* * * *

4. _Upon the Insolency of the Tumults._

I Never thought any thing (except our sins) more ominously presaging
all these mischiefs, which have followed, then those Tumults
in _London_ and _Westminster_, soon after the convening of this
Parliament; which were not like a storm at Sea, (which yet wants not
its terrour) but like an Earth-quake, shaking the very foundations of
all; then which nothing in the world hath more of horror.

As it is one of the most convincing Arguments that there is a God,
while his power sets bounds to the raging of the Sea: so 'tis no
less, that he restrains the madness of the People. Nor doth any thing
portend more Gods displeasure against a Nation, then when he suffers
the confluence and clamours of the Vulgar to passe all boundaries of
Laws and reverence to Authority.

Which those Tumults did to so high degrees of Insolence, that they
spared not to invade the Honour and Freedom of the two Houses,
menacing, reproaching, shaking, yea, and assaulting some Members of
both Houses, as they fancied, or disliked them: Nor did they forbear
most rude and unseemly deportments, both in contemptuous words and
actions, to my Self and my Court.

Nor was this a short fit or two of shaking, as an ague, but a
quotidian fever, always encreasing to higher inflammations, impatient
of any mitigation, restraint, or remission.

First, They must be a guard against those fears which some men scared
themselves and others withall; when indeed nothing was more to be
feared, and lesse to be used by wise men, then those tumultuary
confluxes of mean and rude people, who are taught first to petition,
then to protect, then to dictate, at last to command and over-aw the
Parliament.

All obstructions in Parliament (that is, all freedom of differing in
Votes, and debating matters with reason and candor) must be taken away
with these Tumults; By these must the Houses be purged, and all
rotten Members (as they pleased to count them) cast out: By these the
obstinacie of men resolved to discharge their Consciences, must be
subdued; by these all factious, seditious, and schismaticall Proposals
against Government Ecclesiastical or Civil, must be backed and
abetted, till they prevailed.

Generally, who-ever had most mind to bring forth confusion and ruine
upon Church and State, used the midwifery of those Tumults: whose riot
and impatience was such, that they would not stay the ripening and