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book_n	king_n	lord_n	read_v	2,705	5	6.4090	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62890	The rebels plea, or, Mr. Baxters judgment concerning the late wars in these particulars : viz. the originall of government, coordinate and legislative power in the two Houses, third estate, force upon the Houses in 1642, principles the Houses went by at the beginning, destructive to monarchy, covenant, reasons for submitting to the late government.	Tomkins, Thomas, 1637?-1675.	1660 (1660)	Wing T1838; ESTC R32811	35,816	50

The Rebels Plea OR Mr. Baxters judgement Concerning the late Wars in these Particulars viz. The Originall of Government Coordinate and Legislative Power in the two Houses Third Estate Force upon the Houses in 1642. Principles the Houses went by at the beginning destructive to Monarchy Covenant Reasons for submitting to the late Government LONDON Printed by Thomas Mabb and are to be sold by Henry Brome at the signe of the Gun in Ivie-lain 1660. The Rebel's Plea Examined THe Writers of the Parliament side asserting highly the Liberty of the Subject think they oppose those of the Kings who plead strongly for Subjection to Rulers which are things no way inconsistent for it is very evident rulers doe not take away but preserve our Liberty Men being of the same nature desire the same things what every man desires none can securely enjoy the natural inequality between men being so little the mutuall yeelding would in all likely-hood be little also The title of the strongest though the best would be too weak to hold long some one or more would quickly over-match any that could pretend to that every bodies right was apparently no if any had the good or ill shall I call it luck to have any wealth it was according to Davids curse to him an occasion of falling By the inconveniencies that attend the want of Government we finde out the nature of it First Our inability singly to defend our selves from our own Country-men and from strangers made it necessary we should part with all our power into anothers hands that he might be so able to defend us from both seeing that from both we were in danger to receive injury in every thing we value Secondly Because we are capable of so much wrong and too apt to apprehend our selves wronged when we are not we must resigne whatsoever Power of Judging or Redressing we have in our hands into his hands and for the Publique safety are obliged to submit to his though it may seem to us an erronious and partiall judgment a thing though highly rationall and of great import to the generall yet not to be expected from selfish or opinionative men unlesse the Magistrate hath a compulsive Power● which alone though we have no fear of Forreigners were ground enough to put the Sword and Scepter into the same Hand Supposing therefore Power to have originally been in the People which shall be afterwards examined it will not at all upon pretence of misuser entitle them to snatch it back any more than I can forcibly take away what I gave because I can prove it was once mine If the people are still Judges of what is to the publick good and have the Power of the Sword they are what they were before they were no Subjects But Mr. Baxter tells us not after the rate of Mr. Calvin who thinks it possible for the tres Ordines Regni to have a Power of resisting Princes but according to the worst principles of his most Scotized followers The People may Fight against King and Parliament both for the Common good if they be both against it Thes. 365. Of Obedience and resistance Kings conditions are very little bettered by those men who free them from the Popes Supremacy in ordine ad bonum spirituale and subject them to the Peoples in ordine ad bonum Publicum But it 's strange that the multitude for what else can the People signifie distinct from and opposed to the King and Parliament that the multitude I say should by Mr. Baxter be thus solemnly invested with the highest piece of Regality the Judging of the publique good whose ●ncapacity Levity Ignorance Naughtinesse Unaptnesse for even the meanest employment of this nature In his Book against Harrington he labours to demonstrate see his twenty Arguments against Popular Government King Iames in the Conference at Hampton Court told us out of experience how zealously the Presbyterian Ministers defended the Kings Power in Spirituals while there was need of it to pull down the Pope but that being done more wisely put it into their own hands So now it seems it shall fare even with Parliaments While the King could not be pulled down but by that Assemby their Omnipotency was every where proclaimed but now they must learn too to use the Power the People gave them for their good or else the people may take it from them But secondly This Tenent is destructive of its very pretence as being extreamly opposite to the publique good because to the peace of the Nation which is the onely time in which we can securely enjoy the benefit of the Governours care of the publique Affaires by having opportunity of following our private ones There is much fault to be found in the Administration of perhaps every Nation in the world private men injured by corrupt Officers c. But that the inconveniences are so great in any one place that it should be the concernment of the ma●ority of the Nation to redresse them by a War whose effects a●e so calamitous and universall I durst be tryed by any besides the Needy Ambitious and Discontented men of the same place Man is by Nature a sociable Creature which though Mr. Hobs denyeth because another had said it before him is evident in this that if a man were furnished withall the delights the most wanton can fancy and freed from the feare of any assaults yet to be totally debarred the company of men would make all his pleasures irksome nor is there any other imaginable reason to be given how men of even good parts spend a very vast proportion of their time in hearing the flat and impertinent discourses of idle and weak men and women were there not a sociable principle in our nature so that we can no more put off our delighting in the company of men then we can our being men We are naturally then inclined to society which society cannot be maintained without Government nor Government possibly without the power of the Sword the natural right of Judging for our selves and maintaining that judgement by what force we can make being the inconvenience that attended want of Government and therefore sure laid down in the very Constitution He therefore that takes up the Sword without nay against the Command of the Supream Magistra●e resumes that Right which by mutuall consent all had laid down denies himself his Subject stands upon terms with him as equall which is as much as in him lyes to dissolve the Government reduce all to Anarchy and is therefore not more in●urious to the ●rince whose Authority he Usurps then to the Nation whose peace he thus treacherously disturbs Publique good and Liberty are two fine words that engage Nations to their own ruine alwayes insisted upon by those who have not so great a share of Wealth or Power in the present state of Affaires as they think they deserve or at least hope for in the next Change Their disco●rses are usually such as these

doe not finde that the People ever thought themselves or the Prophets ever told them they were obliged to attempts of that nature I will use my pen no longer in this Argument because it ought to be confu●ed by the sword of the Civill Magistrate sure I am it will pull down every Government that doth not pull down it More especially by reason of that clause in the Conclusion wherein each private man swears to go before other in the work of Reformation words of very horrid import as obliging every man to disturb the Nation in pursuit of his own or anothers dreams if he could but fancy it to be a Reformation their full latitude might have been understood if Wallingford house men had continued much longer possibly not to the good liking of the first contrivers but sure to their eternal infamy who first infused into men such pernicious doctrine and then because the horridnesse of it would affright men of any good nature from it bound them to it by an Oath and lastly gave them swords into their hands to justifie the most desperate conclusion the maddest can draw and all this As they shall Answer it at the great Day A little after they expresse a right Presbyterian spirit a vehement desire to see all Christendome in a flame That Their proceeding may be encouragement to other Christian Churches growing under or in danger of the yoake of Antichristian Tyranny to joyn in the same or like Association or Covenant In which words all people whose Princes are Papists or something else which they did not stick formerly to call Antichristian are absolved from their obedience and encouraged to Rebell and those who are not under the yoke yet if they are in danger of being so and how small a thing creates such a danger England may remember they may be rid of that and their Allegiance together and provide for their security as they please Here is a great want of Prudence to give Forraign Princes such timely notice of such projected Rebellions and of the men they are in danger of And a great want of charity to Forraign Churches to represent them all as enemies to the State whereby they may be put out of their good esteem if not protection But some men have Preached and Printed not onely down-right Po●ery but Prelacy also and Ceremonies also to be an Antichristian yoke and to be in danger of it hath been formerly accounted to tolerate some things now used what in their judgment is to be done in such a case I must not repeat least they should say I had a design to ●ender them suspected and so odious to the present Government I shall conclude this point with this one note The Doctrine that allows private men to resist Magistrates upon the score of Religion is in it self so horrid black in its consequences that none dare own it that can defend themselves any other way accordingly the fancy of the coordinate Power of the two Houses was entertained with mighty applause by the Brethren of the Presbytery because it salved this grand Objection of Rebellion a sin which after that happy discovery of their being free from they disclaimed against no men more Prove the King Supream and then I will yeeld myself a Rebell so Mr. Baxter in his Preface And so they all acknowledging it unlawfull for Subjects to resist their Soveraign contrary to language of the former Pamphlets Rebellion they gladly acknowledged to be a sin in all men but themselves But that device of coordination suiting onely to this particular juncture of affaires by no means serving to acquit the Scots tumults or Armies or to incense their brethren beyond Sea they having no Parliament or of no such pretence of share in the Government and very like to oppose such designes if they had any such power the Covenant revives the former Doctrine and advises the Churches beyond ●ea to set themselves free as if errour in points of belief did deprive Princes though it doth no man else of his natural or civill power or rights Thus are they loath any one Nation should be peaceable or prince happy We shall now examine that clause of the Covenant themselves so much boast of viz. that concerning the preservation of the Kings person To preserve the Kings Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdome That they deprived the King of all Authority is proved already That his person was not the King themselves acknowledge and contend for ●rgo he is not at all provided for in this Article That the putting the King to death was no breach of Covenant I might prove many wayes but I shall refer Mr. Baxter to Mr. Goodwin his fellow-labourer in the War and Word who in the defence of the Honourable Sentence argues thus shrewdly I think ad homines p. 53. He was not then a King but a Subject and so lyable to processe of law for that blood they so often preached him guilty of Deposed he was saith he by themselves and their party when they denyed subjection to him withdrew their obedience from him acknowledged a power superiour to him viz the Parliament leavyed War against him as a Traitor as an Enemy to the Kingdome chased him from place to place and at last imprisoned his person and there was no clause in the Covenant for the preservation of a person that onec was King Nor doth this Article promise us any thing better when they shot their Cannons directly at the place where their treacherous Informers discovered the King to be they said it was in his defence because in the defence of the two Houses where his Authority forsooth resided Another cast of the same Logick may make it out that deposing nay killing the King if in the defence of true Religion shall be preserving him too because in defence of that where his Person may as properly be said to reside as his Authority where they placed it This Article at the best is but conditionall if he defends what they please to think or call the true Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdome And what his performance was in their judgement I might cite almost all their Sermons Pamphlets Declarations but I will content my self till further provocation with the Admonition of their gude brethren of the Kyrke of Scotland May Hist. p. 108 That he was very much guilty of Idolatry Prophanenesse of the Murder of many thousands of his best Subjects with much more to that purpose If I delighted to render the Presbyterians odious here I might do it to purpose but transcribe some of their Sermons and the work were done I shall for this time forbear and onely use a little which is necessary to my purpose and commonly known and already taken notice of by Mr. Goodwin whose book lying under so publick a Censure is very like to be read by most Mr. Love in his Sermon at Vxbridge told

us That the late King was the troubler of England ●s Achan was of Israel subjoyning It was the Lord that troubled Achan because he troubled Israel Oh that in this our State Physitians would resemble God to cut of those from the Land who have distempered it Melius est ut pereat VNVS quam Vnitas In the same Sermon Men wh●ly under the guilt of much innocent blood are not meet pers●us to be at peace with till all the guilt of blood be expiated or avenged either by the sword of the law or the la● of the sword The Independents 〈◊〉 themselves out of the Presbyterians principles and practises G●odw defence p● 94. The Ministers of London themselves and the Church of Scotland Charge him being the greatest Delinquent guilty of the blood of hundreds of thousands of Protestants the blood●est man under heaven He was summoned and Arraigned in the sight of God and his people curst and 〈…〉 worse than any 〈◊〉 or 〈…〉 exhortation to curse all those in the name of God that made not War a●gainst him as bitterly as Meroz was to be 〈◊〉 that went not out against the Canaanitish King Almost in all the Sermons Prayers of seven years He was called Opprobium generis humani The most bloody monster and miscreant under heaven That I am so civill 〈◊〉 to spare names I might use in this argument I hope will procure thus much that Mr. Baxter if he thinks fit to reply will do it fairely and calmely However my advantage is not quite lost but remains still to be used at pleasure over persons he very much esteems and for their sakes I believe I shall fare the better That they preached against putting the King to death the Presbyterian Ministers urge strongly and with much applause 〈◊〉 themselves though indeed it signifies as much as just nothing the reason is clear while the Parliament Declared and the Army fought for Presbytery and the King opposed it none were more vehement obstructers of all the designes tending to his restitution then the Ministers for so long they had hopes by that means that all the Lands Power of the Bishops Deans and Chapters the best Parsonages should be divided among them But when the Independents out-witted them and seemed to have perfectly learned their lesson they taught them of declaiming against something as an humane invention in the form of worship of those whose lands they longed for then and not till then they would have been content to have joyned with the King against that Army themselves had joyned with and raised against the King When the Votes no further Addresse were first passed by men they had hopes of which of them then abhominated the dethroning of their Prince I shall make this quere if it be not absu●d in so clear a matter to make a quere Whether if the Parliament and Army had joyned together as one man to set up high Presbytery divided the Church lands among them and the King had refused to yeeld his assent to such illegall Acts they would have pleaded the Covenant in his behalf and thus loudly talked for his restitution to his Authority let their friends speak That upon such terms as they pleased they would restore him is no more then the very Army would have done who after the Sentence passed came and offered him conditions They merit the lesse by their last appearing as they call it for the King in as much as in that juncture of affaires it seemed very unlikely they should-subsist without him The Cove●ant were exploded every where the Army called it a Carnal thing the Sectaries in the City said it was a thing ridiculous to unhorse Episcopacy and set Presbytery in the Saddle to be rid of my Lord Bishop and doe twice the homage to Sr. John Presbyter their own arguments were retorted upon them the Apostles were not Lord Bishops shew where they had their thousands per annum changed into the Apostles were not Parochial Ministers shew where they had tythes that at such a time as this they would have been content to have been maintained by the Common Enemy against their best friends is what they think highly obliging This was that great piece of Loyalty they would have had the King saved when it was the onely way to save themselves A King Deposed is surely not looked upon as a King by those who depose them now if imprisoning passing Votes of no further Addresse doth not depose a King I would fain know what doth Being in that condition and guilty of so much blood as they all along declared him to be when those words of the Covenant of Bringing all Delinquents to justice without respect of Persons should have come to be considered How much further they might have proceeded had not the power been snatched out of their hands by their Servants as themselves had done to their Master I leave to their past words and works to declare They did indeed recall those Votes of no Addresse and Treated with the King but it was when they could no otherwise be rid of the Army but by joyning with the King and Nation against them and even then they so perplexed the King and protracted time with terms and punctilio's of procedure and were so dissatisfied with whatever the King offered whilest they had the shadow of any power that the Army had opportunity to break off that Treaty the Houses would not end That part of the Covenant that concerns the Priviledge of Parliament Mr. Baxter and his side are very confident they have inviolably observed let us and them consider what was before said of the Tumults and the Scots Army the affronting and assaulting the Bishops and other Lords the posting up of the dissenting Members names of both Houses and which is above all their illegall turning men out for having a hand in some Patent Monopoly or other which they might as well have done for having been guilty of any fault having red Hair or a Roman Nose which action whether it did not null all their proceedings eo ipso as making it no House by fecl●ding men fairely elected some make a very great question Before I take the Covenant I shall make this one not unreasonable request that I might know the Priviledges of Parliament first and swear to them afterwards one example may not be tedious On the 3d. of January 1641. It was declared To offer to Arrest or detain any member without first acquainting the House is a breach of Priviledge Ex. Coll. p. 35. The palpable absurdity of this Doctrine being discovered by the King in one of his Declarations and other Treatises in Novemb. ● 1642. They declare they ●ave no such priviledge but that any Minister of Iustice may Arrest a Member without order from the House and detain him in custody till be may be brought to parliament Whereas I represented the Covenanters to be pernicious enemies to every Government their dealings with our late Tyrants force me to retract

part of that Assertion or at least explain it so as to be intended onely of lawfull ones For to Usurpers they have shewed themselves friends and true Subjects They will not molest their Prince no not for their Covenant provided he hath but a bad Title let them see right trampled upon they are contented they ask no more The reasons of which prodigious dealing are these I am bound in Conscience to submit to the present Government first because a full and free Parliament ●at● owned it which is notoriously the consent of the people which is the evidence former Princes had to justifie their BEST TITLES Absurd absurb absurd And it is the opinion of Grotius upon Mat. 22. 20. That private men are not judges of the Controvertible Titles of Princes And Christ commanded to give 〈…〉 was in 〈◊〉 The 〈◊〉 Assertion that the consent of Parliaments was former Princes best Title hath in it I know not whether more of non-sense than treason it sounds certainly strange in the ears of English-men who have been hitherto told that there was no interregnum here the death of the former Prince being all that was required to compleat the title of the latter whom no act no not an Attainder in Parliament could debar from his Throne the Parliament deriving its Authority from the Writ of the Prince without Authority from whom as King already they could not have met ●ut here by the glorious name of Parliament he means onely the House of Commons the Other House being not at all elected by the People and so not involving their consents Now that the House of Commons may give away the Heire of the Crown and all the Peers native Rights to whom they please even the meanest and most wicked Varlets is one of their very New Priviledges But Christ bad us pay tribute to Caesar because he was in Possession Between which Case and ours there is this difference There the lawfull Magistrate receded from his Right which in our Case was not done The Romans title to that being not as in most other places meer Conquest but dedition Aristobulus the younger brother getting possession by wrong Hircanu● the elder parted with his Right to the Romans on condition they would conquer it by their Armes He chose rather by their help to rule as a Deputy of theirs then to keep a more noble title he had no likelihood ever to enjoy see Dr. Hammond on the place The Romanes then had the right of him who had the very right the onely remaining difficulty is how C●sar came to have the right of the Romanes which notoriously was in the ●●nate and People To which I say this The Senate and people upon what inducement it concerns me not to enquire at present laid down their claim parted with their power submitted to and acknowledged the Emperours to be their very good Lords Pusillanimously I must confesse and their own Historians proclaim it but quilibet post credere juri su● If they parted with their right to C●sar then C●sar ●ad it King Charls never did so and Res inter alios a●●a 〈…〉 debet I may now confidently say this example reacheth not the question but if it did paying necessary Tribute is one thing writing fine daintily fi●e canting Epistles is another but this I will not at present urge because Mr. Baxter shall not say I endeavour to disgrace him but onely commend his or his friends discretion that one of his Prefaces viz. that before his book of Church Government is very rarely to be met with of late times This argument tempts me to put this one question by what name are those Ministers of this Nation to be known that had rather Richard Cromwel should have raigned then King Charls● I have now gone over so much of Mr. Ba●ters Books as seemed in any degree argumentative I have left out much which I might pertinently and truly have urged because I would not mention any thing which might seem exasperating For I could heartily wish the Parliament could passe such an act of Oblivion that all that is past may be not only pardoned but forgot There hath certainly so much of folly as well as impiety been seen in our late Proceedings that it were much for the credit of this present age if posterity would give as little credit to those who tell them these things were so as we fools did to those wise and honest men who time enough before hand told us they would be so If any thing in these papers seem offensive though I have taken all possible care nothing should to some men who think the onely way to secure their honour and innocence is to be angry I do assure them the rubbing upon the sore places was not to hinder the healing or to vex and inflame the distempred parts but onely to free them from that errour of taking themselves to be whole already If any thing here may be of use to any reader I shall think my pains well bestowed however I shall at any time gladly hazard mor● then alittle labour in the service of that cause I plead for FINIS Errata