great promises of Assistance and Supply and these being still diverted by endless Disputes about Liberties and Priviledges and bold demands to abate the Powers of the Crown he saw plainly as himself declares That they only made use of the necessities grown upon him by that War to inforce him to yield to Conditions incompatible with Monarchy So that despairing of any good from the Seditious Spirits of that Parliament he dissolves them And in the interval his necessities growing upon him by a new and sad disaster that had befallen his Unkle the King of Denmark He commands his Council to Advise by what means and wayes he might fitly and speedily be furnish'd with Monies suitable to the importance of the undertaking Hereupon after a Consultation of divers dayes together they came to this Resolution that the urgency of Affairs not admitting the way of Parliament the most speedy equal and convenient means were by a general Loan from the Subject according as every man was Assessed in the Rolls of the last Subsidy Upon this Result the King issues out his Declaration accordingly but assuring the People that this way to which he was forced by the urgency of his Occasions should not be made a Precedent for the time to come to charge Them or their Posterity to the prejudice of their Just and Ancient Liberties enjoyed under his most Noble Progenitors And promising them in the word of a Prince first to repay all such summs of Money as should be lent without fee or charge so soon as he shall be any wayes enabled thereunto And secondly that not one Penny so borrowed should be bestowed or expended but upon those publique and general Services wherein every of Them and the body of the Kingdom their Wives Children and Posterity have their personal and common Interest When the King and his Council had Voted the Loan they commanded Laud then Bishop of Bath and Wells to draw up certain Instructions to be communicated to the Arch-bishops Bishops and the rest of the Clergy of the Realm to stir up and exhort the People to express their Zeal to the true Religion their Duty to the King and their Love to their Countrey by a chearful complyance with his Majesties Commissions And in this was represented the Afflicted Condition of the Princes and States of the Reformed Religion in all parts of Christendom some being over-run some diverted and some disabled to give assistance The distress of his Unkle the King of Denmark the great danger of losing the Sound and thereby the Eastland and the Hamborough Trade the Confederacy of the Pope the House of Austria and the French King to root out the Protestant Religion the great Fleets both of France and Spain at that Instant endeavouring to block up Rochel together with their Land-forces on the Coast of Brittain ready to invade us And what more important Motives could have been press'd to perswade thePeople to a ready and chearful Contribution What more powerful and plausible Arguments could have been put into the mouths of the Clergy to win their Auditories to a dutiful Compliance both with his Majesties Desires and Necessities And this among other things brought forth Sibthorp's Sermon and the man did well and as became his Function to perswade the People that they ought in point of Conscience and Religion chearfully to submit to all such Taxes as were imposed upon them by Royal Authority without murmurs and disputes But if he intermedled as it is said he did with the Kings Absolute Power of imposing Taxes without Consent of Parliament according to the Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom he went both beyond his own Commission and against the Kings Declaration For what had he to do in the Pulpit with the Rights of Sovereignty and the Priviledges of Parliament It was none of his business to adjust the disputes of his Superiours and he had no Authority either from God or the King to interpose in Affairs of State his Office was to recommend the Piety and the Necessity of their Contributions and though possibly they were not under any enforcements of Complyance by the Constitutions of this Realm yet to urge it upon their Consciences from the Common Principles and Obligations both of Nature and Christianity that could not but effectually enforce their complyance with so good a King in so pious and necessary a work But if he exceeded his Commission by taking upon him to teach the Laws of the Land and determine the Rights of the Prerogative though he cannot be justified yet he ought as circumstances then stood to be in a great measure excused because he did it at a time when the King could not in the usual Parliamentary method obtain sufficient supplyes to preserve his Honour and Safety but by Concessions shamefully contrary to both and that might provoke a warm man to lavish out beyond the bounds of prudence and discretion And as for Manwarings Case I need say little to it in that it was the very same with Sibthorps only it is observable that his Prosecution was carried on with all eagerness by such Members as Pym and Rous men that took advantage of such imprudences only to give countenance to their own clamours and confirm the jealousies they had blown into the People against the King by the indiscretion of a Countrey Vicar though if there were at that time any designs of absolute Government it was to be imputed to their Impudence for when they assaulted the Royal Power with their bold and unreasonable demands they forced it to stand upon its own guard and then it was none of the Kings fault if he were necessitated to act sometimes by vertue of his meer Prerogative because there was no other way left to preserve himself or his Government in that they had brought things to that pass that nothing must be done unless he would either grant away all his Power to them or keep it all to himself for they would not share the Sovereignty with a single Person and under pretence of priviledges of Parliament assumed the Royal Supremacy and as soon as they had Power and opportunity it is well known how confidently they put in practice the very same courses which they resisted as Acts of Arbitrary Government in the King so that if He were at any time to have recourse to extraparliamently proceedings it was not from his own choice or inclinations but purely from the rudeness and insolence of their demands which were so insufferable that the case was plain that he must sometimes govern without them or not govern at all And what is to be done in that case the Law of self-preservation determines I know this may be pretended where there is no such necessity but that I cannot help if men will abuse a just pretence to authorize unjust actions It is enough to my purpose that it is plain in the case of the last King that he never made use of his Prerogative till the
Parliament began to challenge it and then he could make use of nothing else and the dispute then was not whether the Prerogative should govern but whether it were vested in him or them and that brought forth the War they fought for the Crown and when the Parliament had won it they were resolved to wear it and exercised all the Jurisdictions of Sovereign Power by vertue of their Parliamentary Supremacy But to return to Manwaring it is a great instance of the Presbyterian Humanity that though the poor man had begged their pardon with all the expressions of sorrow and humility yet no less punishment would appease their fury but to be imprisoned during their pleasure i. e. for ever to be fined a thousand Pounds to be suspended three Years and to be made uncapable of any farther Ecclesiastical preferment with many other heavy tokens of their displeasure and all this only for his too eager Zeal and forwardness in the Cause of Loyalty and so his Majesty understood it and therefore punish'd him with preferment accordingly to defie their pragmaticalness and to encourage such as promoted his and the Kingdomes service though they might fail in a point of Prudence But as for those persons that openly refused the Loan and affronted the Kings Commissions and would rather suffer Imprisonment than comply in so easie and reasonable a Demand they plainly shewed they had forgot that respect they owe to their Prince and that duty they owe to God who so severely requires them to obey not for their wrath only but for Conscience sake so that it was a manifest and unpalliable Breach both of Loyalty and Religion Especially when it was so very manifest that the King was forced upon all extraordinary courses purely by the stubborness of Presbyterian Parliaments and when they had such unquestionable assurance both from his own Temper that he could do nothing but what was just and honourable and from his Royal word that he would be always as tender of his Peoples ancient and just Liberties as of the Rights of his Crown and Soveraignty In these plain Circumstances as things stood between him and his Parliaments punctilios of Law were superseded For when it was so manifest that their demands were disloyal and unreasonable and withal that on one hand their designs were worse than their Declarations and on the other that his Majesty never intended any thing but the Peace and prosperity of his Kingdomes that was sufficient motive to overrule all good Subjects and ingenuous men not to endanger all by standing too curiously upon precedents and and niceties of old Custome But when these men first put the King upon his necessities and then defeated him of his supplies and so forced him upon extraordinary courses and then resisted his Authority and affronted his proceedings and animated the people to stand it out against his Commissioners and raised a disturbance and discontent through the whole Nation and all this when they knew his Majesties occasions so urgent and his designs so just and pious I dare determine that whatever they were by the Laws of the Land they were most notorious Rebels by all the Laws of the Gospel though what they proved afterward we all know it being these very men I mean as many of them as persisted in their stubborness for some of them were converted to a more orderly temper by the mere power of shame and modesty that were the great Authors and Ringleaders in the Long-parliament Rebellion The next fatal Rock upon which this man so learned so wise so pious ruin'd both King and Kingdome is the Rock of Arminianism for it seemed he and the Bishops had in order to setting up a new kind of Papacy of their own here in England provided themselves of a new Religion in Holland Arminianism which though it were the Republican Opinion there yet now they undertook to accommodate it to Monarchy c. But I beseech you Sir that are so deep a Statesman to inform a poor sucking Divine which way Arminianism is concern'd for or against Monarchy As for its Orthodoxy I have not a word to say especially when it has been so sufficiently determin'd by the Synod of Dort and the Assembly of West-minster i. e. all the Modern Orthodox Divines of Hungary Transylvania Bohemia and so downward to Pin-makers Hall though how it should at all conduce to Popery I must confess it is beyond my comprehension when the controversie has been always more or less disputed in all Nations under all Governments by all Sects and all Religions and is bandied as much by the Divines of the Church of Rome as by those of the Reformation And therefore when you upbraid us that in the late beating up the Pulpit Drums against Popery some were so ignorant as to fight the Papists with Arminian Arguments you would have done well to tell us the Ear-mark of an Arminian Argument I always thought they had been equally concern'd with other Protestants against the Pope and that the Arminians howsoever otherwise heterodox agree no more with some Papists in some things than the Calvinists agree with other Papists in other things so that their differences have no relation to their common Cause against Popery But to what purpose is it to talk to a Gamester of matters of Divinity For you understand none of these things but write purely by roat you find grievous outcries of Arminianism in the Long-Parliament Speeches and Declarations and you thought you might serve your turn of it as they did theirs It was an hard word that the people understood not at all i. e. as little as themselves did the thing only they taught them to hate and abhorr it as Children do Bugbears and Hobgoblins So that in those days Arminianism and Popery went always hand in hand and if they had a mind to blast any mans Reputation it was but sticking this name upon him and his business was done and among other Artifices to give better Countenance to the Cheat a counterfeit Letter was framed to the Rector of the Jesuites in Bruxels in which they inform him with what Art and success they had planted here the Sovereign Drug of Arminianism to purge the Protestants from their Heresies and to make a Party against the Puritans that were their only dangerous enemies with abundance more of the like impudent stuff though by whom it was written it was never yet discover'd yet by several passages in favour of the Puritan Faction it is evident enough to all sober men that it was a mere Gullery of their own devising And agreeably to this they were always very liberally bestowing their stroaks upon the Monster of Arminianism I desire Mr. Speaker that we may consider the increase of Arminianism an errour that makes the Grace of God lackey it after the will of man yea I desire that we may look into the very belly and bowels of this Trojan Horse to see if there be not men
King having been at a vast expence in his first Expedition was forced to summon a Parliament for fresh Supplies but they no sooner met than they justified their Dear Brethren as they call'd the Kirk-Rebels and so fall to their old complaints of Grievances and Arbitrary Government and the illegal Proceedings of the Kings Ministers of State and these things they must and will have redress'd before they will take any business of money into consideration and so long baffled the Kings expectations that he having no hope of any Supply from them dissolves them and resolves to cast himself upon the assistance of his better affected Subjects and accordingly finds the greatest part of his Gentry and Nobility so sensible of their own Duty and Loyalty and of those affronts that were put upon his Regal Power by these men in the late and former Parliaments that by their own voluntary Contributions they raised an Army more than sufficient to have reduced the Rebels to obedience But being over-ruled by the advice of some that were alwayes too near to all his Councils and that were no friends to his Prerogative though perhaps they were no enemies to Monarchy he condescends to a Treaty and that concludes as these men would wish in referring the whole Controversie to the decision of a Parliament And this produced the fatal Long-Parliament that chiefly consisted of the most Seditious Members of all his former Parliaments For though the greatest part of the Gentry were loyal and dutiful enough yet it so hapned that the Commonalty had been preached into malecontentedness by the Puritan Preachers they thought no man a Patriot of his Countrey or fit to be trusted in Parliament that was not a profess'd enemy to the Prerogative and that did not oppose Taxes and Tyranny And if any one had been so stubborn as to deserve punishment for Sedition and had been imprisoned or gon to Law with the King for the non-payment of a Sess of twenty or forty shillings that gain'd him the hearts of the whole Countrey and so upon the merit of their sufferings it came to pass that the most eminent Persons of the Presbyterian Faction came to be so generally elected Knights and Burgesses in this as well as all other Parliaments of his Reign but now their discontent was heightned partly by their former just imprisonments partly by that affront that as they supposed was put upon them in the dissolution of the late Parliament And therefore having once again got possession of the House and perceiving the Kings necessities to be greater than ever and withall their own Party to be stronger and more numerous than ever they resolved to appear more boldly than ever and to make something of so great an advantage And so they immediately fall upon accusing the King and his Ministers of all the crimes that could render them odious to the people they charge him with designs of reestablishing the Roman Religion of subverting the fundamental Laws of setting up Arbitrary Government of laying aside all Parliaments with a Thousand other Clamours and Calumnies making use of every Accident to raise matter of Accusation And if you will look into the grand Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom that was the first Declaration of the War you will find that they imputed all misfortunes whatsoever to the King and his evil Council The loss of the Rochel Fleet the diversion of the War from the West-Indies to the successess attempt upon Cales the Peace with Spain the breach with France the dissolving of former Parliaments for their stubbornness the destruction of the Kings Timber in the Forest of Dean the Monopolies of Sope and Salt the Sale of Nuzances the design of Coyning Brass money the depriving seditious men of the comfort and conversation of their Wives by close Imprisonments Misdemeanours in all Courts of Justice Bribery Extorsion and buying of Offices Suspensions of painful learned and pious Ministers the decay of Trade the loss of Merchants Ships by the Pyrates of Dunkirk with all other good or bad Accidents that befel the Government were imputed 1. To the Jesuited Papists who hate the Laws as the Obstacles of that change and subversion of Religion which they so much long for 2. To the Bishops and the corrupt part of the Clergy who cherish Formality and Superstition as the natural Effects and more probable Supports of their own Ecclesiastical Tyranny and Usurpation 3. To such Counsellours and Courtiers who for private ends engaged themselves to further the Interest of some foreign Princes or States to the prejudice of his Majesty and the State at home Though the Root of all this mischief was a Malignant and pernicious design of subverting the fundamental Laws and Principles of Government upon which the Religion and Justice of this Kingdome are firmly establish'd And then the common Principles by which they moulded and govern'd all their particular Counsels and Actions were 1. To keep up a misunderstanding between the King and his people by their Leasings 2. To keep down the Purity and power of Religion 3. To bring in Arminianism 4. To trinkle the King against his Parliaments Where by the way you may see that you are not the first Authour of your own notions your whole Book is but a short Rehearsal of the Remonstrances Speeches and Declarations of the Rebels But now must all things stand stock still till these and a Thousand grievances more are redress'd his Ministers must be impeached of high Treason and if he expected any comfort from them he must buy it with the blood of his best Subjects and his fastest Friends But you cannot here reasonably expect a compleat account of all their Injustice their Folly their Impudence and their Hypocrisie when the whole World can scarce contein the History of their Wickedness I am sure it can never equal it However it is plain that they were now resolved upon the Rebellion and so made demands accordingly For the summe of all their Messages Remonstrances and Declarations was only to chalenge the Soveraign Power it self and all the parts and branches of the Prerogative They petition'd no more than that the King would be pleased to betray and give up his Friends to their Malice as in the Pique of the five Members that he would deliver up all Castles and Forts and the whole Power of the Militia into their hands That they might have the choosing of all the Lords of his Council and of all great Officers of State the Government and Education of his Children the Power to hang Delinquents as they shall think fit and the liberty of excepting whom they pleased out of the Kings general Pardon and that no Peer be permitted to sit in the house of Peers but by consent of both houses Upon these and the like Terms to which they stuck with an impregnable Obstinacy from first to last they would apply themselves to settle his Revenue and supply his necessities and make him the most glorious
State because he never intended him for that employment when all Princes were as little aware of it as his Majesty till you were pleased to inform them So that it must be consessed that he followed the best Light that as J. O. speaks God held forth as the horns in his hand to the believers of that Generation for then he had no reason to suppose that he could do better than to trust his Affairs with a man learned and wise and pious not being bless'd with your Revelations from the high places of Armageddon And yet for all this had the Arch-bishops precipitate violent rigorous sanguinary and extreme Counsels been followed I am apt to think it had by the blessing of God been the most likely way to prevent all the mischiefs of the late Rebellion He saw plainly enough what the Antimonarchical Faction aim'd at how they had prepared the People for Confusion how they had encombred the Kings Affairs and that there was no probable way of escape for his Majesty but by some violent breaking through those difficulties in which they had entangled his Government And if the Faction had been convinced by any thing but Declarations that the King would not bear such insufferable Affronts against his Crown and Prerogative it is at least to be supposed that they would never have attempted it with such open and impudent endeavours But though he committed his exquisite understanding to the Arch-bishops keeping he kept his own sweet-nature and Gentlemans Memory to himself for being a person of an incomparable goodness he was strangely easie to forget and forgive the boldest injuries and that was all the use they made of his gentleness to encourage one another in their disloyal Practices till at length they proceeded to demand his Crown and when for meer peace and goodness-sake he had granted them one half of it by vertue of that they fought for the other And as little as the Arch-bishop gain'd upon them by his Priestly implacableness the King gain'd much less by his Princely Condescensions They were already resolved upon Rebellion and then every thing was an occasion of Tumult when they were resolved to tumultuare upon every occasion And though the War be no more to be imputed to the Kings goodness than the wickedness of impenitent sinners is to Gods mercy yet had they not shamelesly presumed upon that they though Presbyterians could never have had the confidence to treat him as they did Nay so little did he work upon them by the good-nature of all his condescensions that they perpetually set themselves to pick quarrels and take exceptions at the most obliging words as for example in the Bill of pressing and leavying Souldiers by Authority of Parliament when he had made a passionate Speech to them to move their pity towards the lamentable estate of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland and to dispatch their supplies for suppressing the Rebellion and to avoid dispute and delay he offers them to pass their own Bill that they were then framing though expresly against his undoubted Prerogative so it might be done with a salvo jure leaving the Debate to a better and more quiet season How think you did these meek-natured men that had they not been forced to it by Laud and Sibthorpianism could never have lift up an ill thought against the King requite all this tenderness and condescension but immediately Vote a Petition i. e. a Remonstrance to represent to his Majesty how he had violated the ancient lawful and undoubted Priviledges and Liberties of Parliament by taking notice of any Matter though it were Town-talk in agitation in either House before it was presented to his Majesty in due course of Parliament and humbly beseech i. e. threaten him to make known the Persons that by their Evil Counsels had induced him to it that they might be brought to condign punishment i. e. be affronted and severely handled only for being acquainted with the King Were not these men resolved upon it to renounce all sense of Duty and respect to their Prince that could seize such an advantage of discontent in such a sad juncture of Affairs from such a slight and unjust occasion And what way was there to deal with them but by such violent and precipitate Counsels as you impute to the Arch-bishop They were you see plainly from all their proceedings proof against all the obligations of goodness and ingenuity and then there is no way left but to suppress them by force and rigour and if that fail'd it was only because the Faction was grown too strong for the Government And 't is possible nay likely that if the King had through his whole Reign taken contrary Counsels and Courses yet the event might have been the same because however he carried Himself and his Affairs they were resolved to pursue their Democratical designs and had as the world went Power and Interest enough so to confound his Government till they brought him into a necessity of a Civil War But the three Rocks upon which this Man so learned so wise so pious ruin'd the King and Kingdom were Sibthorp Arminianism and the Scotch Liturgy so as not to leave it in the power of the Rebels to prevent the war For they alas Righteous Men acted in the sincerity of their Hearts and faithful discharge of their Consciences and were only forced into Arms in Defence of the King Kingdom and Themselves by Sibthorp Arminianism and the Liturgy But as for the Story of Sibthorp and the Loan-money in short thus it hapned In all the Parliaments under the late Kings Reign there was alwayes a strong Cabal of ill-affected persons that resolved to lay hold on all Advantages which way soever Affairs were managed to embroil the Government and bring the King into such streights as should make him obnoxious to their Power and to this purpose they put him upon expensive wars and when they had so done obstructed all Supplies by falling to complaints of Grievances and disputes of Liberties and Priviledges and Remonstrances against his Government and Petitions of Redress that is to say by assaulting him with Demands and Threatnings and however things were Reformed yet these Malevolent Persons as his Majesty expresses it like Empyricks and lewd Artists did strive to make new work and to have some disease on foot to keep themselves in request and to be employed and entertain'd in the Cure chiefly by raising jealousies and designs upon their Religion a wicked Practice sayes the King that they took up not for any care that they had of the Church but only as a plausible Theme to deprave our Government as if We our Clergy and Counsel were either senseless or careless of Religion with many other wicked Arts and Practices that the Declaration recapitulates p. 8 9 10. But the King being engaged in a foreign War in defence of his Unkle the King of Denmark by the Counsels and Perswasions of both Houses of Parliament with
a Jest or a Quibble in its confutation You are a right Champion for the Fanatique Cause that can confute any Argument with face and confidence There is no disputing such an Adversary without an head-piece This is only tilting of foreheads where the hardest skull not the fullest must get the victory Away you trifling Wretch talk you no more of Ecclesiastical Policy and hereafter never pretend to any knowledge that pretends either to Reason or Modesty for had you any sense of the former you would never have been so silly as to be so seriously scared at such an innocent and undeniable proposition or any of the latter you could never have been so impudent as to bray forth such a confident and heinous censure against it as if it were notoriously evident without proof that it directly subverts all the Principles of Religion and Government And therefore I would fain know in good earnest what your meaning was in making your first onset upon this Grand Thesis If you intended its Confutation why have you not discharged so much as one semi-vowel of exception against it If you did not to what purpose is it to trouble your self and the world with its Quotation A man in my Opinion had as good altogether unless he be very idle keep his mouth shut as gape and yet say nothing If this be the Grand Thesis in comparison whereof the rest of my Assertions as you inform us are to be reckoned no better than sneaking Corollaries and if I bottom all the foundations of Government and Religion upon it and make it more necessary to the support of the World than the Pillars of the Earth or the eight Elephants one would think this if any thing should have been battered down with knocking and dead-doing Arguments and here if any where one would have expected you should have given an hot and fierce alarm and have drawn up all your squadrons of vowels mutes semi-vowels and liquids and by the next Gazet to have heard of a sorer and more dreadful battel than ever was fought in your Grammar-War or my Roman Empire Now after all this Threatning and Preparation what a disappointment must it be to the Readers and Spectators to see so proud an He that bore up so bravely and with such a manful Confidence come off with this soft and gentle Rebuke Verily and indeed now it is a naughty Proposition ay and all that Thou a Rat-Divine thou hast not the Wit and Learning of a Mouse when thou endeavour'st to bite thou canst not so much as nibble Thou talk of Government of the Crowns and State of Princes to School Truant mind your Push-pin and con your eight parts of Speech and presume not hereafter to cavil at things that are above the capacity and concern of Boys and Girls and sucking-bottles And yet to the same purpose that is to none at all is that tedious train of Quotations that you bring in at the tail of this without passing any smarter remarque upon them than the same general censure of Malignancy though if they are chargeable there was no need of your Edition for they were in print before and therefore it is but sit you should be endited for a scandalous Plagiary to transcribe so much of my Book to no other purpose than only to make up 6 pages towards your full tale of 326. I believe it will be found against the Laws of the Stationers-hall for your Book-seller to print so much of another mans Copy after it is enter'd according to Order without his leave and consent and I hope M r Martyn will seek his remedy against the Assigns of John Calvin and Theodore Beza They are bold and sawcy fellows as it is the nature of every thing to be so that relates to Geneva But you and I will not concern our selves in their Controversies they know without our information as well as any Vermine in Christendom how to manage their own Affairs by the intrigues and mysteries of their own Trade At least it more concerns me to keep close to your self for they tell me that if a man will keep continually running after a mad dog it is the only way to secure himself from being bitten Tell me therefore quickly in answer to the Grand Thesis do you seriously believe that his Majesty has no Power in matters of Religion What then becomes of all your Acts of Parliament against Popery ever since the Reformation nay what then becomes of the Declaration it self for Indulgence and Liberty of Conscience in which his Majesty declares that he therein only makes use of that Supreme Power in Ecclesiastical Matters which is not only inherent in the Crown but has been declared and recognized to be so by several Statutes and Acts of Parliament Beside do you not think it possible for men to create publique disturbances under pretences of Religion Was there never any Rebellion carried on by popular Zeal and Reformation Did you never hear of any men that set up Christs Standard in defiance to their Princes and that fought against his Person at least only to carry on the work of the Lord and that have murther'd and banisht Kings only to dethrone Antichrist and the Whore You so great a Traveller and did you never hear the Countrey people tell stories of the merry pranks of John of Leydon and the Anabaptists of Germany You so great an Historian and never read of any Kingdomes and Empires some time or other embroil'd or destroyed by Arts of Religion You would be an Historian indeed if you could but name any one Nation in the World whose Annals do not afford us variety of sad stories to this purpose And then after all this dare you be so confident as to declare it is absolutely unlawful and in all cases for any Prince to claim or exercise any Authority over Conscience or Religion If you dare not but allow a necessity of Coercion in some cases then after all your confidence you grant the truth and justifie the innocence of the Grand Thesis viz. That it is necessary to the Peace and Government of the World that the Supreme Magistrate of every Common-wealth should be vested with a Power to govern and conduct the Consciences of Subjects in affairs of Religion An Assertion so obvious and so harmless that never any People in the World had so little brains or so much forehead as to deny it to all Intents but only the salvage Anabaptists of Germany and they indeed claim'd an absolute exemption from the Civil Power for themselves and that only upon the priviledge of Saint-ship but then they equally cancell'd all Government and protested against all manner of Subjection either to Secular or Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But excepting these inhumane Canibals this Grand Thesis that you suppose to be so grosly absurd that barely to name it is enough to expose the person that shall maintain it as an open enemy to God and Man is so granted and undoubted
and yours to demand it and whether he give it or give it not as he sees it most convenient for the ends of Government concerns neither Me nor my Writings seeing in both he exercises that Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that I have asserted to be inherent in the Supreme Power At least you see what reason I had to discourse of the Kings Power rather than the Churches because that was the only Principle you endeavour'd to batter down and if once you could but tye up the Secular Arm you valued not the strokes of the Spiritual Rod so that had I opposed the Power of the Church to your attempts of Anarchy it had been as wisely design'd as to send forth a party of Church-men to encounter a Brigade of Horse with their Spiritual Weapons But because I see you are resolved not to spare for laying on load enough and have the confidence to impeach or suspect a man of any thing that is odious if he do not expresly protest against it and because some other men that I have more reason to satisfie than your self have fallen into the same suspicion of Erastianism take this short and plain account of the whole business for the prevention of future mistakes Religion then has a twofold End either as it relates to the affairs of this present life or of that which is to come and so is enforced with a twofold Jurisdiction or Power of Coaction suitable to its respective ends Now its design in reference to this present world is the peace of Societies and the security of Government and therefore it must be enforced by such sanctions as are proper to the attainment of that end and those are secular rewards and punishments so that this being the Office of the Civil Magistrate or as you word it according to that deep respect you profess to Princes the trade of Kings to provide for the safety or welfare of the Common-wealth all his Jurisdiction must be temporal and backt only by external inflictions as suited only to the ends of his Authority His Power then over Religion is of a Political Nature and is intended to the same purpose as his Power over all other affairs of State i. e. the publique peace and prosperity and therefore need only be exercised in the same way of Jurisdiction and this is that Authority that I have all along asserted to be the natural and unalienable Right of all Sovereign Princes But then secondly its design in reference to the world to come is purely spiritual and relates only to the welfare of the Souls of men hereafter and therefore is to be prosecuted by such enforcements as are apt to govern Souls without laying restraints upon their bodies Now the only sanctions proper in this case are the rewards and punishments of another life and this is the power of the Ecclesiastick State Authoritatively to declare the Laws of God to the People and to enforce their obedience to them from the threatnings and promises of the Gospel And to this purpose did our blessed Saviour depute the Apostolical order or succession of Apostles to superintend the Affairs of his Holy Catholique Church it is the right of their Office and Commission to consult advise and determine in all disputes that concern the Government and the welfare of all Christian Assemblies and their Decrees are obligatory upon the Consciences of men by vertue of their own proper Authority and under their own proper penalties For as all their Power is meerly spiritual so are all the Sanctions of their Laws and therefore though they cannot by vertue of their own inherent Jurisdiction punish the disobedient with Civil and Secular inflictions yet may they require and demand obedience to their constitutions under pain of the Divine displeasure and the lash of the Apostolical Rod and their sentence when regularly passed upon refractory offenders is valid and terrible as a decree of heaven and if there be any truth or sense in our Saviours words to the Colledge of Apostles that whatsoever they shall bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven their Censures shall be approved and ratified by the judgement of the Almighty And that man deserves the wrath of God that is want only rebellious and incorrigible to the soft and gentle discipline of his Church this is such a desperate and malicious peevishness that it does of it self consign a man up to final contumacy and utter impenitence He is too stubborn and too impudent to be reclaim'd that dares rashly bid defiance to the wisdom and authority of his ghostly guides and governours but when the exterminating sentence is passed upon the Offender it smites like the sword of an Angel it throws him out of the Church and the ordinary capacities of Mercy and delivers him up to the wrath and judgment of God And this is no more than what is necessary to the very Being and Preservation of all Society in that Society cannot subsist without Order nor Order without Authority nor Authority without a Power of requiring and enforcing Obedience and therefore if our Saviour have founded a Church in the world and does design its continuance to the end of it it is necessary he should provide for its Preservation by delegating some peculiar persons to govern and guide the Society by Laws and Penalties otherwise his Church were no better than a wild and ungovernable Rabble that only meet together by chance or by humour and are under no enforcements of orderly and peaceable behaviour And this would be a worthy representation of the Church of Christ that it is only a Rout of rude People without Law or Government But as it is necessary that Ecclesiastical Affairs should be govern'd so is it that this should be done by Ecclesiastical persons whose profession and peculiar employment it is to study and understand those matters and 't is but reasonable to relye upon their judgement who ought to be presumed best skill'd in the nature of the thing it is no more than what common prudence directs to in all other affairs of life to consult and trust every man in his own profession we do not apply our selves to Physicians for the settlement of our Estates nor to Lawyers for the preservation and recovery of our healths But men are to be entrusted and employed with regard to their own proper skill and office and therefore though we should set aside the express Authority of our Saviours commission to the Apostles and their Successours for the perpetual Government of his Church the very rules of common prudence will cast the management of Ecclesiastical matters upon Ecclesiastical persons and this is so avowed a principle among mankind that the Jurisdiction proper to the Church was never yet invaded by any Laicks till t'other day the Tradesmen and Burgers of the Corporation of Geneva banish'd their Prince and Bishop and then took the Government both of Church and State into their own hands and seated the Power of the
result of all their Messages Remonstrances and Declarations is the illegal and arbitrary imposition of unscriptual Ceremonies by which when we come to treat more closely they mean nothing else but only those three establish'd in the Church of England for they themselves never stick to allow or practise any others so these be excepted And had you wit and learning enough to judge of Non-sense you would even cross your self were it not a Popish Symbol to observe what a deal of Metaphysicks J. O. has lavish'd away upon this Argument But alas you shew so little judgment as to slide over his great depths of subtilty and fix upon speculations so wretchedly shallow that every man has wit enough to fathom their folly Thus I verily believed I had in my first Book acquitted my self manfully enough towards battering down this Theological Scar-crow that you have set up in the high places of Armageddon to fray away the People or rather Boys and Girls from the Communion of the Church by shewing that it is so far from being a crime in any Ceremonies to be significant and symbolical that it is their only nature and office so to be that the signification of all Ceremonies is equally arbitrary that it is of the very same kind and to the very same purpose with that of words and therefore that all tender Consciences have the same reason to be offended at the one as the other These I thought in the simplicity of my heart solid and satisfactory notions and counted upon it that we should never more be annoyed with such a thin and empty bubble But behold out stalks the great Leviathan J. O. and pours upon me such a volley of Distinctions as would have stunded a whole Regiment of stouter and more experienced School-men than my self In the first place he distinguishes very subtilely between the Appointment and the Institution of Ceremonies the first he allows of but the last is or may be blasphemy From hence he advances to distinguish between natural and customary signs and then of customary signs between Catholique and Topical and these all pass muster But as for all such wicked signs as signifie neither by Nature nor by Custom but only by vertue of their Institution they are full of such rank and desperate Idolatry that the people of God ought rather than suffer themselves to be defiled with them to tear the Church into Schisms and the State into Wars to murther and banish Kings to subvert the Government and destroy Religion At their own peril therefore be it as he threatens them if Magistrates will be venturing at such a dangerous extravagance of power because 1. They have not any absolute Authority over the sign and thing signified 2. They cannot change their Natures nor create a new relation between them 3. They cannot give a mystical and spiritual efficacy to them And then lastly as for the signification of words that I have parallel'd with that of Symbols the Schoolmen have demonstrated it that when they are signs of sacred things they are signs of them only as things but not as sacred Here are dragons and deeps it were worth a mans while to work in the Mines of Metaphysicks for such Jewels as these this is gibberish strong enough to make a Rosi-crucian mad and were J. O. in good earnest I should notwithstanding all Quarrels be so much his friend as to provide him a dark lodging and clean straw But what wretched fooling this is any man that has a mind to the sport may see in my Reply to him where I gave my self the divertisement of ferreting him from distinction to distinction i. e. from non-sense to non-sense And methinks it is no unpleasant sight to see a poor Rat thus to work and traverse it about to find some little hole wherein he may hide his baffled head when he can hope for no other shelter then to stand still and wink hard But as for your part though you are in the very same straits yet you have the confidence to think your self close with your eyes open and all the world staring at you Thus whereas your most astonishing objection from Cartwright downwards for just where he begun you have all left off and stand like the statue of Erasmus in the posture of turning over a leaf but without ever turning it over will stand in the same posture to the day of judgement against the Institution of Symbolical Rights is that it is no less an attempt than to entrench upon the Divine Prerogative by offering to institute new Sacraments J. O. in particular expresses his sense of it thus that to say that the Magistrate has power to institute visible signs of Honour to be observed in the outward worship of God is upon the matter to say that he has power to institute new Sacraments for so such things would be For this I took him up somewhat roundly as he deserved I upbraided him with the precariousness of the Cavil I challenged him with that plain answer that he could not but know had alwayes been returned to it viz. that Divine Institution is the only thing necessary to the nature and the office of a Divine Sacrament and so at last I dared him to renounce his Argument if he would not take notice of his answer And I could do no less when they have for above one hundred and fifty years together vext and haunted us with such a new-fangled nothing To all this what do you reply why after a tedious deal of forced mirth and grinning you gravely inform us that the Non-conformists were never so silly as to attempt to prove that these Symbolical Ceremonies are indeed Sacraments Nothing less 't is that which they most labour against And now is it not time for me to cry Victory and Triumph when I have put an end to so long and bloody a War when I have gain'd all that we have fought for ever since Cartwrights Rebellion when you your self have resign'd up the Controversie and tyed all their Champions and their Chiefteins to my Chariot wheels Are you not a trusty Patron of the dear Brethren and their dear Cause to give them all up thus broadly for a generation of egregious and incorrigible block-heads should they ever be so weak as to go about to prove that these Symbolical Ceremonies are indeed Sacraments When it is the very Curtana of the Cause when it is the only weapon wherewith Cartwright gored the Bowels of the Church and that has been transmitted successively to all their Champions down to J. O. and the Cobler of Gloster when it is so undeniably upon record in all their writings when it is the subject of so many whole Books and when it is still the last word of all their brawls and contentions So that you say well It is time indeed for the Non-conformists to desire a truce to bury their dead nay there are none left alive to desire it
in it ready to open the Gates to Romish Tyranny and Spanish Monarchy for an Arminian is the spawn of a Papist and if there come the warmth of favour upon him you shall see him turn into one of those Frogs that rise out of the bottomless Pit and if you mark it well you shall see an Arminian reaching out his hand to a Papist a Papist to a Jesuite a Jesuite gives one hand to the Pope and another to the King of Spain c. These were wonderful tricks for the deep Worthies of those times but now nothing but an incorrigible blockhead could either believe that they were very serious or if they were that they were not very silly And yet however Arminianism whatever it is may stand in relation to Popery it was a new Religion that the Prelates brought from Holland and though it were the Republican Opinion there because that Faction was there accused of designs to reduce that Common-wealth under the Spanish Government they undertook to accommodate it to Monarchy And they were no doubt deep Youths that could reconcile a Republican Religion to a Monarchical Interest nay not only so but make that the very Engine to screw up the Prerogative to an absolute Power They must be very cunning men and certainly could never have miscarried as they did were it not that God is resolved never to bless Church-men in their Statetrinklings Otherwise I would request you to tell me in the name of Machiavel which way the Kings Prerogative is concern'd whether God Almighty decreed from all Eternity to create ten Myriads of men nine whereof he peremptorily resolved to doom to everlasting misery for the Glory or rather Ostentation of his uncontroulable Power and Dominion and that they might not frustrate the purpose of his Good-pleasure as they call it resolved again by one device or other to draw them or rather than fail by his own irresistible Instigation to drive them into such practices as might deserve and by consequence justifie the severity of his proceedings Though this seems to make very much for the lawfulness and the divine Right of arbitrary Government yet I never heard of any Calvinist that urged his opinion in this matter in behalf of the absolute and unhoopable Supremacy of Kings Neither do I understand what it imports to any form of Government whether a man be a Supralapsarian or a Sublapsarian and suppose he proceed as far as Gomarus in asserting absolute and irrespective Reprobation I would fain know wherein lyes the Republicanness of his opinion and by what trinkling distinctions and subtilties the Bishops were able to accommodate it to Monarchy At least all these Speculations of absolute and arbitrary Dominion are easily defeated and over-ruled by Calvin's practical Doctrines of Government viz. that it is the duty of the Common people and their Trustees to assert the liberty of Subjects against the Tyranny and wantonness of Kings and that if they grow licentious and exorbitant in the use of their power it is then incumbent upon the popular and inferiour Officers to restrain and moderate their Excesses One such blunt assertion as this is enough to baffle all the dry and speculative Consequences of notional Decrees for these only swim in men's fancies whilst there are perpetual or at least too many occasions of reducing that to practice And though the Consequence is very obvious that if God disposes of his Creatures by an arbitrary Decree and without regard to the merits of the Cause for so he acts according to the Predestinarian Doctrine by which he pre-ordains the greatest part of his Creatures to everlasting Destruction and that he may not be defeated pre-ordains them too to as much sin as may deserve it that then his Vicegerents may govern the World by his own measures and destroy any of their Subjects as they see cause for the Interest and Glory of his or their own Empire Yet how it comes to pass I do not know or perhaps I do know the followers of Calvin have always been as eager in decrying Civil as Ecclesiastical Idolatry and to avoid the very peril and suspicion of it have every where treated Kings as roughly as if they had taken them for a Race of Capons It were easie to adde a great deal more gloss upon this hard word but this may suffice to convince a wiser man than you if he needed it that it had not the least real concernment in the disputes of Monarchy or Popery but being some Foreign Monster that no body understood it might conveniently serve at all turns for a standing pretence of jealousie and suspicion The third Rock upon which this man so learned so wise so pious ruin'd both King and Kingdom was the imposing the English Liturgy upon the Kirk of Scotland Now as to this to be short you must know that this very thing was covenanted and subscribed to by the first Reformers when they Petition'd Queen Elizabeth's aid to expel the French and was in some measure put in practice till in the Minority of King James the Scotch Reformation was as all the rest were over-run by the Bramble and so the Liturgy was by degrees neglected to make way for the new invention of extempore Prayers in which if we may relie upon the Kings word the Mass Johns prayed sometimes so ignorantly as it was a shame to all Religion to have the Majesty of God so barbarously spoken unto sometimes so seditiously that their Prayers were plain Libels girding at Sovereignty and Authority or Lyes being stuffed with all the false Reports in the Kingdom But King James as soon as he came to the use of his Royal Understanding reflecting upon the rudeness and sedition of their Prayers immediately as became a religious Prince bethought himself seriously how his first Reformation in that Kingdom might begin at the publique worship of God which he most truly conceived could never be happily effected until such time as there should be an unity and uniformity in the publique Liturgy and Service of the Church established throughout the whole Kingdom And to this end a publique Liturgy was compiled by the Bishops and others of the most Eminent Clergy and presented to the King by Arch-bishop Spotswood and being approved and ratified by Royal Assent was sent back for the use of the Kirk though as it hapned it took no great effect by reason of his Quarrel with Spain that followed immediately upon it and of his Death that followed not long after it But upon some Addresses from the Clergy of that Kingdom his late Majesty resolved to pursue the Pious and Princely design of his Royal Father to which purpose he caused the same Service-Book to be sent back to himself that after his perusal and alterations if any should be foundnecessary and convenient it might likewise receive his Royal Authority and Approbation And after many and serious Consultations with the Bishops and Clergy of that Kingdom it was at
length approved and publish'd special care being taken I still relye upon the Kings word that the small alterations of it in which it differs from the English Liturgy should be such as might best comply with the minds and dispositions of the Scots and prevent all grounds of fear or jealousie and chiefly to avoid all misconstruction that some Factious Spirits would have put upon it as a badge of that Churches dependance upon the Church of England if it had been the same with the English Service-Book totidem verbis And this was the Liturgy that no doubt might be an occasion of exasperating the Bramble-Faction that were already ripe for Rebellion and resolved to improve all disgusts whether just or unjust real or pretended to authorize their disloyal resolutions But to let you into the main Mystery the circumstance that gave life and vigour to their designs was the Act of Revocation that it seems hapned to be set on foot not long before by which the King intended the Revocation of those Lands of the Church that in the minority of King James the Great Men had to the prejudice of the Crown seized on and shared among themselves to which the Occupants having no other Title beside impudent Sacriledge and Usurpation the King thought he might justly challenge them for his own Use at least from the present Possessours A course warranted as himself still tells me both by the Laws of that Kingdom and the frequent examples of his Royal Progenitors And this you may believe was provocation enough to put them into an uproar and the People were perswaded as I am informed by a good Authour from the mouth of a Noble Lord that the intendment of the Act was to revoke all former Laws for suppressing of Popery and setling the Reformed Religion in the Kirk of Scotland and this raised such Tumults that the King was forced to desist from the prosecution of the Act under that Title and to carry it on though with much opposition under another Name of a Commission of Surrendries a thing so offensive to the stomachs of the Lords of the Erection as the Lay Impropriators were there call'd that they could never digest it but first according to the usual method vented their choler in Libels and then in Rebellion For though they were satisfied for their Tythes to the utmost farthing according to the Rates of purchasing in that Kingdom yet this fretted them that they saw themselves rob'd of the dependence of the Clergy and Laity upon their Power and of that Sovereign Command and Superiority which they had by the tye of Tythes exercised over them several wayes as the King will inform you And this was the reason of State beside the ease of his Subjects that moved his Majesty to issue out this Commission For before the greatest part of the Laity were Vassals by Tenure and all the Clergy slaves by custom to the Nobility And therefore they immediately set themselves to work the People to a disaffection to his Majesties Government and to perswade them that these were the contrivances of the Bishops and that under them there were dangerous innovations design'd upon their Religion So that 't is plain as the King observes that before either the Service-Book or Book of Canons so tragically now exclaimed against were thought on the seeds of Sedition and discontent were sowen by the Contrivers of the Covenant first upon the occasion of the Revocation next upon occasion of the Commission of Surrenders and lastly upon occasion of his denying honours to some of them at his last being in that Kingdom of which he has there given a large and particular account and this brought forth first private traducing his Government and then publique Libels And now by this time Sedition was grown so ripe and ready to seed that it wanted nothing to thrust it out and make it shoot forth into an open Rebellion but some fair and specious pretence They could not yet compass the Cloak of Religion whereby to siel the eyes and muffle the face of the Multitude for by none of the three former Occasions could they so much as pretend that Religion was endanger'd or impeach'd But so soon as they got but the least hint of any thing which they thought might admit a misconstruction that way they lost no time but took Occasion by the fore-lock knowing that either that or nothing would first facilitate and then perfect their designs Now the occasion they took of fetching Religion within the reach of their Pretences was the new Liturgy And this produced I still relye upon the Kings Authority the late wicked Covenant or pretended Holy League Though following the pattern of all other Seditions they did pretend Religion yet nothing was less intended by them For when they had sayes the Royal Understanding received from us full satisfaction to all their desires expressed in any of their Petitions Remonstrances or Declarations their persisting for all that in their tumultuous and rebellious Courses doth demonstrate to the world their weariness of being govern'd by us and our Laws by our Council and other Officers put in Authority by and under us and an itching humour of having that our Kingdom governed by a Table of their own devising consisting of Persons of their own choosing A Plot of which they are very fond being an abortion of their own brain but which indeed is such a monstrous birth as the like has not yet been born or bred in any Kingdom Jewish Christian or Pagan Of which he afterwards describes a particular Plat-form as it was put in practice at Edinburgh And thus observe it you shall still find a Common-wealth and Sacriledge at the bottom of all Rebellion that appears under the mask and pretence of Religion And it was these men that raised the Tumults and trinkled the Rabble into all those disorderly courses that by degrees brought forth the Covenant and the War And it is pretty observable that the first Remonstrance at Edinburgh was made in the name of the Men Women Children and Servants who being urged with the Book of Service and having consider'd the same the Children as well as the rest humbly shew c. These were followed by the Burghours and the Burghours by the Gentry and Nobility And so at length did the Scotch-war break out in which the Liturgy was no more concern'd than the Children of Edinburgh whose tender Consciences it seems were offended at it though in truth they deserved to be soundly whipt for beginning a War for the Cause when the Cause was too good to be fought for And now consider whether you had not been better advised to let this business of the War alone when you can no other way bring your Clients off with reputation unless the King will be content to suffer Himself his Royal Father and his Loyal Subjects to be impeach'd of their Rebellion For the blame of it must light somewhere and therefore if the
King that ever wielded the English Scepter But otherwise if he should offer to relieve himself by any extra-Parliamentary courses it was a breach of his sworn Trust and a dissolution of the Government and if any of his Subjects obeyed or assisted him it was Treason against the fundamental Laws of the Land This was as much as if they had plainly told him and the King understood them so Sir it is in vain to expect Peace or Money from us unless you will be content to forgo your Crown and Royal Dignity and to resign all your Power into our hands This was right Presbyterian Loyalty and is I hope sufficient to cap your idle stories of Sibthorp Arminianism and the Scotch Liturgy At least I am sure it is after all your Hectoring and Achillizing about the late War in defyance of the Act of Indempnity and Oblivion another brave cast of your Modesty to upbraid my Insolence for summoning in all the World and preaching up nothing but Repentance and so frequently calling for Testimonies signal Marks publick acknowledgments satisfaction recantation c. For as I take it here are sufficient materials and motives for Repentance They are obliged to repent of casting away an hundred thousand Lives only to dethrone the King and erect the Scepter of the Lord Christ a cause that they themselves now confess by deserting it as foolish as that was knavish And this is at least suspicion of guilt enough to oblige men to look about them and reflect seriously whether it may not lye upon their Consciences Nothing crys so loud either for Repentance or Vengeance as Blood it requires the deepest Sorrow and Contrition to wash it off so that if they were at all sensible of their Crime or thought it a Crime at all they would never put us to call for tokens of Repentance they would overdo enough of their own accord in Expiation and by the Frankness and Ingenuity of their Confessions quickly satisfie all the World of the sincerity of their change But when they will not be brought to take any notice of their former practices or to make any acknowledgment of their former Crimes when some of the most serious and upright of them protest their Non conviction of any guilt and declare themselves so well satisfied in all their actings in the War that they cannot nay that they dare not ask God forgiveness and yet they did not think the Cause too good to be fought for When none of them have been so ingenuous as to beg their Princes pardon or to make any promise of better behaviour for the time to come in short when they have given us all the symptoms of hardness of heart and impenitence and yet notwithstanding all this boast the merits of their party and chalenge their Princes favour and indulgence from the great security that he ought to have of their peaceable and loyal demeanour this I think is a very impudent affront both to the Clemency of their Prince and the Ingenuity of Mankind Especially when after they had beheld all the dire consequences of their rebellious Acts and Ordinances they were so far from acknowledging their folly that upon the Restauration of the secluded Members by the General one of the first things they voted was to vote themselves innocent and to lay all the mischief and wickedness of the War upon their murther'd Prince Thus far the Presbyterians and Independents were equally concern'd but that the Presbyterians were no farther concern'd they may thank the Ambition and Treachery of Oliver Cromwel more than their own good intentions They had stript the King of his power they had imprison'd his person and what had they to do more after all the affronts and indignities they had offer'd him than what the Independents did after they had wrested the Supremacy out of their hands For it is certain there was no living for them in safety if ever he whom they had reason to suppose their irreconcileable enemy were restored to his Throne and Soveraign Power and then if they had behaved themselves so that they could not safely trust him that was an unremoveable Bar to his restitution And though it is possible that they never intended to attempt his life yet they carried things so high through the whole Progress of their Rebellion as at least to make it expedient nay necessary for their own preservation and if they had intended it they could scarce have used him more scurvily than they did They caused his own great Seal to be broken and a new one to be made in defyance to his Authority His propositions of Peace and his offers of personal Treaty were often denyed an Ordinance was made if he presumed to come within the line of Communication to secure i. e. seize his person It was voted Treason and death without mercy for any of his Subjects to harbour and conceal him and when Sir Thomas Fairfax was made General the Clause for preservation of his Majesties person was left out of his Commission And in the Scotch Declaration of 46. all their concern and care of the Kings person was only conditional viz. as far as it was consistent with their own designs that is as they word it the Preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdomes That is as you may see by their propositions that they made as the only terms of Peace if he would resign his Crown and which is worse take the Covenant they would suffer him to live otherwise they were absolved from all Obligations towards his person and for the preservation of his life And when he was fall'n into the hands of the Independents and so in danger enough the question was propounded to the Kirk whether it were lawful for them to assist the King in the recovery of his Kingdome and it was resolved in the Negative and in answer to that Clause in the Covenant that was objected to them for defence of the Kings person they determin'd it was to be understood in defence and safety of the Kingdomes These men no doubt are fit to be trusted that can think to satisfie themselves and the World with such an impudent and ridiculous interpretation of Oaths as this But however they intended to dispose of his person the Rebellion as far as they avowed it put him out of his Throne and setled all the Regal Power which they call'd arbitrary Government upon themselves And for Subjects to take away their Princes Authority by force of Arms is little less impudent and wicked that after that to take away his life Thus far the Presbyterians and Independents were equally guilty and went hand in hand like dear Brethren they both combined to depose the King though when that was done the perfidious Independents did not only shake off their dear brethren but turn'd all their ownweapons upon themselves And thus as they enter'd into Covenant in defence of King and Parliament so did these enter into an