their Functions as Physicians say of the Humane body that it must be as to the sane Constitution of it of a due Temperament both ad pondus ad justitiam and so must the Political body 1. Ad Pondus i.e. so as the first qualities or best sort may be brought into such an exact Proportion that no one may domineer it ore the other viz. in Faction or Parties striving for the mastery but so as one may balance another and all be kept together in the orderly exercise of all the Functions of the Body in an equal and good Temperature But 2. Ad justitiam that is so as to keep out evil and corrupt humors from obstructing the use of Functions in the body and this is the Eukracy and Timocracy which all sound Commonwealths have maintained and ours must I might instance in the Lacedemonians Cretians Athenians Corinthians Arcadians Rhodians Chalcedonians and others later The Romans themselves observing this as the Rule to keep out Tarquin and his crew who had a considerable Party in the Commonwealth as Charles Stuart hath in this even amongst Brutus's sons and as like to have repossessed and restored Tarquin untill this distinction was maintained with justice not sparing between the absolute Tarquinians that were unexorable and would never be for the Commonwealth but ever plotting against it and the free-born Citizens or faithful Denisons that did all to maintain it not forfeiting their Liberties and Rights as Livy tells us So for other Commonwealths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I hear that the Mantinians in Arcadia and also the Locrians Cretians Lacedemonians and Athenians had such Laws And in this respect the Grecians were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only Greeks but Vindices Libertatis Great Sticklers for their Liberties But I am afraid lest some consult with the same Oracle that Clement the fifth did to destroy the COMMON-WEALTH Si non licet per Viam justitiae licet saltem per Viam expedientiae by Policy and expediency I mean such as Caiaphas and the Council condemned our Lord Jesus by Joh. 11. 50. and 18. 14. and so may this Cause But justice is a pure intemperate Virgin till she be deflowred by one of the two unchast Suitors viz. NIMIUM or PARUM Both which must be avoided as extreams and the Healing Quest doth it excellently But of M. B. I may say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast lost the sweetness of the Rose and the fragrants of the Cause by thy Adulterating Art and mistaking of it But I have proved says Mr. B. that it is a false and wicked cause Wicked in the Nullity of the Magistrates duty and power but the truth thereof let the Reader judge and the Magistrate himself if he please And a false Cause saith he in giving the people the Natural Soveraignty who have but a power of choosing that men miss-call a Soveraignty The truth is I am from my heart with thousands more as well as Mr. B. saith he is in matter for a Theocratick or a godly COMMONWEALTH of which I had prepared a draught in my imprisonment at Windsor Castle and O! that we could see it with our eyes so both in the Constitution and Administrations of it in these Nations subjective to Jesus Christ that absolute Sovereign Who is 1 Tim. 6. 15. The blessed and only Potentate King of Kings and Lord of Lords Rev. 19. 16. For whom all things were created Rev. 4. 11. and 5. 12 13. Col. 1. 16. Whether Thrones DOMINIONS Principalities or POWERS c. 1. Seeing all Nations must be subservient to him under the seventh Trumpet Rev. 11. 15. Whom he will either BOW or BREAK 2. Seeing all these Shakings and Concussions are to that end Hag. 2. 6. Veani Maryish I making them to TREMBLE Ver. 7. Ve hiryashshetti and I will make them TREMBLE with commotions and troubles until Chemeddat Col Haggojim the Desire the Delight the Beauty of all Nations come 3. Seeing the Army have Declared themselves to be upon this very Bottom and Foot of account often but more particularly in Declaration at Muscle-borough Aug. 1. 1650. in these words We have have not only proclaimed Iesus Christ the King of Saints to be our King by Profession but desire to submit to him upon his own terms and admit him to the exercise of his Royal Authority c. Yea 4. seeing we are already so forward in it in this Nation both by the extraordinary Session of this Parliament And 5. by their Declaration on the 7. of May last for our Rights and Liberties both as Men and as Christians i.e. in Civils and in Spirituals◠Also 6. by that Golden Vote of Parliament somewhat like the Golden Réed which the Angel gave John Revel 11. 1. saying Arise and MEASVRE by it viz. That and their late Votes That none be put into Trust but men of Ability fearing God of a Latitude of Love to all the people of God and not to this or that Faction or Party and of Fidelity to the Common-wealth without King Single Person or House of Peers Yea 7. seeing there is such a readiness of consent in the Adherents to the Cause that are not partified nor putrified for a faction nor corruption and Mr. B. himself proposes it from p. 210. to 241. of 's Holy Commonwealth Yea 8. seeing we are as a Rouling Stone never fixed or at Rest till we fall into it do we what we can Psa 83. 12. make them as a Whéel or a ROVLING Globe and are likely to find no settlement without it Ezek. 21. 27 I will overturn overturn overturn till he comes whose Right it is or to whom the JVDGEMENT is given asher lo hammishpat and this can be meant of none but Christ Joh. 5. 22. to whom all Judgement is committed Dan. 7. 9. until his Government be setled in the NATIONS Gnavah Gnavah Gnavah assimenah I will place in them a PERVERSE Perverse PERVERSE spirit or as the Sept. has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until they be subverted and brought to this Settlement of God So that for the matter i.e. A Theocracy I agree with Mr. Baxter in yet notwithstanding I cannot be of M. B's mind for the manner of it as that it consists so well with the interest of God and Christ our absolute Soveraign or with the interest of the People Adherents to this Cause which stand together that a Single Person should exercise the power of a Humane Soveraign over us seeing 1 Sam. 8. 6 7. the thing displeased the Lord and was a great evil in Samuels eyes as the word is vajierang when the People said Give us a KING and on that the Lord said to Samuel They have not rejected thée they have rejected me that I should not reign over them or maasu they have loathed my Government over them wherein I alone was their King or the Single Person Much less can I think that the Natural being of it under
the FIRST PRINCIPLE for that they are neither found in the Efficient nor yet in the Material Formal nor Final Causes of such a Conjunction either as to Coition or Coalition and so are not capable of a Rejunction as Mr. P. and B. press it till we see a REJUNCTION in them also if the Armies Repentance reach to that And this I say Neither after the first intention of it as we use to say which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and must be the same in nature and in substance with the rest viz. Commonwealths-men All and not Kinglings any unless for Christ which they are not not yet after the second intention called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exprest both in the colligation and obligation of such natural-united and well-disposed Members every one in his proper joynt place fitted and fixed for the service of the WHOLE which those Secluded Members would never take or if they had could never hold viz. to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth c. as it is now established without a King Single Person or House of Peers So that all they propose are real impossibilities both to Reason Art and Nature nor are they able to offer any MEDIVM HOMOGENEVM or sutable expedient to effect it i. e. in the due consistency with the State of the cause being and well-being of the Commonwealth Wherefore if the Lt. G. Fleetwood and the Army were pleased they might Anwer Mr. B. as once the Emperour Adrian did an old Courtier who came unto him for some preferment then void but the Emperour denyed it him within some few days after the Gent. with great Art trimmed himself put on a smooth face as it is now in fashion with a very youthful habit and so applied to the Emperour anew But Sir saith the Emperour not so not so I dare not I must not be so unjust to give that to the SON that I denyed to the FATHER but 3. or 4. days since and so we hope that neither the present Lenity future Acrimony nor deceitful Ideo-pathy or Sympathy of Mr. B's Physick no more then Mr. P's Antopathy or Antipathy can work upon the Army to be so unjust as to give that to those men that are the same though now new-trimmed and with the greatest Art they can too for Kingship which they denied them before fought against and resisted in the Scottish-War more especially when these men were more GRAVE in their fatherhoods and much more reverend a few years since So I leave Mr. P's first Demonstration of the Republicans CAUSE as he calls it in his two last Anatomy Lectures His second is as groundless as the first wherein from p. 40. to 69. of Narr he gives his first Lecture upon the living which only concerns the dead Anatomy As if the JESUITES formative faculty and designs which they had afoot in the days of the King and Kingdom had laid the Prolifick Project of this Government and so throughout his Anatomy of the Republicans Cause from p. 4. he would make us believe if we could be so besotted that the Commonwealth is a BASTARD of the Jesuites begetting Mr. B. seconds him we need not question telling us stories of Campanella Parsons WATSON c. and of their designs against King James and the Nation then about An. 1604. or 1605. So that the child lay longer in the Womb then that which â—o Albosâ—us tells us of that lay in the mothers Womb 28. years and then too it was turn'd into STONE Now with how little Weight of Reason or Judgement this is charged I shall refer to the Reader that hath any skill in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Anatomy to judge upon their own Histories and grounds In Campanella 1. For CAMPANELLA the Italian Frier in his Monarch Hisp his Project was to promote an interest for the King of Spain against Q. Elizabeth and K. James and all his Politicks were calculated and suited to the state of the Nation at that time and in those days far different from what it was or is in ours which was not made for the interest of Spain but our own 2. Upon far different Grounds too viz. to make such discord amongst the English as might admit them no leasure to disturbe the Spanish to perswade the Parliament of the Kingdom in Q. Elizabeth days to cast her off and so fall into the form of a Commonwealth by this means to sow the seeds of an inexplicable and in expiable WAR between England and Scotland that if England should be turned into the forme of a Commonwealth the Kingdom of SCOTLAND might keep up continual Wars with the Commonwealth of England for it was never laid for BOTH to be a Commonwealth and so to manage all affairs so slowly as not to hurt the Spaniard if not to give him advantage and if a Commonwealth could not be effected then to make it an Elective Kingdom c. Now are these the grounds or the effects of our Free-State let any judge seeing the Friers plot was laid so as to keep up Scotland a Kingdom and distinct from England as well as England a Commonwealth or else it answered not the Popish design neither to incapacitate England from disturbing the Spaniard or defending our selves against them but in this Commonwealth it is no such matter we are Both one and in a far better capacity both for PRESERVATION and INCREASE to deal with an Enemy then under the King 3. The Friers ENDS were such as did as well correspond with a Kingdom Elective or any thing so that Q. Elizabeth King James and that Family were but routed or totally amoved but our ends in this Commonwealth are not such as can consist with or be answered in a Single Person or a Kingdom Elective and therefore cannot be the same which the Jesuites plotted if they plotted any for us But that is the thing which these Gent. must prove viz. that This this is The Commonwealth which Campanella plotted and not to ensnare us with a Homonymy or so to accuse the Commonwealth as the woman did Eustatius the Bishop for Whoredom with her being hired unto it by the Arrians and thereby had him banished until she was tormented with a judgement and then confess'd it was another Eustatius and not THIS 4. Though Campanella and the Papists would have been glad at their hearts at any Alteration either for Commonwealth or Kingdom Elective yet their 's proved an Abortment a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and came to nothing or had any of their's by a Superfaetation or a new procreation came to maturity amongst us it must have been upon Grounds and Ends as far different from our's as West from East or North from South But Lastly Campanella and the Papists never intended a Common-wealth as the ULTIMATE but upon a design and to turn it back to a Single Person his own words are Tandem in Democratiam
out of the Magistrates reach indeed viz. of imposing it upon our Consciences and of forcing us to that or any other Religion Now that the Magistrate may force us to MASSE or to any false or true Religion is the Thing that Mr. B. hath to prove or he doth nothing but puzzle himself and perplex his Reader with a company of fallacies and falshoods Now was not this a great and essential part of the Cause and quarrel at the first between the Bishops Popish Arminian Imposers and the Puritans Brownists and Sectaries so call'd to keep up this their Liberty of Conscience from all such destroyers and invaders of it as is to be seen in Husbands his Exact Coll. p. 20 21 22. c. in the several Declar. and Remonstrances of Parliament and Army And in the very Covenant it self to maintain Religion according to the word of God in the liberty and purity thereof And in the history of the Wars with Scotland occasioned by imposing upon them the Book of Liturgy Anno 1637. being forceably and by command of the King and Magistrates read in Edinborough without the peoples consent which the poor people could not bear but a Woman threw her stool at the Bishops pate and so began the hurly-burly the Wars and the Alterations to this day for freedom in both kinds viz. in Spirituals and in Civils from being imposed upon and herein both the nature and the goodness of the cause will appear do what he can Now let Mr. B. deal but honestly as the Healing Quest states the case which were he a fair and allowable Opponent he ought without diminishing or adding to what he saith and then prove if he can That this due liberty for godly believers and adherents to the Good old Cause for he speaks of such in matters of Gods worship under their different perswasions Be First against the word of God or express Scriptures as he pretends flying for proof to Moses and them that were Types of Christ under the Law who did in extraordinary cases and for extraordinary ends exercise both swords sometimes and so not only Moses and the Kings of Israel did meddle with the external matters of worship but even Priests and Prophets did sometimes execute in civil matters too as Phinehas on Zimri and Cozbi Numb 25. Eliah upon the 400. 1. King 18. and Samuel on Agag 1 Sam. 15. but alas the one is no more a Rule for Magistrates in these days then the other is for Ministers And besides it is most evident even in the Old Testament if he keeps us all to THAT for he must never come at New Testament that Powers over any in the worship and service of God or Eccles Powers so called were ordinarily distinguished all along from the Civil or Magistratical Power as Moses and Aaron Rulers and Priests c. kept in their distinct Orbs and Places Now for his instance of Asa his days 2 Chron. 15. 12. it was a voluntary Covenant which the people entred into spontaneously and not compulsorily neither did the Magistrates impose it upon them so that it is Nihil ad Rhombum again after his wonted manner of rambling But on the Contrary All those Scriptures that call for willing obedience faith and perswasions of a willing People to the Lord Exod. 35. 5 22. 2 Chron. 29. 5 6 7. Nehem. 4. 6. Cant. 4. 12. Psal 110. 3. Isa 2. 2 3. Jer. 50. 4 5 Micah 4. 12. Zach. 2. 11. 8. 22 23. Prov. 23. 26. Mat. 11. 27. Joh. 6. 35 37 44. Luke 9. 23. Act. 2. 37. 2 Cor. 8. 3 5. John 4. 23. Rom. 14. 5 10 14. Joh. 16. 8 c. and all those that limit the Magistrates Civil Power to Civil Objects as to give to Caesar the things that are Caesars c. and Rom. 13. 3 4. Psal 83. 11 12 13. 2 Sam. 23. 3 4. that ruleth over MEN in external and humane matters 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. And all those Scriptures that make Christ alone the Head of the Church and the onely Law-giver in positive matters of Worship and his Laws sufficient which he hath left for that purpose Isa 9. 7. 22. 21 22. 33. 22. Zach. 6. 12 23. 9. 9. Cant. 3. 11. Psal 2. 12. Col. 1. 18. 2. 19. Mat. 28. 18. 18. 17. Eph. 1. 22. 5. 23. 1 Tim. 1. 20. 1 Cor. 5. 4 5. Iam. 4. 12. Heb. 3. 6. Besides Martyrs Learned Authors as Ambrose Epist 13. ad Imp. Valentin Bernard Epist ad P. Eugen. Luther Epist ad Fred. Jo. D. Sax. Tom. 7. fol. 209. Epist ad Carol. Duc. Subaud fol. 483. Epist ad Erphard Tom. 7. Zuinglius in Respons libel Strothionis Tom. 2. fol. 302. Chamier de Oecumen Pontif. Marlorat in Luc. 9. 25. Marlinus and the Martyrs Jo. Huss A. Askew Hooper Bradford and a cloud of Witnesses Books and Arguments of the ablest holy Writers that ever used a Pen or a Pulpit for above these thousand years are unâ Voce for the Healing Question against the Imposting power of the Magistrate in matters of Conscience and of Gods Worship and were it not that I must be concise and consulere brevitati for the benefit of the Readers I would have written at large their very Words and References Also secondly Let any that have the exercise of Reason free consider upon his second charge whether this Non-imposing-Power of the Magistrate in the Matters of Religion and Worship of God or indulging of a Tender Conscience tendeth to the Ruine of the Commonwealth or whether an Imposing in such Cases doth not clearly put the People upon all the means of Freedom they can come at as it did in Scotland because of the Liturgy and in England because of the Bishops Canons Courts and Impositions of their Hierarchy on Conscience nay let Mr. B. himself umpire it if he please when it comes to be his own case in his Preface to the Army thus I wish you to be tender of your BRETHRENS Consciences So Let not men be too hastily forced to engage to a Power Vngodly men of seared consciences will engage to any thing for wordly ends So Be not too forward with your Impositions c. Thus was the Philosopher convinc'd of his Errour which he held against Motion when his Arm came to be put out of joynt and it became his own Case he went to Hirophilus to set it in again sure saies this Chirurgeon it cannot be if your opinion hold your Arm would hold for if there be no Motion there is no Dislocation Therefore as Portius Cato was said to be so exactly just to all men that he would chuse the veriest enemies he had such as Tiberius Gracchus to judge his Cause and condemn him if he could so will we in this let him but remember us as well as himself and equal with himself for in the Conformation of parts the beauty lies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in
the equality as Galen saies and then let him judge Thirdly Whether This tendeth to vilifie the Magistrate or Mr. B's more to vilifie Christ and his Members the Church Truth and Gospel and consequently to set the MAGISTRATE upon the most conscientious Or Fourthly Whether it be against any Tittle of the Decalogue to keep up each Table Duty and distinct Function of Magistrate and Minister in their proper places and functions which Mr. B. would confound Fifthly Whether this tends to the decay and not to the greatest incouragement of true Grace Faith and Holiness not to whip force or impose upon us in meer Spirituals and matters of Worship Yea Sixthly Whether the Healing Questions sweet Argumentum à Christo Pace or M. B.'s bitter Argumentum à fustibus Face would gratifie the Devil and his Malice most He that would have the Magistrate not to impose his light upon other mens consciences or he that would have it imposed as a Rule or Standard for All Men in the Nation to come or to be cudgel'd up unto as Mr. B. and Mr. Har. likewise would have it so in pag. 27 28 c. of his OCEANA That all men might be subject to the National Conscience Seventhly Whether this or that would let out Tempters and Persecutors too the farthest and with the most loosened Reines of Lust and Cruelty over the Soul to the Danger or Perdition of their own 8. Whether Parents or Masters of Families ought to impose their own Religion or Opinion upon their Children and Servants and not rather to permit them the Free exercise and Liberty of their Consciences in the Worship of GOD consistent with our CAUSE both in Spirituals and Civils Ninthly Whether it tendeth to the destruction of an Army to let every one March not to Mutiny that is his own word and the Healing Q. asserts the Magistrates power in such Cases as are suitable Objects to keep the peace and promote the civil good but to let every one march on in his own Order without justling or molesting of another Joel 2. 7 8. They shall march every one in his wayes and not break their Ranks nor one Thrust another Or to the hurt of Families not to impose or to let their children have liberty to hear GOD's word and worship not to Theft Drunkenness Whoredome as Mr. B. most unworthily states it though in a different manner place time and such like circumstances But for an aliquid amplius I refer to a Treatise I wrote some 2 years since called A reviving Word from the quick and dead c. for Vniting of All the Godly with this Liberty Tenthly Or against the exercise of a Church-power over offenders Mat. 18. 17. Tit. 3. 10 11. 2 Thes 3. 14 15. because a Magistrate ought not impose upon their Consciences Eleventhly Or is it against the Interest of CHRIST who shall be the Desire of all Nations Hag. 2. 7. to indulge any or all of his Members with Equal Liberty Benefit and Safety in the service of GOD without an undue magnifying of any one Form or Faction above or to be a Rule to others consolidating all under one Head JESUS CHRIST Ephes 1. 13. Hos 1. 11. in such sweet Symmetry Order Consistency together as the four Elements have in the humane Body though different asunder yet in Harmony together so as one may not Master but Balance another to the service of the Whole and of every one in their particular places faculties and functions and would not this be for the Interest of our dearest Lord But sayes he It 's an unholy Saint that would have Liberty to reproach his Lord or deny the faith and essential Article of it to speak against his holy worship c. Whereas all the Healing Question propounds for is That the holy Saints that do serve their God sincerely though under different apprehensions that do hold the Faith and Truth in the Essentials of it and that are for his holy worship not against it that these might have equal Liberty and Countenance But so absurdly for many pages together doth this poor man spit the Venom of his Pen upon that Noble and Pious Author without Ground or Matter but of 's own devising to render him such as are the liveliest Assertors of our Cause in the Latitude and Liberties of it contemptible if he could as well as the Cause it self which is the thing they ayme at that I might say to him as once Zeno said to Antigonus whose breath was strong and stomack foul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Get you gone to your Vomit for as Aristides also said we are not of that Number that can spit and vomit stuff so loathsome And as one said when he was hit in the Teeth with his stinking Breath that it was because of the Great trust of SECRETS which his Friends had committed to him which he kept within him until they were ROTTEN he may as Wittily excuse it but not as Worthily if they be Designes for the King or Cavalierish Secrets against the Worthies of Parliament Cause and People of GOD which lie and ROT and export so ill a savour And lastly Let Any judge Whether this Liberty of Conscience for the faithful Adherents to the Cause in matters of Worship onely or that Persecution and Imposition which Mr. B. would put the Magistrate upon be the most apparent Way of introducing Popery and of destroying the Power of Godliness with a Form or whether any one can study more to mischieve the Magistrate then by this means For as Mr. Hooper Martyr said to his Friends Anno 1555. Tyranny Extremity and Enforcing have been the onely Arguments to maintain the POPE And if Mr. B. had not been too forgetful he would have considered That these were the very Arguments of 's own-quoted Jesuite Adam Contzen in 's Directions for Restoring Popery Chap. 17. Lib. 2. To preserve Popery that no other Religion should be permitted and the speedy punishing of the Erroneous cutting them off in their first appearance prohibiting their Books and taking heed of Julian ' s Device destroying of Religion by Liberty for all Sects Thus they do sayes Mr. B. in Spain Italy Austria Bavaria c. i. e. destroy Liberty of Conscience Is this then the Jesuites way by Mr. B.'s own words to let in Popery or to destroy it The Jesuite calls it A destroying of the Religion vizt Popery to give Liberty as he calls it to all Sects Indeed Mr. B. doth put me in minde of one Cacus a great Thief that was wont to pull all the Cattel he stole into his DEN backward or by the Tail to avoid the pursuit of the people that followed the Track and this pretty Knack Mr. B. uses to pull us into Popery as we shall see presently and yet pretends to keep us from it by the Track that whoever follows as he hath made it shall no
that have been most despised are as ready as Any to offer up our Lives and sacrifice our all for the service In the choice of Tribunes the Romans were wont to pitch upon them that could shew the most Marks Scars or Wounds in the service of their Country and some there be yet alive though little look'd upon who can like Veteranus whom Sueton. in Aug. C. tells us of but open their Garments and shew you the GASHES which they gladly received either in suffering or doing for this Cause that had rather a thousand times see the Bloud spin out of their own Veins then drop out of Christ's by another Agony Et totum hujusce rei consilium non periculo meo sed utilitate Reipubl metiar and for my own part I will not measure my business by my danger which is as great as most mens but by the benefit of the Publick 2. A stander by may see more of the Game which the Enemy is playing with Art and with Arms too and the great advantages which our friends may give them in their dealings then they see themselves so that I hope such diligent observers who have ever betted on your side and to the Cause may without offence or the brand of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inform you the best they can of those that are peeping into your hands and do make their Game by it accordingly or endeavour it for the interest of a Single Person or of Charles Stuart It was said of Queen Elizabeth that like an ill House-wife she swept the house and left the dust behinde the door but we hope you will not sweep the door as you did at your first entry to our great rejoycing and now leave the dust within the House to breed Spiders and Cobwebs which will be sure to hang in the highest places And therefore as we do in times of danger and robbery be pleased first to search well within doors and then without in every corner seeing the Enemy may steal in at so many secret and imperceptible ways 3. The grounded jealousies and certain fears that if this Cause should miscarry CHRIST the Gospel and good People of the Commonwealth would all suffer slavery do nib my Pen with the more Promptness and Acuteness in the presence of Him that is higher then the highest to call upon your Prudence and utmost care to preserve it in its Purity Nor am I herein beyond my line whiles in pleading the Cause I plead for Christ the Gospel and his Saints the best support columne and interest in the Whole World 4. The great and growing desires which I have to be serviceable to the Publique ere I die Secundum singulas species Evangelii Christi necnon Reipubl both as a Minister and a Man with the deep resentment of that desperate Design of the Enemies now on foot to the utter extirpation of us and of all whom they call Sectaries as well as perplexing of your Councils if they can effect it set forward from those very Principles that I have opposed and which they had calculated for the total interfection of the Cause interruption of the Parliament and infection of the People from 1. Principles of Falshood 2. Confections of Calumny and 3. Concoctions of Crudity The first in Mr. Prynne's Perditory Anatomy of the Commonwealth which is no more to be followed then the School of Alexandria in Gallen's time who did use to quarter Bodies for their Scholars and not allow them the dissection or discovery of the Whole Body neither doth P. to his Followers onely in this against his will we may commend him for an Artist that he hath found out the most sound solid and untainted parts of the whole Body to shew his SKILL upon i. e. of cutting and calumniating Psal 10. 8. 50. 20. 89. 51. The second in Mr. B's Purgatory Art of curing the Army whose Pinion or Pen is hardned into his own Opinion for the Government of a single Person and recovery of the Kingdom again and not so for a due and equal Temperament of the whole Body by an even Balance and proportion of the four Elements and so Aliments of this Politic. Body conducing to the most concinnate and right use of all the Functions in it as for the Mastery of the One above the other and all the Rest which would be the inevitable Ruine of All at last and all the OPERATION of his Pills is but to cast the Commonwealth out of an Acute into the most Chronick and irrecuperable Diseases But the 3. is in Mr. H's Pulsatory Method which tends more to the maintenance of the Diastole then of the Systole of the Commonwealth i. e. for the promoting then expurging the putrid humors of the Body By the first sort or P's is the Commonwealth considered quatenus immedicabilis and so he cuts it all to pieces as the Levite did his Concubine Judg. 19. 29. and sends them into all Quarters to raise the Rebellion By the second sort or Mr. B's is the Commonmonwealth considered quatenus est Sanabilis or restorable to a Kingdom and so he gives his Pills his Powders and his Portions that by strange operations they might enervate and deforce the Vitals of the Commonwealth but animate and revive the spirits of the Cavaliers and corrupt ones for Kingship in the Nation and accordingly are the humours spirits and armies of the Enemy up By the third sort or Mr. H's is the Commonwealth considered quatenus Mutabilis and so he exhibits new Forms Platforms Orders and Foundations in the first Concoction Heathenish but in the second Concoction Popish which he presumes will be as easie of digestion as the Jusculum or decoction of an old Cock ere he has cook'd it Now although these last have done the least hurt and are our Friends yet the Enemy might presume upon it that we judg'd our State very unsetled to hang by Geometry like Mahomet's Tomb in the Air or by a Charm or without a Foundation which is a great mistaste And by all these have I learned in Politicks that Non minus est corrigere Rem Public jam institutam quam ab initio instituere c. It is nothing less to govern well a Commonwealth when it is instituted then to institute a Commonwealth when it is not as yet governed or as yet a Commonwealth So that your Lessons most Noble Senators are no less difficult which you learn ex post facto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then those that you learn antè post facto wherein we had all need and hope we shall help you all we can with our prayers counsels and endeavours and none to Hinder you in the least nor yet You to Hinder one another And therefore though from a worm and no man I beseech you RIGHT HONOURABLE to admit of a few praevious Considerations for the better Settlement of the Commonwealth to the satisfaction
HIS who shall be who must be the desire of all nations But because Mr. Baxter may be heard with many when I may not I shall usher in ALL in his own words that I have to offer for this Christian Commonwealth or Theocratick Government as the CONCAMERATION and upshot of the whole Discourse 2. In the PATHOLOGY of it and therein to consider how the Principal parts might be affected if not infected with the late Morbous estate of the Common-wealth And acted for that time so preternaturally that might render it as unsafe then to follow them as now to fall on them for no MEMBERS humanum est errare sed inhumanum perseverare Cic. Phil. 2. Unless we be of opinion that the only way to cure a disease is to cut off the member or to evacuate an humor is to kill the man So to measure the affections of your old friends who are sound at heart ADHERENTS to the Good old Cause and Commonwealth by any humorous or incomposed resentment of your interruption which was sudden and amazing however they took it may be dangerous and unjust Seeing some that were more troubled fell in with the Apostacy and some that were less fell out with it yea seeing such as were Active in it and made their Advantages by it are indemnified shall such as were Passive in it and pursued nothing by it but the Publique Good be indamaged Can any think that after so many years hard Bonds and Banishment those that were forwardest proclaim'd the Single Person serv'd him or rather themselves therein should be the Men of your Right Hand and not those that have witnessed prayed appeared and Protested against it from the first to the last of it be worthy of your LEFT Or that those who were but FOOLED into an expectation of better things and in that did rejoyce through hope be the onely marks for your enemies to shoot at and such as were KNAVED into into a Perpetration of worser things and in that they did Triumph and boast be the very Quivers of those Arrows that are shot at them As soon as the first sort saw the snare they escaped it with the loss of Liberty Estate and Livelihood a many of them but the last sort saw it kept it and became their enemies that did it not The first sort were more in simplicity and as they intended upon the account of the Cause the Reasons and Grounds in the Declaration An. 1653. pretended were for the better carrying on of the Cause and a more absolute weaning the people from Monarchy and for successive Parliaments c. but the last sort in Subtlety and Design a many of them upon the account of themselves Places Profits The first sort did sink but like Peter and as their feet slipp'd their hands held fast upon Christ but the last sort sunk rather like Pharaoh having no principle to bear them up and nothing to hold fast by only this we see by it that a man may sink and rise and sink and rise again and yet be recovered at the last The first were WITHOUT blinded with Words and knew nothing but what was openly pretended the LAST were WITHIN even in their Cabals and might easily guess at what they secretly intended The first did but stumble but the last did fall and lie in their filth It is a Good horse that never stumbles but it is a Bad one that ever does and that will wallow in it too To stumble once is a common fault but twice at one Stone too is a special one and therefore we humbly think that the first ought not so to be exploded if the last ought so to be applauded and preferred The Orator said Natura me Clementem fecit Respub severum sed neque Natura neque Respubl me Crudelem efficiet Nature hath made me MILDE the Commonwealth hath made me SEVERE but neither one nor the other shall make me CRUEL to any man and the Preacher says Eccles 5. 8. If thou seest violent perverting of justice in a Province marvel not at the matter For he that is HIGHER then the HIGHEST regardeth and is HIGHER then THEY For my own part I need no Apology in the matter who was possest with amazement at the rashness of the Action I was so far from irritating or abetting it as some would suggest that I never mention'd or imagin'd it or to my knowledge heard it of any other till it was performed And then was so unsatisfied with it of which eminent Persons are my Witnesses as might free me both from the suspition and the sin of it Besides it is in print to the World and was then in Press for Posterity to see my opinion of them that were reputed Active in it Yet when that interruption had so candid an Interpretation by Good People who were over-credulous and ignorant of the Design I did write to the then GENERAL and my fourth Propos was hisce Verbis word for word That those who were righteous and spirited for this Government of the WORTHIES of the late i.e. this Parliament that are without just exception may be Owned with Honour i.e. Return'd again to their Trust And these Proposials are the worst that can be said of me by any man wherein I meant as much as I mentioned very honourably of them as of our WORTHIES But if that satisfie not I shall presume with the words of a Scottish EARL Leviston in his Oration to the then Lord Chancellor ex Georg. Buchan Rer. Scotic lib. 11. Junii 27. adhort p. 151. Non me HONORE Spoliatum sed ONERE levatum existimo Privatim si quam accepi injuriam eam Publicae Salutis Causa libenter Condono Si quam feci Bonorum Virorum Arbitratu satisfaciam c. I account not my self rob'd of Honour in your late DEBATE nor exempt of Reason in any former REBATE being arm'd with so much innocency that I can heartily say If I have privately received any Wrong I can freely remit it for the Publick's sake but if I have done Any either to the PUBLICK or to PRIVATE I as heartily refer it to the Arbitrement of Good men and I will make satisfaction if I can for it Neither expect I any thanks to be an Advocate for others but to prevent the injustice of squaring your Affairs and their Affections by so fallible a RULE as that is The Angel's Golden Reed is the Golden Rule to measure the Inward by but the outward Rev. 11. 1 2. may be measured by the best Reason of man rightly fix't for judgement and then I need not shew the danger of Breaking Bones too often in one place lest they fester and Rot and come to Ruine as well as put to pain the Whole Body But to conclude I see you like Men in the Dark up at MIDNIGHT in a confused State ready to Knock your Heads at every Post and to break your Legs at every Block and therefore hope by this Collision of
when he cut off his companions HEAD and to keep his Covenant after he had parboiled and fitted it he kept it by him honoured and perfumed it and upon every weighty matter or consultation would set this SKUL by him and tell it what he purposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saying That he did not violate his ingagement or break his OATH in the least seeing he did ever take Council with the HEAD of Archonides and did nothing without it That this is the Honour our Patriots should have if they could effect it is as clear as the Sun 5. Mr. P. knows as well as we that the Parliament recalled to their Trust by the Declaration of the Army is expresly denominated that Parliament that sat from Anno 1648. till Anno 1653. viz. the Commonwealth-Parliament whereof they were never members so that he might well have spared his squint-eyed Arguments or unanswerable Reasons as he calls them from p. 34. to p. 40. to prove they are not the House of Commons till they took themselves for such a House but thus poor Mr. P. doth make himself both Adversary and Answerer Mark and Archer in his matter and is either like one Antipho that a Dr. tells us of who through a Disease in his Eye thought he had his own IMAGE ever before him and for THAT he could see nothing else Or like that Souldier who in a foolish Bravado meant to expose himself to such a needless Peril that for want of an Enemy he would find himself to fight with and so doth Mr. P. in the most Parts of his Discourse Indeed he wounds himself severely and I much pity him in those unruly passions which fall with the deadliest blows on himself and on the Bowels of his own Arguments that are torn apieces with very anger for this he knows is by the LAW the Felo de se And thus Mr. P. hath seen his HEIRS apparent as he supposed to the next Revolution and who were accordingly in expectation of possessing utterly disinherited by a gracious Providence and unexpected so that like M. LIVIUS who through his own folly had lost All and said to his own shame he had left nothing to his HEIRS praeter Coelum Coenum but air and mire he may say it I fear that it is AIR and MIRE and nothing else that he bequeaths by his writings to those Gentlemen and I wish it might not have effect like the River Lyncestis of which whosoever drinketh is sure to run Mad. Thus we see also the Caninum appetitum of them that long after the Death of this Commonwealth accounting their only Riches to lye in the Reversions purchas'd at so easie a Rate as a Breath or the Vote of a company of Lawyers for the King Lords and Commons which they were very neer effecting in their last Dissolved Assembly only lost all by over-hast and the Commonwealth is recovered but most strangely Not much unlike to that of a King of Parthia ORADES by name the same that slew Crassus who being desperately ill as our Commonwealth was it proved a temptation to his son Phraates so impatient he was of his Death that himself might succeed to the Throne to dispatch him quick he gave him poyson but the Poyson did not only work out it's self but the Disease with it and was so far from killing him that it perfectly cured him And so it did with this poor Commonwealth a sick Patient when they came together and whose CASE I then opened to them the POYSON that was given to make a quick dispatch of the Commonwealth by the Lawyers and Courtiers c. hath produced a cure And the Lord hath we hope saved us once again Disappointed our Adversaries and raised up this Renowned Parliament as from the Grave to do great things for Christ and his Cause in this Commonwealth or to the Greater shame of them that hinder What Mr. P. hath suggested like a learned Anatomist Mr. B. hath as bravely seconded like a Physitian in 's Preface to the Army Because saith he I find that self-conviction worketh in you and hath brought you already to more confessions then Volumes from me were ever like And when Nature hopefully begins a CVRE it must not be disturbed by VIOLENT Medicines You have already confessed and the Officers of the Army in Scotland confesse Penitent confessions will be some reparation of your honour This much from another would by some have been called a second GANGRENA or a SCANDALUM MAGNATVM And if you be indeed sincerely penitent we are not only in hope but past all doubt that God who hath shewed you the sin of forcing out the last 120. will also shew you the sin of imprisoning and secluding of above 140. at once long before c. How exquisite Mr. B. is in this Art or Science of Physick I know not but with his favour if he follows right Rules in his prescriptions he ought to have told us first what Humors he would have evacuated and so to have proportioned his Dosis and Directions to the quality of the Disease not mistaking or taking them for ACTIVE QUALITIES in the Army which were meerly PASSIVE and under orders nor on the contrary to account them passive qualities which were meerly Arbitrary Active and their own without Orders which the Parliament ought to consider 2. Also with what kinds of medicaments or means consisting with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and State of the Commonwealth as Aristotle when sick said to his Physician What do you think to cure me as if I were a Horse that I must not know what ingredients you do give me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Away away you shall never meddle with me like a Farrier Heardsman or Delver but first go and finde out the cause and nature of my disease and so say we For all Medicines agree not with all men and I presume Mr. B. hath more then one Rule or Remedy for all diseases 3. He should have given us his Reasons also For in methodical cures not only the remedies but the reasons of things ought to be proponderated and as accurately prepared Now although as Mr. B. saith Lenitives be most necessary when nature begins to work so and into such confessions yet when the Humors are hard viscous very tough and tenacious they are not outed with such contrariis blandis so easily as with corrosives duly corrected and with such consideratis considerandis as best suit both with the Patient and Potion And Mr. B. himself tells them of a more violent working exasperating Physick which he hath but he shall forbear to give it at present viz. to set before them the aggravation of their sins terrours of hell and damnation c. and all about the Secluded Members or the last Assembly for which amongst his mild ingredients he gives them this ARGUMENT To resist or depose the best Governours in all
man commendeth or that commendeth himself is approved but whom the Lord commendeth And the Lord justifies who shall condemn Isai 50. 8 9. Rom. 8. 33 34. Yet I think there be but few that are so malicious as to hate this Gentleman for his own sake but many indeed that are envious at him for our sakes and the Commonwealths In whose Memory and Posterity I nothing doubt but that his indefatigable endeavours and deserts from the Publick will out-live the most irrefragable anger of all his enemies or rather ours Justum Tenacem propositi Non civium ardor prava jubentium Non vultus instantis Tyranni Mente quatit solida neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus si fractus illabatur orbis impavidum ferient ruinae was the song of the Heathen which I mention to our shame and not with much delight in reading Heathen Authors that we should be so ungrateful as not to commemorate in our minds at least the worth of such men as neither Turns nor Times Tyrants nor Tempests Troubles nor Thunderbolts that have rent the heavens crackt the clouds and split the very foundations could ever remove or slacken in their constancy to the cause and Commonwealth Now that Mr. B. who of any hath so little knowledge of this so honourable a person must be the man to abuse him or us rather with such black reports of him to the world and at such a TIME too wherein he was and is wholly taken up with that which he prefers above his daily food or I think his life viz. the service of the PUBLICK is an Argument sufficient that he went to the Philistimes to make and to whet his TOOLS because he could finde no SMITHS in Israel that could make such a KEY or a Key with such wretched Wards in it as I fear if the Lord prevent not will let more into Hell then into Heaven or happiness And whether some that were ingaged for the King or against the Cause Commonwealth and this Parliament did not prompt him to it or were the bellows of his forge to blow up the sparks of his discontent into such open flames and luculent firebrands of malignity is to me a Question almost out of Question if I look but into his Preface and see in the Margin of it how highly he extols the E. of Lauderdale as his helper in it Yea whether it were not designed and TIMED on purpose to perplex this person of honour as well as others in Parliament or to give them a Diversion from the PUBLICK into a private vindication of themselves and of their unblemished names had they thought it worthy and thereby to have left the House whiles the Adversaries should have carried all therein more without opposition for the interest of a single Person and against the Commonwealth or otherwise that these ulcerous defamations might pass uncontrouled spread further and further amongst the credulous vulgar upon their silence and want of leasure to rescue their reputations from such horrid impeachment But these Gentlemen perferring their Christian names above their Sir-names have left their innocence to the omniscience of God and the testimony of it to the Multiscience of us who know them without the least vacillation of their restored lustre whose wonderful constancy is a most worthy Antidote to the poison of the Pens and Parts of their enemies I am not for my own Part of any party sect nor faction nor am I of that number Mr. B. charges or covers with his blackest clouds of contumely Neither have I any mans person in admiration nor am I put on by any but the Lord and I hope his own Spirit for love of the truth and of the PUBLICK lest that should suffer by it to ward off such Cowards blows as come behind them so unworthily and bite them so unwarily whiles they are swallowed up in the insuperable necessities and inseparable affairs of the Publick Weale so as that without palpable injury thereunto they have neither leasure to minde nor make answer if they would without it be with the blessed Patience of Christ who opened not his mouth Isai 53. 7. in Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he So opens not his mouth Who when he was reviled he reviled not again but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2. 23. and with the commendable Patience of Pericles that could not be provoked by an Enemy but when one went railing upon him to his very door in the night he bid his man to light him home with his own TORCH and of another that said O! that these men could rule their tongues as well as we our ears their pens as we our spirits Now that it may appear to Mr. B. that he had need to be forgiven his traducing of them and his seducing of others as well as be redeemed from the great evils and temptations of BOTH I hope it will not be imputed presumption or unkindness if I present him for the present with a little tast from his own words of the notorious wrong that he hath done to that wise and worthy Knight with others And 1. from his own description of a Protestant though I think it a very Lame and defective one and not plena pari ratione saith he p. 130. It is a title that accrewed to our Religion from the PROTESTING AGAINST the Romish Innovations and corruptions If those that have protested against the Romish Innovations and corruptions be Protestants then these who in his vain eye and foolish fansie of Boys-play are called Vani are Protestants having protested as far as any Protestants that Mr. B. accounts Orthodox have done Yea further then ever Mr. Baxter himself did against Romish innovations which makes him so offended and therefore to use his own words in p. 393. Scarce a man that crosseth or displeaseth i. e. dissenteth from and disobeyeth the uncharitable Clergy but he is stigmatized for an Heretick and charged with almost as much wickedness as their mouths are wide enough to utter and the ears of other men to hear These out of his own Book whereby no man can absolve him of self-condemnation in the justification of this honourable person by his own pen. 2. From his Description of a Papist in p. 392. As soon as ever any man hath received this opinion of the necessity of an universal Visible Head of the whole Church he is either a Papist or of an opinion equivalent so a little after This Errour about the necessity of an universal visible head is the very thing that turneth most to Popery Now those that he calls SEEKERS and in a Satyrical Vane VANISTS Anabaptists Sectaries c. hold no universal visible head nor any other over the Church but Jesus Christ And therefore are not within the compass of his description of a Papist Nay are further off with his leave
not or cannot be a Commonwealth and this I presume is undenyable by all that we may be a Commonwealth without them Therefore they were not the chief prolifical cause nor had they the chief projecting Hand or Head in the procreation of this Common-wealth 4. Had this Commonwealth been the BIRTH or fruit of Popish Seminaries we should have seen it not only in some conformation of Parts i. e. Homogenean with Popery long ere this but in some semblance or similitude like unto the Parents of it either in Specie or Figura in kind or in feature since it is so natural for Parents to beget children like to themselves as it is said of Adam Gen. 5. 3 He begat a son in his own LIKENESSE and after his own IMAGE But the parts of this our Commonwealth have little conformity to or similitude with Popery or Jesuitism Parsons Watson or Campanella and therefore sure could not be of their begetting 5. I cannot believe that those Jesuites or any other had the SPERMATICK power of producing this Commonweale from the Temper Motion and Nutrition of it Had it been theirs it would have been of a more immoderate bloudy cruel Temper burning with an unnatural Jesuitick heat Hippocrates de diaeta saith That the soul steals into one that is begotten as a thing that consists in a mixture of FIRE and WATER Had the Popish or Jesuites soul stole into this Commonwealth to animate it or to make it Luculent with their flames it would have been more violent Hectick and hot with their fiery spirit of Persecution and have received all or much of it's Alimentary moisture and nutrition from their holy or unholy water But the true Genius and spirit of this Commonwealth inclines more to a Theocratick Liberty both to us as CHRISTIANS and as MEN and the TEMPER of it is more EQUAL and ought to be proportioned of all the different Elements in Harmony orderly mingled and balanced to a Right Use of functions So it 's NOURISHMENT even in the Womb of it was from the choisest and best bloud in the whole Nation that adhered most constantly to the Cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and yet is maintained by the Lives Bloud Liberties and Abilities of the BEST and the furthest off from Papists or Jesuites in all these Nations Therefore it cannot be the same which Parsons Watson or those that plotted in K. J's days Nor are the Grounds considerable Mr. P. and B. produce to evidence it by As first the Speeches of O. Cromwel to the Clergy 1653. and to his Assembly at Westminster Sept. 4. 1654. That he knew Emissaries of Jesuites never came over in such swarms as since the late Wars and his being Protector reflects not upon the Commonwealth but upon that Apostacy which bred an Indulgence to them Familiarity and Correspondence with them as Sir Ken. Digby Mazarine c. who rather gave their instructions against the Commonwealth and for the reducing us under a Single Person or King again so little friendship had they to THIS Commonwealth So secondly that Owen Ro Oneal in Ireland and the King of Spain Capitulated for terms of Peace with this Commonwealth was not from any good-will they had to IT but to themselves and their own security and upon meer Politick grounds of State after the Law and wisdom of Nature and of Nations to seek their own safety and not any other ways as I know of 3. Much less are they discharged of Allegiance or obligations to the King which were naturally dissolved with his death and Government or the Engagement of the Common-wealth To be true and faithful to it without a King or house of Lords any rational evidence of it as laid by Papists or Jesuites but the quite contrary So 4. Nor the Wars with Scotland to keep up the Commonwealth and defend it from that cruel Confederacie of Rezin and Remaliah who said Let us go up against Judah and vex it let us make a breach therein and set up a King in the Midst of them even the Son of Tabeal after THAT Government had been dissolved too Root and Branch amongst us So that it was not as Mr. P. sayes p. 48. without provocation and the Greatest too that could be This Commonwealth being but on the defensive part Also the sufferings of Mr. Prin Sr. W. Waller Sr. John Clotworthy c. and afterwards of Mr. Love and the Ministers which I take no pleasure to rake into some of them being now at Rest with the LORD where Calvin and Luther are agreed and so shall we most happily seem to many to have been brought upon themselves by their dayly and incessant indeavours to destroy the Commonwealth and so to ingage us in Blood again for that end Agents and Instruments being imployed to buy Arms raise Monies and Armies for the K. of Scots against this Commonwealth so that their sufferings the Recoile of their own Motions cannot appear to me to be of the Jesuites laying or plotting but to arise rather from themselves through a Principle of self-preservation and Publike Safety on our part which the Laws of Nature and of Nations teach us By this the Reader may see what a wretched JURY it is Mr. Prynne as he calls it p. 50 51. has packt or impannelled together to condemn the innocent Commonwealth with how liable both He and They are to our just and lawful Exceptions and how little proof they make or Evidence they take for an Impartial Verdict upon the matter as the proper Child of Father Parsons or the Jesuites And upon the whole I am ready in my Reason to conclude 1. That it is one of the most subtile Arts and Plots which the Jesuites have to make us believe that to be their SPAWN which they never had the least Sperma of either in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Power or the Being of it nay which they most deadly hate and is most against their very nature on purpose to fright us from it when they have no better way to beat us off it and to turn that out at the BACK-DOOR which they cannot keep out at the FORE-DOOR This this is the very thing that they designe in it And upon this it is like they may give out that they have fifteen Colledges of Quick-silver'd Seminaries and Jesuites in England and according to the Lord Cromwel his Speech Septem 4. 1654. p. 16 17. That they have a Consistory and Council that RVLES all the Affairs of England which it may be they did in his Dayes i. e. in the Apostacy from the Commonwealth and that in Rome they said about four years since They had above fifteen hundred Jesuites in England So for that smart Jesuite which Mr. P. tells us of and of his reports in p. 85 86 87. as Prodigious as Prolix I profess I fear it might be a Plot on purpose to amuze us and to make our Joult-Heads as
them in Plato's School hopping about a naked Bird with an Ecce or Behold Plato's MAN so do I these Sarcasms with an Ecce or behold the Secluded Members MAN how naked he is and obvious not only to scorn but to pity As it was said of Naaman 2 King 5. 1. That he was a great man with his master but he was a LEPER Wherefore let the Reader for a relaxation to his memory and Mr. B. for a refrication to his skill in Physick make him his Patient and a pitiful one he is as by all the indications of him specific and generic do appear and therein with prudence consider Q. 1. Whether Mr. P. when he was thrown into Hell with the other Members did not take such a surfeit that he never recovered to this hour and whether this has not broken out most lamentably in his Lips Ears Mouth Eyes and in all parts ever since and a sign that Satan smote him so as makes him a sad Spectacle to men and Angels Besides the sick morbous estate of his mind from the Blackest Choler or beds of Melancholy and whether any Pump of Tongue or Pen can be set deep enough or plied fast enough to fetch out all the filth of his foul stomack a Kitchin of uncleanness Q. 2. And whether the most loathsome stinking Nauseous stuffe which Mr. P. hath lately brought off of his filthy Concavous stomack be not contragious and dangerous to the Commonwealth and whether the very air is not infected with his breath seeing so many are fallen into Prynian fits and lie sick at heart of his foul disease Or whether the orifice of his Pylorus which was open and able to digest good things in his Pillory-suffrings be not wholly shut up and the Oeso-phagus and upper orifice only open and wide enough to let out all manner of Emets without much straining or the most ugly suffusion of his excrements upwards Q. 3. Whether he and his fellows could lie so cold as he saith in Hell p. 18. of 's Narr and be almost starved in one Night without a Notorious tremendous judgement too much like that in Mat. 8. 12. and 13. 42. seeing he hath ever since been under the Wailing and in gnashing of Teeth seeing his Tongue was then in such a flame and is still on fire as the Apostle saith Jam. 3. 6. to the endangering the whole course of Nature yea seeing the Torrid Zone of his spirit is so inhabitable for heat and wrath that a Temperate man can no more come neer him then one can take a fire into his bosom and not be burnt Prov. 6. 27. 4. Q. Whether Mr. P's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Madness be not caused by too much Blood in his Brains since the King's death And whether his strange conceits staring eyes tickling ears roving fancies rambling head and ravening appetite after Kingship are not evident symptoms to sober men of his fearful Madness and Folly And whether the best and most ordinary way of Cure be to let him Bloud under the Tongue or to lay some of the Horse Leaches to suck him from the forehead to the fundament or shall he be left to the extraordinary way of laying him up warm in St. Martins straw to cure him of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or brutish madness 5. Q. Whether besides his Surfeit cold and madness which he catch'd in Hell he were not grievously Bewitched like the Galatians Chap. 3. 1. in another case from the Truth of the Cause seeing ever since at his long and strong strains he hath raised up as a man in much torture amongst other stuff the veriest Trash rubbidge stones straws gravel iron nails that can be and what not And seeing nothing will serve him but that the Rotten Corpse of the old constitution might be raised to life which because we cannot believe practicable or possible he sub-poena's us for this with a legend of lies like that poor man the Popish legend tells of a Guest at a feast at Benonia where a Cock was dress'd at Dinner and carved out in the Dish but this man denyed that St. Peter was able to restore this COCK to life again and believe it who will the Cock or rather the Devil leaped up and crew and slew and with clapping of his wings scattered the broath all about but punished severely this unbeliever And so because we deny that their Carcass of the old constitution can come to life again till the great day we shall all be punish'd when the Devil hath done it and played his part fully in it if they prevail 6. Q. Whether Mr. P. were not poyson'd with conceits seeing he hath swollen so big ever since or were not possessed with Legions seeing matters in his Books are expressed with such variety change of Voices And whether M. P. doth ride better in a false-gallop of words or like a mad-man for matter or be in both HIGH Post for the King of Scots by Summoning the Cavaliers p. 92 93. of 's Narr and blowing his Horn beforehand to make way for his worship whiles the merit of his Argument creeps like a Creple and Lackquies after to little purpose sence or reason so that Mr. B. had need to set up St. Andrews Cross to carry it on better 7. Q. Whether any Emperour King or Potentate on earth can be more loaded with accumulation of titles to make him proud and keep him in the Heralds Books then this Aut'-Encomiast p. 40. of 's Nar. A member of the old Parliament a Covenanter a Protestor a Lawyer a Scholar a Man that 's well an Englishman and a Christian so in other places a Gentleman a Squire a Bencher a Barrister and why not a Barreter too to make up the number Whether these be not too many for any honest man alive unless a Lawyer and whether this does not fill Mr. P. with as much Pride as the great Cham of Tartaria had whose servants when he had dined used to sound the Trumpet of it at his gates and thereby give leave to the Kings of the earth that they with manners might go to their Dinners but not before 8. Q. Whether Generation be not from the brain seeing Mr. P's has had such an illegitimate and mighty issue of late and whether it be not as likely as what Albertus Magnus tells us of a Stage-player who when he was dead and opened but little of his brains were left he had spent so much upon his Harlots that if Mr. P's brains be opened after his decease and the battlements of his Skull razed down we shall not see how lavish he has been of the powder and shot of his spinal marrow upon others and yet the Skull be kept for the sake of his DRY-MOUTH to make a Delphian Oracle of against the Sectaries so called seeing Macarius of Alexandria did interrogate a Skull in the name of Jesus till it said or the Devil in it rather that the Hereticks were in the lowest hell meaning
having a Parliament being banished for many years and the ordinary discourse of the Courtiers then was against Parliaments as injurious to the Kings Prerogative This continued until Firebrands that had been kindling by it were laid together in Scotland and there began first to FLAME about the ears of the Clergy and their Liturgy An. 1637 8 and 9. The King raised an Army against them and notwithstanding the Pacification of 18 June 1639. he resolved to have War with the Scots told some Lords about him Decemb. following he would call a Parliament in England the noyse of which made the People amazed I so long had they been without it and so little expectation had they of it whiles the King sends his bosome and Cabinet-Counsellour Strafford into Ireland to call one there to raise him monies but on the 13th of April it was convened and on the 5th of May dissolved again and some of the Members vizt Sir John Hotham Mr. Crew Mr. Belliesis imprisoned the Lord Brooks Plundred and the King goes on with the War against the Scots until about 20. of the English Earls Lords and Barons Petitioned to him at York to call a Parliament that might continue until Grievances were redressed c. By which means and his unavoidable necessities together he could not help it but summon the Long Parliament who seeing the people so miserably robbed of their Rights drew up a Bill for triennial Parliaments which the King signed 15. Pebr. 1640. Also an Act of Parliament was passed by King Lords and Commons then in being That this Parliament shall not be dissolved without it be by Act of Parliament and the Ground is exprest in it viz. The fears jealoustes and apprehensions that His Majesties Subjects have that this present Parliament may be adjourned prorogued or dissolved before Iustice be executed Grievances redressed c. With what confidence then can Mr. B. put in such an ingredient and so dangerous a one to make up his first Pill or Prop. to purge the Army with and to scour their Consciences To his second Prop. It was not the old Cause for the People to have right to choose a House of Commons to exercise the whole soveraignty c. Answ And who saith it was I pray not the Healing Quest. I am sure neither do the Commonwealths-men say it that the people have any Right to choose any House of Commons at all seeing it is utterly inconsistent with the Free-State and principles of it to have any such House as a House of Commons and more to have them as such exercise the whole Soveraignty of the Nation But here he contends with himself alone As I have seen a Puppy play prettily with his own tail weary himself and lie down when he has done For to what purpose is this Pill of Fumitory unless to fetch away Melancholy Fumes and make us laugh a little at all their weakness and folly To his third Prop. It was none of the old cause to assert the peoples Soveraignty Answ But it was their old cause to assert their Rights I am sure both as men and as Christians and this is one the Healing Quest saith and a natural one which all the Adherents to this Cause against the King have recovered through mercy if they can but keep it viz. to keep the Primary power under God and Jesus Christ or the power of chusing their own Rulers into the Supreme trust And this was we find by a little Retrospection declared for both by Parliment and Army Act of Parl. March 17. 1648. St. Albans Remonstrance in the Scotish Declarations and a many others So that this his salt Pill of poly-podium will serve for nothing but to make a man cough complain or else to choak him quite To his fourth Prop. It was not the Cause to change the constitution of the Commonwealth into any other form of Government then what we found in it Answ What ever was the Cause that was the effect and an inevitable EFFECT of the Wars I am sure though I confess the CAUSE of it lay in my judgement more on the Kings part according to the Parliaments own words of 20. March 1642. That whensoever the King maketh War that it tendeth to the dissolution of his Government So that Sublatâ Causâ tollitur effectus had he not made the War he had not destroyed his Government it is like Nor doth this lay the Guilt of the bloud upon the Parliament as he pretends but upon the King and his evil Counsellours who destroyed him and his posterity as well as that Constitution of Government by it And albeit no one part had authority to destroy the other and set it self in the room of the whole as King to destroy the Commons or Commons the Lords and set it self up as HOUSE of COMMONS yet had they a Power to destroy one another and to kill themselves if they would as the King did and so consequently the Lords and then the House of Commons as the Commons-House which are all dissolved with that CONSTITUTION of GOVERNMENT by a Felo de se indeed 2. Nor is the Platform of King Lords and Commons the Fundamental Constitution but rather imposed upon the people as has been often proved by the learned in History And 3. Though this were not the ULTIMATE in our eye yet the Peoples Rights and properties which fell in naturally to them were in their eye ULTIMATELY and intentionally amongst other things of higher concernment viz. the Kingdom of Christ throughout the management of this cause Now where the people have the greatest propriety and interest to out-balance as it was in this cause they must naturally fall into that Balance which is in a Commonwealth and can fix for security and satisfaction in nothing less be it ever so beyond our first intentions or second But for my part I cannot find one word in the Healing Quest that saith it was our cause intentionally to alter that constitution though that effect was given in as a blessing supplement and success unto this cause but that we have a Right to a Civil incorporation and society distinct from that of the old constitution now dissolved by its self and it's inorable adherents So that as the CYNICK ran to the mark for fear the Archer should hit him when he shot at Rovers we may run to the Healing Quest and never fear that he will hit or hurt us or can come neer us for ought I see This is his fourth Pill as bitter as Aegrimony it may serve to make a body sick and to make him stare but not to cure or comfort him in the least His fifth Prop. is of the matter asserting the Parliaments Declaration for the Kings person Priviledges of Parliament c. which is fully answered in Mr. P's Cause stated and stunted p. 5 6 7 8 10 11. to the very same Declarations and
Arguments wherein is proved that in Sensu Composito every tittle and Punctilio of all those Declarations and Protest is kept in this Cause of the Commonwealth so far as it comprehends all in the sence end and equity thereof wherein the Letter or forme was incapable or incompatible besides the very words of the Covenant are for the person of the King in and no otherwise but in the defence of the true Religion and liberties of the people Now so far as any of these or all these can or could possibly consist together viz. in the liberties of the people they are conserved to this very day Therefore this Pill being the same with the other though it be a little bigger will work but little better and so I leave it His sixth Prop. which is the main That it was none of the old Cause that the people should have Liberty and the Magistrate have no power in all matters of Gods worship faith and Conscience And here I cannot but observe how unworthily or like the false witness M. B. deals with this honourable Author again after a superficial complement which he would never give before nor nothing like it in 's Key for Cath. saith he Without any exception restriction or limitation that I can find he expresly extendeth the Case to matters of Religion or that concern the worship of God p. 5. and to matters of faith and Conscience p. 6. yea all matters and that the Magistrates must fear and forbear intermedling with whereas he knows and saith it but a little before that the persons spoken of are the whole body of honest men adherents to this Cause and is that no restriction I believe Mr. B. thinks it one and a close one too to him for the truth is the Author of the Healing Quest is pleading for them especially that have adhered to the cause and for their Rights and Freedom of Conscience under different apprehensions and opinions yet in the general for that natural right freedom and liberty which Christ hath purchased by his bloud and may not that be admitted who dares hinder it does he say any more then so But to see how like a SOPHIST his Antagonist quotes him as if he had a mind to imitate the Grand accuser of the Brethren Mat. 4. 6. who left out IN ALL HIS WAYS Mr. B. leaves out the most significant and considerable Clause even of the SAME sentence to spoil the sence or play the Tempter with For the Healing Quest saith That all Magistrates are to fear and forbear intermedling with here M. B. skews out of the way now as if he were scared or feared that his FOLLY would appear to all men to proceed with the same sentence which he most rudely abruptly and ungrammatically Lacerates at the very preposition without the Case that follows it with giving rule or imposing in those matters Therefore nail up this counterfeit Reader upon the next Post lest it pass for CURRANT and then consider does this discharge the Magistrate of his duty or don 't he rather charge him with what is not his duty that would have the Magistrate to impose upon us in the worship of God and matters of Conscience that are out of a Civil consideration and meerly spiritual so that all the Healing Quest. offers p. 7. is The Magistrates forbearing to put forth the power of Rule and Coertion in things that God hath exempted out of his Commission This is all and these are the very words And is this so wicked a Cause as Mr. B. calls it or which deserves such a scarifying or Cauterizing brand and denomination of wickedness and falshood as he puts upon it But if I may give him the Brand for falsifying so for the Question is saith he whether the Magistrate may restrain them from propagating a false faith or Infidelity and drawing others into it But stay Sir Whose Question is it do you think to catch old Birds AUCUPIIS or with your chaff 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with empty words abusive nothings for who I pray makes this the Question but your self not the Healing Quest I can affirm for that which he saith is only about the Magistrates not compelling or imposing in the matters of God not about this restraining of Papists or Infidels though some there be that question the extent of his power meerly for their faith or worship yet it is not so much as mentioned by the Healing Quest. Upon this the poor man to finde himself work enough with his own pretty Paralogisms and Sophisms and so to make sport for our money lest we take him for a Pick-pocket he spends at one clap 6. or 7. pages very generously to prove what none denies that it was neither the Cause nor the good Cause to Countenance POPERY Mahumetism c. Notwithstanding it never entered into the Question and so his Answers are shot in the Air or at himself all the way being in nothing adequated or adapted to the Case But saith Mr. B. He hath not excepted Popery c. and if worship be out of the Magistrates reach then so is Mass Under due correction and with due respect to his gravity and the Ministry he Reasons neither like a Christian nor like a Logician 1. It is not like a Christian to traduce Sir H. V. so as if Popery c. were not excepted in the Healing Quest when the Case it's self is and the whole discussion both for matter and forme to the Body of ADHERENTS to the Cause most proximately exclusive of Popery infidelity and unchristianity in worship as fully as ever it was in the times of the Wars with the King and highest attempts or contests with the Biships before But Psal 50. 16. with 19 20. What hast thou to do to count up my statutes Thou givest thy mouth to evil thy tongue joyneth with deceit thou sittest and speakest against thy brother thou titten dophi givest a double mouth of thy mothers son 2. Nor like a Logician in his rambling from the verity of the matter and very principles of demonstration for that Propositions ought to be true de omni and the Predicate to agree with the Subject in every thing but to help the Reader a little out of the snare of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fallacie which lies in the Ambiguity of the PROP. viz. If worship be out of the Magistrates reach then so is Mass to speak ad Rhombum and not to ramble from what the Healing Quest affirms it is out of the Magistrates reach of imposing or compelling us to Mass For all that honourable person saith is that the Magistrate might forbear Coertion in the worship of God Neither doth he say as Mr. B. by his fallacie would insinuate that Magistrates have nothing to do but that this they ought not to do viz. impel or impose in the worship of God upon our Consciences and so Mass Mahumetism and all false Religion is
discourage and punish Rom. 13. 3 4. and so saith the Healing Quest upon these reasons p. 7. That it is not good for the people to be brought up in a biting devouring wrathful spirit one against the other or be found to do that to another which we would not have them do to us were we in their condition Now this is the Golden Rule indeed were it but answered with Silver Practices and so no Consciences could be imposed upon in the worship of God Besides for himself and that party Mr. B. urgeth a necessity of liberty of Conscience as we heard when it comes to his own Case in his Preface to the Army which puts me in mind of Opimius a Covetous Citizen of Rome in a desperate Lethargy out of which no pinching cupping nor cuffing could keep him awake till his Physitian commanded store of money to be poured out and told on a Table hard by him at the noise whereof and at the Doctors loud cry Opimius Opimius look to thine own it is thine own he awakes and was CURED was cured and so may Mr. B. of this Errour But to proceed Mr. Burroughs also in his Vindic. against Edwards's Gangrene saith he Hainous actions and turbulent carriages do come within the Magistrates Cognizance indeed but they are not fit Judges of Religion or matters of faith And therefore the Magistrates we hope do and will understand us That we are as tender of their Honour interest and Place and as ready to serve them with our Lives as any men alive are as active for them and would not for a World be without them or not give them their due in all their civil capacities and commands all we can as to a most precious Ordinance of God that we can be no more without then the Sun to Rule by day and the Moon by night but onely in these things that are more promixely and immediately under Christs Government and Jurisdiction in the matters of Gods holy worship we dare not and therefore would not willingly be imposed upon And this is all that Mr. B. makes so much noise about in this his Prop. traducing this prudent and most pious Asserter of our Liberties for that he takes the goodness of our cause to give us this Christian liberty The Army now may see the ingredients of this purging pill partly consisting of the Iesuites-powder and partly of Mr. B's own sine quibus esse nolo compounded on purpose to work out the mixed humors of the Army and to work in those simple down-right inimical spirits in stead thereof as would produce the utter destruction not only of the body but indeed of the very soul and vttals of this Commonwealth It was a bloudy Papist whose ENMITY was so great to the poor Protestants that he would make them first abjure the reformed Religion and immediately upon it massacre them saying O noble revenge that did reach as well to the killing of their souls as of their bodies And some are much of the Orators opinion Pythea an Athenian who thought he never did evil but when he did the worst sort of evil as if to suggest a false witness or to calumniate were a little matter and venial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it is not only an evil to do an injury but to imagine or design it His 7. Prop. is That it is not the PARTY that hath owned and now owneth the fore-described cause that have the right nor is any man to be devested of that right for not owning it Answ The fallacy lies 1. In that PLEONASM of his own invention viz. fore-described cause as he hath described it we grant but as the Healing Quest. describes it we deny his Prop. There be two Extreams men have a mighty propension to in their stating of the cause both which are wisely avoided by the Healing Quest. 1. That wherein men do give up our Cause to meerly Natural right without respect at all to the forfeitures of them that have warred fought against it betrayed it and given up their Interest in it to the King or a Single person putting all into a like capacity viz. The Cavaliers Common-enemies to this right and the faithful Adherents to the Cause the Conquered and the Conquerours upon such Grounds too are very dangerous and destructive to the Cause Mr. Harrington and others go that way 2. That wherein upon the single account of our Conquests others go to the challenging of their Rights and Liberties and staring of the Cause without any consideration at all of the Natural Rights and Freedom which people have to choose their Representatives in the Commonwealth this way Mr. Feake and others go The first fix it upon a meer humane Foot and the last upon a meer Religious in 's Beam of Light But both these Extreams are very excellently waved and yet the substance of both as admirably and amiably comprehended in the Healing Quest. wherein the Cause is set upon both it's feet 1. Both to men as men And 2. to Christians as such upon the twofold Right 1. of Nature and 2. of Conquest pag. 3. or rather their Natural right to freedom in CIVILS and in SPIRITUALS which we are restored unto and fortified in under God by success of Arms. And in this state of the Question we may close with Mr. B's words That it is impious and injurious to set up a party for the whole but not as he states it Wherein no distinction must be put between Commonwealth Traytors and True men or between the Conquered and the Conquering between Kinglings and the faithfullest friends of the cause It is as just and honest to call up Thieves and Murtherers at the Bar that have forfeited their Natural Rights and Liberties to sit upon the Bench and there to judge in their own Cause their Accusers and the Witnesses as it is for those Men who have forfeited their Liberties c. betrayed their Country robb'd plunder'd and destroyed the People in the Kings quarrel to be invested or possess'd with the Power or Priviledges of the Commonwealth equally with others of untainted and spotless integrity The truth of this I find confirmed in all the Commonwealths that I have met with and most in the most eminent where as Arist tells us in 3. lib. Polit. c. 7. Bonos aequos dominari oportet autoritatemque habere omnium So a little after speaking of the exercise power and priviledges of the Republick he saith Quos si Boni semper habeant necessarium est alios excludi ab honoribus Rei-publicae The good just and faithful ought to Govern and others to be excluded that are insane and unsutable to the Weale of the Publick For it must be an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not for all without distinction but for them to Govern that are the best Tempered with justice and mercy to do right to all in the exercise of
and then brand them with the like Infamy for the veriest that ever breath'd on English Earth or in English Air. And now let the Parliament Army and all good people that are sound in their sences judge it seriously Whether it is the Honourable Author of the Healing Question as much as he is maligned and menaced by all Parties or Mr. B. in 's Wounding Answer that hath asserted the Ill Cause and deserted the Good And which of them come neerest to the constitution of a Free-State and which of the TWO it is that hath given away that worthy Argument by which he should prove himself an honest man to use Mr. B's own words vizt his Charity But in the winding up of our Discourse I am surprized or way-laid with Mr. Harringtons correspondence with him against an Oligarchy I wish it had been as much against Anarchy and Atheisme if he means by it the present Parliament or such a Parliament or the Body of Adherents to the CAUSE as one of them I believe he must and some say All wherein Mr. B. and he agree but when he tells us his meaning without mumping or scoffing which we must understand before we reply He may hear further And at the present in the words of Hen. 8. but on better grounds From their Old Mumpsimus and his New Sumpsimus Good Lord deliver us But I shall give you my grounds seeing Mr. B. hath brought him to hand as his confederate and shall modestly discuss it with him and them of the late Petition July 6. to the Parliament many of whom I dearly respect and yet I cannot but wonder how busie some are in this work of refunding retunding and confounding us in our Cause not onely with old Popish Mumpsimus's but with new Sumpsimus's and Idea's exhibited to the Parliament like the CHAOS indeed but to enucleate first the Preamble of that Petition 1. I judge it is a little too positive and reflective though couchant under smooth and candid expressions as if we had been hurried after an appearance or shadow in lieu of our undubitable Rights and as if that since the dissolution of that form of Government by K. Lords and Commons a new constitution viz. of Free-State had not been provided for which was evidently done and setled in several Acts of Parliament as Jan. 20. 1648. March 17. 1648. May 14. 1649. July 17. 1649. The words of one are these Whereas the Parliament hath abolished the Kingly Office in England and Ireland c. And having Resolved and Declared that the People for the future shall be governed by its own Representatives and National Meetings in Council chosen and intrusted for that purpose hath setled the Government in a Commonwealth and Free-State without King or House of Lords Be it Enacted c. And yet say these Friends in their Petition p. 4. Your mindes are not Setled on any known Constitution of Government or Fundamental Orders according to which all Laws should be made wherein they are too positive and upon such mistakes and pre-occupations might gratifie our Enemies too too much had they upon this false conception come up to any maturity by the late Apostacy or in this NEW-CONSPIRACIE against the Commonwealth For Mr. Harrington and that Petition strike at the very Root Fundamental and Constituting Acts of Parliament as well as at the very BEING integral Parts of our Cause so long contended for and crowned at last through the Lords blessing I cannot proceed without precaution seeing as Cic. says Omne malum nascens facile opprimitur inveteratum fit plerunque Robustius it is easie to crush Evil in the Egg and as Solomon says Eccles 8. 5. A wise man discerneth both the time and the Judgment 1. At the Foundation of our Settlement in Anno 1648. for that they propound Two Houses of Parliament under new names indeed viz. of a Senate and of a Popular Assembly so Oceana p. 13 14. and Petition p. 8. which appears to me repugnant and Diametrick to our dear Cause to the Acts of Parliament and to our Engagements viz. To be faithful to the Government as it now stands without King or House of Peers Now Aristotle in 's Politic. 5. lib. c. 4. tells us of two waies to destroy a COMMONWEALTH Quandoque per vim Quandoque per dolum Per Vim aut statim aut posteà compellendo Per Dolum non nunquam enim decepti ab initio Suâ demum sponte Recipiunt alium Gubernandi Modum c. Sometimes it is done by Force and sometimes by Fraud in the last sence when mistaken at the first laying it they by perswasion or voluntarily fall into another manner of Government This is a dangerous CRISIS and the Athenians had the sad experience of such Commutations through proclivity to Noveltie and New Changes as Act. 17. 21. They spent their time in it So AELIAN Lib. 5. c. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Athenians were given to change in the State of the Commonwealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I can't commend it it is an OMEN which shall never have my AMEN so long as I see it conduceable to the dissolution of the Whole if they have not special care to preserve the Constitution which with two such Bodies I do not so well understand And I wonder which is more monstrous in Nature a Vast Body with two Heads or a Head with two Huge Bodies and how prodigious and dreadful will their motions be if one go one way and the other another like the Amphisbaena let right Reason judge But besides this that which hath the most impression is the easie Access of a Single Person called with us the Third State by it And this is evident not onely in Reason but in Practice as in the Lacedemonian and Athenian Commonwealths For in the First after Lycurgus's death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lacedemonians instituted the Court of the Ephors who had the chief Power in the Commonwealth for none stood or were raised up but a King and the Ephor So that a single Person had an Executive Power there But if a nimble Wit will without ground object that this Commonwealth was imperfect or degenerate we might instance in Athens the Pattern of all that they set before us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In like manner the Athenians instituted eleven men to take the care of Prisoners and nine Archons of which were the Thesmothets who were throughly tryed and sworn to do righteously in the Magistracie not to take Bribes nor to set up again the Golden Image But the King who is said to be one of the Archons did administer the Laws which belong'd to Sacrificing and to Warring So that after this Platform are we exposed to the open Danger of a Single Person or a King and of giving the Power of Religion and Worship into the hands of the Magistrate not answerable to the Rules of Christ our Cause nor
with their Bobbins they may bob our ears bravely with a Garrulous Rule and when they lag in their Bone-lace they may lace our bones for Logger-Heads to let them lay down the Distaff and take up the Scepter leave the Spindle and divide the Spoil yea then sit like Meg-Pies at their doors Dumb Saints in their Idols Churches Goats in their Gardens Devils in their houses Angels in the Streets and Syrens at their Windows as they say of the Italians for when they can live no longer by their Work they shall live by their Wits in Mr. Har's Commonwealth that sifts our the best and keeps in the worst to make his Cake with But in Lacedemon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lycurgus the Son of Eunomus willing to endow the Lacedemonians with their dues in Righteousness and Justice took not away any worthy or good Reward from any one And the Thebans to incourage Dignity and keep up the Honour of Magistracie from contempt made a Law Vt nemo habilis esset ad Honores Reipublic suscipiendos nisi Decem Annis à Mercatur â destitisset c. That no man should be accounted qualified for the Honours of the Commonwealth i.e. in Magistracy unless he had first left his Merchandizing ten years Such a care had they to keep out the Joans and Toms which M. H. admits by turns and times as the Rotation boults them into the Government and their Betters out And what was said of Clisthenes an Athenian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might possibly be applied to Mr. H. were their Rogation effected that he was one of the first that introduced this Government by Ostracisme and one of the first that felt it and would have retro-duced it The first that brought it in and the first that it wrought out Therefore let him secure his own Bull before he baites anothers and take his Play 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly I would willingly be informed how his New Platforms or Principles Paganish or Popish fetch'd from Athens or from Venice can without cruciating extremities and applications be adequated to our Commonwealth under Christian profession so that Quae semel possidebant Papiste semper possideant Rapiste what the Papists once had Rapists and Ravenous ones would ever have viz. our Rights and Liberties from us Nor could it be acquired I think without greater Advantages to Papists Atheists then to us seeing the very interest of the Son of God and Saints in the Nation the best and noblest Cause on earth in all the integrating Parts thereof and Adherents thereto is not taken Notice of in his Platforme neither in the Balance nor the Wheel in the Ballot nor Rotation or Rogation of it so that Differs curandi tempus in Annum Quicquid delirant Reges Plectuntur Achivi I may conclude with Mr. B. p. 240. That God having already given us the best Fundamental Laws Let us have but good Magistrates and we shall have good Derivative Laws or humane It was a Law amongst the Cretians that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that their children should learn their Laws with Melody that from the MUSICK they might take great pleasure in them and more easily commit them to memory We need no such Law to endear or dulcifie our Cause or the Laws of it in the Commonwealth If the foundation of it be that which the Hand of the Almighty hath laid amongst us both for Church and State from Christian principles rather then from Paganish or meer Morals it will make most excellent Harmony in the ears and Hearts of all men and Christians And the Governours of Judah shall say in their heart The Inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my Strength in the Lord of Hosts their God Zach. 12. 5. Thus our Governours thought of them in the days of straits and will again see it one of their best interests to have their Prayers and their God as well as their Purses and Bloud engaged for them and not disoblige them upon jealousies suggested by the enemy who for their virgin-fidelity and untainted adherence to the Cause may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lacedemonians did their wives after their innocency did break out and get above the clouds of suspicion and reproach But if after all they will be planting and founding us again in the spirit of the Nation as if God had owned no Cause or made no signal discrimination or shaken no such foundations of the earth c. which their Lord General pretended as one ground of their interruption which Mr. H. others would hurry them into to the endangering of the Cause and the disobliging the Adherents Then will the Iehovah that keepeth Covenant with his people and not alter the thing that is gone out of his lips Psal 89. 34. Acts 2. 30. and 3. 20 21. raise up others in their stead to carry on this his cause both in the civils and the spirituals and to forme another People for himself to shew forth his praise Isa 43. 21. Then they that Rule over men shall be just ruling in the fear of God and they shall be as the light of the morning when the Sun ariseth A Morning without clouds and as the tender grass that springeth out of the earth by a clear shining after rain 2 Sam. 23. 3 4. which that these may be agrees better with my Prayer then with his Proposals I am sure But thus I leave him whom Mr. B. had Coyted as a stumbling-block before me whom I am not only gotten over but I presume have given a good lift to the removing of him out of others way as to the right foundation of the Common-wealth and stating of the Cause So that from this time forward we need no Luxuriant wit or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him a vomitting as Mr. P's followers Pamphlet it a Commonwealth and others qui sputum lingunt who lick up any thing as haurient and attractive of the stuff as Galaton did picture out Homer in his strains and other Poets a supping up what he so exuberously vomited out Neither need we answer him with much more then the German Min. wrote in his Study when the Devil did disturb him and look over his shoulder But the Son of God came to dissolve all the works of darkness which his enemy no sooner read but vanished Now to conclude with Mr. B. for Mr. H. I met with but in the way with his Mummers and those that ride in post use to take fresh horses for present Service but look no more after them thus does Mr. B. make use of Mr. H. no otherwise I would if he were capable of hearing me for the noise of DRVMS assure him that not a desire to rake into any Mans failings having so many of mine own by which the Lord is pleased to keep me most busie at home under the sence and burthen of them or to pick out the evils without due
the Capitol and in his Orations against Catiline his Philippicks against M. Antony And de Lege Agrariâ against P. Servilius Rullus the Tribune and others to all which we might add Brutus's practice to prevent the Lapse by obliging the Romans in an Abjuration of KINGS and so they disposed of all the Crown-Lands to the Publick sale and tore down Tarquin's statues The like did the Hollanders by an Oath of Abjuration and the like did you before the late Apostacy but alas alas though this shews your care yet somewhat more must go to shew your skill before you perfectly cure us of this disease or of the danger of it which in the judgement of some of your mourning friends can never be by Mr. P's B's or H's Advice nor so long as the very same Humors and some of the most dangerous remains of the late Apostacy are so far from being evacuated and expulsed that they are returned again into their former Places and Capacities yea seated about in several and some in the eminentest parts of the whole body which are shrewd Symptomes of our returning again to folly if the Lord prevent not for in a course of Reason what will the aforesaid outward means signifie if these inward causes shall remain Corruptioni conservatio est contraria saith Arist. Not that the Parliament ought to use the utmost rigor or severity in all cases of mal-administration or the like This Austerity in the Gracchi's Livy tells us did keep up the deadly feud between the People and the Senators of Rome till the Rupture of a down-right War And indeed Cleon's Oration for the utmost severity upon the Apostates from the Commonwealth of Athens viz. the Mitylenaeans after they were brought under Vt omnes Mitylenaei Puberes capitis supplicio afficerentur Venderentur pro Mancipiis conjuges liberi that the very flower and Cavalry of them be wholly cut off their wives and children sold for slaves c. was as quickly revoked by others for the utmost lenity and clemency they could shew them that did consist with the safety and tranquillity of the Commonwealth when they saw the inconvenience of extremity on either part in another Oration At nos nunc contriarium faciemus si liberos homines qui indomiti repetiverunt libertatem rursus oppressos crudeliter puniamus Oportebat autèm non post Defectionem in homines liberos saevitiam exercere sed ante eos valdè custodire cavere ne consilia talia instituant post recuperationem quam minime eis hoc delictum exprobare But now let us do the contrary if they who were so unruly have repented and re-petitioned or desired their liberties as frée-men in the Commonwealth we may let them have them and if they offend again may punish them the more severely But it did not so much behove us after their defection or Apostacy to be cruel to them that are free-men but before rather to beware and watch lest such Counsels should establish them in their way then after their recovery to upbraid them with their Apostacy And the like Counsel was given about others whom the Athenians decreed should loose a finger or a thumb of their right hands for their defection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might be disabled from using a spear against them yet able to work or Row with their Oares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. but the Mitylenians were worse used and their youth slain So that such severity we abhor but withall we wish that the Parliament would be wary if not weary of them that yet do and will do what they can retain the same spirit of malignancy and Malevolence to the Cause and suffering servants of God that they had before so as to eye them diligently lest they settle and involve a Lapse to the Commonwealth either by revuision or reversion For what Physician to this body Polit. that sees not these the very signs of a Lapse into the late or like disease or Apostacy which arose up in this very manner from the same seat of black choler and shall we ever forget by what steps their late General mounted to the top of temptation and slept upon the top of a Mast Prov. 23. 34. when he had procured that Act of Indempnity and gotten an interest in that Party and is not this this over-iudulgence of vitious corrupt and inimical spirits in the body that which hath shortned the lives of many excellent Commonwealths was not the Roman Republick in continual fluctuations motions and a thousand hazards daily of being destroyed by the Tarquinian Parties keeping up an interest in the Commonwealth opposite to the interest of the Commonwealths and of all Governments they are most alterable and unstable Arist lib. 5. c. 12. that nourish such spirits and humors as are all for a Single Person and Ran-counter the true state of the Commonwealth to effect it So in Corinth it is true Cypselus was the longer up through his interest and favour which he had with the People as a Popular man and Periandrus his son after him being he was a brave Souldier and kept the Sword girt about him but Pisistratus who succeeded him was twice driven out of his Government and the People restless till they had secured themselves from the like attempts of a Single Person So among the Syracusans some had a mind to keep up the interest of a Single Person which the Commonwealth could not endure and until secured from such attempts was never without commotions particularly by Hieron and Gelon the last of whom got in for seven years and the first for ten years and all that ever after that attempted it brevi tempore duraverunt saith the Historian were but shot-lived How many instances might I give besides to secure us from the Lapse by a rout of those malevolent humors Heterogenean spirits and inward causes which endanger the Commonwealth and are inconsistent with it at least from PLACES most considerable or neer the heart of the Commonwealth until which no outward means will or can be a Preservative sufficient And as in Politicks so in Theocracy it is a sure Rule and requires the highest diligence industry and insight that can be Josh 24. 22 23 24. 2. Chron. 15. 2. and the promise is Dan. 2. 44. His kingdom shall never be destroyed nor left to other people Because Prov. 17. 15. He that justifies the wicked and condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord. Besides the saddest Tragedies we might tell you amongst men have had their rise from an over-indulging I mean nourishing and impowering inimical spirits in the Commonwealth as of Brutus's sons for his fathers sake Maelius and Manlius and so Sylla and Marius and a many others in the Roman Republick besides Agathocles in Sicily Cosmos and Savaranola in Florence Castrucio in Luca and of late years it is observable how the Jesuites served the King of France Hen.
4. who to gratifie the Pope and the People recalled the Jesuites that were before exiled and a monument of it set up for posterity into that Nation again by the Parliament of Paris but to his own cost for they stabb'd him quickly so dangerous is a Lapse or a Revocation of them again into trust that are or ought to be evacuated the Body Wherefore a Commonwealth in aequali must first be considered ex quali as to the quality of them that rule and are intrusted in it and not first ex quanto as Mr. H. and others would if ever we mean to keep it stable sound and immovable in it's foundation and constitution 5. Consideration That all extremities be wisely avoided and particularly this of falling into an Ochlocraty by flying out of an Oligarchy pretended As this Rule of Mediocrity is requisite in the Anatomist to make a curious and compleat Section so in the Physician as to every Potion he gives the Patient so corrected and composed as may at once both kill the Disease and keep up the spirits So in Politicks it is the Golden Rule and that which saith Arist Polit. lib. 4. c. 12. hath ever been the Cause of the long continuance of a Commonwealth Mediocritate quadam durationis causa fuit and it is observable all the time that Corinth flourished it was said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to administer a most righteous and Moderate Government as Ovid saith Medio tutissimus ibis Now it is very often that a sickly or distempered bodie doth fall out of one extremity into another out of one passion humour or danger into another Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charibdim so to shun the Sands OCEANA would cast us upon the Rocks in his Platforme or for fear a few should Rule us he would to run wide enough flinch us quite out of the way and put it into the hands of the meer Multitude or Confusion together without discrimination of friends and enemies Whereas an Oligarchy indeed is not meant the Rule of a few as p. 76. but the Tyranny of a few as in the Triumvirs and Decemvirs of Rome whom Livy describes lib. 2. to have been rather Butchers then Rulers Tormentors then Magistrates keeping up a Monarchick-interest and spirit repugnant and repudiant to a Free-state so that Mr. H. and those friends so afraid of Oligarchy would do well to tell us if such a thing rightly defined be in being or no amongst us Such were the thirty Tyrants or Oligarchy in Athens rising from the corruption of a Free-state who to use the Historians own words Non solum Improbos ac Seditiosos è medio repellerent sed etiam bones maximè ditiores aut necarent aut ex urbe repellerent were so cruel and unjust that not only wicked and seditions but good men and the best were cut off or banish'd which made Socrates complain so to Antisthenes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. When he saw so many men of repute and worth rich and of great esteem in the Commonwealth to be made away insnared or cruelly slain by the ill Government of the thirty Tyrants he said to Antisthenes Now brother let it not trouble us that we have hunted after nothing great or considerable in our kind of life seeing such Tragedies are daily perpetrated and bleeding before our eyes Such a Government of a few or Tyranny rather was an Oligarchy indeed which MALICE it's self cannot say of this Parliament or of any now in Power This was that which Theramenes one of the thirty a wise and prudent man did oppose very elegantly and gallantly hortari collegas suos caepit ut moderate non insolenter concessâ sibi potestate uterentur sed eam ob causam à Critia apud collegas reliquos accusatus fuit quasi perfide ageret 30. Tyrannorum proderet causam partes populi tueretur ideoque puaiendus è medio tollendus esset c. and began to exhort his colleagues that they would use the power granted them moderately and not so imperiously but for this cause was the good man accused by Critia to the rest as if he had done perfidiously betrayed the cause of the thirty Tyrants or Oligarchy in defending the Peoples Rights and Liberties and therefore would have had him punished and put to death But his Oration and Theramenes his defence though worth our reading I think not fit to commend to writing but refer to lib. 2. Xenoph. Junii orat 3. pt p. 29 30 31 32 33. The main Argument being taken from the example of the Lacedem Ephors By all which we finde an Oligarchy far different from what good people are apt to take it and so through mistake to hazard us with a meer confusion or Ochlocraty i. e. the Tyrannical and unruly spirit of the Multitude which hath no more mercy nor bounds in it then the Sea when broken loose And this the sad experience of old Rome hath left upon Record the people in the days of the Decemviri to avoid that Oligarchy ran into it like mad committing the most flagitious outrages of any that they might be revenged upon them of the Oligarchy And in the State of Florence one Soderino and some others kept themselves up in a Monarchick spirit of Oligarchy over the people which to avoid they ran into Tumults and fell at last like the Flounder out of the dish into the fire into a remedy as bad or worse then the disease by calling in the Spaniards It is out of doubt that an Ochlocraty is little better then a daily Massacre of the most eminent Worthies that the Commonwealth has and it saddens my Spirits to see how eager upon Mr. H. his Principles some are to put it on under a pretended danger of an Oligarchy In Theocracy there is nothing more obvious obnoxious or liable to disturb the Peace and order of the Commonwealth and it occasion'd that notorious Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram Numb 16. 2 3. who with two hundred and fifty others in anger like the Secluded Members of the chief rose up against Moses and Aaron c. as against an Oligarchy saying Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are holy every one of them So that they fell into such an Ochlocraty as cost not only the two hundred and fifty dear but the lives of 14700. in the tumult by the hand of the Lord against them so little pleasure hath he in such extremities and under the colour of flying from an Oligarchy to involve us in a worse 6. Consideration That you be exceeding wary how far you relie upon that broken reed of REASON of STATE or trust to that deceitful BOW either against your enemies or for the Cause and Adherents thereof seeing it has destroyed so many that have gone before you We mean not here the Publick Reason or right reason Reason it 's
hearty as ever went forth with YOUR ARMIES even in this Cheshire-expedition and another link is added to the long Chain by the same hand that was wont to be with us when we declared for Iesus our only King and we cannot imagine that you should lop off any thing that is his due or ever undervalue either him his Government or his dear servants if they yet must go with the brand of Sectaries seeing Valentinian Theodosius Constantine and others did stile themselves so long since vassalos Christ the very servants of â—esus Christ and Theodosius professed he accounted it more his honour to Rule like a Christian then like a King yea Augustus himself said Ei gratius erat Nomen pietatis quam Potestatis he had rather be PIOUS then powerful and it was more grateful to him O! then let our Parliament be holy and Magistrates holy But to conclude Mr. B. himself saith whom I presume you will hear when you will not me p. 221. Thes 206. It is this Theocratical polity or Divine Commonwealth which is the unquestionable Reign of Christ on earth which all Christians are agreed may be sought and that temporal dignity of Saints which undoubtedly would bless the world So in p. 223. Thes 207. I think the promoting of this holy Theocratick Government is the point of reformation that we are called to desire by them that now plead for the Reign of Christ and the Saints And what do we desire more Wherefore we hope you will see no Reason to explode them called fifth Monarchy men that are gracious and meek or Sectaries as Pope Zach. did Virg. that say there is an Antipodes and a Nadir as well as a Zenith in this Cause seeing Mr. B. is so positive in it alius est mundus alii homines sunt sub terras that the Lord has his hidden ones Psa 83. 3 4. dear to him that ought to be and we hope are so to you Right Honourable which you would do well to look after and encourage seeing the very Romans have found out the bravest men of their Common-wealth by such noble inquiries and have taken them from their Dinners of Turnips and Water-cresses as the Curii Fabritii c. to the service of the Publick saepe sub attritâ latitat sapientia veste This fit Location of the best holiest and ablest in the body and Theocratick Government will with Gods blessing prove such a settlement as shall satisfie all parties and honest interests in the Commonwealth and the best most by obviating of fears dangers threnodies temptations and our enemies designs which are very dangerous and in the Deep to invade innovate or alter when all our supplies our supports our wisedom power courage and our protections shall be assured and secured unto us by the Holy One to whom all power is given by the Lord and ought to be by men in heaven and earth For which Cause and the Commonwealth without blandishing discourses or blending affections I do profess for one amongst the thousands of Israel I am ready hearty and resolved with the Lords grace and assistance to live or to dy if every drop of bloud in my Veins spin out and Gobbet of flesh on my bones against the common enemies of Christ this Cause the Commonwealth and the Parliament be sowen like seed upon the earth let who will plow or harrow upon it I care not so it may have but a fertile Harvest for Posterity And Resurrection with the Iust men made perfect qùod si Frigida curarum fomenta relinquere posses Quò te Caelestis sapientia duceret ires Hoc opus hoc Studium parvi properemus ampli Si Patriae volumus si nobis vivere Cari. TO THE READER SIR IT is Civility to your self and service to the Truth that lets you know these Papers were in their first draught ready intended for the Publick above six weeks since before the Rebellion and in the nick of Time but the Press fell sick and hath had a Disease it was at first Costive and bound which tenasm continued till our Emollientia and Medicamenta resolventia by the help of a Silver-clyster-pipe set it a work again but then with as much danger of a Lax or Flux for these times the Press has such a Looseness as le ts out the thinnest matter with the most applause but that the supine care of the Corrector applyed such Astringents as were ready and requisite and yet some Errataes have given him the slip which the Author had no leasure to Supervise Sed ubi non sunt Errata non sunt Narrata there is nothing without them I am sure It is a pretty tale and yet a Truth for as there be Erroneous Truths so true Errours which the Press let pass upon the Bible An. 1612. in Psal 119. in stead of Princes have persecuted me that Printers have persecuted me and it is not long since Princes hindered us but to say it now of these in power is the Errata of the Times Sithence our Priviledges and Liberty to serve the Publick do publish the contrary being so piously and peaceably revolved upon us after a sable night and scandalous hour of Temptation What is scattered with the Fork I would have gathered with the Glean but that I need not be so curious if thou beest Courteous or Ingenious and as Cato said I care not much for them Who have a better judgement in their Mouthes then in their Minds in their Palates then in their Pates Besides I am called aside of a sudden into another Part of the Harvest and must leave somewhat for the Rakers as well as for the Reapers here behind me Nor indeed did I cast eye upon all the Sheets or Proofs of the Press much less time had I to Reade or to Correct them At a Perfunctory View of some Papers I saw these Errataes Page 26. l. 28. read REPUNCTION p. 27. l. 18. Autopathy p. 63. l. 26. in it p. 67. l. 16. inoculated p. 82. l. 22. Papistae l. 22. Rapistae p. 93. l. 23 r. and no considerable man p. 95. l. â— and so to all parts c. What else I know not And all I desire is but as good constructions from you as I am ready to give with the Lords grace instructions to you and to receiv from you in the furtherance of the Gospel this Cause the Kingdom and Interest of Jesus Christ and of this Commonwealth FINIS * Vide my Irenic Evang Epist to Church p. 7. Mr. Prynne's cutting up of mea alive M. Prynnes skill in Anatomy His instruments of Anatomy cruel His Anatomy hath no order in it neither 1. Dignity nor 2. in Dissection Mr. P. begins with Intrals first And so did the Sooth-sayers of old M. Prynne his own Anatomst and his friends His mistake in the subject of his Anatomy The grounds he goes upon are very mistaken and meerly fictitious Mr. P's first Discovery in his Anatomy is
a Christian Commonwealth but of Heathen Law-givers or Nomothets 2. In my apprehension submitting to better judgement it casts it's keenest Arrow at the very being principal and integral parts of the Cause which we have proved to be our Rights in civils and in spirituals without imposing upon Conscience by a National-worship For 1. In Civils they have not stated their Aequale cum justitiâ neither in Righteousness to the Cause nor indeed to the Reasons or Prudentials of their own Authors I mean the Heathens whom Mr. Har. most follows for they admit not the Holy Scriptures or our heavenly Politicks ad Theocratiam though it is like they have said it often Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven as the Woman used to say her Prayers and feed her Hens together Our Father which art in Heaven Coop coop coop coop c. Nor vouchsafe they such a value upon the series of Mercies Providences Prayers and Victories all along the late Wars as to give in one Word for Iesus Christ or his Interest in the Nations Nay leave him like a Pelican and account it Ridiculous some of them having scoffed at it openly and therefore to make my self intelligible even to Barbarians if they will be such I shall sum up an evidence against them out of Mr. Har. own Oracular Tutors and begin with Arist. in lib. 1 2 3 4 and 5. for his Correction in that most inequally equal Liberty that he and they allow to the Kings Party and them that have forfeited all not laying justice in the Foundation of their Commonwealth but planting it upon the whole multitude and community yea Oceana p. 46. saith plainly That the Royalist for having opposed the Common-wealth in OCEANA can neither justly for that cause be excluded from his full and equal share in the Government nor prudently for this that the Commonwealth with consist of a Party But how imprudently and differently from his own Authors as well as how irrationally and unjustly as to the cause Mr. H. would call the Malefactors from the Bar to the Bench and so in little time worm us quite out of our Possession and Rights that have adhered to the Cause by their Majority of Votes throughout the Nation that have not is worth considering That so if that Thesis be true in 's Prerog of Pop. G. lib. 1. ch 10. That a Commonwealth well fixed can never be conquer'd by force yet this Hypothesis is as true that not fixed but inconstant it may be conquer'd by fraud and the Cavalier may win it at the last Game though they lost it at the first Wherefore this I find was their first Policy and care at Athens as it ought to be in England 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THEMISTOCLES Aristides and the Senate of the AREOPAGITES were able to do much in the Commonwealth and first of all Care was taken of this That none should unsettle the State or exceed the limits laid to it This is not the Policy they follow I am sure and it is obvious out of their own Authors how ill they would found the Commonwealth that take so little notice of the Cause of the interest of Christ or of the distinction that is made between Delinquents and Adherents thus Arist. Pol. Horum igitur Principium est magis quà m Patrimoniorum exequatio civitatem sic instituere Ut boni quidèm Viri plus sibi quam competat habere non quaerant Improbi autem etsi quaerant habere non possint c. That the beginning of them viz. such Governments ought to have more in it then a meer equality or exequation of Patrimony or of Natural rights viz. that good men may not seek to have more then is fit for them Nor bad men have it though they seek it So in the 4. lib. c. 11. he speaks ad omnem rem rhombum to the Case in hand from the Laws of Lycurgus Charondas and others That if any Risings Tumults Seditions aut Pugnae fiunt inter Multitudinem opulentes quibuscunque Vincere contingit Hi neque Communem amplius habent Rem-public neque Equalem or Wars be waged between the People and the Rich ones such as the King's Party were and therefore called Cavaliers and it happens to them to have the Day these that were conquered have neithe◠common nor equal Commonwealth priviledge after that And this he de optimâ Repub. affirms to be of the best Commonwealths in the World For otherwise saith he not only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the little Deliquents or offenders in small things but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very great offenders and greatest Enemies in the Nation will be ever and anon doing mischief and most capable of it do what we can This may invite them from beyond the Seas with a change of Projects but not of Principles Coelum non scelus ii mutant qui trans-mare currunt and 't is a pretty toy for fools to play with to think that frames of mens making can keep them in like Cats when the Laws of Gods making cannot hold them without new hearts But a prettier sport for the mimick Ladies by half to laugh at after the Italian mode if our English-men were put into frames like Cats to turn their SPITS and bast their MEAT and in the mean time they fall a MEWING and a MADDING till they have broken loose tore all off of the Spits and serv'd themselves with it in the first place As sure enough they will seeing such Cats are strong and for all his frames will be Cats still nor can they be made to turn the Spit without a Rack and when they are enraged I would be loath that Mr. H. should be basted as they will bast him to make up the Mumming Nor can we trust that Maxime of his p. 48. Oceana Give us good orders and they will make us good men so much as give us good men they will give us good orders and Government too with Gods blessing Tristes Quaerimoniae Si non Supplicio Culpa reciditur Quid Leges sine moribus Vanae Proficiunt Therefore if the Petitioners mean with Mr. Har. by the free people p. 6. of the Pet. all the Nation without any distinction or Cognizance of any difference between Royalists and Realists Delinquents and Adherents such as have forfeited and such as are well-affected that have waded through their own bloud to recover and hold these their Rights they strike Mortally at the Cause the Bloud the Treasure spent the Prayers Tears Skulls Bones and Limbs of thousands in the Cause yea at all the distinguishing Mercies manifestations and Victories that we have had And when by this fraud the Cause is thus far gone and all the Bloud in the Veins of the Commonwealth mingled with ten times more corrupt then is sound forsooth what serves your Rotation for but for Rottation and inevitable ruine to the Commonwealth Besides
all this it is contrary to all formes of Common-wealth to lay such a foundation for the Civil Government See Arist Pol. lib. 5. c. 1. Plures sunt formae rerum Publ. in his confitentur quidèm Omnes justitiam convenientem aequitatem additur in Marg. secundum Proportionem equale Nam populus constat ex iis qui cum sint SECVNDUM QIUD Pares Putant se SIMPLICITER Pares Many are the formes of Republicks and truly all acknowledge justice and convenient equity or equality proportioned for the people consist of such as are simply equal or else so in some respect and not absolutely Thus also did the Syracusans after good success against the Athenians They fell into a Popular State and planted it upon the sound part or body of the people as what wise Master-builder but would lay the best and soundest for a foundation 1 Cor. 3. 10. lib. 3. c. 7. Verùm bonos equos dominari oportet Autoritatemque habere omnium c. But it is fit that good and just men Rule and that such as they have the whole Authority and not the known Enemies of the Commonwealth for those that will not yield to the Government of it must never weild the Scepter in it Neminem bene imperare posse qui non prius sub Imperio fuerit it is unreasonable to set up him over us that will set himself against us and no man can Rule well that is not first in subjection to that Rule and Government But as Mr. H. and those friends with him in the Oligo-machy are so incessantly afraid of an Oligarchy so I wish they would not hazard us with an Ochlo-craty And if he had defin'd it like a Logician rather then a meer Etymo-logist or an Oligo mathist he would have told us that every few ruling be they but 1 2. or 300. are not an Oligarchy but when those few are a meer Party faction or but part for the whole of one judgement way or design for themselves or their party without respective and due Aequi-libration to the whole but imposing upon the whole which cannot be said of our Parliament now sitting who consist of the several judgements principles and parts of the whole Body of adherents and in sanity But it seems the Scheme is cast and jealousie is laid lest Saints as they say should get into the Government who of all the Rest saith Oceana p. 47. are the most dangerous and I must confess such as would be accounted so that are not or would set up any one Party Sect or Opinion whatsoever over all the rest and call themselves the Saints or that are for Saints meerly as Saints and for none but such whom they so account excluding men as men are dangerous nor are we of opinion that this Government under the seventh Trumpet Rev. 11. 15 16. is initiated or matriculated by the personal appearance of Jesus Christ but all we hold is that the most holy able wise pious and every way qualified persons men fearing God hating covetousness of the highest capacity reason and latitude to all as Solomon had a heart like the Sea and of the liveliest courage for the cause and interest of our dearest Jesus and of the whole Body be set up over us Not that they should be all such or none but such for that we cannot expect but to do our best to find some such to pray for them and to impower them and that the highest principles have the highest places which they are suited to and for in Harmony and Symmetry with the whole and not otherwise Now if this be Dangerous We will be tryed by God and the Country I mean by the God of order and orders of God himself in his Government For M. H. and those Philo-demoticks that skew at this would set us to dance the beginning of the World or with Mr. P. and B. the Spanish Galliard after Contzen and Campanella not admitting us so much as the very Heathens their Teachers did allow in the laying of the foundation of the Commonwealth viz. upon the sound and most untainted parts of the whole Body and not upon tag and rag good and bad Adherents and Delinquents together for that in disparibus non existit Proportio there is no possibility of making this equal The dispute in Arist is whether the Virtue and worth of a Good man or of a Good Citizen as such should carry it and Arist is for both but not so much as hesitates or Questions whether wicked men or Bad Citizens should be in it or equal with the rest for he positively concludes it in these words Civitas non ab Improbis sed ab Optimis gubernetur yea he tells us where the Government is not laid so i.e. upon the best men it is wicked and unstable See lib. 5. c. 1. Propter inaequalitatem oritur seditio sed Duplex est aequum Vnum Numero Alterum dignitate 1. Numere quidem ceu multitudine magnitudine idem aequum 2. Dignitate autem dico id quod est secundum Rationem fatentes autem Simpliciter esse justum id quod est secundum dignitatem contendunt Simpliciter omninò secundum Alterutrum i.e. Numerum statuere aequalitatem improbum est patet autem ex eo quod contingit nulla enim hujusmodi Rerum Publ. recipit stabilitatem Causa verò hujus quia impossibile est ex primo Errore in Principio Commisso non evenire ad extremum aliquid Mali. It is because of an inequality that sedition arises but there is a twofold equal 1. one in the Number of all the people together tag and rag as they come 2. The other in the dignity good and most deserving of the People In the number or in the multitude and magnitude of them is the same equality but in the dignity or good sound and best of the whole body I say is that which is according to Reason But such as profess for a Commonwealth do simply contend for that which is laid upon Dignity or goodness as that which is the Iust Government and equal But it is a wicked thing to appoint the equality simply altogether according to to tother i.e. upon the whole number or Promiscous Chaos of the people And it appears from what happens that no Commonwealth of this kind hath stability or can stand long mark that and the reason is this because it is impossible from the first errour committed in the beginning or first laying of the Commonwealth there should not happen some extream evil or other Thus far for the sence and sentence of his own Oracle to name no more against such an unjust Equality of Pandemick Government and foundation without distinction of Dignitaries or discrimination of the Good from the Bad as a very unadvised thing that will certainly rob the well-affected of their Rights give them up to the Dammees of the Times and but put them