protestors Vow when as he Voweth he will endeavor c. The next amongst external causes is the importunate and restlesse power of Flatterers making a Prince believe in the vastnesse of His Power over and above all Laws excusing and making lesse His faults then indeed they are rendring withall His actions exempt from Sin or Error The seasonable Accident which befel Antigonus King of SYRIA setting forth the falshood of His Parasites made him repent His Error in the Event Himself and His Kingdom happy who Hunting in a Forrest and earnestly pursuing His Chase being benighted lost His Followers and happening into a poor mans house to take His lodging demanded of His Host What that Country who and what maner of Governor the King of that Countrey was The poor man answered at large not knowing Him nor sparing to tell Him or any of His faults for which round dealing the King discovering Himself at His fellow-Hunters â—oming rewarded well His Host and afterwards better knew Himself and His flattering Courtiers using these words in their hearing Verum de me nisi hae Nocte audivi nunquam There are two causes of Pride an Inward Ignorance Outward Flattery That no whit appliable This the more dangerous as being inevitable because by surprize it seizes and annoys the person flattered and by perswading him to what he is not robs him of the possibility of being what he should Other occasions and incentives have been of this War the angry maner of Impeaching the Hostile of demanding the six Members of both Houses together with the Proclamations since accusing other Members of High See what the Assembly at OXFORD acknowledges The Priviledge of Parliament to be so substantial and entire a Right that the Invasion of the Liberties of either House is an injury to the other and to the whole Kingdom in their Declaration printed there p. 12. Treason hath added to the fuel of this War On what the Impeachment was first grounded otherwise then as general Articles is known to few unlesse it were for some supposed ill committed in their activenesse to perform what they thought their duty did enjoyn In every design and purpose there will be some more Activity in one two or more then in the rest otherwise the purpose in hand is likely to stand still Every compleated Act is first the conception of some one individual person then the consent of the rest If the first beginners shall for their forwardnesse of no advantage to themselves be therefore accused of Crimes and in a violent way pursued it could not but strike at the Root of the Subjects Liberty invaded lately then in agitation to be maintained and the sequel prove dangerous the infringing the Power and Priviledge of Parliament which so many Thousands have protested to maintain The Quarrel was as the Division great and 't is probable there would not have wanted witnesses on the one party as to prove the Articles so to have aggravated the guilt of them to the highest against the other The examination of which Articles whether the six Members were guilty in matter of Fact of what they were accused or whether the Articles were Treason in case they were guilty is not proper to this Discourse The beginning and maner of the first entring into this War being set down the Reader is left to judge on which the Offensive on which the Defensive is If it were as certain that the Parliament did before this War intend any thing against the Honor of the King as it is certain the Subjects Right and Liberty were encroached upon to say no more of what is vehemently presumed against the Protestant Religion no question then but the War must be thought Defensive on the Kings part But when these three endangered the Incendiaries contriving the subversion of the same consequently the promoters of this War are judicially required to answer their Misdemeanors when as they shall by a strong hand be rescued from the hand of Justice and in stead thereof Misdemeanors of as high a nature retorted on their Judges the Court of Parliament Nothing but a War could decide the Controversie an impartial understanding discern between the Offensive and Defensive part The Contention grew at first in point of Trust who should be rather believed for what is promised the King rather those about Him whom the Parliament suspected or the Parliament it self The several Reasons for requiring Trust are obvious to every mans view who hath observed their several Actions The Parliament may plead their undertakings cannot be made good nor the Trust committed to them discharged in that free and just way as they would because themselves opposed A Court of Judicature confronted and by an advers and equal power interrupted in their course of Justice must needs abate in their power and efficacy They have enough to do to detect and defeat the Fraud and Circumventions hourly practised against their place and person their condition like to the closely besieged in a Town of Garison who to subsist and maintain themselves do many things against their natural just and wonted course Friends may be sometimes oppressed and injured Enemies favored Justice cannot in perplexed times of danger be dealt with an exact and even poised hand the Sword hanging ready to fall like that of Damocles on each mans head A cunning Craftsman in dissembling and secret Enemy to that Court privily engaged to supplant the same may in his very demanding Justice and expecting by reason of the greatnesse of his place to be hearkned unto pressing withal their sedulous listening to his Complaints do it on purpose to divert their thoughts from their care of safety a small matter in equality of strength and in a doubtful Conflict helpeth to some Advantage Many are the exceptions against their Actions This a certain one the greatest and most inevitable inconvenience in their proceedings Martial and Civil that some injury must be done the very Act of War presumes as much and it is not their fault it may be their unhappinesse to be served by ill Instruments Those Instruments will expect also to be winked at in that they run the hazard of being censured to be Rebels for their sakes who do imploy them if not a little winked at there is danger in these dividing and doubtful times of turning to the advers part so the Subject is destined as it were to be oppressed And marvel not saith the wise man if thou seest oppression of the poor or a violent perverting of Justice in a Province and it must be that offences come The Miscarriages Violence and Insolencies done by a few or many particular men are not to be imputed to that Power which Governs them unlesse done by the Authority and Commission of that Power One other unfitnesse may appear in the proceedings of the Parliament as inevitable as the rest namely in that they have in a subordinate way deputed men of a lower rank to execute their Commissions and
already in derision The Cause Secondly In that a forraign Enemy upon a total devastation of this Realm without which the King cannot probably prevail will be induced to believe and accordingly make use of it that it hath happened through the soft and tender breeding of the English their unfitnesse to endure the hardship of a War and so invade and by degrees implant this Kingdom And what a Forraigner implanted here his Demeanour may prove towards our King not naturally their liege Lord every good English Subject will fear the worst when as especially this Kingdom must be kept as NAPLES by a Sir VValter Raughleigh in his Dialogue betwixt a Councellor of state and a Iustice of peace Garison of another Nation so that the King shall be enforced as former Kings have been to compound with Rogues and Rebels yea to pardon them thereby Himself the whole Nobility yea the State of Monarchy to fall together To state the differences of Forces on either part when the quarrel first began the Parliament had far the greater * The number of the Friends and Adversaries unto either part are calculated and their several Forts discerned about the middle of this Book and which part was in probability like to finde the greater opposition the King or the Parliament as matters were then in being in which it will appear that the Parliament had the more Enemies or their Enemies the more Friends number the King having but few yet more then the Parliament had Towns of Fort as his party have Calculated and hyperbolically reported otherwise most mens hearts being bent to defend their Rights and Liberties which they thought were of late encroached upon and indeed the Off-spring of this Quarrel and the Parliaments Friends believing the Justice of that Court and of their Cause in a carelesse way of affording Ayd threw all upon the chance of War without using the ordinary means concurrent to their defence not foreseeing what would be the end and mischief of their backwardness and neglect to be repented of not remedied They were willing enough to have redresse for their late-past grievances to have the work done and the Parliament speed well at their Neighbours charge so themselves be saved harmlesse but to lay out money and purchase the name of a Rebel in case the Kings party should prevail was both a chargeable and double Crime Then their unwillingnesse to be exposed to the hardship of a War to which they were altogether unaccustomed believing in the goodnesse and sufficiency of their Cause to have it made good in an extraordinary way by Miracles without laying to their assisting hand so casting the whole burden upon God and his Omnipotency did wish well and pray peradventure for the Parliaments Successe For now every short enjoyment of their quiet every small respite from the Enemies cruelty although the next bordering Counties unto them be infested round about with their cruelty makes these men apprehend that the War is ended because their Coast is for the present clear and they feel no instant smart It is true Gods Providence is in all things to be observed it is as his Omnipotency Infinite and Superintendent to every Creature No one hair falls from a mans head nor a Sparrow from the house top without his Providence The same Almighty power which could rescue his three Servants out of the fiery Furnace and provide strength of the mouthes of Infant Babes is able but whether he will or not his works being unsearchable and his ways past finding out give successe according to the peoples wishing without the ordinary means to be used by Instruments that is left to his secret and determinate Councel There is a time for War and a time for Peace the Lord is a man of War his Name is JEHOVAH and Fighting in a qualified sence as Praying is a duty DAVID blessed God for teaching his hands to War c. And Prayer is a Christians a contrite and good mans Arms. Had we in Unity and Humblenesse of Spirit in the Power without the Form of Godlinesse besought Almighty God to be delivered from Famine Battel Murder and from Sudden death as the Church directs These Calamities had not in likelihood come nigh which threaten now to come upon us like an Armed man Beseeching God by Prayer might peradventure be the Peoples sacrifice alone neglecting otherwise their own endeavors and carelesly trusting if at all upon God his Providence they think sufficient which is confest In which they may alike consider That if the Kings party shall prevail or the whole Land be consumed and reduced even to a handful It is all within the compasse of Gods power The Lot is cast but the disposing is of the Lord And certainly that side which useth the best and most concurrent means to his dispose the Justice of the Cause is challenged by either party is likely to have the upper hand Praying and relying on the Almighty goodness seldom fails the Petitioner God ever giving what he prayeth for what suffices or what is better then he asks but the means must be added to the prayer Qui ordinat finem ordinat etiam media tendentia ad finem Moses at the coming of the Amalakites besought the Lord by prayer yet commanded Joshua to choose out men to fight with Amalck God is in all things the first Mover by whom we move and have our being he the Super-eminent and first cause yet working by subservient and second means we are his People and Members of his Church Militant against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail In the Creation his own glory was the effect of his chief care manifested unto us his Creatures his next affording us all necessaries for our support and good he looks to be sought unto and trusted upon in that course of obedience which he hath ordained in conveying that unto us which we look for at his hands otherwise he is rather slighted then trusted on Had the people been so liberal in Contributing to to their own Defence so provident to have foreseen that within one year after their improvidence they should have been thus opprest in the progress of one year more undone they would questionlesse have been more liberal and concurred more cheerfully in Contributing to their own Assistance For within a few Moneths after the War began many in the Kingdom fell off from the Parliament and under fear and the notion of being reputed Rebels thought it made against their present safety to wish well to the Parliament a Court scarce known in the Countrey and discontinued in the Kingdom much more to fight for it And hearing of divers invective Threats and Menaces to that purpose as if their Endeavors for the Parliament did make against the King and so resemble a Rebellion thought it altogether unsafe to adhere to the Parliament So the Kings strength increasing through the fear and revolt of many formerly engaged to the other part he gained
divers Towns in several parts of the Kingdom On which his Friends and Party fix a Miracle reckoning it an extraordinary Act of Gods Favor shewed to him in the sudden increase of his Party that from an handful as it were he hath raised Forces to such numbers when as the Miracle may be retorted and rather turned the other way That his Majesty being so Pious Just and Protestant a Prince as his party contends and an * See the Oath tendred at Oxford 1643. Oath to that purpose hath been tendred to divers of late within his Quarters there should be notwithstanding such a defection from him in his Subjects so many thousand also not engaged nor seduced men of sufficiency and worth mistaken in what is Loyalty Neither is Victory in a Civil War any evident note of the Almighty's favor when as it is obtained on such hard terms as the Ruine and Destruction of a flourishing Land rather in the Event it will prove an angry Judgement of Gods punishing the Authors of this Ruine in suffering * See the Message of both Houses March 9. 1643. above and beyond all others a Civil War consuming and overthrowing the Body Politique as a pestilent Feaver doth the Natural with its distempered heat As for the Towns the Kings party gained whether by His Commanders wit and Stratagem allowable in War or by falshood in point of parly and of trust odious and scorned even in Forrain Wars is hereafter examinable and to be tryed by the Sword alone yet one word what that falshood is when a Commander or Officer in chief shall Swear by Solemn Oath and Vow to perform what he never means and after a trust committed and an agreement made break and falsifie the same And whether it be Treachery and falshood or Stratagem and Policy doth rest upon this Question Whether the Parliaments Proceedings be Rebellious unbecoming Subjects or just and Loyal If Rebellious then it may seem Stratagem and duty to the King in such Commanders entrusted by the Parliament to renounce their trust and serve the Enemy If the Parliament be good and faithful Subjects as they will rather sacrifice their lives to the Justice of their Cause then fail to Vindicate their Credit from the stain of Rebellion then it is Treachery in those Commanders to undertake afterwards to desert such Trust That such foul dealing hath been practised occasioning the protraction of this War is manifest on which side most future Ages or the Sword will manifest If it be answered by way of excuse as no crimes whatsoever shall want a patron in these divided times That such dealing is a vertue practisable in relation to a Kings Safety in danger to be destroyed and that breach of Faith of Trust never so Solemnly made or any other the like means may be used in Order to His preservation Answer This Argument may be Fallacy à petitione Principii or à non concessis which manner of disputing can enlarge ad infinitum and as the Logicians speak The reply thereto may be unto such an Argument that there is no such detestable and desperate design in being or known or granted Where by the way and to prevent the mistake ☞ of our duty and Allegiance which we should owe to our Soveraign if any exquisite wits of a more nimble discerning reach then their fellow Subjects pretending a greater care to His Majesties welfare have heretofore found out by privy and dark passages by any secrecy of contrivance any such wicked and execrable intendments against the Kings Person or Honor or deeming all others not partaking in their sagacity Ignorant in State affairs dull and vulgar spirited Let them make known unto their fellow Subjects the time the means and manner of that intendment before the whole Land be totally destroyed or a full Conquest be obtained for afterwards all writers will report one way in favour of the Victors side then also the victory not the Cause will point out and set forth the Rebel That two or three Gentlemen since Members of the House of Commons together with a Noble Peer in the House of Lords dwelling in neighbouring Counties each to other and sojourning about seven or eight years since with a Gentleman a neighbour and friend of theirs did during the time of their sojourning there therefore agree to overthrow Monarchial Government or intend any thing against the Honor or Person of the King if neither of these appeared by their discourse Letters or other Acts in writing the Arguer shews more his spleen against those Gentlemen then his Reason in deducing any good Connexion between the Antecedent and Conclusion Observe on the other side one among many other presumptions of some Design in hand from the advers party then let the Reader judge on which side is the more weighty and vehement presumption of Acting mischief of complotting alterations in matter of Government which the more rational Consequence that instance which went before even now recited or this which follows namely the building strong and high walls by a great Peer of this Realm to his house no other notice taken until now save of beautifying and adorning the house for his private use and splendour the divers Pieces of Ammunition credibly informed to be caried thither by little and little for these many years last past and now one of the strongest Holds the Kings party hath in all South-Wales to infest and oppose the Parliaments party Whilest the truth of such Plot of overthrowing Monarchial Government of some mischievous intendment against the Kings Majesty if any such there be suggested is no more manifested to the World it may be an Imposture framed and obtruded on the Parliament by some offenders who to save themselves have contrived this Calumny and Falshood on purpose to engage the King to rescue them The Parliament when this report was first given consisted of above Five hundred Members in both Houses And whether they having all Protested for the Kings Honor Person and Estate would against the dictate of their own Conscience against their natural and sworn Allegiance infringe this Vow to commit wilful Perjury and Treason Or that if it be objected That the Design was the drift only of some few accused and stiled factious persons solliciting and awing others then to assign who those few persons were and rather to blame the Counties and Corporations chusing such Questionlesse when first chosen their chusers suspected no such Crime in them and whether men known and chosen for their vertue would accumulate such Villanies as those Such a Design must be given out at least to save the credit of some revolting who having undertaken the charge and care of their several Counties to them deputed were at first active in their Musterings and Military practises Soon after whether wrought by Friends Allies or for some other respect did desist charging the Parliament or some of them in general terms with some strange intended Plot against the King
but without declaring what Plot or the Authors which had they particularly and manifestly done and so sufficiently proved the reason of their revolt it might have spared the effusion of much blood and more availed the Kings Cause then their revolting did They did not doubtlesse originally and from the first dissemble as to sit in a joynt and unanimous way with the Parliament and reserve their heart for an advers party to the Parliament few or none of any sorts of men were good at that close and subtile posture nor was dissembling then in that mature growth as these false and desperate seasons will bring in even amongst all sorts improving it to that obstruse and exquisite form as the vertue of wisdom And the subtilty of dissembling growing to be near the same most mens carriage will seem inconstant if not false Upon deliberation and advice those men undertook their charge and what wrought the change in them such mens instability is made much of their persons little Now that the Parliament should at this time have the upper hand the Kings party losing more in some places then they gain in other and that he having gathered Forces these three years or more and set forth Proclamations to subdue and awe those whom he calls his Enemies and not to over-match them 'T is probable that howbeit Fear and Inconstancy have brought many to his party a mightier hand over-awing all hath provided strength and courage to have his purpose brought to passe beyond the ordinary power of man and by his mighty Hand and out-stretched Arm to make his own Glory the more manifest through the infirmity of weak men As to the Proclamations set forth in the Kings Name of small advantage to his Cause it is a question whether his or not or published only in his Name without his assent The ordinary matter of a Proclamation ariseth on some emergent Accident of State binding for the present anon alterable of little or no use These kindes of Proclamations of Condemning are surviving Acts and conclude the Subject Proclaimed against Again Proclamations have been heretofore set forth only as Arbitrary and Temporary Declarations of a Prince's pleasure to grant Indulgence to prevent or cure some Inconveniences in State-matters serving for a light and present remedy until some judicial Act of Law shall apyly a more weighty and certain one If they were to no other end then that the persons Proclaimed against might by the terror of such an Imperial Act be brought into obedience and then to be received to mercy yet they and most men else held it the safer course being not guilty to keep out of their Accusers reach and not to put it to Arbitriment whether they should be Condemned or Pardoned when as also their personal sufferings in losse of life as Traytors had not satisfied the thirst of their Accusers It is the Enthralling and as it were the Disfranchizing and Embasing a free born Subject to stand to the Expectance of mercy when he knows his heart to be free from guilt A Traytor in his Araignment is admitted to his lawful Tryal demanded what he can say for himself c. A Proclamation ties him up from his Answer Crimes of a lower rank are not construed so as Fellonies unlesse the minde concurreth with the Fact for the * intent doth make the Fellony Treason See the Form of Indictm Felonice a Crime of a deeper Dye staining the blood ruining the Posterity with the Estate ought to be tryed in a more upright and sober course by Judges of an entire and impartial vertue Contention and the Sword are no fit Umpires in the Question of Who be Traytors It is a harsh and severe proceeding for a man to be be charged with Crimes by Proclamation to which no Answer can be given and to be debar'd from what he can reasonably say for himself It is as strange that seeing we are Subjects under the same King and Government his Proclamations should finde such contrary entertainment so weighty on the one side as to proscribe and awe yet so slight unto the other as not to be obeyed or credited For Example sake the frequent Proclamations against Papists resorting to his Majesties Court others straightly charging in his Majesties Declararation as to this present War * In answer to a Declaration of the Lords and Commons for the raising of all Power and Force as well Trained-Bands as others in all Counties printed at Oxford 1642. That no Papist should presume to List himself either as an Officer or a Soldier in his Army having directed how he should be discocovered if he did presume and suffer if he were discovered If necessity be pleaded for the King to make use of them his Subjects for his own defence against those whom he calls Rebels Or if the like Plea be made in excuse of those his Majesties Designs of late discovered as that he hath been necessitated and driven by his Subjects to try all means whatsoever for his reducing them for the reparation of his own Honor which he complains they seek to trample on The examining of the original of this War directeth who the Authors of it have been as also how this necessity so called hath hapned and whether the King should have had need to have made use of any of his Subjects for his own Defence or to have expressed his displeasure against other of his People For his own parties not obeying his Proclamations and Edicts as is observed Those published in March and June 1643. the one against Robbing Spoiling c. The other Pardoning all Members of Parliament some few by name excepted many of them so pardoned have had their Lands seized on by his Soldiers their Houses held from them by strong hand So the Proclamations slighted the Laws protested to be kept broken the Subject and his Right trampled on Many the like Edicts and Declarations of Favor and Liberty granted to his People to some upon their humble * Petition presented to his Majesty unto See the Petition of the Clothiers in the West and his Majesties Answer 1643. others from a compassion and sence in his Majesty of their sufferings seem neither his own Acts nor scarce seen by him not able to make good what he commands or not real in not intending to make good what he had promised The figurative Dialect and strong expressions wherein those Declarations and Messages are pen'd besides the matter of them are probably none of his neither is it possible that any ones heart should have so large a capacity the King 's not leasure enough amongst the oppositions of crosse Councels amidst the variety of such accidents as hourly happen to examine digest command and declare all matters subject and suitable to such accidents the demeanor of his party also quite contrary to his Declarations and Commands The Proclamations in July the same year forbidding Trade and Traffique unto his chiefest and Imperial City should not in
exhortatory command of subjection to the higher Powers Powers they are without doubt high also and eminent otherwise the Countreys made an ill choyce out of eminent persons to elect inferior and mean men to enact Laws The Apostles text forecited intendeth not a King simply in His person only but all powers of governing nor them as governors in whatsoever they do but for the reason there subjoyned Their just demeanors as being the Ministers of God for the Subjects good to take vengeance of evil doers otherwise Saint Peter his peremptory text It is better to obey God then man were of lesse value and might seem to contradict Saint Pauls exhortatory Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers But to the difference in the object of obedience obedience is in common judgement most due to that power which is freest from the possibility of Error A King may sooner erre then a Parliament may no man can simply accuse that Court of permanent Actions of injustice for whatsoever they do Establish or Ordain is made just and lawful unto us in that they do it whilest we live and are born under laws They may by some latter Act repeal or moderate the rigour of an ancient or former Law without Error or injustice doing The managing their course of enforcing of imposing upon the Subjects Liberty and Right of requiring him to contribute to the maintenance of this War may not altogether unfitly be resembled to the course of a skilful Chirurgion who when a Patient's leg being broke is ill set he breaks the leg anew although with torture to the Patient his reason of breaking the same again is to set that right which by ill setting was displaced The Parliament findes the Laws broken justice turned out of it's propper channel they in the prosecution of a War necessarily to be maintained for the recovery and restauration of the Laws to their former state break those Laws again they enforce the subjects to pay the charge of Souldiers raised therefore not with an intent to continue such exactions but only during this time of War which by the peoples free submitting to the Parliaments impositions will the sooner end the one not laying heavier loads then the Subjects can bear nor the Subjects repining at what the Parliament shal impose and all upon a serious and just debate of what may fall out but necessary for a War being to be waged in defence of the Laws Government and Protestant Religion which by subtil and secret practises hath been long since oppugned who is to bear the charges of the War but they for whose sake and safety it is raised Qui sentit commodum sentire etiam debet onus money is the sinews of War War the end of Peace Peace the Subjects Blessing if he voluntarily contribute not and be enforced it is no impeachment of his Liberty and whither a War be to be waged is the result of this Discourse If the Subject by reason of such Tax and Impositions be lessened in or brought beneath his ordinary port of living his hope of enjoying his former Peace and Safety is his relief a litle enjoyed with quiet better contenteth the Subject then a great deal with travel and contention of Spirit whereupon the wise mans saying doth reflect in the comparison betwixt a dinner of hearbs with Peace then a stalled Ox with contention better to live on a morsel for the present with Peace and Right to what a man liveth on then to fare plenteously in fear of strife without the Justice of the Law measuring out each mans portion Again in that some of the * To indure for a time only transient actions of the Parliament may seem harsh and rigid yea intrenching deeply on the private Estates of men as matters now are in these loose and confused times when Law and Justice fail in most parts of the Kingdom yet relating to the publique good and common end of Peace not altogether unjust in the determinate acts of Justice no more then when houses in a street on fire the contiguous house pull'd down to save the whole street can be thought a determinate wrong or any wrong at all except to the private person whose house it is The distinction between Injusta facere Injuste facere is old this commonly and purposely to do unjustly that sparingly and accidentally to do things unjust wherefore the condemning of the Kentish men to dye for the late insurrection 1645. in that County instanced in as an act of cruelty might seem unjust and beyond the letter of the law in that all Rowts and unlawful Assemblies are by the Statute in that case provided construed as Misdeameanors only and punishable by Fine and Imprisonment Ans The Insurrection there was of a different nature in a more seditious and turbulent time the unlawful Assemblies at the time of enacting that Statute were as of a lighter kinde so to be punished by a lighter penalty This when the Subjects Liberty invaded the supreamest Court of Indicature oppugned and a Kingdom hereby divided within it self when for the mutual defence of each other some Counties thereof shall associate without any farther aim then by their joynt strength to repulse an Enemy in case he shall invade Such an Insurrection as was then made to disturb the Unity of such Association is more then an ordinary Rout intended by that Statute and to be tried and punished by the Justice of a Parliament To examine His Majesties demeanour suits not not with the tenour of this discourse whither He be considered in His Absolute quality of Wise Valiant Temperate or in his Relative towards his people as what His manner of Government hath been since His first comming to the Crown God and the Kings own heart can best judge and determine To repeat invectives here neither becomes the Author nor avails the Cause preventives of future evils are a better Antidote then Accusations are a cure for what is past Many passages now extant and in print from LONDON and OXFORD being fully set forth by the one excused and answered by the other side have made known His Government But to what happened since this War was waged which party the lesse unjust which more to be obeyed That which actually did offer wrong or that which being necessitated to raise Arms for their own defence and consequently prove the passive Authors of a Civil War might offer injury The Declarations and Remonstrances published of late with the Answers and Replications thereunto have set forth the matters of Fact and both parties challenging now yea enforcing obedience from the people the Reader is to Judge unto whom it is most due If in His Majesties demanding ship-money He hath lost any of His Subjects affections He may thank them who perswaded Him to the Justice and Legality thereof which whether it were lawful or not is learnedly argued by His * In the case of Ship-money Solicitor General The affections of
Divers also of a luke-warm temper not Moderate but Neutral rather Issachar like couching down betwixt two Burthens reserving the tribute of their affections for the stronger side their condition not unlike to Water-men in a rough Tide Rowing for safety from one Shore to another yet discerning the difference of the Cause in question and in their judgements satisfied which is the more just do weigh withall whose Actions the Kings parties or the Parliaments are the more Cruel and for fear of that which is the more cruel betake themselves to that presuming upon the Lenity of the more milde and merciful as not likely to exceed the Limits of Justice in their punishings Others of mixt affections adhering to the King in some of His Tenents to the Court of Parliament in some of theirs and none so sure a lover to the Parliament or Adversary to the King but will think that the Parliament in some of their transient Acts may deviate and go astray The Kings party may in other things maintain a probable right yet that doth not distinguish these mens affections or make them lesse vehement to the party they affect For the extreme and adequate terms in this Division are an actual invading the Subjects Right setled by an Ancient and Fundamental Law on the one and an endeavoring to maintain and preserve the same on the other part The other Disputes between the King and Parliament concerning Church-Government and the manner of Divine Worship are collateral only and incident to this contention and might have been left unquestioned and intire had not this War touching a more principall object happened and may soon yet be reconciled when as little different in themselves And these men mistermed luke-warm or neutral will approve themselves as affectionate and constant to the Parliament as any of those who misterm and censure them And of this sort many there are who have wisely and warily carried themselves with fervour and constancy to that part although commended in a malevolent envious way and taken notice of by their enviers repining at their well-doing for playing their game so wisely Divers also of the other side to comprehend them all in a few words ignorant peevish and currupt in manners as in judgement as Schismatiques and Sectaries snarling at and despising all Government are seeming to adhere to the Parliament against the King it is sure against His Government no friends to the Parliament but instruments and glad at these Distempers whereout they suck no small advantage and certain Enemies when time shall discover them to the peace of the Church and State The Quarrel would end the sooner if all men who partake therein would deliberately and seriously examine within themselves on what grounds and for what respects they have wished best to the one or to the other side and if they have in a hasty and precipitate way erred in point of judgement to retract their Errors the two known premises of * Secunde cogitationes sunt sapicutores the second thoughts are commonly the wisest and no * In sapientem non potest cadere injuria Senec. injury can befall a wise and resolved spirit afford one safe conclusion that it is no injury to the Credit of any man to change his opinion upon better grounds and if it were his wisdom can keep off the injury If Reason Conscience Duty were the rule alone wherby to guide the affairs and mindes of men collateral and sinister ends as is elsewhere set down excluded or the distinction well observed betwenn Time and Eternity and the difference between the dimension of these and the reward due after the fruition of either there had been much lesse blood spilt and the accompt lain more lightly on the blood shedders The Series of the War declared the partakers known who have been the Authors what the Cause of this Contention the Parliament by the event of what hath happened have been traduced and censured the Authors the occasion The proper cause is Injustice and Oppression by whom committed follows if Justice exalts a Nation by the rule of Contraries Injustice must overthrow it T is true this calamity these pressures these divisions and Schisms have happened in the time of the Parliaments sitting yet that Court no more the Cause thereof then Augustus Caesar's Raign the cause of Christs birth He was born in the time of Augustus Raign This Calamity befel in the time of the Parliaments sitting If the Parliament any cause at all it is a very remote and least principal not to be reckoned positively a cause No man can reasonably think them to be the cause that when as Discord doth waste and rend the strength which they have gained by Policy and friends they will endanger the losse thereof by the weaknesse of Dissention In a serious and Christian apprehension of these Calamities the supreme and original cause is our National Iniquities Pride Falshood Luxury contempt of Gods Word and His Laws and the like drawing down the Anger of a just God but that His other attributes of mercy which is over all His works His long-suffering and plenteousnesse in Goodnesse can cancel and supersede that of His justice if the fault be not supinely ours when as if the commemorating of His readinesse to forgive be no Doctrine of presumption to embolden sinners He often spares for His elect for a few righteous Mens sake the rest In the rank of natural and lower causes Injustice as even now spoken of in the subordinate Ministers of justice which grindes the face and adds to the number of the poor hath been the proper and certain cause although the * Mr. Jo Heywood on the life of Hen. 4. Historian stateth it plainly against a King Himself to private men saith he it is sufficient that they do no wrong but a Prince must provide that none under Him do wrong for by the winking at the vices of His Officers He makes them His own One other sin of a latter date may be added to the number of the causes of the continuance of this War for which God is justly angry and hath severely threatned the faint and perfunctory keeping of the Protestation and Covenant entred into rather of not keeping it at all in many of this Kingdom for whilest in the close of the Protestation we shall vow to endeavour by all honorable and just ways c. In which words some measure of Activity at least is requisite When thou shalt vow a vow unto the Lord thou shalt not be slack to pay it and wherein many have not Deuteron 23. only deserted this their vow but endeavoured against the same Others contemplative only and remisse as not endeavouring at all but with cautious reservations and forbearances keep off their endeavourings believing as the Lazy Souldiers whom the * Livie Historian noteth to have dreamed their Enemies votis sedendo debellari posse Wishings and sitting still are no sufficient discharge of the
some other contagious Disease or such like Reason those towns otherwise incompetent for such conflux of people as probably may have recourse to the Parliament for their dispatch and redresse in their Desires And whither that Adjournment amounts not to a Dissolving against the Law so consented unto by the King hereafter Besides observe the difference of Times and Persons which satisfies the Question Former Kings have been willing to call often Parliaments that the Usage and Necessity of often Summoning grew 36. Ed. 3. into a Law and yet in force to call one every year when in this of His Majesties Raign how seldom and sparingly He hath called any And when He hath as He did in the first year of His Raign to begin in June it continued unto July and Adjourned until August following and but few Acts passed before it ended In these last years the Parliament at the importunity and humble Request See their Petition 1639. of divers the Nobility and a valuable number of the Gentry the King summoned in April 1640. how soon He dissolved the same the beginning of May following Then he called another in November after in which for their more firm and constant proceedings in their Affairs and to the end that being come and met together from the several parts of the Kingdom they should not upon every light matter of Debate be dissolved and remitted home His Majesty was pleased to passe an Act against Dissolving without their own consent how soon after their sitting and that Act passed their Priviledges were seized by charging several Members of either House of High Treason Which when that could not take effect nor their persons seized the King withdraws Himself advised thereto from the Parliament and their place of sitting thereby to make void their Court whereof His Majesty one part yet His personal presence in this case not so requisite as that His absence should make void the Parliament The Parliament consisting of three Estates King Lords and Commons if the King be a necessary and constitutive part without which there can be no Parliament as those of His party contend to have it so His removing from the other parts amounts to a dissolving contrary to a Law consented unto by His Majesty wherefore it were a greater degree of undutifulnesse in any Subject to think that the King would violate that Law then that His Power and Vertue being there His Person should be so requisite as that the absence of His Person should adnul and make it no Parliament The person it self being severed from its Office and Vertue is a thing inanimate The distinction into a voluntary and necessitated absence or that the Kings presence shall make it compleat His absence an incompleat Parliament abates not the force of that Law nor serves to make whole the difference unlesse there be such a condition or limitation in the * See the Act passed in full Parliament Act. Which the proper and true Parliament is that summoned and resident at WESTMINSTER or that removed by a latter summons as before expressed to OXFORD which Question together with the perverse and proud obstinacy of an engaged and desperate party though throughly convinced of the truth thereof hath cost much blood The King and His party at OXFORD do resolve it truly Again He or His parties instability of Actions do seem to renew the doubt certainly do wound their own Cause For whilest His Majesty often and of late calls the Assembly at WESTMINSTER The Parliament and the Assembly at OXFORD by one and the The Assembly at OXFORD acknowledge in their Declaration printed there March 1643. The Parliament at WESTMINSTER not to be Dissolved pag. 25. same stile and that two Parliaments are inconsistent at one and the same time in this Kingdom the people unlesse wilfully and perversly ignorant are not to seek which is the proper Parliament Here by the way the OXFORD Mercury seeming to subjoyn in some ways to the Declaration printed there with a plausible Frontispiece of A Declaration tending to Peace rather Refutes that Book and deals more plainly and ingenuously upon the matter of a Peace offering from His party there and moving a strong cause of Jealousie against a truly intended Peace as is before expressed Now to examine the several Passages and Tracts of that Book Intituled A Declaration tending to Peace whither or no it ministereth matter of Peace as the title doth insinuate or further Quarrel For first they can say little for themselves to justifie their assembling as to a Parliament for the enacting and constituting Laws but what is ordinary and easie to be answered They lay aspersions on some mis-fezance and Errors in their fellow Members So great a body could not well be free from failings they accuse the whole body of Parliament of High Misdemeanors of High Treason of disturbing the publique Peace of the Kingdom of promoting and fomenting an horrid War and who to be judge thereof but themselves the Accusers The Parliament by an ancient Law in force is the sole Interpreter in matters of this doubt and consequence 36. Ed. 3. and themselves at OXFORD do not assume the Title and Power of a Parliament when as they acknowledge in the same Declaration ther fellow Pag. 16. Members sitting now at WESTMINSTER to be so material a part of Parliament that if they themselves at OXFORD might have enjoyed their freedom without being forced their sitting at WESTMINSTER to have been a full and free Convention and a Parliament The formal part of a Parliament in the Kings summoning them by Writ at such a time to such a place to debate the Affairs of the King and Kingdom This being granted and the Parliament at WESTMINSTER thus met what is wanting then to make it a full and free Parliament As to their want of freedom due to the Members of a Parliament and forced as they urge from those assembled now at OXFORD when they sate at WESTMINSTER Forced they could not be force is a fruit of power and deparibus in pares non datur potestas solicited and strongly wrought upon they might be according to their several tempers They accuse themselves and abate much of that courage required in Parliament Members when they complain they were forced fellow Peers cannot enforce each other without a previous disposition and compliance in those who are forced to be forced If any force and the same not offered by an higher power it might be in a close and clancular way by Proxies and Solicitors they know where the power rests of Punishing and Pardoning Proscriptions and Proclamations are Acts of Power no strength in equals to work a force Besides how cometh to passe that those at OXFORD Pag. 23. contending by the enumeration of those lately dead at WESTMINSTER or else departed from their fellow-Members thence to make them a few and inconsiderable part themselves the greater and more valuable number should be forced by those
at WESTMINSTER being the lesse One other kinde of force is urged of sitting at un-Parliamentory Pag. 7. hours or else to lose their Vote There must be to answer the other Member of of this distinction some Parliamentory hours appointed which no Laws hath yet assigned sitting still or going away relates commonly to the necessity and exigent of the matter in hand which haply will not admit delay or a second meeting but may require their sitting up till ten eleven or twelve a clock in the night and may again their meeting at six five or four or sooner in the morning If they please to abate so much of their own repose and rest by their pains and Industry their Countrey is so much the more beholding to them many of the Countries have in their * See the Petitions of the several Counties Petitions taken notice of and thanked them for their indefatigable pains The reason of the small number at WESTMINSTER wherewith the Assembly at OXFORD chargeth them is obvious to each mans understanding They make them thin and then upbraid them with their thinnesse T is as if Friends and Companions in a Journey shall see their fellow Travellers in danger to be robbed and ride away without assisting them in danger whose fault is it in case they are robbed the failing of those who might have helped or the paucity of those who are robbed this in respect of the other is a remote least principal and accidental cause T is easie for a Prince to confer Honors upon men so to fill the House of Peers divers wayes also to increase the number in the House of Commons to His party but for the one party to make the other thin and then to undervalue the power of them becoming so is like one impoverishing another by forsaking him in those duties of friendship which he owes and then contemning him The next odds observed by the Assembly at OXFORD between the Parliament at WESTMINSTER and themselves is the Kings presence with them at OXFORD and a major part of the Lords therefore out-weighing the Dignity of those at WESTMINSTER Which exception as to the Kings being there is answered by the Law of not Dissolving or by His Majesties being Virtually although not Personally present In that the greater part of the Nobility are with the King His party therefore the more Honored 't is answered without Disputing the Dignity or Preeminence of either part as which the more valuable in Birth or Breeding those which went away or those which staid behinde Comparisons are unseemly and forbid what this Discourse doth aim at Reconcilement Union It was not so at the first entrance into this Quarrel the King withdrawing Himself from the Parliament many of the Peers thought themselves by duty of their place obliged to attend on His Majesty and might have power it is like to prevail with some other of their fellow-Peers Besides the Nobility are to be considered as in the next Classe and Attendant on His Majesty some by their place others more remotely Interested wherefore seeing Safety and Preferment are the Stake which most men of all sorts contend for let the World be made believe it is Conscience Loyalty the King the Fountain of Honor in whom to Reward and Pardon they who are nearest Him hope first to gain by applying themselves to serve and please Him All men know the Proverb No fishing to the Sea nor service to the Court which was only in those days true when a just and uninterrupted Peace did flourish no man but could perceive through the Prospect of this Discord that Peace Plenty and Liberality in Rewarding would all be lost in a Civil Destructive War The Question was at the first much controverted which the more just or rightful Cause the Kings or the Parliaments divided from the King Many of the Grandees adhering to the Court and more Loyal in an implicite faith adhered to the Kings no more marvel then that Servants immediatly attendant on their Master should venture their obedience and assent unto him because their Master without examining the Reason of so assenting and then engaged pursue their undertakings or be meanly thought of in case they shall renounce the same the credit whereof is discerned in the quality of the Cause undertaken not in the resolvednesse of the Servant undertaking it Princes can and often do reward their Friends and Favorites the Parliament cannot or seldom doth it is besides their usual course to give besides their Friends expectance to receive other Salary then the redemption of their just Liberties for which they fight the maintenance of their ancient Birth-right conveyed unto them by the known Laws saving in some few particular cases where the Parliament shall meet with a desperately engaged and restlesse Enemy of great Power and Estate to fight and foment the Quarrel against on the other side some Friends Eminent in Desert of smaller Fortunes to fight for them In such a case to disseize their Enemy to diminish his power to invest and gratifie their Friend to augment his Fortune seems not unjust nor unreasonable But to return The distinction of Virtual and Personal seems offensive yea the Declaration calls it Trayterous which no indifferent man will judge until Victory by nature insolent makes every thing displeasing to the Conqueror Criminal As when those on the Kings side hoped to have over-run and conquered all no man wishing well to the Parliament durst name them joyntly whereas simply and univocally to hold for King and Parliament is the surest and most Loyal tenure Howbeit nothing can be with more anger and displeasingly received by the more perverse and insolent amongst His Majesties party then for them to hear those on the Parliaments side say that They are for the King and Parliament So the Quarrel hath several overtures of increasing the Parliament party taking it indignly at the Kings party's hands to be thought Disloyal False Dissemblers as the King 's expresse their anger with the Parliaments for saying They are for King and Parliament To believe or say that the King is seduced by evil Councel is in their heat and anger a wounding His Majesty through His Councels sides which exception of theirs must render Him infallible in judgement or so singular in wisdom as to be above or to stand in no need of Councel for if he makes use of Councel and erres by their Advice the Error is His Councels or must presume in Him such transcendency of Goodnesse in not inclining to any evil motion as is not competent to a Creature An impartial looker on will rather judge the words of His Majesties being seduced by Evil Councel to be a degree rather of Dutifulnesse then Disloyalty as freeing Him from Misdoings and laying the Charge on His Evil Councellors His Majesty is happier if free from these stiled by another * King Iames in His speech in Parliament 1609. calls them Traitors vipers c name then His
Act of offering a Treaty for Peace to invent new charges of high Treason of capital Misdemeanors of Injustice is no right way to Peace unlesse the persons charged are guilty of the same as namely they charge the Parliament or their Committees to have imprisoned two Lords for their Loyalty to the King as if their Loyalty were the unquestionable and certain cause of their Imprisonment These Lords might happily shew themselves active against and disobedient to the Parliaments Authority for in these unsetled and distracted times few men do others will not know their proper duty and so come within the compasse of some fault to deserve Imprisonment The High Treason whereof they accuse their fellow-Members is their counterfeiting the Great Seal Page 22. against the Statute of 25. Edw. 3. which whether in this case be to be understood High Treason the Sword must decide the Question The Parliament think themselves not guilty of that Crime by the Verdict of most men nor every thing made to the Mould by which it is made is not simply Counterfeiting the quality of the offence is much discerned in the maner of the offending and every Law-making commonly relates to some preterite fraud and wickednesse Now whether a King and a Parliament since the first constitution of either have heretofore made use of the Great Seal to crosse one anothers Acts be to be found in any Record whereon to ground a Law the Reader is to seek Amongst all the capital Misdemeanors amounting to High Treason recited in that Statute the Parliament making a new Seal being not done against the knowledge of the King and State seems not within the compasse of that Law which in that clause doth questionlesse intend the privy and surreptitious counterfeiting to the private Use and Benefit of the Counterfeiter And whereas in that Statute there may be divers doubtful cases of Treason determinable it is then and there accorded That if any other case supposed Treason which is not specified in See the Statute that Statute shall come before any Justices they shall tarry without giving Judgement of the Treason until the cause shall be shewed and declared before the King and Parliament whether it ought to be so adjudged or not In which determination the King and Parliament are presumed joyntly to Act if dividedly then who to judge the King seclusively without the Parliament or the Parliament without the King which if divided most likely to give a clear and dexterous judgement the King or the Parliament Those words The King Parliament cannot be understood of the Kings Councel and the Parliament it must be of the King himself in which as Treason is here objected to the Parliament the Parliament is excluded from any decisive power of being Judge what is Treason and pronounced guilty themselves of Treason The marginal Note if in that as in other places of See the marginal Note the Statute it sums up the sense of the Statute disputeth many Questions touching Treason to be first decided in Parliament leaving out the word King or presuming as is before observed that He is always there in person or in vertue Take the Accusers the Assembly at OXFORD Page 24 25. their own acknowledgement That the Parliament is His Majesties Answer to a Declaration from both Houses May 19. 1642. not Dissolved that they are far from Dissolving or attempting to Dissolve it Take His Majesties own confessing and allowing to the Parliament a power in a particular doubtful case regularly brought before them to declare what Law consequently what Treason is and the making a new Great Seal the old being contrary to Trust vafrously carried away from them the Representative Body of the State which the Seal is always to attend will not be adjudged a case of High Treason In the controverting this particular case as of the other Crimes charged on the Parliament and the Subjects of this Kingdom adhering thereunto the people may well be to seek when as the learned Sages and other Students of the * The Innes of Court Phrontisteries of Law and Justice seem to be divided in opinion some very active as being peradventure engaged for the King against the Parliament contending with all their might to make good the charge of Treason laid upon that Court and the Friends assisting them Others in the Parliaments account and questionless their Friends as earnest although more moderatly expressing it for the King and Parliament believe it to be no way Treason Which are greater numbers of them on the one side or the other or which the more able Lawyers is not here determined But to the Objection if any such That a greater number of them are within the Jurisdiction of the Parliament in LONDON and other places elswhere wherefore they may seem rather to side with that power The Answer is easily had That their hopes and possibility of being prefer'd by His Majesty were not Conscience Judgement valued by them above Reward or Honor were a more weighty motive then fear can be of displeasing that side in whose Quarters they are which cannot always protect much lesse gratifie them save only with the testimony of what they deserve answerable to their Breeding Knowledge and liberal Faculty One of the learnedst of that Tribe in those days wherein he lived and much Honored for his parts and industry wrote a whole Tractate for the Dignity and Priviledge of that Court in general How this in particular hath demeaned themselves to forfeit their Credit any other way then in maintenance of their power against oppression violence offered to themselves and the Subjects for whom they are entrusted future Ages can Record But to proceed In the same Declaration full of suspition and fraught with quarrelling the Assembly at OXFORD except against the words of a Message sent from the Lords and Commons to His Majesty Dated in the same year March 1643. viz. That His Majesty would not be the least or last Sufferer These words they throughly scanned and presented them to the world as terms of an See the Message of the Lords and Commons sent unto His Majesty upon occasion of a Letter sent from the Earl of Forth to the Earl of Essex high Affront as that Subjects or Rebels 't is all one in their Dialect in arms against their King should dare to send unto Him such a daring and presumptuous Message The words admit a two-fold sense the one of the Parliaments meaning as the Assembly at OXFORD seem to construe it the other more probably of their lamenting and foreseeing in their sadnesse and grief of heart the inevitable and universal ruine which must attend this War For that His Majesty cannot be the least Sufferer 't is too probable whose sufferings can be compared to His in the destruction of many thousands of His people as well in the greatest and dearest to Him as in the meaner sort in all whom consists His Safety This exception