is."

nor will I fo mifemploy my labour or my time. If any one think that his proftituted cries, his venal lamentations and frivolous declamation deferve any credit, he is welcome for me to think fo; for I have nothing to fear from fuch precipitate credulity. But I will just touch on a few of his points of attack, which may ferve as a fpecimen of the reft, and give some insight into the character of the man and of the work. After having babbled a good deal of his exotic ignorance about the incorporation of the Houfe of Commons and the Houfe of Peers in one affembly, (a measure which no one in his fenfes would difapprove,) he fays, that "this equality, introduced into the state, would naturally lead to the introduction of the fame into the church; for epifcopacy ftill remained, and if this be not downright anabaptifm, I don't know what Who would have expected this from a Gallic minister and divine? I fhould hardly think that he knew what baptifm is, who did not know what anabaptifm is, if this were not. But if we will call things by their proper names, equality in the ftate is not anabaptifm, but democracy, a far more antient thing; and equality in the church is the practice of the apoftles. But "epifcopacy ftill remained." We confefs that it did; and Geneva still remained, though that city had confulted the interests of religion, in expelling both her bishop and her lawful chief; and why fhould we be condemned for what they are approved? But you wifh, fir, to take vengeance upon the Genevefe, by whom it is uncertain whether you were difmiffed with ignominy, or openly excommunicated on account of your impieties. It is clear that you, with your friend Salmafius, apoftatifed from this evangelical form of church-government, and took refuge among the epifcopalians. "Then," you fay, "the republic paffed into the hands of our levelling crew, fo that it is evident that the fame spirit prevailed at that time, which in the eighth year had perpetrated the impious murder of the king. Therefore the fame fpirit, as it seems, conftituted your minifters, and perpetrated the parricide." Go on, as you have begun, to eructate the rage of your apoftacy. You fay that," there were not more than three petitions which demanded the punishment of the king." This is noto

rioufly

riously falfe. Those who have written an account of these transactions, mention not only three petitions of the kind, but many from different counties and from the armies in the courfe of one month; and three were prefented in one day. You know how deliberately the matter was difcuffed in the fenate, and that the people, fufpecting them of too much lenity, reforted to petitioning, in order to put an end to their delays. How many thoufands were there of the fame opinion, who confidered it to be either officious or fuperfluous to inftigate the determination of the fenate? I was one of thefe, though I made no fecret of my fentiments. But fuppofe that the high rank of the accufed had awed every tongue into filence, ought the parliament to have abstained from a decifion, or have awaited the affent of the people, on which depended the iffue of fuch momentous deliberations? For the supreme council of the nation was appointed by the people to curb the defpotism of the king: and if on his capture, after the favage war which he had made, they had referred the question of his punishment to the decifion of the people, and if they had acquitted him, what would thofe, who had fo courageously restored our liberties, feem to have done, but to have furnished the king with the means of effecting their own deftruction? Or, if after having been invested with full power to act as they thought beft on the most momentous points, they fhould be compelled to refer to the multitude, a question which far exceeded their capacity, and which they, confcious of their ignorance, had previously referred to the determination of the fenate, where could this alternation of references and appeals have ftopped? Where could we have found a place of reft in this turbulent eddy? How could we have procured any ftability amid fo much inconftancy, any fecurity amid fo much diftraction? What if they had demanded the restoration of Charles to the crown?

And

fuch was the drift of fome menaces, rather than petitions, which were prefented by a few feditious perfons, whose hatred one while, and whofe compaffion another, was won't to be equally fenfelefs and malicious. Were we to make any account of these? "Who," as you say, in order to fet on foot a conference with the king, flocked

flocked from all parts of the country to the doors of the parliament-house, where many of them were put to death by the foldiery, according to the order of the fenators. Some inhabitants of Surry, either incited by the malicious fuggeftions of others, or by their own diforderly inclinations, paraded the city with a petition, in a state of tumult and intoxication. They proceeded in a body to affail the doors of the houfe; they beat off the guard, and, without the fmalleft provocation, killed one man who was ftationed at the door. Hence they were defervedly driven by violence; and two or three of their number were flain, breathing the fumes of intemperance more than the love of liberty." You every where concede, that "the Independents were fuperior, not in numbers, but in difcipline and in courage." Hence I contend that they well deferved the fuperiority which they acquired; for nothing is more agreeable to the order of nature, or more for the interest of mankind, than that the less should yield to the greater, not in numbers, but in wifdom and in virtue. Thofe who excell in prudence, in experience, in industry and courage, however few they may be, will in my opinion finally constitute the majority, and every where have the afcendant. You interfperfe many remarks on Cromwell, which I fhall examine below; the reft I have replied to in my anfwer to Salmafius. Nor do you omit to mention the trial of the king, though your great rhetorician had made that the theme of his miferable declamation. You fay that the peers, that is, in a great measure the pageants and courtiers of the king, were averfe to the trial. I have fhewn in the other work the futility of this remark. "Then that the judges were erafed, because they had given it as their opinion, that a king of England could not, by the law of England, be put upon his trial." I know not what they then answered; I only know what they approve and vindicate. It is no uncommon, though a difreputable thing, for judges to be fwayed by fear. "An obfcure and infolent fcoundrel was accordingly placed at the head of the bafe and iniquitous commiffion." It is not surprising that you, who are contaminated by fo many vices and crimes, who are a compound of whatever is moft impure and vile, whofe confcience has become a fort

of

of fungus utterly devoid of fenfibility, who are fo notorious for atheism, for facrilege and cruelty, fhould dare to vent your calumnies on the most worthy and illuftrious names. But, though your abufe is the highest praise, yet I will never seem to abandon the excellent perfonage, the friend whom I moft revere, to the torrent of your defamation I will vindicate him from the unprincipled and intemperate obloquy of the fugitives and the Mores, which he would never have incurred, if he had not fhewn fo much zeal for the good of the commonwealth. John Bradshaw (a name, which will be repeated with applause wherever liberty is cherished or is known,) was fprung from a noble family. All his early life he fedulously employed in making himself acquainted with the laws of his country; he then practifed with fingular fuccefs and reputation at the bar; he fhewed himself an intrepid and unwearied advocate for the liberties of the people: he took an active part in the most momentous affairs of the state, and occafionally dif charged the functions of a judge with the most inviolable integrity. At laft when he was intreated by the parliament to prefide in the trial of the king, he did not refuse the dangerous office. To a profound knowledge of the law, he added the moft comprehensive views, the most generous fentiments, manners the most obliging and the moft pure. Hence he discharged that office with a pro. priety almost without a parallel; he inspired both respect and awe; and, though menaced by the daggers of so many affaffins, he conducted himself with so much confiftency and gravity, with so much prefence of mind and fo much dignity of demeanour, that he seems to have been purposely destined by Providence for that part which he fo nobly acted on the theatre of the world. And his glory is as much exalted above that of all other tyrannicides, as it is both more humane, more juft, and more strikingly grand, judicially to condemn a tyrant, than to put him to death without a trial. In other refpects, there was no forbidding aufterity, no morofenefs in his manner; he was courteous and benign; but the great character, which he then fuftained, he with perfect confiftency ftill fuftains, fo that you would fuppofe that, not only then, but in every future period of his life, he was fitting in judgment upon

the

the king. In the public bufinefs his activity is unwearied; and he alone is equal to a hoft. At home his hofpitality is as fplendid as his fortune will permit; in his friendships there is the most inflexible fidelity; and no one more readily difcerns merit, or more liberally rewards it. Men of piety and learning, ingenious perfons in all profeffions, thofe who have been diftinguifhed by their courage or their misfortunes, are free to participate his bounty; and if they want not his bounty, they are fure to fhare his friendship and efteem. He never ceafes to extol the merits of others, or to conceal his own; and no one was ever more ready to accept the excufes, or to pardon the hoftility of his political opponents. If he undertake to plead the cause of the oppreffed, to folicit the favour, or deprecate the refentment of the powerful, to reprove the public ingratitude towards any particular individual, his address and his perfeverance are beyond all praise. On fuch occafions no one could defire a patron or a friend more able, more zealous, or more eloquent. No menace could divert him from his purpose; no intimidation on the one hand, and no promise of emolument or promotion on the other, could alter the ferenity of his countenance; or shake the firmness of his foul. By thefe virtues, which endeared him to his friends and commanded the respect even of his enemies, he, fir, has acquired a name, which, while you and fuch as you are mouldering in oblivion, will flourish in every age and in every country in the world. But, I must proceed; the king was condemned to lofe his head. "Againft this atrocity almost all the pulpits in London thundered out their cenfures." We are not to be so easily scared by that thunder upon wood. We remember the fate of Salmaneus, and truft that thefe perfons will one day fee caufe to repent of their fulminating temerity. These were the very perfons, who fo lately, and with fuch vehemence, fulminated their cenfures against pluralifts and non-refidents. But fome of thefe perfons, having grafped three, and others four of the liv ings, from which they had fulminated the epifcopal clergy, they hence became non-refidents themselves, guilty of the very fin, against which they had inveighed; and the victims of their own fulminating rage. Nor have they

any