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

kept in the Irish Rebells declared for the King we should have been butchred by them when they had conquered Ireland The Right of the people to resist their Prince having been examined we now come to the reasons upon which they did it 1. Shipmoney Not to insist upon the frequent practises of our Kings in that nature the consent of so many venerable judges the abundant care the King took to be informed the employments of it to those worthy ends for which it was raised were enough with al ingenuous minds if there were any miscarriages in the getting at least to excuse them But some men with their Loyalty put of their good nature with their Religion loose their civility But Mr. B. ought to have known that the King had relinquished his claim to Shipmoney before the Warr and therefore that could not be a cause of it Kings may confesse and forsake their faults yet some sub●ects will not forget them Praticall serious godlinesse was a scorne That was not part of the kings cause but it was very suspicious to see men solemnize a few fasts and think that entiled them to eat other mens bread all their lives after to scruple at being like prophane Absalon who wore long hare yet immitate that good man Absalon that could pay his vow and Rebell devoutly The new Orders in the Church amount to no more then this Those to whom the administration of Ecclesiasticall affairs belong to by the Laws of this land observing some neglect order rudeness in the performance of divine service appointed for its future decency some ceremonies neither commanded nor forbidden in the word of God but some of them were used in the Church of Rome whereupon they were esteemed or at least wise called Popish All that can possibly be said against this is that it is unlawfull to use any thing in Divine Service for which there is neither command nor example in Scripture when by the way the latter confutes the former supposing there may be imitable examples in Scripture of things uncommanded there which would make the black and white caps as much Antichristian as the square one Or secondly it is lawfull to use it but not if it be enjoyned but this cannot be said by Mr B. who pleades for the Civill Magistrates Power in matter of Religion though I think he is scarce resolved to allow him any thing may be called Power but that sure is of a strange nature that ceases to be lawfull when it is commaded by a lawfull Magistrate Or thirdly The being used in the Church of Rome makes it unlawfull to be used in the Church of England A very pretty principle truly we must differ from them when we have reason and when we have not reason when they reproach us with separation out of pride humour novelty the most rationall way to acquit our selves sure is to make it appeare we gladly will come as neare to them in Doctrine and Discipline as they will to Truth and pure Antiquity We did not in those things conform to Rome but to the Primitive Church and reduce those things as it were ex postlimino to their native innocent usage from which no additionall corruption of any abroad can rationally debarre us The last is a trim devise That the King would have destroyed us by the Irish Rebels who professed to raise Armes for the King Sect. 10. I suppose Mr. Baxter can tell of some in England who professed to fight for the King yet never had his Commission It seems the King must suffer as the Earle of Strafford was said to doe not for what he had but what he possibly might have done hereafter The War against the Parliament was just upon as good a ground we feared they would undo the Church and State with their Army of Sectaries whom they countenanced when he did not the Rebels in Ireland If the King had made use of the money raised for the relief of Ireland in the War at home when the poore Protestants were like to starve for want of it as the two Houses did he might have been thought to have abetted that Rebellion The Parliament could make such an inhumane Order for divertion of that money from the use it was raised for and when the King sent to them to revoke it for their own credits sake if not for the lives of his poor Irish subjects they according to their usuall rant Voted his messuage a breach of priviledge and made use of that mony to fight against him and yet they would be thought friends to the Protestants in Ireland If inferiour Courts of justice may prosecute the execution of their sentence in severall cases against the Kings will and the Sheriff may raise the power of the County to assist that execution much more may the highest Court but the former is true ergo The Argument is this If the Sheriff may raise the posse Commitatûs when by the law he is enabled so to do ergo the two houses may though the Law doth not enable them raise the posse regni Courts of judicature may use such force as doth not disturbe the peace of the Nation ergo the two houses may raise a war is a far fetcht consequence Again The house of Peers is solely the Court of Judicature the major part of which were evidently with the King The summe of the next three leaves is The warr was not against the Kings person or authority nor to change the Government of King Lords c. nor to take away the magistrates power in matters of Religion as appears by Protestation solemne league Covenant Declarations When I consider their Declarations for the King and their actions against him all I can gather is that notwithstanding their bitter remonstrances of the State of the Kingdome their unworthy unexampled ripping up and publishing to the vulgar all the faults and infelicities of his raigne which Parliaments were in a greater measure the cause of in not yeelding seasonable supply without taking any notice of the satiafaction made and care taken by him for prevention of the like for the time to come or the happy dayes men now remember they then enjoyed by which wayes it is easily to render any Government odious to the credulous and undiscerning populacy notwithstanding all this and the seditious invectives of Pen and Pulpit The King stood so clear in the eyes of all men that the being against him was a thing that they durst not own Though they spoyled him of his goods and endeavoured to do so of his good name ruined his friends preferred his most enraged enemies chased him from place to place they said to bring him to his Parliament when they caught him would not let him come thither though they deprived him of all authority as a King by taking it into their own hands his liberty as a man by imprisonment as an husband by keeping him from his wife as a father from his Children as a Christian

What is a Prince more than another man inferiour in parts and piety perhaps to thousands of his own Subjects we are all equall though Statesmen make fo●s believe a difference Peasant is not made of the mould of the Earth and the Prince of the Stars in Heaven Though Court Flatterers calls them Gods we see them dye like men our obedien●e consists like the Heathens devotion in their Ignorance who worship for a God which their Priests knew to be but a Cat or O●●le When they have perswaded men out of the reverend esteem of the Magistrates Person and Office their work is half done Then the disputers of the Original and nature of Government sufficiently shew their readinesse to pull down the House that they may prey into the Foundation and it is resolved The King is but the Commo● Trustee if he will wound us with that Sword we put into his hands ●o defend us let him thank himself if we wrest it out again Laws and Magistrates were made for and cease to be when they cease to be subservient to the publique good as the means hath a being onely in relation to the end No wonder if the people gladly embrace such gay new nothings pitty the simplicity of their fore-fathers who lost their Rights for want of knowing them the meanest Artisans hug their new-found Prerogative and are resolved ere long the Crown and the Scepter Laws and Magistrates shall doe their duty and vaile before them That they may value their new light the more it shall be shewed how high time it was to discover it when it was more then time they had made use of it the Publique is now in danger if they will now endure they then deserve to be ruined There being something amisse in the administration of every Government Innovators can never want pretence to propose somewhat the redress of which would be gratefull to the people who have not the wit to consider the much greater inconveniencies of a War nor the ordinary prudence to observe the conditions of the men which would evince them to mind their own rather then their Countries good If some Doctors have determined it lawfull to resist in case the Publique is in evident danger of destruction every grievance shall be the case not a Tax if unduely as some think leavied though of a moderated proportion and employed to the end for which it was raised highly to the honour and behoo●e of the Nation but shall be called its undoing which is as mad as if a Physitian nay madder in as much as the concernment is more general because in desparate cases he may use desparate remedies should therefore doe so in all cases There is another weak part in the people which gladly yeelds to any assault which seditious Oratours secure for themselves unperceivably that is they naturally love to hear men spoke ill of but especially they are never so well pleased as when they hear discourses of the failings of good or great men that rascally pleasure which their suiteablenesse to this principle produces in the Vulgar procures them ready entertainment and accordingly all the faults and felicities of the Government shall be exaggerated to the height improved to the very rigour of the utmost consequence the dissatisfied unpreferred part of the Clergy shall obliquely hint them if the time for direct railing be not come with a superfectation of fears and jealousies at every Lecture and under pretence of confessing and being humbled for the sins of the Nation in Prayer for the sins of us our Kings and our Princes under that head shall be instilled into the peoples not affections onely but onely their very Faith whatsoever ill of the present Rulers malice can conceive and impudence utter If any represent the necessity of those blamed proceedings they shall be called Time-servers Courtiers and so heard if at all with prejudice When rayling at Government shall be called Freedome of Spirit and despising authority fearing not the face of men in their Countries Cause It is a certain signe they desire to be no longer private men who thus discover publique mindes By whom and how England was seduced to undoe it self in order to the publique good we shall enquire hereafter I will now enter upon the thing it self and enquire 1. Whether the War were not the Warr of Subjects against their Soveraign where we must examine whether the two Houses were coordinate with or subordinate to the King 2. Whether there were any just cause for a Warr supposing they had a right of resisting in some cases 3 Whether or no and how far the alterations that since followed may be deduced out of the principles of the first beginning of the Warr 4. Whether the principles and practise of the Presbyterian Ministers are destructive of all Government Before I enter upon the first Question I must according to Mr. Baxter's method consider his previous argument who in his judgment of the late Warrs thus argues Sect. I. The Malignant hatred of seriousness in Religion did work so violently in the RABBLE that I could not stay at home This Though frequently insisted on in his other books even beyond truth or modesty and hath seduced many well-meaning Zealots is yet farr from conclusive suppose some of the meaner sort of his town thought it enough to honour the King though they feared not God must he therefore think it enough to fear God though he did not honour the King that many of the Kings party were drunken or ungodly is not to the purpose but sure it is a peice of separatisme beyond Independency to neglect a duty because wicked men would joyne in the doing nor is this true with which this argument is enforced Nor had I any place of safety from their rage but the Armies and garrisons of the Parliament Yes you had the garrisons of the King I am sure it was no part of the Kings cause to deny his Subjects protection for being peaceable and godly your question therefore Whether those Subjects that are utterly undeservedly deprived of the protection of Magestrates and laws are not discharged of their Obligations is extreamly impertinent to the thing in hand unlesse you had proved your demerits to be none and you having done the duty of a good Sub●ect upon demand which you have not once asserted were denyed the benefit of it by his Ma●esty or the Governours of his Garrisons For sure the unrulinesse of what you acknowledge to be the RABLE is no sufficient ground to say you were utterly deprived of the Protection of MAGI●TRATES and LAWS The first capacity of Parliaments is to represent the people as free for I take it for undenyable that the Government is constituted by contract and in that contract the People reserved themselves some rights Parliaments are the trustees for securing those exempted rights and so represent the people as so far free The rights and freedoms of a people as a People are in order of

Parliament The Covenant is lyable to more exceptions then at present I am willing to take the very designe was extreamly scandalous and as great a blow to Religion I am perswaded as it ever recei●ed in the world as representing it to be the parent of the worst of vices rebellions sacriledge and perjury some men have adventured to teach that God is the author of all sin these men come very neer them that can do the worst of Villanies upon his score fear God and break his commandements and all upon the newly revealed Doctrine of Piety and Plunder Surely Humility Patience self-deniall taking up the Cross loving enemies praying for persecutors are things commended only to pusillanimous and morrall men Hath the spirit that came down upon Christ in the forme of a Dove appeared since in the shape of a Vulture or a Roman Eagle was it weaknesse not religion that kept the primitive Ch●●stians obedient must whatever they said about Rebelion be construed with this tacite reserve untill we have an opportunity We read in Scripture of a blessing laid up for those who in defence of Christ and his truth part with their Lands Houses or Life but not of any for those who upon that score invade other mens That there were no rewards appointed for those who killed Tyrants Buchanan esteemed it as a defect in policy and it is one in religion too He might as easily observed it to be an omission in the Law of God as man The quarrel was not then about Doctrine so much as discipline our articles were esteemed Orthodox our discipline not appostolick enough Their discipline in terminis in Scripture and as a command to introduce it with fire and sword in defiance of Prince and Laws are surely to be found in the same chapter These tender Consciences are very prety things that dare not conform to an indifferent Ceremony in obedience to all the authority the law of England takes notice Civill or Ecclesiasticall without an expresse command or example of Christ or his Apostles and yet without either can take up arms against their Soveraign plunder and slay all whose Consciences are not of the same size The Covenant not to mention upon what grounds they who at first Idolized it do now look upon it as an abominable Idoll lyes open to very just and very many material Ob●ections It being my businesse onely by the by I shall onely intimate those that are so obvious that they cannot escape a very ordinary observer First It is directly contrary to the Oath of Supremacy formerly taken wherein they swear the King to be the o●ely supream Governour in all Causes as well Ecclesiastical as Temporall which power they there swear to defend and by resolving to reform the Church without nay against his direct Command they now as absolutely with an Oath too deny it Secondly It is contrary to the Oaths of Canonical obedience to their Ordinary Bishops Chancellors c. which those of them which had entered into Orders took and conscienciously observed by swearing their utter exterpation a Government they by subsciption testified to be lawfull which judgement many of them were known never to change till it was their interest the late usuall season of conversion so to do And some think a good Bishoprick would seduce many of them to their old errour again Thirdly Ecclesiasticall affaires never were nor can be by the law of England which they broke even in this very act of Covenanting for the laws as they said consulted on in Parliament but onely to have the civill Sanction and that after the law is expresse they have been determined by the Clergy in Convocation See The Reformation of the Church of England Justified a whole book to that purpose Now whether the Assembly of Divines being not called by the King who alone hath power by the Law to do it nor elected by the Clergy who alone have power to send the true Convocation not dissolved may be called The Clergy in Convocation I will leave to any one to determine and onely observe that as in other illegall Acts the late Powers proceeded according to their example so in this particularly Their naming what members they pleased without Election of the Clergy to sit in the Assembly was a fit President for Oliver Cromwel to call whom he pleased without choice of the Country to sit in the little Parliament The State and Church was pulled down the same way Fourthly The Covenant could not be imposed according to the Doctrine of the long Parliament who Ex Col. p. 859. tels us Men are not to be compelled to be sworn without an Act of Parliament which certainly the Votes of the two Houses are not I shall not prosecute these things any further but observe some few particulars in the Covenant it self and onely wonder with what face not to say with what Conscience men the professed Champions of our Liberty and of no part so much as our Consciences in regard of Oaths imposed even by an unquestionable Authority could on the sudden use such barbarous rigour toward the freeborn people of England for not taking that Oath which themselves had according to the fore-cited Doctrine no power to impose and the others had the ●ommand of the Prince Law and unanswered Reason to refuse at least they could say what themselves once thought enough it was against their Consciences We shall now examine whether there is any amends made in the Materiall Cause for the faultinesse of the Efficient and there is a presumption that it is so sure such good men would not involve their Country in the miseries of a War resist their Prince but in an order to a thing that was very excellent if not necessary That assertion in the Preface which gives chief countenance to the undertaking is a most horrible falsity that it was according to the Commendable practise of these kingdomes in former times and the example of Gods people in other Nations England hath behaved her self so commendably that it is impossible to make it out to have been her practise whosoever swears it to have been untill he can produce his instances if he doth not meet with very charitable persons will be looked upon as one horribly Perjured The Churches of God if there were any before Presbytery Rebelled into a being whose examples may be Rules to us must be either the holy men before the law under the law or the Primitive Christians beofore Religion was made a Bawde to Interest He that thinks there can be a thing fetcht from their doings in favour of this league let him serve that cause so far as to attempt The History of Covenants and see how many examples he can produce of Fighters with their Prince for not introducing a form of Worship they better liked of than what was by law established The Covenants we read of in Scripture were not against the King but with the King nor when the Kings refused doe we