The Life of William Archbishop of Canterbury Examined

Summa Capitum.

THE Preface showeth the unreasonableness of this new war, That we have committed nothing against the late pacification: That compasson, hope, and all reason call now for peace at home; that at 〈◊〉 we may get some order of our enemies abroad, That the Canterburian faction deserves not so well of England, that arms in their favor ought to be taken against Scotland: We offer to instruct their insupportable crimes by their own writs: If arms be needlessly taken in so evil a cause, they cannot but end in an untimous repentance: In this nick of time very poor wits without presumption may venture to speak even to Parliaments: The obstinate silence of the English Divines is prodigious.

The chief witnesses which in the following action are brought in to 〈◊〉 .

WIlliam Lad Archbishop of Canterbury in his speech before the 〈◊〉 - 〈◊〉 , in his relation of his conference with 〈◊〉 Fisher, is it was the last year amplified and reprinted by the Kings direction: In Andrew's opuscula posthuma, set out by him, and dedicated to the King.

B. Whyt of Eli in his treatise upon the Sabbath, and his answer to the lawless Dialogue.

B. Montague of Chichester in his answer to the gagger, in his appeal, in his antidiatribae, in his apparatus, in his origines.

B. Hall of Exeter, in his old Religion set out with his own apology, and the apology of his friends M. Chomley, and M. Butterfield: In his remedy of profainnesse:

Peter Heylen Chaplain in ordinar in his answer to Burton set out, as he says, by the command of authority, as a full and 〈◊〉 Reply to be expected, against all the exceptions which commonly are taken at my Lord of Canterbury his actions, in his antidotum Lincolinense subscribed by Canterburies Chaplain.

D. Pottar, Chaplain in ordinar, in his charity mistaken, as he prints, at the command of authority.

D. Laurence chaplane in ordinar, in his sermon preached before the King, and printed at the command of authority.

D. poklingtoun in his Sunday no Sabbath, in his altare Christianum, subscribed by Canterburies Chaplain.

Christopher Dow in his answer to Burton, subscribed by Canterburies Chaplain.

Couzine in his devotions, the fourth edition, subscribed by the B. of London his own hand. Chounaeus in his collectiones Thelogicae; dedicated to my L. of Canterbury, and subscribed by his Chaplain.

Shelfoord in his five pious Sermons, printed at Cambridge, by the direction of the Vice-chanceler D. Beel, set out with a number of Epigrames Latin & English, by divers of the university fellows, defended yet still by Heylene, and 〈◊〉 , in their books, which Canterbury hath approved.

Anronie Stafford in his female glory, printed at London, and not withstanding of all the challenges, made against it, yet still defended by Heylene & Dow in their approved writs.

William Wats in his sermon of apostolical mortification.

Giles Widows in his schismatical Puritan.

Edward Boughen in his Sermon of order and 〈◊〉 .

Mr. Sp. of Queens College in Cambridge, in his Sermon of Confession.

Samuel Hoards an his sermon at the Metropolitical visitation.

Mr. Tedders in his sermon, at the visitation of the B. of Norwich, all subscribed by the hands of my L. of Canterburies Chaplain, Bray, Oliver-Baker, or some others.

THE PREFACE

IT is fallen out much beside our expectation that the storm of war should now again begin to blow, when we did esteem that the mercy of GOD, and justice of our Prince had settled our Land in a firm Peace for many generations, at least for many days, and ever while some appearance of provocation should have arisen from us, for the kindling of 〈◊〉 wrath of our enraged enemies; whose fury though we know well not to be quite extinguished, yet we did surely think itwould not break forth in haste in any public and open flame, till some new matter had been furnished, or some probable color of a new quarrel could have been alleged against us.

When we have scattered that cloud of calumnies, which bytheir 〈◊〉 and pens they had spread abroad of our rebellion, and many other odious crimes, when by our frequent supplications, informations, 〈◊〉 , declarations, and other writs, we have cleared 〈◊〉 the justice of our cause, the innecency of our proceedings to all the ingenuous minds of the I will, and to so many of our neighbor nations, as have been desirous to 〈◊〉 of our affairs; when our gracious and just Prince, in the very heat of his wrath 〈◊〉 alone by 〈◊◊〉 , even while arms were in his hand, hath been moved with the unanimous consent of all his English Counsel, of all his Commanders & whole army, to acknowledge us good and loyal subjects: And after a full hearing of our cause in his campe to profess his satisfaction, to pronounce us free of those crimes which before were falsely blazed of us, to send us all home in peace, with the tokens of his favor, with the hearty embracements of that army which came against us for our ruin: When we in a general assembly of our Church, with the kwowledge & full consent of his Majesty's highCommissioner & whole 〈◊〉 have justified our opposition to the innovation of our Religion & Laws by the Prelates, our excommunication of them therefore, the renewing of our Covenant, and all the rest of our Ecclesiastical proceedings; when our States in Parliament were going on in a sweet harmony to confirm the weaknesses & set right the disorders of our Estate, and that no farther then clear equity, reason, law, yea the very words of the pacificatory edict did permit; when our whole people were minding nothing but quietness, having cast their 〈◊〉 under the feet of our reconciled King, put all their castles & canons in his hand, without any security, but the royal Word, & received heartily all those fugitives who had taken arms in the Prelates cause, against theirCountry, having no other mind, but to sit down with joy, and go about our own long neglected business; praising God, & blessing the King: The martial minds among us, panting for languor to be employed over sea, for the honor of the crown; in spending their blood against the insolent enemies of his Majesty's house. While these are our only thoughts, It was more then marvelous to us 〈◊◊〉 the dumb and obscure whisperings, and at once the loud blasts, the open threats of a new more terrible & cruel war then before should come to our ears, that our Castles should be filled with strangers, be provided with extraordinary victuals and munition, 〈◊〉 against a present assault, or long siege: Many of our Nobles tempted to leave our cause; numbers of assays made to break the unity of all our Estates: And at last our Parliament commanded to arise, the commissioners thereof, after a long & wearisome journey to Court, for the clearing of some surmised mistakes about moods & forms of proceeding, refused presence: A 〈◊〉 in England indicted (as the rumour goeth) to 〈◊〉 that nation, our dearest neighbors, with whom our cause is common, to employ their means and arms against us, that so our old national and immort all wars may be renewed to make sport to Prelates, & a bridge for the Spaniard or French to come over sea and sit down masters of the whole I will, when both nations by mutual wounds are disabled for defense against the force of 〈◊〉 enemy, so potent as either France or Spain are this day of themselves, without the assistance which too like shall be made them by the Papists of the I will, and many moe, who will not fail to join for their own ends with any apparent victor.

We admire how it is possible that intestine arms without any necessity should be taken up at this season when all the forces the whole 〈◊〉 can spare are most earnestly called for, by the tears of his Majesty's only sister, by the blood and long desolation of her most miserable Subjects, by the captivity and banishment of all 〈◊〉 hopeful Children, Prince Charles, lying daily under the hazard of the French Kings mercy at 〈◊〉 , 〈◊〉 Prince Robert of the Emperors at Vienne, the rest of that royal blood lying so many years with their Mother; 〈◊〉 in a strange Country: Pitty would command us to put up all our homeward quarrels, though they were both great and many, let be to 〈◊〉 any, where 〈◊〉 real can be sound: Yea, hope would allure us to try 〈◊〉 , if ever, our Arms on those spiteful Nations, the hereditary enemies of our Religion and of our I will, when 〈◊〉 hath made them contemptible by the clear success he giveth daily 〈◊〉 everyone that riseth against them: Bannier with a wing of the Swedish Army, dwelling in spite of the Emperor all this year in the heart of his Countries, a part of Weymers forces with a little help from France triumphing on the Rhene, for all that Baviere, Culen, the Emperor or Spaniard can do against them: That very strong and great Armado all utterly crushed in our eyes by the Hollanders alone, without the assistance of any: The very French, not the best sea-men, having lately beaten oftener then once the Spanish navies in the Mediterran, the Spanish Empire laboring of a dangerous fever both at home and abroad, the Portugallians in spite of Philip, crowning John of Braganza for their King, the Catalonians putting themselves in subjection to the French Crown, Naples and West-flanders brangling, the Fleet of the States almost domineering in the Westindian seas. Shall we alone sit still forever? shall we send always 〈◊〉 but base contemptible & derided 〈◊〉 to these 〈◊〉 Princes? shall we feed 〈◊◊◊〉 with their scornful promises, which so 〈◊◊〉 have sound, to our great disgrace, 〈◊〉 false? yea, rather then to beat them by that abundance of power which we have, if God will give us an heart to employ it, rather then to pull down those tyrants who have shed rivers of Protestants blood, who have long trodden on the persons of our nearest friends, & in the, on our honor! Is it now meet we should choose to go kill one another, alone for the bearing up of Prelates tails, and that of Prelates as unworthy of respect as any that ever wore a Mytre. Let our kindred, let our friends, let all the Protestant churches perish, let our own lives & estates run never so evident an hazard, yet the 〈◊〉 pride must be borne up, their furious desire of 〈◊〉 must be satiate; all their Mandamus in these dominions must be executed with greater severity & rigor then those of their brethren are this day in Italy or Spain, or those of their grand-father at Rome.

To us surely it is a strange Paradox, that a Parliament of England so wise, grave, equitable a Court, as inall bygon times it hathever proved, should be thought in danger at any time, let be now to be induced by any allurement, by any terror, to submit themselves as Vallets and pages to the execution of the lusts, the furies and outrageous counsels of Canterbury and his dependers, for they know much better then we, that the main grievances both of their Church and state, have no other original, no other fountain, on Earth but those men. Who other but they have keeped our most gracious Prince at a distance from the country almost ever since he came to the Crown? For whose cause have Parliaments these many years been hindered to meet, and when they have met, been quickly raised, to the unspeakable grief and prejudice of the whole land, & of all our friends abroad. By whose connivence is it that the idolatrous chapels of both the Queens in the most conspicuous places of the Court are so gorgeous & much frequented? Whose tolerance is it that at London three mass-priests are to be found for one Minister, that three hundredth of them reside in the city in ordinar, & six thousand at least in the country; If ye trust the Jesuits Catalogues to Rome? Whence comes their immunity fro the laws, who have set up cloisters for Monks and Nuns, let be houses for open Masses in divers cities of the Kings dominions? Why is our correspondence with the Pope no more secret, but our Agents avowedly sent to Rome, & his holiness Nuntioes received here in state, & that such ones as in public writs have lately defamed with unspeakable reproaches the person and birth of that most sacred Q. Elizabeth. Such actions, or at least long permission of such abominations do they flow from any other but his Grace, the head and heart of the Cabin Counsel? Did any other but he and his creatures, his legs and arms hinder always our effectual alliance with the Swedes & French, when their armies did most flourish in Germany for the relief of the oppressed churches? Why was that poor Prince the King of Boheme to his dying day kept from any considerable help from Britain? How was these young princes the other year permitted to take the fields with so small forces, that a very meanpower of a silly commander beat them both, took the 〈◊〉 captive, and put the other in his slight to an evide at hazard of his life: Who moved that innocent Prince, after his 〈◊〉 , to take so strainge a 〈◊〉 as the world now speaks of, and when he was engaged, who did betray both his purpose and person to the French King, could any without the Cabbine understand the convey of such matters, and within that 〈◊〉 does any come without his graces permission? Is not that man the evident author of all the Scottish broils? Are not his letters extant, his holy hands 〈◊〉 of the Scottish service to be seen, his other writtes also are in our hands, making manifest that the beginning and continuance of that cursed work hath no spring without his brain? When the King himself after ripe advisement and all about him both English and Scots had returned in peace, who incontinent did change the face of the Court and revive that fire, which in the heart of the Prince and all his good Subjects was once close dead.

That a 〈◊〉 of England will not only let such a man and his complices go free, but to serve his humor, will be content to engage their lives and estates for the overthrow and inslaving of us their best neighbors, that over our carcases a path-way may be made for Bishops now, and at once for the Pope and Spaniard to tread on the neck both of their bodies & souls, we cannot believe. Yet if any such things should be propounded (for what darenot effronted impudence attempt) we would require that sage Senate before they pass any bloody sentence of war against us to consider a little the quality of that party for whose cause they take arms, we offer to instruct to the full satisfaction of the whole world offree & imprejudicate minds, not by fleeing reports, not by probable likelihoods, not by the sentences of the gravest and most solemn judicatories of this land, our two last general assemblies & late parliament, who at far greater length & with more mature advisement did cognosce of those causes, then ever any Assembly or Parliament amongst us, since the first founding of our Church and Kingdom did resolve upon any matter whatsoever: All those means of probation we shall set aside and take us alone to the mouth of our very adversaries. If by their own testimony we make it evident, that beside books, ceremonies, and Bishops which make the proper and particular quarrel of this national Kirk against them, they are guilty of gross Arminianism, plain Popery, and of setting up of barbarous tyranny, which is the common quarrel of the Kirk of England, of all the reformed Kirks, and of all men who delight not to live and die in the fetters of slavery. If we demonstrate, not so much by their preachings and practices amongst us, 〈◊〉 by their maxims printed with 〈◊〉 among yourselves, which to this day, though oft pressed thereto, they have never recanted. If we show that yet still they stiffly avow all the articles of Arminius, a number of the grossest abominations of Popery, specially the authority of the sea of Rome, that they urge conclusions which will 〈◊〉 you without any 〈◊〉 , so much as by a verbal protestation, not only to give way unto any iniquity whatsoever, either in kirk or state, whereto they can get stolen the pretext of the Kings name; but also to lay down your neck under the yoke of the King of Spain, if once he had any footting in this I will, without any farther resistance; though in your church by force that Tyrant should set up the Latin Messe in place of the Bible, and in your state for your Magna Charta and acts of Parliament, the laws of Castile, though in your eyes he should destroy the whole race of the royal family, though the remainder of the Nobility and Gentry in the land should be sent over by him, some to work in fetters in his Mines of Peru, Others in chains to row all their days in his gallayes in the Mediterrane, for all these or any other imaginable acts of tyranny that could escape the wicked head of any mad Nero, of any monstrous Caligula; these men do openly take upon them to persuade that no kind of resistance for defense can be made by the whole States of a land, though sitting in Parliament, with a most harmonious consent, no more nor the Jews might have done against Nebuchadnezzar, or the Christians of old against the Pagan Emperors, or the Greek Church this day against the grand Signieur in Constantinople, that all our forbears both English and Scots in their manifold bickerings against the misleaders of their Princes, against the tyrannizing factions of Court, were ever Traitors and Rebels, and ought to have loosed their heads and lands for their presumption to defend their liberties, against the intolerable insolencies of a pack of runigat Villanes, and for their boldness, to fasten the tottering Crown upon the head of their Kings: all such Services of our Antecessours to King and Country, were treacherous insurrections.

If for all these their crimes I make speak before you no other witnesses then their 〈◊〉 tongues, J trust there shall not remain in your minds the least shadow of any scruple to believe my allegations, nor in your wills the least inclination to join with the counsels of so polluted and self- 〈◊〉 persons: And if to men whose open profession in their printed books, let be secret practices, leads to so wicked ends so far contrary to the glory of God, to the honor and safety of our King, to the well of us all, whether in Soul, body, 〈◊〉 , children, or anything that is dear to 〈◊〉 , 〈◊◊〉 lead your arms against us; we believe the Lord of 〈◊〉 , the righteous Judge would be 〈◊〉 to you, and make hundreds of your 〈◊〉 in so 〈◊〉 a cause 〈◊〉 before ten of ours: Or, if it were the profound and unsearchable pleasure of the God of Armi s, to make you for a time a scourge to beat us, for our manifold transgressions, yet when ye had obtained all the Prelates 〈◊〉 , when we for our other sins were tread under your 〈◊〉 , we would for all that hope to die with great comfort 〈◊〉 courage, as defenders of the truth of God, of the liberties and laws of our 〈◊〉 , of the true good and honor of the 〈◊〉 and Royal Family: All which as we take it, one of the most wicked and unnatural 〈◊〉 that ever this Isle did 〈◊〉 , 〈◊〉 manifestly 〈◊〉 : yet certainly, we could not but leave in our Testament to you our unjust oppressors the legacy of an untimous 〈◊◊〉 ; for when ye have killed thousands of us, and banished the rest out of the Isle, when on the back of our departure, your sweet 〈◊〉 the Bishops have brought the Pope upon you and your children; when a French or Spanish invasion doth threaten you with a slavish conquest; will ye not then all, and above all our gracious Prince regrate, that he hath been so evil advised, as to have put so many of his brave Subjects to the cruel sword, who were very able & most willing to have done him noble service against these foreign usurpers? Would not at such a time, that is too likely to be at hand, if our Prelates advises now be followed, both his Majesty, and all of you who shall 〈◊〉 in life, he most earnest recallers not only of your own Country-men, (many thousands whereof ye know have lately by Episcopal tyranny been cast out from their 〈◊〉 , as far as to the worlds end, among the savadge Americans ) but also the relics of our ruin from their banishment, with as great diligence as in the time of Fergus the second, the inhabitants of this land did recall our ancestors, when by the fraud and force of a wicked faction they were the most part killed, and the rest sent over Sea in banishment. It were better by much, before the remediless stroke be given, to be well advised, then out of time to sigh, when the millions of lost lives, when the happiness of our true Religion, when the liberties of both the nations, once thrown away by our own hands, cannot again be recovered.

To the end therefore that such lamentable inconveniences may be eshewed, and your Honors the more animate to deny your power to those, who now possibilie may crave to have it abused against us without cause, beside numbers of pressing reasons, wherewith I doubt not every wise man amongst you is come well enough 〈◊〉 from his own considerations, and which J trust shall be further presented in plenty by these of our Nation, who have ever been at the head of our affairs, whom God hath still enabled to clear the justice and necessity of all our proceedings hitherto, to the minds of all, save our infatuat adversaries, whom superstition and rage hath blinded. If it might be your Honors pleasure when all the rest have ended, I could wish that even unto me, a little audience were given: my zeal to the truth of God, to the peace of this Isle, to the honor of our dear and gracious Sovereign, imboldeneth me to offer even my little myte of information. This is a period of time, when the obstinate silence of those who are most obliged by their places and gifts to speak, must open the mouths of sundry, who are not by much so able; very babes, yea stones must find a tongue when Pharisees deny their testimony to CHRIST: `Dumbe men will get words when a father, when a King, let be a whole kingdom, by the wickedness of a few, is put in extreme peril of ruin: An Ass will find 〈◊〉 when the devouring sword of an Angel if drawn against the Master. Nothing more common in the Roman Annals, then the speeches of very Oxen, before any calamity of the Common-wealth: The claiking of Geese did at a time preserve the 〈◊〉 : Amiclae was lost by too much silence: The neglect of the voice of a Damosel, the contempt of Cassandraes warning, the casting of her in bands, for her true but unpleasant speech, did bring the Trojane horse within the walls, and with it the quick ruin both of the city and Kingdom.

J hope then that the greatness of my undertaking may 〈◊〉 me a little audience: for J offer to make you all see with your own eyes, and hear with your own ears the Canterburians to declare by their own tongues, and write down under their own hands their clear minds, to bring in our Church Arminianism, and complete Popery, and in our State a slavery no less then Turkish. If ye find that I prove my offer, I trust I may be confident of your Wisedomes, that though Cicero himself, and with him Demosthenes as a second, and Orpheus with the 〈◊〉 of his tongue and harp, as a third marrow, should come to persuade, yet that none of you shall ever be moved by all their oratory, to espouse the quarrels of so unhappy men. If I fail in my fair undertaking, let me be condemned of temerity, and no hour of your leisure be ever again employed, in taking notice of anymore of my complaints: But till my vanity be found, I will expect assuredly from your Honors one hearing, if it were but to waken many an able wit, and nimble pen, in that your venerable House of Convocation; Numbers there, if they would speak their knowledge, could tell other tales then ever I heard in an out-corner of the Isle, far from the secrets of State, and all possibility of intelligence how many affairs in the World do go.

It is one of 〈◊◊◊〉 of the World, how many of the English Divines can at this time be so dumb, who could well, if they pleased, paint out before your eyes with a Sun-beam all the crimes Ispeake of 〈◊〉 that head and members. It is strange that the pilloring of some few, that the slitting of Bastwickes and 〈◊〉 nose, the branding of Prinnes cheek, the cutting of Lightouns ears, the scourging of Lylburne through the City, the close keeping of Lincoln, and the murthering of others by famine, cold, vermin, stink, and other miseries in the caves and vaults of the Bishops houses of inquisition, should bind up the mouths of all the rest of the learned. 〈◊〉 wont not in the days of hottest persecution, in the very Marian times, to be so scant of faithful witnesses to the truth of Christ, we cannot now conjecture what is become of that zeal to the true Religion, which we are persivaded lies in the heart of many thousands in that gracious Kirk; we trust indeed that this long lurking, and too too long silence of the Saints there, shall break out at once in some hundreds of trumpets and lamps, shining and shouting, to the joy of all the reformed Churches, against the campe of these enemies to God, and the King; that quickly it may be so, behold I here first upon all hazards do break my pitcher, do hold out my lamp, and blow my trumpet before the Commissioners of the whole Kingdom, offering to convince that prevalent faction by their own mouth, of Arminianism, Popery, and tyranny.

The main scope and delineation of the subsequent Treatise. CHAP. I.

OUr Adversaries are very unwilling to suffer to appear, that there is any further debate betwixt them and us, but what is proper unto our Church, & doth arise from the Service Book, Canons, & Episcopacy, which they have pressed upon us with violence, against all Order Ecclesiastical and Civil: In the mean time, lest they become the sacrifices of the public hatred of others, in a subtle Sophistication they labor to hide the 〈◊〉 wrongs and assronts which they have done openly to the Reformed Religion, to the Churches of ENGLAND, and all the Reformed Churches in the main and most material questions debated against the Papists ever since the reformation: for such as profess themselves our enemies, and are most busy to stir up our gracious Prince to arms against us, do willfully dissemble their knowledge of any other controversy between them and us, but that which properly concerneth us, and rubbeth not upon any other Church. In this their doing the Judicious may perceive their manifold deceit, whereby they would delude the simple, and many witty worldlings do deceive themselves: First, they would have the world to think that we obstinately refuse to obey the Magistrate, in the point of things indifferent, And therefore unnecessarily, and in a foolish preciseness draw upon ourselves the wrath of the King. Secondly, when in our late Assemblies, the order of our Church is made known, and the seeds of superstition, heresy, idolatry and antichristian tyranny are discovered in the service Book and Canons, they wipe their mouth, they say, No such thing is meant; and that we may upon the like occasion blame the service Book of England. Thirdly, when by the occasion of the former quarrellings, their palpable Popery and Arminianism are set before their eyes, and their perverse intentions, desires, and endeavors, of the change of Religion and laws are upon other grounds then upon the service Book and Canons objected against them; they stop their ears, or at least shut their mouths, and answer nothing. This challenge they still decline and misken; they will not let it be heard, let be to answer to it; And for to make out their tergiversation, for to dash away allutterly this our process, they have been long plying their great engine; and at last have wrought their yondmost mine to that perfection, that it is now ready to spring under our walls. By their flattering calumnies they have drawn the Prince again to arms, for the overthrow of us their challengers, and for the affrighting by the terror of armies on foot all others elsewhere, from commencing any such action against them.

As for us, truly it were the greatest happiness we do wish for out of Heaven, to live peaceably in all submission and obedience, under the wings of our gracious Sovereign, and it is to us a bitterness as gall, as wormwood, as death to be necessitate to any contest, to any contradictory terms, let be an armed defense, against any whom he is pleased to defend: Yea certainly, it were the great joy of our hearts, to receive these very men, our mortal enemies, into the arms of our affection, upon any probable signs in them, of their sincere grief, for the huge wrongs they have intended, and done to their Mother church and Country. But when this felicity is denied, and nothing in them doth yet appear but induration, and a malicions obstinacy; going on madly through a desperate desire of revenge, to move a very sweet Prince for their cause to shed his own blood, to rent his own bowels, to cut off his own members, what shall we do but complain to GOD, and 〈◊〉 to the Worlds eyes the true cause of our sufferings, the true grounds of this Episcopal war, or rather not Episcopal but Canterburian broyle? for we judge sundry Bishops in the Isle to be very free of these mischiefs, and believe that divers of them would gladly demonstrate their innocence, if so be my Lord of Canterbury and his dependants, were in any way to receive from the Kings justice some part of their deserveings.

Howsoever, that we may give a testimony to the truth of GOD, which we are like at once to seal with our blood, we will offer to the view of all Reformed Churches, and above the rest to our nearest and sibbest sister of England, as it were in a Table, divers of these errors, which our party first by craft and subtlety, but now by extreme violence of fire and sword, are laboring to bring upon us; to the end that our dear brethren understanding our sufferings in the defense of such a cause, may be the more willing at this time to contribute for our assistance from God, the help of their earnest Prayers, and forever hereafter to condole with the more hearty compassion, any misery which possibly may befall us, in such a quarrel.

Albeit truly our hopes are yet greater then our 〈◊〉 , if we could become so happy as once to get our plea but entered before our Prince; for we can hardly conceive what in reason should hinder our full 〈◊〉 of a favorable decision from that Sacred mouth, whose natural equity the World knows in all causes whereof he is impartially informed, since our whole action is naught but one formal argument, whereof the Major is the verdict of our judge, the Minor shall be the open and avowed Testimony of our party, need we fear that either our Judge or party will be so irrational as to venture upon the denial of a conclusion, whereof both the premisses is their own open profession?

Our Major is this: Who ever in the Kings Dominions spreads abroad Popery or any doctrine opposite to the Religion and Laws of the Land, now established, ought not to be countenanced, but severely punished by the King. This Major the King hath made certain to us in his frequent most solemn asseverations, not only at his Coronation both here and in England, in his Proclamations both here and there, but also in his late large Declaration, ofttimes giving out his resolution to live and die in the reformed Protestant Religion, opposite to all Popery; to maintain his established Laws; and in nothing to permit the enervating of them: Yea, this resolution of the King is so peremptory, and publicly avowed, that Canterbury himself dare not but applaud thereto; in his Star-chamber Speech, who can see me more forward then he for the great equity, to punish condignly all who would but mint to bring in any popery in this Isle, or assay to make any innovation in Religion or Laws? We believe indeed that the man doth but juggle with the World in his fair ambiguous generalities, being content to inveigh as much against popery and innovation as we could wish, upon hopes ever when it comes to any particular of the grossest popery we can name, by his subtle distinctions and disputations to slide out of our hands: But we are persuaded what ever may be the juggling of sophisticating Bishops, yet the magnanimous ingenuity, the Royal integrity of our gracious Sovereign is not compatible with such fraudulent equivocations, as to proclaim his detestation of popery in generals, and not thereby to give us a full assurance of his abhorring every particular, which all the orthodox Preachers of this Isle since the Reformation, by Queen Elisabet and King James allowance have ever condemned as popish errors. Our Major then we trust may be past as unquestionable.

We subjoine our Minor, But so it is that Canterbury and his dependars, men raised, and yet maintained by him, have openly in their printed books, without any recantation or punishment to this day spread abroad in all the Kings dominions, doctrines opposite to our Religion and laws, especially the most points of the grossest popery. In reason all our bickering ought to be here alone. This Minor I offer to instruct, and that by no other middes then the testimony of their own pens. If I do so to the full satisfaction of all, who know what are the particular heads of the reformed Religion, and what the tenets of Popery opposite thereto, what are the laws standing in all the three dominions, and what the contrary maxims of the Turkish empire, where with Machiavelists this day everywhere are laboring to poison the ears of all Christian Princes, for enervating the laws and liberties of their Kinngdomes: I hope that reason and justice which stand night and day attending on either side of King Charles throne will not fail to persuade the cheerful embracement of the conclusion, which follows by a clear and natural necessity, from the forenamed premisses, to wit, that Canterbury and his dependars in all the three dominions ought not to be countenanced by the King, but severely punished: Let be that for their pastime a bloody and hazardous war should be raised in so unseasonable a time, for the undoing of that country and Church which God hath honored with the birth and baptism, both of his Majesty's own person, and of his renowned father, and to the which both of them as all their hundredth and six glorious Predecessors, are indebted before God, and the World, all their Prerogatives both of nature, 〈◊〉 , and estate, so much as any Princes were ever to their mother Church and native country.

CHAP. II. The Canterburians avowed Arminianism.

ARminianisme how great and dangerous an innovation of the reformed Religion it is, we may learn by the late experiences of our neighbors, when that weed began to spread among them. The States of Holland have declared in many passages of their Dordracen Synod, that they found it a more ready mean to overthrow both their Church and State, then all the engines, policies, arms which the Pope, and Spaniard, in any bygone time had used against them. The Church of France the other year, when Amirot, and Testard, and some few of their Divines, were but surmised to incline a little towards some small twigs of one article of Arminius, was so affrighted, that they rested not till in a general Assembly at Alenzon, they did run together for the extinguishing of the first sparks as it were of a common fire. When P. Baro in Cambridge began to run a little on this rock, how careful was my Lord of Canterbury and the Bishops then in their meeting at Lambeth for the crushing of that Cockatrice in the 〈◊〉 when that serpent again in the same place began to set np the nose in the writtes of Thomson, how careful was the Bishops then by the hand of their brother of Salisbury Doctor Abbots to cut of the head of that monster? But what speak we of the Churches reformed? The very Synagogue of Rome whose conscience is enlarged as the Hell to swallow down the vilest morsels of the most lewd errors that Antichrist can present, yet did they stick much at this bone, when the Jesuit Molina began to draw out these dregs of Pelagianism from the long neglected pits of some obscure Schoolmen, what clamours were raised there, not only by Alvarez and his followers, but also by numbers of Prelates and some great Princes, till the credit of the Jesuits in the Court of Rome, and the wisdom of the Consistory prognosticating a new rent in their Church did procure from the Pope a peremptory injunction of silence to both sides, on all highest pains: hoping if the Dominicans mouths were once stopped, that the Jesuits by their 〈◊〉 arts, and silent policies would at last work out their intended point, which indeed since that time, they have well-near fully gained.

But to King Charles eye no evidence useth to be so demonstrative, as that which cometh from the learned hand of his blessed Father. Would we know how gracious a plant Arminianism and the dressers of it will prove in England, or anywhere else, advise with King James, who after full trial and long consultation about this emergent, with the Divines of his Court, especially the late Archbishop Abbots, gave out at last his Decree in print, and that in Latin, not only for a present declaration to the States of Holland, of his mind against Vorstius, and a clear confession of his Faith in those points to the Christian World, but above all to remain a perpetual Register for his Heirs and Succ essors, of his faithful advise, if after his death 〈◊〉 Kingdoms should be ever in danger to be 〈◊〉 with that wicked seed.

In that Treatise, his Majesty doth first avow all them to be gross Liars, who do not blush to affirm that any of the Arminian Articles, even that most plausible one of the Saints 〈◊〉 are consonant with the Doctrine or Articles of the Church of England. He styleth Bertius for such a slander, a very impudent and brazen-faced man. Secondly, He pronounceth these Doctrines of Arminius to be Heresies lately revived and damnable to the Hels from whence they come. Thirdly, That Bertius for the very title of his book, The Saints apostasy deserved burning Fourthly, That Arminius and his Scholars were to be reputed pests, enemies to God, proud, 〈◊〉 , heretical, Atheists. Fifthly, He affirmeth that their toleration would not fail to bring upon the heads of their Tolerators let be favorers, God's malediction, an evil report, slander and infamy with all the Churches abroad, and certain Schism, Division and Tumults at home. Shall we then make any doubt of King Charles full contentment, that we avow Arminianism, to be such a dangerous innovation of our Religion as the reformed Churches abroad, and his Father at home hath taught us to count it where ever it is found.

Notwithstanding this bitter root amongst us was setting up the head of late very boldly in all the prime places of our Kingdom, we have had since the reformation many bickerings about the Church Government and Ceremonies, but in matters of Doctrine neverany Controversy was known, till some years ago a favorable air from the mouth of Doctor Lad at Court began to blow upon these unhappy seeds of Arminius. No sooner was those Southwinds sensible in our climate, but at once in S. Andrew's, Edinburg, Aberdeen, and about Glasgow, that weed began to spring amaine. Doctor Wederburn in the new College of Saint Andrew's did stuff his Dictates to the young Students in Divinity with these errors. This man upon the fears of our Churches censure, having fled the Country, was very tenderly embraced by his Grace at Court and well rewarded with a fair Benefice in England, for his labors: But to the end his talents should not lie hid, although a man very unmeet either for preaching or government, he was sent down tous, without the knowledge of our Church, by Canterburies only favor, to be Bishop of Dumblane, for this purpose mainly, that in the Royal Chapel, whereof that Bishop is always Dean, he might in despite of all our Presbyteries weave out the web he had begun in Saint Andrew's. So quickly there was erected a society of twenty four Royal Chaplains, who were thought fittest of the whole Clergy of the Kingdom, to be allured with hopes of favor from Court, to preach to the State the Deans Arminian tenets. In Edinburgh, Master Sydserfe did peartly play his part, and for the reward of his boldness, had cast in his lap in a trace the Deanry of E. dinburgh, the Bishopric of Brechen, and last of 〈◊〉 , with full hopes in a short time of an Archbishops cloak. In the North, Doctor Forbes the only Father of the most of those who fell away from the Doctrine of our Church, came too good speed in his evil labors, and for his pains was honored with the first seat in the new erected Chair of our principal City. Others about Glasgow made their preaching of the Arminian errors the pathway to their assured advancement. In our general Assembly we found that this cockle was coming up apace in very many furrows of our field: Some of it we were forced, albeit to our great grief, to draw up and cast 〈◊〉 the dyke, which at once was received and replanted in England, in too good a soil.

We confess, that it happened not much beside our expectation, that our Arminians after the censure of our Church should at Court have been too graciously received and sheltered in the Sanctuary of his Grace at Lambeth; But, this indeed, did and doth still astonish us all, that any should have been so bold as to have stolen King Charles name to a printed Declaration, wherein not only our general Assembly is condemned for using any censure at all against any for the crime of Arminianism: But also Arminius Articles are all-utterly slighted and pronounced to be of so obscure & intricate a nature that both our Assembly was too peart to make any determination about them, and that many of our number were altogether unable by any teaching ever to win so much as to the understanding of the very questions: Yea, those Articles are avowed to be consonant, and in nothing to be opposite to the confession of our Church, and are freely absolved of all popery. Because indeed (for this is the only reason) some learned papists find divers of Arminius points to be so absurd that their stomachs cannot away with them, and some of the Lutheran divines agree with the Arminians in certain parcels of some of their Articles: They must be strangers in these questions, who are ignorant in how many things the Dominicans and all Papists agree with Arminius, and in how many the Lutherans disagree from him. However we were and are amazed to see Canterbury so malapeart, as to proclaim in the Kings name, beside many other strange things, the Articles of Arminius, to be so far above the capacity of our general Assembly, that it deserves a Royal reproof for minting to determine anything in them, and that they are no ways contrary to the doctrine of onr Church, neither any ways popish, and that for a reason, which will exeeme from the note of Popery every error which is so grossly absurd, that some learned Papists are forced to contradict it; or some gross Lutheran can get his throat extended to swallow it down.

This boldness cannot in any reason be imputed to our gracious Sovereign: For how is it possible that he upon any tolerable information, should ever have suffered himself to be induced to write, or speak in such a strain of these thing, which so lately by his learned Father was declared in print, and that in Latin to be no less then heresies worthy of burning; yea, damnable to the very infernal pit whence, as he says, they did first come up. Neither is it like that these sentences come from the heart of Doctor Balcanquel the penman of them; for he was a member of Dort Synod, and brought up in the Church of Scotland, the man is not unseen in the Popish Tenets; How is it possible that his conscience should absolve the Arminian errors of all Popery, and all contrariety to the Scottish confession. May any be so uncharitable, as to suspect his late promotion in Durham, hath altered so soon his mind? Sure not long since, both in England and Scotland, he did desire to be esteemed by his friends, one of those whom Canterbury did malign, and hold down for his certain and known resolutions, and reputed abilities to oppose his Graces Arminian, and Popish innovations. His Majesty being certainly clear of this imputation, and readily also Balcanquel, the Amanuense, on whom can the fault lie but Canterbury, the directors back? For the world knows, that on his shoulders for common alone, the King doth devolve the trust of all Bookish and Ecclesiastical affairs that concern him, that at his commandment 〈◊〉 hath written in the Kings name that part at the least of the declaration, which patronizeth the Arminian persons and cause, we do not conjecture but demonstrate by the constant and avowed course of his Graces carriage in advancing Arminianism at all occasions; in all the Kings Dominions.

That this may appear, consider his practices, not so much amongst us, and in the Irish Church, where yet his hand is very nimble, to set these ungracious plants, and to nippe off all the overspreading branches of any tree that may overtop them: For who else in a moment, hath advanced Doctor Bramble, not only to the sea of Derrie, but to the Kings 〈◊〉 General? Who sent Doctor Chapel first to the University of Dublin, and then to his Episcopal chair? Who holds 〈◊〉 the head of that Orthodox Primat, and of all who kyth any zeal there to the truth of God; Who caused not only refuse the confirmation of these Arminian Articles of Ireland, in the last Parliament, but threatened also to burn them by the hand of the Hangman? Whose invention are these privy Articles, which his creature Derry presents to divers, who take Orders from his holy hands? We will pass these and such other effects, which the remote rays of his Graces countenance do produce in so great a distance; Only behold! How great an increase that unhappy plant hath made there in England, where his eye is nearer to view, and his hand to water it.

In the 25 year, at the very instant of King James death, Doctor Montague, with Doctor Whites approbation, did put to the Press all the Articles of Arminius in the same terms, with the same arguments and most injurious calumniations of the Orthodox Doctrine, as Split and the Remonstrants had done a little before, but with this difference, that where those had dipped their pens in ink Doct. Montague doeth write with vinegar and gall, in every other line, casting out the venom of his bitter spirit, on all that cometh in his way, except they be fowls of his own feather; for oft when he speaks of Jesuits, Cardinals, Popes, he anoints his lips with the sweetest honey, and perfumes his breath with the most cordial tablets. If any do doubt of his full Arminianism, let them cast up his Appeale and see it clearly, in the first and second Article of Election and Redemption, he avoweth his averseness from the doctrine of Lambeth and Dort which teacheth, that God from eternity did elect us to grace and salvation, not for any consideration of our faith, works or anything in us as causes, respects or conditions antecedent to that decree, but only of his mere mercy; And that from this Election all our faith, works, and perseverance do flow as effects. He calleth this the private fancy of the Divines of Dort, opposite to the doctrine of the Church of England: For this assertion he 〈◊〉 the Synod of Lambeth, as teachers of desperate doctrine, and would father this foul imputation; but very falsely on the conference at Hampton Court. Again he avoweth positively that faith goeth before Election, and that to all the lost race of Adam alike, God's mercy in Christ is propounded till the parties free-will, by believing or mis-believing, make the disproportion antecedent to any divine either election, or reprobation.

One of the reasous why King James styled Arminius disciples atheists, was because their first article of conditional election did draw them by an inevitable necessity to the maintenance of Vorstian impiety: For make me once God's Eternal decree posterior, and dependant from faith, repentance, perseverance, and such works, which they make slow from the free will of changeable men; that Decree of God will be changeable, it will be a separable accident in him; God will be a composed substance of subject, and true accidents, no more an absolute simple essence, and so no more God. Vorstius ingenuity in professing this composition is not misliked by the most learned of the Belgic Arminians, who use not as many of the English, to deny the clear consequences of their doctrine, if they be necessary, though never so absurd. However in this very place Montague maintains very Vorstian atheism as expressly as any can do making the divine essence to be finite, his omni-presence not to be in substance, but in providence, and so making God to be no God. This thought long ago by learned Featly objected in print to Montague, lies still upon him without any clearing. Certainly our Arminians in Scotland were begun both in word and writ to undertake the dispute for all that Vorstius had printed: I speak what I know, and have felt oft to my great pains.

Arminianism is a chain, any one link whereof, but specially the first, will draw all the rest; yet see the other also expressed by Montague. In the Articles of Grace and Freewill, not only he goes clear with the Arminians, teaching that Mans will hath ever a faculty to resist, and oft times according to the doctrine of the Church of England actually doth resist, reject, frustrate, and overcome the most powerful acts of the spirit and grace of God, even those which are employed about regeneration, sanctification, justification, perseverance. Not only doth he thus far proceed, but also he avows that all the difference which is betwixt the Church of England and Rome, in this head of freewill, is in nothing material, and really long ago to be ended and agreed amongst the most judicious and sober of both the sides.

For the fifth of perseverance he is as gross as any either Remonstrant or Molinean Jesuit, professing, that no man in this life can have more assurance not to fall away both totally and finally from all the grace he gets, then the devils had once in Heaven, and Adam once in Paradise.

Behold the Arminian ensign fairly now displayed in England by the hands of Montague and White, under the conduct of Doctor Lad Bishop of Saint David's, even then the President, the chief in Ecclesiastical affairs of the Duke of Buckinghams secret council. At the first sight of this black banner a number of brave Champions got to their arms; pulpits over all England rang, presses swate against the boldness of that but small handful then of courtizing Divines. Their crafty leader seeing the sloud of opposition, and finding it meet for a little to hold in, and fold up his displayed colors, did by the Duke his patron persuade the expediency of that policy, which the Jesuits had immediately before, for that same very design moved the Roman consistory to practice. He obtained a Proclamation, commanding silence on both sides, discharging all preaching, all printing in these controversies, astricting to the clear, plain and very Grammatical sense of the Articles of England in these points, without all further deductions. By this means his intentions were much promoved, open avowers of Arminianism were by public authority so exempted from any censure, a real liberty was thus proclaimed over all the land, for any who pleased to embrace Arminianism without oppotion.

Hereby in two or three years the infection spread so far and broad, that the Parliament was forced in the 28. to make the increase of Arminianism their chief grievance to his Majesty; But at that time Doctor Lad was grown greater. He had mounted up from the Bath to London, and to make a show there in Parliament of his power in the eye of all the complainers, he raised up Montague to the Episcopal Chair of his own Diocesan, Doctor Carleton, who had lately chastised him in print for his Arminian appeal. D. White his other 〈◊〉 , that all great spirits might be encouraged to run the ways which Doct. Lad pointed out to them, in despite of these Parliamentary Remonstrants, was advanced from Bishopric to Bishopric, till death at the step of Eli did interrupt the course of his promotion, that to Wren a third violent follower of his Arminian Tenets, way might be made for to clime up the remaining steps of the ladder of his Honors. Now to the end 〈◊〉 the world may know, that my Lord of Canterbury doth nothing blush at the advancement of such men, hear what a public testimony of huge worth and deserving, he causeth his Herald Peter 〈◊〉 to proclaim to that Triumvirat, not only at his own directions, (for that moderate answer of Heylens is the Iusto volumine which his G. did promise to the world in his Star-chamber speech) but also in name of authority, if Heylen lie not, who says, He writes that book at the commandment of the State: There, after the cryasse of Canterburies own extraordinary praises the renown of his three Underleaders, is loudly sounded as of plain Non-suches .

All these his graces favors to his followers would have been the more tolerable, if he would have permitted his Orthodox opposites to have had some share in their Princes affection, or at least to have lived in peace in their own places. But behold, all that crosses his way must down, were they the greatest Bishops in the Dominions. For who else wrought the 〈◊〉 Archbishop so far out of the Kings Grace, that he remained some years before his death well-near confined to his house at Lambeth? Who hath caused to cage up in the Tower that great and learned Bishop of Lincoln? what ever else may be in the man. What fray makes that worthy Primate Usher, to foretell oft to his friends his expectation, to be sent over Sea, to die a Pedant teaching boys for his bread, by the persecution of this faction whose ways he avows to many, doth tend to manifest Arminianism, and Popery. This their resolution to persecute with all extremity, everyone who shall mint to print or preach anything against Arminianism, they avow it openly not only by deeds (for why else was Master Butter the Stationer cast by Canterbury in the Fleet for printing Bishop Davenants letter to Bishop Hall against some passage of Arminianism at the Authors direction, as we see it set down by Huntley in his Breviat? ) but even in open print, for when Master Burton complains to the King that he was silenced by Canterbury, for expounding of his ordinary text, Rom. 8 Whom God hath predestinate, those he hath called, and applying it to the present Pelagianism and Popery of the Arminians, Christopher Dow approved by Canterburies Chaplain, and Peter Helyn directed to speak by Canterbury himself doth not stand to affirm, that this was a cause well deserving all the sufferings he complained of.

Could any here but expect of his Graces wisdom and loyalty, when his solicitude appeareth to disgrace and punish, without respect of persons, all who in contempt, as he saith, of the Kings Proclamation will not desist from the public oppugning of Arminianism, that on the other hand the Preachers and Printers for Arminianism according to that same Proclamation should be put to some order? yet this is so far neglected, that all who are so affected, Cousins, Colines, Beal in CAMBRIDGE, Potter and Jackson in OXFORD, and many more prime Doctors in both Universities, in the City, in the Court, and over all the Land, boldly give out their mind to all they meet with for the advancement of the new way; yea boldness in running those paths hath been known to have been the high way in all the three Dominions these years bygone to certain promotion in many men, who to the Worlds eyes had no other singular eminency of any good parts.

But that his Graces tramping upon the Kings Proclamation may be yet the more evident, behold how he doth daily dispense both with his own pen and those also of his Friends to write and print for Arminianism, what they please. White being taxed by Master Burton for his subscription to Montagues Appeale, is so far from the least retractation, that the fifth Article of Apostasy and uncertainty of salvation which Master Burton did single out of all Montagues errors as most opposite to Christian comfort, he maintains it in his own Answer to the Dialogue; but as the custom now is under the covert of some Fathers name, at great length with much bitterness, and casts out without provocation in his Treatise of the Sabbath, the first and second Article: Master Dow and Schelfoord use the same plainness. Yea, in the one and thirtieth year that Faction was so malepeart as to set out the Historical Narration by one Aileward wherein all the Articles of Arminius at length with these false and bitter Calumniations of our Doctrine, which are usually chanted and rechanted by the Remonstrants are not only set down as truths, but also fathered upon the first reformers and Martyrs of England. That Book when it had been out a while was called in, not because the doctrines were false, not because the story was forged, as that learned Knight Sir Vmphrey Lyne by the ocular inspection of that original manuscript did since demonstrate, but the only reason of the calling of it back, as his Grace makes Heylen declare to us, was, the dinne and clamour which Mr. Burton, then one of the Ministers of London, made against it.

Conterbury himself is nothing afraid to lend his own hand to pull down anything that seems cross to Arminianism. The certainty of Salvation, the assurance of Election, is such an eye-sore, that to have it away, he stands not with his own hand to cut and mangle the very Liturgy of the Church, otherwise a sacred peace, and a noli me tangere in England in the smallest points, were they never so much by any censured of error: yet if any clause cross Arminianism or Popery, his grace doth not spare without dinne to expurge it, did it stand in the most eminent places thereof in the very morning prayers for the Kings person. Here was this clause fixed since the reformation (who are the Father of thine elect and their seed) this seemed to be a public profession that it was not unlawful for King Charles to avow his certainty and persuasion that God was his Father, and he his adopted Child elected to salvation. His grace could not endure any longer such a scandalous speech to be uttered, but with his own hand scrapeth it out. Being challenged for it by Master Burton, and the out-cries of the people, he confesseth the fact; only for excuse, bringeth three reasons of which you may judge: First, he saith, It was done in his Predecessors time: Doth not this make his presumption the more intolerable, that any inferior Bishop living at the very ear of the Archbishop, should mint to expurge the Liturgy? Secondly, He pretends the Kings command for his doing. Doth not this increase his guiltiness, that he and his followers are become so wicked and irrespective, as to make it an ordinary pranke, to cast their own misdeeds upon the broad back of the Prince? Dare he say, that the King commanded any such thing motu proprio? Did he command that expunction without any information, without any man's advise? Did any King of England ever assay to expurge the public Books of the Church, without the advise of his Clergy? Did ever King Charles meddle in any Church matter of far less importance without Doctor Lads counsel? The third excuse, That the King then had no seed: How is this pertinent? May not a childless man say in his prayers, that God is the Father of the Elect, and of their seed, though himself as yet have no seed? But the true cause of his anger against this passage of the Liturgy, seemeth to have been none other then this Arminian conclusion; that all faith of election in particular, of personal adoption or salvation, is naught but presumption. That this is his Graces faith, may appear by his Chaplains hand, at that base and false story of Ap-Evan by Studley, wherein are bitter invectives against all such persuasions as puritanick delusions, yea, he is contented that Chouneus should print over and over again his unworthy collections, not only subscribed by his chaplain, but dedicated to himself, wherein salvation is avowed to be a thing unknown, and whereof no man can have any further, or should wish for anymore then a good hope. And if any desire a clear confession, behold himself in those opuscula posthuma of Andrew's, which he setteth out to the world after the man's death, and dedicates to the King; avowing that the Church of England doth maintain no personal persuasion of predestination, which Tenet Cardinal Peroun had objected as presumption. White also in his answer to the dialogue, makes man's election a mystery, which God hath so hid in his secret counsel that no man can in this life come to any knowledge, let be assurance of it, at great length from the ninety seventh page to the hundred and third, and that most plainly.

But to close this Chapter passing a number of evidences, I bring but one more which readily may be demonstrative, though all other were laid aside. By the Laws and practices of England, a Chaplains licencing of a book for the press is taken for his Lord the Bishops deed: So Heylen approven by Canterbury teacheth in his Antidotum, and for this there is reason, for the Laws give authority of licencing to no chaplain, but to their Lord's alone, who are to be answerable for that which their servant doth in their name. Also the chaplain at the licencing receives the principal subscribed copy, which he delivereth to his Lord, to be laid up in his episcopal Register. William Bray, one of Canterburies Chaplains, subscribed 〈◊〉 collectiones 〈◊〉 , as consonant to the doctrine of the Church of England & meet for the press. The author dedicated the treatise to my L. of Canterbury, it was printed at London 1636. into this book, the first article, which by the confession of all sides, draws with it all the rest, is set down in more plain and foul terms then Molina or any Jesuit; sure I am then Arminius, Vorstius, or any their followers ever did deliver, teaching in one These those three gross errors. 1. That men's faith, repentance, perseverance, are the true causes of their Salvation; as Misbeleefe, Impenitency, Apostasy are of Damnation: Doth Bellarmine go so far in his Doctrine of justification and merit? 2. That those sins are no less the true causes of reprobation then of damnation. 3. That men's faith, repentance, perseverance are no less the true causes of their eternal election, then misbelief or other sins of their temporal damnation. Let charity suppone that his grace in the midst of his numerous and weighty employments hath been forced to neglect the reading of a book of this nature, though dedicate to himself, albeit it is well known that his watchful eye is fixed upon nothing more then Pamphlets which passes the press upon Doctrines now controverted, yet his grace being publicly upbraided, for countenancing of this book by Doctor Bastwick in the face of the Star-chamber, and being advertised of its dedication to himself, of the errors contained in it, yea of injuries against the King of the deepest stain, as these which struck at the very root of his supremacy, and that in favor of Bishops. When in such a place Canterbury was taxed for letting his name stand before a Book that wounded the Kings Monarchical government at the very heart, and did transfer from the Crown to the Miter one of its fairest diamonds which the King and his Father before him did ever love most dearly, no Charity will longer permit us to believe, but his Grace would without further delay lend some two or three spare hours to the viewing of such a piece which did concern the King and himself so nearly. Having therefore without all doubt both seen & most narrowly sifted all the corners of that small Treatise, and yet been so far from reproving the Author, from censuring the licencer, his Chaplain, from calling in the book, from expurging any one jot that was in it, that the Treatise the second time is put to the press at London with the same license, the same dedication, no letter of the points in question altered: May we not conclude with the favor of all reasonable men, that it is my Lord of Canterburies express mind to have his own name prefixed, and his chaplaines hand subjoined to the grossest errors of Arminius, and so to profess openly his contempt of the Kings Proclamation, for the pretended violation where, of he causeth stigmatize, mutilat, fine excessively, imprison for time of life, very virtuous gentle-men, both Divines, Lawyers, Physicians, & of other faculties.

What there can be said for his graces apology nothing cometh in my mind, except one alledgeance, that the point in hand crosseth not the proclamation, discharging toproceed in those questions beyond the Grammatical construction and literal sense of the articles of England. The Author indeed in the Epistle dedicatory avows to his grace that the These alleged, and all the rest of his Book doth perfectly agree with the English Articles, in the very first and literal sense, whereof the Proclamation speaketh, And to this assertion the Licencers hand is relative as to the rest of the book: but of this miserable apology, which yet is the only one which I can imagine possible, this will be the necessary issue, that the gross lie, which good King James put upon the bold brow of impudent Bertius, for his affirming that one article of the Saints apostasy, let be other more vile Arminian Tenets, was consonant with the Articles of England, must be thrown back from Bertius on the Kings face, and that in as disgraceful a way as it was first given: Montague and White, with his graces permission, did give that venerable Prince long ago the lie at home in English, affirming the perfect agreeance of the Arminian apostasy with the Doctrine of England. But this afront contents not his Grace except the barbarous medicine, under the shelter of his Archiepiscopall name belie his Majesty over sea, and over the whole world, where the Latin is understood. Beside this shameful inconvenience, another dangerous evil will necessarily follow from this apology, to wit, that the Arminian doctrine may not only be tollerat in England, which yet if King James be trusted, cannot fail to draw down upon England a curse from God, shame from abroad, horrible schism at home, but also since their grossest Articles are declared in print and in Latin, under the shadow of Canterburies name, to be fully consonant to the very literal sense of the Articles of England, all the members of that Church may be compelled presently without more delay to embrace those doctrines; and that any manis permitted in England, to believe in peace the Antiarminian Articles, wherein Queen Elisabet and King James did live and die, it is of mere favor and the Princes mercy, who readily by the Arch-bishops intercession is diverted from pressing the profession of those articles; according to the first and most literal sense, which now is clearly avowed to be after Arminius; yea, Molina his mind.

CHAP. III. The Canterburians professed affection towards the Pope and Popery in gross.

IT was the opinion of many among us for a long time, that the innovating faction did mind no more nor Arminianism, but at once, those who touched their pulse nearer, did find a more high humor working in their veins. With Arminius errors they began incontinent to publish other Tenets, which to all mere Arminians were ridiculous follies. The elements of the Lord's Supper began by them to be magnified, above the common phrase of protestant Divines, a corporal presence of Christ's humanity in and about the elements to be glanced at, a kind of omnipresence of Christ's flesh to be preached, a number of adorations before those elements, and all that was near them, both the altar, bason, chalice, and chancell to be urged; many new ceremonies, which for many years had been out of use, to be taken in, a great bitterness of spirit, against all who ran not after these new guises to appear. This made us think they intended to step over from Arminius to Luther. In this conception we were somewhat confirmed, considering their earnest recommendation, to the reading of young Students the late Lutheran Divines, such as Hutter, Meisner, Gerard, with their crying down, both in private and public, of Calvin, Beza, Martyr, Bucer, and the rest of the famous Writers both ancient and late of the French and Belgic Churches. Their giving it out also that their martyred Reformers, Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, were of Luther's School, and from him had learned those things, wherein the English Church did differ from the other Reformed of Calvin's framing. But most of all, by my Lord of Canterburies great diligence under-hand, to promove and reward that late negotiation of Master Duries with the Churches over Sea, for the extenuating of the Lutheran errors, and procuring with their Churches, not only a syncretisme, which all good men did ever pant for, but also a full peace in terms so general, so ambiguous, so slippery, that are very suspicious to many, other ways very peaceable minds.

This I speak without any intention of putting the least note of blame either upon the person or pains of Master Durie, or any of the Divines of either side, who have been ready to declare their inclination, and employ their labors towards that more desired then hoped for union of the Protestant Churches, whom evil instruments have keeped too too long asunder in a lamentable, dangerous, and disgraceful distraction. Master Duries labors in this kind were ever by me esteemed worthy of great praise, honor, and reward: I wished always in my heart to them a most happy success ever rejoicing when in any of his informations, I did perceive the lest step of advancement.

My remark only is upon the malice of the Canterburians, who to their wicked design of re-uniting to Rome, and so overthrowing all the Protestant Churches, do most perversely abuse as all, whatsoever at any time hath fallen from the pen of any Reformed Writer, tending towards mutual peace or moderation, so especially the negotiations which of old or late, hath been in hand for the drawing of us and the Lutherans, into one body: These Treaties whether for a full agreement, or a friendly toleration, are laid by them as the principal ground-stones of their negotiation with Rome, for to them both the persons and doctrine of the Lutherans are more odious than these of the Papists, as you will see it hereafter demonstrate from the Writs of Forbes and Kellet; so that all the countenance they have shown hitherto towards the negotiations of our peace with the Lutherans did not proceed from any true affection, they carried either to the men or to their negotiation in it self: but their aim mainly was to have these Treaties abused as plausible means to advance their own greater design. This for a time, while their mysteries lay veiled, was not well perceived: the most of men did suspect no more in all their seeming favors towards the Lutheran party, then that a kind of Lutheranism had been there uttermost intension, hoping that the motion of their violent minds might have consisted here, without any further progress.

But it was not long, while every common eye did observe their bowle to roll much beyond that 〈◊〉 . They published incontinent a number of the Romish errors, which to the Lutherans were ever esteemed deadly poison, the Popish Faith, the Trident'ne Justification, merit of Works, Works of Sup 〈◊〉 , Doctrinal Traditions, Limbus Patrum, the sacrifice of the Mass, Adoration of Images, Monastic Vows, Abbeys and Nunneries, the authority of the Pope, a re-union with Rome as she stands. Finding it so, we were driven to this conclusion, that as ordinarily the spirit of defection doth not permit any Apostates to rest in any midde term, but carrieth them along to the extremes of some palpable madness, to some strong delusion for the recompense of the first degrees of their fall from the love of the Truth, so also our Faction was carried quite beyond the bounds both of Arminius and Luther, yea of their own so much once beloved Cassander and Split, and all the Lists of that which they were wont to call moderation, to drink of the vilest abominations, and the lowest dregs of the golden Cup of that Romish Whore: For now Canterbury and his followers, are not ashamed to proclaim in print their affection to popery both in gross and retail. Let no man in this cast up to me any slander till he have heard and considered the probation of my allegiance.

Popery is a body of parts, if not innumerable, yet exceeding many. Their is scarce any member great or small in this monster, whereto the faction hath not kythed too passionate a love. But for shortness, I will show first their affection to the whole mass of Popish errors, their respect to the Church of Rome, and to the Pope the head thereof, than in particular to the most principal and abominable parts of that Chaos. As for the whole of that confused lump, that they may win the more easily to the embracement of it, they cast down in the entry the chief wall, they remove the main impediment, whereby Protestants were ever keeped there from. What ever we speak of some very few private men, yet all Protestant Churches without exception made ever the Popes Antichristianism, their chief bulwark to keep all their people from looking back towards that Babylonish Whore. No Church did make greater state of that Fort than the English, and no man in that Church more than King Charles blessed Father. He was not content himself to believe and avow the Pope that great Antichrist, but also with Arguments invincible drawn mainly from some passages of the Revelation, cleared now as light, by the Commentary of the Popes practices, to demonstrate to all Neighbor Princes and States of Christendom in a monitory Treatise this belief, for that express end, that from this truth clearly proved, they might not only see the necessity he had to keep himself and his Subjects for evermore from returning to Rome, but they also by this one argument might be forced to cast off the yoke of the Pope, when they saw him clothed with the garments of Antichrist. It was the the continual song of all the Bishops and Clergy in England, till Doctor Lad got absolute credit wjth the Duke of Buckingham, that the Popes Antichristianism was an engine of such efficacy as was able of it self alone, if well manadged to overthrow the walls of Rome. For this I give but two witnesses, two late English Bishops both of them deponing before all England to King James and he accepting their testimony, Abbots of Salisbury in his dedicatory Epistle to King James before his treatise of Antichrist, and Downame of Derry in the first paragraph of his book dedicated also to K. James upon that same subject. Notwithstanding my Lord of Canterburyi For making the way to Rome more smooth, spareth not to cause raze down to the earth this fort. Montague and White his non-such Divines, as we heard them styled at his Graces direction by his Herald Heylene, will have the Kings unanswerable arguments proponed by him even to sorreine Princes; not only counted-weak but 〈◊〉 frenzies. This word doth feately cite from their Appeale. Christopher Dow is licentiat by Canterbury, to affirm that howsoever our Divines at the beginning of the Reformation in the heat of dispute did upbraid the Pope with antichristianisme, yet now that heat being cooled, the matter to men in their sober blood appears doubtful, his Graces Herald appointed to speak for his Lord by the State, doth correct this simple dow and puts the matter out of all doubt, assuring by good scripturall proof, by a text miserably abused, that the pope is not, was not, and cannot be Antichrist. And that in this matrer there may hereafter betwixe rhe Canterburians and Rome remain no shadow of Controversy, their man Shelfoord, comes home to Bellarmine, well nere in omnibus: making Antichrist one single man; a Jew preaching formal blasphemies against Christ's natures and person three years and an half, killing by his hands Enoch and Elias, and least any footstep of this belief should ever appear in the Church of England; Canterbury confesseth that the place of the public liturgy wherein it was imported, was changed by his own hand.

This scar-crow being set aside, at once the Pope, the Cardinals and all their Religion began to look with a new face. Anent the Pope they tell us first, that the reformers did him pitiful wrong in spoiling him, not only of those things he had usurped, but of many privileges which were his own by due right, and should have been left to him untouched. Again they will have us to believe, that the See of Rome was truly Peters Apostolic Chair, that Peter was truly a Prince among the Apostles, that the Pope is Peters only successor, that within the bounds of his own Patriarchat he is a Prince, he is a Monarch. Thirdly, that order and unity do necessarily require one Bishop to have the inspection and superiority over all Bishops, and that this prerogative by good Ecclesiastical right is due to the Pope. Fourthly, that all the authority which the English Bishops have this day, specially his Grace of Canterbury, is derived to them from the Pope and Peters Chair, That if this derivation could not be clearly demonstrate, the Clergy of England might justly refuse all obedience to their Bishops jurisdiction. Fifthly, that divers of the late Popes have been very good men, yea, among the best of men, that those of them who have been very monsters of men, yet for that veneration which their high and eminent place in the Church of God, doth require all the stiles of Honor in Justice is due to them, even holiness it self in abstracto, that to refuse them this, or their other titles is but brainsick puritanisme.

Sixthly, That the dignity of the Episcopal office specially the Bishop of Rome his eminency was as far above the dignity of the Emperors and Kings, as the soul is above the body, or God above the creature, yea, that the style of GOD was but the Popes due: Seventhly, that Emperors and Kings dld but their duty in giving reverence; yea, adoration unto the Pope with great sums of money by way of tribute: Eighthly, that the temporal Principalities which the Pope enjoyeth this Day in Italy, or elsewhere are buthis just possessions, which none ought to envy him: Ninthly, that the restitution of the Popes ancient authority in England, and yielding unto him all the power that this day he hath in Spain or France, would be many ways advantageous, and in nothing prejudicial to the King: 10 The old constitution of the Emperor, whereby all the western clergy is so far subjected to the Bishop of Rome, that without him they are disabled to make any Ecclesiastical law, and obliged to receive for laws what he doth enjoin, was very reasonable: yea, if the King would be pleased to command all the Church men in his dominions to be that far subject to the Pope, they would be unreasonable to refuse present obedience: Only by all means my Lord of Canterburies prerogative behooved to be secured, his ancient right to the patriarchat of the whole Isle of Britain behooved to be made clear, that to his rod the whole clergy of the Isle might submit their shoulders, as to their spiritual head and Monarch, from whom to Rome there could be no appeal, in any cause which concerned only the Churches of the Kings dominions; for in causes more universal of the whole Catholic Church, willingly they are contented that the Patriarch of Britain and all others should submit to their grand Apostollcke father of Rome. Everyone of these pontifical positions since the midst of Henry the eights reign, would have been counted in England great paradoxes, yet now all of them are avowed by Canterbury himself, in that very book which the last 〈◊〉 at the Kings direction he set 〈◊〉 , for to satisfy the world anent their suspicion of his Popery, or else by D. Montague in his books yet unrepealed, and cleanged of all suspicion of Popery by M. Dow, under the seal of his Graces licensing servant.

This much for the Pope. About the Cardinals they tell us that their office is an high and eminent dignity in the Church of God; for the which their persons are to be handled with great reverence and honor, that their office is a 〈◊〉 due to high graces and 〈◊〉 , that some of them though the greatest enemies that ever the reformed Churches have felt, such as 〈◊〉 that spent all his time in opposing the truth and advancing Antichristianism, and Barromaeus a bloody persecutor of our religion and one of the fathers of Trent, that even such men are so full of grace and piety, that it is a great fault in any Protestant to break so much as a jest on their rid hattes.

Where the head and shoulders are so much affected it is hard to restrain charity from the 〈◊〉 of the body. These good men vent their passion no less towards the body of the present Church of Rome, then towards the Pope and the Cardinails. For first his grace avows over and over again that the Papists and we are of one and the same religion, that to speak otherways, as the Liturgy of England did all King James days, were a matter of very dangerous consequent, and therefore he consesseth his helping that part of the liturgy which puts a note of infamy upon the Popish religion, least that note should fall upon our own religion which with the Popish is but all one. 2. They will have us to understand though we and the Papists differ in some things, yet that this very day there is no schism betwixt Papists and Protestants, that Protestants keep union and communion with the Church of Rome in all things required for the essence of a true Church and necessary for salvation, that though they communicate not with some of her doctrines and practices, yet this mars not the true union and communion of the two Churches both in faith and 〈◊〉 . That these who pass harder censures upon Rome are but zealots in whom too much zeal hath burnt up all wisdom and charity. 3. That the points wherein the two Churches do differ are such as prejudge not the Salvation of either party, that they are not foundamentall, and albeit they were so: yet the truths that the Papists do maintain are of force to hinder all the evil that can come from their errors. 4. That the Popish errors, let be to be fundamental, are of so small importance as they do not prejudge either faith, hope, or charity, let be salvation.

Fistly, That a general repentance for all unknown sins is sufficient to secure the salvation not only of these who have lived and died in the Popish tenets before the Council of Trent, but even to this day not only their people, but their most learned Clergy, Popes, Cardinals, Jesuits, living and dying in their bitter oppositions and persecutions of Protestants, are in no hazard of damnation, though they never come to any particular acknowledgement of their sinful opinions or practices following thereupon. Sixthly, They teach us that Papists may not in reason be styled either idolaters, or heretics, or shismaticks. His grace in that great large folio set our the last year, to declare to the world the farthest that his mind could be drawn for to oppose Popery, is not pleased to my memory, in his most vehement oppositions to lay to then charge any of these three crimes, neither do I remember in all the search my poor lecture hath made, that any of his favorites in their writtes these twelve years bygone hath laid to the charge of Rome in earnest, either idolatry heresy or shisme, but by the contrary hath absolved them clearly in formal terms all those three crimes. Of idolatry because they teach not the giving of 〈◊〉 to any image or any creature, Of heresy, because their errors taketh no part of the foundation away, but are only excesses and additions consisting with all 〈◊〉 truth. Of shisme, because they go on in the practice of their forbears without introducing any late novations. 7. They declare it were very good we had present peace with Rome as she stands, her errors being but in opinions which charity ought to tolerate, that the Church of England would gladly embrace this peace, that Cassander and the like who further this reconciliation are the men of the world most worthy of praise, that the Jesuits and Calvinists both puritans who hinder this peace are the most flagitious and intolerable persons of this age. All this and much more of such stuff you may see printed not only with allowance but with applause by the chief of that faction his Grace himself, Montagow the first of the three nonesuches, Pottar in that his much beloved piece put out as he saith at the command of authority. Shelfoord in his pious sermons printed by the university of Cambridge Press at the direction of the Vice-chancellor, D. Beel dedicated to the Lord Keeper of England, adorned with many triumphing Epigrammes both Latin and English by a number of the Fellows, and although called in, yet no censure to this day for all the eomplaints against it, to our hearing hath been put either on the Author or Printer, or Licencer, or Adorners or any Doctrine contained therein, but the worst that Burton could pick out of it, is all defended by Dow and Heylen, at his Graces special direction, and subscribed license, as we shall hear anon.

I hope now that all true Protestants pondering the passages I have brought, besides many moe, wherewith themselves from their own readings are acquainted, will not only absolve my alledgeances of rashness and slander, but also wonder at the incredible boldness of those men, who in these times wherein the Prince and State are by so many and deep tyes obliged, and according to their obligations hath so oft declared themselves passionately zealous for the maintenance of Protestant orthodoxie, that yet they should be so peart as to print in the royal city, and that after the long and great grumblings of the people and formal challenges of divers of the learned to reprint their clear affection to the Pope and Cardinals, and the whole Romish religion, albeit truly this their ventorious boldness seems not more marvelous then their ingenuity commendable: For they have said nothing for the Pope, or Rome, but that which conscience would pouse any man upon all hazards to avow, who was so persuaded in the particular heeds of controversies betwixt Papists and Protestants, as they confess themselves to be; to the end therefore that we may see the former strange enough passages not to have dropped from their pens by any inadvertance, but upon plain design and deliberate purpose, we will set down in the next room the affection they profess to the special heads of Popery, very consonant to that which they have already said of that which we count the whole lump and universal mass 〈◊〉 Antichristianism. The special heads of Popery are moe then I have leisure to relate, or you can have patience to hear enumerate. Take notice therefore but of some prime articles which Protestants use most to detest in Papists, four by name; their idolatries, their heresies, their superstitions, their abomination of desolation the mass. If from their own mouths I make clear that in these four they join with Rome against us, it is like none hereafter shall wonder of anything that yet they have done or said for the advancement of the popish party, and the subverting of the Protestant Churches either at home, or over sea, but rather embrace their sobriety and moderation, who being minded, as they profess, do not break out in many moe both words and deeds, for the destroying of the Protestant schism, and bringing all back to the Catholic Apostolic mother Church of Rome, and unto the feet of his Holiness the vicar of Christ, the successor of Peter, under whose obedience our holy and blessed antecestors did live and die.

CHAP. IIII. The Canterburians join with Rome in her grossest idolatries.

THE acts of Rome's Idolarry be many and various: None more open to the eye of beholders then these five, their adorations of altars, images, relicts, sacramental bread, and Saints departed: For the first, their worshipping of the stock or stone of the altar; if we would impute it unto the Canterburians, they will deny it alluterly, and avow, that they may well worship God before the altar, but to worship the altar it self, to give to it that worship which is done before it, to give to it any religious worship any 〈◊〉 , any 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 any 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 any adoration, they dodetest it, as palpable idolatry. So his Grace, so Pocklingtoune, so Heylene, so Lawrence, so 〈◊〉 do oft profess: But that you may see how little faith those men's prorestations do deserve, and that all may know either their desperate equivocating, or else their spirit of giddiness, which makes them say and unsay the same things in the same pages; consider all of the five named authors, for all their denial, printing with approbation and applause as much worshipping and adoration even of the altar, as any Papists this day living will require.

Begin with his Grace, you shall find him in his Star-chamber speech, for all his denial, yet avowing within the bounds of two pages, once, twice, thrice, the giving of worship to the altar, and that such worship, which is grounded upon that place of Scripture, Venite 〈◊〉 , which we suppose none will deny to be divine adoration: But we must understand, that the King, and the Church of England here, as in all things must bear the blame of his graces faults, that the King and his most noble Knights of the Garter must be patrons to this practice, and the English Liturgy the enjoiner of it: But his Grace and those that have the government of the Church must be praised for their moderation, in not urging this practice upon all their brethren. D. Pocklingtoune with his Graces license, 〈◊〉 the bending of the body and the prostration even to it. 〈◊〉 comes up at last to his Masters back, and tells us that the adoration before the altar, is the honor of the altar it self, and that falling down and kissing of the altar; for the honoring of the altar was a very commendable practice. Laurence as he prints with Canterburies license, but undoubtedly by an impudent lie, at the Kings special commandment, doth maintain not only veneration, but religious worshipping adoration, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , and all, not only by a relative and transient worship as he speaks, but also, which is a degree of madness, beyond anything that ever I have marked in any 〈◊〉 , he will have a Divine adoration given to the altar it self without any relation, or mental abstraction; because of the union of Christ's body with it, which sits there as in a chair of Estate even as without scruple or relations, or mental abstractions we give to the human nature of Christ, for that personal union of the Godhead with it, Divine adoration whereof in it self it is not capable.

For the adoration of the communion elements, which Protestants count an Idolatry so horrible, that for it alone they would not fail to separate from the Church of Rome, though she had no other fault, their mind is plain by the practice which his Grace maketh 〈◊〉 in his State answer to defend, we do pass their adoration in the act of communicating, 〈◊〉 we think it strange to see men who once were counted moderate and wise, by the touch of his Graces panton, to become so insolent, as to hiss and hout at the doctrine and practice of the best reformed Churches, as vile and monstrous, who in the act of receiving hath thought meet to sit or stand, rather than to kneel. We speak only of these their new adorations, which against the constant practice of the English Church they are now begun to use, without the act of receiving a number of low cringes towards these elements, when they take the paten in their hand, a low inclinabo before the bread, when they set it down, another; when they take up the chalice, a third; when they setit down a fourth. That these avowed adorations before the elements, without the act of receiving, are directed by them, not only as they say to the person of Christ, whom they make there essentially present, but also unto the elements themselves; we prove it by no other reason but their former confession. Their adoration before the altar is done as they confess unto the altar, much more their adoration before the elements, without the act of receiving must be unto the elements: For I hope they will be loath to affirm, that there is in the altar any worthiness or aptitude, or any other cause imaginable, which can make it capable of adoration, but the same causes are in the elements in a far higher degree: The relation to Christ's Body and Person, which they make the only foundation of those worships being much more true, more near, more clear in the elements, then in the altar, howsoever the Popish prostrations, and adorations, before the hostie, which to all Protestants are so abominable idolatries, are absolved by these men; not only by the clearing of Papists of all idolatry everywhere, but particularly by their impatience, to have the adoration of the elements to be called Popish. For in our book of Canons when in the copy sent up to the King, the adoration of the bread, Chap. 6. was styled by our Bishops the Popish adoration, my Lord of Canterbury on the margin with his own hand directeth to scrape out the word Popish, as we can show in the authentic manuscript of that book now in our hands.

Concerning images, behold their assertions, first they tell us that the pullers down of images, out of their Churches, were but lowns and knaves, pretending 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 only religion to their profane covetousness, that they were truly iconoclasticke and iconomachian heretics. 2. That those who do pull down or break, or offereth any indignity to a cross, to a crucifix, to a Saints image, are but madfooles, that those injures reflect upon Christ and the Saints; and are revenged sundry times with plagues from heaven. 3. That the Church of England, (they take that Church commonly by a huge mistake, for their own prevalent faction therein) doth not only keep innumerable images of Christ, and the Saints in the most eminent and conspicuous places of their Sanctuaries, but also daily erect a number of new long and large ones, very curiously dressed, and that herein they have reason to rejoice and glory, above all other reformed Churches. 4. That these their manifold images they use not only for ornament, but also to be books to the Laics, both for their instruction and kindling of their affections to piety, zeal, charity, imitation of the Saints; 5. That towards the Images of Christ and the Saints, the hearts of the Godly ought to be affected with a pious devotion, with a religious reverence, and that this reverence may very lawfully be expressed, with an outward religious adoration; yea, prostration before the Image, as well as before the altar, with the eyes of the adorer fixed upon the Image; 6. That the Popish distinction of duleia and latreia is good, and well grounded, that the only abuse of Images is the worshipping of them with latreia; that the Papists are free of this fault, that all their practice here is but iconoduly, not idolatry, that all our controversy with them about the worshipping of relicts, and so much more of images, (for to images, they profess a far less respect then to relics) is but the toying of children, the striving about shadows, that long ago both sides, are really agreed, though some for their own pride and greed delight to keep this contraversie about ambiguous words still upon foot.

Concerning relics they teach first that the 〈◊〉 of them about in clothes by devout people is tolerable. Next that those bones or that dust of the deceased Saints ought justly to be put in a casse of silk or of gold that they may be well hung about our neck and oft kissed, that they may be laid up amongst our most precious jewels. 3. That in those relics there is 〈◊〉 found so much grace, holiness, virtue, that all who touches them are sanctified by that touch. 4. That to these relicts a great honor yea a relative worship is due albeit not a latria or divine adoration. Fifthly, That pilgramages to the places where those relicts stand are very expedient, that Protestants do reprove only these pilgramages towards the Churches of the Saints which are made for greed or superstition, that Papists do disallow all such as well as we 6. That all the controversy which here remains betwixt Papists and Protestants is about just nothing even about goats wool and the shadow of an Ass.

About the invocation of Saints whereof the learned of the Papists are so ashamed that they disavow their own practice thereof yet our men tell us first that the Saints in heaven are truly our mediators with God of intercession, as Christ is of redemption. Again, that we ought carefully to keep the Saints festivals, to this end, that we may be partakers of their intercession. 3. That albeit for common their intercession be universal, yet that sundry times they descend to particulars: They remember the estates of their friends and acquaintance as they left at it their death, they 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 are informed of many new particulars by the Angels which hath been upon earth, and by the Saints which after their death hath newly come to the heaven, and that according to their particular informations they frame their intercession.

4. If we were certain that the Saints in heaven knew our estate it were no fault at all but very expedient to make our prayers to them that they might intercede with Christ for us. And though we be not certain of their knowledge, yet all the fault that is in our prayers to them is only some idleness and curiosity but no impiety at all. 5. That none ought to reprove our prayers unto our Angel keeper.

The Saint in heaven which the Papists do most idolize is our blessed Virgin to whom it is well known they give much more false worship, then true to the whole Trinity, concerning her the Canterburians affirm first, that she is created in another way then any of the race of Adam, that God did meditate fifty ages upon the work of her perfect creation, that she did live all her days without mortal sin yea without all actual sin, yea without all original. That she is now advanced above all the Angels to the highest created perfection that is possible to be daughter, mother, and spouse of God, and that her very body is already translated to the heavens. 3. That God hath made her to be true Lady and Empresse of the Catholic Church, of all the earth, and of the heaven, and that all these honors she hath obtained by her due deservings and merits. 4. That all the Angels and Saints in Heaven, let be men upon earth are obliged to adore her, and bow their souls unto her. 5. That she knoweth all things perfectly here beneath upon the earth: For in the face of God in the glass of the Trinity she doth behold all creatures. 6. That it is but profane puritans who refuse to say the Ave Mary's and to follow the example of their pious predecessors who wont so to pray. 7. That the devotions of the present Monks, Nuns, and Princes, who have enrolled their names in the sodality of the Virgin Mary is worthy of imitation. 8. That the old pious ceremony of burning of wax candles in all the Churches of England through the whole clear day of her purification ought to be renewed. 9. That the Christians obtained that famous victory over the Turks in Lepanto by her intercession at their prayers with Christ her son. All this his Grace hath permitted under his eye to be printed at London without any censure, and when this doctrine was challenged by Burton, he was rewarded with the loss of his ears and perpetual prison. The book which he inveighed against let be to be recalled, is openly excused in Print at his Graces direction as containing no evil but only innocent retorications. Yea M. Dow with his Graces license pronounceth that book to be free of all Popery, and that upon this reason, because the author professeth his tracing the steps of Doctor Montague whom all England must know to be above all suspicion of Popery.

CHAP. V. The Canterburians avow their embracing of the Popish heresies and grossest errors.

THE nature of heresy is so subtilized by our faction, that so far as in them lies, it is now quite evanished in the air, and no more heresies are to be found on the earth. With the Socinian Remonstrants, they exeeme all 〈◊〉 controverted this day among any Christians, from being the Subject of heresy: For they tell us, that the belief of the doctrines uncontroverted by all is sufficient for salvation. And howsoever some of them will be content to count the Socinian Arianism and Macedonianisme to be true heresies; yet, as we show before, and all of them do clearethe Popish errors of this imputation. Always not to strive for words, our assertion is, that the grossest of the Roman errors which in the common style of Protestants, wont to go for heresies, are maintained by the Canterburians for Catholic truths. For to 〈◊〉 this, cast over the books of Bellarmine, and see if his grossest tenets be not by them embraced. In his first tome, his errors about the Scriptures imperfection, and doctrinal traditions, seems to be most weighty. In his second, besides these already named, his defense of the monastick vows of Limbus Patrum and Purgatory are very palpable. In the third, his ascribing too little to the Sacraments of the Old Testament, and too much to the Sacraments of the new, his making all infants in baptism to be regenerate, and all nonbaptised to be damned, his corporal presence of Christ's body on the altar, his sacrifice of the Mass, auricular confession, extreme unction, are very gross corruptions. In the last tome, his errors about faith, justification, merit, free-will, are among the chief. In all those, consider how far our party is long ago declined to the left hand.

Begin with Scripture and traditions: The reformed Churches in the harmony of their confessions lay all down one common ground, for their mutual consent; the Scripures absolute perfection, without the help of any doctrinal tradition: Hogh me once this pillar, the whole edifice of the reformation must fall. To batter down this fort, the Papists plant two Engines: One that there is divers Apostolic and ancient traditions, both ritual and dogmatical, which beside Scripture with a divine faith must be firmly believed: An other, that Scripture must not be taken in any sense by us, but 〈◊〉 wherein the ancient Fathers of the Church have understood it, or the present Church do take it. In both these very dangerous corruptions our party joines with Rome: They glory and triumph above all other reformed Churches, that they do embrace doctrinal traditions, for which in Scripture there is no ground; And of this kind they reckon out some of great importance; such as are, the baptism of infants, the sanctifying of the Sabbath, the Apostles Creed, the giving of the cup to the people, praying in a known tongue, our knowledge of Scripture to be Scripture, the names and number of the Canonical books and their distinction from Apocrypha, of this kind they maintain large as many as Rome. For at the first word they speak to us of six hundredth. Among these traditions, which we must embrace with an undoubted faith: They reckon up the authority of Bishops above Priests, prostration before the altars, worshipping towards the East, cross in Baptism, crossing of our faces at all occasions, the standing of a crucifix upon the altar, and what else they please to urge, for which they can get no Scripture warrant. To this head they refer the very customs of the Popish Church in latter times, for which they have no syllable in any writer let be in any Father: Yea, all the injunctions of the Bishops must be Ecclesiastic traditions, whereto the conscience must submit no less then to the precepts of God. In the mean time Scripture must be styled the book of heretics, a Lesbian 〈◊〉 In no controversies no not in Sermons any use may be made of it, except so far as we can back our deductions from Scripture, by consent of the ancient Fathers, or present Church.

In our most important controversies anent faith, justification, fulfilling of the Law, merit, &c. they teach first, that faith is no more but a bare knowledge, and naked assent, that in the nature of it there is no confidence, no application at all, that the souls confidence and application of God's promises, are the acts only of hope and charity, that justifying faith is the Catholic faith, a general assent to the articles of the Apostolic Creed, that particular personal applying faith, is but presumption and fantasie. Again, they teach that justification is ascribed by the Apostle to faith only, by way of beginning inchoative, because assent to the truth of God, is that first virtue which the chain of all other virtues, whereby we are completely justified, for common, doth follow. 3. That Charity is the form of Faith, and that to it, the act of Justification is much more reasonably ascribed then to faith. 4. That Saint Paul's justification whereby we stand before the bar of God is naught, but our conversion and sanctification by our inherent righteousness. 5. That the fulfilling of God's Law to us in this life is both possible and easy, that if God did command us anything which were impossible, he should be both unjust and a tyrant.

6. That not only manyidoelfulfill the Law without all mortal sin, but sundry also do supererogat by doing more then is commanded, by performing the counsels of perfection, of chastity, poverty, and obedience: 7. That our good works do truly deserve and merit eternal life: 8. That our obeying the counsels of perfection do purchase a degree of glory above the ordinary happiness, All this lately is printed by the faction, neither that only, but (which to us seemeth marvelous) when great popular grumblings and sundry public challenges hath been made against the authors of such writs. These whom Canterbury hath employed to apologise for the worlds full satisfaction, hath not yet been pleased to disavow any of those writers, nor to express the least sign of their indignation against any of their abominations, but rather by sweetening all with excuses seem to vent their desire to have all swallowed down.

In the doctrine of the Sacraments, from Bellarmins third tomb, they tell us first, that the sacraments of the old testamenr differ from the new, that the one confers grace, the other foresignes grace to be conferred, that the same distinction must be holden betwixt John's and Christ's baptimse. 2. They tell us that all baptized infants as well reprobate as elect are in baptism truly regenerate, sanctified, justified, and put in that state wherein if those who are reprobate and thereafter damned should die, they would be infallibly saved. And on the ot her hand they avow that all those who die in their infancy without baptism, by whatsoever miss, by whosoevers fault, are certainly damned so far as men can judge: For baptism is the only ordnary mean which God hath appointed for their salvation, which failing, salvation must be lost, except we would dream of extraordinary miracles of the which we have no warrant. 3. That the manifold ceremonies of Papists in baptism and all other sacraments are either to be embraced as pious ancient rites, or no to be stood upon as being only ceremonial toys. For their tenets in the sacrament of the supper, we shall speak anon of them in the head of the mass. 4. They tell us that our dispute about the five bastard sacraments is a plain logomachy. 5. They tell us that not only infants after their baptism but even men baptized in perfect age who before baptism gave a sufficient count of their faith, yet they may not be esteemed full Christians while they have received confirmation by the imposition of hands, and that alone by a Bishop. About the orders, they tell us that they agree with Papists in their number, that the reason why they want their Acolits, sub-deacons and the rest, is but their Churches poverty: Which can scarce well maintain the two orders of Priests and Deacons. But which in their questions is worst of all, they side here with the Papists in giving to all the Protestant Churches a wound which our enemies proclaim to be mortal, fatal, incurable. They tie the conferring of ordours by a full divine right to the office of Bishops, they avow that the lawful use of all ordination and outward ecclesiastic jurisdiction is by God put in the hands of their persons alone. Other reformed Kirks therefore wanting Bishops, their Ministers must preach, celebrate the Sacraments, administer discipline not only without a lawful warrand, but also against the ordinance of God. When they are put in mind of this great wound given by them to all other reformed Churches, they either strive to cover it with the fig tree leaves of an imagined case of necessity which never was, or else plainly to pass over it as immedicable. No marvel if the Bishops of England refuse to admit without a new ordination, these who has been ordained in Holland or France, and they make no scruple to admit without new orders, these who has been ordained at Rome. 6. In Matrimony they will keep not only the Popish Sacramental words and signs, the Popish times of Lent and other dismal days, except the Bishops give their dispensation, but also they will have the whole matrimonial causes ruled by the Popes 〈◊〉 , yea, which is more, they avow that the Cannon-law by Acts of Parliament yet unrepealled stands in vigor amongst them.

Except in some few things which are directly opposit to some late laws of the land and that Cannon-law they will have extendit as far down as the very Council of Basil. And as far up as the constitutions of the first Popes. Which divers of the Papists themselves acknowledge to be supposititious, yet our men will defend them all, and with them the Canons of the Apostles, the constitutions of Clemence and all such trash.

In the sacrament of penance they 〈◊〉 first, that auricular confession was evil abolished, and is very expedient to be restored. 2. That God hath given a judicial power of absolution to every Priest, which everyone of the people is obliged to make use of, especially before the communion by confessing to the Priest all their sins without the concilement of any. 3. That God in the Heaven will certainly follow the sentence of the Priest absolving on earth. g 4. Beside a private confessor, it were very expedient to have in every congregation a public penitentiarie, who in the beginning of Lent on ashe-wednesday might in the Kirk sit in his reclinatory, and sprinkling dust on the head of every parishioner, enjoin them their Lent-penance, whereby they may truly satisfy God's judgment for their sins, and in the end of lent or Shrif-thursday before Pasche give his absolution to those who have fully satisfied. Extreame unction, if reports may be trusted, is already in practice among them, but howsoever, they avow in Print their satisfaction with the Papists in this point, if so be the ceremony be no made absolutely necessary.

Anent the Monastic life, consider how far our men are from Popery, they tell us first, that the putting down of the Monasteries in England by Henry the eight, let be by other Protestant Princes else-where, was a work exceeding impious, and very prejudicial both to the Church and Crown: 2. That the Monks for the pattern of their orders have the Prophets and the Apostles, and specially John the Baptist: 3. That their habits to their very tree-shoone hath Scripture warrant: 4. That the Virgin Mary was truly a Nun, and that the Nuns this day are much to be commended for the following of her pattern: 5. That the present Carthusians, Franciscans, and the rest of the Fraternities are very good and holy people, worthy in their very orders of Monastic life of our imitation: 6. That their barefooted processions through the streets, that their Canonical hours of devotion, at midnight in their Cloisters, that in great festival Eves, their going at Midnight, with confluence of people to Town-churches is all commendable service.

In the head of Purgatory and prayer for the dead, thus far long ago are they proceeded, first, they avow openly Limbus Patrum, telling us, that the Saints before Christ were not only not in heaven, but truly in an infernal place, even in a lake, where in one nooke the godly were in peace, and the wicked in torments, that Abraham's bosom was here, between which and hell a certain gulf made but a tolerable distance, that Jacob, Samuel, and David, and other of the ancients were mourned for at their death, because their souls went not to heaven, but truly to a kind of hell: their mind in these things, as their custom is, they propone in the words of some Father, that by the shelter of their authority they may keep off their own head the indignation of the people: Again they tell us that Christ before he opened heavens gate to any soul, he went first down, and loosed the souls in prison: yea, if ye believe M. Maxwell (who hath written much for the drawing of our Church the factions way) he went down to the lowest hells, and delivered thence a number of Pagans such as Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and a world of mo: . Our main pillars against purgatory they hew down with the popish axes: when we reason that Scripture makes no mention of any third place betwixt Hell and Heaven; they reply, that there are many things whereof Scripture makes no mention. When we reason that Scripture makes mention expressly of two places for souls after death, they use the popish distinction, that after the resurrection there is but two eternal places, but that before the resurrection there may be three temporal: 4. When papists urge upon us prayer for the dead, they will not contradict them; yea, they commend oblations in the Lord's Supper, and prayers there for the dead in particular.

CHAP. 6. Anent their Superstitions.

IN the Church of Rome, the Canterburians use to profess corruptions of two kinds, errors and superstitions; as for heresies or Idolatries, they are loath that any such crimes should be laid to the charge of their mother church, how many, and how grievous errors they find Rome guilty of, they had need to declare; for in the most of those wherein the protestants place the chief of the Romish errors, you have heard them plainly take their part, readily it will prove no otherwise when we come down to try them in the particular heads, wherein papists are reputed most superstitious.

The superstitions which in papists are most remarked in their private carriage are these four: In their frequent saining of themselves with the sign of the cross: In wearing about their neck a crucifix or some such toy of an image or relique: In saying their prayers on their beads: In abstaining from flesh on friday, wednesday, lent, or some great festivals Eave; Our men are far from disproving of any of these practices. For the first, they avow that saining with the sign of the cross at rising or lying down, at going out or coming in, at lighting of candles, closing of windows, or any such action is not only a pious and profitable ceremony, but a very Apostolic tradition. 2. They avow expressly the carrying of these holy trincats about their neck, in cases of silver or gold. 3. The saying of their prayers; yea, their Ave Mary's upon their beeds is to them an holy 〈◊〉 worthy of praise and imitation. 4. Wednesday, Friday, and Lent-fasts, are to them not only laudable practices of the ancient Church, but also traditions come from Christ and the Apostles, which for Religions cause all are obliged to embrace.

The popish public superstitions are very many, but of these which that whole Church doth allow, very few comes to my mind which stand much against the stomach of our men: Those that come first to my thoughts are all pleasantly digested; Protestants wont to deride the popish conceats of their holy ground, of their consecrate walls, and the sanctuary of their Chancels, their turnings towards the East, their manifold toys in Baptism, and the Lord's supper joined with the sacramental Elements, their gesticulations in time of public service, their hallowing above the Sabbath a multitude of Festivals, their pilgrimages, their processions, and many such their practices. In this behold the mind of our men, they tell us first that Kirkyards by prayers, and conspersion of holy water must be made holy ground; that before these episcopal consecrations, no Christian burial may be made therein, but after that the Bishop hath used the pontifical ceremonies thereupon, no Heretic, no Schismatic, no Excommunicate person may be brought there, no worldly, no common action there performed without the profanation of the holy place. Again they show us that the church by the bishops anointing some stones thereof with oil and sprinkling others with water, and using from the Roman pontifical some mo prayers, some mo ceremonies upon it, becomes a ground more holy: That before these consecrations though the people of God for many years have met into a Church for divine service, yet it is no more holy than a 〈◊〉 , a 〈◊〉 , a tolbooth; but after these consecrations there is such holiness in the walls, that even when there is no divine service, men at their coming in, and going out must adore and all the time of their presence stand discovered, and never so much as sit down were the service never so long, except upon great infirmity. 3. That the Chancel and the Altar must not only be dedicate with prayers and unctious, but with lighted Candles, burning Incense, and many other such toys; that it must be divided from the Church with veils to keep not only the bodies, but the eyes of the Laics from beholding the ark and throne wherein the body of the Son of God doth sit, as in a chair of state, that none but Priests must enter there, & that with their triple low adorations at their approaching: That it is a favor for the King or the Emperor to win near that place for the short time of his offering. 4. That none of the ceremonies of the popish baptism, neither their salt, their spitle, nor exsufflation are superstitious. 5. That a number 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 〈1 page duplicate〉 of the Mass toys, which yet are not in practice in England, yea all the guises of the Mass, which can be proven to be ancient are all to be embraced. 6. That whoever in the public prayers hath their face toward the North, South, and West, must be publicly called upon to turn themselves ever towards the East. 7. That in the Church not only in the time of prayer, but at the reading of the ten commands, all must fall on their knees, but when the creed is read all must stand upright on their feet, when the epistle cometh, all may sit down, but when the gospel beginneth, all must again arise, during the time of sermon all must stand discovered. That to these and all such pious practices we are obliged by the sole example of the bishops or some sew of them, even before the inacting of any Law, either of church or state. 8. That the conscience is obliged not only to keep religiously the greater festivities of Yule, pasch, pentecost, and the rest which are immediately referred to the honor of the Trinity, but also a number of the festivals of the blessed Virgin, of the Saints and Angels: Those must not be polluted with any work or secular affaire, as we desire to be helped by these glorified persons intercession. Yet Christ's Sunday must be no Sabbath; bowling, balling, and other such games may well consist with all the holiness it hath; yea, no law of God, no ancient Canon of the Church doth discharge shearing of Corn, taking of fish, or much other husband labor upon that day; but by the contrary acts both of church & State do warrand such labor; yea, there is so great Jewish superstition in the Land about Christ's Sunday, that all preachers must be obliged in their very pulpits to proclaim the new book of sports, for encouragement of the people to their gamings, when the short hour of divine service is ended, and that under no less pain than ejection from the Ministry. 9. Pilgrimages to Saints Relics, and bare-footed processions to their Churches are preached and printed. Those Throats which are so wide as to swallow down all these it seems they will not make great bones in all the other trash which in the Romish Church we challenge as superstitious.

CHAP. VII. The Canterburians embrace the Mass it self.

OF all the pieces of popery, there is none so much beloved by papists, nor so much hated by Protestants, as the Mass, since the reformation of Religion, the Mass hath ever been counted the great wall of division, keeping the parties asunder, whoever could free that ditch, whose stomach could digest that morsel, no man of either side was wont to make any doubt of his name, but that with consent of all, he might pass for a true papist; and no ways in any reason stand for a moment longer in the catalogue of protestants: If then I be able to demonstrate the Canterburians mind to be for the Mass, I hope no man of any understanding and equity will require of me any further proof of their popery, but with good leave of all I may end my task, having set upon the head thereof this cape-stone.

In the mouth of both sides reformed and Romish, preaching, and the Mass go for real opposites, the affection of Papists to their Mass maketh them value our preaching at the lesser rate; the affection of Protestants to preaching, maketh the Mass to them the less lovely: Our faction to make room for the Mass so far as they dare, so fast as they can, are crying down preaching. They tell us first, that much of the preaching which now is at London, and over England is not the word of God, but of the Devil, because indeed the best and most zealous preachers in their sermons do oft tax Arminianism and Popery, and the ways whereby his Grace is in use to advance both: This to him and his followers is doctrinal Puritanism, much worse than disciplinarie; yea, it is sedition taught by the Devil: 2. They tell us, that the most of preachers, though void of the former fault, are so ignorant, idle, impertinent, clamorous fellows, that their silence were much more to be wisht than their speech. Because indeed grave and gracious Ministers are not either able or willing to stuff their Sermons with secular learning, and employ extraordinary pains for to gather together a Mass of tinkling words, as Andrew's was, and his admirers are wont to do, for to spoil preaching of that life, spirit, and power, which ought to shine into it. 3. That the preaching which themselves approve and praise, is but sermonizing in pulpits, no necessary part of the Ministerial charge, but a practice to be used of some few of singular learning & eloquence, and that only at rare and extraordinary times, as the Bishop, or the Star-chamber Court shall be pleased to give license. 4. That the only ordinary, profitable, and necessary preaching which God hath appointed, and the Church laid upon the back of Pastors, as their charge for which their tithes and stipends is due to them, is nothing but the distinct and clear reading of the Service Book. As for sermonizing in pulpits, when so it is permitted, it ought to be very short, and after the popish form, without any prayer at all, either before or after: That the custom of English preachers, who before Sermon pray for the help of the Spirit of God to themselves and their hearers, or after Sermon crave grace to practice what hath been spoken is all but idle; yea, intolerable novations to be abolished: Neither this only, but that the most able Pastors are not to be suffered so much as in their private studies to recommend their souls to God in their own words, but in their very private prayers, are to be tied precisely to the words of the Service Book. 5. That the sermonizing which themselves permit, must be in the greatest Towns in the most solemn times but once a day, that the practice of hearing two Sermons in one day is to be corrected, that one in a month is abundant, and all the English Canons do require.

6. That over all England, Lecturers whose Sermons wont to be the far best, must be presently silenced, as those whose calling the Canons Ecclesiastical of England cannot permit. In a word, that Sermons are the great occasion of the division and heart-burnings, which now trouble the Church and State, of the presumption and pride, and most sins among the people: That therefore it were very good to return to the old fashion in the days of popery, before the 19. year of Henry the eighth, where there was none, or but few preachings, that this is the only means to reduce the land to that old honest simplicity, equity, piety, and happiness, which was in our Antecessors days; even to that old blindness, wherein of necessity, we must give our soul to be led by the light of Sir John the Priest, our Father Confessor, for all this behold on the margin their express declaration.

Preaching being thus far cried down, there will be the less ado to get up the Mass: For the word of the Mass is so lovely to them, that they are delighted to style their Service Book by that name. And least we should think that it is but with the word of the Mass, that they are reconciled, they show us next, that they find no fault with the very matter of the Mass, if you will give unto it a charitable, and benign interpretation. Neither here do they stand, but go on to tell us, yet more of their mind, that if transubstantiation only were removed from the Mass, they would make no question, for anything it hath beside. And this, but most falsely, they give out for King James judgment. Yea, they go on further to embrace transubstantiation it self, so far as concerns the word: And how much the matter of it displeaseth them we shall hear anon.

But to show their mind more clearly towards the Mass, consider the Scottish Liturgy; This unhappy book was his Graces invention: If he should deny it, his own deeds would convince him. The manifold letters which in this pestiferous affaire have passed betwixt him and our Prelates are yet extant. If we might be heard, we would spread out sundry of them before the Convocation house of England, making it clear as the light, that in all this design his hand hath ever been the prime stikler; so that upon his back mainly, nill he will he, would be laid the charge of all the fruits good or evil which from that tree, are like to fall on the Kings Countries. But of this in time and place; only now we desire to be considered, that to this hour, his Grace hath not permitted any of his party to speak one cross word against that book, but by the contrary lets many ofthem commend it in word and writ for the most rare and singular piece, that these many ages hath been seen in any Church, for all gracious qualities that can be found in any human writ. Hear how the personate Jesuit 〈◊〉 Nicanor, that is, as we conjecture by too probable signs his Graces creature, Lesly of Dun, and Conner extolls that Book above the skies: And yet we did undertake to show into it the main, yea all the substantial parts of the Mass, and this undertaking to the satisfaction of our Nation was performed in our general Assembly; but to those men the judgments of national Churches are but vile and contemptible testimonies. I have seen a parallel written by a preacher among us, comparing all and every particular portion of the Mass, as they are cleared by Innocent, Durand, Walfrid, Berno, and the rest of the old Liturgick Rationalists, with the parts of our Liturgy, as they may be cleared by the late writs of the Canterburians, which ends not, till all the parts great and small of the Mass be demonstrate in our Book either formally, in so many words, as the most considerable are, and that in the very 〈◊〉 (If you will join to our book the Canterburian commentars) or virtually a necessity being laid uponus, upon the same grounds which persuades to embrace what in those books is formally expressed, to embrace also what of the Mass is omitted, 〈◊〉 it shall be their pleasure in a new edition to add it. This parallel is ready for the public when ever it shall be called for.

For the present, because those men make our gracious Sovereign believe, and declare also to the world in print, that what we challenge in that book, doeth strike alike against the Liturgy of England, as if the Scots Liturgy were altogether one with the English, and the few small variations, which possibly may be found in the Scottish, were not only to the better, but made for this very end, that this new book might better comply with the Scots humor, which now almost by birth or at least by long education is become naturally antipathetick to the Mass, to make this their impudent fraud so palpable that hereafter they may blush (if it be possible for such foreheads to blush at anything) ever again before our King to make any such allegiance passing all the rest of that book for shortness, we shall consider some few lines in some three or four leafes of it at most, wherein the world may see their malapart changing of the English liturgy in twenty particulars and above, everyone whereof draws us beyond all that ever was allowed in England, and diverse of them lead to those parts of the Mass which all protestants this day count most wicked. If this be made clear, I hope that all equitable men will be the more willing to free our opposition thereto, of all imputations, and specially of all intentions to meddle with anything that concerns the English Church, except so far as is necessary for our present defense, and future peace, and makes clearly for their good also. For albeit we are confident the world would have excused us to have opposed with all vehemency the imposition upon us (a Church and Kingdom as free and independent upon any other nation as is to be found this day in Christendom) without our consent, or so much as our advice, the heavy burden of four foreign books, of liturgy, canons, ordination, homilies: ofa number ofstrange judicatories; high commission, episcopal visitations, official courts, and the like, though they had been urged in no other words, in no other sense then of old they wont to be used in England: For it is well known that those things have been the sole ground and only occasion of the 〈◊〉 schisms, and heavy troubles wherewith almost ever since the reformation, that gracious church hath been miserably vexed. But now all those things being laid upon us in a far worse sense as they are declared by the Canterburian imposers in their own writs, yea in far worse words, as all who will take the pains to compare, may see: we trust that our immovable resolution to oppose even unto death all such violent novations shall be taken, by no good man, in evil part, let be, to be thrown, far against our intentions, to the disgrace of our neighbor church, or any well minded person therein. We have with the English church naught to do, but as with our most dear and nearest sister, we wish them all happiness; and that not only they, but all other Christian Churches this day were both almost, and altogether such as we are, except our afflictions. We have no enemies there but the Canterburian faction, no less heavy to her than to us. What we have said against the Scots liturgy may well reflect upon them, and so far as we intend, upon them alone, and that for three of their crimes chiefly. First their forcing upon us, with whom they had naught to do, so many novations, even all that is England at one draught, and that by mere violence. 2. Their mutation of the most of those things to a plain popish sense, which in the best sense that ever was put upon them, did occasion always to England much trouble. 3. Their mutation of the English books not only to popish senses, but even to popish words, and that in a number of the most important passages of the Mass. This last here we will show, holding us within the bounds of our few forenamed leafes, by which, conjecture may be made of the rest.

Of all the limbs of the Mass, the most substantious for many evil qualities are those three, which lie contiguous together, the Offertorie, the Canon, the Communion: The English at the reformation, howsoever for reasons of their own, thought meet to retain more of the Mass words than our church could ever be induced to follow, yet in those three portions of the Mass they were very careful to cast out what they knew protestants did much abhor in the church of Rome. But at this time the Canterburians having gotten the refraiming of the Liturgy in their hands, for to manifest their affection openly to Rome do put in expressly that, which the English reformers put out, as wicked scandals. That this may be seen, consider severally the three named portions.

The popish Offertorie in it self is a foul practice, even a renovation in the Christian church of a Jewish Sacrifice, as Durand confesseth. But as it stands in the Mass, it hath yet a worse use, to be a preparatory peace offering making way for that holy propitiatory, which in the Canon follows. It is pretended to be a sacrifice for the benefit both of quick and dead, for the good of the whole church universal, for the help of these in Purgatory; but it is really intended to be a drag, a hook to draw in money to the Priests purses. This piece of the Mass the English did clean abolish, but behold how much of it our present Reformers are pleased to replant in our book: First, they profess in plain terms the reduction of the Offertorie, and that not once alone, but least their design should pass without observation, they tell us over again of the Offertory: 2. In the very forefront of this their Offertory, they set up unto us whole five passages of Scripture, whereof the English hath none, all directly in the literal sense carrying to a Jewish oblation. 3. For the waking of the Priests appetite (which of it self uses to be sharp enough) Upon the hope of present gain to sing his Masses with the better will, they set up a Rubric, seasing and infefting the officiating Priest in the half of all the oblations, which he can move the people to offer, and giving a liberty to him with his Church-warden, to dispose on the other half also as he thinks good, expressly contrary to the English, which commands all the alms of the people to be put up in the poor's box. 4. They will not have us to want the very formality of a Jewish offering, for they ordain the Deacon to put the bason with the people's devotions in the hands of the Priest, that he may present it before the Lord upon the Altar, just as the papists in this place ordain to bring the paten with their oblations unto the Priest; that he may set it before their altar. 5 The priest is ordained to place and to offer up the bread and wine upon the Lord's Table, that it may be ready for that service, just the popish offering in that place of the Mass, of the bread and wine, as a preparatory sacrifice for the propitiatory following. 6. The English prayer for the Catholic Church, is in our book cast immediately at the back of the offering of bread and wine, and that we may know it must be taken for the Offertory prayers that stands there in the Missal, and that for the benefit not only of the living, but also of the dead: The Mass clauses for the honor of the Saints, and help of those who are in purgatory, which the English scraped out, they put in again: For as the Papists say, these Offertorie prayers for the honor of the Saints, especially of the blessed Virgin, and Apostles, and Martyrs, so they in this their Offertorie prayer commemorat all the Saints, who in their several generations were the lights of the World, and had wonderful grace and virtue, they might have put in particularly, as Couzins in his devotions doeth, page. 371. The blessed Virgin 〈◊〉 , the holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, and Martyrs: also they mention among the dead not only these glorious Saints, but the rest of God's servants, who have finished their course in 〈◊〉 , and now do rest from their labors, the best description that can be, if Bellarmine may be believed, of the Souls in Purgatory, for whom not only thanks is given, but also prayers made, as Couzins who is suspected to be one of the main pen-men of our book, doth comment this passage in his devotions, page 372. That at the last day, we with them, and they with us may attain to the resurrection of the Just, and have our perfect consummation both of soul and body in the kingdom of heaven: There is no footestep of any of these things in the English book.

The piece which follows the Offertorie in the Missal, and in our book also, is the Canon, no less detested by all Protestants, then admired by papists, as Bellarmine telleth us; Many of the prefaces and prayers thereof we have word by word, and what ever we want, these men in print are bold to justify it all, as in nothing opposite to the truth or protestant Doctrine: So the appendix to D. Fields third Book, Chap. 1. But we must consider the time wherein D. Field is made to utter such speeches, it is in the twenty eight year, long after the death of that learned and reverend Divine: It is in that year when his Grace sitting in the Chair of London, had 〈◊〉 now the full superintendence of all the presses there, and could very easily (for the promoving of his designs) put in practice that piece of policy among others, to make men after their death speak in print, what they never thought in their life; or at least to speak out those thoughts which for the good and peace of the Church, they keeped close within the doors of their own breast, and withdrew from the notice of the World; it would then seem reason to father these strange justifications of the Mass, which are cast to Fields book so long after his death, as also many passages in these posthume works of Andrew's, which his Grace avowedly sets out in the twenty ninth year, and those new pieces never heard of, which in the thirty one year are set out by M. Aylward, under the name of the English Martyrs, as also that writ of Overall, which Montague puts out with his own amplifications, in the thirty six year: These and the like pieces, must in reason be ratherfather'd on those who put them forth, then upon their pretended authors, who readily did never know such posthume children, or else did take them for such unhappy bastards as they were resolved, for reasons known to themselves to keep them in obscurity, and never in public to avow them as their own.

In this Canon there are two parts most principal, which the papists call the Heart, and Head thereof. The prayers of consecration, and of oblation, this head the English strikes off, this heart they pull out of their Book, that the wicked Serpent should not have any life among them. But our men are so tender and compassionate towards that poor Beast, that they will again put in that Heart, and set on that Head. The consecration and oblation they will be loath 〈◊〉 want. Consider then these men's changing of the English book towards both those, the two incomparable worst parts of the whole Mass. First, the English scrapes out all mention of any consecration: for however we delight not to strive with the papists anywhere about words, yet in this place while they declare expressly, that by consecration of the Elements they do understand not the sanctification of the Elements by the word and prayer, but a secret whispering of certain words upon the Elements, for their very Transubstantiation: Consecration in this place being so taken by the papists, the English rejects it, and will have nothing to do therewith; but our men being more wise, and understanding their own ends, put up in their rubrick in capital letters formally and expressly their prayer of consecration.

〈◊〉 . The Papists to the end that their consecratory words may be whispered upon the elements for their change, and no ways heard of the people, who perchance if they heard and understood them, might learn them by heart, and in their idleness might pronounce them over their meals, and so, which once they say was done, Transubstantiate their ordinary food into Christ's body: for the eschewing of these inconveniences, they ordain the consecration to be made in the outmost corner of the church, so far from the ears of the people as may be; and for the greater security, they ordain their priests in the time of consecration, both to speak low, and to turn their backs upon the people: For to remedy these wicked follies, the English expressly ordained their Communion Table to stand in the body of the Church, where the Minister in the mids of the people might read out openly all the words of the Institution. But our men to return to the old fashion, command the table to be set at the East end of the Chancel, that in the time of the consecration, the priest may stand so far removed from the people, as the furthest wall of the Church can permit, and as this distance were not enough to keep these holy words of 〈◊〉 from the profane ears of Laics, our book hath a second Rubric, enjoining expressly the priest in the time of Consecration to turn his back on the people, to come from the North end of the Table, and to stand at such a place where be may use both his hands with more decency and ease, which is not possible but on the West side alone; for on the South side the commodity is just alike as in the North. On the Eastnone can stand, for the Table is joined hard to the Wall, and whosoever stands at the West side of the Altar, his Back is directly to the people that are behind him. They say for this practice many things, first, That in the good holy Liturgy of Edward the sixth, the Priest was ordained to stand with his back to the people. Again, that always in the ancient church the priests stood in the uppermost end of the church, divided from the people behind them, with rails, and veils, and other distinctions. 3. That Scripture is the ground of this practice, for so it was in the Jewish Church, the Priest when he went into the Sanctuary to pray, and offer incense for the people, they stood without and never did hear what he spake, nor saw what he did. If from this practice we would infer with Bellarmine, that the priest in the consecration might speak in latin, or in a language unknown to the people, since God to whom he speaks understands alllanguages, the elements upon which the consecratorie words are murmured, understands none, and the people for whom alone the vulgar language is used, is put back from the hearing of the consecration; we know not what in reason they could answer: But this weknow, that the main ground whereupon we press the use of the vulgar language, not only in the consecration as they call it, but in the whole service of God, I mean the warrant of Scripture, they openly deny and for it gives no ground, but the old tradition of the Church.

3 When our priest is set under the East wall within his rail his back upon the people, he is directed to use both his arms with decency and ease, what use here can be made of the priests arms, except it be for making oflarge crosses as the mass Rubrics at this place doth direct, We do not understand: only we have heard before, that they avow the lawfulness of crossing no less in the supper than in Baptism. 4. The prayer which stands here in the English book, drawn from the place wherein it stood of old in the Mass to countenance the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood, but standing in this place before the consecration it is clear of all such suspicion: Our men are so bold as to transplant it from this good ground to the old wicked soil at the back of the consecration where it wont to stand before in the old order of Sarum. 5. In the next English prayer, we put in the words of the Mass, whereby God is besought by his omnipotent spirit so to sanctify the oblations of bread and wine, that they may become to us Christ's body and blood, from these words all papists use to draw the truth of their transubstantiation, wherefore the English reformers scraped them out of their Book, but our men put them fairly in, and good reason have they so to do: for long ago they professed that about the presence of Christ's body and blood in the Sacrament after consecration, they are fully agreed with Lutherans and papists in all things that is material and needful, as for the small difference which remains about the formality and mode of presence, it is but a curious and undeterminable question, whereabout there would be no controversy, did not the devilish humor of the Puritans and Jesuits make and entertain it. Yea they seem to have come a step further, to the embracing of the very mode of the popish presence, for they 〈◊〉 of a corporal presence ibi that the body is there on the Altar, and that essentially; yea so grossly, that for its presence there, the Altar it self, let be the elements, must be adored. 6. They make an express rubrick for the priests taking of the patin and chalice in his hand in the time of consecration, which taking not being either for his own participation or distribution to others, why shall we not understand the end of it to be that, which the Mass there enjoins the 〈◊〉 and chalice, their elevation and adoration; for the elevation it waslong ago practiced and professed by some of our Bishops, and the adoration when the chalice and paten are taken in the priests hands is avowed by Heylin. The practice of Wren does declare their intention: this man as the Citizens of Ipswich complains to the Parliament, when he consecrate at their new Altar, did always turn his back on the people, did elevate the bread and wine above his shoulder, that it might be seen, did set down everyone of the Elements, after they were consecrate, and adored lowly before them. 7. In another rubrick of our consecration we have the cautels of the Mass, anent the priests intention to consecrate, expressly delivered unto us.

As for that wicked sacrifice of the Mass, which the Canon puts at the back of the Consecration, the English banisheth it all utterly out of their book; but the faction to show their zeal in their reforming the errors of the English Church, their mother, puts down here in our book; first at the back of the consecration their memento and prayer of oblation. 2. That prayer of Thanksgiving which the English sets after the Communion in a place, where it cannot be possibly abused, as it is in the Mass for a propitiatory sacrifice of Christ's body and blood, they transpose and set it just in the old place where it stood in the order of Sarum, at the back of the consecration before the Communion. 3. The clause of the Missal, which for its savor of a 〈◊〉 presence, the English put out of this prayer ( may worthily receive the most precious body and blood of thy Son Christ Jesus ) they have here restored. 4. That we may plainly understand, that this prayer is so transpianted and supplied for this very 〈◊〉 , that it may serve as it did of old in the Missal for a prayer of oblation of that unbloudie sacrifice by the priest for the sins of the world. Behold the first eighth lines of it, which of old it had in the Missal, but in the reformation was scraped out by the English, are plainly restored, wherein we profess to make and over again to make before 〈◊〉 divine Majesty a memorial as Christ hath commanded. This making not only the Papists, but Heylene speaking from Canterbury, expones far otherwise then either Andrew's, Hooker, Montague, or the grossest of the English Divines for a true, proper, corporal, visible, unbloody sacrificing of Christ, for which first the Apostles, and then all Ministers are as truly priests though Evangelical, and after the order of Melchizedek, as ever the Sons of Aaron were under the Law, and the Communion Table becomes as true and proper an Altar, as ever was the brazen Altar of Moses. 5. After the consecration and oblation they put to the Lord's prayer, with the Missalls preface, audemus dicere. Here the papists 〈◊〉 , that their priest by consecration having transubstantiate the bread, and by their memorial of oblation having offered up in an unbloody sacrifice the body of Christ, for the reconciliation of the Father, doth then close his quiet whisperings, his poor pipings, and becomes bold to say with a loud voice, having Christ corporally in his hands, Pater noster. The English to banish such absurdities, put away that naughty preface, and removed the prayer it self from that place: But our men to show their Orthodoxie, repone the prayer in the own old place, and set before it in a fair Rubric the whole old preface. 6. The first English prayer which stood before the consecration, where the passages of eating Christ's body, and drinking Christ's blood, could not possibly, by the very papists themselves, be detorted to a corporal presence, yet now in our book, it must change the place, and be brought to its own old stance, after the consecration and oblation, immediately before the communion, as a prayer of humble access.

The third part of the Mass I spake of, was the Communion; see how here our men change the English book: The English indeed in giving the Elements to the people, retain the Mass words, but to prevent any mischief that could arise in the people's mind from their sound of a corporal presence, they put in at the distribution of both the elements, two golden sentences, of the hearts eating by faith, of the souls drinking in remembrance. Our men being nothing afraid for the people's belief of a corporal presence, have pulled out of their hands and scraped out of our book both these antidotes. 2. The Mass words of Christ's body and blood in the act of communion, being quite of the English antidots against their 〈◊〉 , must not stand in our book simply; but that the people may take extraordinary notice of these phrases, there are two Rubrics set up to their backs, obliging every Communicant with their own mouth to say their Amen to them. 3. The English enjoins the Minister to give the people the elements in their own hand; ours scrapes out that clause, and bid communicate the people in their own order, which imports not only their removal from the Altar, their standing without the Rail, as profane Laics far from the place, and communion of the Priests, but also openeth a fair door to the popish practice, of putting the elements not in the profane hands, but in the mouths of the people; this as the report goes, they have well near practiced; and no marvel, since already they profess that the people ought not with their fingers to touch these holy mysteries: See in the Supplement, D. Kellets Tenets. 4. The English permit the Curate to carry home the relics of the bread and wine for his private use, but such profanity by our book is discharged: The consecrate elements are enjoined to be 〈◊〉 in the holy place by the priest alone, and some of the Communicants that day, whose mouths he esteemeth to be most holy: Yea, for preventing of all dangers the cautele is put in, that so few elements as may, be consecrate. 5. Our Book will have the elements after the consecration covered with a Corporal, the Church Linnings were never called Corporalls anywhere, till Transubstantiation was borne, neither carried they that name in England, till of late his Grace was pleased by the pen of his man Pocklingtonne and the like, to disgrace them with that style. 6 The English will have the Ministers and people to communicate in both kinds; our book enjoins the Priest to receive in both kinds, but the people only in due order: This due order of the people, opposite to the communion of the Priest in both kinds, may import the removal of one kind from the people, so much the more may we fear this sacrilege from their hands, since they tell us, that our only ground for communicating of the people in both kinds is stark naught, that for this practice there may well be tradition, but Scripture there is none. Also that in divers cases the ancient Church did lawfully give to the people the bread alone, that the Sacrament after the public communion, was oft reserved to be sent to the sick, to be taken at private occasions, and laid up in the Church in a public repository. Now it is well known, and the papists press this upon us, when they would rob the people of the cup; that the wine was not sent to the sick in a far distance from the Church, nor taken home by the people to be used with the bread in the times of straight, nor set up in the Church in the Ciboir or Repositorie. These changes of the English Liturgy, which the Canterburians have made, in some few pages lying together of the Scottish service, if they be either few or small, yourself pronounce the sentence.

The last chapter, containing the Canterburian maxims of Tyrannie.

ONe of the great causes of Protestants separation from Rome, is the tyranny of the Romish Clergy, whereby they press upon the very conscience of their people, a multitude of their own devices, with the most extreme and rigorous censures which can be inflicted either upon bodies or souls. And for the more facilitating of their purposes, they advance the secular power of Princes, and of all Sovereign Estates above all, that themselves either crave or desire: alone for this end, that their Clerks may ride upon the shoulders of Sovereignty, to tread under the feet of their domination; first the Subjects, and then the Sovereigns themselves.

How much our men are behind the greatest tyrants that ever were in Rome, let any pronounce, when they have considered these their following maxims: They tell us, first, that the making of all Ecclesiastic constitutions doth belong alone to the Bishop of the Diocese, no less out of Synod than in Synod: That some of the inferior Clergy may be called (if the Bishops please) to give their advice, and deliberative voice; That the Prince may lend his power, for confirming and executing of the constitutions made; but for the work of their making, it is the Bishops privilege, belonging to them alone by Divine right. 2. That in a whole kingdom, the Bishops alone, without the privatie of any of the Clergy, of any of the Laity, may abolish all the Ecclesiastical judicatories, which the standing and unrepealed laws, which the constant customs, ever since the reformation had settled, and put in their roomenew foreign Courts, which the kingdom had never known, scarce so much as by their name. That at one stroke they may annul all the Acts of three or fourscore National Assemblies, and set up in their room a Book of Canons of their own devising. That they may abolish all the forms used in the worship of God, without any question for threescore years and above, both in the public prayers, in the administration of the Sacraments, in singing of Psalms, in preaching the Word, in celebrating of marriage, in visiting the sick, and in ordination of Ministers: neither this alone, but that it is in their hand to impose in place of these accustomed forms, four new Books of their own; of Service, of Psalms, of Ordination, of Homilies. All this our Bishops in Scotland have done, and to this day, not any of them to our knowledge can be moved to confess in that deed, any fail against the rules either of equity or justice, what ever slips of imprudence there may be therein. And all this they have done at my Lord of Canterburies direction, as we shall make good by his own hand, if ever we shall be so happy as to be permitted to produce his own authentic autographs, before the Parliament of England, or any other Judicatorie that his Majesty will command to cognosce upon this our allegiance. Readily Rome it self cannot be able in any one age to parallel this work which our faction did bring forth in one year. It is a bundle of so many, so various, and so heavy acts of tyranny. Certainly, England was never acquaint with the like; we see what great trouble it hath cost his Grace, to get thorough there one poor Ceremony of setting the Communion Table Altar ways; for there themselves dare not deny, that it is repugnant to the established Laws of their Church and state for any Bishop; yea, for all the Bishops being joined, to make the poorest Canon without the voices of their Convocation house, or national Assembly; yea, without the Parliaments good pleasure. 3. They avow that all their injunctions though so many and so new, yet they are so holy and so just, that the whole kingdom in conscience mustembrace them all as the commands of God. That whoever will be so peart as to affirm in any one of them, the least contrariety to the Word of God, he must have no less censure then the great excommunication, from which he must never be relaxed but by the Bishops own mouth, after his public repentance and revocation of so vile an error. That his bodily and pecuniall penalty shall be at the free-will and discretion of the Bishop. That the worthiest men of any liberal profession get favor to lose but their ears, to have their nosesslit, and cheeks burnt for contradicting their innovations. That the furthest banishments for term of life, is a privilege which their indulgence may grant but to few. That the vilest dungeons, irons, whippings, bread and water, chaining to posts without all company, day or night in the coldest and longest winters, is but a part of their opposers deserving. That the greatest Nobles of the Land, ought in Law to forfeit their Life and Estate, if they be so bold as to put their hand to a supplication unto their gracious Prince against their practices. That all this is but just severity, and the very expedient mean to advance their cause, which they glory hath well near already close undone their opposites, and which they boast shall still be used. But alas it is gone now beyond boasts, when they are the second time upon the very point to kill millions of the Kings best Subjects, to dash together all his dominions in a bloody war, as pitchers one upon another, for the confirmation of their intolerable tyranny, where long it hath been tottering, and the reerection of it where its own unsupportable weight hath caused it to fall.

As for the power of Princes, the most of those this day who are Christians, and especially our gracious Sovereign, are very well content to be limited within the bounds of the laws which themselves and their predecessors have settled in the Church and State of their dominions, to make the preservation of those Laws and of their subjects liberties Ecclesiastic and Civil, according to them, the greatest glory of their prerogative Royal. To give assurance of their resolution never to abolish any old, or bring in any new act, either in church or state without the concurrence of Assemblies and Parliaments. Neither to impose any taxation on their subjects goods without their free consent thereto given by their Commissioners in Parliament, the extending of the prerogative to the making of new laws, or abolishing of old, to the imposing of taxes by simple proclamation without Parliament, our Prince doth so far abhor, that he condemned a certain writ for importing his Majesty's entertainment of such motions; yea, his Majesty by his Attorney general called the Earl of Bedford and other noble personages to censure, for keeping such a writ wherein did lie so pernicious positions. Where some Princes misled through passion and mis-information have deviat so far from the path of justice, as to intend by violence and arms the overthrow of the true religion and ancient liberties of their subjects, the opposition which the subjects are forced to make in this case against the oppression of their Prince, our gracious Sovereign hath been so far ever from counting of it rebellion, of which crime the greatest royalists in England wont always to absolve it, that his Majesty hath thought meet before all Europe after the example of his glorious Father, and renowned predecesrix Elizabeth, to give his countenance, aid, and powerful assistance to them all, when their just grievances and fears were laid out before his Throne. If so be King Charles had esteemed the late wars in France of the protestants against their king, the present wars of Holland, and of the high Dutches against the Spaniard and Emperor an unlawful defense, let be a traiterous insurrection of Subjects against their Sovereigns; Weepresuppone his Majesty's justice would have been loath ever to have defiled his Scepter by supporting them all with men and monies, as oft he hath done, and yet doth avow the deed.

While our gracious prince is so far inflamed with hatred against all tyranny, yet behold this wicked fiction how carefully they go about by all the means they can, to draw his royal mind to that which naturally it doth so much abhor: For they tell us first, that the power of all true Kings is so simply absolute and illimitate, that for any man to reason what they may not, is a crime no less than treason; that they are far above all Law. 2. That the Oath which a Prince makes to keep the Laws is but a personal deed, which cannot oblige his successor, that his Oath and promise at his Coronation to keep the Laws, is to be exponed of his resolution to make his laws to be keeped by others: That all the oaths and promises he makes at his coronation are but of his mere free-will and arbitrement, that by them all no true covenant or paction can be inferred betwixt the King and his subjects. 3. That the prince alone is the Law-giver, both in Church and State. 4. That in matters Ecclesiastical they themselves alone without the advice of any of the Clergy may lawfully make what Canons they please, and compel their Clergy to embrace them. 5. That it is a part of the Kings prerogative to have power to impose upon all his Subjects such Confessions of Faith, such Liturgies, such Canons as he thinks meetest without the advice of any Church Assembly. 6. When it is his pleasure to call an Assembly, the members of that Ecclesiastic Court are only such as he is pleased to call, whether of the Clergy or of the Laity. 7. That when they are called only the Princes voice is decisive, the voice of all the rest at most but consultive, or if any of them become decisive, it is by the Princes favor, or at least permission. 8. That Church Assemblies are only politick Conventions, not grounded upon any Divine right, and so to be used, or disused as the prince shall think expedient. 9. That it is in the power of all Sovereigns, whether Monarchick, Aristocratick, or Democratick, to appoint for the government of the Church in their dominions such Officers and Spiritual Courts, as they find most meet, and agreeable to their temporal estates, to erect Bishops, and put down Presbyteries, to erect Presbyteries, and put down Bishops. 10. That all this power to conclude every ecclesiastic affaire which can be subject to the jurisdiction of any ecclesiastical Synod doth belong alike to all Sovereigns, whether Turkish, Jewish, Pagan, Heretical, or Christian and Orthodox.

Concerning the Kings power in matter of State, they teach first, that a Parliament is but his arbitrary Council, which in making or annulling of his Laws he may use or not use as he pleaseth. 2. When he is pleased to call a Parliament, it is his due right by his letter to ordain such Barons to be Commissioners for the Shires, and such Citizens to be Commissioners for Burrowes as he shall be pleased to name. 3. That he may lawsully exact when he hath to do what portion of his subjects goods he thinks meet, and by himself alone, may make such Laws for exactions in times to come, as seems to him best. 4. That no subject of his Kingdom can have any hereditary jurisdiction, but any jurisdiction that either any of the Nobility, or any other Magistrate or Officer possesseth, they have it alone during his pleasure; that at his presence, the power of all others must cease, and at his death evanish, and be quite extinguished, till by his successors by new gift it be renewed. 5. That Scotland is a subdued Nation, that Fergus our first King did conquer us by the sword, and establish an absolute Monarchy for himself and his heirs, giving to us what Laws he thought meetest. 6. That all the Lands in Scotland were once the Kings property, and what thereof hath been given out for service, yet remains his own by a manifold right. 7. That to deny any of the named parts of this power to the King, is to destroy his Monarchike government, to dethrone him and make him no King, to subject him to his people, and make them his Masters, or at least Collegues in the Empire. But thanks be to God that our gracious prince hath so oft declared himself to be far from all such thoughts; yea, that my Lord of Canterbury himself, is forced whiles to let drop from his fingers clean contrary maxims.

Lastly, they teach us in the matter of resistance, first, that do the Prince what he will, he may never be resisted by any or all his Subjects, that not only a private man must give over all defense, though most innocent of his own life against the prince his unjust violence; but the whole State can do naught without rebellion against GOD, but flee or suffer, when the prince, whether by himself or his Officers doth destroy the true religion established by all Laws, and the liberties of the Land, dear bought of old, and peaceably brooked in many ages, also the lives of many thousands of the best Subjects, without the pretence or color of any just cause. Again, that all this subjection must be used, not only to our native King, but to any foreign usurper who can get footing among us, and it were the Kings of Spain, as their predecessors the heretical Gothish Kings got footing in the Roman Empire. That even against them, the States of a Land with a good conscience could use no defense, though before their eyes, they should see them execute the cruel tyrannies of Nebuchadnezzar, put out the eyes of the King, kill 〈◊〉 Children, lead himself and his Nobles away to a far land in fetters: Though with Nero, for their mere pleasure they should set the royallcitie in a fair fire, or execute the plot of 〈◊〉 by murthering all the seed of the Jews, all zealous protestants up and down the land in one day. Such maxims exceedingly opposite to the honor of God, the safety of the Kings person and Crown, the welfare of the people, these men cause to be printed and let them go athort without any censure at these times, when by royal decreets, they have pulled into their hands the full commandment of all the presses, and the absolute jurisdiction over all the Book-sellers shops in the Kingdom, and 〈◊〉 frequently theirzeale against any books that give but the least touch to their mitres, by inflicting no less censure than fire upon the books, pilloring and nose-slitting on the Authors, and whipping thorough the streets on the carriers.

All these extraordinary prerogatives, whereby the faction advanceth supreme Magistrates so near unto God, and their favorites so far above the skies, seem to flow not from any love they carry either to their crowns or the royal heads that bear them, but merely out of their self-respect to their own ambition and greed, that Sovereignty being advanced to an unmeasurable height, may be a statelier horse for them to ride upon, in their glorious triumphings above all that is called God. For otherwise, ye may see how far they depress all Sovereigns when they are laid in the balance with themselves; they tell us that the King can be no more the head of the Church, than the boy that rubs their horse heels. 2. That the heart whence the native life and vigor of the Ecclesiastic Laws doth flow, is alone the Bishops, and not the King. 3. That Kings and Emperors ought to reverence; yea, to adore Bishops, and to pay them tributes. 4. That every Bishop is a Prince and a Monarch, as far in dignity above the greatest secular Prince, as the soul above the body, or God above man.

Revised according to the ordinance of the general Assembly, by me Mr. A. Jhonston Clerk thereto.

Edinb. 1. of April 1640.