Anti-Baal-Berith JUSTIFIED AND ZECH. CROFTON Tryed and Cast in his Appearance before the so called PRELATE-JVSTICE of PEACE In an Answer To his seditious Pamphlet Entituled BERITH-ANTI-BAAL Wherein his Anti-monarchical Principles are made manifest and apparent to deserve his Just Imprisonment Together with an Answer and Animadversions upon The Holy-Prophane League and Covenant Wherein according to their own words and ways of Arguing it s proved to be null and invalid and its notorious contrariety to former Legal Oathes is in several particulars plainly demonstrated Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee Luke 19. 22. Circumferamus oculos per omnem Historiam quod unquam saeculum tot vidit subditorum in Principes bella sub Religionis Titulo horum Concitores ubique Reperiantur Ministri Evangelij ut quidem se vocant Grot. de Antichristo p. 71 By ROBERT CRESSENER 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Licensed and entred according to Order London Printed by Tho. Johnson and are to be sold by Fr. Kirkman and Hen. Marsh at the Princes Arms in Chancery-lane 1662. A Paraenesis to the Reader THe Guisian Leaguers in France having sworn their Associations and Leagues which they blasphemously termed The Confraternities of the Holy Ghost and in 1588. having tormented and vexed the Dukedom of Bovillon with their troublesom Military Suitors The principal of the Pack assembled at Nancy in Lorrain where there was great consultation held how they might advance themselves and overthrow the King There they agreed to present certain Articles to the King which they would have him agree to and those were such as tended to the utter destruction of the King and the Ancient Nobility of France and the safety of themselves First They requested the King to joyn more nearly with the League 2. To establish the Spanish Inquisition 3. To put such Castles and strong Townes into their hands as they should name unto him The King considering how wonderfully they did derogate from his Crown and Dignity and that they tended directly to the weakning of himself and strengthning of the League would by no means be induced to condescend unto them And as the Leaguers sought by such devices to weaken the King so they would not be quiet till the King of Navarre and Prince of Conde were both dispatcht out of the way the latter whereof they murthered but the first for the time escaped Guise the principal Head of those Monsters had in the mean time caused such infamous rumors to be raised of the Kings Actions and by secret practises had so disgrac'd him among his subjects that he was almost grown into contempt with the Commonalty and was counted no body in comparison of Guise who knowing that he had stollen away the peoples hearts from the King away postes he to Paris and notwithstanding the King had truly mistrusted his mischievous designs against his person and therefore commanded him not to come upon pain of his displeasure and being lookt upon as a Traitor and the Author of all those miseries wherewith the Land was so incumbred at that instant yet he not regarding the Message followed the Messenger close at his heels and was almost at Paris as soon as he and not long after went very confidently to see the King and with all humble reverence with his knee to the ground saluted him but the King being displeased with his coming frowned on him He seeing that stays not long at Court but into the City runs he and by his and his Companies instigations the City rose up in Armes and down they went to the Louvre to take the King either alive or dead which he seeing and having not forces to resist such a rabble determined to leave the Louvre at the perswasions of sundry his most faithful Councellors who advised him to give place to that desperate Rebellion and to seek his safety some other where and so incontinently he went from Paris Hereupon Guise conceiving that the King would seek to be revenged of so great an indignity offered to his person forthwith seized upon the Arsenal and his Treasure removed Perrense the Provost of the Merchants there from his Office and the rest of the chiefest Officers which he knew to be affectionate to the King and placed such as were the most factious and seditious Leaguers in their rooms wrote sundry Letters to his friends abroad and to the principal Towns requiring them to joyn with him and be in a readiness when he should have need When he had taken this course for himself and his friends he wrote Letters to the King to disguise all his Actions and to perswade him that he had no evil meaning against his Majesty but had always been and still remained his most dutiful Subject and therefore besought the King to be his Gracious Lord and to accept of him as his most faithful and loyal Subject whose damnable hypocrisie and villanous practises had their just reward given them soon after by some of the Kings servants in their setting upon and slaying him But yet having left others of his Leaguing Conspirators behinde him men of the same trayterous Regicidian Principles with himself they never left contriving and hatching of mischief till their murthering ends were accomplished in James Clement the See the mutability of France Dominican Fryer his stabbing of their King with a poisoned knife He that shall well mark this Breviate of the Leaguing Story and consider with me of the actions of those whom some are pleased to call The long Parliament how after they were once got into their Den and the King had unfortunately Enacted their Continuance they began to present their Nineteen destructive Propositions to His Majesty utterly derogatory to His Crown and Dignity That all such as they were pleased to miscall Delinquents and disliked should be put out of their Offices That the Militia that ancient Flower of the Crown should be pluckt off thence and put into the hands of such persons as their seditious humors should agree with That they murthered Strafford and took away the life of the Archbishop of Canterbury How by infamous Rumors of the Kings actions they thereby lessened His Subjects affections to him and made Him so contemptible in the eyes of the people that some had the audacity to throw seditious Pamphlets into Witness that To thytents O Israel His Coach as He passed along the streets how by their own instigations they caused the Citizens of London to come down to Whitehall in tumultuou◠Companies saying No Bishops no Bishops no Popish Lords and so audaciously too that they set a Bill upon Whitehall-gate to give the people notice that it was to be let that the King was thereupon perswaded to leave the place and give way to that popular Commotion and did leave it accordingly How after his departure they raised an Army to send against Him seized upon his Treasury as well as Militia and ordered it which way they pleased themselves How they removed Sir
other inferior made without the knowledge of Father Husband or Superior should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed or made void Ergo this unsacred Covenant being taken without the consent or knowledge of our Regal Superior or as the Bishop alledges by the †See the 144 page of his book Subjects of England who were by Law and Oaths inferior to and dependents on the King obliged to duty and allegiance by his open Proclamation against it according to that Scripture is frustrate void and of none effect but ingenuons Arguings would have quite and clean spoiled the design of such a * Page 232 Sophistical Caviller and therefore he craftily forbore the pursuit of true Disputations not quarrellings and envious cavillings with his Reverend Adversary lest thereby his k 2 Tim. 3. 9. See p. 10. of Croftons book folly should have been made manifest to all men yea even to his Presbyterian proselytes who are pleased with a sound against the Bishops book and consider not the certainty of it and are ready jurare in verba Presbyteri be they never so groundless with whom the Say-so of a godly Presbyter is esteemed a sufficient reason of their Faith And yet the man thinking how bravely he had drawn the Bishops Arguings to serve the base ends of his own vain talking he presently begins to crow and vapour and cries out of a Syllogism Currens quatuor pedibus running of four feet and tells his Readers a Tale of a tub a story of his godly Brethren the Jesuits Conference at Ratisbone who just like his own Argument here against the Bishop set down thus their profound Determinations of the Articles of their Faith Qui negat articulum fidei est hereticus sed hereticus est qui negat Tobiam habuisse Canem Ergo just like our matchless Disputer sequitur articulum esse fidei quod Tobias canem habuerit He that denies an Article of Faith is an heretick But he is an heretick that denies Tobit had a dog Therefore it follows that it is an Article of Faith that Tobit had a dog Not considering that in his Parallel he fights with nothing but his own shadow that he utters his minde for the disgracing and vanquishing of no body but his own dear self not at all of the Bishop who hath no such rotten Arguments in all his Book And that we may perfectly see the mans design in Writing even to fill up his Book with cavilling he tells us in his Preface side 3. of the Bishops writing Mr. Grafton as if he should answer Dr. Gaudie when as one that could not reade he takes no notice of what the Bishop had set down at the latter end of his book to read Crofton for Grafton through the whole Discourse If his eyes were so dim he could not see it he should have said so and then I should have done my best to have got a clear pair of Spectacles for him that he might by that means have read what the Doctor had said for him to correct as well as others seeing he was one of his Readers but alas he wanted somewhat to say to fill up his Preface and therefore sets down this for a part of it to make appear his invincible ways of disputing His quotations of the Bishops words are such that besides those imperfect un-scholar-like ones I have already set down there are no less then fifteen or sixteen several other quotations which are either imperfect like the former or else absolute false ones as upon a true examination I have found them and such as leads his Readers into a wilderness for to see the truth of them but I consider his cavilling Discourse was made in a great deal of haste and his mad-brain'd tricks have made his Book good for nothing but to be the subject of some mens laughter and indignation for my part Mr. Crofton I * See the 8. page of his book will excuse you for your wrong imperfect false quotations though not for your Antimonarchical seditious Principles and Assertions up and down your Book if your very friends do not with blame to you say You are come a great deal too soon and have verified the old proverb upon your self The more haste the worst speed And truly I am afraid it had been better for your outward and inward safety both that your Book had been like the Bishops which you madly profess and say contrary to the judgements of many sober understanding men l Page 5. whosoever in his right mind doth but read will finde it a Rudis indigestaque moles a meer Chaos of Confusion where by the way whosoever is not of the same judgement therein with you is censured to be out of his wits like your self whose Wits run a wool-gathering rather then that which you are pleased to stile methodical exceptions which denies the onely Supremacy of the King It s but a sad merriment to play with edge-tools to laugh at your Adversary with Rebellion in your mouth and if the mercy of our most Gracious Sovereign prevent not which I know no reason in the world for you will finde it so to your cost before you are let loose from the reins of your Just deserved Imprisonment § 24. Again the Bishop said pag. 196. That he peremptorily determines that the King Lords and Commons have no prudent moral religious and lawful power to change an ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops To any that is AS new and Schismatical SO far worse and unsutable to England every way Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity too of which the whole Church in its Primitive example and constant custom is the best interpreter As no Legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in Heresie and Error and Superstition so nor Schism Faction or Confusion by causelesly nuding or taking from the Essentials of sound Doctrine or Christian Communion ever owned and maintained in the Church of Christ Here 's the Docters whole sentence word for word as I took it out of his own Book and not as its mangled by our Presbyters paultry delusive false quotation where he makes the words run thus Doctor Gauden peremptorily determineth That Parliaments Kings Lords and Commons have no Prudent Moral Religious and lawful Authority to change the Ancient Universal and excellent Government by Bishops for Christian Kings and Parliaments are obliged c. leaving out those words of the Doctors which made his learned Assertion unanswerable and true beyond any sound contradiction which are these To any that is AS new and Schismatical SO far worse and unsutable to England every way that so his own arguings might thereby appear the better and sound more pleasingly to the ears of his factious brethren a practise somewhat like unto one that pictures a man with the greatest deformity of body he can for no other end but to make his
own naturally deformed one appear the neater and beautifuller But I consider otherwise he could not hide his folly from being palpable and open to every person that is not possessed of a Bedlamers understanding nor his Book from being thrown into the fire by ingenuous persons rather then they would vex themselves so much as to read his lies and juglings his cavillings and sedititon his false quotations and confident language both of the judicious Assertions and person of that Learned Reverend Prelate whom this Holy Leaguer may well put to silence after the usual Presbyterian ways of Disputing for indeed it will soon make any wise man leave off medling with such notorious Salamanders who loves to live in peace and quietness and endeavour to advance the Unity of the Church and delights not to live in contention with them to kindle the fire of Combustion and Sedition both in Church and State But we will see however what the man conceived fit in his Scotized noddle to say for himself and make it the matter of his Answer to the words of the Bishop as he had filthily mangled them in his false quotation of them and that I finde upon search to be this learned one that follows with a m P. 25. of his Book But Sir have you not stretch'd too far and stept into a Premunire Little Mr. Crofton should fear to be made less by the head as guilty of Treason Sedition at the least should be thus confront King and Parliaments in what all their Statutes declare to be their own creature and constitution changeable at their pleasure even from the Statutes of Carlisle and 25. of Edward the 3. Declaring against the Pope That holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own Donation Power and Authority and so by the same way changeable Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative why not Supremacy Would not that word have choak'd you over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical What is become of your oath of Supremacy Can you make this peremptory determination as your self calls it consist with it any more with your Covenant Hath a gracious King lately advanced you to debase nay dethrone him and his Parliament too And then tells his Readers a story How it hath been observed to be the fatall chance of the Bishops of England to run themselves into a Premunire The man would fain make people believe that Bishops are Seditious persons and in particular his Reverend Antagonist and therefore the best course will first be to consider what the Bishop hath said and then see whether it amount to the Sedition supposed by the Leaguing Rhodomantado and in order thereunto I shall begin with the first particle of the Bishops words That Kings Lords and Commons have no prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change an ancient universal Church-Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical So far worse and unsuitable to England every way and see whether they may be found to be either contrary to truth or a derogation to His Majesties legal Supremacy and therefore first that they have no prudential authority to change Episcopal Government much less swear to extirpate them root and branch is evident not onely by the desperate excommunicating antimonarchical brasen tricks and practises of the Godly partie forsooth in Scotland against the excellent King James in walking direct contrary to his Royal Commands and stirring up the people in Rebellion against him because he did not submit himself to their traiterous imperious humours and making him for his own safety to flie out of his own capital City of Edinburgh but also by that Kings famous Motto No Bishop no King and by the sad woful experience of the truth thereof by the late never to be forgotten Rebellion in 1642 and the Regicidian genuine issues and effects of it knowest thou not Sir John Presbyter the undeniable truth of that Assertion of the noble L'estrange which he put forth to the view of the world That m See his Interest mistaken or The holy Cheat pag. 88. by those very Troops that cryed down Bishops was the King murthered Knowest thou not Sir John what the wise King James said to Dr. Reynolds's desire at the conference at Hampton Court for the rearing up a domineering Tyrannical Presbytery within this Kingdom if not then I shall for once declare it unto your Honor the Royal Answer ran thus n See the Conference at Hampton Court p. 81. Stay I pray you for one seven years before you demand that of me and if then you finde me pursey and fat and my wind-pipes stuffed I will perhaps harken to you for let that government be once up I am sure I shall be kept in breath then shall we all of us have work enough both our hands full but Dr. Reynolds till you finde that I grow lazie let that alone If Kings and Parliaments have a mind never to be quiet and to be alwaies in a combustion I know no better advice can be given them then for to set and rear up this Presbytery but if they desire to keep themselves in rest peace and unity they 'l find I am confident no prudential authority to extirpate Episcopacy by a Baal-Berith and bring an headless currish Presbytery in its room but will abandon the Covenant that o See Mr. L'estrange his Interest mistaken p. 35. popular Sacrament of Religious disobedience as the very poison of hell and the secret underminer of the Regal Authority and Supremacy but then § 25. Again secondly that they have no religious authority for as for moral authority that is an authority secundum morem according to former custom their authority is so altogether in the negative there that its in vain to blot any paper with an answer but I say that they have no religious authority to change Episcopal government is evident too in regard of the Apostolicalness and primitive use thereof by the Apostles while they lived in commanding obedience and controuling the subordinate governors and their disorders as well as the peoples in the several Churches they planted and enjoyning the same to be done by his Episcopal deputies at Ephesus and Creet and in them all their successors in the Episcopal office in those several Churches over whom they had their jurisdiction Certainly he that tells me that p 1 Tim. 3. 1. he that desires the office of a Bishop desires a good work gives me no religious nor lawful authority to vow and swear with an Anti-regal Oath to extirpate it and make an exchange for one of the plagues of Egypt to overwhelm us instead of that That the Apostle said the one and that therefore for that very reason Kings and Parliaments have no religious authority to do the other None but a Crofton and his crafty companions would ever have had the confidence to deny it which makes me proceed to the next thing and that is § 26. That they have no lawful
authority to change it which must needs have reference to the Laws of God according to the subsequent words of the Bishops where he explaines his meaning by judiciously asserting That Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and rules os Christian piety and polity too of which the whole Church in its primitive example is the best interpreter and so his position in short is this That they have no lawful authority by the Laws of God and rules of Christian piety and polity to change Episcopal Government which is a cleer evident truth to me for I consider with my self that those Laws and Rules will admit at no hand of any schism ataxy confusion or division in the Church which are contrary to true Christianity for the abounding whereof amongst the Corinthians they were so often taxed of their too much carnality and that Bishops were set up by the Apostles themselves in remedium Schismatis for the preventing of schismes and divisions and that none of those errors and heresies were so prevalent or apparent to humane eyes in the Bishops times as since their Julian extirpation for the setting up of Prsbyterian practical-jesuitism was the ground of a day of fasting and humiliation amongst the Godly rebels and a Sermon thereupon preached by our unsacred Covenanter What shall we say to those things that men should show so much pretence of goodness in appointing a day to humble themselves for the errors and heresies of the times the true proper effects of their arrogant ways of Rebellion in setting up Presbytery as a distinct Government by it self without Episcopacy in direct opposition to the practise of the Catholick Church as well as to the King and his Laws which is and hath bin the head and fountain from whence the unclean muddy streames of heresies and blasphemies have had their rise and product And yet forsooth must have the means still kept for the production of the same ends of disorder and confusion Vpon the consideration of the whole I cannot but subscribe to the great truth of the Bishops words That as no legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in either Heresie Error Superstition Schisme Faction or Confusion so neither have the King Lords and Commons any prudent moral religious or lawful Authority by those Laws or those of this English Nation and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity to change the Ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical so far worse and unsuitable to England every way If one part of the sentence be true which by Croftons silence is absolutely concluded No man need fear to affirm the other without any derogation to the legal rightful Supremacy of the King That which speakes against Schisme and faction confusion and disorder will not surely give me any lawful power to extirpate Bishops the main preventers of it by being the constant promoters of love and unity § 27. Thus I have examined the words as I found them imperfectly quoted in Croftons Discourse without that additional clause which I have set down in my true Citation of them which he most unworthily and basely had left out that so he might have some what to fill up his rambling discourse with for a true Citation would have fo confounded his understanding as immediately to have commanded him into a becoming silence and ingenuous conviction of the Bishops truths but rather then he would depart from his cavilling art and shiftings he 'l mangle the words of an Antagonist to make his own way the smoother for credulous poor mortals to set their steps in which hath brought to my remembrance the answer of a most Reverend person to the Miltonian Justifier of Regicide and Rebellion depraver of verity and breaker of the Kings Image That he p See the Image unbroken p. 153. broke sentences and truths lest he should breake for want of matter And the words of the Bishops with that additional clause in it is so cleer a truth as can no waies be darkned by a Presbyters Argumentations which was seen evident enough by Crofton himself and so very craftily left it out and therefore needs no other defence but the bare words themselves which carry truth in their forehead to the convincing of any opposer which I have no sooner done but I took a resolution to follow the mans pattern for once and turn Quaerist too Where 's the Premunire that the Bishop hath stept into now Is speaking of a known Truth confronting of King and Parliaments Suppose the Bishop had lived in Queen Maries days and had said That neither Queen nor Parliament had any lawful power by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity either to change the King Edward-Reformation or to set up and establish Popery in the kingdom Was it fit for any mans mouth but a cursed Jesuits to charge him with sedition and treason against the Queen in confronting her and her Parliaments by saying black is black and white is white by asserting a known truth Blessed be God we live under a Prince that desires not to have His Supremacy stretcht so as to make it an Instrument of Justification of the Lawfulness of His Actings either against God or his Truth or the Defenders of true Christianity that desires to have His Supremacy carryed on and maintain'd for no other ends and purposes then those for which it was first established To make Clergy-men as well as Lay know that he is their onely Supream Governor and in case of offence that His Power will reach to the punishment of both that they shall not be exempted from the Civil Magistrates sword of Justice either by the wicked pretence of a foreign Papal superior Jurisdiction or Antimonarchical Sentence or Determination of the traiterous seditious Consistorians if they do that which is not justifiable either by the Laws of God or this Land Where 's the Bishops sedition I wonder Where 's his treason that he needs to fear to be made less by the head for as this Leaguer cants it Why he saith in affirming the defect of the Kings and Parliaments prudent moral religious and lawful power to change Episcopacy to one that is worse and far unsuitable to England every way for that is it which the Bishop saith which our unsacred Covenanter hath dared to contradict with his shabbed pratling Ay but saith Crofton The Statutes of the Kings declare against the Pope That Holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own donation power and authority and so by the same way changeable Ergo What That they have any prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change it to a worse After what rate doth this wily Covenanter argue Can they that swear to govern a people well and according to the Laws of the Land have any of that quaternary Power to change one Government for a worse Will the people in such a case think or can
of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at the special instance and request of the Commons of the Realm our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained or ordained certain Statutes where the advising assenting to Laws is appropriated to the Lords the ordaining of them to the King and nothing but the requesting of and petitioning for them to the Commons Thus he Other Statutes saith i See his impartial inquiry into the nature of sin p. 211. See his Lex Terrae p. 26. the Reverend Doctor Peirce which have the force of Acts of Parliament are known to be directed as private Writs with a Teste Meipso And the Common stile of most others is found to run in this form The King with the advice of the Lords at the Humble Petition of the Commons Wills this or that where by the way take notice of the saying of Judge Jenkins That Consilium non preceptum Confiliarii non preceptores Counsel is not a command nor to be Counsellors is not to be Commanders So the form of passing Bills is still observed to be this Le Roy le vieult The King will have it And Soit fait il comme est desire Let it be done as t is desired plainly speaking by way of grant to something sought or petitioned for from whence saith he by some it hath bin gathered That Rogation of Laws doth rightly belong to the two Houses but the Legislation to the King that their Act is preparative his only jussive The Acts of Parliament saith the learned Mr Duncomb are called the King Laws And why not the Kings Laws Doth not he make See his Royal Buckler p. 306. 307 308. them The whole body and volumes of the Statutes proclaim the King the sole Legislator What is Magna Charta but the Kings Will and gift The very beginning of it will tell you t is no more viz. Henry by the grace of God c. Know yee that we of our meer and free will have given these Liberties In the self same stile runs Charta de forresta But wherefore evidences to prove that which no man can deny The stiles of the Statutes and Acts printed to the 1 of Henry VII are either the King willeth the King ordaineth the King provideth the King grants the King ordains at his Parliament or the King ordaineth by the advice of his Prelates and Barons and at the humble petition of the Commons c. But in Henry VII his time the stile altered and hath sithence continued thus It is ordained by the Kings Majesty and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled And why do the Lords and Commons ordain Is it not onely because the King doth It is so they do because the King doth which onely denotateth their assent for the Kings Majesty giveth life to all as the Soul to the body For did ever the Lords and Commons make an Act without the King Never They cannot The Lords advise the Commons consent but the King makes the Law Their Bills are but Inanimate scriblings until the King breaths into their Nostrils the breath of life and so that which was mould before becometh a Law which ruleth living souls And as Sir Edward Cook observeth In ancient times all Acts of Parliaments were in form of petitions which the King answered at his pleasure Now if it be the duty of the Parliament to petition and in the power of the King to receive or reject their petitions at their will Judge you who hath the supream power Thus far he § 35. By what hath been said I leave it to any understanding person to judge where the Legislative power lies whether in the Two Houses who most humbly beseech His Majesty under the notion of dutiful and loyal Subjects for making new Laws Or in the King who grants their petitions makes the Law and ordains it to be observed who both by the Law and a Sacred Oath is declared and sworn to be the onely Supream Governor of the Land That there is no difference between a Son and Servant to his Father and Master and the Two Houses to the King is clear by one oath they took wherein they swear To bear true faith and allegiance to our Sovereign Lord the King and by the other they acknowledge cutting off all pretences of Co-ordination His Majesty to be the onely Supream Governor of the Land which implies His Lordship and Dominion over them And they in all their Addresses and Declarations stile themselves His dutiful and loyal subjects and so servants and in relation to the Kings stile of Pater Patriae may be very well called sons too And seeing the Two Houses imaginary Legislative power by the Laws of this Land is not able to impower and authorize them either to make new Laws or to repeal old ones without the Royal Consent of Majesty it clearly follows That their vowing to extirpate Bishops established by Magna Charta confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament and irrepealable was not sui Juris it lay not in their power nor had no right to do it without His Majesties consent and so having not that according to Croftons own grant the Action vowed was superseded and might very well be so by His Majesties publick Proclamation his declared pleasure against the taking or imposing of it in regard it was a traiterous and seditious Vow and Covenant and therefore null and void to all intents and purposes But further our Leaguer affirms That § 36. Their power in this Covenant was no less Legislative then in the Protestation of May 1641. What doth he Jabber thus for of non entities of things that never had a being of a Legislative power in the Two Houses which they never had which neither Divine nor English Lawes ever gave them If I should for once allow of his non-sense and lawless Assertions yet I should spoil his sport there too for their power in the Covenant was not so Legislative I speak according to the Presbyters canting tone upon these grounds The Protestation was made and taken in the presence of all the Members of both Houses and giving their free consent it was confined to established Laws had a Parliamentary authority as it were by His Majesties deep silence though nigh at hand and thereby implying His tacit consent to the doing of it many thousands took it who yet utterly damned the wretched Covenant detesting it as the venome of hell and not without just cause But when by the Midwifery of Tumults and Armies this devouring Brat of Abiram was brought forth k See Iudge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 126. All men know That of 120 Peers of the kingdom who were Temporal Peers before the Troubles there were not above thirty left in the Lords House and in the House of Commons about 200 of the principal Gentlemen of the kingdom left the Houses and adhered to His Majesty The Covenant it self destructive to the former directly
Parliament was to raise Credit for three purposes That those ends were ended take away the end and the means thereto are to no purpose and therefore the three ends of the Act being determined it agreeth with Law and Reason the Act should end the Law rejecting things unprofitable and useless That the Writ of Summons was the Basis and Foundation of the Parliament that those men would be called a Parliament having abated quashed and made nothing of the Writ whereby they were Summoned and Assembled that if the Writ be made void the Process is void also That that house must needs fall where the Foundation is overthrown that Sublato Fundamento opus cadit the Foundation being taken away the work falls is both a Maxime in Law and Reason And let him but seriously meditate on the Arguments used by the learned Author of the Royalists defence to prove that The persons at Westminster who call themselves the Parliament of England are not the two Houses nor so much as Members of the Parliament and then tell me whether he is of Drakes minde still That the Long-Oppressive Tyrants are yet in continuance and not legally dissolved by their cursed Regicide Nay Mr. Prynne himself whom he stiles by an Emphasis That Profound Lawyer is clearly against him and Drake too not onely holding with Judge Jenkins their Legal dissolution by the Kings Martyrdom but also tells us That the Kings Personal absence from his Parliament heretofore and of late was reputed very prejudicial to it and his calling away some Lords great Officers and other Members from it in his life time a high way to its present Dissolution which also gives a Bastinado and word of Correction to Croftons frantick denial of the Kings Presence or his absence to add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament Mr. Prynne Lawyer-like tells us also in another place That the Act for the continuance of the Long-Perjured Treasonable Plotters and Contrivers of Murther Sacriledge Treason and Rebellion was made by the King as their Sovereign Lord Declaring and Enacting mark that and the Lords and Commons as joyntly assenting thereunto which absolutely confounds Croftons other Whimsie of the two Houses Supream Legislative power See his True and perfect Narrative Page 27 37. Buzze Buzze Mr. Crofton Where are you Do you honour a person so far as to adorne him with the Epethite of Profound and yet not believe him but go on in your simplicity breathing forth deceit the folly of fools when he hath done you the honour of a Profound Confutation Surely you minde so much his Sovereign power of Parliaments which he wrote in the time that his Zeal without knowledge had overpowred him because pleasant and delectable reading for your Seditious minde that you care not for considering his subsequent Treatises which be sent forth into the world when the Puritanical zeal began to leave him And thus Mr. Crofton supposeth the two Houses into a Non-Entitie as to their damnable Treasons and Enormous Practises by the temper they were then in by their being Parliament men and having some certain Priviledges which were not time after time answered by the Royal Grant to learn them Absaloms Trepan of Rebellion against their King with a Sacred Covenant betwixt their teeth nor yet to teach them to be unparellel'd Seditious Corah's under a visard and masque of Sanctity And thus he supposeth the two Houses into an Entitie as to their yet Legal continuance by vertue of their being animated by an express Statute Law which one openly averring to continue them yet in being was immediately sought after and caught and by an Order of the whole Body of the two Houses was Voted Seditious and his openly averring to be burnt by the New-turn'd Presbyter Doctor Dunne But Crofton hath another dart to shoot at the Bishops but it s so pittiful blunt and dull that let him aim never so well at his mark yet there 's no great fear of hurt to be received by it and what should it be but this And thus he i. e. the Bishop profoundly supposeth a Parliament swearing qua Parliament in the fullest formality and profession of their National Capacity was a personal Covenanting Say ye so The Bishop did but as you say plainly suppose the former but you tell us he doth profoundly suppose this latter And why pray now is it such a profound supposition Because the Bishop affirmes the swearing of the Absolonian Tribe the factious part of the Two bloody Houses without and against the consent of Majesty to be but a personal Covenanting for that the true English of the Bishops undeniable assertion T is a profound cavil indeed of yours I must confess Certainly the Bishop might well suppose your black Cabale into a non-entity by that one Law The Petition of Right as to their legal swearing without his Majesties consent as easily and truly as assert this irrefrageable proposition that the Body cannot act without the Head But because the prattles of a Parliament swearing qua Parliament as if he would out face the Sun with his mistakes and juglings I shall bring this subsequent counter-poyson as an Antidote against the venom infused by an ungodly seditious pack of Puritanical knaves into the peoples minds to keep them fast to themselves against their Prince with Treasonable delusive principles and that is first The Two Houses when every one met together and assembled in the House much less your remaining half of them are not a Parliament but onely a part thereof without the Kings presence or concurrence And secondly That this Belials brat the Covenant was sworn and taken by but a part of them too when the rest were like Loyal Subjects gone out of their bloody denns to the service of their Master and so the meaning of his words bears but this diminutive conclusion That the Covenant was taken and sworn but by a sad part of a part of a Legal Parliament which verifies the words of the learned Judge Jenkins That by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament you and your cross grain party have miserably deceived the people That the Bishop supposeth the swearing of the rotten putrified members the stinking part of a part of a rightful Parliament who were tainted above measure with Treason and Rebellion without the consent and concurrence therein of the Onely Supream Legislator to be but a personal Covenanting and what can we term a Covenant sworn without and against authority but personal and with the due Epethite Rebellious annexed unto it I am ready enough to grant you k See p. 51. of Crofton Book But that the Bishop doth any where affirm a Parliament swearing qua Parlialiament that is the King and all the Lords and Commons to be but a personal Covenanting Is the Sophistical groundless inference of him who knoweth the Bishop doth not so much as mention it but give a Presbyter an inch and he will be sure to take an ell If the King gives
23. of Jan in the first year of her Majesties Reign the Lords and Commons assembled by force of the same Writ the 21. day the Queen fell sick and could not appear in her person in Parliament that day and therefore Prorogued it until the 25. of the same month of January Resolved by all the Judges of England That the Parliament began not the day of the Return of the Writ viz. the 23. of January when the Lords and Commons appeared but the 25. of the said moneth when the Queen came in person What think you now Sir Presbyter You see the Queens presence and the reason of her absence was so far looked upon and esteemed in those daies in relation to the Authority of a Parliament that her absence but for two daies by the resolution of all the English Judges was enough to degrade them of their Parliamentary title till her Personal appearance amongst them gave them the denomination of a Parliament And unless this man can make it out That the late blessed Carolian Martyr had not the same place and Authority over these Nations as that noble Queen had the same Conclusion will follow upon his Assertion That the place of his Royal retirement and reason of his absence did so far add and abstract to the Authority of that which our Presbyterian Jugglers so often miscal a Parliament that they were neither Titular nor Real neither Name nor Thing without him For c See Lex terrae p. 51 the King is the head of the Kingdom and Parliament How then can a body act without a head There hath one long since told us to whom for knowledge in the Laws and Customs of the Realm our Caviller is not worthy to be compared That d Pag. 156 157. the two Houses are no more a Parliament then a body without a head a man Two Houses and a Parliament are several things Cuncta fidem vera faciunt all circumstances agree to prove this truth Before the Norman Conquest and since to this day the King is holden Principium caput finis the Beginning Head and chief end of the Parliament as appeareth by the Treatise of the maner of holding Parliaments made before the Norman Conquest by the Writ of Summons of Parliament whereby the Treaty and Parier in Parliament is to be had with the King onely by the Common Law by the Statute Law by the Oath of Supremacy taken at this and every Parliament it doth manifestly appear that without the King there can be no colour of a Parliament e See the Royal Buck ler p. 62. The two Houses saith Mr. Duncomb frame the body the King giveth the soul for without him it is but a dead Carcase Nay further saith the learned Judge in the Table of his Book concerning Parliaments This became no Parliament when the King with whom they should parley was driven away By what hath been said and many more instances that I could produce for this purpose I leave it to every understanding person to consider whether His Presence or his Absence without whom there can be no colour of a Parliament doth add or detract the Authority of Parliament And leaving Crofton to the just deserved censure and punishment of Majesty for his Rebellious Malignant Principles I shall proceed on to his next Arrogant and yet Ignorant pratling for his Seditious Vow and Covenant which hath been the cause of so many direful plagues amongst us § 34. Whatever the Libeller i. e. Dr. Burges his sweet-tooth'd Sacrilegious Brother did Mr. Crofton he f Pag. 37. saith allowed the Doctor this Text i. e. Numb 30. before mentioned in its Latitude and referred him to be judged by it and now granteth That the inferior in things not sui juris may have the action vowed superseded by the declared pleasure of the superior and that whether it be son or servant Doth he so Doth Mr. Crofton grant then the truth of the Doctors Arguments What doth he keep a kackling for then What doth he make such a buzzing then in the peoples ears with his perjurious Covenant Doth he first confess his Antagonists Arguments to be good by granting what the Doctor wrote for and yet set out another vain glorious discourse against them so far as to run into seditious principles to keep his faithful Covenant on foot Ay but in our case he then affirmed he said The Parliament sitting had over us a Legislative power to which we owed subjection They were in their National capacity the Nation Collective and sui juris and to be obeyed during their session by those whom they represented The Parliament What is that It is the King the Lords and the Commons saith the Covenant at the trial of the Regicide Harrison That the world may not be abused by the insinuations of a man who acts as if he had a spirit and in truth is possessed I will say saith his Majesties Learned Councel That the Lords and Commons are not a Parliament That the King and Lords cannot do any thing without the Commons Nor the King and Commons without the Lords Nor the Lords and Commons without the King especially against the King if they do they must answer it with their heads g See judge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 80. The Lords and Commons make no more a Parliament by the Law of the Land then a body without a head makes a man for a Parliament is a body composed of a King their Head the Lords and Commons the Members All three together saith Judge Jenkins make one body and that is the Parliament and no other The Two Houses are not the Parliament but onely part thereof and by the abuse and misunderstanding of this word Parliament they have miserably deceived the people So then we see what is become of our zealous Presbyters Parliament consisting of Two Houses without a King for its clear by the preceding words he meanes them and them onely when he prattles of the Parliaments having a Legislative power over us Here we finde the judgement of the Reverend Judges and learned Sages of the Law to be cleerly against him and his Titular Parliament and telling us how the faction miserably deluded the people with the name when they were destitute of the true nature of a Parliament by applying it to them to whom it no more belonged then the title of a man appertaines to him who wants the conveniency of a Head As for their Legislative power It s huge like their empty title of Parliament and both Phantasmes of their own braines and that it may apppear to be such I shall bring in Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynn in the front to bear witness against him for he tells us That h See his plea'gainst illegal Taxes p. 5. the Parliament Rolls and the Printed Prologues to the statutes of c. and names a great many run all in this form At the Parliament holden c. By the advice and assent