Government rather then the suspected Servants of the King The Free-holders Choice is a very Martin Mar-Prelate His Language against the Clergy is too course for an honest man to repeat after him but he has ranged them in good Company for he says that they lay out themselves to accommodate their Masters with the veriest Villains that can be pick'd up in all the Country that so we may fall into the hands again of as treacherous and lewd a Parliament as the Wisdom of God and Folly of Man has most miraculously freed us from Methinks some of the Members of that Parliament should concern themselves to call for Justice upon so foul a Scandal The Author of the Seasonable Quaeries does not only recommend the same Cautions with the rest but calls his Majesty himself to Shrift and puts the Question whether Prorogation and Dissolution of Parliaments at such a time as this does not fill the hearts of Protestant Subjects with evident fears of destruction And Secondly says he Whether it be not high time for all the Protestants in England to resolve as one man that they will it and by and maintain the Power and Priviledges of Parliament together with the Power and Iust Rights of the King according to the Laws of the Kingdom so as the One may not intrench upon thâ— Other The former Expâ—â—â—â—â—ation upon the Reason of the Kings Proceedings would have been more taken notice of perhaps if it had not been followed with one of the most audacious Challenges that this Licentious season has produced for the meaning of it is to incourage a direct Rising as if the King and the Parliament were going together by the Ears forgive the Expression and the people to interpose to see fair play This is the very Trace of the Old Covenant They must resolve to maintain no body knows what on the one side for the Priviledges of Parliament are past finding out But then they are to stand by the King on the other side with a Limitatiâ—n only in his Iust Rights and of those Bounds they themselves are to be the Judges This Epithete was applyed to the late Kings Case by those very men that cut off his Head The Author of Englands great Interest having directed the good people what persons to choose for the ensuing Parliament and what not His next work is to instruct them in the Knowâ—edge of their Powers which he divides into three Rights or Fundamentals The First is Property that is a Right and Title to their own Lives Liberties and Estates For the Law he says is Vmpire between King Lords and Commonâ— and the Right and Property is one in kind through all Degrees and Qualities in the Kingdom Mark that Way does he not say that the King is Vmpire betwixt King Lords and Commons as welâ— aâ— tâ—at the Law is so For the Law is only the Kings Pleasure made known and the whole force and authority of it is but an Emanation from Soveraign Power And then for his Three Fundamentals As I am a Commoner of England my self I should be loth to lose any Right of an English man and yet as I am a loyal subject also I should be as unwilling to encroach upon the Priviledges of the Crown I do not know what he means by his one in Kind with the emphasis of Mark that upon it If it be that the people have as much right to their Lives Liberties and Estates as the King himself has though it be true in some sense it will not hold yet as he would have it understood For the people may forfeit their Lives Liberties and Estates but the King cannot forfeit his Wherefore Mark that too His Second Fundamental is Legislation Or the Power of making Laws for no Law can be made or abrogated he says in England without them It is not candidly done to call that the very Act of Legislation which is only consultive and preparative towards it The making of Laws is a peculiar and incommunicable Prerogative of Soveraignty so that to place the legislative power in the Commons is to make them Supream and to set a King of England once more at the Commons Bar. Beside that his Inference is as inconsequent as his Assertion is dangerous As if a Law must necessarily be made by them because it cannot be made or abrogated without them Does he that furnishes the Ingredients therefore make the Medicine because the Medicine cannot be made without the Ingredients What signifies the form of an Instrument to the passing of an Authority or Obligation without signing and sealing Yet the one cannot be done without the other Does the Councel that draws the Conveyance pass away the Estate because the Act could not have been good without him And again the Law in this case is no other then a Promise under the Kings Hand past to the people and partakes of the nature of other promises It was made by the Promiser and cannot be discharg'd without the Consent of those to whom it was promised His third Fundamental is Executive holds proportion with the other two in order to compleat both their Freedom and Security and that is their share as he says in the Judicatory Power in the Execution and Application of those Laws that they agree to be made A Judicatory Power without authority to Minister an Oath is to me I must confess a new thing And now for the word agree though it may be pertinent enough to his purpose for there needs no more to the undoing of the most regular Government upon the face of the Earth then first to turn the peoples hearts against it and then to possess them that they have a Legal Remedy in their own hands Yet that word I say in this place is very improper for it is but a Request presented to his Majesty for his Approbation The Request or Bill is no doubt agreed upon but it were an uncoâ—th kind of expression for a Petitioner to say that he does agree that his Petition shall be granted The Business is fairly push'd already but the Publisher of a pretended Speech lately printed carries it a step further If a Prince says he be born to a Kingdom who is either Lunatique or otherwise disabled to do the Kingdom any good shall not the Subjects in this case proceed to chuse another who may preserve the Kingdom when otherwise it must of necessity perish as lately in the case of Portugal they chose another to succeed because of the Disability of the former This is in plain terms a Deposing principle For if a King may be remov'd in such case of Disability the people being made Judges of the Case it is but their saying that he is not fit to govern the work is done There is a Sheet printed under the Title of A Plea c. that has more brains and art in it than ordinary He says that a King is not for his own but his Subjects sakes only and that
of the Exploit they rob'd in Red Coats too that they might the better pass for some of his Majesties Guards The Similitude runs upon all Four for it was the very case of our pretended Protestants under colour of hunting for Priests they seized Money and Plate and committed Robberies in the very Livery of the Government This they did in Scotland under the Queen Regent and King James and in England under Queen Elizabeth and twice in Scotland again under the late King and after that in England Two actual Rebellions more in Scotland under this present King and now God bless us from another at home and all this from that sort of people that stil'd themselves Protestants The Principles the Methods and the Pretences the very same from one end to the other The Story of these Phanatical Conspiracies is almost as nauseous as the thing it self is detestable only this last in Scotland methinks seems to crown the Infamy of all the rest For a Party that calls it self Protestant a Party in full Cry upon the scent of Popery a Popish Plot upon Oath too at the same time upon the Life of the King upon our Religion and Government and that Plot at that instant under a strict Examination the same party at the same time also pressing for Justice upon the Conspirators nay and complaining of the remissness of the Prosecution notwithstanding the most exemplary Rigor in the Case that ever was known in this Nation For this Party I say under these circumstances to fly in the face of the Government let the World judge if ever there was a more consemmated piece of Wickedness They raise a Rebellion and make Religion the Ground of it they declare a War against the King and the Church and yet write themselves Loyal Subjects and Protestants They cry out of the Danger of Popery and yet in the same breath draw their Swords upon their Prince in the very attempt of Crushing it and all these Aggravations complicated in one act Is it not high time then after an Imposture that has cost this Nation so dear to learn at last to distinguish betwixt a Religion and a Faction Betwixt what men are and what they call themselves Is a Renegado ever the less a Turk for putting out English Colours Are the Blessed Spirits ever the less pure for the Devils transforming himself into an Angel of Light Is the Kings Broad Seal one jot the less valuable for being counterfeited So neither is our Profession And he that dishonours Religion or invades Authority under the Name of a Protestant is no more to any sober man than a Goth or a Vandal Judas his Betraying of his Master was a most ungrateful and abominable Sin but the doing of it with a Kiss made it by many degrees the more execrable And it was the height of the Prophet Davids Affliction the Circumstance of a Familiar Friend Where 's the harm now of saying Have a care of False Protestants The Author and the Finisher of our Faith is I hope of Authority sufficient to justifie that Caution Does not our Saviour himself tell us that there shall arise False Christs and False Prophets and why not False Protestants And does he not bid us take heed that no man deceive us for many says he shall come in my Name saying I am Christ and shall deceive many Does he not bid us beware of Wolves in Sheeps Cloathing And in his description of the Scribes and Pharisees give us the very Picture of our Impostors We have it upon the Credit of Dr. Tongue and Dr. Oates that the Sedition of 1641. was totally contrived and caryed on by Popish Counsels and that not only the Conventicles in that bloody Revolution but all our Separate Meetings to this day and particularly the Scottish Commotions were and are influenced by Priests and Jesuits under the Masque of Professors of those several Perswasions Have we not reason then to use all possible circumspection that we may not be imposed upon by such as these for Protestants No man has a greater veneration for the memory of those Protestants that suffered Martyrdom for their Faith no man a greater horrour for the Irish the Parisian several other Massacres no man a higher esteem or a more ardent affection for Protestancy it self so far as the Profession of the Church of England is intended by it than I have But for those turbulent Spirits that lay about them as if Heaven were to be taken by actual Violence whose Zeal outstrips Christianity it self imposing upon the world their own corrupt and impetuous passions instead of the healing and pacifique motions of the Holy Ghost These are a dangerous sort of people and their ways are not only a Contradiction to the undeniable Principles of our Institution but to the common Interests of Mankind as well Individuals as Communities for if it be true that Charity is the great Lesson of the Gospel If it be true that Vnity in Faith and Vnanimity in the the things of Civil Government would make up the most perfected Blessing that reasonable Nature is capable of in this Tabernacâ—e of Flesh then must it necessarily follow that the nearer we approach to that Agreement the better Christians we are and the happier Men and the further we depart from it the more wicked the more miserable we are This is either true or false If the former there 's no Treason in 't if the latter we may burn our Bibles Before I wade any further into this Controversie it may do well I think to give some Reason why upon this Subject at this Time that the World may not take that for the Leaven of an unquiet Humour which in great truth is only an act of Conscience in the discharge of a sober and a seasonable duty to my Prince and Country To the undertaking of this Office I have been induced by the audacious Liberties of the Press in the matter of Religion and Government endeavouring to possess the Multitude with false and pernicious Principles and Opinions and by artificial Hints and Scandals to dispose them now toward the meeting of this next Parliament to a partial and a factious Choice So that my Business is only to encounter and lay open the Vanity and Weakness of those Libels and without confining my self to any one in particular to sum up the Malice of them all for so much as concerns our present purpose and to submit my self to the Reader in a fair and short Reply It is a Note worthy of consideration that all the Papers here in question even to a single Sheet are the Work of Men exceedingly by assed against the established Government as Republicans Anabaptists and other sorts of Dissenters from the Church for the Publishers of these Papers are known every one of them and most of the Authors Now what advice toward the Honour and Safety of the Government these people are likely to give who are united in common
assaulted in 1604. with the same sort of people and at a Conference at Hampton Court this Qustion was put How far an Ordinance of the Church was binding without offence to Christian Liberty Whereupon the King gave this short Answer Let 's have no more of these Questions but conform at your peril So that they gave him no further trouble upon that subject And this was Queen Elizabeth's case too to the hazard both of her Life and Government till by that severe Act against them of the Thirty fifth of her Reign she gave her self ease for the remainder of her Life What did the late King gain by his Indulgence to the Scots in 1637. but farther Indignities and Contempt First the Service-Book and Canons were their Grievance then the Five Articles of Perth though established both by the General Assembly and Parliament The High Commission next and then the Bishops Session in Civil Judicatories His Majesty gratifieâ— them in every point Insomuch that they had nothing further to complain of but that the King would not abolish Episcopacy and admit the Authority of their Lay-Elders upon which point they brake out into an open Rebelion After this upon the Interview of the two Armies at Berwick when the King had them absolutely at his mercy upon their Supplication for a Treaty he trusted them again and concluded upon a Pacification of which the Covenanters did not keep so much as one Aâ—ticle Upon his Majesties return to London he passes the Triennial Bill abolishes the Star-Chamber and High Commissiâ—n-Court passes an Act for the Continuance of the Parliament and in fine denys them nothing but his Crown and his Blood and then by virtue of what he had given them already they took away the rest and stript him of his Friends his Authority his Revenue and his Life They minister great cause of suspicion in their very stile and scruples Why do they run so much upon ambiguities As the settling of Religion in its due latitude a due necessary Reformation found Relief Principles congruous to a National Settlement the Kings Iust Rights Importance of Interests Stated Order in the Church c. What is all this but a jumbling together of so many Amusements to pass a colourable pretence upon the people And it signifies just nothing but what Construction they shall think fit to allow it If they would offer any pertinent intelligible and practicable Proposition and say what Injunctions they would have abated what Parties they would recommend for these qualifications where to find them and who shall judge of them If they would state their Demands and say This is all we ask and then rest there If 28 they plead for all Dissenters they would produce some common Instrument or Commission to shew that they are authâ—riz'd by all to solicite in their Names and to treat upon such or such Points and to go no further the business might be brought yet to some rational issue As their Stile is exceeding dark and mysterious so are their Scruples of an extraordinary Quality too They cannot kneel at the Sacrament but they can hold up their hands at the Covenant they can dispense with the Oath of Allegiance and yet make a scruple of disclaiming the Solemn League They can swallow a Schism or worse and yet a Ceremony choaks them Add to all this many of those very persons that promoted our former Troubles this very way are now at work again upon the same pretension and may without breach of Charity be suspected to have the same design and to remain in a state of impenitency if they have not manifested their Repentance by some open Recantation For according to the Casuists publique sins require publick confessions It is an ill sign too for a man to leap upon the sudden from matter of Conscience to Reason of State and in the same breath of a petitioner to become a reformer It would seem a strange thing for a man to request a special favour from the Master of a Family and at the same time to put affronts upon his Domesticks and to tell him that his Servants were all of them a pack of Rascals which is not much from the point in hand We have had abundance of Advice to the Free-holders of England toward the Choice of this next Parliament as Sober and seasonable Quaeries Englands great Interest the Freeholders Choice and twenty more and all of them agreeing in the general Heads one with another They tell us who are fit to be chosen and who not The former such as will remove and bring to Justice evil Counsellors corrupt and arbitrary Ministers of State detect and punish the Pensioners of the former Parliament in the face of the Kingdom and they must chuse such as will secure us from Slavery The people are directed on the other side not to chuse a man that has been reputed a Pentioner no Court-Officer or whose Employment is durante bene placito no ambitious men or Non-residents that live here in Town and seek Honour and preferments above This is the Counsel of Englands grand Interest And methinks in these Qualifications there is both too much and too little As to the point of Evil Counsellors corrupt Ministers and Pensioners he should have done well to have advi'sd them all manner of caution and circumspection for fear of mistaking their Men. This was the way that brought the Earl of Strafford and the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to their Ends. under the notion of evil Counsellors too though perhaps the most necessary Instruments that ever this Nation enjoyed for the Common Good both of King and people So that as it is a great Service to bring corrupt Ministers to publick Justice it is yet a lewd method to make the Rabble the Executioners and to punish Male-Administration by Sedition For in this case the good and the bad fall indifferently without distinction and instead of drawing here and there a piece of rotten Timber toward a Reparation they fall foul upon the main pillars and supporters of the House so that all falls into ruins And then the mark of a Reputed Pensioner goes a little too far for it lies in the power of two or three malevolent Tongues to make any man so They that made the last King a reputed Papist shall much more easily make any of his Majesties Subjects pass for reputed Pensioners The total Exclusion of all Court-Officers or Bene-placito-men is yet worse For this sets up a direct Opposition betwixt the King and his people as who should say Trust no body that wears any Token of the Kings favour And the same reason disables him as well to any other Trust whatsoever So that the Kings Countenance is a kind of Incapacity And it is the same thing with those he calls Ambitious Men as if any Application to his Majesty made a man unfit for the Service of his Country He should have done well to have warn'd them against the known Enemies of the
Persons and Estates the whole course of the late War was but one â—â—ntinued Usurpation upon our Rights to both Noble mens Houses turn'd to Prisons and peoâ—â—e committed without knowing either their Accusers or their Offence Some clap'd on Ship-â—arâ— to be transported no body knew whither and others sold into Plantations for Slaves To 〈◊〉 nothing of those that fell by the Sword in the Defence of their Country or otherwise past the hand of the Executioner in justification of their Religion and Allegiance There was no taking of Threescore pounds for Twelve in these days nor of Two hundred for Sixty But they took All for nothing and there was no Living among them for any Honest man that would not prostitute his Conscience And who are they now but either the very persons or men however of these very Principles that acted these Out-rages upon Vs and yet now complain of being persecuted themselves When they startle the Common people with the Notions of Cruelty and Slavery as a matter now in prospect methinks they should blush at the memory and upon the Guilt of those real Calamities which we have both seen and felt wherein our Blessed Soveraign had yet a greater share then any of his Subjects They abolished Kingly Government sold the Crown Lands imprison'd and murther'd the King made it Treason to deny the Supremacy of the Commons turn'd our Churches into Stables burnt our Communion-Tables and profan'd the very Ashes of the Dead Let but any man read Scobels Acts and say if the English were not in those times and under these Protestant Dissenters the most despicable slaves in nature See their Tax upon the Fifth and Twentieth part their Excises upon Excise their Assessments for the Maintenance of the Army and their monthly Taxes for the same end Ninety thousand pounds Sixscore thousand pounds Sixty thousand pounds Sequestrations seizing of peoples Rents and Debts appropriating to themselves the profits of Tonnage and Poundage and Compositions for Wards Authorizing the breaking open of Locks and Examining upon Oath for discovery of Delinquents Money and Estates All this is as well known as the very fact of the War it self and if we have a mind to lie down under the same Bondage again let us believe the Stories of Arbitrary Government and Superstition that these people tell us of and they shall just so help us out of it again as they did before There should be something further said to their pretence of being persecuted for Religion but I find little to be added to what is already delivered The Law stands still They press upon the Law and yet cry out that the Law persecutes them We may lay down this I think for a Maxim That whosoever tells us that he makes a Conscience of complying with the Discipline of the Church and yet manifestly makes none at all of undermining nay and of blowing up the whole frame of the Government that man is most undoubtedly an Hypocrite To conclude What 's the meaning of this Remonstrating to the people They are no Judges of the Controversie But they do well however in a Cause where Force does a great deal more than Argument to make their application to the multitude with whom clamour and pretence are of more value than modesty and reason It is a most ridiculous contradiction to common sense to believe these men to be in earnest for if they were they would never defame the Government at the same time that they beg a Dispensation from it Their Demand is unreasonable the thing it self only notional and impracticable By Liberty of Conscience they mean a Freedom of doing what they please which necessarily implies a total Dissolution of the Laws They offer it only aâ— a Decoy to the people and when they have gain'd compassion to themselves like beggars that move pity by shewing Ulcers of their own making their next business is to draw Contempts upon the Government and after that to enter without more ado upon the great Work of Reformation Let me do this Right however to the Independents I do not find that party â—o have given the Government any trouble since his Majesties Return but that they have kept themselves clear of all these late Broils And if Authority had the same sense of them with the Author of this Pamphlet they would be found both in their Principles and in their Manners to have the most reasonable Claim of all sorts of Dissenters to a favourable allowance from the Government God in his mercy open our Eyes that we may know our Friends from our Enemies THE END