every of them And hereunto I subscribe my Name And I shall give the Reader that pure that holy Oath indeed the Solemn League and Covenant which was the Head-spring of those others and the Fountain of all Evills that overflowed the three Nations WE Noblemen Barons Knights Gentlemen Citizens The Solemn League and Covenant Burgesses Ministers of the Gospel and Commons of all sorts in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland by the Providence of God living under one King and being of one Reformed Religion having before our eyes the Glory of God and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Honour and Happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity and the true publick Liberty Safety and Peace of the Kingdoms wherein every ones private Condition is included And calling to mind the treacherous and bloody Plots Conspiracies Attempts and Practices of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in all places especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion and how much their rage power and presumption are of late and at this time increased and exercised whereof the deplorable Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland the dâ—stressed Estate of the Church and Kingdom of England and the dangerous Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland are present and publick testimonies We have now at last after other means of Supplication Remonstrance Protestations and Sufferings for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter ruine and destruction according to the commendable practice of these Kingdoms in former times and the example of Gods people in other Nations after mature deliberation resolved and determined to enter into a mutual and solemn League and Covenant wherein we all subscribe and each one of us for himself with our hands lifted up to the most High do Swear 1. That we shall sincerely really and constantly through the Grace of God endeavour in our several Places and callings the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government against our common Enemies The Reformaâ—â—on of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government according to the Word of God and the Example of the best Reformed Churches And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion Coâ—fession of Faith Form of Church-Government Directory for Worship and Catechising that we and our Posterity after us may as Brethren live in Faith and Love the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us 2. That we shall in like manner without respect of persons endeavour the extirpation of Popery Prelacy that is Church-government by Archbishops Bishops their Chancellours and Commissaries Deans Deans and Chapters Arch-Deacons and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierarchy Superstition Heresie Schism Prophaness and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness lest we partake in other mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues And that the Lord may be one and his Name one in the three Kingdoms 3. We shall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in our several vocations endeavour with our Estates and Lives mutually to preserve the Rights and Privileges of the Parliaments and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms That the World may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just power and greatness 4. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been or shall be Incendiaries Malignants or evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any faction or parties amongst the people contrary to this League and Covenant that they may be brought to publique Tryal and receive condign â—unishment as the degree of their offences shall require or deserve or the Supreme Judicatories of both Kingdoms respectively or others having power from them for that effect shall judge convenient 5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms denyed in former times to our Progenitors is by the good Providence of God granted unto us and hath been lately concluded and setled by both Parliaments We shall each one of us according to our place and interest endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity and that Justice may be done upon the wilfull Opposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article 6. Wee shall also according to our places and callings in this common Cause of Religion Liberty and Peace of the Kingdoms assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof and shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terrour to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and conjunction whether to make defection to the contrary part or to give our selves to a detestable indifferencie or neutrality in this Cause which so much concerneth the glory of God the good of the Kingdoms and honour of the King but shall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein against all opposition and promote the same according to our power against all lets and impediments whatsoever And what we are not able our selves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known that it may be timely prevented and removed All which we shall do as in the sight of God And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many Sins and provocations against God and his Son Jesus Christ as is too manifest by our present distresses and dangers the fruits thereof We profess and declare before God and the World our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own sins and for the sins of these Kingdoms especially that we have not as we ought valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof aâ—d that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts nor to walk worthy of him in our Lives which are the causes of other sins and transgressions so much abounding amongst us And our true and unfeigned purpose desire and endeavour for our selves and all others under our power and charge both in publick and in private in all duties we owe to God and Man to amend our lives and each one to goe before another in the example of a real Reformation That the Lord may turn away his wrath and heavy indignation and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in Truth and Peace And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God the
guilt for which this Gentleman will not find a Parallel among the Irish as he will not for those horrid Oaths to maintain a new erected Government written in the blood of our late Soveraign of ever happy memory and to debaâ— our new King and his Posterity from any access to the Crown so solemnly and so frequently sworn by many anâ— many thousands in the three Dominions 34. Must it be said then that P. W's eye is evill or does â—e Pag. 12. â—epine at any grace conferr'd upon others because he pretends a share in the Kings Mercy and as an inducement thereunto alleges that his Majesty has already conferr'd it on those who were more faulty 35. I believe this Gentleman is as ignorant of the Popish Tenet of Merit as he is sollicitoâ—s to invent slaws in the Pag. 13. proceedings of the Irish and then to comment upon them Our Saviour engages himself by promise to bring us to his Kingdom if we perform the will of his Father and he gives us way to claim it by vertue of that Promise as our own right although it be himself that gives us vellâ— agere 36. Here I must intreat the Reader that in all passages where he finds mention of the English Protestants he do remember with what fallacy my Adversary would circumvent him and elude my intentions under the notion of that name And in confidence that he will not forget how I disclaim in having spoken or intending to speak hereafter any thing of the English Protestant Royalists but with honour applause of their resolute Loyalty I proceed to those which this Gentleman calls rational Inducements for his Majesty in the degrees Pag. 13. of his Grace to discriminate between the Irish Papists and English Protestants 1. I am most certainâ— that those who could best represent the hearty affections of the English Nation would never The Person of Quality's Inducemenâ—s for his Majesty to discriminate retorted consent to cast off his Majesties Authority and that as soon as the People in general that for a long time stood amazed and were astonished at these strange things which they saw acted had recovered their Senses and were free from the Fright which seized on them they brought home his Majesty For let me speak it to their honour that although many were instrumental and the Duke of Albemarle eminently in performing that duty yet it was the People of England in general that did the work The Banks of Power that were rais'd against the Sea of their affections began to shrink And as is said of Bees it was known they were prepared to fight by their unusual humming King Charles began to be spoken of with reverence in the Market-place They drank his Health in Taverns No reproach from the Magistrate no fear of the Laws of the Times could silence the Multitude King Charles was prayed for in some Churches and his Picture was sought for by all men When this was observ'd that which must have been done was done in the most convenient manner What is alleg'd Pag. 13. against the Irish in the Comparison is already abundantly refelled where we demonstrate that the Representatives of that Nation opposed the proceedings of the Clergy at Jame-stown And therefore this Gentleman might well have spar'd the rest of that Paragraph with that quaint expression of their banishing and their Excomâ—unicating his Majesty Pag. 13. in effigie in his Vice-Roy 37. 2ly If those English Protestants submitted absolutely and freely to his Majesty they cannot deny that they deferr'd Pag. 13. so doing too long and did but their duty when they submitted And if to obtain a promise from the King by Articles be so hainous a Crime in the Irish Catholicks what share must they have that forc'd that compell'd that necessitated his Majesty to do so Who were the Contrivers the Fomenters and Maintainers of the late troubles spoken of in the Kings Dcelaration Who were those that erected that odious Court for taking away the life of his dear Father Let those English Protestants claim his Majesties Grace Pag. 13. because sayes he they submitted to his Majesty freely and absolutely And let this Gentleman be contented the Irish Catholicks claim the Grace of his Majesties promise in the Articles of Peace untill he brings more pregnant arguments to perswade the Reader that the foundation of them is dissolv'd on Pag. 14. all parts Those Articles are printed and such as will read them may find that they merit not the Character they receive from this Gentleman as if by them the King had transferr'd all the Regalia both Ecclesiastical and Temporal which is an Hyperbole of the first Magnitude Yet if a nice judgement should find any thing less moderate in those concessions who are most to be blam'd either those that necessitated the King to grant them or those that accepted them And sure I am it sufficiently appears out of his Majesties own words in his fore-mentioned Declaration for the settlement of Ireland that the force compulsion and necessity was put on him by those that erected that odious Court for taking away his Fathers life 38. â— ly The Irish repine not that those English have been remitted their Forfeitures and are in possession of their Estates nor do they oppose the satisfaction set forth Pag. 14. by the Act of Parliament for the Adventurer according to the intention of it 39. 4ly If the over powring of a People that fought by the Kings Commission against the Men the Purse and the Fleet of England strengthned with the revolted Party that betrayed Cork and the rest of his Majesties Towns and Forts in Munster and assisted by Owen ô Neill and his Army shall be call'd a Conquest those English Protestants can only be said to have been Conquerours in their turn For the English Catholicks more than four hundred years before had planted the English Interest in all the parts of it under a much more lawful Authority than that under which those English Protestants prevail'd And this Person of Quality in Ireland having made use of those Arguments which the Man in the dark in England gave in against me concerning the incompatibility of these two Parties living together and P. W. having disproved that Position by a long discourse in his former Reply he will not trouble the Reader with Repetitions This only I will add that it is Pag. 14. more probable those English Protestants that once held Anti-Monarchical Principles should again assume them than that the Irish Catholicks who at all times express'd an aversion from them should embrace them And since both Parties sought at several times by his Majesties Commission it is more probable that the Irish Papists who fought longest in the dayes of His adversity and against all extremities for his Interest at home and stuck to him in his Banishment abroad should have more hearty affection for his Person and Royal Authority than those Protestants
in all capacities and by actual instances and those too very manifold of titles of honour and places of greatest authority profit and trust with his Majesties most faithful and approved Subjects 155. And I cannot but further observe the indiscretion of this Gentleman that by upbraiding others with a repetition of lesser Crimes or suppose them equivalent which they cannot be justly supposed and a repetition of such even to loathing leaves himself or his Cause and Party let himself be guiltless open to the same reproach or a farr greater He should have remebred how the godly Malefactor on the Cross did rebuke his fellow that railed Neque tu Deum times qui in eadem damnatione es Dost Luc. 26. 40. not thou fear God since thou art in the same condemnation Or at least reflected on that of the King in the Parable to the cruel inexorable Servant Serve nequam omne debitum dimisi tibi quia rogasti me nunquid ergo oportuit te misereri conservi tui sicut ego tui misertus sum Matth. 18. O Mat. 18. 32. thou wicked servant I pardoned thee ten thousand talents and pardoned thee so great a debt only of pure compassion only because thou desiredst me shouldst not thou also have compassion for thy fellow servant and not presently take him by the throat and throw him in prison for a hundred pence and be nothing moved with his extreme poverty and his unfeigned humiliation or with all his pittiful intreaties or with all his best purposes promises and offers Our Person of Quality might have reflected hereon if he pleased and on the terrible sentence immediately given on that hard-hearted Servant and on the Ministers of Justice apprehending him and binding him hand and foot and throwing him into utter darkness even into a place of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth And this Person of Quality might have on consideration of all determined with himself that he had done much better to have spared himself and me both some ink and some paper and some labour too 156. But I fear he is one of those we read in Solomon's Wisdom Blinded with their own malice or of those in Esay Wisdom c. 2. v. 21 Esay c. 6. v. 10. Jeremy c. 13. v. 23. Who hear and will not understand But whether also that question of the Prophet Jeremy in the 13 Chapter of his Book may not be and that very pertinently too asked here in relation to him Nunquid potest Aethiops mutare pellem suam aut Pardus varietates suas Can the Aethiopian change his Skin or the Leopard his spots the Reader may determine For my part I cannot otherwise think than that it may when I see this Gentleman tâ—ke a rise from P. W ' s. Parallel for the inserting of those two particulars which immediately Pag. 92. follow his former advice and when I yet see the further and plain explication of them both and the period of his otherwise incredible malignity in that which next comes after and which he calls and is indeed the conclusion of his whole infamous Book The first is If any of the Children of P. W ' s. Clyents lose their Lands though actually they were not guilty of their Pag. 92. Fathers Rebellion let him remember even in the Case which he instances that the seven Sons of Saul were hanged up to the Lord in Gibeah of Saul though they had not actually slain these Gibeonites for which they themselves were punished Let him also remember that till justice was done the famine lasted and after it was done the famine ceased Those lost their lives for their Fathers sin but these if any lose but their Fathers forfeited Lands for their Fathers crimes 157. Supposing Reader thou wilt not be abused by this Gentlemans if any twice repeated here either through some uncertainty belike of what he apprehended may be future or of purpose to conceal the Design which yet he cannot conceal in his next Particular joyned with his concluding Wish specially if you compare these to his very invidious and very false both suppositions and assertions before given of the whole Irish Nations having broken the Peace and consequently forfeited their Estates And moreover if you compare that his Particular and his conclusive Wish to the strict Qualifications of Innocents could he or his friends enact such as they strugled for I must beg your patience a little if I alter the Scene and place this Gentleman and his Party on the Stage to answer this first Particular instead of P. W. and his Countrymen and Clients 158. For put the case that some fourteeen years past in the very heat of War when the long Parliament was rampant and his late most sacred Majesty of glorious remembrance was forced to put himself into the power of his Enemies this Person of Quality and those he pleads for had out of remorse of Conscience and real sense of their duty though withall out of a desire to provide for their own safety under Kingly Government according to the Laws established in the Kingdom returned willingly and passionately to their Obedience and this too upon publick Articles of Peace but with intent partly and of design to rescue his Majesty whom they had never intended to dethrone or to exclude his Line or Family from the Crowns of England Ireland or Scotland notwithstanding any other evills which the nature of a War into which they had been hurried and partly constrained to undertake might be charged upon them yea notwithstanding the murther of some hundreds of innocent people which the rascal multitude amongst them had upon the first Insurrection committed and the plundring withall of many thousands and the killing also of yet a farr greater number in the prosecution of War and of Souldiers or men armed coming against them in hostile manner And suppose they had withall submitted or brought in with them to obey his Majesty so many strong Cities Forts Castles so many great Shires and fruitful Provinces and an Army so numerous of Horse and Foot as the Catholick Irish did even a whole Kingdom for the matter two Cities alone and some few Regiments and other scattered Companies adherents to them in Boggs and Woods and Mountains only excepted And that notwithstanding through some hidden causes or secret displeasure of God or accidents of War that are very ordinary or through some unlucky division arising or newly kindled or revived and heightned and strengthned too of purpose either by a distrustful or malevolent Party amongst them the common Enemy and suppose that Enemy had been the Irish did prevail And suppose moreover those repentant Converts of our Person of Quality as to their generality or greater part and even as to their Representatives had sadly beheld many of their own People and even some of their own Towns proving disobedient and refractory to commands and even most grievous affronts done and if you please too some thoughts of treachery
this Reply and partly in my Printed Letter and Irish Colours Folded and others have more amply in several occasions and his Majesty whose testimony and authority is above all exception most graciously and truly declares in his publick Act of Settlement as we have now seen That what this Trifling Author of Horae subsecivae objects of an interloping Conquerer c. makes no alteration in the Case For 1. I must tell this Gentleman he doth no less ignorantly than improperly style the success of the Usurper a Conquest or him a Conquerer The raising of Armes by Subjects against their Soveraign had never yet any name in England or Ireland or in the Laws of either but Rebellion and Treason And the effects of Treason and Rebellion can never be termed properly or truly a Conquest nor the prevailing Traytor a Conquerour For that were to give a Right and Title that might pass to the Traytor 's Posterity in succession 2. That Charles the 2. whom God preserve and his Father are looked on by this Author and by this Objection as dispossess'd by the Usurper Which is plain ignorance or at least a willful and malicious mistake of the Laws of England which so preserve the Possessions of the Crown as the King cannot be dispossessed by a Subject A Subject may intrude and take the profits of the Land belonging to the King But this in Law can never amount to the dispossessing of the King Where-ever Charles the 2. was the 30th of January in the Year 1648. being the fatal day of his Father's death eo instanti he began his Reign and therefore now is the 16. Year thereof Whereas if he could be dispossess'd of his Crown by his rebellious Subjects and that horrid Action could be styled a Conquest and his regaining thereof again a new Conquest this should be but the fourth Year of his Reign And who sees not it were a very ill exchange for his Majesty to forgoe his antient and undoubted Right to the Crown of England and to own his holding and enjoyment thereof by Conquest on an Usurper who could pretend no right thereunto 3. That that his ground of his former bold impious and bloody Assertion or after-conclusion thence derived of an interloping usurping Conquerour if admitted for sound or solid for good or true Doctrine might prove very disadvantagious and injurious to his Majesties Subjects in general English and Scots of what Religion soever no less than Irish Papists even I say in their Estates Liberties and Lives For if a King come even to a Christ an Kingdom by Conquest he hath Vitae Necis potestatem He may at his pleasure alter and change the Laws of that Kingdom as appears in Cook l. 7. Report Calamy s Case 4. That he falsly charges the Irish Papists to have owned c. the Usuprer as I have a little above declared 5. That he doth as falsly and ignorantly or at least out of designed malice and against his own Conscience averr That the Civilians have in like Cases long since decided this Case of the Irish truly stated as I have above or any way decided for him that of an interloping usurping Conquerour c. applyed to Charles the 2. and his good Subjects whether English Scots or Irish even I mean those very Irish Papists that formerly had been Confederates and after submitted to his Majesty or his Father upon Articles fought constantly for him and under his Banner and by his Commission against the Usurper and never submitted since to any other Power whatsoever but with his said Majesties own consent If this Gentleman can allege but even one Civilian for himself even I say in this Case of his or any other such interloping usurping Conquerour truly applyed I will grant him somewhat to excuse his no less inhumane than uncharistian and most horrid Assertion But I am confident all his malice cannot find one whom he dares quote in writing or print So farr doth he speak as out of all reason so out of all Books 6. That by consequence necessary following the obligation of publick Agreements the Irish cannot be punished by the King as this Author sayes they may Lege Talionis no more than he can by any other Law as is before shewed of God or Man War or Nations For the King hath already bound his own hands from acting against them by retaliation or otherwise acknowledges himself to be so bound in honour and justice according I mean to those Articles of 48. and to such as cannot be proved to have by after disobedience or siding with an Enemy forfeited them And so I bid this learned honest prudent Author of Horaesubsecivae adieu and to his impertinent reflections on this subject and my self And will only add this to thee judicious Reader to be considered whether it be not agreeable to all justice and equity that those who lost their lives and fortunes in asserting his Majesties Cause as they have been losers and afflicted with him and for him too in his adversity ought not in these dayes of his Majesties power and prosperity regain thereby their lost fortunes especially where the Publick Faith was engaged for their restitution As for that scruple which peradventure some may think uncleared as yet of some few or even many of those Articling Papists of Ireland to have forfeited the benefit of those Articles and not for themselves alone but even for all the rest of their Countrymen though not in their own persons guilty of any such breach as those were or any at all And for the ground or reason alleged by some for this scruple viz. That by the prevarication of those few or many whether the greater or lesser part of that People whether the Representatives of the whole or nor the Kings end in granting those Articles was frustrated forasmuch as thereby it happened that he could not carry on his main Design then against the Usurpers And as for that too which is further alleged to this purpose or for the illustration of it and further grounding of that scruple That if a Garrison be dismissed out of a Town upon certain Articles of War to be freely and safely conveighed to their own Quarters or General and that any part of them break any of these Articles which they were to observe at their peril the whole number have forfeited their right to any such free passage or safe convey and are at the mercy of the Conquerour It is answer'd That the End by either side proposed to themselves in making a Peace or Articles being frustrated doth not invalidate such Peace or Articles unless such End be in those Articles expressed and further clear express caution inserted in the Agreement that otherwise it shall be void Else I pray what Stipulation Pact Agreement or Peace on Earth can hold or oblige either side And for that Example of a Garrison Town or Souldiers capitulating on Articles of War it s answered The condition of Subjects enjoying the benefit and protection of the Laws is faâ—r different from that of Enemies A just Coâ—querour may without injustice if he please so he break not his word take from his Enemies even thâ—ir lives and that not only for the crime or breach of some but in some cases without any such crime or breach by any of them But a just King cannot so carry himself towards his own Subjects whom he doth once own as such and as such to be protected and governed by his Laws as other free-born Subjects For such he cannot without injustice punish for the Disobedience Breach or Rebellion of any other lesser or even greater part of their fellow Subjects whether these represent the whole body of his Subjects or not whether they frustrate or not his best Designes and his greatest most glorious and just Enterprizes or nor Otherwise what should become according to such Law and Justice I speak of all the good Subjects of England Ireland Scotland if the King pleased to proceed according to that rigour of Justice against them when he was re-inthroned Nay what should become of all other good Subjects of any Prince or State on Earth ' gainst whom there have been such frequent Rebellions Besides it is against the true meaning of all Laws Divine and Humane that a Judge or Prince doing Justice to his â—ubjects in a legal way not by force of Armes should involve the Innocent in the guilt or punishment of the Nocent And therefore it is plain that neither that Scruple Reason of it nor Example or Similitude brought to strengthen it can make any thing for them that would thence conclude the King is wholly free from any Obligation to any part of the Irish Catholicks arising from the Articles of 48. They have been since that Peace of 48 Subjects not Enemies And those Articles had not any such Clause inserted that in case any part lesser or greater Representatives or not should break the Conditions the rest should likewise forfeit and the End frustrated doth not make them to forfeit FINIS