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.
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
authority to change it which must needs have reference to the Laws of God according to the subsequent words of the Bishops where he explaines his meaning by judiciously asserting That Christian Kings and their Parliaments are obliged to the Laws of God and rules os Christian piety and polity too of which the whole Church in its primitive example is the best interpreter and so his position in short is this That they have no lawful authority by the Laws of God and rules of Christian piety and polity to change Episcopal Government which is a cleer evident truth to me for I consider with my self that those Laws and Rules will admit at no hand of any schism ataxy confusion or division in the Church which are contrary to true Christianity for the abounding whereof amongst the Corinthians they were so often taxed of their too much carnality and that Bishops were set up by the Apostles themselves in remedium Schismatis for the preventing of schismes and divisions and that none of those errors and heresies were so prevalent or apparent to humane eyes in the Bishops times as since their Julian extirpation for the setting up of Prsbyterian practical-jesuitism was the ground of a day of fasting and humiliation amongst the Godly rebels and a Sermon thereupon preached by our unsacred Covenanter What shall we say to those things that men should show so much pretence of goodness in appointing a day to humble themselves for the errors and heresies of the times the true proper effects of their arrogant ways of Rebellion in setting up Presbytery as a distinct Government by it self without Episcopacy in direct opposition to the practise of the Catholick Church as well as to the King and his Laws which is and hath bin the head and fountain from whence the unclean muddy streames of heresies and blasphemies have had their rise and product And yet forsooth must have the means still kept for the production of the same ends of disorder and confusion Vpon the consideration of the whole I cannot but subscribe to the great truth of the Bishops words That as no legislative power is impowered by Gods Laws to bring in either Heresie Error Superstition Schisme Faction or Confusion so neither have the King Lords and Commons any prudent moral religious or lawful Authority by those Laws or those of this English Nation and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity to change the Ancient universal and excellent Government by Bishops to any that is As new and schismatical so far worse and unsuitable to England every way If one part of the sentence be true which by Croftons silence is absolutely concluded No man need fear to affirm the other without any derogation to the legal rightful Supremacy of the King That which speakes against Schisme and faction confusion and disorder will not surely give me any lawful power to extirpate Bishops the main preventers of it by being the constant promoters of love and unity § 27. Thus I have examined the words as I found them imperfectly quoted in Croftons Discourse without that additional clause which I have set down in my true Citation of them which he most unworthily and basely had left out that so he might have some what to fill up his rambling discourse with for a true Citation would have fo confounded his understanding as immediately to have commanded him into a becoming silence and ingenuous conviction of the Bishops truths but rather then he would depart from his cavilling art and shiftings he 'l mangle the words of an Antagonist to make his own way the smoother for credulous poor mortals to set their steps in which hath brought to my remembrance the answer of a most Reverend person to the Miltonian Justifier of Regicide and Rebellion depraver of verity and breaker of the Kings Image That he p See the Image unbroken p. 153. broke sentences and truths lest he should breake for want of matter And the words of the Bishops with that additional clause in it is so cleer a truth as can no waies be darkned by a Presbyters Argumentations which was seen evident enough by Crofton himself and so very craftily left it out and therefore needs no other defence but the bare words themselves which carry truth in their forehead to the convincing of any opposer which I have no sooner done but I took a resolution to follow the mans pattern for once and turn Quaerist too Where 's the Premunire that the Bishop hath stept into now Is speaking of a known Truth confronting of King and Parliaments Suppose the Bishop had lived in Queen Maries days and had said That neither Queen nor Parliament had any lawful power by the Laws of God and Rules of Christian Piety and Polity either to change the King Edward-Reformation or to set up and establish Popery in the kingdom Was it fit for any mans mouth but a cursed Jesuits to charge him with sedition and treason against the Queen in confronting her and her Parliaments by saying black is black and white is white by asserting a known truth Blessed be God we live under a Prince that desires not to have His Supremacy stretcht so as to make it an Instrument of Justification of the Lawfulness of His Actings either against God or his Truth or the Defenders of true Christianity that desires to have His Supremacy carryed on and maintain'd for no other ends and purposes then those for which it was first established To make Clergy-men as well as Lay know that he is their onely Supream Governor and in case of offence that His Power will reach to the punishment of both that they shall not be exempted from the Civil Magistrates sword of Justice either by the wicked pretence of a foreign Papal superior Jurisdiction or Antimonarchical Sentence or Determination of the traiterous seditious Consistorians if they do that which is not justifiable either by the Laws of God or this Land Where 's the Bishops sedition I wonder Where 's his treason that he needs to fear to be made less by the head for as this Leaguer cants it Why he saith in affirming the defect of the Kings and Parliaments prudent moral religious and lawful power to change Episcopacy to one that is worse and far unsuitable to England every way for that is it which the Bishop saith which our unsacred Covenanter hath dared to contradict with his shabbed pratling Ay but saith Crofton The Statutes of the Kings declare against the Pope That Holy Church was founded in Prelacy by their own donation power and authority and so by the same way changeable Ergo What That they have any prudent moral religious and lawful authority to change it to a worse After what rate doth this wily Covenanter argue Can they that swear to govern a people well and according to the Laws of the Land have any of that quaternary Power to change one Government for a worse Will the people in such a case think or can
What an illerate Dolt as to the Laws of England have we got here He might as truly argue thus The Petition of Right declared no Oath to be lawful but what should be framed and imposed by Authority of Parliament Ergo The Engagement made by a part of one to be Qui semel modestiae fines transilierit oppor et ut sit gnaviter impudens Cicero Page 182. true and faithful to the Commonwealth without a King or House of Lords is of the nature of those Oathes appointed by Law What the Authority of Parliament is will be easily perceived in the subsequent Discourse wherein you will finde the Opinions of the Reverend Judges and Learned Sages of the Land concerning it more a great deal to be minded then Ipse Dixits then the Chymaerical Dictates of little Mr. Crofton who what he wants in knowledge profoundly supplies with a petty large measure of confidence The Bishop having spoken of what happy days there were before the Covenant came Sure saith d Pa. 53 Crofton those happy days were not real but seeming And why were they seeming For the Covenant he saith doth naturally make for what is truly good What man The Covenant naturally make for what is truly good What have you eaten shame and drunk after it Truly good Sure the goodness that is in it is not real but seeming for the Serpent and your party laid their noddles so together that they would be sure it should tend to nothing but to raise sedition in the State and divisions and sub-divisions in the Church for the Enlargement of the kingdom of your Grand-father the Pope I perceive a lie will not choak these men but a Surplice and a Tippet will make their stomachs wamble The happy days we enjoyed before the devil began to appear in the likeness of an Angel of light and sent forth his sacred Covenant to trap people in his delusions was the envy of all Europe and glory of our English Nation and an everlasting Monument of a gracious Monarch and made evident in the vast mass of Treasure which was so profusely spent afterwards for the maintenance of an horrid and odious Rebellion against His Sacred Majesty and swearing this truly evil Covenant in prosecution thereof which though it was imposed by e See his Speech 5. Dec. 1648. p. 33. 39. a bare Ordinance of part of the two Houses onely without the Kings Royal Assent thereto which by Croftons profound Lawyer Mr. Prynne himself is consessed to be a new Device of that present Parliament as he called it never known nor used in any former Parliaments what ever hath been conceived to the contrary yet our profound Pulpit-prater would needs have us believe that it was imposed by Authority of Parliament And those very words of Mr. Prynne too doth clean overthrow his Brother Classicks dream of the Two Houses Supream Legislative Power What the goodness of that Covenant is which the Irish Parliament declared to be a grand Incentive of Rebellion what Schisms Separations Divisions and Sub-divisions it naturally produced will be pretty well seen in the following Sheets and what the purity of that Discipline and Reformed Religion is which the Covenant was taken for the maintenance of will appear amongst many other Letters that were wrote by this of Gantois a grave and learned Foreigner in the time of that Phaenix Queen Elizabeth who being requested to write his Opinion what effects the Presbyterian Discipline had brought forth in Holland returns this following Answer which is but a part of the whole set down at large by Archbishop Bancroft in his Survey of the Holy Discipline Is any man able saith he to repeat the monstruous Page 456. Heresies and Errors that Holland doth nourish under the shadow of Reformed Religion This is aimed at viz. That the Turpitude of all blasphemies being covered with this cloak may lie hid and that it may be lawful without controulment if any list to recall the old Paganism or to profess Mahomeâ—s Religion or what worse is if there be any thing worse Here 's rare effects of that godly Babe that must be brought forth into the world with a bloody Covenant enough I warrant you to make a man in love with it over the left shoulder Ay but this is not all neither for he tells us That the Magistrates there did suspect this Form of Ecclesiastical Government why because saith he pray mark their reason for it they fear lest it may degenerate into a worse Tyranny then the Spanish Inquisition The Genevians themselves were so hampered with the imperious courses of Calvin and his Companions that they were forced to banish them and after their expulsion they gave this reason for it Tyranni esse voluerunt in Liberam Civitatem voluerunt novum Pontificatum revocare They would have been Tyrants over a free City they would have recalled a new Papacy Calvin ad Farel Epist 6. p. 11. And Carter one of the Disciplinarian Gang writing to his friend Field from Embden in the time of Qu. Elizabeth tells him That if he did see the confused state of the Churches of those Countreys he would say that England how bad soever was a paradise in comparison What a damnable Discipline is this that its very Idolizers as well as others should so terribly exclaim of the mischievous effects of it And that we may see with what wonderful wisdom and with what grave Divines it was at first brought forth into the world Calvin himself the Father of it will give us a clear Testimony f In illa promiscua colluvie suffragiis fuimus superiores In that confused off-scouring of the whole multitude we had the most voices Calvin to Bullinger Epist 107. Here was the first rise and product of it in a confused multitude onely Calvin and his party got the upper hand for it by most voices which makes me throw in this one query amongst the party Where is the divinity or divine institution of that Ecclesistical Government which is clearly beholden to most voices in a confused multitude for its Establishment What the genuine result of Establishment of this confused Discipline so much contended for by the Covenanting party with us in England hath been in forein parts their several Testimonies have made apparent What it hath been in Scotland the Primates Fair Warning hath shown as manifest and what it hath been here in England since they removed the Prelatical Yoke from off their shoulders by their Covenanting endeavors their own serious Confession hereafter inserted is a most convincing testimony against themselves If any shall now demand or enquire why this subsequent Discourse no sooner saw the light Let them be pleased to satisfie themselves with that which follows That the Author having dispatch'd the first part thereof was by extraordinary occasions in the country diverted from further prosecuting of it the last summer season and coming up this Winter time to the City again his worldly
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
and shameless Semaiah a h Pag. 49. Runegado an Apostate Presbyter a i Pag. 51. man of Fancy k Pag. 61. An envious Runegado and Apostate l Pag. 63. A shifting Runegado and a m Pag. 67. subtile Sophister and yet behold and wonder this is the man that cries The Lord deliver him from rendring Railing for Railing The Bishop having said in his Anti-Baal-Berith Page 191. That the late Primate of Armaghs Reduction of Episcopacy was propounded not in order to binde the hands of or limit Bishops in England and Scotland but as a condescension and expedient to disarm and binde the hands of Presbyters and People Crofton in answer thereunto thus profoundly Quaeres * Pag. 13. Sir Who told you that this was the politick stratagem of that pious Bishop Did not Bishop Wren It would make a man mad and t' would make a man laugh to see such pitiful arguings used in a rejoynder to an Antagonist and yet to be believed as excellent and invincible by some people to hugge themselves up in their delusions Just as if a man should make such a like Quaere to him Who told people that it was little Mr. Croftons Politick stratagem not onely to whipp his maid behinde but before too Did not the Church-Wardens and several other of the Parishioners of that Parish where that noble Ministerial act was done to administer somewhat to the maids necessities So again The Bishop having said That the League which Joshua and the Rulers of the people made with the Trappanning Gibeonites was to the damage of no honest men but themselves Crofton cries out †Pag. 48. Was the Oath of the Gibeonites no way to the injury of honest men Was it no injury to Israel to loose four Cities out of their inheritance given them by the Lord Whereas the Bishop had said It was to the injury of no honest men but themselves which two last words Crofton very cunningly leaves out to make his Readers believe the convincing force of his Arguments But alas he knew to set down the whole Proposition was not for his turn of disputing but would have broke the neck of his cause and design and made it evident to every one that he was a meer shifting caviller one that was minded more to quarrel with an Antagonist then to answer him by good Reasons and Arguments which practise of his brings to my remembrance the like cavilling tricks and shiftings of the most learned Bishop Mountagues Puritanical Informers in the very self-same case who thereupon told them that the setting down of his whole passage and Proposition f See his Appeal to Cesar p. 145. Stood not with their prime purpose of calumniating directly it gave check to their detraction in chief and so they passed it slightly over § 20. So again The Bishop having said That g See his Anti-Baal-Berith p. 146. a King though never so Supream and Free yet may not Vow and Covenant to the diminution of his own just Sovereignty and Authority and Power which is his by Law Crofton thinks fit to give no other answer but this †Pag. 32. Which all people of the world must and will contradict and leaving out like a wrangling Sophister the principal Clause and Hinge of the Bishops Sentence on which hangs the force of the preceding words which is this And necessary for his high calling to protect the Church and State himself and his good Subjects And doth he or any one in his wits think that any Prince may Vow to diminish that whereby his Subjects are defended to extenuate and give away that Power he hath given him by God to Preserve and Protect those people over whom by the same God he is set as Ruler and Supream To cast his Subjects in a maner out of his Protection and give leave to others to Domineer and Tyrannize over them and do them what rapine and mischief they will and he himself sit still as a Cipher Certainly those people that are in such a case may well cry out of an Egyptian slavery and sadly proclaim to their great grief and sorrow both of heart and minde That every man doth that which seems right in his own eyes as though there were no King at all in Israel That a Prince may vow the diminution of his own just Sovereginty and power which is too hard for his Subjects to bear and when such diminution tends to their ease and benefit no body indeed in the world I think will deny but that is nothing at all to what the Bishop saith But that a Prince may not Covenant the diminution of his own just Soveraignty and Power necessary for his high calling to protect his Subjects which and which alone is what the Bishop says is a truth as cleer as the Sun and in that case our Presbyters all people in the world that must and will contradict it must beyond dispute be such people as belong to the world in the Moon § 21. Again the Bishop having set down p. 149. That the two Houses alone no nor the King alone or with them have any Legislative power to decree or execute what is unrighteous against God or man The Shifter answers with a * p. 32. So that the Legislation is founded in the piety and justice of the decree and rebellion against authority is acquitted by the iniquity of the command not at all caring to consider that what the Bishop saith in those words must needs have reference to the Law of God and his meaning thus that by that Law neither King nor two Houses joyntly or severally have any lawful power to decree or execute what is unrighteous for its impossible that that Reverend Prelate should ever forget what he hath read in the Scriptures of wickedness established by a Law and the possibility of Governors Legislative power to execute †Isa 10. 1 unrighteous decrees by the Woe that by God himself is pronounced unto them that decree such Nay the very language of the Bishop in that assertion of his doth convince me cleerly that he was wholly guided by this very Scripture in what he said which Crofton so much carps at and so as I just now said must needs have reference to the lawfulness of such power for such ends and purposes by the Law of God which expresly hath prohibited it and pronounced a woe against the Actors of it But hark what the man makes a matter of complaint of why that Rebellion by the Bishops saying oh how loyal he is all of a sudden and fearful of maintaining any Rebellious principles not above eight lines before he hath point blanck affirmed nay and as though it were a convincing truth too what I shall prove before I have done with him not onely to be sedition and rebellion but an open denial of the Supremacy Power and Authority of His Most Sacred Majesty but le ts hear what he can say for himself
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
about the Church doth restrain its exorbitances and direct its administrations but neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish it and in terminis declare and authorize it to be the Government of the Church of England That neither Canon nor Common Law doth establish Episcopacy is notoriously false by your good leave Mr. Shifter And that neither do in terminis declare it to be the Government of the Church of England is clearly beside the purpose T is not your I averr nor mine neither will weigh any thing in the way of Argumentation but good solid Grounds and Reasons raised upon a Foundation of Truth must be the way and Method for the satisfaction as well as conviction of an opponent and I am sure there is none at all in this and mine I am sure is as good a proof of the truth of my expression as your I averr is of yours but are both of the same mettal both a kin to the Scotchmans confutation of Bellarmine Bellarmine saith thus but I say the contrary where is he now You say That neither Canon nor Common Law do in terminis declare and authorize Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England Well What of that Because neither do in express tearms name Episcopacy to be the Government of the Church of England to say presently it s not established by the Law notwithstanding the express mention of Bishops and their Liberties in the very first Article of Magna Charta signifies little to me but onely the shallowness of the Authors brains and yet his proud confidence too to strive with a Father of the Church with an ipse dixit who avers nothing but his own folly mixed with a Turbulent and Seditious spirit I had not read much further beyond these last words but I meet with a Trayterous expression of his in his venemous Answer to the Reverend Bishop which makes as clear as the Sun what a Factious Seditious spirit a Sacred Covenanter is composed of even such That if the Law makes once a strict enquiry will send his head to accompany his Brethren in Iniquity upon London Bridge and to that end observe the words of this factious Pulpiteer § 32. The Bishop having said That the Parliament he means the the two Houses can Act Vote Determine and Execute nothing under the Kings withdrawing from them into any part of his own Countrey Who may yet saith a Pag. 31. Crofton do all things in his infancy or while in a Forreign Countrey As if the place ☞ of his Retirement or reason of his Absence did add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament A right Rebellious Covenanter One ready for the work of Treason Perfectly opinionated of the Sovereign power of the two Houses over the King and ready prepared for a Second Rebellion upon the old false thredbare grounds of Loyalty and Religion He offers first as an argument against the Legislative power of his Sovereign for that feigned suppositious one of the two Houses That they may do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey Either the man is very short sighted and simply versed in the Royal English Laws and yet before we finde him pretending to it or else he is a wilful Sophisticator If he is not knowing in our Laws Why is he so arrogant and presumptuous as to offer his shallow Arguments against the Bishops undeniable Assertion and to stand to contradict him in that wherein he hath no skill If he doth know the Laws he is the blindest of all Beetles by being wilfully blinde and speaking contrary to his knowledge I do not mean contrary to his desire or his Trayterous Seditious spirit for its a thing too well known and evident to be denied by any whose face is not perfect mettal and free from all the sparks of Modesty That in the infancy of a King there is a Protector appointed in the Princes Supream Legislative place of Calling Proroguing and Dissolving of Parliaments of setting the Stamp of the Regal Sanction upon the Writings and requests of the Two Houses for the making of them Laws for without the Royal consent no Law and Repealing of old Laws if it be thought convenient and this that I say is confirmed by that learned and Reverend Judge Jenkins who tells us That b Lex terrae p. 52. the Protector assisted by the Counsel of the King at Law his twelve Judges the Counsel of State his Attorney Sollicitor and two Serjeants at Law his twelve Masters of the Chancery hath in the Kings behalf and ever had a Negative voice And whilest the Prince is in a Forreign Countrey there are certain Noble men Commissioned under the great Seal of England to supply his place while he comes himself as the Histories of our Kings whilest in Forreign parts do attest as well as the practises of our present Prince whom God long preserve out of the juggling murdering Clutches of Presbyterian Judasses in relation to Scotland and Ireland by appointing a Lord Commissioner in the one and a Lord Lieutenant in the other to supply the place of Majesty in both Kingdoms So that his may yet do all things in his infancy or whilest in a Forreign Countrey without either Protector at the one time or Deputed Nobles at the other is nothing else but a meer fiction a delusive Cheat the effects of his Crazy brain endeavoured to be put into peoples belief and therefore I 'le trouble my self no further with it § 33. But behold the spirit of the man That neither the place of his Majesties Retirement nor reason of his Absence doth add or abstract to the Authority of Parliament Is the issue and fruits of his wilde seditious humor He without whom there can be neither Parliament nor Law is concluded by this hair-braind Presbyter to be but as a Cypher and that the two Houses are a compleat Parliament of themselves alone without his Sacred Majesty their Only Supream head and Founder By what Warrant were they at first called together Was it not by vertue of his Majesties Writ And was not the tenor of that Writ the Treating and Advising with the King And did they perform the ends for which they were summoned together when they raised Tumults against their Prince and forced him away from them and at last had the confidence to declare by their Votes of non-Addresses that they would neither Treat nor Advise with him If not then t is clear they sate to no purpose in the world but ingraved the name of Rebels upon their foreheads and made themselves to be no Parliament by destroying the ends for which they were called together But because Crofton is so arrogant in denying the Kings Presence or Absence to be of any force or validity in adding or diminishing the Authority of a Parliament I shall make bold to present him with this one Example Queen Elizabeth summoned 3. Eliz. Dyer 203. her first Parliament to be held the
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
appointed to supply the place of such Regal absence for the time is manifested plainly by what I have already said and in my weak judgement so clear a truth that it is not in the power of any Factious Presbyter to contradict me that keeps in the way of verity and therefore I shall not trouble my Reader with any further answer of it Well We have seen now the Presbyters Allegations concerning the two Houses exercise of the Legislative Fiction without the Kings consent and weighing them in the ballance of right Reason and Laws and Customes of the Realm have found them to be too light and weak to bear that stress and burthen which our filthy Dreamers lay upon them I 'le now try what he saith of those Long-Parliament Legislative Thieves exercise of their whimsie against the Kings consent and here we finde him foreseeing a palpable Treason in asserting an Affirmative Proposition and yet that we may perceive his willingness to have an Affirmative maintained he thus breaths forth his doubtful fancy As to the exercise of it against the Kings consent I shall conclude nothing but commend Mr. Pryn's Sovereign power of Parliaments to your serious study What a Seditious minde and Treacherous heart this Crofton is possessed of We are beholding to a wise King and a lawful Parliament for his avoiding of his Cackling and concluding of nothing in the case at this time His faint-hearted seeming Negation of the Legality of those Rebels exercise of their Usurpation is just like the Olivarian-Machiavelian-Pro-Traytors denial of the Kingly Title even full sore against his will He would not say AY for fear an Ax or an Halter might presently attend him nor won't say NO neither lest his seared Conscience should look him in the face and contradict him with a Truth That a Negative was by No means agreeable with his Classical rebellious spirit and therefore very cunningly commends another mans unreasonable Jangling as full of Treason and Rebellion as a Toad is of poyson to the Bishops study If he had commended it to the Bishops and every mans study and detestation and abhorrency thereof when they had read it as well as indignation against the Treasonable venome of the Authors heart he had spoke more truth then a Presbyter is wont to do What that book is and how worthy to be Commended to a Bishops reading and study I leave to every one to conclude something seeing Crofton will conclude nothing by that just Sentence and Condemnation which the learned Mr. Duncomb upon ferious study thereof past in these words against both the Author and the Book it felf His book saith he p See his Royal buckler or a Lecture to Traytors p. 240. is such a Rhapsody of non-sense a bundle of Rebellion and Treason a Pamphlet so Seditious Pernicious Sophistical Jesuitical Trayterous and Scurrilous that I want Mr. Pryn's Epethites to give his own book its deserved odium Truely I must needs say That the Author of that heady Trayterous discourse who as the same judicious person saith setteth q P. 243. the body above the head maintaineth that the two Houses or the Major part have the Sovereign power may act without the King levy War against him and kill him too by defending themselves hath very little or no cause to return thanks to his Seditious Brother for the courtesie he hath done him to conclude nothing in the argument himself but commend the others Book to his Reverend Antagonists serious study the true English whereof amounts but to this conclusion I dare not maintain such a Treasonable Position as that my self for fear of having my reward on a block or a Triple tree but I 'le commend a book to you wherein it is asserted and justified and made known to the world by a deluding Trap-door of the Sovereign power of Parliaments It s but a sad commendation of Mr. Prynne especially from a Brother of the Sacred Covenanting Tribe too to do as good as tell the world that his Book is the Store-house of Seditious and Treasonable Principles The Shop to furnish others with what and as much as the Rebel pleases For if the justification of an Affirmative in the controverted point be not to be found in that putrid loathsom hospital of Trayterous diseases in that which the deluding Author was pleased to term The Sovereign power of Parliaments To what end or purpose do we hear of a Citation or Commendation thereof to the serious Study of his Reverend Opponent And if it be therein justified as who doubts but it is the Conclusion that I have made doth naturally flow from the Premisses and therefore I say how much the one is bound to thank the other I leave to both their considerations to decide the controversie between themselves at their next meeting and in the mean time seeing this man of fancy our windy Croftonian disputant doth as it were in the dark confess the truth of a Negative herein I shall proceed to his next Dream where he Magisterially affirms That The Legislative power of their Votes Debates Resolves orders or Ordinances were never gainsaid by His Majesty Here 's a rare spiritual man for you now one that peremptarily determines a notorious falsity for a truth And what an incomparable mistake it is His Majesties own words shall make appear In his noble Answer to the 19 Tyranical Propositions of those Legislative Traytors p. 1. who so often have made it their Godly work to establish iniquity by a Law we finde him declaring and telling of the English Nation of those pious Theives having thought fit to remove a troublesom Rub in their way The Law To this end saith he That they might undermine the very foundations of it A new Power hath bin assumed to interpret and declare Laws without us by extemporary Votes mark without any case judicially before either House which is in effect the same thing as to make Laws without us Orders and Ordinances made onely by both Houses tending to a pure Arbitary power were pressed upon the people as Laws and their obedience Required to them Their next step was to erect an upstart authority without us in whom and onely in whom the Laws of this Realm have placed that power to command the Militia by a r See his Majesties Speech to them July 21. 1642. In Reliquiae sacrae Carolinae pretended Ordinance which His Majesty told the Knights Gentry and Freeholders of the County of Lincoln That as the same was against the known Laws and an invasion of his unquestionable right and of their liberty and property so I do now declare saith the Sacred Speaker That the same is imposed upon you against my express consent and in contempt of my Regal Authority And I doubt not but you will sadly consider That if any Authority without and against my consent may lawfully impose such burthens upon you it may likewise take away all that you have from you and subject you to
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
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