can thus impudently still offer these things which have been so often cleered by the Parliament of England and with light so stating in their faces that they could never abide to look on them We know they never answered them and believe they stand so convinced of the impossibility that it will never be attempted When they offer any thing in answer it will not want a Reply if it can be worth it For the Treaties they speak of it is believed here there are none in force They have most happily delivered us by their barbarous inhumane and faedifragous invasion of this Nation the last yeer which was determined promoted carried on and acted by Authority of the Parliament of Scotland Sure they cannot say That that invasion was also according to the Treaty and Covenant and in pursuance of the ends thereof Impudence it self must acknowledg it a breach if so how hath it been since made up It s true Acts may be done in a Nation by some of a Nation against Treaties which are not thereby broken but reparation and satisfaction may be made and the Treaty not suffer by it But it is certainly an undeniable Maxime That an Act cannot be done by a Nation against a Treaty by the supream Authority but it dissolves the Treaty and can never be repaired but by mutual consent And therefore at this time this Nation is through the merciful dispensation of the wisest providence as free from whatsoever relation or mutual Obligation to the Nation of Scotland by the Treaties and Covenant as if they had never been made And for Declarations of this Parliament they binde no more then any other Laws do which the Parliament hath power to repeal as often as in their judgments they finde it good for the people to do so and to do otherwise were a breach of their Trust and neglect of their duty If the Scots make Laws like those of the Medes and Persians which we conceive they do not much good may they do them we envy it not The Parliament of England is more grave then to dance after a Bag-Pipe It were to be wished we had not some others among us more in love with their baubles But who are like to loose most by this not acknowledging are we bound when they are free let them not over-value themselves may they not have need again of their Neighbors have they made a Solemn League and Covenant also with all the Cavalierish party with Montross and all his Heathen Mountainers Let them make such a Covenant and with Death and Hell too either it shall not stand or they shall fall by it If they should need us again and why perhaps may they not must they not eat their word notwithstanding the Solemn League and Covenant It is very probable that before the Common wealth of England come to Treat with them again they will make them acknowledg them a Common-wealth or make them do that which some of them will think worse for them though perhaps it will not be really so for most It might be as well for some among them if they were a Common-wealth too but it is not necessary they should be made happy against their wills and indeed all men are not fit for it Some are fit to be free-men and some delight to be slaves They may remember the States of Holland would not treat with the King of Spain for their twelve years Truce till he owned them for free Estates and gave them the Titles of High and Mighty And I hope this Common-wealth will as well know how to be duly acknowledged and as punctually exact it though I believe they will not as they need not swell up to an appearance of greatness by the putting on of those bubbles and bladders of empty and windy Titles which may very well be omitted where it is resolved by the actions of Justice Prudence and Fortitude to lay a foundation for reputation and respect in the judgment and affections of men One short question to the signall hypocrisie of this Paragraph before I leave it Do they believe there is a God Or that he is Omniscient Is he the Searcher of hearts Are they so tender of the Covenant now that they cannot acknowledg England a Common-wealth and yet last year notwithstanding the Covenant could invade it with an Army and commit all manner of hostile Acts in it of the effects whereof many Counties labour at this day For a close to this Paragraph Let them remember they must recant and they must acknowledg this a Common-wealth This were a hard task to some spirits but their Stool of Repentance hath prepared them to such things and indeed made them able to do any thing without blushing If the winde grow high they can lower their Sayls they use to rant it like Knights Errant when they have no enemy but they are as submissive as Spaniels when well cudgelled Paragraph 2. As for the matter therein contained those many things of just Resentment wherein satisfaction is demanded from this Kingdom are only mentioned in the generall and therefore cannot so well receive a particular Answer But if by these generall expressions the late unlawfull Engagement against England be understood They desire that their Protestation against the same in Parliament and the opposition made thereunto by them afterward in Arms which they never laid down untill the garrisons of Berwick and Carlisle were restored unto the Kingdom of England may be remembred together with the Letter of the House of Commons to the generall Assembly of this Kirk of the third of August 1648. And that Lieu. Gen. Cromwell authorized from both houses of Parliament did upon the fifth of October last represent to the Committee of Estates of this Kingdom the wrongs and injuries committed against the Kingdom of England in that Engagement and thereupon did demand that they would give assurance in the name of the Kingdom of Scotland not to admit or suffer any who have been active in or consenting to that Engagement to be imployed in any publique place or trust whatsoever which was not only granted and afterward confirmed in Parliament but all Acts for prosecution thereof have been repealed and all proceeding relating thereunto publiquely disclaimed And if any other wrongs shall be made known unto us we shall be ready to return such an answer as may give just satisfaction WHat those things of just Resentment are which the Letters of the Parliament of England mentions in generall particular pens can take no notice of They may know them in due time in reference to former as well as later actions in England and a seven years continued progresse in Ireland which they may assure themselves are not forgotten As to the late unlawfull Engagement which they so readily confesse and withall tell of their Protestation against it but it is well known they said nothing against it till they saw the Army would be commanded by such as would not serve their
turnes nor carry on their Interest but the Invasion was generally liked and promoted by their boutefeu Priests till they saw they were out-witted by the Fox Hamilton and when they saw the enemies of their Kirk-Government in power in the Army then indeed the Engagement was unlawful because it might have proved Prelaticall but had it been Orthodox it had been lawful enough They may take notice that it is not their Protestation that will build again the houses they fired store with plenty the Countyes they wasted restore to honor violated Chastity or recover the lives lost in resisting their Covenanting Invasion and therefore notwithstanding their Protestation the breach was National and so must the satisfaction be and the Common-wealth of England will expect a better then that which universally expiates all things there the wawling humiliations in the Stool of hypocrisie But besides they say that they continued in Arms till the Garrisons of Barwick and Carlisle were delivered and therefore they did more then protest It is true indeed they did but that they were able to do so let them thank that Honorable Lieut. General who like a good disciple of the best Master had learned to forgive his Enemies and to render them good for their evil who had a wretched Countrey justly forfeited by their wicked invasion wholly at his mercy as were also all that dissembling crew that then cried little less then Hosanna to him and who have since appeared again what they then were and what his Honor was then told they then were and what he would after finde them viz. Scots though the excess of his own candor and the melting flowings of his Christian spirit would neither suffer him to believe what he could not chuse but know nor act as became their provocations but let that pass perhaps the coals of fire he then heaped upon their heads may be a more lasting torment to them then the execution of his Sword They say the Lieut. General represented the wrongs and injuries committed against England in that Engagement He did not then revenge them or take reparation he might have done the one as well as the other or as well as he gave that subsistence they have Those forces who had beaten their numerous Army in England might without great difficulty have gathered their gleanings of men and consumed all the heapes of their Harvest the time of year was proper to have distroyed it had his horse stayed there to have eaten their Oates their men must have starved for want of food For what they granted or repealed which they boast in this Paragraph they may thank him who gave them a capacity to do it and which they will finde they will not be able to maintain without some help more merciful to their necessities then any that will be solicited for them by either Montross or Forth or Cochram or that shall be brought them by their so hastily embraced Charls the Second the fates of whose house they have seemed with great affection to espouse and think with their bladders to Buoy up his sinking ship For the Garrisons of Barwick and Carlisle we shall not thank them for delivery of them they would have cost them more to keep then the pay of the souldiers in those towns there were English forces among them which they were desirous might depart lest their longer stay there might further discover their weakness and poverty and increase it and besides perhaps they might have sowne among them some Tares of Error Heresie and Schism which have troubled the Presbytery to weede out of the Kirk a thing which they fear more then all the prophaness in the Nation for that they have a Cathobian the blessed stool but for this other the Doctors are not yet agreed upon a Recipe And for their compliance with the Lieut. Generals demands that none who had been in that Engagement should have any employment in any publick place or trust it adds nothing to their merit an obligation upon them by that demand in establishing thereby their subsistence they had not been without that act of his the compliance wherewith they would have now so fain believed was an effect of their own ingenuity and gratitude dispositions perhaps which they are no more able to bring into act then their whole wretched Countrey is to give just satisfaction to the wrong which this Nation hath within these ten years suffered by them Paragraph 3. If the Bonds of Religion Loyalty to the King and mutual Amity and Friendship betwixt the Kingdoms be impartially considered according to the Solemn League and Covenant and the Professions and Declarations of both Kingdoms The Estates of Parliament think that they have just cause to complain of the late proceeddings in England in reference to Religion the taking away of the Kings life and the changing the Fundamental Government of that Kingdom against which this Kirk and Kingdom and their Commissioners have protested and given testimony whereunto they do still adhere IF the principles of the Common-Freedom and Justice the Rules and Laws of Nations and of mutual Amity and Friendship with one another be considered the Common wealth of England may think they have just cause to complain of the Scots not onely for invading this Nation with an Army but usurping with a ridiculous impudence a power paramount to the Supream Power of England assembled in Parliament upon all occasions taking upon them not onely to direct what they are to do with the King and in the Government but they will needs make a Religion and impose that too What State-Religion is which for political respects is almost every where imposed upon the people this is not a place to examine But it would deserve their weightiest consideration whether some thing be not done herein by way of usurpation of the incommunicable Throne And while men cry out of prophaneness and justly too perhaps it never more abounded commit the most horrible that ever was in compelling Religion to dress it self in Forms to serve their secular Interests but hindering all they can the progress of it in Purity and Power to the promoting of it in that way which needs not their help Have we not the Scriptures in England and in English too and are not they the rule of all things that are to be believed and all things to be done May not we expect the Divine Discoveries and Assistance to such as humbly and duly seek to know the Will and Minde of God as well as they of Scotland May we not keep a Smith in Israel Do we offer to impose ought upon them Did not they think it an intolerable burthen when their late Tyrant by the Councel of his Priests would obtrude upon them a Rule of Worship and State of Government Ecclesiastical And is it so sweet to do what they thought too hard to suffer as it put them to the hazard of all to avoid it But perhaps they will say That was a corrupt Form of
this particular The Parliament of England therefore finding the former remedies not onely improper and invalid but dangerous and destructive which at best would but have wrought a palliate cure and induced a cicatrice upon the orifice of a Fistula in discharge of their duty they proceeded forward upon their first principle to a Fundamental Cure and not onely to cure the disease in the present and continuing cause but to eradicate the original cause it self and take away thereby all common possibility of recidivation And this hath not been to go backward but to go forward And if the Scots be angry at the distance they finde between us they may do well to inquire whether it proceeds not from their standing still and not pursuing their principle rather then from our Apostasie from it unless they will be ingenuous for once and confess that they proceeded not upon the same principle viz. The good of the people governed but rather looked at some Interest of the Governors and for so much they have done their share so as a King hath long been nominal onely among them having had nothing at all to do in their Legislative power hath had no Commissioners in their Parliament or Kirk assembly as formerly nor any thing to do with his little Revenue there only the Name was necessary to be continued there and nothing else but his full power in England how else should they hope for the great Offices at Court the opportunity of Bribery in the Bed-chamber the prodigal and accountless waste of the privy Purse for the relief of their Beggery unto which to compel their King they know the best of all men by their unblushing importunities But for the good of the governed it is not yet apparent they have done any thing for their release from a miserable slavery not much on this side that condition which our late Tyrant setting before him a wel known pattern had designed us unto They suffering their vassals for so they are pleased to honor their Tenants to be in a condition when their many chaldrons of Victual-Rent is once paid in little better condition then those whose Livery is a Canvas Suite and Wooden Shooes with this difference that for defect of Wood to make such Provision many there especially of the other Sex are forced to go bare-foot But to make these in any sort free were to abate their own greatness which hath no other foundation then the miserable oppression which themselves put upon the People for whose satisfaction and to give them some content their Ministers tell the Common people they are the happiest Souls and the purest Kirk under heaven for they are as perfectly freed from Popery and Prelacy as they are from all things that are comfortably fit either to eat or wear But the Letter saith Their Parliament doth propound that the late proceedings here against Covenant and Treaties may be disclaimed and disavowed as the late unlawful Engagement against England hath been disclaimed and disavowed there and that such as have departed from these principles and their former professions may return to the same upon which gounds they are content to authorise Commissioners to treat Where was this done was it in the Parliament House or in the Consistory Had they not been lately imposing some Pennance and now they cannot get out of that Stile The Parliament sent unto them to offer their resentments of the injuries this Nation received from them and demanded satisfaction for them and a way if they thought fit to embrace it for an amicable composure The Scots propound and obtrude previous conditions which the Parliament of England must yeild to or they will not treat In good time who are like to have most use of it worse termes then that of Nahash the right eyes would have served him yet that demand cost him dear but here nothing less then self-distruction We must return back to what we have left cease to be a free Common-wealth suffer a Scotish Presbytery to be set up amongst us submit to their King and then forsooth they will authorise Commissioners to treat with Commissioners from the Houses of the Parliament of England sitting in freedom and will embrace us again and be our DEAR Brethren and when this is done what shall we get by it but as much as they who hug a Begger and catch a Louse It seemes they account themselves very desirable they require such conditions but they consider not what was told them in the beginning of this Discourse they may be hereby instrumental to their own sufferings excluding all possibility of amicable composure and put themselves hereby into an incapacity to be otherwise treated then as enemies But before we proceed further we must aske their meaning of the word Freedom because they say their Treaty must be with the Houses of Parliament sitting in Freedom What want of freedom is there in this Parliament there is not two Houses what have they to do with that who have but one themselves and they may be silent of alterations all men know they have suffered alterations in their Parliament the removal of their Lords of the Articles was as material a step to the eclipsing of their Kings power and restoring their people to their just liberty as any alteration made with us in Parliament but that they will say was necessary and conducing to the good of the people there we will not deny but it might and will exercise no act of judgment upon it we say what we had done was also necessary and conducing to the peoples good and let them be desired to suspend their usurped Paramount power and not judg our actions nor interpose in that wherein they have nothing to do But the House sits not in freedom many Members are kept away by force and it sits under the power of the Sword so it hath done for seven years past as to the protection of it or else it had not sate at all it had fallen by the late Kings Sword if it had not protected it self by its own But let us ask how sits their Parliament is there not something of a Sword there Did not some of those now in power when their Army was destroyed in England raise an Army in Scotland and with it forced their then Parliament from Edenbrough and by the power of the Sword which they were inabled to keep in their hand by that part of our Army that marched into Scotland with the Honorable Lieut. Gen. a preserving favour which they could then own and give thanks for they called a new Parliament and gave Rules previous to election that none should be Members that had been in the late Engagement against England and upon this ground they still keep out what Lords as well as others they fear wil divest them of their Government This is all very lawful with them and the Parliament very free and it writes this Letter as believing it is so and yet can upbraid us
pains Thus from our Eyes come all Errors Natural or Physical and quantitative and from our Ears all those that refer to things Aeconomical Political or Theological I will not descend to the other Senses as nothing to this subject they looking at Errors personal or individual nor was there need to have named the first but for evidence to the second and demonstration both of the disease and the cure In a word that the Gate may not be too great for the House this being no place for a just volumn which the subject might deserve and exact from a greater leisure nor seem to be built wholly of an Heterogeneal matter we live a life of Sense before we can live a life of Reason and by the frequent Acts of Sense we put a false Tincture upon our then weak judgments not yet able to act by themselves which Tincture dis-colours to our after Receptions whatsoever is rightly offered to our discussion or discourse for Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem c. How easily are children deceived in quantity at distance what childe not otherwise told doth not to firmly beleeve being taught by his Sense That the Moon is not greater then a Sieve or at most then a Cart-wheel and this conceit he shall carry to his grave and beleeve it Knowledg and his conception Truth if he be not delivered by demonstration For that other way of being delivered by the assertion of some man whom he beleeves in those things fit to be his Master is onely to beget a belief not a knowledg But let this childe be instructed with Arithmetick and Geometry and so prepared let him read the doctrines of the Sphears and of Trigonometry he will then easily discover there is a Parallax and finde what it is and by the help of his Lines and Angles and Numbers be able to determine her distance and to demonstrate her quantity to his own satisfaction and wonder that his Sense should have so far misled his former opinion I might say the like of the daily and annual motion which Sense hath put in the Heavens though an inabled Judgment will finde it in the Earth and deliver also the Planets from all retrograde motion in their respective Circles and see it certain equal ordinate and progressive with respect to their own Centers and that all Anomalous Phaenomena arise from the place of our Contemplation of them but this is to wander too far onely the Truth that is found in these Contemplations demonstrative and satisfactory may well put men upon at least a suspition That Error and Mistake may enter by the Ears as well as by the Eyes in all those three Considerations formerly mentioned And that there may be some help to deliver them Especially we may beleeve the first when we see the Jews Turks Papists and that thing called a Common-Protestant the worst of the four keeping so tenaciously those opinions I would not call them principles unless Catachrestically and as to them which they sucked in with their mothers milk for which never an one of them can give any better Reason then the other nor any one of them what becomes a reasonable man no more then those who receive their Forms of Religion and so also of Politicks later and from older Teachers with as little Demonstration but with as much Obediential Weakness as the childe receives its Mothers Dictates while it stands to be dressed at her Knee But no more of this And I beg their pardon that think this either too much or too little to the purpose I know it is necessary for some and perhaps it may please others I onely desire our Conscientious Presbyterians for to the Factious ones the Scotch-acted ones I have nothing to say because I would say nothing in vain would look to themselves and take heed they be not misled by their dark Lanthorns who understand not their own way That they would but beleeve it is possible they may erre and their guides too whom they have chose to follow and therefore prove all things and with an acted Reason read over this Scotch Letter and what will be said to it and that not onely in these few Pages but in such other as will take pains to prepare Antidotes against these poysons propined by seeming friends Perhaps it may appear to them upon an unprejudiced Examination worthy their hate and abomination Now to the Letter which followeth SIR THe Estates of the Parliament of this Kingdom having received a Letter dated the 23. of May signed by you as Speaker of the Parliament and written in the name of the Common-wealth of England which Titles in regard of the Solemn League and Covenant and Treaties and the many Declarations of the Parliaments of both Kingdoms are such as they may not acknowledg IT is a thing most worthy the observation of any who will take notice of the wonderful Acts of Providence that are abroad in the world in the time of so great a Catastrophe for the forming of his judgment to a right prognosis of Events or Direction of his practice into ways of safety to himself That no man hath suffered or fain or been any way unhappy or unsuccessful in any of his endevors but he hath been instrumental to it and that generally by precipitating themselves into such Actions in the pursuit of a false or mistaken Interest which most Spectators though but of common foresight could discern would prove funest and dangerous Follow this beginning of these men to the end and take thence another example of this rule How necessary is it to have no Interest in our pursuit but that of God and how easily doth he attain the end of his designes that designes onely to be subservient to the will of God as he shall be led into it by the evidence of the Divine Revelation He that walketh uprightly walketh safely but he that perverteth his ways shall be found out That foulest Hypocrisie that ever the Sun looked upon far beyond that of The Temple of the Lord The Temple of the Lord Or We have Abraham to our Father cannot but have heavily provoked the Omniscience of the Divine Purity and an heavy judgment must needs attend them which that it may come upon them with effect and finde them naked and without defence See how they blow up their own Bulwarks and cast away whatsoever should uphold them and must needs do it with the preâ—ence of their Common Subject of all their gross hypocrisie and provocation the Solemn League and Covenant Are they so sure they shall never more need the Common-wealth of England or the Parliament here that they may not acknowledg it and that by reason of the Solemn League and Covenant the Treaties and Declarations of both Kingdoms Can it be imagined that these were ever made or entered into with an intention to give the Scotish Nation a power paramount over that of England What plaistered foreheads have this people that
Worship and Government but this of theirs is the best Reformed They should say The best that they know and then we will desire them to give leave to us to be free that are not perhaps so fully perswaded of it To beg the thing in Question is no good Logick and may we not think it possible they may miss it in their Theologie too For that of the Kings life the Parliament of England hath published to all the world the Causes of their so proceeding with the late King of England If he be a Tyrant oppress his people against the Laws which he tramples under foot and puts his will in the place levy War and seek to make a Conquest of the people and God gives the people a victory against him he falls into their hands they propound him terms for their future safety he refuseth what they judg necessary they thereupon bring him to judgment and condemn and execute him as a Tyrant What hath Scotland to do with this Because the King of Scotland will tyrannize England therefore England must not secure it self because Scotland will not give it leave How long hath this dependence been They cannot but remember it was wont to lie on the other side why was there so much care had else in penning the Preface to the large Treaty the breaking whereof by their invasion hath put things as they were As to the change of the Fundamental Government as they are pleased to call it who made them so well able to judg what Fundamental Government is with us that they can so magisterially pronounce of it But what hath their Kirk to do with it Are they set up over Nations to pluck up and to plant Where is the jus divinum for it And how far doth their jurisdiction extend It may be it is as boundless as the Sea We are sure the Sea bounds it not for they practise at that rate in Ireland as they pronounce here and perhaps if it should get a little more strength it would shew its impudence further But it doth well for its time it hath not been long a growing it made a good stop last yeer to put it self out of pupilage and Commenced Independent it was more then the old one could ever do in the height of her pride and Ruff. Their protest herein hath given sufficient testimony to all that observe that they are not much troubled with blushing that they are very forward to meddle with that they have nothing to do with and are heterogenial to that sort of people who are of that Kingdom which is said not to be of this world they love so much to be espousing all secular Interests and mixing and immerging themselves in them and there is the less hope they will mend for the future because they still at present do so constantly adhere But it is not impossible they may change their mindes there is one way to effect it Paragraph 4. And since it is apparent there hath been of late in England a backsliding and departure from the grounds and principles wherein the two Kingdoms were engaged the Parliament of this Kingdom doth propound That the late proceedings there against Covenant and Treaties may be disclaimed and disavowed as the prosecution of the late unlawful Engagement against England and their former Professions may return to the same Vpon which grounds they are content to authorise Commissioners on behalf of this Kingdom to Treat with Commissioners from both Houses of the Parliament of England sitting in freedom concerning all matters of just complaint which either Nation may have against the other and for redress and reparation thereof and to do every thing that may further conduce for continuing the happy Peace and Vnion betwixt the Kingdoms which can never be setled upon so sure a foundation as the former Treaties and the Solemn League and Covenant From which as no alteration or revolution of Affairs can absolve either Kingdom so we trust in God that no success whether good or bad shall be able to divert us But as it hath been our care in time past it shall be still our real endevor for the future to keep our selves free of all compliance with or inclining to the Popish Prelatical and Malignant party upon the one hand or to those that are enemies to the Fundamental Government by King and Parliament and countenance and maintain Error Heresie and Schism upon the other I have no other thing in command from the Parliament of this Kingdom but to take notice that there is no Answer returned to their Letter of the fifth of March last and so rests MAny things may be apparent to you which are not true nor will appear so to those who have their souls exercised to discern good and evil or who lie not under the pre-occupations of prejudice It is not to us apparent that stand nearer that there is any such back-sliding and departure from the grounds and principles wherein the two Nations were engaged of which if they would convince they should do well to enumerate what those grounds and principles were that upon agreement in matter of fact we might descend to the consideration of whether they be principles and then whether or no they be deserted before they accuse of Apostacy and deserting of Principles If we consider what it was that stirred up either or both the Nations to engage in the war that hath been made against the late King it will appear it was the sense of the present tyranny and oppression and a just fear of greater That which was propounded by them in that Engagement can be no other but the good of the Nations in their just Liberty which being the ultimate end propounded must needs be the first principle of motion and onely that can deserve the name of a principle and every thing else is a superstructure and can onely stand in the relation and Category of a means to that end and every means is to be made use of onely so far as it is conducible to the end and to be departed from when it deviates and to be left behinde and others taken up when the former fall short In the beginning it was hoped it was wished That the King might have seen and owned and mended his Errors and that the good of the people might have consisted with the continuance of the King and there wanted not many addresses for it and long expectations of it nor overtures of such dangerous condescention as we have cause forever to bless God whose watchful providence kept us in hiding from his eyes the means of our ruine which were by our idolatry of Kingship put into his hands and at last discovering to us how incommensurable that means was to our just end and that there was an incompossibility of a coexistence of Kingship and the Nations happiness and the saedifragous invasion of England by the Nation of Scotland was not the worst Colyriam for clearing our eyes in