own naturally deformed one appear the neater and beautifuller But I consider otherwise he could not hide his folly from being palpable and open to every person that is not possessed of a Bedlamers understanding nor his Book from being thrown into the fire by ingenuous persons rather then they would vex themselves so much as to read his lies and juglings his cavillings and sedititon his false quotations and confident language both of the judicious Assertions and person of that Learned Reverend Prelate whom this Holy Leaguer may well put to silence after the usual Presbyterian ways of Disputing for indeed it will soon make any wise man leave off medling with such notorious Salamanders who loves to live in peace and quietness and endeavour to advance the Unity of the Church and delights not to live in contention with them to kindle the fire of Combustion and Sedition both in Church and State But we will see however what the man conceived fit in his Scotized noddle to say for himself and make it the matter of his Answer to the words of the Bishop as he had filthily mangled them in his false quotation of them and that I finde upon search to be this learned one that follows with a m P. 25. of his Book But Sir have you not stretch'd too far and stept into a Premunire Little Mr. Crofton should fear to be made less by the head as guilty of Treason Sedition at the least should be thus confront King and Parliaments in what all their Statutes declare to be their own creature and constitution changeable at their pleasure even from the Statutes of Carlisle and 25. of Edward the 3. Declaring against the Pope That holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own Donation Power and Authority and so by the same way changeable Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative why not Supremacy Would not that word have choak'd you over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical What is become of your oath of Supremacy Can you make this peremptory determination as your self calls it consist with it any more with your Covenant Hath a gracious King lately advanced you to debase nay dethrone him and his Parliament too And then tells his Readers a story How it hath been observed to be the fatall chance of the Bishops of England to run themselves into a Premunire The man would fain make people believe that Bishops are Seditious persons and in particular his Reverend Antagonist and therefore the best course will first be to consider what the Bishop hath said and then see whether it amount to the Sedition supposed by the Leaguing Rhodomantado and in order thereunto I shall begin with the first particle of the Bishops words That Kings Lords and Commons have no prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change an ancient universal Church-Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical So far worse and unsuitable to England every way and see whether they may be found to be either contrary to truth or a derogation to His Majesties legal Supremacy and therefore first that they have no prudential authority to change Episcopal Government much less swear to extirpate them root and branch is evident not onely by the desperate excommunicating antimonarchical brasen tricks and practises of the Godly partie forsooth in Scotland against the excellent King James in walking direct contrary to his Royal Commands and stirring up the people in Rebellion against him because he did not submit himself to their traiterous imperious humours and making him for his own safety to flie out of his own capital City of Edinburgh but also by that Kings famous Motto No Bishop no King and by the sad woful experience of the truth thereof by the late never to be forgotten Rebellion in 1642 and the Regicidian genuine issues and effects of it knowest thou not Sir John Presbyter the undeniable truth of that Assertion of the noble L'estrange which he put forth to the view of the world That m See his Interest mistaken or The holy Cheat pag. 88. by those very Troops that cryed down Bishops was the King murthered Knowest thou not Sir John what the wise King James said to Dr. Reynolds's desire at the conference at Hampton Court for the rearing up a domineering Tyrannical Presbytery within this Kingdom if not then I shall for once declare it unto your Honor the Royal Answer ran thus n See the Conference at Hampton Court p. 81. Stay I pray you for one seven years before you demand that of me and if then you finde me pursey and fat and my wind-pipes stuffed I will perhaps harken to you for let that government be once up I am sure I shall be kept in breath then shall we all of us have work enough both our hands full but Dr. Reynolds till you finde that I grow lazie let that alone If Kings and Parliaments have a mind never to be quiet and to be alwaies in a combustion I know no better advice can be given them then for to set and rear up this Presbytery but if they desire to keep themselves in rest peace and unity they 'l find I am confident no prudential authority to extirpate Episcopacy by a Baal-Berith and bring an headless currish Presbytery in its room but will abandon the Covenant that o See Mr. L'estrange his Interest mistaken p. 35. popular Sacrament of Religious disobedience as the very poison of hell and the secret underminer of the Regal Authority and Supremacy but then § 25. Again secondly that they have no religious authority for as for moral authority that is an authority secundum morem according to former custom their authority is so altogether in the negative there that its in vain to blot any paper with an answer but I say that they have no religious authority to change Episcopal government is evident too in regard of the Apostolicalness and primitive use thereof by the Apostles while they lived in commanding obedience and controuling the subordinate governors and their disorders as well as the peoples in the several Churches they planted and enjoyning the same to be done by his Episcopal deputies at Ephesus and Creet and in them all their successors in the Episcopal office in those several Churches over whom they had their jurisdiction Certainly he that tells me that p 1 Tim. 3. 1. he that desires the office of a Bishop desires a good work gives me no religious nor lawful authority to vow and swear with an Anti-regal Oath to extirpate it and make an exchange for one of the plagues of Egypt to overwhelm us instead of that That the Apostle said the one and that therefore for that very reason Kings and Parliaments have no religious authority to do the other None but a Crofton and his crafty companions would ever have had the confidence to deny it which makes me proceed to the next thing and that is § 26. That they have no lawful
made by those who had nothing else to say for themselves and their illegal courses being assisted too by such a Learned Assembly of so many Divines who after a Three years Conference most profoundly voted God to be the Father § 9. And yet notwithstanding this Anti-monarchical limitation they declare they did set it down that the world might bear witness of their Loyalty they might have said Jugling and Rebellion for that is the true english of such a limited Loyalty and that they have no thoughts to diminish His Majesties just power and greatness No question but the world would did and have sufficiently taken notice of that which they call their Loyalty and have found it to be such as their Guisian Leaguing Brethrne practised who under pretence of x 2 Sam. 15. 7 8. maintaining w See The Right of Kings in Marg. the Roman Catholick Religion as these did for that which they usually mis-called the Reformed undermined the Kings Authority and sought to advance themselves the very same which Absalom the Beautiful Rebel showed to his Father when under a fair colour of Evil Councellors at Court and under a plausible pretence of paying his vow he made to the Lord in Hebron he * verse 6. stole the hearts of the men of Israel from their due allegiance to their King and drew them †verse 11 in their simplicity into a damnable Rebellion with him and therefore he that is loyal in practises and works will never approve of these Westmonasterian Leaguers loyalty which onely consists in words whilest their actions declares nothing else but Treason and Rebellion unless y See A Vindication of King Charls by noble Mr. Symmons p. 40. when they are in Cathedris in their seats as Parliament-men they are all as infallible as the Pope and have a power as well as he to do what they please to make evil good and good evil to make Rebellion and Treason to be Duty and Loyalty and duty and loyalty to be Rebellion and Treason to vote sacriledge murder and theft to be no sins killing slaying and destroying to be acts of zeal and christian duty Till then their loyalty will appear in the eyes of all judicious men to be no better then a Wolf in Sheeps clothing As for their disclaymer of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness upon search and inquiry after it we shall find it to be a chip of the old block a parcel of contradictions like the other of preserving the Kings person with a destructive limitation and therefore I again thus Quaere Is the taking the Antient right of the Militia from him which was never for z See The Royalists Defence p. 97. the space of 1700. years past questioned or disputed until by these usurpers injuriously wrested from the Crown but hath been time out of mind inherent in the King a See Iudge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 37. The practise of all times and the custom of the Realm no diminishing his Majesties just power Was the justifying the war by a party of the two Houses the Kings sworn Subjects against the Martyr to be warrantable both in point of law and conscience and making a deforming Reformation without the consent and against the express prohibition of their Dread Soveraign and not onely so but justifying for a commendable practise the iniquity of Witchcraft which Rebellion is termed by the Prophet was this no diminishing His Majesties just greatness What do they think English men are made of What are all made up of a bundle of contradictions that they impose such juglings upon us Surely the power of the Militia in the King was a very just necessary power and he being b See A Letter to a Member p. 5. under God the Protector of the Law I wonder how he could could defend it and the d Priviledges of Parliament without the power of the sword and the greatness of His Majesties over all in his dominions was very just too if either the laws of God or of this Land or an oath of Supremacy are able to make it so And yet forsooth people must be forced by vertue of an illegal Anti-parliamentary League not onely to be c See The Animadversions upon General Monk's Letter to the Gentry of Devon p. 4. ingaged in the wars against the King and so thereby become perjured and faithless persons and to swear to assist all those that shall do so too in order to the taking away the Kings Negative voice and the power of the Militia from him which was one of those jurisdictions priviledges preeminencies and authorities belonging to the Kings Highness His Heirs and successors and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which every one of the Parliamenteers as they were called had by a solemn legal Sacred oath of Supremacy sworn to assist and defend to his power but also hipocritically to say no worse to sware too that for all that they have no thoughts of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness Was there ever such jugling seen that men should endeavour to take away that from their King which is his just right and yet sware with their right hands lifted up to the most high God that they have no thoughts to diminish it Ay and sware too that they had before their eyes at this present the honor and happiness of the Kings Majesty and his posterity in what part of the world can these mens peers be found as to the art of jugling and contradictions in their oaths Where may we find a pattern of their venemous courses but among the damned Guisian leaguers in France who murdered their King with a promise of fidelity and of their being his true and faithful Subjects And yet this this is that Covenant God wot that notwithstanding it set us together by the ears and put us all in blood and confusion must be still kept to inrol us amongst mad men for ever This jugling and contradictions in this ungodly Covenant cannot but be contrary to the nature of a true oath which as the Prophet saith must be made in Truth righteousness and in Judgement and therefore unlawful and not to be kept by any without an evident disobedience to the command of the Lord expressed by the said Prophet to the men of Israel § 10. And though they can tell us in their sixth Article That this Cause and League of theirs so much concerns the glory of God the good of the kingdoms and the honor of the King yet I demand and they may answer me if they can Was is it ever heard spoke before by men that pretend a fear towards God that that which is a most horrible breach of the Laws of God could ever tend to his glory and was not this Rebellions Covenant and covenant Rebellion against the Martyr directly a breach of the Divine Precept spoken by the mouth of his blessed St. Peter d 1 Pet. 2. 13.
the one is the intention of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and the other the purpose of the Covenant needs not to be demonstrated with any illustration seeing the doubters may be satisfied in the Oaths themselves And therefore I conclude the contrariety between the one and the other in the words of the learned Paraphrast when he set down his minde with a Neither can that limitation in the Covenant wherein they oblige Page 8. themselves to the preservation of the King in the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the subject limit or abate the force of those absolute obligations whereby all subjects are obliged to the King and his lawful Heirs and Successors which are upon them by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance but as such limitations look very unhandsomly so they have not at all any force of abatement in them but ought to be abhorred disclaimed and rejected by all honest Subjects and Christians as an evil gapp opened to Rebellion and Sedition to those that have a minde to make such an evil use thereof under pretence that the King doth that which indeed he ought not to do either depart in any thing from the true Religion or violate the Priviledges of Parliament or the Liberties of the subject § 17. Lastly For this League and Covenants contrariety to the Protestation I shall first set down in general the words of a Right Reverend person upon it who hath told us That b See the Imaâ—e unbroken the Protestation was confined to established Law but the Covenant to destroy Law and what was established by it the Protestation to defend the Doctrine the Covenant to destroy the Government which is comprehended in the Doctrine How do these two hang together Reconcile them and it will be as easie to make light and darkness order and confusion vertue and wickedness lawful unlawful acts to appear one the same thing to every persons eye and ear And therefore how shallow and weak soever my judgement is in every thing yet I hope those that are judicious will excuse me though I presume for once to commend what I say now to their and every mans serious consideration because if I am erroneous it s not through wilfulness or obstinacy but meerly for want of understanding to discern that which is better upon supposition that I am in an errour which I cannot say till I be convinced of it and that which I have to say upon this account shall come dressed to peoples eyes in no other terms then these which I have now subjoyned Every one that took this Protestation did Vow and Protest to maintain and defend as far as lawfully he might observe that well Sir John with his life power and estate the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England Now minde the Thirty nine Articles as they are usually called have been alwaies hitherto wont to be accounted The Doctrine of the Church of England the Thirty sixth Article whereof is so far from speaking against the Bishops for the advancing and promoting of a dogged surly Anti-Monarchical Scottish Discipline that the very book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons which had the Royal Civil sanction at the making thereof is affirmed there to have nothing in it that is superstitious or ungodly and this is a part of that which in this Protestation was termed The true Protestant Religion Nay and this must not be defended neither but as far as lawfully I may so that if there had not been the least mention of Episcopacy in any of the Articles yet confining themselves in their Protestation to the rules and orders of the Laws the Supremacy of the King over all persons Clergy and Lay in all causes Ecclesiastical and Civil and Episcopacy its stout propp and defender both undermined subverted and destroyed by a Scottish Discipline stand as safe and firm by the very Protestation as they were before that was ever made or taken Now comes a Solemn League and Covenant and bindes its takers by force of Arms to beat down Episcopacy comprehended in that very doctrine which the Presbyters had sworn to maintain and defend with their lives powers and estates and established by Law to turn their neighbours as the Revered Primate See his Fair Warning page 2. saith out of a possession of above one thousand four hundred years to make room for their Trojan horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline a practise never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope I and do this too not as far as lawfully they may but any way in the world by hook or by crook per fas aut ne fas so that they can but attain at the ends aimed at in their extirpating noddles to beat down the firm brazen walls of Episcopacy to rear up the muddy noisom ones of an unwholsom factious Presbytery in their rooms And therefore once again I Quaere Can that Protestation whereby I A. B. do promise vow and protest to maintain and desend as far as lawfully I may with my life power and estate the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England wherein the lawfulness of Bishops is expresly comprehended any way agree with an illegal League which bindes me to extirpate Bishops in direct opposition to that Doctrine as contrary unto the power of godliness Our Leaguers I know would fain be accounted true and good Protestants and yet swear to extirpate that which is a main propp of the true Protestant Religion and therefore in this case the definition holds very firm and true which was long since given of such at the Conference at Hampton Court That they are * Pag. 38. Protestants frayed out of their wits Again part of that doctrine which by the Protestation the takers vowed to defend is that †The Kings Majesty hath the chief power in his Realm of England and other his dominions unto whom the chief Government of all states of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all causes doth appertain And by the Covenant the takers swore to preserve and maintain all the days of their lives the thing called the Scottish discipline Now nothing can be more opposite to the Supremacy of the King asserted in the Article and vowed to be defended with life power and estate in the Protestation then this very Scottish discipline which our Baal-Berithists by an after oath swore to preserve Yea light and darkness God and the Devil heaven and hell the serving of Christ and the worshipping of Baal will assoon be brought to agree with each other as the Scottish Presbytery will with Monarchy King James told us it by a sad doleful experience as the discipline of Scotland wil accord with the Regal Supremacy over all persons in all causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil he that
23. of Jan in the first year of her Majesties Reign the Lords and Commons assembled by force of the same Writ the 21. day the Queen fell sick and could not appear in her person in Parliament that day and therefore Prorogued it until the 25. of the same month of January Resolved by all the Judges of England That the Parliament began not the day of the Return of the Writ viz. the 23. of January when the Lords and Commons appeared but the 25. of the said moneth when the Queen came in person What think you now Sir Presbyter You see the Queens presence and the reason of her absence was so far looked upon and esteemed in those daies in relation to the Authority of a Parliament that her absence but for two daies by the resolution of all the English Judges was enough to degrade them of their Parliamentary title till her Personal appearance amongst them gave them the denomination of a Parliament And unless this man can make it out That the late blessed Carolian Martyr had not the same place and Authority over these Nations as that noble Queen had the same Conclusion will follow upon his Assertion That the place of his Royal retirement and reason of his absence did so far add and abstract to the Authority of that which our Presbyterian Jugglers so often miscal a Parliament that they were neither Titular nor Real neither Name nor Thing without him For c See Lex terrae p. 51 the King is the head of the Kingdom and Parliament How then can a body act without a head There hath one long since told us to whom for knowledge in the Laws and Customs of the Realm our Caviller is not worthy to be compared That d Pag. 156 157. the two Houses are no more a Parliament then a body without a head a man Two Houses and a Parliament are several things Cuncta fidem vera faciunt all circumstances agree to prove this truth Before the Norman Conquest and since to this day the King is holden Principium caput finis the Beginning Head and chief end of the Parliament as appeareth by the Treatise of the maner of holding Parliaments made before the Norman Conquest by the Writ of Summons of Parliament whereby the Treaty and Parier in Parliament is to be had with the King onely by the Common Law by the Statute Law by the Oath of Supremacy taken at this and every Parliament it doth manifestly appear that without the King there can be no colour of a Parliament e See the Royal Buck ler p. 62. The two Houses saith Mr. Duncomb frame the body the King giveth the soul for without him it is but a dead Carcase Nay further saith the learned Judge in the Table of his Book concerning Parliaments This became no Parliament when the King with whom they should parley was driven away By what hath been said and many more instances that I could produce for this purpose I leave it to every understanding person to consider whether His Presence or his Absence without whom there can be no colour of a Parliament doth add or detract the Authority of Parliament And leaving Crofton to the just deserved censure and punishment of Majesty for his Rebellious Malignant Principles I shall proceed on to his next Arrogant and yet Ignorant pratling for his Seditious Vow and Covenant which hath been the cause of so many direful plagues amongst us § 34. Whatever the Libeller i. e. Dr. Burges his sweet-tooth'd Sacrilegious Brother did Mr. Crofton he f Pag. 37. saith allowed the Doctor this Text i. e. Numb 30. before mentioned in its Latitude and referred him to be judged by it and now granteth That the inferior in things not sui juris may have the action vowed superseded by the declared pleasure of the superior and that whether it be son or servant Doth he so Doth Mr. Crofton grant then the truth of the Doctors Arguments What doth he keep a kackling for then What doth he make such a buzzing then in the peoples ears with his perjurious Covenant Doth he first confess his Antagonists Arguments to be good by granting what the Doctor wrote for and yet set out another vain glorious discourse against them so far as to run into seditious principles to keep his faithful Covenant on foot Ay but in our case he then affirmed he said The Parliament sitting had over us a Legislative power to which we owed subjection They were in their National capacity the Nation Collective and sui juris and to be obeyed during their session by those whom they represented The Parliament What is that It is the King the Lords and the Commons saith the Covenant at the trial of the Regicide Harrison That the world may not be abused by the insinuations of a man who acts as if he had a spirit and in truth is possessed I will say saith his Majesties Learned Councel That the Lords and Commons are not a Parliament That the King and Lords cannot do any thing without the Commons Nor the King and Commons without the Lords Nor the Lords and Commons without the King especially against the King if they do they must answer it with their heads g See judge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 80. The Lords and Commons make no more a Parliament by the Law of the Land then a body without a head makes a man for a Parliament is a body composed of a King their Head the Lords and Commons the Members All three together saith Judge Jenkins make one body and that is the Parliament and no other The Two Houses are not the Parliament but onely part thereof and by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament they have miserably deceived the people So then we see what is become of our zealous Presbyters Parliament consisting of Two Houses without a King for its clear by the preceding words he meanes them and them onely when he prattles of the Parliaments having a Legislative power over us Here we finde the judgement of the Reverend Judges and learned Sages of the Law to be cleerly against him and his Titular Parliament and telling us how the faction miserably deluded the people with the name when they were destitute of the true nature of a Parliament by applying it to them to whom it no more belonged then the title of a man appertaines to him who wants the conveniency of a Head As for their Legislative power It s huge like their empty title of Parliament and both Phantasmes of their own braines and that it may apppear to be such I shall bring in Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynn in the front to bear witness against him for he tells us That h See his plea'gainst illegal Taxes p. 5. the Parliament Rolls and the Printed Prologues to the statutes of c. and names a great many run all in this form At the Parliament holden c. By the advice and assent
of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the special instance and request of the Commons of the Realm our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained or ordained certain Statutes where the advising assenting to Laws is appropriated to the Lords the ordaining of them to the King and nothing but the requesting of and petitioning for them to the Commons Thus he Other Statutes saith i See his impartial inquiry into the nature of sin p. 211. See his Lex Terrae p. 26. the Reverend Doctor Peirce which have the force of Acts of Parliament are known to be directed as private Writs with a Teste Meipso And the Common stile of most others is found to run in this form The King with the advice of the Lords at the Humble Petition of the Commons Wills this or that where by the way take notice of the saying of Judge Jenkins That Consilium non preceptum Confiliarii non preceptores Counsel is not a command nor to be Counsellors is not to be Commanders So the form of passing Bills is still observed to be this Le Roy le vieult The King will have it And Soit fait il comme est desire Let it be done as t is desired plainly speaking by way of grant to something sought or petitioned for from whence saith he by some it hath bin gathered That Rogation of Laws doth rightly belong to the two Houses but the Legislation to the King that their Act is preparative his only jussive The Acts of Parliament saith the learned Mr Duncomb are called the King Laws And why not the Kings Laws Doth not he make See his Royal Buckler p. 306. 307 308. them The whole body and volumes of the Statutes proclaim the King the sole Legislator What is Magna Charta but the Kings Will and gift The very beginning of it will tell you t is no more viz. Henry by the grace of God c. Know yee that we of our meer and free will have given these Liberties In the self same stile runs Charta de forresta But wherefore evidences to prove that which no man can deny The stiles of the Statutes and Acts printed to the 1 of Henry VII are either the King willeth the King ordaineth the King provideth the King grants the King ordains at his Parliament or the King ordaineth by the advice of his Prelates and Barons and at the humble petition of the Commons c. But in Henry VII his time the stile altered and hath sithence continued thus It is ordained by the Kings Majesty and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled And why do the Lords and Commons ordain Is it not onely because the King doth It is so they do because the King doth which onely denotateth their assent for the Kings Majesty giveth life to all as the Soul to the body For did ever the Lords and Commons make an Act without the King Never They cannot The Lords advise the Commons consent but the King makes the Law Their Bills are but Inanimate scriblings until the King breaths into their Nostrils the breath of life and so that which was mould before becometh a Law which ruleth living souls And as Sir Edward Cook observeth In ancient times all Acts of Parliaments were in form of petitions which the King answered at his pleasure Now if it be the duty of the Parliament to petition and in the power of the King to receive or reject their petitions at their will Judge you who hath the supream power Thus far he § 35. By what hath been said I leave it to any understanding person to judge where the Legislative power lies whether in the Two Houses who most humbly beseech His Majesty under the notion of dutiful and loyal Subjects for making new Laws Or in the King who grants their petitions makes the Law and ordains it to be observed who both by the Law and a Sacred Oath is declared and sworn to be the onely Supream Governor of the Land That there is no difference between a Son and Servant to his Father and Master and the Two Houses to the King is clear by one oath they took wherein they swear To bear true faith and allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King and by the other they acknowledge cutting off all pretences of Co-ordination His Majesty to be the onely Supream Governor of the Land which implies His Lordship and Dominion over them And they in all their Addresses and Declarations stile themselves His dutiful and loyal subjects and so servants and in relation to the Kings stile of Pater Patriae may be very well called sons too And seeing the Two Houses imaginary Legislative power by the Laws of this Land is not able to impower and authorize them either to make new Laws or to repeal old ones without the Royal Consent of Majesty it clearly follows That their vowing to extirpate Bishops established by Magna Charta confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament and irrepealable was not sui Juris it lay not in their power nor had no right to do it without His Majesties consent and so having not that according to Croftons own grant the Action vowed was superseded and might very well be so by His Majesties publick Proclamation his declared pleasure against the taking or imposing of it in regard it was a traiterous and seditious Vow and Covenant and therefore null and void to all intents and purposes But further our Leaguer affirms That § 36. Their power in this Covenant was no less Legislative then in the Protestation of May 1641. What doth he Jabber thus for of non entities of things that never had a being of a Legislative power in the Two Houses which they never had which neither Divine nor English Lawes ever gave them If I should for once allow of his non-sense and lawless Assertions yet I should spoil his sport there too for their power in the Covenant was not so Legislative I speak according to the Presbyters canting tone upon these grounds The Protestation was made and taken in the presence of all the Members of both Houses and giving their free consent it was confined to established Laws had a Parliamentary authority as it were by His Majesties deep silence though nigh at hand and thereby implying His tacit consent to the doing of it many thousands took it who yet utterly damned the wretched Covenant detesting it as the venome of hell and not without just cause But when by the Midwifery of Tumults and Armies this devouring Brat of Abiram was brought forth k See Iudge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 126. All men know That of 120 Peers of the kingdom who were Temporal Peers before the Troubles there were not above thirty left in the Lords House and in the House of Commons about 200 of the principal Gentlemen of the kingdom left the Houses and adhered to His Majesty The Covenant it self destructive to the former directly
the King is under none but God This saith he is that divine Sentence Quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas which neither angry Jove nor fiery Vulcan neither devouring Age nor bloody sword a worse devourer then that shall ever expunge out of our Law-books or explode out of the memory of every pious man Thus he Bracton cited by the Reverend and Learned Judge Jenkins tells us Rex non habet parem in Regno suo That the King hath not an equal in his kingdom if not an Equal then certainly no Superior and so by consequence shows the fiction of the Two Houses Supremacy There hath been so much already cited for the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty over all persons in his Dominions by Judge Jenkins Mr. Diggs and several others that I need not trouble the Reader with any more repetitions thereof but refer the dissatisfied to their several Writings and conclude this point with a word or two concerning the Oath of Supremacy which every Member of the two Houses must take before he sits in the House or else according to Law he stands a person to all intents and purposes as if he had never bin elected or returned which clearly declares the King to be the onely Supream Governor of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal and so certainly by undeniable consequence over the Two Houses in Parliament causes For why was the exclusive Particle Onely inserted but to cut off all pretences of co-ordinacy or share in the Regal Supremacy And truly if he be Supream there is neither Major nor Superior saith the Learned Lord Bridgeman in his Speech aforesaid Was this Oath think you Mr. Crofton composed by the Lords and Commons in Parliament in the time of Qu. Elizabeth and at their suit by * Eliz. c. 1 Act of Parliament made high Treason 5 Eliz. c. 1 for a subject to deny to take it for to be evaded and treasonably denied the subject matter thereof ascribed to the Subjects themselves who were fain to take it ere they could have the least colour or pretence perjuriously to claim or usurp it from the rightful owner and this too by such a Shadow of a Disputant as your fanciful self who have armed your self with so much confidence to bawl out these seditious Assertions which deserve nothing else but the utmost rigor of the Law for a confutation Nothing but self-condemnation No other way left you to save your credit but by writing sedition and throwing your poison'd darts of malice against your Superiors for the pretended denial of that the truth whereof your own whimsical self is found to be a real disclaimer Cannot you dig a pit for another but you must presently fall into it your self These shabbed courses of yours forces me to deal with you by a retortion and ask you once again some more of your own questions Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes What is become of the Oath of Supremacy Hath a Gracious King lately pardoned you and your Delinquent party for your former misdemeanors really to debase nay dethrone Him by your impudent and traiterous entituling his sworn Subjects with His Onely Supremacy Truly Sir I cannot blame you much now for your words in your Preface where you tell us That side 2. having animadverted this Anti-Baal-Berith i. e. the Bishops Book you finde a necessity to apologize for the very act of your Animadversion and fear nothing more then to be bound to your good behavior in misbehaving your self so much as to answer not according to what your confidence helped you to prate A fool according to his folly wherein you may seem like unto him but a learned reverend Prelate with whole mouth-fuls of sedition and rebellion wherein you are the perfect image of all the traiterous Conspirators that have been before you why else do you divide non dividenda make a division in that wherein none without perjury ought or can be make two sharers and partners in the Supremacy which the legal Oath and Statute-Laws of this Realm by which we must steer our course and not by your horrible frightful dreams declare to centre and to be the peculiar right and Sovereignty of one alone and that inseparable from his person too The goodly aim and end of all your Jabbering for the Two Houses co-ordinacy in the Supremacy is but to fulfil the Martyrs words e See Eikon Basilike in 24. P. 47. That the Majesty of the Kings of England might hereafter hang like Mahomets Tomb by a Magnetick charm between the power and priviledges of the Two Houses in an airy imagination of Regality But the Two Houses usurpation of the Supremacy it seems will not serve Mr. Croftons turn if they cannot swallow up the Legislative power too from the Royal Owner In his Analepsis * p. 12. he called them then onely Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England now he grasps for the Suprem Legislative power alone for those long Parliament Legislative theives that made it their precious saintly work to make their strength the Law of Justice robb and pillage and murder the Subjects of their Soveraign by their cursed illegal Orders quirkes and devices and then show them the Law of their uncontroulable atheistical wills for it sic volo sic jubeo stat proratione voluntas I am perswaded the man hath a huge fancy to go higher and higher in his Seditious and treasonable language till he comes to make his last ascent at the Sacred Gallowes or else he dreams with the Fifth kingdom Rebels That notwithstanding any thing he saith or doth yet that not a hair of his head shall perish I shall not stand long upon answering him in this fiction and dream of his but shall quickly dispatch him by adding to what I have upon this point already said that which now immediately followes And therefore for that which he termes the Legislative power and because he is just like the Cuckoe repeating over and over one and the same thing to lengthen his Book Let 's hear a little what Justice Hide told the Blackening Regicide Harison at his Tryal in the Old Bayly I am sorry saith he that any man should have the face and boldness to deliver such words as you have You and all must know That the King is above the Two Houses They must propose their Laws to him The Laws are made by him and not by them by their consenting but they are His Laws That either or both Houses or any assembly or people in this or any other Nation Governed by Monarchy hath or ever claimed saith f See the Royallists defence p. 39. another in 1648. to have a Legislative power or so far to represent the Kingdom as to make new Laws and change the old without