making or not making of any law; but to take that for juft and good legally, which is there decreed, and to fee it executed accordingly. Nor was he fet over us to vie wifdom with his parliament, but to be guided by them; any of whom poffibly may as far excel him in the gift of wisdom, as he them in place and dignity. But much nearer is it to impoffibility, that any king alone fhould be witer than all his council; fure enough it was not he, though no king ever before him fo much contended to have it thought fo. And if the parliament fo thought not, but defired him to follow their advice and deliberation in things of public concernment, he accounts it the fame propofition, as if Sampion had been moved "to the putting out his eyes, that the Philiftines might, abufe him." And thus out of an unwife or pretended fear, left others thould make a fcorn of him for yielding to his parliament, he regards not to give caufe of worfe fufpicion, that he made a icorn of his regal oath.

But "to exclude him from all power of denial feems an arrogance;" in the parliament he means: what in him then to deny against the parliament? None at all, by what he argues: for "by petitioning, they confefs their inferiority, and that obliges them to reft, if not fatisfied; yet quieted with fuch an aniwer as the will and realon of their fuperior thinks fit to give." Firft, petitioning, in better English, is no more than requefting or requiring; and inen require not favours only, but their due; and that not only from fuperiors, but from equals, and inferiors alfo. The nobleft Romans, when they stood for that which was a kind of regal honour, the confulthip, were wont in a fubmiffive manner to go about, and beg that highet dignity of the meaneft plebeians, namning them inan by man; which in their tongue was called petitio confulatus. And the parliament of England petitioned the king, not becaufe all of them were inferior to him, but becaule he was inferior to any one of them, which they did of civil cuftom, and for fafhion's fake, more than of duty; for by plain law cited before, the parliament is his fuperior.

But what law in any trial or difpute enjoins a freeman to reft quieted, though not fatisfied with the will and

B3

realon

reason of his fuperior? It were a mad law that would fubject reafon to fuperiority of place. And if our highest confultations and purpofed laws must be terminated by the king's will, then is the will of one man our law, and no fubtlety of difpute can redeem the parliament and nation from being flaves: neither can any tyrant require more than that his will or reafon, though not fatisfying, fhould yet be refted in, and determine all things. We may conclude therefore, that when the parliament petitioned the king, it was but merely form, let it be as "foolish and abfurd" as he pleafes. It cannot certainly be fo abfurd as what he requires, that the parliament thould confine their own and all the kingdom's reafon to the will of one man, because it was his hap to fucceed his father. For neither God nor the laws have fubjected us to his will, nor fet his reafon to be our fovereign above law (which muft needs be, if he can strangle it in the birth) but fet his perfon over us in the fovereign execution of fuch laws as the parliament establish. The parliament therefore, without any ufurpation, hath had it always in their power to limit and confine the exorbitancy of kings, whether they call it their will, their reafon, or their confcience.

But this above all was never expected, nor is to be endured, that a king, who is bound by law and oath to follow the advice of his parliament, fhould be permitted to except against them as " young ftatefmen," and proudly to fufpend his following their advice, "until his seven years experience had thown him how well they could govern themfelves." Doubtlefs the law never fuppofed fo great an arrogance could be in one man; that he whofe feventeen years unexperience had almoft ruined all, fhould fit another feven years schoolmafter to tutor thofe who were fent by the whole realm to be his counsellors and teachers. And with what modesty can he pretend to be a statesman himself, who with his father's king-craft and his own, did never that of his own accord, which was not directly oppofite to his profeffed intereft both at home and abroad; difcontenting and alienating his fubjects at home, weakening and deferting his confederates abroad, and with them the common

caufe

caufe of religion; fo that the whole courfe of his reign, by an example of his own furnishing, hath refembled Phaeton more than Phoebus, and forced the parliament to drive like Jehu; which omen taken from his own mouth, God hath not diverted?

And he on the other fide might have remembered, that the parliament fit in that body, not as his fubjects, but as his fuperiors, called, not by him, but by the law; not only twice every year, but as oft as great affairs require, to be his counsellors and dictators, though he ftomach it; nor to be diffolved at his pleasure, but when all grievances be first removed, all petitions heard and anfwered. This is not only reafon, but the known law of the land.

"When he heard that propofitions would be fent him," he fat conjecturing what they would propound; and because they propounded what he expected not, he takes that to be a warrant for his denying them. But what did he expect? He expected that the parliament would reinforce "fome old laws." But if thofe laws were not a fufficient remedy to all grievances, nay were found to be grievances themfelves, when did we lofe that other part of our freedom to establish new? He thought "fome injuries done by himself and others to the commonwealth were to be repaired." But how could that be, while he the chief offender took upon him to be fole judge both of the injury and the reparation?" He staid till the advantages of his crown confidered, might induce him to condefcend to the people's good." When as the crown itself with all thofe advantages were therefore given him, that the people's good thould be firft confidered; not bargained for, and bought by inches with the bribe of more offertures and advantages to his crown. He looked" for moderate defires of due reformation;" as if any fuch defires could be immoderate. He looked for fuch a reformation "both in church and state, as might preferve" the roots of every grievance and abuse in both still growing (which he calls "the foundation and effentials") and would have only the excrefcences of evil pruned away for the prefent, as was plotted before, that they might grow faft enough between triennial parliaments, to hinder them by work enough befides from

ever ftriking at the root. He alleges, "They should have had regard to the laws in force, to the wildom and piety of former parliaments, to the ancient and universal practice of chriftian churches." As if they who come with full authority to redrefs public grievances, which ofttimes are laws themfelves, were to have their hands bound by laws in force, or the fuppofition of more piety and wifdom in their ancestors, or the practice of churches heretofore; whofe fathers, notwithstanding all these pretences, made as vaft alterations to free themfelves from ancient popery. For all antiquity that adds or varies from the fcripture, is no more warranted to our fafe imitation, than what was done the age before at Trent. Nor was there need to have defpaired of what could be eftablished in lieu of what was to be annulled, having before his eyes the government of fo many churches beyond the feas; whofe pregnant and folid reafons wrought fo with the parliament, as to defire a uniformity rather with all other proteftants, than to be a fchifin divided from them under a conclave of thirty bithops, and a crew of irreligious priefts that gaped for the fame prefer

ment.

And whereas he blames thofe propofitions for not containing what they ought, what did they mention, but to vindicate and reftore the rights of parliament invaded by cabin councils, the courts of juftice obftructed, and the government of the church innovated and corrupted? All these things he might eafily have obferved in them, which he affirms he could not find; but found "thofe demanding" in parliament, who were "looked upon before as factious in the ftate, and fchifmatical in the church; and demanding not only toleration for themfelves in their vanity, novelty, and confufion, but allo an extirpation of that government, whofe rights they had a mind to invade." Was this man ever likely to be advifed, who with fuch a prejudice and difeftcem fets himfelf against his cholen and appointed counfellors? likely ever to admit of reformation, who cenfures all the government of other protettant churches, as bad as any papift could have centured them? And what king had ever his whole kingdom in fuch contempt, fo to wrong

and

and dishonour the free elections of his people, as to judge them, whom the nation thought worthieft to fit with him in parliament, few elfe but fuch as were " punishable by the laws?" yet knowing that time was, when to be a proteftant, to be a chriftian, was by law as punithable as to be a traitor; and that our Saviour himself, coming to reform his church, was accufed of an intent to invade Cæfar's right, as good a right as the prelate bifhops ever had; the one being got by force, the other by fpiritual ufurpation; and both by force upheld.

He admires and falls into an extafy, that the parliament fhould fend him fuch a "horrid propofition," as the removal of epifcopacy. But expect from him in an extafy no other reafons of his admiration than the dream and tautology of what he hath fo often repeated, law, antiquity, anceftors, profperity, and the like, which will be therefore not worth a fecond anfwer, but may pafs with his own comparison into the common fewer of other popish arguments.

66

Had the two houfes fued out their livery from the wardship of tumults," he could fooner have believed them. It concerned them firft to fue out their livery from the unjuft wardthip of his encroaching prerogative. And had he alfo redeemed his overdated minority from a pupilage under bifhops, he would much lefs have miftrufted his parliament; and never would have fet fo base a character upon them, as to count them no better than the vaffals of certain namclefs men, whom he charges to be fuch as "hunt after faction with their hounds the tumults." And yet the bithops could have told him, that Nimrod, the firit that hunted after faction, is reputed by ancient tradition the first that founded monarchy; whence it appears, that to hunt after faction is more properly the king's gaine; and thote hounds, which he calls the vulgar, have been often hallooed to from court, of whom the mongrel fort have been enticed; the reft have not loft their fcent, but underfood aright, that the parliament had that part to act, which he had failed in ; that truft to discharge, which he had broken; that estate and honour to preferve, which was far beyond his, the " eftate