13 - Of the late Warres Meditations

Summary

Having laid down these fore-going Grounds, it would not be here unseasonable to render a publick account of my own actions, in answer to that Question, which I have been urged with by so many, ‘By what Reasons was I moved to engage myself in the Parliaments Warre?’ But (though I have not leisure to render so full an account to each particular Quærist, as may be satisfactory, and therefore could be content to dispatch it here at once for all, yet) it will require so long a History of my own affairs, and also so many ungratefull recitals of the abuses and evils of those times, that I shall not undertake so unpleasant a task, till I am called to it by such necessity, as will excuse these inconveniences: but only cursorily shall cast in these following brief accounts instead of a fuller Declaration.

§. I. The malignant hatred of seriousness in Religion, did work so violently in the rabble where I lived, that I could not stay at home with any probable safety of my life. My life was sought before I went away: Sober, pious men of Neighbour-Parishes, that thought the rabble had been upon my head in a tumult (when indeed I was out of Town) were knockt down in the streets, to the hazzard of their lives, when they went among them to look after me; and meerly because they were accounted Puritans. And all this was but on a false rumour, that the Churchwardens were about to obey the Parliaments Order, in taking down the Images of the Trinity about the Church.