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B01421
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An apologeticall declaration of the conscientious Presbyterians of the province of London, and of many thousands of other faithfull and Covenant-keeping citizens, and inhabitants within the said city and suburbs thereof. Wherein their firmnesse and faithfulnesse to their first principles and to their solemn league and covenant is conscientiously declared; and the covenant-breaking and apostacie of others is disclaimed and abhorred before God and the whole world. Ianuarie the 24th, 1649.
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1649
(1649)
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Wing A3539AA; ESTC R176217
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6,833
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11
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to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Protestant-Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom yea the Lord God himselfe Angels and Men may bear witnesse with our Consciences that we have no thoughts or intentions nor ever had to diminish His Majesties just power and greatnesse and that we the Subscribers hereof are not Covenant-breakers but do utterly dislike and disavow the present proceedings against him either to the taking away of His Majesties Crown much lesse his life the very thought whereof we from our souls detest and abhor We do hereby most freely faithfully and plainly discharge our consciences and do testifie our loyaltie unto the Kings Majestie according to the duty of our allegiance expressed in the foresaid Protestation May 5th 1641 and the Solemn League and Covenant And we do hereby further declare that when we so cordially concurred with the Parliament at first in the opposition of the Forces raised by the King seduced by evill Counsellors as we propouned the preservation and defence of our Religion Parliament Laws and Liberties so also to preserve and not to ruine the Kings Person but mainly to remove the wicked from his throne that so it might be established in Righteousnesse to Him and his royall Posterity But we say not to pluck Him out of it and to bring him to an Arbitrary-tryall for his life both in respect of his Judges and their Law In summe therefore we have in all these most weighty respects too great and just cause to be extraordinarie sensible that the bringing of the King the Head of the Common-wealth to a tryall for his life before an arbitrary and illegall power warranted by no Law of God or Man and the most strange irregular and unparallel'd proceedings and contemptuous carriages toward His Majestie The puting down of the House of Lords and The restraining of so many eminent Members of Parliament by the Generall Councell of Officers in Arms against all Laws of God and Man the known priviledges of Parliament the liberties of the Subject and their justification of all these exorbitances in print instead of Repentance and deep humiliation for the same is but a sad prologue to the ensuing slavery and ruine of all the free borne Subjects of this Realm For if the Head and most eminent Members of the Common wealth legally to be protected from violence and tyranny by so many Oaths Covenants priviledges Laws and Engagements be thus tyrannically and barbarously already insulted over and trampled under feet like dust in the streets by an imperious Military-power We who are inferior to them in all respects and not invironed with so many priviledges and protections cannot but most justly fear and expect far greater insolencies and intolerable pressours to be unmercifully exercised on us by them when these pillars and foundations are not onely thus shaken but even quite removed and set by According to our Saviours own words Matth 10.25 If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub how much more wil they call them so that are of his houshold In sad and serious consideration hereof therefore we say again and again we cannot possibly keep silence though it be an evill nay because it is so evill a time But as professors of the true reformed Protestant Religion which teacheth no such Doctrines as these fore-mentioned and as are now adayes so unblushingly practised in relation to the Kings Majesty and to the rest of his free-borne Subjects without any respect or least distinction to their places or qualities That we may as much as in us lyes wipe-off that foul blot and scandalous stain that will otherwise inevitably fall upon Religion by this most horrid breach of our Covenant especially in relation to our King that professors of the Gospell in other Kingdoms may not also suffer by being cast out of royall protection for the sin of some pretended professors among us And that we our selves when the approaching Earthquake which is like to be in the three Kingdoms by fearfull commotions and endles wars and inevitably like to attend the intended deposure or violent death of our Soveraign King sadly falls upon us may not have outward misery and inward guilt to meet together without and within us even our Consciences flying in our faces for our at least seeming consent unto it by our sinfull silence But what we may in the singlenesse and sincerity of our hearts wash our hands and clear our innocencie in the sight of God and the whole Christian world We do not onely in generall make this our just Apologie that we are far from the approving of the breath of our Covenant in any part or branch of it But in particular in reference to that of the Kings Person so clear and innocent that we declare our Detestation and Souls abhorrency of that most disloyall action conceiving it to be such a sin as Men must create a New Name for and God a New Hell or punishment for it And thus now having in the unfeined sincerity of our hearts witnessed a good Confession as in the sight of God and Men not from a factious seditious vain-glorious or peevish Spirit of contradiction or in the least tinctured vile malignity or apostacie from the common cause of Religion Liberty and peace of the Kingdome Though we fear not persecution for righteosnesse sake in being true to our principles from those who have power now in their hands yet not knowing whether by Gods permissive providence Satan may not â—ast some of us into prison for thus setting our Consciences at liberty We therefore commit our Souls in this our Well-doing unto God as unto a faithfull Creator hyding our selves under the shadow of his wings till these calamities be over past and looking unto Jesus who hath assured us That whosoever shall forsake houses or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for his Name and Truths sake he shall receive an hundreth fold and shall inherit everlasting life We have therefore hereunto subscribed our Names with our hearts and hands FINIS
wee propounded in our Freedome from our former Egyptian Taskmasters the Prelates In the next place we further declare against the perverting of our Cause in relation to the preservation of the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament For although we were not able to preserve and defend them when violated by that unpattern'd and horrid force upon the House Decemb 6 and 7 last 1648. Yet we conceive our selves obliged to Declare against it and against the imprisoning and secluding so many of the faithfullest Patriots and assertors of the publick interest of the Kingdome And also against the most insolent subversion and alteration of the constitution of the Supreme judicatorie of the Kingdome consisting of the Kings Personall or Virtuall Presence Lords and Commons without whom as we have been alwayes taught and informed no Law can be enacted or repealed The confirmation and inviolable settlement of which happie Nationall constitution with its preservation were the grounds of our Engagements and no change or alteration of the same Whereas now to the unexpressible grief of our Soules we see a most strong and fierce combination in the Generall and Armies Counsell of Warre and others of their partie set forth to the view of us all in that Modell of theirs called The Agreement of the Peâ—ple and presented to that which they call the Parliament Januarie 20th 1648. utterly to subvert and overthrow the whole frame of our foresaid Legall Government and to introduce and enforce upon us a most uncouth strange and headlesse confused Arbitrary and tyrannicall Government of their own devising and by a new as headlesse Representative of their own compacting and yet all this while even whiles they are most violently endeavouring to overthrow all our Nationall Fundamentall Government the very traiterous act for which the Earle of Straford and Can 〈…〉 dyed and which they now lay to the Kings charge to destroy him most fallaciously and hypocritically they protest and strugle to perswade us as in pag 29. of their foresaid Agreement of the People that they are farre from any desire or thought to assum or exercise a Law-giving these are their own words or judiciall power over the Kingdome or to meddle in any thing save the fundamentall settling of that power in the most equall or hopefull way as they pretend for common Right and Safety and this they say they humbly tender to us to consider and accept of if we please Whereas alas we know and ancient experience hath taught us to know that a Tyrants or Conquerors Pray is an irresistible Command And this also is it we thus justly complain of and declare against But in the third place in relation to our Engagement by the Sword and Covenant to defend and preserve our Liberties and Freedoms in this our late most famous and honourable City of London according to Law we are most heartily sorie for the too just occasion that we have to publish and reveal the most evident Perversion of our Cause under this consideration also For whereas to enjoy a Propriety in our estates with a Freedome from Pattentes Monopolies Ship-money and other illegall Impositions and Taxes the Liberty of our Persons from unlawfull Arrests and Imprisonments contrary unto Magna Charta our freeborn English Spirits were raised for their Preservation and defence most freely and even prodigally to lay out our persons and purses We are now not onely in danger of intolerable slavery instead of Freedom and liberty according to Law But to have our Franchises and Priviledges as Freemen of this City votes and rent from us The deep wounding thoughts whereof do so affect and peirce our hearts that we cannot any longer forbear mournfully to complain and Declare That since the 7th of December last we are not onely deprived of our Freedome and liberty to make choice of such Common Counsell-men who have all along approved themselves to God the Parliament and City men faithfull in their trust they being now made uncapable of being chosen thereunto because of their honest Activity for the Personall Treaty And that by an Ordinance made after this supposed crime was acted And now as a sad fruit of it through many Common-Counsell-men most illegally and forcibly chosen in part of a Common-Counsell is passed a Petition which at best shews the framers and promoters thereof onely to minde Earthly things not a word of any Religious or Heavenly concernment being once mentioned in it And it is intituled The petition of the Commons of the City of London Which is not only a foule injurie and blemish unto the truly religious and cordiall Commons thereof but fills us also with fear of future sore breaches of our Franchises and City-liberties if not to the totall subversion of the whole Frame of the well-constituted and long experienced good Government of one of the most glorious and renowned Cities in the Christian world All which most injurious irregularities we cannot chose as Citizens but with ineffable greif of heart here Declare and complain of being in conscience obliged hereunto even by the Oath of Freemen viz The Franchises and customes of this City you shall maintain So that whereas we fought for the defence of our Liberties by Law that our English Spirits might not be intimidated or beslaved by the Kings designe of bringing in of Germane-horse We are now so farre from seeing any sure Foundations for our Liberties and Freedome according to Law that we look upon our selves in exceeding great danger upon that Common plea of the Army Necessity to be miserably subjected to Martiall Law instead of being ruled by the Municipall-Law of the Kingdom And yet as if nothing should be wanting to make us completely miserable and exquisitely to pervert our Cause throughout When both King and Parliament were in an hopfull way not onely of being reconciled but of settling the Kingdome in a way that would have answered in some competent measure for the present the expense of our blood and treasure and our Covenant-engagement also we are now not onely disappointed in our hopes thereof But his Majesties Royall Person the defence and preservation whereof though so carefully provided for by the many Declarations of the Parliament the frequent Proclamations in our streets by the beat of the Drum at the beginning of these Wars by our Protestation May 5th 1641 and by our Solemn League and Covenant yet as if the end of our engaging with the Parliament had been for the ruine of the Kings person and regall Authority His Majesties Person we say is not onely in extreme danger by being exposed unto a Tryall without warrant either from the Word of God or the Laws of the Land But also is thereby plunged into such a nature and condition as is altogether derogatorie to and inconsistent with the Kings Honour which we professe in our Covenant is the 3d part of our Cause for which we engaged Artic 6 That the world therefore to whom we appealed when we entred into Covenant