to defend the not defending of the premises; when as no necessity may excuse any failings on the King’s part, as if his promises, by which he stands obliged to his Subjects, did not suppose they for their parts also should performe. I know not how some particular men may be engaged and contract a necessity of resisting, or seeking safety by Armes; but I am perswaded, no man in Conscience can thinke it a necessity of the Common-wealth to have all confounded, or of a Christian to run the hazard of damnation by resisting. My conscience tells me, and will theirs one day tell them, how much they have to answer for not improving that grace and willingnesse, they had experience of in His Majestie and might still have found in him, to the speedy and happy Reformation of this Church and State. I pray God to give them Consciences truely inlightned, and bowels truly compassionate, that they may speedily and feelingly be sensible of the miseries this Land grones under, and faithfully examine how far they are answerable for them by rejecting such reasonable meanes of security, as they might have had for the safety of this State. Amen.
And now if there be any one that will run the hazard of this resistance, I desire he would first set his Conscience before the Tribunall of God, where it must appeare, and consider whether it will excuse him there, when he has shed the bloud of others, and expended his owne, to say, I verily supposed and believed my Prince would change Religion, overthrow our Liberties. I must tell him it will not be safe for him to present such a Conscience at that barre, a Conscience that wanted the rule of Faith to warrant and perswade the lawfulnesse of resistance on such a supposall, a Conscience that wanted the certainty of perswasion that the Prince’s heart (which God only knowes) was so inclined, a Conscience that wanted the judgement of charity, in concluding such intentions in the King notwithstanding all his promises and deepest protestations made in the time of his trouble, without which Charity all is nothing though he layes downe (as he thinkes) his life for Religion. Such a Conscience I must needs conclude sinfull, and liable to that which the Apostle threatens unto Resistance, Damnation.
FINIS.
Charles Herle, a Presbyterian divine from Cornwall, was educated at Oxford. He was closely linked to James Stanley, later seventh earl of Derby, and his family. It was through the good offices of these future royalist stalwarts that he became rector of the rich rectory of Winwick in Lancashire. In the 1640s Herle preached frequently before the Long Parliament. He was also active in the Westminster Assembly of Divines. In his numerous pamphlets on behalf of Parliament he stressed the coordinate nature of the English government, which he saw as based upon an original contract. His views have been seen as prefiguring those of the Whigs at the Glorious Revolution. In the matter of resistance he followed Calvin’s advice that the privilege belonged not to individual subjects but to the magistrates and courts of a kingdom.
Herle was one of several parliamentarian pamphleteers who crossed literary swords with Henry Ferne after the publication of Ferne’s “Resolving of Conscience.” His first effort, “An Answer to misled Dr. Ferne …” was followed by “A Fuller Answer to a Treatise Written by Doctor Ferne,” which was published on 29 December 1642, only days after Ferne had failed to appear before Parliament to answer for his tract. The “Fuller Answer” appeared in two virtually identical editions, the second of which is reprinted here. Ferne replied to his critics on 18 April 1643 with “Conscience Satisfied … ,” which Herle attacked the following month in “An Answer to Dr. Fernes Reply.” Ferne attempted to have the last word on 1 November 1643 with “Reply unto severall Treatises. ... ” This paper war, intended to provide constitutional guidance to Englishmen perplexed by the unfolding civil war, clarifies the theoretical differences as well as the shared notions of the antagonists.
Although his side emerged victorious, Herle did not approve of the execution of Charles I and was summoned by the government in 1651 on a charge of aiding royalists. It was not until September 1653 that he was freed from restraint. Thereafter he retired to Winwick where, in September 1659, he died. He is buried in the chancel of his church.
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