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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 covetousness, cruelty, fierce and curfed anger" of the parliament.

He finishes with a deliberate and folemn curfe " upon himfelf 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 accustom themselves to ponder and contemplate things in their first original and inftitution, that kings, who, as all other officers of the public, were at first 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 efteem themselves mafters, both of that great truft which they ferve, 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 themfelves, 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 horses, 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 should yield them

fubjection

fubjection to our own ruin, or hold of them the right of our common fafety, and our natural freedom by mere 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 just and equal; never the intent of nature, whose works are also regular; never of any people not wholly barbarous, whom prudence, or no more but human fenfe, would have better guided when they firft created kings, than fo to nullify and tread to dirt the rest of mankind, by exalting one perfon and his lineage without other merit looked after, but the mere contingency of a begetting, into an abfolute and unaccountable dominion over them and their pofterity. Yet this ignorant or wilful miftake 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 "special obligations, favours, to gratify active fpirits, and the defires of that party.” Words not only founding pride and lordly ufurpation, but injuftice, partiality, and corruption. For to the Irish he fo far condefcended, as firft to tolerate in private, then to covenant openly the tolerating of popery: fo far to the Scot, as to remove bishops, 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 reafon, his confcience, and his honour became fo frightened with a kind of falfe 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 conscience, 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 feem ftrangeft, that the king, who, while it was permitted him, never did thing more eagerly than to moleft and perfecute the confciences. 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 profefs 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 fword 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, stopped 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 must 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 reformation 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 thofe flocks which they never fed.

He believes" that prefbytery, though proved to be the only institution 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 those who of their own accord embrace it.

The fecond edition has score.

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And although Chrift and his apostles, being to civil affairs but private men, contended not with magistrates; yet when magiftrates themselves, and especially parliaments, who have greatest right to difpofe of the civil fword, come to know religion, they ought in confcience to defend all those who receive it willingly, against the violence any king or tyrant whatfoever. Neither is it therefore true, "that Chriftianity is planted or watered with Christian blood;" for there is a large difference between forcing men by the fword to turn prefbyterians, and defending those who willingly are fo, from a furious inroad of bloody bithops, armed with the militia of a king their pupil. And if "covetoufnefs and ambition be an argument that prefbytery hath not much of Chrift," it argues more ftrongly againft epifcopacy; which, from the time of her firft mounting to an order above the prefbyters, had no other parents than covetousness and ambition. And those fects, fchifms, and herefies, which he speaks of, “if they get but strength and numbers,' need no other pattern than epifcopacy and himself, to "fet up their ways by the like method of violence." Nor is there any thing that hath more marks of fchifm and fectarifin than Englith epifcopacy; whether we look at apoftolic times, or at reformed churches; for "the univerfal way of church-government before," may as foon lead us into grofs errour, as their univerfally corrupted doctrine. And government, by reason of ambition, was likelieft to be corrupted much the fooner of the two. However, nothing can be to us catholic or univerfal in religion, but what the Scripture teaches; whatsoever without Scripture pleads to be univerfal in the church, in being universal is but the more fchifmatical. Much lefs can particular laws and conftitutions impart to the church of England any power of confiftory or tribunal above other churches, to be the fole judge of what is sect or fchifm, as with much rigour, and without Scripture they took upon them. Yet thefe the king refolves here to defend and maintain to his laft, pretending, after all thofe conferences offered, or had with him, "not to fee more rational and religious motives than foldiers carry

in their knapsacks ;" with one thus refolved, it was but folly to ftand difputing.

He imagines his "own judicious zeal to be most concerned in his tuition of the church." So thought Saul when he prefumed to offer facrifice, for which he loft his kingdom; fo thought Uzziah when he went into the temple, but was thruft out with a leprofy for his opinioned zeal, which he thought judicious. It is not the part of a king, because he ought to defend the church, therefore to fet himself fupreme head over the church, or to meddle with ecclefial government, or to defend the church otherwife than the church would be defended; for fuch defence is bondage; nor to defend abuses, and stop all reformation under the name of "new moulds fancied and fathioned to private defigns." The holy things of church are in the power of other keys than were delivered to his keeping. Christian liberty, purchafed with the death of our Redeemer, and eftablithed by the fending of his free fpirit to inhabit in us, is not now to depend upon the doubtful confent of any earthly monarch; nor to be again fettered with a prefumptuous negative voice, tyrannical to the parliament, but much more tyrannical to the church of God; which was compelled to implore the aid of parliament, to remove his force and heavy hands from off our confciences, who therefore complains now of that most just defenfive force, because only it removed his violence and perfecution. If this be a violation to his confcience, that it was hindered by the parliament from violating the more tender confciences of fo many thousand good Chriftians, let the ufurping confcience of all tyrants be ever fo violated!

He wonders, fox wonder! how we could fo much "diftruft God's affiftance," as to call in the proteftant aid of our brethren in Scotland: why then did he, if his truft were in God and the justice of his cause, not scruple to folicit and invite earnestly the affiftance both of papifts and of Irish rebels? If the Scots were by us at length fent home, they were not called to stay here always; neither was it for the people's ease to feed fo many legions longer than their help was needful.