He goes on still in his tenderness of the Irish rebels, fearing left our zeal fhould be more greedy to kill the bear for his fkin, than for any harm he hath done." This either juftifies the rebels to have done no harm at all, or infers his opinion that the parliament is more bloody and rapacious in the prosecution of their justice, than those rebels were in the execution of their barbarous cruelty. Let men doubt now and difpute to whoi the king was a friend moft-to his English parliament, or to his Irish rebels.

With whom, that we may yet fee further how much he was their friend, after that the parliament had brought them every where either to famine or a low condition, he, to give them all the refpite and advantages they could defire, without advice of parliament, to whom he himself had committed the managing of that war, makes a ceffation; in pretence to relieve the proteftants, " overborne there with numbers;" but, as the event proved, to fupport the papists, by diverting and drawing over the English army there, to his own fervice here against the parliament. For that the proteftants were then on the winning hand, it must needs be plain; who, notwithstanding the mifs of thofe forces, which at their landing here mastered without difficulty great part of Wales and Chefhire, yet made a fhift to keep their own in Ireland. But the plot of this Irish truce is in good part discovered in that declaration of September 30, 1643. And if the proteftants were but handfuls there, as he calls them, why did he ftop and waylay, both by land and sea, to his utmoft power, thofe provifions and fupplies which were fent by the parliament? How were fo many handfuls called over, as for a while stood him in no fmall ftead, and against our main forces here in England?

Since therefore all the reafons that can be given of this eeffation appear fo falfe and frivolous, it may be juftly feared, that the defign itself was most wicked and pernicious. What remains then? He "appeals to God," and is caft; likening his punishment to Job's trials, before he faw them to have Job's ending. But how could charity herself believe there was at all in him any religion, fo

much as but to fear there is a God; whenas, by what is noted in the declaration of "No more addreffes," he vowed folemnly to the parliament, with imprecations upon himself and his pofterity, if ever he confented to the abolishing of those laws which were in force against papifts; and, at the fame time, as appeared plainly by the very date of his own letters to the queen and Ormond, confented to the abolishing of all penal laws against them both in Ireland and England? If these were acts of a religious prince, what memory of man, written or unwritten, can tell us news of any prince that ever was irreligious? He cannot ftand " to make prolix apologies." Then furely thofe long pamphlets fet out for declarations and proteftations in his name were none of his; and how they fhould be his, indeed, being fo repugnant to the whole courfe of his actions, augments the difficulty.

But he ufurps a common faying, "That it is kingly to do well, and hear ill." That may be fometimes true: but far more frequently to do ill and hear well; fo great is the multitude of flatterers, and them that deify the name of king!

Yet, not content with these neighbours, we have him ftill a perpetual preacher of his own virtues, and of that especially, which who knows not to be patience perforce?

He "believes it will at laft appear, that they who first began to embroil his other kingdoms, are alfo guilty of the blood of Ireland." And we believe fo too; for now the ceffation is become a peace by published articles, and commiffion to bring them over against England, first only ten thousand by the earl of Glamorgan, next all of them, if poffible, under Ormond, which was the last of all his tranfactions done as a public perfon. And no wonder; for he looked upon the blood fpilt, whether of fubjects or of rebels, with an indifferent, eye, as exhaufted out of his own veins;" without diftinguifhing,

See this fully proved in Dr. Birch's Enquiry into the share which King Charles I. had in the tranfactions of the earl of Glamorgan. The fecond edition, 1756.

as he ought, which was good blood and which corrupt; the not letting out whereof, endangers the whole body.

And what the doctrine is, ye may perceive alfo by the prayer, which, after a fhort ejaculation for the "poor proteftants," prays at large for the Irish rebels, that God would not give them over, or "their children, to the covetoufnefs, cruelty, fierce and curfed anger" of the parliament.

He finishes with a deliberate and folemn curfe " upon himself and his father's houfe." Which how far God hath already brought to pafs, is to the end, that men, by fo eminent an example, fhould learn to tremble at his judgments; and not play with imprecations.

XIII. Upon the calling in of the Scots, and their coming.

IT muft needs feem ftrange, where men accuftom themselves to ponder and contemplate things in their first original and inftitution, that kings, who, as all other officers of the public, were at firft chofen and installed only by confent and fuffrage of the people, to govern them as freemen by laws of their own making, and to be, in confideration of that dignity and riches bestowed upon them, the entrusted fervants of the commonwealth, fhould, notwithstanding, grow up to that dishonest encroachment, as to esteem themselves masters, both of that great trust which they serve, and of the people that betrufted them; counting what they ought to do, both in discharge of their public duty, and for the great reward of honour and revenue which they receive, as done all of mere grace and favour'; as if their power over us were by nature, and from themselves, or that God had fold us into their hands. Indeed, if the race of kings were eminently the best of men, as the breed at Tutbury is of horfes, it would in reafon then be their part only to command, ours always to obey. But kings by generation no way excelling others, and moft commonly not being the wifeft or the worthieft by far of whom they claim to have the governing; that we fhould yield them

fubjection

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fubjection to our own ruin, or hold of them the right of our common fafety, and our natural freedom by mére gift, (as when the conduit piffes wine at coronations) from the fuperfluity of their royal grace and beneficence, we may be fure was never the intent of God, whofe ways are juft and equal; never the intent of nature, whose works are alfo regular; never of any people not wholly barbarous, whom prudence, or no more but human fenfe, would have better guided when they first created kings, than fo to nullify and tread to dirt the rest of mankind, by exalting one perfon and his lineage with out other merit looked after, but the mere contingency of a begetting, into an abfolute and unaccountable dominion over them and their pofterity. Yet this igno rant or wilful mistake of the whole matter had taken fo deep root in the imagination of this king, that whether to the English or to the Scot, mentioning what acts of his regal office (though God knows how unwillingly) he had paffed, he calls them, as in other places, acts of grace and bounty; fo here "fpecial obligations, favours, to gratify active fpirits, and the defires of that party.' Words not only founding pride and lordly ufurpation, but injustice, partiality, and corruption. For to the Irish he fo far condefcended, as first to tolerate in private, then to covenant openly the tolerating of popery: fo far to the Scot, as to remove bifhops, establish prefbytery, and the militia in their own hands; "preferring as fome thought, the defires of Scotland before his own intereft and honour." But being once on this fide Tweed, his reason, his confcience, and his honour became fo frightened with a kind of falle virginity,' that to the English neither one nor other of the fame demands could be granted, wherewith the Scots were gratified; as if our air and climate on a fudden had changed the property and the nature both of confcience, honour, and reason, or that he found none fo fit as English to be the fubjects of his arbitrary power. Ireland was as Ephraim, the ftrength of his head; Scotland as Judah,' was his lawgiver; but over England, as over Edom, he meant to caft his fhoe: and yet fo many fober Englishmen, not fufficiently awake to confider this, like men enchanted

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enchanted with the Circæan cup of fervitude, will not be held back from running their own heads into the yoke of bondage.

The fum of his difcourfe is against fettling of religion by violent means;" which, whether it were the Scots defign upon England, they are beft able to clear themselves. But this of all may seem strangest, that the king, who, while it was permitted him, never did thing more eagerly than to moleft and perfecute the consciences of moft religious men; he who had made a war, and loft all, rather than not uphold a hierarchy of perfecuting bishops, fhould have the confidence here to profess himfelf fo much an enemy of thofe that force the confcience. For was it not he, who upon the English obtruded new ceremonies, upon the Scots a new Liturgy, and with his sword went about to engrave a bloody Rubric on their backs? Did he not forbid and hinder all effectual fearch of truth; nay, like a befieging enemy, fstopped all her paffages both by word and writing? Yet here can talk of

*

fair and equal difputations;" where, notwithstanding, if all fubmit not to his judgment, as not being "rationally convicted," they muft fubmit (and he conceals it not) to his penalty, as counted obftinate. But what if he himself, and thofe his learned churchmen, were the convicted or the obftinate part long ago; fhould refor mation fuffer them to fit lording over the church in their fat bishoprics and pluralities, like the great whore that fitteth upon many waters, till they would vouchsafe to be difputed out? Or fhould we fit difputing, while they fat plotting and perfecuting? Thofe clergymen were not "to be driven into the fold like fheep," as his fimile runs, but to be driven out of the fold like wolves or thieves, where they fat fleecing those flocks which they never fed.

He believes" that prefbytery, though proved to be the only inftitution of Jefus Chrift, were not by the fword to be fet up without his confent;" which is contrary both to the doctrine and the known practice of all proteftant churches, if his fword threaten thofe who of their own accord embrace it.

The fecond edition has fcore.

And