THE DISCOVERY OF MYSTERIES: OR, The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present PARLIAMENT. To overthrow the established Religion, and the well settled Government of this glorious Church, and to introduce a new framed Discipline (not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be) to set up a new invented Religion, patched together of anabaptistical and Brownistical Tenants, and many other new and old errors. And also, To subvert the fundamental Laws of this famous Kingdom, by divesting our King of His just rights, and unquestionable Royal prerogatives, and depriving the Subjects of the propriety of their goods, and the Liberty of their persons; and under the name of the Privilege of Parliament, to exchange that excellent Monarchical government of this Nation, into the Tyrannical Government of a faction prevailing over the major part of their well-meaning brethren, to Vote and Order things full of all injustice, oppression and cruelty, as may appear out of many, by these few subsequent collections of their proceed. By GR. WILLIAMS L. Bishop of Ossory.  
Printed in the Year. M.DC.XLIII.   

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.  
Most Gracious Sovereign,  
THough the wisest man in all the Kingdom of Persia saith, great is the truth and stronger than all things; yet the father of lies hath now played his part so well, that as the Prophet saith, truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter in; and your Majesty, whom the God of truth hath anointed his sole vicegerent, to be the supreme protector of them both, in all your dominions, hath accordingly listed up your standard against their enemies; and I may truly say of you as Menevensis saith of that most noble King Alfred.  
Si modò victor erat ad crastina bella pavebat.  
Si modò victus erat, ad crastina bella parabat.  
Neither do I believe, that Lucan's verse can be applied to any man better than to your Majesty: 
— Non te vidère superbum  
Prospera satorum, nec fractum adversa videbunt.  As the height of your glory and prosperity never swollen your pious heart, so your greatest crosses and adversities never dejected your royal spirit; But as the Prophet saith of the Captain of the host of the Lord, so I say to you that are his Lieutenant, ride on with your honour, or ride prosperously, because of the word of truth, of meekness, and righteousness, the people shall be subdued unto you; and because the King putteth his trust in the Lord, and in the mercy of the most highest he shall not miscarry; especially, while he fighteth, as he doth, the battle of the Lord, in defence of the Church of Christ, who hath promised to be his shield and buckler; which is the daily faithful prayer of  
Your Majesty's most loyally devoted Subject, and most faithfully obliged servant GR. OSSORY.   

To the Nobility, Gentry, and Commonalty of ENGLAND.  
Most dear Christian Brethren, and fellow Subjects,  
I Call God for a record upon my soul, that I have proceeded in this Discovery of Mysteries, to discharge my duty, as my conscience directeth me; and if I perish Iperish, the Lord hath hitherto most mercifully preserved me: I have read of an ingrateful beggar that when a pious man seeing his nakedness, and having a full web of cloth, did freely give him as much as was requisite to make him a fair garment, yet he was no ways satisfied therewith, but would have violently snatched all the web, in despite of the right owner's teeth; and shall we that have so freely received so many acts of grace from our King, more than ever any other King hath granted, exact so much more, as to make him no King, 
In the life of Henry 3. presented to King james pag. 29. Choron. Santh Albam.  or a King of no power? like Henry the 3. in the Parliament at Oxford, where the good King met so many undutiful demands, that he was forced to render up to their rebellious will his royal power, and when others managed the State, he was left a cipher; alas who hath bewitched us? when men do rend the regal justice, they make themselves of so many Subjects, whilst they live in duty, totidem tyrannos, when they have left their loyalty: and promises made by men, which can not say they are at liberty are weak; when force hath no power to make a just interest; Therefore let not a faction prevail to destroy us all; I assure myself most of our two Houses of Parliament are very noble and very pious, and many of them would willingly yield to His Majesty's persuasions for accommodation; but our Saviour saith a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and a small faction may insensibly seduce, if it were possible, the very elect: I will appeal to your own consciences, if we have not a most religious and a most gracious King? if he hath not abundantly granted his favours to all this Kingdom? & if the faction doth not still demand what he may lawfully, and ought justly to deny? then I beseech you let me not become your enemy for speaking truth; let not the kingdom be made more miserable, and the Church more despicable, by your assisting of such a faction to the new moulding of them, and let it not be thought strange, that we believe one seditious schismatique in a Parliament may prove a treacherous rebel against his King, and this Traitor may possibly seduce many, & those many not unlikely to prevail to infect the major part of both Houses: and if so, 
* Shall we deem them a Parliament and think it fit, to have them Judged by themselves then by the known laws of the land?  than the first plotters of so great a mischief, having so far transcended the limits of truth and justice, to wound their consciences, and to confound the State, that they know not how to retire, and think they can not find grace, is it any wonder that such men with judas run on, from bad to worse, from worse to worst of all, till at last they come to the highest step that hell can teach them? But we being God's olive, though some of the Branches be broken off; 
Rom. 11.17.  yet I hope God hath not cast away his people; and therefore if you take not pleasure in wickedness, and love not to become more miserable, let us all fear God, honour the King, forsake the rebels, and defend the Church; so the God of all mercy will yet be merciful unto us, that we shall find grace both with God and our King; which is the hearty prayer of  
Your most affectionate Christian brother, that doth most hearty wish your happiness, GR. OSSORY.   

Christian Reader,  
AS this Treatise was ready for the Press, I lighted upon Os ossorianum, wherein I saw neither learning, nor truth, nor modesty, nor honesty, nor any one thing worth reply, but a most distempered rage, and moody choler that transported the silly man beyond his sense; for omitting those his rarest passages, which some discreet well-willer of the man collected in Os ossis & oris. if you look in pag. 59 you shall find his double admiration, that I should not be either recompensed with vengeance revealed from heaven, or be made an example of the deepest severity of the justice of the land (whereby I presume he means this Parliament) or otherwise to be dismembered and torn in pieces by the impatient rage and indignation of the people. for which direful imprecation I wish the poor snake nothing else, but that our good God would be so merciful unto him, as to restore him to his wits, which I understand he scattered about the streets of Amsterdam, and give him grace to repent for those intolerable treasons and abuses which he dispersed in his Pamphlets against his own Sacred Sovereign. And for his bone, wherein I find neither flesh nor marrow, I shall throw it to his own dogs to fight about it; and will ever lest  
Thine affectionate loving Brother, GR. OSSORY.   
PSAL. 89.49. 
REmember Lord the rebuke that thy servants have, and how we do bear in our bosoms the reproach of the mighty; wherewith thine enemies have reproached thee, and slandered the footsteps of thine Anointed. Arise therefore O Lord, maintain thine own cause; have mercy upon us, and deliver us, because we have put our trust in thee; and forgive those poor seduced sheep which know not what they do.   

The Contents of the several Chapters contained in this TREATISE.  

CAP. I. Sheweth the introduction; the greatness of this Rebellion; the original thereof; the secret plots of the Brownistical faction, and the two chiefest things they aimed at to effect their plot. pag. 1.  
CAP. II. Sheweth the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earl of Straftords head, how he answered for himself, the Bishop's right of voting in his cause, his excellent virtues, and his death. p. 6.  
CAP. III. Sheweth how they stopped the free judgement of the judges, procured the perpetuity of the Parliament; the consequences thereof, and the subtle device of Semiramis. p. 14.  
CAP. IU. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops, the threefold practice of the faction to exclude them out of the House of Peers, and all the Clergy out of all Civil judicature. p. 19  
CAP. V Sheweth the evil consequences of this act, how former times respected the Clergy, how the King hath been used ever since this Act passed, and how for three special reasons it ought to be annulled. p. 25.  
CAP. VI Sheweth the plots of the faction to gain unto themselves the friendship and assistance of the Scots, to what end they framed their new Protestation, how they provoked the Irish to rebel, and what other things they gained thereby. p. 32.  
CAP. VII. Sheweth how the faction was enraged against our last Canons; what manner of men they chose in their new Synod, and of 6 special Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ, which under false pretences they have already done p. 40.  
CAP. VIII. Shows what discipline or Church government our factious schismatics do like best, 12 principal points of their doctrines, which they hold as 12. articles of their faith, and we must all believe the same or suffer, if this faction should prevail. p. 51.  
CAP. IX. Sheweth three other special points of doctrine, which the Brownists and Anabaptists of this Kingdom do teach. p. 57  
CAP. X. Sheweth the great bugbears that affrighted this faction, the 4 special means they used to secure themselves, the manifold lies they raised against the King, and the two special questions that are discussed about Papists. p. 64.  
CAP. XI. Sheweth the unjust proceed of these factious Sectaries against the King; eight special wrongs and injuries that they have offered him: which are the three States: and that o● Kings are not Kings by election or covenants with the people. p. 73.  
CAP. XII. Sheweth the unjust proceed of this Faction against their fellow Subjects, set down in four particular things. p. 83.  
CAP. XIII. Sheweth the proceed of this faction against the Laws of the Land, the Privileges of Parliament transgressed eleven special ways. p. 88  
CAP. XIIII. Sheweth how they have transgressed the public Laws of the Land 3 ways, and of 4 miserable consequences of their wicked do. p. 94.  
CAP. XV. Sheweth a particular recapitulation of the reasons, where by their design to alter the government both of Church and State is evinced, and a pathetical dissuasion from Rebellion.    

THE Discovery of Mysteries: OR, The Plots and practices of a prevailing Faction in this present Parliament, to overthrow both Church and State.  

CHAP. I. Sheweth the introduction; the greatness of this Rebellion; the original thereof; the secret plots of our Brownistical faction; and the two chiefest things that they aimed at to effect their Plot.  
I Have long wandered in a region of Rebellion, among seduced Subjects, and discontented Peers; and now at last, after I had passed the raging Seas, and very hardly escaped the storms and dangers of the furging waves, I am arrived in my native soil: where I find myself encompassed with fare greater storms and more violent winds then ever I thought could be on any Land; for though that Grand Rebellion, which you may find lately described, was both magna & mira, very great and very grievous, such as I supposed could not be exceeded by any humane malice; yet now (me thinks) I hear the Spirit saying unto me as he did unto Ezekiell, Son of man stand up, and I will show thee greater abominations; and a rebellion fare greater and more odious than either Popish, Irish, or any other Sect or Nation of the world hath hitherto produced; and therefore I may now say with the Poet, 
Barbara Pyramidum sileat miracula Memphis.  
Let proud Babylon cease to boast  
Of her Pyramids stately spires;  
This Rebellion is more strange,  
Surmounting all infernal fires:  
No age the like hath ever bred,  
Nor shall when these Rebels be dead.   
The seed of it was unseasonably sown in the Northern storm, 
The seed and original of this rebellion.  and the original of those boreal blasts (either why or by whom those spirits were raised) is not so well known to me; therefore how justly the King did undertake the quarrel, I will not at this time determine; or with what equity the Scots made their approach into England, it is not my purpose to discuss: yet I must needs say, that our English Sectaries, and Amsterdam Recusants, which hated our Church and loved not our King, justum, quia justum, only because he is so good, too good for them, did from hence arripere ansam, take hold of this opportunity, by procuring those to proceed that were coming on, and discouraging the others of the King's side, that were cowardly enough (to say no worse) of themselves, to betray both King and Kingdom into the hands of the Invaders. So the good King was now with King David brought into a straight, 
So new I fear more the secret enemies both of Church and State, that may lurk in Court, than those that he in the Earse of Essex his Campt.  either to take counsel and follow the advice of those secret Sectaries, and the masked enemies both of the Church and State, that as yet insensible unto him, were such, in the bosom of his Court, and most slily aimed at a further mischief than his Majesty could have imagined, as now it appeareth by the consequences of this Parliament; or else to hazard the dangers that his then open foes were like to bring upon his people: And I assure myself, eyes of flesh, that cannot pierce into the mysteries of the hearts and our secret thoughts, could see no further, nor make any better election than His Majesty did; that is, to call a Parliament, which the hearts of all the Kingdom called and cried for; and which, in former times, by the wise institution and right prosecution thereof, was found to be the Panchreston, or, as the Weapon-salve, an antidote to cure all the diseases, and to heal all the bleeding wounds of this Kingdom, (though of late we have sensibly felt the unhappy ending of some of them, which perhaps may be some accidental cause of some part of this unhappiness:) here was His Majesty's fair mind, and an act of special grace; for which all His Subjects ought most thankfully to show themselves loyal unto Him, when He preferred their safety before the prosecucuting of his own resolutions.  
But, Decipimur specie recti, we are many times deceived by the shadow of truth, and betrayed under the vizard of virtue; for, as God produceth light out of darkness, and good out of evil; so wicked men, like the spiders, do suck poison from those flowers, whence the Bees do extract honey; and these subtle-headed foxes (whereof many of them had unduly got themselves elected into the House of Commons, and there factiously combined themselves together to do their great exploit, to overthrow the Government both of Church and State, and minded to make the Parliament. House like Vulcan's Forge, where they intended to contrive their iron net that should be able to hold fast all sorts of people, from him that sitteth upon the Throne, to him that walloweth in dust and ashes) turned the hopes of our redresses to our extreme miseries, when in stead of rectifying our abuses, they intended principally to work our ruin in our just apprehension, though perhaps our happiness in their own mistaken conception.  
And, as the Apostle saith, Known unto God are all his works from the beginning, and he hath eternally decreed how and by what means to bring them all unto perfection; so the Devil, beings Gods Ape, and the wicked treading in his steps, do first mould their designs and intentions in the Idea of their own brains, and conclude the works they would have done in their own conceits, and then they frame to themselves the means and ways, whereby they are resolved to produce and perfect all those misshapen embryoes that they conceived; and so these factious men, this brood of vipers, that would gnaw through the bowels of their mother, from the first convention of this Parliament had resolved upon their plot, and contrived among themselves what great good work they would by such and such means bring to pass.  
And that was (as I hope this subsequent discourse will make it plain to all, 
The design & plot of the faction of Sectaries.  that will not be wilfully blind) the subversion of the ancient government both of this Church and Kingdom; and to introduce a new Ecclesiastical Discipline, and to frame a new Common wealth, much like, if not worse then that of our neighbours in the Low-Countries.  
Gratum opus agricolis; a brave exploit, and a great work indeed, beyond the adventure of Junius Brutus, that expelled the Kings, but left the Priests alone; that purged the corrupti●… on of the royal government, but meddled not with the religion of their Bishops and Prophets: and beyond the undertaking of Martin Luther, that pulled down the pride of the Pope, and all that Romish Hierarchy, but ventured not to trample upon the Sceptre of Kings, and the Imperial government, which he held sacred and inviolably to be obeyed; for these men perceiving how God had so wisely ordered these governments among his people, to assist each other, that the one can neither stand nor fall without the other, (as it is fully and truly showed in the Grand Rebellion;) therefore as Caligula wished that the people of Rome had but one neck, that so he might dispatch them all, unoictu, with one stroke; so these men would overthrow both governments, and destroy both King and Priest, both Church and State at one time, with one clap, with one thunderbolt: And so they should be famous indeed, though it were but like the fame of Herostratus, that burned the Temple of Diana, or of Raviliac, that killed the King of France; of Nero that destroyed his mother, or Oedipus that murdered his own father; for a man may be as notoriously famous for transcendent villainies, and nefarious impieties, as another is for his rare virtues and supereminent deeds of piety; as in History Thersites is as well known for his base cowardice, as Achilles for his heroic valour; and in the Scripture, Judas for his treachery is as notoriously known, as Saint Peter for his fidelity; therefore these men go on with this great design: and to effect the same, I find that they aimed at these two special things.  

1. To take away all the lets and impediments that might hinder them. 
They aimed at two things.   
2. To secure unto themselves all the helps and furtherances that might advantage them. For,   
1. As a Vineyard that is well hedged, 
1. To remove the impediments of their design.  or a City strongly fenced with walls and bulwarks, cannot easily be laid waist and spoilt, before these defences be destroyed; so the wild boars cannot devour the grapes of God's Church, and swallow down the revenues of her governor's: and the Rebels cannot pull the Sword out of their Sovereign's hand, and lay his Crown down in the dust, so long as the means of their preservations are entire and not removed; therefore these men endeavour to eradicate all the impediments of their design: and they saw four great blocks, that were as four mighty mountains, which their great faith (their public faith being not yet conceived) must remove, before they could plant their new Church, and subvert the old government of this Kingdom: and those were, 

1. The Earl of strafford's head. 
Four impediments of their design.   
2. The free judgement of the Judges.  
3. The power of dissolving the Parliament.  
4. The Bishop's votes in the House of the Lords.   For, as the heavenly Angels could do nothing against Sodom, while righteous Lot was in it; so these earthly Angels the messengers of Abaddon can never effect their ends, to overthrow the Church and State, to make them as Sodom, full of all impurity and villainy, until these four main stops be taken away: and therefore,   

CHAP. II. Sheweth the eager prosecution of our Sectaries to take off the Earl of strafford's head: how he answered for himself: the Bishop's right of voting in his cause: his excellent virtues, and his death.  
1. 
1. Impediment.  THey get Master Pym, the grand father of all the purer sort, and a fit instrument for this design, in the name of the House of Commons, and thereby of all the Commonalty of England, 
The Earl his charge.  to charge Thomas Earl of Strafford of High-Treason; a high charge indeed, and yet no less a crime could serve the turn to turn him out of their way; because nothing else could subdue that spirit, by which he was so well able to discover the plots, and to frustrate the practices of all the faction of Sectaries; for as the Jews were no ways sufficient to answer Saint Stevens arguments, but only with stones, so these men saw themselves unable to confute his reasons, and to subdue his power, but only by putting him to death, and cutting off his head, for that fault which Pym alleged he had committed.  
But then, I demand how this great charge of high Treason shall be made good against him?  
It is answered, 
How sought to be proved.  that England, Scotland, and Ireland and every corner of these three Kingdoms must be searched, and all discontented persons, that had at any time any sentence, though never so justly pronounced against them, by him that was so great a Judge, Yet conceited to be otherwise by themselves, must now be encouraged and countenanced by the faction, and most likely by this grand accuser, to say all that they know, and perhaps more than was true against him, for what will not envy and malice say? or what beast will not trample upon the Lion, when they see him grovelling and gasping for life in an unevitable pit, and it may be, compassed with so many mastiff dogs (I mean his enemies and discontented witnesses) as were able to tear more than one Lion all to pieces? so by this means they are enabled to frame near thirty Articles against him ut cum non prosint singula, multajuvent, that the number might amnze the people, and think him a strange creature, that was so full of heinous offences, and so compassed with transgressions.  
But, si satis accusasse, quis innocens? 
The Earl his answer.  if accusations were sufficient to create offenders, not a righteous man could escape on earth; therefore the Law condemneth no man before he be heard, what he can answer for himself, and the Earl of Strafford coming to his answer made all things so clear, in the Judgement of the common hearers, and answered to every article so well, that his enemies being Judges, they much applauded his abilities and admired at his Dexterity, whereby he had so finely untied those Gordian knots, that were so foully contrived against him, and as his friends conceived, had fairly escaped all those iron nets, which his adversaries had so cunningly laid, & my popular countryman, with the rest of the more learned Lawyers, had so vehemently prosecuted to ensnare him in the links and traps of guiltiness; and in brief the Lords, who as yet were unpoysoned by the leavened subtlety of this bitter faction, could find not any one of all those articles to be Treason, by any Law that was yet established in this Land, sic te servavit Apollo; so God delivered him, as he thought and his friends hoped, out of all these troubles.  
Yet, as a rivelet stopped will at last prove the more violent, 
The nature of malice.  viresque acquirit ibidem, and recollect a greater strength in the same place; so rage and malice, hindered of their revengeful desires, will turn to be the more implacable; quia malitia eorum excaecavit eos, because the malice of men bewitcheth them, and hath no end till it makes an end of its hated foe; therefore those men, that hated and maligned the Earl (like the Jews, that because their tongues could make no reply to the just defence of the holy Martyr. 
Act. 7.51.  guashed upon him with their teeth and stopping their ears ran upon him with one accord, all at once) because they had no Law, nor learning, to make those articles treason, they say with the Poet, hac non successit, aliâ aggrediemur viâ; seeing we failed herein, we will attempt another way: and to that end, they frame a Bill of attainder against him; and this, if it pass by the major part of both Houses, and have the royal assent, will bring him to his just deserved death; and herein, I will not say, they shown themselves worse than the jews, because that, when their malice was at the hichest pitch against Christ, they said, we have a Law, and by our Law he ought to die, and these haters of the Earl, seeing they had no Law, will have a Law, to be made, that shall bring him unto his death; because the House might have reasons, which my sense cannot conceive.  
Yet some of his friends have said, that after a former prosecution according to Law, to make a new Law, where there was none before, to take away a man's life, is almost as bad as the Romance Law, 
The rubs of the Bill how taken away.  that I read of, to hang him first and then judge him afterward, to whom I assented not: and not many less than 60 worthy Members of the House of Commons would never yield to pass that Bill; & it had a greater rub among the Lords, where it is not thought upon any slight conjectures, it had never passed but that this rub must be taken away by a new device; for that the faction judging some of them might be more timorous than malicious, and remembering, that primus in orbe Deos fecit timor, fear is a powerful passion that produceth many strange effects, the Apprentices and Porters, Water men and Carmen and all the rascal rout of the ragged Regiment were gathered together by some Chedorlaomer, & came as they did against Christ, with swords and staves, without order, with great impudence, to awe them, and to cry for justice against him; and this was done, and done again, and again, until the business, that they came for, was done; a course, not prevented, that may undo all Justice, and bring us all to be undone.  
And yet all this will not do this deed, until the King passeth His assent; 
The King's great pains to search out the truth.  for as yet the new Law of orders and ordinances without the King was not hatched; and the good King, having so graciously, so indefatigably taken such care and such pains, in his own person every day, to hear and see all that could be laid unto his charge, and how he had answered each particular, was so just and of such tender and religious conscience, that he was not satisfied (as men conceived) with the weight of those reasons that were produced, to pass the same; therefore here I find another Stratagem used, such as Hannibal could not invent, to effect this hard talk; what? to persuade mildness to become severe, or to cause a just and most clement Prince, so full of mercy, so prone to pardon where there is a fault, and so loath to punish, but where he must (by the Law of Justice,) the greatest fault, to yield to put him to death, that was in many things so excellent in his life? the task was, to procure his assent to pass this Bill; and how shall this be done? as the Man of God could not be persuaded by any man, but by a Man of God, a Prophet by a Prophet, so now the Bishops that were good men, men of conscience, and set apart by God to resolve and satisfy weak and tender consciences, are thought fit to be sent unto this good King, to persuade him, (as men supposed) that, to prevent a greater mischief, he might justly pass this Bill; and either 6. or 4. of the prime Prelates are requested by the Lords, to go unto the King, to assay how far they can prevail with him herein; and so they went; and how they dealt with His Majesty, I do not fully understand, but am informed by some that went, that they assured him he ought to satisfy himself in point of Law by his Judges, and of State by his Council; & how they did any otherwise, in any other thing rectify his Conscience, in point of divinity, which belonged unto themselves, I cannot tell.  
But, though I think no man can justly lay the least tittle of blame upon the just King, no, not the Earl himself, as himself professed, for yielding to such, and so earnest persuasions of I know not how many reverend Bishops, wise Counselors, grave Judges, and the flower of all his people, to pass that Bill whatsoever it was.  
Yet to say what I conceive, with their favour, 
The Bishop's right to vote in any cause.  of my brethren the Bishops, in the prosecution of this cause; I am persuaded that they had no reason to withdraw themselves from the House, and to desert their own right, when the Bill or the judgement was to pass against the Earl, upon this slight pretence, alleged against them, by the haters of the Earl and no lovers of the Bishops, that a Clergyman ought not to have any vote, or to be present, at the handling of the cause of blood or death; for they might know full well, when my Lord's grace of York did most clearly manifest this truth: that the first inhibition of the Clergy, to be present and assistant in causa sanguinis or judicio mortis, in the Canon of Innocent the third (as I remember, for I am driven to fly without my books) was most unjust, only to tie the Bishops to his blind obedience, to the apparent prejudice of all Christian Princes, by denying this their service unto them; and it is no ways obligatory to bind us, that are by the Laws of our Land not only freed, but also enjoined to abandon all the unjust Canons, that are repugnant to our Laws, and derogatory to our Kings, and to renounce all the usurped authority of the Pope; for I would feign know what Scripture or what reason Pope Innocent can allege to exclude them from doing that good service both to God and their King, which in all reason they can or should be better able to do, then most others; and I am sure that neither in the old nor in the new Testament, nor yet in the Primitive Church, until these subtle Popes began thus to encroach upon the rights of Princes, to take away the prerogatives of Kings, and to domineer over the consciences of men, this exclusion of them from the highest act of Justice was never found; 
The Prophets and Apostles judged in the case of life and death.  for, did not Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Eliah, Elizaus, Jehoida, and others of the Priests and Prophets of the Old Testament, and S. Peter also the Prince of the Apostles in the New Testament, judge in the case of blood, and pronounced the sentence of death against Malefactors? as when Ananias and Sapphira were suddenly brought unto their end by the judgement of the Apostle; and if they be able and fit to judge of any thing, then why not of this?  
If you say, 
Ob.  because they are the advocates of mercy, the procurers of pardon, the preachers of repentance, and men that are made to save life, and not to put any one to death, or to bring any man unto his end.  
I answer, 
Sol.  that they are therefore the fittest men to be the Judges both of life and death: for who can better and more justly judge me to death, than he that doth most love my life? It is certain he will not condemn me without just cause; even as God, that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the father of mercies, and even mercy itself, is the fittest and most righteous Judge that can be found both of death and damnation; because his mercy and goodness towards his creatures will not permit his severity against sin, though never so detestable to his purity, 
Clergy, how fit to be Judges.  to do the least injustice to their persons; so our love of mercy and pity will not suffer us to do any thing that shall transcend the rules of justice and equity; and as our inclination to mercy prohibits us to condemn the innocent, so our love to justice, and our charge to preserve it, will not permit us to justify the wicked; for the Scripture teacheth us, that he which justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the innocent, that calleth the evil good, and the good evil, that spareth Agag, and killeth Naboth, are both alike abominable unto the Lord.  
And therefore notwithstanding this unjust Canon, I never find in any of our Histories, that the Bishops did ever withdraw themselves and quit their votes in this case, either before or after, save only from the 10th year of Richard the 2d, unto the 21th year of the reign of the same unfortunate King; which they did, not because they could not justly be present, but because they had just reasons to be absent, as you may find it in the Annals of his time: therefore I know not how to palliate their facility of yielding way to those Non-Canonicall Lords, to produce those non-obliging Canons, 
Non Canonical Lords.  which they abhorred in all that made not for the furtherance of their design, to exclude them from doing this, which was one of their chiefest duties; for who knoweth not the Lord Say and Lord Brooke, and others of the Lords, to hate all Canons, even the old Canons of the Apostles, as inconsistent with their new rules of independent government? and yet herein, to exclude the Bishop's votes in the judgement of this man, and the passing of this Bill, which being admitted, might perhaps have turned the scales, they will take hold of the unjustest Law, and allege one of the worst of Canons, a Canon against reason, and most repugnant to the best of God's Properties, which though they be all equal in themselves, summè & perfectissimè, yet are theynot so perceived by us, but his mercy is over all his works.  
But you will say, was this man so just, that he was unjustly condemned to death, did all men so untruly complain against him, and was he good, notwithstanding all the evil that was proved against him?  
I answer, that I dare not, and I do not say that he was unjustly adjudged to death, or that the Bill itself was unjust; but this I assure myself, 
The Earle's virtues.  that he was a very wise and understanding man, and endued with many rare heroic virtues, and most excellent graces, as among the rest with those two incomparable endowments, that cannot easily be found among many of the Nobles of this world.  
1. Faithfulness to his Prince, to whom (as I conceive) he shown himself a true servant, and most trusty in his greatest employments, save in what was (and I know not that) justly proved against him; and I believe he would never have taken Arms, as some others of the Lords do now, against his Sovereign.  
2. Love unto the Church and Church men; to whom, though others think it their glory to oppress them, and a virtue to contemn them; yet he was a true friend, a most noble benefactor, and most just unto his death, as his very last speech unto his dearest Son doth sufficiently testify unto all posterity; which speech was to this effect, (and I would to God it were indelebly imprinted in the memory of all our Nobility) that, as he regarded his father's blessing, or expected a blessing from God upon what his father left him, so he would be careful never to take away, or in any wise to diminish any part or parcel of the goods or patrimony of the Church; which if he did, would prove a canker to waste and consume all that he had.  
Yet it may be, he was (which in truth I cannot imagine) as the Philosopher saith of Marcus Antonius, a man of that composition, that his vices did equalise, if not exceed his virtues, and his-offences cloud all his graces, and obscure all his glory; and as the saving of one man's life cannot save him from suffering, that doth unjustly put another man to death, so the rarest virtues cannot justify the man that committeth so many horrible offences, 
How a malefactor may be unjustly condemned.  as his accusers conceived this man did; to which it may be well replied, that a notorious malefactor (though I apply not this to him) may be unjustly condemned; and so he may be justly condemned, and unjustly executed; as when he is not condemned for the fault committed, or condemned not according to the Law which condemneth that fact; for though a murderer deserveth death, yet any one may not presently be the death of that murderer, nor the Judge condemn him for robbery; and though I should commit many offences worthy of death, yet if the Law doth not condemn me, I ought not to die for any of them; for as the Apostle saith, Where there is no law there is no sin, because sin is the transgression of the law: therefore the Earl of Strafford might be an evil man, and do many things that in the sight of God and good men were worthy of death; yet if our Law made not those crimes capital, or if the Law made them capital, and not treason, we ought not for treason to adjudge him unto death: so in sum the result is this, that he might justly deserve death, and yet be very unjustly condemned to death. And it seemed to some of his friends that so he was, especially because they had no plain unquestionable Law, but were feign in some kind, to make a Law, to take off his head; and when his head was off, this new manner of proceeding should end, and be no Law for any other that came after; and a Declaration must be made, that the course prosecuted for his punishment, shall not afterwards be drawn into an example, it must be produced for no pattern, but for him alone and none other; lest perhaps if the same course should be still practised, 
Complaint to the House of Commons. p. 6.  the contrivers of this plot might have the like payment to fall ere long upon their own heads; therefore some say, this may well draw a suspicion upon the justice of the sentence, though I will not censure any man for any injustice therein.  
But as the Earl said at his death, 
The Earle's words at his death.  which he undertook like a good Christian, full of charity and no less piety, it was an ill omen to this Nation, that they should write the frontispiece of this Parliament with letters of blood; which, if unjustly done, or unduly prosecuted, I fear may with Abel's blood cry for vengeance in the cares of God against the contrivers of this mischief, to produce our miseries: and the God of Heaven doth only know how much of the blood of this Kingdom must be squeezed out, to expiate all the misproceeding and the fearful projects of our people: God Almighty turn his anger from us, and let not the righteous perish with the wicked, not the sins of some few be laid upon us all.  
This was the first impediment that was to be removed, before they could proceed any further in this Tragedy, and thus it was most artificially acted; and I say he was a great and a very great impediment of their design, which made me the larger in the prosecution thereof; because he was a person of that great ability, and so great fidelity both to the Church and State, and the taking off of his head, made a very wide gap for our enemies to enter into the vineyard of Christ, and a large breach into the City of God, to deface the Church, and to destroy this Kingdom.   

CHAP. III. Shows, how they stopped the free judgement of the judges; procured the perpetuity of the Parliament; the consequences thereof, and the subtle device of Semiramis.  
2. 
The second impediment of their design.  THe next let that might hinder their design, was, the great learning, long experience, and free judgement of the grave Judges, to declare what is truth, and what is law in every point; for these men being skilful in the Laws and Statutes of our Land, knew how contrary to the same, and how repugnant to the fundamental Constitutions of our government, the erecting of a new Church, and the framing of a new Common wealth would be; and their judgement being to be inquired in any emergent doubt, might prove very prejudicial unto their plots, and a hindrance of their design, except it were diverted by some course.  
Therefore to stop this stream, 
How they stopped the free judgement of the Judges.  to put a gag in their mouths, to imprison all truths that might make against them, and to make these Judges yield to whatsoever they do, or at least not to contradict any thing they say, they get many of them to be accused of High-Treason; and they do but accuse them, and not proceed to any trial against them, which was a pretty plot of their policy; because that hereby they kept them, and the rest of their fellow Judges (that had any finger in the missentenceing of the Ship-money, and were therefore in the same predicament, and to be under the same censure) under the lash, and to be still silent, for very fear of their proceeding against them: for they saw by many precedents, that those men which favoured their design, or contradicted not their ways, were winked at by this Faction, though they were the greatest Delinquents; and therefore redimere se captos, to free themselves out of the hands of these men, they might conceive it their safest course to gainsay none of their conclusions; which was a plot of no small value to further their design, by this removal of this second impediment.  
3. 
The third impediment of their design.  The third let that stood in their way to make stop of their impious design, was the royal power to dissolve the present Parliament, as formerly to dissolve any other, which they knew to be an inseparable flower of the Crown; timor undique nostris, this brought them in fear on every side, lest, if they were too soon discovered, they might suddenly be prevented, and their plot might prove abortive, like the untimely fruit of a woman, that perisheth before it seethe the Sun, or as the apples of Sodom, vanishing when they are touched, into nothing; or, at the best, but to stinking blasts: therefore to escape this rock, they sail about, and like cunning watermens, they look towards you when they row from you; their eyes and mouths are one way, when their hearts and minds are another way; for they tell the King, that the discontinuance of Parliaments hath produced abundance of distempers in this State, and a world of grievances both in the Church and Commonwealth: besides they say, 
The fair pretences for the continuance of he Parliament.  what the King and every man else saw to be true, that the Scots were entered into our Land, and settled in the bosom of this Kingdom; and though perhaps if some things had been better looked into, we might at first most easily have kept them out; yet now, duriùs ejicitur, quàm non admittitur hostis, it was too late to shut the door, and it is not so easy to expel and drive them out, except we made them a bridge of gold to pass over the river, and so to go homewards again.  
And this cannot be done without a great deal of money; which moneys though the Parliament should grant them, (as we are most willing to do, to free your Majesty from these guests, and to prevent the dangers of an intestine war) yet they cannot suddenly be levied and collected, as the times and occasions now required; therefore it must be borrowed to supply our present necessities, and lender's we shall find none, except we can show them a way how they shall be repaid again; and the experience we have lately had in these latter years, of so many Parliaments so unhappily suddenly dissolved, puts us out of all hope to find any way to secure their debts, except your Majesty will pass an Act, (for as yet they durst not say they needed not His assent to what they did) that this Parliament shall not be dissolved, until it be agreed upon by the consent of both Houses.  
This and the like were their fair pretences, 
How the King was seduced by their pretences.  like the Sirens voices, very sweet, and very good; and the good King that ever spoke as he thought, could not think that His great Council, whom He trusted with all the affairs of His Kingdom, meant any otherwise then they said, or looked any further than they shown Him; He never dreamed that they intended to have an everlasting Parliament, and so perfidiously to overreach both the King and the Kingdom.  
But though our gracious King (being not so much versed with the dissembling subtlety and serpentine wind of wicked hypocrites, that are to be removed from the King, and expelled out of His house) supposed all them to mean sincerely, and to deal fairly as they seemed to do; yet I do admire that the wisdom of the King's Council, (but that they, which as the Apostle saith, are not ignorant of the devices of Satan, are not permitted by these men to be of His Council) could not espy what mischief might lurk under this fair shade, or what might be the consequences of such a Parliament, that is inconsistent with a Monarchy, and therefore must in a convenient time be ended, or else will make an end of all Monarchical government. why then might not a year or two, or three, or more, so the years were limited, suffice to determine all businesses, but that the life of this Parliament should be endless, and the continuance thereof undetermined? this is beyond the age of the Council of Trent, that they say lasted above 40 years; for I presume, if some of the contrivers of this design might have their desires, the youngest of us should hardly see the Dissolution of this Parliament, 
What the faction could be contented with. Complaint p. 19  till the earthly Houses of our Tabernacles be dissolved; for it is likely they could be well contented, as one saith, to make an Ordinance that both Houses should be a Corporation, to take our lands and goods to themselves and their successors, and when any of that Corporation dieth, toties quoties, the survivor and none else should choose a successor to perpetuity; so they should be Masters of our estates and disposers of all we have; (as they are now) for ever. and therefore this was a plot beyond the powder plot, and beyond the device of Semiramis, that with a lovely face, desired her husband, she might rule but 3 days, to see how well she could manage the State, and obtaining her request, in the first thereof, she removed all the King's officers, in the second she placed her own minions in all the places of power and authority, (as now the faction would do, such as they confide in, 
The plot of Semiramis.  in all places of strength) and in the third day she cut off the King's head, and assumed the government of all the King's Dominions into her own hands; for not 3 days, nor 3 years will serve their turn, for fear they shall not have ability in so short a space to finish all their strange intended projects; and therefore, that they might not be hindered, their request is unlimited, that the Parliament should not be dissolved, till both Houses gave consent, which they were contented should be ad Graecas Calendas.  
Yet God that knew best, what punishments were due to be inflicted for their former actions, and for all the subtle devices of their hard hearts, gave way for this also, that this third Impediment of their projects might be removed; that so at last, their sins, like the sins of the Amorites by little and little growing unto the full, might undergo the fullness of God's vengeance which as yet, I fear was not fully come to pass; for till the Parliament was made perpetual, the things that they have done since, were absolutely unimaginable; because that while it was a dissoluble body, 
How the faction hath strengthened itself.  they durst not so palpably invade the known rights, either of King or Subjects; whereas now, their body being made indissoluble, they need not have the same apprehension of either, having strengthened themselves by a Bill against the one, and by an Army against the other; and therefore all the dissolutions of Parliaments from the beginning of them to this time, have not done half that mischief, as the continu●ance of this one hath done hitherto, and God only knows what is to succeed hereafter.  
But seeing themselves have publicly acknowledged in their Declarations, that they were too blame, if they undertook any thing now, which they would not undertake, if it were in His Majesty's power to dissolve them the next day, and they have since used this means, which was given them to disburden the Commonwealth, of that debt, which was thought insupportable, 
What many wise men do say.  to plunge it irrevocably into a fare greater debt, to the ruin of the whole Kingdom, to change the whole frame of our government, and subjecting us to so unlimited an arbitrary power, that no man knows at the sitting of the House, what he shall be worth at the rising, or whether he shall have his liberty the next day, or imprisonment; many wise men do say, they see no reason that this trust being forfeited, and the faith reposed in them betrayed, the King may not immediately reassume that power of dissolving them, into his own hands again, and both our unjustly abused King and out much injured people, declare this act to be void, when as contrary to their own faith and the trust of the King, they abuse it to overthrow the fundamental Laws of this Kingdom; though I could hearty wish, that because it still carrieth the countenance of a Law, the faction would be so wise as to yield it to be presently dissolved by a Law.   

CHAP. IU. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops; the threefold practice of the faction to exclude them out of the House of Peers; and all the Clergy out of all civil Judicature.  
4. THere was one stop more that might hinder, 
The fourth impediment of their design.  or at least hardly suffer their plots to succeed according to their hearts desire; and that is, the Bishops votes in the upper House, nay they cannot endure to call it so, but in the House of the Lords; for they rightly considered therein these 2 special things. 

1. their number,  
2. their abilities.   which are 2. main things to stop and hinder many evils: For,  
1. They had 26. voices, which was a very considerable number, and might stop a great gap, and stay the stream, or at least moderate the violence of any unjust prosecution.  
2. They were men of great learning, men of profound knowledge both in divine and humane affairs, and men well educated a cunabulis, that spent all their time in books, and were conversant with the dead, that feared not to speak the truth, and have wearied themselves in reading Histoties, comparing Laws, 
The abilities of the Bishops.  and considering the affairs of all commonwealths; and so were able if their modesty did not silence them, to discourse de quolibet ente, to untie every knot and to explain every riddle; and being the immediate servants of the living God, set apart as the Apostle speaketh, to offer Sacrifice and to administer the Sacraments of God, to prepare a people for the Kingdom of heaven, it ought not, and it cannot be otherwise imagined, by any child of the Church, that is a true believer, but that they are men of conscience, to speak the truth and to do justice in any cause, and betwixt any parties more than most others, especially those young Lords and Gentlemen, whose years do want experience, 
Pardon me good Lords for so plainly speaking truth.  and the course of their lives, some in hawking and hunting, and others in dicing and bowling, and visiting blackfriars playhouse, or perhaps in worse exercises, doth sufficiently show how weak their judgement must needs be in great affairs, and how imperfect their conscience is as yet in holy things, I hope not to be preferred before these grave and reverend men.  
And therefore lest these grave men should prove great hindrances of their unjust proceed, before any of their worst intentions be well perceived; there must be an exclusion of them from Parliament and from those Lords, whose consciences and knowledge they may then the better captivate, and bring them the sooner to side with them, for to effect their great design. And it is a world of wonders to see, with what subtlety and industry, with what policy and villainy this one work must be effected. It would fill a volume to collect the particulars of their Devices; I will reduce them to these; heads.  
1. They used all means to render them odious in the eyes of all people.  
2. 
A threefold practice against the Bishops.  They brought the basest and the refuse of all men, watermen, porters, and the worst of all the apprentices, with threats and menaces, to thunder forth the death and destruction of these men.  
3. Upon a pretended treason they caused 12 of them, besides the Archbishop that was in the Tower before, to be clapped up at once into prison; where they kept them in that strong house, until they got it enacted that they should be excluded from the upper House, and both they and their Clergy should be debarred from the administration of any secular act of Justice in the commonwealth.  
1. They endeavoured to make them odious unto the people 2 ways.  
1. In making that Order (or giving that notice unto the people) that any man might exhibit his complaint against scandalous Ministers, 
1 To make the odious two ways. 1 Way.  and he should be heard; which invitation of all discontented sheep to throw dirt in their Pastor's faces, was too palpably malicious; for our Saviour told us, we should be sent as sheep into the mids of wolves, but here is a sending for the wolves to destroy the Shepherds; and it came to pass hereby, that no less than 900 complaints and petitions were brought in a very short space, (as I was informed by some of their own House, that feelingly misliked these undue proceed) against many Learned and most faithful servants of Jesus Christ, that were therefore hated, because they were not wicked; 
The Ministers why persecuted.  and persecuted because they were conformable to the Laws of the King and the Church. And the rest of our calling that were factious & seditious, were both countenanced and applauded in all their seditious courses, and the more they railed against our Church Government, the more they were favoured by these enemies of the Church Governors. As to instance in both particulars (as you may find in the author of the Sober Sadness p. 33.) Master Squire, Master Stone, and Master Swadlin, which they have imprisoned, and scarce allowed them straw to lie on. Master Reading, Master Griffith, Master Ingoldsby, Master Willcocks, and many others, having done nothing worthy of death or of bonds, are inserted into the black bill of Scandalous and superstitious Ministers, only for preaching obedience to Sovereign authority, and other points consonant to the Holy Scriptures; and those that are scandalous indeed, as Doctor Burgess the ringleader of all sedition, Doctor Downing that is reputed as variable, as was Doctor Perne, Master Calamy, that is little better, Master Harding, a most vicious man, Master Bridge a Socinian, and Master Martial, not free from the suspicion of some unjust persuasions of the weaker sex, & many more such factious men are not only dispensed with, for all faults, but also rewarded and advanced for their infidelity to God, and disloyalty to His vicegerent: this the author of the Sober Sadness affirmeth of them.  
2. 
2 way.  By framing petitions themselves (as it is conceived) in the name of thousands of people, from Cities and Countries, that either never saw or never knew what was in them, against Episcopacy and Episcopal men; and then exhibiting the said petitions unto themselves, and the rest of their seauced brethren, to instigate others of their own faction, that affected not Episcopacy, and those offenders that by their Ecclesiastical censure were justly punished, and yet thereby unjustly provoked to hate them, to frame the like petitions against this Apostolical function, and to make the world believe how odious these Reverend men were in the judgement of so many millions of men, which were indeed most ignorant and simple, 
Petitions against Episcopacy how un justly procured.  and which God knows, and themselves afterwards confessed, knew not what they did, nor to what end their hands were purloined from them, under fair pretences, that were alleged for the Reformation of some abuses, but were subscribed to most scandalous Petitions, which the poor men utterly renounced, when they understood how unchristianly they were seduced: so strange were their plots to make the Bishop's odious.  
And yet you must not think, that these courses are more strange than true; for our Saviour tells his Apostles, that were men beyond exceptions, full of inspirations, and abundantly endued with the gifts of sanctification, They should be hated of all men for his name's sake; and if you look into the sufferings of Saint Paul, and the most horrible imputations that were so scandalously raised against the holy Fathers, you need not admire so much to see these men suffering such things as the hands of sinners, to be made the scorn of men, and as the offscouring of the people, as they were not long since, when the Bishops and the most learned Preachers might pass with more honour, and less contempt at Constantinople among the Turks, or in Jerusalem among the Jews, than in the City of London among this brood of Anabaptists.  
2. 
2. How the scum of the people threaten them.  After they had thus brought them upon the Stage, and used them thus strangely without cause, they get Venus and Manwaring, and others of the same Sect, to gather together the scum of all the profanest rout, the vilest of all men, and the outcast of the People, such as Job saith, Are not worthy to eat with the dogs of the flock: and as they came before for the Earl of strafford's head, so now again, they must come in great numbers, without order, without honesty, against all Law, and beyond all Religion, with swords and staves and other unfashtonable though not inconsiderable weapons, to cry no Papists, no Bishops, and if they had added no God, no Devil, no Heaven, no Hell, then surely these men had obtained (if the Parliament could have granted their requests) the sum of their desires; and they would have thought themselves better than either King or Bishop, but as yet they go no farther, than No Papist, no Bishop; and by this they put the good Bishops in great fear, and well they might be possessed of that fear, qui cadit in fortem & constantem virum: for mine eyes did see them, and mine ears did hear it said, What Bishop soever they met they would be his death, and I thanked God they knew not me to be a Bishop. 
Their furious assault upon Saint Peter's Church in Westminster.  Then they set upon Saint Peter's Church of Westminster, burst part of the door to pieces, and had they not been most manfully withstood by the Archbishop of York his Gentlemen, and the prebend's Servants, together with the Officers of the Church, they had entered, and likely ransacked, spoiled, and defaced all the Monnments of the ancient Kings, broken down the Organs, and committed such sacrilege and profanation of that holy place, as their fellow Rebels have done since in Canterbury, Winchester, Worcester, and other places, whereof I shall speak hereafter; the like was never seen among the Turks and Pagans; and after these things, what rage, cruelty, and barbarity they would have showed to the Dean and prebend's, we might well fear, but not easily judge; I am sure the Dean was forced to hire armed Soldiers to preserve the Church for many days after; for seeing these rioturs tumults could not as yet obtain their ends, they came, nay, they were brought again and again, and they justled and offered some violence unto the Archbishop's Grace, as he went with the Earl of Dover into the Parliament House, which made him and the rest of his brethren justly to fear what might be the issue of these sad beginnings, which they conceived must needs be very lamentable, if timely remedy were not applied to prevent these untimely frights and unchristian tumults.  
Therefore when no Complaints either to the House of Lords or Commons could produce any safe effects, but rather a frivolous excuse than a serious redress, that they came to petition against the Government, and not to seek the destruction of the Governors, the Bishops were enforced (and in my judgement, flesh and blood could take no better course in such a case, in such distress, and I believe it will be found wisdom hereafter) to make their Petition for their security, and Protestation against all Acts as null, (they might have added to them and whom they represented) that should be enacted in their unwilling absence, while they were so violently hindered from the House; and, it may be, some word might pass in this Protestation, that might be bettered, or explained by another word; yet on such a sudden, in such a fright, when they scarce had time to take counsel of their pillows, or to advice with their second thoughts, Quae semper sunt saniores, to watch for iniquity, 
Esay 29.20, 21.  to turn aside the just for a thing of nought, to take advantage of a word, or to catch men for one syllable, to charge them with high Treason to bring them unto death, so many Reverend Bishops to such a shameful end, was more malicious than ever I find the Jews were to the old Prophets, or the Pagan Tyrants unto the Primitive Fathers, nor do I believe you can parallel the same charge in any History: yet  
3. 
3. How they were committed to prison.  For this one necessitated Act of the Bishops, the House of Commons do suddenly upon the first sight thereof, charge twelve of them with high Treason; they were not so long in condemning it as the Bishops in composing it, and accordingly the Lords commit them unto Prison. And if this was Treason, I demand, why could they not prove it so to be? Or if it was not, why should such an House, Flos & medulla regni, the greatest and the highest Court of Justice, from which (the King consenting with them) there lieth none appeal, but only to the Court of Heaven, accuse them of high Treason? I would not have that Court to charge a man with any thing that were not most true, for certainly, whosoever unjustly compasseth my death is justly guilty of death himself, when as the Poet saith, 
— Lex non justior ulla,  
Quàm necis artifices arte perire suâ.  It may be they would have us to believe this Treason was not proved, nor the charge so fully followed as they intended, out of some mercy to save their lives; but I could sooner believe, they rejoiced to see them fear, and were glad of their mistake, that they might charge them, and by such a charge cast them into prison, that so they might the more easily work their design, to cast them out of the Parliament, which now they have soon effected, and procured an Act for their exclusion.  
And you must know, that to cast out from doing good, or serving God, is a work of the devil, and not of God; so the wicked Husbandmen did cast out the right Heir of the vineyard, out of his own inheritance; 
The consequences of this Act.  so the Jews did cast out the blind man, and all that professed Christ out of their Synagogue. But you may better judge of this good Act, by these consequences which are like to be the fruits thereof.  
1. Hereby they are all made incapable to do any good, either for God's honour, or their neighbour's benefit, 
1. Made incapable of doing any good.  by executing justice, or pronouncing judgement, in any cause in any temporal Court: and justice which long agone hath fled to heaven, and wanders as a stranger here on earth, must be countenanced and entertained only by the sons of men, by secular Lords and Gentlemen: and the Spiritual Lords the Servants of God, and messengers of heaven must have nothing to do with her; not because they are not as well able as any other to do justice, but because the others cannot endure to let them see it, for fear they should hinder their injustice, and therefore justice and judgement are like to speed well on earth when their chiefest friends are banished from them, and it may be worldlings, oppressors, or most ignorant youths, rather than any just understanders of their natures must be their Judges.  
2. 
2. Made unable to defend themselves.  Hereby they are made unable to defend themselves or their calling from any wrong; their respect was little enough before, and their indignities were great enough; and yet now we are exposed to far greater miseries, and to unresistable injuries, when a Bishop hath not so much Authority as a Constable, to withstand his greatest affronts.  
But hoc Ithacus velit, this is that which the devil and his great Atreidesses, his prime champions to enlarge his kingdom would fain have, our souls to remain among Lions, and all the means of defence to be taken from us, our enemies to be our judges, and ourselves to be murdered with our own weapons. In the time of Popery there were many Laws de immunitate clericorum, whereby we were so protected, that the greatest Prince could not oppress us, as you may find in the Reign of King John, and almost in all our Histories: and when we renounced the Pope, God made Kings our nursing fathers, and Queens our nursing mothers, and we putting ourselves under their protection, have been hitherto most graciously protected: but now by this Act we are left naked of all defence, and set under the very sword of our Adversaries, and as the Psalmist saith, They that hated us are made Lords over us, to callus, to assess us, to undo us.  
3. 
3. Debarred of that right that none else are.  Hereby they are made more slavish than the meanest Subject, and deprived of that benefit and privilege which the poorest Shoemaker, Tailor, or any other Tradesman or yeoman hath most justly left unto him, for to be excluded, debarred, and altogether made uncapable of any benefit is such an insupportable burden, that it is set upon no man's shoulders but upon the Clergy alone, as if they alone were either unworthy to receive, or unable to do any good.  
4. 
4. Made more contemptible than all others.  Hereby they are made the unparallelled spectacle of all neglect and scorn to all foreign people; for I can hardly believe the like precedent can be showed in any Age, or any other Nation of the world, no not among the very Infidels or Indians; for in former times the Bishops and Clergymen were thought the fittest instruments to be employed in the best places of greatest trust, and highest importance in the Commonwealth, and Kings made them their Embasladours, as the Emperor Vas lentinian did S. Ambrose, and our own Chronicles relate how former times respected the Clergy, and how our Kings made them both their Counsellors, and their Treasurers, Chancellors, Keepers of the Great Seal, and the like Officers of the chiefest concernment, as Ethelbert in the year of Christ 605. saith, I Ethelbert King of Kent, 
 refert in tract atu suo de eposeopatu p. 61 62. M. Theyer. Sir Henry Spelman p. 118.  with the consent of the Reverend Archbishop Augustine, and of my Princes, do give and grant, etc. and the said Ethelbert with the Queen and his Son Eadbald, and the most Reverend Prelate Augustine, and with the rest of the Nobility of the Land solemnly kept his Christmas at Canterbury, and there assembled a Common Counsel, Tam cleri quàm populi, as well of the Clergy as of the people; and King Adelstan saith, 
Idem p. 403  I Adelstan the King do signify unto all the Officers in my Kingdom, that by the advice of Wolfelme my Archbishop, and of all my Bishops. In the great Council of King Ina, Anno 712. the edicts were enacted by the Common Counsel and consent Omnium Episcoporum & principum, 
Idem p. 219.  procerum, Comitum & omnium sapientum seniorum, & populorum totius regni & per praeceptum regis Inae: and in the second Charter of King Edward the Confessor, granted to the Church of Saint Peter in Westminster, 
How former times respected the Clergy.  it is said to be Cum concilio & decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum, Comitum, aliorumque suorum optimatum, with the council and decree of the Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, and other Potentates. And so not only the Saxon Kings, but the Norman also ever since the Conquest had the Bishops in the like or greater esteem, that they never held Parliament or Counsel without them. And surely these Princes were no Babes that made this choice of them, neither was the Common wealth neglected, nor justice prejudiced by these Governors. And whosoever shall read mores gentium, or the pilgrimage of Master Purchas, Livy, Plutarch, Appian, and the rest of the Greek and Latin Histories, I dare assure him, he shall find greater honour given, and fare less contempt cast upon the Priests and Flamens, the Prophets of the Sibyls, than we find of this faction left to the Servants of the living God, who are now dealt withal worse, than Pharach dealt with the Israelites that took away their straw and yet required their full tale of bricks; for these men would rob us of all our means and take away all our Lands, and all our rights, and yet require not only the full tale of Sermons and Service, as was used by our Predecessors, but to double our files, to multiply our pains, 
How the Clergy are now used.  and to triple the Sermons and Service, that they used to have of our forefathers, more than ever was done in any Age since the first Plantation of the Gospel; and when we have done with John Baptist, the utmost of our endeavours, like a shining and a burning lamp, that doth waste and consume itself to nothing, while it giveth light to others, they only deal with us, as Cartiers use to do with their pack horses, hang bells at their ears to make a melodious noise, but with little provander lay heavy loads upon their backs, and when they can bear no more burdens, take away their bells, withdraw their praises, call them Jades, exclaim against their laziness, and then at last, turn them out to feed upon the commons, and to die in a ditch; and thus we have now made the Ministers of Christ to be the emblems of all misery, and in pretending to make them more glorious in the sight of God, we have made them most base in the eyes of all men.  
And therefore the consequence of this Act is like to prove most lamentable, when the people, considering how that hereby we are left naked of all comfort, and subject to all kind of scorn and distress, and how that this being effected is but the praeludium of a fare greater mischief, they will rather with no great cost make their children of some good Trade, and their children will choose so to be, than with such great costland more care, and yet little hope, to bring them up to worse condition than the meanest of all Trades, 
The Clergy alone are deprived of Magna Charta.  or the lowest degree of all rustics; when as they can challenge, and it shall not be denied them, to have the privileges of the Law, and a property in their goods, which without their own consent, yielded in their persons or their representours, cannot be taken from them; and the Clergy only of all the people in this Kingdom, shall be deprived of the right and benefit of our great Charter, which so many famous Kings and pious Princes have confirmed unto us; and when we have laboured all the days of our lives with great pains and more diligence, to instruct our people, and to attain to some competency of means to maintain ourselves and our families, we shall be in the power of these men, at their pleasure, under the pretence of Religion, contrary to all justice, to be deprived of any part of our freehold, when we shall have not one man of our own calling to speak a word in our behalf, on no Seat of Justice throughout the whole Kingdom.  
O terque quaterque beati, queis ante ora patrum contigit oppetere, O most miserable and lamentable condition of God's Ministers; I must needs speak it, though I should die for it; and if some did not speak it, I think the stones would cry against it, and proclaim it better for the Clergy, were their hope only in this world, never to have been borne, or at least never to have seen a book, then to fall into the hands, and to be put under the censure of these men that do thus love Christ, 
This Act more prejudicial to to the future times than now.  by hating his Ministers, who as I said before, by this one Act are made liable to undergo all kind of evils, which shall not only fall upon the present Clergy, (for were it so, our patience should teach us to be silent) but also to the increase of all prejudices to the Gospel, more than my foresight can express, in all succeeding Ages.  
And therefore I may well say with Jeremy, 
Jer. 5.9.29.  Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? And we need not wonder, that such plagues, calamities and distresses, have so much increased in this Kingdom ever since the passing of this Act, and yet the anger of the Lord is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still, and I fear, his wrath will not be appeased, till we have blotted this, and wiped away all other our great sins and transgressions, with the truest tears of unfeigned repentance.  
These are like to be the consequences of this Act; and yet our good King, who we know loved our Nation and built us a Synagogue, and was (as I assure myself) most unwilling to pass it, was notwithstanding over-persuaded (considering where thirteen of the Bishops were, even in prison, and in what condition all the rest of them stood, in question whether all they should stand, or be cut down root and branch) to yield his assent unto the Act; though if the case in truth were rightly weighed, not much less prejudicial to his Majesty than injurious to us, to be thus deprived of our right, 
How the King hath been used ever since this Act passed.  and exposed to all miseries, by excluding us from all Civil Judicature: and I would to God the King and all the Kingdom did continually consider, how his Majesty was used ever since the confirmation of this Act; for they no sooner had excluded the Bishops and Clergy out of their right, but presently they proceeded, and prosecuted the design ever since, to thrust out the King from all those just rights and prerogatives, which God and nature and the Laws of our Land have put into his hands, for the government of this Kingdom; neither was it likely to succeed any other wise, as I have fully showed, and I would all Kings would read it, in the Grand Rebellion.  
But I see no reason why it may not and why it should not be retracted and annulled, 
That the act should be annulled.  when the Houses shall be purged of that anabaptistical and Rebellious faction, that contrived and procured the same to pass, for these three special reasons;  
1. 
1. Reason.  Because that contrary to all former precidents, that Bill for their exclusion, was (as it is reported) at the first refused, and after a full bearing among the Lords, it was by most votes, by more than a dozen voices, rejected; and yet, to show unto the world, that the factions maltee against the Bishops had no end, & their rage was still implacable, at the same Session, & which is very considerable, immediately assoon as ever they understood it was rejected, the House of Commons revived it, and so pressed it unto the Lords, that (if I may have leave to speak the truth) contrary to all right, 
* For I conceive this to be an approved maxim, that no light, not proved forfitea by some of fence, can be taken away wuhout wrong 2 Keasom In His Majesty's answer to the Petition of the Lords and Commons. 16 of July. p. 8.  it must be again received; and while the Bishops were in prison, it was, with what honour I know not strangely confirmed.  
2. Because this Bill had the Royal assent after that a most riotous tumult, & many thousands of men, with all sorts of warlike weapons both on land and water most disloyally had driven His Majesty to fly from London, that most Rebellious City, not without fear, for his own safety, even for the safety of his life as himself professeth; and when they had so cunningly contrived their plot, as to get some of the King's servants and friends, that were about him and employed in the Queen's affairs, to persuade Her Majesty to use all her power with the King for the passing of this Bill, or else Her journey should be slaied, as formerly they had altered her resolution for the Spa; and at Rochester she should understand the sense of the House to stop Her passage unto Holland, whereas the passing of this Bill might make way for Her passage over; and many other such frights and fears, they put both upon the King and Queen, to enforce him full sore against his will, as we believe, to pass this harsh Bill, for the exclusion of the spiritual Lords out of the House of Peers, and of all the Clergy from all Secular Judicature.  
But Master Pym will tell us, he did, 
Ald. Gar. speech at Guild. hall.  that it was the opinion of both Houses, there was no occasion given by any tumults, that might justly cause His Majesty's departure.  
To whom I answer with the words of Alderman Garroway if the Houses had declared that it had been lawful to beat the King out of Town, I must have sat still with wonder (though I should never believe it) but when they declare matters of fact, which is equally within our own knowledge, and wherein we cannot be deceived, as in the things we have seen with our eyes, if they descent from truth, they must give me leave to differ from them: as if they should declare, they have paid all the money that they own unto the city, or that there was 
* For now I understand it is pulled down.  no Cross standing in Cheapside, we shall hardly believe them.  
And therefore, seeing we all remember, when the alarm was given, that there was an attempt from Whitehall upon the City, how hardly it was appeased, and how no babies thought the design of those subtle beads that gave that false alarm was no less, then to have caused Wite hall to be pulled down. and they that loved the King, and saw the Army both by Land and water which accompanied the persons accused to Westminster the next day after His Majesty's departure, (as if they had passed in a Roman triumph) conceived the danger to be so great, that I call Heaven to witness, they blessed God that so gracioussly put it in the King's heart rather to pass away over night, though very late, then hazard the danger that might have ensued the day following:  
The meaning therefore of both Houses may be, that there was nothing done, which they confessed to be a tumult; and no marvel; because they received encouragement, as we believed from their defence, and no reproof, that we found was made, for this indignity offered unto the King: but if I be constrained and in danger, it is not enough for me, that I am voted free and safe; for if that, which looks, as like a tumult, as that did, or, as the representation of my face in the truest glass is like my face, doth come against me and encompass me about, though I may be, perhaps, in more safety; yet I shall think myself in great fear, and in no more security than His Majesty was at Edge-hill.  
3. 
3 Reason. p. 7  Because, as the veiwer of the Observat. hath very well expressed it, no act of Parliament can prevail to deprive the King of His right and authority; as an attainder by Parliament could not bar the title to the Crown from descending on King Hen. 7. nor was an act of Parliament disabling King Hen. 6. to reassume the government of his people, of any force, but without any repeal in itself frustrate and void. 7. rep. 14. Calvin's case; an act of Parliament cannot take away the protection or the Subject's service, which is due by the Law of nature. 11. rep. Sur de la Wares case, William de la Ware although disabled by act of Patliament, was nevertheless called by Queen Elizabeth to sit as a peer in Parliament; for that it seems the Queen could not be barred of the service and council of any of Her Subjects; 2. H. 7.6 a statute, that the King by no non obstante shall dispense with it, is void; because it would take a necessary part of government out of the King's hand: and therefore I see not how this act can deprive the King of the service and council of all his Bishops and clergy, but that it is void of itself and needeth no repeal; or if otherwise, yet seeing that besides all this, 13 of the Bishops were shut in prison when this act passed, and their protestation was made long before this time, and it was so unduly framed, so illegally prosecuted, and with such compulsive threats and terrors procured to be passed, I hope the wisdom of the next Parliament, together with their love and respect to the Church and Churchmen will nullify the same.   

CHAP. VI Sheweth the plots of the faction to gain unto themselves the friendship and assistance of the Scots; and to what end they framed their new protestation; how they provoked the Irish to rebel, and what other things they gained thereby.  
ANd thus the Sectaries of this Kingdom and the faction in this Parliament have by their craft & subtlety prevailed to have all the chiefest impediments of their design to be removed: so now the hedge is broken down, and all the bores of the forest may now come into the vineyard, to destroy the vine, and to undermine the City of God: but into their counsels let not my soul come. 
2. The furthetances of their design were five.   
2. When they had taken away these stops and hindrances of their projects, they were to recollect and make up the furtherances, that might help to advance their cause for the founding of their new Church, and the establishing of their famous democratical government & popular Commonwealth. And these I find to be principally five.  
1. The gaining of their brethren of Scotland to become their fast and faithful friends.  
2. The framing of a Protestation to frighten the Papists and to ensnare the simple, to be led as they listed to prosecute their design.  
3. The condemning of our late canons, as abominable in their judgement and inconsistent with their religion;  
4. The appointing of a new Synod, the like whereof was never heard in the Church, since Adam, to compose such articles as they liked, and to frame such discipline as should be most agreeable to their own dispositions.  
5. The settling of a militia, a word that the vulgar knew not what it was, for to secure the Kingdom, as they pretended, from those dangers that they feared, that is, from those Jacks of lent and men of clouts, which themselves set up as deadly enemies unto the Church and state; but indeed insensibly to get all the strength of the Realm into their own hands and their considerateth, that so they might like the Ephori, bridle the King, and bring him as they pleased, to abolish and establish what laws and government they should propose; whereby, perhaps, he might continue King in name but they in deed.  
These were the things they aimed at, and they effected the first three, before they could be descried and their plots discovered; but in the other two they were prevented, when God said unto them, as he doth unto the Sea, hitherto shalt thou go and no further, here shalt thou stay thy proud Waves: and therefore. I am confident, and I wish all good Christians were so, that their purposes shall never succeed, nor themselves prosper therein, while the world lasteth; becaust God hath so mercifully revealed so much, so graciously assisted our King, and so miraculously, not only delivered him from them, but also strengthened him against them, contrary to all appearing likelihood, to this very day; which is a sufficient argument to secure our faith, that we shall, by the help of our God, escape all the rest of their destructive designs.  
But to display their banners, to discover their projects, and to let the world see what they are, and how closely & yet cunningly they went about to effect their work, I will in a plain manner set down what I know, and what I have collected from other writings, and from men that are side digni, (for one man's eyes cannot see all things, nor infallibly perceive the mysteries of all particulars) for to confirm the faithful Subjects in their due obedience, both to God and their King, and to undeceave the poor seduced people, that they perish not in the contradiction of Corah.  
1. 
1 The endearing of themselves unto the Scots Out Sectaties the inviters of the Scots to England.  It is believed not without cause, with far greater probabilities than a bare suspicion, that our own anabaptistical Sectaries and this faction were the first inviters of those angry spirits (that conceived some cause to be discontented, and were glad of secret entertainers) to enter into the bosom of this Kingdom; whatsoever those our brethren of Scotland did I will bury it according to their Act, in oblivion; neither approving nor yet blaming them for any thing. But for any Subject of England, to interchange Messages, and to keep private intelligence, with any that seem to be in arms against their King, and the invaders of his Dominions, to animate them to come, and advance forward; to refuse their Sovereign's service, and the each of their fidelity, which was tendered unto them, and to hinder the King's soldiers to do their duties, either by denying to go with him, or refusing to fight for him when they went, (which if some men were brought to their Legal trial, I believe would be more then sufficiently proved against them) can be no less than heinous trimes, perhaps within the compass of high Treason.  
Or were these things but our jealousies and fears, which do wear the garments of Truth, yet their proceed in Parliament do add more fuel unto the fire of our suspicion; as, for our men, whom we had chosen to plead for us, and to treat with them, to respect them more than us, to enrich them, by impoverishing us; 
How they behaved themselves towards the Scots.  giving them no less than 300000.l. who had entered into our Land, and brought upon us such fears, of I know not how many mischiefs that might succeed, and not only so, but also, (to show what love they bore to them, and how little regard they had of us, their native brethren, that put such trust and confidence in their fidelity, as to commit all our fortunes and liberties into their hands) paying weekly such a pension for their provision, (besides the maintenance of our own Army, which were forced to carry them their moneys, when themselves were unpaid) as in a short time was able to exhaust all the wealth of this Kingdom, and yet for all his Majesty's continual calling upon them to dispatch their discharge, and to finish the Treaty, for the good of both Kingdoms, keeping them here so long, and making so much of them, (which in truth we envied not, but admired what it meant, when we saw with what continual feast they were entertained in London, and their lodgings frequented as the King's Court) till all the People began to murmur, and to wax weary of so great a charge and such a burden as they knew must at last light upon their shoulders; which must needs be matters worthy of our best examinations.  
But as yet the common people that seethe no further than the present tense, and the outside of things, did little know, 
Why they detained them here so long.  what many wise men did then foresee, that these men aimed further than they seemed to do, and delayed the business purposely till they had attained many of their desires, and had sully endeared themselves into the affections of the Scots, that (if need required, that they could not effect all the residue of their design, as they intended, which now could not so suddenly be brought unto perfection,) they might recall them here again to assist them, to do that by force, which by their craft and subtlety they should fail to do; as now by their sending for them, going unto them, and alleging the Act of Pacification for their assistance, to withstand their King and to overthrow our Church, it is apparent to all the world how perfidiously they dealt with God and man, and how treacherous their thoughts were from the beginning both to the King and Kingdom. Yet as we found our Brethren of Scotland (howsoever these men bevaved themselves in their secret intentions) to have carried themselves none otherwise than as wise, rational and religious men, in all the Treaty: so I assure myself they will hereafter still continue, both faithful unto God, and loyal unto their King; and as they perceived not their intentions at the first, so they will not now join with them in any Association of Rebellion to withstand their own Liege Lord, and to change the established Laws and Religion of our Kingdom; but will rather live in peace and happiness in their own Land, than by forsaking their enjoyed quietness, to involve themselves in the unhappiness of a desperate War in another Country.  
2. 
2. The compelling of all people to ●…ak: their new ●amed Protestation.  After they had thus endeared themselves unto their Brethren of Scotland, they framed a Protestation, to maintain and defend, as fare as lawfully they might, with their lives, powers and estates the True Reformed Protestant Religion, his Majesty's Royal Person, honour and estate, the power and privileges of Parliament, the lawful rights and liberties of the Subjects, and every person that should make the same Protestation, in whatsoever he should do in the lawful pursuance of the same; and to their power, and as fare as lawfully they might to oppose, and by all good ways and means, endeavour to bring to condign punishment all such as shall either by force, practice, counsels, plots, conspiracies, or otherwise 
* Which word is like the &c. in the Canonical Oath.  do any thing to the contrary of any thing in the said Protestation contained; and neither for fear, hope, nor other respect to relinquish this promise, vow and protestation.  
In which Protestation, though no man can espy the least shadow of ill, prima fancy, at the first reading thereof; yet if you look further, and search narrowly into the intentions of the composers, the frame of the Protestation, and the practice of these Protesters, ever since the framing of it, you shall find that Desinit in piscem mulier formosa supernè: these men are no Changelings, but as like themselves as ever they were; for,  
1. As it was intended, so it succeeded; 
1. To terrify the Papists, and to raise a rebellion in Ireland.  it terrified the Papists, and made them so desperate as almost to despair of their very being, as concerning the place where or the manner how they should live; which thing, together with many other harsh and hard proceed against many of them, and the small countenance which they shown unto a very moderate Petition that the Papists exhibited unto them, hath driven abundance of them into Ireland, (whom I saw myself) and there consulting with the Irish, (which were then also threatened by the Agents of this faction there, that ere long they should be severely handled, and brought to the Church whether they would or no, or pay such a mulct as should make them poor) what course they should take in such a desperate condition, wherein they were all like to be ruined, or to be rooted out of all the King's Dominions, they concluded what they would do; to defend themselves by a plain Rebellion. So this course against them hath been the leading card (as some of them confessed) of that great Rebellion; which being kindled (as some Sectaries in England expected) they thought they would so much the more weaken the King, by how much the more combustion should be raised in each one of his Dominions: and therefore notwithstanding all the Kings gracious Messages and wishes unto the House of Commons (which I wish all men would remember, how affectionately he desired it) to hasten to relieve that bleeding Kingdom, yet still they protracted and neglected their redress; and at last, passed such Votes, made such Orders, and procured such Acts, as rather respected themselves and their posterity, to get all the land and goods of the Rebels to themselves, that were the Adventurers, than the relieving of us that were distressed, and would (as I told some of the House of Commons) rather increase the Rebellion than any ways quench that destroying flame. And this was (as it succeeded, and as you see hereby, most likely intended) a most detestable plot, for the kindling of that Rebellion, and continuing of that bloody War in Ireland, without which they knew this Rebellion in England could never have gained so much strength as it hath.  
2. 
2. To gain all Sectaries to their side.  By their large expression of what religion they protested to defend, not the Protestant religion, as it is established by Law and expressed in the 39 articles of the Church of England; but as it is repugnant to popery, and taught perhaps by Burton, Burges Goodwin, Burrowes, or the like Amsterdamian schismatics, they opened the gap so wide, and made Heaven gate so broad that all Brownists, Anabaptists, Socinians, Familists, Adamites and all other new England brood and outlandish Sectaries what soever, that opposed popery, might return home and join with them, as they have done since, to overthrow our established Church, and state. And this plot, to increase their own strength was as craftily done, and is as Detestable as the other, which to weaken the King in England, caused a rebellion in Ireland.  
3. 
3. To descry their own strength.  By their illegal compelling and forcible inducing of all the people in the Kingdom to take the same, or to be adjudged ill affected and popish, and after the Lords had rejected the imposing of it, they by their Declaration, which shown, that what person soever would not take it, was unfit to bear office either in Church or Common wealth, prevailed in this plot so that they descried the number of their own party, they understood their own strength, and they perceived thereby many things, which they knew not before; for now they had with David numbered Israel, and so far as the wit and policy of the Devil had instructed them, they had searched into the secrets of all hearts  
4. 
4. To ensnare all the simpler sort to adhere unto them.  Having compelled the people to take it, they have hereby ensnared all the simpler sort and tender consciences to stick unto them, when they tell them and press it upon their souls, that they have made a Protestation to maintain the privileges of Parliament, and the Liberty of the Subject, and therefore they are bound to adhere to the Parliament to the uttermost of their power; and so by this equivocal Protestation, they have seduced thousands into their Rebellion, and led them blindfold unto destruction.  
Butto let you see not the sincerity of their hearts, 
The mystery of their iniquity.  but the mystery of their iniquity, by this their Protestation, you shall never find them urge it unto others, or remembering it themselves for the defence of the King's Person Crown or dignity, or for the liberty of any Subject, but only such Subjects as will be Rebels with them: for how can they be said to defend any of these, when they do their very best to destroy his person, and deprive him of all his royal dignities? 
That the rebels are all perjurers  and to plunder and imprison all true Subjects for being true Subjects unto their King? Whereby you see how these Rebels are likewise perjured, and have weaved this Protestation like a spider's web, through which themselves might pass when they pleased, and like Vulcan's net to catch the simpler sort to adheere most eagerly to their designs; and so it is but a circle of all subtleties, & not unwittily questioned, an pros testatio parliamentaria deterior sit juramento cum etc. for if there be any thing enjoined to be done by that Protestation, which was unlawful to be done before the Protestation was taken, it is no more to be justified by that act, than any other unlawful thing is by a rash and wicked vow; and it ought not to be urged to do mischeise; and if there be nothing to be enjoined thereby, but what was every man's duty before, there was but small need, to draw any argument from any protestation: but if they intended to draw men from the duty of allegiance to which they were legally sworn, and all men understood, to do somewhat which the ignorant did not understand, than such a voluntary protestation might do the deed; for they have protested to maintain the privileges of Parliament. And yet the wisest of us now may justly protest, we cannot tell what those privileges are, or how far they should extend in the judgement of the House of Commons; for they are multiplied like the rats of Egypt, and as Pharaohs lean kine did eat up all his fat Cows, so these meager privileges have eaten up all our goodly laws. And therefore, 
Privileges of Parl. multiplied, and are like Pharaohs kine.  the unlimited universality of these privileges in the Protestation, extending itself as far as the et caetera, in the Canonical oath, was but a mischievous plot in the contrivers, to catch the simple to adhere unto them; and it is a madness in any man that hath legally sworn to defend the King's Person, Crown, and dignity, which he knoweth, and hath irregularly protested to maintain the privileges of Parliament, which he knoweth not, immediately to draw his sword against his known Sovereign, reign or to Rebel against his well-known lawful authority, in the behalf of some thing, he Knoweth not what, but is told by these men it is a privilege of Parliament. O ye unwise among the the people, when will you understand; who hath bewitched you, that you should not believe the truth?   

CHAP. VII. Sheweth how the faction was enraged against our last canons; what manner of men they chose in their new synod; and of six special Acts of great prejudice unto the Church of Christ which under false pretences they have already done.  
3. 
3. The condemning of our last Canons.  FOr the Canons, that were last made, I must confess my self and many others of my Brethren were very averse unto our sitting, to make any at that time; yet many reasons were showed us, that we might sit (and we had the Judges of the common Law's opinion under their hands shown us for the legality of our sitting) and conclude such canons as might be for the glory of God and the good of his Church; but of those that are made, though I assure myself the worst of them is not so ill as they allege, nor near so bad as most (I might say the best) of their illegal orders; yet there were many of us that never gave our votes to pass them; and though not for any offence that we saw in them, yet, for the scandal that might be taken at them we heartily wished they had never been so zealously propounded at that time.  
But the Sectaries of London and the prevalent faction in Parliament did, with open mouth, spend much time to the no small prejudice of the whole Kingdom, and made many long speeches to exclaim against them, as against a bundle of superstitions, that obscured the purity of our religion, an introduction unto popery, and an intolerable, unheard of the like invasion upon the liberty of the subjects, that revived again the papal tyranny, which contrary to our fundamental laws had encroached to make canons and constitutions to bind our consciences; whereupon upon they canvas them and condemn them out of their house and the house of God, out of the Church and Commonwealth: and not only so, but also the contrivers of them and consenters to them; they terrify and threaten to adjudge them, sometimes with a praemunire, to have forfeited all their goods and possessions, and sometimes to be fined, (as we were at last) with such a heavy mulct, as in all other men's judgement did fare exceed the pretended offence, especially of us that never consented to them.  
And yet we find not only in Lindwood, and others of our Canonists, but also in the book of Martyrs, and the rest of our English histories, that the Arch-Bishops, within their Provinces, have at several times made Canons and Constitutions, for the regulating of all the people committed to their charge, without any suspicion of the least violation of our laws; but the faction say sic volumus, and the houses of Parliament understand what is law better than I do, and therefore accordingly (before the makers of them were called to make their answers, by what authority they made them, or by what law they could justify them) they reject the Canons and censure their makers. Yet notwithstanding their distaste of them, it is conceived by some that the clergy having His Majesty's writ to be convocated, and leave to compose such Canons, as they thought fit to be observed, for the honour of God, the discharge of their duty, and the good of the Church, and having the royal assent and approbation to all that they concluded; (which is all that I find the Statute provided in this case requireth) though they should be defective or perhaps offensive in some circumstances, yet if they be not legally abrogated, after a full hearing of all parties, and the King's consent to reject them, as it was to approve them, they are still as binding, and in as full force as ever they were; though for mine own part, I will not undertake the task, to make that good, when as both the Houses have condemned them; but I say:  
4. 
4. The appointing of a new framed Synod.  This Scandal taken against these Canons made way for the faction to call for a new Synod or assembly of Divines, for the rectifying of things amiss, as well in Discipline as in Doctrine; And in this new intended Synod, 
Laymen choosers of the Clergy, as if a shepherd did choose precious stones.  the Divines are nominated, not according to the rules and Canons of the Church, and the customs of all Nations, since the first Synod or Council of the Apostles, by Divines, that can best judge of their own abilities, as when the spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets: but fearing the Clergy would have sent men that were too orthodoxal for their faith, they deprived them of their rights, and forgetting their Protestation to defend the right of the Subject, the choice is made by themselves, that are Lay men, and young men, and many of them perhaps profane men, or at least not so religious, nor so judicious as they ought to be, for a business of this nature, of so great concernment, as the direction of our souls to their eternal bliss.  
And now they being nominated, we know most of them what they are; 
What manner of men they have chosen.  men, not only justly suspected to be ill disposed to the peace of our Church, and too much addicted to innovation, to alter the Government, to reject and cast away the Book of Common Prayer, to oppose Episcopacy, and to displace the grave and godly Governors of God's Church; but also apparently fashioned to the humours of these their own Disciples (who are to be the only judges of their determinations) that (although some jew Canonical men, and most Reverend, learned and religious Bishops, and others, for fashion sake, to blind the world, are named amongst them, yet, when as in a Parliament, so in a Synod, the most desperate faction, if they prove prevalent, to be the major part, will carry any thing in despite of the better part, they shall stand but as cyphers, able to do nothing) they might abolish our old established Government, erect their own new invented Discipline, and propagate their well affected Doctrine in all Churches; for you may judge of them by their compeers, Goodwin, Burrowes, Arrow-Smith, and the rest of their ignorant, factious, and schismatical Ministers, that together with those intruding Mechanickes, (who without any calling either from God or man, do step from the Butchers board, or their Horse's stable into the Preachers Pulpit) are the bellows which blow up this fire, that threateneth the destruction of our Land, like Shebah's trumpet, to summon the people unto Rebellion, and like the red dragon in the Revelation, which gave them all his poison, and made them eloquent, to disgorge their malice, and to cast forth floods of slanders, after those that keep loyalty to their Sovereign, and to belch forth their unsavery reproaches against those that discover their affected ignorance, and seditious wickedness, in defence of truth; and are the instruments of this faction, to seduce the poor people to the desolation of the whole Kingdom, if not timely prevented by their repentance, and assistance to enable him whom God hath made our Protector to defend us against all such transcendent wickedness. And these are the main ends for which they summoned such a new Synod of their furious and fanatique teachers, upon whose temper and fidelity, I believe, no wise man that knows them would lay the least weight of his soul's felicity. 
What Synod they should have chosen.  Whereas if they desired a Reformation of things amiss, and not rather an alteration of our Religion and the abolition of our now settled Government, they would have called for such a Synod as was in Queen Elizabeth's time, when the 39 Articles of our Religion were composed, and such as they needed not to be ashamed to own in future times, nor the best refuse to associaet the rest, for the illegality of their election; for if there be any scandalous Governors, (as we deny not but there may be a Cham in the Ark, a Judas amongst the Apost'es, and perhaps an unjustifiable Prelate among the Bishops, as there was a proud Lucifer among the Angels) or if they think it necessary to correct, qualify, explain, or alter some expressions or ceremonies in our Liturgy, and Book of Common Prayer, we are so fare from giving the least offence to weak consciences, that we hearty wish a lawful Synod, which may have a full legal power, as well to remove the offences, as to punish the offenders, and to establish such Laws and Canons, as well against Separatists and schismatics, Anabaptists and Brownists, as against Recusants and Papists, and such as may be for the glory of God, and the peace of our Church; which was our sole intention in the last Synod.  
But seeing their plot was rather to establish a new Church than to redress the defects of the old, and to countenance and advance those boutefues that schismatically rend our Church in pieces, and most wickedly defile the pure Doctrine of the same, by degrading and displacing the grave Governors thereof, I will (to give you a taste of what fruit you are like to reap from them) very briefly set down the sum of these two points.  

1. 
Two points hindled. 1. What they have already done in the affairs of our Church. 1 Cor. 5.5. 1 Tim. 1.20. 1. Opened a gap to all licentiousness.  What they have already done,  
2. What discipline and doctrine are like to ensue, if they should be enabled or permitted to erect their new Church; for, (as you may find it in the Remonstrance of the Commons of England to the House of Commons,)   
1: Under colour of regulating the Ecclesiastical Courts, (Courts that have been founded by the Apostles, and had always their Authority and reverence among Christians, even before the Secular power (when the Emperors became Christians) had confirmed them) they have taken away (in respect of the coercive part thereof, which is the life of the Law, and without which the other part is fruitless) all the Spiritual jurisdiction of God's Church; they have taken away Aaron's rod, and would have only Manna left in God's Ark, so that now the crimes inquirable and censurable by those Courts, though never so heinous, as adultery, incest, and the like, cannot be punished; heresies and schisms, which now of late have abounded in all places, can no ways be reform, and the neglect of God's service can as hardly be repaired, when as the Ministers cannot be enforced to attend their Cures, the Church-officers cannot be compelled to perform their duty, and the Parishio●ners cannot be brought by our Law to pay their Tithes and other necessary Duties; which things are all so considerable that all Christians ought to fear how lamentable will be the end of these sad beginnings; for myself have seen the House of God most unchristianly profaned, the Churchyard and the dead bodies of the Saints so rooted and miserably abused by hogs and swine, that it would grieve mere men, that scarce ever heard of God, to see such a barharous usage of any holy place; and when the Ministers have given a sevennights' warning to prepare for the blessed Eucharist, and the Communicants came to partake of those holy mysteries, they were fain to return home without it, for want of Bread and Wine to administer it; and yet now the Church Governors have not any power to redress any of these abominable abuses.  
2. Under show of reforming the Church discipline, 
2. Voted down all the governor's of God's Church.  and bettering the Government thereof, they have voted down those very Governors, the Bishops and their Assistants, the Deans and Chapters, whose function was constituted by the Apostles, and hath from that time continued to this very day, as the most learned Archbishop of Armach, Bishop Hull, Master Mason, Master Tailor, and that worthy Gentleman Master Theyer, and others have sufficiently showed to all the world.  
3. Under the pretence of expunging Popery, 
3. Vilified out Service-book.  which Bishop Jewel, Bishop Parry, Bishop Babington, Bishop Bilson, Bishop Morton, Bishop Davenant, Bishop Hall, and abundance more of the Reverend Bishops have confuted, expelled and kept out of our Church, more than any, yea than all their schismatical Disciples, whose Learning was no ways able to answer the weakest Arguments of our Adversaries, the Service Book that is established by Act of Parliament, and was by those holy Martyrs, that lost their lives, and spilt their blood in defence of the Protestant Religion, and defiance of erroneous Popery, so divinely and devoutly composed, as all the Reformation can bear witness, and I am well assured, the whole flock of these Convocants shall never be able, without this, to make any near so pious, must be totally cried down, and hath been in many places, burned, used to the uneleanest uses, and teared all to pieces; and to let you see their abomination herein, I must crave patience to transcribe, that it may the more generally pass, the Speech of Alderman Garroway, where he saith, pag. 7. 
Alderman Garreway, pag. 7.  Did not my Lord Mayor (that is, Pennington) first enter upon his Office with a Speech against the Book of Common Prayer? Hath the Common Prayer ever been read before him? Hath not Captain Venus said, that his Wife could make prayers worth three of any in that Book? O Masters, there have been times, that he which should speak against the Book of Common Prayer in this City, should not have been put to the patience of a Legal trial; we were wont to look upon it as the greatest treasure, and the Jewel of our Religion; and he that should have told us, he wished well to our Religion, and yet would have taken away the Book of Common Prayer would never have gotten credit. I have been in all the parts of Christendom, and have conversed with Christians in Turkey; why, in all the reformed Churches there is not any thing of more reverence than the English Liturgy, not our royal Exchange, nor the Navy of Queen Elizabeth, is so famous as this; in Geneva itself, I have heard it extolled to the skies. I have been three months together by sea, and not a day without hearing it read twice; the honest Mariners then despised all the world but the King and the Common Prayer Book; 
How the Mariners esteem the Liturgy.  he that should be suspected to wish ill to either of them, should have made but an ill voyage; and let me tell you, they are shrewd youths, those Seamen; if they once discern that the person of the King is in danger, or the Protestant professed Religion, they will show themselves mad bodies before you are ware of it; I would not be a Brownist or an Auabaptist in their way for— And yet, these men have so basely abused, and are so violent to abolish this excellent Book and divine Liturgy, that Many will not believe it though it should be told unto them: 
Hab. 1.5.  I would they did but read that Act of Parliament which is prefixed unto the same, to see if they regarded either the Law of God or Man, the Religion of the Clergy that composed it, or the wisdom of the Parliament that confirmed it.  
4. 
4. Abused the images and pictures of the Saints and other holy things.  Under colour to show their hatred to Idolatry, they have broken down the glass Windows of many Churches; shot off the heads of the Images of the blessed Virgin, and of our dear Saviour represented in her lap upon the porch of Saint Maries in Oxford; thrown away the Pictures of Christ, and of others his holy Apostles, and God's blessed Saints into the Rivers; taken the Ministers Surplices to make Frockes to preserve their  when they dressed their horses; and in Worcester they have done what I am ashamed to speak, and would loathe any modest ear to hear, made the Pulpit, and (not fare from the Town) the Fout their house of office, as I was informed by one of the gravest Doctors and Prehends of that Church; thrown down the Organs, which cost above fifteen hundred pounds, and taken the Pipes and Copes of the prebend's, and gone round about the Streets, with the Copes on their backs, and the Pipes in their hands, dancing the Moris' dance; so in Winscombe in Gloucester shire, they broke down the Organs, and made that Church their Slaughter house, when they killed certain Sheep that they had stolen, and dressed the same upon the Communion table; and in Lincoln Minster the Soldiers brought their horses into the Choir, laid their hay upon the holy Table, and made the House of God a Stable for their horses, that did now eat their hay where the Christians did use to communicate the Body and Blood of Christ; so that these men give their Saviour no better entertainment now in his glory, than the Jews did when he came in his humility, 
Luke 2.7.  but he shall be still kept low, and a Stable shall be good enough for his Mansion; yet, as in Canterbury they did but little less, so in Winchester they added this to their former profanations, to take the ashes of those Saxon Kings, that were kept in certain Urns, and threw them about the ground, as if death itself could not appease their rage. Scava sed in manes manibus arma dabant, It would fill a whole volume to relate all the villainies that they did of this kind, the consideration of which profane usage of holy places, made a worthy Gentleman pathetically to set down these fervent speeches; I would to God we had not cause to complain of the horrid and barbarous attempts of divers among us (Christians I can scarce call them) against some the mother Churches, 
* Canterbury, Worcester, Winchester, Gloucester, Chichester, and many others.  who as if they had studied to affront the Almighty to his face, and purposely with Manasses to anger him, have not spared to profane those goodly structures, and irreligiously and Antichristianlike to deface the instruments there prepared and employed in the service of the great God: at the very thought whereof I tremble and stand amazed, 
Master Theyer in his Treatise of Episcopacy, p. 56.57.  and can hardly believe the Christian world in any age (no not under the Goths and Vandals) can parallel it with an example of like abominable and atheistical villainies, yet to this day uncensured: and I am hearty sorry that it should be told in Gath or Ascalon, in any foreign Nation, that our English People should have any such Sect amongst them, so void of all humanity, so destitute of all thoughts of a Deity, and so full of all incredible impieties. And therefore I must use the words of the Prophet Jeremy, 
jer. 5.9.29.  Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? or, shall not my soul be avenged on such a Nation as this? or, is it any wonder, that there are such Wars, such bloody Wars, such barbarous rapines, and that these miseries do still continue amongst us; when we not only proceed to commit, but also to defend and justify these and the like abominable wickedness, 
Rom. 1.32. Heb. 10.31.  and have pleasure in them that do them? for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  
5. 
5. Branded the true Protestants, and advanced Anabaptists.  Under the colour of advancing the true Protestant Religion, they have branded the best Protestants, (even those that have most learnedly, both preached and written against the Church of Rome, and all her erroneous tenets, and were not long since registered in the class of Puritans, and for that cause kept under water) for Papists, and superstitiously Popish, and so Malignants and opposers of the true to be established Religion; and they have encouraged and promoted to the Live and Livelihoods of the most Orthodox and Canonical men. Anabaptists and Brownists, and other Sectaries of most desperate opinions, that (as Saint Bernard saith of the like, Multiplicati sunt super numerum;) as the Caterpillars overspread all the Land of Egypt, so these are multiplied in every corner, without number; and these tares have almost choked all the Wheat in God's field, and do preach most desperate Doctrines, destructive both to themselves, their proselytes, and all the truest Protestants throughout all this Kingdom; when as Sedition and rebellion, besides their other damnable Doctrines condemned by the Church, must ever be at one end of their Sermons, and published in their Pamphlets; as for instance, you may find in the bloody books and fiery writings of the darling Secretaries of thered Dragon, that warreth against the Saints, Stephen Martial, Master Bridges, Jo. Goodwin, Burroughes, and the rest of the Locusts, 
* Qua glomerantur in unum innumera pests Erebi, Claud.  that are sent out of the bottomless pit to seduce the People of God, and to lead them headlong unto perdition.  
But let me advise the Servants of Christ, to remember their Saviour's words, To beware of false Prophets; 
Matth. 7.15.  they shall deceive many, and many love to be deceived by them; those whom God hath given up, That they should believe a lie; 
2 Thess. 2.10.  Qui infatuati seducuntur, & seducti judicabuntur; but you that desire to escape their snares may know them by their fruits; 
The Authors advice.  which are Rebellion against their King, and railing against their Governors, Perjury against God, by the breaches of those Oaths, which in the face of the Church they have taken, both to the King and to their Superiors, 
Three notes by which we may know the false Apostles.  and a wilful perverting of the sacred Scriptures, to the perdition of their Proselytes; besides, many other bitter fruits, that worse than any Aconite are able to poison any Christian soul, that do but taste of their Philtras: or if you will believe these. Apples of Sodom, to be as sweet as they seem fair, then remember by what marks the Prophets and Apostles tell us that we may know them; 1. 
1. Note. Jer. 23.21.  Such as run before they be sent, as Weavers, Tailors, and the like, that never had any calling or Authority to enter upon this sacred Function. 2. They went from us, but are not of us; 
2. Note. 1 john 2.19.  such as were called, but then forsook their first love, and apostated from the Church, and like ungracious children did throw dirt in their mother's face, or like the brood of Vipers do labour to gnaw out her bowels; and here let the world judge, whether we went from them, or they from us; whether we or they apostated from that Oath and profession which all and every one of us did make when we entered into holy Orders.  
3. These false Prophets, saith the Apostle, 
3. Note. 2 Tim. 3 6, Gen. 3.1.6.  do lead simple or silly women captives; just as their Master first seduced Eve and she Adam, so do these; and because they have less worth than can attain to the height of their ambition, you may see most of them by women raised to great fortunes, and their pride disdaineth to be obedient; or if they fail of such wives, yet are they swelled with envy, which is as rebellious in these, as pride is in the other.  
6. Under the pretence of making our Clergy more spiritual and Apostolic, 
6. Ordered to take away all the revenues of the most worthy Clergy.  they have voted away most of our temporal estate, the Lands and Lordships of the Bishops, Deans, and prebend's, and the Pluralities of those persons that possessed double Benefices, and made their Order that no man should pay any rent or any deuce unto any of the forenamed persons. And by this taking away the freehold of the Clergy now in present, (which they hold with as good right, and by the same Law as the best Lord in England holdeth his Inheritance) and this discouragement of Learning for the time to come, they thought to make our Clergy Angelical, but have proved themselves, I will not say, diabolical, but most injurious unto the Church of Christ, by committing an Act of as great injustice, and as prejudicial to the Commonwealth, as can be found among the Pagans; for what can be more unjust, or more inhuman, than to take away my Livelihood, which is my very life, in mine old age, without any offence of mine, for which I had laboured all the days of my life▪ And what consequence can this produce, than (that which succeeded in the like case, in Jeroboams time, 
Sublatis studiorum praemiu ipsa studia pereunt, C. Tacit. 1 R●g. 12.31. Matth. 15.14.  when he rob the Priests and Levites of their inheritance) ignorance and barbarity, and the basest of the people to be the Preachers of God's Word, whereby the blind do lead the blind, until both do fall into the ditch; as I can testify, some of our greatest Nobility intended to make their son's Priests and Bishops, while the glory of Israel, and the beauty of our Church remained un-obscured, and now contempt and poverty being enacted and ordered to be their portion, those resolutions are vanished, and the Universities can bear me witness, the lowest Gentry are not so well contented to undertake this highest calling. These and many other things ejusdem farinae, of the same mould they have already done, to overwhelm the ship of Christ under the waves of this turbulent faction. And these profanations of Gods divine Service, and the violations of the Sepulchers of the dead (whose ashes and bones, like canes sepulchrales, they have disturbed in their graves) and those unheard of sacrileges on God's Priests and portion and are so equally practised, that it is almost hard to judge which are greater, either their impiety towards God, their inhumanity towards the dead, or their injustice towards the living.   

CHAP. VIII. Shows what discipline or Church-government our factious schismatics do like best, and twelve principal points of Doctrine, which they hold as twelve Articles of their faith, and we must all believe the same or suffer, if this faction should prevail.  
2. 
2. What discipline and doctrine the new Synod it like to set up.  FOr the discipline and the doctrine that they would establish, they have not yet, and I believe they can never fully agree what they shall be; their desire is first to overthrow the old, and then they will take care and consult how to devise a new; but I could wish they would let the old alone till they could agree to produce a better.  
Yet, because their blind zeal is so violent, to have their own unjust desires, to destroy the vineyard of Christ root and branch, I, that have served seven years, a Lecturer, among them, in the heart of London, and was conversant with the purest of these holy brethren, and thereby understood most of their anabaptistical and ridiculous tenets, and what discipline they best liked, will here draw you a model of their Utopian or new England Church, which they would transport hither to obscure the glory of old England.  
1. For their discipline and government, 
1. Their discipline.  some would have the Scotish Synods, and that form of Government, which old furious Knox hath first brought among them, and is fully described by that Reverend Archbishop Bancrofte; 
Bancrost in lib. English Scottizinge.  otherr like better of the Geneva Assemblies, instituted by Master Calvin, and continued by Theodore Beza, two worthy members of that Church, or the discipline of the Hugonots in the new French Reformation, which differeth but a little from the other; but most of them like better of the manner of Amsterdam, where every Church is independent, and every Pastor is a Pope in his own Parish; and to that purpose, you may remember how vehemently they have lately most foolishly written 
* As Smith, Best, Davenport, Can, Robinson, and M. Childley, and many other, anonymi.  for this independent Government, and how the Lord Say and the Lord Brookes, two leading Captains of that faction, have often protested they would dispense with all sorts of Religions so they might freely exercise their own; 
Sober Sadness, p. 22.  and that such a toleration ought to be granted, to all others; because their independency cannot otherwise consist; for he that is accountable to none, will use what Religion he pleaseth without control; and therefore they support their own Army by men of all Nations and Religions, not their grand Adversaries the Papists excepted, but of fifty or fixty Soldiers that billeted in Adthrop there were no less than three or four Papists amongst them.  
But how unsuitable these Governments would prove to stand with our English Nobility, 
Now unsuitable their government would be to our Genine.  and Gentry, (besides the novelty of them, and how fare dissonant they are to the Apostolic diseipline) I will appeal to their own judgement, when every undiscreet Parson and poor Vicar shall be able, upon every discontent to excommunicate the best man in his Parish, and as we have seen some of them debarring whom they pleased from the holy Table, because their great anger, or little judgement conceived them to be unworthy. When as the Church deemed it fit that none of her children should undergo the least indignity for any personal distaste, but upon due examination of witnesses, a full hearing, and a just censure in open Court; which course if it be neglected, should be rather punished in the offenders, than the discipline dissolved, the Governors removed, and a new fantastical fancy erected.  
2. 
2. The Doctrines of the faction that are like to be settled by the new Synod.  For the Doctrines of these men, they are like the poetical fiction of those sister's forma non omnibus una nec diversa tamen; I did once intent, while I lived amongst them to collect a whole Volume of them; but Satan then prevented me, and plotted my destruction for mine intention; yet now, I will set down these few, out of those many, which I then observed.  
1. 
1. They search into God's secrets. Deut. 29.29.  Though Moses saith, The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and our children for ever: yet these men are all gnostics, they know very much, even of the secrets and counsels of God, and they are sure who shall be saved, and who shall be damned; and as men of the cabinet counsel of God, they broach their illusions for divine revelations, and persuade the People that what they say or do is all from God; and therefore that this War which they prosecute, was preordained of God for the destruction of the wicked, to whom they formerly preached their damnation, and thereby have caused many silly souls most desperately to end the miseries of their wretched life, by putting themselves to an untimely death.  
2. They only, 
2. They judge themselves only the elect.  as the elect of God (which shall be the sole heirs of heaven) are the Lords Proprietories of all this worldly wealth, and the reprobates being enemies unto God, have no right unto any of God's creatures; and therefore they think they may lawfully take away the goods of those reprobates, whom now they call Malignants, and they have as good warrant for it, as ever the Israelites had to spoil the Egyptians; for they tell us, that Saint Paul, which knew right from wrong, tells them plainly, that whether they be things present, 
1 Cor. 3.22, 23.  or things to come, even all are yours, and ye Christ's, and Christ Gods; 
That there is a double right to the things of this world. Psal. 104.28. Matth. 5.45.  but they understand not that men have a double right unto these worldly goods. 1. As Christians, and so God as a merciful Father, hath provided all things for them. 2. As the Creatures of God; and so God as a faithful Creator, openeth his hand, and filleth all things living with plenteousness; and maketh his Sun, to shine upon the just and upon the unjust; and so the wicked have as good an interest in their estates as the godly; and besides, God hath not given them the power to distinguish who are the elect, or who are reprobates.  
And therefore, if we have any regard of our goods, that God hath given us, we have great reason to look about us, for these are the greatest Cheaters in Christendom, and as they have made us Malignants, so they will make us reprobates when they please, that they may enjoy those things that we have. 
3. They think themselves free from all sin. Numb. 23.21. Tit. 1.15.   
3. Because Balaam saith, God beheld no iniquity in Jacob; and the Apostle saith, To the pure all things are pure: they teach their proselytes, that in them, which are the holy Brethren, there is no sin, and their adultery, drunkenness, cozenage, and the like odious crimes are no crimes, because God loving them so tenderly, as a fond mother seethe no fault in her untoward child, so he takes no notice of any offence that they commit; but for the ungodly, their Prayers are sins, their Alms are odious, and whatsoever commendable duty they do perform, 
To the unbelieving nothing is pure, Titus 1.15.  God accounteth their best actions to be heinous transgressions, and to add the more weight of punishment to their damnation; which Doctrine how abominable it is to God, and how destructive to all men, to make these holy Brethre and their sanctified Sisters senseless in all sins, uncapable of repentance, 
Matth 9.12.  when the whole hath no need of the Physician; and to discourage all other ignorant men from doing good duties, when the performance of them shall multiply their stripes, is so apparent to all men, that I need not stand to confute it; for, if Coniah (though he wear the signet upon my right hand; 
jer. 22.24  or, as the apple of mine eye) doth offend, I will cut him off; and if the wicked forsake his wickedness, 
Ezech. 33.15.  and do that which is just, love mercy, and speak truth, he shall be accepted, and the Lord will not call light darkness, nor good evil in any one.  
4. 
4. They allow the women to offend while their husband's sleep. joh 11.11. 1 Cor. 7.39.  Because our Saviour saith, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; when as indeed he was dead, and the Heathens say, Sleep is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, the brother of death, they take this colour to hid their adulteries, that while the husband sleepeth, the wife is as free from him as if he were dead, a foolery so ridiculous that the naming of it is a sufficient confutation of it, and yet you shall hardly withdraw our London Anabaptists from it.  
5. 
5. They justify many kinds of lies and equivocatious. Gen. 12.13. Acts 23.5.  Because Abraham said that Sara was his sister, and Saint Paul said, I witted not brethren that he was the high Priest: they hold it as an Article of their Creed, that for officious lies and equivocations, being for the furtherance of their cause, the good work which they pretend, they may and aught to use them, to swallow them down like water, they make no bones of them; and therefore it is dangerous to treat, and weakness to give credit, without sufficient pledges, to the faith of these men; whose profession may as lawfully deceive us, as their Religion teacheth them to destroy us, and I believe the experience which his Majesty's Officers had of them in the performance of their promises and conditions of departure from Winchester, Reading, and other Towns surrendered unto them may sufficiently confirm this equivocal point of their Public Faith.  
6. 
6. They would root out all those that they term wicked. Deut. 7.2. 1 Sam. 15.23. Psal. 58.8.  Because the Lord straight charged the Israelites to root out the wicked Canaanites and the rest of those cursed Nations, and translated the Kingdom of Israel from Saul unto David, because he spared Agag: and our Saviour bids us, succidere ficum, to cut down that unprofitable tree which bore no fruit, they are so filled with such unmerciful cruelty towards all those they term wicked, and judge Malignants, that they had better fall into the hands of heathen Tyrants, than of these their holy brethren, who embruing their hands in the blood of so many faithful Christians, do sing with the Psalmist, The righteous rejoice when they see this vengeance, they shall wash their feet in the blood of the ungodly: for as Solomon saith, The tender mercies of the wicked are mere cruelty. 
Prov. 12.10.  And I believe the first inventors of that Design to root out all the Papists in Ireland, and to get that Act to purchase all the Lands of the Rebels, had tasted too much of this bitter root of such destructive Doctrine; whereby you see how the Religion of these men robs us of our Estates, keeps no faith with us, and takes away our lives.  
7. Though among the works of God, 
7. They would have a parity among all men both in Church and Common wealth. Gal. 5.6. Col. 3.11.  every flower cannot be a Lily, every beast cannot be a Lion, every bird cannot be an Eagle, and every Planet cannot be Phoebus; yet in the School of these men, this is the Doctrine of their to be new erected Church, that with God there is no respect of persans, and neither Circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but whether they be bond or free, masters or servants, few; or Gentile, Barbarian, Scythian, a country Clown, or a Court Gallant, rich or poor; it is all one with God; because these Titles of Honour, Kings, Lords, Knights, and Gentlemen are no entities of Gods making, but the creatures of man's invention, to puff him up with pride, and not to bring him unto God; and therefore though for the bringing of their great good work to pass, they are yet contented to make the Earl of Essex their General, and Warwick their Admiral, and so Pym and Hampden great Officers of State; yet, when the work is done, their Plot perfected, and their Government established, than you shall find, that as now, they will eradicate Episcopacy, and make all our Clergy equal, as if all had equally but one talon, and no man worthier than another; so then there should be neither King, Lord, Knight, nor Gentleman, but a parity of degrees among all these holy Brethren; and to give us a taste of what they mean! as the Lords concurrence with them enabled them to devour the King's power; so they have since, with great justice, prevailed with the House of Commons to swallow up the Lord's power, and have most fairly invaded their privilege, when they questioned particular Members 
* As my Lord Duke, and my Lord Dighte.  for words spoken in that House, and then the whole House, when they brought up and countenanced a mutinous and seditious Petition, which demanded the Names of those Lords, that consented not with the House of Commous in those things, which that House had twice denied.  
8. 
8 They would have no man to pray for temporal things. Mat. 6.33.34. Matth. 6.11.  Because our Saviour saith, Seek ye first the Kingdom of of Heaven and the righteousness thereof, and all these things, that is meat, and drink, and clothes, and all other earthly things, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, shall be cast unto you: and again, Be not careful for to morrow; they teach their proselytes, that they ought not to pray, by any means, for any of these things; whereas Christ biddeth us to say, Give us this day our daily Bread.  
9 
9 Not to say the Lords Prayer.  They cannot endure to say the Lords Prayer, for that's a Popish superstition, but their Prayers must be all tautologies, and a circular repetition of their own indigested inventions.  
10. 
10. Not to say, God speed you, 2 john to 11.11. Not to pray for the Malignants. 1 john 5.16.  You must not say, God speed you, to any neighbour or any traveller, lest he intends some evil work, and then you shall be partaker of his sin.  
11. They will not allow any of their Disciples to pray for any of the Reprobates; and therefore they do exceedingly blame us, and tear our Liturgy, because we say, That it may please thee to have mercy upon all men.  
12. Because Christ saith, Call no man father on earth, for one is your Father which is in Heaven: the child must not call him that begat him and nurseth him his father, not kneel unto him to ask him blessing, nor perform many other such duties which the Lord requireth, and the Church instructeth her children to do to this very day; and this foolish Doctrine of calling no man father, no man master, or Lord and the like, in their sense, (because they understand not the divine meaning of our Saviour's word) hath been the cause of such undutifulness and untowardness, such contempts of superiors, and such rebellions to Authority as is beyond expression; when as by their disloyalty, being thus bred in them from their cradle, they first despise their father, than their Teachers, than their King, and then God himself.   

CHAP: IX. Sheweth three other special points of Doctrine, which the Brownists and Anabaptists of this Kingdom do teach.  
13. BEcause they can find no Text in Scripture, when as the Alcoran is not so impudently hellish, as to justify the action, for to warrant men, to absolve our consciences from any Oaths that we have voluntarily taken, for the performance of any business, I cannot say that they do professedly teach, but I do hear they do usually practise this most damnable sin; as that Master Martial and Master Case did absolve the Soldiers taken at Brainceford from their Oath, which they took, never to bear Arms against his Majesty; which is a sin destructive both to body and soul, when their Perjury added to their Treason, makes them twofold more the children of hell than they were before, and if they be taken again, they can expect nothing but their just deserved death; and therefore I do admire that any man can challenge the name of a Divine, which doth either preach or practise a point so devilish.  
14. Because Saint Paul saith, These hands have ministered to my necessities and to them that were with me: 
14. They think sacrilege to be no sin. Acts 20.35. 1 Thess. 2.9. 1 Cor. 1.12.  and again, Labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable to any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God: and because the rest of the Apostles and Disciples were Fishermen, Trades, men, or professors of some Science, either liberal or mechanic, as Saint Luke was a Physician, Joseph a Carpenter, and the like, who did live by their manual crafts, and were chargeable to none of their people, but sought them, and not theirs, to win their souls to God, and not their moneys unto themselves; therefore they think it no robbery to take away all the revenues of the Church, nor sacrilege to rob the Clergy of all the means they have; because they should either labour for their live, as the Apostles did, or live upon the people's. Alms, as many poor Ministers do, to the utter undoing of many souls, in many distressed and most miserable Churches.  
But because this revenue of the Church and the Lands of the Bishops is that golden wedge, and the brave Babylonish garment, which the Anabaptistical achan's of our time do most of all thirst after, in this their pretended holy Reformation, I must here sistere gradum, stay a while and let you know:  
1. 
1. Sacrilege What it is.  That the taking away of any Lands or goods given and consecrated to holy uses, and to convert the same to any other purpose than which they were dedicated, is termed sacrilege; that is, the stealing of holy goods from the right owners, to ourselves and others to whom we leave them?  
2. 
2. That is a sin.  That this sacrilege is a sin; for it is a snare to the man, who devoureth that which is holy, and after vows to make inquiry; that is, whether such a service be needful, or such a taking away be a sin.  
3. 
3. A great sin.  That this sin is a very great sin; for Saint Paul saith, Thou that abhorrest idols, committest thou sacrilege? And idolatry is the giving of our goods and service to false gods, sacrilege the taking away of goods dedicated to the service of any, God, especially of the true God; and this seemeth by the Apostles words to be a greater sin than the other; because the devil laboureth more to take away the service of the true God than to establish his own service; for he knoweth that as light taken away, darkness must needs follow, 
Hosea 2.8. Ezech. 16. 1 Reg. 18.19. Gen. 22.  so the true Religion being destroyed, idolatry must needs succeed; and he knoweth that idolatry hath been bountiful enough to the service of idols, that he needeth not so much to fear the taking away of their goods, as to care that the goods dedicated to God's service be taken away.  
4. That this sin is a very dangerous sin, both to 

1. The Persons that commit it.  
2. 
4. A most dangerous sin. joshua 7. Acts 5.4. 1. To the sacrilegers.  To the Commonwealth that suffers it; for,    
1. Not only Achan, Ananias and Sapphira, and other private men perished for this sin, but the proudest Kings, and greatest Peers that became sacrilegious, were plagued and destroyed by God; as Belshazzar, the great Monarch of Assyria; William Rufus, and abundance more that you may find in our Histories; for the curse of God, like Damocles sword, by a slender thread hangs over their heads, and makes them like those that perished at Endor, and became as the dung of the earth; and I beseech you mark it, Make them like a wheel, and as the stubble before the wind, persecute them with thy tempest, let them be confounded, and be put to shame, and perish, which say, let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession; and if this be the guerdon of them that say it, I wonder what shall be the plague of them that do it; and I wonder more that the very thought of this curse doth not make their hearts to tremble, if their consciences were not seared to be senseless of all fear.  
2. 
2. To whole Nations.  The sin of sacrilege extendeth itself not only to the persons committing it, but also to the whole Nation that suffereth it, as the sin of Achan was not only a snare to catch him to be destroyed, but it troubled all Israel, so that they were still discomfited, and never prospered, till the sacriledger was punished, and the Lord appeased.  
If you say the sin is taken away, when the Parliament takes these things away.  
I answer, that we must not idolise the Parliament, as if it were a kind of omnipotent Creature, and like the Pope, such an infallible Lord God upon earth, as that their Votes and Sanctions were the supremest rule of justice, that cannot be unjust, because they are enacted by the whole State; because as no conclusions are therefore truths because determined by a whole Counsel, so no Laws are therefore just, because done by a whole Parliament, but when they do agree with the common rules of truth and justice, which God hath given unto men, and shown the same in his holy Word, which he hath left to be the right rule of our actions.  
And therefore if the greatest Assemblies, Parliament, or Counsel, make not the will of God the rule to guide their proceed thereby, their Sanctions are so fare from taking away the nature of the sin, that they do increase the evil, and make it the more out of measure sinful, and to become a national sin, that before was but personal, and the more exceedingly sinful, when the same is confirmed by a Law, so that none dares speak against it, and the sinners are become senseless in their sins; and therefore the Prophet demandeth, how any man, that feareth God, dares meddle with such a people, that will thus justify their sins, saying, Shall the throne of iniquity, that is, any unjust course, have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a Law? And the Lord doth extremely threaten them, that walk after unrighteous ordinances, as that they should sow much, but not reap; tread the olives, but not anoint themselves therewith, 
Mich 6.15, 16 Hos. 5.10.11.  and sweet wine, but not drink it, because the statutes of Omri are kept; and all the works of the house of Achab, and they walked in their counsels: and the Prophet Hosea doth more fully set down the wrath of God both against the makers and the observers of all unrighteous Laws.  
If you say, 
Object.  the Lands and Lordships of the Bishops were not the patrimony of the Church, but were only, in superstitious times, given by our Kings and others unto the Churchmen; and therefore now, the King being in want, they may be restored to the Crown again.  
I confess the Lands of the Church are the free bequests of godly Kings, 
Sol.  and of other pious men dead long ago, with most fearful imprecations made against all those that should seek to alter their Wills and Testaments; and the Apostle saith, If it be but amans Testament, no man altereth it; that is, 
Gal. 3.15.  no honest man ought to alter it, though perhaps his Will might have been made wiser, and his goods bestowed to better use; for our Saviour's maxim, when he gave a Penny to him that laboured but one hour, and but a Penny to him that had endured the heat of the day, is unanswerable, Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? and therefore,  
1. As others daily leave their estates of great amount to whom they please, many times to strangers, & perhaps to idiots or debauched persons, of wicked lives and noxious manners; and yet no man grudgeth, or endeavoureth to take away those just Legacies, which their good Benefactors had bestowed upon these unjust men; so there is no reason, that any man's eyes should be evil for the goodness of their Ancestors unto the Clergy, but that their Wills should stand to those uses after their death, as intemerate, as if they were now alive to dispose of their beneficence.  
2. They are most injurious to the King, (who is wise as an Angel of God, and therefore holdeth this sacrilege odious to his princely heart) that would seek to enrich his Crown with that, which will shake it on his head, and endanger all his Posterity to such fearful judgements as his progenitors have denounced, and God hath executed upon many Kings and Princes for the like sins; for as Moses prayeth against the sacrilegious enemies of Levi, 
Deut. 33.11.  Smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again: so we find that many ancient families, having by the Statute of Dissolution taken some of the Lands and Tithes of the Church into their possessions, 
Pierius in Hieroglyph.  have found the same like the Gold of toulouse, or the eagle's feathers, pernitiosa potentia, that will consume all the feathers where they shall be mingled,  
Who so is wise will consider these things, 
Aelian. l. 5. c. 15. Var. Hist.  and will not to satisfy these anabaptistical dregs of the people, and the enemies of all Christian Religion, sacrilegiously take away, with Aelians boy, the golden plate from Diana's Crown, the Lands and Revenues of the Church; but, having not so learned Christ, they will do that which becometh Saints, and suffer the dead to enjoy their own will in that wherein they put them to no charge, and if they do intent to promote God's service, they will not rob Saint Peter to pay Saint Paul, but will rather say with holy David, God forbidden that I should offer sacrifice to God of that which cost me nothing.  
15. As any wooden Preachers, like Jeroboams Priests the face plebis, scarce worthy to be compared with the Grooms of their stable, 
job 30.8.  or such humi serpents, poor abjects, as Job speaks of, The sons of villains and bondmen, more vile than the earth they crawl upon, are fit enough to be their teachers and beggarly pensioners; so any place, a thatched barue, a littered stable, 
What prayers and Sermons please these men.  or an ample Cowhouse is thought by these to be very fair and fit to be the House of Him that was borne in a stable and laid in a manger; and any service, prayers without sense, such as our Saviour blames, and preaching without learning, without truth, such as their Euthusiasts conceive in illa hora, & quicquid in buccam venerit, without any further study of meditation, is justified to be most acceptable to God; witness the Author of one argument more against the Cavaliers, where that great Scholar in his own opinion, rails against our grave Bishops, and most impudently reproacheth a very reverend man of known worth, and great learning, by the scandalous epithet of The ceremonious Master of Balliol College, Doctor Lanrence, whom for a most learned and pious Sermon preached before the King, upon these words of Exodus, Put off thy shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground: he doth, just like the eldest son of his dear father the devil (as Tertullian calleth Hermogenes, primogenitum diaboli) most falsely and shamelessly charge him with the wearing of consecrated slippers, which was never done, but is one of those scurrilous invented imputations of this malicious Accuser of his brethren, now thrown at him, whose shoes, either for learning or piety, I am sure, this rambling Arguist, and railing Rabsheka is not worthy to bear; and for the service of God in our Churches, 
Music ever used in the Church.  though the holy Prophet, which was A man according to Gods own heart, praised God in the beauty of holiness, upon all the best instruments of music, and commanded us as well in the grammatical sense, as in the my sticall sense, 
Psal. 147.1.149 3. 150 3, 4, 5.  to sing praises unto our God with Tabret and Harpe, to praise him in the sound of the Trumpet, in the Cymbals and dances, upon the well tuned Cymbals, and upon the loud Cymbals; yet this zealous Organomastix, gives us none other Title, than Cathedral Roarers and Squeakers: 
Pag. 14.  and good reason it is he should be very angry with roaring and squeaking in Churches; for that having been possessed of a very competent Living with cure of souls these four or five years together (if I am not mistaken in the Author) he never yet either read or preached in that or any other Church; so necessary is none residence, and so useful are dumb dogs, when they are willing to snarl and bark against Government and Religion: but it is strange to me, that such a divine harmony, which hath made others sober, 
Music how useful.  should make this spawn of the red Dragon mad; for we know some Lawgivers commanded children to be taught 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, 
Theodorie. Epist. l. 2. Plutarch de Musica.  after the grave composed tones of the Doric way, ad corda fera demulcenda, to soften the fierceness of their dispositions, and All mentis fervorem temperandum, to cool and allay the hear and distempers of their minds, as Achilles was appeased in Homer, 
Niceph. l. 12. c. 43.  and Theodosius was drawn to commiseration, luctuoso carmine, by a sad poem sung to him at supper, when he intended the utter destruction of Antioch; and the Scripture testifieth the like effect of David's harp in King Saul; yet all this sweet and hallowed air, which ravisheth devout souls, hath only filled this envious Malignant with nasty winds and stinking expressions. So contrary to the words of God himself, Exod. 3.5. and against the judgement of all Divines, and the practice of all Saints, â primordiis ecclesiae, from the first birth of God's Church, 
Pag. 15.18.  he most ignorantly denieth any place to be holier than another, which makes me afraid, that Heaven with this man and his faction is deemed no holier than Hell, or the Lord's day no holier than monday, no more than they hold the Church holier than their barns, or the holiest Priest, though he were Aaron himself, the Saint of the Lord, holier than the profanest worldling; for I find no difference that they make either of persons, times, or places, but such a commixtion of all things, as if they intended to reduce and bring the whole world into that confused Chaos, which God first created, before he disposed the parts thereof into their several stations.  
But I am loath to spend any more time about this ignorant' Argument, that is, as all the rest of their Writings are, as full of railing and unsavoury speeches as any mortal pen can diffuse; therefore Heave him to do with his heart and mouth as that Morussian Cabares (whereof he speaketh) did with those Churches, which the Goths and Vandals had defiled.  
Thus you have some, and I might add here abundance more of their absurd & impious Doctrines, which their ignorant simplicity produced, and their furious zeal published out of misinterpreted Scriptures; not that all these points are taught by every one of their Teachers, but that all these & many more are taught and maintained by some one or other of them, as I could easily express it, if it were not too tedious for my Reader; but the bulk of my Book swells too big, and their fancies are but Dreams fit for laughter, and I brought these only as Vinegar to be tasted, and then to be spit out again.   

CHAP. X. Sheweth the great Bugbears that affrighted this faction; the four special means they used to secure themselves; the manifold lies they raised against the King, and the two special questions that are discussed about Papists.  
5. 
5. The settling of the Milit. a.  FOr the settling of the Militia, and putting the whole Kingdom in a posture of Defence, as they termed it: 

1. They dreamt of a desperate Disease.  
2. They devised an empirical way to cure it.   and,  
1. 
1. The disease.  The Disease was a monstrous fear of Popery, and the re-establishment of abolished superstitions in our Church, to invade their consciences, and of the Papists, with fire and sword, to waste their, estates, and to take away their lives and liberties, and through that groundless fear, they looked on the innocent ceremonies, that were established in the Church, as dangerous innovations and introductions to idolatry.  
And in the State, they feared the practised ways and endeavours, to produce an arbitrary government by our advancing of a boundless prerogative, even to the despoiling of the Subject of his property, and robbing him of the benefit of the laws: these were their fears.  
And the grounds of these fears were lying fictions, and most scandalous detractions and defamations; for their invented letters that should come from Holland, and from Denmark, and some other places beyond the Seas, (where we were better believe them, then go try whether they were true) wh ich informed them sometimes of a fleet of Danes, sometimes of another Nation, that should come to assist the King for the setting up of Popery, and the securing of himself in a tyrannical and arbitrary government over them: 
What terrible things frighted them.  and every day almost produced a discovery of new treacheries against the Parliament, what terrible things frighted them; as the stable of Horses under ground, (for indeed they were invisible Horses, such as Elisha's servant saw, terrifying their guilty consciences) and that of the Tailors in moorfield's, and the like horrid machinations, that were to come against them, I know not from whom, and God knows from whence; which things, how false they were, time, which is the mother of truth, hath long ago made manifest and ridiculous, to any man that is not bewitched with these lying fancies: therefore, lest these dreams of their distempered brains, should be too soon descried, and so prove defective to produce their intended project, they allege the Queen is a Papist (and I would to God they were so truly religious, and void of hypocrisy in their profession, as she, most gracious Queen, is in her religion) than they say, the Bishops are all Papists, Deans and prebend's are of the same stamp, and all the Kings Chapleines, that were preferred by the Archbishop were either close papists or professed Arminians, which are but Cousin germans unto the other, Arminianism being but a bridge to pass over unto popery.  
And with these and the like false slanders against the King, Queen, and Clergy, they so bewitehed most of their well meaning brethren of the same house, and amazed all the simplet sort of people of this Kingdom with these fears, and filled them with such jealousies, with those pamphlets, that they caused to be printed, and dispersed every where, that they were at their wit's end, for fear of this lamentable alteration of their religion, and deprivation of their liberties.  
2, 
2. The Cure.  The disease being thus spread, like a gangrene, over all the parts of the body of this Kingdom, they like skilful Physicians devise the cure; and that is, the preparation of a Militia; and this militia they would have put into such hands as they pleased, such as they might confide in; and I wish the whole Kingdom knew who those men were, and who they are, that they do confide in; for I know,  
1. Some of them are poor men of most desperate fortunes, if bankrupters may be termed such;  
2. Others to be most factious and schismatical men, addicted to Anabaptism and Brownism and other worse sects; as amongst the London Commanders, Venus, Manwaring, Fawlke, Norington, Bradly, Bast and the rest, whereof there are twice as many schismatical, and as it is conceived, beggarly sectaries, as are right honest men among them; and if we looked among their Lords, and all the rest of their nomination throughout the Kingdom, I doubt we shall find some of them to be just of the same condition.  
And because the King (to whose care and trust God had committed all the people of this Kingdom, (and not to them, that are called by the King, and chosen only by men, and that only for this time,) and of whom he will require an account of the laws and religion whereof he made him keeperand defender, and not of them) thought most rightly, that this Militia should be committed rather to such men, as he might confide in (as it was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and His Father of ever blessed memory) rather than to any that they should name, which was to disrobe himself of all his regal power, of the chiefest garland of his royal prerogatives, (without which he could hold his Crown by no better a tenure, then durante beneplacito) and to put the sword out of his own hand, into the hands of them that could not love him, because they could not trust him, as they alleged; (and what reason had he to trust them that were causelessly so distrustful of him?) they startled at this denial.  
And because the King of heaven had by this time opened the King's eyes, 
God openeth the King's eyes.  to let him see what hitherto he could hardly imagine, that these men (to whom he had granted for the good of his Kingdom, so many acts of grace and favour, as never any King of England did before, and had very graciously offered to commit to the hands of their own choosing, so large a share of the Militia, as might have rendered the whole Kingdom most secure, if security in a just and legal way had been all that they sought for) had their intentions far otherwise then they pretended, and that not only the government of the Church was intended to be altered, and the governor's thereof destroyed, but himself also was hereby disrobed of those rights, which God and the laws of the land had put into his hands, and the Kingdom brought either into a base tyranny, or confused anarchy, when all things shall be done according to the arbitrary power of these factious and schismatical men, therefore he utterly refused to grant their desires, and most wisely withstood their design.  
Whereupon, these men put their heads together, 
How they strengthened themselves to make their ordors firm with out the king.  to consult how they might strengthen themselves, and make their ordinances firm and binding without the King; and to that purpose, having by their former do, gotten too great an interest as well in the faith, as in the affections of the people, in confidence of their own strength, they came roundly to the business, and what they knew was not their right, as their former Petitions can sufficiently witness, they resolve to effect the same by force, but as insensibly as they can devise; as,  
1. To seize upon the King's Navy to secure the Seas.  
2. To lay hold upon all the King's Magazine, Forts, Towns, and Castles.  
3. To withhold his monies and revenues, and all other means from the King.  
4. To withdraw the affections, and to poison the loyalty of all his Majesty's Subjects from him.  
And hereby they thought (and it must have been so indeed, 
Psa, 30, 6  except the Lord had been on his side) they had made their hill so strong, that it could not be moved, and the King so weak and destitute of all means, that he could no ways subsist or relieve himself, as a member of their own House did tell me, for  
1. 
1 Earl of Warw●ck made vice Admiral.  They get the Earl of Warwick to be appointed Vic-admirall of the Sea, and to commit all the King's Navy into his hand, and to take away that charge from Sir john Pennington, whom most men believed to be fare the better Seaman, but more faithful to his King, and the other purer to the Parliament.  
2. 
2 Sir john Hotham put to Hull for the Magazine,  They fend Sir John Hotham a most insolent man, that most uncivilly contemned the King to his face, to seize upon the King's Magazine that he bought with his own money, (when they might as well take away my horse that I paid for) and to keep the King out of Hull, which was his own proper Town, and therefore might as well have kept him out of Whitehall, and was an act so full of injustice, as that I scarce know a greater.  
3. 
3 They detained the king's moneys. Esay 1, 23.  Because monies are great means to effect any worldly affair, and the sinews of every war, when as men and arms and all other necessaries may be had for money, some of them and their followers show themselves to be just as the Peers of Israel, companions of thiefs, mere robbers, which forcibly take away a man's money from him; they take all the King's treasure, they intercept, detain, and convert all the King's revenues and customs, to strengthen themselves against the King.  
4. Because their former Remonstrances framed by this faction, 
4 They labour to render the king odious by lies.  of the ill government of this Kingdom, though in some things true, (which the King ingeniously acknowledgeth, and most graciously promiseth to redress them) yet in all things full of gall and bitterness against the King, could not so fully poison the love and loyalty of the King's Subjects, as they desired, especially the love of those that knew his Majesty, who the better they knew him, did the more affectionately love him, and the more faithfully serve him; they thought to do it another and a surer way, with apparent lies, palpable slanders, and abominable accusations, invented, printed, and scattered over all the parts of this Kingdom, by their trencher Chaplains, and parasitical Preachers, and other Pamphleteers, some busy Lawyers and Pettifoggers, to bring the King into an odium, disliked and deserted of all his loving Subjects. And what created power under heaven was able to dissolve that wickedness, which subtlety and malice had thus treacherously combined to bring to pass?  
Hereupon (after many threatening votes, 
1 Lie, that he intended to war against his Parliament.  and actual hostility exercised against his Royal person) the King is forced to raise a guard for the defence of himself, and those his good Subjects that attended him; then presently that small guard, that consisted but of the chief gentry of the Country, was declared to be an army raised for the subversion of the Parliament, and the destruction of our native liberties; an invincible army is voted to be raised, the Earl of Essex is chosen to be their General, with whom they promise both to live and die, the Earl of Bedford General of the Horse, monies are provided, and all things are prepared to fetch the King and all delinquents, or to be the death of all withstanders; and that nothing might hinder this design, though the King in many gracious Messages attested by the subscription of many noble Lords that were upon the place, assured them, he never intended any war against his Parliament, yet they proceed with all eagerness, and declare all those that shall assist the King, either with Horse, money, or men, to be malignants and enemies unto the King and Kingdom, and such delinquents as shall be sure to receive condign punishment by the Parliament, Hoc mirum est, hoc magnum.  
And among the rest of their impudent slanders, this was their Masterpiece, which they ever harped upon, that he countenanced Papists, and intended to bring Popery into this Kingdom, and to that end had an Army of Papists to assist him.  
But to satisfy any sensible man in this point, I would crave the resolution of these two Questions:  
1. 
Two questions to be resolved.  Whether every Papist that is subject to his Majesty is not bound to assist and defend his King in all his dangers?  
2. Whether the King should not protect his Subjects that are Papists in all their dangers, so fare as by the Law he ought to do it; 
1. All Papists bond to assist their King.  and accept of their service when himself is environed with dangers?  
For first, I believe there is no Law that inhibiteth a Papist to serve his King against a Rebellion, or to ride post, to tell the King of a Design to murder Him, or any other intended Treason against Him; or being present, to take away a weapon from that man that attempted to kill the King; because his not coming to Church doth not exempt him from his Allegiance, or discharge him of his duty and service unto the King and therefore if a Fleet from France or Spain or any other foreign part should invade us, or any Rebellion at home should rise against his Sovereign, and sack to destroy those Laws and Liberties whereof themselves and his Posterity hath as good an interest as any other Subject, I say, he is bound by all Laws to assist his King, and to do his best endeavour, both with his purse and in his person, not only to oppose that external Invasion, but also to subdue, as well that homebred Rebellion, as the foreign Invasion.  
2. 
2. The King bound to protect dutiful Papists.  If a Papist should be injured, his estate seized upon, his house plundered, and his person, if taken, imprisoned, not because he transgressed any other Law, but that he dispenceth not with the Law of his conscience, to be no Papist; and being thus injured, should come unto his King, and say, I am your Subject, and have lived dutifully, I did nothing which the Law gives me not leave, I have truly paid all duties and humbly submitted myself to all penalties; and yet I know not why, I am thus used and abused by my neighbours; I am driven from my house by force of Arms, and I have no place to breathe, but under your Majesty's wings and the shelter of your power; therefore I beseech you, as you are my King, and are obliged to do your best for the safety of your true Subjects, let me have your protection, and you shall have my service unto death? I would fain know what the King should do in such a case; deny his protection, or refuse his service? the one is injustice, the other not the best wisdom, especially if he needed service; for as the Law of nature and of nations requireth all Subjects, to obey their Kings and faithfully to serve them, of what Religion soever their Kings shall be; so Liege relationis, every King is bound to protect every faithful Subject, that observeth his Laws, or submitteth to their penalties, without corrupting of his fellow Subjects, of what Religion soever he is: because they are his Subjects, not as they are faithful Christians, but as obedient men, and he is to rule, not over the faith of their souls, but the actions of their bodies; and it is an Axiom in Divinity, that Fides non cogenda; and if Kings cannot persuade their Subjects to embrace the true Faith, they ought not to cut them off, so long as they are true Subjects: and therefore with what reason can any man blame the King, either for protecting them in their distresses, or accepting their sevice in his own extremities? I cannot understand. And yet, for the goodly company of Papists which his Majesty entertaineth in all his Armies, they cannot all make up so much as one good Regiment, as an Officer in his Majesty's Army confidently affirmeth; but it will serve their turn to tax the King, to lay imputations upon him, even the very things that belong unto themselves (as the whole sum of those things that are expressed in England's Petition to their King, 
Pag. 10.  mutatis mutandis might truly be presented to the two Houses, that have now almost destroyed us all) and to make them mighty faults in him, which are no faults at all in themselves; because there is no fear of their favouringPoperie, though, as they have very many, so they should have never so many more in their Army. 
3. Lie, that he caused the Rebellion in Ireland.   
Another Slander they not only whispered, but also dispersed the same fare and near among the people, to make the King still the more odious unto his Subjects, that he was the cause of the Rebellion in Ireland, and that the Rebels there had his Commission under the Broad Seal, to plunder the Protestants and to expel them thence; that so the Gospel being rooted out of Ireland, Popery might the easier be transported and planted here in England; whereas themselves in very deed were the sole causers of this Rebellion, as I have showed unto you before; 
The cause of this slander.  and the colour of this slander was, that the Rebellion being raised, the Ringleaders of those Rebels, the sooner to gain the simple to adhere unto them, persuaded them to believe that they had the Kings command to do the same; and to that purpose shown them the Broad Seal, which they had taken from Ministers, and Clerks of the Peace, and others, whom formerly they had plundered, and taken their Seals from them, which they cunningly affixed to certain Commissions of their own framing; as M Sherman assured me, he saw the Broad Seal that was taken from one M. Hart, that was Clerk of the Peace in the County of Tumond; and was found in the pocket of one of the chief Leaders of the Rebels, when he was killed by the King's Soldiers; yet, this false and lewd practice of these Rebels in Ireland was a most welcome news to this Faction in England to say this imputation upon the King, that he was the cause of this Rebellion, which themselves had kindled, and were glad to find such a colour to impute it unto him, that it might not be suspected to be raised by them.  
Many other such falsehoods, Lies, and impudent slanders hath the father of lies caused these his Children most impudently to father upon the King; but as the Philosopher saith, Non quia affirmatur aut negatur, 
How things are in deed.  res erit aut non erit, things are not so and so, because they are said to be so; neither can they be no such things, only because they are denied to be such; as Gold is not Copper, because ignorant men affirm it to be so; nor a drunken man sober, or a vicious man virtuous, because they deny him to be good, and blazon him abroad for one of the sons of Belial; but as Gold is Gold, and Brass is Brass, so godly men are good, wicked men are evil, and Rebels are none other than Rebels, let men call them what they will; and so our King is not such a man as they say, because they affirm it; but he is indeed a most just, virtuous, and most pious Prince, let them say what they will, Their tongues are their own, and we cannot rule them: and so all his followers are better Protestants in deed, and less Papists in all points of faith than the best of them, that term us so by false names. God forgive them these slanderous accusations.   

CHAP. XI. Sheweth the unjust proceed of these factious Sectaries against the King; eight special wrongs and injuries that they have offered him; which are the three States; and that our Kings are not Kings by election or covenants with the People.  
ANd yet for all these strange courses, contrary to all humane thoughts, which is marvellous in our eyes; 
Psal. 118.23. Esay 46.10.  the Lord of Heaven whose counsel shall stand, and whose will shall be done, hath them all in derision, dissipates all these devices, and turns all the counsel of Achitophel against his own head, when he opened the eyes of many millions of the King's true Subjects, to behold and detest these unfaithful deal, and disloyal proceed against so gracious a King; and therefore petitioned and subscribed that his Majesty standing upon his Guard, and defending himself from such indignities as might follow, they would hazard their lives and fortunes to assist him, to repel those more than barbarous injuries, that were offered unto Him.  
Therefore now, Memoriae proditum est, I find it written, that without fear of God, without regard of Majesty, without justice, without honesty, they are resolved, rather than to repent of their former wickedness, to involve the whole Kingdom in an unnatural civil War; and to maintain the same against the will and contrary to the desires both of the King and Kingdom; and it is almost incredible, what wicked courses and how unjust and insufferable Orders and Ordinances you shall find recorded, that they have made: 

1. Against the King.  
2. Against the Subjects.  
3. Against the Law.   Which are all said to be exceedingly abused by them; for,  
1. 
1. Their proceed against the King.  Against the King, it is registered to Posterity, that they have proceeded besides many other things, in all these particulars:  
1. 
1. Wrong. Matth. 8.20  They possess all the King's Houses, Towns, and Castles, but what he gets by the strength of his sword, and detain them from him; so that we may say with our Saviour, The foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air have nests, but the King of England hath not an house allowed him, by the Houses of Parliament wherein to put his head; and they take not only his Houses, but also his rents and revenues, and (as I understood when I was in Oxford) his very clothes, and provision for his Table, that seeing they could not take away his life by the sword, they might murder him with cold or famine, when he should not have the subsistence (if they could hinder him) to maintain life and soul together, which is the shame of all shame, and able to make any other men odious to all the world, 
The complaint to the House of Commons. Pag. 19  thus maliciously and barbarously to deal with their own most gracious King; neither doth their malice here end, but they withhold the Rents of the Queen, and seize upon the Revennes of our Prince, which I assure them, my Country men takes in great scorn, and I believe will right it with their lives, or this Parliament Faction shall redeem their errors with no small repentance, when as we find no Prince of Wales was ever suffered by his Subjects to have such indignities offered him by the greatest Pecres of England.  
And here I cannot omit what Alderman Garroway saith of the reproach of Master Pym, touching the maintaining of the Kings other Children, which he professeth made his heart to rise, and hoped it did so to many more: Is our good King fallen so low, 
Alderman Garroway his Speech.  that his Children must be kept for him? It is worth our inquiry, who brought him to that condition? We hear him complain, that all his own revenue is seized and taken from him; Is not his Exchequer, Court of Wards, and Mint here, his Customs too are worth somewhat, and are his Children kept upon Alms? How shall We and our Children prosper, if this be not remedied? And I pray God these things rise not up in judgement against them and this Nation; but hereby they intended to verify that disloyal Speech which One of them uttered in a Tavern, and God will avert it from his Servant, That they would make the King as poor as Job, 
Sober Sadness, p. 22.  unless he did comply with them.  
2. 
2. Wrong.  If any man which they like not attend the King's Person, though he be his sworn servant, or assist him in his just defence, which he is bound to do by the Law of God and man; yet he is presently voted and condemned for a Malignant, popish, disaffected, evil Counsellor, and an enemy to the State; and that is enough (if he be catched) to have him spoiled and imprisoned at their pleasure; nay, myself was told by some of that Faction, that because I went to see the King, I should be plundered and imprisoned if I were taken.  
3. 
3. Wrong.  Though they do solemnly profess that his Majesty's personal safety, and his royal honour and greatness are much dearer unto them than their own lives & fortunes, 
The Petition to his Majesty the 16. of July 1642.  which they do most hearty dedicate, & shall most willingly employ for the support & maintenance thereof, yet for all this hearty Protestation, they had at that very time (as the King most acourately observeth in his Answer) directed the Earl of Warwick to assist Sir John Hotham against him, appointed their Generals, 
Non turpe est abeo vinci quem vincereest nesas, neque ei inhonestè aliquen submitti, quem ●e●… super omnes extulit. Dictum Arme●… Pompeio.  and as Alderman Garroway testifieth, raised ten thousand armed men out of London, and the neighbour Countries before the King had seven hundred● and afterwards, though the King sent from Nottingham a gracious Message and solicitation for peace, yet they supposing this proceeded from a diffidence of his own strength, or being too confident of their own force slighted the King's Grace, and most barbarously proceeded in the most hostile manner, waged war, and gave battle against the King's Army, where they knew he was in his own Person, and as one of their Preachers taught the Sunday before the Battle, that they might with a good conscience, as well kill the King (horresco dicere) as any other man; so (according to Captain Blague's directions, as judas taught the high Priests servants) we know what Troops and Regiments were most aimed at, whereas they do most ridiculously say they have, for the defence of his person, sent many a Canon bullet about his ears, which he did with that Kingly courage and heroic magnanimity, yea and that Christian resolution and dependence on God's assistance pass through, that it shall be recorded to his everlasting honour, and their indelible shame and reproach, so long as the world endureth.  
4. 
4. Wrong.  They have most disloyally and traitorously spoken both privately and publicly such things against his Majesty, as would make the very Heathens tear them in pieces, that should say the like of their tyrannous Kings, and such as I could not believe they proceeded from the mouth of a Christian against so Christiana King, but that I find most of them were publicly uttered, made known unto his Majesty, and related by himself, and those that were ear witnesses thereof, as (horresco referens) that he was not worthy to be our King: not fit to live: 
Sober sadness. P 3 The Viewer p. 4. His Majesty's Declaration. Trussell in the supplement to daniel's history  that he was the traitor: that the Prince would govern better: and that they dealt fairly with him they did not depose him, as their forefathers had deposed Richard the second, whom all the world knoweth to be most traitorously murdered, and the whole progress of that act, whereby he was deposed, is nothing else but the scandal of that parliament, and an horrid treason upon the fairest relation of any Chronicle: and the good Bishop of Carlisle, was not then afraid, in open house to tell the Lords so to their faces; and I would our parliament men would read his speech.  
5 They command their own Orders, 
5. Wrong.  Ordinances and Declarations to be printed Cum privilegio, and to be published in public throughout the whole Kingdom, and they are not a little punished that neglect it; and whatsoever Message, Answer, Declaration or Proclamation cometh from the King, to inform his subjects of the truth of things, and to undeceive his much seduced people, they straight forbidden those to be printed, and imprison (if they can catch them) all that publish them, as they did many worthy Ministers in the City of London, and in many other places of this Kingdom  
6 They have publicly voted in their house, and accordingly endeavoured by Messages to persuade our brethren of Scotland, to join in their assistance with these grand rebels, 
6. Wrong.  to rebel against their Sovereign; but I persuade myself (as I said before) that the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland, are more religious in themselves, more loyal to their liege Lord, and indeed wiser in all their actions, then, while they may live quietly at home in a happy peace, to undertake upon the persuasions of rebellious subjects, such an unhappy war abroad.  
7. It is remonstrated and related publicly, that, as if they had shaken off all subjection, 
7. Wrong.  and were become already a State independent, they have treated by their agents with foreign states, and do still proceed in that course; which, if true, is such an usurpation upon Sovereignty, as was never before attempted in this Kingdom; and such a presumption, as few men know the secret mischiefs that may lurk therein.  
8. They suffer and licence their Pamphleteers Pryn, 
8. Wrong.  Goodewin, Burges, Martial, Sedgwicke, and other emmissaries of wickedness, to publish such treasons and blasphemies, and abominable aphorisms, as that the negative vote of the King is no more than the dissent of one man, the affirmative vote of the King makes not a law, ergo, the negative cannot destroy it, and the like absurd and senseless things that are in those aphorisms, and in Prins book of the Sovereign power of Parliament, whereby they would deny the king's power to hinder any act, that both the Houses shall conclude; and so, taking away those just prerogatives from him, that are as hereditary to him as his kingdom, compel him to assent to their conclusions: 
Why the two ●… Spencer's died.  for which things our histories tell us, that other Parliaments have banished (and upon their returns they were hanged) both the Spenters, the father and the son, for the like presumption, as among other Articles, for denying this Prerogative unto their king, and affirming, that if he neglected his duty, and would not do what he ought, 
Per asperte vid. Elismere post●…atip. 99  for the good of the kingdom, he might be compelled by force to perform it, which very thing, divesteth the king of all Sovereignty, overthroweth Monarchy, and maketh our government a mere Aristocracy, contrary to the constitution of our first kings, and the judgement of all ages; for we know full well, from the practice of all former parliaments, that seeing the three States are subordinate unto the king, 
p. 48,  in making laws (wherein the chiefest power consisteth) they may propound and consent, but it is still in the king's power to refuse or ratify: and I never read that any parliament man, till now, did ever say the contrary: but that if there be no concurrence of the king (in whom formally the power of making of any law resideth, ut in subiecto,) to make the law: the two Houses (whose consent is but a requisite condition to complete the king's power) are but a liveless convention, like two cyphets without a figure, that of themselves are of no value or power, but joined unto their figures, have the full strength of their places; 
p, 19, 20, 21,  which is confirmed by the viewer of the Observations, out of 11. Hen. 7.23. per Davers, Polydore, 185. cowel inter. Verbo prerog. Sir Tho. Smith de republs. Angl. l. 2. c. 3. Bodin, l. 1. c. 8. for if the king's consent were not necessary for the perfecting of every act, then certainly (as another saith) all those Bills that heretofore have passed both Houses, 
The Letter to a Gentleman in Gloucester shit, p, 3  and for want of the Royal assent, have slept, and been buried all this while, would now rise up as so many laws and statutes, and would make as great confusion, as these new orders and ordinances have done.  
And as the Lawyers tell us, that the necessity of the assent of all three states in Parliament, 
Lambert's Archeion, 271. Vid. he Views p. 21.  is such, as without any one of them, the rest do but lose their labour: so, Le Roy est assentus c●o faict un act de Parliament, and as another saith, Nihil ratum ha● betur, nisi quod Rex comprobarit, nothing is perfected but what the King confirmeth.  
But here in the naming of the three States, I must tell you, that I find in most of our Writers, about this newborn question of the King's power, a very great omission, that they are not particularly set down, that the whole Kingdom might know which is every one of them; and, upon this omission I conceive as great mistake in them, that say the three States are 1. the King, 2. the House of Peers, 3. 
Which he the three States of England.  the House of Commons: for I am informed by no mean Lawyer, that you may find it upon the Rolls of Hen. 5. as I remember, and I am sure you may find it in the first year of Rich. 3. where the three States are particularly named; and the king is none of them, for it is said, that at the request, 
Speed l, 9, c, 19, p. 712. Anno 1 Ric. 3  and by the assent of the three estates of this Realm, that is to say, the Lords Spiritual, the Lords temporal, and Commons of the Land assembled, it is declared that our said Sovereign Lord the king, is the very undoubted king of this realm: wherein you may plainly see, the king that is acknowledged their Sovereign by all three, can be none of the three, but is the head of all three, as the Dean is none of the Chapter, but is caput cepituls; and as in France and Spain, so in England, I conceive the three estates to be, 1. the Lords Spiritual, that are, if not representing, yet in loco, in the behalte of all the Clergy of England, that till these anabaptistical tares, have almost choked all the Wheat in God's field, were thought so considerable a party, as might deserve as well a representation in Parliament, as old Sarum, or the like Borough of scarce twenty Houses. 2. The Lords Temporal in the right of their honour and their posterity. 3. The Commons that are elected in the behalf of the Country, Cities, and Burroughs; and what these three States consult and conclude upon for the good of the Church and kingdom, the king, as the head of all, was either to approve or reject what he pleased; and, though we find, with some difficulty (as the viewer of the Observations saith) where the Parliament is said to be a body, consisting of King, Lords, and Commons, (ergo, without the king there is no Parliament) yet herein the king is not said to be one of the three states; but the first and most principal part that constitutes the body of the parliament; 
p. 2●. 25. H, 8, 21.  but John Bodin that had very exactly learned the nature of our parliament, both by his reading and conferring with our English Ambassador (as himself confesseth) saith, the States of England are never otherwise assembled, (no more than they are in the Realms of France and Spain) then by parliament write, and the states proceed not but by way of supplications and requests unto the king, 
Bodin. de repub. l. 1. c. 8  and the states have no power of themselves to determine or decree any thing, seeing they cannot so much as assemble themselves, nor being assembled depart without express commandment from the king. In all this, and for all the search that I have made, I find not the king named to be one, but rather by the consequence of the discourse, to be none of the three, but, as I said, the head of all the three states for, either the words of Bodin must be understood of two states, in all the three kingdoms, which then had been more properly termed, as we call them, either the two Houses, or the Lords and Commons, or else they must be very absurd; because the three states, if the king be one of them, can not be said to be called by parliament writs, when as the king is called by no writ, nor can he be said to supplicate unto himself: or to have no power to departed without leave, that is of himself, Therefore it must needs follow, that this learned man, who would speak neither absurdly nor improperly, meant by the three states, 1. The Lords Spiritual, 2. The Lords Temporal, 3. The Commons of the kingdom: and the King as the head of all, calling them, consulting and concluding with them, and dismissing them when he pleased. And Will. Martin saith, King Hen, 1, at the same time 1114. devised and ordained the manner and fashion of a Court in Parliament, appointing it to consist of the three estates, of which himself was the head, so that his laws, being made by the consent of all, were not disliked of any: these are his words. And I am informed by good Lawyers, that you may find it in the preambles of many of our Statutes, and in the body of some other Statutes, and in some Petitions, especially one presented to Queen Elizabeth for the enlargement of one, that was committed for a motion that he made for excluding the Bishops out of the House of peers, 
Such is the difference betwixt Queen Elizabeth's time and our times.  the three states are thus particularised, and the Lords Spiritual are nominated the first of the three, and are termed one of the greatest states of this realm. And this I conceive to be the right constitution of a Parliament; therefore now, to cast off one of the three States, 
Anno octavo Elizabeth c. 1.  and to cut off the head of all three, by making the King but one of them, (that so both the King and the two Houses might be only , when as indeed they are, as in some respect concurrent, so also subordinate unto him, as to their Head) is such a change and alteration as would quite overthrow the fundamental constitution of the Government of this Kingdom, and make our King (if these men might have their will) to have no more power than the Duke of Venice.  
And to that end this Faction have by themselves and their Pamphleteers, 
The false grounds of the original of our Kings. The disclaimer, p. 17, 18, 19  laid down such false grounds of the original of our Kings, as are exceeding derogatory to the Crown of England, as that they are Kings by paction and covenant with their people, which at first chose them, and entrusted them with their Government; and for the preservation of their Laws against the encroachments of the King, and the making of new Laws, as occasions required, ordained the great Council, which they call Parliament, and which should have full power to restrain the King, if he did abuse his Power; and therefore the people may withdraw their trust when the Kings neglect their duty, and nullify their faith unto their Subjects; for whosoever is indifferently read in Histories, and the Chronicles of our Kingdom, may easily find how falsely and maliciously they would make this free Monarchy to have been elective and to be a conditional Government; because England, France, 
Post mortem Maximi Constans postular mi à Britannis. But not a word in all the story, that any one of the British Kings was electus, Anonymus MS. in Bibl. Oxon. qui scripsit hist, omnium regum qui regna verunt in Anglia.  and Spain were parts and parcels of the Roman Empire, and when the Emperors, by reason of their intestine broils at home could not look into the parts abroad, the right Heit unto the Crown of Britain, assumed unto himself all the Royalty and power that the Emperor had over us, and succeed him, not by any pact or covenant with the people, (though not as then for some reasons without the request of the people) but by that right which God and nature allowed unto Kings, and was due, either to the Roman Emperor or to any other absolute Monarch of any Nation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the old Chronicles of those 〈…〉 the regaining of the Crown by Vortigerne, after that the people had rebelliously rejected him, and received, but not elected, his son Vortimer in his place, do most sufficiently clear the case.  
And therefore what Sovereign Power soever is due to any absolute Monarch, and what obedience soever S. Paul affirmeth to be due to the Roman Emperors that then ruled over us, or Saint Peter commandeth to be given to other Kings, the same is in all things due to our Kings, ever since Aurelius Ambrose that succeeded Vortigerne; or if you will not ascend so high, yet without all contradiction ever since William the Conqueror, whom you cannot say was elected, nor any other that succeeded him, and therefore cannot be debarred or denied any of those Prerogatives and Sovereignty's that belong unto the most absolute Monarch, save only in those things, which of their special grace and favour they granted unto their Subjects, and bound themselves at their Coronation, to perform those promises of privilege and freedom which they made unto them; and that distinction of the disclaimer of an absolute and a Politic Monarch, 
P. 17, 18, 19, 20.  with his two leaves discourse upon the same, is so false and so frivolous, that as Saint Bernard saith of the fooleries of Abailardus, it deserveth rather Fustibus contundi quàm rationibus refelli: 
Aristot. Polyt. l. 4.  for Aristotle tells us, that the supreme Power of all Government (which resideth in every absolute Monarch, and doth constituere Monarcham, give being unto the Monarch) consisteth chief in these three distinct branches: 

1. 
The supreme power of every Government wherein it consisteth.  Legislative, to make and repeal Laws.  
2. Bellative, to pronounce War and conclude Peace.  
3. judicative, decisively to determine all crimes and causes whatsoever.    
And when this threefold power is not penes annus, but penes optimates, than it is no Monarchis, but an Aristocracy, and when it is penes populum, than it is neither of those, but a mere Democracie, or popular Government. And therefore out Kings having the sole power; first, to make War, and conclude Peace at their own pleasure, and have called Parliaments only to supply their wants, and to add their council and assistance therein; Secondly, to make Laws and repeal them when they please, save only that they promised to their People and obliged themselves not to do it without the advice of their Parliament; And thirdly, to judge all their Subjects according to their Laws; it is most apparent that our Kings are most absolute Monarches; as, Cassaneus, Bodinus, Sir Thomas Smith, and all that wrote of this Kingdom do peremptorily affirm: and though I deny not Bodius distinction of a Lordly Monarch, a royal Monarch, and a tyrannical Monarch, 
Bod. l. 2. c. 2. 3.  which showeth only the Power and the Practice of the Monarch; yet I say, that the distinction of an absolute and mixed Monarchy, which designeth the manner of the Government, is a mere foppery and a ridiculous distinction; because that Government which extendeth itself to more than one, can never be a Monarchy, as every man knoweth that understandeth the word Monarch.  
These and many more such injuries and insufferable indignities they have offered unto our King, and so indeed unto the whole Kingdom, which they durst not have offered to any tyrannical King that would have ruled them with his iron rod, but as the mercy of God emboldeneth wicked men to proceed in their abominations, so the lenity and goodness of this pious Prince, & nothing else in him, encouraged these factious & ambitious men, the people greedy of a licentious liberty, & the Nobility and Gentry of rule, which is their natural disease, thus to usurp the rights of our King, and to raise this miserable war.   

CHAP. XII. Sheweth the unjust proceed of this Faction against their fellow Subjects, set down in four particular things.  
2. 
2. Their proceed against the Subjects, wherein I shall in most points set down what I find in the Remonstrance of the Commons to the House of Commons, and what I collected out of other Writers of the best credit.  Jest they should be thought juster to their fellow Subjects than they are to their Severalgue King, you may observe what I find related of them. 1. That besides the Act which they composed and procured it to pass for the Poll money, wherein they show their exceeding great love to the Clergy, as to make Deans, whose Deaneries were scarce worth 100.l. a piece per annum, to pay 40.l. per poll, equal with the Lords and Aldermen of London, and many Prebendaries to pay more than the annual worth of their prebend's, and the like many passages of their respect to the Ministers, and some other particulars which I pass without reproof, because the Act is passed; there were moneys advanced by gift and by adventure, and Soldiers were prepared for Ireland, to reduce those Rebels to their former obedience, and to restore the King's distressed Subjects to their rights and possessions; but the great neglect they shown to discharge this duty, (the Soldiers that were sent, being left almost altogether unpaid, to be sterved, and exposed to the mercy of their merciless enemies, and we the poor English, that were rob and spoiled of our goods and lands, left not only unrelieved, but also twitted with that scandal for our comfort, that we were worthily expelled by the Irish, 
1. How they neglected the distressed Subjects of Ireland.  and left unregarded by the English, because we were but as the Samaritans, neither Israelites nor Pagans, or as the Turks, that partaking with the Jews and Christians, are neither Jews nor Christians, so the English in Ireland were just Laodicean like, neither hot nor cold, neither English nor Irish, neither zealous Papists, nor true Protestants, and therefore worthily to be spewed out of the mouth of all men; which is the comfort we have of them, and which puts us in a desperate condition (unless his Majesty will be pleased to take another course to relieve us) to be left as a prey to be destroyed betwixt two sorts, we know not which more cruel enemies) makes us believe that the moneys are diverted, and the Soldiers detained to continue this unnatural War against our King, that so by losing the Kingdom of Ireland; they might the sooner destroy the Kingdom of old England, to bring the Kingdom of New England amongst us.  
And besides this simple conversion of the Irish moneys, it is almost incredible to consider how unjustly they have dealt with the English Subjects to get money; for, to let abundance of other particulars pass, the Earl of Manchester in the night time fetched away six thousand pounds, as I understand, 
●o●er sadness, p. 21.  that were collected for the repairing of Saint Andrew's in Holborn, and the great sums of money that were gathered for  and for Brainceford, were employed by these Zelots, not to maintain the lives of those distressed people, but to destroy the lives of loyal Subjects; and to prove themselves right Jscariots, they broke into the Hospital at Gilford in Surrey, and took four thousand pounds from the poor Lazars; but as the Romans dealt with their neighbour's Territories, when they were made their Arbitrators: so these men dealt as finely with the lading of that Ship called Sancta Clara; for while the Merchants disputed about the goods, these just Judges, to reconcile the difference, seize upon all, and twenty thousand pound must be lent them, before the right owner can receive them: and I might fill my papers with such examples.  
2. They have made an Ordinance, 
2. How they take what part they will of our estates. Whereas they object that in the reign of King john and others of our kings, the wentyeth, fifteenth, tenth or seventh part hath been given; I answer in one word, never a part by the two Houses without the king, and against the king as they do.  that the twentieth part of men's estates, must be paid towards the maintenance of this rebellion: and they do appoint those, that, upon their discretion, shall value that twentieth part; and they may, for aught we know, set down the tenth for the twentieth: and if they may legally do this we can see no reason, why by the same rule, they may not take the fifteenth, tenth, or half our goods for the same purpose: and so they avouch they may, but most untruly: for it was never known, till this present parliament, that an Ordinance of both Houses, without the consent, nay against the command of the King, can bind the free Subjects of England (which do not then renounce their loyalty to their King, when they make choice of them to be their procurators in the Parliament) in their lives, liberties, or estates; and yet these men, not only bestow our monies as they please, as they did six thousand pound to their own Speaker, and the places of command and great profis (more than all the revenues of their lands come to) upon themselves, and upon their children and friends, as upon Sir john Hotham, the Lord Rocheford, Lord Say, Lord Brookes, Hampaen, Brereton, Fines, the Earl; e of Essex, and abundance more: but they do also seize upon our estates, and thus take our goods, under the colour of maintaining this war, to enrich themselves and their children; and for the levying of this, or what other part they please, they ordain their friends, and appoint their Collectors to distrain for the sum assessed, and to sell the distress, and if no distress can be found, than the persons of these notable offenders, that deny their goods thus illegally to be taken from them, are to be imprisoned, and their families to be banished from their habitations.  
And to make the world believe how justly and sufficiently legal they could do this, they made another ordinance for the inhabitants of the Counties of North-hampton, Rutland, Derby, etc. to pay the twentieth part, and to be assessed by the Assessors that they name, in imitation of the Statute lately made for the four hundred thousand pound: and it is more than probable, that this proceeding is but the praeludium of the like exaction to be extended, when their need requireth, to all the other parts of the Kingdom; which is a most miserable course, and injustice not to be paralleled, to cast themselves, into a necessity of getting money, to maintain an impious war against their King, and then out of that necessity to compel their fellow subjects, and those peaceable men (that do abominate this war,) to maintain the same (yea, and to fight in the same, to kill men against their consciences,) in despite of their teeth; or if they refuse to do it, to , or at least to permit, a party of Horse, Dragooneers, and other strength to go to fetch their Money, Plate or other goods, as if they were the goods of the deadly enemies of the Common wealth; and this for none other reason, but for that the owners thereof are good Subjects to the King, and not well affected to their unjust, and ungodly proceed.  
But let me persuade all men that do fear God, still to suffer any thing, which they can not avoid, from the violence of these wicked men, rather than contribute any thing unto them, to further such abominable courses, as they prosecute against the law of God and man; 
Rev. 2.10.  because the Lord commandeth us, to fear none of those things that we shall suffer; but to stand in our integrity unto death, and we shall be crowned with the crown of life.  
3. They have discharged the Apprentices and servants from their Master's services, 
3. How they discharged the apprentices and compel them to fight.  and have either compelled or persuaded them to serve in their army against the King, and that without the consent, and against the will of their masters and dames, yea sometimes against the commands of their own parents, which I speak from their own mouths.  
4. 
4. How they imprisoned out men without cause.  They have imprisoned very many hundreds of most able and most honest men; even so many, that the Prisons are not able to contain them, but they are feign to consecrate the greatest houses in London to become Prisons, as the Bishop of London's house, Ely house, Winchester House, Lambeth house; Cresby house, the Savoy, and the like. And this they do for none other cause, but either for performing the duties of their places, and dischargeing their obedience to his Majesty, as the last Lord Maior Gurney, which deserved rather to be commended than committed, if we believe many that were present at his trial; or petitioning unto them, as Sir George Bynion, 
Copmplaint p. 8  and Captain Richard Lovelace, and Sir William Boteler of Kent, because they did not therein flatter and approve their present wicked courses; or intending to petition unto the King for relief of these lamentable distresses, as those Gentlemen of Hertford-shire and Westminster; or for being as they conceived, disaffected unto their disloyal orders: A strange thing, and justice beyond precedent, not the like to be found among the Pagans, that (where no law can condemn a man for his affections when no action is committed against law) men shall be rob of their estates, and adjudged for malignants (which is also a crime most general, and without the compass of any Statute) and then for this now created sin, to be condemned and imprisoned, and therein to remain without trial of his offence, perhaps as long as the Archbishop of Canterbury. And this wonder is the rather to be wondered at, because it is the sense of both Houses, 
M. Pym in his Speech at the Guild-hall.  (if we may believe Master Pym) that it is against the rules of justice, that any man should be imprisoned upon a general charge, when no particulars are proved against him: for never charge can be more general than to be all affected, or a malignant, or a man not to be confided in, where of you find ten thousand in the City of London, and many hundred thousands in the Kingdom: and therefore when we find so many persons of honour and reputation imprisoned, only upon this surmise, without any other particular charge so much as once suggested against them, (as was the Lord of Middlesex, the Lord of Portland, and abundance more) and detained in prison, because they were ill affected, in that they have not contributed to the maintenance of this war, we see how insensibly they have accused themselves to have laid this insupportable punishment, beyond the desert of the transgressors, and against the rules of all justice, and how they have forgotten their protestation, and exceedingly infringed the liberty of the Subjects, whereof they promised to be such faithful procurators.   

CHAP. XIII. Sheweth the proceed of this faction against the Laws of the Land, the Privileges of Parliament transgressed eleven special ways.  
3. 
1. Their proceed against the laws.  FOr the Laws of our land, which are either private, as those chief which belong unto the Parliament, and are called the Privileges of Parliament or public, which are the inheritance; of every Subject, you shall find how they have invaded and violated each one of these: for,  
1. 
1. Against the privileges Parliament.  Touching the Privileges of Parliament, we confess, that former Kings have graciously yielded many just privileges unto them for the freedom of their persons, and the liberty of their speeches, so they be free from blasphemy or treason, of the like unpardonable offence, but such a freedom as they challenge, though for myself I confess my skill in Law to be unable, to distinguish the Legitimate from the usurped, yet in these subsequent particulars I find wise men utterly denying it them: as,  
1. When they forbidden us to dispute of their Privileges, 
1. Denying us to dispute of them. L. Elismer in post nati.  and say, that themselves alone are the sole Judges of them; when as in former ages they have been adjudged by the Laws of the Kingdom, when Thorpe the Speaker of the House of Commons hath been committed and detained Prisoner upon an Execution, and the House confirmed that fact.  
2. 
2. Committing and putting out their Members, Complaint, p. 11.  When the Members of the House (of whose elections and transgressions against the House, or any of their fellow Members, or the like, the House is the proper Judge) which ought to have as free liberty as any of the rest, upon any emergent occasion, are committed, as Master Palmer, and others were, or put out of the House, as Sir Edward Deering, the Lord Faulkland, Sir John Culpepper, Sir John Strange ways, and others have been voted hand over head, for speaking more reason than the more violent party could answer, or in very deed, for speaking their minds freely against the sense of the House, or rather against some of the prevalent Faction of the House, which we say is no Privilege but the pravity of the House; to deny this just Privilege unto those Members that were thus committed or expelled; for hereby it doth manifestly appear that, contrary to the practice of all former Parliaments, and contrary to the honour of any Parliament, things were herein debated and carried, not by strength of argument, but by the most voices, and the greater number were so fare from understanding the validity of the alleged reasons, that after the Votes passed they scarce conceived the state of the question, but thought it enough to be Clerks to Master Pym, 
3. Denying their Members to be legally tried for any capital crime. Vide Dyer, p. 59.60. Crompton. 8. b. 9, 10, 11. Elism. post. nulls 20, 21. The viewer, p. 43.  and to say Amen to Master Hampden by an implicit faith.  
3. When they deny the Members of their House, or any other employed by them in this horrid Rebellion, should be questioned for felony, treason, murder, or the like capital crimes, but only in Parliament, or at least by the leave of that House whereof they are Members, or which doth employ them; for by this means any Member of their House may be a Traitor, or a Murderer, or a Robber whensoever he please, and may easily escape, before the party wronged, or complainant can obtain this leave of the House of Commons: and therefore this is as unreasonable and as senseless a Privilege as ever was challenged, and was never heard of till this Parliament: for why should any man refuse his Trial, or the House deny their Members to the justice of the Law, when as the denial of them to be tried by the Law implieth a doubt in us of the innocence of those, whom we will not submit to justice; and their Trial would make them live gloriously hereafter, if they were found innocent, and move the King to deliver those men, that had so wickedly conspired their destruction, to the like censure of the Law. But for them to cry out, The King is misinformed, and We dare not trust ourselves upon a Trial, may be a way to preserve their safety, but with the loss of their reputation, and perhaps the destruction of many thousands of people.  
If they say, they are contented to be tried, but by their own House, which in the time of Parliament is the highest Court of justice; it may be answered, said a plain Rustic, with the old Proverb, Ask my fellow if I be a thief: for mine own part, I reverence the justice of a Parliament in all other judgements betwixt party and party, yea betwixt the King and any other Subject; yet when the party accused shall be judged by his own Society, his Brethren, and his own Faction, I believe any indifferent Judge would see this to be too great partiality against the King, that he shall not have those, whom he accuseth to be tried by the Laws already established, and the ordinary course of Justice; and if the judges offend in their sentence, the Parliament hath full power, undenied them by his Majesty, to question and to punish those Judges, as they did for that too palpable injustice (as they conceived) in the case of the Ship money; but they will be judged by themselves, and all that descent from them must be at their mercy or destruction. And yet it is said to be evident, that no Privilege can have its ground or commencement, unless it be by statute, grant, or prescription, and by the stat. 26. Hen. 8. cap. 13. it is enacted, that no offender in any kind of high Treason shall have the privilege of any manner of Sanctuary: so all the Grants of such a privilege, if any such should be made, are merely void, 1. Hen. 7. Staffords case, and not one instance could hitherto beproduced, whereby such a Privilege was either allowed or claimed, but the contrary most clearly proved by his Majesty out of Wentworths case.  
And therefore seeing your own Law-bookes tell us, that the Privilege of Parliament doth not extend to Treason, the breach of the Peace, and (as some think) against the King's debt: it is apparent how grossly they do abuse the People by this claim of the Privilege of Parliament.  
4. 
4. Conniving with their Faction for any fault.  When they connive with their own compeers for any breach of privilege, as with Master Whitakers for searching Master Hampdens' pockets, and taking away his papers, immediately after the abrupt breaking up of the last unhappy Parliament, and those that discovered the names of them that differed in opinion from the rest of the Faction, in the business of the Earl of Strafford, and specially with that rabble of Brownists and Anabaptists, which with unheard of impudency durst ask that question publicly at the Bar, who they were that opposed the well affected party in that House? as if they meant to be even with them, whosoever they were; and likewise that unruly multitude of zealous Sectaries, that were sent, as I find it, by Captain Venus and Isaac Pennington, to cry Justice, Justice, Justice, and No Bishops, no Bishops; and this to terrify some of the Lords from the House, and to awe the rest that should remain in the House, as they had formerly done in the case of the Earl of Strafford; and when others that they like not, are for the least breach of pretended Privilege either imprisoned or expelled; for I assure myself, there cannot be higher breaches of Privileges than these be, nor greater stainec to obscure the honour, and vilify the repute of this Parliament.  
5. 
5. The engaging one another in civil causes.  When there is such siding and engaging one another in civil causes, (that they may be conglutinated together for their great Design) to do things, not according unto justice, but for their own ends, contrary to all right; and their favour is scarce worth the charge of attendance, to them that speed best by their Ordinances; but the complaint is that men have the greatest injuries done them in this that themselves call the highest Court of Justice, which others say, hath now justified all other inferior Courts, and made all unrighteous judges most just.  
6. 
6. The surreptitious carrying of businesses.  When (as we have been informed) a matter of the greatest importance hath been debated and put unto the question, and upon the question determined, and the Bill once and again rejected, yet at another time, even the third time, when the Faction had prepared the House for their own purpose, and knew they could carry it by most voices, the same question hath been resumed, and determined quite contrary to the former determination, when the House was more orderly convened; as it is said they did, to pass the Ordinance for the Militia, which many men dare avouch to their faces to be no Privilege of Parliament, but a great abuse of their fellow Members, and a greater injury unto all their fellow Subjects.  
7. 
7. Their partial questioning of some men, and not questioning of some others.  When the elections of some of their Members have been questioned, and others have been accused, for no less than capital crimes, (as Master Griffith was) yet if these men incline and conspire with this Faction to confirm those positions, which they proposed to themselves, to overthrow the Church and State, and to uphold their usurped Government and tyrannical Ordinances, they will pretend twenty excuses; as the great affairs of the State, the multiplicity of their businesses, the necessity of procuring moneys, the shortness of their time, (though they sat almost three years already) that they have no leisure to determine these questions (which in truth they do purposely put off, lest they should lose such a friend unto their party;) but when any other, which dissenteth from their humours, doth but any thing contrary to the straitest Rules of the House, they do presently (notwithstanding all their greatest affairs) call that matter into question, and it must be examined and followed with that eagerness (as in my Lord Digbies case) that he must be forthwith condemned and excluded; 
The L. Digby in his Apolog.  for we say, this cannot be any just privilege, but an unjust proceeding of this Parliament.  
8. When they delegate their power to some men to do some things of themselves without the rest; 
8. The delegating of their power to particular men.  as it seems they did unto Master Pym, when an Order passed under his sole teste, for taking away the Rails from the Communion Table; for this is a course we never heard of in former times.  
9 
9 The multiplying of their Privileges.  When their Privileges are so infinitely grown and enlarged, more than ever they were in former Parliaments, and so swelled, that they have now swallowed up almost all the privileges of other men; so that they alone must do what they please, and where they will, in all Cities and in all Courts, because they have the Privilege of Parliament.  
10. When according, to the great liberty of language, 
10. Their speaking and s●…ing in other Courts.  which we deny them not within their own wall, they take the Privilege to speak what they list in other places, and to govern other Courts as they please, where (as they did in Dublin, and do commonly in London) they sit as Assistants with them, that are privileged by their Charters to be freed from such Controllers.  
11. When, above all that hath been or can be spoken, 
11. Their close Committee.  they have made a close Committee of safety, (as they call it) which in the apprehension of all wise and honest men, is not only a course most absurd and illegal, but also most destructive to all true Privileges, and contrary to the equitable practice of all public meetings, that any one should be excluded from that which concerneth him as well as any of the rest; and this Committee only, which consisteth of a very few of the most pragmatical Members of their House, must have all intelligences and privy counsels received, and reserved among themselves; and what they conclude upon must be reported to the House, which must take all that they deliver upon trust, and with an implicit Roman faith believe all that they say, and assent to all that they do; only because these (forsooth) are men to be confided in, upon their bare word, 
The greatness of this abuse.  (when their House hath no power to administer an Oath unto any man) in the greatest affairs, happiness or destruction of the whole Kingdom; for this is, in a manner, to make these men Kings, more than the Roman Consuls, and so as great a breach of Privilege and abuse of Parliament, as derogatory to his Majesty, that called them to consult together, and as injurious to all the people as can be named or imagined.   

CHAP. XIV. Sheweth how they have transgressed the public laws of the Land three ways, and of four miserable consequences of their wicked do.  
2. 
2. Against the public laws of the land.  FOr those public, written, and better known laws of this Land, they have no less violated and transgressed the same than the other, and that, aswell in their execution and exposition, as in their composition; for,  
1. 
1. In the execution of the old laws.  When they had caused the Archbishop of Canterbury to be committed to the Tower, Judge Berkeley to the Sheriff of London, sir George Ratcliff to the Gatehouse, for no less crimes than high Treason, and many other men to some other prisons for some other faults; yet all the world seethe how long most of them have been kept in prison, some a year, some two, some almost three, and God only knoweth when these men intent to bring them to their legal trial; which delay of justice, is not only an intolerable abuse to the present subjects of this kingdom, to be so long deprived of their liberty upon a bare surmise, but also a far greater injury to all posterity, when this precedent shall be produced to be imitated by the succeeding Parliaments, and to justify the delays of all inferior judges.  
2. 
2 In expounding the laws.  Whereas we believe what judge Bracton saith and Judge Britton likewise, which lived in the time of Edward the first, Si disputatio oriatur, justiciarii non possunt eam interpretari, sed in dubiis & obscuris, Domini regis erit expectanda interpretatio & voluntas, cum ejus sit interpretari cujus est condere; 
Citatur a Domino Elism in postnati, p. 108  if any dispute doth arise, the Judges can not interpret the same, but in all obscure and doubtful questions, the interpretation and the will of the King is to be expected, when as he that makes the law, is to be the expounder and interpreter of the law; yet they have challenged and assumed to themselves such a power, that their bare Vote without an act of Parliament, may expound or alter a known law; which if it were so, they might make the law, as Pighius saith of the Scripture, like a nose of wax, that may be fashioned and bended as they pleased; but we do constantly maintain, that the House of Commons hath no power to adjudge of any point or matter, but to inform the Lords what they conceive; and the House of Peers hath the power of judicature, which they are bound to do, according to the rules of the known established laws; and to that end they have the Judges to inform them of those cases, and to explain those laws, wherein themselves are not so well experienced, (though now they sit in the House for cyphers, even as some Clergy did many times in the Convocation;) and if any former Statute be so intricate and obscure, that the judges cannot well agree upon the right interpretation thereof, then (as in explaining Poynings Act, and the like, either in England or Ireland) the makers of the Act, that is the King and the major part of both Houses, must explain the same.  
3. 
3. In composeing and setting forth new laws.  Whereas we never knew that the House had any power to make Orders and Ordinances to bind any, (besides their own members,) to observe them as laws; yet they compel us to obey their orders, in a stricter manner than usually we are enjoined by Law; and this course, to make such binding ordinances as they do, to carry the force, though not the name of an Act of Parliament, or a Law, is a mighty abuse of our laws and liberties; for Sir Edward Cook tells us plainly, that (as the constitution of our Government now standeth,) neither the House of Commons and the King, 
L. Cook in the preface of the Stat. of Westminster the second. Lambert's Archeton 27.1.  can make any binding law, when the Peers descent; nor the Lords and King, when the Commonalty dissenteth; nor yet both Houses without the King's consent; but all three, King, Peers and Commons, must agree, before any coactive law can be composed: Nay more, it is sufficiently proved, that dare jus populo, or the legislative power, being one principal end of regal authority, was in Kings by the law of nature, (while they governed the people by natural equity) long before municipal laws or Parliaments had any being; for as the Poet saith, 
Remo cum fratre Quirinus— jura dabat. 
Virgilius.   
Hoc Priami gestamen erat, cum jura vocatis  
more daret populis—  Because this was the custom of the Kings of Scythia, Assyria, Egypt, etc. (long before Moses and Pharonaus, when municipal laws first began,) to give laws unto their people, according to the rules of natural equity, which by the law of nature they were all bound to observe.  
And though some Kings did graciously yield and by their voluntary oaths, for themselves and their successors, bind themselves many times, to stricter limits, than were absolutely requisite, as William Rufus, King Stephen, Henry the fourth, Richard the third, and the like, granted many privileges, perhaps to gain the favour of their Subjects, against those which likely had a better title to the Crown than themselves: or, it may be, to satisfy their people, as the guerdon or compensation for the sufferance of some forepassed grievances, as Henry the first, Edward the second, Richard the second, and the like: yet these limitations, being agreeable to equity, and consistent with Royalty, and not forcibly extracted, ought in all truth and reason to be observed by them. And hence it is that the Kings of this Realm, according to the oaths and promises which they made at their Coronation, can never give, nor repeal any law, but with the assent of the Peers and People.  
But though they have thus yielded, to make no laws, nor to repeal any laws without them; yet this voluntary concession of so much grace unto the people, doth no ways translate the legislative power from the King unto his assistants, but that it is formaliter and subiectiuè still in the King, and not in them; else would the government of this Kingdom be an Aristocracy, or Democracy, and not a Monarchy; because the supreme power of making and repealing Laws, and governing or judging decisively according to those laws, 
Cassan, in cattle glorlamundi.  are two of those three things, that give being to each one of these three sorts of government.  
Therefore, the King of England, being an absolute Monarch, in his own Kingdom, as Cassaneus saith, and no man can deny it the legislative power must needs reside solely in the King, 
22 Ed. 3.3. pl. 25. Vid. The view of a printed book, entitled, Observations, etc. where this point is proved at large p. 18, 19, 21, 22.  ut in subjecto proprio; and the consent of the Lords and Commons is no sharing of that power, but only a condition yielded to be observed by the King, in the use of that power: and so, both the Oath of Supremacy, and the form of all our ancient Statutes, wherein the King speaks as the Lawmaker, do most evidently prove the same unto us, Le Roy voit.  
Neither durst any Subjects in former times either assume such a power unto themselves, or deny the same unto their King: for you may find how the House of Commons, denying to pass the Bill for the pardon of the Clergy, which Hen. 8. granted them, when they were all charged to be in a Praemunire, unless themselves also might be included within the pardon, received this answer from the King, that he was their Sovereign Lord, and would not be compelled to show his mercy, (nor indeed could they compel him to any thing else) but seeing they went about to restrain him of his Liberty, he would grant a pardon unto his Clergy by his great Seal without them; 
Sir Rich. ● in vita Her  though afterwards of his own accord he signed their pardon also; which brought great commendation to his judgement, to deny it at first, when it was demanded as a right, and to grant it afterward, when it was received as of grace. And yet the denial of their assent unto the King, is more equitable to them, and less derogatory to him, then to make orders without him; and this manner of compulsion, to show grace unto themselves is more tolerable, than to force him to disgrace and displace his most faithful servants; only because others cannot confide in them, when no criminal charge is laid against them.  
And therefore for the Lords and Commons to make Orders and Ordinances without the King, and in opposition to the King, is a mere usurpation of the Regal power, a nullifying of the King's power, and a making of the Royal assent, which heretofore gave life to every law, to be an empty piece of formality, which is indeed, an intolerable arrogancy in the contrivers of these Orders and the makers of these Ordinances, a monstrous abuse of the Subjects, and a plain making of our good King to be somewhat like him in the Comedy, a King and no King.  
And, where as no Subject, and under favour be it spoken, not the King himself, after he hath taken his Oath at his Coronation, is free from the observation of the established laws; yet they make themselves so fare above the reach of Law, that they freed him, which the Lord chief Justice Bramston had committed to Newgate for felony in stealing the Countess of Rivers goods; they hindered all men, as we found in their journal, from proceeding against Sir Thomas Dawes; they enjoined the Judges by their orders, to forbear to proceed in their ordinary courses, in the Courts of Justice, contrary to the eaths of those Judges; and some Parliament men came to the Bench to forbid the Judges to grant Habeas Corpuses, which is as great an iniquity, and as apparent an injustice as ever was done by any Parliament.  
And that which is a note above Ela, 
The most abominable wickedness of these factious Rebels  above all that could be spoken, whereas the Law of God and man, the bonds and obligations of civility and Christianity, tie us all to be dutiful and obedient unto our King, in all things, either actively or passively, and no ways, for no cause violently to resist him, under the greatest penalties that can be devised here, and damnation hereafter; yet these men, contrary to all Laws, do enjoin us and compel us, as much against our consciences, as if they should compel us with the Pagan tyrants, to offer Sacrifice unto Idols, to war against our most gracious Sovereign, whom we from our hearts do both love and honour, and they proscrible us as malignants, and as enemies to the Common wealth, if we contribute not money, horse and arms, to maintain this ungodly war, 
Ps. 50.22. August. contra. Faust. l. 22. c. 75.76.  and so become deadly enemies unto our own souls. O consider this ye that forget God, lest for tearing us, he tear you in pieces while there is none to help you: for considering what the Apostle saith, Rom. 13.1.2. And what Saint Augustine saith, ordo naturalis, mortalium paci accommodatus hoc poscit, ut suscipiendi belli authoritas atque consilium penes Principem sit; and lest men should think, they ought by force of arms to resist their king for religion, he answereth that objection by the example of the Apostles, isti non resistendo interfecti sunt, ut potiorem esse docerent victoriam, pro fide veritatis occidi. We conceive this to be so execrable an act, and so odious to God and man, that we are made thus miserable, and abused beyond measure, to have our Religion, which is most glorious, our Laws, that in their own nature are most excellent, 
The miserable consequences of their wicked do. 1 Mischief.  and our Liberties, that make us as free as any Subjects in the World, under false pretences, and the shadows of religion, laws and liberties, to be eradicated, and fundamentally destroyed; whereby,  
1. We are made a spectacle of scorn, 
1. Mischief.  and the object of derision to our neighbour Nations, that formerly have envied at our happiness; and we are become the subject of all pity and lamentation, to all them that love us.  
2. As in the Roman civil wars, in the time of Metellus, 
2. Mischief.  the the son did kill his own Father; so now by the subtlety of this faction, we are cast into such a war as is.  
1. A most unnatural War, the son against the Father, and the Father against the Son: the Earl of Warwick fighteth for the Parliament, and my Lord Rich his Son is with the King: the Earl of Dover is with the King, and my Lord Rochfort his Son with the Parliament: so one brother against another, as the Earl of Northumberland with the Parliament, and his brother with the King; the Earl of Bedford with the Parliament and his brother with the King; Master Perpoiat with the Parliament, and the Earl of Newark with the King; Devoreux Farmer with the parliament, and his brother Thomas farmer, together with his brother in law my Lord Cockain with the King, and the like: and of Cousins without number, the one part with the King, and the other with the parliament: and if they do this in subtlety to preserve their estate, I say it is a wicked policy to undo the kingdom, which all wise men should consider:  
2. A most irreligious war, when one Christian, of the same professed religion, shall bathe his Sword, and wash his hands in the blood of his fellow Christian, and his fellow protestant, that shall be coheir with him of the same Kingdom.  
3. A most unnatural, irreligious, and barbarous War, when the Subject shall shall take Arms, to destroy or unthrone their own liege, a Religious and most gracious King.  
3. 
3 Mischief.  The Service of God in most Churches is neglected, when almost all the ablest, gravest, and most O thodox Divines and Preachers are persecuted, plundered, imprisoned, and driven to fly (as in the time of the Arian or Donatist, which was worse than the heathen persecution) from City to City, & to wander in Deserts from place to place, to save themselves from the hands of these Rebels against the King, and persecuters of God's Church: which is a most grievous and a most cruel persecution, far more general than that of the Anabaptists in Germany, or of Queen Mary here in England: the Lord of Heaven make us constant, and give us patience to endure it.  
4. 
4 Mischief.  The whole Kingdom is, and shall be yet more, by the continuance hereof, unspeakably impoverished, and plunged into all kind of miseries; when the I'ravailer cannot pass without fear, nec hospes ab hospite tutus, the Carrier cannot transport his commodity, but it shall be intercepted, the Husbandman cannot till his ground, but his horses, as myself saw it, shall be taken from the Plough, and his Corn shall be destroyed when it is ready for the Sickle, which must be the forerunner of a famine, that is ever the Usher to introduce the Plague and Pestilence, and all other kind of grievous Diseases; and these things put together, do set wide our gates, and open our ports, to bring foreign foes into our Coasts to possess that good Land, whereof we are unworthy; because with the Israelites we loathed Manna, we were weary of our peace and happiness; we would buy arms and be volunteers, and every Town being too wanton, would needs train and put themselves into a posture of defence, as they termed it, to be secured from their own shadows; and though the King told them often, there was no cause of their Jealousies, and therefore forbade these disloyalties; yet just like the Jews they were willing to be deceived by this miserable faction, that contrived that Act whereby they have perfidiously overreached both our good King, and the rest of our well-meaning brethren, either to perfect their design, or else, to make themselves perpetual Dictator's, and to betray the felicity of all our people, under the name of Parliament; which though (as I said before) I honour and love, as much as any of the truest Patriots of either House, both in the institution and the right prosecution thereof, that is, as it was constituted, to be the great Council of the Kingdom graciously called by his Majesty's writ, confidently to present the grievances of the people, and humbly to offer their advice and counsels for their reformation; yet I do abhor those, men, that would abuse the word Parliament, only as a stalking-Horse to destroy all Acts of Parliament; and I hate to see men calling the fanatique actions of a few desperate seditious persons, the proceed of Parliament, and others (making an Idol of it, as if their power were omnipotent or unlimited and more than any regal power, their judgement infallible, their Orders irreprehensible, and themselves unaccountable for their proceed) to be so besotted with the name of it, that this bare shadow without the substance, for it is no Parliament without the King; and the Major part of both houses is either banished, or imprisoned, 
Ingeniosus ad blasphemiant.  or compelled to reside with his Majesty) should so bewitch us, (as Master Smith blushed not to say, nothing could free us from our dangers but the Divinity of a Parliament) out of our own happiness to become more miserable, then heretofore this Kingdom hath ever been by any civil War: for if you will consider, the Treasons and rebellions, the injustice, cruelty and inhumanity, the subtlety, hypocrisy, lying, swearing, blasphemy, profaneness and Sacrilege in the highest pitch, and many other the like fearful sins, that have been committed since the beginning of this Parliament, by the sole means of this faction, and observe the ill acts that have been used by them to compass things lawful, and the wicked acts that have been daily practised to procure things unlawful (when by blood and rapine and the curses of many fatherless and widows, they have gotten the Treasures of the Kingdom, and the wealth of the King's loyal Subjects into their hands, and wasted it so, that their wants are still as notorious as their crimes) we may admire the miracles of God's mercy, and the bottomless depth of his goodness, that the stones in the streets have not risen against them, or the fire from Heaven had not consumed these Rebels, that thus far and thus insolently had tempted God's patience, and provoked him to anger with such horrible abominations.  
5. 
The fifth mischief.  As Jerusalem justified Samaria, so this Faction hath just fied all the Romanists, and shown themselves worse Christians, less Subjects, and viler Traitors than all the Papists are; for these facticus rebels justify their Rebellion, and to the indelible shame of their profession, they maintain that it is not only lawful, but that it is their duty to bear Arms, and to w●ge War against their King, when the King doth abuse his power: whereas the Doctrine of the Church of Rome 
* Christopherson, tract. contr. rebel. Rhemist. in Nou. Test. p. 301. Goldastus de Monarchia S. Imper. Rom. to. 3. Dr. Kellison in his Survey. Aquin de Regim. Princip. c. 6. Concil. Constan Sess. 15. Stephan. Cantuar. Ando. 8. H. 3. Tolet. in summa. l. 5. c. 6. Gr. Valentia. p. 2. q. 64. Bellar. Apol. c. 13. Lessins' l. 2. c. 9 Serrarius. Azorius, etc.  utterly denieth the same, and concludes them no Children of the Church that do it: and Doctor Kellison giveth this reason for it, because Faith is not necessarily required to Jurisdiction or Government; neither is authority lost by the loss of Faith; therefore it is not lawful for any Subjects to rebel against their King, though their King should prove a Tyrant, or should apostate from the Faith of Christ; so that now the Papists boast, they are better Subjects than these rebellious protestants: and therefore I fear that this Faction (Defendens Christum, verso mucrone cecîdit) By their unjust defigne to propagate the Gospel, have most grievously wounded the Faith of Christ, and given a more deady blow to the protestant religion than ever it had since the reformation when it is impossible that the true religion should produce, rebellion.  
And therefore seeing we are free borne Subjects, and persons interessed in the good and safety of this Kingdom, as well as any of them, we must crave liberty to express our grievances, and to crave redresses; and seeing myself am called to be a Preacher of God's Word, and a Bishop over many of the souls of my brethren, for which I must render an account to my God, both for my silence when I should speak, and speaking any thing that should not be spoken, I resolved to fear my God, and neither out of flattery to the King and his party, nor out of hatred or malice to those factious men, but as I am persuaded in my conscience, fully satisfied and guided by God's Truth, to set forth this discovery of these mysteries, what danger soever I shall undergo; and if I shall become their enemy for speaking truth, I shall far no worse than S. Paul did; and it shall be with them, if they do not repent, as it was with the Israelites, 
Ezek. 7 25, 27.  When their destruction cometh, they shall seek peace, and shall not have it, but calamity shall come upon calamity.   

CHAP. XV. Sheweth a particular recapitulation of the Reasont, whereby their Design to alter the Government of the Church and State is evinced; and a pathetical dissuasion from Rebellion.  
ANd thus I have set down not any thing to render these men more odious than they are, 
If I have beer misinformed of any thing that shall appear false, I shall not blush to retract it by an ingenious confession.  or to abuse my Reader with falsehood or uncertainties, but to report what I knew, and what I collected out of the present writings of best credit, and attested by men of known truth and integrity, whereby it is most apparent to any discerning eye, that the faction of Anabaptists, and Brownists, and some other of the subtlest heads in the House of Commons, had from the first convention of this Parliament secretly projected this design, and insensibly to the rest of their well-meaning brethren, prosecuted the same, to alter and change the ancient government both of the Church and Kingdom, which the author of Sober sadness proveth by these subsequent reasons: 
Sober Sadness, p. 44, 45, 46.  as (for the first,)  
1. By suspending all Ecclesiastical laws and censures; 
Their design to change the Church Government, proved 4 ways.  which indulgence of all vices hath drawn all offenders to comply with them.  
2. By setting the people on work to petition against the present Government, and the Service of the Church.  
3. By the Bill concluded for the abolishing of our Government.  
4. By the chief persons countenanced and employed by them in that business, who are Anabaptists and Brownists, and all sorts of Sectaries; he evinceth their design to change our our Church Government, and to convert the patrimony of the Church, which our religious Ancestors dedicated for the advancement of God's worship, not to establish learning and a preaching Ministry as they pretended, but to disengage their public faith, which otherwise would never prove a saving faith.  
And I wish there might be none about His Majesty, that pretending great loyalty unto him, do comply with them herein, and either to raise or to secure their own fortunes, would perwade S. Paul to part with S. Peter's keys, so he may still hold the sword in his hand; or to speak more plainly, to purchase the peace of the Commonwealth with the ruin of God's Church; but for this let me be bold,  
1. To crave leave to tell His Majesty, it was not His sword that hath brought him from a flying Prince out of Westminster, and as yet unsecured at Nottingham, to be a victorious King at Edge-hill, and immediately to be the terror of all the Rebels in London; but it was God, whose Church and Church- Service he defended, that protected him hitherto, and gave him the victory in battle, and let him be assured that he, which is yea and amen, will be his shield and buckler still, to defend him from the strive of his people, and to subdue them that rise against him, while he defendeth them, whose eyes next under God, are only fixed on him, to be as God hath promised, their nursing father.  
2 To assure those that would suffer the Church to fall, or perhaps sell the same out of a by-respect unto themselves, that taking their rise from the fall of the Church, or laying the foundation of their houses in the ruin of the Clergy, they do but build upon the sands, whence they shall fall, and their fall shall be great, 
1 Reg. 16.34. ●…sh. 6.26.  when the success thereof shall be as the success of the City of jericho, that was built by Hiel, who laid the foundation of it in Abiram his first borne, and set up the gates thereof in Segub his youngest son, and had her destiny described by Joshua; and all the possessions that they shall get, shall prove Acheldamas, fields of blood; and we hope God will raise deliverance to his Church from some better men, when as they and their father's house shall all perish, and shall stink in the nostrils of all good men for their perfidiousness in God's cause.  
But if any man should demand why we suspect any Traitors or false Counsellors to be in King's Courts: I answer, because Saint Paul saith, Oportet esse harese; and I believe the purest Court hath no more privilege to be free from Traitors, than the Church from Heretics; and you know there was one of eight in Noah's Ark, and another of twelve in Christ his Court; and he that was so near him, as to dip his hand with him in the dish, was the first that flew in his face, and yet with a hail Master, and with a kiss: two fair testimonies of true love.  
Therefore, let no King in Christendom think it strange that his Court should have Flatterers, Traitors, or evil Counsellors; let not us be blamed for saying this; and let not Pym so foolishly charge our King for evil Counsellors; for certainly did he know them, I make no question but he would discard them: or could I, or any other inform his Majesty who they are, and that it were an easy matter, dicier, hic est; we would not be afraid to pull off their vails, and to say, as Christ did to Judas, Thou art the man; but their Meandrian wind, their Siren's voices, and their judas kisses, are as a fair mantle, to conceal and cover joabs' treason, even perhaps to betray some of the wisest in the Parliament, as well as some of them have betrayed the King. In such a case, all I can say is this; Memento diffidere was Epicharmus his Motto; the honest plain dealing man that doth things for Religion, not for ends, is the unlikeliest man to betray his Master; and few Counsellors are not so apt to breed so many Traitors as a multitude; it was the indiscretion of Rehoboam that lost him ten parts of twelve, to prefer young Counsellors before the ancient 
* Seldom discretion in youth attendeth great and sudden fortunes. In vita Henric. 3. ; and if we may believe that either paupertas, or necessitas cogit ad turpia, or the fable of the ulcerated traveller, They that are to make their fortunes are apt to sell Church and State, and to betray King and Kingdom, rather than those that have sufficiently replenished their coffers, and enlarged their possessions. But I assure myself the mouth of malice cannot deny, but that our King hath been as wary and as wise in the choice of his Servants, Officers, and Counsellors, so far as eyes of flesh can see, in all respects, as in any Prince in Christendom, and more by man cannot be done.  
And for the second, 
Their design to change the Government of the State, showed.  that is, their design to change the Government of the State, and to work the subversion of the Monarchy: he evinceth it,  
1 By that Declaration upon the Earl of strafford's suffering, 
1. Way.  that this example might not be drawn to a precedent for the future; because they thought that themselves, intending to do the like, and to become guilty of the same crimes, might by virtue of this Declaration be secured from the punishment, if things should succeed otherwise then they hoped.  
2 By the pulling down of so many Courts of Justice, 
2. Way.  which may perhaps relieve the Subjects from some pressures, but encourage many more in licentiousness, and prove the Prodromes to the ruin of our Monarchy.  
3 By those 19 
3. Way.  Propositions, whereby the King was in very deed, 
The Letter. p. 11.  demanded to lay down his Crown, and to compound with them for the same; because (as another saith) therein, there was presented to him a perfect platform of a total change of Government, by which the Counsellors, indeed, were to have been Kings, and the King in name to have become scarce a Counsellor, and nothing of the present State to have remained, but the very names and titles of our Governors.  
4 By that expression (so little understood by many men, 
4. Way.  and yet so much talked of in many of their papers) of a power of reassuming the trust, which is falsely pretended to be derived unto his Majesty, by the mere humane pactions and agreement of the politic body of the people, which I shown unto you to be a most false and a mere invented suggestion.  
5 By their pretending to, 
5. Way.  and according to this doctrine their usurping of the power of the Militia both by sea and land.  
6 By their actual exercising of this power, 
6. Way.  in disposing of Offices, Generals, Colonels, Captains, and the like places of command in War, and appointing their Speaker Master of the Rolls, and other Officers of Peace.  
6 By the expression of one of them to Sir Edward Dering, 
7. Way.  while he was yet of their Cabinet Counsel, that if they could bring down the Lords to the House of Commons, and make the King as one of the Lords, than the whole work were done; that is, to make the Government of this Kingdom popular.  
8 I may add to these, 
8. Way.  as another unanswerable Argument of this Design, the licensing of Master Pryn's Book of The sovereign Authority of Parliaments, and suffering the same to pass unquestioned to this very day; because that Book devesteth the King of all his Sovereignty, and maketh our Government Aristecraticall.  
And this subversion of our Monarchical Government was the last Design, if not the grand Design of this Faction: not that all the Members, which have voted all or most of those things that tended to this change, or be still remaining in either House, did intent any ill either to Church or State (for I know many, especially my ever honoured Lord, the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, who, I dare avouch it in truth and honesty, did ever, and as I believe doth still bear a most upright heart, and as sincere intentions (how soever perhaps by a misunderstanding his Lordship and the rest of those well meaning men may be misguided, as were those honest men that followed Absalon) both to God's Service, the King's Honour, and the happiness both of Church and Commonwealth, as any man in the Kingdom) but that a Faction, it may be very few at first, have insensibly seduced the rest to effect their own Design; and this Faction is all that I mean by the name of Parliament, throughout this whole Treatise; because their subtlety hath prevailed over the plain integrity of the other well-minded men, to make up the major part of the House, both of the Lords and Commons; which thing hath often happened both in General Counsels, and great Parliaments, as in the Council of Constans and Trent, and many others, and that Parliament which was branded with the name of Parliamentum insanum, and the other somewhat like this, 
Tempore Hen. 3.  in quo jngulum Ecclesiae atrociùs petebatur, and the like; for otherwise, I do both honour, and reverence this Parliament rightly understood, and every Member of the same, as much as any discreet Member can desire.  
And therefore having thus discovered and displayed the Plots and practices of these infernal instruments, to insinuate their assistance unto the Scots, and their allurements of them to invade our King's Dominions; to ensnare the Irish, and to provoke the Papists, to such a Rebellion as hath been the utter ruin and destruction of many millions of men; to obscure the glory of this noble Kingdom, to alter the Discipline, and corrupt the Doctrine of the most glorious and the purest Church, that professeth the Name of Christ, and to bring us all, and all our posterity to extreme miseries, to suffer yet more than we have endured, or that can be hitherto imagined; and considering those bloody Treasons that have been publicly uttered and openly practised against the sacred Person of our Sovereign; I may justly say, that as the sins of the Israelites, and their impetuous calling for a King, moved the Lord to send them a King in his anger; so our sins, and our impatient crying for a Parliament, made our God to send us a Parliament in his wrath, that will never turn for our blessing till we return to God from our sins; for when I consider on the one side, the piety and goodness of our King, the justness of his cause, and the most ready and cordial valour, as well in the common Soldiers as the Commanders of a full and sufficient Army; and on the other side, the multitude of disloyal and seduced Subjects, the vigilancy and subtlety of their Commanders, with their unlimited ways to get moneys; and on both sides, the desire of too many, not for the honour of the King, nor the peace of the Kingdom to end the War, but to continue the same for their own advantage, until the wealth of Lawyers, Clergy, and Gentry, be transplanted to the possessions of other Masters, I am afraid it will prove an heavy judgement; and therefore, lest our obstinacy in our sins should procure the continuance of God's anger, which being removed will soon remove all our miseries; let me persuade all conscientious men, especially the Gentry, and all other understanding men, (howsoever the Citizens that deceive the Kingdom of their wealth, delight to be deceived in their faith) that would not be cheated of their Religion by these factious Mountebanks, and that would not provoke God to say, I have no pleasure in them, to turn from their rebellious courses, to listen no longer to those furious firebrands, that out of their now Divinity, contrary to the Doctrine of all the ancient Fathers, and all the Orthodox and grave Preachers of this Kingdom, do incite the People unto this unnaturally bloody War, and to slander the footsteps of Gods Anointed; because they know him not, and to remember the Oaths of their Allegiance and Supremacy, together with their late Protestation, whereby they stand obliged to their uttermost power to maintain his Majesty's Royal Person, Crown, and Dignity, against all treacherous practices, that may any ways dishonour or impair them: and then I presume their consciences will disavow the proceed of these Projectors, protest against all their Ordinances, that are made against or without the King's consent, advise all the Knights and Burgesses to Vote no more against their Sovereign, and to make no further use of the trust they reposed in them, to murder us and our fellow Subjects under the pretence of shedding the blood of the ungodly; or if they still go on to abuse that trust, (to make us yet more miserable) to withdraw themselves and their trust and power of representation from them, and to join their uttermost assistance unto his Majesty to protect him, that he may be enabled to protect us, and to overwhelm the Robels into the same pit which they have made for us.  
And this may be, by dissolving the knot of factious members wherein we see our miseries involved, and to make elections of new members into their places, that with the rest of the Lords and Commons, which were faithful both to the Church, King, and Kingdom, shall call them to a strict account, for betraying our trust, interrupting our peace, opposing his Majesty, and violating all our ancient liberties.  
Or if a better way may be found, let us follow the same to God's glory, and to produce the peace and happiness of this Kingdom; lest, if we persist obstinately in this wilful rebellion, to withstand God's Ordinance, to oppose his anointed, and to shed so much innocent blood, we shall, thus fight against heaven, so far provoke the wrath of the God of Heaven, as that the glory of Israel shall be darkened, the honour of this nation shall be trodden under foot, and be made the scorn of all other nations round about us, and the light of our Candlestick shall be extinguished, and we shall all become most miserable; because we would not hearken to the voice of the Lord our God, which I hope we will do, and do most earnestly pray that we may do it, to the glory of God, the honour of our King, and the happiness of this whole Kingdom, through jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be praise and dominion; both now and for ever. Amen.    

AN APPENDIX.  
THe man of God speaking of transcendent wickedness, 
Deu. 32.2.  saith, Their Vine is of the Vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their Grapes are grapes of Gall, their Clusters are bitter; their Wine is the poison of Dragons, and the cruel venom of Asps: and I believe never any wickedness deserved better to be clad with this elegant expression, than that threefold iniquity. 1. The unparallelled Vote. 2. The intolerable Ordinance. 3. The damnable Covenant, which the rebellious faction in Parliament have most impiously contrived, to make up the full measure of their impiety, since the writing of my discoveries; for,  
1. Omitting that horrible practice of those rebellious bloodthirsty Soul lies that did their best to murder their own most gracious Queen; this faction seeing how God prevented that plot, voted this most loving and most loyal wife to be impeached or High Treason, for being faithful to do her uttermost endeavour (which will be her everlasting praise) to assist her most dear and Royal husband, (their own Liege Lord and Sovereign King) in his greatest extremities, against a virulent mighty faction of most malicious Traitors; the strangest Treason that ever the world heard of.  
2. They made an Ordinance for the composing and convocating of such a Synod (whereof I said somewhat before) of Lay men, ignorant men, factious men, traitorous men, and such concretion of heterogeneal parts, like Nebuchadnezars image, gold, brass, and clay, all mixed together, and all so ordered, limited and bridled, (as it is expressed in the 5. and 6. page of their Ordinance) by the power of both Houses, where there are such abundance of Schismatical and seditious members, that I should scarce put the worst sensitive soul to profess that erratical faith, or any bruit beast to be guided by that Eccl●…asticall discipline, that such factious Traitors (as some of th●… are like to be proved) should compose, or cause to be composed.  
3. They composed a form of a sacred Vow, or Covenant (〈◊〉 they term it) or, as it is indeed, the Covenant of Hell, a Covenant against God, to overthrow the Gospel of Christ under the name of Christ: which Covenant is the Oil that swimm●… uppermost upon the waters, that is, the Oil of Scorpions, or (as Moses saith) the poison of Dragons, so lately wringed and d●…fused fare and near, to defile and destroy millions of souls▪ when, forgetting their faith to God, and the Oaths of their Allegiance (so often and so solemnly taken by many or most of them) to be faithful unto their King, they shall be compelled (which is one degree worse than the vow of them that bond themselves with a curse, neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul; so hypocritically, so perjuredly, so rebelliously, 〈◊〉 horribly, and so bloodily, to make such a fearful Vow, and such an abominable Covenant, so wickedly contrived, that without great and serious repentance, spiteth forth nothing but fire and brimstone, and can produce nothing else but hell and damnation to all that take it, especially to them that will coppell men to be thus transcendently wicked, as if they would send them with Corah quick to Hell. All which triplicity of evil I shall leave to some abler and more eloquent pen, to be set forth more fully in the right colours, that being sufficiently displayed, they may be throughly detested of all good men. Amen.  
O Lord have mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to to keep thy Laws.   

ERRATA.  
Page 24. lin. 11. for malicious, read heavy. pag. 98. lin. 1. rea● somewhat like him, etc.  
FINIS.