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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96590	The discovery of mysteries: or, The plots and practices of a prevalent faction in this present Parliament. To overthrow the established religion, and the well setled government of this glorious Church, and to introduce a new framed discipline (not yet agreed upon by themselves what it shall be) to set up a new invented religion, patched together of Anabaptisticall and Brownisticall tenents, and many other new and old errors. And also, to subvert the fundamentall lawes of this famous kingdome, by devesting our King of his just rights, and unquestionable royall prerogatives, and depriving the subjects of the propriety of their goods, and the liberty of their persons; and under the name of the priviledge of Parliament, to exchange that excellent monarchicall government of this nation, into the tyrannicall government of a faction prevailing over the major part of their well-meaning brethren, to vote and order things full of all injustice, oppression and cruelty, as may appeare out of many, by these few subsequent collections of their proceedings. / By Gr. Williams L. Bishop of Ossory.	Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672.	1643 (1643)	Wing W2665; Thomason E60_1; Thomason E104_27; ESTC R23301	95,907	126

things that is meat and drinke and clothes and all other earthly things 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be cast unto you and again Be not carefull for to morrow they teach their proselytes that they ought not to pray by any meanes for any of these things whereas Christ biddeth us to say Give us this day our daily Bread 9. 9. Not to say the Lords Prayer They cannot endure to say the Lords Prayer for that 's a Popish superstition but their Prayers must be all tautologies and a circular repetition of their own indigested inventions 10. 10. Not to say God speed you 2 Iohn to 11.11 Not to pray for the Malignants 1 Iohn 5.16 You must not say God speed you to any neighbour or any traveller lest he intends some evill worke and then you shall be partaker of his sin 11. They will not allow any of their Disciples to pray for any of the Reprobates and therefore they do exceedingly blame us and tear our Liturgie because we say That it may please thee to have mercie upon all men 12. Because Christ saith Call no man father on earth for one is your Father which is in Heaven the childe must not call him that begat him and nurseth him his father not kneel unto him to aske him blessing nor performe many other such duties which the Lord requireth and the Church instructeth her children to do to this very day and this foolish Doctrine of calling no man father no man master or Lord and the like in their sense because they understand not the divine meaning of our Saviours word hath been the cause of such undutifulnesse and untowardnesse such contempts of superiours and such rebellions to Authoritie as is beyond expression when as by their disloyaltie being thus bred in them from their cradle they first despise their father then their Teachers then their King and then God himselfe CHAP IX Sheweth three other speciall points of Doctrine which the Brownists and Anabaptists of this Kingdom do teach 13. BEcause they can finde no Text in Scripture when as the Alcoran is not so impudently hellish as to justifie the action for to warrant men to absolve our consciences from any Oathes that we have voluntarily taken for the performance of any businesse I cannot say that they do professedly teach but I do hear they do usually practice this most damnable sin as that Master Marshall and Master Case did absolve the Souldiers taken at Brainceford from their Oath which they took never to bear Armes against his Majestie which is a sin destructive both to bodie and soul when their Perjurie added to their Treason makes them twofold more the children of hell than they were before and if they be taken again they can expect nothing but their just deserved death and therefore I do admire that any man can challenge the name of a Divine which doth either preach or practice a point so devilish 14. Because Saint Paul saith These hands have ministred to my necessities and to them that were with me 14. They thinke sacriledge to be no sin Acts 20.35 1 Thess 2.9 1 Cor. 1.12 and again Labouring night and day because we would not be chargeable to any of you we preached unto you the Gospel of God and because the rest of the Apostles and Disciples were Fishermen Trades men or professours of some Science either liberall or mechanicke as Saint Luke was a Physician Joseph a Carpenter and the like who did live by their manuall crafts and were chargeable to none of their people but sought them and not theirs to win their soules to God and not their monies unto themselves therefore they thinke it no robberie to take away all the revenues of the Church nor sacriledge to rob the Clergie of all the meanes they have because they should either labour for their livings as the Apostles did or live upon the peoples Almes as many poor Ministers do to the utter undoing of many soules in many distressed and most miserable Churches But because this revenue of the Church and the Lands of the Bishops is that golden wedge and the brave Babylonish garment which the Anabaptistical Achans of our time do most of all thirst after in this their pretended holy Reformation I must here sistere gradum stay a while and let you know 1. 1. Sacriledge What it is That the taking away of any Lands or goods given and consecrated to holy uses and to convert the same to any other purpose than which they were dedicated is termed sacriledge that is the stealing of holy goods from the right owners to our selves and others to whom we leave them 2. 2. That is a sin That this sacriledge is a sin for it is a snare to the man who devoureth that which is holy and after vowes to make inquirie that is whether such a service be needfull or such a taking away be a sin 3. 3. A great sin That this sin is a very great sin for Saint Paul saith Thou that abhorrest idols committest thou sacriledge And idolatrie is the giving of our goods and service to false gods sacriledge the taking away of goods dedicated to the service of any God especially of the true God and this seemeth by the Apostles words to be a greater sin than the other because the devill laboureth more to take away the service of the true God than to establish his own service for he knoweth that as light taken away darknesse must needs follow Hosea 2.8 Ezech. 16. 1 Reg. 18.19 Gen. 22. so the true Religion being destroyed idolatrie must needs succeed and he knoweth that idolatrie hath been bountifull enough to the service of idols that he needeth not so much to fear the taking away of their goods as to care that the goods dedicated to Gods service be taken away 4. That this sin is a very dangerous sin both to 1. The Persons that cōmit it 2. 4. A most dangerous sin Ioshua 7. Acts 5.4 1. To the sacrilegers To the Common-wealth that suffers it for 1. Not onely Achan Ananias and Sapphira and other private men perished for this sin but the proudest Kings and greatest Peeres that became sacrilegious were plagued and destroyed by God as Belshazzar the great Monarch of Assyria William Rufus and abundance more that you may finde in our Histories for the curse of God like Damocles sword by a slender thred hangs over their heads and makes them like those that perished at Endor and became as the dung of the earth and I beseech you marke it Make them like a wheel and as the stubble before the winde persecute them with thy tempest let them be confounded and be put to shame and perish which say let us take to our selves the houses of God in possession and if this be the guerdon of them that say it I wonder what shall be the plague of them that do it and I wonder more that the very thought of this curse

Hannibal could not invent to effect this hard talke what to perswade mildnesse to become severe or to cause a just and most clement Prince so full of mercy so prone to pardon where there is a fault and so loth to punish but where he must by the Law of Justice the greatest fault to yeeld to put him to death that was in many things so excellent in his life the taske was to procure his assent to passe this Bill and how shall this be done as the Man of God could not be perswaded by any man but by a Man of God a Prophet by a Prophet so now the Bishops that were good men men of conscience and set apart by God to resolve and satisfie weake and tender consciences are thought fit to be sent unto this good King to perswade him as men supposed that to prevent a greater mischiefe he might justly passe this Bill and either 6. or 4. of the prime Prelates are requested by the Lords to goe unto the King to assay how far they can prevaile with him herein and so they went and how they dealt with His Majestie I do not fully understand but am informed by some that went that they assured him he ought to satisfie himselfe in point of Law by his Judges and of State by his Councell how they did any otherwise in any other thing rectify his Conscience in point of divinitie which belonged unto themselves I cannot tell But though I thinke no man can justly lay the least tittle of blame upon the just King no not the Earle himselfe as himselfe professed for yeelding to such and so earnest perswasions of I know not how many reverend Bishops wise Counsellours grave Judges and the flower of all his people to passe that Bill whatsoever it was Yet to say what I conceive with their favour The Bishops right to vote in any cause of my brethren the Bishops in the prosecution of this cause I am perswaded that they had no reason to withdraw themselves from the House and to desert their owne right when the Bill or the Iudgment was to passe against the Earle upon this slight pretence alleaged against them by the haters of the Earle and no lovers of the Bishops that a Clergie-man ought not to have any vote or to be present at the handling of the cause of bloud or death for they might know full well when my Lords grace of Yorke did most clearely manifest this truth that the first inhibition of the Clergy to be present and assistant in causa sanguinis or judicio mortis in the Canon of Innocent the third as I remember for I am driven to fly without my bookes was most unjust onely to tie the Bishops to his blinde obedience to the apparent prejudice of all Christian Princes by denying this their service unto them and it is no wayes obligatory to binde us that are by the Lawes of our Land not onely freed but also injoyned to abandon all the unjust Canons that are repugnant to our Lawes and derogatory to our Kings and to renounce all the usurped authority of the Pope for I would faine know what Scripture or what reason Pope Innocent can alleadge to exclude them from doing that good service both to God and their King which in all reason they can or should be better able to do then most others and I am sure that neither in the old nor in the new Testament nor yet in the Primitive Church untill these subtle Popes began thus to incroach upon the rights of Princes to take away the prerogatives of Kings and to domineer over the consciences of men this exclusion of them from the highest act of Justice was never found The Prophets and Apostles judged in the case of life and death for did not Moses Joshua Samuel Eliah Elizaus Jehoida and others of the Priests and Prophets of the Old Testament and S. Peter also the Prince of the Apostles in the New Testament judge in the case of bloud and pronounced the sentence of death against Malefactors as when Ananias and Sapphira were suddenly brought unto their end by the judgement of the Apostle and if they be able and fit to judge of any thing then why not of this If you say Ob. because they are the advocates of mercy the procurers of pardon the preachers of repentance and men that are made to save life and not to put any one to death or to bring any man unto his end I answer Sol. that they are therefore the fittest men to be the Judges both of life and death for who can better and more justly judge me to death then he that doth most love my life It is certaine he will not condemne me without just cause even as God that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the father of mercies and even mercy it selfe is the fittest and most righteous Judge that can be found both of death and damnation because his mercy and goodnesse towards his creatures will not permit his severity against sinne though never so detestable to his purity Clergy how fit to be Judges to doe the least injustice to their persons so our love of mercy and pitty will not suffer us to doe any thing that shall transcend the rules of justice and equity and as our inclination to mercy prohibits us to condemne the innocent so our love to justice and our charge to preserve it will not permit us to justifie the wicked for the Scripture teacheth us that he which justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the innocent that calleth the evill good and the good evill that spareth Agag and killeth Naboth are both alike abominable unto the Lord. And therefore notwithstanding this unjust Canon I never finde in any of our Histories that the Bishops did ever withdraw themselves and quit their votes in this case either before or after save onely from the 10th yeare of Richard the 2d unto the 21th yeare of the raigne of the same unfortunate King which they did not because they could not justly be present but because they had just reasons to be absent as you may finde it in the Annales of his time therefore I know not how to palliate their facility of yeilding way to those Non-Canonicall Lords to produce those non-obliging Canons Non Canonicall Lords which they abhorred in all that made not for the furtherance of their designe to exclude them from doing this which was one of their chiefest duties for who knoweth not the Lord Say and Lord Brooke and others of the Lords to hate all Canons even the old Canons of the Apostles as inconsistent with their new rules of independent government and yet herein to exclude the Bishops votes in the judgement of this man and the passing of this Bill which being admitted might perhaps have turned the scales they will take hold of the unjustest Law and alleadge one of the worst of Canons a Canon against reason and most repugnant

their projects might be removed that so at last their sinnes like the sinnes of the Amorites by little and little growing unto the full might undergo the fulnesse of Gods vengeance which as yet I feare was not fully come to passe for till the Parliament was made perpetuall the things that they have done since were absolutely unimaginable because that while it was a dissoluble body How the faction hath strengthened it selfe they durst not so palpably invade the knowne rights either of King or Subjects whereas now their body being made indissoluble they need not have the same apprehension of either having strengthened themselves by a Bill against the one and by an Army against the other and therefore all the dissolutions of Parliaments from the beginning of them to this time have not done halfe that mischeife as the continu●ance of this one hath done hitherto and God onely knowes what is to succeed hereafter But seeing themselves have publiquely acknowledged in their Declarations that they were too blame if they undertooke any thing now which they would not undertake if it were in His Majesties power to dissolve them the next day and they have since used this meanes which was given them to disburthen the Common-wealth of that debt which was thought insupportable What many wise men do say to plunge it irrevocably into a farre greater debt to the ruine of the whole Kingdome to change the whole frame of our government and subjecting us to so unlimited an arbitrary power that no man knowes at the sitting of the House what he shall be worth at the riseing or whether he shall have his liberty the next day or imprisonment many wise men doe say they see no reason that this trust being forfeited and the faith reposed in them betrayed the King may not immediately re-assume that power of dissolving them into his owne hands againe and both our unjustly abused King and out much injured people declare this act to be void when as contrary to their owne faith and the trust of the King they abuse it to overthrow the fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome though I could heartily wish that because it still carrieth the countenance of a Law the faction would be so wise as to yeeld it to be presently dissolved by a Law CHAP. IV. Sheweth the abilities of the Bishops the threefold practice of the faction to exclude them out of the House of Peeres and all the Clergy out of all civill Judicature 4. THere was one stop more that might hinder The fourth impediment of their designe or at least hardly suffer their plots to succeed according to their hearts desire and that is the Bishops votes in the upper House nay they cannot endure to call it so but in the House of the Lords for they rightly considered therein these 2 speciall things 1. their number 2. their abilities which are 2. maine things to stop and hinder many evils For 1. They had 26. voices which was a very considerable number and might stop a great gap and stay the streame or at least moderate the violence of any unjust prosecution 2. They were men of great learning men of profound knowledge both in divine and humane affaires and men well educated a cunabulis that spent all their time in books and were conversant with the dead that feared not to speake the truth and have wearied themselves in reading Histoties comparing Lawes The abilities of the Bishops and considering the affaires of all Common-wealthes and so were able if their modesty did not silence them to discourse de quolibet ente to untie every knot and to explaine every riddle and being the immediate servants of the living God set apart as the Apostle speaketh to offer Sacrifice and to administer the Sacraments of God to prepare a people for the Kingdome of heaven it ought not and it cannot be otherwise imagined by any child of the Church that is a true beleever but that they are men of conscience to speake the truth and to doe justice in any cause and betwixt any parties more then most others especially those young Lords and Gentlemen whose yeares do want experience Pardon mee good Lords for so plainly speaking truth and the course of their lives some in hawking and hunting and others in dicing and bowling and visiting blacke-friers play-house or perhaps in worser exercises doth sufficiently shew how weake their judgement must needs be in great affaires and how imperfect their conscience is as yet in holy things I hope not to be preferred before these grave and reverend men And therefore lest these grave men should prove great hinderances of their unjust proceedings before any of their worst intentions be well perceived there must be an exclusion of them from Parliament and from those Lords whose consciences and knowledge they may then the better captivate and bring them the sooner to side with them for to effect their great designe And it is a world of wonders to see with what subtlety and industry with what policy and villanie this one worke must be effected It would fill a volume to collect the particulars of their Devices I will reduce them to these heads 1. They used all meanes to render them odious in the eyes of all people 2. A threefold practice against the Bishops They brought the basest and the refuse of all men watermen porters and the worst of all the apprentices with threats and menaces to thunder forth the death and destruction of these men 3. Upon a pretended treason they caused 12 of them besides the Arch-Bishop that was in the Tower before to be clapt up at once into prison where they kept them in that strong house untill they got it enacted that they should be excluded from the upper House and both they and their Clergy should be debarred from the administration of any secular act of Justice in the common-wealth 1. They endeavoured to make them odious unto the people 2 wayes 1. In making that Order or giving that notice unto the people that any man might exhibit his complaint against scandalous Ministers 1 To make the odious tvvo wayes 1 Way and he should be heard which invitation of all discontented sheepe to throw dirt in their Pastors faces was too palpably malicious for our Saviour told us we should be sent as sheepe into the mids of wolves but here is a sending for the wolves to destroy the Shepheards and it came to passe hereby that no lesse then 900 complaints and petitions were brought in a very short space as I was informed by some of their owne House that feelingly misliked these undue proceedings against many Learned and most faithfull servants of Jesus Christ that were therefore hated because they were not wicked The Ministers why persecuted and persecuted because they were conformable to the Lawes of the King and the Church And the rest of our calling that were factious seditious were both countenanced and applauded

iniquitie Esay 29.20 21. to turne aside the just for a thing of nought to take advantage of a word or to catch men for one syllable to charge them with high Treason to bring them unto death so many Reverend Bishops to such a shamefull end was more malicious than ever I finde the Jewes were to the old Prophets or the Pagan Tyrants unto the Primitive Fathers nor do I beleeve you can parallell the same charge in any Historie yet 3. 3. How they were committed to prison For this one necessitated Act of the Bishops the House of Commons do suddainly upon the first sight thereof charge twelve of them with high Treason they were not so long in condemning it as the Bishops in composing it and accordingly the Lords commit them unto Prison And if this was Treason I demand why could they not prove it so to be Or if it was not why should such an House Flos medulla regni the greatest and the highest Court of Justice from which the King consenting with them there lieth none appeal but onely to the Court of Heaven accuse them of high Treason I would not have that Court to charge a man with any thing that were not most true for certainly whosoever unjustly compasseth my death is justly guiltie of death himselfe when as the Poet saith Lex non justior ulla Quàm necis artifices arte perire suâ It may be they would have us to believe this Treason was not proved nor the charge so fully followed as they intended out of some mercie to save their lives but I could sooner believe they rejoyced to see them fear and were glad of their mistake that they might charge them and by such a charge cast them into prison that so they might the more easily worke their designe to cast them out of the Parliament which now they have soon effected and procured an Act for their exclusion And you must know that to cast out from doing good or serving God is a worke of the devill and not of God so the wicked Husbandmen did cast out the right Heir of the vineyard out of his own inheritance The consequences of this Act. so the Jewes did cast out the blinde man and all that professed Christ out of their Synagogue But you may better judge of this good Act by these consequences which are like to be the fruits thereof 1. Hereby they are all made incapable to do any good either for Gods honour or their neighbours benefit 1. Made incapable of doing any good by executing justice or pronouncing judgement in any cause in any temporall Court and justice which long agon hath fled to heaven and wanders as a stranger here on earth must be countenanced and entertained onely by the sonnes of men by secular Lords and Gentlemen and the Spirituall Lords the Servants of God and messengers of heaven must have nothing to do with her not because they are not as well able as any other to do justice but because the others cannot endure to let them see it for fear they should hinder their injustice and therefore justice and judgement are like to speed well on earth when their chiefest friends are banished from them and it may be worldlings oppressours or most ignorant youthes rather than any just understanders of their natures must be their Judges 2. 2. Made unable to defend themselves Hereby they are made unable to defend themselves or their calling from any wrong their respect was little enough before and their indignities were great enough and yet now we are exposed to far greater miseries and to unresistable injuries when a Bishop hath not so much Authoritie as a Constable to withstand his greatest affronts But hoc Ithacus velit this is that which the devill and his great Atreidesses his prime champions to enlarge his kingdom would fain have our soules to remain among Lions and all the meanes of defence to be taken from us our enemies to be our judges and our selves to be murdered with our own weapons In the time of Poperie there were many Lawes de immunitate clericorum whereby we were so protected that the greatest Prince could not oppresse us as you may finde in the Reigne of King John and almost in all our Histories and when we renounced the Pope God made Kings our nursing fathers and Queenes our nursing mothers and we putting our selves under their protection have been hitherto most gratiously protected but now by this Act we are left naked of all defence and set under the very sword of our Adversaries and as the Psalmist saith They that hated us are made Lords over us to callus to assesse us to undo us 3. 3. Debarred of that right that none else are Hereby they are made more slavish than the meanest Subject and deprived of that benefit and priviledge which the poorest Shoomaker Tailor or any other Tradesman or yeoman hath most justly left unto him for to be excluded debarred and altogether made uncapable of any benefit is such an insupportable burden that it is set upon no mans shoulders but upon the Clergie alone as if they alone were either unworthy to receive or unable to do any good 4. 4. Made more contemptible than all others Hereby they are made the unparalleled spectacle of all neglect and scorne to all forraigne people for I can hardly believe the like precedent can be shewed in any Age or any other Nation of the world no not among the very Infidels or Indians for in former times the Bishops and Clergie-men were thought the fittest instruments to be imployed in the best places of greatest trust and highest importance in the Common-wealth and Kings made them their Embasladours as the Emperour Vas lentinian did S. Ambrose and our own Chronicles relate how former times respected the Clergie and how our Kings made them both their Counsellors and their Treasurers Chancellors Keepers of the Great Seal and the like Officers of the chiefest concernment as Ethelbert in the yeer of Christ 605. saith I Ethelbert King of Kent Vt refert in tract atu suo de eposeopatu p. 61 62. M. Theyer Sir Henry Spelman p. 118. with the consent of the Reverend Archbishop Augustine and of my Princes do give and grant c. and the said Ethelbert with the Queen and his Son Eadbald and the most Reverend Prelate Augustine and with the rest of the Nobilitie of the Land solemnly kept his Christmasse at Canterbury and there assembled a Common Counsell Tam cleri quàm populi as well of the Clergie as of the people and King Adelstan saith Idem p. 403 I Adelstan the King do signifie unto all the Officers in my Kingdom that by the advice of Wolfelme my Archbishop and of all my Bishops In the great Councell of King Ina Anno 712. the edicts were enacted by the Common Counsell and consent Omnium Episcoporum principum Idem p. 219. procerum Comitum

prosecute against the law of God and man Rev. 2.10 because the Lord commandeth us to feare none of those things that we shall suffer but to stand in our integrity unto death and we shall be crowned with the crowne of life 3. They have discharged the Apprentises and servants from their Masters services 3. How they discharged the apprentices and compell them to fight and have either compelled or perswaded them to serve in their army against the King and that without the consent and against the will of their masters and dames yea sometimes against the commands of their owne parents which I speake from their owne mouthes 4. 4. How they imprisoned out men without cause They have imprisoned very many hundreds of most able and most honest men even so many that the Prisons are not able to containe them but they are faine to consecrate the greatest houses in London to become Prisons as the Bishop of Londons house Ely house Winchester House Lambeth house Cresby house the Savoy and the like And this they doe for none other cause but either for performing the duties of their places and dischargeing their obedience to his Majesty as the last Lord Maior Gurney which deserved rather to be commended than committed if we believe many that were present at his tryall or petitioning unto them as Sir George Bynion Copmplaint p. 8 and Captaine Richard Lovelace and Sir William Boteler of Kent because they did not therein flatter and approve their present wicked courses or intending to petition unto the King for reliefe of these lamentable distresses as those Gentlemen of Hertford-shire and Westminster or for being as they conceived disaffected unto their disloyall orders A strange thing and iustice beyond president not the like to be found among the Pagans that where no law can condemne a man for his affections when no action is committed against law men shall bee robbed of their estates and adjudged for malignants which is also a crime most generall and without the compasse of any Statute and then for this now created sinne to bee condemned and imprisoned and therein to remaine without tryall of his offence perhaps as long as the Archbishop of Canterbury And this wonder is the rather to bee wondered at because it is the sence of both Houses M. Pym in his Speech at the Guild-hall if wee may believe Master Pym that it is against the rules of iustice that any man should be imprisoned upon a generall charge when no particulars are proved against him for never charge can be more generall than to be all affected or a malignant or a man not to be confided in where of you finde ten thousand in the City of London and many hundred thousands in the Kingdome and therefore when we finde so many persons of honour and reputation imprisoned only upon this surmise without any other particular charge so much as once suggested against them as was the Lord of Middlesex the Lord of Portland and abundance more and detained in prison because they were ill affected in that they have not contributed to the maintenance of this warre we see how insensibly they have accused themselves to have laid this insupportable punishment beyond the desert of the transgressors and against the rules of all iustice and how they have forgotten their protestation and exceedingly infringed the liberty of the Subiects whereof they promised to bee such faithfull procurators CHAP. XIII Sheweth the proceedings of this faction against the Lawes of the Land the Priviledges of Parliament transgressed eleven speciall wayes 3. 1. Their proceedings against the lawes FOr the Lawes of our land which are either private as those chiefly which belong unto the Parliament and are called the Priviledges of Parliament or publike which are the inheritance of every Subiect you shall find how they have invaded and violated each one of these for 1. 1. Against the priviledges Parliament Touching the Priviledges of Parliament we confesse that former Kings have graciously yeelded many iust priviledges unto them for the freedome of their persons and the liberty of their speeches so they be free from blasphemy or treason of the like unpardonable offence but such a freedome as they challenge though for my selfe I confesse my skill in Law to be unable to distinguish the Legitimate from the usurped yet in these subsequent particulars I find wise men utterly denying it them as 1. When they forbid us to dispute of their Priviledges 1. Denying us to dispute of them L. Elismer in post nati and say that themselves alone are the sole Judges of them when as in former ages they have been adjudged by the Lawes of the Kingdom when Thorpe the Speaker of the House of Commons hath been committed and detained Prisoner upon an Execution and the House confirmed that fact 2. 2. Committing and putting out their Members Complaint p. 11. When the Members of the House of whose elections and transgressions against the House or any of their fellow Members or the like the House is the proper Judge which ought to have as free libertie as any of the rest upon any emergent occasion are committed as Master Palmer and others were or put out of the House as Sir Edward Deering the Lord Faulkland Sir John Culpepper Sir John Strang wayes and others have been voted hand over head for speaking more reason than the more violent partie could answer or in very deed for speaking their mindes freely against the sense of the House or rather against some of the prevalent Faction of the House which we say is no Priviledge but the pravitie of the House to denie this just Priviledge unto those Members that were thus committed or expelled for hereby it doth manifestly appear that contrary to the practice of all former Parliaments and contrary to the honour of any Parliament things were herein debated and carried not by strength of argument but by the most voyces and the greater number were so farre from understanding the validitie of the alleaged reasons that after the Votes passed they scarce conceived the state of the question but thought it enough to be Clerkes to Master Pym 3. Denying their Members to be legally tried for any capitall crime Vide Dyer p. 59.60 Crompton 8. b. 9 10 11. Elism post nats 20 21. The viewer p. 43. and to say Amen to Master Hampden by an implicite faith 3. When they deny the Members of their House or any other imployed by them in this horrid Rebellion should be questioned for felonie treason murder or the like capitall crimes but onely in Parliament or at least by the leave of that House whereof they are Members or which doth imploy them for by this meanes any Member of their House may be a Traitor or a Murderer or a Robber whensoever he please and may easily escape before the partie wronged or complainant can obtain this leave of the House of Commons and therefore this is