by his denial, was to him more dear than all their building labours could be worth to Egypt. But whom God hardens, them alío he blinds.

He endeavours to make good epifcopacy not only religion, but from the nature of all civil government, where parity breeds confufion and faction." But of faction and confufion, to take no other, than his own teftimony, where hath more been ever bred than under the imparity of his own monarchical government? of which to make at this time longer difpute, and from civil conftitutions and human conceits to debate and question the convenience of divine ordinations, is neither wifdom nor fobriety and to confound Mofaic Priefthood with evangelic prefbytery against exprefs inftitution, is as far from warrantable. As little to purpofe is it, that we fhould stand polling the reformed churches, whether they equalize in number" thofe of his three kingdoms;" of whom fo lately the far greater part, what they have long defired to do, have now quite thrown off epifcopacy.

Neither may we count it the language or religion of a proteftant, fo to vilify the beft reformed churches (for none of them but Lutherans retain bithops) as to fear more the fcandalizing of papifts, becaufe more numerous, than of our proteftant brethren, becaufe a handful It will not be worth the while to fay what "Schifinatics or Heretics" have had no bishops: yet, left he fhould be taken for a great reader, he who prompted him, if he were a doctor, might have remembered the forementioned place in Sozomenus; which affirms, that befides the Cyprians and Arabians, who were counted orthodoxal, the Novations alio, and Montanifts in Phrygia, had no other bishops than fuch as were in every village: and what prefbyter hath a narrower diocefe? As for the Aërians we know of no heretical opinion juftly fathered upon them, but that they held bishops and prefbyters to be the fame. Which he in this place not obfcurely feems to hold a herefy in all the reformed churches; with whom why the church of England defired conformity, he can find no reafon, with all his "charity, but the coming in of the Scots army;" fuch a high efteem he had of the English!

He

He tempts the clergy to return back again to bishops, from the fear of "tenuity and contempt," and the affurance of better "thriving under the favour of princes;" against which temptations if the clergy cannot arm themfelves with their own fpiritual armour, they are indeed as poor a carcafs" as he terms them.

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Of fecular honours and great revenues added to the dignity of prelates, fince the fubject of that question is now removed, we need not spend time: but this perhaps will never be unfeasonable to bear in mind out of Chryfoftom, that when minifters came to have lands, houfes, farms, coaches, horses, and the like lumber, then religion brought forth riches in the church, and the daughter devoured the mother.

But if his judgment in epifcopacy may be judged by the goodly choice he made of bithops, we need not much amufe ourselves with the confideration of thofe evils, which, by his foretelling, will "neceffarily follow" their pulling down, until he prove that the apoftles, having no certain diocefe or appointed place of refidence, were properly "bishops over thofe prefbyters whom they ordained, or churches they planted;" wherein ofttimes their labours were both joint and promifcuous: or that the apoftolic power muft "neceffarily defcend to bishops, the ufe and end" of either function being fo different. And how the church hath flourished under epifcopacy, let the multitude of their ancient and grofs errours teftify, and the words of fome learnedeft and moft zealous bithops among them; Nazianzen in a devout paffion, wishing prelaty had never been; Bazil terming them the flaves of flaves; Saint Martin, the enemies of faints, and confeffing that after he was made a bishop, he found much of that grace decay in him which he had before.

Concerning his "Coronation oath," what it was, and how far it bound him, already hath been spoken. This we may take for certain, that he was never fworn to his own particular confcience and reason, but to our conditions as a free people, which required him to give us fuch laws as ourfelves fhould* choofe. This the Scots

The fecond edition has fhall choose.

could

could bring him to, and would not be baffled with the pretence of a coronation-oath, after that epifcopacy had for many years been fettled there. Which conceflion of his to them, and not to us, he feeks here to put off with evafions that are ridiculous. And to omit no fhifts, he alleges that the prefbyterian manners gave him no encouragement to like their modes of government. If that

were fo, yet certainly thofe men are in moft likelihood nearer to amendment, who feek a stricter church-difcipline than that of epifcopacy, under which the mott of them learned their manners. If eftimation were to be made of God's law by their manners, who, leaving Egypt, received it in the wildernefs, it could reap from fuch an inference as this nothing but rejection and difefteem.

For the prayer wherewith he clofes, it had been good some safe liturgy, which he fo commends, had rather been in his way; it would perhaps in fome measure have performed the end for which they fay liturgy was first invented; and have hindered him both here, and at other times, from turning his notorious errours into his prayers.

XVIII. Upon the Uxbridge Treaty, &c.

"IF the way of treaties be looked upon" in general, as retiring" from beftial force to human reafon, his firft aphorifin here is in part deceived. For men may treat like beafts as well as fight. If fome fighting were not manlike, then either fortitude were no virtue, or no fortitude in fighting: And as politicians ofttimes through dilatory purposes and emulations handle the matter, there hath been no where found more beftiality than in treating; which hath no more commendations in it, than from fighting to come to undermining, from violence to craft; and when they can no longer do as lions, to do as foxes.

The fincereft end of treating after war once proclaimed is, either to part with more, or to demand lefs, than was at first fought for, rather than to hazard more lives, or worse mischiefs. What the parliament in that

point were willing to have done, when firft after the war begun, they petitioned him at Colebrook to vouchsafe a treaty, is not unknown. For after he had taken God to witness of his continual readiness to treat, or to offer treaties to the avoiding of bloodthed, had named Windfor the place of treaty, and paffed his royal word not to advance further, till commiffioners by fuch a time were fpeeded towards him; taking the advantage of a thick mift, which fell that evening, weather that foon invited him to a defign no lefs treacherous and obfcure; he follows at the heels of thofe meffengers of peace with a train of covert war; and with a bloody furprife falls on our fecure forces, which lay quartering at Brentford in the thoughts and expectation of a treaty. And although in them who make a trade of war, and againft a natural enemy, fuch an onfet might in the rigour of martial * law have been excufed, while arms were not yet by agreement suspended; yet by a king, who feemed fo heartily to accept of treating with his fubjects, and profeffes here, "he never wanted either defire or difpofition to it, profeffes to have greater confidence in his reafon than in his fword, and as a chriftian to feek peace and enfue it, fuch bloody and deceitful advantages would have been forborne one day at leaft, if not much longer; in whom there had not been a thirst rather than a deteftation of civil war and blood, and a defire to fubdue rather than to treat.

In the midst of a fecond treaty not long after, fought by the parliament, and after much ado obtained with him at Oxford, what fubtle and unpeaceable defigns he then had in chace, his own letters difcovered: What attempts of treacherous hoftility fuccefsful and unfuccessful he made against Bristol, Scarborough, and other places, the proceedings of that treaty will foon put us in mind: and how he was fo far from granting more of reafon after fo much of blood, that he denied then to grant, what before he had offered; making no other use of treaties pretending peace, than to gain advantages that might enable him to continue war: What marvel then

The fecond edition has military.

if "he thought it no diminution of himfelf," as oft as he faw his time, "to be importunate for treaties," when he fought them only as by the upfhot appeared, "to get opportunities?" And once to a moft cruel purpofe, if we remember May 1643. And that mellenger of peace from Oxford, whofe fecret meffage and commiffion, had it been effected, would have drowned the innocence of our treating, in the blood of a defigned maffacre. Nay, when treaties from the parliament fought out him, no lets than feven times, (oft enough to teftify the willingnefs of their obedience, and too oft for the majefty of a parliament to court their fubjection) he, in the confidence of his own ftrength, or of our divifions, returned us nothing back but denials, or delays, to their most neceffary demands; and being at lowest, kept up ftill and fuftained his almoft famifhed hopes with the hourly expectation of raifing up himself the higher, by the greater heap which he fat promifing himself of our fudden ruin through diffenfion.

But he infers, as if the parliament would have compelled him to part with fomething of "his honour as a king.' What honour could he have, or call his, joined not only with the offence or difturbance, but with the bondage and deftruction of three nations? whereof, though he be carelefs and improvident, yet the parliament, by our laws and freedom, ought to judge, and ufe prevention; our laws clfe were but cobweb laws. And what were all his moft rightful honours, but the people's gift and the investment of that luftre, majefty, and honour, which for the public good, and no otherwife, redounds from a whole nation into one person? So far is any honour from being his to a common mischief and calamity. Yet ftill he talks on equal terms with the grand reprefentative of that people, for whofe fake he was a king; as if the general welfare and his fubfervient rights were of equal moment or confideration. His aim indeed hath ever been to magnify and exalt his borrowed rights and prerogatives above the parliament and kingdom, of whom he holds them. But when a king fets himself to bandy against the highest court and refidence of all his regal power, he then, in the fingle VOL. III.

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