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 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 coarse for an Honest man to repeat after him but he has rang'd 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 Quaeres 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 stand by and maintain the Power and Privileges of Parliament together with the Power and Just Rights of the King according to the Laws of the Kingdom so as the One may not intrench upon the Other The former Expostulation upon the Reason of the Kings Proceedings would have been more taken notice of perhaps if it had not been follow'd with one of the most Audacious Challenges that this Licentious season has produc'd 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 Privileges of Parliament are past finding out But then they are to stand by the King on the other side with a Limitation only in his Just Rights and of those Bounds they themselves are to be the Judges This Epithete was apply'd 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 whatnot His next work is to instruct them in the Knowledge 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 Umpire between King Lords and Commons and the Right and Property is one in kind through all Degrees and Qualities in the Kingdom Mark that Why does he not say that the King is Vmpire betwixt King Lords and Commons as well as that 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 Privileges 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 thâ—m because it cannot be Made or Abrogated Without them Does he that furnishes the Ingredients therefore make the Medicine becauâ—e 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 and 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 Uncouth kind of expression for a Petitioner to say that he does Agree that his Petition shall be Granted The Business it 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 sit to Govern and the work is done There is a Sheet Printed under the Title of A Plea c.
that Stole Money and Plate under the pretence of Searching for Priests and for the Credit 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 flie in the face of the Government let the World judge if ever there was a more Consummated 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 Woolves 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. Tong and Dr. Oates that the Sedition of 1641. was totally contriv'd and carry'd 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 Influenc'd by Priests and Jesuites under the Masque of Professors of those several Persuasions Have we not reason then to use all possible Circumspection that we may not be impos'd upon by such as these for Protestants No man has a greater Veneration for the memory of those Protestants that suffer'd Martyrdom for their Faith no man a greater Horrour for the Irish the Parisian and 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 things of Civil Government would make up the most perfected Blessing that reasonable Nature is capable of in this Tabernacle 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 and 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 and 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 Byass'd against the Establish'd 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
that kind They agree says he with Julian the Apostate Libertines Atheists Unclean Incestuous Drunkards Sabbath-breakers Lyers Jugglers Slanderers Proud and Boasting Insolent Outrageous Hypocritical False The Sectaries on the other hand call the Assembly Antichristian Romish Bloody Plagues and Pests of the Kingdom Baal's Priests Southsayers The Presbyterian Government a Limb of Antichrist Tyrannical Lordly an Aegyptian Bondage An Anabaptist said He hop'd to see Heaven and Earth on fire before Presbytery should be settled and to see it troden under foot as the Bishops Sterry himself says The Seed of God hath two Capital Enemies Romish Papacy and the Scotch Presbytery See what the Presbyterians say now to a Toleration It is much says the London Ministers Letter to the Assembly Jan. 1.45 that our Brethren should separate from the Church but that they should endeavour to get a Warrant to Authorize their Separation from it and to have Liberty by drawing Members out of it to weaken and diminish it till so far as lies in them they have brought it to nothing This we think to be plainly Unlawful And then the Harmony of the Lancashire Ministers p. 12. Toleration would be the putting the Sword in a Mad mans hand a Proclaiming Liberty to the Wolves to come into Christs Flock to prey upon his Lambs Toleration makes the Scripture a Nose of Wax a Rule of Faith to all Religions And this is the great Rabby of the Party Rutherfords free Disp. p. 360. Liberty of Conscience and Toleration of all or any Religion is so Prodigious an Impiety that this Religious Parliament cannot but abhor the very naming of it Bailey's Disswasive Epist. Ded. 1645. It is unreasonable says the Defender of the London Ministers Letter to the Assembly Anti-toleration p. 16. that Independents should desire that Toleration of Presbyters which they would not give to Presbyters Let it be observed from hence that these people do first demand of the Government that Liberty which they deny to one another And Secondly That they pretend to do it upon Conscience and yet hold the thing it self to be absolutely Vnlawful so that they justifie the Conscience of our denying it to them by the Conscience of their refusing it to others And the only way to evade this is to discover all by confessing that though they now beg a Toleration from the Government yet if they get power in their hands they 'l make a Conscience again as they did before of allowing any freedom to the Government It is a clear case that their demands are Vnwarrantable Impracticable Vnreasonable and not grounded upon Conscience but directly in Opposition to it as we have it under their own hands Let us try now if we can discover what the design is since it appears manifestly what it is not and that not only from the Reason of the thing but from their own deeds and writings and those matters also and Positions expounded by Practice One thing remarkable is this That they have been still Fishing in Troubled Waters and taking advantage of all Distresses and necessities of the Government Did not Cartwright Coppinger Arthington and Hacket take their time for that Execrable Conspiracy against Q. Elizabeth when she was just upon the very point of securing the Reformed Religion against the Power and Church of Rome Did not the Sectaries in 1641. take the same advantage against the late King when his thoughts were wholly taken up about suppressing the Irish Rebellion And did not the latter Scotch Tumults take the same advantage of his Majesties being under many troublesome Circumstances about the Plot and when the Peoples minds were prepar'd to take Ill Impressions in the matter of Government So that the very Timing of this Revived Clamour for Liberty of Conscience looks suspiciously and the more because their Meetings here have of late been very little interrupted To run thorough those pestilent Principles which the Heads of the Sectaries have Publish'd in their own Names were endless Wherefore I shall content my self with some of their General Positions and refer the Reader to Husbands Collections or the Authors themselves for the rest as Milton Goodwin Rutherford and a hundred more They make the Lords and Commons the Supream Power nay the People themselves in some cases Princes they say may be depos'd and put to death They distinguish betwixt the Kings Person and his Authority the Letter of the Law and the Equity of it and appeal from the Written Law to the Law of Nature and according to these Maxims they govern their Proceedings But will you see now the price of all our Blood and Confusion Upon their Petition to his Majesty for a Reformation of the Liturgy the King most graciously issu'd out a Commission for a Review of the Book of Common Prayer An equal number of Learned Divines both Episcopal and Presbyterian were appointed to meet about it and to agree upon such Alterations as should be thought most Necessary His Majesty earnestly desiring that the Ministers would not totally lay aside the Book of the Common Prayer but read those parts against which there could be no Exception Now instead of most necessary Alterations and those to be agreed upon by Both Parties they Publish'd a new Liturgy of their own under the Title of the Reformation of the Liturgy which was indeed the Abolition of it I 'le give ye only a tast of some of their Important scruples that are cast into the Ballance against the Vnity of the Church and the Peace of the Kingdom They turn Wedded Wife into Marryed Dost thou Believe into do you Believe and all this I Stedfastly Believe into this I do Unfeignedly Believe Let us now suppose these People had their Askings Let any man but shew me from the Minority of King James to this hour where they were not the more violent and importune upon yielding even to the hazard of a downright Rebellion and the Author shall give any man his Head for the President Did not the Assembly in 1578. impose upon the Parliament in Scotland fall foul upon the Arch-Bishop of Glasgow and the whole Order pass a Decree against their Votes in Parliament command them to renounce their Temporal Titles and Civil Jurisdiction and set their Quarriers at work for the demolishing of Glasgow Cathedral which had been done too if the Trades-men had not by force prevented it And did they not grow bolder and bolder upon the Kings Lenity and Command the Bishops upon pain of Excommunication not to Officiate as Pastors without Licence from the General Assembly and likewise order the Patrimony of the Church to be dispos'd of as they should see meet And did they not after that make a Violent and Treasonous Seizure of the King at Ruthven and justifie it when they had done And so on by degrees till his Majesty was forc'd by a Tumult at Edenbourgh in 1596. and the Ministers Bond of Confederacy immediately upon it to a Resolution of Rigour and Severity which as
Spottswood observes gave him more quiet and security for the future His Majesty was no sooner enter'd upon the Government of England but he was Assaulted in 1604. with the same sort of People and at a Conference at Hampton Court this Question 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 establish'd both by the General Assembly and Parliament The High-Commission next and then the Bishops Session in Civil Judicatories His Majesty gratifies 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 Rebellion 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 Article Upon his Majesties Return to London he passes the Triennial Bill Abolishes the Star-Chamber and High-Commission-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 and necessary Reformation sound Belief Principles Congruous to a National Settlement the Kings Just 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 as they plead for all Dissenters they would produce some Common Instrument or Commission to shew that they are Authoriz'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 Allegeance 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 Publique 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 now 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 Quaeres Englands great Interest the Free holders 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 Honours 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 advis'd 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 enjoy'd 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