that were to fuffer, it could no mo e be called a perfecution, but a plain war. From which when firft the Scots, then the English, were constrained to defend themselves, this their juft defence is that which he calls, here," their making war upon his foul.”

He grudges that "fo many things are required of him, and nothing offered him in requital of thofe favours which he had granted." What could fatiate the defires of this man, who being king of England, and master of almost two millions yearly what by hook or crook, was still in want; and thofe acts of juftice which he was to do in duty, counts done as favours; and fuch favours as were not done without the avaricious hope of other rewards befides fupreme honour, and the conftant revenue of his place?

"This honour," he faith, "they did him, to put him on the giving part. And spake truer than he intended, it being merely for honour's fake that they did fo; not that it belonged to him of right: for what can he give to a parliament, who receives all he hath from the people, and for the people's good? Yet now he brings his own conditional rights to conteft and be preferred before the people's good; and yet unless it be in order to their good, he hath no rights at all; reigning by the laws of the land, not by his own; which laws are in the hands of parliament to change or abrogate as they fhall fee beft for the commonwealth, even to the taking away of kingfhip itself, when it grows too masterful and burdenfome. For every commonwealth is in general defined, a fociety fufficient of itself, in all things conducible to well-being and commodious life. Any of which requifite things, if it cannot have without the gift and favour of a fingle perfon, or without leave of his private reafon or his confcience, it cannot be thought fufficient of itself, and by confequence no commonwealth, nor free; but a multitude of vaffals in the poffeffion and domain of one abfolute lord, and wholly obnoxious to his will. If the king have power to give or deny any thing to his parliament, he must do it either as a perfon feveral from them, or as one greater; neither of which will be allowed him: not to be confidered feverally from them; for as the

king of England can do no wrong, fo neither can he do right but in his courts and by his courts; and what is legally done in them, fhall be deemed the king's affent, though he as a feveral perfon fhall judge or endeavour the contrary; fo that indeed without his courts, or against them, he is no king. If therefore he obtrude upon us any public mifchief, or withhold from us any general good, which is wrong in the higheft degree, he muft do it as a tyrant, not as a king of England, by the known maxims of our law. Neither can he, as one greater, give aught to the parliament which is not in their own power, but he must be greater alfo than the kingdom which they reprefent: fo that to honour him with the giving part was a mere civility, and may be well termed the courtesy of England, not the king's due.

But the "incommunicable jewel of his confcience" he will not give, "but referve to himfelf." It feems that his confcience was none of the crown-jewels; for those we know were in Holland, not incommunicable, to buy arms against his fubjects. Being therefore but a private jewel, he could not have done a greater pleasure to the kingdom, than by referving it to himfelf. But he, contrary to what is here profeffed, would have his confcience not an incommunicable, but a univerfal confcience, the whole kingdom's confcience. Thus what he feems to fear left we fhould ravith from him, is our chief complaint that he obtruded upon us; we never forced him to part with his confcience, but it was he that would have forced us to part with ours.

Some things he taxes them to have offered him, "which, while he had the mastery of his reafon, he would never confent to." Very likely; but had his reafon mastered him as it ought, and not been mastered long ago by his fenfe and humour (as the breeding of most kings hath been ever fenfual and moft humoured), perhaps he would have made no difficulty. Meanwhile at what a fine pass is the kingdom, that muft depend in greateft exigencies upon the fantafy of a king's reafon, be he wife or fool, who arrogantly fhall anfwer all the wisdom of the land, that what they offer feems to him unreasonable?

He prefers his love of truth" before his love of the people. His love of truth would have led him to the fearch of truth, and have taught him not to lean fo much upon his own understanding. He met at firft with doctrines of unaccountable prerogative; in them he refted, because they pleafed him; they therefore pleased him because they gave him all; and this he calls his love of truth, and prefers it before the love of his people's peace. Some things they propofed, "which would have wounded the inward peace of his confcience." The more our evil hap, that three kingdoms fhould be thus pestered with one confcience; who chiefly fcrupled to grant us that, which the parliament advised him to, as the chief means of our public welfare and reformation. Thefe fcruples to many perhaps will feern pretended; tó others, upon as good grounds, may feem real; and that it was the juft judgment of God, that he who was fo cruel and fo remorfelefs to other men's confciences, fhould have a confcience within him as cruel to himfelf; conftraining him, as he conftrained others, and enfiaring him in fuch ways and counfels as were certain to be his deftruction.

"Other things though he could approve, yet in honour and policy he thought fit to deny, left he fhould feem to dare deny nothing." By this means he will be fire, what with reafon, honour, policy, or punctilios, to be found never unfurnished of a denial; whether it were his envy not to be overbounteous, or that the fubmiffnets of our aíking ftirred up in him a certain pleasure of denying. Good princes have thought it their chief happinefs to be always granting; if good things, for the things fake; if things indifferent, for the people's fake; while this man fits calculating variety of excules how he inay grant leaft; as if his whole ftrength and royalty were placed in a mere negative.

Of one propofition especially he laments him much, that they would bind him "to a general and implicit confent for whatever they defired." Which though I find not among the nineteen, yet undoubtedly the oath of his coronation binds him to no lefs; neither is he at all by his office to interpofe againft a parliament in the

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 wifdom, as he them in place and dignity. But much nearer is it to impoffibility, that any king alone fhould be wifer 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 Philiftincs might abufe him." And thus out of an unwife or pretended fear, left others fhould make a fcorn of him for yielding to his parliament, he regards not to give caufe of worfe fufpicion, that he made a fcorn 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 confets their inferiority, and that obliges them to reft, if not fatisfied, yet quieted with fuch an anfwer as the will and reafon of their fuperior thinks fit to give." Firft, petitioning, in better English, is no more than requesting or requiring; and men require not favours only, but their due; and that not only from fuperiors, but from equals, and inferiors alfo. The nobleft Romans, when they ftood for that which was a kind of regal honour, the confulfhip, were wont in a fubmiffive manner to go about, and beg that higheft dignity of the meaneft plebeians, naming them man 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 becaufe he was inferior to any one of them, which they did of civil cuttom, and for fashion'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

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reafon of his fuperior? It were a mad law that would fubject reason to fuperiority of place. And if our higheft confultations and purpofed laws muft 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 reason to be our fovereign above law (which muft needs be, if he can ftrangle 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 reason, or their confcience.

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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 ftatefinen," and proudly to fufpend his following their advice, "until his feven 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, thould fit another feven years fchoolmafter to tutor those who were fent by the whole realm to be his counfellors and teachers. And with what modefty can he pretend to be a statesinan 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