A grave Protestant Gentleman of the Temple last Trinity Term riding up to London meeting with a Popish Gent. of his acquaintance on the way they discoursing of these last Revolutions and changes of Government the Protestant told him that these alterations were but the Plots and productions of the Jesuites and those of his Religion who did but laugh at us in their sleeves to see what fools they made us At which the Papist growing somwhat angry He desired him to be patient since they were antient friends and what he spake was not in jeast or scoff as he took it but in sober sadness desiring him having great acquaintance amongst the Papists to inquire out the truth of what he spake when he came to London where most Papists in England were then assembled for both their satisfactions and to give him an account thereof which he promised to do About 5. or 6. dayes after this Papist told him That according to his request he had made diligent inquiry of the truth of what he spake on the way and that he found all or most of the Iesuites were Knaves they and most of the Iesuited Papists being against the King and wholly for a Commonwealth as being most advantagious for the King of Spains Interest using more words to the same effect Which the Protestant being my old familiar acquaintace about two dayes after related to me in Westminster-hall as a concurrent testimony with that I had published to this effect in my True and perfect Narrative and the Republicans Spurious good old Cause truly Anatomized 3ly Lilly a zealous Republican in his Almanack Anno 1651. prognosticated That the Stars did then promise Acts of Grace and Favor to Popish Recusants who in their Zeal and Loyalty to the New Republike exceeded most Presbyterians An argument it was a creature of the Jesuites and their projection to procure them more grace and favor than before and promote their designs against us 4ly Nedham Rogers his Consederate and fellow Champion against me makes use of the Jesuit Barclay his forecited Iesuitical Principle as the chief corner-stone of our New Parliaments and Republikes structure whereon they are both built And not only so but he useth the very Arguments of Campanella which he prescribed the King of Spain to suggest to the English Nobility Protestants and Clergy to hinder and keep out King James from the Crown of England upon Queen Elizabeths death to disswade and draw them all of from King Charls and oppose his restitution now Campanellaes words are these cap. 25. De Mon. Hispanica p. 207 208. Praeterea suspitionem incutiat amicis Elizabethae saepius iis inculcando fore ut Jacobus in amicis Elizabethae caedem maternam vindicaturus sit c. praesertim cum Maria ipsius mater moriens ei Religionem Catholicam et sue caedis vindictam serio commendaverit Exasperandi etiam sunt mimi Episcoporum Ministrorum Anglicorum proponendo illis Regem Scotiae Calviniâ—mum amplexum esse spe et cupiditate Regni adactumique vi a Baronibus haereticis Quod it vero Regnum Angliae etiam obtineat tum illum cito priorem Religionem revocaturum esse quanddquidem non solum Mater defuncta verum etiam â—ex ipse Galliarum summopere et illam commendarint Quibus modis fier ut semina belli inextricabilis inter Angliam Scotiam â—aciantur c. to keep King James from the Crown Which Nedham thus imitates and pursues with a little variation in his Interest Sect. 3. of the Presbyterians p. 12 13. The Royal party will never leave buzzing in C. Stuarts ears to quicken his memory that the interest of your party was in its infancy founded upon the ruin of HIS GRAND-MOTHER continued and improved by the perpetual vexation of his GRAND-FATHER and at length prosecuted TO THE DECAPITATION OF HIS FATHER Be not so weak as to fool your selves that you shall fare better than others It is the common sence of the Cavaliers that you prepared his FATHER for the block and are incensed at others because they took from you the honour of the execution Dr. Creiton told him That the Presbyterians pulled his FATHER Down and held him by the hair while the Independents cut off his head And after him it was more elegantly expressed by Salmatius Presbyteriani Sacrificium ligarunt Independentes jugularunt c. And p. 5 6. The PAPISTS having had so fair a Creature of the Father for many reasons they have no cause to fear foul dealing from the Son As for HIS RELIGION if any it is at best but a devotion to Prelacy which was bequeathed to him by Legacy All his other pretences of Religion in Scotland he forfeited before ever he left that Countrey What profession he hath since owned abroad hath for reasons of State been kept very close yet not so close but he discovered it But if this be not evident let us have recourse to reason and then consider HOW LONG HE WAS UNDER THE WING OF HIS MOTHERS INSTRUCTIONS IN FRANCE and what a Nursery Flanders hath been for him since which IS THE MOST JESUITED PLACE IN THE WORLD consider also the urgency of his necessities disposing him to imbrace any thing or take any course to get a Crown being under the same influence of the wandring Starre called Reason of State as was his GRAND-FATHER H. the 4th of France who shifted his Religion to secure a Crown c. These put all together into the ballance are ground enough to believe him sufficiently affected if not sworn to Popery Here we have Nedham plowing with Campanella his heifer using his very policy words arguments in substance to exasperate the Presbyterians Independents and Protestant party against Charles Stuart and keep him from the Crown as Campanella suggested to the King of Spain and the English Protestants and Prelates to exasperate them against his Grandfather King James for the self-same end by traducing both in their Religion and meditation of revenge of their respective Mothers and Fathers decollations Here I shall desire the Readers to take special Notice of 4. particulars 1. Of Campanellaes the Jesuites forein Popish Princes and their Instruments Machiavilian practice secretly seriously frequently to suggest to Protestant Subjects that their most Orthodox Protestant Kings and right heirs to the Crown are inwardly inclined and well-affected to Popery that they profess themselves Protestants only for politick ends to gain or retain the Crown that when they are setled in their thrones they will either profess or introduce Popery which would be the Jesuits and Papists greatest advantage who thus suggest it if true purposly to exasperate their Protestanâ— Subjects against and alienate their affections from them yea make them the visible instruments to keep them from their hereditary Crowns to the scandal prejudice of the Protestant Religion though they be most real cordial constant Professors of it And whence such scandalous suggestions originally spring 2ly Of the
A Brief Necessary VINDICATION Of the Old and New SECLUDED MEMBERS from the false malicious CALVMNIES AND Of the Fundamental Rights Liberties Privileges Government Interest of the Freemen Parliaments People of England from the late avowed Subversions 1. Of John Rogers in his Un-christian Concertation with Mr. Prynne and others 2. Of M Nedham in his Interest will not lie Wherein the true Good Old Cause is asserted the false routed The old secluded Members cleared from all pretended breach of trust The old Parliament proved to be totally dissolved by the Kings death The sitting Juncto to be no Parliament and speedily to be dissolved by the Army-Officers The Oathes of Supremacy Allegiance Fealty to the King his Heirs and Successors to be still binding continuing The New Commonwealth to be the Iesuites Project Ch. Stewart not sworn to Popery as Nedham slanders him The restitution of our Hereditary King and Kingly Government not an Vtopian Republike evidenced beyond contradiction to be Englands true Interest both as Men and Christians and the only way to peace safety settlement By WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick Esq a Bencher of Lincolns-Inne The Second Edition Jer. 51. 9 10. We would have healed ENGLISH BABYLON but she would not be healed forsake her and let us go every one to his own Country for her judgement reacheth unto heaven and is lifted up even to the skies The Lord hath brought forth our righteousness come and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God Ps. 63. 11. But the mouth of them that speak Lies shall be stopped London Printed and are to be sold by Edward Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1659. A brief necessary Vindication of the Old and New secluded Members c. ON the 17. of this instant September during my private retirement in the Country for my health and quiet I received 2. Books fraught with malicious calumnies bitter scoffs insufferable Reproaches against my Self and other secluded Members yea destructive to the very fundamental Rights Liberties Privileges Government Interest of the Freemen Parliaments and Realm of England for which we have so many years contested The 1. of these thus intituled A Christian Concertation with M. Prynne M. Baxter M. Harrington for the true Cause of the Commonwealth c. by J. Rogers A most scurrilous 〈…〉 fraught with absurd impertinercies conjuring canting new coyned a swelling words of vanity odious comparisons bitter scoffs raysing Epethites b loathsom stinking obscene Queres defiling the very air c boyish tricks playing with mens names and reputations which he d severely censures in others yet is most guilty of himself displaying him to be rather a e conjuring Sorcerer than Gospel-Minister an Apostate scoffing Lucian than sober real Christian standing much in need of the f several Pills he prescribes Mr. Baxster to purge his filthy stomack spleen brain heart pen from such rotten stinking humors for the future almost every page in his book being either g Scandalum Magnum or Scandalum Magnatum to use his own expressions against all dissenting from him but an h egregious flattery of his own faction The 2. Interest will not lie Or a View of Englands True Interest by Marâ— Nedham which had he intituled Interest will lie Or a View of Englands False Interest by Mar. England it had been a true Character of it The first most furiously chargeth me and my secluded companions in the Van the later in the Rear The one with whole Vollies of fired squibs more like a Whiffler than a Mâ—skateer shooting nothing but wild-fire and i bitter words without bullets The other like a Trumpeter rather than a Trooper sounding a fierce charge against us with his Trumpet without wounding us with his Lance or Sword which are very obtuse To avoid prolixity impertinence and repetitions I shall reduce all the material Differences between us into 6. distinct Questions wherin I shall refute what they have published relating to my self the other secluded Members the Rights Privileges Interest of our Parliaments and Nation with all possible Brevity omitting their personal scoffs and scurrilities The 1. Question Question 1 between J. Rogers and Mr. Prynne wherein Nedham hath no share is but this Whether the Defence maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Kings royal person authority government posterity the privileges and rights of Parliament consisting of King Lords and Commons the Laws Statutes of the Land the Liberty Property of the Subject and peace safety of the Kingdom were the only True and Good Old Cause for which the long Parliament and their Armies first took up Arms in 1642. and continued them till the Treaty with the King 1648. as Mr. Prynne asserts and proves like k a Lawyer by punctual Evidences Witnâ—sses Votes Declarations Remonstrances Ordinances of both Houses yea of the Army-Officers Generals Council during all the wars in his Good Old Cause rightly stated his True and perfect Narrative The Re-publicans and others spurious Good Old cause briefly and truly anatomized and in his Concordia Discors Or whether the erecting of a New Commonwealth and Parliament without a King and House of Lords and Majority of the Commons House upon the ruines of the late King Kingdom Parliament since 1648. to 1653. and the reviving of it May 7. 1659. by some swaying Army-Officers and the farr Minor part of the old Commons House confederating with them by meer armed power secluding the greatest Number of the surviving Members and whole House of Lords Which J. Rogers endeavors to prove like a Logician without any evidence witness but his own Ipse scripsit though l professedly disclamed by both Houses of Parliament and the Army too in sundry printed Declarations as the highest scandal never once entring into their loyal thoughts When this Logician with all his Sophistry Anatomy Pills Physick can make that which was never in being but since 1648. as we all know and himself asserts in his Concertation p. 7 9. to be the Good Old Cause in being m long before the last Parliament of King Charles for whose defence they first took up arms in 1642. Or that cause which never once entred into their thoughts and was professedly disclamed till 1648. to be the cause they proclamed and fought for from the wars beginning he must yeeld up his Spurious Good Old Cause as desperate his scurrillous Goos-quils to use his n own words dashing the GALL of his ink upon Mr. Prynnes former papers to little purpose in this particular but to blot them a little not to answer them a line nor the Argument of them in the least The 2. Question is this Question 2 Whether Mr. Prynne with the Majority of the Commons House and whole House of Peers were forcibly secluded the Parliament by the Army for any real breach and forfeiture of their trusts in 1648. or ever legally impeached convicted thereof either then or since before any lawfull
Judicature This Rogers briefly and not very positively affirms p. 7. but Nedham averrs and makes it his Masterpiece insisting on it at large from p. 28 to 37. wherein his Interest doth nought else But Lie as the basis whereon his preâ—eveâ— Parliament and Repâ— blike are bottomed which fast or stand upon the truth or falshood of it wherein he is so peremptory as not only to proclame us 〈◊〉 to the present and succeeding Generations in the Highest Degree without heaâ—ing or â—â—ial but to pronounce this peremptory Sentence against us a That not only by the Law of Necessity which they pleaded that acted it but 〈◊〉 by the * Law of the Land they might have been called to account for their lives in a Capital manner But were Favourably as well as Iustly dealt with in being depriâ—ed only of their Interest in the House when as their 〈◊〉 might have been required So this impudent insolent Headsman ex Tripode magisterially determines This Question so highly concerning us in our present and future reputations and the right Freedom of Parliaments and their Members in all generations I shall more largely debate and for ever acquit my self and fellow-secluded Members from this Scandalum Magnum â—t Magnatum long since b cleared refuted by us yet now revived afresh against us in the highest degree I shall desire the Readers to consider 1. That those who full accused us breakers of our Parliamentary Trusts reposed in us were neither the respective Counties Cities Boroughs who elected authorized returned trusted us for their Knights Citizens Burgesses in Parliament the only fit accusers and judges of us out of Parliament who all absolve and justifie us against this Calumny nor yet our fellow-Members or House of Lords the onely meet impeachers judges of us in Parliament if guilty But meerly the General Council of Officers in the Army who neither elected nor intrusted us were but our mercinary sworn Servants not our supream Iudges yet most notoriously traiterously perfidiously violated both their trusts faith duties by waging war against us and forcibly seising secluding us contrary to their Commissions the Protestation Sâ—lemn League and Covenant they had all subscribed And were these fit persons to accuse us then or now of breach of trust who are such Grand Trust-breakers Traytors themselves 2 That this breach of trust was not so much as objected against us by them before nor at their treasonable sodain secluding and securing us Decem. 6. 7. 1648. therefore it could not be the true cause of our seclusion but a subsequent pretence For these Officers to mutiny the common Souldiers against us told them That the Members they 〈◊〉 at the House door were those who pursed up and kept away their pay from them and that was the only cause the common soldiers asâ—isted them to secure us else they would not have medled with any of us as they told me and Col Birch in the 〈◊〉 Court the day we were seised Whereupon I assuring them it was a grosse untruth for neither of us then secured was a Treasurer or Receiver of monyes they answered They were informed the contrarâ—â—â—y their Officers and 〈…〉 we were thus abused and 〈◊〉 out of the House upon such a false suggestion 3. That they never charged us with breaking our trusts till â—ear a full month after our seclusion and securing and that upon this occasion as Nedham himself relates p. 31. Upon the Armies seising us Decemb. 6. the Mâ—mbers then sitting in the House sent out the Serjeant into the Queens Court where we were detained to command our attendance in the House but the Soldiers detaining us Prisoners would not permit us to go to the House Thereupon he was sent the second time with the 〈◊〉 to fetch us in but the Officers staid him at the House door and would not permit him to pass which was 〈◊〉 in the â—ournal Book as a Contempt Being startled with this sodain force on the House they concluded not to procéed in Business till their Members should be 〈◊〉 Therefore they judged them no breakers but performers of their trust when seised and secluded by the Army and in the mean time ordered that the General should be sent 〈…〉 of the Armies proceedings in seising the Members Upon this The General Council of Officers not before â—anuary 3. 1648. when they had not left 50 Members in it returned their Answer to them That they were 〈…〉 upon meer forged pretences and that these Members 〈…〉 which occasioned their to 〈◊〉 and seise them A pretty excuse and cloak for see transcendent a Treason 4. That in this Answer they most falsly scandalized traduced the secluded and secured Members as Nedham doth in their terms with some additions of his own which I shall briefly refute 1. He saith that Mr. Prynne and his party heretofore and now secluded did seclude and separate themselves from the Publike Interest before they were secluded p. 28. But wherein he tells us not And is this either evidence or conviction to seclude us a Quis insons erit si accusasse sufficiat 2ly He addes our seclusion is justifiable by Lex talionis because We had some time before secluded the honest party of the House by encouraging the Apprentices who came to the House door draveaway the faithful party of which the Members now sitting are principal â—hat the Speaker and they were forced to fly out of Town for 〈◊〉 to the Army c. And Mr. Prynne and all his party approved this Procéeding Here Interest lies for the whetstone For 1. Mr. Prynne sate not at all as a Member in the House till Novemb 7. 1648. being elected but in August before without his privity and much against his will This tumult was in July 1647. above a year and quarter before yet Mr. Prynne must then assent to it as a Member and be guilty of it and all his charges p. 30 31 32. before he was a Member and be for ever convicted and silenced thereby 2ly There was never the least colour1 of truth or proof that any of the secluded Members raised or encouraged this tumult of the Apprentices 3ly Most of them to my knowledge did then both in publike and private declare their dislike thereof as much as any now sitting 4ly These Apprentices secluded not one Member out of the House much lesse secured any as the Army did but only kept most of them in the House till their petition was answered by them upon which they all departed without any future force After which the House adjourned from Monday night till Thursday morning because of the general Fast the Wednesday following 3ly The Members pretended to be forced out of Town by this tumult and to fly for protection to the Army departed not thence till some Army-Officers sollicited them by perswasions and menaces to repair to the Army and leave the House against their judgements as divers of them have confessed Particularly Mr: Lenthall the
aspersion cast on them by Mr. Prynne and Mr. Baxster as if they made and headed Sects had a powerful influence upon the Army in relation to their proceedings against the late King and Changes to reduce us under the power of ROME which the nameless Author saith the chiefest of their Clergy and Laity with whom he hath spoken protest to be a black Calumny Mr. P. and Mr. B. do neither of them charge the Roman Catholicks in general but only the Jesuites some of their Priests Friers and Jesuitial faction with these and other like practices fully charged and proved against them in Iesuitarum per Vnitas Belgii provincias negotiatio printed 1616. Hospinian and Ludovicus Lucius Historia Jesuitica Speculum Jesuiticum and others as well Papists as Protestants For their heading Sects and the late Quakers I have divers instances besides those published to evidence it and for their deportment in relation to the Kings death and the change of our Government this one instance may satisfie them and others When the King was executed before Whitehall Jan. 30. 1648. Mr. Henry Spottesworth riding casually that way just as his head was cut off espied the Queens Confessor there on Horseback in the habit of a Trooper drawing forth his sword and flourishing it over his head in triumph as others there did at this spectacle At which being much amazed and being familiarly acquainted with the Confessor he rode up to him and said 3. O Father I little thought to have found you here or any of your profession at such a sad spectacle To which he answered There were at least forty or more Priests and Iesuites there present on Horseback besides himself which being afterwards objected by a Protestant friend of his to a Romish Priest he had no excuse to make for it but this that one end of his their coming thither was That if the King had died a Roman Catholick he might not want a Confessor had he desired one This the Gentleman now dead and his Sister whom the Confessor oft sollicited to turn Papists within few daies after and at other times seriously related to a Bencher of Lincolns Inne his familiar acquaintance who oft reported it to me and others using it as one chief reason Why thy refused to turn Papists and because they also found the Jesuits and Popish Priests both before and after the Kings death had divers meetings about London to alter the Government and disinherit the Kings posterity Which compared with their releases from Imprisonment and free liberty they enjoyed ever since the Kings death till now under the New Republike whiles divers Protestant Ministers Gentlemen Noblemen and some Members were under close restraints With the late proviso in the Proclamation of Iuly last occasioned by my Narrative for Banishing Iesuits Priests and such Cavaliers of the Kings party who had not compounded the principal parties aimed at by the 1. of August under pain of High Treason Provided that if any of them Jesuits or Popish Priests a Traytors by sundry Laws yet in force as well as Protestant Cavaliers made Traytors only by this New proclamation equally ranged with Iesuits Priests and only inquired after should submit themselves to the present Government and give security for their obedience and peaceable deportment that this proclamation should not extend unto them but that they might still continue amongst us Since which I hear of sundry Protestant Ministers Gentlemen Noblemen and some secluded Members secured imprisoned prosecuted in most Counties which every Diurnal is fraught with but not with one Iesuit or Popish Priest yet apprehended though there be multitudes of them in England Which New Evidences compared with those in my Narrative and other publications will I trust fully satisfie all disinteressed persons in this grand Question till time shall discover further proofs as it doth each year to resolve this controversie if these be not sufficient As for I. Rogers and his Disciples they deny the Jesuits and Popish party to have any share in our late Changes because they would monopolize the honor and reward thereof to themselves alone witness this querulous passage to his revived High Court of Parliament p. 96. We can tell you that no men in England did more if so much move run write meet counsel pray sit up night and day to effect your return into the place of Trust where you now are than those whom you grieve â—light frown upon and do least for in point of justice conscience or encouragement This is grievous and must needs prove dangerous to the whole at the last And p. 119. We have suffered Bonds banishment plunderings perils of life liberty estates 5 of 6. years together in many prisons one after another and yet no reparation restitution provision or encouragement for holding ouâ— like Fortresses against so hard a siege All this for the Cause and Commonwealth worthy of thanks at least who have been Instruments of your Restitution but these are slighted by friends and foes the Pipers Dancers and Devisers of New Forms to trouble us with that are rather the Incubus than Incumbents of a Frée-State If this his Complaint be true it is either a just punishment of God upon him and them for their Innovations Prov. 24. 21 22. or an Evidence the Jesuits and Romanists had a greater share and activity in the Cause and our Changes than He and his Wee which makes them so much slighted and them in greater favor than before The last Question Question 6 professedly handled by Nedham obliquely by Rogers the substance of both their Pamphlets is this which concerns me as an English Freeman briefly to debate that the World may judge whether I and other secluded Members be so * Beblam-mad or such Breakers of our Trusts and Enemies to the publike as they scandalously report us Whether our 〈◊〉 hereditary Kingly Government and restitution thereof to the Right Heir or late yet unformed revived Commonwealth and future establishment thereof to prevent a Relapse to Kingship and Kingly Government be Englands true publike Interest as Men or Christians What I formerly alleged in my Speech and Memento 1648. Anatomy and Narrative 1659. in defence of Kings and Kingly Government and the mischiefs of a Republike to which these Antagâ—nists have not answered one syllable is sufficient to resolve this Question I shall only adde thereto by way of Supplement 1. In the affirmative That the restitution and preservation of our old hereditary Kingly Government by Common consent especially upon the substance of the late Kings large Concessions in the Isle of Wight is the only true publike Interest of England both as Men and Christians As Men 1. Because it is that form of Government which all our Predecessors in this Island whether Briâ—ons Saxens Danes Normans English have constantly embraced continued maintained as all our * Historians assert from its first plantation by Brute till 1648. except during their sore bondage under the Roman
lieu of the former 35 thousand besides Excises Customs New intollerable Militiaes amounting to thrice as much more Besides it consumed all the Crown-lands Church-lands publike Revenues of our 3. Kingdoms with thousands of Delinquents estates all alienated dissipated being more expensive oppressive wastefull to our Nation in ten years space than all our Kings since the Norman Conquest or Saxon line only to make us greater slaves to our late Mercinary Army Servants Fellow Subjects than ever we were to our beheaded King or any of his roial predecessors whose a loyns were nothing so heavy as their little finger chastising us with Scorpions in new arbitrary tyrannical Committees High Courts of Justice and other exorbitant Judicatures when as our Kings corrected us but with rods It hath subverted our Kings Parliaments Peers Laws Liberties Properties Great Charters legal Courts Writs Seals Commissions Judges Justices Sheriffs Officers Coynâ— Government destroyed our publike and private wealth Trade Unitie Amitie Peace Timber Palaces Woods Shipping and many thousands of our gallantest Sea-men Land-men by bloudy wars with our Protestant Brethren Allies and brought us to the very brink of ruin in all our Civil Concernments as Men As Christians by its toleration fomentation of Sects Heresies of all sorts it hath shaken undermined in a great measure the very Deitie of God the Father God the Son and God the Holy Ghost the Trinitie of Persons and Unitie in the Godhead the Authoritie Divinitie of the Scriptures all the Artiâ—les of the Creed the Sacraments Ministers and Ministrie of the Gospel the Fabricks of many the Freeholds of all the maintenance of most of our Churches Ministers all now meer Tenants at sufferance and removable sequestrable taxable at our Republican Grandees pleasures yea their new Heralds Baylifs to proclame in Churches whatever they prescribe under pain of ejectment or their heaviest indignation In brief the introduction of our unshaped Republike by Perjurie Treacherie Violence bloud fraud Injustice destruction of our Protestant Kings Lords Parliaments hath made many zealous professors of Religion Jesuites in their policies principles practises a Atheists in their works Christ himself and the Gospel as the Atheistical Pope esteemed them a meer Fable in the repute of many yea the Protestant Religion a meer seminary of Treason Rebellion Sedition Hypocrisie Perjury Disloyalty Villany Ataxy Antimonarchy and the zealous Professors of it the meer firebrands of Rebellion Sedition high Treason against their Soveraigns in the estimation of b Foreign Jesuits Papists and Popish Princes who endeavour their total extirpation throughout the world as such And can it be then Englands true Interest as Men or Christians 5. J. Rogers himself the Grand Champion for the Good Old Cause and Commonwealth in his Concertation p. 100 103 104 116 117. informs us That Commonwealths are alwayes subject to frequent changes and alterations every one more oppressive tyrannical cruel bloudy prejudicial destructive to the peoples Liberties properties lives than the other instancing in the Romans and Athenians which committed the greatest outrages upon the people being little better than a daily Massacre of the most eminent Worthies and Hangmen Tormentors of the Commons Which Vicissitudes Alterations proved the Athenians utter destruction and may be a fair warning to us because the Causes of such mutations are the most dangerous Commotions which tend to the Ruine of All as he proves but of Aristotle Polit. l. 5. c. 1. for prevention whereof he prescribiâ— 12 Considerations unable to cure the fluctuatinge uncertain state and mischief of a Commonwealth of which we have already had and shall sodenly have again sufficient experience And can a Commonwealth then be Englands present or future Interest in any sence In brief as it is the beautie safety interest of every natural living body whether of men beasts fowls fishes or creeping things to have only one head to govern one Soul to animate it by Gods own most divine and wise institution a two-headed bodie being an unnatural uselesse Monster and a double-souled man creature unstable in all his wayes Jam. 1. 8. So it is the safetie beautie interest ligament of every Politick bodie whatsoever Hence we find not only in all Monarchies but in all Republikes themselves one Master over every Family one Mayor over every City one Rector over every College School Hospital Fraternitie one Sheriff over every County one Governor over every Province one Rector over every Parish Church and Congregation as there is but ‖ one King Lord Head Mediator Jesus Christ over the Catholike Church one Pilot over every ship one Admiral in chief over every Fleet and in Armies themselves one General and Chief Commander over every Army Brigade Partie one Colonel over every Regiment one Captain over every Companie Troop one Governor over every Fort Garison both abroad and at home a Pluralitie of Lords Masters Generals Governours Rectors c. being alwaies in all and every of these not only dangerous troublesom inconvenient chargable but distractive and destructive too as all Ages Nations have concluded from reason and experience Therefore a Monarchical hereditarie Kingly Government let Rogers Nedham and our Innovating frantick Republicans prate what they will must be Englands true and only Interest honor safety felicity both as Men and Christians so long as there shall be but * one Sun in the heavens to rule the day and one Moon the night Monarchy and One-nesse being the only Ground ligament of Peace Unity Safety both in Church State but Polarchie the cause of ruin confusion as God only wise resolves against all brain sick Novellers Ephes. 4. 3 4 5. 6 1 Cor. 8. 6. c.. 12. 4 5 6 11 to 31. Pro. 28. 2. Isay 19. 2 3. c. 9. 19 20 21. Ezech. 37. 22 to 28. 1 Kings 14. 30. c. 15. 7. 16. Let this last Question be now put to all the Freemen of the English Nation and of Scotland Ireland too whom it all alike concerns and the a Army with those b now sitting have formerly voted TO BE THE ONLY SUPREME AUTHORITY OF THE NATION and themselves to be but their Servants not their Soveraigns and therefore cannot in reason justice conscience deny them or any of them the freedom of their voices herein in the present juncture of our affairs and then I dare pawn my reputation life against my Antagonists I shall have above a thousand voices concurring with me to one consenting with them And having both Vox Populi and Vox Dei too thus suffragating with me in the Supreme universal Parliament of all English Freemen without the House I hope no private Persons not commissioned by the peoples free elections will presume to contradict or repeal their Major Vote within the Commons House though they have thrice secluded me out of it by armed guards before any legal Accusation trial or conviction whatsoever from pleading of this their publike cause therein which I wholly submit to their Universal Censure and Decision