A VINDICATION OF THE Honour of KING CHARLES I. AGAINST The Prodigious Calumnies of the REGICIDE, LUDLOW, Publisht in what He calls A Letter from Major-General LUDLOW, To Sir E. S.

—Certare Malis urgentibus, Hoste putabam Devicto Maius, nec tam Fugisse Cavendo Adversa Egregium, quàm Perdomuisse Ferendo. SIL. ITAL. Lib. 6

Printed in the Year, 1691.

IT would be a very great Extravagancy for any Man to Attempt the Justification of All the Actions of the most Innocent of the Sons of Adam, that ever Sate upon a Throne, there being such Innumerable Temptations to Error, arising from the Various Interests, Opinions, and Natural Inclinations of Persons with whom He is to Consult in Private, or in Publick; and such Variety of Enormities in the Lives of the Multitude He is to Govern; and so Many of the Laws of the best Constituted Kingdome being liable to such Various Constructions even in the Judgment of well-meaning People, and so apt to be Wrested by the Subtle Devices of Ingenious Lawyers, led by their Ambition, Avarice, or Desire of Revenge, &c. It is very easy to conceive how the most Just Prince in the World may be Expos'd to the Obloquy of the Populace by the Attempts of such Lawyers, especially having fallen into some Real Errors, through the Common Infirmity of all Mankind either Hearkning to Erroneous Counsels, or taking some Unusual measures in Opposition to the Strange, Unexpected & Astonishing Proceedings of Seditious and Unreasonable Men. Sometimes the Appearance of Obligations arising from the Principles of Christian Severity, sometimes of Christian Lenity and Compassion may easily impose upon the Judgment of the Best of Princes in opposition to what is Really more Fit, and Just. If a Prince take but such a Liberty in respect of the Letter of the Law, which Every Subject takes to himself, He's presently Exclaim'd against by the Seditious: as if a King in his Royal Capacity might not now, and then borrow a point of the Law, as the Phrase is, as well as his Subjects almost Every Day. When Kings seem to Neglect even the Equity of the Law, they ought not certainly to be Oppos'd in any other way, but what the Law Approves. I grant that King CHARLES the First had not Deserv'd the Character that has been Given Him by many Excellent Preachers in their Sermons on the Thirtieth of January (which LUDLOW most Impudently, and Traiterously calls The General Madding-Day) if He had Protected Bishop MOUNTAGUE in such Practices as the Rebels lay to his Charge: viz. That he impiously, and profanely scoffd at Preaching, Lectures, Bibles, and all shew of Religion, &c. That his Scope, and End in his Books was to Encourage Popery, &c. Letter p. 9. This Wonderful Learned Man in his Appeal to CAESAR (mention'd by Ludlow in this same page) has these very words p. 48. which if the Reader shall Consider he will most certainly acknowledge that what Ludlow and his Brethren would make the World believe, concerning this Excellent Person, is so gross a LYE, that it could hardly proceed but from the Mouths of the most Impudent Traytors, and Regicides. I was bred a Member, says He, of the Church of England; brought up a Member of the Church of England; therein, by the means, and Ministery of that Church, I received that Earnest of my Salvation, when by Baptism I was inserted into CHRIST. In the Union and Communion of that Church I have lived not Divided with Papist, nor Separated with Puritan. Through the assistance of the Grace of God's Spirit, which is never wanting unto any that seek Him, I hope to live and dye in the Faith, and Confession of that Church; than which I know none, nor can any be nam'd in all points more conformable unto purest Antiquity in the best times: which I trust to make good against any, and all those Brethren in evil, Papists, and Puritans, whosoever: who looking, and running two several ways, do like SAMPSON's Foxes joyn together in the Tail. If there be any writing, preaching, saying, or thought of mine, any thing Deliver'd or Published against the Discipline, or Doctrine of THIS Church, I am sorry for it, I revoke it, recant it, disclaim it.

What a kind of Papist A.B. LAUD was let any Man Judge who has read his Admirable Book Against FISHER. What will not this sort of Men Say, who wou'd make us Believe that These Two most Eminent Champions of the Church of England, were Papists? What Mischief will they not undertake to Do, who after Forty years, which the Divine Goodness has given them, to Lead them to Repentance, retaining their old Hardness and Impenitent Hearts, Boast themselves in the MURTHER of Their KING! Will the ENGLISH Nobility, and Gentry Endure These things! Shall one of the most Infamous Criminals that ever were in the World thus trample upon the CROWN OF ENGLAND! Letter p. 17. Having thus shew'd you, says He, that the King, which I Abdicated, &c. I shall say no more in this Paper but only to Vindicate the Memory of this Admirable Exemplar of all True Piety from the Malicious Aspersion of this Monstrous Criminal in what He calls a Postscript. Though King CHARLES the First hated nothing more than to Govern by Precedent yet he would not Pray without it; and none of the Liturgies suiting his Fancy, he had recourse to a Romance, as you may here see.

Does this First-born of Impudence conceit that we have never read a Book Entituled 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ? Dares any man that has read that Book Deny but that the King had a Clear Speculation of All the Methods of Christian Devotion? I Challenge All the Adversaries of our Liturgy to produce one Argument to Disprove any thing this Blessed Prince has written Upon the Ordinance against the Common-prayer-book. I cannot give an Account how this Prayer came to be publisht with the King's Works; but 'tis a sign that those who found it written with the King's own Hand were not much conversant in Sr. Philip Sidney's ARCADIA, tho' it be a Book not unworthy the perusal of the Greatest Monarch; but there being in it a Mixture of some Indecent Imaginations with Many Noble, and Generous Representations of True Honor and Vertue, 'tis pity some part of it had not been Expung'd. But why should the King Affect such Expressions, as had been Addrest to an Heathen Deity, as Ludlow tells us! Let any man Judge what a Blessed Reformer this Fellow would be of our Church and State, who Knows so little of the Nature of the True God, as to Despise these Expressions of Devotion, wheresoever he finds them. O All-seeing Light and Eternal Life of All things, to whom nothing is so great that it may resist, or so small that it is contemned: look upon my misery with thine eye of mercy, and let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limit out some proportion of deliverance unto me, as to thee shall seem most convenient. Let not injury, O Lord, triumph over me &c. I grant there may be exceptions made against that Expression, Eternal Life of all things &c. but it can never be Applied to an Heathen Deity: And by Ludlow's own Confession the King did not use it, but these words in the place of it, O Eternal God. But why would the King have such Regard to words in a Romance? Answ. Because He was no Phanatick, but a Sincere Judicious Christian, who will be Affected with Divine Sense Exprest in the Words of any Person whatsoever, wheresoever he Finds them. Every True Christian in Time of Adversity pours out his Soul before the LORD in the Sense that is Exprest in these words of the Prayer above-mention'd: O Lord, I yield unto thy will, and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. The whole Prayer being so suitable to the Condition of that Gracious Prince in his greatest Sufferings, 'tis impossible but he should be pleas'd with the words being so plainly Expressive of such a Temper of Mind, which 'twas both His Duty and Priviledge to retain under all the pressures of the heaviest of his Sufferings. That the Book of Psalms, the Lord's Prayer, and all the Devotional part of the Holy-Scriptures were the principal Instruments of this Princes Devotion, is a Truth so Evident that it cannot be Deny'd without discovering the Impudence of a DEVIL, or REGICIDE.

I shall beseech the Vertuous Reader that he would be pleas'd to peruse these Three Papers, by wch I have endeavour'd to lay the Ax to the Root of that Hypocrisy, by which multitudes of well-meaning People have been Deceiv'd, and by which Such Men, as the Author of this Letter, have carried on their Designs to subvert the Foundations of all Our Ecclesiastical Constitutions.

The First I publisht of these Three Papers is Entituled, Animadversions Upon some Passages in a Book Entituled, The True Nature of a Gospel-Church, And Its Government.

2. An Earnest Call To those Non-Conformists Who really Believe the Doctrine of The Holy, Blessed, and Glorious Trinity, To come into the Communion of the Church of England; That By their Constant Regular Confession of the Christian Faith they may Confound the Devices of those GAIN-SAYERS, whom By their Separation they have so much Encouraged.

3. Reflections on Certain Passages In Dr. OWENS Book, Entituled, A Discourse of the Work of the Holy Ghost in Prayer.

As to my Succinct way of Controversial Writing I have four things to say for my self. First, that Truth lies in a Narrow Compass ( 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ). 2. That all the Truth I assert in Opposition to the Sophisters of this Age, is Set forth already in a multitude of large Volumes like GOLD Beat to an Ayerie Thinness. 3. That it is therefore more Difficult for any Sophister to make a Shew of Refuting me, because it is so Easy for the Reader to Remember the very Words, in which I Express my Irrefragable Assertions. 4. Since I use so Few Words, all the World may see I have no Design either to Circumvent my Reader, or to have any Evasion, if I should be Assaulted with all the Force that my Adversaries can raise against me. I Trust in the Father of Lights so to Assist me by His Holy Spirit that my Life may never be so Dear to Me, as a Stedfast Resolution To bear Witness to the Truth.