change their form of administration in Government and exclude all others who have intrinsecally a power in nature to choos and establish such a Government as they judg most conducing to the end of its ordination the good of the people and to change it in whose or in part when it shall degenerate and not serv the end of its institution or when another shall bee discovered that will do it better They have don so in part and wee have don so as to Monarchie in the whole Wee are not bound to take from them the measure of our change and wee are confident wee shall not follow their example in their returning to their vomit And it seem's they were not so satisfied of their King that they durst trust him without a Treatie and a previous Agreement limiting his power but with us hee must bee absolute a Duke of Venice will serv them but here hee must bee a grand Signior a Sophie or a Mogull But wee know the meaning good offices profuse gifts and an accountles privie purs are fine things not to bee had by Scots in England and they may set their hearts at rest for having the like anie more Wee know Kings too vvell to bee troubled vvith them any more Wee knovv Princes are not such either conscientious or tame things as to bee bound by Treaties or to value any of their mis-called concessions longer than they serv their ovvn profit which they alwaies contra-distinguish from that of the people Wee vvould also ask these Commissioners of the Kirk vvhether they have not an inspection into all their Kings actions Whether hee bee a sheep without their fold and without their care If hee go astray must not hee bee brought home with a wholsome censure Whether any of his most publick actions will not com under your consideration as they are his dutie to God as a Christian Magistrate of which you onely will bee the Judges And upon that ground controle direct and censure him And certainly from this your paper wee have reason to suppose these will bee your actings for why should you bee more modest at home then you are abroad for with us you take upon you to determine of all things as if you had learned from Pius Quintus to mis-applie to your selvs that Text of Jeremiah I have set thee up over Nations to pluck up and to plant But to return to such a Monarchie as you will allow will not serv your young Monarchs turn and that you will finde if ever hee get quiet footing amongst you You complain of taking away the Hous of Lords and hope by that to engage all those to take your parts wee conceiv most of the Lords in England except som few that are mannaged by by your conspiring fellows the Presbyterian Ministers are more generous then to accept of a restitution by your means their remembrance of the Impudence Avarice and Ambition of the Court-harpies and Hors-leeches of your Nation make them abhor the thought of any more of your companie who are never welcom but where you are not known But you have som reason to bee tender for them as beeing Martyrs for your own caus for though that Hous was found by manie experiences to bee dangerous to the just liberties of the people and verie often to obstruct necessarie and profitable things yet 't is like they might have stood longer had they not been found to bee in your Cabal for the Invasion of England and in order to it had cast out an Ordinance that was sent up by the Commons for putting things in a posture of defence they liked it better the people should be unarmed that you might destroy them with the more eas and safetie And when your Armie had invaded us according to the Covenant no doubt did they not deny to pass anie Votes either against you or those among our selvs that as Traytors did or should adhere unto you Was it not time to take away this Enemie of the Common-wealth out of its power to do hurt when it was so dangerously disposed to make use of it to that end 'T is true there were a verie few of their number that protested against the perfidiousness malice of the rest but they were able to effect nothing and the best remedie against like evils for the future was judged to bee its taking away Wee must hereupon ask you one question about this Whether had you not once Lords of the Articles among you who had a previous negative upon all things that were to bee consulted in your Parlament without whose approbation nothing could bee brought into debate These you judged a prejudice to your just liberties and you removed them Did wee trouble our selvs to ask why you did it You thought them dangerous to your libertie and safetie and the Commons of England judged the Lords hous so and so removed them Why not wee as well as you May wee do nothing but in the verie same kinde and degree that you act before us How came wee into this pupillage to your prescriptions But why do the Scots talk so much of Hous of Lords in England when they know they have no such thing in Scotland They indeed meet in the Bodies as they call them that is the Noble-men by themselvs the Commissioners of Shires by themselvs and the Commissioners of Burghs by themselvs in these they propone and debate things as well originally as by reference which are determined by the major part of all collectlivè and conjunctly in their Hous of Parlament where the Lords have no distinct conjunct negative but are involved in and concluded by the number of Votes of the whole Therefore if the Lords have any advantage 't is by their reason in debate to convince not by their suffrage which is no more then any Commissioner of a Burgh Yet these men will bee Proctors for an Hous of Lords here It may bee imputed to their gratitude if you pleas though it bee a thing they seldom use several of that House were verie much their servants The next fault is they have driven away manie and imprisoned som of the Members of Parlament Here indeed is the thing that grieve's you your partie is cast out by whom you were wont to act all your fine things amongst us and you have no more hopes to effect any thing in Parlament as formerly But let me tell you a Mysterie you have no such reason to plead the caus of som of them who were not perfectly your Proselytes but were at close guard with you they intended to make use of your Faction for oppression of the faithful and good Patriots under the name of Independents which if they could have effected they would have cared as much for your Religion when they had serv'd their turns on 't as you do your selvs when you have made such uses of it Wee who know the men know well their Religion though to serv themselvs of you they
AN EXAMINATION Of the Seasonable and Necessarie WARNING Concerning present DANGERS and DUTIES Emitted from the COMMISSIONERS Of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY Of the KIRK of Scotland unto all the MEMBERS of that KIRK June 25 1650. Which was Printed at Edinburgh by Evan Tyler By a Servant of the Common-wealth of England and a Lover of the ARMIE LONDON Printed by William Du-gard Anno 1650. 25 Junii 1650. Post meridiem A seasonable and necessarie Warning concerning present dangers and duties from the Commissioners of the General Assemblie unto all the Members of this Kirk 1 IF the eminencie of the danger and the necessitie of the dutie did not constrain us wee had rather chose to bee silent then to emit anie publick warning to the land within so few daies of the meeting of the General Assemblie but wee should not onely run the hazard of just blame from them but also bee conscious to guiltiness in our selvs if wee did not in a time of so great streight give warning to the Lords people both of their danger and of their dude 1 If you had well considered your danger before it was imminent and how necessarie it was for you to have prevented it by an ingenuous acknowledgment of your National guilt and just demerit by your perfidious and unprovoked Invasion of England against all the Treaties which were then in force but thereby dissolved and by a just satisfaction for the spoils and devastations your own Armie made where it came until it was destroyed and for the charge this Nation was at by occasion of it You might perhaps have now been silent and wee at quiet How just our War against you is and how clearly wee are necessitated to it the Parlament hath sufficiently evidenced in their Declaration And though wee cannot exspect you should acknowledg it it beeing not usual with you to speak truth to your own disadvantage yet the evidence is such as must needs convince you as wee are confident it will satisfie all others And if the conscientiousness you speak of bee a tenderness resulting from a cleer and pure light not tinctured with the dye and mixture of an Interest working a prejudice it might have put your reflections upon an other guilt and you might have thought your selvs worthie of blame that you had not given warning to your Parlament and People of somthing els to bee don besides your condemning men to the stool of hypocrisie that might have given the Common-wealth of England a better satisfaction and fuller reparation for and of the effects of your perfidie then that was like to do and might have proved a more effectual means to have prevented that danger which your own injustice and wickedness have involved you in 2 The insolent and strange actings of that prevailing partie of Sectaries in England these yeers past Warning in reference to Religion and Government are so well known and have been so often and fully laid open in the former Warnings Remonstrances and Declarations of this Kirk that wee need not now take up much time in representing the same Albeit the Reformation of the Church of England and the advancing of the work of uniformitie there in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Government was the great dutie that the Lord called that Land unto and which all the people of God in these three Kingdoms did ingage themselvs in Covenant to endeavor to the utmost of their power yet doth that work so much desired and longed for by all the lovers of Sion in these Nations and all that concern's Religion lie in the dust altogether forgotten and despised by those men and in stead of the beautie and order that should bee in the hous of God a vast toleration of manie gross errors is allowed whereby so manie and so monstrous blasphemies and strange opinions in Religion have been broached and are vented in England as the like hath not been heard of almost in anie generation And though Monarchie and the power of Parlaments was the ancient and long continued Government of that Kingdom yet have those men usurped above the Parlament whose servants they were and by open violence driven away manie and imprisoned som of the Members thereof and have not onely taken away the Hous of Lords and destroyed the late King but also subverted Monarchie it self and turned the Foundations upside down and labor to wreath the yoke of their oppression upon the necks of our brethren in England not onely in regard of that which concern's their bodies and estates but also in regard of that which concern's their souls and consciences whereof that Ingagement that is now pressed in England is a present and publick testimonie being a sore bondage under which manie in that land now groan whose case and sufferings for the work of God wee desire not onely to remember daily before the Lord in our praiers and supplications but in everie thing to regard it as if it were our own being confident that such as love the truth and cleav to the Covenant in these Lands shall obtein mercie of God to bee faithfull in the midst of temptations and that the Lord will not suffer them to bee tempted above that they are able to bear but will give unto them the issue with the temptation 2 The wonderful and even miraculous goings forth of the most wise and merciful providence of our good God towards us in England Answer for these divers years past in this great work of delivering us from Tyrannie and setling us in a just Libertie notwithstanding all those strong fetters in which wee were imprisoned under it have been evidently written with the verie beams of the sun and exposed to the view of the world that there are scarce anie that have not acknowledged it is his work And for our parts wee desire to observ those glorious actings of his and with all humilitie to rejoyce in them God see 's not as man see 's and therefore act 's not as man act's nor rule 's the determinations of his wisdom nor the efficiencie of his power by anie of the conceptions or apprehensions of men That which you call The insolent and strange actings of the prevailing partie of Sectaries c might better perhaps bee called his work his strange work And though perhaps manie in this age whose particular concernments have been touched by this just hand of God the flowings of whose gall by their rebellious struglings under their chastizements hath disabled their Icterical eyes to see clearly his hand may as you do blaspheme that Providence and asscribe its glorious and harmonious working to the anomalous extravagancies of whom you pleas yet when the pangs of this birth shall bee over and the distempered humors com again to a just ballance even you as well as others shall see that it is his doing And after-ages will saie concerning these times What bath God wrought Wee cannot denie but you have been verie frequent in your Warnings and Remonstrances
vvould bee Presbyterians In the mean time entertaining you in their thoughts expressed in plain language among their confederates vvith a perfect hatred and scorn 'T is true the vvay they vvere excluded by vvas extraordinarie and the cure Emperical but yet necessarie those votes of darkness vvhen they setup all night to ruine themselvs and the Nation vvere a sufficient Diagnostick of so prevailing a corruption in the vvhole mass beyond the power of nature to reduce a right complexion and temper and a clear indication of the necessitie of a present and extrordinarie remedie vvithout vvhich both vvee and you too notwithstanding your ambition bred credulitie of the contrarie had long before this time been destroyed by that partie which is still the common Enemie what ever they make you believ to the contrarie and posteritie reduced to as bad a slaverie under the late Tyrant as that which is exercised by you over the poor blinde people who have given up themselvs to the impositions of your Consistorialor Classical mercies And now wee must ask you whether somthing more than this hath not been don in Scotland Whether was not that Parlament which decreed the Invasion of England by Hamilton a true Parlament if not give us som rule by which wee may distinguish one from another Whether that Parlament was not still in beeing after your Armie was destroyed in England Whether were not som forces raised against that Parlament and they driven from Edinburgh while they were yet a Parlament or Committee of Estates by the power of that Parlament and had a power of conveneing it again upon any Emergencies Whether when a part of the English Forces which had destroyed your Armie in England was marched into Scotland did you not by their countenance and assistance dissipate and disband the remaining part of your Parlaments Armie And did you not then while your other Parlament was in beeing call another Parlament and ordered the Elections by previous rules given by your Armie for the seclusion or exclusion from Elections for that ensuing Parlament all which as you thought fit to describe and characterize And was not your present Parlament thus elected Now let 's see how this action in Scotland agree's with or differ's from this in England In England here was an Armie raised by Autoritie of Parlament and Commissionated to destroie all the forces of the late Tyrant These understood of a sort of men adhering to that Tyrant and labouring though without Arms to re-inthrone him They prevent it they dissipate the Conspirators against whom becaus they found them not in Arms they proceeded not to blood they took away the corrupt part and left that which was found to serv the Common-wealth and this is their Crime and for this they are complained of and as much nois made about it as David made for his Absolom against whose rebellion the Generals own execution of him and without a Councell of War too had put his Master whom he served in safetie They who quarrell this Act of the Armie may do well to read Joabs answer to David perhaps it may satisfie them Indeed it 's true it fell out in this case as in all Emperical Cures that som were secluded and some have thereupon absented themselves as beeing unsatisfied of it which it were much to bee wished were in the service of the Commonwealth and that those to whom that work was committed had been better informed of particulars which was scarce possible for them to bee in that short time wherein 't was necessarie for the life of our liberties that somthing extraordinarie must bee done for cure And wee doubt not but they now see a necessitie of what was don though they approved not the doing and will again contribute their services faithsully to the Common-wealth In England the same Parlament continu's and act's though som Members be secluded In Scotland Forces are raised by private persons drive away their Committee of Estates in whom was the power of the Parlament as to most things disband the Armie of their Parlament do not onely seclude som Members but seclude their whole Parlament and set it by and call another by the power of that Armie by private hand raised and commanded and in that call seclude as was said à parte antè making whom they pleas uncapable of Election or of sitting in Parlament secluding what Lords they pleas also from sitting in their Hous And this Parlament thus called is that which hath treated with their King by their Commissioners and so humbly besought him to vouchsafe to put his yoak upon their necks This is the brief of both the Cases and now let any but themselvs judg But ô yee Commissioners of the Kirk why did you not tell the vvhose truth Were not an ingenuous confession better then a Conviction O that you could blush a little that vvee might have some hope of you Judg your selvs for once and do thus no more do not thus dance in a net and think to impose upon the ignorant those that are knovving vvill discover your nakedness and men shall see your shame Thou hypocrite first pluck out the beam out of thine own eye c. Wee shal break proportion in this Paragraph but however wee must have one word more to what follow 's about the Engagement about which they are grievously afflicted for that it is an oppression not onely upon the bodies and Estates but upon the consciences also of their brethren What is it trouble's them they would not have people promise to bee true and faithful to that power under whose protection through the mercie of God they live and enjoie or might do if it were not for these their fals Brethren and their seduced adherents as full and secure a peace and all the consequences of it as can bee enjoyed here below What trouble 's them in the present Government are not the same Laws still in force that were Is not Westminster-Hall still open and the Courts there both of Equitie and Law sitting in their times as formerly Is not Justice in all Cases both Civil and Criminal brought to the peoples doors as freely as in the best times part Are not manie grievances of the former Tyrannie heretofore complained of taken off and that great one which remain's viz. the necessarie Levies of Money is it not their own fault might not that also bee taken off if the people would see their true Interest and keep to it if they would cordially keep this quarrel'd Engagement in beeing true and faithful to the Power that protect's them and not bee fool'd by the Scots and the partizans of their King into a disobedience which will certainly ruine them not more by just punishment for it then by the natural productions of it if they could bee so unhapple as to bring their endeavors into act But what is it in this that lie's so heavie upon their consciences is not Custodes lihertatis Angliae as Canonical
the partie which now prevail's in that land The Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland were then so compassionate of their bretbrens condition that they were willing to join in a League and Covenant with them which both Kingdoms even manie of those who are now in the Armie did solemnly swear and subscribe In prosecution of the ends thereof this Kingdom did send into England a considerable Armie by whose assistance the power of the Malignant Partie was broken and brought low and the Parlament and Armie of England put into such a condition that they needed no more fear the strength of their enemies This League and Covenant which was the foundation of England's and the Armies deliverance and safetie the Armie hath now forgotten and trodden under foot and walk in all their proceedings no less contrarie thereto then darkness is unto light Neither doth it satisfie them to do so in their own Land but they threaten us also with war for no other reason but because wee cleav to our dutie in these things to which England stand's no less obliged unto by Covenant before the Lord then wee do Wee may confidently assert and profess before the world that the Lord's people in this Land are not conscious to themselvs of anie wrong don to that prevailing partie in England The engagement in the year I648 was no less abhorred and testified against by the Kirk of Scotland and by these that are how in place and power in the State and by all the godly in the land then it was by that partie themselvs Which did so far convince the Hous of Commons that in their Letter to the General Assemblie of this Kirk in the same year they profess that they are assured that these impious and unwarrantable actions cannot bee don with the approbation and assent of the religious and well-affected people of the Kingdom of Scotland and that they do understand that there are verie few amongst these who were in the engagement against them that first engaged with them in the Covenant and Caus but such as are professed enemies to them however they were then content to proceed thereunto that they might the better deceiv the people of England And that therefore they are unwilling to impute such evils to this Nation in general It is known how manie fervent praiers and supplications were poured out in this Land before the Lord against that engagement and wee think wee may without boasting say that those praiers had as much influence upon the defeat thereof as all the power of that Armie And since that time that engagement hath been publickly disavowed disclaimed and repealed by the Parlament of this Kingdom Neither hath that partie anie thing to challenge us concerning Malignants both Kirk and State having constantly followed and beeing still about their duties against them without conniving at or complying with them in their courses It is true that this Kingdom and Kirk have protested and testified against the proceedings of Sectaries in reference to Religion and Government Which wee could not but do unless wee had forgotten our dutie and the Christian mutual ties that lie upon us not onely as sister-Churches but as covenanted Churches and so make our selvs partakers of their sins and expose our selvs to the hazard of their plagues Wee in this Land beeing therefore conscious to our selvs of nothing but dutie If they shall invade us for following the same shall not God look upon it and avenge it 8 If wee shall answer this Paragraph at large Answer wee shall draw out this Paper to such a length as maie swell it beyond the price of som and the leisure of others wee shall therefore let it here keep proportion and in another tract which is begun give the world a full and true representation and character of all their candor and fair dealing in all the transactions and affairs that have been between the Nations since these last troubles which shall proceed as fast as leisure will serv and give but som touches the while The Sectaries do verie well consider and remember too that England was verie low brought under the foot of the popish and prelatical partie which were the Armies which that late King used to subdue us whose quarrel you espoused notwithstanding the Covenant and pleaded his caus and whom you would have brought in again upon such terms as had not providence prevented the effect of your endeavors you had ruined your selvs and us too And wee remember also that though you were as much concerned as wee in the danger and priviledged onely with one stop of a greater remotion yet wee were inforc'd verie much to solicite you by the parties you mention whom God hath since made verie instrumental for the good of this Land before wee could prevail with the Kirk and Kingdom of Scotland notwithstanding our great need and their own evident danger either to compassionate us or bee careful of themselvs until they had brought us into the snare of a Covenant of which the designing Church knew they should bee afterward able to make som other good uses besides the Reformation of Religion and however our dangers were imminent yet they would not com in to our assistance till wee had furnished them with 50000 l. a sum of no small difficultie for us to rais at that time when our quarters were so streight and our occasions so multiplied but yet when they had a minde to invade us under Hamilton they could do it without anie Levie-monie advanced What assistance they gave and how much they contributed to the bringing us to that condition wherein wee needed not to fear the strength of our enemies wee shall more fully set out in that other mentioned Tract Onely now they proved a broken reed from whom wee had but a weak support but it ran into our hands and pierced us sufficiently as all places where they came can bear sensible witness and which the world shall shortly know Briefly they took our money and helped us little being specially careful to keep out of the waie of danger they did like right mercinaries pursue their own interest which was verie opposite to ours wee desired to end the war and they to lengthen it that they might lengthen their emploiment hoping they should never bee necessitated again to return to their own poor Countrie Yet this advantage wee had that while they took our paie for a great while they did not take our Enemies part and our monie produced with them as good effect as the worship of that Numen at Calecut doth there you know who and what The League and Covenant you say was the foundation of England's and the Armies deliverance Wee that know better denie it and say 't was a foundation upon which was endeavored to bee built our ruine if God had not mercifully prevented the bringing forth and hatching of that Cockatrice egg which your Cabals and conspiracies had laid among us wee shall not now
tell you with whom But if anie thing humane may bee put among the foundations of our deliverance it must bee the new modelling of the Armie and putting it under a new Command who verie well understood you but could never bee brought to understand and entertain anie of your Cabals they shamed your sloth and did our work without you and put us into a condition to bee able to require such an useless charge to bee gon This is the great sin of this Armie to have thus wipe 't your mouth of all the sweet morsels your designs had cut out and your hopes had alreadie swallowed They awaked you out of your dream and you found your selvs hungry still and this you will never forgive them As for the reasons for which wee now make war upon you the Parlament who better know their own motives have in their Declaration told you both them and their ends And for the obligation by Covenant you have been often told there is no such thing in beeing and shall add no more to it But to the next were it not that you have an evasion in the expression the Lord's people wee should ask what is becom of all your little remnants of shame or ingenuitie and wee shall ask you so still if you take this expression in your usual acception viz. for all your covenanted people were not your Parlament a covenanting People or were not they the Lords People give us a Criterion by which wee may bee able to judg and distinguish them Your Parlament decreed our Invasion and your whole crowd of wretched ignorant Covenanters that swallow whatever you propine invaded us in pursuance of that Act. Wee grant you of the Kirk and your devoti did profess to abhor it when you saw the Command fallen into hands you could not manage and from whom you should bee able to draw no advantage to your partie Do not wee know and all men know that had anie intelligence of the affairs of Scotland at that time and dare you denie it That that Invasion was put on by all your Pulpits and all your Kirk-men unanimously and the quarrel grew among your selvs not upon Whether there shall bee an invasion but Who shall invade and have the conduct Are not all the pulpits of Edinburg witness of this and are there not divers among us now that were ear-witnesses was not the work of your pulpits then to make the Sectaries odious to all your people who knew no more of them but what you told them and you never cared what you said of them so it might stir up the people When you saw that Hamiltons partie had carried it and that you had conjured up a devil you could not command and doubted if hee should succeed in England it would not go well with you then you began to have recours to your Balaanism and fall to cursing Wee believ you did not approve the Invasion when it was made but wee know verie well and you know it too and must confess if your consciences had power enough to make you speak a truth that if Hamilton's Partie had not invaded the Kirks Partie had And do you think wee are so simple to believ that the contradictions of your Envie are the productions of your good affection And that particular disavowings can compensate your National Parlamentarie Enmitie For shame do not thus discover your ignorance in the Law of Nations and common reason by which 't is evident when one partie break 's a Treatie the other is free can you plaie fast and loos at pleasure and keep us bound was there anie such claus in the Treatie that you should have libertie to break it if you saw advantage and wee bee s but yours could obtrude these things Suppose your present Parlament should disavow it what 's that to us What justice beyond the Kirk's foolish Stool hath been inflicted on anie of the guiltie or what reparation hath there been made for all the blood and spoil nay your present Parlament forsooth in good time will not own the Parlament of the Common-wealth of England Nor Treat about reparation till wee adnul our selvs Certainly the Civilitie you quote of the Hous of Commons to your General Assemblie if anie such were was ill bestowed and as well requited however since it was with you but the Hous of Commons it seem's it was not the Letter or the Parlament and therefore binde's them not If there had been more in the Letter then your selvs urge it might yet bee reckoned among manie other of those causless complements cast away upon an ingrateful people which you never deserved either before or after You that stood nearer your selvs and knew clearly the truth of things surely laught in your sleevs at those mistakes There are great Errors in the world about Praier and it's efficacie take heed of mistakes about it you would seem to intimate as if the world and the affairs thereof were managed by a power onely without a wisdom to direct it which could not tell how to do well to the good or punish the evil but as your praiers as proceeding from a principle of greater light and more goodness should direct or impel It was the going out of the mightie power of God Ordered by his Omniscient Providence and flowing from an infinite goodness and love to his people and a just indignation against such proud and hypocritical men which wrought their destruction as for the aestuations of your unsanctified anger which you call Praier wee cannot allow them a place in that work When the Sectaries interpose with your Religion and Government in Scotland as you do with ours you may then testifie against them and laie what weight you will upon your Covenant but wee have not yet don it and your care not to partake of the Sectaries sins would bee commendable unless you mean Sectarianism it self in your sens so as you would bee as careful to reform and repent of your own Wee Invade you not for doing your dutie but upon grounds of clearest JVSTICE and absolute NECESSITIE and recommend our Caus to the blessing of the just God 9 Whil'st wee incite men to their dutie in the defence of the Kingdom against invasion Warning and encourage them in performance of the same Wee desire not to bee mistaken or that anie should so far misconstrue our meaning as though wee did thereby intend to stir up unto or approve of an Invasion of the Kingdom of England or an Engagement in War against the same In relation to peace or war in these Nations wee cannot but verie much commend and approve the resolutions of the Parlament of this Kingdom exprest in their Letter of the 6th of March to the Speaker of the Hous of Commons and Instructions sent therewith to their Commissioners 1649 and now again renewed in another Letter to the same Speaker of the Hous of Commons wherein they acknowledg their obligations and declare