nor their sincerity Thirdly All these rigoâ—s and impositions of the Scots our backs must bowâ— and crouch under for the Covenants sake and that we may prove true to the most high God to whom we have lifted up our trembling hands Though we have discovered the Covenant to be a fâ—laâ—â—ous lubricous ambiguous contract as others besides the Contractors themselves now wrack it so that in the Scotch sense it makes us enemies to them in our sense it makes the Scots enemies to us in a third sense it serves the Papists against us both and though we are throughly informed that the young King is not onely licensed but enjoyned to take it by all his Popish Patrons and Allies and to make use of it as a sâ—are to both Nations yet we must take no exception against it Hamilton in 1648. expounded the Covenant in behalfe of the King and Kirk to the raising of a war against us yet the same powers in Scotland that condemned that war in him raise the same against us now upon the same exposition All the difference is this Hamilton fought for a King that had not taken the Covenant because He was never so far necessitated whereas the present powers in Scotl â—ight for a King tâ—at has Covenanted against his will choosing rather to perjure then â—o perish But let us aske the Scots seriously Whether is the greater enemy of the Covenant before God he that refuses to take it because it is against his conscience or he that takes it against his conscience because he dares not refuse it Well Gods judgements herein is by us both implord we cannot doubt but God in his due time will judge make his judgement undeniable Fourthly Though we indeed are not enemies to the Covenant but can justly plead for our selves that we are zealous for a true Reformation even whilst we dislike the Scotch patterne and that we are well-wishers to Monarchy elsewhere even whilst we make choise of Democracy in England upon diverse urgent emergent considerations yet all our pleas are rejected the very last plea of Armes from which no necessitated men besides are barred is in us most imperiously condemned as well after open tryall as before Nay when wee know our selves condemned by the Scots as Enemies to the Covenant and that the yong King to be brought in by force over us is particularly sworne against us in that he is generally sworne against all enemies of the Covenant we must take it as a sufficient answer to all our complaints that the King has no power to annoy any but enemies to the Covenant This is to heape Scornes upon the rest of our endurances for this all one as if they should insolently tell us that no man can hold any thing but by the Covenant and the Covenant can have neither enemies nor friends but such only as they declare to be such To pursue these Scornes also and improve them the higher against us they make their young King in his Declaration at Dunferlin revoke all his Commissions granted against us by Sea and Land to any of his Instruments that adhere not to the Covenant Do not we know that such a revocation is meerly â—udicâ—ous and jocular Could the Scots imagine that either Rupert at Sea or the Irish Papists by Land would obey such a revocation so signed at Dunferlin And if Ante-Covenanters should lay down their Commissions would it be more ease for us to be spoiled and destroyed by the hands of false Covenanters then by the hands of Ante-Covenanters May not this King do what Hamilton did May he not prevaile over a faction of Covenanters and by them assaile us as Hamilton did and if not so may he not be impowred nay is he not already bound by all the Covenanters in Scotland nemine conâ—radicente to treat us as enemies Will not God in earnest look down upon the makers of such jests Fifthly As we must prostrate our selves to a King to such a King exercised many years in bloudy feats against us before his pretensions to the Crowne obtruded upon us by such Faedifragrous neighbours and further hardned against us by such religious incentives so we must also stoope and kneel to him upon the most servile odious conditions that can be For first wee must come to a new change of Government for his sake By the present setled forme Government is now devolved and as it were naturally resolved into the hands of the people and as Monarchy cost us a vast effusion of bloud before it necessitated its own ejection so it is likely to cost as much now before it can be reestablisht Lyons and Elephants doe not teeme and propagate so often and easily as mice and ferrets doe nor can wee expect that such great alterations in great States as these are should be compast without much sore travaile and long continude throwes The Scots doe know well enough that our sectarian Party in England which they charge of usurpation ha's a great Army in Scotland ready to cope with all their Levies another as great in Ireland a Militia not unequall to both in England besides a puissant Armado at Sea and can they imagin that the suppressing of this sectarian party and re-investing of Monarchy is likely to prove an unbloudy busines Secondly As wee must be forced from the Government that now is so we must be forced into a new Module of Government that never was before in England knowne or heard of The supreme Power of England must now suffer a partition and have its residence in two severall Councells the one Ecclesiasticall the other Civil and so whilest in imitation of Scotland it transforms it self into an Amphisbaena and submits to the motions of two Heads it can hardly avoid dangerous disputes and dissentions In cases of the Kirk the King must hearken to Divines in matters politick the King must be observant of his Parliamenâ—s but if there happen a difference in mixt matters t is left to the peoples discretion to side and adhere as they see cause Surely t will be an uncooth innovation in England to see Kirkmen sit in an Assembly and publish Declarations concerning peace and warrs as they do now in Scotland and whether such an innovation may be conducing to a good accord and understanding in the State or no we leave to conjecture 3ly As we must subject our selves to these grand innovations so they must also be purchased by us with the price of some of our best blood some few of our principall Patriots heads must be payed down in hand for them It should seem their Idol the Covenant requires some sacrifice to make an attonement for the indignities and prophanations it has lately suffered in England and so foure or five mens lives are demanded as a just oblation But the Scots might understand that we are not yet so tame and that the demand of such an oblation from us is all one as the demand of many Hecatombes and
vertue in it why do they brandish it so ludicrously onely to dazle our weak eyes The next Objection of the Scots is that we have not onely sequestred a great part of Christs spirituall power and detained it in Lay hands but have also abused the same power tolerating thereby and countenancing all manner of heresies which is directly contrary to our covenanted Reformation Our Answer is that we are neither intensively nor extensively lyable indeed to this objection For 1. all sects and scandals are not permitted by us nothing is more distant from truth then this suggestion All grosse sins and seducers are supprest with as quick severity as ever nay since the Norman Conquest there have not been so many sharp Laws made against Adultery Swearing blaspheming Sabbath-breaking and open prophanation as have been made within these few yeers All the remission and relaxation that our Parliament has indulged of late is only towards tender Consciences where men comport themselves civilly and inoffensively towards their neighbours and attempt to innovate nothing in the Church for perturbing of Religion and even in this also we havenot extended our indulgence so far as the united States of the Netherlands have and divers other Protestant Princes in Germany The truth is we do not finde such danger in Erastianisme Independentisme Anabaptisme Round-headisme c. as our rigid Presbyterians suspect and this would not dislike the Presbyterians themselves if they were men willing to do to others as they are willing others should do to them for they themselves are sensible that we can never desire more gentlenesse from them to us then is now shewed by us to them 2ly That toleration which we are accused of is but a non persecution in its most intensive degree for we use all Christian means besides force to reduce such as wander and divide from us and we are far from cherishing schismes and broyls either in Church or State Our Saviours own parable allows us where weeds have gotten head and are as numerous as the standing corn rather to spare the weeds for the corns sake then to indanger the corn for the weeds sake Howsoever it would be some charity in our traducers if they would advisedly consider how the growth of our weeds came at first to be so rank amongst us and thereupon joyn with us in humiliation for it not exult over us in scorn and derision Upon the first defiance given by the King to the Parliament half the Clergie at least fell away from this cause and before that rent could be sowde up there happened a second distance betwixt us and the Scots partly upon a royal and partly an Ecclesiasticall account and that distance drew on as great a revolt of the Clergie as the former And how can any man imagine but that strange disorders must needs follow and abound in a Church so deserted When the dressers of the Vineyard do not onely quit their charge but throw down the mounds how can it be expected but that Bores and Foxes should break in And indeed the Parliament is still ill beset for either they must deny preaching to the people to three parts of foure or else they must yeeld the Pulpits to their seditious Enemies and to such as shall seek to wound the Magistrate through the souls of the people This being the Parliaments hard case it may better become the Scots to whom may be attributed a great part of these disturbances to afford some pitie and help then to adde miserie to our miserie This is sufficient to plead for our indulgence let us onely advise the Presbyterians not to take unjust offence thereat or to stumble into the contrary extreme T is wofull to see how rigidly the Ministers carrie themselves towards the poore people in many places and what an absolute discretionarie power they challenge in many places over the ordinances of God There are many Parishes in England where the people have not been admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper nor some Infants to the Sacrament of Baptisme for a long time This deserves much bewailing for certainly God gave these rich Legacies to the diffusive body of his Church for the spirituall comfort of the meanest servants of his and not to that which cals it self his representative body to be a trade and monopolie for their advantage in this world But I have done if the world now finde cause to condemne us of dealing treacherously with the Covenant and our fellow-Covenanters in that we have not submitted to the Scots and for their sakes disclaimed our own judgements and interests to gratifie the King and the Presbyterian Clergie with our perpetuall servility let us fall under their condemnation Or if the world can justifie the Scots as pursuers of that union freedome and fidelity which was aimed at in the Covenant when they made themselves our Lords to give us Laws in our own Dominions and when they did not onely raise sedition here in our own bowels but came in with an Army of 20000. men to devour us let them stand upright here and injoy their wished Triumph Our finall assurance and comfort is there sits a Judge in heaven who can neither deceive nor be deceived a Judge that hears all appeals made above and does right at last to all that groane under oppression and injustice belowe Of the Scoch Warre VVEe have seen how the Covenants waxen nose has been turned and moulded into many forms wee see now cause to suspect that 't was made so large at first and compacted of such materials that like the Grecian wooden Horse it might tear our walls the wider upon its entrance and discharge the more discords and dissentions amongst us after its entrance was procured We see it was intended by the honest party in England for cement to unite the Nations in a more arct faithfull confederation then ever our Ancestors knew but the couching of it was obscure and left liable to so many false glosses that it soon became {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Our brotherly offices of Assistance soon degenerated into harsh expostulations harsh expostulations begat secreet feudes and secreet feudes heightned themselves into open hostilities The question is only when open war commenced betwixt these Nations Whether the Scots first invaded us by their Duke Hamilton above two years since or whether the English first invaded Scotland this last summer under the command of the Lord Gen. Cromwell For a year or two after reception of the Covenant in England a good correspondence was kept betwixt us the Scotch Commissioners sat in our Committee of Lords and Commons at Darby house whereby they were admitted into the knowledge of our highest and secretest affaires and had opportunity to frame parties amongst us for promoting of their own Interests Out of these kindnesses sprung our first unkindnesses for the more honour was given to the Scots the more still they thought was due and the more they thought was due the
last to the Kings cause Hitherto the King keeps from open defiance with the Parliament of England but now Gods flaming Minister of warre begins to brandish his sword against this Nation now the King is returned from Scotland and now begins the year 1642. wherein Arms are openly taken up and avowed on both sides Scotland for two or three years before had seen war but without slaughter Ireland had been miserably the yeer before imbrued with slaughter yet saw no war but England must now prepare her self both for war and slaughter At the first harnessing and making ready for the field both sides pretended to be on the defence and both pretended to stand for the defence of the same persons and rights the Parliament declares for the Kings rights aswell as the subjects Liberties and the King for the Subjects Liberties as well as his own rights the matter of the Protestation is the cause they both â—ight for insomuch that by their professions it might be thought the Protestation were equally favoured by both Neither were their successes much unanswerable to their professions for after a bloodie battell fought neer Keinton in Octob and another hot encounter at Brainford and after divers other conflicts in severall other places of the Northern Western and middle Counties of England either side got blows but neither side carried away any great advantage or conquest only the Kings secret correspondence with the Irish began now to grow more evident as well by their declaring for the Kings pretences as by his diverâ—ing the preparations made here against them At this time the threed of the Kings Councels was exceeding finely spun the more zealous He seemed against the Iâ—â—sh openly the more zeal He attested to them privately and they themselves could not but see by the Kings seizing our Irish provisions here and assuring himself of our Forces sent thither that the more we exhausted our selves in sending supplies against them the more unable we should be in the end either to resist the King here or to reduce them there Howsoever as was noted before though the most subtill threeds of the King were strong enough sometimes to fabricate toils and nets for his subjects yet they never could be twisted into ladders for the mounting of him to his aspired grandour About the beginning of the year 1643. another black desperate designe against the City of London was discovered scarce inferior to any of those former impregnations of the Kings inraged brain whereupon the Parliament again had recourse to this new religious guard of Vowing and Covenanting And herein after the Covenanters had humbled themselves before God for the Nations sins and judgements and promised by Gods grace to endeavour for the future an amendment of their wayes they the second time ingaged themselves by Vow and Covenant in the presence of Almighty God to be adhering faithfully to the Forces raised by the Parliament for defence of Religion and liberty c. But notwithstanding the vertue of both these holy remedies against the Kings uncessant stratagems about the latter end of the same Summer the Parliaments affairs came to a great declination and till they obtained aid from the Scotch Nation their condition was thought very tottering In August the English Commissioners began to treat at Edinburgh and about the depth of Winter the Scots advanced with a compleat well appointed Army Yet this may not be wholly preâ—ermitted that the Scots were long deliberating about their march and though they saw their ruin involved in ours and their faith no lesse pre-ingaged to us for mutuall assistance then ours was to them yet they advanced not at last but upon these strict conditions 1. That we being then but a wasted part of England yet should presently imburse them out of our afflicted affairs with a great summe of ready money 2ly That they should be payed as mercenaries and yet have a share in government here as if they were our joyntenants And 3ly that we should enter with them into a new solemn League and Covenant upon Oath as it was by them composed and conceived So disproportionable and unsuitable is their amity to their enmity for when they had a pretence of a quarrell contrary to former Treaties with England in 1648. t was in their power to invade England readily without assurance of present Advance-money or establisht pay afterwards and such able Enemies we found them in all ages but when they were to be ayding to part of England in observance of former Treaties in 1643. there is no moving in such a work without ample Covenants so much more difficult amongst them is the enterprise of helping then is the enterprise of undoing It is manifest now by that which has been hitherto premised that the first occasion of flying to such conscientious tyes and expedients as these was that the late Kings plots and conspiracies might be thereby the better disappointed and that the people might be thereby the better confirmed in their opposition against Him And this makes it now seem the more strange to us that the Scots at present should make their Covenant so main an engine for the King against us which at first was certainly excogitated as a main engine for us against the King 2ly it is hereby as manifest that the Scotch Covenant which is now insisted on by that Nation and was pressed on us at first with so much rigor did add no new obligation at all to the English Religion Liberty Monarchy and the peace of the Nations were as much secured before and as sanctimoniously by the Protestation in 1641. and by the vow and Covenant in 1643. as they were afterwards by the solemn League and Covenant when the Scotch Army was to enter England 3ly We cannot observe by any remarkable blessing from Heaven that the hand of God did ever give any gratious testimony in behalf of these new sacramentall obligations The protestation was thought ineffectuall till the vow and Covenant came in with a greater supply of religion the vow and Covenant was not able to break the Kings Armies till the solemn League of Scotland had superinduced its further sanctity and when that was superinduced and came accompanied with 20000 armed men from Scotland the King subsisted yea and thrived a long time after and without doubt those Oaths which he imposed within his quarters did asmuch service against us as ours did for us in our quarters We all know that t was not a new Oath but a new modeld Army that by Gods most gratious hand first gave check to the Kings prosperity and t is not so visible that ever we trampled on the Royalists formerly by observance of the Covenant as that we are now miserably ingaged in blood against the Scots by misprisions and false glosses of the same The Lord of his boundles mercy grant at last that we may return to our old wayes of humiliation seek to appease that Majesty by fasting and praying which is to be
worse use they made of all that was or could be given them So all jealousies could not long be supprest for in time some of our Lords and Commons saw cause to conceale some things concerning this State from them and this was extreamly ill taken and indeed no otherwise then if it had been a reall piece of injustice to the Kingdom of Scotland but moderation as yet kept both within reasonable bounds Mr. A. Henderson was then living and conversant in those businesses and surely he was a man of an Apostolicall spirit and though a great lover of his Countrey yet He knowingly durst not interpose in an ill action for his Countreys advantage and I am perswaded He did very good offices and kept us from further jars during his life and if He had lived longer would have prevented much of what has hapned since Besides Presbytery the Scotch Clergies darling seemd plausible at first to the English and soon grew indeared to our Synod and for a good space it got such footing in England that the Scots had no cause of dissatisfaction in that behalf The King also the other darling of the Scotch Nation till about the latter end of Summer 1645. prosperd so that He more slighted the Scots then He did us and so about him there was no great cause of animosities and if any did appear they were more easily to be digested But when the English Army under the Lord Gen. Fairfax had in one Summer defeated and utterly broken two very great Armies of the Kings and taken in divers other considerable Cities and strengths without any help at all from the Scots many emulous considerations began to breed strange alienations in the hearts of our brethren The easie warfare of the Scots all this while had afforded them besides good store of pay and plunder an absolute signiory over the Northerne Counties our Northerne men tell us wofull stories till this day and now they saw that rich service or rather absolute dominion was likely to come to an end they thought sit to strengthen themselves in Berwick and Newcastle and they got Carlile also by very foul play in spight of our Commissioners as if they were resolved and certain to have a dispute with us Likewise in 1646. when Oxford grew straitned and unsafe to the King and when it was visible also that Presbytery after so many years experience did not altogether rellish with the English the Scots presently resolved as was related before to expound the Covenant in favour of the King at least for setling and securing their arrears and making a commodious retreat out of England Accordingly that Article which provided for the Kings interest served their interest wel enough and war so well commented upon by them that it held us at a bay till their contract was perfected and then after a long dispute very chargeable to our Nation at the instance of an Army and 200000 li. they delivered up Newcastle Barwick and Carlile and took time to study the Kings Article a little longer In the year 1647. there was no notable businesse for the Souldier England took a little breath having nothing to do but to squench the few remainders of war and Scotland kept at home to share the late gotten spoiles of England yet this year there past some new cajoleries betwixt the Scots and the King and some contests betwixt the Scots and us about the King and no doubt the next years action was now in forging and all preparatory hammers were on working And now enters the memorable year of 1648. a year never to be forgotten by the English in regard of the unparralleld dangers that then overspread it and the unspeakable mercies of God that then protected it All the enemies of this poore Common-wealth were now in a solemn conjuration against it In Ireland all was held past recovery Ormond the Parliaments revolted servitor was complying with the bloody Irish and betraying his own Religion into the bargain to get some of their forces into England in Wales in Kent in Essex in Surrey great bodies of men rose up some upon the old Royall account some upon a new whilst many also of the Navy fell away from the Parliament to make the case the more desperate No lesse then 40000 English did their endeavours this Summer to make way for Hamilton from whom by good intelligence doubtles they expected 20000 Scots Great was the goodness of God that all these confederates could not be in a readiness at one and the same time and that all the Forreign Princes round about us which favoured them could not be assistent to them that yeer God had so ordained it that the Welsh should be reduced before the Scots entred or else our condition had been altogether hopelesse in the eye of reason But to the Scoch businesse The Solemn League and Covenant was now brought under a new debate in the Parliament of Scotland and the main matter in question was how they could be absolved of that holy stipulation if they did not imploy all their power to reform Religion and to restore the King in England and for the fuller agitation and ventilation of this matter severall grave harangues by persons affected severally were drest and we may well imagine to what effect Agent of the Kirks party seeing the Parliament filled with so great a party of the Hamiltonians is supposed to begin My Lords and Gentlemen The Covenant presses us all to endeavour the reformation of Religion and the restauration of the King in England by a brotherly way of Assistance in our severall places and callings and so as that these ends of the Covenant may stand and agree with all the rest But withall it behoves us to use a great deal of caution and circumspection in a matter of so high importance wherein the honour of God and good of the Nations is so religiously involved not to be mistaken either in the mark we all shoot at or in the arrows we are to shoot As for the point of Religion I am perswaded it wants reformation in England and I beleeve I dissent not therein from any here but this scruple sticks by me I doubt whether I am so properly a Judge in England of Religion as I am in Scotland and if I am not then I fear I step out of my place and calling whilest I take upon me there to reform by force which sure the Covenant requires not but excludes in expresse terms The account of my scruples I give thus first if we are now judges of matters Ecclesiasticall in England we are so constituted by the Covenant for before the Covenant we pretended to no uch thing and in the Covenanâ— it self I finde no such constituting words 2ly if the Covenant creates us Judges in cases Eccles it creates us the same in all other things civil military and judiciall for all the interests of the King and Subjects in Parliament and out of Parliament are inclosed within the
therefore perhaps t is not parsimony of blood that makes them so parsimonious in their demands of blood 4ly As our pretiousest Friends must lye under this discretionary danger so the most fatall of our Enemies must be secured from all danger of our Laws for in the close of all an Act of Oblivion is to overwhelme all things and all men whatsoever Royallists Presbyterians Independents Papists Protestants are to be put into an equall condition What is this lesse then to spoil us of all advantages and exempt our Enemies from all disadvantages that the event of these late wars have cast upon us both especially when the Act is to passe as a Grace from our Masters in Scotland and not of reconcilement from us By this state of the cause so formed and owned by the Scots themselves 't is now apparent that if the English had yielded stupedly to all the conditions and Laws that are here imposed upon them they had left nothing remaining to themselves the whole English Nation had been given up to vassalage under a forreign Power Those very Royalists and Presbyterians which should have survived the Independents and could have severd themselves from the ruin of the Parliament as was very difficult to do yet should have seen the old Government of England overturned and have served a Master that should have served other Masters The Scots neverthelesse in the Declaration before mentioned recommend these impositions of their young K as his gratious condiscentions and they expect that hereby he offers satisfaction to the just and necessary desires of his good Subjects in England and Ireland And because they see there are many thousands in England who have utterly forgotten that ever they were born on this side the Twied They use many Arguments of Conscience and Honour to Arm all such against the Parliament and to in amour them with that Freedom and happinesse that this Declaration promises under them So wonderous a thing it is that any liberty under a Parliament of England should be thought worse by Englishmen then any servitude under the Kirk and state of Scotland but here are the true grounds of our expedition into Scotland the Justice whereof lookt backward to the incursion of Hamilton in 1648. whilst its necessity lookt forward to the Treaty at Breda and to the accord that was there made in March last There is a Justice of warre sometimes that derives it self onely from necessity but in the War that is now waged by our Parliament in Scotland we may truly avow that our Arms are just because they were necessary and we as truly avow that they became necessary by being so egregiously just inasmuch as the Magistrate often is restrained from dispensing with the Subjects right Now it appears by what ha's been here related that the Scots unprovoked powred in upon us 20000. men in a maner most perfidious and at a time most disadvantagious that after satisfaction peaceably sought they rejected us as unworthy of any Treaty with them that at Breda they have since conspired with â—â—r open Enemy against us making their cause his and his theirs and therefore directly contrary to the Scots Declarations emitted the last Summer we draw this conclusion that we have received wrongs insufferable that we have been denied rights indispensible and that we have been forced into a War unavoydable For we hope since no place nor time secures us from the offensive Arms of their young King and his Commissions Officers whose cause they have espoused by taking him into a forced Covenant No time nor place ought to secure him from our defensive prosecution Let the Scots flatter themselves as they please with fond umbrages that they observe their Covenant whilst they fight against us that are parties to it and whilst in the young K. they abet P. Rupert and the Irish that are parties ingaged against it God is not mocked He sees throughly the ill temper of that morter wherewith their ruinous cause is daubed The same God knows likewise how unwillingly we drew our swords in this quarrel and how far all aims of ambition domination revenge or spoil were distant from these our undertakings The same words which were once used by our Army after the great defeat given to Hamilton in England the same do we still resume after as great a successe neer Dunbar in Scotland We believe God ha's permitted his Enemies at several times to Tyrannize over his people that we might see a necessity of Union amongst them We likewise hope and pray that his glorious dispensations of successe against our Common Enemies may be the foundation of Union amongst Gods people in love and amity To this end God assisting before whom we make this profession to the utmost of our power we shall endeavour to perform what is behinde on our parts and when we shall through wilfulnesse fail herein let this Hypocritical profession rise up in Judgement against us before him who is and ha's ever appeared the severe avenger of Hypocrisie This we direct now to all the mislead yet well meaning people of Scotland as cordially after a second signal victory as we did then after the first Reader I here often mention the Scots and seem to intend the whole Nation but I pray thee make no such interpretations for I doubt not but there are many good people there that either know not their Magistrates Hypocrisie or bewail it in secret I my self know many excellent men of that Nation and these to me are as dear as if they were English Sit Tros sit Tyrius nullo discrimine habebo Of the INGAGEMENT THere was lately Printed a sheet of Considerations against our common Ingagement of Allegiance to this Common-wealth the Author seems to be a Presbyterian of the Scoch Faction by some thought able and learned his Arguments are very brief and I will answer him as briefly as may be The Arguments by which our Ingagement is impugned and as it were on every hand beleaguerd are eleven as I take it The first is against the Ingagements inconsistency with former Obligations 2. Its partiality towards Malignants 3. Its obscurity and ambiguity 4. Its illegall penalties 5. Its inefficacie 6. Its want of charity 7. Its rigor to harmless conscientious men 8. Its enmity to Reconciliation 9. Its diffidence in God 10. Its excesse and extremity in punishing 11. Its opposition to Christian Liberty The raising of this seige I hope will not prove very difficult Considerator This Ingagement to some that have already taken six or seven Oaths may possibly seem contrary to some of those former Obligations and such Ingagers must now suffer or sin against their doubting consciences Answ 1. No State can enact or ordain any thing but the same may be lyable to some mens doubts In Christian Religion it self all mens scruples are not prevented those Acts and Orders therfore which are not lyable to just doubts are sufficient and ought to binde Now the Ingagement which in
Scotlands holy War A DISCOURSE Truly and plainly remonstrating How the SCOTS out of a corrupt pretended zeal to the COVENANT have made the same scandalous and odious to all good men and How by religious pretexts of saving the Peace of Great Brittain they have irreligiously involved us all in a most pernitious Warre Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Curs'd man what canst Thou hope for what desire To Thee Christ brings a sword his Gospel fire Be man no more abjure thy wretched kinde Lest Mannah poizen Sun-beams strike thee blinde By H. P. Esquire LONDON Printed by Fran Neile in Aldersgate-street 1651. READER I Have lately seen in Print an Apologie for such Ministers and people as out of conscience did not observe the Thanksgiving-day dedicated by the Parliament to Almighty God for giving us victory against the Scots and the Apologist had prefixed this Title in his Front Sad and serious Politicall Considerations touching the Invasive Warre against our Presbyterian Protestant Brethren in Scotland their late great overthrow and the probable dangerous consequences thereof to both Nations and the Protestant Religion As soon as I had read it over I saw heavy and bitter charges in it against the Power now Governing and by consequence against our Nation and Religion but all was built upon such premisses as were left utterly unproved I doubt not therefore but all Schollers will deride the Author as void of wit and ingenuity and will think that Pamphlet unworthy of an Answer which can challenge nothing besides a flat denyall But when I consider the multitude who scarce discern betwixt Arguments and Invectives or points that require solid proofs and such as sometimes are not worth prooving when I consider this multitude may be dangerously imposed upon by confident writers indeed such as have effrontery enough to grant themselves any thing under dispute I dare not be wanting to a distressed Cause and vitiated Truth What the Apologist though affirmant has left unproved viz that the Parliament has broken Covenant with the Scots and made an Invasive warre upon the Presbyterians the same I though respondent shall endeavour to leave disproved And I hope I shall remonstrate by something more then Averments my Antagonists best arguments 1 that the Covenant was first violated by the Scotâ— and 2ly that this warre of great Brittain was raised by the Presbyterians Of the Covenant ABout 11. or 12. yeers since the late King began to take Arms against the Scotch Nation upon Ecclesiastical quarrels but his successe was so ill therein that He could neither hopefully pursue nor yet handsomly compose those broils The reason was because his Popish Subjects could not and his Protestant Subjects in England would not support him with their effectuall assistance in that causless warre So this Parliament was then convened to extricate the said King out of those difficulties and had â—here been any other remedie that possibly could have releasd him so intangled as He then was either by pacifying the Scots without force or forcing them without pacification this remedie had never been thought on for there was nothing in the world more adverse to his Tyrannicall ends then the freedome and controuling authority of that high Court Long it was not therefore after the sitting of our great Councell before the said King gave open testimonies how odious it was to Him to see his boundles Prerogative so checkt nay many months had not elapsed before disgusts had hacht ripend bloody dangerous plots against the whole representative bodie of our State 2. Armies were now in the North out of all military imployment and this put the King in some hopes that either one of them or both might be woone to his partie and so help to rid him of his loathed rivality Strong endeavours were used accordingly but God blasted them all the Scotch Army thought it too horrid a thing to attempt the ruin of that Court which was so true to their preservation and so assured to the ends of their late Declaration and the English Army durst not attempâ— any thing having the power of London to mate them before and the Scots behinde yet the Parliament truly apprehending danger from these and other like machinations to forâ—ifie themselves the better frame a Protestation for all the people to take and whosoever should refuse the same He was voted unfit to bear Office either in Church or Common-wealth This Protestation was taken in 1641. and the Protesters did thereby in the presence of Almighty God binde themselves to defend Religion the King the Parliament publick Liberty the Union and peace of the three Kingdoms with a clause to be assisting to all that adhered to this Protestation and to be at enmity with all its opposers The King stomacht much this new way of imbodying the people in leagues and parties and knew well that the contrivers of it intended it for a combination against his unlimited pretensions but seeing his interests were here as specially provided for as any other without any insinuated subordination and that it left his pretensions as unprejudiced as they were before he smothered much of his distaste against it Ordinary affronts and misadventures did rather quicken then quash this Kings resolutions wherefore upon this Account He made the more haste into Scotland upon some concealed reasons of State and his hope was that by his passing through both the Armies in the North He should finde an opportunity to be his own negotiater with all the chief Commanders All these royall arts neverthelesse miscarried and were not able to debosh the Armies for either the Commanders were jealous of the soulderies integrity or the Souldiery of one Army suspected the sincerity of the other or else the Parliaments sollicitations proved as efficacious as the Kings somthing there was that concurred to the abortion of that mischief The King therfore speeds away to Scotland with superâ—etations of further plots in his unquiet head but his old fate still accompanied him for there He was soon disburthened of some of his monstrous conceptions to the great detriment of other men but He scarse ever prospered in any one designe for the advancement of himself Some Noblemen that were invited to a bloodie supper got timely advertisement of the royall assassinators and so by flying privily out of Edenburgh secured themselves but that ever to be execrated insurrection in Ireland by the Irish Papists against the British Protestants came to effect at that time and t is known well enough that the chief actors in that tragedie alledged a Commission from the King under the great Seal of Scotland to justifie all that they then perpetrated Here was an issue of blood spent that is not stanched to this day little lesse then 500000 Christians were sacrificed and devoted to slaughter by that Commission and the King himself never took any effectuall course to wipe off that stain but what prosperity has that dismall deluge of blood brought at