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
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
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
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
is it not a sad thing that a well-bred and fashionable Gentleman that has frequented Ordinaries that has worn Perukes and Muffs and Pantaloons and was once Master of a Watch that has travell'd abroad and seen as many Men and Countries as the Famous Vertuosi Sorbier and Coriat that has heard the City Lyons roar that has staved and tail'd to the Bears of Bern that has eaten of the Race of Capons at Geneva that has past the Alps and seen all the Tredescin rarities and old stones of Italy that has sat in the Porphyrie Chair at Rome that can describe the method of the Election of Popes and tell stories of the tricks of Carnivals that has been employed in Embassies abroad and acquainted with Intrigues of State at home that has read Playes and Histories and Gazets that I say a Gentleman thus accomplisht and embellisht within and without and all over should ever live to that unhappy dotage as at last to dishonour his grey hairs and his venerable Age with such childish and impotent endeavours at wit and buffoonry Thus having coursed you through eleven beginnings from the Preface into the Ecclesiastical Polity from thence into the Defence from the Defence back again into the Preface from that into Bishop Bramhall anon into the Preface to the Ecclesiastical Polity and streight back again into the Bishops Preface and from thence away to Dr. Thorndike the Friendly Debate Mr. Hooker to Mr. Hales for 10 pages of Rithm to Ism thence to J. O's discourse of Evangelical Love and Unity from p. 127 to the end and then from page the first to page the 127 th and so backward and forward to the conflagration of London the burning of the Ships of Chatham St. Pauls Church and Diana's Temple Ben. Johnson Horace the 5 Chap. to the Galatians and the 5 Epist. to Marcellinus After all this I thought I might begin to expect a little rest and to hope that we need not despair that you began to design to conclude to begin to draw an end of beginning to begin as knowing that all raving fits usually end in a Lethargy and it began to succeed just according to my wishes when I heard all on the suddain Mr. Bayes good night But whether it is that some body has strewed Cow-itch in your Bed or that your Conscience is very restless or that you only slept dogs sleep immediately in the very next line I am awaked with good morrow Mr. Bayes and am teased as freshly for a certain Preface shewing what grounds there are of fears and jealousies of Popery as if this had been our first salute and we had never exchanged word before And here to borrow one of your Schemes of Speech it seems that England is no stranger to rumours of Popery it seems that it has been the Puritan Artifice ever since the Reformation to possess the People with these panick fears it seems the Church of England has perpetually been traduced by them as Popishly affected It seems I vindicate the Church from this aspersion by pregnant and undeniable instances of Religious Loyalty and Obedience it seems I have charged the Rebels as justly and undeniably with the direct contrary Principles and Practices It seems I do not recriminate any designs of Popery to the Non-conformists but charge them most righteously with a constant and boysterous opposition to the Church thereby creating dangerous disorders and disturbances to the State It seems Atheistical and Irreligious Caitifs out of a peculiar hatred and most exquisite malice to the Church and Church-men are never wanting to promote and abett these mischievous disorders It seems if crafty and sacrilegious Statesmen joyn in the Confederacy they are apt enough to run the Kingdom into such miserable necessities that there is no support of their interest without rapine and sacriledge It seems that if the Church of England should ever be hereby destroyed no other Religion can be establish'd in lieu of it but Popery because Fanaticism is so wild and untractable a thing that it is uncapable of any settlement upon any Principles It seems all this either is or for any thing you are able to oppose to it may be as true as Gospel and though it seems you dare not answer it because you cannot yet it seems you have the confidence to deny it all and confute it with abundance of censure and cavil and more it seems you could have done were it not for falling under the penalty of a certain Act of Parliament against spreading of false news even as you durst not answer what you had quoted out of my Eccles. Pol. for fear of bringing your self within the Statute of Treasonable Words Sweet Gentleman What a misfortune it is when a Godly Loyal tender Conscience bearing so much awful Reverence and soultry affection to the Supreme Magistrate should in all his Disputes so cross with Authority that he dares not speak out his mind plainly only for fear of being hang'd But were it not for the Statute against Treasonable Words you would make me an Example to all Generations But yet though you dare not Reply for fear of these sanguinary Laws against Treason yet you can do what is more serviceable to your purpose you can take occasion to raise calumny enough from my Discourse to render my Self and all the Clergy odious to all Interests within the Kings Dominions And first you begin with the King himself and discover that after all it was neither the Book-seller nor Geneva nor the Trouts nor the Sprats nor the Race of Capons nor Presbyterians nor Millecantons of Fanatiques nor B. Bramble nor Usinulca nor the Hobgoblins nor J. O. nor Non-conformity nor Hungary nor Transylvania nor Bohemia nor Poland nor Savoy nor France nor the Netherlands nor Denmark nor Sweden nor Scotland nor Germany but the King was the person aim'd at from the beginning And it now sufficiently detects my malice to His Majesty to stir up matter of such dangerous and seditious Discourse Though not above a page or two since he was abundantly assured and satisfied of my Loyalty and we were all three very good Friends and yet here you tell His Majesty nine times over how I bear an evil eye to him and his Government that I publish Manifesto's against his Indulgence that I make his proceedings odious c. by raising a publick and solemn Discourse through the whole Nation concerning a matter the most odious and dangerous that could be exposed When your Self and all your Readers both know that most mens heads were fill'd with these jealousies and all mens mouths with these Discourses before my Preface was publish'd or thought on and withall that I am so far from adding any encouragement to the fears and jealousies of the people that my only design was to shew that it was a thing impossible in it self ever to be brought about by any other means than the folly of the Nonconformists So that whatever designs the Popish
vouchsafe Him is that you do not know but he may lead a more unblameable conversation than the worst and wickedest men in the world were it not for one inexcusable fault his obstinacy in not assuming the Revenue of the Church to his own Use. So that my aspersion if it were true is upon your Principles so far from detecting any malicé to His Government that it would clear him of the only blemish that lyes upon his Reputation Sure you are half Guelph and half Gibelline you are every where so cross and contradictory to your self But as I have asperst the King with the only thing for which you would commend him so I have all along appropriated or impropriated all the Loyalty from the Nobility the Gentry and the Commonalty and dedicated it to the Church Why did any of the Kings Subjects fight for him beside the Clergy Had he any Commanders in his Army beside Bishops and Dignitaries Were not all his Battels fought under the Conduct of General Usher and Captain Bramhall against Dr. Cromwel and Dr. Ireton for with that Title were they Dub'd at Oxford by one J. O. in their Return from the bloody Conquest of Ireland Did not the Kings whole Infantry consist of poor Readers as the Kirk Foot did of Mass-Johns who brought in Covenant and Reformation in exchange for shooes and stockings But if you can name any of the Nobility Gentry or Commonalty that ventured Lives and Fortunes for the Royal Cause I believe we shall never be so impudent as to deny them their share of Loyalty and Service to their Prince And if you cannot I am sure I can name amongst them as gallant Examples of Courage and Integrity as perhaps no Age can parallel they fought and they suffer'd with the constancy and resolution of Martyrdom and nothing could in the least abate their zeal and their devotion to an opprest and an afflicted Prince and this because their Loyalty was founded upon Principles of Conscience and Religion and that is it that I have appropriated to the Church of England that it teaches the duty of Subjects in absolute and indispensable terms without leaving shifts evasions for disobedience whereas all other Parties tye it on with false and counterfeit knots so that by the help of reserves the Subject may be as much as ever at liberty to obey or disobey as himself shall deem convenient And when sometimes they shall have preached up the necessity of Allegiance in the most positive and comprehensive terms they will bring themselves off with so many clauses and exceptions as must utterly evacuate the obligation of their own Doctrines And if at any time they happen to be stubborn in their Loyalty their Prince is indebted for that either to chance or interest or inclination or some other uncertain and changeable Principle But the thing that I have appropriated to the Church of England is Loyalty upon firm and effectual Principles in so much that a man must be an Apostate before he can be a Rebel and renounce his Religion and his Duty to God before he can neglect his Allegiance and his Duty to his Prince This is the peculiar and distinguishing Article of the Church of England so that when you infer that I have impropriated it to the Clergy from the Nobility and Gentry you must first suppose that none of the Nobility or Gentry belong to her Communion And now are you not a modest and an honest Gentleman to charge me with such an unsufferable rudeness and disingenuity against so great a number of the bravest and most gallant spirits in the world Though this I know was intended only in pursuance of your Grand Design by such impudent Leasings to raise up a misunderstanding between the Clergy and all other Orders of men in the Kingdome And that is the bottom of all your malice and hatred to them that as long as they are able to keep and make good the Pulpits Loyalty will be the Religion of the people and they will not easily be wrought upon to listen to your Factions and Democratical insinuations And that is it whatever you pretend of the Dignitary of Lincoln that makes you and your Partners to gnash your teeth and knit your fists with so much impatience against the Order it self But were you capable of wit in your anger you would have let fly at them with some more plausible and probable aspersions and not think to bring them into discredit among wise and sober men with such rank and notorious fictions For this can only betray your malice and ill intentions and though you had right on your side it would be an invincible prejudice against your Cause and your Party that scruple not any Arts howsoever dishonest or dishonourable to do a despite to the Church of England I remember another Accusation which though it be not altogether so impudent as this yet when I first read it methoughts it was somewhat more pleasant that my Preface intermedles with the King the Succession the Privy Council Popery Atheism Bishops Ecclesiastical Government and above all it seems this is more sawcy than all the rest with Non-conformity and J. O. Why truly not unlike but it seems if you had resolved to write a Preface it is like you would have mentioned nothing more than your own private affairs and only informed the Reader of your losses at Picquet and the Gaming Ordinaries your adventures at the Bear-garden of Bern your encounters with the mighty race of Capons at Geneva your Remarques upon the wheel of Fortune and whipping of Gigs and your studies in the 5. Epist. to Marcellinus But alas my breeding and condition are too private to bless the world with such great and observable Memoires and therefore not having the advantage that You and Caesar had of writing my own Novels I was forced to intermeddle with the affairs of others the King the Council and above all J. O. And towards them all I have endeavourd the utmost Ingenuity and if I have fail'd I even ask their pardon I do them right And then though I have abused them never so unworthily I make them ample amends by this clause of additional Civility But however I have treated them I must confess I am bound to beg your pardon in particular because you your self have intermedled with none of these things And now did ever any fool in the world make so much noise and puther to so little purpose But of all the Examples that ever I read of the undue and brutish stirring of Passions I never met with any like that horrible and boobily noise that you have raised upon my pitying the folly of some men that can smell Jesuites and Gunpowder Plots upon every ordinary and accidental firing of a chimney upon this away you run like a man scared with the horrour of the discovery crying and roaring out to the Citizens nothing but fire fire and if they enquire where why it
that of Christianity only too good to be fought for c. And now when you ensure us that the Fanatiques shall never rebel it is for this reason only because there neither is nor can be any such thing as Rebellion for if the last War were none you are safe for ever forfeiting your Loyalty and if that cause were too good to be fought for it will be hard to find one too bad It is well you have declared that if you can do the Non-conformists no good you are resolved you will do them no harm and desire that they should lye under no imputation on your account I am confident you intended honestly but they are more endebted to your good will than your discretion When your very Apology in their behalf brings them under the greatest imputation For this not only makes good my suggestion which you would lay by your Caveat that they are acted by men of Democratical Spirits but withal it is a stronger evidence of their continuing constant and stubborn to their old Principles because as they would never be brought to disclaim them so now it seems they are resolved to justifie them and lay the whole guilt of the Rebellion upon the King himself I know you are a wise and wary man and design'd when you set pen to paper to take upon you the Person that is Personam induere of a Royallist and not to betray the least kindness to or concern for the Good Old Cause But you are a Gamester and know what vast odds a man may lay on Natures side And thus have I more than enough vindicated every page and period of my Preface and yet the main of your business is still behind for that was the least of your design to confute me your Plot was to take occasion to fly out into invectives against the Clergy of all Ages in general and of the Church of England in particular first as the cause of the late War and secondly as the hindrance of our present settlement and then having barr'd them from trinkling with State Affairs and wheadled the King against hearkning to their Counsels though you do it so grosly and with such an impudent malice that it is like stalking by the side of a Butter-fly with a face as broad as a Brass-Copper you advise Princes to a more moderate course of Government and teach them from many sad examples to behave themselves dutifully to their Subjects upon peril of their displeasure or worse I shall as briefly as I can consider your performance in all these particulars and so leave you to the shame of your own Meditations First then having with mighty exultation of Spirit and words much too good for your heart congratulated His Majesties most Happy Restauration just as Malefactors cry God save the King because they have escaped the Gallows and so do you magnifie his Clemency Mercy and Goodness for carrying the Act of Oblivion and Indemnity through But this serenity is suddainly over-cast and you knit your brows and depress your Superciliums and at length with much fleering and more reluctancy for you are mighty sorry to speak it yet because it is a sad truth tell it him you must that the Ecclesiastical Part would not accomplish his Felicity and no wonder when the Animosities and Obstinacy of some of the Clergy have in all Ages been the greatest obstacle to the Clemency Prudence and good intentions of Princes and the establishment of their affairs Which is to say that the Clergy has not only in all Ages nay and places too been the bane of Government but more particularly the Clergy of England murther'd His Royal Father and are more accomptable for His Majesties and the Kingdoms sufferings than either the Rebels that took his Crown off of his head or those that afterwards took his head off of his shoulders But they shall answer for themselves anon we must first traverse your first Bill against the Clergy in general But who are you that are thus acquainted with the Clergy of all Ages time out of mind sure you can be no less a man than one of the Patriarchs or a fifth from Methusalem or at least Andrew de Temporibus John's elder Brother you have so general an acquaintance with the Clergy of all Ages As for the Clergy of the Ages before Noahs flood I will not contend for for any thing that I know there might be Bishops of Munster and Cullen and Strasburg in those times and I cannot disprove it but that King Nimrod's Chaplains were his Hunts-men but in all Ages since I cannot find that they have been more cruel than other men Aaron I am sure was remarkable for his meekness and mercy for though the Grand Remonstrance of Corah were intended against himself and his Bran for trinkling Moses and the Members of the Sanhedrin yet did he bestir himself to attone the Rebellion and procure pardon for the Offenders Though I must confess his Grand-child Phinehas was an arrant Jewish Zealot that is as your modern Orthodox Rabbies inform you a notorious Rogue and Cut-throat And as for the Heathen Priests though they were very famous Trinklers I do not find that they were any great Men-eaters In my Roman Empire I do not read that they were fiercer Canibals of the Race of Man or Capon-kind than the Laity nor I believe can you prove out of your 5 Ep. to Marcellinus that the Clergy were the Authours of Julian's Persecution But the bottom of all this is that the Priests have in all Ages and in all Kingdomes been advanced to places of greatest Authority next to the Sovereign Power it self The Druids of Britany the Magi of Persia the Priests of AEgypt Judaea Assyria AEthiopia are a sufficient Indication that however fanciful men may fool themselves and their Countrey with other Philosophical Models and Theories of Policy yet Religion and the Ministers of Religion will have the greatest share in the Government and the reason is as evident as the experiment is Catholique in that nothing can so truly and effectually awe the greatest part of mankind as the dread of the world to come and therefore they whose peculiar Office it is to guide and instruct men in their future concerns must and will in spite of all the witty States-men in the world have the greatest reverence power and interest with the generality of the People And thus though the Authority of the Clergy of England be at this time by reason of some malignant effects of the late war at as low an ebb as perhaps the power of the Priests ever was under any Monarchy yet it is manifest that for all their disadvantages all of the Loyal Party Nobility Gentry and Commonalty that are sober and serious in the belief and profession of their Religion cannot but have a veneration to their Persons and a deference to their Judgements How else think you could they be so easily trinkled And as for all the several
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
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