Cafe, but acknowledge your High Court, from which you appeal to all Rational Men to confift of no fuch: But indeed I had not read many Lines before I found mine own Error, as well as yours, and your Proceedings nothing agreeable to the plain Dealing I expected from you; for you presently fall to infult upon the Unhappiness of your undeferved Adverfary, and that with so little Moderation, as if you ftrove to make it a Question whether his incomparable Patience, or your own ungoverned Paffion, should be the greater Wonder of Men, prepofterously concluding him Guilty, before with one Syllable you had proved him fo: A ftrange Way of doing Justice! Which you endeavour to make good by a strange infolent Railing, and more infolent Proceeding to the fecret Council of Almighty God, from whence you prefume to give Sentence on him; a Boldnefs no less impious than unjust in you, were it true, fince we can never know it to be fo.

But indeed it is hard to fay, whether you have fhewn more Malice, or Vanity, in this notable Declaration of yours; for he that confiders the Affectation and fantastic Lightness of your Language, (fuch as Ireland, a Land of Ire; Bita

Sheep for Bishops, and other fuch ingenious Elegancies of Quibble) must needs confefs it an Oratory more becoming a Fool in a Play, or Peters before the Rabble, than the Patrons of his Sovereign's Sovereign, or the Gravity of that Court, which you fay, right wisely, shall be admired at the Day of Judgment. And therefore you do ill to accufe him of reading Jobnfon's and Shakespear's Plays, which, it seems, you have more been in your felf to much worfe Purpose, elfe you had never hit fo right upon the very Dialect of their railing Advocates, in which (believe me) you have really out-acted all that they could fancy of passionate and ridiculous Outrage.

For certainly, Sir, I am fo charitable to believe it was your Paffion that impofed upon your Understanding; elfe, as a Gentleman, you could have never defcended to fuch Peafantry of Language, especially against such a Perfon, to whom (had he never been your Prince) no Law enjoins (whatfoever his Offences were) the Punishment of Ribaldry. And, for the Laws of God, they abfolutely condemn it; of which I wonder you, that pretend fo

much to be of his Council, fhould be either fo ignorant, or forgetful.

Calamity is the Visitation of God, and (as Preachers tell us) a Favour he does to those he loves; where-ever it falls, it is the Work of his Hand, and should become our Pity, not our Infolence. This the antient Heathen knew, who, believing Thunder came from the Arm of God, reverenced the very Trees it lighted

on.

But your Passion hath not only mifled you against Civility, and Christian Charity, but common Sense also; else you would never have driven your Chariot of Reason (as you call it) fo far out of the Road, that you forgot whe ther you are going, and run over every Thing that stands in your Way; I mean, your unufual Way of Argument, not only against Reafon, but your felf, as you do at the first Sally; for after your Fit of Raving is over, you bestow much Pains to prove it one of the Fundamentals of Law, that the King is not above the Law, but the Law above the King. And this you deraign, as you call it, so far, that at length you fay, the King hath not, by Law,

fo much Power, as a Juftice of Peace, to commit any Man to Prifon; which you would never have done, if you had confidered from whom the Justice derives his Power, or in whofe Name his Warrants run; elfe you may as well fay, a Man may give that which he hath not; or prove the Moon hath more Light than the Sun, because he cannot fhine by Night as the Moon doth. But you needed not have strained fo hard, for this will ferve you to no Purpose, but to prove that which was never denied by the King himself; for if you had not a much worfe Memory than Men of your Condition fhould have, you could not fo foon have forgotten, that immediately after the reading of that Charge, the King demanded of your high Court, by what Law they could fit to judge him (as offering to fubmit if they could produce any) but then Silence, or Interruption, were thought the beft Ways of confeffing there was no fuch Thing; and when he undertook to fhew them both Law and Reason too, why they could not do it, the righteous Prefident told him plainly, he must have neither Law, nor Reason; which was certainly (as you have it very finely) the most comprehenfive, impartial, and glorious Piece of Juftice that ever was

played on the Theatre of England; for what could any Court do more than rather condemn itself, than injure Truth.

But you had better have left this whole Bufiness of the Law out of your Appeal to all rational Men, who can make no use of it, but against yourself: For if the Law be above the King, much more is it above the Subject. And if it be fo heinous a Crime in a King to endeavour to fet himself above Law, it is much more heinous for Subjects to set themselves above King and Law both. Thus, like right Mountebanks, you are fain to wound and poifon your felves to cheat others, who cannot but wonder at the Confidence of your Imposture, that are not afhamed to magnify the Power of the Law, while you violate it, and confess you fet your felves really above the Law, to condemn the King but for intending it.

And indeed Intentions and Designs are the moft confiderable Part, both of

tions and Proofs, fome of which

your Accufa

you are fain to fetch a great Way off, as far as his Coronation Oath, which you next fay, he, or the Archbishops, by his Order, emafculated, and