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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89323	The Armies dutie; or, Faithfull advice to the souldiers: given in two letters written by severall honest men, unto the Lord Fleetwood Lieutenant-Generall of the Armie, and now published for the instruction of the whole Armie, and the good people of this Common-wealth.	H. M.; Fleetwood, Charles, d. 1692.	1659 (1659)	Wing M28; Thomason E980_12; ESTC R202841	20,242	29

THE ARMIES DUTIE OR FAITHFULL ADVICE to the Souldiers GIVEN In two Letters written by severall honest men unto the Lord FLEETWOOD Lieutenant-Generall of the ARMIE and now Published for the Instruction of the whole Armie and the good People of this Common-wealth LONDON Printed and are to be sold in Popes-head Alley S. Pauls Church-yard and Westminster Hall 1659. To the Reader REader Whoever thou art 't is fit thou should know that the following Letters were sent to the Lord Fleetwood and read by him before the calling of the late Parliament but were not intended to be published because those that wrote them hoped that this advice would have been followed and they so much wished the Lord Fleetvvoods Honor that they desired the good he should do might appear to be from the impulse of his own mind but now finding that our Country hath languished so many months since and seeing the distraction and confusion that his neglect hath now brought upon us and finding the general Counsel of Officers to have expressed their sense of our dangers and impending ruine and to have interposed in the dissolving the Parliament when they found by experience that a settlement would not be made by them we thought fit to make these Letters publick hoping that it may in some measure quicken up the Lord Fleetvvood himself upon a second reading of them and also those Officers that are now concerned by the utmost perill of their lives to procure a settlement of that common freedome which hath cost so much bloud and treasure we have only to request your reading these Letters with respect to the season wherein they were written and without prejudice upon your minds and the Lord Cause you to understand and do the things that belong to our Countreys Peace and Welfare H. M. H. N. I. L. I. W. I. I. S. M. My Lord YOu have long been the object of many good mens pity and prayers who have judged in charity that the temptations of your late Fathers Court have been too mighty for you But now you are become the object of their prayers and great expectations hitherto they thought you unable to prevent the wickednesse and apostacy which you have often seemed to mourn for in secret But now the chief military power derived from any lawfull authority being fallen upon you and all such Officers and Souldiers in the Army as have any sense of justice and honesty in their use of arms being ready to be commanded by you and to rejoyce in their return to their first principles They believe that God hath made your way plain before you to vindicate the profession of Religion from the black reproaches that rest upon it to restore the peoples liberties the Armies honour and price of their bloud And therefore they hope and pray that the Lord may say effectually to you upon this opportunity Be thou strong and of a good courage in this my work and I will be with thee But if you should now sit still they think as Mordecai said to Esther that deliverance and enlargement shall arise to the people from another but you and your fathers house shall be destroyed Now my Lord do not imagine us either vain Enthusiasts or busie bodies that thus mind you what is expected from you We are such as engaged with you in the war against the late King and do believe that you and we must render an account to the dreadfull God of the justice and sincerity of our intentions therein and our souls are deeply afflicted to behold our righteous ends perverted the bloud of our friends shed in the quarrell trampled upon the binding power of trusts promises and oaths slighted and the same if not worse principles of Arbitrary power Tyranny and oppression exercised asserted and maintained against which we have so earnestly contended with a prodigall expence of our bloud and estates and our hearts are wounded to hear our old cause now made a mock and by word by our enemies and to see such a black brand of infamy set upon all the Parliaments adherents as if they had been all the vilest hypocrites who made pretences of Religion and faithfulnesse to their Countries Laws and Liberties to be only a cloak for the blackest wickednesse as if none of them had ever intended any more then by force and fraud to fat up themselves upon the bloud and ruines of other families But your Lordship knows that the Kings invasion of our properties and liberties by taxes illegall imprisonments and opposition of the Parliament in their supreme trust of ordering the Militia for the peoples safety did necessitate us to defend it by arms as our native right that the trust of the peoples safety and welfare their strength and purses was only in the hands of their successive Parliaments and that they ought to be governed only by the Laws And their consciences persons or estates to be at no mans will or mercy And doubtlesse the defence of these Liberties is essentially necessary to the well being of any Nation and to the being of publick morall righteousness amongst men And your Lordship knows that all the successes and victories have been owned as from the wonderfull appearance of God for his people in this honest cause and that you caused the exercise of the chief Magistracie in England by a single person to be abolish'd because it was dangerous to this righteous cause as well as uselesse and burdensome Now my Lord let us appeal to your conscience whether we ought not to expect those things we do we are unwilling lest it should wound too deep to make a comparison between the principles of Tyrannie and oppression that were attempted to be practised by the late King and were declared by you to be begotten by the blasphemous arrogance of Tyrants upon their servile parasites and those that have been practised avowed since God gave us victorie in the defence of our Liberties and though we confesse the greatest number of honest men have hitherto least smarted under them yet they will infallibly have the greatest weight of them upon their backs hereafter should those principles get root amongst us they being the only likely men to destroy them and however injustice against Enemie ought to be abhorred by righteous Men But let us tell your Lordship that it is the secret sigh of every honest heart Oh that God would now take away the reproach from this People and their eyes are much upon you in it and shoud you slight our eyes and expectations in this case assuredlie the blood of our friends shed in the Cause will crie aloud for vengeance against you We have better thoughts of your Lordship then that you should seek to shelter your self in your omission of so great a Dutie or in your proceeding in the evils begun under those vain subterfuges which have been used of late Oh be not deceived with pretences of Providences of God leading you from your old Cause into things

a People to serve him as their Lord or from a Violent Compulsion of them to be subject to Him and both those are founded upon an inequalitie between him and them either reall or apparent A Peoples willingnesse to serve a Prince if any such be ariseth from their apprehension of some great inequality and dispropor●ion between him and them either in vertue interest or power The two first are proper to a Prince in his native countrey or one that hath dominion over only a sovereign Prince who may be thought powerfull to one people the last may be proper to protect a people and that may be chosen as the least of some impudent mischiefs but if any people ever were or shall be voluntarily subject to a Prince upon their high opinion of his unequall transcendent vertue that related only to his person and never was or can be a solid foundation for an hereditary Monarchy but an unequall interest in the lands may be and is the common cause either of a voluntary or constrained subjection no man serves for nought 't is the need that people have of the Lords interest that procures him servants and enables him to compell subjection so Joseph that new moulded the Egyptian Monarchy devised a way for the King to get all the possessions into his hands that so the people might serve Pharaoh which was a necessary consequence 'T is evident that the relation of masters and servants would soon be banished the world if all mens interests vertues and strength were equall and much sooner would the names of princes and subjects be for ever razed out of memory surely then my Lord 't is beyond dispu e that if you intend to settle a Monarchy over us it must be by violence for it cannot enter into your heart to imagine that you shall find a man whose glorious vertues shall be as a Sun amongst the stars compared with all the vertues in this nation and those also to be surely intailed upon his heirs neither can your Lordship pretend to find any family whose interest in the lands is now so unequall to the bulk of the people that the nation should be induced by their interest to serve them Now that a compulsive subjection to a Monarchy must be the product of an unequall power is as good as written with a Sun-beam he that forceth must be stronger then-he that is forced and 't is as evident that such a power is the only naturall fruit of an unequall interest in the lands upon which the beast of force must graze that bears the Monarch power to force a nation cannot be inherent in a single person and multitudes of hands neither can nor will serve him to subj●ct a nation unlesse they be h●red Christ himself says no man goes to warfare at his own charge and nothing can afford the constant growing hire of the Princes own but his interest in the lands and if he put the hirelings to rob and pilfer for their own ●ire upon the fruits of the lands which the people esteem their own that is by taxes the basis and root of the power by which the forces live hath not an appearance to be in the Monarch nor do his forces seem to have a necessary dependance upon him but may as well rob for themselves and at best they must remain a fluctuating body without root the Monarch not being able to plant them upon his lands with condit●ons of service and therefore they will be esteemed of the land owners only as the common thieves whose hands are against every man and ought to have every mans hand against them and the robbery being in such a case to be renewed continually upon the land-owners and the wound alwaies smarting 't is of more constant danger to subvert the Monarch then it were for him to cut the throats of ten thousand land-owners at once and possesse the lands to plant his forces upon as their standing-quarters upon their masters own lands either for their lives or during his pleasure Surely my Lord it 's not to be denied that a Monarch in his domestick dominions hath no greater rooted continuing power over a nation then he hath an interest in the lands surmounting in value the interest of the whole people as that interest grows by murders oppression and the other common artifices of Princes unlesse the wrath of God interposeth so doth his power root and flourish all other seeming power of a Monarch hangs as the ignorant use to say by Geometry and is without bottome 't is a tree whose root is dead and may be kept up a little while by dead props that decays with it 'T is like an armies foraging into an enemies countrey and plundering not being able to gain the possession of a town castle or house there as a root of power over it Indeed no form of domestick government can be establisht to be of duration in a nation chiefly living upon their lands if property in the land do not accompany the Empire that is if that order which governs be it one man or the few or the people do not possesse a greater share of the land of that countrey then the rest of the people that are governed and therefore where the Administration is most popular servants and all such as have no estates are reckoned to have no share or voices in the government And we conceive thatt the founders of governments have either framed their models according to the ballance of property which they found amongst the people or else have divided the property and reduced it to their form And your Lordship may remember when God himself formed the people of Israel by Moses hand into a free Common-wealth there was not only a suitable division of the lands at the first but a perpetuall law of Jubilee to prevent alienation of lands and the growth of any to such unequall interest as his power might be dangerous to the government and when that people rejected Gods form of their Common wealth for a Monarch he foretold them 1 Sam. 8. 11. 17. that the first work of their King would be to alter the modell of property in the lands settled by God and take away the best of their fields vineyards and olive-yards and give them to his servants for strengthening himself and so they should become his servants And if we should not trouble your Lordship too much we would shew from History that all the lasting Monarchies that ever were in the world have been built upon this foundation of possessing the greatest interest in their countreys lands either immediately or by their Peers and their powers being the naturall result of that they have had their births decays and deaths together Some kingdomes we say have been founded upon the Monarchs immediate interest or property in the lands as many ancient Eastern Kings and the Turk with other Eastern Princes at this day who are sole proprietors or Landlords of the whole Territories where they

not to be justified by the morall Lawes The holie God directs his People only into the paths of Righteousnesse that is such Actions as agree with his Lawes 1 Iohn 3. 7 8 10. He that doth not Righteousness is not of God His Providences and his Lawes always speak the same things neither let any man deceive you with pretence of necessitie that constrains you to desert your old Principles for the People of Gods sake and to advance Christs Kingdome For 't is not possible there should be necessitie to transgresse a Divine naturall Law that is Eternall there may be cases of extream inevitable necessitie that may disoblige a man from some Divine positive Lawes because a Superior that is a Divine naturall Law may oblige him in that case Therefore in everie case of highest necessities the immutable Lawes of Nature ought to be Guides and Commanders of what is to be done And if your Lordship can make your Actions or Omissions consist with those neither God nor his People will blame you And in so doing onelie you can advance Christs Kingdome For then is he exalted when supream Reverence and absolute subjection is given to his Fathers Lawes in the deniall of our selves in all Countermands and Temptations and when the sword of the Spirit is used to increase the number of such Subjects For this Scepter Throne and Wars are of and in Righteousness Therefore we beseech your Lordship without hesitation or delay pursue the exaltation of Christ and his Kingdom in following in simplicity and integrity of heart after those righteous ends you proposed and declared in the late warre and unto which you have obliged your self by all the sacred Bonds of humane societie be not affrighted with some Parasites bugbears of Confusion if you shake the Diana by which they hope to subsist fear not assistance from every honest heart in England and though some pretenders to honesty may out of cowardise or ambition or covetousness cry ther 's a Beare and a Lion in the way yet even they shall run after you when they see you forward in your way And to avoid delayes let us beseech your Lordship first to examine your conscience presently what you can answer to the blood of any poor Saint shed that cries in your ears to settle that Libertie and Justice in his Countrie for which he shed his blood under your command Secondly what you can answer to the blood of Thousands of the enemies which are esteemed by God as murdered by you if the Iustifick cause of the war be not effectually prosecuted Will not their blood crie to God and say Lord this Fleetwood killed us upon pretence that we should have destroied the Liberties of the People of God in imposing Arbitrarie power upon them which we did ignorantlie And he hath done the same thing and made or suffered more heavie Yokes to be imposed Pray remember it The Scripture saith Thinkest thou O Man that judgest another and doest the same things thy selfe that thou shalt escape the iudgement of God Rev. 1. 3 4. Thirdly We beseech you to examine what Cause you now maintain with constant expence of blood and the Peoples Estates and how you can give an account to God for it Remember what are the causes for which God alloweth mens blood to be shed without blood-guiltinesse in him that causeth it and trie whether that be one to make a Nation greater slaves to Iohn a Styles and his Confederates then they would have been to Iohn a Nokes But we praie your Lordship if it be possible that anie pretence can be found for it state a justifick Cause of your present posture of Arms that thousands of tender consciences may be satisfied how to pray for you in any of your present designes if God should not honour you in the work which they now expect from You. Now My Lord if we would plead with you by worldly Arguments or motives that concern your self it were easie to evince that safetie honour and greatness to your self and familie can be certainlie compassed by no other means then by returning to the Principles from whence you are fallen your daily tenors that now attend you and your Counsells would soon vanish you might have above threescore thousand men of honest principles that would take themselves concern'd to be in armes at an houres warning to assist you and this without second charge and an armie of praiers 2. times as great indeed who would or could hurt you if you were a naked sincere follower of that which is good We appeal to your conscience whether you do not believ that your late Father was more safe with a Foot-boy onelie following him in the streets when he was believed to intend that good that your Lordship may if you please effect then he was afterwards when he was believed to intend his own ambition invironed with Guards and enclosed with locks and bolts without number Indeed the onelie meanes of safetie for such as will exercise great power over a people to the subjection of their liberties is a mercenarie Armie And if that consists of some of the same people their interest will change as often as they get estates that are of more value then their pay and then they will be readie to conspire with any of the people to provide libertie and securitie of their estate for their children and then the power of the Tirants shake And of how manie slaughters of the Kings of Israell do we read by their own service if mercenarie strangers be intended to be Guards for Rulers in England our Ancestors taught us the way when they were not so well instructed in their libertie to ridd our selves of them in a night But if your own person could be secure for a while what will be the portion of your familie if their persons and estates be left to the mercie of him that gets uppermost And if you expect greatnesse or honor consider whose names are delivered to us from former ages with reverence and esteem and who have been most admired honored and obeyed by their countrey and people Can a Dionysius compare command or fain with a Tymoleon was ever great Cyrus or Alexander obeyed like the poor young Fisher-boy Massinello in Naples whil'st the people imagin'd he sought a settlement of their libertie But we suppose the sense and remembrance of your dutie to God and his people should be of greater weight in your Lordships heart then all the conceits of the earth therefore we also forbear to mind you of the improbabilitie of setling this Nation according to the rules of pollicie upon anie other basis then their libertie the lands interests of this Nation being so dispersed with so much equalitie that whosoever shall attempt to invade our liberties will not find an interest able to overballance the peoples interest and therefore cannot long maintain a Dominion over them But we forbear to mention this Capital politick consideration

to your Lordship at present onlie let us beg your serious consideration how much the honor of the profession of the Gospel is concerned in what we move your Lordship to expect from you And that you would say to your self is it not better that I mine perish then that a publick scandal be brought upon Gospel profession by my injustice treacherie to my Countrie under a shew of holiness if we shall observe by your Lordships actions from henceforth that there are some apearances that God hath begun to imprint upon your heart the sense of your publick dutie and that he will put that honor greatness upon you to be the restorer of his peoples liberties in this Nation we shall then think our selves obliged to write again to your Lordship or wait upon you to strengthen your hands In the interim we shall praie without ceasing that wisdom courage and strength may be given you from the Father of all mercies and that out of his fulness you may be in all things prepared for the accomplishing his own work of righteousness And if in judgement to this Nation your heart should be hardned by these poor lines your Lordship will be left more inexcusable and however some satisfaction in the discharge of your duties will arise to the Conscices of My Lord Your Lordships Most affectionate humble servants So far as you follow Christ My Lord WE presumed lately to mind your Lordship of your present oportunity and most important duty and our souls wish that the the secrets of your thoughts upon it were revealed that our hearts and prayers might be towards you and for you accordingly we must tell your Lordship that you have since wounded the hearts of many precious Saints by conducting your Armie officers in an action of such gross hypocrisie and palpable flattery as that addresse you made to your new Protector we have reason to believe that it had been impossible for your Lordship to have said privately to an honest man without blushing what you have said there to the world under your hand and if your Lordship will remember with God in your eye what is said of your father and your brother in it and of an unknown connexion between his person and your cause which a lso you cannot now and as now state to your own conscience as just we are confident your heart will smite you and if your own heart condemn you God is greater then your heart and must much more condemn you Truly my Lord we were much startled in our hopes from you and praiers for you and we hear the same of others when we saw that addresse yet our remembrance of your secret expressions even with tears of your sense of the Armies backslidings and your earnest intreaties of us to pray for you together with the great respect we have for your Lordship hath inclined us strongly to the best thoughts of you sometimes saying one to another surely he had not read our letter before his Addresse yet we have been so stumbled that we had troubled your Lordship no farther in this kind if God had not so placed the interest of his cause and people upon our spirits that we are restlesse within our selves untill we have said so much as may be either effectuall upon your heart or at least discharge our consciences and leave you inexcusable If therefore the Lord hath made us his remembrancers to you and revived his fear in your heart whilest you considered what we sent you we have reason to conclude that you are come to these resolves in your owne breast viz. 1. That the peoples arms of this nation have been committed to your charge in your severall capacities as a steward of that high trust for them to imploy them for their benefit in preserving their rights and freedome and that you must give an account to the eternall God of that stewardship 2. That you are under all possible sacred and indispensable obligations to be faithfull in your trust 3. That the cause for which you were trusted was to defend and maintain the peoples right to make laws for themselves and thereby provide for their own welfare and safety by such persons as they should chuse and that without the negative controule of the King and also to defend the freedome of their consciences persons and estates in being over the only government of their own laws without subjection to the will or mercie of any man And we suppose you may also conclude that you have now power and oportunitie cast upon you to secure this libertie unto Gods people according to humane prudence beyond the reach of wicked men and that if you should hide your talent of power in the napkins of fear cowardise ambition or self-interest you will be condemned from the mouth of your own conscience for an unprofitable and unfaithfull servant Now if God hath enabled your Lordship thus to consider with a pure understanding and with integritie of heart thus to resolve we know you are continually saying within your self men and brethren what shall I doe to shew my faithfulnesse to the cause of God and the people and to vindicate my possession from scandall and in hopes that God hath thus disposed your heart we shall endeavour to inquire into your particular dutie And in our search we may assert this generall maxime as an infallible pillar to guide you in your present dutie to your generation viz. that the peoples liberties cannot be lastingly secured to them by any other means then an institution of sense wise order or method wherein the people may make and execute their own laws and use their own arms and strength for the common good of the whole societie This may direct all your Lordships thoughts and debates about a settlement and keep in your eieperpetually the white mark wherein all your designes and contrivances of publick concernment ought to centre this may prepare you to passe a quick sentence upon all the ambitious proposals of your Court-parasites this may cut off all those Court debates about impowering a Prince to check and controul the people by his negative in their making their laws It ought to be no question whither the people should make their own laws God himself having resolved it the very point being the single point whereupon you joyned Battell at first with the King you defending that the Parliaments Ordinance for the Malitia was a Law without the Kings consent and he denying it to be of any force and affirming those Traitors that obeied that and not his Commissions of Array this by the Kings Confession was the first quarrel this libertie then being their bloud cannot be taken from them but by the highest robberie and contempt of Obligations to God and Man Therefore your Lordships dutie is no more then to contrive the best most prudent form and order wherein the people may injoy their own with the least hazard of being preyed upon by