Angliæ ruina: or, Englands ruine represented in the barbarous, and sacrilegious outrages of the sectaries of this kingdome, committed upon the lives, consciences and estates of all His Maj: loyal subjects in generall; but more particularly upon the churches, colledges, clergie, and scholars of the same. Containing two briefe catalogues of such heads and fellowes of colledges in the University of Cambridge, and other learned and pious divines, within the city of London, as have been ejected, plundered, imprisoned, or banished, for their constancie in the Protestant religion, and loyalty to their soveraigne. Whereunto is added, a chronologie of the time and place of all the battails, sieges, conflicts, and other remarkable passages which have happened betwixt His Majesty and the Parliament; with a catalogue of such persons of quality, as have been slain on either party, from Novemb. 3. 1640 till the 25. of March, 1647.

The Prefece.

THe Author of the French History, rela∣ting that horrid Rebellion of the holy League in Franch, the Prototype of the present Rebillion in England, gives this definition or Character of one of those Zealots: The Essentiall forme (said he) of a Zealous Ca∣tholike in the Holy League, was to Rob and Pro∣phane Churches, to Ravish Wives, and Virgins, to murther Men against the Altars, to spoyle the Clergy, not to be the Kings Servants, which that age held for a Crime, but to vomite out against him, all the indignities, and all the wickednesses which Irreligion, and Injustice could invent in mad Souldiers: do but change Zelous Catholike into Zelous Puritan, and no Pencill ever limb'd a Rebell of this present Rebellion so exactly to the life as this: And though they have out-done all examples, president, of Wickednesse, Cruelt••e, Disloyalt••e, Sacriledge, and Prophanation, as if in them the devill meant to show his Mster-piece, raging in them horribly, because he knows that he hath but a short time, yet to their dishonouring of God, thier vilifying his holy worship, prophaning his

Temples, blaspheming the footsteps of his Anoyn∣ted, affronting and contemning his Priests, & Mi∣nister, to their rending, tearing, & trampling un∣derfoot all Ha••owed Ornaments and Utensills, provided for the reverend and decent worship of God; I know nothing that they have left undone, which remaines yet to be added to their accursed impietes: So that what the old Eustathians, Messa∣lias, Pratricelli, & the rest of those wild Hereticks, (who placed their Religion in Contempt of Con∣secrated Churches, Temples, and Oratories, places consecrated, and set apart for the publique worship of God) durst not do. These Schismaticall Rebels, (having wilfully smothered, not only their Consci∣ences, but the dictate of common reason) putting no diference between Holy & Prophane, have acted with greednes•• whatsoever things they are, where∣on the Name of God is called, whether Persons, times or places, in the judgment of venerable An∣tiquity; whether Councels, Fathers or Historians, those things were ever held Sacred & Inviolable, alwayes habenda cum Discrimine, and that extra U••um Sacrum, to be regarded with areverentiall, and discriminative ufance, that is, with a select and different respect from other thing of the same kind, but not imployed to holy uses: Nay, the ho∣nouring Gods house, was ever held an Ingredi∣ent of that Petition of the Lords Prayer, Sancti∣sicetur Nomen tuum, Hallowed be thy Name:

What opinion the Ancient Fathers, both Greeke and Latine, had of such places, may be collected from those Magnificent, and honourable Names, whereby they commended them to the due esteeme of severall Ages in which they lived: Some in re∣gard of their use and imployment called them the Lords house, some the Patrimony of Christ, some the Dowry of the Spouse of Christ, some a Consecreated Possession of God, and a holy Soyl: Others, in respect of their Magnificance of Stru∣cture, and Costlinesse of Oranments, called them Royall or Kingly Houses: Nay, would we but sharpen our Gords at a Philistines Forge, or weave the woollen Yearne of the Gentiles, with the linnen web of the Christians, I meane, call is the Testimony and practice of the Heathen, in what veneration, and esteem they had their Idoll Temples (which was in them the dictate of Na∣ture, mistaken onely in the object) and they would stand up as so many witnesses, and cetainly in the day of Judgement, shall condemne this Prophane Generation, who under an Hypocriticall pretence of worshiping God in Spirit, in a true Anabaptisti∣call fury, have layd waste the Sanctuaries of God, polluted his Temples, and broken down all their carved worke with Axes and Hammers: And though these Rebellions Schismaticks have in all place (which have been plagued with their pre∣sence) roared in the midst of our Cogregations,

set up their Banners for tokens, and left some in∣famous memoriall of their frenzie, and hatred of the beautie and magnificence of Gods house; and therfore in every place made it thier first businesse (as in introduction to the rest) to rob and deface Churches, and violate the Sepulchres and Monu∣ments of the dead, so they have exprest their grea∣test hatred against the Mother Churches, and Ca∣thedrals of this Kingdom, because in them, the Pri∣mitive Order and decency, prescribed in the Ru∣brick of the Book of Common Prayer, and ratified by act of Parliament, have been best preserved from those Omissions, Neglects, and Contempts, which had almost banished them out of private Parochiall Congregations, and rendered them ob∣noxious to sinister interpretations, and suspected of no lesse then Popery, Superstition, and Innova∣tion, in those places wherein they were retained, and practised: when therefore our Posteritie shall see this Abomination of desolation, which these Rebells have brought into these Temples of God, and by Tradition hear of those costly utencills, and Ornaments, which most Sacrilegiously they have carryed out, and shall with wonder, and astonish∣ment inquire, what Lunacy? what Frenzy? what accursed madnesse possessed the hearts of the men of this present age, to lay wast the places where Gods honour dwels? where God vouchsafes to meet with his People, & the People, with united devoti∣on,

to propitiate their God, and impiously (as much as in them is) to turne these Beauties of Holynes into desolate places, for Zum & Ochim, (as the prophet speakes) and the Satyrs to dance in, Esay 13.12. Let them know, that the Puri∣tans, Brownists, and Anabaptists Rebels, march∣ing under the banners of a Faction in two preten∣ded Houses of Parliament (which yet some have the impundence to call the Great and Highest Court, the Supreame Judicature, and the most zealous Protections and Assertors of the Establi∣shed Protestant Religion) have brought this de∣solation upon us. And because this Tempest raged first in the East, and so spread it selfe into all parts of the Kingdome, West, North, and South, I shall in the relation keepe the same Method (if so great confusion can be ranged into a Method) whereby we shall give (as is due) Precedency to the famous Metropolitan Church of Canterbury, which as it is (in respect of her lesser Sisters) first in Order and, Dignitie, so was it then, and now shll be, the first instance of the Rebells Sacrilege.