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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56284	Scotlands holy vvar a discourse truly, and plainly remonstrating, how the Scots out of a corrupt pretended zeal to the covenant have made the same scandalous, and odious to all good men, and how by religious pretexts of saving the peace of Great Brittain they have irreligiously involved us all in a most pernitious warre / by H.P. ...	Parker, Henry, 1604-1652.	1651 (1651)	Wing P421; ESTC R40061	65,174	82

we cleer our selves in point of Church-Reformation for having covenanted to reform in Doctrine Discipline c. according to the word of God and the patterns of the best Reformed Churches we are bound as the Scots maintain to take our pattern from them and that we as yet refuse to do This is the grand and most heynous charge the Scots have against us and because we follow not the modell of Scotland which they hold the best Reformed Church in Christendom they seek to overwhelm us with a thousand calumnies and labour to possesse the world that wee are nothing else but a Lerna of Heresies and a sinck of all uncleannesse To this we answer 1. When wee are bound to reform according to the word of God and the examples of the best Churches wee conceive the word of God signifies all the examples of other Churches signifie nothing at all for those are the best Churches that reform neerest to the word of God and what Churches have neerest Reformed cannot be known but by the word of God it self so that that instance might have been spared 2. If it come to tryal by the word of God whether the Scots Reformation be the best or no the Scots therein can challenge no more priviledg of judging then we or any other Church When we were governed by Bishops the Gospel of Christ was as purely delivered in England and as heartily embraced by the English any being Judges besides the Scots as ever it was in Scotland and shall it be said that because wee have cast off Bishops and thereby come some steps neerer to the Scots our Doctrine remaining still the same without all innovation shall it be said that our very approaches have ●●st us backward It will be required at their hands who are intrusted with the government of Christs Church that his word and Ordinances be piously and duly dispensed and it will be required at their hands who are governed that the dispensation of Christs words and Ordinances be faithfully and sincerely entertained but if the Governors rightly discharge their duty and the governed fail of theirs the Governors shall not answer for what they cannot help 't is God that gives the encrease and does the saving inward work the Minister cannot go beyond planting watering and doing that which is the outward work 'T is one thing therefore for the Scots to upbraid the Flock and another thing to upbraid the Overseers of the Flock and yet the Scots constantly take an advantage against us by confounding these two things For the people of England we must confesse they have been of late too much tainted with Heresies and monstrous opinions pudet hae● opprobria nobis dici potuisse non potuisse refelli I hope all good men are grieved and humbled for it but let the Scots consider 1. That growing of Tares in Gods Field does not alwayes shew that the Husband-man sowed ill grain the contrary rather is true inasmuch as the more busie the good Husband-man is culturing and improving the Earth the more sollicitous ever the Enemie is in casting in his malignant seeds the more readily eager he is to debosh mar the crop It was so with the Church of Christ in it's Infancy it was so under Constantine in it's maturity it was so in Luthers dayes when it began to recover out of a long lethargy and we must expect the like now when our aces are set upon the last and greatest calcination as ever the Church saw as Reformation now in the ends of the world when the chiefe mysteries of iniquity begin to be revealed will most annoy Sathan so Sathan will double his rage to annoy us accordingly Hornius the Dutch-man a great friend of the Scots and who in favour of the Scotch Presbytery has written a bitter Tract in Latine to defame us in Germany after he has represented us as the most leprous contaminated Nation in the world yet confesses withall that to the prodigious revoltings of some amongst us there is an answerable improvement of others in burning zeale and shining sanctity In Religion beauty and deformity are not inconsistent those times often which have been most glorious for divine dispensations of knowledge and grace have been likewise most deplorable for persecutions and apostacies and this has ever been a great stumbling block to carnall minds If therefore the great Lyon range and roare and ramp lesse in Scotland then in England let not our Brethren boast of it or think themselves the more safe 2. Let not partiality blind the Scots Strangers think Scotland ha's as great cause of humiliation as England if not greater Iliacos intra muros peceatur extra It were more Christian-like in them and lesse Pharisaicall to aggravate their own sins and extenuate other mens then to extenuate their own sins and aggravate other mens and if they wil remit nothing at all of their rigour against us yet let them not stuffe their long catalogues of Pseudodoxies with such wandring terms as Familisme Erastianisme Independentisme c. which taken improperly may reach the best Saints of God and are seldome used properly by any 'T is a sad thing to offend Gods little ones 't is a more sad thing to deprave many congregations of Gods most precious ones 3. Whatsoever judgement the Scots will take upon them to passe against the people in England yet let them not alway set upon the Magistrates or Ministers account what they find reprovable in the people let them not call us fedifragous for not redressing things beyond us and such as none can redresse besides God but this has been toucht upon already Let us therefore see what is peculiarly objected to the present governing power in England The Magistrate in England is charged to be an Enemie to Magistracy a strange charge certainly The very last answers we had this last Summer to our Declarations upon the march of our Army into Scotland tell us from the Committee of Estates and Commissioners of the Assembly that our expedition into Scotland is to overturn Religion and government Civill and Ecclesiasticall and to set up amongst them the same vast toleration of Religion as we have done in England Now if this were true the sins of the People would become the sins of the Magistrate but what credite can this obtain in the world As for the overturning of civill power that is answered already we confesse a change of the Form but we deny any overturning of the thing cal'd Government in England and wee hope our actions here and in Ireland and in other Forreign parts yea our War in Scotland also will quit and essoyn us of anarchy and ere long make the Scots swalow downe their own untruths with open shame As for the overturning Ecclesiasticall also that may be as resolutely and justly denyed as the other for that lawfull power which was in Bishops before is still in being and though we have not committed it so intirely unto

worse use they made of all that was or could be given them So all jealousies could not long be supprest for in time some of our Lords and Commons saw cause to conceale some things concerning this State from them and this was extreamly ill taken and indeed no otherwise then if it had been a reall piece of injustice to the Kingdom of Scotland but moderation as yet kept both within reasonable bounds Mr. A. Henderson was then living and conversant in those businesses and surely he was a man of an Apostolicall spirit and though a great lover of his Countrey yet He knowingly durst not interpose in an ill action for his Countreys advantage and I am perswaded He did very good offices and kept us from further jars during his life and if He had lived longer would have prevented much of what has hapned since Besides Presbytery the Scotch Clergies darling seemd plausible at first to the English and soon grew indeared to our Synod and for a good space it got such footing in England that the Scots had no cause of dissatisfaction in that behalf The King also the other darling of the Scotch Nation till about the latter end of Summer 1645. prosperd so that He more slighted the Scots then He did us and so about him there was no great cause of animosities and if any did appear they were more easily to be digested But when the English Army under the Lord Gen. Fairfax had in one Summer defeated and utterly broken two very great Armies of the Kings and taken in divers other considerable Cities and strengths without any help at all from the Scots many emulous considerations began to breed strange alienations in the hearts of our brethren The easie warfare of the Scots all this while had afforded them besides good store of pay and plunder an absolute signiory over the Northerne Counties our Northerne men tell us wofull stories till this day and now they saw that rich service or rather absolute dominion was likely to come to an end they thought sit to strengthen themselves in Berwick and Newcastle and they got Carlile also by very foul play in spight of our Commissioners as if they were resolved and certain to have a dispute with us Likewise in 1646. when Oxford grew straitned and unsafe to the King and when it was visible also that Presbytery after so many years experience did not altogether rellish with the English the Scots presently resolved as was related before to expound the Covenant in favour of the King at least for setling and securing their arrears and making a commodious retreat out of England Accordingly that Article which provided for the Kings interest served their interest wel enough and war so well commented upon by them that it held us at a bay till their contract was perfected and then after a long dispute very chargeable to our Nation at the instance of an Army and 200000 li. they delivered up Newcastle Barwick and Carlile and took time to study the Kings Article a little longer In the year 1647. there was no notable businesse for the Souldier England took a little breath having nothing to do but to squench the few remainders of war and Scotland kept at home to share the late gotten spoiles of England yet this year there past some new cajoleries betwixt the Scots and the King and some contests betwixt the Scots and us about the King and no doubt the next years action was now in forging and all preparatory hammers were on working And now enters the memorable year of 1648. a year never to be forgotten by the English in regard of the unparralleld dangers that then overspread it and the unspeakable mercies of God that then protected it All the enemies of this poore Common-wealth were now in a solemn conjuration against it In Ireland all was held past recovery Ormond the Parliaments revolted servitor was complying with the bloody Irish and betraying his own Religion into the bargain to get some of their forces into England in Wales in Kent in Essex in Surrey great bodies of men rose up some upon the old Royall account some upon a new whilst many also of the Navy fell away from the Parliament to make the case the more desperate No lesse then 40000 English did their endeavours this Summer to make way for Hamilton from whom by good intelligence doubtles they expected 20000 Scots Great was the goodness of God that all these confederates could not be in a readiness at one and the same time and that all the Forreign Princes round about us which favoured them could not be assistent to them that yeer God had so ordained it that the Welsh should be reduced before the Scots entred or else our condition had been altogether hopelesse in the eye of reason But to the Scoch businesse The Solemn League and Covenant was now brought under a new debate in the Parliament of Scotland and the main matter in question was how they could be absolved of that holy stipulation if they did not imploy all their power to reform Religion and to restore the King in England and for the fuller agitation and ventilation of this matter severall grave harangues by persons affected severally were drest and we may well imagine to what effect Agent of the Kirks party seeing the Parliament filled with so great a party of the Hamiltonians is supposed to begin My Lords and Gentlemen The Covenant presses us all to endeavour the reformation of Religion and the restauration of the King in England by a brotherly way of Assistance in our severall places and callings and so as that these ends of the Covenant may stand and agree with all the rest But withall it behoves us to use a great deal of caution and circumspection in a matter of so high importance wherein the honour of God and good of the Nations is so religiously involved not to be mistaken either in the mark we all shoot at or in the arrows we are to shoot As for the point of Religion I am perswaded it wants reformation in England and I beleeve I dissent not therein from any here but this scruple sticks by me I doubt whether I am so properly a Judge in England of Religion as I am in Scotland and if I am not then I fear I step out of my place and calling whilest I take upon me there to reform by force which sure the Covenant requires not but excludes in expresse terms The account of my scruples I give thus first if we are now judges of matters Ecclesiasticall in England we are so constituted by the Covenant for before the Covenant we pretended to no uch thing and in the Covenan● it self I finde no such constituting words 2ly if the Covenant creates us Judges in cases Eccles it creates us the same in all other things civil military and judiciall for all the interests of the King and Subjects in Parliament and out of Parliament are inclosed within the

of forcible alterations amongst themselves to the defrauding of their neighbours Thirdly Admit the Parliament by which Hamilton was Commission'd was an unjust Parliament admit it was no Parliament at all and admit that Hamilton with a lesse party and without any Commission at all had broke in upon us in a hostile manner yet even this would not leave the English altogether remediles for in this case upon a just demand of satisfaction made by the English the Scots must disowne the act and see the outrage legally expiated upon the actors or else they owne it themselves and so become as obnoxious as the actors That which was the sin of one Towne in Benjamin at first became the sin of the whole Tribe of Benjamin afterwards and doubtlesse that which was the sin of one Tribe in Israel at first had become the sin of all Israel at last if justice had not been lawfully executed Let the Scots look upon this with sad eyes for that blood of the English shed by Hamilton which is now the guilt of a party only in Scotland upon the deniall of just ice may be made the guilt of all Scotland The second evasion of the Scots is this They say if they were persons challengeable of satisfaction yet they that sit now in the Parliament of England are not persons that can duly challenge or require satisfaction It should seeme as Scotland before was not to be found in Scotland so England is now not to be found in England so hard a matter it is to get right from them that can thus easily transforme and deforme whole Nationall bodies The meaning is Government in England has been of late changed two of the Estates in Parliament are removed by force and the third Estate usurpes what was due to all wherefore as they cannot treate with us about satisfaction but they must acknowledge us a lawfull authority so conscience forbids them to acknowledge our authority lawfull To this wee answer 1. The change of rule in a Nation does not change the Nation forasmuch as the manner of rule is changeable and accidentall and so does not give beeing or support the essence of a State If wee in England beeing a Monarchy owe three Millions to the Hollander the change of Monarchy in England will not exempt us from our obligation and if we in England beeing a Democracy have three Millions due from the Hollander our returne to Monarchy will not denude us of our remedie The devastations and hostilities of Hamilton were suffred by the English Nation and the Parliament of England demands justice and restitution for the same in behalfe of the English Nation now 't is not agreeable to justice or reason that a slight exception taken against the substitute should disable the Principal or any incapacity of the demandant redound to the prejudice of him which is the true Interessent Secondly If the usurpation of the Parliament of England shall bar the State of England from its due course of justice yet how does it appeare to the Scots that the power of our Parliament is an usurp't power If God or Man ha's given them any warrant to judge of our actions and affaires in England let them shew it for without some such warrant they are but our Equalls and one equall ha's no power of judging another If they plead any undeniable principle in nature which condemnes all alteration of Government as unlawfull and all extrusion of Governours as usurpation and of this Maxime they say all men are equally Judges then how will they justifie their extrusion of Lannerick and their new moulding of their Committee of Estates after the defeature of Hamilton which without armes and our assistance they could not have compast Is that a naturall indispensible principle in England which is not so in Scotland Away with such partiall shifts let the Scots shew us that Nation under Heaven that ha's not severall times been driven to mutations of Governments and Governours and been at last justified therein by the plea of necessity and common safety and wee shall confesse their Lordly power over us Thirdly If the Scots be our Lords and will give judgement against us in this case yet they must know that wee are now upon our appeal before almighty God and have accordingly taken Armes into our hands for the prosecution of that appeal And does not one of the primary Lawes of Warre teach them what a hazard it is to deny right to him that beares his ●aked sword in his hand Arma Tenenti Omnia dat qui justa negat Will the Scots lay an incapacity of Treating upon us first and then of fighting afterwards The difference now betwixt us is whether wee have justly enterd Scotland or no to seeke redresse of many injuries and depredations by tryall of battaile which was denide us by debate in a friendly intercourse and doe the Scots thinke now to argue us out of our armes doe they think that the same condemnations of our usurp't power by which they insulted over us when wee sought a Treaty will be seasonable now when the cause is preferd to a higher Court This were to cut us off from all remedie whatsoever this were to detrude us below the miserablest of men this is beyond all ordinary strains of Tyranny There is no Client nor Subject nor slave whatsoever but by way of his last appeale may repell force with force when his case is beyond all other decision and this is held no more then a making an humble addresse to Heaven or laying the cause before the Lord of Hosts his Footstoole Will the Scots then which have droven us their equalls to this last resort prejudge and foreclude us in this also and so make us worse them the worst of inferiors Certainly if we may not treate before wee confesse our selves usurpers wee may fight till God declares us to bee so or that our enemies have usup't over us The third advantage or exception of the Scots against our demands of satisfaction is taken from the space of time that interlapsed betwixt the overthrow of Hamilton and our solemne denouncing against them for that hostilitie as also from some reciprocall kindnesses and testimonies of accord and pacification which past betwixt the Nations in the mean while Of both these I shall now give this faithfull account The victory of of L G Cromwell against the Scots was about the latter end of Summer 1648 and our Forces following that chase stayed in Scotland till about Mid-winter following During the stay of our Army in Scotland a good understanding was betwixt us and the Kirk party there for we had both the same ends against the Hamiltonians and so whilest we extorted the sword out of Lannericks hands and put it into Arguiles we did our own businesse and the Kirks too and the Kirks more immediately then our own Howbeit a Treaty was now begun in the Isle of Wight with the King where the Scoch Commissioners appeared