the present power for all persons to use and take their free choice therein for every single person of the opposers there would be found at least a thousand contraveners and of the Nobility Gentry and chief Burgers in all places the odds would be found far greater If this be deemed but word onely and fiction let there be but license given for publick votes or subscriptions throughout the three Nations with freedome and safety and as affairs stand why should this be denyed and if this truth doth not so manifestly appear that there shall be no room for the least doubt then let an eternal silence and suffering be imposed on those who are marked out for h s chief adherents and it is verily believed there is not a man of them but will readily assent unto it and if this be true in fact and certainly nothing can be more assuredly true why should it not be openly known and published that besides what other effect it may work with all whom it concerns we may however with fear and amazement consider what strange Fate hangs over this people and three Nations that the whole Bulk and Body of them should suffer terrour and subjugation by so inconsiderable a party of the number who 't is true as matters are ordered appear indeed like Alcibiades curtain which was outwardly imbroidered with Eagles and Lions But on the other side was nothing but meer Apes and Owles If we be a free people as it is said we are and the supremacy forfeited for breach of trust by the late King and reverted to us as some vainly prate and scrible why should we then in such case be denyed that wherein onely this Freedome chiefly consists which is that since this forfeiture and the Seizure of the Supremacy into our hands we may enjoy the free choyce of our Government and Governours and that in such a fair free and open way That all who are to be obliged to subjection may manifest their consents unto it Must we be told we are a free people and yet must this be denyed us Nay when the worst and basest kind of slavery that ever was in any age since Adam imposed on any sort of men is violently thrust upon us which is to have an incompetent and inconsiderable number of seeming Legislators pickt out for us some of them out of Corners and Goales where they lay drenched in debt by luxury and Ryot and brought into play for indeed it seems no other then a meer Pageantry and that upon an old crackt title of election almost twenty years standing and long before the pretended forfeiture and seizure if any such were or could be and since that likewise nulled forfeited surrendred cassed and voided almost twenty several wayes as if it were Tonti so do it may by undenyable arguments be evidently made appear These men or what appellation can fitly be given them for they come at the call of the the Souldiers and make themselves their slaves And the Souldiers are or should be servants to the people from whom they receive their wages yet the people must be made slaves to these their Servants slaves here is such a probleme of policy and Delphick mystery of iniquity that it hath scarce any parallel unless we call to mind how the late Kings own power was made use of to seise away from him his own treasure revenues Ships Castles c. and by vertue of that his own Power armed men were raised to fight against his own person nay the King in one Army was made to fight against himself in the contrary Army Even so this parcel of Pageantry this ninth part of Ten for more there scarce is not of the usual number of such an Assembly and that onely of but one of the three Estates neither act here their parts of Sitting Voting and dropping Laws like the Brood of Trochylus Eggs and Birds in a moment and seemingly Domineering and Vaunting over us their underslaves themselves the while being under the iron whip also and not daring to attempt any thing contrary to the sense of their Masters at Wallingford-house or wheresoever else assembled if otherwise Foris Abite Out you go Sirs to your Cells and Goayles again Behold the freedome and free State we have purchased so dearly which hath been so long and now afresh noised in our ears and comes in a new shape and dress and under a new name The good old cause forsooth which indeed is no other then as the Badge or Tessara which is used amongst Canting Gipsies to understand one anothers minds whilest they in the mean time delude us and pick our pockets And most assuredly whatsoever some fond people dream of freedome and a free state and such empty vain whimsies as long as their inchanters have prevalency over their weak braines yet This and such like as this is all the Freedome and Free State they are ever likely to see or enjoy Nor is it any way imaginable to be otherwise in the judgment of sober and discerning persons who will seriously consider the nature and disposition of the generality of the people of these Nations and the most excellent frame of Government so long continued amongst us and by time refined and perfected and all sorts bred up fitted and adapted to it It being so rarely Tempered and Moulded that it retains the good and rejects the ill of all the known Governments exercised amongst Nations That to tell us of Venice and Holland and such like The case upon due examination will be found as different considering all circumstances in a just frame of Government not to be omitted as Heaven is different from Hell or Order from Confusion And that busy yet empty head who now fancieth to reduce these Nations into such a frame or any thing like it generally satisfactory may as well and with the like discretion endevour to make a rope of sand build a Castle in the air or empty the Sea with his fist No here is such a Capital peice of that Government which and which onely is proper and natural to us out of joint that salve the dis-jointure as well as we can Annoint Dress and Bath it Plaister Swathe and Bind it up with all the art and cunning can possibly be Devised and and Invented the patient can never be out of most dolorous pain till it be right set and in just joynt again And how that is to be effected the now General Voyce tells us Let the Heir of the Crown c. In the next place it is to be considered whether any obligation be of greater force then an Oath to the Lord And who is it even of those likewise which are the chiefest opposers of such his admittance but hath solemnly plighted and sworn faith and true alleigeance to this Heir and upon such an Oath acknowledged him likewise in all Causes and over all Persons in his Dominions supream Head and Governor For is not faith plighted and alleigeance
sworn to the Heir in express words as well as to the Ancestor And is not that Heir in the instant of his Ancestors expiration by our Laws immediately and unquestionably King and so the acknowledged upon oath supream Head and Governor c. Nor is this more neither then what their duty before obliged them to had they not sworn it being his Native and Leige People and Subjects And God himself by so many clear and iterated precepts in his sacred word most strictly calling on them and enjoyning the effect of it The Government of our Nation Monarchy being the sole Government appointed by God and Kings and Kingdomes his alone institution and planting as is clear by the whole current of Scripture from Adam even till the Primitive Church after Christ And Republiques States and such like a meer depraved institution of man for corrupt and sinister ends This Nation ever since its first being even for thousands of years owning Monarchy for its Government in all Ages and Vicissitudes and so was it alwayes owned and esteemed throughout the world and our Monarchs of such high Honour and Repute abroad as often made Umpires in the great and publique affairs of Christendome and this title and soveraignty most clearly descended to and vested in this Prince whose Ancestors indulgence and favours had rendred it the best of Governments to the people as was any where extant in the world yet clearly an undoubted Monarchy still and so ever exercised by the Soveraigns deemed styled and acknowledged by our forefathers in all times and by all our Laws Judges and Lawyers both ancient and modern and never so unhappy as to suffer the least of question in that particular till c. Nor is this title so much to be drawn from the Conquest of William the Norman Duke neither as most generally is mistakenly alleadged as from Edgar Atheling the then apparent and right Heir of the Crown from whom a descent of title to this Prince is as manifestly deducible as from that William which all men conversant in true History cannot but know And therefore all those silly and most absurd distinctions of the Soveraigns coordinate estate here amongst us his virtual and personal presence in the sense used The singulis major sed universis minor His forfeiture for breach of trust and a world of such trash publickly vented and plausibly scribled on when time was only to maze the poor people and lead them from their duty and obedience will be found a very pittiful plea at the great Tribunal for their so horrid a Perjury and Rebellion Let this be seriously thought on by some Grandees now in power and with all the blood and treasure thereupon spilt and spent and the distracting terrors and rending confusions thereby raised and sent raging into all our parts foreseen indeed by all sober and loyal persons and vigorously opposed till treachery prevayled and in what a torn tottering and disjoynted condition our Government hath ever since remained And the poor people of all sorts how perpetually affrighted terrified and picked even to the very bones And if new and contrary Oaths Engagements and Covenants by what name or title soever called for store of them there hath been indeed and all kept alike if these or any of these be objected There is no Orthodox Divine but will tell them this truth I am sure true Divinity it self will that they being all unlawfully compacted they are ipso facto voyd and so far from binding the conscience that like the vow made by the Conspirators against St. Paul they ought to be repented of and detested as the grand crime for which these direful confusions have befallen us there not being or in possibility to be any oath lawful against the first nor can any subsequent act or engagement made though by all the people in general be of force to quit or absolve from that first lawful oath or from our native duty and alleigeance which we are bound to although the oath were never taken And to teach otherwise as too many have done for their own wicked and corrupt ends is as high a blasphemy against God and his Sacred Word as almost can possibly be committed and that Caitiffe who ever he be who for sinister purposes dares yet continue to insinuate the contrary let him tremble to think of that horror and confusion which will one day seize him for advancing so desperate cursed and diabolical a Doctrine May hearty and timely repentance rather be his punishment and in testimony thereof joyn with all good people in this their now loud general voyce Let the Heir of the Crown c. Let the sad and most deplorable condition of the once flourishing Church of these Nations have its share likewise in our consideration She who hath thus long laid widdowed in dust and ruine bedewing her lean cheeks and tearing her comely hair her once full paps streaming with solid sustenance and now shrivelled up into an empty dry parched skin and hiding her once lovely head in corners and clossets as trembling at the attempt nay force offered to her pure chastity and fearful to breath in the ayre of those wild and dismal doctrines every where now vented and prevalent amongst the several Sects and Factions of the times who have no setled rules but rather professe the contrary and that every Ignis fatuus which they call new light must be their rule and guide Let this sad case be thought upon with more then seriousness and the horrid and dismal things which must needs be hence produced amongst all conditions of men if timely remedy be not applied The late deplorable State of Germany and by whom and what sort of people that tragedy was begun and continued which was so long there in action and brought forth such cruel and unheard of slaughters and desolations should me thinks be a warning and example to us and tell us the danger of some parties especially if the sword be put into their hands as publick report saies is now the next intended design zeal being an excellent guide where it sees the way it goes in but a most dangerous companion in the dark But perhaps the decree is gone out and we are this way destined for utter destruction Besides what regrets animosities emulations boylings for revenge by persons of seeming fiery and high flaming zeal supplanting and tripping up one another in their various greedy and ambitious designs are almost every where conspicuous And which cannot but at one time or another break out into most dangerous and bloudy conflicts to the hazard of enflaming all the frequent noyse also and rumors of new plots firings and conspiracies be they real or pretended yet the very terrour and apprehension of them is to some quiet people a kind of agonish deadnesse before death it self and destruction cometh Nor is there the least hope of amending this but an assurance rather that it will have a never ending continuance unless
own Native Subjects and Leige people and suffered to wander nay by their means hunted from place to place from one Nation to another People and forced to live upon the alms and charity as it were of those who are not without but have had a long time their grand designs upon him us and all his Dominions as it may be feared time will too soon manifest Besides the subjecting him and that whole Royal Race by this means to the enticements and allurements and to the stratagems nets and entanglements of those Romish rooking Gamesters who are ranging in all parts for their prey and will be sure to leave no stone unmoved to work their wicked ends where such a Quarry of Royal Game is to be flown at and with such advantage as the case stands with them to be attempted that the very contemplation of it cannot me thinks but draw tears from the eyes and almost blood from the hearts of all pious loyal Protestant Christians who have any sence and feeling as they ought of that deep dishonour and reproach which by this very means must needs redound to the Professors of the true Protestant Religion in all parts and places whatsoever and no less sport and pastime to the great Vicar general of Rome and his Court and Conclave But as in the ground where Gold grows nothing 't is said will thrive but Gold so God hath hitherto preserved this vertuous Prince most firm sound and entire in the true Orthodox Faith and no doubt but will so continue him and make him not only in title but really and indeed a Magnanimous Defender thereof against all its Adversaries And certainly were it not too true that Romish cunning designs and subtle Jesuited infusions are too prevalent It is impossible there should be the least deafness to but a ready and chearful compliance with this voice this now general voice Let the Heir c. And whereas the most perplexed and knotty trouble of this great business seems to be the satisfaction and content which may be expected from this Prince to all those descenting parties and Brethren of the Reformation who are possessed of and enjoy several perswasions in the matter and manner of their Religion and the excercise and practice thereof Let such in the first place but consider this truth which is so visible and hath so often in our late revolutions been experimented that they have an indulgence indeed allowed them by the several at present uppermost Powers But why Can they possibly be so blind as not to see It is only and meerly for their own ends and aims For as by soothing and fawning on them they aspire by their help and upon their backs to get to their several high stations so by that means they have hope alwayes so to continue especially which hath been the great art of our late Grandees if they can but divide them into Parties Sects and Factions enough Divide Impera being alwayes the Usurpers Motto for by the strong breath of such divisions they soar and hover aloft over all feeding all Parties with empty hopes but really intending only the suppertation of their own Grandieur and this this only it is which makes so many great men in power publick Preachers and prayers amongst the poor deluded common people who look upon them as so many Saints and Angels of light sent from Heaven when he that sits in Heaven and sees into the heart knows they are thereby only advancing their own deeds of darkness profit and Ambition And it hath been notorious enough that when some of this sort have climed and got highest by the means of such stalking horses and scaling ladders they have presently docked them and broken them to peeces and can these people or any sort of them assure themselves of other usage from any of our new Ambiâ—ntes be their fawnings flatterings soothings and indulgences to them what they will or can be Surely they cannot for that which this day is the interest of this or that great man in power and esteem to morrow perchance he sees cause it should be quite contrary and then are all his smoke-fed Clients to seek for a new Patron Nay though some sort of these poor deluded persons have been so long led on with hopes that they have even seemed to reach the top and height of their wishes on a suddain they are tumbled down again into the very depth of dispair And what then is the mode and guise now in fashion and use for this particular Why a publick humiliation or two will do it and a short story told of seeming sensibleness for backsliding and then all they think is well and whole again and the Grandees may go afresh to work upon a new score and interest and if their old ones will not serve their turn troal about for new Clients for in these changing and disjoynted times there is store enough they know to be had any where Although it may very well be remembred and is not easily to be forgotten how that for far less crimes then what they are pleased to call but backsliding in themselves Nay for that indeed which was so far from a crime that it was a duty a strict duty enjoyned by all the Laws of God Nature and the Land How many thousands have been by them fiercely prosecuted as the worst of Rebels and Traytors and many hundreds of them torn quite in peeces and utterly ruined and destroyed the whole publick affairs whether of Church State or Common-wealth ever since the first revolt and dismal disjoynture have been droven on by such several shifted Charioteers and with such aufracts windings and vicissitudes and so likely never to be otherwise that there neither is nor can be the least hope of setled assurance of any matter or thing whatsoever it all indeed being nohting els but as it were a meer Maze from which there is no way to come out but at the same place we began to enter in Now if these several perswaded Parties in matters of Religion and its exercise and practise would but duely consider and throughly understand their own true interest there would be nothing more detestable to them then to depend upon such variable and transitory uncertanties or to have further traffique or dealing with any such kind of Merchants in Religion who Broker like as they serve an old cloak can dress it trigge and turn it as they list and when they please disguise it with a new cape or facing For where or from whom can they possibly expect or hope for a more certain and setled assurance of enjoying a free exercise of the Reformed Religion and that according to their perswasions being modest and peaceable which is all they seem to desire and aym at then under him and his protection who is so firmly fixed to it and for whose sake he hath so long and so largely tasted the bitterest cup of affliction that since that blessed Reformation first
fortunes of far the most inconsiderable part of the three Nations and indeed of all in generall who cannot but be included in that happiness which in this conjuncture of time with so much renown and security to themselves and triumphant rejoycing of all peaceable minds and loyal hearts they may now with such facility obtain for them and such a Ray of Honour as if slighted will very probably never dawn or in the least glympse thereof appear again to them And this upon good grounds may further be said likewise That if the great God of Peace shall in his mercy be pleased to encline their hearts to this way of Peace so much desired and longed for it may with full confidence be assuredly relyed on by them that the least hair of any of their heads shall be so far from perishing thereby that such of them who shall appear most forward and instrumental therein may have what security they please to bear what share or place they please in this our such restored happiness which with any candor or modesty can be expected or desired by them nor would it be grudged them by any person whatsoever whom they imagine therein their chiefest malevolents and regrettors for who can think them honoured too much or preferred too high who as the case stands and after so long and tedious a storm can or shall without blood restore to three Nations that calm and happiness of peace and settlement which otherwise may perhaps cost thousands of precious lives besides the necessitated ruine terrour and astonishment which in all probability must prevent and go before it I am sure it may with certainty be averred of some and upon very good grounds the same also may be asserted of many And doubtless there be thousands even many thousands of the same pious mind likewise who are so far from aspiring and revenging thoughts thereby that to see that gladsome day of our Soveraigns return to his just rights with honour and safety that thereby a sure and lasting Peace may be setled amongst us and so derived to our posterities would most readily sacrifice their own present fortunes and most of them no contemptible ones neither yea and their very lives too and cheerfully chant out their last Nunc dimittis c. And for those Gentlemen of the Sword who are as highly concerned in this particular as any persons else whatsoever it is so cleerly their interest to effect what is thus generally desired that if Cimmerian darkness be not before their eyes nothing under heaven can be more apparent and manifest to them for they cannot surely but see the uncertain condition they now stand in under what general disdain and odium to their Countrey they live how often they are put to act the part of Italian Bravades and Turkish Janizaries for some vile and corrupt interest or other how unfixed and unstable their stations are what designes are perpetually upon all or some chief of them To say nothing of the present designe now generally in talk and apprehension Where and in whose hands the Militia of the Nations is to be placed and what the intended effect and purpose thereby is how frequently they are made instruments of destruction to their fellow Brethren and Subjects and often to trip up and sometimes to destroy one another And to add to all this and ten times more which may be said their Pay which alwayes is collected from the People long before it is due many times is subducted from them and drawn into other channels perhaps into private purses and that to such as are their chief capital enemies This and much worse is their present state and condition whereas if they be instrumental to advance this general vote and desire of the people that it might thereby take effect they would render themselves the very Darlings of the People and those general hearts which now have them in most odium and disdain will be so open and united to them that they would even quite empty themselves for a just remuneration for them nothing can any way stick upon them of former sully but this way would be cleerly and absolutely wiped off and their fame and renown for so just and loyal an action to their native Soveraign lovely sound not onely through this Island but through the whole Christian world and merit even trophies of honour to be erected to them that their just praise and exaltation may never endingly continue There would in this case of such return to their loyalty and giving such undoubted testimony of it be certainty of Permanency for them certainty of due Pay certainty of Honour and from the highest to the lowest of them certainty of just and full content and satisfaction for preferment and otherwise which their own hearts and desires can with any modesty wish and suggest to them Nothing of which can be had or so much as in the least kind hoped for what ever vain and empty Chymera's are insinuated to them by those whose ends they serve in that frail and fluctuating condition they now stand in and in which the way they are in they cannot but look ever to continue Nor is all this meer words and fiction neither but will be really and undoubtedly made good nay if need be secured for by such ways and means as shall be subject to no just exception whatsoever unless they will degenerate from that noble confidence which is or ought alwayes to be refulgent in men of honour and the Military Tribe especially when they have to deal with a person of such high honour and extraction and he their own native Soveraign and who is not in condition to deceive them nor need they indeed be deceived but have if they please their remedy in their own hands and power Upon which grounds it is with great reason hoped that they will not be out at but upon due consideration of the premises will above all others advance this now general voyce Let the Heir c. I intended far more brevity and fear I have been too tedious yet are there many things as much and some perhaps more considerable than what is premised inviting all people of all sorts and conditions who may seem in any way to be opponent to it unanimously to joyn in advancing this firm and sure settling way of a lasting peace and happiness in our Nations especially those who now in Assembly take upon them to be representatives and if so certainly no duty can be more incumbent upon such then to listen to and accomplish the general vote and desire of those whose persons they so take upon them to represent this certainly is a main and chief part of their errand upon which they were first sent and intrusted by them And for which they can pretend to any Assemblies or meetings upon the score of the people The peoples general votes and desires they hereby know and may have further full ample and assured satisfaction that it is so if they will and that as speedily as they please freely permit that particular to be put into any unquestionable way or order for such their more full and plenary satisfaction and assurance Nor can they upon any account whatsoever before God Angels and Men even by their own wayes and grounds they go on be they just or unjust and according to their own insinuations of freedome to them deny the people this their most reasonable request that as they take upon them to be their Representatives so they would give them free leave and that without any awe or dread whatsover to be upon them freely to express their minds and desires what they would have such their Representers do If this be denied slighted or omitted what case the people stand in will surely then be most clear and manifest and how can it then be otherwise deemed by all even such who at present may perhaps have some good thoughts of them but that their own consciences fully dictate to them the real truth of whatsoever is herein before asserted To which consciences of theirs it is herein likewise appealed in manner as is before expressed the sincere dictates of which freed from and unbribed by corrupt and sinister ends if they will neither follow nor yet hearken to these loud and general cries and clamors of the people whom they would be thought thus to represent but keep them still in terrors bonds and chains to be lead captive as they list and whether they list at their own few wils and pleasures then Hear you O Heavens and hearken O Earth and Thou the great God and framer of them both manifest thine own power and might and cause thou both Heaven and Earth and all thy whole creation amongst us in their courses speedily to assist and help us and thy own appointed Vicegerent over us to this just way of peace and firm settlement so much and so long thirsted after by us Pity O pity thou our dispised Church distracted State and even gasping Common-weale and let thine own outstretched arm by such thine own means as thou knowest best speedily in this thine own ordained way Heal up these our wounds and wasting divisions which in such case none indeed but thine own hands can close Pluck us out from this Romish and Jesuitical deep Pit which is thus digging and preparing for us And open the eyes of all seduced and deluded persons who cannot see and melt the hearrs of the most obstinate and perverse who will not see this their common open and apparent danger and be mercifull O Lord yet be merciful unto them and let not their transcendent crimes appear against them at that great and dreadful day of account Nor This Paper if slighted neither to their utter and everlasting astonishment and confusion FINIS