THey that have read and duly considered , though but with an ordinary compassion and sense of humanity , the dismal Effects of Wars , Rebellions and Discords in Kingdoms and Republicks , and the little gain more than a Sacrifice to the Devil , and the Ambition , Revenge , Self-Interest , and the Ruine of Kingdoms , Commonwealths , Families and Estates , might , if there had been no other evidence , have clearly and lamentably seen it in those once very famous Republicks of Athens and Sparta in the Peleponesian Thucidides . Wars , ingaging most of the little Republicks of Achaia to run the adventure with them , and did in the conclusion bring them all together under the Tyranny of the Ottoman Empire ; in those also of the Merciless Proscriptions of Sylla and Marius at Rome , and the bloody Pharsalian Fields or Battels fought betwixt Julius Caesar and Pompey , too nearly allied to have made such a quarrel or bustle to disturb so great a part of the World for Empire : that of the Guelphes and Gibelines happening near about the time of our King John , when the Pope so domineered over him , as he constrained him to do homage unto him for England and Ireland , and pay him a then great yearly Tribute ; that of our two great contending Families in England , York and Lancaster , under the several Badges or Liveries , of the White Rose & the Red , to the destruction of many of the Nobility and Gentry taking their several parties , that of the German Wars betwixt the Duke of Saxony and the Emperour Charles the 5th , that of the Sicilian Vespers , that of the King of Spain and the Netherlands or united Provinces of the Holy League in France , and the cruel Massacre of so many thousand Protestants in Ireland , and that our Incomparable late Rebellion of all the Rebellions the Devil had ever abused and Cheated a Nation withal , the most hypocritical , horrid and abominable , and the just care that every pious and good man ought to have of his King and Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy , and the Blessings of God to attend his posterity , might cause them to make as much hast as the dumb Son of King Craesus did to save the life of the King , and therein prevent the Ruine of his Countrey .

And therefore I may hope that a Minimus Apostolorum , one of the least Professors of the Law , though of an ancient standing , may be permitted without the reproach of Arrogance or scribling quiddities or Impertinences , or troubling the World with the Idea's of Plato , Aristotle , Solon , Licurgus or the unquiet Commonwealth of Rome , until they were after the Experiments of divers sorts of Governments constrained to be more quiet and content with that of the Empire and Monarchy or Theocracy ordained by God , be permitted to lay or bring before the Reverend Judges and Sages of the Laws of England , and the Professors and Students of the Laws therein , what may be found in the Records , Annals , and approved Authors and Historians concerning the ancient Feudal and Monarchick Government thereof , without any Additions , Omissions , wtested Interpretations , Forgeries , Impostures , or the fond and often abused credulity of Monkish and feigned lying Manuscripts , & may incite others to approve and like better of it than they have done , that have to the hazard of their Estates in this World and the World to come , done all that they could to pull in pieces that ancient Government upon which all our Laws , reasonable Customs and Constitutions with Remedies for publick grievances have been built and founded , which Sir Edward Coke hath ( before the dissolution of our Tenures in Capite , the Ligaments of the Crown of England , and the nerves , sinews and strengths thereof , when he was better pleased with his Soveraign ) not unjustly called the Quintessence of all Laws , expended very near 1000 l. Sterling in my labours and travails therein , and other matters concerning the Government without any penny profit or recompence either from or by the Stationers , or any others more than an Employment as Deputy Comptroller of the Law Tax , wherein I endeavoured all I could to serve his late Majesty and the Farmers thereof , and may hope it was acceptable when his Majesty not long before his departure out of this World , was by his principal Secretary of State Sir Leoline Ienkins Knight , graciously pleased to declare that he had a particular regard for me , and was sensible of the many Services which I had done unto the Crown , which in the greatest of truth , humility and modesty , I might have said was done by me one of the smaller sort of the Atoms in his Kingdoms as an oblation of Duty , when besides my no small loss and damage in the late horrid Rebellion I did adventure with the late learned George Bate Dr. of Physick , and Mr. Nicholas Odeart sometimes Secretary to Sir Edward Nicholas principal Secretary to the murthered King , did , when the Rebels had refused to allow him in his own defence the assistance of his own or any other Councel learned in the Law , at that they falsly called his Tryal , & when the Intercession of the French and Dutch Embassadors , the Scots their Rebel partner Commissioners , and some of the London factious Ministers could not prevail to rescue his sacred life , did with great danger and hazard of our lives and Estates cause a small paper of Advice to be secretly delivered unto him not to acknowledge any jurisdiction to be in their highly wicked misnamed Court of Justice , never before heard of or made use of in England or in any other Nation of the World . And I did also after that wicked of wickedest sentence of death pronounced against my Soveraign , Write and cause to be Printed and affixed upon the Posts and publick places , in or about the Cities of London and Westminster a Protestation in the name of all the Loyal people of England against that most abominable sentence , and did within a short time after Print and publish a Book in Justification and defence of him , and the first as I believe that in print justly stiled him a Martyr for his people , with some assurance to my self , that our seri Nepotes some others hereafter walking recto tramite in the like search and path of truth as I have done , might add more assistance thereunto , and may be permitted to say , as St. Paul in another case did of himself , that if I have had in so long an age and perambulation of time any acquaintance or conversation at all with my self , mine own heart and Actions , which many that have known me so long in my various careful and sorrowful passages of life ( occasioned by many the ingratitudes and ill dealings of some great families and others that should have dealt better with me in ) may testify my always constant and adventurous Loyalty to my Soveraigns , without any the least fainting or haesitation , will or may believe that I have neither lied or sought for preferment , or any thing that could look otherwise than the sincerity of my heart , and an unshaken and unbiassed love to Truth and Loyalty to my King and Countrey .

And can truly say and aver with many witnesses to confirm it , that my long observations ever since the year 1628. until now , compleating almost full 46 years of the said persecutions , disloyalties , misusages , and sufferings of King Charles the Martyr in order and design to his Murder , and the many Plots afterwards intended against his late Royal Majesty , King Charles the second , and his now Sacred Majesty , and my Researches into the Records and Antiquities of this and other Nations concerning the Just Rights and Praerogatives of our Kings and Princes , for the publick good , and the avoiding the manifold miseries and damage that attend the Witchcraft and Madness of Rebellion , and to the end that I might recal into the right way of truth those very many Noble , learned , grave and pious men , that perfectly hated Rebellion and yet by fear or force going along with the Tide to secure themselves and Estates as well as they could , and with the Vulgus and Rabble that had cut the reformed Church of England into no less than 160 Sects or new fashioned Religions , and so far strayed from their Mother the reformed Church of England , as they ran out of their Wits as much as their Religion , so that they could not stop themselves in that their mad Career until they came to an opinion that it was Religion to be Rebellious , and that Rebellion or Sedition for any thing called Religion was , or at least ought to be warrantable by some or other word of God , when by his new light they should be enabled to discover it , hath given me , like old Barzillai , no quiet until I had done my duty unto God , my King and my Countrey and posterity , and brought what help I could unto our much injured and persecuted David , in these now published Truths , wherein I have as carefully as I could without the purchase of other mens Writings or Manuscripts at Auctions , as too many our Lurching , yet Learned enough Authors have done , weighed all particulars in the Ballance of Truth , Law and Right Reason , and without any opiniatrete have left my self to the Judicious throughly impartial Readers and Tryers of those my carefully considered Labours , wherein I shall be willing to rectify and submit to any truths , when justly and rationally proved , and be ashamed in the least to imitate those impudent Contrariants of truth and Right reason our Laws , Annals and Records , who although in their Books and Writings against our ever maintainable truths , whilst they are in the acting and perpetrating the greatest Injuries imaginable unto them , can offer to forsake their evil Impostures , grounded Fancies and Opinions , yet can after they have been publickly examined , tryed and convicted of several gross Impostures and falsifications by the undeniable evidence of the Records themselves , which they cited and referred themselves unto , not like to those better men of Confessions and Retractations , but being unwilling it seems either to perform their promises to their Readers , or imitate the more honest examples of better men , have thought it to be more correspondent unto their evil designs not to discourage their Disciples to persist in their egregious falshoods , and unlearned , foolish , reasonless , senseless and inconsequential arguments , because they have wickedly made it their Interest and business to advocate the Devils cause by his and their evil Methods and Impostures . And may find that they have by a Factious and Seditious Ignorance , and over-bold adventure enticed many good men and Lawyers out of the paths of truth into an horrid Confusion and Rebellion , for which they may suffer in the next World , unless they can furnish their gross mistakes with some invisible or misinterpreted Record that every man may fancy , and frame a new and better Government of the Kingdom , and carve and make his own Religion , and Idocize and propagate their own vain imaginations and selflreated ignorant Fancies instead of Laws and Records . And should do better to stand and consider that the advice of the Prophet Jeremy , that should not be thought to have spoken vain , untrue or foolish Councel , to stand upon the old ways and enquire after the ways of truth , was not to do what you can to blind or sophisticate truth , put her into disguises , and transform her into as many shapes as may consort with the ugly designs of Faction and Rebellion , and call to mind better than they do how diffusive and infectious the sin of Rebellion is , that every of our evil Examples . Doctrines or Perswasions tending thereunto , such an evil especially as Sedition or Rebellion , are by God chargeable also upon their accompt . And that at the great Audit before an all knowing God there will be a multitude of consequential Evils besides their own particular sins , which may be enough charged upon them , when it will be too late to say one unto another as St. Paul did to his Innovators , O ye foolish Galathians , who hath bewitched you ?

And amongst those many motives and obligations of Duty and Loyalty , Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy to my Soveraign , and compassion unto those multitudes that have erred and gone astray , to the end that I might give an accompt of the trust reposed in me particularly , and solely by his late Majesty , under his sign Manual , bearing date the 30th day of September , in the 28th year of his Raign , with full power and Authority to search and take Copies of all or any might be found concerning his Royal Rights , which was seconded by an order of the Right Honourable Arthur Earl of Anglesey then Lord Privy Seal , Mr. Henry Coventry , and Sir Joseph Williamson , his then Secretaries of State , and Sir George Carteret being all of his Majesties Privy Council , who did by their order dated the 3d. of July 1677. direct and authorize Sir William Dugdale , since Garter King at Arms , Elias Asbmole Esquire , and my self in pursuance of his Majesties Order dated the 23. of February 1675. authorizing the aforesaid Lords of his Councel , to examine the State and Condition of the Records in the Tower of London , and consider what is wanting and necessary to be done for the prefervation thereof , Authorizing us to examine the present State and Condition of the said Records , and peruse as well the Orders for regulating of the Orders of the Keepers of the said office of Records , as the Orders made by Sir Algernon May , Keeper of the said Records the first day of December then last past , and to consider what additions and allowances they shall judge fit to be made , either in the said Orders or Queries , or what otherwise occurs to them fit to be offered for the better ordering , methodizing , preservation and safe keeping of the said Records , and that they make report thereof unto us with all convenient speed , and their opinion what is necessary to be done in order to the attaining the ends asoresaid , in obedience whereunto Sir William Dugdale and I have not only made a Certificate and report unto their Lordships what we had done under our hands , but afterwards at the aforesaid Office of the Records , have given a meeting to some that were appointed by their Lordships , and after that in the absence and sickness of the said Sir William Dugdale , by the Command of the said Earl of Anglesey , I did attend his Lordship and the Lord Chancellor , and divers of the said Lords of his late Majesties Privy-Councel , to the said Office of Records in the Tower of London , those Scrinia Sacra Publicae Tabulae which our Great Selden faith is a Religio to preserve , and the Commons in Parliament in the 42 year of the Raign of King Edward the 3d petitioned to have a free access unto , because they contain the peoples evidence , and might also have said their Kings and Princes Rights and Power to protect them , and therefore to have them well looked unto and preserved , must needs be an universal concernment both unto our Kings and their People , and though here in England , in the time of our long and factious Parliament Rebellions and Miseries , when I first began to search into the Original of our before happy Government and continuance of our Laws , Peace and Plenty , and the excellent frame and constitution of our Government founded upon no other than the Feudal Laws , which , unto any that will take the pains to peruse and examine them , will make it easily appear , that our Brittish , Saxon , Danish , and Norman Laws , and those of all our succeeding Kings and Princes , and the Process , Proceedings , Maxims , Rules and Methods in and through all the parts thereof , have until our late unfortunate , Factious and Seditious times , and Parliament Rebellion ( the tricks of Attorneys , unskilful Clerks , and subordinate and corrupt Officers , since those times of unhappiness only excepted ) had no other source or fountain ; and that the Civil and Caesarean Laws being long ago accompted to be the universal reason of the World , are and have been in their Patroni and Clientes near allied to our Feudal Laws , whereof the learned Craguis wrote his Book de Feudis in the year 1655. applicable to his own Countrey of Scotland , where they yet remain , notwithstanding our unthrifty exchange of the Nerves and Ligaments of our Kings Crown and Dignity , for an Excise upon Ale , Beer and Syder , would not permit me to stand still and let my King and Country be destroyed by suffering our Feudal Laws , the basis and foundation of our Government , to be drencht or washt in the River Lethe , or lake of Oblivion , or the wild Boars and Foxes to destroy and lay wast , and cause our once flourishing Kingdom under the Guard and protection of those Laws , to be more transformed and abused than many of the sacred Laws of God , given to his once beloved people of the Jews have been by their Masorites , when they had a better excuse and Apology to make by their captivity of seventy years in Babylon , until they had forgotten the language in which their Laws were written , than our Gentlemen of Innovation or Reformation , as it hath been Nicknamed or miscalled of Good into Bad , or Better into Worse for their own only advantage here upon earth , happen what will when they shall be able to attain unto or provide for themselves .

And in these my Labours and impartial observations , with no little danger and sorrow to see my King and Countrey so ill used , have been as tender as the res Acta , or matters related or inquired into , would permit without praeprejudice or hurt unto the truth , or my Loyalty unto my Soveraign , with all due Reverence unto the Judges , many or the most of whom , when the fire of that Rebellion which had lain kindling and smoaking in its Embrio's in the years 1637 , 1638 , 1639 , and 1640. began every where almost discernably to flame , and be very apparent and visible , were either then in prima Lanugine , or had but scarcely saluted the Ostia or Limina Legum , stept over the Treshold or Door of it , as the vulgar term it , and intend as I have never failed to do , not only to do , but write and speak of them with all Reverence becoming me , and all others according to the Reason and Rule which the great and prudent Prince King Edward the first ordained , when he declared in these words , Et quia sunt honor & Reverentia quae ministris ipsius Regis ratione officii sui fiant ipsi Regi attribuuntur , sic dedecus ministris suis eidem domino Regi infertur , Regale Necessarium per Fabian Philipps . and in my Relations concerning that high and very honourable , very useful and profitable for the weal publick Houses of Parliament no man should think Plowdens Commentum . or speak dishonourably so long as they permit Parliaments to be what Parliaments , according to their right use and Institution were , nor ought to be no more than Colloquium or Commune Concilium , as may be further evidenced by that great Princes severe punishment of Fabian Philipps Regale Necessarium &c. Mich. 18. E. 3. coram R●gt . that great Baron William de Breause for contumelious words spoken to a Judge .

And King Edward the 3d had such a care of his Justices and their authority , as he punished severely the Bayliffs of Ipswich by the loss of their places , caused their Staves of Office to be broken in the Court of Kings Bench , and their Liberties to be seised and forfeited because they had suffered an unruly multitude to feast and revel with certain malefactors , who had Mich. 19. E. 3. coram Rege Ro. 161. been there condemned by the Justices of Assise , and after their departure made a kind of mockgame or interlude to be Acted upon the Tribunal , where the Judges had sitten , and in mockery fined and amerced the Justices and their Clerks .

And for that I would willingly be , as much as I could , Instrumental to recal a factious , seditious and Rebellious party out of their Errours , that they may neither persist therein themselves , or by erecting Schools of rebellion magnify and think themselves to be no small persons in the propagation thereof , and in those my travails not having the help as the learned Dr. Brady hath had of the publick Libraries of the University and Collegiate Libraries of the University of Cambridge , but of such Assistance as his Majesties and the publick Records of the Kingdom , unto which for more than 45 years I have been no Stranger , and my own private Library could afford me , wherein I cannot be without hope but something considerable may appear in my Labours that do not in his , but walking together in the inquiries after our Fundamental Laws have not contradicted , but concurred with each other in the Rescue and discovery of the truth of our Ancient and excellent Government , and that which I have done might have been more exact if I had not by the no small disturbances of my own affairs and the common Falshoods and Delays of most of the Printers been greatly hindred , so as I was in some part thereof to endure the disadvantage of writing as the Printing Press went , and therein also could not escape several discouragements , and can , as Livy that grand Historian of the Roman Empire hath truly said of his Enterprise , that it was res magna & Ardua , with great sincerity say with the learned Bracton , perpetuae memoriae commendium postulans a Lectore ut diligenter legat & bene Bracton in pro●●io . consideret , & si quid super fluum aut perperam in hac opere invenerit illud corrigat aut emendet cum omnia habere in memoria ; Et in nullo peccare divinum sit potuis quam humanum . And with the learned Dr. Barlow Bishop of Lincoln to the like purpose as unto what he wrote against the Church of Rome , that if he had miscited or quoted , added or omitted any thing or matter willingly against the truth , ( Errors of misinterpretation or definition and of the Printers only excepted ) I shall be willing to reform any humane frailties or frrors of that kind that shall so appear unto any considerate impartial Reader that do not read it here and there a little , runing over as the Irish do their Bogs , or as some others do after dinner and in afternoons Nap or Slumber , or by Indexes , so as I may not prejudice that grand truth concerning the Just Rights of the Imperial Crown of England , and the Doctrine of the reformed Church of England against all the Engines of Rebellion , Falsities , Cavillations and Impostures that have been made use of against it and all their Loyal and Learned Propugnators that have done so worthily in our Israel to defend them .

Wherein if any shall object and think I have been too copious , and fewer words and more labour might have been spared , they that have been conversant with Books or the learned , or be themselves learned , should know that a little may be enough to some when a great deal will not be so for others , especially where the Arch Enemy of Mankind hath sown and planted Weeds , such as Henbane and Night Shade in our G 〈…〉 dens amongst our wholsom Herbs and Flowers , the Lillies of the Vallies , and the Roses of Sha●on , which will require much time and labour , and more than a few words to eradicate or pull them up , or a few most clear demonstrations to a numerous party , the more is the pity , that for the space of almost Fifty years last past have been strangely effascinated and infatuated , and yet like well of it , because they have enriched themselves by turning Religion into Rebellion , and Rebellion into a part of that which never was any part of Religion , extravagant Religion is now made Liberty , and Liberty and Religion too much turned into Rebellion .

And our Laws and long approved good Monarchick Government , having by a seditious party of Rebels abusing the Right power and use of Parliaments diverted our Antient , Just and True Laws out of their proper course and channel wherein they had blessed both our Kings and their People , I am not unlike to escape the rash or envious censure of some that either have not read throughly as they ought , or misread , or not understood our genuine , proper and true Laws , therefore should be content with the duty of those that have made it their endeavour either to vindicate the Rights of their King , or relieve a too much neglected unvalued truth , and be as much blamed as the Bishop Elect of Winchester was in the time of the troubles and Imprisonment of King Henry the 3d. by some of his overgrown Nobility , when they wrote unto the Pope as bitterly as they could against him for maintaining the justice of his Kings cause , and when it may be heard of or read by some of our long missed Lawyers that have for almost 50 years been suckled or nursed up in a contrary practice , may take it to be a better way , and more agreeable to their genuine , at least Additament . Mat , Paris . & Dr. Brady in Histor. H. 3. in Appendix 221. & 222. to their profit and humor of the present times to do as Demetrius the Silver smith did unto St. Pauls Doctrine , rather cavil and say something against it to no purpose then any thing concerning truth or cogent Arguments yet it must be adventured with a melioraspero , and that the errors and mistakes of too many of our men of Law , and others may no longer as it were successively afflict our Nation , that the subjects may learn , understand and practise the duty of Allegeance and Supremacy , and not be so much out of their w●es as to believe that there ever was a Treason committed by a King or Emperour against their people , or that the Members of the House of Commons in 〈◊〉 proceeding beyond their Limits , and the King 〈◊〉 ●oples Commission , ought to be accompted the reasion of the People , but that so many Advocates and Lawyers as England is and hath been abundantly replenished with , should rather make it their business strongly upon all occasions to defend their ●ings Rights , which every man would expect of his stipended Lawyer , as the Advocates of other Kingdoms never failed to do .

Or can any man adventure to say or think , that the All-knowing Never-erring God did not intend to keep his word , but made one Vicegerent after that he had made , or promised it unto another , or ever made the Common People his Vicegerent , or any King , or Prince subject to their ignorances , mutabilities and Passions to be Arraigned and Murdered when they pleased at the suit of the People for Treason committed against them , or if any Nation , Record or History did or could ever furnish out such an example , when the Murder of our Prince did so stink , and was more than ordinarily abhorred and detestable , as besides many learned men in Forreign parts , publickly writing and declaiming against it the Czars or Czar of that great Empire of Russia or Moscovia were so sensible of it , as he banished and seized many of the English Merchants , and their goods and effects to the ruin of many of them , for no other cause than that as he said they had been Traytors unto their King , and had Murdered him , though they were then men of great Loyalty , and were not then Resident in England , and see , and read Milton over much learned in the School of his Master the Devil , and our infatuated Regicides publishing in print in our own and some Forreign Nations , a never to be believed or proved justification of the Murder of their most Pious Prince , sub forma & sigura judicii , and no English men , but the Learned and Loyal Dr George Bate and my self with our names subscribed , and another without publickly vindicated his worth and innocency , and not a Lawyer , or man of the militia togata could find either a conscience or care calamum e●igere to defend the honour of their King and Countrey , when they were bound by their Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy not to have omitted it , when as Advocati they should as Linwood hath told them in the case of an ordinary Client , tanquam Athletae in Campo justitio pugnare , & not stand still & hearall our Neighbour Christians speak of such a villainous Murder with horror and detestation , and the learned Zeiglerus a Forreigner besides Salmasius , who had never taken our Oath of Allegeance and Supremacy , have publickly declared against , it .

And do hope that our learned Lawyers of England who were not before our now almost fifty years Parliamentary Rebellion willing to be outdone or believed to be less learned in omni scibili , or matter of learning in the Laws of their own or other Nations , ( witness our Great Selden and many others ) will not suffer our Laws which want nothing to illustrate their very antient original , to be so lost and eclipsed , as there will be nothing of our Fundamental Laws left to furnish their practice in the Temples and Courts of Justice , than such fragments as the Attorneys Seminaries shall be pleased to furnish them withal when they have squeezed the profit into their own advantages of all manner of Champerties and Ambodextryes , by clipping our venerable , just and antient Laws into such parcels as may seem most for their wicked and reasonless advantages , and should be more than praemunired , and not to be reckoned much less peccant than the Clippers of Caesars Coin or Image , or false Forreign Coin introduced into the Kingdom , in their daring to attempt to vitiate or violate their Kings Laws , and suffer Milton that understood no more of our Laws of England , than that which he had purposely Metamorphosed to delude a silly part of the People , or Rabsheka it , defie● the Host of Israel ; and John Goodwin a factious Minister with his Flambeau or Torch in the Pulpit , to intice all that could be so mad as to believe them , that King Charles the Martyr was justly accused , condemned and beheaded at the suit of a few infatuated Rebels , and so many men of the long Robe not have Loyalty , care or Conscience enough to hasten to the brook to find some stones to sling at , and convince those or any of their Goliahs , or hear a Judge deservedly displaced by his late Majesty King Charles the 2d . declare in the Court of Kings Bench , tell not us of old Records and Antiquities , but of the Law or Practice in or since 1641. And a Bencher of an Inns of Court perswades himself that he had hit the mark , when he had said that Antiquities were no more to be valued than old Iron picked up out of the Channel in London Streets , and sold for a penny in the pound .

And Mr. Milton that would have all men have a liberty to be divorced from their Wives as much as himself was from true Learning and Reason , having done all and more than he could to blast and disparage that most excellent Pious Prince King Charles the Martyr , and make his ever to be accursed Murder to be according to the Laws of England , could not forbear persecuting his Manes , whilst he magnified the Populum Anglicanum , when all men had abhorred it , and Bedingfield and Chresheld had voluntarily laid down their Commissions , and forsook their Offices and places of Judges , and the greatest Rebellion did ride in its triumphant Chair , shall the Gentlemen of the long Robe , who might be very able to do , and should be well acquainted with all manner of Learning , be so little concerned in it as to leave two Doctors of Physick to do what they could themselves , for there were a Lion in the way , whilst Mr. Milton cryed out as Tully in another case , O fortunate nate me Consulo Roma .

And it would be a pity that so many Learned People in England , of several conditions , should not rightly understand the Constitutions and Government thereof , but be so much mistaken as to believe they are honest and Loyal enough if they can but get what they can from their King , and sacrifice it to their humours , when the fear of God , and right understanding of our Laws may teach us , that our Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy do signifie much more than the ordinary Oaths of the smaller sort of the common people , who have as little wit as Estate , and a great deal less of Religion , and that our Laws from Age to Age have resided in our Kings , who have always been accompted to be tanquam Lex viva .

Could there be so great a thirst after learning and honour , and esteem for it gained , could the Queen of Sheba travel so far to hear the Wisdom of Solomon , and Pythagoras to hear Plato , Philip of Macedon give his Gods thanks that he had found out such a Tutor as Aristotle for his Son Alexander ? have men of learning , and richer Souls than ordinary been invited and gladly welcomed into other Cities and Countries , as our King Alfred did Asser Menevensis , Edward the First , Accursius , and our King James the First , the generally learned Causabon , Peter du Moulin , and Gerardus Vossius ; and believed it to be a great part of their honour and glory to be the Incouragers of learning and vertue ? Tacitus saith , that amongst the Romans , the Sons of Nobility did dare operam Studiis liberalibus ; The Emperor Valence appointed for the publick Library at Constantinople Dr. Stillingfleets Origines Brittannicae . seven Antiquaries to look after the Books , four for the Greek , and three for the Latine who were to have a publick allowance ; and must we that may stand upon our Fore-fathers Shoulders , and may with great ease do rather greater than lesser matters not be ashamed to be Children of yesterday , when they that have arrived but unto a small parcel of learning , must in spight of their Teeth acknowledge that experience is commonly upon earth one of the most trustiest guides , and neglected the Mistress of Fools when posterior dies should never fail to be discipulus prioris , and it can portend no less than a sad fatality , and ruin to a Nation to have learning put under no better a Character than that of a Fop , or a grave thinking Coxcomb , when a Knave , though a Fool , is believed to be a Man of Parts and Ingenuity , and an honest man , a simple fellow , or an Ass fit only to be bang'd or rid upon , and whilst we mourn and lament with the Prophet Jeremiah , the forecasted ruin of our Jerusalem , and with our long ago Gildas the Excidium Britanniae , should cease to pour contempt upon our Kings and Princes , and not cause them to wander in the Wilderness where there is no way , but offer up our daily Prayers unto God to send help to our Jacob in all his many difficulties .