Answer to a Book, Part 27
XXVII. Intitil'd to the Prince of Wales.
VVHat the King wrote to his Son, as a Father, concerns not us; what he wrote to him, as a King of England, concerns not him; God and the Parlament having now otherwise dispos'd of England. But because I see it don with some artifice and labour, to possess the people that they might amend thir present condition, by his or by his Sons restorement, I shall shew point by point, that although the King had bin reinstall'd to his desire, or that his Son admitted, should observe exactly all his Fathers precepts, yet that this would be so farr from conducing to our happiness, either as a remedy to the present distempers, or a prevention of the like to come, that it would inevitably throw us back again into all our past and fulfill'd miseries; would force us to fight over again all our tedious Warrs, and put us to another fatal struggling for Libertie and life, more dubious then the former. In which as our success hath bin no other then our cause; so it will be evident to all posteritie, that his misfortunes were the meer consequence of his perverse judgement.
First he argues from the experience of those troubles which both he and his Son have had, to the improvement of thir pietie and patience: and by the way beares witness in his own words, that the corrupt education of his youth, which was but glanc'd at onelyonly in some former passages of this answer, was a thing neither of mean consideration, nor untruly charg'd upon him or his Son: himself confessing heer that Court delights are prone either to root up all true vertue and honour, or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them, without any reall fruits tending to the public good: Which presents him still in his own words another Rehoboam, soft'nd by a farr wors Court then Salomons, and so corrupted by flatteries, which he affirmes to be unseparable, to the overturning of all peace, and the loss of his own honour and Kingdoms. That he came therfore thus bredd up and nurtur'd to the Throne, farr wors then Rehoboam, unless he be of those who equaliz'd his Father to King Salomon, we have heer his own confession. And how voluptuously, how idlely raigning in the hands of other men, he either tyranniz'd or trifl'd away those seventeen yeares of peace, without care, or thought, as if to be a King had bin nothing els in his apprehension, but to eat and drink, and have his will, and take his pleasure, though there be who can relate his domestic life to the exactness of a diary, there shall be heer no mention made. This yet we might have then foreseen, that he who spent his leisure so remissly and so corruptly to his own pleasing, would one day or other be wors busied and imployd to our sorrow. And that he acted in good earnest what Rehoboam did but threat'n, to make his little finger heavier then his Fathers loynes, and to whip us with his two twisted Scorpions, both temporal and spiritual Tyranny, all his Kingdoms have felt. What good use he made afterward of his adversitie, both his impenitence and obstinacy to the end (for he was no Manasseh) and the sequel of these his meditated resolutions, abundantly express; retaining, commending, teaching to his Son all those putrid and pernicious documents both of State and of Religion, instill'd by wicked Doctors, and receav'd by him as in a Vessel nothing better seasond, which were the first occasion both of his own and all our miseries. And if he in the best maturity of his yeares and understanding made no better use to himself or others of his so long and manifold afflictions, either looking up to God, or looking down upon the reason of his own affaires, there can be no probability that his son, bred up, not in the soft effeminacies of Court onelyonly, but in the rugged and more boistrous licence of undisciplin'd Camps and Garrisons, for yeares unable to reflect with judgement upon his own condition, and thus ill instructed by his Father, should give his mind to walk by any other rules then these, bequeath'd him as on his Fathers death-bed, & as the choisest of all that experience, wch his most serious observation and retirement in good or evil dayes had taught him. David indeed by suffering without just cause, learnt that meekness and that wisdom by adversity, which made him much the fitter man to raigne. But they who suffer as oppressors, Tyrants, violaters of Law, and persecutors of Reformation, without appearance of repenting, if they once get hold againe of that dignity and power which they had lost, are but whetted and inrag'd by what they suffer'd against those whom they look upon as them that caus'd thir sufferings.
How he hath bin subject to the scepter of Gods word and spirit, though acknowledg'd to be the best Goverment, and what his dispensation of civil power hath bin, with what Justice, and what honour to the public peace, it is but looking back upon the whole catalogue of his deeds, and that will be sufficient to remember us. The Cup of Gods physic, as he calls it, what alteration it wrought in him to a firm healthfulness from any surfet, or excess wherof the people generally thought him sick, if any man would goe about to prove, we have his own testimony following heer, that it wrought none at all.
First, he hath the same fix'd opinion and esteem of his old Ephesian Goddess, call'd the Church of England, as he had ever; and charges strictly his Son after him to persevere in that Anti-Papal Scism (for it is not much better) as that which will be necessary both for his soules, and the Kingdoms Peace. But if this can be any foundation of the kingdoms peace, which was the first cause of our distractions, let common sense be Judge. It is a rule and principle worthy to be known by Christians, that no Scripture, no nor so much as any ancient Creed, bindes our Faith, or our obedience to any Church whatsoever, denominated by a particular name; farr less, if it be distinguisht by a several Goverment from that which is indeed Catholic. No man was ever bidd be subject to the Church of Corinth, Rome, or Asia, but to the Church without addition, as it held faithfull to the rules of Scripture, and the Goverment establisht in all places by the Apostles, which at first was universally the same in all Churches and Congregations; not differing or distinguisht by the diversity of Countries, Territories, or civil bounds. That Church that from the name of a distinct place takes autority to set up a distinct Faith or Government, is a Scism and Faction, not a Church. It were an injurie to condemn the Papist of absurdity and contradiction, for adhering to his Catholic Romish Religion, if we, for the pleasure of a King and his politic considerations, shall adhere to a Catholic English.
But suppose the Church of England were as it ought to be, how is it to us the safer by being so nam'd and establisht, when as that very name and establishment, by his contriving, or approbation, serv'd for nothing els but to delude us and amuse us, while the Church of England insensibly was almost chang'd and translated into the Church of Rome. Which as every Man knows in general to be true, so the particular Treaties and Transactions tending to that conclusion, are at large discover'd in a Book intitld the English Pope. But when the people, discerning these abuses, began to call for Reformation, in order to which the Parlament demanded of the King to unestablish that Prelatical Goverment, which without Scripture had usurpt over us, strait, as Pharaoh accus'd of Idleness the Israelites that sought leave to goe and sacrifice to God, he layes faction to thir charge. And that we may not hope to have ever any thing reform'd in the Church either by him or his Son, he forewarnes him, That the Devil of Rebellion doth most commonly turn himself into an Angel of Reformation: and sayes anough to make him hate it, as he worst of Evils, and the bane of his Crown: nay he counsels him to let nothing seem little or despicable to him, so as not speedily and effcteually to suppress errors and Scisms. Wherby we may perceave plainly that our consciences were destin'd to the same servitude and persecution, if not wors then before, whether under him, or if it should so happ'n, under his Son; who count all Protestant Churches erroneous and scismatical, which are not episcopal. His next precept is concerning our civil Liberties; which by his sole voice and predominant will must be circumscrib'd, and not permitted to extend a hands bredth furder then his interpretation of the Laws already settl'd. And although all human laws are but the offspring of that frailty, that fallibility, and imperfection which was in thir Authors, wherby many Laws, in the change of ignorant and obscure Ages, may be found both scandalous, and full of greevance to their Posterity that made them, and no Law is furder good, then mutable upon just occasion, yet if the removing of an old Law, or the making of a new would save the Kingdom, we shall not have it unless his arbitrary voice will so far slack'n the stiff curb of his prerogative, as to grant it us; who are as free born to make our own law as our fathers were who made these we have. Where are then the English Liberties which we boast to have bin left us by our Progenitors? To that he answers, that Our Liberties consist in the enjoyment of the fruits of our industry, and the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented. First, for the injoyment of those fruits, which our industry and labours have made our own upon our own, what Privilege is that, above what the Turks, Jewes, and Mores enjoy under the Turkish Monarchy, For without that kind of Justice, which is also in Argiers, among Theevs and Pirates between themselvs, no kind of Government, no Societie, just or unjust could stand; no combination or conspiracy could stick together. Which he also acknowledges in these words: That if the Crown upon his head be so heavy as to oppress the whole body, the weakness of inferiour members cannot return any thing of strength, honour, or safety to the head; but that a necessary debilitation must follow. So that this Liberty of the Subject concerns himself and the subsistence of his own regal power in the first place, and before the consideration of any right belonging to the Subject. VVe expect therfore somthing more, that must distinguish free Goverment from slavish. But in stead of that, this King, though ever talking and protesting as smooth as now, sufferd it in his own hearing to be Preacht and pleaded without controule, or check, by them whom he most favourd and upheld, that the Subject had no property of his own Goods, but that all was the Kings right.
Next for the benefit of those Laws to which we our selves have consented, we never had it under him; for not to speak of Laws ill executed, when the Parlament, and in them the people have consented to divers Laws, and, according to our ancient Rights, demanded them, he took upon him to have a negative will, as the transcendent and ultimat Law above all our Laws; and to rule us forcibly by Laws to which we our selves did not consent, but complain'd of. Thus these two heads wherein the utmost of his allowance heer will give our Liberties leave to consist, the one of them shall be so farr onelyonly made good to us, as may support his own interest, and Crown, from ruin or debilitation; and so farr Turkish Vassals enjoy as much liberty under Mahomet and the Grand Signor: the other we neither yet have enjoyd under him, nor were ever like to doe under the Tyranny of a negative voice, which he claimes above the unanimous consent and power of a whole Nation virtually in the Parlament.
In which negative voice to have bin cast by the doom of Warr, and put to death by those who vanquisht him in thir own defence, he reck'ns to himself more then a negative Martyrdom. But Martyrs bear witness to the truth, not to themselves. If I beare witness of my self, saith Christ, my witness is not true. He who writes himself Martyr by his own inscription, is like an ill Painter, who, by writing on the shapeless Picture which he hath drawn, is fain to tell passengers what shape it is; which els no man could imagin: no more then how a Martyrdom can belong to him, who therfore dyes for his Religion because it is establisht. Certainly if Agrippa had turn'd Christian, as he was once turning, and had put to death Scribes and Pharisees for observing the Law of Moses, and refusing Christianitie, they had di'd a truer Martyrdom. For those Laws were establisht by God and Moses, these by no warrantable authors of Religion, whose Laws in all other best reformed Churches are rejected. And if to die for an establshment of Religion be Martyrdom, then Romish Priests executed for that, which had so many hundred yeares bin establisht in this Land, are no wors Martyrs then he. Lastly, if to die for the testimony of his own conscience, be anough to make him Martyr, what Heretic dying for direct blasphemie, as som have don constantly, may not boast a Martyrdom? As for the constitution or repeale of civil Laws, that power lying onelyonly in the Parlament, which he by the verry law of his coronation was to grant them, not to debarr them, nor to preserve a lesser Law with the contempt and violation of a greater, it will conclude him not so much as in a civil and metaphoricall sense to have di'd a Martyr of our Laws, but a plaine transgressor of them. And should the Parlament, endu'd with Legislative power, make our Laws, and be after to dispute them peece meale with the reson, conscience, humour, passion, fansie, folly, obstinacy, or other ends of one man, whose sole word and will shall baffle and unmake what all the wisdom of a Parlament hath bin deliberatly framing, what a ridiculous and contemptible thing a Parlament would soon be, and what a base unworthy Nation we, who boast our freedom, and send them with the manifest peril of thir lives to preserve it, they who are not mark'd by destiny for Slaves, may apprehend. In this servil condition to have kept us still under hatches, he both resolves heer to the last, and so instructs his Son.
As to those offerd condescensions of Charitable connivence, or toleration, if we consider what went before, and what follows, they moulder into nothing. For what with not suffering ever so little to seem a despicable scism, without effectual suppression, as he warn'd him before, and what with no opposition of Law, Goverment, or establisht Religion to be permitted, which is his following proviso, and wholly within his own construction, what a miserable and suspected toleration, under Spies and haunting Promooters we should enjoy, is apparent. Besides that it is so farr beneath the honour of a Parlament and free Nation, to begg and supplicat the Godship of one fraile Man, for the bare and simple toleration of what they all consent to be both just, pious, and best pleasing to God, while that which is erroneous, unjust, and mischeivous in the church or State, shall by him alone against them all, be kept up and establisht; and they censur'd the while for a covetous, ambitious, & sacrilegious faction.
Another bait to allure the people, is the charge he laies upon his Son, to be tender of them. Which if we should beleeve in part, because they are his Heard, his Cattell, the Stock upon his ground, as he accounts them, whom to wast and destroy would undoe himself, yet the inducement which he brings to move him, renders the motion it self somthing suspicious. For if Princes need no Palliations, as he tells his Son, wherfore is it that he himself hath so oft'n us'd them? Princes of all other men, have not more change of Rayment in thir Wardrobes, then variety of Shifts and palliations in thir solemn actingsand pretences to the People.
To try next if he can insnare the prime Men of those who have oppos'd him, whom, more truly then his meaning was, he calls the Patrons and Vindicators of the People, he gives out Indemnity, and offers Acts of Oblivion. But they who with a good conscience and upright heart, did thir civil duties in the sight of God, and in thir several places, to resist Tyranny, and the violence of Superstition banded both against them, he may be sure will never seek to be forgiv'n that, which may be justly attributed to thir immortal praise; nor will assent ever to the guilty blotting out of those actions before men, by which thir Faith assures them they chiefly stand approv'd, and are had in remembrance before the throne of God.
He exhorts his son not tostudy revenge. But how far he, or at least they about him, intend to follow that exhortation, was seen lately at the Hague, & now lateliest at Madrid: where to execute in the basest manner, though but the smallest part of that savage & barbarous revenge which they doe no thing elsbut study & contemplate, they car'd not to let the world know them for profess'd Traitors & assassinatersof all Law both Divine and human, eev'n of that last and most extensive Law kept inviolable to public persons among all fair enemies in the midst of uttermost defiance and hostility. How implacable therefore they would be, after any termes of closure or admittance for the future, or any like opportunity giv'n them heerafter, it will be wisdom & our safety to beleeve rather and prevent, then to make triall. And it will concerne the multitude, though courted heer, to take heed how they seek to hide or colour thir own fickleness and instability with a bad repentance of thir well-doing, and thir fidelity to the better cause; to which at first so cherfully and conscientiously they joyn'd themselves.
He returnes againe to extoll the Church of England, and againe requires his Son by the joynt autority of a Father and a King, not to let his heart receive the least check, or disaffection against it. And not without cause, for by that meanes having sole influence upon the Clergy, and they upon the people, after long search and many disputes, he could not possibly find a more compendious and politic way to uphold and settle Tyranny, then by subduing first the Consciences of Vulgar men, with the insensible poyson of th ir slavish Doctrin: for then the bodie and besotted mind without much Reluctancy was likeliest to admitt the Yoke.
He commends also Parlaments held with freedome and with Honour. But I would ask how that can bee, while he onelyonly must be the sole free Person in that number; and would have the power with his unaccountable denyall, to dishonour them by rejecting all thir Counsels, to confine thir Law-giving power, which is the Foundation os our freedom, and to change at his pleasure the very name of a Parlament into the name of a Faction.
The conclusion therfore must needs be quite contrary to what he concludes; that nothing can be more unhappy, more dishonourable, more unsafe for all, then when a wise, grave, & honourable Parlament shal have labourd, debated, argu'd, consulted, and, as he himself speakes, contributed for the public good all thir Counsels in common, to be then frustrated, disappointed, deny'd and repuls'd by the single whiffe of a negative, from the mouth of one wilfull man; nay to be blasted, to be struck as mute and motionless as a Parlament of Tapstrie in the Hangings; or els after all thir paines and travell to be dissolv'd, and cast away like so many Naughts in Arithmetick, unless it be to turne the O of thir insignificance into a lamentation with the people, who had so váinly sent them. For this is not to enact all things by public consent, as he would have us be perswaded, this is to enact nothing but by the privat consent and leave of one not negative tyrant; this is mischeif without remedy, a stifleing and obstructing evil that hath no vent, no outlet, no passage through: Grant him this, and the Parlament hath no more freedom then if it sate in his Noose, which when he pleases to draw together with one twitch of his Negative, shall throttle a whole Nation, to the wish of Caligula in one neck. This with the power of the Militia in his own hands over our bodies and estates, and the Prelats to enthrall our consciences either by fraud or force, is the sum of that happiness and liberty we were to look for, whether in his own restitution, or in these precepts giv'n to his son. Which unavoidably would have set us in the same state of miserie, wherein we were before; and have either compell'd us to submitt like bond slaves, or put vsus back to a second wandring over that horrid Wilderness of distraction and civil slaughter, which, not without the strong and miraculous hand of God assisting us, we have measur'd out, and surviv'd. And who knows, if we make so slight of this incomparable deliverance, which God hath bestowd upon us, but that we shall like those foolish Israelites, who depos'd God and Samuel to set up a King, Cry out one day because of our King, which we have bin mad upon; and then God, as he foretold them, will no more deliver us.
There remaines now but little more of his discours, wherof yet to take a short view will not be amiss. His words make semblance as if he were magnanimously exercising himself, and so teaching his Son, To want as well as to weare a Crown; and would seem to account it not worth taking up or enjoying upon sordid, dishonourable, and irreligious termes; and yet to his very last did nothing more industriously then strive to take up and enjoy againe his sequesterd Crown, upon the most sordid, disloyal, dishonourable, and irreligious termes, not of making peace onelyonly, but of joyning and incorporating with the murdrous Irish, formerly by himself declar'd against, for wicked and detestable Rebells, odious to God and all good Men. And who but those Rebels now, are the chief strength and confidence of his Son? while the Presbyter Scot that wooes and solicits him, is neglected and put off, as if no termes were to him sordid, irreligious and dishonourable, but the Scotish and Presbyterian, never to be comply'd with, till the feare of instant perishing starve him out at length to some unsound and hypocriticall agreement.
He bids his Son Keep to the true principles of piety, vertue, and honour, and he shall never want a Kingdom. And I say, People of England, keep ye to those principles, and ye shall never want a King. Nay after such a faire deliverance as this, with so much fortitude and valour shown against a Tyrant, that people that should seek a King, claiming what this Man claimes; would shew themselvesto be by nature slaves, and arrant beasts; not fitt for that liberty which they cri'd out and bellow'd for, but fitter to be led back again into thir old servitude, like a sort of clamouring & fighting brutes, broke loos from thir copyholds, that know not how to use or possess the liberty which they fought for; but with the faire words & promises of an old exasperated foe, are ready to be stroak'd & tam'd again, into the wonted and well pleasing state of thir true Norman villenage, to them best agreeable.
The last sentence, wheron he seems to venture the whole waight of all his former reasons and argumentations, That Religion to thir God, and loyalty to thir King cannot be parted, without the sin and infelicity of a People, is contrary to the plaine teaching of Christ, that No man can serve two Masters, but, ifhe hold to the one, he must reject and forsake the other. If God then and earthly Kings be for the most part not several onelyonly, but opposite Maisters, it will as oft happ'n, that they who will serve thir King must forsake thir God; and they who will serve God must forsake thir King; which then will neither be thir sin, nor thir infelicity; but thir wisdom, thir piety, and thir true happiness; as to be deluded by these unsound and suttle ostentations heer, would be thir misery; and in all likelyhood much greater then what they hitherto have undergon: if now againe intoxicated and moap'd with these royal, and therfore so delicious because royal rudiments of bondage, the Cup of deception, spic'd and temperd to thir bane, they should deliver up themselves to these glozing words and illusions of him, whose rage and utmost violence they have sustain'd, and overcomm so nobly.