3 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue I.
take the pains to examine. So that all sorts of people were fully resolved, that both the doctrine was true, and the Pope's authority no more than was due to him.
B. I see that a Christian king, or state, how well soever provided he be of money and arms, where the Church of Rome hath such authority, will have but a hard match of it, for want of men. For their subjects will hardly be drawn into the field and fight with courage against their con- sciences.
A. It is true that great rebellions have been raised by Church-men in the Pope's quarrel against kings, as in England against King John, and in France against King Henry IV. Wherein the Kings had a more considerable part on their sides, than the Pope had on his; and shall always have so, if they have money. For there are but few whose consciences are so tender as to refuse money when they want it. But the great mischief done to kings upon pretence of religion is, when the Pope gives power to one king to invade another.
B. I wonder how King Henry the Eighth could then so utterly extinguish the authority of the Pope in England, and that without any rebellion at home, or any invasion from abroad.
A. First, the priests, monks, and friars, being in the height of their power, were now for the most part grown insolent and licentious; and thereby the force of their arguments was now taken away by the scandal of their lives, which the gentry and men of good education easily per- ceived: and the Parliament consisting of such persons, was therefore willing to take away their power: and generally the common people, which from a long custom had been in love with Parliaments, were not displeased therewith. Secondly, the doctrine of Luther beginning a little before, was now by a great many men of the greatest judgment so well received, as that there was no hope to restore the Pope to his power by rebellion. Thirdly, the revenue of abbeys and all other religious houses, falling thereby into the King's Dialogue I. BEHEMOTH.
hands, and by him being disposed of to the most eminent gentlemen in every county, could not but make them do their best to confirm themselves in the possession of them. Fourthly, King Henry was of a nature quick and severe in the punishing of such as should be the first to oppose his designs. Lastly, as to invasion from abroad, in case the Pope had given the kingdom to another prince, it had been in vain; for England is another manner of kingdom than Navarre. Besides, the French and Spanish forces were employed at that time one against another: and though they had been at leisure, they would have found perhaps no better success than the Spaniards found afterwards in 1588. Nevertheless, notwithstanding the insolence, avarice, and hypocrisy of the then clergy, and notwithstanding the doc- trine of Luther, if the Pope had not provoked the King by endeavouring to cross his marriage with his second wife, his authority might have remained in England till there had risen some other quarrel.
B. Did not the bishops, that then were, and had taken an oath, wherein was, amongst other things, that they should defend and maintain the Regal Rights of St. Peter (the words are, Regalia Sancti Petri, which nevertheless some have said are regulas Sancti Petri, that is to say, St. Peter's Rules or Doctrine; and that the clergy afterward did read it, being perhaps written in short-hand, by a mistake to the Pope's advantage regalia): did not, I say, the bishops oppose that Act of Parliament against the Pope, and against the taking of the oath of supremacy?
A. No, I do not find the bishops did many of them oppose the King; for having no power without him, it had been great imprudence to provoke his anger. There was besides a controversy in those times between the Pope and the bishops, most of which did maintain that they exercised their jurisdiction episcopal in the right of God, as imme- diately as the Pope himself did exercise the same over the whole Church. And because they saw that by this Act of the King's in Parliament they were to hold their power no 20 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue I.
more of the Pope, and never thought of holding it of the King, they were perhaps better content to let that Act of Parliament pass. In the reign of King Edward VI. the doctrine of Luther had taken so great root in England, that they threw out also a great many of the Pope's new articles of faith; which Queen Mary succeeding him restored again, together with all that had been abolished by Henry VIII., saving (that which could not be restored) the religious houses; and the bishops and clergy of King Edward were partly burnt for heretics, partly fled, and partly recanted. And they that fled betook themselves to those places beyond sea, where the reformed religion was either protected or not persecuted; who, after the decease of Queen Mary, returned again to favour and preferment under Queen Elizabeth, that restored the religion of her brother King Edward. And so it hath continued till this day, excepting the interruption made in this late rebellion of the presbyterians and other democratical men. But though the Romish religion were now cast out by the law, yet there were abundance of people, and many of them of the nobility, that still retained the religion of their ancestors, who as they were not much molested in points of conscience, so they were not by their own inclination very troublesome to the civil government; but by the secret practice of the Jesuits and other emissaries of the Roman Church, they were made less quiet than they ought to have been; and some of them to venture on the most horrid act that ever had been heard of before, I mean the Gunpowder Treason. And upon that account, the Papists of England have been looked upon as men that would not be sorry for any disorders here that might possibly make way to the restoring of the Pope's authority. And therefore I named them for one of the distempers of the state of England in the time of our late King Charles.
B. I see that Monsieur Mornay du Plessis, and Dr. Morton, Bishop of Durham, writing of the progress of the Pope's power, and intituling their books, one of them, "The Mystery of Iniquity," the other, "The Grand Impos- Dialogue i. BEHEMOTH.
ture," were both in the right. For I believe there was never such another cheat in the world, and I wonder that the Kings and States of Christendom never perceived it.
A. It is manifest they did perceive it. How else durst they make war, *as they have done*, against the Pope, and some of them take him out of Rome itself and carry him away prisoner? But if they would have freed themselves from his tyranny, they should have agreed together, and made themselves every one, as Henry VIII. did, head of the Church within their own respective dominions. But not agree- ing, they let his power continue, every one hoping to make use of it, when there should be cause, against his neighbour.
B. Now, as to that other distemper by Presbyterians, how came their power to be so great, being of themselves, for the most part, but so many poor scholars?
A. This controversy between the Papist and the Reformed Churches could not choose but make every man, to the best of his power, examine by the Scriptures, which of them was in the right; and to that end they were translated into vulgar languages; whereas before, the translation of them was not allowed, nor any man to read them but such as had express license so to do. For the Pope did concerning the Scriptures the same that Moses did concerning Mount Sinai. Moses suffered no man to go up to it to hear God speak or gaze upon him, but such as he himself took with him; and the Pope suffered none to speak with God in the Scriptures, that had not some part of the Pope's spirit in him, for which he might be trusted.
B. Certainly Moses did therein very wisely, and accord- ing to God's own commandment.
A. No doubt of it, and the event itself hath made it appear so. For after the Bible was translated into English, every man, nay, every boy and wench, that could read English, thought they spoke with God Almighty, and understood what he said, when by a certain number of chapters a day they had read the Scriptures once or twice over. *And so* the reverence and obedience due to the BEHEMOTH. Dialogue I.
Reformed Church here, and to the bishops and pastors there- in, was cast off; and every man became a judge of religion, and an interpreter of the Scriptures to himself.
B. Did not the Church of England intend it should be so? What other end could they have in recommending the Bible to me, if they did not mean I should make it the rule of my actions? Else they might have kept it, though open to themselves, to me sealed up in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and fed me out of it in such measure as had been requisite for the salvation of my soul and the Church's peace.
A. I confess this licence of interpreting the Scripture was the cause of so many several sects, as having lain hid till the beginning of the late King's reign, did then appear to the disturbance of the commonwealth. But to return to the story. Those persons that fled for religion in the time of Queen Mary, resided, for the most part, in places where the Reformed religion was professed and governed by an assembly of ministers; who also were not a little made use of (for want of better statesmen), in points of civil govern- ment. Which pleased so much the English and Scotch Protestants that lived amongst them, that at their return they wished there were the same honour and reverence given to the ministry in their own countries. *And* in Scotland (King James being then young) soon (with the help of some of the powerful nobility) they brought it to pass. Also they that returned into England in the begin- ning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, endeavoured the same here, but could never effect it till this last rebellion, nor without the aid of the Scots. And it was no sooner effected, but they were defeated again by the other sects, which, by the preaching of the Presbyterians and private interpretation of Scripture, were grown numerous.
B. I know indeed that in the beginning of the late war, the power of the Presbyterians was so very great, that, not only the citizens of London were almost all of them at their devotion, but also the greatest part of all other cities and .Dialogue i. BEHEMOTH.
market-towns of England. But you have not yet told me by what art and what degrees they became so strong.
A. It was not their own art alone that did it, but they had the concurrence of a great many gentlemen, that did no less desire a popular government in the civil state than these ministers did in the Church. And as these did in the pulpit draw the people to their opinions, and to a dislike of the Church-government, Canons, and Common-prayer- book, so did the other make them in love with democracy by their harangues in the Parliament, and by their discourses and communication with people in the country, continually extolling liberty and inveighing against tyranny, leaving the people to collect of themselves that this tyranny was the present government of the state. And as the Presbyterians brought with them into their churches their divinity from the universities, so did many of the gentlemen bring their politics from thence into the Parliament; but neither of them did this very boldly during the time of Queen Elizabeth. And though it be not likely that all of them did it out of malice, but many of them out of error, yet certainly the chief leaders were ambitious ministers and ambitious gentle- men; the ministers envying the authority of bishops, whom they thought less learned; and the gentlemen envying the privy-council and principal courtiers, whom they thought less wise than themselves. For it is a hard matter for men, who do all think highly of their own wits, when they have also acquired the learning of the university, to be persuaded that they want any ability requisite for the government of a commonwealth, especially having read the glorious histories and the sententious politics of the ancient popular govern- ments of the Greeks and Romans, amongst whom kings were hated and branded with the name of tyrants, and popular government (though no tyrant was ever so cruel as a popular assembly) passed by the name of liberty. The Presbyterian ministers, in the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, did not (because they durst not) publicly *and plainly* preach against the discipline of the Church. But BEHEMOTH. Dialogue t.
not long after, by the favour perhaps of some great courtier, they went abroad preaching in most of the market-towns of England, as the preaching friars had formerly done, upon working-days in the morning; in which sermons, these and others of the same tenets, that had charge of souls, both by the manner and matter of their preaching, applied themselves wholly to the winning of the people to a liking of their doctrines and good opinion of their persons.
And first, for the manner of their preaching; they so framed their countenance and gesture at their entrance into the pulpit, and their pronunciation both in their prayer and sermon, and" used the Scripture phrase (whether understood by the people or not), as that no tragedian in the world could have acted the part of a right godly man better than these did; insomuch as a man unacquainted with such art, could never suspect any ambitious plot in them to raise sedition against the state, as they then had designed; or doubt that the vehemence of their voice (for the same words with the usual pronunciation had been of little force) and forcedness of their gesture and looks, could arise from anything else but zeal to the service of God. And by this art they came into such credit, that numbers of men used to go forth of their own parishes and towns on working- days, leaving their calling, and on Sundays leaving their own churches, to hear them preach in other places, and to despise their own and all other preachers that acted not so well as they. And as for those ministers that did not usually preach, but instead of sermons did read to the people such homilies as the Church had appointed, they esteemed and called them dumb dogs.
Secondly, for the matter of their sermons, because the anger of the people in the late Roman usurpation was then fresh, they saw there could be nothing more gracious with them than to preach against such other points of the Romish religion as the bishops had not yet condemned; that so receding further from popery than they did, they might with glory to themselves leave a suspicion on the bishops, as men not yet well purged from idolatry.
Dialogue I. BEHEMOTH. 25 Thirdly, before their sermons, their prayer was or seemed to be extempore, which they pretended to be dictated by the spirit of God within them, and many of the people believed or seemed to believe it. For any man might see, that had judgment, that they did not take care beforehand what they should say in their prayers. And from hence came a dislike of the common-prayer-book, which is a set form, premeditated, that men might see to what they were to say Amen.
Fourthly, they did never in their sermons, or but lightly, inveigh against the lucrative vices of men of trade or handi- craft; such as are feigning, lying, cozening, hypocrisy, or other uncharitableness, except want of charity to their pastors and to the faithful: which was a great ease to the generality of citizens and the inhabitants of market-towns, and no little profit to themselves.
Fifthly, by preaching up an opinion that men were to be assured of their salvation by the testimony of their own private spirit, meaning the Holy Ghost dwelling within them. And from this opinion the people that found in themselves a sufficient hatred towards the Papists, and an ability to repeat the sermons of these men at their coming home, made no doubt but that they had all that was necessary, how fraudulently and spitefully soever they behaved them- selves to their neighbours that were not reckoned amongst the Saints, and sometimes to those also.
Sixthly, they did, indeed, with great earnestness and severity, inveigh often against two sins, carnal lusts and vain swearing; which, without question, was very well done. But the common people were thereby inclined to believe, that nothing else was sin, but that which was forbidden in the third and seventh commandments (for few men do understand by the name of lust any other concupiscence, than that which is forbidden in that seventh commandment; for men are not ordinarily said to lust after another man's cattle, or other goods or possessions): and therefore never made much scruple of the acts of fraud and malice, but 26 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue u endeavoured to keep themselves from uncleanness only, or at least from the scandal of it. And, whereas they did, both in their sermons and writings, maintain and inculcate, that the very first motions of the mind, that is to say, the delight men and women took in the sight of one another's form, though they checked the proceeding thereof so that it never grew up to be a design, was nevertheless a sin, they brought young men into desperation and to think themselves damned, because they could not (which no man can, and is contrary to the constitution of nature) behold a delightful object without delight. And by this means they became confessors to such as were thus troubled in conscience, and were obeyed by them as their spiritual doctors in all cases of conscience.
B. Yet divers of them did preach frequently against oppression.
A. It is true, I had forgot that; but it was before such as were free enough from it; I mean the common people, who would easily believe themselves oppressed, but never oppressors. And therefore you may reckon this among their artifices, to make the people believe they were op- pressed by the King, or perhaps by the bishops, or both; and incline the meaner sort to their party afterwards, when there should be occasion. But this was but sparingly dpne in the time of Queen Elizabeth, whose fear and jealousy they were afraid of. Nor had they as yet any great power in the Parliament-house, whereby to call in question her prerogative by petitions of right and other devices, as they did afterwards, when democratical gentlemen had received them into their counsels for the design of changing the government from monarchical to popular, which they called liberty.
B. Who would think that such horrible designs as these could so easily and so long remain covered with the cloak of godliness? For that they were most impious hypocrites, is manifest enough by the war their proceedings ended in, and by the impious acts in that war committed. But when Dialogue I. BEHEMOTH. 27 began first to appear in Parliament the attempt of popular government, and by whom?
A. As to the time of attempting the change of govern- ment from monarchical to democratical, we must distinguish. They did not challenge the sovereignty in plain terms, and by that name, till they had slain the King; nor the rights thereof altogether by particular heads, till the King was driven from London by tumults raised in that city against him, and retired for the security of his person to York; where he had not been many days, when they sent unto him nineteen propositions, whereof above a dozen were demands of several powers, essential parts of the power sovereign. But before that time they had demanded some of them in a petition which they called a Petition of Right; which nevertheless the King had granted them in a former Parlia- ment, though he deprived himself thereby, not only of the power to levy money without their consent, but also of his ordinary revenue by custom of tonnage and poundage, and of the liberty to put into custody such men as he thought likely to disturb the peace and raise sedition in the kingdom. As for the men that did this, it is enough to say they were members of the last Parliament, and of some other Par- liaments in the beginning of King Charles and the end of King James his reign; to name them all is not necessary, further than the story shall require. Most of them were members of the House of Commons; some few also, of the Lords; but all, such as had a great opinion of their sufficiency in politics, which they thought was not sufficiently taken notice of by the King.
B. How could the Parliament, when the King had a great navy, and a great number of trained soldiers, and all the magazines of ammunition in his power, be able to begin the war?
A. The King had these things indeed in his right; but that signifies little, when they that had the custody of the navy and magazines, and with them all the trained soldiers, and in a manner all his subjects, were by the preaching of 28 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue I.
Presbyterian ministers, and the seditious whisperings of false and ignorant politicians, made his enemies; and when the King could have no money but what the Parliament should give him, which you may be sure should not be enough to maintain his regal power, which they intended to take from him. And yet, I think, they never would have ventured into the field, but for that unlucky business of imposing upon the Scots, who were all Presbyterians, our book of Common-prayer. For I believe the English would never have taken well that the Parliament should make war upon the King, upon any provocation, unless it were in their own defence, in case the King should first make war upon them; and, therefore, it behoved them to provoke the King, that he might do something that might look like hostility.
It happened in the year 1637, that the King, by the advice, as it was thought, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, sent down a book of Common-prayer into Scotland, not differing in substance from ours, nor much in words besides the putting of the word Presbyter for that of Minister, commanding it to be used (for conformity with this kingdom) by the ministers there, for an ordinary form of Divine service. This being read in the church at Edinburgh, caused such a tumult there, that he that read it had much ado to escape with his life; and gave occasion to the greatest part of the nobility and others to enter, by their own authority, into a Covenant amongst themselves, which impudently they called a Covenant with God, to put down episcopacy, with- out consulting with the King: which they presently did, animated thereto by their own confidence, or by assurance from some of the democratical Englishmen that in former Parliaments had been the greatest opposers of the King's interests, that the King would not be able to raise an army to chastise them without calling a Parliament, which would be sure to favour them. For the thing which those democraticals chiefly then aimed at, was to force the King to call a Parliament, which he had not done for ten years Dialogue i. BEHEMOTH. 29 before, as having found no help, but hindrance to his designs in the Parliaments he had formerly called. Howsoever, contrary to their expectation, by the help of his better- affected subjects of the nobility and gentry, he made a shift to raise a sufficient army to have reduced the Scots to their former obedience, if it had proceeded to battle. And with this army he marched himself into Scotland; where the Scotch army was also brought into the field against him, as if they meant to fight. But then the Scotch sent to the King for leave to treat by commissioners on both sides; and the King, willing to avoid the destruction of his own subjects, condescended to it. The issue was peace; and the King thereupon went to Edinburgh, and passed an Act of Parliament there to their satisfaction. B. Did he not then confirm episcopacy?
A. No, but yielded to the abolishing of it: but by this means the English were crossed in their hope of a Parlia- ment. But the said democraticals, formerly opposers of the King's interest, ceased not to endeavour still to put the two nations into a war; to the end the King might buy the Parliament's help at no less a price than sovereignty itself.
B. But what was the cause that the gentry and nobility of Scotland were so averse from the episcopacy? For I can hardly believe that their consciences were extraordinarily tender, nor that they were so very great divines, as to know what was the true Church- discipline established by our Saviour and his Apostles; nor yet so much in love with their ministers, as to be over-ruled by them in the govern- ment either ecclesiastical or civil. For in their lives they were just as other men are, pursuers of their own interests and preferments, wherein they were not more opposed by the bishops than by their Presbyterian ministers.
A. Truly I do not know; I cannot enter into other men's thoughts, farther than I am led by the consideration of human nature in general. But upon this consideration I see first, that men of ancient wealth and nobility are not apt to brook, that poor scholars should (as they must, when 30 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue i.
they are made bishops) be their fellows. Secondly, that from the emulation of glory between the nations, they might be willing to see this nation afflicted by civil war, and might hope, by aiding the rebels here, to acquire some power over the English, at least so far as to establish here the Presbyterian discipline; which was also one of the points they afterwards openly demanded. Lastly, they might hope for, in the war, some great sum of money, as a reward of their assistance, besides great booty, which they afterwards obtained. But whatsoever was the cause of their hatred to bishops, the pulling of them down was not all they aimed at: if it had, now that episcopacy was abolished by act of Parliament, they would have rested satisfied, which they did not. For after the King was returned to London, the English Presbyterians and democraticals, by whose favour they had put down bishops in Scotland, thought it reason to have the assistance of the Scotch for the pulling down of bishops in England. And in order thereunto, they might perhaps deal with the Scots secretly, to rest unsatisfied with that pacification, which they were before contented with. Howsoever it was, not long after the King was returned to London, they sent up to some of their friends at court a certain paper, containing, as they pretended, the articles of the said pacification; a false and scandalous paper, which was by the King's command burnt, as I have heard, publicly. And so both parties returned to the same condition they were in, when the King went down with his army.
B. And so there was a great deal of money cast away to no purpose. But you have not told me who was general of that army.
A. I told you the King was there in person. He that commanded under him was the Earl of Arundel, a man that wanted not either valour or judgment. But to proceed to battle or to treaty, was not in his power, but in the King's.
B. He was a man of a most noble and loyal family, and whose ancestor had formerly given a great overthrow to the Dialogtie I. BEHEMOTH. 31 Scots, in their own country; and in all likelihood he might have given them the like now, if they had fought.
A. He might indeed: but it had been but a kind of superstition to have made him general upon that account, though many generals heretofore have been chosen for the good luck of their ancestors in like occasions. In the long war between Athens and Sparta, a general of the Athenians by sea won many victories against the Spartans; for which cause, after his death, they chose his son for general with ill success. The Romans that conquered Carthage by the valour and conduct of Scipio, when they were to make war again in Afric against Ccesar, chose another Scipio for general; a man valiant and wise enough, but that perished in the employment. And to come home to our own nation, the Earl of Essex made a fortunate expedition to Cadiz; but his son, sent afterwards to the same place, could do nothing. It is but a foolish superstition to hope that God has entailed success in war upon a name or family.
B. After the pacification broken, what succeeded next? A. The King sent Duke Hamilton with commission and instructions into Scotland, to call a Parliament there, and to use all the means he could otherwise; but all was to no purpose. For the Scots were now resolved to raise an army and to enter into England, to deliver, as they pretended, their grievances to his majesty in a petition; because the King, they said, being in the hands of evil councillors, they could not otherwise obtain their right. But the truth is, they were animated to it by the democratical and Presby- terian English, with a promise of reward and hope of plunder. Some have said, that Duke Hamilton also did rather encourage them to, than deter them from, the ex- pedition; as hoping by the disorder of the two kingdoms, to bring to pass that which he had formerly been accused to endeavour, to make himself King of Scotland. But I take this to have been a very uncharitable censure, upon so little ground to judge so hardly of a man, that afterwards lost his life in seeking to procure the liberty of the King his 32 BEHEMOTH. Dialogue I.
master. — This resolution of the Scots to enter England being known, the King wanting money to raise an army against them, was now, as his enemies here wished, con- strained to call a parliament, to meet at Westminster the 13th day of April, 1640.