by Covenant that the name of great Britain might contain us all yea by the Covenant our brethren challenged a Priviledg in framing our own Propositions for our own safety and to determine what we should Propose and what not with the Order and method of them and a mutual disposal of the Offices and Officers with the rest of our affairs claiming an equal share in all our Priviledges and the management of the Government it self The next and more special use of it was to further a Personal Treaty wherein the Scots Commissioners had the principal hand as being most privy to the first intention of its compiling For when the interpretation of the first Article was out of credit and the disguise of it pluckt off by that expression The word of God that the Ecclesiastical mediums would not serve the turn they fall on another Article wherein they finde but only a bare mention of the Kings Person charitably and yet limitedly inserted and propose and press the Parliament upon pain of perjury and without any reserve unto a Personal Treaty waveing the safe and best resolv'd on way of Treating by positive and Fundamental Propositions And so eager and fierce were they on it that the Commissioners in the name of the rest in that notable Remonstrance of theirs for a Personal Treaty quoted the name of the Covenant more then Twenty times in one Page and tax the Parliament with breach of Covenant but for omitting a supposed method not placing of it in that order in the Propositions which they thought most fit urging still no way of fulfilling the Covenant but by Personal Treaty forgetting all the rest of the Articles that speak of Religion a Common Enemy the Priviledges of Parliament of bringing Delinquents to Justice and so procuring Liberty but these were first in intention and must be last in execution The next party that entered the stage with the Covenant in their hands was the old Malignant and Common Enemy who waited on our trifling Transactions who seeing what use was made of it by the Scots Presbyterian Party and how nigh the Commissioners of Scotland had driven it to their interest emprove all their former Transactions with the Parliament and on that stock graff a design of a new and bloody War and the scean being changed from England to Scotland Duke Hamilton having got the major Vote in the Parliament Levies an Army of Scots who joyning with Sir Marmaduke Langdale and other desperate English Malignants enter England with a great Army seconding the Commissioners Remonstrances using their own expressions in their Declarations holding forth the Covenant as their Ensigne both of honesty and hopes of Victory professing to be moved to that expedition by nothing but the Covenant and for more effectual prosecution of the ends of it in a Personal Treaty to suppress Heresies and Schismes and settle the affairs of the Church in greater security and beauty free from Error or Faction Thus the Covenant was used and in as good words to maintain the Malignant interest and to unite the Common Enemy both in Scotland and England which was intended against both and though many of the Kirk disclaimed these proceedings and saw the disguise rather in the Persons then the things yet they profest and acted no more above board then their own Delegates had beforehand with publique approbation by them and intentions are only known unto God Thus hath this Solemn League and Covenant which our Brethren and others may well call Sacred and the most sure engagement between creatures in this world been by every hand made common and prophane ravished by the interest and ends of sinister and self-ish Spirits tost up and down and turnd as a nose of wax into the form of every design yea so abused and rent one part from the other the Means from the End and one Article from another that it seems to have no more substance left intire then what you find preserv'd in the Stationers shop by a true impression or in the Churches and Publique places by the careful hands of the Wardens kept untorn nor any more Soul and Life in it to bind a mans Conscience then only what the disaffected Spirits of some persons have of late breath'd into it But the last and worst abuse of it which may well be put down Instar omnium is That it is now sent forth as a Bull to denounce the Dreadful sentence of perjury on the Parliament and High Court of Justice for taking away the Kings person and as the great obstruction and plea against compliance with this present Government of a Common-wealth and is so ordered in this last use That when through the glorious actings of Providence we have escaped the Common snare we must by our own Consciences be made Religiously miserable And how sad must it needs be to all honest hearts That the Covenant which was at first intended as the most adaequate means of peace and happiness to these two Nations should at last be formed into an Engine of division and the greatest and only Impediment to a compleat Setlement of Peace and administred as the last Cordial to revive the lost hopes of our dying Enemies And after we have through God struck out all the Carnal weapons out of their hands yea separated the Head from that great body we should furnish them with refined and Spiritual Artillery and having cast off their chains should bind our selves by the wriths of Circumstantial and supposed Ingagements What are now the cries and Lamentations in prayers and Pulpits but the breach of The Solemn League and Covenant all the discontents Animosities disobediences to Authority take their Sanctuary in the Covenant there they are maintained and live and at length are resolv'd into this Grand case of Conscience viz Whether we may without perjury submit to the Government of a Common-wealth and take the new Ingagement enjoyned by the Parliament seeing they have taken away the Kings Person whom we Covenanted to preserve and have altered the Government all which is contrary to our former ingagements in the Covenant Though this be an old way used by most men to countenance their dislike of present duties by flying to conscience urging former ingagements as the Malignants did against the first Protestation and of late against the Covenant pressing their former Ingagements by the Oathes of Supremacy and Allegeance Yet because it is the utmost and last Plea that can be made against this Government and that honest and Consciencious men with whom I only desire to deale in this discourse may see what a weak Foundation they build their disaffections on and how little reason they have to stand off from obedience to this present happy setled Authority notwithstanding all that they have been formerly bound unto by The Solemn League and Covenant I shall offer to their view these following considerations about the nature of Obligations by Oathes and Covenants the ignorance or mistake of which is
diseases in the body which hazard the dissolution of the union This being laid as the Primum mobile of the ingagement and set in the Covenant as the common centre many lines were drawn towards them on every side in order to an union in the first principle and many Articles proposed as mediums thought most sutable and necessary to advance these ends And as these ends or first reasons were of two sorts viz Religion and Liberty the means were proportioned as was then thought fit for the happier effecting both Religion being chief it was first proposed and the preservation of it taken care for more expressely in the first and second Articles against the Common enemy who was then well known and as in order to that we ingaged to a Reformation of it in Doctrine and Discipline according to the word of God and the best Reformed Churches to extirpate Popery Heresie Episcopacie with all its attendants that being unto Religion as the suckers to the tree which diverts the moisture from the natural branches and by this we thought Religion sufficiently provided for in its preservation and Reformation The next in order was the just Liberty and Freedom of the Nations and the advancement of it as mediums unto that the Covenant in the third and fourth Articles as most absolutely necessary to preserve the Priviledges of Parliament and because we would let nothing out that might be probable though ex suppositione remota and from a strain'd charity we ingaged to preserve the Kings person yet with a wary Salvo in the preservation of Religion and Liberty And lastly to prevent any design against both we ingaged to discover and bring to condign punishment all Delinquents and Incendiaries that acted contrary to these proposed ends Thus you have the whole Covenant anatomized the two great pillars on which its Obligation stands which though of different Natures yet are inseparably united to the preservation of each other Now if any thing without should oppose either Religion or Liberty or any thing in any Article exprest should afterwards prove malignant to either or both or interfer with any other Article which hath more of the efficacy of a medium to these ends the Obligation to that ceaseth because it will destroy the Formal Reason by which I am obliged Thus it will follow That if the Kings person which we are engaged to preserve take him in his best capacity shall set up Popery and Prelacy contrary to Religion and advance Malignancy and Tyranny contrary to Liberty we have no Obligation by the COVENANT to preserve him seeing be is destructive to these absolute Ends for which and in the PRESERVATION of which we engage to preserve Him But that we may deal plainly and freely in a Case of Conscience let us a little compare the King and his actings more particularly with the Convenant and we shall finde at last that we are not onely not engaged to preserve him but bound by the strength of the Covenant to cut him off as a dead member that is gangrened I have often wondered out of what sort of charity or design the Kings name was inserted in the Covenant as distinct from the Common Enemy against whom we were first sworn seeing he was the Head that gave life and motion to every part of that Body without whom they were but as a great Body without Soul or animal Spirit they onely fought under his Banners for his Interest in opposition to the first grounds of the Covenant to distinguish the Head and the Members in one Common Cause and to swear against the one and swear to preserve the other was too great a Criticism to be put in an Oath that must binde the Conscience For my part from the first I saw that name there considering the state of Affairs then I looked upon him as SAUL among the Prophets or as in superstitious times they set up stately Images to draw men to Church and more to reverence the place or as sugar put on bitter pills to make them down the better with less scruple of the palate or nauseousness of the stomack And if I may use the words of Learned Calvin in another case which you shall finde in his Epistle prefixed to his Commentary on the Corinthians having been forc'd to change the Dedication and alter the Title of it which was in the first Impression he to whom it was first dedicated proving an Apostate Vtinam saith he quo primum tempore in lucem prodiit hic Commentarius vel mihi ignotus vel saltem probe notus fuisset ille cujus nomen huic paginae hactenus inscriptum nunc delere cogor It had been happy for ENGLAND that we had either not known him or known him better as we had Reason and either wholy let out his name or had better reasons to have put it in for he ever stood as the great errata in it and we might easily have fore-seen what end he was designed to make which had such a beginning But however though through hope and charity his name was inserted yet now Reason and Conscience yea the COVENANT it self hath given just grounds to blot him out he being the onely obstacle to attaining all the honest and necessary Ends of it Let us but without prejudice view how that one name and the preservation of it stands opposite to all the other Articles and expressions in the COVENANT and makes them all useless and of no consequence that there is an imcompossibility of keeping our Engagement to him and to keep the others First for Religion and these Articles which are sworn unto in order to its preservation the preservation of the Kings person would directly be the overthrowing of them we had absolutely sworn to extirpate Popery and Prelacy without any limitation which could not possibly be done with the preservation of his Majesties person for Popery though I cannot tax him with the profession of it yet many correspondencies have been between him and Rome and Spain even from a childe his QUEEN a profest and Jesuited PAPIST who not onely lay in his bosom but ruled and guided most of his counsels that you must have either left him a Husband without a Wife and have divorced him from his own Soul and Self and from her whose he was eternally or else grant at least a TOLERATION to POPERY after we had sworn against it Besides his MAJESTY was in Debt and so far in Arrears to the Popish party in England and Ireland for their faithfull services to him that he could not be free of regall promises and Covenant-Engagements to them which must have been remembred upon every advantage neither could he in honour or ingenuity have consented to extirpate them who had so great an influence to his affairs and ventured so hard for his Prerogative thus the King and the first and second Article are become incompetible cannot stand together and be both preserved The next thing we ingaged in order to
THE GRAND Case of Conscience Concerning the ENGAGEMENT Stated Resolved Or A strict Survey of the Solemn League Covenant In Reference to the Present Engagement {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} sc. Cum Tyranno Romanis nulla fides Nulla juris jurandi religio Brutus apud Appianum Tunc fidem fallam tunc inconstantiae crimen audiam si cum omnia eadem sint quae erant promittente me non praestitero promissum alioqui quicquid mutatur libertatem facit de integro consulendi meam fidem liberat nam omnia eadem esse debent quae fuerint cum promitteres ut promittentis fidem teneas Senec. de benef. l. 4. c. 35. LONDON Printed by John Macock for Francis Tyton and are to be sold at his shop at the three Daggers neer the Inner Temple Fleetstreet 1650. The Grand Case of Conscience Concerning the ENGAGEMENT Stated and Resolved AS there is no Engagement on man more sacred and solemn then that which is contracted by Oaths and Covenants God himself being expresly appealed unto both as Witness and Judg so there is nothing more dangerous and ensnaring if not warily and honestly entred into and kept as well with a clear and sound judgment as with pure and chrystal affections The truth of this is evidently demonstrated in the late League and Covenant between these two Nations England and Scotland which although it wanted nothing of Ceremony and Solemnity in its administration yet hath proved sad and ominous in the use and application of it unto this Common-wealth And though it was first intended as the best and most proper medium of union and strength to both Nations against the common Enemy yet hath proved in several hands a stratagem to obstruct the most prudential and providential essays of perfecting the Peace and Happiness of both yea is onely left as the last reserve and ultimate plea of all sorts of dis-affected and abused spirits who having with little effect made use of all sort of weapons would by it make us miserable by our own Consciences It is not now time to look back when this Covenant was made and where viz. in Scotland or upon what occasion it was entred into at first I have so much charity to think there was on all sides good and honest intentions active in the modelling of it though some had their eyes in their heads and many objections were made at divers expressions and many desires for explanation of some Articles more fully yet it was not fit to insist on them our affairs not admiting any delay in our Brethrens assistance nor their conjunction to be obtained without a Covenant though the cause was common to both But after it past the gulf and was taken by the Parliament and Assembly of Divines and honest men of all sorts had freely lifted up their hands to God in it not fearing the after-reckoning would be so costly and dangerous every one began to make his advantage through the multitude and ambiguity of expression most unsuitable to a Covenant which ought to be plain and simple in its terms and by it to promote his several interest as if it had been made to engage unto a particular party not to unite two Nations in a common Interest Yea so many several interpretations variety of sences have been fixt upon it as if it were intended rather for Debates then Obedience and to exercise mens wits rather then enforce their Consciences to honest and necessary duties yea which we may remember with sad hearts England never knew what it was to have so many sad divisions of parties and interests until the Covenant came by the design of some disguised Politicians to be improved to some particular Interests and Parties who insisting some on one Article and some on another in opposition to the rest as they saw their advantage have divided the Covenant into several parts to engage several parties others have made one and the same Article to speak several Senses dividing the sence from the words torturing the very Comma's and Colons making a separation between them and the words which they necessarily distinguish and all but to strengthen their own Interest and destroy anothers that the abuses do seem to be worse and more heinous then the breach of it would be The first and main advantage that was made of it was to set up the Presbyterial Government in ENGLAND without any bound or limitation of the Civil Magistrate and the Scots who best knew the design of the Covenant urge their pattern first as supposing their Church to be the best Reformed and so strongly and vigorously was it managed that they got so far on the affections of the people by such pleas that the brand of Heresie and Schism in the first Article was fastened on all those that differed or dissented in Discipline from that pattern and so far on Authority that none should either preach or be fit for any place in Government of State but he that subscribed to that sence That moderate and wary spirits which through Reason and Conscience differed onely in these circumstances had nothing to relieve themselves by and avoyd the direful sentence of perjury layd on them for not bringing up their Congregations to the Presbyterial Model but onely that clause which was happily inserted According to the Word of GOD But to salve that and press on the former Interest the Reformed Churches were brought in and not onely Scotland proposed as the main and absolute Rule and the Word of God to be exegetical and expository virtually included in them and so vehemently hath this first Article been prest to that Interest that all union besides and agreement in Doctrine and the absolutes and necessaries of Religion have been accounted of as low and ordinary in comparison of it that most men have thought it was a design either to make men doubt that there is any Church-Government Jure Divino or else that any will serve the turn which is but popular and suitable to a present Interest And of such a fundamental consequence hath the Covenant bin judged in Scotland that they used it as the characteristical difference of all persons both in Church and State and looked on it as the best constituting principle of Saint-ship and holiness and the visible qualification of members of Churches and as the onely way of admission at first or re-admission on relapse for when in the first expedition many had revolted from them to the common Enemy and were excommunicated both whole Shires and Parishes It was put unto the question in the General Assembly What way should be taken for the Tryal of their REPENTANCE and to receive them in again It was absolutely carryed by Vote by a new taking of the Covenant And that there might be no further difference between England and Scotland it was often urged that by it we might be made one Kingdom and no more be distinct in Priviledg seeing we were all one