ledition ugling and deceit disloyalty treason and true malignancy lest according to your own Covenanting words you partake matter mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues § 6. But because my intentions are to be brief in my Animadversions I shall pass from this second to the third Article where they tell us That they hall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in their several vocations endeavor with their estates and lives mutually to set the cart before the horse and the tayl of a man above his head to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties person and Authority with a Jugling Jesuitical King-destroying limitation in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majeiesties just Power and Greatness This very Article and the notorious Jugling in it were enough to make an understanding person abhor the League eternally and detest the very thoughts of having any thing to do with it and that will appear if we do but consider well their limited defence of their noble Sovereign which in the whole amounts to no defence at all but rather a direct imperious opposition and resistance against His Regal Power and Authority § 7. I have read many of the Leaguers indeed exclaim against the Royalists for asserting That the Covenant tended to the destruction of the King What say they the Covenant tend to the destruction of the King Is there not a particular Clause in it for preservation and defence of the Kings Majesties Person and Authority Yes there is so and so far the words sound some what like Loyalty But what of that Tell me O ye holy Leaguers did you defend the Kings Person in Leaguing together to send Armed men against Him and were you not bound by a subsequent Article of this very Covenant to assist and defend them in such actions Was that the defence of the Kings Person when those rebellions Forces raised and sent by the illegal power of a factious party of the Two Houses then usurping the Supream Authority shot at those who were really risen up in His Majesties defence according to their bounden duty and allegiance and amongst whom in several Battels He had His residence with a Cannon and a Musquet Bullet which makes no difference between a King and Subject the Superior and Inferior Was fighting against him seeling and close imprisoning of him preserving of his Authority Was it not by vertue of this Covenant that Treason before begun was carried on by dint of sword ☞ so long against the pretended Malignants by true Delinquents till the Martyrs Forces through Gods Divine permission were wholly defeated and overcome Did not that force him to surrender himself to a pack of Scottish Presbyterian Judasses Did not their selling him into the hands of Leaguers at Wesiminster cause his Imprisonment I say was not this done by vertue of the Covenant Is not imprisoning of his sacred Person by force of Armes absolute The Law interprets it as a seeking the Princes life when any one seeketh to force the Prince Cook in E of Essexs Case high Treason by the Lawes of this new-risen Kingdom And was not his Imprisonment the true underiable consequence of this Cainish League and Covenant and is it not therefore evil and treasonable and so abominable and not to be kept And was not His Majesties traiterous Imprisonment the immediate Harbinger to his bloody devillish murther Did not one succed the other What then is it less then what the Assertors of Truth and Loyalty said That it tended to the destruction of our Martyred Sovereign and shall that now dare to be pleaded for and asserted for to be still kept by any that fears God or reverences man § 8. But some have said and others may say the same still That though we rose up in arms against the King yet we kept our Oath still for it was with this limitation In the preservation and defence of the true Religion c. and he not following of the one nor maintaining of the other though we fought against him yet we are true Swearers still Oh hellish Clause and Regicidian Limitation what Is that your Loyalty to swear to your King with a Juggle From such Loyalty and all its abettors O Lord deliver all Kings and Princes and more especially and peculiarly s Lament 4. 20. The Breath of our nostrils our now incomparable Sovereign For what Traytors or Rebels wil not swear any oath whatsoever with such a cursed limitation as that to defend their Prince whilest their Prince defends that which such shall please to term the true Religion whilest he preserves that which such t ◠Sav◠10. 27. children of Belial may call the Liberties of the Kingdom The Jesuitical Papists will without any scruple take an Oath to the King with such a limitation as that whereby though afterwards they murther their Prince for not upholding Popery either by powder poison or ponyard they may justifie the true keeping of their oath notwithstanding because he not maintaining their Popes Supremacy nor the abominable Mass of their Romish trumperies their defence of him ceased by such his actual maintenance of another Religion contrary to that which they account the true Nay did not the Sectarian party who took this Covenant which u See Feaks Beam of Light p. 13 in Marg. was magnified most blasphemously when it came into England first as the very Ark of Gods presence and who notwithstanding that afterwards brought their pious Sovereign whom they had swore to defend before their Court of highest Injustice and condemned and executed Him most barbarously before the windows of his own Royal Palace yet pleaded they were not perjured or forsworn because of this remarkable Restriction or special Limitation In desence of the true Religion c. And he being as they most impudently with faces of brass affirmed * Page 29. a desperate enemy to the Lord Jesus his true seed and kingdom and a great friend to Antichrist and the carnal and persecuting Church in all his Kingdoms their murther of Him was no breach of Covenant seemingly made for his defence I am confident he that is a true Christian Protestant will detest such limited Loyalty such jugling destructive defences of his Prince as favouring too much of Jesuitical venome and Anti-monarchical designs wherein a Kings preservation stands altogether upon peoples fancies when they fancy a Religion or the Liberties of a Kingdom to be such as he doth not maintain then farewel Loyalty down goes true Faith and Allegiance and up goes Treason and Rebellion and yet pretend to be his dutiful loyal Subjects too for all that which some may say is impossible but yet such blinde pretences have been
their lawless arbitrary power and government At another time telling the Gentry c. of Leicester of his defending their Religion their Liberties their Laws with his life I mean s See his Majesties Speech to them July 20. 1642. saith he the good known Laws of the Land not Ordinances without my consent which till within these twelve moneths was never heard of from the foundation of this kingdom In his message from Oxford to those insinuating serpents at Westminster of the 12th of April 1643 he justly terms the Declarations Ordinances or Orders of one or both Houses illegal And lastly not to tire my readers patience too much His Majesty was pleased to tell the inhabitants of Flint and Denbigh at Wrexham That t See his Speech to them Sep. 27. 1642. By their power i. e. that of the housed Rebels the Law of the Land their birth-right is trampled upon and instead thereof saith he they govern my people by Votes and arbitrary Orders These I finde in those very few pieces of his late Glorious Majesty which I have had the happiness to take a cursory view of and yet enough to set forth Crofton in his proper dark colours to evince the Regal gainsaying of the Legislative power as our Presbyters nickname the Chimaeraes of their braines of the Two Houses illegal extemporary and arbitrary lawless Votes and Orders which as it was the sole intent in my Citation so they are an apparent proof of the notorious falshood of Croftons heady affirmation and perverse disputings Who sees not that his Seditious and 2 Tim. 6. 5 Rebellious principles declare him to be a man of a corrupt mind Who perceives not that his emitting to the English Nation his Legislative falshoods do make apparent that he is also destitute of the truth and too much inclined to dreames and fancies § 38. The Doctor having justly termed Croftons urging by a Presbyterian pertness the present Kings taking the Oath in Scotland u p. 149. bold and odious no less then fallacious Crofton cries out w p. 24. How bold and odious soever it may seem none but a proud Pashur and shameless Shemaiah Who is the Raker in the puddle of Rayling now O Presbyter could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King Keep the Oath and thou shalt be delivered Observe his Traiterous and shameless addition from that distress which may too late ingage His Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him Goodly Goodly how delicate sweet rebellion smells in the nostrils of a Covenanter What damnable Seditious spirits possesses them with the impudence of threatning distress to his Sacred Majesty for not keeping of that National plague the Covenant He that can make any other of this then Sedition let him lend me his spectacles I wonder what day or hour it is wherein these Sacred Covenanters may be found deficient in their endeavors of x See the slight healers of publique hurts p. 29. drawing on Rebellion perjury innocent bloodshed and Sacriledge with the shoeing-horns of Religion and Reformation of setting up the Gospel of Peace with unguentum armarium the sword of war Our Canting Presbyter not onely threatens His Majesty with distress but also by his venemous speeches implies the approach of mischief when it will be too late for His Majesty to send to him to pray for him Nothing is to be looked for here but destruction and damnation hereafter it seemes if that brat and spawn of the serpent that primary deluding rebel the Covenant which being hatched in Sacriledge and Rebellion was at length brought forth into the world in blood and confusion be not carefully looked to and provided for y See Archbishop Bancrofts dangerous positions p. 51. Those Kingdoms and States who defend any Church-Government save this of Pastors Doctors Elders and Deacons are in danger of utter destruction says Martin Junior in the time of Queen Elizabeth The Parliament in her time for tolerating of Bishops in stead of their new Government were told by others of the then factious party z p. 50. That they shall be in danger of the terrible mass of Gods wrath both in this life and in the life to come and that if they did not then abrogate the Government by Bishops well they might hope for the favor and entertainment of Moses that is the Curse of the Law but the favor and loving countenance of Jesus Christ they should not see nor never enjoy Birds of a feather will flock together all Cuckoe-like singing the same tune of destruction distress to their Sovereign Princes if they will not bow down and worship the Golden Calf of their Presbytery But why too late Mr. Crofton Is not the Murther of one King enough but you must harp upon the Rebellion against Imprisonment and godly consequential murther of another Satia te sanguine Cyre More Gun-powder Mines still to blow up Regality Is there another Rebellion a contriving amongst the Saints that must needs have Sata as canonizing stamp upon 't Too late Are you in serious Combination with the party to stir up an execrable Rebellion against the Son for his ruine in this world as formerly your Cursing party did against His Martyr'd Father And all for not keeping of an Antimonarchical horrid Confederacy and Conjuration called The Solemn League and Covenant These expres-pressions deserve a sharper Answer then my Pen is able to make being filled brim-full of covenanting-rebellious Malice But why Faitful Monitor You live far from neighbors sure that you are fain to crown your seditious pate with laurels of praise for a Faithful Monitor which is as fit for you as a Saddle is for a Sows back or the Epethite of Godly was for the peerless Cut-throats of the Carolian Martyr He that was so impudent as to tell the King to his face He was a Tyrant Traytor Murderer and a publique and implacable enemy to the Common-wealth was just such another Faithful Monitor as your self But for what meerly for the chastising and crucifying of both But what must His Majesty send to him for why it seems to pray for him Alas gude Covenanter what are all your prayers but for the destruction of Princes and stirring up their subjects to rebel against them if they will not preserve your hellish Trap-door and as the ends of that set up and maintain your Trojan Horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline Their worth are weighed down with a nut-shel if they be like those which are in your Book which prayer of yours and your practise like true religion and your irreligious destructive Covenant at at drawn swords with each other even in the very writing of a few sheets of paper They had need of a bird as the saying is that give a groat for an Owl They must needs be in great want of prayers sure who send to such a bold confident Kirker as you for that end who can one while cry The Lord deliver me
his lawful Sovereign to pray that God would be with him were not a Petition but a Presumption for though it be true that Almighty God doth sometimes suffer for reasons best known to himself such wretches to prosper in their wicked ways yet they cannot either justly expect or religiously desire it and by how much the more devoutly they seem to undertake such attempts by so much the more abominable they are in the eyes of God who never more abhorreth Rebellion then when it is masked with Religion and Devotion Do they think it was no sin in them for to make such an horrible conclusive prayer as that which is here made for a close to their Covenant If they say no then a pack of thieves who lye in wait for to spoil men of their goods and estates and sometimes of their lives may pray to God too for prosperity in their pilfering courses that is in plain English to bless them in their disobedience to him with success for it and count their prayer in such case lawful too and so Absalom and his deluded confederates might most humbly beseech God to bless them with such success against King David that they might not onely usurp his Authority and cast him out of his Throne but that other of their neighbour Nations might be encouraged by their example to do the like to their own Kings and so of any other whatsoever in the commission of any villany if they can but first have the courage to do the thing without fear of punishment and in expectation of praise for it and then can have but the confidence most humbly to beseech God as our Leaguers Cant it to bless them with success in it if they say yes then I hope their Covenant ought to be abolished and renounced as being what it is undoubtedly sinful in the matter of it I remember Mr. Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynne in his printed Treatises hath told us That the unparallel'd proceedings of those who unjustly usurped the title of Parliament though their title was onely in nomine non re in name not in reality in relation to their barbarous murther of their Lord and Sovereign to whom they had sworn to bear true faith and allegiance and to their traiterous banishing of his incomparable Heir through a quaternary of perjuries have given occasion m See his Republicans and others Spurious good Old Cause briefly and truely Anatomized p. 17. to all our Popish adversaries not onely to traduce deride reproach blaspheme our Protestant Profession as some of them have done in print as a meer Seminary of Treason Rebellion Sedition Hypocrisie Perjury Disloyalty and all sorts of villany but to combine together in a HOLY LEAGUE to extirpate it and all Professors of it out of the world And n See his True and perfect Narrative p. 55. to massacre eradicate them as a company of Traitors Antimonarchists Regicides Hypocrites Rebels and seditious persons And made it great matter of lamentation as it is undoubtedly to every good Christian that men pretending to fear God should ever give such an irrepairable scandal to Christianity And I have no sooner set down that Gentlemans words but I presently finde that there was occasion enough given by their warlike Covenant to turn the edge of these Covenanters words upon themselves for they having rebelled against their Sovereign as it were for Gods sake for the further strengthning of themselves in their wicked courses combined by League and Covenant not onely to proceed on further in their rising up in Arms against their supream Legislator for the glory of God a practice as a loyal Scotch Minister o See Scotlands late misery bewailed p. 14. saith inconsistent with sound divinity against all orthodox doctrine a practice contrary to Scripture contrary to the doctrine of the ancient Church and their practice contrary to the Confession of Faith No King upon the accompt of his intellectuals morals or religion being to be suspended from the exercise of his Government or denied submission too by his Subjects but also to continue therein all the days of their lives against all lets and impediments whatsoever for the peace and safety of the three kingdoms which as they are notorious contradictions in themselves like the rest of their Jugling League by being instrumental to the dishonor of God in the horrible breaking of his Laws and directly opposite to the peace of this kingdom as well as all others where such Antichristian prayers are put in practise in being acted so rebelliously to the praise and glory of the man of sin to the pulling down of the kingdom of our most blessed Savior and to the everlasting disgrace of true Christianity even of the true Protestant Religion which vehemently exclaims against all such seditious Antimonarchical ways and principles So with every rational man that knows there must be a flame kindled before a house can be burned that the King had never bin murthered by prosperous Rebels if the flame of Sedition and Treason had not first set the kingdom a burning and for a man to make a flame in a house and by that flame at length that house is burned and destroyed and then to say he never intended the house should have been destroyed savours of little less then frenzy and will hardly ever excuse his innocency in it These Leaguers had first raised a war and vowed and swore the prosecution thereof against the Martyr and the sword-men taking advantage of the Military power which by the Covenanters means they had obtained executed their villany in their villanous act of Regicide and yet the former would perswade the world that they never intended it which if the rising up in arms had not first bin practised the murther would then have never bin heard of which being so evident to any mans understanding this conclusion naturally flows from the premises That their rebellious Actings against the King in the behalf of a Faction of the Two Houses that had renounced all allegiance save in order to that which they called Religion do give as great occasion as the murther to foreign Princes to extirpate as much as in them lies the professors of the Protestant Religion to prevent them from rising up in arms against them lest their prosperity in such ways of darkness should invite them at length to attempt to serve them ☞ there as the renowned Martyr was here after he had been by vertue of this hellish black Covenant fought against and all his Forces overcome and as the immediate fruits issues and effects thereof first sold then imprisoned and afterwards delivered to his perjured Subjects to be crucified Finally for a conclusion to this Covenanting Prayer which the famous University of Oxford affirmed their hearts trembled to think that they should be required to pray it I shall here subjoyn the judicious and memorable thoughts of that then loyal conscientious University which I finde expressed in the following words
imposers thereof are guilty of the highest crime Now can that oath be said by any man in his right wits to be warranted by the Laws of the Land which is directly opposite and contrariant to them and for which the imposers may be hanged at Tyburn for the gallows have commonly been the immediate fate and consequence of that highest crime of Treason This Covenant was thrust down the Throats of many people not by an Act of Parliament which must have been made as the Petition of Right and all other Laws and Acts have been by the King and all the Lords and Commons but by an Ordinance as it was called of a packt black faction of the then never to be forgotten two Houses which serves for nothing but to * p. 84. record to posterity a lawless distemper'd time A thing so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that such a thing was never heard of till these latter times of Treason and Sacriledge Rebellion and Confusion when mens brains began to be possessed of the effects and virtues of a Midsommer-moon Again can that be warranted by the Laws of the land which is so far a breach of those laws as it s esteemed high Treason u p. 22. 40. Arising to alter religion established or any Law is Treason saith the reverend Judge And did not the thing which Crofton will needs have to be a Parliament arise to alter the religion and was not this league devised to keep men under an oath for the doing and assisting of them in it Let Jack Presbyter deny it if he can In the second Article of this Covenant the takers swore to endeavour to extirpate Arch-bishops Bishops c. which is absolute contrary to Magna Charta which in the 25th of Edw. 3. chap. 1. 2. is declared to be the common Law of the Land chap. 1. and the last Salvae fint Episcopis omnes libertates suae That the Bishops shall have all their whole Rights and Liberties inviolable and this great Charter the Judge tells us p. 62. is confirmed by no less then 32 Acts of Parliament and in the 42th of Edw. 3. The first chapter enacts That if any Statute be made to the contrary it shal be holden for none and therefore their impious lawless League in this respect is far enough from being warranted by the Laws of this Land being so notoriously against the very Charter of our Liberties Again the Leaguers declared as Crofton himself told us lately for I am scarce old enough to remember the doing of it That they Abolished the Common-prayer Book in pursuance of their Covenant Very good This very book which they pretended to abolish with the power of an illegal ordinance was not onely compiled by true Martyrs and Reformers and practised in the times of four Princes but was and is still p. 62. notwithstanding their Rebellious Ordinance setled by no less then five Acts of Parliament And therefore their Covenant being in that act also contrary to the Lawes All Ministers and others that have taken this Oath must teach themselves and others according to the exhorters own assertion for I love to take men at their words that such oaths call for repentance and not pertinacy in them it being proved to be so far from being warranted by the Laws of the Land that it is an absolute breach of above 26 of them § 15. I remember The Leaguers in their Disputes and Arguments ☞ against the wearing of the Surplice and performance of other commendable Ceremonies of our best Reformed Church of England do out of their wise Noddles send forth such doughty windy Affirmations as will excellently wel serve to prove the unlawfulness of their Covenant Let a man go and ask them why they will not wear the Surplice and live in conformity to the Rites and Customs of the Church they 'l tell him because they are unlawful and why are they unlawful because God hath no where commanded them to be done in the Scripture though in any wise mans judgement there can be no unlawfulness in a thing without it be a breach of some Law which hath forbid it and where they will finde that Law against the Surplice and Ceremonies its possible they 'l tell us when they are able and their ability for that end will be I believe Ad Grecas Calendas but not well before Now according to their own ways of arguing I shall make this retortion That God hath no where in the Scripture commanded subjects in case of a default made by the Prince or that he will not consent to any Reformation to rise up in Arms and rebel against him and swear an Oath to do it themselves without any Royal Consent at all and let any of the Pack make it appear if they can For for them to set down the examples of the Oaths and Covenants Kings and Subjects joyntly made for a Reformation when they are demanded to show a pattern for their Covenant is no more to the purpose then to say Queen Elizabeth and her Nobles made a Reformation in this kingdom to pull us out of the mist of Popish darkness no more satisfaction to a Quaerist then as the Reverend Dr. Pierce told one of his Antagonists for a man when he is asked what 's a Clock To answer a windmil or a pump for the question is not whether Kings and Subjects may joyntly swear a Reformation of Abuses either in Church or State for there is no body I think wil stand to dispute that but whether in case a King will not make that extirpating Reformation his Subjects would have him whether they may do this without his consent by Oaths and rising up in Armes which is palpable rebellion u See the League illegal p. 17. Where doth God command the English to swear to preserve the Scotch Discipline and Liturgy which they themselves have often varied Or to abjure Episcopacy which was the onely Government of the Church for more then 1500 years and under whose shade Christian Religion most flourished and the Church stretched forth her branches to the Rivers and her boughs to the ends of the earth Where doth the Scripture warrant much less command the association of two kingdoms and joyntly taking up Arms in the Quarrel of the Gospel and defending and propagating Religion by the sword And let them answer that or let their silence conclude their being convinced I say again God never commanded Subjects any where in the Scripture to make a Reformation without their Princes consent by arms And therefore to deal with them with their own weapons according to their own ways of disputations against the Ceremonies I affirm that their Covenant is wicked and unlawful and being an unlawful sinful Oath by the resolution and judgement of all Casuists it ought not to be pleaded for nor taken or if once taken to be kept by any that ever took it because x See The Fair
hath once read and reading well considered the Primates Fair Warning to beware and take heed of this Scottish Cockatrice he will find cause enough to perceive a vast contradiction between the Protestation and this Yea and as different a sound between them both as there is betwixt two bells in a steeple and so by good consequence see too the horrible impiety of their solemn League and Covenant The Protesters vow too according to the duty of their Allegiance to maintain and defend His Majesties Royal Person Honor and Estate without any cursed destructive Limmittation of that defence All which are diminished decreased and taken away by Sir Johns Holy League which therefore can admit of no accord between them The late Carolian Martyr in his discourse upon the covenant professes he could not c See Eikon Basilike See how they wil reconcile such an innovating observe that O Leaguer oath and Covenant with that former Protestation which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England since they count discipline so great a part of Religion But if all that hath been said cannot which in my weak judgement hath sufficiently prove the opposition of the one to the other That there is a great deal of difference between them may be easily perceiv'd by his Majesties deep silence when the Protestation was taken under his nose as we use to say when they were hard by him at Whitehal as well as by his Publick Printed proclamation as far as Oxford against the taking of that Seditious and Traiterous Vow and Covenant as he called it in the day he heard thereof and his prohibition of all people upon their Allegiance not to swear it as ingaging the takers in Acts of high Treason yea and by the late order of the Lords and Commons for the Hangmans burning of it when they did not so much as mention the Protestation which if it had agreed with the Covenant sure enough those Loyal Houses would never have suffered it to have lain still but had sent them both one way together Upon consideration of all that hath now bin said by way of evidence to prove the great contradiction between the two Legal Sacred Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance the Protestation and this jugling League and Covenant for my own part I cannot but submit to the Primates truth d See his Fair Warning p. 31. That this Covenant is neither valid nor lawful nor consistent with our former oaths but deceitful invalid impious rebellious and contradictory to our former ingagements and consequently obligeth no man to performance but all men to repentance And therefore the difference being so great between them I appeal to any Casuist living whether the former must not be kept as well as the latter rejected the one stood to and maintained for fear of its true consequence Perjury as well as the other to be renounced and disclaimed for the very same cause by those that took any of the three former and so according to the exhorting Leaguers own words it calls for repentance and not pertinacy in it which makes also palpable and manifest the great necessity and justness of that memorable Vote of the two now most Honorable Houses when out of a noble disdain to all Religious Rebellion and Seditious Leaguing principles as well as out of a true fear of God and the King they ordered this Presbyterian Scotland whore to be burnt by the hands of Smectymnus the common hangman § 18. Having now gone through this peerless Covenant and proved as far as my poor understanding enables me to see the great sinfulness thereof both in the form and matter of it and also its jugling contradictions in it self as well as its absolute opposition to former Legal Oaths and so by consequence undeniable the great necessity of every takers sad and serious repentance renuntiation and abhorrence thereof I shall desist from saying any more now of it but shall from hence proceed to the consideration and examination of a certain seditious Paper-book entituled BERITH ANTI-BAAL set forth by one ZECHARY CROFTON a Presbyter of the Right stamp whose contradictions and shallow Arguings therein against the reverend Lord Bishop of Exeter made it so much the fitter task for me to set down my Animadversions on it I know indeed the man is looked upon as the Diana of the party amongst the Brethren and the ablest to deal with such unlearned Ceremonialists as the short-sighted proselites Judge the Profound Episcopalians how learned soever they be But certainly they are either deceived in their Judgements of his parts or else the man was so hampered with what the Bishop replyed to him that as he affirmes of the Bishop in this Rejoynder of his e See the fifth side of his preface Having loosed from the Haven of Reason true Religion and the fear of God he runs a drift wherever the wind of his own words can hurry him and leades his Reader into a Wilderness where he hears no sound but the shrieks of Satyrs barking and howling of beasts at best raging and rayling of men or wild and improper discourses that tend to no certain end For in my judgement which is none of the wisest I am sure but nevertheless what I write I commend to the censure of the impartially Judicious this book of his for a great part thereof contains nothing but sedition and justification of rebellion to the debasing of the Regal Supremacy power of making Laws or of giving his consent thereunto for Crof ton tell us the two Houses may exercise their Legislative power without the Royal consent and sneaking away from the question in hand like a meer shifter and acting in some places the part of a pitiful Caviller And by that time I have set down what I have to say of it I leave it to every Readers judgement to make answer whether it be not so in his And to that end and purpose I shall set down what in my short cursory perusal of the Book I found worth taking notice of to be answered He good man in a fit of piety cries out The Lord deliver me from rendring railing for railng And yet to Page 8. give the world a specimen of his breeding and manners and good words in the second side of his Preface he saith he fears nothing more then to be bound to his good behavior for misbehaving himself so much as to answer a fool according to his folly meaning the learned Prelate and to show his meekness humility and aversation to rayling for he tells us p. 8. he doth not delight to rake in that puddle In the very first side of his Preface he compares the Bishop to the Devil in the fifth and sixth to the Heretiques and Harding the Jesuit e Pag. 62. to an envious and cruel Vulture the book he stiles a f Pag. 3. swoln Toad the Bishop himself he calls g Pag. 42. a proud Pashur