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 formality as a support of their own ecclesiastical tyranny and usurpation:

3. Counsellors and courtiers, that for private ends (they said) had engaged themselves to further the interests of some foreign princes.

B. It may very well be, that some of the bishops, and also some of the court, may have, in pursuit of their private interest, done something indiscreetly, and perhaps wickedly. Therefore I pray you tell me in particular what their crimes were: for methinks the King should not have connived at anything against his own supreme authority.

A. The Parliament were not very keen against those that were for the King, they made no doubt but all they did was by the King’s command; but accused thereof the bishops, counsellors, and courtiers, as being a more mannerly way of accusing the King himself, and defaming him to his subjects. For the truth is, the charge they brought against them was so general as not to be called an accusation, but railing. As first (they said) they nourished questions of prerogative and liberty between the King and his people, to the end that, seeming much addicted to his Majesty’s service, they might get themselves into places of greatest trust and power in the kingdom.

B. How could this be called an accusation, in which there is no fact, for any accusers to apply their proofs to, or their witnesses. For granting that these questions of prerogative had been moved by them, who can prove that their end was to gain to themselves and friends the places of trust and power in the kingdom?

A. A second accusation was, that they endeavoured to suppress the purity and power of religion.

B. That is canting. ’Tis not in man’s power to suppress the power of religion.

A. They meant that they would suppress the doctrine of the Presbyterians; that is to say, the very foundation of the then Parliament’s treacherous pretensions.