The issue accepted by his Majesty.

Privilege of Parliament pleaded against it by the Observator. 1. The king the source of these privileges.

2. The constitution may not be superseded by them.

3. Nor privileges claimed of which subjects are incapable.
4. Such privileges must be measured by the law of the land.]

SECTION THE TWENTY-THIRD.

[His Majesty bound to follow his conscience.

The Observator's instances to the contrary ungrounded. .

420

The Observator's false doctrine,-that the king ought to grant the people's request, although hurtful to themselves.]

421

SECTION THE TWENTY-FOURTH. .

. 422

[The law not always prior in time to the magistrate.

ib.

The Observator's commendation of Parliaments.

The Observator's particular wishes.

His instances in support of them.

Parliaments an old invention, yet not such Parliaments as ours.

A complete Parliament the true salve for the sores of the commonwealth. 430 Yet Parliaments often inconsistent with each other.

And abused to private ends.]

ib. . 433

[III. OF THE REMAINDER OF THE OBSERVATOR'S TREATISE.]
1. Of Hull and Sir John Hotham.
[To exclude the king from his own town, confessed by the Observator
to be treason.

i. Nothing in the circumstances of the action, to exculpate Sir
John Hotham.

ib.

ii. Nothing in the intention of the actors, to justify the Parlia

iii. Nor in the authority of the commanders, to justify Sir John
Hotham.

Hull-men accuse Sir John Hotham as a prime occasion of the pre-
sent distempers.]

ii. An apprehension of losing their religious and civil liberty.

ib.

The Irish and English rebellions compared.

462

The Observator's error,—that Ireland is one kingdom with England

in the same manner that Wales is.

463

3. Of the clergy.]

The calling of Bishops not Popish.

[i. 1300 years old and more in England.

ii. Woven and riveted into the body of the English law.

iii. Universally received throughout the whole Christian world.
iv. Established in England.

Maintained by others than Bishops.

Not oppugned by Whitaker, Fulke, or Reynolds.

v. The safest way, since Episcopal orders (only) are allowed by all. 474 vi. Its blessings.

vii. Evils of other forms of Church government.

viii. Arguments from Scripture against it mere mistakes.

ix. It has the support of the majority of Protestant Churches.
x. Its greatest impugners substantially defend it.

Their objections are against its abuses.

The conclusion of the Observator's treatise.]

476

477

479

ib.

486

. 490 493

of king

WHEN that sign, or rather meteor, called Castor and [Division Pollux, appears single to the seafaring men, it portends a and Parliadangerous tempest; because of the density or toughness of ment, how injurious the matter, which is not easily dissolved: and when it ap- to the kingdom.] pears double, divided into two, it presageth serenity and a good voyage. But it is otherwise in the body politic. When the king and Parliament are united, it promiseth happy and halcyonian days to the subject; and when they appear divided, it threatens ruin and dissipation to the whole kingdom. This is our present condition. The heads are drenched [Psalm cxxxiii. 2.] with the oil of discord, and it runs down to the skirts of the garment. Of all heretics in theology, they were the worst who made two beginnings, a God of good, and a God of evil. Of all heretics in policy, they are the most dangerous, which make the commonwealth an amphisbæna, a serpent with two heads; who make two supremes without subordination one to another, the king and the Parliament. That is to leave a seminary of discord, to lay a trap for the subject, to set up a rack for the conscience, when superiors send out contrary commands (as the commission of array, and the order for the militia"). If they were subordinate one to another, we had a safe way both to discharge our conscience towards God, and secure our estates to the world; that is, by obeying the higher power, according to that golden rule, 'In præsentiá majoris cessat authoritas minoris.' But whilst they make them co-ordinate one with another, the estate, the liberty, the life, the soul of every subject lies at stake. What passage can poor conscience find between this Scylla and

[Plin., Hist. Nat., ii. 37.]

[The first sent out by the King in June 1642, the second by the Parliament in March 1641-2; see the Exact Collection of Remonstrances &c., pp. 88,

96, 102, 344-348, and Dugdale's Short
View of the Late Troubles in England,
cc. x. xi. pp. 89-97; besides Rush-
worth, Clarendon, &c.]

[Matt. vi. Charybdis; between the two horns of this dilemma? "No 24.] man can serve two masters."

[Danger of

All great and sudden changes are dangerous to the body great and natural, but much more to the body politic. Time and custom changes.] beget reverence and admiration in the minds of all men : fre

sudden

quent alterations produce nothing but contempt. Break ice in one place, it will crack in more. Mountebanks, projectors, and innovators, always promise golden mountains, but their performance is seldom worth a cracked groat. The credulous

ass in the fable believed, that the wolf (his counterfeit physician) would cure him of all his infirmities, and lost his [Gen. iii. skin for his labour. When the devil tempted our first

4, 5.]

parents, he assured them of a more happy estate than they
had in Paradise: but what saith our common proverb,
'Seldom comes the better.' It is the ordinance of God, that
nothing should be perfectly blessed in this world; yet it is
our weakness to impute all our sufferings to our present
condition, and to believe a change would free us from all
encumbrances. So thought the Romans, when they changed
their Consul into Consulary Tribunes. So thought the
Florentines, when they cashiered their Decemviri. Both
found the disadvantage of their novelties; both were forced
to shake hands again with their old friends. Other nations
have used to picture an Englishman with a pair of shears in
his hand, thus deriding our new-fangledness in attire; but it
is far worse to be shaping new Creeds every day, and new forms
of government, according to each man's private humour.
When a sick man tosseth from one side of his bed to another,
yet his distemper follows him. They say our countryman
never knows when he is well; but if God Almighty be
graciously pleased once again to send us peace, I trust we
shall know better how to value it. In the mean time, let us
take heed of credulity and newfangledness. Those states
are most durable, which are most constant to their own
rules. The glory of Venice is perpetuated, not so much by
the strong situation, as by that sanction or constitution, that
it is not lawful for any man to make mention of a new 518
law to the Grand Council, before it have been first discussed
and allowed by a selected company of their most intelligent,

[See the Homily against Excess of Apparel, p. 339. 12mo. ed. 1828.]

most experienced citizens. Among the Locrians, no man might propose a new law but with a halter about his neck, that if he did not speed in his suit, he might presently be strangled. The Lacedæmonians did so far abhor from all study of change, that they banished a skilful musician, only for adding one string more to the harpe.

course not

the lawful

Parlia

11.]

I desire, that no man will interpret what I say in this dis- [This discourse as intended to the prejudice of the lawful rights and directed just privileges of Parliament. The very name of a Parlia- against ment was music in our ears; at the summons thereof our rights of hearts danced for joy. It is rather to be feared that we ment.] idolized Parliaments, and trusted more in them than in God for our temporal well being. God, Who "gave the Israelites [Hos. xiii. a king in His anger," may at His pleasure give us a Parliament in His anger. That we reap not the expected fruit, (next to our sins) we may thank the Observator, and such incendiaries. I confess myself the most unfit of thousands to descend into this theatre, as one who have lived hitherto a mute; but to see the father of our country threatened and vilified by a common soldier, is able to make a dumb man speak, as it did sometimes the son of Croesus. 'Quando dolor est in capite' (saith St. Bernard)-' when the head aches, the tongue cries for assistance; and the very least members, the toe, or the little finger, is affected".' We are commanded to be "wise as serpents." A chief wisdom of Matt. x. 16. the serpent is in time of danger to wrap and fold his head in the circles of his body, to save that from blows. I pretend not to skill in politics; the Observator may have read more books and more men; but let him not despise a weak adversary who comes armed with evident truth. I know I have the better cause, the better second. The birds in Aristophanes, fancying an all-sufficiency to themselves, did attempt for a while to build a city walled up to heaven", not much unlike such another fiction of the apes in Hermogenes; but at length the one for fear of Jupiter's thunder, and the other for want of convenient tools, gave