Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times

§ 28. The Parliament also had procured the King to consent to several Acts which were of great importance, and emboldened the People by confirming their Authority: As an Act against the High Commission Court, and Church-men's Secular or Civil Power; and an Act that this Parliament should not be dissolved till its own Consent, (alleging that the dissolving of Parliaments emboldened Delinquents, and that Debts and Disorders were so great that they could not be overcome by them in a little time): Also an Act for Triennial Parliaments. And the People being confident that all these were signed by the King, full sore against his will, and that he abhorred what was done, did think that the Parliament which had constrained him to this much, could carry it still in what they pleased, and so grew much more regardful of the Parliament, and sided with them not only for their Cause, and their own Interest, but also as supposing them the stronger side (which the Vulgar are still apt to follow).

§ 29. But to return to my own matters: This Parliament, among other parts of their Reformation, resolved to reform the corrupted Clergy, and appointed a Committee to receive Petitions and Complaints against them; which was no sooner understood, but multitudes in all Countries came up with Petitions against their Ministers. The King and Parliament were not yet divided, but concurred, and so no partaking in their Differences was any part of the Accusation of these Ministers, till long after when the Wars had given the occasion; and then that also came into their Articles: but before it was only matter of Insufficiency, false Doctrine, illegal Innovations, or Scandal, that was brought in against them.

Mr. John White being the Chair-man of the Committee for Scandalous Ministers (as it was called) published in print one Century first of Scandalous Ministers, with their Names, Places, and the Articles proved against them: where so much ignorance, insufficiency, drunkenness, filthiness, &c. was charged on them, that many moderate men could have wished that their Nakedness had been rather hid, and not exposed to the Worlds derision, and that they had remembered that the Papists did stand by, and would make sport of it. Another Century also was after published.

Among all these Complainers, the Town of Kidderminster in Worcestershire, drew up a Petition against their Ministers: The Vicar of the place they Articled against as one that was utterly insufficient for the Ministry, presented by a Papist, unlearned, preached but once a quarter, which was so weakly, as exposed him to laughter, and persuaded them that he understood not the very Substantial Articles of Christianity; that he frequented Alehouses, and had sometimes been drunk; that he turned the Table Alter-wife, &c. with more such as this. The Vicar had a Curate under him in the Town whom they also accused; and a Curate at a Chapel in the Parish, a common Tippler and a Drunkard, a railing Quarreller, an ignorant insufficient Man, who (as I found by Examining him) understood not the common Points of the Children's Catechism, but said some good words to them sometimes out of Musculus's Common Places in English, which was almost the only Book he had; and his Trade in the Week-days was unlawful Marriages. The People put their Petition into the Hands of Sir Henry Herbert Burgess for Bewdley, a Town two miles distant. The Vicar knowing his insufficiency, and hearing how two others in his Case had sped, desired to compound the Business with them; and by the mediation of Sir Henry Herbert, and others, it was brought to this, That he should instead of his present Curate in the Town, allow 60 l. per Annum to a Preacher whom fourteen of them nominated, should choose; and that he should not hinder this Preacher from preaching whenever he pleased, and that he himself should read Common Prayer, and do all else that was to be done: and so they preferred not their Petition against him, nor against his Curates, but he kept his Place, which was worth to him near 200 l. per Ann. allowing that 60 l. out of it to their Lecturer. To perform this he gave a Bond of 500 l.

These things being thus finished, some of them desired old Mr. Lapthorn (a famous Man, turned from Nonconformity by King James ) to come and preach with them on trial to be their Lecturer: Mr. Lapthorn 's roughness and great immethodicalness, and digressions, so offended the intelligent leading Party, that they rejected him somewhat uncivilly, to his great displeasure.

Hereupon they invited me to them from Bridgnorth: The Bailiff of the Town, and all the Peoffees desired me to preach with them, in order to a full determination. My mind was much to the place as soon as it was described to me; because it was a full Congregation, and most convenient Temple; an ignorant, rude and revelling People for the greater part, who had need of preaching; and yet had among them a small Company of Converts, who were humble, godly, and of good Conversations, and not much hated by the rest, and therefore the fitter to assist their Teacher; but above all, because they had hardly ever had any lively, serious preaching among them: For Bridgnorth had made me resolve that I would never more go among a People that had been hardened in unprositableness under an awakening Ministry; but either to such as never had any convincing Preacher, or to such as had profited by him. As soon as I came to Kidderminster, and had preached there one day, I was chosen Nemine contradicente, (for though fourteen only had the power of choosing, they desired to please the rest). And thus I was brought by the gracious Providence of God, to that place which had the chiefest of my Labors, and yielded me the greatest Fruits of Comfort. And I noted the mercy of God in this, that I never went to any place in my Life, among all my Changes, which I had before desired, designed or thought of, (much less sought); but only to those that I never thought of, till the sudden Invitation did surprise me.

§ 30. When I had been here a while, in the beginning of July, the two Families which I had last lived in, at Dudley and Bridgnorth, were at once visited with Sickness, and they both sent for me (upon a conceit of my skill in Physic), but being from home I went to neither of them; and it proved a most contagious malignant Fever next the Plague; Mrs. Foley and some of her Family died: and Mr. Madestard, his Wife, and a Gentlewoman that lived with them, died within a day or two each of other. Being with my old Friend Mr. William Rowley, the sad Message came to us (Mr. Madestard being his Kinsman) and I went with him to the Funeral, and preached his Funeral Sermon in so deep a sense of the misery of that unprofitable People, and the deep groans which I have heard from their faithful Pastor, for their obdurateness, that I could not forbear to tell them my fears of some heavy Judgment to come upon that place, which they were more capable of laying to heart than their Pastor's death. I had never before (nor ever did I since) presume upon such kind of Predictions, (nor did I speak that with any pretence of Prophesy) but the expression of that fear I could not then suppress: My Text was Ezek 33. 33. And when this cometh to pass (loe it will come) then shall they know that a Prophet hath been among them. And when the War was begun, the Town (being against the Parliament) was a Garrison for the King, kept by the Neighbor Gentlemen of the Country; who fortified the Castle, and when the Parliament's Forces came to take the Town, they cast such effectual Fire-works from the Castle as burnt down the Town to the Ground, and burnt also the great Church where I preached that Sermon, and where Mr. Madstard was interred: So that the Inhabitants were undone, and fain to lie under Hedges, till the Compassion of others afforded them Entertainment and Habitation. And as for their Church, it was a great while before it was rebuilt, and that after two general Collections, for it. The first time that I came among them when the Wars were past, I chose the same Text again to preach on, to call their sins against their faithful Pastor to remembrance: But they and I were so much interrupted with Tears, that (with some Pawses) I had much ado to proceed on to the end.

§ 31. Whilst I continued at Kidderminster, it pleased God to give me much Encouragement by the Success of my weak but hearty Labors: As when I was young, I used to keep a daily Catalogue of my daily Mercies and Sins, but when I grew elder I found that Course had its Inconveniences, and took up too much time, and therefore I only recorded those which were extraordinary; even so when I first entered upon my Labors in the Ministry, I took special notice of everyone that was humbled, reformed or converted; but when I had labored long, it pleased God that the Converts were so many, that I could not afford time for such particular Observations about everyone of them, left I should omit some greater Work; but was fain to leave that to their compassionate familiar Neighbors, and take notice myself of Families and considerable Numbers at once, that came in and grew up I scarce knew how.

§ 32. All this forementioned time of my Ministry was past under my foredescribed Weaknesses, which were so great as made me live and preach in some continual expectation of Death, supposing still that I had not long to live. And this I found through all my Life to be an invaluable mercy to me: For,

1. It greatly weakened Temptations.

2. It kept me in a great Contempt of the World.

3. It taught me highly to esteem of time: so that if any of it past away in idleness or unprofitableness, it was so long a pain and burden to my mind! So that I must say to the Praise of my most wise Conductor, that time hath still seemed to me much more precious than Gold or any Earthly Gain, and its Minutes have not been despised, nor have I been much tempted to any of the Sins, which go under the name of Pastime, since I understood my Work.

4. It made me study and preach things necessary, and a little stirred up my sluggish heart, to speak to Sinners with some Compassion, as a dying Man to dying Men.

These, with the rest which I mentioned before when I spake of my Infirmities, were the Benefits which God afforded me by Affliction! I humbly bless his gracious Providence, who gave me his Treasure in an Earthen Vessel, and trained me up in the School of Affliction, and taught me the Cross of Christ so soon; that I might be rather Theologus Crucis, as Luther speaketh, than Theologus Gloriae; and a Cross-bearer, than a Cross-maker or Imposer.

§ 33. At one time above all the rest, being under a new and unusual Distemper, which put me upon the present Expectations of my Change, and going for Comfort to the Promises as I was used, the Tempter strongly assaulted my Faith, and would have drawn me towards Infidelity itself. Till I was ready to enter into the Ministry, all my Troubles had been raised, by the hardness of my heart, and the doubtings of my own Sincerity; but now all these began to vanish, and never much returned to this day: And instead of these, I was now assaulted with more pernicious Temptations; especially to question the certain Truth of the Sacred Scriptures; and also the Life to come, and Immortality of the Soul. And these Temptations assaulted me not as they do the Melancholy, with horrid vexing Importunity; but by pretence of sober Reason, they would have drawn me to a settled doubting of Christianity.

And here I found my own Miscarriage, and the great Mercy of God. My Miscarriage, in that I had so long neglected the well settling of my Foundations, while I had bestowed so much time in the Superstructures and the Applicatory part! For having taken it for an intolerable Evil, once to question the Truth of Scriptures and the Life to come, I had either taken it for a Certainty upon Trust, or taken up with Common Reasons of it, which I had never well considered, digested, or made mine own. Insomuch as when this Temptation came, it seemed at first to answer and enervate all the former Reasons of my feeble Faith, which made me take the Scriptures for the Word of God; and it set before me such Mountains of Difficulty in the Incarnation, the Person of Christ, his Undertaking and Performance with the Scripture Chronology, Histories and Style, &c. which had stalled and overwhelmed me, if God had not been my strength. And here I saw much of the Mercy of God, that he let not out these terrible and dangerous Temptations upon me, while I was weak and in the infancy of my Faith; for then I had never been able to withstand them. But Faith is like a Tree, whose Top is small while the Root is young and shallow: and therefore as then it hath but small rooting, so is it not liable to the shaking Winds and Tempests as the big and highgrown Trees are: But as the top groweth higher, so the root at once grows greater, and deeper fixed, to cause it to endure its greater Assaults.

Though formerly I was wont when any such Temptation came, to cast it aside, as fitter to be abhorred than considered of yet now this would not give me satisfaction; but I was fain to dig to the very Foundations, and seriously to Examine the Reasons of Christianity, and to give a hearing to all that could be said against it, that so my Faith might be indeed my own. And at last I found that Nil tam certum quamquod ex dublo certum; Nothing is so firmly believed, as that which hath been sometime doubted of.

§ 34. In the storm of this Temptation, I questioned a while whether I were indeed a Christian or an Infidel, and whether Faith could consist with such Doubts as I was conscious of: For I had read in many Papists and Protestants, that Faith had Certainty, and was more than an Opinion; and that if a Man should live a godly Life, from the bare apprehensions of the Probability of the Truth of Scripture, and the Life to come, it would not save him, as being no true Godliness or Faith. But my Judgment closed with the Reason of Dr. Jackson 's Determination of this Case, which supported me much, that as in the very Assenting Act of Faith there may be such weakness, as may make us cry, Lord increase our Faith: We believe, Lord help our belief; so when Faith and Unbelief are in their Conflict, it is the Effects which must show us which of them is victorious. And that he that hath so much Faith as will cause him to deny himself, take up his Cross, and forsake all the Profits, Honors, and Pleasures of this World, for the sake of Christ, the Love of God, and the hope of Glory, hath a saving Faith, how weak soever: For God cannot condemn the Soul that truly loveth and seeketh him: And those that Christ bringeth to persevere in the Love of God, he bringeth to Salvation. And there were divers Things that in this Assault proved great Assistances to my Faith.

1. That the Being and Attributes of God were so clear to me, that he was to my Intellect what the Sun is to my Eye, by which I see itself and all Things: And he seemed mad to me that questioned whether there were a God: that any Man should dream that the World was made by a Conflux of Irrational Atoms, and Reason came from that which had no Reason, or that Man, or any Inferior Being was independent; or that all the being, Power, Wisdom, and Goodness which we conversed with, had not a Cause which in Being, Power, Wisdom and Goodness, did excel all that which it had caused in the World, and had not all that formaliter vel eminenter in itself which it communicated to all the Creatures. These, and all the Suppositions of the Atheist, have ever since been so visibly foolish and shameful to my Apprehension, that I scarce find a Capacity in myself of doubting of them; and whenever the Tempter hath joined anything against these, with the rest of his Temptations, the rest have been the easier overcome, because of the overwhelming cogent Evidences of a Deity, which are always before the Eyes of my Soul.

2. And it helped me much to discern that this God must needs be related to us as our Owner, our Governor, and our Benefactor, in that he is related to us as our Creator; and that therefore we are related to him as his own, his Subjects, and his Beneficiaries; which as they all proceed by undeniable resultancy from our Creation and Nature, so thence do our Duties arise which belong to us in those Relations, by as undeniable resultancy; and that no show of Reason can be brought by any Infidel in the World to excuse the Rational Creature from Loving his Maker, with all his heart and soul and might, and devoting himself and all his Faculties to him from whom he did receive them, and making him his ultimate End who is his first Efficient Cause. So that Godliness is a Duty so undeniably required in the Law of Nature, and so discernible by Reason itself, that nothing but unreasonableness can contradict it.

3. And then it seemed utterly improbable to me that this God should see us to be Losers by our Love and Duty to him, and that our Duty should be made to be our Snare, or make us the more miserable by how much the more faithfully we perform it! And I saw that the very Possibility or Probability of a Life to come, would make it the Duty of a Reasonable Creature to seek it, though with the loss of all below.

4. And I saw by undeniable Experience, a strange Universal Enmity between the Heavenly and the Earthly Mind, the Godly and the Wicked, as fulfilling the Prediction Gen. 3. 15. The War between the Woman's and the Serpent's Seed, being the daily Business of all the World. And I saw that the wicked and haters of Godliness are so commonly the greatest and most powerful and numerous, as well as cruel, that ordinarily there is no living according to the Precepts of Nature and undeniable Reason, without being made the Derision and Contempt of Men (if we can scape so easily).

5. And then I saw that there is no other Religion in the World which can stand in competition with Christianity: Heathenism and Mohammedanism are kept up by Tyranny, and Beastly Ignorance, and blush to stand at the Bar of Reason: And Judaism is but Christianity in the Egg or Bed. And mere Deism, which is the most plausible Competitor, is so turned out of almost all the whole World, as if Nature made its own Confession, that without a Mediator it cannot come to God.

6. And I perceived that all other Religions leave the People in their worldly, sensual, and ungodly state; even their Zeal and Devotion in them, being commonly the Servants of their Fleshly Interest: And the Nations where Christianity is not, being drowned in Ignorance and Earthly mindedness, so as to be the shame of Nature.

7. And I saw that Christ did bring up all his serious and sincere Disciples to real Holiness and to Heavenly mindedness, and made them new Creatures, and set their Hearts and Designs and Hopes upon another Life; and brought their Sense into subjection to their Reason, and taught them to resign themselves to God, and to love him above all the World. And it is not like that God will make use of a Deceiver for this real visible Recovery and Reformation of the Nature of Man; or that anything but his own Zeal can imprint his Image.

8. And here I saw an admirable suitableness in the Office and Design of Christ, to the Ends of God, and the Felicity of Man: and how excellently these Supernatural Revelations do fall in, and take their place in subserviency to Natural Verities; and how wonderfully Faith is fitted to bring Men to the Love of God; when it is nothing else but the beholding of his amiable attractive Love and Goodness in the Face of Christ, and the Promises of Heaven, as in a Glass, till we see his Glory.

9. And I had felt much of the Power of his Word and Spirit on myself; doing that which Reason now telleth me must be done: And shall I question my Physician when he hath done so much of the Cure, and recovered my depraved Soul so much to God.

10. And as I saw these Assistances to my Faith, so I perceived that whatever the Tempter had to say against it, was grounded upon the Advantages which he took from my Ignorance, and my Distance from the Times and Places of the Matters of the Sacred History, and such like things which every Novice meeteth with in almost all other Sciences at the first, and which wise well-studied Men can see through.

§ 35. All these Assistances were at hand before I came to the immediate Evidences of Credibility in the Sacred Oracles themselves. And when I set myself to search for those, I found more in the Doctrine, the Predictions, the Miracles, antecedent, concomitant, subsequent, than ever I before took notice of: which I shall not here so far digress as to set down, having partly done it in several Treatises; as The Saints Rest, Part 2. The Unreasonableness of Infidelity; A Saint or a Bruit, in my Christian Directory; and since more fully in a Treatise, called, The Reasons of the Christian Religion; my Life of Faith, &c.

§ 36. From this Assault I was forced to take notice, that it is our Belief of the Truth of the Word of God, and the Life to come, which is the Spring that sets all Grace on work, and with which it rises or falls, flourishes or decays, is actuated or stands still. And that there is more of this secret Unbelief at the Root than most of us are aware of; and that our love of the World, our boldness with Sin, our neglect of Duty are caused hence • I observed easily in myself, that if at any time Satan did more than at other times weaken my Belief of Scripture, and the Life to come, my Zeal in every Religious Duty abated with it, and I grew more indifferent in Religion than before: I was more inclined to Conformity in those Points which I had taken to be sinful, and was ready to think, why should I be singular and offend the Bishops and other Superiors, and make myself contemptible in the World, and expose myself to Censures, Scorns, and Sufferings, and all for such little things as these, when the Foundations themselves have so great difficulties, as I am unable to overcome. But when Faith revived, then none of the Parts or Concernments of Religion seemed small, and then Man seemed nothing, and the World a shadow, and God was all.

In the beginning I doubted not of the truth of the Holy Scriptures, or of the Life to come, because I saw not the Difficulties which might cause doubting: After that I saw them and I doubted, because I saw not that which should satisfy the mind against them: Since that, having seen both Difficulties and Evidences, though I am not so unmolested as at the first, yet is my Faith I hope much stronger, and far better able to repel the Temptations of Satan, and the Sophisms of Infidels than before: But yet is my daily Prayer, That God would increase my Faith, and give my Soul a clear fight of the Evidences of his Truth, and of himself, and of the invisible World.

§ 37. Whilst I was thus employed between outward Labors and inward Trials, Satan stir'd up a little inconsiderable rage of wicked men against me. The Town having been formerly eminent for Vanity, had yearly a Shew, in which they brought forth the painted forms of Giants, and such like foolery, to walk about the Streets with; and though I said nothing against them, as being not simply evil, yet on everyone of those Days of Riot, the Rabble of the more vicious sort had still some spleen to vent against me, as one part of their Game. And once all the ignorant Rout were raging mad against me for preaching the Doctrine of Original Sin to them, and telling them that Infants before Regeneration, had so much Guilt and Corruption, as made them loathsome in the Eyes of God: whereupon they vented it abroad in the Country, That I preached that God hated, or loached Infants; so that they railed at me as I passed through the Streets. The next Lord's Day I cleared and confirmed it, and shown them that if this were not true, their Infants had no need of Christ, of Baptism, or of Renewing by the Holy Ghost. And I asked them whether they durst say that their Children were saved without a Savior, and were no Christians, and why they baptized them, with much more to that purpose; and afterward they were ashamed and as mute as fishes.

Once one of the drunken Beggers of the Town raised a slander of me, That I was under a Tree with a Woman (an ill-famed Beggar of the Town): All the Drunkards had got it in their mouths, before I could find out the Original. I got three or four of them bound to the Good Behaviour, and the Sot himself that raised the Slander, confessed before the Court that he saw me in a rainy day on Horseback stand under an Oak which grew in a thick Hedge, and the Woman aforesaid standing for shelter on the other side the Hedge under the same Tree, and that he believed that we saw not one another; but he spake it as a Jest, and the Company were glad of the occasion to feed their Malice. So they all asked me forgiveness, and I desired the Magistrate immediately to release them all.

There lived at Kinver an ancient, prudent, Reverend Divine, Mr. John Cross, (who died since, Pastor of Matthews Friday-street in London ): This godly Man had been the chief means of the good which was done in Kidderminster before my coming thither; when I came, I got him to take every second day in a Weekly Lecture. It came to pass once, that a Woman defamed him at Kidderminster openly, and told the People that he would have ravished her. Mr. Cross being a wise Man, sent one before to desire the Bailiff and Justice to call her to Examination, and he came after and sat in a common dark coloured Coat, among many others, in the Bailiff's Parlour, as if he had been one of the Magistrates. The Bailiff called her in, and she stood impudently to the Accusation: The Bailiff asked her whether she knew the Man if she saw him; which she confidently affirmed. He asked her, Is it this Man, or that Man, or the other Man, or any there? And she said, O no, God forbid that she should accuse any of them. Mr. Cross said, Am not I the Man; and she said, No, she knew the Man well enough. And when they had told her that this was Mr. Cross, she fell down on her knees, and asked him forgiveness, and confessed that one of his Neighbors (who was his great Accuser at the Bishops Courts) had hired her to report it. But the Good Man forgave them all.

§ 38. And here I must return to the Proceedings of the Parliament, because the rest will not be well understood without connoting the Occasions of them which were administered. When the Londoners cried to the House for Justice, and honored those Members who were for the punishment of Delinquents, and dishonored those that pleased the King, a Breach began to be made among themselves: And the Lord Digby, the Lord Falkland, and divers others, from that time forward joined with the King; being not so immovable as many of the rest, whom neither hope nor fear nor discontent would alienate from the Cause which they thought well of. Yet others were tried with the offer of Preferments: The Lord Say was made one of the Privy Council; Mr. Oliver St. John was made the King's Solicitor, &c. But as this did not alter them, so others of them would accept of no Preserment, left they should be thought to seek themselves, or set their Fidelity to Sale. When the Earl of Strafford was Condemned, and the King desired to sign the Bill, many Bishops were called to give him their Advice, and it is commonly reported, that Archbishop Usher and divers others told him, that he might lawfully concur with the Judgment of his Parliament proceeding according to Law, though his own Judgment were that their Sentence was unjust: But Dr. Iuxon, the Bishop of London, advised him to do nothing against his Conscience: and others would give no Advice at all. When the King had Subscribed, and Strafford was beheaded, he much repented it, even to the last, as his Speeches at his Death express. And the Judgments of the Members of the Parliament were different about these Proceedings.

Some thought that the King should not at all be displeased and provoked, and that they were not bound to do any other Justice, or attempt any other Reformation but what they could procure the King to be willing to. And these said, When you have displeased and provoked him to the utmost, he will be your King still! and when you have sat to the longest, you must be dissolved at last: you have no power over his Person, though you have power over Delinquent Subjects: And if he protect them by Arms, you must either be ruined yourselves by his displeasure, or be engaged in a War: Displeasing him is but exasperating him; and would you be ruled by a King that hateth you? Princes have great Minds, which cannot easily suffer Contradiction and Rebukes: The more you offend him, the less you can trust him; and when mutual Confidence is gone, a War is beginning: And if it come to a War, either you will conquer or be conquered, or come to Agreement. If you are conquered, you and the Commonwealth are ruined, and he will be absolute, and subdue Parliaments, and Govern as he pleaseth. If you come to an Agreement, it will be either such as you force him to, or as he is willing of: If the latter, it may be easilier and cheaper done before a War than after: If the former, it will much weaken it: And if you Conquer him, what the better are you? He will still be King: You can but force him to an Agreement: and how quickly will he have power and advantage to violate that which he is forced to; and to be avenged on you all for the displeasure you have done him: He is ignorant of the Advantages of a King that cannot foresee this]. These were the Reasons of many that were for pleasing the King.

But on the other side there were Men of divers tempers: Some did not look far before them, but did what they thought was best at present: whether any designed the subduing of the King, and the change of Government, at that time, I cannot tell: For I then heard of no notable Sectary in the House but young Sir Henry Vane, (whose Testimony was the Death of the Earl of Strafford, when other Evidence was wanting, and of whom I shall say more anon). But the leading and prevailing part of the House were for the Execution of Strafford, and for punishing some Delinquents, though it did displease the King: And their Reasons (as their Companions tell us) were such as these: They said, If that be your Principle that the King is not to be displeased, or provoked, then this Parliament should never have been called, which you know he was forced to against his Will: and then the Ship-money should have gone on, and the Subjects Propriety, and Parliaments, have been overthrown: And then the Church Innovations should not have been controlled, nor any stop to the Subverters of our Government and Liberties attempted: then no Members should speak freely against any of these in the House; for you know that all these are very displeasing: And then what do we here? Could not the King have pleased himself without us? Or do we come to be his Instruments, to give away the Peoples Liberties, and set up that which was begun? Either it is our Duty to reform, and to recover our Liberties, and relieve our Country, and punish Delinquents, or it is not? If it be not, let us go home again: If it be, let us do it and trust God: For if the fears of foreseen Oppositions shall make us betray our Country and Posterity, we are perfidious to them, and Enemies to ourselves, and may well be said to be worse than Infidels, much rather than they that provide not for their Families; when Infidels have not thought their Lives too good to save the Commonwealth. And as for a War, the danger of it may be avoided: It is a thing uncertain, and therefore a present certain Ruin, and that by our own hand, is not to be chosen to avoid it. The King may fee the danger of it as well as we, and avoid it on better Terms: Or if he were willing, he may not be able to do any great harm: Do you think that the People of England are so mad, as to fight against those whom they have chosen to represent them? to destroy themselves, and the hopes of their Posterity? Do they not know that if Parliaments be destroyed, their Lives and Estates are merely at the Will and Mercy of the Conqueror? And do not you see that the People are everywhere for the Parliament? And for Revenge; what need we fear it when the Parliament may continue till it consent to its Dissolution? And sure they will not consent till they see themselves out of the danger of Revenge]. Such as these were the Reasonings of that Party which prevailed.

But others told them, That those that adhered to the Bishops, and were offended at the Parliaments Church Reformations, would be many; and the King will never want Nobility and Gentry to adhere to him; and the Common People will follow their Landlords, and be on the stronger side: and the intelligent part, who understand their own Interests, are but few: And when you begin a War, you know not what you do]. Thus were Men's minds then in a Division: but some unhappy means fell out to unite them so as to cause them to proceed to a War.

§ 39. The things that heightened former Displeasures to a miserable War were such as follow, on both Parts: On the Parliaments part were principally, 1. The Peoples indiscretion that adhered to them; 2. The imprudence and violence of some Members of the House, who went too high: 3. The great Diffidence they had of the King when they had provoked him.

On the other side it was hastened, 1. By the Calling up of the Northern Army. 2. By the King's imposing a Guard upon the House. 3. By his entering the House to accuse some Members. 4. By the miscarriage of the Lord Digby and other of the King's Adherents. 5. But above all by the terrible Massacre in Ireland, and the Threatenings of the Rebels to Invade England. A little of everyone of these.

§ 40. 1. Those that desired the Parliaments Prosperity were of divers sorts. Some were calm and temperate, and waited for the Fruits of their Endeavors in their season: And some were so glad of the hopes of a Reformation, and afraid left their Hearts and Hands should fall for want of Encouragement, that they too much boasted of them, and applauded them: which must needs offend the King, to see the People rejoice in others as their Deliverers, and as saving them from him; and so to see them preferred in Love and Honor before him. But some were yet more indiscreet: The remnant of the old Separatists and Anabaptists in London was then very small, and scarce considerable; but they were enough to stir up the younger and inexperienced sort of Religious People, to speak too vehemently and intemperately against the Bishops and the Church and Ceremonies, and to jeer and deride at the Common Prayer, and all that was against their minds: (For the young and raw sort of Christians are usually prone to this kind of Sin; to be self-conceited, petulant, willful, censorious, and injudicious in all their management of their Differences in Religion, and in all their Attempts of Reformation): scorning and clamouring at that which they think evil, they usually judge a warrantable Course: And it is hard finding any sort of People in the World, where many of the more inexperienced are not indiscreet, and proud and passionate.

These stir'd up the Apprentices to join with them in Petitions, and to go in great numbers to Westminster to present them: And as they went they met with some of the Bishops in their Coaches going to the House; and (as is usual with the passionate and indiscreet when they are in great Companies) they too much forgot Civility, and cried out, No Bishops; which either put them really into a fear, or at least so displeased them, as gave them occasion to meet together, and draw up a Protestation against any Law which in their Absence should be passed in the Parliament, as having themselves a place there, and being, as they said, deferred from coming thither by those Clamours and Tumults.

This Protestation was so ill taken by the Parliament, as that the Subscribers of it were voted Delinquents, and sent to Prison, as going about to destroy the power of Parliaments; (and among them even Bishop Hall himself).

These numerous Petitioners also were very offensive to the King, insomuch that once some of his Cavaliers came out upon them armed as they passed by Whitehall, and catched some of them, and cut off their Ears; and Sir Richard Wiseman leading them, there was some Fray about Westminster-Abbey between the Cavaliers and them, and Sir Richard Wiseman was slain by a stone from off the Abbey Walls. And when at last the King forsook the City, these Tumults were the principal Cause alleged by him, as if he himself had not been safe. Thus rash Attempts of Head-strong People, do work against the good Ends which they themselves intend; and the Zeal which hath censorious Strife and Envy, doth tend to Confusion, and every evil Work: And Overdoing is the ordinary way of Undoing.

§ 41. 2. And some Members of the House did cherish these Disorders; and because that the Subjects have liberty to Petition, therefore they made use of this their Liberty in a disorderly way. When they had disgraced Ship-money, and the Et caetera Oath, and Bowing towards Altars, and such things as were against Law, they stopped not there, but set themselves to cast out the Bishops and the Liturgy which were settled by Law. And though Parliaments may draw up Bills for repealing Laws, yet hath the King his Negative Voice, and without his Consent they cannot do it; which though they acknowledged, yet did they too easily admit of Petitions against the Episcopacy and Liturgy, and connived at all the Clamours and Papers which were against them.

Had they only endeavored the Ejection of Lay Chancellors, and the reducing of the Dioceses to a narrower Compass, or the setting up of a Subordinate Discipline, and only the Correcting and Reforming of the Liturgy, perhaps it might have been borne more patiently; but some particular Members concurred with the Desires of the imprudent Reformers, who were for no less than the utter Extirpation of Bishops and Liturgy: To which purpose the Lord Brook wrote his Book against Episcopacy. And in the House of Commons Sir Henry Vane endeavored to draw all up to the bighest Resolutions, and by his Parts and Converse drew many (so far) to his mind. And also the sense of the younger less experienced sort of the Ministers and private Christians in the Country, was much against amending the Bishops and Liturgy, and thought this was but to guild over our Danger, and lose our Opportunity; but they were for an utter Extirpation. Though none of all this was the Sense of the Parliament, yet those Members which were of this Opinion did much to encourage the Petitioners, who in a disorderly manner labored to effect it.

The Bishops themselves who were accounted most moderate ( Usher, Williams, Morton ) and many other Episcopal Divines with them, had before this in a Committee at Westminster, agreed on certain Points of Reformation, which I will give you afterward, though out of the proper place, when we come to our Proposals at the King's Return 1660. But when the same Men saw that greater Things were aimed at, and Episcopacy itself in danger, or their Grandeur and Riches at the least, most of them turned against the Parliament, and were almost as much displeased as others.

§ 42. 3. And the great distrust which the Parliament had of the King, was another thing which hastened the War: For they were confident that he was immovable as to his Judgment and Affections, and that whatever he granted them, was but in design to get his advantage utterly to destroy them; and that he did but watch for such an Opportunity: They supposed that he utterly abhorred the Parliament, and their Actions against his Ship-money, his Judges, Bishops, &c. and therefore whatever he promised them, they believed him not, nor durst take his word; which they were hardened in by those former Actions of his, which they called, The Breach of his former Promises.

§ 43. And the Things on the other side, which occasioned their Diffidence, and caused the War, were these following especially above all the rest: 1. The Armies of the Scots and English did long continue in the North undisbanded, in their Quarters, till the Parliament should provide their Pay. Some say other Business caused the delay, and some say that the Parliament was not willing that they should be so soon disbanded; but the Army of the English wanting pay, was easily discontented: And the Parliament say that the Court drew them into a Plot against the House, to march suddenly up towards London, and to Master the Parliament: Divers of the Chief Officers were Examined, (Sir Jacob Astley, O Neal, Sir Fulh Huncks (my Mother-in-Law's Brother) and many others; and they almost all confessed some such thing, that some near the King (but not he himself) had treated with them about bringing up the Army, but none of them talked of destroying or forcing the Parliament. These Examinations and Depositions were published by the Parliament, which did very much to persuade abundance of People that the King did but watch while he quieted them with Promises, to Master them by Force, and use them at his Pleasure. And this Action was one of the greatest Causes of the dangerous diffidence of the King.

§ 44. 2. Another was this: When the Parliament had set a Guard upon their own House, (which they took to be their Privilege) the King discharged them, and set another Guard upon them of his choosing: which made them seem as much afraid, as if he had made them Prisoners, and would at some time or other command that Guard to Execute his Wrath upon them; whereupon they dismissed them, and called for a Guard of the City Regiments. This also did increase the Diffidence.

§ 45. 3. Another great Cause of the Diffidence and War was this: The King was advised no longer to stand by, and see the Parliament affront him, and do what they listed; but to take a sufficient Company with him, and to go suddenly in Person to the House, and there to demand some of the Leading Members to be delivered up to Justice, and tried as Traitors: Whereupon he goeth to the House of Commons with a Company of Cavaliers with Swords and Pistols, to have charged five of the Members of that House, and one of the Lord's House, with High Treason; viz Mr. Pim, Mr. Hampden, Mr. Hollis, Mr. Strowd, and Sir Arthur Haseirigge, and the Lord Kimbolivn (after Earl of Manchester and Lord Chamberlain) of the Lord's: But the King was not so secret or speedy in this Action, but the Members had notice of it before his coming, and absented themselves (being together at an inner House in Red-Lyon Court in Watling street near Breadstreet in London): And so the King and his Company laid hands on none, but went their ways. Had the five Members been there, the rest supposed they would have taken them away by violence.

When the King was gone, this Alarm did cast the House into such Apprehensions, as if one after another, their Liberties or Lives must be assaulted by the Sword if they pleased not the Court: So that they presently voted it a Breach of their Privileges, and an Effect of the King's evil Counselors, and published their Votes; to awaken the People to rescue them, as if they were in apparent Danger.

The King being disappointed, publisheth a Paper in which he chargeth the Members with Treason, as stirring up the Apprentices to tumultuous Petitioning, &c. But confesseth his Error in violating their Privileges.

§ 46. 4. And another thing which hastened the War, was, that the Lord Digby and some other Cavaliers, attempted at Kingston upon Thames, to have suddenly got together a Body of Horse; which the Parliament took as the beginning of a War, or an Insurrection and Rebellion: But the Party was dissipated before they could grow to any great Strength; and the Parliament voted him a Delinquent, and sent to apprehend him and bring him to Justice, with his partakers: But he sled into France; and when he was there, the Parliament intercepted some of his Letters to the King, advising him to get away from London, to some place of Strength, where his Friends might come to him; which they took as an Advise to him to begin a War. Thus one thing after another blew the Coals.

§ 47. 5. But of all the rest, there was nothing that with the People wrought so much, as the Irish Massacree and Rebellion: The Irish Papists did by an unexpected Insurrection, rise all over Ireland at once, and seized upon almost all the Strengths of the whole Land, and Dublin wonderfully escaped (a Servant of Sir John Clotworthy 's discovering the Plot) which was to have been surprised with the rest, Octob. 23. 1641. Two hundred thousand Persons they murdered, (as you may see in the Earl of Orary 's Answer to a Petition, and in Dr. Jones 's Narrative of the Examinations, and Sir John Temple 's History, who was one of the resident Justices:) Men, Women and Children were most cruelly used; the Women ripped up, and filthily used when they killed them, and the Infants used like Toads or Vermin: Thousands of those that escaped, came stripped and almost famished to Dublin, and afterwards into England to beg their Bread: Multitudes of them were driven together into Rivers, and cast over Bridges and drowned: Many Witnesses swore before the Lord's Justices, that at Portdown-bridge a Vision every Day appeared to the Passengers of naked Persons standing up to the middle in the River, and crying out, Revenge, Revenge! In a word, scarce any History mentioneth the like barbarous Cruelty as this was: The French Massacree murdered but Thirty, or Forty Thousand; but Two Hundred Thousand was a Number which astonished those that heard it.

This filled all England with a Fear both of the Irish, and of the Papists at home; for they supposed that the Priests and the Interest of their Religion were the Cause: In so much, that when the Rumour of a Plot was occasioned at London, the poor People, all the Countries over, were ready either to run to Arms, or hide themselves, thinking that the Papists were ready to rise and cut their Throats: And when they saw the English Papists join with the King against the Parliament, it was the greatest thing that ever alienated them from the King.

Hereupon, the Parliament was solicitous to send help to Dublin, lest that also should be lost. The King was so forward to that Service, that he pressed the Parliament that he might go over himself: The Parliament liked that worst of all, as if they had been confident that ill Counselors advised him to it, that he might get at the Head of two Armies, and unite them both against the Parliament, and by his Absence make a Breach, and hinder the Proceedings of the Houses.

Those that came out of Ireland represent the woeful Case of it, and the direful Usage of the Protestants, so as provoked the People to think that it was impossible that any Danger to them could be greater than their Participation of the like. The few that were left at Dublin got into Arms, but complained of their Necessities, and the multitude of their Enemies! So that an Hundred were used to fight against a Thousand: And to increase the Flame, some Irish Rebels told them, that they had the King's Commission for what they did; which though the soberer part could not believe, yet the credulous timorous vulgar were many of them ready to believe it: And the English Soldiers (under Sir Charles Cootes, the Lord Incheguin, &c.) send over word that it was the common Feast of the Irish, that when they had done with the handful that was left in Ireland, they would come over into England, and deal with the Parliament and Protestants here. These Threatenings with the Name of Two hundred thousand murdered, and the Recital of their monstrous Cruelties, made many thousands in England think that nothing could be more necessary than for the Parliament to put the Country into an armed Posture for their own Defense. And that side which the Papists of England took, they could hardly think would be their Security.

§ 48. Things being thus ripened for a War in England, the King forsaketh London, and goeth into the North, in Yorkshire he calleth the Militia of the Country which would join with him, and goeth to Hull, and demandeth entrance; Sir John Hotham is put in trust with it by the Parliament, and denieth him entrance with his Forces.

The Parliament nameth Lord Lieutenants for the Militia of the Several Countries, and the King nameth other Lord Lieutenants by a Commission of Aray, and each of them command the said Lord Lieutenants to settle the Militia.

The Parliament publisheth their Votes to the People, That the King, misled by evil Counsel, was raising a War against his Parliament: The Lord Willouhby of Parham in Lincolnshire, the Lord Brook in Warwickshire, and others in other Counties, call in the Country to appear in Arms for the Parliament: The King's Lord's call them in to appear for the King: both King and Parliament published their Declarations justifying their Cause.

The Parliament chooseth the Earl of Essex for their General, and resolveth the raising of an Army, as (For the Defense of the King and Parliament, and the Liberties of the Subjects, against evil Counselors and Delinquents): They publish a Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom first, and a Declaration of the Causes of their taking up Arms afterward: which two contain most of the Reasons of their Cause.

The King answereth them, and goeth to Nottingham, and there setteth up his Standard to Summon his Subjects to his Aid.

The Lord Brook and the Earl of Northampton had some skuffling in Warwickshire: The Earl of N. with some Forces assaulted Warwick Castle, kept by Major John Bridges, and Coventry City, kept by Col. John Barker, and was repulst from both. A Party assaulted Mr. Puresoyes House, and burnt the Barns, where Mr. George Abbot, with a few of his Servants, repulst them.

At Nottingham there were but about Two thousand came in to the King's Standard, whereas the Londoners quickly filled up a gallant Army for the Earl of Essex; and the Citizens abundantly brought in their Money and Plate (yea, the Women their Rings) to Guildhall to pay the Army.

Hereupon the King sent to the Parliament from Nottingham the Offer of a Treaty, with some General Proposals, which in my Opinion was the likeliest Opportunity that ever the Parliament had for a full and safe Agreement; and the King seemed very serious in it, and the lowness of his Condition upon so much Trial of his People, was very like to have wrought much with him. But the Parliament was persuaded that he did it but to get time to fill up his Army, and to hinder their Proceedings, and therefore accepted not of his Offer for a Treaty, but instead of it sent him Nineteen Proposals of their own; viz. That if he would Disband his Army, come to his Parliament, give up Delinquents to a Legal Course of Justice, &c. he should find them dutiful, &c. And the King published an Answer to these Nineteen Propositions; in which he affirmeth the Government to be mixed, having in it the best of Monarchy, Aristocracy and Democracy, and that the Legislative Power is in the King, Lord's and Commons conjunct, and that the Lord's are a sufficient screen to hinder the King from wronging the Commons, and to keep off Tyranny, &c. And he adhereth only to the Law which giveth him the power of the Militia! Out of this Answer of the King's to these Nineteen Proposals, some one drew up a Political Catechism, wherein the Answers of every Question were verbatim the words of the King's Declaration, as if therein he had fully justified the Parliaments Cause.

The great Controversy now was the present power of the Militia: The King said that the Supreme Executive Power, and particularly the Power of the Militia, did belong to him, and not to the Parliament, and appealed to the Law. The Parliament pleaded that as the Execution of Justice against Delinquents did belong to him; but this he is bound by Law to do by his Courts of Justice, and their Executions are to be in his Name; and by a Stat. Edw. 3. if the King by the Little Seal, or the Great Seal, forbid a Judge in Court to perform his Office, he is nevertheless to go on: Also that for the Defense of his Kingdoms against their Enemies, the Militia is in his power; but not at all against his Parliament and People, whom Nature itself forbiddeth to use their Swords against themselves. And they alleged most the present danger of the Kingdoms, Ireland almost lost, Scotland disturbed, England threatened by the Irish, and the Ruin of the Parliament sought by Delinquents, whom they said the King, through evil Counsel did protect: And that they must either secure the Militia, or give up the Protestant Religion, the Laws and Liberties of the Land, and their own Necks to the Will of Papists and Delinquents.

§ 49. And because it is my purpose here, not to write a full History of the Calamities and Wars of those Times, but only to remember such Generals with the Reasons and Connection of Things, as may best make the state of those Times understood by them that knew it not personally themselves, I shall here annex a brief Account of the Country's Case about these Differences: not as a Justifier or Detender of the Assertions, or Reasons, or Actions of either Party which I rehearse; but only in faithfulness Historically to relate things as indeed they were.

And 1. It is of very great moment here to understand the Quality of the Persons which adhered to the King, and to the Parliament, with their Reasons.

A great part of the Lord's forsook the Parliament, and so did many of the House of Commons, and came to the King; but that was for the most of them, after Edghill Fight, when the King was at Oxford. A very great part of the Knights and Gentlemen of England in the several Counties (who were not Parliament Men) adhered to the King; except in Middlesex, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, &c. where the King with his Army never came: And could he have got footing there, it's like that it would have been there as it was in other places: And most of the Tenants of these Gentlemen, and also most of the poorest of the People, whom the other called the Rabble, did follow the Gentry, and were for the King.

On the Parliaments side were (besides themselves) the smaller part (as some thought) of the Gentry in most of the Counties, and the greatest part of the Tradesmen, and Free-holders, and the middle sort of Men; especially in those Corporations and Countries which depend on Clothing and such Manufactures.

If you ask the Reasons of this Difference, ask also, why in France it is not commonly the Nobility nor the Beggars, but the Merchants and middle sort of Men, that were Protestants. The Reasons which the Party themselves gave was, Because (say they) the Tradesmen have a Correspondency with London, and so are grown to be a far more Intelligent sort of Men than the ignorant Peasants that are like Bruits, who will follow any that they think the strongest, or look to get by: And the Freeholders, say they, were not enslaved to their Landlords as the Tenants are: The Gentry, (say they) are wholly by their Estates and Ambition more dependent on the King, than their Tenants on them; and many of them envied the Honor of the Parliament, because they were not chosen Members themselves. The other side said, That the Reason was because the Gentry (who commanded their Tenants) did better understand Affairs of State than half-witted Tradesmen and Freeholders do.

But though it must be confessed, That the Public Safety and Liberty wrought very much with most, especially with the Nobility and Gentry, who adhered to the Parliament, yet was it principally the differences about Religious Matters that filled up the Parliaments Armies, and put the Resolution and Valour into their Soldiers, which carried them on in another manner than mercenary Soldiers are carried on. Not that the Matter of Bishops Or no Bishops was the main thing, (for Thousands that wished for Good Bishops were on the Parliaments side) though many called it Bellum Episcopale; (And with the Scots that was a greater part of the Controversy.) But the generality of the People through the Land (I say not all, or every one ) who were then called Puritans, Precisions, Religious Persons, that used to talk of God, and Heaven, and Scripture, and Holiness, and to follow Sermons, and read Books of Devotion, and pray in their Families, and spend the Lord's Day in Religious Exercises, and plead for Mortification, and serious Devotion, and strict Obedience to God, and speak against Swearing, Cursing, Drunkenness, Profaneness, &c. I say, the main Body of this sort of Men, both Preachers and People, adhered to the Parliament. And on the other side, the Gentry that were not so precise and strict against an Oath, or Gaming, or Plays, or Drinking, nor troubled themselves so much about the Matters of God and the World to come, and the Ministers and People that were for the King's Book, for Dancing and Recreations on the Lord's Days; and those that made not so great a matter of every Sin, but went to Church and heard Common Prayer, and were glad to hear a Sermon which lashed the Puritans, and which ordinarily spoke against this strictness and preciseness in Religion, and this strict Observation of the Lord's Day, and following Sermons, and praying Ex tempore, and talking so much of Scripture and the Matters of Salvation, and those that hated and derided them that take these Courses, the main Body of these were against the Parliament. Not but that some such for Money, or a Landlord's Pleasure, served them; as some few of the stricter sort were against them, or not for them (being Neuters): but I speak of the notable Division through the Land.

If you ask how this came to pass, it requireth a longer Answer than I think fit here to give: But briefly, Actions spring from natural Dispositions and Interest. There is somewhat in the Nature of all worldly Men which maketh them earnestly defirous of Riches and Honors in the World; and they that value them most will seek them; and they that seck them are more like to find them than those that despise them; and he that taketh the World and Preferment for his Interest will estimate and choose all means accordingly; and where the World is predominant, Gain goeth for Godliness, and serious Religion, which would mortify their Sin is their greatest Enemy: Yet Conscience must be quieted, and Reputation preserved, which can neither of them be done, without some Religion: Therefore such a Religion is necessary to such as is consistent with a worldly Mind; which Outside-formality, Lip-service and Hypocrisy is; but Seriousness, Sincerity and Spirituality is not.

On the other side, there is that in the new Nature of a spiritual Believer, which inclineth him to things above, and causeth him to look at worldly Grandeur and Riches, as things more dangerous than desirable; and he is dead to the World, and the World to him by the Cross of Christ; no wonder therefore if few such attain great Matters in the World, or ever come to Preferment or Greatness upon Earth: And there is somewhat in them which maketh them more fearful of displeasing God, than all the World, and will not give them leave to stretch their Consciences, or turn aside when the Interest, or Will of Man requireth it: And the Laws of Christ, to which they are so devoted, are of such a stream as cannot suit with carnal Interest. There is an universal and radicated Enraity between the Carnal and the Spiritual, the Serpent 's and the Woman 's Seed, the fleshly Mind, and the spiritual Law of God, through all the World, in all Generations, Gen. 3. 15. Rom. 8. 6, 7, 8. Thus Enmity is found in England, as well as in other Countries, between the Godly and the Worldly Minds; as he that was born after the Flesh did persecute him that was born after the Spirit, even so was it here: The vulgar Rabble of the carnal and profane, the Fornicators, Drunkards, Swearers, &c. did everywhere hate them that reproved their Sin, and condemned them by a holy Life. This Difference was universal, and their Enmity implacable, farther than common Grace abated it, or special Grace cured it. So that everywhere serious, godly People, that would not run with others to excess of Rvot, were spoken against and derided by the Names of Precisians, Zealot, Over-strict, the holy Brethren, and other Terms of Scorn.

These things being supposed, it unhappily fell out that in the Days of Queen Mary (that we may fetch the matter ab origin ) our Reformers, being Fugitives at Frankford, fell into a Division: One part of them were for Diocesans, and the English Liturgy and Ceremonies, that they might no more than needs depart from the Papists, nor seem inconstant by departing from what King Edward had begun. The other were for Calvin 's Discipline and way of Worship; for the setting up of a Parochial Discipline instead of a Diocesan; and to have a Government in every particular Church, and not only One over a Thousand, or many Hundred Churches: and for a plain and serious way of Worship, suited as near as possible to God's Word.

When these two Parties returned into England, the Diocesan Party got Queen Elizabeth 's Countenance, and were preferred, and their way set up. The other Party petitioned, and hoped, and waited, but were discountenanced, rebuked, and by Law suppressed. This lamentable Breach was never healed: The discountenanced Party were servant Preachers, of holy Lives, and so were many of the Bishops also in those days! But if those that succeeded them had been as holy and as diligent Preachers, they had kept up their Honor and Places without such Assaults as they have undergone. But when Jewel, Pelkington, Grindal, and such like were dead, many succeeded them whom the People took to be other kind of Men. And the silenced Disciplinarians (as then they were called) did by their Writings, their secret Conference and Preaching, and their Godly Lives, work much upon such as were religiously addicted. And moreover, besides what they received from such Teachers, there is (I know not perfectly whence), among the most of the Religious serious People of these Countries, a suspicion of all that is Ceremonious in God's Service, and of all which they find not warrant for in Scripture, and a greater inclination to a rational convincing earnest way of Preaching and Prayers, than to the written Forms of Words which are to be read in Churches. And they are greatly taken with a Preacher that speaketh to them in a familiar natural Language, and exhorteth them as if it were for their Lives; when another that readeth or faith a few composed Words in a reading Tone, they hear almost as a Boy that is saying his Lesson: And they are much persuaded that a just Parochial Discipline would greatly reform the Church; and that Diocesans by excluding it, cherish Vice.

Now upon the Difference between the Diocesans and the Disciplinarians, the Diocesans found that their very Places, and Power, and Lands, and Lordships were assaulted by the contrary Opinion; and therefore they thought it necessary to suppress the Promoters of it. And so putting Episcopacy, Liturgy, Ceremonies, and all into the Subscriptions which they imposed on all that would be Ministers or Schoolmasters, they kept and cast out very many worthy Men: For some that were for Liturgy and Ceremonies, were not for Diocesans, but for Parish Discipline; and some that were for Bishops were not for the Ceremonies; and some that were for the rest yet scrupled someone, and he that could not Subscribe to all, was forbidden to preach the Gospel: whereas in the mean time many Bishops preached very seldom, and abundance of Places had ignorant Readers that could nor preach, and silly Preachers, whose Performances were so mean, that they had better kept to the Reading of the Homilies; and many of these were of Scandalous Lives.

Hereupon the Disciplinarians cried out of the ignorant scandalous Ministers; and almost all the scandalous Ministers (and all that studied Preferment) cried out of the Nonconformists: The name Puritan was put upon them, and by that they were commonly known; when they had been called by that name awhile, the vicious Multitude of the Ungodly called all Puritans that were strict and serious in a Holy Life, were they ever so conformable! So that the same name in a Bishops mouth signified a Nonconformist, and in an ignorant Drunkards or Swearers mouth, a godly obedient Christian. But the People being the greater number, became among themselves the Masters of the Sense. And in Spalatensi 's time, when he was decrying Calvinism, he devised the name of Doctrinal Puritans, which comprehended all that were against Arminianism. Now the ignorant Rabble hearing that the Bishops were against the Puritans, (not having wit enough to know whom they meant) were emboldened the more against all those whom they called Puritans themselves, and their Rage against the Godly was increased: and they cried up the Bishops, partly because they were against the Puritans, and partly because they were earnest for that way of Worship which they found most consistent with their Ignorance, Carelessness, and Sins. And thus the Interest of the Diocesans and of the Profane and Ignorant sort of People were unhappily twisted together in England.

And then on the other side, as all the Nonconformists were against the Prelates, so other of the most serious godly People were alienated from them on all these foresaid conjunct Accounts.

1. Because they were derided and abused by the Name of Puritans.

2. Because the Malignant Sort were permitted to make Religious Persons their common Scorn.

3. Because they saw so many insufficient and vicious Men among the Conformable Clergy.

4. Because they had a high esteem of the Parts and Piety of most of the Nonconformable Ministers.

5. Because they grieved to see so many Excellent Men silenced, while so many Thousand were perishing in Ignorance and Sin.

6. Because though they took the Liturgy to be lawful, yet a more orderly serious Scriptural way of Worship was much more pleasing to them.

7. Because Fasting and Praying, and other Exercises, which they found much benefit by, were so strictly looked after, that the High Commission and the Bishops Courts did make it much more perilous, than common Swearing and Drunkenness proved to the Ungodly.

8. Because the Book that was published for Recreations on the Lord's Day made them think that the Bishops concurred with the Profane.

9. Because Afternoon Sermons and Lectures, though by Conformable Men, began to be put down in divers Counties.

10. Because so great a number of Conformable Ministers were suspended or punished for not reading the Book of Sports on Sundays, or about Altars, or such like: and so many Thousand Families, and many worthy Ministers, driven out of the Land.

11. Because when they saw Bowing towards Altars, and the other Innovations added, they feared worse, and knew not where they would end.

12. And lastly, Because they saw that the Bishops proceeded so far as to swear Men to their whole Government by the Et caetera Oath, and that they approved of Ship-money, and other such encroachments on their Civil Interests.

All these upon my own knowledge were the true Causes why so great a number of those Persons who were counted most Religious, fell in with the Parliament in England; insomuch that the generality of the stricter diligent sort of Preachers joined with them, though not in meddling with Arms, yet in Judgment, and in flying to their Garrisons; and almost all those afterwards called Presbyterians, were before Conformists: Very few of all that Learned and Pious Synod at Westminster were Nonconformists before, and yet were for the Parliament, supposing that the Interest of Religion lay on that side.

Yet did they still keep up an honorable esteem of all that they thought Religious on the other side; such as Bishop Davenant, Bishop Hall, Bishop Morton, Archbishop Usher, &c. But as to the generality, they went so unanimously the other way, that upon my knowledge many that were not wise enough to understand the Truth about the Cause of the King and Parliament, did yet run into the Parliaments Armies, or take their part (as Sheep go together for Company) moved by this Argument, [Sure God will not suffer almost all his most Religious Servants to err in so great a matter.] And [If all these should perish what will become of Religion.] But these were insufficient Grounds to go upon. And abundance of the ignorant sort of the Country, who were Civil, did flock in to the Parliament, and filled up their Armies afterward, merely because they heard Men swear for the Common Prayer and Bishops, and heard others pray that were against them; and because they heard the King's Soldiers with horrid Oaths abuse the name of God, and saw them live in Debauchery, and the Parliaments Soldiers flock to Sermons, and talking of Religion, and praying and singing Psalms together on their Guards. And all the sober Men that I was acquainted with, who were against the Parliament, were wont to say, [The King hath the better Cause, but the Parliament hath the better Men].

Aud indeed, this unhappy Complication of the Interest of Prelacie, and Profaneness, and Opposition of the Interest of Prelacie to the Temper of the generality of the Religious Party, was the visible Cause of the overthrow of the King in the Eye of all the understanding World, that ever was capable of observing it.

§ 50. And whereas the King's Party usually say, that it was the seditious Preachers that stirred up the People, and were the Cause of all this, I answer,

1. It is partly true, and partly not: It is not true that they stirred them up to War (except an inconsiderable Number of them, one perhaps in a County, if so much.) But it is true that they discovered their dislike of the Book of Sports, and bowing to Altars, and diminishing Preaching, and silencing Ministers, and such like; and were glad that the Parliament attempted a Reformation of them.

2. But then it is as true, that almost all these were conformable Ministers, the Laws and Bishops having cast out the Nonconformists long enough before; insomuch, that I know not of two Nonconformists in a County. But those that made up the Assembly at Westminster, and that through the Land, were the Honor of the Parliaments Party, were almost all such as had till then conformed, and took those things to be lawful in case of necessity, but longed to have that necessity removed.

§ 51. When the War was beginning, the Parties set Names of Contempt upon each other, and also took such Titles to themselves and their own Cause, as might be the fittest means for that which they designed: The old Names of Puritans and Formalists were not now broad enough, nor of sufficient force. The King's Party, as their Serious Word, called the Parliaments Party Rebels, and as their common ludi • rous Name, The Round-heads (the original of which is not certainly known: Some say, it was because the Puritans then commonly wore short Hair, and the King's Party long Hair: Some s • y, it was because the Queen, at Strafford 's Trial, asked who that Round-headed Man was, meaning Mr. Pym, because he spake so strongly.)

The Parliaments Party called the other side commonly by the Name of Malignants, as supposing that the generality of the Enemies of serious Godliness went that way, in a desire to destroy the Religious out of the Land. (And the Parliament put that Name into their Mouths) and the Soldiers they called Cavaliers, because they took that Name to themselves; and afterwards they called them Damme's [because God Damn me ] was become a common Curse, and as a By-word among them.

The King professed to sight for the Subjects Liberties, the Laws of the Land, and the Protestant Religion. The Parliament professed the same, and all their Commissions were granted as [ for King and Parliament ] for the Parliament professed, that the Separation of the King from the Parliament, could not be without a Destruction of the Government, and that the Dividers were the Destroyers and Enemies to the State, and if the Soldiers asked each other at any Surprize or Meeting [ who are you for? ] those on the King's side said, [ for the King ] and the others said, [ for King and Parliament ] the King disowned their Service, as a Scorn, that they should say they fought for King and Parliament, when their Armies were ready to charge him in the Field. They said to this,

1. That they fought to redeem him from them that took him a voluntary Captive, and would separate him from his Parliament.

2. That they fought against his Will only, but not against his Person, which they desired to rescue and preserve, nor against his Authority which was for them.

3. That as all the Courts of Justice do execute their Sentences in the King's Name, and this by his own Law, and therefore by his Authority, so much more might his Parliament do.

§ 52. But now we come to the main matter; What satisfied so many of the intelligent part of the Country to side with the Parliament when the War began?

What inclined their Affections I have before shown; and it is not to be doubted but their Approbation of the Parliament in the cause of Reformation made them the easilier believe the lawfulness of their War: But yet there were some Dissenters which put the matter to debates among themselves. In Warwickshire, Sir Francis Nethersole, a religious Knight, was against the Parliaments War and Covenant, (though not for the Justness of the War against them.) In Glocestershire, Mr. Geree, an old eminent Nonconformist, and Mr. Copell, a learned Minister (who put out himself to prevent being put out for the Book of Recreations) and some others with them were against the lawfulness of the War; so was Mr. Lyford of Sherborn in Dorcetshire, and Mr. Francis Bampfield, his Successor, and some other Godly Ministers in other Countries: And many resolved to meddle on no side.

Those that were against the Parliaments War were of three Minds or Parties: One Part thought that no King might be resisted (but these I shall not take any more notice of.) The other thought that our King might not be at all resisted; because he is our Sovereign, and we have sworn to his Supremacy; and if he be Supreme, he hath neither Superior, nor Equal: And Oaths are to be interpreted in the strictest Sense. The third sort granted that in some Cases the King might be resisted, as Bilson, and other Bishops hold, but not in this Case.

1. Because, the Law giveth him the Militia, which was contended for; and the Law is the measure of Power.

2. Because, say they, the Parliament began the War, by permitting Tumults to deprive the Members of their Liberty, and affront and dishonor the King.

3. Because the Members themselves are Subjects, and took the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy, and therefore have no Authority to resist.

4. It is not lawful for Subjects to defend Reformation or Religion by Force, against 〈◊〉 Sovereigns; no such good Ends will warrant evil Means.

5. It is contrary to the Doctrine of Protestants, and the ancient Christians, and Scripture itself • which condemneth all that resist the higher Powers; and as for the Primitive Christians • it is well known they were acquainted with no other lawful Weapons against them but Prayers and Tears.

6. It importeth a false Accusation of the King, as if he were about to destroy Religion, Liberties, or Parliaments, all which he is resolved to defend, as in all his Declarations doth appear.

7. It justifieth the Papists Doctrine and Practices of Rebellion, and taketh the Odium from them unto ourselves, and layeth a Reproach upon the Protestant Cause.

8. It proceedeth from Impatience and Distrust of God, which causeth Men to fly to unlawful means. Religion may be preserved better by patient Sufferings.

These were their Reasons who were against the Parliaments War, which may be seen more at large in Mr. Dudly Digs his Book, and Mr. Welden 's, and Mr. Michael Hudson 's, and Sir Francis Nethersole 's.

§ 53. As for those on the Parliaments side, I will first tell you what they said to these Eight Reasons; and next, what Reasons moved them to take the other side.

1. To the First Reason, they said (as before) that for the Law to give the King the •••• itia, signifieth no more but that the People in Parliament consented to obey him in Matter of Wars, and to fight for him, and under his Conduct: For the Law is nothing but the Consent of King and Parliament; and the Militia is nothing but the Peoples own Swords and Strength: And that this Consent of theirs should be supposed to be meant against themselves, as if they consented to destroy themselves whenever he commanded it, is an Exposition against Nature, Sense, and Reason, and the common Sentiments of Mankind. And they said that the same Law required Sheriffs to exercise the Militia in Obedience to the Decrees of his Courts of Justice, and this against the King's Personal Commands, and in the King's Name. Because King and Parliament have by Law settled those Courts and Methods of Execution, a Command of the King alone can no more prevail against them, than it can abrogate a Law. And the Law, said they, is above the King, because King and Parliament are more than the King alone. And they pretend also Presidents for their Resistance.

2. To the Second, they said, that when 200000 Protestants were murdered in Ireland, and their Friends so bold in England, and the Parliaments Destruction so industruously endeavored, it was no time for them to rebuke their Friends upon terms of Civility and good Manners, though their Zeal was mixed with Indiscretion; and that if the Londoners had not shown that Zeal for them, it might have emboldened their Enemies against them; and that if the permitting of Petitioners to crowd to them too boldly, and speak too unmannerly can be called, the raising of a War (when they fought with none, but were assaulted themselves) then the calling up of the Army from the North, was much more so, and so they were not the Beginners. Or had they been the Beginners, it had been lawful, being but to bring Delinquents to Justice, as the Sheriff himself may in Obedience to a Court of Justice. But the Irish Flames which threatened them were kindled before all these

3. To the third they said, that the Parliament are Subjects limitedly, and not simply, as the King is not an absolute, but a limited King, viz. limited by the Laws and Constitutions of the Government; they are Subjects to him according to Law, but not subject to Arbitrary Government against Law: Their Propriety is excepted in their Subjection, and they have certain Liberties which are not subject to the Will of the King. And also, they said, That as the Sheriff is a Subject, and a Court of Justice; Subjects, and yet may resist the King's Letters, even under the Broad-Seal, and his Messengers or armed Men that act illegally (because the Law, which hath his Authority and the Parliament's, enable them so to do) so also may the Parliament, which is his highest Court of Justice. And they said, that as they have a part in the Legislative Power, they have part in the Summa Potes •• as, and so far are not Subjects. And they said, that the bare Title of Supreme is no Argument against the Constitution of a Kingdom, though it be expressed in an Oath. For the King is styled, the Supreme Governor of France, and yet the Oath of Supremacy doth not bind us to believe, that no French Man may lawfully • ear Arms against him.

4. They say to the fourth, That they wholly grant it; that though Religion may be the end of a lawful War, yet not of a Rebellion: nor may any Reformations be performed by any Actions which belong not to the Places and Callings of the Performers. But where the means are Lawful, Religion and Reformation are lawful Ends.

5. To the fifth they said, That they agree with all good Christians and Protestants, that true Authority may not be resisted by any Subject: But all Protestants, or most, agree with them, that a limited Governor, which hath not Authority to do what he lists, may perform an Act of Will, which is no Act of Authority; and that the Parliament was the highest Judicature, and that it was Rebellion in them that resisted the Parliament in their legal prosecution of Delinquents, and Defense of the Land and themselves: and that Paul, Rom. 13. determineth not at all, whether the Emperors or the Senate was the higher Power; and that the Resisters of the Parliament are the condemned Breakers of that Order and Command.

6. To the sixth they said, that they Charge nothing on the King, but what their Eyes behold, viz. That he hath forsaken his Parliament, and raiseth Arms against them, and protecteth Delinquents: And this they mention but as Matter of Fact; for the culpability they charge upon his evil Counselors, and Instruments: For the King being no Subject, is liable to no Accusations in any of his 〈…〉 Irish, the Papist, and those guilty Persons who would ruin all, to 〈…〉 Justice, whom they accuse, and not the King. And whateve • 〈…〉 King's Declarations say, Ship-money hath been imposed, the Judges have been 〈◊〉 the German Horse were to have been brought in; the Northern Army 〈◊〉 have been brought up against the Parliament; the House was invaded and 〈◊〉 Members demanded, a Guard was set upon them, and their Destruction 〈◊〉 Enemies) was powerfully endeavored.

7. 〈◊〉 the seventh they said, That for the supreme legislative Authority to defend 〈◊〉 and the Land, and for the King's Courts of Justice to prosecute Delin •• 〈◊〉 though against the King's Will) is no dishonor to the Protestant Religion, 〈◊〉 anything like the Papists Doctrine and Practices of Rebellion; nor any Justification of them. If it were, then the very Constitution of our ancient Government or Kingdom, would itself be a dishonor to our Religion.

8. To the last they say, That Patience is our Duty so far as we are called to Sufferings, and God is • o be trusted in the way which he hath appointed us: But if the Irish Rebels had foretold the Parliament and Justices of their Insurrection, and then exhorted them to Patience and Non-resistance and trusting God, or if a Thief that would rob us to exhort us to be patient and not resist, he doth but exhort us to be guilty of his Sin. 〈◊〉 Protestants Patience was that which pleased the Irish; or (if a King must be brought in as a Party) the French Men's Patience in the Parisian Massacre pleased Charles IX. and the Executioners: And if in all Countries the Protestants would let the Papists cut their Throats, and die in the Honor of Patience, it would satisfy those bloody Adversaries, who had rather we died in such Honor, than lived without it: But if such Patience would be a poor Excuse for a Father that sought not to preserve his Children, much less for the Paliament that stand still while Papists and Delinquents subvert both Church and State.

These were their Answers to their Accusers in those Points.

§ 54. The Sum of those Reasons which satisfied many that adhered to the Parliament, were these, which I will but briefly name.

1. As to the Danger of the State, the Matters of Fact did make it seem undeniable to them: Ship-money they judged not of according to the Sum; but they thought • Propriety was thereby destroyed, and Parliaments cast aside and made unnecessary: And they saw that this Parliament was called upon the Scots, and then called Discontented Lord's importunity, after many Parliaments had been dissolved in displeasure, and after they had been long forborne: And the calling up of the Northern Army, and the demanding of the Members, made Multitudes think that the ruin of the Parliament was the great Design; and their ungrateful beginning and proceedings made this seem credible, so that I met with few of that sort that doubted of it. But above all, the Two hundred thousand killed in Ireland, affrighted the Parliament and all the Land. And whereas it is said, that the King hated that, as well as they: They answered, that though he did, his hating it would neither make all those alive again, nor preserve England from their threatened Assault, as long as Men of the like malignity were protected, and could not be kept out of Arms, nor brought to Justice.

2. The End of the War did much prevail with them: For they thought that to master and destroy the Parliament, was to leave the People hopeless, as to any Security of their Propriety or Liberties, or any Remedy against mere Will! For there is no other Power that may relieve them: And if Parliaments were so used before, what would they be, (said they) if by such a War they should be conquered. And they thought that the ruin of the State and of Men's Propriety, was such an End as no means could be lawfully used for; and that the Preservation of the Kingdom was such an End as would make lawful any necessary means, which God himself had not forbidden.

3. And then as to Authority, they thought that the Legislative Power is the chiefest part of Sovereignty; and that the Parliament having a part in the Legislative Power, had so far inherently a Power to defend it, which no Law can suppose them to give away: And as the Peoples Representatives, they supposed themselves much Intrusted to secure their reserved Liberties, which the Law giveth not the King any Authority to take away.

4. And they supposed that Government being that Public Work which upholdeth the Common Peace, it is to be done by Public Instruments and • Means; and that the Kings Laws are his Instruments of Government, and also his Public Courts and Officers: And that the Subjects cannot know so well, whether private Commands or Commissions be real or counterfeit, nor are so much bound to take notice of them. And that the Judgments and Executions of the Courts of Justice, being the Effect of Laws which King and Parliament have made, are of greater Authority than contrary Commissions or Commands from the King alone.

5. It much confirmed them because all confessed, That the Sheriffs of Counties must raise the posse Comitatus for the Execution of some Decrees of Courts of Justice, though the King forbid it, or grant a Commission to any to hinder it: And that the foresaid Statute of Edw. 3. maketh even the King's Letters under the Broad Seal to be void when they would hinder Justice.

6. And they pleaded the Law of Nature, which is greater than Positive Laws, That no Nation is bound to destroy itself. The Militia being nothing but the Peoples own Sword, they say they are not bound to destroy themselves with it; nor can any Law be so interpreted. And whereas it was said, That the King sought not to destroy the Parliament, but to bring some among them to punishment; they said, that it belongeth to the Parliament to judge its Members; and that if on pretence of punishing offending Members, the King may come and fetch away, or demand those that displease him, Parliaments and Liberties and all Security of them is gone.

7. The King's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions, greatly confirmed many, when they saw the King himself declaring to them, That the Legislative Power was in Kings, Lord's, and Commons, and that the Government was mixed, and was not Arbitrary; which they thought it must needs be, if his Commissions were of greater power than his Laws and Courts, and if no resistance might be made against any that executed an illegal Commission. 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉

8. It most prevailed with many, that the Parliament professed not to fight against either the Person or Authority of the King, though against his Will; but that their War was only against Subjects. They said that some Subjects were Delinquents that fled from Justice, against whom they might raise Arms offensively; and other Subjects took Arms against the Parliament; and against these they made a Defensive War: But all of them were Subjects, and not Kings: And the King's Will or Commission is not enough to save all Subjects from punishment, when his Law is against it; nor to authorize them to destroy the Parliament and their Country.

9. They were much emboldened because this Parliament was continued by Law till it should dissolve itself. And therefore some said, the King's Presence is virtually, with them, he being a part of the Parliament: and others said that no War could be lawful which was for their dissolution or ruin, or to deprive them of their Liberty; and that the defense of them was lawful, whom the Law continued.

10. They alleged King James, who, they said, of any Man did most endeavor to advance his Prerogative, and yet in his printed Treatise for Monarchy confesseth, That a King cannot lawfully make a War against the Body of his Kingdom, but only against an offending Faction. Therefore, say they, not against the Representative Body, till it be proved that by perfidiousness they have forfeited the Virtue and Honor of their Representation.

11. They alleged Barclay, Grotius, and other Defenders of Monarchy, especially that passage of Grotius de Iure Belli, where he saith, That if several Persons have a part in the Summa Potestas (of which he maketh Legislation a chief Act), each part hath naturally the power of defending its own Interest in the Sovereignty against the other part if th • • invade it. And addeth over boldly, That if in such a War they conquer, the conqu • red party loseth to them his share: And saith, That this is so true that it holdeth, though the Law expressly say, that one of the Parties shall have the power of the Militia, it being to be understood that he shall have it against Forreign Enemies and Delinquents, and not against the other part.

12. It much confirmed them to find the most Learned Episcopal Divines speak so high for the Legislative Power of Parliaments (as Tho. Hooker doth Eccles. Pol. lib. 1. for the Eighth Book, which saith more than the Parliament ever said, was not then published). And for resistance in several Cases, as Bishop Bilson doth, even in that Treatise wherein he so strongly defendeth Obedience, and which he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. And to find how far they defend the French, Dutch, and German Protestants Wars.

13. They said that the Carnal respect of Men for personal Interests, hath made all the stream of most Men's Words and Writings go on the Prince's side; but Tyanny is a Mischief as well as Disobedience, and that which all Ages, and most Nations have grievously smarted by: and they that befriend it, are guilty of the Sin, and of the Ruines which it procureth: It keepeth out Christianity from five parts of the World: It corrupteth it and keepeth out the Protestant Truth in most of the sixth part: The Eastern and the Western Churches suffer under it, to the perdition of millions of Souls. If Bodily Sufferings were all, the matter were nothing; but it is Men's Souls, and the Interest of the Gospel, which is the Sacrifice to their Wills.

14. Lastly, This greatly confirmed many, that the Matter being a Controversy, whether the Disobedience and Resistance of King or Parliament, is now the Rebellion and Sin, the simple People are not wiser than the States-men that differ about it. How then should they better quiet their Judgments, than in the Judgment of the Parliament, who are the Trustees of the People, and the chief Court and Council of the King, and have so many Lawyers and Wife men among them, and are so greatly interested in the common Good themselves? If it were but the Question, Which is the King's Governing Will, which the People must obey? And a Soldier saith, It is my Commission, and the High Court of Parliament saith, It is the Law declared in a Court of Justice, a Parliament seemeth to be the properest Judge: As in Controversies of Physic, who is to be believed before the College of Physicians? Or in Controversies of Religion, who before a General Council? If the House of York and Lancaster • ight for the Crown, and both Command the Subjects Arms. the poor Peasants are not able to judge of their Titles: And if a Parliament shall not judge for them who shall?

These were the Reasons which caused Men to adhere to the Parliament in this War.

§ 55. For my own part I freely confess, that I was not judicious enough in Politicks and Law to decide this Controversy which so many Lawyers and Wise men differed in. And I freely confess, that being astonished at the Irish Massacre, and persuaded fully both of the Parliaments good endeavors for Reformation, and of their real danger, my Judgment of the main Cause much swayed my Judgment in the Matter of the Wars: and the Arguments à fine, & à natureâ, & necessitate, which common Wits are capable of discerning, did too far incline my Judgment in the Cause of the War, before I well understood the Arguments from our particular Laws: And the Consideration of the Quality of the Parties that sided for each Cause, in the Countries, did greatly work with me, and more than it should have done: And I verily thought, that if that which a Judge in Court saith sententially is Law, must go for Law to the Subject, as to the Decision of that Cause, though the King send his Broad Seal against it, then that which the Parliament saith is Law, is Law to the Subjects (about the Dangers of the Common-wealth) whatever it be in itself; and that if the King's Broad-Seal cannot prevail against the Judge, much less against their Judgment.

I make no doubt but both Parties were to blame (as it commonly falleth out in most Wars and Contentions) and I will not be he that shall Justify either of them. I doubt not but the Headiness and Rashness of the younger inexperienced sort of religious People, made many Parliament Men and Ministers overgo themselves, to keep pace with those hot Spurs; no doubt but much Indiscretion appeared, and worse than Indiscretion in the tumultuous Petitioners, and much Sin was committed in the dishonoring of the King, and provocation of him, and in the uncivil Language against the Bishops and Liturgy of the Church: But these things came principally from the Sectarian separating Spirit, which blew the Coals among foolish Apprentices: And as the Sectaries increased so did this Insolence increase. I have myself been in London, when they have on the Lord's Days stood at the Church Doors while the Common Prayer was reading, saying, We must stay till he is out of his Pottage. And such unchristian Scorns and Jests did please young inconsiderate Wits, that knew not what Spirit they were of, nor whither such unwarrantate things did tend. Learned Mr. John Ball, though a Nonconformist, discerned the stirrings of this insolent Sectarian Spirit betimes, and fell a writing against it; even then when some were crying out of Persecution, and others were tender of such little Differences: One or two in the House, and five or six Ministers that came from Holland, and a few that were scattered in the City, which were the Brownists Relicts, did drive on others according to their own dividing Principles, and sowed the Seeds which afterward spread over all the Land; though then there were very few of them in the Countries, even next to none. As Bishop Hall speaks against the justifying of the Bishops, so do I against justifying the Parliament, Ministers, or City: I believe many unjustifiable things were done; but I think that few Men among them all, were the Doers or Instigaters of it.

But I then thought that whosoever was faulty, the Peoples Liberties and Safety could not be forfeited: And I thought that all the Subjects were not guilty of all the Faults of King or Parliament when they defended them: Yea, that if both their Causes had been bad as against each other, yet that the Subjects should adhere to that Party which most secured the welfare of the Nation, and might defend the Land under their Conduct, without owning all their Cause. And herein I confess I was then so zealous, that I thought it a great Sin for Men that were able to defend their Country, to be Neuters: And I have been tempted since to think that I was a more competent Judge upon the Place, when all things were before our eyes, than I am in the review of those Days and Actions so many Years after, when Distance disadvantageth the Apprehension. A Writer (against Cromwell 's Decimation) recanting his great Adherence to the Parliament in that War, yet so abhorreth Neutrality, that he likeneth him rather to a Dog than a Man that could stand by when his Country was in such a case: But I confess for my part I have not such censorious Thoughts of those that then were Neuters as formerly I have had: For he that either thinketh both sides raised an unlawful War, or that could not tell which (if either) was in the right, might well be excused if he defended neither.

I was always satisfied, 1. That the Dividers of the King and Parliament were the Traitors, whoever they were: and that the Division tended to the Dissolution of the Government.

2. And that the Authority and Person of the King were inviolable, out of the reach of just Accusation, Judgment, or Execution by Law; as having no Superior, and so no Judge.

3. I favored the Parliaments Cause, as they professed 1. To bring Delinquents to a Legal Trial:

2. And to preserve the Person and Government of the King, by a Conjunction with his Parliament.

But Matters that Warrs and Blood are any way concerned in are so great and tenderly to be handled, that I profess to the World that I dare not, I will not justify anything that others or I myself have done of any such consequence. But though I never hurt the Person of any Man, yet I resolve: to pray daily and earnestly to God, that he will reveal to me whatever I have done amiss, and not suffer me through Ignorance to be impenitent, and would forgive me both my known and unknown Sins, and cleanse this Land from the Guilt of Blood.

§ 56. Having inserted this much of the Case of History of those Times, I now proceed to the Relation of the Passages of my own Life, beginning where I left.

When I was at Kidderminster the Parliament made an Order for all the People to take a Protestation to defend the King's Person, Honor and Authority, the Power and Privileges of Parliaments, the Liberties of the Subject, and the Protestant Religion, against the common Enemy] meaning the Papists; the Irish Massacre and Threatenings occasioning this Protestation. I obeyed them in joining with the Magistrate in offering the People this Protestation; which caused some to be offended with me.

About that time the Parliament sent down an Order, for the demolishing of all Statues and Images of any of the three Persons in the blessed Trinity, or of the Virgin Mary, which should be found in Churches, or on the Crosses in Church-yards. My Judgment was for the obeying of this Order, thinking it came from just Authority; but I meddled not in it, but left the Churchwarden to do what he thought good. The Churchwarden (an honest, sober, quiet Man) seeing a Crucifix upon the Cross in the Church-yard, set up a Ladder to have reached it, but it proved too short: whilst he was gone to seek another, a Crew of the drunken riotous Party of the Town (poor Journey-men and Servants) took the Alarm, and run altogether with Weapons to defend the Crucifix, and the Church Images (of which there were divers left since the time of Popery): They Report was among them, that I was the Actor, and it was me they sought; but I was walking almost a mile out of Town, or else I suppose I had there ended my days: when they mist me and the Churchwarden both, they went raving about the Streets to seek us. Two Neighbors that dwelt in other Parishes, hearing that they sought my Life, ran in among them to see whether I were there, and they knocked them both down in the Streets, and both of them are since dead, and I think never perfectly recovered that hurt. When they had foamed about half an hour, and met with none of us, and were newly housed, I came in from my walk, and hearing the People Cursing at me in their Doors, I wondered what the matter was, but quickly found how fairly I had scaped. The next Lord's Day I dealt plainly with them, and laid open to them the quality of that Action, and told them, Seeing they so required me as to seek my Blood, I was willing to leave them, and save them from that Guilt. But the poor Sots were so amazed and ashamed, that they took on sorrily, and were loath to part with me.

§ 57. About this time the King's Declarations were read in our Market-place, and the Reader (a violent Country Gentleman) seeing me pass the Streets, stopped and said, There goeth a Traitor, without ever giving a syllable of Reason for it.

And the Commission of Array was set afoot (for the Parliament meddled not with the Militia of that Country, the Lord Howard their Lieutenant not appearing). Then the rage of the Rioters grew greater than before! And in preparation to the War, they had got the word among them [ Down with the Round-heads; ] Insomuch that if a Stranger past in many places that had short Hair and a Civil Habit, the Rabble presently cried, [ Down with the Round-heads ]; and some they knocked down in the open Streets.

In this Fury of the Rabble I was advised to withdraw a while from home; whereupon I went to Gloucester: As I past but through a corner of the Suburbs of Worcester, they that knew me not, cried, Down with the Round-heads, and I was glad to spur on and be gone. But when I came to Gloucester, among Strangers also that had never known me, I found a civil, courteous, and religious People, as different from Worcester, as if they had lived under another Government. There I stayed a Month, and whilst I was there, many Pamphlets came out on both sides, preparing for a War. For the Parliaments Cause the principal Writing, which very much prevailed, was, Observations, written by Mr. Parker a Lawyer: But I remember some Principles which I think he misapplieth, as also doth Mr. Thomas Hooker, Ecclis. polit. lib. 8. viz. That the King is singulis major, but universis minor; that he receiveth his Power from the People, &c. For I doubt not to prove that his Power is so immediately from God, as that there is no Recipient between God and him to convey it to him: Only (as the King by his Charter maketh him a Mayor or Baliff whom the Corporation chooseth so) God by his Law, as an Instrument, conveyeth Power to that Person or Family whom the People consent to; and their Consent is but a Conditio sine quâ non; and not any Proof that they are the Fountain of Power, or that ever the governing Power was in them; and therefore for my part I am satisfied that all Politicks err, which tell us of a Magestas Realis in the People, as distinct from the Majestas Personalis in the Governors. And though it be true that quo ad naturalem bonitatem & in genere Causae finalis the King be universis minor, (and therefore no War or Action is good which is against the common Good, which is the end of all Government; yet as to governing Power (which is the thing in question) the King is (as to the People) Universis Major, as well as Singulis: For if the Parliament have any Legislative Power, it cannot be as they are the Body or People, as Mr. Tho. Hooker ill supposeth (who lib. 1. Polit. Eccles. maketh him a Tyrant that maketh Laws himself without the Body) but it is as the Constitution twisteth them into the Government: For if once Legislation (the chief Act of Government) be denied to be any part of Government at all, and affirmed to belong to the People as such, who are no Governors, all Government will hereby be overthrown. Besides these Observations, no Books more advantaged the Parliament's Cause, than a Treatise of Monarchy (afterwards published,) and Mr. Prin 's large Book of the Sovereign Power of Parliaments, wherein he heapeth up Multitudes of Instances of Parliaments that exercised Sovereign Power.

At this time also they were everywhere beginning the Contention between the Commission of Array and the Parliaments Militia: In Gloucestershire the Country came in for the Parliament: In Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and Shropshire, they were wholly for the King, and none, to any purpose, moved for the Parliament.

§ 58. Whilst I was at Gloucester I saw the first Contentions between the Ministers and Anabaptists that ever I was acquainted with: For these were the first Anabaptists that ever I had seen in any Country, and I heard but of few more in those parts of England. About a dozen young Men, or more, of considerable Parts, had received the Opinion against Infant Baptism, and were re-baptized, and labored to draw others after them, not far from Gloucester: And the Minister of the Place, Mr. Winnel, being hot and impatient with them, hardened them the more. He wrote a considerable Book against them at that time: But England having then no great Experience of the tendency and consequents of Annabaptistry, the People that were not of their Opinion did but pity them, and think it was a Conceit that had no great harm in it, and blamed Mr. Winnel for his Violence and Asperity towards them.

But this was the beginning of the Miseries of Gloucester; for the Anabaptists somewhat increasing on one side, before I came away, a good Man, called Mr. Hart, came out of Herefordshire with Mr. Vaughan, a Gentleman, and they drew many to Separation on another side: and after them in the Wars came one Mr. Bacon, a Preacher of the Army, and drew them to Antinomianism on another side, which together so distracted the good People, and eat out the Heart of Religion and Charity (the Ministers of the Place being not so able and quick as they should have been in confuting them, and preserving the People) that the City which had before as great Advantages for the prosperity of Religion among them, as any in the Land, in the Civility, Tractableness, and Piety of the People, became as low and Poor as others, and the Pity of more happy Places, while these Tares did dwindle and wither away the solid Piety of the Place.

§ 59. When I had been at Glucester a Month, my N • ighbours of Kidderminster came for me home, and told me, that if I stayed any longer, the People would interpret it, either that I was afraid upon some Guilt, or that I was against the King: So I bid my Host (Mr. Darney the Town Clark) and my Friends farewell, and never came to Gloucester more.

When I came home I found the beggarly drunken Rowt in a very tumultuating Disposition, and the Superiors that were for the King did animate them, and the People of the Place who were accounted Religious were called Round-heads, and openly reviled, and threatened as the King's Enemies (who had never meddled in any Cause against the King:) Every drunken Sot that met any of them in the Streets, would tell them, [ we shall take an order with the Puritans ere long.] And just as at their Shows, and Wakes, and Stage-plays, when the Drink and the Spirit of Ryot did work together in their Heads, and the Crowd encouraged one another, so was it with them now; they were like tied Mas • iffs newly loosed, and sled in the Face of all that was religious, yea, or Civil, which came in their way. It was the undoing of the King and Bishops that this Party was encouraged by the Leaders in the Country against the civil religious Party. Yet, after the Lord's Day when they had heard the Sermon they would a while be calmed, till they came to the Alehouse again, or heard any of their Leaders hiss them on, or heard a Rabble cry, [ Down with the Round-heads.] And when the Wars began, almost all these Drunkards went into the King's Army, and were quickly killed, so that scarce a Man of them came home again and survived the War.

§ 60. All this time, the King having marched from Nottingham to Shrewsbury, had there very successfully made up his Army, especially out of Shropshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Wales, though many came also out of other Parts: And the Earl of Essex 's Army was filled up, and was marching down towards Worcester.

The Fury of the Rabble was so hot at home, that I was fain to withdraw again, and being with one Mr. Hunt near I • kborough, there came a Party of the Earl of Essex 's Army before the rest, to block up the Lord Bryon in Worcester, till the Earl of Essex came to take him there. This Party lay in a Meadow near Powick, above a Mile from Worcester, Mr. Hunt, with other Countrymen bringing them in Provision; I had a great mind to go see them, having never seen any part of an Army; As soon as I came, a Messenger came out of Worcester secretly, to tell them that the Lord Bryon was mounted and ready to be gone: Hereupon, the Commanders (Col. Brown a Scot, Col. Edwin Sans of Kent, and Col. Nath. Fienes, Capt. John. Fienes, and Capt. Wingate ) consulted what was to be done; Brown and Sands were hot for the leaving of their Ground (where they were secure by a River) and presently to pursue the Enemy: The rest said, This Message may be a Deceit, to draw us into a Snare; let us first send Scouts, and see how it is. But the other prevailed, and over the Bridge they went; (being all horse and Dragoons) and by that time they had past a narrow Lane, and half of them entered a Field beyond it, they found the King's Horse under the Command of Prince Rupert drawn up ready to charge them (when they knew not whom they fought with, nor knew that Prince Rupert was within twenty Miles of them) so he charged them before the rest came in, and Col. Sands was wounded and taken Prisoner, and died of his Wounds; and Major Douglas slain, and the rest • led; and though the Enemy pursued them no farther than the Bridge, yet fled they in grievous terror to Parthore, and the Earl of Essex 's Life Guard lying there, took the Alarm that the Enemy was following them, and away they went. This Sight quickly told me the Vanity of Armies, and how little Confidence is to be placed in them.

§ 61. Upon this, Prince Ruport fetched off the Lord Byron and marched away; and the next Day the Earl of Essex came to Worcester, with many Lord's and Knights, and a flourishing Army, gallantly clothed, but never tried in Fight.

There were with his Army, as Chaplains to the several Regiments, abundance of famous, excellent Divines; viz. Mr. Stephen Marshall and Dr. Burgess to the Earl of Essex 's Regiments, Mr. Obadiah Sedgwick to Col. Hollis 's Regiment, Dr. Calibute Downing to the Lord Robert 's Regiment, Mr. John Sedgwick to the Earl of Stamford 's Regiment, Dr. Spurtow, to Mr. Hampdens, Mr. Perkins to Col. Goodwin 's, Mr. Moor to the Lord Wharton 's, Mr. Adoniram Byfield to Sir Henry Cholmeley 's, Mr. Nalton to Col. Grantham 's, Mr. Simeon Ash to the Lord Brooks or the Earl of Manchester 's, (I remember not whether) Mr. Morton of Newcastle, with Sir Arthur Haselrigg 's Troop; with many more Mr. Byfield and Mr. Moor quartered with us at Kidderminster, where were the Regiments of Col. Essex, the Lord Wharton, Sir Henry Cholmeley, and the Lord Brooks at Beudeley: while they quartered there, the King's Army was upon the March from Shrewsbury towards Oxford: Their way lying through Wolverhampton, some of their Scouts appeared on the Top of Kniver Edge, three miles from Kidderminster: The Brigades in Kidderminster not knowing but all the King's Army might come that way, marched off to Worcester, and in haste left a Carriage or two with Arms behind: some of the Inhabitants hasted to the King's Soldiers, and told them all, which made them come into the Town and take those Arms.

The Fury of our own Rabble, and of the King's Soldiers was such, that I saw no safety in staying at home: The Civility of the Earl of Essex 's Army was such, that among them there was no danger (though none of them knew me): And there was such excellent Preaching among them at Worcester, that I stayed there among them a few days, till the marching of the King's Army occasioned their remove.

Upon the Lord's Day following I preached at Alcester for my Reverend Friend Mr. Samuel Clark: As I was preaching the People heard the Cannon play, and perceived that the Armies were engaged; when Sermon was done (in the Afternoon) the report was more audible, which made us all long to hear of the success: About Sun-setting ( Octob. 23. 1642.) many Troops fled through the Town, and told us that all was lost on the Parliament side, and the Carriage taken and Waggons plundered before they came away; and none that followed brought any other News. The Towns-men sent a Messenger to Stratford upon Avon to know the certain truth. About four a clock in the Morning the Messenger returned, and told us, That Prince Rupert wholly routed the left Wing of the Earl of Essex 's Army; but while his Men were plundering the Waggons, the main Body and the Right Wing routed the rest of the King's Army, took his Standard (but it was lost again); killed his General the Earl of Lindsey, and his Standard-bearer, took Prisoner the Earl of Lindsey 's Son the Lord Willoughby, and others; and lost few Persons of Quality, and no Noblemen but the Lord St. John, eldest Son to the Earl of Bullingbrook: and that the loss of the left Wing was through the Treachery of Sir Faithful Fortescue, Major to the Lord Fielding 's Regiment of Horse, who turned to the King when he should have Charged: and that the Victory was obtained principally by Colonel Hollis 's Regiment of London Red-Coats, and the Earl of Essex 's own Regiment, and Life-Guard, where Sir Philip Stapleton, and Sir Arthur Haselrigge, and Col. Urrey did much.

The next Morning being willing to see the Field where they had fought, I went to Edghill, and found the Earl of Essex with the remaining part of his Army keeping the Ground, and the King's Army facing them upon the Hill a mile off; and about a Thousand dead Bodies in the Field between them, (and I suppose many were buried before): and neither of the Armies moving toward each other. The King's Army presently drew off towards Banbury, and so to Oxford. The Earl of Essex 's Army went back to provide for the wounded, and refresh themselves at Warwick Castle, (the Lord Brook 's House).

For myself I knew not what Course to take: To live at home I was uneasy; but especially now, when Soldiers on one side or other would be frequently among us, and we must be still at the Mercy of every furious Beast that would make a prey of us: I had neither Money nor Friends: I knew not who would receive me in any place of Safety; nor had I anything to satisfy them for my Diet and Entertainment. Hereupon I was persuaded by one that was with me to go to Coventry, where one of my old Acquaintance was Minister, (Mr. Simon King, sometime School-master at Bridgenorth ): So thither I went with a purpose to stay there till one side or other had got the Victory, and the War was ended, and then to return home again: For so wise in Matters of War was I, and all the Country besides, that we commonly supposed that a very few days or weeks by one other Battle, would end the Wars; and I believe that no small number of the Parliamentmen, had no more with than to think so to. There I stayed at Mr. King's a month, but the War was as far from being like to end as before.

Whilst I was thinking what Course to take in this Necessity, the Committee and Governor of the City desired me that I would stay with them, and lodge in the Governor's House, and preach to the Soldiers. The offer suited well with my Necessities, but I resolved that I would not be Chaplain to the Regiment, nor take a Commission; but if the mere preaching of a Sermon once or twice a week to the Garrison would satisfy them, I would accept of the Offer, till I could go home again. (Mr. Aspinall, one of the Ministers of the Town, had a Commission from the Earl of Essex to be Chaplain to the Garrison Regiment; but the Governor and Committee being displeased with him, made no use of him. And when he was displeased, as thinking I would take his place, I assured him I had no such intent; and about a Twelve-month after he died). Here I lived in the Governors House, and followed my Studies as quietly as in a time of Peace, for about a year, only preaching once a week to the Soldiers, and once on the Lord's Day to the People, not taking of any of them a Penny for either, save my Diet only.

Here I had a very Judicious Auditory; among others many very godly and judicious Gentlemen; as Sir Richard Skeffington (a most noble, holy Man) Col. God • rey Bosvile, Mr. Mackworth, with many others; of all which Mr. George About was the chief (known by his Paraphrase on Job, and his Book against Bread for the Lord's Day). And there were about thirty worthy Ministers in the City, who fled thither for Safety from Soldiers and Popular Fury, as I had done, though they never meddled in the Wars; viz. Mr. Richard Vines, Mr. Anthony Burgess, Mr. Burdall, Mr. Brumskill (who lived with that Eminent Saint the old Lady Bromley, Widow to Judge Bromley, whose only discernible fault to me) was too much Humility and Low thought of herself), Dr. Bryan, Dr. Grew, Mr. Stephens, Mr. Craddock, Mr. Morton of Bewdley, (my special Friend) Mr. Diamond, good old Mr. Overton, and many more, whose presence commanded much respect from me. I have cause of continual thankfulness to God for the quietness and safety, and sober, wise, religious Company, with liberty to preach the Gospel, which he vouchsafed me in this City, when other Places were in the Terrors and Flames of War.

§ 62. When I had been above a year at Coventry, the War was so far from being ended, that it had dispersed itself into almost all the Land: only Middlesex, Hartfordshire • most of Bedford and Northamptonshire were only for the Parliament, and had some quietness: And Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingtonshire with the Isle of Eli, were called the Associated Countries, and lived as in Peace, because the King's Armies never came near them: and so for the most part it was with Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. And on the other side, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, and Shropshire, (till this time) and almost all Wales. (save Pembrokeshire, which was wholly for the Parliament) were only possessed for the King, and saw not the Forces of the Parliament: But almost all the rest of the Counties had Garrisons and Parties in them on both sides, which caused a War in every County, and I think there where few Parishes where at one time or other Blood had not been shed.

§ 63. And here I must repeat the great Cause of the Parliaments Strength and the King's ruin; and that was, That the debauched Rabble through the Land, emboldened by his Gentry, and seconded by the Common Soldiers of his Army, took all that were called Puritans for their Enemies: And though Some of the King's Gentry and Superior Officers were so Civil that they would do no such thing, yet that was no Security to the Country, while the multitude did what they list. So that if any one was noted for a strict and famous Preacher, or for a Man of a precise and pious Life, he was either plundered, or abused, and in danger of his Life: So that if a Man did but pray in his Family, or were but heard repeat a Sermon, or sing a Psalm, they presently cried out, Rebels, Round-heads, and all their Money and Goods that were portable proved guilty, how innocent soever they were themselves. I suppose this was kept from the knowledge of the King, and perhaps of many sober Lord's of his Council: (for few could come near them; and it is the fate of such not to believe evil of those that they think are for them, nor good of those that they think are against them). But upon my certain knowledge this was it that filled the Armies and Garrisons of the Parliament with sober, pious Men. Thousands had no mind to meddle with the Wars, but greatly desisired to live peaceably at home, when the Rage of Soldiers and Drunkards would not suffer them: some stayed till they had been imprisoned; some till they had been plundered, perhaps twice or thrice over, and nothing left them; some were quite tired out with the abuse of all Comers that quartered on them; and some • by the insolency of their Neighbors; but most were afraid of their Lives; and so they sought refuge in the Parliaments Garrisons. Thus when I was at Coventry the Religious part of my Neighbors at Kidderminster that would fain have lived quietly at home, were forced (the chiefest of them) to be gone: And to Coventry they came; and some of them that had any Estate of their own, lived there on their own charge: and the rest were fain to take up Arms, and be Garrison Soldiers to get them bread.

§ 64. In Shropshire, where my Father dwelt, both he and all his Neighbors that were noted for praying and hearing Sermons, were plundered by the King's Soldiers, so that some of them had almost nothing but Lumber left in their House: though my Father was so far from meddling on either side, that he knew not what they were doing, but followed his own business; nor had he seen me, or heard of me of a long time.

At this time Col. Mitt • n, and other Shropshire Gentlemen, resolved to settle a Garrison at Wem, a little Town in their own Country, eight Miles from Shrewsbury, and Mr. Mackworth, Mr. Hunt, &c. were earnest with me to go with them because it was my Native Country. I was desirous to be near my Father if I could any way relieve him, and to be absent a while from Coventry, (there being some Difference between the Earl of Denbigh and the Committee, which went high): so I consented to go with them only for a few weeks, and to return: Their Design was to get some of my Neighbors thither, who they knew would follow me; and about thirty or forty of them joined in Colonel Mackworth 's Troop and went.

As soon as we came thither, and they began to fortify Wem, the Lord Capel brought his Army from Shrewsbury against them; where (Sir William Brereton bringing the Cheshire Trained Bands to assist the little handful at Wem ) the two Armies lay within a Mile of each other two or three Days, and after some little Skirmishing the Lord Capell drew off, and marched into Cheshire to Nantwich, being assured thereby to draw off, the Cheshire Men, and then resolved the same Night to return and Storm the Town; and his Plot took according to his Contrivance; for that Night he plundered all the Villages about Nantwich, and at Midnight marched back another way: The Cheshire Men were quickly on their March, when they heard that the Enemy was plundering their Countey: and by that time they came to Nantwich the Lord Capell was got back again to Wem. There was nothing about the Town but a Ditch little bigger than such as Husbandmen inclose their Grounds with, and this not finished; and the Gates, new made, had no Hinges, but were reared up, and there was but very few Men in the Town; especially under the Command of Col. Hunt (a plain hearted, honest, godly Man, entirely beloved, and trusted by the Soldiers for his Honesty): I went with the Cheshire Men to Nantwick; when they came thither, they understood the Stratagem of the Lord Capell, and heard that they were storming Wem; and Sir William Brereton would have had his Men march after them presently, to relieve Wem; but the Soldiers were all Commanders, and seeing their own Country plundered in their Absence, and being weary, they all resolved that they would not go; and so Wem was given up as lost; but in the Morning about three or four a Clock, when we thought they had been asleep, their Minds all changed, and to Wem they would then go; but they marched so slowly, and halted by the way, that the Lord Capell 's Army had twice stormed Wem, and being beaten back, drew off just as the Cheshire Men came upon them, and secured their Retreat by Lee-bridge and the Darkness of the Night, and the Ignorance of their Fears and Disorders in the Army that pursued them. When we came to Wem, we found that the Lord Capell had been twice repulst with much loss; Col. Win slain, and Col. Sir Tho. Scriven mortally wounded, and little Hurt done to any in the Town.

§ 65. When I had stayed here, and at Longford Garrison about two Months or more, and had redeemed my Father out of Prison at Lillshoul, I returned to Coventry, and my Neighbors would not stay behind: (the recital of Military Passage there and elsewhere, belongeth not to my present purpose, but as it concerneth the History of my own Life, and therefore I leave them to such as write the History of those Wars): When I came to Coventry, I settled in my old Habitation and Employment, and followed my Studies there in quietness for another Year. But whereas whilst I rode up and down, my Body had more Health than of a long time before, when I settled to my Studies in a Sedentary Life (and grieved for the Calamitous Condition of the Land) I fell weaker than ever I was before: And going to London was long under the Cure of Sir Theodore Meyers, and somewhat recovered, returned again.

§ 66. The Garrison of Coventry consisted half of Citizens, and half of Country-men: the Country-men were such as had been forced from their own Dwellings, the most religious Men of the Parts round about, especially from Bremicham, Sutton-Coldfield, Tamworth, Nuneaton, Hinkley, Rugby, &c. These were Men of great Sobriety and Soundness of Understanding as any Garrison heard of in England: But one or two that came among us out of New England (of Sir Henry Vane 's Party there) and one Anabaptist Taylor, had almost troubled all the Garrison, by intecting the honest Soldiers with their Opinions: But they found not that Success in Coventry, as they had done in Cromwell 's Army. In public I was fain to preach over all the Controversies against the Anabaptists first, and then against the Separatists; and in private, some of my Worcestershire Neighbors, and many of the Foot Soldiers were able to baffle both Separatists, Anabaptists, and Antinomians, and so kept all the Garrison sound: Whereupon, the Anabaptists sent to Bedford for one Mr. Benjamin Cox, an old Anabaptist Minister, and no contemptible Scholar, the Son of a Bishop; and he and I had first a Dispute by Word of Mouth, and after by Writing; and his Surceasing gave me ease: In conclusion a few poor Townsmen only were carried away, about a Dozen Men and Women; but the Soldiers and the rest of the City kept sound from all Infection of Sectaries and Dividers.

§ 67. While I lived here in Peace and Liberty, as Men in a dry House do hear the Storms abroad, so did we daily hear the News of one Fights, or other, or one Garrison or other won or lost; the two Newbery Fights, Gloucester Siege, the marvelous Sieges of Plymouth, Lime, and Taunton, Sir William Waller 's Successes and Losses; the Loss at Newark, the Slaughter at Bolton, the greatest Fight of all at York, with abundance more. So that hearing such sad News on one side or other was our daily Work; insomuch that as duly as I awakened in the Morning I expected to hear one come and tell me, Such a Garrison is won or lost, or such a Defeat received or given: And [ do you hear the News] was commonly the first Word I heard. So miserable were those bloody Days, in which he was the most honorable, that could kill most of his Enemies.

But among all these I was especially pleased with the Surprize of Shrewsbury; both because it was done without loss of Blood, and because my Father and many of my dear Friends were thereby redeemed, for when I returned from Wem to Coventry, it happily fell out that Sir Fulk Hunkes was made Governor of Shrewsbury by the King, and he protected my Father while he was there: But at last the Gent • y of the Country and he agreed not, he being too much a Soldier, and too civil for many of them, and they procured him to be removed, and Sir Rich. Oatley first, and after Sir Mich. Earnley made Governors. Sir Fulk Hunkes was confident when he went, that their Drunkenness and Carelessness would shortly lose the Town; and so it did indeed fall out: His old Mother, the Lady Hunkes, he left with my Father, where she died between 80, and 100 Years old. But when he was gone my Father was made one of the Collectors of their Taxes for the King, which he justly performed: But he would not forcibly distrain of them that refused to pay, as not knowing but they might hereafter recover it all of him; for which he was laid in Prison by them that swore he should lie and rot there: But he had been there but a few Weeks, before the Keeper in the night came to him, and begged his Favor to save him and his House, for the Parliaments Soldiers had surprised the Town: My Father would not believe it, till he heard and saw that which compel'd his Belief; and with what Joy I need not tell.

§ 68. There were abundance of strange Providences in these times that fell out for some particular Persons: The marvelous Preservation of Soldiers by Bibles in their Pockets which have received the Bullets, and such like I will not mention. When Prince Rupert put the Inhabitants of Bolton in Lancashire to the Sword, (Men, Women, and Children) an Infant escaped alive, and was found lying by her Father and Mother, who were slain in the Streets: an Old Woman took up the Child, and carried it home, and put it to her Breast for warmth, (having not had a Child herself of about 30 Years) the Child drew Milk, and so much, that the Woman nursed it up with her Breast Milk a good while: The Committee desired some Women to try her, and they found it true, and that she had a considerable proportion of Milk for the Child: If any one doubt of this, they may yet be resolved by Mrs. Hunt, Wife to Mr. Rowland Hunt of Harrow on the Hill, who living then in Manchester, was one of them that by the Committee was desired to try the Woman, and who hath oft told it me, and is a credible, godly, discreet Gentlewoman, and Wife to a Man of most exemplary Holiness, and of the primitive Sincerity without Self-seeking, Hypocrisy and Guile. The Maid herself thus nursed up, lived after wards in London.

This putteth me in mind of that worthy Servant of Christ, Dr. Teat, who being put to fly suddenly with his Wife and Children from the Fury of the Irish Rebels, in the Night without Provision; wandered in the Snow out of all ways upon the Mountains till Mrs. Teat, having no suck for the Child in her Arms, and he being ready to die with Hunger, she went to the Brow of a Rock to lay him down, and leave him that she might not see him die, and there in the Snow out of all ways where no Footsteps appeared, she found a Suck-bottle full of new, sweet Milk, which preserved the Child's Life.

In Cornwall, Sir Rich. Greenvile having taken many Soldiers of the Earl of Essex 's Army, sentenced about a dozen to be hanged: when they had hanged two or three, the Rope broke which should have hanged the next: And they sent for new Ropes so oft to hang him, and all of them still broke, that they durst go no farther, but saved all the rest: Besides universal undeniable Report, I had this oft told me by Mr. Woodhouse, an honest godly sober Man, a Sisters Son of Justice Kettleby of Shropshire, who himself stood by expecting Death, and was one of the Number of them whose Lives were saved by it.

If I would here give an account of all the Military Actions of those times which I had the certain knowledge of; the manner of taking and losing Towns and Castles, the Progress of the main Armies and of the Parties in the several Counties, in Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Lincolnshire, Gloucestershire, and other Counties where particular Wars were carried on, and between Pembrokeshire and the rest of Wales, and also the manner of the several great Fights, especially that at Marston-moor near York, it would fill of itself a greater Volume than I intend, and is a matter besides my present purpose, and fit to be done in another manner: And therefore I shall pass that by, and proceed in the Narrative of the passages of my own Life, in • erposing only Generals, and the passages which occasioned them.

§ 69. When by the great Mercy of God I had lived two years in quietness at Coventry, the Earl of Essex being weakened by a great loss in Cornwall, fell under the great displeasure of some of the Parliament, not as to his Person, but as to the Conduct of Affairs, who prevailed to have him laid by. The Causes were all these in Conjunction:

1. Though none could deny but the Earl was a Person of great Honor, Valour, and Sincerity; yet did some Accuse the Soldiers under him of being too like the King's Soldiers in Profaneness, lewd and vicious Practices, and rudeness in their Carriage towards the Country; and it was withal urged, that the Revolt of Sir Faithful Fortescue, Sir Richard Greenvile, Col. Urrey, and some others, was a satisfying Evidence, that the irreligious sort of Men were not to be much trusted, but might easily by Money be hired to betray them.

2. And it was discovered that the Earl of Essex 's Judgment (and the wisest Men's about him) was never for the ending the Wars by the Sword, but only to force a Pacificatory Treaty: He thought that if the King should Conquer, the Government of the Kingdom would be changed into Arbitrary, and the Subjects Propriety and Liberty lost: And he thought that if he himself should utterly conquer the King, the Parliament would be tempted to encroach upon the King's Prerogative, and the Privileges of the Lord's, and put too much Power in the Gentries and the People hands, and that they would not know how to settle the State of the Kingdom, or the Church, without injuring others, and running into Extreams, and falling into Divisions among themselves. Therefore he was not for a Conquest of the King. But they saw the Delay gave the King advantage, and wearied out and ruined the Country, and therefore they now began to say, that at Edghill, at Newbury, and at other times, he had never prosecuted any Victory, but stood still and seen the King's Army retreat, and never pursued them when it had been easy to have ended all the Wars.

3. But the chief Cause was, that Sir H. Vane by this time had increased Sectaries in the House, having drawn some Members to his Opinion; and Cromwell, who was the Earl of Manchester 's Lieutenant General, had gathered to him as many of the Religious Party, especially of the Sectaries as he could get; and kept a Correspondency with Vane 's Party in the House, as if it were only to strengthen the Religious Party: And Manchester 's Army, especially Cromwell 's Party, had won a Victory near Horncastle in Lincolnshire, and had done the main Service of the day at the great • ight at York; and everywhere the Religious Party that were deepliest apprehensive of the Concernment of the War, had far better Success than the other sort of Common Soldiers.

These things set together, caused almost all the Religious sort of Men in Parliament, Armies, Garrisons and Country, to before the new modelling of the Army, and putting out the looser sort of Men (especially Officers) and putting Religious Men in their steads. But in all this Work, the Vanists in the House, and Cromwell in the Army, joined together, out-witted and over-reached the rest, and carried on the Interest of the Sectaries in Special, while they drew the Religious Party along as for the Interest of Godliness in the general.

The two Designs of Cromwell to make himself great, were,

1. To Cry up Liberty of Conscience, and be very tender of Men differing in Judgment, by which he drew all the Separatists and Anabaptists to him, with many soberer Men.

2. To set these self-esteeming Men on work to arrogate the Glory of all Successes to themselves, and cry up their own Actions, and depress the Honor of the Earl of Manchester, and all others; though Men of as much Godliness at least as they: so that they did proclaim the Glory of their own Exploits, till they had got the fame of being the most valiant and Victorious Party. The truth is, they did much, and they boasted of more than they did.

And these things made the new modelling of the Army to be resolved on. But all the Question was how to effect it, without stirring up the Forces against them which they intended to disband: And all this was notably dispatched at once, by One Vote, which was called the Self-denying Vote, viz. That because Commands in the Army had much pay, and Parliament Men should keep to the Service of the House, therefore no Parliament Men should be Members of the Army. This pleased the Soldiers, who looked to have the more pay to themselves; and at once it put out the two Generals, the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Manchester, and also Sir William Waller a godly valiant Major General of another Army; and also many Colonels in the Army, and in other parts of the Land, and the Governor of Coventry, and of many other Garrisons: and to avoid all Suspicion Cromwell was put out himself.

When this was done, the next Question was, Who should be Lord General, and what new Officers should be put in, or old ones continued? And here the Policy of Vane and Cromwell did its best: For General they chose Sir Thomas Fairfax, Son to the Lord Ferdinando Fairfax, who had been in the Wars beyond Sea, and had fought valiantly in Yorkshire for the Parliament, though he was over-powered by the Earl of Newcastle 's Numbers. This Man was chosen because they supposed to find him a Man of no quickness of Parts, of no Elocution, of no suspicious plotting Wit, and therefore One that Cromwell could make use of at his pleasure. And he was acceptable to sober Men, because he was Religious, Faithful, Valiant, and of a grave, sober, resolved Disposition; very fit for Execution, and neither too Great nor too Cunning to be Commanded by the Parliament.

And when he was chosen for General, Cromwell 's men must not be without him: so valiant a Man must not be laid by: The Self-denying Vote must be thus far only dispensed with: Cromwell only, and no other Member of either House, must be excepted, and so he is made Lieutenant General of the Army: and as many as they could get of their Mind and Party, are put into Inferior Places, and the best of the old Officers put into the rest. But all the Scotch-men (except only Adjutant Crey ) are put out of the whole Army, or deserted it.

§ 70. And here I must digress to look back to what I had forgotten, of the Scots Army and the Covenant: When the Earl of Newcastle had over-powered the Lord Fairfax in the North, and the Queen had brought over many Papists Soldiers from beyond Sea, and formed an Army under General King a Scot, and the King had another great Army with himself under the Command of the Earl of Forth, another old Scottish General; so that they had three great Field Armies, besides the Lord Goring 's in the West, and all the Country Parties, the Parliament were glad to desire Assistance from the Scots; (whose Army was paid off and disbanded before the English Wars). The Scots; consented; but they offered a Covenant to be taken by both Nations, for a resolved Reformation, against Popery, Prelacy, Schism, and Profaneness, (the Papists, the Prelatists, the Secfaries, and the Profane, being the four Parties which they were against).

This Covenant was proposed by the Parliament to the Consideration of the Synod at Westminster: The Synod stumbled at some things in it, and especially at the word [ Prelacy ]. Dr. Burgess the Prolocutor, Mr. Gataker, and abundance more declared their Judgments to be for Episcopacy, even for the ancient moderate Episcopacy, in which one stated President with his Presbytery, governed every Church; though not for the English Diocesan frame, in which one Bishop, without his Presbytery, did by a Lay-Chancellor's Court, govern all the Presbytery and Churches of a Diocese, being many hundreds; and that in a Secular manner by abundance of upstart Secular Officers, unknown to the Primitive Church. Hereupon grew some Debate in the Assembly; some being against every Degree of Bishops, (especially the Scottish Divines,) and others being for a moderate Episcopacy. But these English Divines would not Subscribe the Covenant, till there were an alteration suited to their Judgments: and so a Parenthesis was yielded to, as describing that sort of Prelacy which they opposed, viz. [ That is, Church Government by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans and Chapters, Arch-deacons, and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy. ] All which conjoined are mentioned as the Description of that Form of Church Government which they meant by Prelacy, as not extending to the ancient Episcopacy.

When the Covenant was agreed on, the Lord's and Commons first took it themselves, and Mr. Thomas Coleman preached to the House of Lord's, and gave it them with this public Explication, That by Prelacy we mean not all Episcopacy, but only the form which is here described.

When the Parliament had taken it they sent it to all the Garrisons, and Armies to be taken: and commended it to all the People of the Land. And when the War was ended, they caused all the Noblemen, Knights, Gentlemen, and Officers which had been against them in the Wars, to take it before they would admit them to Composition; and take it they did: And they required that all young Ministers should take it at their Ordination.

The Covenant being taken, the Scots raised an Army to help the Parliament, which came on and began to clear the North, till at York fight, the Scots Army, the Earl of Manchester 's Army, and the Lord Fairfax 's small Army, joined Battle against Prince Rupert 's Army, and General King 's Army, and the Earl of Newcastle 's Army, where they routed them, and it was thought about 5000 were slain upon the place, besides all that died after of their wounds.

After this the Scots Army lay still in the North a long time, and did nothing, till thereby they became odious as a burden to the Land: The Scots said, that it was caused by the Policy of the Sectaries, that kept them without pay, and without orders to March. Their Adversaries (the Vanists and the Cromwellians ) said it was their own fault, who would not March. At last they were Commanded to besiege Hereford City, where they lay a long time, till the Earl of Montross, having raised an Army in Scotland against them for the King, had made it necessary for them to return into their own Country, and leave Hereford untaken, and the People clamouring against them, as having come for nothing into the Country.

Some Months after they were gone, Col. John Birch and Col. Morgan took Hereford in an hour, without any considerable bloodshed. The Waters about the Walls being hard frozen, the Governor sent Warrants to the Constables of the Country near adjoining to bring in Laborers to break the Ice; Col. Birch got these Warrants, and causeth one of his Officers in the Habit of a Constable, and many Soldiers with Mattocks, in the habit of Laborers, to come the next morning early to the Gates and being let in, they let in more, and surprised the Town.

This much I thought good to speak altogether here for brevity of the Scots Army and Covenant, and now return to the new model'd Army.

§ 71. The English Army being thus new model'd, was really in the hand of Oliver Cromwell, though seemingly under the Command of Sir Thomas Fairfax (who was shortly after Lord Fairfax, his Father dying.) Cromwell 's old Regiment which had made itself famous for Religion and Valour, being fourteen Troops was divided; six Troops were made the Lord Fairfax 's Regiment; and six Troops were Col. Whalley 's Regiment; and the other two were in Col. Rich 's and Sir Robert Pye 's Regiments. The Confidents of Cromwell were especially Col. Ireton, and Major Desborough (his Brother-in-law) and Major James Berry, and Major Harrison, and Col. Fleetwood, and (as his Kinsman) Col. Whalley, and divers others.

But now begins the Change of the old Cause. A shrewd Book came out not long before, called Plain English, preparatory hereto: And when the Lord Fairfax should have marched with his Army, he would not (as common Fame faith) take his Commission, because it ran as all others before, [ for Defense of the King's Person]: for it was intimate that this was but Hypocrisy, to profess to defend the King when they marched to fight against him; and that Bullets could not distinguish between his Person and another Man's; and therefore this Clause must be left out, that they might be no Hypocrities. And so had a Commission without that Clause [ for the King ]. And this was the day that changed the Cause.

§ 72. The Army being ready to march, was partly the Envy and partly the Scorn of the Nobility, and the Lord Lieutenants and the Officers which had been put out, by the Self-denying Vote: But their Actions quickly vindicated them from Contempt. They first attempted no less than the Siege of Oxford: but in the mean time the King takes the field with a very numerous well-recruited Army, and marcheth into Northamptonshire into the Parliaments Quarters, and thence strait to Leicester, a Town poorly fortified, but so advantageously situated for his use, as would have been an exceeding Loss to the Parliament, if he could have kept it. It was taken by Storm, and many slain in it.

General Fairfax leaveth Oxford, and marcheth through Northamptonshire towards the King. The King having the greater number, and the Parliaments Army being of a new contemned Model, he marcheth back to meet them, and in a Field near Naseby, a Village in Northamptonshire, they met. Cromwell had hasted a few days before into the associated Counties (which were their Treasury for Men and Money) and brought with him about 500 to 600 Men, and came in to the Army just as they were drawn up, and going on to give Battle. His sudden and seasonable coming, with the great Name he had got by the Applauses of his own Soldiers, made a sudden Joy in the Army, (thinking he had brought them more help than he did) so that all cried, A Cromwell, A Cromwell, and so went on; and after a shor • hot Fight, the King's Army was totally routed and put to flight, and about 5000 Prisoners taken, with all his Ordinance and Carriage, and abundance of his own Letters to the Queen and others in his Cabinet: (which the Parliament printed, as thinking such things were there contained as greatly disadvantaged the Reputation of his Word and Cause ). Major General Skippon fighting valiantly was here dangerously wounded, but afterwards recovered. The King's Army was utterly lost by the taking of Leicester: for by this means it was gone so far from his own Garrisons, that his Flying Horse could have no place of Retreat, but were utterly scattered and brought to nothing. The King himself fled to Lichfield, (and it is reported that he would have gone to Shrewsbury, his Council having never suffered him to know that it was taken till now); and so he went to Rayland Ca •••• 〈◊〉 which was a strong Hold, and the House of the Marquess of 〈◊〉 a Papist: (where his Dispute with the Marquess was said to be; which Dr. Ba • lie published, and then turned Papist; and which Mr. Christopher Cartright continued, de • ending the King). Fairfax 's Army pursued to Leicester, where the wounded Men, and some others, stayed with the Garrison: in a day or two's time the Town was re-taken.

And now I am come up to the Passage which I intended of my own going into the Army.

§ 73. Na •• by being not far from Coventry where I was, and the noise of the Victory being loud in our Ears, and I having two or three that of old had been my intimate Friends in Cromwell 's Army, whom I had not seen of above two Years, I was desirous to go see whether they were dead or alive; and so to Naseby Field I went two days after the sight, and thence by the Armies Quarters before Leicester to seek my Acquaintance. When I found them, I stayed with them a Night, and I understood the state of the Army much better than ever I had done before. We that lived quietly in Coventry did keep to our old Principles, and thought all others had done so too, except a very few inconsiderable Persons: We were unfeignedly for King and Parliament: We believed that the War was only to sive the Parliament and Kingdom from Papists and Delinquents, and to remove the Dividers, that the King might again return to his Parliament; and that no Changes might be made in Religion, but by the Laws which had his free consent: We took the true happiness of King and People, Church and State, to be our end, and so we understood the Covenant, engaging both against Papists and Schismatics: And when the Court News-book told the World of the Swarms of Anabaptists in our Armies, we thought it had been a mere lie, because it was not so with us, nor in any of the Garrison or County-Forces about us. But when I came to the Army among Cromwell 's Soldiers, I found a new face of things which I never dreamt of: I heard the plotting Heads very hot upon that which intimated their Intention to subvert both Church and State. Independency and Anabaptistry were most prevalent: Antinomianism and Arminianism were equally distributed; and Thomas Moor 's Followers (a Weaver of Wisbitch and Lyn, of excellent Parts) had made some shifts to join these two Extreams together.

Abundance of the common Troopers, and many of the Officers, I found to be honest, sober, Orthodox Men, and others tractable ready to hear the Truth, and of upright Intentions: But a few proud, self-conceited, hot-headed Sectaries had got into the highest places, and were Cromwell 's chief Favorites, and by their very heat and activity bore down the rest, or carried them along with them, and were the Soul of the Army, though much fewer in number than the rest (being indeed not one to twenty throughout the Army; their strength being in the Generals and Whalleys and Rich 's Regiments of Horse, and in the new placed Officers in many of the rest).

I perceived that they took the King for a Tyrant and an Enemy, and really intended absolutely to master him, or to ruin him; and that they thought if they might fight against him, they might kill or conquer him; and if they might conquer, they were never more to trust him further than he was in their power; and that they thought it folly to irritate him either by Wars or Contradictions in Parliament, if so be they must needs take him for their King, and trust him with their Lives when they had thus displeased him. They said, What were the Lord's of England but William the Conqueror's Colonels? or the Barons but his Majors? or the Knights but his Captains? They plainly shown me, that they thought God's Providence would cast the Trust of Religion and the Kingdom upon them as Conquerors: They made nothing of all the most wise and godly in the Armies and Garrisons, that were not of their way. Per fas aut nefas, by Law or without it, they were resolved to take down, not only Bishops, and Liturgy, and Ceremonies, but all that did withstand their way. They were far from thinking of a moderate Episcopacy, or of any healing way between the Episcopal and the Presbyterians: They most honored the Separatists, Anabaptists, and Antinomians; but Cromwell and his Council took on them to join themselves to no Party, but to be for the Liberty of all. Two sorts I perceived they did so commonly and bitterly Speak against, that it was done in mere design to make them odious to the Soldiers, and to all the Land; and that was

1. The Sots, and with them all Presbyterians but especially the Ministers; whom they call Priests and Priestbyters, and Drivines, and the Dissemby-men, and such like.

2. The Committees of the several Countries, and all the Soldiers that were under them that were not of their Mind and Way.

Some orthodox Captains of the Army did partly acquaint me with all this, and I heard much of it from the Mouths of the leading Sectaries themselves. This struck me to the very Heart, and made me Fear that England was lost by those that it had taken for its Chiefest Friends.

§ 74. Upon this I began to blame both other Ministers and myself. I saw that it was the Ministers that had lost all, by forsaking the Army, and betaking themselves to an easier and quieter way of Life. When the Earl of Essex went out first, each Regiment had an able Preacher, but at Edg-hill Fight almost all of them went home, and as the Sectaries increased, they were the more averse to go into the Army: Its true, that I believe now they had little Invitation, and its true that they must look for little Welcome and great Contempt and Opposition, besides all other Difficulties and Dangers: But it is as true, that their Worth and Labor in a patient self-denying way, had been like to have preserved most of the Army, and to have defeated the Contrivances of the Sectaries, and to have saved the King, the Parliament and the Land. And if it had brought Reproach upon them from the Malitious, (who called them Military Levites ) the Good which they had done would have wiped off that blot, much better than the contrary course would do.

And I reprehended myself also, who had before rejected an Invitation from Cromwell: When he lay at Cambridge long before with that famous Troop which he began his Army with, his Officers purposed to make their Troop a gathered Church, and they all subscribed an Invitation to me to be their Pastor, and sent it me to Coventry: I sent them a Denial, reproving their Attempt, and told them wherein my Judgment was against the Lawfulness and Convenience of their way, and so I heard no more from them: And afterward meeting Cromwell at Leicester he expostulated with me for denying them. These very men that then invited me to be their Pastor, were the Men that afterwards headed much of the Army, and some of them were the forwardest in all our Changes; which made me wish that I had gone among them, however it had been interpreted; for then all the Fire was in one Spark.

§ 75. When I had informed myself to my sorrow of the state of the Army, Capt. Evanson (one of my Orthodox Informers) desired me yet to come to their Regiment, telling me that it was the most religious, most valiant, most succesful of all the Army, but in as much danger as any one whatsoever. I was loath to leave my Studies, and Friends, and Quietness at Coventry, to go into an Army so contrary to my Judgment: but I thought the Public Good commanded me, and so I gave him some Encouragement: whereupon he told his Colonel ( Whalley ) who also was Orthodox in Religion, but engaged by Kindred and Interest to Cromwell: He invited me to be Chaplain to his Regiment; and I told him, I would take but a days time to deliberate, and would send him an Answer, or else come to him.

As soon as I came home to Coventry, I called together an Assembly of Ministers, Dr. Bryan, Dr. Grew, and many others, (there being many, as I before noted, fled thither from the Parts thereabouts). I told them the sad News of the Corruption of the Army, and that I thought all we had valued was like to be endangered by them; seeing this Army having first conquered at York, (where Cromwell was under Manchester ) and now at Naseby, and having left the King no visible Army but Gorings, the Fate of the whole Kingdom was like to follow the Disposition and Interest of the Conquerors. We have sworn to be true to the King and his Heirs in the Oath of Allegiance. All our Soldiers here do think that the Parliament is faithful to the King, and have no other purposes themselves. If King and Parliament, Church and State be ruined by those Men, and we look on and do nothing to hinder it, how are we true to our Allegiance and to the Covenant, which bindeth us to defend the King, and to be against Schism, as well as against Popery and Profaneness? For my part (said I) I know that my Body is so weak, that it is like to hazard my Life to be among them, and I expect their Fury should do little less than rid me out of the way; and I know one Man cannot do much upon them: But yet if your Judgment take it to be my Duty, I will venture my Life among them, and perhaps some other Ministers may be drawn in, and then some more of the Evil may be prevented.

The Ministers finding my own Judgment for it, and being moved with the Cause, did unanimously give their Judgment for my going. Hereupon I went strait to the Committee, and told them that I had an Invitation to the Army, and desired their Consent to go. They consulted a while, and then left it wholly to the Governor, saying, That if he consented they should not hinder me. It fell out that Col. Barker the Governor was just then to be turned out, as a Member of Parliament, by the Self-denying Vote. And one of his Captains was to be Colonel and Governor in his place, (Col. Willoughby ). Hereupon Col. Barker was consent in his discontent that I should go out with him, that he might be mist the more; and so gave me his consent.

Hereupon I sent word to Col. Whalley that tomorrow God willing I would come to him. As soon as this was done the elected governor was much displeased, and the Soldiers were so much offended with the Committee for consenting to my going, that the Committee all met again in the Night, and sent for me, and told me I must not go. I told them that by their Consent I had promised, and therefore must go. They told me that the Soldiers were ready to mutiny against them, and they could not satisfy them, and therefore I must stay: I told them that I had not promised if they had not consented, though being no Soldier or Chaplain to the Garrison, but only preaching to them I took myself to be a Free-man; and I could not break my word when I had promised by their Consent. They seemed to deny their Consent, and said they did but refer me to the Governor. In a word, they were so angry with me, that I was fain to tell them all the truth of my Motives and Design, what a case I perceived the Army to be in, and that I was resolved to do my best against it. I knew not, till afterward, that Col. William Purefoy a Parliament Man, one of the chief of them, was a Confident of Cromwells: and as soon as I had spoken what I did of the Army, Magisterially he answereth me, [Let me hear no more of that: If Nol. Cromwell should hear any Soldiers speak but such a word, he would cleave his crown: You do them wrong; it is not so.] I told him, what he would not hear, he should not hear from me; but I would perform my word though he seemed to deny his: And so I parted with those that had been my very great Friends, in some displeasure. But the Soldiers threatened to stop the Gates and keep me in; but being honest understanding Men, I quickly satisfied the Leaders of them by a private intimation of my Reasons and Resolutions, and some of them accompanied me on my way.

§ 76. As soon as I came to the Army, Oliver Cromwell coldly bid me welcome, and never spake one word to me more while I was there; nor once all that time vouchfaced me an Opportunity to come to the Head Quarters where the Councils and Meetings of the Officers were, so that most of my design was thereby frustrated. And his Secretary gave out that there was a Reformer come to the Army to undeceive them, and to save Church and State, with some such other Jeers; by which I perceived that all that I had said but the Night before to the Committee, was come to Cromwell before me, (I believe by Col. Purefoy 's means): But Col. Whalley welcomed me, and was the worse thought on for it by the rest of the Cabal.

§ 77. Here I set myself from day today to find out the Corruptions of the Soldiers; and to discourse and dispute them out of their mistakes, both Religious and Political: My Life among them was a daily contending against Seducers, and gently arguing with the more Tractable, and another kind of Militia I had than theirs.

I found that many honest Men of weak judgments and little acquaintance with such Matters, had been seduced into a disputing vein, and made it too much of their Religion to talk for this Opinion and for that; sometimes for State Democracy, and sometime for Church Democracy; sometimes against Forms of Prayer, and sometimes against Infant Baptism, (which yet some of them did maintain); sometimes against Set-times of Prayer, and against the typing of ourselves to any Duty before the Spirit move us; and sometimes about Free-grace and Free-will, and all the Points of Antinomianism and Arminianism. So that I was almost always, when I had opportunity, disputing with one or other of them; sometimes for our Civil Government, and sometimes for Church Order and Government; sometimes for Infant Baptism, and oft against Antinomianism and the contrary Extream. But their most frequent and vehement Disputes were for Liberty of Conscience, as they called it; that is, that the Civil Magistrate had nothing to do to determine of anything in Matters of Religion, by constraint or restraint, but every Man might not only hold, but preach and do in Matters of Religion what he pleased: That the Civil Magistrate hath nothing to do but with Civil Things, to keep the Peace, and Protect the Churches Liberties, &c.

I found that one half almost of the Religious Party among them were such as were either Orthodox, or but very lightly touched with their mistakes; and almost another half were honest men, that stepped further into the contending way, than they could well get out again, but with competent help might be recovered: But a few fiery, self-conceited men among them kindled the rest, and made all the noise and bustle, and carried about the Army as they pleased. For the greatest part of the common Soldiers, especially of the Foot, were ignorant men, of little Religion, abundance of them such as had been taken Prisoners, or turned out of Garrisons under the King, and had been Soldiers in his Army: And these would do anything to please their Officers, and were ready Instrument for the Seducers, especially in their great Work, which was to cry down the Covenant, to vilify all Parish Ministers, but especially the Scots and Presbyterians: For the most of the Soldiers that I spoke with never took the Covenant, because it tied them to defend the King's Person, and to extirpate Heresy and Schism.

Because I perceived that it was a few Men that bore the Bell, that did all the hurt among them, I acquainted myself with those Men, and would be oft disputing with them in the hearing of the rest; and I found that they were men that had been in London, hatched up among the old Separatists, and had made it all the matter of their Study and Religion to rail against Ministers, and Parish Churches, and Presbyterians, and had little other knowledge, nor little discourse of anything about the Heart or Heaven: but were fierce with Pride and Self-conceitedness, and had gotten a very great conquest over their Charity, both to the Episcopal and Presbyterians. (Whereas many of those honest Soldiers which were tainted but with some doubts about Liberty of Conscience or Independency, were men that would Discourse of the Points of Sanctification and Christian Experience very savourily.)

But we so far prevailed in opening the folly of these Revilers and Self-conceited men, as that some of them became the laughing-stock of the Soldiers before I left them; and when they preached (for great Preachers they were) their weakness exposed them to contempt. A great part of the mischief they did among the Soldiers was by Pamphlets, which they abundantly dispersed; such as R. Overtons, Martin Mar-Priest, and more of his; and some of I. Lilburn 's who was one of them; and divers against the King, and against the Ministry, and for Liberty of Conscience, &c. And Soldiers being usually dispersed in their Quarters, they had such Books to read when they had none to contradict them.

But there was yet a more dangerous Party than all these among them, (only in Major Bethel 's Troop of our Regiment) who took the direct Jesuitical way: They first most vehemently declaimed against the Doctrine of Election, and for the power of Free-will, and all other Points which are controverted between the Jesuits and Dominicans, the Arminians and Calvinists. Then they as fiercely cried down our present Translation of the Scriptures, and debased their Authority, though they did not deny them to be Divine: And they cried down all our Ministry, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Independent; and all our Churches: And they vilified almost all our ordinary Worship; especially singing of Psalms, and constant Family Worship: They allowed of no Argument from Scripture but what was brought in its express words: They were vehement against both the King, and all Government but Popular; and against Magistrates meddling in Matters of Religion: And all their disputing was with as much fierceness, as if they had been ready to draw their Swords upon those against whom they disputed. They trusted more to Policy, Scorn and Power, than to Argument: They would bitterly scorn me among their Hearers, to prejudice them before they entered into dispute. They avoided me as much as possible; but when we did come to it, they drowned all Reason in fierceness, and vehemency, and multitude of words. They greatly strove for Places of Command, and when any Place was due by order to another that was not of their mind, they would be sure to work him out; and be ready to mutiny if they had not their will. I thought they were principled by the Jesuits, and acted all for their Interest, and in their way; but the secret Spring was out of sight. These were the same men that afterward were called Levellers, and rose up against Cromwell, and were surprised at Burford (having deceived and drawn to them many more): And Thompson the General of the Levellers that was slain then, was no greater a Man than one of the Corporals of this Troop; the Cornet and others being much worse than he.

And thus I have given you a taste of my Employment in the Army.

§ 78. As soon as I came to the Army they marched speedily down into the West, because the King had no Army left but the Lord Goring 's there, and they would not suffer the Fugitives of Naseby -fight to come thither to strengthen them: They came quickly down to Somerton when Goring was at Langport; which lying upon the River, Massey was sent to keep him in on the farther side, while Fairfax attended him on this side, with his Army. One day they faced each other, and did nothing: The next day they came to their Ground again. Betwixt the two Armies was a narrow Lane which went between some Meadows in a bottom, and a small Brook crossing the Lane with a narrow Bridge. Goring planted two or three small Pieces at the Head of the Lane to keep the Passage, and there placed his best Horse; so that none could come to them, but over that narrow Bridge, and up that steep Lane upon the mouth of those Pieces. After many hours facing each other, Fairfax 's greater Ordinance affrighting (more than hurting) Goring 's men, and some Musquetiers being sent to drive theirs from under the Hedges, at last Cromwell bid Whalley send three of his Troops to Charge the Enemy, and he sent three of the General's Regiment to second them, (all being of Cromwell 's old Regiment). Whalley sent Major Bethel, Capt. Evanson, and Capt. Grove to Charge; Major Desborough with another Troop or two came after; they could go but one or two abreast over the Bridge. By that time Bethel and Evanson with their Troops were got up to the top of the Lane, they met with a select Party of Goring 's best Horse, and charged them at Sword's point whilst you would count three or four hundred, and then put them to Retreat. In the flight they pursued them too far to the main Body; for the Dust was so extreme great (being in the very hottest time of Summer) that they that were in it could scarce see each other, but I that stood over them upon the brow of the Hill saw all: when they saw themselves upon the face of Goring 's Army, they fled back in haste, and by that time they came to the Lane again, Capt. Grove 's Troop was ready to stop them, and relieve them, and Desborough behind him: whereupon they rallied again, and the five or six Troops together marched towards all Goring 's Army: But before they came to the Front, I could discern the Rear begin to run, and so beginning in the Rear they all fled before they endured any Charge nor was there a blow struck that day, but by Bethels and Evanson 's Troop (on that side) • and a few Musquetiers in the Hedges. Goring 's Army fled to Bridgewater; and very few of them were either killed or taken in the fight or the pursuit. I happened to be next to Major Harrison as soon as the flight began, and heard him with a loud Voice break forth into the Praises of God with fluent Expressions, as if he had been in a Rapture.

Upon this Goring fled further West ward (to Exeter) with his Army: But Fairfax stayed to besiege Bridgewater: and after two days it was taken by storm, in which Col. Hammond 's Service was much magnified. Mr. Peters being come to the Army from London but a day before, went presently back with the News of Goring 's Rout: and an Hundred pounds Reward was voted to himself for bringing the News, and to Major Bethel for his Service, but none to Capt. Evanson, because he was no Sectary; and Bethel only had all the Glory and Applause by Cromwell and that Party.

From Bridgewater they went back towards Bristol, where Prince Rupert was, taking Nunny Castle and Bath in the way: At Bristol they continued the Siege about a month. After the first three days I sell sick of a Fever (the Plague being round about my Quarters): As soon as I felt my Disease, I rode six or seven miles back into the Country, and the next morning (with much ado) to Bath: where Dr. Venner was my careful Physician; and when I was near to death (far from all my Acquaintance) it pleased God to restore me, and on the fourteenth day, the Fever ended in a Crisis of Sweat and Urine: But it left me so macerated and weak, that it was long e're I recovered that little strength I had before. I came back to Bristol Siege three or four days before the City was taken: The Foot which was to storm the Works, would not go on unless the Horse went with them, (who had no Service to do): So Whalley 's Regiment was fain to go on to encourage the Foot, and to stand to be shot at before the Ordinance (but in the Night) while the Foot did storm the Forts: where Major Bethel (who in the last Fight had but his Thumb shot) had a shot in his Thigh of which he died, and was much lamented. The Outworks being taken, Prince Rupert yielded up the City, upon Terms that he might march away with his Soldiers, leaving their Ordnance and Arms.

Upon this the Army marched to Sherborn Castle (the Earl of Bristol 's House): which after a Fortnights Siege, they took by storm, and that on a side which one would think could never have been that way taken. While they were there, the Country-men, called Clubmen, rose near Shaftsbury, and got upon the top of a Hill: A Party was sent out against them, who marched up the Hill upon them, and routed them, though some of the valientest Men were slain in the Front.

When Sherborn Castle was taken, part of the Army went back and took in a small Garrison by Salisbury, called Langford-House, and so marched to Winchester Castle, and took that by Composition after a Weeks siege, or little more. From thence Cromwell went with a good Party to Besiege Basing-House (the Marquess of Winchesters ) which had frustrated great Sieges heretofore: Here Col. Hammond was taken Prisoner into the House, and afterward the House was taken by storm, and he saved the Marquess and others; and much Riches were taken by the Soldiers.

In the mean time the rest of the Army marched down again towards the Lord Goring, and Cromwell came after them.

§ 79. When we followed the Lord Goring westward, we found that above all other Armies of the King, his Soldiers were most hated by the People, for their incredible Profaneness and their unmerciful Plundering (many of them being Foreigners). A sober Gentleman that I quartered with at South-Pederton in Somersetshire averred to me, That with him a Company of them pricked their Fingers, and let the Blood run into the Cup, and drank a Health to the Devil in it: And no place could I come into but their horrid Impiety and Outrages made them odious.

The Army marched down by Hunnington to Exeter; where I continued near three Weeks among them at the Siege, and then Whalley 's Regiment with the General's, Fleetwood 's and others being sent back, I returned with them and left the Siege; which continued till the City was taken: And then the Army following Goring into Cornwall, there forced him to yield to lay down Arms, his Men going away beyond Sea or elsewhere without their Arms: And at last Pendennis Castle, and all the Garrisons there were taken.

In the mean time Whalley was to Command the Party of Horse back, to keep in the Garrison of Oxford till the Army could come to besiege it: And so in the extreme Winter he quartered about six Weeks in Buckinghamshire: and then was sent to lay siege to Banbury Castle, where Sir William Compton was Governor, who had wearied out one long siege before: There I was with them above two Months till the Castle was taken; and then he was sent to lay siege to Worcester, with the help of the Northampton, and Warwick, and Newport-Pannel Soldiers, who had assisted him at Banbury. At Worcester he lay in siege eleven Weeks: and at the same time the Army being come up from the West, lay in siege at Oxford.

By this time Col. Whalley, though Cromwell 's Kinsman and Commander of the Trusted Regiment, grew odious among the Sectarian Commanders at the Headquarters for my sake; and he was called a Presbyterian, though neither he nor I were of that Judgment in several Points. And Major Sallowey not omitting to use his industry in the matter to that end) when he had brought the City to a necessity of present yielding, two days or three before it yielded, Col. Rainsboroug was sent from Oxford (which was yielded) with some Regiments of Foot, to Command in Chief; partly that he might have the honor of taking the City, and partly that he might be Governor there (and not Whalley ) when the City was Surrendred: And so when it was yielded, Rainsborough was Governor to head and gratify the Sectaries, and settle the City and Country in their way: But the Committee of the County were for Whalley, and lived in distaste with Rainsborough, and the Sectaries prospered there no further than Worcester City itself, (a Place which deserved such a Judgment); but all the Country was free from their Infection.

§ 80. All this while, as I had friendly Converse with the sober part, so I was still employed with the rest as before, in Preaching, Conference, and Disputing against their Confounding Errors: And in all Places where we went, the Sectarian Soldiers much infected the Countries, by their Pamphlets and Converse, and the People admiring the conquering Army, were ready to receive whatsoever they commended to them: And it was the way of the Faction to speak what they spake as the Sense of the Army, and to make the People believe that whatever Opinion they vented, (which one of forty in the Army, owned not) it was the Army's Opinion. When we quartered at Agmondesham in Buckinghamshire, some Sectaries of Chesham had set up a Public Meeting as for Conference, to propagate their Opinions through all the Country; and this in the Church, by the encouragement of an ignorant Sectarian Lecturer, one Bramble, whom they had got in (while Dr. Crook the Pastor, and Mr. Richardson his Curate, durst not contradict them). When this Public Talking day came, Bethel 's Troopers (then Capt. Pitchford 's) with other Sectarian Soldiers must be there, to confirm the Chesham Men, and make Men believe that the Army was for them: And I thought it my Duty to be there also, and took divers sober Officers with me, to let them see that more of the Army were against them than for them. I took the Reading Pew, and Pitchford 's Cornet and Troopers took the Gallery. And there I found a crowded Congregation of poor well-meaning People, that came in the Simplicity of their Hearts to be deceived. There did the Leader of the Chesham Men begin, and afterward Pitchford 's Soldiers set in, and I alone disputed against them from Morning until almost Night; for I knew their trick, that if I had but gone out first, they would have prated what boasting words they listed when I was gone, and made the People believe that they had baffled me, or got the best; therefore I stayed it out till they first rose and went away: The abundance of Nonsense which they uttered that day, may partly be seen in Mr. Edward 's Gangraena: for when I had wrote a Letter of it to a Friend in London, that and another were put into Mr. Edward 's Book, without my Name. But some of the sober People of Agmondesham gave me abundance of thanks for that Days work, which they said would never be there forgotten: And I heard that the Sectaries were so discouraged that they never met there anymore. I am sure I had much thanks from Dr. Crook and Mr. Richardson, who being obnoxious to their displeasure, for being for the King, durst not open their mouths themselves. And after the Conference I talked with the Lecturer Mr. Bramble (or Bramley ) and found him little wiser than the rest.

§ 81. The great Impediments of the Success of my Endeavors I found were only two: 1. The discountenance of Cromwell, and the chief Officers of his Mind, which kept me a stranger from their Meetings and Councils. 2. My incapacity of Speaking to many, because Soldiers Quarters are scattered far from one another, and I could be but in one Place at once. So that one Troop at a time ordinarily, and some few more extraordinarily was all that I could speak too: The most of the Service I did beyond Whalley 's Regiment, was (by the help of Capt. Lawrence ) with some of the General's Regiment, and sometimes I had Converse with Major Harrison and some others: But I found that if the Army had but had Ministers enough, that would have done but such a little as I did, all their Plot might have been broken, and King, Parliament, and Religion might have been preserved: Therefore I sent abroad to get some more Ministers among them, but I could get none. Saltmarsh and Dell were the two great Preachers at the Head Quarters; only honest and judicious Mr. Edward Bowles kept still with the General. At last I got Mr. Cook of Roxhall to come to assist me; and the soberer part of the Officers and Soldiers of Whalley 's Regiment were willing to pay him out of their own pay: And a Month or two he stayed and assisted me; but was quickly weary, and left them again: He was a very worthy, humble, laborious Man, unwearid in preaching, but weary when he had not opportunity to preach, and weary of the Spirits he had to deal with.

§ 82. All this while, though I came not near Cromwell, his Designs were visible, and I saw him continually acting his part. The Lord General suffered him to govern and do all, and to choose almost all the Officers of the Army. He first made Ireton Commissary General; and when any Troop or Company was to be disposed of, or any considerable Officer's place was void, he was sure to put a Sectary in the place; and when the brunt of the War was over, he looked not so much at their Valour as their Opinions: So that by degrees he had headed the greatest part of the Army with Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, or Separatists at best: and all these he tied together by the point of Liberty of Conscience, which was the Common Interest in which they did unite. Yet all the sober Party were carried on by his Profession that he only promoted the Universal Interest of the Godly, without any distinction or partiality at all: But still when a place fell void, it was Twenty to one a Sectary had it, and if a Godly Man of any other Mind or temper had a mind to leave the Army, he would secretly or openly further it. Yet did he not openly profess what Opinion he was of himself: But the most that he said for any was for Anabaptism and Antinomianism, which he usually seemed to own. And Harrison (who was then great with him) was for the same Opinions. He would not Dispute (with me) at all, but he would in good Discourse very fluently pour out himself, in the Extolling of Freegrace, which was savoury to those that had right Principles, though he had some misunderstandings of Freegrace himself. He was a Man of excellent Natural Parts for Affection and Oratory; but not well seen in the Principles of his Religion: Of a Sanguine Complexion, naturally of such a vivacity, hilarity and alacrity as another man hath when he hath drunken a Cup too much; but naturally also so far from humble Thoughts of himself, that it was his ruin.

§ 83. All these two Years that I was in the Army, even my old bosom Friend, that had lived in my House, and been dearest to me, James Berry, (then Captain, and after Colonel and Major General, and Lord of the Upper House) who had formerly invited me to Cromwell 's old Troop, did never once invite me to the Army at first, nor invite me to his Quarters after, nor never once came to visit me, nor saw me save twice or thrice that we met accidently: so potent is the Interest of ourselves and our Opinions with us, against all other Bonds whatever: He that forsaketh himself in forsaking his own Opinions, may well be expected to forsake his Friend, who adhereth to the way which he forsaketh: and that Change which maketh him think he was himself an ignorant, misguided man before, must needs make him think his Friend to be still ignorant and misguided, and value him accordingly. He was a Man, I verily think, of great Sincerity before the Wars, and of very good Natural Parts, especially Mathematical and Mechanical; and affectionate in Religion, and while conversant with humbling Providences, Doctrines and Company, he carried himself as a very great Enemy to Pride: But when Cromwell made him his Favorite, and his extraordinary Valour was crowned with extraordinary Success, and when he had been a while most conversant with those that in Religion thought the old Puritan Ministers were dull, self-conceited, Men of a lower form, and that new Light had declared I know not what to be a higher attainment, his Mind, his Aim, his Talk and all was altered accordingly. And as Ministers of the old way were lower, and Sectaries much higher in his esteem than formerly, so he was much higher in his own Esteem when he thought he had attained much higher, than he was before when he sat with his Fellows in the Common Form. Being never well studied in the Body of Divinity or Controversy, but taking his Light among the Sectaries, before the Light which longer and patient Studies of Divinity should have prepossessed him with, he lived after as honestly as could be expected in one that taketh Error for Truth, and Evil to be Good.

After this he was President of the Agitators, and after that Major General and Lord as aforesaid: And after that a principal Person in the Changes, and the principal Executioner in pulling down Richard Cromwell; and then was one of the Governing Council of State. And all this was promoted by the misunderstanding of Providence, while he verily thought that God, by their Victories, had so called them to look after the Government of the Land, and so entrusted them with the welfare of all his People here, that they were responsible for it, and might not in Conscience stand still while anything was done which they thought was against that Interest which they judged to be the Interest of the People of God.

And as he was the Chief in pulling down, he was one of the first that fell: For Sir Arthur Haselrigg taking Portsmouth (of which more hereafter) his Regiment of Horse sent to block it up, went most of them into Sir Arthur Haselrigg. And when the Army was melted to nothing, and the King ready to come in, the Council of State imprisoned him, because he would not promise to live peaceably; and afterwards he (being one of the four whom General Monk had the worst thoughts of) was closely consin'd in Scarborough Castle: but being released he became a Gardener, and lived in a safer state than in all his Greatness.

§ 84. When Worcester Siege was over, (having with Joy seen Kidderminster and my Friends there once again), the Country being now cheered, my old Flock expected that I should return to them, and settle in Peace among them.

I went to Coventry, and called the Ministers again together who had voted me into the Army: I told them [

§ 85. From Worcester I went to London to Sir Theodore Mayern, about my health: He sent me to Tunbridge Wells, and after some stay there to my benefit, I went back to London, and so to my Quarters in Worcestershire where the Regiment was.

My Quarters fell out to be at Sir Tho. Rous at Rous 's Lench, where I had never been before: The Lady Rous was a godly, grave, understanding Woman, and entertained me not as a Soldier but a Friend. From thence I went into Leicestershire, Staffordshire, and at last into Derbyshire. One advantage by this moving Life I had, that I had opportunity to preach in many Countries and Parishes; and whatever came of it afterward, I know not; but at the present they commonly seemed to be much affected.

I came to our Major Swallow 's Quarters at Sir John Cook 's House at Melbourn in the edge of Darbyshire, beyond A • hby de la Zouch, in a cold and snowy Season: and the cold, together with other things coincident, set my Nose on bleeding. When I had bled about a quart or two, I opened four Veins, but it did no good. I used divers other Remedies for several days to little purpose; at last I gave myself a Purge, which stopped it. This so much weakened me and altered my Complexion, that my Acquaintance who came to visit me scarce knew me. Coming after so long weakness, and frequent loss of Blood before, it made the Physicians conclude me deplorate after it was stopped; supposing I would never escape a Dropsy.

And thus God unavoidably prevented all the Effect of my purposes in my last and chiefest Opposition of the Army; and took me off the very time when my Attempt should have begun: My purpose was to have done my best first to take off that Regiment which I was with, and then with Capt. Lawrence to have tried upon the Generals (in which two was Cromwell 's chief Confidents) and then have joined with others of the same, mind (for the other Regiments were much less Corrupted). But the Determination of God against it was most observable: For the very time that I was bleeding the Council of War sat at Nottingham, where (as I have credibly heard) they first began to open their Purposes and act their Part: and presently after they entered into their Engagement at Triploe-Heath. And as I perceived it was the Will of God to permit them to go on, so I afterward found that this great Affiction was a Mercy to myself; for they were so strong and active, that I had been likely to have had small Success in the Attempt, but to have lost my Life among them in their Fury. And thus I was finally separated from the Army.

§ 86. When I had stayed at Melbourn in my Chamber three Weeks (being among Strangers, and not knowing how to get home) I went to Mr. Nowell 's house at Kirby-Mallory in Leicestershire, where with great Kindness I was entertained three Weeks: By that time the Tidings of my Weakness came to the Lady Rous in Worcestershire, who sent her Servant to seek me out; and when he returned, and told her I was far off, and he could not find me, she sent him again to find me, and bring me thither if I were able to travel: And in great weakness, thither I made shift to get, where I was entertained with the greatest Care and Tenderness, while I continued the use of means for my Recovery: and when I had been there a quarter of a Year, I returned to Kidderminster.

§ 87. When I was gone from the Army, the Parliament was most Solicitous how to keep them from Tumults and Disobedience: But Sir Henry Vane with his Party secretly confederated with them, to weaken all others, and to strengthen the Sectaries: Whereupon they procured the House to Disband both Major General Massey 's Brigade, and all other Field Soldiers, and the honest County Forces and Garrisons of most Places, which among them had sober Men enow to have resisted them. This was the successfullest Act that was done for their Designs: for now they had little fear of Opposition.

The Design of Vane and Cromwell now was not only to keep up an Army of Sectaries, when the Sober Party were Disbanded, but also to force the Parliament to their mind, and moddel it so as that they should do their work: (which I had foretold some Parliament Men of long before): One of the Principal Engines in this Contrivance was, to provoke the Parliament to pass such Votes as the Army would be most displeased with, and then to stir up the Army to the deepest Resentment of it. Accordingly the Parliament voted that part of the Army should go to Ireland, and part be disbanded, and part continued. The Leaders in the Army incensed the Soldiers, by persuading them that this was to deprive them of their Pay, and to divide them, and when they had them at home again to ruin them as Sectaries, and this was the Reward of all their Services. Whereupon at Triploe-Heath they entered into an Engagement to stick together, &c. and were drawing up a Declaration of their Grievances; (the aggravating of supposed Injuries being the way to raise Mutinies, and make use of Factions for Seditious Ends) Quarter-Master General Fincher acquainteth Sir William Waller with their Design, (who with others was sent to the Army) and Col. Edward Harley (Member of the Parliament and of the Army) acquainteth the House with it. Cromwell being in the House doth with vehemency deny it; and said it was a Slander, raised to discompose the Army by discontenting them, and undertook that they should all lay down their Arms at the Parliaments Feet, and for his own part, protesting his Submission and Obedience to them. And this he did when he was Confederate with them, and knew of the Paper which they were drawing up, and confessed it after when the Copy of it was produced, and presently went among them, and headed them in their Rebellion. In short, he and his Cabal so heightened the Discontents, and carried on the New Confederate Army, that the Parliament was fain to Command all that were faithful to forsake them, and offer them their Pay to encourage them thereto: Commissary General Fincher, and Major Alsop, and Major Huntingdon, and many more with a considerable number of Soldiers came off: But being not enow to make a Body to resist them, it proved a great Addition to their strength: For now all that were against them being gone, they filled up their Places with Men of their own Mind, and so were ever after the more unanimous.

§ 88. Upon this Cromwell and his Obedient Lambs (as he called them) advanced in the Prosecution of their Design, and drew nearer London, and drew up an Impeachment against Eleven Members of the Parliament, forsooth accusing them of Treason; viz. Sir Philip St • pleton, Sir William Lewis, Col. Hollis, Sir John Maynard, Mr. Glyn, &c. and among the rest Col. Edward Harley (a sober and truly religious Man, the worthy Son of a most pious Father, Sir Robert Harley ). And when thereby they had forced the House to seclude them as under Accusation, they let fall their Suit, and never prosecuted them, nor proved them Guilty.

Thus begun that Pride to break forth into Rebellion, which grew up from Successes in impotent Minds, not able to conquer so great a Temptation as their Conquests. When they had cast out these Members, they thought that the House would have done as they would have had them, and been awed into Obedience, but still they continued to cross them, and came not up to the Conformity expected. A while after the City seemed to take Courage, and would defend the Parliament against the Army, and under Major General Massey and Major General Pointz they would put themselves into a Military posture: But the Army made haste, and were upon them before they were well resolved what to do, and the hearts of the Citizens failed them, and were divided, and they submitted to the Army, and let them enter the City in triumph. Whereupon Massey and Hollis, and others of the accused Members fled into France, of whom Sir Philip Stapleton died of the Plague near Calais; and now the Army promised themselves an obedient Parliament; but yet they were not to their mind.

§ 89. Here I must look back to the Course and Affairs of the King; who at the Siege of Oxford, having no Army left, and knowing that the Scots had more Loyalty and Stability in their Principles than the Sectaries, resolved to cast himself upon them, and so escaped to their Army in the North. The Scots were very much troubled at this Honor that was cast upon them: for they knew not what to do with the King. To send him back to the English Parliament seemed unfaithfulness, when he had cast himself upon them: To keep him they knew would divide the Kingdoms, and draw a War upon themselves from England; whom now they knew themselves unable to resist. They kept him awhile among them with honorable Entertainment, till the Parliament sent for him; and they saw that the Sectaries and the Army were glad of it, as an occasion to make them odious, and to invade their Land. And so the terror of the Conquering Army made them deliver him to the Parliaments Commissioners upon two Conditions: 1. That they should promise to preserve his Person in Safety and Honor, according to the Duty which they owed him by their Allegiance. 2. That they should presently pay the Scots Army one half the Pay which was due to them for their Service, (which had been long unpaid to make them odious to the Country where they quartered).

Hereupon the King being delivered to the Parliament, they appointed Colonel Richard Greaves, Major General Richard Brown, with others to be his Attendants, and desired him to abide awhile at Homeby-House in Northamptonshire, While he was here the Army was hatching their Conspiracy: And on the sudden one Cornet Ioyce, with a party of Soldiers, fetched away the King, notwithstanding the Parliaments Order for his Security: And this was done as if it had been against Cromwell 's Will, and without any Order or Consent of theirs: But so far was he from losing his Head for such a Treason, that it proved the means of his Pre • erment. And so far was Cromwell and his Soldiers from returning the King in Safety, that they detained him among them, and kept him with them, till they came to Hampton Court, and there they lodged him under the Guard of Col. Whalley, the Army quarterring all about him. While he was here the mutable Hypocrites first pretended an extraordinary Care of the King's Honor, Liberty, Safety and Conscience. They blamed the Austerity of the Parliament, who had denied him the Attendance of his own Chaplains; and of his Friends in whom he took most pleasure: They gave Liberty for his Friends and Chaplains to come to him: They pretended that they would save him from the Incivilities of the Parliament and Presbyterians. Whether this were while they tried what Terms they could make with him for themselves, or while they acted any other part; it is certain that the King's old Adherents began to extol the Army, and to speak against the Presbyterians more distastfully than before. When the Parliament offered the King Propositions for Concord, (which Vane 's Faction made as high and unreasonable as they could, that they might come to nothing) the Army forsooth offer him Proposals of their own, which the King liked better: But which of them to treat with he did not know. At last on the sudden the Judgment of the Army changed, and they began to cry for Justice against the King, and with vile Hypocrisy, to publish their Repentance, and cry God Mercy for their Kindness to the King, and confess that they were under a Temptation: But in all this Cromwell and Ireton, and the rest of the Council of War appeared not: The Instruments of all this Work must be the Common Soldiers, Two of the most violent Sectaries in each Regiment are chosen by the Common Soldiers, by the Name of Agitators, to represent the rest in these great Affairs. All these together made a Council, of which Col. James Berry was the President, that they might be used, ruled and dissolved at pleasure. No man that knew them will doubt whether this was done by Cromwell 's and Ireton 's Direction. This Council of Agitators take not only the Parliaments Work upon themselves, but much more: They draw up a Paper called The Agreement of the People, as the Model or Form of a New Commonwealth. They have their own Printer, and publish abundance of wild Pamphlets, as changeable as the Moon: the thing contrived was an Heretical Democracy. When Cromwell had awhile permitted them thus to play themselves, partly to please them, and confirm them to him, and chiefly to use them in his demolishing Work, at last he seemeth to be so much for Order and Government, as to blame them for their Disorder, Presumption and Headiness, as if they had done it without his Consent. This emboldeneth the Parliament (not to Censure them as Rebels, but) to rebuke them and prohibit them, and claim their own Superiority: And while the Parliament and the Agitators are contending, a Letter is secretly sent to Col. Whalley, to intimate that the Agitators had a design suddenly to surprise and murder the King. Some think that this was sent from a real Friend; but most think it was contrived by Cromwell to affright the King out of the Land, or into some desperate Course which might give them Advantage against him. Colonel Whalley showeth the Letter to the King, which put him into much fear of such ill governed Hands: so that he secretly got Horses and slipped away towards the Sea with two of his Confidents only; who coming to the Sea near Southampton, found that they were disappointed of the Vessel expected to transport them; and so were fain to pass over into the Isle of Wight, and there to commit his Majesty to the Trust of Colonel Robert Hammond who was Governor of a Castle there: A Day or two all were amazed to think what was become of the King; and then a Letter from the King to the House acquainted them that he was fain to fly thither from the Cruelty of the Agitators, who, as he was informed thought to murder him; and urging them to treat about the ending all these Troubles. But here Cromwell had the King in a Pinfold, and was more secure of him than before.

§ 90. The Parliament and the Scots, and all that were loyal and soberminded abhorred these traitorous Proceedings of Cromwell and the sectarian Army; but saw it a Matter of great difficulty to resist them: but the Conscience of their Oath of Allegiance and Covenant, told them that they were bound to hazard their Lives in the attempt.

The three Commanders for the Parliament in Pembrookshire raised an Army against them, viz. Major General Langhorn, Colonel Powel, and Colonel Poyer: The Scots raised a great Army under the Command of the Duke of Hamilton: The Kentish Men rose under the Command of the Lord Goring and others: and the Essex Men under Sir Charles Lucas: But God's time was not come, and the Spirit of Pride and Schism must be known to the World by its Effects. Duke Hamilton 's Army was easily routed in Lancashire, and he taken, and the scattered Parts pursued till they came to nothing: Langhorn with the Pembrookshire Men was totally routed by Colonel Horton, and all the chief Commanders being taken Prisoners, it fell to Colonel Poyer 's Lot to be shot to Death: The Kentish Men were driven out of Kent into Essex, being foiled at Maidstone: And in Colchester they endured a long and grievous Siege, and yielding at last, Sir Charles Lucas, and another or two were shot to Death, and thus all the Succors of the King were defeated.

§ 91. Never to this time, when Cromwell had taught his Agitators to govern, and could not easily unteach it them again, there arose a Party who adhered to the Principles of their [ agreement of the People ] which suited not with his Designs: And to make them odious he denominated them Levellers, as if they intended to level Men of all Qualities and Estates; while he discountenanced them, he discontented them; and being discontented, they endeavored to discontent the Army; and at last appointed a Randezvouz at Burford to make Head against him. But Cromwell (whose Diligence and Dispatch was a great Cause of his Successes) had presently his Brother Desborough, and some other Regiments ready to surprise them there in their Quarters, before they could get their Numbers together: So that about 1500 being scattered and taken, and some slain, the Levellers War was crushed in the Egg, and Thompson (one of Captain Pitchford 's Corporals aforementioned) who became their chief Leader, was pursued near Wielingborough in Northamptonshire, and there slain while he defended himself.

§ 92. As I have past over many Battles, Sieges, and great Actions of the Wars, as not belonging to my purpose; so I have passed over Cromwell 's March into Scotland to help the Covenanters when Montross was too strong for them, and I shall pass over his Transportation into Ireland, and his speedy Conquest of the remaining Forces and Fortresses of that Kingdom, his taking the Isles of Man, of Jersey, Garnsey, and Scilly, and such other of his Successes, and speak only in brief of what he did to the change of the Government, and to the exalting of himself and of his Confidents. And I will pass over the Londoners Petitions for the King, and their Carriage towards the House, which looked like a force, and exasperated them so, that the Speakers of both Houses, the Earl of Manchester and Mr. Lenthall, did with the greater part of the present Members, go forth to Cromwell, and make some kind of Confederacy with the Army, and took them for their Protectors against the Citizens. Also their votings and unvoting in these Cases, &c.

§ 93. The King being at the Isle of Wight, the Parliament sent him some Propositions to be consented to in order to his Restoration: The King granted many of them, and some he granted not: The Scottish Commissioners thought the Conditions more dishonorable to the King, than was consistant with their Covenant and Duty, and protested against them; for which the Parliament blamed them as hinderers of the desired Peace. The chiefest thing which the King stuck at, was, the utter abolishing of Episcopacy, and alienating theirs and the Dean and Chapters Lands. Hereupon, with the Commissioners certain Divines were sent down to satisfy the King, viz. Mr. Steph. Marshall, Mr. Rich. Vines, Dr. Lazarus Seaman, &c. who were met by many of the King's Divines, Archbishop Usher, Dr. Hammond, Dr. Sheldon, &c. The Debates here being in Writing were published, and each Party thought they had the better, and the Parliaments Divines came off with great Honor: But for my part, I confess these two things against them, though Persons whom I highly honored:

1. That they seem not to me to have answered satisfactorily to the main Argument fetched from the Apostles own Government, with which Saravia had inclined me to some Episcopacy before; though Miracles and Infallibility were Apostolical temporary Privileges; yet Church Government is an ordinary thing to be continued: And therefore as the Apostles had Successors as they were Preachers, I see not but that they must have Successors as Church Governors: And it seemeth unlikely to me, that Christ should settle a Form of Government in his Church, which was to continue but for one Age, and then to be transformed into another Species. Could I be sure what was the Government in the Days of the Apostles themselves, I should be satisfied what should be the Government now.

2. They seem not to me to have taken the Course which should have settled these distracted Churches: Instead of disputing against all Episcopacy, they should have changed Diocesan Prelacy into such an Episcopacy as the Conscience of the King might have admitted, and as was agreeable to that which the Church had in the two or three first Ages. I confess, Mr. Vines wrote to me as their excuse in this and other Matters of the Assembly, that the Parliament tied them up from treating or disputing of anything at all, but what they appointed or proposed to them: But I think plain dealing with such Leaders had been best, and to have told them this is our Judgment, and in the matters of God and his Church we will serve you according to our Judgment, or not at all. (But indeed if they were not of one Mind among themselves, this could not be expected).

Archbishop Usher there took the rightest course, who offered the King his Reduction of Episcopacy to the form of Presbytery: And he told me himself, that before the King had refused it, but at the Isle of Wight he accepted it, and as he would not when others would, so others would not when he would: And when our present King Charles II. came in, we tendered it for Union to him, and then he would not: And thus the true moderate healing terms are always rejected by them that stand on the higher Ground, though accepted by them that are lower and cannot have what they will: From whence it is easy to perceive, whether Prosperity or Adversity, the Highest, or the Lowest, be ordinarily the greater Hinderer of the Churches Unity and Peace. I know that if the Divines and Parliament had agreed for a moderate Episcopacy with the King, some Presbyterians of Scotland would have been against it, and many Independents of England, and the Army would have made i • the matter of odious Accusations and Clamours: But all this had been of no great regard to remove foreseeing judicious Men from those healing Counsels which must close our Wounds whenever they are closed.

§ 94. The King sending his final Answers to the Parliament, the Parliament had a long Debate upon them, whether to acquiesce in them as a sufficient Ground for Peace; and many Members spake for resting in them, and among others Mr. Prin went over all the King's Conscessions in a Speech of divers Hours long, with marvelous Memory, and shown the Satisfactoriness of them all, (and after printed it:) So that the House voted that the King's Concessions were a sufficient Ground for a Personal Treaty with him; and had suddenly sent a concluding Answer, and sent for him up, but at such a Crisis it was time for the Army to bes • ir them: Without anymore ado Cromwell and his Confidents send Colonel Pride with a Party of Soldiers to the House, and set a Guard upon the Door; one Part of the House (who were for them) they let in; another part they turned away, and told them that they must not come there; and the third part they imprisoned (the soberest worthy Members of the House); and all to prevent them from being true to their Oaths and Covenants, and loyal to their King: To so much Rebellion, Perfideousness, Perjury and Impudence, can Error, Selfishness and Pride of great Successes, transport Men of the highest Pretences to Religion.

§ 95. For the true understanding of all this, it must be remembered, that though in the beginning of the Parliament there was scarce a noted gross Sectary known, but the Lord Brook in the House of Peers, and young sir Henry Vane in the House of Commons; yet by Degrees the Number of them increased in the Lower House; Major Sallowey and some few more Sir Henry Vane had made his own Adherents: Many more were carried part of the way, to Independency, and Liberty of Religions; and many that minded not any side in Religion, did think that it was no Policy ever to trust a conquered King, and therefore were wholly for a Parliamentary Government: Of these some would have Lord's and Commons as a mixture of Aristocracy and Democracy, and others would have Commons and Democracy alone; and some thought that they ought to judge the King for all the Blood that had been shed. And thus when the two Parts of the House were ejected and imprisoned, this third part composed of the