Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	kingdom_n	people_n	2,872	5	4.6547	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96744	A cordial confection, to strengthen their hearts whose courage begins to fail, by the armies late dissolving the Parliament. It is wrapt up in an epistolary discourse, occasionally written to Mr. Ro. Hamon, merchant, by Geo. Wither, Esq; about a week after the said Parliament was dissolved; and is thus communicated by a copy thereof, as very pertinent to these distracted times, and tending to preservation of the common-peace. for (other things of publick concernment, being inter-woven) it truly states the peoples cause (in plain expressions, suitable to the vulgar capacities) and frees it from many scandals. It contains an expedient, (hitherto not heeded, or neglected) whereby Charles Stuart may be settled in peace, if he please: whereby, we may have a better Parliament then we lost, or ever had: whereby, our armies may be kept constant to order, whilst they are needful, and in a short time quite disbanded: whereby, the peoples just freedoms may be recovered and perpetuated: whereby, not onely these nations, but all Christendome also, may be established in a righteous peace; and it hath neither destructive inlet, outlet, or false bottom.	Wither, George, 1588-1667.	1659 (1659)	Wing W3151; Thomason E763_13; ESTC R207097	68,046	43

France Spain the Dutch Dane and Devil to boot should assist him yet he may come short and I believe most of those who long for his coming will loose much of their present enjoyments and of their fairest future hopes also before Charles Stuart arriveth here in peace and perhaps speed worse then so before he be settled For they who have paid dearly for what they conquered from his Father will sell it at a rate much dearer before they forgo their interest And it is infallibly evident to every man of understanding that if he comes in by force it cannot be without their Forraign Ayd which over and above those many thousands of discontented debauched and beggerly Scots Irish and English-men which wait for such a time will spue out after them into these Islands all the Bandetti Thieves Rogues needy Persons and unuseful Souldiers which over-burthen their Countries already so that this place will then be an Epitomy of Hell where all shall be tormented by those Furies and Devils incarnate which will be brought in thereby For it will be impossible then to make distinction between Friends and Foes to the Commonwealth who have not Swords in their hands neither will it be regarded if they have any thing to loose and if he prevail at last by a Forraign Ayd the best that can be expected by the greatest part of the Natives is to be enslaved under all manner of Servititudes both Spiritual and Temporal the apprehension of which will make all those who have either Religion Honesty or Love to their Country or to Themselves fight it out to the last man and these things considered there will be no probability of a happy or speedy Settlement if Charles Stuart come in by force But it is hoped by some few that he will come in by compact and consent upon such terms as will render his coming acceptable Well admit this and also grant that his Afflictions had prepared his heart to offer or accept of such conditions as may preserve the Temporal and Spiritual Freedoms due to the people by the Laws of GOD and Nature and that he would covenant to secure us in a future enjoyment of our Estates and Consciences under a Righteous Government in such manner that he and we by GOD's Blessing may be happy in each other Grant also there were a willingness and a reciprocal Condescention on both sides without Fraud to all reasonable Propositions and that his Party now in exile would be contented with such a reasonable allowance as might not be over-burthensome to the Commonwealth whereto the necessities of some and the generosity of others may possibly incline them to accord Yet how should such an Agreement be begun prosecuted or secured I know no safe Medium whereby this may be made feisible Stones and Sand will never make a Building without Lime or some other glutinous matter If the Dutch should interpose they might perhaps mediate more for their own advantage then for his or ours so probably would the French and Spaniard also whose Designes would be more advanced by our continuing disagreements then by our reconciliation and we shall find a pad of mischief in the straw if they have any hand in it and receive it may be a Snake into our bosome if he should be admitted by their mediation for it may rationally be suspected that they will not appear for him either in an amicable or hostile manner without hedging in some concealed Engagement of his to them or to one of them which may be hereafter disadvantageous to our Spiritual or Temporal Freedoms or both and if he should be secretly reconciled to the Church of Rome during his abode among them by those opportunities which they have had to work upon him and then come over seasoned with this Principle of theirs That no Faith or Contract is to be kept with Hereticks and we then appear to be such in his esteem what security shall we have whereupon we can safely depend Moreover it is considerable that to make an honourable and lasting reconciliation he must not onely come in with the love and assent of that part of the people who will insist upon the preservation of their just Freedoms claimed but he must also first renounce that pretended Right which he claims as due from his Progenitors for if he still think that to be a right inherent in himself as many absurdly do because they neither understand right Reason or Law and if the people shall receive him without abjuration of that Claim they do thereby make voyd the Sentence which GOD hath given on their part at the Trial by Combat give away for ever that which they recovered by Conquest and so by our Atonement we shall but prorogue our Troubles at best till he or his posterity have acquired power to renew the old quarrel upon this false Maxime Nullum Tempus occurrit Regi thoug the truth is Nullum Tempus occurrit populo no time or Prescription is a just bar to the Peoples Right for whose sake Kings being but their servants were at first ordained Though I have shewed it before yet I will here again briefly touch upon the state of our Cause because it is not well enough heeded This people lately claimed their natural Freedoms which the King had usurped the King claimed likewise his long usurped Prerogatives after a tedious contest on both sides they at length joyntly appealed to GOD to give sentence according to Justice upon a Tryal by Combate as it is manifested by the Words for Distinction given out by both Parties when they joyned Battel GOD by making the Peoples Champions Conquerers gave Judgment on their behalf Thereupon the King and his Party quitted the three Kingdoms and left the Conquerors in quiet and absolute possession and all the Kings and Commonwealths of Christendome taking notice both of the process and success witnessed that Restauration of their just Rights by making Addresses to them as the Soveraign Power all which undeniably demonstrate a Conquest whereby all the pretended right of Charles Stuart and his heirs was as peremptorily cut off as ever the like Claim was heretofore from any Family or Person at the translation of any Government from one person or Family to another in any Kingdome or Empire since the World began And whatsoever can be alleaged to the contrary or whosoever murmurs against this Verdict or shall assist him if he be of this Commonwealth to possess his pretended Claim to these Islands is a Traytor to his Country and a Resister of GOD's doom and none but presumptuous ignorant debauched or slavish-minded persons will persevere after all this evidence and finall Decree in GOD's Court-Martial from whence as I said there is no appeal to oppose the Conquerors Title or reproach them as Rebels and Traytors as yet some impudently do This is briefly the true state of that Cause which is in decision termed by our Adversaries and scornfully by some Cox-combs who

Those three Employments gave me opportunity to observe how our Parliaments our Protectors our Councils our Armies our Committees our Ministers and the People behaved themselves toward GOD and each other in the management of their Cause And to speak truth without lying for them or against them if I had been a stranger to their Cause and the Kings and must have judged whether had been most righteous by the manners and actings of the men I should have given judgement against the Peoples Cause For the Royal Party whom we call Cavaliers prosecuted their Evil Cause like men and like such men as they made shew to be But the Parliament Party some few excepted whose burthens and vexations were the greater and makes them worthy to be the more pitied and honoured managed their Good Cause like like like to tell you truly like I know not what for I can devise nothing under heaven and above ground whereto I may liken them and it is no wonder that so many thousands fall off dayly from them and that our Enemies judge of our Cause and of Us as I hear they do I should not have thought it possible that men professing and pretending so much good should have been so evil if GOD had permitted me to have lived so obscurely in a Country Village as I much desired where I should have known no more of the one Party or of the other then common Fame had informed to whose rumours I give little credit And knowing me so well as many of those men do if they had not been infatuated they would have done me Justice though not for Justice sake to have sent me thither being resolved to do as they have done where I should not have had means to be a witness against them for that injustice and partiality which I have observed I engaged for the Parliament out of conscience else I might have had as good means to know experimentally the manners of the Kings Party whereof I am informed but by report onely For being by some of them thought more considerable then I am by those to whom I voluntarily adhered I was invited to that side by two Letters from the Lord Butler which I think are yet among my papers who thereby engaged to settle immediately upon me half his Estate and that it should be but an earnest of a far greater gratitude in future from the King if I would come unto him then at Oxford yet I constantly adhered to the Parliament and do not repent it in this day of our confusion though in requital of my faithfulness in adventuring my Life Credit and all my Estate for it they have exposed me and my Family to scorn and poverty as well by other injuries done as by neglect of Justice and by not making good their Securities and Engagements which occasioned my Engagements to other men I mention these things that being some way brought to their Consideration it may prepare them to be capable of another extraordinary Mercy in this their greatest need and not out of revenge For I know Vengeance belongs to GOD and that I shall but burn my own Fingers by endeavouring to pull down hot Coals upon the heads of mine Oppressours Therefore my smitings are but friendly blows and my corroding Expressions applyed but to eat out the dead flesh which may hinder the operation of a healing Balsame and it is very needful for by all those Parties afore particularized and even by us who pretend to the best Cause many things have been acted or connived at which were so imprudent so unjust so unmerciful and indeed so barbarous that we are a plague to each other and a laughing-stock to all our Neighbours round about us and instead of repenting and endeavouring to amend what is amiss in a rational and possible way we behave our selves like Whores in a City-Alley They first fall to scolding railing belying impeaching and abusing each other by all opprobrious words then to tear and scratch and at last to grow so mad that they set each others houses on fire to the undoing of themselves and their neighbours We and our Enemies instead of looking to our own ways and prosecuting that which might deliver us out of those confusions and streights whereinto our sins and follies have brought us do spend much of our time in sowing seeds of discord and in scandalous Imputations as if that justified our several Causes It is written that Michael the Arch-Angel when he contended with the Devil as bad as the Devil was durst not bring a railing Accusation against him but said onely The LORD rebuke thee Such Accusations I confess were even these of mine as were not allowable if they were untrue and no better though they be true if I intended them maliciously to bring any one to destruction or shame and not in true Charity to save men from shame and destruction by repentance We on both sides cannot be contented to object matter of Fact so far as we know or believe it to be true in justification of our Causes but endeavour also to make it seem good by doing that which is evil and affirming that which is untrue or so doubtful that it ought not to be peremptorily averred yea we sometimes make bold to intrude into GOD's secret Judgements to disparage our Adversaries Cause or to justifie our own thereby and often-abusively mis-apply GOD's Word to our own wicked purpose Our Antagonists think to justifie their Cause by an Argument drawn from our unstableness boasting that they have not been so fickle and disobedient to their Governour or Government as we have been to ours but that they have in all his and in their own dangers and troubles continued constant both to their first Principles and to their King which is partly true to our shame but not much to their honour and no whit to the justifying of their Cause For mans corruption makes him to adhere more firmly to that which is evil then to that which is good And it is not so much their vertue as their necessity perhaps which keeps them constant They have no other means of safety and subsistence for the most part else as many of them have done who had another Resuge they it may be who brag of their Constancy would have deserted him also ere this day Moreover many of them are the persons whose evil Counsels was the undoing of their King and of his Father and of themselves They had gotten thereby great Estates and Titles of honour which they could not else have obtained and which being now lost cannot be re-possessed but by adherence unto him until his condition grows desperate or until they can be better provided for so their faithfulness and perseverance doth probably proceed rather from self-respects then from love to their King or from the justness of his Cause But indeed the greatest stumbling-block and stone of offence which will obstruct my Expedient in taking good effect among the Common

People are those Events which have ensued upon mis-understanding our Cause and upon our mis-proceeding therein and those obstructive Objections are cast in and raised partly by the Royalists and partly by some ignorant and malevolent persons among our selves who perceive not from whence those Events do more naturally proceed To make the Peoples Cause appear unjust and therefore their prosecutions thereof unpleasing to GOD and to make the vulgar sort think the Kings claim to be righteous they object that therefore we can settle upon no Government without him and that we have no good and lawful Foundation to build upon and that therefore GOD blasteth all our endeavours from time to time whereas that issues not from the evilness of our Cause but from the imprudence or self-mindedness of the Prosecutors To fright ignorant persons into a belief or suspition of the goodness or lawfulness of our Claim they tell them of one Parliament-man that hanged himself how these and these came to such and such Tragical ends and what befel to some other eminent persons who were Patrons thereof as if that proved the Cause which they owned to be unquestionably evil all which are but Childish Bug-bears and Fanatick Hob-Goblins which are easily charmed into nothing What a ridiculous Argument is it to prove the unjustness of a Cause to alledge that one of the Prosecutors thereof hanged himself There were but twelve Apostles and one of them hanged himself doth that any whit disparage the Apostolick Faith perhaps as these do the malitious Jews made use of it to the like purpose though by his own confession they knew that Judgement fell upon Judas not because he was one of Christs Followers but for that he was a Traitor to his Master and had betrayed an Innocent into their hands There were above 400 Parliament-men of which but one made away himself and we knowing not upon what secret Motive what can be thereupon inferred Indeed if all the 400 or so many of them as owned the peoples Cause had banged themselves except one we might have concluded as our Adversaries do The Conjurers up of those delusive Apparations do not remember that those 18 persons upon whom the Tower fell and they whose blood-Pilat mingled with their Sacrifices were no greater sinners then other men and that they who conceived hardly of them should also perish unless they repented nor do they take notice that the like ends have happened to as many or to more of their own party and that it would be as valid an Argument against their Cause as against ours Nor do they know or else will not know as we do who have observed their actings deportments that most if not all of them on our side who have been particularized as men pursued by Divine Vengeance suffered not by the hand of Common Justice or by a secret Judgment in outward probability for their deserting the Kings Cause or for being instrumental in removing him but for that they were Traytors to them by whom they were trusted and false to the peoples Cause which they seemingly owned and either betrayed it or would have betrayed it if they had not been timely cut off And whereas the many extravagancies relating both to Religion and the depravation of Manners in these times are objected as effects of our evil Cause it is to be considered that those are the usual products in times of War of that licentiousness which is in men of corrupt minds and principles who then discover that pravity which lay hid in them formerly and not from the Cause in Controversie For my part I am not a whit out of heart by the present distractions by the scandalizing of our Cause by the Obstructions it hath met withal by the hazards it is now in by the multitude of powerful Adversaries or by the failings of those that manage it Nor do I judge the goodness of any mans Cause to be more or less by Events whether prosperous or unprosperous at the first lest as David said I may condemn the Generation of the Righteous or justifie the Wicked nor do I judge of any thing by the outward pomp or base aspect which it hath in the eye of the world nor by the continuance which it can plead by Prescription For Tyranny hath been ever since Nimrods raign The Mahumetans Impostures which is an usurped Antichristian power without the Pale of the Church hath tyrannized almost a thousand years The Roman Hierarchy which is the Antichrist in the visible Church of Christ hath persecuted above six hundred years our Norman bondage hath continued above five hundred The Children of Israel when they were brought out of Aegypt where they had been enslaved above three hundred years and then advanced in hope to be made Possessors of a Country inhabited by powerful Nations were doubtless as much derided for that Attempt as we are by our Neighbours and by some among our selves who in derision and scorn call our The Good Old Cause They had as many longings and lookings back toward Aegypt as the greatest part of this people hath at this day to return to their old Task-masters to their Garlick Onyons Flesh-pots and such other Carnal Accommodations as those which we prefer before our Birth-rights and value less then a Mess of Porrage They tempted GOD and provoked him by their Idolatries Fornications Murmurings Rebellions Avarice Backslidings and Self-seekings as we do So they mutined against their Superiors so they discouraged each other by mis-reporting that Good Land to which GOD was carrying them by representing formidably the strength of the high-walled Cities and the mighty Giants who were therein and those discouragements proceeded from some of the most eminent persons among them even from no less then six to one of those who were chosen to spy out the Land so also were they for their unfaithfulness and other sins wasted and delayed as we have been even forty years in the Desarts as we have been almost twenty years already as it were in a Wilderness of Confusions for our prevarications and mis-belief and our Faith and Patience is at this present exercised with many Fears Doubts Wants Troubles and Powerful Adversaries in the Passage toward the recovery of our long-lost Freedoms and yet as theirs was our Cause is nevertheless that Good Old Cause of which we should neither be ashamed or distrustful If we may censure the Righteousness of a Cause by the mean beginning by the outward despicableness by the tedious and difficult progressions by the contemptibleness of the Prosecutors or by the unprosperous successes during many years no Cause in the world might be so●lyable to mis censure as our Christian profession which for many Ages together was the scorn not of the base and foolish but also of the noblest and wisest persons in the Worlds esteem The Professors of it were no better thought of then as Fanatick Dreamers at best and as Vagabonds hunted through all Nations and Countries by ten

signal bloody Persecutions many hundreds of years dispoiled every where of Livelyhood Liberty and Life And our Cause being in the principal scope thereof to be prosecuted for a Preparatory toward establishing that Kingdome of CHRIST for which the Saints have now waited in patience above six hundred fifty and eight years and arrived as I believe within forty years of compleating that six hundred sixty and six years which numbers out the time limiting the Kingdom of the Beast it is no wonder that it meets with so much delay hardship and oppression whilst the Souldiers of the LAMB are but raw undisciplined not fully trained listed sealed or formed into such a well-ordered Body as must fight his Battels But though our sufferings and the time of our warfare seems long it is very short considering the perp●tuity of the Kingdome which we shall at last conquer and wherein we shall individually reign with the Supreme Soveraign thereof For whereas all the Kingdoms of the world have not lasted six thousand years that Kingdom is everlasting without end and communicated not to a few making the rest Slaves but to every follower of the LAMB in that Expedition who will make them that overcome Pillars in his house never to be removed yea they shall be Kings and Priests to GOD sitting with him upon his Throne subjecting the Nations and raigning with him for ever and ever Since I have mentioned that Kingdom whereto our Cause relates and of which I hope our future Government shall be an appurtenant I would gladly without offence though it seem a digression hint somewhat in this place since it now comes into my mind as not impertinent to those who call themselves or are called by others Fifth Monarchy Men who I think call that Kingdom the Fisth Monarchy lest in some things they may be destructive thereunto in prosecuting the settlement of our Government For though I believe there are many of those and of other congregated Churches who are truly zealous of advancing the Kingdom of CHRIST and that a Government should be modelized that might be subservient thereunto and whereby carnal men might be reduced to order as well under a Spiritual as under a Natural Government yet if I have not been mis-informed concerning the Judgments and Opinions of some among them there are not a few who having a Zeal without Knowledge do fancy such a Kingdome as neither consists with the Divinity of CHRIST nor with the Humanity of men and that possibly some other as in all Dispensations it hath happened who are stirred up by the Devil or by their own self-mindedness to hinder the coming of this Kingdom by pretending in their m●de to advance it and who to exercise the Faith and Patience of the Saints a little longer will be making Linsie Wolsie and plowing with Oxen and Ass●s together in hope thereby to reduce us again to a meer earthly Foundation or to build Castles in the Air as they would do who understand not that the Dimensions Materials and other Appurtenances of the New Jerusalem mystically described in the Revelation are Evangelically and not Literally to be understood As for instance in particular The pavement shall be pure Gold transparent as Glass whereby I understand the Citizens of that City shall be free from Covetousness treading more precious Gold under their feet then that whereof a varitious Tyrants make their richest Ornaments for their heads and that their walkings will be evidently pure to all beholders By what warrant they term the Kingdome of CHRIST the Fifth Monarchy I know not It may be called the Fifth in relation to those four Monarchies which are mentioned as preceding it in the Prophecy of Daniel if you reckon the Roman Empire and the Beast which sprung from it but for one Alexander and his four Captains two Monarchies and begin to reckon after the Babylonian Monarchy was translated to the Medes and Persians But to say truth whether we may call the Kingdom of CHRIST upon Earth the Fifth Sixth or Seventh Monarchy it is to me doubtful when I consult with Daniels Prophecies For by Nebuchadnezzars Image which consisted of five parts Gold Silver Brass Iron and Iron mixed with Clay which last is the Kingdome of Antichrist wherein were ten Kingdoms there typified by the ten toes and by ten horns in the Revelation it seemeth to be the sixth grand Monarchy in the world If the Kingdom of the Beast and that of the Roman Empire be to be accounted but one and the Grecian Monarch and his four Captains two Monarchies then it will be the Fifth Monarchy after Daniels Vision of the four Beasts leaving out the Babylonian Monarchy which was past at the time of the Vision and but the fourth Monarchy from that time if Alexander and his Captains be reckoned but one Monarchy as indeed they were no more in regard that of the Captains was a Tetrarchy not a Monarchy and but the same Monarchy branched into four But if you make as several Expositors do that of the Babylonians one the Medes and Persians the second Alexander a third his four Captains a fourth the first Roman Empire a fifth Monarchy and the Clay and Iron Kingdom which branched out of it to be a sixth then the Kingdom of CHRIST must be the seventh Monarchy Therefore to give it the most proper Attribute it is the Alpha and Omega the first and last absolute Monarchy that was is or shall be though Tyrants have had for many thousands of years the most visible power upon Earth For GOD and CHRIST in him though not manifested to the world have invisibly governed during their usurpations and concurred in governing during the Paternal Monarchies of Adam and Noah until Nimrods intrusions and afterward and after that in governing the Children of Israel by his Vice-gerents Moses Joshua and the Judges until the people rejecting his Government desired a King like other Nations for which folly and sin they were under a Tyrannical Government even when it was at best until CHRIST came in the Flesh and so shall we also if we admit of Charles Stuart or of any other Governours upon the old Terms and Constitutions after GOD upon tryal hath declared us free until CHRIST comes to Judgement whose Government if we embrace in the mean time we may be happy and free indeed for his Yoke is easie his Scepter a righteous Scepter and his Government whilst we are in the Flesh will be such a Government as Flesh and Blood whose frailty he knows may sustain and be regulated by For his raign upon earth will not be without Laws agreeable to the humane Nature nor without Magistrates impowered to govern under him but a Government resembling in some respects but in an Evangelical and more excellent manner that of the Jews governing his people and by such humane Laws of their own as are not repugnant thereto as the Jews were governed by their Judges and by their Ceremonial and Judicial Laws

A Cordial Confection To strengthen their Hearts whose Courage begins to fail by the Armies late dissolving the Parliament It is wrapt up in An Epistolary Discourse Occasionally written to Mr. Ro. Hamon Merchant by Geo. Wither Esq about a week after the said Parliament was dissolv'd and is thus communicated by a Copy thereof as very pertinent to these distracted times and tending to preservation of the COMMON-PEACE For other things of Publick Concernment being interwoven it truly states the Peoples Cause in plain Expressions suitable to the Vulgar Capacities and frees it from many scandals It contains an Expedient hitherto not heeded or neglected whereby Charles Stuart may be settled in Peace if he please whereby we may have a better Parliament then we lost or ever had whereby our Armies may be kept constant to Order whilst they are needful and in a short time quite disbanded whereby the Peoples just Freedoms may be recovered and perpetuated whereby not onely these Nations but all Christendome also may be established in a Righteous Peace and it hath neither destructive Inlet Outlet or False Bottom Psal 11.3 When the Foundations are overthrown what shall the Righteous do Printed at London by James Cottrel 1659. A CORDIAL CONFECTION Against the fainting of the Heart in these distracted times BEING The true Copy of an Epistolary Discourse written occasionally by Major George Wither to Mr. R.H. Merchant in relation to the hazardous unsettlement of this Commonwealth by the late dissolving of the Parliament October 13. 1659. and composed the 24 day of the same October Psam 39. and Job 32. I said I would keep my mouth with a Bridle while the wicked are before me I held my peace even from good till my sorrow was stirred and till my heart was hot within me and then my musings burned within me and I spake with my tongue Hear me therefore for as Job 32. I will neither accept any mans person nor will I flatter lest my Maker take me away suddainly SIR I Have learned that he who judges a matter before he hears it is culpable of that Folly which makes him liable to shame Therefore when you lately demanded my Judgement concerning the Armies dissolving the Parliament on Thursday last was sennight and what Consequences I thought would probably ensue I told you That I would not answer to those Questions until I heard what Reasons they themselves alleaged for their Justification and what prosecutions they thereupon intended neither of which being to me known I am not warranted to declare my opinion in relation to those Demands nor have I so high a conceit of my own Judgment as to think I shall then be able to give a satisfactory answer For though I rightly pre-conjectured of many things heretofore upon foregoing symptomes which made it easie enough for any rational man to discern their Consequences without an extraordinary Revelation yet my fore-sight at this time is very dimme as to conjecturing what that Action will produce and it will require a Metaphysical Apocalypsis Nevertheless lest before that shall be divulged by the Army whereon rational Conjectures and Conclusions may be grounded for I pretend no higher the Common-peace or your private Tranquillity may be disturbed by things feared or prosecuted the mean while I will hereby give you an Accompt upon what considerations I keep my own heart quiet and from rendring those things worse by prejudicacy which I cannot make better by censuring what is acted or purposed beyond my sphere how irregular or unwarrantable soever they do appear This moderation I think my duty binds me unto until I know certainly upon what Principles or upon what Necessities they are voluntarily executed or unwillingly constrained especially when they are done by persons who have considerable Interests to hazard and a repute of being conscientious rational moral pious and prudent men and more especially in such prevaricating times as these wherein the sincerity of some and the Hypocrisies and Apostacies of others do as it were compel GOD and Men to dispense with their ordinary Laws and when ancient Foundations are made destructive to those ends for which they were first ordained even to be hinderances to the injoyment of humane society to the true worship of GOD and to the safety of the people through the petulancy or arrogance of some in power who by their adding of unsound Principles or perverting of those which are sound for a wrong use or by disguising their Form with unbeseeming dawbings or by raising upon them burdensome Superstructures do employ themselves for their private advantage in patching pulling down and re-building as their self-interests incline them though it be to the overthrowing or endangering of their well and safe being for whose sakes onely those Foundations were laid What induced them thereto who were Actors in the late Innovation or what they now designe to prosecute and by what Rules or Means they hope to accomplish it we shall know when GOD and they please if it be known to themselves whereof I am somewhat doubtful But whether they have done rashly or advisedly warrantably or unwarrantably the evident hazards wherein the Commonwealth is at this present being made greater then they were as well by the distractions which that Breach hath unhappily occasioned as by those preceding it to the encouraging of Domestick and Forraign Adversaries obligeth every Lover of his Country to apply himself rather to those endeavourings which are healing and may probably secure it from their malicious intendments who unquestionably seek the total destruction thereof then to contribute to those mischievous Designes by weakning our selves through dividing our Power and wasting it in opposing those who have been approved Friends to the same Cause which we own and I hope will so continue though they have wheeled about into an Extravagancy For it may be they have discovered some Stratagems or Ambuscadoes not appearing to us which may destroy them and the peoples interest also if not speedily prevented and thereupon conceived themselves necessitated to that diversion and to prosecute a defence and settlement of the Common Cause in another manner then heretofore upon justifiable Considerations If this be their Judgement in sincerity as the experience I have had of some of them inclines me to hope they are at least excusable if not altogether Blameless and as our Affairs now stand I think it safer to keep our Friends by palliating their failings then to make them our enemies by Exasperations though we have another way whereby we may be safe notwithstanding the Army should quite desert us as I shall demonstrate unto you hereafter But I will first expostulate and offer to consideration some things concerning Them and us which their late attempt hath occasioned me to weigh in my own heart If it shall be objected that they have heretofore been changeable and do now again proceeed both contary to Order and to their own Engagements Declarations Votes Professions and Resolutions thereby rendring

are Enemies to themselves The Good Old Cause and this being duly considered Charles Stuart hath in my understanding no more Legal Right to these Islands then I have to France and Spain He cannot justly be admitted hither but on such terms as may preserve the Peoples Interest unless GOD in wrath admit him for a punishment of our sins and to be a plague to those who desire it in contempt of his dispensations which otherwise neither our present divisions or the power of all his Confederates beyond the Seas would be able to effect notwithstanding the Superlative sottishness of some among us who seem fit to be governed by none but a Tyrant and by whom Charles Stuart himself would be sufficiently plagued whether he be tyrannically inclined or not if the Government of them should be on him imposed For though some desire his coming it is not in love for his own sake but in hope to enjoy under him a licentious Freedom and upon the least failing of their expectations in that hope they would cry Crucifie him the next day after they cryed Hosanna and wish for those again whom they now revile For many of them are the same persons who opposed reviled and pursued his Father even to his death and against him who should rule over them piously and righteously they would be much more exasperated This is not a rash censure founded upon passion or conjectures but a probable conclusion on that long experience which I have had of the giddiness malice and bruitish condition of that inconsiderate Rabble which makes the loudest Clamours and who are transported with the greatest madness No private interest makes me a verse to Charles Stuarts admittance neither have I any disaffection to his person for I never received in jury by him But my averseness is meerly in relation to my Country which in my understanding cannot enjoy a happy Peace together with his person as affairs now stand in relation to Him to his Confederates and to this Commonwealth I desire nothing by endeavouring to bar him or any other from that which he or they ought in Justice to possess and though I may suspect that my Actings against him for preservation of the Common Liberties will render me liable to his fury and to the rage of his Party I shall be no more afraid of him though re-admitted to morrow then he is now of me though he should come both with an unrestrained Power and a revengeful Mind because I have discharged a good Conscience even in doing that which may most offend him Nay upon Considerations of another nature I shall have no cause to fear him or to think I shall be more cruelly dealt withal by him then I have been by those in power among whom I now live though he should take away my Life For though I have served the late Powers faithfully with my Estate Person and Credit yet by their long neglect of Justice in some things and by their actual Injustice in some other things they have so exposed me to contempt and so nigh ruined me both in my Estate and Credit without which Life is little worth that Charles Stuart cannot be so unmerciful to me as they have been except when I am quite deprived of my Livelyhood and Reputation he should suffer me to live until I saw likewise the destruction of my Family and the Commonwealth whose welfare is to me more precious then Life though for all my Contributions and Services to the endangering of my Life Estate and Credit I could not obtain so much favor toward the relief of my Oppressions as to have one Petition read in her Grand Assemblies during above nine years continual Sollicitations In brief as in relation to my self I have no reason to respect any one of the former Powers more then the other for as the Porter said Whosoever were King he should be but a Porter so I may say if they who shall come hereafter be not more righteous then they who ruled heretofore I am sure to have but little Favour and much Mischief and as for Charles Stuart in particular if he comes hither by that passage which we are likely to make for him at this time and shall walk in ways no better then his Progenitors and our late Governours have trod I cannot have so much cause to dread him as he will have to be afraid of himself and I shall do him better service perhaps if I live to see him here in power then any one of them who most desire his coming For as I did to his Father and his Successours I will make bold though with as little thanks or belief to tell him plainly and truly what will befal him and his Posterity and then I think my work will be at an end and I shall leave the Stage Now I have done with Charles Stuart unless GOD's indignation sends him thither and then I must endure the Storm as well as GOD shall enable me which will issue from that Mountain and I verily believe that will be well enough because though I affect them not I am usually safest in Storms and thrive best by GOD's mercy when my greatest Enemies think they shall irrecoverably undo me I perceive that neither such peaceable Gales as many expect are likely to proceed thence nor such dreadful Tempests as are by some feared if we make them not great by our own defaults and therefore I will turn toward the next Mountain the late dissolved Parliament if I know where to finde it which will he a very hard matter for the Father of it is dead the Mother upon which it was begotten knows not whither it is departed and in the place where it was born lived and acted I find here and there a Limb but of so many united as may make them a Parliament I cannot hear any news no nor so much as a Paper from any one Member laying claim to their lost power All I hear of it is but Ecchoes which signifie little or some raging sounds implying that wrathful indignation which will never accomplish the will of GOD or else scurrilous Invectives scattered by we know not whom without names and raised perhaps from private Suppositions conducing onely to an inlargement of the late Breach as if designed by the Common Adversary to that end and by such as are accessary to that endeavour GOD who raised up Lazarus when he was dead buried stunk may if he please once again restore it and what he will do no man knows but in common Reason we can have little hope of it or of having any Deliverance from our hazards by that whereto we can make no Address and which had not power enough to save it self when it had a visible Authority The Horses which drew their Chariot like those in the Fable of Hippolitus being frighted hath overthrown it dasht it into pieces and so scattered their Members that should Aesculapius undertake the cure he could not set

been a King and not a Tyrant and would have raigned in Righteousness as by the Laws of GOD and Nature he was obliged to do For it cannot be reasonably imagined but that those were the implicite conditions of all their Protestations and Engagements But he so obstinately persevered in his wilfulness even when there was a Treaty for Reconcilement that he disobliged them from all their promises and compelled the prosecution of that which afterward ensued and was not at first intended And I do here to the Glory of GOD aver though I know it may be to my personal disadvantage that GOD's doom was justly executed upon him for his own sins and the sins of his Fathers house with what intent soever and with what juglings soever it was prosecuted by men and that the Peoples Cause was and is a Righteous Cause though it was not so prudently and righteously managed as it might and ought to have been and I believe it is too evident that some of both Parties by seeking to screw in personal advantages to themselves at the Treaty and at other times were the Causers of all that mis-befel both to the King and to the People I may rationally believe this because I had opportunities to discover much of their sinister actings on both sides tending to the trapanning of each other if I am not mis-informed which justly provoked GOD and occasioned Confusions to the insnaring of many well-meaning men to the involving them in guiltiness troubles and hazards from which they will not easily be delivered I many times adventured not without danger to my self to inform the King what I had observed and when he was Prisoner in the Isle of Wight signified by what means he might then unquestionably have made his peace both with GOD and Men as I have done without regard to his Successours but he adhered still to his evil Counsellours or rather to his own wilfulness which was enough to have depraved them if they had been good and instead of complying with his Parliament so endeavoured even when he was their Prisoner by corrupting the Scots and a great number of the Parliaments Members with large Promises that he was likely by plowing with their Oxen either to have cheated them of all the Peoples Freedoms or to have plunged the three Nations into a new War and this caused the Armies first extraordinary attempt at which the Royal Party and their Confederates have so much railed as a high breach of the Parliaments Priviledges and of the Peoples Freedoms whereas they could not at that time have been any other way preserved in humane understanding And therefore then and not before that part of the Parliament which was true to the trust reposed in them by the People did with the Assistance of their Army seeing as I conceive no way else but removing him out of the world to prevent the treacheries of their corrupt Members and the Kings Destructive Designes carried on by their complyance they out-witted him at his own game and Stratagems being as lawful against an Enemy as Force got possession of his person brought him to a Legal Tryal and condemned him to death A Legal Tryal was it you will say perhaps by what Law or by what Authority Truly I was heartily sorry for him when he was condemned and so far from having any hand therein or assenting thereto that I drew a Petition to the Parliament to forbear from executing the sentence of the Court by reason the rarity of such an Act made me then abhor it but no Member daring to present it and I having thereby opportunity to consider better of my intention was satisfied in my Conscience that he was Legally condemned by that Law which makes it Treason for a Servant to seek the destruction of his Master who had trusted him that he was no more but a principal Servant to the People justly questionable for breach of his Trust and that by the same Authority whereby the People might raise any one from among themselves to be their Supreme Officer they might for his ingratitude and violation of the trust reposed in him judge depose or condemn him to death as his Crime and the necessity of preserving the Common Peace or Safety should require and the Son of him whose Predecessours had for many Generations been Steward of a Princes Family and who was executed for his Treason thereto may as justly claim that he and his Posterity should be still Stewards thereof because his said Predecessours had been injurious and false unto it for many Ages together as Charles Stuart may claim to be King by inheritance over these Nations Upon these Considerations it seemeth to me and may appear to others that the Peoples Cause hath been unjustly scandalized and that a false opinion derived unto the late King from his Progenitors settled in him by long Usurpation and confirmed by the Flatteries of his Courtiers Chaplains and other Parasites made him believe that GOD had given him a right to all that which he claimed though it were contrary to the positive Law whereby he had commanded Kings to be regulated and repugnant also to that Law which was written in his heart until he had blotted it out For none but they who are more worthy to be made Beasts then Men can imagine that our ever-wise just and most merciful GOD except by permission when a Nation depraved by their own vanity foolishness and slavish mind desires it would have constituted such a destructive Monster as an unlimited Governour and advance a few men in every Generation yea and sometimes the vilest out of the vilest among them to subject all the rest to his lust and ambition upon a just Title as if all the residue of man-kind had been created for the sake of Tyrants Doubtless no reasonable Creature can imagine this or think it impossible as in appearance many do that they cannot be well governed without such a gay Bable as they usually make of it or that it is displeasing to GOD that when he hath given them power and opportunity so to do a People should endeavour to shake off their Fetters and establish such a Government as may preserve their Temporal Rights and Freedoms without admitting such Disturbers of humane society for the time to come These and such things as these must be well considered by Charles Stuart to prepare his heart before my Expedient will be pertinent and profitable unto him As I had means to be rightly informed of the Kings Cause so I had of the Parliaments also by being thereby called to a Military Command in their first Army to the execution of Civil Magistracy in the Commonwealth and by being inforced to attend almost 18 years at the latter end of my life in hope to obtain Justice from them or their Interruptors For by these means I knew the greatest part of them so far forth as Trees are known by their Fruits which may accidentally be made better or worse

might at least make some good use of it to fit him for a Coelestial Kingdome if it cannot make way for his recovery of those which he hath lost in this world His best Expedient will be sincerely to humble himself to GOD who to that end hath outwardly humbled him for his own sins and the sins of his Fathers House and for which his Father and He were cast out of these Kingdoms He must bewail them heartily and voluntarily not by compulsion and feignedly as perhaps he did in Scotland and was thereupon actually thrown out of that possession which he then had He must seriously consider what Freedoms do naturally and reasonably belong to Man kind and to every man as a man that he may do as he would be done unto being a private person He must consider how vain the promisings pretended friendships and help of Princes and of all degrees of men are how little hope there will be for him by the assistance of all his Allies and most powerful Confederates to possess what he claims if upon the repentance of these Nations GOD be still on their side and how great a plague if they continue as they are he and they would be to each other if he should obtain the Soveraignty over them especially if restored by a Forraign Aid whereby unspeakable calamities would ensue both to him and them He must take notice that the two main Causes of the Quarrel betwixt his Father and these Nations being for his usurping a Negative Voyce upon those Laws which the people should chuse and his denying the Militia to belong to them in chief was injuriously given by his Fathers default in regard the chusing what Laws they pleased not repugnant to the Law of GOD is not onely rationally and naturally due unto them but also by the common-Law of England long before the Intrusion of Duke William of Normandy and that they had also a right by continued Claim and Practise to chuse the Sheriffs who had Posse Comitatus which is the Militia in every County and therewith he shall do well to consider that such a Kingdom as his Predecessours had and as he desires to repossess is one of the Horns of that Beast which must shortly be destroyed and but one of the Kingdoms of this World which the Devil claims to be in his Gift and usually bestoweth upon them who will fall down and worship him apostatizing from GOD to be his Vassals that it is but such a Kingdom as Fools and wicked men may as well possess as wise and good men and that it neither makes the one wiser or the other better but oftentimes makes a wise man a fool and good men to be evil that he who had three such Kingdoms yesterday may not have the next day three foot of earth in them to rest upon That it brings more trouble and danger then peace and safety That it sets a man upon a Throne in the morning and brings him down to a Dungeon ere night and that the people who lye prostrare before him adoring him as a god this moment may soon after trample on him and cut off his head with dishonour All these things being well considered will make him a greater Conqueror by conquering himself and subduing his passions and inordinate desires then if he had subdued these Nations make him a more glorious King then any of his Predecessours and constitute a better and a more absolute Empire in his little Isle of Man then he could have enjoyed by the recovery of all that he hath lost His Courtiers and perhaps he himself also will deride this Expedient but all their policy cannot contrive him a better For if he will make proof of it and with patience under GOD's visitation make use of the charity of his Friends abroad and live a peaceable private life in performing as a Probationer all Moral and Pious Duties till GOD shall provide better for him as he did for Jehoiakim King of Judah even by those who had cast him out of his Kingdome GOD to whom nothing is impossible whatsoever bars are set against him may bring him hither in mercy both to him and to these Nations yea and will if he shall be humbled and qualified according to his Expectation and then the sooner he comes the better welcome nay though he be not so qualified and shall come both to our destruction and his own GOD may probably bring him for we are at this time preparing him a smoothe way paved in Checker-wise with our sins and follies Thus much I have contemplated on the behalf of Charles Stuart for whom whatsoever he shall think of it if it comes to his hands I have contrived no worse an Expedient then I my self would practise if I were in his case and knew the world so well as I do Now I will offer an Expedient to the Nations in general who are enslaved by Tyrants and left without all probable means to infranchise themselves which is briefly this Let them wait patiently upon GOD for Deliverance until he providentially makes way for it and then thankfully take the opportunities offered and constantly prosecute them Let them consider that their Bondage and Oppressions are justly come upon them for thier sins that they can have do deliverance but by GOD nor any perfect deliverance by him unless being reconciled to him they break off from their transgressions by Faith and Repentance fruitful in good works and make him their onely Resuge This if they do or but heartily endeavourit their lost Freedoms for recovery whereof they have hitherto in vain wasted their Treasure endured many Frights Troubles and Hardships undergone many Changes spont their Blood fought prayed and fasted also without Success shall be obtained by Prayers onely and then they shall better see GOD's merciful intentions and their own former mis-understandings and failings then their Governours shall be as Fathers then their Armies if they need any shall be faithful and then they shall enjoy their Temporal and Spiritual Freedoms fully and so peaceably that they may serve GOD comfortably in holiness and righteoufness all the days of their lives Moreover as for the Governours and people of these Nations in particular it will be their best Expedient joyntly and apart to reconcile themselves as aforesaid to GOD and to each other by the like hearty repentance of their sins and by laying aside their Animosities whereby they dayly infest and exasperate each other remembring who hath said that a kingdome divid●d cannot stand that being united they may in true Charity be active in such a Cause as may rationally effect a perfect Settlement And if GOD shall again restore the Parliameat or impower other men permissively to endeavour it let them who shall be authorized be merciful as he is merciful and once more oblige them by forgiveness of their former Delinquencies who shall acknowledge their faults and submit with Engagements given for the future to be obedient