escaped to Oxford, where he was employed as editor of the royalist newspaper Mercurius Aulicus. He would live to serve as subdean at Westminster at the coronation of Charles II. Heylyn was described by contemporaries as an acrimonious controversialist, “a bluster-master,” “very conceited and pragmatical.”
Heylyn’s pen was at the service of the Crown and episcopal establishment in “Briefe and Moderate Answer,” a not-so-brief tract of some 194 pages published in 1637. It appeared in a single edition. His purpose was to challenge the religious and political beliefs of the Puritan Henry Burton, a man as outspoken as Heylyn himself. From his London pulpit Burton is said to have conducted “aggressive warfare” against episcopal practices. He was just as insistent that there must be limitations on royal power.
Undeterred by a citation in 1626 for his attack on Archbishop Laud, or by his imprisonment in 1629 for attacking bishops in “Babel no Bethel,” Burton denounced bishops again in November 1636, this time in two sermons published under the title “For God and the King.” He was hauled before the Star Chamber the following year for seditious libel and, along with two other prominent dissenters, Bastwick and Prynne, was brutally punished with deprivation, degradation, fine, pillory, the clipping of his ears, and imprisonment. The release of the three men was one of the first official acts of the Long Parliament.
Chapter two of Heylyn’s lengthy reply to Burton is reprinted here. This chapter is a response to Burton’s “For God and the King,” itself 166 pages long. Heylyn’s refutation does double duty as it provides the modern reader with a healthy dose of Burton’s arguments as well as a biting refutation of them by a vigorous proponent of divine right.
Chap. II.
The Kings authority restrained, and the obedience of the subject limited within narrow bounds, by H. B. with the removall of those bounds.
The title of the sermon scanned, and the whole divided. H. B. offended with the unlimited power of kings, the bounds by him prescribed to the power of kings, both dangerous and doubtfull. The power of kings how amplified by Jewes, Christians, Heathens. What the King cannot doe, and what power is not in him, by Mass. Burton’s doctrine. The Positive Lawes of the Realme conferre no power upon the King, nor confirme none to him. The whole obedience of the subject restrained by H. B. to the Lawes of the Realme; and grounded on the mutuall stipulation betweene King and people. The dangerous sequells of that doctrine.
A Pravis ad praecipitia. Wee are on the declining hand, out of the Hall into the Kitchin, from an Apologie that was full of weakenesse, unto a Sermon or rather a Pasquill farre more full of wickednesse: yet were we guided either by the Text or Title, we might perswade ourselves there were no such matter, nothing but piety and zeale, and whatsoever a faire shew can promise. But for the Title Sir (I hope you know your owne words in your doughtie dialogue betweene A. and B.) you know the proverbe, Fronti rara fides, the fowlest causes may have the fairest pretences. For whereas you entitle it, for God and the King, you doe therein as Rebells doe most commonly in their insurrections: pretend the safety of the King, and preservation of Religion, when as they doe intend to destroy them both. The civill warre in France, raised by the Duke of Burgundy and Berry against Lewis the eleventh, was christened by the specious name of Le bien Public, for the Common-wealth; but there was nothing lesse intended than the common good. And when the Jewes cryed Templum Domini, Templum Domini, they did but as you doe, abuse the people, and colour their ambition, or their malice, choose you which you will, with a shew of zeale. So that your Title may be likened very fitly, to those Apothecaries’ boxes which Lactantius speakes of, quorum tituli remedium habent, pixides venenum, poysons within, and medecines writ upon the Paper. So for your Text, we will repeat that too, that men may see the better how you doe abuse it. My sonne feare thou the Lord, and the King, and meddle not with them that are given to change; For their calamity shall arise suddenly, and who knoweth the ruine of them both, Prov. 24.21,22. A Text indeed well chosen but not well applied. For had you looked upon yourselfe and the Text together, and followed the direction which is therein given you, you had not so long hunted after innovations, as for these many yeares it is knowne you have; and so might possibly have escaped that calamitie which is now like to fall upon you. But it’s the nature of your humour, as of some diseases, to turne all things unto the nourishment of the part that is ill affected. Meane while you make the Scriptures but a nose of wax, as Pighius once prophanly called it; by wresting it maliciously to serve your turnes; and so confirme the vulgar Papists in contempt of that, which were it not for you, and such as you, they might more easily bee induced both to heare and reverence. Now for the method of your Sermon (I meane to call it so no more) though you observe no method in it, but wander up and downe in repetitions and tautologies, as your custome is: I must thus dispose it. The passages therein, either of scandall or sedition, I shall reduce especially unto these two heads: those which reflect upon the King’s most excellent Majestie, and those which strike directly against the Bishops. That which reflects upon the King, either relates to his authoritie, or his actions. That which doth strike against the Bishops is to be considered as it is referred either unto their place, or to their persons, or finally to their proceedings: and these proceedings are againe to bee considered, either in reference to their Courts, and behaviour there, or to their government of and in the Church, and carriage in that weighty office, wherein you charge them with eight kinds of innovations, most of the generall kinds being subdivided into several branches. For a conclusion of the whole, I shall present unto yourselfe, by way of Corollarie, or resultancie out of all the premisses, how farre you are or may prove guilty of sedition, for that Pulpit pasquill of yours: and so commend you to repentance, and the grace of God. In ripping up whereof, as I shall keepe myselfe especially to your Pulpit-Pasquill: so if I meete with any variae lectiones, in your Apologie, or Epistles, or the Newes from Ipswich, or your addresses to the Lords of the Privie Councell, and my Lords the Judges, I shall use them also either for explication or for application. Such your extravagancies, as cannot easily be reduced to the former heads, I either shall passe over, or but touch in transitu. This is the order I shall use.
First for the King, you may remember what I told you was the Puritan tenet, that Kings are but the Ministers of the Commonwealth, and that they have no more authority than what is given them by the people. This though you doe not say expresly, and in terminis, yet you come very neare it, to a tantamont: finding great fault with that unlimited power which some give to kings, and as also with that absolute obedience which is exacted of the subject. One of your doctrines is, that all our obedience to Kings and Princes and other superiors must be regulated by our obedience to God. Your reason is, because the King is God’s Minister and Vice-regent, and commands as from God, so for God, and in God. Your doctrine and your reason, might become a right honest man. But whats your use?
Your first use is, for reprehension or refutation of those that so advance man’s ordinances and commandements, as though they be contrary to God’s Law, and the fundamentall lawes of the state, yet so presse men to the obedience of them as they hold them for no better than rebells, and to deserve to be hanged drawne and quartered that refuse to obey them, pag. 77. So pag. 88. a second sort come here to be reproved, that on the other side separate the feare of the King from the feare of the Lord: and those are such as attribute to Kings such an unlimited power, as if he were God Almightie himselfe; so as hereby they would seeme to ascribe that omnipotency to the King which the Pope assumes, and his parasites ascribe to his holinesse. So pag. 89. Thus these men crying up, and exacting universall absolute obedience to man, they doe hereby cast the feare of God, and so his Throne, downe to the ground.
Finally you reckon it amongst the Innovations wherewith you charge the Prelats in point of doctrine, that they “have laboured to make a change in the doctrine of obedience to Superiours, setting man so in God’s throne, that all obedience to man must be absolute without regard to God and conscience, whose only rule is the word of God,” pag. 126. In all which passages, however you pretend the word of God,
