Eikon Basilike Part 10

I cannot so much as pray G.o.d to prevent those sad consequences, which will inevitably follow the parity and poverty of Ministers, both in Church and State; since I think it no lesse then a mocking and tempting of G.o.d, to desire him to hinder those mischiefs whose occasions and remedies are in our own power; it being every mans sin not to avoid the one, and not to use the other.

There are ways enough to repair the breaches of the State without the ruins of the Church; as I would be a restorer of the one, so I would not be an oppressor of the other under the pretence of publick Debts: The occasions contracting them were bad enough, but such a discharging of them would be much worse; I pray G.o.d neither I, nor mine, may be accessary to either.

_To thee, O Lord, do I addresse my Prayer, beseeching thee to pardon the rashness of my Subjects Swearings, and to quicken their sense and observation of those just, morall and indispensable bonds, which thy word and the Laws of this Kingdom have laid upon their Consciences; From which no pretensions of Piety & reformation are sufficient to absolve them; or to engage them to any contrary practises._

_Make them at length seriously to consider that nothing violent and injurious can be religious._

_Thou allowest no mans committing Sacriledge under the zeal of abhorring Idols._

_Suffer not sacrilegious designs to have the countenance of religious ties._

_Thou hast taught us by the wisest of Kings, that it is a snare to take things that are holy, and Vows to mak enquiry._

_Ever keep thy Servant from consenting to perjurious and sacraligeous rapinei, that I may not have the brand and curse to all posterity of robing Thee and thy Church, of what thy bounty hath given us, and thy clemencie hath accepted from us, wherewith to encourage Learning and Religion._

_Though My Treasures are Exhausted, My Revenues Diminished, and My Debts Encreased, yet never suffer Me to be tempted to use such profane Reparation; lest a coal from thine Altar set such a fire on My Throne and Conscience as will hardly be quenched._

_Let not the Debts and Engagements of the Publique, which some mens folly and prodigalitie hath contracted, be an occasion to impoverish thy Church._

_The State may soon recover, by thy blessing of peace upon us; The Church is never likely, in times, where the Charity of most men is grown so cold, and their Religion so illiberall._

_Continue to those that serve Thee and thy Church all those encouragements, which by the will of the pious Donours, and the justice of the Laws are due unto them; and give them grace to deserve and use them aright to thy glory, & the relief of the poor: That shy Priests may be cloathed with righteousnesse, and the poor may be satisfed with bread._

_Let not holy things be given to Swine; nor the Churches bread to Dogs; rather let them go about the City, grin like a Dog, and grudge that they are not satisfied._

_Let those sacred morsels, which some men have already by violence devoured, never digest with them, nor theirs; Let them be as_ Naboth's _Vineyard to_ Ahab, _gall in their mouths, rottennesse to their names, a moth to their families, and a sting to their Consciences._

_Break in sunder O Lord, all violent and sacrilegious Confederations to do wickedly and injuriously._

_Divide their hearts and tongues who have bandyed together against the Church and State, that the folly of such may be manifest to all men, and proceed no further._

_But so savour My righteous dealing, O Lord, that in the mercies of thee, the most High, I may never miscarry._

15. _Vpon the many Jealousies raised, and Scandals cast upon the_ KING, _to stirre up the People against him._

If _I_ had not My own Innocency, and G.o.ds protection, it were hard for Me to stand out against those stratagems and conflicts of malice, which by falsities seek to oppresse the Truth; and by Jealousies to supply the defect of reall causes, which might seem to justifie so unjust ingagements against Me.

And indeed, the worst effects of open hostility come short of these designes: For, _I_ can more willingly lose My Crownes, then My credit; nor are My Kingdomes so dear to Me, as My Reputation and Honor.

Those must have a period with my life; but these may survive to a glorious kind of Immortality, when I am dead and gone: A good name being the imbalming of Princes, and a sweet consecrating of them to an Eternity of love and grat.i.tude among Posterity.

Those foul and false aspersions were secret engines at first employed against My peoples love to Me: that undermining their opinion and value of Me, My enemies, and theirs too might at one blow up their affections, and batter down their loyalty.

Wherein yet, I thank G.o.d, the detriment of My Honor is not so afflictive to Me, as the sin and danger of My peoples souls, whose eyes once blinded with such mists of suspicions, they are soon misled into the most desperate precipices of actions: wherein they do not only, not consider their sin and danger, but glory in their zealous adventures; while I am rendred to them so fit to be destroyed, that many are ambitious to merit the name of My Destroyers; Imagining they then fear G.o.d most, when they least honor their King.

I thank G.o.d, I never found but My pity was above My anger; nor have My pa.s.sions ever so prevailed against me, as to exclude My most compa.s.sionate prayers for them, whom devout errours more then their own malice have betrayed to a most religious Rebellion.

I had the Charity to interpret, that most part of My Subjects fought against My supposed Errours, not My person; and intended to mend Me, not to end Me: And _I_ hope that G.o.d pardoning their Errours, hath so farre accepted and answered their good intentions, as he hath yet preserved Me, so he hath by these afflictions prepared me, both to do him better service, and My people more good then hitherto I have done.

I do not more willingly forgive their seductions, which occasioned their loyall injuries, then I am ambitious by all Princely merits to redeem them from their unjust suspicions, and reward them for their good intentions.

I am too conscious to My own affections toward the generality of my people to suspect theirs to Me; nor shall the malice of My Enemies ever be able to deprive Me of the comfort which that confidence gives Me; I shall never gratifie the spightfulnesse of a few with any sinister thoughts of all their Allegiance, whom pious frauds have seduced.

The worst some mens ambition can do, shall never perswade Me, to make so bad interpretations of most of My Subjects actions; who possibly may be erroneous, but not Hereticall in point of Loyalty.

The sence of the injuries done to My Subjects is as sharp, as those done to My Self; our welfares being inseparable; in this only they suffer more then My self, that they are animated by some seducers to injure at once both themselves and Me.

For this it is not enough to the malice of My Enemies, that I be afflicted; but it must be done by such instruments, that My afflictions grieve Me not more, then this doth, that I am afflicted by those, whose prosperity I earnestly desire, and whose seduction I heartily deplore.

If they had been my open and forraign Enemies, I could have born it; but they must be My own Subjects, who are next to My Children dear to me: And for the restoring of some tranquillity, I could willingly be the _Jonah_, if I did not evidently fore-see, that by the divided interests of their and Mine Enemies, as by contrary winds, the storm of their miseries would be rather increased then allayed.

I had rather prevent my peoples ruin then rule over them; nor am I so ambitious of that Dominion which is but My Right, as of their happiness; If it could expiate or countervail such a way of obtaining it, by the highest injuries of subjects committed against their Soveraign.

Yet I had rather suffer all the miseries of life, and die many deaths, then shamefully to desert, or dishonourable to betray My own just Rights and Soveraignty; thereby to gratifie the ambition, or justifie the malice of my enemies; between whose malice, and other mens mistakes, I put as great a difference, as between an ordinary Ague and the Plague; or the Itch of Novelty, and the Leprosie of Disloyalty.

As Liars need have good memories, so malicious persons need good inventions; that their calumnies may fit every mans fancy; and what their reproaches want of truth, they may make up with numbers and shew.

My patience (I thank G.o.d) wil better serve Me to bear, and My charity to forgive, then My leisure to answer the many false Aspersions which some men have cast upon Me.

Did I not more consider My Subjects Satisfaction, then my owne Vindication, I should never have given the malice of some men that pleasure, as to see me take notice of, or remember what they say, or object.

I would leave the Authors to be punished by their own evill manners, and seared Consciences, which will, I believe, in a shorter time then they be aware of, both confute and revenge all those black and false Scandals which they have cast on me; And make the world see, there is as little truth in them, as there was little worth in the broaching of them, or Civility, (I need not say Loyalty) in the not suppressing of them; whose credit and reputation, even with the people, shall ere long be quite blasted by the breath of that same fornace of popular obloquy, and detraction, which they have studied to heat and inflame to the highest degree of infamy, and wherein they have sought to cast and consume My Name and Honor.

First, nothing gave me more cause to suspect, and search mine own innocencie, then when I observed so many forward to engage against me, who had made great professions of singular piety; For this gave to Vulgar minds so bad a reflection upon me and my Cause, as if it had been impossible to adhere to me, and not withall part from G.o.d; to think or speak well of me, and not to blaspheme him; so many were perswaded that these two were utterly inconsistent, to be at once Loyall to Me, and truly Religious toward G.o.d.

Not but that I had (I thank G.o.d) many with me, which were both learned and Religious, (much above that ordinary size, and that Vulgar proportion wherein some men glory so much) who were so well satisfied in the cause of my sufferings, that they chose rather to suffer with me, then forsake me.

Nor is it strange, that so religious Pretensions as were used against me, should be to many well-minded men a great temptation to oppose me; especially, being urged by such popular Preachers as think it no sin to lie for G.o.d, and what they please to call G.o.ds Cause, cursing all that will not curse with them; looking so much at, and crying up the goodnesse of the end propounded, that they consider not the lawfulness of the means used nor the depth of the mischief, chiefly plotted and intended.

The weakness of these mens judgments must be made up by their clamours and activity.

It was a great part of some mens Religion to scandalize me and mine; they thought theirs could not be true, if they cried not down Mine as false.

I thank G.o.d, I have had more triall of his grace, as to the constancy of my Religion in the Protestant profession of the Church of _England_, both abroad, and at home, then ever they are like to have.

Nor do _I_ know any exception I am so liable to, in their opinion, as too great a fixedness in that Religion, whose judicious and solid grounds, both from Scripture, and Antiquity, will not give my conscience leave to approve or consent to those many dangerous and divided innovations, which the bold ignorance of some men would needs obtrude upon me, and my people.

Contrary to those well tried foundations both of Truth, and Order, which men of far greater Learning, and clearer Zeal, have settled in the Confession and Const.i.tution of this Church in _England_, which many former Parliaments in the most calm, and unpa.s.sionate times, have oft confirmed; In which I shall ever, by G.o.ds help, persevere, as beleeving it hath most of primitive Truth and Order.

Nor did my using the a.s.sistance of some Papists, which were my Subjects, any way fight against my Religion, some men would needs interpret it: especially those who least of all men cared whom they imployed, or what they said and did, so they might prevail.