from Scotland to ease our burthen so that person laid the plot of Prerogative and persecution and left the prosecution of it to his Successors which they have not failed in But our neerer acquaintance and that which begot friendship betwen us seemed to have laid on a more contrary yet sure foundation not on our union under one King but their falling out with him and opposing the effects of his Fathers plots and his sons Tyranny an act then very new and strange that both gained them hatred and respect according to the disposition of the Court and the temperature of the Kingdom and had gained them immortal glory to all Nations if they had been as uniform and even in the series of action as they were hot and violent in their first motions and agitations about it For the late King having been fully acquainted with his Fathers principles which he had a peaceable time to fortify and observed whom he made his enemies and friends did endeavour to go on where he left off and to propagate them with that zeal that an interested Agent ought to do upon whom only the active part of the work lay which design as it was chiefly to advance the Prerogative above the Law and Episcopacy above the Gospel and both as a step to Popery so it was carried on by degrees in England both as to Civils and Ecclesiasticals and so less discerned and the great method was to begin with Scotland first which as it was more remote so it taking full effect there as an Essay it might be effected in England with more power knowing that England was the more Heroick free and noble Nation and more incapable of bondage and slavery and they well knew it would be hard on a sudden to make a Civil War in England after so long a Summer of peace especially ere they had tryed what could be done with the two other Kingdoms But it first brake out in Scotland on a sudden and too violently by the zeal of the Archbishop of Canterbury who to provoke them sent them a new Common-Prayer-book worse then ours which was bad enough with many revilings and affronts publickly to the whole Nation that the Scots had nothing else but the grosness of the plot to oppose which yet was sufficient to move them to preserve themselves our condition was much worse by how much we lay more directly under the design and both the burthens of oppression and persecution with less plea and power to oppose The Scots soon resent those actings and unite themselves together and put themselves into a posture of defence against the King and his Incendiaries at Court and at last come into England to prevent the Kings coming with an Army to Scotland and in a little time they gained their desires with something from England over and above This first engagement against the King Common-Prayer and Bishops all which lay heavy on our consciences did not only gain them their own desires but got them the hearts of true Englishmen and abundance of reverence to their Cause and Nation yea all honest and godly men to whom then the thoughts of any Liberty was sweet and the glimmerings of probable hopes precious fell down at their feet espoused their quarrel and though their actings had but an occasional influence upon our condition our whole Parliament suffered a dissolution rather then they would contribute a farthing to make a war against them though Parliaments were then rare monuments of Priviledges to us and of such necessity to our affairs and we were hopeless of attaining any more and when the necessities of the King to get money moved him to call this Parliament as meaning once more to try the people we not onely again refused to act against Scotland but the first thing we did was to proclaim them our Dear Brethren and instead of granting Subsidies against them we gave them a gratuity of three hundred thousand pound sterling for standing up for their own just Liberties and giving us occasion of doing the same though some wise and single eyed men are not afraid to say that there was somewhat more in the end then preservation of Religion in that expedition First because there were many private animosities long before ripening about places among some great ones at Court and Scotland and that there was fire enough in these breasts to kindle a very great flame however they took occasion to kindle it at a fit season for the Scots 2. The revenues of the Court in Scotland were not so equally distributed among the Scots Noblemen but some got all 3. It was a fine Essay for the Noblemen and Gentry of Scotland having so good a pretence to try the temper of the English and take a clear prospect of our State But that which makes many especially believe that Religion was but a pretence is because they have made so little progress in the Reformation and purifying it among themselves and yet have made so many divisions in it and by it among us Others think their hatred was not so much against Superstition as Ceremony nor of Episcopacy but of its pontificalness in outward Ornaments which they could no so well maintain and their Nobility together But we must give them their due they had the first eminent occasion given them to oppose Innovations and they must have the honor of the first start we then thought them all Saints and at that time every breath after Religion and Profession of Reformation was so taking to good men who knew no way of attaining it by themselves that the Scot laid in a stock of credit which hath lasted them ever since having the first commendation of early risers though afterwards they might and did lie abed striving to secure their own interests and make use of others necessities which they have ever since carefully held to in all opportunities But the last and most special friendship hath been by our mutual conjunction in a common Cause against the late King and his malignant interest the King having for the present altered the Scene from Scotland to England though the design was the same against both we were fain to unite more closely and to profess against our common enemy yet as the Scots did not move or engage untill solemnly invited by our Parliament so we were loth to trouble them untill we saw them like to be engaged by others and we at present through the delayes and divisions of our first Armies were not able to improve our own strength This union was confirmed by the Solemn League and Covenant which one would think had been an everlasting foundation of Amity and love between us had it been well made and honestly kept But concerning this Covenant it is to be feared though it was solemnly taken yet it was carelesly made with much design and craft which God will punish as well as the breach of it For it was drawn by the Scots according to their sense and what
think the publick authority hath broken it they lay the charge on the whole and so reflectively we do not doubt but many private spirits in Scotland have kept chast and are not mixed with the former and present designs but as we are not to take notice of particular persons but as in their sphear but must judge of things by authoritative and National acts so we must lay the first and absolute breach of Covenant on that Nation which can never be repayed by any private professions and if England have broken it since it hath been by their example and because they have taken themselves discharged from their part in performance seeing the Scots have broke on their part first But if men will be impartial the ill use of the Covenant may be as bad as the breach of it if not worse and the truth is the several ill uses the Scots have made of that good thing hath made many careless in keeping of it for it hath been put to serve all turns the Personal Treaty the insurrections in England for a second war the Invasion of Scotland who came with the fullest sayles of the Covenant and now at last it is made to serve the Malignant Interest and to advance the Royal Party once the common Enemy against whom it was first made these and such like actings by it hath made the world beleeve that it was but a Scottish stratagem at first and is now become a defiled and common thing yet I could wish from my heart that it had been more conscienciously made and kept by both Nations But let us view the particulars of this charge The first is the not setting up of Presbyterial Government in England as it is in Scotland Reformation of Discipline being one of the main ends of it I have nothing to say against Reformation and of Discipline but only to say in general of it as the Apostle doth of the Law 1 Tim. 1.8 It is good if a man use it lawfully Yet that we may seriously weigh the thing as the Parliament held all care in calling together an Assembly of Divines and have hearkned unto their results so there were several precious spirits in the Assembly that could not well agree to a Scottish Presbytery and many things were offered by dissenting parties which though all were not of the mind of yet they saw much reason and Scripture in it and though Government were necessary yet they saw not that clearness of a Jure Divino as these of the North would have forc'd them unto the Assembly at first and after full debates were contented with such an expression as this That many Congregations may be under one Presbyterial Government which shewed only the prudential conveniency of the way at present and it never advanced further until the Scots would needs intrude their own Jus Divinum Discipline was with us and is a hard proposition and there are so many conscientious and honest and learned dissentors that it was found one of the hardest works to settle it either way however Scotland did leap over it by their opportunities But if we mean to lay the saddle on the right horse we may thank the Scots that Presbyterial Government hath not been fully setled in this Nation although they make it their great pretence For first they only proposed their own Model which was to be the exact pattern from which he was a Schismatick that dissented and to which they made the Word of God to stoop and by which they judged the whole nature of grace and all the State of Saints a Government which as it was much controverted and really thought unfit by moderate men so truly it was too course for our Christians and too tyrannical and imperious for the generousness and freedom of English Spirits Besides they wanted fit matter in every Congregation in England to build such a large superstructure upon the most of our Parishes being either under the darkness of formal or superstitious blindness or Malignant and horrid aversness from such an order and Government And if we could possibly get competent Members which must be a wonder yet for Elders you might traverse many Parishes ere you got one of a common capacity for such a work unless the Scots usual way of judging Elders and Members by were admitted viz. by taking the Covenant besides there was so much to say by Episcopal men on the one side and Congregational on the other and so much for an English and so much for a Scots Presbytery that the utmost result could be no more then a convenient probability And as all things were Schisme and Heresie that were not fully to that pattern which they thought infallible so England was utterly unprepared for such an universal and new structure that we were rather surprized and hurried into a form than any way fitly and ingenuously adapted to it For ere we had time to make any sutable survey of our fitness or any clear sight of the principle we were imposed upon by the Authority of a Government whose rule yet lay under debate the materials were so unfit and the rule so unclear that it made many of good affections to Discipline think it not to be the time for setting of it up or at least that the rule was not so fairly written for to hold it forth to all men in a word all things were so confused as to the materials of it in all or most places that many godly men thought either they must change their habitations or be put to sad shifts to satisfie their consciences in exercising all Ordinances which ought to be in a publick established Church Government But if we come to the manner of their actings the Scots who were the great Agents drove so furiously and made such faces on it that affrighted all sober and tender consciences from full closing in with it according to such a representation for ere they had proved the Divinity of it they would needs set up the Authority of it yea before they had cleared their principles they would have it enforc'd on all men to obey it and subscribe to it without any care of the best sort of consciences who were but newly released out of a like sort of bondage which certainly was not a wise act nor very religious for though many good men in the Assembly and Parliament were for that Government in its true nature and exercise yet they loved only an English not a Scottish Presbytery which differs little from Episcopacy but in the pontificalness of Ceremony it claiming and exercising as full and tyrannical a power against those that cannot stretch themselves to that uniformity as the other doth against non-conformity the great design of Scotland in urging not a but their Presbyterial Government so fiercely on England was to make their civil and Ecclesiastick transactions meet for as they had by their Treaties and our favours got a kind of a negative voyce in all our Counsels so by
proper And shall the Scots thus sprinkle blood upon all his garments and pass the sentence of condemnation on him and may not we lawfully execute it when never more bloody expressions were given to any Nero in the earth than Scotland gave to that King and as truly and yet they are angry with us for drawing out that blood which else would putrifie in his veins and for ever defile us This great and hainous act which the Scots so abhor as they led the way to it first so they were the hastners of it sooner than in probability it could have been effected for they made him stand out against all those just Propositions which were so often offered and denied and hardned his heart against giving full satisfaction giving him hopes of a better way for him to regain his ends and he who judged as a selvish Polititian could not but imagine that he need not to improve any other than his own principles for when they stirr'd so much for a personal Treaty and to wave the way of Propositions which he had so often knowingly rejected and made such ado about his person what could he think less than that his person was the unum necessariū and that we could never make our own peace without his being Umpire at least it made him believe his person was of more use than our Propositions and if we may make rational conjectures he had complied to any thing if the Scots had not made him think that he was the most useful person to the peace as he was to begin the war an Emblem of this the King himself gave I take it in the Isle of Wight when the King talking with our Commissioners threw a bone at his doggs before their faces that he might laught at them by a resemblance and intimate that while they were contending for him he would get his own ends When the Parliament of England saw how he was hardned against them and heightned by the Scots overtures to deny and scorn all our necessary Propositions what could we do less than improve our power to remove such a block which lay as the snare and temptation of all parties and at the catch of all our respects unto him What way was there left to prevent mischiefs and to settle affairs but that just severitie either we must have given him over to the Scots to Reform him as they have done his Son which is in English nothing but to make their own use of him against us or have lest the stain of all the Bloud unsatisfied for on this Nation or have been content to part with and be willingly cheated of our dear bought Liberties to save the bloud of a Tyrant who if he had lived longer would have cut a fresh vein in these three Nations which could hardly ever have been bound up what a Monument would it have been in England to see CHARLS STVART set up again in the English Throne with his Garments sprinkled do I say nay dyed in the bloud of the best people in the three Nations and to ride to the Parliament in such Robes and in a fair capacity of a double and deeper Tincture shall we ever be deluded with names and Titles and circumscribe Justice in the compass of some particular persons and not let it reign on the university of mankind But all men may easily judge the Scots never much lamented that person whom they did first condemn as a Tyrant and unfit to live of whose death they laid the surest foundations and is it not as lawful to behead him as imprison him when the urgency of affairs and his deserts merit the one as the other But no more of that he is sent to his Grave more Honourably than bloud-thirsty men are wont to be and so wil his Son if the Scots do not poyson him before he come to so much Honor. The next great ground of their hatred of us is The change of Government that we have not set up the Son to propagate his Fathers principles and follow his ends with revenge here they begin to Act according to their old way and take upon them to determine what Government we shall have what if England will change seven times yet more what is that to Scotland But the Mystery lies in this That we have cast off their King by whom they meant to share with us in the Priviledges of this Common-wealth and they are vext they must maintain a King alone whose name would do them better service in England than his Rule can do in Scotland Of the conveniency and necessity of a Change as we are the proper Judges so Scotland will invade us more really than we them if they offer to make another change among us we have not altered any thing of the Laws and Priviledges which are fundamental or fit for the happiness of our own Nation we have onely removed those persons who were the great obstructions in the full execution of them and who labored alwaies to render them useless or to overpower them by prerogative so that there is no alteration of the Government we having many good Laws which must not be abrogated but of the ill and Titular Governours whose names did more sway than the Laws and who superseded all Laws by their own wills But how comes it to pass that the Scots are so zealous about the Change of our Governors can they make us believe that they have so much care and love to us as to be so sadly troubled at our Changes seeing they themselves have made so many sad Changes amongst us or so much judgement as to know what Government is onely best for us No no we have got now so much out of that Fogg that we can discern between a Scotish Brotherly affection and an English Priviledge had not we changed him who must be their King and by whom they mean to further their old designs on us which are now grown riper by their cunning pretences of the Covenant we might have had what Government we would and had we altered and rased out all the Laws which are the veins and sinews of this body they would never have repin'd had we not cast off that person and so frustrated their hopes and I doubt not but if we had embraced Mahomets Religion we should have had better correspondencies with them than now we are like to have onely because we cannot jump the whole Nation into their form both in Kirk and State But had not we reason to change the Governors when we had like to lose both our first principles and the sense of all the signal victories of Gods Providence by a new name added to an old Malignant though a young pretender Could we possibly expect any savory fruit of such a rotten stock or that the Son who was engaged in the Fathers quarrrel and educated in his principles would act contrary to both if the Scots have more faith than we have or can get for the
they might be drawn farther South where better means might be had for redress in the mean time the burthen and misery was enough to busie us in patience and prayer yea so high they were grown that I heard a General person say debating about the rights of England and of their power over Englishmen that these distinctions must not be admitted the Covenant had made us one and that we were to be ruled by their Laws as our own I had not inserted these relations but only that we may see what use they made at first and meant to make of the Covenant The series of the actions and carriages of the Army were alwayes proportionable to these principles as if in their first Expedition they came to take our affections in the second to take away our priviledges and possess our inheritances As for their Military actions in prosecution of the War we need make no large Chronicle setting aside their lying before York the battel of Marston-Moor where they were assisted with two distinct English Armies and the taking New-Castle and Carlile in which they served themselves as well as us you may reduce all their services to a preserving their own borders saving their last journey in that Expedition into the South for March I cannot call it being there was no enemy in the way which yet was hardly obtained where though they shamefully left Hereford yet they got Newark and the King to boot of which more anon All the particulars of their strange deportment in the North will require a particular discourse and but burthen this I am sorry we have cause to repeat any thing of their miscarriages neither would I lessen their services but its time now to keep even reckoning and for England to know its own Interest But to go on God having almost beyond the faith of his people and expectation of Politicians blest our New Modell under the Command of that ever to be renowned Lord Fairfax to conquer the Kings Forces at Naseby Langport Cornwall that they had on a sudden beaten all their Field Forces and taken in most of their Garrisons save Oxford Hereford and some few more It put the Scots into new shifts and policies for they had kept their Army as the only reserve and Umpire and seeing things so strangely and without expectation altered by almost a miracle of providence and the main work to be done without them and no Martial work at all left for them on the Royal Party they secretly strive to make some that they might not leave us without doing something They were at a great loss in many regards by these new providences for first all their Commanders who had before the great command of the English Army had happily thrust themselves out of Office proudly slighting the New Model and scorning to stoop to a necessary Reformation and reduction of Officers which the State then saw fit whereby they wanted that influence in the Military part of our affairs which was of most concernment then unto us and we found the misery of it in the Lord General Essex his time by the delayes and neglects of opportunities which wasted our Treasure and gave the King too much ground to have got all and by the way it s not a useless observation seeing it is drawn by providence that God should lay aside and not use the Scots Army nor any of their great Officers in the full conquest of the common Enemy but while they were lying safe in their Quarters in the North getting in their Sesses God should prosper a poor despised Army and carry them from South to West conquering and to conquer that we may impartially say that they never were instrumental in one battle nor had a hand in the effectual accomplishment of that conquest there is something more in it then hath been taken notice of either by them or us and so much were they affected with the envy of that mercy that it was wonderful to see with what strange made faces they kept dayes of thanksgiving for every Victory which was obtained as ordinary as we had Marches Besides they might well think it mightily reflecting upon them that they should leave the Nation so much indebted to them and do them so little service But what an unexpressible favour God hath shewn to England in that he used our own Army to do the last work after-Ages will better judge if they got so much into our hearts and prevailed by the name of their brotherly assistance and reckoned on so much deserts from us that all our money and respects can never requite what would it have amounted unto if God had made them to do all that work for us The four Northern Counties had been a small testimony of our acknowledgements But that I may avoid tediousness the Scots seeing themselves so defeated and all their old instructions out of date think of a new way either to lengthen the war or slubber over the Peace which they had well contrived by their Commissioners who pretty well knew how to act their parts and had taken a full view of our affairs and having by our respects been admitted to all our Counsels and privy to most of our secrets for so kind we were they did soon cast our water and having had special advantages to view the generality of the people in the Parliament they observed them to consist of different tempers some but loosely principled and inclinable to the Royal Interest others but warily ingaged and almost neuters others very zealous for some express publick and national Government in the Church and capable of their severest notions others who were not much addicted to any seriousness and but a few truly engaged in the English Interest they strike in with the most comprehensive partie and fit baits sutable to them having but one interest to oppose they thought to crush them by strengthning the rest To take the one party which was not quite of Royal principles they deal with Mountril the French Agent to bring the King to their Army that after our Army had conquered him they might make use of him at least to gain breath to some other work That they might take the other party they press Reformation and cry up Presbyterial Government and that this temptation might not miss they closely joyn Royalty and Presbytery together as King James was wont to do Episcopacy and Royalty saying No Bishop no King The Forge wherein they formed all their Engines was the City of London the prime instruments to effect their design were closely some old formal discontented Citizens who had worn out their consciences with telling of money and some back-sliding and rotten Lords and Commons especially those who had been in the Army had lost their places and honor with the Scots Officers as Hollis Stapleton Waller Massey Graves Gentlemen who had their names up for a while among the people in regard of some particular acts in the war untill they
our faces what can be done next when Treaties are refused offers of Peace slighted must England bear all burdens like Issachar and stoop under them shall all the providences of God for this Nation be still darkned by a Scottish Mist must we let them do what they please to undermine overthrow all the happy issues of divine actings and yet we sit still shall they without rebuke and out of conscience be left alone to abuse our Parliament and Army enter into confederacies with all the enemies of this Nation and take upon them to impose a yong and raw Stripling as a King on us and yet no remedy to relieve our selves doubtless neither God nor the Scots would ever thank us for acting such a piece of folly There is a necessity of preventing a necessity and it is as lawfull for us to anticipate a mischief as to extricate our selves out of it when we are involved in it But that I may go on distinctly and by degrees let it be pondered in the weights of Justice and Equity what reason we have to enter Scotland to require satisfaction for their invading us whereby the Kingdom of England was endangered in the whole and many Counties were so much ruinated is it not enough that we have forborn all this while must we lose our Debts for want of demanding them and must we be slighted for our patiences and had not we need to ask satisfaction for the one when they are preparing for another that we may not trust too much where there is little to pay at last These questions are not in vain when we consider all things But whereas they say Its enough they have protested against that Invasion and that may be sufficient satisfaction It s easily answered if we reflect on the former Transactions and preparations to it who were the authors of it even these that protested against it who rather protested against the leaders then the Covenant and the person then the thing it self for the truth is these Gentlemen who had plaid their Cards so well in the South were cheated by Hamilton in the North who made use of all their preparations to ingross the power into his own hands Hamilton used the same arguments and profest the same principles which the Ministers had preacht used the same words for the Covenant and personal Treaty to reduce the Sectaries c. all these good words that they themselves now use and we have no reason but to belive with as true a heart Neither did ever the Kirk disavow a War with England upon these grounds until they saw their General and so we caught in their own snare for having by all their zealous agitations in Pulpit and Press made ready all things for a War they found they had unawares raised up a blacker Divel then they expected which they could not conjure down until God met him in the height of his progress by that Army which both he and they still make the Butt of their designs Besides grant all this to be a truth what is the protestation of private and particular persons to make satisfaction for National Dammages That invasion was by the Authority of a full Parliament after long and serious debates it is not for us to pry into their constitution if every party must be judge of the whole the Scots will soon lose all their pleas against England and their pretences against all our proceedings They may well remember how we acted to them in a far different cause at first when but a party in England and at Court acted against them and made a War to overthrow that Nation and infringe their Rights and Liberties as by Canterbury and Strafford though our Parliament abhorred the thoughts of it yet they would not out of England untill they had satisfaction for all their charges and gratuities to boot for preserving themselves which our Parliament freely and conscienciously gave them and yet it must be a crime in us to demand satisfaction for an actual and ruinating invasion by the absolute authority of their Parliament onely because some few private men who were as deep in the design as the invadors have out of some selvish reasons protested against it let our Brethren give us leave to reason would not the Protestation against all Transactions undertaken against the Scots by some few men in England by a full Parliament and all good peoples disaffection prevent the Scots from craving satisfaction of England who was innocent of any precedent missdemeanor but they must have full satisfaction onely for giving them occasion to form and raise an Army by these private designs without any actual ruin to that Nation and shall a discontented protestation against persons not the thing it self by some particular dissenters who laid the plot first of the same invasion for themselves be thought a just plea against our demands of satisfaction for the actual ruins of many of our Counties besides the Act of Oblivion of all the rest of their personal mis-behaviors we shall still appeal to Heaven if men will not hear us Had God permitted it That England had seen that miserable day that Hamilton had prevailed we should have had farther demonstration of their secret intentions it s now sufficient that we had an invasion to a very vast dammage to this Nation by the Commission of the Supreme authority of Scotland in that Act and no satisfaction but a bare protestation and a continued inveterate prosecution of the same design by these particular persons who are now the chief men in the Royal Covenant Engagement against England if God hath given us so much before hand as to forbear the paiment yet we should not be abused for the demands of our just debts and it s most hard and dis-ingenuous that we must be forced to pardon all former mis-carriages because of their words who are now ready on the same principles to cut our throats but let us not daub that Engagement against England as it was laid by Ecclesiastical principles and agitations so if God had not defeated and over-reached the layers of the Foundation or had but prospered Hamilton in that undertaking you would soon have seen the bottom of the business for either had the old design been headed by their Commanders or had the new been victorious we should have seen to what use the Covenant would have been put unto a full demonstration we have now if we do not want eyes But that the world may see how tender we were of that protesting party though we knew their principles and ends were the same as men forgetful of their own losses we did not onely by Gods strength beat that Army for them and take away their great eye-sores but never left upon a small intreaty until we had set the protesters in the Committee of Estates in Scotland and had disbanded our enemies though unto this day we never had either pay or thanks yet these very men that you may know
they were rather shooting Canons at them than writing answers which was a sad provocation as it was a dangerous presage of their own ruine It is likewise most observable in our March into Scotland what a change there was in the spirits of most of the Officers and Souldiers though they had been so egregiously abused yet with what fear and trembling they went on in that work not doubting of the justness of their Cause but as out of a loving shyness and unwillingness and Christian tenderness to do any thing that might endammage that Nation pausing every step hoping God would find out some other way to preserve England humbling themselves for former errors and miscarriages and so leisurely and sadly they went to this work that they seemed rather to be trayling their Pikes backwards than advancing them as if they were rather going to the Funeral of some dead General than to charge a formidable and inveterate Enemy And we have much reason to say that God hath and will answer them according to the sincerity of their hearts in that Expedition as he hath and will remember the juglings of that Nation both in England and among themselves So that they themselves by these carriages have at least strengthned our former just grounds of motion that way and the nigher we drew to our own borders the more reason we saw of entring Scotland Had they had any mind to peace or any other principle but that which acted them to do all these things in England they would have prevented a war in their own Nation by some loving and respectful answers to our just desires and tender motions and truly any kind Essay in that behalf would have too much prevailed upon our natures to stop our course for the present and hope more but as if they longed for such an act they daily provoked us to it scorning our motions denying so much as a name of honour to our chief Commander only styling him by the name of Lieut. General Cromwel whereby they would demonstrate themselves as perfect haters of their persons as of their actions Is there no blood left in gallant and noble Spirits who have conquered Armies of a more high and Noble Command and Model than any Army that could be raised in Scotland to be provoked to revenge But alas these things were past by as nothing by the greatness and magnanimity of the General who looked after Things more than Titles and had they but seemed to be any way plyable to a satisfying peace he and all the rest of the Officers would have been willing to have left their Titles behind them in that Treaty and been content also to have born all the affronts they put upon them besides but that they might render themselves absolute and implacable Enemies to this Army and Commonwealth they will not so much as admit a good motion with any sence but scorn us in our best acts of love that they might confirm the truth of all our former suspitions of them What could we now conclude on after all our care and timerousness in that Expedition but to be fully clear in that which we did but debate before and what was but probable before is now made necessary and of present concernment Thus God was pleased by the hight and hardness of their hearts toward us to add a more immediate ground of our entrance of Scotland to all we had before but the Scots thought to have undone us by this Act for first they thought to make this a foundation of a surer pretence of all future actings towards us and by the name of Invasion both to make us odious and to give themselves liberty hereafter to do what they would with England Secondly they drew them in to ensnare and destroy them as verily beleeving that ayr to be too sharp for English bodies and that hunger and cold should do their work for them which had been according to their design if God had not given them more than ordinary strength the miseries which in these few moneths that Army suffered in that Kingdom hath been more than ever they suffered in all the wars of England and Ireland Let all the world once more judge what ground we had to enter Scotland and whether it was not high time when we could get neither former dammages repaired nor present hopes of respect or correspondence from them with this Nation when they were preparing for an invasion of us and had put themselves out of a capability of peace What shall England be alwayes playing after-games Have we bought our priviledges at so easie a rate as to sell them all away upon mistaken charity We hope now the Scots have taught us wisdom to take opportunities though we have paid too much for the learning it But that I may not waste paper and tire the Readers patience with things so clear and demonstrative that I may remove any thing out of their way that may be further considered of by ingenuous and knowing men Let us now fall on their objections and take off their pleas against the Army and this Commonwealth in their proceedings formerly and now The great and main pretence of all their quarrel and stomack against England is the breach of the Covenant which they lay wholly on this Nation professing themselves as the makers so the only keepers of the Covenant a charge that 's heavy and sad enough if it were as true But as the word is general so is the charge God hath and will judge who hath been most faithful shortly as to that act only let it be considered that its hard to keep the Covenant according to the forc'd and fixt sence of every party but if by keeping the Covenant be meant the genuine and true end of it from the natural and right meaning of it ere it be brought forth from the womb of a design then we shall not doubt but to clear our selves before God and men that England hath kept the Covenant more intirely then Scotland and while they seem to keep their own words and syllables we have kept the sence and end of it and though we have not as it is reported of quondam Alderman Bunce a young Convert to the Scots kept the paper of it in our breasts yet we have had the true interpretation of it in our eyes and hearts and have prosecuted the Malignants to it against whom it was primarily made with the utmost justice that they might no more hinder the literal keeping of it by England and Scotland I only ask what was become of the Covenant when Hamilton came in to invade England whether was it publickly torn and burnt by that Nation Or whether ever it can be read clearly since without any hoblings and blots If they say they protest against it as formerly it s no doubt but the Scots themselves judge that there be many private persons in England which cannot be taxed with such a breach and yet because they
introducing their own pattern in the Government of the Church they should have been to us as Rome to other Churches the last judge to whom all appeal and what influence the Church hath on the State all may guess But moreover the temper of our Ministers was yet contrary unto what the Scots would be at the most of them being not yet refined from the dreggs of Episcopacy and it would be very much unsuitable to wise and foreseeing transactors to put new wine into old bottles and trust unexperienced men with so large a power as was contended for which would but have made them and us presently remember the old principles they were more naturally instructed by whereas had they been willing to trust Christ with his own Government and had first cleered up to all men their way and waited for the full power untill they had given some eminent testimony of the goodness of it either to unite Saints or set up the power of godliness it might have have been by this established with abundance of peace and happiness to this Nation but as most good men were very jealous of an old Tyranny under a new name especially when the good thing contended for was Power and Authority so they found too many carnal mixtures both publikely and privately which frighted their consciences from a full compliance yea which is far worse so highly would the Scots party carry it that the utmost distinction of godly and honest men should be according to their submission to that rule neither would all the power of godliness serve to give out the manifestation of a Saint or to make a Christian but he must be called a Heretick and Schismatick without he were exactly measured by that tenter and rackt to make that profession And when the dissenting Brethren themselves men of known integrity and of special anoyntings who agreed with them in all the principles of Religion and Directory for Worship yea the principles of Discipline onely dissenting in the extension and subject of power and Authority when they desired but a forbearance and dispensation to their conscience from the utmost rigidness and severity of the Rule so far did the Scots model prevail that such a tender and rational request would not be granted which unheard of severity opened many mens eyes and made them think there was more than spiritual zeal in these designs especially when they saw Ministers of the Gospel looking after such a full Secular Power to prefer it before the power of godliness and full consent in the Orthodoxness of Doctrine or the purity of the matter of such a Government So that I cannot but lay the great blame on the Scots as the impediments of hindring the free and full establishment of that Discipline which would have surely took effect if it had been at first proposed in Scripture terms and language and afterwards had been prosecuted with the meekness and gentleness of a Gospel-Government and doubtless had not the Scots rid on the fore Horse and driven the Chariot Jehu like with their own principles and ends we should have had Presbytery in a better form and settlement than now we have for nothing opened our English eyes so much as their desperate thrustings of their pattern on us ere we had well cast off thoughts of Episcopacy or were in any religious capacity for another Government all men then began to wonder what Tabernacles these men did mean to build in England who would have engrost the legislative power both of State and Kirk into their own hands so that the true and real lovers of Presbytery were hindred by the violence and design of the Scots party who because they got more by their Ecclesiastical pretences than any civil actings therefore nothing would content them but their own Model in it by which they thought to have the most special influences on all the rest I hope by this time the Reader will see something into the nature of that Plea and will look upon the Scots who though they are accounted to Presbytery as the Spaniards to Popery the eldest sons of the Church yet fairer and better mediums might have been used to have wrought it out more effectually than a new inquisition or a peremptory imposition of a Government without clearness of principles or care of good consciences no more of that I come to the next main Objection which is the doing Justice on the late King an objection which is very unbecoming Scotland to make against us though it be too freqent for first Let our accusers be our Judges they laid the foundation we did but follow the same principle to its last end they taxed him as a man of blood profest there were no hopes of him to any good and when we come to joyn issue with them by our actings they exclaim on us for prosecuting their principles When they had him at Newcastle they knew not what to do with him but to give him over to make more work for them among us After all their desires of a personal Treaty their Kirk declares that to make a peace on these Concessions would be dangerous and destructive to the whole Cause and that God would curse us if we did centre in these grants And what could possibly be gain'd more seeing that was the last and utmost overture with him but to cut him off as immedicabile vulnus all wayes and essays were used to the utmost to gain but hopes of happiness by him but his returns were so gross that the Scots themselves protested in Print there was no residing in these concessions and what way was there else but a bringing him in unto his full power again though he utterly refused either to take the Covenant or abolish Episcopacy And truly the Scots rejoyce the Act is done though they are also glad that they were not the active instruments of it for they clearly saw he was too much engaged to several parties in England and Ireland for them to make use of his person for themselves and they could do no more for him than they had done and keep up any credit and esteem amongst good men this gallant piece of Justice is rather envyed by others than hated however it was done in a more noble and serious way than poysoning a way which the Scots have been of all Nations most guilty of he having a fair trial and a free hearing of what he could say for himself But we may lay the Kings death also very honestly on the Scots for they by the height of their expressions against the King both confirmed and aggravated our own experiences of him and provoked us to do some act to make their words good they cal'd him often a man of blood one that had shed more blood than any of his predecessors and what could we do less than revenge blood with blood the blood of millions with the blood of a particular person what attonement could be less and what more
of Estates with whom they left their power which was the only lawful power our Army having beaten Hamilton in England by the invitation of some private men prosecutes the remainder of that Army in Scotland where they make them lay down Arms and come to an agreement and set up the former Committee of Estates then accounted more honest and dissolve that Committee of Estates who sate by the full authority of the Supream power and besides whom all were but private persons this Committee hath ever since called Parliaments ordered all affairs as the Commission of the supream Authority of that Nation and yet they will have us to be no authority though the main of the body of the Commons of England in the same Parliament remain only because they have purged out many and predominant and Malignant humours which disturbed the health and marr'd the beauty of the whole and have cut off some rotten Members which were like to gangrene the Scots themselves also confessing in their Answer to the Armies Remonstrance that there was a party in Parliament which did betray their Trust and is it a destroying of the Authority to remove such a party And who are to be the Judges but these they call the prevailing party Were not the Scots drunk with malice and venome against this Nation they must be ashamed to deny us to be a lawful Authority when they remember themselves who did not only act without King or Parliament but got their Authority by dissolving the only lawful Parliamentary Power and courting the Royall which Committee of Estates was a meer non-entity untill our Army formed them in that Estate All that ever hath been acted in England need no other demonstrations to make them legal if examples may be arguments than the Scottish pattern but these pleas are grown too common and stale to have any efficacy on discerning and impartial spirits and if the Scots be admitted once as competent Judges of the Authority of our Parliament we may be sure they will judge according to their own sence and interest we have reason to bless God we have yet power to maintain our just Authority only we must observe to what end these men meddle so much in our affairs who have enough to reform at home and how unsutable is it to our carriages as to their Kingdom When did England ever send Commissioners into Scotland to tamper with parties or to print Declarations against any of their proceedings to divide the people from them when did we take upon us to say that Scotland did do ill in dissolving and annihilating the acts of a whole Parliament and by force set themselves in their places we know not their reasons of State as to their special actings neither care we to pry into them its fit they should be their own Judges and take their own advantages for their safety and security neither would England ever have been angry for their taking a King in among them or askt them why they did so if they had not proclaimed him K. of England also and agreed with him about imposing him on us especially when he is the common Enemy to both Nations I will add no more to this let actions speak if judgement belongs to them Justice and vengeance I am sure belongs to God who will judge his people and discover and punish the Tyrannical Government of men for the base and deceitful intentions of plausible and designing Neighbors We are now come to the last and most fiery Dart which is shot against us especially the Army which amounts to no less than a charge of Heresie and Schisme words of the saddest import to terrifie Christian spirits which is as bad and worse in a Church sence than Treason and Rebellion in the States for as they have used all mediums both Ecclesiastical and Civil that might hinder or destroy this Parliament and Army so they have invented all sorts of names which might make them odious in the eies of good and honest men to effect which no terms could be more proper and effectual than these something must needs be therefore spoken as to the charge and then of the application I am no pleader for any that are justly branded with these characters I have learnt the Doctrine of the Gospel better than to be an Heretick and have tasted so much of Gospel-love that I abhor to be a Schismatick but as these are names of the ugliest visage in Religion so they ought to be most warily and with great demonstration fixt on any who profess Religion or that are not obstinately opposite to all wayes of sound Doctrine and peace but when such horrid and black marks are fastned on men at a distance from converse and out of politick and particular ends it commonly either makes Hereticks or forces them to be Schismaticks ne'r to look after cōmunion with that party It would be wel ere men make use of such names they knew how to define them what a Heretick what a Schismatick is hath took up many debates among learned men when a man is proper to be called a Heretick not every error is Heresie nor every withdrawing from some particular acts a Schisme but we need not wade further into this controversie the Scots Heresie is not to take the Covenant and their Schism is not to follow the rules of the Kirk of Scotland for else we bless God setting aside some particular private desperadoes we have their marks we hold to the fundamentals both of Doctrine and Discipline though we cannot yet see all the particularities of either as we long after but especially we must confess we want eyes to see into the divine right of a Scotish Uniformity As for the Army on whom they lay the weight of both these expressions which they epitomize in the word Sectaries I shall not undertake to clear every particular person from many errors but this I must say if they have miscarried I hope they have repented and for the most of the Officers they have publikely profest their hatred of any that can really be called by such names It s true they had long since some subtle and windy spirits who vapoured in some high notions and for the present took frothy and active fancies among them but as they soon vanished so since they have seen much of the vanity and unsavouriness of such opinions and it hath been a cause of great humiliation among them and like the shaking of well planted trees it hath strengthned many of them more in the root and I hope these delusions of some among them hath but furbished and brightned the understanding of others who kept always the root of the matter in life and vigour in their hearts Yet if things were sifted to the bottome the Scots were great occasions if not causes of such opinions among them For they who minded nothing but their own design did so imprison and circumscribe all Religion in the Northern Model and