to be diffolved, and caft away like fo many noughts in arithmetic, unless it be to turn the O of their infignificance into a lamentation with the people, who had fo vainly fent them. For this is not to "enact all things by public confent," as he would have us be perfuaded, this is to enact nothing but by the private confent and leave of one not negative tyrant; this is mifchief without remedy, a ftifling and obftructing evil that hath no vent, no outlet, no paffage through grant him this, and the parliament hath no more freedom than if it fate in his noose, which when he pleafes to draw together with one twitch of his negative, fhall throttle a whole nation, to the wish of Caligula, in one neck. This with the power of the militia in his own hands over our bodies and estates, and the prelates to enthral our consciences either by fraud or force, is the fum of that happiness and liberty we were to look for, whether in his own reftitution, or in these precepts given to his fon. Which unavoidably would have fet us in the fame ftate of mifery, wherein we were before; and have either compelled us to fubmit like bondflaves, or put us back to a fecond wandering over that horrid wilderness of distraction and civil flaughter, which, not without the strong and miraculous hand of God affifting us, we have measured out, and furvived, And who knows, if we make fo flight of this incomparable deliverance, which God hath bestowed upon us, but that we fhall, like those foolish Ifraelites, who depofed God and Samuel to fet up a king, " cry out❞ one day, "because of our king," which we have been mad upon; and then God, as he foretold them, will no more deliver

us.

There remains now but little more of his discourse, whereof to take a fhort view will not be amifs. His words make semblance as if he were magnanimously exercifing himself, and fo teaching his fon, "to want as well as to wear a crown; and would feem to account it "not worth taking up or enjoying, upon fordid, difhonourable, and irreligious terms;" and yet to his very laft did nothing more induftrioufly, than strive to take up and enjoy again his fequeftered crown, upon the most fordid, difloyal, dishonourable, and irreligious terms, not

of making peace only, but of joining and incorporating with the murderous Irish, formerly by himself declared againft, for "wicked and deteftable rebels, odious to God and all good men." And who but thofe rebels now are the chief ftrength and confidence of his fon? While the prefbyter Scot that woos and folicits him, is neglected and put off, as if no terms were to him fordid, irreligious and dishonourable, but the fcottish and prefbyterian, never to be complied with, till the fear of inftant perishing starve him out at length to fome 'unfound and hypocritical agreement.

He bids his fon "keep to the true principles of piety, virtue, and honour, and he shall never want a kingdom." And I fay, people of England! keep ye to those principles, and ye fhall never want a king. king. Nay, after fuch a fair deliverance as this, with fo much fortitude and valour fhown against a tyrant, that people that fhould feek a king, claiming what this man claims, would fhow themfelves to be by nature flaves, and arrant beasts; not fit for that liberty, which they cried out and bellowed for, but fitter to be led back again into their old fervitude, like a fort of clamouring and fighting brutes, broke loose from their copy-holds, that know not how to use or poffefs the liberty which they fought for; but with the fair words and promifes of an old exafperated foe, are ready to be stroked and tamed again, into the wonted and wellpleafing ftate of their true norman villanage, to them best agreeable.

The laft fentence, whereon he feems to venture the whole weight of all his former reafons and argumentations, "That religion to their God, and loyalty to their king, cannot be parted, without the fin and infelicity of a people," is contrary to the plain teaching of Chrift, that "No man can ferve two masters; but, if he hold to the one, he must reject and forfake the other." If God, then, and earthly kings be for the most part not feveral only, but oppofite mafters, it will as oft happen, that they who will ferve their king muft forfake their God; and they who will ferve God muft forfake their king; which then will neither be their fin, nor their infelicity; but their wisdom, their piety, and their true happiness; as

to

to be deluded by these unfound and fubtle oftentations here, would be their mifery; and in all likelihood much greater than what they hitherto have undergone: if now again intoxicated and moped with these royal, and therefore fo delicious because royal, rudiments of bondage, the cup of deception, fpiced and tempered to their bane, they should deliver up themselves to thefe glozing words and illusions of him, whofe rage and utmost violence they have sustained, and overcome fo nobly.

XXVIII. Entitled Meditations upon Death.

IT might be well thought by him, who reads no further than the title of this laft effay, that it required no anfwer. For all other human things are difputed, and will be variously thought of to the world's end. But this business of death is a plain cafe, and admits no controverfy in that centre all opinions meet. Nevertheless, fince out of those few mortifying hours, that fhould have been intireft to themselves, and moft at peace from all paffion and difquiet, he can afford fpare time to inveigh bitterly against that justice which was done upon him; it will be needful to fay fomething in defence of thofe proceedings, though briefly, in regard fo much on this fubject hath been written lately.

It happened once, as we find in Efdras and Jofephus, authors not lefs believed than any under facred, to be a great and folemn debate in the court of Darius, what thing was to be counted strongest of all other. He that could refolve this, in reward of his excellent wisdom, fhould be clad in purple, drink in gold, fleep on a bed of gold, and fit next Darius. None but they doubtless who were reputed wife, had the queftion propounded to them: who after fome refpite given them by the king to confider, in full affembly of all his lords and graveft counsellors, returned feverally what they thought. The first held, that wine was strongest, another that the king was ftrongeft. But Zorobabel prince of the captive Jews, and heir to the crown of Judah, being one of them, proved women to be stronger than the king, for that he himself,

had

had feen a concubine take his crown from off his head to fet it upon her own: and others befides him have likewife feen the like feat done, and not in jeft. Yet he proved on, and it was fo yielded by the king himself, and all his fages, that neither wine, nor women, nor the king, but truth of all other things was the ftrongeft. For me, though neither asked, nor in a nation that gives fuch rewards to wisdom, I fhall pronounce my fentence fomewhat different from Zorobabel; and fhall defend that either truth and juftice are all one, (for truth is but juftice in our knowledge, and juftice is but truth in our practice and he indeed fo explains himself, in faying that with truth is no accepting of persons, which is the property of juftice :) or else if there be any odds, that juftice, though not stronger than truth, yet by her office is to put forth and exhibit more ftrength in the affairs of mankind. For truth is properly no more than contemplation; and her utmost efficiency is but teaching: but juftice in her very effence is all strength and activity; and hath a fword put into her hand, to ufe againft all violence and oppreffion on the earth. She it is moft truly, who accepts no perfon, and exempts none from the feverity of her stroke. She never fuffers injury to prevail, but when falfehood first prevails over truth; and that alfo is a kind of justice done on them who are fo deluded. Though wicked kings and tyrants counterfeit her fword, as fome did that buckler, fabled to fall from heaven into the capitol, yet the communicates her power to none but fuch as like herself are juft, or at least will do juftice. For it were extreme partiality and injuftice, the flat denial and overthrow of herself, to put her own authentic fword into the hand of an unjuft and wicked man, or fo far to accept and exalt one mortal person above his equals, that he alone shall have the punishing of all other men tranfgreffing, and not receive like punishment from men, when he himself' fhall be found the higheft tranfgreffor.

We may conclude therefore, that justice above all other things, is and ought to be the strongest: fhe is the ftrength, the kingdom, the power, and majesty of all ages. Truth, herself would fubfcribe to this, though Darius and all the monarchs of the world fhould deny. And if

by

;

by fentence thus written, it were my happiness to fet free the minds of Englishmen from longing to return poorly under that captivity of kings, from which the ftrength and fupreme fword of juftice hath delivered them, I fhall have done a work not much inferiour to that of Zorobabel who by well praifing and extolling the force of truth, in that contemplative strength conquered Darius and freed his country and the people of God, from the captivity of Babylon. Which I fhall yet not despair to do, if they in this land, whofe minds are yet captive, be but as ingenuous to acknowledge the ftrength and fupremacy of juftice, as that heathen king was to confefs the ftrength of truth or let them but, as he did, grant that, and they will foon perceive, that truth refigns all her outward ftrength to juftice: juftice therefore muft needs be ftrongeft, both in her own and in the strength of truth. But if a king may do among men whatsoever is his will and pleasure, and notwithstanding be unaccountable to men, then contrary to his magnified wisdom of Zorobabel, neither truth nor justice, but the king is strongest of all other things, which that perfian monarch himself, in the midft of all his pride and glory durft not affume.

Let us fee therefore what this king hath to affirm, why the fentence of juftice, and the weight of that fword, which the delivers into the hands of men, fhould be more partial to him offending, than to all others of human race. Firft he pleads, that "no law of God or man gives to fubjects any power of judicature without or against him." Which affertion fhall be proved in every part to be moft untrue. The firft exprefs law of God given to mankind was that to Noah, as a law, in general, to all the fons of men. And by that moft ancient and univerfal law, "Whofoever fheddeth man's blood, by man fhall his blood be shed;" we find here no exception. If a king therefore do this; to a king, and that by men alfo, the fame fhall be done. This in the law of Mofes, which came next, feveral times is repeated, and in one place remarkably, Numb. xxxv. "Ye fhall take no fatisfaction for the life of a murderer, but he fhall furely be put to death: the land cannot be cleanfed of the blood that is fhed therein, but by the blood of him

that