carnal I could easily from this demonstrate that they must offer violence to their own Faculties when ever they attempt an alteration or change Ald. Pray do it then for my use for it is no absurdity for the greatest Politician to hear advice though perhaps at last he will make use of his own that so I may not joyn with them again to the prejudice of my Faculties too Vic. You know Sir that your Worship who has been so good to me may command any thing from me again and therefore I shall not at all refuse to remember you of what it would be arrogance to pretend an information That whosoever attempts the alteration of any Government it is upon assurance or at least presumption that the constituting of another becomes his particular Interest and that it will be better with him under that Authority he endeavours to introduce than it is at present under that which has the immediate sway But now these persons that we are discoursing of cannot place themselves in those Circumstances wherein they shall be freer from trouble or enjoy themselves or their Estates with less noise or burden than in that Condition in which they now are and therefore it must needs be an unreasonable attempt for this Party to endeavour an alteration of Affairs Ald. I understand the general drift of your Argument and you know the old Saying A word to a wise man is enough But methought I heard you offering at something but now to prove to me that those three Oaths mentioned by you and taken by me and my Brethren do not oblige and I the rather mind you of this promise because Oaths are such burdensome things that though I shall not so far depart from my Religion as with the Anabaptist and Quaker to deny the taking of any Oaths I would be eased of the performance of them Vic. I guess that by your Worships actions and therefore shall by Gods Grace set your Worship at liberty from those three but perhaps that may make way for the Obligation of others Ald. Well Sir I am willing to adventure that though to tell truth I liked those three better than some that I have taken since Vic. I am sorry your Worship has yet any kindness for Bell and the Dragon which besides that they are now generally looked upon as Apocryphal have devoured the substance of three Kingdoms and than which I think there were never more impious and unlawful Impositions Ald. But how do they appear to be such deformed and affrighting Monsters Vic. To float in generals were to adventure your Worship in a broad and dangerous Sea in a little Boat without Sails or Oars and might argue me what I never was a cunning Sophister rather than a rational and fair Discourser I must therefore first single mine Adversaries that so encountering them I may with the greater facility prove a Conquerour Ald. If you perform what you promise truly you shall have my vote for a better living not only because the sight of you will alwaies put me in mind of my Guilt and so detract from the pleasure of my life but also for your own advantage that a contracted maintenance may no longer hinder the enlargement of your knowledge Vic. I thank your Worship for your respects both to your self and me and shall with your good leave immediately draw up an Indictment against the Covenant Ald. Pray Sir be as brief as you can or otherwise our Dinner may give an Interruption to your discourse Vic. I shall not then take it asunder although there is in almost every bush a Thief and under every hedge an Ambuscado but shall endeavour to rout the main body and then the smaller Parties will separate of themselves The Covenant then is not only to be renounced but abhorred by all the peaceable Professors of Christianity First Because it is quite opposite to our natural Allegeance to our King by vertue of which we are obliged to preserve his Royal Person against not only Private Insurrections at home but Publick Enemies abroad and not to make our selves Judges of his Actions so far as with limitation and condition only to defend and preserve his Royal Person and Authority so far as his shall conserve and defend the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms as in the third Article of the Solemn League For if this Latitude be given to the Subjects of any Prince his Religion and Actions must of necessity be arraigned at the private Bars of those Subjects that are most inferiour as well as those that attend more immediately upon the Throne and every particular must plead a lawful and sufficient excuse for withdrawing from the preservation of his Prince if he shall either through Ignorance or Interest conjecture that the King does not preserve the true Religion or the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom which what they are is sti11 left to the rashness or indiscretion of every ignorant and illiterate head This sets the Subject above his Prince and loosens and overthrows the very Foundations Nature it self and that Subjection which reason without the Obligation of an Oath sufficiently enforces must needs teach us the bold impieties of such an Oath that will banish Order out of the World and lay open Gods Anointed whom he has consecrated his Delegate to every bold usurping Traytor that will at any time adventure to drench a Crown in its own gore Ald. I easily see your first Pass made at the Covenant which seems to have given it some wound Let us see also your second assault Vic. I am glad to see your Worship so chearful at the wound of such a Friend I was afraid you would have wept for it now since I know you shed drops of bloud for it formerly Ald. That was in my younger years when bleeding was as necessary as my Victuals I did only a some are wont to do at the Universities when you have a great Creation of Graduates or when a multitude of Knights are Dubbed on a day set apart on purpose run in among the Herd But pray Mr. Vicar you promised some more reasons Vic. I thank you Sir for your recalling of a wandring thought The second Argument I have learned against the Covenant is That it is contrary to the Prerogative of Kings not only appropriate to them under the Old Testament but also as soon as they became Christian under the New that is to have the power of reforming Religion in their own hands and this was sufficiently expressed in the Oath of Supremacy which I question not but that you had before taken where the King's Majesty is acknowledged and under the most Sacred Obligation owned the Supreme Ruler and Moderator of the Kingdom governing all Persons and Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil And not only so but you added an Oath to confirm and make your promise Sacred and Inviolable to defend and preserve as much as in you lay his Jurisdictions Priviledges Praeeminencies and Authorities
whatsoever either granted and commended to the trust and managery of the Kings Majesty or else joyned and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom Part of which there is none that understands any thing of the State of his Country or Religion but immediately reckons Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction for correction and amendment of all Errors and abuses in Church Affairs To enter therefore into a League and Covenant contradicting and violating a former Oath that plucked also a choice Jewel out of our Sovereigns Crown and entrenched upon his Royal Prerogative is an Action to be abandoned by Mankind and damned to that place to which it is to be feared it has condemned many a Promoter Ald. These methinks are hard words and were it not a derogation to my Honour and a blemish upon my Grandeur I could almost be sorry and sigh for my taking it But I hope as I was saying but now I shall pass still among the Herd Vic. Truly Sir without repentance it must be amongst the Goats then and I would advise you and if in any thing I may inform then in this to be serious where Eternity will be the measure either of your bliss or misery Will you be pleased that I shall proceed to the third reason Ald. Yes to any thing so as I may be rid of those I have already heard Vic. Then thirdly your Worship must easily grant that it was not imposed by a sufficient power For an Oath cannot lawfully be taken by a person subject to another in relation to those particulars in which his subjection is due or to constitute any thing or confirm it by such a Solemn Sanction concerning those matters in which he is lawfully subjected without the leave and permission of his Superiour First Because in this he does an injury to another and obliges himself to injustice by an Oath because he determines and disposes of those matters and affairs that are totally dependent upon anothers Commands And Secondly because every one in those things in which he is subjected to a Superiour is bound to attend and obey his Will and be passive only in relation unto his disposal to whom he has been obliged either by Nature Contract or a precedent Oath which no subsequent can disanul And though these Reasons are ponderous enough to weigh down whatever can be produced to the contrary yet if you try them by the weights of the Sanctuary you will not find a grain deficient For the thirtieth of Numbers is throughout the whole a compleat confirmation of this particular where if a woman remaining in her Fathers House whilest she is under his tuition and Government vow a Vow unto God and bind her self by a most Sacred Bond that Bond and Vow though never so solemn was to be null and void if her Father disallowed it Ald. But the Holy League I hope was no such thing that was cloathed with such unluckie Circumstances Vic. Yes Sir that it was For first the King not only disallowed but protested against it so far was he from giving it the least Contenance or Sanction And had he indeed consented to that he knew he should seale his own ruine as well as violate his Coronation Oath and make a Deed of Gift of all his Prerogative Ald. Then it seems this way a Net that would have entangled and catched both King and Subject Vic. It was a Net Sir that was fit to fish with in troubled waters for had not the Rivers been stained with bloud and the Clouds of Heaven as well as the Mud of the Earth darkned the Waters it is impossible that so much fish should have come to net the Web being so monstrously big that all that had eyes would have seen the Snare but so it was that it had fatal Circumstances attending it that it might prove a ruine to such a People that were out of love with their own beauty murmured and repined at their own plenty and were willing to abandon their blessings and felicity Ald. Well Sir I have no reason to say much agaiast what you reply but I can bear witness to the Old Proverb that it was good fishing in troubled waters But pray make good your second particular that the matter of the Covenant was not within our own power Vic. That I shall make good to your Worship too But first I must take notice by the by that your Worship would make a good Pope for that you have I perceive got a special Argument to prove your self St. Peters Successour because you have catched such fish as brought money in their mouths Ald. I tell you Sir I had rather have my Shop full of them than of Red Herrings Vic. Well there 's salt however in a Red Herring but I never knew your Worship so covetous before however let us throw aside the fish for the present and take up the Net The matter of the Covenant was not within your own power because those very things which you Covenanted to alter and extirpate and what you swore to defend and maintain were all contrary to that duty and subjection which before both by Birth and Oaths you owed to his Majesty Ald. How so Vic. But that I must allow to your Worship the infirmities of Old Age and account your memory as short as your days I could else tell you that but just now it was plainly evinced to be quite opposite to our Natural Obligations to our Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and not only tended to the diminution but the total destruction of the Kings Prerogative Ald. You are something zealous in your cause Mr. Vicar Vic. Not so zealous as your Worship was formerly in yours my Zeal is neither so hot as to boyle over into raging fury nor yet so blind as not to see its own Object and yet I hope I shall obtain your Worships pardon if so much discourse begins to make me a little warm Ald. I hope this Town stands in an Air that is able to cool you and therefore pray make your last particular a little plainer Vic. I shall chearfully undertake that task and I most humbly thank your Worship for your patience You know omitting the Proem and Conclusion the Covenant consisted of six Articles Every one of which is quite opposite to that obedience you before were engaged for to his Majesty besides the forfeiture of that Religion your Fore-fathers died for Ald. I would fain hear this proved Vic. That you shall certainly Sir without injury to any thing but your own patience As to your Religion the two first Articles do so palpably offer violence to that it not only demolishing the present structure of our most famous Churches but utterly extirpating that pious and most ancient Order of Bishops without which some doubt whether the Christian Church can have its being and by this means leaving us as much as in it lies without any future hopes of a true Priesthood Ald. But how does it oppugne that obedience
that we were before engage to perform to his Majesty Vic. That your Worship may with great facility discern when you shall consider that you were before obliged to preserve and defend not only his Majesties Person but also all his Praeeminencies and Prerogative part of which is notoriosly known to be Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Government and consequently the power of reforming Religion and therefore the offering at an Alteration without him attempts the destruction of that blessed mixture that Lawyers inform us is in his Person and violates his Royal Prerogative besides the diminution of his Revenue by abolishing of the Hierarchy from whose First-fruits and Tenths he reaps no small advantage nay finally it makes part of a Parliament contradict and abrogate what the whole had before by several Acts and Statutes established fixing Prelacy by Laws that cannot justly be repealed by a power less than what at first established it Ald. Truly I did not think so much could have been said against what carried such specious or pretenses but it seems there lodged a Snake in the midst of those sweet herbs Pray Sir proceed to your reflections upon those other Articles that remain unconsidered Vic. I would not have your Worship to conjecture that my discourse will be so much as a Breviate and Epitome of what many persons have writ in Folio For there have scarce been more hunters of the Beast in the Revelation whose exact number a melancholly person once found out in the words of the Covenant than there has been of this Scotch Monster however that we may see also how great friends they are to his Majesty we need travel no further than the third Article which engages us to preserve the Kings Person only in the conservation of true Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdom which laies him open as I hinted before to every Traytor or Enthusiast that has either malice or madness enough to conclude him an enemy to both or either But what may be worth your observation in the same Article in which the preservation of the King 's naked Person stripped of all his Royal Prerogative is limited care is taken that the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the People be strictly maintained without an interpretation or restriction at all which loudly proclaimes to the whole World what friendship this League designed for his Majesty Ald. Methinks I begin to withdraw my affection from that which I had once a kindness for and I fear this wound to his Sacred Majesty was but a kind of Prologue to that Tragedy that succeeded it Vic. Although I cannot but very much rejoyce to see your Worship confirming that Act with your Judgment which the Penalty of a Law then only seemed to extort to wit the renunciation of the Covenant Yet I shall further I hope enhance your abhorrency of this strange Beast no less than confirm your last consequence and deduction when I shall remember you that the next Article besides that it assumes a most Absolute Tyrannical and Arbitrary Power in bringing men to what we know not who shall deem condign punishment does countenance and encourage and not only so but bind men by the Solemnity of an Oath to Parricide Regicide and any the greatest Villanies in the World How easie was it by vertue of that for Husbands to ease themselves of unpleasant Wives or Wives to divorce themselves from those Husbands that they found their affections either out of wantonness or curiosity to decline from How easie a way was this for the Son to enquire into his Fathers years before nature gave period to his life that so he might be the present Possessour of what he was only heir to before Nay for the Subjects to arraign and condemn their Prince since it was without respect of persons could they but once affix the Title of Incendiary Malignant or obstructer of the Reformed Religion upon him The definition of each particular of which was left in their own breasts to inspire Ald. These Inferences cannot methinks but startle all us that have swallowed down such poyson the regret that is in my Conscience makes me sit very uneasie Vic. I could willingly allow my self as well as you a breathing time were it not for fear that what I have all this time pursued would be too long at rest and recover strength Ald. Nay I would not have you by any means give an interruption to your discourse for I have already given order that they should not expect us at Dinner but provide some repast for us against the Evening Vic. I thank your good Worship not only for your patient condescention in admitting so much familiarity all this while but for your great care both of your self and me though indeed I should not alwaies be so bold an Intruder Ald. He never intrudes that is invited Bagpipes you know will not go at all if they are quite empty Vic. I thank you Sir for that Metaphor for nothing but that could so well have reminded me of the Covenant We have already dispatched half the Articles and condemned one more to make them even and the fifth is nothing but talking of Peace in the midst of War and boasting of strange effects of reconcilement when all know there was no such thing and therefore here the failing of the Saints was superadded to the Perjury of the Sinner And finally as to the Sixth Article it only supposes in general terms what we have already refuted in particular that the cause of this Covenant was the defence of Religion together with the Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms that the whole tended to the glory of God the Publick Advantage and the Kings Honour and therefore the Jurors here swore to remain constant in the pursuit of the Design against all opposition throughout the whole course of their lives Thus did it not only ensnare a Nation with good words to dig out their own Bowels to rage against Nature it self and sheath their Swords in their nearest Relations to pull down and ruine the most glorious Church in the whole World and force it to be truly Militant but what may supperadd the Complement to all it s deformed dashes it made the King a Slave to his Subjects divested him of all his Royal Robes and made him sacrifice his Head to preserve his Crown which it would also have deprived him of but that his Martyrdom eternized it Ald. Why do you think then that the Covenant murdered the late King of ever blessed memory Vic. No Sir I should be strangely uncivil if I should draw such Conclusions for in that your Worship would be concerned but this I shall be bold to say That the threefold Cord tied him to the Block and left him there for another Party to cut off his head But I expected your Worship should after all this digression have required me to discover the strengeh of the Argument by reducing the whole to some short Form Ald. Truly
Punishments and methinks they should be afraid of them Vic. 'T is true indeed now your Worship has given me a hint of it I remember I have been informed that an Excommunicated person cannot make a will nor recover any debt he not being qualified for a Plaintiff but Defendant only and besides this he lies open not only to the just zeal of true Christians but to the malice and spleen of any one that ows him a grudge Ald. How so Mr. Vicar It seems the Ecclesiastical Authority is armed with greater power than I thought of We must have a care of you our selves for we are liable to this Sentence Vic. And are not we liable to your Justice Our gracious Rulers have a little armed us with a Law who otherwise by reason of our usual poverty should be open to all misfortunes and dangers But let us both do well be loyal and obedient and we shall not only avoid the Penalties of the Law but have praise and encouragement from the law-giver But as to that attendant of an Excommunication that may justly scare even those that seem to fear it least it is as I was saying that they are subject to every man's imprisonment for after they have stood Excommunicate forty daies any one that will address himself may take out a Writ De Excommunicato capiendo and lay them in Prison Ald. And would you have greater power than this 'T is a wonder all Goals are not full of these exorbitant persons Vic. 'T is not to me strange at all because there must be Money in the case the Writ is so chargeable that a few of them would swallow up my poor Vicaridge and no private person out of charity to the Church will contribute any thing to the punishment of those troublers of Israel But what advantage would your Worship get by it if this method were used Ald. Then we should escape their envie and malice that are Justices of the Peace because we should not be the instruments of their punishment Vic. In that Sir you must pardon me if I endeavour to inform you of your mistake in this point of Law and I hope you will not take an advertisement amiss though it is in what your Worship should be acquainted with Ald. Prethee say what thou wilt he is a mad man that will be angry at thy language thou hast an Heart for a Prince although thou hast a Purse but for a Begger Vic. I thank your good Worship and the rest of your Brethren for that liberal maintenance I do enjoy Contentment you know will equal the Vicar to the Alderman But Sir whereas you were saying that if the Fanaticks were proceeded against by the Writ De Excommunicato capiendo you should be free from contributing to their punishment you must needs forget your self For the very Sentence of Excommunication does deliver the Offendor to the Secular Power and all the punishments and inconveniences which succeed that doom as to the body are meerly Temporal nay the very Writ that we are now discoursing of must be directed to Justices of the Peace and by their Power is the Offendor imprisoned so that if the Law be at all executed it must be by your hands or else it will not prove effectual either to restrain those that are contumacious and refractory nor terrifie those who are more ingenuous and pliable Ald. Well then if there be a necessity we must break through the briars and thorns we must encounter with the Lion in the way since our Oaths oblige us and I find by you there is no avoiding the Obligation and indeed it admits not of any other way of effecting the design of restriction to our Adversaries and peace unto our selves Though if I should make an ingenuous confession I would not be troubled with offending my Neighbours nor can I well endure their abuses and clamours Vic. I am sorry to see so little of the Spirit of a couragious Magistrate that should not fear the faces of men much less such poor contemptible nothings as those are and they must not be angry for this expression because 't is their own What should your Worship be afraid of A Religion that is nothing but Shadow and Phrases and Persons that never yet were contented with all the Largesses of most indulgent Princes nay and those too who when in power were themselves the greatest Imposers and most strict in their Punishments against all that did in the least deviate from their established practices and notwithstanding all their canting confessions of their former guilt in this particular now they themselves are liable to Penalties will if ever they shall by ill chance or violence become our Masters be more rigid and severe than ever and we shall certainly find the smart of what you seem so unwilling ever now and then to execute upon them Ald. I cannot think they are for rigour and imposition that so much decry it but if it could appear that they used it in the late times methinks we had reason to suspect it for the future Vic. I am troubled methinks to find you so forgetful of our late miseries which perhaps may make you the less sensible of our present dangers Every one that was loyal to his King and true to his Religion felt the stroke of their severity and malice But to put this out of all controversie I will send you down a little Book newly come to my hands which is called Samaritanism revised that shall fully silence this Objection and convince you from the testimony of their own Authors both forein and domestick that are best approved by their own Party that they are so far against Toleration of any but themselves that they affirm severities and smart punishments the just debt to those which they account Hereticks and Schismaticks I have not yet read over the Book but by what I have perused I see the Author is of a Publick Spirit and wounds the Fanaticks with their own Weapons and because the whole demonstrates the Piety Equity and necessity of putting the Laws in execution both against Popish and Puritan Recusants I must commend the whole to your perusal and it may 't is like prevail more than our present Discourse Ald. Pray be as good as your word and send it me then but I would fain have the Bishops more active Vic. In their places and according to the extent of their Laws and Permission I question not but they are For I am sure their interest as well as every honest mans is equally concerned But 't is the Temporal Sword must cut off these Excrescencies for we see they contemn the Bishops Courts And methinks the method is not so natural for those who must use Rhetorick and perswasion to encline those to a cordial embracement of what severity may drive them to the profession of to be the prime Authors and the immediate Instruments of conveying to them their Mulcts and Penalties If the Temporal Authority would