from that time do otherwife than equivocate or collogue with the pope and his adherents.

He would be thought to commiferate the fad effects of that rebellion, and to lament that "the tears and blood fpilt there did not quench the fparks of our civil" difcord here. But who began thefe diffenfions? and what can be more openly known than thofe retardings and delays, which by himfelf were continually devised, to hinder and put back the relief of those diftreffed proteftants? which undoubtedly, had it not been then put back, might have faved many streams of thofe tears and that blood, whereof he feems here fo fadly to bewail the fpilling. His manifold excufes, diverfions, and delays, are too well known to be recited here in particular, and too many.

But "he offered to go himself in perfon upon that expedition," and reckons up many furmifes why he thinks they would not fuffer him. But mentions not that by his underdealing to debauch armies here at home, and by his fecret intercourfe with the chief rebels, long ere that time every where known, he had brought the parliament into fo juft a diffidence of him, as that they durft not leave the public arms to his difpofal, much leis an army to his conduct.

He concludes, "That next the fin of thofe who began that rebellion, theirs muft needs be who hindered the fuppreffing, or diverted the aids." But judgment rafhly given, ofttimes involves the judge himfelf. He finds fault with thofe "who threatened all extremity to the rebels," and pleads much that mercy fhould be fhown them. It feems he found himfelf not fo much concerned as thofe who had loft fathers, brothers, wives and children by their cruelty; whom in juftice to retaliate is not, as he fuppofes, "unevangelical;" fo long as magiftracy and war are not laid down under the gofpel. If this his fermon of affected mercy were not too pharifaical, how could he permit himself to cause the flaughter of fo many thoufands here in England for mere prerogatives, the toys and gewgaws of his crown, for copes and furplices, the trinkets of his priefts; and

not

not perceive his own zeal, while he taxes others, to be moft prepofterous and unevangelical? Neither is there the fame caufe to deftroy a whole city for the ravishing of a fifter, not done out of villainy, and recompenfe offered by marriage; nor the fame cause for those difciples to fummon fire from Heaven upon the whole city where they were denied lodging; and for a nation by juft war and execution to flay whole families of them, who fo barbarously had flain whole families before. Did not all Ifrael do as much against the Benjamites for one rape committed by a few, and defended by the whole tribe? and did they not the fame to Jabefh-Gilead for not affifting them in that revenge? I speak not this that fuch measure should be meted rigoroufly to all the Irish, or as remembering that the parliament ever so decreed; but to show that this his homily hath more craft and affectation in it, than of found doctrine.

But it was happy that his going into Ireland was not confented to; for either he had certainly turned his raifed forces against the parliament itself, or not gone at all; or had he gone, what work he would have made there, his own following words declare.

"He would have punished fome;" no queftion; for fome, perhaps, who were of leaft ufe, muft of neceffity have been facrificed to his reputation, and the convenience of his affairs. Others he "would have difarmed;" that is to fay, in his own time: but "all of them he would have protected from the fury of thofe that would have drowned them, if they had refused to swim down the popular stream." Thefe expreffions are too often met, and too well understood, for any man to doubt his meaning. By the "fury of thofe," he means no other than the juftice of parliament, to whom yet he had committed the whole bufinefs. Those who would have refused to swim down the popular ftream, our conftant key tells us to be papifts, prelates, and their faction; thefe, by his own confeffion here, he would have protected against his puritan parliament: and by this who fees not that he and the Irish rebels had but one aim, one and the fame drift, and would have forthwith joined in one body against us?

He goes on ftill in his tenderness of the Irish rebels, fearing left "our zeal fhould be more greedy to kill the bear for his fkin, than for any harm he hath done.” This either juftifies the rebels to have done no harm at all, or infers his opinion that the parliament is more bloody and rapacious in the prosecution of their juftice, than thofe rebels were in the execution of their barbarous cruelty. Let men doubt now and difpute to whom the king was a friend moft-to his English parliament, or to his Irish rebels.

With whom, that we may yet fee further how much he was their friend, after that the parliament had brought them every where either to famine or a low condition, he, to give them all the refpite and advantages they could defire, without advice of parliament, to whom he himself had committed the managing of that war, makes a ceffation; in pretence to relieve the proteftants, "overborne there with numbers;" but, as the event proved, to fupport the papifts, by diverting and drawing over the English army there, to his own fervice here against the parliament. For that the proteftants were then on the winning hand, it must needs be plain; who, notwithstanding the mifs of thofe forces, which at their landing here mastered without difficulty great part of Wales and Chefhire, yet made a fhift to keep their own in Ireland. But the plot of this Irish truce is in good part discovered in that declaration of September 30, 1643. And if the proteftants were but handfuls there, as he calls them, why did he ftop and waylay, both by land and fea, to his utmoft power, thofe provifions and fupplies which were fent by the parliament? How were fo many handfuls called over, as for a while ftood him in no finall ftead, and againft our main forces here in England?

Since therefore all the reafons that can be given of this ceflation appear fo falfe and frivolous, it may be juftly feared, that the defign itfelf was' moft wicked and pernicious. What remains then? He " appeals to God," and is caft; likening his punifhment to Job's trials, before he faw them to have Job's ending. But how could charity herself believe there was at all in him any religion, fo

much

much as but to fear there is a God; whenas, by what is noted in the declaration of "No more addreffes," he vowed folemnly to the parliament, with imprecations upon himfelf and his pofterity, if ever he confented to the abolishing of thofe laws which were in force against papifts; and, at the fame time, as appeared plainly by the very date of his own letters to the queen and Ormond, confented to the abolishing of all penal laws against them both in Ireland and England? If thefe were acts of a religious prince, what memory of man, written or unwritten, can tell us news of any prince that ever was irreligious? He cannot ftand "to make prolix apologies. Then furely thofe long pamphlets fet out for declarations and proteftations in his name were none of his; and how they fhould be his, indeed, being fo repugnant to the whole courfe of his actions, augments the difficulty.

But he ufurps a common faying, "That it is kingly to do well, and hear ill." That may be fometimes true: but far more frequently to do ill and hear well; fo great is the multitude of flatterers, and them that deify the name of king!

Yet, not content with thefe neighbours, we have him ftill a perpetual preacher of his own virtues, and of that efpecially, which who knows not to be patience perforce?

He "believes it will at laft appear, that they who first began to embroil his other kingdoms, are alio guilty of the blood of Ireland." And we believe fo too; for now the ceffation is become a peace by published articles, and commiffion to bring them over againft England, firft only ten thousand by the earl of Glamorgan, next all of them, if poffible, under Ormond, which was the laft of all his tranfactions done as a public perfon. And no wonder; for he looked upon the blood pilt, whether of fubjects or of rebels, with an indifferent eye, as exhaufted out of his own veins;" without diftinguishing,

See this fully proved in Dr. Birch's Enquiry into the share which King Charles I. had in the tranfactions of the earl of Glamorgan. The fecond edition, 1756.

as he ought, which was good blood and which corrupt; the not letting out whereof, endangers the whole body.

And what the doctrine is, ye may perceive alfo by the prayer, which, after a fhort ejaculation for the "poor proteftants," prays at large for the Irish rebels, that God would not give them over, or "their children, to the covetoufnefs, cruelty, fierce and curfed anger" of the parliament.

He finishes with a deliberate and folemn curfe "upon himself and his father's houfe." Which how far God hath already brought to pafs, is to the end, that men, by fo eminent an example, fhould learn to tremble at his judgments; and not play with imprecations.

XIII. Upon the calling in of the Scots, and their coming.

IT muft needs feem ftrange, where men accuftom themselves to ponder and contemplate things in their first original and inftitution, that kings, who, as all other officers of the public, were at firft chofen and inftalled only by confent and fuffrage of the people, to govern them as freemen by laws of their own making, and to be, in confideration of that dignity and riches beftowed upon them, the entrusted fervants of the commonwealth, fhould, notwithstanding, grow up to that dishonest encroachment, as to efteem themfelves mafters, both of that great trust which they ferve, and of the people that betrufted them; counting what they ought to do, both in difcharge of their public duty, and for the great reward of honour and revenue which they receive, as done all of mere grace and favour; as if their power over us were by nature, and from themselves, or that God had fold us into their hands. Indeed, if the race of kings were eminently the best of men, as the breed at Tutbury is of horses, it would in reafon then be their part only to command, ours always to obey. But kings by generation no way excelling others, and most commonly not being the wifeft or the worthieft by far of whom they claim to have the governing; that we should yield them

fubjection