Answer to a Book, Part 15
XV. Upon the many Jealousies, &c.
TO wipe off jealousies and scandals, the best way, had bin by clear Actions, or till Actions could be clear'd, by evident reasons; but meer words we are too well acquainted with. Had his honour and reputation bin dearer to him then the lust of Raigning, how could the Parlament of either Nation have laid so oft'n at his dore the breach of words, promises, acts, Oaths, and execrations, as they doe avowedly in many of thir Petitions, and addresses to him: thether I remitt the Reader. And who can beleive that whole Parlaments elected by the People from all parts of the Land, should meet in one mind, and resolution not to advise him, but to conspire against him in a wors powder plot then Catesbies, to blow up, as he termes it, the peoples affection towards him, and batter down thir loyalty by the Engins of foule aspersions: Water works rather then Engines to batter with, yet thosé aspersions were rais'd from the foulness of his own actions. Whereof to purge himself, he uses no other argument, then a general and so oft'n iterated commendation of himself; and thinks that Court holy water hath the vertue of expiation; at least with the silly people. To whom he familiarly imputes sin where none is, to seem liberal of his forgiveness where none is ask'd or needed.
What wayes he hath tak'n toward the prosperitie of his people, which he would seem so earnestly to desire, if we doe but once call to mind, it will be anough to teach us, looking on the smooth insinuations heer, that Tyrants are not more flatterd by thir Slaves, then forc'd to flatter others whom they feare.
For the peoples tranquilitie he would willingly be the Jonah; but least he should be tak'n at his word, pretends to foresee within Kenn two imaginarie windes never heard of in the Compass, which threaten, if he be cast overboard, to increase the storm, but that controversy divine lot hath ended.
He had rather not rule then that his people should be ruin'd; and yet above these twenty yeres hath bin ruining the people about the niceties of his ruling. He is accurate to put a difference between the plague of malice, & the ague of mistakes, the itch of noveltie, and the leprosie of disloyaltie. But had he as wel known how to distinguish between the venerable gray haires of ancient Religion, and the old scurffe of Superstition, between the wholsome heat of well Governing, and the fevorous rage of Tyrannizing, his judgement in Statephysic, had bin of more autoritie.
Much he Prophesies, that the credit of those men who have cast black scandals on him shal ere long be quite blasted by the same furnace of popular obloquie wherin they sought to cast his name and honour: I beleive not that a Romish guilded Portrature gives better Oracle then a Babylonish gold'n Image could doe, to tell us truely who heated that Furnace of obloquy, or who deserves to be thrown in, Nebuchadnezzar or the three Kingdoms. It gave him great cause to suspect his own innocence that he was oppos'd by so many who profest singular pietie. But this qualm was soon over, and he concluded rather to suspect their Religion, then his own innocence, affirming that many with him were both learned and Religious above the ordinary size. But if his great Seal without the Parlament were not sufficient to create Lords, his Parole must needs be farr more unable to create learned and religious men, and who shall authorize his unlerned judgement to point them out?
He guesses that many well minded men were by popular Preachers urg'd to oppose him. But the opposition undoubtedly proceeded and continues from heads farr wiser, and spirits of a nobler straine; those Priestled Herodians with thir blind guides are in the Ditch already; travailing, as they thought, to Sion, but moor'd in the Ile of Wight.
He thanks God for his constancy to the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home. Abroad, his Letter to the Pope, at home, his Innovations in the Church will speak his constancy in Religion what it was, without furder credit to this vain boast.
His using the assistance of some Papists, as the cause might be, could not hurt his Religion; but in the setling of Protestantism, thir aid was both unseemly & suspicious, & inferr'd that the greatest part of Protestants were against him & his obtruded settlement. But this is strange indeed, that he should appear now teaching the Parlament what no man, till this was read, thought ever he had lernt, that difference of perswasion in religious matters may fall out where ther is the samenes of allegeance & subjection. If he thought so from the beginning, wherfore was there such compulsion us'd to the puritans of England, & the whole realm of Scotl. about conforming to a liturgie? Wherfore no Bishop no king? Wherfore episcopacie more agreeable to monarchie, if different perswasions in religion may agree in one duty & allegeance? Thus do court maxims like court Minions rise or fall as the king pleases.
Not to tax him for want of Elegance as a courtier, in writing Oglio for Olla the Spanish word, it might be wel affirm'd that there was a greater Medley & disproportioning of religions to mix Papists with Protestants in a Religious cause, then to entertaine all those diversifi'd Sects, who yet were all Protestants, one Religion, though many Opinions.
Neither was it any shame to Protestants, that he a declar'd Papist, if his own letter to the Pope, not yet renowne'd, bely him not, found so few protestants of his religion, as enforc'd him to call in both the counsel & the aid of papists to help establish protestancy, who were led on, not by the sense of thir Allegeance, but by the hope of his Apostacy to Rome, from disputing to warring; his own voluntary, and first appeale.
His hearkning to evil Counselers, charg'd upon him so oft'n by the Parlament, he puts off as a device of those men who were so eager to give him better counsell. duplicate page duplicate page That those men were the Parlament, & that he ought to have us'd the counsel of none but those, as a King, is already known. What their civility laid upon evil Counselers, he himself most commonly own'd; but the event of those evil counsels, the enormities, the confusions the miseries he transferrs from the guilt of his own civil broiles to the just resistance made by Parlament; & imputes what miscarriages of his they could not yet remove for his opposing, as if they were some new misdemeanors of their bringing in, and not the inveterat diseases of his own bad Goverment; which, with a disease as bad, he falls again to magnifie and commend; and may all those who would be govern'd by his Retractions and concessions, rather then by Laws of Parlament, admire his self-Encomiums, and be flatter'd with that Crown of patience to which he cunningly exhorted them, that his Monarchical foot might have the setting it upon thir heads.
That trust which the Parlament faithfully discharg'd in the asserting of our Liberties, he calls another artifice to withdraw the people from him, to their designes. What piece of Justice could they have demanded for the people, which the jealousie of a King might not have miscall'd, a designe to disparage his Goverment, and to ingratiat themselves? To be more just, religious, wise, or magnanimous then the common sort, stirrs up in a Tyrant both feare and envy; and streight he cries out popularitie, which in his account is little less then Treason. The summ is, they thought to limit or take away the Remora of his negative voice, which like to that little pest at Sea, took upon it to arrest and stopp the Common-wealth stearing under full saile to a Reformation: they thought to share with him in the Militia, both or either of which he could not possibly hold without consent of the people, and not be absolutely a Tyrant. He professes to desire no other liberty then what he envies not his Subjects according to Law; yet fought with might and maine against his Subjects to have a sole power over them in his hand, both against and beyond Law. As for the Philosophical Libertie which in vaine he talks of, we may conclude him very ill train'd up in those free notions, who to civil Libertie was so injurious.
He calls the conscience Gods sovrantie, why then doth he contest with God about that supreme title? Why did he lay restraints, and force enlargements upon our consciences in things for which we were to answer God onelyonly and the Church? God bids us Be subject for conscience sake, that is, as to a Magistrat, and in the Laws; not usurping over spiritual things, as Lucifer beyond his sphere. And the same Precept bids him likewise for conscience sake be subject to the Parlament, both his natural and his legal superior.
Finally, having layd the fault of these Commotions, not upon his own mis-goverment, but upon the ambition of others, the necessity of some mens fortune, and thirst after noveltie, he bodes himself much honour and reputation that like the Sun shall rise and recover it self to such a Splendour, as Owles, Batts, and such fatal Birds shall be unable to beare. Poets indeed use to vapor much after this manner. But to bad Kings, who without cause expect future glory from thir actions, it happ'ns as to bad Poets; who sit and starve themselves with a delusive hope to win immortality by thir bad lines. For though men ought not to speak evil of Dignities which are just, yet nothing hinders us to speak evil, as oft as it is the truth, of those who in thir Dignities doe evil; thus did our Saviour himself, John the Baptist, and Steev'n the Martyr. And those black vailes of his own misdeeds he might be sure would ever keep his face from shining, til he could refute evil speaking with wel doing, which grace he seems heer to pray for; and his prayer doubtless as it was prayd, so it was heard. But eev'n his prayer is so ambitious of Prerogative, that it dares ask away the Prerogative of Christ himself, To become the head soone of the Corner.