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
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
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
ΔΙΑΠΟΛΙΤΕΊΑ A Christian Concertation WITH Mr. Prin Mr. Baxter Mr. Harrington For the True Cause of the COMMONVVEALTH OR An ANSWER to Mr. PRIN'S Perditory ANATOMY of the Republick and his True and Perfect Narrative c. To Mr. BAXTER'S Purgatory PILLS for the ARMY and his Wounding Answer to the Healing Question WITH Some soft Reflections upon his Catholick or rather Cathulactick KEY and an EXAMEN of the late Petition of the sixth of July to this Parliament In all which we have A most Necessary VINDICATION of the Cause of the Honourable Persons now in Parliament and Council from the Venome and VILIFICATION of their Pens By Joh. Rogers through Grace kept under many Sufferings a faithful Servant to Jesus Christ his Cause and the Commonwealth Prov. 26. 18 19 As he that is Mad casting firebrands Arrows and Death So is the Man that hath deluded his Neighbour and saith Am I not in sport LONDON Printed for Livewel Chapman at the Crown in Popes-Head-Alley 1659. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE Council of State Sitting by Authority of PARLIANENT In WHITE-HALL HIGHLY HONOURABLE A Poor DUST as I am needs no great attendance and A servant of Jesus Christ needs no other CREDENTIALS to demand an Audience then his Message besides the Matter herein doth more concern your selves then me and the best PRUDENTIALS that you have If this Quadruple Discourse do but come to your Ears the Commonwealth is an object presented to your Eyes 1. As an ANATOMY but most miserably mangled yea cut up Quick by Mr. P. 2. As a PATIENT but as pitifully Physick'd by Mr. B. in the Preface of his Holy Commonwealth 3. As a Spartan Athenian or Venettan State upon orders EKDEMICK and differing with the nature of our Cause Climate Manners c. by Mr. H. 4. As a Christian Commonwealth in a Theocratick constitution and Cause of Christ upon orders ENDEMICK both to MEN and to CHRISTIANS as was contended for by the well-affected and is by J. R. In every corner of which Quadrangular is somewhat observable either from Mr. P's opening of his Stomach Mr. B's opening of his Spleen Mr. H. his Brain or my plain denudation of heart to your mature and wise judgements in the Promptuary and Larder of this Discourse So that these Papers as you accept them are your's if you reject them are mine though they more concern you then any men alive upon a twofold consideration Chilification or concoction of the whole Matter 1. Upon the account of that PUBLICK TRUST and confidence which the Commonwealth hath in you if Immanuel your Motto or GOD WITH US be GOD WITH YOU then Butter and hony shall be your food and you shall CHOOSE the GOCD and REFUSE the EVIL yea BUTTER AND HONY shall every one Eate that is left in the Land Isa 7. 15 22. under such a Government What is eligible I hope will be acceptable and upon your digestion profitable and nutrimental to the WHOLE BOBY it may be by this you may find out who are indeed the Gun-powder-plotters and which are the Grand Designs that would blow you up into the open Air. Some are so confident of carrying it yet that already they conclude the Commonwealth is but a firme Nihil or a meer Nothing without a foundation and it is hard to say whether they would propagate their work more by a Faux under or by a Fax in the Parliament House All I can do in that is but to tell you where and how their Barrels are laid and Instruments are at work In the next place I could not do less if not somewhat more then to present your Honours with the SPOIL of those GOODS that I have taken from your Enemies by way of reprisal or Letters of Mart in this Polemick susception for the service of the Commonwealth and therein the recovery made of the Honour and Reputation of your most worthy Members Sir Arthur Haslerige Sir Hen. Vane c. and others not lost but invaded by most Name-murthering and uncharitable Pickroons who have infested and ranged the Coasts of our Commonwealth now many months if not years together to rob you and us them and the Commonwealth as they have done And this I observed that as I hoised Sail and was in pursuit of the SPIT-FIRE Mr. P. I was set upon and so fell in with the HUNTER Mr. B who came in to assist the first and afterward I met with the FOX in the way Mr. H. though I cannot say of the same company yet at the same imployment All which I have with God's blessing BOARDED and without much Fiering on my part have brought them into this BAY before you as Prize in the RESOLUTION where I now am bent to live and die through Gods grace for the Good old Cause and a Christian Commonw 2. Upon the account of that late DEBATE had of me unknown to me in the COUNCIL wherein some would render me what I hope they shall never find me herein some shall find me what I fear they would never render me to be both for Principles and Practice as to Government which I presume are such as infirmities excepted you would be loath to eject or not affect And therefore Curvis Poplitibus with bended knees and a will broken and bowed to the foot of the Lord do I present my Requests to him for you and to you for him and from him that you may give us but a due incouragement that are ready to engage our utmost in your service for Christ and the Cause by a true judgement upon this Subject set before you viz. the HEAD i. e. Christ and BODY of the Commonwealth i.e. the adherents to the CAUSE as they are indeed the most sound sanable and sociable parts of it's Constitution and this 1. In the PHYSIO-LOGY of it wherein all things must be pondered that appertain to the essence or nature of our Cause and constitution viz. Parts Temperaments faculties functions most innate spirits qualities and the like for then I dare aver you will give us freedom to pay the TENTHS of all the SPOIL to our Melchâ—sedec as well as to feed upon his Bread and Wine and take the blessings yea to consecrate the gain unto JEHOVAH and the substance to the ADON of the whole earth Hacharamti the word is I will set it apart with an Anathema to any that shall alter that property of it Micah 4. 13. to retrieve and drive on this interest of Christ our ADON in all and of JEHOVAH above All as suits best with the very being and nature of our CAUSE It is your Honour to maintain HIS and your interest to espouse HIS and not to think worse then you need or too severely to censure such as peaceably piously humbly honestly in a holy manner with a gracious spirit and without any contempt to your Persons or Authority or to the Peoples just Rights and Liberty plead this CAUSE and justifie it as YOUR'S as THEIR'S as OUR'S and as
when he cut off his companions HEAD and to keep his Covenant after he had parboiled and fitted it he kept it by him honoured and perfumed it and upon every weighty matter or consultation would set this SKUL by him and tell it what he purposed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saying That he did not violate his ingagement or break his OATH in the least seeing he did ever take Council with the HEAD of Archonides and did nothing without it That this is the Honour our Patriots should have if they could effect it is as clear as the Sun 5. Mr. P. knows as well as we that the Parliament recalled to their Trust by the Declaration of the Army is expresly denominated that Parliament that sat from Anno 1648. till Anno 1653. viz. the Commonwealth-Parliament whereof they were never members so that he might well have spared his squint-eyed Arguments or unanswerable Reasons as he calls them from p. 34. to p. 40. to prove they are not the House of Commons till they took themselves for such a House but thus poor Mr. P. doth make himself both Adversary and Answerer Mark and Archer in his matter and is either like one Antipho that a Dr. tells us of who through a Disease in his Eye thought he had his own IMAGE ever before him and for THAT he could see nothing else Or like that Souldier who in a foolish Bravado meant to expose himself to such a needless Peril that for want of an Enemy he would find himself to fight with and so doth Mr. P. in the most Parts of his Discourse Indeed he wounds himself severely and I much pity him in those unruly passions which fall with the deadliest blows on himself and on the Bowels of his own Arguments that are torn apieces with very anger for this he knows is by the LAW the Felo de se And thus Mr. P. hath seen his HEIRS apparent as he supposed to the next Revolution and who were accordingly in expectation of possessing utterly disinherited by a gracious Providence and unexpected so that like M. LIVIUS who through his own folly had lost All and said to his own shame he had left nothing to his HEIRS praeter Coelum Coenum but air and mire he may say it I fear that it is AIR and MIRE and nothing else that he bequeaths by his writings to those Gentlemen and I wish it might not have effect like the River Lyncestis of which whosoever drinketh is sure to run Mad. Thus we see also the Caninum appetitum of them that long after the Death of this Commonwealth accounting their only Riches to lye in the Reversions purchas'd at so easie a Rate as a Breath or the Vote of a company of Lawyers for the King Lords and Commons which they were very neer effecting in their last Dissolved Assembly only lost all by over-hast and the Commonwealth is recovered but most strangely Not much unlike to that of a King of Parthia ORADES by name the same that slew Crassus who being desperately ill as our Commonwealth was it proved a temptation to his son Phraates so impatient he was of his Death that himself might succeed to the Throne to dispatch him quick he gave him poyson but the Poyson did not only work out it's self but the Disease with it and was so far from killing him that it perfectly cured him And so it did with this poor Commonwealth a sick Patient when they came together and whose CASE I then opened to them the POYSON that was given to make a quick dispatch of the Commonwealth by the Lawyers and Courtiers c. hath produced a cure And the Lord hath we hope saved us once again Disappointed our Adversaries and raised up this Renowned Parliament as from the Grave to do great things for Christ and his Cause in this Commonwealth or to the Greater shame of them that hinder What Mr. P. hath suggested like a learned Anatomist Mr. B. hath as bravely seconded like a Physitian in 's Preface to the Army Because saith he I find that self-conviction worketh in you and hath brought you already to more confessions then Volumes from me were ever like And when Nature hopefully begins a CVRE it must not be disturbed by VIOLENT Medicines You have already confessed and the Officers of the Army in Scotland confesse Penitent confessions will be some reparation of your honour This much from another would by some have been called a second GANGRENA or a SCANDALUM MAGNATVM And if you be indeed sincerely penitent we are not only in hope but past all doubt that God who hath shewed you the sin of forcing out the last 120. will also shew you the sin of imprisoning and secluding of above 140. at once long before c. How exquisite Mr. B. is in this Art or Science of Physick I know not but with his favour if he follows right Rules in his prescriptions he ought to have told us first what Humors he would have evacuated and so to have proportioned his Dosis and Directions to the quality of the Disease not mistaking or taking them for ACTIVE QUALITIES in the Army which were meerly PASSIVE and under orders nor on the contrary to account them passive qualities which were meerly Arbitrary Active and their own without Orders which the Parliament ought to consider 2. Also with what kinds of medicaments or means consisting with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and State of the Commonwealth as Aristotle when sick said to his Physician What do you think to cure me as if I were a Horse that I must not know what ingredients you do give me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Away away you shall never meddle with me like a Farrier Heardsman or Delver but first go and finde out the cause and nature of my disease and so say we For all Medicines agree not with all men and I presume Mr. B. hath more then one Rule or Remedy for all diseases 3. He should have given us his Reasons also For in methodical cures not only the remedies but the reasons of things ought to be proponderated and as accurately prepared Now although as Mr. B. saith Lenitives be most necessary when nature begins to work so and into such confessions yet when the Humors are hard viscous very tough and tenacious they are not outed with such contrariis blandis so easily as with corrosives duly corrected and with such consideratis considerandis as best suit both with the Patient and Potion And Mr. B. himself tells them of a more violent working exasperating Physick which he hath but he shall forbear to give it at present viz. to set before them the aggravation of their sins terrours of hell and damnation c. and all about the Secluded Members or the last Assembly for which amongst his mild ingredients he gives them this ARGUMENT To resist or depose the best Governours in all
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
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
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
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
out of the Magistrates reach indeed viz. of imposing it upon our Consciences and of forcing us to that or any other Religion Now that the Magistrate may force us to MASSE or to any false or true Religion is the Thing that Mr. B. hath to prove or he doth nothing but puzzle himself and perplex his Reader with a company of fallacies and falshoods Now was not this a great and essential part of the Cause and quarrel at the first between the Bishops Popish Arminian Imposers and the Puritans Brownists and Sectaries so call'd to keep up this their Liberty of Conscience from all such destroyers and invaders of it as is to be seen in Husbands his Exact Coll. p. 20 21 22. c. in the several Declar. and Remonstrances of Parliament and Army And in the very Covenant it self to maintain Religion according to the word of God in the liberty and purity thereof And in the history of the Wars with Scotland occasioned by imposing upon them the Book of Liturgy Anno 1637. being forceably and by command of the King and Magistrates read in Edinborough without the peoples consent which the poor people could not bear but a Woman threw her stool at the Bishops pate and so began the hurly-burly the Wars and the Alterations to this day for freedom in both kinds viz. in Spirituals and in Civils from being imposed upon and herein both the nature and the goodness of the cause will appear do what he can Now let Mr. B. deal but honestly as the Healing Quest states the case which were he a fair and allowable Opponent he ought without diminishing or adding to what he saith and then prove if he can That this due liberty for godly believers and adherents to the Good old Cause for he speaks of such in matters of Gods worship under their different perswasions Be First against the word of God or express Scriptures as he pretends flying for proof to Moses and them that were Types of Christ under the Law who did in extraordinary cases and for extraordinary ends exercise both swords sometimes and so not only Moses and the Kings of Israel did meddle with the external matters of worship but even Priests and Prophets did sometimes execute in civil matters too as Phinehas on Zimri and Cozbi Numb 25. Eliah upon the 400. 1. King 18. and Samuel on Agag 1 Sam. 15. but alas the one is no more a Rule for Magistrates in these days then the other is for Ministers And besides it is most evident even in the Old Testament if he keeps us all to THAT for he must never come at New Testament that Powers over any in the worship and service of God or Eccles Powers so called were ordinarily distinguished all along from the Civil or Magistratical Power as Moses and Aaron Rulers and Priests c. kept in their distinct Orbs and Places Now for his instance of Asa his days 2 Chron. 15. 12. it was a voluntary Covenant which the people entred into spontaneously and not compulsorily neither did the Magistrates impose it upon them so that it is Nihil ad Rhombum again after his wonted manner of rambling But on the Contrary All those Scriptures that call for willing obedience faith and perswasions of a willing People to the Lord Exod. 35. 5 22. 2 Chron. 29. 5 6 7. Nehem. 4. 6. Cant. 4. 12. Psal 110. 3. Isa 2. 2 3. Jer. 50. 4 5 Micah 4. 12. Zach. 2. 11. 8. 22 23. Prov. 23. 26. Mat. 11. 27. Joh. 6. 35 37 44. Luke 9. 23. Act. 2. 37. 2 Cor. 8. 3 5. John 4. 23. Rom. 14. 5 10 14. Joh. 16. 8 c. and all those that limit the Magistrates Civil Power to Civil Objects as to give to Caesar the things that are Caesars c. and Rom. 13. 3 4. Psal 83. 11 12 13. 2 Sam. 23. 3 4. that ruleth over MEN in external and humane matters 1 Pet. 2. 13 14. And all those Scriptures that make Christ alone the Head of the Church and the onely Law-giver in positive matters of Worship and his Laws sufficient which he hath left for that purpose Isa 9. 7. 22. 21 22. 33. 22. Zach. 6. 12 23. 9. 9. Cant. 3. 11. Psal 2. 12. Col. 1. 18. 2. 19. Mat. 28. 18. 18. 17. Eph. 1. 22. 5. 23. 1 Tim. 1. 20. 1 Cor. 5. 4 5. Iam. 4. 12. Heb. 3. 6. Besides Martyrs Learned Authors as Ambrose Epist 13. ad Imp. Valentin Bernard Epist ad P. Eugen. Luther Epist ad Fred. Jo. D. Sax. Tom. 7. fol. 209. Epist ad Carol. Duc. Subaud fol. 483. Epist ad Erphard Tom. 7. Zuinglius in Respons libel Strothionis Tom. 2. fol. 302. Chamier de Oecumen Pontif. Marlorat in Luc. 9. 25. Marlinus and the Martyrs Jo. Huss A. Askew Hooper Bradford and a cloud of Witnesses Books and Arguments of the ablest holy Writers that ever used a Pen or a Pulpit for above these thousand years are unâ Voce for the Healing Question against the Imposting power of the Magistrate in matters of Conscience and of Gods Worship and were it not that I must be concise and consulere brevitati for the benefit of the Readers I would have written at large their very Words and References Also secondly Let any that have the exercise of Reason free consider upon his second charge whether this Non-imposing-Power of the Magistrate in the Matters of Religion and Worship of God or indulging of a Tender Conscience tendeth to the Ruine of the Commonwealth or whether an Imposing in such Cases doth not clearly put the People upon all the means of Freedom they can come at as it did in Scotland because of the Liturgy and in England because of the Bishops Canons Courts and Impositions of their Hierarchy on Conscience nay let Mr. B. himself umpire it if he please when it comes to be his own case in his Preface to the Army thus I wish you to be tender of your BRETHRENS Consciences So Let not men be too hastily forced to engage to a Power Vngodly men of seared consciences will engage to any thing for wordly ends So Be not too forward with your Impositions c. Thus was the Philosopher convinc'd of his Errour which he held against Motion when his Arm came to be put out of joynt and it became his own Case he went to Hirophilus to set it in again sure saies this Chirurgeon it cannot be if your opinion hold your Arm would hold for if there be no Motion there is no Dislocation Therefore as Portius Cato was said to be so exactly just to all men that he would chuse the veriest enemies he had such as Tiberius Gracchus to judge his Cause and condemn him if he could so will we in this let him but remember us as well as himself and equal with himself for in the Conformation of parts the beauty lies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in
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
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
into an equal capacity for present and into an under-capacity for future or by unavoidable consequence through over-balance of Number with their enemies who so shall be sure to swallow all up at once And Strada calls this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or ungodly Rule But because Mr. H. thinks us all bare-wall'd Ideots and illiterate in Republi that run not his way as if we were not able to lay down the difference between a Wood-cock and a Wag-tail although I have read divers others beside Aristotle upon this subject I shall leave him to commence Master of that Art and Doctor of that Conceit and conclude with Cicero's words Dolebam dolebam P. C. Rempubl vestris quondam meisque Consiliis conservatam brevi Tempore esse perituram Neque verò eram tam indoctus ignarusque rerum ut frangerer animo propter vitae cupiditatem quae me manens conficeret Angoribus dimissa molestiis omnibus liberasset It troubles me it grieves me O renowned Fathers that the Commonwealth kept formerly by your and our care and Counsel should perish in so short a time neither was I nor am I so unlearned or ignorant of affairs that I should break my heart through any greedy desire after life which remaining in me would fill me with Anxieties but leaving of me would free me from all my Troubles And there I leave the first Part. 2. The other part of the Petition respects that Integral of our Cause which asserts our Religious freedom and Aequilibrity at the worship of God which the Petition would intrench upon p. 9. proposing to the Magistrate a National-worship or Religion saith M. H. suitable to the National Conscience which when the Powers that are have defined resolved and ordained They offer in the same Petition two things 1. That all who shall profess the said Religion which succeeding Parliaments shall appoint though of different perswasions in the said Religion be equally protected 2. That no Religion contrary to Christianity it being left to them to define and to defend what they mean by that be tolerated or allowed If this do not endanger or leave us exposed to Popery Prelacy the old Hierarchy Common-prayer or any thing that they shall call Christianity in case it be committed to Parliaments chosen by the Spirit of the Nation I submit to the judgement of the Reader upon what I have said before in Answ to M. B's 6. Prop. and do find my fears raised by the Libanius-like or Julianick scorn and contempt some of them put upon the Lords servants that assert Christs interest in the Nations that they would not leave us a Pent-house to stand under when the storm comes The two Expedients p. 10 11. to secure the Cause and keep the People from betraying their Liberties if any yet remain when the life of our Cause is fled to the Antipodes for quarters if any can be found are 1. That it may be I reason for any member of either Assembly or any person whatsoever to move or propose in either of the said Assemblies the Restitution of Kingly Government or Single Person or against the equal freedom and protection of Religious persons of different perswasions But 1. they never tell us who must make that Law-Paramount for if they say this Parliament hath the Legislation in that they must acknowledge it in other things too and why not in all 2. Will the People stand to it when it is done or what Vse or previous signification will such a Law have before the convention of the whole body of the People whom they suppose to be above Law and what can bind them or the two Assemblies met and till there be their own Spontanean consent before which time the King will be entered and the Scene be altered 3. And how not speak against the equal freedom of Religious persons when the freedom of them is far from being equal or indeed Religious That it is not equal is evident in their own words viz. That those who fall in with the National worship be maintained but others accounted Sectaries must only be protected from bodily violence or tolerated and is this equal or to all alike 4. They would have nothing else made Treason p. 11. for no other matter or cause whatsoever so that all risings rebellions and other preparations for the King may go scot-free 5. And this is only for them too that shall propose it in either of the Assemblies so that in any other part of the Nation else or in any Market Town they may do that and more too without Treason or Reason There be many other things of less weight which will admit of just exception as p. 8. in the Order of their Rotation That a Third Part of the Peoples Representatives and no more do sit at once but how that can be the Representative Collectanean of the whole Body I understand not Also as to Time why with such inequality that a Third part be but for one year another Third for two years and the Next for three years why none be he ever so able may be chosen again to serve his Country till some considerable Interval or Vacation albeit he have a more excellent Anointing then others and a Testimony like to Job's Chap. 29. 11 12 13 14 15 c. for Righteousness Merit and Works of of Mercy I cannot conceive for the Publike Advantage seeing that his own Oracle tells him In optimâ Republicâ si Quis excellat Virtute quid de eo faciendum Non dicendum est ut Talis Vir sit pellendus atqui neque Gubernationi Aliorum Talis Vir erit Subjiciendus That Such a one is not to be cast off or put away neither to be subjected to others who is so fit to Rule over others And whether this way be not of any the most liable to an Ostracisme let any judge by discouraging laying aside or driving out of the Land the most publickly Spirited Worthies that are in it Men of the greatest Ability Gallantry and Fidelity by which means a many brave Governments have been utterly destroyed As the Athenians Argives Thebans Rhodians and others It is said in Athens 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Hippias plaid the Tyrant and he brought forth the Law of Ostracisme but others were cast into exile by it such as Xantippus Aristides c. Nor can we but fore-see how fast the Wheel of their Rotation would Boult or fling out the best and ablest in the Commonwealth for Bran leaving the worst behinde In of all others And yet of this must his Cake be made which after it is baked he would have divided by silly Girls A pretty sport for the Mummers indeed or those nimble-witted House-Wives that with Vice can out-vie the Vertues of the best to learn so lightly the whole Mystery of a Commonwealth and most abstruse Intrigues or Cabals of State pag. 13 Oceana That when these Joans are weary
Kingdom of Christ several divided Provinces the Body Members and the City Streets and Companies in the same Corporation yet they are all but one And truly with strong cries sighs and groans for Sion thus pull'd apieces and into PARTIES with strugling Prayers Faith and Tears to the Lord shall I labour after this Uniting and Injoynting of all good men and for Mr. B. P. and that Party I wish they would be quiet for their own sakes as well as SION'S Ut quiescant porrò moneo desinant Male dicere Malefacta nè noscant sua TO THE Parliament of the Commonwealth NOW Returned to the Great Exercise of Supreme Trust. YOu are brought together to do your last Works by the same hand that blest you together in your first Neither have we been wanting in our poor Prayers to the Almighty and incessant endeavours with the Mighty particularly the Army Council of Officers and others to effect your Return and the late Turn By which we see how Ludit in Humanis Divina potentia rebus the Lord plays with the Affairs of men and tries them with the most Golden Opportunities to serve his interest in the Nations that may be wherein never men met with more Concurrent significant and glorious Providences then your selves and this for one that you might revive the Plant of Renowne in this Nation or it revive you and the most orient Luculency of your former Actions aspire and sparkle out in your Latter if the Lord so please Et ita praeclara erat recuperatio Libertatis Rei-pub ut ne Mors quidem fuit aut fit repetendâ Libertate fugienda Of such Renowne and eminency is your second Arrival and this Revival of the Commonwealth that verily Death it 's self neither was nor is to be bawked in the further pursuit of it But ah alas how quickly are our windows shut up again and our matutine irradiations muffled up with Clouds The Vesper tilio's of our times have taken their flight again over our heads and the Rubbidge that was left is so immense that the strength of the Bearers began to decay Neham 4. 10 11. At which our adversaries said They shall not know neither see till we come in the midst of them and slay them and cause the work to cease Oh! are we not rather warmed a little with a Widdows-joy then with the joys of harvest of them that are entered into the possession or of them that divide the spoil Isai 9. 3. O the Threnody of some of your dearest friends whose sighs have lately issued with such confusion as if our harvest had been over the summer ended and yet we never the neerer saved and would that were the worst that the welcome report of your first sitting might never be setting or vail'd with such a Sable as is cast upon it for either you faithful friends are a many of them slighted or you are slandered And it is not so much an Enemy in ARMS as an Enemy in ARTS that amazes us so for though the first have sallied yet 't is the last have sullied our faces again that began to chear having disshevel'd our expectations sent our hopes flying and your Votes fluttring into the air Ah! must we like DOVES in our Clifts and Holes go MOURN again in secret till he that sees us in SECRET does reward us openly Then we will But alas we no sooner say it but the Alarum of your Enemies makes you see it best not to disoblige your faithful friends too fast for Super-numeraries And O! that I could utter it from the Most High as his Oracle unto you that it might reach you to the quick home close and fasten like an Arrow feather'd with the fullest love to the Cause that can be without respect to persons or Principles repugnant O! that I were such an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Champion for Jesus Christ and his interest in these Nations that I might rather choose to die then to deny it I hope I shall never be of that number that would flatter you for base ends for verily Science Conscience and the sence of duty will not flatter me then for better ends and I know it that many seek the Rulers favour but yet every mans judgement is of the Lord. Nor is it an itch after medling with the Arcanis Imperii or Intrigues of Government unless it be in my own soul and family so much as the Arcana Evangelii fidei Christi mei that have suggested these lines in very faithfulness to you amongst other Lucubrations and Evigilations of this season Aristotle used to sleep with a Bullet in his Hand ore a Bason that by the fall it might wake him Pythagoras with a threed that tied his hair unto a Beam that with a Nod it might Check him and if the Bullet in hand do not awaken you I am sure the Nod will quickly check you and us too When the Prince of Orange was in his Camp neer the D' of Alva he slept so secure that his enemies that Night got to his very Tent but a little Dog lying by him bark'd and cryed and scratcht his face till the Prince awaked and so saved his life and I would at least do you as good service in a more concinnate language then by scratching should you use me like a DOG when I have done it for to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward Prov. 11. 18. if not from man yet from the Lord Psal 58. 11. which is the best of all In the Transition of our Disceptation I am engaged by your foes to a just Vindication of your honourable Persons and the Cause from that contumely most unjustly cast upon you But the transposition of your affections in the observation of your dear friends did as much require this discriminating dispensation again in the Nation that you may know whom to confide in and keep most constant to For wise men began to dread what a Labyrinth of confusion we had like to have been involved into by some mens over-valuing of unfaithful ones and over-vilifying of some of the most faithful ones in the Commonwealth In the first encounter I have tryed your enemies and I find them weak but in the last they have tryed your friends and we found them strong especially when they struck so hard at our Patience to have conquered that by the many unkindnesse that we have met with In the first they intended to divert you or some of you from the Publick service but in the last they intended to divert the Publick from you or from some of you as well as you from us Both which are so apparent now that the evidence of it at the Lords appointment is like to be written down as legibly to the Readers observation with the Point of the Sword as of the Pen in either of which if the Lord shall call us for the interest of Christ and this Commonwealth those of us
the Capitol and in his Orations against Catiline his Philippicks against M. Antony And de Lege Agrariâ against P. Servilius Rullus the Tribune and others to all which we might add Brutus's practice to prevent the Lapse by obliging the Romans in an Abjuration of KINGS and so they disposed of all the Crown-Lands to the Publick sale and tore down Tarquin's statues The like did the Hollanders by an Oath of Abjuration and the like did you before the late Apostacy but alas alas though this shews your care yet somewhat more must go to shew your skill before you perfectly cure us of this disease or of the danger of it which in the judgement of some of your mourning friends can never be by Mr. P's B's or H's Advice nor so long as the very same Humors and some of the most dangerous remains of the late Apostacy are so far from being evacuated and expulsed that they are returned again into their former Places and Capacities yea seated about in several and some in the eminentest parts of the whole body which are shrewd Symptomes of our returning again to folly if the Lord prevent not for in a course of Reason what will the aforesaid outward means signifie if these inward causes shall remain Corruptioni conservatio est contraria saith Arist. Not that the Parliament ought to use the utmost rigor or severity in all cases of mal-administration or the like This Austerity in the Gracchi's Livy tells us did keep up the deadly feud between the People and the Senators of Rome till the Rupture of a down-right War And indeed Cleon's Oration for the utmost severity upon the Apostates from the Commonwealth of Athens viz. the Mitylenaeans after they were brought under Vt omnes Mitylenaei Puberes capitis supplicio afficerentur Venderentur pro Mancipiis conjuges liberi that the very flower and Cavalry of them be wholly cut off their wives and children sold for slaves c. was as quickly revoked by others for the utmost lenity and clemency they could shew them that did consist with the safety and tranquillity of the Commonwealth when they saw the inconvenience of extremity on either part in another Oration At nos nunc contriarium faciemus si liberos homines qui indomiti repetiverunt libertatem rursus oppressos crudeliter puniamus Oportebat autèm non post Defectionem in homines liberos saevitiam exercere sed ante eos valdè custodire cavere ne consilia talia instituant post recuperationem quam minime eis hoc delictum exprobare But now let us do the contrary if they who were so unruly have repented and re-petitioned or desired their liberties as frée-men in the Commonwealth we may let them have them and if they offend again may punish them the more severely But it did not so much behove us after their defection or Apostacy to be cruel to them that are free-men but before rather to beware and watch lest such Counsels should establish them in their way then after their recovery to upbraid them with their Apostacy And the like Counsel was given about others whom the Athenians decreed should loose a finger or a thumb of their right hands for their defection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they might be disabled from using a spear against them yet able to work or Row with their Oares 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. but the Mitylenians were worse used and their youth slain So that such severity we abhor but withall we wish that the Parliament would be wary if not weary of them that yet do and will do what they can retain the same spirit of malignancy and Malevolence to the Cause and suffering servants of God that they had before so as to eye them diligently lest they settle and involve a Lapse to the Commonwealth either by revuision or reversion For what Physician to this body Polit. that sees not these the very signs of a Lapse into the late or like disease or Apostacy which arose up in this very manner from the same seat of black choler and shall we ever forget by what steps their late General mounted to the top of temptation and slept upon the top of a Mast Prov. 23. 34. when he had procured that Act of Indempnity and gotten an interest in that Party and is not this this over-iudulgence of vitious corrupt and inimical spirits in the body that which hath shortned the lives of many excellent Commonwealths was not the Roman Republick in continual fluctuations motions and a thousand hazards daily of being destroyed by the Tarquinian Parties keeping up an interest in the Commonwealth opposite to the interest of the Commonwealths and of all Governments they are most alterable and unstable Arist lib. 5. c. 12. that nourish such spirits and humors as are all for a Single Person and Ran-counter the true state of the Commonwealth to effect it So in Corinth it is true Cypselus was the longer up through his interest and favour which he had with the People as a Popular man and Periandrus his son after him being he was a brave Souldier and kept the Sword girt about him but Pisistratus who succeeded him was twice driven out of his Government and the People restless till they had secured themselves from the like attempts of a Single Person So among the Syracusans some had a mind to keep up the interest of a Single Person which the Commonwealth could not endure and until secured from such attempts was never without commotions particularly by Hieron and Gelon the last of whom got in for seven years and the first for ten years and all that ever after that attempted it brevi tempore duraverunt saith the Historian were but shot-lived How many instances might I give besides to secure us from the Lapse by a rout of those malevolent humors Heterogenean spirits and inward causes which endanger the Commonwealth and are inconsistent with it at least from PLACES most considerable or neer the heart of the Commonwealth until which no outward means will or can be a Preservative sufficient And as in Politicks so in Theocracy it is a sure Rule and requires the highest diligence industry and insight that can be Josh 24. 22 23 24. 2. Chron. 15. 2. and the promise is Dan. 2. 44. His kingdom shall never be destroyed nor left to other people Because Prov. 17. 15. He that justifies the wicked and condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord. Besides the saddest Tragedies we might tell you amongst men have had their rise from an over-indulging I mean nourishing and impowering inimical spirits in the Commonwealth as of Brutus's sons for his fathers sake Maelius and Manlius and so Sylla and Marius and a many others in the Roman Republick besides Agathocles in Sicily Cosmos and Savaranola in Florence Castrucio in Luca and of late years it is observable how the Jesuites served the King of France Hen.
hearty as ever went forth with YOUR ARMIES even in this Cheshire-expedition and another link is added to the long Chain by the same hand that was wont to be with us when we declared for Iesus our only King and we cannot imagine that you should lop off any thing that is his due or ever undervalue either him his Government or his dear servants if they yet must go with the brand of Sectaries seeing Valentinian Theodosius Constantine and others did stile themselves so long since vassalos Christ the very servants of â—esus Christ and Theodosius professed he accounted it more his honour to Rule like a Christian then like a King yea Augustus himself said Ei gratius erat Nomen pietatis quam Potestatis he had rather be PIOUS then powerful and it was more grateful to him O! then let our Parliament be holy and Magistrates holy But to conclude Mr. B. himself saith whom I presume you will hear when you will not me p. 221. Thes 206. It is this Theocratical polity or Divine Commonwealth which is the unquestionable Reign of Christ on earth which all Christians are agreed may be sought and that temporal dignity of Saints which undoubtedly would bless the world So in p. 223. Thes 207. I think the promoting of this holy Theocratick Government is the point of reformation that we are called to desire by them that now plead for the Reign of Christ and the Saints And what do we desire more Wherefore we hope you will see no Reason to explode them called fifth Monarchy men that are gracious and meek or Sectaries as Pope Zach. did Virg. that say there is an Antipodes and a Nadir as well as a Zenith in this Cause seeing Mr. B. is so positive in it alius est mundus alii homines sunt sub terras that the Lord has his hidden ones Psa 83. 3 4. dear to him that ought to be and we hope are so to you Right Honourable which you would do well to look after and encourage seeing the very Romans have found out the bravest men of their Common-wealth by such noble inquiries and have taken them from their Dinners of Turnips and Water-cresses as the Curii Fabritii c. to the service of the Publick saepe sub attritâ latitat sapientia veste This fit Location of the best holiest and ablest in the body and Theocratick Government will with Gods blessing prove such a settlement as shall satisfie all parties and honest interests in the Commonwealth and the best most by obviating of fears dangers threnodies temptations and our enemies designs which are very dangerous and in the Deep to invade innovate or alter when all our supplies our supports our wisedom power courage and our protections shall be assured and secured unto us by the Holy One to whom all power is given by the Lord and ought to be by men in heaven and earth For which Cause and the Commonwealth without blandishing discourses or blending affections I do profess for one amongst the thousands of Israel I am ready hearty and resolved with the Lords grace and assistance to live or to dy if every drop of bloud in my Veins spin out and Gobbet of flesh on my bones against the common enemies of Christ this Cause the Commonwealth and the Parliament be sowen like seed upon the earth let who will plow or harrow upon it I care not so it may have but a fertile Harvest for Posterity And Resurrection with the Iust men made perfect qùod si Frigida curarum fomenta relinquere posses Quò te Caelestis sapientia duceret ires Hoc opus hoc Studium parvi properemus ampli Si Patriae volumus si nobis vivere Cari. TO THE READER SIR IT is Civility to your self and service to the Truth that lets you know these Papers were in their first draught ready intended for the Publick above six weeks since before the Rebellion and in the nick of Time but the Press fell sick and hath had a Disease it was at first Costive and bound which tenasm continued till our Emollientia and Medicamenta resolventia by the help of a Silver-clyster-pipe set it a work again but then with as much danger of a Lax or Flux for these times the Press has such a Looseness as le ts out the thinnest matter with the most applause but that the supine care of the Corrector applyed such Astringents as were ready and requisite and yet some Errataes have given him the slip which the Author had no leasure to Supervise Sed ubi non sunt Errata non sunt Narrata there is nothing without them I am sure It is a pretty tale and yet a Truth for as there be Erroneous Truths so true Errours which the Press let pass upon the Bible An. 1612. in Psal 119. in stead of Princes have persecuted me that Printers have persecuted me and it is not long since Princes hindered us but to say it now of these in power is the Errata of the Times Sithence our Priviledges and Liberty to serve the Publick do publish the contrary being so piously and peaceably revolved upon us after a sable night and scandalous hour of Temptation What is scattered with the Fork I would have gathered with the Glean but that I need not be so curious if thou beest Courteous or Ingenious and as Cato said I care not much for them Who have a better judgement in their Mouthes then in their Minds in their Palates then in their Pates Besides I am called aside of a sudden into another Part of the Harvest and must leave somewhat for the Rakers as well as for the Reapers here behind me Nor indeed did I cast eye upon all the Sheets or Proofs of the Press much less time had I to Reade or to Correct them At a Perfunctory View of some Papers I saw these Errataes Page 26. l. 28. read REPUNCTION p. 27. l. 18. Autopathy p. 63. l. 26. in it p. 67. l. 16. inoculated p. 82. l. 22. Papistae l. 22. Rapistae p. 93. l. 23 r. and no considerable man p. 95. l. â— and so to all parts c. What else I know not And all I desire is but as good constructions from you as I am ready to give with the Lords grace instructions to you and to receiv from you in the furtherance of the Gospel this Cause the Kingdom and Interest of Jesus Christ and of this Commonwealth FINIS * Vide my Irenic Evang Epist to Church p. 7. Mr. Prynne's cutting up of mea alive M. Prynnes skill in Anatomy His instruments of Anatomy cruel His Anatomy hath no order in it neither 1. Dignity nor 2. in Dissection Mr. P. begins with Intrals first And so did the Sooth-sayers of old M. Prynne his own Anatomst and his friends His mistake in the subject of his Anatomy The grounds he goes upon are very mistaken and meerly fictitious Mr. P's first Discovery in his Anatomy is
Jesuites Generation or Regeneration M. Prynn's merciless and unjust JURY excepted against nor is a Butcher or Mangler fit to judge in the Case 1. It 's the Jesuites Designe to render the Commonw odious by making us believe it THEIR'S This being the last shift they have left them Not but that a Godly Jealousie be had and search he made 2. It appears that Mr. P. his Brains have a most Spermatick faculty and Mr. B's Breasts have as Aphrogalaktick a faculty through his Mammarie Vein of maintaining K. Lords Commons and of condemning our Free-state which Vein of his we finde in the Claves as the Anatomists call them but Mr. B. his Clavis or KEY for Cath. 3. Mr. P's hard TRAVEL this 10. years in campanella's design 4. His writings dangerous these times to kindle or blow up Popular discontents All the good women are called to his Labour 5. It is a monstrous thing in Nature to make this a Plot of An. 1605. c. 6. All their Argument lies upon fallacies secundum quid or malae consequentiae or homonymiae Vincent lib. 25. c. 4. The Healing Author of the healing Quest hath taken the Leaves of the Tree of Life for the healing the Nations What is meant by HEALING M. B. quotes the Healing Quest in a Wounding unfaithful manner at first dash Natural Rights may be forfeited and lost The Healing Q. asserts the unforfeited Natural Right M. B's dark Lanthorne hath no lucid Answer to the Healing Quest Caution to the Army how they take Mr. B's tea Pills Mr. B's 1. Prop. Answ Right to Chuse Parl. part of the Cause This the K. kept the people from by his own Prerogative The History of it His 2. Prop. Answ It is granted that the Cause is not a Right to choose a House of Commons A fumitory Pill His 3. Prop. Ans It was the cause to preserve our Rights Exact Col. p. 464. Poly-pody-Pill His 4. Prop. Answ Another form of Government a necessary effect of the King 's waging War with the Parliament and People The King and Lords destroyed themselves and so the House of Commons 2. The old forme of K. L. and Com. an imposed forme 3. This form of Government fell in naturally and unavoidably upon dissolution of Kingly The Healing Quest a mark but he cannot hit it A pill of Aegrimony 5. Prop. Ans This is fully answered elsewhere all the Declar. and Engagements kept in their ends by this cause His 6. Prop. Answ The Author of the Healing Quest abused fallaciously quoted and as falsly accused He pleads especially for the adherents to the Cause but generally for all to whom Christ hath given and bought this Liberty M B leaves out a most material significant part of the same sentence What the Healing Quest proposes about the Magistrate that he would not impose upon tender Consciences Mr. B. corrupts and falsifies most shamefully Mr. B. argues not like a Christian with Sir H. Vane 2. Mr. B. argues not like a Logician It is as the Heal. Quest states it out of the Mag. power to impose Mass or any worship and this M. B. ought to prove like a fair opponent by Logick-Law This was in our Cause to keep up this liberty of Conscience in the worship of God His first Charge assoiled that this is not against Gods word but the contrary and his Scripture-examples examined His instance of Asa obviated and enervated That the Mag. hath no such Power in his Commis to impose is proved by abundance of Scriptures And by learned Authors with the Witness of Martyrs To his 2d Charge Of the evil of it That it tends to the Ruine of the Common-wealth but the contrary tendeth unto that * Mr. B's Holy Commonw Preface To his 3d Charge To his 4th Charge To his 5th Charge To his 6th Charge M. B. and Mr. Harrington for a National Rule over the Conscience To his 7th Charge To his 8th Charge To his 9th Charge To his 10th Charge To his 11th Charge Vide Reviving Word for Uniting all in one 12 To his last Charge of introducing Popery That Mr. B. is guilty of this Charge shall appear by the Jesuites of his own Quoting The grounds whereon M. B. is satisfied with the Papists 1. The Harmony or Proximity of Doctrines between them 2. The Condiscipulation and Charity bâ—tween them and thâ— like M. B's Proposals to the Papists 1. For personal Assemblies together 2. To have a Catholick Christian Communion together 3. To take one another for Christians and Churches of Christ 4. To agree together without hatred of one another 2 The power of the Magist in matters of Religion a Controversie of long standing Vid. Hor. li. 2. see Sat. 1. Med. so Drex on school of Patience pt 2 c. 1. s 4. Our hearty affections and readiness to serve the Magist in all his capacities and power and not to deprive him of any right due to him only desire that Christ may have but his right also The ingredients of this Pill are in part Jesuites powder and partly his own desire to persecute Mr. B's 7. Prop. or PILL for the Army Two Extreams wisely declined in the Healing Question 1. The meer Common-wealths-man as M. Har. principle 2. The rigid fifth Mon. man or that goes under that Name his Principle The scope and substance of both in the Healing Quest The equal Temperature of the Common-wealth wherein it doth consist this Rule did keep out Tarquin and must keep out C. Stuart 8. Grounds of hope that we shall have a holy Common-wealth under Christ the head who is the head of every man 1 Cor. 11. 3. as well as of the Church or of every Christian The most excellent VOTE of Parliament for it the Lord keep them to it Theocracy not so well with a Single Persons exercise of the Power of Soveraignty as with Judges as at first and Counsellours as at the beginning Isai 1. â—6 in Israel Christ is the absolute Soveraign but the people under him have a Supremacy That the People have a Supreme Power under Christ in this Government to give to their Deputies in trust so the Government is the Ordinance of Man 1 Pet. 13. 14. but as a Theocratick Governmentâ— or that wherein Magistrates are the Ministers of God for good so it is the Ordinance of God Rom. 13. 2 3. and wherein they are the Ministers of the whole Body for good so the Ordinance of man too Mr. B' s 7. Pill of Assa foetida Mr. B's 8. Prop. or Pill for the Army à scoriâ ferri Ans Conquest gives them the benefit and freedom of their Right 2. Conquest givâ—s them a power over enemies from ruining them 3. Conquest ratifies and fortifies us in our Rights 4. Conquest keeps up a Right of distinction so long as the troubles hold Mr. B. and Mr. Harrington for an unequally Equal Common-wealth Mr. B's 9th Prop. or Pill for the Army The Healing Q. for the Inward Rule of Righteousness
HIS who shall be who must be the desire of all nations But because Mr. Baxter may be heard with many when I may not I shall usher in ALL in his own words that I have to offer for this Christian Commonwealth or Theocratick Government as the CONCAMERATION and upshot of the whole Discourse 2. In the PATHOLOGY of it and therein to consider how the Principal parts might be affected if not infected with the late Morbous estate of the Common-wealth And acted for that time so preternaturally that might render it as unsafe then to follow them as now to fall on them for no MEMBERS humanum est errare sed inhumanum perseverare Cic. Phil. 2. Unless we be of opinion that the only way to cure a disease is to cut off the member or to evacuate an humor is to kill the man So to measure the affections of your old friends who are sound at heart ADHERENTS to the Good old Cause and Commonwealth by any humorous or incomposed resentment of your interruption which was sudden and amazing however they took it may be dangerous and unjust Seeing some that were more troubled fell in with the Apostacy and some that were less fell out with it yea seeing such as were Active in it and made their Advantages by it are indemnified shall such as were Passive in it and pursued nothing by it but the Publique Good be indamaged Can any think that after so many years hard Bonds and Banishment those that were forwardest proclaim'd the Single Person serv'd him or rather themselves therein should be the Men of your Right Hand and not those that have witnessed prayed appeared and Protested against it from the first to the last of it be worthy of your LEFT Or that those who were but FOOLED into an expectation of better things and in that did rejoyce through hope be the onely marks for your enemies to shoot at and such as were KNAVED into into a Perpetration of worser things and in that they did Triumph and boast be the very Quivers of those Arrows that are shot at them As soon as the first sort saw the snare they escaped it with the loss of Liberty Estate and Livelihood a many of them but the last sort saw it kept it and became their enemies that did it not The first sort were more in simplicity and as they intended upon the account of the Cause the Reasons and Grounds in the Declaration An. 1653. pretended were for the better carrying on of the Cause and a more absolute weaning the people from Monarchy and for successive Parliaments c. but the last sort in Subtlety and Design a many of them upon the account of themselves Places Profits The first sort did sink but like Peter and as their feet slipp'd their hands held fast upon Christ but the last sort sunk rather like Pharaoh having no principle to bear them up and nothing to hold fast by only this we see by it that a man may sink and rise and sink and rise again and yet be recovered at the last The first were WITHOUT blinded with Words and knew nothing but what was openly pretended the LAST were WITHIN even in their Cabals and might easily guess at what they secretly intended The first did but stumble but the last did fall and lie in their filth It is a Good horse that never stumbles but it is a Bad one that ever does and that will wallow in it too To stumble once is a common fault but twice at one Stone too is a special one and therefore we humbly think that the first ought not so to be exploded if the last ought so to be applauded and preferred The Orator said Natura me Clementem fecit Respub severum sed neque Natura neque Respubl me Crudelem efficiet Nature hath made me MILDE the Commonwealth hath made me SEVERE but neither one nor the other shall make me CRUEL to any man and the Preacher says Eccles 5. 8. If thou seest violent perverting of justice in a Province marvel not at the matter For he that is HIGHER then the HIGHEST regardeth and is HIGHER then THEY For my own part I need no Apology in the matter who was possest with amazement at the rashness of the Action I was so far from irritating or abetting it as some would suggest that I never mention'd or imagin'd it or to my knowledge heard it of any other till it was performed And then was so unsatisfied with it of which eminent Persons are my Witnesses as might free me both from the suspition and the sin of it Besides it is in print to the World and was then in Press for Posterity to see my opinion of them that were reputed Active in it Yet when that interruption had so candid an Interpretation by Good People who were over-credulous and ignorant of the Design I did write to the then GENERAL and my fourth Propos was hisce Verbis word for word That those who were righteous and spirited for this Government of the WORTHIES of the late i.e. this Parliament that are without just exception may be Owned with Honour i.e. Return'd again to their Trust And these Proposials are the worst that can be said of me by any man wherein I meant as much as I mentioned very honourably of them as of our WORTHIES But if that satisfie not I shall presume with the words of a Scottish EARL Leviston in his Oration to the then Lord Chancellor ex Georg. Buchan Rer. Scotic lib. 11. Junii 27. adhort p. 151. Non me HONORE Spoliatum sed ONERE levatum existimo Privatim si quam accepi injuriam eam Publicae Salutis Causa libenter Condono Si quam feci Bonorum Virorum Arbitratu satisfaciam c. I account not my self rob'd of Honour in your late DEBATE nor exempt of Reason in any former REBATE being arm'd with so much innocency that I can heartily say If I have privately received any Wrong I can freely remit it for the Publick's sake but if I have done Any either to the PUBLICK or to PRIVATE I as heartily refer it to the Arbitrement of Good men and I will make satisfaction if I can for it Neither expect I any thanks to be an Advocate for others but to prevent the injustice of squaring your Affairs and their Affections by so fallible a RULE as that is The Angel's Golden Reed is the Golden Rule to measure the Inward by but the outward Rev. 11. 1 2. may be measured by the best Reason of man rightly fix't for judgement and then I need not shew the danger of Breaking Bones too often in one place lest they fester and Rot and come to Ruine as well as put to pain the Whole Body But to conclude I see you like Men in the Dark up at MIDNIGHT in a confused State ready to Knock your Heads at every Post and to break your Legs at every Block and therefore hope by this Collision of
acknowledgement of the good in many of his Books that gave edition to this decertation but indeed a sincere affection to my dearest Christ his cause and the Commonwealth to truth and righteousness and the Assertors of it that lay too much under the most unchristian Trajections supercilious and oblique censures of his Pen prepared it is feared from the effects to sharpen the most maligne influences and aspects that could be cast upon them by the common enemies who would as much rejoyce in their destruction as in their traduction who lie in ambush to murther the innocent Psal 10. 8. and like the Q. of Scots once of the Protestants slain in the days of Joh. Knox would look upon it with a Protestation that their eyes never beheld a better Tapestry But they that have the Record of the Highest hand and protection of the Holiest to preserve their Memories and embalm them to Posterities are above their reach For he shall bring forth their righteousness as the or shining light and their judgement as the tzohorajim dual N. double or as two lights and splendors Psal 37. 6. in our Transl as the Noon-day i.e. shining both in the former and in the After-noon or future Light Nor do I desire to study the Alphabet of Great Mens dispositions but to obviate that STRATAGEM made in the same forge with his Key for Cath. devised and timed to divert our Worthies who we hope will raise up the Renown of this Nation from minding the Publick by their own Private Vindications or else to raise round about them such a SUMMER-DUST that we might be sure to loose them or have them hid a while in the midst of it but that a shower hath allayed it and it is hard to say whether Sir H. Vane and our other Patriots be of more unblemished honour integrity and desert beyond any bad-mans blasting or contrivance or Mr. B. Mr. P. and such unsober Pick-thanks yea Pickroones of good mens reputations of more sin and shame for slandring so beyond and good mans blessing or connivance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pythagoras himself was wont to say These two things which are very beautiful are given to men as Divine viz. to embrace the truth and to do well to others Neither of which are much seen in Mr. B's company all the way of his Aeromachy nor Hairesiomachy as he pretends neither is his Tongue the Pen of a mahir sophar ready Accomptant in the matters of the KING i.e. Jesus Christ Psal 45. 1. Wherefore I could have wished he had so much weighed his own Reputation as well as Christs Ministry seeing a good name is call'd an oyntment Cant. 1. which Olfactum afficit Spiritum reficit cerebrum juvat that gives at savour as first to have scummed his own POT seeing the Prophet saith Wo wo to the pot whose scum is in it and whose scum is not gone out of it how doth that appear Verse 12. Wearying with lies and the great scum went not forth but it shall be in the fire therefore saith the Lord Verse 11. Set it empty upon the Coals that the Brass of it may be hot and burn and the filthiness of it in it So that he shall hurt none but himself burn his own brass and the filthiness of his own pot And indeed I was the better content to undertake this duty to the Publick and to deal thus with M. B. because he is a man of such severity and Eagle-eyed acuteness in others mens faults that I may thereby learn more to my own PROFIT then by the best Book I ever yet met with and as one said to Antisthenes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strike me home if you will only let me learn what I can from you neither can you find a Cudgel so cruel to me that it should drive me from the benefit of the occasion of it Wherefore let us look to it diligently 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 12. 15 16. lest any man fail 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the grace of God! lest any root 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or radicale humidum of bitterness be springing up in you c. he that doth ought presumptuously reproacheth the Lord Numb 15. 30. yea the very Heathens as Numa Pompilius instituted Priests called FECIALES whose office was to preserve the peace between the Romans and others not to disturb it or destroy it and our Lord Jesus hath left us most ample and excellent Rules and examples of love peace and estimation of each other without striving for the mastery Mar. 9. 34. Luk. 22. 24 26. Joh. 13. 34 55. 15. 12. Eph. 5. 2. 4. 32. Tit. 3. 9. 1 Cor. 1. 10. 11. 17 18. 1 Thes 4. 9. 1 Joh. 4. 21. Rom. 16. 17 18. Mat. 24. 23. Phil. 2. 1 2 3. and oh that the same mind were in us also each striving to serve the other in love keeping up a commensurate and equal latitude of liberty in matters of worship amongst all the members of the BODY though differing in their several formes seats offices and functions for the service of the head and of the whole as it is in the Humane Body 1 Cor. 12. 13 27. Rom. 12. Were all an eye saith the Apostle where were the hearing or were all an ear where were the smelling And could we impetrate it at the Hands of our honourable Senators as I hope we shall a General or Grand Meeting of some of all different judgements who are most comprehensive and large in their love to all Saints as the Apostle saith Col. 1. 4. a little to argue the Case together like Brethren in love without heat of passions or provocations to advise with the Lord his Word and one with another upon the way and means of Reconciling Vniting Indearing and Injoynting of the WHOLE BODY of Adherents and Believers Ephes 4. 12 13. for which end is the variety of Gifts Administrations and operations given Ephes 4. 11. 1 Cor. 12. 4 5 6. until we find out the proper places joynts graces offices and usefulness of all collectively and every individual part party or forme of the Body distributively under one and the same head Jesus Christ I am perswaded it would have a wonderful blessing in it and might tend to settle us most sweetly satisfactorily and Symmetrically in this Nation if the Lord please both to all Parties and to the WHOLE no one seeking to set up a Party for the Whole or a Party-growth but the growth and increase of the whole Body Col. 2. 19. Ephes 4. 16. or the Communion of all Saints and of all sorts of Saints as of necessary use and functions even in those things that differ That all the whole building may be fitly framed together and growing up into one Temple one Tabernacle one House one Vine one Kingdom one Body and one City compact and though the Temple hath many Parts and the Tabernacle Courts the House many distinct Rooms and the Vine Branches the