rugged and more boisterous litence of undifciplined camps and garrifons, for years unable to reflect with judgment upon his own condition, and thus ill instructed by his father, fhould give his mind to walk by any other rules than these, bequeathed him as on his father's deathbed, and as the choiceft of all that experience, which his moft ferious obfervation and retirement in good or evil days had taught him. David indeed, by futtering without juft caufe, learned that meeknefs and that wildom by adverfity, which made him much the fitter man to reign. But they who fuffer as oppreffors, tyrants, violators of law, and perfecutors of reformation, without appearance of repenting; if they once get hold again of that dignity and power, which they had loft, are but whetted and enraged by what they fuffered, against thofe whom they look upon as them that caufed their fufferings.

How he hath been "fubject to the fceptre of God's word and fpirit," though acknowledged to be the best government; and what his difpenfation of civil power hath been, with what juftice, and what honour to the public peace; it is but looking back upon the whole catalogue of his deeds, and that will be fufficient to remember us. "The cup of God's phytic," as he calls it, what alteration it wrought in him to a firm healthfulnes from any furfeit, or excefs whereof the people generally thought him fick, if any man would go about to prove, we have his own teftimony following here, that it wrought

none at all.

Firft, he hath the fame fixed opinion and efteem of his old Ephefian goddefs, called the Church of England, as he had ever; and charges ftrictly his fon after him to perfevere in that antipapal fchifin (for it is not much better) as that which will be neceffary both for his foul's and the kingdom's peace. But if this can be any foundation of the kingdom's peace, which was the first cause of our diftractions, let common fenfe be judge. It is a rule and principle worthy to be known by chriftians, that no fcripture, no nor fo much as any ancient creed, binds our faith, or our obedience to any Church whatfoever, denominated by a particular name; far lefs, if

it be diftinguished by a feveral government from that which is indeed catholic. No man was ever bid be fubject to the church of Corinth, Rome, or Afia, but to the church without addition, as it held faithful to the rules of fcripture, and the government established in all places by the apostles; which at firft was univerfally the fame in all churches and congregations; not differing or diftinguished by the diversity of countries, territories or civil bounds. That church, that from the name of a diftinct place takes authority to fet up a distinct faith or government, is a fchifm and faction, not a church. It were an injury to condemn the papist of abfurdity and contradiction, for adhering to his catholic romifh religion, if we, for the pleasure of a king and his politic confiderations, fhall. adhere to a catholic english.

But fuppofe the church of England were as it ought to be, how is it to us the fafer by being fo named and established, whenas that very name and establishment, by his contriving, or approbation, ferved for nothing elfe but to delude us and amufe us, while the church of England infenfibly was almoft changed and tranflated into the church of Rome. Which as every man knows in general to be true, fo the particular treaties and tranfactions tending to that conclufion are at large discovered in a book entitled the "English Pope." But when the people, difcerning thefe abufes, began to call for reformation, in order to which the parliament demanded of the king to uneftablish that prelatical government, which without fcripture had ufurped over us; ftraight as Pharaoh accused of idleness the Ifraelites that fought leave to go and facrifice to God, he lays faction to their charge. And that we may not hope to have ever any thing reformed in the church either by him or his fon, he forewarns him, "that the devil of rebellion doth most commonly turn himself into an angel of reformation:" and fays enough to make him hate it, as the worst of evils, and the bane of his crown: nay he counfels him to "let nothing feem little or defpicable to him, fo as not speedily and effectually to fupprefs errours and fchifms." Whereby we may perceive plainly, that our confciences were deftined to the fame fervitude and perfecution, if not VOL. III.

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worfe than before, whether under him, or if it fhould fo happen, under his fon; who count all proteftant churches erroneous and fchifmatical, which are not epifcopal. His next precept is concerning our civil liberties; which by his tole voice and predominant will must be circumfcribed, and not permitted to extend a hand's breadth further than his interpretation of the laws already fettled. And although all human laws are but the offspring of that francy, that fallibility and imperfection, which was in their authors, whereby many laws in the change of ignorant and obicure ages, may be found both fcandalous, and full of grievance to their pofterity that made them, and no law is further good than mutable upon juft occafion; yet if the removing of an old law, or the making of a new would fave the kingdom, we fhall not have it, unless his arbitrary voice will fo far flacken the ftiff curb of his prerogative, as to grant it us; who are as freeborn to make our own laws, as our fathers were, who made these we have. Where are then the english liberties, which we boaft to have been left us by our progenitors? To that he anfwers, that "our liberties confift in the enjoyment of the fruits of our industry, and the benefit of thofe laws, to which we ourselves have confented." First, for the enjoyment of those fruits, which our industry and labours have made our own upon our own, what privilege is that above what the Turks, Jews, and Moors enjoy under the turkish monarchy For without that kind of justice, which is alio in Algiers, among thieves and pirates between themfelves, no kind of government, no fociety, juft or unjust, could stand; no combination or confpiracy could stick together. Which he alio acknowledges in thefe words: "that if the crown upon his head be fo heavy as to opprefs the whole body, the weakness of inferiour members cannot return any thing of ftrength, honour, or fafety to the head; but that a neceffary debilitation must follow." So that this liberty of the fubject concerns himfelf and the fubfiftence of his own regal power in the first place, and before the confideration of any right belonging to the fubject. We expect therefore fomething more, that muft diftinguifh free government from flavifh. But

inftead

inftead of that, this king, though ever talking and protefting as fmooth as now, fuffered it in his own hearing to be preached and pleaded without control or check, by them whom he moft favoured and upheld, that the fubject had no property of his own goods, but that all was the king's right.

Next, for the "benefit of thofe laws, to which we ourselves have confented," we never had it under him; for not to speak of laws ill executed, when the parliament, and in them the people, have confented to divers laws, and, according to our ancient rights, demanded them, he took upon him to have a negative will, as the tranfcendent and ultimate law above all our laws; and to rule us forcibly by laws, to which we ourselves did not confent, but complained of. Thus these two heads, wherein the utmost of his allowance here will give our liberties leave to confift, the one of them fhall be fo far only made good to us, as may fupport his own interest and crown from ruin or debilitation; and fo far turkish vaffals enjoy as much liberty under Mahomet and the Grand Signior: the other we neither yet have enjoyed under him, nor were ever like to do under the tyranny of a negative voice, which he claims above the unanimous content and power of a whole nation, virtually in the parliament.

In which negative voice to have been caft by the doom of war, and put to death by those who vanquished him in their own defence, he reckons to himself more than a negative martyrdom. But martyrs bear witness to the truth, not to themfelves. If I bear witnefs of myself, faith Chrift, my witnefs is not true. He who writes himself martyr by his own infcription, is like an ill painter, who, by writing on the fhapeless picture which he hath drawn, is fain to tell paffengers what fhape it is: which elfe no man could imagine: no more than how a martyrdom can belong to him, who therefore dies for his religion, because it is eftablished. Certainly if Agrippa had turned chriftian, as he was once turning, and had put to death fcribes and pharifees for obferving the law of Mofes, and refufing chriftianity, they had died a truer martyrdom. For thofe laws were established by God

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and Mofes, thefe by no warrantable authors of religion, whofe laws in all other beft reformed churches are rejected. And if to die for an cftablishment of religion be martyrdom, then romifh priefis executed for that, which had fo many hundred years been established in this land, are no worse martyrs than he. Laftly, if to die for the teftimony of his own confcience, be enough to make him a martyr, what heretic dying for direct blafphemy, as fome have done conftantly, may not boaft a martyrdom? As for the conftitution or repeal of civil laws, that power lying only in the parliament, which he by the very law of his coronation was to grant them, not to debar them, not to preferve a leffer law with the contempt and violation of a greater; it will conclude him not fo much as in a civil and metaphorical fenie to have died a martyr of our laws, but a plain tranfgreffor of them. And thould the parliament endued with legislative power, make our laws, and be after to difpute them piece-meal with the reafon, confcience, humour, passion, fancy, folly, obftinacy, or other ends of one man, whofe fole word and will fhall baffle and unmake what all the wisdom of a parliament hath been deliberately framing; what a ridiculous and contemptible thing a parliament would foon be, and what a bafe unworthy nation we, who boaft our freedom, and fend them with the manifeft peril of their lives to preferve it, they who are not marked by destiny for flaves may apprehend! In this fervile condition to have kept us ftill under hatches, he both refolves here to the laft, and fo inftructs his fon.

As to thofe offered condefcenfions of a "charitable connivance, or toleration," if we confider what went before, and what follows, they moulder into nothing. For, what with not fuffering ever fo little to feem a defpicable fchifm, without effectual fuppreffion, as he warned him before, and what with no oppofition of law, government, or established religion to be permitted, which is his following provifo, and wholly within his own conftruction; what a miferable and fufpected toleration, under fpies and haunting promooters we thould enjoy, is apparent. Befides that it is fo far beneath the honour of a parliament and free nation, to beg and fupplicate the godfhip of one