putting down of Arbitrary Government and re-establishing our lawes liberties and properties whereto the Parliament by their many Declarations and their Nationall Covenant are bound Lay this to heart and consider whether they have not changed these their first principles and consequently whether they are not desirous to change their old friends who resolutely adhere to the said principles 2. If the King grant the Propositions or if he deny them and the predominant Juncto for both Juncto's joyned in one for this is probable to drive on one common interest establish the military and civill power without him according to their desires and in order to their aymes Quaere whether the said leading men setled in their postures with their confident Guards about them may not draw after them so many of their party as upon an implicite faith will follow them and lick up the crums of the publicke spoyles under their Tables expelling or disabling as aforesaid the dis-ingaged members and by this policy make themselves perpetuall Dictators incorporating and ingrossing to themselves both the Consultive Directive and Ministeriall power of the Kingdome in all causes Civil and Military setting up an Oligarchy or popular Tyranny in stead of a Regall As the thirty Tyrants of Athens did In order whereto they already declare 1. That an Ordinance of Parliament without the Kings Royall assent is equall to an Act of Parliament 2. That an Ordinance is above a Law by vertue of their Legislative power upon which presuming in their Ordinance of Indempnity they have granted an Appeale from the Judges of the Law to a Committee of Parliament See the Ordinance May 21. 1647. 3. That they are the Irrevocable Trustees of the peoples lawes liberties and properties without account with other principles preparative to Tyranny 3. Quaere Why Arbitrary and Barbarous Government by Cōmittees and other Illegall proceedings which in time of war were used upon Reall or pretended necessitie were then only excusable because necessitas tollit Legem are still continued upon us now in time of peace no enemies troubling our quiet and without any further pretence of necessitie Contrary to their Nationall Covenant and all their Declarations Is it not to inure the People to servitude and ever use their patience 4. Quaere Whether the Prodigious oppressions of Committees Sequestrators c. and of free Quarter be not purposely countenanced to necessitate the people to rise in tumults that thence occasion may be taken to keepe in-land Garrisons and Armies 5. Quaere Whether our lawes liberties and properties are not now as lyable to an Invasion from the Legis-lative power as formerly from the Prerogative Considering that those who like ambitious Absolom courted and wooed the people in the beginning of troubles now like haughtie Rehoboams care not though the people complaine Their little finger is heavier then the loynes of the King the controversie betweene the two Juncto's being no more then whose slaves wee shall be If the middle and dis-ingaged men in the House do not speedily unite themselves into a party or Juncto as the Factious have done 23. Middle and Moderate members againe and communicate their counsels they will be arena sine calce loose sand dissipated by every breath and neither serviceable for themselves nor their Countrey Whereas if they unite twentie or thirty may become Moderators and Umpeers between both parties as hath beene already said Let the moderate men but consider how sad and dishonourable a thing it is to see nothing almost of great and publique concernment come into the House but what hath bin before hand contrived debated and digested in one or both of the two Juncto's at their private meetings and put into so resolved and prejudicate a way and method of dispatch that every man is appointed his part or Cue before-hand One man to move it and set it on foot another to second him One man to speake to one part of the argument another to another part another to keepe himselfe to the last for a reserve and speake to the question which he is provided to qualifie with a distinction or vary it if he find it difficult to passe Thus all publique businesses are measured by private respects wherby it appears that as frequent Parl. are good physick so continuall Parl. are bad food the people may complain that qui medice vivit misere vivit Parliaments are Bona peritura they cannot keepe long without Corruption Their perpetuitie emboldens the members by taking from them all feare of being called to account Especially if they get their sonnes into the House as well as themselves as many have done this Parliament and more endeavour to do whereby they have an estate in their places for two or three lives Moreover by long sitting they become so familiar with one anothers persons and designes as to serve one anothers turnes to joyn interest and to draw into Factions Hodie mihi cras tibi If you and your partie will helpe me to day I and my friend will helpe you to morrow 24. Conclusion with some complaints Miserima Resp ubi majestas Imperii salus populi discordibus conflictantur studiis What shall we say En quo discordia tetra perduxit miseros Shall we complaine to God God hath a controversie with us Of whom shall we complaine of our selves we must first reforme our selves we that take upon us to reforme Church and Common-wealth Shall we complaine of our sinnes aske the grace of repentance first and so aske that we may obtaine Shall we complaine of our punishments let us first repent and amend our sins that caused them Let us first pluck off the maske of hypocrisie God will see through such a fantasticall garment of Fig-leaves Let us no longer make Religion a stalking-horse God who is all Wisedome and all Truth will not be deceived If we talke like Christians and live like Turks Christ will not owne us To fast for a day and hang our heads like bulrushes will not reconcile us We must fast from publique spoiles rapines and oppression and not drink the teares of the poore and needy Shall we complaine with the Prophet That our Princes are become Theeves that was heretofore our complaint now we must invert it and cry That our Theeves meane and base people are become Princes We are sick very sick intemperately sick and God hath given us a Physitian in his wrath a Leper as white as snow fitter to infect then cure us What Physick doth hee prescribe Poyson What dyet Stones instead of bread Scorpions instead of fishes hard fare for them that formerly fed so daintily Before I conclude let me give you the pedegree of our Miseries and of their Remedies A long peace begat Plenty Plenty begat Pride and her sister Riot Pride begot Ambition Ambition begot Faction Faction begot Civill War And if our eviils be not incurable if we be not falne in id temporis quo nec vitia nostra nec corum remedia ferre possumus our War will beget Poverty Poverty Humility Humility Peace againe Sic rerum revertentibus vicibus annulus vertitur Politicus The declining spoake of the Wheele will rise againe But we are not yet sufficiently Humbled we have not repented with Nineveh We weare Silkes and Velvets instead of sack-cloath and ashes even the meanest upstart hath his thefts writ upon his back by his Taylor in proud Characters of Gold-lace we have not watered our Couch with our Teares but with adulterous sweat Look to it therefore ye state Incubi that by an incestuous copulation have begot plenty upon Warre and filled your houses with the spoyle and plunder of your deare Countrey an inundation of bloud and of the tears of the oppressed will wash away the foundation of your houses And peace will be farre from you in this world but especially that peace which the world cannot give And because Salamander-like you delight in the fire of contention an unquenchable fire will be your lot hereafter And though you escape all accounts here yet upon the great day of account when you shall receive your sentence of condemnation those your children for whose preferment you fell your soules your God for gold shall not shew so much thankfulnesse or pitty towards you as to say alas our father But your hearts are hardned with Pharaoh I leave you therefore to Pharaoh's destiny to be drowned in your owne Red Sea as he was in his Thus farre I adventured to vindicate our Religion Lawes 25. Resolution and scope o◠the Author and Liberties with my pen in discharge of my Conscience and pursuance of our Nationall Covenant which obligeth us to defend them against whosoever to our power neither knowing nor caring whether in so wicked an age wherein vice is honoured and vertue contemned I may be thought worthy of punishment for being more righteous then my superiors I know an honest man is wondred at like a monster and the innocency of his life and conversation suspected as a Libell against the State yet if I perish I perish pereundum in licitis Nor am I lesse provided of a safe retreat then our Grandees My grave is open for me and one foot in it already Contempsit omnes ille qui mortem prius He that contemnes death scornes both Hope and Feare which are the only affections that make Knaves Fooles and Cowards of all the world The world is a goodly Theater we the Actors God is both Poet and chiefe spectator We must not choose our owne parts that is at Gods appointment One man he appoints to play the King another the Begger one a Comick another a Tragick part Whatsoever part God hath appointed for me in this remainder of my life I will have a care to personate it ingenuously and aptly Not doubting but my Exit shall be accompained with an applause into my tyring Roome my Tomb nor will I refuse the meanest part that may draw a plaudit from so excellent a spectator but will prepare my selfe for the worst of evills in this worst of times and pray to God to reforme our Reformers Amen THE END
such their Confidents as look too intentively after their own gain the Grandees of each Junto conferre something of advantage upon those that are subservient to them as five pounds a week or some petty imployment The seeds of these factions spread themselves into the Common-wealth and Armies as Rheume distils from the Head into all the body 8 Monopolizing Profits and preferments Thus the leading men or Bell-wethers have seemingly divided themselves and having really divided the Houses and captivated their respective parties judgement teaching them by an Implicite faith Jurare in verba Magistri to pinne their opinions upon their sleeves They begin to advance their Projects of Monopolizing the profits preferments and Power of the Kingdome in themselves To which purpose though the leaders of each party seem to maintain a hot opposition yet when any profit or preferment is to be reached at It is observed that a powerfull Independent especially moves for a Presbyterian or a leading Presbiterian for an Independent and seldome doth one oppose or speak against another in such cases unlesse something of particular spleen or Competition come between which causeth them to break the common Rule By this meanes the Grandees of each faction seldome misse their mark since an Independent moving for a Presbyterian his reputation carries the businesse cleare with the Independent party and the Presbyterians will not oppose a leading man of their own side By this artifice the Grandees of each side share the Common wealth between them And are now become proud domineering Rehoboams even over the rest of their follow members contrary to the liberty of Parl. which consists in an equality that were formerly fawning ambitious Absoloms There hath been lately given away to members openly besides innumerable and inestimable private cheates mutually connived at at least 300000 l. in money besides rich offices Imployments in money Committees Sequestrations and other advantages And those members who have so well served themselves under colour of serving the publique are for the most part old Canvasers of Factions who have sate idly and safely in the house watching their advantages to confound businesses and shuffle the cardes to make their owne game when others that have ventured their persons abroad labour'd in the publick work like Isaelites under these Egyptian task-masters and lost their estates are left to sterve untill they can find reliefe in that empty bag called by fooles fides publica by wise men fides punica And are now looked upon in the House superciliously like unwelcome guests for it is known how malignantly and how juglingly writs for new elections were granted and executed and called younger brothers and like younger brothers they are used their elder brothers having slipped into the world before them and anticipated the inheritance They have broken first into the common field and shut the dore to prevent after commers even from gleaning after their full harvest For the better effecting whereof they have now morgaged in effect all the meanes they have to raise money unto the City And being themselves fat and full with the publike Treasure to expresse rather their scorne then care Ther are making an Ordinance that no more money shall be given to their members And yet to shew how carefull they are of all such as have cheated the Common-wealth under them I will not say for them They have taken advantage of the petition of the Army wherein they desired Indempnity for all acts done in relation to the warre And have passed an Ordinance of Indempnity for all such as have acted by authority and for the service of the Parliament wherein under great penalties with an appâ—ale at last from the Judges of the Law to a Comittee of Parliament such as have gone beyond the authority given by Parliament and sequestred men unjustly and so withheld their goods under pretence thereof and such as have leavied taxes three or four times over are quit from private actions and the benefite of Law and Justice taken from the Oppressed to secure countrey Committees Sequestrators and others not Prerogative but Legislative Theeves contrary to Magna Charta which saies nulli negabimus nulli differemus justitiam aut rectum We will deny or deferre justice and right to no man Oh prodigious acts and of greater tyranny then any King ever durst adventure upon What is become of our Nationall Cov. and the Parliament many Declarations for defence of Lawes and Liberty Or have we fought our libertie into slavery By these devises the honest middle men of the House whose consciences will not let them joyn in any faction to rend the Common-wealth in sunder are out of all possibility of repaire and made contemptible as well by their own want as the pride of the Grandees and in the end their poverty will inforce them to leave the sole possession of the house to these thriving Junto men who do beleaguer them therin making them for farther addition to their losses pay all taxes from which the thriving men go free so that the poorer part of the house payes tribute to the richer Nay it is further whispered that at last the Junto men will quit the Parliament Priviledge of not being sued purposely to leave these younger Brothers to the mercy of their Creditors and disable them to sit in their House An other ambitious ayme of those Junto men is their devise of referring all businesses of moment to Committees 10. Committees of the Houses For the active speaking men by mutuall agreement naming one another of every Committee or at least their confident Ministers doe thereby fore-stall and intercept the businesses of the house and under colour of examining and preparing matters they report them to the house with what glosses additions detractions and advantages they please whereby the House judging according to their report oftentimes mis-judgeth and if it be a business they are willing to smoother the Committees have infinite artificiall delayes to put it off and keep it from a hearing or at least from reporting By this meanes the remaining part of the House are but cyphers to value and Suffragans to ratifie what is fore-judged by the said Committees This usurpation of theirs is much helped by keeping the doors of their Committee roomes shut and dispatching all affaires privately and in the darke Whereas Justice delights in the light and ought to be as publique as the common aire it being against its nature to be chambred up and kept from the observation of eye and eare witnesses Parts of this project wee may well call the Multiplicity of money Committees as Goldsmiths hall Haberdashers hall 11. Money Committees the Committee of the Kings revenues Committee of the Army c. Where every mans profit and power is according to his cunning and conscience Hereby they draw a generall dependency after them for he that commands the money commands the men These Committee-men are so powerfull that they over-awe and over-power their
fellow members contrary to the nature of a free Parliament wherein the equallity of the members must maintaine the freedome and integrity thereof and suppresse factions The like may be said of such members as in scorne of the self-denying Ordinances hold offices by gift or connivence of the Parliament either openly in their own name 12. Members holding offices c. or Secretly in the name of some friend Their offices inabling them to do courtesies and discourtises And although there hath bin a Committee appointed to certifie all pensions Sequestrations offices imployments of advantage and profits conferred by the Parliament upon any their members in which Committee M. Sands holdeth the chair yet is this meerly a formallitie to blind the eyes of the world and foole the expectation of some losing members who were then resolute to know who had already received satisfaction for their losses and how farre they had outrunne their fellow-members therein Yet this Committee is now let fall no reports demanded of M. Sand and when any is to be made they are not unprovided of a meanes to make it fruitlesse by putting every particular to debate well knowing that no man will be willing to argue against the particular persons and merits of his fellow-members and thereby heape envie upon his own head besides the delay of a particular debate How frequently the countrey Committees act contrary to the Laws of the Land 13. Countrey Committees how they trample Magna Charta under their feet how boldly and avowedly they transgresse all orders and Ordinances of Parliament and break our solemne League and Covenant how they ordinarily turne well affected men out of their free-holds and goods imprison and beat their Persons without any known charge accuser or witnesse against them How frequently they leavie one taxe three or four times over continue their leavyes after the Ordinances expire How cruelly they raise the twentieth and fifth part upon the well affected exercising an Illegall arbitrary tyrannicall power over their fellow subjects farre higher then ever Strafford or Canterbury durst advise the King to How ignorantly and unjustly they exercise a power to hear and determine or rather to determine without hearing or heare without understanding private controversies of Meum Tuum for debts trespasses nay title and possession of lands without either formality or knowledge of the Law not having wit manners nor breeding enough as being chosen for the greatest part out oâ— the basest of the people for base ends to satisfy men with an outside or Complement of justice Insomuch that nothing is now more Common then an accusation without an Accuser a sentence without a Judge and a condemnation without a hearing If any man I say be so deaf as not to heare the loud universall outcrying of the people so great a stranger in our Israel as not to know this truth let him peruse M. Edward Kings discovery of the arbitrarie actions of the Com. of Lincolne printed 1647. where he may see these things briesty Epitomised but to historise them at large would require a volume as big as the book of Martyrs These Committees are excellent spunges to suck money from the people and to serve not onely their owne but also the Covetous Malicious Ambitious ends of those that raked them out of the dunghill for that imployment and doe defend them in their oppressions Who is so blind as not to see that these men have theïr protectors Their Daemones to whom they offer up part of their rapins to whom they sacrifice Occulta spolia plures de pace Triumphos If there be any intention to restore our lawes and liberties and free us from arbitrary Government it is fit these Committees and all associations be laid downe having no enemy to associate against and that the old forme of Government by Sheriffes Justices of the Peace c. be re-established and the Militia in each County setled as before in Lieutenants and Deputy-Lieutenants or in Commissioners Nor is it a small artifice to raise mony by so many severall and confused Taxes Whereas one or two wayes orderly used and well husbanded would have done the work 1. Royall Subsidie of 400000 l. 2. Pole-mony 3 the free Loans and contributions upon the publick Faith amounted to a vast incredible summe in mony Plate horse Armes c. 4. The Irish adventure for sale of Lands the first and second time 5. The Weekly Meale 6. the City Loane after the rate of 50 Subsidies 7. The Assessement for bringing in the Scots 8. the 5. and 20 part 9. The Weekly assessement for my L. Generalls Army 10. The weekly or Monthly Assessement for Sir Tho. Fairfax Army 11. The weekly Assessement for the Scottish Army 12. The weekly Assessement for the british Army in Ireland 13 The Weekly Assessement for my L. of Manchesters Army 14. Free-quarter at least connived at by the State because the Souldiers having for a time subsistence that way are the lesse craving for their pay whereby their arrears growing stale will at last either be frustrated by a tedious Committee of Accounts or forgotten In the mean time the grand Committee of accounts discount it out of the Commanders arrears whereby the State saves it 15. The Kings Revenue 16. Sequestrations and plunder by Committeeâ— which if well answered to the State would have carried on the work which thus I demonstrate One half of all the goods and chattells and at least one half of all the Lands Rents and Revenues of the Kingdom have been sequestred And who can imagine that one half of the profits and goods of the Land will not maintain any Forces that can be kept and fed in England for the defence thereof 17. Excise upon all things This alone if well mannaged would maintain the Warre The Low-countries make it almost their onely support 18. Fortification money c. By these severall wayes and Taxes about 40 millions in money and money worth have been milked from the People and the Parliament as the Pope did once may call England Puteum inexhaustum yet is now almost drawn day A vast Treasury and so excessive as nothing but a long peace could import and nothing but much fraud and many follies could dissipate And we ought not to wonder if it be accounted â—nter arcana novissimi imperii to be alwayes making yet never finishing an account thereof 15. Accounts And as they have artificially confounded the accompts by laying on multiplicity of Taxes so so for the same reason they let the money run in so many muddy obscure channells through so many Committees and Officers fingers both for collecting receiving issuing and paying it forth that it is impossible to make or ballance any publick account thereof and at the least one half thereof is known to be devoured by Committees and officers and those that for lucre protect them By these means as they make many men partners with them in the publick spoils so they