and not the flaves of one man's will; then was the king himself difobedient and rebellious to that law by which he reigned and by authority of parliament to raise arms against him in defence of law and liberty, we do not only think, but believe and know was juftifiable both by the word of God, the laws of the land, and all lawful oaths;" and they who fided with him, fought againft all these.

The fame allegations, which he uses for himself and his party, may as well fit any tyrant in the world: for let the parliament be called a faction when the king pleases, and that no law must be made or changed, either civil or religious, because no law will content all fides, then must be made or changed no law at all, but what a tyrant, be he proteftant or papift, thinks fit. Which tyrannous affertion forced upon us by the fword, he who fights againft, and dies fighting, if his other fins outweigh not, dies a martyr undoubtedly both of the faith and of the commonwealth: and I hold it not as the opinion, but as the full belief and perfuafion of far holier and wifer men than parafitic preachers: who, without their dinnerdoctrine, know that neither king, law, civil oaths, or religion, was ever established without the parliament : and their power is the fame to abrogate as to establish : neither is any thing to be thought established, which that houfe declares to be abolished. Where the parliament fits, there infeparably fits the king, there the laws, there our oaths, and whatsoever can be civil in religion. They who fought for the parliament, in the trueft sense, fought for all thefe; who fought for the king divided from his parliament, fought for the fhadow of a king against all these; and for things that were not, as if they were established. It were a thing monftroufly abfurd and contradictory, to give the parliament a legislative power, and then to upbraid them for tranfgreffing old establishments.

But the king and his party having loft in this quarrel their Heaven upon earth, begin to make great reckoning of eternal life, and at an eafy rate in forma pauperis canonize one another into Heaven; he them in his book, they him in the portraiture before his book: but as was

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faid before, ftage-work will not do it, much less the "juftnefs of their caufe," wherein moft frequently they died in a brutish fiercenefs, with oaths and other damning words in their mouths; as if fuch had been all "the only oaths" they fought for; which undoubtedly. fent them full fail on another voyage than to Heaven. In the meanwhile they to whom God gave victory, never brought to the king at Oxford the ftate of their confciences, that he fhould prefume without confeffion, more than a pope prefumes, to tell abroad what "conflicts and accufations," men whom he never spoke with, have "in their own thoughts." We never read of any English king but one that was a confeffor, and his name was Edward; yet fure it paffed his fkill to know thoughts, as this king takes upon him. But they who will not stick to flander men's inward confciences, which they can neither fee nor know, much lefs will care to flander outward actions, which they pretend to fee, though with fenfes never fo vitiated.

To judge of his condition conquered," and the manner of "dying" on that fide, by the fober men that chofe it, would be his fmall advantage: it being most notorious, that they who were hottest in his caufe, the moft of them were men oftener drunk, than by their good will fober, and very many of them fo fought and fo died *.

And that the confcience of any man fhould grow fufpicious, or be now convicted by any pretenfions in the parliament, which are now proved falfe and unintended, there can be no juft caufe. For neither did they ever pretend to eftablifh his throne without our liberty and religion, nor religion without the word of God, nor to judge of laws by their being established, but to establish then by their being good and neceffary.

He tells the world "he often prayed, that all on his

Ilear what defcription an hiftorian of that party gives of thofe on the royal fide: "Never had any good undertaking fo many unworthy attendants; fuch horrid blafphemers and wicked wretches as ours hath had: I quake to think, much more to speak, what mine ears have heard from fome of their lips: but to discover them is not my prefent business."

Symmon's Defence of King Charles I. p. 165.

fide might be as faithful to God and their own fouls, as to him." But kings, above all other men, have in their hands not to pray only, but to do. To make that prayer effectual, he fhould have governed as well as prayed. To pray and not to govern, is for a monk, and not a king. Till then he might be well affured, they were more faithful to their luft and rapine than to him.

In the wonted predication of his own virtues he goes on to tell us, that to "conquer he never defired, but only to reftore the laws and liberties of his people." It had been happy then he had known at laft, that by force to reftore laws abrogated by the legiflative parliament, is to conquer abfolutely both them and law itself. And for our liberties none ever oppreffed them more, both in peace and war; firft like a mafter by his arbitrary power, next as an enemy by hoftile invafion.

And if his best friends feared him, and "he himself, in the temptation of an abfolute conqueft," it was not only pious but friendly in the parliament, both to fear him and refift him; fince their not yielding was the only means to keep him out of that temptation, wherein he doubted his own ftrength.

He takes himself to be "guilty in this war of nothing elfe, but of confirming the power of fome men:" Thus all along he fignifies the parliament, whom to have settled by an act he counts to be his only guiltinefs. So well he knew, that to continue a parliament, was to raise a war against himfelf; what were his actions then, and his government the while? For never was it heard in all our ftory, that parliaments made war on their kings, but on their tyrants; whofe modefty and gratitude was more wanting to the parliament, than theirs to any of fuch kings.

What he yielded was his fear; what he denied was his obftinacy. Had he yielded more, fear might perchance have faved him; had he granted lefs, his obftinacy had perhaps the fooner delivered us.

"To review the occafions of this war," will be to them never too late, who would be warned by his example from the like evils: but to wish only a happy conclufion, will never expiate the fault of his unhappy beginnings.

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beginnings. It is true, on our fide the fins of our lives not feldom fought against us: but on their fide, befides thofe, the grand fin of their caufe.

How can it be otherwife, when he defires here moft unreasonably, and indeed facrilegiously, that we fhould be fubject to him, though not further, yet as far as all of us may be fubject to God; to whom this expreffion leaves no precedency? He who defires from men as much obedience and fubjection, as we may all pay to God, defires not lefs than to be a God: a facrilege far worse than meddling with the bishops' lands, as he efteems it.

His prayer is a good prayer and a glorious; but glorying is not good, if it know not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. It fhould have purged out the leaven of untruth, in telling God that the blood of his subjects by him shed, was in his juft and neceffary defence. Yet this is remarkable; God hath here fo ordered his prayer, that as his own lips acquitted the parliament, not long before his death, of all the blood spilt in this war, fo now his prayer unwittingly draws it upon himself. For God imputes not to any man the blood he fpills in a juft caufe; and no man ever begged his not imputing of that, which he in his juftice could not impute fo that now, whether purpofely or unaware, he hath confeffed both to God and man the blood-guiltine's of all this war to lie upon his own head.

XX. Upon the Reformation of the Times.

THIS chapter cannot punctually be answered without more repetitions than now can be excufable: which perhaps have already been more humoured than was needful. As it presents us with nothing new, fo with his exceptions against reformation pitifully old, and tattered with continual ufing; not only in his book, but in the words and writings of every papist and popish king. the fcene e thrufts out firft an antimafque of bugbears, novelty and perturbation; that the ill looks and noise of those two may as long as poffible drive off all endeavours of a reformation. Thus fought pope Adrian, by repre

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fenting the like vain terrours, to divert and diffipate the zeal of thofe reforming princes of the age before in Germany. And if we credit Latimer's fermons, our papifts here in England pleaded the fame dangers and inconveniencies againft that which was reformed by Edward the Sixth. Whereas if thofe fears had been available, chriftianity itself had never been received. Which Chrift foretold us would not be admitted, without the cenfure of novelty, and many great commotions. Thefe therefore are not to deter us.

He grants reformation to be " a good work," and confeffes "what the indulgence of times and corruption of manners might have depraved." So did the forementioned pope, and our grandfire papifts in this realm. Yet all of them agree in one fong with this here, that "they are forry to fee fo little regard had to laws eftablifhed, and the religion fettled."

"Popular compliance, diffolution of all order and government in the church, fchifins, opinions, undecen0 cies, confufions, facrilegious invafions, contempt of the clergy and their liturgy, diminution of princes;" all thefe complaints are to be read in the meffages and fpeeches almost of every legate from the pope to thofe states and cities which began reformation. From whence he either learned the fame pretences, or had them naturally in him from the fame fpirit. Neither was there ever fo fincere a reformation that hath escaped these cla

mours.

He offered a "fynod or convocation rightly chofen." So offered all thofe popifh kings heretofore; a course the moft unfatisfactory, as matters have been long carried, and found by experience in the church liable to the greatest fraud and packing; no folution, or redrefs of evil, but an increase rather; detefted therefore by Nazianzen, and fome other of the fathers. And let it be produced, what good hath been done by fynods from the first times of reformation.

Not to juftify what enormities the vulgar may commit in the rudeness of their zeal, we need but only inftance how he bemoans "the pulling down of croffes" and other fuperftitious monuments, as the effect "of a po

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