why sentence of condemnation should not be passed against him for a wrangler he saith that by the Bishops assertion it follows that Rebellion against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command Pray Mr. Caviller tell me whether an impious decree must be done or performed at the Command of any Prince whatsoever by any one that hath the fear of the King of Kings before his eyes Is not rebellion in that case against man loyalty and true Allegiance towards God and so by Sacred Rules Justifiable and acquitted What think you of that Antichristian * Acts. 5 27 28 29. strait command and decree that the Jewish high Priest and Councel once gave unto the Apostles not to teach in the name of Jesus And of their stout noble Christian answer we ought to obey God rather then men Was not their Rebellion if it must needs be so called here against the Jewish Governors justifiable and acquitted by their loyalty towards God in performing of that which he had commanded them to do miraculously inspired them with his holy spirit for that end Certainly the man is either out of his wits in this complaint or else an evident Rebel against his Savior as his party if not his own self have bin formerly against their Prince for where the Laws of God and man run counter and come in competition one with another I conceive it s no Rebellion at all to observe the former in what he commands not at all the latter and he that shall make it a matter of complaint of a mans Christian refusing in such a case and terming it by the odious name of Rebellion he must certainly be an Atheist one that regards not the injunctions of the †1 Tim. 6. 15. blessed onely Potentate the King of Kings and Lord of Lords I remember an observable saying of one of His Majesties Loyal Subjects to this purpose though he tels us that h See the right Rebel p. 28. It appeares that that which sometimes is esteemed and termed Rebellion by men may be and is in truth and in Gods accompt not onely lawful but necessary also and so not rebellion indeed but duty As when saith he the commands of inferiors in authority are disobeyed in obedience unto the lawful commands of those that in authority are their Superiors So the Sovereignty of God being absolutely Supream as himself is the most high over all if men though the highest upon earth command that which is forbidden by God or forbid that which is commanded by him it is not unlawful but necessary Rebellion if it may be so called to obey him though they thereby be disobeyed § 22. Again The Bishop having said page 146. That the King may not Covenant to diminish or destroy any honest subjects in any of their just Rights much less to extirpate or expel out of his Dominions any Rank Order and Degree of men that are useful and in some sense necessary for the being and well being of his people Nay neither Prince or any party of the People may Vow to extirpate the meanest Calling which serves the body Policick any more then men may Vow to cut off their feet or toes for I love to set down the words as I find them in the clear Fountain and not as they run in the unclean muddy Streams of the Wranglers giddy brains The Shifter contents himself with one of his merry whimsies to laugh out his Reverend Antagonist rather then to give out a solid answer to the Bishops Assertion and saies behold Reader the profound quality of his Argument * Pag. 32. Tinkers and Pedlers and men of the like Order will certainly cleave close to this Conservator of their Liberty where the man wants ability to answer there he he affords his Readers one of the marks of his Crazy Brain as conceiving that his Proselites †See his Preface doting on the bare say-so of an holy Leaguer will the sooner perswade them to believe the strength of his cavilling Objections when he wants wherewith to convince an Opponent he thinks its enough if he can but give him a Jeer and afford him matter of laughter which in a wise mans judgement redounds to the discredit and shame of none but the pittiful gasping Asserter who being destitute of sound Reasonings for the supporting of his Sandy Building and the holding up of his tottering Cause thinks it sufficient if he can but get so much breath as may enable him to sling a Jeer at his Antagonist before he and his Covenant do joyntly breath their last He resolved it seems to say somthing rather then be thought to want wherewith to gainsay and therefore laid down the preceding Position to sooth up his Proselites with a belief of his Abilities when if they are no better then that I have hitherto taken notice of they may well be compared to those of fools the upshot of whose wisedom is to be wise in their own conceits and were he any more then * See p. 8. of his book The shadow of a Disputant we should never have seen such shallow answers made to convince his Reverend Antagonist of his supposed Error about the Holy League but such Pittiful evasions in Argumentations well becomes indeed the men of his stamp in the defence of their peerless Oath which as it ingaged men in Acts of High Treason can certainly be maintained by no other means then either by such sneaking cavilling tricks as these or by †Pag. 40. Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition yea Rebellion § 23. Again the Reverend Prelate having according to the tenor of those words in Numb 30. shaken the force and validity of the Covenant as to its binding force upon the takers of it because of our Onely Superiours Prohibition of it Crofton very cunningly to show the excellent skill he hath in the Art of cavilling and running away from the question in debate that he might be thought to be some body in the eyes of his Classical Admirers is pleased to set down what he would have in this maner i Page 34. Will Doctor Gauden please to frame his Argument a Pari for little Mr. Croftons rescue he conceives it must run thus Numb 32. directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter Wife or other Inferior made without the knowledge of Father Husband or Superiour should be at the pleasure of the Superior confirmed or made void Ergo No Scandalous Disgraceful Dishonorable Oath may be taken if taken must not be kept if kept it must be well interpreted No Mr. shifter your Ergo is rotten and invalid and serves for nothing but to stir up peoples laughter and admiration of your cunning Sophistry for if you had acted the part of a Scholar and a sound Disputant we should have found your Ergo according to the Bishops Arguings to have been thus expressed Numb 30. Directeth that the Oath or Vow of a Daughter Wife or
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
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
their lawless arbitrary power and government At another time telling the Gentry c. of Leicester of his defending their Religion their Liberties their Laws with his life I mean s See his Majesties Speech to them July 20. 1642. saith he the good known Laws of the Land not Ordinances without my consent which till within these twelve moneths was never heard of from the foundation of this kingdom In his message from Oxford to those insinuating serpents at Westminster of the 12th of April 1643 he justly terms the Declarations Ordinances or Orders of one or both Houses illegal And lastly not to tire my readers patience too much His Majesty was pleased to tell the inhabitants of Flint and Denbigh at Wrexham That t See his Speech to them Sep. 27. 1642. By their power i. e. that of the housed Rebels the Law of the Land their birth-right is trampled upon and instead thereof saith he they govern my people by Votes and arbitrary Orders These I finde in those very few pieces of his late Glorious Majesty which I have had the happiness to take a cursory view of and yet enough to set forth Crofton in his proper dark colours to evince the Regal gainsaying of the Legislative power as our Presbyters nickname the Chimaeraes of their braines of the Two Houses illegal extemporary and arbitrary lawless Votes and Orders which as it was the sole intent in my Citation so they are an apparent proof of the notorious falshood of Croftons heady affirmation and perverse disputings Who sees not that his Seditious and 2 Tim. 6. 5 Rebellious principles declare him to be a man of a corrupt mind Who perceives not that his emitting to the English Nation his Legislative falshoods do make apparent that he is also destitute of the truth and too much inclined to dreames and fancies § 38. The Doctor having justly termed Croftons urging by a Presbyterian pertness the present Kings taking the Oath in Scotland u p. 149. bold and odious no less then fallacious Crofton cries out w p. 24. How bold and odious soever it may seem none but a proud Pashur and shameless Shemaiah Who is the Raker in the puddle of Rayling now O Presbyter could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King Keep the Oath and thou shalt be delivered Observe his Traiterous and shameless addition from that distress which may too late ingage His Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him Goodly Goodly how delicate sweet rebellion smells in the nostrils of a Covenanter What damnable Seditious spirits possesses them with the impudence of threatning distress to his Sacred Majesty for not keeping of that National plague the Covenant He that can make any other of this then Sedition let him lend me his spectacles I wonder what day or hour it is wherein these Sacred Covenanters may be found deficient in their endeavors of x See the slight healers of publique hurts p. 29. drawing on Rebellion perjury innocent bloodshed and Sacriledge with the shoeing-horns of Religion and Reformation of setting up the Gospel of Peace with unguentum armarium the sword of war Our Canting Presbyter not onely threatens His Majesty with distress but also by his venemous speeches implies the approach of mischief when it will be too late for His Majesty to send to him to pray for him Nothing is to be looked for here but destruction and damnation hereafter it seemes if that brat and spawn of the serpent that primary deluding rebel the Covenant which being hatched in Sacriledge and Rebellion was at length brought forth into the world in blood and confusion be not carefully looked to and provided for y See Archbishop Bancrofts dangerous positions p. 51. Those Kingdoms and States who defend any Church-Government save this of Pastors Doctors Elders and Deacons are in danger of utter destruction says Martin Junior in the time of Queen Elizabeth The Parliament in her time for tolerating of Bishops in stead of their new Government were told by others of the then factious party z p. 50. That they shall be in danger of the terrible mass of Gods wrath both in this life and in the life to come and that if they did not then abrogate the Government by Bishops well they might hope for the favor and entertainment of Moses that is the Curse of the Law but the favor and loving countenance of Jesus Christ they should not see nor never enjoy Birds of a feather will flock together all Cuckoe-like singing the same tune of destruction distress to their Sovereign Princes if they will not bow down and worship the Golden Calf of their Presbytery But why too late Mr. Crofton Is not the Murther of one King enough but you must harp upon the Rebellion against Imprisonment and godly consequential murther of another Satia te sanguine Cyre More Gun-powder Mines still to blow up Regality Is there another Rebellion a contriving amongst the Saints that must needs have Sata as canonizing stamp upon 't Too late Are you in serious Combination with the party to stir up an execrable Rebellion against the Son for his ruine in this world as formerly your Cursing party did against His Martyr'd Father And all for not keeping of an Antimonarchical horrid Confederacy and Conjuration called The Solemn League and Covenant These expres-pressions deserve a sharper Answer then my Pen is able to make being filled brim-full of covenanting-rebellious Malice But why Faitful Monitor You live far from neighbors sure that you are fain to crown your seditious pate with laurels of praise for a Faithful Monitor which is as fit for you as a Saddle is for a Sows back or the Epethite of Godly was for the peerless Cut-throats of the Carolian Martyr He that was so impudent as to tell the King to his face He was a Tyrant Traytor Murderer and a publique and implacable enemy to the Common-wealth was just such another Faithful Monitor as your self But for what meerly for the chastising and crucifying of both But what must His Majesty send to him for why it seems to pray for him Alas gude Covenanter what are all your prayers but for the destruction of Princes and stirring up their subjects to rebel against them if they will not preserve your hellish Trap-door and as the ends of that set up and maintain your Trojan Horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline Their worth are weighed down with a nut-shel if they be like those which are in your Book which prayer of yours and your practise like true religion and your irreligious destructive Covenant at at drawn swords with each other even in the very writing of a few sheets of paper They had need of a bird as the saying is that give a groat for an Owl They must needs be in great want of prayers sure who send to such a bold confident Kirker as you for that end who can one while cry The Lord deliver me
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
Richard Gourney then Lord Major of London from his Office and put in a fiery persecutor of the Loyal Clergy whose name as one saith should more properly Isaac Pennington have been Julian in his place as well as others who they knew or suspected to be affectionate to the King and his Legal Cause and placed others of the most factious and seditious Covenanting Extirpaters in their rooms How they wrote their Letters to the French Protestants abroad and sent their Agents into all parts of the Nation at home desiring the one and requiring the other to joyn with and assist them How they set up a Disciplinarian Inquisition among us that cast out more Ministers in three or four years then all the Bishops had done in fourscore years before How before and after all this they wrote their Letters and sent their printed demonstrating declaratory Knacks to the King to disguise their actions That they had no ill meaning against His Majesty but had been and still remained his dutiful and loyal Subjects How yet by their leaguing together and prospering in their wickedness they came at last to a peerless act of Regicide of murthering their Sovereign before His own Palace windows Shall quickly and easily perceive that they were sworn Leaguers together in one and the same Cause of Extirpating Reformation and Covenanted Rebellion and yet both hypocritically pretending their Loyalty and Allegiance which manifests the Serpents art in beguiling people into the snares of wickedness and into the ways of impiety and profaneness and then showing his servants the way to delude others to disguise their Villanies with the shew of Godliness and their seditious actions with the vizard of faithful Obedience and Subjection for there is no more difference between our Covenanters here and their Deer Leaguing Brethren of France as to the main end and scope of their Leaguing Designs then there is between Guy Faux with his Myne and dark Lanthorn and Bradshaw and his execrable Confederates in Westminster-Hall both whose intentions we know well enough was clearly the Murther of Kings though upon different grounds The first endeavoring to blow up the Father for being too much an Enemy to the Popish Ribaldry and Massing Trinckets The latter actually cutting off the Son because they thought him in their cauterized consciences to be a Popish Tyrant but murther we see was the aim of both The world saith a See his Survey of the pretended holy discipline p. 7. Archbishop Bancroft now adays is set all upon Liberty Everyman almost is of their humour which thought scorn that any should be lifted up above the Congregation Numb 16 1. Crofton at least hath wedded himself to their murmuring fancy for Ecclesiastical parlty and is very well pleased with his confused thoughts of it or else we should certainly have never found him affronting his Episcopal Antagonist with his Jangling Discourse of Falshood and Sedition more particularly asserting this palpable whimsie against the general current of Venerable Antiquity viz. That b See p. 25. of his book that which was charged upon Aerius by Epiphanius for Heresie was an undeniable universal truth Knowing man Excellent Disputant that can daub over his own errors with the untempered morter of confidence and falshood There 's no meddling with such kind of people who with the men of China conceit two eyes to themselves and that leave all the rest of the world in arrant blindness No hopes of ever prevailing with fanciful creatures who will for no other reason but because they wil be in the right order and way and have voted all their Antagonists to lie and stick fast in a muddy ditch of error It s very strange to me I must needs say that an Ecclesiastical Historian should not know what he wrote at the same time he wrote it better then one of his Juniors at many hundred years distance that should at that time point blanck affirm That what he said was false but when men are resolved once to have their wills no Truth nor History must dare to controul them for fear of being taxed of speaking untruths But seeing its an Affirmation without proof 't is but answering No to his Ay and then where is he He hath a wish behinde still a request to the Bishop to ease him of his unprofitable unlucky pains which is this that follows I would Dr. Gauden would own Dr. Saunderson as his Dictator in the nature of an Oath he should not then so much need the Dictates of little Master Crofton It s Page 45. no marvel indeed Mr. Croftons Dictates are of such profound depth that the Dr. should want them to enlighten his understanding It s the unhappiest man one of them that ever I met with to bring Dictators to overthrow his own dictates I wonder what he can get by his Citation of such a Reverend Prelates Works What profit or advantage is there in those learned Writings for the upholding of his Covenanting Spell The Reasons of the University of Oxford declares him to be a person of admirable parts and himself to be a grand Antagonist against their sacred Covenant The Reverend Prelate cited by that faithful Royalist Mr. Roger L'estrange in his Holy Cheat tell us That no man can binde himself Page 35. in things wherein he is subject without leave of his Superior And again The Oath of one who is under the power of another without the others consent is neither firm nor valid Now unless our Presbyter can prove that a son or servant can do any thing without the Father or Masters consent That a part of the Two Houses who themselves were but part of a Parliament can lawfully i. e. by the Laws of God or this Land order and change the Affairs of the Church and thrust out and put in what and whom they please without the Kings consent the learned Dictates of that excellent Bishop clearly proves the nullity of the Covenant and the rottenness and weakness of Mr. Crofton's Dictates how imperiously soever they are ushered in with his I deny and I averr and such like examples of his brother the Scotch Confuter of the Learned Cardinal Bellarmin Dr. Gauden having affirmed He took no Oathes but those appointed by Law Crofton tells him c Page 63. He might reckon the Covenant to be of this nature And why so Pray Reader do but observe his pitiful reason for the Authority of Parliament is by the Petition of Right the legal appointment of an Oath And what then I cannot but laugh methinks at his folly and wonder how he keeps his proselytes in his nose how he leads them by the nose to believe his fooleries to be unanswerable The Petition of Right desired no Oath might be imposed upon the people of this Land but by Act of Parliament Ergo The Covenant imposed by an illegal Ordinance made by a part of a part of a Parliament is appointed by Law What a Non sequitur is here
ledition ugling and deceit disloyalty treason and true malignancy lest according to your own Covenanting words you partake matter mens sins and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues § 6. But because my intentions are to be brief in my Animadversions I shall pass from this second to the third Article where they tell us That they hall with the same sincerity reality and constancy in their several vocations endeavor with their estates and lives mutually to set the cart before the horse and the tayl of a man above his head to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdoms and to preserve and defend the Kings Majesties person and Authority with a Jugling Jesuitical King-destroying limitation in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms that the world may bear witness with our consciences of our Loyalty and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish His Majeiesties just Power and Greatness This very Article and the notorious Jugling in it were enough to make an understanding person abhor the League eternally and detest the very thoughts of having any thing to do with it and that will appear if we do but consider well their limited defence of their noble Sovereign which in the whole amounts to no defence at all but rather a direct imperious opposition and resistance against His Regal Power and Authority § 7. I have read many of the Leaguers indeed exclaim against the Royalists for asserting That the Covenant tended to the destruction of the King What say they the Covenant tend to the destruction of the King Is there not a particular Clause in it for preservation and defence of the Kings Majesties Person and Authority Yes there is so and so far the words sound some what like Loyalty But what of that Tell me O ye holy Leaguers did you defend the Kings Person in Leaguing together to send Armed men against Him and were you not bound by a subsequent Article of this very Covenant to assist and defend them in such actions Was that the defence of the Kings Person when those rebellions Forces raised and sent by the illegal power of a factious party of the Two Houses then usurping the Supream Authority shot at those who were really risen up in His Majesties defence according to their bounden duty and allegiance and amongst whom in several Battels He had His residence with a Cannon and a Musquet Bullet which makes no difference between a King and Subject the Superior and Inferior Was fighting against him seeling and close imprisoning of him preserving of his Authority Was it not by vertue of this Covenant that Treason before begun was carried on by dint of sword ☞ so long against the pretended Malignants by true Delinquents till the Martyrs Forces through Gods Divine permission were wholly defeated and overcome Did not that force him to surrender himself to a pack of Scottish Presbyterian Judasses Did not their selling him into the hands of Leaguers at Wesiminster cause his Imprisonment I say was not this done by vertue of the Covenant Is not imprisoning of his sacred Person by force of Armes absolute The Law interprets it as a seeking the Princes life when any one seeketh to force the Prince Cook in E of Essexs Case high Treason by the Lawes of this new-risen Kingdom And was not his Imprisonment the true underiable consequence of this Cainish League and Covenant and is it not therefore evil and treasonable and so abominable and not to be kept And was not His Majesties traiterous Imprisonment the immediate Harbinger to his bloody devillish murther Did not one succed the other What then is it less then what the Assertors of Truth and Loyalty said That it tended to the destruction of our Martyred Sovereign and shall that now dare to be pleaded for and asserted for to be still kept by any that fears God or reverences man § 8. But some have said and others may say the same still That though we rose up in arms against the King yet we kept our Oath still for it was with this limitation In the preservation and defence of the true Religion c. and he not following of the one nor maintaining of the other though we fought against him yet we are true Swearers still Oh hellish Clause and Regicidian Limitation what Is that your Loyalty to swear to your King with a Juggle From such Loyalty and all its abettors O Lord deliver all Kings and Princes and more especially and peculiarly s Lament 4. 20. The Breath of our nostrils our now incomparable Sovereign For what Traytors or Rebels wil not swear any oath whatsoever with such a cursed limitation as that to defend their Prince whilest their Prince defends that which such shall please to term the true Religion whilest he preserves that which such t ◠Sav◠10. 27. children of Belial may call the Liberties of the Kingdom The Jesuitical Papists will without any scruple take an Oath to the King with such a limitation as that whereby though afterwards they murther their Prince for not upholding Popery either by powder poison or ponyard they may justifie the true keeping of their oath notwithstanding because he not maintaining their Popes Supremacy nor the abominable Mass of their Romish trumperies their defence of him ceased by such his actual maintenance of another Religion contrary to that which they account the true Nay did not the Sectarian party who took this Covenant which u See Feaks Beam of Light p. 13 in Marg. was magnified most blasphemously when it came into England first as the very Ark of Gods presence and who notwithstanding that afterwards brought their pious Sovereign whom they had swore to defend before their Court of highest Injustice and condemned and executed Him most barbarously before the windows of his own Royal Palace yet pleaded they were not perjured or forsworn because of this remarkable Restriction or special Limitation In desence of the true Religion c. And he being as they most impudently with faces of brass affirmed * Page 29. a desperate enemy to the Lord Jesus his true seed and kingdom and a great friend to Antichrist and the carnal and persecuting Church in all his Kingdoms their murther of Him was no breach of Covenant seemingly made for his defence I am confident he that is a true Christian Protestant will detest such limited Loyalty such jugling destructive defences of his Prince as favouring too much of Jesuitical venome and Anti-monarchical designs wherein a Kings preservation stands altogether upon peoples fancies when they fancy a Religion or the Liberties of a Kingdom to be such as he doth not maintain then farewel Loyalty down goes true Faith and Allegiance and up goes Treason and Rebellion and yet pretend to be his dutiful loyal Subjects too for all that which some may say is impossible but yet such blinde pretences have been
made by those who had nothing else to say for themselves and their illegal courses being assisted too by such a Learned Assembly of so many Divines who after a Three years Conference most profoundly voted God to be the Father § 9. And yet notwithstanding this Anti-monarchical limitation they declare they did set it down that the world might bear witness of their Loyalty they might have said Jugling and Rebellion for that is the true english of such a limited Loyalty and that they have no thoughts to diminish His Majesties just power and greatness No question but the world would did and have sufficiently taken notice of that which they call their Loyalty and have found it to be such as their Guisian Leaguing Brethrne practised who under pretence of x 2 Sam. 15. 7 8. maintaining w See The Right of Kings in Marg. the Roman Catholick Religion as these did for that which they usually mis-called the Reformed undermined the Kings Authority and sought to advance themselves the very same which Absalom the Beautiful Rebel showed to his Father when under a fair colour of Evil Councellors at Court and under a plausible pretence of paying his vow he made to the Lord in Hebron he * verse 6. stole the hearts of the men of Israel from their due allegiance to their King and drew them †verse 11 in their simplicity into a damnable Rebellion with him and therefore he that is loyal in practises and works will never approve of these Westmonasterian Leaguers loyalty which onely consists in words whilest their actions declares nothing else but Treason and Rebellion unless y See A Vindication of King Charls by noble Mr. Symmons p. 40. when they are in Cathedris in their seats as Parliament-men they are all as infallible as the Pope and have a power as well as he to do what they please to make evil good and good evil to make Rebellion and Treason to be Duty and Loyalty and duty and loyalty to be Rebellion and Treason to vote sacriledge murder and theft to be no sins killing slaying and destroying to be acts of zeal and christian duty Till then their loyalty will appear in the eyes of all judicious men to be no better then a Wolf in Sheeps clothing As for their disclaymer of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness upon search and inquiry after it we shall find it to be a chip of the old block a parcel of contradictions like the other of preserving the Kings person with a destructive limitation and therefore I again thus Quaere Is the taking the Antient right of the Militia from him which was never for z See The Royalists Defence p. 97. the space of 1700. years past questioned or disputed until by these usurpers injuriously wrested from the Crown but hath been time out of mind inherent in the King a See Iudge Jenkins Lex Terrae p. 37. The practise of all times and the custom of the Realm no diminishing his Majesties just power Was the justifying the war by a party of the two Houses the Kings sworn Subjects against the Martyr to be warrantable both in point of law and conscience and making a deforming Reformation without the consent and against the express prohibition of their Dread Soveraign and not onely so but justifying for a commendable practise the iniquity of Witchcraft which Rebellion is termed by the Prophet was this no diminishing His Majesties just greatness What do they think English men are made of What are all made up of a bundle of contradictions that they impose such juglings upon us Surely the power of the Militia in the King was a very just necessary power and he being b See A Letter to a Member p. 5. under God the Protector of the Law I wonder how he could could defend it and the d Priviledges of Parliament without the power of the sword and the greatness of His Majesties over all in his dominions was very just too if either the laws of God or of this Land or an oath of Supremacy are able to make it so And yet forsooth people must be forced by vertue of an illegal Anti-parliamentary League not onely to be c See The Animadversions upon General Monk's Letter to the Gentry of Devon p. 4. ingaged in the wars against the King and so thereby become perjured and faithless persons and to swear to assist all those that shall do so too in order to the taking away the Kings Negative voice and the power of the Militia from him which was one of those jurisdictions priviledges preeminencies and authorities belonging to the Kings Highness His Heirs and successors and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm which every one of the Parliamenteers as they were called had by a solemn legal Sacred oath of Supremacy sworn to assist and defend to his power but also hipocritically to say no worse to sware too that for all that they have no thoughts of diminishing His Majesties just power and greatness Was there ever such jugling seen that men should endeavour to take away that from their King which is his just right and yet sware with their right hands lifted up to the most high God that they have no thoughts to diminish it Ay and sware too that they had before their eyes at this present the honor and happiness of the Kings Majesty and his posterity in what part of the world can these mens peers be found as to the art of jugling and contradictions in their oaths Where may we find a pattern of their venemous courses but among the damned Guisian leaguers in France who murdered their King with a promise of fidelity and of their being his true and faithful Subjects And yet this this is that Covenant God wot that notwithstanding it set us together by the ears and put us all in blood and confusion must be still kept to inrol us amongst mad men for ever This jugling and contradictions in this ungodly Covenant cannot but be contrary to the nature of a true oath which as the Prophet saith must be made in Truth righteousness and in Judgement and therefore unlawful and not to be kept by any without an evident disobedience to the command of the Lord expressed by the said Prophet to the men of Israel § 10. And though they can tell us in their sixth Article That this Cause and League of theirs so much concerns the glory of God the good of the kingdoms and the honor of the King yet I demand and they may answer me if they can Was is it ever heard spoke before by men that pretend a fear towards God that that which is a most horrible breach of the Laws of God could ever tend to his glory and was not this Rebellions Covenant and covenant Rebellion against the Martyr directly a breach of the Divine Precept spoken by the mouth of his blessed St. Peter d 1 Pet. 2. 13.
that they have not endeavored to receive Christ in their hearts and are they fit to be Reformers of Religion and setters up of the ways and worship of our blessed Lord when they have not so much as endeavored to receive him in their hearts Doth the devil begin to make a Reformation of Christian Religion Do Atheists go about to set up Christianity What may we then expect the fruits of it to be but a dismal cloud of darkness and confusion which indeed doth suit well with these extirpating Leaguers Reformation they have made amongst us g See A Vindication of king Charles p. 88. such a one as Nebuzaradan steward to Nebuchadnezar made at Jerusalem when he threw down the walls both of the City and Temple They make it matter of humiliation it 's true that they have not walked worthy of him in their lives and is this Baal-berith the way to do it What shall we think of that man that shall out-face the Sun with his Treason and seemingly repent for his wicked courses and yet at the same instant swear to carry on his rebellion still A serious man will give judgement that such a one hath nothing to do with God or Christianity but is wholly possessed by an evil spirit which haunts him to his everlasting destruction And yet this is directly the case of our English Baalims of the Covenant they first raise a war which the Law of the Land calls Rebellion against the Kings evil Councellors to remove them from him which is absolute high Treason then pretend to humble themselves that they have not endeavored to receive Christ in their hearts nor walked worthy of him in their lives and yet in the very act of this feigned humiliation swear too that they wil zealously continue in such their filthy courses all the days of their lives was there ever such grand hypocrites and mockers of God since the world began among those that pretended a fear of his name as these Leaguers are The Scribes and Pharisees were but pigmies to them in this matter First pretend a sorrow for their sins and yet in the very act of their temporary repentance bind themselves by an oath to proceed in them as long as ever they can Go about to perswade some credulous heady mortals that they are very sorry they have not walked worthy of Christ in their lives and at the same time with their right hands lift up to the most high God swear to break his Laws and Precepts even to Rebel against their King to whom he hath commanded all men to yeild a due subjection and obedience and if that be the way to walk worthy of him Libera me Domine the Lord deliver me from any walking with them If the way to walk worthy of Christ be to turn Rebels and Traitors to the Prince we live under and out of pure love to God profane his Sanctuaries break his Laws and run directly counter to his sacred Precepts I know none that walked more worthy of God and of his Christ then the blind Jews on the one hand that ignorantly crucified our blessed Lord for a Blasphemer and the hellish wilful Regicides on the other hand that knowingly murthered his Anointed for a Tyrant For my part I am in such disorder of spirit whilest I am thinking upon their deceipts and juglings that I shall hasten as much as confutation of rebellion will permit to ease my self of their puddle of contradictions and for that end and purpose I shall proceed to the next that follows where I finde them to let fall these goodly expressions And are true and unfeigned how shall any man beleeve the truth of it purpose say they in publique and private in all duties we owe to God and man is to amend our lives and each one to go before another in the example of a Real Reformation § 12. Here 's a fair Protestation we see Plausible language again as the former to delude the hearts and minds of those that take up all things upon trust without any examination but every whit as much jugling in it as was in that which went before which will easily appear by a few more Queries which I thus set down Was it not a duty they owed to God to observe his commands And did not he command by the mouth of St. Paul That h Rom. 13. 1. every Soul should be subject to the higher powers which the oath of Supremacy and what another Apostle hath * 1 Pet. 2. 23. said doth plainly evident to be the Kings most excellent Majesty and that too under pain of eternal Damnation And was that a Real Reformation in the duty they owed to God to walk in opposition to his Injunctions Again for their duty towards man Let them remember the Case of the Earl of Essex in the time of Queen Elizabeth who in comparison of Edge-hill Battel gathered together but a handful of men nor was that Queen fought with as our late renowned Sovereign was nor her person in danger as the Martyrs was The Earl upon his Arraignment protested his intentions were onely to remove from the Queen some evil Councellors about her yet notwithstanding he raising force to do this without the Queens warrant his plea was not available but his action was judged Treason and he and his Adherents executed as Traytors for it Now mind Was our Leaguers fighting against the King for their declaring to fight for King and Parliament at the very same time when they sent Armed men against those where he was in person serves onely for a record and to eternize the memory of their damnable jugling and hipocrisie but I say Was their fighting against the King a real Reformation of their duty towards man Was their walking in the direct steps of the Trayterous Essex who left an ungrateful son behind him to follow the same curses with himself which was judged high Treason the going before one another in the example of a Real Reformation Was their actual i See judge Jenkins's Lex Terra p. 12. incountring such as came to ayd the King in his wars which is Treason too a Reformation of their duty towards man Was swearing to commit Treason a Real Reformation Observe Reader They confess themselves faulty in duty towards God and man for what do they talk else of a Reformation and then lest it should be thought to be feigned their purpose is they say but we have but their bare word for it to make a Real Reformation and what trow we is this Real Reformation of their default but swearing together to break the Laws both of the Sacred Canon and this land in the wilful actual proceeding on to the commission of Treason and Rebellion Thus their Reformation of their lives is so like that of Religion that it must needs proceed from one and the same treacherous mouth and jugling lips that are altogether used in this League for the advancing of falshood and depressing
of the truth alas our Covenanters made it appear that their words and actions are two distinct things and people are very ready always to pass sentence upon men not according to their fair words and pretences but according to their actions and when they find a contrariety between them to fasten upon them their proper deserved name of hypocrites Nay their very words do not agree one with another and such surely must be accounted self-contradictory juglers with a witness for they had no sooner told us of making a Real Reformation of their lives in all duties they owed to God and man but presently after they shut up their Baal-berith with this Antichristian rebellious infamous and never enough to be detested prayer and conclusion beginning with a Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his holy spirit for this end and to bless our desires and proceedings with such success as may be deliverance and safety to his people as though Rebellion could ever produce safety long to the undertakers And which surely proceeded either from the instigation of the Devil or else was the plot and devise of some Romish Jesuitical Emissaries to make the true loyal Protestant Religion which teaches men according to Christs Rule rather to suffer and flee then to fight with and kill our enemies to stink as unsavoury stuff in the nostrils both of God and all truly pious men else certainly we should never have heard of an hellish lewd League made for encouragement to other christian churches if they be truly Christian they 'l abhor our Leaguers courses groaning under or in danger of the yoake of Antichristian Tyranny what for very Titus 3. 1. fear of a yoke must Christians rebel against Principalities and powers to disobey Magistrates which Titus had a command from St. Paul to put the then Christians in mind to be subject to though really groaning then under a sad yoke of Jewish and heathenish tyranny on the one side and the other certainly the Covenanters mind not what a neerness their feet are to be the very brink of hell when they laid down these Antichristian Articles for others to joyn in the same or like association and Covenant to the glory of God the enlargement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ Suppose a man that hath cut himself to stop it from bleeding should afresh with a knife make the wound wider would you not think him frantique and the peace and tranquillity of christian kingdoms and Commonweals It s a brave art to perswade people that wars and bloodsheds confusions and disorders tend to the peace and tranquillity of a kingdom and that this Covenant bound the takers to pursue their resolutions by the sword is plain beyond contradiction and we have not been deluded and cheated by our Leaguing Absaloms long enough it seems but we must continue hampered still in the noose of a Regicidian Antichristian leud impious profane Covenant for fear of being perjured forsooth if we draw our selves and necks out of it whereas true Christianity will not suffer a man to transgress so far the bounds of loyalty as to keep that nor true loyalty permit a man so far to go beyond the limits of the English Laws as to turn a Rebel to his King to stand to such a faithless Covenant which teaches men to k See Eikon Basilike His Majesties words upon the calling in of the Scots build their piety on their ruines of Loyalty to make bankrupt of their Allegiance under pretence of setting up a quicker trade for Religion But to their conclusive prayer a particular answer I shall give in such following terms as these § 13. We read in the 58 of Esa 1. verse the Lord commanding the Prophet in this manner Cry aloud and spare not lift up thy voice like a Trumpet and shew my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways as a Nation that did Righteousness and forsook not the Ordinance of their God they ask of me the Ordinances of Justice they take delight in approaching to God Wherefore have we fasted say they and thou seest not But what said God to them Behold saith he ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness Here was fair pretences who could make better but that did but aggravate the sinful nature of their Crimes we have had such mock-fasts too in our times by our Leaguers God bless us from any more such and promises to reform themselves that the Lord might turn away his wrath from us and yet make it a part of their reformation presently to pursue their rebellious intentions against their lawful onely Supream Governour They pretended indeed to fast for their sins but their subsequent actions declared to all the world their fasting to be like that of their Jewish Brethren even for strife and debate for prosperity in Treason and to smite with the fist of Rebellion to cut and slay all the assistants of their King because they will not forsake their vertuous Soveraign renounce their sworn faith and allegiance and become joynt actors with them in their unclean beastly courses The Jews sought God daily and delighted to know his ways yet that excused them not So our Holy Leaguers pretend to seekafter God and to delight in approaching to him yet that serves not for an extenuation of their crimes nor for the lessening of their offences Observe Reader these Leaguers prayers how devoutly they can pray for success in their Treasons and Conspiracies nay and to have it for this end too that other people in forrain Nations may Covenant in like manner to rebel and rise up in Arms for the extirpation of the settled Church Government of the Nation without and against the consent and precept of their respective Princes and to follow our Leaguers peerless practices in it But I demand Is not such a prayer as this extreamly sinful in the matter of it do they not as good as pray for prosperity in their breach of the Law of God When I read it methinkes I cannot but admire at these Covenanters confidence and stupidity that they should first break the Laws of God in a most notorious manner by their perjury and disobedience to their Prince and then Covenant and bind themselves to proceed in the carrying on of their evil Treacherous designs and yet pray to God to prosper them in their villany when they might more justly according to Gods dealing with Corah and his holy-conspirators for Church-paritie have expected to have found the fate of those murmuring Saints against the Supremacy of the Prince and Priest the true and exact picture to me of our Covenanting Jack Presbyters to be swallowed up alive for their Extirpating Covenant and the earth whereon they trod to sink under them For l See his Pious votary p. 47 48 a Rebel saith the learned Hardy who goeth forth to fight against
Warning p. 30. To observe a wicked engagement doubles the sin according to the found determinations of the Reverend Primate And so my Argument herein I am sure ad hominem is unanswerable § 16. The next thing that will come under examination will be the unlawfulness of the Covenant in respect of its contrariety to the two former legally established Sacred Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and the Protestation and to that end I commend to the consideration of my Readers the excellent Determination of the Irish Primate in relation to this point in his incomparable Fair Warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline p. 31. Where after he had affirmed That a Supervenient Oath or Covenant either with God or man cannot take away the obligation of a just Oath precedent he immediately addes But such is the Covenant a subsequent Oath inconsistent with and destructive to a precedent Oath that is the Oath of Supremacy which all the Church-men throughout the kingdom and all Parliament men at their Admission to the House and all persons of quality thoughout England have taken The former oath acknowledgeth the King to be the only Supream Head that is Civil Head to see that every man do his duty in his calling and Governor of the Church of England The second Oath or Covenant to set up the Presbyterian Government as it is in Scotland denieth all this virtually makes it a Political Papacy acknowledgeth no Governors but onely the Presbytery The former Oath gives the King the Supream Power over all persons in all causes The second gives him a power over all as they are Subjects but none at all in Ecclesiastical causes This saith he they make to be Sacriledge And therefore I Quaere 1. Whether he that hath taken the legally established Oath of Supremacy to His Sacred Majesty which as a Paraphrast very well noteth y See The Oathes of Supremacy Allegiance which have layen dead many years c. p. 10. Admits of no Rival in the Throne but doth exclude all others from the Supremacy from being enabled to act above His Majesty or contrary unto Him or without Him or his allowance in any acts of Government can take this illegal Covenant whereby he swears according to his utmost power not onely to carry on the Rebellion then already begun for that it was so needs no further demonstration but also to assist all other persons that shall take it in what they shall do in pursuance thereof thereby implicitly owning the power of the then two Houses and disowning the Onely Supremacy of the King so clearly asserted in that Oath I say whether he that hath taken the former can ever swear the latter without a notorious guilt of apparent Perjury If not as no man I think upon serious consideration will affirm he may then it necessarily follows that the one is an opposition to the other Again The Oath of Supremacy bindes the takers to their power to assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authoritys granted or belonging to the Kings Highness and united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And the famous University of Oxford have told us That y See their Reasons p. 38. the whole power of ordering all matters Ecclesiastical was by the Laws of the Land in express words For ever annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm citing the Statute for it in their Margin whence I Quaere Secondly Whether he that hath once taken the Oath of Supremacy and afterwards swallowed down this Regicidian League was not desperatly forsworn in taking upon them the ordering of Ecclesiastical matters which is one of those Jurisdictions and Priviledges granted to the Kings Highness so far as to swear the Extirpation of the Legally established Ecclesiastical Government without and against his Majesties Royal assent one while swearing to defend the Jurisdiction and Preeminence granted or belonging to the King and another while vowing the performance of that which is absolutely contrariant unto it And Perjury attained by taking of two Oaths in my shallow judgement doth unavoidably imply the vast proportion of difference and contrariety that is between them Since the writing of these last words I heard of the burning of the Solemn League and Covenant by the hands of the Common Hangman according to the Noble Order of the truely Honourable two Houses May 22. 1661. now at this present assembled in Parliament by vertue of his Majesties Gracious Writ which as it is no more then its deserts in having bewitched people into an odious Rebellion against their Prince which as one saith well z See the Right Rebel p. 72. Must needs be acknowledged a sin of Sodom especially since the Sodomites are the first that the Holy Ghost in Scripture hath taxed for the practise thereof So I shall desist from saying here any more of this Loyal Vote concerning that monstrous League but shall now go on to the finishing of what I have here intended to show the sinfulness thereof in its contrariety to former Legal Oaths and to that end and purpose shall again Quaere Thirdly Can that Oath Which * was devised onely to ** See his Majesties Proclamation prohibiting the taking of it prevent peace and to engage the Kings good subjects in the maintenance of an horrid and odious Rebellion against him as this wicked League did any way accord with an Oath of Allegiance which solemnly bound all its takers to bear true faith and Allegiance to his Majesty and to defend him to the uttermost of their power against all attempts and conspiracies whatsoever therefore against that damnable one of the then two Houses which shall be made against his Person Crown and Dignity Fourthly Can this subsequent seditious and trayterous Vow and Covenant which endeavours to withdraw the subjects from their natural Allegiance which they owe unto their Prince they are his * Majesties own words and engages them in acts of High Treason by the express letter of the Statute of the 25. of King Edward the 3. be any way consonant or agreeable with two preceding Oaths which expresly obliges them to bear to the King truth and faith of life members and earthly honour and to a See the oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy c. p. 15. appear for the defence of him of his Person and Government against all attempts against them by any whatsoever upon any pretences soever Can any be so wilde and frantick as to make such an affirmation Fifthly How can that Oath which bindes men absolutely to bear true faith and Allegiance to the King without any relation to his good or bad Government sute with an Apostate that is sworn with a cursed destructive limitation to defend him so long as he shall continue in the preservation of that which the swallower thereof shall fancifully call the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdom and no longer See more of this in the excellent Scotch-Covenant condemned That
the one is the intention of the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and the other the purpose of the Covenant needs not to be demonstrated with any illustration seeing the doubters may be satisfied in the Oaths themselves And therefore I conclude the contrariety between the one and the other in the words of the learned Paraphrast when he set down his minde with a Neither can that limitation in the Covenant wherein they oblige Page 8. themselves to the preservation of the King in the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion the Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberty of the subject limit or abate the force of those absolute obligations whereby all subjects are obliged to the King and his lawful Heirs and Successors which are upon them by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance but as such limitations look very unhandsomly so they have not at all any force of abatement in them but ought to be abhorred disclaimed and rejected by all honest Subjects and Christians as an evil gapp opened to Rebellion and Sedition to those that have a minde to make such an evil use thereof under pretence that the King doth that which indeed he ought not to do either depart in any thing from the true Religion or violate the Priviledges of Parliament or the Liberties of the subject § 17. Lastly For this League and Covenants contrariety to the Protestation I shall first set down in general the words of a Right Reverend person upon it who hath told us That b See the Imaâ—e unbroken the Protestation was confined to established Law but the Covenant to destroy Law and what was established by it the Protestation to defend the Doctrine the Covenant to destroy the Government which is comprehended in the Doctrine How do these two hang together Reconcile them and it will be as easie to make light and darkness order and confusion vertue and wickedness lawful unlawful acts to appear one the same thing to every persons eye and ear And therefore how shallow and weak soever my judgement is in every thing yet I hope those that are judicious will excuse me though I presume for once to commend what I say now to their and every mans serious consideration because if I am erroneous it s not through wilfulness or obstinacy but meerly for want of understanding to discern that which is better upon supposition that I am in an errour which I cannot say till I be convinced of it and that which I have to say upon this account shall come dressed to peoples eyes in no other terms then these which I have now subjoyned Every one that took this Protestation did Vow and Protest to maintain and defend as far as lawfully he might observe that well Sir John with his life power and estate the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England Now minde the Thirty nine Articles as they are usually called have been alwaies hitherto wont to be accounted The Doctrine of the Church of England the Thirty sixth Article whereof is so far from speaking against the Bishops for the advancing and promoting of a dogged surly Anti-Monarchical Scottish Discipline that the very book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons which had the Royal Civil sanction at the making thereof is affirmed there to have nothing in it that is superstitious or ungodly and this is a part of that which in this Protestation was termed The true Protestant Religion Nay and this must not be defended neither but as far as lawfully I may so that if there had not been the least mention of Episcopacy in any of the Articles yet confining themselves in their Protestation to the rules and orders of the Laws the Supremacy of the King over all persons Clergy and Lay in all causes Ecclesiastical and Civil and Episcopacy its stout propp and defender both undermined subverted and destroyed by a Scottish Discipline stand as safe and firm by the very Protestation as they were before that was ever made or taken Now comes a Solemn League and Covenant and bindes its takers by force of Arms to beat down Episcopacy comprehended in that very doctrine which the Presbyters had sworn to maintain and defend with their lives powers and estates and established by Law to turn their neighbours as the Revered Primate See his Fair Warning page 2. saith out of a possession of above one thousand four hundred years to make room for their Trojan horse of Ecclesiastical Discipline a practise never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope I and do this too not as far as lawfully they may but any way in the world by hook or by crook per fas aut ne fas so that they can but attain at the ends aimed at in their extirpating noddles to beat down the firm brazen walls of Episcopacy to rear up the muddy noisom ones of an unwholsom factious Presbytery in their rooms And therefore once again I Quaere Can that Protestation whereby I A. B. do promise vow and protest to maintain and desend as far as lawfully I may with my life power and estate the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England wherein the lawfulness of Bishops is expresly comprehended any way agree with an illegal League which bindes me to extirpate Bishops in direct opposition to that Doctrine as contrary unto the power of godliness Our Leaguers I know would fain be accounted true and good Protestants and yet swear to extirpate that which is a main propp of the true Protestant Religion and therefore in this case the definition holds very firm and true which was long since given of such at the Conference at Hampton Court That they are * Pag. 38. Protestants frayed out of their wits Again part of that doctrine which by the Protestation the takers vowed to defend is that †The Kings Majesty hath the chief power in his Realm of England and other his dominions unto whom the chief Government of all states of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all causes doth appertain And by the Covenant the takers swore to preserve and maintain all the days of their lives the thing called the Scottish discipline Now nothing can be more opposite to the Supremacy of the King asserted in the Article and vowed to be defended with life power and estate in the Protestation then this very Scottish discipline which our Baal-Berithists by an after oath swore to preserve Yea light and darkness God and the Devil heaven and hell the serving of Christ and the worshipping of Baal will assoon be brought to agree with each other as the Scottish Presbytery will with Monarchy King James told us it by a sad doleful experience as the discipline of Scotland wil accord with the Regal Supremacy over all persons in all causes as well Ecclesiastical as Civil he that
they that they are well governed or that their Prince mind their peace and safety If I may be so bold with the world as to tell them my simple judgement of those words of the Kings I humbly conceive with submission to those that are wiser That those Statutes were made meerly to cut off the spring of the Popes universal Supremacy and as much as in them lay to cast out his bold unwarrantable antichristian Encroachment upon the English Liberties and to give acheck to his Lordly domineering over them that the Kings as now might have their due rightful Supremacy over all persons in all causes within their dominuous Over Clergymen who were humble servants to the principles and injunctions of the Papal Vsurper as well as over Common people who were led by the nose by them In all causes Ecclesiastical to reform Abuses in the Church and punish Clergy-men for their Errors Heresies and Seditious principles aswel as Civil To execute wrath upon those that do evil either by Rebellion or Treason or Speaking or bellowing out from Press or Pulpit their damnable positions against their Persons Crowns Dignities or Governments upon any accompt with any person or persons joynt or seperate whatsoever This I understand to be the grounds of that Royal saying That holy Church was founded in prelacy by their own donation power and authority and not for any intentions of theirs to extirpate Episcopal Government or the manifestation of the lawfulness of their power by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity for the doing of it § 28. But the man hath not done yet but hath some more questions such as they are to be answered still and therefore I le hasten to the consideration of them and what should they be but these paultry impertinent ones that follow which are as proper Queries for the Bishops true position as if he should have put his pen in 's tail and held them both up to the Sun to look at Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative 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 then with your Covenant Weighty questions indeed but such as are more worthy of laughter at his folly then of any answer to his proud boasting Quaeries but seeing the Scotized Presbyters aim therein if I hit him right if not let him or any of the gang inform me how I shot amiss is to make the learned Bishop by his saying to savour of the guiltiness of perjury by his pretended contradictory assertion to the noble Oath of Supremacy which he like a true Christian and faithful Subject had sworn its high time to look about us and stand up in defence of this vilely slander'd Prelate against this Covenanting Goliath of the City of London and make answer to his sorry though insolent Quaeries which though they seem to be of a ternary quality yet in sum the three amount but to one and first he asks Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all Causes Ecclesiastical Good lack what a great Upholder of the Regal Supremacy you are become Mr. Caviller What Sir do you turn Quaerist after it Do Presbytery begin to shake hands with the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty Doth the devil plead for God and Baal for the worshipping of Christ Certainly then there needs no great fear of danger from the Apostatical Calvinian Hierarchy or of Letters of horning from the Scotized Presbytery But good now Sir Presbyter Why Prerogative Why not Supremacy Was that word like a Bishops Lawn Sleeves to your party that it would have choaked you to have named it In all my little reading did I never meet with that word Prerogative joyned with that sentence before put in in stead of the rightful word Supremacy which makes me think of a tacit denial of the thing at that very time he saucily corrects the Bishop for his seeming contradictory Position to it as giving a back-blow to the Kings Supremacy in his seeming paultry defence of it else surely he would have made use of the usual word Supremacy and not impotently ask Where is the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes Ecclesiastical Come come Mr. Zechary you are a cunning companion and lie altogether upon the catch to see how you can take away a Prelates credit from him but all wont do you are horribly deceived if you think to meet with any unbyassed persons to trap them into your cheating Snare with you for there 's none that compares one Book with the other as I have done but will see your cunning Sophistry and infamous ways of arguing and thereby learn to detest the Leaguing Author of the one and honor the reverend Writer of the other If he that saith That the King hath no prudent moral religious and lawful Authority by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity to change Episcopal Government unto any one else that is AS new and schismatical SO far worse and unsuitable to England every way and so not to bring in Schism or Heresie denies the Supremacy of the King certainly the great and invincible maintainers of it against the joynt encroachments of Papist and his brother Presbyter will be quickly found to be against it and so indeed every one else that understands Christianity sense or reason Take the Supremacy in that notion for which it was first established and this Assertion of the Prelates may very well consist with the Oath but if this Calvinian prater for a little cavilling sport for it s for no other end be be sure for he is either no Presbyter or if he be he is no more a friend to or pleader for the Kings lawful Supremacy according to the true intent and meaning of the Framers of the Oath then the rigidest Jesuit at Rome will take it to reach to every thing that he that denies the Kings lawful power to do that which is unrighteous by the Laws of God is presently against His legal Supremacy Then not onely the reverend Prelates and Episcopal Divines the onely constant Assertors of it all along against the several wilde fancies of Jesuits and Scotized Presbyters but the Kings Sacred Majesty himself wil be found to be vehement opposers of it I 'm confident His Highness desires no such thing but that His Supremacy might onely reach so far as he may lawfully exercise it without breach of the Laws of God § 29. But this is not all for there is one Question still behinde a shrewd one indeed which follows immediately upon the back of the former and that 's this Hath a Gracious King lately advanced you to debase nay dethrone Him and His Parliament too What a huge careful man this Presbyter would fain make himself appear to be of his Princes honor so far as to question a learned Prelate for his seeming sedition and
irreverence How now Mr. Zechary Whereabouts are you What will you never leave fighting with the Sun never leave striving and presenting the people of this Nation with * See p. 18 of his book the foggy fancies of your own giddy brain and run away with them by your fluid and gliding tongue or discourse as if the state of your question were granted by understanding persons for the truth you crake hugely methinks but I doubt I shall marr your sport with what follows and to that end let me intreat this favour of your Kirkifi'd Holiness as to speak the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth to these few questions I have subjoyned here for an answer either from your self or godly partakers Doth the Bishop go about to debase and dethrone his Sovereign as to follow your religious pattern so far as to say any where in his learned Writings which you so much snarl at that * See his Preface to the Considerator consider'd The Common-Prayer Book was expelled by a lawful Authority which if it be not Treason as the Noble L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat Scot and Peters were no Traytors Doth the Bishop talk any where of a See p. 51. of his book The Two Houses Supream Legislative power without His Majesty and so give the lie to the Oath of Supremacy and Laws of the Land which ascertains it to be the peculiar Prerogative of the King Or doth he in any of his Writings like you b Page 31. averr That neither the place of His Majesties retirement nor reason of his absence doth adde or abstract to the authority of Parliament Or fourthly Doth the Bishop any where bid His Majesty keep that damnable traiterous and seditious Oath called The Solemn League and Covenant and tell him He shall be delivered from that distress which Page 42. may too late engage His Majesty to send to you for sooth his faithful Monitor to pray for him Oh Mr. Crofton you are a notable fellow at feminine scourges feminine do I say I am a little too short there for male and female are both alike to you nay and not every ordinary one neither for the King himself must not be exempted from the distress you threaten him with for not performing of a bloody treacherous Oath but the best on 't is Curst Cows have short horns and its very fit you should be so short kept lest being left to your self you should be apt to stray out of the pathes of loyalty and obedience and get into the by-pathes of religious Rebellion and playing the devil for Gods sake pushing and goring at every one nay at your own Sovereign himself if he will not fulfil your whimsical humours It s like you would be good enough if you were but once throughly cleansed from the Kirkish leaven of Hypocrisie and Treason Sedition and Rebellion but till then they that trust to you and your party for exact loyalty and obedience will soon finde upon any opportunity for Tumults and Sedition that they have trusted to a broken reed to their own fancies and chimaeraes The Bishop might well fear I must needs confess and that most justly too to be made less by the head as guilty both of Treason and Sedition should he so confront his Prince and his Supremacy as to set down such treasonable seditious Affirmations as you have done but you Presbyters have been so always constant as Mr. L'estrange saith in his Holy Cheat to the rule and method of doing your own business in the Kings Name that you can plead your being His Majesties true Subjects at that very time when you your selves are debasing and disallowing of His legal Supremacy and so setting a fair step for the dethroning of him when your desired opportunities of doing mischief shall unhappily fall out for the performance of your Antimonarchical Consultations And now to conclude this particular I shall put his own question to him and all the godly Generation of Scribes and Pharisees Hath a gracious and I wish he be not in the mean while too merciful a King out of His own Princely Goodness passed an Act of Indempnity by which He pardons the long continued Rebellion begun by a Club of Running Lecturers as Mr. L'estrange calls them and their Adherents in 1642. against His Royal Father for the doing whereof He might by the Statute have cut off the heads as well as seized on the estates of hundreds of those primary Rebels who yet by the mercy of a Princely Patron of Episcopacy enjoy both the one and t'other I say hath a Gracious King out of His own sweet Christian Nature done this for you and your party to debase nay and dethrone him by your denial of His Supremacy and setting on foot the doctrine of the devil who was a Rebel and a Murtherer from the beginning § 30. Ay but saith Crofton * Page 29 30. Dr. Gauden being well considered will be found to be no less erronious in his Politicks then in his Ecclesiasticks So then who ever concludes for the truth of the Doctors Assertions in his Book he is by your heady suppositions adjudged to be one that hath not well considered them But we 'l see your reason for 't first before we believe you good Mr. Zechary and that is I perceive the Bishops true saying that The Hierarchy or Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England which you you say have in your Analepsis Analephthe denied At this rate its in vain to meddle with you That a mans expressions shall be true or false according to what they seem to be in your giddy brains That your Ipse dixit onely shall be proof enough to overthrow the arguments of your Reverend Antagonist But such things as these Mr. Zechary must not be allowed of and therefore the examination of your Denial will in this case be somewhat needful You say You deny that Episcopacy is established by the Law The more shameless man you to deny that which is so apparent For what think you of the very first Article of the Great Charter which is not onely declared to be the Common Law of the Land as I have already said but is confirmed by 32 Acts of Parliament which runs thus Salvae sint Episcopis omnes Libertates suae Let the Bishops have all their whole Rights inviolable What think you now Mr. Presbyter Is the Great Charter no Law or are Bishops and their Liberties expresly named in the very first Article and yet Episcopacy not established by the Laws of England What a grand Cheater is this high-flown Presbyter that shall have the face to condemn his Superiors and give them the Lie for speaking such a notorious truth as this That Episcopacy is established by the Laws of England § 31. But he 'l Print Errors and give a Reason for it when he hath done I do averr saith he like an arch Presbyter That the English laws finding Episcopacy conversant
contrary to above 30 Acts of Parliameat The King himself protesting against it as far as Oxford by his publick Proclamation as engaging the takers in Acts of high Treason Doth our Leaguer think that when 290 Voices are taken away out of 600 that the remaining part hath as great a power as when they were all together Or doth he think that the Kings silence or his Protestation doth not adde or diminish the authority of the thing sworn But I must needs say indeed l See Croftons Berith-Anti-Baal p. 51 Suppositions are sufficient supports to a man of fancy who all along this Discourse plays at Bo-peep begging what must never be granted while his Nose is between his eyes which I leave him to see at large his ignorance and folly his seditious and treasonable Principles against His Gracious Sovereign § 37. Crofton citing out of his Analepsis p. 12. That the two Houses of Parliament are Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England and the Bishop asking p. 148. What and can they legally exercise this power without yea against the Kings consent being out of his nonage and not out of his wits This furious offspring of Smec cries out p. â—9 That they may do it without the Kings consent none do or can deny it common practice with the peoples constant obedience doth plainly manifest it as also the Protestation of May 1641. never doubted as to the validity of Authority which you say was precarious but Resolves of the House declare to have been Authoritative The Votes Resolves Orders and Ordinances of one or both Houses do proclaim it And the Priviledges of Parliament That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted ordered or acted by them until it be by themselves formally presented unto His Majesty And the very nature of Co-ordinate power if the Doctor understands it with their Actings in case of his absence by minority or otherwise doth determine it As to the exercise of it against the Kings consent I shall conclude nothing but commend Mr. Prynn's Sovereign Power of Parliaments to your serious study And the Legislative power of their Votes Debates Resolves Orders or Ordinances were never gainsaid by His Majesty O Lump of wickedness and sedition What do or can none deny that the Two Houses may exercise that Vtopian Fiction their fancied imaginary Legislative power without the Kings consent Why is your lawless Assertion so true think you that it is past all contradiction Alas poor Presbyter why do you hug up your self so in your own delusions It s pity you should go on uncontroul'd in your wild positions and therefore I le try for once what I can say against it Are the Two Houses any better then the Kings Subjects If you say otherwise the Law affixes the deserved name of Traytor upon your forehead Can they convene and assemble together in the House without the Regal Summons Are they any more then the Kings own creature Can they stay one minute there when met together to debate or consult of any thing without His Majesties free leave Can the creature do any thing what he please without the Creators consent Suppose they should as your Long-Parliamentidol did reproach their Sovereign maintain five trayterous Antimonarchists in their treason and villany hatch a Conspiracy and bring forth Rebellion cannot the Creator have so much power over his forlorn creatures as with the breath of his mouth immediately to command their speedy departure by a dissolution Oh Crofton Crofton beware of the perjurious consequence and stop your mouth left the Ax for your treason make no difference between your own and those heads of your fellow-rebels on London-bridge But this is a Scotized Assertion an opinion of m See Bish Garden 's Anti-Baal-Berith p. 151. Seminary Presbyters who have been the Protoplasticks of a rebellious generation both in Church and State agreeable to their all along rebellious practises by vertue of their legislative power which our profound Lawyer saith they have and which they may he averrs exercise without the Kings consent and so by consequence they may rebel against their Head kill and murther His loyal Subjects imprison and impoverish others take away His Imperial Dignities and Pre-eminences from Him seize upon His Forts Ports Magazines and Towns and plague and oppress their fellow-English-men by seizing on their goods and estates how and in what proportion and maner they please send armed men through perjury to fight against their lawful Sovereign leave out the defence of his person out of their Commissions impose what cursed Leagues and Covenants they please all actions of high treason by the known Laws of this Land without His Majesties consent sell and imprison Him until He agree to their imperious humors and demands and Christen their Actions too like a pack of dissembling false hypocrites with the title of Reformation Loyalty Advancing the Glory and promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ yea play the devil for Gods sake and all this they claim a right and lawful authority to do by force and vertue of their Idoliz'd Diana their new Goddess lately come down from Jupiter their phanatick frenzical whimsie of Legislative power And because these things have been done and justified with impudence beyond example by n See Presbytery Popish not Episcopacy p. 6. a Tumultuary Rabble that pretended to be a Parliament and their graceless adherents therefore this Leaguer concludes the Lawfulness of the Act done and the Justifiableness of re-acting the same again But A facto ad jus non valet argumentum is an old and a true Position To argue from the Action done the lawfulness thereof becomes a subtile Sophister a Trappanner and Cheater more then a sound Scholar or a Disputant As for the Two Houses Legislative power so called or their Co-ordinacy therein with their by them sworn ONELY Supream Governour I have said so much already concerning that grand delusive Cheat and Fiction that a question will now be enough against it How can the two Houses be affirmed by any having regard to the Rules and Customes of the Realm to have the whole or a Co-ordinacy or share in that which the very Prologues to the Acts and Statutes denies them to have any right or claim to either in Possession or Reversion As for the Protestation I told you before Silence gives consent and his Majesties suffering such a thing to be done by them under his nose without a Prohibition argues plainly his Tacit fiat to it but yet proves not at all their supposed Legislative power or Coordinacy in the same with their Head nor the legality of their exercise of it without the Kings consent It 's true the Bishop tells you It was precarious and personal upon this just Ground and Foundation o P. 278. That the two Houses had not power to make or take or impose any Oath contrary to the Laws of England which they were trusted to observe
not break nor yet to abrogate or change without his Majesties consent And that the House of Commons have not power to require an Oath of any except perhaps of their own Members And you in opposition to him affirm That the Resolves of the House declare it to have been Authoritative very good I pray answer me then Was not the detestable Rebellion against the Carolian Martyr Resolved to be Authoritative too and O strange parcel of non-sense to be Loyalty and Obedience and in the then blinde Conscience of your profound Lawyer to be lawful and necessary both in point of Law and Conscience Was not their Votes of Non-Addresses to be made or had to or from their Supream Lord and Governour with its immediate attendant unmatchable perjury Resolved to have been Authoritative too Did they not Resolve all the Villanies Murthers Blasphemies Sequestrations Imprisonments and utter Ruine of his Majesty and his Noble Adherents and in fine all their Actions from beginning to end to be Authoritative too Was not his execrable and perfidious Murder Declared to have been Authoritative when that Perjured perjured perjured Infamous Lower House next door to Hell Declared and Adjudged 10. January 1648 for a New-years-gift to the Nation That by the Fundamental Laws which was the creator of the two Houses fictious Legislative power it is Treason in the King of England for the time being to levy War against the Parliament and Kingdom Was not the lawfulness of their Perjuries and violent Murthers Oppressions and lawless Actings Justified and Declared to be Authoritative too when by a couple of Trayterous Votes three daies after they had the impudence to tell the Nation 1. That themselves being chosen by and representing the people had the Supream power in the Nation and 2. That whatsoever was Enacted or Declared for Law by the Commons in Parliament hath the force of a Law and the people concluded thereby though consent of King and Peers be not had thereunto Alas Mr. Crofton It s not the Resolve or Vote of a Party much less of that dismal black Faction in the long Parliament that can make their Treason and Rebellion their Perjuries and Blasphemies their unparellel'd Murthers Violence and Oppressions seem the less wicked and abominable or pretend to be more lawful and Authoritative either by the Divine or English Royal Laws It is not the Thieves justification of his action that will any whit the more extenuate the nature of his horrid crimes nor the Turbulent spirit 's applauding his Faction and Sedition speaking evil of Dignities and declaiming against the Legal Supremacy of his Prince and then cry out with his Brother Jehu See my zeal for the Lord of hosts and think that all this while he is beating down the enemies of the Lord Jesus that will make his Rebellion less odious or his blinde zeal without knowledge to be ever a whit the more rewardable but the Laws of God and man must be the Touchstone the Judge to justifie or condemn their respective actions according to their different waies of obedience or neglect and refusal to obey So that to conclude this particular I say It s not the Resolves of the two Houses that will make that to be lawful and Authoritative which neither the Laws of God nor of this Land declare to be justifiable and blameless their Votes and Resolves you speak of do proclaim nothing else but their matchless Treason and Rebellion You tell us further That the Priviledges of Parliament That the King can take no notice of what is debated or voted ordered or acted until it be by themselves Formally presented unto his Majesty And the very nature of Co-ordinate power if the Doctor understands it What do you think the Doctor to be such a learned Coxcomb such a Legislative dreamer as your self that you question his understanding of a Co-ordinate power with an If with their actings in case of his absence by Minority or otherwise doth determine it What It doth it determine Oh! you mean I suppose your so much adored Diana the Legislative Fiction placed in the two Houses You are an egregious Arguer but like all the rest of the Scotized party arguing from the momentary prosperity of an execrable Rebellion the Legality of the Traytors actions and because in the contriving and devising of a Statute the two Houses have a Priviledge excluding the Kings taking notice of them till such time as it is finished and presented for the Royal assent for without that it s no Law Therefore this wilful Sophisticator concludes or would have others believe that from thence it follows by good consequence That the Rebellious two Houses after they had taken the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy which bound them to assist and defend the King against all his enemies might by vertue of their Legislative whimsie take and impose a Negative Oath and stoutly swear with Perjury in their brazen brows not to assist the Forces raised by their Gracious Sovereign for his own defence against his Rebels against the Treasons and villanies of themselves who had the face without his presence or consent to call themselves A Parliament That they might by vertue of such Priviledges raise a Rebellion and swear to extirpate the Legal established Government of the Church justifie their Members in their Conspiracies and mischiefs send armed men against their Prince to fight with and shoot at him and his Loyal Subjects and other Abominations not to be parellelled like their Matchless Covenant and all this without and against the Kings consent because as I have said they have a Priviledge to be free in their debates and consultations about the devising of a New or repealing of an Old Law without the Kings taking notice of it until such time as they present it to him for his Fiat Truely Sir Presbyter you are fitter a great deal to dispute with Females with a rod of Correction in your hand then to prate with a Reverend Prelate with such shallow arguments as these which discovers nothing else but the Authors folly on the one side as well as his high imperious spirit on the other As for their Co-ordinacy in the Legislative power which our godly Rebel jabbers so much of and their actings in case of his Majesties absence by Minority or otherwise which he fondly supposeth doth determine the truth of his bold frantick assertion If the I say so of himself will be taken for a sufficient proof thereof the business then I must confess is clear beyond any contradiction but that they cannot Legally act any thing for I do not come here to contradict the prosperous Rebels actions when they hold the murthering sword of lawless Treasons and murthers in their hands instead of the sword of Justice but I say that they cannot Legally act any thing in the time of the Regal Minority without a Protector nor in the interim of his absence without Deputed Nobles under the great Seal both which are purposely
the King is under none but God This saith he is that divine Sentence Quod nec Jovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas which neither angry Jove nor fiery Vulcan neither devouring Age nor bloody sword a worse devourer then that shall ever expunge out of our Law-books or explode out of the memory of every pious man Thus he Bracton cited by the Reverend and Learned Judge Jenkins tells us Rex non habet parem in Regno suo That the King hath not an equal in his kingdom if not an Equal then certainly no Superior and so by consequence shows the fiction of the Two Houses Supremacy There hath been so much already cited for the Supremacy of His Sacred Majesty over all persons in his Dominions by Judge Jenkins Mr. Diggs and several others that I need not trouble the Reader with any more repetitions thereof but refer the dissatisfied to their several Writings and conclude this point with a word or two concerning the Oath of Supremacy which every Member of the two Houses must take before he sits in the House or else according to Law he stands a person to all intents and purposes as if he had never bin elected or returned which clearly declares the King to be the onely Supream Governor of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal and so certainly by undeniable consequence over the Two Houses in Parliament causes For why was the exclusive Particle Onely inserted but to cut off all pretences of co-ordinacy or share in the Regal Supremacy And truly if he be Supream there is neither Major nor Superior saith the Learned Lord Bridgeman in his Speech aforesaid Was this Oath think you Mr. Crofton composed by the Lords and Commons in Parliament in the time of Qu. Elizabeth and at their suit by * Eliz. c. 1 Act of Parliament made high Treason 5 Eliz. c. 1 for a subject to deny to take it for to be evaded and treasonably denied the subject matter thereof ascribed to the Subjects themselves who were fain to take it ere they could have the least colour or pretence perjuriously to claim or usurp it from the rightful owner and this too by such a Shadow of a Disputant as your fanciful self who have armed your self with so much confidence to bawl out these seditious Assertions which deserve nothing else but the utmost rigor of the Law for a confutation Nothing but self-condemnation No other way left you to save your credit but by writing sedition and throwing your poison'd darts of malice against your Superiors for the pretended denial of that the truth whereof your own whimsical self is found to be a real disclaimer Cannot you dig a pit for another but you must presently fall into it your self These shabbed courses of yours forces me to deal with you by a retortion and ask you once again some more of your own questions Where is Sir the Kings Prerogative over all persons in all causes What is become of the Oath of Supremacy Hath a Gracious King lately pardoned you and your Delinquent party for your former misdemeanors really to debase nay dethrone Him by your impudent and traiterous entituling his sworn Subjects with His Onely Supremacy Truly Sir I cannot blame you much now for your words in your Preface where you tell us That side 2. having animadverted this Anti-Baal-Berith i. e. the Bishops Book you finde a necessity to apologize for the very act of your Animadversion and fear nothing more then to be bound to your good behavior in misbehaving your self so much as to answer not according to what your confidence helped you to prate A fool according to his folly wherein you may seem like unto him but a learned reverend Prelate with whole mouth-fuls of sedition and rebellion wherein you are the perfect image of all the traiterous Conspirators that have been before you why else do you divide non dividenda make a division in that wherein none without perjury ought or can be make two sharers and partners in the Supremacy which the legal Oath and Statute-Laws of this Realm by which we must steer our course and not by your horrible frightful dreams declare to centre and to be the peculiar right and Sovereignty of one alone and that inseparable from his person too The goodly aim and end of all your Jabbering for the Two Houses co-ordinacy in the Supremacy is but to fulfil the Martyrs words e See Eikon Basilike in 24. P. 47. That the Majesty of the Kings of England might hereafter hang like Mahomets Tomb by a Magnetick charm between the power and priviledges of the Two Houses in an airy imagination of Regality But the Two Houses usurpation of the Supremacy it seems will not serve Mr. Croftons turn if they cannot swallow up the Legislative power too from the Royal Owner In his Analepsis * p. 12. he called them then onely Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England now he grasps for the Suprem Legislative power alone for those long Parliament Legislative theives that made it their precious saintly work to make their strength the Law of Justice robb and pillage and murder the Subjects of their Soveraign by their cursed illegal Orders quirkes and devices and then show them the Law of their uncontroulable atheistical wills for it sic volo sic jubeo stat proratione voluntas I am perswaded the man hath a huge fancy to go higher and higher in his Seditious and treasonable language till he comes to make his last ascent at the Sacred Gallowes or else he dreams with the Fifth kingdom Rebels That notwithstanding any thing he saith or doth yet that not a hair of his head shall perish I shall not stand long upon answering him in this fiction and dream of his but shall quickly dispatch him by adding to what I have upon this point already said that which now immediately followes And therefore for that which he termes the Legislative power and because he is just like the Cuckoe repeating over and over one and the same thing to lengthen his Book Let 's hear a little what Justice Hide told the Blackening Regicide Harison at his Tryal in the Old Bayly I am sorry saith he that any man should have the face and boldness to deliver such words as you have You and all must know That the King is above the Two Houses They must propose their Laws to him The Laws are made by him and not by them by their consenting but they are His Laws That either or both Houses or any assembly or people in this or any other Nation Governed by Monarchy hath or ever claimed saith f See the Royallists defence p. 39. another in 1648. to have a Legislative power or so far to represent the Kingdom as to make new Laws and change the old without
him but Liberty of Conscience in the wearing or not wearing of a Surplice in all Churches and places throughout the Nation excepting his own Royal Chappel Cathedrals and both the Vniversities they must have the Customary Rigor suspended and Liberty of Conscience allowed them there too or else all the fat 's in the fire their queazy stomachs cannot bear it and their Consciences poor harmless lambs they think wil be thereby over burdened and oppressed but let truth come somewhat might them for once which hath bin such a stranger to them and tell them to their faces That they have possessed themselves of Cauterized Consciences that are oppressed with ☜ the sight of a garment and eased with the practice of sedition which stumble at strawes and swallow a Camel that cannot away with a piece of Holland and yet make no bones of Rebellion who can by no meanes endure to bow at the name of Jesus and yet fall down and worship their own Inventions And thus Mr. Crofton profoundly supposeth That a bloody faction of the Two Houses swearing an Oath without and against the concurrence of their Princely Head had a Parliamentary Authority to make their Oath legal and themselves that took it to be no Rebellious Covenanters § 40. Errors saith Squire l See his History of K. Charls p. 268. Saunderson grow fastest in hot brains and the most reverend Archb. Bancroft in his excellent Survey of the pretended holy discipline hath also told us of Beza's m Pag. 53. applying himself altogether to strengthen and incourage his factious old acquaintance i. e. The Disciplinarian Canker-wormes then here in England in their froward and perverse obstinacy The first is made evident by the frightful language of this Hot-brain'd Sheba The second is also proved by the open averring of one of the near Allies of those Puritanes and rash Heady Preachers that King James of blessed memory hath well informed us of who think it their honor to contend with Kings and to perturb whole kingdomes And to what end can any man think was the See his preface to his Basilicon Doron wicked errors of his ways made publick by a press but to encourage his factious proselites and Holy-prophane Leaguing brethren to persist in their froward and perverse obstinacy in their old crooked pathes of Schism and Sacriledge of blood and confusion And all this under a colour and pretence to advance the power of Godliness too But what said one once Men saith n See the Subjects sorrow or lamentations upon the death of Britains Josiah K. Charles p. 40. he profess they know God yet in their works they deny him using the name of God and Religion as Conjurers in their incantations to perpetrate those things which are most contrary unto God and destructive unto Religion for as the devil never doth more hurt then when he appears in the likeness of an Angel of Light so are men never so mischievous as when they drive on wicked Designs under the shew of Godliness And thus have we found this Covenanting Corah first praying to be delivered from rendring railing for railing and yet rake in that puddle himself for several times together after he had told us he did not delight to rake in it Mangling and Clipping the words of his Reverend Antagonist so long till he made his own way the more easie to catch others in to make his Puritanical Gang to believe him to be some rare kinde of Phenix at the very time when a faithful Monitor will sooner compare him to a Pratling Cuckoe for his idle repititions and leaving out like a perverse Disputer the Principal Verb the chief words of the Bishops Sentences o See King James his Preface for speeds sake putting in the one half of the purpose and leaving out the other not unlike the man that alleadged that part of the Psalm Non est Deus but left out the preceding words Dixit insipiens in Corde suo Stating of damnable Doctrines of Sedition and Rebellion for the Honour and Happiness of the Kings Majesty and his Posterity That the Common-Prayer-Book was expelled by a lawful Authority That neither the place of his Majesties retirement nor reason of his absence doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament That the two Houses are not only Co-ordinate and Sharers in the Legislation of England and may exercise it without the Kings consent but also have the Supream Legislative power directly contrary to the Laws and Statutes of this Nation and to the Oath of Supremacy which by the Particle Onely cuts off and excludes all Rivals and Sharers therein and which by an express Statue Law is made High Treason for a Subject to deny to take and this affirmed by him That the world may bear witness that he hath no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness Threatening distress and that so sudden too for not keeping of the Covenant as may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to pray for him and no less then twice affirming with an If the yet legal continuance of those long Athenian Tyrants at Westminster notwithstanding their undoubted Dissolution by their unparellel'd Murther of their Prince That the world may bear witness also with his Conscience of his Loyalty This this is the person that would bewitch the world with the Bishops premunires and Sedition against their Sovereign Princes But Quis tulerit Gracchos de Seditione Quaerentes Who can with patience endure to hear the devil correcting sin Traytors seditious persons exclaiming against the fictitious Sedition of others Sacrilegious Rebels against the Sacriledge of others I say Quis tulerit Who can without indignation entertain any thoughts of a Covenanters speaking against Sedition Sacriledge Treason King-Deposing and Rebellion For p See the Bishop of Canterburies Speech at the censure of Burton c. p. 5. t is most apparent to any man that will not wink That the intention of these Fiery Turbulent Presbyterians and their Factious abetters was ever and is still to raise a Sedition being as great Incendiaries in the State where they get power as they have ever been in the Church The thoughts of whose Seditious Principles and Anti-Monarchical Practises made one in 1574. cry out q See The defence of the Ecclesiastical Regiment p. 40. God of his mercy abridge their power and continue the shortness of their horns or else grant them greater measure of his grace and moved another to commend to his Readers consideration this one Caution r See the Post-script to the Right Rebel p. 164. That as ever they desire intend and expect to escape they withdraw themselves from the Society of Rebellious persons and take heed they give no entertainment unto any Rebellious Opinions or Principles whatsoever extraction they be of whether Popish Presbyterian or Popular if it be not more proper to refer them all to one Original the Mystery of Iniquity as their Common Mother For I make account saith he That Popery Presbytery and Popularity rightly understood with respect to their rebellious Principles are but as so many several Dialects in the language of that Beast which * Rev. 13. 11. had two horns like a Lamb and spake as a Dragon And this likewise was the reason of that Conclusion of the most Reverend Primate of Armagh to his excellent Fair warning to take heed of the Scottish Discipline which shall also put a period to this discourse I would to God saith he we might be so happy as to see a general Council of Christians at least a General Synod of all Protestants and that the first Act might be to denounce an Anathema Maranatha against all broachers and maintainers of Seditious Principles to take away the scandal that lies upon Christian Religion and to shew that in the search of Piety we have not lost the principles of Humanity In the mean time let all Christian Magistrates who are principally concerned beware how they suffer this Cockatrice Egge to be hatched in their Dominions much more how they plead for Baal or Baal-Berith the Baalims of the Covenant It were worth the enquiring whether the marks of Antichrist do not agree as eminently to the Assembly General of Scotland as either to the Pope or to the Turk This we see plainly That they spring out of the Ruines of the Civil Magistrate They sit upon the Temple of God and they advance themselves above those whom the holy Scripture calleth Gods Vivat in eternum Rex Carolus Secundus quem Deus nunc in secula seculorum defendat oro Lectoribus Doctis Indoctis INdocti non damnent quod ipsi nesciunt Docti non invideant quod ipsi novum putant ab utrisque peto si alicubi Erratum sit illud Castigent non Culpent si quid ab illis merui ut Deo non mihi gratias rependerent Apud Aditus ad Logicam Page 57. l. 40. for Covenant r. Court p. 80. l. 3. for the r. he l. 40. for might r. nigh FINIS