man commendeth or that commendeth himself is approved but whom the Lord commendeth And the Lord justifies who shall condemn Isai 50. 8 9. Rom. 8. 33 34. Yet I think there be but few that are so malicious as to hate this Gentleman for his own sake but many indeed that are envious at him for our sakes and the Commonwealths In whose Memory and Posterity I nothing doubt but that his indefatigable endeavours and deserts from the Publick will out-live the most irrefragable anger of all his enemies or rather ours Justum Tenacem propositi Non civium ardor prava jubentium Non vultus instantis Tyranni Mente quatit solida neque Auster Dux inquieti turbidus Adriae Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus si fractus illabatur orbis impavidum ferient ruinae was the song of the Heathen which I mention to our shame and not with much delight in reading Heathen Authors that we should be so ungrateful as not to commemorate in our minds at least the worth of such men as neither Turns nor Times Tyrants nor Tempests Troubles nor Thunderbolts that have rent the heavens crackt the clouds and split the very foundations could ever remove or slacken in their constancy to the cause and Commonwealth Now that Mr. B. who of any hath so little knowledge of this so honourable a person must be the man to abuse him or us rather with such black reports of him to the world and at such a TIME too wherein he was and is wholly taken up with that which he prefers above his daily food or I think his life viz. the service of the PUBLICK is an Argument sufficient that he went to the Philistimes to make and to whet his TOOLS because he could finde no SMITHS in Israel that could make such a KEY or a Key with such wretched Wards in it as I fear if the Lord prevent not will let more into Hell then into Heaven or happiness And whether some that were ingaged for the King or against the Cause Commonwealth and this Parliament did not prompt him to it or were the bellows of his forge to blow up the sparks of his discontent into such open flames and luculent firebrands of malignity is to me a Question almost out of Question if I look but into his Preface and see in the Margin of it how highly he extols the E. of Lauderdale as his helper in it Yea whether it were not designed and TIMED on purpose to perplex this person of honour as well as others in Parliament or to give them a Diversion from the PUBLICK into a private vindication of themselves and of their unblemished names had they thought it worthy and thereby to have left the House whiles the Adversaries should have carried all therein more without opposition for the interest of a single Person and against the Commonwealth or otherwise that these ulcerous defamations might pass uncontrouled spread further and further amongst the credulous vulgar upon their silence and want of leasure to rescue their reputations from such horrid impeachment But these Gentlemen perferring their Christian names above their Sir-names have left their innocence to the omniscience of God and the testimony of it to the Multiscience of us who know them without the least vacillation of their restored lustre whose wonderful constancy is a most worthy Antidote to the poison of the Pens and Parts of their enemies I am not for my own Part of any party sect nor faction nor am I of that number Mr. B. charges or covers with his blackest clouds of contumely Neither have I any mans person in admiration nor am I put on by any but the Lord and I hope his own Spirit for love of the truth and of the PUBLICK lest that should suffer by it to ward off such Cowards blows as come behind them so unworthily and bite them so unwarily whiles they are swallowed up in the insuperable necessities and inseparable affairs of the Publick Weale so as that without palpable injury thereunto they have neither leasure to minde nor make answer if they would without it be with the blessed Patience of Christ who opened not his mouth Isai 53. 7. in Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he So opens not his mouth Who when he was reviled he reviled not again but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously 1 Pet. 2. 23. and with the commendable Patience of Pericles that could not be provoked by an Enemy but when one went railing upon him to his very door in the night he bid his man to light him home with his own TORCH and of another that said O! that these men could rule their tongues as well as we our ears their pens as we our spirits Now that it may appear to Mr. B. that he had need to be forgiven his traducing of them and his seducing of others as well as be redeemed from the great evils and temptations of BOTH I hope it will not be imputed presumption or unkindness if I present him for the present with a little tast from his own words of the notorious wrong that he hath done to that wise and worthy Knight with others And 1. from his own description of a Protestant though I think it a very Lame and defective one and not plena pari ratione saith he p. 130. It is a title that accrewed to our Religion from the PROTESTING AGAINST the Romish Innovations and corruptions If those that have protested against the Romish Innovations and corruptions be Protestants then these who in his vain eye and foolish fansie of Boys-play are called Vani are Protestants having protested as far as any Protestants that Mr. B. accounts Orthodox have done Yea further then ever Mr. Baxter himself did against Romish innovations which makes him so offended and therefore to use his own words in p. 393. Scarce a man that crosseth or displeaseth i. e. dissenteth from and disobeyeth the uncharitable Clergy but he is stigmatized for an Heretick and charged with almost as much wickedness as their mouths are wide enough to utter and the ears of other men to hear These out of his own Book whereby no man can absolve him of self-condemnation in the justification of this honourable person by his own pen. 2. From his Description of a Papist in p. 392. As soon as ever any man hath received this opinion of the necessity of an universal Visible Head of the whole Church he is either a Papist or of an opinion equivalent so a little after This Errour about the necessity of an universal visible head is the very thing that turneth most to Popery Now those that he calls SEEKERS and in a Satyrical Vane VANISTS Anabaptists Sectaries c. hold no universal visible head nor any other over the Church but Jesus Christ And therefore are not within the compass of his description of a Papist Nay are further off with his leave
having a Parliament being banished for many years and the ordinary discourse of the Courtiers then was against Parliaments as injurious to the Kings Prerogative This continued until Firebrands that had been kindling by it were laid together in Scotland and there began first to FLAME about the ears of the Clergy and their Liturgy An. 1637 8 and 9. The King raised an Army against them and notwithstanding the Pacification of 18 June 1639. he resolved to have War with the Scots told some Lords about him Decemb. following he would call a Parliament in England the noyse of which made the People amazed I so long had they been without it and so little expectation had they of it whiles the King sends his bosome and Cabinet-Counsellour Strafford into Ireland to call one there to raise him monies but on the 13th of April it was convened and on the 5th of May dissolved again and some of the Members vizt Sir John Hotham Mr. Crew Mr. Belliesis imprisoned the Lord Brooks Plundred and the King goes on with the War against the Scots until about 20. of the English Earls Lords and Barons Petitioned to him at York to call a Parliament that might continue until Grievances were redressed c. By which means and his unavoidable necessities together he could not help it but summon the Long Parliament who seeing the people so miserably robbed of their Rights drew up a Bill for triennial Parliaments which the King signed 15. Pebr. 1640. Also an Act of Parliament was passed by King Lords and Commons then in being That this Parliament shall not be dissolved without it be by Act of Parliament and the Ground is exprest in it viz. The fears jealoustes and apprehensions that His Majesties Subjects have that this present Parliament may be adjourned prorogued or dissolved before Iustice be executed Grievances redressed c. With what confidence then can Mr. B. put in such an ingredient and so dangerous a one to make up his first Pill or Prop. to purge the Army with and to scour their Consciences To his second Prop. It was not the old Cause for the People to have right to choose a House of Commons to exercise the whole soveraignty c. Answ And who saith it was I pray not the Healing Quest. I am sure neither do the Commonwealths-men say it that the people have any Right to choose any House of Commons at all seeing it is utterly inconsistent with the Free-State and principles of it to have any such House as a House of Commons and more to have them as such exercise the whole Soveraignty of the Nation But here he contends with himself alone As I have seen a Puppy play prettily with his own tail weary himself and lie down when he has done For to what purpose is this Pill of Fumitory unless to fetch away Melancholy Fumes and make us laugh a little at all their weakness and folly To his third Prop. It was none of the old cause to assert the peoples Soveraignty Answ But it was their old cause to assert their Rights I am sure both as men and as Christians and this is one the Healing Quest saith and a natural one which all the Adherents to this Cause against the King have recovered through mercy if they can but keep it viz. to keep the Primary power under God and Jesus Christ or the power of chusing their own Rulers into the Supreme trust And this was we find by a little Retrospection declared for both by Parliment and Army Act of Parl. March 17. 1648. St. Albans Remonstrance in the Scotish Declarations and a many others So that this his salt Pill of poly-podium will serve for nothing but to make a man cough complain or else to choak him quite To his fourth Prop. It was not the Cause to change the constitution of the Commonwealth into any other form of Government then what we found in it Answ What ever was the Cause that was the effect and an inevitable EFFECT of the Wars I am sure though I confess the CAUSE of it lay in my judgement more on the Kings part according to the Parliaments own words of 20. March 1642. That whensoever the King maketh War that it tendeth to the dissolution of his Government So that Sublatâ Causâ tollitur effectus had he not made the War he had not destroyed his Government it is like Nor doth this lay the Guilt of the bloud upon the Parliament as he pretends but upon the King and his evil Counsellours who destroyed him and his posterity as well as that Constitution of Government by it And albeit no one part had authority to destroy the other and set it self in the room of the whole as King to destroy the Commons or Commons the Lords and set it self up as HOUSE of COMMONS yet had they a Power to destroy one another and to kill themselves if they would as the King did and so consequently the Lords and then the House of Commons as the Commons-House which are all dissolved with that CONSTITUTION of GOVERNMENT by a Felo de se indeed 2. Nor is the Platform of King Lords and Commons the Fundamental Constitution but rather imposed upon the people as has been often proved by the learned in History And 3. Though this were not the ULTIMATE in our eye yet the Peoples Rights and properties which fell in naturally to them were in their eye ULTIMATELY and intentionally amongst other things of higher concernment viz. the Kingdom of Christ throughout the management of this cause Now where the people have the greatest propriety and interest to out-balance as it was in this cause they must naturally fall into that Balance which is in a Commonwealth and can fix for security and satisfaction in nothing less be it ever so beyond our first intentions or second But for my part I cannot find one word in the Healing Quest that saith it was our cause intentionally to alter that constitution though that effect was given in as a blessing supplement and success unto this cause but that we have a Right to a Civil incorporation and society distinct from that of the old constitution now dissolved by its self and it's inorable adherents So that as the CYNICK ran to the mark for fear the Archer should hit him when he shot at Rovers we may run to the Healing Quest and never fear that he will hit or hurt us or can come neer us for ought I see This is his fourth Pill as bitter as Aegrimony it may serve to make a body sick and to make him stare but not to cure or comfort him in the least His fifth Prop. is of the matter asserting the Parliaments Declaration for the Kings person Priviledges of Parliament c. which is fully answered in Mr. P's Cause stated and stunted p. 5 6 7 8 10 11. to the very same Declarations and
their Functions as Physicians say of the Humane body that it must be as to the sane Constitution of it of a due Temperament both ad pondus ad justitiam and so must the Political body 1. Ad Pondus i.e. so as the first qualities or best sort may be brought into such an exact Proportion that no one may domineer it ore the other viz. in Faction or Parties striving for the mastery but so as one may balance another and all be kept together in the orderly exercise of all the Functions of the Body in an equal and good Temperature But 2. Ad justitiam that is so as to keep out evil and corrupt humors from obstructing the use of Functions in the body and this is the Eukracy and Timocracy which all sound Commonwealths have maintained and ours must I might instance in the Lacedemonians Cretians Athenians Corinthians Arcadians Rhodians Chalcedonians and others later The Romans themselves observing this as the Rule to keep out Tarquin and his crew who had a considerable Party in the Commonwealth as Charles Stuart hath in this even amongst Brutus's sons and as like to have repossessed and restored Tarquin untill this distinction was maintained with justice not sparing between the absolute Tarquinians that were unexorable and would never be for the Commonwealth but ever plotting against it and the free-born Citizens or faithful Denisons that did all to maintain it not forfeiting their Liberties and Rights as Livy tells us So for other Commonwealths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I hear that the Mantinians in Arcadia and also the Locrians Cretians Lacedemonians and Athenians had such Laws And in this respect the Grecians were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only Greeks but Vindices Libertatis Great Sticklers for their Liberties But I am afraid lest some consult with the same Oracle that Clement the fifth did to destroy the COMMON-WEALTH Si non licet per Viam justitiae licet saltem per Viam expedientiae by Policy and expediency I mean such as Caiaphas and the Council condemned our Lord Jesus by Joh. 11. 50. and 18. 14. and so may this Cause But justice is a pure intemperate Virgin till she be deflowred by one of the two unchast Suitors viz. NIMIUM or PARUM Both which must be avoided as extreams and the Healing Quest doth it excellently But of M. B. I may say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast lost the sweetness of the Rose and the fragrants of the Cause by thy Adulterating Art and mistaking of it But I have proved says Mr. B. that it is a false and wicked cause Wicked in the Nullity of the Magistrates duty and power but the truth thereof let the Reader judge and the Magistrate himself if he please And a false Cause saith he in giving the people the Natural Soveraignty who have but a power of choosing that men miss-call a Soveraignty The truth is I am from my heart with thousands more as well as Mr. B. saith he is in matter for a Theocratick or a godly COMMONWEALTH of which I had prepared a draught in my imprisonment at Windsor Castle and O! that we could see it with our eyes so both in the Constitution and Administrations of it in these Nations subjective to Jesus Christ that absolute Sovereign Who is 1 Tim. 6. 15. The blessed and only Potentate King of Kings and Lord of Lords Rev. 19. 16. For whom all things were created Rev. 4. 11. and 5. 12 13. Col. 1. 16. Whether Thrones DOMINIONS Principalities or POWERS c. 1. Seeing all Nations must be subservient to him under the seventh Trumpet Rev. 11. 15. Whom he will either BOW or BREAK 2. Seeing all these Shakings and Concussions are to that end Hag. 2. 6. Veani Maryish I making them to TREMBLE Ver. 7. Ve hiryashshetti and I will make them TREMBLE with commotions and troubles until Chemeddat Col Haggojim the Desire the Delight the Beauty of all Nations come 3. Seeing the Army have Declared themselves to be upon this very Bottom and Foot of account often but more particularly in Declaration at Muscle-borough Aug. 1. 1650. in these words We have have not only proclaimed Iesus Christ the King of Saints to be our King by Profession but desire to submit to him upon his own terms and admit him to the exercise of his Royal Authority c. Yea 4. seeing we are already so forward in it in this Nation both by the extraordinary Session of this Parliament And 5. by their Declaration on the 7. of May last for our Rights and Liberties both as Men and as Christians i.e. in Civils and in Spirituals◠Also 6. by that Golden Vote of Parliament somewhat like the Golden Réed which the Angel gave John Revel 11. 1. saying Arise and MEASVRE by it viz. That and their late Votes That none be put into Trust but men of Ability fearing God of a Latitude of Love to all the people of God and not to this or that Faction or Party and of Fidelity to the Common-wealth without King Single Person or House of Peers Yea 7. seeing there is such a readiness of consent in the Adherents to the Cause that are not partified nor putrified for a faction nor corruption and Mr. B. himself proposes it from p. 210. to 241. of 's Holy Commonwealth Yea 8. seeing we are as a Rouling Stone never fixed or at Rest till we fall into it do we what we can Psa 83. 12. make them as a Whéel or a ROVLING Globe and are likely to find no settlement without it Ezek. 21. 27 I will overturn overturn overturn till he comes whose Right it is or to whom the JVDGEMENT is given asher lo hammishpat and this can be meant of none but Christ Joh. 5. 22. to whom all Judgement is committed Dan. 7. 9. until his Government be setled in the NATIONS Gnavah Gnavah Gnavah assimenah I will place in them a PERVERSE Perverse PERVERSE spirit or as the Sept. has it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until they be subverted and brought to this Settlement of God So that for the matter i.e. A Theocracy I agree with Mr. Baxter in yet notwithstanding I cannot be of M. B's mind for the manner of it as that it consists so well with the interest of God and Christ our absolute Soveraign or with the interest of the People Adherents to this Cause which stand together that a Single Person should exercise the power of a Humane Soveraign over us seeing 1 Sam. 8. 6 7. the thing displeased the Lord and was a great evil in Samuels eyes as the word is vajierang when the People said Give us a KING and on that the Lord said to Samuel They have not rejected thée they have rejected me that I should not reign over them or maasu they have loathed my Government over them wherein I alone was their King or the Single Person Much less can I think that the Natural being of it under
a Christian Commonwealth but of Heathen Law-givers or Nomothets 2. In my apprehension submitting to better judgement it casts it's keenest Arrow at the very being principal and integral parts of the Cause which we have proved to be our Rights in civils and in spirituals without imposing upon Conscience by a National-worship For 1. In Civils they have not stated their Aequale cum justitiâ neither in Righteousness to the Cause nor indeed to the Reasons or Prudentials of their own Authors I mean the Heathens whom Mr. Har. most follows for they admit not the Holy Scriptures or our heavenly Politicks ad Theocratiam though it is like they have said it often Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven as the Woman used to say her Prayers and feed her Hens together Our Father which art in Heaven Coop coop coop coop c. Nor vouchsafe they such a value upon the series of Mercies Providences Prayers and Victories all along the late Wars as to give in one Word for Iesus Christ or his Interest in the Nations Nay leave him like a Pelican and account it Ridiculous some of them having scoffed at it openly and therefore to make my self intelligible even to Barbarians if they will be such I shall sum up an evidence against them out of Mr. Har. own Oracular Tutors and begin with Arist. in lib. 1 2 3 4 and 5. for his Correction in that most inequally equal Liberty that he and they allow to the Kings Party and them that have forfeited all not laying justice in the Foundation of their Commonwealth but planting it upon the whole multitude and community yea Oceana p. 46. saith plainly That the Royalist for having opposed the Common-wealth in OCEANA can neither justly for that cause be excluded from his full and equal share in the Government nor prudently for this that the Commonwealth with consist of a Party But how imprudently and differently from his own Authors as well as how irrationally and unjustly as to the cause Mr. H. would call the Malefactors from the Bar to the Bench and so in little time worm us quite out of our Possession and Rights that have adhered to the Cause by their Majority of Votes throughout the Nation that have not is worth considering That so if that Thesis be true in 's Prerog of Pop. G. lib. 1. ch 10. That a Commonwealth well fixed can never be conquer'd by force yet this Hypothesis is as true that not fixed but inconstant it may be conquer'd by fraud and the Cavalier may win it at the last Game though they lost it at the first Wherefore this I find was their first Policy and care at Athens as it ought to be in England 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 THEMISTOCLES Aristides and the Senate of the AREOPAGITES were able to do much in the Commonwealth and first of all Care was taken of this That none should unsettle the State or exceed the limits laid to it This is not the Policy they follow I am sure and it is obvious out of their own Authors how ill they would found the Commonwealth that take so little notice of the Cause of the interest of Christ or of the distinction that is made between Delinquents and Adherents thus Arist. Pol. Horum igitur Principium est magis quà m Patrimoniorum exequatio civitatem sic instituere Ut boni quidèm Viri plus sibi quam competat habere non quaerant Improbi autem etsi quaerant habere non possint c. That the beginning of them viz. such Governments ought to have more in it then a meer equality or exequation of Patrimony or of Natural rights viz. that good men may not seek to have more then is fit for them Nor bad men have it though they seek it So in the 4. lib. c. 11. he speaks ad omnem rem rhombum to the Case in hand from the Laws of Lycurgus Charondas and others That if any Risings Tumults Seditions aut Pugnae fiunt inter Multitudinem opulentes quibuscunque Vincere contingit Hi neque Communem amplius habent Rem-public neque Equalem or Wars be waged between the People and the Rich ones such as the King's Party were and therefore called Cavaliers and it happens to them to have the Day these that were conquered have neithe◠common nor equal Commonwealth priviledge after that And this he de optimâ Repub. affirms to be of the best Commonwealths in the World For otherwise saith he not only the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the little Deliquents or offenders in small things but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very great offenders and greatest Enemies in the Nation will be ever and anon doing mischief and most capable of it do what we can This may invite them from beyond the Seas with a change of Projects but not of Principles Coelum non scelus ii mutant qui trans-mare currunt and 't is a pretty toy for fools to play with to think that frames of mens making can keep them in like Cats when the Laws of Gods making cannot hold them without new hearts But a prettier sport for the mimick Ladies by half to laugh at after the Italian mode if our English-men were put into frames like Cats to turn their SPITS and bast their MEAT and in the mean time they fall a MEWING and a MADDING till they have broken loose tore all off of the Spits and serv'd themselves with it in the first place As sure enough they will seeing such Cats are strong and for all his frames will be Cats still nor can they be made to turn the Spit without a Rack and when they are enraged I would be loath that Mr. H. should be basted as they will bast him to make up the Mumming Nor can we trust that Maxime of his p. 48. Oceana Give us good orders and they will make us good men so much as give us good men they will give us good orders and Government too with Gods blessing Tristes Quaerimoniae Si non Supplicio Culpa reciditur Quid Leges sine moribus Vanae Proficiunt Therefore if the Petitioners mean with Mr. Har. by the free people p. 6. of the Pet. all the Nation without any distinction or Cognizance of any difference between Royalists and Realists Delinquents and Adherents such as have forfeited and such as are well-affected that have waded through their own bloud to recover and hold these their Rights they strike Mortally at the Cause the Bloud the Treasure spent the Prayers Tears Skulls Bones and Limbs of thousands in the Cause yea at all the distinguishing Mercies manifestations and Victories that we have had And when by this fraud the Cause is thus far gone and all the Bloud in the Veins of the Commonwealth mingled with ten times more corrupt then is sound forsooth what serves your Rotation for but for Rottation and inevitable ruine to the Commonwealth Besides
that have been most despised are as ready as Any to offer up our Lives and sacrifice our all for the service In the choice of Tribunes the Romans were wont to pitch upon them that could shew the most Marks Scars or Wounds in the service of their Country and some there be yet alive though little look'd upon who can like Veteranus whom Sueton. in Aug. C. tells us of but open their Garments and shew you the GASHES which they gladly received either in suffering or doing for this Cause that had rather a thousand times see the Bloud spin out of their own Veins then drop out of Christ's by another Agony Et totum hujusce rei consilium non periculo meo sed utilitate Reipubl metiar and for my own part I will not measure my business by my danger which is as great as most mens but by the benefit of the Publick 2. A stander by may see more of the Game which the Enemy is playing with Art and with Arms too and the great advantages which our friends may give them in their dealings then they see themselves so that I hope such diligent observers who have ever betted on your side and to the Cause may without offence or the brand of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inform you the best they can of those that are peeping into your hands and do make their Game by it accordingly or endeavour it for the interest of a Single Person or of Charles Stuart It was said of Queen Elizabeth that like an ill House-wife she swept the house and left the dust behinde the door but we hope you will not sweep the door as you did at your first entry to our great rejoycing and now leave the dust within the House to breed Spiders and Cobwebs which will be sure to hang in the highest places And therefore as we do in times of danger and robbery be pleased first to search well within doors and then without in every corner seeing the Enemy may steal in at so many secret and imperceptible ways 3. The grounded jealousies and certain fears that if this Cause should miscarry CHRIST the Gospel and good People of the Commonwealth would all suffer slavery do nib my Pen with the more Promptness and Acuteness in the presence of Him that is higher then the highest to call upon your Prudence and utmost care to preserve it in its Purity Nor am I herein beyond my line whiles in pleading the Cause I plead for Christ the Gospel and his Saints the best support columne and interest in the Whole World 4. The great and growing desires which I have to be serviceable to the Publique ere I die Secundum singulas species Evangelii Christi necnon Reipubl both as a Minister and a Man with the deep resentment of that desperate Design of the Enemies now on foot to the utter extirpation of us and of all whom they call Sectaries as well as perplexing of your Councils if they can effect it set forward from those very Principles that I have opposed and which they had calculated for the total interfection of the Cause interruption of the Parliament and infection of the People from 1. Principles of Falshood 2. Confections of Calumny and 3. Concoctions of Crudity The first in Mr. Prynne's Perditory Anatomy of the Commonwealth which is no more to be followed then the School of Alexandria in Gallen's time who did use to quarter Bodies for their Scholars and not allow them the dissection or discovery of the Whole Body neither doth P. to his Followers onely in this against his will we may commend him for an Artist that he hath found out the most sound solid and untainted parts of the whole Body to shew his SKILL upon i. e. of cutting and calumniating Psal 10. 8. 50. 20. 89. 51. The second in Mr. B's Purgatory Art of curing the Army whose Pinion or Pen is hardned into his own Opinion for the Government of a single Person and recovery of the Kingdom again and not so for a due and equal Temperament of the whole Body by an even Balance and proportion of the four Elements and so Aliments of this Politic. Body conducing to the most concinnate and right use of all the Functions in it as for the Mastery of the One above the other and all the Rest which would be the inevitable Ruine of All at last and all the OPERATION of his Pills is but to cast the Commonwealth out of an Acute into the most Chronick and irrecuperable Diseases But the 3. is in Mr. H's Pulsatory Method which tends more to the maintenance of the Diastole then of the Systole of the Commonwealth i. e. for the promoting then expurging the putrid humors of the Body By the first sort or P's is the Commonwealth considered quatenus immedicabilis and so he cuts it all to pieces as the Levite did his Concubine Judg. 19. 29. and sends them into all Quarters to raise the Rebellion By the second sort or Mr. B's is the Commonmonwealth considered quatenus est Sanabilis or restorable to a Kingdom and so he gives his Pills his Powders and his Portions that by strange operations they might enervate and deforce the Vitals of the Commonwealth but animate and revive the spirits of the Cavaliers and corrupt ones for Kingship in the Nation and accordingly are the humours spirits and armies of the Enemy up By the third sort or Mr. H's is the Commonwealth considered quatenus Mutabilis and so he exhibits new Forms Platforms Orders and Foundations in the first Concoction Heathenish but in the second Concoction Popish which he presumes will be as easie of digestion as the Jusculum or decoction of an old Cock ere he has cook'd it Now although these last have done the least hurt and are our Friends yet the Enemy might presume upon it that we judg'd our State very unsetled to hang by Geometry like Mahomet's Tomb in the Air or by a Charm or without a Foundation which is a great mistaste And by all these have I learned in Politicks that Non minus est corrigere Rem Public jam institutam quam ab initio instituere c. It is nothing less to govern well a Commonwealth when it is instituted then to institute a Commonwealth when it is not as yet governed or as yet a Commonwealth So that your Lessons most Noble Senators are no less difficult which you learn ex post facto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then those that you learn antè post facto wherein we had all need and hope we shall help you all we can with our prayers counsels and endeavours and none to Hinder you in the least nor yet You to Hinder one another And therefore though from a worm and no man I beseech you RIGHT HONOURABLE to admit of a few praevious Considerations for the better Settlement of the Commonwealth to the satisfaction
then himself according to his own Characters of them in his Treatise 3. From his own Grounds of Communion he is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or condemned of himself for his uncharitable censoriousness upon Sir Hen. Vane and those he calls Sectaries c. p. 440 441. Where peace and holiness may be carried on together there unity and peace must be sought as a means to holiness these are his own but amongst them that he calls Sectaries peace and holiness may be carried on together so p. 441. Hence it is saith he that wicked livers do turn Papists But those that I know who lie under his merciless Lash are not wicked Livers but very excellent examples many of them of Peace and Holiness and particularly for Sir H. V. his virtuous Lady and godly Family of any that I know in the World of that quality though I hear the like of others as of my Lord Fleetwoods c. they may be called in themselves as once was the Family of George Prince of Anhalt an Ecclesia Curia and Academia a Church a Court and an University of the highest best and most Liberal Sciences that appertain to men or to Christians Mr. B. in p. 442. saith further 442. It is but a carnal stir that Papists and some Reconcilers make to have unity so general as shall take in the most impious Rabble therefore in some cases we are called to seperate And yet because of a separation from those that are so impious or are such reconcilers must the poor sectary be branded by himself and his followers for Masked Papists 4. From his own detection of Masked Papists p. 343. he may be convinced of the horrid liberty that he hath taken to traduce his own words are The Jugling Papists may be known by this that they are alwaies LOOSENING people from Religion and LEADING them into a dislike of what they have been taught But Sir H. Vane is far from being within this Character I have heard him often open apply the precious Scriptures to my great Comfort and to the best of my judgement who have been 14. or 15. years in the Publick but sweet labour of the Gospel with sweat and swinck day and night with prayers tears watching thereunto I do profess I never could perceive his Doctrine for LOOSENING but ever for FASTNING the people of God in pure RELIGION and undefiled and yet I have heard with prejudice enough too upon reports of others till I was convinced of my errour his constant scope is to the power and principles of godliness to fix us in the everlasting holiness under the benefit of the Mediatory Covenant and in the benefits of the Covenant of Grace electing and Eternal Love LEADING them or rather the Lord by his Spirit into the most holy and optable relish of what they have been taught of that nature Expressing himself so clearly soundly and discriminatively in the principles of the New-creature or Regeneration from the common mistakes of men that rest in a meer Reformation outward Purification or a first-Adam-renovation and so shewing the difference between a Christian per saltum and per altum as profitably as ever I heard Also upon the points of justification and Perseverance and that it is the first Adam and first Covenant-spirit which is the subject of falling away and upon Sanctification the life of Christ the Mediatorship of Christ and all his Offices also upon the excellency certainty and felicity of COMMUNION with God and acquaintance by Jesus Christ c. and are these loosening Doctrines I do verily believe had Mr. B. but heard him as I and others have done in Carisbrook C. and elsewhere he would have said incomparably more for him not only then I do but then he either doth or can say against him yea have blessed the Lord for him more abundantly and have wept at this incogitancy such charity I have for him with a Laconian Country-man saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am not the cause but my nature or as the APOSTLE It is no longer I but sin that dwelleth in me which breaks out thus at lips and in my lines with spots like leprosie unclean unclean and in the mean time we need no more then his own Argument in p. 119. They that are sanctified justified have the love of God in them are members of the TRVE CHVRCH 5. Mr. B. himself proves them in the true Religion in opposition to the Papists thus p. 118. That Religion which has all the essentials of Christianity is the true Religion Now let him name any one essential of Christianity if he can that Sir H. V. or those that he calls Sectaries Vanists c. do not hold and lay aside for shame those Boyish fansies and youthful tricks to play with mens Names and Reputations so and as if he were but at Hat-farthing he hath found out a company of Hiders too for so he calls them to play with and though the Question be between him and them who Hide first yet he calls for the Magistrate to help him to play his GAME over the Consciences of his brethren and to thrip up a CROSSE or a PILE upon them as upon the HIDERS or he 'll wrangle for it he is resolved and so tells us before-hand 6. From his very Description of the Seekers as to their work saith he p. 331. The Papists work by the Seekers is to take us from all or from our former Religion But those Gentlemen so unjustly accused and calumniated by Mr. B. are not taken off from all Religion he knows Do they not preach pray expound meet confer together and wait upon the Lord in publick in private and often in a week in the use of his holy Ordinances and doth Mr. B. more Besides he goes beyond all bounds of Logick or reasoning both in his Definitions Propositions and Descriptions of things or Persons as particularly in this where there is not an adaption reciprocal of the Description to the described and to make this a mark either of Seeker or of Papist viz. the taking us off of our former Religion is to lay the charge rather upon them that took us and our fathers off from Popery which was the former Religion or us off from Episcopacy which was our former Discipline then upon the Seekers And so indeed is he pleading for the Papists not against them 7. From his own Concâ—ssion p. 293. That true PROTESTANTS are no more a Sect then the Patients in an Hospital who are almost healed or then the higher forme of Scholars in a School but still acknowledge them of the lowest forme even them that learn the A. B. C. in the same School If these be true Protestants and not Papists then is Sir H. V. and so those worthy Gent. farther off from that wicked impeachment then any I know of so large healing comprehensive and condescending to the least and lowest formes
the FIRST PRINCIPLE for that they are neither found in the Efficient nor yet in the Material Formal nor Final Causes of such a Conjunction either as to Coition or Coalition and so are not capable of a Rejunction as Mr. P. and B. press it till we see a REJUNCTION in them also if the Armies Repentance reach to that And this I say Neither after the first intention of it as we use to say which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and must be the same in nature and in substance with the rest viz. Commonwealths-men All and not Kinglings any unless for Christ which they are not not yet after the second intention called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exprest both in the colligation and obligation of such natural-united and well-disposed Members every one in his proper joynt place fitted and fixed for the service of the WHOLE which those Secluded Members would never take or if they had could never hold viz. to be true and faithful to the Commonwealth c. as it is now established without a King Single Person or House of Peers So that all they propose are real impossibilities both to Reason Art and Nature nor are they able to offer any MEDIVM HOMOGENEVM or sutable expedient to effect it i. e. in the due consistency with the State of the cause being and well-being of the Commonwealth Wherefore if the Lt. G. Fleetwood and the Army were pleased they might Anwer Mr. B. as once the Emperour Adrian did an old Courtier who came unto him for some preferment then void but the Emperour denyed it him within some few days after the Gent. with great Art trimmed himself put on a smooth face as it is now in fashion with a very youthful habit and so applied to the Emperour anew But Sir saith the Emperour not so not so I dare not I must not be so unjust to give that to the SON that I denyed to the FATHER but 3. or 4. days since and so we hope that neither the present Lenity future Acrimony nor deceitful Ideo-pathy or Sympathy of Mr. B's Physick no more then Mr. P's Antopathy or Antipathy can work upon the Army to be so unjust as to give that to those men that are the same though now new-trimmed and with the greatest Art they can too for Kingship which they denied them before fought against and resisted in the Scottish-War more especially when these men were more GRAVE in their fatherhoods and much more reverend a few years since So I leave Mr. P's first Demonstration of the Republicans CAUSE as he calls it in his two last Anatomy Lectures His second is as groundless as the first wherein from p. 40. to 69. of Narr he gives his first Lecture upon the living which only concerns the dead Anatomy As if the JESUITES formative faculty and designs which they had afoot in the days of the King and Kingdom had laid the Prolifick Project of this Government and so throughout his Anatomy of the Republicans Cause from p. 4. he would make us believe if we could be so besotted that the Commonwealth is a BASTARD of the Jesuites begetting Mr. B. seconds him we need not question telling us stories of Campanella Parsons WATSON c. and of their designs against King James and the Nation then about An. 1604. or 1605. So that the child lay longer in the Womb then that which â—o Albosâ—us tells us of that lay in the mothers Womb 28. years and then too it was turn'd into STONE Now with how little Weight of Reason or Judgement this is charged I shall refer to the Reader that hath any skill in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Anatomy to judge upon their own Histories and grounds In Campanella 1. For CAMPANELLA the Italian Frier in his Monarch Hisp his Project was to promote an interest for the King of Spain against Q. Elizabeth and K. James and all his Politicks were calculated and suited to the state of the Nation at that time and in those days far different from what it was or is in ours which was not made for the interest of Spain but our own 2. Upon far different Grounds too viz. to make such discord amongst the English as might admit them no leasure to disturbe the Spanish to perswade the Parliament of the Kingdom in Q. Elizabeth days to cast her off and so fall into the form of a Commonwealth by this means to sow the seeds of an inexplicable and in expiable WAR between England and Scotland that if England should be turned into the forme of a Commonwealth the Kingdom of SCOTLAND might keep up continual Wars with the Commonwealth of England for it was never laid for BOTH to be a Commonwealth and so to manage all affairs so slowly as not to hurt the Spaniard if not to give him advantage and if a Commonwealth could not be effected then to make it an Elective Kingdom c. Now are these the grounds or the effects of our Free-State let any judge seeing the Friers plot was laid so as to keep up Scotland a Kingdom and distinct from England as well as England a Commonwealth or else it answered not the Popish design neither to incapacitate England from disturbing the Spaniard or defending our selves against them but in this Commonwealth it is no such matter we are Both one and in a far better capacity both for PRESERVATION and INCREASE to deal with an Enemy then under the King 3. The Friers ENDS were such as did as well correspond with a Kingdom Elective or any thing so that Q. Elizabeth King James and that Family were but routed or totally amoved but our ends in this Commonwealth are not such as can consist with or be answered in a Single Person or a Kingdom Elective and therefore cannot be the same which the Jesuites plotted if they plotted any for us But that is the thing which these Gent. must prove viz. that This this is The Commonwealth which Campanella plotted and not to ensnare us with a Homonymy or so to accuse the Commonwealth as the woman did Eustatius the Bishop for Whoredom with her being hired unto it by the Arrians and thereby had him banished until she was tormented with a judgement and then confess'd it was another Eustatius and not THIS 4. Though Campanella and the Papists would have been glad at their hearts at any Alteration either for Commonwealth or Kingdom Elective yet their 's proved an Abortment a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and came to nothing or had any of their's by a Superfaetation or a new procreation came to maturity amongst us it must have been upon Grounds and Ends as far different from our's as West from East or North from South But Lastly Campanella and the Papists never intended a Common-wealth as the ULTIMATE but upon a design and to turn it back to a Single Person his own words are Tandem in Democratiam
fine Rursus in Statum Regium revolvuntur So that THEY carry on the Jesuites Plot that would Revert us again to a Single Person 2. So for PARSONS The Jesuite he pretended a Revelation from God But this Commonwealth was laid upon Reason Righteousness and not on Revelation so Parsons proposes his Commonwealth to be generated by infusing this Principle into Souldiers and People that every Pecope or Multitude get the title and stile of a Publique State or Helvetian Common-wealth But it is not so laid in these Nations that every Company or County either or any indeed but altogether united that are the Commonwealth in England so that this Commonwealth could not be Parsons his nor is it of that kind Nor could it be that which Watson would have had for he shews plainly that HIS must be effected by a Conjunction of Puritans Anabaptists and Jesuites together in the principles and Theorems wherein they agree to carry it on and then that the Jesuites having the optima Acutissima Ingenia most acute capacities and greatest interest in Princes and Noble persons will keep uppermost But it is not so in this Commonwealth nor ever was there such a Conjunction in this Nation unless invisible and unknown besides they set down Rules for every man to rise up and graspe a power into his own hands in a Mutinous manner as at Munster in Germany and to be under no Government or Rule rather stirring them up to a wicked Anarchy then to a godly Commonwealth and that was indeed the very thing they aimed at So that neither Parsons Watson nor the Jesuites can be the father of our Commonwealth for these reasons 1. For that that VERY design that was contrived timed and in travel to be brought forth which was not so much for a Commonweale as for any thing that might do mischief in An. 1604. 1605. or before in An. 1590. in Q. Elizabeth or King James's days through a Spanish Malignity to those persons sure could not have been imprisoned ever since the abortion of the Gun-powder-plot in the Womb and have been nourished by the Vmbilical Veins of Popery without the least appearance of life or quickning in it until now Or if it had been so and had lain there so long or by such a monstrous superfaetation as was never heard of yet sure it could never suit or Quadratre with these times as it did with those 1. Because in those daies were there many eminent Papists and English Confederates both in Court and Country to Gratifie by it and to humor such as closed in with those forain Projects yea many Arminians Noble men and Bishops of Popish-principles that suckt in seminal spumous spirits of mischief both to Church and State and through an eager attraction took a conception here of that design which was laid there but of late days such have been discountenanced displaced and in no capacity to bring forth such a design if they had conceived it in this Nation 2. Because in those days as there was an Attraction there was a Retention too of the Popish Seed Principles opinions and Jesuitical projects which they received more heartily and with more mutual embracements then of late days in this Nation And yet if in those days they no sooner conceived but miscarried witness 88. and the Gun-powder-plot surely in these days the Lord hath more apparently given them the miscarrying womb and dry brests as he said of Ephraim Hos 9. 16. Though they do bring forth yet will I SLAY even the beloved fruit of their womb and as this we have seen with our eyes all along so in the nature and course of REASON Hippocrates tells us de Natur. Pueri 1. Sect. 44. Aphor. That those Wombs which are too much weakened and extenuated do abort the sooner as at two monthes or before Now the Popish womb was in no age weaker then in this nor in any Nation then in this and therefore the Principle à Quo of this Commonwealth could not be from them 2. Nor can this Commonwealth be THE Commonwealth that Parsons Watson or the Jesuites laid so long ago or their spurious issue as Mr. P. is pleased to call it from the very principles of the Procreation and Rise of our Commonwealth and to name but some now 1. Our Rights and Liberties both as Christians and as men or in matters of Conscience and in civil things declared and contended for as is proved at large in Mr. P's Cause stated and stunted conquered and maintained of a Legitimate and full-grown conception founded in the Laws Word and Spirit of God of Nature and of the Reason and Wisdom in this Nation that are of longer standing then any Government by King Lords and Commons which by their own innate heat and not by Jesuites or any others gave the first formative faculty to this Common-wealth which is or ought to be diffused throughout all the matter of it This is asserted in the Act of Parliament March 17. 1648. Whereas by the Abolition of the Kingly Office a most happy way is made for this Nation if God see it good to return to it's just and Antient Right of being Governed reducere omnia ad prima Principia So in the Declaration of this Parliament May 7. 1659. Now Parson's or the Popish Commonwealths come not up to or from such a principle of Liberty as Adam CONTZEN that Jesuite tells us in his directions which Mr. B. quotes cap. 17. They would permit no other Religion but call for a speedy punishing of erronious and not to take up JVLIANS plot i. e. to destroy Religion by a liberty for all Sects c. the Jesuites Commonwealth will not admit of a Toleration calls it a Julian designe to destroy Religion neither would Mr. P's so Chap. 18. in 's 4. Direct it is as narrow and imposing upon the Civil Liberty But 2. the Jesuites Project and principle for a Commonwealth or a Kingdom Elective is not nor ever was against Kingship or the OFFICE of it but against Persons Families Protestants c. But the Generative principle of this Commonwealth was against the very OFFICE of a KING as burthensom unnecessary and dangerous and not so against his person or family Therefore it cannot be the Jesuites Commonwealth 3. From the Causes of it the efficient causes of the Commonwealth are of three kinds either Principal Assistant and Co-adjutant or else Causa sine quâ non that cause without which it could not be But the Jesuites could not be or give the principal cause of it as I have proved for then they should have had some principal effects and some principal benefits of it by a necessary consequence nor were they the Assistant cause for then there should have been a Permixtion and Conjunction of principles directly or indirectly but that I have proved to the contrary Nor are they the cause sine quâ non without which we could
the Protestants with Mr. P. Sectaries 9. Q. Whether it had not been wisdom to have kept out the company of gabling Geese or Scriblers that noise it so in Mr. P's Chamber during the time of his Travel hard labour and unprofitable pains to be deliver'd of Campanella's Bastard 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or head-long And whether they had not better have perswaded Mr. P. to have kept his Terms still then to have fallen in with such filthy interests to commit sin with or conceive séed from for the trouble of the Nation or so to sell himself to the next KING that comes for so little profit and for less credit 10. Q. Whether in all this Mr. P. and Mr. B. have not made a more exquisite and Artificial Section or discovery of themselves their party parts and principles then of the true Cause or of the Commonwealth through all the Meanders intricate and abstruse notions and designs to obtrude or exalt the interest of the Stuarts and debase our Cause Let the Reader judge for in Publicos Hostes Omnis Homo Miles saith Tertul. Apol. c. 2. It is every mans case and all the Country will up when wild beasts are broken loose to that I leave them and their followers I have been the longer upon these things they being the very hinges or the Axle-trées of all their Polemick Disceptations against the present Government in four books which for substance are answered and their fallacies discovered to the Readers only Mr. B's wounding Answer which is truly his own to the Healing Question comes under our present consideration his Politick Aphorisms if occasion serve for future which he adds in the Preface of ' s Holy Commonwealth to the Army that they may not be kept up in impenitency i. e. from returning to King Lords and Commons I would say this for the Healing Question and its honourable Authour that is of such a Healing Spirit and Frame whiles Mr. B. is professedly of a Wounding That the Almighty God hath made it and him so great a Means of Blessing towards the Recovering and Healing of this poor ISLAND as our Children after us may live to reap remember and bless GOD for indeed I do think there is in that little Treatise such Apples of Gold if well considered as were taken from the Lord Jesus that Tree of Life Prov. 3. 18. whose Leaves are for the Healing of the Nations Rev. 22. 1 2. And to speak rationally It was as properly called a HEALING Question as his Antagonist would call it a WOUNDING Answer after Gallens understanding of Healing in a Physical Consideration in the beginning of Lib. de Ossibus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. All things that concern the Action of HEALING have that for their scope and direction to it that agrees best with the Nature and Constitution of the body or part which must be HEALED i. e. the Commonwealth Now whether Mr. B. by 's WOUNDING or Sir H. V. by his HEALING comes neerest to the nature and constitution of the Commonwealth or Free-State let us diligently enquire and duely preponderate without respect to persons but to principles and to the matter The healing Question saith he placeth the cause in two things pag. 3 4 5 6. 1. In a Freedom by way of dutiful compliance and condescention from all parts and members of this Society to set up meet persons in the place of Supreme Judicature and Authority amongst you Enlarged pag. 10 11. 2. Freedom in matters of Religion that concern the service and worship of God enlarged pag. 5 6 7. The PERSONS that he supposes have this Soveraign power sayes he are sometimes said to be the Whole Body of Adherents to the CAUSE p. 3. to which they have a double Right 1. Natural 2. Conquer'd and Recover'd and sometimes the whole BODY OF THE PEOPLE pag. 4. But here Mr. B. begins already to deal unfaithfully and dis-ingenuously with the Healing Question and its Author for pag. 4. it tell us of the natural right and Freedom due to the whole Body of the People for whose safety and good Government its self is ordained which the Norman by Lust and force of Arms kept them from This is their natural Right indeed not but that they may forfeit it and lose it as a man may forfeit his Liberty and his Life which he hath a natural right unto by Theft Treason Rebellion Murther or the breach of good and equal Laws But when he treats of the Goodness and the Nature of the Cause p. 3 4. then it is that he tells us the unforfeited and undoubted Power of chusing c. lies in the body of Adherents to the CAUSE who have contributed their counsels purses pains affections prayers and united strength unto it And these have not onely their foresaid natural Right but through Gods blessing their conquered and restored Right unto it Which others have not that fought against the CAUSE the PARLIAMENT to destroy both it and us These that have forfeited it are not said to have the Soveraign Power of chusing persons fit for Supreme Trust by this two-fold Right that the Adherents to the Cause have And therefore the Healing Question pag. 3. speaks of Restoring This THIS whole Body to it's just Rights in Civils and in Spirituals But Mr. B. would jumble them both like a jusculum of Hodg-podg or Galleymaufrey into our mindes by a fallaciâ compositionis taking them together as he in his Wounding and not as the Author in 's Healing Question states and exhibits them Also it is observable that in lieu of any lucid or clear Replication he would have the Reader subjugate his Reason to his Dark Lanthorn or abstruse implication in some ten PROPOSITIONS which he offers as his Purging-Pills or Troches to the Armies Consciences but let them first examine the INGREDIENTS of them and the hand that gives them if he have skill and if there be no danger in receiving of them His 1. Prop. is That it was none of the Old Cause which we contended for in the Wars viz. the free choice of Parliaments Answ We shall then appeal to all Records living and dead yea to Mr. P. himself whether Priviledges of Parliament and peoples Rights were none of the Old Cause contended for 1. saies he the King granted it but at the first he denied it And what if he did by word acknowledge it if he by force hindred them the benefit of it which is the thing the Heal. Quest. sayes But for B's satisfaction he may see it recorded in History That in the very first four yeers of his Reign he dissolved three Parliaments one after another and by Proclamation forbid the people to speak of any more Parliaments after that so that in the Intervals they were miserably enslaved oppressed both in Consciences and Estates taxed fleeced with Monopolies and illegal sufferings had no visible Remedy left them All thoughts of ever
Arguments wherein is proved that in Sensu Composito every tittle and Punctilio of all those Declarations and Protest is kept in this Cause of the Commonwealth so far as it comprehends all in the sence end and equity thereof wherein the Letter or forme was incapable or incompatible besides the very words of the Covenant are for the person of the King in and no otherwise but in the defence of the true Religion and liberties of the people Now so far as any of these or all these can or could possibly consist together viz. in the liberties of the people they are conserved to this very day Therefore this Pill being the same with the other though it be a little bigger will work but little better and so I leave it His sixth Prop. which is the main That it was none of the old Cause that the people should have Liberty and the Magistrate have no power in all matters of Gods worship faith and Conscience And here I cannot but observe how unworthily or like the false witness M. B. deals with this honourable Author again after a superficial complement which he would never give before nor nothing like it in 's Key for Cath. saith he Without any exception restriction or limitation that I can find he expresly extendeth the Case to matters of Religion or that concern the worship of God p. 5. and to matters of faith and Conscience p. 6. yea all matters and that the Magistrates must fear and forbear intermedling with whereas he knows and saith it but a little before that the persons spoken of are the whole body of honest men adherents to this Cause and is that no restriction I believe Mr. B. thinks it one and a close one too to him for the truth is the Author of the Healing Quest is pleading for them especially that have adhered to the cause and for their Rights and Freedom of Conscience under different apprehensions and opinions yet in the general for that natural right freedom and liberty which Christ hath purchased by his bloud and may not that be admitted who dares hinder it does he say any more then so But to see how like a SOPHIST his Antagonist quotes him as if he had a mind to imitate the Grand accuser of the Brethren Mat. 4. 6. who left out IN ALL HIS WAYS Mr. B. leaves out the most significant and considerable Clause even of the SAME sentence to spoil the sence or play the Tempter with For the Healing Quest saith That all Magistrates are to fear and forbear intermedling with here M. B. skews out of the way now as if he were scared or feared that his FOLLY would appear to all men to proceed with the same sentence which he most rudely abruptly and ungrammatically Lacerates at the very preposition without the Case that follows it with giving rule or imposing in those matters Therefore nail up this counterfeit Reader upon the next Post lest it pass for CURRANT and then consider does this discharge the Magistrate of his duty or don 't he rather charge him with what is not his duty that would have the Magistrate to impose upon us in the worship of God and matters of Conscience that are out of a Civil consideration and meerly spiritual so that all the Healing Quest. offers p. 7. is The Magistrates forbearing to put forth the power of Rule and Coertion in things that God hath exempted out of his Commission This is all and these are the very words And is this so wicked a Cause as Mr. B. calls it or which deserves such a scarifying or Cauterizing brand and denomination of wickedness and falshood as he puts upon it But if I may give him the Brand for falsifying so for the Question is saith he whether the Magistrate may restrain them from propagating a false faith or Infidelity and drawing others into it But stay Sir Whose Question is it do you think to catch old Birds AUCUPIIS or with your chaff 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with empty words abusive nothings for who I pray makes this the Question but your self not the Healing Quest I can affirm for that which he saith is only about the Magistrates not compelling or imposing in the matters of God not about this restraining of Papists or Infidels though some there be that question the extent of his power meerly for their faith or worship yet it is not so much as mentioned by the Healing Quest. Upon this the poor man to finde himself work enough with his own pretty Paralogisms and Sophisms and so to make sport for our money lest we take him for a Pick-pocket he spends at one clap 6. or 7. pages very generously to prove what none denies that it was neither the Cause nor the good Cause to Countenance POPERY Mahumetism c. Notwithstanding it never entered into the Question and so his Answers are shot in the Air or at himself all the way being in nothing adequated or adapted to the Case But saith Mr. B. He hath not excepted Popery c. and if worship be out of the Magistrates reach then so is Mass Under due correction and with due respect to his gravity and the Ministry he Reasons neither like a Christian nor like a Logician 1. It is not like a Christian to traduce Sir H. V. so as if Popery c. were not excepted in the Healing Quest when the Case it's self is and the whole discussion both for matter and forme to the Body of ADHERENTS to the Cause most proximately exclusive of Popery infidelity and unchristianity in worship as fully as ever it was in the times of the Wars with the King and highest attempts or contests with the Biships before But Psal 50. 16. with 19 20. What hast thou to do to count up my statutes Thou givest thy mouth to evil thy tongue joyneth with deceit thou sittest and speakest against thy brother thou titten dophi givest a double mouth of thy mothers son 2. Nor like a Logician in his rambling from the verity of the matter and very principles of demonstration for that Propositions ought to be true de omni and the Predicate to agree with the Subject in every thing but to help the Reader a little out of the snare of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or fallacie which lies in the Ambiguity of the PROP. viz. If worship be out of the Magistrates reach then so is Mass to speak ad Rhombum and not to ramble from what the Healing Quest affirms it is out of the Magistrates reach of imposing or compelling us to Mass For all that honourable person saith is that the Magistrate might forbear Coertion in the worship of God Neither doth he say as Mr. B. by his fallacie would insinuate that Magistrates have nothing to do but that this they ought not to do viz. impel or impose in the worship of God upon our Consciences and so Mass Mahumetism and all false Religion is
the equality as Galen saies and then let him judge Thirdly Whether This tendeth to vilifie the Magistrate or Mr. B's more to vilifie Christ and his Members the Church Truth and Gospel and consequently to set the MAGISTRATE upon the most conscientious Or Fourthly Whether it be against any Tittle of the Decalogue to keep up each Table Duty and distinct Function of Magistrate and Minister in their proper places and functions which Mr. B. would confound Fifthly Whether this tends to the decay and not to the greatest incouragement of true Grace Faith and Holiness not to whip force or impose upon us in meer Spirituals and matters of Worship Yea Sixthly Whether the Healing Questions sweet Argumentum à Christo Pace or M. B.'s bitter Argumentum à fustibus Face would gratifie the Devil and his Malice most He that would have the Magistrate not to impose his light upon other mens consciences or he that would have it imposed as a Rule or Standard for All Men in the Nation to come or to be cudgel'd up unto as Mr. B. and Mr. Har. likewise would have it so in pag. 27 28 c. of his OCEANA That all men might be subject to the National Conscience Seventhly Whether this or that would let out Tempters and Persecutors too the farthest and with the most loosened Reines of Lust and Cruelty over the Soul to the Danger or Perdition of their own 8. Whether Parents or Masters of Families ought to impose their own Religion or Opinion upon their Children and Servants and not rather to permit them the Free exercise and Liberty of their Consciences in the Worship of GOD consistent with our CAUSE both in Spirituals and Civils Ninthly Whether it tendeth to the destruction of an Army to let every one March not to Mutiny that is his own word and the Healing Q. asserts the Magistrates power in such Cases as are suitable Objects to keep the peace and promote the civil good but to let every one march on in his own Order without justling or molesting of another Joel 2. 7 8. They shall march every one in his wayes and not break their Ranks nor one Thrust another Or to the hurt of Families not to impose or to let their children have liberty to hear GOD's word and worship not to Theft Drunkenness Whoredome as Mr. B. most unworthily states it though in a different manner place time and such like circumstances But for an aliquid amplius I refer to a Treatise I wrote some 2 years since called A reviving Word from the quick and dead c. for Vniting of All the Godly with this Liberty Tenthly Or against the exercise of a Church-power over offenders Mat. 18. 17. Tit. 3. 10 11. 2 Thes 3. 14 15. because a Magistrate ought not impose upon their Consciences Eleventhly Or is it against the Interest of CHRIST who shall be the Desire of all Nations Hag. 2. 7. to indulge any or all of his Members with Equal Liberty Benefit and Safety in the service of GOD without an undue magnifying of any one Form or Faction above or to be a Rule to others consolidating all under one Head JESUS CHRIST Ephes 1. 13. Hos 1. 11. in such sweet Symmetry Order Consistency together as the four Elements have in the humane Body though different asunder yet in Harmony together so as one may not Master but Balance another to the service of the Whole and of every one in their particular places faculties and functions and would not this be for the Interest of our dearest Lord But sayes he It 's an unholy Saint that would have Liberty to reproach his Lord or deny the faith and essential Article of it to speak against his holy worship c. Whereas all the Healing Question propounds for is That the holy Saints that do serve their God sincerely though under different apprehensions that do hold the Faith and Truth in the Essentials of it and that are for his holy worship not against it that these might have equal Liberty and Countenance But so absurdly for many pages together doth this poor man spit the Venom of his Pen upon that Noble and Pious Author without Ground or Matter but of 's own devising to render him such as are the liveliest Assertors of our Cause in the Latitude and Liberties of it contemptible if he could as well as the Cause it self which is the thing they ayme at that I might say to him as once Zeno said to Antigonus whose breath was strong and stomack foul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Get you gone to your Vomit for as Aristides also said we are not of that Number that can spit and vomit stuff so loathsome And as one said when he was hit in the Teeth with his stinking Breath that it was because of the Great trust of SECRETS which his Friends had committed to him which he kept within him until they were ROTTEN he may as Wittily excuse it but not as Worthily if they be Designes for the King or Cavalierish Secrets against the Worthies of Parliament Cause and People of GOD which lie and ROT and export so ill a savour And lastly Let Any judge Whether this Liberty of Conscience for the faithful Adherents to the Cause in matters of Worship onely or that Persecution and Imposition which Mr. B. would put the Magistrate upon be the most apparent Way of introducing Popery and of destroying the Power of Godliness with a Form or whether any one can study more to mischieve the Magistrate then by this means For as Mr. Hooper Martyr said to his Friends Anno 1555. Tyranny Extremity and Enforcing have been the onely Arguments to maintain the POPE And if Mr. B. had not been too forgetful he would have considered That these were the very Arguments of 's own-quoted Jesuite Adam Contzen in 's Directions for Restoring Popery Chap. 17. Lib. 2. To preserve Popery that no other Religion should be permitted and the speedy punishing of the Erroneous cutting them off in their first appearance prohibiting their Books and taking heed of Julian ' s Device destroying of Religion by Liberty for all Sects Thus they do sayes Mr. B. in Spain Italy Austria Bavaria c. i. e. destroy Liberty of Conscience Is this then the Jesuites way by Mr. B.'s own words to let in Popery or to destroy it The Jesuite calls it A destroying of the Religion vizt Popery to give Liberty as he calls it to all Sects Indeed Mr. B. doth put me in minde of one Cacus a great Thief that was wont to pull all the Cattel he stole into his DEN backward or by the Tail to avoid the pursuit of the people that followed the Track and this pretty Knack Mr. B. uses to pull us into Popery as we shall see presently and yet pretends to keep us from it by the Track that whoever follows as he hath made it shall no
discourage and punish Rom. 13. 3 4. and so saith the Healing Quest upon these reasons p. 7. That it is not good for the people to be brought up in a biting devouring wrathful spirit one against the other or be found to do that to another which we would not have them do to us were we in their condition Now this is the Golden Rule indeed were it but answered with Silver Practices and so no Consciences could be imposed upon in the worship of God Besides for himself and that party Mr. B. urgeth a necessity of liberty of Conscience as we heard when it comes to his own Case in his Preface to the Army which puts me in mind of Opimius a Covetous Citizen of Rome in a desperate Lethargy out of which no pinching cupping nor cuffing could keep him awake till his Physitian commanded store of money to be poured out and told on a Table hard by him at the noise whereof and at the Doctors loud cry Opimius Opimius look to thine own it is thine own he awakes and was CURED was cured and so may Mr. B. of this Errour But to proceed Mr. Burroughs also in his Vindic. against Edwards's Gangrene saith he Hainous actions and turbulent carriages do come within the Magistrates Cognizance indeed but they are not fit Judges of Religion or matters of faith And therefore the Magistrates we hope do and will understand us That we are as tender of their Honour interest and Place and as ready to serve them with our Lives as any men alive are as active for them and would not for a World be without them or not give them their due in all their civil capacities and commands all we can as to a most precious Ordinance of God that we can be no more without then the Sun to Rule by day and the Moon by night but onely in these things that are more promixely and immediately under Christs Government and Jurisdiction in the matters of Gods holy worship we dare not and therefore would not willingly be imposed upon And this is all that Mr. B. makes so much noise about in this his Prop. traducing this prudent and most pious Asserter of our Liberties for that he takes the goodness of our cause to give us this Christian liberty The Army now may see the ingredients of this purging pill partly consisting of the Iesuites-powder and partly of Mr. B's own sine quibus esse nolo compounded on purpose to work out the mixed humors of the Army and to work in those simple down-right inimical spirits in stead thereof as would produce the utter destruction not only of the body but indeed of the very soul and vttals of this Commonwealth It was a bloudy Papist whose ENMITY was so great to the poor Protestants that he would make them first abjure the reformed Religion and immediately upon it massacre them saying O noble revenge that did reach as well to the killing of their souls as of their bodies And some are much of the Orators opinion Pythea an Athenian who thought he never did evil but when he did the worst sort of evil as if to suggest a false witness or to calumniate were a little matter and venial 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But it is not only an evil to do an injury but to imagine or design it His 7. Prop. is That it is not the PARTY that hath owned and now owneth the fore-described cause that have the right nor is any man to be devested of that right for not owning it Answ The fallacy lies 1. In that PLEONASM of his own invention viz. fore-described cause as he hath described it we grant but as the Healing Quest. describes it we deny his Prop. There be two Extreams men have a mighty propension to in their stating of the cause both which are wisely avoided by the Healing Quest. 1. That wherein men do give up our Cause to meerly Natural right without respect at all to the forfeitures of them that have warred fought against it betrayed it and given up their Interest in it to the King or a Single person putting all into a like capacity viz. The Cavaliers Common-enemies to this right and the faithful Adherents to the Cause the Conquered and the Conquerours upon such Grounds too are very dangerous and destructive to the Cause Mr. Harrington and others go that way 2. That wherein upon the single account of our Conquests others go to the challenging of their Rights and Liberties and staring of the Cause without any consideration at all of the Natural Rights and Freedom which people have to choose their Representatives in the Commonwealth this way Mr. Feake and others go The first fix it upon a meer humane Foot and the last upon a meer Religious in 's Beam of Light But both these Extreams are very excellently waved and yet the substance of both as admirably and amiably comprehended in the Healing Quest. wherein the Cause is set upon both it's feet 1. Both to men as men And 2. to Christians as such upon the twofold Right 1. of Nature and 2. of Conquest pag. 3. or rather their Natural right to freedom in CIVILS and in SPIRITUALS which we are restored unto and fortified in under God by success of Arms. And in this state of the Question we may close with Mr. B's words That it is impious and injurious to set up a party for the whole but not as he states it Wherein no distinction must be put between Commonwealth Traytors and True men or between the Conquered and the Conquering between Kinglings and the faithfullest friends of the cause It is as just and honest to call up Thieves and Murtherers at the Bar that have forfeited their Natural Rights and Liberties to sit upon the Bench and there to judge in their own Cause their Accusers and the Witnesses as it is for those Men who have forfeited their Liberties c. betrayed their Country robb'd plunder'd and destroyed the People in the Kings quarrel to be invested or possess'd with the Power or Priviledges of the Commonwealth equally with others of untainted and spotless integrity The truth of this I find confirmed in all the Commonwealths that I have met with and most in the most eminent where as Arist tells us in 3. lib. Polit. c. 7. Bonos aequos dominari oportet autoritatemque habere omnium So a little after speaking of the exercise power and priviledges of the Republick he saith Quos si Boni semper habeant necessarium est alios excludi ab honoribus Rei-publicae The good just and faithful ought to Govern and others to be excluded that are insane and unsutable to the Weale of the Publick For it must be an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not for all without distinction but for them to Govern that are the best Tempered with justice and mercy to do right to all in the exercise of
according to the Rule of former Laws and constitutions as to be justified by them any longer then they had the Law of outward Success and of inward Justice and Righteousness to incourage them So that without tawing or stretching his lines like Leather into what length or shape he please they amount but to this 1. That the Adherents to the Cause were not without an inward Rule of Righteousness as well as outward But 2. when the outward failed or that they were not justified by the Letter of the Law they had an inward line of Righteousness and Justice to measure their Actions by which the Most High blessed and accepted and that was a RULE far more perfect and straight then the letter alone of the old Laws which were made most of them for the interest of a single Person nor was this to the Violation but to the Vindication of the equity sence and meaning of all good Laws not to the Resisting but Recovering of all true Authority from the Griffen-Gripes and Talons of all Tyranny the Usurpation and violence of the Norman Race or of any other Family or Interest whatsoever innoculated into such a Stock or Stump 2. Is this any more then what the PARLIAMENT when it consisted of King Lords and Commons as Mr. B. would have it did justifie to be good and consonant with the CAUSE then in that very action of taking away the Militia from the King which being contrary to the letter of the Law they resolved it thus There is in Laws an Equitable and a Literal sence when there is a grounded suspition the letter of the Law shall be improved against the Equity of it i. e. the Publick Good it gives liberty to obey the Equity of it and to disobey the Letter Now where was the Rule of Righteousness was it in the Letter of the Laws which gave away all the Militia to the King or was there such a thing as an inward Warrant of Justice to do that Action for the publike Good Thereby Defending and not Deflowering the Equity of it 3. Yet the Spirit Reason and inward Rule of Righteousness is to be preferred with his leave before the written Rule or letter as more inerrable inalterable radical where the one is repugnant to the other as the Orator Cicero hath it Non SCRIPTA sed NATA Lex against Tarquin si Regnante Tarquinio Nulla erat Scripta Lex de Stupris c. Tamen vera Lex est Recta Ratio Naturae Congruens diffusa in omnes Constans Sempiterna c. it is not a Written but an innate Rule which is as Chrysostome Rhetorically tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The self-Disciplining or Fundamental Law that is planted in the very Being of Mankinde and from thence it buds blossoms fructifies and dilates into the fairest BRANCHES of Morality So that if there were no Law written sayes the Orator during the Reign of Tarquin to check his Lust yet Right Reason is a sufficient Law of an Excellent Complection and Congruity with Nature and of as admirable a Latitude diffusion and extent to the Good of all and which never fails nor fades PHILO as elegantly gives his Testimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Right Reason is the certain and unshaken Law not written in corrupt PAPER or on a Lifeless stone like a dead Letter by the greatest Art or greatest Industry of any creature but ingraved in the most retentive and living understanding of Man as with the finger of God himself or of an eternal or immortal Spirit Plutarch tells us as much tooa s a Moralist can tell of any Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The LAW it's self is not shut up in Paper or Writings or limitted to any outward Letter or expression of it in Tables of Stone or the like but living and situating like the soul in the body in a Rational Being or in Reason its Self Hence came that ancient Adage Inter Bruta silent Leges Amongst Brutish and Irrational Creatures Laws are mute muzzel'd and unintelligible why because they have not this inward Rule Reason and Spirit of the Laws The Formality and Letter of our Laws did indeed flow from the Interest or Power of some particular men but the strength and life of humane Laws must be found and founded under GOD in Reason and Natural Right which when the Letter or written Rules oppose they become no longer Laws but Flaws in a Commonwealth lose their vigor and are but as a dead letter 4. Both together so long as they can consist together and are in their vigor vizt the Inward and outward wee make a Rule for Righteous Actions between Man and man and not the Inward warrant as sufficient without the outward in such a case viz. where they agree together nor yet the Outward as Mr. B. would have it without the Inward Reason and Spirit of it which the other indeed is deducted from and is more Radicaliter in intellectu So that this Mr. B. might have better said That where the Outward is deficient inconsistent or corrupted Not to use the Inward Warrant or Rule of Reason and Righteousness is to reject the Government of the Lord and to become our own Murtherers and Tame-Slaves Brutified to the Lusts and interests of Men rather then beautified for the Common Good as Hos 5. 11. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in Judgement because he WILLINGLY walked after the Commandments of men Thus far for his 9th Pill and a pitiful dry one to drink up the Radical Moisture with under pretence of a Pill Lucis Majoris to evacuate the humour of the head with His tenth Prop. hath little in it onely a fallacious conclusion from what the Healing Q. predicates in p. 10. That to the wisdom of the Laws and Orders of the Supreme Judicature the sword must become subservient Therefore sayes he your sword should have been so to the Parliament that was violated the late Parliament But the Healing Q. speaks not a word of a Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons which Mr. B. means he speaks of the Representatives of the Commonwealth chosen by this Body of the Sound and well-affected to the CAUSE So that Mr. B. contrary to all Catholick Laws of Reasoning Eartheth or Roots his disceptation in an Homonymy and thence concludes it for the late Parliament that was dissolved Telling the ARMY that no small fruits would be procured upon their CONVICTION by these reasons to a repentance i e. of returning to the secluded Members and old constitution of King Lords and Commons So that this is the Nature of his Diacatholicon or tenth purging PILL if it operates as he and those of his mind would have it they would bring them first by Lenitives Anodines and Emollients to the Stool of Repentance And then to ply them with more asperity till they make them like Arrius purge out their very bowels and all
and then brand them with the like Infamy for the veriest that ever breath'd on English Earth or in English Air. And now let the Parliament Army and all good people that are sound in their sences judge it seriously Whether it is the Honourable Author of the Healing Question as much as he is maligned and menaced by all Parties or Mr. B. in 's Wounding Answer that hath asserted the Ill Cause and deserted the Good And which of them come neerest to the constitution of a Free-State and which of the TWO it is that hath given away that worthy Argument by which he should prove himself an honest man to use Mr. B's own words vizt his Charity But in the winding up of our Discourse I am surprized or way-laid with Mr. Harringtons correspondence with him against an Oligarchy I wish it had been as much against Anarchy and Atheisme if he means by it the present Parliament or such a Parliament or the Body of Adherents to the CAUSE as one of them I believe he must and some say All wherein Mr. B. and he agree but when he tells us his meaning without mumping or scoffing which we must understand before we reply He may hear further And at the present in the words of Hen. 8. but on better grounds From their Old Mumpsimus and his New Sumpsimus Good Lord deliver us But I shall give you my grounds seeing Mr. B. hath brought him to hand as his confederate and shall modestly discuss it with him and them of the late Petition July 6. to the Parliament many of whom I dearly respect and yet I cannot but wonder how busie some are in this work of refunding retunding and confounding us in our Cause not onely with old Popish Mumpsimus's but with new Sumpsimus's and Idea's exhibited to the Parliament like the CHAOS indeed but to enucleate first the Preamble of that Petition 1. I judge it is a little too positive and reflective though couchant under smooth and candid expressions as if we had been hurried after an appearance or shadow in lieu of our undubitable Rights and as if that since the dissolution of that form of Government by K. Lords and Commons a new constitution viz. of Free-State had not been provided for which was evidently done and setled in several Acts of Parliament as Jan. 20. 1648. March 17. 1648. May 14. 1649. July 17. 1649. The words of one are these Whereas the Parliament hath abolished the Kingly Office in England and Ireland c. And having Resolved and Declared that the People for the future shall be governed by its own Representatives and National Meetings in Council chosen and intrusted for that purpose hath setled the Government in a Commonwealth and Free-State without King or House of Lords Be it Enacted c. And yet say these Friends in their Petition p. 4. Your mindes are not Setled on any known Constitution of Government or Fundamental Orders according to which all Laws should be made wherein they are too positive and upon such mistakes and pre-occupations might gratifie our Enemies too too much had they upon this false conception come up to any maturity by the late Apostacy or in this NEW-CONSPIRACIE against the Commonwealth For Mr. Harrington and that Petition strike at the very Root Fundamental and Constituting Acts of Parliament as well as at the very BEING integral Parts of our Cause so long contended for and crowned at last through the Lords blessing I cannot proceed without precaution seeing as Cic. says Omne malum nascens facile opprimitur inveteratum fit plerunque Robustius it is easie to crush Evil in the Egg and as Solomon says Eccles 8. 5. A wise man discerneth both the time and the Judgment 1. At the Foundation of our Settlement in Anno 1648. for that they propound Two Houses of Parliament under new names indeed viz. of a Senate and of a Popular Assembly so Oceana p. 13 14. and Petition p. 8. which appears to me repugnant and Diametrick to our dear Cause to the Acts of Parliament and to our Engagements viz. To be faithful to the Government as it now stands without King or House of Peers Now Aristotle in 's Politic. 5. lib. c. 4. tells us of two waies to destroy a COMMONWEALTH Quandoque per vim Quandoque per dolum Per Vim aut statim aut posteà compellendo Per Dolum non nunquam enim decepti ab initio Suâ demum sponte Recipiunt alium Gubernandi Modum c. Sometimes it is done by Force and sometimes by Fraud in the last sence when mistaken at the first laying it they by perswasion or voluntarily fall into another manner of Government This is a dangerous CRISIS and the Athenians had the sad experience of such Commutations through proclivity to Noveltie and New Changes as Act. 17. 21. They spent their time in it So AELIAN Lib. 5. c. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Athenians were given to change in the State of the Commonwealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I can't commend it it is an OMEN which shall never have my AMEN so long as I see it conduceable to the dissolution of the Whole if they have not special care to preserve the Constitution which with two such Bodies I do not so well understand And I wonder which is more monstrous in Nature a Vast Body with two Heads or a Head with two Huge Bodies and how prodigious and dreadful will their motions be if one go one way and the other another like the Amphisbaena let right Reason judge But besides this that which hath the most impression is the easie Access of a Single Person called with us the Third State by it And this is evident not onely in Reason but in Practice as in the Lacedemonian and Athenian Commonwealths For in the First after Lycurgus's death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Lacedemonians instituted the Court of the Ephors who had the chief Power in the Commonwealth for none stood or were raised up but a King and the Ephor So that a single Person had an Executive Power there But if a nimble Wit will without ground object that this Commonwealth was imperfect or degenerate we might instance in Athens the Pattern of all that they set before us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In like manner the Athenians instituted eleven men to take the care of Prisoners and nine Archons of which were the Thesmothets who were throughly tryed and sworn to do righteously in the Magistracie not to take Bribes nor to set up again the Golden Image But the King who is said to be one of the Archons did administer the Laws which belong'd to Sacrificing and to Warring So that after this Platform are we exposed to the open Danger of a Single Person or a King and of giving the Power of Religion and Worship into the hands of the Magistrate not answerable to the Rules of Christ our Cause nor
with their Bobbins they may bob our ears bravely with a Garrulous Rule and when they lag in their Bone-lace they may lace our bones for Logger-Heads to let them lay down the Distaff and take up the Scepter leave the Spindle and divide the Spoil yea then sit like Meg-Pies at their doors Dumb Saints in their Idols Churches Goats in their Gardens Devils in their houses Angels in the Streets and Syrens at their Windows as they say of the Italians for when they can live no longer by their Work they shall live by their Wits in Mr. Har's Commonwealth that sifts our the best and keeps in the worst to make his Cake with But in Lacedemon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lycurgus the Son of Eunomus willing to endow the Lacedemonians with their dues in Righteousness and Justice took not away any worthy or good Reward from any one And the Thebans to incourage Dignity and keep up the Honour of Magistracie from contempt made a Law Vt nemo habilis esset ad Honores Reipublic suscipiendos nisi Decem Annis à Mercatur â destitisset c. That no man should be accounted qualified for the Honours of the Commonwealth i.e. in Magistracy unless he had first left his Merchandizing ten years Such a care had they to keep out the Joans and Toms which M. H. admits by turns and times as the Rotation boults them into the Government and their Betters out And what was said of Clisthenes an Athenian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might possibly be applied to Mr. H. were their Rogation effected that he was one of the first that introduced this Government by Ostracisme and one of the first that felt it and would have retro-duced it The first that brought it in and the first that it wrought out Therefore let him secure his own Bull before he baites anothers and take his Play 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lastly I would willingly be informed how his New Platforms or Principles Paganish or Popish fetch'd from Athens or from Venice can without cruciating extremities and applications be adequated to our Commonwealth under Christian profession so that Quae semel possidebant Papiste semper possideant Rapiste what the Papists once had Rapists and Ravenous ones would ever have viz. our Rights and Liberties from us Nor could it be acquired I think without greater Advantages to Papists Atheists then to us seeing the very interest of the Son of God and Saints in the Nation the best and noblest Cause on earth in all the integrating Parts thereof and Adherents thereto is not taken Notice of in his Platforme neither in the Balance nor the Wheel in the Ballot nor Rotation or Rogation of it so that Differs curandi tempus in Annum Quicquid delirant Reges Plectuntur Achivi I may conclude with Mr. B. p. 240. That God having already given us the best Fundamental Laws Let us have but good Magistrates and we shall have good Derivative Laws or humane It was a Law amongst the Cretians that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. that their children should learn their Laws with Melody that from the MUSICK they might take great pleasure in them and more easily commit them to memory We need no such Law to endear or dulcifie our Cause or the Laws of it in the Commonwealth If the foundation of it be that which the Hand of the Almighty hath laid amongst us both for Church and State from Christian principles rather then from Paganish or meer Morals it will make most excellent Harmony in the ears and Hearts of all men and Christians And the Governours of Judah shall say in their heart The Inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my Strength in the Lord of Hosts their God Zach. 12. 5. Thus our Governours thought of them in the days of straits and will again see it one of their best interests to have their Prayers and their God as well as their Purses and Bloud engaged for them and not disoblige them upon jealousies suggested by the enemy who for their virgin-fidelity and untainted adherence to the Cause may be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Lacedemonians did their wives after their innocency did break out and get above the clouds of suspicion and reproach But if after all they will be planting and founding us again in the spirit of the Nation as if God had owned no Cause or made no signal discrimination or shaken no such foundations of the earth c. which their Lord General pretended as one ground of their interruption which Mr. H. others would hurry them into to the endangering of the Cause and the disobliging the Adherents Then will the Iehovah that keepeth Covenant with his people and not alter the thing that is gone out of his lips Psal 89. 34. Acts 2. 30. and 3. 20 21. raise up others in their stead to carry on this his cause both in the civils and the spirituals and to forme another People for himself to shew forth his praise Isa 43. 21. Then they that Rule over men shall be just ruling in the fear of God and they shall be as the light of the morning when the Sun ariseth A Morning without clouds and as the tender grass that springeth out of the earth by a clear shining after rain 2 Sam. 23. 3 4. which that these may be agrees better with my Prayer then with his Proposals I am sure But thus I leave him whom Mr. B. had Coyted as a stumbling-block before me whom I am not only gotten over but I presume have given a good lift to the removing of him out of others way as to the right foundation of the Common-wealth and stating of the Cause So that from this time forward we need no Luxuriant wit or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to fain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 him a vomitting as Mr. P's followers Pamphlet it a Commonwealth and others qui sputum lingunt who lick up any thing as haurient and attractive of the stuff as Galaton did picture out Homer in his strains and other Poets a supping up what he so exuberously vomited out Neither need we answer him with much more then the German Min. wrote in his Study when the Devil did disturb him and look over his shoulder But the Son of God came to dissolve all the works of darkness which his enemy no sooner read but vanished Now to conclude with Mr. B. for Mr. H. I met with but in the way with his Mummers and those that ride in post use to take fresh horses for present Service but look no more after them thus does Mr. B. make use of Mr. H. no otherwise I would if he were capable of hearing me for the noise of DRVMS assure him that not a desire to rake into any Mans failings having so many of mine own by which the Lord is pleased to keep me most busie at home under the sence and burthen of them or to pick out the evils without due
4. who to gratifie the Pope and the People recalled the Jesuites that were before exiled and a monument of it set up for posterity into that Nation again by the Parliament of Paris but to his own cost for they stabb'd him quickly so dangerous is a Lapse or a Revocation of them again into trust that are or ought to be evacuated the Body Wherefore a Commonwealth in aequali must first be considered ex quali as to the quality of them that rule and are intrusted in it and not first ex quanto as Mr. H. and others would if ever we mean to keep it stable sound and immovable in it's foundation and constitution 5. Consideration That all extremities be wisely avoided and particularly this of falling into an Ochlocraty by flying out of an Oligarchy pretended As this Rule of Mediocrity is requisite in the Anatomist to make a curious and compleat Section so in the Physician as to every Potion he gives the Patient so corrected and composed as may at once both kill the Disease and keep up the spirits So in Politicks it is the Golden Rule and that which saith Arist Polit. lib. 4. c. 12. hath ever been the Cause of the long continuance of a Commonwealth Mediocritate quadam durationis causa fuit and it is observable all the time that Corinth flourished it was said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to administer a most righteous and Moderate Government as Ovid saith Medio tutissimus ibis Now it is very often that a sickly or distempered bodie doth fall out of one extremity into another out of one passion humour or danger into another Incidit in Scyllam qui vult vitare Charibdim so to shun the Sands OCEANA would cast us upon the Rocks in his Platforme or for fear a few should Rule us he would to run wide enough flinch us quite out of the way and put it into the hands of the meer Multitude or Confusion together without discrimination of friends and enemies Whereas an Oligarchy indeed is not meant the Rule of a few as p. 76. but the Tyranny of a few as in the Triumvirs and Decemvirs of Rome whom Livy describes lib. 2. to have been rather Butchers then Rulers Tormentors then Magistrates keeping up a Monarchick-interest and spirit repugnant and repudiant to a Free-state so that Mr. H. and those friends so afraid of Oligarchy would do well to tell us if such a thing rightly defined be in being or no amongst us Such were the thirty Tyrants or Oligarchy in Athens rising from the corruption of a Free-state who to use the Historians own words Non solum Improbos ac Seditiosos è medio repellerent sed etiam bones maximè ditiores aut necarent aut ex urbe repellerent were so cruel and unjust that not only wicked and seditions but good men and the best were cut off or banish'd which made Socrates complain so to Antisthenes of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. When he saw so many men of repute and worth rich and of great esteem in the Commonwealth to be made away insnared or cruelly slain by the ill Government of the thirty Tyrants he said to Antisthenes Now brother let it not trouble us that we have hunted after nothing great or considerable in our kind of life seeing such Tragedies are daily perpetrated and bleeding before our eyes Such a Government of a few or Tyranny rather was an Oligarchy indeed which MALICE it's self cannot say of this Parliament or of any now in Power This was that which Theramenes one of the thirty a wise and prudent man did oppose very elegantly and gallantly hortari collegas suos caepit ut moderate non insolenter concessâ sibi potestate uterentur sed eam ob causam à Critia apud collegas reliquos accusatus fuit quasi perfide ageret 30. Tyrannorum proderet causam partes populi tueretur ideoque puaiendus è medio tollendus esset c. and began to exhort his colleagues that they would use the power granted them moderately and not so imperiously but for this cause was the good man accused by Critia to the rest as if he had done perfidiously betrayed the cause of the thirty Tyrants or Oligarchy in defending the Peoples Rights and Liberties and therefore would have had him punished and put to death But his Oration and Theramenes his defence though worth our reading I think not fit to commend to writing but refer to lib. 2. Xenoph. Junii orat 3. pt p. 29 30 31 32 33. The main Argument being taken from the example of the Lacedem Ephors By all which we finde an Oligarchy far different from what good people are apt to take it and so through mistake to hazard us with a meer confusion or Ochlocraty i. e. the Tyrannical and unruly spirit of the Multitude which hath no more mercy nor bounds in it then the Sea when broken loose And this the sad experience of old Rome hath left upon Record the people in the days of the Decemviri to avoid that Oligarchy ran into it like mad committing the most flagitious outrages of any that they might be revenged upon them of the Oligarchy And in the State of Florence one Soderino and some others kept themselves up in a Monarchick spirit of Oligarchy over the people which to avoid they ran into Tumults and fell at last like the Flounder out of the dish into the fire into a remedy as bad or worse then the disease by calling in the Spaniards It is out of doubt that an Ochlocraty is little better then a daily Massacre of the most eminent Worthies that the Commonwealth has and it saddens my Spirits to see how eager upon Mr. H. his Principles some are to put it on under a pretended danger of an Oligarchy In Theocracy there is nothing more obvious obnoxious or liable to disturb the Peace and order of the Commonwealth and it occasion'd that notorious Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram Numb 16. 2 3. who with two hundred and fifty others in anger like the Secluded Members of the chief rose up against Moses and Aaron c. as against an Oligarchy saying Ye take too much upon you seeing all the Congregation are holy every one of them So that they fell into such an Ochlocraty as cost not only the two hundred and fifty dear but the lives of 14700. in the tumult by the hand of the Lord against them so little pleasure hath he in such extremities and under the colour of flying from an Oligarchy to involve us in a worse 6. Consideration That you be exceeding wary how far you relie upon that broken reed of REASON of STATE or trust to that deceitful BOW either against your enemies or for the Cause and Adherents thereof seeing it has destroyed so many that have gone before you We mean not here the Publick Reason or right reason Reason it 's
de civitate ex turpiter enim loquendi licentia sequitur turpiter facere potissimum igitur statim à pueris neque dicant neque audiant quicquam turpe c. Obscene naughty words actions or any such filthy thing that would not be approved or admitted in the good Government of a City or a Commonwealth must not here be suffered for if they take a liberty to speak evilly they will quickly take it to do evilly And therefore of all things this must be most strictly eyed in children brought up for a Christian Commonwealth that they neither speak any thing nor hear any thing that is filthy or shameful if any do that they be forthwith punished fined or degraded their honour and put into a more servile seat office and capacity Many such Rules might be given in the education of youth that a Commonwealth of all Governments may be the most destreable to them and they see it to be their very Interest indeed to keep up that Government in opposition not only to Charles Stuart as it is de facto offered in the late Book call'd Interest will not Lie at whose Author I had almost said Scripta pudet recitare c. but to any Single Person or Family whatsoever nunc adhibe puro Pectore verba puer nunc te melioribus offer 8. Consideration That a wide and welcome door may be set open and kept so to the merit of those Persons who climb up into the Chair of honour and dignity of the Commonwealth by steps of publick virtue wisdom fidelity fortitude and ability That this Rule is observed by the masters of Anatomy Physicks and other Sciences we all know platting wreathes of honour upon the heads of the most deserving able and experienced in those faculties and he must be as monstrously ignorant of History as of the Minerval that knows not this to be the very PATH in all Politicks and well-govern'd Commonwealths aut virtus Nomen inane est Aut decus pretium rectè petit experiens vir Seeing honours and places were not exposed to sale or given away by favour but purchased and possessed by virtue and merit to the Great Renowne of those Nations and Common-wealths As first among the Greeks men of mean parentage and of extreme poverty most of them that were raised meerly by merit to the highest pitch of Honour and preferment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The best and most famous of all the Grecians were very low and mean as Aristides renowned at home and abroad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Epaminondas a General of the Thebans against the Lacedemonians so low in the world that when his Garment was mendding or at the Fullers he was glad to lie in bed all day-long for want of another to put on So Phocion who when Alexander sent him an hundred Talents ask'd the reason of it the Messenger said Because of all the Athenians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he thinks thee alone to be the honest and good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then saith he let him suffer me to be such a one and to keep so for I scorne his Bribes Thus Pelopidas the Theban Lamachus the Athenian Socrates Ephialtes and a many others that all rose into honour by merit and exceeding worth The like we find in the Roman Commonwealth as Attilius Regulus Quinctus Cincinnatus Paul Aemylius Lucius Tarquin not the Tyrant Horatius Cocles Fabricius and abundance more then came into request and renowne by meer worth and excellency for Publick-spiritedness and service being men of very mean descent and estates if any And that this is the Rule in a godly Commonwealth or Theocracy we have it highly exemplified in the holy Scriptures as 1 Chron. 11. 6. And David said Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites fiâ—st shall be chief and Captain So 2 Sam. 23. 8. to the end of the Chapter all Davids Worthies and honourable ones were such as won their honour and preferment by merit and worth It is observed that Moses Numb 3. 38. when he setled the People in eight Wards as the Hebrews say in order and dignity did not so much as prefer his own Sons into any high places so much respect he had to worth and dignity in the Commonwealth And Nehemiah Chap. 7. 2. would not give his Brother Hananiah a Commission but for this that he was a faithful man and feared God above many By this Rule all such Lori-pedanean Parasites pitiful Time-servers and splayfooted Suitors for Places or preferment upon the account of kindred friendship interest in persons or any thing else but worth and honour should be sent back re infectâ for a better Testimonial then that in Prov. 30. 20. She wipeth her mouth and saith What evil have I done and by the Parliaments most excellent Vote to be otherwise qualified which O! that it were put in practice and written upon a Pillar of Marble Luxuriantia compescet nimis aspera sano Levabit cultu virtute carentia tollet to put an end to our Controversie raise up the Renown of our Nation and open the door of preferment to the faithful of the Land to the depression of Vice and Luxury but to the highest pitch and emulation of Virtue and Desert Psal 101. 3 6. Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land that they may dwell with me Some there be like Heart of Oke have stood to it in all turns for the Cause and have not warped in the least Now shall our Renowned SENATORS make a staff of Osiers to lean upon that will bend any way or are little worth Time will come When time shall be no more Rev. 10. 6. this may be sad to them that serve the Time but sweet to them that serve Eternity How can ye believe saith Christ Joh. 5. 44. which receive honour one of another and seek not the honour that cometh from God only Virtus repulsae nescia sordidae Intaminatis fulget honoribus Nec sumit aut ponit secures Arbitrio Popularis aurae 9. Consideration That the temperature of this Body Politick or the Commonwealth may be such as that the spirit of Tyranny and injustice may not pass out of one forme into another to persecute the people or any of the parts with either in Civil or Religious matters For as in Anatomy the body is to be opened according to the Structure conformation and constitution of every part wherein as the substance is considered both from the forme and matter of it by sensible qualities so also is the Temper that depends upon and seats in substance in all which Mr. P's Anatomy is most defective So in Physicks the whole body as I said before is the Patient and not this or that part only as Mr. B. makes it now as a disease may be driven out of one part of the body into another where it may as certainly kill it as before So it
Christ ought not to be in the whole body of the people Adherents to the Cause which from all it 's Integrantia Membra must and may set up persons to execute exercise it for the benefit of the whole Hence in Dan. 7. 27. it is that the Kingdom Authority shaltana in Sept. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 under every part of heaven is to be given leyam kaddishe to the People of the Saints or of the Holy ones of the Most High not immediately to the Saints as if all Saints or none but Saints should be in Power but that their People Deputies and Representatives shall be in Power and rule for their interests in the Cause and concernments of them and of the whole People that adhere to the Cause and go on with them joyntly for a Godly Commonwealth Now this whole People cannot give what they never had if they have not a Humane Soveraignty or Supreme Power under Christ they cannot give it to their Deputies or Representatives But the Argument is if they can give it derivatively then they have it But they can give a Humane Supreme Power or trust and Soveraignty under Christ to their Deputies and therefore they have it in themselves We might further Argue that where the lawful power of choosing and rejecting Rulers lies there the Supremacy or Humane Soveraignty under Christ lies but in this body of the people Sane and well-affected the lawful power of chusing and rejecting lies And this Mr. B. admits that they have the Vim eligendi or of chusing And by the same reason or law of Nature they have the Vim rejiciendi Ejiciendi of putting by and out as well as of putting in or of setting up in the whole Body We speak of Government as it is with Gods approbation the ordinance of man amongst us so the peoples but as it is the Ordinance of God amongst us so Christs It is a Rule in Natural Philosophy Cum aliqua virtus Duobus inest Uni essentialiter Alteri Accidentaliter or Contingentèr minùs principaliter Where a power is in two it is in one more principally and essentially in the other less and more contingently Thus it is between the people and the Parliament in the first the same power which the Parliament have viz. the visible Supreme or natural Soveraignty under Jesus Christ is more principally and essentially as to the being of it viz. in the People collectively but in the other secondarily accidentally derivatively or but contingently and pro tempore And therefore it cannot be the false Cause or that which subverteth the foundation of Government as Mr. B. saith in this 7. Prop. A Pill prepared of Assa foetida for the Warming of their stomacks to swallow down the better those secluded members and all such as have not owned but are enemies to the CAUSE and Commonwealth His 8. Prop. That Conquest neither gives them any Soveraignty nor right to deprive them of their liberty that disown that Cause Answ It is true that Conquest did not give them the Right because they had it before as their Right but it gives them the freedom of their Right which was denied them and obstructed As the Healing Quest. told him p. 3. and 5. Their just natural Right which they never forfeited as others have done restored unto them by success of Arms so that they need not run to Conquest to prove their Right but to preserve their Rights and to claim their Liberties in exerting and exercising of their just Rights 2. Some kinde of Soveraignty is obtained by Conquest viz. over enemies conquered and captivated ones at least to keep them from ruling over us or ruining of us who are Enemies to us Therefore this Prop. is false to say it gives not any Soveraignty at all For a Sword-soveraignty or a Law of Force and aw over the unexorable and inexuperable enemies of the Commonwealth is obtained thereby and the Lords blessing it together But that we affirm is 3. That Conquest hath fortified and ratified us in our natural Rights and in the expectation of our spiritual too and helps us to hold them the faster by far both in civils and spirituals so as that we might rather expect the enlargement of our Borders then the confinement of our Liberties either in the worship of God or immunities and benefits of the Commonwealth 4. Conquest with his favour doth keep up in us a right of distinction between friends and foes between well and ill-affected between them that owned and them that never owned or rather that ever disowned and appeared against the Cause which both as men and as Christians we are concern'd to keep up with the most lively Remembrance of those distinguishing mercies Answers of prayers and Appeals and Victories which the Lord hath given us almost miraculously as in the days of Egypt Exod. 8. 23. and 11. 17. and 15. 1. Judg. 11. 27. Micah 7. 15. And shall we most unthankfully loose or confound the sence of such discriminating appearances of God with us in Pihahiroth or mouth of our greatest dangers in the days of our greatest distress and this we shall certainly do if these two last Prop. were true or Mr. Harringtons and such mens designs should take effect viz. To put all back again into the spirit of the Nation upon the single account of bare natural right without any respect at all had to this Right of distinction which God hath so miraculously given us in to the bargain by the late Wars and Conquests of them that have adhered to the Cause If this be an equal Commonwealth or tends ad sanam constitutionem Rei-publicae to the Sanity or Sanctity of the Body is worthy the consideration of the wisest Physicians And if they please they may feel the pulse of Oceana as well as of Mr. B. with what Vibrate Motions that beats upon the Arteries of our Cause and then tell us whether it had not better beat as it does though it be not well yet with less sign of danger viz. EQUALLY inequal then so inequally equal as he would have it But thus far for Mr. B's Prop. or Pill composed è Scoriâ ferri to work upon the Spleen His ninth Prop. They that pretend the inward Warrant of Righteousness as the Healing Quest speaks he sayes p. 9. the inward Reason and Spirit of Government for the violation of Laws Constitutions and resisting of Authority as being above the Letter c. do reject the Government of the LORD and become their own But must Mr. B. still be traducing and Tenterhooking the words of the Healing Quest which p. 9. saith no such matter as he makes up his Prop. with viz. for violation of Laws Constitutions and resisting of Authority But thus speaking of the Capacities wherein the faithful Adherents to the Cause have acted he saies Sometimes in one Form and sometimes in another and very seldome in all points
all this it is contrary to all formes of Common-wealth to lay such a foundation for the Civil Government See Arist Pol. lib. 5. c. 1. Plures sunt formae rerum Publ. in his confitentur quidèm Omnes justitiam convenientem aequitatem additur in Marg. secundum Proportionem equale Nam populus constat ex iis qui cum sint SECVNDUM QIUD Pares Putant se SIMPLICITER Pares Many are the formes of Republicks and truly all acknowledge justice and convenient equity or equality proportioned for the people consist of such as are simply equal or else so in some respect and not absolutely Thus also did the Syracusans after good success against the Athenians They fell into a Popular State and planted it upon the sound part or body of the people as what wise Master-builder but would lay the best and soundest for a foundation 1 Cor. 3. 10. lib. 3. c. 7. Verùm bonos equos dominari oportet Autoritatemque habere omnium c. But it is fit that good and just men Rule and that such as they have the whole Authority and not the known Enemies of the Commonwealth for those that will not yield to the Government of it must never weild the Scepter in it Neminem bene imperare posse qui non prius sub Imperio fuerit it is unreasonable to set up him over us that will set himself against us and no man can Rule well that is not first in subjection to that Rule and Government But as Mr. H. and those friends with him in the Oligo-machy are so incessantly afraid of an Oligarchy so I wish they would not hazard us with an Ochlo-craty And if he had defin'd it like a Logician rather then a meer Etymo-logist or an Oligo mathist he would have told us that every few ruling be they but 1 2. or 300. are not an Oligarchy but when those few are a meer Party faction or but part for the whole of one judgement way or design for themselves or their party without respective and due Aequi-libration to the whole but imposing upon the whole which cannot be said of our Parliament now sitting who consist of the several judgements principles and parts of the whole Body of adherents and in sanity But it seems the Scheme is cast and jealousie is laid lest Saints as they say should get into the Government who of all the Rest saith Oceana p. 47. are the most dangerous and I must confess such as would be accounted so that are not or would set up any one Party Sect or Opinion whatsoever over all the rest and call themselves the Saints or that are for Saints meerly as Saints and for none but such whom they so account excluding men as men are dangerous nor are we of opinion that this Government under the seventh Trumpet Rev. 11. 15 16. is initiated or matriculated by the personal appearance of Jesus Christ but all we hold is that the most holy able wise pious and every way qualified persons men fearing God hating covetousness of the highest capacity reason and latitude to all as Solomon had a heart like the Sea and of the liveliest courage for the cause and interest of our dearest Jesus and of the whole Body be set up over us Not that they should be all such or none but such for that we cannot expect but to do our best to find some such to pray for them and to impower them and that the highest principles have the highest places which they are suited to and for in Harmony and Symmetry with the whole and not otherwise Now if this be Dangerous We will be tryed by God and the Country I mean by the God of order and orders of God himself in his Government For M. H. and those Philo-demoticks that skew at this would set us to dance the beginning of the World or with Mr. P. and B. the Spanish Galliard after Contzen and Campanella not admitting us so much as the very Heathens their Teachers did allow in the laying of the foundation of the Commonwealth viz. upon the sound and most untainted parts of the whole Body and not upon tag and rag good and bad Adherents and Delinquents together for that in disparibus non existit Proportio there is no possibility of making this equal The dispute in Arist is whether the Virtue and worth of a Good man or of a Good Citizen as such should carry it and Arist is for both but not so much as hesitates or Questions whether wicked men or Bad Citizens should be in it or equal with the rest for he positively concludes it in these words Civitas non ab Improbis sed ab Optimis gubernetur yea he tells us where the Government is not laid so i.e. upon the best men it is wicked and unstable See lib. 5. c. 1. Propter inaequalitatem oritur seditio sed Duplex est aequum Vnum Numero Alterum dignitate 1. Numere quidem ceu multitudine magnitudine idem aequum 2. Dignitate autem dico id quod est secundum Rationem fatentes autem Simpliciter esse justum id quod est secundum dignitatem contendunt Simpliciter omninò secundum Alterutrum i.e. Numerum statuere aequalitatem improbum est patet autem ex eo quod contingit nulla enim hujusmodi Rerum Publ. recipit stabilitatem Causa verò hujus quia impossibile est ex primo Errore in Principio Commisso non evenire ad extremum aliquid Mali. It is because of an inequality that sedition arises but there is a twofold equal 1. one in the Number of all the people together tag and rag as they come 2. The other in the dignity good and most deserving of the People In the number or in the multitude and magnitude of them is the same equality but in the dignity or good sound and best of the whole body I say is that which is according to Reason But such as profess for a Commonwealth do simply contend for that which is laid upon Dignity or goodness as that which is the Iust Government and equal But it is a wicked thing to appoint the equality simply altogether according to to tother i.e. upon the whole number or Promiscous Chaos of the people And it appears from what happens that no Commonwealth of this kind hath stability or can stand long mark that and the reason is this because it is impossible from the first errour committed in the beginning or first laying of the Commonwealth there should not happen some extream evil or other Thus far for the sence and sentence of his own Oracle to name no more against such an unjust Equality of Pandemick Government and foundation without distinction of Dignitaries or discrimination of the Good from the Bad as a very unadvised thing that will certainly rob the well-affected of their Rights give them up to the Dammees of the Times and but put them