The fashion of the Iudicial Law of the Iews in that point was cer∣tainly most proper for the Body of their Polity, as being thereunto adap∣ted by the great Legislator: but to say that all States and Polities are bound to observe it, because God prescribed it to the Iews, is as sense∣less, as to say that all men are bound to go cloathed in Beasts Skins, be∣cause God did Apparel Adam and Eve in that fashion.I have in this Discourse thought it of some use to the publick to have mens understandings disabused, as to the obligatory power of the Iudi∣cial Law, because mens erring therein hath very much encreased the fer∣mentations in his Majesties Realms in several Conjunctures.It is not unknown that Deuteronomy the 13th, and the 6th was urged to Queen Elizabeth, as an Argument for putting the Queen of Scots to death.Our Kingdom hath likewise found by experience, That the Fifth Monar∣chy men, have not fired more Guns against us out of the Revelation, than the Scotch Presbyterians have out of the Iudicial Law.An Excellent Discourse called▪ Fair warning to take heed of the Scotish Discipline, printed in the year 1649, and writ (I think) by Arch-Bi∣shop Bramhall, asserts in Chap. 6. That it robs the Magistrate of his dis∣pensative Power: and saith there, Our Disciplinarians have restrained it in all such Crimes as are made Capital by the Iudicial Law, as in the Case of Blood, Adultery, Blasphemy, in which Cases they say the Offender ought to suffer death as God hath commanded. And if the life be spared as it ought not to be to the Offenders, &c. And the Magistrate ought to prefer Gods strict Commandment before his own corrupt Iudgment, especially in punishing these Crimes which he commandeth to be punished with death. The Books of the Scotch Discipline are there particularly cited by the Author.I have been expressly cautious in the following Discourse to exempt the Reformed Churches abroad, from the Odium of those Principles of the former Scotch and English Presbyterians that I have impugned as Disloyal and Seditious; and was a Concurrer with many loyal Persons after part of it was written in thinking that time had untaught those Principles to most of our present Non-Conformists: and notwithstanding the many Seditious and Libellous Pamphlets published by some of them against the Government both of Church and State, yet such was the continuance of the Candor of the Kings Ministers to them, as that some at the Tryal of a poor seditious Nominal Protestant at Oxford occasionally declared before that wretch, We know of no Presbyterian Plot.But as a Popish Ambassador sent to Queen Elizabeth began his Audi∣ence Speech wherein he was to complain of the Turks having unprovo∣ked broke their League with his Master, Erupit tandem Ottomannorum Virus, it happened that about the time of the finishing of this Discourse, the poyson of some pretended Protestants former Seditious Principles broke out again in a horrid Conspiracy before mentioned, and which was con∣fessed by several of the Conspirators at their Executions, and another of whom owned the Doctrine of Resistance.Our blessed Saviour cautioning the Christian World in the words of, Beware of false Prophets, saith, You shall know them by their Fruits.And our famous Whitaker hath in his Controversies well resolved us that these Fruits whereby false Prophets are to be distinguished from true, are rather their Principles, Interpretations and Doctrines, than their Lives, it being generally observed that the Founders of Sects are exemplary for the austerity of their lives, and for coming in Sheeps clothing, as our Sa∣viours words are.0