall and abuses personall had been to be removed or some injuries done by My selfe and others to the Common-weale were to be repaired or some equable offertures were to be tendred to Me wherein the advantages of My Crowne being considered by them might fairly induce Me to condiscend to what tended to My Subjects good without any great diminution of My selfe whom nature Law Reason and Religion bind Me in the first place to preserve without which 't is impossible to preserve My People according to My Place Or at least I looked for such moderate desires of due Reformation of what was indeed amisse in Church and State as might still preserve the foundation and essentialls of Government in both not shake and quite overthrow either of them without any regard to the Lawes in force the wâ—sdome and piety of former Parliaments the ancient and universall practise of Christian Churches the Rights and Priviledges of particular men Nor yet any thing offered in lieu or in the roome of what must be destroyed which might at once reach the good end of the others Institution and also supply its pretended defects reforme its abuses and satisfie sober and wise men not with soft and specious words pretending zeale and speciall piety but with pregnant and solid reasons both divine and humane which might justifie the abruptnesse and necessity of such vast alterations But in all their Propositions I can observe little of these kinds or to these ends Nothing of any Laws disâ—jointed which are to be restored of any right invaded of any justice to be un-obstructed of any compensations to be made of any impartiall reformation to be granted to all or any of which Reason Religion true Policy or any other humane motives might induce me But as to the maine matters propounded by them at any time in which is either great novelty or difficulty I perceive that what were formerly look'd upon as Factions in the State and Schâ—smes in the Church and soâ— punishable by the Lawes have now the confidence by vulgar clamours and assistance chiefly to demand not onely Tolerations of themselves in their vanity novelty and confusion but also Abolition of the Lawes against them and a totall extirpation of that Government whose Rights they have a mind to invade This as to the maine other Proposiâ—ions are for the most part but as waste paper in which those are wrapped up to present them somewhat more handsomely Nor doe I so much wonder at the variety and horrible novelty of some Propositions there being nothing so monstrous which some fancies are not prone to long for This casts me into not an admiration but an extasie how such things should have the fortune to be propounded in the name of the two Houses of the Parliament of England among whom I am very confident there was not a fourth part of the Members of either House whose judgments free single and apart did approve or desire such destructive changes in the Government of the Church I am perswaded there remaines in farre the Major part of both Houses if free and full so much Learning Reason Religion and just moderation as to know how to sever between the uâ—e and the abuse of things the institution and the corruption the Government and the Mis-government the Primitive Patterns and the aberrations or blottings of after Copies Sure they could not all upon so little or no Reason as yet produced to the contrary so soon renounce all regard to the Laws in force to antiquity to the piety of their reforming Progenitors to the prosperity of former times in this Church and State under the present Government of the Church Yet by a strange fatality these men suffer either by their absence or silence or negligence or supine credulity believing that all is good which is guilded with shewes of Zeale and Reformation their private dissenting in Judgement to be drawne into the common sewer or streame of the present vogue and humour which hath its chief rise and abetment from those popular clamours and Tumults which served to give life and strength to the infinite activity of those men who studied with all diligence and policy to improve to their Innovating designes the present distractions Such Armies of Propositions having so little in My Judgment of Reason Justice and Religion on their side as they had Tumult and Faction for their rise must not go alone but ever be backt and seconded with Armies of Soldiers Though the second should prevaile against My Person yet the first shall never overcome Me further than I see cause for I look not at their number and power so much as I weigh their Reason and Justice Had the two Houses first sued out their livery and once effectually redeemed themselves from the Wardship of the Tumults which can be no other than the Hounds that
with the least expense or wast of my Conscience whereof thou O Lord onely art deservedly more Master than My self 12. Vpon the Rebellion and troubles in Ireland THe Commotions in Ireland were so sudden and so violent that it was hard at first either to discerne the rise or apply a remedy to that precipitant Rebellion Indeed that sea of bloud which hath there been cruelly and barbarously shed is enough to drowne any man in eternall both infamy and misery whom God shall find the malicious Authour or Instigator of its effusion It fell out as a most unhappy advantage to some mens malice against me that when they had impudence enough to lay any thing to my charge this bloudy opportunity should be offered them with which I must be aspersed Although there was nothing which could be more adhorred to me being so full of sin against God disloyalty to my selfe and destructive to my Subjects Some men took it very ill not to be believed when they affirmed that what the Irish Rebels did was done with my privity at least if not by my Commission But these knew too well that it is no news for some of my Subjects to fight not onely without my Commission but against my Command and Person too yet all the while to pretend they fight by my Authority and for my Safety I would to God the Irish had nothing to alledge for their imitation against those whose blame must needs be the greater by how much Protestant Principles are more against all Rebellion against Princes then those of Papists Nor will the goodnesse of mens intentions excuse the scandall and contagion of their Examples But who ever faile of their Duty toward me I must bear the blame this Honour my Enemies have alwaies done me to think moderate injuries not proportionate to me nor competent trialls either of my patience under them or my pardon of them Therefore with exquisite malice they have mixed the gall and vinegar of falsity and contempt with the cup of my Affliction Charging me not only with untruths but such as wherein I have the greatest share of losse and dishonour by what is committed whereby in all Policy Reason and Religion having least cause to give the least consent and most grounds of utter deâ—estation I might be represented by them to the world the more inhumane and barbarous Like some Cyclopick monster whom nothing will serve to eat and drink but the flesh and blood of my own Subjects in whose common welfare my interest lies as much as some mens doth in their perturbations who think they cannot doe well but in evill times nor so cunningly as in laying the odium of those sad events on others wherewith themselves are most pleased and whereof they have been not the least occasion And certainly t is thought by many wise men that the preposterous rigour and unreasonable severity which some men carried before them in England was not the least incentive that kindled and blew up into those horrid flames the sparkes of discontent which wanted not pre-disposed fewell for Rebellion in Ireland where despaire being added to their former discontents and the feares of utter extirpation to their wonted oppressions it was easie to provoke to an open Rebellion a people prone enough to break out to all exorbitant violence both by some Principles of their Religion and the naturall desires of liberty both to exempt themselves from their present restraints and to prevent those after rigours wherewith they saw themselves apparently threatned by the covetous zeal and uncharitable fury of some men who think it a great Argument of the truth of their Religion to endure no other but their own God knowes as I can with Truth wash my hands in Innocency as to any guilt in that Rebellion so I might wash them in my Teares as to the sad apprehensions I had to see it spread so farre and make such waste And this in a time when distraâ—â—ions and jealousies here in England made most men rather intent to their own safety or designes they were driving then to the relief of those who were every day inhumanely butchered in Ireland Whose teares and bloud might if nothing else have quenched or at least for a time repressed and smothered those sparks of Civill dissentions and Jealousies which in England some men most industriously scattered I would to God no man had been lesse affected with Irelands sad estate then my self I offered to goe my self in Person upon that expedition But some men were either afraid I should have any one Kingdome quieted or loath they were to shoot at any mark here lesse then my self or that any should have the glory of my destruction but themselves Had my many offers been accepted I am confident neither the ruine had been so great nor the calamity so long nor the remedy so desperate So that next to the sin of those who began that Rebellion theirs musts needs be who either hindred the speedy suppressing of it by Domestick dissentions or diverted the Aides or exasperated the Rebells to the most desperate resolutions and actions by threatning all extremities not only to the known heads and chief incendiaries but even to the whole community of that Nation Resolving to destroy Root and Branch men women and children without any regard to those usuall pleas for mercy which Conquerours not wholly barbarous are wont to hear from their own breasts in behalf of those whose oppressive faces rather then their malice engaged them or whose imbecility for Sex and Age was such as they could neither lift up a hand against them nor distinguish between their right hand and their left Which preposterous and I think un-evangelicall Zeal is too like that of the rebuked Disciples who would goe no lower in their revenge then to call for fire from Heaven upon whole Cities for the repulse or neglect of a few or like that of Iacobs sons which the Father both blamed and cursed chusing rather to use all extremites which might drive men to desperate obstinacy then to apply moderate remedies such as might punish some with exemplary Justice yet disarme others with tenders of mercy upon their submission and our protection of them from the fury of those who would soon drown them if they refused to swim down the popular stream with them But some kind of Zeale counts all mercifull moderation luke-warmnesse and had rather be cruell then counted cold and is not seldome more greedy to kill the Bear for his skin then for any harme he hath done The confiscation of mens estates being more beneficiall then the charity of saving their lives or reforming their Errours When all proportionable succours of the poor Protestants in Ireland who were daily massacred and overborne with numbers of now desperate Enemies was diverted and obstructed here I was earnestly entreated and generally advised by the chief of the Protestant party there to get them some respite and breathing by a cessation without which
Other violent motions which are neither Manly Christian nor Loyall shall never either shake or settle my Religion nor any mans else who knowes what Religion means And how farre it is removed from all Faction whose proper engine is force the arbitrator of beasts not of reasonable men much lesse of humble Christians and loyall Subjects in matters of Religion But men are prone to have such high conceâ—ts of themselves that they care not what cost they lay out upon their opinions especially those that have some temptation of gain to recompence their losses and hazards Yet I was not more scandalized at the Scots Armies comming in against my will and their forfeiture of so many obligations of duty and gratitude to me then I wondered how those here could so much distrust Gods assistance who so much pretended Gods cause to the People as if they had the certainty of some divine Revelation considering they were more then competently furnished with my Subjects Armes and Ammunition My Navie by Sea my Forts Castles and Cities by Land But I find that men jealous of the Justifiablenesse of their doings and designes before God never think they have humane strength enough to carry their worke on seem it never so plausible to the People what cannot be justified in Law or Religion had need be fortified with Power And yet such is the inconstancy that attends all minds engaged in violent motion that whom some of them one while earnestly invite to come into their assistance others of them soone after are weary of and with nauseating cast them out what one Party thought to rivet to a setledness by the strength and influence of the Scots that the other rejects and contemnes at once despising the Kirk Government and Discipline of the Scots and frustrating the successe of so chargable more then charitable assistance For sure the Church of England might have purchased at a farre cheaper rate the truth and happinesse of Reformed government and discipline if it had been wanting though it had entertained the best Divâ—nes of Chrâ—stendome for their advice in a full and free Synod which I was ever willing to and desirous of that matters being impartially setled might be more satisfactory to all and more durable But much of Gods justice and mans folly will at length be discovered through all the filmes and pretensions of Religion in which Politicians wrap up their designes In vaine do men hope to build their piety on the ruines of Loyalty Nor can those considerations or designs be durable when Subjects make bankrupt of their Allegiance under pretence of setting up a quicker trade for Religion But as My best Subjects of Scotland never deserted Me so I cannot think that the most are gone so far from Me in a prodigality of their love and respects toward Me as to make Me to despaire of their returne when besides the bonds of nature and Conscience which they have to Me all Reason and true Policy will teach them that their chiefest interest consists in their fidelity to the Crowne not in their serviceablenesse to any Party of the People to a neglect and betraying of My Safety and Honour for their owne advantages However the lesse cause I have to trust to men the more I shall apply My self to God The Troubles of My Soule are enlarged O Lord bring thou me out of My distresse Lord direct thy Servant in the waies of that pious simplicity which is the best policy Deliver Me from the combined strength of those who have so much of the Serpents subtilty that they forget the Doves Innocency Though hand joyne in hand yet let them not prevaile against My soule to the betraying of My Conscience and Honour Thou O Lord canst turne the hearts of those Parties in both Nations as thou didst the men of Judah and Israel to restore David with as much loyall Zeale as they did with inconstancy and eagernesse pursue Him Preserve the love of thy Truth and uprightnesse in Me and I shall not despaire of My Subjects affections returning towards Me. Thou canst soone cause the overflowing Seas to ebbe and retire back again to the bounds which thou hast appointed for them O My God I trust in thee let me not be ashamed let not My enemies triumph over Me. Let them be ashamed who transgresse without a cause let them be turned back that persecute My Soule Let integrity and uprightnesse preserve Me for I wait on thee O Lord. Redeeme thy Church O God out of all its Troubles 14. Vpon the Covenant THe Presbyterian Scots are not to be hired at the ordinary rate of Auxiliaries nothing will induce them to engage till those that call them in have pawned their Soules to them by a Solemne League and Covenant Where many engines of religious and faire pretensions are brought chiefly to batter or rase Episcopacy This they make the grand evill Spirit which with some other Imps purposely added to make it more odious and terrible to the Vulgar must by so solemne a charm exorcism be cast out of this Church after more than a thousand yeares possession here from the first plantation of Christianity in this Island and an universall prescription of time and practise in all other Churches since the Apostles times till this last Century But no Antiquity must plead for it Presbytery like a young Heyre thinks the Father hath lived long enough and impatient not to be in the Bishops Chaire Authority though Lay-men go away with the Revenues all art is used to sink Episcopacy and lanch Presbytery in England which was lately boyed up in Scotland by the like artifice of a Covenant Although I am unsatisfied with many passages in that Covenant some referring to My selfe with very dubious and dangerous limitations yet I chiefly wonder at the designe and drift touching the Discipline and Government of the Church and such a manner of carrying them on to new waies by Oaths Covenants where it is hard for men to be engaged by no lesse then swearing for or against those things which are of no cleare morall necessity but very disputable and controverted among learned and godly men whereto the application of Oaths can hardly be made and enjoyned with that judgment and certainty in ones selfe or that charity and candour to others of different opinion as I think Religion requires which never refuses faire and equable deliberations yea and dissentings too in matters onely probable The enjoyning of Oaths upon People must needs in things doubtfull be dangerous as in things unlawfull damnableâ— and no lesse superfluous where former religious and legall Engagements bound men sufficiently to all necessary duties Nor can I see how they will reconcile such an Innovating Oath and Covenant with that former Protestation which was so lately taken to maintaine the Religion established in the Church of England since they count Discipline so great a part of Religion But ambitious minds never think they have laid snares and
ginnes enough to catch and hold the Vulgar credulity for by such politicke and seemingly pious stratagems they think to keep the popularity fast to their Parties under the terrour of perjury Whereas certainly all honest and wise men ever thought themselves sufficiently bound by former ties of Religion Allegiance and Lawes to God and man Nor can such after-Contracts devised and imposed by a few men in a declared Party without My consent and without any like power or president from Gods or mans laws be ever thought by judicious men sufficient either to absolve or slacken those morall and eternall bonds of duty which lie upon all My Subjects consciences both to God and Me. Yet as things now stand good men shall least offend God or Me by keeping their Covenant in honest and lawfull waies since I have the charity to think that the chief end of the Covenant in such mens intentions was to preserve Religion in purity and the Kingdoms in peace To other then such ends and meanes they cannot think themselves engaged nor will those that have any true touches of Conscience endeavour to carry on the best designes much lesse such as are and will be daily more apparently factious and ambitious by any unlawfull meanes under that title of the Covenant unlesse they dare preferre ambiguous dangerous and un-authorized novelties before their knowne and sworne duties which are indispensable both to God and My selfe I am prone to believe and hope That many who took the Covenant are yet firme to this judgment That such later Vowes Oaths or Leagues can never blot out those former gravings and characters which by just and lawfull Oaths were made upon their Soules That which makes such Confederations by way of solemn Leagues Covenants more to be suspected is That they are the coÌ„mon road used in all factious powerfull perturbations of State or Church When formalities of extraordinary zeal and piety are never more studied and elaborate then when Politicians most agitate desperate designes against all that is setled or sacred in Religion and Laws which by such sâ—rues are cunningly yet forcibly wrested by secret steps and lesse sensible degrees from their known rule and wonted practise to comply with the humours of those men who ayme to subdue all to their owne will and power under the disguises of Holy Combinations Which cords and wythes will hold mens Consciences no longer then force attendâ— and twists them for every man soone growes his owne Pope and easily absolves himselfe of those ties which not the commands of Gods word or the Lawes of the Land but onely the subtilty and terrour of a Party casts upon him either superfluous and vaine when they were sufficiently tied before or fraudulent and injurious if by such after-ligaments they find the Imposers really ayming to dissolve or suspend their former just and necessary obligations Indeed such illegall waies seldome or never intend the engaging men more to duties but onely to Parties therefore it is not regarded how they keep their Covenants in point of piety pretended provided they adhere firmly to the Party and Designe intended I see the Imposers of it are content to make their Covenant like Manna not that it came from Heaven as this did agreeable to every mans palate and relish who will but swallow it They admit any mens senses of it the diverse or contrary with any salvoes cautions and reservations so as they crosse not though chiefe Designe which is laid against the Church and Me. It is enough if they get but the reputation of a seeming encrease to their Party So little doe men remember that God is not mocked In such latitudes of sense I believe many that love Me and the Church well may have taken the Covenant who yet are not so fondly and superstitiously taken by it as now to act clearly against both all piety and loyalty who first yeilded to it more to prevent that imminent violence and ruine which hung over their heads in case they wholly refused it than for any value of it or devotion to it Wherein the latitude of some generall Clauses may perhaps serve somewhat to relieve them as of Doing and endeavouring what lawfully they may in their Places and Callings and according to the Word of God for these indeed carry no man beyond those bounds of good Conscience which are certaine and fixed either in Gods Lawes as to the generall or the Lawes of the State and Kingdome as to the particular regulation and exercise of mens duties I would to God such as glory most in the name of Covenanters would keep themselves within those lawfull bounds to which God hath called them Surely it were the best way to expiate the rashnesse of taking it which must needs then appeare when besides the want of a full and lawfull Authority at first to enjoyne it it shall actually be carried on beyond and against those ends which were in it specified and pretended I willingly forgive such mens taking the Covenant who keeâ— it within such bounds of Piety Law and Loyalty as can never hurt either the Church My self or the Publique Peace Against which no mans lawfull Calling can engage him As for that Reformation of the Church which the Covenant pretends I cannot think it just or comely that by the partiall advise of a few Divines of so soft and servile tempers as disposed them to so sudden acting and compliance contrary to their former judgments profession and practise such foule scandals and suspitions should be cast upon the Doctrine and Government of the Church of England as was never done that I have heard by any that deserved the name of Reformed Churches abroad nor by any men of learning and candour at home all whose judgments I cannot but prefer before any mens now factiously engaged No man can be more forward than My self to carry on all due Reformations with mature judgement and a good Conscience in what things I shall after impartiall advise be by Gods Word and right reason convinced to be amisse I have offered more than ever the fullest freest and wâ—sest Parliaments did desire But the sequele of some mens actions makes it evident that the maine Reformation intended is the abasing of Episcopacy into Presbytery and the robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues For no men have been more injuriously used as to their legall Rights than the Bishops and Church-men These as the fattest Deare must be destroyed the other Rascal-herd of Schismes Heresies c. being leane may enjoy the benefit of a Toleration Thus Naboth's Vineyard made him the onely Blasphemer of his City and fit to die Still I see while the breath of Religion fills the Sailes Profit is the Compasse by which Factious men steer their course in all seditious Commotions I thank God as no men lay more open to the sacrilegious temptation of usurping the Churches Lands and Revenues which issuing chiefly from the Crowne are held of it and legally
which men of far greater Learning and clearer Zeal have setled in the Confession and Constitution of this Church in England which many former Parliaments in the most calme and unpassionate times have oft confirmed In which I shall ever by Gods help persevere as believing it hath most of Primitive Truth and Order Nor did My using the assistance of some Papists which were my Subjects any way fight against My Religion as some men would needs interpret it especially those who least of all men cared whom they imployed or what they said and did so they might prevaile 'T is strange that so wise men as they would be esteemed should not conceive That differences of perswasion in matters of Religion may easily fall out where there is the samenesse of duty Allegiance and subjection The first they owne as men and Christians to God the second they owe to Me in Common as their KING different professions in point of Religion cannot any more than in civill Trades take away the community of relations either to Parents or to Princes And where is there such an Oglio or medley of various Religions in the world again as those men entertain in their service who find most fault with me without any scruple as to the diversity oâ— their Sects and Opinions It was indeed a foule and indelible shame for such as would be counted Protestants to enforce Me a declared Protestant their Lord and King to a necessary use of Papists or any other who did but their duty to help Me to defend My self Nor did I more than is lawfull for any King in such exigents to use the aide of any his Subjects I am sorry the Papists should have a greater sense of their Allegiance than many Protestant Professours who seem to have learned and to practise the worst Principles of the worst Papists Indeed it had been a very impertinent and unseasonable scruple in Me and very pleasing no doubt to My Enemies to have been then disputing the points of different beliefs in My Subjects when I was disputed with by Swords points and when I needed the help of My Subjects as men no lesse then their prayers as Christians The noise of My Evill Counsellours was another usefull device for those who were impatient any mens counsels but their owne should be followed in Church or State who were so eager in giving Me better counsell that they would not give Me leave to take it with freedome as a Man or honour as a King making their counsels more like a drench that must be powred downe than a draught which might be fairly and leisurely dranke if I liked it I will not justifie beyond humane errours and frailties My selfe or My Counselloursâ— They mâ—ght be subject to some miscarriages yet such as were farre more reparable by second and better thoughts than those enormious extravagances wherewith some men have now even wildred and almost quite lost both Church and State The event of things at last will make it evident to My Subjects that had I followed the worst Counsels that My worst Counsellours ever had the boldnesse to offer to Me or My self any inclination to use I could not so soon have brought both Church and Staâ—e in three flourishing Kingdomes to such a Chaos of confusions and Hell of miseriesâ— as some have done out of which thâ—y cannâ—tâ— or will not in the midst of their many 〈◊〉 advantages redeeme either Me or My Subjects No even were more willing to complâ—in than I was to redresse what I saw in Reasâ—n was either done or advised amâ—â—se and thâ—s I thought I had done even beyond the expectation of moderate men who were sorry to see Me prone even to injure My self out of a Zeal to relieve My Subâ—ects But other mens insatiable desire of revenge upon Me My Court and My Clergy hath wholly beguiled both Church and State of the benefit of all My either Retractations or Concessions and withall hath deprived all those now so zealous Persecutors both of the comfort and reward of their former pretended persecutions wherein they so much gloried among the vulgar and which indeed a truly humble Christian will so highly prize as rather not be relieved then be revenged so as to be bereaved of that Crown of Christian Patience which attends humble and injured sufferers Another artifice used to withdraw My peoples affections from Me to their designes was The noise and oâ—tentation of liberty which men are not more prone to desire then unapt to bear in the popular sense which is to doe what every man liketh best If the Divinest liberty be to will what men should and to do what they so will according to Reason Lawes and Religion I envie not My Subjects that liberty which is all I deâ—ire to enjoy My self So farre am I from the desire of oppressiâ—â— theirs Nor were those Lords and Gentlemen which assisted Me so prodigall of their liberties as with their Lives and Fortunes to help on the enslaving of themselves and their posterities As to Civill Immunities none but such as desire to drive on their Ambitious and Covetous designes over the ruines of Church and State Prince Peeres and People will ever desire greater Freedomes then the Lawes allow whose bounds good men count their Ornament and Protection others their Menacles and Oppression Nor is it just any man should expect the reward and benefit of the Law who despiseth his rule and direction losing justly his safety while he seekes an unreasonable liberty Time will best informe My Subjects that those are the best preservers of their true liberties who allow themselves the least licentiousnesse against or beyond the Lawes They will feel it at last to their cost that it is impossible those men should be really tender of their fellow-subjects liberties who have the hardinesse to use their King with so severe restraints against all Lawes both Divine and Humane under which yet I will rather perish then complain to those who want nothing to compleat their mirth and triumph but such musick In point of true conscientious tendernesse attended with humility and meeknesse not with proud and arrogant activity which seekes to hatch every egge of different opinion to a Faction or Schisme I have oft declared how little I desire My Lawes and Scepter should intrench on Gods Soveraignty which is the only King of mens Consciences and yet he hath laid such restraints upon men as commands them to be subject for Conscience sake giving no men lâ—berty to break the Law established further then with meeknesse and patience they are content to suffer the penalties annexed rather then perturb the publick Peace The truth is some mens thirst after Novelties others despair to relieve the necessities of their Fortunes or satisfie their Ambition in peaceable times distrusting Gods providence as well as their own merits were the secret but principall impulsives to these popular Commotions by whâ—ch Subjects have been perswaded to expend much of those
to God O my God make me content to be overcome when thou wilt have it so Teach me the noblest vistory over my self and my Enemies by patience which was Christs conquest aâ—d may well become a Christian King Between both thy hands the right sometimes supporting and the left afflicting fashion us to that frame of piety thou likest best Forgive the pride that attends our prosperous and the repinings which follow our disastrous events when going forth in our owne strength thou withdrawest thine and goest not forth with our Armies Be thou all when we are something and when we are nothing that thou mayst have the glory when we are in a victorious or inglorious condition Thou O Lord knowest how hard it is for me to suffer so much evill from my Subjects to whom I intend nothing but good and I cannot but suffer in those evils which they compell me to inflict upon them punishing my selfe in their punishments Since therefore both in conquering and being conquered I am still a Sufferer I beseech thee to give me a double portion of thy Spirit and that measure of grace which onely can be sufficient for me As I am most afflicted so make me most reformed that I may be not onely happy to see an end of these civill distractions but a chiefe Instrument to restore and establish a firme and blessed Peace to my Kingdomes Stirre up all Parties pious ambitions to overcome each other with reason moderation and such self-deniall as becomes those who consider that our mutuall divisions are our common distractions and the Union of all is every good mans chiefest interest If O Lord as for the sinnes of our peace thou hast brought upon us the miseries of warre so for the sinnes of warre â—hou shouldst see fit still to deny us the blessing of peace and so to keep us in a circulation of miseries yet give me thy Servant and all Loyall though afflicted Subjects to enjoy that peace which the world can neither give to us nor take from us Impute not to me the bloud of my Subjects which with infinite unwillingnesse and griefe hath been shed by me in my just and necessary defence but wash me with that pretious bloud which hath been shed for me by my great Peace-maker Iesus Christ. Who will I trust redeem me shortly out of all my troubles for I know the triumphing of the Wicked is but short and the joy of Hypocrites is but for a moment 20. Vpon the Reformations of the Times NO Glory is more to be envied than that of due Reforming either Church or State when deformities are such that the perturbation and novelty are not like to exceed the benefit of Reforming Although God should not honour Me so farre as to make Me an Instrument of so good a worke yet I should be glad to see it done As I was well pleased with this Parliaments first intentions to reform what the Indulgence of Times and corruption of manners might have depraved so I am sorry to see after the freedome of Parliament was by factious Tumults oppressed how little regard was had to the good Laws established and the Religion setled which ought to be the first rule and standard of reforming with how much partiality and popular compliance the passions and opinions of men have been gratified to the detriment of the Publique and the infinite scandall of the Reformed Religion What dissolutions of all Order and Government in the Church what novelties of Schismes and corrupt opinions what undecencies and confusions in sacred administrations what sacrilegious invasions upon the Rights and Revenues of the Church what contempt oppressions of the Clergy what injurious diminutions and persecutings of Me have followed as showres do warm gleames the talke of Reformation all sober men are Witnesses and with My self sad Spectators hithâ—rto The great miscarriage I think is that popular clamours and fury have been allowed the reputation of Zeale and the publique sense so that the study to please some Parties hath indeed injured all Freedome moderation and impartiality are sure the best tempers of reforming Councels and endeavours wâ—â—t is acted by Factions cannot but offend more than it pleaseth I have offered to put all differences in Church affaires and Religion to the free consultation of a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen the results of whose Counsels as they would have included the Votes of all so its like they would have given most satisfaction to all The Assembly of Divines whom the two Houses have applyed â—in an unwonted way to advise of Church Affaires I dislike not further then that they are not legally convened and chosen nor Act in the name of all the Clergy of England nor with freedome and impartiality can doe any thing being limited and confined if not over-awed to do and declare what they do For I cannot think so many men cryed up for learning and piety who formerly allowed the Liturgy and Government of the Church of England as to the maine would have so suddenly agreed quite to abolish both of them the last of which they knew to be of Apostolicall institution at least as of Primitive and Universall practice if they had been left to the liberty of their own suffrages and if the influence of contrary Factions had not by secret encroachments of hopes and feares prevailed upon them to comply with so great and dangerous Innovations in the Church without any regard to their own former judgment and practice or to the common interest and honour of all the Clergy and in them of Order Learning and Religion against examples of all Ancient Churches the Lawes in force and My consent which is never to be gained agaâ—nst so pregnant light as in that point shines on My understanding For I conceive that where the Scripture is not so clear and punctuall in precepts there the constant and Universall practice of the Church in things not contrary to Reason Faith good Manners or any positive Command is the best Rule that Châ—istians can follow I was willing to grant or restore to Presbitery what with Reason or Discretion it can pretend to in a conjuncture with Episcopacy but for that wholly to invade the Power and by the Sword to arrogate and quite abrogate the Authoriâ—y of that Ancient Order I think neither just as to Episcopacy nor safe for Presbitery nor yet any way convenient for this Church or State A due reformation had easily followed moderate Counsells and such I believe as would have given more content even to the most of those Divines who have been led on with much Gravity and Formality to carry on other mens designes which no doubt many of them by this time discover though they dare not but smother their frustrations and discontents The specious and popular titles of Christs Government Throne Scepter and Kingdome which certainly is not divided nor hath two faces as their parties now have at least also the noise of a through Reformation
though thou hast not punished us according to our sins Turne thee O Lord unto me have mercy upon me for I am desolate and afflicted The sorrowes of my heart are enlarged O bring thou me out of my troubles Hast thou forgotten to be gracious and shut up thy loving kindnesse in displeasure O remember thy compassions of old and thy loving kindnesses which have been for many generations I had utterly fainted if I had not beleeved to see thy goodnesse in the land of the living Let not the sinnes of our prosperity deprive us of the benefit of thy afflictions Let this fiery triall consume the drosse which in long peace and plenty we had contracted Though thou continuest miseries yet withdraw not thy grace what is wanting of prosperity make up in patience and repentance And if thy anger be not to be yet turned away but thy hand of justice must be stretched out still Let it I beseech thee be against me and my Fathers house as for these sheep what have they done Let my sufferings satiate the malice of mine and thy Churches Enemies But let their cruelty never exceed the measure of my charity Banish from me all thoughts of Revenge that I may not lose the reward nor thou the glory of my patience As thou givest me a heart to forgive them so I beseech thee doe thou forgive what they have done against thee and me And now ô Lord as thou hast given me an heart to pray unto thee so hear and accept this Vow which I make before thee If thou wilt in mercy remember Me and my Kingdomes In continuing the light of thy Gospell and setling thy true Religion among us In restoring to us the benefit of the Lawes and the due execution of Iustice. In suppressing the many Schismes in Church and Factions in State If thou wilt restorâ— me and mine to the Ancient rights and glory of my Predecessours If thou wilt turne the heâ—rts of my people to thy self in Piety to me in Loyalty and to one another in Charity If thou wilt quench the flames and withdraw the fewell of these Civill Warres If thou wilt blesse us with the freedome of publick Counsels and deliver the Honour of Parliaments from the insolencie of the vulgar If thou wilt keep me from the great offence of enacting any thing against my Conscience and especially from consenting to sacrilegious rapines and spoilings of thy Church If thou wilt restore me to a capacity to glorifie thee in doing good both to the Church and State Then shall my soul praise thee and magnifie thy name before my People Then shall thy glory be dearer to me then my Crownes and the advancement of true Religion both in purity and power be my chiefest care Then will I rule my People with Iustice and â—y Kingdomes with equity To thy more immediate hand shall I ever own as the rightfull succession so the mercifull restauration of My Kingdomes and the glory of them If thou wilt bring Me again with peace safety and â—onour to My chiefest City and my Parliament If thou wilt againe put the Sword of Iustice into My hand to punish and protect Then will I make all the world to see and my very Enemies to enjoy the benefit of this Vow and resolution of Christian charity which I now make unto thee O Lord. As I doe freely pardon for Christ's sake those that have offended me in any kind so my hand shall never be against any man to revenge what is past in regard of any particular injury done to me We have been mutually punished in our unnaturall divisions for thy sake O Lord and for the love of my Redeemer have I purposed this in my heart That I will use all means in the waies of amnesty and indempnity which may most fully remove all feares and bury all jealousies in forgetfulnesse Let thy mercies be toward me and mine as my resolutions of Truth and Peace are toward my People Heare my prayer O Lord which goeth not out of fayned lips Blessed be God who hath not turned away my prayer nor taken his mercy from me O my soule commit thy way to the Lord trust in him and he shall bring it to passe But if thou wilt not restore me and mine what am I that I should charge thee foolishly Thou O Lord hast given and thou hast taken Blessed be thy name May my People and thy Church be happy if not by me yet without me 26. Vpon the Armies Surprisall of the KING at Holmeby and the ensuing distractions in the two Houses the Army and the City WHat part God will have me now to act or suffer in this new and strange scene of affaires I am not much solicitous some little practise will serve that man who onely seeks to represent a part of honesty and honour This surprize of Me tells the world that a KING cannot be so low but He is consideraâ—le adding weight to that Party where he appeares This motion like others of the Times seems excentrique and irregular yet not well to be resisted or quieted Better swim down such a stream than in vain to strive against it These are but the struglings of those twins which lately one womb enclosed the younger striving to prevaile against the elder what the Presbyterians have hunted after the Independents now seek to catch for themselves So impossible is it for lines to be drawn from the center and not to divide from each other so much the wider by how much they go farther from the point of union That the Builders of Babel should from division fall to confusion is no wonder but for those that pretend to build Ierusalem to divide their tongues and hands is but an ill â—men and sounds too like the fury of those Zealots whose intestine bitternesse and divisions were the greatest occasion of the last fatall destruction of that City Well may I change my Keepers and Prison but not my captive condition onely with this hope of bettering that those who are so much professed Patrons for the Peoples Liberties cannot be utterly against the Liberty of their KING what they demand for their owne Consciences they cannot in Reason deny to Mine In this they seem more ingenuous than â—â—e Presbyterian rigour who sometimes complaining of exacting their conformity to laws are become the greatest Exactors of other mens submission to their novell injunctions before they are stamped with the Authority of Lawes which they cannot well have without My conâ—ent 'T is a great argument that the Independents think themselves manumitted from their Rivals service in that they carry on a businesse of such consequence as the assuming My Person into the Armies custody without any Commission but that of their owne will and power Such as will thus adventure on a King must not be thought over-modest or timerous to carry on any designe they have a mind to Their next motion menaces and scares both the two Houses and the City which soone
yeares so compliant they were to publique order nor indeed was their Party great either in Church or State as to mens judgments But as soone as discontents drave men into Sidings as ill humours fall to the disaffected mart which causes inflamations so did all at first who affected any novelties adhere to that Side as the most remarkable and specious note of difference then in point of Religion All the lesser Factions at first were oâ—ficious Servants to Presbytery their great Master till time and military successe discovering to each their peculiar advantages invited them to part stakes and leaving the joynt stock of uniforme Religion pretended each to drive for their Party the trade of profits and preâ—erments to the breaking and undoing not onely of the Church and State but even of Presbytery it self which seemed and hoped at first to have ingrossed all Let nothing seem little or despicable to you in matters which concerne Religion and the Churches peace so as to neglect a speedy reforming and effectuall suppressing Errours Schismes which seem at first but as a hand-bredth by seditious Spirits as by strong winds are soon made to cover and darken the whole Heaven When you have done justice to God your owne soule and his Church in the profession and preservation both of truth and unity in Religion the next main hinge on which your prosperity will depend and move is that of civill Justice wherein the setled Laws of these Kingdomes to which you are rightly Heire are the most excellent rules you can governe by which by an admirable temperament give very much to Subjects industry liberty and happinesse and yet reserve enough to the Majesty and prerogative of any King who ownes his People as Subjects not as Slaves whose subjection as it preserves their property peace and safety so it will never diminish your Rights nor their ingenuous Liberties which consists in the enjoyment of the fruits of their industry and the benefit of those Lawes to which themselves have consented Never charge your Head with such a Crowne as shall by its heavinesse oppresse the whole body the weaknesse of whose parts cannot returne any thing of strength honour or safety to the Head but a necessary debilitation and ruine Your Prerogative is best shewed and exercised in remitting rather than exacting the rigor of the Lawes there being nothing worse than legall Tyranny In these two points the preservation of established Religion and Lawes I may without vanity turne the reproach of My sufferings as to the worlds censure into the honour of a kind of Martyrdome as to the testimony of My owne Conscience The Troublers of My Kingdomes having nothing else to object against Me but this That I preferre Religion and Lawes established before those alterations they propounded And so indeed I doe and ever shall till I am convinced by better Arguments than what hitherto have been chiefly used towards Me Tumults Armies and Prisons I cannot yet learne that lesson nor I hope ever will you That it is safe for a King to gratifie any Faction with the perturbation of the Lawes in which is wrapt up the publique Interest and the good of the Community How God will deale with Me as to the removall of these pressures indignities which his justice by the very unjust hands of some of My Subjects hath been pleased to lay upon Me I cannot tell nor am I much solicitous what wrong I suffer from men while I retaine in My soule what I believe is right before God I have offered all for Reformation and Safety that in Reason Honour and Conscience I can reserving onely what I cannot consent unto without an irreparable injury to My own Soule the Church and My People and to You also as the next and undoubted Heire of My Kingdomes To which if the divine Providence to whom no difficulties are insuperable shall in his due time after My decease bring You as I hope he will My counsell and charge to You is That You seriously consider the former reall or objected miscarriages which might occasion My troubles that You may avoid them Never repose so much upon any mans single counsell fidelity and discretion in managing affaires of the first magnitude that is matters of Religion and Justice as to create in Your selfe or others a diffidence of Your owne judgment which is likely to be alwaies more constant impartiall to the interests of Your Crowne and Kingdome than any mans Next beware of exasperating any Factions by the crosnesse and asperity of some mens passions humours or private opinions imployed by You grounded onely upon the differences in lesser matters which are but the skirts and suburbs of Religion Wherein a charitable connivence and Christian toleration often dissipates their strength whom rougher opposition fortifies and puts the despised and oppressed Party into such Combinations as may most enable them to get a full revenge on those they count their Persecutors who are commonly assisted by that vulgar commiseration which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of Religion Provided the differences amount not to an insolent opposition of Lawes and Government or Religion established as to the essentials of them such motions and minings are intolerable Alwaies keep up solid piety and those fundamentall Truths which mend both hearts and lives of men with impartiall favour and justice Take heed that outward circumstances and formalities of Religion devoure not all or the best incouragements of learning industry and piety but with an equall eye and impartiall hand distribute favours and rewards to all men as you find them for their reall goodnesse both in abilities and fidelity worthy and capable of them This will be sure to gaine You the hearts of the best and the most too who though they be not good themselves yet are glad to see the severer waies of virtue at any time sweetned by temporall rewards I have You see conflicted with different and opposite Factions for so I must needs call and count all those that act not in any conformity to the Lawes established in Church and State no sooner have they by force subdued what they counted their Common Enemy that is all those that adhered to the Lawes and to Me and are secured from that feare but they are divided to so high a rivalry as sets them more at defiance against each other than against their first Antagonists Time will dissipate all factions when once the rough hornes of private mens covetous and ambitious designes shall discover themselves which were at first wrapt up hidden under the soft and smooth pretensions of Religion Reformation and Liberty As the Wolfe is not lesse cruell so he will be more justly hated when he shall appeare no better than a Wolfe under Sheeps cloathing But as for the seduced Traine of the Vulgar who in their simplicity follow those disguises My charge and counsell to You is That as You need no palliations for any designes as
other men so that you study really to exceed in true and constant demonstrations of goodnesse piety and virtue towards the People even all those men that make the greatest noise and ostentations of Religion so You shall neither feare any detection as they doe who have but the face and maske of goodnesse nor shall You frustrate the just expectations of Your People who cannot in Reason promise themselves so much good from any Subjects novelties as from the vertuous constancy of their Kingâ— When these mountaines of congealed factions shall by the sunshine of Gods mercy and the splendor of Your virtues be thawed and dissipated and the abused Vulgar shall have learned that none are greater Oppressours of their Estates Liberties and Consciences than those men that entitle themselves The Patrones and Vindicators of them onely to usurp power over them Let then no passion betray You to any study of revenge upon those whose owne sinne and folly will sufficiently punish them in due time But as soone as the forked arrow of factious emulations is drawn out use all princely arts and clemency to heale the wounds that the smart of the cure may not equall the anguish of the hurt I have offered Acts of Indempnity and Oblivion to so great a latitude as may include all that can but suspect themselves to be any way obnoxious to the Laws and which might serve to exclude all future Jealousies and insecurities I would have You alwaies propense to the same way when ever it shall be desired and accepted let it be granted not onely as an Act of State-policy and necessity but of Christian charity and choice It is all I have now left Me a power to forgive those that have deprived Me of all and I thanke God I have a heart to doe it and joy as much in this grace which God hath given Me as in all My former enjoyments for this is a greater argument of Gods love to Me than any prosperity can be Be confident as I am that the most of all sides who have done amisse have done so not out of malice but mis-information or mis-apprehension of things None will be more loyall and faithfull to Me and You than those Subjects who sensible of their Errours and our Injuries will feel in their owne Soules most vehement motives to repentance and earnest desires to make some reparations for their former defects As Your quality sets You beyond any Duell with any Subject so the noblenesse of Your mind must raise You above the meditating any revenge or executing Your anger upon the many The more conscious You shall be to Your owne merits upon Your People the more prone You will be to expect all love and loyalty from them and to inflict no punishment upon them for former miscarriages You will have more inward complacency in pardoning one than in punishing a thousand This I write to you not despairing of Gods mercy and my Subjects affections towards You both which I hope You will study to deserve yet We cannot merit of God but by his owne mercy If God shall see fit to restore Me and You after Me to those enjoyments which the Lawes have assigned to Us and no Subjects without an high degree of guilt and sinne can devest Us of then may I have better opportunity when I shall be so happy to see You in peace to let You more fully understand the things that belong to Gods glory Your owâ— honour and the Kingdoms peace But if You never see My face againe and God will have Me buried in such a barbarous Imprisonment obscurity which the perfecting some mens designs require wherein few hearts that love me are permitted to exchange a word or a look with Me I doe require and entreat You as your Father and your KING that You never suffer Your heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from the true Religion established in the Church of England I tell You I have tried it and after much search and many disputes have concluded it to be the best in the world not onely in the Community as Christian but also in the speciall notion as Reformed keeping the middle way between the pomp of superstitious Tyranny and the meannesse of fantastique Anarchy Not but that the draught being excellent as to the maine both for Doctrine and Government in the Church of England some lines as in very good figures may happily need some sweetning or polishing which might â—ere have easily been done by a safe and gentle hand if some mens precipitancy had not â—â—olently demanded such rude alterations as wâ—â—ld have quite destroyed all the beauty and proportions of the whole The scandall of the late Troubles which some may object and urge to You against the Protestant Religion established in England is easily answered to them or Your owne thoughts in this That scarce any one who hath been a Beginner or an active Prosecutor of this late Warre against the Church the Lawes and Me either was or is a true Lover Embracer or Practiser of the Protestant Religion established in England which neither gives such rules nor ever before set such â—xamples 'T is true some heretofore had the boldnesse to present threatning Petitions to their Princes and Parliaments which others of the same Faction but of worse Spirits have now put in execution but let not counterfeit and disorderly Zeale abate Your value and esteem of true piety both of them are to be knowne by their fruits the sweetnesse of the Wine Fig-tree is not to be despised though the Brambles and Thornes should pretend to beare Figs and Grapes thereby to rule over the Trees Nor would I have You to entertain any averâ—ation or dislike of Parliaments which in their right constitution with Freedome and Honour will never injure or diminish Your greatnesse but will rather be as interchangings of love loyalty and confidence between a Prince and his People Nor would the events of this black Parliament have been other than such however much biassed by Factions in the Elections if it had been preserved from the insolencies of popular dictates and tumultuary impressions The sad effects of which will no doubt make all Parliaments after this more cautious to preserve that Freedome and Honour which belongs to such Assemblies when once they have fully shaken off this yoke of Vulgar encroachment since the publique interest consists in the mutuall and common good both of Prince and People Nothing can be more happy for all than in faire grave and Honourable waies to contribute their Counsels in Commonâ— enacting all things by publique consent without tyranny or Tumults We must not starve our selves because some men have â—urfeited of wholsome food And if neither I nor You be ever restored to Our Rights but God in his severest justice wâ—ll punish My Subjects with continuance in their sinne and suffer them to be deluded with the prosperity of their wickednesse I hope God will give Me
call Justice while they flatter themselves with the fancy of their owne safety by My danger and the security of their lives designes by My Death forgetting that as the greatest temptations to sinne are wrapped up in seeming prosperities so the severest vengeances of God are then most accomplished when men are suffered to compleat their wicked purposes I blesse God I pray not so much that this bitter cup of a violent death may passe from Me as that of his wrath may passe from all those whose hands by deserting Me are sprinkled or by acting and consenting to My death are embrued with My bloud The will of God hath confined and concluded Mine I shall have the pleasure of dying without any pleasure of desired vengeance This I think becomes a Christian toward his Enemies and a King toward his Subjects They cannot deprive Me of more than I am content to lose when God sees fit by their hands to take it from me whose mercy I believe will more then infinitely recompence what ever by mans injustice he is pleased to deprive me of The glory attending my death will farre surpasse all I could enjoy or conceive in life I shall not want the heavy and envied Crownes of this world when my God hath mercifully crowned and consummated his graces with glory and exchanged the shadows of my earthly Kingdomes among men for the substance of that heavenly kingdome with himself For the censures of the world I know the sharp and necessary tyranny of my Destroyers will sufficiently confute the calumnies of tyranny against me I am perswaded I am happy in the judicious love of the ablest and best of my Subjects who doe not onely pity and pray for me but would be content even to die with me or for me These know how to excuse my failings as a man and yet to retaine and pay their duty to me as their King there being no religious necessity binding any Subjects by pretending to punish infinitely to exceed the faults and errours of their Princes especially there where more then sufficient satisfaction hath been made to the publike the enjoyment of which private ambitions have hitherto frustrated Others I believe of sofâ—er tempers and lesse advantaged by my ruine doe already feel sharp convictions and some remoâ—se in their consciences where they cannot but see the proportions of their evill dealings against me in the measure of Gods retaliations upon them who cannot hope long to enjoy their owne thumbs and toes having under pretence of paring others nailes been so cruell as to cut off their chiefest strength The punishment of the more insolent and obstinate may be lâ—ke that of Korah his Complices at once mutining against both Prince Priest in such a method of divine justice as is not ordinary the earth of the lowest and meanest people opening upon them and swallowing them up in a just disdaine of their ill-gotten and worse-used Authority upon whose support and strength they chiefly depended for their building and establishing their designes against Me the Church and State My chiefest comfort in death consists in my peace which I trust is made with God before whose exact Tribunal I shall not feare to appeare as to the Cause so long disputed by the Sword between me and my causlesse Enemies where I doubt not but his righteous judgment will confute their fallacy who from worldly successe rather like Sophisters than sound Christians draw those popular conclusions for Gods approbation of their actions whose wise providence we know oft permits many events which his revealed Word the onely cleare safe and fixed rule of good actions and good consciences in no sort approves I am confident the Justice of my Cause and clearness of My Conscience before God toward my people will carry me as much above them in Gods decision as their successes have lifted them above me in the Vulgar opinion who consider not that many times those undertakings of men are lifted up to Heaven in the prosperity and applause of the world whose rise is from Hell as to the injuriousnesse and oppression of the designe The prosperous winds which oft fill the sayles of Pirats doth not justifie their piracy and rapine I look upon it with infinite more content and quiet of Soule to have been worsted in my enforced contestation for and vindication of the Laws of the Land the freedome and honour of Parliaments the rights of my Crown the just liberty of my Subjects and the true Christian Religion in its Doctrine Government and due encouragements then if I had with the greatest advantages of successe overborne them all as some men have now evidently done whatever designes they at first pretended The prayers and patience of my Friends and loving Subjects will contribute much to the sweetning of this bitter cup which I doubt not but I shall more cheerfully take and drink as from Gods hand if it must be so than they can give it to me whose hands are unjustly and barbarously lifted up agaâ—nst me And as to the last event I may seem to owe more to my Enemies than my Friends while those will put a period to the sinnes and sorrows attending this miserable life wherewith these desire I might still contend I shall be more than Conquerour through Christ enabling me for whom I have hitherto suffered as he is the Authour of Truth Order and Peace for all which I have been forced to contend against Errour Faction and confusion If I must suffer a violent death with my Saviour it is but mortality crowned with martyrdomeâ— where the debt of death which I owe for sinne to nature shall be raised as a gift of faith and patience offered to God Which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept and although death be the wages of my owne sinne as from God and the effect of others sinnes as men both against God and me yet as I hope my own sinnes are so remitted that they shall be no ingredients to imbitter the cup of my death so I desire God to pardon their sins who are most guilty of my destruction The Trophees of my charity will be more glorious and durable over them than their ill-managed victories over me Though their sin be prosperous yet they had need to be penitent that they may be pardoned Both which I pray God they may obtain that my temporall death unjustly inflicted by them may not be revenged by Gods just inflicting eternall death upon them for I look upon the temporall destruction of the greatest King as far lesse deprecable than the eternall damnation of the meanest Subject Nor do I wish other than the safe bringing of the ship to shore when they have cast me overboard though it be very strange that Mariners can find no other means to appease the storme themselves have raised but by drowning their Pilot. I thank God my Enemies cruelty cannot prevent my preparation whose malice in this I shall defeat that they shall not have